Re: [RRND] 11/12 -- Iraq: Attacks spread as rape of Fallujah continues; US troops force fleeing refugees back into carnage
From: Thomas Knapp
To: [address redacted]
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2004 11:52:20 -0600
Dear Sir:
> RAPE of Fallujah?
>
> Take me off your mailing list, you Commie bastard!
Done.
> The "insurgents" - terrorists operating out of Fallujah have been
> responsible for far more death, rape and destruction than our brave
> forces. Maybe you should join them in their "heroic" struggle.
>
> Or does martyrdom not appeal to you?
What the "insurgents" -- a word you will always find accompanied by the notation [sic] in RRND, as they are no such thing* -- have done is irrelevant to the character of the assault on Fallujah:
"rape, n. 2. the act of despoiling a country in warfare"
-- WordNet 2.0 at www.dict.org
Cordoning off a city of 300,000, turning back refugees who try to escape, then conducting large-scale aerial and artillery bombardment of the place prior to demolishing it house by house is, by any reasonable definition of the word, rape as defined above.
It's rape if the people doing it are the "good guys," and it's rape if the people doing it are the "bad guys." It's rape if the people the attackers are after are the "good guys," and it's rape if the people the attackers are after are the "bad guys."
Yes, I know that some of the people in Fallujah are "bad guys." I consider it unfortunate that "our" troops have been put in the position of being "bad guys" too -- but "vee ver justtt followink orderrrz" hasn't cut any mustard since 1945. Fallujah goes into the books with Guernica and Grozny. You don't have to like it -- but it will remain a fact whether you like it or not.
As far as me "joining" anything, sorry -- I already spent ten years humping a rifle in the Marine Corps, including some of the same patches of sand and versus some of the same bad guys. I was fortunate in the fact that my Commander in Chief at the time, for all his faults, was not quite the idiotic barbarian that his son is.
Regards,
Tom Knapp
* "insurgent, n. A person who rises in revolt against civil authority or an established government; one who openly and actively resists the execution of laws; a rebel."
There are terrorists in Iraq, to be sure. There is also a resistance in Iraq, and I am certain that the two groups have a great degree of overlap; I try my best to distinguish between the two, including in RRND's headlines and content. There is not, however, an "insurgency" in Iraq, because there is no established government or civil authority for "insurgents" to rebel against. Quislings of an occupying military force do not constitute an established government or a civil authority.
No comments:
Post a Comment