Rolla Peace Newsletter, October 6, 2015

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Rolla Peace News

October 6, 2015

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Dear Friends:

In this newsletter is:

1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THIS WEEK, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2015
2. THE POWER OF FALSE NARRATIVE
3. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org)
The Ultimate Obscenity

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1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2015

We vigil for peace in front of the Rolla Post Office THIS THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2015, (and all subsequent Thursdays until peace is established) from Noon to 1:00 PM. Please try to join us. The temperature is predicted to be in the 70s. If you do not feel comfortable standing with us in front of the Post Office, please consider driving by and showing your support for our message by honking your horn and flashing a peace sign.

2. THE POWER OF FALSE NARRATIVE

It's interesting that otherwise discerning people, who would never fall for the millions of scams that are presented to them via the Internet or the telephone, do not seem to apply their discernment to any information that comes to them via CNN, BBC News, NBC, ABC, CBS, New York Times, Washington Post, etc., etc. They want to see chapter and verse, if anyone posits a theory that contradicts what these news outlets say, but never question or ask for evidence that the “news” is true. Politicians and other power brokers are not slow to take advantage of this fact, nor do they even try to hide the fact that they are doing so. They know they can reliably rely on the vast majority to swallow whole whatever fairy tale they concoct, and anyone who dares to challenge them is subject to slander, intimidation, or even imprisonment.

Read Robert Parry's article to see how public opinion has been manipulated over the years, and is still being manipulated today. It's a good one!

3. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org)

THE ULTIMATE OBSCENITY

“People are seized with a kind of madness when they take to violence. The violence carries them along, transforms them and makes them — even afterwards, when it is all over — unrecognizable.”
— Sven Lindqvist (Exterminate All the Brutes, p19)

So it goes in war:

“They do one act of violence after another, and one deceitful thing after another.”
— Jeremiah 9:6 (NET Bible)

Last Saturday, US forces in Afghanistan repeatedly bombed a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, killing 22, including 3 children. This would hardly have caused notice had it not been for the fact that Doctors Without Borders is run by western-based physicians and other medical care professionals. Indeed, it was scarcely noticed, except by the Iraqis, when US forces demolished the Nazzal Emergency Hospital in Fallujah 11 years ago.

Humanitarian Organizations are not highly appreciated by the Pentagon, particularly effective ones like Doctors Without Borders. After all, War is meant to cause maximum suffering to the civilian population. Any attempt to alleviate the suffering is suspected as providing comfort to the enemy. It is nearly impossible for an occupying military force to distinguish between civilians and freedom fighters — indeed, in cases like this, there may not be a great deal of difference.

For years, there has been tension between the US military and Doctors Without Borders. In 2010, in the wake of the great earthquake in Haiti, the US military closed the Toussaint L'Ouverture airport to a Doctors Without Border airplane carrying a full inflatable hospital and staff. Doctors Without Borders had to land in the Dominican Republic and travel overland to Haiti, while Haitian earthquake victims waited for emergency medical treatment. We weren't even involved in a shooting war in Haiti at the time. This was the subject of one of my first cartoons.

I think the deliberate bombing of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz may be a watershed event, like the 1968 My Lai Massacre — an event that leaves war naked in all its horribleness, for all the world to see.

It is instructive to review an excerpt from the court-martial of Lt. William Calley. Calley and his men murdered hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese men, women and children at My Lai, one fateful day in March 1968. For this crime, Calley eventually served three and half years under house arrest — three days for each person murdered.

Q: What were you firing at?
A: At the enemy, sir.
Q: At people?
A: At the enemy, sir.
Q: They weren't even human beings?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: Were they men?
A: I don't know sir. I would imagine they were, sir.
Q: Didn't you see?
A: Pardon, sir?
Q: Did you see them?
A: I wasn't discriminating.
Q: Did you see women?
A: I don't know, sir.
Q: What do you mean you weren't discriminating?
A: I didn't discriminate between individuals in the village, sir. They were all the enemy, they were all to be destroyed, sir....

Like the My Lai Massacre, the bombing of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz is deliberate mass indiscriminate killing — and Doctors Without Borders is calling it exactly what it is — a war crime. Being a highly respected international humanitarian organization and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, it is difficult to fob Doctors Without Borders off with apologies and platitudes. They want a transparent independent investigation; and they should have one. Maybe there will even be convictions and prison sentences — perhaps, even some people in high places.

Meanwhile, what can we do? Bring the troops home; End the War.

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Wage peace,

Helen
helenm (at) fidnet.com

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