Friday, May 11, 2012



Winning hearts and minds again

Since the beginning of the "war on terror", the US government has been at pains to draw a distinction between al-Qaeda, a terrorist group, and Islam, the religion it claims to fight in the name of. Sadly, it seems that its military disagrees. The Defense Department’s Joint Forces Staff College has been teaching US military officers that Islam is their enemy, and that it must be destroyed by total war, including nuclear attacks against civilians and religious targets. I wonder how many recruits to al-Qaeda that will bring in?

(Yes, the US military have shut the course down. But the fact that it went on for over a year before anyone objected, and that the teachers still have their jobs, is quite informative about their attitudes, both of the top brass and course participants).

Meanwhile, today we learn that the New Zealand military will be exercising with these sick fucks. That's not a good idea. The US military uses torture and has total contempt for civilian lives. By exercising with them, we run the risk of those toxic attitudes infecting our own soldiers. And that's simply not a risk we should take.