Facts To Remember About The "Kidnapped" Soldiers

I feel sorry for the families of the soldiers whose bodies were found and identified this week .  One report headlined "closure" for them, but that's ridiculous.  There is no closure when a family member or loved one dies especially horrifically as happens when they are sent off to war.  In the end there is forgetting, but God didn't make family ties so cheap that they could be "closed" with the viewing of a casket.

In our increasingly right wing nation, the warmongers that control it and mainstream news would like to make loss so easily assuaged  that a simple but tasteful and expensive ceremony could complete the mourning cycle. 

In fact, it's as if the Bush administration and news media had colluded to make the tragedy of the deaths of Sgt. Jimenez and Pfc Fouty (along with the other slain members of their troop) disappear in the 'victory' of finding their bodies.

And why has much of mainstream news agreed to use the word "kidnapped".  How can troops in another people's country complain of kidnap?  In war troops are captured, if they are in someone else's land.

The Bush administration is trying to work up outrage over the killing and capture of the troops as if these guys were like the Israeli troops kidnapped in their own land near the borders with Lebanon and Gaza.  

We are more like the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.  We back a narrow group that we keep in place with extreme violence, because they are the ones that will allow our companies to extract their natural resources cheaply.

And then we try to make it seem like a crime when they fight back.

Another problem with the Washington Post report is their failure to put the deaths of these soldiers in context.

Please remember that the soldiers in the area were captured and killed in retaliation the for the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl that one of the soldiers in the same unit fancied.  He and his mates went on to kill the girl's younger sister and parents all because one of our soldiers got horny when he saw a pretty child he desired and his buddies didn't have the decency to stop him. In fact, some helped.  (The killed soldiers were not a part of the group that murdered the Iraqi family, but the revenge worked for the Irate relatives.)

And it is almost understandable.  There is no real justice in iraq.  The worst offenders re: Haditha, the sniper team that killed without cause, and other horrendous acts were treated with kid gloves in the special military courts.  And has one air pilot or remote drone pilot ever been charged with anything for killing whole families?   If so, I haven't heard about it.

These troop deaths are what our neo-stalinist treatment of Iraqis bought for us.  Lets not just accept Bush administration talking points that they were especially horrific and unfair. After what we have done to Iraqis we hardly have the room to put on our self righteous armor when thinking about  the deaths of Jimenez and Fouty.  In fact you could say that our leaders killed them. Their own lack of morals and decency taught troops that Iraqi lives were worth little. 

tags: sgt jimenez  pfc fouty  iraq  war  neostalinism  rape  

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