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<font face="Times,Times New Roman">Is the American military to be
permitted to go anywhere the politicians wish and expect the people of
the invaded countries meekly to accept their fate and pledge allegiance
to the United States? Would we receive an invader that way? The U.S.
government and its well-paid military contractors have an agenda in the
Middle East and South Central Asia that has nothing to do with the
welfare or safety of average Americans. On the contrary, it is
bankrupting them and has made them targets of revenge.
There’s a simple way to keep American military personnel safe: bring
them home.
</font></p>
<p>
<font face="Times,Times New Roman">Obama has shown himself to be worse
than his predecessor and the neoconservative empire enthusiasts.
His promises to leave Iraq and Afghanistan are hedged so thick that we
can expect the occupations to continue for many years ... all in our
name. Despite Obama’s words, the death and destruction at America’s
hands are not nearing an end.
</font></p>
<font face="Times,Times New Roman" color="#003399" size="4"><b>What
They Do in Our Name</b></font><br>
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face="Arial,Geneva,sans-serif" size="2">by </font>
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<font face="Arial,Geneva,sans-serif" color="#003399" size="2">Sheldon
Richman</font></a>,
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face="Arial,Geneva,sans-serif" size="2">August 10, 2010</font>
<font face="Times,Times New Roman"><!-- article body text starts here -->
</font>
<p><font face="Times,Times New Roman">Thanks to Wikileaks and heroic
leakers inside the military, we now know the U.S. government has killed
many more innocent Afghan civilians than we were aware of heretofore.
We also know that American military and intelligence personnel roam
Afghanistan assassinating <em>suspected</em> bad guys. Sometimes they
kill people they later acknowledge weren’t bad guys at all.
“Bad guys,” like “Taliban,” is implicitly defined as anyone who resists
the U.S.
occupation force and the corrupt puppet government it keeps in power.
</font></p>
<p>
<font face="Times,Times New Roman">What other atrocities are our
misleaders and misrepresentatives committing in our name?
</font></p>
<p>
<font face="Times,Times New Roman">Let’s get something straight: to be
an enemy of American occupation, bombing, and “nation building” is not
the same thing as being an enemy of America or its people. It’s time
Americans understood that. When you invade another country and people
there object, even forcibly, they are not aggressors. You are. To
understand this, imagine our being invaded by a foreign military force.
Would resistance be aggression?
</font></p>
<p>
<font face="Times,Times New Roman">The U.S. government goes to
appalling lengths to deny this truth. It is about to try before a
military commission a young Canadian, Omar Ahmed Khadr, who was taken
into custody in Afghanistan eight years ago when he was 15 years old.
The charge? War crimes, among them “murder in violation of the rules of
war,” which lawyer Chase Madar calls “a newly minted war crime novel to
the history of armed conflict.” </font></p>
<p>
<font face="Times,Times New Roman">Khadr was captured after a four-hour
firefight between American forces and so-called militants in the
village of Ayub Kheyl near Kabul, during which the Afghans’ homes were
flattened by 500-pound bombs. One American died later from wounds
inflicted by a grenade. Reports conflict, but Khadr was shot several
times in the chest and back, then later was found under the rubble,
unconscious and seriously wounded — he lost an eye from shrapnel.
</font></p>
<p>
<font face="Times,Times New Roman">Taken to Bagram Airbase, where the
U.S. government maintains a prison, Khadr received some medical
treatment and was interrogated about his role that day. He was thought
to have information about al-Qaeda, since his father was a jihadist and
knew Osama bin Laden. Khadr says he was denied pain killers, subjected
to what can only be called torture, and forced to do hard work,
aggravating his wounds. It was only after this torture that he said he
had helped the militants because America was at war with Islam. Despite
Canada’s request, Khadr was transferred to the prison at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, where he was again tortured and kept in solitary confinement
for long spells. He claims that because of the torture he gave false
confessions, including that he threw a grenade. Later he said he had no
recollection of throwing a grenade and was in fact rendered unconscious
by an American-caused explosion.
</font></p>
<p>
<font face="Times,Times New Roman">Unfortunately, the presiding judge
has refused to exclude Khadr’s statements made under torture and other
cruel treatment, such as threats of gang rape. Militarily commissions
are as much the travesty of justice that candidate Obama said they were
in 2008. But now he’s in charge.
</font></p>
<p>
<font face="Times,Times New Roman">Even if Khadr threw the grenade and
killed an American, how can that be a war crime? At worst his actions
look like self-defense but at any rate, fighters in combat aren’t
typically charged with murder.
</font></p>
<p>
<font face="Times,Times New Roman">Is the American military to be
permitted to go anywhere the politicians wish and expect the people of
the invaded countries meekly to accept their fate and pledge allegiance
to the United States? Would we receive an invader that way?
</font></p>
<p>
<font face="Times,Times New Roman">The U.S. government and its
well-paid military contractors have an agenda in the Middle East and
South Central Asia that has nothing to do with the welfare or safety of
average Americans. On the contrary, it is bankrupting them and has made
them targets of revenge.
There’s a simple way to keep American military personnel safe: bring
them home.
</font></p>
<p>
<font face="Times,Times New Roman">Obama has shown himself to be worse
than his predecessor and the neoconservative empire enthusiasts.
His promises to leave Iraq and Afghanistan are hedged so thick that we
can expect the occupations to continue for many years ... all in our
name. Despite Obama’s words, the death and destruction at America’s
hands are not nearing an end.
</font></p>
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</html>