American Autogenocide is the deliberate, systematic and legal murder of American citizens by socially-engineering the die-off of populations that are "problematic" for the interests of wealth and power. Most victims prematurely die from social forces targeted at them to cause them to wear out by stress. This process is called "Weathering Away" or "Attrition By Stress."
Although it has to be "legal," autogenocide is always committed under the radar so the media won't be compelled to report it and so the people won't see it or understand it. More, the genocide is blamed on the victims and their deaths are hidden-attributed-to other causes rather than the primary one of autogenocide.
What is different between this genocide and other genocides is that this unique genocide doesn't produce mass graves. Instead, the victims are spread over a large geographic area and buried singly, thereby hiding the body count. This keeps the deaths sanitized and homogenized. It also keeps the autogenocide surreal; thus enabling the village to deny It's existence when clues to It's existence are ambundant and abundantly transparent.
I used to have a little sympathy for those people who were still sitting on the fence over the justness of the Iraq invasion. I understood that the US government and mainstream media talking heads made an effort to imbue their official claims with a semblance of logic and reason, and that the American public could, to some extent, be forgiven for sanctioning illegal war and suffering. They were, after all being deceived.
Not anymore.
It seems that the years of government double-speak and subtle manipulation have led the Bush administration to feel confident that the ability of the average American to think critically has now been compromised to such an extent that they will easily swallow blatant and verifiable fantasy.
The Iraq invasion, we were told, was all about protecting the world against the threat of Saddam's WMDs, yet it was a claim that was inherently flawed because the logical response was to attempt to prove or disprove it - either Saddam had WMDs or he didn't. As we all found out too late, the claim was little more than the product of the minds of American and British spin doctors. A few more hours in the spin room however, and they were back on track, but the back-room boys had learned their lesson, they weren't going to make the mistake of throwing around allegations that were based on something as empirical, and therefore provable or disprovable, as the existence or otherwise of WMDs. This time, it was going to be something much more intangible, like the needs of the Iraqi people and how much happier they (and the rest of the world) would be under American style democracy and without the 'tyrant' Saddam.
This second claim had the potential to fool the American people at least a little longer than the first, appealing as it did to their artificially pumped egos as well as their morbid fear of the unknown i.e. anything outside America's borders. After all, look at how happy the American people are! But really look, not at the details, but the broad panacea of American life, such as it is displayed in Hollywood movies for but one example. Who would not wish such hedonistic revelry for the whole world? In the end however, it seems that the true intention of the Bush cabal towards Iraq is, in its nature, so depraved and far-removed from their claimed altruism, that its face was never going to take long to manifest.
that Iraq's health service has disintegrated, with even the most basic treatments unavailable, and that up to half of the aforementioned 655,000 deaths might have been avoided if proper medical care had been available. 2,000 doctors and nurses have been killed with 18,000 more choosing to leave the country in fear of their lives.
the 'Iraqization' of the conflict, where US-sponsored deaths squads being run out of the Iraqi interior ministry are murdering dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians daily in an attempt to twist the root cause of Iraq's problems - the invasion of a sovereign nation by a foreign aggressor - and create the appearance of an internal 'sectarian' conflict between rival Iraqi ethnic and religious factions, when no such serious sectarian strife has ever existed in recent Iraqi history.
the chilling report that the Bush government and its generals are planning to "penalize Iraq if it fails to stop the violence", violence for which the Bush government itself is responsible.
Under this last, the US military would launch an assault on the densely populated neighborhoods of Baghdad, beginning with Sadr City, the home of some 2 million impoverished Shia and the stronghold of the anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia, that is, one of the groups representing the will of the Iraqi people.
In layman's terms, this means that the Bush government has decided that to "win the Iraq war" and "liberate the Iraqi people", it must wage a wholesale war on the Iraqi people in order to coerce them to accept US government rule over their country and lives. Those that submit will live, those that do not, will die. It couldn't be more simple. Iraq has been destroyed, not liberated.
Here, of course, we are a long way from what "folks back home" believe is being done by their government in their name. Yet there is no real reason that such should be the case, because all of the information I present here is freely available in mainstream publications to the American and 'Western' populations. If there is one thing lacking, some piece of data that is preventing many people from fully awakening to the horror and brutality that is being wrought by their (un)elected officials, then it is perhaps the hard evidence that not all human beings are like you and I - not all human beings possess an innate tendency towards the rejection of mass murder of the innocent. Some of them actively engage in acts of depravity, and seek out positions of power from which they can give vent to their deviant natures with impunity.
Remembering all I have just said, can you think of anyone, or any group, that fits this profile?
Five photos threaten to stain the German military's reputation just as the country debates its role in international security operations. The images, showing German soldiers posing with a skull near Kabul, have sparked outrage from the government and may increase public reluctance to keep troops abroad.
The photos are unmistakably crass, ranging from a shot of a skull mounted over the headlight of a jeep to a close-up of a soldier holding his penis in his left hand and the skull next to it in his right. These are just two of five photos published Wednesday by the German daily Bild, showing members of German security forces in Afghanistan desecrating human remains evidently found while on patrol near Kabul. Two other photos show the skull affixed to a metal pole -- a "cable cutter" -- that extends vertically like a flag mast from the jeep's front bumper. Another shows a German soldier holding the skull and grinning.
The origin of the skull is not clear. Bild speculates it could come from a Muslim mass grave in the area, or that it could belong to one of many Russian soldiers who died fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Regardless of where it comes from, the damage is done.
A chorus of voices has emerged from the government to express disgust at the photos. German Defense Minister, Franz Josef Jung told reporters: "It is clear and unmistakable that this kind of behavior from German soldiers cannot be tolerated." He added "This behavior is diametrically opposed to the values and behavior we teach and train our soldiers in. The pictures provoke disgust and absolute incomprehension."
The photos couldn't come at a worse time. On Wednesday, the Bundestag's defense committee will discuss the case of Murat Kurnaz, the Turkish-born German resident who was released this summer from the the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay and has since accused German elite soldiers of abusing him in Afghanistan's Kandahar region. Also on Wednesday, the government announced that it is to extend its commitment to the anti-terror Operation Enduring Freedom, but that the number of German troops in Afghanistan will be reduced from 2,800 to 1,800.
Evidence that German soldiers may be participating in some of the uglier aspects of war may well increase public opposition to the keeping the troops in Afghanistan at all.
Kellogg Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, is constructing a huge facility at an undisclosed location to hold tens of thousands of Bush's "unlawful enemy combatants." Americans are certain to be among them.
By Marjorie Cohn
10/13/06 "AlterNet" -- -- The Military Commissions Act of 2006 governing the treatment of detainees is the culmination of relentless fear-mongering by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Because the bill was adopted with lightning speed, barely anyone noticed that it empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, "unlawful enemy combatants."
Bush & Co. has portrayed the bill as a tough way to deal with aliens to protect us against terrorism. Frightened they might lose their majority in Congress in the November elections, the Republicans rammed the bill through Congress with little substantive debate.
Anyone who donates money to a charity that turns up on Bush's list of "terrorist" organizations, or who speaks out against the government's policies could be declared an "unlawful enemy combatant" and imprisoned indefinitely. That includes American citizens.
The bill also strips habeas corpus rights from detained aliens who have been declared enemy combatants. Congress has the constitutional power to suspend habeas corpus only in times of rebellion or invasion. The habeas-stripping provision in the new bill is unconstitutional and the Supreme Court will likely say so when the issue comes before it.
Although more insidious, this law follows in the footsteps of other unnecessarily repressive legislation. In times of war and national crisis, the government has targeted immigrants and dissidents.
In 1798, the Federalist-led Congress, capitalizing on the fear of war, passed the four Alien and Sedition Acts to stifle dissent against the Federalist Party's political agenda. The Naturalization Act extended the time necessary for immigrants to reside in the U.S. because most immigrants sympathized with the Republicans.
The Alien Enemies Act provided for the arrest, detention and deportation of male citizens of any foreign nation at war with the United States. Many of the 25,000 French citizens living in the U.S. could have been expelled had France and America gone to war, but this law was never used. The Alien Friends Act authorized the deportation of any non-citizen suspected of endangering the security of the U.S. government; the law lasted only two years and no one was deported under it.
The Sedition Act provided criminal penalties for any person who wrote, printed, published, or spoke anything "false, scandalous and malicious" with the intent to hold the government in "contempt or disrepute." The Federalists argued it was necessary to suppress criticism of the government in time of war. The Republicans objected that the Sedition Act violated the First Amendment, which had become part of the Constitution seven years earlier. Employed exclusively against Republicans, the Sedition Act was used to target congressmen and newspaper editors who criticized President John Adams.
Subsequent examples of laws passed and actions taken as a result of fear-mongering during periods of xenophobia are the Espionage Act of 1917, the Sedition Act of 1918, the Red Scare following World War I, the forcible internment of people of Japanese descent during World War II, and the Alien Registration Act of 1940 (the Smith Act).
During the McCarthy period of the 1950s, in an effort to eradicate the perceived threat of communism, the government engaged in widespread illegal surveillance to threaten and silence anyone who had an unorthodox political viewpoint. Many people were jailed, blacklisted and lost their jobs. Thousands of lives were shattered as the FBI engaged in "red-baiting." One month after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, United States Attorney General John Ashcroft rushed the U.S.A. Patriot Act through a timid Congress. The Patriot Act created a crime of domestic terrorism aimed at political activists who protest government policies, and set forth an ideological test for entry into the United States.
In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the internment of Japanese and Japanese-American citizens in Korematsu v. United States. Justice Robert Jackson warned in his dissent that the ruling would "lie about like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need."
That day has come with the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It provides the basis for the President to round-up both aliens and U.S. citizens he determines have given material support to terrorists. Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Cheney's Halliburton, is constructing a huge facility at an undisclosed location to hold tens of thousands of undesirables.
In his 1928 dissent in Olmstead v. United States, Justice Louis Brandeis cautioned, "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." Seventy-three years later, former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, speaking for a zealous President, warned Americans "they need to watch what they say, watch what they do."
We can expect Bush to continue to exploit 9/11 to strip us of more of our liberties. Our constitutional right to dissent is in serious jeopardy. Benjamin Franklin's prescient warning should give us pause: "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."
Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, is president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. Her new book, "Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law," will be published in 2007 by PoliPointPress
As I am sure you can understand, it took me a while to digest last week's stomach turning story of the perverted private life of 'upstanding' Republican Representative Mark Foley.
For those that missed out on the story;
In 2005, Foley sent five emails, some of them sexually suggestive, to a 16-year-old former page sponsored by Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-LA). Among other things, Foley asked for a photo of the page, asked what he wanted for a birthday present, and expressed admiration for the physique of another young male page (to whom he had also written). The page forwarded the emails to a colleague in Alexander's office, saying "this really freaked me out," and repeating the word "sick" 13 times to describe the photo request. The page asked "if you can, please tell Rodney [Alexander] about this," and mentioned another page who had been warned about a Congressman who "hit on" interns.
On October 3, ABC News reported that it had come into possession of as many as "52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys under the age of 18." Another former page, Tyson Vivyan, has said that he received "sexually suggestive" messages from Foley in 1997, a month after he left the page program. Then on October 5 ABC News reported that, in 2002, Foley e-mailed one page with an invitation to stay at his home in exchange for oral sex. The page, who was 17 years old at the time, declined the offer. The same report stated that he emailed another with a request for a photograph of his erect penis. And that was just for starters.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Hundreds of Iraqi policemen fell sick from poisoning Sunday at a base in southern Iraq after the evening meal breaking their daily Ramadan fast, and officials said they were investigating whether the poisoning was intentional.
An official with the Environment Ministry said 11 policemen had died. However, the governor of Wasit province -- where the poisoning took place -- denied any deaths, though he said some of the victims were in critical condition. There was no immediate explanation for the contradictory reports.
Some of the policemen began bleeding from the ears and nose after the meal, said Jassim al-Atwan, an inspector for the Environment Ministry, who was serving as a liaison in the investigation between the Health Ministry and the base, located in the town of Numaniyah.
"Hundreds of soldiers were poisoned after taking food and water in the iftar," Wasit Gov. Hamad al-Latif told the Associated Press, referring to the meal that breaks the sunrise-to-sunset fast during the Islamic holy month. "Investigations are under way to determine the cause."
Samples of the food and water were being tested "to determine the substance in them" and will be sent to Baghdad for further tests, al-Latif said.
Sunni insurgents who have targeted police and military forces with bombings and shootings have not been known to use poisoning as a weapon. But the suddenness and severity of the sickness raised speculation that the incident could be a new attack. The division is mainly made up of Shiites.
Between 600-700 policemen were affected to varying degrees, and 11 who had the heaviest amount of the food had died, al-Atwan told The Associated Press.
Some of the soldiers collapsed as soon as they stood up from the meal, others fell "one after the other" as they headed out to the yard in the base to line up in formation, al-Atwan said.
Iraqi ambulances and helicopters sent by the U.S. military rushed the policemen to hospitals in Numaniyah and the nearby city of Kut.
The afflicted policemen belonged to the 4th Division of the National Police, nicknamed the "Karrar" Division, after a title of Imam Ali, the most revered Shiite saint.
The division normally operates around the town of Salman Pak on the southeastern outskirts of Baghdad -- an area of intense Shiite-Sunni killings. The division was sent to the base in Numaniyah, 60 miles southeast of the capital, for further training.
Al-Latif said food and water at the base are provided by an Australian contractor working through Iraqi subcontractors. He did not identify the Australian firm.
Recently it has come to my attention that there are a number of so-called "Historical Revisionists" who have taken up the idea that Adolf Hitler was a "good guy" and that, as one of them wrote to me recently, "we now need an American Leader like Hitler."
I am dismayed by such naivete, but not entirely surprised. For anyone who studies the nature of evil and its origins in psychological pathology, it is not a surprise that persons who are not fully familiar with this problem can be so easily taken in. It is, however, a perennial problem, and until normal people learn this most essential thing about our world, they are helpless, and there is no hope for change for the better. The fact is: we ALREADY have an American leader like Hitler.
