The next time...

someone tells you 'they hate us for our freedoms' i hope you remember this video that wikileaks released today:



There are a lot of reasons to dislike america... but the fact that we're able to see something like this and realize how corrupt and evil our government can be is one of the reasons to love the place (even though it means we see truly awful crap like this).

Dont tell me 'it was war - shit like this happens in war'... what we had was a bunch of kids playing video games, lying about what they saw - saying what were clearly civilians were carrying weapons (a camera is not a gun... it's not an RPG) - claiming they were in a hostile situation - shooting them up - then spending years covering it up so they didnt have to admit it.

Oh sure - in the past massacres have been worse - i was, afterall, a history major... but for every video like this, how many hundreds if not thousands of others happened just like it? How many more atrocities were committed by US troops that DIDNT get a leaked video... i've heard anecdotes from some who've been over there, who've said it was much worse than we've been told, who've said they couldnt talk about it... is this aberrant? or is it, as i believe, systemic?

Asking a soldier to 'think' about what they're doing before they do it makes their jobs a lot harder... it's dangerous... if there's a camera watching, and they have to worry about repercussions, then they'll hesitate and that might cost them their lives. But if they DON'T hesitate, and consider what the fuck they're doing, then you're going to get THIS - over and over and over. It turns out that that our leaders are all very aware of this calculation - ie it IS systemic... and 'we the people' dont want to be reminded that our hands are bloody. Afterall - the lead story on CNN? Tiger Woods playing a practice round of golf...