Still kicking in those front doors......

Photo: A U.S. soldier from the 3-2 Stryker Brigade kicks the front gate of a house during a search for criminals and weapons in Baghdad's Mansour district April 3, 2007. REUTERS/Bob Strong (IRAQ)

Somehow, I feel better about this when it isn't the front door of someone living in a mud hovel, like I see in pictures from Afghanistan.....

And Paul Woodward talks about:

The Bush administration's campaign of kidnapping

"...American operatives have carried out numerous kidnappings in European and Middle Eastern cities in the past few years."

This is a statement of fact that should provoke shock, outrage, and national debate, yet it is apparently a matter of national indifference. The U.S. governments practices of illegal abduction and imprisonment have been most widely reported and thoroughly documented in the cases of Khalid El-Masri and Abu Omar, both of whom were targets of "extraordinary rendition." The mainstream media willingly uses the term "rendition" and the victims invariably have Middle Eastern names. As a result there has been little public debate inside America about the fact that for several years, the U.S. government has been in the business of kidnapping. In the Orwellian world we have constructed, if U.S. officials snatch someone off a street -- so long as it isn't an American street -- we supposedly have little reason to be concerned. The problem with kidnapping -- beyond the fact that it is illegal -- is that inevitably invites retaliation in kind. So, it should come as no surprise that the preponderance of evidence now suggests that Iran's capture of British soldiers came in response to a string of provocations involving kidnapping.

I have done some work with NC folks in the eastern part of the state in regards to stopping “torture flights” – meaning stopping Aero Contractors from assisting the CIA in transporting the kidnap victims to foreign countries for torture. Some folks in NC have visited the homes of the men who fly these planes, and they are seemingly unbothered by what they are doing for money. No Christian values there, or any kind of values beyond making more and more money. And it seems a large part of our population does not know about these kidnappings (which means they can’t be bothered to find out what is going on) or they just think this is fine and dandy. And then there is the group that does know, and does care, but cannot be bothered to act.

They claim they are busy.

They claim they are working on “other things” that will supposedly solve the problem – like taking care of children. Or doing their jobs well. Or run some local political office. Or the DUMBEST excuse of all – working on a presidential campaign for the year 2008.

So, what have you done to stop your government from kidnapping people and then flying them somewhere else and torturing and raping and killing them?

And what have you done to stop your government from telling our military to kick in the doors of hovels in foreign countries – the doors of people who are so poor you can NEVER UNDERSTAND how poor they are. EVER.

And what have you done to stop the wars this government of ours is waging? If you have not done something on all these issues – write postcards or letters, make calls to all your elected officials (that takes less then 10 minutes per day), write op-eds and letters to the editors, meditate on what these kidnap victims are going through, donate to a group working on these issues, organize group actions to confront our government – if you have not done these things, or something else that directly confronts these issues – then you cannot claim to be a decent human being.

And you cannot claim surprise or dismay when you see kidnapped Americans tortured on your TV one day – since what goes around, comes around. We are fostering total lawlessness and revenge attacks around the planet.

And you cannot claim surprise or innocence if the person being filmed is you. Because if you are staying silent while your government tortures, kidnaps, rapes, murders, destroys property, destroys lives, destroys health, destroys lives, destroys homes, destroys countries ----- and goes around violating all rules of decent human behavior, then you are complicit in this huge mess of crimes.