I recently viewed a news report on an internet news source. The video showed an apache helicopter attack on 8 civilians walking down a street in a city somewhere in Iraq.
The video reminded me of conversations I had with numerous Vietnam War Veterans. The hardest part for them returning to civilian life was adjusting to the no enemy mind set and how to deal with the lives that had ended by their hands.
The Veterans’ stories were personal and different, but they were the same in subject. These men had killed men, women, children, and animals. At the time and the mindset of the soldier was that these living entities were enemies. These enemies would kill them or they needed to be killed.
Some of the Veterans told me they were high on hallucinogenic drugs. Others reported a mind set of enemies. When the Veterans returned stateside and reunited with their families, the issues of what they remembered and if it was real or surreal came into a vicious tearing rendering of conscience. They dwelled on whether the life that ended by their hand was an enemy or an innocent victim. At the time of the incident they were the enemy. It was simple.
At home with their loved ones the Veterans the simplicity of it. What if their children, brothers, sisters, dogs, cats, horses, or cows were in a field where soldiers were reconnoitering? What if they as an enemy had used children, women, or animals to kill the enemy? What if these lives were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time? It wasn’t simple any more.
It is true there are battle hardened soldiers that can shut off the conscience. They walk through life accepting the kill or are killed mantra. Most of these Veterans are career soldiers and officers. The hierarchy of officers like Majors, Generals, Admirals, Lieutenants, and Commanders are war hardened and know they must make decisions that cost lives. The military must have the cold blood conscience of such leaders to send soldiers into battle. This is war.
Unfortunately it is the common man that is in the battlefield. These people are not war hardened, professional, career soldiers. These people are put in uniforms, given guns, and told to kill.
I understood why the Veterans felt comfortable sharing with me these deep and dark thoughts. They couldn’t share them with other Veterans, even the ones they served with because it might make them look weak. The Veterans couldn’t share them with their wife and families because they couldn’t understand their conflicting thoughts and conscience. The Veterans talked to me because all I did was listen to them. The Veterans didn’t want vindication, forgiveness, judgment, or even retribution. The Veterans just wanted someone to listen to these stories. The Veterans simply needed to verbalize this time period in their life.
Did it help some of the Veterans to have me listen without comment? I can only hope it did. For my own thoughts, I felt honored to share those experiences. The stories helped me to understand war and soldiers more than battles, winners, losers, heroes, or cowards. I was a stateside citizen without concept of how devastating war can be to the human psyche, beyond material or physical environments.
The old adage “War is Hell” goes far beyond the material destruction. There is a scar on the human spirit with those who serve and fight in foreign lands and wars. This is an ugly scar within that stays and never fades away.
In the incident I am referring to regarding the recent Apache helicopter attack is regarding the common soldier.
A PFC hacked the video and released it to an organization on the internet. The intent of the release was to show the world what war is really about. The video shows shooting down eight Iraqi men in a street. The audio is the talk between the copter, command, ground troops, and conversations between the soldiers in the helicopter.
I viewed the video with an image of Vietnam and the soldiers’ stories I had listened. For me the images of their Vietnam came into my mind. This is what the Vietnam Veterans did and how they talked between each other. They saw the enemy and they killed before the enemy could kill them or their friends. The soldiers saw an enemy vehicle pull up to save the enemy. The soldiers blasted the rescuers and vehicle. After their battle they did not want any enemy to escape and fight them again, possibly kill them or their friends. I saw the ground troops arrive and find children in the car. Were these innocents? These children were in a war, they must be the enemy.
I watched the video and could plainly see the two men were carrying camera bags. Those men shot down were not carrying weapons. I could see these men were civilians and camera carriers. Why did the soldiers see weapons? I saw a vehicle pull up and try to save a survivor. I saw the helicopter open fire on anyone around the vehicle and in the vehicle. I saw ground troops arrive and rescue children from the vehicle. I saw innocent victims. We have a name for it now, it is called Collateral Damage.
The answer is simple. I was safe behind a computer screen in my home. I was not under pressure of any kind. I was not filled with adrenalin of a potential battle. What I saw, was not what the soldiers in the Apache Helicopter saw. Those soldiers saw weapons and were the enemy. It is clear to me that the mind view in safety is completely different from the mind view in a battle area.
The private is being held on charges and will most likely go to prison for breaking the military censorship laws. The public isn’t supposed to see these things of war. The fact that children were possibly killed or the targeted enemy turned out to be a Reuter’s photographer is not to be public domain.
In many ways I understand keeping this knowledge from the general public. In a military movie there is a line that says, “You can’t handle the truth”. This is a factual statement. Many in the general public cannot handle the truth or reality of war. We prefer to be sterile and removed from it. How can we face such tragedies?
I believe we must start to face them, but with understanding and not judgments.
I thought about these soldiers that killed the innocent that day. How do they live with this scar once they learned their enemy was not their enemy? These are the battle scars that never fade away. These are the battle scars that live within them and cause emotional pain. If they didn’t shoot when confronted by an enemy because they were wrong in the past, would they die? Would their friends die if they hesitated?
After remembering those stories from Vietnam Veterans and watching that video I understand what we should do. We should not allow this PFC to be imprisoned for releasing a censored video because it was a mistake. Military secrets and censorship should only be for information critical deployment, troop movements, arsenals, and true secrets. Imprisonment for this video is wrong simply because the American public should see the reality of battle decisions. We the public should learn to understand the choices, actions, and even mistakes soldiers make during crisis situations.
There is no justification for war or battle decisions. There isn’t forgiveness or understanding for war and battle decisions. There is simply the reality of that time and that place.
I wish I would have told the Vietnam Veterans this: “You will live with the responsibility of your actions. You did what you did in that time, place, and situation. There is no judgment or forgiveness for you by anyone. You alone walked that path and did what you did. You may have been right and you may have been wrong. Right or wrong is not relevant to you, nor was it at that time and place. You do not have to dwell on the actions, but you know you cannot forget them. I ask that you accept that. All anyone can do in life is to accept responsibility of their actions at any time and place.
I think there is no reason to dwell in any type of guilt or justification. I believe one should accept the reality and responsibility of an action. There isn’t right or wrong decision in any action, there is the decision.
Do not censor the video of collateral damages. Educate the public to aid the soldiers on their return and salve the scars the soldier must endure. This attitude could have helped many Vietnam Veterans and Veterans of other wars heal their wounds and live with their scars.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Is it the end of times?
The Prophecy of Armageddon and
Follow the Money Trail
My grief pours out in this blog. My hope again is that these thoughts might be found by archivists in the future to understand and maybe this time learn from the past.
As I begin to write this blog, it has been 51 days since a deep water oil well blew up in what we call the Gulf of Mexico in a place called the United States of America.
We have been hearing for some time about the end of the world in 2012. There have been prophecies regarding this end of times. The Hopi talk about the beginning of the 5th world. The Mayan calendar of time ends and begins its new cycle. Nostradamus predicts the end of times. The religious peoples proclaim that their God will return to strike down sinners.
I for one have never believed in a human formed God striking down supposed sinners, but I do believe in cycles and the forces or energies of these cycles. I didn't really believe in an actual end time and still don't, but with this current event, I am beginning to believe in the beginning of the fifth world and the new calendar cycle of the Mayans.
Man has set a course for some time to end the world as we know it. Power and control have been the foundation of every civilization since recorded history began. It may have been power and control over people, or item, or land. Human animals have always had the need to be superior over another for some strange reason. Some call this need animalistic as in the survival of the fittest to provide a solid genetic line. Unfortunately, the superiors are not necessisarily the fittest or have the best genetic prospects. As in the past, genetics of leaders have proven to be inferior. Past superiors have had severe mental disorders, blood diseases, and physical infirmaties. The superiors have proven not to be the most intelligent and capable leaders an animal herd requires.
Humanity also has the tendency to ascribe value to objects and give value to these objects creating a supposed wealth and forcing the value of the objects to others. “I have a stone and it is valuable. Your stone is not.” We allow this object to be valuable and then seek it out to become wealthy like the others that say it is because they have many of these objects. Once humans have acquired these objects that take power and control over other human animals because they do not have as many objects.
Since recorded history, these objects have been something as simple as shells, bones, or shelters. Soon humanity determined that glittering stones had value. Then a stone of gold or silver had value. Today the value is in electronic digits known as fiats from the ancient Romans. These electronic digits are from possession of four objects, gold, silver, gem stones, and crude oil. Death and destruction follows these objects in the human animal world. The human animal uses this value to change the environment to its standards, unlike the animal world that lives within its environment. This is is the only true difference I see between human animals and other animals that dwell on the planet called Earth.
I bring in all of the above to use as my foundation in believing we are at the end of times. At least we are at the end of times for this historical period.
While this oil continues to spew out into the Gulf of Mexico, our informational sources known as news media continues to focus on the disaster in the measures of lost values known as incomes. The shrimp fisherman have lost their incomes. The tourist industry has lost its income. The oyster fisherman have lost their income. This is costing BP a great deal in lost revenue and cleanup expenses.
The news media shows photographs of stressed birds and destroyed marshes. The media discusses clean up methods and shows government leaders, movie stars, movie directors, glim and glam people as well as sport idols on the media. The focus is always on the powerful and controllers.
This is where my sorrow deepens. The focus is on the seen and the known. The focus is on the temporary and only the surface. The news media does not even begin to comprehend the true ramifications of the end of life as we know it.
It may suit the powerful and controlling oil companies to spill enough toxic oil into the pristine blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico to make it another Dead Sea. It would be more convenient to drill for the valued oil beneath the sea if there was no life other than human life to deal with. The oil companies would not worry about human lively hood.
Herein lies my sorrows. In 1910 there was a land gusher in Oklahoma that could not be tapped. It spewed oil for over a year and created a lake several feet deep of crude oil. The company did manage to siphon out some of that oil, but looking at that place today- 100 years later – the land is still dead. There is no life, no plants, no flowers, no animals, not even insects live there. Imagine the destruction of that land gusher and 100 years later there still is no life.
The current Admiral of the Coast Guard says this spill will haunt us until this fall. Who is he kidding? Are we so blind we are not aware this Gulf gusher is going to destroy not only our Gulf for years to come, but well into the next century? Will we make the next century?
The focus of the media is on the saving of birds like the endangered brown pelican. The media is not showing the struggling sharks that are all ready over hunted in the oceans, dying in the oil slicks. The media is not showing the dolphin, great whales, porpoise, turtles, fish, tuna, and most importantly the plankton and coral reefs that are destroyed by this oil.
The plankton and coral reefs are the beginning of all life cycles on the blue marble earth. These tiny life forms provide not only oxygen, but the manna of the ocean for all marine creatures. When we break that chain or cycle of life, we destroy our own life cycle. If oceans do not provide food for marine life and oxygen used in combination to provide rain to the lands, we all die.
If the rain contains the miniscule parts of this crude oil and rains upon the lands, the rains deliver the toxic crude to our land food sources as well. Our food is poisoned and dead. Our trees will be poisoned and dead. Our wildlife on land will be destroyed. The fragile balance of life will be destroyed completely. This is the true catastrophy of this oil gusher a mile down in the ocean.
We will not merely lose jobs or incomes. We are going to lose the planet itself.
Nature will eventually recover, but will humanity survive? Nature will adjust and adapt. It is obvious that the human animal cannot adjust or adapt. Instead the human specie continues to demand that all of nature adjust to the human specie. We put the value on life and expect nature to adhere to it.
We are not stewards of the earth, we choose to be it's dictator. Unfortunately for the majority of people of the earth we can do nothing. We were born into the economic slavery conceived by the supposed superiors of the specie. We are slaves to the current economic world and have no way to escape to freedom from it. We are economically chained, beaten, and whipped until the supposed superiors allow us to die where we can finally escape. Yet our children and grandchildren are enslaved bought and sold by marketed things putting them deeper and deeper into the chains of economic slavery.
My conclusion is the vision of the destruction of life on this earth as we know it and that reality of current life as we know it, is created by the values of supposed superiors directing our quality of life as they see fit.
This is the destruction of earth and to find out how it happened, just follow the money trail, or the trail of the current human specie superiors and their values.
Follow the Money Trail
My grief pours out in this blog. My hope again is that these thoughts might be found by archivists in the future to understand and maybe this time learn from the past.
As I begin to write this blog, it has been 51 days since a deep water oil well blew up in what we call the Gulf of Mexico in a place called the United States of America.
We have been hearing for some time about the end of the world in 2012. There have been prophecies regarding this end of times. The Hopi talk about the beginning of the 5th world. The Mayan calendar of time ends and begins its new cycle. Nostradamus predicts the end of times. The religious peoples proclaim that their God will return to strike down sinners.
I for one have never believed in a human formed God striking down supposed sinners, but I do believe in cycles and the forces or energies of these cycles. I didn't really believe in an actual end time and still don't, but with this current event, I am beginning to believe in the beginning of the fifth world and the new calendar cycle of the Mayans.
Man has set a course for some time to end the world as we know it. Power and control have been the foundation of every civilization since recorded history began. It may have been power and control over people, or item, or land. Human animals have always had the need to be superior over another for some strange reason. Some call this need animalistic as in the survival of the fittest to provide a solid genetic line. Unfortunately, the superiors are not necessisarily the fittest or have the best genetic prospects. As in the past, genetics of leaders have proven to be inferior. Past superiors have had severe mental disorders, blood diseases, and physical infirmaties. The superiors have proven not to be the most intelligent and capable leaders an animal herd requires.
Humanity also has the tendency to ascribe value to objects and give value to these objects creating a supposed wealth and forcing the value of the objects to others. “I have a stone and it is valuable. Your stone is not.” We allow this object to be valuable and then seek it out to become wealthy like the others that say it is because they have many of these objects. Once humans have acquired these objects that take power and control over other human animals because they do not have as many objects.
Since recorded history, these objects have been something as simple as shells, bones, or shelters. Soon humanity determined that glittering stones had value. Then a stone of gold or silver had value. Today the value is in electronic digits known as fiats from the ancient Romans. These electronic digits are from possession of four objects, gold, silver, gem stones, and crude oil. Death and destruction follows these objects in the human animal world. The human animal uses this value to change the environment to its standards, unlike the animal world that lives within its environment. This is is the only true difference I see between human animals and other animals that dwell on the planet called Earth.
I bring in all of the above to use as my foundation in believing we are at the end of times. At least we are at the end of times for this historical period.
While this oil continues to spew out into the Gulf of Mexico, our informational sources known as news media continues to focus on the disaster in the measures of lost values known as incomes. The shrimp fisherman have lost their incomes. The tourist industry has lost its income. The oyster fisherman have lost their income. This is costing BP a great deal in lost revenue and cleanup expenses.
The news media shows photographs of stressed birds and destroyed marshes. The media discusses clean up methods and shows government leaders, movie stars, movie directors, glim and glam people as well as sport idols on the media. The focus is always on the powerful and controllers.
This is where my sorrow deepens. The focus is on the seen and the known. The focus is on the temporary and only the surface. The news media does not even begin to comprehend the true ramifications of the end of life as we know it.
It may suit the powerful and controlling oil companies to spill enough toxic oil into the pristine blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico to make it another Dead Sea. It would be more convenient to drill for the valued oil beneath the sea if there was no life other than human life to deal with. The oil companies would not worry about human lively hood.
Herein lies my sorrows. In 1910 there was a land gusher in Oklahoma that could not be tapped. It spewed oil for over a year and created a lake several feet deep of crude oil. The company did manage to siphon out some of that oil, but looking at that place today- 100 years later – the land is still dead. There is no life, no plants, no flowers, no animals, not even insects live there. Imagine the destruction of that land gusher and 100 years later there still is no life.
The current Admiral of the Coast Guard says this spill will haunt us until this fall. Who is he kidding? Are we so blind we are not aware this Gulf gusher is going to destroy not only our Gulf for years to come, but well into the next century? Will we make the next century?
The focus of the media is on the saving of birds like the endangered brown pelican. The media is not showing the struggling sharks that are all ready over hunted in the oceans, dying in the oil slicks. The media is not showing the dolphin, great whales, porpoise, turtles, fish, tuna, and most importantly the plankton and coral reefs that are destroyed by this oil.
The plankton and coral reefs are the beginning of all life cycles on the blue marble earth. These tiny life forms provide not only oxygen, but the manna of the ocean for all marine creatures. When we break that chain or cycle of life, we destroy our own life cycle. If oceans do not provide food for marine life and oxygen used in combination to provide rain to the lands, we all die.
If the rain contains the miniscule parts of this crude oil and rains upon the lands, the rains deliver the toxic crude to our land food sources as well. Our food is poisoned and dead. Our trees will be poisoned and dead. Our wildlife on land will be destroyed. The fragile balance of life will be destroyed completely. This is the true catastrophy of this oil gusher a mile down in the ocean.
We will not merely lose jobs or incomes. We are going to lose the planet itself.
Nature will eventually recover, but will humanity survive? Nature will adjust and adapt. It is obvious that the human animal cannot adjust or adapt. Instead the human specie continues to demand that all of nature adjust to the human specie. We put the value on life and expect nature to adhere to it.
We are not stewards of the earth, we choose to be it's dictator. Unfortunately for the majority of people of the earth we can do nothing. We were born into the economic slavery conceived by the supposed superiors of the specie. We are slaves to the current economic world and have no way to escape to freedom from it. We are economically chained, beaten, and whipped until the supposed superiors allow us to die where we can finally escape. Yet our children and grandchildren are enslaved bought and sold by marketed things putting them deeper and deeper into the chains of economic slavery.
My conclusion is the vision of the destruction of life on this earth as we know it and that reality of current life as we know it, is created by the values of supposed superiors directing our quality of life as they see fit.
This is the destruction of earth and to find out how it happened, just follow the money trail, or the trail of the current human specie superiors and their values.
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