Tuesday, October 14, 2003
(10:20 PM) | Anonymous:
this is the slow sick sucking part of me
Here's a couple of things brought to my attention by friends:
First,
apparently last month, our soldiers bulldozed an entire kilometer's worth of fruit trees that belonged to the Khazraji family in Iraq as collective punishment because they refused to offer information about recent attacks on US soldiers. When asked how much his lost orchard was worth, Nusayef Jassim said, "It is as if someone cut off my hands and you asked me how much my hands were worth."
Jassim, one of 32 farmers who saw their fruit trees destroyed, said: "They told us that the resistance fighters hide in our farms, but this is not true. They didn't capture anything. They didn't find any weapons."
50 families lost their livelihoods in this, and there's no proof they have any clue about anything.
Informed observers will note the similarity between this act of collective punishment and the common Israeli collective punishment of bulldozing Palestinian olive groves.
Oh, and this sort of collective punishment is explicitly illegal according to international law..and highly punishable (for anyone who isn't the US or their allies..)
Secondly
I am not as "into" this blogosphere as Kotsko, but I'm starting to get there. One of the most interesting blogs I've come across, and probably that anyone has ever come across, would have to be Chuck Palahniuk's AudioBlog. The man is freaking crazy. The transcripts are available as well..but trust me, listen to the thing..crazy dude.
A goldmine of comedy.
So, we cried, we laughed, and that's all i can really offer you in this posting, sorry.
Steve - The Pedro Explanation and Extrapolation is forthcoming..I just have to get time to actually "think about stuff" and, you know "organize my thought-stuff" and so forth.
