[sixties-l] Defending the Union Label

From: drieux (drieux@wetware.com)
Date: Thu Dec 06 2001 - 10:31:40 EST

  • Next message: nefertiti: "Re: [sixties-l] John Tinker pledges support for pro-anarchy teen (fwd)"

    volks,

    The recent incidents, with regards to the 'detention' of John Walker
    in Afghanistan, and the revelation of his status as an American in
    the Taliban Armed Forces, leads me to an interesting set of quanderies
    that I put forth in more depth at:

    http://www.wetware.com/drieux/PPandE/TWAT/John_Walker_Problem.html

    It came as a bit of a shock to me that the current administration is
    of the position that we have detained on 'illegal combatants' - rather
    than that we are extending the status of POW's to the Taliban Forces
    that have been 'captured' in the current operations.

    I can personally empathise with the young man's plight of doing what
    he believed needed to be done - having myself told my father that I
    was going to run off to America - and do what had to be done, and then
    finding myself subsequently IN the American Armed Forces - to I have
    this, 'been there, done that, buff the car with the T-Shirt' gut
    reaction to his current situation.

    So while for most persons the notion of 'the military' as being
    a 'profession' or a 'trade union' may sound like one of those 'military
    intelligence' oxymorons - it is a data model that allows for a reasonable
    distinction between 'the card carrying members' and merely 'being armed
    and dangerous'. As those who are aware of such work as Jonathan Shay's
    'Achilles in Vietnam' the long term effects of Warfare on the Psychology
    of the participants is still not well understood - and it would be best
    if we could limit participation to those who are appropirately trained.

    As I have retorted with my WarMongerBabyKiller Buds, the standards that
    we raise in this regards, should be such as do not come back to haunt
    us in later times. Ashcroft has listed the 'Anthrax Hoaxer' to the level
    of a Top Ten fugitive from justice - given the level of 'proPatria'
    rhetoric free floating, would it be appropriate to drag out the whole
    "aiding and abetting" kvetch and prosecute this Clayton Lee Waagner -
    recaptured
    on 12/05/2001 - for aligning with the Al Queda Faction.

    As such we have some interesting times as Americans to go about the
    process of defining what we mean by 'justice'.

    ciao
    drieux

    ---
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Dec 10 2001 - 18:41:42 EST