When we attacked Libya, we called them Libyan freedom fighters, though they were only terrorists and acted as death squads. Now in Syria we call them Syrian opposition forces. Same deal – terror, death squads, massacres. Our money, our weapons. Even though they are Saudi-trained (or KLA), they go by the name we used when they were fighting the Russians in Afghanistan, where we armed, trained and financed them. Later that name became a scary word.

They are trained thugs, well armed and organized, following our orders. Even when we needed to make them look like an enemy, on 9/11, which they had no part in, they were our guys.

We call them “Al Qaeda.” It gets even worse – you’d be amazed where they get their money, at least in part. But I’ll stop there. If you understand that you are half way home in undestanding how the world works – at least piercing through the filtered American media. Nothing is as it appears.

I am reprinting Mathew Koehler’s comment from 4&20, and he is quoting his friend Jeff Gibbs – co-producer and composer for “Bowling for Columbine,” who had this to say about the most recent school shooting tragedy…”the 18th (!!) since Columbine”:

“A world full of guns and empty of mental health care is, well, the hell we are living in. Violence is down? HAHAHA! Almost a thousand times more American’s kill each other with guns than in other “civilized” nations. Time to grow up and stand up to the egoistic gun nuts. No one wants your guns, you’re not that important. It’s just that the rest of us don’t want to live in a world in which blow-hard egoists carry guns to the mall, schools and sporting events. You stand almost zero chance of using that gun to stop violence. Far greater is the chance someone will use your gun to do terrible things in your own family. We don’t want to live in a world in which your children take your guns and commit suicide, kill a family member, or massacre people which is exactly what happened yesterday and at Columbine. If you enjoy the gun toting lifestyle, move to Somalia, Juarez or join the Taliban. Or rent an island to play-pretend you live in the wild wild west with your buddies while the adults come up with some sensible laws here in what’s left of America.”

There is no horror that compares to loss of a child. The shock is settling in and grieving right now is intense. There will be a genuine outpouring of love and support from family, friends and even strangers. People get back to their lives, and then comes the slow and only partial recovery. “The hours,” those times alone, in the early morning hours, force reflection and acceptance, and out of that can come strength. But there will be no forgetting. For a parent, the loss of a child is a wound that can only be compartmentalized as life moves forward. It will never heal.

Iraqi, Afghani, Serbian, Libyan, Panamanian, Vietnamese parents feel no less pain. They surely look on the actions of the American killing machine as being as senseless as those of Adam Lanza. They grope for explanation, try to make sense of it all.

Back in late 1989, only coincidental to the departure from office of George H.W. Bush, the United States struck Panama. Since “communism” was a flagging enterprise, the cover story was drug interdiction. During that attack an ordnance of some kind was released on a barrio in Panama City, and by their accounting, as many as 2,000 people were killed, after which ensued bulldozers and a mass grave.

We’ll never know, of course, as we were not the victims, and so there was no investigation. Interesting, however: there was no apparent tactical purpose for use of the bomb, which has led to speculation that the U.S. was merely experimenting with a new device of some sort, perhaps delivered by a then-new stealth bomber. If that is the case, it would have to be an anti-personnel weapon, and “personnel” would have to be people living in close quarters, or civilians. Military leaders are too smart to house soldiers in high concentrations in a few buildings, 1983 in Lebanon aside..

Since our own lives have beginnings, middles and ends, there is a tendency to attach far too much historical significance on events of our times. Americans have a maudlin sense of victimhood about 9/11, not even knowing it was self-inflicted. In the larger picture it is the events that followed, the attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Now Syria, Lebanon and possibly Iran (these are the military operations we know about*) that might warrant a paragraph in a history book.
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