I am friendly, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman

Oversight overdue

The Democrats in American Congress are beginning to take down the house that Don (Donald Rumsfeld) built, brick by brick. Do not tell me you have forgotten the erstwhile Secretary of Defense, who having been the longest serving appointee to that role and architect of two wars going places but to victory is now consigned to history.

Not exactly, the de-construction of Rumsfeld is being played back in the presence of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee as they hear of people who were decorated as heroes of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who were in fact not what they were cut out to be.

Saving Private Lynch

How can we forget the commando raid that looked like a rerun of Raid on Entebbe in Saving Private Lynch?

An outrageous media spin by the Ministry of Defense indicating the lady had had stab and bullet wounds and that she had been slapped about on her hospital bed and interrogated, when in fact, she was treated with the utmost dignity having the only specialist bed in that hospital and the soldiers who came to rescue her were only firing blanks.

However, for a reality show, it made good public relations, possibly boosting the morale of soldiers on a lie, Private Jessica Lynch tried as much as possible to debunk the spin and now finally had the chance before the committee to reveal that one of the greater casualties of the war is the truth.

All-American spin

I am no warmonger, though that does not make me a pacifist, if we tried to move out of our entrenched positions and converse to reach a compromise and an agreeable consensus maybe a lot more peace would be in this world, but man is sometimes like a vampire, baying for blood and until their thirst is assuaged, peace eludes all.

One was moved to the point of deep sorrow and compassion when news arrived of a young man who was about to sign on to a great professional football career but had caught the bug of going out to defend the fatherland in Afghanistan.

So much was made of this All-American hero who would give up the comforts of luxurious living for tracking down Al Qaeda and their cohorts.

In that time, there were probably many young men going about their lives who were persuaded by this gesture to sign up to this escapade for the fatherland, dreaming of coming back to ticker-tape parades after V-day in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Friendly fire

Corporal Pat Tillman did not make it back, I cannot relate this, his brother appeared before the committee and I cannot better what he said at his hearing - this is the text of what was said verbatim - "Authorities constructed not only a story of combat action -- accompanied by a silver medal - but lied about his medical care, saying he was transferred to a field hospital for continued medical care for 90 minutes after the incident, when the back of his head was blown off."

His head was blown off by friendly fire, a term too distressing to explain; where whilst in a hostile and precarious war setting a soldier gets inadvertently shot by members of his own troop.

However, the Pentagon did not just play up this falsehood; the brother who was also serving in the same area was not informed of this situation and his parents and the American Public were strung along in a deceitful morass of fictional tales to deflect focus from the Abu Ghraib scandal.

It is debatable if this manipulation of events, disappearance of eye witness accounts and destruction of crucial evidence was not sanction from the very top.

However, one witness recalls that the last words of Corporal Pat Tillman were "I am friendly, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman."

The young man knew he was done by his own people.

Accountability before irrelevance required

We have learnt that there was end to the advice given the war planners about troop numbers, executing the war, winning the peace, having conclusive and realizable goals, but the dissenters who would not acquiesce to feeding the bloody thirstiness of the neo-conservatives for war got sidelined one by one.

Chief amongst them was the soon to retire General Eric Shinseki who was the 34th Chief of Staff of the United States Army appointed by President Clinton.

His estimate of what was required to win the war conclusively in Iraq was dismissed by Rumsfeld - a politician - almost 4 years on, the commanders in charge said General Shinseki's estimates are proven correct.

It is important that the whole truth about how media manipulation was used to paint a completely different picture from reality be investigated and Donald Rumsfeld should be accorded the opportunity to defend himself against this malfeasance and deceitful conduct of the war before he is completely consigned to history and irrelevance.

Mr. Rumsfeld represented the stick-necked, stubborn and obstinate resolve of the Bush administration to stay a course with change regardless of the consequences and to all those who put their hands to this venture of shame should the General's words resound from now henceforth.

"If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less" - Irrelevance comes upon these men like a billowing dark dense cloud, and not wind of spin shall blow it away.

Page turning and sick making

Of children and young men

As the scandal of emails and instant messages threatens to engulf the Republican campaign to great detriment, I begin to wonder what the facts are and how they are being portrayed.

In a question directed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the interviewer starts with – “This 16-year old boy who is the young man affected …” the Speaker answers with – “The young man …”

Herein, is the confusion, is the person a child, a boy, a youth, a young man or a man? He is all of that and more.

My voice breaks

There is no doubt that he is an adolescent, which does not make him an adult, he is a teenager and definitely a child of someone – I think it all now depends on the way you look at it.

In terms of criminal responsibility, he is not a child, in terms of sexual development he can father a child, in the scheme of things, he is a boy, as a page, he is a youth, in terms of prospects, he is a young man and when grouped he is a teenager.

In terms of the relationship, he was abused by reason of the exchange between a man of authority and responsibility, had the messages been exchanged between peers, it would have been without event apart from a frank exchange of views involving the headmaster.

At 16, I would have taken offence if anyone had referred to me as a boy or a child, I was already out of secondary school and in polytechnic, though, I had to show my birth certificate because they did not believe I was that young, normally people finished secondary school at 18, my sister finished at 14.

Adults of shame

Anyway, the sad thing developing out of this sad saga of predatory acts against boys, children or young men is the squabble between National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) which has released an amended statement on Mark Foley’s resignation and the National Law Center for Children and Families (NLC) over which organisation is too tightly linked with Congress and who came up with the best ideas for finding missing children.

There is the quality of life of a boy at stake here and the adults of responsibility either in offence or defence are scoring political points against each other – that, I must say is childish. It is all becoming sick-making – I need to see all that food and drink again – Urrggh!

Back to the child, I just hope he is well and well left alone with the support he needs to get on with his life.

Mark Foley on Bill Clinton

Finally, is this the same Mark Foley who said 8 years ago of Bill Clinton during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal “It's vile, it's more sad than anything else, to see someone with such potential throw it all down the drain because of a sexual addiction.”?

Glass houses and stones seem to have met with a resounding clatter and shatter – how are the mighty fallen. ‘Nuff said.

References

Report: Foley allegedly tried to meet page

Foley's Behaviour No Secret on Capitol Hill

American Congress failing the American People

Red face from reps page

Three pieces of news coming out of America appear to show how so different that land is and it so fills me with amazement that people find such comfort in that place.

Probably 10 years ago, the by-line would have been – Rep pages page’s pager … or something along those lines if the tabloids ever got into the salacious side of a sad story of child sexual abuse.

Apparently, for a few years, a Republican Congressman has found the pastime of sending sexually explicit messages to pages – students who get the opportunity to walk the corridors of power as messengers and assistants.

The youngest of who might have been 16, now, for a man in power and authority having membership of the caucus on missing and exploited children it was wrong to abuse his position in that way and it was wrong to subject the young men to such illicit and lewd communication.

Culpability in inaction

If Congressman Foley considered his actions a form of mentoring young men into understanding sex, well, one can only speculate; however, the Republican leadership of the Congress who appeared to have known about this for a while now seem to be feigning innocence as the whole affair has suddenly consumed the fire of their campaign hardly six weeks to the mid-term elections.

It reminds one of the inaction that accompanied sexual abuse claims within the Catholic Church, alas, lessons are not being learnt.

The converse of this is, the young man was 16, quite well past puberty and in Europe would have been more sexually aware, intelligent or active rather than being utterly sexually naïve as one can almost expect of Americans of that age.

There would be some mileage in this thing before the elections turf out a few more Republicans, meanwhile, Mr Foley has demonstrated a classic, accepted guilt, gone for rehabilitation for alcoholism and behavioural problems – it is unlikely the birch would be introduced to teach bad boy – Mr Foley – a useful lesson.

Sadly, the abused child might only be able to afford a comforting ice-cream from mummy and daddy before the media circus helps to ruin the young man’s self esteem for life.

Gambling on a fools gambit

Then, as usually, the warped argument about online gambling leading to addiction, debt and enticement of children has lead to a bad law being promulgated to ban financial institutions like banks and credit card companies from processing payments for participating in online gambling.

This is America where gambling is extremely big business Las Vegas is the bastion of wanton decadence and gambling like no other place on earth and somehow people who go there cannot play the same games from home. Absurd.

Well, the greater reason is, the clout of these casinos as lobbyists and sponsors of politicians has prevent Internet upstarts from establishing online gambling businesses, it is also amusing that having raped indigenous American Indians of wealth and land, they are allowed to build humongous gambling empires in their reservations as a sop for past injustices, part of what lead to the Abramoff scandal.

It is the taxes, stupid

More so, Americans being able to gamble in a global market from the comfort of their homes in a $12 billion business registered offshore, the federal and state governments get not taxes or revenues from these organisations lodged in tax havens all around the world.

No online gambling dollars lining the campaign funds or hospitality troughs of politicians is a cause to fight for and nip the financial transactions in the bud and let it all get more sinister, go underground and less regulated – because the American Congress has been elected to protect the American People from things they as adults should have the sense to know to want to do or abstain from.

The thing about children getting addicted to gambling does not wash, you need a credit card to join an online gambling facility and you can only get a credit card at a certain age – the same credit card can be used to register on porn sites, but I see no Congressman seeking to ban financial transactions to porn sites except those of the fundamentalist and Puritan kind.

Those who want to gamble would gamble in anyway they want; regulation is the better use of law not prohibition, just as drug addicts or alcoholics cannot be legislated out of existence. This is one rather bad law, it might hurt the online gambling businesses for a while, but it would not cure the 50% trade that comes from America from their addiction if they are already hooked.

Suicide gunners and schools

Utterly depressed, repressed or disturbed people with access to guns and ammunition that have been seized from the cold dead hands of Charles Heston have visited schools and shot people, already, thrice this week in America.

OK! We did have one occasion in Dunblane in Scotland where a crazed loner shot 16 children with their teacher before killing himself, one well-adjusted and successful kid from that school is Andrew Murray the rising tennis star – thank God for that – I could almost assume such a recovery might be difficult in America, but that would be both facetious and cynical.

However, it appears people do not want to singularly and quietly commit suicide anymore because their insignificant and uneventful lives might not even make the village rag, so they walk off into a nearby school, take children hostage, run the airwaves for a few hours, appear to negotiate and then shoot up innocent people and then themselves.

I am tempted to say that suicide bombers have a cause and these people have no cause, no purpose and no souls – why use innocent blood to give some publicity or credence to your suicide? This applies to all “suiciders” (a Bushism) all around the world.

A gun law is needed

If there is a case of the Congress to settle on, it is the getting of guns off the streets and reducing the availability of guns to just anyone, the warped interpretation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is a problem.

It is still my belief that what it means is; the right to bear arms is only justified as part of a well regulated militia – basically, if you are not in the forces, that right does not exist except when you can called up to defend the state – it does not say you cannot own a gun, but it is not a right to hold one, just as you can own a car, but that does not become a right to have a car.

If there is any need for a new study too, it is that about finding out why these people choose vulnerable people to experience their gruesome deaths when they could find an isolated barn and do the deed if they so wish to end their lives.

How many more headline grabbing shootouts of kids in schools like Columbine do we need before the guns are grabbed out of living and dead hands and burnt out of existence?

Do you read this, the way I do?

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Second Amendment