Thursday 18 October 2007

The Duke of York had ten thousand men


I have recently watched two gripping documentaries on television which investigated the use of torture tactics by the Americans in ' The War on Terror ' . The first film ' Taxi to the Dark Side ' centred on Guantanamo and the second ' Ghosts of Abu Ghraib in Iraq . They were both chilling accounts of what can happen when the end justifies the means . The torturers seemed to me to be normal human beings , but had got caught up in extraordinary circumstances . Their excuse was ' they were only following orders ' and were probably chosen for their duties because they were easily manipulated and pliable . The US Army defended themselves by claiming that the torturers were a renegade group , who had slipped through the net but the torture techniques were sophisticated and the similarities too pronounced for anyone to doubt that it was deliberate policy . In a frightening interview American Vice President Dick Cheney said " We have to sort of work the dark side if you will . We have to spend time in the shadows " . The Americans are not the only ones to blame as the torture was outsourced through rendition to other countries , who were only too happy to help.


But why are we surprised - this has been going on for centuries . Just take a trip round the castles of Britain and you will find far more grizzly instruments of torture than have been used in Cuba and Iraq .The armies of the world have been practicing this for eons . In my view the military of the world has only one purpose and that is to kill . It is in its psyche to hate and wish to cause pain and destruction , where it can . In fact its very existence depends on our acceptance of it . The world believes that we are separate countries and need our armies to defend ourselves from our enemies but , if you take a step back , you will see that the military is one single entity throughout the world , with one aim : to cause death , destruction and pain wherever it can . It has been a puzzle to me how armies seem to find the opposing forces to fight-how come they don't get lost and miss each other ? It's because they don't want to . There seems to be an unconcious magnetic effect which draws them together and fulfill the aim of bloody battle .


How can this force be dealt with . In my opinion there is only one way and that is to boycott it . It needs bodies to kill and be killed and the means to defeat it is by suffocation . We need the young men and women of the world not to enlist . If no one joins up , there can be no wars . I know this may appear pie in the sky and utopian , but it is the only way , unless we want the current wars to recur . It means we will have to ignore the siren calls and excuses for war and basically not go along with the warmongers bloodlust . Because if we don't there will be another Adolf Hitler or Dick Cheney and another Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib . It is our choice.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for writing this.