Tannishblog

I am increasingly embarrassed to be American. (There. That should get the sanctimonious Righties fired up.)

As a country that is supposed to promote freedom, we are enslaved by our mortgage, our credit cards and our insatiable desires for more toys. We are enslaved by our corporate structure of trading time, effort, and skills for the barest possible monetary compensation, insufficient health benefits, and non-existent job security. As wages plateau, insurance benefits shrink and gasoline becomes dearer. As jobs become scarce, our future income is threatened by our President. To be an American these days is to surrender what’s left of our personal freedom for the chimera of terrorism, to watch as our nation becomes bankrupt while our government toughens bankruptcy laws for citizens. Politicians, who shout about diminishing Christian morals in society, leech perks from questionable sources for favors and gleefully bleed our treasury dry for two wars that cannot be won, all the while dismantle government programs designed as expressions of the Christian mores of helping the less fortunate.

I’m embarrassed that the America the world used to look up to has been reduced to this:

I spent some time recently with Aidan Delgado, a 23-year-old religion major at New College of Florida, a small, highly selective school in Sarasota.

Mr. Delgado’s background is unusual. He is an American citizen, but because his father was in the diplomatic corps, he grew up overseas. He spent eight years in Egypt, speaks Arabic and knows a great deal about the various cultures of the Middle East. He wasn’t happy when, even before his unit left the states, a top officer made wisecracks about the soldiers heading off to Iraq to kill some ragheads and burn some turbans.

“He laughed,” Mr. Delgado said, “and everybody in the unit laughed with him.”

The officer’s comment was a harbinger of the gratuitous violence that, according to Mr. Delgado, is routinely inflicted by American soldiers on ordinary Iraqis. He said: “Guys in my unit, particularly the younger guys, would drive by in their Humvee and shatter bottles over the heads of Iraqi civilians passing by. They’d keep a bunch of empty Coke bottles in the Humvee to break over people’s heads.”

He said he had confronted guys who were his friends about this practice. “I said to them: ‘What the hell are you doing? Like, what does this accomplish?’ And they responded just completely openly. They said: ‘Look, I hate being in Iraq. I hate being stuck here. And I hate being surrounded by hajis.’ ”

“Haji” is the troops’ term of choice for an Iraqi. It’s used the way “gook” or “Charlie” was used in Vietnam.

Mr. Delgado said he had witnessed incidents in which an Army sergeant lashed a group of children with a steel Humvee antenna, and a Marine corporal planted a vicious kick in the chest of a kid about 6 years old. There were many occasions, he said, when soldiers or marines would yell and curse and point their guns at Iraqis who had done nothing wrong.

He said he believes that the absence of any real understanding of Arab or Muslim culture by most G.I.’s, combined with a lack of proper training and the unrelieved tension of life in a war zone, contributes to levels of fear and rage that lead to frequent instances of unnecessary violence.

Mr. Delgado, an extremely thoughtful and serious young man, balked at the entire scene. “It drove me into a moral quagmire,” he said. “I walked up to my commander and gave him my weapon. I said: ‘I’m not going to fight. I’m not going to kill anyone. This war is wrong. I’ll stay. I’ll finish my job as a mechanic. But I’m not going to hurt anyone. And I want to be processed as a conscientious objector.’ “

The above is from an article from the NY Times by Bob Herbert. To me, this illustrates American arrogance in the extreme, as well as the hypocrisy of our current administration. Imagine the reality of espousing Democracy while letting representative of our armed forces partake in senseless cruelty and gratuitous violence against non-combatants. It also shows to the world that in American racism is alive and well. Our soldiers are representatives of our young people, they are the future business leaders and politicians of our country. One of these “Haji” haters might run for President one day. Now, that’s a sobering thought.

It’s not just our ruinous foreign policy that is failing. Our law enforcers are overusing their new toys- Tasers- with fatal results.

A man suspected of assaulting a police officer died Tuesday after being shocked multiple times with Taser stun guns during a struggle with police, authorities said.

The 24-year-old man had run out a back door of an apartment when officers tried to arrest him early Tuesday, Phoenix police spokesman Sgt. Randy Force said. A female officer caught up with the man and shocked him.

When the suspect continued to resist, another officer shocked him with his Taser, Force said. Police did not say exactly how many times the man was zapped.

The man, who was not immediately identified, went unconscious and was pronounced dead later at a hospital, Force said.

The death comes amid increasing debate nationwide over police use of Tasers. According to a report released by Amnesty International in March, there were 13 Taser-related deaths in the U.S. and Canada in the first three months of this year - compared with six during the same period last year.

So much for the hype on the Taser corporate web site:

TASER International provides advanced non-lethal devices for use in law enforcement, private security and personal defense markets. TASER devices are among the safest and most effective use-of-force choices available.

Boards of medical experts and studies in the United States, UK, Canada, and other countries confirm the life-saving value of TASER technology. TASER International values independent reviews of its products and supports continued study of the use of TASER technology.

As I like to say: It is impossible to idiot-proof something - the idiots will always outsmart you.