Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Authority Arrogate


(five-four-five-eight eight-six-one-seven)

Roger received target 15. K. Stay firm. Roger. Oh yeah. Hotel Two-Six; Crazyhorse One-Eight. Fucking prick. Request permission to engage. Roger that. All right, we’ll be engaging. Roger, go ahead. Bushmaster element. God damn it. Just fuckin, once you get on them just open up. You’re clear. Let’s shoot. Light ‘em all up.
Keep shoot ‘n. Keep shoot ‘n. Keep shoot ‘n.
Keep shoot ‘n.
I got ’m. God damn it, Kyle. Ha ha ha, I hit ‘em. All right, I’m just trying to find targets again. Bushmaster Six, this is Bushmaster Two-Six. Gotta bunch of bodies layin’ there. Yeah, we got one guy crawling around down there. We’re shooting some more. You shoot, I’ll talk. Roger. Hotel Two-Six; Crazyhorse One-Eight. Six Beacon Gaia. Sargeant Twenty is the location. Hotel Two-Six; Crazyhorse One-Eight.
Oh yeah look at those dead bastards.

Nice.

Two-Six; Crazy Horse One-Eight.

Nice.

Good shoot ‘n.

Thank you.

Uh, location of bodies Mike Bravo five-four-five-eight eight-six-one-seven.

Five-four-five-eight eight-six-one-seven. Over.

This is Crazyhorse one-eight, that’s a good copy.


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10 comments:

John B-R said...

I had to take an extra dose of anti-anxiety meds yesterday, after watching this thing. Utterly horrible, from every direction. What a shit world we make for ourselves.

Steven Fama said...

Hi John B-R, this post is one way I'm trying to stop some sort of craziness from wholly engulfing my spirit. Which is to say: I'm right with you, and thanks for checking in; it helps to know there are others feeling the same way.

Ed Baker said...

I got tears in my eyes.

this is just "the tip of the (...).

my friend was in The Nam
early on..

he and his buddies used to sit up on a bluff
drinking Cutty and smoking grass stoned out of their minds

and when farmers/peasants would walk down the trail (road) to town to get things and to sell their wares well these "soldiers" would take turns shooting/killing them... just "pick em off"

sorta not much different then as now.. it s like
playing a video-game ...

and we are teaching these "virtual" games all the way down into kindergarten:


etc...

John Olson said...

This fills me with rage, anxiety, horror, and dizzying perplexity. Where does this barbarism come from? I suspect a lot of it has to do with a culture of irreality, strip malls, eloquent speeches that mean nothing, the war crimes of the Bush administration swept from the table like cookie crumbs.

Ed Baker said...

hey John

I do believe that "it" begins with that rapid-fire "learning" as taught via Sesame Street

now that we need him
where IS Mr. Rogers?

John Olson said...

I agree, Ed. Kids are taught how to prepare for tests, learn by rote, not how to think. Obama's choice of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education is disastrous. Duncan advocates the corporate template for "learning," which isn't learning at all, but conforming to rules, brain-dead regurgitation. Henry Giroux has an article about this, "Obama’s Betrayal of Public Education: Arne Duncan and the Corporate Model of Schooling." See also Giroux's essay "Culture of Cruelty." It explains so much.

Ed Baker said...

yea yeah yeah yea
and then they all will learn how to write haiku
by the time they are in the 4 th grade
and
then can major in Creative Writing
and go to one of those Mile High Conferences like

AWP who has now convened with over 8,000 "poets" looking for jobs teaching elementary kids how to write haik-coos!

and this is just one area of edyewmuhkationing!

Imagine what they are learning/teaching is math and science classes!

next thing you'll see is an huge spike UP in income taxes (for the middle class) like about 50% AND a value added/consumption tax of say 15-20% to pay for all of this ..


heck now wonder we're not teaching the kids how to add up and subtract and balance a simple checking account!


but

they sure as hell know how to get video games and Nike basketball shoes and Big Macs..

hey

one of the Jonas Brothers signed Jamie Olivers' petition about food..

now Disney has dropped the Jonas Brothers and pulled their web-site.. So Much For Free Speech!

hey, don't get me started! I just might be forced into writing another epic-like poem or two:

full moon
as always
tangentially pertinent

of what I've done so far
teaching me
nothing

well

now to cruise the tv channels ALL 357 of them
to see what/how Tiger is doing!

Curtis Faville said...

Of all the things I might think to say, the first is why Americans are there at all.

One could make any one of a number of arguments--many of them specious, no doubt--about why and how incidents like this occur under conditions of war, why they may be "understandable" or "inevitable" given the messiness and general chaos which conflict brings about, but what are the basic reasons we're there in the first place?

Obviously, whether or not there are men on a street carrying automatic weapons, or bombs, or cameras, or shoulder bags with groceries, there are few good reasons to defend America's privilege of "being there" to promote the rule of law, or to prevent terrorism, or to do whatever we think we're doing.

There was one moment there, when one figure seems to be peeking around the corner of the building, and the pilot or someone is saying "they're firing at us!" (I thought I heard), when one might have advised the helicopter to get the hell out of there, and to send in a cadre of armed troops in vehicles, but since these individuals knew the copter was up there, and were just standing around not even looking upwards, the idea of strafing them is just idiotic. But that's what we do when we send in teenagers with sophisticated weapons. They're playing computer games--the version of modern warfare we now live in. Under other circumstances--ones legitimately involving our own jeopardy--we'd be proud of this kind of cowboy mentality.

But bottom line we should never have gone into Iraq in the first place. That's the real point.

Richard said...

That "RPG" was a camera lense where a camera man was probably adjusting his camera. There were only two men with weapons and they were probably just security for the cameramen.

A book to read is "Rape of Vietnam" by Harold Slingsby.

Nothing has changed.

I watched this video about 10 times.

The men in the helicopters were just wanting to shoot. Murderers. After they laugh and say "nice" when they see the bodies - no compassion - there was no danger to them - if there was - why not fly off? If someone had an RPG the men on the ground wouldn't be so causal. They would have been alert to a chopper and under cover. There was no intention to use any weapons. The whole thing is Bllshggt!!

The while "excuse" of these Imperialist wars or invasions is also Bllshggt.

How many young men died in a few seconds?

Unknown said...

"Nice"

Hotel Two-Six and Crazyhorse One-Eight,
Bushmasters all, but ain't you good and great?
Your deeds live on for all posterity,
Killing young girls for all the world to see,
And injured men being helped into a van:
Live with yourselves forever, if you can.
But as for me, let it be understood,
I will not either call you great nor good.
America, America, God shed his wrath on thee,
And leave deeds in Iraq their infamy.
.