There are no words

No words exist to express my utter disgust with America today.

To begin with, there have been 44 deaths of detainees in military compounds in Afghanistan and Iraq. The ACLU has released a review of the facts, and it looks like 21 of those deaths would be classified as homocides.

According to the documents, 21 of the 44 deaths were homicides. Eight of the homicides appear to have resulted from abusive techniques used on detainees, in some instances, by the CIA, Navy Seals and Military Intelligence personnel. The autopsy reports list deaths by “strangulation,” “asphyxiation” and “blunt force injuries.” An overwhelming majority of the so-called “natural deaths” were attributed to “Arteriosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease.”

Yeah. All those renegade fighters who are living in caves and existing on diets of rice and beans? Heart disease, definitely. Just like all of us obese, McD's chomping Americans. But - fine, I'll be a good little American and accept that unquestioningly, though.

But the autopsies where the cause of death was determined to be blunt force injuries and asphyxiation? Blunt force trauma does not occur naturally. Something did that intentionally. Let's face it: The majority of humans - especially revolutionary, living in hiding types - are pretty damn hearty. It's not going to be like "Oops, I accidentally smacked him too hard in the face and now he's dead," it's going to be like, "I just bludgeoned him to death, but that's OK because I'm American."

If that's not cheery enough news for you, then there's this article from the Times Online. The first two paragraphs interest me:

IT USED to be easy to meet American soldiers in Baghdad. You would drive up to them as they did a patrol in the street or manned a checkpoint or even shopped for cheap televisions, and strike up a conversation.

Try doing that now and you can order your body bag in advance. Every humvee has a sign fixed to its back warning that any attempts to approach closer than 100 yards will mean the gunner on the roof will open fire. Civilian cars scatter before US patrols like jittery deer before a wolf.

So, it's no longer taboo to shoot civilians: nay, it's policy. Note to American armed forces authorities: This is not a good way to win public opinion. Nor is it a good way to win a war. Actually - hey, aren't they supposed to be our allies? Granted, allies in the sense of "We invaded your country, took over, and are now shooting you for absolutely no reason, other than the fact that our troops are too bloody idiotic to do their jobs properly, and take a malicious glee in the cold-blooded slaughter sanctioned by the American government."

Rounding off the good news, 2,000 American troops have now died in Iraq.

This is very tragic, mostly because not a single one of them had to die, and not a single one of their deaths has achieved any sort of higher goal. I have more respect and sympathy for those who died in WWII: there, at least, there was a definite bad guy who had already slaughtered millions and was looking to continue doing so on a regular basis, and an even greater scale.

I have even more respect and sympathy for the 26690 to 30051 civilians in Iraq who have been murdered by the American forces. They are the innocents and they are the ones we should care about. American troops are A) cheerily participating in an illegal occupation, and B) volunteers. They signed up knowing that they may well get sent into some sort of dangerous situation. No Iraqi civilian volunteered - for what? To be Iraqi? To be in the wrong place at the wrong time? The wrong religion? The wrong skin tone?

I'm not saying that I don't care about the troops: I do. I'm not saying that every single one of those two thousand deaths isn't tragic: it is.

I'm just saying that there's over ten times that number who didn't sign up for this. They're the real victims here.