Wednesday, March 05, 2008

The Million-Ton Shithammer

The Threefold Rule is also known as The Law of Karma, and it's one of the basic tenets in Wicca (among other things). Basically the Rule states:

Everything you do, good or bad, will come back to you three times over.

Bear that in mind for a moment, then think back on your life and try to fix on a streak of good luck. You may be able to spot where that streak started - a good deed, a kind word, an act of charity.

Now, fast forward to recent news.

A video snippet surfaced on YouTube (and was swiftly taken down) purporting to show two US Marines joking while one holds a puppy. The guy holding the puppy then apparently hurls the animal off a cliff. It was apparently too nasty for CNN to show yesterday (never stopped them before, what with the Rwandan genocide and drownings after Katrina - guess dark-skinned people are worth less than puppies in CNN's eyes. But I digress).

The Marine Corps is trying to find out who these guys were, trying to find out if it's true that they hurled a puppy, and what sort of punishment they should get. Have fun, guys.

Wired magazine unveiled a video and several pictures from the sealed Abu Ghraib archives. They are Not Safe For Work, so I haven't viewed them yet. These were the pictures that Rumsfeld suppressed because they were even worse than the pictures that leaked. The magazine article also contains an interview with Prof. Zimbardo, who set up the Stanford Experiment in the 1970s. It's rather chilling (even though Stanford was a flawed experiment, I can state that some of its conclusions are sound).

Now, war does this to certain people - it dehumanizes them to a certain extent, makes them callous to the suffering of others.

But we should never forget that these are things done by our troops.

Our troops.

Leaving aside the puppy, what was done at Abu Ghraib was done in our names - in the name of America and the American people.

Factor in the Threefold Rule.

What will we have to suffer through when the moment comes to balance the karmic books?

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you spend any time in Monroe WA (wher Mr.Motari is from - and a town adjacent to my own) you will come to the conclusion that the Marine Corps did not create a puppy killer - they recruited one. There are plenty more assholes like him living here who are just waiting to sign up.

12:22 PM EST  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you spend any time in Monroe WA (wher Mr.Motari is from - and a town adjacent to my own) you will come to the conclusion that the Marine Corps did not create a puppy killer - they recruited one. There are plenty more assholes like him living here who are just waiting to sign up.

12:23 PM EST  

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