As above, so below

I was going to let last Friday’s posting sit for a while as the most recent, but today read about last Wednesday’s massacre of an Iraqi family in the town of Ishaqi. Eleven to fifteen people, including four young children, and one 7 month old baby were killed. Our military has said they were all members of Al-Qaida. It is unclear whether all of them were shot in the back of the head, but it appears that almost all of them were. Pictures of the victims can be seen here. The story accompanying the pictures can be found here.

One thing to emphasize is that this is only one of many cases of massacre of civilians by U.S. forces in Iraq, and that many pictures exist of past atrocities. What I think is different this time is that we are at something of a tipping point in the Iraq debacle, where it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Bush crime family to create plausible deniability about the war, its deceitful genesis, the atrocities that occur there on a regular basis, and its price in national honor, treasure, and prestige.

All this is because the U.S. Supreme Court inserted George W. Bush into the office of President of the United States. It is also because our criminal corporations have given billions of dollars to influence elections and to bribe politicians. And it is because our major news media - print, broadcast, and virtual - have enabled the crimes of the political class with their superficial, dishonest, and propagandistic disinformation campaigns. Rotting in Hell, if such a place or state of being exists, would suit them all just fine. If it doesn't exist, well, I'm glad I'm not them. Nobody gets away with anything. (For an almost comically absurd description of U.S. media coverage, click here.)

We can expect an increasing number of massacres as the war becomes even more futile, compounded by the criminality at the highest levels. A management teacher I used to assist would often say that the pace of an organization is set by the person at the top. At the top of the U.S. chain of command sits George W. Bush, incompetent and omnicriminal. His management team is made up of people who are equally incompetent and omnicriminal. With such mediocrity at the top, should we expect better at the bottom?