Our man on the spot I – reissued

Posted by bob on March 19, 2013 in Blog, Events | 0 comments

BY SPE

(Photo): Adnan Farhan Latif, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif apparently accepted psychiatric medications, casually left as a potentially Guantanamo assisted suicide, which rescued prison authorities of responsibility, just as Athenian justice had required Socrates take the hemlock himself, so that the Athenian body politic could keep its hands clean – other than those grating mortar and pestle in lethal preparation. Socrates had been a pain in the ass to the body politic as Adnan was to become, though ordered freed several times by generals, panels and judges. Adnan said he came to Afghanistan to seek services of a medical charity before the war, not realizing he would end up as one of the one of the first captured to become a tenured citizen of Guantanamo Bay.

As Socrates never yielded to the political persuasion of dutiful submissive citizenship so Adnan never, it’s said, submitted to the terms of his Guantanamo imprisonment, even in his last days when they put him into a cell echoing from the generator anchored to the intervening wall – a cell he dreaded. Instead, he would determine his incarcerated fate even unto the gates of hell. “He would not let them [the guards] set the terms of his imprisonment” (New York Times, November 28, 2012). Adnan regularly was placed in a restraining chair and forced fed while attempting hunger strikes.

Socrates said the same thing all those years ago; people don’t like it when you think for yourself. Bruce says that’s why he honored Alexander Cockburn so much, he was among the few who did think for himself. Socrates said all could as well, if they sought the light he had found inside himself, instead of seeing only that which can be bought or sold, or in Adnan’s case told.

It must be said here that one guard looking over these unclassified notes said, “what a huge pile of bullshit – Adnan was no fucking Socrates, just a raghead determined to take the little space we gave him and make it into a mile of official ‘better look into this one’ before some crinkle head in the ACLU makes a federal case out of it. But don’t worry, the Queda Brotherhood has no autopsy truck, so let’s freeze his ass as a Yemeni iced pie and send him home.” The New York Times November 28, 2012 says that’s what they did.

Nelson Mandela says in his book, Conversations with Myself, “ …and you found, you know, the resistance, the ability of the human spirit to resist injustice right inside prison… there were many men…who would prefer punishment and even assault rather than give in.”

Now about Bradley Manning

(Photo): Bradley Manning, US Army, courtesy of Wikipedia.

But that not what the boys at Quantico did to that little piss-ant stoolie, Bradley Manning. They kept the light on the little mother fucker even when he was taking a shit – and he had to jump up and stand at attention “Ten-hut,” when he needed something to wipe his ass with (Democracy Now, December 3, 2012). If the little fuck face turned his head away from the light even when asleep, they said ‘wake up you little fuck, and turn over.’ And, that came from the top, where they could care less about that Hippocratic Oath thing – let the boy tell something useful – forget what the commissioned MDs say, they work for us. Then Manning could squirm one eye around, and see the light of day reflected off a petty officer’s used Suburban parked out by the main gate, the car of choice shipped to San Salvador for the “unfairly” termed death-squads, shipped directly from Michigan with tinted windows and escape-proof doors (the prototype for child-proof locks).

Radioactive Promises

On the other hand, hemlock’s modern offspring- like birds evolving from dinosaurs – come with radioactive promise.

That’s why they dug up Yasser Arafat, to find out if the Israelis had sent him a “get-well snack” (and it wasn’t dates and almonds), when he was in that French hospital (Huff Post, March 19, 2013).

It’s also said that if you get on the wrong side Putin (even if you have done a stint in KGB before becoming an independent contractor) don’t drink tea with friends of his, unless you bring your own sugar. And, if you are a journalist, they won’t waste something the Iranians want so badly on a pencil pusher, just an ounce of lead – a bullet.

Bloomberg Knows

Mayor Bloomberg proved to the world he was no one-trip-pony when he raised the ante on the “Occupy” movement, and proved it could not stand up to having its gourmet food kitchen removed, along with heating stoves for the freezing cold nights and have its library shut down. So his decision to let the nursing homes in the Rockaways ride out Supper Storm Sandy, and give the first responders practice in rescuing frail and ancient people, was something in the bank for the next catastrophe which the mayor, as a spokesman for the threat of Global Warming, knows is coming for sure. “Global Carbon Project” researchers say that if emissions continue to grow so rapidly that the goal of limiting the ultimate warming of the planet to 3.6 degrees is probably unattainable (New York Times, December 2, 2012). The city can’t afford to build seawalls like the Dutch around its thousands of miles of exposure and maybe this will wake the Feds up to ‘parting with more than chump change.’

The mayor is supposed to have stated – off the record – that maybe this will show Hillary that being Mayor of the Big Apple is ten times the trick of a land-locked presidency. She should run for bleeping mayor if she wants to show the world that she has the balls to be where the rubber meets the road. Delete that last he said. Anyway, Bloomberg Associates would probably be the only ones to find the finances for such a project.

Words of Wisdom

“Obama proved himself to be imperial to the core…I do not hate the person because he has the potential to change…” (Cornell West, Booneville Advertiser).