What ticks terrorists

The fundamental motivator of terrorism is not religion or ideology or money. It's self-righteousness. The firm belief that you are right and those who disagree with you, necessarily, wrong. Every dictator who ordered a massacre, every bomber who blew up a public space, every zealot who slew a heretic believed it was for the greater good, a righteous cause. Believe in your own righteousness and you can justify any atrocity your heart desires.

Remembering the Battle of Manila

Just watched Remembering the Battle of Manila, a two-hour documentary on the 1945 battle produced by Japanese television network NHK and aired on the History Channel.

The documentary had a very objective tone-- no sentimentality or emotion.  There was a good amount of discussion on objectives and tactics but hardly any mention of politics or motives.  The overarching message, though, was that most of the 100,000 Filipino civilian casualties and the almost total destruction of Manila was a result of American bombardment.  Which is quite accurate-- most of the deaths and destruction in Manila in 1945 were indeed caused by the American forces' indiscriminate use of force.  There are a lot of interviews with people-- Filipino civilians, American and Japanese soldiers-- who witnessed the battle and one can get a good picture of the suffering it caused.  One stark image is the destruction of the Philippine General Hospital by American bombers, who attacked the building and its thousands of patients and refugees "despite red crosses painted on the roof".

However, what troubles me about this documentary is what it does not say.  While it makes an indictment of American conduct during the battle, Japanese actions are mostly portrayed as defensive maneouvres.  While it does mention Japanese "outrages" committed against civilians in the name of "anti-guerilla offensives", it makes no adequate description of the gravity or the cruelty of these atrocities.  At one point it mentions the "Japanese anti-guerilla offensive" and "Filipinos fighting Filipinos" (i.e., revenge attacks against the makapili) as reasons, apart from indiscriminate American bombing, for Filipino civilian deaths, without any mention of scale or context as if the two reasons carried equal weight.  

While I didn't expect this documentary-- or any historical documentary-- to be totally objective, I did expect factual proportion.  In terms of scale, American bombs indeed killed more Filipinos and demolished more buildings, but the Japanese are at least equally to blame for the carnage.  The Americans were indiscriminate and reckless in their use of force, but the Japanese were rabid and sadistic in their retaliation, ordering their troops to fight to the last man and "annihilate all guerillas", guerilla being understood by the interviewed Japanese soldiers to mean any Filipino man, woman, or child.  While there were many graphic pictures of the victims of American bombs (women and children in particular) and even video of Filipinos mobbing a makapili, the only pictures of Japanese atrocities were Filipino men executed with their hands tied behind their backs.

Most troubling about this documentary is that it's primarily meant for a Japanese audience, being translated into English after it was made.  If PBS made this documentary for an American audience it would be a soul-searching second look at America's actions in Manila deserving of a commendation.  But it's not.  The documentary was made by NHK for a Japanese audience, making it an exercise in washing their hands of guilt.  Far from just "remembering the battle of Manila", this looks and feels more like a jab at self-vindication, as if saying, "Hey, the Americans killed more Filipinos than we did; we were just defending ourselves."  To lay the blame for the destruction of Manila and the death of 100,000 civilians at the foot of the Americans with only passing mention of Japanese atrocities is, to say the least, dishonest.

That NHK gave an unbalanced account under the veneer of fact and objectivity makes this documentary unethical.  That Japan, unlike Germany, has not truly reconciled itself with its wartime conduct makes this documentary offensive.  That militarist and revisionist elements are gaining clout in Japan makes this documentary dangerous.

Give them bloody hell

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Lest We Forget

PROCLAMATION No. 1081 September 21, 1972

PROCLAIMING A STATE OF MARTIAL LAW IN THE PHILIPPINES

x x x

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested upon me by Article VII, Section 10, Paragraph ('2) of the Constitution, do hereby place the entire Philippines as defined in Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution under martial law and, in my capacity as their commander-in-chief, do hereby command the armed forces of the Philippines, to maintain law and order throughout the Philippines, prevent or suppress all forms of lawless violence as well as any act of insurrection or rebellion and to enforce obedience to all the laws and decrees, orders and regulations promulgated by me personally or upon my direction.

In addition, I do hereby order that all persons presently detained, as well as all others who may hereafter be similarly detained for the crimes of insurrection or rebellion, and all other crimes and offenses committed in furtherance or on the occasion thereof, or incident thereto, or in connection therewith, for crimes against national security and the law of nations, crimes against public order, crimes involving usurpation of authority, rank, title and improper use of names, uniforms and insignia, crimes committed by public officers, and for such other crimes as will be enumerated in Orders that I shall subsequently promulgate, as well as crimes as a consequence of any violation of any decree, order or regulation promulgated by me personally or promulgated upon my direction shall be kept under detention until otherwise ordered re- leased by me or by my duly designated representative.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the Republic of the Philippines to be affixed.

Done in the City of Manila, this 21st day of September, in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy two.

FERDINAND E. MARCOS
President
Republic of the Philippines

Unleash Hell

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Shame! Shame! Shame!

(My apologies for quickly reverting to serious threads, but this just rankled my nerves. Warning: this is a rant.)

A second American soldier has been convicted for the now infamous rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the murder of her family (parents and 5-year-old sister) in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. In case you weren't aware of the details, the rape victim, Abeer Qasim Hamza, was made aware that her parents and sister have been mudrered while she was being raped. And after being raped, her head was bashed in with a concrete block and her body set ablaze.

This soldier, Sgt. Paul Cortez from the 101st Airborne, gets 100 years for the heinous crime, but is eligible for parole in just 10 years. So he can get a measly 10 years in jail for his dastardly crime if his parole is granted, which is likely if he stays a good boy in jail (no little girls to rape there, after all). And 10 years from now the Iraq War and all its atrocities would be distant history, unless of course it's still raging.

Shame on American justice for giving this soldier an easy escape. It's fine to spare him from the death penalty for his cooperation, but allowing him a chance for parole in 10 years? If this were a white girl and her family, American media would be saturated with coverage and this soldier would be dead by now. Or at the minimum have a 100-year sentence without the chance for parole. But this sentence for the rape and murder of an Iraqi girl and her family is just so light. The US justice system has denied eligibility for parole for much lighter offenses, so why not now? In this case, justice has been denied from the most innocent of victims.

It'll be justice if he and his four co-rapists/murderers serve those first 10 years in an Iraqi prison. Hopefully they'll be spending most of their time sitting on broomsticks, and not like fairy-tale witches.

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Now, don't give me that crap that 99.99% of American soldiers in Iraq are doing their jobs honourably. This is not a case of how many good vs. how many bad; the Defense Department's (and American public's) attitude must be one atrocity is one too many. Besides, Mahmoudiya is not an isolated incident. BBC has a list of American atrocities in Iraq, and these are just the ones that made headlines in Western media. And if Robert Koehler is to be believed, the racism against Arabs is deep-seated in the US Armed Forces.

And don't give me crap about 3,000+ American soldiers dying in Iraq and the stress they face there (that's the excuse of the five Mahmoudiya soldeirs, btw-- an IED just killed a few of their mates so they wanted revenge). They have guns, for crying out loud. They are legitimate targets in a war. They can defend themselves from attackers. It's not an excuse or even an explanation for killing civilians. The Brits and Aussies are also in Iraq; so far they haven't done anything that approaches American atrocities.

Shame on Cheney-head Bush for starting this war. Shame on the American justice system for treating war criminals with kid-gloves. Shame on the American public for not demanding justice for Iraqi victims.