<![CDATA[The Michael Jackson Internet Fan Club MJIFC - Chris's Philosophy and Politics and Evolution and Science Forum]]> http://www.themjifc.com/forum/ en Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:20:53 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.themjifc.com/forum/images/misc/rss.jpg <![CDATA[The Michael Jackson Internet Fan Club MJIFC - Chris's Philosophy and Politics and Evolution and Science Forum]]> http://www.themjifc.com/forum/ Hawking: no God behind the Big Bang http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14617-hawking-no-god-behind-big-bang.html Sat, 04 Sep 2010 19:11:56 GMT So much for physics revealing “the mind of God.” Lest anybody still think that Stephen Hawking is religious, even in a deistic sense, check out his new book, The Grand Design (coauthored with American physicist Leonard Miodinow), available in the US September 7. Here’s part of Hawkings’s... So much for physics revealing “the mind of God.” Lest anybody still think that Stephen Hawking is religious, even in a deistic sense, check out his new book, The Grand Design (coauthored with American physicist Leonard Miodinow), available in the US September 7. Here’s part of Hawkings’s precis, taken from the Amazon listing:
Quote:
In The Grand Design we explain why, according to quantum theory, the cosmos does not have just a single existence, or history, but rather that every possible history of the universe exists simultaneously. We question the conventional concept of reality, posing instead a “model-dependent” theory of reality. We discuss how the laws of our particular universe are extraordinarily finely tuned so as to allow for our existence, and show why quantum theory predicts the multiverse–the idea that ours is just one of many universes that appeared spontaneously out of nothing, each with different laws of nature. And we assess M-Theory, an explanation of the laws governing the multiverse, and the only viable candidate for a complete “theory of everything.” As we promise in our opening chapter, unlike the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life given in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the answer we provide in The Grand Design is not, simply, “42.”
The front page of today’s Times (of London) highlights the book and Hawking’s godlessness (sadly, you’ll have to subscribe if you want to read this piece and the attendant Times pieces):



From the Times piece:
Quote:
Far from being a once-in-a-million event that could only be accounted for by extraordinary serendipity or a divine hand, the Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics, Hawking says. “Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist,” he writes.

“It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going,” he finds. . .

. . . Richard Dawkins, a biologist and fierce proponent of atheism, welcomed the book, describing it as Darwinism for the very fabric of Nature, not just the creatures living within it. “That’s exactly what he’s saying,” said Professor Dawkins. “I know nothing of the details of the physics but I had always assumed the same thing.”

However others, such as Professor George Ellis, an emeritus professor at the University of Cape Town and President of the International Society for Science and Religion, were less impressed. “My biggest problem with this is that it’s presenting the public with a choice: science or religion. A lot of people will say, ‘OK, I choose religion, then’ and it is science that will lose out,” he said.
Yes, let’s by all means avoid telling people what science learns about the universe lest that drive them back to the arms of Jebus.

In the obligatory defense-of-faith response, Ruth Gledhill, the Times religion correspondent, says this:
Quote:
When it comes to religion, Stephen Hawking is the voice of reason. Not for him the polemical style that has propelled Richard Dawkins to the fore of national consciousness in the God debates. His argument is likely in the long term to be more dangerous to religion because it is more measured than The God Delusion.
Hawking also coined the best ever tee-shirt slogan for rationalists. Discussing the conflict between science and religion with Diane Sawyer, he claimed that “Science will win because it works.” Check it out:

YouTube - Stephen Hawking on Religion: 'Science Will Win Because it Works'

Contrast this with Gledhill’s silly assertions to the contrary:
Quote:
Religious belief systems, in which people attempt to shape God into a mould of their own design, will be threatened by this book. But faith will continue beyond the day that a scientist explains the root of Hawking’s “spontaneous creation”.

At the atheist summer camps supported by Dawkins, children try to show that unicorns do not exist. They learn the difficulty of finding proof for the non-existence of being.

People of faith the world over will read this book and marvel. Then they will pray, not because faith is logical, but because it works.
Works? How is that?

Today (Sept. 2) there will be a live web debate on Hawking’s book, featuring Richard Dawkins, Ruth Gledhill, and Hannah Devlin (author of the Times piece above) at 2:30 p.m. London time, 9:30 a.m. EST. Sadly, you’ll have to pay at least a pound to see it. If you wish, go here and click where it says “The God Debate with Richard Dawkins.” Maybe someone with a quid to spare can report back.

Reposted from Hawking: no God behind the Big Bang « Why Evolution Is True ]]> ILLigitt http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14617-hawking-no-god-behind-big-bang.html <![CDATA[What's with the weather?]]> http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14578-whats-weather.html Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:03:22 GMT Ok... here's the deal. I'm Canadian and we deal with Celisus temperatures. But I will trying and do this in Farenheit.


Normally our summer extreme hotness lasts for about 3 weeks where we get temperatures ranging into around 94 - 98 with the humidex. It's noramlly around 86 without. Well the last few days it has been extremely abnormal for temperatures. Normally right now we're getting temperatures around 86 with the humidex and only about 70something without. Well right now it's 86 with the humidex of 104. As far back as I can remember we have never had temperatures reaching 104.

Tonight overnight they are predicting to be 86 humidex overnight when most times we don't have a humidex overnight.

And now there's a hurricane, Hurricane Earl, heading up the Eastern Coast. Normally where I live by the time hurricanes reach me, it's been reduced to a tropical storm that we only get a heavy rain and some high winds.

I remember back when I was little, our August temperatures where low enough that many people had to turn their heat on at night. ]]> Lady1Venus http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14578-whats-weather.html A short footnote on the grape and the grain http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14505-short-footnote-grape-grain.html Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:28:58 GMT Christopher Hitchens on the role of alcohol (and his "rules" :p)... excerpt from Hitch-22:



In the continuing effort to gain some idea of how one appears to other people, nothing is more useful than exposing oneself to an audience of strangers in a bookstore or a lecture hall. Very often, for example, sitting anxiously in the front row are motherly-looking ladies who, when they later come to have their books inscribed, will say such reassuring things as: "It's so nice to meet you in person: I had the impression that you were so angry and maybe unhappy." I hadn't been at all aware of creating this effect. (One of them, asking me to sign her copy of my Letters to a Young Contrarian, said to me wistfully: "I bought a copy of this to give to my son, hoping he'd become a contrarian, but he refused." Adorno would have appreciated the paradox.)

More affecting still is the anxious, considerate way that my hosts greet me, sometimes even at the airport, with a large bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label. It's almost as if they feel that they must propitiate the demon that I bring along with me. Interviewers arriving at my apartment frequently do the same, as if appeasing the insatiable. I don't want to say anything that will put even a small dent into this happy practice, but I do feel that I owe a few words. There was a time when I could reckon to outperform all but the most hardened imbibers, but I now drink relatively carefully. This ought to be obvious by induction: on average I produce at least a thousand words of printable copy every day, and sometimes more. I have never missed a deadline. I give a class or a lecture or a seminar perhaps four times a month and have never been late for an engagement or shown up the worse for wear. My boyish visage and my mellifluous tones are fairly regularly to be seen and heard on TV and radio, and nothing will amplify the slightest slur more than the studio microphone. (I think I did once appear on the BBC when fractionally whiffled, but those who asked me about it later were not sure whether I was not, a few days after September 11, a bit angry as well as a bit tired.) Anyway, it should be obvious that I couldn't do all of this if I was what the English so bluntly call a "piss-artist."

It's the professional deformation of many writers, and has ruined not a few. (I remember Kingsley Amis, himself no slouch, saying that he could tell on what page of the novel Paul Scott had reached for the bottle and thrown caution to the winds.) I work at home, where there is indeed a bar-room, and can suit myself. But I don't. At about half past midday, a decent slug of Mr. Walker's amber restorative, cut with Perrier water (an ideal delivery system) and no ice. At luncheon, perhaps half a bottle of red wine: not always more but never less. Then back to the desk, and ready to repeat the treatment at the evening meal. No "after dinner drinks"—​most especially nothing sweet and never, ever any brandy. "Nightcaps" depend on how well the day went, but always the mixture as before. No mixing: no messing around with a gin here and a vodka there.

Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing. The only worthwhile miracle in the New Testament—​the transmutation of water into wine during the wedding at Cana—​is a tribute to the persistence of Hellenism in an otherwise austere Judaea. The same applies to the Seder at Passover, which is obviously modeled on the Platonic symposium: questions are asked (especially of the young) while wine is circulated. No better form of sodality has ever been devised: at Oxford one was positively expected to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied. It's not a coincidence that Omar Khayyam, rebuking and ridiculing the stone-faced Iranian mullahs of his time, pointed to the value of the grape as a mockery of their joyless and sterile regime. Visiting today's Iran, I was delighted to find that citizens made a point of defying the clerical ban on booze, keeping it in their homes for visitors even if they didn't particularly take to it themselves, and bootlegging it with great brio and ingenuity. These small revolutions affirm the human.

At the wild Saturnalia that climaxes John Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat, the charismatic Danny manages to lay so many women that, afterward, even the females who didn't receive his attentions prefer to claim, rather than appear to have been overlooked, that they were included, too. I can't make any comparable boast but quite often I get second-hand reports about people who claim to have spent evenings in my company that belong to song, story, and legend when it comes to the Dionysian. I once paid a visit to the grotesque holding-pen that the United States government maintains at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. There wasn't an unsupervised moment on the whole trip, and the main meal we ate—​a heavily calorific affair that was supposed to demonstrate how well-nourished the detainees were—​was made even more inedible by the way that water (with the option of a can of Sprite) flowed like wine. Yet a few days later I ran into a friend at the White House who told me half-admiringly: "Way to go at Guantánamo: they say you managed to get your own bottle and open it down on the beach and have a party." This would have been utterly unfeasible in that bizarre Cuban enclave, half-madrassa and half-stockade, but it was still completely and willingly believed. Publicity means that actions are judged by reputations and not the other way about: I never wonder how it happens that mythical figures in religious history come to have fantastic rumors credited to their names.

"Hitch: making rules about drinking can be the sign of an alcoholic," as Martin Amis once teasingly said to me. (Adorno would have savored that, as well.) Of course, watching the clock for the start-time is probably a bad sign, but here are some simple pieces of advice for the young. Don't drink on an empty stomach: the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food. Don't drink if you have the blues: it's a junk cure. Drink when you are in a good mood. Cheap booze is a false economy. It's not true that you shouldn't drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain. Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can't properly remember last night. (If you really don't remember, that's an even worse sign.) Avoid all narcotics: these make you more boring rather than less and are not designed—​as are the grape and the grain—​to enliven company. Be careful about up-grading too far to single malt Scotch: when you are voyaging in rough countries it won't be easily available. Never even think about driving a car if you have taken a drop. It's much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don't know quite why this is true but it just is. Don't ever be responsible for it.

Buy Hitch-22. ]]> ILLigitt http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14505-short-footnote-grape-grain.html 12th and Delaware http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14454-12th-delaware.html Sun, 22 Aug 2010 13:10:49 GMT YouTube - HBO Documentary Films: 12th & Delaware Trailer (HBO)

If you can watch this somewhere, please do. It's amazing the extent pro-lifers will go. ]]> LittleCup http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14454-12th-delaware.html Money? http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14399-money.html Thu, 19 Aug 2010 01:29:52 GMT YouTube - I Want Your Money Trailer (2010) HD ]]> Gomon87 http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14399-money.html <![CDATA["Absence of Evidence Is Evidence of Absence" - Victor Stenger]]> http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14383-absence-evidence-evidence-absence-victor-stenger.html Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:42:43 GMT Absence of Evidence Is Evidence of Absence

Victor Stenger
Physicist; Author of the forthcoming book 'The Fallacy of Fine Tuning: How the Universe is Not Designed for Us'
Posted: August 14, 2010 09:07 AM


Even the most pious believer has to admit that there is no scientific evidence for God or anything else supernatural. If there were, it would be in the textbooks along with the evidence for electricity, gravity, neutrinos, and DNA. This doesn't bother most believers because they have heard many times that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

However, just repeating a statement over and over again does not make it true. I can think of many cases where absence of evidence provides robust evidence of absence. The key question is whether evidence should exist but does not. Elephants have never been seen roaming Yellowstone National Park. If they were, they would not have escaped notice. No matter how secretive, the presence of such huge animals would have been marked by ample physical signs -- droppings, crushed vegetation, bones of dead elephants. So we can safely conclude from the absence of evidence that elephants are absent from the park.

For thirty years physicists have been searching for a particle called the Higgs boson that hypothetically plays a key role in the universe, so important that it has been referred to (perhaps facetiously) as the "God Particle." In the standard model of particles and forces put in place in the 1970s and consistent with every observation since, Higgs bosons pervade the universe and generate mass, the very stuff of matter. We have failed to observe them so far because we have lacked the necessary instruments. However, there are good theoretical reasons to believe that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva, now accumulating its initial data, should provide evidence for the Higgs. If it does not -- a prospect most physicists regard as possible -- then the Higgs boson would be shown not to exist.

That is the situation with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God. Until recent times, absence of evidence for his existence has not been sufficient to rule him out. However, we now have enough knowledge that we can identify many places where there should be evidence, but there is not. The absence of that evidence allows us to rule out the existence of this God beyond a reasonable doubt.

Now, I am not talking about all conceivable gods. Certainly the deist god who does not interfere in the world is difficult to rule out. However, the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God, whom I identify with an uppercase G, is believed to play such an active role in the universe that his actions should have been detected, thus confirming his existence. Let me present four examples.

I will begin with the origin of the visible universe. Our knowledge today allows us to push back in time to barely a trillionth of a second after the universe began. Extrapolating from there to the origin, we find that the universe began in a tiny (but not infinitesimal) region of space. Now, information only exists when it is embodied in some physical system, and we know that there is a limit to how compact information can be. This tiny region of space could not have contained more than a few bits of information -- far too little to specify the universe that evolved from it.

As the universe expanded, it could hold more information. This created an environment in which order could emerge -- as, over time, through an endless series of random events, it did. But the tiny amount of information contained in the very early universe was not enough to include any plans of some creator at that time. This allows for the possibility of a deist god who set things up, started things going randomly, and then left. It does not allow for some specific plan of creation to be embodied in the universe from the beginning. A God with such a plan can be ruled out beyond a reasonable doubt.

Next, consider the claim that the universe was designed. Many people give this as a reason to believe in God. They cannot see how the order of the universe can have come about naturally. However, observations in physics, cosmology, and biology have been scoured for evidence for design in the universe, evidence that should be there if there were a designer God. None has been found. This includes the frequently heard claim that the parameters of physics and cosmology exhibit a fine-tuning for the evolution of life. That subject will be covered in great detail in my next book: The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: How the Universe is not Designed for Us. My conclusion is that the claims of fine-tuning are based on inadequate knowledge of physics.

Intelligent design in biology has been thoroughly refuted in recent years, so I need not say much. Everywhere biologists look they find evidence of randomness and haphazard arrangements that would be called incompetent if they were designed. No matter where scientists cast their eyes, the universe they see looks just like it should look if there was no divine design.

Third, consider the supposed power of intercessory prayer. Well-executed experiments by reputable institutions such as Harvard, Duke, and the Mayo Clinic have failed to find that prayer improves the recovery of hospital patients. Apologists simply say God did not choose to respond to this test. But you can bet they would have changed their tune if the results had been positive. Trillions of prayers have been tendered over millennia. Of course, most sick people get better anyway, except once. If the God most people worship and pray to does exist, intercessory prayer would have a better batting average than what you would get from the normal operation of the natural world, including luck. It doesn't.

As the final example, the Abrahamic God is believed by his worshipers to talk to people and provide information they otherwise did not know. Nothing could be easier to test scientifically. All you have to do is find a few examples where a truth has been revealed that later was confirmed. This could be something simple, such as a prediction of some future event that turned out to be confirmed. This has never happened.

Of course, claims of revelation can be found in all three monotheisms, but none stand up to critical scrutiny. The so-called prophecies in scriptures were all made in the distant past and can't be tested since the events prophesied have already happened, or, as in the case of Jesus returning in a generation, long been falsified.

In all of these examples, evidence for God should have been found, but was not. This absence of evidence is evidence of absence. It refutes the common assertion that science has nothing to say about God. In fact, science can say, beyond any reasonable doubt, that God -- the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God -- does not exist. ]]> ILLigitt http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14383-absence-evidence-evidence-absence-victor-stenger.html Would athetists have the right to protest a church? http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14348-would-athetists-have-right-protest-church.html Sun, 15 Aug 2010 15:19:01 GMT All of this talk about the mosque being built in NYC got me thinking: if Christians, who are opposed to the mosque by a staggering 68%, have the right to protest a mosque, would Atheists have the right to protest any other church/temple/mosque/whatever? If Atheists did the same thing to... All of this talk about the mosque being built in NYC got me thinking: if Christians, who are opposed to the mosque by a staggering 68%, have the right to protest a mosque, would Atheists have the right to protest any other church/temple/mosque/whatever?

If Atheists did the same thing to Christians that the Christians are doing to the Muslims, would they be heard out or thought of as crazy?

By the way, the mosque isn't even a temple. It's a small spot in a shopping strip next to a Burlington Coat Factory. This is what Christians are protesting and it makes me want to protest the next HUGE CHURCH they put up near my neighbourhood. I'll just say that a Christian murdered her husband a few weeks ago a few doors down from me (which is the truth) and it's disrespectful to his memory to build something like that.

I won't, but I want to.

Anyway...

Thoughts? ]]> LittleCup http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14348-would-athetists-have-right-protest-church.html <![CDATA[The NEW "What Are You Reading?" thread]]> http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14325-new-what-you-reading-thread.html Fri, 13 Aug 2010 14:45:33 GMT And why? :D And why? :D ]]> ILLigitt http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14325-new-what-you-reading-thread.html WikiLeaks in Baghdad http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14271-wikileaks-baghdad.html Mon, 09 Aug 2010 16:51:45 GMT

WikiLeaks in Baghdad

Sarah Lazare and Ryan Harvey | July 29, 2010

One by one, soldiers just arriving in Baghdad were taken into a room and questioned by their commanding officers. "All questions led up to the big question," explains former Army Spc. Josh Stieber. "If someone were to pull out a weapon in a marketplace full of unarmed civilians, would you open fire on that person, even if you knew you would hurt a lot of innocent people in the process?"

It was a trick question. "Not only did you have to say yes, but you had to say yes without hesitating," explains Stieber. "In refusing to go along with the crowd, it was not irregular for somebody to get beat up," he adds. "They'll take you in a room, close the door and knock you around if they didn't like your answer," says former Army Spc. Ray Corcoles, who deployed with Stieber.

According to these former soldiers, this was a typical moment of training for Bravo Company 2-16 (2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment), the ground unit involved in the infamous "Collateral Murder" video, which captured global headlines when it was released in April by WikiLeaks, the online clearinghouse for anonymous leaks. (In late July WikiLeaks dropped another bombshell with its release of more than 90,000 secret US military documents from the war in Afghanistan, including detailed reports on Pakistani collusion with the insurgents—who have successfully used heat-seeking missiles against allied forces—US assassination teams, widespread civilian casualties from US attacks and staggering Afghan government incompetence and corruption.)

The graphic video from Baghdad shows a July 2007 attack in which US forces, firing from helicopter gunships, wounded two children and killed more than a dozen Iraqis, including two Reuters employees and the father of those children. The video quickly became an international symbol of the brutality and callousness of the US military in Iraq. What the world did not see is the months of training that led up to the incident, in which soldiers were taught to respond to threats with a barrage of fire—a "wall of steel," in Army parlance—even if it put civilians at risk.

Now three former soldiers from this unit have come forward to make the case that the incident is not a matter of a few bad-apple soldiers but rather just one example of US military protocol in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, where excessive acts of violence often stem from the chain of command. This comes at a time when the top brass in Afghanistan are speaking openly of relaxing the rules of engagement. After Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recent ouster for publicly criticizing the Obama administration, his successor, Gen. David Petraeus, has asserted that military protocol in Afghanistan should be adjusted because of "concerns" about "the application of our rules of engagement," a move that critics fear will cause civilian deaths to skyrocket.

The story that Stieber, Corcoles and former Army Spc. Ethan McCord tell provides crucial background for the incident that WikiLeaks made famous. Bravo Company 2-16 deployed to Iraq in February 2007 during the "surge" ordered by George W. Bush. Their spring arrival in New Baghdad, a dangerous neighborhood in eastern Baghdad bordering Sadr City, coincided with the start of the deadliest three-month period for US forces during the Iraq War.

"I had the idea that I was going over there to help the Iraqi people—you know, freedom and democracy," says McCord, an expectation that Stieber and Corcoles say they shared. They learned quickly that the reality was very different. All three of these former soldiers describe a general policy of, in McCord's words, trying to "out-terrorize the terrorists" in order to establish power in a neighborhood that clearly did not want US troops there. The next months would be spent raiding houses, responding to sniper fire and IEDs, and, as Corcoles says, "driving around just waiting to get shot at." All of them would witness the abuse, displacement and killing of Iraqi civilians.

When Bravo Company 2-16 arrived in New Baghdad to establish its Combat Outpost (COP) in an old factory, hundreds of angry residents gathered in protest. In grainy video footage brought back by McCord, residents can be seen converging around the soldiers and chanting, and McCord is seen standing in front of the crowd with his weapon drawn. Corcoles, behind the camera, was guarding the gate of the new post. "The first sergeant told me to shoot anyone who tried to rush the soldiers outside the gate," he says. Some Iraqis were then dragged inside, beaten and questioned. When the crowds dispersed, construction crews came in to begin building a wall around the new post. To clear the area, the military forced people to leave. "We were kicking people out of their homes," says McCord. "People who didn't want to move, we would basically force them to move...pretty much making them leave at gunpoint."

From then on the violence escalated. Corcoles describes the first IED death his unit suffered. "We did a mission that night till like midnight, and we were actually just sitting down.... I hadn't even got three or four drags off my cigarette and an IED went off.... We watched the Humvee burn, but we didn't realize [someone] was still in it."

The IED attacks left the soldiers angry and scared. McCord recalls one mission to impose curfews. Earlier that day, a popular soldier had died in an IED attack, and the troops took it out on the Iraqis. "There were a lot of people who got beat up that night," he says bluntly. This anger was turned into policy by the chain of command. "We had just lost three guys to an IED when the battalion commander came out to the COP," says McCord. He went on to explain that the commander gave orders to shoot indiscriminately after IED attacks. "He said, '**** it, this is what I want...anytime someone in your line gets hit by an IED...you kill every mother****er in the street,'" McCord testifies.

"When one [IED] went off, you were supposed to open fire on anybody," says Stieber. "At first I would just fire into a field. Then I wouldn't fire at all." He describes an IED that went off near a crowd of teenagers. "I said I wouldn't fire," even though "other people were firing," he recalls. Like Stieber, Corcoles describes incidents in which he purposely aimed his gun away from people. "You don't even know if somebody's shooting at you," he says. "It's just insanity to just start shooting people." Stieber pointed out that in incidents like these, it was very rare for US military vehicles to stop to help the wounded or assess how many people had been injured or killed.

Stieber was intimidated and reprimanded by his command for refusing orders to shoot. "One time when I didn't fire, people in my truck were yelling at me for the rest of the mission. When we got back, one or two leaders got up in my face and kept yelling at me and stuff," he says. The command eventually stopped sending him on missions as a gunner, and Stieber says he "faced a lot of criticism for it." Corcoles saw this too. "One night our truck got hit by an IED and Josh didn't fire, and another soldier didn't fire," he says. "And they were getting yelled at: 'Why aren't you firing?' And they said, 'There's nobody to fire at.'"

Corcoles recalls another "wall of steel" incident: "Our first sergeant was with us, and after we got hit by an IED, people started shooting everywhere, and they were also actually shooting at him." He explains that his sergeant happened to be within range of indiscriminate fire coming from US soldiers. After almost getting shot by the soldiers, "our first sergeant told us not to do this anymore," says Corcoles.

Excessive acts of violence were woven into daily missions, house searches and prisoner detention, says McCord. "This one time, in the summer of 2007, we were in a barbershop and my platoon leader was asking the barbershop owner about the local militia," he says. "The interpreter kept saying the owner didn't know anything. The platoon leader said, 'He is ****ing lying,'" says McCord, explaining that it was always assumed that Iraqis who said they didn't know anything were lying. "I remember my platoon leader punching him in the face. When [the barbershop owner] went to ground, he was kicked by others in the platoon. Many other Iraqis were in there to get their hair cut. They were up against the wall watching him get kicked."

McCord says that when others in his unit saw this kind of behavior condoned by the leadership, they followed suit. He describes multiple instances in which soldiers abused detainees or beat people up in their houses. In one case, he says, someone was taken from his house, beaten up and then left on the side of the road, bloodied and still handcuffed.

In this setting, the "Collateral Murder" incident does not stand out as a drastic departure from the norm. That morning, Corcoles and McCord prepared for a "Ranger dominance" mission, "a clearing mission to basically go through every house, top to bottom, from one end of town to the next," says Corcoles. Stieber, who had been pulled off these missions because of his refusal to fire at crowds, was not with them this time. For the rest of the unit, what started as another day of house searches became a four-hour battle with militia members, say Corcoles and McCord. McCord was searching houses near Corcoles when he heard two Apache helicopters open fire nearby. He knew these helicopters were assigned to guard forces on the ground, so he knew something serious was occurring. "I heard over the net that we needed to move to that position," he recalls. He ran four or five blocks to the scene. "I was one of the first six dismounted soldiers to arrive there."

"It seemed unreal," says McCord, who describes running up and "seeing the carnage of what used to be human beings on the corner." A passenger van sat nearby, pocked with bullet holes and littered with bodies. Corcoles arrived on the scene shortly after McCord, who soon discovered two critically wounded children in the van and was able to pull them to safety. These moments would later be broadcast around the world in harrowing detail. McCord is seen in the video rushing wounded children away from the van. Photos that McCord took at the scene show mangled corpses lying in the road and one of the children, crouched in the front seat of the van next to a dead body.

Immediately following the incident, McCord was threatened and mocked by his commanding officer for pulling the children from the van. He says his platoon leader "yelled at me that I need to quit worrying about these 'mother****ing kids' and pull security." McCord later approached a staff sergeant and told him he needed mental healthcare after the incident. "He told me to stop being a pussy...to get the sand out of my ******," he says. "I was told there would be repercussions." Fearing punishment, McCord did not ask again.

After conducting an internal investigation, the military cleared the unit of any wrongdoing. An "Investigation into Civilian Casualties Resulting from an Engagement on 12 July 2007 in the New Baghdad District of Baghdad, Iraq" found that "the proceedings comply with legal requirements" and "contain no material errors or violate any individual's substantial rights." The US Central Command refused several requests for an interview. And now Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who is accused of leaking the video to WikiLeaks, is facing heavy charges punishable under the Espionage Act. The 22-year-old was transferred to Kuwait for a military trial that could lock him away in prison for decades.

In the months following the July 12 events, violence in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood subsided as the political winds shifted. After Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr declared a cease-fire and the United States moved toward a strategy of alliance with the Sunni Awakening Councils and some Shiite militia members, the soldiers began working with the very people they had once been told to fight, Stieber explains. "Things were pretty calm for most of the rest of the time, until like the last couple weeks that we were there," he says. As the troops finished their tour, some factions broke with Sadr's cease-fire and resumed fighting, and Bravo Company 2-16's COP was burned to the ground. "All hell broke loose," says Stieber. "The quick surge in violence at the end of our tour, when peace treaties were broken...show[s] that any progress that was made was [made] through negotiation as opposed to brute force." He says he found it contradictory that soldiers would end up legitimizing the people they had once fought.

McCord would return home early, suffering long-term injury from IED attacks that left him with a shattered lower spine and traumatic brain injury (TBI). He says the military at first tried to deny him treatment but eventually agreed to grant him back surgery after civilian tests showed serious injury. Despite TBI and severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), McCord says the military refused to grant him a medical discharge and instead discharged him with a pre-existing personality disorder, a distinction that precludes him from receiving disability benefits from the military [see Joshua Kors, "Disposable Soldiers," [1] April 26].

The three soldiers returned to the United States disillusioned with the war they had once volunteered to fight. "From my experiences in Iraq, we shouldn't even be in these countries fighting wars. This is a war of aggression, of occupation. There is nothing justifiable to me about this war," says McCord. "And this isn't someone sitting back saying 'I think' or 'I believe.' This is from someone who was there."

Three years after their deployment to Iraq, these former soldiers were forced to confront that war when the WikiLeaks video was thrust into the limelight. They watched as the familiar scene became a media sensation, making international headlines and raising the ire and disgust of people around the world.

By this point, Stieber, now 22, had become an outspoken peace activist. When he heard about the video, he was in the midst of planning a speaking tour with a man from Iraq with the goal of "showing that we have more in common with the people we're told are our enemies than those telling us who our enemies are," he says. After WikiLeaks posted the video, Stieber e-mailed several people from his former unit explaining that he was going to speak out about the incident. McCord, now 34 and raising two children, and Corcoles, 35 and raising a child, have both decided to join Stieber's effort.

The three have decided to go public to let the world know the context behind the acts caught on film. "If people don't like that video, then the entire system needs to be re-examined, and I think it illustrates why we shouldn't put soldiers in that situation," insists Stieber. Corcoles, now suffering from severe PTSD, says he wants the public to understand that "war kills civilians first." He says, "I think Americans...need to take responsibility. If you pay taxes, you pay for that soldier's wage. You're just as guilty as the soldier pulling the trigger."

"What was shown in the Wikileaks video only begins to depict the suffering we have created," reads an open letter from McCord and Stieber to the Iraqis who were injured or lost loved ones in the July 2007 attack. "From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region."

Of course, these three are not the first soldiers to break the silence about the rules of engagement in the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the March 2008 Winter Soldier hearings in Maryland, more than fifty veterans and active-duty service members publicly testified about the orders they were told to carry out in these countries, sharing stories of excessive violence, as well as of abusive and threatening treatment they endured from their superiors [see Laila Al-Arian, "Winter Soldiers Speak [2]," April 7, 2008; and Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian, "The Other War [3]," July 30/August 6, 2007].

The three former soldiers say they support the decision to leak these videos to the public. "Avoiding talking about what's going on is going to make us continue making the same mistakes and not learning our lesson," insists Stieber. About the most recent WikiLeaks revelations, Stieber says, "People all over the world have been confronted once again with the realities of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," adding that the latest release "confirms what veterans like Ethan, Ray and I, and so many other veteran witnesses, have been talking about."

But the occupations drag on, with President Obama continuing a Bush-era plan that will leave 50,000 "noncombat" troops in Iraq until at least the end of 2011. And top military brass have suggested that the August 31 deadline for withdrawal of "combat" troops may be extended. Meanwhile, Obama is sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, bringing the total force there to more than 100,000, in what is now the longest war in US history. June was the deadliest month for NATO forces in Afghanistan, with 102 deaths, and as of press time July had become the second deadliest, with seventy-eight deaths.

All three soldiers say they hope Americans will learn the right lessons from the WikiLeaks video. "We acknowledge our part in the deaths and injuries of your loved ones as we tell Americans what we were trained to do and what we carried out in the name of 'god and country,'" write McCord and Stieber in their open letter. "The soldier in the video said that your husband shouldn't have brought your children to battle, but we are acknowledging our responsibility for bringing the battle to your neighborhood, and to your family. We did unto you what we would not want done to us."

"Our heavy hearts still hold hope that we can restore inside our country the acknowledgment of your humanity, that we were taught to deny."

Source URL: http://www.thenation.com/article/38034/wikileaks-baghdad

Links:
[1] http://www.thenation.com/article/disposable-soldiers
[2] http://www.thenation.com/article/winter-soldiers-speak
[3] http://www.thenation.com/article/other-war-iraq-vets-bear-witness-0 ]]> ILLigitt http://www.themjifc.com/forum/chriss-philosophy-politics-evolution-science-forum/14271-wikileaks-baghdad.html