{"id":53410,"date":"2013-07-26T14:40:06","date_gmt":"2013-07-26T13:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/military-deviancy-and-war-trophies-body-parts-forearms-and-souvenir-stars-and-stripes-from-predator-drones\/53410\/"},"modified":"2013-07-26T14:40:06","modified_gmt":"2013-07-26T13:40:06","slug":"military-deviancy-and-war-trophies-body-parts-forearms-and-souvenir-stars-and-stripes-from-predator-drones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/military-deviancy-and-war-trophies-body-parts-forearms-and-souvenir-stars-and-stripes-from-predator-drones\/","title":{"rendered":"Military Deviancy and War \u201cTrophies\u201d: Body Parts, Forearms and Souvenir Stars and Stripes from Predator Drones"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cWhen fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.<\/em>\u201d (Sinclair Lewis, 1885-1951: \u201cIt Can\u2019t Happen Here\u201d, 1935.)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0It is impossible not to ponder that the military and military planning disciplines attract some with tendencies to extremes in deviance, psychosis and general psychological aberrances.
<\/span><\/p>\n

When yet another example comes to light \u2014 \u201ctrophy\u201d photographs of soldiers with dead and mutilated bodies, soldiers urinating on the dead, soldiers removing body parts as \u201csouvenirs\u201d, unspeakable torture on orders from on high, rapes, body burnings to hide the crimes \u2014 it is assumed it can get no worse. Inevitably it does.
<\/span><\/p>\n

In World War 11 Japanese body parts, including ears, teeth and especially skulls, were routinely gathered as keepsakes by US soldiers.
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\u201cThe desecration of the bodies of Japanese soldiers was so common that in 1944, Life magazine published a light-hearted photo of a young woman posing with a Japanese soldier\u2019s skull, sent to her from New Guinea by her Navy boyfriend. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cThat same year, columnist Drew Pearson reported that Representative Francis E. Walter (D-Penn.) had presented President Franklin D. Roosevelt with a letter opener made from the forearm of a Japanese soldier. \u2018This is the sort of gift I like to get\u2019, Pearson quotes FDR saying.\u201d (i)
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Further: \u201c \u2026 as is often the case with souvenirs and holiday mementos purchased by tourists \u2014 as gifts for relatives and others back home. Some collected such objects (ie body parts) at the specific request of family members.\u201d
<\/span><\/p>\n

In Viet Nam, incidentally, a favoured trophy body part was a penis.
<\/span><\/p>\n

US Armed forces personnel have for decades written messages on missiles they are about to drop on schools, residential neighborhoods, hospitals, churches, mosques, synagogues, markets, malls, reducing living souls to scraps of charred flesh \u2014 or simply vaporizing them, no body or even flesh shard, to wash and kiss for the last time, no grave at which to mourn, sit and \u201ctalk\u201d to the lost love.
<\/span><\/p>\n

A favored missile message in the Ramadan bombing of Iraq in 1998, as children lost their minds in terror and parents near lost theirs in their efforts to protect them, was: \u201cHave a happy Ramadan, Saddam.\u201d
<\/span><\/p>\n

I have written before of General Colin Powell and the then Secretary of Defence Dick Cheney , three days before the 1991 bombing of Baghdad\u2019s Ameriyah Shelter on the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden, visiting the US Air base at Khamis Mushat, Saudia Arabia (slogan: \u201cBombs are us\u201d and \u201cWe live so others may die.\u201d)
<\/span><\/p>\n

They both amused themselves by each signing a thousand pound bomb: \u201cTo Saddam with fond regards\u201d, wrote Cheney (\u201cA General\u2019s War\u201d, General Bernard Traynor and Michael Gordon, p.324.) When the Shelter was bombed, frantic calls followed incase the bombs might have been involved in the massacre. Cheney\u2019s bomb apparently fell on northern Iraq, dropped by a Major Wes Wyrich. What lives Powell\u2019s terminated, is either unknown or a well kept secret.
<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 2006 Israel-Lebanon \u201cSummer War\u201d, Israeli school children were encouraged and allowed to go a military base and sign missiles to be dropped on other school children in Lebanon: \u201cFrom Israel with love.\u201d
<\/span><\/p>\n

The reality behind this sick exercise, as Stephen Lendman has written (ii) was that: \u201c<\/span>Besides vast destruction and mass population displacement, three hundred and thirteen children were killed among the 1,414 who died over a twenty three day period. Of the 5,300 injured (many seriously), 1,606 were children. In all cases, the vast majority were noncombatants.\u201d
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Further: \u201calmost fifteen percent were under five, and another one-fourth between five and ten; the remainder were between eleven and seventeen, with the \u2018overwhelming majority\u2019 killed in densely populated residential areas.\u201d
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Weapons Israel sent \u201cwith love\u201d from its children included: \u201cconventional and illegal weapons. The former included missiles, artillery and tank shells, mortars, and automatic weapons.
<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOthers included:
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\n

\u201cWhite phosphorous which burns flesh to the bone and can be fatal; it\u2019s use is prohibited in civilian areas and \u2018flechettes\u2019 \u2014 four centimeter long darts used as anti-personnel weapons; penetrating to the bone, they can cause multiple horrific injuries.
<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUp to eight thousand of them can be packed into one artillery shell;<\/strong> on explosion, they travel at high speed in multiple directions \u2026\u201d [to tear life apart, \u201cwith love.\u201d] (My emphasis.)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0Then of course, there are the \u201cJesus rifles\u201d with coded New Testament Bible passages : \u201cinscribed on high powered rifle sights provided to the US military in Afghanistan\u201d and formerly in Iraq. They were also used by the Iraqi and Afghan soldiers they were training. As with the countless thousands of bibles the troops brought with them to distribute in both countries and their routine defacing of the Qu\u2019ran in homes, schools and mosques, \u201cCrusaders\u201d are certainly US.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Whilst the military have denied they had knowledge of the biblical verses on their weapons of human destruction, Michael Weinstein, of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, who campaigns for the separation of church and state, claims that military Commanders have referred to these weapons as: \u201cspiritually transformed firearms of Jesus Christ.\u201d
<\/span><\/p>\n

Weinstein says it also plays in to the hands of those: \u201cwho are calling (US invasions) a Crusade.\u201d You bet. \u201cThis is probably the best example of violation of the separation of church and state in this country\u201d, he says, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s literally pushing fundamentalist Christianity at the point of a gun against the people we are fighting. We\u2019re emboldening an enemy.\u201d(iii)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0And insulting, humiliating and enraging further, as if illegal invasions of the countries, and indeed their values and cultures were not enough.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Then of course, there is humiliation by flag. The raising of the Stars and Stripes above other countries\u2019 national buildings, monuments, palaces. The placing of it over the face of Saddam Hussein\u2019s Statue in Firdos Square, an act that arguably, sent revulsion, rage and resentment round the entire region \u2014 whether in the \u201cfor\u201d or \u201cagainst\u201d Saddam camp.
<\/span><\/p>\n

However, arguably even the above pales against a little noticed inspiration by the US 414th<\/sup> Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron operating out of Turkey\u2019s Incirlik Air Base.
<\/span><\/p>\n

In May last year, they launched: a commemorative flag programme. Takers can have a souvenir Stars and Stripes flown in one of their MQ-1B Predator Drones, on a twenty two hour round trip mission \u2014 a \u201cunique gift\u201d which could \u201cintrigue\u201d, or have \u201dpatriotic value.\u201d It comes with a \u201cpersonalized certificate outlining the operations and details about the (Drone) on which the flag was flown.\u201d
<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cOnce we\u2019re done, we draw up a certificate with the history of that particular flight and the requester can present the flag as a gift to a person of their choosing. We also put the person\u2019s name, the name of the operation and some background on there as well.\u201d
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Whilst these mission flags from potential killing forays have: \u201cbeen around for a long time \u2026 In most aircraft it flies for a few hours \u2026 Our particular mission flies for twenty two hours.\u201d Seemingly: \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t know about it until we present it to someone they know then they\u2019re like \u2018 Oh, I want one, what do I need to do?\u2019 \u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0They will also fly and certify flags for \u201cguests and distinguished visitors\u201d and \u201cfor people back home, churches<\/strong>, state organizations\u201d and other \u201clucky recipients.\u201d (My emphasis.)
<\/span><\/p>\n

Are those who request this symbol of these cowardly, lethal, remotely operated, rightly named \u201cPredators\u201d aware that they hang in their homes a symbol of child killings, shepherd and farmer killings, village eradicating obscenity? <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Through the ages, the religious have recorded blood running from statues, tombs, monuments of Martyrs and Saints. I am a sceptic. But if a pool of blood was found under one of those flags, I would not bat an eyelid.
<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe believe that America is great when its people are good\u201d, stated the website of the manufacturers of the biblically inscribed high powered rifle sights, Trijicon, of Wixom, Michigan: \u201cThis goodness has been based on Biblical standards throughout our history \u2026\u201d
<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sinclair Lewis (top quote) was undisputedly a clairvoyant.<\/span><\/p>\n

Notes<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

i. http:\/\/blogs.reuters.com\/jackshafer\/2012\/04\/18\/sadly-human-trophies-are-as-old-as-war-itself\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

ii. http:\/\/www.globalresearch.ca\/israeli-war-crimes-against-children-during-operation-cast-lead\/13956<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

iii.http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Blotter\/us-military-weapons-inscribed-secret-jesus-bible-codes\/story?id=9575794<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

iv.http:\/\/www.incirlik.af.mil\/news\/story.asp?id=123300331<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Republished from: Global Research<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u201cWhen fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.\u201d (Sinclair Lewis, 1885-1951: \u201cIt Can\u2019t Happen Here\u201d, 1935.) \u00a0It is impossible not to ponder that the military and military planning disciplines attract some with tendencies to extremes in deviance, psychosis and general psychological aberrances. When yet another example comes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-53410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}