The grand attack on Marja was scarcely out of the starting blocks before it claimed its first child sacrifices: five children blown to pieces in a rocket strike on "a compound crowded with Afghan civilians," the New York Times reports.

Up to 12 civilians in total were killed in the strike, which occurred, we're told, when American artillery landed "a few hundred yards away" from another "mud-walled compound" from which U.S. Marines were reportedly taking fire. In keeping with the way of the modern warrior, the computer-guided rockets were launched from a base more than 10 miles away:  "Don't fire until the GPS tracker sends back remote data indicating the whites of their eyes are within 500 yards, boys!"

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former black ops honcho now heading the entire "humanitarian" military mission in Afghanistan, immediately apologized for "this tragic loss of life," and even went so far as to pull the particular remote-control death device from the order of battle, for the moment. Well, Stanley, live by PR, die by PR -- and as we noted here yesterday, the entire operation reeks of "Hamburger Hill"-style futility: sending in a great wad of cannon fodder to foster the illusion of momentum and success in an endless, pointless war of corporate profiteering and imperial chest-beating.

But the deaths of the five slaughtered children in Marja -- just like the deaths of at least 500,000 Iraqi children from the pre-war, bipartisan sanction-strangulation of Iraq -- are "worth it," of course. For while General Black Ops might take a single weapons system out to the woodshed for half an hour, he and his commander-in-chief will certainly not stop the all-out assault on the town, which is packed with civilians after U.S. forces encircled Marja just before the attack, cutting off the people who had been fleeing the widely-telegraphed operation.

The invading forces are also packed with civilians -- the many media embeds that General Black Ops encouraged to provide the steady stream of heroic "Normandy landing" and "Battle of Stalingrad" type stories, with rugged leathernecks slogging their way through enemy fire, cracking wise and fighting on despite their wounds. But speaking of the filmic framing provided by the media embeds, here's a curious fact: all the U.S. press reports state that the attack is being led by American forces, while the UK media are blazing banner tabloid headlines about "Our Boys Leading the Way in Helmand."

Oh well, victory has a thousand fathers, they say. And we know what the stench rising from the bodies in Marja says to our leaders: "It smells like ... victory."

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Art James, bebop-o, GoodCelery! said:

"napalm son" / Apocalypse Now Stan McChrystal loves the smell of napalm honchos in the morning. Chief of Staffs brief other stinking warmongers at the DC Sheraton. Barack Obama, a Nobel laureate, tells Beelzebub's cohorts`Ya stink! ` He ask General Goon to analyze the world's ills. Granny and Mammy! huh? Obama bombed! Mommy arouses Barack's conscience like Apple Pie! But who knows? Nothing is new. Effete scared goons on 'honcho' get each other from being like sheep! I am old enough to have seen napalm's aftermath. It does stink awful! Elite to smell too. Warmongering financiers squat at Waldorf's to sniff armpit or behind. In the next dimension? Who knows? Ask statistical dead Blaise Pascal. B. P. was a mathematical gambler? Yes. Before Nevada paintball bash. huh? I recall a post ref`CEOs shooting? It was a paintball party with nudes. Maybe you recall? Maybe I dream? It was about crawling in a hot hell. The war architect? You think 'um croak after their gorging satiations? They get fool full! The human body? The inner` Spirit. Immortality. The mortal. Every human surly knows the flesh and bone decay, rot, decompose-Smell. This government acts as a clog in Demonic stinky triple cheeseburger bun. I mean, eh? 'Um sniffer? Arm or groin? Don't ask Floyd. Journalist quote? Scribes know the book? Th Military Apocalypse? Maybe read Revelation? Ask al la apple pie lover. Allah mode. Ice creams. Barack has Adam apple. It sticks via skin necks. ` What a banter ramble! I'll go read about coot! Happy Valentine Chris! Belated. Thanks? Nightmare are wonder! You ever wonder? Fool! It's White Haunted Hut! ` What an administration! I go on on ref DC VAMC! The candidate BETRAYS! For two months I heard! I doubted B.O. a spieler! I was in DC as Barack Obama lied to the world. He may be employed post-croak? I Hope some compassionate `Pinkerton Black Op Agency give him karmic-wages. Reap/Sow. Rig R. Mortise? That's a stiff scythe reaper. He harvest folk post-living. Oh, and the living ain't easy. I love` Kathleen Battle lyrics. She sings of black hangings, whipping by whites in cotton. In sugar field and cotton field. Maybe people get dark blinds. People forget. 'um sell de' soul. Everybody knows they die too. Keep reminding, Chris Floyd. If they hear You they no kill. The old fashion Holy Ghost. A Holy Spirit can prick heart. I read that in the black book. Scripture in context tell truth. Oh well. Mud huts vs Whites. Next life? Rats in DCs ghetto. Stray dog? Eh, sniffing carrion. Mutt vomit? A feeble dog? Who knows? Iread in a proverb the dogs get rabies, scabies, worms, and scoot on butt holes. Proverbially speaking - The human maniac goes insane and vomits and laps it up. It returns to what is gross, bile, depraved, reprobate, etc., and then get audited. Dues get paid. Whatever account ... People can't hide ... Turn on Fox news ... The fawn like a flea beaten cat (Victory?) and get reviewed with an life's analogue. Fool. Full. Hyena chow! Oy! Modern day jackals! Wastrels. Debacles. Oy! Another era run by rat! I guess I am pissed off! You reminded me of `Nam and napalm. Napalm, once dried, hangs from tree and bushes, It coagulate into booger! It is sad. Napalm smells! Rotten flesh. Walk dead! Grunts called the rear area warmongers the Waking Dead. Immortality. Oho. What debacles. Stanley McCrystal's fellow-thugs CEO of Co. BO platoon can feud in future snot, vomit, and dung hole pits. Smell 'um? You can delete if Ya want. I get sick listening to 'um. apologies if this rant stink! Do say hi to Ya web master. Thanks. What nasty crooks! I don't even spiel too good! I got the flue. Ask a editor? Richard can? He can pull? huh? Pull the creeps rotten teeth! They stink worst than rotting carrion. Generals who feed Barack Obama eat in 5 -star rat holes in DC etc.,

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February 15, 2010
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martin luther blissett said:

	hamburger hillary sounds to me that the Secretary of State was speaking as much about her own government today as she was about Iran's.
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February 15, 2010
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scott douglas said:

... I have noticed that gentleness in the face of open aggression often breeds conflict that would not have otherwise occurred; specifically, personally: if I were to have signaled my own dominance-stance in advance of many an incident of conflict, a lot of misunderstandings might have been averted. That's the truth. It argues for militancy. This is retail monkey-relations, 101. But, if I may interpolate; I don't think Chris Floyd or anyone commenting at this site is suggesting that immediate instances of aggression should be met with meekness, exclusively. What is being promoted is an open-eyed view of the scope of the Crime against Humanity being perpetrated upon the ignorant masses in the post modern age and how best to deal with the power of this voracious Empire as it surges forward to the blind destruction of human society and the biosphere of the Planet. What I believe is being suggested is that aware and motivated individuals coming together as a social unit are capable of turning back even the most ferocious instruments of civilized aggression. And I believe this is a truth. Perhaps sacrifices will be made: How would they compare to the tens of millions of deaths tallied in WWII? Unless you posit a unipolar world ruled by the Devil, himself, the Conscience of Humanity would not allow any Power to prevail against resistance rooted in the basic Human Truth in which we all share. I believe we are very near the universal condition I have just painted. I believe that the time has come to simply stand in the road, Together, an say: Bring Home Our Armies! Bring Home Our Fleets! Do you really think these Plutocrats will prevail once the veil is torn from their enterprise? They will collapse like the ancien regime! All that it lacking is the will of the People! So, don't argue against resistance; and do not try to reason and siphon resistance into civil war! Just educate your fellows and hasten the day in which we stand together in the street against this monstrous machine and demand that it stand down!

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February 15, 2010
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Donald Paulus said:

Children and American Wars Perhaps, my poem applies to the young folk of Afghanistan as well. Children and WarApril 21, 2007 Belaya Tserkev, a town in the western Ukraine Saw in August, 1941, the execution of Ninety Jewish orphans ranging from infants To seven year olds. All shot to death. Babi Yar on the outskirts of Kiev in September, 1941, Witnessed the massacre of thousands of kids, At the incredibly notorious ravine where the machine guns Of Sonndercommando 4a grew cherry red from use. Chelmno, a holocaust site, south of Kolo, Poland, Observed in 1942 the premature deaths of the Unfortunate children from Lidice, Czechoslovakia, Innocent victims of Nazi wrath due to Heydrich's assassination. Treblinka, fifty miles northeast of Warsaw, Shuddered in grief as it carefully followed The brave and compassionate Doctor Janusz Korczak, As he gently accompanied his orphans to their untimely end. Iraq in the 1990's, according to UNICEF, Watched half a million children perish from malnutrition and disease, A pitiful condition induced by an American led blockade designed to Weaken and bring down the unpopular dictator, Saddam Hussein. Iraq since 2003 has experienced disease and severe malnutrition, With twenty percent of its young people very undernourished. Building an empire, America has unleashed the apocalyptic vials of War and occupation upon the pathetic cities of Mesopotamia. Like the Nazis, the Americans Display unparalleled ferocity In their devastating treatment of children, say in, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hanoi, and Baghdad. Was it not Christ who said, Suffer the little children to come unto me? I wonder what He has in store for a nation like ours, Which puts profits and patriotism over morality and humanity. I don't think it will be good. Perhaps, He will launch the seven plagues Of a contemporary retribution. How else to get the attention of insensitive America? Unpublished work © 2007Donald W. Paulus

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February 16, 2010
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