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CounterPunch
October
5, 2002
When the Bullet
Meets the Bone:
Fleischer's Single Bullet Doctrine
by JOHN STANTON
Coincidental, no doubt, but one day after Bush
spokesman Ari Fleischer's comment on putting a bullet into the
sovereign ruler of Iraq's head, five US citizens in a suburb
of Washington, DC, lost their lives in just that manner while
innocently going about their daily routines. Each was brought
down by a single shot as if to underscore the sickening logic
of Fleischer's comment that "the cost of one bulletis substantially
less than the cost of war"
Yes, indeed, and that's the same logic
used by the DC Metro shooters, Al Qaeda and a host of other terrorist
groups and common criminals. The "evil doers" return-on-investment
(ROI) makes its way to infinity as US taxpayers, businesses and
the US national, state and local governing apparatus affected
by these violent acts will never realistically recoup the lost
lives and their potential, or the dollars and time spent in the
chase for the perpetrators, caught or not. Likewise, the US ROI
would be enormous if someone, anyone, would take Fleischer's
advice and "off" a pesky foreign leader who just happens
to sit on world class oil reserves. A compelling economic argument
indeed.
On its face, Fleischer's efficacious
single bullet doctrine, whether it leads, say, to a friendly
US regime in Iraq and cheap oil, or, ultimately, the deaths of
American citizens and officials here in the United States, one
can't argue against it as a cost effective solution for change.
What makes that statement remarkable is that its gravity, its
meaning has no discernable impact on the majority of Americans.
It causes a yup and a yawn, and a "so what" rather
than a disgust for what has become, unbelievably, a more ludicrous
and murderous state of affairs here in the US. As Jimmy Breslin
recently pointed out, someone always shoots back in these matters.
More's the pity and danger, is that the
use of language, of articulation with depth, and is dying in
the US. There's a horrible disconnect between American mythic
perceptions of themselves and the dirty, caustic reality of their
society. More than ever, Americans seem doped up by Condoleezza
Rice's verbal equivalent of a speedball represented in her "US
as special case" comment and the constant War propaganda
feeds coming over the airwaves. Incoherence reigns in America.
Side Effects
Include
Unpalatable to most Americans is the
fact that in promoting and marketing the US "way of life"
here and abroad, painful side effects include extraordinary violence,
mayhem and suffering. That 28,000 Americans die each year at
the hands of killers with guns means less than the importance
of the earned run average of US major league baseball's New York
Yankees. Americans are so accustomed to violence (they can't
wait for the next collision in the NASCAR race) that there is
almost a celebratory nature to its society that says: You die
so we can live, mourn and party. That such a country now wants
global dominance should awaken many around the globe.
To a degree unprecedented in US history,
that daily "street" violence has now become incorporated
into the retaliatory violence generated by the attack on New
York and the DC Metro area, and the Cold War era plans of militant
conservatives. In the worst way, the US is now in retro-Nixon
mode and its rabidity takes the form of vigilante doctrines of
preemption, public sanctioning of murder of foreign leaders and
concomitant replacements by equally nefarious individuals, and
under-the-table payments and weapons sales to silence nations
opposed to US military intervention. Crime, or at least negligence,
does pay. There are minor consequences for the failed efforts
of the CIA, FBI and military intelligence--bad publicity and
more funding--just as there are few for the destruction of worker
pensions, the due process of law, burgeoning trade deficits and
insider deals.
In this anarchic, utilitarian environment,
the flippancy and callousness of the Bush Regime's various remarks
should come as no surprise. For example, calls for undertaking
biblical eye-for-an-eye, preemptive and premeditated murder of
foreign officials-- shows just how depraved the United States
has become. Is it any wonder that in America it's acceptable
for young children to remark, "Let's kill them all."
Indeed, this President and his apostle's make the character Hannibal
Lector seem downright elegant.
"Dead or Alive," said Bush
of Bin Laden. "I'd love to see his head on a platter,"
said Cheney. "The world would be a better place if Bin Laden
were killed," said Rumsfeld. "If you can make something
that others value, you should be able to sell it to them. If
others make something that you value, you should be able to buy
it. This is real freedom" according to George Bush II commenting
in his National Security Strategy of the United States. It is?
Beyond Orwell
The great poet and philosopher Frederick
Nietzsche talked about these types of statements long ago and
recognized through them that those who uttered these disconnects
were representative of a society that had lost its ability to
coherently blend the better aspects of idealism and realism into
an artful reason for existence and a workable national doctrine.
The slow death of language was the first indicator of the doomed
society's free fall. Words, metaphors, speeches like those above
emanating from both government and business "leaders"
do not inspire any emotion from the listener to ask questions
or even applaud, or, for that matter, to even notice and care.
This goes far beyond Orwell in that there
is no longer any art and/or depth in the language of the US representatives--elected
or otherwise--or of the people tasked with electing and monitoring
them. In Orwell's book 1984, the authoritative characters were
clever about their use of language. In that vein, so was real-life
killer Joseph Goebbel's in 1943 when he gave the German people
30 points to ponder about WWII. "Nothing is too valuable
to be sacrificed for freedom. All we possess we won as a free
people. Without our freedom, it would have no purpose, meaning
or endurance. It is better for a nation to be impoverished but
free rather than to seem prosperous, but end a war as slaves.
A free people can rebuild everything it lost in defending its
freedom. An enslaved people will lose that which survived the
war, and also the ability to gain it back again, " he said.
Hardly as such thought on freedom been brought to bear by the
Bush Regime.
Fantasy Land
Today in the US, language represents
the intestinal, the formulaic and mechanical, all numbers and
numbness, all "fantasy sports" in which the participants
don't really compete with each other, they get a competitive
feeling by manipulating the statistics of the real athletes on
the field, court or rink.
Similarly, sadly, this is the same fantasy
game played by the US electorate. Votes don't really matter and
one gets the "feel" of participating in the political
process by punching a card, sending an email to Congress, or
by scoring a representative's liberal and/or conservative tilt
factor. That the US Congress is being contacted by an overwhelming
majority of Americans opposed to war with Iraq and that it will
still move forward to give Bush the authority to attack Iraq
is a good indicator of the powerlessness of the American people
and the seriousness of the problems in that land.
And so the band will play on. Within
the last year, the "leaders" of the United States have
publicly and privately advocated the murder of foreign government
officials in Iraq and Iran (an effort to court the Shah's son
is underway). They have militarily backed the violent overthrow
of foreign governments such as Venezuela. And, more recently,
they have vigorously attempted to manipulate the outcome of Brazil's
presidential election which featured "leftist" Luiz
Inacio Lula da Silva. Da Silva and the Brazilian military recently
signaled their intention to withdraw from the once binding nuclear
non-proliferation treaty and begin construction of their own
arsenal. Just so, one of the first side effects of the new free-for-all
US nuclear doctrine.
When the Bullet
Hits the Bone
What happens when a bullet hits a
human head? Who wants to take responsibility for putting that
bullet right where the Bush Regime and so many Americans want
it to go? Would they pull the trigger if they really knew? According
to marksman.com and an autopsy report, the bullet travels at
high speed (generally at or above 1,000 feet per second) when
it encounters the surface of the head. Instantly it begins to
decelerate and deform, flattening on impact--an effect known
as mushrooming. A tremendous amount of the energy carried by
the bullet is transferred to the head as the bullet decelerates.
Hydrostatic shock radiates out from the bullet's path, causing
a much larger temporary wound cavity that accounts for a significant
amount of the soft tissue mutilated, while the bullet itself
plows inward, potentially breaking apart if it strikes bone.
The temporary cavity closes back after the bullet's passage,
but significant damage, notably to major blood vessels, may be
inflicted by the sudden stretching and tearing involved in the
hydrostatic displacement.
"On the right upper forehead, 1/2
inch to the right of the anterior midline, there is a gunshot
entry wound. This wound consists of a 5/16 inch circular hole
with circumferential abrasion and slight marginal radial laceration.
The bullet has proceeded through the soft tissues of the scalp
to cause a 3/8 inch circular entry hole in the frontal bone which
expands inwardly in a conical fashion. Several pieces of small
curvilinear lead fragments are retrieved from this area. The
missile has proceeded through the right frontal pole of brain
in a downward and rearward direction to perforate through the
cerebral peduncles and pontine area. The missile then impacted
with the occipital bone just posterior to the foremen magnum.
In this area, a large area, a large caliber, mushroom-shaped,
nonjacketed missile is retrieved and forwarded to the ballistics
section"
John Stanton
is a Virginia-based writer specializing in national security
matters. He can be reached at: cioran123@yahoo.com
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October 2,
2002
Carol Wolman,
MD
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Jeffrey St.
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