The title of the post is a quote from an inmate who survived the infamous Santa Fe Prison Riot in 1980. The sentiment is obvious, when the worst, most atavistic tribal impulses of human beings take over, people can't make rational choices about which side to take, and often don't even have the choice of remaining neutral.

This unfortunate reality of the human condition greatly complicates the internal politics of a polyglot nation like the U.S.

It's been that way since the American Revolution. Certain ethnic/socio-political groups remained more loyal to the Crown and many were driven out of the country at the end of the war. I'm familiar with this because my father's family were tories who migrated from New York to New Brunswick after the Revolution.

My home state of Texas infamously oppressed the Tejanos who played leading roles in the Texas Revolution once independence from Mexico had been achieved.

German-Americans famously suffered the brunt of an angry populace during WWI, from Wikipedia:

The Red Cross barred individuals with German last names from joining in fear of sabotage. One man was hanged in Illinois, apparently for no other reason than that he was of German descent. The killers were found not guilty of the crime and the hanging was called an act of patriotism by a jury. A Minnesota minister was tarred and feathered when he was overheard praying in German with a dying woman. Some Germans during this time "Americanized" their names (e.g. Schmidt to Smith, Müller to Miller) and limited their use of the German language in public places. Newspapers also printed blacklists of names of Germans, including their addresses, headlined as German Enemy Aliens.

During WWII, Japanese-Americans had it even worse, being interned in concentration camps.

It shouldn't be surprising that our current wars to export freedom and Democracy state of war with two Muslim countries is putting yet another subset of Americans in a very awkward spot. And when one individual snaps, rather than being seen as an example of aberrant individual psychology or criminal evil, the jingo-artists among us seize on this to make the situation even worse.

From TPM:

One conservative writer is already declaring -- without citing any evidence -- that Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter who killed 13 at Fort Hood yesterday, was acting at the behest of the Muslim Brotherhood.

and from Raw Story:

In the wake of a shooting rampage at Fort Hood by a military psychiatrist of Middle Eastern lineage, the hosts at Fox News have begun suggesting that all Muslims in the military should be treated as potential threats.

"Do you think it's time for the military to have special debriefings of Muslim Army officers -- anybody enlisted?" Fox's Brian Kilmeade asked Geraldo Rivera on Friday morning. "Because if I'm going to be deployed in a foxhole, if I'm going to be sticking in an outpost, I got to know the guy next to me is not going to want to kill me."

I hope we can pull out of this downward spiral before it gets stupider and more deadly.

Some excerpts from an interview with a local newspaper editor near Fort Hood in the full entry. She takes a much more measured and responsible approach than the national media.

11/5/09

CNN - (CNN) -- Two gunmen in military uniforms shot and killed as many as nine people and wounded as many as 20 at Fort Hood in Texas on Thursday, officials said.

One of the shooters has been apprehended, Fort Hood spokesman Sgt. Maj. Jamie Posten told CNN.

"At this point we're looking for the other shooter," Posten said. Asked for a description, he said, "we're trying to develop that information."

The shooters were wearing military uniforms, but it was unclear whether they were soldiers, said U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas

President Obama has been informed of the incident, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters.

Nov 5

BBC - Colombian opposition groups have reacted angrily after details of a controversial military deal with the US were made public.

Under the 10-year deal, the US military will not only have access to military bases, but also be able to use major international civilian airports.

US personnel and defence contractors will also enjoy diplomatic immunity.

President Alvaro Uribe says the agreement will help rid Colombia of drugs gangs and left-wing rebel groups.

But leading opposition senator Gustavo Petro, of the left-wing PDA party, said the deal amounted to a virtual US occupation of Colombia.

The accord was signed last Friday but full details were only made public on Tuesday.

Last week the Washington Post printed two letters from different sources who had spent time on the ground in Afghanistan that came to very different conclusions about the American presence there.

First, there is the letter from Matthew Hoh, the former Marine captain who had fought in Iraq and had recently taken a temporary foreign service assignment in Zabul province. One State department official referred to this area as, “one of the five or six provinces always vying for the most difficult and neglected.” Hoh had developed great misgivings about the war and had become so disillusioned that he chose to resign. Hoh wote in his resignation letter,

From The Guardian:

In Wired for War, author Pete Singer speculates the machines are harbingers of a new era of "cost-free war".

"It's an historic change," said Singer. "Going to war has meant the same thing for 5,000 years. Now going to war means sitting in front of a computer screen for 12 hours. Then you go home and talk to your kids about their homework."

Am I the only one who finds this method of war tantamount to terrorism? And despicable, to boot?

Oh yeah, they hate us for our freedoms. Sorry, I forgot.

Earlier this week, President Obama signed into law the $680 billion FY 2010 Defense Authorization Bill, the largest such budget since the end of World War II. If you missed that aspect of the story, you weren’t alone. Many news stories chose instead to focus on the hate crime provisions tacked onto the bill.

I’ve often quarreled with the inclusion of superfluous legislative riders, and the hate crime provision is more superfluous than most. (Indeed, as my Cato colleague David Rittgers has pointed out, it might be worse than superfluous.)

Julian E. Barnes | Washington | November 2

LAT - The Pentagon plans to dramatically increase the surveillance capabilities of its most advanced unmanned aircraft next year, adding so many video feeds that a drone which now stares down at a single house or vehicle could keep constant watch on nearly everything that moves within an area of 1.5 square miles.

The year after that, the capability will double to 3 square miles.

Jeanette Steele | San Diego | Oct 30

San Diego Union Tribune - As rescuers plan to search into the night for nine service members missing after a Thursday aircraft collision off San Clemente Island, aviation officials are looking at how a hulking Coast Guard plane crashed into a Camp Pendleton helicopter in good weather.

“All of our available assets are on the scene searching,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Allyson Conroy of the Coast Guard. Two helicopters and six cutters are scouring a 644-square-mile area around the island, which is about 70 miles west of San Diego.

But the chances of anyone surviving through another night in the 50-to 60-degree ocean looks increasingly dim, and the Pentagon has said it's unlikely anyone survived.

The Coast Guard has found debris, including aircraft wreckage, in a stretch roughly 12 miles long by 5 miles wide. No bodies have been recovered, Conroy said.

Dave Lindorff | Washington | October 26

The Public Record - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold hearings tomorrow and Wednesday in Hawaii on an application by the US Army for a permit to have depleted uranium at its Pohakuloa Training Area, a vast stretch of flat land in what’s called the “saddle” between the sacred mountains of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on Hawaii’s Big Island, and at the Schofield Barracks on the island of Oahu.

In fact, what the Army is asking for is a permit to leave in place the DU left over from years of test firing of M101 mortar “spotting rounds,” that each contained close to half a pound of depleted uranium (DU). The Army, which originally denied that any DU weapons had been used at either location, now says that as many as 2000 rounds of M101 DU mortars might have been fired at Pohakuloa alone.

But that’s only a small part of the story.

Washington | Oct 27/Updated

DPA - Colombia and the United States are planning to sign 'at the end of the week' a controversial military deal, Colombian Defence Minister Gabriel Silva said Tuesday in Washington.

The deal whereby Colombia is set to allow the United States use of seven military bases on Colombian soil was announced this summer, although it has yet to be signed by Washington and Bogota.

The US-Colombian plan has drawn sharp criticism from Latin American leaders who worry that the US presence could threaten the sovereignty of neighbouring countries and promote meddling in internal affairs.

Bogota and Washington have insisted that the bases will be used only to combat drug-trafficking and terrorism within Colombia's borders

** Colombia counters critics over U.S. bases row ~ UPI
** A Summer Fling in South America: US Bases and a Weapons Race?(PDF) ~ISN
** Colombian Government Irked Judicial Opinion on Base Deal Was Leaked ~ Latin American herald Tribune
** Colombia: Trusted American Ally? ~ DCProgressive
** U.S. Aid Must Leverage Reforms, Rights Groups Urge ~ IPS

UPDATE OCT 30: Colombia, U.S. sign military base deal: U.S. official

TruthDig/Alternet, By Penny Coleman, October 23

Every day, for four years as a West Point cadet, Tara Krause lived and worked alongside the men who had gang-raped her.

Still, she managed to graduate in 1982. She served as a field artillery officer during the Cold War and was attached to the 518th Military Intelligence Brigade during the Gulf War. In what she calls "an act of incredible self-destruction," she married a three-tour Vietnam vet in 1985 and, for the next eight years, lived "the private hell of his PTSD."

Nathan Hodge | Washington | October 13

Wired - For several years, the U.S. military has been working on a 30,000-pound superbomb that can penetrate and destroy what the military calls “hardened targets“: Command bunkers or WMD facilities shielded by concrete and buried deep underground.

Now it looks as if the Pentagon is speeding delivery of the bomb, formally known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP. The Associated Press’ Anne Gearan reports today that the Defense Department awarded a contract worth around $52 million to speed up integration of the bomb aboard the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. According to the story, the MOP could be ready for B-2 delivery as early as next summer.

Gareth Jones | Warsaw | Oct 16

Reuters - A senior U.S. official told Poland on Friday it could be one of the sites for interceptors envisaged under President Barack Obama's revised plans for missile defence in Europe.

Poland and the Czech Republic are still smarting from Obama's decision to shelve a Bush-era plan to install elements of a missile shield on their territory to protect against possible long-range missile attacks by Iran.

Under the new project, Washington will first deploy sea-based interceptors and then in a second phase deploy land-based systems involving SM-3 interceptors targeting short and medium-range missiles.

"Poland could host one of two land-based SM-3 sites, with of course the agreement of the Polish government," U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Alexander Vershbow told reporters.

** Ukraine in talks to host part of US missile shield: report
** Ukrainian Envoy, Pentagon Deny U.S.-Kyiv Talks On Missile Defense

Tony Capaccio | Washington | October 15

Bloomberg - The Pentagon is reviewing the Bush administration’s doctrine of preemptive military strikes with an eye to modifying or possibly ending it.

The international environment is “more complex” than when President George W. Bush announced the policy in 2002, Kathleen Hicks, the Defense Department’s deputy undersecretary for strategy, said in an interview. “We’d really like to update our use-of-force doctrine to start to take account for that.”

Oct 15

Raw`Story/AFP - Japan has told the United States it will end a naval refuelling mission backing its war in Afghanistan, a month before President Barack Obama visits Tokyo, a top defence official said Thursday.

The formal confirmation to the White House and Pentagon, days before Defense Secretary Robert Gates visits Japan, is part of efforts by the new centre-left government in Tokyo to recalibrate its security ties with Washington.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who took office last month, has said he wants "more equal" relations with the United States and that he opposes plans for a new US military air base to be built on southern Okinawa island.

Hatoyama, whose party in opposition spoke out against Japan abetting "American wars," has for months said it would not renew a naval refuelling mission in the Indian Ocean that was first launched in 2001.

The top field commander of al-Qaeda, in an exclusive interview with Asia Times Online, proves he is alive and well after repeated drone attacks and delineates in broad strokes al-Qaeda's strategy. The Afghanistan trap, baited on September 11, 2001, has been sprung, says formidable guerrilla leader Ilyas Kashmiri, and events from Gaza to Mumbai should not be seen in isolation but as part of the master plan to bloody the United States and its proxies. - Syed Saleem Shahzad Asia Times Exclusive

Ann Scott Tyson | Oct 14

Washington Post - For the first time in more than 35 years, the US military has met all of its annual recruiting goals, as hundreds of thousands of young people have enlisted despite the near-certainty that they will go to war.

amazing what a shitty economy does for the cannon fodder industry..

Tel Aviv | Oct 12

Reuters - Israel and the United States will hold their biggest joint air-defence exercise next week, the Israeli military said, testing missile interceptors that would serve as a strategic bulwark in any showdown with Iran.

The drill, dubbed Juniper Cobra, has taken place every two years since 2001 but now underscores efforts by the Americans to reassure Israel as they and other world powers pursue negotiations to curb Iran's nuclear programme.

An Israeli defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the manoeuvres would begin on Oct. 20, having been postponed from their original Oct. 12 start-date.

But a military spokeswoman, Lieutenant-Colonel Avital Leibovich, said holding the exercise next week did not constitute a postponement.

"The exercise will happen next week in accordance with the original plan," she said.

U.S. forces including 17 naval ships and ground personnel operating the Aegis, THAAD and Patriot missile shields will be meshed with Israel's Arrow II interceptor for the drill, the defence official said.

"It will be the biggest Juniper Cobra ever," the official said, adding the exercise would be overseen by Admiral Mark Fitzgerald, chief of the U.S. Navy's Sixth Fleet, as well as by the commander of Israel's air defence arm.

Katherine Skiba & Peter Nicholas | Washington | Oct 11

LA Times - The president pledges in a speech tonight to end the law banning openly gay and lesbian citizens from serving in the military. He also vows to halt the Defense of Marriage Act.

President Obama, speaking to the nation's largest gay rights organization, pledged tonight to end the law prohibiting openly gay and lesbian citizens from serving in the military.

"I will end 'don't ask, don't tell'; that is my commitment," said Obama, adding that he is also committed to ending the Defense of Marriage Act.Obama, speaking to nearly 3,000 gay and lesbian activists at a dinner-fundraiser hosted by the Human Rights Campaign, addressed the larger effort for equality. "I'm here with you in that fight," he said. The president also said that there were "still laws to change and hearts to open."

Obama's address came amid growing concern in the LGBT community that he's not acting fast enough on campaign pledges to more fully incorporate gays and lesbians into the fabric of American life.

The president acknowledged those concerns but said that gays and lesbians would be able to look back on his administration as one that fought hard for gay rights.

Al Labita | Manila | Oct 2

Asia Times - The arrival of about 3,000 US Marines in the Philippines next week for training and humanitarian missions in the wake of recent floods has some Filipino officials wary that the soldiers could be diverted to war-torn Sulu island, where Islamic extremists recently killed two US soldiers. The scheduled deployment represents five times the number of US troops currently stationed in the Philippines.

The US deaths have sparked fears that Washington aims to ramp up its presence and retaliate against suspected Abu Sayyaf rebels, whom the US and European Union have identified as an international terrorist organization with links to al-Qaeda. Those concerns have renewed calls among legislators to either scrap or renegotiate the terms of the Philippines-US Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA).

The VFA, which took effect in 1999 after Manila shut down the US military bases of Subic and Clark in 1991, allows US troops to hold joint military exercises with their Filipino counterparts. The deal, however, bars US troops from engaging in combat and any support is limited to providing logistical assistance, technical advice and intelligence to Manila's counter-terrorism operations.

Despite the VFA's legal restrictions, reports persist that US troops are "embedded" in Philippine military units in far-flung combat zones and that they had joined the fight against Muslim insurgents in Sulu and Basilan provinces. Some 600 US soldiers are currently stationed in the Philippines, the bulk of them on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao.

Two US soldiers were killed on September 29 when their Humvee vehicle hit a roadside bomb, believed to be an improvised explosive device, in Sulu's Indanan town, scene of previous bloody encounters and a known stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf. A Filipino marine was also killed and three Filipino soldiers were wounded.

Sept 29

BBC - Two US soldiers and a Filipino marine have been killed in a landmine blast on the southern Philippine island of Jolo, a Philippine army spokesman has said.

Two other Filipino soldiers were also wounded in the explosion, which hit their vehicle near the town of Indanan.

The Philippines' military said last week that it had captured Indanan, a stronghold of Abu Sayyaf rebels.

The US has about 300 soldiers in the southern Philippines, advising the local army in fighting insurgents.

The American soldiers are the first to be killed in the Philippines since 2002, when one serviceman died in an bombing in the port city of Zamboanga, also in the south of the country.

Under a US agreement with the Philippines its troops are not allowed to take part in combat unless attacked. Otherwise, they are there to train and advise the Philippine army in counter-insurgency operations.

Washington | Sept 27

DPA - The US prison for suspected terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will not be closed by January as planned, US government officials said Saturday.

According to a report by US broadcaster CNN, two members of the US administration stated that the planned date to close the facility would not be met due to unresolved legal questions.

The closure of the facility is still planned to proceed as soon as possible, the officials said.

Warsaw | Sept 26

AFP - The United States aims to establish missile bases in Poland, after having scrapped plans fiercely opposed by Russia to deploy a missile shield in the country, a Polish newspaper reported Friday.

Citing Polish diplomatic sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, Gazeta Wyborcza said Washington aimed to set up a permanent short- and medium-range missile base as well as deploy mobile missile batteries.

The plan is set to take shape within days, said Gazeta Wyborcza, a leading daily that is considered well informed on the issue.

It said Andrzej Kremer, Poland's deputy foreign minister, was due to travel to Washington on Monday.

No comment was available Friday from Poland's foreign ministry.

Erika Bolsted | Washington | Sept 26

McClatchy Newspapers - In a strongly worded message to Congress outlining its priorities for a military spending bill, the Obama administration today said it disapproved of including money for pensions for 26 elderly members of the World War II-era Alaska Territorial Guard.

The Guardsmen are among those assigned to protect Alaska from the Japanese during World War II.

The Army decided this year to no longer count service in the Guard in calculating the military's 20-year minimum for retirement pay, although it still counts for military benefits. As a result, their pensions were decreased in January.

Manila | Sept 24

DPA - The Philippines plans to review an agreement with the United States that defines the conduct of visiting American troops in the country, a government spokesman said Thursday.

Edilberto Adan, spokesman for a Philippine commission overseeing the implementation of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), said the review could lead to the renegotiation of the pact which is being criticized by some senators as unconstitutional.

'We will undertake a review to determine and address some of the issues raised by some senators,' he told a press briefing. 'We will start as soon as possible.'

The VFA was signed in 1998 under the administration of former president Joseph Estrada and came into force a year later.

On Wednesday, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago urged the Philippine government to renegotiate the agreement, or terminate it if the US refuses to revise the pact.