The "new" America is now a rogue nation, considered by increasing numbers of people around the world to be one of the greatest threats to world peace. It is gradually taking over the place once held by the former Soviet Union as the world's greatest "Evil Empire." It destroys lives all around the world, destroys what people had built up, their homes, their institutions, the infrastructure on which they depend. It kills the sons of mothers whose grief shall know no end.

Said one Iraqi mother whose son was recently murdered by the Americans: "Those soldiers have turned everything America has ever stood for into one big lie." This is the reaping of what America has sown, and it is the just result of America's actions. Her 19 year old son, Zaydun Al-Samarrai, was murdered by American soldiers on January 3, 2004. His only crime, apparently, was that the car he was driving in with his cousins broke down near an American convoy. The soldiers tied them up and took them to one of the gates of the Tharthar dam and pushed them into the churning water. Zaydun could not swim. One cousin survived to tell the tale. What America reaps is clearly stated in the mother's words:

"After days of search we found my son's jacket floating with the stream, it shall remain with me as a memory and a symbol of the injustice brought against him by soldiers of the United States of America's army, who came to our country under the banners of human rights and democracy only to send my son to his demise on his wedding days...Yes, they killed him and they broke my heart, try to imagine that dear sirs and ask your wives how hard it is for a mother to see her fruit ripen only to be thrown by sinful hands and to be swept away without any mercy or humanity."

These words are taken from a letter written by the mother to George W. Bush and his gang, which was translated by another of Zaydun's relatives. This relative writes further of the incident ."This was done in the name of your country by soldiers of your national army. This was not an accident or a mistake, this was deliberate action. I do not know the exact details of the event or what Zaydun and his cousin were accused of, that is all irrelevant because even a criminal would not deserve such treatment." He goes on to say:

"Zaydun's cousin said that the soldiers were drunk and looked tired, and that during their ride they even chatted and joked with one of the soldiers who spoke a little Arabic. After he managed to get out of the water he remained hidden because he could see that the unit was searching for them using flashlights and he was scared to death.

"The family met an American official to ask him for an investigation, he yelled at them and started to lecture them about the discipline of American GI's, in the end he promised them nothing. Zaydun's body is yet to be found and the family is broken.".

Families broken by drunk soldiers sowing the seeds of karma, whose fruits we shall all have to reap and eat. Here is a picture of Zaydun, the Iraqi boy whose life was snuffed out by the Americans, for no reason, perhaps just because they were drunk and felt like killing someone. The question is: what are these soldiers doing there in the first place?

Zaydun Ma'mun Fadhil Hassun Al-Samarrai, 1984 - 2004

The tears of this mother for her son's life join with the tears of many thousands of other Iraqis, thousands of Afghanis, and the tears of orphaned children whose families and parents are no more. Again, I shudder to think of the karma of America for creating this river of tears, the tears of Iraqi and Afghani mothers and fathers and children.

The American forces ravaging Iraq do not want the citizens at home to know about the terrible karma they are creating for all of us to reap. As the mother of Zaydun said, "Everything America has ever stood for [is becoming] one big lie." The ideal of a free press is another victim of the Iraq war, killed as surely as Zaydun is dead. Consider the case of José Couso, a TV cameraman, as reported by James Hollander in Counterpunch.

Couso was filming from the Palestine Hotel during the fall of Baghdad. His camera was aimed at a tank sitting on the Al-Jumuriya bridge over the Tigris river. The Palestine Hotel was home to over 300 journalists who had moved there because of the presence of CNN, which they thought would be protective. They assumed that the Americans would not attack CNN. Couso had just filmed this tank shooting deliberately at two journalistic offices, Abu-Dhabi TV, and Al-Jazeera, the Arab news service. Then later, in the now third U.S. attack on the news media, the tank points its cannon at the Palestine Hotel and fires, hitting the 15th floor, and fatally wounding Couso and a Ukrainian reporter for Reuters, Tara Protsyuk

Why did the siege of Baghdad involve destruction of world media? Why were journalists the target of attacks? A media General tried to lie and said they were responding to enemy fire, but there was no enemy fire from these journalistic targets. Jon Sistiaga, Couso's partner said of the incident: "I think they deliberately fired on the journalists' hotel. First they take out Al-Jazeera, then Abu-Dhabi a half hour later, and a half hour after that, why not, with the same tank they shoot at the hotel housing the rest of the international media."

Later, Monica G. Prieto, from the Spanish newspaper El Mundo would write:

"The death of José Couso was a premeditated crime, an attack on journalists to prevent us from telling the story of something the US has tried to hide from the start of the war: the slaughter of civilians." "Couso told us 'you've got to stay, we have to be here to tell people what's happening, we can't let there be a war without any witnesses,'" said colleague Carlos Hernández.

A Spanish website was set up in Cuoso's honor.

Indeed, the Iraq war has proved deadly for many journalists. Reuters cameraman, Mazen Dana was shot by American tanks while filming outside a prison in August of 2003. Dana was also a colleague of Taras Protsyuk who had been killed by American fire at the Palestine Hotel. "The videotape in his camera, retrieved after his death, showed two American tanks heading toward him, The A.P. reported. Six shots could be heard; the camera seemed to tilt and drop to the ground after the first shot.

"We were all there, for at least half an hour," Stephan Breitner of France 2 television told The A.P. "They knew we were journalists. After they shot Mazen, they aimed their guns at us. I don't think it was an accident. They are very tense. They are crazy."

Crazy like a fox perhaps. The American government learned the lesson in Viet Nam that the citizenry cannot be allowed to see the carnage which it creates. Seeing such butchery on TV once spoiled many a dinner-time meal at that time, and that was not be allowed in the Iraq war, and was not allowed. It is still not allowed. Americans have still not been able to see the suffering they have allowed their leaders to cause to the innocent human beings whose lives have been snuffed out or ruined, both in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

British "non-embedded" journalist Terry Lloyd was killed by American tank fire in March of 2004. Henry Michaels, writing of the incident, says "While it is not possible, without an independent inquiry, to state with any certainty whether the killings were intended or not, a number of circumstances point to the fact that, at the very least, the Pentagon is anxious to prevent journalists from operating outside its control." An ITV spokesman spoke to the fact that Lloyd was working in a non-embedded way: "People who were embedded were not able to file any meaningful reports. The fact is in Gulf war one, the majority of detailed and accurate reports was done from people on their own." The U.S. Military does not want its citizens to know about the terrible karma it is creating for them. The Bush regime creates the karma and the American people must bear it. Such is the law of karma at work in Iraq. After the 911 attacks many people were asking "Why do they hate us so much?" Now, after the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq we are beginning to learn. The United States, by its terrorism against these countries, is creating the seeds of future terrorism against itself.

If Americans were not blind to the atrocities in Afghanistan and Iraq, and blind to the blood on their hands put there by George Bush and his gang of greedy oil-soaked savages, they would instantly throw the lot of them out of office and attempt to return to civilization. Some see the blood on their hands and make bold gestures to wipe their hands clean. On January 7th of this year Ken O'Keefe, an ex-US Marine and Gulf War Veteran publicly burned his passport in occupied Baghdad, an act symbolic of severing himself totally from his connection to the government, an act he said was an act "of defiance in condemnation of the illegal invasion and ongoing occupation and mass murder of the Iraqi people by my birth nation of the United States." These are no doubt the words of someone who has at least some basic intuitive knowledge of the law of karma. Was his act sufficient protection from that law?

Kenneth O'Keefe burning his passport

"My personal act affirms once and for all the lawful and undeniable completion of my renunciation of U.S. citizenship that began on March 1,2001. I AM NOT A UNITED STATES CITIZEN! I am a lawfully registered World citizen in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) with ultimate allegiance to my entire human family and to planet Earth." - Kenneth O'Keefe

Still, of course, the killing goes on. Today, January 10, British and American troops killed 6 more Iraqis and wounded 11 when they shot into a crowd that was throwing stones at soldiers. The soldiers claimed a couple of grenades were thrown. The hundreds of people had gathered to protest that the Americans had broken their promises to provide jobs. They were clamoring for the dignity of work. Had the Americans kept their promises the law of karma would not have worked this way, the crowd would not have gathered, and those 6 people would still be alive and the 11 uninjured. The law of karma is ruthless: actions have consequences. America murders innocent people around the globe and hatred of America rises. Once exalted among nations for its high ideals America now arouses scorn and disgust, even in our allies. Our leaders can lie to us all they want, but the world is not fooled. Our actions speak louder than words.

Sometimes the law of karma works in mysterious ways. Consider the case of Fernando Suarez del Solar an Escondido CA resident whose son was killed by a cluster bomb in March. In December Fernando made a pilgrimage to Iraq in honor of his son and to "gather more truth." Somehow the father's sorrow was changed by the journey into a burning desire to work for peace and to educate people about war. Returning home he spoke to a "Coalition for Peace and Justice." A coordinator of that coalition, Shelli Hallidy, said "He has been to Iraq, he can give us info on what is really going on in the country. We have created such a loss to the Iraqi people and our own men and women. The devastation we have caused is unnecessary. Fernando carries a message of peace and the loss of a parent." She went on:

"One of the most poignant moments of the evening came when Suarez del Solar told a story about those children. He showed a picture of himself and several Iraqi youngsters. In the photo, Suarez del Solar has tears in his eyes. He said the children were selling bananas on the streets but when he tried to buy the bananas, they refused his money. They gave him the bananas and all they asked for in return was a copy of the photograph."

"These children lost their parents in a bomb in a residential area that had no military," Suarez del Solar said. "Now they live in the shell of a burned out building like rats." More lives ruined by America. Young lives, and fragile, and for what? What was the necessity of depriving these children of parents and family and home?

Fernando Suarez del Solar brings his message back home

The tears of an Iraqi mother whose son was drowned by soldiers, the tears of a California father whose son was killed by a cluster bomb, these tears all meet in a vast river of tears created by the Bush administration. Can these tears wash the blood from our hands? Like Fernando, the Iraqi mother of Zaydun wants most for the suffering of war itself to come to an end. She writes these words to George Bush, asking for an investigation, which she calls "procedures."

"I know that anything you may do will not bring me back my boy, but I wish that the procedures may put an end to the suffering of Iraqi mothers, we are reaping misery every day from actions of American soldiers with no regard to our human life, our dignity, and our culture and values. Maybe the procedures will help me trust (again) the validity of those banners and mottos that fly high in American skies, those which we do not perceive in our country, but instead find their opposites."

Are we not seeing before our very eyes the answer to that now disingenuous 911 question "Why do they hate us so much?" That question has tens of thousands of answers in shattered and ended lives, if we will but open our eyes. James Hollander puts it simply, in the article quoted above:

"Indeed, even many of us opposed to the war usually fail to grasp the fullest dimension of its unseen, long-term sheer criminality, for it goes far beyond the direct victims of bombing raids and the ongoing counterinsurgency by US troops: they have lain waste to a entire country, setting back for decades its possibilities for development and progress, ravaging its health system, shortening its life expectancy by impairing its general health and well-being, inflicting deep, traumatic psychological wounds and truncating the life possibilities of Iraqis for generations: in a word, genocide."

Nothing can bring back the tens of thousands of innocent lives whom we Americans have murdered. We cannot resurrect them. Nor can we foist off our blame onto our proxies, currently the nearly-satanic Bush Regime. If we really want a democracy we must take responsibility for their actions which even now, by the law of karma, are reaping their terrible rewards. If we do not want to take responsibility, then we must accept the dictatorship our leaders are planning and putting into place. In a dictatorship the leaders suffer the blame for their sins by themselves. No one said life is easy, nor is democracy easy. Not even our founding fathers said the republic would be secure from takeover or usurpation, in fact they doubted it strongly.

There is a terrible vision that I believe is imprinted into our very genes after a hundred thousand years of human life on earth: it is the sight of another's blood on one's hands. How many murderers, how many soldiers throughout these millienia have had that sight and then suddenly heard the grave voice of God in their souls, "Thou shalt not kill?" Is that so difficult a commandment to follow? If not, then why are we doing it again? Is there no end to this river of tears?

(Associated thread of thoughts at Rumor Mill News)