Domestic Terrorism

There's a folk singer named Jim Page that I was introduced to some time ago. Yesterday, while I was at the Country Fair, I got the opportunity to hear him sing a few songs. One of them was about a young man who gets out of a poor community by joining the military. It ends with him dying in a shootout with the police in that same town some time later. It turns out that the man decided that he'd rather end up in that situation than be sent back to Iraq for a third time.

For the record, the name of that young man was Andres Raya, and he was from Ceres, California.

What happened in between those two events, you might ask? How could someone be pushed to do something like that?

Via Jack and Jill Politics, again, here is some sort of answer:

CAMP PENDLETON, California (AP) -- A corporal testifying in a court-martial said Marines in his unit began routinely beating Iraqis after officers ordered them to "crank up the violence level."

...

When a juror asked for further explanation, Lopezromo said: "We beat people, sir."

...

Unable to find him, the Marines and corpsman dragged another man from his house, fatally shot him, and then planted an AK-47 assault rifle near the body to make it appear he had been killed in a shootout, according to court testimony.

Lopezromo, who was not part of the squad on its late-night mission, said he saw nothing wrong with what Thomas did.

"I don't see it as an execution, sir," he told the judge. "I see it as killing the enemy."

He said Marines consider all Iraqi men part of the insurgency.[emphasis mine]

Teaching tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of young men to dehumanize whole groups will have consequences.

What happens when all those people come home? What will their lives be like? How will they relate to their friends, families, and coworkers? What will happen as they get jobs, and get promotions, and are placed in charge of people? As is inevitable, a small percentage of them will enter politics. What kinds of policies will they promote if this is part of their worldview?

How does the fact that this sort of information isn't present in the public consciousness change things? What are the consequences of the fact that most Americans don't have any idea what the conditions on the ground are?

Finally, what does it mean that a search of Google News for "Andres Raya" gets two hits? TWO. And one of them isn't even a US paper; I think the other is a local Illinois paper.