One thing the small people of Poland with the Napoleon complex eagerly do is support the big brother in his lost war in Afghanistan.

In his latest TomDispatch post, Engelhardt counts the dead in Afghanistan and wonders why he is so utterly alone in doing so.

"We forget these killings easily—often we don't notice them in the first place—since they don't seem to impinge on our lives," he writes. "Perhaps that's one of the benefits of fighting a war on the periphery of empire, halfway across the planet in the backlands of some impoverished country. One problem, though: the forgetting doesn't work so well in those backlands. When your child, wife or husband, mother or father is killed, you don't forget." ...

Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty was the man tapped to explain this one to the press. "We do make mistakes," he said. "War is an inexact art."

To the people who loved each of those six children, of course, war is not an "inexact art," it is murderous folly.

"And how exactly do we explain this ever rising pile of civilian dead to ourselves?," Engelhardt asks, five years and countless tragic blunders later. "It's being done, so we've been told, for our safety and security ... What a bad bargain it's been—and all in the name of our safety, and ours alone."

That's from Seven Years of Trading Afghan Deaths for American Security

I did not mean just Poland, Jacek, but a lot of other countries as well. In fact Poles usually like America except for some disillusioned piano owners, not to diminish Zimmerman's unbelievable talent. Artists are sometimes excentric. Poles unfortunately almost always fought in hopeless wars, believing in the mission to find the holy grail, and getting almost nothing instead. The Napoleonian wars are just one example of them.

Why everybody blames America for everything

This turned out to be a highly relevant question in the following case (no one is posting any good news today, so let me at least promise a happy end here):

The Colombian journalist, who is living in exile in France, was flying on an Air France plane from Paris to Mexico City Saturday night, April 18, when the captain announced that the plane had to make a detour to Martinique because there was a passenger on board whom the United States considers a security risk.

That turned out to be Calvo Ospina, who has written favorably about Cuba, has denounced the rightwing Colombian government of Alvaro Uribe, and has been critical of the U.S. role in Latin America.

He’s also writing a book about the CIA.

Evidently, his political and journalistic leanings have not endeared him to U.S. intelligence, which put him on the “No Fly” list.

He was questioned in Martinique, and you can read his account here.

According to Calvo Ospina, they asked him: “Are you a Catholic?”

He said no, and that he wasn’t a Muslim, either, or a terrorist.

They asked him why he was planning on going to Nicaragua, and he said he was on assignment for Le Monde Diplomatique.

He says they also asked him if he knew how to handle firearms.

And he said, “My only weapon is my writing, especially to denounce the American government, whom I consider terrorist.”

He says one of his questioners then responded: “That weapon sometimes is worse than rifles and bombs.”

After several hours, and after they had photocopied his papers, they let him go on to Managua.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had not heard of the incident but discounted it. “If it’s not bound for the United States, we’re not going to receive that manifest information to see whether someone is on the No Fly list or not,” she said.

“I still think it was a dream bordering on a nightmare,” writes Calvo Ospina. “How far will the U.S. authorities’ paranoia go? And why do Air France and the French authorities continue to keep silent about it?” http://www.progressive.org/wx042709.html

O Jacek, you know the first amendment only guarantees this kind of freedom for the USA citizens :P 

Originally written by Dina Elsayed Imam on April 29, 2009 8:30 PM O Jacek, you know the first amendment only guarantees this kind of freedom for the USA citizens :P

Not 100%, if somebody was a terrorist, or just wrote things implying terrorism,  a nazi or an openly writing communist this person would be under investigation as well.

Liliana, this is the tricky part, because  the judgment of a written subject isn't the same for everybody, and what you're saying is in fact the argument used by fascist and totalitarian regimes to suppress freedom of expression. Because no fascist or totalitarian regime declares that it's citizens don't have the right of expression but rather that their freedom of expression must be censored so as the masses wouldn't be subjected to socialist, capitalist, terrorist...etc propaganda (according to each regime's inclinations). And everything comes down to national security and stability.

However, my point was quite different. Given the example of Calvo Ospina, I was thinking that the political writings of someone like "Naom Chomsky" can't be that different, it is critical of the USA policies and it has some socialist inclinations, still Chomsky is not expelled from the USA or banned from anything (it's true he's harassed, threatened and sometimes not welcomed, but that's not a result of an official command)..So my idea was that the USA usually cuts some slack for its citizens, because they're US citizens and have the constitutional right to freedom of expression. According to that, I expected someone to argue that the USA is for example targeted or may be that its policies are a private matter and so the US has the right to refuse those who criticize or interfere with its policies. May be just like Krystian Zimerman saying it outright "Get your hands off my country"...  what I didn't expect though, was someone's will to diminish the US citizens right to freedom of expression in order to prove that the USA is the kingdom of heaven where everyone on the face of the earth is treated equally. I really didn't expect it, first because the idea is not true and second because it is not feasible! But may be I got it all wrong and you can explain it better Liliana.

I am sorry Dina, I am not sure if I quite understand your point. I think the United States is one of the most free countries as far as freedom of expression goes. Nazis, communists and terrorists are not generally liked in the United States. Noam Chomsky is great and, for some strange reason he is quite liked, regardless of his leftist views. I do not think the government thinks he poses any threat to anything that is American, this is why they would not touch him, but honestly, at one point or another his writings must have been thoroughly scrutinized.

There is always this antagonism between freedom and security. What do you do, do you search people's personal belongings or do you allow trains being blown up?

Originally written by Dina Elsayed Imam on May 1, 2009 6:25 AM   what I didn't expect though, was someone's will to diminish the US citizens right to freedom of expression in order to prove that the USA is the kingdom of heaven where everyone on the face of the earth is treated equally. I really didn't expect it, first because the idea is not true and second because it is not feasible! But may be I got it all wrong and you can explain it better Liliana.

Sorry, Dina,  but I absolutely do not understand this part. Can you explain what you mean, not that there is anything wrong with the language. I just do not kown what you have in mind.

Originally written by Liliana Boladz-Nekipelov on May 1, 2009 7:08 AM Originally written by Dina Elsayed Imam on May 1, 2009 6:25 AM   what I didn't expect though, was someone's will to diminish the US citizens right to freedom of expression in order to prove that the USA is the kingdom of heaven where everyone on the face of the earth is treated equally. I really didn't expect it, first because the idea is not true and second because it is not feasible! But may be I got it all wrong and you can explain it better Liliana. Sorry, Dina,  but I absolutely do not understand this part. Can you explain what you mean, not that there is anything wrong with the language. I just do not kown what you have in mind.

I was commenting on your choice of argument, Liliana. In Jacek's post(which was about the USA interference with other countries affairs), it was obvious that Calvo Ospina was being punished and harassed_ through a direct order_ for using his right to self expression (all without stepping on the USA soil), not because he personally posed any threat to the USA (i.e. he's not a terrorist or affiliated with any terrorist organizations, plus he was headed to Mexico City !!!)... So my comment was, he wouldn't have gone through all that if he was a US citizen "O Jacek, you know the first amendment only guarantees this kind of freedom for the USA citizens :P " ... You then tried to convince me that I was wrong because this is the way US citizens are treated when they're caught in the act of expressing some undesirable thoughts "Not 100%, if somebody was a terrorist, or just wrote things implying terrorism,  a nazi or an openly writing communist this person would be under investigation as well."

Well, I don't think it is true because as I said earlier there are US citizen who openly criticize USA policies like Noam Chomsky for example, and if not him there is Michael Moore and there is Oliver Stone (who made a documentary about Castro where I found Castro to be quite lovely) .. And according to my knowledge none of them was subjected to such treatment. Their work might be scrutinized but they personally are not!

Noam Chomsky is a US born person, so even if he did something against the law, the worst thing would be that he be put in jail. A person born in the United States cannot be expelled from his own country; deportation only applies to naturalized citizens who hid something while applying for the citizenship, not afterwards. Later the only other alternatives are jail time or execution.