Two Faces of Evil
It’s been a strange week in Britain. My other great interest, after current affairs, is the world of the occult and related strangeness. I may even make a seperate page for such things, as they don’t really fit in with what has turned out to be a current affairs page. In any case, the darkest corners of the human psyche have been shown to us of late.
The BBC brought us this tale:
Allan Menzies, 22, from Fauldhouse in West Lothian, claimed he was told to kill Thomas McKendrick by a character from the film Queen Of The Damned. The court was told that Menzies said he had drunk some of his victim’s blood and eaten part of his head.
In evidence, he said the female vampire Akasha, who was played in the film by the late US singer Aaliyah, had visited him at home.
Menzies had watched the film more than 100 times and claimed he was told he would be rewarded with immortality and become a vampire “in the next life” if he carried out the killing.
The unemployed security guard had attacked Mr McKendrick with knives and a hammer after the victim had called at his home in Lanrigg Avenue on the Saturday morning. Menzies said he launched the attack after Mr McKendrick had insulted his vampire heroine. He then alleged that he had drunk some of the man’s blood and eaten some of his flesh.
He told the court: “At the end of the day I knew I would have to murder somebody anyway. It was the only way you could do it. If you don’t murder somebody you couldn’t become a vampire.” Menzies said he was convinced he was now a vampire and became immortal after the killing.
In the same week, The Times reported:
Detectives believe part of a poisonous African bean was ground down and given to the �Thames torso� boy to paralyse him before his throat was cut and he was dismembered in a black-magic ritual. The chocolate-coloured bean grows in southern Nigeria, close to where police believe the child was born.
The body of the boy � aged between four and seven, and named �Adam� by police � was found floating in the Thames near Tower Bridge two years ago.
Detectives believe he was the victim of a muti killing, in which a victim�s body parts are used to create spells. Now food samples from the boy�s stomach and intestine sent to experts at the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew have been identified as the remains of a calabar bean, used in Nigeria in witchcraft rituals.
The powdered bean has no smell or taste and medical and forensic scientific evidence suggests that the boy was fed the bean in the 24 hours before he was murdered. He may have been given the powdered bean in a drink.
The BBC reports:
Hollywood actor Ben Affleck has attacked US President George Bush’s “dangerous right-wing” policies, which he said were eroding civil liberties.
Speaking in Los Angeles, Affleck, 31, was accepting an award from political group, People For The American Way. He received the Spirit of Liberty award for his work on behalf of children’s rights and voter registration.
Affleck also compared the current state of US politics to the last days of the Roman Empire. Referring to fellow film star Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent election as Governor of California, he compared “the dawn of the Schwarzenegger era in American politics” to the empire’s decline.
I wonder if he’ll get Dixie Chicked. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind him and Lopez being out of the papers for a while. Maybe thats his cunning plan.
Thanks to Scribeboy for the heads up. CNN has Rummy defending our heroic crusader:
Asked about this Thursday, Rumsfeld told reporters he had not seen the videos and did not know the “full context” of Boykin’s remarks. But the secretary did say, “We do know that he is an officer that has an outstanding record in the United States armed forces.”
Bit of a lackluster defense. I’d say our boy is for the chop.
There’s more. It’s a Covenant exclusive! (Well, as far as the blogosphere is concerned…). Full article at Waco: The Rules of Engagement. This is an FBI memo:
ODS (ODS is handwritten at the top)
Dept. of Justice Request – Waco, Texas
The Department of Justice thru the FBI, requested two soldiers by name, to meet with the Attorney General on 14 April 93, concerning tactical contingency plans that may be used to bring the situation in Waco, Texas to an end. These personnel are; BG Shoomaker, ADC, 1st CAV DIV, and COL Boykin, Sec Ops, at Fort Bragg, NC. These soldiers have extensive special operations experience, and have worked with the FBI on previous occasions. MG Heldstab has approved this mission, and both have been notified. The Top 6 XOs. FORSCOM, III Corps, and USASOC were also informed. The FBI will handle travel arrangements.
(O’Conner’s signature is here) Michael E. O’Connor CPT, FA AOC WATCH OFFICER
MAJ Wells,
This is what I wrote up and gave to Col (P) Ohle early this morning. BG Shoomaker told my watch NCO (SFC Savage) that the FBI plans to pick him at Fort Hood and fly him first to Waco to assess the situation, and then on to Washington DC. He was not sure if MG Heldstab was aware of those plans when he approved the mission. Just wanted you to be current!
Yup, Boykin, then a Colonel, was sent to Waco to discuss tactical contingency plans. Of course, we all know how well that all turned out.
Of course, in the interests of fairness, it should also be mentioned that Assistant Division Commander Shoomaker’s direct superior was the Commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, General Wesley Clark.
Also, that as I understand it, it is against The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 for the military to be involved in civilian police actions:
From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress.
So Boykin was thoroughly in breach of this law. Along with a whole lot of other people.
The General’s back, in an LA Times Op/Ed piece:
In June of 2002, Jerry Boykin stepped to the pulpit at the First Baptist Church of Broken Arrow, Okla., and described a set of photographs he had taken of Mogadishu, Somalia, from an Army helicopter in 1993.
The photographs were taken shortly after the disastrous “Blackhawk Down” mission had resulted in the death of 18 Americans. When Boykin came home and had them developed, he said, he noticed a strange dark mark over the city. He had an imagery interpreter trained by the military look at the mark. “This is not a blemish on your photograph,” the interpreter told him, “This is real.”
“Ladies and gentleman, this is your enemy,” Boykin said to the congregation as he flashed his pictures on a screen. “It is the principalities of darkness. It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy.”
This is tricky for me. I believe wholeheartedly in spirits, and plenty of other weirdness. I ought to be happy that someone in power takes the concept of evil as seriously as I do.
Problem is, if you’re not objective about it, evil starts looking a whole lot like all the things you didn’t like anyway.
Coming soon, George asks the FBI to send Fox Mulder to investigate….
I try not to cover the same stories as Atrios. He’s bigger than me, and it makes me look silly, but this one is far too much up my street to not mention. Gentlemen, ladies, may I introduce Gen. William �Jerry� Boykin, the US Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, with special responsibility for anti-terrorism. Oh, and a complete lunatic.
From MSNBC, quotes from the good General:
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, BROKEN ARROW, OKLA., JUNE 30, 2002
[SLIDE SHOW, PICTURE OF OSAMA BIN LADEN] �And then we began to see this face�the face of Osama bin Laden. And finally we said, �There�s the enemy. That�s our enemy. That�s the man that hates us. And all of those that follow him.�
[PICTURE OF PRESIDENT BUSH] �And then this man stepped forward. A man that has acknowledged that he prays in the Oval Office. A man that�s in the White House today because of a miracle. You think about how he got in the White House. You think about why he�s there today. As Mordecai said to Esther, �You have been put there for such a time and place.� And this man has been put in the White house to lead our nation in such a time as this.
�But who is that enemy? It�s not Osama bin Laden. Our enemy is a spiritual enemy because we are a nation of believers. You go back and look at our history, and you will find that we were founded on faith. Look at what the writers of our Constitution said. We are a nation of believers. We were founded on faith.�
[PICTURE OF SATAN] �And the enemy that has come against our nation is a spiritual enemy. His name is Satan. And if you do not believe that Satan is real, you are ignoring the same Bible that tells you about God. Now I�m a warrior. One day I�m going to take off this uniform and I�m still going to be a warrior. And what I�m here to do today is to recruit you to be warriors of God�s kingdom.�
GOOD SHEPHERD CHURCH, SANDY, ORE., JUNE 21, 2003
CELEBRATE AMERICA EVENT
�And we ask ourselves this question, �Why do they hate us? Why do they hate us so much?�
Ladies and gentlemen, the answer to that is because we�re a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian. Did I say Judeo-Christian? Yes. Judeo-Christian.
�That means we�ve got a commitment to Israel. That mean�s it�s a commitment we�re never going to abandon.
�Go back and read the history books. Go back and read what the early founders of this nation said about Israel, about the Jews. John Adams wrote extensively of, he called it the Hebrews, the contributions they had made to our concepts of liberty and the importance of their contributions to the founding of this great nation.
�Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin each, independently, when asked to come up with a national symbol for this new nation, both came up with a national symbol that reflected on our Jewish heritage.
�One had Moses standing over the Red Sea with his staff and the water parting.
�The other had the Israelites coming out of bondage in the desert being led by a ball of fire. They recognized the importance of our relationship to the Jews and to Israel. Ladies and gentlemen, we will never abandon Israel, we will never walk away from our commitment to Israel because our roots are there.
Our religion came from Judaism, and therefore these radicals will hate us forever.�
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH, DAYTONA, FLA., JAN. 28, 2003
�There was a man in Mogadishu named Osman Atto. You see him in the movie [�Blackhawk Down�], smoking a big cigar and talking philosophically. How many of you have seen the movie? Acting like a big shot. Well let me tell you something. That�s not what Osman Atto did. The reality was Osman Atto was Aideed�s closest ally. He was Aideed�s top lieutenant. He was a multimillionaire financier for Aideed�s clan. And we knew if that if we could capture Osman Atto and take him away, that we could destroy Aideed�s network. So we went after Osman Atto about two weeks before the battle…. We went after Osman Atto. We got into a terrible fight. And I�m sad to say a lot of Somalis were killed as we went after Osman Atto.
But we missed him by seconds. He walked out of the facility that we raided, he walked down the street and blended in with the crowd and we missed him.
�And then he went on CNN and he laughed at us, and he said, �They�ll never get me because Allah will protect me. Allah will protect me.�
�Well, you know what I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol. But I prayed, Lord let us get that man.
�Three days later we went after him again, and this time we got him. Not a mark on him. We got him. We brought him back into our base there and we had a Sea Land container set up to hold prisoners in, and I said put him in there. They put him in there, there was one guard with him. I said search him, they searched him, and then I walked in with no one in there but the guard, and I looked at him and said, �Are you Osman Atto?� And he said �Yes.� And I said, �Mr. Atto, you underestimated our God.��
Well, I know I’d feel safe if I was in the US. The man has a picture of Satan. He also doesn’t seem aware that Franklin was a humanist or a deist (depending on who you ask.).
He calls Muslims idol worshippers. Last time I checked it was forbidden in Islam to have any physical representaion of Allah.
Hadith – Bukhari 3:428, Narrated Said bin Abu Al-Hasan
While I was with Ibn ‘Abbas a man came and said, “O father of ‘Abbas! My sustenance is from my manual profession and I make these pictures.” Ibn ‘Abbas said, “I will tell you only what I heard from Allah’s Apostle . I heard him saying, ‘Whoever makes a picture will be punished by Allah till he puts life in it, and he will never be able to put life in it.’ ” Hearing this, that man heaved a sigh and his face turned pale. Ibn ‘Abbas said to him, “What a pity! If you insist on making pictures I advise you to make pictures of trees and any other unanimated objects.”
You’d have thought the top anti-terrorist guy would make a point of knowing some basic Islamic factoids.
Fascist Bastards II
More from the Independant:
A Swedish journalist witnessed US soldiers beat an elderly religious man, Maad Ibrahim, almost to death. Mustapha Can, a correspondent for the Swedish evening newspaper Aftonbladet, was with a US patrol, which was hit by two mortar rounds.
He told The Independent: “Suddenly I saw the soldiers kick in a door and drag out an old man who screamed, ‘Me no shoot! please, please mister.’ The soldiers shouted, ‘Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up!’
“They tied his hands behind his back and then, as he lay on the ground, one said: ‘Keep his head still.’ He slammed him on the head with his rifle butt again and again. Then the others kicked him. There was blood everywhere.” US officers later admitted they were probably wrong about the old man, but said “these things happen in the heat of the action”.
Aftonbladet isn’t available in English, my Swedish is feeble, and there doesn’t seem to be be a free translator on the web, so can’t pursue this one to its source. Mustapha Can is very definitely their Iraq correspondent though, and has excellent taste in music.
Diane, in comment to the previous Iraq story:
“I can’t help feeling that there is probably something in the Geneva Convention about not doing this sort of thing.”
Yep, there certainly is….
Fourth Geneva Convention –
Article 31: “No physical or moral coercion shall be exercised against protected persons, in particular to obtain information from them or from third parties.”
Article 33: “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.”
Article 53: “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging to private persons�is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations”.
I guess now we know why Bush wouldn’t sign up the US for the International Court of Justice.
My knowledge of international law is slight, but the US IS a signatory of the the Convention, so presumably there must be a court that can try them somewhere? Still, only a matter of time before Bush pulls out of the GC too.
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