A-Infos (sup) Re: [BRC-DISC] The Case of Sgt Asan Akbar: Hawks And Doves Shockedand Awed Into Silence

["Lorenzo Ervin" <komboa@hotmail.com>]

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I don't believe this Sargeant Akbar is "mentally impaired" or a "cowardly 
murderer", as John says here, and it is not germane if we compare him to 
"Black heroes" of the past. What we should actually compare him to is the 
thousands of GI's, especially Blacks, in the Vietnam war who rebelled 
against racist and genocidal, (sometimes suicidal), orders by combat 
officers, including some orders to murder civilians.

These "fraggings" in Vietnam resulted in the death of over 2,000 officers, 
by the Pentagon's own estimate during the latter stages of that war. What 
they reflected is that the troops were rebelling against authority, under 
circumstances of death and destruction. Some of these officers had summarily 
executed men for refusing to fight. For the most part, the GI's were 
draftees and forced into those circumstances of combat, and when they turned 
against the war they did it with a vengeance.

The news reports I heard was that sgt. Akbar was a Muslim who hated the war 
and the military for waging it against a Muslim country in the Middle East. 
It all makes perfect sense if we can examine the facts without histrionics.

I can't believe that anyone who calls themselves a "radical" could arrive at 
such a backward assessment that the man is a "criminal" undeserving of 
support. He is no more a "murderer" than the average GI is a "baby-killer", 
the real criminals are those who stirred up the war in the first place, not 
the GI's who are mere cannon fodder. The sentiment that he is just a 
"traitor", "madman", or "murderer" is as bad as any right-wing hawk in the 
Bush Adminstration.

Lorenzo Komboa Ervin


>From: John Woodford <johnwood@umich.edu>
>Reply-To: brc-discuss@lists.tao.ca
>To: brc-discuss@lists.tao.ca
>Subject: Re: [BRC-DISC] The Case of Sgt Asan Akbar: Hawks And Doves 
>Shockedand  Awed Into Silence
>Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 16:13:56 -0500
>
>***************************************************************************
>This Message Is From: John Woodford <johnwood@umich.edu>
>***************************************************************************
>
>The sergeant, if he in fact killed his fellow soldiers, is either severely
>mentally impaired or a cowardly murderer, and surely does not deserve to be
>compared favorably with Robert Williams or any other Black hero.
>In either of the above cases, he is not representative of  any aspect of 
>the
>progressive or radical Black movement, nor a paragon of bravery.
>But the writer is right about one important matter: Akbar's motives and 
>thinking
>ought to be covered as thoughtfully and sympathetically as the Columbine 
>killers'
>were, and the thininig of other garden variety white killers.
>
>
>
>Gerald Horne wrote:
>
> > 
>***************************************************************************
> > This Message Is From: Gerald Horne <gchorne@email.unc.edu>
> > 
>***************************************************************************
> >
> > Those who find this commentary persuasive would be well-advised to place
> > advance orders for copies of my book, 'Race War', to be published later
> > this year by NYU Press; with a focus on the Pacific War and based on
> > research in five continents, it details at
> > some length precisely what Dr. McIntosh is alluding to.....
> >
> > On 26 Mar 2003, S. E. Anderson wrote:
> >
> > > 
>***************************************************************************
> > > This Message Is From: "S. E. Anderson" <ebontek@earthlink.net>
> > > 
>***************************************************************************
> > >
> > >
> > > Hawks And Doves Shocked and Awed Into Silence In The Case of
> > > Sgt.
> > > Akbar
> > >
> > > By James C. McIntosh, M.D.
> > >
> > >
> > >        This weekend Sgt Assan (Hasan) Akbar  a 31 year old Muslim,
> > > Black soldier of the 101st Airborne based at Camp Pennsylvania
> > > near
> > > the border of Iraq is alleged to have thrown a grenade into a
> > > tent of
> > > his base commander Col. Frederick Hodges wounding Hodges and
> > >  several
> > > other officers of his unit. Akbar is also alleged  to have killed
> > > Captain Christopher Scott Siefert with small arms fire, and to
> > > have
> > > wounded several other soldiers as they tried to escape the tent.
> > > Sgt.
> > > Assan Akbar whose "slave name" had been Mark Fidel Kools is
> > > reported to have committed these acts in protest to the War and/or
> > > to
> > > racism in the Army.  Although American war strategists had promised
> > > Shock and Awe in this invasion Akbar's alleged attack was clearly
> > > not
> > > what they had had in mind. Ironically, almost no coverage of
> > > this
> > > dramatic case has been forthcoming from progressive or traditional
> > > media that have otherwise been devoting almost all their coverage
> > > to
> > > the events of the war. If Sgt. Hasan Akbar had been an Iraqi
> > > soldier
> > > in the Iraqi army accused of killing Iraqi officers or even a
> > > white
> > > soldier  accused of killing U.S. officers in protest of the war,
> > > we
> > > would be able to read and  hear a humanistic discussion of the
> > > motives, emotions and commitment that led him to his actions
> > > in the
> > > white mass media. Those who doubt this assertion should remember
> > > the
> > > humanistic coverage of        the Columbine case detailing the tragic
> > > history of scapegoating and ostracism that had instigated  young
> > > white males to        murder and attempt to murder all their 
>classmates
> > > and
> > > teachers with small arms and explosives.
> > >
> > > Quiet As Church mice, Synagogue and Mosque Mice
> > >
> > >        Yet the same traditional media who stretched mightily
> > > to find
> > > the tragic motives  to explain the violentce of bored young white
> > > males with access to explosives and guns  are content to explain
> > > Akbar's alleged actions with the simple word treason.  And the
> > > same
> > > progressive and radical media which say that the war is criminal
> > > and
> > > that the people waging it are war criminals are suddenly as quiet
> > > as
> > > church mice or perhaps synagogue and mosque mice in this case
> > > of Sgt
> > > Akbar. Sgt Akbar's middle slave name is Fidel but even that can't
> > > stir the progressives to speak up.  That is because their silence
> > > is
> > > based primarily on racism with firm roots in the fear that whites
> > > in
> > > this country have  always had that Africans might in large numbers
> > >
> > > one day fight against white America rather that for  it as they
> > > have
> > > traditionally done since the time of Crispus Attucks. One could
> > > postulate that Sgt. Assan Akbar did what the Nuremberg trials
> > > suggest
> > > is an option for,  a soldier ordered to perform murderous illegal
> > > war
> > > crimes or "crimes against peace." He not only refused to
> > > simply "follow orders" but directly opposed the orders.
> > > Antiwar whites and Blacks of the US should have and would have
> > > written volumes on this point if Sgt. Akbar had been white. But
> > > in
> > > the case of Akbar, both whites and white minded Blacks are silent.
> > > Why? Is it because they would dare consider  Akbar a person of
> > > kidnapped enslaved African ancestry a Benedict Arnold /Jonathan
> > > Pollard or is it because Akbar killed and wounded whites.  The
> > > fear
> > > of  race war is what has always separated so called progressives
> > > from
> > > the Black struggle. Civil rights Activist Mae Mallory  has often
> > > told
> > > the story of how in the early 60's she was shocked to find that
> > > the
> > > same white activists with whom she had helped organize Warsaw
> > > Ghetto
> > > day celebrating the bravery of those who fought the Nazis in
> > > the
> > > infamous Warsaw Ghetto, were appalled when she naively and excitedly
> > >
> > > later asked them to support former Monroe County NAACP Vice president
> > > Robert Williams when he was encouraging  and actually organizing
> > > the
> > > Blacks in North Carolina to fight the Klan with guns. The same
> > > whites
> > > who thought fighting Nazi's with guns was brave thought that
> > > the idea
> > > of "Blacks (fighting white racists) With Guns" was
> > > abhorrent.
> > >
> > > Even The News Is A White Cultural Production
> > >
> > >        For one of the most disturbing images to the  white mind,
> > > even
> > > among progressives, even among Blacks with white minds, is the
> > > image
> > > of Blacks doing retaliatory or preemptive harm to whites. In
> > > white
> > > cultural productions, including news coverage, you will rarely
> > > see
> > > Blacks retaliate violently against white injustice.  When you
> > > do see
> > > such violence represented it will always be in the context of
> > > certain
> > > conventions acceptable to the white mind. Some of these conventions
> > > are that the violence is planned or led  by whites fighting along
> > > with the Blacks or that the Blacks suffer horribly after they
> > > commit
> > > the violence.  This is true in both the fiction and alleged non
> > > fiction of whites. Remember that whenever white supremacists
> > > call
> > > their productions non fiction as in   scientific, historical
> > > or
> > > current news coverage they are still referring to largely
> > > fictionalized  cultural productions.  That is why in the rare
> > > cases
> > > where whites write of rebellious Blacks they are selective in
> > > their
> > > choice of historical events.  The historical event of the African
> > > Cinque and other enslaved Africans seizing control of the slave
> > > ship
> > > Armistad has been presented in white media  as fictionalized
> > > history
> > > complete with the necessary conventions. The film not only places
> > >
> > > emphasis  upon a white savior but comes also complete with Africans
> > > on a slave ship rating themselves as suffering less than the
> > > mythical
> > > Jewish characters  alleged in the bible to have been enslaved
> > > in
> > > Egypt.        That is also the reason that you will never see any
> > > historically accurate production in white media, fictionalized
> > > or
> > > otherwise, about Madison Washington or David Ruggles, Africans        
>who
> > > violently without whites directing them actually freed entire
> > > loads
> > > of "cargo"  (captives) from Slave Ships.
> > >
> > > Where's Amnesty International, The Red Cross and The Red Crescent
> > >
> > >        The silence of Blacks and whites in this  current case
> > > of a
> > > soldier of African Ancestry taking up arms against people he
> > > saw as
> > > racist war criminals  is more than of abstract significance to        
>both
> > > Sgt. Akbar and the antiwar movement. Sgt. Akbar is going to be
> > > subjected to military justice. It has been said that "military
> > > justice is to justice as military music is to music." Even
> > > though        the initial reports were that outside terrorists 
>committed
> > > the killings, Akbar  has already been convicted by the press.
> > > Even
> > > before they provided his name rank or serial number  or even
> > > knew his
> > > military occupational specialty white newpapers were already
> > > calling
> > > Akbar a traitor.    As a Muslim Black, Akbar is, of course, going
> > > to
> > > be considered guilty  by the military until doubly proven innocent.
> > > Yet it is incumbent upon all who believe in justice to demand
> > > humane
> > > treatment, an expert defense,  justice and  some would say amnesty,
> > >
> > > for Akbar.  If President-select Bush can, in defiance of the
> > > UN,
> > > invade a sovereign nation then still express concern for and
> > > even
> > > demand humane treatment for U.S. soldiers participating in that
> > > illegal invasion--- If Amnesty international demands humane treatment
> > > of all combatants in Iraq,  can they or the entire Antiwar movement
> > > do any less for Sgt. Akbar, whose middle slave name again is
> > > Fidel.
> > > Where are the demands to the International Red Cross, The Red
> > > Crescent, Amnesty International to investigate the treatment
> > > and
> > > circumstances of Sgt. Assan Akbar's incarceration and interrogation?
> > > Where even are the demands to the News Media to cover this case.To
> > > paraphrase Mandela, Has Sgt Akbar paralyzed them? Are they--
> > > are
> > > you-- too shocked and awed to answer?
> > >
> > > Things You Can Do To Encourage Coverage, investigation, Humane
> > > Treatment  and Justice In This case
> > >
> > > 1.Contact progressive Media and international monitoring bodies
> > >
> > > email to WBAI ask for coverage of the case.  example email address
> > > Sharper@WBAI.org.
> > >   Write or email to amnesty international at the following addresses
> > > encourage monitoring and investigation of the case of Sgt. Akbar
> > >
> > > admin-us@aiusa.org
> > >
> > > www.amnestyusa.org
> > > Amnesty International
> > > 322 8th Avenue
> > > New York
> > > NY 10001
> > > Phone Number (212) 807 8400 +
> > > Fax numbers (212) 463 9193\ (212) 627 1451
> > > 2. Write elected officials
> > > Congressman Rangel
> > > Fax at (202) 225-0816 or Email at http://www.house.gov/writerep.
> > >
> > > Washington D.C. Office
> > > 2354 Rayburn House Office Building
> > > Washington, DC 20515
> > >
> > > (202) 225-4365    New York Office
> > > 163 West 125th Street, Suite #737
> > > New York, NY 10027
> > > (212) 663-3900
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > [Cross-posting or publishing messages that appear on BRC-DISCUSS to a
> > > non-BRC medium is prohibited (except for articles, announcements, and
> > > press releases), without EXPLICIT permission from the message author]
> > >
> > > 
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