American Karma & The River of Tears
by Bill Morgan
prema@prahlad.org

One shudders to think of the terrible karma America is reaping throughout the world as a result of its actions. "Karma" is a sanskrit word which simply means "action," but it carries with it the the implications of the Biblical phrase, "As you sow, so shall you reap." In other words: the consequences of your actions will come back to haunt you.

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