Response to questions raised in last blog entry

This short little blog is in response to the person who posted the questions in regards to my last blog entry entitled “Karbala, and what could have been.”

(see the comment post and questions in full here)

Question number one: I assume that you are asking me if I support Obama or McCain and / or whether or not I think that either one of the two will bring about a change. And again, I can only assume here that you mean for the better.

Well, here it goes for whatever it’s worth. If you ask me, the United States hasn’t been a true democracy since who knows when. I am highly uninformed when it comes to politics, the electoral process, etc… But I think that it would be extremely naive to think that the “powers that be” would allow a man to become the president who wasn’t in league with them regarding their plans, agendas, and what not. I mean really, think about it. A lot of planning and manipulations were needed to justify the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the whole so called war on terror in general. It took a tremendous amount of effort into pulling the wool over the eyes of an entire nation as has been done here in the U.S. I hate to give the fuckers any credit, but whoever concocted this whole bullshit fantasy that allows the United States to attack whomever they want, whenever they want, and to do it in a way that even blatant lies later go unchallenged, is damn near a genius in my eyes. And throw on top of that the fact that people, human beings, can be kidnapped from third party nations, held indefinitely without charges, and then rot away in cells without even the right to legal council, it’s enough to make you think that we are back in the dark ages, which honestly, I believe that if we aren’t yet, then we will be soon, and I mean very soon.

So, back to the question, no, I do not support either Obama nor McCain, nor any other candidate for that matter. I believe that whoever is elected will continue to be a figurehead for whoever is really calling the shots back stage. As to who “they” are calling the shots, well, I will leave that for you to decide. There are many more people out there who know a lot more facts than I do. I will leave it up to them to figure out who “they” are. I have my own theories and opinions but until I can prove them I prefer to keep them to myself. But I promise the world this; that the day I can prove who they are, and why they are bent on destroying the world as we know it, I will make it known in a heart beat. Until then…you get the point.

Question number two: I guess that I already answered this one to some extent in the answer to question number one, i.e., the kidnapping of people from third party countries and holding them indefinitely without so much as legal representation. Just the very idea of this is wrong on so many different levels that I don’t even know where to begin. I ask the following question with the utmost sincerity and humility; Does anybody out there really believe that it is right, whether morally, legally, however you want to put it, to simply kidnap a man from a country that isn’t even his, treat him in the most inhuman ways possible, and then lock him up in yet another country, well actually a military base, and hold him indefinitely with no rights whatsoever? Come on now; tell the truth if you are honest with yourself.

First of all, look at it this way. Let’s say that you have a man in Afghanistan who is fighting against coalition soldiers. He is from whatever country, again, let’s just say Egypt. According to the Geneva Convention, if this man was wearing some kind of uniform that made him recognizable as belonging to whatever guerilla formation that he belonged to, and after all, terrorist, terrorist organization, terrorism, these are all semantics used in place of what the man really was, and that’s a guerrilla soldier. Nobody is saying that that makes it right; I am simply clarifying what the man really was by definition of the Geneva Convention, like the Viet Cong in Vietnam. Furthermore, if this man had a commander who ultimately could be held accountable for the mans actions, then under the Geneva Convention this man is considered an enemy soldier and therefore afforded the rights of any prisoner of war, which the people being held in Gitmo are not. What’s more is that if the man was a guerilla soldier fighting in Afghanistan then it seems logical to me for the Afghan authorities to deal with him; as in his arrest, detention, charges, his trial, and ultimately his sentence and punishment if found guilty of specific crimes. Whatever the man is accused of happened on Afghan soil; therefore it is one hundred percent within Afghan jurisdiction.

So how on Gods green earth does this man end up in U.S. custody, transferred (kidnapped) to Gitmo, or any one of the other secret or not so secret detention facilities that we all know exist, like Abu Ghraib, and held “indefinitely?”

Even if there were a strong case against our hypothetical man here, and there was reason for him to be extradited to the U.S., then the U.S. would have to go through the extradition process like all modern civilized nations do. And this process would start by Afghanistan first deporting the man to his native country, and then there would have to be an extradition treaty between the U.S. and whatever country that the man is from, and then the process would proceed from there. But you can’t just bypass the whole procedure that every other nation on earth would have to abide by just because you are the United States of America. That’s just down right dirty. And we are supposed to be the ones with the moral high ground? Yeah right.

Now, the above statements by no means cover all the cases and circumstances that led every individual into the confines of Gitmo or wherever. Some are far more complicated than others obviously. And I am not saying that the U.S. doesn’t have a right to defend it’s self. Hell, if anything, where others might be against the use of torture I might actually support it, believe it or not, if the end truly justifies the means. As in if lives are going to be lost if a certain individual doesn’t talk, well, you gotta do what you gotta do. But we all know when torture can be justified and when it’s just down right bullshit.

So I guess really that my answer to question number two is that there is a right way to do something, and then there is the wrong way. And Guantanamo Bay isn’t one of the right ways. And for all of you reading this shaking your head saying what a load of shit, I ask you this, why then when we had a chance to infiltrate UBL’s inner circle and possibly do his ass if need be, we DIDN’T! Answer me that first before you shake your head at anything that I say. The problem that is called Usama Bin Laden, if he truly is the source of the problem, could have been dealt with long before people were losing their lives, whether to airplanes flying into buildings, or truck bombs going off behind embassies.

I’m waiting, you geniuses that were shaking your heads, for the answer to that one. If you can provide me with the answer I will be the first one to rethink some of the things that I say. So we’ll see…

Question number three: No, it doesn’t surprise me at all that there are mercs from the places that you mentioned, Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia fighting covert wars in Chechnya, Kashmir, and Iraq.

Serbs are Slavic. They have demonstrated their utter and complete contempt and hatred for the Muslims of the world, much like their Slavic brothers, the Russians, first in Bosnia, then in Kosova, and now as mercenaries in Chechnya (against the Chechens of course), and Kashmir. And here once again is an example of the biased nature of the so-called journalistic world. So-called because a journalist is supposed to be neutral, an unbiased outsider simply reporting the facts as he or she sees them so that the rest of the world can stay informed. Yet time and again this isn’t the case. How many of you reading this remember Sebrenicia? But be quick about it, no cheating and looking it up online. Right now as you read this think to yourself what happened in Sebrenicia. Are you drawing a blank? If you’re not, and you remember, then I commend you. But if you have forgotten, or never knew in the first place, I blame the media for that.

How is it, that in this day and age, up to EIGHT THOUSAND innocent civilians could be slaughtered in the course of 24 hours, and even worse, using the old fashioned way of lining them up and machine gunning them into giant pits? I mean any way that you’re killed is a bad way, but to me it just seems a little different to say that x number of people were killed in a bomb blast, or a rocket attack, or whatever. It’s not that it changes the tragedy any, it just seems easier to ignore I guess. Not for me, but I guess maybe for the average person listening to the news, I don’t know. But to say that eight thousand people, an entire city basically, were rounded up, which must have taken hours, then sorted into groups, and then finally gunned down in rows as the next batch watched, to me that is some really heavy shit to comprehend. Look back to what happened in Azerbaijan in ’91 or ’92, the Russians rolled into downtown Baku with their tanks and gunned down something like three hundred people. To me, that’s even hard to deal with.

Then what about the Kurds that Sadam Hussein killed with the chemical weapons, what was it, like five thousand? And then of course our own tragedy here in the U.S., Sept. 11. But even that was only three thousand plus. What I’m saying here is that it just seems to change the way that you view a tragedy. To me I would think that three thousand people killed all at once instantly is easier to digest for the average person than eight thousand people over the course of a 24 hour saga filled with scenes as if it were the Apocalypse its self. Yet, when the Sebrenicia massacre took place in 1995, I myself hardly remember the media making much of a fuss over it. It was almost as if the incident was one of those back page article type of stories, like, “and by the way, today eight thousand Muslims were slaughtered by Serbian forces in Sebrenicia, and now on to today’s real headlines.”

Yet when an event takes place where Muslims were the perpetrators, not only is it sure to make every front page and headline, the journalists are so quick to remind us how one incident perpetrated by a handful of Muslim bad guys is evidence that the entire religion of Islam is flawed and must be eradicated. Case in point, the infamous Ann Coulter. Her solution for the “war on terror” is to quote ‘invade all of the Muslim countries, kill their leaders, and force the rest of the population to convert to Christianity or face death’ end quote. But again, the Serbian CHRISTIAN forces that slaughtered eight thousand Muslims in Sebrenicia did not reflect on Christianity one iota. Nor did the Orthodox Christian priests riding into battle on the tops of tanks in Chechnya, only to look the other way once a village was entered by the Russian soldiers and the raping and killing began, reflect on Christianity. Nor did individuals like Timothy McVeigh’s actions, who was a Christian, reflect on the religion. Nor do all of the wackos who blow up abortion clinics in the name of God reflect on Christianity. But even when a Palestinian Nationalist, who happens to be Christian by faith, and yes, many Palestinians are Christians, blows something up in the name of Palestine, not the name of Allah, somehow even this is translated into Islamic terrorism by the media.

Point being that everybody has bad guys. Every country, every group, every religion. Muslims by far are no exception to this rule. But you have to call it like you see it. Eight thousand lives lost are not any less tragic just because they are Muslims. But apparently in the medias eyes this is exactly the case.

How is this related to question number three? I’m not sure myself, but I think that the point that I was trying to make is that it doesn’t surprise me that there are Serbian mercenaries working in Chechnya and Kashmir. And it surprises me even less that you don’t hear about this in the media. Yet we have all heard the stories of supposed Chechen mercenaries in Iraq. It’s all about the spin game. Just once I would like to see the events of the world told like they happened, without an agenda and without putting a spin on it. I think that the world might become a much different place, and definitely for the better.

Question number four: As to Australian troops making a difference in the war on terror. That’s one that I can’t really answer. If anything maybe staying out of it would actually help things. Once people wake up and realize that the so-called war on terror is not really a war on terror but a war with an agenda, a big business agenda, and once people realize that this isn’t about “Islam versus the West”, and people will realize that when America loses all of it’s support and is left standing alone still bleating about the war on terror, yet the rest of the “western world” can coincide in peace with Islam and the Muslim people of the world, then, and only then will a “difference” be made.

So, my anonymously posting friend, I hope that I was able to answer your questions. Also, as for the rest of you, please bear with me as a finish writing something that I would like all of you to read regarding the world of prosthetics. Lately, it has been weighing on me the fact that so many young American soldiers are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan missing limbs. The world of prosthetics isn’t one that you want to stumble into alone and unprepared. Yeah, to a certain extent it takes will power and all that stuff to overcome an injury like getting a leg or an arm blown off, but you can also say that missing a limb is one of the injuries where all the will power in the world isn’t going to get you anywhere without the right equipment. It’s kind of like saying that you are determined to win the Indy 500 with a Ford Focus. Dream about it all you want, but it just isn’t going to happen, end of story. Prosthetics are a lot like that. You can have all the will power possible and a positive attitude to boot, but get paired up with a shitty leg or a crappy arm and you are going to loose your determination real quick.

In my next blog I want to talk about the ups and downs of the prosthetic world and how if you don’t inform yourself you are going to have a hard time when you get fitted with a prosthesis that holds you back instead of allowing you to get back to normal life. So keep checking back for my next blog. I also have some pictures of my new leg that totally kicks ass, or at least will kick ass when and if I can walk again. So until then.

Ocean Beach RiffRaff (by Dominique Mainon)

Hello everyone, 

This is Dominique Mainon again. Thought I would just share with you a funny video I took of Aukai one night in Ocean Beach. 

We set out to do an interview at his mother's old hangout, The Sunshine Company in Ocean Beach, California, in which we would discuss some of his early life, specifically about his mother.

We will still explore that and soon show you some pictures of Aukai as a child and his mother and family. But for now you can see how this interview degenerated due to the "Ocean Beach Effect" that seems to be somewhat prevalent on that row. Includes a cameo from a baby possum.

Note: If any of you are fans of the show South Park, then you will  understand our homage to their episode "Night of the Living Homeless" - definitely a must-see! (Full episode is downloadable on itunes for devoted fans, just click below)

Liberty and justice for all???

I have been writing and rewriting this stupid blog like a junior high school kid with a love letter. Nothing is coming out the way that I want it to sound so I’m just going to get on with it and let you decide how it is. 

Having said that, the other problem is that it’s a sad day when a person has to think twice about what they say or how they say it in regards to their own government. I swear to God, I never would have thought that I would be saying that in the good ‘ole United States. I mean come on, that’s the kinda shit that people living under Soviet rule had to deal with. Or like people that lived in Albania under that little freak Enver Hoxha, where if you criticized him you were breaking the law. And now here, in the land of apple pie and fake tits, ignorant little men that to me have a gnomish look, minus the beard, say things like “you are either with us or against us.” Well damn, what if I simply don’t agree? Does that mean that I have to be necessarily against you? Isn’t it my right to agree or disagree? And even be critical if I want?

 

From what I know and have seen and read, this isn’t the case anymore. It reminds me of a conversation that I once had with an older man in Arizona. We were discussing the militias, and also just your average citizen, that felt the need to keep a loaded rifle and an Alice Pack next to their beds. The man said that this was nonsense in regards to the day that our own government would turn against us. He likened this to the “crazies”, as he called them, of the 50’s and 60’s that felt the need to build nuclear bomb shelters under their house. The man said that in every generation there was a threat, always unsubstantiated, that people were afraid of. He was mainly basing this loose theory off the idea that just because World War III never happened, and on that one the games not over yet anyway, anyone who prepared for it was one of the crazies. He was basically saying that people have always been afraid of some conspiracy or another, but that in the end there weren’t any Boogie Men in the closet, so everything is always going to be just peachy. 

Now I look back on that conversation and wonder who is the true crazie? In just the last seven years we have seen things happen, and laws made, that had you have told somebody about this a decade ago they would have called you loony for sure. I probably would have been one of the first ones to call you loony. During the late 90’s, while employed by we all know who, I was on this major America is the greatest place on Earth kick. I would sit there, in foreign countries, and argue the most hardcore “Islamic Radical” into a corner. And I did this on many an occasion. These were the times when people still remembered what the CIA did for the Afghan Mujahideen, and forgot what the CIA didn’t do for the Afghan people. These were the times when, at least in my circles, I rarely encountered a Muslim in the world who viewed the United States as the “Great Satan.” These were the times when a young American kid put on the Woodland pattern BDU’s that he was given in Kashmir and the guys from Harakatul Jihad cheered because he “looked like an American soldier.”

These were also the times when there was what many considered an unwritten truce between the Mujahideen of the world and the “west”, meaning mainly the United States, the UK, Germany, etc. The truce was that they don’t mess around in your backyard and you don’t mess around in theirs. Let them fight the Soviets, and post Soviet regimes, and in return they won’t fight you. Basically, as unbelievable as these words are now, live and let live. Just look at the Bosnian war. There were scores of young Muslims from the UK who not only fought in Bosnia against the Serbs, but who came home to free medical care. In those days the only “Muslims” in the UK talking shit about the west were government provocateurs. At the time it wasn’t understood why these big mouthed people who had never fought anybody, does the name Omar ring a bell, were allowed to talk so much garbage that didn’t make sense to anybody, neither the Muslims nor the government. 

Well back on subject. The point was that a lot of Muslims in the world believed that America was a pretty nice place to live, so why fuck it up? And even more so for those of us that are both, American and Muslim. And then suddenly everything changed, and see I got you there, I wasn’t going to say “with Sept. 11^th” like you thought. Those of us in the know saw the writing on the wall as far back as ’98-’99. Suddenly things began to shift. Three young fighters from some Arab country were picked up in Albania en route to the fight in Kosova, at CIA request, and sent to Egypt were they were unexpectedly executed. This was by far the only incident, and surely one of the less important ones, but I use the example simply because I know that it happened. If you will recall, I too was picked up in Albania that year, and amazingly was accused of having something to do with the Bombings that had taken place in Dar as Salaam and Nairobi. The shift had taken place. I was in Washington D.C. with my bosses when the above mentioned events went down. And to even suggest such a thing would have been to imply direct U.S. Government involvement which is obviously not the case. The point that I am making here is that whoever was behind the shift wasn’t going about it very responsibly. A lot began to change, and suddenly I wasn’t so sure of my own arguments anymore. 

Each time I left the country and reentered in those pivotal couple of years my treatment became worse. During one particularly ridiculous incident of harassment upon coming back from wherever, I almost did what I wasn’t allowed to do by telling them whom I worked for. The Customs people were crossing the line, they obviously didn’t know who I worked for, but did know that I was a Muslim. The treatment wasn’t only unwarranted in my case, it was down right degrading. Again, somebody was changing the way things had been, and we could see that something bad was going down. Then came the big event, Sept. 11^th.

Although shocking, it didn’t come as a surprise. Immediately there were more questions than answers. I am not a 9-11 theorist, and I’m sure that all of you have read both sides of opinions about what happened that day. Some opinions are outrageous, but I think that it would be just as outrageous to simply accept the “facts” at face value. That a hijacker’s passport could survive the inferno that engulfed the planes as they slammed into the buildings, and then flutter unharmed to the rubble below, is as unbelievable as the claim that the American Government was directly behind the events. But just as there are doubts concerning what really happened that day, considering a couple of the supposed hijackers family’s came forth and said “hey, our son died a couple of years ago so why is his face on the news,” so are there in turn doubts as to whether or not a few individuals in the government DID have prior knowledge of what was coming. Outrageous you say? Well what about the fact that the hijackers all had a meeting in Kuala Lumpur prior to Sept. 11^th, and the CIA recorded the meeting? What about the Mossad agents that lived across the street from Muhammad Atta in Florida and no doubt bugged everything that he said while there?

So, is it so outrageous to question whether or not a few individuals could have allowed a major act of terrorism to happen without stopping it to further whatever goals they have? And more importantly, we have to look at how that day not only changed the world, but our lives here in the U.S. as well. And believe it or not, this is where this blog really starts, that was just the prelude. Next, I want to talk about how eleven men, (actually I don’t know the correct number but it’s a large group close to eleven), who all have the same names, and are all on the no-fly list. When the absurdity of it isn’t in the fact that obviously all of the guys with the same name can’t be the same person, the absurdity of it is the fact the original name holder who was a “bad guy” has been dead for some time now. So why isn’t there a system in place where the group of guys can all prove that each one of them isn’t the original bad guy, and thereby fly again. 

Or if a child appears to be on the list, why doesn’t someone have the discretion to say, “ok, this kid must have the same name as some bad guy, so the kid can fly.” Equally as bad is the fact that many people on the no-fly list aren’t bad guys at all and don’t share the same name as some bad guy. There are people who are on the no-fly list who shouldn’t even be on the list to begin with, and they to have no recourse to fight back and fly again.

To be continued...

In the meantime, check out some other people who worked for their country and then ended up on the no-fly list:

Greetings to all, friends and enemies alike...

The Russian army tried to kill me while corrupt Arabs pilfering humanitarian aid tried it also. Ironically, it was a man irate over being scammed by the escort service that he had just called out, while his wife was at the movies, whom was the only one that once got the drop on me. This amateur probably came closer than the above mentioned parties ever did, in actually getting the job done; that time an ABA Extreme Armor IIIA vest stopped the bullet from entering my chest.  

Another time, the Mexican infantry had me laid out on the side of a dirt road in the middle of the mountains while an irate cartel boss had his AR-15 stuck to my temple (Quick shout out and a big “thank you” to Sub Teniente Armando of the 9th Military District for sticking your G3 to his temple thereby saving me). Later, the guards of El CE.RE.SO stuck me in a cell with “El Diablo,” one of the states of Durango’s top cartel killers; in an attempt to… can you guess? That’s right, kill me. By the way, you’re pretty smart if you guessed that one, email me and I will send you some bubble gum.  

I guess what I’m really trying to get at here, is that over the years a lot of people have endeavored to make sure that I wasn’t here today posting this web page. Much to their displeasure, no doubt, green eggs and ham, Sam I am here.

For those of you that remember me you will no doubt have noticed that I have maintained an internet silence, for the most part, since the end of the 2003-2006 Mexico debacle. In the coming posts and blogs I will explain why this is so. Many of you have also been wondering what happened to the not-so-infamous Aqil since leaving Mexico. This also I will explain in the coming weeks and months. 

Despite my silence, I have been watching. I look forward to finally talking with the many people that I have seen post on various different websites looking for a way to contact me. For now, you can get a hold of me by leaving a comment on this blog or emailing me at the email listed on this profile. 

Anyway, that’s about it for now. The site is still rough, I know, but hopefully that will be fixed very soon. I hope that all of you who have been searching for me will be at least somewhat satisfied that you now have a way to contact me. I promise that I will do my best to answer as quickly as possible any and all of you that contact me, as a matter of fact, I look forward to it. 

Enjoy the pics and video on the website; there will be much more to come.

-Aukai Collins 

A.K.A. Aqil