The walls of fire
grow higher, higher
pools of blood
carnage
bodies of brothers
touching
rock cliffs and open fields -
Hornet’s Nest at Shiloh
Devil’s Den, Gettysburg.
The walls of fire
grow higher, higher
pools of blood
carnage
bodies of brothers
touching
sea to shining sea -
lost in the Argonne Forest
face down on beaches at Normandy
frozen by the waters of Chosin Reservoir.
The walls of fire
grow higher, higher
pools of blood
carnage
bodies of brothers
touching
paddies, highlands -
Nui Ba Dinh, the Black Virgin Mountain
the Ashau Valley
along the perimeter of Khe Sanh.
The walls of fire
grow higher, higher
pools of blood, carnage
bodies of brothers
touching
empty deserts
filled with giant rising suns -
Fallujah rooftops
unknown streets of Sadr City
barren mountains, caves of Tora Bora.
The walls of fire
grow higher, still higher
pools of blood
carnage
bodies of brothers
touching.
The walls of fire copyright by Mike Marcellino 2009
Photos by Mike Marcellino, South Vietnam, 1967-68 Copyright 2010
(top) "My Girls" (right) "Oriental River" and (below) "Search and Destory"
Mike served in the US Army as a combat correspondent and photojournalist in the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1968.
He recorded "The Walls of Fire" as the folk band's fourth poetry song in November 2009. Mike is songwriter and vocalist and Tomas Texino composed the music.
You may listen to the recording of "The Walls of Fire" on the music player here or visit our band site at ReverbNation. You've invited to be a follower of Mike's blog, "The Point of the Whole Thing" and a fan of the band on ReverbNation and the band's Facebook page.
A soldier's reflection: From the Cold War to Vietnam and Afghanistan
Written in 2007 by Mike Marcellino, the poetry song was originally recorded and performed by Mike's first band, Split Peace in Cleveland and again recorded by his new band, the Mike Marcellino Band, accompanied by musician Tomas Texino, composer and producer.
In the piece, Mike recalls living in Las Cruces, New Mexico, a few months after returning from the Vietnam War where he served in the U.S. Army as a combat correspondent and photojournalist. He sent the winter a tiny trailer outside a small horse ranch in the desert hills near the Mexican border. His most enjoyable time were walking through the desert hills and escaping to Juarez, Mexico, now one of the most violent places on earth.
You're invited to listen on the music player on Mike's Networked Blog, or visit our band website and be a fan of our new folk band.
Las Cruces is near the White Sands Missile Range and not far from McGregor Range, near El Paso, Texas. It was on this range in 1967 that Mike, using a Pentax with a 300 mm lens, photographed in color and black and white the test firing of Army Hawk missiles. The photos were picked up on the Associated Press wire and transmitted around the world.
For his first person story and photographs, published in "Army Times" and other newspapers, Mike accompanied a Hawk missile battery, part of the 32nd Army Air Defense Command stationed throughout in West Germany to defend against a possible attack by Soviet army during the Cold War. This was before "the fall of the Berlin Wall" and the Soviet Union, reunifying East and West Germany.
Today, in part, the Army uses McGregor Range to practice urban warfare in a desert setting. They call it "urban ops pursuit." These soldiers and others like them are certainly tuning up for fighting in the Afghanistan War. Some will die or be wounded in service to their country.
US Army National Guardsmen from C Company, 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry Regiment, dash out of a building in pursuit (US Army photo)
Meanwhile, here are the lyrics of a song written by a soldier just back the the Vietnam War, the nation's longest war, taking the lives of more than 58,000 American troops. been down ta Las Cruces
by Mike Marcellino
been down ta Las Cruces
by Mike Marcellino
been down ta Las Cruces
one time,
down ta
sundown wine
color slide pictures
of mists rising from
the dusty brown
tumbleweed town.
been down ta Las Cruces
down ta the circle
of six can't stand up inside
trailers
beside the coral
sleeping in the afternoon.
been down ta Las Cruces
down ta walking
desert brush hills
with mountain lions
and pretty fast rabbits.
been down ta Las Cruces
waiting for spring
down ta SunlandPark
quarter horses
getting lost in Juarez,
lost in Juarez.
been down ta Las Cruces
down ta
inside
my worn,
torn
second field forces
jacket
sittin' in
War's outcome rests with people's will
By Mike Marcellino
Part 3 of a 3 part series on America’s course in the Afghanistan War
Today I was asked what at first seemed to be a simple question about a recent column I had written about America’s course in Afghanistan and the escalation of the war. The column was called, “Afghanistan: Different viewpoints, same ol’ same ol.’ The column cited a BBC of an interview with a senior American diplomat and Marine captain in Iraq and a Stars and Stripes story about what U. S. troops are encountering fighting and community building on the ground in Zabul Province, a Taliban stronghold.
“You have to ask yourself, ‘what are the major powers doing in a backwater such as Afghanistan??’” a reader asked. He used two question marks and I would see why trying to answer his question.
What we are doing in Afghanistan? Like some people say on Facebook about their relationships –“It’s complicated.”
One answer could be that the United States leaders fear facing hostel governments in the Middle East and South Asia threatening our oil supply (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan).
A number of major powers have interests at stake, including the United States, Russia and China. In addition the struggle to control oil supplies, Russia and China have large Muslin minorities.
The answer may be the old Cold War “domino effect” is back in vogue in Washington. Politicians and military leaders had believed that if one country would fall to Communism then others would follow. This was the rationale for the Vietnam War, along with control of natural resources of Southeast Asia.
The United States feared the spread of Communism and yet, even though we lost the Vietnam War to the communists, other nations didn’t fall and the Soviet Union collapsed.
The decade long war in Southeast Asian cost 6 million lives, including 58,000 American troops. Some argue that just fighting against communism in the Vietnam War led to its collapse in the Soviet Union. Interestingly, Vietnam is now rather prosperous with many resorts on the South China Sea beaches and increasing tourism.
Since the beginning of the Middle East wars in the early 1990s, U. S. policy makers have put communism on the back burner and Islamic fundamentalist insurgents and terrorists on the forefront. Radical Islam is the “evil” we must confront with force, not communism, at least for the time being.
Afghanistan has been embroiled in political turmoil and war for 35 years with leftists, monarchists and Islamic fundamentalist and minorities battling for power. In the late 1970s the Soviet Union set up a communist government in Afghanistan. In a 9-year war, Afghan Islamic fighters, the mujahedeen, defeated the Soviet army. The country was devastated, as one million Afghans died and millions more fled the country as refugees.
Everyone agrees the present Afghan government is corrupt and lacks wide popular support. The country is rather lawless. Most of the people are poor and illiterate. The poppy crop supplies much of the heroin for the world’s illicit drug trade and funds the Taliban and other insurgents.
The answer may be that we’re convinced that in Afghanistan we’re in a holy war, with good fighting evil. Many fundamentalist Christians in the U. S. armed forces, including senior military leaders, believe they are engaged in a holy war.
Radical Islamic fundamentalist, principally al Qaeda and its supporters believe they are waging a holy war against the “infidels,” or non-Muslims.
One answer may be a resurrection of the Crusades of the 11th Century. Each side of course believes the other to be “infidels.”
Both “holy wars,” some historians and observers believe are rooted in the timeless desire for power and control, whether it be a cave, a country or the world.
Whatever the reason for the U. S. involvement in Afghanistan, we’ve decided that force and violence are the only solution. The U. S. won’t talk to the Taliban until they surrender and the Taliban won’t talk until the U. S. forces leave the country. There seems to be little attempt to break the deadlock.
Regardless of the answer to the question, ultimately the outcome of the war and the nature of Afghanistan will be determined by the Afghans.
The present U. S. strategy in Afghanistan seems to be predicated on the belief that we are engaged in a worldwide war against extremists, including the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A few political leaders, even Vice President Joe Biden to an extent, along with senior diplomats, military and intelligence officers believe in a narrow focused strategy to defeat al Qaeda.
President Obama, Secretary Clinton and our military leaders have rejected that strategy, believing that Afghanistan is the den of al Qaeda.
As a result 30,000 more U. S. troops are going to Afghanistan bringing the total of 10,000. Next spring the U. S. plans to attack Taliban strongholds in rural and urban areas, beginning a new "ground up" strategy of rebuilding Afghanistan in the towns and villages.
We plan to step up the training of Afghan troops, start turning security over to them and in the middle of 2011 start withdrawing U. S. troop “if conditions on the ground permit.”
That’s the strategy the U. S. used in losing the Vietnam War. President Nixon called it “Vietnamization.”
South Vietnam had an army of two million, one of the largest in the world at the time of its defeat by North Vietnam, two years after U. S. troops withdrew.
The likelihood of the Afghan army being able to secure the country is questionable. Factionalism and lack of confidence in and corruption of the present government must be overcome. Afghanistan isn’t much of a nation for nation building.
“What are the major powers doing in the backwater of Afghanistan?”
“It’s complicated.
The outcome of the war is simpler. It lies with the will of the Afghan people.
Part 2 of a 3 part series on America's course in Afghanistan
The more leaders tell you things are "different" the more they seem the "same."
In a nutshell, that's what I'm piecing together in another installment of my series - "America's Course in Afghanistan."
In Vietnam, where I served in the U.S. Army as a combat correspondent at the height of the war in 1968, they told us the body counts, how we were killing them 10-1 or more. The told us how most of the country was now "pacified." (Sometimes pacification took B-52 bombs, endless jet strikes, ship salvos, artillery fire and agent orange.) They told us we're winning "the hearts and minds."
The more reading, the more recalling , the more researching, the more America's involvement and increasing escalation in the civil wars in Afghanistan and Vietnam fit a saying learned on the streets of Cleveland - "same ol', same ol'.
In today's interview with the BBC, Matthew Hol, an ex-Marine captain in Iraq who resigned as the senior civilian in Zabul Province, says only political action, not the troop surge, will settle the 35-year civil war in Afghanistan. He also estimates 500,000 troops would be needed to subjugate the countryside.
More than 500,000 U.S. troops were in South Vietnam at the height of the war in 1968. That effort allowed U.S. and South Vietnamese forces to control the major cities, but not the rural areas in a country of 65,000 square miles and 16 million people. Afghanistan has nearly twice the land area (119,000 square miles) and population (30 million) and a terrain even more difficult, if that's possible.
President Obama and U.S. military leaders say the Afghanistan war isn't another Vietnam.
(In the Vietnam War, U.S. troops pulled out in 1973 after a decade long war. Three years later, the corrupt and controversial government and army of South Vietnam collapsed weeks after the North Vietnamese army invaded.)
A report November 12 "Stars and Stripes" from ZabulProvince, a Taliban stronghold and route from Pakistan, American soldiers tell a view of the war much different from our leaders in Washington. It reminds me of that similar difference between the capital view and the reality on the ground in the war 40 years ago in South Vietnam.
Drew Brown's interviews with soldiers from the U.S. Army's 5th Stryker Brigade from Ft. Lewis, WA, are telling in this excerpt -
“During the three-day mission in the Chinehs, a number of soldiers said that even though the area had been identified as a suspected Taliban stronghold, the villagers were the friendliest of any they had encountered in Zabul. But when officers asked about the Taliban, they were usually met with blank stares or polite, noncommittal responses. Most villagers denied knowing anything about the Taliban. Some made slashing motions across their throats. ‘You stay here for one and a half hours in our village, and when you leave, the Taliban will come in our homes and beat us or worse,’ said one man. Replied 2nd Lt. James Johnson, 23, of State College, Pa.: ‘Well, there’s nothing I can do to help you, if you don’t help yourselves.’”
Sounds awfully familiar to me as I covered the Vietnam War as a US Army combat correspondent and my stories and photographs were often published in "Stars and Stripes."
It also seems, even with the surge of 30,000 more U. S. troops to total of 100,000 won't be enough. As many as 500,000 (including Afghanistan government forces) may be needed to get the job done. The job being either defeating or at least beating the Taliban and other insurgent forces back enough to allow the Afghanistan army and police to keep the peace.
Though U. S. troops have been in Afghanistan for nine years, the effectiveness of Afghan security forces remains uncertain. What's odd about that is Afghanistan's insurgent forces, the Islamic mujahedeen, defeated the Soviet Union in a nine year war ending in 1989.
In 1996, the Taliban, a radical Islamic group, came into power in Afghanistan, but, by 2001, with help from the United States, the Northern Alliance, a group of minorities, overthrew the Taliban.
While all this is pretty factual summary, if you stop to think about it, it sounds bizarre. It reminds me of the Abbott and Costello comedic question, "Who's on first? Afghanistan also has the same chaotic ring of the Mexican revolution in the early 1920s,
The Afghanistan and Vietnam wars are also reminiscent of a scene in "Lawrence of Arabia." After the Arab army, led by British Maj. T. E. Lawrence, had defeated the Ottoman Empire, German ally in World War I, they couldn't get along well enough to keep the power on and water running in Damascus.
The winner in Afghanistan may be who is willing and able to fight and die and not give up. One thing seems certain; people don't like to be occupied by foreign armies. History tells us the people in far flung countries didn't like the oppressive rule of the emperors of Rome, and the Roman Empire collapsed.
In a recent commentary in "Dandelion Salad," an Internet blog highly critical of America's military involvement in the Afghanistan, Rick Rozoff indicates that documents show that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal estimates a combined army of 500,000 U. S., Afghan and NATO forces will be needed to win the war.
A foreign soldier on the ground in a civil war quickly understands that the will of the people who live there decides the outcome.
In the Stars and Stripes story, an Afghan villager tells a US Army officer what it will take to end the war -
"We asked what can be done to improve your situation here," (1st Lt. Christopher) Franco said. "They said, ‘Our problems will be resolved when you guys leave and we can sit down and talk to the Taliban leaders.’ At least they were honest."
Mike Marcellino, a national award winning civilian journalist, served in the U. S. Army as a combat correspondent and photographer in the Vietnam War
A prose piece written by Gary Willmore, "Belfast 1972" and memories of 1968 and a night in a bunker on the Cambodian border in the Vietnam War led to writing this poem, naturally very late at night
Only tombs of unknown soldiers
by mike marcellino
Words spoken
thoughts bleed
broken men
survivors of patrol.
Words unspoken
thoughts bleed
cracked open
in the pitch
ambush of questions.
Words written
thoughts bleed
the conscience of war
only tombs of unknown soldiers.
only tombs of unknown soldiers copyright 2009 Mike Marcellino
Love song to aviator Amelia Earhart, lost over the Pacific in 1937
Amelia Earhart, soft silver wings
Listeners comments:
Just listened to Amelia Earhart, Soft Silver Wings.....I love it. It's funny what you said about not having to do anything but listen. The music was so atmospheric; all I COULD do was listen....Beautiful- Julia Chapman, BristolUK
Mike, if she were here your tribute would be painted on her left wing; her right wing would have inscribed the names of Nobel peace prize winners- Clarice, Grand Rapids, MI
Since releasing their first song in September 2009, Mike Marcellino with Ensor has risen to #49 of Top Folk Artists in New York City and in the top 6% on Global and National charts of ReverbNation.
Mike Marcellino, words, vocal
Tomas Texino - mandolin, composition and production
Recorded in St. AugustineFlorida
Other songs of Mike Marcellino with Ensor -
Las Cruces
Flatbush
The walls of fire
Bondi beach
The lyrics -
Amelia Earhart, soft silver wings
by mike marcellino
Amelia Earhart,
Love your picture
in flight.
Love your goggles,
love your lips.
Love how you circled the world,
single handed.
amelia
amelia
amelia.
Like that leather
air cap.
You’re a goddess, a woman,
soft white,
ahead of your time,
such afterglow
night
in shinning armor.
Meet me on a northern coast,
not far from the equator,
above the island
where they made King Kong.
Your Atlantis, risen
in my South China Sea.
amelia
amelia
amelia.
Oh, your last flight.
Oh your last flight.
What a night.
Looking at your picture
in my book,
soft silver
soft silver
wings.
Your lips, painted colors
light, pretty pink.
Those eyes,
imagine,
sigh.
Your nails, natural,
fingertips.
Taking you with me.
amelia
amelia
amelia.
Soft silver
soft silver
wings.
"Courage" Courage is the price that Life extracts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not, knows no release.
From little things.
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear.
Not mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.
How can life grant us boon of living, compensate
For dull grey ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul’s dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the restless day,
And count it fair. - Amelia Earhart, 1927
You made the crossing
not alone.
Meet you over the Atlantic.
amelia
amelia
amelia.
Soft silver,
soft silver,
wings.
copyright Mike Marcellino amelia earhart, soft silver wings 2009
In his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize yesterday in Oslo, Norway, President Barack Obama reminded us that, at times, war is morally justified, to defeat evil in the world.
Newspaper headlines reported that the President refused to renounce war. Journalist wrote of the "irony" of the President receiving a prize for his efforts to bring peace days after ordering 30,000 more troops to the war in Afghanistan.
Commentators said Obama had moved to the political center. Critical reviews of his speech range from recalling President Kennedy to pronouncing it as "incoherent." Some called it a d move to the political center in American politics. Republican leaders cheered him. Anti-war activists reeled in disbelief.
"Make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida's leaders to lay down their arms," he said.
To sort out something so perplexing, look to history.
What is renouncing war? What are the concepts of good and evil, peace and war all about in the context of American politics?
Trying to understand the nature of these questions and possible answers may stem from another Nobel Peace Prize awarded 80 years ago and to times of torment our nation's history, as far back as the Civil War.
On December 10, 1929, Frank Kellogg, all but forgotten, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize. He stands in the shadow of a president who inspired millions of American voters in an election less than a year ago with his promise of change.
Frank Billings Kellogg, former U. S. Secretary of State and senator, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to create a treaty, signed by 65 nations, renouncing war. They include the United States and countries such as China, the Soviet Union and Afghanistan. In part, the pact states a purpose of - "uniting the civilized nations of the world in a common renunciation of war as an instrument of their national policy" and condemning “recourse to war for the solution of international controversies. Nations agree to use pacific means to solve their differences.
Kellogg received the Peace Prize for being co-creator of the Briand-Kellogg Pact, also known as the Pact of Paris for his partner in peace was French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand.
Kellogg was born in 1856 in Potsdam, New York into a nation divided over state's rights and slavery on the eve of the Civil War.
Our terrible ordeal of brother fighting against brother, literally, cost the lives of 618,222 Americans - Union and Confederate. A single battle, Gettysburg, cost 40,350 lives in the Allegheny foothills of Pennsylvania, only a two-day march south to our nation's capital. One civilian was killed, a woman, Mary Virginia Wade. Nine women disguised as men, died in battle.
Frank grew up on a wheat farm in Elgin, Minnesota where he went to a country school until he was 14. He entered a law office, studied using borrowed books and became a lawyer.
A Republican, he earned a reputation as "trust buster." On a mission from President Theodore Roosevelt he successfully prosecuted for restrain of trade the General Paper Company and later Union Pacific Oil and the Standard Oil Company. He was appointed secretary of state by President Calvin Coolidge.
Kellogg received the peace prize a decade after "The Great War." To drum up support for American's entry into World War I, President Woodrow Wilson called it "the war to end all wars." It took the lives of 17 million people, nearly 7 million civilians.
The Great War, as if anything could be "great" about war, was triggered by the assassination of an archduke of Austria by a Serbian nationalist; the world was pretty much lined up. On our side it was the Allies - the British Empire, Russia, France and Italy and the other side, the Central Powers - the remains of the Austria-Hungary, German and Ottoman Empires.
Some historians say the Great War was bred by imperialist foreign policy. Perhaps it was caused by a militaristic mindset to settle disputes among people and nations.
Kellogg's Nobel Prize for crafting a peace pact to outlaw war came at a time of turbulence in America. Weeks earlier the stock market crashed on October 24th and 29th, "Black Tuesday" and "Black Thursday. Recently, economic analysts contend the collapse of our wealth and financial system and the Great Depression came, not from economic weakness, but fear and panic.
In another decade, America would be embroiled in World War II - a struggle to defeat "evil" in the form of mass murder, oppression and torture committed by Hitler and the Nazis, along with his fellow dictators and tyrants in the Axis.
As many as 72 million people, military and civilian, were killed in World War II, making it the most deadly war in world history. This includes the Nazi mass murder of 21 million people, including 6 million Jews. In addition, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, killed 21 million of his own people.
Makes a person wonder if the world is headed in the right direction.
Many social thinkers and politicians would dismiss Kellogg's efforts to convince nations to settle their differences peacefully as a fantasy and unrealistic.
Kellogg did admit that the pact doesn't provide provisions to punish violators.
Still, this little known secretary of state and Nobel Peace Prize recipient offers a mindset for peace.
In his Nobel Prize acceptance, he envisions how the treaty would be enforced by the will of the people -
"...in the end the abolition of war, the maintenance of world peace, the adjustment of international questions by pacific means will come through the force of public opinion, which controls nations and peoples - that public opinion which shapes our destinies and guides the progress of human affairs."
And, Kellogg described a mindset for peace -
"There will always be disputes between nations which, at times, will inflame the public and threaten conflicts, but the main thing is to educate the people of the world to be ever mindful that there are better means of settling such disputes than by war. It is by such means as the prize offered by your Committee that the attention of the world will be focused and that men and women will be inspired to greater efforts in the interest of peace. The churches, the peace societies, the schools and colleges should add their educational influence to this great movement."
Today, the 1928 Kellogg–Briand Pact remains a binding treaty under international law. In the United States, it remains in force as federal law.
I remember December 7, 1941, the day of the Japanese fleet's
surprise attack on the U. S. base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in several
personal ways, each one I treasure.
I remember friends
who served in World War II, some living, most dead... attending Pear
Harbor Day ceremonies at the U. S. Naval Reserve Center in Cleveland,
representing the city of Cleveland and Congress as Liaison for
Veteran and Military Affairs.
Each ceremony was a unique
moment in time of war and remembrance. I remember each occasion
over 13 years, sometimes in sunshine, sometimes in snow, looking down
from the deck of the USS Cod, the last intact submarine from World
War II at wreaths of flowers floating on Lake Erie.
At
times, the sunlight would flicker on the waters as the flowers were
carried out to sea, a beautiful tribute to those lost at Pearl
Harbor.
Peace route in South Asia through India and Pakistan
by Mike Marcellino
Part 1 of a 3 part series on America's course in Afghanistan
Why can't the United States resolve human rights problems peacefully, without the use of force, any longer?
Secretary Clinton says the U.S. won't talk unless the Taliban throws down their weapons (surrender).
Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, says they won't talk until the U. S. and NATO forces leave Afghanistan (surrender). Oddly, Omar was America's friend when he lost an eye fighting against and Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
And, the war and violence in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan escalates and widens.
According to an article written by Raja Karthikeya in Asia Times Online Nov. 25, 2009, the way to peace in Afghanistan is through India and Pakistan. Interestingly, the author never mentions the United States or NATO once in his article.
One wonders if American and European diplomats and political leaders are listening to the voices of reason, peace, history and politics of South Asia. Afghanistan, Pakistan and India share that region, its history and current entanglements. Granted Afghanistan has ties to the Middle East. And as Karthikeya points out, the Taliban doesn't seem to fit anywhere, and appears to be more an ideology than a political movement.
I highly recommend reading the article by Karthikeya, a researcher for the Center for Strategic Studies in Washington D.C.
The historical problem with the view of United States' diplomats and political leaders is the function, for the most part with blinders on - seeing the word in America's view without really looking at nations through their eyes of their own people.
America hasn't always had her provincial blinders on. Two cases in point that I can testify to from my experience in our national government as an aide to one of the most respected congressman and champions of human rights in our country's history.
In the past, the United States has ended oppression in the world without the use of military force. America brought freedom to Jews in the Soviet Union and ended the longest period of marshal law in world history, bringing freedom to the Taiwanese.
I can vouch for the fact that oppression can be ended and peace achieved without a shot being fired.
From 1983 to 1987, I served as an as an aide to former U. S. Congressman Louis Stokes of Ohio and worked successfully with many people in the United States and the world to resolve, without military force, critical human rights problems that at the time seemed insurmountable in the Soviet Union and Taiwan. Both human rights matters existed within the backdrop of tensions over the Cold War and the threat of war between China and Taiwan.
As an Englishman, "Lawrence of Arabia," (or, at least, actor Peter O'Toole in the Academy Award winning film), once said:
Until now, I haven't
followed the case of Amanda Knox, American exchange student found
guilty of the murder of her roommate in an Italian "court." A journalist
friend from Cleveland caught my attention with this opinion piece in
the New York Times by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Timothy
Eagan, just before the verdict. It's an eye opener. -
There
are enough questions in the case to drive a more than a few trucks
through. Until the Italian judicial system or government conducts a
fair investigation of the murder and trial, I'm brewing drinking
French roast, not Italian.
As a newspaper reporter, I've
covered just about every crime, including a double murder of a couple
in Mentor, Ohio. Their son, H. Thomas Hoffman III, shot his parents
as the slept in their bed, set fire to them and their house. He's
still in prison I believe. The bizarre case, filled with kinky sex
and such, was handled well by police, defense and prosecuting
attorneys and the courts. In contrast, the case against Amanda
was a travesty of justice, for - its lack of evidence; the soap opera
Italian system of justice; the prosecutor's conduct better fitting a
Godfather movie, complete with his contrived sexual demonic motive;
the court's intimidation of the Knox family for an interview with a
British newspaper; and letting a drifter off the hook though there
was physical evidence linking him to the crime. The drifter fled to
Germany where he was convicted of sexual assault and conspiracy in
the throat slashing murder of Amanda's British roommate, Meredith
Kercher. The
loss of a young woman and the imprisonment of another, should be more
than an Italian drama.
If “face saving,” as Eagan
contends, is really more important in Italy than life and justice,
for the record, my father is Sicilian, not Italian.
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