Hell No, She Won't Go.

This is a terrific story about the collapse of empire, the degradation of the citizens of our country, the brutality of the U.S. government in its quest to steal the resources of all the world, expand the empire, plunder, pillage, ignore and destroy families, women, babies. What a disgrace.

There is a woman named Alexis Hutchinson who is a cook in the Army. She is also a single mother with a baby, an infant under the age of one. She was ordered to deploy to Afghanistan but did not get on the flight because she had no one to take care of her baby while she was overseas. She told her superiors before the flight that she had a sudden problem with finding care for her baby. The Army told her tough luck, stick the kid in foster care, but get her ass on the plane.

Hutchinson explained that her mother had originally agreed to take the baby, but at the last minute decided she simply could not do it. Hutchinson's mother, the baby's Grandma, was already caring for three other family members who have health problems. Isn't that just so typical of modern America? When people have problems or get sick, it all falls on the women to care for them, usually with no help whatsoever from the government. And now, when a woman with an infant who's not even a year old suddenly has no one who can take her baby while she's gone, the military tells her to stick the kid into institutional care. With strangers.

What does the military care about babies, anyway? Who exactly is it that we've been killing in Iraq and Afghanistan? It certainly includes lots of babies. So don't look to the military for compassion or support for the babies of the world.

Hutchinson has been arrested by the military. She's being held on a base. They took the kid away from her, too, and put the baby into some institutional care facility on the base. Think about that for a minute. The military arrested this young woman, 21 year old woman, and took away her infant son and stuck him into some military institutional facility. Any reason mom couldn't keep the kid, other than to torture her? Finally, they let grandma take the baby, at least for now. I'm surprised they didn't deploy the kid, too.

As soon as the mom got an attorney, the military started backing down from their position. Now they say they would never force a single woman with an infant to stick the baby into institutional care. Now they say that.

It turns out that Grandma had originally said she could keep the baby. But life has a way of piling up on all of us, even the grandmas in this country. And now Grandma's own mother got sick, so she's taking care of her, and her sister got sick, so she's taking care of her too. Grandma also has another daughter who has special needs, and she has to take care of her too. In order to get by, Grandma runs a daycare out of her home. Poor Grandma, sounds like she's got a tough life. Ultimately, Grandma realized she could not take on an infant on top of everything else. Who can blame her? Well, actually, the U.S. Army can. Suck it up Grandma, Uncle Sam is holding your daughter in jail, so either you take the baby or they'll stick it in a home with a bunch of strangers.

I'm thinking of Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks was a poor black woman who worked for a living every day, and every day she would get on the public bus at the end of the day for a long ride home, and every day she would have to go to the back of the bus, behind some line they drew on the floor, and if there were no seats in the back of the bus then she had to stand the whole way home, even if there were empty seats in the front of the bus. Black people were not allowed in the front of the bus.

I'm thinking of Rosa Parks, and I'm wondering if this young Army woman was white, and her little baby was white, whether anybody in the U.S. military would have thrown this young woman into jail and taken her baby away from her, whether they would have told her to stick him in foster care. I'm just thinking that some babies, white babies, are cared for. But the non-white babies are too often considered disposable. Just like their mothers are.

And all of this for what? To pursue an ongoing war against the people of Afghanistan for reasons nobody can articulate. Four airplanes were hijacked in the U.S. on 9/11 2001 mostly by people from Saudi Arabia, funded by rich people from Saudi Arabia. And in response, W and Cheney invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Not Saudi Arabia. We have now been in Afghanistan for over eight years. For what? Originally, we were going to go get bin Laden, but then W allowed bin Laden to escape and go into Pakistan, where he has been left alone. Most of his supporters left Afghanistan too. So then we decided that we weren't just looking for al Queda, we were now going to fight against "Insurgents." That means anybody who opposes having the U.S. military occupy their country. But who wouldn't? Nobody wants to be occupied by a foreign power. And the young lady whose baby they've taken away, the young lady they've thrown in jail and traumatized and humiliated, the young lady they are threatening to give a harsh prison sentence, what was the imperative nature of her assignment in Afghanistan? She's a cook.

And now, the Congress has just voted to send another $46 million to Columbia, of all places, to begin sprucing up just one of seven military bases the U.S. is taking over inside that country for the purpose of -- get this -- fighting against terrorism. One military representative has admitted that the U.S. plans to occupy Columbia, in seven permanent bases, and use that as the jumping-off point to attack all the other countries in South American who do not please the Empire, countries that are considered to be anti-American, like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (lots of oil there), Evo Morales in Bolivia, Nicaragua, all the countries that are entering into their own trade agreements for their mutual benefit. What's wrong with these people? Don't they realize that they are just colonies of the U.S., that they have no rights?

Poor Ms. Hutchinson. Poor women and babies everywhere, poor people, poor world. The U.S. military is on the march intent on expanding its Empire to every country in the world. We're doomed. Where is our Rosa Parks? Where are our leaders who can inspire the citizens of this country to demand an end to this madness, to sit down or stand up or march or do something. When an empire begins stealing women's babies, and murdering other women's babies, isn't that enough to rouse the citizenry?