The US, UN & Iraq III

Ain't no drag
Papa's got a brand new Baghdad . . .

You SMOKIN' this mornin', Set!

SAMOKIN

Haven't been here in some time. Life events, doncha know. Will try to do better.

Hope your events were good ones, Sumac. Good to see you back!

I am reluctant to say anything here, for fear that it has already been said. Just let it alone, I am appalled in general.

A Former Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis to Attack US Troops

"Bring 'Em On?"
By STAN GOFF

In 1970, when I arrived at my unit, Company A, 4th Battalion/503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade, in what was then the Republic of Vietnam, I was charged up for a fight. I believed that if we didn't stop the communists in Vietnam, we'd eventually be fighting this global conspiracy in the streets of Hot Springs, Arkansas. I'd been toughened by Basic Training, Infantry Training and Parachute Training, taught how to use my weapons and equipment, and I was confident in my ability to vanquish the skinny unter-menschen. So I was dismayed when one of my new colleagues--a veteran who'd been there ten months--told me, "We are losing this war."

Not only that, he said, if I wanted to survive for my one year there, I had to understand one very basic thing. All Vietnamese were the enemy, and for us, the grunts on the ground, this was a race war. Within one month, it was apparent that everything he told me was true, and that every reason that was being given to the American public for the war was not true.

We had a battalion commander whom I never saw. He would fly over in a Loach helicopter and give cavalier instructions to do things like "take your unit 13 kilometers to the north." In the Central Highlands, 13 kilometers is something we had to hack out with machetes, in 98-degree heat, carrying sometimes 90 pounds over our body weights, over steep, slippery terrain. The battalion commander never picked up a machete as far as we knew, and after these directives he'd fly back to an air-conditioned headquarters in LZ English near Bong-son. We often fantasized together about shooting his helicopter down as a way of relieving our deep resentment against this faceless, starched and spit-shined despot.

Yesterday, when I read that US Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, in a moment of blustering arm-chair machismo, sent a message to the 'non-existent' Iraqi guerrillas to "bring 'em on," the first image in my mind was a 20-year-old soldier in an ever-more-fragile marriage, who'd been away from home for 8 months. He participated in the initial invasion, and was told he'd be home for the 4th of July. He has a newfound familiarity with corpses, and everything he thought he knew last year is now under revision. He is sent out into the streets of Fallujah (or some other city), where he has already been shot at once or twice with automatic weapons or an RPG, and his nerves are raw. He is wearing Kevlar and ceramic body armor, a Kevlar helmet, a load carrying harness with ammunition, grenades, flex-cuffs, first-aid gear, water, and assorted other paraphernalia. His weapon weighs seven pounds, ten with a double magazine. His boots are bloused, and his long-sleeve shirt is buttoned at the wrist. It is between 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit at midday. He's been eating MRE's three times a day, when he has an appetite in this heat, and even his urine is beginning to smell like preservatives. Mosquitoes and sand flies plague him in the evenings, and he probably pulls a guard shift every night, never sleeping straight through. He and his comrades are beginning to get on each others' nerves. The rumors of 'going-home, not-going-home' are keeping him on an emotional roller coaster. Directives from on high are contradictory, confusing, and often stupid. The whole population seems hostile to him and he is developing a deep animosity for Iraq and all its people--as well as for official narratives.

This is the lad who will hear from someone that George W. Bush, dressed in a suit with a belly full of rich food, just hurled a manly taunt from a 72-degree studio at the 'non-existent' Iraqi resistance.

This de facto president is finally seeing his poll numbers fall. Even chauvinist paranoia has a half-life, it seems. His legitimacy is being eroded as even the mainstream press has discovered now that the pretext for the war was a lie. It may have been control over the oil, after all. Anti-war forces are regrouping as an anti-occupation movement. Now, exercising his one true talent--blundering--George W. Bush has begun the improbable process of alienating the very troops upon whom he depends to carry out the neo-con ambition of restructuring the world by arms.
Somewhere in Balad, or Fallujah, or Baghdad, there is a soldier telling a new replacement, "We are losing this war."

Stan Goff is the author of "Hideous Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti" (Soft Skull Press, 2000) and of the upcoming book "Full Spectrum Disorder" (Soft Skull Press, 2003). He retired in 1996 from the US Army, from 3rd Special Forces. He lives in Raleigh.


From counterpunch.com

Us, and them
And after all we're only ordinary men.
Me, and you.
God only knows it's not what we would choose to do.
Forward he cried from the rear
and the front rank died.
And the general sat and the lines on the map
moved from side to side.

HiyaBoss,
Can't thiof anything.
sumac

War
Bob Dylan
Masters of War



Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead


Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
War is something that I despise
For it means destruction of innocent lives
For it means tears in thousands of mothers' eyes
When their sons go out to fight to give their lives

Weeping with you Dys...

Looking through the paper yesterday. Amazingly, evidence of:
1. Anthrax
2. Ricin
has been discovered in the USA.

Some loons have been playing with it for whatever reason (ie they're loons). Now the question would be, that if in the larger US population in the landmass of the US, evidence of tiny amounts of these bio-weapons is to be found, so why can't anyonne find 1,000s of litres of these agents in Iraq?

Ricin
Anthrax

War has always been stupid, but humans are stupid animals. c.i.

Norman Mailer... http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16470

"Yesterday, when I read that US Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush, in a moment of blustering arm-chair machismo, sent a message to the 'non-existent' Iraqi guerrillas to "bring 'em on," t"


Don't tell that to the guys and gals over there, starimg down ther barrels at those non=existent Iraquis.

Blatham, As you read the Mailer piece, did you roll around in the back of your head the Clinton factor in all this, as I did?

Tartarin

I did not, but I was so busy wading through the treacle of Mailer's testosterone that my alertness was attenuated. Do you recall the scene from Woody Allen's Sleeper where the scientists, some thousand years or whatever in the future, are debriefing him by showing photographs of various people from Woody's time, one of which is Mailer and Woody says, "Yes, he ran for Mayor of New York City. They have his ego in the Smithsonian." Still, the man has a good eye sometimes.

Do you refer to the time period when Clinton held office - a period when America, though not insanely and openly imperialist, was yet complicit in digging these graves now found so ghastly and inhuman?

a
Pittsburgh, PA
Friday
July 4, 2003


Oh, say, can you see what's happening to our liberties?

Friday, July 04, 2003

The 227 years since the summer of 1776 haven't always gone smoothly, but the republic is still here. The tensions that periodically threaten to rip our country apart are cyclical in nature and revolve around the nation's commitment to the principle of justice for all, a sentiment enshrined in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Because we're a thoroughly secular people who resort to religious language more out of convenience than out of a deeply ingrained sense of piety, we're capable of getting into ridiculous donnybrooks over the placement of creches, menorahs and the Ten Commandments in the public square. Idolatry may be as American as apple pie, but we prefer to wrap it in swaddling clothes and call it democracy.

In the hierarchy of the sacred, nothing enflames the American imagination quite like the flag, the most ubiquitous of our national religious symbols. Resplendent with white stripes and two of the color wheel's three primary colors, the star-spangled banner comes saddled with mythologies most Americans feel comfortable pledging undying fealty to, but can't be bothered to familiarize themselves with.

Like daydreaming through catechism class, most of us pick up enough of what the sacred buzzwords of democracy mean to fake our way through an impromptu confession of faith. In those terrifying moments when we're called upon to regurgitate our highest ideals, we're ready -- just like patriotic macaws and mynah birds.

The proliferation of flags after the agony of Sept. 11 should've been a sign of our renewed resolve to truly embody the values we've paid so much lip service to over two centuries, but it wasn't. Are there truths we consider self-evident? If so, what are they? Are we using the opportunities provided by this struggle against terrorism and crypto-religious fascism to advance our civilization or are we undermining it in a haze of patriotic fervor meant to mask our fear?

It's a legitimate question on the most patriotic day of the year, especially when one takes into account that despite the presence of flags on every front porch in the aftermath of the terror attacks, the voting booths have never been emptier.

The radio antennae of gas guzzlers in America might have flags attached to them, but every election since Sept. 11, 2001, has been an emptier ritual than the one that preceded it. Given the encroachment on our civil liberties by the Bush administration, this is not the time for Americans who claim they honor and cherish our democracy to withdraw from the political process.

I've never envied the citizens of another country as much as I did three days ago. More than 350,000 protesters in Hong Kong rallied against anti-subversion laws handed down by the doddering autocrats of Beijing that, if enacted, would strip millions of people of civil liberties they've taken for granted since the province was a British colony.

Regardless of whether one thinks the intentions of the Bush administration are honorable, the Justice Department under John Ashcroft is pursuing policies that are as contemptuous of our civil liberties as those concocted by China's communist government to squelch dissent in Hong Kong.

But in the grandest tradition of American democracy, there is a growing coalition of voices on the political left and right who recognize this assault on our civil liberties for what it is.

With every attempt to obscure its intentions with euphemisms and acronyms -- Strategic Disinformation, TIA (born as "Total Information Awareness," but changed to "Terrorism Information Awareness"), USA Patriot Act, Homeland Security, Carnivore -- there are civil libertarians of every stripe raising awareness about the government's threat to our hard-won freedoms.

The creation of Draconian laws to detain foreigner suspects without trial or legal counsel along with the wholesale monitoring of American citizens should be a greater source of outrage for the electorate than it has been so far. How does one account for this complacency?

Doesn't the biggest threat to our civil liberties in two centuries warrant as much media attention as the Laci Peterson case or the revelations about John and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's difficult marriage? With luck, we'll eventually recover the spirit of patriotic vigilance embodied by such American heroes as Paul Revere and Tom Paine. As we celebrate the nation's birthday, their kind of patriotism is the only kind that can save us.

Tony Norman can be reached at [email protected] or 412-263-1631.

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Gel

A July fourth post of worth. Lovely, thank you.