Jennifer Wants Justice and Peace
by Jennifer
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Jennifer’s blog
Justice and Peace
Jan. 16, 2008
The groundbreaking film, Meeting Resistance, seeks to explain the current disconnect in American media and the realities on the ground of what forces are behind the violence in Iraq. Similar arguments used during Vietnam are largely accepted by American audiences as a legitimate reason for the continued occupation of Iraq. The “War on Terror” and the fight against communism in Vietnam both give Americans an enemy to fear and our troops an honorable military operation.
Never before in American history has a documentary film examined “the enemy” while the conflict continues. The information contained in the film has become so valuable in gaining understanding of the violence in Iraq; it has been shown not only to civilian audiences, but to military audiences as well. Of note is the recent showing to “The Red Team” operating in Iraq whose main job is to conduct exercises and war games, providing an adversarial perspective, especially when this perspective includes plausible tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) as well as realistic policy and doctrine… of the enemy. Although the filmmakers themselves are journalists, with no specific political or military agenda, the military has recognized the great value this film offers.
Explanations to several myths making their way through the American media give audiences a new and necessary perspective. The first myth largely accepted is that the majority of the violence in Iraq is due to sectarian violence targeting mostly civilians. Clearly, this is not the case as the Department of Defense quarterly reports show a very different reality. An average of 74% of all violence is attributed to attacks on American forces, 16% target Iraqi police and army personal, and a mere 10% target civilians. These numbers break apart the myth that a US troop presence is needed in order to mediate or stifle a civil war based on old sectarian tensions.
The second myth circulated for American audiences is the idea that sectarian tensions in Iraq existed before the US led invasion (mostly between Sunni and Shi’a). However, when one look at current polls, showing that 100% of Iraqi’s disagree with targeting other Iraqi’s, regardless of faith, the presumption that deep seeded hate among these groups exists is false at best. In fact in 2002 close to half of all marriages in Iraq were comprised of people with mixed faith and ethnicities.
The third myth is that violence is largely attributed to “outside influences,” namely that of foreign fighters from Iran and Syria. Although there is minimal truth to these claims the percentage of attacks on American forces and perceived collaborators are largely perpetrated by Iraqi’s themselves and motivated by Iraqi nationalism and a desire to “protect the homeland.” Of the one Syrian fighter interviewed for the film, it was a desire to fight the enemy in Iraq in order to quell an American attack on Syrian soil that motivated his particular movement. Ironically, it has been this same argument offered up by Vice President Dick Cheney and the political right in this country to justify the continued occupation of Iraq. We will fight them over there so we won’t have to fight them over here dominates the mentality of all foreign fighters in Iraq, including US troops.
Last, the myth that Iraqi on Iraqi violence is motivated by religious ideology is also shown to be largely false. A more accurate description of the civil strife in Iraq is that it is political in nature and is comprised of Iraqi Nationalists who wish to see Iraq remain united, unoccupied, and self-governing and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council who have advocated a partitioning of Iraq.
As documented in the film and evidenced by the Department of Defense ‘s own reports if US policy makers truly wish to see a decrease in violence, a clear course of action is offered up by this film. The removal of US forces alone would decrease violence by 74%, a substantial decrease in violence by anyone’s standards. Anyone, that is, except those politicians making the decision to keep any US forces in Iraq.
see
Meeting Resistance (video; Iraq)
America’s “Divide and Rule” Strategies in the Middle East by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Interview with Dahr Jamail (audio) + Police & Army Getting Sidelined By Ahmed Ali & Dahr Jamail
Dandelion Salad 
Shites and Sunnis began killing each other in the Iran-Iraq war 1980-1988 A.D. before US troops arrived in the Middle-East. US did not start the Moslems hatred for each other.
My original words are in italics, PttV’s response normal and my response again, in bold quotes…
POWER TO THE VOICES! said 1 day ago:
Per TRM (In Italicized quotes):
“the left has already made up their sick little minds when it comes to the issue. There is nothing that can be said that will make you believe otherwise”
As Jennifer pointed out, the stats that form the basis for this film came from the Dept. of Defense. I didn’t realize that ‘lefties’ had any influence on DOD stats.
I WATCHED YOUR VIDEO’S NOW PLEASE WATCH ONE OF MINE…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePb6H-j51xE&eurl=http://lawhawk.blogspot.com/2008/01/imagine-that.html
“Anyone who dare disagree with a high follutin’ lefty must be from some “holler” and missing a few chromosomes due to inbreeding. I mean, how dare we disagree with your moral superiority?”
Well perhaps the endemic disease of gun-totin’ unwarranted militarism has by now leaked out of deliverance and beyond deadwood and the OK corral, and infected your very own pet warmongers in the Whitehouse, including the farce from which you get your ‘fair & balanced’ faux ‘news’ right on up to the executive branch. It’s apparently a virulent, pernicious disease, and those infected remain incurable zealots who kill things as a way of life.
THAT’S PRETTY FUNNY, GOOD ONE. YOU REALLY BELIEVE WE LIVE IN A PEACEFUL WORLD AND VIOLENCE IS AMERICA’S FAULT DON’T YOU?… THE WORLD IS A VIOLENT PLACE, ALWAYS HAS BEEN, ALWAYS WILL BE. YOUR LIVING IN A FANTASY WORLD YOUNG MAN… BUT THAT’S OK…
“Warmongers? Well yes I am, because I want to kill every living maggot on this planet who publicly, privately, subversively and through violence seek to destroy America and it’s citizen’s.”
That’s very civil of you. But it’s not your secretive feelings of blood-lust at anyone who would identify the war-crimes of the USA which are in fact legion, it’s the fact that you apparently actually acted on them which renders you complicit.
Now explain this: In what way did Iraqis, whose populace has born the vast brunt of the slaughter from both US military actions as well as the destabilization the US invasion wrought, what exactly did they do to ‘subversively and through violence seek to destroy America’ (or were you implying it’s me you want to kill…)
Go ahead, tell us that you still think Saddam and 911 were related, we need to hear that one again, especially when you inevitably expose your a violent bigotry so many gallant and valorous service personnel display by calling citizens of the region ‘ragheads’ and ‘sand-n—–s’.
We need to hear you imply once again, for the record, that all Muslims are terrorists and therefore deserve to have you killing them and their children. And don’t forget to lay out that part about Saddam blowing up the Twin Towers!
Iraqis were not seeking to “destroy amreica and it’s citizens” , rather it appears the inverse is the reality. You enlisted, then went out and ‘through violence’ destroyed Iraq. For that, and by your own logic, Iraqis have every right to defend themselves against you, and to shoot you if necessary, as you would they if actually did invaded your homeland for no reason.
WAR CRIMES BY THE USA? LEGION? WOW… ….WOW…I’M SPEECHLESS… THAT YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE THAT WE (THAT MEANS YOU TOO, YOUR AN AMERICAN RIGHT?), HAVE COMMITTED WAR CRIMES, AND SO MANY THAT IT WOULD BE “LEGION.” WOW…
THE COMMON IRAQI DID NOTHING TO AMERICA. THE ROGUE DICTATOR WITH THE FOOT ON THEIR NECK DID HOWEVER. SADDAM HUSSEIN, THE BATHIST AND HIS TWO SOCIOPATH SONS REAPED HAVOC ON THEIR OWN PEOPLE, MURDERING THOUSANDS OF KURDS WITH GAS, AND INVADING A PEACEFUL NEIGHBOR, KUWAIT. NOT TO MENTION THE FRIENDLY RELATIONSHIP WITH TERROR ORGANIZATIONS. THERE’S LOT’S MORE, YOU LOOK IT UP. THE GUY HAD TO GO AND WE DID THE IRAQI PEOPLE THE FAVOR.
SADDAM BLOWING UP THE TWIN TOWERS, NO I THINK THAT WAS AL QAEDA WASN’T IT?, NOT ALL SERVICE MEMBERS USE RACIAL SLURS, AMERICAN FORCES DO NOT HAVE THE OBJECTIVE TO KILL CHILDREN, C’MON, IS THAT YOUR REASON FOR CONFUSION? WANT TO KILL YOU? NAH,,,
“If that makes me a war monger then so be it and give me some more!.”
More war for you? Haven’t you had enough of killing? I guess not.
UUUHHH NOPE…
Perhaps you’d be more impressed by your very own career generals, who have come out in opposition to this war in droves, and who would NOT do it again, and indeed unlike yourself, do not enjoy and lust after slaughter wherever they can find it. Read this:
http://www.signonsandiego.com:80/news/world/iraq/20070923-9999-1n23generals.html
SURE WE COULD HAVE DONE THINGS DIFFERENT… HAVEN’T YOU HEARD THAT “SHOULDA, WOULDA, COULDA” THINKING IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE?
“It’s better than being a delusional socialist peacenik who thinks that America is to blame for the world’s woes. Who think that if we only re-distributed the wealth from the rich to the poor everyone would be equal and happy. Then what? Who’s gonna dig the ditches? And have you ever thought that the rich are rich for a reason? They handled their money correctly, creating capitol and jobs, if you were to level the playing field you would only see that money pissed away on Fubu and PlayStations.”
So you guys are still red-bating, fighting the anti-communist war, even though it’s been irrelevant for decades?
WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING?
You don’t know who I am, what companies I own, how many people I employ, what my net worth is, or how much harder I may have worked than you. Entrepreneurs of the type I represent are not ‘commies’, but we are not abusive capitalists either. Rather we make things with our hands, sell our wares without manipulating others into buying them, we make jobs, we pay salaries, taxes and insurances, and we don’t need you killing people to ‘protect’ us, nor do we need the fat-cat big biz that supports your military industrial complex ruining the entire concept of commerce.
Your characterization of those who have scruples about your having invaded under false, illegal pretext as being communists is an unfounded attempt at slander that has no bearing on reality.
I’M AFRAID YOU DO NEED PEOPLE LIKE ME CLETUS…GOOD LUCK IN YOUR ENDEAVORS
But if you have a problem with my sarcasm about holler-dwellin’ rednecks and their gunz, then I suppose as a soldier, the only thing you know how to do is shoot back. Let’s hope you keep that in the realm of words, not bullets, lest your ideal nation of Hatfields & McCoys manifest itself for real.
Perhaps as a natural born killer, if you had ‘handled your money’ correctly, you’d not have been a grunt making minimum wage for mass murder, you’d have joined up with Blackwater, so you could make the 6-figures, and get to slaughter to your heart’s content with complete immunity.
Apparently your idea of ‘work’ is killing people, so it follows that your idea of utopia is apparently Nazi Germany. Do you long to be in the SS, so you can kill Jews and dissenters at will? The Jews were also mischaracterized as you have done above we dissenting citizens, are you proud of that? Do you secretly admire what the Nazis did, and secretly wish you could just slaughter people you don’t agree with, as you described above?
You have here done a perfect job of indicting your own position as irrational, violent, and criminal of a psychopathic nature. Persons such as yourself have no business around guns nor the military, instead violent psychopaths should be removed from society, strapped to gurneys and fed meds (and that’s not name-calling, show the rantings of this soldier to a psychologist, I’d certainly be corroborated in my diagnosis!).
PSYCHOPATHIC, KILLER, MASS MURDERER, NAZI???? WOW,,, I THOUGHT YOU HIPPY LIBERAL TYPES WERE ALL PEACE AND NICENESS?
“Even though this question was directed at someone else I must take “exceptional exception”, with the picture you paint of “atrocities committed by our invasion.” When I entered Baghdad in ‘03 I seem to remember being cheered, children running giving the thumbs up and looting. Lot’s of looting. ny “bodies” that may have littered the ground were of those shooting at us. I’d do it again if need be.”
And are they cheering now? If someone invaded your country, carpet-bombed your cities, would you not shoot back? You BET you would! So how do you blame the Iraqis for defending against invasions by the USA which were completely unprovoked and unfounded? You might look up the term “double standard’. But then you apparently seem to align with Nazi military ideology, so that’s no surprise.
SURE I’D SHOOT BACK, WOULD YOU?
“Agent Orange? I didn’t know they used Agent Orange in Iraq. Although there were many pesky growth’s of vegetation that the bad guy’s liked to hide in, AO might not have been a bad idea. TRM”
Agent orange referred to Vietnam as you know, so your rhetorical sarcasm was indeed a waste.
As a military man you support what was done to the troops in Vietnam by exposing them to agent orange, as well as the categorical denial by your VA, Pentagon and elected officials for decades that it caused the toxic horror to those deploying it as well as those on the ground? Maybe you should interview some real vets, not just your gung-ho yahoo enlistees.
Start with some research on Agent Orange and Dioxins, known full well to cause horrific cancers, birth-defects, etc. and take note that it was not until lawsuits started in the 80’s that your VA began to face the music on that crime against their own soldiers. Note also that your favorite greed-mongers in big business have failed to pay a cent of the court judgements against them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
Nevertheless you failed to address depleted uranium—guess you really do have nothing to say, just hyperbole, eh? Here’s a main-stream media report (CNN): US Veterans and Depleted Uranium (DU) (video; transcript)
(Notice this clip makes no reference to the half-million-year radioactive half-life of DU, and the ramifications for civilians on the ground forever, but you don’t care about that, the more “7th century throwbacks” from that “cesspool” killed, maimed mutated and destroyed over the next half-million years the better. Right soldier?
And here’s a lettle more alarming take from a US army health physicist: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6481369128828216681&q=Depleted+Uranium&total=583&start=0&num=50&so=0&type=search&plindex=25
“Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Congress give the green light on Iraq? Yep.”
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
NOPE: Not to invade in an illegal war of aggression under fabricated pretext when Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 911. But indeed anyone who did authorize the war is catching hell for it now. Congress certainly did not authorize the blatant lies as per the prior video I posted above. If you are implying that a vote to authorize force was a vote to allow the administration to completely fabricate all the excuses for the invasion, then you are not fighting for any America the founders wrote into law, and you’re certainly not interested in anything Congress has to say.
Only Congress actually declares war.
“So how is it illegal? Or are you talking about that “law” the UN likes to impose on America while not playing by it?”
Your invasion is not the only illegal act surrounding this occupation and the antics of your government. The USA is signatory to important and binding legal documents. If you are claiming this is a nation of laws (which you agree with, right? Or do you wish murder was no longer a capital crime so you could kill all those you disagree with at will?? Let’s hear it!), then you have to abide the various laws which apply to the USA regarding war, among them and pertinent to all grunts are:
The Nuremberg Principles, established at the Nazi trials after World War II, declare that it is the right and responsibility of individual soldiers to refuse to follow illegal orders or to participate in war crimes.
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
The Geneva Conventions of War define a legal war as one that is undertaken as a last resort in the legitimate self-defense of a nation, and has the support of the international community of nations. It also defines what kind of weapons may be legitimately employed in war, and how civilian populations and captured soldiers should be treated during wartime.
The U.N. Handbook on Refugees calls on countries to provide refuge to soldiers “who refuse to participate in wars widely condemned by the international community as contrary to accepted standards of human behavior.”
But you’ll have to go through some of the various high crimes and misdemeanors catalogued in the various cases for impeachment to further understand the illegality of the administration’s activities pertaining to this war. Since you’re a militaristic right-winger, I’ll offer for your consideration the case by Bruce Fein against President Bush (Yes that’s indeed the same Bruce Fein, conservative republican constitutional scholar who was responsible for the case against Clinton over the dress):
Bruce Fein on Impeachment (video; updated)
More withering critique of your party and it’s commander in chief here:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0610.fein.html
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
Read ‘em & weep, soldier.
“Strategic value? What in the hell would you know about strategy my friend? I mean anything other than a defeatist strategy.”
Why don’t you itemize the real ‘strategic’ reasons you claim as to why we invaded Iraq, and why you rendered yourself an unapologetic, irrefutable murderer for this cause? Let’s hear it.
As to defeatist, whether you’ve killed everyone by now and quieted down some of the ‘insurgency’ or not, the war is already lost, any goals claimed for the invasion utterly abandoned and any justifications thoroughly disproved. You’re gonna have to deal with that reality, as your own prior general and secy of state, Colin Powell has:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/17/ftn/main2274583.shtml
(Oh wait, now I bet you’ll find something to agree with me about, is Colin Powell now a traitor in your eyes too? Wouldn’t that be an irony…)
“The middle east is a cess pool of 7th century throwbacks bent on causing as much violence and chaos as possible all in the name of Allah.”
BLAH BLAH BLAH
Once again, and all name-calling aside, what you reveal here above is that you are a bigot. And as an admitted racist, I ask you, are you proud of that?
I remind you that the Nazis also applied epithets to religious or ethnic groups, and their solution was to incinerate them by the millions. Is that what you would do to the middle east, cradle of civilization?
Are you certain that all, or even most of Islamists are bent on ‘violence’, and would do harm in the name of Allah, or are even as backward as you claim (Or at least would havebefore you decided to march in there and commit atrocities)?
So, by your rules, anyone believing in antiquated belief systems, and who uses violence and terror to promote their ideology should be controlled by force? You might have a point. But in that case, the following individuals would similarly need to be summarily executed on-sight by your bunker-busters and daisy-cutters en-mass:
1: All former colonialists and any descendants who benefit from colonialism, including the English, Dutch, French, Spanish and Portuguese (any relatives of your perchance?)
2: All founding fathers and original ‘forefathers’ of America responsible for promoting slavery and wiping out the Native Americans, along with their descendants who still benefit.
3: Each and every inhabitant and descendant of the Southern states who promoted and benefited from slavery (open season on rednecks fer real…)
4: Anyone who participated in the invasion of Vietnam (US style ‘democracy’ was an ideology promoted through violence and terror by the US armed forces, therefore they apply to your definition of ideologically-based violence above).
5: The present crop of Neocons who are said to be ‘Dispensationalists’, including your own president (no ‘rapture’ without Israeli domination. You need to look at born-again dispensationalist ‘end times’ theocracy to see just how the ‘virgins’ of the ‘martyrs’ stack up to the ‘raptuer’ and ‘cleansing by fire’ of your president’s demented ideology. A bit of background here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1583.htm)
Some of these may seem far-fetched, and admittedly suicide bombers who terrorize innocent civilians are particularly demonic. Do you not think that invading countries who happen to be in the Middle East, but who presented no threat whatsoever to the US is the best way to discourage terrorist fanatics, or might not the brutal subjugation of foreign lands create more enemies going forward (Hullo…).
“There is no better place in the world for us to have equipment and troops than right where they are. Know your enemy, keep ‘em close and kill ‘em when you can. They are not going away you idiot.”
So your great strategic idea was to invade a nation of no threat nor consequence to the USA, depopulate the place, bomb it to smithereens, cause the deaths directly or indirectly of a million civilians, all to create a battleground for luring in the extremists you say you want to fight, into some giant thunderdome, occupy the place indefinitely, generate enemies of the occupation for the foreseeable future in order to fabricate an Orwellian war so you and yer goon-squad buddies can keep makin’ that 35k/yr for target-practice, complete with free ammo. Great strategy, worthy of Churchill himself, I must say.
Meanwhile the one extremist who is said to have actually caused damage worthy of retaliation supposedly still roams free, while you wasted trillions of tax-dollars making an irreconcilable mess of Iraq.
Not even a gun-toting, blood-thirsty Rambo could agree with that “strategy”. It is baffling to me, as I’m sure it would be to your commanders, that you would espouse that sort of idea.
By that logic, why wouldn’t you consider something similar, but genuinely useful: Invade Mississippi, shoot anyone that looks at you funny, vaporize the place, and then wait till all the KKK militia nuts along with the citizen jury of the Jena Six trial come out to play war with the feds they’ve been arming against for a generation, and then you’d have a perfect killing factory just like you have in Iraq, only we’d be massacring some un-evolved throwbacks who really ARE a threat to any normal American way of life. (I’m being brutally facetious, of course, but you get the point).
“Independent journalism? I would be willing to bet the check that paid for this “film” would have names like, Ford Foundation, Tides Foundation, OSI and/or Soros somewhere in the money trail.”
By Independent journalism I meant non Main-Stream Media (MSM). (Ironically Molly Bingham is apparently the daughter of a local media-magnate)
I’ve not researched the backers of the production. The MSM followed lockstep behind the debunked reasons given for this invasion (though only your friends at faux still abide them, along with Kristol, now of the NY Times).
“For whatever reasons we went into Vietnam (communism), leaving before winning was a mistake and the Cambodians and Vietnamese suffered catastrophically after our departure.”
You might need to touch up your history there- for example, it was the fault of the USA, at Kissinger’s behest, that the bombing of Cambodia took place.
See this article from Z-net with a bit on domestic war-criminals
(http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/hermansept97.htm):
{excerpt: “before Pol Pot came to power in 1975, the United States had devastated Cambodia for the first half of what a Finnish government’s study referred to as a “decade” of genocide (not just the four years of Pol Pot’s rule, 1975-78). The “secret bombing” of Cambodia by the Nixon-Kissinger gang may have killed as many Cambodians as were executed by the Khmer Rouge and surely contributed to the ferocity of Khmer Rouge behavior toward the urban elite and citizenry whose leaders had allied themselves with the foreign terrorists”}
Perhaps also your concept of ‘winning’ is a bit misguided to say the least. In any case we were chased out of there, it was not a matter of ‘leaving’. We had no business being there in the first place, and as with Korea there was no net gain only a devastating loss for all sides from the US invasion of Vietnam, as per the present one in Iraq.
As to your revisionist history of impending peril for the region upon US departure from Vietnam (which your ilk use to discredit the idea of immediate withdrawal from Iraq), Wikipedia had this to say:
‘The dire predictions of a generation did not come to fruition. Since Thailand and other South East Asian nations did not fall to systematic Vietnamese aggression, the Domino Theory, so widely trumpeted, was said to have been an illusion. Vietnam, without the presence of the United States, showed itself to be of little economic or strategic value to anyone’.
“Those guardsmen at Kent State were extremely under-qualified and scared shitless. Should they have pulled the trigger? I wasn’t there so I couldn’t tell you. But let’s not forget the tactics being used by the scum sucking dirty hippies to incite the violence.”
What tactics could unarmed citizens participating in demonstrations possibly have used to deserve being shot point-blank? You seem to imply deadly force by the military against unarmed civilians could be considered justified (Where are the friggin Paulbots when you need them?? They would nail you to their iron cross for saying that! Not to mention probably shoot ya).
Keep in mind, all except two of those students were 200’-700’ from the guardsmen, and yet they fired into the crowd for 13 seconds continuously. Sounds like those students were inciting violence for real, with real spitballs from 500’ away. Your move, soldier, let’s hear you defend them again.
And you say the guardsmen were under-qualified—why because they didn’t kill enough “scum sucking dirty hippies”? Seems you’re fairly lickin’ yer chops about killin’ you a few kids (from ragheads to mopheads, eh?). While some of us are nostalgic for 1970 for Joe Cocker and Let It Be, you’re there getting steamy over shootin’ you some hippies. Imagine that.
You didn’t respond about My Lai, guess you think those Marines were justified in slaughtering all those civilian ‘g@@ks’ as well, eh? It seems you’re proud of those soldiers and excuse anything they do, as long as they’re ‘amerigoons’, rules of engagement and morality be damned.
Suggest you read a bit about your few, proud marines and their My Lai massacre from Seymour Hersh, who broke the story in 1968: http://www.pierretristam.com/Bobst/library/wf-200.htm
Still proud, soldier?
“Sociopathic? When it comes to the defense of my country and it’s honor? Sure, ok… “
So you admit you’re a sociopath. Does your CO know this?
About your ‘country’s honor’, what if your country has behaved dishonorably, and your leaders treasonously, and the result was a disaster not seen since Nam. Or do you back them right or wrong, regardless of what atrocities they command you to commit.
In defending your country’s ‘honor’ did you defend CIA agent Valerie Wilson from the antics of your VP, or did you defend the ‘honor’ of your president’s right to expose covert agents who may find information that doesn’t agree with a predetermined fabricated reason for going to war?
“ ‘My’ government? Isn’t it yours as well? Careful how you answer that, your anti-americanism is already showing. I may have to re-classify you from a mis-led liberal to an outright traitor. Your sources of “courageous journalism” are anything but. They are anti-america, anti war scum, plain and simple. “
“Outright traitor”? Bet you’d like ta rip me a new one with yer M-16, eh soldier? No doubt you would. I think it’s you, soldier, who should be careful of what you say, especially when you start with the threats, that’s a jailable offense (and perhaps that’s where you belong for the safety of society).
You might be interested, by the by, in what your buddies, the traumatized trained killers, are doing when they return: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/20/MN2UUEELP.DTL
Personally I feel this is a tragedy all the way around, but if you find you’re experiencing a knee-jerk need to shoot civilians and you can’t differentiate between being home and being at war, then you need to get some help soldier.
Last I checked, being ‘anti-war’ was not traitorous, treasonous, nor even illegal. Your insinuation of such indicates with increasing gravity the categorically anti-Americanism of your entire attitude. Think about that. We’re not the ones killing people under false, treasonously fabricated pretext and libeling all dissenters to this fraud as ‘traiters’, apparently YOU ARE.
Killing is a capital crime. Killing in war via aggressive invasion is a war-crime. Enjoying the killing, as you imply you do, is a sign of dangerous, psychopathology and mental disease to say the least.
I say ‘your’ government because it was not elected by majority. Clearly there were shenanigans in both those elections, and the resultant catastrophe renders anyone in support of these antics a bit unhinged, as by now an overwhelming majority would certainly agree.
“PttV you seem to forget that we are tax payers, that’s our money too, those are our troop’s as well, this is our country too, you are in the minority my friend”.
What “Minority”? Are you so sick with guilt over the damage you and your buddies have done that your unable to acknowledge that at long last an overwhelming majority does NOT support this war nor this administration, even among their own party.
If warmongering is so popular among your fellow grunts, who do so many of them support the republican right’s anti-war candidate, Ron Paul?
But let’s see exactly what kind of ‘Tax’ the war machine is costing us taxpayers, the price of to keeping you in the latest fashion in missile launchers: http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm.
That’s right, it’s over 50% of our total tax revenue net of the social security trust. And you feel we as tax-payers oughta be sacrificing that for your bogus wars? If you look at those numbers, you’ll either dissent this absurd expense, or you’re likely deranged (again, diagnosis, not slander, dear moderator!)
“And you know what? Us “warmongers” will be here long after you have headed to Canada to hide like all the rest of your ilk do.”
Not sure what you mean by ‘hide’. Would you be referring to hiding from the long-defunct draft? What generation did you say you were? Your metaphors are getting a bit too mixed for someone who says I make no sense. But if indeed you indict war-resistors as draft dodgers, well, let’s see here what your own elected warmongers in chief did about the draft when their turn came:
Bush’s Military “service”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_military_service_controversy
Cheney’s Five (5) draft deferments: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A02E5DC153DF932A35756C0A9629C8B63
Karl Rove’s Draft Deferrments: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2004/09/18/884/06682
Still find your commanders in chief ‘honorable’ and worth defending, soldier? Apparently in the days you didn’t have to flee to Canada if you had the right connections and the right money.
“A huge difference between us is I recognize a threat and I seek to take it out, through overwhelming violent force, therefore sending a message to the next batch of mullah abdullahs studying in our University’s waiting for the word to attack. You keep your head in the sand buddy and I’ll make sure they don’t rape your exposed, liberal ass.”
My ‘liberal ass’ is not in ANY threat of getting ‘raped’ by any university students, least of all anyone named ‘Abdullah’. I know you believe violence is the best way to coexist, and that is why people who believe in aggressive violence are for good reason kept in cages. But regardless of your highly alarming fixation on killing and rape as irrevocably itemized by your own hand above, lets get one thing straight for the record:
NOBODY IS INVADING THE USA.
AND I’M A RAPIST TO BOOT NOW,, HMMMMMM
Rather it was officially claimed that there was a ‘terrorist attack’ by Islamists. Bear in mind the prior worst terrorist attacks of all time on US soil was apparently committed by your own friendly citizen Patriots in Oklahoma City.
“America just butchered upwards of a million in South America? I thought that was Chavez?”
By ‘just’, I mean in recent memory, recent enough to have taught you a thing or two about illegal military maneuvers in the name of exporting US ideology (actually in support of US corporate interests, as this war is as well), and the resultant cost to civilians.
Chavez is hardly a war-criminal dictator.
He may have had too high an opinion of himself, but his recent referendum on life-long rule (which he lost), indicates he’s not the sort of military leader that the USA under Kissinger sponsored in Latin America in the 70’s and 80’s. Besides, he’s loved by his electorate, and that’s fine enough for democracy.
Since you’re apparently clueless about the war-criminal antics of the USA, there’s much reading for you. Start with a short overview, for example: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/International_War_Crimes/Our_War_Criminals.html.
“It’s us that keep us here. It’s us who will be here long after you have run to Canada. Do us a favor this time, don’t come back after the “heavy lifting” is done.”
If you honestly believe that US soldiers invaded Vietnam, invaded Cambodia, invaded Korea, invaded Grenada, invaded Iraq twice, etc. etc. because someone told you all these nations of 3rd world farmers were lining up on our shores to subjugate US citizens, then you have managed to suck so much propaganda that you are likely irreparable.
But just in case, I’ll make it real simple for ya one more time:
NOBODY IS INVADING THE USA
Now go get a piece of chalk and write that phrase down on the blackboard once for every innocent civilian slaughtered in your illegal bloodthirsty wars of aggression (at least that’ll keep you off the streets and away from the battlefield for a few decades).
Honestly, in all my taking on of bloggers who don’t agree with me (contrary to your indictment), I’ve yet to read one as disturbingly and evidently dangerous as yourself.
I will try to be compassionate nevertheless, and urgently urge you to get counseling, for your attitudes are not merely irritating or obnoxious, they are indicative of serious mental instability common to many combat vets. I honestly don’t mean that with malice, so I hope you can accept that in the spirit it was offered.
But while your waiting at the VA for someone to give you the time of day between the rodents at Walter Reed (more reason to be proud), I offer for your perusal a few websites put together by some of your more evolved colleagues, who are no less gung-ho than yourself, but who may have some further wisdom to impart:
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
YOUR WAY TOO FAR GONE DUDE, I HAVE GROWN TIRED OF THIS LITTLE TALK WE’RE HAVING,, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT LIBERALISM THING….
I highly recommend listening to this interview with Dahr Jamail.
Interview with Dahr Jamail (audio) + Police & Army Getting Sidelined By Ahmed Ali & Dahr Jamail
Thanks for a voice of truth and reson Drew,,,
PttV’s let me try to digest your response bit by bit,,, it may take a day or two…. it upsets my stomach…
POWER TO THE VOICES, you rock! One way or another we are going to reach out to the remaining 30% that support Bush’s war of terror in Iraq. Keep up the great work!
Hi I’m an american contractor living and working in Baghdad. Dod not see the movie but I LARGELY disagree with the premise described… I work with and talk to a LOT of Iraqis. out of 100 or so working on our compound, 10 have been killed in the last 2 years. each one was killed in horrific secterian attacks. 3 weeks ago one guy from our accounting section was shot in the face in front of his wife by religious militiamen who just walked up to their car. A Shia woman who work here had the exact oppopsite happen – Sunni militants shot him point blank in the supermarket . the list goes on and on since I’ve been here. Look even the MOST conservative estimates are 150,000 civilians killed here. US at MOST extreme calculation killed 20,000 the rest are internal attacks. I travel outside the compound more than the vast majority of americans do here to meet civilians. trust me what is on their mind 1000 times more than US forces is sectarian violence. YES it is true that there is huge intermarriage rates between sunnis and shias and it is a small minority of relgious fanatics doing the violence that is true. Most of the pple here have intermarriage in their families. But if 10% of each side are the quivalent of nazis or KKK and just hate the other side thats all it takes for mayhem.
Per TRM (In Italicized quotes):
“the left has already made up their sick little minds when it comes to the issue. There is nothing that can be said that will make you believe otherwise”
As Jennifer pointed out, the stats that form the basis for this film came from the Dept. of Defense. I didn’t realize that ‘lefties’ had any influence on DOD stats.
“Anyone who dare disagree with a high follutin’ lefty must be from some “holler” and missing a few chromosomes due to inbreeding. I mean, how dare we disagree with your moral superiority?”
Well perhaps the endemic disease of gun-totin’ unwarranted militarism has by now leaked out of deliverance and beyond deadwood and the OK corral, and infected your very own pet warmongers in the Whitehouse, including the farce from which you get your ‘fair & balanced’ faux ‘news’ right on up to the executive branch. It’s apparently a virulent, pernicious disease, and those infected remain incurable zealots who kill things as a way of life.
“Warmongers? Well yes I am, because I want to kill every living maggot on this planet who publicly, privately, subversively and through violence seek to destroy America and it’s citizen’s.”
That’s very civil of you. But it’s not your secretive feelings of blood-lust at anyone who would identify the war-crimes of the USA which are in fact legion, it’s the fact that you apparently actually acted on them which renders you complicit.
Now explain this: In what way did Iraqis, whose populace has born the vast brunt of the slaughter from both US military actions as well as the destabilization the US invasion wrought, what exactly did they do to ‘subversively and through violence seek to destroy America’ (or were you implying it’s me you want to kill…)
Go ahead, tell us that you still think Saddam and 911 were related, we need to hear that one again, especially when you inevitably expose your a violent bigotry so many gallant and valorous service personnel display by calling citizens of the region ‘ragheads’ and ‘sand-n—–s’.
We need to hear you imply once again, for the record, that all Muslims are terrorists and therefore deserve to have you killing them and their children. And don’t forget to lay out that part about Saddam blowing up the Twin Towers!
Iraqis were not seeking to “destroy amreica and it’s citizens” , rather it appears the inverse is the reality. You enlisted, then went out and ‘through violence’ destroyed Iraq. For that, and by your own logic, Iraqis have every right to defend themselves against you, and to shoot you if necessary, as you would they if actually did invaded your homeland for no reason.
“If that makes me a war monger then so be it and give me some more!.”
More war for you? Haven’t you had enough of killing? I guess not.
Perhaps you’d be more impressed by your very own career generals, who have come out in opposition to this war in droves, and who would NOT do it again, and indeed unlike yourself, do not enjoy and lust after slaughter wherever they can find it. Read this:
http://www.signonsandiego.com:80/news/world/iraq/20070923-9999-1n23generals.html
“It’s better than being a delusional socialist peacenik who thinks that America is to blame for the world’s woes. Who think that if we only re-distributed the wealth from the rich to the poor everyone would be equal and happy. Then what? Who’s gonna dig the ditches? And have you ever thought that the rich are rich for a reason? They handled their money correctly, creating capitol and jobs, if you were to level the playing field you would only see that money pissed away on Fubu and PlayStations.”
So you guys are still red-bating, fighting the anti-communist war, even though it’s been irrelevant for decades?
You don’t know who I am, what companies I own, how many people I employ, what my net worth is, or how much harder I may have worked than you. Entrepreneurs of the type I represent are not ‘commies’, but we are not abusive capitalists either. Rather we make things with our hands, sell our wares without manipulating others into buying them, we make jobs, we pay salaries, taxes and insurances, and we don’t need you killing people to ‘protect’ us, nor do we need the fat-cat big biz that supports your military industrial complex ruining the entire concept of commerce.
Your characterization of those who have scruples about your having invaded under false, illegal pretext as being communists is an unfounded attempt at slander that has no bearing on reality.
But if you have a problem with my sarcasm about holler-dwellin’ rednecks and their gunz, then I suppose as a soldier, the only thing you know how to do is shoot back. Let’s hope you keep that in the realm of words, not bullets, lest your ideal nation of Hatfields & McCoys manifest itself for real.
Perhaps as a natural born killer, if you had ‘handled your money’ correctly, you’d not have been a grunt making minimum wage for mass murder, you’d have joined up with Blackwater, so you could make the 6-figures, and get to slaughter to your heart’s content with complete immunity.
Apparently your idea of ‘work’ is killing people, so it follows that your idea of utopia is apparently Nazi Germany. Do you long to be in the SS, so you can kill Jews and dissenters at will? The Jews were also mischaracterized as you have done above we dissenting citizens, are you proud of that? Do you secretly admire what the Nazis did, and secretly wish you could just slaughter people you don’t agree with, as you described above?
You have here done a perfect job of indicting your own position as irrational, violent, and criminal of a psychopathic nature. Persons such as yourself have no business around guns nor the military, instead violent psychopaths should be removed from society, strapped to gurneys and fed meds (and that’s not name-calling, show the rantings of this soldier to a psychologist, I’d certainly be corroborated in my diagnosis!).
“Even though this question was directed at someone else I must take “exceptional exception”, with the picture you paint of “atrocities committed by our invasion.” When I entered Baghdad in ‘03 I seem to remember being cheered, children running giving the thumbs up and looting. Lot’s of looting. ny “bodies” that may have littered the ground were of those shooting at us. I’d do it again if need be.”
And are they cheering now? If someone invaded your country, carpet-bombed your cities, would you not shoot back? You BET you would! So how do you blame the Iraqis for defending against invasions by the USA which were completely unprovoked and unfounded? You might look up the term “double standard’. But then you apparently seem to align with Nazi military ideology, so that’s no surprise.
“Agent Orange? I didn’t know they used Agent Orange in Iraq. Although there were many pesky growth’s of vegetation that the bad guy’s liked to hide in, AO might not have been a bad idea. TRM”
Agent orange referred to Vietnam as you know, so your rhetorical sarcasm was indeed a waste.
As a military man you support what was done to the troops in Vietnam by exposing them to agent orange, as well as the categorical denial by your VA, Pentagon and elected officials for decades that it caused the toxic horror to those deploying it as well as those on the ground? Maybe you should interview some real vets, not just your gung-ho yahoo enlistees.
Start with some research on Agent Orange and Dioxins, known full well to cause horrific cancers, birth-defects, etc. and take note that it was not until lawsuits started in the 80’s that your VA began to face the music on that crime against their own soldiers. Note also that your favorite greed-mongers in big business have failed to pay a cent of the court judgements against them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
Nevertheless you failed to address depleted uranium—guess you really do have nothing to say, just hyperbole, eh? Here’s a main-stream media report (CNN): US Veterans and Depleted Uranium (DU) (video; transcript)
(Notice this clip makes no reference to the half-million-year radioactive half-life of DU, and the ramifications for civilians on the ground forever, but you don’t care about that, the more “7th century throwbacks” from that “cesspool” killed, maimed mutated and destroyed over the next half-million years the better. Right soldier?
And here’s a lettle more alarming take from a US army health physicist: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6481369128828216681&q=Depleted+Uranium&total=583&start=0&num=50&so=0&type=search&plindex=25
“Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Congress give the green light on Iraq? Yep.”
NOPE: Not to invade in an illegal war of aggression under fabricated pretext when Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 911. But indeed anyone who did authorize the war is catching hell for it now. Congress certainly did not authorize the blatant lies as per the prior video I posted above. If you are implying that a vote to authorize force was a vote to allow the administration to completely fabricate all the excuses for the invasion, then you are not fighting for any America the founders wrote into law, and you’re certainly not interested in anything Congress has to say.
Only Congress actually declares war.
“So how is it illegal? Or are you talking about that “law” the UN likes to impose on America while not playing by it?”
Your invasion is not the only illegal act surrounding this occupation and the antics of your government. The USA is signatory to important and binding legal documents. If you are claiming this is a nation of laws (which you agree with, right? Or do you wish murder was no longer a capital crime so you could kill all those you disagree with at will?? Let’s hear it!), then you have to abide the various laws which apply to the USA regarding war, among them and pertinent to all grunts are:
The Nuremberg Principles, established at the Nazi trials after World War II, declare that it is the right and responsibility of individual soldiers to refuse to follow illegal orders or to participate in war crimes.
The Geneva Conventions of War define a legal war as one that is undertaken as a last resort in the legitimate self-defense of a nation, and has the support of the international community of nations. It also defines what kind of weapons may be legitimately employed in war, and how civilian populations and captured soldiers should be treated during wartime.
The U.N. Handbook on Refugees calls on countries to provide refuge to soldiers “who refuse to participate in wars widely condemned by the international community as contrary to accepted standards of human behavior.”
But you’ll have to go through some of the various high crimes and misdemeanors catalogued in the various cases for impeachment to further understand the illegality of the administration’s activities pertaining to this war. Since you’re a militaristic right-winger, I’ll offer for your consideration the case by Bruce Fein against President Bush (Yes that’s indeed the same Bruce Fein, conservative republican constitutional scholar who was responsible for the case against Clinton over the dress):
Bruce Fein on Impeachment (video; updated)
More withering critique of your party and it’s commander in chief here:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0610.fein.html
Read ‘em & weep, soldier.
“Strategic value? What in the hell would you know about strategy my friend? I mean anything other than a defeatist strategy.”
Why don’t you itemize the real ‘strategic’ reasons you claim as to why we invaded Iraq, and why you rendered yourself an unapologetic, irrefutable murderer for this cause? Let’s hear it.
As to defeatist, whether you’ve killed everyone by now and quieted down some of the ‘insurgency’ or not, the war is already lost, any goals claimed for the invasion utterly abandoned and any justifications thoroughly disproved. You’re gonna have to deal with that reality, as your own prior general and secy of state, Colin Powell has:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/17/ftn/main2274583.shtml
(Oh wait, now I bet you’ll find something to agree with me about, is Colin Powell now a traitor in your eyes too? Wouldn’t that be an irony…)
“The middle east is a cess pool of 7th century throwbacks bent on causing as much violence and chaos as possible all in the name of Allah.”
Once again, and all name-calling aside, what you reveal here above is that you are a bigot. And as an admitted racist, I ask you, are you proud of that?
I remind you that the Nazis also applied epithets to religious or ethnic groups, and their solution was to incinerate them by the millions. Is that what you would do to the middle east, cradle of civilization?
Are you certain that all, or even most of Islamists are bent on ‘violence’, and would do harm in the name of Allah, or are even as backward as you claim (Or at least would havebefore you decided to march in there and commit atrocities)?
So, by your rules, anyone believing in antiquated belief systems, and who uses violence and terror to promote their ideology should be controlled by force? You might have a point. But in that case, the following individuals would similarly need to be summarily executed on-sight by your bunker-busters and daisy-cutters en-mass:
1: All former colonialists and any descendants who benefit from colonialism, including the English, Dutch, French, Spanish and Portuguese (any relatives of your perchance?)
2: All founding fathers and original ‘forefathers’ of America responsible for promoting slavery and wiping out the Native Americans, along with their descendants who still benefit.
3: Each and every inhabitant and descendant of the Southern states who promoted and benefited from slavery (open season on rednecks fer real…)
4: Anyone who participated in the invasion of Vietnam (US style ‘democracy’ was an ideology promoted through violence and terror by the US armed forces, therefore they apply to your definition of ideologically-based violence above).
5: The present crop of Neocons who are said to be ‘Dispensationalists’, including your own president (no ‘rapture’ without Israeli domination. You need to look at born-again dispensationalist ‘end times’ theocracy to see just how the ‘virgins’ of the ‘martyrs’ stack up to the ‘raptuer’ and ‘cleansing by fire’ of your president’s demented ideology. A bit of background here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1583.htm)
Some of these may seem far-fetched, and admittedly suicide bombers who terrorize innocent civilians are particularly demonic. Do you not think that invading countries who happen to be in the Middle East, but who presented no threat whatsoever to the US is the best way to discourage terrorist fanatics, or might not the brutal subjugation of foreign lands create more enemies going forward (Hullo…).
“There is no better place in the world for us to have equipment and troops than right where they are. Know your enemy, keep ‘em close and kill ‘em when you can. They are not going away you idiot.”
So your great strategic idea was to invade a nation of no threat nor consequence to the USA, depopulate the place, bomb it to smithereens, cause the deaths directly or indirectly of a million civilians, all to create a battleground for luring in the extremists you say you want to fight, into some giant thunderdome, occupy the place indefinitely, generate enemies of the occupation for the foreseeable future in order to fabricate an Orwellian war so you and yer goon-squad buddies can keep makin’ that 35k/yr for target-practice, complete with free ammo. Great strategy, worthy of Churchill himself, I must say.
Meanwhile the one extremist who is said to have actually caused damage worthy of retaliation supposedly still roams free, while you wasted trillions of tax-dollars making an irreconcilable mess of Iraq.
Not even a gun-toting, blood-thirsty Rambo could agree with that “strategy”. It is baffling to me, as I’m sure it would be to your commanders, that you would espouse that sort of idea.
By that logic, why wouldn’t you consider something similar, but genuinely useful: Invade Mississippi, shoot anyone that looks at you funny, vaporize the place, and then wait till all the KKK militia nuts along with the citizen jury of the Jena Six trial come out to play war with the feds they’ve been arming against for a generation, and then you’d have a perfect killing factory just like you have in Iraq, only we’d be massacring some un-evolved throwbacks who really ARE a threat to any normal American way of life. (I’m being brutally facetious, of course, but you get the point).
“Independent journalism? I would be willing to bet the check that paid for this “film” would have names like, Ford Foundation, Tides Foundation, OSI and/or Soros somewhere in the money trail.”
By Independent journalism I meant non Main-Stream Media (MSM). (Ironically Molly Bingham is apparently the daughter of a local media-magnate)
I’ve not researched the backers of the production. The MSM followed lockstep behind the debunked reasons given for this invasion (though only your friends at faux still abide them, along with Kristol, now of the NY Times).
“For whatever reasons we went into Vietnam (communism), leaving before winning was a mistake and the Cambodians and Vietnamese suffered catastrophically after our departure.”
You might need to touch up your history there- for example, it was the fault of the USA, at Kissinger’s behest, that the bombing of Cambodia took place.
See this article from Z-net with a bit on domestic war-criminals
(http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/hermansept97.htm):
{excerpt: “before Pol Pot came to power in 1975, the United States had devastated Cambodia for the first half of what a Finnish government’s study referred to as a “decade” of genocide (not just the four years of Pol Pot’s rule, 1975-78). The “secret bombing” of Cambodia by the Nixon-Kissinger gang may have killed as many Cambodians as were executed by the Khmer Rouge and surely contributed to the ferocity of Khmer Rouge behavior toward the urban elite and citizenry whose leaders had allied themselves with the foreign terrorists”}
Perhaps also your concept of ‘winning’ is a bit misguided to say the least. In any case we were chased out of there, it was not a matter of ‘leaving’. We had no business being there in the first place, and as with Korea there was no net gain only a devastating loss for all sides from the US invasion of Vietnam, as per the present one in Iraq.
As to your revisionist history of impending peril for the region upon US departure from Vietnam (which your ilk use to discredit the idea of immediate withdrawal from Iraq), Wikipedia had this to say:
‘The dire predictions of a generation did not come to fruition. Since Thailand and other South East Asian nations did not fall to systematic Vietnamese aggression, the Domino Theory, so widely trumpeted, was said to have been an illusion. Vietnam, without the presence of the United States, showed itself to be of little economic or strategic value to anyone’.
“Those guardsmen at Kent State were extremely under-qualified and scared shitless. Should they have pulled the trigger? I wasn’t there so I couldn’t tell you. But let’s not forget the tactics being used by the scum sucking dirty hippies to incite the violence.”
What tactics could unarmed citizens participating in demonstrations possibly have used to deserve being shot point-blank? You seem to imply deadly force by the military against unarmed civilians could be considered justified (Where are the friggin Paulbots when you need them?? They would nail you to their iron cross for saying that! Not to mention probably shoot ya).
Keep in mind, all except two of those students were 200’-700’ from the guardsmen, and yet they fired into the crowd for 13 seconds continuously. Sounds like those students were inciting violence for real, with real spitballs from 500’ away. Your move, soldier, let’s hear you defend them again.
And you say the guardsmen were under-qualified—why because they didn’t kill enough “scum sucking dirty hippies”? Seems you’re fairly lickin’ yer chops about killin’ you a few kids (from ragheads to mopheads, eh?). While some of us are nostalgic for 1970 for Joe Cocker and Let It Be, you’re there getting steamy over shootin’ you some hippies. Imagine that.
You didn’t respond about My Lai, guess you think those Marines were justified in slaughtering all those civilian ‘g@@ks’ as well, eh? It seems you’re proud of those soldiers and excuse anything they do, as long as they’re ‘amerigoons’, rules of engagement and morality be damned.
Suggest you read a bit about your few, proud marines and their My Lai massacre from Seymour Hersh, who broke the story in 1968: http://www.pierretristam.com/Bobst/library/wf-200.htm
Still proud, soldier?
“Sociopathic? When it comes to the defense of my country and it’s honor? Sure, ok… “
So you admit you’re a sociopath. Does your CO know this?
About your ‘country’s honor’, what if your country has behaved dishonorably, and your leaders treasonously, and the result was a disaster not seen since Nam. Or do you back them right or wrong, regardless of what atrocities they command you to commit.
In defending your country’s ‘honor’ did you defend CIA agent Valerie Wilson from the antics of your VP, or did you defend the ‘honor’ of your president’s right to expose covert agents who may find information that doesn’t agree with a predetermined fabricated reason for going to war?
“ ‘My’ government? Isn’t it yours as well? Careful how you answer that, your anti-americanism is already showing. I may have to re-classify you from a mis-led liberal to an outright traitor. Your sources of “courageous journalism” are anything but. They are anti-america, anti war scum, plain and simple. “
“Outright traitor”? Bet you’d like ta rip me a new one with yer M-16, eh soldier? No doubt you would. I think it’s you, soldier, who should be careful of what you say, especially when you start with the threats, that’s a jailable offense (and perhaps that’s where you belong for the safety of society).
You might be interested, by the by, in what your buddies, the traumatized trained killers, are doing when they return: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/20/MN2UUEELP.DTL
Personally I feel this is a tragedy all the way around, but if you find you’re experiencing a knee-jerk need to shoot civilians and you can’t differentiate between being home and being at war, then you need to get some help soldier.
Last I checked, being ‘anti-war’ was not traitorous, treasonous, nor even illegal. Your insinuation of such indicates with increasing gravity the categorically anti-Americanism of your entire attitude. Think about that. We’re not the ones killing people under false, treasonously fabricated pretext and libeling all dissenters to this fraud as ‘traiters’, apparently YOU ARE.
Killing is a capital crime. Killing in war via aggressive invasion is a war-crime. Enjoying the killing, as you imply you do, is a sign of dangerous, psychopathology and mental disease to say the least.
I say ‘your’ government because it was not elected by majority. Clearly there were shenanigans in both those elections, and the resultant catastrophe renders anyone in support of these antics a bit unhinged, as by now an overwhelming majority would certainly agree.
“PttV you seem to forget that we are tax payers, that’s our money too, those are our troop’s as well, this is our country too, you are in the minority my friend”.
What “Minority”? Are you so sick with guilt over the damage you and your buddies have done that your unable to acknowledge that at long last an overwhelming majority does NOT support this war nor this administration, even among their own party.
If warmongering is so popular among your fellow grunts, who do so many of them support the republican right’s anti-war candidate, Ron Paul?
But let’s see exactly what kind of ‘Tax’ the war machine is costing us taxpayers, the price of to keeping you in the latest fashion in missile launchers: http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm.
That’s right, it’s over 50% of our total tax revenue net of the social security trust. And you feel we as tax-payers oughta be sacrificing that for your bogus wars? If you look at those numbers, you’ll either dissent this absurd expense, or you’re likely deranged (again, diagnosis, not slander, dear moderator!)
“And you know what? Us “warmongers” will be here long after you have headed to Canada to hide like all the rest of your ilk do.”
Not sure what you mean by ‘hide’. Would you be referring to hiding from the long-defunct draft? What generation did you say you were? Your metaphors are getting a bit too mixed for someone who says I make no sense. But if indeed you indict war-resistors as draft dodgers, well, let’s see here what your own elected warmongers in chief did about the draft when their turn came:
Bush’s Military “service”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_military_service_controversy
Cheney’s Five (5) draft deferments: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A02E5DC153DF932A35756C0A9629C8B63
Karl Rove’s Draft Deferrments: http://www.talkleft.com/story/2004/09/18/884/06682
Still find your commanders in chief ‘honorable’ and worth defending, soldier? Apparently in the days you didn’t have to flee to Canada if you had the right connections and the right money.
“A huge difference between us is I recognize a threat and I seek to take it out, through overwhelming violent force, therefore sending a message to the next batch of mullah abdullahs studying in our University’s waiting for the word to attack. You keep your head in the sand buddy and I’ll make sure they don’t rape your exposed, liberal ass.”
My ‘liberal ass’ is not in ANY threat of getting ‘raped’ by any university students, least of all anyone named ‘Abdullah’. I know you believe violence is the best way to coexist, and that is why people who believe in aggressive violence are for good reason kept in cages. But regardless of your highly alarming fixation on killing and rape as irrevocably itemized by your own hand above, lets get one thing straight for the record:
NOBODY IS INVADING THE USA.
Rather it was officially claimed that there was a ‘terrorist attack’ by Islamists. Bear in mind the prior worst terrorist attacks of all time on US soil was apparently committed by your own friendly citizen Patriots in Oklahoma City.
“America just butchered upwards of a million in South America? I thought that was Chavez?”
By ‘just’, I mean in recent memory, recent enough to have taught you a thing or two about illegal military maneuvers in the name of exporting US ideology (actually in support of US corporate interests, as this war is as well), and the resultant cost to civilians.
Chavez is hardly a war-criminal dictator.
He may have had too high an opinion of himself, but his recent referendum on life-long rule (which he lost), indicates he’s not the sort of military leader that the USA under Kissinger sponsored in Latin America in the 70’s and 80’s. Besides, he’s loved by his electorate, and that’s fine enough for democracy.
Since you’re apparently clueless about the war-criminal antics of the USA, there’s much reading for you. Start with a short overview, for example: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/International_War_Crimes/Our_War_Criminals.html.
“It’s us that keep us here. It’s us who will be here long after you have run to Canada. Do us a favor this time, don’t come back after the “heavy lifting” is done.”
If you honestly believe that US soldiers invaded Vietnam, invaded Cambodia, invaded Korea, invaded Grenada, invaded Iraq twice, etc. etc. because someone told you all these nations of 3rd world farmers were lining up on our shores to subjugate US citizens, then you have managed to suck so much propaganda that you are likely irreparable.
But just in case, I’ll make it real simple for ya one more time:
NOBODY IS INVADING THE USA
Now go get a piece of chalk and write that phrase down on the blackboard once for every innocent civilian slaughtered in your illegal bloodthirsty wars of aggression (at least that’ll keep you off the streets and away from the battlefield for a few decades).
Honestly, in all my taking on of bloggers who don’t agree with me (contrary to your indictment), I’ve yet to read one as disturbingly and evidently dangerous as yourself.
I will try to be compassionate nevertheless, and urgently urge you to get counseling, for your attitudes are not merely irritating or obnoxious, they are indicative of serious mental instability common to many combat vets. I honestly don’t mean that with malice, so I hope you can accept that in the spirit it was offered.
But while your waiting at the VA for someone to give you the time of day between the rodents at Walter Reed (more reason to be proud), I offer for your perusal a few websites put together by some of your more evolved colleagues, who are no less gung-ho than yourself, but who may have some further wisdom to impart:
http://www.soldiersayno.blogspot.com/
http://www.militaryproject.org/
http://www.vaiw.org/vet/index.php
http://www.ivaw.org/
and what fun would that be?
Haha, TRM, I really do like you. 🙂 I scolded my friend, too, so you weren’t alone.
We do have far more things in common if we would only look to those things.
Sorry dude….. I feel like my mom just yelled at me for running with scissors,,,,
PTTV, I edited your link as I already posted the video on my other blog.
TRM, I do take offense at your name calling on the tags you used for your post on this topic on your blog. Name calling is just not necessary. People have differing viewpoints when it comes to politics, it doesn’t mean that one side or the other should not be respected for their views.
Same to you, my friend, PTTV, name calling isn’t respectable.
You may have missed this, it is on my blog on the top left-hand side:
The Golden Rule
“That which is hateful to you do not do to another … the rest (of the Torah) is all commentary, now go study.”
– Rabbi Hillel
POWER TO THE VOICES! said:
This will be an interesting one to see. If it demonstrates that:
“Department of Defense quarterly reports show a very different reality. An average of 74% of all violence is attributed to attacks on American forces, 16% target Iraqi police and army personal, and a mere 10% target civilians”
That would be a truly damning revelation if true, and would do much to support the reality that the admin not only lied us into war, but lied about everything else as well, especially the reasons for staying there.
PttV, I don’t know how it could be damning, the left has already made up their sick little minds when it comes to the issue. There is nothing that can be said that will make you believe otherwise, so I fear I am shortening the life of my keyboard in vain, but I trudge on. “Much to support?” “The Reality?” Your words confirm what I just said. TRM
I too like a good blog forum, but all due respect what holler are some of these commentators above crawling out of?
WOW, has it been that long since someone has disagreed with the minion here? Thank you for the slight affirmation of another liberal stereotype. Anyone who dare disagree with a high follutin’ lefty must be from some “holler” and missing a few chromosomes due to inbreeding. I mean, how dare we disagree with your moral superiority? TRM
Per: writerchick
“Look, I would be the first to admit there have been mistakes made – as there is in any military action – and no one, I mean no one LIKES war….However, there are times when it is necessary. Or do you think perhaps that we should still all be English subjects”
It always amazes me how warmongers (who, by the way, apparently DO like war, as there is consistently NO other reason why the US invaded in virtually every one of the dozens of bogus deployments since WW2, why else would they kill and die for lies? Only because they like to play videogames with real ammo), mumble a few conciliatory murmurs about ‘mistakes’, the end and the means are ultimately justified, just a few minor blips in the ‘rules of engagement’ or strategic oversights, etc. etc. But you’re missing the main point, and it’s not about mincing words or stats:
THE WAR IS ILLEGAL!
THE INVASION WAS PURSUED UNDER FALSE, TREASONOUSLY FABRICATED PRETEXT!
A MILLION PEOPLE ARE DEAD DUE TO WHAT THESE PEOPLE HAVE DONE IN OUR NAMES–
DO YOU NOT GET THAT NOW?
Nice one! Did you copy paste it from DailyKos or MediaMatters? Warmongers? Well yes I am, because I want to kill every living maggot on this planet who publicly, privately, subversively and through violence seek to destroy America and it’s citizen’s. If that makes me a war monger then so be it and give me some more!. It’s better than being a delusional socialist peacenik who thinks that America is to blame for the world’s woes. Who think that if we only re-distributed the wealth from the rich to the poor everyone would be equal and happy. Then what? Who’s gonna dig the ditches? And have you ever thought that the rich are rich for a reason? They handled their money correctly, creating capitol and jobs, if you were to level the playing field you would only see that money pissed away on Fubu and PlayStations. TRM
“I do think that if you are going to present an anti war perspective then it is your obligation to offer both sides of the argument, with facts, rather than opinion – because really you always find some opinion that backs up your own. It is harder to just get the facts, present them and let your readers decide”
Writerchick, are you not aware that the the other ‘side’ is ALL we’ve heard about for over half a decade, that there has been an intentional and admitted NEWS BLACKOUT about the ‘side’ that is suffering the atrocities committed by our invasion, and that the true horrors of this war, the streets littered with charred and dismembered bodies, ‘surgical strikes’ hitting hospitals and civilian homes, the real effects of depleted uranium which your ‘side’ acknowledges even less than the first gulf war syndrome, let alone agent orange?
Even though this question was directed at someone else I must take “exceptional exception”, with the picture you paint of “atrocities committed by our invasion.” When I entered Baghdad in ’03 I seem to remember being cheered, children running giving the thumbs up and looting. Lot’s of looting. Any “bodies” that may have littered the ground were of those shooting at us. I’d do it again if need be. Agent Orange? I didn’t know they used Agent Orange in Iraq. Although there were many pesky growth’s of vegetation that the bad guy’s liked to hide in, AO might not have been a bad idea. TRM
I’m flabbergastingly fascinated anew that pro-war hawks fail to understand the profundity of the mass-murderous, war-criminal atrocity committed by our troops, in our names, with our funds in a manner COMPLETELY anathema to the rule of law let alone any possible strategic value, let alone any morality or wisdom of any kind. This fact that rightist hawks can still imply that the warmongering sided needs more airtime is clearly indicative NOT of a desire for a balanced debate, but a desire to undermine any already non-existent factual rebuttal to the soylent green you’ve clearly swallowed for half a decade from your government about this war.
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Congress give the green light on Iraq? Yep. So how is it illegal? Or are you talking about that “law” the UN likes to impose on America while not playing by it? Strategic value? What in the hell would you know about strategy my friend? I mean anything other than a defeatist strategy. The middle east is a cess pool of 7th century throwbacks bent on causing as much violence and chaos as possible all in the name of Allah. There is no better place in the world for us to have equipment and troops than right where they are. Know your enemy, keep ’em close and kill ’em when you can. They are not going away you idiot. TRM
I for one am extremely grateful for any leaked images of the reality of this illegal invasion, and especially for any independent journalism exposing facts and fraud about the admin. I suppose you supported and probably still support the Vietnam War, am I right? Well tell us then, do you think the photos of the My Lai Massacre should have been leaked or kept covert? Do you think the Kent State murders of students by US guardsmen should have been kept out of the news? Come on, let’s hear it, tell us the truth of your murderous, hawkish, inexcusable sociopathic heart.
OK… OK… now your just making me laugh.. Independent journalism? I would be willing to bet the check that paid for this “film” would have names like, Ford Foundation, Tides Foundation, OSI and/or Soros somewhere in the money trail. For whatever reasons we went into Vietnam (communism), leaving before winning was a mistake and the Cambodians and Vietnamese suffered catastrophically after our departure. Those guardsmen at Kent State were extremely under-qualified and scared shitless. Should they have pulled the trigger? I wasn’t there so I couldn’t tell you. But let’s not forget the tactics being used by the scum sucking dirty hippies to incite the violence. Sociopathic? When it comes to the defense of my country and it’s honor? Sure, ok… TRM
In truth, your government has destroyed all evidence implicating their fraud and epic crime, blacked out any news about the gory reality of this atrocity, all to irrevocably wash the other ‘side’ from history (are you proud of that too?). Once again it is up to underground sources and courageous journalism to even get a hint of what’s really going on.
“My” government? Isn’t it yours as well? Careful how you answer that, your anti-americanism is already showing. I may have to re-classify you from a mis-led liberal to an outright traitor. Your sources of “courageous journalism” are anything but. They are anti-america, anti war scum, plain and simple.
Per: No Compromises
“The bottom line is liberals hate America, blame America, Cheney, Bush and Halliburton on everything and the argument goes on. It’s been going on since WWI.”
Compromised, it’s not ‘liberals’ who hate america, in fact ‘liberals’ in government are largely aligning with ‘conservatives’ in all matters, especially regarding this war.
What it is that makes tax-paying citizens ‘hate’ americans, is precisely the bogus and immoral, unpatriotic defense you here attempt to construct. What you warmongers have gotten away with for decades, in fact centuries, is nothing short of unforgivable.
But this vast red tide of red-state believers whom you’ve duped into pursuing yet another illegal, hideous atrocity, with our money, our troops, and in our name are nothing short of an entire populace of war-criminals. Who could not hat that, unless you were a war-criminal yourself?
PttV you seem to forget that we are tax payers, that’s our money too, those are our troop’s as well, this is our country too, you are in the minority my friend. Sure, around the campus coffee shop and the bong in the dorm room you all may say this and say that, but in private, in the voting booth you are all conservatives, or would like the stones to be. And you know what? Us “warmongers” will be here long after you have headed to Canada to hide like all the rest of your ilk do. A huge difference between us is I recognize a threat and I seek to take it out, through overwhelming violent force, therefore sending a message to the next batch of mullah abdullahs studying in our University’s waiting for the word to attack. You keep your head in the sand buddy and I’ll make sure they don’t rape your exposed, liberal ass. TRM
Hundreds of thousands of innocents were butchered in Iraq for NO REASON WHATSOEVER. Your team of anti-patriotic, unapologetic war-mongering fanatics only just finished propagating an illegal lie in Vietnam and committed atrocity there unseen since WW2 for absolutely NO REASON WHATSOEVER.
No reason? Now your just not making any sense. TRM
You also just recently propagated a ‘red-scare’ lie to commit covert atrocities in Latin America, again upwards of a million regular people were butchered, all with NO STRATEGIC VALUE WHATSOEVER toe the USA.
America just butchered upwards of a million in South America? I thought that was Chavez? News to me my friend. DailyKos or MediaMatters?
And now you’ve embroiled the nation in a horrendous, illegal quagmire based on lies, the results and realities on the ground of which are blacked out from the record, evidence of criminal treasonous acts by officials expunged from files and hard-drives.
Not even the proudest, mouth-frothing, red-state kristol-nacht clone could abide the blatantly illegal antics of this admin. And yet, apparently mr. ‘no compromises’ above completely compromised his morals and scruples into blatant absurdity.
But the ‘blame amerigaah first’ crowd is not only livid about it’s war-criminal in chief, who hijacked the Whitehouse (which nobody can deny, and the disastrous turn for American foreign policy resulting from that faux-pas remain for all their supporters to see and be ashamed of, NOT support!). I for one am absolutely aghast at the citizenry, the populace, the electorate of this land who goes along with this.
Why do the people consistently vote against their own economic interest? Read ‘What’s the Matter with Kansas’. But why do they vote for wars, and support this lock-step ‘ameriguns uber alles’, fully failing to effectively dissent? It’s a mystery. These proles are the same whose fathers came back de-limbed and deranged from the fallacy of ‘Nam. Their uncles came back completely destroyed from the last absurd bomb-the-arabs crusade. So how did it come to pass that your people are apparently just plain daft?
My theory: It started with raygun, and his addictive combination of greed and god which he sold the heartland, effectively creating a mass hypnotized flock of lemmings to support the new consumer culture. The power of that combination of blind bible-belt faith-healed anti-intelligent zealotry with raygun’s slot-pulling, trickle-up addictive greed, hypnotized the populace to such an incurable degree that a whole bunch of them actually vote for huckleberry and john ‘bombiran’ McCain.
It’s like a permanently deranged state of psychological numbing, not seen to this degree since the daze of Mutual Assured Destruction and ‘Red Dawn’.
But all that aside, why do we hate americans (but still love america)? Because people like you try to pull the patriotism card at every call, and claim there is something so moral and awe-inspiring about the american militaristic mastication of the globe that no matter the ridiculous atrocity du jour, and no matter which criminal in chief inflicts which illegal war of aggression this time, or for whichever consistently idiotic, illegal, absurd excuse, apparently you people believe we should ‘support our troops’ and your president wrong or right, better or worse.
According to your miscreant credo, if we expose blatant criminal fraud in your quasi-elected fool in chief, it is disloyal (but apparently not so for a presidential affair, for that you try to purge the Whitehouse—get my point now?)
There is a fundy flaw in your logic, and if you can’t see it, then there is little point to trying to educate brain-dead believers who probably already buy the lie that the world was created in 7 days, and therefore blindly believe anything said by any televangelist right on up to your born-again, dispensationalist redneck in chief.
But if you are going to claim that the USA has the ‘right’ (right or wrong) to all it’s outrageous laundry-list of atrocities, then we have the right to remind you that it’s supposed to be a nation of laws, and if laws are broken it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY as citizen, regardless of party, to dissent and not enable further atrocities in our name.
Consider this: If the citizenry of Hitler’s Reich had managed to effectively dissent their own government’s illegal atrocities of aggressive war-crimes, then perhaps each and every lock-step, “sieg heil” german prole would not now be considered complicit in war-crimes. Likewise you warmongers above, who consistently apologize for, support and fail to dissent the illegal atrocities of your government are nothing less than complicit war criminals.
Or consider this, if more Americans had stood up to the blatant immorality of slavery, then the largest mass-crime in global history would not have been committed. Or if citizens had stopped the illegal and immoral concept of manifest destiny, then the most horrible case of ethnic cleansing in the history of the planet would never have occurred. But that’s all in the past… or is it??
I’m no historical forecaster, but I am willing to put in my ‘2 cents’ about what will happen to you people: YOU ARE ALL GOING DOWN for this.
All you who support this criminal atrocity will be looked upon by history as individually complicit in the illegal atrocity and war-crimes of your state, and will likely all have to move to Serbia, as you will be universally detested and hunted in this land as any arrogant, murderous nazi should be (or maybe your Botch will find a stall in his new ranch in Paraguay).
Oh, and the reason we now hate amerigoons like you, yet we don’t leave? It’s because:
AMERICA IS THE BEAUTIFUL BUT THE USA SUCKS!
Well, you stopped making sense a few paragraphs ago so I will leave you with this. You, my friend are blatantly absurd, as you referred to No Compromise above. We’re all going down? It’s us that keep us here. It’s us who will be here long after you have run to Canada. Do us a favor this time, don’t come back after the “heavy lifting” is done.
TRMarchesano
Warmongers Exposed:
Uncovered: The Whole Truth About The Iraq War
This will be an interesting one to see. If it demonstrates that:
“Department of Defense quarterly reports show a very different reality. An average of 74% of all violence is attributed to attacks on American forces, 16% target Iraqi police and army personal, and a mere 10% target civilians”
That would be a truly damning revelation if true, and would do much to support the reality that the admin not only lied us into war, but lied about everything else as well, especially the reasons for stayng there.
I too like a good blog forum, but all due respect what holler are some of these commentators above crawling out of?
Per: writerchick
“Look, I would be the first to admit there have been mistakes made – as there is in any military action – and no one, I mean no one LIKES war….However, there are times when it is necessary. Or do you think perhaps that we should still all be English subjects”
It always amazes me how warmongers (who, by the way, apparently DO like war, as there is consistently NO other reason why the US invaded in virtually every one of the dozens of bogus deployments since WW2, why else would they kill and die for lies? Only because they like to play videogames with real ammo), mumble a few conciliatory murmurs about ‘mistakes’, the end and the means are ultimately justified, just a few minor blips in the ‘rules of engagement’ or strategic oversights, etc. etc. But you’re missing the main point, and it’s not about mincing words or stats:
THE WAR IS ILLEGAL!
THE INVASION WAS PURSUED UNDER FALSE, TREASONOUSLY FABRICATED PRETEXT!
A MILLION PEOPLE ARE DEAD DUE TO WHAT THESE PEOPLE HAVE DONE IN OUR NAMES–
DO YOU NOT GET THAT NOW?
“I do think that if you are going to present an anti war perspective then it is your obligation to offer both sides of the argument, with facts, rather than opinion – because really you always find some opinion that backs up your own. It is harder to just get the facts, present them and let your readers decide”
Writerchuck, are you not aware that the the other ‘side’ is ALL we’ve heard about for over half a decade, that there has been an intentional and admitted NEWS BLACKOUT about the ‘side’ that is suffering the atrocities committed by our invasion, and that the true horrors of this war, the streets littered with charred and dismembered bodies, ‘surgical strikes’ hitting hospitals and civilian homes, the real effects of depleted uranium which your ‘side’ acknowledges even less than the first gulf war syndrome, let alone agent orange?
I’m flabbergastingly fascinated anew that pro-war hawks fail to understand the profundity of the mass-murderous, war-criminal atrocity committed by our troops, in our names, with our funds in a manner COMPLETELY anathema to the rule of law let alone any possible strategic value, let alone any morality or wisdom of any kind. This fact that rightist hawks can still imply that the warmongering sided needs more airtime is clearly indicative NOT of a desire for a balanced debate, but a desire to undermine any already non-existent factual rebuttal to the soylent green you’ve clearly swallowed for half a decade from your government about this war.
I for one am extremely grateful for any leaked images of the reality of this illegal invasion, and especially for any independent journalism exposing facts and fraud about the admin. I suppose you supported and probably still support the Vietnam War, am I right? Well tell us then, do you think the photos of the My Lai Massacre should have been leaked or kept covert? Do you think the Kent State murders of students by US guardsmen should have been kept out of the news? Come on, let’s hear it, tell us the truth of your murderous, hawkish, inexcusable sociopathic heart.
In truth, your government has destroyed all evidence implicating their fraud and epic crime, blacked out any news about the gory reality of this atrocity, all to irrevocably wash the other ‘side’ from history (are you proud of that too?). Once again it is up to underground sources and courageous journalism to even get a hint of what’s really going on.
Per: No Compromises
“The bottom line is liberals hate America, blame America, Cheney, Bush and Halliburton on everything and the argument goes on. It’s been going on since WWI.”
Compromised, it’s not ‘liberals’ who hate america, in fact ‘liberals’ in government are largely aligning with ‘conservatives’ in all matters, especially regarding this war.
What it is that makes tax-paying citizens ‘hate’ americans, is precisely the bogus and immoral, unpatriotic defense you here attempt to construct. What you warmongers have gotten away with for decades, in fact centuries, is nothing short of unforgivable.
But this vast red tide of red-state believers whom you’ve duped into pursuing yet another illegal, hideous atrocity, with our money, our troops, and in our name are nothing short of an entire populace of war-criminals. Who could not hat that, unless you were a war-criminal yourself?
Hundreds of thousands of innocents were butchered in Iraq for NO REASON WHATSOEVER. Your team of anti-patriotic, unapologetic war-mongering fanatics only just finished propagating an illegal lie in Vietnam and committed atrocity there unseen since WW2 for absolutely NO REASON WHATSOEVER.
You also just recently propagated a ‘red-scare’ lie to commit covert atrocities in Latin America, again upwards of a million regular people were butchered, all with NO STRATEGIC VALUE WHATSOEVER toe the USA.
And now you’ve embroiled the nation in a horrendous, illegal quagmire based on lies, the results and realities on the ground of which are blacked out from the record, evidence of criminal treasonous acts by officials expunged from files and hard-drives.
Not even the proudest, mouth-frothing, red-state kristol-nacht clone could abide the blatantly illegal antics of this admin. And yet, apparently mr. ‘no compromises’ above completely compromised his morals and scruples into blatant absurdity.
But the ‘blame amerigaah first’ crowd is not only livid about it’s war-criminal in chief, who hijacked the Whitehouse (which nobody can deny, and the disastrous turn for American foreign policy resulting from that faux-pas remain for all their supporters to see and be ashamed of, NOT support!). I for one am absolutely aghast at the citizenry, the populace, the electorate of this land who goes along with this.
Why do the people consistently vote against their own economic interest? Read ‘What’s the Matter with Kansas’. But why do they vote for wars, and support this lock-step ‘ameriguns uber alles’, fully failing to effectively dissent? It’s a mystery. These proles are the same whose fathers came back de-limbed and deranged from the fallacy of ‘Nam. Their uncles came back completely destroyed from the last absurd bomb-the-arabs crusade. So how did it come to pass that your people are apparently just plain daft?
My theory: It started with raygun, and his addictive combination of greed and god which he sold the heartland, effectively creating a mass hypnotized flock of lemmings to support the new consumer culture. The power of that combination of blind bible-belt faith-healed anti-intelligent zealotry with raygun’s slot-pulling, trickle-up addictive greed, hypnotized the populace to such an incurable degree that a whole bunch of them actually vote for huckleberry and john ‘bombiran’ McCain.
It’s like a permanently deranged state of psychological numbing, not seen to this degree since the daze of Mutual Assured Destruction and ‘Red Dawn’.
But all that aside, why do we hate americans (but still love america)? Because people like you try to pull the patriotism card at every call, and claim there is something so moral and awe-inspiring about the american militaristic mastication of the globe that no matter the ridiculous atrocity du jour, and no matter which criminal in chief inflicts which illegal war of aggression this time, or for whichever consistently idiotic, illegal, absurd excuse, apparently you people believe we should ‘support our troops’ and your president wrong or right, better or worse.
According to your miscreant credo, if we expose blatant criminal fraud in your quasi-elected fool in chief, it is disloyal (but apparently not so for a presidential affair, for that you try to purge the Whitehouse—get my point now?)
There is a fundy flaw in your logic, and if you can’t see it, then there is little point to trying to educate brain-dead believers who probably already buy the lie that the world was created in 7 days, and therefore blindly believe anything said by any televangelist right on up to your born-again, dispensationalist redneck in chief.
But if you are going to claim that the USA has the ‘right’ (right or wrong) to all it’s outrageous laundry-list of atrocities, then we have the right to remind you that it’s supposed to be a nation of laws, and if laws are broken it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY as citizen, regardless of party, to dissent and not enable further atrocities in our name.
Consider this: If the citizenry of Hitler’s Reich had managed to effectively dissent their own government’s illegal atrocities of aggressive war-crimes, then perhaps each and every lock-step, “sieg heil” german prole would not now be considered complicit in war-crimes. Likewise you warmongers above, who consistently apologize for, support and fail to dissent the illegal atrocities of your government are nothing less than complicit war criminals.
Or consider this, if more Americans had stood up to the blatant immorality of slavery, then the largest mass-crime in global history would not have been committed. Or if citizens had stopped the illegal and immoral concept of manifest destiny, then the most horrible case of ethnic cleansing in the history of the planet would never have occurred. But that’s all in the past… or is it??
I’m no historical forecaster, but I am willing to put in my ‘2 cents’ about what will happen to you people: YOU ARE ALL GOING DOWN for this.
All you who support this criminal atrocity will be looked upon by history as individually complicit in the illegal atrocity and war-crimes of your state, and will likely all have to move to Serbia, as you will be universally detested and hunted in this land as any arrogant, murderous nazi should be (or maybe your Botch will find a stall in his new ranch in Paraguay).
Oh, and the reason we now hate amerigoons like you, yet we don’t leave? It’s because:
AMERICA IS THE BEAUTIFUL BUT THE USA SUCKS!
devildog6771: Was it offensive? I may have deleted it if it was. When did you post it? I rarely delete comments unless they are truly offensive. Did it have a lot of links in it, it may have gotten in my spam file and deleted unintentionally.
Update: I found your comment in my spam file, it has so many links that I do not have the time to check out each one, so it’s going to stay in the spam file.
Please make your point without so many links to other sites, thank you.
I posted a comment; but it didn’t post???
Thanks, Jennifer for replying to the comments.
Thanks to everyone who has commented, too.
Blackdog, it sounds like you have been reading Jonah Goldberg or maybe you’re just channeling a Coultergeist. Anyway, since you seem so hung up on the misuse of stats, what’s with the 3 million innocent civilians? Are you talking about Cambodia and the horrific killing fields unleashed by your Mr. Kissinger and his hench-boss Nixon’s covert bombing?
Meanwhile, doctorbulldog (???) thanks for the history lesson. I think one of the most valuable things to me in blogging is the real exchanges of facts and info that do occur. But I also think that your summary makes the same point that Jennifer was making in her original post. The Sunnis and Shi’a do have a long history with each other. They know each other so well that they can actually live next to each other and intermarry and still go on about the business of living without being in direct conflict. Our leaving them to that will be fine with them. After all, as you pointed out, they have been going back and forth for hundreds of years without our help.
I will respond to this comment and hopefully answer some of the questions asked below while doing so. I prefer to answer piece by piece, however, I would like to state that I do not bother dealing with accusations ect. I attempt to look at my sources to determine if they are credible or not. To me in order to dispute a source one must offer up a secondary more reputable source for me to consider ones argument.
“Honestly, all due respect, this is the biggest pack of lies I have seen in one place in a very long time. Your source being a Hollywood movie is alone, “faulty”.”
First of all, this is a documentary, not a “Hollywood movie.” Just because a piece of journalism uses the media of film does not make it a disreputable source.
“How can you not know that this is a liberal left propoganda film? Based on no facts at all.”
Based on no facts at all? Well in order to determine if something is a “fact” in journalism, one must check their sources. The journalists who made the film fact checked every claim make in the film by three other reputable sources. The methodology used is common in journalism and is considered by most editors a way to fact check.
“For the love of Pete! Sigh, sorry, I don’t know why I get myself worked up.
If you think that the Sinni’s and Shia started bickering only after we showed up you have not studied even elementary history of the region. The only reason the Shia didn’t start a fuss is baccause the Bathist(Sunni’s) killed anyone who dared oppose them, study history.”
Study history? Are you aware of the fact that Sunni and Shia fought side by side during the Iran/Iraq War? And the fact remains that close to fifty percent of all marriages in Iraq are ethnically and religiously mixed. Do you have a source that shows otherwise? The premise of the film is to show that although there may be ethnic and religious tension in the region, feelings of Nationalism run deeper than these tensions and are largely fueling violence against US troops and those seen as collaborators ie the Iraqi police and army.
“polls, polls, polls,,, polls are rubbish,,, I could make a poll that says anything, c’mon are you serious?”
So what you are saying is that the Department of Defense is not a reputable source? This is not polling, the numbers used to determine the percentages of who is being attacked are from the DoD itself. I will agree that due to some restrictions the numbers may not be exact, however, these are the numbers they (the DoD) are using. Counting the percentage of marriages that were ethnically and religiously mixed is not polling, that is called data collection.
“I cannot believe that you would not be able to see who made this film, who gave it good reviews and what it’s message says and see that it is pure left wing rubbish.”
“Please take yourself seriously and stop getting your “facts” from movies and study history….”
None of these statements provide evidence that the statistics provided are false.
lies, damn lies, and statistics which are used to lie to the public–why? Because so few people actually understand statistics except statisticians and further most people don’t understand “correlation does not equal causation.”
First, libs say that American troops have killed 650,000 civilians, then they say that the “violence” is against the troops, then to continue on with that bogus crock of crap they restate it all by saying that it’s a myth that there are outside evil (OMG, did I say evil) influences stirring up trouble. The bottom line is liberals hate America, blame America, Cheney, Bush and Halliburton on everything and the argument goes on. It’s been going on since WWI.
Modern Progressives claim that if America leaves then 74% of the violence will end. They said all of this same crap during Vietnam and America left and 3 million innocent civilians were slaughtered, NOT by Americans, but by Soviet backed Communists!
Ok,
74% of attacks may indeed be against the US military. But that does not translate to effectiveness. If you are effective only 5% of the time, vs 100% of the time against civilians, then the civilian attacks are far more damaging. Then there is the actual damage done. Not to minimize the attacks on US forces, but lobbing a mortar at a fortified structure and causing no damage is not the same as lobbing a mortar into crowd of women and children.
To address the Shia/Sunni love fest that this documentary wants to present: The Saudis (Sunnis) have come out directly and stated they would step in to help the Sunnis in Iraq should the US pull out. They are saying they will go in and start ‘defending’ the Sunnis. Against who, if there is so much love? Well, if you must know – Iranians. The Munchichi that is running Iran is crazy, not forgetful. Now, I must say at this point, I am all for pulling out and watching the love fest divolve into a high intensity conflict, which would also suck in Pakistan, Syria, and anyone else around. The only down side to this would be oil would hit $200/bbl.
Of course, the “logic” that if most attacks are against Americans, removing the Americans would reduce the violence, is missing a greater point.
Of course the violence is targeted on those who are trying to keep the peace. If militias go after other civilians, then the US military is there to stop them. It is certainly a credible scenario that instead of making one attack on Americans, a single cell might make two attacks against less-prepared and less-equipped locals.
Oh,
Sorry, but one more thought occurred to me right after I posted the above.
Iranian Shiites shot up the Sunni controlled Mecca a few years ago….
Cheers
I agree that there is a current disconnect between the media and what goes on in Iraq, but the disconnect is in no way favored toward our military or what our troops are doing over there. Whenever there is good news, it is never reported and if you want to know what’s really going over there you have to seek out milblogs or other non mainstream media sources to find out.
I’m sorry but I had to laugh at this statement
“Although the filmmakers themselves are journalists, with no specific political or military agenda, the military has recognized the great value this film offers.”
To seriously believe that any documentary is made without political agenda, particularly one about Iraq is to be naive at best. Of course there is a political agenda, just as you have a political agenda for highlighting this documentary.
Long gone are the days when journalists are objective observers of what is happening in the world around them. They no longer report the news but rather invent to validate the reality they see. For a documentary to be fair (which is a terms you folks like to bandy about when you don’t like what people are saying in response to your views) it would have to represent both sides, wouldn’t it? Does this documentary do this? It doesn’t seem to from where I’m sitting.
Look, I would be the first to admit there have been mistakes made – as there is in any military action – and no one, I mean no one LIKES war. Despite the fact, that generally speaking you folks like to say that if a person is conservative they are pro -war, truly I don’t think there is any such thing. However, there are times when it is necessary. Or do you think perhaps that we should still all be English subjects?
I do think that if you are going to present an anti war perspective then it is your obligation to offer both sides of the argument, with facts, rather than opinion – because really you always find some opinion that backs up your own. It is harder to just get the facts, present them and let your readers decide.
As to the merits of this post? I can’t really argue them as it is so general and clearly leaning on one side that there is nothing substantive to discuss.
I can respect that you don’t like the war, many don’t. I don’t. But I’m not against it. And I do believe that history will bear out that it was/is the right thing to do.
Nuff said. Thanks for letting me state my thoughts here.
WC
Well, I haven’t seen this film, but I’ll do my best to get a copy of it and watch it.
I do, however have a slight problem with Myth #2’s use of polls to attempt to cover up the obvious discrimination that exists between the Sunni’s and Shiites.
The Sunni’s and Shiites have been embroiled in war ever since they split off into their own groups…
Leaving aside the massacres at Karbala that mark the definitive split between Sunnis and Shia in 680, here are a few highlights:
754: Plans to enthrone the Shi’ite Jafar As-Siddiq as caliph, thus ending the schism, were disrupted when Jafar was murdered by the Sunni Al-Mansur, who himself became caliph.
972: Shi’ite Fatimids conquer Sunni Egypt, and continue fighting Sunnis until they rule much of North Africa and the Middle East.
1040s: Sunni Zirid revolt in North Africa against Shi’ite rule.
1169: The Sunnis Nuraddin and Saladin seize Egypt, ending Shi’ite Fatimid rule.
Early 1500’s: Shi’ites take control of Persia, violently suppressing Sunni ulama.
1514: War between the Sunni Ottoman Turks and the Shi’ite Persian Safavids.
1623: More war between the Sunni Ottoman Turks and the Shi’ite Persian Safavids. This conflict was centered in Iraq. The Safavids captured Baghdad in 1624; the Ottomans recaptured it in 1638.
the Sunni Afghan invasion and domination of Iran that resulted in intermittent strife for around 70 years, from 1722 until the Shi’ite Qajars regained control in 1795 and reestablished a Shi’ite theocracy. Then there are the frequent Persian/Ottoman conflicts between 1499 and 1822,
And here’s one you’re old enough to remember:
1980-1988: Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-controlled Iraq fights a protracted war against the Iranian Shi’ite mullahocracy.
So, if these conflicts between Shiites and Sunnis have been going on for over a millennium, what makes one think that everyone has made nice???
I’m sure if you poll black Americans on their hate for white Americans and vice-versa, the polls would be not be an accurate reflection of the truth. Whether or not we wish to admit it, the now defunct Jim Crow laws have left deep scars in hearts of many. Just because blacks have gained civil rights does not mean that they have forgotten the injustices committed against them. And, every chance they get, they’ll be sure to remind you of just how crappy whites were to them.
Same thing with the Shiites and Sunnis…
Just my two-cents..
Cheers
cheers
Hi TRM, thanks for being honest. You are always welcome to comment with your opinions.
Hello all, Yes this peice got me very excited and riled… so I wouldn’t be so upset that I called it what I did because as a writer, Jennifer accomplished her goal, to make people think and react and share… I just reacted in a way that is not pleasing to you all… sorry if I offended but that is/was my honest reaction to this…
yes I watched the trailer,,, I stand behind my words…
c’mon, not everyone is going to agree with you….
NOTE: This is one of my fav lefty blogs to visit…..
rhbee, I didn’t care for how TRM linked to this article from his website, calling it, “the-biggest-crock-of-shit-i-have-read-this-month.”
TRM, have you seen the film? I posted a link to the trailer at the bottom of the article. And don’t appreciate the title of your post linking to this story by one of my featured writers. 😦
Gee, TRM, you seem excited. Did you not notice that the author cited the use of this documentry in Iraq with our own troops for training purposes? It seems to me that that argues against this being propaganda. But then you on the right are always quick to label anything that disagrees with your position as leftist and propaganda, right?
Honestly, all due respect, this is the biggest pack of lies I have seen in one place in a very long time. Your source being a Hollywood movie is alone, “faulty”.
How can you not kow that this is a liberal left propoganda film? Based on no facts at all.
For the love of Pete! Sigh, sorry, I don’t know why I get myself worked up.
If you think that the Sinni’s and Shia started bickering only after we showed up you have not studied even elementary history of the region. The only reason the Shia didn’t start a fuss is baccause the Bathist(Sunni’s) killed anyone who dared oppose them, study history,
polls, polls, polls,,, polls are rubbish,,, I could make a poll that says anything, c’mon are you serious?
I cannot believe that you would not be able to see who made this film, who gave it good reviews and wht it’s message says and see that it is pure left wing rubbish.
Please take yourself seriously and stop getting your “facts” from movies and study history….
crikeys…