May 25, 2008

trying on that wide angle lense

In respecting the sentiments of CMC, a patriot and warrior on Memorial Day, I was going to post the below at a later date. But I realized this debate is what Memorial Day is all about. I hope to hear similar debates, if hopefully better informed than I am, between the contenders for the highest office in this country. Too long we have been forced to listen to canned prepared 60 second speeches.



You think war is hell because soldiers die, soldiers come back with bad wounds, and some of them go crazy. You think that running around in a strange land shooting people is the ultimate sacrifice for your country. As horrible it is to point your gun at another man, as horrible it is to see life snuffed out all around you, as horrible as it is to see your brothers die around you, you do not know the hell of war until it reaches your mother’s doorstep. You do not know the hell of war, until you have to worry about a gang of soldiers coming into your house and raping and killing your family in front of your eyes. You may have seen all of these things, but that horror is not yours. You do not know the consequences until your home has been reduced to rubble and you go through the remnants to find your grannies dentures, because that’s all that survived the napalm. This explains why Europe is somewhat fearful of the trigger happiness the USA displays. They have in living memory destroyed everything around them. They did it themselves, have nobody to blame but themselves, but it does engender a sense of restraint. When this country invaded Iraq for the second time my mother called me to tell me that the man in black leather boots is walking again. She has the same visceral reaction to these kinds of events as you have on the Fourth of July. War is hell, and the sanctified version (where are the body bags?) that the American public is served with their daily dose of “we are the saviors of the world” should make you, a Vet, cringe. Or do you accept this little white lie as a small price to pay, truth as the collateral damage so to speak, in order to keep the home front in line?

Small countries around the world are constantly engaged in unspeakable atrocities, and the way the USA justifies going to war against her enemies is somewhat of a role model for them. How many times have you recently heard some little petty dictator call his political opposition terrorists and proceed to drop American made ammunition on them? He has as much right to do that as we had a right to go into Iraq. And how do you think that opposition feels when they pick up a dud that says “Made in the USA” in loud and proud letters? You think the USA goes into every conflict freeing some innocent peoples of their dictator. But if the best, the most moral, the most glorious, the most democratic, the most land of the free and home of the brave lends legitimacy to might over right you can be sure that all the little bad guys will follow our lead. Especially when they see how well the propaganda works in the USA. Of course it is not our fault that these little dictators follow our lead, but who else are they going to follow, especially since we do it so well?

You equate an error in judgment of whether we should go to war to an error of aiming the parachutists in WWII. Aren’t those two completely different shoes? Isn’t that comparing me buying orange juice instead of apple juice, as my mother asked me to, to her asking herself whether she should have a baby in the first place? I do believe that a decision to go to war or not is a little grander than reading a map incorrectly, although it would seem that the US Military in recent history can be accused of that as well. One could allow that the civilian leadership in this country is not very good at reading maps either, since they thought that Bin Laden was in Iraq – but we know that’s not what Iraq was about. If you are not mad at the Republicans for taking you into an unjustified war, at least you should be mad at the incompetence of the leadership of this war. I don’t know what the reason for their inability to consider historical campaigns are, and I don’t understand why their learning curve is so low that it took them 5 years to figure out that they are in a guerilla war, let alone how to deal with it, but I know that if I would put my life on the line for this shit, I would expect a little more skill from my leaders. When Kara Mustafa did not manage to take Vienna in 1683 the Sultan sent him a silken cord. Nobody is asking Rumsfeld to do anything but disappear into ignominy, and the least our current leadership could do is follow him and let some fresh minds work the problem.

So the USA has been messing with the Middle East for the last fifty years. I don’t understand how you think that gives us the right to go in there and bomb the place to smithereens. You know all the history of the former Secretary of Offense shaking hands with our current enemies, using the Afghanis against the Sowjets, installing the Shah in Iran, then turning around and setting Saddam Hussein on Iraq when they revolted against our puppets. The list is endless, and can be continued at leisure in South America without either justifying the current action, or actually being laudable. What would you say if Russia invaded Afghanistan tomorrow, and justified it by saying “Tovarisch, my grand daddy was fighting the mullahs and their American made MPs. We have been in that dusty, godforsaken joint for so long that in the beginning we had to use Camels to get around.” How about Cuba? What if China invades Taiwan, they certainly have been there a minute (if you measure it in millennia)? So does it give them the right?

And how did we go from justifying this invasion with “Them boys got WMD and Nerve Gas that will make your skin come off in bubbles” to “Saddam has been a threat to the governments around him for years” to “He killed the Kurds” to “Man, we been there for 50 years”. I hope you have a larger context in mind than just a temporal one. Because when I look at the justifications above, I see them all as fairly applicable to the USA. You know more about weapons in all shapes and sizes than I do. Tell me do we have stockpiles of nerve-gases? Do we have suitcase-sized nukes in violation of none-proliferation treaties? How many times have we invaded a country in the last 50 years, compared to Saddam Hussein and Iran? Are we going to fight wars in all places when they disagree with us just because we have built a base and hung around after the last ass-kicking?

If you have been involved with a region for fifty years, wouldn’t you hope that this, the best, the most moral, the most glorious, the most democratic [here insert more tiresome, patriotism inducing rhetoric used in each and every country around the world; Austria is the best country in the world because of our music and our mountains] country in the history of the world would do better than what we see now? If morality, right over might and most importantly history are on the side of the USA, on top of us being just absolute hot stuff, shouldn’t you demand better results than what has been delivered by a huge majority of Republican Presidents over the last 40 years? It can’t have been the Democrats’ weak FP since they fumbled themselves to only three victories in that time period. Somehow we always are told that these things take time. That just around the corner you can see the final solution to the problem. Ask me when this final solution will become real. And I will tell you that it will remain the mirage that it is until the day the oil runs out and the day Christian Fundamentalists get it on with Muslim Fundamentalists in some mythical battle to ring in the Apocalypse. Hopefully this will coincide, so that my Middle Eastern friends will only have to bury their families once. Of course by that time we will have found ample reason to be camped out in some other country that we just bombed back into the Stone Age. Did I tell you that you do not know the horrors of war until your sister is raped with the business end of a gun, so that she may never bear children to her rapists’ enemies?

Considering the results of voting a Republican into the White House all but three times these past 40 years, I will concede that I do not understand this country, in as much as the definition of crazy is expecting different results from repeating the same actions. I admit I do not understand crazy. You wonder why your friends, your sons and daughters die in distant places, you wonder why your treasure is spent on annihilation instead of edification, you wonder why the crazy people get thrown out of their asylums and the poor turned out of the hospitals (How The Gipper became so revered is beyond me, your blue collars are gluttons for punishment by the rich; at the most he played better poker than Gorbachev), you wonder why the rest of the world looks on in astonishment as you greet the end of the Cold War by building suitcase-sized nukes. I do not think that a Republican victory will happen again in 2008 because I have more faith in the mob-thinking of the masses, as I just do not see them being able to think as independently as you and those unidentified Republican pollsters. But if it were to happen it would send a great message to the rest of the world. That finally that horrible baby boomer daydream/nightmare, which has managed to vote a literal dynasty of Democratic Presidents into office, kept the poor Republican minority not only out of power but also forced to follow a weak FP and listen to lefty elitist mass-media propaganda is over. Oh, you say that only three Democratic Presidents were elected into office over the last 40 years? Well, then those Democrats surely must have been successful at running the joint behind the backs of the guys with the Veto Pen. A Republican electoral win would also send a message that this young nation is no longer naïve, altruistic and optimistic. That she has left behind that early childhood stage of blind trust in the goodness of others. That she has entered full blown puberty and must thus be given the freedom to act out for a couple of years. Unfortunately, she is not a harmless little teenager, whose worst action could be to mess up her own life because she didn’t know about condoms since her mum was busy either in the Women’s Power Association, or in her church. Instead and unfortunately, she is the 800 pound gorilla and liable to break some China and there is a lot of China to mess with. In due time she will come to sit at the family table, slightly remorseful over all the shit she put her poor parents through.

In the meantime how often will she bring the true horrors of war to the shores of foreign lands? Your claim to nobility, that you are not using your mincemeat-making arsenal (even though you say you are not superman - which one is it?) is so beyond me that I can’t even come up with an appropriate simile. How many Philippinos, Vietnamese and Iraqis need to die conventionally before you admit to yourself that merely not dropping your nukes does not make you civilized? You label Europe sophisticated, and somehow that is an insult, when you yourself are victim to the most fascinatingly sophisticated propaganda machine in the history of the world. You could throw a dart at a world map, you are welcome to use that terrorism map on your wall, and as long as you aim south of the equator you will most likely hit a resource rich country in which the USA installed and/or supported a regime of horrific proportions. In fact, we both know that some of the worst terrorists come out of those places. Yet you insist that we are doing it out of the goodness of our bleeding hearts. Wouldn’t it be intellectually and morally more honest to stand up and say “Yes, we run this joint as we see fit, and for the maximum profits of our people”? Because that’s what we do, and our outstanding standard of living is based on it. And that is the reason in a nutshell that this country keeps voting Republican. Deep down inside we are all selfish, and we want that cheap oil, the cheap gadgets from china and the lovely diamonds from the Congo. If only in a very small measure we reaped what we sowed on 9/11 I am mildly perturbed to think of the future reaping we will be going through. Of course we can always ratchet it up, fight a harsher war, build bigger bunker busters, chase them more, but will that create anything else but a spiral of violence? How did that work out for Israel so far? Do you want to put your child on a bus and worry if that bus will implode in some idiot’s righteous anger?

And yet you still believe that you are the savior of the world, because your government somehow manages to pull the freedom wool over your eyes when you should have been seeing the money trail all the way from your pocket to the war in the Middle East and back to record profits in the coffers of Exxon Mobile (the funniest thing is how surprised all the business analysts are now, at the news that those companies are not making billions of dollars anymore when a Democrat is about to be elected). Personally, I am going to throw up if I get another tax refund check because I was taxed incorrectly for the Spanish American War.

You like the guy like a wise man should like a fool. You can learn from him, but he will never learn from you. This is fine, as long as I want him to dance with some tribal leaders in Africa. But when I want him to consider the consequences of his actions in a place fraught with historical fault lines such as the Middle East, I would prefer a guy whose librarian wife forced a couple (of thousand) history books down his arrogantly uneducated throat. Yes, I think that a man who can’t form a straight sentence should not be running the world. In fact, I would be completely fine with having a guy at the helm that I can absolutely not stand. As long as I think he is smart and moral enough to do right by the world he can be the prick from hell. You think to be smart and eloquent is bad. As if stupidity guaranteed honesty and intelligence implied duplicity. I would prefer to think of the political class as duplicitous by nature, and if they all are that, let’s have one who has read a couple of books along the way. Since the Republicans over the last 40 years have not been able to supply that, let’s give the Democrats a chance to either proof me right, or you wrong for the next 40 or so years.

11 comments:

  1. This is a great post, Peter. Two things in particular caught my attention: Your comment on the differences in approach to war between citizens of Europe and the US, based on our differing histories; and this one: "you yourself are victim to the most fascinatingly sophisticated propaganda machine in the history of the world."

    While I fully expect CMC will respond soon (and can't wait to read it), I agree with both of your observations here. There is a sense of tragedy ingrained in (most) Europeans resulting from our own war experiences -- experiences as victims of war, not just the invaders and fighters. I don't know how old you are, but we (my generation of Poles) were raised on the images and memories of war, including the most vile and horrible ones, which were part and parcel of every Polish family's personal history. We were fed them and breathed the air suffused with them every day of our lives. My parents' stories of their survival as children during WWII are enough to make anyone question any call to war many times over. However, Americans, even though having their own share of tragedies, have been insulated from experiencing an all-out horror of war affecting their lives in the manner you describe in your post (and which Europeans, and others from "over there," know all too well).

    And your propaganda comment is right on target. This was one of the most stunning discoveries for me after immigrating to the US over twenty years ago: The down-right obscene level of the political/economic (as in, perpetuating the interests of the rich and powers-that-be) propaganda filling every aspect of the American life. To me, born and raised in a socialist country, this was (and is) no different at all from -- and in many ways surpassing -- the type of in-your-face propaganda we were subjected to by our "rulers" 24/7. The difference was that we rebelled against it, while Americans appear to accept it uncritically, by and large (which itself is a testimony to the propaganda's effectiveness and insidiousness). I have some ideas as to why this is so (being fairly isolated, geographically, from the rest of the world seems to be at least one factor), but that would make a whole article in itself.

    Now I'll look forward to CMC's reply to your post.

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  2. "You think war is hell because soldiers die, soldiers come back with bad wounds, and some of them go crazy."

    No, I think war is hell because it's war.

    "You think that running around in a strange land shooting people is the ultimate sacrifice for your country. As horrible it is to point your gun at another man, as horrible it is to see life snuffed out all around you, as horrible as it is to see your brothers die around you, you do not know the hell of war until it reaches your mother’s doorstep."

    Peter, I grew up in South Central, Los Angeles, which wasn't war, but I have had gangsters at my mother's doorsteps looking for me, which ain't far from it.

    "You do not know the hell of war, until you have to worry about a gang of soldiers coming into your house and raping and killing your family in front of your eyes."

    My sister was raped by 9 guys, Pete. Wanna try again?

    "You may have seen all of these things, but that horror is not yours."

    You're presuming to know a lot about me, Pete.

    "This explains why Europe is somewhat fearful of the trigger happiness the USA displays."

    Um, like the trigger happiness we showed to free Europe? Now you're confusing me.

    "They have in living memory destroyed everything around them. They did it themselves, have nobody to blame but themselves, but it does engender a sense of restraint."

    And once we stopped them from doing it, they used their new-found peace to crap all over our name. Some restraint.

    "When this country invaded Iraq for the second time my mother called me to tell me that the man in black leather boots is walking again."

    Did she have an opinion about Saddam's mass graves, and rape rooms, or did she describe those as "party time"? And you can tell her my father fought in WWII, and had nightmares of it his whole life, so maybe - if she looks up - instead of just black boots, she might be be able to identify the heroic black men in them, too.

    "She has the same visceral reaction to these kinds of events as you have on the Fourth of July."

    What are you talking about? The 4th is my county's day of Independence - we love it - you're not making any sense, Pete.

    "War is hell, and the sanctified version (where are the body bags?) that the American public is served with their daily dose of “we are the saviors of the world” should make you, a Vet, cringe."

    Peter, you're not an American vet, and probably have never served your country: what do you know about it? Have you ever faced death and lived? Have you ever been part of a battle group? Have you ever had to show true valor or bravery? Seriously, do you have any idea about what you're saying, or are you just spouting off?

    "Do you accept this little white lie as a small price to pay, truth as the collateral damage so to speak, in order to keep the home front in line?"

    What "white lie"? Peter, I'm an American - and an atheist - meaning I know the ideals, and history, of my country and don't need "belief" to do what's right by it.

    "Small countries around the world are constantly engaged in unspeakable atrocities, and the way the USA justifies going to war against her enemies is somewhat of a role model for them."

    Bullshit. We didn't invent war - we're only 230+ years old - and we've been the greatest source for good in that short history of the world. Where are you getting this stuff from?

    "How many times have you recently heard some little petty dictator call his political opposition terrorists and proceed to drop American made ammunition on them? He has as much right to do that as we had a right to go into Iraq."

    And it's our fault they did it - and that they used us for a scapegoat. O-kay.

    "And how do you think that opposition feels when they pick up a dud that says “Made in the USA” in loud and proud letters?"

    I don't know. Like we make lousy weapons? Maybe they jump up and down because they're alive. This is your scenario, Pete, you tell me: how do they feel?

    "You think the USA goes into every conflict freeing some innocent peoples of their dictator."

    No - and I never said that. Different missions have different reasons for being. Man, you are like a mad dog, now, just foaming at the mouth. I really wasn't expecting this.

    "If the best, the most moral, the most glorious, the most democratic, the most land of the free and home of the brave lends legitimacy to might over right you can be sure that all the little bad guys will follow our lead."

    Peter, we didn't start out as the world's only superpower - that came after we defeated Hitler, Tojo, the Soviet Union, and all the other really big bad guys. Now you want to hit us over the head for the little ones - but are pissed we took on Saddam? Like I said, you're making no sense.

    "Especially when they see how well the propaganda works in the USA."

    Pete, I've been all over the world. To Europe, China, Third World countries - you name it - and, if there's one thing they all have in common, it's this: they don't know squat about the United States.

    "Of course it is not our fault that these little dictators follow our lead, but who else are they going to follow, especially since we do it so well?"

    They could follow the "restraint" of Europe but, as anyone can see, that doesn't work so well against tyrants.

    "You equate an error in judgment of whether we should go to war to an error of aiming the parachutists in WWII. Aren’t those two completely different shoes?"

    Whoa, whoa, Peter, you're making a leap here: I never said I disagreed with the decision to go to war. I support the war.

    Look, I thought you wanted to have a sane conversation but, I guess, I was mistaken. It's my country's Memorial Day; the day we honor our veterans and war dead. You know: the guys that made it possible for you, and your mother, to talk about us like this. On this day, we have cookouts, and play baseball, dance and sing, and any of the other things our dead soldiers won't get a chance to do - but fought so the rest of us can.

    And, as far as I can tell, arguing with mindlessly ungrateful Europeans ain't what they had in mind.

    I'm outta here - thanks for nothing,

    CMC

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  3. Just one more thing:

    "where are the body bags?"

    Our soldiers are being buried with dignity, so as not to allow the 24 hour media to pimp them for so-called "news" (or propaganda, if you wish).

    You got a problem with that, oh great civilian blowhard?

    Like I said, you know nothing. Especially about what it means to be a soldier, have honor - or to honor your dead.

    NPR did a broadcast, not too long ago, on how the military handles our dead soldiers. They found a level of commitment, and dedication, that astounded them: soldiers who stayed with the families of the dead so they'd be allowed time to grieve without disturbance. Soldiers talking to the dead, like long lost relatives, - even if they didn't know them. Funerals that were carried out with the precision of heads of state.

    Peter, I hate to say this but it's our Memorial Day, and you've kinda pissed me off on it:

    You're an ignorant asshole.

    Timing, man. Timing.

    It's just the wrong fucking day.

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  4. My bad CMC, this was bad timing on by part. I apologize for it.

    Peter

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  5. "Small countries around the world are constantly engaged in unspeakable atrocities, and the way the USA justifies going to war against her enemies is somewhat of a role model for them."

    Bullshit. We didn't invent war - we're only 230+ years old - and we've been the greatest source for good in that short history of the world. Where are you getting this stuff from?


    ***********

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/oct/10/armstrade.richardnortontaylor

    "A new urgency has been created by the so-called war on terror," said Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty. "This is fuelling the proliferation of weapons rather than combating it. Many countries, including the US, have relaxed controls on sales of arms to allies known to have appalling human rights records.

    "In the past two years, the US has increased arms sales to [such states] and Britain has followed suit. British arms sales to Indonesia [the second highest recipient of UK overseas aid] rose from £2m in 2000 to £40m in 2002."

    Shipments of arms had been delivered on the basis that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", despite knowing that allies could become future dangers, said the charities. In June 2003, there were thought to be 24m guns in Iraq - enough to arm every man, woman and child. The charities term small arms the true "weapons of mass destruction", which claim hundreds of thousands of lives, destabilising countries and prolonging conflicts.

    Britain, the second largest exporter of arms, is urged, in a 100-page report entitled Shattered Lives, to sign up to the arms trade treaty. It is criticised for military aid and arms sales to Pakistan and Uzbekistan, which soared after the September 11 attacks on the US.

    Shipments of weapons to Saudi Arabia, where thousands of people are detained arbitrarily, and Jamaica, where the police have killed more than 600 people in the past four years, are also highlighted.

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  6. CMC, your sister's rape, as absolutely horrid, vile and despicable (and more) as it was, is not quite the same as being war victims. We are talking here domestically perpetuated violence (American on American) vs. one nation's full-out assault on another, designed to obliterate its people, culture and its whole existence. We are talking mass graves; concentration camps; rape, medical experiments and torture as war weapons; we are talking razing a whole country to the ground. Check out pictures of Warsaw in winter of 1944 -- there was no Warsaw. Nothing left. (And let me remind you that Warsaw could have been saved, if Roosevelt and Churchill had not decided to sell Poland to the Soviets already.) Now imagine this happening to, say, Washington, D.C.

    Imagine more than 6 million completely innocent people -- and not soldiers -- killed in concentration camps and elsewhere in ways that we did not know were possible. In less than 5 years. (And let's remember that Roosevelt knew about the Holocaust in 1942, but did not believe it was happening and chose to do nothing about it.) Americans did not experience this kind of aggression in their history, but they got a glimpse of what it is like on 9/11. I know how you feel about 9/11 -- we all do (feel the same way about it). Now imagine 9/11 (and worse) 24/7 for 5 years. It gives one a different perspective on war. It makes one consider the possibility of war only when absolutely necessary (e.g. when facing an imminent threat), and when all other means to resolve the conflict have been exhausted.

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  7. P.S. Actually, it was just Roosevelt who gave Poland to the Soviets in his pact with Stalin (in Teheran in 1943). Roosevelt wanted to keep even Churchill out of the loop there, at least for a while. He also did not want this (his selling of Poland to the Soviets) to become public, at least not for a while, as not to lose the Polish-American vote. See the minutes from his private meeting with Stalin in Teheran 1943 here:
    http://www.warsawuprising.com/doc/teheran_roosevelt_stalin.htm

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  8. Why was your timing bad? Your opinion is as valid as anyone's - don't be a wimp! This CMC guy has you kow-towing to him on your own blog.

    Think before you write, then stick to your guns.

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  9. Like water baby, like water.

    In any case, because I did not consider the day, I wanted to apologize. As you probably noted I did not apologize for what I said, but when I said it. I am fully aware of CMC not actually answering many of my points. But that is a sign of our times. I am sure he feels the same way about my posts.

    Thanks for the support though.
    Peter

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  10. You are civil within your arguments - and that is to be commended. I can appreciate where the CMC comes from - but the flag-waving shit is over the top and always has been.

    Nothing meant by the "wimp" comment (and good comeback nonetheless...)

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  11. "Shipments of arms had been delivered on the basis that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", despite knowing that allies could become future dangers, said the charities. In June 2003, there were thought to be 24m guns in Iraq - enough to arm every man, woman and child. The charities term small arms the true "weapons of mass destruction", which claim hundreds of thousands of lives, destabilising countries and prolonging conflicts."


    As one of the protesters banners' said "We know there are WMDs because we sold them to Iraq". The absolute height of hypocrisy and bastardry to start a war with a country for possessing arms that you've been selling to them. There is no honour in this war and it is the common folk there, as much as the insurgents, who are suffering.

    Saddam's joke on the neo cons is that he got rid of the weapons and made them look foolish. The longer they stay there, the worse they look.

    CMCs hands off comment about 'foreigners laying off the United States' only makes sense if the US was pursuing an isolationist policy as it did prior to Japan bombing Pearl Harbour. So long as they have military bases in our countries and drag us into their wars, we have EVERY right to criticise.

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