Rogue Apple
The Guardian Unlimited ran a story today about the Haditha massacre. It called the Marines who slaughtered two dozen civilians “rogues.” The bad apple defense is back.
We need a new legal precedent that disallows this defense; but then again we need to put the whole war and the system that spawned it in the dock.
We take a bunch of boys and raise them to believe that their sexuality is associated with the ability to menace in order to get respect. We sit them in front of television and films to see how killing resolves problems and guns attract adoring erotically objectified women. We send them to school to learn American Origin Myths about the glory of genocide. We encourage Boy Scouts where they can learn military discipline. We segregate them into a youth culture where gender policing kills their empathy. And when they haven’t been specially prepared by Daddy’s net worth for law school or medicine or management where they can sublimate all that aggression, we give them the option to work at Mickey-D’s or join the fucking Marine Corps — where, by the way, they will learn to fight dragons (you saw that ad, didn’t you) and wear spiffy uniforms. Then we get them in Basic Training or Boot Camp, where during bayonet training they learn to holler “Kill, kill, kill!” Or “Blood, blood, blood makes the grass grow!” Instead of merti badges like they got if there were Scouts, they can earn new badges. Then we prepare them to fight a war for lies; and prepare them with intelligence briefings and cultural indoctrination that are racist drivel, delivered often as not by a Staff Sergeant with a pickled brain who watches “Cops” in his off time. When they get to the war, there really are people who are trying to shoot them (they have just set foot on these other people’s land with guns, fercrissake… what would WE do?). So they arrive with aggression trained for a lifetime, surrounded by masculnity police (their peers) to ensure when the time comes they show no mercy, then add fear and shake well. Their job is to beat down this population. They know it. The population knows it. it is apparent they are enemies, and since all of these people are hostile to the Marines, and the Marines have alreay learned to typify them with the term hajji (something one step down from a Homo sapien), and presto bingo alakazam! Race war. Then one of the ungrateful Arabs detonates a roadside bomb, killing one of these people who have been given the mission to beat down the same Arabs. He, of course, is long gone. That’s how a mechanical ambush works. Duh.
These Marines have already been — collectively — slaughtering civilians at an alarming rate, often in ones and twos, but in Fallujah they did so by the bushels, often as they lay abed or cowered in corners trying to hide.
So someone will have to explain to me why, after this mechanical ambush killed one Marine, there was something out of the ordinary enough to be categorized as “rogue” when these de-empathized, militaristic boys from an imperial society, freshly trained to holler “Kill, kill, kill!” leapt out and shot down 24 “hajjis,” male and female, all ages.
I’ll tell you what the rogue aspect of this was. Someone got the pictures. Just like Abu Ghraib. Anyone who thinks this was a single instance of the intentional killing of civilians, I have beachfront property to sell you in Odessa, Texas.
The one Marine who was killed will now be among the congealed and faceless mass of idealized war dead to be celebrated for their willingness to kill and die for the empire this weekend. There will be no day for the dead of Katrina. There is no day for those lost on The Middle Passage. There is no day for Wounded Knee or the Trail of Tears. There is no day for the 9-11 of women killed each year by men in the US, mostly those who claim to love them. And there will be no day to celebrate or remember the lives of those lost at My Lai or Haditha.
This day that in yet another way confers such immense and often unearned public esteem on those who bear arms for the state is part of the reason that those boys were raised the way they were, and led inexorably to them behaving the way they did. And they were not rogues. They were us.
Mike Lopez:
NEVER in my name. I will send out yet another round of emails to my so-called representatives, but as long as W and Dick and Rummy and the rest of the crowd from The New American Century are calling the shots, I am afraid that Democracy is imprisoned. When did “The Project” become our nation’s policy? When are we going to see some real leadership? I am talking about the kind of leader who calls ignoring the Constitution what it is … betraying the oath of office that each one of them took. It is the right thing for a leader to do … do we have any leaders? If I could get five minutes in front of the Congress I would say it. I am not afraid. Why does Congress appear to be so impotent?
27 May 2006, 10:55 pmRoy Turnbaugh:
Stan-
28 May 2006, 1:41 pmThanks for nailing this so succinctly. Just as an aside, I was at the Lincoln Presidential Museum in Springfield IL last week and sat in on a holographic show they put on, purportedly to show some of the technicalities of working with old books and documents. The first part was ok; an actor playing a curator showed how you never know what you’ll find. Then suddenly, he grabbed a Union uniform jacket, put it on, and with the flag streaming behind him, talked about how he was killed in battle carrying the flag- all to the strains of patriotic music. No word about the horrors of the mid 19th century battlefield- just the usual blast of cheap nationalism.
When you grow up in a country that hits you with this stuff from all sides- and the bulk of visitors were kids on school field trips- little wonder that violence and aggression are second nature, especially if you can wrap them in the flag.
Robin Hering:
I have just raised a son through the American school system, graduated Saturday. From the first grade, where one of the readers was a McGraw Hill perversion of The Three Little Pigs and in cub scouts everyone cheats at the Pinewood Derby. I took him out and placed him in the only alternative nearby, a Waldorf School, for five years.
Back in public schools again, it was the whole nightmare. And what I want to know is, how is it that we can tell little kindergarteners on the playground “no hitting, use your words,†have zero tolerance for weapons (including even a gentleman’s pocket-knife) at school, and then ultimately betray our children with military recruiters in the hallways, like sending them into shark-infested waters. It’s no wonder they moon us with their pants half down.
Toward the end of this past school year a film festival was held, and a group of four created a film of five scenes, some boys dressed in “drag†and for the most part just goofing around, but one scene included boys in a “bar†setting, one dressed as a “girlfriend†and the male actor consistently acted out hitting the boy in a dress and everyone laughing.
The film festival was a fundraiser for Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence (SPAN).
28 May 2006, 8:25 pmBob Kincaid:
Stan,
Bruce Burch turned me on to your site. I understand you’ll be on his Head On Radio Network show this evening (Monday, 29 May 2006). I’m looking forward to it.
For those who want to hear you, they can do so at http://www.headonradionetwork.com Bruce’s show airs at 5 p.m., EDT.
In this piece, you’ve given letters to something that’s been rattling around in my tiny mind for awhile, to-wit: what kind of hubris is it that allows us as a nation to assume that the Marines’ behavior in Haditha was somehow aberrant? Those Marines did what we have asked them to do. They killed.
It’s the same as Abu Ghraib. Prison guards from the U.S. treated Iraqi prisoners like they treat American ones. What’s so confusing about that?
What we have here is a total breakdown between Americans’ sugar-coated vision of themselves and their nation and the reality that the world knows but we ignore.
The saddest thing is that the long term prognosis for this American disease is probably terminal. From energy policy to social policy to foreign policy, our deliberate ignorance and pride may be terminal.
Thanks again, both for the article and for joining us on the H.O.R.N.
29 May 2006, 10:22 amjohn steppling:
stan…..another great post.
I wonder though, that the even deeper sadness here is that a large number of the uber-culture wouldnt care even if they agreed it was a slaughter. Towel heads just dont seem to appreciate what the Empire is providing for them….you know, democracy, freedom, shit like that.
The lack of empathy runs pretty deep — and is arrived at by various means.
(an aside…you have a typo I believe, its merit badges not merti….no?)
29 May 2006, 6:12 pmIts the english teacher in me.
JS
Robin Hering:
Bob, yes, but unfortunately it looks like we’re making things terminal for the rest of the world at the same time.
Back to Stan’s topic, a reply: It’s possible that some day Arlington will come to signify the enormity of the disgrace of this country and it’s history. I wouldn’t mind if certain CEOs and bankers and politicians had to live across from it in their retirement.
I’m up to pp 72 in War and Sex. Thanks a million for collecting it all in one place for the rest of us.
30 May 2006, 12:12 amMichael:
It ain’t just the apples that are rotten—the entire tree is diseased. Too bad we can’t just cut it down quickly and burn it. And these Marines, too, will eventually be victims of the Amerikan War Machine, when the Depleted Uranium that’s in the ground, in the air, and in the water over there sickens and kills them. Oh, well, they signed the papers, right?
30 May 2006, 2:36 amPierre Monplaisir:
Thanks , Stan …once again .
30 May 2006, 2:43 amGus Abraham:
Yes the Guardian aint what it used to be and it wasnt as good as people thought then.
Couldn’t agree with you more: “I’ll tell you what the rogue aspect of this was. Someone got the pictures.”
As for the comment by Michael about Depleted Uranium I think you are right, i think this will be the anthrax, Chernobyl, cancer and phalidomide-combined of the future.
Check: http://www.scotland-uxb.org and www,1820.org.uk for more.
31 May 2006, 4:37 amJon Flanders:
Not only not Rogue, but it strikes me that it is entirely possible that this was something done under orders from above.
Ie, the next time an IED goes off in that town, the neighborhood will be made an example of. Then maybe the next IED will be snitched by an informer before it goes off.
I find it hard to believe that even with all the pressures of occupation, these robotically trained Marines just “snapped” and did their killer thing.
But the best the “investigation” will come up with for the officers will be to hang someone for the “coverup,”
31 May 2006, 10:30 amand that officer’s real offense will be failing to coverup.
Charles Brown:
This is a bit off the direct subject, but “bad apples” made me think of how the convicted Enron execs might be characterized as just “bad apples” in a system that is otherwise “swell”. It is the system of capitalism that has got to go.
31 May 2006, 11:59 amJon Flanders:
For the Germans in WW2, Haditha would be no surprise.
The Trial of German Major War Criminals
Sitting at Nuremberg, Germany
7th January to 19th January, 1946
Thirty-sixth Day: Thursday, January 17th, 1946
(Part 5 of 10)
The execution of hostages constitutes in all countries the first act of terrorism on the part of German occupation troops. From 1940 on, the German Command, notably in France, carried out numerous executions as reprisals for any crime against the German Army.
These practices, contrary to Article 50 of The Hague Convention, which forbids collective sanctions, awaken everywhere a feeling of horror and frequently produce a result contrary to the one sought, by arousing the populations against the occupant.
The occupying authorities then attempted to legalise such criminal practices, thus seeking to have them recognised by the populations as “the right of the occupying power.” Veritable “codes for hostages” were promulgated by the German military authorities.
Following the general order issued by the defendant Keitel on 16th September, 1941, Stulpnagel published in France his ordinance of 30th September, 1941. According to the terms of this ordinance, all Frenchmen held by German authorities for any reason whatsoever will be considered as hostages, as well as all Frenchmen who are in the custody of the French authorities on behalf of German organisations. The ordinance of Stulpnagel specifies:
“At the time of the burial of the bodies, burial in a common grave of a rather large number of persons in a particular cemetery must be avoided, since this would create a shrine for pilgrims, which now or later might become a centre for the stimulation of anti-German propaganda.”
In the execution of this ordinance the most infamous executions of hostages were carried out.
Following the murder of two German officers, one in Nantes on 2nd October, 1941, and the other at Bordeaux a few days thereafter, the German authorities had 27 hostages shot at Chateaubriant and 21 at Nantes.
On 15th August, 1942, 96 hostages were shot at Mont- Valerien.
In September, 1942, following an assault committed against German soldiers in the Rex moving picture house in Paris, 116 hostages were shot, 46 hostages being taken from the hostage depot of the Fortress at Romainville and 70 from Bordeaux.
In reprisal for the murder of a German official of the labour front, 50 hostages were shot in Paris at the end of September, 1943.
Threats of reprisals on the families of the patriots of the Resistance are related to the same odious policy of hostages. The Kommandatur (garrison de Q) published the following notice in the “Pariser-Zeitung” of 16th July, 1942:
“Near male relatives, brothers-in-law and cousins of the agitators above the age of 18 years will be shot.
All female family members of the same degree of relationship shall be condemned to forced labour.
Children less than 18 years of age, of all above- mentioned persons, shall be sent to a house of correction.”
The execution of hostages continued everywhere until the liberation, but in the last period they were no more than one additional feature in the methods of German terrorism, then grown more sweeping.
31 May 2006, 4:44 pmMichele:
“I find it hard to believe that even with all the pressures of occupation, these robotically trained Marines just “snapped†and did their killer thing.”
jon, have a look at: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article621826.ece
excerpts:
31 May 2006
” More than half a century after hostilities ended in Korea, a document from the war’s chaotic early days has come to light – a letter from the US ambassador to Seoul, informing the State Department that American soldiers would shoot refugees approaching their lines.
…The letter reported on decisions made at a high-level meeting in South Korea on 25 July 1950, the night before the 7th US Cavalry Regiment shot the refugees at No Gun Ri.
Estimates vary on the number of dead at No Gun Ri. American soldiers’ estimates ranged from under 100 to “hundreds” dead; Korean survivors say about 400, mostly women and children, were killed at the village 100 miles (160km) south-east of Seoul, the South Korean capital. Hundreds more refugees were killed in later, similar episodes, survivors say.
…The Pentagon concluded that the No Gun Ri shootings, which lasted three days, were “an unfortunate tragedy”, not a deliberate killing. It suggested that panicky soldiers, acting without orders, opened fire because they feared that an approaching line of families, baggage and farm animals was concealing enemy troops.
But Mr Muccio’s letter indicates that the actions of the 7th Cavalry were consistent with policy, adopted because of concern that North Koreans would infiltrate via refugee columns. And in subsequent months, US commanders repeatedly ordered refugees shot, documents show.”
31 May 2006, 10:17 pmJon Flanders:
“More than half a century after hostilities ended in Korea,….”
I wonder how long we will have to wait this time?
1 June 2006, 8:02 amVierotchka:
Of course they were “bad apples” who committed these atrocities, because there is practically nothing but bad apples in the US military, in the Pentagon, in the White House, in the Bush maladministration, in the US government.
1 June 2006, 10:22 amDeAnander:
Plus que ça change…
and we keep pretending that our definitions of “virile” and “manhood” do not lead ineluctably to the torturing and mass murder of civilians — despite everything that pornography tells us about the sadistic and violent repudiation/repression/domination of the [racial/gendered] Other required to keep that sense of masculinity safe and sated.
1 June 2006, 3:45 pmCharles Brown:
War is a Racket: Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler
——————————————————————————–
Maj. Gen Smedley Darlington Butler was actually awarded THREE Medals of
Honor, one of which, in 1905, he was ineligible for as officers could not
receive the medal of honor until 1914; he was awarded and wore two. He was
also instrumental in exposing and stopping a plot to overthrow FDR and
establish a fascist dictarotship in 1934.
Jim C.
War Is A Racket
Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler,
USMC.
Smedley Butler
WAR is a racket. It always has been
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most
vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in
which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it
seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what
it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the
expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict.
At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United
States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in
their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their
tax returns no one knows.
How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug
a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a
rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights,
ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them
parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or
killed in battle?
Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious.
They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by
the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The
general public shoulders the bill.
And what is this bill?
This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled
bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability.
Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for
generations and generations.
For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a
racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that
I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must
face it and speak out.
Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand
side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland
and Germany cast sheep’s eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one
unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.
The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated
matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each
other’s throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was
Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people – not
those who fight and pay and die – only those who foment wars and remain
safely at home to profit.
There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen
and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.
Hell’s bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?
Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being
trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other
day, Il Duce in “International Conciliation,” the publication of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:
“And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and
the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of
the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of
perpetual peace… War alone brings up to its highest tension all human
energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage
to meet it.”
Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army,
his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war – anxious
for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter’s
dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his
troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it
too. There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war,
sooner or later.
Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more
and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to peace. France only
recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year
to eighteen months.
Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe
are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in
1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends the
Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international bankers
were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese.
What does the “open door” policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China
is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about
$600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers
and industrialists and speculators) have private investments there of less
than $200,000,000.
Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these
private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would
be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war – a war that might well cost
us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of
Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and
mentally unbalanced men.
Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit – fortunes
would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a
few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers.
Speculators. They would fare well.
Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn’t they? It pays
high dividends.
But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their
mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit
their children?
What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge
profits?
Yes, and what does it profit the nation?
Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn’t own a bit of territory outside the
mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more
than $1,000,000,000. Then we became “internationally minded.” We forgot, or
shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George
Washington’s warning about “entangling alliances.” We went to war. We
acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct
result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had
jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during
the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a
purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that
foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.
It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American
who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few
this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy
profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people –
who do not profit.
CHAPTER TWO
WHO MAKES THE PROFITS?
The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the United
States some $52,000,000,000. Figure it out. That means $400 to every
American man, woman, and child. And we haven’t paid the debt yet. We are
paying it, our children will pay it, and our children’s children probably
still will be paying the cost of that war.
The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six,
eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits – ah! that
is another matter – twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even
eighteen hundred per cent – the sky is the limit. All that traffic will
bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let’s get it.
Of course, it isn’t put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into
speeches about patriotism, love of country, and “we must all put our
shoulders to the wheel,” but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket – and
are safely pocketed. Let’s just take a few examples:
Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people – didn’t one of them
testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war?
Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war?
They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du
Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn’t much,
but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let’s look at their
average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight
million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal
times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in
profits of more than 950 per cent.
Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the
making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war materials. Well,
their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged $6,000,000. Then came the war.
And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions
making. Did their profits jump – or did they let Uncle Sam in for a
bargain? Well, their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!
Or, let’s take United States Steel. The normal earnings during the
five-year period prior to the war were $105,000,000 a year. Not bad. Then
along came the war and up went the profits. The average yearly profit for
the period 1914-1918 was $240,000,000. Not bad.
There you have some of the steel and powder earnings. Let’s look at
something else. A little copper, perhaps. That always does well in war
times.
Anaconda, for instance. Average yearly earnings during the pre-war years
1910-1914 of $10,000,000. During the war years 1914-1918 profits leaped to
$34,000,000 per year.
Or Utah Copper. Average of $5,000,000 per year during the 1910-1914 period.
Jumped to an average of $21,000,000 yearly profits for the war period.
Let’s group these five, with three smaller companies. The total yearly
average profits of the pre-war period 1910-1914 were $137,480,000. Then
along came the war. The average yearly profits for this group skyrocketed
to $408,300,000.
A little increase in profits of approximately 200 per cent.
Does war pay? It paid them. But they aren’t the only ones. There are still
others. Let’s take leather.
For the three-year period before the war the total profits of Central
Leather Company were $3,500,000. That was approximately $1,167,000 a year.
Well, in 1916 Central Leather returned a profit of $15,000,000, a small
increase of 1,100 per cent. That’s all. The General Chemical Company
averaged a profit for the three years before the war of a little over
$800,000 a year. Came the war, and the profits jumped to $12,000,000. a
leap of 1,400 per cent.
International Nickel Company – and you can’t have a war without nickel –
showed an increase in profits from a mere average of $4,000,000 a year to
$73,000,000 yearly. Not bad? An increase of more than 1,700 per cent.
American Sugar Refining Company averaged $2,000,000 a year for the three
years before the war. In 1916 a profit of $6,000,000 was recorded.
Listen to Senate Document No. 259. The Sixty-Fifth Congress, reporting on
corporate earnings and government revenues. Considering the profits of 122
meat packers, 153 cotton manufacturers, 299 garment makers, 49 steel
plants, and 340 coal producers during the war. Profits under 25 per cent
were exceptional. For instance the coal companies made between 100 per cent
and 7,856 per cent on their capital stock during the war. The Chicago
packers doubled and tripled their earnings.
And let us not forget the bankers who financed the great war. If anyone had
the cream of the profits it was the bankers. Being partnerships rather than
incorporated organizations, they do not have to report to stockholders. And
their profits were as secret as they were immense. How the bankers made
their millions and their billions I do not know, because those little
secrets never become public – even before a Senate investigatory body.
But here’s how some of the other patriotic industrialists and speculators
chiseled their way into war profits.
Take the shoe people. They like war. It brings business with abnormal
profits. They made huge profits on sales abroad to our allies. Perhaps,
like the munitions manufacturers and armament makers, they also sold to the
enemy. For a dollar is a dollar whether it comes from Germany or from
France. But they did well by Uncle Sam too. For instance, they sold Uncle
Sam 35,000,000 pairs of hobnailed service shoes. There were 4,000,000
soldiers. Eight pairs, and more, to a soldier. My regiment during the war
had only one pair to a soldier. Some of these shoes probably are still in
existence. They were good shoes. But when the war was over Uncle Sam has a
matter of 25,000,000 pairs left over. Bought – and paid for. Profits
recorded and pocketed.
There was still lots of leather left. So the leather people sold your Uncle
Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for the cavalry. But there
wasn’t any American cavalry overseas! Somebody had to get rid of this
leather, however. Somebody had to make a profit in it – so we had a lot of
McClellan saddles. And we probably have those yet.
Also somebody had a lot of mosquito netting. They sold your Uncle Sam
20,000,000 mosquito nets for the use of the soldiers overseas. I suppose
the boys were expected to put it over them as they tried to sleep in muddy
trenches – one hand scratching cooties on their backs and the other making
passes at scurrying rats. Well, not one of these mosquito nets ever got to
France!
Anyhow, these thoughtful manufacturers wanted to make sure that no soldier
would be without his mosquito net, so 40,000,000 additional yards of
mosquito netting were sold to Uncle Sam.
There were pretty good profits in mosquito netting in those days, even if
there were no mosquitoes in France. I suppose, if the war had lasted just a
little longer, the enterprising mosquito netting manufacturers would have
sold your Uncle Sam a couple of consignments of mosquitoes to plant in
France so that more mosquito netting would be in order.
Airplane and engine manufacturers felt they, too, should get their just
profits out of this war. Why not? Everybody else was getting theirs. So
$1,000,000,000 – count them if you live long enough – was spent by Uncle
Sam in building airplane engines that never left the ground! Not one plane,
or motor, out of the billion dollars worth ordered, ever got into a battle
in France. Just the same the manufacturers made their little profit of 30,
100, or perhaps 300 per cent.
Undershirts for soldiers cost 14¢ [cents] to make and uncle Sam paid 30¢ to
40¢ each for them – a nice little profit for the undershirt manufacturer.
And the stocking manufacturer and the uniform manufacturers and the cap
manufacturers and the steel helmet manufacturers – all got theirs.
Why, when the war was over some 4,000,000 sets of equipment – knapsacks and
the things that go to fill them – crammed warehouses on this side. Now they
are being scrapped because the regulations have changed the contents. But
the manufacturers collected their wartime profits on them – and they will
do it all over again the next time.
There were lots of brilliant ideas for profit making during the war.
One very versatile patriot sold Uncle Sam twelve dozen 48-inch wrenches.
Oh, they were very nice wrenches. The only trouble was that there was only
one nut ever made that was large enough for these wrenches. That is the one
that holds the turbines at Niagara Falls. Well, after Uncle Sam had bought
them and the manufacturer had pocketed the profit, the wrenches were put on
freight cars and shunted all around the United States in an effort to find
a use for them. When the Armistice was signed it was indeed a sad blow to
the wrench manufacturer. He was just about to make some nuts to fit the
wrenches. Then he planned to sell these, too, to your Uncle Sam.
Still another had the brilliant idea that colonels shouldn’t ride in
automobiles, nor should they even ride on horseback. One has probably seen
a picture of Andy Jackson riding in a buckboard. Well, some 6,000
buckboards were sold to Uncle Sam for the use of colonels! Not one of them
was used. But the buckboard manufacturer got his war profit.
The shipbuilders felt they should come in on some of it, too. They built a
lot of ships that made a lot of profit. More than $3,000,000,000 worth.
Some of the ships were all right. But $635,000,000 worth of them were made
of wood and wouldn’t float! The seams opened up – and they sank. We paid
for them, though. And somebody pocketed the profits.
It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that
the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000
was expended in the actual war itself. This expenditure yielded
$16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how the 21,000 billionaires and
millionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be
sneezed at. It is quite a tidy sum. And it went to a very few.
The Senate (Nye) committee probe of the munitions industry and its wartime
profits, despite its sensational disclosures, hardly has scratched the
surface.
Even so, it has had some effect. The State Department has been studying
“for some time” methods of keeping out of war. The War Department suddenly
decides it has a wonderful plan to spring. The Administration names a
committee – with the War and Navy Departments ably represented under the
chairmanship of a Wall Street speculator – to limit profits in war time. To
what extent isn’t suggested. Hmmm. Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and
1,600 per cent of those who turned blood into gold in the World War would
be limited to some smaller figure.
Apparently, however, the plan does not call for any limitation of losses –
that is, the losses of those who fight the war. As far as I have been able
to ascertain there is nothing in the scheme to limit a soldier to the loss
of but one eye, or one arm, or to limit his wounds to one or two or three.
Or to limit the loss of life.
There is nothing in this scheme, apparently, that says not more than 12 per
cent of a regiment shall be wounded in battle, or that not more than 7 per
cent in a division shall be killed.
Of course, the committee cannot be bothered with such trifling matters.
CHAPTER THREE
WHO PAYS THE BILLS?
Who provides the profits – these nice little profits of 20, 100, 300, 1,500
and 1,800 per cent? We all pay them – in taxation. We paid the bankers
their profits when we bought Liberty Bonds at $100.00 and sold them back at
$84 or $86 to the bankers. These bankers collected $100 plus. It was a
simple manipulation. The bankers control the security marts. It was easy
for them to depress the price of these bonds. Then all of us – the people –
got frightened and sold the bonds at $84 or $86. The bankers bought them.
Then these same bankers stimulated a boom and government bonds went to par
– and above. Then the bankers collected their profits.
But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.
If you don’t believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the
battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran’s hospitals in the United
States. On a tour of the country, in the midst of which I am at the time of
this writing, I have visited eighteen government hospitals for veterans. In
them are a total of about 50,000 destroyed men – men who were the pick of
the nation eighteen years ago. The very able chief surgeon at the
government hospital; at Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the living
dead, told me that mortality among veterans is three times as great as
among those who stayed at home.
Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and
factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded;
they were made over; they were made to “about face”; to regard murder as
the order of the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder and, through mass
psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years
and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed.
Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another “about
face” ! This time they had to do their own readjustment, sans [without]
mass psychology, sans officers’ aid and advice and sans nation-wide
propaganda. We didn’t need them any more. So we scattered them about
without any “three-minute” or “Liberty Loan” speeches or parades. Many, too
many, of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because
they could not make that final “about face” alone.
In the government hospital in Marion, Indiana, 1,800 of these boys are in
pens! Five hundred of them in a barracks with steel bars and wires all
around outside the buildings and on the porches. These already have been
mentally destroyed. These boys don’t even look like human beings. Oh, the
looks on their faces! Physically, they are in good shape; mentally, they
are gone.
There are thousands and thousands of these cases, and more and more are
coming in all the time. The tremendous excitement of the war, the sudden
cutting off of that excitement – the young boys couldn’t stand it.
That’s a part of the bill. So much for the dead – they have paid their part
of the war profits. So much for the mentally and physically wounded – they
are paying now their share of the war profits. But the others paid, too –
they paid with heartbreaks when they tore themselves away from their
firesides and their families to don the uniform of Uncle Sam – on which a
profit had been made. They paid another part in the training camps where
they were regimented and drilled while others took their jobs and their
places in the lives of their communities. The paid for it in the trenches
where they shot and were shot; where they were hungry for days at a time;
where they slept in the mud and the cold and in the rain – with the moans
and shrieks of the dying for a horrible lullaby.
But don’t forget – the soldier paid part of the dollars and cents bill too.
Up to and including the Spanish-American War, we had a prize system, and
soldiers and sailors fought for money. During the Civil War they were paid
bonuses, in many instances, before they went into service. The government,
or states, paid as high as $1,200 for an enlistment. In the
Spanish-American War they gave prize money. When we captured any vessels,
the soldiers all got their share – at least, they were supposed to. Then it
was found that we could reduce the cost of wars by taking all the prize
money and keeping it, but conscripting [drafting] the soldier anyway. Then
soldiers couldn’t bargain for their labor, Everyone else could bargain, but
the soldier couldn’t.
Napoleon once said,
“All men are enamored of decorations…they positively hunger for them.”
So by developing the Napoleonic system – the medal business – the
government learned it could get soldiers for less money, because the boys
liked to be decorated. Until the Civil War there were no medals. Then the
Congressional Medal of Honor was handed out. It made enlistments easier.
After the Civil War no new medals were issued until the Spanish-American
War.
In the World War, we used propaganda to make the boys accept conscription.
They were made to feel ashamed if they didn’t join the army.
So vicious was this war propaganda that even God was brought into it. With
few exceptions our clergymen joined in the clamor to kill, kill, kill. To
kill the Germans. God is on our side…it is His will that the Germans be
killed.
And in Germany, the good pastors called upon the Germans to kill the
allies…to please the same God. That was a part of the general propaganda,
built up to make people war conscious and murder conscious.
Beautiful ideals were painted for our boys who were sent out to die. This
was the “war to end all wars.” This was the “war to make the world safe for
democracy.” No one mentioned to them, as they marched away, that their
going and their dying would mean huge war profits. No one told these
American soldiers that they might be shot down by bullets made by their own
brothers here. No one told them that the ships on which they were going to
cross might be torpedoed by submarines built with United States patents.
They were just told it was to be a “glorious adventure.”
Thus, having stuffed patriotism down their throats, it was decided to make
them help pay for the war, too. So, we gave them the large salary of $30 a
month.
All they had to do for this munificent sum was to leave their dear ones
behind, give up their jobs, lie in swampy trenches, eat canned willy (when
they could get it) and kill and kill and kill…and be killed.
But wait!
Half of that wage (just a little more than a riveter in a shipyard or a
laborer in a munitions factory safe at home made in a day) was promptly
taken from him to support his dependents, so that they would not become a
charge upon his community. Then we made him pay what amounted to accident
insurance – something the employer pays for in an enlightened state – and
that cost him $6 a month. He had less than $9 a month left.
Then, the most crowning insolence of all – he was virtually blackjacked
into paying for his own ammunition, clothing, and food by being made to buy
Liberty Bonds. Most soldiers got no money at all on pay days.
We made them buy Liberty Bonds at $100 and then we bought them back – when
they came back from the war and couldn’t find work – at $84 and $86. And
the soldiers bought about $2,000,000,000 worth of these bonds!
Yes, the soldier pays the greater part of the bill. His family pays too.
They pay it in the same heart-break that he does. As he suffers, they
suffer. At nights, as he lay in the trenches and watched shrapnel burst
about him, they lay home in their beds and tossed sleeplessly – his father,
his mother, his wife, his sisters, his brothers, his sons, and his
daughters.
When he returned home minus an eye, or minus a leg or with his mind broken,
they suffered too – as much as and even sometimes more than he. Yes, and
they, too, contributed their dollars to the profits of the munitions makers
and bankers and shipbuilders and the manufacturers and the speculators
made. They, too, bought Liberty Bonds and contributed to the profit of the
bankers after the Armistice in the hocus-pocus of manipulated Liberty Bond
prices.
And even now the families of the wounded men and of the mentally broken and
those who never were able to readjust themselves are still suffering and
still paying.
CHAPTER FOUR
HOW TO SMASH THIS RACKET!
WELL, it’s a racket, all right.
A few profit – and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can’t
end it by disarmament conferences. You can’t eliminate it by peace parleys
at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can’t wipe it out by
resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of
war.
The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and
labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the
Government can conscript the young men of the nation – it must conscript
capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the
high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers
and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all
the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and
the speculators, be conscripted – to get $30 a month, the same wage as the
lads in the trenches get.
Let the workers in these plants get the same wages – all the workers, all
presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers –
yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians
and all government office holders – everyone in the nation be restricted to
a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the
trenches!
Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those
workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half
of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and
buy Liberty Bonds.
Why shouldn’t they?
They aren’t running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies
mangled or their minds shattered. They aren’t sleeping in muddy trenches.
They aren’t hungry. The soldiers are!
Give capital and industry and labor thirty days to think it over and you
will find, by that time, there will be no war. That will smash the war
racket – that and nothing else.
Maybe I am a little too optimistic. Capital still has some say. So capital
won’t permit the taking of the profit out of war until the people – those
who do the suffering and still pay the price – make up their minds that
those they elect to office shall do their bidding, and not that of the
profiteers.
Another step necessary in this fight to smash the war racket is the limited
plebiscite to determine whether a war should be declared. A plebiscite not
of all the voters but merely of those who would be called upon to do the
fighting and dying. There wouldn’t be very much sense in having a
76-year-old president of a munitions factory or the flat-footed head of an
international banking firm or the cross-eyed manager of a uniform
manufacturing plant – all of whom see visions of tremendous profits in the
event of war – voting on whether the nation should go to war or not. They
never would be called upon to shoulder arms – to sleep in a trench and to
be shot. Only those who would be called upon to risk their lives for their
country should have the privilege of voting to determine whether the nation
should go to war.
There is ample precedent for restricting the voting to those affected. Many
of our states have restrictions on those permitted to vote. In most, it is
necessary to be able to read and write before you may vote. In some, you
must own property. It would be a simple matter each year for the men coming
of military age to register in their communities as they did in the draft
during the World War and be examined physically. Those who could pass and
who would therefore be called upon to bear arms in the event of war would
be eligible to vote in a limited plebiscite. They should be the ones to
have the power to decide – and not a Congress few of whose members are
within the age limit and fewer still of whom are in physical condition to
bear arms. Only those who must suffer should have the right to vote.
A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to make certain
that our military forces are truly forces for defense only.
At each session of Congress the question of further naval appropriations
comes up. The swivel-chair admirals of Washington (and there are always a
lot of them) are very adroit lobbyists. And they are smart. They don’t
shout that “We need a lot of battleships to war on this nation or that
nation.” Oh no. First of all, they let it be known that America is menaced
by a great naval power. Almost any day, these admirals will tell you, the
great fleet of this supposed enemy will strike suddenly and annihilate
125,000,000 people. Just like that. Then they begin to cry for a larger
navy. For what? To fight the enemy? Oh my, no. Oh, no. For defense purposes
only.
Then, incidentally, they announce maneuvers in the Pacific. For defense.
Uh, huh.
The Pacific is a great big ocean. We have a tremendous coastline on the
Pacific. Will the maneuvers be off the coast, two or three hundred miles?
Oh, no. The maneuvers will be two thousand, yes, perhaps even thirty-five
hundred miles, off the coast.
The Japanese, a proud people, of course will be pleased beyond expression
to see the united States fleet so close to Nippon’s shores. Even as pleased
as would be the residents of California were they to dimly discern through
the morning mist, the Japanese fleet playing at war games off Los Angeles.
The ships of our navy, it can be seen, should be specifically limited, by
law, to within 200 miles of our coastline. Had that been the law in 1898
the Maine would never have gone to Havana Harbor. She never would have been
blown up. There would have been no war with Spain with its attendant loss
of life. Two hundred miles is ample, in the opinion of experts, for defense
purposes. Our nation cannot start an offensive war if its ships can’t go
further than 200 miles from the coastline. Planes might be permitted to go
as far as 500 miles from the coast for purposes of reconnaissance. And the
army should never leave the territorial limits of our nation.
To summarize: Three steps must be taken to smash the war racket.
We must take the profit out of war.
We must permit the youth of the land who would bear arms to decide whether
or not there should be war.
We must limit our military forces to home defense purposes.
CHAPTER FIVE
TO HELL WITH WAR!
I am not a fool as to believe that war is a thing of the past. I know the
people do not want war, but there is no use in saying we cannot be pushed
into another war.
Looking back, Woodrow Wilson was re-elected president in 1916 on a platform
that he had “kept us out of war” and on the implied promise that he would
“keep us out of war.” Yet, five months later he asked Congress to declare
war on Germany.
In that five-month interval the people had not been asked whether they had
changed their minds. The 4,000,000 young men who put on uniforms and
marched or sailed away were not asked whether they wanted to go forth to
suffer and die.
Then what caused our government to change its mind so suddenly?
Money.
An allied commission, it may be recalled, came over shortly before the war
declaration and called on the President. The President summoned a group of
advisers. The head of the commission spoke. Stripped of its diplomatic
language, this is what he told the President and his group:
“There is no use kidding ourselves any longer. The cause of the allies is
lost. We now owe you (American bankers, American munitions makers, American
manufacturers, American speculators, American exporters) five or six
billion dollars.
If we lose (and without the help of the United States we must lose) we,
England, France and Italy, cannot pay back this money…and Germany won’t.
So…”
Had secrecy been outlawed as far as war negotiations were concerned, and
had the press been invited to be present at that conference, or had radio
been available to broadcast the proceedings, America never would have
entered the World War. But this conference, like all war discussions, was
shrouded in utmost secrecy. When our boys were sent off to war they were
told it was a “war to make the world safe for democracy” and a “war to end
all wars.”
Well, eighteen years after, the world has less of democracy than it had
then. Besides, what business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany or
England or France or Italy or Austria live under democracies or monarchies?
Whether they are Fascists or Communists? Our problem is to preserve our own
democracy.
And very little, if anything, has been accomplished to assure us that the
World War was really the war to end all wars.
Yes, we have had disarmament conferences and limitations of arms
conferences. They don’t mean a thing. One has just failed; the results of
another have been nullified. We send our professional soldiers and our
sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to these conferences. And
what happens?
The professional soldiers and sailors don’t want to disarm. No admiral
wants to be without a ship. No general wants to be without a command. Both
mean men without jobs. They are not for disarmament. They cannot be for
limitations of arms. And at all these conferences, lurking in the
background but all-powerful, just the same, are the sinister agents of
those who profit by war. They see to it that these conferences do not
disarm or seriously limit armaments.
The chief aim of any power at any of these conferences has not been to
achieve disarmament to prevent war but rather to get more armament for
itself and less for any potential foe.
There is only one way to disarm with any semblance of practicability. That
is for all nations to get together and scrap every ship, every gun, every
rifle, every tank, every war plane. Even this, if it were possible, would
not be enough.
The next war, according to experts, will be fought not with battleships,
not by artillery, not with rifles and not with machine guns. It will be
fought with deadly chemicals and gases.
Secretly each nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means
of annihilating its foes wholesale. Yes, ships will continue to be built,
for the shipbuilders must make their profits. And guns still will be
manufactured and powder and rifles will be made, for the munitions makers
must make their huge profits. And the soldiers, of course, must wear
uniforms, for the manufacturer must make their war profits too.
But victory or defeat will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our
scientists.
If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish
mechanical and explosive instruments of destruction, they will have no time
for the constructive job of building greater prosperity for all peoples. By
putting them to this useful job, we can all make more money out of peace
than we can out of war – even the munitions makers.
So…I say, TO HELL WITH WAR.
Click here to purchase “War Is A Racket”
Smedley Darlington Butler
Major General – United States Marine Corps [Retired]
Born West Chester, Pa., July 30, 1881
Educated Haverford School
Married Ethel C. Peters, of Philadelphia, June 30, 1905
Awarded two congressional medals of honor, for capture of Vera Cruz,
Mexico, 1914,
and for capture of Ft. Riviere, Haiti, 1917
Distinguished service medal, 1919
Retired Oct. 1, 1931
On leave of absence to act as director of Department of Safety,
Philadelphia, 1932
Lecturer – 1930′s
Republican Candidate for Senate, 1932
Died at Naval Hospital, Philadelphia, June 21, 1940
For more information about Major General Smedley Butler, contact the United
2 June 2006, 8:11 amStates Marine Corps.
Alan Leddon:
I paid a lttle visit to Mr. Goff’s website. He seems completely objective and free from enormous chips on his shoulder.
2 June 2006, 11:55 amAbsolutely, I am against the War in Iraq…as it is currently being run. I am glad that Saddam is no longer gassing Kurds and that he is no longer eecuting dissidents…people do seem to forget that he did these things.
I am aganst the Bush Administration, and disusted by anyone who would vote for Bush. But we can all see what good my two votes, 4 years apart, did.
But I am not prepared to condemn the entire, as Mr. Goff puts it, “fucking Marine Corps”, over the actions of a few traumatized, stressed, grieving men.
Face it people, the Marines are HUMAN, too, and humans who have seen too much horror return to their roots.
And the roots of the human race are firmly in Metazoa.
We do not raise boys in our culture to believe that their sexuality will allow them to be threatening and gain respect. Quite the opposite, in fact…boys who use their sexuality lke that are censured…the people who think threatening sexuality is respectable are the ones who raised themselves, ignored by their parents. I invite the reader to peruse Emile Durkheims “Anomie Theory”. I, and many other men, were raised to believe that our sexuality is bad, dirty, to be expressed behind the closed doors of a single specific room, never to be openly spoken of or shown to others, never even to be thought about…with severe embarrassment and punishment to be the result of falre to sublimate this desire and comply with the harsh standards.
Only bad parents sit their kids in front of television (or video games) full of violence and other messages of questionable morality. Don’t argue here, I am a parent, and I’ll reply with 1000 links agreeing with me.
Every single one of my Scoutmasters had served in the Army in Vietnam…I didn’t learn any military discipline from these men. I learned first aid, hiking, lifegaurding, how to keep my family safe during a natural disaster; I learned about this little paper that no one pays attention to any more (“We the people of these United States….”) and how to care for animals and how o swim and how to handle canoes and rowboats. Didn’t learn Rifles and Shotguns though…didn’t learn marching, or 2×2 cover formation, or CQB….none of the stuff that I learned in Field Medical Service School, in fact….
and yes, the Marines have some cool uniforms. and so what if they have an ad that shows them fighting Dragons…red bull has lots of ads where the consumer grows wings and flies. But Mr. Goff doesn’t see that as worthy of a complaint…guess its ok because civilians are doing it. and for that matter, the Navy has an ad that offers “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of those that threaten it”….yet the Navy has not yet chased the Bush Administration.
and why are they on someone else’s land?
They made a promise. Each and every one of them swore an oath to support the Constitution, “obey the orders of the president and those officers appointed over me”, and so on. We don’t want oathbreakers, now do we? Our Pagan forbears believed that an oathbreaker was worse than a murderer (incidentally, they had no qualms with wars of conquest, or raids for wealth).
The blame lies with Bush.
But wait…even with my unabated hatred of Bush and all he has done, I remember a little motto worn by some men I’ve known. De oppresso liber. “To free the oppressed”. Was not America born in violence, fighting oppression? Sure, Henry the Unconcerned didn’t gas colonists the way Saddam gassed Kurds. And Henry the Unconcerned didn’t put thousands of Colonists into mass graves the way Saddam did with anyone who annoyed him. But we launched a war to be free of his oppression anyway. Gassing the Kurds should have been reason enough to put an end to Saddam. So Bush, motivated by his greed for oil money, has done something right as a byproduct. Its still not being handled right, but some good came out of it.
and as far as a Staff Sargeant with a pickled brain…does he mean an alcoholic? a perusal of military regulations and/or legal and medical manuals will show that this is unlikely in the extreme. and so what if he watches Cops in his offtime, indoctrinating himself that crime doesn’t pay….would Mr Goff prefer that he watched porn? and besides, its his OFFTIME….when he is FREE to act as an American Citizen….FREE, because of the sacrifices of MILLIONS of his forbears.
Few US Marines believe their job is to beat down the population. They believe that their job is to free these people from oppression. If they leave now, an even worse regime will come to power. They do not believe “Might Makes Right”, they believe “Might Serves Right”.
Mr Goff has failed to do his research. Hajji is not an epithet. Rather, it is a high term of respect for those who have completed the journey to Mecca and Medina, and done the arduous acts of pilgrimage, entitling them to wear an orange turban.
But, to answer Mr. Goffs question…these men fought together, worked together, lived together….faced horrors together….committed horrors together to free an oppressed people and honor their oaths to obey the President…were traumatized together….and all but one of them greived together. They acted as humans in this situation would act together. They are, after all, us. All of which Mr Goff would understand if he removed himself from his safe, comfortable existance long enough to see the real world.
Non Serviam:
Leddon, if you’d peruse the blog a bit more than for just a single article you’d see that Stan doesn’t mince words for the civies.
As for “haji” NOT being an American epithet for Muslims (as well as Middle Eastern/South Asian peoples), you’re vastly overestimating the amount of knowledge Americans in general have about geography. The reason “haji” became a preferred epithet is thanks in no part to the overt racism of one cartoon that never seems to die: Johnny Quest, whose sidekick Haji wasn’t even Muslim, but rather a stereotypically inscrutable South Asian mystic. Add to this the ribald standup of Sam Kinnison.
When an American uses the term, it’s not a term of endearment, any more than “nigra” is in the South.
2 June 2006, 1:26 pmMichael:
Stan Goff’s post DID contain some spot-on observations. As someone who has worked with children of all ages for more than 12 years, I have had first-hand experience with how many children in our inner cities are raised. It’s true that in many instances progress has been made in terms of tolerance and acceptance for race, gender and sexual orientation differences.
At the same time with many this is NOT true. My experiences in the social services field tell me that there are MANY bad parents out there. More than ten years ago we all saw on the covers of Time and Newsweek the line “Kids having Kids”. I tell you first hand that most of those kids are so screwed up emotionally due to their upbringing (or lack of) that by the time you get to work with them at ages 8-12 the best you can hope for is moderate progress in terms of their aggression, emotional immaturity, academic failure, etc. If you haven’t started to work with them before 13 you might as well forget it because basically they’ve gone too far in the wrong direction and you can except that some part of the system will be dealing with them for the rest of their lives. If I had a dollar for every time I spoke to a parent after a fight involving one of their kids who told me, “MY SON AIN’T GONNA BE NO PUNK!”, I could retire today and move to a fine section of Paris.
Mr. Goff was on the money when he talked about kids being desensitized to violence and a general lack of empathy. Many of the kids I worked with exhibited a tendency toward racial intolerance and intolerance of gays. How many times did I hear FAG? The N-word?Their social skills were poor or nonexistent and they could not in a standard way interact with their peers. They did however watch R-rated gore movies and know everything there was to know about video games systems and the latest hip-hop tunes.
There is a real crisis going on in this country concerning the next wave of America’s children. They are raised on all the wrong things due to the fact in many cases Mom became a mom too early and was emotionally unprepared to deal with the enormous task of parenting. Dad was nowhere in the picture post-natal. Now Mom is 30 and realizing maybe if she’s sober that her life is passing her by so she wants A MAN. So what if he holds a knife to her throat in front of the kids or empties out her savings? The lower income sections of this country are rife with this. The kids were raised on MTV and bad movies and video games. They have NO sense of history or geography and many kids I worked with were functioning illiterates. No skills. No future.
I’m not saying that the Marines who seem to have done this thing in Haditha were a product of this environment. I’m saying that so many young people today learn ALL THE WRONG VALUES. I believe that is part of what Mr. Goff was saying. I genuinely shudder to think what would happen in the post-911 world should some of the kids I worked with receive military training.
2 June 2006, 6:51 pmLinda Jansen:
Okay, you folks heard about this guy right? Officer refusing orders to Iraq?
1st Lt. Ehren Watada was scheduled to make his first deployment to Iraq this month. His refusal to accompany the Stryker brigade troops puts him at risk of court martial and years of prison time.
“I feel that we have been lied to and betrayed by this administration,” Watada said Tuesday in a telephone interview from Fort Lewis. “It is the duty, the obligation of every soldier, and specifically the officers, to evaluate the legality, the truth behind every order — including the order to go to war.”
In a statement released today, Watada said the “war in Iraq violates our democratic system of checks and balances.
“It usurps international treaties and conventions that by virtue of the Constitution become American law. The wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of the Iraqi people with only limited accountability is not only a terrible moral injustice, but a contradiction to the Army’s own Law of Land Warfare. My participation would make me party to war crimes.”
In making his decision, Watada has reached out to peace groups, including clergy, students, some veterans opposed to Iraq and others. Some war critics are raising money for his legal defense as they seek to galvanize broader opposition to Bush administration policy in Iraq.
link to whole article: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003044627_nogo7m.html
very eloquent spokesperson. let’s hope the floodgates will start cracking open.
8 June 2006, 12:09 amTimothy R. Anderson:
Pushed to the other pages of the newspaper . .
Back when it was April 2006 , I kept a newspaper article about three U.S. Marines who were
” relieved ” of their commands in connection
with “problems ” they had over in Iraq .
They were allegedly some bad apples.
As of today, July 5, 2007 , I still have
no idea what became of these Marines .
I’ll type the article as a way of asking
for anyone’s help >>>>> please educate me !
” Three U.S. Marines have been relieved
of their commands in connection with problems
during their deployment to Iraq, including
their battalion’s actions during a firefight
that left 15 Iraqi civilians dead . ”
” No charges have been filed against the
three Marine officers , who were reassigned
to new duties within the division because of
a ‘ lack of confidence in their leadership
abilities , ‘ said Lt. Lawton King , spokesman for the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton
in California . ”
” Lt. King would not comment on the officers’
specific connection to the firefight , which
is being probed by the Naval Criminal
Investigative Service. ”
” ‘ There was no one justification
for the move. In fact, many considerations
factored into the decision to relieve
the commanders ‘ King said . ”
” The Marine officers are Lt. Col.
Jeffrey Chessani , Capt. James Kimber, and
Capt. Lucas McConnell . ”
source : The Fresno Bee newspaper,
Tuesday, April 11, 2006 .
So, please, please, please, tell me what
became of these three U.S. Marines .
Thanks, Tim
5 July 2007, 12:21 pm