War
…is an obscenity. Five years now, and countless lives immiserated, maimed, extinguished. George W. Bush today puffed up his chest and declared that the incalculable horror, the sustained anguish, the terrible sin that is the war he started in Iraq, “will be discussed by military historians for many years.” He’s right about that.
Military historians discuss a lot of pointless slaughters and social catastrophes created by men with weapons, and directed by men who fancy themselves as God.
War is not “an issue.”
War is an obscenity.
Da' Buffalo:
Daily, I find myself at a loss for words to describe how overwhelmingly disgusted and angry I am with Congress and the Senate for even CONSIDERING allowing GW Bush and his henchmen to rape Iraq, it’s culture and society, under pretenses they ABSOLUTELY KNEW were false, or at the very least had an inkling they were being mis-led.
The current (GRAPHIC!) header image/screenshot @ my site conveys one of the obscenities of war which I BLAME THEM DIRECTLY FOR, in ways words never can… It won’t stay up too long… Too heart-rending.
19 March 2008, 6:10 pmRobert Karaffa:
War is an obsenity, as are all the sub-war operations that go on all over the world. As I review the construction of the 40 newest bases constructed under the Condi/Neocon opportunist plan, I can at least take a small bit of consolation (with apropriate trepidation) that Haiti’s new US embassy is number 4 in cost behind Baghdad, China, and Germany; and in front of Mumbai. Beyond the other obvious factors, this shows me that they know that Lavalas cannot be contained (indeed cite soliel and other folks jumping into the Hotel Montana pool in front of the Provisional Electoral Council and Desmond Tutu are the reason that Preval is now president of Haiti if only by the 51% Bullshit). So this is a sign of hope for me.
Shoot the hell out of the slums. Kill thousands under a UN and US installed Regime umbrella with multinational troops doing “Containment Training” on these unspeakably abused people and call it a success for democracy and give a country like Haiti laud for making improvements in access for exploitation. You STILL WILL NOT KILL THE MOVEMENT in these circumstances. There were at LEAST 10,000 running in the street on 2/29 for the rarest of leap year opportunities to commemorate their protest of the removal of THEIR president. The Empire can and will do what it wants for sociopathic greed and ego. But these folks won’t quit. Therein lies the hope I speak of.
19 March 2008, 9:20 pmJosiah:
Even as BP is conducting negotiations with the “independent,” “sovereign” Iraqi Oil Ministry to offer “technical assistance” in developing the Rumaila oil field, one of the biggest in Iraq (and a proximate cause of Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait). Rumaila is supposed to contain as much as %15 of Iraq’s proven oil reserves, or around 18 billion barrels. Meanwhile, Chevron is moving in on a field in western Iraq, and Conoco and ExxonMobil, along with Total (evidently a benificiary of Sarkozy’s friendliness with the Bush administration) just “held talks” in Jordan with the Iraqi Oil Minister. Chevron is trying to convince Gazprom to swap a Saddam-era oil contract for one of Chevron’s Russian fields. The relationship between the national headquarters of the companies “negotiating” for biggest oil fields in Iraq, and that of the military forces occupying the country, is of course purely coincidental.
Even as, according to that Michael Schwarz article posted here a while back, this invasion and occupation have generated at least 4.5 million refugees inside and and outside of Iraq, in addition to (probably) over a million people killed in just five years.
Something tells me that none of these vultures are worried about the prospect of a Democrat getting elected in 2008. They know that these power relationships are just too deep to be dislodged by any cosmetic “phased withdrawal” under either Obama or Clinton.
…It makes me want to bang my head against a wall.
19 March 2008, 11:30 pmJosiah:
And the flipside of BP’s attempts to outmanuever Gazprom in Iraq is:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3a8d7d80-f5f2-11dc-8d3d-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
19 March 2008, 11:48 pmChrisD:
And a racket.
20 March 2008, 4:32 pmJosiah:
“They [American soldiers] drove over him with a tank…a 17 year old. And they shot a 28-year-old Christian boy, and the family they took him to the hospital. And, 4 in the morning, American soldiers, they went, stole him and for past 10 days his family don’t know where he is. They stole him, for the reason…because he was a witness.”
A Kurdish Iraqi woman describing some recent events in the neighborhood where her relatives are still living in Baghdad, at a protest outside Nancy Pelosi’s office in San Francisco last month:
http://www.archive.org/details/JoeyWilliams-KurdishIraqiWomanGenocideInIraqFeb172007476
21 March 2008, 9:09 ampeggy:
Maybe the most obscene thing about war, and the main thing that keeps it going, is that some people make a lot of money off it.
22 March 2008, 10:13 pmChris:
General Betray-Us is claiming that Iran was behind the recent attacks on the Green Zone. Far too many people are going to believe that Iran wants nothing more than to sabotage the most pro-Iranian regime that Iraq has ever had.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7311565.stm
24 March 2008, 11:52 amTimothy R. Anderson:
Is it any wonder that the 1,800 Days Long Plus Iraq War is happening at the same time that
2,500 REPORTED sexual assault cases per year are happening in the USA’s military ?
My source is the Associated Press : ” 2,688
cases of sexual assault were reported last year ; and 2,947 cases were reported the year before. ”
I am sickened by this. What’s more ” provocative ” , however , is the civilian population of the USA’s ongoing apathy
about ITS OWN military !
I am just saying, Tim R. Anderson
24 March 2008, 12:23 pmm.c.:
Peggy,
My two cents:
24 March 2008, 9:53 pmIn a professional volunteer military, esp. the officer corps(the disclaimer I’m giving is that the US Army is having difficulty retaining junior officers[O-1/O-3] who have done their 4-5 year commitments; don’t know about the Marines), war is good for advancement. My local paper just did a breakdown of the U.S. causulties in Iraq: 6 colonels & 24 lt. colonels killed (9% officers total) out of 4,000. I don’t know the number for junior officers & senior NCOs but if you can make it past say Company Command level & have combat experience(line officer) if you stay healthy, making rank is easier than in peacetime. Does this make War ethical? NO. But it can make for a bigger paycheck & maybe an invitation to a party at the White House, Army War College, D.C. Thinktank, Ivy League Univ. writing books, etc.
peggy:
M.C. I agree that, if you survive and are not driven insane by what you must do and see, combat experience provides you with many valuable skills. But don’t count too much on the money. You can make more as a skilled software writer, or even as a smart real estate agent.
25 March 2008, 1:03 amm.c.:
Yesterday I saw a car with the round US Marine Corps logo on the back windshield & Impeach Bush on the rear bumper. I did a doubletake to make sure I wasn’t imaging it. (Like that line in the Eagles song, “I saw a deadhead sticker on a cadillac.”)
Does anyone else notice that the Marine Corps logo is very similar to the NRA logo[round, red center, surrounded by a blue border]?
29 March 2008, 3:55 pmJanet W:
Yes, Stan, war IS an obscenity. And peace is a lifelong job.
On we go, one foot in front of another and one more scream of rage and grief stuffed back down our collective throats and our hands on the wheel or the keyboard or the phone or the bandage or the baby or the sobbing widow…
Aunt of a Marine lieutenant
30 March 2008, 11:45 pmTimothy R. Anderson:
from the Wednesday newspaper of a January not all that long ago………..
” President Bush’s plan to send additional troops to Iraq
is facing public opposition from a slice of the American
population that rarely speaks out : the military rank and file.”
” A group of American military servicemembers came to Washington D.C.’s Capitol Hill on Tuesday , armed with signatures
from more than 1, 000 American military personnel who oppose
the Iraq War. ”
” ‘ We will not be silent while thousands die , ‘ said Sgt. Liam Madden, a 22-year-old active-duty U.S. Marine and Iraq War veteran who is helping to lead the effort to organize
resistance to the Iraq War from inside the U.S. military. Madden and other American military servicemembers leading the campaign urged Congress to stop the troop escalation and
find a way to begin bringing forces home from Iraq. ”
” Madden and that group of American military servicemembers are calling their campaign ” Appeal For Redress. ” ”
source: news article,
written by Noam Levey ,
Wednesday, January 17 , 2007 .
typed in just to remind all-who-view-this that there are, right now, American military servicemembers who oppose the Iraq War …….
Tim A. , civilian.
15 April 2008, 1:35 pm