This past week in Iraq: Third week of January ‘08. Week 252 of the US$1 Trillion (that’s $1,000,000,000,000) illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq–Civilian deaths (an abridged selection):
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Posted in War | 7 Comments »The Washington Post news report A Soldiers’ Officer tells the story of 1st Lt. Elizabeth Whiteside, who is currently facing the threat of a court-martial. Ms. Whiteside is accused of attempting suicide and endangering the life of another soldier while serving in Iraq and could receive a sentence of life in prison if she is tried and convicted.
Words from the Wikipedia article on veterans day: heroes. honor. service. tribute. grateful nation. homage. solemnly remember. sacrifices. fought valiantly. preserve heritage of freedom. an enduring peace.
Words from George Bush’s speech today, on veterans day: good. noble. just. promise. sacrifice. honor. blessed. brave. service. valiantly. free. home. magnificent. proud. victory. safely.
why all these words? These words are being used to create/propogate a myth. By “myth” I mean “a traditional or sacred story that attempts to iterate, explain, or justify the thoughts and actions of a people”.
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For many people, 11 November is a very sad and poignant day. In the UK and other parts of the Commonwealth, Remembrance Day is an occasion when old soldiers are remembered and red poppies are sold in aid of veterans charities. Yet since the 1930s, peaceniks have been wearing an alternative white poppy to signify a rejection of the language of war and as hope for a better, more peaceful world.
This year I will also be wearing white, and at the same time I will be supporting charities which work with old veterans.
Posted in War | 2 Comments »A wee dose of another reality on this All Hallows’ Eve.
When one has no one left on the earth, neither father nor mother, neither brother nor sister, and when one is small, a little boy in a damned barbaric country where everyone slashes each other’s throats, what does one do? Of course, one becomes a child soldier, a small soldier, to get one’s fair share of eating and butchering as well. Only that remains.
-Ahmadou Kourouma, African writer
Human Rights watch estimates that there are 300,000 child soldiers worldwide, including thousands in Afghanistan and Iraq, where U.S. troops cannot fail to be required to kill them.
Posted in War | No Comments »I was moved by many of the things which David wrote in his lengthy response to Jim Baxter’s recent article. I wanted to repost some excerpts at the top of a new conversation. I would encourage you to read David’s entire response. The emphasis (bolded text) has been added by me. The questions at the end are from me.
Dear Mr. Baxter,
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Perhaps the better part of valor is not to respond. However, as I have learned through great difficulty in my life and as I have told others, allowing assertions with which I disagree to pass unanswered is the same as accepting them. The message to you, were I to leave this un-remarked, would be that I either approve of your message or I am afraid. My parents raised me to accept the authority of my elders. You are not only older than I, you have done things that probably required great bravery. I would guess you are a respectable person. However, my path toward becoming a peacenik began with the realization that my elders could not always be trusted and their word was not always true.
…
All of this is to say that much of my sadness for those who died from the A-bombing of Japan is completely separate from my feelings about the cause their country espoused. Likewise, my feeling that nuclear weapons are terrible and should never be used does not directly correlate to a sense that you or other soldiers should have had to risk their lives invading mainland Japan. I have seen the pictures. I have read the accounts of survivors. That informs my view the bombs were terrible and should never be used again. Hopefully annual reminders of them will preclude their use in the future. Tolling bells or fluttering doves seems a small price to pay for vigilance against a conflagration that could consume all the children.Read the rest of this news item »
Movie Review - Downfall
Friday, October 26th, 2007Downfall is an intense movie about Hitler’s last ten days in his Berlin Führerbunker. It is a powerful movie, in that he is depicted not as evil and hideous, but as a human being. Broken, defeated, hopeless, he treats his cook, his German Shepherd Blondi, his secretary Traudl Junge with kindness and sensitivity. On the eve of the film’s release, the German newspaper Bild posed the question: “Are we allowed to show the monster as a human being?” This is very thought provoking. If we allow ourselves to answer this question ‘yes’, we can’t continue residing in our safe, defined little world with Hitler and Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and everybody we dislike in the ‘bad’ category, and ourselves and those we like in the ‘good’. And that leads to some awful realizations about myself. By ordering my world in this black and white way, I am not allowing myself to see the goodness and loveliness God has infused throughout the world. As Halloween approaches and witches soar through the air on their brooms, I’ve been pondering the fact that two of the kindest, most loving people I know in all the world are witches. My simplistic dividing of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ had witches in the latter category. But does it really help my relating, my loving, my connecting, to be doing so much judging all the time?
How could the idea that every human being is made in God’s image and reflects God’s beauty impact your thinking about the world and your life?
I want to stress the importance in this discussion of NOT JUDGING others and the ideas they share. Thanks!!
I’m looking very forward to spending time with some of you at the BLOGGERS’ DINNER in just one week!
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Guest Column: Liberty & War
Thursday, October 25th, 2007This column was submitted by James Fletcher Baxter, Sgt. USMC, WW II and Korean War. Mr. Baxter will be available to respond to comments, so feel free to pose questions directly to him. We thank him for sharing his experiences and views with us.
Every September, I recall that is more than half a century (62 years) since I landed at Nagasaki with the 2nd Marine Division in the original occupation of Japan following World War II. This time every year, I have watched and listened to the light-hearted “peaceniks” and their light-headed symbolism-without-substance of ringing bells, flying pigeons, floating candles, and sonorous chanting and I recall again that “Peace is not a cause - it is an effect.”
In July, 1945, my fellow 8th RCT Marines [I was a BARman] and I returned to Saipan following the successful conclusion of the Battle of Okinawa. We were issued new equipment and replacements joined each outfit in preparation for our coming amphibious assault on the home islands of Japan.
B-29 bombing had leveled the major cities of Japan, including Kobe, Osaka, Nagoya, Yokohama, Yokosuka, and Tokyo.
We were informed we would land three Marine divisions and six Army divisions, perhaps abreast, with large reserves following us in. It was estimated that it would cost half a million casualties to subdue the Japanese homeland.
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Pro Israel?
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007My lovely mum posted this on her blog recently. For some context, Papaw and Mamaw were the pastor and pastor’s wife of what was basically the first ever Christian church that my family was involved with, when I was 10, 11, and 12 years old, ‘84 through ‘87.
Papaw told us an encouraging story when we visited him and Mamaw. He said that the church he fellowships with — I think it was called Cornerstone Baptist Church — began to fly not only the American flag and the Texas flag but also the Israeli flag. Since the Bible does speak a lot about Israel and the Jewish people being God’s chosen nation/people — they wanted to identify with/promote that Biblical idea. One day, though, someone burned their Israeli flag. This prompted all kinds of national and international media attention and the church was thus able to explain/expand on their position to an ever-widening circle of people. One person called and told them he would love to send them another Israeli flag, and yet another if the first one he sends gets burned.
According to the church’s pastor, the Rev. Bobby Herrel, Cornerstone Baptist began flying the Israeli flag last July to support the Israeli people during its conflict with Lebanon
How best to communicate to my lovely mum that the international community was outraged, in that particular Israel/Lebanon conflict, by Israel’s use of U.S. made cluster weapons, the use of which amounts to wide scale land mining of your enemies’ land, leading to large numbers of civilian casualties, especially of children, long after the hot conflict is over (40 years!!)? Yes, of course Hezbollah *also* failed to follow international law in that conflict. That hardly seems like a good reason to come out as pro Israel during the conflict. Most of the civilian casualties even during the hot conflict were Lebanese ~1000 dead Lebanese civilians, ~43 dead Israeli civlians. Wow this is a gruesome math. How can a Christian church be in favor of any of this? And if they must take sides, how is it that they take the side of the nation which was apparently far less careful about civilian deaths, both during and after the conflict? I’m guessing that the people in this church are … relatively normal, compassionate, people. How could they take such a position? How does the Muslim community in their town (Fort Worth, Texas) feel about them flying that Israeli flag, especially as it was in response to that particular Lebanese/Israeli conflict? I’m guessing that as a minority in a predominately white, Christian, American community, the Muslim community feels marginalized and put down in really painful ways all the time. Don’t the people of Cornerstone Baptist care about this? Do they know?
I really love my mum. And she represents some really big chunk of the American populace. Can they see this stuff? Can you see it? How to share it without automatically raising a wall? Maybe it’s impossible. Maybe I lack the social intelligence to accomplish it. Your thoughts, answers, questions, comments?
Posted in Nationalism, Racial Justice, United States, War | 6 Comments »
Quote for the day
Wednesday, October 17th, 2007Between 1979 and 1987, the Unites States armed, trained, and financially backed the military forces of the government of El Salvador, which over the same period carried out a policy of ongoing, systematic murder against the Salvadoran population. … I am speaking of the systematic murder of over seventy thousand men, women, and children who were noncombatants–journalists, priests, nuns, teachers, labor organizers, students, political figures, and others. Roughly one percent of El Salvador’s population was destroyed. Also as a direct result of United States actions, another seventy thousand civilians were similarly murdered during the same period by the military government of Guatemala. Finally, and again during the same period, the United States created a force of counterrevolutionaries (the “contras”) to overthrow the revolutionary Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The contras … deliberately attacked defenseless civilians, including old people, women, and children.It is true that the United States did not itself carry out the systematic murder in any of these countries. Yet it put the bullets and guns in the hands of the murderers, trained the murderers how to use them, and organized them for that end. The United States might just as well have pulled the triggers of the guns itself. What concerns me is that the people of the United States, like the people of Nazi Germany, allowed their government to do such a thing.From How Holocausts Happen: The United States in Central America by Douglas Porpora
Iraq body count has documented the violent deaths of 80,000 noncombatants (read: journalists, priests, nuns, teachers, labor organizers, students, political figures, and others) in Iraq during the U.S. unprovoked invasion and ongoing occupation of that nation since 2003.
So here are my questions:
Posted in Quote for the Day, United States, War, War Crimes, What can we do? | 11 Comments »
- To what extent were “normal” citizens of Nazi Germany responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews?
- To what extent were “normal” U.S. citizens responsible for the deaths of 150,000+ noncombatants in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua in the 1980’s.
- To what extent am I responsible for the deaths of 80,000 “normal” Iraqi’s over the last 54 months?
- Did you even *know* about the whole thing in South America in the 80’s? When did you learn about it? I was between 6 and 15 years old during the Reagan years. I’m really just learning about this now, and finding it pretty disturbing.
- Will we here in the U.S. ever even be able to stop killing people on such large scales? Or are we more or less doomed to never learn/never change? Why or why not?