Life in OUR America, Volume 2, The Livyjr Files Options

[jeffmoskin]

"Star Chamber", From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Star Chamber was an English court of law at the royal Palace of Westminster, so named because the court chamber had a pattern of stars on a dark blue background painted on its ceiling.

The Star Chamber evolved from meetings of the king's royal council, with its roots going back to the medieval period.

The court only became unusually powerful during the reign of Henry VII, when in 1487 the court became a separate judicial body from the king's council with a mandate to hear petitions of redress.

The Star Chamber was finally abolished in 1641 by the Long Parliament.

Initially well regarded because of its speed and flexibility, it was made up of Privy Councillors as well as common-law judges and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters.

In a sense the court was a supervisory body, overseeing the operations of lower courts, though its members could hear cases by direct appeal as well.

The court was set up to ensure the fair enforcement of laws against prominent people, those so powerful that ordinary courts could never convict them of their crimes.

Under the Tudors, the mandate of the court expanded to include instances of public disorder and rioting.

Judges would receive petitions involving property rights, public corruption, trade and government administration, and disputes arising from land enclosures.

Although the court could order torture, prison, and fines, it did not have the power to impose the death sentence.

Under the Tudors, Star Chamber sessions were public.

Under the leadership of Lords Chancellor Cardinal Wolsey and Archbishop Cranmer (1515-1529), the Court of Star Chamber became a political weapon for bringing actions against opponents to the decrees and edicts of Henry VIII.

Although the court was initially a court of appeal, Henry VIII and his councillors Wolsey and Cranmer encouraged plaintiffs to bring their cases directly to the Star Chamber, bypassing the lower courts entirely.

The power of the Court of Star Chamber grew considerably under the Stuarts, and by the time of Charles I it had become synonomous with misuse and abuse of power by the king and his circle.

James I and his son Charles used the court to examine cases of sedition, which meant that the court could be used to suppress opposition to royal policies.

It came to be used to try nobles too powerful to be brought to trial in the lower courts.

Court sessions were held in secret, with no indictments, no right of appeal, no juries, and no witnesses.

Evidence was presented in writing, and the verdict was whatever the Privy Council decided.

Charles I used the Court of Star Chamber as a sort of Parliamentary substitute during the years 1628-1640, when he refused to call Parliament.

On October 17, 1632, the Court of Star Chamber banned all "news books" over complaints from Spanish and Austrian diplomats that coverage of the Thirty Years' War in English newspapers was unfair.

Newspapers had to be printed in Amsterdam and then smuggled into the country until the ban was lifted six years later.

Charles I made extensive use of the Court of Star Chamber to persecute dissenters, including the Puritans who fled to New England.

Star Chamber proceedings were not only used to gain arbitrary convictions, but also arbitrary acquittals for guilty parties whom the crown wished to protect as well.

The abuses of the Star Chamber by Charles I were one of the rallying cries for those who eventually executed him.

(See the entry for John Lilburne).

In the early 1900s, Edgar Lee Masters wrote:

"In the Star Chamber the council could inflict any punishment short of death, and frequently sentenced objects of its wrath to the pillory, to whipping and to the cutting off of ears."

"... With each embarrassment to arbitrary power the Star Chamber became emboldened to undertake further usurpation."

"... The Star Chamber finally summoned juries before it for verdicts disagreeable to the government, and fined and imprisoned them."

"It spread terrorism among those who were called to do constitutional acts."

"It imposed ruinous fines."

"It became the chief defense of Charles against assaults upon those usurpations which cost him his life. ..."

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber

King Henry II (and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine) started the idea of the "Circuit Court." Rather than sitting as absolute monarchs on the throne, they dispatched judges to tour the countryside and resolve disputes.

http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/boo...tage/chap7.html

[no retreat, no s...]

Originally, the Iraq invasion was to be called "Operation Iraqi Liberation"

Until somebody figured out that the acronym was O.I.L.

I like it! I'm going to use that one!

[Abu Beacon]

[quote=Livyjr,Feb 15 2005, 07:57 PM]

And while George W. Bush is emptying OUR national tresury to pay for HIS HOLY WAR, what exactly are we getting for OUR money?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two good editorials in the home town newspaper this morning. It keeps alive the flickering flame of hope that some day ( soon I hope ) enough people will catch on to the idiocy and hypocrisy of George Bush.

This newspaper does not often criticize the man of Crawford, Texas and of Camp David. Even occasionally of the White House. The newspaper is the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the only really large daily in the area.

It leans more to the right which is somewhat surprising because Cleveland and all of N. E. Ohio is a firmly entrenched Democrat stronghold.

One editorial is promoting the idea of completely scrapping the Medicare Drug Prescription Bill which was a loser from day one, even when they lied about the cost which they said would be slightly under $ 400 Billion. Now it's $ 715 Billion. This is for a supposed 10 year period. The P.D. wants Congress to start over and completely revamp Medicare.

Fat chance.

Mr. Bush has claimed bragging rights for being the only president ever to help seniors with their prescription costs. ( His words ) Taking that away from him would not be easy. It may be best for America but that is not a good enough reason for him.

As a senior who regularly, every 90 days, sends in the neighborhood of $ 750.00, depending on the exchange rate at the time, to Canada for my prescriptions, you can be sure that I have some interest in a good R.X. bill.

The one we have now is not good.

I could get prescription drugs through the V. A. for far less but they do not stock the medications which I take. There are substitutes of course, but they are medicines I used years ago and frankly are not as effective.

The second editorial was one commending U.S. Senator Voinovich from Ohio for telling the White House he was not giong to support the president's wish to make the tax cuts permanent.

Senator Voinovich, Republican, has been tremendously popular in Ohio and even
here in North East Ohio where Dems usually win. At one time he was mayor of Cleveland and did a fine job, especially after succeeding Dennis Kucinich who had put the city in default. ( Not all Dennis's fault, but that's another story )

My only dissatisfaction with Voinovich was - he has been playing nice boy for the party and going along with George Bush's pandering to the right wing base.

Perhaps, now, along with other news stories which indicate many other Republicans are not blindly following the president who knows what's best for all of the rest of us, is an indication we might see some responsible leadership in Congress coming.

We can hope.

A.B.

[jeffmoskin]

Senator Voinovich, Republican,  has been tremendously popular in Ohio and even
here in North East Ohio where Dems usually win. At one time he was mayor of Cleveland and did a fine job, especially after succeeding Dennis Kucinich who had put the city in default. ( Not all Dennis's fault, but that's another story )

I really liked Kucinich during the primaries, but hey - it's Television.

What do you think of him? Is he a fraud?

You're a Buckeye.

[Livyjr]

And right here, right now, I want to make a positive post to the men of my own "community", here in OUR America, who served in some large part to make up the memories of my own life, in what I would call my own formative years; memories that have sustained me now for some fifty years or better!

These men in this following article are real people!

They are men of A.B.'s generation, who, like A.B., went off to war for a cause that they believed in, and so, with right on their sides, IN THAT STRUGGLE, they prevailed!

From the earliest moments of my life, I was surrounded by men such as these, and my "values" were instilled in me, BY MEN SUCH AS THESE, and many others just like them, men back from HELL, itself, like Marty Mahar in this article!

"Stand up straight, son, don't slouch; what kind of child do you want people thinking your mother raised?"

That's all they had to say, and so, that is what they said; and you heeded those words, because you could see the man behind them lived them, before he spoke them to you, and, so you did what he said!

Leading by example.

I cannot say that I personally know each of these men, but I do know Mr. Marty Mahar, and so, I can vouch for the example that he has been to me, in my own life.

If Marty Mahar could come back here after Iwo Jima, and find a way to cope with life over here, after war, then I as a Viet Nam veteran would do the same, in his image!

That I can shake Marty Mahar's hand to this day, to me, is quiet advice to me to keep living life the way that I have these last fifty or so years, now.

SO!

Continuity!

Not a bad thing, at all!

And that to me is what MY America is all about, and on this day, I just wanted to share that with all of you out there in OUR America, and with the candid world as well, who watches and waits, to see who we in OUR America shall end up being; friend or foe!

And that is up to us.

As for me, like these men in this article to follow, I finally have come to peace, here on this earth of ours, and so, I am foe to no one!

Read on:

"Iwo Jima veterans recall eight square miles of hell"

By CAROL DeMARE, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Friday, February 18, 2005

Albany -- A young corporal from Troy was with the first wave of Marines to hit the beaches of Iwo Jima at 9 a.m. on a Monday 60 years ago.

After weeks of U.S. bombing of the tiny Pacific island, the time had finally come to take it.

On Thursday, Marty Mahar, who was a corporal and combat infantryman, and five other veterans of the Marines' 5th Division recalled Feb. 19, 1945, in bone-chilling detail.

"It looked like a rock to me, that volcanic island," the 81-year-old Mahar recalled thinking as his landing craft moved in toward the beach.

They hit it at 8:59, a minute early.

Some 30,000 Marines went in that first day.

Ben Ravida, 79, of Albany, remembered the terrain.

"There were terraces of volcanic ash, everything was sinking in, the trucks were sinking."

"The island was only eight square miles," said Ravida, a corporal with the artillery.

But Jima had three airstrips, and that made the taking of the island strategically crucial to continue bombing raids on mainland Japan.

All but one of the local men interviewed Thursday said they stormed Iwo within the first hours of the assault.

The sixth, Jim Burns, 82, of Niskayuna, a sergeant reconnaissance photographer, took pictures from the sea of the foreboding island, part of the Japanese Empire, 660 miles south of Tokyo.

The men will never forget the thrill of seeing the American flag raised atop 550-foot Mount Suribachi, a volcano, on Friday, Feb. 23, 1945, four days after the landing.

Some saw both flags go up.

The smaller one went up first, followed by a second flag-raising that was memorialized by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal and put the Marines on the military map forever.

The vets recalled the sensation of seeing B-29 Superfortress bombers land on the island's large airstrip, Motoyama Airfield No. 1, after it was taken from the Japanese.

"We took the airstrip on the third day, and four or five days later the first planes landed," Mahar said.

"They had been ditching them in the ocean."

Bill Close, 66, of the Marine Corps League of Albany, served from 1956 to 1960 and has studied the importance of the battle of Iwo Jima.

"B-29s were flying from Saipan, trying to make bombing raids on Japan, 1,200 miles away, but it was too long; pilots were crashing into the ocean, running out of gas," he said.

"Iwo was 600 miles from Japan."

Burns added, "The planes could refuel (in Iwo) and continue on, and in addition those planes that had mechanical trouble (or had been shot) could land there."

Once the first airstrip was taken and reconditioned, it also was used for fighter planes that escorted the bombers, Burns said.

The World War II veterans had gathered at the Albany home of Ted Yund, 84, who was a second lieutenant, to reminisce about the battle in which nearly 7,000 Americans died and more than 26,000 were wounded.

Altogether, 60,000 Americans participated in the fighting that began Feb. 19 and ended March 16.

Some 27 Medals of Honor were awarded.

More than 19,000 Japanese died during the 36 days of fighting.

Yund, who worked in graphic arts, and his wife, Grace, reared 14 children, and have been the hosts for many gatherings of Iwo Jima veterans.

This weekend in Washington, D.C., those who fought in the battle will commemorate the 60th anniversary.

Mahar, a retired letter carrier and former Troy mayor, will be there.

On Feb. 25 at Stratton Veterans Administration Hospital, the veterans will have their annual re-enactment of the flag-raising at 9 a.m.

The Marine Corps League sponsors it.

Yund hit the beach at 2 p.m. that first day.

"I had a premonition when I got up to the front -- so to speak; all the place was a front -- I would be killed or wounded," he said.

"Thank God I was wounded."

He was hit in the lower abdomen and his right leg was broken.

Mahar was wounded on the 13th day; he was shot in the back of the head and lost his right ear.

Burns lost an eye.

"It was hell," Yund said.

"It was just agonizing."

"You just hoped and prayed that you'd live through the day and night."

"It was scary."

"Shells were going off."

"People were dying next to you."

The island looked deserted, but 20,000 Japanese were "all living underground," Yund said.

The Japanese "built an underground city" with tunnels, Close said.

"They even had a field hospital underground."

Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi knew the island was his last stand and that he would never see his beloved Tokyo again.

He took his own life.

Al Huba, 86, of Guilderland, a telephone company retiree, remembers leaving from Hilo, Hawaii, on New Year's Eve.

The Marines weren't told their mission, but they had an inkling.

The day before the invasion, with the armada docked in Saipan harbor, the voice of Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal came over the speakers, recalled Huba, an artillery sergeant.

Forrestal was with the fleet, and announced that the objective was Iwo Jima.

He told us "our bombers were running out of gas, being shot up and we were losing them," Huba recalled.

Tony Ravida, 87, of Albany, Ben's brother, went onto the island around noon.

"From a distance, that mountain looked terrible," he remembered in a telephone interview.

He was with a communications unit and saw the flag-raising.

"We saw the men climbing up and the men pushing the pole up and the wind taking the flag and blowing it back, and we all cheered like mad, of course," Tony Ravida said.

"Then we got back in our foxholes; they were still fighting," he said.

"I saw it right after it went up," Yund said.

"I was working the beach area at the time, and out of nowhere I heard this screaming and yelling, and everybody was looking toward the mountain, Suribachi, and that's when I saw the flag."

Huba was on the airfield, firing.

He said, "I heard the bells and whistles, and we didn't know what was going on, and we looked back and saw the first flag around 10:30 a.m."

"The bells came from the 200-plus ships in the harbor."

An officer wanted the first flag to stay with the 28th Regiment, so he sent for another flag from a ship.

The second flag, which was 56 inches by 96 inches, went up about 2:30 p.m.

Marines took a pipe, shot holes in it so they could tie the flag, and then hoisted it.

Rosenthal was there.

Mahar was on the airfield and couldn't hear the cheering.

"My buddy from Troy said, 'We must have taken Suribachi, because the flag is flying.' "

Ben Ravida called the flag "a morale-booster; everybody went gung-ho."

"I heard a roar and we looked and we went crazy."

"The flag was up."

"I thought that was the end of the war."

"Was I wrong!"

[Livyjr]

And while George W. Bush is emptying OUR national treasury to pay for HIS HOLY WAR, what exactly are we getting for OUR money?

Two good editorials in the home town newspaper this morning.

It keeps alive the flickering flame of hope that some day ( soon I hope ) enough people will catch on to the idiocy and hypocrisy of George Bush.

This newspaper does not often criticize the man of Crawford, Texas and of Camp David. Even occasionally of the White House.

The newspaper is the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the only really large daily in the area.

My only dissatisfaction with Voinovich was - he has been playing nice boy for the party and going along with George Bush's pandering to the right wing base.

Perhaps, now, along with other news stories which indicate many other Republicans are not blindly following the president, who knows what's best for all of the rest of us, is an indication we might see some responsible leadership in Congress coming.

We can hope.

A.B.

A.B., I'll tell you what I think makes the difference with people such as this Mr. Voinovich, AND THAT IS PEOPLE LIKE YOU COMING INTO AN INTERNATIONAL FORUM SUCH AS THIS ONE IS, and speaking his name out loud, AND THEN, cut and paste your post about him over through http://www.congress.org and right into Mr. Voinovich's personal mailbox, to let him know that you have spoken his name out loud for all the candid world to hear!

People like you with the courage of your convictions, A.B., are the catalyst for change here in OUR America, because you are venerable!

You can speak with your voice, where I would be but an imitation, and a poor one at that!

SO!

God Bless You, A.B., and keep being the positive example to the rest of us "young-uns" that you have been throughout here!

And I personally am glad, A.B. that you are a part of this forum!

Your presence makes all the difference in the world to me, and that is a great thing, A.B., a great thing indeed, for young people need good older people in their lives, and the old folks of your generation, A.B., are getting harder and harder to find!

I just lost three myself, in this last week!

And so!

I know!

[Livyjr]

And after reading this following, I have to say that Howard Dean is starting out a winner with me, with his words in this article on what "defense" is or is not!

And for a real live definition of what "smarmy" is all about, check out this Richard Perle character!

If there ever was a walking, talking manifestion of what smarmy is all about, HE IS IT, AND BIG TIME!

U.S. National - AP

"Protester Throws Shoe at Richard Perle"

Fri Feb 18,10:43 AM ET U.S. National - AP

By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press Writer

PORTLAND, Ore. - Howard Dean, the newly minted leader of the Democratic Party, and former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle made clear their opposing views on the war in Iraq during a debate marred by a protester who tossed a shoe at Perle.

Perle had just started his comments Thursday when a protester threw a shoe at him before being dragged away, screaming, "Liar! Liar!"

Perle, a Pentagon official during the Reagan administration, was more recently chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a group of non-government experts who advise the defense secretary.

He was a major proponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, while Dean was among the war's most prominent opponents.

In his new role as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Dean has stressed that Democrats are stronger than Republicans on defense.

"Defense is a lot broader than swaggering around saying you're going to kick Saddam's butt," Dean said Thursday, drawing cheers from the crowd in this city that overwhelmingly voted Democratic last November.

Perle said the war in Iraq was justified based on the intelligence available at the time.

"Sometimes the things we have to do are objectionable to others," he said.

Dean also said the Bush administration has ignored the mounting threat in Iran and North Korea.

"We picked the low hanging fruit in Iraq and did nothing" about the other, more dangerous regimes, he said.

Perle had his own barbs, too.

He began his opening comments in the 1 1/2-hour debate by saying Democrats "looked at the Democratic Party and chose a physician to lead them."

Perle was forced by one of the questioners to recast a comment he made on Sept. 22, 2003, in which he predicted that within one year, there would be "a grand square in Baghdad named for President Bush."

"I'd be a fool not to recognize that it did not happen on the schedule I had in mind," Perle said, adding that he did not deny that the administration had made mistakes in Iraq.

But, Perle added, "I will be surprised, yet again, if we do not see a square in Baghdad named after this president."

He did not specify a time.

Dean became chairman of the DNC earlier this month.

The former governor of Vermont had been leading the race for the Democratic presidential nomination but failed last January in the Iowa caucuses.

His candidacy sparked interest among young voters and attracted millions of dollars, largely through the Internet.

Thursday's debate was part of the annual forum held by Pacific University to honor Tom McCall, a former Republican governor of Oregon.

[Livyjr]

And for a real live definition of what "smarmy" is all about, check out this Richard Perle character!

If there ever was a walking, talking manifestion of what smarmy is all about, HE IS IT, AND BIG TIME!

U.S. National - AP

"Protester Throws Shoe at Richard Perle"

Fri Feb 18,10:43 AM ET  U.S. National - AP

By RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press Writer

PORTLAND, Ore. - Howard Dean, the newly minted leader of the Democratic Party, and former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle made clear their opposing views on the war in Iraq during a debate marred by a protester who tossed a shoe at Perle.

Perle, a Pentagon official during the Reagan administration, was more recently chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a group of non-government experts who advise the defense secretary.

He was a major proponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, while Dean was among the war's most prominent opponents.

In his new role as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Dean has stressed that Democrats are stronger than Republicans on defense.

"Defense is a lot broader than swaggering around saying you're going to kick Saddam's butt," Dean said Thursday, drawing cheers from the crowd in this city that overwhelmingly voted Democratic last November.

Perle said the war in Iraq was justified based on the intelligence available at the time.

"Sometimes the things we have to do are objectionable to others," he said.

And how about this Dick Perle character, will you now!

"Sometimes the things we have to do are objectionable to others," he said.

And well, Dick, YES, THEY ARE!

The lying, for example!

I did find that quite objectionable, if truth can now be told on that subject!

Too many lies!

WAY too many lies, at least for me, anyway!

SO!

Yes, Dick, you are right when you say that what you and your crowd have been doing IS QUITE OBJECTIONABLE!

IT IS!

And there is probably the one place that no one here in OUR America can argue with you!

Everything you have done, everything you have touched; it all seems to be coated with some kind of excrement; some film of slime, and that is probably the residue of all the lies that you told us, so that you could get access to OUR National Treasury, to empty it, to your benefit, and that of your NEW CON cronies!

Very objectionable, indeed!

In fact, it just plain smells, Dick, and so, thank you for your candor, here!

It has been refreshing, in the end, to hear you finally admit the truth of the matter, for all the candid world to hear, and make note of, for the record!

And will this campaign of lies that you folks are waging against the honest citizens of OUR America ever end, Dick?

Before you leave the podium, here in OUR America, could you please answer us that?

We are waiting with bated breath for your words on that subject: WHEN ARE THE LIES EVER GOING TO END?

[jeffmoskin]

As for me, like these men in this article to follow, I finally have come to peace, here on this earth of ours, and so, I am foe to no one!

Read on:

"Iwo Jima veterans recall eight square miles of hell" 
 
By CAROL DeMARE, Staff writer, Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Friday, February 18, 2005

Albany -- A young corporal from Troy was with the first wave of Marines to hit the beaches of Iwo Jima at 9 a.m. on a Monday 60 years ago.

After weeks of U.S. bombing of the tiny Pacific island, the time had finally come to take it.

On Thursday, Marty Mahar, who was a corporal and combat infantryman, and five other veterans of the Marines' 5th Division recalled Feb. 19, 1945, in bone-chilling detail.

"It looked like a rock to me, that volcanic island," the 81-year-old Mahar recalled thinking as his landing craft moved in toward the beach.

They hit it at 8:59, a minute early.

Some 30,000 Marines went in that first day.

Ben Ravida, 79, of Albany, remembered the terrain.

"There were terraces of volcanic ash, everything was sinking in, the trucks were sinking."

"The island was only eight square miles," said Ravida, a corporal with the artillery.

But Jima had three airstrips, and that made the taking of the island strategically crucial to continue bombing raids on mainland Japan.

All but one of the local men interviewed Thursday said they stormed Iwo within the first hours of the assault.

The sixth, Jim Burns, 82, of Niskayuna, a sergeant reconnaissance photographer, took pictures from the sea of the foreboding island, part of the Japanese Empire, 660 miles south of Tokyo.

The men will never forget the thrill of seeing the American flag raised atop 550-foot Mount Suribachi, a volcano, on Friday, Feb. 23, 1945, four days after the landing.

Some saw both flags go up.

The smaller one went up first, followed by a second flag-raising that was memorialized by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal and put the Marines on the military map forever.

The vets recalled the sensation of seeing B-29 Superfortress bombers land on the island's large airstrip, Motoyama Airfield No. 1, after it was taken from the Japanese.

"We took the airstrip on the third day, and four or five days later the first planes landed," Mahar said.

"They had been ditching them in the ocean."

Bill Close, 66, of the Marine Corps League of Albany, served from 1956 to 1960 and has studied the importance of the battle of Iwo Jima.

"B-29s were flying from Saipan, trying to make bombing raids on Japan, 1,200 miles away, but it was too long; pilots were crashing into the ocean, running out of gas," he said.

"Iwo was 600 miles from Japan."

Burns added, "The planes could refuel (in Iwo) and continue on, and in addition those planes that had mechanical trouble (or had been shot) could land there."

Once the first airstrip was taken and reconditioned, it also was used for fighter planes that escorted the bombers, Burns said.

The World War II veterans had gathered at the Albany home of Ted Yund, 84, who was a second lieutenant, to reminisce about the battle in which nearly 7,000 Americans died and more than 26,000 were wounded.

Altogether, 60,000 Americans participated in the fighting that began Feb. 19 and ended March 16.

Some 27 Medals of Honor were awarded.

More than 19,000 Japanese died during the 36 days of fighting.

Yund, who worked in graphic arts, and his wife, Grace, reared 14 children, and have been the hosts for many gatherings of Iwo Jima veterans.

This weekend in Washington, D.C., those who fought in the battle will commemorate the 60th anniversary.

Mahar, a retired letter carrier and former Troy mayor, will be there.

On Feb. 25 at Stratton Veterans Administration Hospital, the veterans will have their annual re-enactment of the flag-raising at 9 a.m.

The Marine Corps League sponsors it.

Yund hit the beach at 2 p.m. that first day.

"I had a premonition when I got up to the front -- so to speak; all the place was a front -- I would be killed or wounded," he said.

"Thank God I was wounded."

He was hit in the lower abdomen and his right leg was broken.

Mahar was wounded on the 13th day; he was shot in the back of the head and lost his right ear.

Burns lost an eye.

"It was hell," Yund said.

"It was just agonizing."

"You just hoped and prayed that you'd live through the day and night."

"It was scary."

"Shells were going off."

"People were dying next to you."

The island looked deserted, but 20,000 Japanese were "all living underground," Yund said.

The Japanese "built an underground city" with tunnels, Close said.

"They even had a field hospital underground."

Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi knew the island was his last stand and that he would never see his beloved Tokyo again.

He took his own life.

Al Huba, 86, of Guilderland, a telephone company retiree, remembers leaving from Hilo, Hawaii, on New Year's Eve.

The Marines weren't told their mission, but they had an inkling.

The day before the invasion, with the armada docked in Saipan harbor, the voice of Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal came over the speakers, recalled Huba, an artillery sergeant.

Forrestal was with the fleet, and announced that the objective was Iwo Jima.

He told us "our bombers were running out of gas, being shot up and we were losing them," Huba recalled.

Tony Ravida, 87, of Albany, Ben's brother, went onto the island around noon.

"From a distance, that mountain looked terrible," he remembered in a telephone interview.

He was with a communications unit and saw the flag-raising.

"We saw the men climbing up and the men pushing the pole up and the wind taking the flag and blowing it back, and we all cheered like mad, of course," Tony Ravida said.

"Then we got back in our foxholes; they were still fighting," he said.

"I saw it right after it went up," Yund said.

"I was working the beach area at the time, and out of nowhere I heard this screaming and yelling, and everybody was looking toward the mountain, Suribachi, and that's when I saw the flag."

Huba was on the airfield, firing.

He said, "I heard the bells and whistles, and we didn't know what was going on, and we looked back and saw the first flag around 10:30 a.m."

"The bells came from the 200-plus ships in the harbor."

An officer wanted the first flag to stay with the 28th Regiment, so he sent for another flag from a ship.

The second flag, which was 56 inches by 96 inches, went up about 2:30 p.m.

Marines took a pipe, shot holes in it so they could tie the flag, and then hoisted it.

Rosenthal was there.

Mahar was on the airfield and couldn't hear the cheering.

"My buddy from Troy said, 'We must have taken Suribachi, because the flag is flying.' "

Ben Ravida called the flag "a morale-booster; everybody went gung-ho."

"I heard a roar and we looked and we went crazy."

"The flag was up."

"I thought that was the end of the war."

"Was I wrong!"

From time to time, I run into an 82 year old doctor who was on a hospital ship (7th fleet) just off shore. He only saw the injured marines who were hale and hardy enough to be evacuated off island.

An earlier post about the author James Bradley whose father was a doc ON the island recalled that all he could was give comfort to the dying.

My friend, Dick, said that after a while, he worked like a mechanic fixing cars, not making an emotional connection with the horrors of war much less the insanity of it. He just did his job, and he undoubtedly saved a lot of lives.

War IS madness. Once started, however, the options for a successful exit start to disappear.

Look at Iwo Jima: 4,189 Marines were killed and 19,938 wounded.

Unbelievable.

And yet, the Japanese were dug in underground, and we needed the three airfield on that stinking island as a launching pad for the assault on Japan.

Was it worth it? Who knows?


"Victory was never in doubt. Its cost was." - Marine Major General Graves Erskine, March 14, 1945

[Livyjr]

And how about this Dick Perle character, will you now!

"Sometimes the things we have to do are objectionable to others," he said.

And well, Dick, YES, THEY ARE!

The lying, for example!

I did find that quite objectionable, if truth can now be told on that subject!

Too many lies!

WAY too many lies, at least for me, anyway!

SO!

Yes, Dick, you are right when you say that what you and your crowd have been doing IS QUITE OBJECTIONABLE!

IT IS!

WAR!

It just is good business, and so, we have it!

In fact, the other day, I caught a radio news item that related the increase in jobs in OUR America directly to the Bush Co. war budget.

SO!

We need war!

And the bet of many people that I talk with in the veteran's side of things think we are going to have more!

Much more!

And here it is starting, right before OUR eyes!

Iraq redux!

World - Reuters

"Lebanese Opposition Demands 'Independence Uprising'"

2 hours, 11 minutes ago

By Alistair Lyon

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Opposition figures urged the Lebanese to join an "independence uprising" against Syria's grip on their country Friday, escalating a war of words following former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri's assassination.

Hariri's killing in Beirut Monday sparked anti-Syrian fury among many Lebanese and renewed world pressure on Damascus to loosen its political grip and remove its troops from Lebanon.

Tourism Minister Farid al-Khazen resigned in a further sign of political turbulence and Syria named a new military intelligence chief.

Khazen, a Maronite Christian, became the first minister to quit because of the assassination and said he had done so because the Syrian-backed government was unable to "remedy the dangerous situation in the country.

"There is no substitute for national dialogue on the basis of the Taif agreement," he said, referring to the deal that ended the 1975-1990 civil war and committed Syria to moving the troops it keeps in Lebanon to the eastern Bekaa Valley.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and figures from the disparate opposition movement blamed the government and its Syrian backers for Hariri's death and called for its resignation.

After meeting Friday, they urged Lebanese to back a peaceful "independence uprising" -- the first time they had used the term.

Parliament must also suspend all debate unrelated to the assassination, they told a news conference, until the truth about who killed Hariri emerged.

"This isn't just the opposition," Jumblatt earlier told reporters.

"All the Lebanese are with Hariri, a free Lebanon and Syrian withdrawal."

Hariri moved toward a similar position in the months before his death.

It was not immediately clear what form of protest the uprising would take.

Protesters set fire to the tents of Syrian farm workers near the northern town of Tripoli, the latest attack on Syrians in Lebanon.

No injuries were reported.

BACK TO BUSINESS

Traffic jams returned to Beirut streets Friday after three days of mourning for the Sunni Muslim billionaire.

"We ask the state to unveil the perpetrators ... and not to close the file of the martyred Hariri along with the long list of other unresolved crimes," Sheikh Ahmed al-Kurdi told worshippers in a downtown mosque near where Hariri was buried.

Lebanese of all religious beliefs have flocked to Hariri's grave to bring flowers and light candles since his funeral on Wednesday turned into a mass anti-Syrian street protest.

Several hundred people marched toward the grave Friday evening shouting independence slogans.

Financial markets were busy but mostly stable on their first trading day since Hariri's death, despite tension and President Bush's latest demand for Syria to pull out its 14,000 troops.

The Lebanese pound closed unchanged, but the central bank had to sell dollars, as it had pledged to do, to defend the currency against pressure from jittery investors.

Shares in the Hariri-founded Solidere real estate company, Lebanon's biggest firm, fell the maximum 15 percent allowed.

Officials said President Emile Lahoud had finally gone to pay condolences to Hariri's relatives, who had refused to let him or other top officials attend Wednesday's funeral.

He told them he would do all he could to find the culprits, a statement from his office said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad named his brother-in-law, Major-General Asef Shawkat, as head of military intelligence to replace retiring Major-General Hassan Khalil.

Syrian sources said the change took effect Monday, Khalil's 60th birthday.

In August, Assad issued a decree barring the extension of service terms of all officers in the armed forces.

Bush said Thursday Syria should comply with a U.N. resolution demanding its troops leave Lebanon and should allow parliamentary elections scheduled for May to be free and fair.

He recalled the U.S. ambassador to Syria this week in reaction to the bombing, but has said Washington does not know who was behind the killing.

Syria has denied involvement.

[jeffmoskin]

Hariri's killing in Beirut Monday sparked anti-Syrian fury among many Lebanese and renewed world pressure on Damascus to loosen its political grip and remove its troops from Lebanon.

I don't know if anybody saw the photos in the Corporate Propaganda Media (formerly known as MSM), but the blast left a crater the size of a large swimming pool.

570 sticks of dynamite, I heard.

Now, RDX is a MUCH more powerful explosive, 380 TONS of which are now "unaccounted for" as a result of Ronald Dumsfeld"s cavalier policies during the initial invasion phase of Iraq. Even though the UN weapons inspection team had reported the exact location and the contents of that particular munitions bunker, Dummy didn't think it important enough to secure. Within 48 hours, its contents were GONE.

[Livyjr]

From time to time, I run into an 82 year old doctor who was on a hospital ship (7th fleet) just off shore. 

He only saw the injured marines who were hale and hardy enough to be evacuated off island.

An earlier post about the author James Bradley whose father was a doc ON the island recalled that all he could was give comfort to the dying.

My friend, Dick, said that after a while, he worked like a mechanic fixing cars, not making an emotional connection with the horrors of war much less the insanity of it.

He just did his job, and he undoubtedly saved a lot of lives.

War IS madness.

Once started, however, the options for a successful exit start to disappear.

Look at Iwo Jima: 4,189 Marines were killed and 19,938 wounded.

Unbelievable.

And yet, the Japanese were dug in underground, and we needed the three airfield on that stinking island as a launching pad for the assault on Japan.

Was it worth it?

Who knows?

"Victory was never in doubt. Its cost was." - Marine Major General Graves Erskine, March 14, 1945

Was it worth it?

A question that can never be answered, jeffmoskin, I fear, for as you say, once war has started, the options rapidly disappear; live or die is about all that is left, once the fancy boys have started the show!

In that case of Iwo Jima, the fancy boys were the Japanese, and it is interesting that they so resemble the Bush Co.'s of today, here in OUR America.

There is a book floating around out there entitled "The Tunnels of Cu Chi", and that is the area of Viet Nam that I was in, and these tunnels are a visitor's attraction today in Viet Nam, I am told.

As I understand it, there were over seventy miles of tunnels in that area, and God alone knows how many Vietnamese were down in them, basically in an impregnable position, because bombs couldn't really do much damage to the tunnels, and we were too big to get down in there, to go after them.

And out they would come, to have their way with us, and then "POOF", they would be gone!

"Visit the Vietcong's World: Americans Welcome"

By Seth Mydans, New York Times, July 7, 1999

CU CHI, Vietnam -- The rattle and pop of automatic weapons greet a visitor.

Young women in the black pajamas of the Vietcong flit through the woods.

A man in green fatigues picks his way down a narrow trail, leading a small platoon of foreign tourists.

This is the site of the Cu Chi tunnels, one of the most famous battlegrounds of the Vietnam War.

Today it is one of the country's prime tourist attractions, part of a new industry of war tourism.

Sometimes, these spots seem to be memorials to wartime propaganda as much to the war itself.

Following the man in green fatigues, the tourists arrive at an open-sided hut, where the women in black show them to their seats.

There, on a big-screen television set, the Vietnam War plays on: B-52's drop strings of bombs, villagers run for cover, communist guerrillas fight back.

For those who still don't get the message, a narrator says:

"Cu Chi, the land of many gardens, peaceful all year round under shady trees ..."

"Then mercilessly American bombers have ruthlessly decided to kill this gentle piece of countryside ..."

"Like a crazy bunch of devils they fired into women and children ..."

"The Americans wanted to turn Chu Chi into a dead land, but Cu Chi will never die."

Knitting past and present jarringly together, the gunfire in the film mingles with that of the nearby firing range, where visitors can pay $1 a bullet to shoot an AK-47 rifle.

Since the war ended in 1975 with a communist victory, Vietnam has rebuilt and moved on.

It is almost impossible to find anyone who still talks like the soundtrack of the Cu Chi film.

Even the young women in black, who work as guides and ground keepers, dismiss the hard language, repeating instead today's government line:

We're all friends.

But in their new struggle for foreign currency, the Vietnamese are exploiting their harsh history, offering visits to long-forgotten places that were once considered vital to America's national interests.

Most of the visitors here are foreigners; the Vietnamese who come are mostly schoolchildren with their teachers.

The Cu Chi tunnels, a 75-mile-long underground maze where thousands of fighters and villagers could hide, are at the top of the list of tourist spots for Ho Chi Minh City, 45 miles to the southeast.

Another is the city's Museum of War Remnants, with its displays of captured weapons and its catalog of horrors, which only recently amended its name, with changing times, from the Museum of American War Crimes.

Hue, the ancient capital, familiar to many Americans as the scene of heavy fighting in the Tet offensive in 1968, is the hub of a network of war tours.

Streetside kiosks offer lists of attractions: "Khe Sanh, Dong Ha, Marble Mountain, China Beach, bombed-out church, DMZ with statue of Ho Chi Minh."

Even the site of the American massacre at My Lai has been turned into something of a theme park, with a cemetery, museum, professional storytellers and a memorial reading, "Forever hate the American invaders."

There are plans to develop the DMZ -- the wartime demilitarized zone separating the north and the south -- as well as parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, neither of which now offer much for tourists to see.

Many of the visitors to these sites, like most of their guides, are too young to remember the war.

Relatively few tourists come from the United States.

For most people who come here, the war is a distant curiosity.

But for the last few years, since travel to Vietnam became more open, groups of American veterans have come in search of remembered battlefields.

A small number of American tour companies specialize in guiding them and gaining permission to visit remote areas.

"They get a feeling of closure; that's the big benefit of going back as a veteran," said Richard Schonberger, director of veterans programs at a travel agency in Washington called Global Spectrum.

"We left suddenly," he said.

"Now you know how the story ended."

"All the Vietnamese are very friendly."

"It's a different country now."

That can be disorienting, said Chuck Searcy, the Hanoi representative of Vietnam Veterans of America, which now runs prosthetics and rehabilitation programs.

"Everything has changed," Searcy said.

"Almost every time, the vets are disappointed."

"They can't figure out where anything was: Was it here or was it that hill over there?"

"That piece of rusted metal was the gate to a big army base."

"You go to Long Binh: It's an export-processing zone now."

One American tour company uses a global positioning satellite to pinpoint battle locations for its clients, said Paulette Curtis, a graduate student in social anthropology at Harvard who is studying returning veterans.

"I've been to Hill 10, Hill 37, Hill 55 and Hill 65," she said, naming old battlegrounds.

There isn't much to see.

"You go to Khe Sanh and it's just coffee plantations and black pepper trees."

"The world of the vets' tour is completely different from the rest of Vietnam."

The sites that have been restored for tourists, with their soft drink stands, hawkers and eager guides, are almost as unrecognizable.

At Cu Chi, the visitor is greeted by a sign reading:

"Please try to be a Cu Chi guerrilla."

"Wear these uniforms before entering tunnel."

Black pajamas, pith helmets, rubber sandals and old rifles are available.

Here and there, swimming pool-sized holes in the ground are neatly labeled: "B-52 crater."

The woods are dotted with souvenir kiosks selling these items: a lighter made from a bullet, a pen made from bullets, a bullet on a chain, rubber sandals, an "I've Been to the Cu Chi Tunnel" T-shirt.

Also abundantly available, as they are wherever tourists are awaited in southern Vietnam, are Zippo lighters engraved with reproductions of the swashbuckling mottos that were popular among American G.I.'s:

"Death is my business and business has been good."

"I know I'm going to heaven because I've already been to hell: Vietnam."

"I am not scared just lonesome. Vietnam 68-69."

The tunnels themselves are undeniably impressive.

Throughout the war, the South Vietnamese Communists, or Vietcong, continually expanded the three-level network, which included mess halls, meeting rooms, an operating theater and even a tiny cinema.

When the war was over, the people of Cu Chi went to work on the tunnels once again, widening parts of them and adding steps and lighting so that foreign tourists could wriggle in for a look.

"I got claustrophobia big time," said Lawrence W. Goichman, a recent visitor from Stamford, Conn.

"I crawled about 30 yards and then I took the first emergency exit."

But he added:

"It's very clean down there."

"The guide said they have someone dusting every day."

"They actually let you eat the food that the people that fought were eating."

He said he enjoyed his visit to Cu Chi.

But he said the Vietnamese still have some work to do in developing their tourist sites.

"Let's put it this way," Goichman said.

"It wasn't as good as Disneyland."

[Livyjr]

I don't know if anybody saw the photos in the Corporate Propaganda Media (formerly known as MSM), but the blast left a crater the size of a large swimming pool.

570 sticks of dynamite, I heard.

Now, RDX is a MUCH more powerful explosive, 380 TONS of which are now "unaccounted for" as a result of Ronald Dumsfeld"s cavalier policies during the initial invasion phase of Iraq.

Even though the UN weapons inspection team had reported the exact location and the contents of that particular munitions bunker, Dummy didn't think it important enough to secure.

Within 48 hours, its contents were GONE.

And then there is God-alone knows how much plastic explosive that the CIA allegedly sold through front-companies to parties in Libya, although that plastic might not be this plastic, but who ever knows anymore?

You need a high-speed computer just to keep up with these boys, and who can afford one of those these days, what with the price of gas, and bread, and all!

And I would really be curious to know what Condoleeza Rice really does know about this particular act of "aggression", that is getting her a chance to act out there in the world as though she were the second coming of Mr. Colin Powell!

This one, jeffmoskin, is going to be very interesting to watch, indeed!

And thanks for the info on the size of the crater!

I had not seen that level of detail, myself!

[Livyjr]

This one, jeffmoskin, is going to be very interesting to watch, indeed!

And here is another "prong" of this matter which needs to be watched!

Maybe the Bush Co. is going to go for a double-kill this time, Syria and Iran all in one great big "WHACK!"

International News

"Bush declares solidarity with Europe on Iran - Diplomacy is first choice, he says, but force cannot be ruled out"

On military action against Iran, U.S. President George Bush says "never ... say never."

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 3:51 p.m. ET Feb. 18, 2005

BRUSSELS - President Bush said Friday that Iran is trying to use the United States’ refusal to join European talks over Tehran’s nuclear program as an excuse for not giving up uranium enrichment.

In interviews on the eve of a trip by the president to Europe, Bush stressed that the United States preferred diplomacy and did not want to use military action against Iran over the nuclear question.

“What they’re trying to do is kind of wiggle out."

"They’re trying to say, ‘Well, we won’t do anything because America is not involved.’"

"Well, America is involved."

"We’re in close consultation with our friends,” Bush said.

He was speaking to Germany’s ARD television, one of a series of interviews he gave Friday prior to a trip to Belgium, Germany and Slovakia next week.

The European Union, represented by France, Britain and Germany, has been trying to persuade Iran to scrap any nuclear weapons-related activities in return for economic incentives.

The United States has rejected European calls for the Bush administration to bolster the EU’s leverage by getting involved in the bargaining and offering incentives of its own for Iran to end uranium enrichment activities.

Washington wants Iran to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions — which Tehran denies having — and comply with International Atomic Energy Agency obligations, stop support for terrorism and allow democratic reforms.

In the ARD interview, Bush insisted that he wants a peaceful, diplomatic solution to the problem and said any talk of a military attack is “just not the truth.”

“We want diplomacy to work, and I believe diplomacy can work so long as the Iranians don’t divide Europe and the United States."

"And the common goal is for them not to have a nuclear weapon,” Bush told Belgium’s VRT television channel.

'Never ... say never'

“First of all you never want a president to say never, but military action is certainly not, is never the president’s first choice,” Bush said, when asked if he could rule out military action against Iran.

“Diplomacy is always the president’s, or at least always my first choice and we’ve got a common goal, and that is that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon,” he said in the interview taped in Washington and broadcast before his arrival in Brussels Sunday for summits with NATO and the EU.

Bush suggested there was no divergence between the policy of Washington and Europe on Iran and said they could succeed together in ensuring that Iran did not develop an atom bomb.

“We’ve got a common goal and that is that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon ..."

"I think if we continue to speak with one voice and not let them split us up and keep the pressure on, we can achieve the objective,” he said.

“I’m convinced again that if the Iranians hear us loud and clear and without any wavering, that they will make the rational decision,” Bush said in an interview with France 3 television.

Israel said Wednesday that Iran was just six months away from having the knowledge to build nuclear weapons.

European leaders are hoping to convince Bush to take a bigger role in the negotiations with Iran.

Former Irish Prime Minister John Bruton, the European Commission’s ambassador to the United States, said this week the leaders’ goal is “getting the United States involved in a more committed way” in their talks with Iran.

Bush is expected to use his trip to try to soothe ruffled feathers after a first term in which he has been criticized in Europe for riding rough-shod over the views of European leaders, particularly France’s President Jacques Chirac.

Russia proceeds with aid for Iran reactor

His comments came amid debate over Iran's nuclear intentions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that he is convinced Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons and said he plans to visit the nation.

Putin, at a meeting with Iranian National Security Council chief Hasan Rohani, also said Russia would continue its nuclear cooperation with Iran.

Moscow has helped Iran build a nuclear reactor, a project that has been heavily criticized by the United States which fears it could be used to help Tehran develop nuclear weapons.

"The latest steps from Iran confirm that Iran does not intend to produce nuclear weapons and we will continue to develop relations in all spheres, including the peaceful use of nuclear energy," Putin said.

"We hope that Iran will strictly adhere to all international agreements, in relation to Russia and the international community," he said, adding that he had accepted an invitation by Iran's leadership for him to visit the country.

Russia's nuclear chief is expected in Iran next week to sign a protocol on returning spent nuclear fuel to Russia, the only remaining obstacle to the launch of the Russian-built reactor.

If the signing goes ahead as planned on Feb. 26, it would pave the way for the deliveries of Russian nuclear fuel for the Bushehr reactor, which is set to begin operating in early 2006.

The protocol is aimed at reducing concerns that Iran could reprocess spent nuclear fuel from the $800 million Bushehr reactor to extract plutonium, which could be used in nuclear weapons.

Moscow says that having Iran ship spent nuclear fuel back to Russia, along with international monitoring, will make any such project impossible.

By Reuters and the Associated Press.

end quotes

Boy, it might just be me, but the Bush Co. sounds like he is talking the same trash talk that he talked about Saddam Hussein, before he launched his HOLY WAR for possession of Iraq's oil reserves - "Give up the weapons that you don't have, Saddam, and if you don't actually show us the weapons that you don't have, the weapons that we made up to fool the American people, then we're coming over there to bust your a**!"

Go, Bush Co., go!

WAR!

It is the answer; the only answer, to Bush Co.'s budgetary problems, anyway!

When he gets done here, somebody is going to be one rich man, and folks, that is not going to be us!

We'll be the poor relations who paid to have it be so, and make no mistake whatsoever about that!

[jeffmoskin]

"Visit the Vietcong's World: Americans Welcome"

By Seth Mydans, New York Times, July 7, 1999

Thanks for posting that article. I remember reading about it when it was originally printed.

Amazing.

More amazing is the warmth the Vietnamese people have for America and Americans. Of course, most of them were born after 1975.

How long did it take us before we would buy a VW? Or a Nikon?

And we WON that war.

Go figure.

[Livyjr]

And in counter-point to jeffmoskin's comments on the Japanese tunnel complex on Iwo Jima during WWII, here is another look at the Tunnels of Cu Chi, which, if memory serves, actually date back to almost that same period, when the Japanese had overrun Viet Nam during WWII:

"Tunnels of Cu Chi" - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from Cu Chi tunnels)

The tunnels of Cu Chi are among the most interesting military campaigns of the Vietnam Wars.

Not only were they used by Viet Cong guerrillas as hiding spots during combat, but they also served as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous guerrilla fighters.

The role of the tunnel systems cannot be underestimated in its importance to the Viet Cong in resisting American operations and protracting the war, eventually forcing the Americans into withdrawal.

The district of Cu Chi is located 40 kilometers to the northwest of Saigon near the so-called "Iron Triangle".

Both the Saigon River and Route 1 pass through the region which served as major supply routes in and out of Saigon.

This area was also the termination of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Because of this, the Cu Chi and the nearby Ben Cat districts had immense strategic value for the Viet Cong.

Mai Chi Tho, a political commissar stationed in Cu Chi describes the region as a “springboard for attacking Saigon.”

He goes on to say:

“We used the area for infiltrating Saigon-intelligence agents, part cadres, sabotage teams."

"The Tet Offensive of 1968 was prepared - the necessary troops and supplies assembled - in the Cu Chi tunnels.”

In the beginning, there was never a direct order to build the tunnels; instead, they developed in response to a number of different circumstances, most importantly the military tactics of the French and U.S.

The tunnels began in 1948 so that the Viet Minh could hide from French air and ground sweeps.

Each hamlet built their own underground communications route and over the years, the separate tunnels were slowly and meticulously connected and fortified.

By 1965, there was over 200 kilometers of connected tunnel.

As the tunnel system grew, so did its complexity.

Sleeping chambers, kitchens and wells were built to house and feed the growing number of residents and rudimentary hospitals created to treat the wounded.

Most of the supplies used to build and maintain the tunnels were stolen or scavenged from U.S. bases or troops.

The medical system serves as a good example of Vietnamese ingenuity in overcoming a lack of basic resources.

Stolen motorcycle engines created light and electricity and scrap metal from downed aircraft were fashioned into surgical tools.

Doctors even came up with new ways of performing sophisticated surgery.

Faced with large amounts of casualties and a considerable lack of available blood, one man, Dr. Vo Hoang Le came up with an resourceful solution.

"We managed to do blood transfusion" Vo said "by returning his own blood to the patient."

"If a comrade had a belly wound and was bleeding, but his intestines were not punctured, we collected his blood, filtered it, put it in a bottle and returned it to his veins.”

By the early 1960’s, the Viet Cong had created a relatively self-sufficient community that was able to house hundreds of people and for the most part, go undetected by large amounts of American troops based, literally, right on top of the tunnels.

For the Viet Cong, life in the tunnels was difficult.

Air, food and water were scarce and the tunnels were infested with ants, poisonous centipedes, spiders and mosquitoes.

Most of the time, guerrillas would spend the day in the tunnels working or resting and come out only at night to scavenge supplies, tend their crops or engage the enemy in battle.

Sometimes, during periods of heavy bombing or American troop movement, they would be forced to remain underground for many days at a time.

Sickness was rampant among the people living in the tunnels; especially malaria, which accounted for the second largest cause of death next to battle wounds.

A captured Viet Cong report suggests that at any given time half of a Viet Cong unit had malaria and that “one-hundred percent had intestinal parasites of significance.”

In spite of these hardships, the Viet Cong managed to wage successful campaigns against a professional army that was technologically far superior.

The tunnels of Cu Chi did not go completely unnoticed by U.S. officials.

They recognized the advantages that the Viet Cong held with the tunnels, and accordingly launched several major campaigns to search out and destroy the tunnel system.

Among the most important of these were: Operation Crimp and Operation Cedar Falls.

Operation Crimp began on January 7th with B-52 bombers dropping 30-ton loads of high explosive onto the region of Cu Chi, effectively turning the once lush jungle into a pockmarked moonscape.

Eight thousand troops from the 1st Infantry, 173rd Airborne, and the Royal Australian Regiment combed the region looking for any clues of Viet Cong activity.

The operation was, for the most part, unsuccessful.

On the occasion when troops found a tunnel, they would often underestimate its size.

Rarely would anyone be sent in to search the tunnels, as it was so hazardous.

Besides being too small for most Western men to fit through, the tunnels were often rigged with explosive booby traps or punji stake pits.

The two main responses in dealing with a tunnel opening were either: to flush the entrance with gas or water to force the guerillas into the open or simply toss a few grenades down the hole and “crimp” off the opening.

Needless to say, the clever design of the tunnels along with the strategic use of trap doors and air filtration systems rendered American technology ineffective.

From its mistakes, U.S. command realized that they needed a new way to approach the dilemma of the tunnels.

They began training an elite group of volunteers armed only with a gun, a knife, a flashlight and a piece of string in the art of tunnel warfare.

These specialists, commonly known as “tunnel rats” would enter a tunnel by themselves and travel inch-by-inch cautiously looking ahead for booby traps or cornered Viet Cong.

Despite this revamped effort at fighting the enemy on its own terms, U.S. operations remained wholly unsuccessful at eliminating the existence of the tunnels.

In 1967, General William Westmoreland tried launching a larger assult on Cu Chi and the Iron Triangle.

Called Operation Cedar Falls, it was, in principle, exactly the same as Operation Crimp, but with 30,000 troops instead of the 8,000.

On January 18th, tunnel rats from the 1st and 5th Infantry uncovered the Viet Cong district headquarters of Cu Chi containing a half million documents concerning all types of military strategy.

Among the documents were maps of U.S. bases, detailed accounts of Viet Cong movement from Cambodia into Vietnam, lists of political sympathizers, and even plans for a failed assassination attempt on Robert McNamara.

With this one exception, Operation Cedar Falls failed to achieve its objective of destroying the communist stronghold in the region.

Throughout the course of the war, the tunnels in and around Cu Chi proved to be a source of frustration for U.S. military in Vietnam.

The Viet Cong had been so well entrenched in the area by 1965 that they were in the unique position of being able to control where and when battles would take place, thus forcing the Americans on the defensive in a war where they clearly could have had a military superiority.

By helping to covertly move supplies and house troops, the tunnels of Cu Chi allowed guerrilla fighters in South Vietnam to prolong the war and increase American costs and casualties to the point of their ultimate withdrawal in 1972.

Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnels_of_Cu_Chi

Categories: Vietnam War

[Livyjr]

Thanks for posting that article.

I remember reading about it when it was originally printed.

Amazing.

More amazing is the warmth the Vietnamese people have for America and Americans.

Of course, most of them were born after 1975.

How long did it take us before we would buy a VW?

Or a Nikon?

And we WON that war.

Go figure.

Go figure is right, jeffmoskin!

And I actually liked the Vietnamese people, by and large!

It was a beautiful country, and the people were very hard-working, and family oriented!

Why, if they were white, like Americans, you might almost call them "God-fearing" folks, but, since they are not Americans, that would be going too far to say that, wouldn't it?

Help me out here, Scottie "Boy" McClellan; wouldn't it?

[Livyjr]

And from the internet, we have:

Strange coincidence: February 2nd was Ground-hog's Day.

It was also the day of the State of the Union Address.

In an ironic juxtaposition of events, one involved a meaningless ritual in which we looked to a creature of little intelligence for an accurate prognostication of the future.

The other involved a ground-hog.

[jeffmoskin]

And from the internet, we have:

Strange coincidence:  February 2nd was Ground-hog's Day.

It was also the day of the State of the Union Address.

In an ironic juxtaposition of events, one involved a meaningless ritual in which we looked to a creature of little intelligence for an accurate prognostication of the future.

The other involved a ground-hog.

Q: What happens if the ground hog sees his shadow?

A: four more years of Bush

[Abu Beacon]

I really liked Kucinich during the primaries, but hey - it's Television.

What do you think of him? Is he a fraud?

You're a Buckeye.

Kucinich is one of those people who are either well liked or greatly disliked.

Most people in this area like him as is evidenced by his consistently getting re elected. I am one of those. although I am in a different voting district.

The esablishment greatly dislikes him.

When he was mayor of Cleveland, I believe it was in the seventys he was young and brash and spoke his mind.

At that time, the City of Cleveland owned a municipal power plant which produced electricity for about 30 % of the city, at a lower cost than the utility company.
The utility company wanted to buy out the city owned plant and Mayor Kucinich was pressured by the money people to sell it.

He refused.

The powerful utility, in cahoots with the banks that carried Cleveland's debts, put the squeeze on Kucinich to sell. He would not budge and being young and brash was not very diplomatic about it. He said nasty things about these power brokers.

The media made a circus out of all of this.

Unfortunately, the banks in order to ' get ' Kucinich would not extend any of the loans the city owed and ultimately forced the city into default.

A real black eye for Cleveland.

Voinovich succeeded Kucinich. He had been auditor for the county, was very good at his job, knew the game of politics, and was able to pull the city out of default.

Big money had made its point.

That's the story of Kucinich. Still does not play the game, but calls it as he sees it.

You may have noticed that when he was having a good time puncturing balloons in the presidential campaign.

And that's what happened.

A.B.