As a youngster, around 12 or 13, I was the curious type, full of questions and ready for answers. At that time we Americans were dealing with advisers in Vietnam, and we had geo-political problems in South America, the Caribbean and elsewhere, the Cuban missile crises had just ended.
I couldn’t help but wonder why we had so many problems keeping the peace. I didn’t understand that it wasn’t our place to see the entire planet was peaceful.
As I would read the paper I would think about America’s response to most every conflict, which was almost exclusively a military response. I would ask my liberal parents, why it was always the military that were called on to react to problems with third world nations. That’s just the way we’ve always done it I would be told. When JFK started up the Peace Corps, I thought it was a great idea, we could send someone besides soldiers to help these poor people with their problems. I didn’t really understand the complexity of our politics.
As my understanding grew, my confusion grew right along with it. I was stuck in a mindset that thought we should be sending John Deere tractors and seed, instead of guns and bullets, to the needy nations. For the life of me I could not see a people with full stomachs being so eager to fight. To some extent my understanding has grown, my confusion subsided, yet I’m still hung up on that concept, does ones anger subside to some extent when they are contemplating life on a full stomach. Hungry people seem to be more angry, the well fed more complacent. Or is it just my liberal senses that perceive it that way?
Afghanistan obviously has the potential to produce agriculture, as seen with the “bumper” crop of opium poppies. Why haven’t we converted the booty of poppies to the bread basket of the region? Does this not make sense or what, aren’t John Deere tractors cheaper than tanks and artillery pieces? and don’t they offer the opportunity for better results?
Full Version: Thoughts of a veteran
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QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 10 2006, 08:15 AM)
For the life of me I could not see a people with full stomachs being so eager to fight .....
To some extent my understanding has grown, my confusion subsided, yet I’m still hung up on that concept, does ones anger subside to some extent when they are contemplating life on a full stomach.
Hungry people seem to be more angry, the well fed more complacent.
Or is it just my liberal senses that perceive it that way?
To some extent my understanding has grown, my confusion subsided, yet I’m still hung up on that concept, does ones anger subside to some extent when they are contemplating life on a full stomach.
Hungry people seem to be more angry, the well fed more complacent.
Or is it just my liberal senses that perceive it that way?
I don't know what "liberal senses" you might have, vfguenley ....
That would mislead you ....
That is self-sacrificial ....
To be going through life self-deluded ....
HUNGER IS HUNGER ....
AND ANGER IS ANGER ....
And they may or may not be linked ....
Is my thought ....
I have been hungry ....
But not angry ....
And angry .....
On a full stomach .....
And if I had to .....
Yes .....
I would fight on a full stomach .....
Although for what .....
I cannot imagine .....
Since I see fighting as a sign of weakness ....
And not strength, at all .....
I think that we are given the power as human beings to reason .....
Because we are supposed to use that power .....
Otherwise we would not find ourselves possessed of it .....
And so .....
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 10 2006, 08:15 AM)
Aren’t John Deere tractors cheaper than tanks and artillery pieces?
And don’t they offer the opportunity for better results?
And don’t they offer the opportunity for better results?
And we are right back to the TRAP, vfguenley .....
Sitting here in America ....
Making value judgments .....
About what is good or not good .....
For someone who lives thousands and thousands of miles away .....
In some other culture ....
In some other place ....
WHERE A JOHN DEERE TRACTOR .....
MIGHT AS WELL BE A BOAT ANCHOR ....
AROUND SOMEONE'S NECK ....
IF THEY CAN'T GET FUEL FOR IT .....
NOR PARTS ....
NOR REPAIRS ......
And so .....
Where I was in Viet Nam ....
The farmers plowed their fields ....
With a water buffalo ....
And a plow made out of a part of a tree .....
And it worked ....
And it did not cost anything ....
Except labor .....
And if we weren't over there ....
Smashing up their dike systems ....
Viet Nam was a net food exporter ....
And yet .....
During the Indochina War .....
And then .....
The Viet Nam War .....
Food had to be imported ....
BY US .....
To feed those people .....
And when we could no longer do that ....
People had a real hard time eating ....
And all the John Deere tractors in the world were not going to do much about that ....
Except to serve as an unwanted and unneeded burden ....
And so ....
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 10 2006, 08:15 AM)
As my understanding grew, my confusion grew right along with it.
I was stuck in a mindset that thought we should be sending John Deere tractors and seed, instead of guns and bullets, to the needy nations.
I was stuck in a mindset that thought we should be sending John Deere tractors and seed, instead of guns and bullets, to the needy nations.
I live out in the country, me .....
And what is called "charity" out here is a touchy thing ....
If you have neighbors that are living in poverty .....
And there are some ....
And have been some ....
The one thing that you don't do .....
Is go and jam those people's poverty down their throats .....
By heaping charity on them ......
For that is insulting ....
To let someone know how much better off than them you are ....
By flaunting your "generosity" in their faces .....
With your charity .....
It has been my experience .....
That people live as they live ....
And being a disabled veteran down on to the low end of the financial spectrum here in America .....
Up here in the cold country ....
I have my own experiences with that ...
And so ....
IT IS ....
WHAT IT IS ....
This thing called life .....
And if you don't let those who have all the toys tell you how lacking your own life is ...
Since you don't have any at all ...
Well ...
You can get by ....
Living simple ....
And so .....
And then, of course ....
There is another side to that coin .....
And that is those who say these "needy" nations can just go straight to hell ...
"LOOK AT US HERE IN AMERICA", these voices say .....
"WHY, IF WE COULD BECOME THE RICHEST NATION ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH ....."
"SO COULD THEY ..."
And if they haven't .....
AS THE CONSERVATIVE ARGUMENT GOES .....
It is because they are lazy ...
And just looking for a handout ...
"AND WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO TAKE IT OUT OF OUR POCKETS TO GIVE THEM ONE ..."
And then .....
If these "needy" nations should appear to be getting uppity ...
Like the Vietnamese, for example ....
Not wanting to be AMERICAN like us ....
Well ...
GIVE THEM A TASTE OF STEEL .....
And that will get them back down on four legs quicker than anything else will ....
And so .....
There is another side to that coin .....
And that is those who say these "needy" nations can just go straight to hell ...
"LOOK AT US HERE IN AMERICA", these voices say .....
"WHY, IF WE COULD BECOME THE RICHEST NATION ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH ....."
"SO COULD THEY ..."
And if they haven't .....
AS THE CONSERVATIVE ARGUMENT GOES .....
It is because they are lazy ...
And just looking for a handout ...
"AND WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO TAKE IT OUT OF OUR POCKETS TO GIVE THEM ONE ..."
And then .....
If these "needy" nations should appear to be getting uppity ...
Like the Vietnamese, for example ....
Not wanting to be AMERICAN like us ....
Well ...
GIVE THEM A TASTE OF STEEL .....
And that will get them back down on four legs quicker than anything else will ....
And so .....
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 11 2006, 06:46 AM)
I live out in the country, me .....
And what is called "charity" out here is a touchy thing ....
If you have neighbors that are living in poverty .....
And there are some ....
And have been some ....
The one thing that you don't do .....
Is go and jam those people's poverty down their throats .....
By heaping charity on them ......
For that is insulting ....
To let someone know how much better off than them you are ....
By flaunting your "generosity" in their faces .....
With your charity .....
And so ....
And what is called "charity" out here is a touchy thing ....
If you have neighbors that are living in poverty .....
And there are some ....
And have been some ....
The one thing that you don't do .....
Is go and jam those people's poverty down their throats .....
By heaping charity on them ......
For that is insulting ....
To let someone know how much better off than them you are ....
By flaunting your "generosity" in their faces .....
With your charity .....
And so ....
From pp. 206,7 of FIASCO - The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks .....
Life in the zone
The CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) existed in a never-never land in Saddam's old palace complex behind high walls in downtown Baghdad.
There was a sharp disconnect between its cool, quiet GREEN ZONE and the real world beyond the miles of tall concrete Jersey security barriers that ringed the zone.
Some in the U.S. military called the CPA's slice of central Baghdad OZ.
TO MANY WITHIN THE CPA, THE REST OF IRAQ WAS THE RED ZONE.
******
Nighttime offered just a few choices - more work, exercise, or drinking.
"TIME OFF FOR ME WAS GOING TO THE GYM," RECALLED LARRY DIAMOND, WHO WORKED FOR THE CPA A FEW MONTHS LATER, WHEN IT WAS BETTER ESTABLISHED.
THE GYM, HE WROTE, WAS "A STATE-OF-THE-ART FACILITY WITH DOZENS OF WEIGHT MACHINES, FREE WEIGHTS, FLOOR MATS, RUNNING MACHINES, BIKES, AND ELLIPTICAL TRAINERS, PACKED ALMOST CONSTANTLY WITH SWEATING CIVILIANS AND TRIM, MUSCULAR SOLDIERS."
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 11 2006, 06:53 AM)
And then .....
If these "needy" nations should appear to be getting uppity ...
Like the Vietnamese, for example ....
Not wanting to be AMERICAN like us ....
Well ...
GIVE THEM A TASTE OF STEEL .....
And that will get them back down on four legs quicker than anything else will ....
And so .....
If these "needy" nations should appear to be getting uppity ...
Like the Vietnamese, for example ....
Not wanting to be AMERICAN like us ....
Well ...
GIVE THEM A TASTE OF STEEL .....
And that will get them back down on four legs quicker than anything else will ....
And so .....
TEACHER: Little Johnnie ....
Was Ramon Magsaysay of the Philippines involved in a counter-insurgency against the Huks, or "Hukbalahap'' guerillas in the Philippines?
LITTLE JOHNNIE: Yes, Teacher .....
It was when he was serving as Secretary of Defense of the Phillipines .....
Under Philippine President Elpidio Quirino .....
TEACHER: Very good, Little Johnnie ....
And did Ramon Magsaysay win his a counter-insurgency against the Huks, or "Hukbalahap'' guerillas in the Philippines?
LITTLE JOHNNIE: I don't believe that it would be proper to say that he won ....
I believe that it is more proper to say that he prevailed over the Huks ....
TEACHER: A good point, Little Johnnie ....
And a fine distinction ....
And Little Suzy ....
Can you tell us how Ramon Magsaysay of the Philippines prevailed in his counter-insurgency against the Huks, or "Hukbalahap'' guerillas in the Philippines?
LITTLE SUZY: He took the legitimate grievances that the Huks were raising on behalf of the people ....
AND HE MADE THOSE GRIEVANCES HIS PROBLEMS ....
AND THEN ....
HE SOUGHT SOLUTIONS TO THOSE PROBLEMS ....
AND HE EFFECTED SOLUTIONS TO THOSE PROBLEMS ....
AND IN THAT WAY ....
HE TOOK THE PEOPLE AWAY FROM THE HUKS ....
WHO NO LONGER HAD ANY LEGITIMACY ....
WHICH IS TO SAY ....
THE HUKS HAD NOTHING TO OFFER THE PEOPLE ....
BECAUSE THE PEOPLE PERCEIVED ....
THAT THE GOVERNMENT ...
WAS BEING RESPONSIVE TO THEIR NEEDS ....
SO THAT THEY WANTED TO PROTECT THE GOVERNMENT ....
NOT OVERTHROW IT ....
TEACHER: So, Little Suzy .....
What lessons do you walk away with .....
From this experience of Ramon Magsaysay of the Philippines prevailing in his counter-insurgency against the Huks, or "Hukbalahap'' guerillas in the Philippines?
LITTLE SUZY: THAT TO CONDUCT A PROPER COUNTER-INSURGENCY .....
AND TO PREVAIL ....
YOU NEED TO WIN THE TRUST OF THE PEOPLE ....
AND YOU NEED TO INSIST THAT THE MILITARY TREAT THE PEOPLE WITH RESPECT .....
AND THAT TO AVOID EVER HAVING TO WAGE A COUNTER-INSURGENCY ...
THE GOVERNMENT MUST AT ALL TIMES BE SEEN AS BEING RESPONSIVE TO THE GRIEVANCES OF THE PEOPLE .....
AND THE GOVERNMENT MUST AT ALL TIMES PROVIDE A MEANS FOR THE PEOPLE TO AIR THEIR GRIEVANCES .......
AND TO SEEK REDRESS .....
IN A NON-CORRUPT COURT OF LAW ....
IF NEED BE ....
And so ....
http://www.angelfire.com/al4/al_den/rmagsaysay.htm
TEACHER: And Little Johnnie, how old are you?
LITTLE JOHNNIE: Ten years old, Teacher ....
TEACHER: And Little Suzy, how old are you?
LITTLE SUZY: Ten years old ....
TEACHER: And Little Johnnie, when did you learn about COUNTER-INSURGENCY?
LITTLE JOHNNIE: It was in nursery school, Teacher ....
TEACHER: And how about you, Little Suzy ....
When did you first learn about COUNTER-INSURGENCY?
LITTLE SUZY: It was definitely in nursery school, Teacher ....
When we were studying the structure of the government of the nursery school .....
What our role was as children ....
What the role of the teacher was ....
As an adult ....
What was expected of us ....
What we were to expect from the teacher ....
LITTLE JOHNNIE: Yes, Teacher ....
Our nursery school teacher told us that she did not want to be faced with an insurgency in her nursery school class ....
So to counter her having to wage a counter-insurgency against us ....
Which she thought would be disruptive to the nursery school class setting ....
She was engaging us in dialogue ....
Before the fact ....
So that we would not have any outstanding grievances begging for redress ....
And thus ....
We would have no cause for rebellion ....
And so ....
LITTLE JOHNNIE: Ten years old, Teacher ....
TEACHER: And Little Suzy, how old are you?
LITTLE SUZY: Ten years old ....
TEACHER: And Little Johnnie, when did you learn about COUNTER-INSURGENCY?
LITTLE JOHNNIE: It was in nursery school, Teacher ....
TEACHER: And how about you, Little Suzy ....
When did you first learn about COUNTER-INSURGENCY?
LITTLE SUZY: It was definitely in nursery school, Teacher ....
When we were studying the structure of the government of the nursery school .....
What our role was as children ....
What the role of the teacher was ....
As an adult ....
What was expected of us ....
What we were to expect from the teacher ....
LITTLE JOHNNIE: Yes, Teacher ....
Our nursery school teacher told us that she did not want to be faced with an insurgency in her nursery school class ....
So to counter her having to wage a counter-insurgency against us ....
Which she thought would be disruptive to the nursery school class setting ....
She was engaging us in dialogue ....
Before the fact ....
So that we would not have any outstanding grievances begging for redress ....
And thus ....
We would have no cause for rebellion ....
And so ....
You say they're all dead.
You dismiss them from your mind,
Condemning them to slavery.
To facts it seems you're blind.
We who made it back
Know they didn't all die,
For we are among the few
Who must listen to them cry.
You believe the TV set,
And the politicians too,
Even though we've caught them all
Saying things that were not true.
But when it's acts of treason
Like a drug running CIA,
Or death squads trained in Georgia,
You look the other way.
It's not the government that forgot them
They know that they are there.
I'm afraid the blame must fall on you,
The American people just don't care.
You don't care for your veterans
Who made it back alive,
You don't care if they have more wars
Hell, you're on the winning side.
You allow them to commit treason
Then vote them in again.
No wonder we have to watch TV
To see the good guys win.
Since the Bolshevik Revolution
In every single war
We've abandoned our POWs,
When they're gone we lock the door.
Let's all say it together,
Let's say it from the heart,
Though you're alive we declare you dead,
You were expendable from the start.
So don't try to signal us,
Don't send your photo out,
The government will say it's a forgery.
Truth is not what we're about.
I'm not sure when it happened
But the dream turned to a lie,
And as we silently pursue it
Our abandoned soldiers slowly die.
ABANDONED SOLDIERS
Sarge Lintecum
You dismiss them from your mind,
Condemning them to slavery.
To facts it seems you're blind.
We who made it back
Know they didn't all die,
For we are among the few
Who must listen to them cry.
You believe the TV set,
And the politicians too,
Even though we've caught them all
Saying things that were not true.
But when it's acts of treason
Like a drug running CIA,
Or death squads trained in Georgia,
You look the other way.
It's not the government that forgot them
They know that they are there.
I'm afraid the blame must fall on you,
The American people just don't care.
You don't care for your veterans
Who made it back alive,
You don't care if they have more wars
Hell, you're on the winning side.
You allow them to commit treason
Then vote them in again.
No wonder we have to watch TV
To see the good guys win.
Since the Bolshevik Revolution
In every single war
We've abandoned our POWs,
When they're gone we lock the door.
Let's all say it together,
Let's say it from the heart,
Though you're alive we declare you dead,
You were expendable from the start.
So don't try to signal us,
Don't send your photo out,
The government will say it's a forgery.
Truth is not what we're about.
I'm not sure when it happened
But the dream turned to a lie,
And as we silently pursue it
Our abandoned soldiers slowly die.
ABANDONED SOLDIERS
Sarge Lintecum
WHOSE GOVERNMENT IS IT, REALLY .....
THE ONE THAT DOES ALL THIS LYING ....
TO US ....
AND THEN ....
WHO ARE WE ....
THAT WE HAVE A GOVERNMENT ....
THAT IS A LIAR .....
THE ONE THAT DOES ALL THIS LYING ....
TO US ....
AND THEN ....
WHO ARE WE ....
THAT WE HAVE A GOVERNMENT ....
THAT IS A LIAR .....
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 12 2006, 07:07 AM)
WHOSE GOVERNMENT IS IT, REALLY .....
THE ONE THAT DOES ALL THIS LYING ....
TO US ....
AND THEN ....
WHO ARE WE ....
THAT WE HAVE A GOVERNMENT ....
THAT IS A LIAR .....
THE ONE THAT DOES ALL THIS LYING ....
TO US ....
AND THEN ....
WHO ARE WE ....
THAT WE HAVE A GOVERNMENT ....
THAT IS A LIAR .....
Interesting thought, since we are the government,
Since we are the government, why do we lie to ourselves?
Why be so afraid of the truth?
What is hiding in the truth that we don’t want to see?
Can we overcome this conundrum?
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Sep 12 2006, 05:48 AM)
Although Kennedy was willing to send U.S. military "advisers" into South Vietnam and mount covert operations in North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, he drew the line on U.S. combat units.
The word "adviser" implied that the South Vietnamese would do their own fighting.
The introduction of American combat units risked transforming the war into an American war, raising the specter of high U.S. casualties, and fomenting congressional and public debate over administration policy.
On November 11, 1961, President Kennedy decided to commit U.S. advisers to South Vietnam IN EXCESS OF THE NUMBER PERMITTED IN THE GENEVA ACCORDS OF 1954.
Kennedy believed that increased Viet Cong activity in South Vietnam and Laos justified crossing that threshold.
IN THE FOLLOWING TWENTY MONTHS, THE U.S. MILITARY PRESENCE IN SOUTH VIETNAM BALLOONED WITHOUT A DELIBERATE EXAMINATION OF POLICY OPTIONS.
Other issues and events, such as the civil rights movement and a series of foreign policy crises, hit closer to home and overshadowed the increasing U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
ALTHOUGH U.S. ADVISERS WERE FIGHTING WITH SOUTH VIETNAMESE UNITS AND U.S. PILOTS WERE FLYING COMBAT MISSIONS IN SOUTH VIETNAM, KENNEDY DENIED THAT AMERICANS WERE INVOLVED IN COMBAT, AND VIETNAM ATTRACTED LITTLE PUBLIC OR CONGRESSIONAL ATTENTION.
VIETNAM WAS FAR FROM FRONT-PAGE NEWS AND AMERICANS STILL BELIEVED THAT THEIR GOVERNMENT TOLD THEM THE TRUTH.
- p.37, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster .....
The word "adviser" implied that the South Vietnamese would do their own fighting.
The introduction of American combat units risked transforming the war into an American war, raising the specter of high U.S. casualties, and fomenting congressional and public debate over administration policy.
On November 11, 1961, President Kennedy decided to commit U.S. advisers to South Vietnam IN EXCESS OF THE NUMBER PERMITTED IN THE GENEVA ACCORDS OF 1954.
Kennedy believed that increased Viet Cong activity in South Vietnam and Laos justified crossing that threshold.
IN THE FOLLOWING TWENTY MONTHS, THE U.S. MILITARY PRESENCE IN SOUTH VIETNAM BALLOONED WITHOUT A DELIBERATE EXAMINATION OF POLICY OPTIONS.
Other issues and events, such as the civil rights movement and a series of foreign policy crises, hit closer to home and overshadowed the increasing U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
ALTHOUGH U.S. ADVISERS WERE FIGHTING WITH SOUTH VIETNAMESE UNITS AND U.S. PILOTS WERE FLYING COMBAT MISSIONS IN SOUTH VIETNAM, KENNEDY DENIED THAT AMERICANS WERE INVOLVED IN COMBAT, AND VIETNAM ATTRACTED LITTLE PUBLIC OR CONGRESSIONAL ATTENTION.
VIETNAM WAS FAR FROM FRONT-PAGE NEWS AND AMERICANS STILL BELIEVED THAT THEIR GOVERNMENT TOLD THEM THE TRUTH.
- p.37, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster .....
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 1 2006, 05:43 PM)
What was the purpose, vfguenley?
There is the question that no one can ever answer ......
What exactly was the purpose for our being over there in Viet Nam?
I know what the lies are ....
THE BRIGHT SHINING LIES .....
And since many excellent authors have already addressed that subject .....
I shall leave off here doing so, again ....
But there is one point of connection that you might find interesting .....
Between Viet Nam ...
And IRAQINAM ....
And that is with respect to H.R. McMaster ....
The West Point graduate who wrote Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM .....
He shows up in IRAQINAM ....
In the book FIASCO: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas E. Ricks .....
At pp. 419-24 ....
There is the question that no one can ever answer ......
What exactly was the purpose for our being over there in Viet Nam?
I know what the lies are ....
THE BRIGHT SHINING LIES .....
And since many excellent authors have already addressed that subject .....
I shall leave off here doing so, again ....
But there is one point of connection that you might find interesting .....
Between Viet Nam ...
And IRAQINAM ....
And that is with respect to H.R. McMaster ....
The West Point graduate who wrote Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM .....
He shows up in IRAQINAM ....
In the book FIASCO: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas E. Ricks .....
At pp. 419-24 ....
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 10 2006, 08:15 AM)
I didn’t really understand the complexity of our politics .....
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 12 2006, 10:18 AM)
Can we overcome this conundrum?
I have to say ....
As a somewhat simple country person ....
That I find it fascinating being in "here" .....
Where ever "here" actually might be .....
When I talk about this forum with people ....
In my mind .....
I envision it as being .....
In Philadelphia .....
In the 1780's .....
During the Constitutional Convention .....
Where OUR fellow Americans
Were debating the very future of this nation ....
AND WHICH WAY WILL WE GO .....
Because there are always at least two .....
One path climbs upwards .....
The other descends downwards ....
AND YOU ALWAYS GET TO MAKE THE CHOICE .....
And so .....
I always tell people .....
That if things here in America went to hell ...
I would be used to that ....
And while I wouldn't like that .....
I at least could survive .....
BUT AS FOR ME .....
Having been close enough to hell ....
In Viet Nam .....
I chose the path towards enlightenment ...
And civilization .....
Not a facade .....
But substance ....
And that starts with me ....
And remains my obligation .....
For the rest of my life .....
And so .....
When I joined the United States Army ....
The motto at that time was "BE ALL YOU CAN BE" .....
And I have always thought of that as an "AMERICAN" statement .....
A UNIQUELY "AMERICAN" STATEMENT .....
Since over here ....
We are not bound by class ....
Or heredity .....
OR AT LEAST WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE .....
And so ......
When I joined the United States Army ....
I WAS AN AMERICAN CITIZEN .....
When I took that oath .....
I assumed a duty ....
And the burden of responsibility .....
And since I did that voluntarily .....
I HAVE NO COMPLAINTS .....
NOT ONE ......
EXCEPT .....
ONE ......
IF I .....
JOE COMMON PERSON ....
AM BOUND FOR LIFE ....
BY MY OATH ....
WHY ....
ARE NOT OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS ....
BOUND BY THEIR'S .....
FOR EVEN ONE SHORT MOMENT IN TIME?
WHY?
BECAUSE IF THEY ARE LYING TO US .....
AND THE EVIDENCE IS .....
THAT THEY ARE .....
THEN THEY ARE ACTING IN VIOLATION OF THEIR OATH ....
TO US ....
WHO COLLECTIVELY .....
"AM" THE "GOVERNMENT" .....
And so .....
Under the guise of "POLITICS" .....
Which does include the things that individuals or factions will do to sieze and hold power .....
OUR elected officials are granting themselves LICENSE ......
TO ABUSE OUR TRUST .....
And if that is the case .....
AND THE EVIDENCE CERTAINLY POINTS US IN THAT DIRECTION .....
WITH RESPECT TO THIS WAR IN IRAQINAM ....
WHO HAS ABDICATED THEIR RESPONSIBILITY .....
WOULD HAVE TO BE US ....
And so .....
ARE WE THEN SELF-DESTRUCTIVE?
INCAPABLE OF SELF-GOVERNMENT?
NOT NO LONGER RATIONAL?
OR WERE WE NEVER, IN THE FIRST PLACE?
And so ....
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 12 2006, 10:18 AM)
Interesting thought, since we are the government,
Since we are the government, why do we lie to ourselves?
Why be so afraid of the truth?
What is hiding in the truth that we don’t want to see?
Since we are the government, why do we lie to ourselves?
Why be so afraid of the truth?
What is hiding in the truth that we don’t want to see?
"The Constitution assigns to Congress the right to declare war."
"How can Congress discharge this function if its members and the citizens who have elected them are precluded from discussing the merits of the issues that might lead to war?"
"The Constitution implies that Congress has a choice in the matter of war."
"How can it make that choice if neither it nor the people it represents have the right to debate the issues."
"To say that the most momentous issues a nation must face cannot be openly and critically discussed is really tantamount to saying that democratic debate and decision do not apply to the questions of life and death and that, as far as they are concerned, the people have given carte blanche to one man."
"NOT ONLY IS THIS POSITION AT ODDS WITH THE PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY, BUT IT ALSO REMOVES A VERY IMPORTANT CORRECTIVE FOR GOVERNMENTAL MISJUDGMENT."
- Hans Morgenthau, April 3, 1965
"Maybe we military men were all weak."
"Maybe we should have stood up and pounded the table."
".... I was part of it (ABDICATING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE TROOPS DURING THE VIET NAM WAR) and I'm sort of ashamed of myself, too."
"AT TIMES I WONDER, 'WHY DID I GO ALONG WITH THIS KIND OF STUFF?'"
- Adm. David Lamar McDonald, 1976
"Maybe we should have stood up and pounded the table."
".... I was part of it (ABDICATING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE TROOPS DURING THE VIET NAM WAR) and I'm sort of ashamed of myself, too."
"AT TIMES I WONDER, 'WHY DID I GO ALONG WITH THIS KIND OF STUFF?'"
- Adm. David Lamar McDonald, 1976
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 13 2006, 05:52 AM)
"AT TIMES I WONDER, 'WHY DID I GO ALONG WITH THIS KIND OF STUFF?'"
- Adm. David Lamar McDonald, 1976
- Adm. David Lamar McDonald, 1976
There's a lot of dead Americans wonder that same thing, Admiral, SIR .....
With all due respect .....
They wonder .....
People like me wonder ....
And we could speculate ....
But the dead would still be dead ......
And so ....
We mainly drift on over to other subjects .....
And you probably do that yourself .....
A lot, I would think ....
For the load on your conscience .....
Might be heavy, indeed .....
What with you being derelict in your duty .....
To those dead troops ....
And so .....
But as for me ....
Well ...
Admiral .....
You didn't do ....
What you didn't do ....
And nothing on earth is going to change that ....
And so ....
I don't bear you enmity, anyway ....
So don't fear that ....
We all do what we are going to do ....
And yours was not to do ....
What it was ....
You were really responsible for ....
WHICH WAS TO SPEAK OUT FOR THOSE TROOPS ....
NOT SEND THEM TO SLAUGHTER .....
FOR A LIE ....
OR A WHOLE PASSEL OF LIES, ACTUALLY ....
THAT YOU IGNORED ...
TO THEIR PERIL ....
ETERNAL PERIL, AS IT WERE ....
And so .....
When you become a soldier .....
Or me, anyway ....
Since I am the only one that I can speak for ....
You do not shy away ....
From the possibility .....
That you could lose your life ...
Or become seriously injured .....
In your new line of work ....
Or I didn't anyway .....
Which is why I applied myself ....
Beginning at an early age .....
So that when it was my turn .....
To "stand on the line" ....
I would be ready and able to do so .....
And so ....
I myself was a good soldier ....
Or so my commanding officer told me ....
And so ....
I figured he would be a better judge of those things than I ....
Him being the commanding officer, after all ...
And so ....
If I say in here ...
That I was a good soldier .....
It is the word of my commanding officer that I am relying on ....
A Lieutenant Colonel ....
In Viet Nam....
And so ....
I was twice-wounded in Viet Nam ....
Once in the face ....
Once in the back of the head ....
And I was not fearful either time ....
Fearful of the combat ....
And so .....
BUT ....
TO DIE FOOLISHLY .....
TO BE "TOSSED" AWAY .....
BY THE HIGHER-UPS ....
IN THE CHAIN-OF-COMMAND .....
Well .....
That is something that you end up thinking about .....
In a place like Viet Nam .....
Where ....
Because of a whole passel of lies ....
The MEATGRINDER was churning .....
And so ....
Or me, anyway ....
Since I am the only one that I can speak for ....
You do not shy away ....
From the possibility .....
That you could lose your life ...
Or become seriously injured .....
In your new line of work ....
Or I didn't anyway .....
Which is why I applied myself ....
Beginning at an early age .....
So that when it was my turn .....
To "stand on the line" ....
I would be ready and able to do so .....
And so ....
I myself was a good soldier ....
Or so my commanding officer told me ....
And so ....
I figured he would be a better judge of those things than I ....
Him being the commanding officer, after all ...
And so ....
If I say in here ...
That I was a good soldier .....
It is the word of my commanding officer that I am relying on ....
A Lieutenant Colonel ....
In Viet Nam....
And so ....
I was twice-wounded in Viet Nam ....
Once in the face ....
Once in the back of the head ....
And I was not fearful either time ....
Fearful of the combat ....
And so .....
BUT ....
TO DIE FOOLISHLY .....
TO BE "TOSSED" AWAY .....
BY THE HIGHER-UPS ....
IN THE CHAIN-OF-COMMAND .....
Well .....
That is something that you end up thinking about .....
In a place like Viet Nam .....
Where ....
Because of a whole passel of lies ....
The MEATGRINDER was churning .....
And so ....
The first point I want to make ....
AND I WANT TO MAKE IT WITH EMPHASIS .....
IS THAT .....
NO MATTER WHAT RUMORS ....
OR ASSERTIONS .....
YOU (THE AMERICAN PEOPLE) MAY HAVE HEARD TO THE CONTRARY .....
THERE IS NO BOILING DISSENTION ....
BETWEEN THE MILITARY .....
AND THE CIVILIAN LEADERS .....
WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE .....
IT APPEARS ...
TO ME ...
THAT THE CURRENT RELATIONSHIP .....
BETWEEN THE SOLDIER .....
AND THE STATE .....
IS POSSIBLY ...
THE BEST .....
WE HAVE HAD .....
IN MANY YEARS.
- General Earle Wheeler, January 14, 1965
AND I WANT TO MAKE IT WITH EMPHASIS .....
IS THAT .....
NO MATTER WHAT RUMORS ....
OR ASSERTIONS .....
YOU (THE AMERICAN PEOPLE) MAY HAVE HEARD TO THE CONTRARY .....
THERE IS NO BOILING DISSENTION ....
BETWEEN THE MILITARY .....
AND THE CIVILIAN LEADERS .....
WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE .....
IT APPEARS ...
TO ME ...
THAT THE CURRENT RELATIONSHIP .....
BETWEEN THE SOLDIER .....
AND THE STATE .....
IS POSSIBLY ...
THE BEST .....
WE HAVE HAD .....
IN MANY YEARS.
- General Earle Wheeler, January 14, 1965
There has been an ongoing discussion with members of this forum about the pros and cons of one being antiwar.
Some find it confusing that I would be a war veteran who advocates an antiwar position; a few see no discrepancy in this position.
I should clarify my position; if war was without a doubt necessary for the survival of our beloved Nation, and a major portion of my fellow Americans agreed, I too would support going to war.
The problem as I see it is this; Korea, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Panama, Granada, probably Kosovo (I haven’t studied Kosovo enough to offer a valid opinion), Somalia, Lebanon, and the current conflict in Iraq have been wars of political choice and of little consequence to America’s long term prosperity. WW1 and 2, and the war in Afghanistan have been valid reasons to spend American lives and treasure.
To be antiwar is not really to be antiwar, what it means to me is that we must rise above the knee jerk political conversations of the day and determine the consequence and validity of taking on such an endeavor. If it is determined by most Americans that any price is worth the fight, I sure wouldn’t argue against it. I would expect our leaders to rise above the political fray and employ the smartest of all Americans to the task of fighting the war in an extremely intelligent way.
Many times throughout our history we have become victim to some goal driven by political gains and the days hypocrisy. To which I am abhorred. To think that when the day is done we will grieve the loss of friends and family because we were not smart enough to find a better way, is immoral and reprehensible. I morn for the soul of my beloved America, when we lose our senses and our long term obligation to reasonable thinking. We owe it to ourselves, our children and all future Americans to be more intelligent than what we have been this past 4 years. This is why I say I am antiwar.
Some find it confusing that I would be a war veteran who advocates an antiwar position; a few see no discrepancy in this position.
I should clarify my position; if war was without a doubt necessary for the survival of our beloved Nation, and a major portion of my fellow Americans agreed, I too would support going to war.
The problem as I see it is this; Korea, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Panama, Granada, probably Kosovo (I haven’t studied Kosovo enough to offer a valid opinion), Somalia, Lebanon, and the current conflict in Iraq have been wars of political choice and of little consequence to America’s long term prosperity. WW1 and 2, and the war in Afghanistan have been valid reasons to spend American lives and treasure.
To be antiwar is not really to be antiwar, what it means to me is that we must rise above the knee jerk political conversations of the day and determine the consequence and validity of taking on such an endeavor. If it is determined by most Americans that any price is worth the fight, I sure wouldn’t argue against it. I would expect our leaders to rise above the political fray and employ the smartest of all Americans to the task of fighting the war in an extremely intelligent way.
Many times throughout our history we have become victim to some goal driven by political gains and the days hypocrisy. To which I am abhorred. To think that when the day is done we will grieve the loss of friends and family because we were not smart enough to find a better way, is immoral and reprehensible. I morn for the soul of my beloved America, when we lose our senses and our long term obligation to reasonable thinking. We owe it to ourselves, our children and all future Americans to be more intelligent than what we have been this past 4 years. This is why I say I am antiwar.
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 15 2006, 09:59 PM)
There has been an ongoing discussion with members of this forum about the pros and cons of one being antiwar.
There is a word ....
Or term, more likely ....
That I stay right away from ....
ANTI-WAR .....
I stay away from it ....
Because it has no real clear meaning ....
And so ....
Is more likely than not to confuse ....
AND SERVE AS A LABEL ...
For someone to be branded as "weak" ....
Or "craven" ....
Or whatever ...
All negative ...
All pejoratives .....
I am ANTI-STUPIDITY, myself ....
And not necessarily ANTI-WAR .....
But since WAR is the realm ....
All too often ....
OF SOME OF THE STUPIDEST PEOPLE UNDER THE SUN ....
Well .....
And so ....
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 15 2006, 09:59 PM)
Many times throughout our history we have become victim to some goal driven by political gains and the day's hypocrisy ....
Ah, yes, vf ......
A "truth" ....
And I would only modify your statement by adding "ALL TOO MANY TIMES ......"
And then .....
I would go right to the Viet Nam debacle .....
Which is what I started doing above here .....
Not presenting my own opinions .....
Because they would be worthless .....
They are merely mine ....
And I am but obscure ....
But by using history as THE GUIDE .....
And so ...
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 15 2006, 09:10 AM)
The first point I want to make ....
AND I WANT TO MAKE IT WITH EMPHASIS .....
IS THAT .....
NO MATTER WHAT RUMORS ....
OR ASSERTIONS .....
YOU (THE AMERICAN PEOPLE) MAY HAVE HEARD TO THE CONTRARY .....
THERE IS NO BOILING DISSENTION ....
BETWEEN THE MILITARY .....
AND THE CIVILIAN LEADERS .....
WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE .....
IT APPEARS ...
TO ME ...
THAT THE CURRENT RELATIONSHIP .....
BETWEEN THE SOLDIER .....
AND THE STATE .....
IS POSSIBLY ...
THE BEST .....
WE HAVE HAD .....
IN MANY YEARS.
- General Earle Wheeler, January 14, 1965
AND I WANT TO MAKE IT WITH EMPHASIS .....
IS THAT .....
NO MATTER WHAT RUMORS ....
OR ASSERTIONS .....
YOU (THE AMERICAN PEOPLE) MAY HAVE HEARD TO THE CONTRARY .....
THERE IS NO BOILING DISSENTION ....
BETWEEN THE MILITARY .....
AND THE CIVILIAN LEADERS .....
WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE .....
IT APPEARS ...
TO ME ...
THAT THE CURRENT RELATIONSHIP .....
BETWEEN THE SOLDIER .....
AND THE STATE .....
IS POSSIBLY ...
THE BEST .....
WE HAVE HAD .....
IN MANY YEARS.
- General Earle Wheeler, January 14, 1965
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 16 2006, 09:01 AM)
"THE WAY FORWARD ...."
"IS BACKWARDS ...."
"THROUGH A BRAMBLE PATCH ..."
"DOWN A RABBIT HOLE ..."
"AND BACK UP AGAIN ...."
"TO THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD ..."
"WHERE YOU CLICK YOUR HEELS TOGETHER THREE TIMES ..."
(Which they say "SMILING PETER" does elegantly ...)
"AND THEN YOU SAY ..."
"I WANT A VICTORY CELEBRATION ..."
"I WANT A VICTORY CELEBRATION ...."
"I WANT A VICTORY CELEBRATION ..."
And so .....
I kind of like it myself .....
It is a nice slogan ....
Like something that Mao Tse Tung might have used to whip the RED GUARDS up into a froth with .....
Or frenzy ....
Kind of a bouncy rythym to it ........
Jaunty, even ....
RAPPERS will go crazy over it .....
Or so Karl Rove is supposed to have said ....
Or was it Rush Limbaugh?
Anyway .....
It was somebody ....
And so ....
My bet is that it will take off like a rocket .....
There will be VICTORY CELEBRATIONS ALL OVER AMERICA ......
POLITICIANS MARCHING SIDE-BY-SIDE .....
DOWN THE STREET .....
FLAGS WAVING .....
CROWDS CHEERING .....
There won't be any troops marching, of course .....
They'll still be stuck over there in IRAQ .....
But if we are having VICTORY CELEBRATIONS ....
We'll feel good about ourselves .....
We'll feel safe, again .....
And hey ...
Somebody has got to be in IRAQ, anyway ....
And so ....
"IS BACKWARDS ...."
"THROUGH A BRAMBLE PATCH ..."
"DOWN A RABBIT HOLE ..."
"AND BACK UP AGAIN ...."
"TO THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD ..."
"WHERE YOU CLICK YOUR HEELS TOGETHER THREE TIMES ..."
(Which they say "SMILING PETER" does elegantly ...)
"AND THEN YOU SAY ..."
"I WANT A VICTORY CELEBRATION ..."
"I WANT A VICTORY CELEBRATION ...."
"I WANT A VICTORY CELEBRATION ..."
And so .....
I kind of like it myself .....
It is a nice slogan ....
Like something that Mao Tse Tung might have used to whip the RED GUARDS up into a froth with .....
Or frenzy ....
Kind of a bouncy rythym to it ........
Jaunty, even ....
RAPPERS will go crazy over it .....
Or so Karl Rove is supposed to have said ....
Or was it Rush Limbaugh?
Anyway .....
It was somebody ....
And so ....
My bet is that it will take off like a rocket .....
There will be VICTORY CELEBRATIONS ALL OVER AMERICA ......
POLITICIANS MARCHING SIDE-BY-SIDE .....
DOWN THE STREET .....
FLAGS WAVING .....
CROWDS CHEERING .....
There won't be any troops marching, of course .....
They'll still be stuck over there in IRAQ .....
But if we are having VICTORY CELEBRATIONS ....
We'll feel good about ourselves .....
We'll feel safe, again .....
And hey ...
Somebody has got to be in IRAQ, anyway ....
And so ....
"Bush leans toward Iraq troop increase - Military planners, budget analysts are studying a 'surge' of 20,000"
New York Times
First published: Saturday, December 16, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Military planners and White House budget analysts have been asked to provide President Bush with options for increasing U.S. forces in Iraq by 20,000 or more.
The request indicates that the option of a major "surge" in troop strength is gaining ground as part of a White House strategy review, senior administration officials said.
Discussion of increasing the number of U.S. troops, at least temporarily, has coursed through Washington for two months, as a possible way to reverse deteriorating security in Baghdad.
But the decision to ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff to specify where the additional forces could be found among overstretched Army, Marine and National Guard units, and to seek a cost estimate from the White House Office of Management and Budget, signifies a turn in the debate.
Officials said that the options being considered include the deployment of upward of 50,000 additional troops, but that the political, training and recruiting obstacles to an increase larger than 20,000 to 30,000 troops would be prohibitive.
The details of the plan under study by the White House are not known, but in most scenarios the troop increase would be accomplished in large part by accelerating some scheduled deployments while delaying the departure of units in Iraq.
Bush has made no final decision, the White House said.
Meanwhile, three more U.S. troops died in fighting this week, the military said Friday, raising to 54 the number of Americans killed in Iraq in December -- nearly half of them in Anbar.
The month is shaping up to be one of the deadliest for Americans since the war started, especially for those trying to tame the Sunni-led insurgency in the volatile province west of Baghdad.
At least 25 of the U.S. troops killed this month -- most of them Marines -- died in the vast stretch of desert that extends from the capital to the borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
At least 2,942 members of the U.S. military have died since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
At least 34 people were killed or found dead Friday, including 22 bullet-riddled bodies discovered in several parts of Baghdad.
Rumsfeld cautions U.S.
Donald H. Rumsfeld used his farewell address as defense secretary to warn against a weakening of American will in Iraq, saying a withdrawal of troops may provide short-term relief from U.S. casualties but would only embolden extremist enemies.
Rumsfeld will not formally relinquish his post until Monday, when former CIA director Robert M. Gates is sworn is as the 22nd Defense secretary.
Britain's prewar doubts
Carne Ross, Britain's former top Iraq expert at the United Nations, said in previously secret testimony that most government officials did not believe Iraq posed a threat in the months leading to the U.S.-led invasion, according to a new report.
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 16 2006, 08:04 AM)
I am ANTI-STUPIDITY, myself ....
And not necessarily ANTI-WAR .....
But since WAR is the realm ....
All too often ....
OF SOME OF THE STUPIDEST PEOPLE UNDER THE SUN ....
Well .....
And so ....
And not necessarily ANTI-WAR .....
But since WAR is the realm ....
All too often ....
OF SOME OF THE STUPIDEST PEOPLE UNDER THE SUN ....
Well .....
And so ....
Say, George .....
By the way ....
Are You Walking and a-Talking With the Lord
Recorded by Hank Williams, sr.
Words and music by Hank Williams, Sr.
On your journey to the grave .....
Would you stop and try to save ....
Are you walkin’ and a-talkin’ with the lord?
Would you lend a helping hand ....
To some poor sinner man ....
Are you walkin’ and a-talkin’ with the lord?
Are you walkin’, (are you walkin’)
Are you talkin’, (are you talkin’)
Are you walkin’ and a-talkin’ with the lord?
Are you traveling in his light .....
Ev’ry day and ev’ry night ....
Are you walkin’ and a talkin’ with the lord?
If you heart said testify, would the world hear your reply .....
Are you walkin’ and a-talkin’ with the lord? .
Would you stand and shout his name or bow your head in shame ....
Are you walkin’ and a-talkin’ with the lord?
Are you walkin’, (are you walkin’)
Are you talkin’, (are you talkin’)
Are you walkin’ and a-talkin’ with the lord?
Are you traveling in his light .....
Ev’ry day and ev’ry night ....
Are you walkin’ and a talkin’ with the lord?
When the time has come to go, will your robe be white as snow ....
Are you walkin’ and a-talkin’ with the lord?
Will he take you by the hand and lead you to that promised land ....
Are you walkin’ and a-talkin’ with the lord?
Are you walkin’, (are you walkin’)
Are you talkin’, (are you talkin’)
Are you walkin’ and a-talkin’ with the lord?
Are you traveling in his light .....
Ev’ry day and ev’ry night ....
Are you walkin’ and a talkin’ with the lord?
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 16 2006, 09:47 AM)
Say, George .....
By the way ....
If your heart said testify, would the world hear your reply .....
Would you stand and shout his name or bow your head in shame ....
When the time has come to go, will your robe be white as snow ....
By the way ....
If your heart said testify, would the world hear your reply .....
Would you stand and shout his name or bow your head in shame ....
When the time has come to go, will your robe be white as snow ....
It's interesting .....
When George W. Bush got elected president .....
There was this Army general named Boykin .....
Who famously ....
And very publicly stated:
"He's in the White House because God put him there ...."
And if that is true ....
I would say .....
God put George W. Bush there .....
For one purpose ....
And one purpose only .....
And that is to break the United States of America .....
To "neutralize" it .....
AS A THREAT ....
TO A WORLD ....
THAT IS A LOT MORE GOD'S ....
Than it is America's .....
And in choosing George W. Bush as his or her "choice" to destroy America .....
As Babylon and Jerico were destroyed ....
I personally think God chose well .....
In choosing George W. Bush to destroy America ....
For if any one man could actually bring this nation right to its knees .....
My money would be on George W. Bush ....
As God's own personal choice ....
But then .....
God would have good judgment in those kinds of matters .........
Who to have as his or her vehicle .....
To destroy an arrogant and over-proud nation ....
A nation THAT BELIEVES IN TORTURE ....
A nation ....
THAT INDISCRIMINATELY KILLS WOMEN AND CHILDREN ....
A NATION THAT WAGES WAR ....
Against impoverished third-world nations ......
So it can show all the quivering, quaking world .....
Just how MACHO it really is .....
Wouldn't he, or she ......
And so ....
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 15 2006, 09:59 PM)
There has been an ongoing discussion with members of this forum about the pros and cons of one being antiwar.
Some find it confusing that I would be a war veteran who advocates an antiwar position; a few see no discrepancy in this position.
Some find it confusing that I would be a war veteran who advocates an antiwar position; a few see no discrepancy in this position.
I don't know vfguenley, me .....
So far as I know, anyway ....
So far as I know .....
He lives some 2200 or so miles from me .........
Down to the south and west of where I am right now ....
And to my knowledge ....
We have never met ...
We didn't serve together in Viet Nam .....
We were not in the same unit .....
And it would not be automatically clear .....
Or certain ....
That in Viet Nam ....
Him being a military policeman ....
And me being an infantryman ....
That we necessarily would have even been "on the same side" ....
Although he and I personally would probably not have engaged in open hostilities ....
But whoever does really know .....
And so ....
But despite all of that .....
I personally think ....
From the few words that we have had in here ....
That vfguenley "MISREPRESENTS" himself ....
When he says that he is ANTI-WAR .....
And so ....
And to put that into a context ....
SINCE CONTEXT DETERMINES THE COURSE OF A DIALOGUE ....
What I want to say .....
From my own perspective here .....
And I do get to have one .....
Is that at its most basic ....
Stripped of all of its frills and such ....
Take off the fancy bows ....
Take off the ribbons ....
And you have war ....
AS A TAKING ....
And that is what it is ...
A TAKING ....
"NOT ASKING NO MORE, TAKING NOW, THANK YOU VERY MUCH ..."
And so ....
THAT IS WHAT "WAR" IS ....
And if you are going to be "ANTI" that .....
Well .....
Good luck in life is what I have got to say .....
And so .....
Let us say that I decided to go to war against a rattlesnake out in Wyoming ....
If I did ....
I would go out ....
And take his teeth ....
And the war would be over .....
Just like that ....
My objective was not to have to worry about being bitten by a rattlesnake .....
And so ....
By taking his front teeth ....
I have secured my "security" .....
For awhile .....
For you are stupid ....
If you think ...
Taking just one rattlesnake's front teeth ...
In a world full of them ...
Is going to protect you forever ....
And so ....
CONSTANT AND ETERNAL VIGLILENCE ....
For when you are out hunting rattlesnakes .....
It is good to know how many of them there are supposed to be ...
And how they generally disperse themselves ...
And you always remember ....
That the one you can see ....
Is not the one likely to bite you ....
AND YOU ARE THE WORLD'S BIGGEST DAMN FOOL ....
IF YOU THINK THEY ALWAYS WILL RATTLE ...
BEFORE THEY WILL STRIKE .....
And if someone says why not just kill them all ....
Well ....
Then who are you going to have ....
To catch all the prairie dogs ....
That will destroy your irrigation ....
If you don't have the rattlesnakes around ....
To keep them in check ....
And so .....
Being ANTI-WAR is really a meaningless concept .....
IT IS A SENTIMENT, AT BEST ....
AND FOR HAVING THAT SENTIMENT ....
I PERSONALLY MUST APPLAUD vfguenley .....
FOR BEING ABLE TO WALK ....
IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION ....
OF A DAMN FOOL'S WAR ....
AND THIS ONE IN IRAQINAMISTAN SURE QUALIFIES AS ONE, ALRIGHT ....
Makes vfguenley a much better human being for it ....
In my "cosmology", anyway ...
FOR NOT EMBRACING THE SLAUGHTER OF INNOCENT WOMEN AND CHILDREN ....
AS THE WAY ....
TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS DOWN HERE ON THIS EARTH OF OURS ....
And they are legion, indeed ....
THANKS TO GEORGE W. BUSH ....
And so ....
"Smiting the infidels - Gen. Boykin, the Bible-thumping crank who said Bush "was appointed by God," is at the center of the Abu Ghraib scandal"
By Sidney Blumenthal
May 20, 2004
Saving Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin seemed like a strange sideshow last October.
After it was revealed that the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence had been regularly appearing at evangelical revivals, preaching that the United States was in a holy war as a "Christian nation" battling "Satan," the furor was quickly calmed.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld explained that Boykin was exercising his rights as a citizen:
"We're a free people."
President Bush declared that Boykin "doesn't reflect my point of view or the point of view of this administration."
Bush's commission on public diplomacy had reported that in nine Muslim countries, just 12 percent of people believed that "Americans respect Arab/Islamic values."
The Pentagon announced that its inspector general would investigate, though he has yet to report.
Boykin was not removed or transferred.
At that moment, in fact, he was at the center of the secret operation to "Gitmo-ize" Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
He had flown to Guantánamo (known as "Gitmo") in Cuba, where he met with the commandant of Camp X-Ray, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, ordering him to extend his methods to the Iraq prison system, orders that had come from Rumsfeld.
While Boykin weathered his public storm, he remained the operational officer overseeing Miller's new assignment.
Boykin was recommended to his position by his storied résumé in the elite Delta Force.
He was a commander in the failed effort to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran in 1980, tracked drug lord Pablo Escobar in Colombia, advised the gas attack on barricaded cultists at Waco, Texas, and lost 18 men in Mogadishu, Somalia, while trying to capture a warlord in the notorious "Black Hawk Down" fiasco in 1993.
Boykin told an evangelical gathering last year how this fostered his crisis of spirituality.
"There is no God," he said.
"If there was a God, he would have been here to protect my soldiers."
But he was thunderstruck with the insight that his battle with the warlord was between good and evil, between the true God and the false one.
"I knew that my God was bigger than his."
"I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."
Boykin was the action-hero side of his boss, Stephen Cambone, a conservative defense intellectual appointed to the newly created post of undersecretary of intelligence.
Cambone is universally despised by the officer corps for his arrogant, abrasive and dictatorial style and is regarded as the personal symbol of Rumsfeldism.
A former senior Pentagon official told me of his conversation with a currently serving three-star general who remarked, "If we were being overrun by the enemy and I had only one bullet left, I'd use it on Cambone."
Cambone set about to cut out the CIA and State Department from the war on terrorism, but he had no knowledge of special ops.
For this the rarefied civilian relied on the gruff soldier -- a melding of "ignorance and recklessness," as a military intelligence source told me.
Just before Boykin was put in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and then inserted into Iraqi prison reform, he was a circuit rider for the religious right.
He allied himself with a small group known as the Faith Force Multiplier that advocates applying military principles to evangelism.
Its manifesto, "Warrior Message," summons "warriors in this spiritual war for souls of this nation and the world ... God has given us the stewardship and accountability of FAITH as our strategy for this time to mobilize an exceedingly great army."
As the head of the Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, N.C., Boykin invited Southern Baptist ministers for prayer meetings that would be highlighted by demonstrations of Special Forces hand-to-hand combat and guided tours of the "Shoot House" and "Snake Room."
Boykin staged a traveling slide show in which he displayed pictures of bin Laden and Saddam Hussein around the country.
"Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army," he preached.
"Why do they hate us?"
"The answer to that is because we're a Christian nation."
"We are hated because we are a nation of believers."
They "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus."
It was the reportage of his remarks at one such revival in Oregon that made him a subject of brief controversy.
But public relations handling rescued him so that he could pursue his job, including turning up the heat at Abu Ghraib.
After the war in Afghanistan, as the Bush administration focused on Iraq without distraction, White House legal counsel Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo on Jan. 25, 2002, to the president:
"As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war ..."
"The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians ..."
"In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
Secretary of State Colin Powell objected, but, according to Newsweek, he was shunted aside.
In the spring of last year and again in October, as first reported by Joe Conason in Salon, senior officers of the Judge Advocate General Corps, the military's legal division, approached the head of the Committee on International Law of the Association of the Bar of New York City, Scott Horton, seeking help in combating what they reported as the suspension of legal norms and the maltreatment of prisoners of war in Guantánamo, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The JAG officers said that the shift away from the requirements of the Geneva Convention was directed from the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, a leading neoconservative.
Horton's letters to the Pentagon were rebuffed.
Boykin had already received his new commission.
There could be little doubt that he envisioned the "Global War on Terrorism" (the official name stamped on medals given to soldiers for service in Iraq) as a crusade.
With the Geneva Convention apparently suspended, international law was supplanted by biblical law.
Boykin was in God's chain of command.
President Bush, he told an Oregon congregation, is "a man who prays in the Oval Office."
And the president, too, is on a divine mission.
"George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the United States."
"He was appointed by God."
Boykin is not unique in his belief that Bush -- and we -- are God's anointed against evildoers.
Before his 2000 campaign, Bush confided to a leader of the religious right:
"I feel like God wants me to run for president."
"I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me."
"Something is going to happen."
Michael Gerson, Bush's chief speechwriter, tells colleagues that on Sept. 20, 2001, after Bush delivered his speech to Congress declaring a war on terrorism, he called Gerson to thank him for writing it.
"God wants you here," Gerson says he told the president.
And he says that Bush replied, "God wants us here."
But it's Bush who wants Rumsfeld, Cambone and Boykin here.
http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/blument...index.html?pn=2
By Sidney Blumenthal
May 20, 2004
Saving Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin seemed like a strange sideshow last October.
After it was revealed that the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence had been regularly appearing at evangelical revivals, preaching that the United States was in a holy war as a "Christian nation" battling "Satan," the furor was quickly calmed.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld explained that Boykin was exercising his rights as a citizen:
"We're a free people."
President Bush declared that Boykin "doesn't reflect my point of view or the point of view of this administration."
Bush's commission on public diplomacy had reported that in nine Muslim countries, just 12 percent of people believed that "Americans respect Arab/Islamic values."
The Pentagon announced that its inspector general would investigate, though he has yet to report.
Boykin was not removed or transferred.
At that moment, in fact, he was at the center of the secret operation to "Gitmo-ize" Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
He had flown to Guantánamo (known as "Gitmo") in Cuba, where he met with the commandant of Camp X-Ray, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, ordering him to extend his methods to the Iraq prison system, orders that had come from Rumsfeld.
While Boykin weathered his public storm, he remained the operational officer overseeing Miller's new assignment.
Boykin was recommended to his position by his storied résumé in the elite Delta Force.
He was a commander in the failed effort to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran in 1980, tracked drug lord Pablo Escobar in Colombia, advised the gas attack on barricaded cultists at Waco, Texas, and lost 18 men in Mogadishu, Somalia, while trying to capture a warlord in the notorious "Black Hawk Down" fiasco in 1993.
Boykin told an evangelical gathering last year how this fostered his crisis of spirituality.
"There is no God," he said.
"If there was a God, he would have been here to protect my soldiers."
But he was thunderstruck with the insight that his battle with the warlord was between good and evil, between the true God and the false one.
"I knew that my God was bigger than his."
"I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."
Boykin was the action-hero side of his boss, Stephen Cambone, a conservative defense intellectual appointed to the newly created post of undersecretary of intelligence.
Cambone is universally despised by the officer corps for his arrogant, abrasive and dictatorial style and is regarded as the personal symbol of Rumsfeldism.
A former senior Pentagon official told me of his conversation with a currently serving three-star general who remarked, "If we were being overrun by the enemy and I had only one bullet left, I'd use it on Cambone."
Cambone set about to cut out the CIA and State Department from the war on terrorism, but he had no knowledge of special ops.
For this the rarefied civilian relied on the gruff soldier -- a melding of "ignorance and recklessness," as a military intelligence source told me.
Just before Boykin was put in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden and then inserted into Iraqi prison reform, he was a circuit rider for the religious right.
He allied himself with a small group known as the Faith Force Multiplier that advocates applying military principles to evangelism.
Its manifesto, "Warrior Message," summons "warriors in this spiritual war for souls of this nation and the world ... God has given us the stewardship and accountability of FAITH as our strategy for this time to mobilize an exceedingly great army."
As the head of the Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, N.C., Boykin invited Southern Baptist ministers for prayer meetings that would be highlighted by demonstrations of Special Forces hand-to-hand combat and guided tours of the "Shoot House" and "Snake Room."
Boykin staged a traveling slide show in which he displayed pictures of bin Laden and Saddam Hussein around the country.
"Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army," he preached.
"Why do they hate us?"
"The answer to that is because we're a Christian nation."
"We are hated because we are a nation of believers."
They "will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus."
It was the reportage of his remarks at one such revival in Oregon that made him a subject of brief controversy.
But public relations handling rescued him so that he could pursue his job, including turning up the heat at Abu Ghraib.
After the war in Afghanistan, as the Bush administration focused on Iraq without distraction, White House legal counsel Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo on Jan. 25, 2002, to the president:
"As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war ..."
"The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians ..."
"In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
Secretary of State Colin Powell objected, but, according to Newsweek, he was shunted aside.
In the spring of last year and again in October, as first reported by Joe Conason in Salon, senior officers of the Judge Advocate General Corps, the military's legal division, approached the head of the Committee on International Law of the Association of the Bar of New York City, Scott Horton, seeking help in combating what they reported as the suspension of legal norms and the maltreatment of prisoners of war in Guantánamo, Afghanistan and Iraq.
The JAG officers said that the shift away from the requirements of the Geneva Convention was directed from the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith, a leading neoconservative.
Horton's letters to the Pentagon were rebuffed.
Boykin had already received his new commission.
There could be little doubt that he envisioned the "Global War on Terrorism" (the official name stamped on medals given to soldiers for service in Iraq) as a crusade.
With the Geneva Convention apparently suspended, international law was supplanted by biblical law.
Boykin was in God's chain of command.
President Bush, he told an Oregon congregation, is "a man who prays in the Oval Office."
And the president, too, is on a divine mission.
"George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the United States."
"He was appointed by God."
Boykin is not unique in his belief that Bush -- and we -- are God's anointed against evildoers.
Before his 2000 campaign, Bush confided to a leader of the religious right:
"I feel like God wants me to run for president."
"I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me."
"Something is going to happen."
Michael Gerson, Bush's chief speechwriter, tells colleagues that on Sept. 20, 2001, after Bush delivered his speech to Congress declaring a war on terrorism, he called Gerson to thank him for writing it.
"God wants you here," Gerson says he told the president.
And he says that Bush replied, "God wants us here."
But it's Bush who wants Rumsfeld, Cambone and Boykin here.
http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/blument...index.html?pn=2
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 16 2006, 03:33 PM)
And so .....
Being ANTI-WAR is really a meaningless concept .....
IT IS A SENTIMENT, AT BEST ....
AND FOR HAVING THAT SENTIMENT ....
I PERSONALLY MUST APPLAUD vfguenley .....
FOR BEING ABLE TO WALK ....
IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION ....
OF A DAMN FOOL'S WAR ....
AND THIS ONE IN IRAQINAMISTAN SURE QUALIFIES AS ONE, ALRIGHT ....
Makes vfguenley a much better human being for it ....
In my "cosmology", anyway ...
FOR NOT EMBRACING THE SLAUGHTER OF INNOCENT WOMEN AND CHILDREN ....
AS THE WAY ....
TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS DOWN HERE ON THIS EARTH OF OURS ....
And so ....
Being ANTI-WAR is really a meaningless concept .....
IT IS A SENTIMENT, AT BEST ....
AND FOR HAVING THAT SENTIMENT ....
I PERSONALLY MUST APPLAUD vfguenley .....
FOR BEING ABLE TO WALK ....
IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION ....
OF A DAMN FOOL'S WAR ....
AND THIS ONE IN IRAQINAMISTAN SURE QUALIFIES AS ONE, ALRIGHT ....
Makes vfguenley a much better human being for it ....
In my "cosmology", anyway ...
FOR NOT EMBRACING THE SLAUGHTER OF INNOCENT WOMEN AND CHILDREN ....
AS THE WAY ....
TO SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS DOWN HERE ON THIS EARTH OF OURS ....
And so ....
Having been to "war", myself ......
I would have to say .....
That I am against "war", myself ....
BUT ....
By my memory, anyway ....
When vfguenley and I were actually over there in Viet Nam in 1969 .....
IT WAS NOT A WAR!
Like Korea was not a "war" .....
I don't remember exactly when it was that Viet Nam actually became a war .....
But I think it wasn't until after it was actually over ......
And I don't remember all of the details ....
But as I do remember it .....
It was a political decision .....
And I think that maybe the VFW was behind it ...
For the money that they were missing out on .....
All these Viet Nam veterans could drink at a VFW post as a guest .....
But the VFW couldn't get membership money out of them ...
And so ...
Viet Nam was "converted" from a "conflict" into being a war .....
Then Viet Nam veterans could say that they too were veterans of a foreign war ....
And they could then join the VFW ....
And the VFW was happy ....
They had tapped into a new stream of cash ....
And the American way was preserved ....
Which brings me to a response to this post above of mine about being ANTI-WAR that I sent to an older American of the WWII generation ....
And since it expresses some of my own thoughts and feelings ....
And perhaps those of vfguenley, as well ....
I will post it here:
I guess the biggest problem I have with the whole IRAQ thing is this ............
I don't view it now ....
Nor have I ever viewed it as a "WAR" .............
I think it was merely an INVASION with some devastating consequences .....
So, if the people of today (or as far back as the vietnam WAR is concerned...another of question.....) view these as "WAR" .....
Perhaps we all need to go to the drawing board and figure out what "WAR" really is .....
I see us in World War II as a real "WAR", the same with the first, but the others I question the name we've given it .............
Am I wrong?
Or unclear?
And so ....
It would be tuff dying for semantics, maybe the title we give a negative circumstance could be influential, but I doubt it, it’s still negative. I say I’m antiwar, because I’m too lazy to find a more appropriate term., I’m not a pacifist, possibly a "conscience" objector.
Does it really matter what we call it, so long as we agree what the impact of “it’s” consequences are, for all.
War, conflict, battle, police action, I don’t think the survivors, or those who didn’t survive, are impacted by the language, we use to declaim our opinion, really care how it’s referred too. Maybe some do, but really how important is it we all agree to the semantics argument, I don’t think it is as important as agreeing to the consequences, and thus preventing more negatives.
The VFW, which is a four letter word here at my house, would be out of business if not for the nam vets. I’m not clear why they need to continue, maybe to provide stools for the needy. I’ll refrain from the lengthy sad tail of me and the VFW, I’ll just say, they abused the privilege of my giving them my “power of attorney”, it cost me dearly, yet I did recover and put it behind me.
Clarity is the providence of the thoughtful and those already deceased.
Does it really matter what we call it, so long as we agree what the impact of “it’s” consequences are, for all.
War, conflict, battle, police action, I don’t think the survivors, or those who didn’t survive, are impacted by the language, we use to declaim our opinion, really care how it’s referred too. Maybe some do, but really how important is it we all agree to the semantics argument, I don’t think it is as important as agreeing to the consequences, and thus preventing more negatives.
The VFW, which is a four letter word here at my house, would be out of business if not for the nam vets. I’m not clear why they need to continue, maybe to provide stools for the needy. I’ll refrain from the lengthy sad tail of me and the VFW, I’ll just say, they abused the privilege of my giving them my “power of attorney”, it cost me dearly, yet I did recover and put it behind me.
Clarity is the providence of the thoughtful and those already deceased.
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 2 2006, 07:42 PM)
From FIASCO - The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks at pp. 184,85:
ABIZAID CALLS IT A WAR
At the Pentagon in July (2003), he (Abizaid) used his first press conference as chief of Central Command to make a major course correction.
YES, HE ANNOUNCED, WE ARE INDEED IN A WAR IN IRAQ.
"What is the situation in Iraq?" Abizaid said, addressing reporters at the Pentagon after meeting with Rumsfeld.
Opponents of the U.S. presence, he said, speaking with precision, "are conducting what I would describe as a classical guerilla-type campaign against us."
He then went on to use the word the Bush administration had been dancing around for weeks.
"IT'S WAR, HOWEVER YOU DESCRIBE IT."
This went a long way toward clearing up the strategic confusion about what the U.S. military was doing in Iraq, and how it was doing it.
ASKED TO EXPLAIN WHY HE WAS CALLING IT A WAR AFTER WEEKS OF HESITANCY BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS TO DO SO, ABIZAID SAID BLUNTLY, "WELL, I THINK THAT, YOU KNOW, ALL OF US HAVE TO BE VERY CLEAR IN WHAT WE ARE SEEING."
In that seemingly off-hand, Abizaid was making an essential point about strategy and military operations.
ABIZAID KNEW THAT IT MATTERS VERY MUCH WHETHER THE NATION THINKS IT IS AT WAR, ESPECIALLY TO THE SOLDIERS ON THE GROUND AND THEIR COMMANDERS.
"The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish ... the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature," Clausewitz famously wrote.
"This is the first of all strategic questions and the most comprehensive."
Strategy, correctly formulated, shapes tactics.
But tactics uninformed by strategy, or misinformed by an incorrect strategy, are like a car without a steering wheel: it may get somewhere, but probably not where its driver wants it to go.
"IN IRAQ, WE FOUGHT THE WAR WE WANTED TO FIGHT, NOT THE WAR THAT WAS," said Bruce Hoffman, A Rand Corp. terrorism expert who consulted with the CPA.
"We belatedly recognized it as a large insurgency, after dismissing it as 'dead-enders'."
This lapse gave the enemy breathing space in which to organize and look for vulnerabilities in the U.S. military.
After Abizaid spoke, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita, standing at his side in the Pentagon briefing room, jumped in to attempt to undercut the crucial point the general had just made.
"THE DISCUSSION ABOUT WHAT TYPE OF CONFLICT THIS IS, IS - LIKE SO MANY OTHER DISCUSSIONS WE'RE HAVING WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF IRAQ - IS ALMOST BESIDE THE POINT, " the spokesman told the reporters.
The issue to remember, he insisted, was that the fighters wanted to restore Saddam Hussein's regime.
"So it's worth remembering that as we kind of have this almost kind of, you know, academic discussion, is it this or is it that."
Di Rita appeared to be brushing aside the considered opinion of one of the Army's top generals, the senior commander for Iraq and the rest of the mideast - WHO KNEW MORE ABOUT THE AREA AND ABOUT WAR THAN DI RITA DID.
It was a moment that captured in a nutshell the weakness at the core of the Bush administration's national security team:
Strategy was seen as something vague and intellectual, at best a secondary issue, when in fact it was the core of the task they faced.
IT WAS THE SAME SORT OF LIMITED THINKING THAT HAD LED THE BUSH TEAM FIRST TO FOCUS IN 2002 AND EARLY 2003 ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY ON ITS PLAN OF ATTACK FOR IRAQ, RATHER THAN ON THE MORE DIFFICULT BUT CRUCIAL CONSOLIDATION OF THAT VICTORY, AND THAT ALSO LED IT TO MAKE WILDLY UNREALISTIC ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT POSTINVASION IRAQ, AND THEN TO FAIL TO DEVELOP OPERATIONAL PLANS AS A FALLBACK IF ITS ASSUMPTIONS PROVED INCORRECT.
By failing to adequately consider strategic considerations, Rumsfeld, Franks, and other top leaders arguably crippled the beginning of the U.S. mission to transform Iraq.
An "overly simplistic conception of the war led to a cascading undercutting of the war effort: too few troops, too little coordination with civilian/non-governmental agencies (U.S. State department, as one example) and too little allotted time to achieve success," concluded Maj. Isaiah Wilson.
ABIZAID CALLS IT A WAR
At the Pentagon in July (2003), he (Abizaid) used his first press conference as chief of Central Command to make a major course correction.
YES, HE ANNOUNCED, WE ARE INDEED IN A WAR IN IRAQ.
"What is the situation in Iraq?" Abizaid said, addressing reporters at the Pentagon after meeting with Rumsfeld.
Opponents of the U.S. presence, he said, speaking with precision, "are conducting what I would describe as a classical guerilla-type campaign against us."
He then went on to use the word the Bush administration had been dancing around for weeks.
"IT'S WAR, HOWEVER YOU DESCRIBE IT."
This went a long way toward clearing up the strategic confusion about what the U.S. military was doing in Iraq, and how it was doing it.
ASKED TO EXPLAIN WHY HE WAS CALLING IT A WAR AFTER WEEKS OF HESITANCY BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS TO DO SO, ABIZAID SAID BLUNTLY, "WELL, I THINK THAT, YOU KNOW, ALL OF US HAVE TO BE VERY CLEAR IN WHAT WE ARE SEEING."
In that seemingly off-hand, Abizaid was making an essential point about strategy and military operations.
ABIZAID KNEW THAT IT MATTERS VERY MUCH WHETHER THE NATION THINKS IT IS AT WAR, ESPECIALLY TO THE SOLDIERS ON THE GROUND AND THEIR COMMANDERS.
"The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish ... the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature," Clausewitz famously wrote.
"This is the first of all strategic questions and the most comprehensive."
Strategy, correctly formulated, shapes tactics.
But tactics uninformed by strategy, or misinformed by an incorrect strategy, are like a car without a steering wheel: it may get somewhere, but probably not where its driver wants it to go.
"IN IRAQ, WE FOUGHT THE WAR WE WANTED TO FIGHT, NOT THE WAR THAT WAS," said Bruce Hoffman, A Rand Corp. terrorism expert who consulted with the CPA.
"We belatedly recognized it as a large insurgency, after dismissing it as 'dead-enders'."
This lapse gave the enemy breathing space in which to organize and look for vulnerabilities in the U.S. military.
After Abizaid spoke, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita, standing at his side in the Pentagon briefing room, jumped in to attempt to undercut the crucial point the general had just made.
"THE DISCUSSION ABOUT WHAT TYPE OF CONFLICT THIS IS, IS - LIKE SO MANY OTHER DISCUSSIONS WE'RE HAVING WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF IRAQ - IS ALMOST BESIDE THE POINT, " the spokesman told the reporters.
The issue to remember, he insisted, was that the fighters wanted to restore Saddam Hussein's regime.
"So it's worth remembering that as we kind of have this almost kind of, you know, academic discussion, is it this or is it that."
Di Rita appeared to be brushing aside the considered opinion of one of the Army's top generals, the senior commander for Iraq and the rest of the mideast - WHO KNEW MORE ABOUT THE AREA AND ABOUT WAR THAN DI RITA DID.
It was a moment that captured in a nutshell the weakness at the core of the Bush administration's national security team:
Strategy was seen as something vague and intellectual, at best a secondary issue, when in fact it was the core of the task they faced.
IT WAS THE SAME SORT OF LIMITED THINKING THAT HAD LED THE BUSH TEAM FIRST TO FOCUS IN 2002 AND EARLY 2003 ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY ON ITS PLAN OF ATTACK FOR IRAQ, RATHER THAN ON THE MORE DIFFICULT BUT CRUCIAL CONSOLIDATION OF THAT VICTORY, AND THAT ALSO LED IT TO MAKE WILDLY UNREALISTIC ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT POSTINVASION IRAQ, AND THEN TO FAIL TO DEVELOP OPERATIONAL PLANS AS A FALLBACK IF ITS ASSUMPTIONS PROVED INCORRECT.
By failing to adequately consider strategic considerations, Rumsfeld, Franks, and other top leaders arguably crippled the beginning of the U.S. mission to transform Iraq.
An "overly simplistic conception of the war led to a cascading undercutting of the war effort: too few troops, too little coordination with civilian/non-governmental agencies (U.S. State department, as one example) and too little allotted time to achieve success," concluded Maj. Isaiah Wilson.
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 17 2006, 01:42 PM)
I’m not a pacifist .....
I’m not a pacifist .....
BUT ...
That is how I would put it, vf ......
I'M NOT A PACIFIST ....
BUT I'M ALSO NOT A FOOL .....
DON'T LIE TO ME .....
DON'T TWEAK MY EMOTIONS WITH BULL **** .....
TRY TO GET ME ALL "PATRIOTIC" AND RAH-RAH ....
I HAVE BEEN THERE BEFORE .....
I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE .....
And so .....
In that .....
I believe that you and I have a similar outlook .....
Or opinion ....
Or whatever .....
AND ON ONE LEVEL .....
You are right, vf ......
It does not really make a difference .....
HOWEVER ........
As is made perfectly clear ......
By this passage above here .....
From FIASCO - The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks at pp. 184,85:
There is not only one level ......
There are in fact many levels ....
AND THOSE LEVELS ....
WHEN MISREPRESENTED ....
AS THEY WERE IN THE VIET NAM TIMES ....
AND EVEN MORE BLATANTLY TODAY ....
THREATENS OUR REPUBLIC ....
AND IT WEAKENS IT ....
CASTING WAR AS SOMETHING ELSE .....
TO GET DOWN "BELOW THE RADAR" .....
OF CONGRESSIONAL AND PUBLIC SCRUTINY .....
And so .....
And why I personally "object", vf ......
To your characterization of yourself as being ANTI-WAR ....
Is that there is a dialogue, perhaps ....
Or maybe it will be a discussion ....
Or a conversation .....
BETWEEN "THE PEOPLE" OF AMERICA .....
YOU ....
ME ....
AND THE "PEOPLE" OF THE "CANDID WORLD" .....
MUCH IN THE WAY THAT THE ORIGINAL DECLARATION OF INDEPENCE OF THE "UNITED" STATES OF AMERICA WAS A DIALOGUE .....
BETWEEN "THE PEOPLE" OF AMERICA .....
AND THE CANDID WORLD ....
AND I THINK THIS DIALOGUE IS ONLY JUST STARTING .....
PARTLY BECAUSE BEFORE THIS FORUM ....
PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND ME AND THE WORLD ....
NEVER COULD GET INTO THE SAME "ROOM" AT THE SAME TIME ....
TO HAVE A REAL SUBSTANTIVE DIALOGUE ....
ON HOW "WAR" ADVERSELY IMPACTS US .....
AND WHY WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, DO NOT EITHER WANT OR SEEK WAR .....
BUT WILL STAND UP IF IT IS WAGED AGAINST US ...
AND IF YOU BECOME "LABELED" AS BEING ANTI-WAR, vf ......
WHEN YOU REALLY ARE SOMETHING ELSE ...
MEASURED, PERHAPS ....
YOU ARE ALL TOO OFTEN DISMISSED OUT OF HAND ...
AND YOUR WORDS .....
AS A CONSEQUENCE .....
DO NOT GET HEARD .....
And that is to the detriment of society .....
In my cosmology, anyway .....
And so .....
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 17 2006, 01:42 PM)
Clarity is the providence of the thoughtful and those already deceased.
vfguenley and I were having ourselves a bit of a "sidebar" on this and that .....
As veterans will .....
And in response to an inquiry from vfguenley as to why I am the way that I am .....
I attributed it in part to having mostly dead friends .....
While everyone seems to have more of them in the realm of the living .....
WHERE THERE IS NOT MUCH CLARITY AT ALL .....
And vfguenley is right when he says that CLARITY IS THE PROVINCE OF THE ALREADY DECEASED ......
HE IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT .....
THEY ARE DEAD ....
OUT OF THE "GAME" .....
LEFT WITHOUT A MEANS OF EXPRESSION ....
AND THEY KNOW IT .....
AND IN THE CASE OF THE ONES THAT I KNOW FROM VIET NAM ....
THEY ARE THE FIRST TO KNOW IT ...
AND THEY KNOW THAT IT WAS FOR NOTHING .....
THAT THEY WERE KILLED ....
YES ....
THEY DIDN'T DIE .....
THEY WERE KILLED ....
AND THERE IS ONE HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO ......
And so .....
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 12 2006, 11:18 AM)
Since we are the government, why do we lie to ourselves?
Why be so afraid of the truth?
What is hiding in the truth that we don’t want to see?
Can we overcome this conundrum?
Why be so afraid of the truth?
What is hiding in the truth that we don’t want to see?
Can we overcome this conundrum?
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 17 2006, 01:42 PM)
Does it really matter what we call it, so long as we agree what the impact of “it’s” consequences are, for all.
War, conflict, battle, police action ....
I don’t think the survivors ....
Or those who didn’t survive .....
Are impacted by the language we use to declaim our opinion ....
Or really care how it’s referred to .....
Clarity is the providence of the thoughtful and those already deceased .....
War, conflict, battle, police action ....
I don’t think the survivors ....
Or those who didn’t survive .....
Are impacted by the language we use to declaim our opinion ....
Or really care how it’s referred to .....
Clarity is the providence of the thoughtful and those already deceased .....
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 17 2006, 05:35 PM)
THEY DIDN'T DIE .....
THEY WERE KILLED ....
AND THERE IS ONE HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO ......
And so .....
THEY WERE KILLED ....
AND THERE IS ONE HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO ......
And so .....
And yes .....
WHEN IT IS BEING DONE IN OUR NAME .....
OR WHEN IT IS BEING DONE WITH OUR RESOURCES ....
WITH THE BACKING ....
OF WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE ....
OUR GOVERNMENT .....
THEN YES ....
IT DOES MATTER WHAT IT IS CALLED ....
AND WHY IT IS BEING DONE ....
And so ....
"Time expiring for dirty war prosecutions"
By BILL CORMIER, Associated Press
Last updated: 1:25 p.m., Saturday, December 16, 2006
SANTIAGO, Chile -- Latin America is finally owning up to its "dirty wars" -- the nightmarish campaigns of state-sponsored violence in which hundreds of thousands died or "disappeared."
But the death of Chile's Gen. Augusto Pinochet shows the continent's leftist leaders of today must act fast to expose the truth while the masterminds of this savagery are still alive.
Momentum is growing behind new human rights investigations in Chile and other countries where dictators ruled with impunity.
Prosecutors are dusting off cases of abduction and torture, digging up mass graves and using DNA to identify the victims.
In Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, judges are finding ways around the amnesty laws that long protected the perpetrators.
In Brazil and Mexico, democratically elected presidents have finally opened up long-secret files to provide evidence against those responsible.
And 10 years after U.N.-sponsored peace accords in Guatemala stilled the bloodiest of these conflicts, the discovery of a huge archive of files maintained by the notorious National Police may give the victims answers, if not justice.
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner are among the leftist leaders who consider such prosecutions vital to the restoration of democracy.
"The dictatorship model sought a fractured society, immobile, obedient," Kirchner said as he marked this year's 30th anniversary of Argentina's military coup.
"We still face terrible consequences."
"Lamentably, the true authors of this model have not suffered any punishment at all."
Inspired by the Cuban revolution and communist principles, small bands of armed leftists emerged in the 1960s and '70s across Latin America to orchestrate kidnappings, bombings and insurgencies.
The response -- state-sanctioned terror and authoritarian governments secretly supported by U.S. intelligence -- cast a wide net.
Many nonviolent sympathizers were swept up along with suspected guerrillas, and U.S. intelligence agencies supported the dictators through Operation Condor, a scheme developed by Pinochet's secret police to deny dissidents safe havens.
In Chile, the government said 3,197 people were killed for political reasons during Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship.
In just seven years of military rule in Argentina during the 1970s and '80s, official records show, 13,000 people were made to "disappear," but human rights groups put the number closer to 30,000.
Mexico's police and army summarily executed more than 700 people from the 1960s to 1980s, according to a report quietly released last month that signals the Mexican government's first acceptance of responsibility for its dirty war.
In the region's transition back to peace and civilian rule, most such excesses were pardoned or placed out of reach under amnesty agreements.
In El Salvador, where 75,000 died and 7,000 disappeared before a 1992 peace treaty, an amnesty deal has prevented any prosecutions.
And in Guatemala, where the army and police killed 93 percent of the 200,000 people who died in the 1960-1996 civil war, the peace accords meant only a few dozen low-level soldiers stood trial.
Uruguayan judges last month got around their country's amnesty law, which was limited to crimes committed inside Uruguay, by arresting former president-turned-dictator Juan Maria Bordaberry in the 1976 killings of opponents who had fled to Argentina.
Uruguay's leftist President Tabare Vasquez praised the arrests, saying "the justice system has spoken."
But time is against the victims.
Most of those who ordered the state-sponsored torture, murder and disappearances of political dissidents are in their 70s or older, as are many torture survivors.
Pinochet lived to 91.
Paraguay's dictator Alfredo Stroessner died this year at 93 without being held to account.
Because of his age -- 84 -- former Mexican President Luis Echeverria will likely avoid trial for what the government report described as a campaign of "massacres, forced disappearances, systematic torture and genocide."
And in Brazil, the generals blamed for 450 deaths during their 19-year dictatorship have never been held responsible.
"Here, torturers of those still recent times are dying in their beds of old age," said Victoria Grabois, a leader of Torture Never Again in Brazil.
Resolving the nightmares of decades past seems a luxury in countries where crime is rampant and courts too dysfunctional to resolve even today's murders.
Still, human rights workers are finding more government support to bolster their cases.
Leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva -- a former union leader who, like Bachelet and Kirchner, was jailed by the military -- ordered Brazil's Intelligence Agency to make public 1,259 boxes of documents from 1965-1984, when military leaders banned political parties, censored the press and ruthlessly hunted suspected foes.
The most spectacular trove of such evidence was discovered last year in Guatemala -- more than 48 million musty and brittle documents, some of which contain victims' fingerprints and even pictures of tortured corpses.
The collection is so immense, its contents so potentially explosive, that rights workers won't release any details, fearing that the evidence could be sabotaged before they can enter it all into a database using high-speed scanners.
Former military rulers still have supporters across the region, and there's a danger of retribution even in places where courts function well.
In Argentina, a 77-year-old man went missing on Sept. 18 soon after he gave testimony that bolstered a life sentence for a Buenos Aires deputy police chief for the disappearance of six dissidents; he has not been found.
While thousands of Chileans cheered the death of Pinochet on Sunday, 60,000 paid respects at his military funeral, including many who still see him as their savior from communism.
The danger of a backlash is one reason why Bachelet has consistently promoted reconciliation, even as Chilean courts pursue human rights cases.
While Pinochet died without having to testify, some 600 Chilean military officers, including 36 retired generals and Pinochet's secret police chief, have been tried or face prosecution, and more than 400 human rights cases involving 1,240 victims remain open.
"I believe in the truth and I aspire for justice," Bachelet said after Pinochet's death.
"Chile cannot forget, as this is the only way we can look in a constructive way to our future, guaranteeing respect for the fundamental rights of all Chileans."
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 17 2006, 01:42 PM)
Clarity is the province of the thoughtful and those already deceased .....
- p.194, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster .....
On December 3 (1964) Johnson again met with his advisors to approve the EXCOM's two-phase plan for slowly deepening America's involvement in the war.
On the same day the president gave Taylor (Gen. Maxwell Taylor, U.S. Ambassador to South Viet Nam) final instructions before the ambassador departed for Saigon.
He put tremendous pressure on the ambassador to make improvements in the South Vietnamese government - A TASK THAT TAYLOR HAD DESCRIBED AS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
LBJ emphasized that the South Vietnamese government would have to meet "minimum criteria of performance" before the United States attacked North Vietnam.
IN SHORT, THE SAIGON GOVERNMENT HAD TO MAINTAIN CONTROL OF THE POPULATION WHILE THE MILITARY REMAINED SUBORDINATE AND RESPONSIVE TO CIVIL AUTHORITY.
SPECIFICALLY TAYLOR SHOULD INSTRUCT THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE GOVERNMENT TO INCREASE THE SIZE AND EFFECTIVENESS OF ITS ARMED FORCES AND POLICE, REPLACE INCOMPETENT COMMANDERS AND CIVILIAN OFFICIALS, BROADEN THE CIVIC ACTION PROGRAM, DEMONSTRATE PROGRESS IN PACIFICATION, AND, FINALLY, CARRY OUT A SANITARY CLEANUP OF SAIGON.
THE PRESIDENT AUTHORIZED TAYLOR TO BEGIN JOINT PLANNING FOR AIR STRIKES AGAINST THE NORTH TO SHOW THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE LEADERS THAT THE UNITED STATES WAS WILLING TO REWARD THEM WITH BOMBING RUNS ON NORTH VIETNAM IF THEY SATISFIED THE AMERICAN CRITERIA FOR AN EFFECTIVE GOVERNMENT.
It was time to "quit talking and go to work," the president announced.
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 17 2006, 05:22 PM)
I’m not a pacifist .....
BUT ...
That is how I would put it, vf ......
I'M NOT A PACIFIST ....
BUT I'M ALSO NOT A FOOL .....
DON'T LIE TO ME .....
DON'T TWEAK MY EMOTIONS WITH BULL **** .....
TRY TO GET ME ALL "PATRIOTIC" AND RAH-RAH ....
I HAVE BEEN THERE BEFORE .....
I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE .....
And so .....
BUT ...
That is how I would put it, vf ......
I'M NOT A PACIFIST ....
BUT I'M ALSO NOT A FOOL .....
DON'T LIE TO ME .....
DON'T TWEAK MY EMOTIONS WITH BULL **** .....
TRY TO GET ME ALL "PATRIOTIC" AND RAH-RAH ....
I HAVE BEEN THERE BEFORE .....
I KNOW THE DIFFERENCE .....
And so .....
From pp.198,199 Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster .....
When (U.S. Ambassador Maxwell) Taylor returned to Saigon (December 1964), he undertook LBJ's charge to straighten out the South Vietnamese government seriously AND WITH ALL THE SUBTLETY OF A COLONIAL GOVERNOR.
Taylor invited a score of senior South Vietnamese commanders, including a group of influential officers whom Washington officials called the "Young Turks", to General Westmoreland's residence for a steak dinner, AT WHICH HE TOLD THEM THAT THE UNITED STATES COULD NO LONGER SUPPORT SOUTH VIETNAM IF THE MILITARY CONTINUED TO ENGAGE IN POLITICAL INTRIGUE.
He exacted from the generals a pledge to support the fledgling civilian government of Prime Minister Tran Van Huong and his interim legislative body, the High National Council.
Separately, Taylor notified Huong that if the South Vietnamese government demonstrated "minimum" effectiveness, the United States would consider commencing a program of "DIRECT MILITARY PRESSURE" on North Vietnam.
In the meantime the United States would monitor the government's progress and take military actions directed toward "REDUCING INFILTRATION AND WARNING THE GOVERNMENT OF NORTH VIETNAM OF THE RISKS IT IS RUNNING."
GENERAL WESTMORELAND'S STEAK DINNER PROBABLY GAVE THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE GENERALS A BAD CASE OF INDIGESTION.
ALTHOUGH THEY DEPENDED ON U.S. SUPPORT, THE YOUNG TURKS AND THEIR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, NGUYEN KHANH, WERE PAINFULLY AWARE OF THEIR COUNTRY'S HISTORICAL STRUGGLE AGAINST COLONIAL DOMINATION.
THESE PROUD MEN RESENTED ANY IMPLICATION THAT THEY HAD BECOME "PUPPETS" OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT, SOMETHING THAT, IN ADDITION TO A PERSONAL AFFRONT, WOULD BE A BOON TO COMMUNIST PROPAGANDISTS AND AN OBSTACLE TO GAINING POPULAR SUPPORT.
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 2 2006, 04:28 PM)
And to answer a further part of what vfguenley is putting before us, above here .....
About asking a grunt what it takes to win militarily ....
I am going to go back to FIASCO: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks ....
To pp. 127-129 .....
To put some "flesh" on the "bones" of that answer .....
FRANKS FLUNKS STRATEGY
To understand that mistaken conclusion (that merely capturing Baghdad would win the Iraq war), it is necessary to step back and examine Gen. Tommy Franks, the senior U.S. commander in the war, AND PARTICULARLY HIS MISUNDERSTANDING OF STRATEGY.
That is a grand-sounding word, and it is frequently misused by laymen as a synonym for tactics.
IN FACT, STRATEGY HAS A VERY DIFFERENT AND QUITE SIMPLE MEANING THAT FLOWS FROM ONE JUST ONE SHORT SET OF QUESTIONS:
WHO ARE WE, AND WHAT ARE WE ULTIMATELY TRYING TO DO HERE?
HOW WILL WE DO IT, AND WHAT RESOURCES AND MEANS WILL WE EMPLOY IN DOING IT?
The four answers give rise to one's strategy.
Ideally, one's tactics will then follow from them - that is, this is who we are, this is the outcome we wish to achieve, this is how we aim to do it, and this is what we will use to do it.
BUT ADDRESSING THE QUESTIONS WELL CAN BE SURPRISINGLY DIFFICULT, AND IF THE ANSWERS ARE INCORRECT OR INCOMPLETE, OR THE GOALS LISTED ARE NOT REACHABLE, THEN THE CONSEQUENCES CAN BE DISASTROUS.
WHY WOULD THE UNITED STATES INVADE IRAQ WITHOUT A GENUINE STRATEGY IN HAND?
Part of the answer lies in the personality and character of Gen. Franks.
THE INSIDE WORD IN THE U.S. MILITARY LONG HAD BEEN THAT FRANKS DIDN'T THINK STRATEGICALLY.
For example, when the general held an off-the-record session with officers studying at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhose Island, in the spring of 2002, not long after the biggest battle of the Afghan war, Operation Anaconda, one student posed the classic Clausewitzian question:
WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE WAR YOU ARE FIGHTING IN AFGHANISTAN?
"That's a great question for historians," Franks sidestepped, recalled another officer who was there.
"Let me tell you what we are doing."
Franks proceeded to discuss how U.S. troops cleared cave complexes in Afghanistan.
IT WAS THE MOST TACTICAL ANSWER POSSIBLE, QUITE REMOTE FROM WHAT THE OFFICER HAD ASKED.
IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A FINE REPLY FOR A SERGEANT TO OFFER, BUT NOT A SENIOR GENERAL.
"He really was comfortable at the tactical level," the officer recalled with dismay.
Frank's plan for making war in Iraq was built around U.S. technological and mechanical advantages.
"Speed kills," the general insisted to his subordinates as they wrote and rewrote the massive plan.
IT SOUNDED GOOD - LIKE A TOUGH-MINDED WAY OF SLICING THROUGH ALL THE BUREAUCRATIC NONSENSE.
BUT IT REFLECTED THE LARGER MISCONCEPTION OF THE WAR AT HAND.
SPEED DIDN'T KILL THE ENEMY - IT BYPASSED HIM.
IT WON THE CAMPAIGN, BUT IT DIDN'T WIN THE WAR, BECAUSE THE WAR PLAN WAS BUILT ON THE MISTAKEN STRATEGIC GOAL OF CAPTURING BAGHDAD, AND IT CONFUSED REMOVING IRAQ'S REGIME WITH THE FAR MORE DIFFICULT TASK OF CHANGING THE ENTIRE COUNTRY.
THE RESULT WAS THAT THE U.S. EFFORT RESEMBLED A BANANA REPUBLIC COUP D'ETAT MORE THAN A FULL-SCALE WAR PLAN THAT REFLECTED THE AMBITION OF A GREAT POWER TO ALTER THE POLITICS OF A CRUCIAL REGION OF THE WORLD.
About asking a grunt what it takes to win militarily ....
I am going to go back to FIASCO: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas E. Ricks ....
To pp. 127-129 .....
To put some "flesh" on the "bones" of that answer .....
FRANKS FLUNKS STRATEGY
To understand that mistaken conclusion (that merely capturing Baghdad would win the Iraq war), it is necessary to step back and examine Gen. Tommy Franks, the senior U.S. commander in the war, AND PARTICULARLY HIS MISUNDERSTANDING OF STRATEGY.
That is a grand-sounding word, and it is frequently misused by laymen as a synonym for tactics.
IN FACT, STRATEGY HAS A VERY DIFFERENT AND QUITE SIMPLE MEANING THAT FLOWS FROM ONE JUST ONE SHORT SET OF QUESTIONS:
WHO ARE WE, AND WHAT ARE WE ULTIMATELY TRYING TO DO HERE?
HOW WILL WE DO IT, AND WHAT RESOURCES AND MEANS WILL WE EMPLOY IN DOING IT?
The four answers give rise to one's strategy.
Ideally, one's tactics will then follow from them - that is, this is who we are, this is the outcome we wish to achieve, this is how we aim to do it, and this is what we will use to do it.
BUT ADDRESSING THE QUESTIONS WELL CAN BE SURPRISINGLY DIFFICULT, AND IF THE ANSWERS ARE INCORRECT OR INCOMPLETE, OR THE GOALS LISTED ARE NOT REACHABLE, THEN THE CONSEQUENCES CAN BE DISASTROUS.
WHY WOULD THE UNITED STATES INVADE IRAQ WITHOUT A GENUINE STRATEGY IN HAND?
Part of the answer lies in the personality and character of Gen. Franks.
THE INSIDE WORD IN THE U.S. MILITARY LONG HAD BEEN THAT FRANKS DIDN'T THINK STRATEGICALLY.
For example, when the general held an off-the-record session with officers studying at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhose Island, in the spring of 2002, not long after the biggest battle of the Afghan war, Operation Anaconda, one student posed the classic Clausewitzian question:
WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE WAR YOU ARE FIGHTING IN AFGHANISTAN?
"That's a great question for historians," Franks sidestepped, recalled another officer who was there.
"Let me tell you what we are doing."
Franks proceeded to discuss how U.S. troops cleared cave complexes in Afghanistan.
IT WAS THE MOST TACTICAL ANSWER POSSIBLE, QUITE REMOTE FROM WHAT THE OFFICER HAD ASKED.
IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A FINE REPLY FOR A SERGEANT TO OFFER, BUT NOT A SENIOR GENERAL.
"He really was comfortable at the tactical level," the officer recalled with dismay.
Frank's plan for making war in Iraq was built around U.S. technological and mechanical advantages.
"Speed kills," the general insisted to his subordinates as they wrote and rewrote the massive plan.
IT SOUNDED GOOD - LIKE A TOUGH-MINDED WAY OF SLICING THROUGH ALL THE BUREAUCRATIC NONSENSE.
BUT IT REFLECTED THE LARGER MISCONCEPTION OF THE WAR AT HAND.
SPEED DIDN'T KILL THE ENEMY - IT BYPASSED HIM.
IT WON THE CAMPAIGN, BUT IT DIDN'T WIN THE WAR, BECAUSE THE WAR PLAN WAS BUILT ON THE MISTAKEN STRATEGIC GOAL OF CAPTURING BAGHDAD, AND IT CONFUSED REMOVING IRAQ'S REGIME WITH THE FAR MORE DIFFICULT TASK OF CHANGING THE ENTIRE COUNTRY.
THE RESULT WAS THAT THE U.S. EFFORT RESEMBLED A BANANA REPUBLIC COUP D'ETAT MORE THAN A FULL-SCALE WAR PLAN THAT REFLECTED THE AMBITION OF A GREAT POWER TO ALTER THE POLITICS OF A CRUCIAL REGION OF THE WORLD.
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 5 2006, 08:08 AM)
In his book STREET WITHOUT JOY - The French Debacle in Indochina, copyright 1961, at page 354 .....
The author, Bernard Fall ....
States as follows:
Americans still have to learn from the French that the latter lost during the Indochina war over 500 armored vehicles, 398 of which (almost two armored divisions!) were destroyed by enemy action between 1952 and 1954.
THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THAT PART OF THE WAR WAS THAT EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT OF THOSE VEHICLES WERE LOST THROUGH MINES AND BOOBY-TRAPS AND ONLY A HANDFUL THROUGH CONVENTIONAL ANTI-TANK WEAPONS.
PRESENT OPERATIONS IN SOUTH VIET-NAM CONFIRM THAT VIET-MINH HAVE LOST NONE OF THEIR FEARSOME ABILITY TO LAY TRAPS FOR MOTORIZED CONVOYS.
Many an ambush in recent months differed only in size from that which destroyed G.M. 100 in 1954.
OTHERWISE, THE ERRORS OF THE FRIENDLY FORCES AND THE TACTICS OF THE ENEMY WERE ENTIRELY THE SAME.
AND IN 1969 ....
When I was there in Viet Nam ....
The Vietnamese were still ambushing convoys ....
And they were still destroying armored vehicles .....
And today ....
In IRAQINAMSTAN .....
The IRAQINAMISTANIS are doing the same ....
BIG TIME .....
Destroying M-1 Abrams tanks ...
EVEN THOUGH THE POGUES AND HYPISTS WOULD HAVE US BELIVE THAT THE M-1 ABRAMS IS INVINCIBLE .....
WHICH IT MIGHT BE ....
IN A PROTECTED PARKING LOT SOMEWHERE DOWN IN TEXAS ....
BUT NOT IN A COMBAT ENVIRONMENT ....
AGAINST AN ENEMY NOT SCARED OF ARMORED VEHICLES ....
AND INTENT ON KILLING THEM ...
AS WERE THE VIETNAMESE ....
WAY BACK IN THE 1950's ....
And so ...
BUT ....
TO MISLEAD US ONCE AGAIN ....
TO MAKE US THINK THAT THE MIGHTY UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS NOT REALLY GETTING ITS *** KICKED IN IRAQINAMISTAN BY TACTICS THAT GO ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE MIDDLE AGES ....
OR EVEN FURTHER BACK THAN THAT ....
THE "GOVERNMENT" OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ...
HAS COOKED UP A NEW TERMINOLOGY ....
FOR THE SAME MINES AND BOOBY-TRAPS THAT THE VIET MINH WERE USING AGAINST FRENCH ARMOR WAY BACK IN 1952 ....
NOW ....
THEY ARE CALLED "IED's" .....
"IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICES" .....
AS IF THAT BULL **** NAME CHANGED ANYTHING ....
ESPECIALLY THE REALITY .....
THAT ONCE MORE ....
YET AGAIN ....
AMERICA ....
IS JUST AS STUPID ....
AND ARROGANT ....
AND IGNORANT ....
OR PERHAPS EVEN MORE SO ....
THAN IT HAS BEEN ...
IN THE LAST SIXTY YEARS ....
And so ....
The author, Bernard Fall ....
States as follows:
Americans still have to learn from the French that the latter lost during the Indochina war over 500 armored vehicles, 398 of which (almost two armored divisions!) were destroyed by enemy action between 1952 and 1954.
THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF THAT PART OF THE WAR WAS THAT EIGHTY-FOUR PERCENT OF THOSE VEHICLES WERE LOST THROUGH MINES AND BOOBY-TRAPS AND ONLY A HANDFUL THROUGH CONVENTIONAL ANTI-TANK WEAPONS.
PRESENT OPERATIONS IN SOUTH VIET-NAM CONFIRM THAT VIET-MINH HAVE LOST NONE OF THEIR FEARSOME ABILITY TO LAY TRAPS FOR MOTORIZED CONVOYS.
Many an ambush in recent months differed only in size from that which destroyed G.M. 100 in 1954.
OTHERWISE, THE ERRORS OF THE FRIENDLY FORCES AND THE TACTICS OF THE ENEMY WERE ENTIRELY THE SAME.
AND IN 1969 ....
When I was there in Viet Nam ....
The Vietnamese were still ambushing convoys ....
And they were still destroying armored vehicles .....
And today ....
In IRAQINAMSTAN .....
The IRAQINAMISTANIS are doing the same ....
BIG TIME .....
Destroying M-1 Abrams tanks ...
EVEN THOUGH THE POGUES AND HYPISTS WOULD HAVE US BELIVE THAT THE M-1 ABRAMS IS INVINCIBLE .....
WHICH IT MIGHT BE ....
IN A PROTECTED PARKING LOT SOMEWHERE DOWN IN TEXAS ....
BUT NOT IN A COMBAT ENVIRONMENT ....
AGAINST AN ENEMY NOT SCARED OF ARMORED VEHICLES ....
AND INTENT ON KILLING THEM ...
AS WERE THE VIETNAMESE ....
WAY BACK IN THE 1950's ....
And so ...
BUT ....
TO MISLEAD US ONCE AGAIN ....
TO MAKE US THINK THAT THE MIGHTY UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IS NOT REALLY GETTING ITS *** KICKED IN IRAQINAMISTAN BY TACTICS THAT GO ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE MIDDLE AGES ....
OR EVEN FURTHER BACK THAN THAT ....
THE "GOVERNMENT" OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ...
HAS COOKED UP A NEW TERMINOLOGY ....
FOR THE SAME MINES AND BOOBY-TRAPS THAT THE VIET MINH WERE USING AGAINST FRENCH ARMOR WAY BACK IN 1952 ....
NOW ....
THEY ARE CALLED "IED's" .....
"IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICES" .....
AS IF THAT BULL **** NAME CHANGED ANYTHING ....
ESPECIALLY THE REALITY .....
THAT ONCE MORE ....
YET AGAIN ....
AMERICA ....
IS JUST AS STUPID ....
AND ARROGANT ....
AND IGNORANT ....
OR PERHAPS EVEN MORE SO ....
THAN IT HAS BEEN ...
IN THE LAST SIXTY YEARS ....
And so ....
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 20 2006, 06:11 PM)
From pp.198,199 Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster .....
When (U.S. Ambassador Maxwell) Taylor returned to Saigon (December 1964), he undertook LBJ's charge to straighten out the South Vietnamese government seriously AND WITH ALL THE SUBTLETY OF A COLONIAL GOVERNOR.
Taylor invited a score of senior South Vietnamese commanders, including a group of influential officers whom Washington officials called the "Young Turks", to General Westmoreland's residence for a steak dinner, AT WHICH HE TOLD THEM THAT THE UNITED STATES COULD NO LONGER SUPPORT SOUTH VIETNAM IF THE MILITARY CONTINUED TO ENGAGE IN POLITICAL INTRIGUE.
He exacted from the generals a pledge to support the fledgling civilian government of Prime Minister Tran Van Huong and his interim legislative body, the High National Council.
Separately, Taylor notified Huong that if the South Vietnamese government demonstrated "minimum" effectiveness, the United States would consider commencing a program of "DIRECT MILITARY PRESSURE" on North Vietnam.
In the meantime the United States would monitor the government's progress and take military actions directed toward "REDUCING INFILTRATION AND WARNING THE GOVERNMENT OF NORTH VIETNAM OF THE RISKS IT IS RUNNING."
GENERAL WESTMORELAND'S STEAK DINNER PROBABLY GAVE THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE GENERALS A BAD CASE OF INDIGESTION.
ALTHOUGH THEY DEPENDED ON U.S. SUPPORT, THE YOUNG TURKS AND THEIR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, NGUYEN KHANH, WERE PAINFULLY AWARE OF THEIR COUNTRY'S HISTORICAL STRUGGLE AGAINST COLONIAL DOMINATION.
THESE PROUD MEN RESENTED ANY IMPLICATION THAT THEY HAD BECOME "PUPPETS" OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT, SOMETHING THAT, IN ADDITION TO A PERSONAL AFFRONT, WOULD BE A BOON TO COMMUNIST PROPAGANDISTS AND AN OBSTACLE TO GAINING POPULAR SUPPORT.
When (U.S. Ambassador Maxwell) Taylor returned to Saigon (December 1964), he undertook LBJ's charge to straighten out the South Vietnamese government seriously AND WITH ALL THE SUBTLETY OF A COLONIAL GOVERNOR.
Taylor invited a score of senior South Vietnamese commanders, including a group of influential officers whom Washington officials called the "Young Turks", to General Westmoreland's residence for a steak dinner, AT WHICH HE TOLD THEM THAT THE UNITED STATES COULD NO LONGER SUPPORT SOUTH VIETNAM IF THE MILITARY CONTINUED TO ENGAGE IN POLITICAL INTRIGUE.
He exacted from the generals a pledge to support the fledgling civilian government of Prime Minister Tran Van Huong and his interim legislative body, the High National Council.
Separately, Taylor notified Huong that if the South Vietnamese government demonstrated "minimum" effectiveness, the United States would consider commencing a program of "DIRECT MILITARY PRESSURE" on North Vietnam.
In the meantime the United States would monitor the government's progress and take military actions directed toward "REDUCING INFILTRATION AND WARNING THE GOVERNMENT OF NORTH VIETNAM OF THE RISKS IT IS RUNNING."
GENERAL WESTMORELAND'S STEAK DINNER PROBABLY GAVE THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE GENERALS A BAD CASE OF INDIGESTION.
ALTHOUGH THEY DEPENDED ON U.S. SUPPORT, THE YOUNG TURKS AND THEIR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, NGUYEN KHANH, WERE PAINFULLY AWARE OF THEIR COUNTRY'S HISTORICAL STRUGGLE AGAINST COLONIAL DOMINATION.
THESE PROUD MEN RESENTED ANY IMPLICATION THAT THEY HAD BECOME "PUPPETS" OF THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT, SOMETHING THAT, IN ADDITION TO A PERSONAL AFFRONT, WOULD BE A BOON TO COMMUNIST PROPAGANDISTS AND AN OBSTACLE TO GAINING POPULAR SUPPORT.
GIAP DOES NOT FLUNK STRATEGY ......
It was late in 1950 that Giap (Vietnamese General) elaborated his final plan to defeat the French armies in Indochina.
In a remarkable staff study presented by him before the political commissars of the (Viet Minh) 316th Infantry Division, Giap outlined the Indochina war as consisting of three stages.
First was that of the INITIAL RETREAT of the Viet-Minh forces until they had time to re-train and consolidate.
The second phase would begin when the French, FAILING TO DESTROY THE VIET-MINH GUERILLA FORCES, would allow them to re-equip themselves and with the help of the Chinese Communists, TO ELIMINATE SLOWLY BUT SURELY MOST OF THE SMALL FRENCH POSTS IN THE VIET-MINH BASE AREA.
THE THIRD STAGE WAS TO BE THE TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF THE FRENCH TROOPS.
STREET WITHOUT JOY - The French Debacle in Indochina by Bernard Fall, copyright 1961, at page 34 .....
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Sep 18 2005, 04:07 PM)
And I wonder how much where we are from shapes us as Americans ....
In terms of history ....
And therefore, our differing points of view based on that history ....
The history of America that took place in that area where we personally are from ...
And since this thread is about the thoughts of a Viet Nam veteran, I am going to look at history in my own area from the standpoint of military history, and especially LEADERSHIP, or lack thereof, from the point of view of a PRIVATE soldier in the United States Army, and how it serves to shape my own point of view on things today, in OUR America .......
And what I want to do is go back in time to just before the American Revolution ...
Which war is not really in the consciousness of many Americans, I find, and that includes American military, which I find surprising .......
Since OUR American Army was born in the times of the American Revolution ....
Which means its original experiences were those of a rebel army .....
An insurgent army, to be exact ...
Like what we faced in Viet Nam ....
And just like we are facing once again in Iraq, or Iraqinam, as it is now known among veterans who are observing this unraveling cock-up from the stand-point of having seen a similar unraveling, albeit over a longer period of time, in Viet Nam ....
And what I want to do, to the best of my ability here, is present one of the earliest "views" that I had of the professional army that we, America, faced back then, in the days when this country's freedom as an independent nation was far from certain, or assured ...
An so ...
Let us start with the "Black Watch"!
What a history that unit of Scottish Highlanders has, and some of it, right here, in our America, in a famous bloody battle against the French, just to the north of where I am sitting right now, typing out these very words ....
I think that the "Black Watch" is one of the first military units that I had ever really heard of, and in my youth, the "Black Watch" was famous in my area, for their valiant attacks against the French at Ticonderoga, or Carillon, as the French called it, on the western bank of the south end of Lake Champlain, in the present-day State of New York.
When I was but young, Fourth grade, maybe, I clearly recall an epic poem by Robert Louis Stevenson entitled Ticonderoga: A Legend of the West Highlands written in 1887, after a stay by Stevenson in the Adirondacks, about the legend of Major Duncan Campbell and the Black Watch Regiment in the 1758 campaign against Carillon, or Fort Ticonderoga, as it is known today, an old stone fort which also had a part in the history of the American Revolution when "Gentleman Johnny", or as he was also known, "Jack Brag" Burgoyne came south from Canada in 1777 to end the rebellion in America for his King, George III of England, and looking back, that epic poem by Stevenson was to have a big impact on me as a youth ...
Because it remains with me, to this day .....
And so ....
In terms of history ....
And therefore, our differing points of view based on that history ....
The history of America that took place in that area where we personally are from ...
And since this thread is about the thoughts of a Viet Nam veteran, I am going to look at history in my own area from the standpoint of military history, and especially LEADERSHIP, or lack thereof, from the point of view of a PRIVATE soldier in the United States Army, and how it serves to shape my own point of view on things today, in OUR America .......
And what I want to do is go back in time to just before the American Revolution ...
Which war is not really in the consciousness of many Americans, I find, and that includes American military, which I find surprising .......
Since OUR American Army was born in the times of the American Revolution ....
Which means its original experiences were those of a rebel army .....
An insurgent army, to be exact ...
Like what we faced in Viet Nam ....
And just like we are facing once again in Iraq, or Iraqinam, as it is now known among veterans who are observing this unraveling cock-up from the stand-point of having seen a similar unraveling, albeit over a longer period of time, in Viet Nam ....
And what I want to do, to the best of my ability here, is present one of the earliest "views" that I had of the professional army that we, America, faced back then, in the days when this country's freedom as an independent nation was far from certain, or assured ...
An so ...
Let us start with the "Black Watch"!
What a history that unit of Scottish Highlanders has, and some of it, right here, in our America, in a famous bloody battle against the French, just to the north of where I am sitting right now, typing out these very words ....
I think that the "Black Watch" is one of the first military units that I had ever really heard of, and in my youth, the "Black Watch" was famous in my area, for their valiant attacks against the French at Ticonderoga, or Carillon, as the French called it, on the western bank of the south end of Lake Champlain, in the present-day State of New York.
When I was but young, Fourth grade, maybe, I clearly recall an epic poem by Robert Louis Stevenson entitled Ticonderoga: A Legend of the West Highlands written in 1887, after a stay by Stevenson in the Adirondacks, about the legend of Major Duncan Campbell and the Black Watch Regiment in the 1758 campaign against Carillon, or Fort Ticonderoga, as it is known today, an old stone fort which also had a part in the history of the American Revolution when "Gentleman Johnny", or as he was also known, "Jack Brag" Burgoyne came south from Canada in 1777 to end the rebellion in America for his King, George III of England, and looking back, that epic poem by Stevenson was to have a big impact on me as a youth ...
Because it remains with me, to this day .....
And so ....
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 20 2006, 07:30 PM)
GIAP DOES NOT FLUNK STRATEGY ......
It was late in 1950 that Giap (Vietnamese General) elaborated his final plan to defeat the French armies in Indochina ......
It was late in 1950 that Giap (Vietnamese General) elaborated his final plan to defeat the French armies in Indochina ......
I was alive in 1950, me ......
And I was also aware ......
Aware .....
That there was a world .....
Aware ....
That there were other people in it .......
Even if I might not have totally understood the complexity of it all .....
The EGOS of men who are self-styled WORLD LEADERS .....
Harry S. Truman, for example ......
Whe reversed the policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt .....
With respect to the Viet Minh ......
Who the United States of America had supported during World War II .....
In their fight against the Japanese ....
Who were also our alleged enemies ......
And so .....
It is something ....
When I think on it .....
How much of my life ....
From the time that I was young ....
Has been affected .....
By a land so far away from here ......
As is Viet Nam ......
Like those Scots .....
Who came all that way ....
To die at Ticonderoga ....
In the wilderness of New York State ....
All those years ago .....
And so .....
Corporal J. C. Williams, Co. B, 14th Vermont Infantry, December 25, 1862:
"This is Christmas, and my mind wanders back to that home made lonesome by my absence, while far away from the peace and quietude of civil life to undergo the hardships of the camp, and may be the battle field. I think of the many lives that are endangered, and hope that the time will soon come when peace, with its innumerable blessings, shall once more restore our country to happiness and prosperity."
"This is Christmas, and my mind wanders back to that home made lonesome by my absence, while far away from the peace and quietude of civil life to undergo the hardships of the camp, and may be the battle field. I think of the many lives that are endangered, and hope that the time will soon come when peace, with its innumerable blessings, shall once more restore our country to happiness and prosperity."
QUOTE(Marine @ Oct 3 2005, 08:59 AM)
Do you just think all politicians are crooks and are just in it to make a buck?
Despite LBJ's efforts to minimize his recent decisions to intensify and widen the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, public and congressional opposition to his policy had increased in March (1965).
Discontent over the president's policy was growing principally on college campuses and among liberal intellectuals.
A STATE DEPARTMENT WHITE PAPER, DESIGNED TO PROVE NORTH VIETNAMESE COMPLICITY IN THE INSURGENCY IN THE SOUTH, WAS WEAK IN ITS ARGUMENT AND SHORT ON EVIDENCE, THE BULK OF WHICH REMAINED CLASSIFIED.
A week prior to (U.S. Ambassador Maxwell) Taylor's arrival in Washington, the students and faculty at the University of Michigan held the first Vietnam War "teach-in" to voice opposition to the president's policy.
IN RESPONSE TO THE GROWING OPPOSITION, LBJ REDOUBLED HIS EFFORT TO PREVENT LEAKS AND TO CONCEAL DEEPENING AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT IN THE WAR.
THE PRESIDENT DENIED THAT HIS POLICY HAD CHANGED DRAMATICALLY SINCE HIS ELECTION IN NOVEMBER (1964).
On April 1, an hour before he met with his advisors on Vietnam, he held an impromptu press conference in the White House theater.
Johnson emphasized progress in getting GREAT SOCIETY legislation through Congress.
WHEN ASKED SPECIFICALLY ABOUT HIS VIETNAM POLICY, HE HIGHLIGHTED CONTINUITY WITH PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATIONS, CLAIMING THAT HE WAS SIMPLY HONORING THE COMMITMENT TO THE SOUTHEAST ASIA TREATY ORGANIZATION (SEATO) THAT EISENHOWER AND CONGRESS HAD MADE.
JOHNSON CITED THE GULF OF TONKIN RESOLUTION AS EVIDENCE OF CONGRESSIONAL SUPPORT FOR HIS POLICY AND STATED THAT HE KNEW OF "NO DIVISION IN THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT" OVER VIETNAM.
To dispel reports that he was discussing major military decisions during Taylor's visit, he denied knowledge of any "far-reaching strategy that is being suggested or promulgated."
HE SAID THAT THOSE WHO PUBLICLY OPPOSED HIS VIETNAM POLICY AND JOURNALISTS WHO SPECULATED ABOUT IT DISREGARDED "OUR SOLDIERS WHO ARE DYING" IN VIETNAM.
From pp.254,55 Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster .....
In a letter to his sister Anna Simpson, Tally Simpson wrote:
"December 25th 1863
My dear sister,
This is Christmas Day. The sun shines feeble through a thin cloud, the air is mild and pleasant, a gentle breeze is making music through the leaves of the lofty pines that stand near our bivouac. All is quiet and still and that very stillness recalls some sad and painful thoughts. The day, one year ago, how many thousand families, gay and joyous, celebrating Merry Christmas, drinking health to absent members of their family and sending upon the wings of love and affection long, deep, and sincere wishes for their safe return to the loving ones at home, but today are clad in the deepest mourning in memory to some lost and loved member of their circle..."
"When will this war end? Will another Christmas roll around and find us all wintering in camp? Oh! That peace may soon be restored to our young but dearly beloved country and that we may all meet again in happiness."
"December 25th 1863
My dear sister,
This is Christmas Day. The sun shines feeble through a thin cloud, the air is mild and pleasant, a gentle breeze is making music through the leaves of the lofty pines that stand near our bivouac. All is quiet and still and that very stillness recalls some sad and painful thoughts. The day, one year ago, how many thousand families, gay and joyous, celebrating Merry Christmas, drinking health to absent members of their family and sending upon the wings of love and affection long, deep, and sincere wishes for their safe return to the loving ones at home, but today are clad in the deepest mourning in memory to some lost and loved member of their circle..."
"When will this war end? Will another Christmas roll around and find us all wintering in camp? Oh! That peace may soon be restored to our young but dearly beloved country and that we may all meet again in happiness."
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 23 2006, 06:22 PM)
"I .... hope that the time will soon come when peace, with its innumerable blessings, shall once more restore our country to happiness and prosperity ....."
What an awesone sentiment for this time of the year especially ...
Thanks for posting it in here, vf ....
And the best of the season to you and yours, as well ....
I don't know about anyone else out there in the world .....
But me .....
I am reflective at this time of the year .....
Which I think comes of living simple out in the country in a cold place .....
Or a place that used to be cold, anyway .....
Before it started warming up as it has done .....
And so ....
REFLECTIVE ....
THOUGHTFUL ....
That would be me, right now .....
QUIET .....
That would be in there, too .....
And that is just the way it is .....
Or the way that it goes .....
And that is what OUR personal LIBERTY as human beings here in OUR America allows for ......
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE .....
And true LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE means not trying to control the minds of your neighbors ......
Or anyone else out there in the world, for that matter .....
And so .....
That's my thought ......
Right at this moment .....
On Christmas Eve .....
In the Roman Year 2006 .....
And so .....
But me .....
I am reflective at this time of the year .....
Which I think comes of living simple out in the country in a cold place .....
Or a place that used to be cold, anyway .....
Before it started warming up as it has done .....
And so ....
REFLECTIVE ....
THOUGHTFUL ....
That would be me, right now .....
QUIET .....
That would be in there, too .....
And that is just the way it is .....
Or the way that it goes .....
And that is what OUR personal LIBERTY as human beings here in OUR America allows for ......
LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE .....
And true LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE means not trying to control the minds of your neighbors ......
Or anyone else out there in the world, for that matter .....
And so .....
That's my thought ......
Right at this moment .....
On Christmas Eve .....
In the Roman Year 2006 .....
And so .....
And THANKFUL, as well .....
THANKFUL for having life ......
THANKFUL for having some dry firewood stored ahead .....
More than a few days worth, anyway ......
It is suicidal out in the country at this time of the year to not have dry firewood ......
And as one gets older .....
If one is a disabled veteran ...
The possibility of that day getting closer and closer is always hanging out there .....
As a possibility that cannot be denied ......
And so ......
In the meantime .....
Since I am not there .....
I am thankful for what I do have .....
Especially the peace and quiet of country living ......
Which is slow enough for me to be able to keep up with it .....
Without being run down .....
Like a turtle trying to cross a busy interstate at rush hour .....
And so ....
That's my thought right now .....
At this moment .....
On Christmas Eve .....
Of the Roman Year 2006 .....
And so .....
THANKFUL for having life ......
THANKFUL for having some dry firewood stored ahead .....
More than a few days worth, anyway ......
It is suicidal out in the country at this time of the year to not have dry firewood ......
And as one gets older .....
If one is a disabled veteran ...
The possibility of that day getting closer and closer is always hanging out there .....
As a possibility that cannot be denied ......
And so ......
In the meantime .....
Since I am not there .....
I am thankful for what I do have .....
Especially the peace and quiet of country living ......
Which is slow enough for me to be able to keep up with it .....
Without being run down .....
Like a turtle trying to cross a busy interstate at rush hour .....
And so ....
That's my thought right now .....
At this moment .....
On Christmas Eve .....
Of the Roman Year 2006 .....
And so .....
QUOTE(jeffmoskin @ Nov 29 2006, 08:00 PM)
Published on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 by TomPaine.com
Message To West Point
by Bill Moyers
This is an excerpt from the Sol Feinstone Lecture on The Meaning of Freedom delivered by Bill Moyers at the United States Military Academy on November 15, 2006.
As a presidential assistant during the early escalation of the war in Vietnam, I remember how the President blanched when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said it would take one million fighting men and 10 years really to win in Vietnam, but even then the talk of war was about policy, strategy, numbers and budgets, not severed limbs and eviscerated bodies.
That experience, and the experience 40 years later of watching another White House go to war, also relying on inadequate intelligence, exaggerated claims and premature judgments, keeping Congress in the dark while wooing a gullible press, cheered on by partisans, pundits, and editorial writers safely divorced from realities on the ground, ended any tolerance I might have had for those who advocate war from the loftiness of the pulpit, the safety of a laptop, the comfort of a think tank, or the glamour of a television studio.
Watching one day on C-Span as one member of Congress after another took to the floor to praise our troops in Iraq, I was reminded that I could only name three members of Congress who have a son or daughter in the military.
How often we hear the most vigorous argument for war from those who count on others of valor to fight it.
As General William Tecumseh Sherman said after the Civil War:
“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation.”
We were warned of this by our founders.
They had put themselves in jeopardy by signing the Declaration of Independence; if they had lost, that parchment could have been their death warrant, for they were traitors to the Crown and likely to be hanged.
In the fight for freedom they had put themselves on the line—not just their fortunes and sacred honor but their very persons, their lives.
After the war, forming a government and understanding both the nature of war and human nature, they determined to make it hard to go to war except to defend freedom; war for reasons save preserving the lives and liberty of your citizens should be made difficult to achieve, they argued.
Here is John Jay’s passage in Federalist No. 4:
It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans.
These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.
And here, a few years later, is James Madison, perhaps the most deliberative mind of that generation in assaying the dangers of an unfettered executive prone to war:
In war, a physical force is to be created, and it is the executive will which is to direct it.
In war, the public treasures are to be unlocked, and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them.
In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed.
It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle.
The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.
I want to be clear on this: Vietnam did not make me a dove.
Nor has Iraq; I am no pacifist.
But they have made me study the Constitution more rigorously, both as journalist and citizen.
Again, James Madison:
In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department.
Beside the objection to such a mixture to heterogeneous powers, the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man.
Twice in 40 years we have now gone to war paying only lip service to those warnings; the first war we lost, the second is a bloody debacle, and both rank among the great blunders in our history.
It is impossible for soldiers to sustain in the field what cannot be justified in the Constitution; asking them to do so puts America at war with itself.
So when the Vice President of the United States says it doesn’t matter what the people think, he and the President intend to prosecute the war anyway, he is committing heresy against the fundamental tenets of the American political order.
I said earlier that our founders did not want the power of war to reside in a single man.
Many were also dubious about having any kind of regular, or as they called it, “standing” army at all.
Standing armies were hired supporters of absolute monarchs and imperial tyrants.
The men drafting the Constitution were steeped in classical and historical learning.
They recalled how Caesar in ancient times and Oliver Cromwell in more recent times had used the conquering armies they had led to make themselves dictators.
They knew how the Roman legions had made and unmade emperors, and how Ottoman rulers of the Turkish Empire had supported their tyrannies on the shoulders of formidable elite warriors.
Wherever they looked in history, they saw an alliance between enemies of freedom in palaces and in officer corps drawn from the ranks of nobility, bound by a warrior code that stressed honor and bravery—but also dedication to the sovereign and the sovereign’s god, and distrust amounting to contempt for the ordinary run of the sovereign’s subjects.
The colonial experience with British regulars, first as allies in the French and Indian Wars, and then as enemies, did not increase American respect for the old system of military leadership.
Officers were chosen and promoted on the basis of aristocratic connections, commissions were bought, and ineptitude was too often tolerated.
You may or may not agree on the justice and necessity of the war itself, but I hope that you will agree that flattery and adulation are no substitute for genuine support.
Much of the money that could be directed to that support has gone into high-tech weapons systems that were supposed to produce a new, mobile, compact “professional” army that could easily defeat the armies of any other two nations combined, but is useless in a war against nationalist or religious guerrilla uprisings that, like it or not, have some support, coerced or otherwise, among the local population.
We learned this lesson in Vietnam, only to see it forgotten or ignored by the time this administration invaded Iraq, creating the conditions for a savage sectarian and civil war with our soldiers trapped in the middle, unable to discern civilian from combatant, where it is impossible to kill your enemy faster than rage makes new ones.
I want to contend that the American military systems that evolved in the early days of this republic rested on a bargain between the civilian authorities and the armed services, and that the army has, for the most part, kept its part of the bargain and that, at this moment, the civilian authorities whom you loyally obey, are shirking theirs.
And before you assume that I am calling for an insurrection against the civilian deciders of your destinies, hear me out, for that is the last thing on my mind.
You have kept your end of the bargain by fighting well when called upon, by refusing to become a praetorian guard for a reigning administration at any time, and for respecting civil control at all times.
On the other side of the ledger, however, I believe that the bargain has not been kept.
The last time Congress declared war was in 1941.
Since then presidents of the United States, including the one I served, have gotten Congress, occasionally under demonstrably false pretenses, to suspend Constitutional provisions that required them to get the consent of the people’s representatives in order to conduct a war.
They have been handed a blank check to send the armed forces into action at their personal discretion and on dubious Constitutional grounds.
Furthermore, the current President has made extra-Constitutional claims of authority by repeatedly acting as if he were Commander-in-Chief of the entire nation and not merely of the armed forces.
Most dangerously to our moral honor and to your own welfare in the event of capture, he has likewise ordered the armed forces to violate clear mandates of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions by claiming a right to interpret them at his pleasure, so as to allow indefinite and secret detentions and torture.
These claims contravene a basic principle usually made clear to recruits from their first day in service—that they may not obey an unlawful order.
The President is attempting to have them violate that longstanding rule by personal definitions of what the law says and means.
I repeat: These are not palatable topics for soldiers about to go to war; I would like to speak of sweeter things.
But freedom means we must face reality:
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”
Free enough, surely, to think for yourselves about these breaches of contract that crudely undercut the traditions of an army of free men and women who have bound themselves voluntarily to serve the nation even unto death.
Third, don’t let your natural and commendable loyalty to comrades-in-arms lead you into thinking that criticism of the mission you are on spells lack of patriotism.
Not every politician who flatters you is your ally.
Not every one who believes that war is the wrong choice to some problems is your enemy.
Blind faith in bad leadership is not patriotism.
In the words of G.K. Chesterton:
“To say my country right or wrong is something no patriot would utter except in dire circumstance; it is like saying my mother drunk or sober.”
Patriotism means insisting on our political leaders being sober, strong, and certain about what they are doing when they put you in harm’s way.
Fourth, be more prepared to accept the credibility and integrity of those who disagree about the war even if you do not agree with their positions.
I say this as a journalist, knowing it is tempting in the field to denounce or despise reporters who ask nosy questions or file critical reports.
But their first duty as reporters is to get as close as possible to the verifiable truth and report it to the American people—for your sake.
If there is mismanagement and incompetence, exposing it is more helpful to you than paeans to candy given to the locals.
I trust you are familiar with the study done for the Army in 1989 by the historian, William Hammond.
He examined press coverage in Korea and Vietnam and found that it was not the cause of disaffection at home; what disturbed people at home was the death toll; when casualties jumped, public support dropped.
Over time, he said, the reporting was vindicated.
In fact, “the press reports were often more accurate than the public statements of the administration in portraying the situation in Vietnam.”
Finally, and this above all—a lesson I wish I had learned earlier.
If you rise in the ranks to important positions—or even if you don’t—speak the truth as you see it, even if the questioner is a higher authority with a clear preference for one and only one answer.
It may not be the way to promote your career; it can in fact harm it.
Among my military heroes of this war are the generals who frankly told the President and his advisers that their information and their plans were both incomplete and misleading—and who paid the price of being ignored and bypassed and possibly frozen forever in their existing ranks: men like General Eric K. Shinseki, another son of West Point.
It is not easy to be honest—and fair—in a bureaucratic system.
But it is what free men and women have to do.
Be true to your principles, General Kosciuszko reminded Thomas Jefferson.
If doing so exposes the ignorance and arrogance of power, you may be doing more to save the nation than exploits in combat can achieve.
I know the final rule of the military Code of Conduct is already written in your hearts:
“I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free ...”
The meaning of freedom begins with the still, small voice of conscience, when each of us decides what we will live, or die, for.
Bill Moyers is deeply grateful to his colleagues Bernard A Weisberger, Professor Emeritus of History at The University of Chicago, and Lew Daly, Senior Fellow of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, for their contributions to this speech.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1129-21.htm
Message To West Point
by Bill Moyers
This is an excerpt from the Sol Feinstone Lecture on The Meaning of Freedom delivered by Bill Moyers at the United States Military Academy on November 15, 2006.
As a presidential assistant during the early escalation of the war in Vietnam, I remember how the President blanched when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said it would take one million fighting men and 10 years really to win in Vietnam, but even then the talk of war was about policy, strategy, numbers and budgets, not severed limbs and eviscerated bodies.
That experience, and the experience 40 years later of watching another White House go to war, also relying on inadequate intelligence, exaggerated claims and premature judgments, keeping Congress in the dark while wooing a gullible press, cheered on by partisans, pundits, and editorial writers safely divorced from realities on the ground, ended any tolerance I might have had for those who advocate war from the loftiness of the pulpit, the safety of a laptop, the comfort of a think tank, or the glamour of a television studio.
Watching one day on C-Span as one member of Congress after another took to the floor to praise our troops in Iraq, I was reminded that I could only name three members of Congress who have a son or daughter in the military.
How often we hear the most vigorous argument for war from those who count on others of valor to fight it.
As General William Tecumseh Sherman said after the Civil War:
“It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation.”
We were warned of this by our founders.
They had put themselves in jeopardy by signing the Declaration of Independence; if they had lost, that parchment could have been their death warrant, for they were traitors to the Crown and likely to be hanged.
In the fight for freedom they had put themselves on the line—not just their fortunes and sacred honor but their very persons, their lives.
After the war, forming a government and understanding both the nature of war and human nature, they determined to make it hard to go to war except to defend freedom; war for reasons save preserving the lives and liberty of your citizens should be made difficult to achieve, they argued.
Here is John Jay’s passage in Federalist No. 4:
It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans.
These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.
And here, a few years later, is James Madison, perhaps the most deliberative mind of that generation in assaying the dangers of an unfettered executive prone to war:
In war, a physical force is to be created, and it is the executive will which is to direct it.
In war, the public treasures are to be unlocked, and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them.
In war, the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed.
It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered; and it is the executive brow they are to encircle.
The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.
I want to be clear on this: Vietnam did not make me a dove.
Nor has Iraq; I am no pacifist.
But they have made me study the Constitution more rigorously, both as journalist and citizen.
Again, James Madison:
In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department.
Beside the objection to such a mixture to heterogeneous powers, the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man.
Twice in 40 years we have now gone to war paying only lip service to those warnings; the first war we lost, the second is a bloody debacle, and both rank among the great blunders in our history.
It is impossible for soldiers to sustain in the field what cannot be justified in the Constitution; asking them to do so puts America at war with itself.
So when the Vice President of the United States says it doesn’t matter what the people think, he and the President intend to prosecute the war anyway, he is committing heresy against the fundamental tenets of the American political order.
I said earlier that our founders did not want the power of war to reside in a single man.
Many were also dubious about having any kind of regular, or as they called it, “standing” army at all.
Standing armies were hired supporters of absolute monarchs and imperial tyrants.
The men drafting the Constitution were steeped in classical and historical learning.
They recalled how Caesar in ancient times and Oliver Cromwell in more recent times had used the conquering armies they had led to make themselves dictators.
They knew how the Roman legions had made and unmade emperors, and how Ottoman rulers of the Turkish Empire had supported their tyrannies on the shoulders of formidable elite warriors.
Wherever they looked in history, they saw an alliance between enemies of freedom in palaces and in officer corps drawn from the ranks of nobility, bound by a warrior code that stressed honor and bravery—but also dedication to the sovereign and the sovereign’s god, and distrust amounting to contempt for the ordinary run of the sovereign’s subjects.
The colonial experience with British regulars, first as allies in the French and Indian Wars, and then as enemies, did not increase American respect for the old system of military leadership.
Officers were chosen and promoted on the basis of aristocratic connections, commissions were bought, and ineptitude was too often tolerated.
You may or may not agree on the justice and necessity of the war itself, but I hope that you will agree that flattery and adulation are no substitute for genuine support.
Much of the money that could be directed to that support has gone into high-tech weapons systems that were supposed to produce a new, mobile, compact “professional” army that could easily defeat the armies of any other two nations combined, but is useless in a war against nationalist or religious guerrilla uprisings that, like it or not, have some support, coerced or otherwise, among the local population.
We learned this lesson in Vietnam, only to see it forgotten or ignored by the time this administration invaded Iraq, creating the conditions for a savage sectarian and civil war with our soldiers trapped in the middle, unable to discern civilian from combatant, where it is impossible to kill your enemy faster than rage makes new ones.
I want to contend that the American military systems that evolved in the early days of this republic rested on a bargain between the civilian authorities and the armed services, and that the army has, for the most part, kept its part of the bargain and that, at this moment, the civilian authorities whom you loyally obey, are shirking theirs.
And before you assume that I am calling for an insurrection against the civilian deciders of your destinies, hear me out, for that is the last thing on my mind.
You have kept your end of the bargain by fighting well when called upon, by refusing to become a praetorian guard for a reigning administration at any time, and for respecting civil control at all times.
On the other side of the ledger, however, I believe that the bargain has not been kept.
The last time Congress declared war was in 1941.
Since then presidents of the United States, including the one I served, have gotten Congress, occasionally under demonstrably false pretenses, to suspend Constitutional provisions that required them to get the consent of the people’s representatives in order to conduct a war.
They have been handed a blank check to send the armed forces into action at their personal discretion and on dubious Constitutional grounds.
Furthermore, the current President has made extra-Constitutional claims of authority by repeatedly acting as if he were Commander-in-Chief of the entire nation and not merely of the armed forces.
Most dangerously to our moral honor and to your own welfare in the event of capture, he has likewise ordered the armed forces to violate clear mandates of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions by claiming a right to interpret them at his pleasure, so as to allow indefinite and secret detentions and torture.
These claims contravene a basic principle usually made clear to recruits from their first day in service—that they may not obey an unlawful order.
The President is attempting to have them violate that longstanding rule by personal definitions of what the law says and means.
I repeat: These are not palatable topics for soldiers about to go to war; I would like to speak of sweeter things.
But freedom means we must face reality:
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”
Free enough, surely, to think for yourselves about these breaches of contract that crudely undercut the traditions of an army of free men and women who have bound themselves voluntarily to serve the nation even unto death.
Third, don’t let your natural and commendable loyalty to comrades-in-arms lead you into thinking that criticism of the mission you are on spells lack of patriotism.
Not every politician who flatters you is your ally.
Not every one who believes that war is the wrong choice to some problems is your enemy.
Blind faith in bad leadership is not patriotism.
In the words of G.K. Chesterton:
“To say my country right or wrong is something no patriot would utter except in dire circumstance; it is like saying my mother drunk or sober.”
Patriotism means insisting on our political leaders being sober, strong, and certain about what they are doing when they put you in harm’s way.
Fourth, be more prepared to accept the credibility and integrity of those who disagree about the war even if you do not agree with their positions.
I say this as a journalist, knowing it is tempting in the field to denounce or despise reporters who ask nosy questions or file critical reports.
But their first duty as reporters is to get as close as possible to the verifiable truth and report it to the American people—for your sake.
If there is mismanagement and incompetence, exposing it is more helpful to you than paeans to candy given to the locals.
I trust you are familiar with the study done for the Army in 1989 by the historian, William Hammond.
He examined press coverage in Korea and Vietnam and found that it was not the cause of disaffection at home; what disturbed people at home was the death toll; when casualties jumped, public support dropped.
Over time, he said, the reporting was vindicated.
In fact, “the press reports were often more accurate than the public statements of the administration in portraying the situation in Vietnam.”
Finally, and this above all—a lesson I wish I had learned earlier.
If you rise in the ranks to important positions—or even if you don’t—speak the truth as you see it, even if the questioner is a higher authority with a clear preference for one and only one answer.
It may not be the way to promote your career; it can in fact harm it.
Among my military heroes of this war are the generals who frankly told the President and his advisers that their information and their plans were both incomplete and misleading—and who paid the price of being ignored and bypassed and possibly frozen forever in their existing ranks: men like General Eric K. Shinseki, another son of West Point.
It is not easy to be honest—and fair—in a bureaucratic system.
But it is what free men and women have to do.
Be true to your principles, General Kosciuszko reminded Thomas Jefferson.
If doing so exposes the ignorance and arrogance of power, you may be doing more to save the nation than exploits in combat can achieve.
I know the final rule of the military Code of Conduct is already written in your hearts:
“I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free ...”
The meaning of freedom begins with the still, small voice of conscience, when each of us decides what we will live, or die, for.
Bill Moyers is deeply grateful to his colleagues Bernard A Weisberger, Professor Emeritus of History at The University of Chicago, and Lew Daly, Senior Fellow of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, for their contributions to this speech.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1129-21.htm
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 6 2006, 06:26 AM)
THE RIFLEMAN
The rifleman fights without promise of either reward or relief.
Behind every river there's another hill - and behind that hill, another river.
After weeks or months in the line .....
Only a wound can offer him the comfort of safety, shelter, and a bed.
Those who are left to fight, fight on, evading death but knowing that with each day of evasion they have exhausted one more chance for survival.
SOONER OR LATER, UNLESS VICTORY COMES, THIS CHASE MUST END ON THE LITTER OR IN THE GRAVE.
- GENERAL OF THE ARMY OMAR N. BRADLEY
The rifleman fights without promise of either reward or relief.
Behind every river there's another hill - and behind that hill, another river.
After weeks or months in the line .....
Only a wound can offer him the comfort of safety, shelter, and a bed.
Those who are left to fight, fight on, evading death but knowing that with each day of evasion they have exhausted one more chance for survival.
SOONER OR LATER, UNLESS VICTORY COMES, THIS CHASE MUST END ON THE LITTER OR IN THE GRAVE.
- GENERAL OF THE ARMY OMAR N. BRADLEY
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 23 2006, 06:26 PM)
JOHNSON CITED THE GULF OF TONKIN RESOLUTION AS EVIDENCE OF CONGRESSIONAL SUPPORT FOR HIS POLICY AND STATED THAT HE KNEW OF "NO DIVISION IN THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT" OVER VIETNAM.
HE SAID THAT THOSE WHO PUBLICLY OPPOSED HIS VIETNAM POLICY AND JOURNALISTS WHO SPECULATED ABOUT IT DISREGARDED "OUR SOLDIERS WHO ARE DYING" IN VIETNAM.
From pp.254,55 Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster .....
HE SAID THAT THOSE WHO PUBLICLY OPPOSED HIS VIETNAM POLICY AND JOURNALISTS WHO SPECULATED ABOUT IT DISREGARDED "OUR SOLDIERS WHO ARE DYING" IN VIETNAM.
From pp.254,55 Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster .....
THE PRESIDENT (Lyndon Baines Johnson) REMAINED DETERMINED TO DEEPEN AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT IN VIETNAM WITHOUT A CONGRESSIONAL DEBATE (April-June 1965).
With Senator Russell listening, he asked if the administration had adequately described the mission of U.S. ground forces in South Vietnam.
(Dean) Rusk responded that they had.
LBJ ordered Leonard Meeker, the State Department's legal adviser, and Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach to prepare legal justifications under the Gulf of Tonkin resolution for McNamara's proposed troop increase.
EVEN AS HE CIRCUMVENTED THE CONSTITUTION, LBJ ABDICATED LEADERSHIP IN CONNECTION WITH VIETNAM.
- Page 294, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster .....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War
The statistical analysis of war was pioneered by Lewis Fry Richardson following World War I. More recent databases of wars and armed conflict have been assembled by the Correlates of War Project, Peter Brecke and the Uppsala Department of Peace and Conflict Research.
There are several different international relations theory schools. Supporters of realism in international relations argue that the motivation of states is the quest for (mostly) military and economic power or security. War is one tool in achieving this goal.
One position, sometimes argued to contradict the realist view, is that there is much empirical evidence to support the claim that states that are democracies do not go to war with each other, an idea known as the democratic peace theory.Other factors included are difference in moral and religious beliefs, economical and trade disagreements, declaring independence, and others.
Another major theory relating to power in international relations and machtpolitik is the Power Transition theory, which distributes the world into a hierarchy and explains major wars as part of a cycle of hegemons being destabilized by a great power which does not support the hegemons control.
Evolutionary psychology theories
Close to Malthusians is the application of evolutionary psychology to analyze why humans wage wars. Wars are seen as the result of evolved psychological traits that are turned on by either being attacked or by a population perception of a bleak future. The theory accounts for the IRA going out of business, but leads to a dire view of current wars.
What I found missing in Wikipedia was war as an “ego trip”
IMHO Johnson believed the Domino theory, Nixon was on an ego trip.
IMHO Bush’s nose was in the grasp of some misguided smart people’s hands, who drug him through their ego trip.
The statistical analysis of war was pioneered by Lewis Fry Richardson following World War I. More recent databases of wars and armed conflict have been assembled by the Correlates of War Project, Peter Brecke and the Uppsala Department of Peace and Conflict Research.
There are several different international relations theory schools. Supporters of realism in international relations argue that the motivation of states is the quest for (mostly) military and economic power or security. War is one tool in achieving this goal.
One position, sometimes argued to contradict the realist view, is that there is much empirical evidence to support the claim that states that are democracies do not go to war with each other, an idea known as the democratic peace theory.Other factors included are difference in moral and religious beliefs, economical and trade disagreements, declaring independence, and others.
Another major theory relating to power in international relations and machtpolitik is the Power Transition theory, which distributes the world into a hierarchy and explains major wars as part of a cycle of hegemons being destabilized by a great power which does not support the hegemons control.
Evolutionary psychology theories
Close to Malthusians is the application of evolutionary psychology to analyze why humans wage wars. Wars are seen as the result of evolved psychological traits that are turned on by either being attacked or by a population perception of a bleak future. The theory accounts for the IRA going out of business, but leads to a dire view of current wars.
What I found missing in Wikipedia was war as an “ego trip”
IMHO Johnson believed the Domino theory, Nixon was on an ego trip.
IMHO Bush’s nose was in the grasp of some misguided smart people’s hands, who drug him through their ego trip.
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 13 2006, 06:52 AM)
"Maybe we military men were all weak."
"Maybe we should have stood up and pounded the table."
".... I was part of it (ABDICATING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE TROOPS DURING THE VIET NAM WAR) and I'm sort of ashamed of myself, too."
"AT TIMES I WONDER, 'WHY DID I GO ALONG WITH THIS KIND OF STUFF?'"
- Adm. David Lamar McDonald, 1976 (Chief of Navy in 1965)
"Maybe we should have stood up and pounded the table."
".... I was part of it (ABDICATING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE TROOPS DURING THE VIET NAM WAR) and I'm sort of ashamed of myself, too."
"AT TIMES I WONDER, 'WHY DID I GO ALONG WITH THIS KIND OF STUFF?'"
- Adm. David Lamar McDonald, 1976 (Chief of Navy in 1965)
QUOTE(vfguenley @ Dec 27 2006, 09:07 AM)
What I found missing in Wikipedia was war as an “ego trip”
IMHO Johnson believed the Domino theory ......
Nixon was on an ego trip.
IMHO Bush’s nose was in the grasp of some misguided smart people’s hands ......
Who drug him through their ego trip ......
IMHO Johnson believed the Domino theory ......
Nixon was on an ego trip.
IMHO Bush’s nose was in the grasp of some misguided smart people’s hands ......
Who drug him through their ego trip ......
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 26 2006, 06:53 PM)
THE PRESIDENT (Lyndon Baines Johnson) REMAINED DETERMINED TO DEEPEN AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT IN VIETNAM WITHOUT A CONGRESSIONAL DEBATE (April-June 1965).
EVEN AS HE CIRCUMVENTED THE CONSTITUTION, LBJ ABDICATED LEADERSHIP IN CONNECTION WITH VIETNAM.
- Page 294, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster .....
EVEN AS HE CIRCUMVENTED THE CONSTITUTION, LBJ ABDICATED LEADERSHIP IN CONNECTION WITH VIETNAM.
- Page 294, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster .....
(U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert) McNamara's trip to Saigon (July 1965) raised the level of congressional interest in Vietnam.
While (U.S. Army General and Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff Earle) Wheeler was away with McNamara, the other chiefs met with members of the House Armed Services Committee in Chairman L. Mendel River's office.
The representatives wanted the JCS to provide them with a comprehensive estimate of the amount of force that the war would ultimately require.
IF THE CHIEFS ANSWERED THE QUESTIONS DIRECTLY AND HONESTLY, THEY MIGHT BE ABLE TO FOIL THE PRESIDENT'S PLANS FOR "SOFTENING UP" THE PUBLIC AND THE CONGRESS UPON MCNAMARA'S RETURN FROM SAIGON.
"COACH" JOHNSON (President Lyndon Baines Johnson) WOULD HAVE BEEN PROUD OF HIS "TEAM" (the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States military, to include the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps).
When the representatives asked if mobilization was necessary, the officers avoided answering.
ALTHOUGH HAROLD JOHNSON (United States Army Chief) HAD ALREADY NOTIFIED MAJOR ARMY COMMANDERS TO PREPARE FOR A ONE-YEAR MOBILIZATION OF RESERVE UNITS AND HAD OUTLINED TO THEM A SPECIFIC PROGRAM FOR INCREASING THE STRENGTH OF THE ARMY BY SIXTY-THREE BATTALIONS, THE ARMY CHIEF TOLD THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS THAT HE "DIDN'T REALLY KNOW" WHAT HIS REQUIREMENT WAS "NOW OR IN THE FUTURE."
After repeated questioning Johnson replied that some 250,000 U.S. troops would be needed in Vietnam - ABOUT HALF THE NUMBER HE PRIVATELY BELIEVED WOULD BE NECESSARY TO END THE WAR ON TERMS FAVORABLE TO THE UNITED STATES AND SOUTH VIETNAM.
McConnell refused to estimate the number of men the Air Force would require to satisfy the demands of the war.
McDonald said that the Navy would require 40,000 more sailors, but did not state whether the increase would require mobilization of reserve forces.
ALTHOUGH (United States Marine Corps Commandant) GREENE BELIEVED THAT THE COMMITTEE MEMBERS MUST HAVE DEDUCED FROM THE DISCUSSION THE NEED FOR MOBILIZATION, THE CHIEFS NEVER MADE THAT REQUIREMENT EXPLICIT.
Near the end of the meeting, one of the legislators asked Greene directly how many men would be needed to win the war in Vietnam.
Amid the confusing and contradictory estimates of his colleagues, however, Greene's estimate of FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND made no visible impression on the legislators.
TO BE CONTINUED .....
- Pages 309,310, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster ......
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 27 2006, 04:17 PM)
(U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert) McNamara's trip to Saigon (July 1965) raised the level of congressional interest in Vietnam.
While (U.S. Army General and Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff Earle) Wheeler was away with McNamara, the other chiefs met with members of the House Armed Services Committee in Chairman L. Mendel River's office.
The representatives wanted the JCS to provide them with a comprehensive estimate of the amount of force that the war would ultimately require.
IF THE CHIEFS ANSWERED THE QUESTIONS DIRECTLY AND HONESTLY, THEY MIGHT BE ABLE TO FOIL THE PRESIDENT'S PLANS FOR "SOFTENING UP" THE PUBLIC AND THE CONGRESS UPON MCNAMARA'S RETURN FROM SAIGON.
"COACH" JOHNSON (President Lyndon Baines Johnson) WOULD HAVE BEEN PROUD OF HIS "TEAM" (the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States military, to include the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps).
- Pages 309,310, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster ......
While (U.S. Army General and Chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff Earle) Wheeler was away with McNamara, the other chiefs met with members of the House Armed Services Committee in Chairman L. Mendel River's office.
The representatives wanted the JCS to provide them with a comprehensive estimate of the amount of force that the war would ultimately require.
IF THE CHIEFS ANSWERED THE QUESTIONS DIRECTLY AND HONESTLY, THEY MIGHT BE ABLE TO FOIL THE PRESIDENT'S PLANS FOR "SOFTENING UP" THE PUBLIC AND THE CONGRESS UPON MCNAMARA'S RETURN FROM SAIGON.
"COACH" JOHNSON (President Lyndon Baines Johnson) WOULD HAVE BEEN PROUD OF HIS "TEAM" (the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States military, to include the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps).
- Pages 309,310, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster ......
The questioning turned from troop requirements and mobilization to military action against North Vietnam.
Rivers, a Democrat from South Carolina, took a nautical map of Haiphong Harbor out of a locked cabinet.
Rivers and the committee's chief counsel, John R. Blandford, asked the JCS why they were not mining Haiphong Harbor and bombing fuel storage facilities in the port area.
"Haven't you Chiefs recommended that this be done?"
Greene deferred to McDonald and McConnell, who explained that the targets had been placed on a list but that the attack times had not been specified.
McDonald said that "political factors," such as potential damage to neutral ships, had delayed them.
Asked about other targets in the area, McDonald gave the same answer.
GREENE THOUGHT THAT HIS COLLEAGUES' STATEMENTS WERE "NOT TRUTHFUL" IN LIGHT OF REPEATED JCS RECOMMENDATIONS TO ATTACK THOSE TARGETS AND MINE THE HARBOR, BUT HE REMAINED SILENT.
- Page 310, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster ......
Rivers asked Greene why SAM sites and air bases had been left untouched.
Greene said that he had been "greatly concerned" about the need to hit both targets and had advocated hitting the SAM sites "from the day the first shovel had been struck into the ground to construct them."
Greene's direct response contrasted with the reticence of his colleagues.
THE CHIEFS AS A WHOLE HAD BEEN LESS THAN FORTHCOMING.
Rep. F. Edward Hebert, a Democrat from Louisiana, told them that they were "highly respected" but warned that their credibility would suffer unless they provided Congress with their honest opinions.
RIVERS TOLD THE CHIEFS THAT THEY WERE "CREATURES OF THE CONGRESS AND THEREFORE HAVE A DUTY TO THEM AS WELL AS TO THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH."
HAROLD JOHNSON (Army Chief of Staff) RESPONDED DEFENSIVELY, ARGUING THAT HE OWED ALLEGIANCE PRINCIPALLY TO THE PRESIDENT.
JOHNSON REMINDED THE REPRESENTATIVES THAT UNDER THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT THE CHIEFS WERE "PRINCIPAL MILITARY ADVISERS TO THE PRESIDENT, THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL, AND THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE."
GREENE TOLD THE CONGRESSMEN THAT THE CHIEFS FOUND THEMSELVES "IN A VERY DIFFICULT POSITION BETWEEN THE COMMITTEE (House Armed Services Committee) AND THE ADMINISTRATION."
REP. WILLIAM H. BATES, A REPUBLICAN FROM MASSACHUSETTS, DESCRIBED THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT AS "THE WORST ONE THAT CONGRESS EVER PASSED."
GREENE (Commandant of the United States Marine Corps) RECORDED AT THE TIME THAT THE CHIEFS' EVASIVE ANSWERS HAD LEFT THE COMMITTEE IN A "FIT OF FRUSTRATION."
- Pages 310,311, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster ......
Greene said that he had been "greatly concerned" about the need to hit both targets and had advocated hitting the SAM sites "from the day the first shovel had been struck into the ground to construct them."
Greene's direct response contrasted with the reticence of his colleagues.
THE CHIEFS AS A WHOLE HAD BEEN LESS THAN FORTHCOMING.
Rep. F. Edward Hebert, a Democrat from Louisiana, told them that they were "highly respected" but warned that their credibility would suffer unless they provided Congress with their honest opinions.
RIVERS TOLD THE CHIEFS THAT THEY WERE "CREATURES OF THE CONGRESS AND THEREFORE HAVE A DUTY TO THEM AS WELL AS TO THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH."
HAROLD JOHNSON (Army Chief of Staff) RESPONDED DEFENSIVELY, ARGUING THAT HE OWED ALLEGIANCE PRINCIPALLY TO THE PRESIDENT.
JOHNSON REMINDED THE REPRESENTATIVES THAT UNDER THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT THE CHIEFS WERE "PRINCIPAL MILITARY ADVISERS TO THE PRESIDENT, THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL, AND THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE."
GREENE TOLD THE CONGRESSMEN THAT THE CHIEFS FOUND THEMSELVES "IN A VERY DIFFICULT POSITION BETWEEN THE COMMITTEE (House Armed Services Committee) AND THE ADMINISTRATION."
REP. WILLIAM H. BATES, A REPUBLICAN FROM MASSACHUSETTS, DESCRIBED THE NATIONAL SECURITY ACT AS "THE WORST ONE THAT CONGRESS EVER PASSED."
GREENE (Commandant of the United States Marine Corps) RECORDED AT THE TIME THAT THE CHIEFS' EVASIVE ANSWERS HAD LEFT THE COMMITTEE IN A "FIT OF FRUSTRATION."
- Pages 310,311, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster ......
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 13 2006, 06:52 AM)
"Maybe we military men were all weak."
"Maybe we should have stood up and pounded the table."
".... I was part of it (ABDICATING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE TROOPS DURING THE VIET NAM WAR) and I'm sort of ashamed of myself, too."
"AT TIMES I WONDER, 'WHY DID I GO ALONG WITH THIS KIND OF STUFF?'"
- Adm. David Lamar McDonald, 1976, (Navy Chief of Staff in 1965)
"Maybe we should have stood up and pounded the table."
".... I was part of it (ABDICATING RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE TROOPS DURING THE VIET NAM WAR) and I'm sort of ashamed of myself, too."
"AT TIMES I WONDER, 'WHY DID I GO ALONG WITH THIS KIND OF STUFF?'"
- Adm. David Lamar McDonald, 1976, (Navy Chief of Staff in 1965)
QUOTE(Livyjr @ Dec 13 2006, 05:30 PM)
There's a lot of dead Americans wonder that same thing, Admiral, SIR .....
With all due respect .....
They wonder .....
People like me wonder ....
And we could speculate ....
But the dead would still be dead ......
And so ....
We mainly drift on over to other subjects .....
And you probably do that yourself .....
A lot, I would think ....
For the load on your conscience .....
Might be heavy, indeed .....
What with you being derelict in your duty .....
To those dead troops ....
And so .....
But as for me ....
Well ...
Admiral .....
You didn't do ....
What you didn't do ....
And nothing on earth is going to change that ....
And so ....
I don't bear you enmity, anyway ....
So don't fear that ....
We all do what we are going to do ....
And yours was not to do ....
What it was ....
You were really responsible for ....
WHICH WAS TO SPEAK OUT FOR THOSE TROOPS ....
NOT SEND THEM TO SLAUGHTER .....
FOR A LIE ....
OR A WHOLE PASSEL OF LIES, ACTUALLY ....
THAT YOU IGNORED ...
TO THEIR PERIL ....
ETERNAL PERIL, AS IT WERE ....
And so .....
With all due respect .....
They wonder .....
People like me wonder ....
And we could speculate ....
But the dead would still be dead ......
And so ....
We mainly drift on over to other subjects .....
And you probably do that yourself .....
A lot, I would think ....
For the load on your conscience .....
Might be heavy, indeed .....
What with you being derelict in your duty .....
To those dead troops ....
And so .....
But as for me ....
Well ...
Admiral .....
You didn't do ....
What you didn't do ....
And nothing on earth is going to change that ....
And so ....
I don't bear you enmity, anyway ....
So don't fear that ....
We all do what we are going to do ....
And yours was not to do ....
What it was ....
You were really responsible for ....
WHICH WAS TO SPEAK OUT FOR THOSE TROOPS ....
NOT SEND THEM TO SLAUGHTER .....
FOR A LIE ....
OR A WHOLE PASSEL OF LIES, ACTUALLY ....
THAT YOU IGNORED ...
TO THEIR PERIL ....
ETERNAL PERIL, AS IT WERE ....
And so .....
JULY 1965
Greene (Commandant of the United States Marine Corps) experienced conflicting feelings during the consultation with the (House Armed Services) committee members.
Sympathetic to his commander in chief in the April (1965) White House meetings, when LBJ seemed beseiged by opponents of the U.S. role in Vietnam, Greene was nonetheless "ASTOUNDED BY HOW FEW OF THE FACTS REGARDING THE SITUATION SEEMED TO BE KNOWN" to the people's representatives.
GREENE'S LOYALTY TO THE PRESIDENT AND RELUCTANCE TO CONTRADICT HIS COLLEAGUES (United States Military Joint Chiefs of Staff), HOWEVER, PREVENTED HIM FROM GIVING THE LEGISLATORS HIS FULL ASSESSMENT OF THE SITUATION.
Two hours after the meeting, he called John Blandford (House Armed Services Committee's chief counsel).
GREENE TOLD BLANDFORD WHAT HE DECLINED TO SAY IN THE MEETING.
THE UNITED STATES, GREENE SAID, WAS ON THE VERGE OF A "MAJOR WAR" THAT WOULD ULTIMATELY INVOLVE A MINIMUM OF FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND TROOPS.
THE WAR WOULD TAKE AT LEAST FIVE YEARS, AND THE UNITED STATES WOULD SUFFER A LARGE NUMBER OF CASUALTIES.
TO SET CONDITIONS FOR WINNING THE WAR, THE UNITED STATES WOULD HAVE TO UNDERTAKE AN "IMMEDIATE INTENSIFICATION" OF OPERATIONS AGAINST NORTH VIETNAM AND WITHIN SOUTH VIETNAM.
GREENE HAD GIVEN BLANDFORD PRIVATELY THE ASSESSMENT THAT THE CHIEFS HAD FAILED TO PROVIDE EITHER TO CONGRESS OR TO THE ADMINISTRATION.
WITH THE ADMINISTRATION DECEIVING THE PEOPLE AND CONGRESS ABOUT THE DEPTH OF THE AMERICAN MILITARY COMMITMENT IN VIETNAM, THE CHIEFS WERE IN A QUANDARY.
ALTHOUGH THE CONSTITUTION DESIGNATED THE PRESIDENT AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE MILITARY, EACH MEMBER OF THE JCS WAS SWORN TO "SUPPORT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES."
THE CONSTITUTION CHARGED CONGRESS, AS REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE, WITH THE RESPONSIBILITY TO DECIDE WHETHER TO DECLARE WAR.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, THROUGH THEIR REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS, WERE TO DETERMINE WHETHER SOUTH VIETNAM'S "FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE" WAS WORTH THE COSTS AND RISKS.
WITH THE EXCEPTION OF GREENE (AND THEN ONLY IN PRIVATE TO A STAFF MEMBER), THE CHIEFS HAD DECIDED TO SUPPORT THEIR COMMANDER IN CHIEF BY MISREPRESENTING THEIR OWN ESTIMATES OF THE SITUATION IN VIETNAM.
GREENE FELT KEENLY THE TENSION BETWEEN LOYALTY TO THE PRESIDENT AND HIS RESPONSIBILITIES TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND HAD CHOSEN A MIDDLE COURSE OF PUBLICLY SUPPORTING THE ADMINISTRATION WHILE PRIVATELY PROVIDING HIS ACTUAL VIEWS TO THE CONGRESS.
THE CHIEFS' OBLIGATIONS TO THEIR SOLDIERS, AIRMEN, SAILORS, AND MARINES COMPLICATED ALREADY CONFLICTING RESPONSIBILITIES.
AS AMERICAN INVOLVEMENT IN THE WAR DEEPENED, LYNDON JOHNSON REMAINED DETERMINED TO DEPICT THE WAR VERY DIFFERENTLY FROM THE WAY THAT GREENE HAD DESCRIBED IT.
- Pages 311,312, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster ......
Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM
Change Johnson to Bush and McNamara to Rumsfeld, then it would read “lies that led to the Iraq fiasco”
It seems to this casual observer there are a few names that are different, yet some of the names are the same. Both Cheney and Rumsfeld worked in the Nixon administration, in the Whitehouse where it was safe from sniper fire or a stray frag. What lessons did they take away with them when discharged from those duties.
Did they have to stuff any body bags and ready them for shipment home?
Did they have to dig through piles of body parts, belonging to some American citizens loved ones in hopes of finding an identifying mark that would inform the “Graves and Registration” people who the unlucky, ( or lucky depending on ones perspective ), family is thats going to receive the remains of a loved one killed as a result of someone’s “dereliction of duty”.
The further away from the reality of war the easier it is to support the killing and maiming of fellow humans.
If every American was forced to work in a field hospital or in graves and registration for just a few days, they would never again support a war that wasn’t coming down the street they live on.
We’ve seen John Wayne and many others portray moments of war, but it wasn’t real.
Reality is the first moment a person knows they have just killed another human being, a moment shared only by those who have seen with their own eyes and felt with their own heart, what is means to kill, a moment one never forgets. A moment Bush will never understand, nor Cheney, nor many of the neocon “conmen” who decided for the decider what the cost of war would be for the USA.
The Vietnam war’s cost was the soul of many of the “baby boomers” generation, and the self-respect of too many of it’s survivors. The Iraq war’s cost will be no less significant, but will include the loss of our standing as good and decent people throughout the free world.
Change Johnson to Bush and McNamara to Rumsfeld, then it would read “lies that led to the Iraq fiasco”
It seems to this casual observer there are a few names that are different, yet some of the names are the same. Both Cheney and Rumsfeld worked in the Nixon administration, in the Whitehouse where it was safe from sniper fire or a stray frag. What lessons did they take away with them when discharged from those duties.
Did they have to stuff any body bags and ready them for shipment home?
Did they have to dig through piles of body parts, belonging to some American citizens loved ones in hopes of finding an identifying mark that would inform the “Graves and Registration” people who the unlucky, ( or lucky depending on ones perspective ), family is thats going to receive the remains of a loved one killed as a result of someone’s “dereliction of duty”.
The further away from the reality of war the easier it is to support the killing and maiming of fellow humans.
If every American was forced to work in a field hospital or in graves and registration for just a few days, they would never again support a war that wasn’t coming down the street they live on.
We’ve seen John Wayne and many others portray moments of war, but it wasn’t real.
Reality is the first moment a person knows they have just killed another human being, a moment shared only by those who have seen with their own eyes and felt with their own heart, what is means to kill, a moment one never forgets. A moment Bush will never understand, nor Cheney, nor many of the neocon “conmen” who decided for the decider what the cost of war would be for the USA.
The Vietnam war’s cost was the soul of many of the “baby boomers” generation, and the self-respect of too many of it’s survivors. The Iraq war’s cost will be no less significant, but will include the loss of our standing as good and decent people throughout the free world.
My thought, vf .....
Is that if one is to be against war .....
Anti-war, as it were ......
That one should have at hand an adequate explanation as to why that would be ......
And that is what I have been attempting to do in here .....
And you just jumped feet first right into the middle of the BULLS-EYE with your statement above about SIMPLY CHANGE THE NAMES, FOLKS .....
WE HAVE BEEN HERE, ONE TIME BEFORE ...
AND AS MARINE CORPS GENERAL ANTHONY ZINNI SO ELOQUENTLY PUT IT .....
IN MY PARAPHRASE .....
THIS IS A DAMN CHEAP IMITATION .....
OF THAT FIASCO .....
And so .....
Genetically, I wonder if George W. Bush was not cloned directly from LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON ......
And Donald Rumsfeld is Robert McNamara ......
With his statistical charts and all that HOO-HAH ......
And "CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice is McGeorge Bundy .....
And "POLITICAL PETER" Pace is "SMILING EARLE" Wheeler .....
AND ALL THE LIES ARE JUST THE SAME, ALL OVER AGAIN ...
And OUR America sucked them down .....
ALL OVER AGAIN .....
Like a fat trout jumping on a fly with a nice HOOK concealed in it ......
TONIGHT'S DINNER .....
Well done, vf ......
Well done, indeed .....
IT IS NOT THAT WE ARE AGAINST WAR, FOLKS .....
IT IS THE LIES ...
THAT LEAD TO WAR ....
THAT CRIPPLE PEOPLE ...
LIKE US ....
AND DESTROY .....
THE LIVES OF THOSE THAT WE SERVED WITH .....
THOSE WHO DIED FOR THOSE LIES .....
AND THOSE ON THE "OTHER SIDE" .....
THE VIETNAMESE SIDE .....
WHO HAD THEIR LIVES SNUFFED OUT ......
BECAUSE OF THOSE LIES .....
AND THAT IS WHAT I AM AGAINST, ANYWAY ....
Not having permission in here to speak for anyone else .....
NOR CLAIMING TO BE DOING SO .....
And so ....
Is that if one is to be against war .....
Anti-war, as it were ......
That one should have at hand an adequate explanation as to why that would be ......
And that is what I have been attempting to do in here .....
And you just jumped feet first right into the middle of the BULLS-EYE with your statement above about SIMPLY CHANGE THE NAMES, FOLKS .....
WE HAVE BEEN HERE, ONE TIME BEFORE ...
AND AS MARINE CORPS GENERAL ANTHONY ZINNI SO ELOQUENTLY PUT IT .....
IN MY PARAPHRASE .....
THIS IS A DAMN CHEAP IMITATION .....
OF THAT FIASCO .....
And so .....
Genetically, I wonder if George W. Bush was not cloned directly from LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON ......
And Donald Rumsfeld is Robert McNamara ......
With his statistical charts and all that HOO-HAH ......
And "CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice is McGeorge Bundy .....
And "POLITICAL PETER" Pace is "SMILING EARLE" Wheeler .....
AND ALL THE LIES ARE JUST THE SAME, ALL OVER AGAIN ...
And OUR America sucked them down .....
ALL OVER AGAIN .....
Like a fat trout jumping on a fly with a nice HOOK concealed in it ......
TONIGHT'S DINNER .....
Well done, vf ......
Well done, indeed .....
IT IS NOT THAT WE ARE AGAINST WAR, FOLKS .....
IT IS THE LIES ...
THAT LEAD TO WAR ....
THAT CRIPPLE PEOPLE ...
LIKE US ....
AND DESTROY .....
THE LIVES OF THOSE THAT WE SERVED WITH .....
THOSE WHO DIED FOR THOSE LIES .....
AND THOSE ON THE "OTHER SIDE" .....
THE VIETNAMESE SIDE .....
WHO HAD THEIR LIVES SNUFFED OUT ......
BECAUSE OF THOSE LIES .....
AND THAT IS WHAT I AM AGAINST, ANYWAY ....
Not having permission in here to speak for anyone else .....
NOR CLAIMING TO BE DOING SO .....
And so ....
THE WAR IN VIETNAM .....
WAS NOT LOST ....
IN THE FIELD .....
Nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times .....
Or on college campuses ......
IT WAS LOST IN WASHINGTON, D.C. .....
EVEN BEFORE AMERICANS ASSUMED SOLE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FIGHTING IN 1965 .....
AND BEFORE THEY REALIZED THE COUNTRY WAS AT WAR .....
INDEED ....
EVEN BEFORE THE FIRST AMERICAN UNITS WERE DEPLOYED .....
THE DISASTER IN VIETNAM WAS NOT THE RESULT OF IMPERSONAL FORCES .....
BUT A UNIQUELY HUMAN FAILURE .....
THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHICH WAS SHARED BY PRESIDENT JOHNSON ......
AND HIS PRINCIPAL MILITARY AND CIVILIAN ADVISERS.
THE FAILINGS WERE MANY ......
AND REINFORCING:
ARROGANCE ....
WEAKNESS .....
LYING IN PURSUIT OF SELF-INTEREST .....
AND ABOVE ALL .....
THE ABDICATION OF RESPONSIBILITY TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ....
- Pages 333,334, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster ......
WAS NOT LOST ....
IN THE FIELD .....
Nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times .....
Or on college campuses ......
IT WAS LOST IN WASHINGTON, D.C. .....
EVEN BEFORE AMERICANS ASSUMED SOLE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE FIGHTING IN 1965 .....
AND BEFORE THEY REALIZED THE COUNTRY WAS AT WAR .....
INDEED ....
EVEN BEFORE THE FIRST AMERICAN UNITS WERE DEPLOYED .....
THE DISASTER IN VIETNAM WAS NOT THE RESULT OF IMPERSONAL FORCES .....
BUT A UNIQUELY HUMAN FAILURE .....
THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHICH WAS SHARED BY PRESIDENT JOHNSON ......
AND HIS PRINCIPAL MILITARY AND CIVILIAN ADVISERS.
THE FAILINGS WERE MANY ......
AND REINFORCING:
ARROGANCE ....
WEAKNESS .....
LYING IN PURSUIT OF SELF-INTEREST .....
AND ABOVE ALL .....
THE ABDICATION OF RESPONSIBILITY TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ....
- Pages 333,334, Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster ......
Yes, indeed, it has been a GOOD FEW WARS for Dick Cheney ......
He never got maimed ....
Or even scratched ......
Never had to see what modern weaponry can do to a human body .....
Reducing it to a stinking pile of **** in a literal flash .......
Old Dick got him some real cushy "staff" jobs in the REAR .....
Where he was as far from harm's reach as he could possibly be ....
POGUE CITY, HERE WE COME .....
Where he was joined by Donald "GASBAG" Rumsfeld .....
And George W. Bush ......
Or perhaps that really should be LYNDON BAINES BUSH ......
BABY LYNDON ......
With all of the lies and deceits of BIG LYNDON right down pat ......
But that is to be expected, I think ......
Since the two of them and Karl Rove all originate in the same place, that being the SOVEREIGN IMMENSITY of Texas .....
Where all three are FAVORITE AND FAVORED PRODIGAL SONS .....
As I read through Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster ......
Who is himself a West Point graduate and veteran of combat in IRAQINAMISTAN ....
I could not help but to compare the evolution of the Viet Nam war with the evolution of what is known up here variously as THE BOY'S BOTCH JOB in IRAQINAMISTAN ......
Or THE BOY'S COCK-UP .....
Or THE BUSH BOY'S MESS in IRAQINAMISTAN ....
And as I made that mental comparison .....
I could not help but think that somehow ....
And maybe it was bequeathed to him ....
Or maybe he found it in a pawn shop ....
Or whatever .....
But my money is on KARL ROVE scripting this BUSHIAN FIASCO in IRAQINAM right directly from the ANALECTS OF LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON .....
Or as it is called up here .....
"LBJ'S LITTLE GREEN BOOK" ......
To distinguish it from Chairman Mao's Little Red Book .....
We can see Karl Rove just loving all the lies and deceits of LBJ .....
HOW TO LIE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE .....
(Rated as being very easy to do ...)
HOW TO LIE TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS ...
(Rated even easier than lying to the American people ...)
HOW TO SELECT AND PROMOTE "MILITARY MEN" WHO CAN LIE THROUGH THEIR TEETH TO THEIR TROOPS WITH EVERY WORD THEY SAY .....
And on and on and on and on and on .....
And then ...
We can see Karl Rove "scripting" a RE-RUN .....
Knowing how easy it would be to do all over again ....
With a part to play for LITTLE LYNDON ....
And of course, "CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice got herself a starring role ...
"I CAN DO IT ..."
"I CAN DO IT ..."
"I CAN TELL A LIE AS GOOD AS ANY MAN IN LYNDON JOHNSON'S ADMINISTRATION ..."
And Karl Rove took her at her word .....
And boy oh boy ...
Did "CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice ever perform ......
What astounds and confounds me as an American citizen ......
IS THAT ANY OF THIS LYING, DECEITFUL, INCOMPETENT CROWD STILL HOLDS ANY KIND OF OFFICE HERE IN OUR AMERICA ....
AND THAT PEOPLE IN AMERICA STILL EXPECT THIS LYING, DECEITFUL, INCOMPETENT CROWD TO FIND A WAY BACK OUT OF THE MESS THAT THEY HAVE CREATED IN IRAQINAMISTAN .......
WHERE ANOTHER AMERICAN PUPPET JUST BIT THE DUST LAST NIGHT .....
THAT BEING DONALD RUMSFELD'S "BEST BUDDY" SADDAM HUSSEIN ....
If someone were to ask me just what is the weirdest situation that I ever found myself in .....
I would truthfully have to answer that it is being in a place that calls itself America right now .....
A PLACE THAT WORSHIPS LIES ...
AND LIARS ...
AND CON MEN ...
AND CON WOMEN, AS WELL .....
A PLACE THAT CHOOSES ITS "LEADERS" BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO DEMONSTRABLE INTEGRITY .....
A PLACE THAT JUST LOVES TO GET LIED TO AS MUCH AS IT CAN .....
A PLACE THAT JUST LOVES A WELL-DONE CON .....
ON ITSELF .....
And so .....
He never got maimed ....
Or even scratched ......
Never had to see what modern weaponry can do to a human body .....
Reducing it to a stinking pile of **** in a literal flash .......
Old Dick got him some real cushy "staff" jobs in the REAR .....
Where he was as far from harm's reach as he could possibly be ....
POGUE CITY, HERE WE COME .....
Where he was joined by Donald "GASBAG" Rumsfeld .....
And George W. Bush ......
Or perhaps that really should be LYNDON BAINES BUSH ......
BABY LYNDON ......
With all of the lies and deceits of BIG LYNDON right down pat ......
But that is to be expected, I think ......
Since the two of them and Karl Rove all originate in the same place, that being the SOVEREIGN IMMENSITY of Texas .....
Where all three are FAVORITE AND FAVORED PRODIGAL SONS .....
As I read through Dereliction of Duty - Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, The Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND THE LIES THAT LED TO VIET NAM by H.R. McMaster ......
Who is himself a West Point graduate and veteran of combat in IRAQINAMISTAN ....
I could not help but to compare the evolution of the Viet Nam war with the evolution of what is known up here variously as THE BOY'S BOTCH JOB in IRAQINAMISTAN ......
Or THE BOY'S COCK-UP .....
Or THE BUSH BOY'S MESS in IRAQINAMISTAN ....
And as I made that mental comparison .....
I could not help but think that somehow ....
And maybe it was bequeathed to him ....
Or maybe he found it in a pawn shop ....
Or whatever .....
But my money is on KARL ROVE scripting this BUSHIAN FIASCO in IRAQINAM right directly from the ANALECTS OF LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON .....
Or as it is called up here .....
"LBJ'S LITTLE GREEN BOOK" ......
To distinguish it from Chairman Mao's Little Red Book .....
We can see Karl Rove just loving all the lies and deceits of LBJ .....
HOW TO LIE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE .....
(Rated as being very easy to do ...)
HOW TO LIE TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS ...
(Rated even easier than lying to the American people ...)
HOW TO SELECT AND PROMOTE "MILITARY MEN" WHO CAN LIE THROUGH THEIR TEETH TO THEIR TROOPS WITH EVERY WORD THEY SAY .....
And on and on and on and on and on .....
And then ...
We can see Karl Rove "scripting" a RE-RUN .....
Knowing how easy it would be to do all over again ....
With a part to play for LITTLE LYNDON ....
And of course, "CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice got herself a starring role ...
"I CAN DO IT ..."
"I CAN DO IT ..."
"I CAN TELL A LIE AS GOOD AS ANY MAN IN LYNDON JOHNSON'S ADMINISTRATION ..."
And Karl Rove took her at her word .....
And boy oh boy ...
Did "CON-JOB CONNIE" Rice ever perform ......
What astounds and confounds me as an American citizen ......
IS THAT ANY OF THIS LYING, DECEITFUL, INCOMPETENT CROWD STILL HOLDS ANY KIND OF OFFICE HERE IN OUR AMERICA ....
AND THAT PEOPLE IN AMERICA STILL EXPECT THIS LYING, DECEITFUL, INCOMPETENT CROWD TO FIND A WAY BACK OUT OF THE MESS THAT THEY HAVE CREATED IN IRAQINAMISTAN .......
WHERE ANOTHER AMERICAN PUPPET JUST BIT THE DUST LAST NIGHT .....
THAT BEING DONALD RUMSFELD'S "BEST BUDDY" SADDAM HUSSEIN ....
If someone were to ask me just what is the weirdest situation that I ever found myself in .....
I would truthfully have to answer that it is being in a place that calls itself America right now .....
A PLACE THAT WORSHIPS LIES ...
AND LIARS ...
AND CON MEN ...
AND CON WOMEN, AS WELL .....
A PLACE THAT CHOOSES ITS "LEADERS" BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO DEMONSTRABLE INTEGRITY .....
A PLACE THAT JUST LOVES TO GET LIED TO AS MUCH AS IT CAN .....
A PLACE THAT JUST LOVES A WELL-DONE CON .....
ON ITSELF .....
And so .....
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