From Vietnam to Fallujah

[G_j]

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=6217

From Vietnam to Fallujah

. by Fran Schor

The recent controversy surrounding the "Swift Boat Veterans" ad challenging John Kerry's Vietnam record and his later statements as a leader of Vietnam Veterans against the War (VVAW) have fallen into predictable partisan perspectives. Republicans and their media attack machine still insist that Kerry's medals are suspect and his VVAW activities were treasonous. Kerry and the Democrats, in turn, have found further documentary evidence and eye-witness accounts to support his version of the Vietnam incidents. As far as Kerry's 1971 testimony about US atrocities in Vietnam, Kerry has reiterated that he was just recounting reports from the Winter Soldier Investigations. In addition, he tried earlier to deflect criticism of his VVAW positions by claiming that some of his statements were overzealous and part of the heated rhetoric of the times. In effect, the Bush Administration and Republicans have tried to deny that atrocities took place while Kerry and the Democrats have tried to minimize or marginalize them.

For those who have studied the historical record of the US prosecution of the war in Southeast Asia, neither the Republicans nor Democrats have confronted the full measure of those atrocities and what their legacy is especially in the war on Iraq. While most studies of the war in Southeast Asia acknowledge that 4 times the tonnage of bombs was dropped on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos than that used by the US in all theaters of operation during World War II, only a few, such as James William Gibson's The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam, analyze the full extent of such bombing. Not only were thousands of villages in Vietnam totally destroyed, but massive civilian deaths, numbering close to 3 million, resulted in large part from such indiscriminate bombing. Integral to the bombing strategy was the use of weapons that violated international law, such as napalm and anti-personnel fragmentation bombs. As a result of establishing free-fire zones where anything and everything could be attacked, including hospitals, US military operations led to the deliberate murder of mostly civilians.

While Rumsfeld and the Pentagon have touted the "clean" weapons used in Iraq, the fact is that aerial cluster bombs and free-fire zones have continued to be part of present day military operations. Villages throughout Iraq, from Hilla to Fallujah, have borne and are bearing US attacks that take a heavy civilian toll. Occasionally, criticisms of the type of ordnance used in Iraq found its way into the mainstream press, especially when left-over cluster bomblets looking like yellow food packages blow up in children's hands or depleted uranium weapons are dropped inadvertently on British soldiers. However, questions about the immorality of "shock and awe" bombing strategy have been buried deeper than any of the cluster bomblets.

In Vietnam, a primary ground war tactic was the "search and destroy" mission with its over-inflated body counts. As Christian Appy forcefully demonstrated in Working Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam, such tactics were guaranteed to produce atrocities. Any revealing personal account of the war in Vietnam, such as Ron Kovic's Born on the Fourth of July, underscores how those atrocities took their toll on civilians and US soldiers, like Kovic. Of course, certain high-profile atrocities, such as My Lai, achieved prominent media coverage (almost, however, a year after the incident.) Nonetheless, My Lai was seen either as an aberration and not part of murderous campaigns such as the Phoenix program with its thousands of assassinations or a result of a few bad apples, like a Lt. Calley, who nonetheless received minor punishment for his command of the massacre of hundreds of women and children. Moreover, as reported in Tom Engelhardt's The End of Victory Culture, "65% of Americans claimed not to be upset by the massacre" (224). Is it, therefore, not surprising that Noam Chomsky asserted during this period that the US had to undergo some sort of de- nazification in order to regain some moral sensitivity to what US war policy had produced in Vietnam


..more..

[Comadreja]

1. Flash video Vietnam and the candidates

Watch the video at www.sojo.net/video

[nolabels]

2. Mission NOT Accomplished

The muck is getting deeper. The US corporate is doing our collective population here and the world over a great disservice. It just seems like it is getting so much worse and the people who made the grave mistake of blindly supporting it are just too unwilling to admit it.

These people think they can ignore it and it will go away but they think wrong. It's still here and getting bigger. Their own deceit is going to do them in. I will only be watching and waiting as far as I can see. Pops always said you could lead a horse to water but you couldn't make them drink. We DUers have done the best we could showing others and learning more of what is up and going around. Considering the circumstances and what we have on this little web site, I guess we could be fair on ourselves. Maybe someone could fault some things but we are only human.

In the time frame of things, the way this turning out, it seems that it is going to be way worse than Viet Nam in disgracing this US-corporate imperial interests. But at least some or even many will understand it was not the will of the majority of the US population. Our country government, conscience and government has been hijacked by a bunch of immoral and greedy people

Years ago they chose not to deal with the moral implications of Viet Nam because it was much too painful and damaging to their image. The Viet Nam syndrome we seem to still be collectively paying for.

This is a relevant subject, even though they don’t want to admit it


Bush Remarks on "Mission Accomplished" Banner Embarrass White House


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1030-06.htm

FALLUJAH:
Rebel hold expands despite strikes
By RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN
Los Angeles Times
Telephone Credit Union

FALLUJAH, Iraq - From the porthole of his bunker just outside the city, U.S. Marine Capt. Jeff Stevenson could see no more than the first few rows of brick-and-concrete homes along Fallujah's urban fringe as he squinted into the setting desert sun. But his obscured view was enough to sense trouble.

A half-dozen houses were flattened. Others were punched with tank rounds. Each of them, Stevenson said, had been used by insurgents to fire at his bunker, which is fortified with dirt-filled mesh barriers.

Iraqi police officers and National Guardsmen, who should have been patrolling the streets, were nowhere to be found. A dusty pile of canvas 100 yards away provided the only reminder of the Fallujah Brigade, the now-disbanded Iraqi security force that was supposed to restore order here. The canvas had been one of brigade's tents. It was gunned down after several members took potshots at Stevenson's men.

"Fallujah has become a cancer," declared Stevenson, echoing a metaphor used by several senior U.S. commanders in Iraq.

A collection of anti-American forces - former Baath Party loyalists, Islamic extremists and foreign militants - have been expanding their presence in Fallujah since the Marines withdrew from positions in the city in April and handed over responsibility for security to the Fallujah Brigade. According to U.S. military officials and residents, the insurgents have since taken over the local government, co-opted and cowed Iraqi security forces, and turned the area into a staging ground for terrorist attacks in Baghdad, located about 35 miles to the east.
(snip)
http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=44350
http://www.antiwar.com/

[G_j]

3. they bombed the living hell out of Vietnam & Cambodia

did it "win" the war? It was a genocidal disaster.
Now they are trying to do the same thing in Iraq.
Of course it will only make things worse.
murderous fools

"if your only tool is hammer, every problem looks like a nail"

[nolabels]

4. Yea but it was in the name of banishing communism (what ever that was)

Well you see then, that is why they can't let go of what they use and how they use it. They have turned inward and using it on the domestic population if you haven't noticed. The biggest threat to them is the country that spawned them, and they are quite global btw. It's like meet the new war, same as the old war. Anything to stay in power


Questioning the New Imperial World Order:
Ghazwan Al-Mukhtar
The Lion,On His Den
(snip)
The same people who forced Saddam Hussein in 2003, that is to say Donald Rumsfeld and his group, and it is the same people who shook hands with Saddam Hussein in '83, and we established diplomatic relations with the dictator. And they are the same people who supported Saddam Hussein throughout the war with Iran . And it was, by the way, Bechtel, that was given a huge contract in the 80's to develop the petrochemical industry, so that the-- in return for the U.S. support in Iraq and on the Iraq/Iran, and it was Bechtel also to suppress the fact that Iraq used chemical weapons against the Iranians. George Schultz was the secretary. We-- somehow we convinced him through Bechtel contract to forget about the thing. And it was the Americans who supported Saddam Hussein with the anthrax spores. It was the West who supported Saddam Hussein with the factories to develop the mass-- weapons of mass destruction.

You are penalizing us, the poor, powerless subjects of dictator for crimes they have committed. We haven't committed a crime. We, as individuals, haven't committed a crime against anybody. We are victims of ten years of-- 13 years of sanctions, and six months right now, ten months of occupation, and we are going to be punished and punished, again and again, again so that Halliburton and Bechtel and MCI and whoever can make profits. The U.S. has no intention of leaving Iraq . They're talking about how much it's going to cost them until the year 2013. That's ten years of occupation. He talks about democracy. What democracy is he talking about? Where the TV stations are subjected to harassment, where journalists are imprisoned, where people are detained for absolutely no reason? For up to 40 days, 50 days with no one knows about them. Read-- the American people should read not our-- what we say, they should read what the human rights-- Human Rights Watch was saying in that report published in-- last month. They should read what Amnesty International is writing about the human rights situation-- human rights abuses.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe the reaction in the streets to what took place in Fallujah?

GHAZWAN AL-MUKHTAR: This incident happened in Fallujah where two days before that, the American army shot many many people, women and children, on the streets, and --- in a bizarre shooting incident that was unjustified, killing many people. Fallujah has been a place where the US Army has actually used brutal force to suppress the people there, including using the F-15s, and F-16s to attack villages and place where they think the resistances are, which is unjustified to use high explosives against individuals. This resulted in many, many casualties in the province. Added to it, they have detained, for 50 or 60 days, hundreds of people on and off, which alienated the people against the American forces and the American contractors or the American security contractors, which are really a private army, uncontrollable by the US . This is part of the privatization of the war. Two days ago, three days ago, there was a similar incident in Mosul , where two contractors were killed, under electricity. They were going to the electricity generating plant. The important -- the thing that I know is in the media says that the contractors were involved in protecting the food supply. This is the food supply for the US Army, not to be confused with providing help to the local population or anything. It's just a routine US convoy that may have food and may have on other occasions, armaments or anything. So, the resentments of the people of Fallujah are justified. What happens to them is -- it's a sad thing, but you know, brutality breeds brutality, and violence breeds violence, and he who started first should take the responsibility, and I think the US army has used an unjustified force against the people of Fallujah, and they have brutalized the people of Fallujah to the point where they had to respond with the same brutality.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, some of the commercial media here in the United States are claiming that Fallujah is a hotbed of resistance, that up to 70% of the people are supporting attacks or have voiced in opinion polls support for attacks on the US forces. Is there a continuing large presence of US military within -- within the city itself, or have they largely pulled out to the outskirts of Fallujah?

GHAZWAN AL-MUKHTAR: They pulled out to the outskirts, but they keep intruding into the city. Ten days ago, I was passing through Fallujah, and in the middle of the city, they brought the main highway, and we saw inside the city a convoy of US military vehicles. So, they keep coming in and out. If they keep out, I don't think they would have that many attacks on them, but don't forget, those are an occupying force, and the people believe they have the right to resist an occupying force - a foreign occupying force. We -- the closest we come to you is eight hours difference. That's 8,000, 9,000 miles. That's between us. You people have – you came to the east 8,000 miles to run a country you have no business in occupying. After we discovered that there was no justification for the US occupation whatsoever, because there is no weapons of mass destruction. It's a weapon of mass deception that's been propagated by the US administration.
(snip)
http://www.brusselstribunal.org/bios/Ghazwan.htm

[G_j]

5. powerful interview

the likes of which you won't hear anywhere else in America aside from "Democracy Now" and a few other places.

terrorism, communism, compassionate conservatism...
too many "isms" all masking destruction, violence and cruelty.
They won't call it "agressive war" for that is what was condemned and renounced at Nuremberg.

[nolabels]

7. In common street smarts...

Only a fool goes into a rivals turf with half his arsenal, and yet it's been noted that bushco was seen coming in with much less. I was as gasp the other day listening to Democracy Now. Amy Goodman was on the phone trying to get hold of that general who was known to helping to set up some black opt torture camps in Afghanistan.

She seemed to have some goods on the guy, but the effing wimp could not even get on the phone to even defend himself. If this guy is a general in the military and acts like this, there must be some very real and systemic problems going around. I guess one should expect such things with AWOLs and draft dodgers in charge.

[G_j]

8. A General in 'the army of God', need not answer to mortals?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1016-01.htm

General Casts War in Religious Terms
The top soldier assigned to track down Bin Laden and Hussein is an evangelical Christian who speaks publicly of 'the army of God.'

by Richard T. Cooper

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has assigned the task of tracking down and eliminating Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and other high-profile targets to an Army general who sees the war on terrorism as a clash between Judeo-Christian values and Satan.

Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin, the new deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, is a much-decorated and twice-wounded veteran of covert military operations. From the bloody 1993 clash with Muslim warlords in Somalia chronicled in "Black Hawk Down" and the hunt for Colombian drug czar Pablo Escobar to the ill-fated attempt to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980, Boykin was in the thick of things.

Yet the former commander and 13-year veteran of the Army's top-secret Delta Force is also an outspoken evangelical Christian who appeared in dress uniform and polished jump boots before a religious group in Oregon in June to declare that radical Islamists hated the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan."

Discussing the battle against a Muslim warlord in Somalia, Boykin told another audience, "I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."


..more..

[nolabels]

9. Anybody that has spent any time in the miltary knows the rules

There is your way and then there is the militaries way. The rules are set forth and are to be adhered to for many good reasons. In the military you don't ever have to wonder about anything, for they have a regulation for everything. Regulations just like laws are set forth to make things as efficient and safe as possible for everyone concerned This General is perverse and not performing his duty which he has sworn to uphold.

There is to be no debate about any religion if the soldier is really following regulation. In my experience in the military there where real soldiers that you spot a mile away (if you were paying attention) and they followed military regulations to the tee. Then on the other hand there were these types of guys, the General Boykins . The real soldier could quote the regulation that determines what he was doing. Then there were these General Boykin types. These opportunists like this, a person that would give you ideological fallacies for rhyme of their reasoning. Mostly you could trace the actions of such a person like a General Boykin to the ones screwing things up.

Philosophical adherents and beliefs can get you or others killed and endanger the mission that was set forth for persons in the military to perform. This idea of playing religious politics while conducting military operations is a recipe for disaster. Anybody that knows better, that has been in the military must really cringe when they hear of such people

This is also nothing new with these types of people.

THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND THE MILITARY *
EARL WARREN **
(snip)
I believe it is reasonably clear that the Court, in cases involving a substantial claim that protected freedoms have been infringed in the name of military requirements, has consistently recognized the relevance of a basic group of principles. For one, of course, the Court has adhered to its mandate to safeguard freedom from excessive encroachment by governmental authority. In these cases, the Court's approach is reinforced by the American tradition of the separation of the military establishment from, and its subordination to, civil authority. On the other hand, the action in question is generally defended in the name of military necessity, or, to put it another way, in the name of national survival. I suggest that it is possible to discern in the Court's decisions a reasonably consistent pattern for the resolution of these competing claims, and more, that this pattern furnishes a sound guide for the future. Moreover, these decisions reveal, I believe, that while the judiciary plays an important role in this area, it is subject to certain significant limitations, with the result that other organs of government and the people themselves must bear a most heavy responsibility.

Before turning to some of the keystone decisions of the Court, I think it desirable to consider for a moment the principle of separation and subordination of the military establishment, for it is this principle that contributes in a vital way to a resolution of the problems engendered by the existence of a military establishment in a free society.

It is significant that in our own hemisphere only our neighbor, Canada, and we ourselves have avoided rule by the military throughout our national existences. This is not merely happenstance. A tradition has been bred into us that the perpetuation of free government depends upon the continued supremacy of the civilian representatives of the people. To maintain this supremacy has always been a preoccupation of all three branches of our government. To strangers this might seem odd, since our country was born in war. It was the military that, under almost unbearable conditions, carried the burden of the Revolution and made possible our existence as a Nation.

But the people of the colonies had long been subjected to the intemperance of military power. Among the grievous wrongs of which they complained in the Declaration of Independence were that the King had subordinated the civil power to the military, that he had quartered troops among them in times of peace, and that through his mercenaries he had committed other cruelties. Our War of the Revolution was, in good measure, fought as a protest against standing armies. Moreover, it was fought largely with a civilian army, the militia, and its great Commander-in-Chief was a civilian at heart. After the War, he resigned his commission and returned to civilian life. In an emotion-filled appearance before the Congress, his resignation was accepted by its President, Thomas Mifflin, who, in a brief speech, emphasized Washington's qualities of leadership and, above all, his abiding respect for civil authority.3 This trait was probably best epitomized when, just prior to the War's end, some of his officers urged Washington to establish a monarchy, with himself at its head. He not only turned a deaf ear to their blandishments, but his reply, called by historian Edward Charming "possibly, the grandest single thing in his whole career,"4 stated that nothing had given him more painful sensations than the information that such notions existed in the army, and that he thought their proposal "big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my Country."5

Such thoughts were uppermost in the minds of the Founding Fathers when they drafted the Constitution. Distrust of a standing army was expressed by many. Recognition of the danger from Indians and foreign nations caused them to authorize a national armed force begrudgingly. Their viewpoint is well summarized in the language of James Madison, whose name we honor in these lectures:
(snip)
http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Warren1.html

Just as this case in point in politics to show why it's bad thing not following regulations

THE SELLING OF THE PENTAGON

U.S. Documentary
(snip)
In the midst of the furor concerning The Selling of the Pentagon, an even more important First Amendment issue was thrust upon the public scene. On 13 June the New York Times published the first installment of the series of what became known as The Pentagon Papers. This case moved rapidly through the courts, and on 30 June the Supreme Court, by a vote of six to three, allowed the unrestrained publication of those documents.

It was against this background that on 28 June the subcommittee voted unanimously to refer the entire case to its parent Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. On 1 July the full committee voted 25 to 13 to report the matter to the House, with a recommendation that the network and Stanton be cited for contempt. Stanton could not but help notice the contrast between the two decisions: "This action is in disappointing contrast to the Supreme Court's ringing reaffirmation yesterday of the function of journalism in a free society."

On 8 July Staggers made his bid for House support with a floor speech and a letter to members of Congress. On 13 July in a surprisingly heated debate, the issue came to a head. In the end one of the committee members, Representative Hastings Keith introduced a motion to recommit the resolution to the committee, which was asked to report back to the floor legislation that would more adequately express the intent of Congress and give authority to the FCC to move in a constitutional way that would require the networks to be as responsible for the fairness and honesty of their documentaries as for quiz shows and other programs. After a roll call vote, the resolution was approved 226 to 181, effectively negating the contempt citations. Staggers commented: "The networks now control this Congress." Stanton, as was to be expected, was extremely pleased by what he felt was "the decisive House vote."

What was the final outcome? Was the vote really that decisive? On 15 July Representative Keith followed through on his promise and introduced legislation that would have prohibited broadcasters from staging an event, or "juxtaposing or rearranging by editing" without indicating to the public that this had occurred. The proposed legislation never made it to the floor. The final outcome was a victory of sorts for CBS specifically, and broadcast journalism in general, for never in modern history had the House failed to sustain the vote of one of its committees to cite for contempt.

The Selling of the Pentagon was a milestone in the development of the television documentary, not so much for what it contained, but because it represented a clear statement that the networks could not be made to bend to government control in the technological era.

-Garth S. Jowet
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/sellingofth/sellingofth.htm

(unless the correct amount of money was waved in thier face, of course)

on edit: syntax

[G_j]

10. Boykin aside for a moment..

"Philosophical adherents and beliefs can get you or others killed and endanger the mission that was set forth for persons in the military to perform. This idea of playing religious politics while conducting military operations is a recipe for disaster. Anybody that knows better, that has been in the military must really cringe when they hear of such people."

This sounds exactly like the "Commander and Chief".

..getting others killed and endangering the mission that was set forth for persons in the military to perform.

Though it must be noted that there never was a clear mission, since the original premise turned out to be fraudulent.

[nolabels]

11. Death or permanent injury everyone will eventually succumb to

I often find myself wondering what some others must be thinking when they give blind support to someone that who was never willing to make such sacrifices themselves. It sounds so crazy to just be giving cannon fodder to such people. To live and die is not the question it would seem to me, but to be able to do it for a justifiable cause. To die suddenly or to live a long life pursuing the goal of justifiable cause. Both ends could be foolish or quite worthwhile and honorable depending on ones point of view.

Endorsing the military and it's way of life is not what I was getting at, but pointing out that even the regulation for cleaning ones weapon has reason. If one fails to clean ones weapon in the military properly it could blow up in ones own face. Tempting chance occurrence is quite a crude way to operate ones life and could defeat ones very purpose.

This idea that only seems logical to be keeping the sharpest knife for the most important work. The thing is figuring out what that most important work is going to be seems to be of being the question.

Reframing Matrix
- Looking at problems with a different perspective

How to use tool:

A Reframing Matrix is a simple technique that helps you to look at business problems from a number of different viewpoints. It expands the range of creative solutions that you can generate.

The approach relies on the fact that different people with different experience approach problems in different ways. What this technique helps you to do is to put yourself into the minds of different people and imagine the solutions they would come up with.

We do this by putting the question to be asked in the middle of a grid. We use boxes around the grid for the different perspectives. This is just an easy way of laying the problem out, so if it does not suit you, change it.

We will look at two different approaches to the reframing matrix - you could, however, use this approach in many different ways.
(snip)
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCT_05.htm
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/main/newMN_CT.htm

Personal Goal Setting - Planning to Live Your Life Your Way
http://www.mindtools.com/page6.html

[Zorbet55]

6. How would anyone in the Bush administration

know anything about what went down in
Vietnam? They are revising history to suit them.