Message from a Vet of My Lai Time - "Our Descent Into Hell Has Begun"

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.counterpunch.com/swindell05042006.html

<snip>But, I'm going to make a prediction. Our salvation will come when Selective Service notices begin arriving in mailboxes, and make no mistake, they are coming. I predict that young voices will soon become the loudest against empire as the hip-hoppers, the teeny boppers and the slackers rudely discover that involuntary combat means no video games or boom boxes, no marathon beer busts, and certainly no teenaged girls in thong bikinis.

We in the older generation can help things along. First, turn off the televisions and study a little American history, like the parts repeatedly warning us about foreign entanglements and passionate attachments. Really think about what kind of America we're handing to our children. Organize geezer squads to buttonhole politicians, and enlist a slacker cavalry to rain e-mail on every bureaucrat in sight. Let them all know we don't care about the new world order and its Manifest Corporate Destiny. Tell Washington that unprovoked, pre-emptive wars go against the grain of everything that's American, and we're no longer going to give it the Good Homicidal Seal of Approval.

While we're at it, let's make a sincere effort to tell elected representatives, loud and clear at every opportunity, that we want our government back from the political and corporate lobbies. Give the entire bureaucratic structure the message that we want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth on anything that affects our lives fast, before another bullet is fired or bomb dropped in anger. The U.S. State Department especially needs this message drummed into their heads until they all have tinnitus.

Don't leave out the Billy Grahams, Jerry Falwells, and Pat Robertsons, (comma) and their legions of religious robots. Ask these Bible thumpers a simple question: brother, who would GEE-zus bomb, torture, rape and murder? While they choke on their own hypocrisy, direct them to the Book of John in the New Testament for a theology refresher. Christ wasn't called the Prince of Peace for nothing.

Constantly remind anyone who'll listen to you that the American Revolution blossomed with a ferocious commitment to keep a new continent free from two thousand years of empires, monarchies, feudal dictatorships, and armed religious institutions held in power by brute force and the doctrine of might makes right. People like Washington, Jefferson and Franklin instead shouted no, RIGHT makes might. That timeless concept was an invincible weapon against King George's Redcoats and it is just as powerful against nuclear weapons and carrier battle groups.

[panader0]

1. "Right makes might" so true

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. this line is seared into my brain...

"a cup of rice wine mixed with blood to his lips and drink deeply. No matter that the concoction was alive with heartworms..."

I remember reading it before. This guy has been trying to get us to pay attention since the invasion began. :cry:

[sweetheart]

3. eloquent

"unprovoked, pre-emptive wars go against the grain of everything that's American"

[dipsydoodle]

6. Whenever you read

that the world is becoming anti American always remember that the bad feelings are directed towards your governments - not your people.

[sweetheart]

9. or that's the theory

The tabloid classes have a hard time distinguishing between the two.

Most people have not travelled to visit the US, and the bush nazis insist
to the public's in foreign nations that they "are" america.

On british radio 5 live, before the iraq invasion, i called in to a radio
show with an american undersecretary of defense selling the war, and he
said, on behalf of the "united states", that in opposing the war, i should
"stay over there" (in britain), because i was not american enough. He
then insulted me on air and when he realized that it was live radio, backed
off and started with a new ploy saying i shold come back to the US and
run for congress (to find nobody would support me as he said, as americans
were united for war.

This gross lie that america is united at the borders, and that we stand
together is a gross deception that most of the world believes, as that is
all that is sold. Yet the way i see it, is that they are confederates,
who have betrayed the union, and need be arrested and tried for treason.
And i don't betray a blue uniform to honour a grey one. Our global civil
class war is spilled out across the borders, and in every country, brand "USA"
stands for capitalism and "classic liberalism", exploitation, war and slavery.

And so when you travel abroad, you are a branded slave belonging to the evil
plantation. If your foreign acquantance is hip enough to realize the difference,
they know more about america than people who advise tony blair. The europeans,
who were all starry-eyed with the new economy, just didn't do their research
in to the real undercurrents that are breaking apart the empire, and how buy
shaking the money-hand, they are selling out their own people in to the imperial
slave system.

Amongst americans, confederate grey uniforms are bloody obvious to spot, but abroad,
only the best can tell the difference.

[dipsydoodle]

20. I'd overlooked where you are

apart from which I couldn't have known you were not British.

Maybe my perception is different as a result of the sheer number of friends I have in the USA mainly as result of the banjos & American Old Time Traditional music and also dancing to swing music. I'm not most people - been to the USA lots of times and am close friends with a large family which stretches from Dayton OH down to Monticello KY. Without exception any Americans I know here are actually embarrased about Iraq.

I must confess you're only person I've ever come cross who listens to Radio 5 and so whatever the undersecretary said is unlikely to have reaches a wide group of listeners.

The oldies like me remember Vietnam from which we learned that it didn't have the support of the American people. The youngsters like my own children subsequently learned the same from films and documentaries. All age groups can see the simalarites between the two wars and recognise your governmant to be at fault - so what's new ? Current concepts of the war
are driven here by the media - seen anything recently in support of it ? I haven't and would say the opposite is true.

Labour was voted back in by its traditional supporters who voted for the party rather than Blur who is now an increasing embarrassment to most of us here. He acts as though he speaks for us but I do not believe that to be true.

[sweetheart]

22. inside M25

I notice a huge difference between different parts of britain as well. I feel that
scotland has become anglo-phobic due to the incompetent executive, and is increasingly
adrift on a really odd direction. If blair stays, the SNP could come to power, and
the angophobia that exists under the skin... Heck, even the economist just called
jack maconnel a "nounce". The north of the border government spending sucks the
air out of the economy with big fat cush lifelong governmetn jobs taking risk spending
away and leaving flat air.

London is wholly different, i concur, but the isolationism, the nationalsm, the
distrust of london i've encountered in the rural, shines a new light on what exactly
tony blair is pandering to with his dailymail hackery, cronyism and murdoch
special favours.

I'm glad 5live is not heard much, i've only met 1 person who heard it, and frankly,
i don't care what got said, i was chuffed that the asshole undersecretary decided
to insult an opposition citizen on-air so artlessly.

The drugs war is a thermometer as far as i'm concerned. It is the litmus test
of the coalmine canary that the US has imprisoned closing on 2/3rds of 1% of their citizens,
mostly for drugs laws, in a political repression of opposition.. a failed drugs war,
and that this vindictive, socially destructive war is sold by blair as well, when the
opposition and nobody will point out that the war is a total failure, what kind of brainwashing
keeps a society torturning its own children for generation after generation in an effort
to combat the law of supply and demand. The new "V" police state patriarchy bblairush
is endorsing could be used by the tories to re-classify cannabis and run a witchhunt against
anyone using new internet surviallance powers who smokes cannabis, who's ever purchased a
bong or a flower pot. The fact that the drugs war comes over here, and that common knowledge
has failed britain.. such a failure of government... a serious concern that britian is not
ruled by its own poeple at all, much like canada, just a puppet government for the US imperium.
And as the imperium tightens its iron hand, the patriarchs in every country start goosstepping
in the street for their new authority, the new nationalism, nationalism is hip, and oh fucking
shit, didn't they learn from 2 world wars.

[bdamomma]

24. I don't know about that

the world sees us as fools for voting or not voting him in for a second term, but I hope your comment holds some truth.

[SeattleGirl]

4. You are so right , NNN

I believe a draft is a-comin', and while I dread it to the very inner fiber of my being, that might be what truly wakes a lot of people up. What gets them to the harbor, and gives them the strenth, physically, emotionally and (if applicable) spiritually to heave the crates of tea (and the politicians responsible for them) spiritually to stand up to all that is evil and wrong and crooked going on in this country these days.

[NNN0LHI]

5. I will argue against any draft until the cows come home

And I think I have some pretty good arguments against one. Hopefully just the threat of one will be enough to open up enough eyes and we will not have one.

Don

[Selatius]

7. My parents lived in Viet Nam, and they remember things like this:

Unknown to the visitors, the Montagnards had earlier tortured to death three North Vietnamese captives and partook of their blood in the company of Special Forces A Team troopers. These unfortunate had been impaled through their anuses with bamboo poles and given the same spear prodding. Later, their bodies were staked out along enemy infiltration trails as a mortal warning to the enemy.

This day became my own personal "Apocalypse Now" moment, a full decade before the Francis Ford Coppola's movie was released. Not long before, we became personally aware that soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, had rampaged in My Lai when military police ransacked our hooch looking for evidence and then hauled Rusty Calley off in handcuffs. Meanwhile, Tiger Teams were creating ruthless, bloody havoc across the Batangan Peninsula against suspected enemy cadre. Brutality against civilians was standard operating procedure. Because of the Pacification Program mass relocations, entire swathes of the countryside began to resemble the Missouri Burnt District during the Civil War.

The Phoenix Program was in full swing, and it was the horror to end all horrors. I had earlier tagged along on a Phoenix mission directed by the ARVN National Police, and will spare you the details. Trust me, you do not want to know what was being done. Standing there and watching Donaldson drink from the cup, the profound symbolism of all that was wrong in this place hit me like a blow in the face. Ironically, an anti-war rag called the Overseas Weekly or Overseas latched onto one of my pictures and captioned it, "Army Brass Drinks Blood In Pagan Ceremonies".

By February 1969, morale in the brigade had hit rock bottom because of horrific casualties caused primarily from booby traps, and an entire battalion had been stood down as non-functional. The North Vietnamese were endlessly blasting our firebases with 122 mm rocket artillery, and LZ Bronco was soon to be hit more than 200 times during a famous assault that came to be called "Duc Pho Burning". Mutinies, insubordination and fragging of officers became commonplace. Soldiers cracked and a few committed suicide. One grunt over the edge opened fire into the POW compound, killing a number of captured enemy. Col. Donaldson and a battalion commander, two of the highest-ranking officers in the brigade, were charged with murdering civilians from helicopters while the My Lai investigation was still underway. A young Major Colin Powell assigned to the 11th Brigade ­ who was well acquainted with Donaldson ­ wrote in his autobiography about being stunned by what he saw going on in the 11th. Perhaps, he had experienced his own "Apocalypse Now" moment.

The only difference is the stories they told were told from the perspective of the civilian. They feared the VC/NVA forces as much as they feared ARVN/US forces because they were both claiming lives for not supporting them or refusing to cooperate with them. So many innocent people died in that war.

I've heard this saying somewhere before, but I'll say it here:

"Sometimes insanity is the only sane response in an insane war."

[tomreedtoon]

8. Wrong! Young people don't give a damn.

Haven't you SEEN any young people? Especially those of draft age?

They don't care if they get drafted. They don't care if they shoot little girls in a house-to-house reprisal raid. To them it's all the same as skateboarding with Tony Hawk in a Playstation game. It's something to do between hits of X.

Thanks to their parents and the crappy American educational system, they have no sense of morality or sense of appropriateness. Give them enough chances for getting high and getting sex (well, they may have to learn patience...learn how to rape the little girls before shooting them, that is) they'll get along with being drafted just fine.

Even those who might care are too stupid and too uncomprehending to effectively fight the draft. These are not the kids YOU were in 1967. When faced with being put on the bus to boot camp, they'll shrug, say "Oh, well," and go along.

[Heywood J]

15. Ah, as someone of draft age,

I don't think your statement is entirely correct. Perhaps hasty generalizations aren't the best way to support your point. How many on DU, for example, are of draft age? I don't think you're correct to call us all "stupid and uncomprehending" - which probably violates a rule or two here.

All we care about is Tony Hawk and sex? How would you feel if I said that all older people were BushBots (yourself included), because people must become conservative with age? It wouldn't be any more true than what you said, but it would fit with my own personal experience - as your words seem to be drawn from.

I just don't misrepresent my personal experience as the whole.

[tomreedtoon]

23. Ah, but claiming "the draft will politicize youth" is pure science, right?

The whole argument this thread is based upon is fallacious. It assumes that the second the Bong Water Generation gets its draft notices, it will turn into the dedicated, protesting foes of conservatism that will bring down the Bush government. Kind of like the guys who shut down Columbia University or stood in a mob at Kent State or destroyed the Democratic Party at the Chicago convention in 1968.

My contention is that they don't have the ability to fight. They don't know what protesting or demonstrating is, and don't have the time to learn before they're drafted, packed in a cargo container and sent off to the next combat zone. If there were more young people out there protesting Bush on campuses, or on street corners with those aged New Lefters from the 1970's, the argument might have some weight. But to me, it looks like those old protestors grasping at straws.

[alcibiades_mystery]

10. Our descent into melodrama, on the other hand

is damn near completed.

[cantstandbush]

11. That's why Rangel was right about a draft. It will end the combat

swiftly! We need a draft NOW!!

[PuraVidaDreamin]

13. I have come to that conclusion just recently

Most of America doesn't have an investment in this war.
It hurts maybe a tad at the pump (although much more
than that for me) They can't possibly understand the
debt hanging over our children (If you can't see it,
it must not be there) And it's not their kids lives
on the line.

I do want the draft, and right now. And I will lead
the fight/be there with the kids who want to fight
the no-draft movement. This would be the biggest
"Just say No" campaign ever!

[tomp]

14. criminally naive statement.

your support for the draft endangers all. it is reckless and naive. stop.

the bill that people think rangel is proposing will never become law. never. there will always be a way out for the rich. always. you have been fooled.

the duty of peace-loving people is to oppose war, to in no way enable it. calling for a draft enables war.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

18. I don't support it- I just can't think of another way

to wake the masses up-
Do you know of another way, because I promise to listen.

5 years hasn't done a damn thing.

Nothing is waking the bulk of our kids up.

Parents don't think it can happen- so the obliviously
go on their merry way- not giving two thoughts to
what is really happening in the world. They don't care!

So please tell me we can do to wake them up,
cuz I'll do it!

[bdamomma]

25. these maniacs in office

just believe in death squads and dropping bunker buster bombs on everyone. This maniac must be stopped now.

[alcibiades_mystery]

12. Amazing that Rusty Calley would have been handcuffed by Feb 1969

Since the Army took no criminal action against him until September 1969...

:eyes:

[npincus]

16. Right on.

[EVDebs]

17. The kids should read USMC Gen Smedley D. Butler's life history

and especially about how he saved the country from the coup d'etat the Bush family et al planned against FDR. Butler's tract 'War Is A Racket' is required reading also. You mention 'foreign entanglements' and that comes directly from Washington's Farewell Address To The Nation, which is read to Congress each session--however the Republicans stuff cotton in their ears !

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/washing.htm

[Jeffersons Ghost]

19. Kicked and Recommended

[Hell Hath No Fury]

21. Jesus Christ on a Fucking Cracker....

these fucking Google ads are killing me. :mad:

First it's anti-choice crap and now Jesus Freak shit. I come to DU to get away from that shit! Sadly, I am too broke right this second to re-up my DU membership. The 15th can't quickly enough for me. :(

Sorry to hijack the thread, Don.