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TechnoratiMarine's Photo Reminds Us of War that Will Not End
There was a certain ironic and painful symmetry at work last month. As one iconic image of war was called into doubt, another was being created, a new photograph of combat's grim reality that already has generated controversy and anger.
When it was first published in 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, Robert Capa's photo was captioned "Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death." Better known today as "The Falling Soldier," the picture purportedly captures the gunning down of a Republican anarchist named Federico Borrell Garcia who was fighting against the forces of General Francisco Franco. Dressed in what look like civilian clothes, wearing a cartridge belt, he is thrown backwards in an almost balletic swoon, his rifle falling from his right hand.
The picture quickly came to symbolize the merciless and random snuffing out of life in wartime -- that murder committed in the name of God or country can strike unexpectedly, from a distance, like lightning from a cloudless sky.
Last month, the veracity of Capa's most famous picture was cast in doubt when Jose Manuel Susperregui, a Spanish academic, published a book in which he alleges that the photo was not taken where Capa claimed, but 35 miles away at a location where no fighting had yet taken place; that the picture was posed, a fake. Others disagree, but his evidence is compelling.
Just as that controversy was being reported in the news, in Afghanistan another man lay dying, another victim of war. His photo created a sensation, too. But no one is questioning its veracity. In this case, the image is all too real.
During an ambush on August 14th, Marine Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade in Afghanistan's Helmand province, where the Marines have been engaged in a major offensive, fighting to take territory back from the Taliban. Associated Press photojournalist Julie Jacobson took a picture of comrades trying to save his life. But it was too late.
Over the objections of Bernard's family and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the AP published the photo as part of a series of articles and photographs about Bernard's platoon. Gates protested to AP that the wire service's "lack of compassion and common sense... is appalling..." AP replied that it had made a tough decision to "make public an image that conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it."
At Bill Moyers Journal, our production team wrestled with the dilemma over whether to show the photo on this week's PBS broadcast. We finally decided to do so, but carefully placed it within the context of other pictures AP's Jacobson took earlier that day of Lance Corporal Bernard and his fellow Marines on patrol.
However your own conscience comes down on this issue, there can be no denying the story the photo tells. It forces us to confront through a young man's violent death the ugly, bloody reality of a war that America has been fighting longer than we fought in the First and Second World Wars combined.
August was the deadliest month for our troops in Afghanistan since we first invaded the country shortly after 9/11. It has been a gruesome summer -- 51 Americans died in August; 45 in July.
And to what end? The Taliban is resurgent. Almost two-thirds of the country is deemed too dangerous for aid agencies to deliver much needed help. Civilian casualties this year have reached more than a thousand, including the victims of suicide bombings and so-called collateral damage from American air strikes. The credibility of recent so-called "free" elections has been shattered with charges of widespread fraud and corruption.
As The Economist magazine noted last month, resentment against the Karzai government, NATO forces and Westerners in general is growing. "It seems clear," the magazine reported, "that the international effort to bring stability to Afghanistan, in which a strong somewhat liberal and democratic state can take root, is failing."
And yet, consider this open letter to President Obama from some of the very same neo-cons who used falsehoods, propaganda and manipulation to throw us into Iraq -- arguing for invasion of that country even before the 9/11 attacks occurred. "We remain convinced that the fight against the Taliban is winnable," they write, "and it is in the vital national security interest of the United States to win it."
The letter lands just as several European countries have called for a conference to assess the current situation and the commander of our forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, delivers a review to the White House, a report many believe sets the stage for an even greater expansion of the war. But on Monday, the McClatchy news service reported that some top Pentagon officials worry that without a clear definition of our mission there, further escalation may be useless.
According to the article, "Some even fear that deploying more U.S. troops, especially in the wake of a U.S. airstrike last week that killed and wounded scores of Afghan civilians, would convince more Afghans that the Americans are occupiers rather than allies and relieve the pressure on the Afghan government to improve its own security forces."
One of that story's reporters, McClatchy's chief Pentagon correspondent Nancy Youssef, recently returned from Afghanistan and was interviewed by my colleague Bill Moyers for this week's Journal. Youssef said, "I can't tell you how many Afghans said to me, 'I don't want the Americans. I don't want the Taliban. I just want to be left alone.'"
Nonetheless, "Either the United States commits to this and really commits to it, or it walks away. But this middle ground of sort of holding on isn't going to work anymore...
"We're at least coming to that decision point... And to me, that's good news, because at least it gives everybody involved some sense of where this is going. I think that's something worth looking forward to. Because what's been going on up until now is unacceptable."
What no one understands for sure yet, she said, is President Obama's position: "That's the big mystery in Washington... Because it will ultimately be his decision."
We should have a better idea of where he stands on September 24th, when the White House is supposed to present a list of metrics by which progress in Afghanistan will be measured, a condition that was set by Congress for the approval of further war funding.
In addition to the theories of generals and diplomats, the President and Congress may wish to pay careful attention to the words of an Afghan villager named Ghafoor. He told a correspondent for The Economist, "We need security. But the Americans are just making trouble for us. They cannot bring peace, not if they stay for 50 years."
Not a pretty picture.
52 Comments so far
Show Allyes ted you are 100% correct about this. i can still remember as a small child watching the news and watching the caskets of
dead soldiers being unloaded from cargo planes upon their
return from nam. or having to sing as a choir boy at my
friends brothers funeral mass while the reality of it was
that his brothers body was disintegrated when he stepped
on a mine in january 1969. when we aren,t shown the horror
of war we think its just tv drama. whatever grip defense
cos. did not have on the government then they certainly
do now. as a matter of fact they OWN the government and
the only thing that will return this country to us its
rightful owners us is mass demonstration every day till
they get the message! we can sit here and type our
opinions till the cows come home and that my friends isn:t
going to get it done!
yes ted you are 100% correct about this. i can still remember as a small child watching the news and watching the caskets of
dead soldiers being unloaded from cargo planes upon their
return from nam. or having to sing as a choir boy at my
friends brothers funeral mass while the reality of it was
that his brothers body was disintegrated when he stepped
on a mine in january 1969. when we aren,t shown the horror
of war we think its just tv drama. whatever grip defense
cos. did not have on the government then they certainly
do now. as a matter of fact they OWN the government and
the only thing that will return this country to us its
rightful owners us is mass demonstration every day till
they get the message! we can sit here and type our
opinions till the cows come home and that my friends isn:t
going to get it done!
yes ted you are 100% correct about this. i can still remember as a small child watching the news and watching the caskets of
dead soldiers being unloaded from cargo planes upon their
return from nam. or having to sing as a choir boy at my
friends brothers funeral mass while the reality of it was
that his brothers body was disintegrated when he stepped
on a mine in january 1969. when we aren,t shown the horror
of war we think its just tv drama. whatever grip defense
cos. did not have on the government then they certainly
do now. as a matter of fact they OWN the government and
the only thing that will return this country to us its
rightful owners us is mass demonstration every day till
they get the message! we can sit here and type our
opinions till the cows come home and that my friends isn:t
going to get it done!
yes ted you are 100% correct about this. i can still remember as a small child watching the news and watching the caskets of
dead soldiers being unloaded from cargo planes upon their
return from nam. or having to sing as a choir boy at my
friends brothers funeral mass while the reality of it was
that his brothers body was disintegrated when he stepped
on a mine in january 1969. when we aren,t shown the horror
of war we think its just tv drama. whatever grip defense
cos. did not have on the government then they certainly
do now. as a matter of fact they OWN the government and
the only thing that will return this country to us its
rightful owners us is mass demonstration every day till
they get the message! we can sit here and type our
opinions till the cows come home and that my friends isn:t
going to get it done!
yes ted you are 100% correct about this. i can still remember as a small child watching the news and watching the caskets of
dead soldiers being unloaded from cargo planes upon their
return from nam. or having to sing as a choir boy at my
friends brothers funeral mass while the reality of it was
that his brothers body was disintegrated when he stepped
on a mine in january 1969. when we aren,t shown the horror
of war we think its just tv drama. whatever grip defense
cos. did not have on the government then they certainly
do now. as a matter of fact they OWN the government and
the only thing that will return this country to us its
rightful owners us is mass demonstration every day till
they get the message! we can sit here and type our
opinions till the cows come home and that my friends isn:t
going to get it done!
Moyers should stop quoting the Economist, which is known to be very much to the right and in favor of British and other Western imperialism than other British publications. Quote Red Pepper or the Tribune or hell the London based Independent.
AD
Afghanistan: Where empires go to die.
"When yer wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to yer rifle, and blow out yer brains,
And go to your god like a soldier." - R. Kipling.
When has the US since WWII not been at war?
Since 1945 the US has invaded, attacked or occupied more than 40 countries.
In Cambodia alone there are thousands of tons of unexploded cluster bomblets.
The shores of the US 'Protectorate' of Puerto Rico is littered with naval artillery warheads. The US Navy routinely overshoots it's target range on the island and destroys homes in nearby villages.
There are over 200 US military bases scattered across the globe, 'protecting' such diverse US interests as cane sugar production, oil fields, tropical fruit plantations, cocaine production facilities, etc., etc., etc.
That one lone Marine died fighting local defenders is not a tragedy. What is tragic is that the lie that was used to get him there has still not been exposed.
Walk in peace.
"That one lone Marine died fighting local defenders is not a tragedy. What is tragic is that the lie that was used to get him there has still not been exposed." –(Galenwainwright)
–This is correct, the American Marine's death is not a tragedy by any stretch of the imagination or by definition; quite the contrary, and given his work as a willing implement of imperial state terror, it is not even to be pitied with saccharine remorse. Nor is it that the "lie used to get him there has not been exposed" is in any way 'tragic.'
What is tragic, and quintessentially American, is that even if 'the lie' were exposed, it would not make any difference whatsoever. Nothing would change. America is in a stasis of inviolable, meta war. Neither it's degenerate, fraudulent politics or moral suasion of any kind can effect the inertial morbidity of the death state. Fated like tragedy, the American spectacle–bereft of either expiation or redemption–lacks all grandeur or even pathos. It is simply bathetic and wretched, eliciting only contempt. –(Jill Bains)
"These are the ones who bleed to death while we sip our cappuccinos or type on our computers. These are our brothers and sisters, in every sense of the word.
That is entirely the point." –(Ted Markow)
Please, speak for yourself when you say they are OUR brothers and sisters. That is not true even in the larger sense of the inclusive, wishful commonality I believe you use here.
–Perhaps it is the point for you, not for me. Not in the slightest. Not in "every sense of the word." In fact, not in ANY sense of the word. Soldiers fighting fascism are MY brothers and sisters, NOT the ones imposing fascism for a criminal, imperialist state; the latter have violated any common kinship they have with me. That they bleed to death for "the masters of war," only means that they are brutalizing and savaging fewer anti-imperialist fighters and indigenous, innocent Afghani's. The calculus here is de-humanizing: brutal and pitiless, as taking sides always is.The point is, as always, is taking sides. Everything else is sentimental clap-trap.
They are consenting agents of the war masters; they do the bidding of the war masters. I'm sure abrogating and negating their humanity, (the last time, I looked) was a matter of their personal choice. Showing, or not showing their suffering through public imagery is irrelevant. What is ultimately relevant is if one fights for fascism, or against it. It seems America just 'doubles down' on the state terror, either way.
No one can calculate if showing graphic images of death work to engender peace, or generate even more heinous violence and patriotic savagery. Personally, I feel all such photographic imagery should be shown, just as the torture photos should not be suppressed for specious reasons of state. I honor the fact that you, personally and viscerally commiserate with their suffering, but I cannot respect it. Ever. Only the deserters and the resistors get my respect, as they refuse to kill for fascism.
I would like to feel differently; I would like to agree with you, but I cannot. The dead would have been better off stroking turtles or building hospitals for socialized medicine instead of abetting evil endeavors and disgracing the common human spirit, for the very oligarchs who will one day oppress them. I don't drink Cappuccinos.–(Jill Bains)
"I would like to feel differently; I would like to agree with you, but I cannot."
Go with that, Jill. Look into why you would like to feel differently and why you would like to agree, but cannot. There are always other sides of the equation, and shutting ourselves off from them precludes a deeper understanding.
Many of the "abettors" of fascism (soldiers) are poor kids with no prospects outside the military. All have been brainwashed by this system. I shake my head at the waste and destruction and the fascist march by this country, yet I also see the individuals who have been caught up by it. It's easy (and satisfying) to see things in stark black-and-white terms, yet that's not the whole picture.
I hate the militaristic march that this country has been on for my whole life. I hate the greed and waste and destruction of nations, economies, and ecologies that have occurred. I abhor how power-hungry individuals have foisted all this upon the rest of the world. And I hate the system that supports and promotes all this. However, I do not hate the individuals, the pawns, the people, who are being used as cannon fodder.
It's so very easy to point a finger at soldiers and say that they should be doing something else. Maybe they should. But then, maybe you and I should be doing something else as well. Why don't you and I do more? Why aren't we getting arrested in DC? Why don't we take up arms against this fascist nation? By our inaction (or feckless actions), aren't we as complicit?
This seems to me like a never-ending cycle of recrimination and blame. My answer is to try not to do it by walking, ever so briefly, in others' shoes.
"Why don't we take up arms against this fascist nation? By our inaction (or feckless actions), aren't we as complicit?" –(Ted Markow)
Yes, we are complicit. Complicit even perhaps beyond redemption.
Your points are well taken and expressed clearly. I have always found it intellectually and morally untenable to say one 'supports the humanity' of the troops who kill for fascism, yet opposes the wars they fight on behalf of fascism. That is the reactionary component in liberal thinking which, in my estimation co-opts it: It 'sits on the fence,' and refuses to make –the albeit brutally 'black and white' choices –which it would rather sentimentalize. One either supports the military defeat of fascism and what that entails, or accedes to its triumph. The 'nuanced' position, upholding moral and ethical ambiguity essentially legitimizes fascism. The consciousness of Democratic liberalism is at its most refined, a sophisticated 'holding action,' a tenuous balancing act that holds fascism at bay, but has no intention of destroying it. Real politics begins when there is no tolerance for fascism, including having sympathy for its soldiers.
Certainly solid, (perhaps for some irrefutable ), arguments can be made supportive of moral nuances and seeing the 'contradictions' which you conscientiously point out. Liberalism seeks an idealized reconciliation of such contradictions. Sadly, the contours of modern American history being what they now are–where liberals morph into fascists– the possibility for principled accommodation is becoming politically nonsensical; it ends up being a rationalization for the very fascism it putatively opposes–rife with the sentimentality which insures its eventual doom. It degenerates into the fake, 'non-politics' now so evident in America, where as you say, "feckless actions" (blog commenting and Cappuccinos) replaces active, mass resistance.
Perhaps ideally one day, it will be the "very poor kids" –whom you speak of,–within the American military itself, revolting en masse against their 'cannon fodder' fates, which will challenge the fascist triumphalism now in control of America? Elements of this resistance emerged within the military during the Vietnam war, as a synchronous dynamic, concurrent and overlapping with the Civil Rights movement. The almost complete deracination of left and liberation ideology that influenced what resistance there was, has left in its wake, an utter vacuity of moral spirit–a complete enervation. Nothing, not even nihilism is left.
And now, as the Pentagon moves into applying theoretical robotics and drone cybernetics to the 'next generation' of the American military, a renascence of that hope is all but impossible. The poor kids (many of them virulently right-wing Christian fundamentalist crusaders who deserve no sympathy whatsoever) will be perishing not in Afghanistan or Venezuela, but in the vast American prison system, now being expanded exponentially to kill off their surplus, expendable lives. –(Jill Bains)
Be careful when dismissing nuanced thinking, Jill, the company you keep may not be to your liking.
"I don't do nuance." George W. Bush
"I don't do nuance." –(George W. Bush)
George Bush is a fascist; he has every right not to "do nuance." No one should expect anything less. He was successful in his fascism because his opponents do too much nuance and ceded him the high ground–effectively underwriting his monstrous acts. But the real problem, as the cipher Obama has proven, is that the Democrats are really more like Bush than they would care to admit, or they just pretend not be, which is even more disgraceful.
Sadly that similarity is a substantive one of content, if not form or appearance. The right in America has the courage of its convictions, however grotesque; it plays for keeps. The liberal and progressive left has neither the convictions or the courage except to nuance barbarism with sentimentality by commiserating with fascist soldiers. The American 'left' feels the right has a legitimate voice in a Democracy; the left is pathetically naïve, as its abject demise resembles nothing more than a collaborative self-immolation–willingly handing the right the means of its own destruction. Both support the troops in their rampage of death.That is to be expected from the right which glories in war; it is scandalous when the so called left does much the same.
You should, if not be happy when fascism suffers a loss in Afghanistan, at least understand it for what it is. We, as you correctly said, are locked in an endless and classic cycle of recrimination. You can have the last word. No pity for the fallen fascist, only for his victims. It is one thing to extend the pity to the soldier in the abstract, but it is a crime to eulogize his actions in his chosen role as a fascist implement. Of course, unless despite protestations to the contrary, one is more a fascist than one would care to admit.–(Jill Bains)
"Of course, unless despite protestations to the contrary, one is more a fascist than one would care to admit."
Indeed. And, as American consumers and taxpayers, we all support this fascism. I don't like it anymore than you.
Since you have given me the final word - this will be my final word here on Common Dreams: I have learned much here - much that inspires me, but also much that gives me great pause when I consider what my fellow progressives are thinking and saying. It has confirmed some of my thoughts about where we are as a nation and the direction we are headed in, and it's time for me to shove off of this shore and go where I see more light.
Godspeed to you and all.
Ted Markow
Sigh, Ted, if you really mean it, then please don't. Listen, I know you're upset at the tone of those of us upset at Obama but seriously, what we don't like is the way he handles the issues and progressives and liberals are losing their identity much like the conservatives did starting in the 1970s. I don't know that we're a fascist nation but we're sinking and being held to our heels sold out. I still have a feeling you'll be back. There are some things I agree and disagree with your posts on but that doesn't mean giving up. Somehow, I think you'll be back. :)
It is vastly more important for America to see images of our victims.
Whenever I hear of a fallen American soldier, I like to focus on the positive. Every soldier had a job to do. His/her job is either committing violence or facilitating violence. Their death possibly saved the lives of a many men, women and children.
Obviously, I'd prefer it if everyone in the military just mutinied and joined Veterans for Peace. I have nothing against the human beings who wind up in the military, only their actions of serving the US military.
We have been making war on Afghanistan for eight years now and already we control three percent
of the country. At this rate we should control most of it in another two and a half centuries or so.
If the money dosen't run out.....
Has everybody seen the photo? Arianna has a link to a small version of it, and Wikipedia took theirs down.
Here's an enlarged and sharpened version, posted for eternity or until Common Dreams deletes this comment:
http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Villa/7228/WoundedMarine2.jpg
I posted on another story, but it bears repeating. This young soldier had a leg blown off by a rocket propelled grenade. He made it to a military hospital but died from a blood clot to the heart. As grisly as it sounds, we need more pictures of our dead to show up on the front pages. The men in the Infantry see this all too often and it's a lot more gruesome than just a leg being blown off. When a 90 lb artillery shell goes off beside a Humvee, body parts are the only thing shipped home in the casket.I described my state of mind after Viet Nam as "psychologically calloused", where I could laugh about how I shot and killed a N Viet soldier from 400 yds away while he was taking a piss break. Gruesome pictures of our war dead would perhaps make some of our "Rah-Rah War is Good" fools to understand that we should not rush into wars based on lies and propaganda. I have reached such a state of realism/cynicism in my older years that grisly photos won't slow down the war mongers who are eager to send other peoples kids off to fight the wars.
Aarky,
RVN vet. Your comment right on to me - I'm very much where you are at this point. It will take citizens in the streets. In our time most 'grunts' were draftees - because we have 'volunteers' there's a tendency to dismiss protest by some I think. But these useless wars are fought 'on our watch' ordered by our elected officials, using our money. Last five KIA news story was buried in local paper and there's hardly any 'headline' news anymore about killed and wounded. If I were a soldier I'd be one pissed dude because it's clear that average American does not give a shit either way. Again, people are going to have to take to the streets to get attention on this. It did not work with Bush/Cheney in office but might work now.
September 11, 2009 "Huffington Post" -- New research indicates that 80% of Afghanistan now has a permanent Taliban presence and that 97% of the country has "substantial Taliban activity."
And you know that is good news.
Just as the North Vietnamese "Tet" Offensive was good news over 40 years ago. Driving out imperial fascism at an indescribable loss.
What Hitler learned in Russia and American fascism learned in Vietnam, they learned only by force. Or maybe they never learned anything at all; maybe they can NEVER learn anything at all?
One remembers the criminals, the war terrorists of the fire bomb and napalm absconding, vacated from rooftops in Saigon, and the whirr of fascist helicopters.
"Are those flames and smoke on the far horizon not the smoldering remnants of the monstrous Bagram Air Force base, the American torture chamber par excellence, now over run by the forces of liberation?"
Certainly emissaries of fascism and soldiers of the imperium have to die brutally and ignominiously. That these men, in another, life may have stroked turtles, taught children to swim or raised fava beans is besides the point.
America atones for nothing.
–(Jill Bains)
"That these men, in another, life may have stroked turtles, taught children to swim or raised fava beans is besides the point."
Actually, it is Entirely the point.
These are the ones who die for the war-masters. These are the ones who bleed to death while we sip our capuccinos or type on our computers. These are our brothers and sisters, in every sense of the word.
That is entirely the point.
I'm glad the photo was shown. Americans have been made uncomfortable. That's a good thing!
"These are the ones who die for the war-masters. These are the ones who bleed to death while we sip our capuccinos or type on our computers. These are our brothers and sisters, in every sense of the word."
Ted, would you disagree that:
These are the ones who kill for the war-masters. These are the ones who bleed others to death while we sip our cappuccinos or type on our computers. These are our brothers and sisters, in every sense of the word.
No, I would not disagree. We ask them to do all this, and more.
We are all complicit - that is the great tragedy.
This had nothing to do with opposing war, showing the horrors of war or anything else like that. Any suggestion that it is, especially using this reasoning is shameful.
It has to do with scum that believe sensationalism is worth more than a families wishes concerning their son. A venal organization that has exposed iotself for what it truly is.
How ant decent human being beieves that this should have been published over the wishes of his family, his parents is beyond me. Its unbelievable that people sink so low.
At the end of World War !! the Americans and Bristish forced 10's of thousands of Germans to walk through the Concentration camps to look upon all the thousands of bodies that had been murdered by the Nazis.
Germans fled the viewing areas in disgust vomiting over what they had seen.
Is it YOUR contention that this should not have happened unless the parents of those Killed allowed it and that it was "merely" sensasionalism accomplishing no greater good?
If you can not FACE The crimes you commit, then do not do the crime.
Dear Henry8/ThomasMore, I know you were in Viet Nam, and I know you think that you did not have to do anything "wrong". I think you are suffering from "good man in a bad war" syndrome. You personally did not have to do anything that was morally repugnant to you, so you feel that therefore the war was not totally repugnant. I respect you for your honorable personality, but I do feel that you have a real mental block here.
You call it sensationalism, I call it reality. This actually happened and it is horrible. So was that picture of the little girl I mentioned earlier. And I think that picture helped to END the war in Viet Nam. When I saw that picture I was about 12, not much older than Kim Phuc. I desperately wanted to see the war end. I was ashamed of my country for having done that to her and millions of others like her. That feeling of shame helped bring people to their senses, although not nearly fast enough, and they pressured their (mis)leaders in Washington to get out.
This "war" we're in now, we're not allowed to see flag-draped coffins, torture photos or blown-up kids. We're tough enough to COMMIT these atrocities, to rain "Shock and Awe" down on a bunch of innocent people, but not tough enough to SEE PHOTOS of them. We've turned into a bunch of pussies who will do anything in the name of our own "security", except FACE THE REALITIES of what we've done.
I'm surprised that you feel it is more decent to suppress photos of war, rather than admitting it is the war itself that is indecent.
I feel sympathy for any family that has lost a loved one too soon. But this was a military family. They are the perpetuators of war. They send their son to kill others but when he is killed it is unreasonable, tragic, too sensational to show in a photograph? What did they expect?
And finally, how about the wishes of the Iraqi people and their families? How about the wishes of the Afghans? How about the wishes of MY family? I don't want to be any fucking part of this killing machine that is what America has become.
If a true and accurate picture of the events that occur during a war, including little girls on fire and soldiers with their legs blown up helps stop the nightmare, then I'm FOR it. Just because we don't see it doesn't mean it's not happening to another little girl or another soldier RIGHT NOW.
"I don't want to be any fucking part of this killing machine that is what America has become."
Neither do I, but as long as we pay our taxes we are as directly responsible for the atrocity of war as is any private, any general, any secdef and any president. WE did that to that little girl in Vietnam. And WE did that to that young marine. Maybe this truth is terribly uncomfortable but it is truth nonetheless.
If you know of a way for a retired federal employee on a pension not to pay taxes, I'd love to hear it. If you know how to get out of the grocery store or the gas station without paying taxes, I'd love to hear it. I understand your point but the average American doesn't have the same power as the president. I wish I did.
I like TM too--but I have to agree with you--the best thing we can do is end it now.
"This had nothing to do with opposing war, showing the horrors of war or anything else like that. Any suggestion that it is, especially using this reasoning is shameful."
I'm sorry, but you are not the arbiter of what we talk about here.
BTW, I completely disagree. This had to do with informing us of both the horrors of war, and what it means for a nation to be at war. If we are going to be at war, we should be made to see and feel a small part of the reality that we ask others to suffer in our name.
You have used a very unsavory method of playing to peoples' sense of shame and decency to put forth your own opinion. That, in itself, is low.
If we are going to be at war we should pay as we go. No more borrowing to pay for war. Total up the yearly expenditure for war and divide it equally among Form 1040, Form 1040A and Form 1040EZ filers. Require a cash payment of the war assessment. I bet you'd see a bit more "activism" then...
Published despite the objections of the family.
Even by Moyers.
This makes my heart ache.
Choose a family that has no objections.
Or just shoot first and rush into print.
Otherwise, why even bother to alert the family to the fact that you are publishing their dying son's photograph?
It is tragic, this thing called war. What is even more tragic is the sanitizing of it by those directing the war.
The American people have been spared the ugly truth about the current wars. We are detached, uninformed, and self-involved.
The situation with this photo is fraught with dilemma, and there is no easy answer as to what should have been done. Just as it should be. Was the disservice done to the family of the dying Marine by printing the photo, or is it being done to the rest of us every time we don't see the effect of what we all sanction?
This war is being fought in our name - we should share in all of it.
Thank you again for you sanity, scruples and decency.
I don't know what kind of chicken shit pansy asses we have become, but my generation grew up with the photo of the butt-naked little vietnamese girl running screaming down the road with her body on fire from napalm which was burning her AS THE PHOTOGRAPHER CLICKED HIS PIX.
BTW, if you need a "clear definition of our mission there", it's the same definition of our health "care" system: profit over people.
God help us. You grew up looking at pictures? How horrid for you.
My understanding is that that same photographer helped the girl seconds later.
She did survive her ordeal, though burns covered most of her body and she lives with constant pain.
The woman is now (some 40 years later) an outspoken war critic.
Her name is Phan Thi Kim Phuc, she is now married, has two children, and is very much a peace activist.
Thank you for posting her name.
She is a great inspiration!
Fathers and Mothers, Sisters and Brothers, Teachers and Preachers,Musicians and Dancers, Doctors and Dentists, Lawyers and Judges, Plumbers and Carpenters, Soldiers and Sailors, Salesmen and Buyers,What I'm trying to say--EVERYBODY who is suffering from the shame that we call our foreign policy--YOU have the ability to change these ILLEGAL and IMMORAL OCCUPATIONS of other peoples property by STANDING UP and SPEAKING UP to the powers that we the people are suppose to be represented by--it is our money, our country, and our blood that they are ruining and wasting.
PLEASE come to DC the first week of October and show these phonies that we will not tolerate this behavior any longer--if you can't come to DC--stay home and STRIKE until they hear and obey. Thank you very much.
THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW!
Sioux Rose
Captain Jim: Are you leaving from Florida? I'd be interested in getting together a little CD land-based flotilla and heading to DC for that event. We have at least 6 CD forum posters from Florida. Anyone else interested?
Yes my friend--would be very glad to join that flotilla--I plan on starting Friday 10/2 in the PM
I think it was absolutely necessary to publish the picture, and that what is truly remarkable is that there is the least bit of debate. There is no more journalism. That's how subservient our pooled press has become.
We have reached a state where the corporate press is so wired into the corporate economy, that it is impossible for any press to threaten war. War is a necessity for the oil and banking sectors that are virtually the only remaining parts of our economy.
Why can't people see that our system is wired for permanent war, and that no President can be elected by our media who is in the least bit serious about ending wars?
The answer is that people cannot learn this lesson by jumping around from one foreign policy scenario to the next. The former European imperialist powers have a much firmer grasp of the intelligence-media connections that are just a basic reality of economics based on military conquest and colonial control. Here--partly because of the US less direct style of imperialism, and partly because we are involved in so may more places than were the European powers-- these intelligence and media connections are able to be dismissed as by those who have read little history as "conspiracy theory", a term which has gained currency as US reporting has fallen into the mire of corporate sludge.
We can learn these lessons by studying one case intently and in depth. Daniel Ellsberg, the author of the Peantagon Papers, has called James W. Douglass book JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters, a work that fundamentally changed his view not only of the Kennedy assassination, but perhaps more importantly,his policies. This is the best way possible to learn the
difficult lesson: the president is "in control" only so long as he abides by the dictates of a permanent military and industrial bureaucracy that limits his choices to how wars will be escalated, rather than offering a real option of peace. Douglass book makes it clear that it is not an individual thing about one President, although his picture of JFK is a welcome topic for those who have read too much one sided JFK bashing of late. Rather, Douglass shows that our addiction to war is an institutional one. There is no more important book for our American present.
Can you give a single example of what you mean by "too much one sided JFK bashing of late"?
Sioux Rose
OUJI: Excellent, in-depth analysis.
I get tired of reading these reports on what this general or that general says about the "winnability" of the war on/in Afghanistan. It seems like it's a complete retake of all the failures of the war/occupation in Iraq, down to how citizens feel. As if it takes any expert analysis to recognize how a community feels when its neighbors and family members are bombed. Just as the coded purposes for being in Iraq changed over and over again, the same thin fig leaves are being applied to this conflict. It's all about access to oil and gas and strategic military routes, added to feeding THE insatiable beast, i.e. the MIC.
That anyone can continue to read these accounts as if they hold merit or reflect anything in the way of remote intelligence becomes its own charade. It's straight out of a Eugene Ionesco "theater of the absurd" pllay. And it makes me want to pray harder for peace, that this cycle of so much purposeless, calamitous ruin can be brought to a close soon.
I remember how I felt when I flew into Hawaii some years ago. The green cliffs, ancient volcanic topography was so incredibly beautiful that the thought anyone cold bomb so sacred a natural sanctuary made it clear to me why the Japanese lost that war.
Recently I flew over the Caribbean and the aqua fingers reaching into the blue seas surrounding islands placed there like gems made me wonder how it was possible anyone could even conceive of such things as bombs when so much impossible beauty has been given to us, laid at our disposal, intended for our enJOYment.
The best I can do, apart from attending peace marches and writing letters, is to continue to be a voice for VENUS in a world of too much MARS. Sooner or later mankind will get the equation right, or Mother Nature will clear the slate and give evolution another several million years to come up with something remotely akin to a homo sapien.
very beautiful and very very true. the showing of photos depicting the horror of war, in most cases acts as a temporary repellent. However a second ingredient is a must to avoid becoming desensitized to the use of shock as a means of avoiding conflict. This ingredient is the necessity of the direct experience of something so beautiful that it could never be trivialized or co opted by the mind. This experience is what i call "real peace", not the absence of war, but peace that remains undisturbed even by chaos. It is easier to forget horror than it is unbounded bliss, simply because we want to forget the slaughter and yearn to remain in the realization of real peace.
Sioux and Sirios,
It's one thing to see the photos of these soldiers. But what's worse is when you actually get to meet one in person. When I met one such fellow who became my long distance friend from business to person, it took a long time to overcome the grief and fear of looking at him alive and yet having lost two legs and an arm in Vietnam years ago. Even when his wife tried to help me overcome my sensitive feelings of sadness and fear, I could still not understand how she was able to endure so much pain for years. Sirios, what you said about peace that remains undisturbed even by chaos made me think that all of us face this challenge when enduring peace. When his family and wife cured him after the war, somewhere and somehow he allowed peace in his heart and soul undisturbed. I cannot see how else he would have survived. Then again, when he was again in the hospital earlier this year due to illness, his wife had to get him out of his wanting to end his life when at some point he thought that he was a liability but maybe he let peace get through him. He's finally doing ok and has even posted here himself on the occasion.
I can't say that even those of us who haven't served are free from chaos. Those of us who suffer domestic assaults in life are usually hell bent on taking revenge but it is usually amazing how allowing peace to be within that heart and soul makes the victim the winner and sometimes even forces the sinner to come clean.
Sioux Rose
SIRIOS: Thank you.
Wasn't it Plato who spoke of an analogy between beauty and Truth? The grand incredible sights, scents, sounds around us are intended to inspire us, and when in the state of in-spir(spirit)ation, peace is the natural response. Thus with our planet positioned in an orb between Venus (the symbolic planet of love and peace) and Mars (the symbolic planet of rash self-interest and conflict potentials), everyone on this organic spacecraft is learning to find a balance between these two inclinations or inherent drives. That evolutionary process which mystics believe runs parallel with biological evolution is the legacy (and fate) of every human being.
The Ancient Tarot, a profound oracle that truly DOES deliver prescient information (if working as a more metaphysical version of a Rorsharch Inkblot test) holds 22 cards, those known as the Major Arcana, that depict the lessons all flesh is heir to. Most of the cards in this upper set speak of the tension between a person's lower impulses and their higher understanding. Each time a person finds a balance between the two they progress. The human being is part animal and part spirit, and this dichotomous state is not without great advantages and poignant recurrent lessons. Just as the Tarot relates, these are both contemporary and timeless. Wisdom is the product of mastering the lower drives, for the one so-endowed realizes that nothing is gained by or through brute force that will not be paid for many times over again. The law of karma is inviolate and will not be mocked. (It does not however, necessarily conform to OUR personal time lines.)
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - That is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know"
John Keats, 1795-1821
Why we make war I'll never understand.
"I know not with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein