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TechnoratiIf Any Question Why We Died, Tell Them Because Our Fathers Lied
We can win in Afghanistan! Let no one convince you otherwise. We have the men; we have the money; we have the bullets and the bombs and the body bags. Our top military men and policy analysts talk of "The Long War', which centrists and middlebrow thinkers and pack-joiners and general-purpose followers of several stripes like to call "The Global War On Terror" and liberals of one kind and another denounce as "a quagmire." I see no reason to consider this a difficult or dangerous or protracted problem. We do it right and we can schedule the victory parade for the first nice Saturday in May.
And how do I define victory, my liberal co-worker sneers? Simply and directly I reply: we own the place. Nobody left whole and conscious has the ability to hinder, harass, trouble or discomfit any white executive or entrepreneur who chooses to show himself in the open air, unfurl a Stars ‘n' Bars bigger than they fly above the car dealerships in his suburb, piss on the pavement at high noon on their holiest heathen holiday, and proclaim the United States of America a great gift from God Almighty to the brown and backward beings who clutter up this globe.
Now, as we have conducted the campaign for most of the Junior Bush cartoon presidency, and for so far all of the Change We Can Believe In Obama administration, it does indeed look like we're in it to maximize expense and waste and alienation and to minimize any possible, theoretical resolution. Our president consults and he dithers. Rumors leak out, are reported, considered, forgotten: he will commit the full measure of manpower his current favorite general requests; he will send fewer; he will offer more. Mr. Obama assures us of only this: it is a difficult decision, a solemn burden, he hates war as much as the rest of us, and the one decision he has ruled out is getting out. So, in the fullness of time we may expect the injection of some more meat (i.e., young men and women) into the Bush-Obama-Congressional War On Something-Or-Other. Inspiring, ain't it?
Where is General Curtis LeMay when we need him? Oh, yes, dead. And a good thing, too. Crazy bastard. But consider these simple, honest, understandable quotations about a war some of us remember from a few years back: "My solution to the problem would be to tell the North Vietnamese Communists frankly that they've got to drawn in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them into the stone age." Not clear enough? Try this: "If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting." Precisely.
And so it is that if we wish to produce an Afghanistan in which no one has any interest in driving us off their land, we need to render every fighter, every current and potential opponent and his wives, his children, his parents and cousins, his heirs and assigns forever, dead, comatose or in the employ of the CIA at a nice desk job Stateside. Because you leave any of ‘em breathing, with their innards inside and their crania uncracked, and they'll dislike and resent and eventually come to hate us (hard to imagine, I know, my friends, but it is so), and we'll be managing a surly population of desperate and bereaved survivors until the goats come home.
The drone program won't do it. It's very effective at blowing up wedding parties and playgrounds, and I'm sure it's fun for the kids jiggling the joysticks and pushing the bombs-away buttons, but the natives mind it enough to redouble their homemade bomb production whenever one of our Hellfire missiles incinerates their innocents (which is often). And it can't kill enough fast enough to do the job.
More troops will mean more firefights and more dead heroes. We call them heroes after we waste them, after we've extinguished them, picked up or scraped up what we can retrieve, stabilized the pulp and shards against immediate putrefaction, and boxed them bound for Dover where, upon viewing their procession across the tarmac one night, President Obama pronounced that particular habeas corpus "a sobering reminder." Indeed. And will it be thirty thousand more, Mr. President, or forty, or fifty-five?
There's no denying this has been good for the military-industrial complex (see Eisenhower, Dwight, 1961). It has not been good for Afghanistan, the United States, or world peace (see Nobel Committee, 2009). It has destabilized Pakistan, a nation always looking for an excuse to get crazy and nookyoolur. It didn't do the Bush presidency any good over the long haul, however greatly the adventure was greeted by a derelict Congress and an agitated public when inaugurated. So should we get out? The President says no.
No, we've gone too far for too long to say what we all can see-it's pointless. Why, were we to leave now, we would dishonor the lives of those brave boys and girls who gave their all, made the ultimate sacrifice, shed their blood for freedom (sorry, Freedom!), for The American Way, for drug dealer Hamid Karzai and his CIA-employed brother.
So, if staying just gets us more corpses, more sobering reminders, more loss of blood and bullion, but we can't leave because we need to keep killing and dying or the dying we've done will be pointless, what's a great nation to do? Bomb them, don't you see? Burn them! Crater the whole stinkin' sand and sediment pile and extract any minerals we can see and lay such pipelines as the gas men and the bankers desire and come home with honor.
This program would of course raise some moral and ethical issues, but as we have not troubled ourselves as a nation for many years in considering the implications of our actions, and because our fresh young community organizer has adopted most of the unethical and immoral policies of his spoiled rich kid predecessor and enlarged, accelerated and intensified several of them, we may agree to choose to not convene any commissions or explore our consciences for a taste of the bitter fruits of that tree of knowledge.
Of course, after you finish your third or fourth tour "in theater", you may be a bit disturbed at what you have seen and what you have done, and you might want to check things out with the base psychiatrist, but be prepared to wait your turn, soldier, because you don't think you're the only G.I. who trembles and sweats and pukes when he thinks about this business do you? Christ, even the damned shrinks are losing it now! At least that seems the likely cause of the recent Fort Hood massacre to most of us, but ever-vigilant, deeply paranoid, and crazy to a degree the good voters of Connecticut should have considered more carefully, Senator (putative Democrat) Joe Lieberman is pretty sure the guy's a terrorist (they're everywhere, you know), and he's launching an investigation to prove it as soon as he's done fulminating against the very idea of a fair and decent health care system.
Was the doctor who went amock a terrorist as Joe the Joke says? Another crazed Muslim bent on destroying the good, the decent, the Godly? Evidence suggests he was looking down the barrel of his own impending deployment to the battlefields that have regularly provided his battered patients with their horrifying tales of gore and grim ruin and as the blood deepened on his office floor and soaked into his socks he just freaked out, snapped, went postal, and took up his gun (plenty o' them lying around the base after all) and squeezed off a few to make the devils stop whispering their terrible truths inside his head. Oh, yes, and it seems he was maybe kind of a crappy doctor, but there's a lot of that going around too, and as common or more so among Christians as Mohammedans.
But President Obama flew to Texas and spoke of God and afterlife and service and sacrifice and said we are all more safe and free somehow because these brave dead stood ready to discharge their lives untimely in a mountain pass or on a drafty plain or standing in a line under the Texas sun with a handful of forms, waiting for Eternity to require their souls. Everybody says our president is wonderfully smart. Can he see, does he sense, will he discover the connections, the links, the trail, the clear and obvious route by which his decision to send young men and women into a pointless and counterproductive war will return to us more broken minds, more ruined souls, more reasons for suicide and homicide and mass murder? "No loving god" condones such senseless slaughter he said at that funeral. Does he ask his god before he picks the number of thousands he will condemn in a few days or weeks, after he has internalized and absorbed the fantasies of General McChrystal?
Better just to eliminate the entire nation (not really much of a nation, at that) of Afghanistan, I say. And too bad for the innocent, but War is Hell, somebody told me back in college or I heard in a movie once. And a photo-opportunity in Texas is far more elevating of our American spirits than pictures of yet another splattered peasant family or legless child or some Muslim mother's son who regretably had to die over there so that we wouldn't have to fight him over here.
So let's go for the goal in one great and satisfying fireworks display that will make old Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over in Iran (another of several irksome nations in the neighborhood) pee himself and swear off nukes for good when he sees the orange fire lighting up the horizon for three or four nights running.
I hate to see our wonderful smart new president, so unlike our terrible worn-out stupid old president, most agree, worrying about how many more men and how many more years to commit to a program he used to know and say was a bad idea (back before he changed, I guess). Blow everything to Hell, proclaim the problem solved, the territory free of Taliban tendencies, and let's get back to the business of easing the burdens of Wall Street.
Or, dare any of the legions who protested loudly, publicly and often when Bush was C.I.C. many dead and untold billions of dollars ago, say we will not win anything worth having no matter the numbers, no matter the plans? Because, the twelve hundred words preceding taken for what they are worth, I tell you I am convinced that an idiot is an idiot and a warmonger a warmonger whether he is white or black, Republican or Democrat, embarrassing or inspiring in his demeanor and utterance.
My own dear, sweet, wonderful boy will become five next month. Which party will give us the president who will want him to die for Exxon or General Dynamics or the fevered fantasies of the likes of Joseph Lieberman, Richard Cheney, Stanley McChrystal, Curtis LeMay or the increasingly corrupted, complicit and bloody-handed hope of a public too-readily suckered, Barack Obama?
It is long past time to cut out the crap, quit lying to ourselves, stop believing we are better or safer or stronger by burning our money, squandering what shreds remain of our reputation and killing anybody's kids, ours or theirs. Don't salute the damned boxes, Mr. President, crack the lids and look at what you've done.
86 Comments so far
Show AllTell it like it is, Chris, tell it like it is...
Let us support our troops as the good Nazis supported theirs.
"It's one, two, three, four/what are we fighting for/don't ask me 'cause I don't give a damn. . ."
AD
Take to the streets, fellow humans. Bang on pots and pans to wake up the sleeping. Only mass resistance will bring an end to the global war machine.
Well, right after I check my Tweets, and I was going to start Christmas shopping early this year, and, well, I am soooo busy on Facebook, and you know, the fall TEEVEE shows are sooo good, and, ah, well, maybe Obama will do the right thing, yes, he will, and I dooo honor the troops by putting magnets on my car......
Afghanistan is such a large area, with so few people in it...most of our bombs would just go to waste. It would be more cost-effective to just drop cash - make up little bundles of, say 20 $1.00 bills, carpet-bomb all the inhabited areas with them. This would pacify the country real quick, as people would be too busy hunting for loot to fight. Those who joined the Taliban just for a paying job would desert in a hurry once their pockets were stuffed with greenbacks.
Of course, our arms makers would still need to move their inventory, we'd need to bomb somebody to maintain their profitability. Fortunately, the Muslim world offers plenty of much more target-rich environments, countries where our ordnance could inflict a lot more death and destruction than we'd get by bombing mostly-empty deserts. Finding excuses to attack doesn't seem to be difficult these days; you just need to tell some scary stories about terrorists and WMDs, and people rally 'round the President as you bomb the country of your choice back to the stone age. I'm sure this would pose no problem.
Anyway, buying peace in Afghanistan is bound to be more effective than what we're doing now - hard to imagine how it could do any worse!
Many of the comments have spoken highly, and rightly so, of Mr. Cooper's last line, "Don't salute the damned boxes, Mr. President, crack the lids and look at what you've done." I just wanted to add that I also find the following statement completely outstanding in its daring forthrightness: I tell you I am convinced that an idiot is an idiot and a warmonger a warmonger whether he is white or black, Republican or Democrat, embarrassing or inspiring in his demeanor and utterance.
May there be no more warmongering and no more war by the time that Mr. Cooper's near 5 year old son and the rest of our children become of the age to sign contracts.
The choice is ours and it is up to us.
"Unless you vote for the "wrong" one. Then you get crucified. Just ask Nader voters. It's always the choice between the greater and lesser evil and if you opt out because evil is evil, you're told to STFU because you didn't vote to continue the evil in one form or another. Not voting is a vote anymore. Lovely system here."
The house always wins. However, the house may be playing Cheat-The-Player while we play Temperance Movement. If we act contrary to expectation, we can hardly fail to win. Even if expected. Perhaps the coming depression will cut a swath through the bread and circus of this corrupted land.
Mr. Coopers piece is just a variation of something I've always been telling the "bring our boys home"-type liberals.
I tell them to be careful what they ask for because what you are effectively asking from the vile imperialist USAn war machine is that they substitute USAn bodies with massive air power - up to and including nuclear weapons, delivered by ICBM on those faceless, brown (or in 1998, Slavic) people.
Denouncing US wars of aggression must always begin with full solidarity with the victims of that aggression, not with "our troops".
“Vietnam was an exercise in mistaken idealism; Iraq in cynical money-making. And there's no optimism or idealism now -- Americans are tired of knowledge. Our (FORMER) leaders, the C-students from Yale, know this. We're proud of being ignorant; that leaves virtue at our core. We aren't frazzled by knowledge like foreigners, so we can be trusted.” ….K Vonnegut
Bring America Back !!!!
****Back in the Vietnam era, Christopher Cooper's solution was known as the Barry Goldwater Strategy--NUke Em !! Maybe Cooper's own Satire overcame Him to suggest the burned
earth strategem.
****Yes, all the Neocons Lied to get our Nation into our present Wars====Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Rice,
Powell !! Fox TV and the Mainstream Media were their War
Cheerleaders reporting lies of WMD's to justify the vicious
US Invasion of a defenseless, innocent Iraqi sovereignty.
****It was and is an illegal, immoral, criminal, pre-eminent
invasion and War. A surge strategy within an illegal war is an illegal surge---not a victory or a shrewed maneuver.
An escalation of an illegal war is an illegal escalation,
not a commendable plan for victory.
In fact, it is the same Lame advice which was given to LBJ by his military elites===if we just send another half million
troops to Vietnam, we can defeat the Gooks !!!!
Just as we are NOT listening to our Russian ally telling us
NOT to get into Afghan, we did not listen to our French ally NOT to go into Vietnam.
Cooper's article aptly describes the blood lust of ignoring good advices, and correctly portrays the US role as an
unwanted invader. What a marvelous suggestion for our New President Obama, not to just do a Kodak moment Salute to the caskets, but a Requirement to "crack the box' and peer inside at His Victims==each and every one of them==for in there is the True Cost of His Decisions !!!! And, He needs to Face it before He decides.!!!!
The Cheney administration was neo-liberal; massive radical change.
Don't forget the role played by the democrats.
They stood and voted right in line with the rest.
Venal puppets all.
In this I read an article here that places the damage America is doing to others in the same line as the damage America is doing to Americans, acknowledging that it is not Muslims killing Americans, it is America killing both Muslims and Americans.
It is correct.
Perhaps an equally important and more essential point is:
it is not merely that "our fathers lied", nor "our leaders lied"......
no - a LIE when it is so spread out that against reality it is so obvious and instantly goes against one's own conscience as easily as if one saw a dog being whipped mercilessly and then being told "it is being disciplined"...becomes a LIE that the General Population and Culture has agreed , tacitly, to tolerate in order to preserve its own beliefs that it is STILL being "moral" or "righteous".
in that sense - it is not merely because
fingers can be pointed to a small segment of the population of leaders or "our fathers"...
but because the general culture has ACCEPTED the "righteousness" of LYING to itself..or LYING , simply put.
in other words - a truly moral nation that lives UP to especially its "exceptionality" claims for being "moral" - and even "christian" and "freedom loving" ...
such as the USA always boasts and proclaims so much more than any other country - as if this was such a necessary reminder to the world lest it forgets "which nation is MOST exceptional" ...can NOT POSSIBLY miss the chance to recognize that even FROM THE SLIGHTEST RUMORS ALONE - let alone actual reports and evidence that the whole world has seen already (torture, secret detentions, WMD lies, etc.) -
that NATION collectively has the responsibility to acknowledge that it has become an IMMORAL nation of LIARS and complicit in and tolerant OF lying for "national interest" and
precisely because it is part of that nation's desperate clinging to the very thing that led it to BECOME a nation of LIARS :
"exceptional america"
It started with colonial arrogance and has grown from there.
The "fathers" lied from the start.
Washington was the richest man on the continent, the new king.
Jefferson gets credit for those magical words, "all men created equal."
Tell that to his 160 slaves, or the red men, or poor white men.
The only honest thing in those words is the exclusion of women.
America has been a lie from the start.
Myths of Our Time
by Paul Craig Roberts, November 13, 2009
Email This | Print This | Share This | Comment | Antiwar Forum
It is conventional wisdom that it was the draft that ended the Vietnam war. According to this explanation, cowardly college students subject to the draft and their unpatriotic families, forced an end to the war. This is Karl Marx’s explanation. Material interests, not empty morality, are said to have brought the war to an end.
The fact that in those days the US still had an independent media of sorts that sometimes framed the war in moral terms is ignored. Are we sure, for example, that the film of the naked little girl running in terror down the road burning with napalm was ineffectual in arousing moral opposition to the war? Are we certain that it wasn’t an aroused moral conscience that brought about the end of the war but was college students’ fears for their lives and limbs?
If we ascribe ending the war to material interests, it makes ending the war look as unworthy as the war itself.
Yet, virtually every conservative columnist, commentator, newsperson and politician, as well as today’s antiwar protesters and apparently the Pentagon, believes that a military draft would reduce Americans’ toleration for wars because of body bags coming home to middle and upper class parents. Apparently, the lower class doesn’t mind its kids coming back in body bags.
Those in thrall to this explanation, which derives from Marx’s materialist explanation of history, do not notice that Vietnam was our longest war. It apparently took almost forever for the material interest of students and their parents to realize itself and stop the war.
Why are we afraid to say that the war stopped because American troops and the American population got tired, offended even, from killing women, children and noncombatants? Vietnam had not attacked the US. The US had interjected itself into a civil war in a far off place, as it has done in Afghanistan.
By invading Iraq the US started a civil war between Sunni and Shi’ite. In Pakistan the US has started a civil war between the religious tribal population and the secular US puppet state. In Palestine the US started a civil war between Fatah and Hamas.
One continuously reads from those Americans opposed to America’s wars of aggression that the wars are possible because they don’t affect Americans, just those few who sign up for the voluntary military. Thus, there are insufficient material interests at stake to stop the war. This is a common explanation for the weakness of the antiwar movement.
One could argue instead that it is the triumph of Karl Marx’s materialist thinking that has made moral protests impotent. What is morality? You can’t weigh it, define it, measure it. It can be dismissed as the whining of material interests. In contrast, material interests, such as lives, limbs, and bank accounts are real.
For whatever the reason, morality has shown itself to be an impotent force in 21st century America. Americans show no remorse at over one million dead Iraqis and four million displaced Iraqis due entirely to an American invasion based on lies and deception. The lies and deception are now well proven. Yet, there has been no apology for the horrors that Americans inflicted on Iraq.
Afghanistan is another example. Intentional lies conflated the Taliban with al-Qaeda and "terrorists." The diverse peoples in Afghanistan who were first ravaged by Soviet bombs are now ravaged by American bombs. Weddings, funerals, children’s soccer games, people waiting for fuel or food, people asleep in their homes, people attending mosques have all been murdered and are murdered routinely by US and its NATO puppets.
Each time civilians are murdered, the US denies it, only to be contradicted every time by the evidence.
Why is the president of the United States contemplating sending yet tens of thousands more US troops to kill people in Afghanistan?
The answer is that the United States is an immoral country, with an immoral people and an immoral government. Americans no longer have a moral conscience. They have gone over to the Dark Side.
Humanity has endeavored for millennia to control evil with morality. In the American "superpower," this effort has collapsed and failed.
The United States needs to be censured for its immoral behavior, not have that behavior rationalized as being in its material interests.
==============
"SHOULD THIS NATION FALL...IT WILL NOT BE BECAUSE OF FOREIGN THREATS OR ENEMIES, REAL OR IMAGINED....IT WILL BE BECAUSE THE PEOPLE *ARE* CORRUPT."
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
one might then say -- combining what Franklin 200 years ago and the author of the article above say :
"it will not be because of foreign threats or enemies, real or imagined, NOR will it ONLY be because *our fathers or leaders lied* ..........it will be because WE LIED to ourselves".
"Yet, virtually every conservative columnist, commentator, newsperson and politician, as well as today’s antiwar protesters and apparently the Pentagon, believes that a military draft would reduce Americans’ toleration for wars because of body bags coming home to middle and upper class parents. Apparently, the lower class doesn’t mind its kids coming back in body bags."
Dear Teddy, You miss the point here. Of course the "lower" class mind their children returning in body bags (and maimed, brain injured, or mentally ill); however, for many the military life is their only choice for a future (or so they think) and a tragic one at that. The point is that if all parents had to watch their children become ravaged by war, then perhaps war profiteering and war mongering would at last come to an end. Perhaps.
Your other words present much food for thought, especially for the uninitiated. Thank you for your wisdom.
Most Americans will tell you, "We are NOT in denial!"
and by saying s0 - will have PROVEN they ARE.
I have had a few occasions discussing some of these issues, in brief exchanges , always instigated by others...such as when someone makes a noise about "the day's news..did you read that? " and then goes on to quip about "our soldiers out there"...and then on to some more judgementalities about "those afghanis...those , this, those"....
and then I say:
"well -- the real reasons are deeper and longer than most presume..." and I explain , as for instance , how it is that America has a long history of invasions, fomenting instabilities, etc..etc. of which "these today are just some in a long line"....
and then , even the ones that at least "listen" - defensively say :
"well -- we aren't ALL THAT bad...this is still the best country in the world"......
and I say :
"in what? list me a few of the BIG notions ..health care?
"freedom? what freedom? you wanna try to openly talk against your government in ways they will decide is *giving aid and comfort to the enemy?* good luck - before you might hear a knock on your door...TRY IT".
"prosperity? where have you been lately? you don't understand what NATIONAL INDEBTEDNESS IS to china, south korea, russia, japan, hongkong, singapore? where do you REALLY think the money comes from to spend on these wars you support?..have you CHECKED your Federal taxes and WHERE they go, half of them?"
"do you realize that while you THINK it's nice the soldiers are OVER THERE protecting *freedom* -- the natives of those countries are saying GET OUT of our land?"
etc, etc, etc
and the ever-american trait comes forth :
EYES GLAZE OVER, EYES AVERTED, mumblings about "i have something to do"........
oooppsssss.....
Dear Teddy, Love this comment; wouldn't change or add a thing. Should be posted on every bulletin board and at every water cooler or the equivalent thereof. Thanks.
thanks for running with that one, teddy.
Americans ARE numero uno at supplying weapons.
Always have been.
"The American government has always maintained the right of its citizens to ship arms to belligerents. President Washington took this position when France protested against the sale of arms to England in 1793, the answer being that 'the exporting from the United States of warlike instruments and military stores is not to be interfered with.'" - Theodore Roosevelt's "Fear God..."p.160
Gun runners from the get-go.
teddy; WAY cool. The only way people learn is word of mouth; then, they can check facts on the net. I haave one conversion to my name-a liberal now, aware of the "great game," the lies.
The rest run for cover. hehe (have s.t. to do)
good article thankyou.
i just want to point out certain US blindspots lets say evident in the article and even more in the comments above.
The US has in its history never actually learnt how to handle colonies or conquered areas and people and the only exception is the second world war. and this is i think a very important period in the history of modern post-war reconstruction which was evidently successful given that Japan and Germany are now among the top 4 economies of the world after being almost completely destroyed. so even the liberals are so racist that all they can think of is to leave the third world countries the US attacks.
This self-centredness is then self-evident in the obssession with body bags of US soldiers. There is'nt even a body count of third world humans being killed. For every US body bag there is possibly a 1000 other lives destroyed.
The people of the US may be looking to Obama but the rest of the world doesnt want some Hollywood style head of state having his life's adventure saving the world. No thank you.
Please let international agencies and forums do that. The people of the US have to let go but in a constructive way, helping to build institutions and constitutions which can be self-reliant and responsible and intelligent.
an obssession with Obama or any US of A presidency is not going to save the world or whatever.
I am one of those liberals you mention, a bleeding heart progressive liberal at that. I can tell you I am not racist, nor are many of the other liberals I know. *We* are the ones who bring attention to the civilians in the developing world whom the military-industrial complex label as "collateral damage" as if those loving, caring, formerly breathing brothers and sisters of ours halfway across the world were just wee buildings that have been blown to bits.
Although I agree with so much of what you say, I disagree with your pinning the racist tag on liberals. *We* want to leave these war-torn countries that we've created to our own and their detriment because we never wanted a war there in the first place. We never wanted the oil under the ground or their toxic burning pits that bring cancer and other chronic illnesses to our troops and the natives of those countries. We never wanted our soldiers or civilian contractors to rape your country or your women and children.
*We* want to invest in a world of cooperation, of new green energy, of new green jobs, of living wages for all, of micro-businesses, of clean air, clean water, clean and fertile soil. I could go on and on. The liberals in the United States are not your enemies. *We* are the ones trying to put an end to the incessant culture of war in which we live.
I, for one, believe we can live in peace on this earth. I do not buy the common wisdom of far too many in our government, including it would seem our new president, that we must mete out justice through terror, for surely war is terror - brutal, cruel, death-filled terror.
No one is free while others are oppressed. This is true. But it is also true that we are all free when even one of us is free.
We must continue the work of freeing each other. And it is work - no one can deny that. But it is work that is easier than living with the continued ramifications of a world without peace, justice, and equality.
Do I sound naive? I'm sure I do. But if you knew the life I've led you'd know I am anything but naive. This is wisdom borne of pain.
So forgive me if I do not accept your labeling me or others as racist when we continue each day to fight the good fight on behalf of all of those with whom we are connected in the web of life.
Peace to you and all of us.
Good comment. Let go, pour water on the fires by acknowledging the the simple truth that contrived wars are a war crime, allow the dust to settle and pay!
Reparations in kind or money gladly received.
It will cost far, far less than 'winning the war', and then paying.
And America will turn from Zero to Hero, if Americans can can control the ego.
Wow !
Maybe truth does have a chance !
Unfortunately, sarcasm only resonates with other people who are afraid to speak out in a direct manner or take positive action toward solutions. It's helpless, cowardly and reeks of self-pity.
As other posters have advised, quit wallowing and do something.
Buy a clue. For any amount of whatever. If this is mere "sarcasm" to you, then you have no ear and no sense of the written word in service of truth. Christopher Cooper has been "speaking out in a direct manner" for years, dumbo, and is the opposite of cowardly, helpless or self-pitying. Maybe those are your problems but they sure as hell aren't his. And nobody here is "wallowing", you self-righteous ass. Unless you think bringing clarity to this whole mess is wallowing cowardice. "Do something"? What do you suggest, since you apparently see so much farther than the rest of us. You really shouldn't withhold the Grand Solution to getting us out of Afghanistan from the rest of us. Give us all a lesson in how "sarcasm" doesn't solve anything.
Chica, I completely disagree with you. Mr. Cooper shocks us in this piece - shocks us into action. He tells the truth. I don't smell one whiff of self-pity. Nor do I consider this cowardice or helpless.
I've already changed the settings on my email signature to quote his last line: Don't salute the damned boxes Mr. President, crack the lids and look at what you've done. That one sentence alone probably put Mr. Cooper on the "Persons of Interest" list.
Hurray, hurray to a truth-teller! Thank you Mr. Cooper.
And you can bet your arse, I'm sending a copy to President Obama, who has completely betrayed us. We want peace and we will not STFU until we have it.
Dave Lindorff's piece is a good complement to this one:
President Peacenik's War
http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff11122009.html
· Yr Obd't Servant
Why bother with all that convoluted stuff, Mr. Cooper? I say bomb the bastards! One nuke is all it'd take. Now, I'm sure you can appreciate that solution.
I repeat the sentiment that this was an outstanding piece! Christpher, you are a genuine woodsy-Maine-Yankee Mark Twain.
Funny, from his writing style, I would have thought that that 5-year old was at least a grand-child.
I agree, sending copies of this to our community-organizer-turned-killer-in-chief is a very good idea.
If Any Question Why We Died, Tell Them Because Our Fathers Lied
or because Our Fathers were lied to?
or, after they were lied to and they found out about it too, they simply ignored it and participated in the lie themselves too?
or, ...
that seems to be more the attitude of americans in general.
sure there are highly, endlessly commendable individuals, organizations that try to scream all they can about the lies and distortions and utter criminalities of the USA ...and its corporations abroad...as well as domestically...
but where are the american people in general?
quiescent, sheeplike, looking at their navels, just as before....in complete disregard of their own nation's and therefore THEIR , responsibility...EVEN to their own ruination.
One day it will be proven that 9/11 was our reichstag and it was not muslins who did it.
Beautiful! Best damn article I've read in a long time, and Chris Cooper's best piece yet. Hats off to you, Chris. This is getting spread far and wide from my outbox.
And we just got past Veterans' Day. The nobility of hired killers was impressed upon our children, as ever, and they'll join them just as soon as they're old enough. When will teachers, principals, and parents cut the crap and read something like the above in a school assembly? Oh, Mr. Cooper, your rage is so intense and so is your anguish! Thank you for them both.
*STANDING OVATION*
Also, forwarded to President Barack Obama.
On the count of three, everyone please turn you cheeks: 1-2-3...
Z-zzzzzzzzz
Every U.S. fatality from Iraq or Afghanistan should have this on his/her headstone: "Here lies one who DIED for lies--for nothing."
This article is beautiful, strong, virile, shining with truth, written in a language that can only come from a man truly free.
I particularly love the last line (lets quote it again and again!):
Don't salute the damned boxes, Mr. President, crack the lids and look at what you've done.
Evidently, for some truths, you have to hear a carpenter, every 2000 years or so... ;-)
MarAntiguo - "This article is beautiful, strong, virile, shining with truth, written in a language that can only come from a man truly free."
I thought the same thing, including about "the carpenter." ... ; - )
/cm
The sooner it sinks in that we do not live in a democracy the sooner we'll wake up the the realities of life under a Corporate State. People get suckered in every couple of years and pretend that they make a difference by voting, they don't. Voting is the great pacifier. We pretend we're doing something meaningful. Forget it. We can't wait for politicians to do the right thing, they won't.
Isn't it getting extremely tiresome, day after day, listening to news about what Obama, or Congress, may or may not do? Reading and listening to endless discussion about how Obama has betrayed us? how Congress is corrupt?
If we act in a way that makes them irrelevant, then they'll be irrelevant. If we act like they are in control, then they will be.
" Voting is the great pacifier". Yes, like how many times have you heard the statement that if you don't vote you have no right to complain?
I vote.
I write myself in.
I lose.
I have the right to complain.
Unless you vote for the "wrong" one. Then you get crucified. Just ask Nader voters. It's always the choice between the greater and lesser evil and if you opt out because evil is evil, you're told to STFU because you didn't vote to continue the evil in one form or another. Not voting is a vote anymore. Lovely system here.
I'll be voting for Nader again in 2012. I think voting is only a pacifier if you buy into the Democrats vs Republicans scheme, as if one will go to bat for you against the other. I say we boycott those two parties, but keep on voting. Vote Nader, Green, independent, or write in whatever, but make someone tabulate how many are voting for something else.
Excellent, truthful article. " Don't salute the damned boxes Mr. President, crack the lids and look at what you've done". When you are the so called Commander in Chief of the armed forces and have the power to stop this killing that is being done for the most extraordinary, evil reasons, and salute what you have done, to me that is the epitome of hypocrisy! Obomba, should have been down on his knees asking forgiveness from these soldiers loved ones. What he was saying is this: I condone these soldiers being killed and sacrificed for this faithless and deceitful war and I will continue to keep saluting these coffins as this photo op frees me from all blame or guilt!
Accompanied by glazed starry eye:
But we have to give Obama more time!
(While he rams through more Bush era policy in the time he has had and hopes to have until the luv fest recedes)
You can't expect him to fix all the problems of the world overnight!
(or elaborate on them either)
Look at the mess he has to clean up!
(and that he is adding to)
Grow up like us adults!
I'm no longer as convinced as I once was that Afghanistan and Iraq are about petroleum wealth and pipelines. I'm starting to believe that "The Long War" and "Global War On Terror" are about keeping big defense in business.
We have been so blessed for so long to be free of warfare on our home turf. If we just keep flinging shit into the world, eventually it will be thrown back at us, and we will experience war at home. Perhaps only then will we truly and deeply appreciate what it was like not to have bombs going off, people running for cover, people looking for their missing loved ones, homes and businesses destroyed, food and fuel supplies cut off, here in our own home land.
It's harder to prove that Iraq wasn't about oil while on Afghanistan, it's harder to prove that it was about oil. Big oil is part of Big Defense and what's pathetic is that Big Defense is doing a sloppier job on the homeland than ever.
Speaking of home turf, the same could be said of neoliberal policies. In the 19th century, slavery was obvious whereas today, it's all overseas in form of outsourced jobs. We did have a civil war in that same century but I'm afraid we exported wars to overseas in this nation's desperate attempts to secure those oil fields in Iraq.
Afghanistan is inexcusable from Obama if he really expects that scorching that country will get rid of the Taliban. Abolishing the CIA would be more than enough to dissolve the Taliban in the long run.
I don't know when the wars will be back on our home turfs but every now and then, on the radio I'll hear about Iraqi immigrants coming to the USA for jobs and running into prejudice. Maybe more Iraqi immigrants can move to the USA, take away everyone's jobs, and maybe a second civil war between the natives and immigrants could flare up into a civil war. I wonder what percentage of us natives would realize the connection between the wars and immigration due to scorching their lands. I think karma for this nation is long overdue.
maxpayne; man, you've morphed;
Wanna complement ya, "big oil is part of big defense," & 2nd to last par., 2nd sent-razor freaking sharp.
I bow.
"Abolishing the CIA would be more than enough to dissolve the Taliban in the long run."
I so agree.
Can you say 9/11?
aliensoup,
Re: your "Can you say 9/11?"
Uhm...it's not "war" if you shoot yourself in the foot.
Can YOU say "9/11 was an INSIDE JOB"?
Get a clue--watch "Loose Change, 2nd Edition, Recut" for FREE, at
Google video.com
Would that be 9/11 the well televised false flag attack? The infamous event on September 11 of 2001 that whipped up all that good healthy anti-muslim sentiment and caused so many idealistic young people to go to their nearest military recruitment center and sign up to get over there and kick some muslim extremist ass? See Maxpayne's remark about the CIA.
Outstanding essay. Thank you.
Sometimes the truth can be exhausting. i would just like to see our world and it's inhabitants move to a quick resolution. I have long since stopped caring about what the outcome might be. let's just have it over with . A completely restored planet and fully awake inhabitants or cosmic dissolution. This limbo of lies must stop now. Please?
If we are going to be in there, just carpet bomb. Turn the place into dust. It is no different than destroying valuable land for a Super Walmart and the parking lot that goes with it.
We all know why we are there and why we are not leaving.
We have disgraced ourselves, wasted the lives of our precious young men and women.
So now that we have pissed in our beds, lets just get it over with.
- ...our wonderful smart new president...worrying about...a bad idea (back before he changed, I guess) -
Mr. Obama's opinion has always been that the US needs to be in Afghanistan to fight terrorists. Was nobody listening?
July 2008: Democrat Obama declared that the failed policy in Iraq -- which he argued was never the central front in the war on terror -- has distracted attention from the growing terrorist threat in Afghanistan
I suggest again that to solve Afghanistan, first we must solve this terrorism paranoia.
The excuses and "explanations" are useless. It's about the TAPI pipeline to gain control of Caspian Basin oil/gas. The war benefits the MIC, oil companies, and Bankers (always behind wars). And it is they, not us, who control the major parties. B.O. is just their current puppet. If he weren't a safe bet they wouldn't have let him run a VIABLE campaign (see how they marginalize 3rd parties).
If every man and woman, but, more especially, men since governments of the world are top-heavy with male critters disguised as wise leaders, could rip open their hearts and their bellies and splash their feelings on a page like Chris Cooper, we'd have a pretty damn good world.
Except for unfeeling psychopaths, who really are totally indifferent to the difference between the right and wrong of savage killings and the maimings of other people and their children for money and profit, how many don't know by now that the vaunted words ... WE ARE DOING THIS TO BRING FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY TO AN OPPRESSED PEOPLE or WE ARE DOING THIS TO KILL TERRORISTS TO SAVE OURSELVES FROM FUTURE ATTACK AND ALSO SECURE THEIR [whomever] COUNTRY FOR THEM ... are so full of horse puckey that it's enough to build the appropriate monuments to the LIES of the fall of the Twin Tower skyscrapers in Manhattan?
How come we recognize the truth of what Chris Cooper says, but can't generate the intense and necessary feelings of grief and outrage and even fear lurking in our innards that catapult us from our safe homes out into the streets to shout, NO MORE!!!?
We are a nation of apathetic, cowardly sheople who accept Monsters and Monstrosities and what they tell us. We deny that our system of government OF, FOR, AND BY THE PEOPLE has all but been destroyed and taken over by those soul-less ones here at home and across the sea who unwittingly let their humanity disappear in the interests of money and power and control of the resources of the globe, in the interests of getting rid of or exterminating particular peoples, and to ensure their
tyrannical positions in the spotlight so they can keep on doing what they are doing.
You said it, Chris! ... and say it again and again and again in your own inimitable gut-wrenching style, and maybe our outrage, grief and fear will finally grow legs that run into the halls of insipidly polite society and take an unbending stand for TRUTH.
[... and if you are moved to run into the streets or into the halls of insipidly polite society, do stash some Chris Cooper pot-boiler handouts in your backpack or shopping bag that read: "If Any Question Why We Died, Tell Them Because Our Fathers Lied."]
/cm
Cee Miracles....I do so agree with you!!! I've been here too...wanting to take to the streets. That is until something happened to kill my desire to protest in the streets.
Have you been reading what is happening to the peaceful protesters? Have you been reading about the "loud noise weapons," the tear gas hoses, the rubber bullets, the tazers, etc. I won't forget anytime soon how, as I marched in the protest on the eve of the Iraq invasion...that shut down Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, the way the police looked like a military swat team, how the busses started pulling up, how the police took out those white plastic hand cuffs, how the police on horses started herding us into a dead end next to the Water Tower, how the riot cops in front of us started moving in...shields in front of them, helmets down. All the time, while we were marching, I thought they were "protecting us!!!" I was naive enough to think they were "proud" of us!!! They were helping us so we could walk thru......but no.....they were slowly herding us! Our government considers its' citizens THE ENEMY!!! Is this not unbelievable!!!? We don't live in a democracy! We have no rights anymore!
If the people go out enmass, these same militarily trained police, who have been practicing now for a couple of years, will use WHATEVER force is necessary to prevent us from reaching our goals. AND, the media does not report the truth. they report what the elite want them to report. So, the world won't even know or understand what we tried to do. We may not be imprisoned for just a day anymore. We may be disappeared! We may be killed. If we are willing to allow this to happen....then by all means we should storm the citadel. But I think more subtlety is needed. We need a coup from within.
Enough is enough! It is time to really think now. There is an evil force....the WAR FORCE!!! that has taken hold and is grinding the blood and bones out of the people. This force is using the children of our Nation...SACRIFICING them in fact, for their greed of mammon!!! A contingent of citizens needs to bring a copy of our Constitution to the White House and evict the Congress, the Executive Branch, etc. for treason to our Nation. We find our government to be rogue...and hereby relieve it of its' duties. We need the police to be on our side. We need enough strength to succeed in this endeavor. It is our duty to our Nation and the world. We need to bring along our own media to document this historic event and send it around the world! We need to enlist the help of a neutral group??? Don't know who that might be.
When will the police and military realize that they are being used as pawns for the benefit of the super-rich? Our young are being trained to kill for Corporations!!! To kill for Capitalism!!! To kill for Empire and colonization of the world!!!! Why do we think we deserve the right to keep our life style and steal other cultures resources and other cultures should have no right to protect themselves or what is theirs from us?! We need a new worldview!!! We need leaders who will embrace Peace and Reconciliation with the world. We need to see ourselves as members of the same family.....the family of Human Beings.
WELL STATED!!!
The USA IS NOT THE SOLUTION IT IS THE pROBLEM.
the war is a big part of the psyop that the world has been subjected to - the us has been at war without an interrruption for over 100 years
from smedley butler: 'I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National city Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.'
we have a world terrorized by our imperial army whose job is quite simple: to protect the investments of the 1% of the populace who own this country and the world in general. the profit margin of the corporations is the only consideration
the environment: piss off
human rights: don't even get me started
decency: yeah right
the us, through its military, controls and/or destroys every country in the world with just a few exceptions - like russia and china. currently the military is getting set up through an encirclement of bases to engage both this last few holdouts in ww3
that is our legacy - as we did with the first nations when we got here - slaughter the natives and peasants, steal the resources and then go blah blah blah freedom and democracy
the world hates us - the world is afraid of us and for good reason
unlike the sheeple in the homeland they have no illusions about who and what we are
we are the church of the latter day nazis
make no mistake about it...
Nice. But the US is no more planning to engage Russia & China than Oregon is Canada and Egypt.
Don't mistake Putin allowing us to bankrupt ourselves in his backyard for weakness. Every US Carrier sails at Russian pleasure. The PRC could stop trading in the dollar and ruin us today.
We're toast, and these two know it-it's when to drop us now, but why hurry-we're committing national suicide; US Blues!
Smedley Butler comes up more and more these days. Can you point me to where you got that quote from. I'd like to learn more.
here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
wiki-Smedley Butler "War is a Racket"
take the time to see who and what he was
oops, and look into the "Business Plot" where the name Bush turns up
Part of the way that this works is that you AVOID warfare with your equals while fighting in proxies, using brinksmanship, and occasionally allowing all hell to break loose in a limited area. World Wars in the future will be accidents, not intentional like WWII. the
A screed well done, indeed!
Mr Cooper:
We have duly noted your opinions as "negative" and will continue to monitor your online activity in making our decision how soon to render you and in which black prison you will be housed and treated.
Enjoy your remaining free time.
The CIA/Visual Technologies
Did anyone send a copy of this article to the White House?
Do it yourself. Invest the 44 cents. It's worth more when it takes up physical space and requires paid federal employees to sort, deliver, and open it. Include a cover letter saying you agree with it, and want an answer.
Use your address book to get all your friends to mail it, too. Nobody's coming to save us. Who among us is doing something? Do it yourself. Do it yourself. Now.
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20050
www.commonplans.blogspot.com
Actually a phone call is better. Physical mail takes forever to get irradiated. Anthrax security concerns.
I don't know about the US, but in Canada sending a letter to an MP (member of parliament) or the federal government needs no postage stamp.
When you Govt was rubbing out the Tribes, & stealing the land so you could dress yourselves up & call yourselves Americans, which is as good as thing for human beings on a planet in space to call themselves as any, I guess, the Seventh Day Adventists, acccording to my reading, thought your Govt was the Beast of Revelation in the book of Revelaton.
Other prophetic researchers consider you Nation to be Mystery Babylon. So should your Nation fall into any catagory of being even a Beast Kingdom/Nation, Mystery Babylon, or the Beast of Revelation then neither God or Jesus either one consider your Nation to be a gift from them.
That would be quite ironic all things considered.
Quite ironic indeed.
WOW.
WHISTLE.
HOOT.
CLAPCLAPCLAPCLAPCLAP.
Obama and the government are powerless, simply smiling puppets.
http://www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/Collateral_Damage_911.pdf
Yes, this is a fantastic job by Mr. Cooper!
Brutal, but it must be said. This should be required reading for all americans.
Brilliant....!!!! Positively....
"may you live in interesting times"
I totally agree. Thank you, thank you.
But it doesn't even take (international orange) "fire" glowing over the mountains; regrettably and depravedly, we have neutron nookyoular Obombanations which just irradiate the people targeted to death, leaving THEIR HOMELAND and its wealth intact for US to pillage and plunder. AFGHENOCIDE, anyone?
A most poignant rendering of an impossible situation. The irony may escape some, but this needed to be said. It is far past time for this country to wake up and look at what it has done to the world. I am just afraid that it never will, at least not until it is too late.
Not to worry. Americans will never figure it out, but the rest of the world will. And they will remember. I expect that they make every effort to be as kind and generous to us as we were to them.