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More Lost By the Second
It’s a bit odd to me that with my sense of geographical direction I’m ever regarded as a leader to guide groups in foreign travel. I’m recalling a steaming hot night in Lahore, Pakistan when Josh Brollier and I, having enjoyed a lengthy dinner with Lahore University students, needed to head back to the guest lodgings graciously provided us by a headmaster of the Garrison School for Boys. We had boarded a rickshaw, but the driver had soon become terribly lost and with my spotty sense of direction and my complete ignorance of Urdu, I couldn’t be any help. My cell phone was out of juice, and I was uncertain anyway of the needed phone number. I bumped and jostled in the back seat of the rickshaw, next to Josh, as we embarked on a nightmare of travel over unpaved, rutted roads in dizzying traffic until finally the rickshaw driver spotted a sign belonging to our school – the wrong campus, we all knew – and eager to unload us, roused the inhabitants and hustled us and our bags into the street before moving on. 
We stood inside the gate, staring blankly at a family that had been sound asleep on cots in the courtyard. In no time, the father of the family scooped up his two children, gently moving them to the cot he shared with his wife so that Josh and I would have a cot on which to sit. Then he and his spouse disappeared into their humble living quarters. He reappeared with a fan and an extension cord, wanting to give us some relief from the blistering night heat. His wife emerged carrying a glass of tea for each of us. They didn’t know us from Adam’s house cat, but they were treating us as family – the celebrated but always astonishing hospitality that we’d encountered in the region so many times before. Eventually, we established with our host that we were indeed at the wrong campus, upon which he called the family that had been nervously waiting for our errant selves.
This courtyard scene of startling hospitality would return to my mind when we all learned of the U.S. Joint Special Operations (JSO) Force night raid in the Nangarhar province, on May 12, 2011. No matter which side of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border you are on, suffocating hot temperatures prevail day and night during these hot months. It’s normal for people to sleep in their courtyards. How could anyone living in the region not know this? Yet the U.S. JSO forces that came in the middle of the night to the home of a 12-year-old girl, Nilofer, who had been asleep on her cot in the courtyard, began their raid by throwing a grenade into the courtyard, landing at Nilofer’s head. She died instantly. Nilofer’s uncle raced into the courtyard. He worked with the Afghan Local Police, and they had told him not to join that night’s patrol because he didn’t know much about the village they would go to, so he had instead gone to his brother’s home. When he heard the grenade explode, he may well have presumed the Taliban were attacking the home. U.S. troops killed him as soon as they saw him. Later, NATO issued an apology.
“The raids occur ‘every night. We are very much miserable,’ said Roshanak Wardak, a doctor and a former member of the national Parliament.” I am reading a McClatchy news report, dated August 8th of this year. “Residents of the Tangi Valley area, in eastern Wardak Province, about 60 miles southwest of Kabul, issued similar complaints about the night raids in their vicinity, charging that they have killed civilians, disrupted their lives and fueled popular support for the Taliban.”
Imagine it. People in an Afghan village pass sleepless nights, anxious that their home might be targeted by a U.S.-led night raid. Villagers are enraged when they hear stories of elders and imams being roughed up and detained, of wives and children being killed, of belongings stolen and property destroyed. Increasingly, the U.S. military battles against the so-called insurgency are creating a stronger resistance as more Afghans grow determined to fight back.
In Helmand province, in Nad Ali, the district governor told a New York Times reporter one incident in the spiral of violence: a NATO foot patrol came under fire from a family home on August 5, 2011, killing one soldier and wounding an Afghan interpreter. The NATO troops called in an airstrike. NATO is now investigating a report that the airstrike killed eight civilians, seven of them children. “The home belonged to Mullah Abdul Hadi, 50, a local imam who Afghan officials say was helping the Taliban,” said Mr. Shamlani. “He was killed along with one of his two wives and his seven children, all younger than 7 years old.”
People in Nad Ali are expected to embrace closer relations with the United States and its troops after the deaths at our hands of seven children, children they knew aged one to seven, who had committed no crime.
Now comes the U.S. determination to seal a “Strategic Partnership Declaration” with its client Afghan government. Many in that country (and this one) expect such an agreement to allow the U.S. to establish permanent military bases, a permanent occupation presence that will provoke resistance groups there to declare perpetual war.
The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, a group of young people dedicated to ending wars and inequalities in their country, write in their August 9th statement:
The US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Declaration will perpetuate ‘terrorism’ and bring it to everyone’s doorsteps.
The ‘partnership’ will allow permanent joint US-Afghanistan military bases to launch and project hard power. The ‘extreme’ Taliban will conveniently ‘use’ these bases as a stand-alone reason for their ‘holy jihad.’ We cannot forget that one of Osama Bin Laden’s reasons for attacking the US on September 11th was the presence of US military bases in Saudi Arabia.
This Strategic Partnership Declaration will kill any chance for our madness to slow down and our violence to calm down.
It will doom ordinary Americans and Afghans to permanent terrorism.
Why can’t we quiet our nerves, look deep inside humanity, and begin healing?
Everyone wants to be safe, but I think of the Lahore family taking us into their sleeping courtyard and their home that night, knowing nothing of these crazy Americans who had been dropped on their doorstep. We had woken them up but they chose to stay awake and take care of us. Americans seem to respond to our endless wake-up calls from Afghanistan by just going, every time, back to sleep, rather than working to make the situation better. I think of the night raids, families being woken up to sudden horror somewhere every night in the region, children killed sleeping in our efforts to make ourselves more safe (among other motives), and an ever escalating conflict arising from the violence.
We are startlingly, terrifyingly lost, and we’re getting ever more so. If we see a sign here in the darkness, an opportunity to make contact with the people around us, we should take it gratefully. The letter from my Afghan Youth friends is another sign for me that we do not belong in the Afghan home forever, occupying it at gunpoint. However groggily we may have awoken or reawoken to this dreadful situation and our role in it, we must act now to free our Afghan hosts of their overstaying guests, and get the U.S. safely back to where it should be.
A Voices for Creative Nonviolence delegation is presently visiting, in Kabul, with The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers. Both groups are helping organize for the October 6, 2011 “Stop the Machine! Create a New World!” campaign to end wars.
49 Comments so far
Show AllIt is really tragic that an article like this still needs to be written, a decade after we viciously attacked Afghanistan under our usual false pretenses. And at this point, why soft-pedal the situation as Kathy Kelly does here? That the US sends its soldiers into countries for the express purpose of terrifying, killing, displacing, impoverishing, and looting sovereign nations is a pretty obvious point, isn’t it? How stupid and misinformed can a nation be to think that the Afghans are a threat to our nation—one of the poorest nations in the world?
During the time of the British Empire, people could look the other way because the eugenicists were in charge of our “scientific” understanding of man, so people could consider the people the British abused as of little account. When the eugenic understanding was overthrown, something else had to be used as an excuse. Now our victims aren’t inferior; they’re evil! God, what a whopper! When I think of these crushed people, I want to scream. Sometimes I actually do.
The kind treatment that Kelly received from the Afghan family is an earmark of Muslim culture, from all personal accounts and experiences I’ve had. A friend of mine has traveled widely, and I once asked her what her best experience had been. She said it was in Turkey, where she and her husband got into an accident. Some Muslims came to their rescue, getting the car towed, taking care of the details, insisting they stay at their home, feeding them—and refusing any remuneration. They said that their religion tells them that anyone they meet may be Allah, and they should treat all strangers as such.
Many of these same soldiers will return home to their own families. They will attend prayer meetings where they stand up in the crowd and hold aloft the bible quoting scripture. They will tell their Americans how much "family" means to them and how they SERVED to defend freedoms and liberties abroad.
They will be greeted as heroes and honored at Baseball Games. Touching stories will be told as to how many of them suffer from stress or have problems finding jobs on their return to civilian life.
Rooms full of Citizens will stand and applaud when these "Heroes and men of service" stand up to speak at town hall meetings.
And they are little more then brutal thugs and murderers, that slaughter children.
There another story of a Muslim Man in the United States of America. A man came into his store demanding money and the shop owner (the Muslim) pulled a gun out from behind the counter. The would be thief fell to his knees crying claiming he was only trying to feed his family as they were hungry.
The shop owner gave him 40 dollars , some bread and sent him on his way.
The shop owner later received 50 dollars in the mail from a person claiming to be that thief who indicated he had found a job and had converted to Islam.
I agree with all of this, but I will not condemn the veterans coming home as brutal thugs and murderers. Reduce my thought to hate the sin, not the sinner, if you will, and you won’t be far wrong. But I don’t think many of the people signing up for service these last ten years had any idea what they were in for. I don’t know what I would have done in their place—likely swallowed my gun. It’s not surprising that suicide takes more lives than “warfare” in active duty, and many more who come home to nothing but slaps on the back when they go to church. But the psyche searches for equilibrium, and if a bewildered, disturbed veteran can find people who will congratulate him/her, that may work for a while. Likely, though, not for long. Frankly, that gives me no succor. If I were to string anyone up in those congregations celebrating those veterans who blew up villages and children, it would be the God damned pastors.
I do not condemn them for being brutal thugs and murderers. I point out that they are brutal thugs and murderers.
That said, when I was 20 years old I considered joining the Military. Keep in mind then I came from a very Conservative family and one with a long record of Military service.
I remember saying to myself "IF put into a situation where I would kill another would I do so on another's orders or for some cause I was told was important."
My answer was no.
All of those that volunteered to join had a chance to say no. They/we are still responsible for saying yes. There was that choice. Now I recognize that we all make bad choices in our lives . It remains important in our life that we recognize and acknowledge our bad choices rather then try to defend them.
As to the pastors I have no use for them and in particular the Military Pastors.
saying no:
"The U.S. Army suffered a record 32 suicides in July, the most since it began releasing monthly figures in 2009."
At which point along the continuum does participating in war crimes become the responsibility of the individual soldier?
"Just following orders" is so WWII.
veterans coming home-warriors defending us......terms of gov't propaganda
The slaughter of Afghanis does not create a 'safe' environment for US citizens. The occupation of Afghanistan and other middle eastern states does not create a 'safe' environment for US citizens.
If this is not terrorism in the name of the appropriation (theft) of natural resources and regional control, it makes no strategic or rational sense.
The real danger now is that Obama will see he is losing the election and decides to start another war based on some phony incident involving Iran. We must always remember that some of the biggest contributors to the democratic party are hardcore zionists who expect the United States to put Israel first at all times.
This comment takes us to a whole new unwarranted level of cynicism. Obama is not Bush as much as the right wing nuts want you to believe that he is. He is a great disappointment to progressives but he is not a traitor.
Kathy Kelly is one brave lady.
These days, Americans, and now (sigh), Canadians too, must be brave to visit any country between Morocco to Sumatra.
Most Muslims will continue to treat them well, like that Lahore family who took care of Kathy.
But the spirit of jihad is blooming in Muslimia.
"We are startlingly, terrifyingly lost, and we’re getting ever more so. If we see a sign here in the darkness, an opportunity to make contact with the people around us, we should take it gratefully."-Kathy Kelly
correct, Waganupa, those of us who grew up in homes where philosophy ruled over me-me canards find it difficult to comprehend all the divisiveness. boggles my mind, anyway. ¿cuando en roma, hace como las romas, no?
an idea i took from the author of a book who said she lifted her own spirits by "flirting" with fellow shoppers from babes to seniors like me when she ran mundane errands. once, i approached that trip to grocery store to be an unwelcome chore. boo hiss! now, i put on a happy face and interact even when someone blocks my path with his cart which used to bring me to a slow boil, 'how rude!' i'd think. should the person look up and appologise, i grin and remind him "no problem! i'm in no rush!" only way to dispel suspicion of different cultures is to get out there and meet folks. the homogenized, one-size-fits-nobody very well culture is just too boring!
¡viva la diference!
[Everyone wants to be safe]
That's the bit that jumped out at me when I read the article. That's the major reason that the soldiers are killing people who are no threat to your families. I think that Whatshisname who said 'those who would sacrifice liberty to achieve safety deserve neither and shall lose both' was far too kind to those who would desire 'safety'.
What does it mean for one nation to be 'safe' or pursuing 'safety', when to achieve that goal it terrorizes the rest of humanity?
I've never held the USA to be in high regard (product of being a Canuck, and a catholic priest who came to our school and compared the USA to heaven; I wanted to ask how many murders happen each year up in heaven if they're the same place) but come on now, how much lower do your leadership want my opinion of your nation to go?
Actually, you miss the main point that the US (and Canada) saying they are in Afghanistan to provide us with safety is a complete, flat-out lie; they are there purely for imperialist interests. So Ben Franklin's dictum that you quote, as correct as it is, does not apply.
I wouldn't be surprised if Aaronica knows that and yet relied on the old lie. Those lies get so embedded we're liable to look at any horror without even blinking. Pjd412, thanks for doing what on an everyday basis we don't do often enough ----- call flat-out llies each and every time they raise their ugly heads.
Reminds me of the quotation I carry with me always: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities" (Voltaire).
Yep, I know that very well. My original remark was me being a bit of a bastard, but the quote from Frankie was and is still apt. You were sold the wars and the patriot act on the idea that you could be made safe, the ones who are real patriots pointed out the lie when it fell from the arse of bush.
The elites lie, the officers of the military write the glorious stories of heroism (for the most part anyhow, they're far more likely to be cheerleaders for war after having served in the military IMO) and the poor enlisted mofos mop up the blood and shoveling up the body parts. I'm from the lower deck, I well know that the 'stories' of why we fight have been bullshit for many a year. When talking about wars and the reasons behind them I favour another quote.
"If any question why we died, tell them, because our fathers lied."
Kipling, Rudyard
He wrote that after pulling strings to get his unfit son into the army so the boy could be one of the millions who died in a futile war that was repeated 20 years later.
Barry's such a gentle, wise, empathetic, nurturing, concillatory, merciful, humane leader ... the blood of a truely brave and resolute American hero pumps through his veins. To see him bring his trademarked brand of hope, and change too, to these Afghanis ... it just overflows the cockles of my heart with pride juices.
.
And to think that now even gays can go spread Barry's message of hope to families sleeping in courtyards throughout the Stan ... wow, just wow!
.
God Bless Barry and God Bless the USA!
You forgot the sarcasm tag. Even a comment this obvious will still get a response from someone who thinks you're serious.
I am trying to imagine the hospitality shown to a group of Muslims lost in Dallas.
They would likely be directed elsewhere at the point of a gun. Alas.
Atrocities against children by USAn police and/or military does not have to take place in another country. Last year in Detroit the police were making a drug bust at a home. They threw a flash[phosphorus] bomb into the house before barging in, shooting indiscriminately murdering a 7 year old girl who was sleeping in the living room on the sofa. The grandmother came out of her bedroom to see what the commotion was all about and the police concocted a story about how the grandmother killed the girl and arrested her. The account by the police was so preposterous that even the police officials didn't believe it. The grandmother was released. The police made no apology, not even apologizing for being at the wrong address barging into the wrong house. No apology for murdering the 7 year old.
What happens to empires that produce nothing but war?
"We are startlingly, terrifyingly lost, and we’re getting ever more so."
___________________
We're lost, but we're makin' good time!
From the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers statement, quoted in Kelly's excellent article above: "We cannot forget that one of Osama bin Laden’s reasons for attacking the US on September 11th was the presence of US military bases in Saudi Arabia."
Another reason bin Laden cited as a motivation, as related by Jon Krakauer in "Where Men Win Glory" (the story of Pat Tillman):
"Annoyed by the Americans' refusal to take the bait [after bombing the USS Cole] bin Laden resolved to keep attacking prominent symbols of American hegemony until the United States would finally have no choice but to invade Afghanistan and become mired in an unwinnable war, just as the Soviets had."
The etymological definition of "conspire" means "to breathe together." Whether or not western and mideastern warmongers have provably conferred, there's no question that they conspire in this sense. Their actions are driven by the same concerns; they breathe the same air.
Wow Kathy, what an exceptional articulation!
You truly put a face on the innocent victims in a way that we can remember.
Thanks, Kathy, for the reminder....so sad that any of us here in the US need any reminders about the inaccuracies of how much 'collateral damage' is being done. It sickens me to even type the words 'collateral damage' as a replacement definifition for those murdered and maimed by US troops.
As sickening is the fact that our troops are comprised mostly of young people who should be being educated and nurtured to be kind and compassionate members of the human race. Instead, the MIC empire builders consider our youth perfect pictures of patriotism as they march them off to loot, kill and destroy to keep the rest of us safe from the terrorists.......perfect patriots who would be considered the vilest of traitors if they were to turn their allegiance away from and their guns towards the real terrorists.
Children fear monsters in the dark, under their beds, in their closets, imaginary fears that good parents dispel with love.
Afghan children fear real monsters in the dark, clad in armor, throwing grenades, shooting their parents, raping their sisters, then handcuffing the young boys together and shooting them in the head. (All of these things have occurred; I have not made them up). http://afpakwar.com/blog/archives/5012
Afghanistan has become a daily My Lai massacre, with coalition troops slaughtering civilians in order to win their trust and loyalty (really, that is our strategy).
Our troops are rapists and murderers, not heroes.
Sorry, double post.
I strongly object to our military men and women being called names like "brutal thugs" and "murderers." Name calling is a form of violence.
It's so very easy for those of us who know that these wars are brutal and senseless and being fought for all the wrong reasons to adopt a 'holier-than-thou' attitude.
What do you think they should be called; Fluffy Bunnies perhaps?
They are brutal thugs, and they're trained to be from basic training. I learned a lovely chant in basic, it went 'kill kill, eat dead babies!' You don't learn things like that when the goal is peace and fucking harmony. The thing is, they know what they are. That's one of the reason they're killing themselves now that they're getting out. Or they stay in and hope they die rather than go home and try to live again.
It's easier for you to shovel your criticism of us, isn't it? I suspect the only time you went near a recruiting station was when you took a wrong turn in your car.
Calling people names is a form of violence.
I'm not criticizing you. I'm criticizing your language, which, by the way, is becoming more violent.
I lost my fiance in The Vietnam War. My oldest son went all the way through the first Gulf War as a Marine, and he's never been the same. I was also a Hospice volunteer at our local VA hospital. Is there anything else you want to know?
BellaTerra66,
Criticize this. The current JSOC training includes a survival phase of about two months in the woods living off the land with a dog (normally a german shepherd) that the Army issues to you and you raise as a puppy for a year before this training.
When you form up in the field at the end of this phase, you are ordered to kill your dog, the one you raised and fed, the one that guarded you as you slept out in the woods, by cutting its' throat. Anyone that refuses is washed out. No one is told this beforehand and they are all sworn to secrecy. I know this because of a member of this group that regretted it later on and told me about it.
This has been going on since the 80s {that I know of).
Our military deliberately sets out to dehumanize humans and make them killing machines without conscience.
The PTSD influences start before combat. Only the psycopaths avoid PTSD. It is now estimated that over 60% of combat veterans experience some level of PTSD.
It is much lower in JSOC because they wash out humans with a conscience during the "training".
Bella Terra,
What should we call them? Heroes? Freedom Fighters?
Soldiers who kill children are not just thugs, but baby killers. Every night American troops go into the homes of Afghan peasants and terrorize them, killing anyone who puts up the slightest resistance. Soldiers have handcuffed and executed children, without any repercussions. Read this link and then decide what you should call such people. http://afpakwar.com/blog/archives/5012
What you call "name calling," others call truth telling. Those who do not speak up against evil perpetuate it. If you don't have the courage to oppose murderers, then you abet them.
If we believe in peace and compassion, then peace and compassion extends to everyone.
We can't train men (and women) to be warriors and then not expect them to 'snap'. We can try to tell them that they can kill in this instance but not in that instance, but it doesn't work. These young men and women went into the service because they believed it was the right thing to do -- that they were defending their country -- and/or because they wanted a better life for themselves and their families. By the time they were through with bootcamp -- it was too late; they had been literally brainwashed. These service people are not murderers in the way you make them out to be.
I oppose both wars strenuously. But most of the people who have posted here -- you're part of the problem, not part of the solution.
>>these young men and women went into the service because they believed it was the right thing to do -- that they were defending their country -- and/or because they wanted a better life for themselves and their families
They have no excuse for NOT KNOWING what this "service" would involve. How on earth does one "Make a better life" for ones self or ones family by joining an organization that has as it purpose the killing of other peoples?
How can you justify or defend this? They joined. They had a choice not to join. In essence you are saying "It justified to kill another and to go to war against another if it improves ones financial situation"
You claim those posting here are part of the problem. You could not be more wrong. The problem is the people who continue to sign up for the Military because of people like you who continue defend those actions.
Wars will end as soon as people like you, and those who "Volunteer" to join Armies stop doing so. They will not stop doing so as long as there are people there to defend the CHOICES they make.
You claim we "Can't train men and women to be warriors and not expect them to snap".
You are accepting that we MUST train men and women as warriors.
Your Military has turned them into people who kill others, This is indisputable. It is not "name calling".That is the purpose of Military training. It is high time those people that VOLUNTEER to join a military recognize the choice they make has a consequence and that consequence is dead children in Afghanistan.
At their young ages -- in this society -- what real choice do you think they had?
Did you not do anything when you were younger that you regret now? Are you trying to tell me that you were wise at 18? At 20? At even 30?
And, yes, I am accepting the fact that we must have a military. Do you think that if we lay down our arms that our enemies will lay down theirs also? Our enemies would take us over in a second. Of course, that would be all right with you, because, after all, we would have God on our side then?
I hate the fact that we have been the agressor in needless wars. I hate what we've done to Iraq and Afghanistan. But I feel sorry for our warriors. I don't blame our warriors. I blame our government.
"Do you think that if we lay down our arms that our enemies will lay down theirs also?"
Yes because those you call enemies never were enemies. You and I were brainwashed to believe that. The ENEMY is the people in Wall Street that took over our government. If the military attacked them, we would have peace.
What part of swearing to defend the constitution from all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC, do you not understand?
Again you demonstrate how you have been brainwashed.
WHAT enemies will take over the USA. You have a border with two countries. Which of those two will invade?
You buy into and subscribe to the myth that the USA is under threat of Invasion unless its armies go abroad to kill. Men do not have to be TRAINED to kill to defend their homes. They have to be TRAINED to kill when they invade anothers and that is all the US Military has been doing for the past Century, invading the homes of others.
GwNorth,
Well said. Until she can look at the Stars and Stripes and see that it has become the Jolly Roger, she won't get it. Until then, it's part of her religion. Faith doesn't do logic.
>>Did you not do anything when you were younger that you regret now? Are you trying to tell me that you were wise at 18? At 20? At even 30?
I stated above in a reply to another that we all make mistakes. The importance recognizing them and not trying to defend them .We can not improve as people if we defend out mistakes and that is exactly what you are doing .
Errol (who served in Vietnam) is an ex soldier I have respect for because he recognizes this.
warrior does not mean murderer...warrior is a term of gov't propaganda,.. murderer is the word that applies....it is true that murderers can be forgiven, but let's call them what they really are....and in the current usa! usa! murderers are not usually forgiven, but tortured to death with lethal injections..in the usa! which these "warriors" are killing in order to "defend"...
"...In addition to making hundreds of millions of dollars in reparation payments to the United States, Iraq has been paying similarly huge sums to corporations whose business suffered as a result of the actions of Saddam Hussein. While millions of ordinary Iraqis continue to lack even reliable access to drinking water, their free and representative government has been paying damages to corporations such as Pepsi, Philip Morris and Sheraton; ostensibly for the terrible hardships their shareholders endured due to the disruption in the business environment resulting from the Gulf War. When viewed against the backdrop of massive privatization of Iraqi natural resources, the image that takes shape is that of corporate pillaging of a destroyed country made possible by military force.
Despite the billions of dollars already paid in damages to foreign countries and corporations additional billions are still being sought and are directly threatening funds set aside for the rebuilding of the country; something which 8 years after the invasion has yet to occur for the vast majority of Iraqis. While politicians and media figures in the U.S. make provocative calls for Iraq to "pay back" the United States for the costs incurred in giving Iraq the beautiful gift of democracy, it is worth noting that Iraq is indeed already being pillaged of its resources to the detriment of its long suffering civilian population."
Murtaza Hussain, salon
Thanks again Kathy Kelly. This is what a real hero looks like!
Most of you are so angry you don't even understand what I'm saying.
And I will leave you to your angry and self righteousness.
"our" military men and women..."warriors"....! usa! usa!
That's ok, I don't think you understand what you're saying either. That's why you're the one who's angry and self-righteous. You're dealing with a bad case of cognitive dissonance, it'll go away when you give up the false belief that the military is what gives you 'freedom'.
Your words, "If we believe in peace and compassion, then peace and compassion extends to everyone." I understand, that is what you're saying.
The above discussion between Bella Terra66 and others has been almost amusing, but for its lack of reason. Bella Terra66...you sound much more angry than those you accuse of being angry. And the self-righteous part...again, you win.
There is little to distinguish your protestations about everyone's demeaning of our glorious warriors and the rantings of one under the complete influence of years of patriotic drivel and propaganda. I'm guessing you are from a family with strong ties to the military...which is in no way a condemnation of you or your family.
But it is a little hard to be on the side of someone waving their flag for the troops as hard as you are when we are so obviously in the throes of our country's death at the hands of those who would cheat, lie and steal us into the quagmires of immoral military actions that are bankrupting the country...that are simply poorly disguised moves by our fascist owners and leaders to rule the world...who aren't even trying very hard any more to cover up their lies and misinformation or their intent.
And you are really missing the point of everyone's horror and sorrow that our young people are being coerced by lies and hollow promises to join any branch of the military...and then washed, scrubbed and brainwashed to literally become unquestioning murderers and looters who believe (at least for just long enough) that they are preserving our freedom, our democracy or the "Great American Dream".
Open your eyes and ears.
http://vimeo.com/27280445 ethan mccord a hero, a true "warrior"...
were the guys in the apache murderers? yes. hook line and sinker.....but who cast out the hook line and sinker they swallowed? for me it goes back to the pilgrims slaughtering the indians who fed them and taught them to grow corn..it has never stopped..
i went to the market where all the hadjis shop i pulled out a machete and i began to chop. i went to the playground where the hadji children play i pulled out a hand grenade and blew them all away....u.s. army marching cadence
"It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." - Albert Einstein
“Superpower Syndrome,” “a psychohistorical look at the United States as an aberrant force that endanger[s] everyone,” Robert Jay Lifton.