For all practical purposes, the event that has by all reasonable reaches shaped every single development worldwide for the past 90 years finds itself with fewer and fewer people that have an active memory of participating in it, albeit tangentially:
AP:
Harry Richard Landis, who enlisted in the Army in 1918 and was one of only two known surviving U.S. veterans of World War I, has died. He was 108.
Landis trained as a U.S. Army recruit for 60 days at the end of the war and never went overseas. But the VA counts him among the 4.7 million men and woman who served during the Great War.
One has to reflect on the apparent fact that we as a race of beings haven't really learned much from past horrors that we have inflicted on each other when the last vestiges of a generation that endured them are passing away like a wisp of smoke and all we can do is mention them in passing while focusing on persecuting similar and even greater horrors on the latest fellow members of the human race that happen to be in the way of "progress":
Seattle Times:
BAGHDAD — The U.S. military faced complaints Tuesday from its Sunni allies over claims that more civilians had been killed by American forces — amplifying tensions as the Pentagon tries to calm anger over an airstrike last week that claimed innocent lives.
The latest deaths occurred Tuesday when U.S. soldiers — acting on tips — stormed a squat mud-brick house in the village of Adwar, 10 miles south of Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. The predominantly Sunni area is home to many former members of Saddam's regime, and has been the frequent site of American raids.
The U.S. military said a gunbattle broke out after the troops came under small-arms fire by two suspected terrorists. It acknowledged a woman was killed and a child was wounded, but said it was not clear who shot them.
Two other men were killed and the military described them as insurgents.
But Iraqi police, relatives and neighbors said a couple and their 19-year-old son were shot to death in their beds. Iraqi police also said two girls were wounded and one later died.
How does that catchy phrase go about history and those who ignore it being doomed to a predetermined path of repetition?
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
It's never worked and never will...
The 'Ultimate Horror' of strategic bombing was realized in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and Poland at the outset of World War II. "Strategic" is a term that has never really applied since the unfortunate law of gravity rules above anything else and the bomb will fall where they will.
It's never worked in the manner in which it was designed to (except when it was designed to do what it does naturally--terrorize and decimate the entire population of its target area) ever since, be it in Korea, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Serbia, and countless other places, including the current targets in Iraq and Afghanistan and potential targets in Iran and Pakistan.
Chris Floyd over at Salon:
Monday, the Pentagon acknowledged a long-unspoken truth: that the bombardment of civilian neighborhoods in Iraq is an integral part of the vaunted "counterinsurgency" doctrine of Gen. David Petraeus. The number of airstrikes in the conquered land has risen fivefold since George W. Bush escalated the war in January, as USA Today reports:
"Coalition forces launched 1,140 airstrikes in the first nine months of this year compared with 229 in all of last year, according to military statistics ... In Iraq, the temporary increase of 30,000 U.S. troops ordered by President Bush in January has led to the increase in bombing missions. The U.S. command has moved forces off large bases and into neighborhoods and has launched several large offensives aimed at al-Qaeda ... 'You end up having that many more opportunities for close air support,' said Air Force Brig. Gen. Stephen Mueller, director of the Combined Air Operations Center in Doha, Qatar."
"'This could have been done through the infantry,' said Ibrahim al-Khamas, a Samarra city council member. 'But the American Army prefers the easiest solution, which is the air bombardment ... This airstrike was excessive, as usual, which led to the fall of civilians. People here are now carrying great hatred against the Americans after the raid. This airstrike turned their Eid to grief' ...
It's never worked in the manner in which it was designed to (except when it was designed to do what it does naturally--terrorize and decimate the entire population of its target area) ever since, be it in Korea, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Serbia, and countless other places, including the current targets in Iraq and Afghanistan and potential targets in Iran and Pakistan.
Chris Floyd over at Salon:
Monday, the Pentagon acknowledged a long-unspoken truth: that the bombardment of civilian neighborhoods in Iraq is an integral part of the vaunted "counterinsurgency" doctrine of Gen. David Petraeus. The number of airstrikes in the conquered land has risen fivefold since George W. Bush escalated the war in January, as USA Today reports:
"Coalition forces launched 1,140 airstrikes in the first nine months of this year compared with 229 in all of last year, according to military statistics ... In Iraq, the temporary increase of 30,000 U.S. troops ordered by President Bush in January has led to the increase in bombing missions. The U.S. command has moved forces off large bases and into neighborhoods and has launched several large offensives aimed at al-Qaeda ... 'You end up having that many more opportunities for close air support,' said Air Force Brig. Gen. Stephen Mueller, director of the Combined Air Operations Center in Doha, Qatar."
"'This could have been done through the infantry,' said Ibrahim al-Khamas, a Samarra city council member. 'But the American Army prefers the easiest solution, which is the air bombardment ... This airstrike was excessive, as usual, which led to the fall of civilians. People here are now carrying great hatred against the Americans after the raid. This airstrike turned their Eid to grief' ...
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Motivation
GIs' morale dips as Iraq war drags on
With tours extended, multiple deployments and new tactics that put them in bare posts in greater danger, they feel leaders are out of touch with reality.
"I don't see any progress. Just us getting killed," said Spc. Yvenson Tertulien, one of those in the dining hall in Yousifiya, 10 miles south of Baghdad, as Bush's speech aired last month. "I don't want to be here anymore."
Arthur's latest post highlights the oft overlooked and/or actively denied reality of the deliberate manner in which the U. S. has forced its will upon the nations of the world merely for the sake of doing so.
He cites a passage from The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman, part of which follows:
Wooden-headedness, the "Don't-confuse-me-with-the-facts" habit, is a universal folly never more conspicuous than at upper levels of Washington with respect to Vietnam. Its grossest fault was underestimation of North Vietnam's commitment to its goal. Enemy motivation was a missing element in American calculations, and Washington could therefore ignore all the evidence of nationalist fervor and of the passion for independence which as early as 1945 Hanoi had declared "no human force can any longer restrain." Washington could ignore General Leclerc's prediction that conquest would take half a million men and "Even then it could not be done." It could ignore the demonstration of elan and capacity that won victory over a French army with modern weapons at Dien Bien Phu, and all the continuing evidence thereafter.
American refusal to take the enemy's grim will and capacity into account has been explained by those responsible on the ground of ignorance of Vietnam's history, traditions and national character: there were "no experts available," in the words of one high-ranking official. But the longevity of Vietnamese resistance to foreign rule could have been learned from any history book on Indochina. Attentive consultation with French administrators whose official lives had been spent in Vietnam would have made up for the lack of American expertise. Even superficial American acquaintance with the area, when it began to supply reports, provided creditable information. Not ignorance, but refusal to credit the evidence and, more fundamentally, refusal to grant stature and fixed purpose to a "fourth-rate" Asiatic country were the determining factors, much as in the case of the British attitude toward the American colonies. The irony of history is inexorable.
The colonial Americans were committed to their independence from the rule of Imperial England under George III in a much stronger way than the British army regulars and hired Hessian guns were to quelling the rebellion (insurgency?).
Andrew Bacevich(h/t Arthur):
The communists of North Vietnam were less interested in promoting world revolution than in unifying their country under socialist rule. We deluded ourselves into thinking that we were defending freedom against totalitarianism.
They were much more committed to this goal than the French and later U. S. forces were to stopping the misperceived push for worldwide totalitarian revolution (which was ill communicated to the ranks anyway)
Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the insurgent groups are all similar in at least one way: They all want to see the U.S. out of the region physically, politically, and economically. They don't want to destroy our way of life, they just want to be able to live their way of life in their homeland(s). The fact that we may not agree with some of what that way of life entails (and there are some egregious facets to it to be sure) and that we don't like the way they want to develop natural resources that rightfully belong to them is not an acceptable motive for our actions over the past several decades.
The attempt to tell these people what to do, when to do it, and to do all of it with a smile and shows of grateful subservience only serves to strengthen the resolve of these people to resist these efforts. They're not stupid. They know when they're being told what to do. And it's certainly not the first time, either.
With tours extended, multiple deployments and new tactics that put them in bare posts in greater danger, they feel leaders are out of touch with reality.
"I don't see any progress. Just us getting killed," said Spc. Yvenson Tertulien, one of those in the dining hall in Yousifiya, 10 miles south of Baghdad, as Bush's speech aired last month. "I don't want to be here anymore."
Arthur's latest post highlights the oft overlooked and/or actively denied reality of the deliberate manner in which the U. S. has forced its will upon the nations of the world merely for the sake of doing so.
He cites a passage from The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman, part of which follows:
Wooden-headedness, the "Don't-confuse-me-with-the-facts" habit, is a universal folly never more conspicuous than at upper levels of Washington with respect to Vietnam. Its grossest fault was underestimation of North Vietnam's commitment to its goal. Enemy motivation was a missing element in American calculations, and Washington could therefore ignore all the evidence of nationalist fervor and of the passion for independence which as early as 1945 Hanoi had declared "no human force can any longer restrain." Washington could ignore General Leclerc's prediction that conquest would take half a million men and "Even then it could not be done." It could ignore the demonstration of elan and capacity that won victory over a French army with modern weapons at Dien Bien Phu, and all the continuing evidence thereafter.
American refusal to take the enemy's grim will and capacity into account has been explained by those responsible on the ground of ignorance of Vietnam's history, traditions and national character: there were "no experts available," in the words of one high-ranking official. But the longevity of Vietnamese resistance to foreign rule could have been learned from any history book on Indochina. Attentive consultation with French administrators whose official lives had been spent in Vietnam would have made up for the lack of American expertise. Even superficial American acquaintance with the area, when it began to supply reports, provided creditable information. Not ignorance, but refusal to credit the evidence and, more fundamentally, refusal to grant stature and fixed purpose to a "fourth-rate" Asiatic country were the determining factors, much as in the case of the British attitude toward the American colonies. The irony of history is inexorable.
The colonial Americans were committed to their independence from the rule of Imperial England under George III in a much stronger way than the British army regulars and hired Hessian guns were to quelling the rebellion (insurgency?).
Andrew Bacevich(h/t Arthur):
The communists of North Vietnam were less interested in promoting world revolution than in unifying their country under socialist rule. We deluded ourselves into thinking that we were defending freedom against totalitarianism.
They were much more committed to this goal than the French and later U. S. forces were to stopping the misperceived push for worldwide totalitarian revolution (which was ill communicated to the ranks anyway)
Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and the insurgent groups are all similar in at least one way: They all want to see the U.S. out of the region physically, politically, and economically. They don't want to destroy our way of life, they just want to be able to live their way of life in their homeland(s). The fact that we may not agree with some of what that way of life entails (and there are some egregious facets to it to be sure) and that we don't like the way they want to develop natural resources that rightfully belong to them is not an acceptable motive for our actions over the past several decades.
The attempt to tell these people what to do, when to do it, and to do all of it with a smile and shows of grateful subservience only serves to strengthen the resolve of these people to resist these efforts. They're not stupid. They know when they're being told what to do. And it's certainly not the first time, either.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Puppeters
Someone needs to get in there with a pair of sharp scissors...
Mumia Abu-Jamal:
Wherever we look in this world, we see the U. S. trying to install a network of puppets, who owe more to the us than to the people of their own countries. In simplistic terms, the corporate media pushes the idea of 'good guys' and 'bad guys'--silly symbols that take us back to mythic cowboy movies. In fact, any given leader can be a good guy and a bad guy depending on the time you're talking about. The late Saddam Hussein, now derided almost universally as a dictator, was an American ally just a brief time before--receiving a bounty of U. S. arms and, yes, weapons of mass destruction. As long as Saddam was using his weapons against Iran, all was well. Today, an Iraqi puppet sits on the national throne, a creation of us power, as surely as was the late Shah of Iran. Afghanistan presents an almost identical snapshot, a leader supported on a throne of U. S. bayonets--in a word, a puppet.
Why is it the business of the us to appoint the leaders of other nations? What's right about that? What's Democratic about that? We don't question it, because it's so deep in our national and international experience.
Why national?
Well, while many folks know about the FBI's harassment of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., how many of us know that the government planned to replace him as a black leader with someone who was more malleable, and less committed to civil rights? The FBI wanted to replace King with Samuel Pierce, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Reagan, someone who Reagan incidentally greeted as a guest to the White House, not recognizing that he was a member of his own cabinet.
The imperial industry of placing puppets over other people didn't begin abroad, it didn't start when one crossed the border, it began in the U. S., in an attempt to control and channel a popular movement. That's because empires begin at home, in essence, they export the methods they use at home abroad.
Democracy Now!:
The United States yesterday has lifted its embargo on direct aid to the Palestinian government in an effort to support Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah's struggle against Hamas. Last week Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip. Abbas responded by dismissing the democratically-elected Hamas-led government and formed a new cabinet led by a prime minister who has the backing of Israel and the United States.
John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, in an interview with Amy Goodman:
Well, what we've done -- we use many techniques, but probably the most common is that we'll go to a country that has resources that our corporations covet, like oil, and we'll arrange a huge loan to that country from an organization like the World Bank or one of its sisters, but almost all of the money goes to the U.S. corporations, not to the country itself, corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, General Motors, General Electric, these types of organizations, and they build huge infrastructure projects in that country: power plants, highways, ports, industrial parks, things that serve the very rich and seldom even reach the poor. In fact, the poor suffer, because the loans have to be repaid, and they're huge loans, and the repayment of them means that the poor won't get education, health, and other social services, and the country is left holding a huge debt, by intention. We go back, we economic hit men, to this country and say, “Look, you owe us a lot of money. You can't repay your debts, so give us a pound of flesh. Sell our oil companies your oil real cheap or vote with us at the next U.N. vote or send troops in support of ours to some place in the world such as Iraq.” And in that way, we've managed to build a world empire with very few people actually knowing that we've done this.
I started off as economist, became chief economist, and my job really – I had a staff of several dozen people. My job was to get them, and for me to convince these countries to accept these very large loans, to get the banks to make the loans, to set up the deal so that the money went to big U.S. corporations. The country was left holding a huge debt, and then I would go in or one of my people would go in and say, “Look, you know, you owe us all this money. You can't pay your debts. Give us that pound of flesh.”
The other thing we do, Amy, and what's going on right now in Latin America is that as soon as one of these anti-American presidents is elected, such as Evo Morales, who you mentioned, in Bolivia, one of us goes in and says, “Hey, congratulations, Mr. President. Now that you're president, I just want to tell you that I can make you very, very rich, you and your family. We have several hundred million dollars in this pocket if you play the game our way. If you decide not to, over in this pocket, I've got a gun with a bullet with your name on it, in case you decide to keep your campaign promises and throw us out.”
I can make sure that this man makes a great deal of money, he and his family, through contracts, through various quasi-legal means, and I can also – if he doesn't accept this, you know, the same thing is going to happen to him that happened to Jaime Roldos in Ecuador and Omar Torrijos in Panama and Allende in Chile, and we tried to do it to Chavez in Venezuela and are still trying – that we will send in the people to try to overthrow him, as, in fact, we recently did with the President of Ecuador, or if we don't overthrow him, we'll assassinate him. And these people all know the history. They know that this has happened many, many, many times in the past.
The degree to which this nefariousness goes is pretty remarkable. I guess one can't underestimate the power and allure of cold hard cash and the power and influence that comes with it, but one has to consider the ramifications to one's soul, as I talked about here and here.
Mumia Abu-Jamal:
Wherever we look in this world, we see the U. S. trying to install a network of puppets, who owe more to the us than to the people of their own countries. In simplistic terms, the corporate media pushes the idea of 'good guys' and 'bad guys'--silly symbols that take us back to mythic cowboy movies. In fact, any given leader can be a good guy and a bad guy depending on the time you're talking about. The late Saddam Hussein, now derided almost universally as a dictator, was an American ally just a brief time before--receiving a bounty of U. S. arms and, yes, weapons of mass destruction. As long as Saddam was using his weapons against Iran, all was well. Today, an Iraqi puppet sits on the national throne, a creation of us power, as surely as was the late Shah of Iran. Afghanistan presents an almost identical snapshot, a leader supported on a throne of U. S. bayonets--in a word, a puppet.
Why is it the business of the us to appoint the leaders of other nations? What's right about that? What's Democratic about that? We don't question it, because it's so deep in our national and international experience.
Why national?
Well, while many folks know about the FBI's harassment of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., how many of us know that the government planned to replace him as a black leader with someone who was more malleable, and less committed to civil rights? The FBI wanted to replace King with Samuel Pierce, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under Reagan, someone who Reagan incidentally greeted as a guest to the White House, not recognizing that he was a member of his own cabinet.
The imperial industry of placing puppets over other people didn't begin abroad, it didn't start when one crossed the border, it began in the U. S., in an attempt to control and channel a popular movement. That's because empires begin at home, in essence, they export the methods they use at home abroad.
Democracy Now!:
The United States yesterday has lifted its embargo on direct aid to the Palestinian government in an effort to support Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah's struggle against Hamas. Last week Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip. Abbas responded by dismissing the democratically-elected Hamas-led government and formed a new cabinet led by a prime minister who has the backing of Israel and the United States.
John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, in an interview with Amy Goodman:
Well, what we've done -- we use many techniques, but probably the most common is that we'll go to a country that has resources that our corporations covet, like oil, and we'll arrange a huge loan to that country from an organization like the World Bank or one of its sisters, but almost all of the money goes to the U.S. corporations, not to the country itself, corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, General Motors, General Electric, these types of organizations, and they build huge infrastructure projects in that country: power plants, highways, ports, industrial parks, things that serve the very rich and seldom even reach the poor. In fact, the poor suffer, because the loans have to be repaid, and they're huge loans, and the repayment of them means that the poor won't get education, health, and other social services, and the country is left holding a huge debt, by intention. We go back, we economic hit men, to this country and say, “Look, you owe us a lot of money. You can't repay your debts, so give us a pound of flesh. Sell our oil companies your oil real cheap or vote with us at the next U.N. vote or send troops in support of ours to some place in the world such as Iraq.” And in that way, we've managed to build a world empire with very few people actually knowing that we've done this.
I started off as economist, became chief economist, and my job really – I had a staff of several dozen people. My job was to get them, and for me to convince these countries to accept these very large loans, to get the banks to make the loans, to set up the deal so that the money went to big U.S. corporations. The country was left holding a huge debt, and then I would go in or one of my people would go in and say, “Look, you know, you owe us all this money. You can't pay your debts. Give us that pound of flesh.”
The other thing we do, Amy, and what's going on right now in Latin America is that as soon as one of these anti-American presidents is elected, such as Evo Morales, who you mentioned, in Bolivia, one of us goes in and says, “Hey, congratulations, Mr. President. Now that you're president, I just want to tell you that I can make you very, very rich, you and your family. We have several hundred million dollars in this pocket if you play the game our way. If you decide not to, over in this pocket, I've got a gun with a bullet with your name on it, in case you decide to keep your campaign promises and throw us out.”
I can make sure that this man makes a great deal of money, he and his family, through contracts, through various quasi-legal means, and I can also – if he doesn't accept this, you know, the same thing is going to happen to him that happened to Jaime Roldos in Ecuador and Omar Torrijos in Panama and Allende in Chile, and we tried to do it to Chavez in Venezuela and are still trying – that we will send in the people to try to overthrow him, as, in fact, we recently did with the President of Ecuador, or if we don't overthrow him, we'll assassinate him. And these people all know the history. They know that this has happened many, many, many times in the past.
The degree to which this nefariousness goes is pretty remarkable. I guess one can't underestimate the power and allure of cold hard cash and the power and influence that comes with it, but one has to consider the ramifications to one's soul, as I talked about here and here.
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