The current government of Iraq is now "Quislings" for resisting those who want to restore the rule of Saddam Hussein or its equivalent? If you want to oppose the war in Iraq, fine, but you lose all credibility when you make such statements. Quisling was a cheerleader for Nazi Germany.
Yes, Quisling was a proxy for Nazi Germany, and his name has since become a term for "native servants of an occupying power," which is precisely the nature of the interim "government" in Iraq.
Or maybe not precisely. You talk about "those who want to restore the rule of Saddam Hussein or its equivalent." Who would that be? The US didn't wait a month after the fall of Baghdad before beginning to reconstitute the Mukhabarat (secret police), the pillar of Saddam's regime. And who is the chief quisling? Iyad Allawi, an inveterate Ba'athist and Saddam Hussein's former chief European assassin, selected by the US as "interim prime minister."
The quislings aren't "resisting those who want to restore the rule of Saddam Hussein or its equivalent." They ARE the rule of Saddam Hussein or its equivalent -- with the US Marine Corps instead of the Republican Guard to back them up.
Tom Knapp
Strange memories of yesteryear:
We destroyed that village to save it.
Gen. William Westmoreland
What the hell... we're bombing Quiznos?
Dear Tom, re that: "...I spent 10 years humping a rifle in the Marine Corps..." reply?
Ouch! That's gonna leave a mark!
(You commie bastard!...big smileface...)
L.D.Dunnagan, USMC, '59-'63...
(but, NO ONE one on here has to have these "credentials" to have "cred" in talking about the savage idiocy of what we have done, and are doing, in Iraq.)
James, about that "quisling", you do know that Allawi has just issued "guidelines" for "accurate" reporting of the events there during his little two month period of martial law, don't you? The "guidelines", of course, are complete with threats, if the reporting is deemed "inaccurate" by our sockpuppets there.
And once the 60 day period expires, it can be renewed, 30 days at a time, with practically a stroke of the pen. In case you are math-challenged, one 30 day period will cover the "elections". And won't that be a real PR victory for BushCo? To have everyone campaigning under martial law...
100 000 Iraqis killed during the war, 95 % by American bombs and the "insurgents" are "responsible for far more death, rape and destruction than our brave forces."?
It takes a special kind of bravery to beat defenseless people..
It took Saddam over two decades to kill 300 000 Iraqis, the US kills a third of that in 18 months.
BTW, Mr. Knapp, I just took a gander at your profile, and any commie bastard who digs the Louvin Brothers and Earl and Lester, can't be all bad.
May the tooth fairy leave a pre-war flathead Hearts & Flowers Gibson Mastertone under your pillow.
(IF it aint got that twang, it don't mean a thang...) Tanbark.
-----
May the tooth fairy leave a pre-war flathead Hearts & Flowers Gibson Mastertone under your pillow.
-----
Woo ... that's a tall order. I play an Epiphone flattop when I pick at all (which isn't much -- I'm not musically talented and have to work hard to be a competent rhythm player). My dad, however, plays a mint-condition 1962 Gibson Hummingbird. It's a sweet guitar.
Tom Knapp
Tom, you're absolutely right. Fallujah will go down in the books of history as another atrocity commited by imperialist forces.
it makes me laugh (or rahther cry) when I hear american field commanders exorting their troops with lines like "we're going to free the city to give it back to its citizens". What the hell are they going to give back to the fallujans, a piece of rubble?
Empires have sistematically flattened cities during history (eg, Carthago, Alexandria, Jerusalem and more recently Guernica, Warsaw, Dresden and Hiroshima) with the only purpose of making feel their power and terrorise the population.. simply conveying the message.. "this is what we can do and you know what's waiting you if you don't submit".
But the good news is that all empires have gone down, sooner or later.. let's hope that the 1st American Reich doesn't last 1000 years for the sake of humanity.
"Fallujah goes into the books with Guernica and Grozny. You don't have to like it -- but it will remain a fact whether you like it or not."
Nanking should be added as well. That was back in the days when the United States of America formally and publicly protested such as the Imperial Japanese use of the “incident at the Marco Polo Bridge” as an excuse for its subsequent illegal and unjust invasion and occupation of Manchuria so as to establish the puppet state of Manchuko.
This is the same country but a vastly different people populating it today.
Now the United States of America emulates such miserable actions while adopting the exact same principles in our new military and naval doctrine of “pre-emptive war” as that of the People's Republic of China in its military and naval doctrine of "Active Defense" that it has held and applied since its formation as a state in 1949 (just without the pretense via tokens of a sham "reconstruction" afterward. . . ).
"Fallujah goes into the books with Guernica and Grozny. You don't have to like it -- but it will remain a fact whether you like it or not."
To be sure, and I believe an even more appropriate analogy here (and not only due to the 'red-diaper baby' neo-conservatives who concocted this nightmare "plan" of waging illegal and unjust wars of naked aggression to terrorize the Arab and Islamic world that the United States of America has wrongly and stupidly been following), is Helsinki, Finland, December 1939.
The bombing of Helsinki doesn't garner the attention from our Leftist dominated society that Guernica does, and the tactic of dive bombing wasn't employed for testing, but the aerial bombing of Helsinki in the winter of '39 for the purpose of terrorizing the Finns with the affect of murdering innocent civilians, was the same.
Cont'd
The Soviets were signing their non-aggression pacts with National Socialist Germany and Imperial Japan and running about invading and occupying eastern European countries in the 1930s on the basis of their perceived national security.
What the U.S. is doing to Fallujah is no better than what the Soviets did to Helsinki, just as what the U.S.A. is now doing in Iraq is no better than the illegal and unjust invasions of the Baltic states or Finland during the 1930s. It is a disgrace.
"Take me off your mailing list, you Commie bastard!"
I don't know who this guy is, but if he's supporting the unjust and illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq and what you've rightly labeled the Rape of Fallujah, then he might like to rethink the terms he uses in his curses:
The Iraqi government was "decapitated" (i.e. completely dismantled, from the position of President to dog catchers and former officials were sent to "re-education seminars" for indoctrination in the newly re-written history of Iraq and the armed forces completely disbanded), all on the propagandistic claim of "liberating" the population.
Cont'd
If it weren't for the context the derogatory label was made in and the inclusion of "bastard", then I wouldn't have been sure if his calling you a "commie" would have been a curse or a compliment from this guy? “Wars of National Liberation” was the Soviet doctrine of the 1960s. "Re-education" was what the post-75 Communist Vietnamese government subjected the south Vietnamese to, called "seminars" in post-75 Communist Vietnamese conquered Laos.
From me, then calling you a "Commie" would most definitely have been derogatory. Which is why I'm disgusted at the U.S. government adopting the same propaganda slogans and acting on the same principles as those of Communist nations in the past.
John Stone wrote:
"Strange memories of yesteryear:
We destroyed that village to save it.
Gen. William Westmoreland"
No John. Your “memory” is quite wrong and this is a calumnious statement, even if written in ignorance.
General Westmoreland never said this, or anything remotely like it.
What you're thinking of here is a statement similar to this made by an Air Force Colonel to Peter Arnett at Ben Tre, RVN, in the Mekong Delta after the city had been recaptured from Viet Cong brigade strength main force units that had invaded and occupied much of the city at the beginning of the north Vietnamese TET Offensive. Arnett twisted the Colonel’s meaning after the very bloody and hard-fought battle and gained headlines and fame for himself by doing so. One reason why many of us believe him to be a self-serving weasel and an unprincipled unethical bastard.
Cont’d
OOops. I fouled up the bold in that6 post. Sorry about that.
At the same time, if I happened to misspell Arnett's name, then I really don't care.
The “we destroyed the city to save it” is being overused and misused by too many at the moment and wrongly being suggested as analogous to Fellujah, which it has no relation to whatsoever.
More relevant to Fallujah, then most that I see misusing this at the moment misapply it even more wrongly to the recapture of Hue. Further a false caricature of the recapture of Hue is presented as having been a fight between U.S. & RVN military and naval forces against guerillas. This is quite wrong.
Cont'd
The battle for the recapture of Hue was between conventional U.S. and RVN military and naval forces against the NVA regular conventional forces that had invaded and occupied the city during the TET Offensive (murdering literally thousands of innocent south VN civilians when they did so, which fact is always ignored by those trying to misuse this cheap and false caricature as an analogy to Fallujah).
The tactics and scale of "Op Phantom Fury" at Fallujah have no analogy to any U.S. military or naval operations conducted during the Vietnam War that I can think of.
---------What you're thinking of here is a statement similar to this made by an Air Force Colonel to Peter Arnett at Ben Tre-----
OK, mea clupa ... it sounds like something Westy would say though ...
In the case of Hue we were very careful not to destroy it. We only used small arms inside the city .. air strikes and all were outside.
Falluja is dust and rubble...
“As far as me ‘joining’ anything, sorry -- I already spent ten years humping a rifle in the Marine Corps, including some of the same patches of sand and versus some of the same bad guys. I was fortunate in the fact that my Commander in Chief at the time, for all his faults, was not quite the idiotic barbarian that his son is.”
Well, my Ex-Marine friends and I have fun now and then when chatting with one another, me being a Former sailor and all. . .
My time in the naval service was eight years regular navy and one 3-year enlistment in the naval reserve. The end of the reserve time was spent during the first year of the presidency of George HW Bush. I wound up living out an old squid joke of staying long enough to see if I could make Chief. I did. However, I had already decided not to re-enlist in the reserves beforehand and so didn’t when the enlistment ended.
The rest of my time in the service was under the Presidents that preceded GHW Bush.
Cont'd
The Commanders in Chief who I was awarded the Navy / Marine Corps Expeditionary medal under three times, in spite of their own faults, were no where near the simple-minded barbarian that George W. Bush is either.
To be sure, that most definitely includes the late President Reagan, may he rest in peace.
Personally, I am sick and tired of seeing a caricature in the image and likeness of George W. Bush presented as representative of the late President Reagan. It is absolute Rubbish. This pitiful man is absolutely NOTHING whatsoever like President Reagan.
In short, I fully agree that "The Rape of Fallujah" is descriptive of the tactics employed in "Operation Phantom Fury" / "Operation New Dawn."
I say Good For You for pointing it out. Further, To hell with any pseudo-Marxist "compassionate conservatives" or any of their openly Leftist warmonger counterparts who don't like it.
I apologize for the burst of verbosity in your blog.
The use of the "Ex-Marine" poke was only in jest and purely tongue in cheek.
All my best,
Paul
Some last remarks regarding the statements about quislings, Saddam Hussein, the Republican Guard, the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Fallujah.
Hussein was not nearly so brutal, or the destruction so extensive, in the putting down of the Shi'ite uprising in '91 by the Republican Guard in the south, as what is now being done by U.S. forces and the few Iraqi auxiliaries with them to the city of Fallujah. [Pathetically, the U.S. assault on Fallujah is even more destructive than the Syrian assault on Hama in '82; another Rape of a city publicly condemned by the U.S.A. at the time.]
Like the "WMD", no evidence of mass graves of hundreds of thousands claimed by the likes of the now-discredited Iraqi National Congress (or Human Rights Watch) have been found either.
Cont'd
At tens of thousands of Iraqis killed and maimed as a result of this illegal and unjust invasion, and with revelations of American reinstated rape rooms at Abu Ghraib (when I was in the service, then debauchery was an R&R activity for some, NOT a unit “tactic”) and with basic water treatment and electrical utilities that Hussein maintained now down throughout the country and Iraqi children dieing of dysentery and hepatitis and such, then one shouldn't blather too much about the bad ole days under Hussein.
Hussein was a despot and a murderer. However, next to Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, no few of the present-day leaders in the new Republic of Russia or People’s Republic of China and numerous other nations around the world, or even those in his own 3rd world league, like Pol Pot or Edi Amin, then Hussein was not a pimple on the ass of a bug.
Cont'd
I was not surprised to see it claimed that a new saying among many Iraqis in Baghdad regarding the removal of Hussein and his replacement by the U.S. occupation is:
"The student is gone, and the Master has arrived."
Americans need to think more clearly and objectively about the fact that both George Bush and Senator Kerry advocated as acceptable the waging of illegal and unjust wars of naked aggression during their campaigns and precisely what this nation is now doing openly and without shame around the world.
Again, sorry about the burst of verbosity.
Actually I wish we had the likes of Peter Arnett, Joe Galloway, Morley Saffer and all those guys still around. They were honest and brave reporters ... not the bunch around today..
I flew missions at the battle of LZ X-Ray-Albany/I Drang/Chu Phong, whatever you chose to call it, and I wonder how close I came to killing Galloway, and an outstanding Army Commander, Hal Moore.
OK, mea clupa ... it sounds like something Westy would say though ...
Hi John:
No problem. And I do apologize for the the error on the bolding. I really hadn't intended to place the whole post in bold!
You're right. Efforts were made at Hue to limit damage, and, initially, to try and let the ARVN retake it. Although, in the end, there was a lot of damage. But Hue was a full out battle inside a city between opposing conventional forces.
Cont'd
I don’t know which is worse, the caricature of some in the anti-war ilk above or the idiot remarks in the pep talks by the Marine top Sgt and commanding general before the assault likening it to Iwo Jima, Inchon and Hue City. Absolutely absurd, even before it began! The misinformation using caricatures of Vietnam, WWII and even the Banana Wars period of the naval service are flying thick and heavy these days, from all directions – pro and anti war, Pentagon and private. Sheesh!
And when U.S. forces invaded Iwo Jima and Inchon, secrecy was absolute. The same for the NVA prior to their invading Hue.
How absolutely lop-sided the whole affair has been from the beginning, where the “Order of Battle” is concerned, was demonstrated by the "Central Command" briefings on tactics a week in advance and during the assault, and then those tactics being followed!
Actually I wish we had the likes of Peter Arnett, Joe Galloway, Morley Saffer and all those guys still around. They were honest and brave reporters ... not the bunch around today..
Hi John:
I share the sentiment, and the bulk of the U.S. media and reporting on this war really is bad, left and right. Not the least of which where Fallujah is concerned is the constant referring to it ("insurgent stronghold etc. . . ) in a way that conjures an image of a shack in the badlands in a Clint Eastwood Spaghetti western rather than a mid-size city of 300,000.
Obviously I don't like Arnett or see him as ever having been honest or brave. But I'll leave it at that and won't quibble over him.
For whatever it's worth, I'm not a knee-jerk anti-war activist or a pacifist.
To be honest, I’m leery of some inside the current anti-war movement. The Austrian-school Libertarians in particular as well as a couple other groups. Not only because I’m not a Libertarian and find Austrian-school Libertarians ethics highly unsound and unethical, but I keep in mind that just like Defense / Security / armaments industries and government providing an open path for some with self-serving agendas in times of war, then the same is traditionally true of anti-war pacifist movements that are usually confederations of different groups of movements and individuals. Traditionally, they’ve also been a means for some self-serving ideologues and movements to join in and make use of in the past as well.
Cont'd
The American Communists in the U.S. in the ‘30s are a good example I believe. Pre-36 and they were “doves” in the anti-war / pacifist movement. Post-36 after the Soviet-backed government in Spain was threatened and they did a 180 degree turnaround to being Hawks, even advocating U.S. intervention.
But obviously, I'm quite opposed to the the invasion and occupation of Iraq (or any invasion of a nation that hasn't attacked us, isn't our enemy and doesn't wish to make itself our enemy, for the purpose of imposing a form of government upon its people or to impose a "reform" upon another people's religion!).
No way in the world can I justify what's being done in Iraq: Especially since September 2003 when Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Powell all stated publicly there was no tie between Iraq and Al Qaeda or involvement by Iraq in the attacks in New York and Virginia in ’01 or any other attack around the world prior.
As to the removal of Saddam as the last remaining "justification", in late 2002 both Bush and Blair stated publicly that he could remain in power is the conditions of the 2002 UN SC resolution were met. It was the Bush Administration that decided unilaterally that they hadn't been met in March 2003 and then invaded. The whole thing is absurd.
The assault on the city of Fallujah, beginning with air attacks and artillery assaults, including destruction of hospitals and clinics and followed up with conventional ground forces 3 to as much as 15 times the publicly estimated numbers of the resistance fighters in the city, beginning with an assault on the last hospital, then this is indefensible.
Cont'd
Truth to tell, then given the way that this was conducted, the lack of requests for increased troop levels in Iraq, the pre-Fallujah assault PR, the preventing of Iraqi men aged 15 to 65 from leaving the city, the publicly admitted lack of an effective blockade around the city to prevent escape by guerillas, and what can be seen from the limited coverage of the extent of the damage, then I can’t help but conclude that the “Rape of Fallujah” was the intended strategy and desired result all along, despite the propaganda being fed to us.
Pound them and make a lesson of them to dissuade others. That, or if the PR fed us by the Pentagon is true, then the U.S. armed forces have ignored completely countless Lessons Learned from the past and are grossly inept and hopelessly incompetent. And I tend to doubt that they're that inept.
In short, if this is true, then the "strategy" could be summed up by use of one of Mao's axioms (advocating the tactic of terrorism that he and other Communists have used so often):
"Kill the chicken. Let the monkey watch."
I think what we are all getting to is ... the worst weapon you can use is a bomb ... the next worst is artillery ... the best is a rifle, or maybe even a knife ... 25 mm chain guns and M1A1's fall somewhere in between ...
Now .. how much will Halliburton charge us to rebuild?? Cost plus 10 or 20% ??? Of couse, they are the only ones that can do it...
The whole thing sucks soda water ...
If there were so many insurgents in Fallujah, why didn't we get them when we first went in Iraq. I am not a huge supporter of the war, but if we are going to "liberate" a country from a tyrant, do you think we shoudl have had a better plan? This administration has mismanaged thios war from the beginning. Thatn is why we need an exit plan for Iraq immedieatly
"I think what we are all getting to is ... the worst weapon you can use is a bomb ... the next worst is artillery ... "
Hi John:
Well, I believe that it depends upon what the actual goal is where the weapons and tactics employed are concerned.
If, as claimed, the purpose of the assault was to kill or capture the publicly estimated 1,000 to 3,000 guerilla fighters that we were told were members of numerous different resistance movements, inside a city of 300,000 people, then, yes, ordnance like 500, 1,000 and 2,000 lb bombs and 155 mm artillery shells are very peculiar weapons of choice.
Cont'd
The tactics employed, including the "psyops" and propaganda, that all but ensured that the most able guerillas could escape the city days and weeks in advance of the infantry assault, but simultaneously preventing the common peon male resident of the city from escaping, are also extremely peculiar.
Until Samara and Fallujah, the tactics employed in Iraq have been fairly easy to recognize: variants of the Army and Marine Corps anti-insurgent tactics from the Vietnam War: The army favoring its large-unit big operations in the rural areas, pushing outward so as to enable indigenous troops the ability to pacify the urban areas and the Marines’ advocacy of small unit operations to pacify urban areas so as to then push outward from them into the country side. Afghanistan has been a variant of the old civic action. None of it has been effective, but the tactics have been recognizable.
Cont'd
Samara and Fallujah mark a major change in American tactics, at the tactical level, but I believe are perfectly consistent with the strategic applications to date, particularly with the illegal and unjust invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
What I’m observing is why I'm left having to conclude that "The Rape of Fallujah" was likely the goal and the underlying strategy in this assault.
Cont'd
Hence the lack of concern at the guerillas escaping and the increased attacks elsewhere around the country. A NY Times article during the election based on the anonymous (of course) statements from someone in the Pentagon predicted 30 cities would need to be pacified. The rhetoric that I’m seeing now would indicate to me that we’ll see more of this elsewhere. The guerillas who escaped to other locations and are conducting attacks will provide the excuse. So, we’ll see if assaults like these on Samara and Fallujah don’t in fact continue elsewhere against other cities in the country.
Vietnam is the most disagreed upon war and I believe the most difficult where analogies are concerned due to it, and probably why it’s so easily manipulated via caricatures. Although, what now passes as American “education” facilitates the use of misinformation and caricatures. Hence the constant use of analogies from popular movies these days in our armed forces.
Cont'd
Another favorite of many at the moment is to claim that Total War was waged by the U.S. in Vietnam. I disagree. The U.S. naval and military doctrine at the time was Limited Warfare. The goal in Vietnam was containment; hence the huge troop deployments via conscription and the long drawn out U.S. effort and the changing strategies and tactics with U.S. forces fighting in country from 1961 through 1972. Hence General Shinseki’s recommendations of needed troop levels for occupation of Iraq prior to the invasion, rejected then and since, even by Senator John Kerry during his campaign, even as Kerry quoted General Shinseki and pointed to his dismissal.
I believe that we’re watching a shift by the U.S.A. away from the Limited War doctrine of the ‘50s through ‘90s, back to the doctrine of Total War, albeit with some 21st century modifications, and not so clearly stated.
Cont'd
The anti-war types predicting a U.S. defeat in Iraq based upon past guerilla wars, such as the French in Algeria, I believe are missing a key aspect in the U.S. conduct in Iraq and of the so-called “GWOT”. Namely the self-named Machiavellian neo-pagan ethics advocated publicly by neo-conservative intellectuals and think tanks and the use of the asymmetrical tactics of misinformation by the new “Information Warriors” for the past three years and the use of the asymmetrical tactic of terrorism by the U.S.A. itself.
Numerous examples from such as the People’s Republic of China, and others over the course of history, demonstrate that atrocities can be quite effective if committed by a nation that is impervious to criticism of atrocities. Mexico in the 1930s and even 1968 also provide examples.
Cont'd
Orwell recognized the fundamental weakness (or “pre-requisite” if one prefers) in Ghandi’s non-violent approach through civil disobedience in that Ghandi’s tactics were dependant upon publicity, public reaction to the publicity, and, most importantly, upon a government that would be responsive to the public reaction: in Ghandi’s words, the fundamental purpose of civil disobedience is to “arouse the world.” Ghandi developed his tactics through the course of his life living inside the British empire and British public opinion at home had direct impact.
Orwell asked the rhetorical question in 1949, “is there a Ghandi in Russia at the moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing? The Russian masses could only practice disobedience if the same idea happened to occur to all of them simultaneously, and even then, to judge by the history of the Ukraine famine, it would make no difference.”
Cont'd
Bottom line, if a government can continue brutality with impunity and is impervious to public opinion, then such open and naked brutality has been effective by others in the past. In our case, the massing of public opinion is effectively prevented via dissemination of misinformation, the lack of conscription thereby limiting the impact on the American population and other tactics, including adherence to current strategy and tactics via amoral self-named Machiavellian neo-pagan ethics, as America wages Total War upon the Islamic world.
At the tactical level at the moment, the application of the asymetric tactic of state terrorism employed by the U.S.A.:
Kill the chicken Fallujah and let the monkey Iraq, watch, is only the application of what has been carried out on a strategic level since March 2003: Kill the chicken, Iraq, and let the monkey, the Islamic world, watch.
Hi L4T:
If there were so many insurgents in Fallujah, why didn't we get them when we first went in Iraq.{L4T}
Because there was no resistance to the U.S.-British occupation in Fallujah when the U.S. forces first went into Iraq, because there was no occupation prior to the U.S.-British led invasion of Iraq and the dismantling of the entire Iraqi government and the Iraqi armed forces.
Cont'd
if we are going to "liberate" a country from a tyrant, do you think we shoudl have had a better plan? {L4T}
If “liberation”, itself an unsound and unjust reason to invade another country, were the actual reason, then, yes, one would have expected something quite different than what’s been observed. Nothing occurring now was not predictable.
Why prior to the September 2003 public admissions by members of the Bush Administration, including the President himself, I tended to be quite critical of the so-called "GWOT" and its conduct, world wide, and in Iraq, but not so vocal regarding the illegal and unjust nature of the invasion of Iraq.
“This administration has mismanaged thios war from the beginning. Thatn is why we need an exit plan for Iraq immedieatly” {L4T}
If we’ve been given the actual purpose honestly by our government, which I obviously strongly doubt, then, yes, it’s been mismanaged. On the sounder basis of going after those who actually waged the 9-11 attacks on New York and Virginia in 2001, then it’s most certainly been mismanaged and grossly overly exaggerated.
I fully agree that the U.S.A. should withdraw it’s occupation forces from Iraq (fully aware, considering past examples on a much smaller scale, that it’s easier said than done when a nation is plunged into the kind of Chaos that now reigns in Iraq and that the U.S.A. is fully responsible for having brought about as a consequence of the invasion and occupation).
Cont'd
However, and with all due respect to yourself, while we agree on this, the reason you give is why I tend to point out regularly that I’m not a Libertarian, and why I sharply part company with Libertarians due to the vastly different ethics held by myself and the majority of Libertarians, of whatever ideological variety of Libertarian, even those who wrongly claim not to be ideologues, which all varities of Libertarians truly are.
Cont'd
I find that most Libertarians, even the Austrian-school Libertarians, share a fundamentally utilitarian “whatever is expedient” ethic vary similar to the various schools of Marxist philosophy.
It’s also why I’m not surprised that some schools of Libertarians are quite supportive of waging war upon the Islamic world, and among the most vocal of warmongers ‘beating the war drums’ and effectively advocating the waging of total war by the U.S.A., particularly the Objectivist school. It was no surprise to me that that it was a Libertarian Think Tank and not a neo-conservative Think Tank (and this miserable “GWOT” truly should be dubbed the “War of the Think Tanks”) that stated: ‘Iraq the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot and Egypt the Prize.’
Bottom line: Even if this illegal and unjust invasion proved to be successful on the basis given us by our government, then it would still be illegal, unjust, in a word, “wrong.”
Cont'd
Call me a “medievalist,” I don't care. It’s not the derogatory “insult” that some believe it to be. Medieval ethics as expressed by the scholastic philosophers were both more rigorous and sounder than any developed via any of the modern philosophers from Descarte forward, particularly from Hobbes and Locke and their “Law of Nature” philosophy that has increasingly replaced the scholastic’s “natural law” philosophy in the English speaking world and world-wide over the course of the past three centuries, present-day Libertarian ethics included.
In an unjust war it is illicit to kill and therefore this unjust war is responsible for the deaths and maiming of tens of thousands of innocent human beings, and the U.S. should therefore cease and desist and withdraw its forces. The grim reality is that the only individuals in Iraq with just cause to kill in March and April 2003 were those who resisted the U.S.-British led invasion.
Cont'd
I'm not trying to be nasty L4T or any other Libertarians here. The only intention is to be up front regarding my opinions and some of the reasons for them.
All my best,
Paul
The whole thing sucks soda water ...{John}
It sure does. Big Time.
I remember sending an email to all my friends on the day this started saying, "Now we have stepped into a bucket of shit." I bet Knapp remembers it.
The best argument for the absence of WMDs was the events of last week. What better time to let one go than when you have 10,000 Marines in a close locale? The fact is the terrorists don't have WMDs ... never have ... but they sure love it when we think they do.
I remember sending an email to all my friends on the day this started saying, "Now we have stepped into a bucket of shit." John
When our people first went into Iraq, my reaction was purely negative to the "shock and awe" and "liberation" rhetoric. The "S&A" struck me as non-sensical and the "liberation" irrelevant in regard to a county that had taken part in attacks against the U.S.A. in New York and Virginia, and for which reason the U.S. was invading, not to mention the bad effect on the troops that was sure to come about as a result of the “liberation” nonsense. I've been quite verbal about that from the beginning.
While the President and members of the Bush administration can possibly state rightly that they made no explicit statement liking Iraq and the 9-11 attacks, they can only do so in the manner of the proverbial Philadelphia lawyer and extreme hair splitting regarding the statements. The link was sure implied.
Cont'd
The fact is, this was not presented to the country in late 2002 through March 2003 as being for the Purpose of installing "democracy," which is the only "war aim" that this whole absurd and therefore unjust venture is now reduced to.
I was also stunned at the statements of a number of individuals that I knew and how utterly unrealistic some of them were. One buddy at work with a brother in the 101st Airborne who repeated the standard line of our troops in March 2003, of get it done and come home.
Cont'd
Another guy at work stated to me that he hoped it would all be done with no American casualties whatsoever. And that after one helo had already gone down and several soldiers killed in it. He "didn't count that" because it wasn't direct combat deaths but an accident.
A neighbor and another I know expressed surprise Iraqis who would resist the U.S.-British led invasion. It didn’t surprise me in the least. I’d have been more surprised if none had. Hey, other people have a love of country too. And that Iraqis resisted the kind of crude “liberation” propaganda that was being employed against them that was of like kind to crude propaganda spat upon by American troops of past wars when attempted to be used against them by enemies, didn’t surprise me at all.
Cont'd
I believed that there had been a lot of very good questions raised in 2002 and early 2003 by men like former Secretary of the Navy James Webb, General Anthony Zinni and others that should have addressed, but were by and large ignored, which I found that quite disturbing. It was easy to recognize the sources of John Kerry's statements in the first debate this year. Kerry merely BEGAN in September 2004 to raise questions brought up by others starting back in late 2001 and 2002 and raised since. And only very selectively. Kerry himself contradicted men he quoted like General Shinseki by his proposed troops increases that would have still left us over 100,000 short of what General Shinseki originally estimated needed before the invasion and now that it's a mess!
Cont'd
Senator Kerry is a U.S. Senator from MA who voted to give this administration the authority to invade Iraq in the 2002 "Revised Gulf of Tonkin Resolution." Personally, because of his position in our government, and his vote, then his collusion in this makes him every bit as responsible. So I wasn't surprised that he adopted the self-serving stance of advocating the same position of waging unjust wars of naked aggression as Mr. Bush.
But, truth to tell, I did not imagine in March through May of 2003 the utterly absurd manner in which the U.S.A. has conducted the post-war "reconstruction" (and remember, combat operations were declared at an end in May 2003) would be handled. It boggled me from May through the end of 2003.
The fact is that the subsequent resistance isn't at all surprising or wasn't predictable and was warned against and about by competent men with sound military and naval knowledge and experience.
"Now we have stepped into a bucket of shit." John
Let's be clear about this. The U.S. and Brits MADE this "bucket of shit" out of Iraq.
There is NO precedent for what we've done over the entire course of U.S.A. history; not even the post-Spanish American War Philippines Insurrection on Luzon, 1899 through 1902, when the Spanish Colonial government withdrew and unprepared Americans took over.
The U.S. and Brits did not merely remove the president of the country. Post May 2003, The U.S. and Brits COMPLETELY dismantled an ENTIRE government and armed forces and a country of 25 million people that was governed by a one-party system that had been in power for about 40 years.
Cont'd
And all of this to a country, the invasion of which no longer has ANY sound justification for having taken place in the first place: It did not attack us or take part in attacks upon us, it did not pose an imminent threat to us, and it did not wish war with us.
Even the so-called humanitarian rationalizations, which themselves DO NOT justify the invasion, are coming up as unproven as the claim of WMDs, and most from such as the Iraqi National Congress already discredited.
This has been clear since September 2003, and made all the clearer by the CIA report released in October 2004.
THIS is what in August was "what we know today" and the context under which President Bush said he would again order the invasion of Iraq and that John Kerry said he would again cast a vote giving him the power to do so, quibbling only about matters of "style."
Cont'd
The only option us peon individual Americans have in the presidential election portions of our ballets, is which candidate to vote FOR.
The MANDATE for the RAPE of IRAQ and for the waging of unjust wars of naked aggression has been provided to our government via 99% of the popular vote cast on Nov 2 and most likely 100% of the electoral college when it's officially cast.
The U.S. & Brits MADE this "Bucket of Shit" and the stamp of approval has just been given it by the 99% of individual voters who cast his vote for John Kerry or George Bush and all 50 states of our Republic.
HUMANITARIAN RAPE of FALLUJAH
We're gonna hear about it in the rationalizations sure to come in U.S. propaganda and sure to be spread through the overwhelming majority of media. Everything I listed a couple days ago regarding tactics in this assault, will be presented as having been done so as to limit civilian and American casualties.
However, the assault upon Fallujah been done conducted under conditions MADE as a direct consequence of the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq and conditions ESTABLISHED by the occupation since, including the troops levels in the country at this time.
Cont'd
HUMANITARIAN RAPE of FALLUJAH
We're gonna hear about it in the rationalizations sure to come in U.S. propaganda and sure to be spread through the overwhelming majority of media. Everything I listed a couple days ago regarding tactics in this assault, will be presented as having been done so as to limit civilian and American casualties.
However, the assault upon Fallujah been conducted under conditions MADE as a direct consequence of the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq and conditions ESTABLISHED by the occupation since, including the factor of U.S. troop levels in the country at this time.
Cont'd
So even if one balks at likening the strategy of the "GWOT" and tactics employed in Iraq to Chairman Mao’s “Kill the chicken. Let the monkey watch.” And blathers on instead about “conditions” being responsible for dictating the tactics (which isn’t false), then one should not forget who is responsible for establishing and setting the conditions.
The U.S. and Brits MADE this "bucket of shit." There is no precedent for it in U.S.A. history.
Hence why most analogies to past American wars fail. The most apt analogy for all of this is perhaps that of the Israeli IDF in their assaults in the occupied territories since 2002 and such as the Rape of Jenin. It's no surprise to me that the Israelis have been using the U.S.A. as an excuse for their tactics. It is a disgrace.
I apologize for the double posts. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I apologize for the double post.
The whole thing sucks soda water ...{John}
Again, It sure does. Big Time.
And The WHOLE thing:
The Rape of Fallujah which is only one small part of the U.S.-British led RAPE of IRAQ that has been conducted since March 2003 and is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent human beings and the wounding and maiming of tens of thousands more as well.
AND the MANDATE for it all (and more) and any more unjust wars waged on the part of the U.S. government in the future, given by the majority of Americans who cast their votes in this past presidential election and 50 of the individual states of our Republic.
Mind you. I fully include all of our own sailors, soldiers, airmen and Marines whose lives have been wasted by the waging of this miserable and unjust war of naked aggression that the Rape of Iraq is when I write of the tens of thousands killed and maimed.
And no present-day variation of the Gettysburg Address by parlo jingo, Chicken Hawk, George Bush or anyone else, including our sorry Congress and the absurd resolution passed in September of this year, will change the fact our people have died in vain and been wounded and maimed for nothing of value, whatsoever, in Iraq since March 2003.
Cont'd
As to the mercenaries in the private armies now being contracted who have been killed in Iraq or elsewhere:
Then, screw 'em.
That's the nature of that kind of sorry work. And to hell with policy advocated mostly by some individual Libertarians and Libertarian Think Tanks to have our increasingly Corporation-run Leviathan state turn our nation's defense over to contracted private armies.
Given the present-day situation of our Rebublic and the globalist structure around the world at this time, then it's not only simplistic in the extreme, but an absolutely insane proposal.
Given that it's been years since the end of my own service, it took me awhile at first to realize that it was mercenaries that were being referred to as "contractors" and not just some middle-age guy who did his 30 years as an electronic tech and then went to work for Sperry or northern ordnance as a tech rep after he retired, or any of the more mundane jobs like shipyard riggers, that the term "contractor" brought to mind for myself.
Frankly, I believe the new practice of contracting tens of thousands of mercenaries to be another disgrace.
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