(Note to literalists: the Watched column presently contains only a smattering of 'warblogs' because the facilitator of the template-change--Dr. Menlo--is not very familiar with them, and will be adding more as they are sent to him. Also, this blog may contain areas of allusion, satire, subtext, context and possibly even a dash of the surreal: wannabe lit-crits beware.)
Control
[Watch this space for: Pentagon and Petroleum, The Media is only as Liberal as the Corporations Who Own Them, Wash Down With, and Recalcify]
WARBLOGGER WATCH
Wednesday, August 06, 2003
Well, here's yet another objectively Pro-Saddam non-dead soldier who's complaining about the war effort thus far. Please write and tell him what an American-hating, Saddam loving traitor that he must be...or at least that's what Amos will do. By the way, as an aside to Another Infidel, who posted what I think is the first Ad hominem attack against a website that I've seen, ask not who the webmaster is, but whether the soldiers are telling the truth. Here's the private, who I don't think reads a lot of Chomsky (Why would he have enlisted in the first place?), in his own words, to be ignored by Instapundit:
Pfc. Isaac Kindblade, The Oregonian
I am a private first class in the Army's 671st Engineer Company out of Portland. I just wanted to let you know a little bit of what we are up to, maybe so that you can have another opinion of what's going on over here in Iraq.
We have been in country since Feb. 14 and were a part of the Third Infantry Division's march into Baghdad. In fact, as a result of some serious miscommunications, we were the front line of the charge on two very distinct occasions.
We haven't been a huge part of the war. We are bridge builders, and we were here in the event that the Iraqis blew up the bridges on their retreat. They didn't, so we didn't have to do much.
We were scheduled for 13 missions at the start of the war. We did three or four bridge-related missions. We fill in where we are needed, whether it be guarding enemy prisoners of war, operating traffic control points, patrols on the Tigris River or guard duty of police stations. Our primary mission at this point is transportation, because we happen to drive very large trucks.
A lot is being said about poor morale. That seems to be the case all over the place. It's hot, we've been here for a long time, it's dangerous, we haven't had any real down time in months and we don't know when we're going home.
I think a big aspect has been the people here. When the war had just ended, we were the liberators, and all the people loved us. Convoys were like one long parade. Somewhere down the line, we became an occupation force in their eyes. We don't feel like heroes anymore.
We are doing the best we can, trying to get this place back on its feet so we can go home -- making friends with the locals and trying to enforce peace and stability.
A lot is made of our military's might. Our Abrams tanks, our Apache helicopters, computers, satellites, this and that. All that stuff is great, but it's essentially useless in peacekeeping ops. It is up to the soldiers on the ground armed with M-16s and a precious few words of Arabic.
The task is daunting, and the conditions are frightening. We can't help but think of "Black Hawk Down" when we're in Baghdad surrounded by swarms of people. Soldiers are being attacked, injured and killed every day. The rules of engagement are crippling. We are outnumbered. We are exhausted. We are in over our heads.
The president says, "Bring 'em on." The generals say we don't need more troops. Well, they're not over here.
It would take a group of supermen to do what's been asked of us. Maybe people back home think we are. Hell, maybe we are. I'm 20, and I can't help but think that serving in a war is a rite of passage, earning my generation a place in the history books.
I'm honored to be over here, and I realize that this is the experience of a lifetime. All the same, we are ready to come home.
Pfc. Isaac Kindblade of Cornelius enlisted in the Army at age 17 before his graduation from Valley Catholic High School in Beaverton.
UPDATE: Another Infidel claims that the two sites I noted in the posts below that represent soldiers and their families, who are sensibly enough against a war which kills their relatives, are somehow contrived and faked. Or as he noted:
"Heh.
It turns out the “Bring them Home Now” website is, as I suspected, a fraud.
I thought there was something very odd about the fact that it didn’t link to any of the normal military families, veterans, active duty personnel, or reservists."
Or so stated our budding young Encyclopedia Brown of the website typos. Well, this bunch of frauds and fakers are having a press conference. Why don't you tell them what frauds they are to their faces? And unlike you, they will be using their real names and appearances. There's even contact numbers for real
people. If you have honor, then this would be the time to admit that you were wrong, on this and so so many other issues that the Warblogracy have taken on. But you are without honor, so I expect nothing...
Military Families, Veterans Demand End to Occupation of Iraq, Immediate Return of All U.S. Troops to Home Duty Stations8/7/03 3:53:00 PM
Contact: Ryan Fletch, 202-232-8997; Nancy Lessin, 617-320-5301; http://www.bringthemhomenow.org
News Advisory:
Galvanized to action by George W. Bush's inane and reckless "Bring 'em on" challenge to armed Iraqi's resisting occupation, Military Families Speak Out, Veterans for Peace and other organizations based in the military community will launch Bring Them Home Now, a campaign aimed at ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq and returning troops to their home bases at a press conference on August 13 in Washington, D.C.
U.S. military casualties from the occupation of Iraq have been more than twice the number most Americans have been led to believe because of an extraordinarily high number of accidents, suicides and other non-combat deaths in the ranks that have gone largely unreported in the media. The other underreported cost of the war for US soldiers is the number of American wounded-827, officially, since Operation Iraqi Freedom began. (Unofficial figures are in the thousands.) About half have been injured since Bush's triumphant claim on board the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln at the beginning of May that major combat was over.
The mission of the Bring them Home Now campaign is to unite the voices of military families, veterans, and GIs themselves to demanding: an end to the occupation of Iraq and other misguided military adventures and an immediate return of all US troops to their home duty stations. On August 13 in Washington, D.C., Veterans and Military Families will raise concerns about current conditions in Iraq that their loved ones and other troops are facing such as the lack of planning and support troops are receiving, as well as questions about the justifications used to send troops to Iraq in the first place.
WHO:
-- Military Families and Veterans (See list of speakers below)
WHAT:
-- Press Conference to launch the Bring Them Home Now Campaign
WHEN:
-- Wednesday August 13, 2003 10 a.m.
WHERE:
-- National Press Club, West Room (529 14th Street NW Washington, D.C.)
Speakers Include:
Moderators: Nancy Lessin and Charley Richardson, co-founders, Military Families Speak Out, an organization of families opposed to the U.S. invasion and now occupation of Iraq who all have loved ones in the military. Their son Joe is a Marine who was deployed in August 2002 and who returned from Iraq on Memorial Day 2003.
Susan Schuman, from Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, is the mother of Justin C. Schuman, a sergeant in the Massachusetts National Guard. Justin was deployed to Iraq from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on March 29, 2003, and is stationed in Samarra, north of Baghdad.
Michael T. McPhearson, a native of Fayetteville, North Carolina was a field artillery officer of the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division during Desert Shield/Desert Storm. His military career includes 6 years of reserve service and 5 years active duty service. Now living in Bloomfield, N.J. and a member of Veterans For Peace, Michael works as an activist and facilitator to help bring about social and economic justice. He is the father of an eighteen-year-old son who is planning to join the Army in September.
Fernando Suarez del Solar, of Escondido, Calif., is the father of Marine Lance Cpl Jesus Suarez, one of the first U.S. servicemen killed in Iraq (March 27, 2003). Suarez is seeking the truth behind why his son and others were sent to their deaths in Iraq.
Stan Goff, of Raleigh, N.C., began a military carrier in the U.S. Army in 1970 and retired as a Special Forces Master Sergeant in 1996. He served in Ranger, Airborne and Special Forces counter-terrorist units, in eight conflict areas. He has become an astute commentator on military matters and an outspoken critic of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. His son Jessie serves in the U.S. Army and has just been deployed to Iraq.
Other military family members and veterans will be present and available for questions.
Bring Them Home Now -- http://www.bringthemhomenow.org.
Yet another edition of Celebrity Warblogger Watch. Atrios chimes in today:
The McCarthyite Right
The objectively pro-dead American soldier, soft on the fight against actual terrorism, James Taranto has this to say:
Al Gore, seems to have gone off the rails. The New York Post reports Gore will be speaking to a gathering of MoveOn.org--the far-left, pro-Saddam group whose online"primary" gave Howard Dean a victory over second-place Dennis Kucinich." (Bold type mine.)
294 coalition deaths and counting, Mr. Taranto, all because of lies you helped distribute and propaganda you continue to spew. I do wonder how you sleep at night.
That's not to mention all the permanently maimed and disabled soldiers. On your conscience you prick.
Well, how goes our Bright and Shining Lie that is the Iraqi War? Turns out that Robert Fisk has something important to say. You might note that Bob visits these incredibly dangerous places as opposed to Instapundit or Pejman "Despite published reports to the contrary, I actually took that CIA job...can you tell?" Yousefzadeh. How about press freedoms Bob?
Hence Paul Wolfowitz, one of the prime instigators of this war - he was among the loudest to beat the drum over the weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist - is now trying to deflect attention from his disastrous advice to the US Administration by attacking the media, in particular that pesky, uncontrollable channel, Al-Jazeera.
Its reports, he now meretriciously claims, amount to "incitement to violence" - knowing full well, of course, that Bremer has officially made "incitement to violence" an excuse to close down any newspaper or TV station he doesn't like.
Indeed, newspapers that have offended the Americans have been raided by US troops in the same way that the Americans have conducted raids on the offices of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose leader, Ayatollah Mohammed al-Hakim, is a member of the famous Interim Council - not exactly a bright way to keep a prominent Shia cleric on board."
Oh dear. That doesn't sound particularly encouraging. But how are the Iraqis enjoying their new freedoms of speech?
Of course, Iraqis protest at much of this. Much good does it do them.
When Iraqi ex-soldiers demonstrated outside Bremer's office at the former Presidential Palace, US troops shot two of them dead. When Falujah residents staged a protest as long ago as April, the American military shot 16 dead. Another 11 were later gunned down in Mosul.
During two demonstrations against the presence of US troops near the shrine of Imam Hussein at Karbala last weekend, US soldiers shot dead another three.
"What a wonderful thing it is to speak your own minds," Sanchez said of the demonstrations in Iraq last week.
Well, murdered Iraqis protesters are such a small part of the democratic process as our loyal readers will no doubt mention in the comments section. How about the future of Iraqi democracy Bob?(Quick version: Meet the new Saddam, same as the old Saddam...)
And so there has begun to grow the faint but sinister shadow of a different kind of "democracy" for Iraq, one in which a new ruler will have to use a paternalistic rule - moderation mixed with autocracy, a la Ataturk - to govern Iraq and allow the Americans to go home.
Inevitably, it has been one of the American commentators from the same failed lunatic right as Wolfowitz - Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum think tank, which promotes American interests in the region - to express this in its most chilling form.
He now argues that "democratic-minded autocrats can guide [Iraq] to full democracy better than snap elections". What Iraq needs, he says, is "a democratically minded [sic] strongman who has real authority", who would be "politically moderate" but "operationally tough" (sic again).
Of course, it's difficult to resist a cynical smile at such double standards, although their meaning is frightening enough. What does "operationally tough" mean, other than secret policemen, interrogation rooms and torturers to keep the people in order - which is exactly what Saddam set up when he took power, supported as he was at the time by the US and Britain?
What does "strongman" mean other than a total reversal of the promise of "democracy" which Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair made to the Iraqi people?
Democracies are not led by autocrats, and autocrats are not led by anyone but themselves.
But today Bremer is the strongman, and under his rule US troops are losing hearts and minds by the bucketful with each new, blundering and often useless raid against the civilians of Iraq.
There's this chilling line in the film Charly that I think applies to Iraq: it will become what it used to be.
I too come from a military family - also one that lived under Nazi occupation and resisted - they were what you now call 'terrorists'. I am very angry that people resisting an illegal occupation should be called 'terrorists'. Or anyone fighting back they only way they can against immeasurably superior forces. Or that our soldiers don't know anything about Nuremberg, or the Geneva Conventions, or illegal orders, or the immorality of invading a poor country that never was our enemy. Americans don't seem to have learned much from history - WW II and Vietnam, for starters. Especially Nazi Germany.
I know more than I care to know about how the US treats its veterans - I've been in the trenches fighting for their healthcare - and I am sickened by the devastation from Vietnam, Gulf I, and other illegal brush wars initiated by lies and propaganda. It's hard to feel sorry for Americans who have never had their own homeland bombed into rubble - even your own brain-washed, testosterone-poisoned kids. They should be home in school, not killing other people's kids.
It was bound to escalate - especially when there's no draft and rich kids are exempt. Either everybody goes, or nobody goes - the only fair way to run a war. We're not supposed to even have a standing army - Eisenhower warned us about that - he knew about all the lies. (As did my father - he served under Bradley and was regular army before WW II.)
...Being a conservative, I really resent the dirty name they're giving my philosophy - and the way they've dragged the flag through the mud. Might as well have swastikas on it now instead of stars - symbol of the Fourth Reich. Hitler lasted 12 years - I don't think we'll have much of a country left by then.
I keep on top of things, write letters to my congressmen, and talk to anyone who'll listen. Thank you ever so much for speaking out - it's what true patriots have to do, no matter how bad it gets. The Nazis called German dissenters 'traitors' too - and persecuted anyone who spoke out against fascism or their plan for world domination. They do hate the truth - it's of no benefit to them. Lies make money.
I see that we have been attacked by the Den Bestians, a wordy and pretentious lot if ever there was one. But two quick points here that should be addressed: the reports about military unhappiness about our bloody occupation are deep and vast and wide. You might note that the reports are from various newspapers: The Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Times, AP, even Pat Buchanan's conservative journal. If that's not enough for you then you should visit the websites (yes websites) of Military Families Speak Out and Bring Them Home Now, or you could even tool around the Army Times message board and find a housewife or two decrying the lies of the "chain of command". I read the chain as starting from the President, but that's just me: I hate America, or at least I hate an America that kills 7 to 10 thousand Iraqi civilians, that creates some sort of cheap labor conservative "democracy" that's top down and corrupt from the start, and then sticks me with a $100 billion bill for this exercise in delusion and death. Frell, feel free to call me unpatriotic.
I might also note that I've been called an inflexible Bush Hater. Please. I hate Bush because of his horrific policies on almost every single conceivable issue. I hate Bush because of his Christian Right biotech policy, which has stymied stem cell research here and threatens American preeminence in this field. I hate Bush because of his civil liberty policy stance which brought us Patriot I and in all likelihood will bring us Patriot Act II. I hate him because he acts as a proxy for the oil industry, and subsequently we can't move toward alt fuels. I hate Bush and the GOP that only represent the wishes of "stasist" industries like big oil and big media because it's kind of, well, evil. I hate Bush because of those tax cuts that not only will I not get but will not allow us to rebuild American infrastructure such as roads, schools, and bridges. And last but certainly not least I hate Bush for driving us toward this insane war which will result in the meaningless deaths of thousands, and a large number of those people will be American by the time this is over, unless there's a pullout before 2004 which I doubt.
Now, on top of that, and there are many many many more reasons to hate this guy, I tend to hate him personally because he's the worst politician I've ever seen. He is a bad product that could only be sold by a corrupt American consumer culture. I would never allow myself to be led by a man who can't talk, and in all probability can't write or think coherently as well, into anything. I wouldn't take water on a hot sunny day from this guy. Reagan could at least read his lines...
Let me leave you with one final note: stop fooling yourselves. Body bags don't lie. Or as I stated in the comments section: Your perpetual ability to fool yourselves is killing American kids, not to mention Iraqis.
