Dan Lyons

CAN WE WIN? TIME magazine [26Sept,link not available] devoted pages to this issue, concentrating on our attack on Tal'Afar, a town openly controlled by insurgents. "..a never-ending fight against a seemingly-inexhaustible enemy EMBOLDENED BY US PRESENCE.."

"Senior US officials say it could take a decade to quell the insurgency, witrh successful withdrawal years away."

57% of Americans disapprove of Bushies' handling of the war; 61% want to cut spending on Iraq [Lyons: i.e., to bug out ]to pay for hurricane relief.

After TAl'Afar, US is no closer to subduing the insurgents; we were unable to prevent guerillas from escaping. "The battle refreshes doubts about whether anything resembling victory..can still be achieved."

[Our militia composed of Kurds & Shiites]. "The Kurds burst into houses, ordering them at gunpoint into the street, with only possessions they can gather in a few seconds."

"We'll be fighting them here again in a week" says one US officer.

Across Iraq the prize for the US remains a clearcut outcome, some indication that we're doing more than playing whack-a-mole with insurgents. [Lyons: note the euphemisms!]

al-Quaeda is slipping through our lines "somehow--we don't know how"

Then our PrimeMinister,al-Jafaari, ordered a 'tactical pause', insisting that he be reassured that the battle will be a decisive success. By the time he approves the attack, it fizzles. Not a single enemy fighter is found. Many insurgents got away.

What about 'our' militia? US commanders fear we're training troops for a civil war.

We'll have to fight there again.

GUERILLAS INFILTRATE 'OUR' NATIVE SECURITY FORCES, admits Iraq honcho, "..to what extent I don't know. We are putting in place a meticulous screening procedure..." [CNN]

Bushies say they are counting our newly-trained native security force to replace GIs in fighting guerillas, so we can pull out. Bloody likely.

BASRA OUT OF LOVE WITH BRITS: Until recently, Brit management of Shite region has been oh-so-much-more-peaceful than crude U.S. action in the Sunni/Arab region.

But recently two Brit soldiers disguised themselves as Iraqis and slipped out into the city, being promptly recognized and arrested by local police.
Brits destroyed the jail with bulldozers to free the spies.

Now the Shiite governor of the region says, "no more cooperation with the Brits'. And the natl. security adviser of our puppet govt. called this a 'flagrant violation of Iraq sovereignty."

Brits have hoped that their region was so peaceful that it could be handed over to Iraqi militia, so Brits could pull out. All bets are off now.

OVER ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND SHOWED UP IN D.C. TO OPPOSE THE WAR--but only HUNDREDS (far fewer than expected) showed up to defend the war and insult the peaceniks. BOSTON.COM

SALON says that the anti-war marchers might have numbered up to 250,000.
Nobody estimates their number as less than 100,000.

For every war-nik, HUNDREDS of peaceniks!

The feckless Bushies can't even manage a fake protest march anymore!

PENTAGON TO RUN DISASTERS? The Katrina response was 'a train wreck'. But of course, the Pentagon's running of Iraq/Afghan wars has been a bigger, more disastrous train-wreck.

The Bushies need to sell the false idea of the importance of Pentagon against terrorists, to excuse the fact that for every $1 for HomeDefense, they shovel $10 to the useless Pentagon.

The Brit military were helpless in the London underground bombings; similarly the Pentagon would be helpless in, say, a germ-war attack in America. The medical personnel and police needed vs. a terrorist attack are in urgently short supply--and Bushies have ignored these problems.

US KILLS SADRITE MILITIA: [ NYTIMES] Bushies' only hope of getting the new constitution passed in a couple of weeks is making friends with the Sadrites, so they don't help the Sunnis muster up the 2/3 vote in 3 provinces which would veto the constitution and start the whole silly process over again.

Forget that dream, with US forces killing Sadrite soldiers!

WARS OVER? It finally happened: in Saturday's RMtnNews: not a single mention of the Iraq war--nor of Afghan war !
The actual wars are still going strong--9 GIs killed and about 80 Iraq casualties in the past couple of days. NYTIMES
In Afghan., 5 GIs died in a helicopter (shot down by them, say Taliban). REUTERS

Gunmen held up an armored convoy of our govt. forces Sunday, making off with nearly one million dollars. BOSTON.COM
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Total # of GI dead in both wars is now well over TWO THOUSAND.
(We don't count the wounded, even though these will be filling our hospitals and jails for years, while the dead will be mainly forgotten.)

The RMN has apparently despaired of selling these GOP fiascos to Americans. That's a good sign.

WHAT'S A BUSHIE TO DO? All the Bushies' non-military options for blocking Iran's nukes have collapsed. Russia and China would veto any attempt to impose UN sanctions. Europeans won't strike at Iran, which has the second-highest oil reserves in the world, after SaudiArabia; Iran's oil exports are 5% of world's supply. And high-priced oil has made Iran wealthy. USATODAY

Also, fellow-Shiites in Lebanon & Iraq are getting stronger.

Why not bomb? Iran may have diabolical 2d-strike capacity to 'make us regret it'.-- e.g., blocking oil-tankers passing thru Strait of Hormuz--or hitting Iraq GIs with poison gas.

Sharonista Bushies hate Iran, which backs Hezbollah, out to wipe out Israel.
But they may be stymied.

That probably ups the odds of their bombing Syria, to cover their helplessness. Question is: what 2d-strike retaliations is Syria capable of?

ANOTHER OPTIMISTIC DREAM: (NYTIMES,20Sept)
A Marine captain who has served in Iraq has come up with another 'third way' as an alternative to bugging out.

His main emphasis is on Bush admitting his present course is a blunder. (Implied is his dumping Rumsfeld.) He says to continue the present policies is to sail straight on, in the wrong direction.

He admits that we lack 'nuance' in our relations with Iraqis, mainly because we lack translators.But this shortage will not be curable for many years.

Why not bug out now? the result would be 'anarchy, possible civil war, and revenge killing perhaps worse than in Rwanda.'

Iraq is already in a state of anarchy. The 'central govt. militia' can't even defend itself.
The kidnapping gangsters are driving out of Iraq all the physicians, by threats of kidnapping their children. The Southern cities are peaceful mainly because the Brits have handed over security functions to the Shiite militias.

Civil war? As Sadr has said, sectarian warfare has already started. So far, it' s mainly Zarqawist Sunnis slaughtering Shiites (hundreds this week!) So far the Shiites have not begun slaughtering random Sunnis in return, probably because of the influence of wise Sistani. But surely this abstaining cannot last much longer.

There will be ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from the Shiite area in the South, and of Shiites from the Sunni regions. (Baghdad is actually more Shiite than Sunni..the question is, can these Shiites defend themselves except by driving out all the Sunnis?)

And of course revenge killing is happening already--and U.S. troops can't stop these assassinations.

This writer cites with approval the 'oil-spot' strategy: we pacify just a few places, reconstruct them and set them up with a prosperity that would be envied by the unpacified places.
Wonderful--but that would take YEARS--and the Bushies don't have years, what with Bush's approval ratings in the tank and a Congressional election coming up in about a year.

Wisdom like this writer's might be useful to avoid future fiascos like Iraq. But it is too late for remedying this fiasco.

I'll be out-of-town until 24Sept. Here are some 'reruns' of earlier posts:
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MY BASIC-TRAINING TRIUMPH:
(This letter responded to my brother's news that he just had a painful bout of cellulitis (a bad infection.)/

DAVE: I've got to tell you about my bout with cellulitis,in 1951. It was in the first, awful 6 weeks of Basic Training. (If I hadn't been so devout a Catholic, I would have considered suicide--but suppose my Hell were an eternity of Basic Training!)

I finally went on sick call, though we were programmed not to dare. In the orderly room, they agreed I should go to the hospital--so--with a leg swollen like an elephant's--I was told to check in all my gear at the supply room. This included dismantling my bed and carrying it to the s.r. Then I caught a bus to the base Hospital.

There, in alarm, they put me right to bed for 3 weeks, in the hospital for an extra week. (I still have the scar on my leg, and the memory of my delight that going to Korea would be delayed for a month.)

There was a beautiful, tyrannical nurse in our ward; everyone was afraid of her. There was a farm-boy back from Korea, with his genitals blown off by a land-mine (it turns out they were designed to do that--wounded enemies disrupt an enemy more than dead ones.). At night, after lights out he would sob; this fearsome nurse would sit by his bed and hold his hand. I think of him when I hear that stupid slogan, "War kills boys, but makes Men!"

During that hospital time, something wonderful happened.
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Background: Earlier, I was at the rifle range. The worse you shot, the higher score you got !--they figured you were shooting badly to get out of Korea. I'd see the ground explode, then a bulls-eye signalled.(I ended up with the 2d-best-possible shooting medal.)

[When I got home after Basic, Dad said, "Dan, I'll be honest--I never thought they'd teach you to shoot! We'll have to go hunting!"/ I explained that I couldn't shoot at all, / Mother said, "Dan, you have to learn to take honors gracefully." They couldn't believe the army had become so corrupt.]

At the range, one exercise was to shoot lying down. I was already bald, so my metal helmet came down right over my eyes. Sensibly, I turned it to one side, so I could see.

Up came this awful sergeant (the most sociopathic human I've ever met) who loved to give me trouble. (For instance, we were supposed to disarm a dummy land-mine, with a dummy booby-trap under it. I never succeeded without setting off the booby-trap. Then I had to run around with my rifle over my head, shouting, "I'm dead! I'm dead!")

On the range, this sociopath yelled: "Soldier, straighten that goddam helmet!" I tried to explain, but he insisted. So I put the helmet on straight, and fired completely blind. I'm sure I was scored with bulls-eyes then.
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ANYWAY, back to the hospital--when I was finally walking around again. Down the hall came a man in a bathrobe, with a man on either side. "THAT'S HIM!" The middle-man shouted. "That's the Son-of-a-Bitch! I told him to straighten his helmet; he stood up, aimed the rifle right at me and gave me some bull-shit ! THAT'S THE BASTARD!" They restrained him from lunging at me.

Apparently the sergeant's encounter with me pushed him just that extra little bit into the psycho ward. Good Christian though I was, my toes curled with delight.

Later, all this gave meaning to Paul Goodman's succinct remark: "War is a demented enterprise, with personnel and policies corresponding."

EU WILL NOT CALL IRAN TO ACCOUNT BEFORE UN: GUARDIAN
Knowing that Russia would veto any call for sanctions. So Bushies won't have the excuse that Iran 'disobeyed Security Council' as excuse for bombing Iran.

If they want to bomb, noone can stop them. But Iran has many ways to retaliate. If Bushies nuke them, they are probably able to gas our troops in Iraq; GIs are NOT wearing space-shootes in hot, hot Iraq.

'W' ALONE HASN'T GOT THE WORD! [WashPost,23Sept]

Bush's chatter: "Our withdrawal would embolden the terrorists". Truth is, our staying on demonstrates more clearly the incompetence of our generals and Pentagon and especially our President.
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French journalists earlier were held hostage for a month; they were told the guerillas wanted Bush reelected, and U.S. troops kept in Iraq, TO HELP (by their trigger-happy tactics) TO RECRUIT NEW TERRORISTS.
(3 GIs say that 82dAirborne troops regularly beat Iraq prisoners 'to get info, and for the fun of it.' (NYT,24Sept.) This unsurprising news will flash all over the world, to 1500 MILLIONS of Muslims of many races and colors, enraging many to turn terrorist, or to begin active support of terrorists.

Even dumb Sen.McCain realizes that stories about our torturing detainees (who are usually innocent!) is hurting our 'image' all over the world.
NYTIMES

Truth is, our slobby, baffled, frustrated troops are DOING MORE HARM THAN GOOD in Iraq with their trigger-happy tactics.
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--"If we pulled out, Iraq would become a base for terrorist training." But every expert and every neighboring country says Iraq is NOW a training-base for terroristss to get hardened in combat and trained in urban guerilla warfare-
European govts. are now worrying that some of their citizens have enlisted in Iraq jihad, and are now returning hardened to war and skilled in managing terrorist attacks. [LATIMES, 25Sept]

Should we invoke the inevitable 'fog of war' to excuse Bushies for not foreseeing this nasty side-effect of their invasion? Hardly. The same thing happened earlier when Soviets invaded Afghan. ..that's how binLaden (then a US agent) got trained.
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Over half of Americans now say we should 'speed up withdrawal'--i.e bug out without victory.
The sooner the better; the later, the worse.
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When we do bug out, the Sunnis won't have any 'nationalist'excuse for continuing the insurgency. Sunnis will be ethnically cleansed from Shiite and Kurdish areas, and Shiites & Kurds from Sunni areas.

The Shiites will form an 'autonomous' (deFacto seceding) region. Sunnis will be left pauperized, without much oil. If Zarqawists keep attacking Shiites, Shia will eventually turn on Sunnis--outnumbering them 3 to 1, and backed by Iran--and massacre them.

Even that, strangely, would end up killing fewer people than would a prolonged, covert civil war--which has already begun, with U.S. troops helpless to stop it.

SAUDIS INVOLVED IN IRAQ: The Bushies constantly harp on the involvement of Syria and Iran in the Iraq insurgency. (Pretty absurd to think that Shiite Iran would be helping the Sunni guerillas who are slaughtering Shiites!)

But in SaudiArabia, there is worry about Saudis enlisting in Iraq jihad vs. America.
Only 10% of guerillas are foreigners, but they are often the suicide bombers.
Of these foreigners, up to 60% are Saudis! In some conservative parts of S.A., one member from each family has gone to fight in Iraq ! And they bring in much money to finance the guerillas.

The reason the Saudis are talking publicly of this embarrassing fact is that they're worried that these jihadists will return to S.A. hardened and trained for guerilla war against the Royals.

Needless to say, the Bushies are silent on this issue: partly because the Saudi Royals (who until recently were supporting the Wahabi radicals) are in bed with the Bush family, and partly because they want Americans to believe that the problem is with Syria, whom they'd love to bomb.

KHARZAI CALLS FOR AIR-STRIKE CUT: BostonGlobe
Afghan Pres. says air-strikes are not effective, and demands that no U.S. forces invade homes without his govt.'s permission.

Actually, air-strikes are COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE, enraging natives and recruiting new terrorists--the same with home invasions.

In other words, U.S. troops may be doing more harm than good in Afgh. as well as in Iraq.

Readers might want to click on archives at the left, on week
09-11-2005 to 09-17-2005.

This blog has over 3000 posts, complaining obsessively about Bushie lies, crimes and blunders. Readers might find it interesting to look at some of my posts before March '03, when Bushies invaded Iraq.

They will see that--unlike the Bushies who thought the campaign would be a 'piece of cake'--I foresaw the quagmire we were getting in.

For instance, we had been bombing Iraq for a year before the invasion! Saddam was telling his people that each bombing killed a lot of women and children (which may have been partly true).

There was every reason to worry that Iraqis might hate us even more than they hated Saddam.

The nincompoop Sen.McCain was saying then that the Iraqi welcome for us as liberators would be SO ENTHUSIASTIC that the rest of the Muslim world would begin to think well of us.

SHAMELESS AND FEARLESS: R. Sharma, of an investment firm, (RMN12Sept) brags boldly about how U.S. corporations streamlined the workforce, increasing productivity; they kept employment and wage growth on a tight leash, pursuing the outsource model.This in spite of 'shrieks of oppostion'. As a result, profits as a share of GDP are the highest in postwar history.

The international owners ( there are no 'U.S. corporations'; money has no national loyalty)--these owners are not ashamed to brag about how they have shifted wealth away from even the elite workers into their own pockets.

And even with elections coming up in '06, these people are no longer afraid of their GOP servants being ousted in an electoral revolution. They know that at least a small majority of actual voters either (a) emotionally identify with 'us winners', not with 'those losers'--or else (b) they care most about stopping gays from saying they're married.

Trouble is, almost nobody cares effectively for the long-run true interests of the workers--including the American workers. Even the elite workers are no longer 'worth their keep'. They're going to be impoverished; they had better learn how to cut spending--especially cutting their birth-rates; children are the most expensive luxury!

SHIPPING OUT TO KOREA: At Christmas-time in 1951, I was home on leave before shipping to Korea. An odious uncle said, "You've already seen Southern California; this is your chance to see Seattle."/His wife said drily, "Thank you, pollyanna!"

My mother took a more lugubrious view. She said, "We have to take a family photo; this may be the last time we can picture the whole family together."

My father then had coal-black hair, but no eyebrows; he picked them off as fast as they appeared. Usually his word prevailed, but not this time. She used black shoe-polish, and gave him 'Groucho Marx' eyebrows for the historic photograph. (Thirty years later, he would get angry again if you mentioned this incident--as of course we did.)
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In Seattle, it rained every day. They suddenly announced that there would be no weekend passes. We got thinking: "What can they do? send us to Korea? We're going anyway." So everyone on base simply rode the bus out to town.

As a future seminarian, I suggested that we stay away from the port, where the MPs would be looking for us, and go to a movie instead.The other guys glared at me; we went to the port.

Two vivid items of remembrance:--a middle-aged eskimo woman sat at our table. She carried books, explaining she was a college student. She had sores on her face, so nobody volunteered to go with her.

--There was an 'adults-only' bar, where of course we had to go. A fat, middle-aged woman danced around for a while, then pulled some kind of ripcord, and stood stark naked. All strip, no tease.

I was standing on a corner, explaining calmly to a fellow-soldier that his marriage was technically invalid in the eyes of the Church, so his child was technically illegitimate. He raised his voice quite a bit..MPs hauled us off to jail.
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What struck me was the way the cops treated with hatred and contempt anyone on the other side of that table. It didn't matter that we were soldiers on our way to Korea; we were just criminals. We spent the night in the military Drunk Tank. (One guy yelled a lot; he was hauled off; then we heard him REALLY screaming. He didn't return.)
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We were sent back to Ft.Lewis with no further punishment.Now I had brought along two big volumes of the writings of Thomas Aquinas--hoping I'd some day get so bored I'd read them. I was out of barracks when an inspection team showed up; we had to have everything out on the bunk. The officer was about to confiscate my Aquinas books, but the guy in the top bunk said,"You can't take them--they're his spiritual consolation!"/ The officer went on, muttering, "Why the fuck can't he carry a pocket Bible, like everyone else?!"

I thought I'd taken everything out of my duffle-bag, but another inspection proved me disastrously wrong. They made us empty our duffel bag (to make sure we weren't carrying an ad-lib tommy-gun, I guess).I emptied out, among other items, a brassiere. This was called attention to in a most humiliating way.
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I called home the next day, to say a final goodbye. My father said that his cousin was Chief of Police in Seattle; I told him to communicate that they ran an awful jail.

We had a large table in the basement where my mother would lay out laundry for our large family. I figured the brassiere got in among my stuff by mistake--so I didn't mention it. But my odious brother-in-law got on a second phone to ask if I had noticed anything unusual in my duffle-bag. "You motherfucker!" I retorted cordially, then remembered my saintly Irish mother was on the other phone. I hung up quickly, hoping she'd forget in the months to come.
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Boarding the ship was not like in the movies, where a line of male GIs went up one gangplank with a line of female GIs going up the other one, all singing an inspiring patriotic song. Instead, there was only one male line, and one old woman offering awful coffee (She was treated with ingratitude.)

A fellow came up to me, and without a word of greeting, pinned to my jacket button a label with a number on it--a shipping tag. I suddenly realized with a special vividness that I was special only to my mother. (Actually,not all that special, as the fifth of nine children. She sometimes called me 'Freckles'--which was the name of the dog. So I was more ready than many soldiers for being anonymous.)
And so, off to sea.

AT SEA: Jan 1952, on a troop-ship (a converted cargo ship) on the way from Seattle to Yokahama,then Korea:
At first, the ship-motion was tolerable. We had hot-dogs for supper.

Then we pulled out of the bay into the winter Pacific. Comedians in the Navy, running the ship, had arranged to run a movie with Betty Hutton singing a song about seasickness, waving back and forth. Suddenly the ship was covered with half-digested hot-dogs.

I was five decks down in this converted cargo ship--in the 4th bunk up, with another bunk above me, about 18 inches from my face. If I tried to get to the top-deck, to eat, I lost whatever I had eaten previously into my helmet. (One sergeant said cruelly, "It's all in your mind." /"No," I said, showing him; "it's in my helmet.")

Theoretically, I could have gone on sick-call and got some dramamine.But I was so brain-washed, this never crossed my mind. If some nice guys hadn't brought hard-boiled eggs regularly to my bunk,I would have starved.

Maybe my memory exaggerates; but I remember TWENTY-SEVEN DAYS at sea! To this day, I can't imagine what possesses people to PAY for a sea-voyage!
After a week or so, I could make it to the top; I stayed there as long as I could each day.

There I met two memorable people:
--there was a black guy who had interesting takes on our situation.Every day they'd announce how many miles we were from Seattle, how many miles from Yokahama. He said,'That don't interest me; I want to know how many miles it is DOWN!"
It looked as if we would cross the International Dateline in a way that would eliminate Sunday. "Oh, no," he said--"You don't fuck wid de Lawd's Day!" A horrible storm came up (I fled to my bunk); when I came back up, it turned out we had skipped Monday,instead. He smiled triumphantly."It told you, you don't fuck wid de Lawd's Day!" He was right.
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There was a 7th-day Adventist. He and I argued theology. (I had previously read a lot in Paul's epistles,to argue with Protestant believers in the factory. The game was Bible-baseball, hurling verses back-and-forth at each other: "Oh Yeah? well what are you going to do with Ephesians 3/22 ?" (Poor Paul was perhaps twirling in his holy grave, seeing how his letters were being used.)

This Adventist was actually a rather prominent young scientist. There were about ten of them aboard, with special orders cut by the Pentagon. He worried that they were scheduled to help with germ-war or gas-war. He would refuse, of course.
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We finally got to Yokahama, where we laid over for a couple of blissful days on land. I was astonished to see that Yokahama had electric lights. But then my prejudices were reassured, to see a little guy pushing a small railroad box-car into place.

Then the one-day trip to Inchon wasn't so bad, in terms of seasickness.I was pretty sure they wouldn't send me into combat, since I was athsmatic and blind without glasses. I knew I had very good scores for office-work. What's more important, I could TYPE (that skill was rare enough then to get a soldier diverted from combat.)

Sure enough, I got called to the Classification/Assignment office of the Replacement Depot. The captain in charge was an education major, a former high-school principal. He confused my philosophy major with a psychology major: "That means you like to work with people, right?" I didn't correct him--although I didn't think Immanuel Kant necessarily liked to work with people.

I was delighted to be inducted into this prestigious office. We were in a former school-building that had not been bombed. Inchon contained hundreds of thousands of homeless refugees; moreover, Korean farmers then used human manure (especially rich GI manure!) on the fields as fertilizer;it was picked up from our outdoor johns in 'honey-buckets', then hauled to the farms by ox-pulled 'honey-wagons'.

The air was filled with germs; as was customary, I was in bed for a week, streaming from both ends. (Since then I've had fantastic immunity!)

When I got up, I was named as INTERVIEWER, the most prestigious job.I interviewed guys who were just out of hospital (sick, wounded or crazy), but were not now so badly disabled as to be shipped out of country. I looked at their hospital record and then either sent them back to the front line or,if they were still disabled, I found them a job in the rear area. Thus I heard stories from all over the front line (most combat soldiers knew only what happened in their immediate area.)

I'll always remember one black soldier I had scheduled to be returned to the front line. He said,"You can't send me back;I got a vision problem."/"Nothing like that shows on your record."/"No, I got a vision problem: I CAN'T SEE THAT SHIT!" One great regret I have is having risked that great mind in combat.
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I didn't have to be drafted; I was eligible for a graduate fellowship at any university--and if you could stay out until you were 26, you got out. But I believed fervently in what people said the Virgin of Fatima has said, that Stalin was the Anti-Christ. And I wanted to be part of the effort to defeat the Anti-Christ. So I let myself be drafted.
Well,I realized quickly that Stalin was pretty stupid to stir up sleepy America by having his proxies invade South Korea--and the AntiChrist was supposed to be devilishly clever. Moreover,I saw that we were really defending one dictator from another. But it was too late for second thoughts.
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I asked the captain,"What about those ten top scientists languishing in that barracks, waiting for orders?" /"WHAT? ! WHAT SCIENTISTS?"/It turned out that Mil.Occup.Specialty numbers were easy to mistype;someone had mistakenly typed in a call for top scientists.

The captain hurried to call 8th-army Headquarters in Seoul. Now it happened that 8th army Personnel was actually run by an odious sergeant in Seoul who somehow had a general under his control--don't ask how.This sergeant heard the story of this cataclysmic mistake, and came up with a quick solution. "Change their MOS to rifleman; send them to the front line and get them killed, before word gets out."

I give the captain credit; he flatly refused. So the sergeant said, "Cut orders to send them up to me; I'll do it." Even though both the captain and I could have sent uncensored letters home blowing this whistle, that didn't occur to either of us.

I got one letter from my Adventist friend. He refused to fight,so they made him a combat medic (with a very short life-expectancy).I never heard from him again.
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Another memorable GI: he was an Irish-American, back from the front, recovering from a broken arm. He kept referring to himself as "Irish"; a Norwegian/Polish mongrel said,"You were born in America; you should call yourself American."/ "If a cat has kittens in an oven, do you call them biscuits?"

We had a lecture on what to do if captured. Theoretically, you should tell the enemy only your name, rank, and serial number. But this lecturer said,"You don't know any secrets. Tell them anything they want to hear."This Irishman said, "If I was captured,I'd turn SO COMMUNIST that if one of them was falling away, I'd re-convert him!"
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I witnessed another theological argument. A priest-chaplain was back from the front line, on his way home. He was talking to the priest-chaplain stationed at the Port of Inchon, who told the combat priest that he had given a dispensation for his soldiers in Inchon, so they didn't have to fast before going to Communion. "After all, we're in a combat zone." (We were 30 miles from the front; we could hear artillery; but there was a mountain range between us and the front. We were as safe as in Iowa.)

The combat chaplain exploded, "You think you rear-echelon fucks are in COMBAT? What a farce!" Thus theology adapts to a military culture.

ANOTHER WAR MEMORY: I just remembered another story,which illustrates well life in the army.

I interviewed guys back from the front line. But one newcomer to Korea somehow got singled out. He was PuertoRican, spoke hardly any English. His file was super-fat.

One paper said, "This man is NOT to leave the U.S. He needs an eye-operation."

The next paper was from our Japanese base: "This man should NEVER have been sent out of U.S. He needs an eye-operation. He should be returned immediately to U.S."

And of course here he was in Inchon,Korea. I determined to put an end to this nonsense. I didn't have the authority to send someone home, so I sent him to 121st Evac.Hospital in YongDongPo, to be returned, with a memo in huge print to remind them that they were to send him home.

A few weeks later he returned, from the 212th Psychiatric Detachment (I hope the typo was not mine!) They had regular GPs acting as psychiatrists there. The cover page said, "There's nothing wrong with this man, except that he has a strong delusion that he needs an eye operation."

I think I delivered him in person to 121st Hospital; I never heard any more about him.
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As Paul Goodman said, "War is a demented enterprise, with personnel and policies corresponding."

MY DIALOGUE WITH THE GENERAL:/
BACKGROUND: in the late 60s and early 70s (Viet war days) an unheard-of organization sprung up of peacenik veterans who called themselves VIET VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR (VVAW). [Veterans, by definition, are supposed to be PRO-WAR! That's why the authentic Viet hero Kerry could be blind-sided by the Bushie smears.]

At ColoStateU, every official campus club had to have a faculty sponsor (so that in case the students acted up, the prof could be punished). The lads in the CSU chapter were looking for a peacenik veteran as sponsor, so they recruited me.

Lew Walt was the top Ft.Collins military hero: quite a remarkable person--he started out in WWII as an enlisted marine, went through sergeant and then was made an officer and rose to the rank of general. He ended up commandant of all the marines in Vietnam.

Then he was, rumor said, forced into retirement because he took seriously the chatter about our prevailing by winning over the hearts and minds of the natives--whereas the real slogan was "Grab 'em by the balls, and their hearts and minds will follow!" (We did the latter, but they didn't follow--they threw us out on our ass.) Anyway, Walt was back in Ft.C. after his retirement.

People thought that the Svengalian peacenik faculty were leading the students astray; but in fact, the activist students led and the profs followed meekly.
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THE STORY: One Saturday just after the war ended, I got this phone-call from a VVAW member: "Tomorrow, Lou Walt is going to talk at a Communion Breakfast; we have to picket that son-of-a-bitch!" I had tangled with the right-wing pastor of St.Joe's earlier, so the project appealed to me. I made a large poster that said, "WHATEVER YOU DO TO VIETNAMESE CHILDREN, THAT YOU DO UNTO ME!" (with a cross in each corner.)

We got to the Knights of Columbus hall a few minutes before Mass ended: one marine vet with only one leg, and another marine vet (a very jumpy little guy filled with shrapnel) both of them in uniform, plus myself in civvies.

Around the corner came a boy-scout parade, with a band and many flags. Then, accompanied by various burly real-estate salesmen and car-salesmen, came the Pastor, accompanied by Gen. Walt. Satisfyingly, the Monsignor nearly dropped his teeth when he saw me waiting for them with my sign and my two acolytes.

The leaders huddled about ten feet away from us, muttering what they'd like to do to us. But the general calmed them with one imperious wave, and came walking over, with a genial smile.

He wore an electric-blue civilian suit, and he was a sight: about 5'2" and about that wide across the shoulders--no fat. I could have sworn the shoulders had corners.

We all shook hands, and Walt asked the one-leg guy, "Where did that happen?" The lad responded that he never got to Vietnam; he lost the leg in California, in a motorcycle accident.Walt smiled broadly, "You know, all along we lost more men to auto accidents than through combat!"

Then to the jumpy little guy: "And where were you stationed?"/ "At Yong-dong-phu."/ "Wait a minute!" ( a suspicious scowl appeared on the noble brow) "The Marines were never at Yong-dong-phu!"/ The kid thrust his face toward Walt: "The MARINES were at Yong-dong-phu-- but YOU never showed up at Yong-dong-phu!"

Seeing a guy in enlisted-marine uniform daring to talk back, Walt lost the civilian-suit veneer, and the sophisticated-general veneer, and reverted to pure Sergeant. A vein pulsed in his thick neck as he went face-to-face with the kid. They started to yell at each other, each citing his wounds. I recognized that any minute the kid was going to leap at the general,so I said, "Gentlemen! Surely our differences can't be settled by counting wounds!"

At once Walt came back to reality and calmed down. Ignoring the young Marine, he turned to me: "And where were YOU stationed?"/ "In the Korean war, at Inchon."/"HUH! That doesn't count!" And he turned his back on us and returned to his cohort.
------------------
Now I had a great comeback I could have delivered; I would have achieved rhetorical fame, posthumously.. because I had no doubt that, after its delivery, Walt would have leaped up and chewed out my throat.

The line I could have delivered--if I weren't such a coward--was this:
"HUH yourself! At least we TIED OUR war!"

HOW EXACTLY DO BUSHIE ATROCITIES RECRUIT NEW TERRORISTS?

We learned about this from the Ulster IRA guerilla experience. There are roughly speaking 3 circles of pro-guerillas:
--the inmost circle contains the 'hard men', those few who will kill and die for the cause;

--the middle circle:the more numerous people who won't kill or die, but who will hide the guerillas and their weapons, and who will contribute money heavily for the cause;

--the very large outer circle, who basically talk pro-guerilla, but will not help except by contributing a little money.

Now ,when the enemy commits a galvanizing atrocity (e.g., "Bloody Sunday", when the Brit police fired on peaceful demonstrators in Derry)--
--then some from the outer circle get angry enough to move to the middle circle, contributing much money, and helping to hide guerillas and weapons.

--and some from the middle circle get enraged enough to move into the inmost circle, now willing to kill and die for the cause.

Now: when U.S. atrocities in Iraq/Afghanistan are made public(e.g., the abuse of prisoners in Iraq, photographed by the abusers!) these stories and photos are instantly circulated all over the world among 1500 MILLIONS of Muslims of every race and color. If only 1 in 10,000 hitherto-apathetic Muslims get enraged by the atrocities, that's 100,000 new supporters of the terrorists--either moved into the outer circle, or moved into the middle or inmost circle.

The latest Bushie atrocity: 89 Guantanamo inmates have gone on 'hunger-strike', intending to starve themselves to death to protest their detention and their treatment.

It is the prison policy to FORCE-FEED such hunger-strikers.
Boston.com

This response has long been regarded as outrageous (the Brits force-fed the women suffragfettes, and thus helped their cause; the Brits also force-fed IRA hunger-strikers until they realized this was backfiring; then they let the prisoners die.

Just the fact of the hunger-strike communicates to the world the awful conditions of the prison. The force-feeding adds to the potential for enraging world Muslims and recruiting new terrorists.

The Bushies are, as ever, stupid as well as ruthless.

People may wonder at my constant references to 'the Bushies'.
I assume that Geo.W. is so dumb and childish that he has no real voice in policy, that others behind him (e.g., Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Rice) make the real decisions and then have speeches written for him to recite.

These are the 'Bushies' I refer to, and I use that term just for brevity.

SHAMELESS: Two of the first contractors signed up to 'rebuild after Katrina' are run by Bush buddies. USATODAY,11Sept

They don't seem to care any more about public opinion.
----------------------
It may be just as well that Bushies DON'T care ! Recent polls:

80% say our safety from terrorists is no better ,or even worse, than in 2001.

"Can govt. protect us from terrorists?" before Katrina, 70% said yes.
Now, only 60%. (In fact another poll shows 57% saying govt. CAN'T protect us vs. nat.disaster or terrorist attack. USATODAY

Bush's 'strongest point' was that people trusted him vs. terrorism (going dumbly by the fact that we haven't yet been attacked.)
But now it's clear that 'fighting them there' has not made it less likely that we'd have to 'fight them here'--rather that we'd face attack here.

Indeed, the many billions we've wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan has left less money for Homeland Defense.

CONSTITUTION NOT YET PRINTED, 5 WKS.BEFORE VOTE !
They're still haggling. Kurds are now willing to say Iraq is an 'Arab' state.
(Why not? In practice, they won't be part of Iraq anyway!)

Southern Shiites are anxious about the fact that Tigris & Euphrates run through the other 2 regions before the Shiites get access.
(When Saddam couldn't bomb Shiites, he settled for cutting off their water.) "We're more anxious about water than about oil!"

This would be a motive for them NOT to secede, but to try for control--as 60% majority!--of an 'all/Iraq' govt.

Sunni Guerillas could still poison river-water upstream. On the other hand, Shiites & Kurds could MASSACRE all the Sunnis (outnumbering them 4 to 1). Still, Zarqawists might be nutty enough to do this.

However, Sunni neigbors might intervene to stop such a massacre. But then Iran might side with Shiites. THAT'S THE WASP-NEST THAT BUSH INVASION HAS CAUSED !

SADR A 3D-FORCE: He's not a learned scholar like Sistani. (He can't issue Fatwas!)He's twice tried to lead a force openly vs. U.S., getting his followers slaughtered.

Now he's talking like a Sunni (vigorously opposing U.S. troops, and also any deFacto secession of the Shiite region).

His poor followers are mainly in 'Sadr city', a Baghdad slum. If the Shiite region seceded, like the Kurds, the middle section--including Baghdad?--would be left with little oil. They say his followers voting against the constitution next month might enable the Sunnis to veto it.

It's said he dreams of an Iran-type theocracy, with himself as top mullah ruling all Iraq!

There have been several murderous clashes between his 'Mahdi' forces and the "Badra' forces of the main Shiite party. But I hear that he and Sistani are second cousins...so?
NYTIMES

WAR ON TERROR: BUSHIES ARE NOT WINNING!
After 9/11, Bush announced in a cathedral that we were declaring 'WAR ON TERROR'.(Someone said that's like declaring war VS. airpower!)

Terrorist attacks around the world have multiplied since 9/11--not yet on America, but every expert says they're coming.

Our reaction to 9/11 has converted alQuaeda, a small terrorist group, into alQuaedism, a 'viral' ideology that has spread over the world.

Someone has said that our response to 9/11 was like hitting a glob of mercury with a hammer. NYTIMESMAGAZINE

MORE #5 HURRICANES: (Katrina was only #4.) Many experts predict that global warming of seas will INTENSIFY future hurricanes. It will also raise sea-level on our coasts by one foot, increasing danger from floods. N.Kristof in NYTIMES, 11Sept.

Bush says that cutting our contribution (huge!) to g.w. would harm our economy. Perhaps letting g.w. run wild also threatens our 'economy'.

GREAT PLAN FOR ANTI-GOVT. FLACKS
David Brooks ["THE BEST-LAID PLANS.."[NYTIMES] demonstrated a great strategy for right-wing propagandists:

First, the right-wing government (GOP controls all 3 branches of fed. govt.) botches up spectacularly a needed program (handling Katrina).

Then right-wing propagandists assure us sadly that
"Such failures are endemic to every conceivable government bureaucracy. So we should not count on government to help us."

(Writers like Brooks fail to explain why foreign governments do so much better in handling emergencies than ours.)

PREEMPTIVE NUKES: In Sept. 02, Bushies announced as official U.S. doctrine that they'd feel free to strike 'preemptively' at any 'hostile' nation that even tries to keep up with us in developing new weapons.

It has apparently driven Bushies mad that other nations continue to defy us, even with all our H-bombs.

So now the Pentagon has proposed (submitted to Rumsfeld) a detailed policy for preemptive NUCLEAR attacks on 'hostile' countries that are 'preparing' to strike at us--or our allies, with nuclear or BIOLOGICAL weapons.

In other words, the Bushies will first SAY a nation is preparing such attacks, and then they'll nuke them.

The document says we might use nukes JUST TO DEMONSTRATE OUR INTENT AND CAPABILITY!

They admit the U.S. (or its allies) might be attacked independently by 'non-state' entities, e.g., individual terrrorists (like the 4 guys with knapsacks who devastated the London underground.) So we should nuke London? REUTERS

Our outgoing CIA chief admitted that we won't have a functional intelligence service for at least 5 years. Who would believe our government when they said another country was getting ready to attack us?
But it really doesn't matter who believes them; Bushies will nuke whomever they please.

This announcement will plunge our international reputation (and perhaps our exports) to new minima. Every country fearing our nukes will develop '2d-strike' capacity, so they can tell the Bushies: "You can nuke our cities; but our survivors will wreak terrible harm on your people and homeland, to make you regret it." (Iran has already warned publicly of 'certain consequences'--for instance, gas-attacks against our Iraq GIs !--if they are bombed.)

Such 2d-strike capacities will usually consist of germ-war weapons--called 'the poor nation's H-bombs'. These can be prepared in kitchen-type labs, so there's no way we can detect them. And we will NOT have our people vaccinated for all the possibilities: anthrax, ebola, etc. (Bushies failed to get enough vaccine produced, a couple of years ago, even to guard against ordinary flu.)

Our only defense will be quarantines--which is the response of primitive countries. And the Katrina crisis showed us that our government may well bungle that strategy.

We are as vulnerable as are primitive countries. With our thousands of H-bombs,Bushies may feel like Superman--but they haven't noticed the kryptonite lieing around.

EGG WITHOUT SPERM --> EMBRYO [LONDON TELEGRAPH]

Till now the Popes (& Baptists) have said that human life begins 'at conception' . They'd better revise that to say that as-yet-unfertilized eggs are also full humans with human rights. So now, will any form of contraception count as murder?

RICE TRIES FOR UN SANCTIONS VS. IRAN: But Russia has already said it opposes even bringing Iran before the Security Council for 'trial'.
And Russia has a veto. So the Bushie huffing and puffing is pointless.
[ BBC/news,10Sept.]

Unless Bushies are going to say they're entitled to bomb Iran, because Security Council wouldn't act. (Scott Ritter claims that is exactly their strategy. AlJazeera

But they don't need (and wouldn't get) world approval for bombing Iran. If they're willing to incur Iran's retaliation against our troops in Iraq, and against Israel, against world oil supplies , and perhaps against our homeland, they can go ahead and bomb.

Hitler was willing to sacrifice German cities to allied bombers, rather than stop his blitzkrieg. Bushies may also be willing to sacrifice Iraq GIs and even our Homeland.

They've just raised the ante by preparing for 'pre-emptive' nuclear attacks.
Suppose they first bomb Iran conventionally; then, if Iran retaliates, they nuke the place off the map. It looks like that's the way they're heading.

"IRAQI FORCES ATTACK TAL AFAR!' says a REUTERS
It turns out they were attacking WITH U.S. TROOPS AND PLANES AND BULLDOZERS.

Saying that this was an 'Iraqi' attack is like describing as a 'Rabbit/Horse stew' one containing one horse and one rabbit.
-------------
Only 2 of our 5000 native militia were wounded in this destruction of TalaFar. Casualties were not announced of the 3500 GIs involved.
When the battle ended, almost no guerillas were around. "They elected to bail out", said U.S. spokesman. Surprise, surprise.

Almost none of the captured guerillas were foreigners. (again, Surprise!) The local inhabitants are Sunni Turkmen (not Arabs); they resented tyrannical tactics of the Shiite/Kurd militia U.S. left in charge after the LAST U.S. attack on TalaFar.

Turkey protested the last attack on their relatives in Iraq by 'Kurds', threatened to quit cooperating with U.S.
AlJazeera

Operation against TAlAfar was called "Restoring Rights'. If only U.S. could ward off guerillas as proficiently as they coin propaganda slogans...

They're closing (partly!) the Syrian border. Why haven't they done this long ago? Because then, when attacks continue, they couldn't blame Syrians for sending in guerillas!
----------------------
U.S. & our puppets bragged that they would 'cut off escape' of guerillas from Talafar. But most of the guerillas 'faded away', escaping through tunnels previously dug---tunnels the attackers were apparently unaware of, in spite of their claim that most residents opposed the guerillas.

Guerillas threatened to revenge themselves by using gas. [ ABC ]That's what has always worried me; gas-masks are useless vs. modern gas, which can kill with one drop touching skin. Iraq is just too hot for GIs to wear those 'space-suits' (plus bullet-proof vests) all the time. Also, it's been said that the space-suits have deteriorated.

It's said that Katrina disaster has pushed Iraq out of the headlines. Guerillas also follow CNN,etc. If they wanted to push Iraq back into the headlines, a gas attack would do it. Every week we leave GIs in Iraq, we increase this risk.

KURDISH PRES.OF IRAQ SAYS GIs CAN LEAVE IN 2 YEARS--MAYBE !IF the cities and roads are secure by then..and even then, a few bases will have to stay around to defend Iraq from its Sunni/Arab neighbors. GUARDIAN,9Sept.

Of course the pols in our new puppet govt. want us to stay on, to try to protect their lives (chancy!) and their salaries.

The question is whether situation in 2 years will be so much better that we'll all say the improvement was worth the EXTRA thousands of GI casualties and extra U.S. billions. There is no evidence for this; and the burden of proof is surely on those who want us to stay on.

submitted to COLORADOAN:
"HOW TO GET AMERICA'S BOOTS OFF IRAQ GROUND" by F.Eidsness (9Sept) is the first serious discussion I've seen in the media about how to extricate ourselves from this quagmire.

He admits that any 'all/Iraq' government must be a skeletal 'federation' between 3 separate nations: Kurd, Shiite/Islamic, and Sunni/Arab.
(A similarly fictitious entity is the government of 'Serbia/Montenegro', which pretends to control 3 separate and hostile nations: Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo.)

E. recognizes that we must announce that our troops will withdraw by next summer or sooner--come hell or high water. Iraqis will know they have to make further arrangements (perhaps with other countries) by then .

Of course we should let Euro countries train Iraqi troops outside the country. How could Bushies be so stupid as to oppose this?
---------------
However, much of this proposal is a bit dreamy. We're to persuade NATO to 'cordon off' Baghdad, (with much blood shed), when our troops plus our native militia have not been able to do this. He's forgotten the maxim, "You broke it; you fix it." We may have to expect the Shiites & Kurds to drive out, on their own, all the Sunnis from Baghdad.

After Bush sent crazy Bolton to dynamite UN, it's not likely he'll get any cooperation from other nations to help cover his bug-out from Iraq!

E. sees the semi-fictitious 'central government' (functioning on whatever resources Kurdland and Shialand choose to provide) as pacifying Baghdad and allocating oil-moneys among the 3 groups. Why would the Sunni/Arabs expect the other two hostile groups (outnumbering Sunni voters 4 to 1) to share oil-money fairly?

He expects America to fund Iraq's reconstruction..in spite of our huge budget deficit, and the well-known tendency of Americans to forget all about any country that has administered to us a frustrating defeat.(Did we fund Vietnam's reconstruction?) The funding will have to come from Iraq oil-money--AFTER the Sunni guerillas stop sabotaging their exports!

E. would offer Sunnis help AFTER they quit slaughtering Shiites. Perhaps he'd do better to wait for the Rapture to solve this problem.
For some time, the Sunni/Arab region in mid-Iraq will remain a no-man's land, until some ruthless Saddam can take over.

Eidsness says we must 'maintain a presence' in 'the region'. Presumably he means we need permanent military bases in the Middle East; these would add to our staggering federal deficit--and also, since the expenses count as 'imports', these bases would aggravate our mounting Trade Deficit.

Why do we need these bases?? We managed to bomb Afghanistan with bombers stationed in Missouri !

He does remind us that huffing and puffing at Iran is pretty stupid; they and their Iraq/Shiite allies will control perhaps as much oil and natural gas as Saudi Arabia.

E. does NOT tell us how to persuade Bush to dump Rumsfeld and install sensible people in charge of our foreign affairs. The weakness of Bush's intellect is matched only by the firmness of his will.

Eidsness doesn't dare speak the truth: the former CIA chief admits we won't have a functioning intelligence for at least five years--so we should pull out of world affairs until we can persuade at least our elite youth to learn about alien languages and cultures.

Until this is achieved, our 'presence' overseas will continue to involve reckless interventionist lunges based on ignorant isolationist thinking.

COLIN POWELL? DIDN'T HE VANISH? He was interviewed, and said, bland as usual, that all levels of govt. performed badly in the Katrina crisis.
"I don't know why." (He should know that one main problem was Bush's appointing of inexperienced cronies to the disaster-response team--not to mention the feds' longstanding refusal to fund proper levees and waterwalls around N.O.)

He says racism was not the problem--just a lack of care about poor people; most Southern blacks are poor.

Powell is being considered as 'Hurricane Czar' to oversee the belated response to Katrina. REUTERS

Well, he's the right color to reassure us that racism won't now be decisive.
But I'm not much reassured.

Powell was the closest to sane among the Bushies. He was 'squeezed out of the loop' without registering any complaint. After he resigned, he didn't write the withering expose' book he could have. The most likely explanation is that the Bushies have some kind of blackmail on him--blackmail which now makes him suited for this new figurehead role.

THE EMPTY CEREMONY OF VOTING: Egyptians for the first time had a chance to choose among several candidates. But our ally Mubarek made sure that he could control the vote, by outrageous corruption.
WashPost

All over the world, people are going for 'democracy'. That is, they enjoy the ceremony of voting, deluding themselves that their vote counts toward determining the personnel and policies of the government.

And the powerful people around the world have learned (from America) how easy it is to manipulate the vote so they stay on top. So they now have no objection to allowing votes. (Some day, SaudiArabia might even allow WOMEN to vote!)

In America, people are constantly told they have a DUTY to vote. Nobody says publicly that 'your' individual vote counts for nothing. However, if everyone like you, in your situation, felt entitled not to vote, what would happen?

If you're a typical childish, ignorant American, the country would be better off if you and your peers didn't vote. So, for typical Americans, there is no moral duty to vote. (See the chapter on democracy in my book DEMOCRACY, RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS, available at CSU library or by interlibrary loan from other university libraries.)

But many enjoy the ceremony..however, a lot of Americans see through the charade--or else they're just too lazy--so they don't bother to vote.
That's OK. Once the Pentagon takes over with their military robots, the ceremony will be REALLY empty!

IRAQIS WILL TAKE OVER SECURITY AT BAGHDAD AIRPORT:
A Brit contractor was in charge of security there, with fairly good results (unlike the situation on the road from Baghdad to the airport ! )

But the new Iraq govt. hasn't paid them for months, so they resigned, and closed the airport to civilian traffic. The govt. snapped that closing the airport could be done legally only by them.
CNN,9Sept
We'll see how the Iraq govt. performs in this new role (or whether they will pay the back bill and get the Brits to come back.) If security fails, they can block the airport being closed, but they can't force civilian planes to use it.

TIRED SLOGANS: (ltr to RMtnNews)
L.E.Bell (letter: "We're only animals.") repeats the usual fundamentalist slogans:
--"If there's no God, then there's no difference between right and wrong'.Absurd.

In fact, believers in God are often the worst kinds of sinner, especially if they believe 'once saved, always saved' or that sins can be forgiven easily in Confession--or that Allah will reward them for killing infidels.

There is surely as high a crime-rate in Baptist Mississippi, or in Mormon Utah, as in a Scotland now full of unbelievers. (I've lived there for 2 years.)
----------------
--"Evolutionists say that man is just an animal." Of course Mozart was an animal--but he was an absolutely unique kind of animal. So was Mother Theresa.

If children are raised with these myths, then if they 'lose their faith' and come to accept modern biology--as they often do !--then they might indeed live like brutes without morality.

THOMAS FRIEDMAN in NYTIMES says he thought Bushies were suited to respond to 9/11: "These guys know how to pull a trigger!"

Now he realizes that they are suited only to destroy, not to rebuild.

But what about himself? Why in the world did he think that the right response to 9/11 was pulling triggers? He's not much brighter than the average American clod who chants, "The best defense is a good offense!"

Above all, why did he keep supporting them when they pulled the trigger vs. Iraq, a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11 ? !

Why didn't he realize that Pentagon tanks, bombers, and missiles were useless against thousands of individual terrorists around the world, each anonymous until he strikes--like the 4 guys with knapsacks who devastated the London underground? Why has he never roared with rage that the GOP government is shovelling ten dollars to the useless Pentagon for every one dollar for Homeland Defense vs. terrorists?

After he admitted that this was a war of 'choice, not necessity' ( a wonderful euphemism for an unprovoked, needless invasion!) and admitted that Bush had lied to the people, Friedman said the lies were necessary because we did well to topple Saddam and nudge the Middle East toward democracy.

It's now obvious that we're nudging Iraq toward partition (perhaps following civil war) ,not toward democracy. Anyone who remembered the situation in Yugoslavia would know that an 'all/Iraq' democratic govt. composed of hostile Kurds, Sunni/Arabs and Shiites was absolutely impossible.

He warns that the Katrina disaster, exposing the uncaring incompetence of the Bushies, may destroy 'a Presidency' as well as a city.
The polls show that this presidency has already been destroyed. And our country has been gravely wounded.
-------------
On Friday, Tom presumes to give advice to Iraqis ! NYTIMES
(He says he's their friend--but they may doubt that.)

He points out the obvious, that soon the Yanks will bug out. What then?

If Iraq constitution allows for pluralism within a central administration, and satisfies all 3 growling groups, then Iraq will be stable and democratic.

Yes, and if the Rapture comes first, Iraq won't have to worry about what happens later.
-----------------
Just consider the problem of oil: suppose the central administration, controlled by Shiites, with some input from Kurds--who have already defacto seceded!-- and from Sunnis suddenly converted from their addiction to slaughter..suppose the new govt.says it will give a fair share of oil-money to the Sunni/Arabs.

Trustingly these Sunni/Arabs disband their guerillas, and the government insures their disarmament. Then suppose the government (where Sunnis would be outvoted 4 to 1 at best) cuts off their oil money.

In other words, how can the Shiites & Kurds GUARANTEE a fair share of oil-money to the Sunni/Arabs, over the years? Until Tom describes such a workable guarantee, the Sunnis would be fools to disarm.

They're not such fools. They seem to be, instead, fools who'll fight to the death.In that case, the Shiites will also secede, and set up a defensible border, and let the Sunnis eat camel-dung. If they give up on defending their territory, they'll massacre the Sunnis--outnumbering them 3 to 1.

The Yanks will have no influence on this outcome. The sooner we bug out the better; the later the worse.

SOME AMERICANS AS BAD OFF AS IN 3D-WORLD COUNTRIES says UN report. INDEPENDENT

This is really no news to people paying attention. Under GOP govt., approved by a small majority of stupid or selfish people, our 'SAFETY NET' has been ripped to shreds.

The selfish white church-going males, owning homes in suburbs, and voting GOP, had better get worried. We are all under constant threat of a germ-attack on our Homeland.

Terrorists, knowing how our poor regions have only vestigial public health programs, would travel along, say, Greyhound buslines in the South, spreading some lethal virus.

By the time this pandemic was diagnosed, and before adequate quarantines could be put into place--Bushies have made weak efforts to develop and distribute vaccines--the disease would have spread to the well-to-do--and wouldn't they deserve it ?!

Trouble is, all of us well-to-do liberals who vote regularly to keep and repair safety net for the poor--we also, as well as our families, will be infected. But that's life, as Jesus noted:
THE RAIN, IT RAINETH EVERY DAY
UPON THE JUST AND UNJUST FELLA--
BUT MORE UPON THE JUST , BECAUSE
THE UNJUST HAS THE JUST'S UMBRELLA.
[Here I paraphrased.]

FORTY-ONE CASUALTIES IN SHIITE BASRA!-- including 4 Americans, from 2 bombs.
NYTIMES

U.S. generals planned to pull out of NAJAF in Shiite region, thinking things were peaceful enough there that our native militia could guarantee security. (They'd love to pull out of whole Shiite area !)

Guerillas may have struck in Basra just to show that NO PLACE in Arab/Iraq is safe. (Inner section of Kurd region seems to be secure, even with hardly any U.S.troops needed there.)

Basra, controlled by Brits, was pretty calm--but lately attacks there on Brit occupiers have spiked. There are hundreds of thousands of Sunni living in the Shiite region; from among these, guerillas can be recruited and hidden.

deFacto SECESSION: Back in January Kurds voted overwhelmingly to name delegates to the Shiite-dominated 'parliament'. But at the same time, in a non-binding referendum, they voted overwhelmingly to SECEDE from Iraq.

Why the pretended cooperation in the 'all/Iraq' fiction? Because Kurds know that their formal independence is opposed by Turkey, Iran, and most important, U.S. One educated Kurd was amused to be asked, "In the future, will Kurds want to be a part of Iraq?"
He responded, "We're not part of Iraq now!" FinTimes

Indeed, the Sunni representatives didn't oppose 'federal autonomy' for the Kurdish regions, accepting it as a fait accompli. Their objection was to such autonomy for the Shiite region; it has most of Iraq's oil, and its only seaport. And very likely it will be allied with Shiite Iran, the Sunnis' hated enemy.

Whether the Sunnis manage to veto the present constitution or not, they can't stop the Shia from deFacto secession like that of the Kurds, with their militias running things in that region, NOT the largely-fictitious 'all/Iraq' army & police-force set up by the Americans.

The Zarqawist (Sunni) guerillas seem to WANT Shiite secession--or at least their enthusiastic slaughter of Shiites will inevitably bring secession about.
If the Saddamite wing of the guerillas were really afraid of Shiite secession, you'd think they'd have repressed this slaughter.

It may be that frothing Sunni hatred of Shiites is stronger than any concern for the future. They will end up with only sand, little oil.

BUSH CALLS FOR REFINERS TO BOOST OUTPUT: Over 60% of Americans think the President COULD solve the 'expensive gas' problem.
So Bush has finally asked the refineries (which were making huge profits on the gas-shortage) to postpone 'maintenance' and also production of 'clean' diesel, in order to boost immediate output of petrol products. FinTimes

It's conceivable that refineries all had to cut back production for necessary maintenance. But given the huge jump in profits, who would believe them when they made that excuse? It seems more likely that they're colluding to keep up gas prices.

They probably want the GOP kept in power; so they might respond to Bush's plea..since 76% of Americans blame Bush for high gas-prices !
By the way, wholesale prices for gas went down, but NOT retail prices !
Every agent in the chain is profiteering.

FINALLY AWAKENING!

Over 50% disapprove of Bush in general. (41% approve).

Only 20% approve of his handling of expensive gas crisis/76% disapprove. (Isn't this a gas ?!)
--------------------------
About Iraq: 61%: "not worth the costs'.

55% WANT SOME OR ALL TROOPS PULLED OUT !
(pulling out some would be insane--so they're really calling for ALL OUT.)

56%: Iraq will NEVER get stabilized. 2 to 1: Bush is not telling how bad Iraq situation is./

Only 40% approve his handling of Iraq.

Only 16% think his Iraq campaign will lessen threat of terror.

82% think U.S.casualties will not lessen in next year.
--------------------------
Only 53% trust him on Terror issue (this is way down!)

Handling 'Katrina' crisis? 38% approve, 55% disapprove.
----------
38% approve of his handling of economy; 32% health-care.

In all these disasters, about 30% remain pig-headed loyal (except about gas prices!)
PublicOpinionWatch

MORE POLLS:
28% said Bush did all he could to hurry help to N.O./67% said he didn't.

Majority: domestic affairs more important than terrorism (they're probably shocked by high gas prices.)

38% approve his handling of Katrina crisis; 58% disapprove.

Here's a change: A year ago, 64% said he was a 'strong leader';
now only 48% say so. REUTERS

BUSH 'CHARM' A FLOP: Bush has made 3 'charm' visits to Europe since his re-election. Results? Only 20% of Europeans and 20% of Americans think transatlantic relations have improved in the last year. GUARDIAN

We're no longer 'LEADER OF FREE WORLD.' 59% of Europeans think U.S. dominance is undesirable. Bloomberg

[Advance comments: The long GUARDIAN piece below questions claims about wholesale crime-wave in N.O.'Dome'.
One possible motive for spreading these rumors: to justify obvious federal preference for protecting businesses from looters, over rescuing survivors. ]
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Murder and rape - fact or fiction?
Gary Younge in Baton Rouge Tuesday September 6, 2005 The Guardian

There were two babies who had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement in the convention centre.
In a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out.

But as time goes on many remain unsubstantiated and may yet prove to be apocryphal.
New Orleans police have been unable to confirm the tale of the raped child, or indeed any of the reports of rapes, in the Superdome and convention centre.
New Orleans police chief Eddie Compass said last night: "We don't have any substantiated rapes. We will investigate if the individuals come forward."
And while many claim they happened, no witnesses, survivors or survivors' relatives have come forward.
Nor has the source for the story of the murdered babies, or indeed their bodies, been found. And while the floor of the convention centre toilets were indeed covered in excrement, the Guardian found no corpses.

During a week when communications were difficult, rumours have acquired a particular currency. They acquired through repetition the status of established facts.
One French journalist from the daily newspaper Libération was given precise information that 1,200 people had drowned at Marion Abramson school on 5552 Read Boulevard. Nobody at the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the New Orleans police force has been able to verify that.
But then FEMA could not confirm there were thousands of people at the Convention Center until they were told by the press for the simple reason that they did not know.
"Katrina's winds have left behind an information vacuum. And that vacuum has been filled by rumour.

"There is nothing to correct wild reports that armed gangs have taken over the convention centre," wrote Associated Press writer, Allen Breed.
"You can report them but you at least have to say they are unsubstantiated and not pass them off as fact," said one Baltimore-based journalist.
"But nobody is doing that."

Either way these rumours have had an effect.
Reports of the complete degradation and violent criminals running rampant in the Superdome suggested a crisis that both hastened the relief effort and demonised those who were stranded.
By the end of last week the media in Baton Rouge reported that evacuees from New Orleans were carjacking and that guns and knives were being seized in local shelters where riots were erupting.
The local mayor responded accordingly.
"We do not want to inherit the looting and all the other foolishness that went on in New Orleans," Kip Holden was told the Baton Rouge Advocate.
"We do not want to inherit that breed that seeks to prey on other people."

The trouble, wrote Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune is that "scarcely any of it was true - the police confiscated a single knife from a refugee in one Baton Rouge shelter".
"There were no riots in Baton Rouge. There were no armed hordes."

Similarly when the first convoy of national guardsmen went into New Orleans approached the convention centre they were ordered to "lock and load".
But when they arrived they were confronted not by armed mobs but a nurse wearing a T-shirt that read "I love New Orleans".
"She ran down a broken escalator, then held her hands in the air when she saw the guns," wrote the LA Times.
"We have sick kids up here!" she shouted. "We have dehydrated kids! One kid with sickle cell!"