Memorial Day - 2007
Arlington West this morning:
Along the fine line dividing the beach from the green, you can pick out an array of 3,000 miniature crosses in the process of being erected. Their Stars and Stripes have not yet been attached. There should be 3,454 crosses (our KIA's in Iraq are surging - another 20 in the last three days), but the city elders put their foot down and has limited each Sunday's memorial display to 3,000. Nevertheless, Americans will not stop counting.
Along the fine line dividing the beach from the green, you can pick out an array of 3,000 miniature crosses in the process of being erected. Their Stars and Stripes have not yet been attached. There should be 3,454 crosses (our KIA's in Iraq are surging - another 20 in the last three days), but the city elders put their foot down and has limited each Sunday's memorial display to 3,000. Nevertheless, Americans will not stop counting.(Click to enlarge.)
posted by Vigilante at 5/27/2007 04:20:00 PM
23 Moderated Comments:
'Americans' never 'started counting' They allowed, as a people, for this to happen. Americans should be held in contempt for that. I have no respect for a system that 'kills' its citizens for special interest causes.
Oil was the reason, and also support of a neighboring group of religious fanatics, that do not have a secular country.
Israel is as responsible for this 'war', as America is also.
The same religious group that has ties to another religious group here, were the ones that formulated, and precipitated the conflict.
This religious group is promoting their religion, rather than promoting an objective, wise, and fair policy toward its own citizens.
These two religious groups mostly run the United States, with lobbyists, who have made it possible to transfer hundreds of billions of dollars into the pockets of their friends, while draining the resources of North America, so they can become become rich in 'money'.
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It is a sad thing that those unfortunate people have died for abstract Political and Religious concepts, that are working in the worse interest of our country.
How're things going in Iraq? Obama will tell you.
I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma,,,,
...and when the final history of our ChickenHawk-in-Chief is written, he will look like a piece of... never mind.
Let us honor the warriors, as we despise the war.
Yes, well-said, Tommy. And your posting of JRE's inspiring Memorial Day statement was awesome.
Authentic religiousity (or spirituality) has nothing to do with the conflicts in Iraq. "Religious" dogma is used as smoke and mirrors for political expediency and economic greed--and we need to call them on it. Naming labels is not as effective as calling out behavior, especially the hypocritical crap.
Non-partisan, that's great. First of all, he voted against the Iraq legislation. =
His comment that "McCain required a flap jacket, 10 armoured humvees... and 100 soldiers by his side so he could go strolling through Iraq..." is priceless
Of course, let us not forget that, according to McCain, Iraq is "perfectly safe."
I have to agree with Skip, that you had all the necessary information at your disposal to avoid this fiasco in Iraq. You, as citizens, also had/have the ways and means to prevent such foolishness from happening or continuing. It just doesn't wash to simply point your collective finger at the group of mean bastards in the White House and innocently claim that they made you to do it. Granted, the bastards should pay for this but that should not give you, as a nation, the immunity from the world's justifiable scorn and condemnation. Shit happens, to this extent, only if it is allowed to.
Pekka that was well said! I couldn't agree more, as hard as that is.
I agree with you, Skip. Bush's entire period of time as president has been based on religiosity rather than religion and flag-waving rather than true patiotism. Trouble is, there are so many suckers for that.
Hi, Emily. That's exactly why I wanted the Congress to force Bush to call for a draft (which I knew he wouldn't do) if he wanted the funds for the war. I had another option too, but am too tired to remember it.
Right on Skip, Pekka!
No turning around could alter the fact that Bush got away with what he did because the nation allowed him to do it.
Yessiree.
The final, money paragraph from an excellent DKos Diary, To the Green Zone:
If you want to have an empire, you must run risks. If you want to fight a war, you must be willing to sacrifice your sons. We Americans sensibly don’t want to take risks, we certainly don’t want our sons to die. Despite our predilection for Rambo movies, we are not a warrior race. We are trading people. If we want Middle East oil, we need no bases here, we just need to pay the going rate. Let us return to our commercial roots. The lust for empire has done America no good. We don’t have the talent for it, and even if we did, in today’s world the profit is in commerce, not war.
I'm sorry but Skip's argument that "two religious groups" mostly run this country is so f-ing random you could also say:
"A group of bullies and a group of sychophants" mostly run this country but it would have more meaning.
What God do these people serve? Themselves!!!!
Yes, they USE religion to float their crap but that doesn't mean that religion is responsible for their bull-shit. Does eliminating religion solve the problem? I think revealing their hypocrisy is more effective that damning the whole group--and its the truth.
The truth is, the neocons UNETHICAL secularists who are using religion to control their rhetoric to convince believers. It's not religion's fault that the press doesn't question Bush's faith. I WILL!
NO true Christian sends an army of mostly poor and minority soldiers into a slaughter house for oil while the poor get poorer and the rich get richer in this country. IF HE DOES, HE'S A LIE! No true Jew sends an army of mostly poor and minority soldiers into a slaughter house for oil while the poor get poorer and the rich get richer in this country, in an anti-intellectual way. IF HE DOES, HE'S A LIE! Yes an AMERICAN has, and an ISRAELI-sympathizer has.
But I don't even buy the main thrust of your argument.
The REAL reasons most Americans support this war is because they want cheap oil and they are scared we'll get bombed or the Middle East will go to hell if we pull out too quickly--not because of any deeply held religious beliefs. When someone spurts one out "oh, we're saving schools!" you can poke a hole in it very quickly "Is that worth half a million dead Iraqis?", and then they'll say, "But what are we going to do for oil?!" So what's our response? Blame Christianity (the hypocrit's bull-shit cover) when the real reason that people are cool with this war is GREED? I don't think the majority of churches support this occupation. Call a spade a spade!
Even if I grant you that the Neocons are trying to promote their "religion" (which is B.S.--promoting Judaism is NOT the same thing as promoting Israel, although we do conflate them a lot), their judgement is off and they are piss poor at it. I seriously wonder if Israeli leadership wanted their seemingly hermetic cabalistic (I don't know) help at all; Israel is more vulnerable now than ever.
There are no REAL, RELIGIOUS CONCEPTS that are being promoted in this conflict.
It's WAY TOO EASY to blame religions for what disturbed people do, and frankly, I would hope that I am not the only who is very disturbed when we start to blame whole cultures for individual sins. Yeah, it's much harder to name the real issues instead.
Hi Vigilante, sorry for the rant, next time I'll carry on at my place!
Urban Pink, thank you for the very 'American' comment.
You may be a text book case of just exactly the type of person I was trying to describe.
I take it that you are a 'religious' person, since you are talking about the 'true' religion, that somehow you think exists. People that 'believe' in religion are victims. They generally think they are perfectly happy with the lies and myths that have been used to manipulate our country down the garden path, to chaos in the middle east.
I am not aware of any religion that is not based on lies. Most 'religious' people are unconscious soldiers for the powers that be.
All and any religion is grounded in bigotry.
That is a reality check from my point of view of what you call the 'real issues'.
Your opinion is just as good as any other opinion though.
The REAL reasons most Americans support this war is because they want cheap oil and they are scared we'll get bombed or the Middle East will go to hell if we pull out too quickly--not because of any deeply held religious beliefs.
Have to agree. Convince them that gasoline will be 10 cents a gallon as soon as we leave Iraq and they'd all be dancing naked in the streets to end the war.
Skip, you can try to make this as personal as you want, but that's not the point.
I do believe in God, when I'm feeling lucky, but I also hold a lot of contempt for nearly every organized religion because they often fail to actually produce loving and healthy families. Yes, that's part of our cultural problem--but that's not why we're in Iraq right now.
My point is that blaming religions for Iraq is as bad an idea as was invading Iraq to fight terrorism. It's off the target.
The problems in our country today involve greed, corruption, criminal neglect and a compliant, irresponsible mass media. We should be impeaching our President, but we're not. That's not because he's Christian, it's because his crimes are being excused because very few people want to take responsibility for justice and truth. We are actually an extremely tolerant nation (the majority of us avoid extremes) but that can get us stuck into these extreme messes (Karl Rove knows this about America). That's why we need courageous leaders and journalists to bring us out of the lull of tolerance. Just because the fringe evangelicals support Bush (and have good organizing abilities) does not make them an American majority by a long shot, they are just a Republican party majority, and still they could not sustain the situation we are in right now if it weren't for other, more compelling reasons in the American psyche (as a result of the propagandic right wing and press). In government we have a systemic problem of powerful people, slaves to money, who use distraction of any sort to keep from dealing with our country's real problems (like me not cleaning my kitchen right now). It matters not a whit what f-ing someone is. I think you're wildly off target. Again, the mainstream churches and temples in this country are AGAINST this war. I'm pretty sure that most Americans support this war because of oil greed/dependence (just like the first Gulf War) and terror. America is full of freaked out addicts, not fanatics.
I agree with a lot of your analysis about this war, but I think your religious bias is warping the strength of your arguments. It's such an easy target, but it's only a symptom of our national disease--anti-democratic self-interest (in a word, hate).
I enthusiastically support and associate myself with Urban Pink's statement.
Many in our society value 'belief' over rationality and hence genuflect at the alter of tyranny.
'Democracy' is a concept by which we measure some of our pain in this society.
Democracy is something that happened in the 5th cent.b.c.- in Athens.
It has little or nothing to do concerning how America is 'run'.
Two groups run America. Interests of Globalism, and abstracted belief system groups.
Neither of those groups is acting in the best interests of Americans.
Both of those groups have an 'agenda'.
Both agendas are similar in that they are special interest groups that deprive the average citizen of their rights and benefits.
Religious groups are actually hate mongering in the sense that they provide bigoted material to brainwash their group with in order to further their agenda, and to make money.
Globalism groups employ religious groups to be 'front men' to their scams to make money, by buying up the media, and linking religiosity to 'mom, apple pie, and fighting a war that takes breaks for prayer meetings'
Bush called the war a 'crusade' at the beginning.
It is and was a crusade to make money for special interests and further the agenda of religious groups in the U.S.
Those groups believe that their messiah is coming back, perhaps shortly, or coming for the first time, as some of them think, and that the foreign policy of the United States should be at the mercy of a country that is not a secular country.
Israel and the United states are now inexorably tied together by special interests of Globalism and religious concepts.
How is it that not a very apparent reality for anyone to see ?
The 'war' in the middle east is set to expand shortly.
Iran is considered the most dire enemy of Israel.
Why sleep walk through this situation without naming names and pointing fingers ?
I was not trying to make anything personal in particular.
You do say though that you believe in 'God' as part of your explanation of all this, and that your 'god' is not followed by most people in America correctly.
Would that 'god' of yours by any chance look like an elderly gentleman with a long flowing beard, that was originally conjured up in the middle east out of thin air and blue sky ?
The quickest way to end the Iraq war to is reestablish the draft. In 1967, the draft was something every young man had to deal with. Whether it was to wait for the letter, go to graduate school, join up, find a friendly shrink or move to Canada, it was a decision that had to be made. When the war becomes less abstract, as it is in most American towns not located near military bases, opposition to it will become a genuine, personal issue. When every family is looking at their son (and maybe daughter) possibly heading off to deadly war, the resultant outcry will bring the country and the war to a stop. Then, perhaps, our troops' patriotism, courage, dedication and training can be directed toward stopping terrorism, not attempting to police a local sectarian conflict.
The all-volunteer Army may have been formed in part to prevent adventuresome presidents from fighting unpopular wars, but the main reason for its existence is much more important: The all-volunteer Army exists so that people like Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush do not have to waste their otherwise valuable time dodging the draft or pulling strings to get into the National Guard.
Ite, is not your idea a little like selling one of your family members into prostitution, so that they can entertain an enemy that was a made up enemy to begin with?
I fail to see your logic, unless you think like a crab. A crab has to go forward by going sideways.
This is not 1967, and the American public is not as smart as they were then.
In fact these days they might embrace your plan, and that would supply more bodies for the antics of our mercenary force for big business Globalism.
The United States is a far cry from the interesting and creative place it was in the 1960`s.
American have become fat, lazy, and stupid since then. Oh I left out ignorant.
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