Sunday, March 22, 2009

Israeli Kid Soldiers ordered to kill Civilians


Why do they do this again and again? It's good for business.

http://sites.google.com/site/grandcommitteeofpublicsafety/files/il-targeted-kill.pdf

This link is an internal study by the 2005 Bank of Israel leaked to cryptome.org last week. Thanks to John Young for this breakthrough...

"Targeted Killings: Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Counterterrorism Policy"
by Asaf Zussman & Noam Zussman. The study is a thinly disguised investment guide for those on the inside of the Israeli power structure to figure out how to properly place bets when the IDF goes in to kill and to instruct the IDF on whats good for business and what's not. It seems that when Palestinian political leaders are assassinated the Israeli stocks go down but when the IDF kills military leaders the Israeli stocks go up. Now isn't that special?

Paul Tillich would not be surprised that God is most definitely dead in Israel.
These people are so disgusting and their collective horror so pronounced that fiction pales in the light of the reality. Documents like this need the light of day.

michael jordan

Monday, March 16, 2009

Statement from the family of Rachel Corrie


We thank all who continue to remember Rachel and those who, on this sixth anniversary of her stand in Gaza, renew their own commitments to human rights, justice and peace in the Middle East. The tributes and actions in her memory are a source of inspiration to us and to others.

Friday, March 13th, we learned of the tragic injury to American activist Tristan Anderson. Tristan was shot in the head with a tear-gas canister in Ni’lin Village in the West Bank when Israeli forces attacked a demonstration opposing the construction of the annexation wall through the village’s land. On the same day, a Ni’lin resident was, also, shot in the leg with live ammunition. Four residents of Ni’lin have been killed in the past eight months as villagers and their supporters have courageously demonstrated against the Apartheid Wall deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice—a wall that will ultimately absorb one-quarter of the village’s remaining land. Those who have died are a ten-year-old child Ahmed Mousa, shot in the forehead with live ammunition on July 29, 2008; Yousef Amira (17) shot with rubber-coated steel bullets on July 30, 2008; Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22) and Mohammed Khawaje (20), both shot and killed with live ammunition on December 28, 2008. On this anniversary, Rachel would want us all to hold Tristan Anderson and his family and these Palestinians and their families in our thoughts and prayers, and we ask everyone to do so.

We are writing this message from Cairo where we returned after a visit to Gaza with the Code Pink Delegation from the United States. Fifty-eight women and men successfully passed through Rafah Crossing on Saturday, March 7th to challenge the border closures and siege and to celebrate International Women’s Day with the strong and courageous women of Gaza. Rachel would be very happy that our spirited delegation made this journey. North to south throughout the Strip, we witnessed the sweeping destruction of neighborhoods, municipal buildings, police stations, mosques, and schools –casualties of the Israeli military assaults in December and January. When we asked about the personal impact of the attacks on those we met, we heard repeatedly of the loss of mothers, fathers, children, cousins, and friends. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reports 1434 Palestinian dead and over 5000 injured, among them 288 children and 121 women.

We walked through the farming village of Khoza in the South where fifty homes were destroyed during the land invasion. A young boy scrambled through a hole in the rubble to show us the basement he and his family crouched in as a bulldozer crushed their house upon them. We heard of Rafiya who lead the frightened women and children of this neighborhood away from threatening Israeli military bulldozers, only to be struck down and killed by an Israeli soldier’s sniper fire as she walked in the street carrying her white flag.

Repeatedly, we were told by Palestinians, and by the internationals on the ground supporting them, that there is no ceasefire. Indeed, bomb blasts from the border area punctuated our conversations as we arrived and departed Gaza. On our last night, we sat by a fire in the moonlight in the remains of a friend’s farmyard and listened to him tell of how the Israeli military destroyed his home in 2004, and of how this second home was shattered on February 6th. This time, it was Israeli rockets from Apache helicopters that struck the house, A stand of wheat remained and rustled soothingly in the breeze as we talked, but our attention shifted quickly when F-16s streaked high across the night sky. and our friend explained that if the planes tipped to the side, they would strike. Everywhere, the psychological costs of the recent and ongoing attacks for all Gazans, but especially for the children, were sadly apparent. It is not only those who suffer the greatest losses that carry the scars of all that has happened. It is those, too, who witnessed from their school bodies flying in the air when police cadets were bombed across the street and those who felt and heard the terrifying blasts of missiles falling near their own homes. It is the children who each day must walk past the unexplainable and inhumane destruction that has occurred.

In Rachel’s case, though a thorough, credible and transparent investigation was promised by the Israeli Government, after six years, the position of the U.S. Government remains that such an investigation has not taken place. In March 2008, Michele Bernier-Toff, Managing Director of the Office of Overseas Citizen Services at the Department of State wrote, “We have consistently requested that the Government of Israel conduct a full and transparent investigation into Rachel’s death. Our requests have gone unanswered or ignored.” Now, the attacks on all the people of Gaza and the recent one on Tristan Anderson in Ni’lin cry out for investigation and accountability. We call on President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and members of Congress to act with fortitude and courage to ensure that the atrocities that have occurred are addressed by the Israeli Government and through relevant international and U.S. law. We ask them to act immediately and persistently to stop the impunity enjoyed by the Israeli military, not to encourage it.

Despite the pain, we have once again felt privileged to enter briefly into the lives of Rachel’s Palestinian friends in Gaza. We are moved by their resilience and heartened by their song, dance, and laughter amidst the tears. Rachel wrote in 2003, “I am nevertheless amazed at their strength in being able to defend such a large degree of their humanity–laughter, generosity, family time—against the incredible horror occurring in their lives…..I am also discovering a degree of strength and of the basic ability for humans to remain human in the direst of circumstances…I think the word is dignity.” On this sixth anniversary of Rachel’s killing, we echo her sentiments.

Sincerely,
Cindy and Craig Corrie
On behalf of our family

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Charles Freeman's Statement


"To all who supported me or gave me words of encouragement during the controversy of the past two weeks, you have my gratitude and respect. You will by now have seen the statement by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair reporting that I have withdrawn my previous acceptance of his invitation to chair the National Intelligence Council.

I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office. The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue. I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country. I agreed to chair the NIC to strengthen it and protect it against politicization, not to introduce it to efforts by a special interest group to assert control over it through a protracted political campaign.

As those who know me are well aware, I have greatly enjoyed life since retiring from government. Nothing was further from my mind than a return to public service. When Admiral Blair asked me to chair the NIC I responded that I understood he was "asking me to give my freedom of speech, my leisure, the greater part of my income, subject myself to the mental colonoscopy of a polygraph, and resume a daily commute to a job with long working hours and a daily ration of political abuse." I added that I wondered "whether there wasn't some sort of downside to this offer." I was mindful that no one is indispensable; I am not an exception. It took weeks of reflection for me to conclude that, given the unprecedentedly challenging circumstances in which our country now finds itself abroad and at home, I had no choice but accept the call to return to public service. I thereupon resigned from all positions that I had held and all activities in which I was engaged. I now look forward to returning to private life, freed of all previous obligations.

I am not so immodest as to believe that this controversy was about me rather than issues of public policy. These issues had little to do with the NIC and were not at the heart of what I hoped to contribute to the quality of analysis available to President Obama and his administration. Still, I am saddened by what the controversy and the manner in which the public vitriol of those who devoted themselves to sustaining it have revealed about the state of our civil society. It is apparent that we Americans cannot any longer conduct a serious public discussion or exercise independent judgment about matters of great importance to our country as well as to our allies and friends.

The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East. The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.

There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government – in this case, the government of Israel. I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel. It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so. This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.

The outrageous agitation that followed the leak of my pending appointment will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues. I regret that my willingness to serve the new administration has ended by casting doubt on its ability to consider, let alone decide what policies might best serve the interests of the United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a foreign government.

In the court of public opinion, unlike a court of law, one is guilty until proven innocent. The speeches from which quotations have been lifted from their context are available for anyone interested in the truth to read. The injustice of the accusations made against me has been obvious to those with open minds. Those who have sought to impugn my character are uninterested in any rebuttal that I or anyone else might make.

Still, for the record: I have never sought to be paid or accepted payment from any foreign government, including Saudi Arabia or China, for any service, nor have I ever spoken on behalf of a foreign government, its interests, or its policies. I have never lobbied any branch of our government for any cause, foreign or domestic. I am my own man, no one else's, and with my return to private life, I will once again – to my pleasure – serve no master other than myself. I will continue to speak out as I choose on issues of concern to me and other Americans.

I retain my respect and confidence in President Obama and DNI Blair. Our country now faces terrible challenges abroad as well as at home. Like all patriotic Americans, I continue to pray that our president can successfully lead us in surmounting them."

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Madoff to get glass slippers and a golden coach for punishment.

Politics! Politics! Politics! The Israel Lobby>> Rahm Emmanuel>> Jack Abramoff>> Susan Ralston>>Harriet Myers>>Karl Rove>>Andrew Card>> Karen Hughes>>Netanyahoo>>Ariel Sharon>> George W. Bush >>>>>>Bernie Madoff. None of this is going to be investigated because Bernie Madoff was the National Treasurer of the American Jewish Congress which sends funds to the World Jewish Congress located in Geneva which is the "diplomatic arm of the Jewish people". Geneva is the home of the UBS United Bank of Switzerland which is the most important large bank on earth and holds the secret accounts of all of the worlds' thieves. Bernie's missing money is likely at UBS except for the chump change $47 Million dollars his wife kept. All of these people have been working together to make sure that Israel never runs out of bombs and bullets and Bernie Madoff and Jack Abramoff made sure during the Bush administration that the ocean of money stolen went mostly to Israel and what did not is still in Geneva in secret numbered Swiss bank accounts until it is drawn against to buy tanks to kill Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese by the Israeli government. This is the way the world works, pure and simple. 

These folks never seem to have enough money but now Bernie only has to give the numbers to Ehud Olmert... The World Jewish Congress is actually active in helping Geneva keep the accounts and their contents secret against the claims of the US Internal Revenue Service which recently won a judgment of allowing the US Treasury to recover $750 million dollars in February. The IRS knows there is more there but the only way that would happen is if we were to invade Switzerland. The legal battles take years and none of this will be worked out until Obama's daughters graduate from college. At least the Israelis are happy to be insulated protected from a Democrat US president who traditionally tends to feel some sympathy for the Palestinians. With Emmanuel working for the POTUS this is somewhat cloudy but Ehud Olmert and Shimon Peres can rest assured that this Democratic administration will not do anything to make Israel stop the killing and the maiming. Hillary is just pretending to have some sympathy for the Gaza victims right now but she certainly remembers who brought her to the dance in the US Senate from New York so I wouldn't count on her to weigh in. Money! Money! Money!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Bushian Education Plan?

This is by far the craziest idea he has discussed. Laying down the complete Bush plan, blaming teachers, ignoring the dried up funds and the necessity for local bond issues to pay salaries which go for years without contracts like in Richmond, CA. And then splitting off money to the charter schools which cherry pick their students to make themselves look successful, work their teachers in non-union environments for longer hours and lower pay.  

If you think teaching is so easy try it. You wake up at 5 in the morning, work on administrative chores until you catch the bus at 6:30am, arrive at school, pick up the lunches, then get the kids off the bus and in their seats by 9:00Am to lead the pledge under a picture of the President. Then it is teachable moments in block time and always an extra meeting to squeeze in so you always miss your 20 minute lunch. and then kids are on the bus or waiting in your classroom after class ends at 2:40 and it is 3PM before you have time to go to the bathroom. You are used to this however and never drink water during the day. Dehydration and kidney stones down the road for you but you don't have time now to worry because there is a teacher's meeting until 3:30PM and a parent is coming by for a visit. You finally get a bus back home miss one connection but make another and wolf down some food and it is 6:45PM. Then it is grade papers, post benchmarks to the database and develop a powerpoint presentation for the Easter/Spring program. It is now time for the 10 o'clock news and then Letterman and hope you are able to fall asleep within the hour because it starts again at 5AM. It has been this way for over 20 years. Public school. Down and dirty.  

For poor public school students ...normal students confused by their parents racial animosities being lived out in their lives. Being encouraged to fight their way out of the hood Race war. Mean (really mean) cops. Homicides all the time. Drug wars in the neighborhood, drive-bys. More than a K-3 can possibly be expected to comprehend. Grow up fast. Get tough. Feel bad when you overstep your toughness and hurt somebody. Wounds take a long time to heal. There is that bully who hits you all the time and looks for you on the playground, sits behind you and kicks your chair...Dad loses his job and beats you and you start to withdraw into a place you will never leave...Teacher asks you about the bruise and is required to bring it to the child protective services...now when Dad gets mad he talks about the teacher and draws you into the spiral of hatred...things get worse...until Dad leaves home...  

"unprecedented commitment to ensure that anyone entrusted with educating our children is doing the job as well as it can be done." ..."We need to make sure our students have the teacher they need to be successful. That means states and school districts taking steps to move bad teachers out of the classroom. Let me be clear: if a teacher is given a chance but still does not improve, there is no excuse for that person to continue teaching." -Barack Obama 10 march 2009

--what a totally arrogant and elitist thing to say Barry. Kids are a product of their early parentally controlled environment. When they reach 6 they are 85% formed. Good parents = good kids. But in the school environment parents often behave like typical Americans and refuse to read to their kids in English. For 60% of my students' parents, school allowed them to work by babysitting their kids. This is not your LA law kind of family. It is part-time or unemployed and food stamps and WIC.  It is living in a car and getting to school anyway...handout clothes collected by the teacher over the years...

"The challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom," ..."If they can do that in South Korea, we can do it right here in the United States of America." -Barack Obama 10 march 2009

--This sounds like forcing more free daycare on teachers by extending their hours and days for the benefit of some sort of mercantile renaissance you are having in mind. Using Korea is very bad framing... something starts to concern me....just doesn't feel right...

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Setting it straight for "Prof." Murray Kahl

( A little dust up at the Contra Costa Times)

Let me set this right now "Professor" Murray Kahl.  You sat there in your West Palm Beach apartment with Rush Limbaugh on the radio feeding you Bush warmongering headline rants regarding the inevititability of Saddam Hussein attacking Israel prior to the rape of Iraq by the US and you decided to do your part to kill Arabs by writing this war-mongering nonsense to bring about the war in Iraq in the waning months of 2002.  Directly quoting you now from your website:

"The possibility of an Iraqi preemptive strike against Israel in order to forestall a U.S. strike is not an abstract notion, because - as revealed in Yossef Bodansky's new and deeply insightful book "The High Cost of Peace" - Iraq has already demonstrated its penchant for such dangerous provocations. Indeed, from its very first days in office, the Bush Administration has been tested by Saddam Hussein with risky brinkmanship. Significantly, these Iraqi upsurges were not only in the context of the long standing Saddam-Arafat treaty according to which Iraq will launch a major war against Israel in order to save the Palestinians - with Saddam assuming in the process the long-coveted position of Leader of the Arab World - but as an Iraqi demonstration of defiance and hostility to the new Administration. In mid February 2001, Baghdad put the Bush Administration to its first major test - bringing the Middle East to the verge of a major and potentially nuclear war, while setting the stage for the still escalating U.S. crisis with Iraq." --Murray Kahl, "Israel Prepared for Preemption with Neutron Weapons: Almost went to nuclear war in late February."http://www.free-lebanon.com/LFPNews/neutron/neutron.html

Talk about striking out swinging with devastating impotence! None of your visions of Iraqi strength was/is worth a crumb of attention. Those of us who were actually paying attention and watching the news every night saw nothing but a pitiful leader Saddam Hussein who was armed with only a shotgun and surrounded with a 4 1/2 foot stack of documents detailing what had been done in his disarmament of the country.  No airforce.  No weapons of mass destruction.  Hans Blick did a great job in searching along with Scott Ritter for any signs of a military ability to threaten anyone in the region and found absolutely nothing.  

And with a million dead thanks to your contracted warmongering and 7 years of searching for weapons --nothing.  You got the only person who was able to control Iraq hanged by a mob and you can personally account for the daily buckets of body parts which you lobbied for in American and Iraqi blood.  The Israelis are still killing Palestinians with 150-1 kill ratios and the Nakba is still going full bore and you prattle on about your "historical skills".  Let me tell you something Mr Kahl, your "history" is at best a craven interpretive diversion made up of wholesale lies for the benefit of those in apartments in Tel Aviv and the cozy Madoff family of American Jewish Congress and AIPAC reactionaries  like yourself who keep the Nakba alive and deadly.  

One thing you said in a Freudian slip at the end of your screed which reveals the alpha and omega of your take of the situation: "Theforthcoming war with Iraq is therefore a timely culmination of a strategic dynamics virtually as old as the Bush Administration."  October 23, 2002 -Murray Kahl on his website http://www.free-lebanon.com/LFPNews/neutron/neutron.html

Well Murray Kahl got his gun...well, well,well, do you feel any better now?  

response by Murray Kahl

I did expect an objective, analytical response, along with specific answers to the historical data I provided that is easily verifiable; however, all I see is politically inspired revisionism, along with old clichés, without foundation in truth. The responses can easily be directed to the dust bin of fictional history.

For example, the term "Old Testament" is part of Christian replacement theology and for the most part not acceptable in any scholarly discussion, yet it is gratuitously tossed out as a response.

I wrote that leaving was the writer's decision and it was. She clearly states that the reason for her leaving were her fears and nothing else. If her fears are justifiable is another discussion and one that must be recognized and not disguised by rambling hyperbole, without any foundation in truth.

Leave the Khazars and the anti-Semitic rants to history and not prove your inability to answer specifics, as all you accomplish is to prove the writers  inability of answering clear and specific charges.

Clarity is a virtue not to be despoiled and to be admired and used whenever possible; this type of response can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog that must be avoided.

response written by Murray Kahl

Saturday, March 07, 2009

History of the Middle East (short version)

A little Cultural Anthropology is in order here:

The amount of willful disinformation on this topic is huge. This is really an attempted land grab which has been going on since it was reawakened by the need for the Allies to appease the Axis powers at the armistice of WW2's European Theater. By allowing the defeated Germans to excise their Jews who had emigrated there from the ghettos of Russia and were causing a lot of unrest due to their strain on the already existent German Catholic and Lutheran economy. Orthodox Russia was too tough for the Jews so they went west to Germany.  The Germans were miserable enough and did not want them there. There was not enough surplus to sustain more people who had a high birthrate even then.

Much Earlier... The entire region from the Ural Steppes to the southernmost reaches of the Arabian Peninsula was a wild west environment for thousands of years. Everyone called themselves Khazars. Then one small group of "chosen" dissenters decided they wanted the choice Med Sea ocean front property and claimed superiority by claiming themselves the direct descendants of God and informing the rest of their neighbors they they were merely human visages of animal spirits wanting to be real human beings. The wrote a manual which laid forth their claims called the "Old Testament" and referred to it as the Bible.  They were good screenwriters even then. They named themselves Jews. As God in human bodies They were more important than their neighbors and therefore needed the best land on the Mediterranean Sea for themselves.

A thousand years passed...much turmoil...bloodshed... The Semitic Jews were not able to control the area but they did learn to get along reasonably with the others who were still not willing to grant them special status. Their Semitic Arab cousins did not share the Jewish belief that the Jews were God's chosen but the Jews did learn how to get along with them and in 1918 both cousins were living relatively peacefully. Then comes the Rockefeller Oil Revolution and the land was the source of riches for the tiring European and Americans who were wearing thin with class and labor issues needed a distraction. So we got the automobile and the manufactured need for oil (railroads were working just fine at the time). 

Suddenly the Middle East was more than a group of feuding in-laws, it was a gold mine. Then WW2 came and went and as a appeasement the appropriation of a separate parcel of land in the service of the Western Empire was made out of whole cloth and called Israel. This was 1948 and the idea was to chase as many Palestinian Arabs out of their home as was needed to empty the coffers of Germany and Austria and Poland of their unwanted Jews. 

Then as the state of Israel thrived due to the draining of the United States Treasury they sought Jewish only settlers from around the world and guaranteed them $58,000 a year in US taxpayer dollars. And they threatened to withdraw this free money if the Jews did not kill Arabs in the surrounding oil rich lands with American and British made weapons. The Jews agreed to kill as many Arabs as they could as long as the Americans and British did not desert them. 

The only thing that will stop this is to cut the Israeli money and keep money from people such as Bernie Madoff from organizing American Jews to send their money into the Greatest Ponzi Scheme of All time -- Israel. I am not sorry that the American Jewish Committee lost so much money along with AIPAC when uncle Bernie Madoff went belly up. Serves them right. America, Love it or Leave it. Invest your money in America not Israel.

And so it goes kids...

Thursday, March 05, 2009

In like a lion...random thoughts on returning mercenaries

There is no honor in this war, there should be no pensions rewarded for doing this or Victorian Crosses...
Shame, nothing but deep, indelible shame everlasting...

Vietnamese killed 3000000
Americans killed 58000
52 Vietnamese killed for every American

Population of Vietnam in 1966 38 million. Approximate number of injuries of the population 21-24 million over the course of the war.
Vietnam is the size of Arizona
6.5 million tons of bombs were dropped on Vietnam
25 million acres of forest destroyed
10,000 hamlets destroyed
11.2 million gallons of Agent orange
400,000 tons of napalm
15 million refugees
For every Vietnamese death Americans dropped over 2 pounds of bombs.
After the war unexploded munitions remained. Dioxin remained.. herbicides remained.
This was not in any way mutual destruction. This was not a fair fight. This was was definitely not a defeat for America it was instead an unqualified success. A most successful genocide, eclipsed only by Germany in WW2. Just killing mostly primitive people in their bamboo homes and burning town after town after town. Done from the safety of the air by sparky high-heeled American boys named McCain who joined to win the love and respect of his father and grandfather and to impress the girls...and this was while only one in 4 thought it was horrid. Four dead in Ohio.

“While claiming to be the champion of freedom and self-determination, the
United States waged a brutal and bloody war on the people of a small country,
both ally and enemy alike, to warn them of the perils of self-determination,
be it nationalist or socialist. Rather than allow the Vietnamese to choose their
own political system, government and social organization, the United States
tried to violently force its preferred system on a people who were not receptive
to it.”

The preceding paragraph along with statistics was published on Monday, April 17, 2000 in Commondreams:
“25 Years After End Of Vietnam War:
Myths Keep Us From Coming To Terms
With Vietnam"
by Bob Buzzanco

sounds dreadfully familiar...there is no honor or glory in this...Join to stop the madness Vietnam Vets Against War.

"The "support the troops" symbolism also comes with a hidden agenda, a subtext that is about the anti-war movement. Understandably, the war brings a lot of emotion to the surface and some of that feeling stems from frustration with the economy, a sense of helplessness in the face of large-scale social and technological change, and fear that cherished American values are being lost. For some people, the real war is the war at home and the enemy coalition comes bundled for them in the anti-war movement. The redirection of their legitimate anger about the deteriorating quality of life in America onto peace activists is shortsighted scapegoating that won't solve problems." -Jerry Lembcke

michael jordan

http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/


"Many tellers of (abuse) tales identify the culprits as girls, a curious quality to the stories that gives away their gendered subtext...emerging a decade after the troops had come home from Vietnam are similar enough to the legends of defeated German soldiers defiled by women upon their return from World War I, and the rejection from women felt by French soldiers when they returned from their lost war in Indochina, to suggest something universal and troubling at work in their making...just fantasies conjured in the imaginations of aging veterans."-Jerry Lembke

michael jordan

http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/

dnoll: One thing never changes. Anyone who says that we were not treated with respect and honor when we returned from Viet Nam wasn't there to begin with. I find that generally they reveal themselves to be Republican draft dodgers like Dick Cheney and George Bush who were not getting any sex at all because they were cowards who cried and whined their way out of mandatory service. We were drafted and taken away from our families and they knew the rotten deal that we had received. It was only the draft dodging Republicans who made up this story you peddle to pad the lies about their real cowardice in the face of the draft. They are chickens and you sir "djnoll" are a yellow bellied coward who never served and is lying through his teeth in this blog.

I and everyone who I ever met after returning was treated with respect and dignity. More than we deserved actually. We had the choicest wine, women, and song. We hitched anywhere we wanted and were loved and honored for having returned alive. Every woman wanted to have sex with us and give us the greatest love they had. The hippies were especially nice and they gave us home grown pot and Owsley acid. There was great pot coming from Southeast Asia and guys were filling their seabags with it and bringing them to New York in the Brooklyn Navy Yard where I was being processed for separation. Woodstock Summer 1969 was all peace and love and New York City opened up the city for us.

The CIA hadn't yet released aids to the general population although they were very busy trying to perfect it because there was so much sex in 1969 with the free love movement they feared that if they did not give everyone a disease when they had sex, make pot and acid illegal that Richard Nixon might lose the 1972 election. The religious morons were even starting to take off their magic underwear. They made recreational drugs illegal and they started taking the returning veterans and busting them for pot and acid and jailed them intentionally giving them jail records so that we couldn't find jobs.

In everyday society if you were not a long haired hippy you were considered brain dead. Only stiff Republican matronly women like Lynne Cheney, Laura Bush, and Hillary Clinton were available for partners. And they made you marry them first! I pity you "djnoll", you got nothing for being a coward and you have been trying to enter hip society ever since and you can't do it because you wear your shame on your face and you can't wash it off, --you chickened out. In 1969, the only people who didn't get favored by the girls were miserable poor little shamed Republicans. Having no war stories to tell they started telling this lie you are telling now.

The returnees today are mercenaries who chose to kill because they couldn't find a job. They were not lied to. They knew they were going to Kill Arab civilians and they were going to get well paid for it. I made 98 dollars a month in the US Navy and went all they way to 156 dollars a month when I made E-4. These miserable Iraq Afghan "vet" types were very well paid while they gleely killed civilians. They need to be separated from society to some sort of Devil's Island and until this happens they deserve the Lysistrata treatment (shunning) from women. And you can go there too "djnoll" for doing your George Bush Pom Pom Andover cheerleading bit here in this respectful blog. We actual Veterans do not countenance your stinking lie and wish you would start telling the truth about how you are still yellow. We VETERANS are really fed up with you and your chicken Republican buddies.

The only real hero in the Iraq/Afghanistan war was and is John Walker Lindh. Get it right kiddo no one was ever spat upon upon returning from Viet Nam. -It- -just- -didn't- -happen-. You are lying, lying, lying. It never happened. Go to a Republican site where liars are always welcome.

michael jordan

http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/


"O Lord our Father,
our young patriots,
idols of our hearts,
go forth to battle -- be Thou near them!

With them -- in spirit --
we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe.

O Lord our God,
help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells;
help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain;

help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;
help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst,

sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter,
broken in spirit, worn with travail,
imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it

-- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes,
blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps,

water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!
We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

The War Prayer --Mark Twain

It is time to read Mark Twain again. This poem was never published due to a rejection from a war loving editor. We have moved forward some since that time. No turning back from the promise of true egalitarian society. Do your part and end the war by not supporting it in either word or deed or sympathy for those who lack the courage to resist it. Keep pushing back again and again and again.

michael jordan

http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/


Lance Corporal said it all when he said "civilian life is tough". Especially so if you happen to be a targeted civilian being targeted by Lance Corporal Johnson Beharry. But making the adjustments necessary for being a responsible citizen is what we require of citizens. Life IS hard and you have to do it the right way. Taking the easy way out by grabbing a gun and killing the innocent is the lowest form of adjustment that a human being can make. It damns the soul eternally, so I have been told as I wait for my judgment on my participation in the 1967 Six Day War. Take the counsel of one who has been there and give these happy Army fools no more of your precious life. Dementors, the lot of them content to suck the life from you and your children -all for want of creativity.

michael jordan

http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/


You and Rick and the rest of the republican trolls might want to re-enlist but don't expect any of my money or treasure when and if you return. Only the dead have seen the end of the war. I find that paid killers are thoroughly disgusting no matter who they work for. You cannot bomb your way to peace. I would not hire a killer and neither of you should hire yourselves out to kill with your toxic rhetoric. Wake UP!!!!!!!!!!!

The previous administration made up an excuse for killing for oil and you support that when you do not speak out against it. The 911 bombers were Saudi. There were no WMD. It was just another bad Republican joke and it was on you and all of those who support the war. Saddam told the truth. Scott Ritter told the truth. Hans Blick told the truth. Rumsfeld lied. Powell lied. Bush lied. Millions died. Making you happy to be a Newt Gingrich clone. How proud you must be. Nearly human I would suggest...

michael jordan

http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/


You need to get out more and read a book. Fully 70% of us Americans are putridly sick of the military killers who call themselves peacemakers and wear the American flag on their arm. I can walk for days and not find a single American who is happy about the death that the lies of the Bush Administration brought about. But we are really mad at American boys and girls who shame us by not standing up to those lies and instead enlisted in an all volunteer army so they could go abroad and kill. No, we are horrified at that.

During the Civil War we were horrified at their great grandfathers who thought they could enslave Blacks. We are not in any way proud of military killers. The stain of blood of these military killers will never wash out. It continues instead to embarrass and shame. Abu Ghriab, and the carpet bombings of Faluja stand out as monumental war crimes right alongside the Israeli attacks on Gaza and Lebanon. The American Army is just as disgusting as the Israeli Army. And this comes from one who was in the Six Day War of 1967. If you think the American Army is doing the work of Americans then you might leave for Iraq and stay there. No slack for murderers even if they once played quarterback on your high school football team. Be a man and stand up to war and the senseless slaughter of the innocent civilians of Iraq, Afghanistan, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, Grenada, etc.etc.etc. Don't throw your life away just because you are having trouble figuring out what to do with yourself. Be a MAN. Climb out of that cave struggle toward the light.

michael jordan

http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/

Judah,

Ayn Rand, wow! It's like hearing Charlton Heston braying from the grave. Ah! To return to yesteryear with the metallic rutting of Hank Reardon and Dagney Taggart on a speed date. What deathless prose. Did you read the Reader's Digest condensation or did you plod through the paperback original? Now that I think of it there was a Cliff's Notes version or was it Classics Comics? I haven't had a thrill like that since my first Jeffery Archer, "Cain and Abel". Good fiction style for a quick read on the shuttle flight but this is not the kind of thing you want to base your life view upon unless you plan to assist Rush Limbaugh in his increasing senility. He will love you for being able to quote these line by line so maybe you are on to something. You appear to be a nit in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is a really progressive and liberal blog. People like you who read Rand generally hang out at GOP places. You are just needlessly muddying the waters here and should probably move on.

michael jordan

http://sites.google.com/site/apolloguide/


These soldiers are never too bright to begin with, in fact they are in the 55-75 IQ range as set by the continually lowered recruiting standards of the US and British governments. Normal IQ is 100 and people like Biden and Obama are in the 130 to 160 range. In another era they would have been placed in a bag with rocks and thrown over the side of the boat. But because we have wars which are fought by immigrants officered by white southern trash educated in "Military Schools" we have a problem. These are exceedingly stupid and desperate humans who are taught to muscle up and kill, kill, kill and NEVER to ask questions of their leaders or (God forbid) themselves.

Look at the Israelis who kill Palestinians at the rates of 150 to 200 to one after their two year indoctrination into the Israeli Army and you may see in their faces the sadly impaired genetic mistakes who will never be dentists or doctors or investment bankers or the makers of atomic bombs like Oppenheimer or theorist Einstein but who were sent instead by their US parents to Israel to defend the Israeli Zone of occupied Palestine. The truly evil in the world do kill their young and simple in this way.

The peaceful and intelligent will continually be threatened and betrayed by the mentally lame who are always ready to go for the bait of proving themselves even if it means placing themselves and their countrymen into harms way so through their "heroic sacrifice" they will be able to grasp something that could only be achieved by proper special education and disabled care and treatment at an early age. Of course it is easier for elites to offer them up for cannon fodder rather than to provide a proper therapeutic environment when they are young and able to be treated. Instead they go to "war" and come back ready and armed and trained to play "DOOM" in real life in their homeland with liberals as the targets. As Reverend Wright said, "God Damn America" and the racist rednecks who run it from the NY corporate suites of the elites and their barbecues in Texas and Kennebunkport, and Antigua.

michael jordan