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I was facilitating a meeting in Washington, DC this past weekend, and an Iraq "War" veteran claimed that the GI resistance movement ended the Vietnam War. I started to say that I was sure that the GI movement was a part of ending the Vietnam War as was the draft, the student movement, the Congress (that had some influence back then), and I was interrupted by the rep from Veterans for Peace who simply said: "actually it was the Vietnamese people who ended that war."
That's the plain truth after millions dead/wounded, the Vietnamese people succeeded in vanquishing the U.S.
Today, I recalled that meeting as a couple of very insidious things crossed my path, or caught my eye.
The first thing was an article in the rag called the Washington Post about the attack at Ft. Hood and the alleged suspect, Nidal Hasan and how there is an increasing pattern of soldiers targeting other soldiers. The WaPo editors filtered the article through the Propaganda Wing of the Pentagon and came up with the title: "Fort Hood attack is 3rd this year by antiwar radicals targeting military on U.S. soil." I think the message is clear: "anti-war=terrorism."
Call me cynical, (I haven't always been this way, but I stood up a new person after I fell on the floor screaming my heart out when I found out that Casey was killed in Iraq), but I feel the next item that I would like to point out on this Friday the 13th, is something the Commander in Chief promised the troops when he stopped in Anchorage, AK to refuel Air Force One on his way to Japan, and something that I think is connected to the increasing war path rhetoric.
He actually told the men and women assembled at Elmendorf Air Force Base that if he decides to "not hesitate"to use force to protect America's vital interests (not defined in the speech)" then he promised, promised, promised (like he promised to close Gitmo within the year and bring one combat brigade per month home from Iraq) to:
A) Have their backs." I vote that he put on a helmet and some Kevlar and shoulder an M-16 and really "have their backs," AND take Congress with him.
B)"And that includes public support back home. That is a promise that I make to you."
We see the revisionist "historians" (spin-doctors) tell us this about Vietnam: it's not that public sentiment was rightly against that disastrously unjust and inherently unwinnable war, but if the public only supported it, we would have "won." It's called the V"ietnam Syndrome."
The two incidences put together spell this: If the USA "loses" in Iraq-Af-Pak, which we certainly will since those "wars," too, are disastrously unjust and inherently unwinnable, then the fault will lie with an American public that are either non-supportive, or outright "anti-war radicals."
During my Camp Casey campaign, there were "Cindy Sheehan speaks for me," rallies and conversely, "Cindy Sheehan DOES NOT speak for me," rallies.
Well, as a member of the American public, Barack Obama DOES NOT speak for me!
I can't count how many times I have been called an "anti-war radical," and I have never killed anyone or plotted to kill anyone, but I will NOT support the troops by supporting insupportable missions.
I will not support the "mission" by paying my Federal income taxes and I will not support the troops by flying the imperial flag or putting a yellow ribbon on my car, either. I will support the troops the only way I know how: by being an "anti-war radical," no matter what the cost.
If we "lose" the "wars" that the Bush regime started and the Obama regime has escalated, it only will be because we ever started them in the first place!
