Now, that's a statement sure to make angry nearly every man or woman -- and their families -- who ever served in the U.S. military. (I did not.) But, a person's reaction to the above is really of no consequence. The statement is true. Down to its core. No less a critic than this nation's only double Medal of Honor recipient said the same. Major General Smedley Butler (USMC) wrote in "War Is A Racket."
Though written decades ago, the entire essay describes perfectly the intentions and actions of the Bush Crime Family and the breathtaking destruction they brought to our nation's institutions, the military more so than others, with their unlawful decision to enter into two wars of "opportunity" and two illegal occupations -- Afghanistan and Iraq. The consequent damage from those decisions is, at this point in our history, incalculable. However, one incident of nearly unimaginable violence for which Bush and Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld share immediate and direct responsibility occurred earlier today in Iraq when a US soldier opened fire on his comrades killing five of them as he waited in a clinic at Camp Liberty outside Baghdad. According to the AP, "Pentagon officials said the shooting happened at a stress clinic, where troops can go for help with the stresses of combat or personal issues. It was unclear whether those killed were workers at the clinic or were there for counseling. No details were released about the gunman or what might have provoked the shooting." But, we can guess the provocation. Cheney and the rest of the draft dodgers who operated the single worst administration in US history made a decision to force troops into repeated deployments to Iraq. This was the simplest method for keeping constant the number of American soldiers in that ravaged and bloodied country. While the re-enlistment rate of junior officers has steadily declined, and those resigning their commissions has steadily risen, the fate of the common "grunt" was decided by the same people who decided to legalize torture, justify unprovoked assault against a country unable to defend itself, and treat the law as nothing more than a minor inconvenience, something to be abridged or ignored altogether by using the weapon most favored by cowards and white collar thugs: the memo. They repeatedly ordered the re-deployment of combat-weary men and women into the war zones -- zones created to benefit corporate America -- again and again. Twice. Three times. Four. Five. To Cheney, Rumsfeld and the desk jockeys in the Pentagon, the recurrent forced deployments and the resulting mental, psychological, and spiritual disintegration that overwhelmed the young men and women who believed they were serving their country meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. And to the civilian cadre of cowardly old men -- the Bush Crime Family -- who had utterly refused to join the active military when they were young and who had used every deceit possible to avoid conscription into the service, these soldiers were less than human. They had been reduced to mouse clicks on a video screen, numbers required to fill recruitment quotas, whose return in coffins was kept from being witnessed by those in whose name the Bush Crime Family insisted they had been killed for fear the somber sights and images would lessen the number of young people led to the horror of combat with promises of learning a "trade," or the hope of money for college. Regarding the treachery of those who ordered World War I, General Butler wrote...
The quick answer for the paid-up members of the Bush Crime Family is zero. None. Cowards -- and each of them is a coward -- stay home and order death and destruction to be unleashed thousands of miles away. If civilians are butchered in that process, it is "collateral damage." If our men and women die, it is "honor, duty, country." The corporations and their shills -- in the instance of Iraq, the Bush Crime Family - make the profits and it is always the soldier who pays the bills, sometimes by going berserk at a military "stress clinic." Marine General Butler:
Were Marine Corps General Smedley Butler alive today, what do you suppose he would say about today's killing of five US soldiers by one of their comrades? And, what would he say about the cowardly degenerates who ordered these wars and occupations to begin with? More to the point, what do you say about it? |