THEN, and only then was it time for brave young Americans to die fighting fascism. A fascism that powerful U.S. business leaders had been in league with for that wonderful 'profit motive', hand in hand with the future enemy of our troops. Troops who would in the end heroically defeat, at an hither to unimaginable human cost, with the aid of the Soviets, who bore the greatest suffering, the fascist armies built up by international capitalism, thus engendering even greater corporate gains for war profiteers and investors.
How high was the honor, how great the praise deserved, how appreciated was the personal sacrifice of the four hundred five thousand three hundred ninety-nine Americans who bravely gave their lives in order to stop the Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo governments so feverishly encouraged during years of prior funding by their more affluent compatriots.
1950-1953, the so-called 'police action' in Korea is to this day hailed as a 'good' war. U.S. intervention in a war nearly finished resulted in two million dead and the destruction of almost every town in Korea from U.S. bombing. Was this massive loss of life in an undeclared war justified because the North invaded the South? It was not that simple. Picasso's Cheju Island Massacre painting portrays a rebellion TWO YEARS BEFORE the North's invasion: more than 30,000 dead. There was great turmoil and dissatisfaction in the South with the dictator Syngman Rhee put in by America. Rhee eventually had to flee the country. A great many Koreans welcomed the troops from the North, and throughout the war U.S. units bore the brunt of the fighting, betraying the South's lack of will to fight.
American massacres of Koreans in the South have recently come to light and last week saw the unearthing in South Korea of the mass graves of thousands of 'communists' and hapless peasants executed in cold blood. Until 1988 South Korea was also a military dictatorship that had to put down rebellions.
Americans may go on thinking of themselves as the good guys doing good. But they might like to remember that the good was done in Korea, to Koreans, all of whom obviously were not in agreement that it was for their own good. Everyone can decide for themselves whether the thirty-six thousand five hundred and sixteen American troops brought honor to themselves and their country.
Koreans never had wanted their peninsula divided between American and Russian troops taking Japanese surrender, but nobody asked them. (By the way it was President Woodrow Wilson that first recognized the Japanese annexation of Korea.) This writer remembers photos of U.S. senators and congressmen visiting the trenches separating the Korean divide on the front pages of the New York Times during the weeks prior to the North's armed forces sudden invasion. Remembered as well are the captions and accompanying articles of tough talk of some in calling for 'cutting the ropes' holding back the unpopular Rhee from 'cleaning up' the North.
1956 –1975, The recently refurbished undeclared Vietnam War as again heroic is such an obvious absurdity that suffice to note that the greatest military power in the world dropped more than twice the tonnage of all the bombs dropped during World War II by all sides on the agrarian French colonies of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia even though already in 1963 Eisenhower had confessed that had he allowed the all Vietnam 1954 election promised in the Geneva Accords with the defeated French, Ho Chi Minh, our ally against Japan and the Vichy French, would have won by eighty percent plus. Millions were killed over a thirty years period encompassing the administrations of six U.S. presidents. Yet today America backs that SAME communist government for WTO membership as a good trading partner. Hard to imagine that the fifty-eight thousand two hundred and nine were involved in anything but dishonor, whether knowingly or not.
1965, in the Dominican Republic during Operation Power Pack thirteen American soldiers died in the invasion to quell a successful revolt of the half of the Dominican army that wanted its elected and deposed President reinstalled and the cancelled constitution reinstated. Thousands of civilians died as a result. In following election, Dominicans under threat of further U.S. punishment dutifully elected murdered dictator Trujillo's right-hand man rather than that former president running during the same term he had already been elected in. Sorry, not so honorable those thirteen American deaths.
1983, in Grenada, Operation Urgent Fury. Shall we honor the nineteen guys who gave their lives in the invasion and occupation this tiny island? Grenada was a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and Britain opposed the invasion. This is what President Reagan later said of his close ally, Prime Minister Thatcher, "She was very adamant and continued to insist that we cancel our landings on Grenada. I couldn't tell her that it had already begun." Thatcher wrote to President Reagan, "This action will be seen as intervention by a Western country in the internal affairs of a small independent nation."
1983, in Lebanon, do we hail the dedication to serving ones country by being one of the two hundred and forty-one army, marine and navy servicemen blown up by two brave suicide truck bombers while America was making a show of force to the Lebanese political faction out of line with Washington's foreign policy in that neighborhood of the Middle East. The pieces of his body were returned to the States with honor and President Reagan thought better of sending any replacements. Not much hero talk attention is awarded these lost souls.
1989, in Panama during Operation Just Cause, was it an honorable way for those twenty-three to have lost their lives invading little Panama to effect the arrest of the Panamanian president, long on the CIA payroll, but having become uncooperative and an obstacle to an exploitive U.S. Central American investment foreign policy.
1990 – 1991, during the Persian Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm. Honor for the hundred and forty-eight who perished in a fine war authorized by the United Nations in order to return Kuwait to the control of the Emir of Kuwait after Iraq had occupied it claiming that Kuwait was stealing Iraq's oil through slant drilling? Kuwait and Iraq had been administered together under the Turkish Empire, but Britain found it convenient for oil reasons to create a separate Emirate of Kuwait.
Hailed as a terrific victory. One hundred thousand Iraqis killed, most shot in the back from U.S. planes as they were withdrawing from Kuwait across the desert sand on their way back to Iraq in what was referred to by some in media as the great turkey shoot.
1992-1993, in Somalia forty-three American servicemen lost their lives in what was supposed to be a humanitarian mission to protect and see to the distribution of food aid. Things quickly got out of hand as U.S. officers used ill advised and overbearing tactics running roughshod and offending and alienating residents of Mogadishu. In the famous Blackhawk helicopters downing a mob dragged American bodies triumphantly through the street enraged by a Blackhawk helicopter firing into the roof of an open market filled with people in an attempt to assassinate a warlord who had been interfering with UN food distribution.
Years later a bizarre policy turn around finds President Bush Jr. backing the unpopular war lords being supplanted by the Islamic Courts government favored by the merchants of Mogadishu. On Christmas day, 2006 Ethiopia bombs and invades with U.S. blessings to overthrow the Islamic Courts, which Washington does not trust. American air strikes on suspected al Qaeda in Somalia have since been ongoing with great loss of civilian life from both Ethiopian and American action.
2001, in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom. It is especially important for media to portray the six hundred military deaths in Afghanistan as dignified to keep up recruitment goals for a war of occupation slated to continue indefinitely. Actually President Jimmy Carter began the attack on Afghanistan in 1979, ordering the CIA to fund, arm and train the hill tribes which were against the socialist Kabul government's education of girls. His National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has claimed credit for suckering the Soviet Union into Afghanistan A HALF YEAR LATER.
After 9/11, as the whole Western capitalist world required that no country, not even China, voice objections to the invasion of Afghanistan for its non compliance with U.S. demands for the unconditional extradition of Osama bin Laden. One remembers, however, that all but one of the suicide plane bombers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia as was of course bin Laden as well.
How high was the honor, how great the praise deserved, how appreciated was the personal sacrifice of the four hundred five thousand three hundred ninety-nine Americans who bravely gave their lives in order to stop the Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo governments so feverishly encouraged during years of prior funding by their more affluent compatriots.
1950-1953, the so-called 'police action' in Korea is to this day hailed as a 'good' war. U.S. intervention in a war nearly finished resulted in two million dead and the destruction of almost every town in Korea from U.S. bombing. Was this massive loss of life in an undeclared war justified because the North invaded the South? It was not that simple. Picasso's Cheju Island Massacre painting portrays a rebellion TWO YEARS BEFORE the North's invasion: more than 30,000 dead. There was great turmoil and dissatisfaction in the South with the dictator Syngman Rhee put in by America. Rhee eventually had to flee the country. A great many Koreans welcomed the troops from the North, and throughout the war U.S. units bore the brunt of the fighting, betraying the South's lack of will to fight.
American massacres of Koreans in the South have recently come to light and last week saw the unearthing in South Korea of the mass graves of thousands of 'communists' and hapless peasants executed in cold blood. Until 1988 South Korea was also a military dictatorship that had to put down rebellions.
Americans may go on thinking of themselves as the good guys doing good. But they might like to remember that the good was done in Korea, to Koreans, all of whom obviously were not in agreement that it was for their own good. Everyone can decide for themselves whether the thirty-six thousand five hundred and sixteen American troops brought honor to themselves and their country.
1956 –1975, The recently refurbished undeclared Vietnam War as again heroic is such an obvious absurdity that suffice to note that the greatest military power in the world dropped more than twice the tonnage of all the bombs dropped during World War II by all sides on the agrarian French colonies of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia even though already in 1963 Eisenhower had confessed that had he allowed the all Vietnam 1954 election promised in the Geneva Accords with the defeated French, Ho Chi Minh, our ally against Japan and the Vichy French, would have won by eighty percent plus. Millions were killed over a thirty years period encompassing the administrations of six U.S. presidents. Yet today America backs that SAME communist government for WTO membership as a good trading partner. Hard to imagine that the fifty-eight thousand two hundred and nine were involved in anything but dishonor, whether knowingly or not.
1965, in the Dominican Republic during Operation Power Pack thirteen American soldiers died in the invasion to quell a successful revolt of the half of the Dominican army that wanted its elected and deposed President reinstalled and the cancelled constitution reinstated. Thousands of civilians died as a result. In following election, Dominicans under threat of further U.S. punishment dutifully elected murdered dictator Trujillo's right-hand man rather than that former president running during the same term he had already been elected in. Sorry, not so honorable those thirteen American deaths.
1983, in Grenada, Operation Urgent Fury. Shall we honor the nineteen guys who gave their lives in the invasion and occupation this tiny island? Grenada was a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and Britain opposed the invasion. This is what President Reagan later said of his close ally, Prime Minister Thatcher, "She was very adamant and continued to insist that we cancel our landings on Grenada. I couldn't tell her that it had already begun." Thatcher wrote to President Reagan, "This action will be seen as intervention by a Western country in the internal affairs of a small independent nation."
1983, in Lebanon, do we hail the dedication to serving ones country by being one of the two hundred and forty-one army, marine and navy servicemen blown up by two brave suicide truck bombers while America was making a show of force to the Lebanese political faction out of line with Washington's foreign policy in that neighborhood of the Middle East. The pieces of his body were returned to the States with honor and President Reagan thought better of sending any replacements. Not much hero talk attention is awarded these lost souls.
1989, in Panama during Operation Just Cause, was it an honorable way for those twenty-three to have lost their lives invading little Panama to effect the arrest of the Panamanian president, long on the CIA payroll, but having become uncooperative and an obstacle to an exploitive U.S. Central American investment foreign policy.
1990 – 1991, during the Persian Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm. Honor for the hundred and forty-eight who perished in a fine war authorized by the United Nations in order to return Kuwait to the control of the Emir of Kuwait after Iraq had occupied it claiming that Kuwait was stealing Iraq's oil through slant drilling? Kuwait and Iraq had been administered together under the Turkish Empire, but Britain found it convenient for oil reasons to create a separate Emirate of Kuwait.
Hailed as a terrific victory. One hundred thousand Iraqis killed, most shot in the back from U.S. planes as they were withdrawing from Kuwait across the desert sand on their way back to Iraq in what was referred to by some in media as the great turkey shoot.
1992-1993, in Somalia forty-three American servicemen lost their lives in what was supposed to be a humanitarian mission to protect and see to the distribution of food aid. Things quickly got out of hand as U.S. officers used ill advised and overbearing tactics running roughshod and offending and alienating residents of Mogadishu. In the famous Blackhawk helicopters downing a mob dragged American bodies triumphantly through the street enraged by a Blackhawk helicopter firing into the roof of an open market filled with people in an attempt to assassinate a warlord who had been interfering with UN food distribution.
Years later a bizarre policy turn around finds President Bush Jr. backing the unpopular war lords being supplanted by the Islamic Courts government favored by the merchants of Mogadishu. On Christmas day, 2006 Ethiopia bombs and invades with U.S. blessings to overthrow the Islamic Courts, which Washington does not trust. American air strikes on suspected al Qaeda in Somalia have since been ongoing with great loss of civilian life from both Ethiopian and American action.
2001, in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom. It is especially important for media to portray the six hundred military deaths in Afghanistan as dignified to keep up recruitment goals for a war of occupation slated to continue indefinitely. Actually President Jimmy Carter began the attack on Afghanistan in 1979, ordering the CIA to fund, arm and train the hill tribes which were against the socialist Kabul government's education of girls. His National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has claimed credit for suckering the Soviet Union into Afghanistan A HALF YEAR LATER.
After 9/11, as the whole Western capitalist world required that no country, not even China, voice objections to the invasion of Afghanistan for its non compliance with U.S. demands for the unconditional extradition of Osama bin Laden. One remembers, however, that all but one of the suicide plane bombers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia as was of course bin Laden as well.
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