War Stories

A 74 year old Italian woman got quite a surprise when she examined the sack of potatoes she purchased at her local market. She found a pineapple in there.

And now, our friends at Pajamas Media are weighing in, pointing out the fact that the Huffington Post had edited hundreds of comments, then simply went ahead and closed them entirely, due to a handful of nutjob far-leftists (not “Liberals”, LEFTISTS - big difference) weighing in with hate speech, indicating their displeasure with the Veep’s survival. The idea I am getting from the Pajamas Media post is that this indicates some sort of a “conspiracy” on behalf of the Huffpo, most likely in response to the White House’s recent censoring of tons of embarrassing statements by the Veep in relation to the civil war in Iraq. I wrote about that one, myself yesterday — “Bush Administration (Re)creates History at WhiteHouse.Gov Website?” — just in case you missed it (originally broken by a diarist at The Daily Kos).

‘Bomb ‘em back to the Stone Age’ was the policy back then. It didn’t work. And the proud tradition of Republican weakness at diplomacy is showing quite clearly again. They don’t know how to wage a war or how to end one, having failed at both in every hot war since the Spanish American War of 1898.

The current debate over the so-called "surge" is just the latest example of what Elowitz and Spanier were writing about more than thirty years ago. President Bush is attempting to achieve battlefield conditions that can lead to a political settlement in Iraq, but he is being denied the flexibility and maneuvering space necessary to achieve that goal. Just like Truman and Eisenhower in Korea and Johnson and Nixon in Vietnam, Bush is being pushed into a corner from which he cannot escape, except by conceding that the war cannot be won. In Korea, due to the unique geographical conditions of the country, a stalemate was achievable because the opposing armies held a World War I-style line of trenches stretching across the entire peninsula. The Chinese and North Koreans were finally willing to accede to a cease-fire because they knew that they could not achieve anything more by continued war. In Vietnam, since much of the war was being fought by units passing back and forth over porous borders between the two Vietnams and the border with Cambodia, no such stalemate was possible. The North Vietnamese knew they merely had to wait for our troops to leave and our support of the government of South Vietnam to end before they could take the country by conventional invasion and occupation.

Today in Iraq women are traveling in convoys, patrolling streets, manning checkposts just like the men. They are IN combat every day. But we still think of war in old time terms where soldiers line up on two sides and move toward each other in hand to hand combat or tank combat. That doesn't happen much these days. Most wars that happen now tend more toward the guerilla type. You never really know where or who your enemy is and everybody has to be ready to defend. Will this change the way women are seen in the military?

This image is from the Guardian Unlimited and carries this caption: Iraqi boys in a refugee camp in Baghdad play with toy guns.

There are 3 major factions here. The Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. The Shiites are in the majority, but Saddam was a Sunni, so he kept the Shiites in check. Everyone hates the Kurds, who are Christian and in the vast minority. The Kurds received the brunt of Saddam’s murderous tyranny. Now that Saddam is gone, the Shiites have taken control of Baghdad. The largely peaceful Sunnis are now the victims of radical Shiite terrorism. So the young Sunni men, who can no longer go to work and support their families, do what all young men would do. They join the Sunni militia and battle the Shiites. And thus the country sits on the brink of civil war.

Since the end of World War Two, they fought and died for nothing, except corporate profit. Until we, as a nation, truly understand — that we are enslaved by our OWN soldiers, and our corporate military, and the vast sums of OUR money they consume – we have NO chance of making this country work again. Our money is stolen from us before we even earn it. We spend as much money on our military, as the entire rest of the world combined. It’s INSANE.

Churchill proved that by sheer bluff and bluff one could rise up to great leadership position. That was because the second world war helped him to reach the top and remaining in public memory at the difficult period of history. The biographer notes with insight: “Though he was in India for under thirty months, “India was for several years in the early 1930s to dominate his political activity, and considerably damage his political prospects, he never felt it necessary to refresh his direct knowledge of the subcontinent, which he regarded as a geographical expression and ” no more a country than is the equator”

Perhaps that’s why a ceremonial guard stands at Brivibas Piemineklis – the Freedom Monument – every day, from 0900 to 1800. They used to stand duty here before the second world war as well. A changing of the guard takes place every hour, on the hour. It is a stirring, moving experience, which I found myself watching several times.