One thing we can do is make sure these fucks face a war crimes tribunal, each and every one of them, be it an international court, or some other.
And I will work till my bones can’t, to see that happen.
I refuse to make tortured resolutions against myself in the middle of the night, I had no representation. I will not take on this war guilt. I have been ar wae with myself my whole life, I will not add their sins. I have my own.
It’s not your country anymore, and those who own it are vile.
Yes. It’s hard to bear. Impossible to bear. Hide? Fight Alamo-style? Emigrate? I have no advice.
But at least this: enough already with being “ashamed.” What–on their behalf, like Jesus, because they’re incapable of the emotion? Even as they’re already blithely rewriting the history of their own position-taking, devoid of responsibility? Still playing Diogenes, looking for the honest conservative with your lantern? For Diogenes, it was a joke. You?
Enough with being “ashamed.” No. Don’t bear their fucking guilt for them.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 19 2006 7:13 utc | 4

Rowan, I’m sorry to say that we ARE “actually less afraid” than the Iraqis.
If you have gone a day or a week without a dry place to sleep or enough food then you can’t say that.
I welcome and enjoy your postings here, don’t get me wrong. But I’m still looking for a way to deal with the outrages myself.
I came across a good analysis of the moral and legal implications of the current Afghanistan and Iraq invasions from the Canadian point of view.
From Tyee.ca

On that basis, it’s time to assess where our national tipping point should be. Let’s begin by considering the arguments in favour of the mission.

Posted by: jonku | Oct 19 2006 7:19 utc | 6

Very good post, Billmon.
I think that, if we really don’t know which way to go, it’d be better to follow the wishes of the majority of Iraqis, which is that the US Army should get the heck out of there soon. Then put the bunch of wannabe fascists on trial – and do a better job than the joke that is Saddam’s trial. And eventually to send massive aide to Iraq, including massive financial war reparations. That would at least acknowledge the US responsibility in this bloody chaos.
I don’t know if many Iraqis have any idea on how to get out of slow-motion genocide. No idea if a large-scale uprising to kick out the US could reunite a bit Shias and Sunnis – could have worked 2 years ago, but now? Direct cooperation with Iran, would it work? Would preventing a de facto partition work? Would a partition cause less bloodshed in the long run? (though I would prefer if the less-insanely-bloody solution didn’t involve major partition, because it would still mean rewarding the crazy neocons)
And what should have been done? I can hardly come with any efficient move that wouldn’t involve the FBI paying me a visit pretty soon if I just posted my thoughts here, even if it just meant quoting Jefferson. Not to mention that, giving the wide range of culling that should have been attempted, the “try to do more and pre-empt war of aggression” may well end up in a civil war inside the US.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Oct 19 2006 7:26 utc | 8

I reached yesterday the story of Count Ugolino and as usual I cried particularly at the point when he says ” if this doesn’t make you cry what will” or words to that effect. But this culminating pathetic moment comes at the end of a story that began with people following banners that flied in every direction and with people not fit for heaven and that even hell had them in “dispito” contempt. We, together with the unnamed one have made the ” gran rifiuto” the great refusal to be counted, to be for something. The ones that started this horrors actually did not want them. They were secure in the knowledge of their own importance and steeped in the legends of their favorite literature. Everything should have come up roses if the world was a rose garden but the world is a cesspool and I am one of the pigs wallowing in that mud. What can I say but that perhaps like Alberigo’s my body is still on earth but my soul is already in hell. What despair, but the worse is that I have become anesthetized to the daily horror, I have become an unperson.

Posted by: jlcg | Oct 19 2006 9:18 utc | 10

I don’t know what to say to US citizens sick about Iraq, but I can’t see feeling guilty if you did anything however small. Very sick about Iraq, yes. Guilty, no.
I think the US has changed sufficiently that it is not possible to have much influence — heck, a single Congressman or Senator could not change things now. Nor a small group of Congresssmen or Senators. Didn’t the eloquent Senator Byrd try to stop the Iraq war? Just how do you think your power compares with his?
I expect that the Democrats will win big in November, but really doubt that they will be much different. Would be love to be proved wrong.
What I would like re Iraq, but do not expect, is: Saddam Hussein living in exile somewhere, US forces out of Iraq as most of the Iraqis want, US corporations to have no special privileges in Iraq, and payment of massive reparations.
FYI, there is this very thorough “how to” site – only problem is that Canada may be a tad TOO close to the US. The site has helpful links.
We Move to Canada – American by birth, Canadian by choice
Also, this little terrorism news was on the CBC TV news on Tuesday’s “National” and other news sources – ex-CIA asset that the US is trying to get rid of – seven countries including Canada have refused to take the poor fellow. He only blew up a Cuban plane with 73 passengers, and only killed a few other people on a few other occasions.
From Cuba’s Escambray online newspaper: New York Times Says Posada Carriles is Dilemma for Bush Administration

Posted by: Owl | Oct 19 2006 9:48 utc | 12

My take on this all along is that what goes down in Iraq, will be settled by the Iraqis. We are here, they are there. And there, is not here. Because there, OIF, is THE reality — the facts on the ground, the daily experience in its full 3 dimensional, real time, non-technicolor, un-narratited, un-advertised, un-cut, and undeniable full bore brunt sequence of events, that they have to face and negotiate on a daily basis. For them there is, unless they are rich, no, repeat, no escape. Their prospects for hope are diminished with a relentless and ruthless incrimentality, where the assumptions of daily life are stripped away one bullet, one airstrike or car-bomb, one carless GI, one missed meal, one forced relocation, or one pointless and self serving edict at a time. So they do what they do.
We on the other hand, suffer none of this. For us, the war is concieved and presented as a narrow thing, a military thing, a business thing, cast as an evolving ideological test of identity and willpower that’s acted out in some bloodless mock gamalon shadow play where the regular protagonists and postureres are reserected on a weekly basis with narry a scratch, or even a bruised ego. And this has gone on in the american livingroom for years now, without an ounce of circumspect, let alone retrospect, let alone formitable resistance. It is here, all in the mind, an illusion, and but yet a necessary pecursor — to the enivetable completion of the circle — between what the Iraqis are actually going through and what we THINK we are going through. Because everyday, we become more like the Iraqis, BEFORE WE INVADED THEM.

Posted by: anna missed | Oct 19 2006 11:08 utc | 14

I had read Riverbend’s piece last night before reading yours this morning Billmon. My soul felt tortured throughout the night but now it is screaming with the agony of the questions none of us here seem able to answer.
I agree with you Uncle. Guilt is no answer but that feeling has crept into my being over and over again for the past three years. Maybe I need to acknowledge that and hope some direction will come to me form the depths where those feelings arise.

Posted by: Juannie | Oct 19 2006 11:22 utc | 16

@all – can we at least stick to numbers of the scientific Hopkins peer reviewed study published in Lancet?
The number is 654 ,965 – not 600,000.
The lowest boundery of the studies result is 392 ,979.
The upper boundary of the studies result is 942, 636.
The upper boundary does have the same probability as the lower boundary.
So it’s not 400-600k like tmay says above. It’s 400,000 to 900,000.
Add to that that this study was finished in July, some three month ago. As I had calculated in another thread, it is likely that 100,000 to 140,000 people Iraq have “experienced excess death” since then. And this war is definitly not over. The 1,000,000s “excess death” is likely before it is.
The study is available at Lancet after a free registration.
People like tmay or Kevin Drum who has a “gut feeling” of 200-300k death are deminishing the memories of those who died.
Look into the mirror and spell the real numbers please.

Posted by: b | Oct 19 2006 12:13 utc | 18

@14
My take on this all along is that what goes down in Iraq, will be settled by the Iraqis.
The Shia of Iraq are now empowered for the first time in modern history. And if the Shia of Lebanon, who have elevated themselves over the last 25 years can hold their ground, the Shia in Iraq most certainly can. And this should count at least as a success point for USUK
the Kurds likewise have their desired autonomy. And thats irreversible. Another success point for USUK.
Beyond the above, theres not much more USUK can achieve. And lets not fool ourselves, if Iraq did not have so much oil, USUK would have left long ago, assuming they would even consider invading in the first place. In order words, if Iraq was Bangladesh, we would not be talking about 650,000 excess/unnecessary deaths.
Hence, the sentiment for “saving Iraq” which has gained so much traction in peoples minds is hypocrisy. It is a sentiment manufactured by the PTB and the media. It is a sentiment directed to appeal to Eurocentric “moral superiority”. How so very convenient.
And then theres the “magical thinking” notion that USUK is blessed with some seemingly magical power to fix Iraq. “The natives ca’nt, wo’nt …, so we must”. More moral superiority.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Oct 19 2006 13:00 utc | 20

Do not be frozen by guilt and remorse. Every action, no matter how small or seemingly ineffective, toward our desired outcome is a step out of this horror. Continue to enjoy life, your family, and friends. If you live a balanced life you have nothing to be ashamed of. True warriors fight, and fight well, because they love who and what they defend, not because they are ashamed. Why do you fight on?

Posted by: PollyA | Oct 19 2006 13:41 utc | 22

Thank you, PollyA. You speak wisely and more succinctly than I’m about to do….
There is too much talk here about “guilt”. Too much talk about “blood is on my hands”, spoken in exactly the same self-critical tone as right-wing parodies of liberal guilt are made to sound. All this talk about how “I could have done more.” Well, yes. And even if you had, you could have said then, “I could have done even more.” And so on. It’s endless. You could have immolated yourself in the town square like the Buddhist priests in that timeless photo, and your point would have been made. To what end? Would that have made you feel better? Is the point simply to “make you feel better”? That sounds pretty damn selfish to me, at least as selfish as the chickenhawks are – the point should be to stop the war. But some things are so vast that it is foolish to feel personal responsibility for them, and this Iraq Debacle is one of those things.
Yes, the Iraq Debacle should make you angry. It should make you upset and furious and motivated for change. That’s how caring, humane people should feel in the face of callousness and brutality carried out by others. But “guilty”? No, guilt is just despondency. The Iraq Debacle IS NOT YOUR FAULT. Stop acting like it is.
Besides, who’s to say that your expression of outrage at what has happened, and that things you have done, however small, haven’t contributed to the ever growing malaise about the situation that ultimately will lead to action that improves things? Who’s to say that our distrust displayed much earlier on did serve a part in preventing something even more disastrous than what we’ve seen? Do you honestly think that as bad as it is now, this is the worst of all possible worlds? I sure don’t. And if it isn’t, then surely something has helped prevent worse situations from arising, just as much as something has obviously prevented better situations from happening.
You can berate yourself for “not doing more” if you want, but by that reasoning you can also praise yourself for “not doing worse” either. You didn’t simply “go along to get along”, did you? You didn’t vote for pro-war candidates, wave flags at pro-war rallies, and cheer on the Mission Accomplished banner in 2003, right? No, you lived by example, and you made that example by recognizing the foolishness of this national policy. And after all this, even if you insist and feeling guilt about the War, then do something about it now. Stop wringing your hands, because it’s not too late to work to make the world a better place for someone else. It’s never too late. Just stop pretending that it’s “all about you” and feeling responsible for the sun setting in the west every day.

Posted by: Ferruge | Oct 19 2006 14:21 utc | 24

messed up the tag above – sorry – it points to someone who DID do enough – but is an ordinary person with family responsibilities and a life that could be lots worse in a position to be that heroic? you could lose a lot (more or less everything) and yet not materially impede the war machine

Posted by: mistah charley | Oct 19 2006 14:59 utc | 26

hearing one particular poster here refusing to bear guilt after voting for and enabling the current administration is somewhat unsettling.
I was looking for a reference to Dante’s Inferno where he speaks of the fate of those who know better but because of convenience and comfort go along with something evil. I couldn’t find it but did find an article at Lew Rockwell which pretty much sums up what I wanted to say and would have if I was smart and could write.

Posted by: dan of steele | Oct 19 2006 15:24 utc | 28

billmon wrote: We’re not just callous bystanders to genocide, as in Rwanda, but the active ingredient that made it possible.
another myth that we’ve exposed here previously, as the united states played a key role in what went down in rwanda.
We turned Iraq into a happy hunting ground for Al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army.
pshaw. we, accelerating the brits earlier efforts at leveling the playing field, turned iraq into a hunting ground for imperialists, racists, oil men, christian proselytizers, ideologues & free-market fanatics. (after we created AQ)
If Iraq is now a failed state, it’s because of our failures.
chomsky’s latest book made a compelling argument that, using the very criteria established by the western nations, the united states is itself a failed state. there’s still a chance for the people of this nation to force our institutions to live up the rhetoric they have spewed before, during, and since the revolution. but it won’t come from above.

Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 19 2006 15:39 utc | 30

“And every man ought to say to himself,”Am I really the kind of man who has the right to act in such a way that humanity might guide itself by my actions?” And if he does not say that to himself, he is masking his anguish. There is no question here of the kind of anguish which would lead to quietism, to inaction. It is a matter of a simple sort of anguish that anybody who has had responsibilities is familiar with.
Existentialism Is A Humanism
Jean-Paul Sartre

Posted by: A | Oct 19 2006 15:48 utc | 32

Thundersnow

A year from now we’ll be telling stories about this storm the way some of us are still telling stories about the Blizzard of ’77. It is terribly sad about the trees-but they are, finally, trees, not people. Forty years ago, some Buffalo’s major streets went bare when the Dutch Elm blight ravaged the Northeast. All those barren streets were replanted. It took a while, but the green shade came back. This time too, it will take a while, and then the green shade will come back.
I find it difficult not to think of my friends in New Orleans, the enormity of what they went through, what many of them are still going through. New Orleans was a natural event, like this one, but it was compounded by official incompetence, disinterest and malfeasance. A lot of people died.
It is difficult not to think of people at the World Trade Center, at Oklahoma City, in Iraq and Lebanon and all those other places where nature had nothing to do with it at all, where the disasters rained down merely because someone felt like doing it, had the technology to do it, and chose to do it.
We’re lucky, here in Buffalo, and we know it.

The past is immutable. Anguish at having done the wrong thing in the past is a waste of emotion. The present is fluid, the future unknown.
Work to end the war in Iraq and to stop the war in Iran and wherever else the neocons and their successors start throwing bombs. This is not going to be a one week, one month, one year, one decade proposition. It is going to go on for as long as my minds eye can see.
Don’t think about how little or how much we have or have not done to prevent these atrocities. The only measure that counts is that we have not prevented them.
We are lucky that we still live in a democracy with relative freedom and the power to change our present situation. If you doubt that, see Riverbend’s article again. If we are losing our democracy it is because we are allowing it to be lost. The buck stops on my desk and on yours.
We need to do more. Forget yesterday. Live today. Think about tomorrow.
That’s the advice I give myself when I’m feeling blue.

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Oct 19 2006 16:04 utc | 34

From the Day late Billions short dept:
Indeed.com Daily Job Alert
What:
Where: Iraq
The first 1 of 1 new jobs are displayed below.
See matching results on Indeed.com since: yesterday – past week – all results
Arabic Iraqi Advisors
Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions – Location Is Iraq
Salary $170K to $180K Arabic Iraqi Advisors We are seeking US citizens who where born in Iraq to assist and advise military staff and commanders in planning…
From HotJobs – October 18, 10:58 AM

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 19 2006 16:16 utc | 36

there’s no fucking way the u.s. can “leave.” no way.

Posted by: slothrop | Oct 19 2006 16:28 utc | 38

thank you b real, and conchita for your explanations, i must have interpreted the ferruge’s useage of those terms.
on a related topic, when i first read the post the line about mahdi and Al Q stood out for me, because it’s been repeated so often in the press lately, one of the iraqi bloggers who used to work as a journalist in baghdad pointed out how quick and organized the shift from Sunni insurgents to the Shiite Mehdi army in the news and feature stories.

as if the green light was given by someone, newspapers started to follow the Mehdi army. In almost any news story written over the last year, you will find the Mehdi army blamed or at least mentioned in suspicion of the possibility for involvement in killing Iraqis. Amazing. Even when storied talked about something entirely far from where the Mehdi army operates, the story would say something like: on the other hand, the Mehdi army, a Shiite militia linked t firebrand anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, operates death squads just across the river. OR SOMETIMES SOMETNING MORE FUNNY.

anyway, they never mention the badr brigades! sadrs army are a lot of uneducated , unemployed thugs, where as the badr troops are immersed in the MOI, educated, funded, the military wing of sciri! way more complicit in the deathsquads. but hey, no press. so i started googling a little and sure enough. the media, or the PTB, or whoever, is framing the sunni /shiite conflict as primarily AQ/madr. check out this quote from maliki

Previously, when we attacked some of the Sunni death squads and militias, we were being accused of being biased toward Shiites against Sunnis. Or when we confronted the Mahdi Army, we were accused of being biased toward the Sunnis against the Shiites. But now it’s becoming clear, after we confronted the Mahdi Army in Diwaniyah, Karbala, Basra and Nasiriyah, no one can say we are biased on this issue.
This is a very important step we have managed to achieve. Now no one can say we are biased when we hit a Sunni militia. So the road is being paved and the forces are being prepared to resolve this issue of militias within the time frame we discussed.

doesn’t that sound weird? it is as if after the backlash of slaughtering the baathists, those salvadoran deathsquads, they needed to ‘balance’ the coverage of the carnage!
meanwhile, the most powerful militia in iraq (who show no sign of disbanding) we are not only turning a blind eye towards, but collaborating with, totally off the radar.
anyway, thanks for jogging my memory on this reflection of mine .

Posted by: annie | Oct 19 2006 16:36 utc | 40

wow, so much happened here in the few short moments while i was writng me last post. bea, yes. lately i have been making my own little waves. neighborhood meetings and such.
i have a cousin in NC. there local paper tells them nothing. she is often way behind the curve. she returned from a backpacking trip in montana, to a hotel rm there and recieved an email about the military commission act. shot me off an email “what is this?” after i wrote back, she expresses to me, the 3 weeks they were in the mountains, meeting people from all over the world, no one likes george. the canadians, the other americans, people are talking , ordinary peope, they are getting informed. i went to a 9/11 meeting at a local church expecting to see some old hippies. not the case, not at all. and it was a full crowd. everyone was on board.
they passedout copies of greenwalds new movie, iraq for sale. i watched it last night and there was something alluded to i had previously not thought of or been aware of. those contractors who got burned up and hung from a bridge in fallujah that stirred up the gungho. that was an abberation, them being unprotected on that road. i think the way the military operates, not necessarily all the troops, but certainly the twisting manipulated MO, these stories need to be told. most people have no idea the oil deal is coming up in december, and that after that, it doesn’t matter what happens as far as cheneyco is concerned, and thats why we stopped w/the ‘democracy’ meme.
and it seemed to happen over night. the gov trolls that i encountered on these sites, all run in packs. they say the same sorts of things on the same day. it seemed every single one of them became unconcerned w/democracy, just… like…that.. they all drone on about sunni/ shiite iraqi on iraqi, no US blame no badr brigade, no private industry contractors…
there is so much co ordination and control.. and people are starting to believe and understand this and talk about it. even my sweet little conservative cousin from NC out on the backtrails of montana. at the 9/11 meeting people were saying they were feeling a critical mass moment coming.
i’m rambling, work to do

Posted by: annie | Oct 19 2006 17:00 utc | 42

“The United States is not suffering from some collective personality disorder called compassion fatigue. We are suffering from the most well-funded thought-control experiment in history, more sophisticated and deadly by many orders of magnitude than anything contrived by Kim Jong Il – the latest bete noir of American public discourse, and we are suffering from the complicity of journalistic hacks like Judith Miller and the anodyne intellectual narcotics of policy think tanks.
It is our empathy that is under attack, because if it is aroused to a point where Iraqis or Afghans or even our own imperial soldiers become real people (and not a yellow-ribbon magnet), the jig is up.
So here is a simple reminder. This war is wanton cruelty in our name; there is no rationalization that can mitigate or excuse it; “we” will not win it and somehow transmogrify a swine into a swan … and it is not over.”
Reflecting on Rumsfeld by Stan Goff, Truthdig
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101806B.shtml
—————————————————————————
I disagree with Billmon’s thesis. The simple fact that so many are remorseful over their mere citizenship is more than ample testament to the folly of this war. Every weary heart is a “No!” to this war that can’t be paved over.
We’re not asked to be successful and certainly not Thoreaus. We’re asked to be faithful. That’s the astringent to the political will sustaining these wars. Without a thriving moral dimension no amount of material can sustain a war.
Cheer up. And stay guilt ridden, miserable and ashamed till this fiasco is over. It might help to read up on the role of friction in war. It’s the next stage.
Ahoy, Condi. Do the lawyered up! Citizen.

Posted by: Pvt. Keepout | Oct 19 2006 17:08 utc | 44

there’s no fucking way the u.s. can “leave.” no way.
why don’t you put your body where your oversized mouth is, slothrup, and go over there and help teach those backward islamofascists how to be good non-god fearing marxists, like you, out to save the world. or are you a chickenhawk like cheney?

Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 19 2006 19:29 utc | 46

Billmon,
I made similar “limited” sacrifices against the war, but I don’t feel that I should have done more, simply because there is nothing that I can point to that I think would have made a difference. In fact, everything we did seemed to inflame the pro-war sentiments of the majority of the population. They did not like us or respect us, so if we protested, we were just traitors and hippies, all the more reason to go along with the company line.
I moved out of the country for a couple of years, and I actually think that was the only thing that I did that gave pro-war people even a bit of pause.

Posted by: steve ex-expat | Oct 19 2006 19:53 utc | 48

Incredible piece Billmon, thank you.
The sins of inaction lie against us as a people. The only question now is how much longer do we continue to be good Germans – where is the tipping point? At what point do we become ready to abandon our comfortable lives and dedicate ourselves to stopping this slaughter and seeing those responsible for it brought to justice. The Italians were not all good Germans, after all – perhaps some of their sins were taken when they hung Mussolini’s corpse from the hook.

Posted by: Mathieson | Oct 19 2006 20:28 utc | 50

The pin-heads running this war know full well that as long as the war carries no in the real world, concrete implications and consequences, resistance to it will remain also in the abstract, and at best a tepid reactionism. The more vociferous, SDS/Weathermen/SLF resistance to the vietnam war came from those likely to be impacted from the war personally, the youth who faced induction. For them the war was not just a talking point, and so demanded more than talk in response. And for whatever good was or was’nt accomplished by those actions, they remain in the collective consciousness of the nation as an aberration, at best, and amoral and misguided extremism at worst. In any case those who participated in that have been hung out to dry by the american experience. So in this war the only consequences (on our side of the equation) being felt directly are by those who have volunteered to fight in it. Resistance to the war is thereby contained, along with the advocates of it, to the ideological — without indice to either coercion or innocent sufferage. This is reinforced by the pervasive “all about us” context the war is hermetically sealed by the media, big business, and the political class. So givin all THAT, its particularly interesting that any movement against the war should happen at all. But that is not the case, there has in fact, been a massive tide against it, and support for it has become a political albatross — especially when the likes of Jonah Goldberg drags his sorry ass to the conclusion that “it was a mistake”. Even if he never found the arguments, against the war, from the left “compelling” — it has had an effect on just about everybody else. And, how did that happen?

Posted by: anna missed | Oct 19 2006 21:44 utc | 52

on this, my friend slothrop, i think you have missed the point
& anna missed
this tyranny will destroy itself, but yes it needs a kick, perhaps a violent one
& i am old fashioned enough to think that the women with the exception of bernadine dohn were the treasure & conscience of the anti war movement – it was they who brought the war home – in more ways than one
& i think a history that cannot make sense of a john brown or understand the darker impulses of a thoreau are not ready to judge or even interpret what happened onloy 40years ago

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 19 2006 23:00 utc | 54

slothrop
you do not really believe that, do you – i hope you are being ironic – actually i feel more threatened by the polish twins now running warsaw

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 19 2006 23:19 utc | 56

But assuring peace is of course the precise opposite of what they’re doing. Peace doesn’t come via cluster bombs and uranium tipped shells and murderous occupations.
Warlord’s controlling resources and nukes? Are you just mouthing Shrubco talking points or do you really believe them?

Posted by: ran | Oct 19 2006 23:35 utc | 58

rgiap
from the beginning here i have argued no nationalist or panarab/panislam “insurgency” is likely. i wish it were so, but nothing like your version of the conflict exists, or will. and now, this mistake of analysis is offered by you and others here as a solution to the region’s problems of stability. and when i point out this obvious contradiction, you say, as some dullards here never to be your equal have also said: “i don’t understand.” understand what? that approving the certain catastropohe of chaos in which the region is divided among sunni revanchists, shiite millenarianists, kurdish mafia, et al., is “better” than the dubious “empire”? what?!

Posted by: slothrop | Oct 19 2006 23:48 utc | 60

resident fascist slothrup:
the result would be control of resources and nuclear weapons by stateless warlords.
aren’t you projecting — like cheney does. who voted to drop two nuclear bombs on japan? who will control the next usa’n drop by the stateless (corporate) warlords who control things? marx wasn’t scared of the wrath of the dispossessed — but you are. perhaps it is just racism — that you fear brown people possessing the weapon of white people — that they will not possess wisdom or restraint, despite all evidence of iran’s restraint.
look in the mirror dorian gray slothrup. look in the god-less damn mirror, you faux-marxist fascist.

Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 20 2006 0:03 utc | 62

That’s weird. I must have typed “slothrop” into the name box.
#63 was me.
citizen

Posted by: citizen | Oct 20 2006 0:10 utc | 64

about #62
why the proliferation of idiots here at moa lately?

Posted by: slothrop | Oct 20 2006 0:21 utc | 66

argh. #67 was me too.

Posted by: citizen | Oct 20 2006 0:25 utc | 68

slothrop
i ask humnly – for you to read any book on the school of americas or even better the naual that was used by them for some decades
i’m much more frightened by white men with power who do violence, terrible ciolence from afar & do it in a quotidian manner inculcating culture(s) & future(s) with the bloodstained memories of useless & horrifying strategies
the madness that is at the heart of their ‘method’ & that includes the use of death squads & agent provocateurs & black operations is here with us today a half century after the demonic dulles brothers
what is criminal, deeply criminal – is that that ‘method’ normalised such terrible conduct as torture that it is no surprise that this week it has been formalised & that the citizens of the empire are able to live with such horrors does us all shame – not only americans

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 20 2006 0:48 utc | 70

the u.s. needs to assure all parties and the world it will reject permanent military occupation and economic raiding and move swiftly to resolve the palestinian issue.
What makes you think any of this will happen in the forseeable future, or even in our lifetimes?

Posted by: ran | Oct 20 2006 1:06 utc | 72

alabama
i think the changed circumstances of u s power in latin america highlight exactly how a people can live unfettered to the empire
we palpably feel a people’s freedom being articulated almost everywhere there – & in some – some very real confrontations with lived memory
they show how a people can construct froms of hope even after their country has been used as a public abbatoirs
perhaps again, it is too early to tell but it is the sole source of hope in this corrupted & corrupting world

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 20 2006 1:35 utc | 74

Slothrop, I don’t have to make a comparison, I merely have to trace a continuity, a trend, a repetition compulsion. I could speak, indeed, of America’s unbroken sequence of military actions and projects, dating from the lend-lease program to the operations in Iraq, and demonstrate that the intensity of our military investments fluctuates like a persisting and undulant fever. One of its repeated features is the habit of Americans to evacuate those fields in which they are driven out by opponents stronger than they. These are episodes, and rather minor episodes, in the broader narrative of our dependency on a militarized economy–having to increase its expenditures on men and materiel so as to fend off that most dreaded event of all–the Great Depression and its sequellae.
An economist could analyze this problem far more rigously than I.

Posted by: alabama | Oct 20 2006 5:31 utc | 76

Copeland :
And to put this house in order, to readmit justice into our national experience, we must withdraw from Iraq.
More than that. We withdrew from Viet Nam and here we are now.
We must realize billmon’s visualization of the Anglo-American War Crime Tribunals, not just because the War Criminals themselves require justice, but primarily because we ourselves need to tune in everyday to Fox News and listen to the recapitulation of the actions of our state, not perhaps our state but certainly our responsibility, and to adopt some of the humility that the Germans adopted after their “adventure” into depravity.
Gerhard Schoeder just said no to Bush’s and Blair’s invitation and he was lauded at home in Germany. Whatever you may say about the Germans they did not invade Iraq and murder hundreds of thousands of innocents “because they happened to be feeling that way with no reason”.
Is that to much to hope for as a minimal standard for the future?

Posted by: John Francis Lee | Oct 20 2006 7:11 utc | 78

Principle & conviction …

In full: Short resignation letter
BBC News, UK
Labour MP Clare Short has quit as a Labour MP and is to remain in Parliament as an independent. She resigned in a letter to the …

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 20 2006 14:25 utc | 80

Billmon is absolutely correct when he says “We may have put our words and our wallets on the line, but not our bodies.”
And that’s just it. We’ve moved far beyond the time, if there ever was a time, when peaceful protest can make a difference. Whatever became of the much hyped “World can’t wait” massive uprising? Oh yeah, you had a “few hundred” show up with the usual accoutrements of costumes and tired old chants. And the next day to no one’s surprise things continue on as before.
The problem is that we aren’t willing to literally fight for what is right and good. We are not willing to lay our own lives down. When our country was stolen in 2000, what did we do? Nada. In any other country, citizens would have taken to the streets and taken up arms.
No we didn’t do enough. Because we weren’t willing to put our bodies on the line, because we weren’t willing to fight and die for what’s right, our country is hopelessly lost.
And what will folks do when the election is stolen yet again in a month’s time? Most likely two things: Jack and Shit.

Posted by: Evil Bus Driver | Oct 20 2006 18:10 utc | 82

what i understand today is what i understood in 1970 in vietnam – that u s imperiaism & its armed forces need to be defeated, decisively
whether, u s imperialism is the armed fist or international capital – then it is clear that that arm must be cut off
it has to be cut off so that it is never tempted to other ‘adventures’ – it is clear that each day now that they are being defeated – they are giving lessons to those who are oppressed because the mechanisms are in their way, transparent
it is certain, that the real vulnerability of the empire lies in its refusal of sovereignty to others & profound inequalities at home
decisive lessons are being learnt by those whom necessity teaches whether they are in iraq or in latin america
in america, in england, australia & parts of europe – they systematic emasculation of any power by the masses – has led those masses – to participate in a nightmare
tho it is scandalous to say that they are without sense or reason – 12 million people marched on the cities of the modern metropolis, they were confronted with an implacable empire & its minions with the whole arsenal of ‘democracy’ – at the service of those who have too much already, these masses were also confronted in nearly every case with & jurisprudence that tore out the heart of basic freedoms, yes tore its heart out, so the jailing of lawyer in new york is no surprise, that people are picked up at airports & are sent to syria, that a planet of fear is being built & it is true it is being built with the complicity of others. fear as generalised as that whi takes place in the modern cities – predicates against any action because it can jurisprudentially be called – ‘terrorism’ – & while there is aposter here who post anonymously or under a hundred different names – what we are doing, even here- will in time face the full brunt of that jurisprudence
it is naiveté, exceptionalism or idealism that would suggest otherwise

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 20 2006 18:42 utc | 84

recently heard chomsky speak and he suggested the wars incomparable because of the stakes. vietnam was a war of liberation fought during coldwar division of influences by relatively homogeneous insurgency. it was also a war the u.s. could quit given the reality of containment of soviet influence in s.e. asia. iraq is much different, both in the composition of insurgency and the quality of result should the u.s. be driven away. losing, chomsky said, is inconceivable to the policy elite for a range of reasons obviously diverging from mostly the war of ideology fought in vietnam. and indeed, oine can just as well say, the latter was a war won by the u.s., after all.
really, i don’t see many useful comparisons.

Posted by: slothrop | Oct 20 2006 20:47 utc | 86

Slothrop,
I am amazed that you offer that the Vietnamese didn’t kick our broad American asses. This reminds me of the hilarious dialogue at the end of the film, A Fish Called Wanda
“America never lost a war”.
“You did.”
“Oh yeah, which war then?”
“Vietnam.”
“It was a tie.”
“No it wasn’t, you lost.”
“No we didn’t.”
“They kicked your aaaa..ss.”
The old republican ideologues who remember the 60s bitterly, would even now like to blot out or recast the history of the Berrigans, the Free Speech movement, Student Mobe, the assassinations of political figures and the burning ghettoes. We had the radio then; and radio was a big deal, culturally and politically. You could hear protest songs. Now we have Clear Channel, where all you hear is a great sucking noise.
John Francis Lee,
You correctly point out that “we withdrew from Vietnam, and here we are now.” There is so much to be done politically, after we disengage from Iraq. I agree.
rgiap,
I could say something macho, like “they’ll have to pry the Constitution from my cold, dead hands”. But the joke is a little dark. I went through a period of dire straights in my youth, feeling like a fugitive/outcast in my own country, as kids my age were making difficult choices about the draft, measuring their commitment to non-violence, as they tried to stay in school to survive, as they tried going underground if they had to.
We had to protest, march. In order to oppose the war completely, we had to go a little crazy, claw our way outside the box, peel off pieces of identity to which the ego clings. I’m neither heroic nor foolish (or at least I believe so) if I blog under my real name. In the last Garrison Keillor movie, one of the characters, who wanders around a troupe of actors in a radio play, (the Angel of Death, I believe) says that “the death of an old man is not a tragedy”. She was talking about death by natural causes though, in the particular case.

Posted by: Copeland | Oct 21 2006 0:00 utc | 88

both uncle ho & general giap were clear on thos point – the anti war movement was a crucial factor in the ending of yet another unjust war

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 21 2006 1:41 utc | 90

I fully support R’Giaps contention and in reference to Ho Chi Minh and Gen. Giap, both sides key players assuredly understood the strategic & geopolitical criticalities … and now, the explicit parallels, from the ‘other’ side …

Kissinger’s “Salted Peanuts”
and the Iraq War
The National Security Archive Posts Original
Document Cited in Bob Woodward’s State of Denial
Washington D.C., October 2, 2006 – For understandable reasons, the George W. Bush administration has shunned comparisons between the war in Iraq and the Vietnam War. But in his latest book, State of Denial, Bob Woodward writes that Henry Kissinger, the former secretary of state–and a secret (and frequent) consultant to the current president–has made the parallel explicit to the White House.
According to Woodward, Kissinger recently gave a Bush aide a copy of a memo he wrote in 1969 arguing against troop withdrawals from Southeast Asia, an issue as salient four decades ago as it is now.
Kissinger’s September 10, 1969, advice to President Nixon famously characterized withdrawals from Vietnam as “salted peanuts” to which the American people would become addicted…

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 21 2006 2:15 utc | 92

Ah, but Iraq is different, it’s a civil war … bullshit !

All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers [and all women are sisters].
~François Fénelon

The concept of priveledged combatants as opposed to unpriveledged or unlawful combatants …

Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, “A Declaration of Rights”

Hell, it’s not like any of it matters, the grey soulless old white men are just expending our human trash whilst incidentally killing the worlds human trash whilst makin’ a profit for thier backers whilst ensuring a continuing supply of the most addictive drug known, power.

The draft [and therefore war] is white people sending black people [and white trash] to fight yellow people [and brown people] to protect the country they stole from red people.
~Gerome Gragni and James Rado, 1967

Why we are where we are …

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passions, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.
~André Gide, Journals, 13 September 1938
and/or
Men were made for war. Without it they wandered greyly about, getting under the feet of the women, who were trying to organize the really important things of life.
~Alice Thomas Ellis

Why it is so inredibly difficult to convince those who have not seen the elephant, why it should not be so …

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier [or worse, an innocent] dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.
~Otto Von Bismark

Lastly, why all other arguments in the affirmative are still, false …

If it were proved to me that in making war, my ideal had a chance of being realized, I would still say “no” to war. For one does not create a human society on mounds of corpses.
~Louis Lecoin
War is fear cloaked in courage.
~William Westmoreland
Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood.
~Gandhi, Non-violence in Peace and War, 1948

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 21 2006 3:05 utc | 94

wonder why it cut off my ending? humph… i will try to watch the keys and minimize the typos…
of course they want us to think the moratoriums were worthless, but i don’t agree.
i think they had a mobilizing effect, they were a thorn in nixons side, they wouldn’t go away, and more and more people were waking up.
i forget the reat of what i wrote…

Posted by: annie | Oct 21 2006 3:36 utc | 96

The current admin has applied the “lessons learnt” from Vietnam to very good effect in keeping the opposition weak & down. Thats why theres no draft. Also they have used every tool in the box to intimidate the Dems into compliance.
but there may be chinks in the armor, for real.
The Repubs are becoming a victim of their own succcess. Their beat-down of opposition at home has strongly enabled their agenda. On the other hand, it has also enabled the public’s abilitiy to develop a more steady focus on the war itself and less on divisive issues, unlike the case during Vietnam.
Also, the political leadership of LBJ and Nixon were quite impacted by the increasing bog-down and wear-down of Vietnam. GWB may not be quite as engaged, but his political leadership is no less vunerable.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Oct 21 2006 5:37 utc | 98

our job is to save each other. I happen to think songs and stories are part of that. Guess I’ll go look at the whispering oak.

Posted by: citizen | Oct 21 2006 7:28 utc | 100