* [new] I have avoided Afghanistan lately(27+ / 0-)
For I simply have a finite supply of outrage, if I wrote about everything that angered me I'd be burnt out in seconds.
We're in a terrible, terrible tactical position with a withdrawal date so far away. We have, in fact, admitted we have lost and will retreat home. But just not now.
Jesus, talk about emboldening the enemy and discouraging your own people. Then it got a lot worse last year.
The President, obviously seeing the insanity of all this yet insisting he keep national security balls (what a joke) announced that the withdrawal would be sped up by cutting the amount of troops in half.
Oh my god. If I get another down-the-middle split-the-difference decision from this President I'm going to vomit for weeks. What the fuck does reducing by half do? Who gets to stay and go?
The only thing to accomplish now is to get the hell out of there, every American soul. Right now. Today.
Anything else is grossly insulting to my soul and psyche. We are so lost, so far from where we could be, and this President is oblivious, to put it kindly. Our status quo compromise centrist President is something I'm never experiencing again, I will not call myself a Democrat and go through this immense shame, I don't care the Republicans run Satan, I truly do not.* [new] burnt out in seconds?(0+ / 0-)
God forbid you burn out on your outrage.... Keyboards and monitors can be formidable adversaries
Read your comment again and see how it sounds. People are dying actually being there, and you come up with a comment that says "avoiding Afghanistan.... outrage".
Your comment has got to be the the most remarkably self-centered statement I have ever read.
Burnt out? I hope that no family of people who died there read what you said
Do a search for
Clinton Romesha
and understand what he and his unit went through. >>>Those<<< are ground for burnout.
Your "burnout"? "Tone deaf" is the best I can say[ Parent ]* [new] Seems as if they didn't learn(4+ / 0-)
a damned thing from Korea or Vietnam, where the tales of valor now dimmed by decades sound so similar - take the hill one day, retreat and give it back the next, hey, let's put this forward encampment right here in the very middle of the T-Rex prey game trail (shades of Jurassic Park stupidity from inevitably dumb-assed higher-ups)... Mines in the road? Who would do such a... BANG
War is hell. It's an even worse hell when it's fought for MIC profits and chessboard dominance of chicken-hawks playing games in perfectly safe havens on the other side of the world. They will never learn.
I'm still waiting for the day when the MIC starts a for-profit war and the poor don't show up to fight it. Don't guess I'll ever see it, though.[ Parent ]* [new] Battle on the cheap(18+ / 0-)
War on the expense account. Just as in almost every other war the gap between what "leaders" receive in the rear and what guys get a places like COP Keating is huge. Only in Afghanistan there were fewer excuses because of the nonlinear nature of the fight. The front could be 1 KM away or 100KM away. Doesnt matter, the guys doing the fighting always get shafted.
No one hates war more than soldiers.It is well that war is so terrible -- lest we should grow too fond of it. Robert E. Lee* [new] There is no "front" there. Any more than in Vietna(24+ / 0-)
m. There is only STUPID, from the idiot policies of the "anti-communism excuses everything" that put GIs in the same asymmetric situation with no possibility of "victory" except for the careerists and contractors, who were playing another game altogether, still are, the game called "wealth transfer," now with the ante upped by adding "creation of a world-spanning 'security' apparatus" to the mix.
We go invade some place and expect the "gooks" and "wogs" to love us and become "democratized," when our own "democracy" is a sham and the gulf between the ideal and the real is not only palpable, it's crushing.
Horror movies and books get to us because of the creatures with power over our lives who cannot be defeated or killed. Guess what it's like to be sent to play shoot-em-up with people who own the terrain, who may not be very nice but whose society in all its unstudied parts there is not a snowball's chance of building up, up, up until, in the words of a long-dead warhawk senator, it's just like Kansas City? And to have these brass hat fuckers and dickheads in think tanks taking advantage of the GI's patriotic impulses and brand loyalty by sending them on endless futile errands with a damn good chance of getting killed or getting sucked into atrocity-land...
And all we got is to cite books to each other that display the horror and feed our sense of futility. Time to call a halt to the whole fucking idiocy.
Two reading list suggestions to feed your sense of the futile: Krakauer's "Where Men Win Glory," the life and fraudulently misappropriated friendly-fire (what a sick term) death of NFL great Pat Tillman, and "First In: How the CIA Spearheaded the War On Terror in Afghanistan," by a CIA operative named Gary Schroen. That latter one has everything you need to see and know about how things are really, actually done in Afghanistan to know that "we" were totally fucked, the "guys" and the hate-to-say-it stupid gals who just wanted to get in some real combat experience.
Yah, we could do better. The betting, because of where all the money is, is that "we" won't. How many of you are really cool with the idea of starting another WAR OF CHOICE with IRAN? Because why, again?* [new] Well stated, jm214, and thanks for the book recs,(9+ / 0-)
especially the Schroen volume. Obviously, we've had a major CIA problem for decadess. Unfortunately, I don't see anything changing for the better under PBO on this score. Here's a snip from a Glenn Greenwald piece in the Guardian in JanuaryPrior to President Obama's first inauguration in 2009, a controversy erupted over reports that he intended to appoint John Brennan as CIA director. That controversy, in which I participated, centered around the fact that Brennan, as a Bush-era CIA official, had expressly endorsed Bush's programs of torture (other than waterboarding) and rendition and also was a vocal advocate of immunizing lawbreaking telecoms for their role in the illegal Bush NSA eavesdropping program. As a result, Brennan withdrew his name from consideration, issuing a bitter letter blaming "strong criticism in some quarters prompted by [his] previous service with the" CIA. This "victory" of forcing Brennan's withdrawal proved somewhat Pyrrhic, as Obama then appointed him as his top counter-terrorism adviser, where he exerted at least as much influence as he would have had as CIA Director, if not more. In that position, Brennan last year got caught outright lying when he claimed Obama's drone program caused no civilian deaths in Pakistan over the prior year. He also spouted complete though highly influential falsehoods to the world in the immediate aftermath of the Osama bin Laden killing, including claiming that bin Laden "engaged in a firefight" with Navy SEALS and had "used his wife as a human shield". Brennan has also been in charge of many of Obama's most controversial and radical policies, including "signature strikes" in Yemen - targeting people without even knowing who they are - and generally seizing the power to determine who will be marked for execution without any due process, oversight or transparency.
Regarding Afghanistan: we need to bring our troops home.
link* [new] The challenge now is to educate, re-educate actual(2+ / 0-)
ly, enough people to compel some kind of actual real healthy change --
No more bully bullshit! no more ripping lies! If we keep up this business, the whole country dies!
We've seen where Empire leads, like Rome, the various Reichs -- the sorry fuckers who have taken us down into this long dark valley are doing, personally, just Great! when it comes to money and influence and people calling them for advice. Is there any stupid reason, other than stupidity and bovine acquiescence at being slaughtered to lard the already groaning tables of the Few, after we trample out other peoples' vineyards?
Remember that the Bourbon aristocracy took their wealth to Austria before the guillotines got to work. And of course the Nazis, after pumping up all that nationalist shit about the Exceptionalism of the German Volk, took as much of the portable wealth of Europe, including art treasures and tons of gold from the teeth of those they suckered their tools into gassing and cremating, as they could stuff into aircraft and submarines and "neutral ships" and toddled off to Argentina and of course the US, where many of them became "valued assets" of the OSS/CIA...
Spread the word. Spread the word. Spread the word. Even the shock troops for the Tea Party are capable of getting really pissed off at being "had" by the few, if only they can be made to listen and see...* [new] I am reminded of a story Colin Powell(37+ / 0-)
relates in his book when as a young officer in Viet Nam, he visits a ARVN base and air srtip situated in a particularly bad spot. He asks why the base is there, "to protect the airfield", then he askes why the airfield is there, "to supply the base".
I guess some things haven't changed much in 40 years (has it been that long?)* [new] Yeah, he mentions the naming thing(22+ / 0-)
The other problem is that these outposts and the bases and overlooks end up bearing the names of soldiers who died defending them. When it comes time to make a decision to withdraw, it then starts feeling like you're betraying, for example, Keating, by not continuing to protect the square yards that bear his name. It's not rational, but it's understandable, and many in Afghanistan were questioning the wisdom of honoring the dead in quite this way—since it seemed quite possible it would needlessly lead to more dead.* [new] Déjà vu(29+ / 0-)
When the U.S. finally leaves the cursed place, it is bombed to smithereens so that bad guys can't use any of the leftovers.
Operation CharlieOn June 19, 1968, another operation began at Khe Sanh. This was Operation Charlie, the final evacuation and destruction of the Khe Sanh Combat Base. The Marines withdrew all salvageable material and destroyed everything else.
Help me to be the best Wavy Gravy I can muster* [new] Same shit, different day.(7+ / 0-)
Though Khe Sanh was surely a larger scale fuckup than Keating.
I was 3 in 1968, a "save me from the draft" baby basically.
Just got through flipping through a few hundred images on Google Images about Khe Sanh. Looking at those pics, reading about Outpost Keating here, it really comes home to you that nothing has changed, and nothing is ever going to change.
There's always going to be money to be made in bullshit wars, the politicians will be convinced to go into those wars by the businesses and the brass who'll benefit from the death and destruction.
It's been 40 years since Viet Nam. Korea was only 10-15 years before Viet Nam, and WWII only 10 years before Korea, so maybe we're making progress. Maybe.*The administration has done virtually nothing designed to reward its partisans. - Kos 8/31/10*[ Parent ]* [new] Reopened for Lom Son 719(3+ / 0-)
Khe Sanh was reopened for the ill fated invasion of Laos in Jan. of 1971. Flew in and out of the god forsaken hilltop outpost many times covering our slicks that were trying to get the best of the ARVN units into Laos as far as the symbolic crossroads town of Tchepone. It was a futile effort as the ARVN were not up to facing the ferocity of NVA divisions head on. We lost 90 helicopters over the next three months of this fiasco that would surely be recognized as "This Is The End" in the most dreadful sense of what Morrison sang about. And then we did it again ten years ago right now with Iraq. When will we ever learn?* [new] I hate to say this and I will be flamed(26+ / 0-)
but the American people are ultimately the ones responsible for the Afghanistan war. We should've just got Bin Laden and then left. We don't demand information from our leaders. Most Americans don't understand this conflict and won't take responsibility to. We let our emotions rule us. We have plenty of previous wars and conflicts in history to educate us on what to do, but we refuse to read.
We took all the wrong lessons from Vietnam and World War II. We still believe brutality and violence for the right reasons is moral, and that backing down and not having "balls" is something to be avoided, whereas logic and reason are seen as weaknesses. Ideology does not whitewash brutality. Until you fix that basic part of our thinking, nothing moves forward."Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die," - Buddha.* [new] I'm not so sure you'd get flamed(30+ / 0-)
There's a general Tapper interviewed that hinted at the same thing. I took a quote from the book but it didn't end up making into the review, so I'll add it here (my emphasis added):In the course of my conversations and interviews for this project, I was told by one recently retired general with experience in Afghanistan that he hoped this book might have an impact on the nation in wars going forward. How so? I asked.
"The wars of the twenty-first century have been outsourced by the American people to our government in D.C. and to our military," he said. "With an all-volunteer force, the American people are no more connected to our armed forces than the Roman citizens were to the legionnaires. And now we even pay for wars with tax cuts. So, who war and whose Army is it?"
The general hoped that at least some members of the public would, through reading this book, come to a greater understanding of just what war entails, what the sacrifices mean. "I worry it is becoming too easy for the United States to use force," he added. "There are not enough domestic constraints."* [new] have you seen what happens here(3+ / 0-)
at DKos to whatever poor schmuck dares to suggest a draft or national service of some kind from time to time?
Here, watch what happens:I support an obligation of citizenship to be fulfilled at some point between one's 18th and 28th birthdays. Two years, universal and mandatory, with many options/avenues available to choose how to serve. Plant trees, wipe old folks' bottoms, military, peace corps, whatever. NO exceptions, and one has to do it somewhere other than at home, so everyone gets the experience of living somewhere else to understand better how/why they do it the way they do. Make cultural education part of it.
Suggestions as to how to do this better are welcome.* [new] Something like the draft is going to be required(1+ / 0-)
as the planet heats up. There will be mass efforts to Geo-engineer the planet. And I damned sure don't want to see any religious exemptions for proselyting the French!
The draft is a process of getting manpower to fight an existential battle to protect the nation. The US last faced such a threat in WW II. Israel believes it still faces such a threat, so it still has a draft.The US Supreme Court has by its actions and rhetoric has ceased to be legitimate. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot - over[ Parent ]* [new] The whole point of an all volunteer army, when it(1+ / 0-)
was first established from the lessons learned in Vietnam, was that a skeleton, volunteer army could never fight a war. Their purpose was as a first line of defense and a training corps for the recruits that would be drafted in the event of a national emergency.
In order to make war the US would have to re-institute the draft which it would only do if the war was completely essential to our security. And if the people of the country supported the war effort.
Bush got around that part by calling up the reserves and instituting a back door draft and using multiple deployments. And contractors.
It is kind of ironic, because I suspect that after 9/11 Bush could have called for and gotten a draft.We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty - Edward R. Murrow[ Parent ]* [new] it should have been treated(11+ / 0-)
as a police action, not a global war against a nebulous concept that can be anywhere, any time- a war that can be used to justify anything, anywhere, any time. but once the bush-cheney-rumsfeld-rice team got over their initial shock at their own devastating failures, they realized that they could manipulate the moment to seemingly justify all their larger, more sinister aspirations.The cold passion for truth hunts in no pack. -Robinson Jeffers[ Parent ]* [new] I am reading a book right now about the Mexican-(6+ / 0-)
American War ginned up by President Polk after his defeat of Henry Clay, pretty much started by the annexation of Texas and Polk's belief in the Manifest Destiny doctrine and the coveting of Arizona, New Mexico and California. The war starts with a great jingoistic effort but ends up in disillusionment and unhappiness among the "volunteers" who sign up to defeat the Mexicans.
This pattern of enthusiasm and then disgust at the horrors of war seems to be a familiar pattern among all of this nation's "wars of choice" that stretches back to the beginning of the Republic.And it feels like I'm livin'in the wasteland of the free ~ Iris DeMent, 1996[ Parent ]* [new] well I'm reading a book(5+ / 0-)
on the Spanish -American war that sounds exactly like Mr. Jersey's book, it's called "Gone for Soldiers," by Jeff Shaara.In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God ~RFK[ Parent ]* [new] The book is by Penn State historian Amy S. (6+ / 0-)
Greenberg called A Wicked War that focuses not so much on the military details of the Mexican American War, but on the interplay between Henry Clay, James Polk, and Abraham Lincoln with regard to events happening in Mexico and US politics. It is really interesting and in some sense, is something like what is happening today.
The problem with the US electorate is that they really do not know their history all that well and act on the myth rather than the reality.And it feels like I'm livin'in the wasteland of the free ~ Iris DeMent, 1996[ Parent ]* [new] That's an excellent and highly readable book(1+ / 0-)
It's also a good example of the fact that historians write history to provide lessons we need to get to deal with current day problems.The US Supreme Court has by its actions and rhetoric has ceased to be legitimate. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot - over[ Parent ]* [new] The Cheney and Bush people(5+ / 0-)
created a national, even international, climate of fear and hysteria in the time immediately follow late 2001. And they and their minions, including many in the DC press corps, used it to full advantage to brainwash the population into thinking, knowing that the only way to deal with the situation was to throw lots of military hardware at it.
Had the government been in more thoughtful, compassionate hands, it's possible that the 2001 attacks could have been treated as what they were, a matter for international policing, not war.Life is extremely cheap to the right-wing until a decision about it is either in the hands of a pregnant women or a Democratic president. -- Lia Matera[ Parent ]* [new] what a crock(1+ / 0-)
"We don't demand information from our leaders."
Uh, actually, we do. They illegally refuse to provide it. The Obama admin, despite promises of openness, has fought systematically against FOIA requests.
Everything you attribute to "we" was actually Cheney and Bush. THEY avoided Vietnam, THEY exploited emotions, THEY refused to listen. (What good did all the protests do before the invasion of Iraq? None.)
"We still believe brutality and violence for the right reasons is moral, and that backing down and not having "balls" is something to be avoided, whereas logic and reason are seen as weaknesses."
Let's say a regime is committing genocide and/or ethnic cleansing, and despite repeated attempts at reason and diplomacy, they persist. Then what? Let them exterminate people. Read Wesley Clark's book about Kosovo and you quickly start to ask why they again tried diplomacy with Milosevic. Some people only understand force."The dirty secret is that Obama is a moderate conservative. If I were a liberal democrat, I probably would be upset." Bruce Bartlett[ Parent ]* [new] I wonder if(1+ / 0-)
some of the reluctance to provide information now on military operations still ongoing, even though begun under Cheney and Bush, is that they are ongoing?
Might it be that once the troops are out of Afghanistan that more information could be forthcoming? I don't know the answer, and only time will say.
We live in such a 24/7 world of unedited information stream that it's hard to tell immediately what's real and what's not, what's important and not. Unfortuntely, the best way of determining is just to let some time pass.Life is extremely cheap to the right-wing until a decision about it is either in the hands of a pregnant women or a Democratic president. -- Lia Matera[ Parent ]* [new] no one is mentioning some guy named Kerry(2+ / 0-)
iirc he was an ex soldier who at one point recommended a different response after 911 in Afghanistan...but he was a weak saggy pants liberal and he windsurfed, so he must have lied about his VN service.
Sure glad we had strong leaders when we needed them.
.
.too bitter? ya...* [new] My 2003 experiences were different than yours(1+ / 0-)
I do not recall the general American populace reacting in horror to Bush's trial balloons-cum-statements of intent to invade Iraq. I do recall POTUS Bush 43 having sky-high approval ratings during that period. So no "We don't demand information from our leaders." is anythng BUT a crock.* [new] Yeah BS(1+ / 0-)
Sorry that thinking put guns in the hands of right wing terrorists in Honduras and Nicaragua fighting "communists" i.e. their political opponents as they went house to house murdering people. It's led to the death of 1.5 million Indonesians accused of being communists whose names were given to the authorities by U.S. intelligence. They were killed for their political beliefs.
You can use violence and brutality all you want, just don't paper it over with pretty words. What you are doing is brutal, it's just you think it's most effective for your aims.
Logic and reason still needed to prevail. If they had, the American public wouldn't have been so easily swayed to go to Iraq. Remember, most Americans are ignoring that the wars are happening. They're avoiding making a choice. Putting it all on Cheney and Bush washes the hands of the American public and that's not right."Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die," - Buddha.[ Parent ]* [new] The Poet Laureate of Empire(11+ / 0-)
has a few appropriate words for the legionaries of today's empire:
--Rudyard Kipling, "The Young British Soldier"
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?* [new] See the movie "Restopo" about another outpost(12+ / 0-)
named after its first casualty.
SO hard to watch, especially the heart-wrenching reaction of one of the guys when his buddy dies (I felt like a ghoulish voyeur) but it sounds like this book is the written version of that movie.
There are a lot of reasons I hate Jake Tapper, but if he's written a valuable book, he's written a valuable book. More power to him on that score.* [new] That Book is titled WAR by Sebastian Junger(7+ / 0-)
RESTREPO is the companion movie to Junger's book captured on film by the late Tim Hetherington.
Both are gripping accounts that accurately document the insanity of this war in Afghanistan. Author Sebastian Junger spent nearly a year deployed with the Second Platoon of Battle Company, part of the 173rd Airborne Brigade. Accompanying them on numerous patrols where they engaged the enemy in intense firefights. Begin with Junger's description of the place... “The Korangal Valley,” he explains, “is sort of the Afghanistan of Afghanistan: too remote to conquer, too poor to intimidate, too autonomous to buy off.” Comprehend the imbalance of the combat burden borne by so few… "During the time of its tour, Battle Company, a mere 150 out of 70,000 NATO troops, was experiencing a fifth of the combat taking place in the entire country." It ends with the recognition of the utter waste of blood and treasure this folly is… "After five years of fighting and dying, American commanders decided the valley wasn’t worth the fight."
AMEN"Life is tough. It's even tougher if you're stupid." --John Wayne[ Parent ]* [new] Thanks for posting this.(9+ / 0-)
I’m aware that almost all politicians within in the Beltway are out of touch with reality. My last illusion was that the military command structure made decisions based upon the reality on the ground.
I just learned that most military leaders do not make decisions based upon the reality on the ground.
Many leaders are afraid of “Crossing” the right-wing; they make very bad decisions based upon their political ambitions. The result of those ambitions for the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of people across the world as well as the maiming of hundreds of thousands of people in the name of a campaign contribution from some amoral animal with a few dollars.
BTW: I include Barack Hussein Obama as being out of touch with reality, he wants to trade permanent reductions in Social Security and Medicare for closing tax loopholes that will be expanded during the next Republican administration.
Meanwhile, those permanent reductions in benefits will continue, the Social Security and to some extent the Medicare trust funds will continue to increase in value awaiting the day when they can be privatized to benefit the big banks. Banks that are too big to fail. Will they fail before our society collapses because of global climate change? I don't know.
I think he is also very out of touch with the reality on the ground in Afghanistan.* [new] I think it's impossible that PBO is "out of touch(1+ / 0-)
with reality" or less well-informed than those of us who read DK and the rest of the progressive media. He knows what we know and more. So, then, what is his motive for such disappointing (in)actions? Networking for personal enrichment? Or, as Jeb Bush calls it, "financial security for my family."
Ugh. I hate to be so cynical.* [new] Great book. See the file "Restropo", as well, and(6+ / 0-)
you will get a better sense of what our soldiers have had to endure. The "tip of the spear" was poorly served by Washington and command. My SOL has done 3 tours. I can't believe the stuff he tells me.Many hands make light work, but light hearts make heavy work the lightest of all.* [new] Need I remind you(14+ / 0-)
that literally millions of us were out in the streets of this country and around the world trying to prevent this war and the one in Iraq from ever starting?
We simply need to do a better job educating our children that being in the military is not an experience they need to have.[ Parent ]* [new] and it wasn't on TV because(5+ / 0-)
the Cheny and Bush people had a lock on PR and communications, both in DC and nationally, at that time.Life is extremely cheap to the right-wing until a decision about it is either in the hands of a pregnant women or a Democratic president. -- Lia Matera[ Parent ]* [new] This is the same press corps that declared war (3+ / 0-)
on Al Gore and all but assured that Bush was close enough to winning in 2000 so the US Supreme Court could act. See Bob Somerby's book "How he got there", partly posted online.
See also Gene Lyons' Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater (1996) and The Hunting of the President (2000).
We do not have the news organizations that came out of WW II and still mostly existed during Vietnam. They were one pf the first casualties of the Reagan-era counter-revolution against the New Deal.The US Supreme Court has by its actions and rhetoric has ceased to be legitimate. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot - over[ Parent ]* [new] not entirely(0+ / 0-)
the "same" press corps, but a lot of holdovers to be sure.
And I am all too painfully aware of its failings over time. I was lucky enough to know, after they were retired from active reporting, some of the people who'd been there in the '50s and '60s and '70s.Life is extremely cheap to the right-wing until a decision about it is either in the hands of a pregnant women or a Democratic president. -- Lia Matera[ Parent ]* [new] Shame and self-consciousness(2+ / 0-)
Seriously, a lot of the sixties generation look back on their "youth" and feel a little ashamed, hence their quasi-conservatism later in life, or full-blown wingnuttery (Jon Voight). Their lurch to the right apparently came during the Carter/Reagan years.* [new] Michael Moore's post-2004 election letter(1+ / 0-)
http://www.michaelmoore.com/...If there was one group who really came through on Tuesday, it was the young people of America. Their turnout was historic and record-setting. And few in the media are willing to report this fact. Unlike 2000 when Gore and Bush almost evenly split the youth vote (Gore: 48%, Bush: 46%), this year Kerry won the youth vote in a LANDSLIDE, getting a full ten points more than Bush (Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%).
Young people were the ONLY age group that voted for Kerry. In every other age group (30-39, 40-49, 50-59, etc.), the majority voted for Bush.The only age group in which the majority voted for Kerry was young adults (Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%), proving once again that your parents are always wrong and you should never listen to them.
* [new] The assasinations of Martin Luther King and RFK(1+ / 0-)
Not to sound too dramatic, but it broke the baby boomer generation's hearts, and two Nixon landslides broke their will. Also, after the end of the Vietnam war and the draft, sixties radicals didn't have anything to protest.
Adulthood, and adapting and conforming to a more conservative late 1970s America naturally followed.* [new] When they got put in charge.(2+ / 0-)
You know the old saying, power corrupts.
Besides, the good ol' Boomers were more about "don't send me to Viet Nam" than about Peace and Love when it came down to it.
Not that I blame 'em for that.
But now that they are in charge, well...*The administration has done virtually nothing designed to reward its partisans. - Kos 8/31/10*[ Parent ]* [new] This isn't the anti-Vietnam crowd in power(3+ / 0-)
This is the conservatives who were corrupt before they went after government power and lied their way into office. Since then many of them have lied, stolen and manipulated their way to wealth because they had control of government power. The Great Recession is the fruits of their efforts, and they have built on it with Shock Doctrine tactics to prevent any regulation of the industries and banks who created the mess America is currently in.
The baby boomers were not all of one mind, I can assure you. Many like Mitt Romney were pro-war (but send the plebeians to fight), anti-union and anti-Civil Rights.
The fact that it has become harder and more expensive to work and also raise children at the same time there have been no real pay increases since 1980 have kept a lot of people out of politics. Politics is a leisure activity.
Then a lot of baby boomers bought the idea that increased Civil Rights to Blacks and women have meant that the income Whites had earned was being given away to minorities. A lot of the boomers when they got some reward felt it threatened and adopted the popular conservative ideas. Not all of us did, but a lot.
Then there has been the massive growth of the conservative think tank industry feeding propaganda into the public media even as the mass media itself has been dying off.
All of this and America has elected as Presidents one paranoid nasty crook with an even more crooked Veep, a senile manipulable actor, and then handed the Presidency to the idiot first son of a Texas Oil family.
You ask what happened to the baby boomers. You know them. They're the generation that is starting to retire now and has no savings, no pension, their kids have moved back in and brought the grandchildren, and meanwhile their home has lost its value even if it wasn't foreclosed by a thieving crooked bank. Some are caring for wounded veterans. Oh, and don't forget that Boehner, Cantor, Ryan and the insane tea baggers are fighting hard to take away their Medicare and social security.
Does that explain to you what happened to the baby boomers? They damned sure aren't the ones in power in Washington right now.The US Supreme Court has by its actions and rhetoric has ceased to be legitimate. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot - over[ Parent ]* [new] The parallels of Vietnam and Iraq/Afghan(10+ / 0-)
I'm old enough to remember the end of the debacle known as The Vietnam War. The US had spent 10 years hearing about the impending threat associated with the 'domino theory', and by the early 70's, we the people, were ready to turn the collective page on SW Asia.
It's deja vu all over again, as 10 years under the harrowing 'Sword of Damacles' associated with the global war on terrorism has brought us not one but two unwinnable, asinine wars, at the tune of $4 trillion.
Like Vietnam, people understand they were sold a bill of goods, and like a mark that's been swindled, we prefer to purge this from our national discourse.
I submit that we foresnically analyze the run up to these useless wars, name names, put them in text books, and own these national abominations. Not wholly unlike the concentration camps that stand in Germany, not necessarily to shame us, but to remember what happens when greedy, born of privilege, chickenhawks take control of a country of frightened, naive, uninformed citizenry.
This is our burden to carry.* [new] Put that book on the same shelf as (2+ / 0-)
A Wicked War, about a President who lied America into war with Mexico.
Then there was the Spanish American War, from which we still have Puerto Rico and Guantanamo. And the invasion of Grenada had no real reason except to eat up all the media coverage that otherwise would have tarnished the Reagan administration after the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Lebanon (where we had no excuse for having troops in the first place.)
The list is really quite lengthy. Iraq is just one of the larger disasters and wastes of life.The US Supreme Court has by its actions and rhetoric has ceased to be legitimate. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot - over[ Parent ]* [new] Clusterfucks are endemic to war, (1+ / 0-)
all wars, citing examples say little about the nature of any particular one.
Our misadventures in Afghanistan can be easily critiqued, but millions of young women and girls are going to school now, including many young women currently in college here in the states. Infant mortality has dropped to one quarter of what it was before 2002, and schools have been built in remote villages that had never had one. Will the Taliban be able to put their toothpaste back in the tube? Maybe. But here are a couple of Afghan women that may have something to say about it....."Fascism is attracting the dregs of humanity- people with a slovenly biography - sadists, mental freaks, traitors." - ILYA EHRENBURG* [new] The boomers who prosecuted Iraq (10+ / 0-)
and Afghanistan were only the same age as the peace and love generation. They were never part of it. They the ones who supported the war in Vietnam (many of them dodging the draft as much as those who protested - Bush, Cheney, Rove) who heckled and even threatened those of us who did protest.
These men were either the sons of the establishment that approved of Vietnam, or aspired to be. Many of us who protested have continued our activism over the years - just look at the folks on Daily Kos.* [new] This is just(4+ / 0-)
Vietnam all over again. Proving that the military-industrial establishment has long since been incapable of conducting just war and maintaining a genuine commitment to troops. "War on the cheap" is another way of saying "War for Profit". Because it's the mentality of corporatists who cut their workforce to the bone and cover for crummy materials with glitzy marketing; the mentality of those who enter wars for "strategic aims" that have nothing to do with the defense of the American people and everything to do with increasing the Almighty Bottom Line.
Merchants have never been especially good at waging war, because at the heart of a good warrior there has to be a profound commitment, a caring about the goal and the people that carries through when men like Keating put their lives on the line doing a dangerous task in a risky environment. Allowing profiteers to be the ultimate force that commands soldiers is an abomination. Ill-conceived plans dropped when their flaws become apparent, at great cost in lives and treasure, is the inevitable result of allowing men of petty hearts and minds to control grand enterprises such as nations.* [new] FUBAR for Esprit de Corps(7+ / 0-)
I keep reading about two things: how effective our soldiers are, and how many of them lead difficult and unhappy lives after leaving the service. I can't help thinking, maybe there's a causal relationship.
The big question we all face as we get ready to leave the home we grew up in, somewhere around 17 and 23, is "Who am I and where do I fit in?" The military has a great answer for you, as long as it lasts.
It's no secret, the primary motivation for professional soldiers is not patriotism, not defending the folks back home, not pride in being a good soldier. In the crunch it all comes down to being completely loyal to the other soldiers around you, to being instinctively there for this incredibly tight-knit crew, and knowing that the crew is there for you.
That bond to some extent replaces home, family & country, the soldier becomes primarily a member of that band. You will die for your brothers, you will kill for your brothers, and you know they'll do the same for you.
Training is designed to make that click in, and then every combat engagement reinforces it, over and over and over.
Sooner or later, the soldier leaves the army. Who is he then? Nobody. What replaces that deep and effortless feeling of belonging? Nothing comes close
As with cult survivers, many ex soldiers figure something out, and do just fine. But a great many don't. And I can't help thinking, this is a cold and fucked-up trick to play on human beings.
We'll keep doing it like that as long as we feel the need to create groups of young people to to kill and die on command, with no good reason other than esprit de corps.* [new] Their Commander-in-chief is now a painter I hear!(2+ / 0-)
I'm so thrilled that the MSM is now taken by the painting skill of that wonderful, goofy, X-Commander-in-chief George W. Bush. This terrific leader was what the american people (with the help of the Supremes) chose to lead this great nation. We are all blessed to have had him as our leader!* [new] not much different than ANY war(4+ / 0-)
The histories are full of tales of command incompetence and political idiocy trumping common sense.
And yet we continue to glorify war and the military, even here. We "support" the "troops", every one of whom has chosen to be where they are. But no one can deny that in the end, it is all a scam, a way to make a buck sucking off the taxpayers' teat.
Soldiers themselves make pennies on the job, and then get to fight to get a scrap of bennies if they survive and get back home; their most useful role is to put that human face on the enterprise, so we have to care. To not support the enterprise is to disrespect our "troops".
I'll prolly not read Tapper, because I have been reading this same story all my life; each war spawns an industry of writing about the horrors and deprivations, the "human side", the story that is permitted to be told. Brave writers hint at the mountain of bullshit we all live at the edge of, benefiting from the prosperity that rolls down from on high.
Sad truth: the business of, or at least a large part of America's busyness, is death. Millions of Americans support their families by being a part of this utterly sacrosanct death industry, each of them, of course, as blameless as the soldiers themselves, or all of us taxpayers.
Rather than examine this, we seek to blame a few at the top of the pyramid, as though they were in charge and responsible, and if we could just tweak things, it would all be better. But those few at the top stand on the base we all provide by quietly going about our jobs and not asking questions.
See, here's the deal about us old freaks who scold from the sidelines, those who FIFTY FUCKING YEARS AGO listened to the poetry of "Masters of War" and "With God on our Side"; we woke up and smelled the coffee and looked in the mirror. Here's the deal: none of this (Tapper's book) is new information. The bookshelf is actually bent near to breaking by the weight of all the books that have been written in the same vein. But hey, one more book ought to do the trick, eh?don't always believe what you think* [new] Check out(0+ / 0-)
the documentary "Why We Fight" by Eugene Jarecki. It's worth seeing. I learned some things from it. (Depressing things.)
http://www.youtube.com/...[ Parent ]* [new] Awesome.(3+ / 0-)
I wasn't a D-Kos'er back then. Good review. I also loved "The Things They Carried", btw. Great book. And I remember reading about Kauzlarich in the Pat Tillman book by Jon krakauer ("Where Men Win Glory", also worth reading, if only to get a glimpse into what a unique and remarkable person Tillman was; he was really his own man) and thinking Kauzlarich was a complete douche. The Good Soldiers certainly changed the impression for me. Peace, Susan.[ Parent ]* [new] The Things They Carried ...(3+ / 0-)
is the singlemost beautiful, harrowing book I've ever read about the experience of war.
For those unfamiliar, it's by Tim O'Brien.
More info: The Things They Carried* [new] The Untold Story???(0+ / 0-)
Didn't people have to tell him the story so he could write the book?
Or if the book is the story it should be the "Previously Untold Story".Our reason is quite satisfied ... if we can find a few arguments that will do to recite in case our credulity is criticized... Our faith is faith in someone else's faith, and in the greatest matters this is most the case. - William James* [new] No One Cares about Soldiers(0+ / 0-)
Lefties only care about the military inasmuch as they can find things to prove how corrupt and wretched the leaders are, and talk about the military-industrial complex.
Righties only care about the military inasmuch as they can send people off to fight but don't care about them when they return, if they do.* [new] Fantastic Book(4+ / 0-)
Read the book and was amazed at the valor of our troops. I fought in Nam and I am convinced I would not have made it a week in Afghanistan. After reading this book, I affirmed the fact that Cheney and Rumsfeld will go down is history is the the worst in American history. We may not care enought about our troops, but we should. Wounded Warriors is one of my causes.[ Parent ]* [new] yes, thanks for posting this(1+ / 0-)
I won't read the book, largely because it would engender in me the urge to do grievous bodily harm to those responsible for this horrific mess.
And even though they're long out of office, thank FSM, I don't think the Secret Service would look upon that kindly.Life is extremely cheap to the right-wing until a decision about it is either in the hands of a pregnant women or a Democratic president. -- Lia Matera[ Parent ]* [new] as with all war(1+ / 0-)
one long, sad tale of wasted talent, effort and money, reinforced by the stubbornness and failure of vision of an out-of-touch command structure.
Warning - some snark above‽ (-9.50; -7.03)‽ eState4Column5©2013* [new] Not sure trust Jake Tapper too much - help me out(3+ / 0-)
I am aware of the story of this base Keating. Not all of the story of course but I did previously hear about this poorly-situated outpost. I imagine Mr Tapper can narrate a straightforward account of what happened there over the time line.
But when it comes to putting the events into the larger political context and so forth, is this not the same Jake Tapper who was so consistently wrong during the past few election cycles? I know he's not as bad as Mark Helperin ... to be honest I have little faith in most all of today's pundits. Which means I sometimes confuse who is who.
Am I correct in remembering this Tapper guy as just one more Inner Beltway stooge? Or is he one of the 2-3% worth respecting?Don't panic* [new] let's just say that(1+ / 0-)
his name is not the first one that springs to mind when you say "one of the 2-3% worth respecting."
OTOH, better than Wordward.Life is extremely cheap to the right-wing until a decision about it is either in the hands of a pregnant women or a Democratic president. -- Lia Matera[ Parent ]* [new] Whatever you do, remember that JAKE comes first.(1+ / 0-)
If he can make himself shiny and celebrated by writing something good and reasonable and worthwhile, he'll make himself shiny that way.
But always remember that if he should need some additional sparkle tomorrow, he might choose to write something disgusting, childish, unresearched or TOTALLY UNTRUE.
The guy is a weathervane. I liken his motivations to those of the drunk only looking for his keys under the lamp post: because the light is better there.* [new] It's true that it's an emotional read(2+ / 0-)
What I finally told myself is that, for heaven's sake, if these people (soldiers and families) can deal with the heartbreak in their lives, certainly the very least I could do was read about it—and write about it.
I think it's true that this is in many ways a forgotten war, and I think we all need to be remembering it.* [new] The Nam all over again(1+ / 0-)
This is why we were never supposed to forget the lessons of Viet Nam. Even though Afghanistan(and Saudi Arabia) was the countries giving sanctuary and training facilities to the Wahabbi sect that makes up al Queda the invasion and attempted capture of bin Laden were so poorly executed as to presage the running of the entire 10 year fiasco. Perhaps if Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice et al had not been so dead set on invading Iraq we could have made some headway there but when the Afghans saw how all the American troops were being pulled out and sent to Iraq how could they ever support the American's again. We lost the hearts and minds of the Afghans before we even gave defeating al Queda a good effort.* [new] I'm confused(2+ / 0-)
I thought we all believed Jake Tapper was an idiot. Did I miss the memo? (Seriously, I had to look the book up to confirm that this was the same guy who is constantly being dissed her on Daily Kos.)"One of the secrets of life is that all that is really worth the doing is what we do for others." - Lewis Carroll, 1832-1898* [new] I just finished Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes(4+ / 0-)
Karl was a graduate of Yale and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and also a Marine lieutenant in Vietnam. That sort of combination is rare enough to remind me of JFK and John Kerry. Among his awards are the Navy Cross, Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts. His story is born of fearsome personal experience.
The book was written as a novel, but it closely follows Karl's experiences in Vietnam, revolving around a base named Matterhorn in the jungle near the Laotian border. The book is grim and and filled with grewsome tales of small unit jungle combat and suffering, but it is well enough written to understand it as cathartic purge of what came home with Marlantes.
Matterhorn was a base not unlike Tapper's Combat Outpost Keating. It was situated at the extreme range of support from artillery and aircraft, it was built once, blown up and abandoned once, and then had to be retaken from the NVA at great cost.
Marlantes is frank and unsparing in his treatment of the racial divide and conflict within the Marines. This aspect of the book is one which sets it apart from many others which avoid this hot-button topic.
I recommend Matterhorn to those who can suffer through the book with the Marines and by so doing gain insight into what this part of the Vietnam War was all about.Eradicate magical thinking
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The Outpost: Jake Tepper
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