|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
|
 Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 12:29 pm Post subject: Only those fighting the war can end it. |
 |
|
Read this or George W. Bush will be president for the rest of your life
| Quote: |
The world is very weary of all this and wants to laugh again
by William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report September 2007
Okay, Bush ain't gonna get out of Iraq no matter what anyone says or does short of
1. impeachment,
2. a lobotomy, or
3. one of his daughters setting herself afire in the Oval Office as a war protest.
A few days ago, upon arriving in Australia, "in a chipper mood", he was asked by the Deputy Prime Minister about his stopover in Iraq. "We're kicking ass," replied the idiot king. Another epigram for his tombstone.
And the Democrats ain't gonna end the war.
Ninety-nine percent of the American people protesting on the same day ain't gonna do it either, in this democracy.
(No, I'm sorry to say that I don't think the Vietnam protesters ended the war. There were nine years of protest -- 1964 to 1973 -- before the US military left Vietnam. It's a stretch to ascribe a cause and effect to that. The United States, after all, had to leave sometime.)
Only those fighting the war can end it.
By laying down their arms and refusing to kill anymore, including themselves.
Some American soldiers in Iraq have already refused to go on very dangerous combat missions. Iraq Veterans Against the War, last month at their annual meeting, in St. Louis, voted to launch a campaign encouraging American troops to refuse to fight. "Iraq Veterans Against the War decided to make support of war resisters a major part of what we do," said Garrett Rappenhagen, a former U.S. Army sniper who served in Iraq from February 2004 to February 2005.
The veterans group has begun organizing among active duty soldiers on military bases. Veterans have toured the country in busses holding barbeques outside the base gates. They also plan to step up efforts to undermine military recruiting efforts.
Of course it's a very long shot to get large numbers of soldiers into an angry, protesting frame of mind. But consider the period following the end of World War Two.
Late 1945 and early 1946 saw what is likely the greatest troop revolt that has ever occurred in a victorious army.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of American soldiers protested all over the world because they were not being sent home even though the war was over.
The GIs didn't realize it at first, but many soon came to understand that the reason they were being transferred from Europe and elsewhere to various places in the Pacific area, instead of being sent back home, was that the United States was concerned about uprisings against colonialism, which, in the minds of Washington foreign-policy officials, was equated with communism and other nasty un-American things.
The uprisings were occurring in British colonies, in Dutch colonies, in French colonies, as well as in the American colony of the Philippines. Yes, hard to believe, but the United States was acting like an imperialist power.
In the Philippines there were repeated mass demonstrations by GIs who were not eager to be used against the left-wing Huk guerrillas.
The New York Times reported in January 1946 about one of these demonstrations:
"'The Philippines are capable of handling their own internal problems,' was the slogan voiced by several speakers. Many extended the same point of view to China."
American marines were sent to China to support the Nationalist government of Chang Kai-shek against the Communists of Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai.
They were sent to the Netherlands Indies (Indonesia) to be of service to the Dutch in their suppression of native nationalists.
And American troop ships were used to transport the French military to France's former colony in Vietnam. These and other actions of Washington led to numerous large GI protests in Japan, Guam, Saipan, Korea, India, Germany, England, France, and Andrews Field, Maryland, all concerned with the major slowdown in demobilization and the uses for which the soldiers were being employed.
There were hunger strikes and mass mailings to Congress from the soldiers and their huge body of support in the States.
In January 1946, Senator Edwin Johnson of Colorado declared "It is distressing and humiliating to all Americans to read in every newspaper in the land accounts of near mutiny in the Army."
On January 13, 1946, 500 GIs in Paris adopted a set of demands called "The Enlisted Man's Magna Charta", calling for radical reforms of the master-slave relationship between officers and enlisted men; also demanding the removal of Secretary of War Robert Patterson.
In the Philippines, soldier sentiment against the reduced demobilization crystalized in a meeting of GIs that voted unanimously to ask Secretary Patterson and certain Senators:
"What is the Army's position in the Philippines, especially in relation to the reestablishment of the Eighty-sixth Infantry Division on a combat basis?"[4]
By the summer of 1946 there had been a huge demobilization of the armed forces, although there's no way of knowing with any exactness how much of that was due to the GIs' protests.[5]
If this is how American soldiers could be inspired and organized in the wake of "The Good War", imagine what can be done today in the midst of "The God-awful War".
Iraq Veterans Against the War could use your help. Go to: http://www.ivaw.org/ |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
spliff
Joined: 19 Jan 2004
Location: Khon Kaen, Thailand
|
| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 2:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Only the Iraqi's can end it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
|
| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 3:23 pm Post subject: |
|
|
There are no Iraqis.
Only Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
(and a few Turkomans) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Mosley
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
The_Conservative
Joined: 15 Mar 2007
|
| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 6:34 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The Left's lack of consistancy is frankly disgusting.
Remember Libby and how the left here on this very board (among others) savaged him for revealing the name of a CIA operative?
Yet Blum himself claims that he has not only revealed the names, but also the addresses of over TWO HUNDRED CIA operatives...and there's virtually no reaction...indeed he is quoted as support for some leftists position.
What gives? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
|
| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 8:39 pm Post subject: |
|
|
delusions of greed, hatred & EGO 
when will these end? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
|
| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 8:44 pm Post subject: |
|
|
William Blum, huh? Bin Laden's friend.
Nice scare tactics, incidentally, BLT. "Read this or W. Bush will be president for the rest of your life." You become more like Goebbels every day. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
|
| Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 11:23 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| William Blum leaves leaves out important facts and distorts what facts he has. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:24 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Gopher wrote: |
William Blum, huh? Bin Laden's friend.
Nice scare tactics, incidentally, keane. "Read this or W. Bush will be president for the rest of your life." You become more like Goebbels every day. |
Little one, please don't apply little thoughts to big issues. You are the Goebbels here: liar. He was a propagandist, you are a propagandist. You see, the title is not mine, little one. If you had followed the link, little one, you would know this. You did not, so you post the equivalent of a fart in a hurricane. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
| The_Conservative wrote: |
| The Left's lack of consistancy |
How does one man's piece of writing become attributed to an undefined group of millions, if not billions?
Little minds.... Perhaps I should not call you the C/N-C Faction but the Little Minds Legion. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:47 am Post subject: |
|
|
| EFL sure does start a lot of threads on the same narrow band of topics. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:56 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| EFL sure does start a lot of threads on the same narrow band of topics. |
Yes, he does. It's known as monomania, or to use his own terminology:
What the heck is
He's been using this lately like a secret handshake among the Masons. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
keane
Joined: 09 Jul 2007
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 5:07 am Post subject: |
|
|
Actually, I had not been aware of the large degree of protest. I had heard about it, but nothing in-depth. Basically, just the big march. What is described above is far more than that. It is an interesting issue that gets no play at this time.
Perhaps more importantly, the C/N-C faction here and out in the wider media ignore the obvious: there is significant dissent among the military itself. Why? Well, since you are they you know this already, but let me spell it out just for the fun of it: you can claim they are wearing tinfoil hats, so it obliterates your feeble rhetoric with elegant simplicity. Such info about soldiers protesting the war has been posted and ignored by the C/N-C whiners.
As noted by Dome Vans: you avoid any thread where you can't spin your shit into fool's gold.
Last edited by keane on Fri Sep 21, 2007 2:34 pm; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ontheway
Joined: 24 Aug 2005
Location: Somewhere under the rainbow...
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 5:08 am Post subject: |
|
|
George Bush will be leaving office in January 2009, right on schedule. He may be evil, but there are still too many impediments to power left in the American system to allow such a coup to succeed.
It is correct to say that he will not be pulling out of Iraq under any foreseeable circumstance. As to the three exceptions:
1) Impeachment: If impeached and removed from office, the withdrawal from Iraq would have to happen under a successor. Cheney pull out?
2) Lobotomy: Wouldn't work. He would be replaced by Cheney, or if done secretly, he would be managed by Cheney.
3) Immolation of daughter: Wouldn't work. There would be a long mourning period, shock, sadness, sympathy for the first family, discussion, and the war would drag on till the end of his term.
There is no reason for anyone to expect Bush to change his policies. The neocons plan to use all of Bush's remaining time to institute their program, and to commit the US to wars that are difficult to end. They have attacked several nests of bees, and may attack some more, they they will leave the swarm for others to fight or calm down.
Last edited by ontheway on Fri Sep 21, 2007 5:12 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 5:12 am Post subject: |
|
|
Colorado/North Carolina?
The rest of the post was fairly incoherent. It lacked the keanness of your previous incarnation. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
