posted May 16, 2008 10:58 PM            

And now... you find even more excuses for your pro-terrorist, insurgent leanings and hide them behind what???? Holy Cow... you really are a piece of work.

I fear for you... you are so blinded by the Koolaid your pseudo lover feeds you that you have no idea what is real and what is fantasy. What will you so when you are cast away like trash like others were?

posted May 17, 2008 02:41 PM              

quote:

---

Those articles are pretty much the sentiments of about 98% of the troops that spent time there. About 90% of my Company wants to go back there and do their part to help the country get on their feet and be free without fear.

---

Bear, I'm also glad you're here ... and in Germany too, yk?

I think that last part is essential. While I was against the initial invasion, the fact is we're there and leaving Iraq in its current state would be indefensible. We have to do whatever we can to make this right. Too many Americans and Iraqi civilians have given their lives for us to give up now. I'm thinking, for instance, of the number of Iraqis brave enough to volunteer for Iraq's new police force, trying to build a new country for themselves. How many of them have been butchered by "freedom fighters". Remember the two busloads that were kidnapped and killed during Ramadan? Those recruits showed such courage. How could we leave them?

Bear - We often hear of the high percentage of National Guard troops that have been sent to Iraq. I've seen many interviews with those men and woman who were very surprised at their deployment. Do you think the expectations of the average Guardsman are very different than that of a full time Marine or Army soldier? It's been mentioned here that many soldiers join only for college money or job training. I've known 3 National Guard members and 2 of them did very much have that attitude. (the third joined the guard after several years in the Army, so I think he knew better) Is morale worse in National Guard units?

posted May 17, 2008 04:44 PM              

quote:

---

LTT ~ I also hope that you are being careful ... and that you know what you're getting involved in.

---

posted May 17, 2008 09:40 PM            

NO END IN SIGHT

Winner Special Jury Prize Documentary Sundance Film Festival
Winner Best Documentary National Society of Film Critics
Winner Best Documentary Toronto Film Critics
Winner Best Documentary New York Film Critics Cricle
Winner Best Documentary San Francisco Film Critics
Winner Best Documentary Los Angeles Film Circle
Winner Best Documentary Southeast Film Critics
Winner Best Documentary Florida Film Critics
Winner Best Documentary Aliance of Women Journalists
Winner Best Documentary Broadcast Critics Choice Awards

The first film of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq’s descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality and anarchy, NO END IN SIGHT is a jaw-dropping, insider’s tale of wholesale incompetence, recklessness and venality. Based on over 200 hours of footage, the film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials such as former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Ambassador Barbara Bodine (in charge of Baghdad during the Spring of 2003), Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell, and General Jay Garner (in charge of the occupation of Iraq through May 2003) as well as Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts. NO END IN SIGHT examines the manner in which the principal errors of U.S. policy – the use of insufficient troop levels, allowing the looting of Baghdad, the purging of professionals from the Iraqi government, and the disbanding of the Iraqi military – largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today. How did a group of men with little or no military experience, knowledge of the Arab world or personal experience in Iraq come to make such flagrantly debilitating decisions? NO END IN SIGHT dissects the people, issues and facts behind the Bush Administration’s decisions and their consequences on the ground to provide a powerful look into how arrogance and ignorance turned a military victory into a seemingly endless and deepening nightmare of a war.

“I think this decision to disband the [Iraqi] Army came as a surprise to most of us…”
Q: What was your reaction?
“I thought we had just created a problem. We had a lot of out of work [Iraqi] soldiers.”
– our interview with Richard Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State

NO END SIGHT alternates between U.S. policy decisions and Iraqi consequences, systematically dissecting the Bush Administration’s decisions. The consequences of those decisions now include 3,000 American deaths and 20,000 American wounded, Iraq on the brink of civil war, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths, the strengthening of Iran, the weakening of the U.S. military, and economic costs of over $2 trillion. It marks the first time Americans will be allowed inside the White House, Pentagon, and Baghdad’s Green Zone to understand for themselves what has become the disintegration of Iraq.

the film: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=6182969183854471645&hl=en&autoplay=1

______________________________________________________________________________

IRAQ FOR SALE
The War Profiteers

Blackwater, America's Private Army

http://iraqforsale.org/

"RIVETING, POWERFUL" "BLEW MY MIND"

The story of what happens to everyday Americans when corporations go to war.
Acclaimed director Robert Greenwald (Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed) takes you inside the lives of soldiers, truck drivers, widows and children who have been changed forever as a result of profiteering in the reconstruction of Iraq. Iraq for Sale uncovers the connections between private corporations making a killing in Iraq (Blackwater, Halliburton/KBR, CACI and Titan) and the decision makers who allow them to do so.

posted May 17, 2008 09:58 PM            

Soldiers are refusing to participate in the Iraq War

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1uBI-KXsRM&feature=related

August 11, 2006 Iraq Veterans Against the War Press Conference at the Arlington Northwest Memorial. Seattle, Washington
www.ivaw.net Sgt. Ricky Clousing U.S. Army interrogator

A wave of soldiers are refusing to participate in the U.S. war against Iraq.
GI resisters are getting considerable support from other soldiers and veterans.

Following the press conference, a group of Iraq Veterans Against the War, along with former GI resisters and other supporters,
went with Ricky Clousing to Fort Lewis, where Ricky surrendered himself to military custody.

Seattle Draft and Military Counseling http://www.sdmcc.org/rickyclousing

Courage To Resist http://www.CourageToResist.org

The Movie: Sir! No Sir! http://www.sirnosir.com

posted May 17, 2008 09:59 PM            

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDk6Qal2DCI

In the 1960's an anti-war movement emerged that altered the course of history. This movement didn't take place on college campuses, but in barracks and on aircraft carriers. It flourished in army stockades, navy brigs and in the dingy towns that surround military bases. It penetrated elite military colleges like West Point. And it spread throughout the battlefields of Vietnam. It was a movement no one expected, least of all those in it. Hundreds went to prison and thousands into exile. And by 1971 it had, in the words of one colonel, infested the entire armed services. Yet today few people know about the GI movement against the war in Vietnam. The Vietnam War has been the subject of hundreds of films, both fiction and non-fiction, but this story–the story of the rebellion of thousands of American soldiers against the war–has never been told in film.This is certainly not for lack of evidence. By the Pentagon's own figures, 503,926 "incidents of desertion" occurred between 1966 and 1971; officers were being "fragged"(killed with fragmentation grenades by their own troops) at an alarming rate; and by 1971 entire units were refusing to go into battle in unprecedented numbers. In the course of a few short years, over 100 underground newspapers were published by soldiers around the world; local and national antiwar GI organizations were joined by thousands; thousands more demonstrated against the war at every major base in the world in 1970 and 1971, including in Vietnam itself; stockades and federal prisons were filling up with soldiers jailed for their opposition to the war and the military. Yet few today know of these history-changing events. Sir! No Sir! will change all that. The film does four things: 1) Brings to life the history of the GI movement through the stories of those who were part of it; 2) Reveals the explosion of defiance that the movement gave birth to with never-before-seen archival material; 3) Explores the profound impact that movement had on the military and the war itself; and 4) The feature, 90 minute version, also tells the story of how and why the GI Movement has been erased from the public memory. I was part of that movement during the 60's, and have an intimate connection with it. For two years I worked as a civilian at the Oleo Strut in Killeen, Texas–one of dozens of coffeehouses that were opened near military bases to support the efforts of antiwar soldiers. I helped organize demonstrations of over 1,000 soldiers against the war and the military; I worked with guys from small towns and urban ghettos who had joined the military and gone to Vietnam out of a deep sense of duty and now risked their lives and futures to end the war; and I helped defend them when they were jailed for their antiwar activities. My deep connection with the GI movement has given me unprecedented access to those involved, along with a tremendous amount of archival material including photographs, underground papers, local news coverage and personal 8mm footage. Sir! No Sir! reveals how, thirty years later, the poem by Bertolt Brecht that became an anthem of the GI Movement still resonates: General, man is very useful. He can fly and he can kill. But he has one defect: He can think. --© Official Site

Visit www.sirnosir.com

Produced, Directed and Written by David Zeiger.

posted May 17, 2008 11:49 PM            

None of the anitwar nuts ever get close to the truth.

posted May 18, 2008 06:25 AM            

I'll have Bear respond when he is done playing his video game LOL... I get the computer this morning

From my experience though, working with NG / AR families and having friends married to NG / AR families, I feel that it is MUCH harder on them.

The biggest obstacle they face are from their own cities, states and counties. Employers that are not understanding of the Military often try to fire them or replace them when they are at war. It is entirely unfair and there is Federal law that protects their jobs while they are deployed.

It is also hard on the families because their Soldier is sent to training for months, then deployed for 12-15 months and then they have a redeployment period, so they can be gone for almost 20 months with the family only seeing them on R&R and briefly during the training period.

The families are also often left on their own. While the Military (and with my experience- the Army) has an "Army Family Covenant" we are afforded Financial, social services and Military support before, during and after deployments. We have solid Family Readiness Group programs and even programs designed for children of deployed Soldiers. Many NG / AR families do not have that type of support.

Many of us Active Duty families will reach out to our NG / AR counterparts to help them with the transition and point them to services available, through forums and semi-FRG type roles. But it is still severely inadaquate in my opinion.

I think one reason this occurs is that a State NG unit may be split up to support several AD units downrange. It would be difficult for an NG FRG to keep track of where all the NG's went but that is when the AD FRG should come into play so that they know who should be included.

posted May 18, 2008 09:21 PM            

"If you dont stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them."

very wise words in my opinion...

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

posted May 18, 2008 09:40 PM            

"If you dont stand behind our troops, feel free to stand in front of them."

very wise words in my opinion...

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

posted May 18, 2008 10:21 PM            

“We can not be secure by limiting our liberties, as some of our political leaders are demanding, but only by expanding them…We should take our example not from the military and political leaders shouting ‘retaliate’ and ‘war’ but from the doctors and nurses and … firemen and policemen who have been saving lives in the midst of mayhem, whose first thoughts are not violence, but healing, and not vengeance, but compassion.”

posted May 18, 2008 10:31 PM            

In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.

If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power.
They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.

Americans have been taught that their nation is civilized and humane.
But, too often, U.S. actions have been uncivilized and inhumane.

Most wars, after all, present themselves as humanitarian endeavors to help people.

When people don't understand that the government doesn't have their interests in mind, they're more susceptible to go to war.

There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.

With the indiscriminate nature of modern military technology (no such thing as a "smart bomb," it turns out) all wars are wars against civilians, and are therefore inherently immoral.
This is true even when a war is considered "just," because it is fought against a tyrant, against an aggressor, to correct a stolen boundary.

It's not right to respond to terrorism by terrorizing other people. And furthermore, it's not going to help.
Then you might say, "Yes, it's terrorizing people, but it's worth doing because it will end terrorism."
But how much common sense does it take to know that you cannot end terrorism by indiscriminately dropping bombs?

War itself is the enemy of the human race.

Behind the deceptive words designed to entice people into supporting violence -- words like democracy, freedom, self-defense, national security --
there is the reality of enormous wealth in the hands of a few, while billions of people in the world are hungry, sick, homeless.
The rule of law does not do away with the unequal distribution of wealth and power, but reinforces that inequality with the authority of law.
It allocates wealth and poverty in such calculated and indirect ways as to leave the victim bewildered.

posted May 18, 2008 11:25 PM            

I must ask that question because, so far all your idols are communists and socialist extremists.

I suppose it might be different if these morons weren't at best, 5th rate thinkers.

Howard Zinn certainly fits that category.
Do you admire anyone who actually loves or even likes the United States HSC.

What should one think about people who despise the United States but continue to live here, work here and take advantage of every right of citizenship, all the while yipping, yapping, biiatching and moaning about America? That's a real question HSC and the answer you're just trying to make America better isn't going to cut it.

I see America as a big, bright shiny apple. The biggest and best apple the world has ever produced. I see all those moaners and shriekers, those who despise America as you do HSC, as an infestation of worms attempting to worm their way in and hollow America out to the core.

Somebody fetch the bug spray.

Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Boston University
Marxist
Author of A People’s History of the United States, one of the most influential books on college campuses today

Born in August 1922, Howard Zinn is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Boston University. The author of more than twenty books, he is best known for writing A People's History of the United States (1980), a Marxist tract which describes America as a predatory and repressive capitalist state -- sexist, racist, imperialist -- that is run by a corporate ruling class for the benefit of the rich. The book claims to present American history through the eyes of workers, American Indians, slaves, women, blacks and populists. A People’s History has sold more than a million copies, making it one of the best-selling history books of all time. Despite its lack of footnotes and other scholarly apparatus, it is one of most influential texts in college classrooms today -- not only in history classes, but also in such fields as economics, political science, literature, and women’s studies.

Professor Zinn announces the overtly political agenda of A People’s History in an explanatory coda to the 1995 edition: "I wanted my writing of history and my teaching of history to be a part of social struggle. I wanted to be a part of history and not just a recorder and teacher of history. So that kind of attitude towards history, history itself as a political act, has always informed my writing and my teaching.”

Zinn describes the founding of the American Republic as an exercise in tyrannical control of the many by the few for greed and profit: “The American Revolution … was a work of genius, and the Founding Fathers ... created the most effective system of national control devised in modern times, and showed future generations of leaders the advantages of combining paternalism with command.” In Zinn’s reckoning the Declaration of Independence was not so much a revolutionary statement of rights as a cynical means of manipulating popular groups into overthrowing the King to benefit the rich. The rights which the Declaration appeared to guarantee were “limited to life, liberty and happiness for white males” -- and actually for wealthy white males -- because they excluded black slaves and “ignored the existing inequalities in property” (in other words, they were not socialist rights).

In Professor Zinn’s view, Maoist China is “the closest thing, in the long history of that ancient country, to a people’s government, independent of outside control”; Castro’s Cuba “had no bloody record of suppression”; and the Marxist dictators of Nicaragua were “welcomed” by the people, while the opposition Contras, whose candidate triumphed when free elections were held as a result of U.S. pressure, were a “terrorist group” that “seemed to have no popular support inside Nicaragua.”

In A People’s History, greed is the explanation for virtually every major historical event:

Regarding America’s separation from Great Britain, Zinn writes: “Around 1776, certain important people in the English colonies … found that by creating a nation, a symbol, a legal unity called the United States, they could take over land, profits, and political power from the favorites of the British Empire.”

Zinn describes antebellum America as a uniquely cruel slaveholding society whose goal was subjugating man for profit. On the other hand, the war of the Union against the slaveholding system is portrayed in exactly the same terms: “It is money and profit, not the movement against slavery that was uppermost in the priorities of the men who ran the country.”

The same explanation is given for America’s entry into World War I: “American capitalism needed international rivalry -- and periodic war -- to create an artificial community of interest between rich and poor.”

According to Zinn, it was America and not Japan that was to blame for Pearl Harbor. The fight against fascism, he says, was a manipulated illusion to conceal America’s real goals, which were empire and money: “Quietly, behind the headlines in battles and bombings, American diplomats and businessmen worked hard to make sure that when the war ended, American economic power would be second to none in the world. United States business would penetrate areas that up to this time had been dominated by England. The Open Door Policy of equal access would be extended from Asia to Europe, meaning that the United States intended to push England aside and move in.”

To this day, Zinn continues to sympathize with America’s enemies, just as he supported the Soviet Union in the Cold War. In a pamphlet-like tract published after 9/11 called Terrorism and War, he portrays the U.S. as a terrorist state and today’s Islamic jihadists as people valiantly standing up to America’s empire. He strongly opposed the post-9/11 U.S. invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan, and he opposes the Patriot Act as an assault on civil liberties.

With regard to the Middle East conflict, Zinn says that “in the occupied territories ... a million and more Palestinians live under a cruel military occupation, while our [U.S.] government supplies Israel with high-tech weapons.”

In 2004 Zinn published Voices of A People's History of the United States with Anthony Arnove.

posted May 18, 2008 11:48 PM            

Let's see which sad, bitter old hippie or yippie he dredges up out the Marxist pit next. He hasn't gotten around to Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin or Tom Hayden...yet.

posted May 19, 2008 12:38 PM            

How could anyone justify the actions of either? Stalin reigned over the murder of 30 to 70 million of his own citizens. Stalin..."one death is a tragedy, a thousand is a statistic". Stalin produced a hell of a lot of statistics.

Mao presided over the deaths of 70 to 130 million Chinese.

What constitutes oppression in the mind of your nutty professor?