If you never read any of my posts, please read this one

But then I read most of your posts.
You get my 5, for whatever that's worth.

The only difference in my life is that my brother was over there in a non-combat role from 1966-68.

I don't think the "wiser" part lasted very long.:-(

With the projected losses due to training accidents the Army, and the military in general, losses soldiers every day. THe figures due to accidents are a bit higher in combat zones, but not significantly.

We smashed 'em! About three million of those little commies! We won! So shut up!

They are not reporting the wounded at all. Could be thousands. Could be none. We won't hear about it.

Did I? Then there's the 6,000 dead Iraqis.

friend in Nam, he was funny,kind, a wonderful friend. He came back a mess, couldn't hold a job, couldn't fit into society. I think he couldn't ive with things that he had seen and most likely(he never talked about this)done.

Anyway, he committed suicide a few years ago.

In addition to those being killed now, how many will return scarred for life?

War...profits are reckoned in dollars, losses in lives.

When will Americans decide not my child, not my neighbor for these rich men to stuff their pockets even more.

were killed by accident and how many were killed by hostile action? When you die in a war zone, you are a casualty. There is no distinction.

and here we are....how many years later...still counting soldier's deaths in a war just as pointless as Nam was...

....and people have the nerve to laugh at a Dept of Peace when it appears to me this is exactly what we need and are probably more ready for, than many imagine!!

Bush lies- young Americans die- the rest of us grieve and the media keeps quiet...what world am I living in???

Peace
DR

one of the things that convinced Daniel Ellsberg to come forth with the Pentagon Papers was the realization that our govt was lying about causalities on both sides...

inflating the number for the North Vietnamese,

and deflating the number of Americans.

these lies, of course, worked, as you note, to prolong the war...if only we keep spraying agent orange...that sort of thing.

the truth, in fact, is that we could have, and should have had a peace in 1968. instead, Kissinger promised the South Vietnamese a better deal if they would wait for a republican to win the election.

in the meantime, twenty thousand more Americans died so that Nixon could win an election and Kissinger could be the power behind the throne.

when peace was finally made, it was on the same terms that were presented in 1968.

..and btw, I read your posts all the time. :)

I think that what the American media is all but ignoring is the Iraqi casualties. I don't want to sound like an asshole, but I care for Iraqi civilians much more than I do for American soldiers, emphasis on civilians and soldiers rather than on nationality.

BTW, I gave you a 4, but I meant to give you a 5.

I believe that at some point they stopped posting the tallies on the news. But maybe I'm thinking of another war. In any case, your reference got me wondering whether the tally of the US dead ever came close to the reality of 53,000 plus.

Anyone know?

kick

Mr. Steinberg is correct:

Having purged our attitudes, finally, of the taint of Vietnam by the joint success of the Gulf War and Afghanistan, we went into Iraq, it seems to me, more with images from World War II in mind. We would liberate a nation from its tyrant, as with Germany. They would be grateful, eventually, and renounce their past evils, as with Germany. We would hang around for a couple of years, doing good, rebuilding a shattered nation, establishing a democratic government, as with Germany. Then depart with a friendly backward wave at our newly minted pals, the Iraqis.

He is also correct that it is not working out that way. He lays the reason for this is nobody knows whether Saddam is alive or dead. In this, I believe he couldn't be more wrong. If Saddam were shown to be dead, the Iraqi resistance would continue. If Saddam were shown to be alive and I were a leader of the Iraqi resistance, I'd put a contract out on him.

Saddam is not the reason Iraqis are resisting.

The Germans did not resist allied occupation of their country because they understood two uncontroverted facts: First, their leader plunged them into war; second, they lost. Occupation is the price one pays for losing a war and there was a sense that the allies were on the defensive. Moreover, the allies resonstructed Germany for the benefit of the Germans.

That is where things are different in Iraq. True, they lost a war. True, their leader had a nasty habit of plunging them into wars. However, this war was not Saddam's war. This war was started by a foreign enemy bent on conquest. There was nothing defensive about America's posture towards Iraq this spring. The American occupation of Iraq is colonial and is not designed to benefit the Iraqis. It is Americans who will profit from the reconstruction of Iraq. It is Americans who will enjoy the bounty of Iraq's land. Bush is a foreign conqueror; to the Iraqis, he will forever be a foreign enemy.

Iraqis have every right to resist the colonial occupation of their country. They will choose guerrilla warfare as their mode of resistance, since those are the best tactics for a weaker but more popular force to confront a modern, well-equipped army. This will draw the occupying force in a quiagmire. Just as the Algerians drew in the French, just as the Vietnamese drew in first the French and then the Americans, so shall the Iraqis draw in the Americans.

because ordinarily I find them informative and provacative. This one is no exception - thanks for sharing it.

:hi:

that they'd seen a LtCol on one of the news stations admit, when pressed, that no sustained insurgency has ever been defeated by occupying forces.

That drove it home for me in a big way, tho in the back of my mind and in my heart I knew it. This is beyond pointless. And this war is so immoral I almost can't see straight. Is it any wonder that I don't think I'll be able to bring myself to vote for someone who voted FOR this war (unless he repudiates his vote and apologizes, etc.)

Eloriel

Thanx again:hi: