Not being memorialized today.

I feel for the veterans. I really do. They should get their benefits. They should be thanked for thinking they were doing the right thing.

But they weren't doing the right thing. Not since 1945, certainly. They were tricked. Suckered. Bamboozled.

And no "holiday" is more of a lie than this one.

Two million dead Vietnamese. Thank you for your service.

Who knows how many million dead in the end, in Iraq? Thank you for your service.

Keeping ten thousand nuclear weapons deployed globally, ready for use on a hair-trigger. Thank you for your service.

Bankrupt nation that spends more on the military than all other countries combined, its currency tending to zero value. A ruling class made up of military contractors, because Americans will (at least temporarily) believe any lie from a President, or a Man with Stars on his uniform. A world at war that could be at peace, if only the strongest would lead it there, instead of choosing the next generation of warfare.

Thank you for your service.

The defense of the territorial United States against Canada and Mexico would require a force of how many? The difference between that and the present military is the fodder for imperialism.

The best soldier is the one who refuses to fight an unjust war. The highest medal the military can convey is the dishonorable discharge for insubordination. Military recruitment in the modern context is an invitation to make children into murderers. Let us hope the day comes when no one steps forward for this great and shining lie.

K & R!

I should have volunteered for military service so that I could refuse to deploy for the illegal military actions we are prosecuting. It seems to me that _if_ we are going to have a standing army that each and every one of us needs to be more directly responsible for the undeclared wars that have become our nations forte. If we are going to go to war, then it better be important enough that the whole nation is on a war footing until the war is won. Anything else is immoral.

Thanks for your writing, Jack. I concur.

Agony

They would volunteer and start agitating for resistance from boot camp forward. I've met a couple and they were dynamos for justice, all the live-long day. Results were mixed. I'm not sure it was the best idea and it takes a hearty breed to do something like this, but hey, I salute them for it. Most of them spent most of the time in military jails, but they did gum up the works!

We are raised believing that our leaders will make the right decisions for our country. That they will not send people into war without good reason. If people are fools for trusting their leaders, then perhaps we are all fools. I am a pacifist, but I cannot say there is never a time for war. However, it is hard to see justification for most of the wars the US has engaged in.

I cannot blame young men 18, 19, 20 years old for not knowing that our leaders are fools. Some people do not learn this in the course of a lifetime. Soldiers lose their lives as the price for learning this. I am sorry that young men, and now young women as well, are exploited this way. To most of our leaders, life is pretty damn cheap.

We need to elect leaders who believe that human rights apply to everyone, and that every human life is precious.

What you say may have applied in 1964. Yeah, we have the bad conformist dominant media, but you know what? The truth has a way of spreading regardless. By when should it have been obvious what was going on in Vietnam, to the young as well as the old, and that we all had a duty to refuse and resist this crime? 1966? 68? 70? 78? Same question, for Iraq: by when?

I understand that young people can be led astray, but this is a failure of all of us. Why are we teaching the nonsense that you can ever trust leaders? A republic is based on the principle that leaders cannot be trusted. That is why powers are divided, rights are guaranteed, elections are held, procedures for recall and impeachment are in place... If we forget all that at the first invocation of "war" and "emergency" then that is all we will ever have, war and emergency. As a few of the framers famously said (whether they meant it or not is a different debate).

fought in south east asia with the USSR is not determined by the kid drafted to war. The legality of Iraq is not determined by enlisted men and officers. It is determined by civilians here in Washington.

The military does not refuse orders or fight with the elected civilian government. That is third world bullshit.

Any question of legality and motive should be addressed to the people who used executive power to start the war and those who continue it by voting to fund it.

The military is not in be business of negotiating orders.

Do you really think the public schools are going to teach the opposite? Or that they should? Don't we have the responsibility to teach children what Democracy is supposed to be?

Democracy is a society that runs for the welfare of The People, not the elites.

That is exactly what public school should be teaching children.

Did you go over to the dark side?

Methinks you confuse democracy with "democracy."

Why are there so damn many of you?

The single most counterproductive tool of diplomacy.

where was was fought with the intent of helping people escape death. It would be quite reasonable for the US to deny use of airspace over sudan under un charter.

Asking nicely does not work all the time.

If it did there would be no need for the police or military.

It is a nice concept but will never happen.

as long as The People of the world allow elites to define their realities. It's not a nice concept, it is a necessary one.

Somalia was the ultimate result of Euro imperialism.

Bosnia was manufactured by the elites who fanned long dead ethnic differences into a flame of sectarianism in the post communism Yugoslavia.

Both conflicts sold a lot of arms for the elite war machine, neither needed to happen.

Memorial Day (Decoration Day) is for mourning and remembering. It is not the same as Veterans' Day.

Disagree all you want with war, Iraq, and imperialism; I know I do.

However, please remember that today is Memorial Day, a day for memorializing the dead. Whatever we may think of war, every lost soldier was someone's child.

unless it includes the millions of the US military's victims around the world, who didn't volunteer to be invaded.

Remember, every civilian (and military person) lost was someone's child.

Perhaps the biggest problem with this country is our way of valuing lives here more than those elsewhere -- which is at its worst when invading elsewhere. Ironic and deadly, isn't it?

value their countries interest before that of others. Every place I have ever been has that trait. That is not an American thing.

I believe it is basic sociological structure and has been in place since the tribal days.

You are welcome to your opinion. The fact that you can express it without fear of someone coming to punish you for it was paid for with blood.

I choose of the millions who CAN do the same because we intervened. E. Germany and Poland come to mind.

in every country, I've met different kinds of people, including those who understand that nationalism is a construct that long ago lost its utility, and in the modern world can only lead us down the path to mutual collective destruction.

Yes, every country has the conservative and the blind tendencies you seem to think are natural and will be with us forever.

Realpolitik, my-country-first justifications have been fradulent pretty much for the duration of civilization, but it's never been more obvious in the age of acid rain, nuclear weapons and the ongoing mass extermination of species. Provincial pride and the myth of the Other have reached their end-point. This world will stand together or its countries will choke on their own feces.

Furthermore, I can express my opinion because of the blood shed by countless rebels against divine right and other arbitrary authorities. Less so because of the carnage wrought by the military-industrial complex in Vietnam or Iraq, and not because of the Cold War, either, which could have been resolved several times but was extended by the moronic hardliners on both sides you probably admire as heroes.

And I can express my opinion thanks to the fights waged and the sacrifices made by Frederick Douglass and Emma Goldman and Mohandas Gandhi and Malcolm X and everyone else who uses their rights and fights for their rights instead of glorifying their leaders, not because of Andrew Jackson or Grant or Stonewall Jackson or Ike or Gen. Westmoreland.

I'll take Smedley Butler over all those tinpots.

without entering into a detailed post I will kindly point out that all those you mentioned could have ended up just like this person. If you look you can see the AK round striking the ground after traversing their brain.



what ever their "crime" you will not be subject to that treatment here.

the treatment of disease and other humanitarian efforts are critical to our survival. malaria has killed more than any nuclear weapon and continues to kill now.

It is the job of America as a wealthy nation to promote and protect life and freedom. That comes in the form of aid, education, and assistance, not just with military power.

But you are also very poor at it, did you know?

The picture you show is of course the ultimate consequence of imperial intervention in Afghanistan, by the Soviets as well as the US.

If the murderer is not one of the very same "freedom fighters" the US backed against the Soviets (who actually tried to protect women's rights), then you can bet his commanders and trainers are.

But here's the bitterly funny part: Do you see the site on the watermark of the very photo you have posted?

RAWA.ORG.

Do you know what that is? As it happens, they are the ones responsible for getting this very well-known and horrible photo out to the world.

What follows is a sample of their current front page - and I've deleted dozens of headlines similar to the ones included below.



All from http://www.RAWA.org

Ouch! If this was a boxing match, you'd at least have a ref step in to stop the fight. To help you save face, I'll be merciful and lay off your posts until tomorrow.

In short, Mr. Pavulon, posting emotionally laden photos and pretending they prove your point (when in fact they contradict it) is very easy to do.

Here's a photo that unfortunately is more relevant to this thread, as it's not about the Crimes of Other Countries.

The CIA actually FAVORED the Taliban in the belief that they would bring "stability" to Afghanistan after the Soviets left.

The Left criticized the Taliban almost from the beginning, but they didn't become "bad" in the eyes of the Establishment until after 9/11. Until then, it was okay to ignore their atrocities (Clinton administration) or invite them to Crawfordville to talk about oil pipelines (the Bush administration in summer, 2001).

You have put the lie to Pavulon masterfully.

It's just so damn easy to sit and dissect
the who, what , where and why of every
soldiers action,

especially when the dissector has
never set foot in a battlefield.

:(

And when was the last time your hometown was bombed flat and then invaded, by the way?

n/t

I have not experienced the enlightenment that comes only from being on a battlefield as a combatant with US forces (other countries don't count) and therefore have not earned the right to use the free speech for which others sacrificed so that I may be shamed into not using it.

As my final act of political speech before permanently shutting up, I hereby declare support for the system imagined by Robert Heinlein in Starship Troopers, in which only veterans are allowed to vote.

Is that about what you're looking for?

We found something to agree on.

was far from unjust. NATO may have prevented a wider war. We certainly stopped a mass murder. I do not consider my time deployed there a waste. Nor was activation for civil emergencies (weather) a waste. I was not tricked.

I knew exactly what it meant and exactly what could happen, even though I was not signing up for active duty.

Rwanda is an example of where we SHOULD have intervened to stop another mass murder. As is Sudan. Allowing mass murder is wrong.

Stopping it means killing people if asking does not work.

While a nice vision there will never be peace in the world. People will continue to kill others for resources or simple hatred.

A soldier does NOT decide what war is unjust.

CIVILIANS start wars here, ALWAYS.

I'm sorry, but you are repeating some very ignorant and self-serving Western propaganda on behalf of "humanitarian" imperialism.

It is a complete myth that the West failed to intervene in Rwanda. In fact, two Western powers intervened, on behalf of their own imperial interests. (These are the only interest they ever represent, regardless of the occasional collateral benefit or PR action.)

For starters, the US intervened in Rwanda. So did France.

Each armed, supported and trained different sides in the civil war that culminated in the genocide. If you don't know that, I politely request that go find out about it before you post here again.

Kagame was being trained at Ft. Leavenworth when he was called back to Rwanda to lead the RPF after the prior leader was killed. The US armed this group in Uganda as a proxy army against the French-backed Hutu-majority government in Kigali.

During the genocide, France sent soldiers to protect the very same Hutu Power forces who were blamed for the genocide. This secured their retreat to the Congo and set off a sequence of events that has had the Congo in chaos ever since.

Again, I ask that you go and research these facts first, before you respond reflexively with more pro-military PR.

You say:



Oh yes, they do. For example, enough of the US soldiers in Vietnam decided the war was unjust to bring ground activities to a standstill in 1969-71 and make a withdrawal of the invasion inevitable.

A true shining moment.

that is backing up your assertions. The assertion that those powers KNEW and did NOTHING is backed up here.
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/

and by every other reliable source of information.

My father was in Vietnam in 1969, there was no standstill. They were fighting a shooting war and people were being killed on a large scale. That is a pretty reliable source of primary information. However here is another.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#Vietnamization.2C_1969.E2.80.931973
http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Thomas.Pilsch/Vietnam.html

Vietnam ended when CIVILIANS declined to further fund the war. Have a war problem, go to Washington. POLICY MAKERS start wars.

All this bullshit imperialist commentary, what are we taking from Rwanda, Somalia, Bosnia?

According to the Pentagon there were 270 fragging incidents in 1970. (That means soldiers killing their own officers after being given orders they didn't want to follow, for those who don't know.)

You may want to whitewash the resistance of the soldiers themselves to the war but it is a fact. With all due respect to your father, I've heard a different story from other veterans.

There's also this great documentary, full of veterans recalling their own resistance to the war (without which it might not have ended!).

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3342610&mesg_id=3342610

---

As for Rwanda, your statement that you can only find material contradicting the standard "West didn't intervene" mythology on the World Socialist Web Site is a talking point worthy of FOXNEWS. I guess you didn't look very hard.

I was in Germany in 1994 and it was their corporate press that covered the French military intervention in Rwanda on behalf of the Hutu Power forces, very thoroughly. The Germans also protested it, until the French withdrew their forces.

For the rest, you'll have to accept some famous cut-and-paste from other threads. See you later.

---

Here's an expose on the French role from an implicitly pro-US position, found on an anarcholibertarian site. It is an excellent and yet totally one-sided history of how France intervened in Rwanda to assist the genocide:

"1990-1994: The genocide and war in Rwanda"
http://libcom.org/history/1990-1994-the-genocide-and-war-in-Rwanda

It's one-sided because the RPF is presented as the good guys who happened to wander in from Uganda. The U.S. role in creating the RPF in the first place is cut out altogether.

For a one-sided version of the U.S. role, deemphasizing the (greater) French role in the crime, see here:

"The US was behind the Rwandan Genocide:
Rwanda: Installing a US Protectorate in Central Africa"
by Michel Chossudovsky
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO305A.html

The truth is, the two powers are both responsible for aspects of what happened in Rwanda -- both intervened, both exacerbated and neither cared for stopping the genocide, both acted only on behalf of imperial interests. This is as one might expect, given the prior history of the Great Powers.

I shall quote from the first account, because it already suffices to demolish the myth of "Western indifference" at what happened in Rwanda.

France intervened in 1994 to help the Interhamwe militias, after already doing much to prop up the Habyarimana government in its former colony:




Then, in 1994:



In Germany at the time, I remember it was specifically the German uproar within the EU at what France was doing not to stop but to *extend* the genocide in Rwanda that led to the withdrawal of the French force, albeit too late to prevent the next chapter of the tragedy, in Congo.

The Hutu Power militias continued to raid Rwanda from the Congo, until Rwanda invaded and backed the Kagame overthrow of one of the worst of all dictators, Mobuto (who had been put in power by the US, Belgium and France in the early 1960s after the overthrow and assassination of Lumumba, and who had been plundering ever since).

This set off the Congo wars that have killed so many since.

In short, portions of the U.S. imperial apparatus had a war by proxy in the 1990s against France and French interests, all over Africa, continuing to this day in the Congo.

I'm sure in 1994 Mitterand knew all about what French imperialism was up to - small-time powers like France need to keep a tighter and more centralized control over their operations. And it's not like French Socialists had not already been part of coalitions that supported genocide as a response to the aspirations for independence of the Vietnamese and Algerian peoples. So the decades of merely propping up the old regime in Rwanda may have seemed minor by comparison.

Of course, Mitterand as the C-in-C would have had to give direct approval on the order to INTERVENE in 1994 with actual French troops on BEHALF of the Hutu Power forces that are accused of COMMITTING the genocide. (Sorry, this stuff requires caps, because although it was all over the European press at the time, for some reason a different history has been written about "how the West stood by.")

Kagame's official site reads: Quote:



http://www.gov.rw/government/president/personal.html

His opposition agrees:

http://paulkagame.blogspot.com/2006/11/who-is-paul-kagame
* Link now dead *

Quote:


Um, hm, Kansas? Does this sound like the U.S. was supporting the RPF? Of course. In 1990 and until 1994, is the U.S.-backed RPF fighting the French-backed Rwandan government? Why, yes.

So what do you call that? A proxy war.

Is the incoming Clinton aware of this small portion of U.S. worldwide operations? Dunno. It's not like presidents have actually been responsible for most of foreign "policy" (operations of war and plunder) since, oh, I'll be charitable and say Nixon. Clinton's a smart guy and I'm sure he figured out at some point what a few of the heads on the far-reaching U.S. octopus were doing in Africa at the time.

:(

:)

and Yes- thank you for your service.

And are still doing it when they return.

Don't you know the theme of the day - of every day - is always kill the messenger?

Here's an action link in support
of the new GI Bill

http://therealmccain.com/gibill/


-the one McCain won't support.

I support a GI bill too.

It's just that I understand the day can and must come when there are no more GIs - here or anywhere else - because war shall be made obsolete.

I'm glad we can agree on something.

We love our neighbors, we love this land, we love the earth, and we love the wonder of creation.

For these reasons, we cannot fathom the insanity of war without end and its inevitable cruelty, murder and destruction. We find it intolerable to stomach the mind-numbing cowardice that inhabits the lizard brain, which knows to strike and kill without reason.

Scott Nearing called war "organized murder and mass destruction by civilized nations" in his brilliant tome that he penned between the massive world wars of the first half of the twentieth century. As he elaborated: "War ... is neither a legalistic distinction nor a problem in ethics. It is a formidable enemy that snatches them from their families and jobs; that forces them to fight or to work; that gags them; that ruthlessly destroys the products of their labor; that wounds and maims them; that takes their lives."

Tricked, suckered, bamboozled, indeed. Snatched from their families and jobs.

My ancestors gave of themselves and risked much during the establishment of this country, and in the other great conflicts of the nineteenth century. To have their sacrifices trivialized and ridiculed by the neo-fascist cabal of today is particularly distasteful.

As per Wikipedia:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918

And yet we continue to tell it again and again.

Never was.

Thanks for reminding me of that powerful poem by one who was in the trenches.

I would be startled to learn that.

At the least, you are swimming again several hundred years of U.S. history, generally speaking. Having wrestled greatly with the whole issue while facing the draft in the 60s, I can appreciate your stand. And I don't agree with it.

Trust me, I'd also be against Memorial Day in Lilliput, if I were a Lilliputian, unless it was a day to commemorate all war dead and to say that war can and must be abolished from the pages of history.

it is pretty much in the upper ranks of countries that conflate patriotism and militarism.

A person who signs up to go kill foreigners is called "patriotic" and is lauded for "serving his/her country."

A person who signs up for a service project that improves the everyday lives of Americans or improves the national landscape or infrastructure is called a "do-gooder."

A person who uses freedom of speech to try to stop the country from embarking on a disastrous course is called a "traitor" and a "dupe of the enemy."

And yet in most cases, the "do-gooder" and the "traitor" are performing a more patriotic act, trying to make their country better, than is the person who signs up for the military, who is just following orders that may or may not be to the benefit of the country as a whole.

Thank you!

...Matthis Chiroux

Chris Gorman

Camilo E. Mejia

Add the others I missed.

These soldiers very much decided that this war is unjust.

Ryan Jackson
Agustin Aguayo
Mark Wilkerson
Ehren Watada
Suzanne Swift
James Burmeister
Eugene Cherry
James Circello
Robin Long
Brandon Hughey
Jeremy Hinzman
Brad Gaskins
Darrell Anderson
Ricky Clousing
Kyle Snyder
Stephen Funk
Dan Felushko
Carl Webb
Wilfredo Torres
Diedra Cobb
Perry O'Brien
Joel Klimkewicz
Chas Davis
Blake LeMoine
Joshua Despain
Michael Blake
Jessica Faustner
Neil Quentin Lucas
Chris Teske
Matt Lowell
Tim Richard
Robert Zabala
Christian Kjar
Camilo Mejia
Abdul Henderson
Ghanim Khalil
Pablo Paredos
Eleonai “Eli” Israel
Jonathan Barriga
Dale Bartell
David Beals
Kevin Benderman
Anuradha Bhagwati
Ivan Brobek
Peter Brown
David Bunt
Thomas Buonomo
Nathen Burden
Travis Burnham
Chris Capps
Sergei Chaparin
Travis Clark
Justin Cliburn
Justin Colby
Clifford Cornell
Erin Creagan
Jeremy Daniel
Michael Espinal
Jessica Faustner
Corey Glass
Chris Gorman
Robert Grubbs
Mary Hanna
Patrick Hart
Derek Hess
Clifton Hicks
Kevin Hicks
Jared Hood
Kyle Huwer
Bethany James
Kathrine Jashinski
Ryan Johnson
Terri Johnson
Joshua Key
Joel Klemkewicz
Dale Landry
Vincent LaVolpa
Calvin Lee
Kevin Lee
Brian John Lyman
Chris Magaoay
Jason Marek
Corey Martin
Jimmy Massey
Brad McCall
Phil McDowell
Melanie McPherson
Matt Mishler
James Morriss
Linjamin Mull
Greg Nash
Perry O'Brian
Ralph Padula
DeShawn Reed
Kimberly Rivera
Korey Rowe
David Sanders
Ross Spears
James Stepp
Michael Sudbury
Ronnie Tallman
Harvey Tharp
Marc Train
Jose Vasquez
Hart Viges
Jason Webb
Abdullah Webster
Chuck Wiley
Steve Yoczik
Robert Zabala
Joshua Casteel
Chris Harrison
Eric Riley
Preston Betts
Dean Walcott

My apologies if I missed anyone...

According to War Resisters Support Campaign, at least 200 U.S. service people are currently in Canada, considering filing claims for refugee status, and an unknown number are AWOL in Canada while they decide what to do next.

List from:
www.couragetoresist.org
ivaw.org
www.tomjoad.org

I read a poem about him once! He's out of jail now, right?

kicked

All of the fallen must be honored, in a way that rejects the monstrosity of war.