Walter Jones, Patriot for Peace
Justin Raimondo asked in his recent column “Walter Jones, Patriot for Peace,” whether the left and right antiwar forces in Congress and across the nation can join together to oppose the war in Iraq.
I believe they can. If someone like Rep. Walter Jones Jr. (R-N.C.), the man who gave us “freedom fries,” can change his mind, then many other congressmen and congresswomen who supported the war at first can change their minds as well as public support drops and the casualties grow.
But in a larger sense, what has prevented a joining of such forces is something I wrote about in an Etherzone.com column last month (“Left and Right Unite? First the Left Has to Shape Up,” May 6, 2002). The Left must first reject its tendencies toward anti-Americanism and anti-military rhetoric and feelings. Groups like International ANSWER must be sent into the darkness where they belong, no matter how good they are at organizing demonstrations, and public officials like U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) cannot make statements that equate U.S. soldiers to Nazis or Soviet gulag guards no matter how unintentional they may be of slandering U.S. troops.
Men like Jones, and other Republican congressmen, more than likely represent military bases or large numbers of military personnel or retirees. This is especially true now that the military is shifting more of its operations away from “blue” states to “red” states. Such men cannot join antiwar movements, for matters of practical politics, if the leftists on the other side are continually attacking the U.S. itself rather than the policies of its government, and attacking the whole military rather than the actions of its soldiers or leaders. There’s no way Jones or any politician like him would do something like that.
Jones has said that there are a number of Republicans who have privately told him they too have doubts about Iraq and would like to see some sort of timetable, official or unofficial, to bringing the troops home. In order to make those Republicans go public with their opposition, they have to be convinced their opposition is best helping their country, as Jones is convinced. But they will not be convinced and will be reluctant to join any antiwar opposition until the Left purges itself of anti-U.S. sentiment.
No one’s asking leftists to all suddenly become blind patriots. There just has to be a realization that all the bad things that the U.S. may be responsible for are a product of its government and concentrated power in the hands of an elite and corrupt few, not a product of its people. Only then will Left and Right truly unite, and then the war will come to a conclusion.
After watching the feds throw Martha Stewart into jail for what was nothing more than a petty act of self-preservation, I shudder to think what awaits those who are guilty of lying us into this war. But then, I wonder, who has the authority to jail the jailers?
I’m encouraged to see men like Walter Jones showing the courage to admit their mistakes, but that doesn’t excuse his culpability in this whole sordid affair. Despite his turnaround, he is still guilty of being a spineless collaborator who abdicated both his duty and authority to the power-brokers in the executive branch. This whole episode is yet another demonstration of WHY war MUST be declared by Congress, NOT the executive.
After all this bloodshed, who will be held accountable? The American PEOPLE, that’s who.
God help us.
~ Will Blalock, Brazoria, Texas, 14th District
Just remember who protects your freedom of speech – the men and women of the U.S. armed forces. The freedoms that we have were paid for with blood. You can protest war all you want but, in the real world, there is no peace without war.
Semper Fidelis,
~ Matthew C., “A Marine Who Went To War For You”
Ilana Mercer replies:
Dear Matthew,
I understand how difficult it is to do what you do, while sensing deep down that the war in Iraq is futile and doesn’t relate, even tangentially, to protecting American rights. Cognitive dissonance must be such that a soldier would need to indulge in some fantasy (and guilt-tripping) so as to sustain this implausible thesis and the internal conflict it causes.
Like most women, I appreciate a brave man who wants to protect me (besides, American Marines are hot). However, you’d be doing much more protecting if you returned home safe and sound and joined the Minutemen.
Behind the Downing Street Memos
Hey, let’s stop with the 1,700 dead already.
U.S. military personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals have not previously been counted. They total about 6,210 as of Jan. 1, 2005.
Note: There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense is deliberately not reporting a significant number of the dead in Iraq. We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFP than are reported officially. The educated rumor is that the actual death toll is in excess of 7,000. Given the officially acknowledged number of over 15,000 seriously wounded, this elevated death toll is far more realistic than the current 1,400+ now being officially published.
WHOLE ARTICLE HERE: http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/article/52345.
Michael Ewens replies:
This rumor just won’t die. There have been many deaths from wounds and many have been reported. There are two reasons to suspect claims of a cover-up:
1. Soldiers killed while enlisted – according to CentCom – must be publicly reported (they claim it’s the law). Use this site’s filter “place of death” to see:
http://icasualties.org/oif/Details.aspx
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2005/nr20050606-3541.html
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2005/nr20050614-3685.html
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2004/nr20041122-1623.html
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2003/nr20031121-0681.html
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2005/nr20050513-3143.html
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/2005/nr20050419-2701.html
There are many more.
2. Suppose that they didn’t report it to the public. Do you believe that thousands of family members have either been left in the dark or, if not, have decided to keep it a secret, too?
The story you mention has no evidence or links. I doubt its conclusions but am open to more real evidence.
Finally, I believe that the government just isn’t competent enough to succeed at such a big cover-up.
The Damning Downing Street Memo
Gordon,
Great article. So, what are our wimpy congressmen and senators going to do about it? Nothing? Because they are in on “the take”?
Gordon Prather replies:
It may be that some courageous governor (Gregoire of Washington?) will demand the immediate return to this country of all that state’s National Guardsmen on the grounds that they were illegally sent abroad. That demand will trigger all sorts of legal and congressional action. And if any of those 163+ Guardsmen who have died – in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the run-up to or aftermath thereof – resisted being mobilized, then in the words of his father, Junior is going to be in “deep doo-doo.”
I just read Ran HaCohen’s article about the checkpoints in the West Bank, and just wanted to say thank you. One of the hardest things for me to explain, as a Palestinian living in the U.S., to others was the sheer aggravation, abuse, and downright insanity of the checkpoints, and how they just drive people crazy. Hopefully, your article is a good step in the right direction to explain that just because things aren’t blowing up on a daily basis, it doesn’t mean things are good.
This article explains why I don’t subscribe to any of the major newspapers anymore. I rely entirely on on foreign media (BBC, Toronto Globe, the Guardian, etc.) through the Internet for most of the important news. I believe the newspaper publishers will be in serious trouble in the years ahead as more and more readers get disenchanted by the U.S. media publications and take the same route to news as I.
I came across your article while doing a search on another topic.
In regards to the story “America’s Death Squads,” I concur that those soldiers were responsible for the death of Zaydoun; however, some of the facts of your story are inaccurate.
One day after the incident, the Iraqi police brought Marwan and his uncle to the U.S. military police. I personally interviewed Marwan and witnesses, submitting my report that night. The investigation was at first presented to those soldiers’ battalion commander and, when he took no action, the investigation was forwarded to CID. The formal investigation, including polygraphs of the accused, was initiated within a week, without any prompting from outside sources. There is a small fraction of the U.S. forces that have done horrible things, and they should be punished much more than they have been. However, the majority of U.S. forces are doing their jobs and trying to stay true to the ideals for which we enlisted.
Respectfully,
~ Alexis M. Marks, 1LT, MP, BDE A/S-3, Force Protection
Kosovo, 1999: An Insider’s View
Mr. Deliso:
The following statement you made needs clarification and correction: “In the end, NATO got itself off the hook by bombing enough civilian targets and threatening to level Belgrade itself, thus forcing a capitulation from Milosevic.”
That statement is totally inaccurate. I was in Belgrade last year and had the opportunity to talk to some Serbs; in particular, I talked to a retired Serb military officer. The NATO bombing was ineffectual and caused only superficial damage. Their planes had to fly above 5,000 meters (16,500 feet) and they failed to knock out the Serb air defense system. The officer told me that they had surface-to-air missiles that could reach an altitude of 10,000 meters (33,000 feet) but did not use them because they wanted to keep them in reserve in case of a long, protracted war. He intimated that the Serbs were equipped with some highly advanced Russian equipment but did not use that equipment once again for the same reason. They also had GPS jammers and passive air detection systems. Thus, they were well prepared to handle the NATO air assaults. The bombing of the Chinese embassy was the result of three or four JDAMS missing their targets because their links to the overhead satellites were blocked by GPs jammers, causing them to go off course and hit the embassy.
The retired officer also told me that they let many Tomahawks and JDAMS hit their political and military targets in predominantly civilian areas because they did not want to shoot them down or cause them to go off course for fear innocent civilians would be killed or injured. Moreover, if NATO had really gone after the civilian areas, the Russians would have almost certainly intervened either directly or indirectly by supplying the Serbs with very capable air defense systems, which would have taken an extremely heavy toll on NATO aircraft and the Serbs would have retaliated by striking NATO targets all over Europe. They had surface-to-surface missiles that could reach any part of Europe, including Aviano, London, Paris, Brussels, etc. Their capabilities for offensive war were very great. My suspicion is that many of these Russian systems along with equipment of an offensive nature were already in place. But the need to use them did not arise, since in all probability the Russians had the final word on their use.
I saw with my own eyes the damage that was done. The damage to the civilian areas was overall very light.
It clearly was not NATO bombing or threats related to it that caused Milosevic to stop the war and withdraw his troops from Kosovo. The Serbs I talked to told me very clearly that the Russians betrayed them and pressured them to end the war. They felt that their “Slavic brothers” stuck a knife in their back. That sentiment was virtually universal. As a result, there is a great deal of anti-Russian sentiment among the Serbs, which is very surprising considering their historic closeness.
That is the real reason the war ended. The Russians must have thought that sacrificing Kosovo was preferable to expanding the war or increased political problems with the West. To be sure, I don’t know what their real reasons were. However, I am sure that their reputation as historic protectors of the Serbs was greatly damaged. …
~ Sam Barich, South Park, Penn.
