Use them up and throw them out

AMY GOODMAN: Maybe we have a clip. Maybe we have a clip of what Dick Cheney had to say. Let’s give it a try. I think this is from our headlines today. This is the Vice President, Dick Cheney.

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: The President carries the biggest burden, obviously. He’s the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, an all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm’s way for the rest of us.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Dick Cheney. Tomas Young, was that the quote you would like to address?

TOMAS YOUNG: Absolutely. From one of those soldiers who volunteered to go to Afghanistan after September 11th, which was where the evidence said we needed to go, to the master of the college deferment in Vietnam, the last conflict we didn’t go into voluntarily, many of us volunteered with patriotic feelings in our heart, only to see them subverted and bastardized by the administration and sent into the wrong country. Yes, we volunteered, but we didn’t volunteer where you sent us to go. And I realize that we don’t choose where we get to go, but we at least should be sent in the right places to defend the Constitution, just as we volunteered to do. That’s all.

Bill Moyers talks to Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro about the making of Body of War.

Body of War

Winter soldiers:

The name comes from a quote from Thomas Paine, the revolutionary who rallied George Washington’s troops at Valley Forge, saying: “These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

Paine was trying to keep Washington’s army from deserting in the face of a bitter winter and mounting defeats at the hands of the British. Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War say the same type of courage is needed to confront the evils unleashed by the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lawless Atmosphere

"The problem that we face in Iraq is that policymakers in leadership have set a precedent of lawlessness where we don't abide by the rule of law, we don't respect international treaties, argued former U.S. Army Sergeant Logan Laituri, who served a tour in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 before being discharged as a conscientious objector. “So when that atmosphere exists it lends itself to criminal activity."

The movie: Leading to War, How did the US government lead its people to war?

Bush's War on Frontline on PBS.

The day after and the day after that

It's not just the anniversary of the war in Iraq but everyday that we will look for news of our soldiers and the fighting. It may have 'slipped' ever so conveniently off the front pages of our mainstream news, but we will never forgive nor ever forget.

Excellent coverage the war and history of Iraq:

By Blue Girl of Blue Girl, Red State

Pygalgia

DistributorCap

And on the Winter Soldier event:

Iraq Veterans Against the War

Bill W. of Crooks and Liars:

Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan was a 4-day event from March 13-16 in DC that brought together veterans from across the country to testify about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although the news media has unsurprisingly ignored the event much as they did its predecessor in 1971, this time we have digital media and the intertubes to document it and bring it to a wider audience.

Bill W. has a transcript from a soldier Will Prysner:

Those who send us to war do not have to pull a trigger or lob a mortar round. They do not have to fight the war. They merely have to sell the war. They need a public who is willing to send their soldiers into harm’s way and they need soldiers who are willing to kill or be killed without question. They can spend millions on a single bomb, but that bomb only becomes a weapon when the ranks in the military are willing to follow orders to use it. They can send every last soldier anywhere on earth, but there will only be a war if soldiers are willing to fight, and the ruling class: the billionaires who profit from human suffering care only about expanding their wealth, controlling the world economy, understand that their power lies only in their ability to convince us that war, oppression, and exploitation is in our interests. They understand that their wealth is dependent on their ability to convince the working class to die to control the market of another country. And convincing us to kill and die is based on their ability to make us think that we are somehow superior. Soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, have nothing to gain from this occupation.

The vast majority of people living in the US have nothing to gain from this occupation. In fact, not only do we have nothing to gain, but we suffer more because of it. We lose limbs, endure trauma, and give our lives. Our families have to watch flag draped coffins lowered into the earth. Millions in this country without healthcare, jobs, or access to education must watch this government squander over $450 million a day on this occupation. Poor and working people in this country are sent to kill poor and working people in another country to make the rich richer, and without racism soldiers would realize that they have more in common with the Iraqi people than they do with the billionaires who send us to war.

Hipparchia of Over the Cliff, Onto the Rocks and her other blog: War Without Comment. Watch the videos about soldiers in Vietnam speaking then and now. A devastatingly true comment made (3:23 1st video) made by an ex-soldier:

"I've been all over the world and the most politically ignorant people of any country I've ever been to is the U.S.A."

Time to find out what is going on. Ignorance will be no excuse for the horrors done in our name.