Not a Peep About the President's Praise for War

[sad sally]

Laura Flanders on January 25, 2012

The grades for the president’s State of the Union are in and the critics have been kind. In fact, it's chilling to see just how few hits the president takes for couching his entire address in unqualified celebration of the US military.

Speaking of the troops, President Obama began: “At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down, they exceed all expectations.”

Post-show pundits on cable news praised the president’s comfort with his commander-in-chief role, but none saw fit to mention recent news—of marines urinating on Afghan corpses, say, or Staff Sergeant Wuterich walking free after participating in the killing of twenty-four unarmed men, women and children in Haditha, Iraq. Accompanying Obama's next phrase, “Imagine what we could accomplish if we followed their example,” no one thus far has played vile viral video. The critics have been kind.
----
“Those of us who’ve been sent here to serve can learn a thing or two from the service of our troops,” the president concluded.

There are indeed things we can learn; things that many US troops have begged us to learn. That war dehumanizes the killer and the killed, and that war tactics have a habit of spreading from the war zone to the home. Successive generations have told us that military recruiters lie, and that “rules of war” exist only in legal minds. (Ninety percent of casualties in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were civilians). Troops have begged us to learn just what we are celebrating when we celebrate “winning” and war.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/165881/not-peep-about-presidents-praise-war?du

[msongs]

1. shhhhhhhhhh! hush now! look, over there, shining city on a hill lol nt

[babylonsister]

2. Perhaps because he's trying to end them? Whatever will anyone whail about

if that happens?

Edit to add: He should have dissed the military when he's been nothing but stalwart in supporting them, as has been his wife?

Please...

[Cali_Democrat]

3. America is a warmongering nation and our fascination with death a destruction is sickening

Obama doesn't have to "diss" the military, but a stern condemnation of urinating on the bodies of dead adversaries should have happened in his SOTU speech. The fact that it didn't happen is very telling.

Americans live in a bubble. This is much bigger news outside of the US and Americans don't really realize how much we're hated. This bubble is what allowed the powers that be to foist the Afghan and Iraq war on us. It's what allows them to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into the Military Industrial Complex while poor and middle class Americans are struggling every day.

It's time to open up the bubble and it begins at the top. If we don't, many millions of Americans will continue to falsely believe that certain Muslims hate us because of our freedom.

[sad sally]

9. I guess as long as Special Ops aren't called wars, all is well, or better yet - use drones.

By Craig Whitlock, Published: January 27

The Pentagon is rushing to send a large floating base for commando teams to the Middle East as tensions rise with Iran, al-Qaeda in Yemen and Somali pirates, among other threats.

In response to requests from U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, the Navy is converting an aging warship it had planned to decommission into a makeshift staging base for the commandos. Unofficially dubbed a “mothership,” the floating base could accommodate smaller high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by Navy SEALs, procurement documents show.

Special Operations forces are a key part of the Obama administration’s strategy to make the military leaner and more agile as the Pentagon confronts at least $487 billion in spending cuts over the next decade.

Lt. Cmdr. Mike Kafka, a spokesman for the Navy’s Fleet Forces Command, declined to elaborate on the floating base’s purpose or to say where, exactly, it will be deployed in the Middle East. Other Navy officials acknowledged that they were moving with unusual haste to complete the conversion and send the mothership to the region by early summer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-wants-commando-mother-ship/2012/01/27/gIQA66rGWQ_story.html?wp?du

[cbrer]

11. The next generation of Drones

More gifts from America...


http://www.thetakeaway.org/2012/jan/27/next-generation-of-drones-wont-require-operator/

[center rising]

4. How is Obama thanking the troops praising war??

[cliffordu]

5. I'd like to think Laura would let the vets speak for themselves

rather than claim an inside expertise to what the fuck they think.

[sad sally]

7. Here's some of what they've said:

War crimes in a criminal war: Vets & GIs speak out on Marines urinating video
Politicians sanctimoniously condemn war crime while prolonging the war

JANUARY 17, 2012

The graphic video going viral of U.S. Marines urinating on corpses in Afghanistan—a war crime under international law—is forcing people in the United States to face the reality of the war. The video is emblematic of what the U.S. military has been doing to the people of Afghanistan for over ten years.

As combat veterans and active-duty members of the U.S. military, we feel we should weigh in…

1.Urinating is wrong, but bullets are okay? Yes, the video is “shocking” to most. But the politicians, talking heads and media outlets who call it “shocking” and “deplorable” will not use those same words to describe the war itself.
---
3. The inhumanity goes back decades. U.S. involvement in Afghanistan—the second poorest country on the planet— goes back far beyond the bombing and invasion in 2001. And it has never been for humanitarian reasons. Throughout the 70’s, during Afghanistan’s brief progressive period, the CIA pumped billions of dollars to sponsor right-wing militias. These elements attacked women’s schools, slaughtered hundreds of teachers initiating major literacy programs, and carried out a reign of terror on those in Afghanistan deemed “enemies” of the so-called “national interests” of the U.S. government. As Afghanistan was trying to lift itself from feudalism, the will of the people was crushed by the CIA and its Mujahadeen partners.
---
6. Troops have the right to refuse their orders. The war in Afghanistan is a war for the 1%. In Wall Street's relentless pursuit of new raw materials and new sources of profits, they have literally thrown away the lives of us and our friends, and unleashed untold suffering on an entire population. The people of Afghanistan are not our enemies; but those millionaires and billionaires, who keep the war raging endlessly, are.

We have a right to not be used as cannon fodder in Wall Street's attempt to conquer new markets. We have a right to not be party to an occupation that constitutes a great crime against humanity.

http://www.answercoalition.org/march-forward/statements/veterans-gis.html?du

[cbrer]

10. AHEM...

The inhumanity goes back for millenia. This is the human condition, the survival/reproduction portion of the reptilian brain that we, as "reasoning" creatures, are supposed to be able to work through and produce a better reality. War is just a wholesale manifestation of this phenomena. All other explanations have failed.

[sad sally]

12. Once again, you've nailed it. Guess the naive part of my brain wants to believe someting -

anything - could be learned from the histories of this inhumanity called war that would create the idea to cease needing more of them.

[cbrer]

13. Many things

Could be learned, and have been learned. I don't know what else to ascribe our current world events to except greed. Which may be a survival trait as well.

I'm sure you've heard the saying, "All that needs to be done for evil to flourish, is that good men do nothing". Or words to that effect. It seems to me, without benefit of research or significant statistics, that "good" men have been bought and paid for, or at least diverted from the true path by McDonalds and Nintendo. It is very easy to rationalize ones behavior, when YOUR situation is comfortable and reasonably secure. Again, it would seem a very human response.

So IF (big if) that's all true, then having recognized these behaviors, traits, and responses, they could be manipulated by those with the will to do so. And then you jump on the train of "conspiracy nut".

It seems very circular, divisive, time consuming, and compelling in the sense of developing ones own theory(ies).

So what lessons have we REALLY learned?

[sad sally]

14. In America, we've learned how to pick fights and claim the existence

of threats in a way that needlessly encourages damage to us, so we in turn can attack, or threaten attack by arming the enemies of our friends of the day, although who's a friend at any given time can change.

American military exceptionalism, and the disdain for non-Americans and their values, means we readily accept war or at least the threat of it with any other country anytime, anywhere.

[cbrer]

15. Of course you're right

But I'm much more interested in breaking down the "We" part and really examining who's pulling the strings behind these attitudes and actions. There seems to be plenty of "National Pride" type evidence. Whether it's strong enough to control our collective behavior over generations is up to conjecture. Some people tend to favor a religious manipulation, claiming "divine guidance" through a manifest d
estiny type scenario. Of course many of the threads here tend to go with the "Capitalist Industrialist" greedy profiteer type thing. It doesn't seem powerful enough to sway citizens to sacrifice their sons and daughters. Wiser heads than mine have compiled data to support these, others, or possibly combinations of persuasive factors that control American belief systems.

I don't freakin' know! All I can say is, we seem(as a group) to be easily swayed by the most self serving, pre-conceived notions. If the people capable of long term, rational thought can't pull a majority voting bloc together, we as a nation, the greatest social experiment the world has ever seen, will fail, IMHO. Probably won't mean annihilation. Maybe something like a return to agrarian, third world reality. Who knows. Whatever it ends up as, Wall St. will probably own it!

[cbrer]

6. I am very torn about this thread. (kinda long)

Lots (if not the majority) of young people join the military in sincere hopes of defending their nation, gaining some skills and benefits, and having an adventure.

They're trained to believe themselves badasses. And we merrily toss them into these nightmares we've allowed to be created in our nation's name. I know many of you won't share my view, and that's ok. These forums provide much needed latitude for dissent. I'm sure many of you have heard that no one wins a war. There are just survivors. This doesn't even get close to the mind fuck that occurs to many people when they take a human life. And one is permanently changed. And one does become inured. And ones most reliable friends sometimes get horribly slaughtered. And one rarely gets the real story, or a moral uplift that can maybe, just perhaps, keep you from sliding over an edge. Located differently for every individual, but there it is. A big ole' cliff to fall, or jump off of. We slap a label on it, and create therapy sessions. But not a single person can tell anyone what the real deal is.

Depth of damage. Long term prognosis. Interaction with existing traits. Physical neurological damage. Instant flashbacks placing some in an immediate life or death alternate reality. If you've never seen a very good individual slowly destroy themselves due to outside influence, you won't get it. And I don't really get it. And none of us will really get a handle on the stretching, breaking, and destruction that we (as a nation) are wreaking on humanity.

So anyways. Do we congratulate them in grand SOTU speeches? Live on channel whatever! Do we fear them? Do we spit on their callous souls? Lock 'em up? Cut 'em loose? Christ doesn't know these answers. Not that there is any singular solution.

This doesn't even begin to address the invasion of a sovereign nation. Saddam got off easy. Innocent lives, wholesale by the thousands, rended into piles of fly swarmed corpses, all by superior technology. The change we gave to the Iraqis, is beyond most peoples imagination in scope. Terrorism barely scratches the surface of the destruction we actively performed in Iraq.

Before I get any further carried away, I'll just say that ANY president who creates this situation, or allows it to be perptuated, had better have the clearest moral stance. The highest judgement of goals. And the sincerest ideal for the future he sacrifices peace to attain.

Some things are unquestionably worth fighting for. If you are one of the people who believe that war is a workable stategy to be used as a foreign policy tool when necessary, then fucking fuck your worthless fucking fucktarded soul.

And this situation was perpetuated by the Nobel PEACE prize winner.

[sad sally]

8. Your observations are spot on - especially the last sentence.

The US Has Special Operations Forces in How Many Countries?
The Bush administration had special operations forces in 60 countries. Today, that number is 75—and it's rising.
—By Nick Turse | Mon Sep. 19, 2011

In addition to waging more wars in "arc" nations, Obama has overseen the deployment of greater numbers of special operations forces to the region, has transferred or brokered the sale of substantial quantities of weapons there, while continuing to build and expand military bases at a torrid rate, as well as training and supplying large numbers of indigenous forces. Pentagon documents and open source information indicate that there is not a single country in that arc in which US military and intelligence agencies are not now active. This raises questions about just how crucial the American role has been in the region's increasing volatility and destabilization.
----
It has been the Obama administration, however, that has embraced the concept far more fully and engaged the region even more broadly. Last year, the Washington Post reported that US had deployed special operations forces in 75 countries, from South America to Central Asia. Recently, however, US Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me that on any given day, America's elite troops are working in about 70 countries, and that its country total by year's end would be around 120. These forces are engaged in a host of missions, from Army Rangers involved in conventional combat in Afghanistan to the team of Navy SEALs who assassinated Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, to trainers from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines within US Special Operations Command working globally from the Dominican Republic to Yemen.

The United States is now involved in wars in six arc-of-instability nations: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. It has military personnel deployed in other arc states, including Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. Of these countries, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates all host US military bases, while the CIA is reportedly building a secret base somewhere in the region for use in its expanded drone wars in Yemen and Somalia. It is also using already existing facilities in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates for the same purposes, and operating a clandestine base in Somalia where it runs indigenous agents and carries out counterterrorism training for local partners.

In addition to its own military efforts, the Obama administration has also arranged for the sale of weaponry to regimes in arc states across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. It has been indoctrinating and schooling indigenous military partners through the State Department's and Pentagon's International Military Education and Training program. Last year, it provided training to more than 7,000 students from 130 countries. "The emphasis is on the Middle East and Africa because we know that terrorism will grow, and we know that vulnerable countries are the most targeted," Kay Judkins, the program's policy manager, recently told the American Forces Press Service.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/09/us-special-operations-forces-75-countriess?du

[JoePhilly]

16. I must have missed where Obama ran as a pacifist.

When a seal team rescues 2 hostages, and takes out those who kidnapped them. The troops should be cheered.

When they land in a dangerous place, and take out the head of the organization that killed around 3000 innocent Americans in one combined attack, those troops should be cheered.

When troops commit crimes, they should be punished.

Its sad that the author and the OP misrepresents the point Obama actually made.

The point he made was that the troops who took out Bin Laden (and rescued those hostages) came from different background and ideologies ... yet they did not let that get in the way of doing their job. The current GOP members in congress have forgotten what their job is and their actions are only based on rigid ideology.

[sad sally]

18. Nothing missed there, far from a pacifist, only against "dumb wars"

A few years later, Obama ran for the U.S. Senate and criticized “the pundits and the prognosticators” who like to divide the country into red states and blue states. He made a speech against the invasion of Iraq but alarmed some in the distinctly left-wing audience by pointing out that he was not a pacifist, and that he opposed only “dumb wars.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/30/120130fa_fact_lizza#ixzz1kuRwgEtF?du

Now "smart wars" (whatever that might mean - drones, covert special ops, assassinations) they must be okay?

[JoePhilly]

19. Iraq was a dumb war.

Going into Afghanistan initially, was not. Shifting focus from Afghanistan to Iraq, dumb. Ending Iraq, and shifting focus back where it belonged, smart.

Killing bin Laden, Smart. Removing Al Qaeda leaders smart.

Working with NATO to protect civilians from dictators, smart. Sending 10s of thousands of troops to do so (as Bush did in Iraq) dumb.

But you still ignore the point of Obama's statement about setting ideology aside to do one's job.

[sad sally]

20. The Afghan people weren't and still aren't any threat to the United States - it's the second poorest

country in the world. Ten plus years of American occupation have not made the life of Afghan people better, and citizens of the United States have given up years and years of fought for freedoms in the false belief that it makes them safer - we've been told it's good for us for our government to spy on us without due cause, to torture, to lock up anyone without legal representation, to spend vast amounts of money on military world superority while letting millions of citizens go hungry, homeless and live without hope of any change, to operate secret prisons and secret military operations. Is this what a smart war brings? Hardly.

The actual al Qaeda hijackers coordinated their scheme while residing in Europe and in the United States, and their suspicious activities were known to FBI personnel that ignored the signs. Does this make invading Afghanistan and occupying for over 10 years a smart war? Hardly.

It's commendable for the President to speak about military troops working together regardless of their personal histories, but does this make invading Afghanistan and occupying for over 10 years a smart war? Hardly.
#####

Most Afghans do not even know about 9/11, according to disturbing poll
By MAIL FOREIGN SERVICE
Last updated at 7:17 AM on 9th September 2011

The vast majority of Afghans do not even know what 9/11 is, a disturbing poll has revealed.

Some 92 per cent, or 25 million people, said they were unaware that terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Centre on September 11 2001, sparking the invasion of their country.

They called it ‘this event which foreigners call 9/11’ and had no idea what it meant. The remaining eight per cent who did know often blamed conspiracy theories and said that America was responsible to justify its foreign policy.

After being read a three paragraph summary of what happened on 9/11 the overwhelming majority of respondents had no clue what it was. Among those who were questioned was 16-year-old Abdul Ghattar who was from the Southern Helmand province but was living in a refugee camp on the edge of Kabul, the capital. ‘Never heard of it,’ he said. ‘I have no idea why the Americans are in my country.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2035160/Most-Afghans-know-9-11-according-disturbing-poll.html#ixzz1kyersJG4?du

World Trade Center 911 hijackers were not from Afghanistan.

Official: 15 of 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were Saudi - 02/06/2002

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia acknowledged for the first time that 15 of the Sept. 11 suicide hijackers were Saudi citizens, but said Wednesday that the oil-rich kingdom bears no responsibility for their actions.

Previously, Saudi Arabia had said the citizenship of 15 of the 19 hijackers was in doubt despite U.S. insistence they were Saudis. But Interior Minister Prince Nayef told The Associated Press that Saudi leaders were shocked to learn 15 of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

"The names that we got confirmed that," Nayef said in an interview. "Their families have been notified."

Osama bin Laden — the chief suspect in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks the killed more than 3,000 people — was Saudi born but stripped of his citizenship in 1994.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002/02/06/saudi.htm?du

[JoePhilly]

21. We did not attack the Afgan people.

The Taliban protected Bin Laden in AFGHANISTAN. They and AL Qaeda are the targets in Afghanistan, not the Afgan civilians. Afghanistan has not had a serious government in a few hundred years. Its no surprised the "people" of Afganistan has no idea 9/11 occurred.

The 9/11 attacks were planned and carried out GLOBALLY. The leaders of those who funded it, and carried it out, were in AFGHANISTAN.

And WOW ... really ... 15 or the 19 attackers were from Saudi Arabia ... OMG ... I had NO IDEA!!!!!



And I did not say we should have occupied Afghanistan for 10 years. But I can see your confusion. Bush went in, spent about 20 minutes there, and then went into Iraq, leaving a token force in Afghanistan which lacked the resources to clean up that mess.

So when Obama becomes President ... Afghanistan has not changed much from when Bush first invaded, in fact, it probably got worse because Bush's shift in focus allowed the Taliban and Al Qaeda to move in and out of Pakistan even more freely.

Now, thanks to Obama ... OBL is dead (which should have happened YEARS ago) and most of the AQ leadership also gone ... and Obama is starting to reduce our presence there too.

The bastard!!

[sad sally]

22. I'm not confused - just happen to see history in a different way than you.

Differing conceptions of good and how to achieve it are a good thing.

This op started as a concern for the rhetoric of militarism in the President's speech, which to me was authoritarian. I am not a member of the military, nor are most citizens. They are nothing like a military unit, which is designed for coordinated killing and destruction.

Thanking the military for carrying out his orders is one thing; rallying American civilians to overcome their political differences by emulating commandos on a killing raid, uh, no thanks.

Attacking and invading a country, killing its citizens who did not provoke the attack, can't be justified (my opinion - you have yours).

[JoePhilly]

23. Yea, we don't agree.

The military is not just designed for "coordinated killing and destruction" ... if it was, you would not see our military flying in supplies and equipment every time there is a huge natural disaster somewhere in the world.

Your world is appears to be black and white ... and I do not share that view.

[bhikkhu]

17. I think he was praising "those who serve", not war

And it is possible to oppose war, but value those who serve.