Anyone remember the wars? Anyone give a damn?

[Octafish]

Current: RQ-11B Raven (AeroVironment)

Sgt. 1st Class Michael Guillory

Habitat: As the most prevalent UAV on the planet, with more than 7,000 units in service, you’d be hard pressed to find any Army combat brigade in Afghanistan or Iraq that doesn’t have one. Behavior: Three feet long and 4.2 pounds, the Raven is typically fitted with an electronically stabilized color video camera or an infrared video camera for night missions, which pan, tilt and zoom digitally to provide ground troops with “situational awareness.” The fleet is getting a digital upgrade that turns each one into a comm relay, effectively extending its six-mile range. Notable Feature: Light and durable, if it crashes, the wings just pop off, and are easily replaced.

PHOTO SOURCE: "The Complete UAV Field Guide."

http://www.popsci.com/technology/gallery/2010-02/gallery-future-drones

I would laugh at those who worship this insanity, but prefer to remember the innocents -- thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands (if not millions!) of foreigners who have died for oil and empire.

PS: Anyone wonder why so many millions of American children are undernourished in every way?

[unhappycamper]

1. I do.

Every fucking day I look at the wreckage these occupations have caused. Both here and abroad.

[Tippy]

4. Same here...n/t

[Octafish]

17. Vietnam got me off the war wagon.

For most of us, there is nothing to be gained by war -- only death.
For a few, there is much money to be made -- power, too.

[Bigmack]

24. Yeah, but the US is in the "slow learner" class..

We have to re-learn about war every fucking generation.

[tekisui]

69. Same here.

[Solly Mack]

2. Well, yeah

Daily.

[Octafish]

28. The War on Afghan Civilians

Expecting Gen. McChrystal to Protect Afghan Civilians is Like Hiring Ted Bundy to Combat Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

By DAVE LINDORFF
CounterPunch

I've reached my boiling point, Solly Mack. I don't give a damn who's shiny jackboots get stepped on.

[Solly Mack]

29. Nor should you. Keep stepping and step hard.

[lwcon]

3. War protest with a Dem in the White House!?

Where's your fashion sense?

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MineralMan]

11. Did you have any content to contribute?

Your post seems free of it.

[Mari333]

12. why yes,here is new content

ignore.

[MineralMan]

15. Well, then, I guess you won't be reading this, then.

That's OK by me.

[Bigmack]

10. Members of my peace group tell me to "support the President". WTF? nt

[Mari333]

14. here in my small town we have had a peace vigil for 9 yrs

god bless em.

and they see Obama as just another continuation of Bush policies in these wars.

[lwcon]

22. How can you peaceniks not support our war president in a time of war

Especially when he's a Nobel Peace Prize winner!?

[chrisa]

77. That's horrible.

But not shocking. A peace group should be nonpartisan, and scrutinize all equally. Obama should not get a pass for continuing these wars.

[Octafish]

33. You know what really gets to me? Seeing the faces Friday nights on McNeil-Lehrer News Hour.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/search_results.html?q=faces+of+the+fallen&x=22&y=10

And these are just OUR boys and girls.

Ask any warmonger you happen across: "Is all the oil in the world worth the price of your kid's life?"

[Lerkfish]

6. yes and yes

[Octafish]

34. We Stand on the Cusp of one of Humanity's Most Dangerous Moments

From a great mind:

We Stand on the Cusp of one of Humanity's Most Dangerous Moments

We will have to resist the temptation to fold in on ourselves and to ignore the cruelty outside our door.

By Chris Hedges
AlterNet.org

EXCERPT...

I am not a pacifist. I know there are times, and even concede that this may eventually be one of them, when human beings are forced to respond to mounting repression with violence. I was in Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia. We knew precisely what the Serbian forces ringing the city would do to us if they broke through the defenses and trench system around the besieged city. We had the examples of the Drina Valley or the city of Vukovar, where about a third of the Muslim inhabitants had been killed and the rest herded into refugee or displacement camps. There are times when the only choice left is to pick up a weapon to defend your family, neighborhood and city. But those who proved most adept at defending Sarajevo invariably came from the criminal class. When they were not shooting at Serbian soldiers they were looting the apartments of ethnic Serbs in Sarajevo and often executing them, as well as terrorizing their fellow Muslims. When you ingest the poison of violence, even in a just cause, it corrupts, deforms and perverts you. Violence is a drug, indeed it is the most potent narcotic known to humankind. Those most addicted to violence are those who have access to weapons and a penchant for force. And these killers rise to the surface of any armed movement and contaminate it with the intoxicating and seductive power that comes with the ability to destroy. I have seen it in war after war. When you go down that road you end up pitting your monsters against their monsters. And the sensitive, the humane and the gentle, those who have a propensity to nurture and protect life, are marginalized and often killed. The romantic vision of war and violence is as prevalent among anarchists and the hard left as it is in the mainstream culture. Those who resist with force will not defeat the corporate state or sustain the cultural values that must be sustained if we are to have a future worth living. From my many years as a war correspondent in El Salvador, Guatemala, Gaza and Bosnia, I have seen that armed resistance movements are always mutations of the violence that spawned them. I am not naïve enough to think I could have avoided these armed movements had I been a landless Salvadoran or Guatemalan peasant, a Palestinian in Gaza or a Muslim in Sarajevo, but this violent response to repression is and always will be tragic. It must be avoided, although not at the expense of our own survival.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/media/146005/we_stand_on_the_cusp_of_one_of_humanity%27s_most_dangerous_moments

Thus, our passion, my Friend.

[readmoreoften]

52. +1

It's so frustrating to see so much capitulation and opportunism. It's like the Spanish Civil War--if there was no left resistance.

[Bigmack]

7. ...and the schools in the US are closing

and dying.

I'm not questioning the military's desire for all the tools they need to do their jobs.. I'm questioning the jobs themselves. If we don't have troops in Vietghanistan... at a million bucks a grunt per year... we don't need those nifty little toys that give the keyboard commandos little chubbies.

[Octafish]

36. What General President Eisenhower said...

Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hope of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than thirty cities. It is two electric plants, each serving a town of sixty thousand population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than eight thousand people. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging upon a cross of iron…

We aspire to this: the lifting, from the backs and from the hearts of men, of their burden of arms and fears – so that they may find before them a golden age of freedom and of peace.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, From a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953
34th president of US 1953-1961 (1890 – 1969)

SOURCE: http://luminousinspiration.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/dwight-d-eisenhower-quote/

MORE: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Deterrence/Atomsforpeace.shtml

[DrDan]

8. yes and yes

[Octafish]

49. 'Money Trumps Peace' is how the Little Turd from Crawford put it.

Know your BFEE: Money Trumps Peace. Always

[DrDan]

62. war is one the very few exports we have left . . .

we do it so well . . . . huge, huge profits

[MineralMan]

9. Of course. News cycles in and out. Next week, if HCR

passes, not doubt attention will return. But most of us have it in our minds all the time.

[Octafish]

56. You are a veteran. You remember. Most of America goes by what they see on the tee vee...

...and there isn't much coverage, there.

Patrick Kennedy rips media coverage of war.

BTW: Kennedy has two nephews in uniform who've served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[Tippy]

13. Deficit Hawk Returns, Much to His Party’s Dismay

Former Senator Alan K. Simpson, the co-chairman of President Obama’s bipartisan commission for reducing the mounting federal debt, figures that with the country in danger of “going to the bow-wows,” he has bigger things to worry about than whether “Rush Babe” and other conservative critics are “babbling into the vapors” that he is not Republican enough for the job

snip:
As for the present, “I don’t believe we ever had a war where we didn’t have a tax to finance the war,” Mr. Simpson added.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/us/politics/18simpson.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[Octafish]

53. Reduced social spending is how the screwed up the Third World in exchange for World Bank loans.

Remember "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins? The World Bank and International Monetary Fund would give countries big loans for big infrastructure projects and steer the contracts to the cronie class. Pretty soon, the country had to stop social spending to service the loan. Now Wall Street's invisible army is doing it here.

CIA -- Capitalism's Invisible Army

It's not just crowd control -- wrecking the middle class and public education are how to create a permanently cowed populace.

[chill_wind]

16. Yes, Octafish. Every single day, every politician should be forced

to recite the data from this website and admit the size of their own price tags for their souls:

www.costofwar.com The enormity of the tradeoffs.

Even President Obama recited it on occasion. Back on the campaign trail.

War Is A Racket.

[Octafish]

57. Excellent suggestion.

The law should require any one involved in decisions to go to send their sons and daughters first.

All the gold, black gold and numbered Swiss bank accounts in the world won't bring back one single life lost in the illegal, immoral and unnecessary wars.



Have you heard Mountain's take on Dylan's "Masters of War"?

Leslie West teams up with Ozzie Osbourne to spell them out. Wow.

War Is a Racket.

[malaise]

18. Wars? What wars Octafish?

Listen brother Sandra Bullock has separated from her husband over a tattoo model - are you blind-sided or what? Get real please. :sarcasm:

sp

[MineralMan]

20. Well, there is the war in Iraq, which is being turned over

to the locals as US troops withdraw on a schedule.

Then, there's the war in Afghanistan, which is changing as the focus is on enabling Afghani forces to take a growing role, so we can withdraw.

Those wars?

[Bigmack]

23. In Iraq, Sadr won...

stand by for an Islamic, Iranian-flavored takeover. In Vietghanistan, the Afghani forces will be "ready to take over" about two years after hell freezes over.

I admire your optimism, but let's keep the rose-colored view tempered with reality.

[MineralMan]

27. I'm not at all optimistic.

I said that Iraq would end up reverting back to an ugly place even before GW* sent the first troops in there. I've said many times that Afghanistan will devolve back into a continuous tribal battle, whenever we leave there. I have not changed my opinion.

We're leaving Iraq to its inevitable fate, as we would have at some point. In Afghanistan, we'll be leaving before too long, too. Then, the inevitable will take over and the Middle East will return to its normal state of confusion. We cannot change the world that drastically.

Both wars were a terrible error on our part. Neither can simply be abandoned. We must withdraw, not leave. There's no alternative.

[Octafish]

60. Sandra should drop him like a bad suit.

The warmongers own the media. Couple that with three or four generations raised on the tee vee and a few with lousy public education, and you have the formula for a stupid electorate -- just the opposite of what the Founding Fathers spelled out we'd need in the First Amendment, the only part of the Constitution that mentions a business by name -- the press.

[Soylent Brice]

19. i give a damn.

[Octafish]

63. Pentagon contractors are the real Welfare Queens

Tom Engelhardt asks:

When was the last time you saw the headline, "Cost of halved"? Probably never. Still, the thought came to mind when this recent Associated Press headline caught my eye: "Pentagon: F-35 fighter jet cost doubles."

Weapons Makers as 'Wealthfare Queens'

PS: I know you do and I appreciate that you know, my Friend.

[Soylent Brice]

66. this is just lovely:

In other words, if all goes well from here (an unlikely possibility), a single future weapons system is now estimated to cost the American taxpayer almost one-third of what the Obama administration's health-care plan is expected to cost over a decade.

FUCK.

[Octafish]

79. Also knew you'd catch that.

Thank you, my Friend.

[annm4peace]

21. We are marching in Minneapolis March 20th, Cedar ave and 3rd St. 1pm

This march is for 7th annivsary of the invasion of Iraq.

4 million orphans, 2 million widows Countless babies born with grotesque birth affects

1000 troops have committed suicide


I spend at least 3 days away doing something active to end the wars.


Go online and find a protest in your area, and bring some money to donate to the groups that do the organizing. they greatly need it.

[The_Commonist]

25. Yes, of course.

But we can multi-task.

[G_j]

26. yes

:cry:

[Autumn]

30. No. I have been assured "these wars are the right

thing to do". Have you forgotten they now belong to the Democratic administration? It's a fucking disgrace.

[Cal Carpenter]

31. Ha

No, everyone is too busy trying to justify this health-insurance-profit-handout bill, if they think about anything else the cognitive dissonance will cause their brain's to explode.

[Iggo]

32. No. What wars?

[L0oniX]

35. Everyone is too busy making bombs for a living.

[Echo In Light]

37. .

k/r

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

38. Nope. Just waiting for the Pentagon to announce another glorious "victory" in a lost war. K&R

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

39. So... what's the issue with the RQ-11B Raven?

[ieoeja]

44. I have been trying to figure out the point of that as well. (nt)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

45. It's like there's some weird kind of obsession over unmanned drones

It just doesn't make sense.

[SidDithers]

47. Exactly...

If political leaders put troops into danger, wouldn't we want them to have tools to make them safer?

Sid

[Octafish]

64. The ''issue'' is the war, don't you think?

Before anyone asks "Why don't you suppor our troops?" allow me to add that the point of having troops is to defend the People, the nation and the constitution -- not Big Oil's profit picture.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

67. But that's really got nothing to do with the RQ-11B raven, now does it?

I mean, you could have had an extended discussion of combat boots or meal rations or the cover letter on the TPS report that the company clerks have to fill out, but that's really got nothing to do with the issue at hand.

[Ignis]

40. Why should we, when there are Lefties to pillorize?!

Haven't you heard that Dennis Kucinich is a GOP mole who constantly votes with Republicans? You know, like when he voted against the IWR!

:crazy:

[MisterP]

41. here, war is made to be about the gadgets: they're interesting in and of themselves,

and criticism of this "innocent, boyish" fascination is churlish, spoilsporty, and even dangerously "Luddite": after all, technology can only improve things in perpetuity, and make us live to 200 and have 200 children apiece, all of them living in wonderful DuPont homes and DuPont clothes, spraying their crops and 2.54-cm-high lawns with DuPont chemicals. after all, technology had been prominent in WWII, and was winning the Space War: many people of 1941-68 eagerly awaited the newest thing to come out of Natick, NASA, Bell Labs, or Popular Mechanics.

during Vietnam, DARPA and the Limited War Laboratory pro-duced defoliants, "sensors," "people-sniffers," night vision, look-down radar, "scientific" propaganda, instant satellite communication with the Pentagon, computerized body counts and Ham-let Evaluation System, attempts at weather control, miniguns, laser-guided smart bombs, clay-mores, napalm, tear gas, space-age M-16s, flechette mortar rounds, and fleets of helicopter transports and gunships offering once-fantastic abilities; a decade later, techno-ultimacy would come from SDI. since a lot of SF writers came from this MIC (including the Heritage Founda-tion, of all things), you get Baen, Bova, Poul Anderson, and Pournelle works and anthologies with articles by Doan Van Toai, Stefan Possony, and David Horowitz originally printed in National Review, plus the goose-stepping little nuggets, "if you would have peace prepare for war," "Man is a violent animal," and "evil though it be, war is not the ultimate evil." T.R. Fehrenbach says that "war might be described as the rational act of a perhaps ultra-rational species."

books on Vietnam as a perfect technowar are James William Gibson's "The Perfect War" and "Vietnam After Images," and John Hellemann's "American Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam"

[happy_liberal]

42. over one million iraqis killed

and that from numbers four years ago.

I have a horrible sick hole in my soul knowing our country is still killing people, their lies exposed and yet the wars expand.

There must be a way for us to overcome our learned helplessness and start fighting to end these atrocities.

Cindy Sheehan is camping out in DC right now, getting ready for the antiwar march on Saturday. They will stay as long as it takes, camping out in DC and taking action in the halls of Congress far beyond Saturday's march. It would be so beautiful if this takes off and grows and grows....WE have how many people unemployed, homeless etc....if everyone converged on DC...

[G_j]

58. sshhhh...

the American people don't want to hear that.

[leftstreet]

43. K&R

[Ignis]

46. Meanwhile, we're using medical aid as a weapon in Afghanistan.

http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/63672/2010/02/18-125742-1.htm

[Lilith Velkor]

48. Me

:hi:

[readmoreoften]

50. Democrats like them now that a Democrat is in control.

And they'll accept the thinnest excuse, so long as the excuse has a pseudo-argument and a few links.

[Mari333]

51. then they should enlist immediately.

ask them to, and they run like cockroaches. same thing happened when Bush's followers were the 101st keyboard warriors.

[readmoreoften]

54. I wholeheartedly agree. Just like the Repubs they'll tell you they're too old or have flat feet.

I think if you're going to send other people's children to kill other people's children, you should volunteer your own.

[happy_liberal]

55. "We're not just building a camp, we are trying to build a movement,"

"Sheehan says both the Bush and Obama administrations are to blame for the antipathy. Since Sept. 11, 2001, she said, they've been doing everything possible to frighten Americans into accepting war as a necessary evil.

"We have had two successive administrations that have used 9-11 to keep us afraid, to make us think that if we don't use the military, then these bogeymen are coming to get us," she said. "It's one thing when Bush said it, but when someone like Obama starts saying it, people start to believe it. Americans are scared and confused."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7950037


from peace of the action website

We need as many people as possible who realize that time is running short for us to truly affect change by commitment and dedication to humanity through the end to the US Empire (and its subsidiaries).

POTA direct actions will begin on Monday, March 22nd.

Individual commitment will entail an at least a once a week CR mission and support to the group at large through contributing to the running and infrastructure of our encampment and the care and feeding of activists.

Beginning March 13th, we will erect a tent headquarters just off the Ellipse between the White House and the Washington Monument (on Constitution between 15th & 17th) to feed and otherwise care for everyone who participates.

Your commitment can range from the entire action: Until our demands are met; or any other chunk of time that you are available.

[spanone]

59. the media is way more concerned about john edwards lover and political process

it's so like unhappy to report about people being blown to bits

[Festivito]

61. We are beset with all manner of tangled extrications to perform.

economy
jobs
health
war
culture
religion
philosophy

Each kills people. It's cold but, take a number. That's just a short list.

[Mari333]

65. murderous policies that kill our children in corporate occupations

should be stopped first.

if you had a kid over there, you would be Cindy Sheehan.

[slackmaster]

68. Peter Graves and Fess Parker just DIED, and all you can think about is the wars?

What the fuck is the matter with you?

[Zomby Woof]

71. Some of us can think about ALL of them

We're intelligent and broad-minded (hence: liberal!), and we can make room in our expansive brains for ALL of these things.

Cultural memory is important, and so is tracking the events of these wars. It's not 'either/or' for us.

But thanks for your overbearing, condescending sarcasm.

[slackmaster]

72. People who try to think about everything don't think deeply about anything

Fuck Bigfoot.

[Zomby Woof]

74. Total bullshit

Rancid, steaming bullshit.

[slackmaster]

75. Narcissism

Raises its ugly head.

[Zomby Woof]

78. And projection, in your case

[MadHound]

70. There are still some who remember them

I still gather with my friends as often as possible for our twice weekly protests. There has been some noticeable drop off in participation since Obama came into office, but it is starting to pick back up again as more people come to realize that Obama is just as much a warmonger as Bush was.

But yeah, on the national level, things have died down considerably.

[amborin]

73. K&R protests on March 20

[gimama]

76. Every day..

every HOUR.

PEACE,NOW..
local events here, on left/scroll down:
www.indymedia.org

www.march20.org
www.answercoalition.org
www.PEACEoftheaction.org

[RexS]

80. Humans exist to build and destroy. The fact that we had to construct shelters

that led to cultures that led to awe-inspiring metropolises while underneath the glamor lived miserable creatures barely fed enough to continue their lifetime, indentured servitude. What time period? You pick.

Humans don't change, just the culture and technology.