Dying in Vain in Vietnam and Iraq

You (we) talk about wasted American lives in Viet Nam and Iraq.

I submit, the greater issue is the wasted human life on both sides of the conflicts. Today we buy shirts at JC Pennys that are "Made in Viet Nam".

How many millions of civilians (and soldiers on both sides) had to die because political leaders were too obstinate ? The loss of lives is much greater than just the American soldier, who in truth was an "invader" of sovereign countries.

Today, we kick down doors in Iraq. American soldiers rape and kill innocent Iraqii civilians whom we are "liberating".  An estimated 400,00 - 600,000 Iraqii civilians have been killed according to a university study (Johns Hopkins, I believe).

Imagine if you will, an IRANIAN army invading the USA to depose of our President who they think is a "threat to world peace" and dictatorial.

Imagine if they have been here for over 3 years.

Imagine them kicking down your doors, raping your daughters, placing weapons in the hands of innocent civilians to make them look like combatants.

Imagine them trying to take the oil from a "nationalized" oil country and divy it up among private oil companies world-wide.

Imagine that you now only have 2 hours of electricity, that 25% of the population is displaced.

Imagine this was all preceeded by intensive bombing of Washington DC, with missiles.

Imagine .......

Would you be an "insurgent" if you no longer had a job, if your economy wasn't functioning as there was no more oil revenue.

Imagine there was no place "safe" for Iranian liberators and no place "safe" for your family and government.

Imagine in the collateral damage your three under age 10 sons were killed by Iranian liberators who were trying to restore order.

Imagine that those of you who started to help the Iranian liberators were now being targeted by others.

Imagine your trying to seek asylum from the Iranian embassy for you and your family and were told it would take at least 6 months and their best advice was for you and your family to emigrate immediately to any other country that would take you. Imagine there were tens of thousands of you in this predicament and that to date the Iranian embassy had only considered under 1000 for immigration to date in one year.

Now imagine how you would actually feel. Love for your liberators or hate ?

Now realize that Iran is really the U.S. and that the U.S. (in the above example is Iraq).

Do you feel any different ?

Do you feel that all these lives are wasted?

When the USSR "invaded" Afghanistan, we supplied the Afghanie "freedom fighters" with weapons.  When they set up a puppet regime, they were fought by an insurgency.

Ultimately freedom prevailed and the USSR left Afghanistan, no longer willing to suffer the senseless death of its soldiers.

Now the USA has "invaded" Iraq and Afghanistan and proposes to do the same in Iran.  I remember several years ago, we started to talk about our having invaded the "wrong country" (Iraq).  We should have invaded Iran. (C-Span, I think).

Anyway, now the Afghanies, are not "freedom fighters", but instead are evil and whatever other terminology we use.  Yet for the most-part these are still the same groups who we had called "freedom fighters" when it was USSR troops on their soil.

I really don't think I will change anyone's mind.

I do foresee us eventually leaving Iraq.

We won the war, if you want to call it a war, a long time ago.  Now we are occupying a country.  There is no military win in an occupation.

There is no real good way out in my judgment.

Lives will be wasted on both sides and for what, so that someday you will be able to buy a shirt in a JC Pennys with a label that says, "Made in Iraq" ?

I commend Mike Gravel for his courage to enunciate the "wasted lives" proclamation in a public forum. 

Here's the link to an exhibit I think everyone will appreciate.

I saw this artist in Los Angeles somewhere in the late 80'.

Broodthaers makes the connection between war and the comforts available to us.

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/article/9470/marcel-broodthaers-decor-a-conquest

Enjoy.

As an Army Officer, I was part of the invasion of Iraq and spent most of 2003 serving there, mostly in the Sunni Triangle.  I’m not a dove, pacifist, or a bleeding heart.  I’ve come to accept that war is, and will be, part of human history.  I’m not opposed to all wars but I am opposed to this one. 

Thank you Mike Gravel, for bringing the unvarnished truth to this campaign.  You have my vote.

for such an thoughtful and compassionate elucidation of your permitted CNN sound bite.

your eloquence is not being ignored by all of us...

When I hear someone mention the VietNam War, it's like a flashback in time for me.  I will always remember my High School Graduation  We had some of the best and the brightest whose lives were prematurely snuffed out because of the political war in VietNam.   John F. Kennedy wanted to end the VietNam War but his untimely death prevented him from doing so.  At that point in time, Lyndon B. Johnson, another oil tycoon from Texas kept the war going.  It got to a point where the American people had had enough.  Our generation came out and protested in vast numbers across the country to bring our troops home. I truly believe that if we hadn't kept the pressure on Washington, that we'd still be in VietNam today. 

I remember wearing a copper bracelet with a POW's name on it, hoping and praying that he would return home to his family but he never came home.  The United States Government didn't hesitate to draft these fine young people, and they answered the "call to duty".  But when it came time to bring our POW's home, the US Government didn't care enough to bring them home.   Many of them continued to be tortured until they died.  Those who survived were sent to other countries such as Russia to die in the prisons there.  They loved their country enough to give everything they had but the USA didn't care enough to bring them home. 

Those who came home were literally spit upon and called "baby killers", yet the Vietnamese people didn't value life the way we do.  They'd arm their own children with grenades and have them go up to American GI's and detonate themselves.  I guess you could call them "suicide bombers". 

There wasn't even a Salvation Army Band to greet our vets at the airports when they finally made it back to the states.  There was no "ticker tape parade" honoring them as the history books like to state.  I remember, I lived during that time.  Yet a part of my youth was gone as family members and friends never returned home.  We were told that if we pulled out of VietNam that the VietCong would invade the beaches of California but it never happened.  It was a scare tactic used by our corrupt government to keep Americans "in line" through fear and oppression. 

George Bush was given "Carte Blanche" by Congress.  No human being on this earth should be given that much power.  On March 18, 2003 at 7:00 PM EST, the U.S. Congress was "informed" of George Bush's intentions and on March 19, 2003, President Bush launched a pre-emptive strike on Iraq.  One of the first pictures televised on the news stations was of our American soldiers taking a jack-hammer to the mosaic tiled floor in one of Saddam's palaces that bore the face of George Bush, Sr.  I was not impressed.

So many of our brave men and women have been told that they are fighting "terrorism" and so many have given all they had.  They may have died in vain, but they will always be remembered by their families, friends and all Americans for a sacrifice that they shouldn't have had to make.  George Bush and all those who voted for the war in Iraq should have been the ones to make the sacrifice.

No one, I repeat, NO ONE has the right to demand or force a nation's armed service people to fight a war in another country because we don't like their leader.  The power to wage war needs to be taken away from pencil pushing politicans.

If we had a true Democracy, the people would have the right to vote against a war, and those who want the war can go and fight it themselves. 

People have been sent to die in vain by their leaders, always.
Only to the benefit of the those in power, always.
Just as Mike says, we need to look at the world with an open mind.
Today, the entire world seems to have shrunken to a single household.
What was accepted yesterday, being now civilized, must be looked at anew.
Mike has taken on the corrupt system of inequity with the FairTax, something that is like poison to all the corporatists in control, at the moment.
It is sad that we have let a group of greedy people ruin the world for $$$.
Maybe we somehow trusted that they would do the right thing and also, maybe, we have been very patient. I only wish that they could have made all the money without doing any harm to the planet. Right now the poor man has nothing that he can depend on, at a difficult time.

I live in a mixed neighborhood where I see people who never had a chance to begin with and I have no idea as to how they get by. If we are the richest country in the world, then, where's all the wealth?
With Mike we can begin to heal many of the problems in our society. We have very little time left.
Sen. Gravel, your leadership is very much appreciated. Go Gravel !!!

But slowly returning veterans are giving us a new narrative of the war – one that exposes the vast enterprise of industrial slaughter unleashed in Iraq for a lie and sustained because of wounded national pride and willful ignorance.

War is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of idealists by cynics and of troops by politicians. This bitter knowledge of betrayal has seeped into the ranks of American troops.

It has unleashed a new wave of embittered veterans not seen since the Vietnam War. It has made it possible for us to begin, again, to see war’s death mask.

War is also the pornography of violence.

It has a dark beauty, filled with the monstrous and the grotesque. The Bible calls it “the lust of the eye” and warns believers against it. War allows us to engage in lusts and passions we keep hidden in the deepest, most private interiors of our fantasy life.

It allows us to destroy not only things but human beings.

In that moment of wholesale destruction, we wield the power to the divine, the power to revoke another person’s charter to live on this earth.

The frenzy of this destruction – and when unit discipline breaks down, or there was no unit discipline to begin with, frenzy is the right word – sees armed bands crazed by the poisonous elixir our power to bring about the obliteration of others delivers.

All things, including human beings, become objects – objects to either gratify or destroy or both. Almost no one is immune. The contagion of the crowd sees to that.

Human beings are machine gunned and bombed from the air, automatic grenade launchers pepper hovels and neighbors with high-powered explosive devices and convoys race through Iraq like freight trains of death.

These soldiers and Marines have at their fingertips the heady ability to call in air strikes and firepower that obliterate landscapes and villages in fiery infernos. They can instantly give or deprive human life, and with this power they became sick and demented.

The moral universe is turned upside down.

All human beings are used as objects.

And no one walks away uninfected.

War thrusts us into a vortex of pain and fleeting ecstasy. It thrusts us into a world where law is of little consequence, human life is cheap and the gratification of the moment becomes the overriding desire that must be satiated, even at the cost of another’s dignity or life.

Mike, I was shocked when I heard you answer that question!..... shocked that anyone on that stage had the integrity and guts to tell it like it is.

In this democracy, the responsibility of the military is to do whatever our elected leadership asks them to do, and to the extent they carry out that mission to the best of their abilities, they deserve all the support we can give them as in the best training, the best equipment, the best healthcare, the best educational opportunities, decent pay, accolades, honors and respect. It is not their responsibility to decide whether or not a particular mission we, through our “elected” leaders, send them on is right or wrong. That is our responsibility.

If we don’t take the time to be informed decision makers, if our laziness allows us to except whatever is spoon-fed us by the media, if we don’t take the time to vote at all or act on our own principles, we are not living up to our part of the bargain with our military. The best support we can give our troops is to be damn sure whatever mission we are sending them on is worth their sacrifice and not in VAIN.

In the case of Iraq, we the electorate have blown off that responsibility big time.

At this point, I think the best way to support the troops would be to impeach the Bush administration and demonstrate that lies, obfuscation, propaganda, and ignorance are not acceptable when it comes to their sacrafice. Meanwhile, pursue my Pay for Peace plan at iraqon5dollarsaday.blogspot.com and get them out of harm’s way as quickly as possible.

I WANT TO THANK YOU FOR HAVING THE GUTTS TO TELL IT LIKE IT IS IN THE 21st CENTURY UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

KEEP IT UP AND WE ARE ALL EXPECTING YOU TO STICK TO YOUR OATH:"I WILL WIN IN 2008!!"

FROM ONE INDEPENDANT VOTER I CAN HONESTLY TELL YOU THE C.U.I.P HAS NOT GIVEN YOU THE SUPPORT, RECOGNITION AND EXPOSURE YOU DESERVE TO HAVE THE TITLE "OF THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE AND BY THE PEOPLE!!"

LETS MAKE HISTORY AND GIVE THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES BACK TO THE OWNERS......THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES.......ELECT MIKE G. IN '08!!

INDEPENDANTS UNITE!!!

Here's a list of Yahoo! Groups for Mike Gravel by state (including one for expats!)

http://groups.yahoo.com/search?query=Mike+Gravel

Some states don't have a Yahoo! group. Perhaps some people would like to create one for their state if they don't see one there.

As we have become accustomed to, you have continued to frame truth and wisdom within a context of historical perspective like noone else. 

 Thank you recognizing the honorable nature of those willing to serve, while also being able to distinguish when such service is exploited by those in power, at the expense of the honorable.

 Eli Israel

P.S. It's good to be back.  See you guys soon! :)

Mike Gravel  as Joe Biden says "You are the Voice of your Own Voice"..... THANK GOD!!!!.... AS MOST OF CONGRESS IS NOT.....Your Voice has "The  Courage" to speak  " The Truth"  whether American wants to hear it or not whether it is popular or not.

America desperately needs a Voice like yours telling them "The Truth". It is time Americans grew up about themselves and their arrogant brainwashed excuses for war.

 One match can shed a great deal of Light in darkness.... Keep Firm to your true convictions. people are dying in vain for this waistless war AND ONE PERSON like you can cause a major wave!!!

THANK GOD FOR MIKE GRAVEL!!!

goodrich

Others died in vain and are still dying, but a different kind of death... a living death in our nation's prisons. Many soldiers got hooked on drugs in Vietnam, largely to cope with the horrors of war. They came home forever marred by post-traumatic stress syndrome, which the military did not recognize or treat back then. Some of these men, strung out on drugs and suffering from the terrible aftermath of that futile war, found themselves committing crimes that they never would have committed prior to going to war. A friend's husband, one such glaring example,  is now in his 35th year in prison, dying slowly...in vain.

Sir,

Thank you for saying that. My father Steve Mason died in 2005 from Agent Orange. There is no doubt in my mind everyday that my father died for no reason. And now everyday I fear my Marine boyfriend will too, die in vain. Thank you for your truth.

Mason

Vietnam and IRAQ offer amazing parallels.

From someone who ought to know, Senator Gravel lays it out, and without any twisting of history. Who among the flock of Democratic presidential candidates will be so bold as to tell the American people the truth? Instead, when a bit of it is delivered, they snicker, sneer, or engage in the usual pandering, and then return to "politics as usual".

Perhaps the prevailing political rules operate from a belief that Americans are stupid: they'll believe almost anything except that their government has lied to them, repeatedly.

Coming to grips with this as relates to the current IRAQ mess, and Vietnam, means that we are left with a single conclusion: the US government (under previous maladministrations and certainly under the current one) was perfectly willing to squander our service men and women for a very ignoble cause. At some level we allowed it, or did not have the means to stop it, until the war itself along with the corrupt Nixon administration unwound all by itself.

Remember... Vietnam was not a declared war, nor IRAQ. Both conflicts would not possibly stand the test of such a declaration. These "authorizations for the use of force" need to be revisited and sternly restricted.

Senator Gravel has stated that he believes Americans can handle the truth. We deserve more of it. Once we understand the problems in full we can then apply our collective wisdom and goodness towards a thoughtful resolution.

The American people are far ahead of the president and the Congress on most issues. We are neither stupid nor unable to deal with reality. But we need a new administration (not a "gang of 8") that can stand with us as we recognize our goodness in the world, and seek healing and recovery for those nations we have harmed.

The kind of intensity you displayed at the YouTube debate is the kind of fire needed to rouse the executive branch.  I just hope that same fire and intensity will work well with Congress.

I am writing here about volunteering so everyone will see it!! I need volunteers from Minnesota to go to the yahoo groups page and join. I really would like to get some movement here in the twin cities ASAP. So please if you live in Minnesota and want to know how you can help go to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/minnformike/

Thank you for your support and time.