There Are No War Heroes. There Are Only War Victims.

I agree with what Johnstone says 150%

There Are No War Heroes. There Are Only War Victims.

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Yesterday President Donald Trump tweeted, “My thoughts and prayers are with the families of our serviceman who was killed and his fellow servicemen who were wounded in Somolia. They are truly all HEROES.” Three hours later he tweeted it again, this time with the correct spelling of Somalia.

A few days earlier, at the climax of his phony, insipid feud with the Philadelphia Eagles, Donald Trump lectured Americans that they must always stand for the national anthem.

“We stand to honor our military and to honor our country, and to remember the fallen heroes who never made it back home,” the reality TV president bloviated. “We stand to show our love for our fellow citizens and our magnificent Constitution. We stand to pay tribute to the incredible Americans who came before us and the heroic sacrifices they made.”

In both of these statements, President Trump was lying.

The US special operations soldier who was killed in Somalia (one of the “seven countries in five years” famously named in General Wesley Clark’s revelation of the US war machine’s plans for world domination) and the four others who were injured are not heroes. The US servicemen and women who have fought and died in America’s nonstop acts of military expansionism and wars of aggression are not heroes. They are victims. They are victims of a sociopathic power establishment which does not care about them, and never has.

If what I just wrote bothered you, it is because you have been conditioned to oppose such ideas by generations of war propaganda. If you believe that US soldiers are heroes, it means that you believe that they are fighting and dying for a noble cause; for your freedom, for democracy, for the good and the just. It turns the deaths of the fallen into a tragic but noble sacrifice in your eyes, which keeps you from realizing that they have actually been dying for the profit margins of war plutocrats, land and resource assets, and the neoconservative agenda to secure control of the planet.

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/there-are-no-war-heroes-there-are-onl...

I’m a child of the 60s. There has been war for most of my lifetime. My generation took to the streets. We thought we really did something when Nixon got on that plane. Hahahahaha!

TPTB learned a lot from the events back then. They haven’t become any less vicious, greedy, or cruel. They’ve just figured out how to get away with it. They just don’t call a war a war anymore. They call war things like fighting, strife, strike, battle, conflict, police action, hostilities, but not war. In fact...

War by definition is a situation wherein two or more countries, states or parties within a country fight against each other over a period of time. In other words, it’s an open and armed hostility exemplified by active military operations, severe aggression and usually high mortality. By that definition, Vietnam was indeed a war. However, since the United States Congress never declared war against Vietnam, it was actually a conflict. In fact, the U.S Congress hasn’t declared any war since the World War II in 1942. So the Afghanistan (against al-Qaeda) or Iraq likewise is not a war but just a conflict.

https://thevietnamwar.info/was-vietnam-a-war-or-conflict/

Since we aren’t starting ‘wars’ but simply fighting in ‘conflicts’ our military can pretend they’re the stereotypical ‘good guys’ in white hats (irony alert) looking out for ‘innocent civilians’ in the areas where they coincidentally just happen to be dropping bombs and shooting bullets. This maintains the fiction that the US is not at WAR so we can’t be a nation of WAR CRIMINALS. We’ve prosecuted and executed leaders of other countries for doing exactly what we’re doing ourselves. But they were ‘bad guys’. We’re good guys. We only kill people because we’re doing what’s best for them. People are better off being blown to pieces if they’re too stupid not to do as we say, have different political or religious beliefs, or think that they have the right to decide their own future. Silly rabbits.

That’s exactly the case in this instance. The US has no business in Somalia. Or Syria. Or Libya. Or Iraq. Those people are simply (and unfortunately) parked on stuff we want. Oil, rare earths, natural gas, the route for a pipeline. And no city of civilians, no wedding parties, no family gatherings are going to keep our troops from securing all those goodies that make our 1% so fat and sassy. And we’re willing to go in and kill every last man, woman, and child if they don’t peacefully agree to give us OUR stuff. It’s for their own good, don’t you see? /s

Pretty soon push is finally going to come to shove and the American people are going to have to make a choice. Do we want to keep creating victims? Do we want to put an end to these hostile invasions? Do we really want to continue to watch our kids and grandkids die so some rich guy can rent out New York City’s famous Rainbow Room for something like this...

Aerosmith and 50 Cent headline a $10 million bar mitzvah

*

The father who spent $10 million celebrating his daughter’s coming-of-age was defense contractor David H. Brooks, CEO of DHB Industries, a Long Island company that manufactured body armor for the United States military.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/aerosmith-and-50-cent-headli...

I repeat, the time is coming where we’re going to have to stand up to these people. I know that it will be ugly, but that’s because we've been quiet for far too long. After running Nixon out of office we were so full of ourselves that we believed our own bullshit. “NEVER AGAIN” only happens if the people stay watchful, don’t get fat and lazy, and they pay close and careful attention to who we allow to run this country. We didn’t. We thought what we had done would last. We didn’t teach our kids that if they didn’t pay attention and take action, every thing that we gained would disappear in a heartbeat. So they didn’t teach their kids. Now we have to start over. We have no choice.

Oh yeah, just a bit more about that doting daddy...

Two years after the lavish event, Brooks was served with a 71-page federal indictment featuring charges of insider trading, tax evasion and raiding his company’s coffers for personal gain—including for the $10 million he used to pay for his daughter’s lavish bat mitzvah

As for our future...
[video:https://youtu.be/3vEEh0GF_C8]

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As long as the 1% aren’t bearing the human losses, the wars will continue. And we all know, they never will. (Cue Creedence Clearwater Revival “Fortunate Son”)

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

detroitmechworks's picture

And this gets into a little tangent that is too esoteric and modern for my essay series, so I'll comment here, if that's ok.

The two political parties are represented best by their Heroes. Batman and Captain America.

Batman (Republican): A capitalist who claims moral superiority by sticking to the rules that were established for combat between equals, while ignoring the fact that Batman is in a far superior position from birth, and the "Crimes" he punishes would be easily prevented if he only was to not hoard vast sums of wealth, perpetuating the system that creates criminals in the first place.

Captain America (Democratic) : A working class hero who benefits from government programs and thus is expected to serve the entire rest of his life in service to the state. Most of his "moral" issues have to do when he rejects the authority of the Empire, and everything is fine when he finds the "Real" badguys, who were always some shadowy organization that had corrupted the "True" American Way.

Those are the biggies. And they sum up the parties perfectly.
It'[s the overwhelming narrative for any hero in America. Fix the System. Either attack the Poor, or the corrupt, but never, ever go after the underpinnings.

Sorry to do a rant which would probably have been a better essay, but It felt out of character for my essays.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

@detroitmechworks @detroitmechworks

Why does it seem that now so many people always seem to be apologizing even for making good points, in case they're doing the wrong thing, and sounding almost more concerned about details and rules which used not be voiced as a major concern, than with sharing information and viewpoints in stimulating discussion and further informative sharing of varied perspectives?

This worries me.

Edit to add a few words to the end of a sentence above and posting this because it's bouncy and I like the attitude, which I'd like to be able to emulate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CWhPozi7Kg

Paramore: Anklebiters

If we become nervous about freely speaking out here because we're focused on such peripheral issues as grammar and are more concerned about such as 'threadjacking' or 'ranting' than adding related information/viewpoints, we're going to miss out on endless opportunities to expand understanding of what are absolutely desperate - and global - circumstances in exchange for perhaps even the most wonderful essays being potentially followed only by a lot of comments merely stating agreement or otherwise, rather than expanding upon/riffing off of them with interesting, often essential, information.

This trend seems to be increasing, even among the best writers among a very best group indeed.

It's quite possible that I've misunderstood what I thought were the multi-purposes of this site/community and should simply shut up, but I hate to see the potential of this unique gathering wasted on what strikes me as being inhibiting and very conformist concerns and thought I'd do better to speak up than to simply fade away.

In my view, the potentials of informed, free-ranging and civil discussion among a varied and mostly highly skilled/knowledgeable/experienced group sharing similar goals and humanistic outlooks which I see here matter, in both the large and small picture. The superficial details of precisely how or where information may be presented or any small errors which do not affect comprehension, don't. A wider and better understanding of various essentials is essential.

One more for the road:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWqmRGnqYpw

P!nk - Are We All We Are

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

detroitmechworks's picture

@Ellen North Because social media in particular is extremely hostile towards dissenting opinion at this time.

I try to turn it off when I get to C99, but aspects still linger. I always worry that I'm stepping on someone's toes with a LONG response in a comment thread, so I tend to be a tad nervous on them.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

@detroitmechworks

Society being propagandized into self-repressing is such a very double-plus-ungood thing...

*hugs*

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

detroitmechworks's picture

@Ellen North Much of how I feel can only be expressed in a state where I remove my personal feelings. It makes things a lot clearer and allows for sharp relief. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes its strange, but I think it's at least true to my hopes and feelings on subjects. Smile

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

@detroitmechworks

I think you're on the right track, FWIW.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Ellen North

Satire could be our savior, in so many ways. I think you're on the right track, FWIW.

It worked like a charm for Bill Gaines! Wink

It worked like a charm for me as a kid, too. When my family couldn't afford to view every new major film immediately upon release, the satires of those films in Mad magazine gave me enough of the plot synopsis that I could hide the fact from my peers. Smile

And I agree: dmw's definitely on to something! Give rose

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

detroitmechworks's picture

@thanatokephaloides continuing to stick to satire. First off though, I am going to finish the lecture series. One step and one goal at a time. (And I So far some of the best ideas have come out of questions, so I love it when people ask them.)

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

snoopydawg's picture

@detroitmechworks

I always worry that I'm stepping on someone's toes with a LONG response in a comment thread,

Don't worry about a thing. Say what you want and as much as you want here.

Smile

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Not even sure what to say except 'thanks', as you've pretty much covered it

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0 users have voted.

Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Deja's picture

Had a scammer friend me on Facebook. His profile said he was in the Air Force, but I guess he forgot that, and told me he was in the Army and the UN. He had very recent stock photos of military planes, and a new profile with hundreds of friends who appeared African.

He wanted my email address so we could "chat", except we were already chatting. When I asked if he really just wanted to FaceTime naked, he said, "We can't video here. I told you I'm in a war zone." To which I replied, "Actually, you said you were 'on a peace-keeping mission'." And he said, "Yes."

Peace-keeping mission. Even if he hadn't been a scammer, NO! JUST NO!

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thanatokephaloides's picture

That’s exactly the case in this instance. The US has no business in Somalia. Or Syria. Or Libya. Or Iraq. .

Or Venezuela. Or Bolivia. Or Nicaragua. Or Panama. Or Colombia.

Those people are simply (and unfortunately) parked on stuff we want. Oil, rare earths, natural gas, the route for a pipeline. And no city of civilians, no wedding parties, no family gatherings are going to keep our troops from securing all those goodies that make our 1% so fat and sassy. And we’re willing to go in and kill every last man, woman, and child if they don’t peacefully agree to give us OUR stuff. It’s for their own good, don’t you see? /s

I grew up during the 60s and 70s. My first protest action was against the bombing of Cambodia in 1969. I was 11.

I have never known a USA at actual peace with its neighbors.

Pretty soon push is finally going to come to shove and the American people are going to have to make a choice. Do we want to keep creating victims? Do we want to put an end to these hostile invasions? Do we really want to continue to watch our kids and grandkids die so some rich guy

Even by our loose "standards", your "rich guy" turned out to be a crook! And I don't approve of all these GD wars, never have. Other countries get what they need without running every other nation's lives; why can't we?

Diablo

edit: Added "Colombia" to the list above. More such edits likely for obvious reasons.

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides de-fund the MIC -- House of Reps are supposed to be our voice. Are they listening? No More War.

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terrific job, AM.

I just want to get the blood off my hands. Somolia.

edit. removed unnecessary text.

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@irishking

...I just want to get the blood off my hands. ...

https://www.rt.com/news/429408-syria-rebels-chlorine-provocation/

US Special Forces helping FSA plot chemical attack to trigger strikes on Syria forces – Russian MoD
Published time: 11 Jun, 2018 14:34
Edited time: 12 Jun, 2018 08:26

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it has credible intelligence that US Special Forces are helping Syrian rebels orchestrate a “chemical attack provocation” using chlorine to provoke Western airstrikes on Syrian's government forces.

“Our intelligence confirmed by three independent Syrian sources says that commanders of the so-called ‘Free Syrian Army’, backed by the American Special Forces operators, are preparing a serious provocation involving chemical warfare agents in Deir ez-Zor province,” reads a statement released by Russian Defense Ministry.

The military alleged the FSA militants are likely to employ chlorine to orchestrate the chemical incident. “To imitate yet another ‘chemical attack by the regime against peaceful civilians’, the rebels brought canisters filled with chlorine,” it said.

The set-up could then be distributed in Western media and serve as a pretext for renewed coalition airstrikes against Syrian government’s targets. The planned “provocation,” the Russian military said, is also to justify an FSA offensive against Syrian troops on eastern bank of the Euphrates River. ...

It just goes on and on and on...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.