ask a soldier if

The pro-war party depends heavily on the cult of the soldier to quiet the opposition. Sabre-rattlers are fond of quoting our servicemen and women on their belief in their mission, in the Glorious Cause. "Just ask a soldier," these propagandists advise. Tell you what:

I'll ask a soldier if I want to know how to break down an M-16.

I'll ask a soldier if I want to know how to sight in a mortar.

I'll ask a soldier if I want to know if MREs generally cause constipation or its opposite.

I'll ask a soldier if I want to know what it feels like to be spattered by the brains of the now-dead soldier beside you.

I'll ask a soldier if I want to know what PTSD-induced insomnia feels like.

I will NOT ask a soldier about the true causes and the ultimate consequences of the war he or she fights. About these topics the typical soldier is as clueless as the civilian.

Perhaps more clueless -- not because of a lack of intelligence but on principle. It is part of the warrior ethic not to question the causes of the war he fights but just to fight it. "Theirs not to make reply / Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die." A soldier, were he to engage in public speculation about these larger questions, would likely be mercilessly mocked by his comrades-in-arms. The good soldier is a trained fighter, takes professional pride in fighting, so fights. Like a good fighting cock or pit bull. The fight is all.

An area to be examined: the conflict between the warrior mythos and the reality of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Does recognition of the existence of the latter require a radical solicitation of the former? Or are we to resign ourselves to the necessity of the soldier as sacrificial victim?

What's It All About, Cheney?

What is the reason for this war, again?

From today's New York Times:

Army Contract Official Critical of Halliburton Pact Is Demoted

A top Army contracting official who criticized a large, noncompetitive contract with the Halliburton Company for work in Iraq was demoted Saturday for what the Army called poor job performance.

The official, Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, has worked in military procurement for 20 years and for the past several years had been the chief overseer of contracts at the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency that has managed much of the reconstruction work in Iraq.

Ms. Greenhouse's lawyer, Michael Kohn, called the action an "obvious reprisal" for the strong objections she raised in 2003 to a series of corps decisions involving the Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, which has garnered more than $10 billion for work in Iraq.

Dick Cheney led Halliburton, which is based in Texas, before he became vice president.

"She is being demoted because of her strict adherence to procurement requirements and the Army's preference to sidestep them when it suits their needs," Mr. Kohn said Sunday in an interview. He also said the Army had violated a commitment to delay Ms. Greenhouse's dismissal until the completion of an inquiry by the Pentagon's inspector general.

Known as a stickler for the rules on competition, Ms. Greenhouse initially received stellar performance ratings, Mr. Kohn said. But her reviews became negative at roughly the time she began objecting to decisions she saw as improperly favoring Kellogg Brown & Root, he said. Often she hand-wrote her concerns on the contract documents, a practice that corps leaders called unprofessional and confusing.

Ms. Greenhouse fought the demotion through official channels, and publicly described her clashes with Corps of Engineers leaders over a five-year, $7 billion oil-repair contract awarded to Kellogg Brown & Root. She had argued that if urgency required a no-bid contract, its duration should be brief.

Ms. Greenhouse had also fought the granting of a waiver to Kellogg Brown & Root in December 2003, approving the high prices it had paid for fuel imports for Iraq, and had objected to extending its five-year contract for logistical support in the Balkans for 11 months and $165 million without competitive bidding. In late June, ignoring warnings from her superiors, Ms. Greenhouse appeared before a Congressional panel, calling the Kellogg Brown & Root oil contract "the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career." She also said the defense secretary's office had improperly interfered in the awarding of the contract.

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Behind the cannon fire, always the Ka-ching of the cash register. A rich man's war and a poor man's fight.

Rather than the militarist's mantra "Freedom ain't free," more apropos for this war would be "Free markets ain't free." How does protecting Halliburton's profit margin by undermining competitive bidding protect my freedom, I wonder?

This war is bullshit, Billybob. Sorry you been suckered.

By God's grace?

Luke Stricklin, I have no doubt, would like to punch me in the head.

Mr. Stricklin was featured on CNN a few days ago -- a young soldier home from Iraq who has penned a patriotic little country ditty entitled "American by God's Amazing Grace." The main point of the song is that, if you had served with Mr. Stricklin in Iraq, you'd be very grateful that God allowed you to be born an AMERICAN:

Well when you've seen the things that I've seen
things don't seem so bad
quit worrying 'bout what you ain't got, thank God for what you have
Cause you could be raising your family in this place
but you were born in America, By God's Amazing Grace!!!!

I've little argument with this sentiment (although I might observe there are places in America damn neart as God-forsaken as the hell holes of Iraq). The lyrics to which I object -- which objection, I am certain, would incite Mr. Stricklin to assault and batter me -- are the following:

You want to talk about it, you better keep it short
cause I got a lot of lost time I gotta make up for.
Really don't care why Bush went into Iraq
I know for sure what I done there and I'm damn sure proud of that.
You got something bad to say about the USA
you better save it for different ears 'less you want to crawl away.

Here we have the warrior in full battle cry. "Really don't care why Bush went into Iraq." To Mr. Stricklin the WHY of the war is irrelevant ("Theirs not to reason why," etc.); all that matters is that he did his duty: "I know for sure what I done there and I'm damn sure proud of that." And if you dare suggest that Uncle Sam is on the wrong side of this war? Well, pal, them's fightin words. Prepare to meet your maker.

The timing here is interesting. It's been a while since we've been favored with a pro-war song -- patriotic gore such as Darryl Worley's "Have You Forgotten?" or Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)" got a lot of radio play near the beginning of the War on Terror, when the country's blood was up. For the most part these songs have faded with the public's enthusiasm for the war. They've been displaced by anti-war songs such as Billy Bragg's "The Price of Oil," Steve Earle's "Rich Man's War," Eliza Gilkyson's "Highway 9," or the Rolling Stones' forthcoming "Sweet Neo Con."

I say "displaced," but that's not quite right. The pro-war songs received a good deal of play on mainstream radio, especially country stations. Toby Keith's bellicose growl went echoing through every laundromat across the land. The anti-war songs have never reached the ears of Clear Channel listeners, can only be found on alternative radio and the internet (and I doubt that the Stones' new cut will be an exception). No surprise, then, that when a belated pro-war song is penned, the writer should get prime facetime on CNN. Meanwhile Earle and Gilkyson must settle for the relatively modest stages of Democracy Now and Air America.

Poor Luke Stricklin. Listening to his song you can sense his violent ambivalence toward the war, his struggle to reconcile contradictory feelings. He tells us that he doesn't care about why "Bush went into Iraq." Note here the Commander-in-Chief is referred to as "Bush," not "President Bush" or even "Mr. Bush." Stricklin is clearly distancing himself from the prime maker of the war. This suggests that he's aware of the possibility that Bush's motives might not have been the best. Yet he does not want to hear criticism of the president, hasn't got the time, "got a lot of lost time I gotta make up for." Lost time? Does that not indicate time wasted? Is the war a just cause or a waste of time? If it is a waste of time, what of Mr. Stricklin's pride in his service? Is he protesting too much there?

Might not Mr. Stricklin's refusal to listen to criticism of the war be construed as a species of flight: he resists listening for fear that he'll discover he has been duped -- horribly duped -- by Dubya and the boys? Perhaps Mr. Stricklin, deep down, already knows this, knows that he's been suckered. Perhaps he is struggling to repress his desire to punch in the head, not yours truly or Cindy Sheehan or any other war protestor, but instead George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld -- perhaps even himself?

Can you say Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? "American by God's Amazing Grace" positively reeks of it. It's all there: the trauma ("I ain't never been to hell / but it couldn't be any worse than this place"), the uncertainty ("Tell my wife don't worry 'cause I know what to do / it makes you feel better sometimes, but don't know if it's true"), the anger ("And I laugh in your face when you say you got it bad"). Rather than stoking his rage by listening to the blood-spattered war anthems of his mentor Toby Keith, Mr. Stricklin probably would be better off listening to songs wherein PTSD is explicitly thematized, songs such as John Prine's "Sam Stone," Steve Earle's "Home to Houston," and Tom Waits' "Day After Tomorrow."

Little chance of that, however, given Mr. Stricklin's strong identification with the military. As an article in the latest Newsweek notes, "PTSD is one acronym the military does not like. It prefers 'temporary adjustment disorder,' with an emphasis on the temporary."

Yes, soldiers like Luke Stricklin are just a TAD crazy. May God's amazing grace deliver them from this evil.

vile weed

Power takes as ingratitude the writhing of its victims

--Rabindranath Tagore

I recall a comment made near the beginning of the Iraq war by Fred Thompson, former Senator from Tennessee, now an actor on the TV series Law & Order. Thompson opined that it was ridiculous for war protestors to claim that they "support the troops": how can you support the troops without supporting what the troops are doing, that is, making war?

In a sense Thompson is right. I, an opponent of the war, support our troops only insofar as I feel sympathy for them: they are being misused, abused, and ought to be brought home immediately. I don't support them in their mission. Not in the least.

For saying this of course I will be accused of ingratitude, "the vilest weed that grows." Yet why should I be grateful to the troops that are prosecuting an unjust war, a war that hurts my country more than helps it?

Let me offer an analogy. Suppose you decide to remodel your kitchen, hire a contractor to carry out this work while you are away on summer vacation. You give the foreman detailed instructions on what you want done, then leave. A few months later you arrive home to find the laborers in the last stage of the project. To your astonishment the kitchen looks nothing like the kitchen you requested, in fact is a disaster. You question the laborers about this, and they convince you that the work they've done follows exactly the plans given them by their foreman -- which plans differ entirely from the directions you had given him.

Now, it would be illogical and unfair for you to resent the laborers for the disaster -- it was the man giving them orders who is to blame, not they. And yet neither should you feel obliged to be grateful to the laborers for the work they have done. What they have done is create a disaster -- even if they did so in good faith, following the orders of their boss.

So, why should I feel gratitude toward the soldiers who are creating the disaster that is the war in Iraq? I don't blame them for the war -- they are merely following orders, as good soldiers must do. Yet I refuse to be bullied into the position that I should not be critical of the war because I might hurt the feelings of the men and women fighting it. If my opposition to the war appears ingratitude to some of the soldiers and their families, then so be it.

Still, some might say we should be grateful to those serving in Iraq, not for what they are doing, but for what they are: good and dutiful soldiers. We should be grateful to them for the same reason Tennyson was grateful to the men of the Light Brigade, for their absolute devotion to duty: "Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die."

Yet according to this logic we should also be grateful to the soldiers of the Third Reich, of Imperial Japan, for what they were during World War Two. They, too ( many of them, anyway), were paragons of duty -- men who followed the orders they were given without question, even unto death. On what reasoned principle can we deny them our gratitude, if what they were doing is irrelevant? Although we may feel a good deal of sympathy for them, I doubt that many of us would feel grateful to those German and Japanese soldiers, given that we consider the cause for which they fought unjust -- indeed, positively evil. Why, then, can we not take into account our view of the war in Iraq, whether it is a just or unjust war, when considering a proper attitude toward our troops? There appears to be a double standard at work here, one that cannot be logically or ethically defended.

By the way, the Charge of the Light Brigade was, tactically speaking, a disaster. It essentially destroyed the Brigade, made it unusable for the remainder of the Crimean War. ("C'est magnifique," noted a French commander of the brigade's suicidal charge, "mais ce n'est pas la guerre.") Only in Tennyson's heated romantic imagination could the charge become glorious. For a latter-day Tennyson, we have (alas!) the con man Ahmad Chalabi, who, in the period after the invasion, when it became clear that no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (the original casus belli) were going to be found, remarked defiantly, "We are heroes in error."

Should Ahmad Chalabi also be an object of our undying gratitude? Only, perhaps, in the superheated imagination of a Richard Perle.

On the dotted line

In reponse to my blog posting "Mr. Wronghead," a friend writes:

However, the other side of the coin is that, by joining the Army, you are agreeing to participate in the defense of your country. Casey must have believed he was doing the right and honorable thing by enlisting in the Army at the time of this Iraq war.

True enough. The question, of course, is whether the war in Iraq is necessary for the defense of this country. As Michael Moore observed in Fahrenheit 9/11, the men and women of our armed forced sign a contract that says they agree to defend us against all enemies, foreign and domestic -- this on the implicit condition, however, that they not be put in harm's way needlessly. The war in Iraq was not necessary and it has made America a more likely, not less likely, target for terrorism. The truly patriotic thing for a soldier to do today is to conscientiously object to serving in this war that endangers our country.

Besides, why do people join the armed forces? Is it always patriotism or are there other motives? How many of the young men and women now being exposed to mortal violence in Iraq would be in the military if they had been offered, say, a $50,000 a year job as an alternative to enlisting? My point is that many of the young people in the military are essentially economic refugees. If one's choice is between donning a military uniform or donning a Walmart-blue vest (a McDonalds-orange vest, etc.), then the military uniform may look like the better, more dignified choice.

I quite frankly am tired of hearing the argument that the families of our men and women led to the slaughterhouse which is Iraq have no right to complain since their loved ones signed on the dotted line, knew -- or should have known -- what they were getting into. Reminds me of the argument made by coal mine operators whose workers died in many cases because the operators were too tight to pay for necessary safety measures: that the workers knew going in it was a dangerous job so their families are due no compensation. Oftentimes these workers had no choice but to go into the mines: it was that or starve. The argument is callous to the point of cruelty.

Mr. Wronghead

A letter to the editor published in yesterday's Lima News, an "open letter to Cindy Sheehan," is typical in its wrongheadedness about the war in Iraq.

The letter writer asks Cindy to pack it up and go home. "Your actions on the side of the road in Texas give aid and comfort to those who not only killed your Casey, but made it necessary for him to be there."

One presumes the writer's reference here is to the Iraqi insurgents. The ones who killed Casey, however, work in the White House and Pentagon; they made it necessary for him to be there.

"The casualties we are sustaining in this war on terrorism are a sad necessity to our victory in this new face of war."

Hasn't the letter writer heard? It is no longer a war on terrorism. It's the "global struggle against extremist violence," or something like that. Whatever you call it, it's abundantly clear that IT is actually generating terrorism, not squelching it. How could it do otherwise?

(Dick Cheney yesterday spoke to a group of combat veterans, swearing that we will destroy terrorism utterly, even if it means hunting down and killing every last terrorist. Even if it means doing what is obviously impossible?)

"So, I ask you to go home Cindy and take some comfort in the fact that Casey did not die a trivial death in a car accident here at home, from drugs or in a senseless drive-by shooting. He died an honorable death defending the United States, a death many of us were willing to risk."

Yes, Cindy, be glad your son had a good and meaningful death, rather than a trivial or shameful death. Dulce et decorum est, Cindy. Sweet and fitting it is to die for your country -- your country, right or wrong. Be glad he's dead, you ingrate bitch.

"Please do not allow your grief to be used by our enemies here and abroad to subvert our efforts to bring an honest peace to our world."

Yes, Cindy, go home and swallow your grief, swallow your righteous indignation. Go home and swallow it, even if it burns a hole in your gut. Choke it down and keep it down, else be labeled a traitor by your betters, such as myself, the super-patriotic inditer of this disciplinary letter.

God bless America, Cindy, and God damn you.

Sacred Profanity

Cindy Sheehan, in testimony before the Conyers hearings on the Downing Street memos:

"There are a few people around the US and a couple of my fellow witnesses who were a little justifiably worried that in my anger and anguish over Casey's premeditated death, I would use some swear words, as I have been known to do on occasion when speaking about the subject. Mr. Conyers, out of my deep respect for you, the other representatives here, my fellow witnesses, and viewers of these historic proceedings, I was able to make it through an entire testimony without using any profanity. However, if anyone deserves to be angry and use profanity, it is I. What happened to Casey and humanity because of the apparent dearth of honesty in our country's leadership is so profane that it defies even my vocabulary skills. We as Americans should be offended more by the profanity of the actions of this administration than by swear words. We have all heard the old adage that actions speak louder than words and for the sake of Casey and our other precious children, please hold someone accountable for their actions and their words of deception."

Recall the story of the meeting between Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Beecher Stowe -- author of Uncle Tom's Cabin -- where Lincoln is reported to have remarked, "So, this is the little lady who started this great war?" Well, if George Bush ever works up the nerve to meet again with Cindy Sheehan (what are the chances?), he might well remark, "So, you're the little lady who wants to end my great big war?" To which Cindy might well reply, "Eff you, you stupid SOB."

Clear Channeling the War

So the little man gathered all his chicken hawks in
And the neo-cons and his daddy's kin
They had their own clear channel and a hell of a spin
And a white man hidden in a black man's skin

--Eliza Gilkyson, "Highway 9"


Listening to WLW Cincinnati ("a Clear Channel station") a few days ago, to one of their on-air personalities saying that he's heard from the troops in Iraq that they want the "liberal" media to stop counting bodies -- the bodies, that is, of dead American soldiers -- and start accentuating the positive, talking about the good things that are happening over there. That's what the troops want, so that's what we need to do.

Imagine if there were fifty violent events a day in Cincinnati and the press decided that, instead of covering the shootings and kidnappings and bombings and general chaos, it was going to focus exclusively on the positive things that were happening in the city -- say, the renovation of a school or the construction of a new water treatment plant. Wouldn't the press be accused of participating in a conspiracy of silence, of abandoning and betraying its mission to keep the public informed?

It's pathetic how these flag-waving Bushites just want the ugly reality of Iraq to go away -- for us all to pretend that it is other than a disaster -- rather than admit that their support for this disgraceful war was and is wrong.

Every time an American soldier bleeds in Iraq or Afghanistan it should lead, be front page news. We need to be reminded of the real cost of war as long as the war drags on.

And too bad if it ruins Dubya's vacation to have the mother of a dead soldier camping outside his ranch, demanding that he look her in the eye and tell her that her sacrifice was worth it. He doesn't have the balls, obviously, and neither would any of his right-wing radio propagandists, these professional smart-alecks turned warmongers.

****

I sent a version of the above to the on-air personality in question, who replied with an angry email saying that I had misrepresented what he had said on the air (I hadn't in the least) and letting me know that, because I was nothing more than another minor academic squirreled away in the ivory tower (an ivory tower in Lima, Ohio, no less), that my opinion about the war in Iraq was worthless.

This from a glorified disc jockey who took a week-long Potemkin village tour of Iraq and, on the basis of that experience, claims for his opinion about the war tremendous authority. What a joke! What of those soldiers who have been a hundred times longer in Iraq and think of the war as a complete disaster? Is their opinion a hundred times more valuable than his? If so, shouldn't he just shut up about the war?

I grow weary of Bushites trying to silence the critics of the war by claiming their criticism is an insult to the troops, is base ingratitude. For the thousandth time: one can be critical of the war without demeaning the men and women tricked into fighting it.

Besides, what does your average twenty-something soldier know of the true causes and long-term consequences of the war in which he fights? The answer to that, of course, is next to nothing. As Ambrose Bierce -- himself a soldier decorated for valor -- said of the rank and file's knowledge of the war, "they can know nothing more of the matter than the arms they carry." That was true at the time of the Civil War and still true today. Soldiers are trained to fight, take professional pride in fighting, and so fight without question. "Theirs not to reason why / Theirs but to do and die."

And dying they are, a few more each day. Let's all agree to look the other way. To do otherwise, apparently, is an unforgivable lapse in taste -- like gawking at the scene of a traffic accident.

Pullout? Bush and the Rhythm Method

In Today's Washington Post:

In Iraq, No Clear Finish Line

The Bush administration has sent seemingly conflicting signals in recent days over the duration of the U.S. deployment to Iraq, openly discussing contingency plans to withdraw as many as 30,000 of 138,000 troops by spring, then cautioning against expectations of any early pullout. Finally yesterday, President Bush dismissed talk of a drawdown as just "speculation and rumors" and warned against "withdrawing before the mission is complete."

The shifting scenarios reflect the uncertain nature of the mission and the ambiguity of what would constitute its successful completion. For all the clarity of Bush's vow to stay not one day longer than needed, the muddled reality is that no one can say exactly when that will be.

Pullout Schmullout. This administration has no intention of ending our military occupation of Iraq. That we have constructed there huge (and hugely expensive) military bases is evidence enough of our true intentions. We will have a military presence in country -- enough of a presence to intimidate the locals into seeing things our way -- forever if the neocons have their way. And as long as Bush is in office they will have their way.

The question Bush's handlers are asking themselves is how to create the impression of a pullout. In other words, how many troops do we need to remove to convince the American public that we are leaving -- that Iraq is over -- and thereby shift its attention elsewhere in time for the midterm elections? In other words this is all politics driven. It's about public relations in this country -- "winning the minds" of the American people by changing the lead. It's all Karl Rove stuff. Turd Blossom tactics.

Later in the above-cited article retired General Barry McCaffrey is quoted as saying that, although the war in Iraq is winnable, "It's a race against time because by the end of this coming summer we can no longer sustain the presence we have now." Nonethless, McCaffery's considered opinion is that Bush strategy in Iraq still has an "80% chance of success." Ironic, I thought, that the ex-Drug Czar, erstwhile Supreme Commander in another obviously unwinnable war, is asked to comment on our chances of winning this one. Ought to change his name to Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes.

New Logo?

"Global War on Terror" is out. How about . . .

Grand Imperial Parade?

Eye for an Eye Expedition?

Great Global Goatfuck?

Worldwide Weapons Expo?

Dubya's Excellent Adventure?

Why They Hate Us World Tour?

Wholehog Hegemonic Hootenanny?