Saturday, April 26, 2014

Feeling Sorry For The Foolish

I wrote this perhaps ten years ago and had forgotten about it, then it came up on the stats on my blog. Someone had found it and I had gotten 25 or so hits on it.


A little while ago got this email:

"You are a coward. If you have a problem with this call me at ..." then he listed his name, his position (supposedly) in the Special Forces, and his phone number.

His email was in response to my article, A Rush to War

Of course, I didn't call him. He's not going to change my mind, because I'm right. And I'm not going to change his, because he doesn't know he's wrong.

The only feeling I have when I get emails like his is sorrow. I feel sorry for the guy, because he is foolish. I suspect he is about 23 years old, and I know what he thinks before he tells me, even before he knows what he thinks.

The first thing he would want to know is if I was in the military. If I say it's none of his business, he'll assume I wasn't. If I say I was, he assume I didn't learn anything in it. He'll claim I'm a leftist, because he doesn't know the difference between left and right.

He's the kind of guy who really believes Saddam Hussein was going to attack the US, even though Iraq had an economy about the size of South Carolina, and we could have nuked the place so that it glowed for the next thousand years. He probably believes Hussein was behind 9/11, and was also involved in the Oklahoma City blast.

He believes we had the right to blockade Iraq for ten years, even though hundreds of thousands of people died, many of them babies and the elderly. He thinks we were attacked on 9/11 because we are Good, and those who attacked us are Evil, not because of our support of Israel no matter what it did to the Palestinians, or the genocidal blockade of Iraq, or because we had troops in Saudi Arabia, or because we for 50 years meddled in the Middle East and supported every dictator there no matter what horrible things they did to their citizens.

He's the kind of guy who believes the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to get the Japanese to surrender, because he doesn't know Japan had been trying to surrender for months, but their overtures were rejected. He's also for the fire-bombing of Dresden, even though he doesn't know why it was bombed.

This is the kind of guy who joined the military because he believes he is a patriot, and because he wants to defend his country. That's fine; I don't have any problems with that. But he does not know the US has some 750 military bases in three-quarters of the world, making us an empire. And all empires, without exception, have fallen. But he does not know that, and if he did, believes America will be the exception. It won't.

He's also the kind of guy who believes that America is the greatest force for good in the world today. And it is sad that he believes that, because it is not true. I wish it was, but it's not.

He was no idea that in the 20th century the US attacked and bombed:

China 1945-46
Korea 1950-53
China 1950-53
Guatemala 1954
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-60
Guatemala 1960
Congo 1964
Peru 1965
Laos 1964-73
Vietnam 1961-73
Cambodia 1969-70
Guatemala 1967-69
Grenada 1983
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1980s
Nicaragua 1980s
Panama 1989
Iraq 1991-99
Sudan 1998
Afghanistan 1998
Yugoslavia 1999

I'm not including the 200,000 Filipinos and Filipinas whom the US murdered in the late 1800s when we invaded the Philippines.

How many of those countries attacked the US?

He does not know that Saddam Hussein was originally placed in power by the US, and was our ally, which is why we armed him in his war with Iran. The US did not give a damn how many Iraqis or Iranians were killed. In fact, the administration encouraged the deaths of both. The booger-eating Henry Kissinger commented, "Too bad they both can't lose."

World War I? He does not know that the US administration purposely got us into it by loading the passenger liner Lusitania with munitions. That's why it went down so fast when the Germans torpedoed it. He also does not know the German government ran full-page ads in the Eastern newspapers telling people to stay off of passenger ships. There was no reason whatsoever for the US to get involved in WWI.

World War II? WWII was a direct result of WWI. World War II would never have happened if the US hadn't gone along with the crushing reparations against Germany, allowing Hitler to rise to power. And the Great Depression - caused by State interference in the economy, not "capitalism" - also helped Hitler's rise. The Japanese wouldn't have attacked Pearl Harbor if the US hadn't cut off their oil and other imports, and sent the Flying Tigers against them in China, egging them into a pre-emptive strike against us. And the evidence is overwhelming that the Communist FDR--who called Stalin "Uncle Joe"--knew the Japanese were going to attack, and let it happen so Russia wouldn't have to fight a two-front war against the Germans and Japanese.

Korea? I don't remember Korea attacking us. I don't remember North Vietnam attacking us, either. And I certainly don't remember Panama attacking us.

Of course, he does not know any of these facts. Instead, he believes those attacks by the United States were for the Good of the World. They weren't.

The only thing that can change the mind of a man like this is what is called the School of Hard Knocks. It's what happened to so many soldiers in Vietnam, who went over there to Free the Oppressed and Impose Democracy, then later came back and realized the whole war was a scam, and all of those 58,000 Americans and 2.5 million to three million Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians died for nothing.

Maybe when he grows up he might change his mind. But right now--no, not a chance.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Japan had been attempting to surrender before the atomic bombings? I've never heard that before. Where did you read that?

Anders said...

I don't feel sorry for that useful idiot worshiper of the state in the slightest. My white ancestors did not fight and die in the revolutionary war so all the non white parasite hoards could leech off of us (white people). What pisses me off the most is all this, "We're fighting for your freedom" bullshit. The USA currently has more people incarcerated than ever existed in Soviet gulags. Our current police state society generally resembles a low security prison. And the military is a glorified welfare state for the unemployable.

Unknown said...

The Japanese had been suing for peace for six months but wanted to keep the Emperor and their colonies. The U.S. said no, even though our casualties were running 7000 a week. It took two A-bombs (which killed a lot of Allied prisoners and most of Japan's Christians) to force an unconditional surrender - which is the only kind the U.S. would accept. Japan kept the Emperor, anyway.

Glen Filthie said...

This is one of the few character flaws I see in you Bob, and an intellectual dishonesty that I will not tolerate.

Saddam was bankrolling any number of mudflap terrorist groups. He had WMD's and we know he did because we sold them to him. He used them on the Kurds. The conduct of his officers in Kuwait was a matter of public record. The moslem monkeys that took out the twin towers had even less money and resources that Saddam did. I hear Fred Reed beak off like you and it's a pant load when he says it too. Critical thinking - you boys ain't!

As for Japan - they launched a sneak attack on Pearl Harbour. You do not compromise with back stabbers and traitors - you fight them and kill them - or be killed. Do some reading about how they behaved in China, Bob.

If that squaddie ever gets a hold of you - you are going to deserve what you get. And no, unfortunately...I won't feel sorry for you either.

Quartermain said...

I agree with you on this post in it's entirety.

@Glenn- Easy for you to say all this, you live up in Canada.

Job said...

Glen, the Saudis have been exporting and bankrolling terrorists for years, including the 9/11 hijackers and many of the Islamists in Syria. Do you think the USA should invade them?

Unknown said...

I said right at the beginning that if we invaded anyone, we should have invaded Saudi Arabia. But no, Bush was too busy holding hands with their leader.

Glen Filthie said...

Good grief.

Boys, Saudi Arabia is the ONLY friend we have in that region. It is the ONLY country with ANY sympathies for the west at all. If you did any reading, you would know that Saudi Arabia is a nation divided. A smidge over half that country has been educated with western values, they're educated and free thinkers just like us. The rest are the same ignorant, illiterate, militant moslem scum that own Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and half the third world shit holes in the middle east. Saudi Arabia is the ONLY country that allowed US bases on its soil.

Boys, these wars may be dressed up as something else, but they are always about the same thing: money, power - and who wields it. THAT is the 'Big Picture'. Do some reading and research because right now - you don't even know who your friends and enemies are. Your view of the middle east is horribly uninformed.

The Anti-Gnostic said...

It is the ONLY country with ANY sympathies for the west at all.

You have no idea what you're talking about. The Gulf Arabs are the worst. Cynical, calculating, decadent, lazy, consumptive. I'm running out of adjectives.

They're the ones funding Wahabbist schools from the Balkans to the Levant.

Quartermain said...

@Anti-Gnostic

Don't waste your time with Glen.

He's just another chickenhawk, neo con blabber mouth.