The first thing to go out the window when an aggressive, warlike nation starts a war (other than the truth) is whatever culture understanding may have existed before.
For instance: what was the American pop culture 1960's view of middle eastern culture? Belly dance and music, beautiful architecture, snake charming, funny hats. Even children's story's like Ali Baba.
Conversely, what was the 1960's view of Vietnam? Sub human dirty gooks.
Today, there's a piece in the NYT about the beautiful ancient art of Vietnam, which surely never would have occured in the war years:
Before we blew up all the minarets in Bagdad, it was necessary to remove them as objects of beauty, as expressions of humanity -- we had to remove the ME from our cultural radar. How many American children today know about Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves? And how many worry about hook nosed terrorists?
To know a culture --even a Mickey Mouse pale imitation of the real thing -- is to understand the humanity, that there are real children, real families there at the other end of the gun-sights; different from us, yes, but real nonetheless.
There are many for if there is an end it doesn't come for decades later for those invaded and occupied by others. The innocent are the ones who suffer the most and in greater numbers by the destruction and death from the moment of invasion and decades later with what's left behind by those who are ordered to invade and then occupy in these Wars of Choice based on lies or for reasons of material worth a small country can add to a power that wants to control.
This is just one of many of the long running destructive remnants of our generations War of Choice, an extremely destructive Weapon of Mass Destruction, Dioxin, Agent Orange and the others used as we occupied a small country Vietnam for over a decade. Destructive not only to the Vietnamese Civilians, then and now, but also to many soldiers who served in country and elsewhere, where it was stored and packaged for shipment to Vietnam and stored at bases to be sprayed over the country at the whim of the commanders of war.
Since today is my Father's birthday, I thought I'd share a brief story about one of his experiences 40 years ago, and how learning about this experience contributed to my perspective today.
On November 15, 1969, my Father was in Washington DC for what is still the single largest anti-war protest in American history to date -- the second Moratorium against the Vietnam War, in which it has been estimated that between 250,000 and 750,000 citizens arrived to demonstrate in the nation's capital. As a lieutenant commander in the United States Public Health Service, my Father was volunteering on site at a medical van as part of an emergency response team. He helped treat several patients who were suffering from burns and injuries when police tear gassed a group of demonstrators who protested violently later on during the day. In fact, he even suffered eye burns of his own from the tear gas, simply by being in the vicinity where police and demonstrators clashed.
The Nobel Prize winner explains how some wars are good and necessary. He's not old enough to have ever been faced with being drafted. And he hasn't served. He's apparently not worried about things like quagmires. He wins an award for peace. The award it turns out was endowed by a maker of explosives who felt guilty about blowing things up. The prize winner explains to people interested in peace how war is sometimes necessary. He is not embarrassed to do so. And the sometimes when war is necessary, he informs us, is now. That does not embarrass him either. Or at least not very much. Has peace ever been so devalued?
Closer to home, well, to my home anyway, number 2 son is in Hanoi traveling and taking photographs. He's a photographer. Forty years ago, I spent a lot of time and energy on trying not to get to Viet Nam. I could look at that big plane that flew weekly to Pleiku and plan on how I was not going to be on it. No matter what. Now he's there. Because he wants to be. In of all places, Hanoi.
He sends me a photo of a fish dinner he ate for lunch in Hanoi yesterday. The fish was delicious but, he reports, very bony. What can I say? I tell him the best part of a whole fish cooked like this is the cheeks. You can use a spoon to get to them. How do I know that?
The Hanoi Fish
On docuDharma, a refuge from the craziness of a larger, group blog that is its "blogfather," there are several essays on the recommended list at this very moment about that particular larger, group blog. And a bazillion comments, including some from me, on what its apparently self inflicted, fatal wounds might mean. And what is happening in that crazy corner of the Internet. A corner from which I am absent and hope to remain so. Except that I keep looking over my shoulder, rubbernecking at the crash. And wondering about the plane to Pleiku.
What can I say? Why is it that I think know I've seen these movies before?
Tonight on PBS, Bill Moyers Journal will focus on the LBJ telephone and office tapes created during the escalation in Vietnam, in a program called "Hearing History".
Bill Moyers considers a President's decision to escalate troop levels in a military conflict. Through LBJ's taped phone conversations and his own remembrances, Bill Moyers looks at Johnson's deliberations as he stepped up America's role in Vietnam.
President Lyndon Johnson's taped conversations are a treasure-trove for both historians and current policy makers. On the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers explores the tapes to review Johnson's deliberations as he stepped up America's role in Vietnam. Some of the names on the tape, such as Robert F. Kennedy, will be familiar to Americans young and old - others less so.
The vets said they hope not all Muslims would be blamed for the actions of one man. The suspected shooter who killed 13 people is Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who is said to be a devout Muslim.
"I'm not a terrorist. I love America," said Salahuddin Hasan, a veteran of the Vietnam War.
Hasan and the other vets gathered at the Masjid Ash-Shaheed mosque on West Sugar Creek Road in Charlotte where Khalil Akbar is the Imam...>>>>>Rest Found Here
10:00AM
Some Four Plus Decades of, Enough is Enough
We've been going through this for some four decades now, and it's gotta Stop Now, but I doubt it will, because it comes mainly from those that don't serve as they wrap themselves in the banner of a political party that's "Strong On National Defense" while condemning all others as not! It's in their political ideology to be used and accepted by those that claim that ideology, like they found great enjoyment wearing and laughing about "purple heart bandages" not long ago. Even some who serve, and do so in our wars and occupations of choice will use it, strickly as their political meme, disgracing their own service as they attack their brothers and sisters, never having real facts to back up their claims, and never apologizing especially to their brothers and sisters!
Yesterday, the fifth of October, I posted up a Parade Magazine article I found on Max Cleland and his new book {on my site and a few open threads etc.}. This morning I heard a short, but real good, interview on NPR's Morning Edition {below with links}, that should be added to the Parade article. This, while short, was a pretty good interview as Max hit's on a number of issues but unable to delve deeper. Here's hoping as he has started to promote the book that we get to hear and see longer more in depth interviews, I for one hope so, not only because of the brotherhood of us 'Nam Vets and the whole Veterans community, but because Max doesn't hold back, never did, and speaks with feeling and conviction.
For those that Still don't get what War does to a Human Being, and not only those fighting, nor understand the same happens to civilians who experience extreme trauma, like the recent reports about the young girl kidnapped and now found almost two decades later, Read This Short Article!!
Vietnamese victims of the defoliant Agent Orange play at a social sponsorship center in Da Nang City June 26, 2009. US warplanes dropped about 18 million gallons of the defoliant on southern Vietnam for most of the 1960s.
The following is a letter sent to Michelle Obama by Secretary of the Britain-Vietnam Friendship Association Len Aldis, who has worked for years to spread awareness of Agent Orange victims' plight.
August 2 marks the beginning of Orange Week, a government program to create Agent Orange awareness through various programs nationwide. Orange Week ends on August 10, 48 years to the day since the US military begin spraying the defoliant on Vietnam.
I wrote this in 2007 for a conference in Nice, France. Reposting it to commemorate the death of Robert McNamara. At times like this, I find myself wishing that the afterlife existed. Hell, specifically ...
.....
What was Indochina? What did it mean? And what visual images suggest themselves? For me, I have never been able to shake the image in Coppola's film "Apocalypse Now" of the American Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall) who tells his staff that a seaside village with wonderful surfing conditions is to be bombed flat so that he and his staff can get a bit of surfing in before dinner. When one of his offers warns him that Charlie controls that village, Kilgore screams: "Charlie don't surf!" It is self-evident and rational that he has a RIGHT to that beach because he can make better use of it. Kilgore's proclamation is the paradigmatic image of one type of rationality, the type of rationality that manufactures sensible alibis for horrific acts. The rationale he manufactures to justify his right to a particular stretch of beach is really no more or less dubious than the alibis that our first protagonist, Robert McNamara, offered during the American misadventure in Indochina. Our other protagonist, Coppola's fictional Colonel Walter E. Kurtz, faces the same conditions as does McNamara, but Kurtz's refusal to tolerate what he calls "the stench of lies" drives him insane and then kills him.
On thursday, 6.11.09, I caught a short report about one of the legacies, more like the left over WMD's, of our Wars and Occupations and their destructive power years later, and how we just walk away unconcerned and certainly uncaring, it's now their problem, move onto the next War of Choice by the few, seeking their wants of power, wealth and glory in their sorry lives.
Back on the 25th, of last month, for Memorial Day I put up a post to cover an interview about a new book release I caught on NPR's WBUR Here and Now, out of Boston.
While waiting for them to put up the stream link after the show I did some searching, for information on the book as well as some back information on what's covered in same.
Below you will find that post but UpDated, with a few more links and audio discussion, I've found since the posting.
Today is the Celebration for Europe and the United States of D-Day President will address veterans at American cemetery on Omaha Beach, this is not to celebrate but to Remind, and in many cases Instill in everyones minds, there's other sides, long living results, of All Wars Waged and not only for those who serve in them!
Backround From 1961 to 1971, U.S. military forces sprayed more than 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides on forests and crops in southern and central Vietnam. The campaign had both human and environmental consequences. The immediate effect was to defoliate and destroy vegetation over wide areas. The delayed impact came from dioxin, a highly toxic chemical in Agent Orange that is critically harmful to humans................
The flag is not powerful in spite of its ambiguity; it is powerful because of its ambiguity. It has stood, at different times, for radical democracy, opposition to immigration, the abolition of slavery, unregulated capitalism, segregation, integration, and a hawkish war policy, among many other things.
Reform Immigration -
March on Washington
We've been going through this for some four decades now, and it's gotta Stop Now, but I doubt it will, because it comes mainly from those that don't serve as they wrap themselves in the banner of a political party that's "Strong On National Defense" while condemning all others as not! It's in their political ideology to be used and accepted by those that claim that ideology, like they found great enjoyment wearing and laughing about "purple heart bandages" not long ago. Even some who serve, and do so in our wars and occupations of choice will use it, strickly as their political meme, disgracing their own service as they attack their brothers and sisters, never having real facts to back up their claims, and never apologizing especially to their brothers and sisters!
