‹ An Iraq at Peace with Its Neighbors •
Not content with using former military officers to justify their modus operandi, or funding academic research to further their agenda, the State Department is now purchasing text ads through Google’s AdSense program.
The Bureau of International Information Programs has created, at taxpayers expense, an entire website devoted to “Telling America’s Story,” or rather whitewashing the foreign policies enacted by the administration.
For those looking for objective independent analysis, you might as well tune in to the American Forces Network, at least with them you get to hear some decent tunes between speeches by Tokyo Rose.
See also: Operation Mockingbird and Neoconservatism: a CIA Front?
This website can find more things to bitch about……God forbid you support the troops that enable you to sit and type all ur lil grips. Lord knows we dont want anyone knowing that the ones who protest against our country and military are the ones who are to afraid to acctually go fight for it and the rights we take for granted. Shut your mouths and let our military do its job.
“Support the troops”, as used nowadays, is a carefully crafted mixed message in imperative form. In context any answer, yes or no, is ambiguous and communicates nothing specific.
There are four possible answers implied, but only three are operative in practice:
(1) Support the War & Support the Troops
(2) Not support the War and Support the Troops.
(3) Not support the War and Not Support the Troops.
Response (1) is taken as “patriotic” and proper.
Response (2) presents a logical and semantic dilemma for the respondent and is an invitation to cognitive dissonance–how can he or she not support the war but support the troops fighting it? Eliciting this response is designed psychologically to moderate and confuse those who oppose the war, and gives them a partially approved option acceptable to the warmongers.
Response (3) is taken as completely disallowable, traitorous, and unpatriotic in the extreme. It can also be exhibited to the troops themselves to establish that those opposed to the war and what the troops may be doing in it are unpatriotic traitors who hate both them and their country, thus validating the propaganda the troops themselves are fed–to wit, that they are “patriotic” in what they are doing, which is, for many if not most, following orders and fighting the war.
The fourth possible response, which I have never heard anyone use, is by far the most interesting logically:
(4) Support the War & Not Support the Troops.
Depending on how one interprets it, it can include everything from the actual practice of many of the Neo-Cons and warmongers, like Rumsfeld, who hold the troops in contempt and consider them disposable items, to the logical sophistication of Edith Bunker’s response when asked if she supported “Capital Punishment”.
“Yes,” Edith said, “As long as no one is killed.”
In fact, supporting wars as long as there are no troops fighting them is a more persuasive option than it looks.
All the wars you want with no one fighting them actually sounds pretty peaceful to me.
Hello Eugene,
“Support the Troops” means something different to those who fought in previous wars, before the rules changed. Mai Lai (sp?) was condemend. We do not support that kind of behavior, for example. Yet Rumfeld and crew changed the rules and promoted collateral damage (killing civilians) and torture.
So “Support the Troops” does not mean to me supporting whatever barbarous behaviors they can bring to bear.
I belienve too few realize is that the rules have changed.
Congratulations on the longest most pointless comment I’ve ever read. This is completely obvious, but either way you either support your country or you don’t. It’s not so complicated. The fact of the matter is most people (not all) who don’t support the war have no clue what has happened. You can throw around statistics about how expensive the war is and how the white house is lying to you but when you get down to it we didn’t enter this war for no reason and we aren’t still in it for no reason. Maybe you should explore these reasons before you go protest a war you don’t even have the slightest idea about. And tell your liberal friends the same thing.
F**k patriotism, the war is common sense, and if you need me to baby you why I certainly will.
For someone who can’t arrange to
Utter a simple English word in
Conversation without
Knee-jerk jingo
You seem
Openly and actively
Unpatriotic….
I don’t get the asterisks either. Did you put them in or did you have Nanny do it for you?
Ah, something like the following:
(1) Support the War & Support the Troops & Support the Country
(2) Not Support the War & Support the Troops & Support the Country
(3) Support the War & Not Support the Troops & Support the Country
(4) Support the War & Support the Troops & Not Support the Country
(5) Not Support the War & Not Support the Troops & Support the Country
(6) Not Support the War & Support the Troops & Not Support the Country
(7) Support the War & Not Support the Troops & Not Support the Country
(8) Not Support the War & Not Support the Troops & Not Support the Country.
Let me count the ways–which one is “commonsense” again?
Got it–FOLK Patriotism, right? Ever heared the one about the three-legged piglet and the TVA? Some other time perhaps, if you grow up.
“You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror.”
George W. Bush November 6, 2001
Jeezus B. Jeezus! Lack oil them intemiddleate possumbilities jes’ gwine teh waist tweeen there!
Okay lemmee see–Support the War & Support the Troops & Support the Country & Support the Bush; Not support the War, Support the Troops…aw shucks–it begins to grow on you after awhile.
Yall have a nice day now, sport.
“God forbid you support the troops that enable you to sit and type all ur lil grips.”
Rarely is stupidity on such proud parade as with comments like this. These scattered groups who fight just well enough to keep our troops busy in their neighborhood are apparently the people who would be flocking across the oceans like boat people, invading our country on foot and taking away our freedoms. It’s about as brilliant an alternative future analysis as those that say we would be speaking German if we didn’t enter WWII, because the German army, while not being able to cross the English Channel to conquer England would have crossed the Atlantic to conquer America.
“Lord knows we dont want anyone knowing that the ones who protest against our country and military are the ones who are to afraid to acctually go fight for it and the rights we take for granted.”
And you’re not there because…
“Shut your mouth and let” people with brains do their jobs.
Hello,
A free press is essential to protecting the rights of the people. Those who participate must often take abuse. As a fellow citizen I find this friendly fire saddening. The right to a free press and free speech is part of our way of life. The biggest reason to hide truths is to protect criminal activities, as history shows again and again.
The reason why we are hostile towards the Iraqis and Afghans is a secret. So those threatening to explain it never do.
Voodoo - If the troops are over there fighting for our rights, doesn’t that include freedom of speech? So if we “shut our mouths”, we have no freedom of speech, then just what are the troops really defending ?
If the ones who believes so strongly in the military joined it there would be no problem filling its ranks!Support the troops by being one of them.
Voodoo, We are over here defending our rights to free speech while chickenhwaks over here are fighting on the side of the terrorist(trying to eliminate our freedoms) and advocating that troops and innocent people die in the mideast. The troops supported Ron Paul more than ANY OTHER candidate so I’m not sure where you get the idea that flunkies like yourself are “supporting” the troops.
Then again you probably thought it was “supporting” the troops when the military lied to Pat Tillman’s family and the country about his death.
Support the troops by putting up big flags on your truck ,your house,put ribbons and stickers on your bumbers,by harresing and intemdating any one who you think is Muslim or”Ay-rab”.and blieving any thing your you fed by Neo-cons Propaganda machinery and following blindly?!And to hell with the truth.
Voodoo,
Go ahead, tell us what we deserve if we don’t shut our mouths. Water torture? kidnapping(rendition)? Please, tell us some more about your theories of liberty; oh patriotic defender of lies, war and leviathon.
If u are a traitor or someone who speads lies about our military and why they are doing the jobs they then by all means… bring on the waterboard!
But hey if all of you have all the answers the my all means go live with the terrorist.
Rather than have the military fight for rights I take for granted, I would like the military to fight for rights I used to have but were taken away from me without my consent.
First up I would like the US military to fight for my right to board an airplane without being accosted by the TSA. When can the US military get out of Iraq so it can start working on this?
After reading some of the comments made here, the Alert Level has been raised from “Crypto fascism” magenta to “Proto fascism” puce.
Yhe Oxford English Dictionary dates the use of “puce” (in couleur puce) from 1775. The word comes from French; puce literally means “flea”, as the usual flea coloration is either dark reddish-brown or dark purplish-brown.
According to available sources, the etymology of “puce” is French “puce” from Old French “pulce”, from Latin “pulic-”, “pulex”.
In 2007, a survey of 6,000 American households found that puce was judged to be the second “ugliest” color, slightly behind brown.
[wikipedia].
Sturmabteilung as Puceshirts? Sounds a lot like Blackwater.
While the National Guard the Army are away, mercenaries and private contractors will play.
Note also that Liberty University, ironically named, which is now Jerry Falwell’s joint and legacy, is systematically and openly training and encouraging its young Christian ideologues to go to OCS after college and join the Marine Officer Corps and such, as conscious and deliberate effort to “evangelize” the military.
This is not only unconstitutional in drift but extremely dangerous.
Liberty is also giving out financial aid to fundamentalists to go to its Law School and when they graduate and become members of the bar they work on cases important to the Fundies.
It is a dangerous blind spot to think this is not a systematic and coordinated grand plan over decades, coordinated by the Zionist Evangelicals and the Neo-Cons, to turn the whole country into a Fascist Christian Zionist state in stages.
Bush is just the middle stage, and the Crusade against the infidels in the Middle East is a key part of it.
The secular Corporate Fascists are only too willing to cooperate for reasons of greed and profit.
Madison is turning over in his grave.
Structurally the second most important measure after impeaching Cheney immediately is to get rid of Bush’s faith-based initiatives (Scalia and the Supremes naturally found them just peachy constitutionally) which are funding the Right Wing political machine.
Though Reagan himself was not part of it, looking back his most deleterious act was surely to give the Fundamentalist Christians and Rove and such a real taste of political success.
They have been voracious for more and more ever since.
At best this is about fifteen percent of the population, but besides being lunatics, they also are highly organized beneath the radar screen of the rest of the incompetent politicos, and they have bottomless funds from the detente with the Zionists and Neo-Cons.
Hagee getting behind McCain is only the tip of the ice berg.
Copy of an e-mail sent to Robyn Blumner, whose Military Makes Mincemeat of Church-State Separation (Commondreams.org) was featured on the anti-war front page:
Ms. Blumner:
Thank you for an important article on the “evangelization” of the US military.
Such harassment is not only unconstitutional but a very serious threat, particularly in terms of the current United States’ Crusade against Muslim “Infidels”.
One aspect of the same process is equally troubling. The now ironically named Liberty University, purchased and fundamentalized by Jerry Falwell, is now, apparently, quite systematically encouraging some of its most enthusiastic products to join the military as officers, in an effort further to proselytize to and evangelize the whole military establishment through the officer corps.
In the case of Liberty this is a program complementary to giving scholarships to fundamentalists to attend its law school, who then repay the favor by working on legal cases considered central to the religious programs promulgated.
There is nothing overly unconstitutional about the latter activity, but the deliberate evangelization of the military expressed in such tactics as you chronicle is, I think, a very serious threat and merits close watching.
I would be very interested in any further reporting you do on the evangelical-military nexus, whether in relation to Liberty, or, quite as pressing, other fundamentalist colleges and universities with similar programs.
Thank you again for an important article.
Sincerely,
Eugene A. Costa
Just a guess, but most of the gullible 30% or so of Americans who still support this misbegotten war seem to think it’s part of some kind of struggle against radical Islam. Let’s see, how many reasons can I list to prove that this is total and complete BS?
1. We toppled a secular regime that _opposed_ Al Qaeda
2. We have close ties with the granddaddy of all the Islamofascists, Saudi Arabia.
3. We don’t seem to give a hoot about Christians and other ethnic and minorities in Iraq being chased out or murdered.
4. We didn’t raise a finger in protest when Muslim Indonesia invaded Christian East Timor, until half a million people had been murdered
5. We didn’t try to prevent Sudanese Christians and animists from being sold into slavery by Muslims. (We only noticed when they attacked their fellow Muslims in Darfur!)
6. We helped set up Bosnia and Kosovo as havens for Islamic terrorists
7. We armed the Afghan mujaheddin, who later showed their gratitude by supporting an attack on the US.
8. We support those child-murdering monsters, the Islamic Chechen separatist terrorists
9. We don’t worry about nukes in the hands of an oppressive Islamic regime in Pakistan.
10. Our own moronic President states that “Islam is a religion of Peace.”
None of this is to say that radical Islam, as obnoxious as it is, is any serious threat to the West, if we’re willing to acknolwedge the superiority of our culture, and defend our rights within our own borders. Any country stupid enough to institute Sharia law is inevitably dragged back to the stone age.
The superiority of “our culture”?
Ah, as Napoleon is said to have said then, “Stupidity is invincible!”
Love you guys.
Hey Voodoo South~
What job are the soldiers doing again exactly??
Empire expansion. Nothing to do at all with preserving nor promoting anyones freedoms.
Wake up.