Antiwar.com Blog

From an Army wife, Extension is Absurd:

My husband has been in the Army for 17 years, and I’ve been proud of that because we’ve done a lot of good things in many ways. We never regretted any place that Army life has taken us because we knew our job and our place in the Army world. My husband has been in many other places, and we’ve always stood side by side. But the extension of the deployment of 1st Armored Division soldiers in Iraq is absurd.

I cried for an entire day after getting the news of the extension of the soldiers in Iraq. Now I have to laugh knowing that everywhere we look, we don’t see any welcome home banners anymore. Now we see crisis and anger management banners. Everything was supposed to be happiness. Now it’s sadness, and still they pretend we are calm, happy families, like what just happened is nothing but part of the soldiers’ jobs. They forget that these same soldiers are fathers, mothers, sons, brothers and sisters, and have done their jobs in Iraq. Now it’s time for them to come home!

There’s not going to be any sweet, beautiful answer that anyone can give my two children to make them understand why. Why is daddy not coming home? My kids are going to think that their daddy is not coming home because they did something bad. That’s what a lot of other children will be thinking while they are crying at night.

For a year my children and many other kids all marked off each day on the calender, hoping that each day that went by would be one day sooner that their fathers would be home. A lot of people’s dreams and plans were shattered once again.

As a proud Army wife, I think there’s no fairness in any of this. I don’t expect miracles to happen. But if a lot of we spouses raise our voices together, maybe we can do something to bring ours husbands, fathers, mothers, sons and brothers back home where they belong after a yearlong deployment. I am a very proud and angry wife and mother.

Lorna I. Soto
Baumholder, Germany

We’re continuously hearing about the low reserves and high price of crude oil. We continuously hear about the high cost of war. Next time you slide up to the pump and stiffle a gasp at the price of a gallon of gas while peeling megabucks out of your wallet to fill up, think about the many places where our fuel is going.

As just a modest example, your fuel is going HERE

There’s an enormous outpouring of shock and outrage on the net today over the Bush-Sharon meeting yesterday, in which it was decided that Sharon was entitled to whatever land in the West Bank he wanted in exchange for whatever other Palestinian land the Israelis are currently occupying that they no longer want. Some people seem to think this is unjust, but that’s just because they believe in property rights for animals and subhumans. Even American “coalition partners” like the British have realized that in the opinion of most SuperPower of the Planet rulers and henchmen Arabs are not human.

Speaking from his base in southern Iraq, the officer said: “My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans’ use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don’t see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are.”

Those goofy Brits! So prim and proper.

The former British military assistant chief of staff, Timothy Garden, says there is a lot of disquiet among the British officer corps.

“If you are trying to promote the rule of law and provide security for the Iraqis, then killing large numbers of them in urban environments is not a very good way of doing it,” he said.

What a wimp! They just don’t understand how to treat animals.

On a rooftop overlooking Fallujah’s industrial wasteland, Lance Cpl. Tom Browne pokes his machine gun muzzle out of a hole in a barrier wall, singing to himself to pass the time.

In the street below, the corpse of an insurgent suspect lies baking in the sun. Browne, from Boston, says he has killed several rebels, probably Iraqis, so far.

“I don’t even think about those people as people,” he says.

That’s how real hero warriors do it. Maybe the Brits need to train with the IDF and learn their techniques, like the Americans do, and quit whining! If anyone knows how to deal with terrorist animals it’s the Israelis, which is something George Bush understands and rewards with money and support and weaponry and other peoples’ land. Like when Ariel Sharon sent an American Apache to launch a rocket at that Arab in the wheelchair in Gaza, turning him into a little puddle of grease and blood along with 7 other subhumans, the whole world squealed and squawked as if a real person had died! The Arab untermenschen were all outraged because they foolishly thought that not only was Sheik Yassin a human, but he was an important religious icon, and launched an Iraqi intifada in solidarity with the Palestinian subhumans, but George and Ariel just laughed, because they have more weapons and stuff than those pathetic Arabs and they just blew hundreds and hundreds of them away. A few brave hero humans were killed in battle with the terrorist subhumans, but that’s okay because they weren’t related to anyone important.

And, just to prove that George and Ariel don’t back down in the face of terror, they stood in front of cameras yesterday and broadcast to the entire world their message of contempt for the Arab subhuman terrorists and ground their virtual jackboot in the face of them all. If any of you untermenschen out there don’t like it, you know what you can do.

Bring ’em on!

Check out this post by Glenn Reynolds. Note the initial update. He put it up immediately after I sent him the following e-mail:

Glenn,

Did you even read the comments beneath the link you posted? The Marine Corps has not yet settled the matter, but several war-supporting bloggers have already concluded that the offensive version of the photo is likely accurate. Of course, you never gave a sh*t about it until some dunce on your blogroll called it a hoax, but hey, I guess that’s your job. With your attention to detail, I just pray that you’re never my court-appointed attorney.

Cordially,
Matt Barganier

At least he reads his e-mail.

Is the infamous “Lcpl. Boudreaux killed my Dad then he knocked up my sister” photo a fake? This guy says so, but notice all the counterclaims beneath, including by war supporters. Marine investigators apparently have yet to reach a conclusion, but I will keep you updated. If it’s a fake, you’ll read it here.

Australian-born, British-based journalist John Pilger’s newest documentary investigates the United States-led “War on Terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan, and raises crucial questions about the real motives behind the violence. The 50-minute video weaves together footage of victims of US bombing in Afghanistan and victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, people in Afghanistan who claim they are no better off or even in worse shape since their supposed “liberation” by the America, and disturbing interviews with a variety of US experts revealing the long history of American intervention in foreign affairs, including the Carter administration’s authorizing $500 million to the Mujahideen: training and funding Islamic extremists including Osama Bin Laden. “Out of this,” Pilger states, “came the Taliban, Al Qaeda and September 11th.” His gimmick of intercutting footage and sound bites from speeches by President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair with footage of destruction and interviews that directly contradict the figures’ public words is clever and effective.

Pilger’s sharp style of dress, Geraldo-esqe delivery of inflammatory accusations (every bit as carefully worded for effect as the public declarations of the warmongers he seeks to discredit) and the melodramatic music he has chosen to accompany his footage have the unfortunate effect of undercutting the solid reporting and moments of genuine emotional poignancy in the film, and no doubt give his critics ample reason to label him a bit of a self-serving sensationalist, and perhaps he does love the sound of his own voice a bit too much. His statements are broad, and his views at times seem a bit too simplistic. But no matter how smug he may come off, Pilger does make a very valid point about the terrible distance between the public statements of the American and British Governments and the actual actions they have taken, and if it takes a slick format to get more people to wake up to the horrible realities of this supposed “War on Terror,” he has my blessing.

Copies of the VHS video are available from Bullfrog Films, Oley PA (800-543-3764) or at
www.bullfrogfilms.com.