"Somebody's got to do it. I guess that's me,"
I flipped on CNN yesterday, Veterans Day, to get the latest news on the election results and the 'war' on terror (four more American troops killed). A nice young man was being interviewed, Will Mock, a Kansan, I assumed on a break from current duty in Iraq. Then the report continued on that Will had ended his first tour there, February 2005, and it hit me -- he is probably dead now. He is, killed in Iraq this past August. What a loss! What a pointless loss!!
The news moved on to cover the latest Bush snippet in which he was claiming that someday Fallujah would be remembered as our present day Guadacanal or Iwo Jima:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guadalcanal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima
He is half right. During WW2 these two battles were esteemed as heroic cleanup operations of Japanese military island outposts en route to our main target, Japan, itself. The first in 1942 was considered a necessary strike to protect our sea routes. But after the war the considered judgment became that the arrogant General Douglas MacArthur, had needlessly wasted thousands of lives -- American and Japanese -- attacking well-defended but isolated Japanese islands such as Iwo Jima in 1945 against suicidal Japanese troops when wiser judgment called simply for bypassing them and allowing them to surrender after we had accomplished our prime objective -- the defeat of our main target, Japan, itself.
Fallujah is even now viewed as a military fiasco -- one of those battles that has lost us the war in Iraq. We destroyed a city of 250,000 and the remnant of its citizens trapped there (elderly and children mainly, the 'insurgents' having mainly departed in advance of our attack) for no good reason -- military or otherwise. Fallujah merely won us the hatred of the Iraqis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah
What a shame that Will Mock and many of his fellow good American young soldiers have needlessly died and that our smirking President has not yet got the message that there is no course to stay in Iraq -- only the least destructive way that we can find to extract ourselves from the hell hole that we have created there -- 150,000 Iraqis dead per yesterday's report of its 'government' -- and more Americans and Iraqis dying daily!
It is manifestly clear that the present U.S. regime needs changing. It has tried to wage war according to the tactics and strategies of previously ones rather than the realities of the present. One of the first lessons that we learned in NROTC training back in the 1950s is that this all too typical mistake is made when wars are directed by arrogant, stupid people.
I grieve with the families of Will Mock and all the rest -- Iraqis and Americans -- who have been pointlessly killed and maimed over there.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
The news moved on to cover the latest Bush snippet in which he was claiming that someday Fallujah would be remembered as our present day Guadacanal or Iwo Jima:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guadalcanal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima
He is half right. During WW2 these two battles were esteemed as heroic cleanup operations of Japanese military island outposts en route to our main target, Japan, itself. The first in 1942 was considered a necessary strike to protect our sea routes. But after the war the considered judgment became that the arrogant General Douglas MacArthur, had needlessly wasted thousands of lives -- American and Japanese -- attacking well-defended but isolated Japanese islands such as Iwo Jima in 1945 against suicidal Japanese troops when wiser judgment called simply for bypassing them and allowing them to surrender after we had accomplished our prime objective -- the defeat of our main target, Japan, itself.
Fallujah is even now viewed as a military fiasco -- one of those battles that has lost us the war in Iraq. We destroyed a city of 250,000 and the remnant of its citizens trapped there (elderly and children mainly, the 'insurgents' having mainly departed in advance of our attack) for no good reason -- military or otherwise. Fallujah merely won us the hatred of the Iraqis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah
What a shame that Will Mock and many of his fellow good American young soldiers have needlessly died and that our smirking President has not yet got the message that there is no course to stay in Iraq -- only the least destructive way that we can find to extract ourselves from the hell hole that we have created there -- 150,000 Iraqis dead per yesterday's report of its 'government' -- and more Americans and Iraqis dying daily!
It is manifestly clear that the present U.S. regime needs changing. It has tried to wage war according to the tactics and strategies of previously ones rather than the realities of the present. One of the first lessons that we learned in NROTC training back in the 1950s is that this all too typical mistake is made when wars are directed by arrogant, stupid people.
I grieve with the families of Will Mock and all the rest -- Iraqis and Americans -- who have been pointlessly killed and maimed over there.
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 6:12 AM
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