A Smattering of Ignorance

Discovery Channel

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DISCOVERY  CHANNEL tells me they will soon make an offer for my new documentary, "Return to Tarawa-The Leon Cooper Story."

President Bush and Prime Minister Gladstone

Dear reader:

Pleae refer to my letter to "W" on October 2.

As I expected, no response...

Which brings to mind what the  19th century English Prime Minister has said...

"One can judge the heart and soul of a nation by the care and reverence it demonstrates toward the remains of those who died defending it."

My letter to "W"

An associate of mine has been invited to the White House...Here's a letter I asked him to give to the President:

October 2, 2008

Dear President Bush:

I'm a veteran of the battle of "Bloody Tarawa," as it was called shortly after the battle. It was well-named--more than 6,000 men died during those three days of savagery, including more than 1,000 US Marines and 600 sailors and Naval officers. An additional 2300 Marines were wounded.

I went to Tarawa this past February,  returning to my first battle experience sixty-six years ago, determined  to do something about the garbage that litters Red Beach, the beach where I saw so many of my countrymen fall under murderous Japanese gunfire. The garbage on that hallowed ground is an in sult to the memory of all who fought and died there in defense of our country.

I took a camera crew with me to Tarawa to film this outrage. It will soon be released with movie great Ed Harris as narrator. The title of the documentary: "Return to Tarawa: The Leon Cooper Story." Both Discovery and History Channels have expressed interest.

My budget for the clean-up involved calls for $2 million to install a state-of-the-art incinerator system, restoring Red Beach to its former pristine condition, making it a permanent memorial to the Marine and Navy forces who took part in the battle.

The incinerator will also serve as a model for other Pacific Oceana nations who, like Tarawa, dump garbage on their beaches, to be swept out to sea by storm surges and tides, adding to the contamination of this precious resource.

I urge you to make funds available immediatly for this worthy and important project.

I have another, very important reason for writing. I learned during my recent trip that more than 200 Americans still lie where they fell during that long ago battle. One of the dead is Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Lt Bonnyman.

There has been no organized effort by our country since 1946 to identify, recover and repatriate these brave men who sacrificed all for our nation. Their families, relatives and friends deserve nothing less for this long overdue obligation.

Here, again, I urge you to take immediate action, sending a special task force to Tarawa to begin the important work.

Finally, during my visit to Tarawa, I met an Australian Navy Commander who heads up an ordnance demolition team, on behalf of his country,  to remove the live ammunition that lies all over the tiny island of Betio, in Tarawa, where the principal fughting took place. As one who was a partcipant in that battle, I assure you that most of this live ammunition is ours.

I don't know how many Tarawans have been killed or injured by our indifference to this disgraceful situation. But surely, the least we can do is to help the Australian team in their work. I urge you to promptly despatch a team of ordnance demolition specialists to Tarawa.

I'll be glad to confer with any of your staff in helping get the programs outlined here underway.

Sincerely,

Leon Cooper

Bush & Unintended Consequences

The sabre-rattling over Iran heats up, with attack dog Cheney loose again.

Before the dumbbells in Washington carry out the plans to attack Iran, now at the ready, somebody (Laura?) ought  to ask Bush why Iran has now become a threat--more imagined than real--but a threat nevertheless, at least as far as Bush is concerned.

The answer? Iraq was a deterrent to Iran with Saddam Hussein in power. "No Hussein" means that the Iran Mullahs and their paranoid president have moved in to fill the vacuum.

"War and unintended consequences." Could there be a better illustration?

After Iran is attacked what may be other unintended consequences?

 

A Trillion Here and There and It Begins to Add Up

Now comes our hapless president with a request for $150 billion more to pay for his reckless decision to wage a preventive war, not one that posed any threat to America, but one that in fact safeguards the international oil cartel's interest. And the equally hapless Democrats will approve the request, with no  meaningful conditions, out of a mindless fear that to do otherwise would signal that they do not "support our troops."

Unspoken, perhaps beyond understanding, is the real financial effect of how much the Iraq tragedy is costing us taxpayers, current and especially far into the future. There are the real wounds of all those mangled kids, casualties no longer the stuff of front page news, but at least they can be counted.

But what about the "invisible" wounds that may not be identified immediately?--General Patton notwithstanding. Every war produces that kind of wound, of course, often not known by those inflicted until later, sometimes not until much later. (I speak from personal experience as a WWII combat vet...recently, I find myself recoiling from sudden noises; I don't remember having done this before).

The Iraq war is far different compared with our nation's previous wars. Where the hell is the enemy? Who is he? Is it that kid sitting on a rooftop, hand-signalling to an angry bastard somewhere so he can radio the IED to be activated as my patrol passes? What about that junk of a car on the side of the road? Or that car rapidly coming up behind? Or the car suddenly too close to my Hummer?  The corpse of an Iraqi or even one of ours lying by the road? Could anybody so sick as to boobytrap a dead guy?

Try to imagine the frame of mind of a soldier on one of his many patrols--but especially one on his second, third or fourth tour of duty--as he scans the road, always wondering whether he'll get back safely after this, one of more seemingly never-ending patrols. Except for the inevitable few psychos, our guys are not triggerhappy. They simply can't be sure who wants to harm them. And so the stress keeps building up. The "rules of engagement" can never deal with all contingencies, and certainly not for  those split-second decisions that need to be made when and if the soldier senses that his life, or that of his comrade, is in danger.

Getting back to the soldier...

Try to imagine  the compounding effect of repeated patrols on a typical soldier...there's a "tipping point" in combat, again, speaking from personal experience, it doesn't happen right away; it creeps up on you.

Bush will surely come up with more requests for more billions before his disastrous term comes to an end, and so will the next president, and the one after her. We're now saddled for ever with the need for an armed presence in the Middle East.

"You broke it, you pay for it" is the hard rule we're going to have to observe, with no end in sight-- for the harm we've done to the Iraq economy, to the health of the citizenry, to their welfare. How do you calculate the costs of the towering anger of Iraqis about their "Occupation"? Or, the anger and suspicions of other Middle Easterners toward America, now more than ever "The Great Satan"?

Have we  voters learned anything, including those who don't vote?

Bush At War

Long ago, the media and the rest of us should have stopped calling the occupation of Iraq a "war." It's remarkable how easily we have been duped by the White House spinmasters in the word game they are so good at--no, on second thought, how really gullible we are. So, it is really the badly managed occupation we should be addressing and not a war. If we call it a botched occupation, at least we're putting to rest the other nonsense that Bush keeps babbling in his now tiresome mantra..".If we fight the terrorists in Iraq we won't need to fight them here."

Then, too, we can address more clearly the matter of troop withdrawal from an "occupied" country and not one we're at war with.

Psychologists have long recognized that words become symbols. The wrong word, e.g., "war," in this case calls up a freight of meanings that are altogether different than the word "occupation."

If we leave Iraq we're not losing a war, we're simply declaring that our period of occupation is no longer useful, and therefore should be concluded. Take WWII, for example. We defeated Japan in a war, and were also successful in the occupation of Japan. If we had not been successful, then we would probably  have had to go to war again with Japan. Fortunately, this did not happen. But at least we we were using the right words, i.e, "symbols" , so our thinking was crystal clear then.

Johnny Comes Limping Home

Another Memorial Day has come and gone. Now, everybody feels good for having watched the required number of parades; for having listened to the usual blasts of hot air, exuding from the usual politicians, extolling the sacrifices made by "Our Veterans." And our President has made the usual stiff-legged walk, with the floral wreath, at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington Cemetery.

In the meanwhile, the wounded and stressed are beginning to come home in increasing numbers for (mis)treatment at Walter Reed Hospital and for the interminable delays combined with callous indifference at Veterans Administration facilities.

Incompetence and confusion, the dominant features of the Bush Administration in connection with the Iraq mess, continues. Post Traumatic Syndrome--what a dumb phrase!--is heightened with each repeated deployment -- the 2nd, the 3rd, the 4th--in a military organization stretched far beyond its ability to keep up with the demands placed on it.

In addition  to the demands placed upon the military, our Nation is now waging a war unlike any other in our history: an "Assymmetric War," one in which our enemy's weapons are simple, inexpensive and easy to make (IEDs, Armor Piercing Devices, etc , including a seemingly never ending supply of suicide bombers eager to mate with virgins in Paradise). Our sophisticated, expensive devices are no match for the enemy's determination to kill as many of our soldiers as they can, no matter the cost to them in their supply of martyrs.

Is there no end in sight to this bloodbath? Yes, I claim there is...All that is necessary to keep in mind is  that "W" is always wrong. He says we must "stay the course." This means that we shouldn't. It also means that we should promptly bring our troops home. Besides, can anything worse happen to that wretched country than has been going on for four years?

Then, for the first time we can really concentrate on fighting the "War on Terror," everywhere the bastards are hiding, but not in Iraq.

   

Still no help from Bush

Here is the latest of my attempts to get some action out of the White House about the outrage on Red Beach.

Click here for author's interview with ABC news concerning the outrage on Red Beach.

Some Churchillians

Here are some of Winston Churchill's observations that come to mind when thinking about "W"--

"The best argument against democracy is to have a five minute conversation with the average voter"

"A fanatic is one who won't change either his mind or the subject"

"Occasionally we stumble  on the truth, but most of us hurry on as if we hadn't"

What good are politicians-redux

In my previous post about the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), my "Nam" pal, Ken, told me about a Vanity Fair article about one of the big military organizations (SEIC) now INSIDE our national govt. Ken tells me the Vanity Fair article has"expired." For the full reprint go to

http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2007/02/link-to-vanity-fair-expose-on-saic.html.