Subject: "Watching the World Destroy Itself" (or
print link, easier reading) by Robert C. Koehler, CommonDreams
"'For both sides,' write Gregg Jaffe and Kevin Maurer, referring to sides within the U.S. military, 'the debate over who lost Iraq remains raw and emotional. Many of today’s military officers still carry fresh memories of friends killed in battle.'
"They add, however: 'Iraq and the Iraqi people remain something of an abstraction. For much of the war, U.S. troops patrolled Iraq’s cities in lumbering armored vehicles and lived on heavily fortified bases surrounded by blast walls and barbed wire.'
"That line — 'Iraq and the Iraqi people remain something of an abstraction' — was quoted recently by former CIA analyst (and current member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) Ray McGovern in an extraordinary essay that cries out — stop! — to American militarism and American indifference. We can’t continue to play this game. We can no longer not know that we murder children, that we murder innocent people with lives to lead, in our pursuit of oil and strategic advantage and war and empire: in our pursuit of militarized 'peace.'
"The debate about the current civil war in Iraq is not about how many troops we should send into the fray, or how many drones or missiles; nor is it about whether President Obama should have withdrawn most of the U.S. military presence from Iraq and terminated the occupation at the end of 2011; nor is it, good Lord, about whether we won or lost the war ('. . . just a few years ago,” wrote Jaffe and Maurer, the war 'seemed on the brink of going down in history as a success').
"The debate is about whether or not, at long last, enough people in this country and on this planet are sick to death of war and want to deal with human conflict in a different way.”
relevant: "How the NSA is Transforming Law Enforcement" Re: big and pithy Paul Craig Roberts, main focus the militarization of police in the U.S., also Russia 6/25-27/14
Larry
"'For both sides,' write Gregg Jaffe and Kevin Maurer, referring to sides within the U.S. military, 'the debate over who lost Iraq remains raw and emotional. Many of today’s military officers still carry fresh memories of friends killed in battle.'
"They add, however: 'Iraq and the Iraqi people remain something of an abstraction. For much of the war, U.S. troops patrolled Iraq’s cities in lumbering armored vehicles and lived on heavily fortified bases surrounded by blast walls and barbed wire.'
"That line — 'Iraq and the Iraqi people remain something of an abstraction' — was quoted recently by former CIA analyst (and current member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) Ray McGovern in an extraordinary essay that cries out — stop! — to American militarism and American indifference. We can’t continue to play this game. We can no longer not know that we murder children, that we murder innocent people with lives to lead, in our pursuit of oil and strategic advantage and war and empire: in our pursuit of militarized 'peace.'
"The debate about the current civil war in Iraq is not about how many troops we should send into the fray, or how many drones or missiles; nor is it about whether President Obama should have withdrawn most of the U.S. military presence from Iraq and terminated the occupation at the end of 2011; nor is it, good Lord, about whether we won or lost the war ('. . . just a few years ago,” wrote Jaffe and Maurer, the war 'seemed on the brink of going down in history as a success').
"The debate is about whether or not, at long last, enough people in this country and on this planet are sick to death of war and want to deal with human conflict in a different way.”
relevant: "How the NSA is Transforming Law Enforcement" Re: big and pithy Paul Craig Roberts, main focus the militarization of police in the U.S., also Russia 6/25-27/14
Larry
