Posts Tagged ‘Iraq war’

(My apologies to the band VNV!) Yes, Iraq is “over”….but you know, that surely was not a win, and not a war that we ever should have been involved in from the start. I am floored to read comments on some news stories wherein I see people calling the wars “Obama’s wars” as if he and not George Bush, had started them. His efforts to finish them do not satisfy me….but there is no good finish to wars began for vengeance.

But someone else says it all so much better than I do.

This set of wars, more than any other, has brought home to attentive Americans that women are dying in combat. While women are still technically barred from combat arms jobs, the sort of wars we are enmeshed in do not have safe jobs or safe zones. Over one hundred American women have died in these wars.

One of them was National Guardsman Michelle Witmer—she and both her sisters had gone off to war together. Her father, John, has written a book about the experience of losing a daughter in war: “Sisters in Arms: A Father Remembers.” I don’t think his statement about considering the lives we spend can be repeated too often:

“I think when you fully appreciate the cost of war, then you go to war more carefully. I want people to understand what the true cost is — and I want them to make sure that we spend the lives of our soldiers very, very carefully.”

I sincerely and deeply regret your loss, Mr. and Mrs. Witmer. I wish more people in America noticed the young lives we are spending so far, far from home.

I’m not the only one who sends guitars to Afghanistan. My son is awaiting his personal guitar, and two of his friends have signed up on the list of
Guitars 4 Troops.

Pass the word, any morale booster helps!

At last, the back door draft is slated to END. I think this process of keeping soldiers past their normal tour and repeated deployments not only kept the American public from realizing how over-stretched our military forces have been, but increased suicides among service members.

Stop loss even made fairly liberal folks like me wonder about the wisdom of a volunteer military in time of war. And the repeat deployments of the same troops over and over again will not be ended by stop loss. A volunteer force is, in a way, a non-egalitarian representation of the country: people at the bottom of the economic pile join the military and the privileged classes avoid service altogether.

Having grown up during Viet Nam (and served in the Army at the very tail end of it), being married to a Viet Nam vet, I never thought I’d say the words: I think during wartime, a draft is a better idea. It is the only way to get enough troops to not wear the volunteers completely down and OUT. And it is the only way to make sure it is more than poor boys dying for the causes that can be enriching the bastards at the top of the heap. Anyone who thinks ending stop-loss means all is well in the world with a war going on ten years old has simply been drinking the kool-aid too long.

So, yes, I am glad stop loss is being killed. But no, that in and of itself does not mean our troops are totally better off. If only every time a war began we could make the sons and daughters of Congress be the first to deploy!

If you think the news coverage about the war, and what happens to men seems scarce, coverage on what happens to women at war is even more scarce. News coverage and military data keeping about military suicides is similarly sketchy. Even in an ever more unpopular war, suicide is seen as a weakness of the individual rather than an indictment of the way the war is going. And it gets even more obscure when one re-examines the confluence of women at war AND suicide. Suicide for males may be weakness revealed, but to look at the military list of female suicides, it covers alleged sexual promiscuity and other types of personal culpability as well. And it is a convenient folder for hiding male behaviors the military would prefer to dismiss as boys being boys. Trouble is, the “toys” these boys have are military women treated as disposable objects.

Let’s review a couple of the worst stories, shall we? Like the continued obfuscation about Lavena Johnson, for instance. Lavena Johnson’s death was listed as a suicide, and had her father never opened her casket to look one final time on his beloved daughter, it might have stayed that way. But her mourning father saw bruising on her face, and when he looked at her body, he wondered how the gunshot wounds matched the military story of her shooting herself. And why was her body burnt? Why were her genitals covered with chemical burns? Lavena Johnson appeared to have been raped and murdered, and although her body was suspiciously found in a contractor owned (KBR) tent, the signs of rape never adequately investigated. She died in 2005, and still, her death is listed as suicide. Apparently the US Army still prefers a convenient fictional suicide to investigating murder and rape of an American black woman. The military still contends that after starting the fire to burn her journal, she killed herself in embarrassment over having contracted genital warts.

Really? Seriously? So much has been written about this case, and yet her father cannot get Congress to seriously seek answers for what happened to her: “Private LaVena Johnson’s nose was broken, teeth were loose, one eye was concave and there were abrasions over her body. The supposed M-16 hole to the head was far too small for the revolver-sized exit wound, and was on the wrong side of her skull for a right-handed woman to have pulled the trigger. Her genital area showed evidence of acid, perhaps used to destroy DNA evidence. She had white military gloves glued to her burned hands.” All this time, and no answers, the Army insists all the injuries to her face were from the ‘backblast’ effect of the M-16. And why would she suicide in a KBR tent? Veterans have told me tales of contractors behaving as if American military women were their private stock of Playboy bunnies; why is this not addressed? Seems some serious ass-covering was operative. “The death was initially taped off as a crime scene but the investigation was shut down by a general’s order.”
Dr. Johnson, seeking his daughter’s killer, found ten other families whose daughters were alleged suicides: all had rape as common history! He believes he knows who killed Lavena, an officer quickly gotten out of country two days after her death—a man still free.

The Army has not done a good job on being honest about female soldiers and the causes of death, and some of the contracting firms are even worse. It throws credibility to the winds, as even a men’s magazine pointed out in a story examining Kamisha Block’s murder. Both Block and Johnson were failed by the military chain of command, both sets of parents were lied to about cause of death. Block’s parents were told a friendly fire incident killed their daughter, when she was in fact shot to death by an abusive supervisor who was obsessed with her.

I urge you to read the long Alternet article because although it is from 2008 and is several pages long, every bit of information is necessary to understand the additional risks women in the military face daily on and off the battlefield. The military treats suicides as if they are shameful, a sign of lack of proper attitude—when the despairing person was male. But if the dead body is female? Well, then suicide is a comfortable, conveniently emotional excuse to ignore abuse, rape, and murder. More than a flag covers these women’s caskets—an invisible pall of shame and disgrace is pulled over the incidences of their deaths.

I don’t care if you let your little boys grow up to be cowboys, folks; but until the military establishment can ‘fess up the truths about the numerous non-hostile deaths of female troops, do NOT let your little girls grow up to be soldiers, sailors, or BAMs, ok?

I have been deleting myself from email lists for most of a year now. I am sick of being hectored and nagged by both sides. Somehow, the local Republicans got my phone number and keep calling to ask if I want to be a delegate to their convention, wtF is that about?

I am burned out. My health has suffered. My marriage has suffered. My writing has gone to sheer shit. And I am pissed off. Seriously, America? Have you forgotten what a representative democracy is all about? You elected Obama to replace the mad cowboy who took Reagan’s start into corporate thuggery, and Clinton’s book-keeperish nice guyness to the next fucked up level. The ship of state is on the rocks and you think the new “Captain” should fix it all yesterday.But you think he can do it alone?

The GOP is busy trying to blame everything from Afghanistan to the oil spill on him. Pssssttt—-he did not do it! One man, with his political party acting like a crew of pussies (and so not the bad cats in “Cats” either) can only do so much.

Barry Obama doesn’t have a magic wand to wave over all of America’s problems. Sorry, but to both progressives and republithugs, I must say, give up the myth of the “magic negro”, ok? He is President, NOT King. But America likes being stupid, the redneck jokes are coming home to roost, research suggests that facts don’t change fondly held dumb-assed ideas. Is this some sort of right wing New Age sewage effect? If you believe hard enough in something moronic and downright wrong, it will become true?

Here are some facts that even a housewife-grandma-veteran-bitch can grasp, try to keep up, alright? This is like the phone call your 7th grade teacher made to your folks, two weeks before semester end, to tell them you were failing.

* Illegal immigration is not what threatens the American worker. Having nothing worth working UPON is ruining American labor. We don’t MAKE anything anymore besides artery-clogging cheeseburgers and movies. Illegal immigrants largely do work that white Americans want nothing to do with at all.

* We have to dump the idea of the Mall being “entertainment.” Spending money on necessities instead of stupid assed fads USED to be the American way. Expecting to work for a living wage and actually knowing the job used to be the American way. Now every other person wants to be a “day trader” and “dot com millionaire.” You all watched the wrong fucking movies, ok? I honestly don’t know if we can get back to this, because the idiocracy seems well set.

* Obama didn’t start the wars. He surely needs to finish them. Good luck with that, Barry. He needs your help—-tell him supporting the troops means bringing them home alive, educating them with the new GI bill so they can go out and revitalize American industry as the vets of WWII did before them!

* Stop flogging the fear. The “terrorists” do not really want to “bring it to us here”—-they simply want American business and American military the fuck OUT of their countries and lives. Using the Marines and the Army as very underpaid mercenaries for American corporate interests abroad is going to crash the country.

(And just an aside? Fire the mini-white-shirted brownshirts of the TSA—hire some war veterans that know what a real asshat looks like so the petty jerks can quit feeling up grandmas and stealing baby sippy cups, ok?)

* This bullshit about cutting budgets, but NOT defense that Teabaggers are on about? Stupid. The defense budget would cover ALL the rest of the budget with leftovers for all. Basically, continuing to vote for morons espousing this line is paying for big rich bastards to use your sons and daughters as bullet stoppers for their own purposes. Wake the Fuck UP!

* Health care is socialism? Just what the fuck is so goddamned capitalist and democratic about dying for lack of medical care? That isn’t American, that is a twisty stupid form of social Darwinism—last espoused best by the Nazi Party of Germany. If you think Obama’s watered down health care plan is going to sink America’s little democracy into socialism, you are being ignorant zombies for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries and their rich bosses who want to keep raking in your bucks. Until you run out of cash and die that is—sucks to be you, then. Wake the Fuck UP!

But back to my opening—taking myself off lists and ignoring most petitions and letter writing campaigns. I think it is too late. I think too many Americans have their heads firmly up their own racist, sexist, save-me-Jesus asses and they like the sky being brown. I think they all drank the stupid Kool-aid and will keep buying the prettier myths of the GOP and their corporate masters. They don’t want to hear that DECADES of hard work and personal trial lie up the road. They didn’t want to hear it when Jimmy Carter first tried to tenderly inform them that they were going to hell in handbasket.

I’m glad I am old. But if all you young pups won’t learn from history, you are certainly going to suffer through repeating it until you learn or watch the American experiment fail. I almost wish I believed in the traditional afterlife.
I’d kind of like to watch the pissed off Founding Fathers kicking some ass there when some of the authors of the current shitstorm arrive in the “There” after fucking up the minds and lives of millions.

But since I don’t believe in that, I have to content myself with telling everyone buying the drivel and waiting for a fairy godfather/mother President to save them to kiss my ass.

Please pardon me as I ramble, in the grip of emotions, exertions, exhaustion, and emptied eyes. Today, I watered the cycles of the Labyrinth to soften the hard stony earth there….and went to weed this “garden of war” as the crows called to each other in the firs above me. I am a clumsy poet—the first bit is mine, the second is the imperfect metaphor for deaths at war: my gardening vs that of some purportive Valkyrie.

War’s Garden: the Gardener & the Valkyrie

My knees are wet,
I kneel in the morning shade,
Water scenting the sunlit air.

My fingers are stained,
I touch the blood soaked sand,
Bitter cordite perfumes the day.

Ah, look, the violets are strong,
Spreading even amidst the stones,
Too pretty to pull.

Violets, those which Hellenes thought
Led to peace and calm rest?
None grow here, in bitter sand.

Creeping, blossoming yellow,
Cinquefoil for luck and safety,
I pull it not, and move it gently.

Safety is a thing of luck,
Like silver to ward off poison,
But to my arms, a young man falls!

Here I find seedlings, of the mighty fir,
And alder red and cherry sweet,
But I cannot leave them growing.

Ah, tall and mighty,
Here is the hero, sun in his hair,
Reaped like wheat, with my hunger!

But no, see how the clover runs wild?
It will take over, cover the stones,
None can remain, rip and rip!

Clover, that herb of escape?
That to make one free of arms,
Nobody here escapes MY arms.

But how now, do I rip and tear,
What once I planted in hope
Of peace, of solution without blood?

None where my eye falls
Can escape war’s progress.
Four leaves, white feathers!

Here at twisting garden’s heart,
Twining on stone,
Acrid scented bittersweet.

A choking in my throat,
Bittersweet, the look in young eyes,
I catch him as he falls.

It grew through a holed stone,
Delicate blossoms, blood-red fruits,
Protection? Mending brokenness?

Even armored hearts can break,
Looking on men’s blasted beauty!
And here, a woman, modern shield maid!

Oh, sweetness in the shade of firs,
Creeping flowers of blue,
Triumphing o’er pine needles.

Mixed amidst dusky faces,
Eyes of blue in sun-reddened faces,
Triumph o’er fear? O’er me?

I crush in my fingers the dandelion clocks,
Don’t blow in the breeze, no,
Tell me no tales of lives cut short.

Does he hear me coming?
This man, wise in the ways of death,
Did my message reach, can he dodge my sweep?

Sweet golden poppies, some red
Like old wars in Flanders Fields?
They are tentative in such hard soil.

Poppies, flowers of sleep,
Source of sorrow and survival here,
Burning, like invisible heros’ pyres.

Between the stones, love-in-a-mist,
I cannot let it grow here,
Regretting, still I pull it.

Oh, behold, this man,
How excellent and beloved?
Yet, he is mine, blood-in-a-mist.

Ajuga, creeping bugle weed,
Are you a call to arms,
Or the purple plea for peace?

Peace? That thing unmade by men?
I am stained and strained,
With lifting the remains of peace!

Most of the Tea Party movement leaves me cold, they come across as morons and right wing Christians with an eye on theocracy and tax evasion.

But Alan Grayson intrigues me, he is a Progressive and is anti-war. And certain Tea Partiers in Florida seem to back him as he backs them.

I am intrigued by his fund raising buddies.

I am intrigued by his “War is making you poor” bill, too. You can sign a petition for the bill.

I’d certainly like something to pull the wool off American eyes. I’d like a LOT of people to get really pissed off. I’d like to see a million marchers in Washington making the Inaugural Day crowds seem small.

I want these wars over. And if you are thinking of commenting that I am not supporting the troops? Save your spittle, ok? Supporting them LIVING is support. Supporting them not spilling blood and guts for amorphous aims in a distant sandbox is support. I can ride the Peace Train on this one!

I will have to keep an eye on the distant Mr. Grayson. I don’t know yet if he is making a gimmick for his own advancement, or if he is sincere. But since Obama thinks I should stop obsessing over a withdrawal date next summer, I’ll obsess instead about his replacement. I’m still drinking coffee….but possibly considering the options of some new brands of tea!

In Iraq, that is. In war, when the U.S. Army leaves, it leaves a lot behind. Millions of dollars worth of equipment…if anything is proof that we really ARE going to get our asses out of Iraq, it is that Iraqis are busy picking up our leavings.

Unfortunately, since I imagine most of the Iraq vets will find themselves soon immersed in Afghanistan, I wonder if some of that equipment needs to be WITH them there. But the news on the wars is on the newsline back burner. So Americans are growing less attentive. Santa Claus has shorter lists of “to do and to get” issues than the American President and his Congressional bits of uselessness.

And if you don’t know who that is? You are too young—go away! Anyone else, surely knows the song (Simple Desultory Philippic) I am a-mangling; this is my brain on insomnia:

A 21st century Philippic, Or How I Was George Bush’d into Rebellion

I’ve been flag-wrapped, vacuum packed
I’ve been Tommy Franked until I’m cranked!
I’ve been Sting’d and Bono’d out of my mind,
I’ve been Ann Coulter’d, verbally pinged
Pinko Commie cause I’m left-winged,
Thats the way I fly, so never fear!

I’ve been You-tubed, jiffy-lubed,
I’ve been my spaced, credit traced,
I’ve seen all the malls I wanna see!
And Jon Stewart tells the truth:
All my learning will lead to burning,
So I bathe in a tub of Starbucks every day!

I see a world so very small,
That it takes no time at all
To melt the ice, burn the woods
It don’t dig ecology! So wrapped up
That when you say ‘green’,
It thinks you’re talking ’bout money!
This world ain’t got no soul!
But it’s all right, Dawg,
Everybody must get twittered!

I’ve been Al-queda’d, wire-guided;
Stan McChrystal, won’t you please come home?
I’ve been fear-flogged, blogged and logged,
Been Glen Becked, spittle-flecked.
And I just discovered somebody bagged the tea!