Should we memorialize the victims of the US invasions of Indochina and Iraq?

For a start?

I'm aware of a memorial for the 56 thousand US personnel killed in the course of the 20-year US invasion of Vietnam and Indochina.

I'm unaware of a US memorial for the approximately two million Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians killed in the course of the 20-year US invasion of Vietnam and Indochina. Or even of a half-credible apologetic gesture on the US government's behalf. Did I miss something?

In East Berlin there was a memorial for the victims of Fascism and Militarism.
After unification, it was transformed into the memorial site for the “victims of war and tyranny”. The center of the chamber is now occupied by the enlarged sculpture “Mother with dead son” by Käthe Kollwitz.

US soldiers didn't pick the wars they were in. Memorial day is for them, not for the ones who started the wars. And not to be highjacked for another cause.

It honors the US war dead (only) in a fashion that justifies and perpetuates the many US wars of choice. In the absence of a memorialization of the victims, or even an acknowledgement of the crimes of US policy on behalf of which the US soldiers were recruited, the holiday becomes a myth about how their sacrifice counts, and the people they killed do not.

Good luck with that.

to honor those who died in the conflict. Just curious, do you see that as a "war of choice" as well?

*plonk*

:eyes:

That's how I see it.

Ever?

:eyes:

the U.S. has gone to war in my lifetime, and even if I felt compelled to participate in a "just" war, I would never be able to stop thinking about the casualties on the other side.

How nice it must be to be "above" all that. :shrug:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5716958

that uniformed deaths matter and "enemy" civilians don't while in reality valuing neither.

Seriously.

So please don't pretend your approach to this obscures the question of what the "something" is that one is supposed to die for, and who chooses it, with what motive. MLK was not speaking in praise of "a man who will die (more likely: kill) for anything his government and military commanders order him to do." On the contrary, you know that on this question he'd be far likelier to be agreeing with my take that to disobey immoral orders (and risk your life in doing so, as he did) is the higher imperative. Of the Vietnam war, he said that his own government was "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." He understood not to ignore the millions in Indochina who did not choose to lay down their lives, but whose lives were taken by foreign invaders.

We, the People, bear the ultimate responsibility for what is done In Our Name. It is the act of a spoiled brat that merely whines and doesn't stand up and bear his share of the responsibility.

So why do we selectively honor only our side in our wars of choice?

Perhaps you should understand that the combat veterans of any conflict in our history are among the first afterwards to honor the fallen on the other side. It was true after the Civil War and was true after the Viet Nam War.

I think that's probably something impossible to explain to those without the experience.

It's one thing to "walk the walk" and offer such respect ... and quite another to climb up on a soapbox and sneer and demean those who are memorializing their own dead. There's just something so Fred-Phelps-like about demeaning such folks on the one day set aside to memorialize them.

He saw a lot of combat and came home with a ton of medals. Like many WWII vets he didn't talk about it much except to say he would never go to war again and he would never allow my brother to go to war. Those who have actually fought the wars the politicians and corporations start rarely see much glory in it once they've seen the reality.

Being willing to die for a cause does not mean you're willing to go to war, in fact the "cause" we're given for a war is usually something that has been made up. It's ironic you quote Martin Luther King, Jr. who obviously was willing to die for an actual cause. His method was non-violence and he opposed the war you're attempting to chide Lydia Leftcoast for not supporting.

I've had my fill of keyboard philosophers who smear and demean those who're willing to put their lives on the line for something, HOWEVER MISGUIDED, and wouldn't want to risk a broken fingernail for what they SAY they "believe in."

I don't give a fucking rat's ass WHAT it is. If you've read ANYTHING I've journaled, you'd comprehend how criminal I believe we've (the US) been in this world, waging wars on innocent people mostly for the corrupt 'cause' of corporatism.

At the same time, I respect COMMITMENT ... INTEGRITY ... never separating the lives we live from the words we speak. If you want to peddle the "anti-war" rhetoric, be prepared to put your life on the line instead of merely making the noxious noises in harmony with summer soldiers and chickenhawks.

Too many of us love to engage in the sophomoric rantings of protest ... and are all too willing to take salaries and goods from the same corporatists and keep our mouths shut. GOD FORBID we risk anything ... especially our comforts and conveniences.

That's why I had respect for Charlie. He put his ass on the line for SOMETHING.

That's why I respect Rachel Corrie.
That's why I respect Mohandas Gandhi and the REAL non-violent civil disobedients.

regardless of the cause. The 911 hijackers fit your description, the Nazi's were a brave and fearsome group, Mongolian hordes were more than willing to sacrifice for what they perceived as the greater good. It seems the ends towards which commitment is made makes all the difference in the world.

Maybe Memorial Day isn't the time to talk about it, but the national day for that conversation never seems to fit into anyone's schedule.

(AFAIK from here.)

Which you'd easily discern if you bothered to peruse my DU journal.

put their lives on the line they should just shut up and have no opinion. I've never had occasion to put my life on the line, but I'm still anti-war. Should I shut up too? And why should I read anything you write in order to have an opinion?

A writer might IMPLY, but that would be a strawman, too. Straw must be plentiful in the cheap seats.

:shrug:

http://grammartips.homestead.com/imply.html

That just makes you a grammar Nazi. Which makes you full of yourself.

So ... fuck off. You're doing nothing but TROLLING.

I used to be astounded....but very little surprises me nowadays. Being deliberately combative or inappropriate is the norm, I guess. After awhile, there's no shock value; this kind of carping isn't even unexpected. It's....pedestrian.

I will also be unsurprised if this thread gets lotsa linkage at the rightwing nutblogs, along with "See? See?" outraged commentary attached.

and the way the fallen military personnel are exploited (willingly or not) to provide solemn but implicit justifications.

make a grand "anti-military" argument on Memorial Day--knowing full well that those of us who have lost relatives in WW2, Korea, Vietnam and other conflicts might just think you're an obtuse asshole for picking that one goddamned day to show us all how "slick" you think you are with your snotty, "I'm just soooo sophisticated and more knowledgable than the rest of you" protestations about military service. Tell ya what, Big Guy--you don't like the military? Don't join. Not that they'd have you, I'm sure.

Sorry, you're more like Stewie Griffin trying to be cool--adjust your diaper, it's sagging. You are unimpressive, inappropriate, and --worst sin of all--very, very childish. Shame on you--if you understood the concept, and I rather doubt that you do.

As for the rest of your ranted assumptions, they doubtless speak to your own sense of inferiority or threat at what I say (or what you think I say), but to little else. Your resort to personalization and lack of logic speak for you.

You say: "Tell ya what, Big Guy--you don't like the military? Don't join." This is moronic. I don't get a choice. We're all part of it as taxpayers. The US military-industrial complex eats the federal budget, consumes more resources than almost all other militaries combined, kills people around the planet in the service of profit and imperial planning, and poses the greatest, most imminent danger to the interests of the American people as a free people.

The deaths of its recruits are tragic and should be memorialized as a tragedy, but not in a fashion that excludes the reality of the wars they fought and is designed to serve further recruitment and prepare the ground for the next war, as though what US soldiers do when they blindly follow orders today is "service" or "defense" of this country.

The greatest soldier in US history, Smedley Butler, served his country when he rejected his lifetime of militarism. Tom Glen served his country when he refused orders to stay silent and exposed atrocities in Vietnam. The majority of US soldiers in Vietnam after 1968 served their country best when they began to slow down, to refuse to take the field in a genocidal war, to refuse orders to fight and kill for a lie.

Don't like the military? Do all that you can to keep it from recruiting young people. Reject its propaganda and its rituals.

The one ranting and tossing crap is you. You delight in the inappropriate.

You're a tired and immature scold. Your latest thesis fails to impress.

Don't tell others how they "should" or "must" approach Memorial Day. And don't give a military pensioner condescending mini-lectures about military heroes like MGEN Butler. They're not needed.

Have a nice day, if you can stop being faux-outraged long enough to so do.

I've seen enough of your postings to know that to you, all politics and struggles worth the fight are dismissed as "faux outrage." Yet you keep climbing in with that same talking point, because you're not above it at all. You're a partisan of the nationalist-conservative consensus, and that's your idea of what the Democrats should be, too.

Being a military pensioner doesn't make you right or wrong about anything, or give you the privilege not to be debated in a forum (you entered this thread, no?). Your histrionics at the idea that anyone wouldn't worship at your militarist idols, indeed your suggestion that you're the real American, exemplify everything that's wrong with a mentality and a Memorial Day that says, "Ours count! We serve! We Sacrifice and Defend! We make the freedom possible! We are the best! The ones we invade and murder do not count."

That's a rant and a giant shit-flinging at the world that the blind obedience you honor has scarred and burned.

http://www.thewe.cc/thewei/&/&/images4/2005_war_photos/r3003657664.jpe

I said I don't need your crappy little puffed up lectures, sonny.

I never said I was "right or wrong about anything," or "the real American," but you, you see, remain inappropriate, as you always are, to say nothing of filled with what seems a bit like scattershot internal anger coupled with something vaguely resembling clearly undeserved self-importance.

Do have one of those nice days. And put away words like "histronics" when they're not suited to the conversation, except, perhaps, to describe your OWN behavior.

To illustrate my reaction, in case you're unclear: :rofl:

Though in contradiction to your obvious anger, the laugh icon totally wins this argument. Congratulations.

There are other venues.

Today is an American holiday. I of course am offended by the fact that we have killed millions of innocents around the world, but today is about the individual Veteran, not the politics.

Napoleon's marches on Moscow, other victims too, etc, memorialize it all...


Even the heads chopped off by the Taliban

Germany memorializes the victims of Hitler.

We're not talking about Napoleon here. France can take care of that. We're not talking about other countries. Memorial Day is a US national holiday, honoring the war dead of the United States military. A very specific organization.

We are talking about the wars of the United States, carried out by its government and military, financed by its taxpayers. Since 1945, that would mean dozens of countries bombed, dozens of violent covert actions to change the governments or policies of foreign countries, millions of people killed and maimed and tortured outside these borders, as a result of the decisions of US state policies, which almost invariably were motivated by considerations of empire and its "realpolitik." Among the victims: those who killed and died as service members in this empire's military. Many of them, also: among the perpetrators.

Well...it's your day to remember too, do so as you will I suppose but if that's the case why "Since 1945"? Why not every criminal American insurgency since Plymouth Rock?

And focusing on things that happened within living memory.

Until he died, I tucked him in with his nightmares on many fitful nights. It is in my opinion that: the cause is little advanced by insinuating that every, if not most of America's military engagements, are wrong. But I guess Bergen-Belsen didn't make the cut ~ :(

or to what war they are sent. They do in a small way by voting but once the order is given that's it.

Soldiers do choose politics. They even acted in a way that substantially contributed to the end of that war.

12 min trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDk6Qal2DCI&feature=related

Who honors them?

Sorry, here are your few beads back, now go home!

However, even living memory appears to be too big to swallow for many here.

Mother's Day, etc.

and when you become king of the US you can change it (and be inversely crucified), till then Memorial Day in the US will be a day for the rest of the nation to shun you and Memorialize American Servicemen and women who, contrary to the beliefs you espouse, gave their lives so you can open your stupid head and spill forth vile shit against their memory. Enjoy your day asshole.

Despite your efforts to "shun" us out of this nation, or your charming idea of crucifying us inversely, we're just as much Americans as you. And perhaps less of this nation belongs to reflexive know-nothing patriots than you seem to believe.

As for American service men and women, here are a few whom I salute on this day:

SMEDLEY BUTLER
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3342880

The most highly decorated Marine in all US history until his time, Smedley Butler after leaving the service wrote "War is a Racket." In this short and simple book, he announced that the wars he had fought in were planned and fought for profiteers. He said he had never had an original own thought in his head until he left the military. Despite this straight talk, he remained a hero to the masses, which shows that a lot of We the People have brains after all. In 1934, Butler furthermore exposed a plot by super-rich fascists (including Irenee DuPont and Prescott Bush) to overthrow the elected government of the United States and install a Fuehrer. That's a hero.

I'll take Smedley Butler over Gens. Patton, MacArthur and Eisenhower, who in the same era, in 1931 followed Hoover's illegal orders to flush out the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans from Washington with tanks. These impoverished veterans were demanding the bonuses to which they were entitled. By smashing their protest, the famous generals advanced their careers on their way to becoming the highest-ranking men in US uniform.

Many other soldiers came to a different conviction than yours about the function of the military, thanks to their own experience. On the whole, I am more convinced by Vietnam veterans like RON KOVIC, who wants to shut down military recruitment efforts, and by all the soldiers in the documentary on military resistance in Vietnam ("Sir, No Sir!") than by you.

"SIR, NO SIR!"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3342610

I also prefer a soldier like TOM GLEN, who bucked orders to stay silent and chose to expose US military atrocities that he had witnessed in Vietnam. Compare him to a certain PR officer at the same time, a fellow named Colin Powell: he followed his orders from on high, and suppressed Glen's revelations. Thus Powell kept making his way up the ladder. Clearly, an honest and courageous man like Glen should have ended up in charge of a smaller and more humane military, instead of Colin Powell.

On this day I honor as well SCOTT RITTER, who completely exposed the lies of the Bush regime about WMDs in Iraq prior to its invasion and aggressive war on the Iraqi people. He too paid a price in calumny and slander, but he has his honor and his wits intact.

These are a few of the brave men and women who, contrary to the belief in obedience and nationalism you espouse, gave of themselves so that we still have a semblance of democracy despite the continuing dominance of militarism, so that you too can open your own head and spill forth whatever's inside. Have a happy holiday.

Wow.

In other words, our failure as an electorate.

Don't blame GI's if the commander-in-chief makes bad decisions.

The primacy of civilian control over the military is essential to democracy.

There is no "Good War". People die, usually not those who start such things.

Today, we remember those that fell at the hands of others, whether time has shown the situation to be "just" or not; the men and women who have fallen for this nation deserve to be recognized, they fell because they were sent into harms way.

I have no problem condemning those who start such actions, but those who went did so because of Duty, Honor and a respect for our way of life. Many volunteered, many were drafted, but all served with distinction, for that, this old vet is given to give them the honor they deserve.

These men and women are Forever Young, so that we might grow older and perhaps wiser. We stand where they lie; both silent, one thoughtful, thankful.

Men fell at Yorktown, Gettysburg, the Somme, the Rhine, Ia Drang, Baghdad...we owe them a debt of gratitude. This one day a year, we see a chance to honor all of them, those who went on before me, caskets cloaked in a flag...My father, my stepfather, uncles, an aunt, all the way back to the War of 1812, and perhaps the Revolution, people in my family have answered the call to arms. This is their day, and I proudly stand by their sacrifice, and thank them.

:patriot:

:patriot:

A few of us know the angst of "coming home" alive when others DIDN'T.

you should have no problem memorializing those who simply found themselves there. They didn't have a choice.

And I agree with JackRiddler, once you separate the one kind of death from the other, you dishonor both. And the way is laid for more.

This is not in disrespect of you or TN but more to feel the true weight of what many people raise a flag to, burn some meat over and never really think about.

they have paid with their lives so that others can enjoy their lives. One day a year, to remember those men and women is not asking too much.

My father, an only child and graduate from Fordham Law School was drafted and was a Corporal in the Artillery in Europe. He should have gone to JAG, but they needed artillery spotters. My stepfather was in the NJ NG, was due to muster out 8Dec41, he was in for the duration, serving in North Africa, Italy, France and Germany. Neither of them "wanted" to do this, they did it because a nation, our nation, was in dire need of soldiers.

I heard the same "griping" from them, that I heard later when I was in the Army..."rich mans war, poor man's fight", and all of the rest. Soldiers, sailors airmen and marines go where they are told, they gripe, but they do their jobs.

Even in peace time, there are men and women manning the ramparts in frigid weather, or broiling under a sun in the desert. These men and women, especially those who were taken before their time, are due respect.

Any angst should be directed to those who set the stage that sends these people into harms way.

In fact, it is veterans who have done much of the work of bringing civilian deaths to our attention.

:eyes:


We're ALL on the same side.

We're ALL victims of War State Imperialism.

K&R

We can't afford to get bogged down on this, because the consequences of marginalizing either side are too great at this point.

We need to just try to heal every aspect of this situation.

It's been hideous all around.

We can't afford to take sides now.

I visited a friend yesterday at the Culpeper National Cemetery where he has been for almost 3 years now.

Memorial day is a day for soldiers and the country as a whole to recognize the awful cost of war in human terms. One person at a time. One life at a time. Soldiers often look back and wonder why him and not me? Wonder if my friend was still alive what would he be doing right now? Bought a house? Graduated College? Had a ton of kids?


Soldiers don't start wars. They never have and they never will. They simply are told to go and fight and they do that to the best of their ability. Sadly many never come home. They die far away from family and friends. They die in the back of HMMWV, in filthy alleys, or on battlefield hospital tables. Many times they die while their comrades are powerless to stop their life from bleeding out into the dirt.

If you don't get it then you likely never will.

You get it. :fistbump:

That's what every single Democratic and Republican family I know spent all day doing today. And we'll gladly do it again next year. God bless America! On days like today, it shouldn't be more complicated than that, no matter how radical you consider yourself. I can think of just two words to send to everybody who this day belongs to, and they're the words that should be on the minds of every single American: "Thank you."
:patriot: :patriot: :patriot:

"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"

"He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

Albert Einstein