There Is No Light at the End of This Tunnel Either
From Our Affiliate:
The Rev. Robert Moore
Executive Director
Coalition for Peace Action
The recent testimony of General David Patreaus has strong parallels to the deceptions used to justify continued US troop deployments 40 years ago in Vietnam. The mantra then was “There is light at the end of this tunnel.”
History showed that there was no possibility of a democratic, pro-US government standing on its own in Vietnam, as is the case currently in Iraq. This is because the Vietnamese people themselves didn’t support the puppet governments in South Vietnam, as the current Iraqi government is also not supported by a huge majority of citizens there.
Yet, throughout the tragic history of the Vietnam War, the American people were urged to keep supporting massive US troop deployments. We now know, through the Pentagon Papers and other documents, that this amounted to intentional deception at the highest levels of government, which knew that military escalation was failing.
US public opinion turned against the Vietnam War by 1969. As in today’s Congress, there were efforts starting with the bipartisan Hatfield-McGovern bill in 1970 to stop the war and force withdrawal of US troops. Tragically, that effort failed, and more than half of the total 58,000 US soldiers and 2 million Southeast Asians who died in that war were killed subsequently.
By June 1974, Congress finally passed a binding cut-off of funding for the war that mandated a complete US withdrawal by August 1975. The last US personnel were actually withdrawn by April. The war advocates said there would be a blood bath and that the other nations in the region would fall to communism in a domino effect. While there was inevitable turmoil after the US withdrew, these apocalyptic predictions didn’t come true.
Given that General Patreaus wrote an op-ed six weeks before the 2004 elections saying that the Iraqi military and police were making “good progress” toward standing up on their own, I wonder if the deceptions are intentional or just myopic. It’s hard to say if it’s intentional, or simply the stubborn denial of facts.
What is clear to everyone by now is that the American people were neo-conned into the Iraq war in the first place, through deception and manipulation. There were no weapons of mass destruction, no connection between Iraq’s government and the attacks of September 11, 2001, no cakewalk to a stable and democratic post-invasion Iraq.
The Bush Administration is now trying to neo-con us into continuing to tolerate and support continuing US troop deployment to another civil war and quagmire. Much of the deception, as before, uses two means: cherry picking and manipulating the facts, and moving the goal posts.
An example of the first is the assertion that Iraqi casualties from sectarian violence are declining. That is only the case if large numbers of casualties are not counted, which the Bush Administration does by excluding victims shot in the front of the head instead of the back; and by excluding people killed in car bombings not considered to have sectarian motives. The most reliable independent count, by the Associated Press, shows the number of Iraqi casualties this summer to be the highest since the US invaded over four years ago.
In terms of moving the goal posts, Congress and the Bush Administration agreed that the “surge” (which should have truthfully been called the escalation) would be evaluated in mid-September by mutually agreed objective benchmarks. Independent analyses show that almost none of those benchmarks have been met, especially in terms of creating a viable unified national government or Iraqi troops and police replacing US troops to provide basic security.
So the Bush Administration has simply changed the goal to “local security,” which it “achieves” by making Faustian alliances with local insurgents against Al Qaida in Iraq. The only thing that is certain about this temporary “success” is that these militias will eventually use the weapons the US is supplying to them against our troops and the Iraqi government forces.
The truth is that there is no light at the end of the Iraq tunnel, as there was none at the end of Vietnam. The only moral and sensible steps to take are to withdraw US troops, renounce permanent US military bases in Iraq, and undertake a surge of diplomacy and Iraqi-controlled, internationally supervised rebuilding.
Interview retuning troops regarding atrocities by Blackwater under immunity in Iraq.
The government has just made congress.org
change their web page.Messages that were posted have been censored off. Capitol Advantage.
We do not have freedom of press. The following
posted Wed. has been removed , censored.
MR. PRESIDENT, WE THE PEOPLE HAVE QUESTIONS!
LET THE TRUTH HURT WHERE IT SHOULD, DC!!
Mr. President:
You call this War of yours a coalition. You tell about all the international support you have for the atrocities committed on the Iraqi people.
We see that we the USA have 160,000 TROOPS presently in Iraq.130,000 prior to the surge.Next summer we may be back to that number.
We ask how many of the surge troops total
are from any other country? It seems while we surge. All other support withdraws, which nothing has been stated about that.
We see UK has had 5,500 troops there,
and are pulling out. Next may have 2,500 etc.
It now has cost us a total of ONE trillion dollars most of which has been profit for corruption such as Halliburton & Black water.
How much have this coalition of other countries put up for such cost?
We have lost 3,790 troops. How many lives have been lost by other countries?. We have had 26,000 troops with major injuries, what about others??
We also know the involvement to go to war was for the benefit of Israel. How much money have they lost’ how many lives?
We also know you ignore the resolutions by the UN against Israel and atrocities committed against the Palestinian people. Do you realize the effect
of such of the entire middle east?.
Sir, how can you call this a coalition? When in fact this is a Bush / Cheney war, a war for corporate profit, a coalition of cronies.
Now, we know you will refer everything to 911 and al-qaeda. BUT we also see many discrepancies in that. Questions we know will never be answered to the American people.
We believe you should leave office. Many prosecutions should occur with-in your administration for WAR crimes.
We also realize that these are questions not being ask by Other officials, simply because of their own involvement
With special interest lobbies, corporate and
Foreign.
What we as the American people see out of all this, is how Much reform we need in government.
We want our troops redeployed home to protect our borders.
We do not feel safer at all. We fear your form of government,Such is becoming Fascism.
The hatred you brought against America. Al-Qaeda did not exist in Iraq prior. It was in Afghanistan. Now all over the world.
Grown drastically since the beginning of WAR on terror.
Will you really tell us again, that you’re heavenly FATHER
Told you to do all this ??
Let the TRUE facts hurt where they should hurt, and that is all in Washington, DC.
Call the coalition what it actually is,
a coalition of NEOCONS, ZIONIST only.
Newly leaked Pentagon documents have confirmed the military has been monitoring and collecting intelligence on anti-war groups across the country. Peace protests are being described as threats and the military is collecting data on who is attending demonstrations. We speak with William Arkin, the former Army intelligence officer, who obtained the secret Pentagon documents.
For those who didn’t hear it already, two of the seven young soldiers on active duty in Iraq who wrote the extraordinarily powerful op-ed in the New York Times condemning the Bush administration strategy and propaganda claims of “success” in the war, were killed in Iraq earlier this week.
Every retiring general in recent years has criticized the war in Iraq AFTER leaving the military. Where are the active duty generals to match the courage of their lower ranking colleagues?
BLACKWATER HAS COMPLETE IMMUNITY–
EVEN WHEN ASSASSIGNATING JOURNALIST.
128 NOW KILLED IN IRAQ. DO WE GET THE NEWS??
QUESTIONS;ATROCITIES, CENSORSHIP, MONITORING, FOREIGN LOBBY, AND GOVERNMENT FOR SALE..
IT AMOUNTS TO ORGANIZED CRIME:
Interview retuning troops regarding atrocities by Blackwater under immunity in Iraq.
The government has just made congress.org
change their web page.Messages that were posted have been censored off. Capitol Advantage.
We do not have freedom of press. The following
posted Wed. has been removed , censored.
MR. PRESIDENT, WE THE PEOPLE HAVE QUESTIONS!
LET THE TRUTH HURT WHERE IT SHOULD, DC!!
Mr. President:
You call this War of yours a coalition. You tell about all the international support you have for the atrocities committed on the Iraqi people.
We see that we the USA have 160,000 TROOPS presently in Iraq.130,000 prior to the surge.Next summer we may be back to that number.
We ask how many of the surge troops total
are from any other country? It seems while we surge. All other support withdraws, which nothing has been stated about that.
We see UK has had 5,500 troops there,
and are pulling out. Next may have 2,500 etc.
It now has cost us a total of ONE trillion dollars most of which has been profit for corruption such as Halliburton & Black water.
How much have this coalition of other countries put up for such cost?
We have lost 3,790 troops. How many lives have been lost by other countries?. We have had 26,000 troops with major injuries, what about others??
We also know the involvement to go to war was for the benefit of Israel. How much money have they lost’ how many lives?
We also know you ignore the resolutions by the UN against Israel and atrocities committed against the Palestinian people. Do you realize the effect
of such of the entire middle east?.
Sir, how can you call this a coalition? When in fact this is a Bush / Cheney war, a war for corporate profit, a coalition of cronies.
Now, we know you will refer everything to 911 and al-qaeda. BUT we also see many discrepancies in that. Questions we know will never be answered to the American people.
We believe you should leave office. Many prosecutions should occur with-in your administration for WAR crimes.
We also realize that these are questions not being ask by Other officials, simply because of their own involvement
With special interest lobbies, corporate and
Foreign.
What we as the American people see out of all this, is how Much reform we need in government.
We want our troops redeployed home to protect our borders.
We do not feel safer at all. We fear your form of government,Such is becoming Fascism.
The hatred you brought against America. Al-Qaeda did not exist in Iraq prior. It was in Afghanistan. Now all over the world.
Grown drastically since the beginning of WAR on terror.
Will you really tell us again, that you’re heavenly FATHER
Told you to do all this ??
Let the TRUE facts hurt where they should hurt, and that is all in Washington, DC.
Call the coalition what it actually is,
a coalition of NEOCONS, ZIONIST only.
Newly leaked Pentagon documents have confirmed the military has been monitoring and collecting intelligence on anti-war groups across the country. Peace protests are being described as threats and the military is collecting data on who is attending demonstrations. We speak with William Arkin, the former Army intelligence officer, who obtained the secret Pentagon documents.
For those who didn’t hear it already, two of the seven young soldiers on active duty in Iraq who wrote the extraordinarily powerful op-ed in the New York Times condemning the Bush administration strategy and propaganda claims of “success” in the war, were killed in Iraq earlier this week.
Every retiring general in recent years has criticized the war in Iraq AFTER leaving the military. Where are the active duty generals to match the courage of their lower ranking colleagues?
BLACKWATER HAS COMPLETE IMMUNITY–
EVEN WHEN ASSASSIGNATING JOURNALIST.
128 NOW KILLED IN IRAQ. DO WE GET THE NEWS??
THE INSIDE HISTORY OF THE ISRAEL LOBBY
Former top CIA analysts Kathleen and Bill Christison give CounterPunchers the real scoop on the Israel lobby and precisely how powerful it is. Read how US presidents from Wilson, through FDR to Truman were manipulated by the Zionist lobby; how Israel bent LBJ, Reagan and Clinton to its purpose; how Bush’s White House has been the West Wing of the Israeli government; how Washington’s revolving doors send full-time Israel lobbyists from think-tanks to the National Security Council and the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans.
An unregistered Foreign Lobby, has
purchased the “Government for Sale”
including the Clintons and Rudy Giuliani. PLEASE we need new direction.
Obama and Edwards for 2008.
Money is a very important commodity, we have
given and given in support of the Democrat party.
We gave enough to regain control of congress
2006 elections, that came with a well know
mandate. A mandate to end the WAR, end
the corruption in government. To reform the
campaigns, and to prosecute the WAR crimes.
Now you continue to ask for more money,
while you do not do the job, paid for in advance.
Now corporate money, foreign lobbies and
organized crime influences you all more,
thus our mandate goes unfulfilled.
PLEASE, don’t ask for more, until the job
we paid for and voted for is done.
YES, we the people still give, we may not have the
influence of special interest you all bow down to.
BUT, we give to the candidates that do not take
money from the corrupt, and consider us the
American people their special interest. That
will end this war, that will bring our troops home,
that will prosecute the corrupt. That will protect
our borders, that will respond to Americans
needs.
That being, a campaign of OBAMA & EDWARDS.
If we don’t get that ticket, we do not give, we do not vote.
WE trust no one else to take OUR country
BACK. Honor, Integrity, True moral values,
an agenda for America not AIPAC, that will
bring respect back internationally.
That will make every attempt to fulfill the
MANDATE of the AMERICAN people.
The U.S.-Army bombt Viet-nam 7 time more, als bombt all Army,s Europe in Second
World War! And Viet-nam is a very little Country. With Napalm Bombs, (Orange) of
german chemistry Factory. Same Story, as Story between Hitler and Preskoot Bush!
And We wait on next Bush War in Iran! But Iran is a not Iraq!!! And the jung ameri-
can People-Soldiers want feith for Israel? The U.S. Army bombt Bikini with nuclear
Bomb. American Nation is a criminal! Going from War to next War!
Thank You! A T H E I S T !