Stupid-shit-of-deployment-awards: Notes from a US soldier in Iraq

[Sapiens]

Re: Stupid-shit-of-deployment-awards: Notes from a US soldier in Iraq

Ive been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that youve seen it before
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war

And theres a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs

On the radio talk shows and the t.v.
You hear one thing again and again
How the u.s.a. stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends--
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally cant take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

Theres a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we cant even say the names

They sell us the president the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But theyre never the ones to fight or to die
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire

[Gordo]

Re: Stupid-shit-of-deployment-awards: Notes from a US soldier in Iraq

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gordo The most highly decorated Marine in the history of the Marine Corps was Lewis "Chesty" Puller, winner of 5 Navy crosses (the Navy Cross is right below the Medal of Honor.) Chesty served in Haiti and Nicaragua in the 20's and WWll and Korea.

Interesting that Butler had two Medal of Honors, one Brevet Medal, French Black Star and several Purple Hearts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler

Five Navy Crosses vs. 2 Medals of Honor. By Gahd its close but Smedley has a Marine base named after him in Okinawa while Chesty is a legend.

[Rajiv]

Re: Stupid-shit-of-deployment-awards: Notes from a US soldier in Iraq

On this topic from David Swanson - "Presidential Candidates Diverge"

There are now two types of Democratic presidential candidates, the ones who promise to end the occupation of Iraq, and the ones who say they may very well keep it going for another four years.

MSNBC hosted another Democratic presidential debate Wednesday evening. Due to a technical error, the cable network failed to identify itself as a subsidiary of General Electric, a major weapons maker.
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GE spokesman Tim Russert was asking each Democratic candidate whether he or she would get all US troops out of Iraq by 2013. And they were saying no. I swear: no matter how low you set the bar, these people still can't clear it. But setting the bar low was the whole point. Even Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who said he'd have everyone out of Iraq by April 2009, did not have time to mention the key buried fact that he alone in Congress has been willing to mention: Americans elected a new Congress in 2006 to end the occupation in 2007, and Congress has the power to do that. The whole discussion of ending the occupation of Iraq THIS year did not exist.
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Speaking of killing, Russert also pushed hard on the "we make war for peace" myth, going so far as to ask one of the candidates "Would you send troops back in if there was genocide?" Um, Tim, what do you call what we've got now? Is there any moral distinction between any definition of genocide and what has been done to Iraq for the past four and a half years?
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Here's Associated Press reporter Beth Fouhy's report:

HANOVER, N.H. (AP) - The leading Democratic White House hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013.

Who are they? Are they "leading" in primaries that have not yet occurred, or in money, or in polls, or, tautologically, in taking positions that Bring Good Things to Light [tm]? We don't know, but we do know that anyone who thinks that the way to end the occupation of Iraq is to elect a different president has now got to either make sure they are supporting the right candidate or rethink the whole proposition.