US declares ‘War on Love’; France invaded
US declares ‘War on Love’; France invaded
President denounces France, Italy, Brazil as “Axis of Love”
Ann Arbor
2007-03-15 17:41:00 UCT
by Henry Edward Hardy
US President-for-Life George W. Bush today declared war on France, saying:
“We have fought the War on Terror, and been victorious. Today nobody dares to be scared of anything, no matter how bad it may be.
“But our task is not done. There is another, even stronger emotion which represents a threat to our nation. I am referring to ‘loverism’. Our war on love begins with France, but it does not end there. We will pursue the loverists wherever they may seek to spread their deadly loverism.
“He (Jacques Chirac) is what we would call a prime suspect … If he thinks he can hide from the United States, and our allies, he will be sorely mistaken.”
Bush said that military operations against France were continuing as he spoke, although he acknowledged that, “France had surrendered before our troops had arrived,” he added that the French had deployed a secret weapon labeled WMD, or “Women of Massive Doudounes.”
“Our troops are taking hold of the situation with both hands, and we expect them to be victorious before sunrise,” said the President.
Regarding France, Italy, and Brazil, Mr. Bush said,
“States like these, and their loverist allies, constitute an axis of love, disrobing to threaten the war-loving people of the world. By seeking women of massive doudounes, these regimes raise a hard and growing danger. They could provide these women to loverists, giving them the means to match their affections. They could seduce our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.”
Invest in deadly weapons
And those little cotton flags
Invest in wooden caskets
In guns and body bagsYou´re invested in oppression
Investing in corruption
Invest in every tyranny
And the whole world´s destruction…There´s a war on our democracy
A war on our dissent
There´s a war inside religion
And what Jesus might have meantThere´s a war on mother nature
A war upon the seas
There´s a war upon the forests
On the birds and the beesThere´s a war on education
A war on information
A war between the sexes
And every nationA war on our compassion
A war on understanding
A war on love and life itself
It´s war that they´re demanding…Sting, This War
Copyright © 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
A Marine’s Poem leads to US Representative David Obey’s anti-liberal tirade
Survivor’s GuiltI stare at this paper and don’t know what to say
I don’t feel right saying “happy memorial day”
I don’t find anything happy in the price you’ve paid
We’re both just pawns when this game called
war gets played
My body came home but my spirit just stayed
That hot Iraqi day when you were slayed
Watching my back so I could sleep unafraid I
heard the explosion from where I laid
And instantly I watched the skies go grey
I watched my life just float away
How could things go this way
You were my brother in arms and you took my place
But not like the way that car bomb took your face
And blew off your limbs
When I think about it my head starts to spin
I get noxious when I think of your family
I want to tell them I truly am sorry
I’m sorry your son died protecting me
This isn’t the way things were meant to be
You see that day your son took my duty
Your brother sacrificed four 4 hours of sleep
So he could go guard a gate for me
Your fiancée took my fate from me
I’m sorry your father took my place for me
I’m sorry I can spend memorial day with my family
Today should have been a memorial for me
At least then the survivor could have lived guilt-
free–Cpl. Cloy Richards
When Tina Richards, the mother of Corporal Cloy Richards, who is returning to Iraq for a third tour, encountered Representative David Obey (D-WI), Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Richards mentioned her son was a Marine who was returning to Iraq and that she had just been to Obey’s office to drop off her son’s poem, “Survivor’s Guilt”.
Obey became infuriated and went into a tirade against, “idiot liberals” who call for an immediate cutoff of war funding:
It doesn’t. The President wants to continue the war. We’re trying to use the supplemental to end the war, but you can’t end the war by going against the supplemental. It’s time these idiot liberals understand that. There’s a big difference between funding the troops and ending the war. I’m not gonna deny body armor. I’m not gonna deny funding for veterans hospitals, defense hospitals, so you can help people with medical problems, that’s what you’re gonna do if you’re going against that bill.
When Tina Richards and the other members of the Occupation Project, an anti-war group, suggested that all that was necessary was not to pass any more war appropriations, Obey seemed to become unhinged, accusing one man of “smoking something illegal” and pointing to his empty inner coat pocket and almost-shouting, “do you see a magic wand?”
Obey’s office has been one of several around the country where anti-war sit-in’s and other forms of non-violent protest have been taking place.
Obey’s Tirade youtube link from Grassroots America
See also: Congressman’s video blunder shows Democrats split on war Washington Times
Tina Richards, A Mother of a US Soldier Crosses Paths With Rep. David Obey Al-Jazeerah
Protests target state’s lawmakers: Activists urge Obey, Kohl to vote against funding for war Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Copyright © 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
The Guardian: US commanders admit: we face a Vietnam-style collapse
An interesting article in the Guardian says that General Petraeus and his staff have concluded that the US faces a collapse of political and public support for the war in Iraq within the next six months. In addition, due to low morale, poor readiness and the high morale and level of experience of the resistance groups, the US faces a military collapse similar to the French collapse in Viet Nam in March-May 1954 or the collapse of US forces in Korea in October-December 1950.
US commanders admit: we face a Vietnam-style collapse
Elite officers in Iraq fear low morale, lack of troops and loss of political will
Simon Tisdall
Thursday March 1, 2007
The GuardianAn elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq – or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.The officers – combat veterans who are experts in counter-insurgency – are charged with implementing the “new way forward” strategy announced by George Bush on January 10. The plan includes a controversial “surge” of 21,500 additional American troops to establish security in the Iraqi capital and Anbar province.
But the team, known as the “Baghdad brains trust” and ensconced in the heavily fortified Green Zone, is struggling to overcome a range of entrenched problems in what has become a race against time, according to a former senior administration official familiar with their deliberations…
US commanders admit: we face a Vietnam-style collapse The Guardian
Battle of Chosin Reservoir (wikipedia)
Battle of Dien Bien Phu (wikipedia)
Copyright © 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
Snips of Ike: Eugene Jarecki’s Why We Fight
Snips of Ike:
Why We Fight
by Henry Edward Hardy
Eugene Jarecki’s Why We Fight takes as its framework snippets from President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s famous televised farewell to the nation in 1961, often called the “military-industrial complex” speech. Jarecki is best known for The Trials of Henry Kissinger.
One may or may not be sympathetic to the premise of the film, that the United States has become an American Empire, and as such, is behaving badly in the world. Why We Fight makes clever use of icons of the Republican Party such as John McCain and Eisenhower and neoconservatives such as William Kristol and Richard Pearle to make its points.
Why We Fight is also the title of a series of films made for the U.S. government by Frank Capra during World War II. They were commissioned in response to the Nazi use of mass media in films like Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. Since then the title has been (mis-)appropriated a number of times, such as the book by former “Drug Czar” William J. Bennett subtitled “Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism”, and the name of a popular Danish rock band.
Jarecki’s Why We Fight has not been widely seen in the U.S. It was shown on the BBC in March 2005 and won the American Documentary Grand Prize at Sundance in 2005. The film would be stronger if it were better-organized and had a less transparent point to make. For those unfamiliar with some of Eisenhower’s later and more progressive thinking, this film is an interesting introduction.
A version of this article appeared previously in Current Magazine and on Electric Current
Copyright © 2006-2007 Henry Edward Hardy
BBC: More on Tal Afar Iraqi soldiers rape accusation
BBC quotes acting Tal Afar mayor Brig Gen. Nijm Abdullah with more information regarding the alleged rape and torture of a mother of 11 by Iraqi soldiers in northern Iraq:
Iraqi soldiers charged with rape
…Gen Abdullah said he had received a complaint from tribal leaders that a group of soldiers had entered the woman’s house “a few days ago” and raped her.
“One of the soldiers did not approve. His name is Mushtaq Taleb from Basra. He wanted to stop his comrades by threatening them with weapons because it is an immoral act, but the rape took place anyway,” Gen Abdullah added.
He said he had referred the troops to the judiciary for prosecution.
The woman is thought to be a 40-year-old married mother of 11 from Iraq’s Turkoman minority.
The defendants are identified as a lieutenant and three enlisted men.
If the BBC report is correct, then Mushtaq Taleb should be commended for trying to stop the rape and torture of this mother.
Copyright © 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
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Scanlyze is an online magazine of essays, commentary, satire, and analysis. Were we half as clever, for inspiration we would take Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Swift, Montaigne, or Seneca.
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