War Blogging

Posted on March 30, 2003 in Crosstalk Pointers War

If I were a member of the class that rules, I would post men in all neighborhoods of the nation, not to spy or club rebellious workers, not to break strikes or disrupt unions; but to ferret out those who no longer respond to the system in which they live. I would make it known that the real danger does not stem from those who seek to grab their share of the wealth through force, or from those who try to defend their property through violence, for both of these groups, by their affirmative acts, support the values of the system in which they live. The millions that I would fear are those who do not dream of the prizes that the nation holds forth, for it is in them, though they may not know it, that a revolution has taken place and is biding its time to translate itself into a new and strange way of life. — Richard Wright

I talked to a friend from England, Jo, who runs a crazy site called Fruitcats. I told her of my despair at seeing people pick up the war propaganda, repeat it as truth, and then insist that they were really pro-peace. “I’ve always maintained that if you don’t have soldiers, you won’t have wars,” she said when I mentioned my stand about being careful about making statements “in support of our troops.”

My first discovery isn’t from a blog, but from Voice4Change. This article suggests that I am right on about how the phrase “support our troops’ is taken:

AP and some other news outlets often use “supporting the
troops” as a synonym for “supporting the war”– and use “pro-troops” as a
shorthand to describe rallies and demonstrations that are, in many cases,
explicitly pro-war events. “Pro-troops” is frequently used as the
opposite of “anti-war,” as if the only way to be supportive of soldiers is
to advocate their involvement in war on Iraq.

Project FAIR has decried such practices as “anti-journalistic” and others have urged me not to give up the yellow ribbons and “support our troops” to “the enemy”, who in this case are the members of the Bush/Cheney faction. But when I think about what I mean when I say that I am “supporting” others, it is often implied that I support the job that they are doing. “Support your local businessmen” means give them money to stay in business, for example. I support my local firemen because I support the job they are doing. I do not support the new Iraq War. I can want our men and women of the armed forces home — alive not in body bags — but I cannot imply that I approve of the job they are doing at this moment. I am wary of saying that I support our troops and I continue to urge others to think hard about the full meaning of those three words. It is naive, I think, to think that one can unequivocally declare “support” for the troops and not have that taken to mean that the War is All Right.

Now that I’ve again established myself as a demon in many peoples’ eyes, I will get on with the bidaily review of war blogging.

• Raed remains out of communication since last Monday.
  
  
  
• Lynn reflects on the Japanese art of gratitude.
  
  
  
• Mileah reflects on the justifications for this war and finds them wanting.
  
  
  
• Christopher is enroute to Iraq via Turkey and not telling any official that he’s a journalist. I can’t say that I blame him. With that announcement, you lose mobility. The local government begins scheduling things for you to do so that you don’t uncover the stories that they don’t want you to see. Some can be bought off with the local vintage, eats, and, maybe, a whore. Not Christopher.
  
  
  
• Raye is upset that our troops have been rationed to one MRE per day. Sounds like either they didn’t plan for the war to last more than three days or they are running a little experiment akin to the one Eisenhower pulled with my father during the Second World War. Eisenhower wanted to see
  how far the Third Army would go without adequate winter clothing and supplies. They told the troops that they didn’t have enough supplies. (They did. They were withholding them.) My father pressed on with the rest, saw his company killed except for three men, and got out when his feet froze.
  
  
  
• Andrew reports that Saddam Hussein fired his cousin for bombing his own people. He writes:

  this idea is inconsistent with the almost universal vision of the man as a monster who does not care about his own people. If his own missiles were falling on his own people, what would he care? I can think of two, but you?

  Another rumor? It is hard to tell with Iraqi television knocked out.
  
  

• Elkit sees Graham Greene’s The Quiet American as a tale for our times. Elsewhere she says that the movie version is excellent, but after seeing what was done to The End of the Affair, I’m worried.
  
  
  
• Jeremy makes this remark about the suicide bombings against our troops in Iraq:

  Anglo-American forces are acting all surprised and hurt about suicide bombings against the troops. But weren’t the Iraqis and their recruits from various countries threatening to use suicide attacks against our troops for like months before we went in? Saw a soldier on some media outlet last night saying that the Iraqis who are using all of these guerilla tactics aren’t soldiers, they’re terrorists. Gimmee a break. Combatants aren’t terrorists. Terrifying, perhaps, but terrorists don’t attack soldiers and armies– they attack innocent civilians.

• Allison shrieks:

  Why should the Iraqi people have to pay for our destruction of their country? We supplied Saddam with the weapons we are going in for. Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney, Perle: all multi-millionaires. I vote that they should have to pay the costs.

• Tanya dreamed about something she calls “The George W. Bush Road Show”
  
  

• Andrea the Serial Deviant is worrying about Islamic terrorism in Southeast Asia, what with the war in Iraq. Personally, I think we should speak of it as “terrorism” — other religions and ideologies have shown an aptitude for it as well. And we’re not helping those Muslims who are struggling to re-emphasize the spiritual roots of their religion. Blaming it on Islam is just another way, I feel, of mouthing the Bush/Cheney propaganda line at no charge to them or benefit to world peace.
  
  

• Andrea the Shameless Agitator handed out her weekly award to Starhawk who said, among other things:

  We are at a crucial moment in this country. We’ve essentially had a coup; we have a man in the White House who was not elected and who is pushing us into policies that the majority of the people don’t support. Around eight hundred people of Middle Eastern descent were arrested after September 11 and held without access to lawyers or family. Some of them may still be in jail. We’ve seen new laws that threaten our civil rights and an Office of Homeland Security that threatens our privacy and liberty. Now George W. Bush is attempting to unleash an offensive war against Iraq that is supported neither by the majority in this country nor by the international community. The question is, are we going to allow him to do that?

• Billy confessed that though he doesn’t want to talk about the war, it keeps seizing control of his mind. He attempts to talk about traffic instead.
  
  

• My rediscovered net pal Mary Beth got added to my blog roll just this week, so I didn’t see her earlier posting about police harassment of people who look Middle Eastern.

If you wish to help the victims of the Iraqi war, I continue to recommend:

• Oxfam (donations to help Iraqi civilians) and the American Friends Service Committee.
  
• Your local food bank, Project SHARE or the Red Cross. (for help to military families left destitute)
  
• Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (donations to support their efforts to document human rights abuses on all sides and bring the perpetrators to justice)

To end this, with no endorsement or rejection of the point of view implied: Why the War in Iraq is a Bad Idea. Make up your own mind.