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I was part of the student/civilian anti-war movement that supported and worked with large groups of active duty GIs opposed to the Vietnam war. Those GI groups – GI-Civilian Alliance for Peace and others nationwide – unleashed a torrent of antiwar newspapers like “Counterpoint, Fed Up, the Lewis-McChord Free Press, and G.I. Voice from Fort Lewis Army Base and McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma; the unit newsletters B Troop News and First of the Worst, from Fort Lewis; Sacstrated and Co-Ambulation from Fairchild Air Force Base, near Spokane, WA; Puget Sound Sound Off from Bremerton Naval Yard on the Washington peninsula; and Yah-Hoh, published out of Fort Lewis by a group of radical Native American servicemen.” antiwar.http://depts.washington.edu/antiwar/gi_papers.shtml
There were other groups and underground papers on bases all across the world. The GI underground press was passed hand to hand in huge numbers. Together it changed the character of the US military and the GI’s became openly political, defiantly antiwar and insubordinate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHo6jmlGXKM
The huge size of the antiwar movement, the growth of the GI antiwar movement in Vietnam and the heroism and intransigence of the Vietnamese led to rising levels of mutinous incidents from large numbers of fraggings to a marked “screw the orders, go slow and save lives” attitude that disrupted Pentagon in Vietnam. That was a key factor in finally forcing Nixon and his generals and admirals into humiliating retreat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdR2Iktffaw
Iraq and Afghanistan are different. They’re volunteers, many joining to escape the violence of poverty and unemployment and are victims like the civilians they murder. Many of them, instead of taking out their rage fragging officers take it out on innocent civilians, including the murder of chilling numbers of children, perhaps emulating the racist mass murder of children by Bill Clinton and his embargo of food, medicine and sanitary supplies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LauPfCeIJqg
I’m all for encouraging GI’s to get out asap and discouraging anyone else from joining Murder Inc., but I fail to see the point of doing anything that would make them not look like what they are. They are viscous foreign invaders inflicting massive causalities on civilians, and that includes medical staff and ‘community’ relations workers. And, in addition they are themselves victims of Obama’s criminal, racist wars from Libya and Palestine to Afghanistan and Pakistan. The decent ones, like Brad Manning and the women and men of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) and other vets groups are an encouraging development but it hasn’t spread to the battlefield units as much as it did during Vietnam. http://iava.org/
In the absence of a large civilian antiwar movement – liberals consistently betray and abandon antiwar activity in order to build the Obama campaign – and the extremely reactionary character of the islamist cultists who control the insurgents, this war likely won’t end on the Vietnam model. What will end this war is the ongoing deterioration of the American economy and the ongoing resistance economic decline, Obama’s imposed austerity and the ongoing mass radicalization of working people.
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antiwar.http://depts.washington.edu/antiwar/gi_papers.shtml
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHo6jmlGXKM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdR2Iktffaw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LauPfCeIJqg
Recommended.
recommended.
this is the core of the problem with what passes for the left today. it still supports a party that has deserted it and serves the interests of the 1%. the sooner liberals, lefties and progressives get off of the democratic party bandwagon the sooner we can actually get something done.
That shows us who really won the Election – the far Right.
Thanks.
The main reason for the 1960s anti-war movement was to keep young people from getting their asses blown off.
When this was no longer an issue, the war – any war – was not longer an issue. Especially since those in the upper crust make out so well with it.
I agree with you on just about everything written except for the title.
“Forcing Obama”
What are we going to do, hire Uri Geller?
and
Ah yes, the usual American squealing about how their uniformed scum who commit one odious and barbaric war crime after another as a deliberate tactic are “victims”.
No they’re not victims they’re war criminals. They are perpetrators of crimes not victims.
mfi
You’re so right. It’s disgusting how silent and/or apathetic liberals are when it comes to war. War doesn’t matter to them, as long as their Benevolent Obama is the one doing the bombing. Besides, it’s just too darn much fun to disparage Republicans (whose bombs, of course, would be much worse than Obamabombs).
I went to the Iowa caucuses and voted for Ron Paul, because he was anti-war. True, Ron Paul had some screwy economic ideas, but he was anti-war, and I wanted the General Election to be between Obama and Ron Paul. Of course, my ideas were disparaged: “He’s a nutcase.” (which he wasn’t but that’s the standard attack) “He hates women and blacks.” (he didn’t, but it was great propaganda). Now imagine if a large segment of the left had voted for Ron Paul in the primaries. Imagine how Obama would have had to veer to the left when it came to civil liberties and, most importantly, war.
But this isn’t to re-hash Ron Paul’s mismanaged campaign. It is just to say I agree with you.
If there never was an Obama, we’d be in much better shape than we are today. Instead we’re stuck with a horrible situation: liberals have allowed themselves to be absorbed into the Obama Pro-War, Anti-Civil Liberties Party, and now we are going to be leaving a wasteland to future generations.
Appreciate your wise action in Iowa.
Bill, thanks for the post. Outside of Ed Schultz (Ed Show) Corporate media refuse to link the occupations with the debt. #notsurprised
The media occasionally “code” their anti-war straddle in stories about the suicide rate in the U.S. Army, around 1 per day.
This is a good line from bmaz:
“We need to unhinge the valor of our troops from the moral squalor of our leaders.”
There are no “military” objectives in the Middle East. Our failure to make that case has been a big part of enabling the occupations.
What we’re going to be able to do is build mass movements arising out of the radicalization as the economy deteriorates. As developments push the growth of the left that will begin to have impacts on their ability to make war. Kind of vague, I know but things are very initial for now.
Joe @3 is absolutely right that this is the core of the problem. I am sickened by the number of older former anti-Vietnam protesters who say, “First let us elect Obama and then we can sign a petition to the White House…” When their own life was on the line because of the draft, signing a petition to President Johnson was insufficient.
Your apparent total ignorance of the class struggle renders you totally blind. islamist cultists have no way of understanding what’s going on because they’re guided by superstition, not reality. Some soldiers are war criminals and some are not. They are as divided as the insurgents, who unlike the Vietnamese revolutionaries, have no redeeming freatures.
The huge bulk of the US armed forces (rankers, not officers) are workers and I suspect that most of them volunteered out of perceived economic necessity. Military recruiters make a big deal of the educational and other ‘benefits’ of volunteering but for some reason recruiting stations don’t feature large posters of burned and maimed civilians or soldiers or stats on deaths, wounds and suicides, military or civilian. So some people get fooled, especially if it’s their way off the streets.
Just so you understand, socialists and leftists will continue to try to rebuild the antiwar movement, will help build a working class GI antiwar movement, will support PFC Brad Manning and others like him and will condemn our mad dog warmongering leaders and their wars and mad dog terrorists who attack American civilians. Too bad if that upsets you. We can live with that.
That was for Markfromireland at @8
Libertarians are right wing. They’re on the wrong side of the class divide, just like Democrats and Republicans.
I don’t mean to give the impression that this is all Obama’s fault. He’s just doing what they pay him to do and what Gore, Kerry, Hillary Clinton and any number of Republicans would do with this or that minor change. They are all mad dog warmongers.
Please don’t do that. Don’t start talking about right sides and wrong sides of class divides. The subject was anti-war. Libertarian or not, Ron Paul was anti-war, and it’s a shame the left couldn’t get past their own “divide,” in order to put up Ron Paul as an anti-war challenger to Obama in the General.
If he’s doing it for money, how is that not his fault? As far as Gore, Kerry, Clinton, etc., go, none of them have been elected President, so they don’t have the power Obama has, but are you saying that it’s okay for Obama to kill and main, because Hillary, Al, and John would have done the same thing?
Bill Perdue, you made the story grimmer than need be you left out he eight Ron Paul supported victories in the House,
http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/11/the-ron-paul-revolution-brings-in-8-congressmen/
Maybe if we start trimming elsewhere on military waste, it will empower us more to then deal with the war,
http://my.firedoglake.com/richardkanepa/?p=70877&preview=true
Wrong again Perdue, I’m well aware of the class struggle in your redneck republic – and that you’re ruling class are winning it and have been winning it for a long time. I love your characterisation of me as an Islamist. Even allowing for your ignorance – in every sense of that word, your hackneyed ideology, and your all-American brainwashed braindead bigotry it was mildly funny, thanks for the chuckle.
I’m neither impressed nor put off by your deploying the standard diversionary tactic about why redneck war criminals in uniform who comprise your armed forces joined up. I don’t care why they chose to join your armed forces. It’s an irrelevance. What I care about is the war crimes they commit and the all-American racist glee with celebrate those crimes and urge each other on further atrocities.
As to this bit of half-assed bombast:
In other words having spent 50 years of accomplishing fuck nothing you propose to spend another 50 years doing more of the same. How unsurprising.
mfi
You ask me not to inject politics into the main political story, aside from the depression, of the last 20 years, which is the US attack on Arab and muslim nations. Give me a break. Discussions of the war are ultimately and totally political.
I must not have made my point clearly enough. Obama and all Democrat and Republican politicians are in parties that support these wars. They’d all do the same thing or be forced to do the same thing. They are all political prostitutes in it for the money or power.
You seem to be stuck in some 1960′s ‘liberal’ view of the US. Do you really replay “The Ugly American” every night. If not what informs you hatred for 300 million plus American workers? Is it chauvinism or something medical. Never mind, I don’t want to know the details.
‘Redneck’, for the uniformed – that’s you – to racists. Your claim that all Americans are racists is like yourself, eminently dismissible.
I didn’t say you were an islamist, but I did say that “islamist cultists have no way of understanding what’s going on because they’re guided by superstition, not reality” and that your view of the US is equally and totally ignorant. The US, like every nation, is divided along class lines. Missing that makes you blind to reality and politically ignorant, deeply ignorant.
The American left led revolutions in 1775 and 1859 and we’ll get a chance to lead a third shortly. You’re not invited.
How carefully you avoid answering. Rhetoric and bombast is all you’re good for it seems. So, to repeat loser, I’m well aware of the class war in your redneck republic and that your ruling class are winning it. A sign that they’re winning it is the ever increasing depth of the division between the ruling class and the ruled classes.
Pardon me for a moment. Bwaaaaaaaahahahahahahahaaha. Yeah right. Ah Purdue, Pavlov would be so proud of you. Do you slobber much when
somebodyringsabellyou hear the Internationale?As you haven’t had the intellectual or moral honesty to answer I’ll say it again.
I don’t care why the redneck war criminals in uniform who comprise your armed forces joined them. It’s an irrelevance. What I care about is the war crimes they commit and the all-American racist glee with which they celebrate those crimes and urge each other on to commit further atrocities. Nor do I care why so many of them join mercenary firms and indeed your various police forces once they’ve finished their stint. What I care about is the atrocities they continue to commit using the carefully honed brutality they learnt while serving in your army.
Lots of luck with your third revolution.
mfi
In case anyone noticed al Qaeda wants us to bankrupt ourselves. the reason is secret plans were to derail trains is that derailing trains would hurt the economy without risking a draft a cheaper way to fight
markfromireland is determined chauvenist ignorance personified.
To repeat, just so ‘markfromireland’ understands. socialists and leftists in the US will continue to try to rebuild the antiwar movement, will help build a working class GI antiwar movement, will support PFC Brad Manning and others like him and will condemn our mad dog warmongering leaders and their wars and mad dog terrorists who attack American civilians.
Too bad if that upsets him. ‘markfromireland’ can sling spittle and promote lies to his hearts content because he’s irrelevance personified. His solution is to rollover, give up and revel in the victories of the right wing.
No thanks. We’ll fight on.
FWIW,, MFI is a retired Col in the Irish army who has been a member of numerous Middle East peacekeeping missions and has worked with numerous NGOs within Irak and other Middle East countries, trying to undo the handiwork of the USA. He understands the difference between functioning anti war movements and functioning left of center political parties. He is a capable observer of the US political scene precisely because he has seen the effects of US policies far too closely
Much of my younger years I fought the power of positive thinking, now instead when we actually have something positive to cheer about negativity rules
A clear step we can do now is urge Bernie Sanders to praise Susan Rice on Benghazi,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20519384 but refuse to vote for confirmation until she presents a road map for peace. Ending the draft ended the peace movement because the peace movement wouldn’t shift girls and emphasize how increasingly expensive the private contractor fighting force is. Yes let’s be happy to start compromising on Social Security as soon as the US military budget is no longer the largest in the world etc etc. Bill Perdue made waves by being as negative as possible, somehow I got to figure out how to do the same by embracing what I used to fight to oppose the power of positive thinking,
See RichardKanePA.blogspot.com and a similar piece here.
Wrong, whatever his credentials in the Irish military MFI has no understanding of US politics and has a chauvinist, anti-working class view of our struggles. Credentials in any military except the Cuban military are not credentials, they’re an indictment.
Anyone who dismisses the idea of fighting against the war and building the left is dead wrong and awesomely ignorant. Anyone who says that “Ah yes, the usual American squealing about how their uniformed scum who commit one odious and barbaric war crime after another as a deliberate tactic are “victims”. No they’re not victims they’re war criminals. They are perpetrators of crimes not victims” dismisses efforts to organize soldiers and veterans because of his pathological and chauvinist hatred of Americans. Period, full stop.
Tell me when you find something “positive” about the Democrats mass murder from Libya to Pakistan and their mass murder in Vietnam.
He dismisses those efforts because he has seen just how efficacious they have been over the past 20 plus years in stopping the incursions in the Middle East.
As in not very.
Why thank you for making my point for me about how the usual American squealing about how their uniformed scum who commit one odious and barbaric war crime after another as a deliberate tactic are “victims” is a load of hypocritical cant.
You’re quite right I do dismiss the failed efforts of American “leftists” and “socialists” I dismiss them because they failed in the past, they’re failing now, and are doomed to fail in the future. Failure has consequences loser and when you’ve been failing for generations you’ve no grounds for complaining when people who unlike you actually live and work amongst the people affected by the barbaric actions of the viciously racist redneck scum in uniform that are your country’s armed forces point out that you’re full of it.
You’re a hypocrite and a coward Perdue, other than as a useful source of your rhetorical bile you don’t give a damn about the peoples of the Middle East.
mfi
As in utterly ineffective alas. Thanks for trying but this bigoted fool is so warped and twisted by his lifetime of political failure that you’re wasting your time.
mfi
mfi and you dismiss them because you’re afraid to fight to end the war.
You prefer to sit on the sidelines carping about the antiwar movement.
Rabid and escalating personal attacks, which seem all you’re capable of, won’t deter us from fighting and do nothing to mask the political ignorance and cowardice of members of the detested officer class.
“I dismiss them because they failed in the past, they’re failing now, and are doomed to fail in the future.” This is not just ignorance, it’s lying to cover the cowardice of those who won’t fight with the antiwar movement. We won in Vietnam by organizing GI’s. If Obama stays in Afghanistan we’ll win there too and if he turns tail and runs like Nixon that’s fine too.
We’ll to whatever it takes to defeat Obama and you’ll continue to sit on the sidelines pathetically throwing rocks at the anti-war movement instead of organizing it. Your efforts are futile. We won’t stop fighting to end the war to please a creature of the officer class.
You can tell yourself that comforting (and racist) lie about Vietnam as much as you like Perdue. It doesn’t alter the fact that who defeated your troops in Vietnam and their puppet state allies were the Vietnamese army and the Vietcong. Nor does it alter the fact that the people who forced your troops to run away from Irak were the Iraki resistance. You can also tell yourself the comforting lie about how somebody like you who lives in comfort and safety in the USA accomplishing fucking nothing is somehow doing something to end your country’s vicious imperialism and help its victims. Dream on loser, you epitomise why socialism has consistently failed to deliver.
As for me I’ll continue to work and live in Irak helping the Iraki people who drove you Americans out of their home by force of arms undo some of the evil that the cowardly redneck scum in uniform who are your American soldiers did in their country.
You keep on raving ineffectually and spouting your doctrinaire bullshit from the sidelines like the hypocritical coward you are Perdue. It’s all you’re good for.
Here, have a biscuit. Loser.
EOD
mfi
Really, herr Oberst . Stop lying. You’re beginning to sound like another lying member of the detested western officer class, Colin Powel, who lied to protect the murderers of My Lai and who attempted do discredit courageous GIs like Brad Manning and the Vietnamese whistle blowers about the massacre at My Lai.
You said that “You can tell yourself that comforting (and racist) lie about Vietnam as much as you like Perdue.” Do you ever do anything but lie, herr Oberst. I said in my post (above) “The huge size of the antiwar movement, the growth of the GI antiwar movement in Vietnam and the heroism and intransigence of the Vietnamese led to rising levels of mutinous incidents from large numbers of fraggings to a marked “screw the orders, go slow and save lives” attitude that disrupted Pentagon in Vietnam. That was a key factor in finally forcing Nixon and his generals and admirals into humiliating retreat.” Perhaps if you actually read what people say you wouldn’t find yourself being embarrassed about lying as often as you do. There not much hope of that given your determined political ignorance.
Western military ignoramuses like you who deny the role of the civilians and GI antiwar movements in forcing Nixon out of Vietnam are the personification of military ignorance. The Vietnamese certainly thought we contributed a lot. Here’s an interview with Bui Tin, who served on the general staff the Vietnamese army and who received the unconditional surrender of occupied Vietnam on April 30, 1975 conducted by Stephen Young, a Minnesota attorney and human-rights activist. It was published in the Wall Street Journal, 08 03 1995. Read if very carefully, it says you’re a liar and an ignorant racist who knows nothing about the Vietnamese or their struggle.
Question: How did Hanoi intend to defeat the Americans?
Answer: By fighting a long war which would break their will to help South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh said, “We don’t need to win military victories, we only need to hit them until they give up and get out.”
Question: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi’s victory?
Answer: It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.
Question: Q: Did the (Vietnamese) Politburo pay attention to these visits?
Answer: Keenly.
Question: Why?
Answer: Those people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.”
Honest and decent people will continue to fight Obama’s imperialism and you’ll continue to spout drivel, rant, lie through your teeth and cover the internet with spittle. Pathetic.