Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw has a popular post going around on Twitter at the moment admonishing Senator Bernie Sanders for saying that the US government should not go to war if it can’t afford to take care of its veterans.
“Watching Bernie pander to different groups to get their vote has always disgusted me, but now it’s personal,” Crenshaw tweeted. “I didn’t go to war so that you would take care of me, Bernie. I went because I wanted to serve and our country needed it.”
This “look at me, I’m a veteran” song and dance is par for course with Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who lost an eye to an improvised explosive device on his third deployment in America’s evil and unjustifiable Afghanistan occupation. When Crenshaw says “I went because I wanted to serve and our country needed it,” he is being delusional, and feeding into his delusion allows him to continue dominating public discourse with obnoxiously propagandistic takes like the notion that the US should continue its forever war without even so much as ensuring that it can take care of the people whose lives are chewed up and spat out by the imperial war machine.
Watching Bernie pander to different groups to get their vote has always disgusted me, but now it’s personal.
I didn’t go to war so that you would take care of me, Bernie. I went because I wanted to serve and our country needed it. https://t.co/ADhxrvtIA9
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) September 17, 2019
Dan Crenshaw did not serve his country. Dan Crenshaw is not a hero. Dan Crenshaw participated in a military occupation that after 18 years and counting has claimed tens of thousands of lives for no benefit to any ordinary American at all. All he served during his time in that country was the geostrategic imperialist agendas of unaccountable government agencies and the profit margins of war plutocrats, yet upon returning home he’s been able to convert his stint as a glorified hired thug into social collateral which got him elected to the US House of Representatives and secured him a punditry platform from which he can spout war propaganda. All because people agree to play along with the completely nonsensical narrative that US war veterans are heroes.
You see this time and time again: a completely fact-free fairy tale about heroism and fighting for freedom is treated as unquestionable dogma by a populace who has agreed to treat US war veterans with reverence and respect, despite the fact that they chose to pour their time and energy into what is literally the most unhelpful and destructive endeavor that you could possibly devote yourself to. This unquestioning reverence is then consistently twisted into leverage for war propagandists to use in glorifying acts of mass military slaughter which benefitted no one and made the whole world worse.
The tightly controlled narrative about American veterans being heroes is always, always, always used to advance war propaganda and never to accomplish anything that is of service to mankind. It’s an impulse which serves no one but the powerful. Of course veterans of US wars should be taken care of, and taken care of far better than they currently are, but not because they are heroes. Rather, they should be cared for because they spent time in a highly traumatic environment which sends home many highly traumatized people who will need a lot of help in order to reintegrate into society in a healthy way. What they went through was a horrible tragedy that nobody should ever have to go through, not a glorious thing that more people should aspire to enlist into.
The US Army Asked Twitter How Service Has Impacted People. The Answers Were Gut-Wrenching.
A collection of many of the responses to @USArmy, partly to spread awareness and partly in case the thread gets deleted in the interests of "national security". https://t.co/JlYn7Gh6hy
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 25, 2019
It is more cognitively comfortable for veterans and their families to maintain the fairy tale that those who helped facilitate US imperialism are heroes who did something helpful and meaningful, but the fact that human minds are preconditioned to select for cognitive ease is a glitch in our operating systems which causes unhelpful cognitive biases; it’s a flaw we need to overcome, not a virtue to be coddled. By continuing to coddle it you are facilitating war propaganda, and war propaganda is the indispensable foundation of war itself. By facilitating war propaganda you are participating in the war machine as surely as someone who takes up arms and fights in it, only less honest because, as Representative Crenshaw’s face attests, at least someone who takes up arms is putting some real skin in that monstrous game.
It’s like veterans are engaged with us in a bizarre live action role-playing game, where they pretend to be the heroes and the rest of us pretend to be the thankful civilians whose freedoms they fought for. But continuing to LARP with them in this way creates nonsense like we see in Crenshaw’s tweet, and in the ridiculous smears against NFL players choosing to take a knee during the national anthem, and in the bleating of “Support our troops!” as a one-line shutdown of anyone who protested the Iraq invasion.
Don’t participate in that stupid, war-facilitating, power-serving LARP. Don’t say “Thank you for your service” to veterans. Don’t pretend to agree with them when they claim to have fought for your freedom and democracy. Openly disagree with people who promulgate this narrative. Treat Veterans Day and Memorial Day as days of grieving and truth-telling, not celebration and glorification. The worshipful propaganda narratives that have been built up around veterans are an important cog in the war machine’s consent factory, and they should be attacked as unapologetically as war propaganda narratives about what’s going on in Syria or Iran.
My latest op-ed on Syria. @realDonaldTrump is fighting to protect our borders, and deserves great credit for that. But the world is a small place and chaos spreads easily. We go there so that they don’t come here. https://t.co/Ffry88OXQl
— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) December 21, 2018
“But Caitlin!” you may say. “What about World War Two veterans?”
Well, fine, but they’re in their nineties now and you should probably be telling them whatever they want to hear anyway. And while we’re on the subject, do you notice how far back you had to reach in US history to find a war in which veterans arguably fought for a just cause? The fact that the last possible example is on the cusp of living memory tells you all you need to know about your impulse to argue with me on this one.
I’m not saying to be mean to veterans, and I’m not saying veterans are bad people, in fact, one of the most heinous injustices about these corporate wars is that they turn many of our finest and bravest young people toward the very most toxic and pernicious ends possible. Many of them sincerely enlisted due to an impulse to help make the world a better place; it’s the same impulse which led Julian Assange to set up a leaking outlet to help expose unaccountable power structures, the only difference is that Assange saw clearly through the fog of propaganda and they did not. But the reverence and fairy tales have got to go.
There are no war heroes. There are only war victims. It’s time to grow up and stop pretending otherwise.
_________________________
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permissionto republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
140 responses to “Stop Telling Veterans That They Are Heroes”
What a relief it is when someone speaks the truth. I live in a state (Maine) with a very high percentage of military veterans and we are inundated with constant militarism on the local TV news. My dental hygienist’s son goes to a military college and he would get thanked for his “service” when he went into the small Vermont town where the college is located. And, let’s see, his roommate tortured him during his first year (nice!) and his best friend went home and committed suicide. Remember, these young idiots haven’t even been to war just college, and already they’re proving themselves thugs or mentally unstable (because he probably had no idea he had other choices). Perhaps that is one’s choice in a toxic culture: predator or vulnerable human being.
Dan Crenshaw did not serve his country. Dan Crenshaw is not a hero. Dan Crenshaw participated in a military occupation that after 18 years and counting has claimed tens of thousands of lives for no benefit to any ordinary American at all. All he served during his time in that country was the geostrategic imperialist agendas of unaccountable government agencies and the profit margins of war plutocrats, yet upon returning home he’s been able to convert his stint as a glorified hired thug into social collateral which got him elected to the US House of Representatives and secured him a punditry platform from which he can spout war propaganda. All because people agree to play along with the completely nonsensical narrative that US war veterans are heroes.
Lots and lots and lots of Official WWII False Narratives laid out in this exceptional essay by Ron Unz, published September 23, 2019 called “Understanding World War II.” https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-understanding-world-war-ii/
Wars happen when your government tells you who the enemy is.
Revolutions happen when you figure it out for yourself.
Brilliant…but,
Reminds me of the Nomad episode in Star Trek when Spock says to Kirk ” your logic is impeccable captain”…
“we are in grave danger”… (or something like that) 🙂
richard
When the cashier at Lowe’s says to me “Thank you for your service” I look them in the eye and say slowly: “There is NO VIRTUE in KILLING PEOPLE.” . . . and I hold their eyes . . . to let it soak in.
(Vietnam combat vet)
WWII a “just cause”…!!!! Are you kidding me? Why does it always seem to be that those that get it right on certain issues have to stray into issues they obviously haven’t studied at all and so besmirch their good opinions concerning what they do know? There was NOTHING just about WWII, from setting up and financing Hitler (the Rothschilds…actually, the Frankfurt Bauers of the Red(roth) Sign(schild)), to setting up Pearl Harbor as a sitting duck and then prodding Japan unmercifully into attacking it to get us into war through the Tripartite Treaty linking Japan with Italy and Germany, to the stealing of Palestinian’s homeland after and giving it to the Rothschild family to build its own personal kingdom that would fly the family flag over what they would call the “State of Israel” (as though it had ANYthing at all to do with the Biblical Israel) complete with its own personal bodyguard known as the Mossad. And that’s just the hors d’oeuvres!! Every war of the last two centuries was planned out, instigated, executed using proxies and killing tens and hundreds of thousands of young men given the epithets of “heroes” and “patriots.” And behind them all was the above-the-law Rothschild family and their other wealth-beyond-belief global co-conspirators in their megalomaniacal plans to control the globe. And again, that’s just jacks for starters.
The bankers funding the NSDAP is popular fiction to discredit the movement. The reality is that the NSDAP made the Bank of International Settlements redundant by trading commodity for commodity, and central banks redundant by issuing Labor Certificates (like Greenbacks) to pay for reconstruction. WWII was a bankers’ war.
… and now you know the rest of the story.
Amen Brother/Sister
You don’t have to go as far back as WW2. I have sympathies for the guys who served in Korea and ‘Nam as well, as many were victims of the draft. After 1973? Nothing whatsoever. Pure volunteer military. You stood right up, and said “I’ll put on the suit and pick up the gun and kill anyone you send me to kill, no matter how wrong it is.” No sympathy there. But when they say they are fighting for our “freedom”, I tell them to download all 450+ pages of the USA PATRIOT Act, read the whole thing, then ask themselves what “freedoms” they are fighting for. I’d have a whole lot more respect for them, if the lot of them descended on Washington DC and cleaned out the rat’s nest that are the TRUE threat to American’s liberties.
Heroes? The thought of doing productive work in the private sector scares them to tears.
Thank you for writing what no journalist has the balls to write, Caitlin! Anyone who joins the military claiming they’re “serving their country is ignorant to the fact that these are all resource wars and they’re only fighting to serve the corporations that use them as canon fodder. For the most part they’re losers who cant find a job anywhere else, except in the service of murdering innocent civilians in countries that, unfortunately for the locals, have our resources under their land. And any serviceman who serves a second tour of duty does so because he loves the impugnity that allows him to not have to answer to his murders in service to empire.
We deem every country on the globe to be our “strategic interest” and whenever any “uppity democratically elected foreign leader” choses a path that deviates from that which we dictate we invent a pretext to go to war.
He’s a terrorist, he must be a terrorist… because if you’re not with us you’re against us… as dubya numb-nuts once said when he wasn’t slobbering oll over himself as he reached for his coke spoon.
“I know that human being and fish can coexist peacefully”… “And America needs a military where our breast and brightest are proud to serve… and proud to stay”… “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning”…”Too many OBGYN’s aren’t able to practice their love with women all across the country”… “There’s am old saying in Tennessee, I know it’s in Texas probably in Tennessee, that says Fooled me once shame on………………….Shame on you…………..It fooled me can’t get fooled again.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ux3DKxxFoM
This is who lead the greatest nation on the planet to wars with no end. Go USA!!!
ZT / SEPTEMBER 22, 2019
“Thank you for writing what no journalist has the balls to write,“
Balls are weak and sensitive. If you want to be tough, get a vagina, those things can take a pounding.
Sorry my comment appeared twice.
It seemed my first one didn’t satisfy the reCAPTCHA thing, but then it suddenly did…
I didn’t save the pic but hopefully others saw it; when Crenshaw and the other new elected were getting Ready for for their AIPAC trip to Israel Creshaw forgot to put his eye atch on. He only uses it for photo-ops . Would not be suprised if his service record is as phony as Kerry’s………….
German translation:
https://medium.com/@frankdubian/h%C3%B6rt-auf-veteranen-zu-sagen-dass-sie-helden-sind-dd416fe7419a
Totally agree. You are not a hero because you answer your countries call to fight in a morally wrong war. At best you were fooled and a pawn, but certainly not a hero. It reminds me of the poor AIDs stricken and severely delusional homosexual on Oprah who claimed he was a hero because of his condition!!! Just as Pat Tillman who upon being enlightened ( and waiting to expose) the fraudulent war in Iraq “died by Friendly Fire” and under very suspicious circumstances.
The Civil War, The Spanish American, WWI, WWII, Korea… to Syria were not morally just wars. They were sold to the US citizens as such by evil men like PR propagandist Edward Bernays. One rule of thumb… if the Feds and the Media promote a narrative about anything the exact opposite is most probably true. esp. when it come to war, assassination/attempts, mass shootings, or terrorist events, etc.
“fact-free fairy tale(s)” : I smell screenplay!
Thank you for this Caitlin.
Absolutely agree.
Sad veterans who don’t get it
Sadly, Caitlin isn’t a veteran and knows little to nothing about being one. Some of what she says is true, but as a civilian, she cannot understand. Nevertheless, we’ll still protect those that live in ivory towers.
Well Book, I’m a Vietnam vet. She’s spot on. You’re the clueless one. Don’t shoot the messenger. You may also research”Gulf of Tonkin, false flag if your fingers are up to the task. If you really grow some balls, research General Smedley Butler’s book “War Is A RACKET” written in the 30s. You may even get bold enough to see how Gen Butler stoped the coup to overthrow FDR. Nah, go back to sleep.
Right, Robert. I too am a veteran [For Peace]; and I am most grateful to Caitlin for telling it like it really is. There are NO war heroes; and there are NO good wars.
Hugh Thompson was a notable exception, his actions were truly heroic. He most likely saved hundreds of civilian lives, but standing against your own ‘comrades’ will bring dire consequences to any soldier. We never hear them, because it usually costs them their life.
You don’t have to be something to understand it.
Even in my own field of classical music, I am not Norwegian, but I understand Grieg’s music well enough to give a great deal of pleasure to audiences who hear me play.
I am not German, but Beethoven goes as deep into the human soul and its longing for communication with other souls as it is possible to go.
I am not Jewish, but the horrors that race endured during WW2 are as real to me as to the Jewish people I know.
It’s exactly this which Caitlin is talking about – the idea that being a veteran makes you automatically wiser than others.
Nothing in human experience is automatic.
You don’t have to be something in order to understand it.
Even in my own field of classical music, I am not Norwegian, but I understand Grieg’s music well enough to give a great deal of pleasure to audiences who hear me play.
I am not German, but Beethoven goes as deep into the human soul and its longing for communication with other souls as it is possible to go.
I am not Jewish, but the horrors that race endured during WW2 are as real to me as to the Jewish people I know.
It’s exactly this which Caitlin is talking about – the idea that being a veteran makes you automatically wiser than others.
Nothing in human experience is automatic.
It’s called “empathy”.
Some have it; others don’t.
Please watch this video and then say that….ALL ORDER FOLLOWERS ARE BAD PEOPLE.
https://youtu.be/ZSqBNGxLiAs
Looking a bit deeper into this rabbit hole, if there is any beef to be had here it is about the misuse of our military by our “leaders” as opposed to being with our service people or veterans. Historically, all those who serve in the military have universally taken an oath to obey a very well defined hierarchy of leadership from Commander in Chief down to each individual, which hierarchy is totally in charge of making decisions as fully established by longstanding laws. Penalties for failure to obey any lawful order may include death! That said, there is little provision in the UCMJ for an individual service member to suddenly opine as to what he or she thinks is an unlawful order, that being less so in the heat of battle.
We can, however, complain all day about the politicians (those placed in charge) who consistently put self-interest way ahead of any duly sworn (on a Bible, no less!) duty towards their own country and the U.S. Constitution which provides the existing framework for our system of government and laws. It is increasingly apparent that many if not most of these political bozos care nothing at all for the nation at large but are fully subscribed towards personal and party based power and the accompanying fund raising efforts necessary in order to maintain such power.
But this too amounts to barking up the wrong tree if ultimate blame must be assigned because “now the world sucks” or something like that. It is ultimately the U.S. electorate which tacitly approves of our current unquestionably horrible “leadership” every time they reelect politicians who have proven over time that it is they who “suck”. We are long past due for establishing reasonable term limits for the U.S. Congress. By the time any one of them has “served” over 20, 30 or even 40 years in office they have evolved into a self-recognized Royalty Class, even referring to the office as “their” seat as opposed to that of the People.
The answer is simple, don’t re-elect anyone! Even the relative newbies have already been poisoned by exposure to the corruption and should now find a real job instead of continually dancing on the end of so many puppet master’s strings. You knew things were doomed when the high court decided that “corporations are people too” which opened the floodgates of cash such that anyone serious about being competitive at the polls must first take their oaths to serve whoever pays the millions of dollars necessary to get them into and keep them in office. Consider every campaign ad a well scripted lie and you will be correct most of the time. (Trust me.)
Until we can have a monetary system that can’t be used to buy any humans behavior our trajectory won’t budge. Too much bribery in elections make it impossible to vote them out. I knew we were in deep trouble when the populous finally had a moral candidate, with a long voting history to prove it, who understood what today’s wars were all about and we didn’t vote overwhelmingly for that, 3 times! I had thought at one time that technology, especially the internet, might save humanity from a new Dark Ages. I’v let go of that fairy tale, enjoy each fabulous moment of life and try to mentally prepare my progeny for what’s to come. Best of luck, we are going to need it.
It should be remembered that a high proportion of the US military, especially its rank and file, is economically conscripted. With no hope of job security, decent education, healthcare or other basic needs that most of rest of the ‘first’ world takes for granted, many poor Americans see military service as a very viable or only solution to these basic needs that US capitalism simply cannot satisfy. Many don’t sign up out of ‘choice’ at all. And the US rulers like it that way.
What ‘marks’ are never told by the recruiters prowling working class shopping malls is that if they survive, if they come out physically unharmed, they’ll still be mentally and emotionally scarred just from the brutal training to kill without hesitation, not to mention what they experience on the battlefield. It’s ‘Son, we’ll turn you into a killing machine’, not ‘we’ll turn you into a psychopath’.
I believe you will find your theory concerning a prime motivation for enlistment was dutifully anticipated and discussed at the very founding of this country. The following is copied from a document published during the period of the Constitutional ratification process as to the founders reservations regarding a standing army. It was the Antifederalists, by the way, who rejected the proposed Constitution unless a ‘Bill of Rights’ was included. The vast majority of the country would be thoroughly shocked if they would take the time to read the founders own words concerning their complete distrust of a standing army (which was also their justification regarding insistence upon an armed civilian population to counter any potential threat from our own army). I promise you that those people would never “thank you for your service”. The population of this country grills wienies and burgers on the 4th of July without having any real comprehension as to what these people were all about. This country is in dyer need of a real education the way things really happened.
Antifederalist Paper 24 – OBJECTIONS TO A STANDING ARMY (PART I)
The first essay is taken from the ninth letter of “BRUTUS” (Robert Yates) which appeared in The New-York Journal, January 17, 1788
“Standing armies are dangerous to the liberties of a people. . . . [If] necessary, the truth of the position might be confirmed by the history of almost every nation in the world.
The idea that there is no danger of the establishment of a standing army, under the new constitution, is without foundation.
… If to this we add, that an army will afford a decent support, and agreeable employment to the young men of many families, who are too indolent to follow occupations that will require care and industry, and too poor to live without doing any business, we can have little reason to doubt but that we shall have a large standing army as soon as this government can find money to pay them, and perhaps sooner.”
Thank you for this. That’s edifying. BTW, the latest is that the military has exceeded its current recruitment goals, and they attribute it to the student debt.
Right on, Caitlin!
Myself, I joined the army during Viet-Nam (1966-1969). I joined because I had heard so many negative comments about what happened to those who were drafted. Having grown up in a very physically abusive family, I figured it would be a great adventure. Hah, was I ever in for a surprise! Out of my basic training company of 300 “men” – and I use that term loosely – I was only 1 of 5 who were not sent to Nam. Because of my high test scores, I was sent to a NATO nuclear missile base.
The amount of pure bullshit that I saw while in the service turned me into a whole different person than the naïve Midwestern kid I had been. There were only 30 Americans at the base, yet the in-fighting amongst ourselves was terrible. About 6 or 7 of us, myself included, were the ones doing the technical operations. Except for 2 cooks, everyone else was a security guard.
In spite of the low number of Americans, there was a great racial animosity. Those from the South, hated whites – like me – who would be friends with any black man. One day this all led to a racially motivated killing by a white man from Alabama of a black man from Pennsylvania while on base performing their duties. That was the first time I was witness to a murder. Because of our nuclear status an investigation was “conducted”. For my testimony, a lieutenant and captain wanted me to lie and say it was not racially motivated, which I refused to do. They talked amongst themselves for a few minutes, and decided that my testimony was not necessary. So much for an honest investigation! The event was disguised as an accident!
Ever since then, I have nothing but disdain for anything related to the military. Nowadays, if I see an article about the military withholding secrets about events, I believe it, because I witnessed such a circumstance first-hand. There were no heroes – just unnecessary violence because of a racist with a hangover!
I too served in Vietnam, with the Australian Forces, the things I saw and experienced have left me with an indelable memory of the LIES and DOUBLE STANDARDS practiced by our Western Society leaders. From the ripe old age of 18 years, I learnt my lessons early and will never forget.
I take particular notice of the comment made by the alleged individual named in this article, to whit one Dan Crenshaw, who allegedly commented, and I quote, “We bring the fight to the enemy. so they don’t bring it to us” Unquote. What a stupid brain washed idiotic statement is that ? Reminds me of the claims that the yellow communist hords were coming to our shores to claim them for themselves. Remember that one ? L.O.L. Problem was, those very same yellow Communist hords had no idea Australia even existed, nor did they know where Australia was. But hey, the propgandists never let the FACTS get in the way of their bullshit, which folks like this Crenshaw need to suck up as if their life depends upon it. Especially now, that he’s lost half his eyesight for what exactly ??? And he still hasn’t seen the light ? No pun intended.
Hi Caitlin, you refer to WW2 as, “a war in which veterans arguably fought for a just cause?” WW2 was a fight our ‘leaders’ wanted to WIN. They never wanted to STOP the fight. As Harry Patch, the last WW1 vet said. “War is organized murder and nothing else”
War is like having a big dispute with your neighbor and solving this problem by killing him and his family. This will not work for you but it works for our political leaders. How bat shit crazy is that!!!
you do not have a dispute with your neighbor.
your master has a dispute with your neighbor’s master.
the masters recruit you plebs to kill each other and die for their wealth and power.
I tend to agree with Caitlin’s points but wonder if something more needs to be said re; Rep. Tulsi Gabbard? Is it ok to abuse a active duty female officer for not coming out of the factory like a robotic death machine?
We used to hold Mustangers in the highest regard, that’s what sailors call those who served as an enlisted person and then became an officer, no small feat! Yet she somehow gets dismissed for an antiwar attitude. How much strength does it take to swim against that tide?
How many people remember that Jimmy Carter was the captain of a fast attack nuclear submarine. Yet since the neocons successfully conspired to steal the election from him, (with the Iranians), he is portrayed as weak and indecisive.
Had Assange dug up clean dirt on the enemies of the Empire he would be a epic hero! Irrelevant of the truth of said allegations.
So does Tulsi’s case represent an exception?
Sorry, Caitlin, but World War II veterans did not fight for a just cause. That was war propaganda too that you haven’t recognized yet because you still don’t know the truth about that conflict. Do you really think the biggest war of the 20th century is the exception to the rule? No, it’s the same deception and manipulation as all the wars that followed it. We were lied to about the “surprise” of Pearl Harbor, the Nazi gas chambers, the war crime of targeting entire cities of German civilians for extermination, the real death camps of WW2 run by the Allies after Germany surrendered, and the justification for using nuclear weapons on Japanese civilians. Those lies are believed to this day, despite all the people who have tried to expose them in the intervening 75 years. Kudos to you for recognizing our brainwashing glorifying the hired thugs who do the actual murders, but you still only see a small part of the bigger picture. WW2 is by far the biggest mind control success the ruling sociopaths have enjoyed. All the subsequent wars are just riding on its coattails.
In the end, Germany lost the war, but the Nazis got away and are still around to this day. NASA was created using the technology brought over from Germany by Nazi war criminal scientists who were pardoned and proceeded to create the “military industrial complex.” which is what Eisenhower tried to warn us about in his farewell speech.
Those Nazi scientists were not war criminals, and they did not create the U.S. military industrial complex, which existed already (read “War is a Racket” by General Smedley Butler) and simply absorbed those talented German scientists in exchange for their lives. It was essentially blackmail, “work for us or die”. What would you choose in their shoes?
They were not put on trial, so technically you might be correct. But they could have been; instead they were given clemency. It was called Project Paperclip, to reference the items clipped to their files that allowed for them to pass. I erred in saying they created the MIC, rather, they were recruited into it, as well as NASA.
The Nazis actually extorted the US in order to have these scientists emigrate. They had the upper hand. They had technology that we wanted and the price they demanded was clemency for the scientists and positions for them in the MIC and large US corporations. Those scientists could have gone to Russia or another of our enemies instead (in fact, many did go elsewhere), so we did what the Nazis wanted because we didn’t want our enemies to get all the technology.
No, the Nazis did not extort the US with Project Paperclip. The history we have been taught is bogus, all of it war propaganda. You will have to work hard to learn more about what really happened.
I’m guessing that you don’t have the full picture, either, but that’s OK. Are you aware that the Nazis were working with extraterrestrials?
No one has the full picture. Yes, I have researched Germany’s Roswell, the Antarctic bases, Tony Rodriguez, and Eisenhower’s treaty with ETs. Though it is hard to uncover the truth, it is easier to know we’ve been lied to.
@CHICO, could you tell us more about ” the real death camps of WW2 run by the Allies after Germany surrendered.”
Are you coming from the point of view that WW2 was really a war on communism? Or are you coming from the point of view that WW2 was a war created by the Bank of England to once and for all destroy Germany – with Schact as a ‘mole’ planted by the BoE? Or something else?
Interestingly, much of the source information on “the real death camps” that I posted in my forum five years ago has been subsequently censored from the Internet by YouTube / Google. Most of it disappeared this summer (2019)! It’s horrifying to watch the real history being erased so that the official version, which is a lie, can remain standing unchallenged. The promise of the Internet, i.e. the free exchange of information, is rapidly being erased as well.
The following site is still somewhat intact and will give you an overview of what is being hidden from us:
http://chuckmaultsby.net/id107.html
I agree with you Chico. More Germans died after the war than during the war, soldiers and civilians. In the 1980s Canadian scholar James Bacque stumbled on documentary evidence that Eisenhower and his henchman Morganthau intentionally starved German prisoners of war, shot civilians who tried to bring them food, turned away Red Cross food packets. Bacque wrote “Other Losses: An Investigation into the Mass Deaths of German Prisoners at the Hands of the French and Americans after World War II.” Bacque is now in his 90s. This past summer he gave two interviews to Bonnie Faulkner on her Guns & Butter program. If you don’t know about this subject, it is your duty to at least listen to Part I of Bacque’s mesmerizing interview https://www.unz.com/audio/gunsbutter_lets-stop-torturing-germany-405/
Other than myself, you are one of the few who have knowledge of the truth about WW II, and its origins. I was not yet quite six years old when the contrived war began in Europe. Unlike most children even then, I had learned to read at what would now be considered high school level. I was an orphan who lived with my parents family members, primarily with my grandmother, a Spanish-American war widow. I still recall listening to the adults talking about how the war was contrived and how Pearl Harbor was not what we were being told, and neither was the war in Europe. There were actually radio newscasters who spoke of the deceptions and wrote about the truth. Some were murdered, others just were no longer heard from. I was eight when Pearl Harbor brought us into the war. I very quickly learned that speaking about clearly available evidence of truth was not a good plan. Some of the family had access to politicians who knew the truth, but made it clear that it was dangerous to be truthful, but keep in mind when the BS about how good and great our country is was being trumpeted, especially with what was being taught in the schools. History, as presented in school texts, is an almost perfect opposite of truth. Only trivial matters that were to be memorized and parroted back were accurate, the rest was nonsense.
WW2 was a far bigger false-flag psy-op than 9/11, which makes it even more critical if we are to understand how humanity is being played. WW1 is the same, and the Zionist-orchestrated Treaty of Versailles made WW2 inevitable, if only the powers of good could organize and rise up in Germany. That miracle happened, and the rest, as they say, is history, although totally rewritten by the sociopathic victors, and thus “an almost perfect opposite of truth”.
No need to imply that Caitlin is in some way retarded because of the things you think she hasn’t recognized yet.
Caitlin is far more aware than most, and a very inspiring writer, as well as being an eminently reasonable person who does her homework and is a quick study.
The part of “the bigger picture” which Caitlin sees (and you seem to know all about) is far from “small”.
I agree with you, Wardropper. Caitlin is exceptional, and I would never imply she is “retarded”.
a reliable test of the efficacy of a given establishment narrative is how quickly u think ur car would be damaged if u pasted a counter-narrative bumper sticker on back: like “veterans are agitprop victims, not heroes.”. here in arizona i’d say my car would remain intact for about an hour in a walmart parking lot.
Folks on the autism spectrum tend to not accept cognitive dissonance in their world and are thought of as odd because they do not. They want those kinds of things called out and rectified. I wonder if Julian is an aspie? I think I have a touch of it. Perhaps Caity does as well.
Ever since 9/11 the term of heroe is so overused. Everyone is a heroe…Not. Everyone gets a trophy….Not. Everyone is a winner….Not. We are growing a useless generation of entitled snowflakes. America is doomed.
Bravo Caitlin! I love your courage in attacking the phony God of the military. I would go a lot farther in deconstructing these “War Heroes”. These folks are actually criminals of the worst sort. The excuse that they “just didn’t know” what they were getting into does not hold water. They didn’t know that they were signing up to kill people? Oh, but someone told them it was for a good cause? Did they not have the responsibility to check that out before agreeing to commit mass murder? Wouldn’t it require some very comprehensive evidence to justify such a horrendous endeavor? Truly these were people of a moral stature so flimsy that they needed little persuasion to sign up for the atrocities they would later commit or abet.
In general, ignorance of the most basic standards of human decency is not an exculpating excuse for such a dereliction of the bottom line requirement for defining oneself as a responsible human being. If your culture told you a pack of lies turning you into a zombie puppet of it’s falsehoods, it is your duty as a human being to uncover these deceptions and begin to think and act in more decent ways. Caving in to Mafia Propaganda is not a cost free trip. Those who do so are buying themselves and the rest of us some very bad consequences.
after a friend of mine called put a Korean war veteran, who thought the Koreans owed him a lot, as no hero, my friend got called every dirty name in the book including puss by most of Amazon sellers. maybe there were some who agreed with my friend bu they mostly kept silent. that’s about the quality of the American intelligence and conscience.
called out, not called put. ugh.
yes, a human being, young or old, can make a mistake or misjudgement. what you do afterwards determines what you are. acknowledge or confess your mistake, and redeem yourself any way you can. that makes you a decent human being. if you don’t, what you did first was never a mistake but a crime, and if you continue to make excuses or try to justify your crime, your a coward, a liar, a moron, or all of the above, as well as a criminal.
How, or would you know? Sure, the germ war fare we unleashed on the Koreans was bad; but who are you to judge what Henry Kissinger calls, ” ignorant military to be used as pawns”? Human nature? Why the hell should anyone, ‘confess’, to you or anyone else?
i know a LOT of Koreans who lived through the time and are still alive to tell the truth????? confess to anyone you like, it doesn’t have to be to me personally. gees, did i cut too close to home for you????
Just yesterday a friend on FB posted Einstein’s remark that “there would be no wars in the world if the pawns refused to play.” This was my response:
This is why it’s so unhelpful for us to pretend that our troops are all heroes. Sadly, they are not. They are cowboys if they eagerly enlist. They are dupes if they have been propagandized into thinking it’s the right thing to do. They are military serfs if they have no viable alternative for economic survival. And they are victims if they return disabled.
Thank you, Caitlin. You are doing important work, and I am glad to support it.
I enlisted in the Marines, to get out of Chicago, and not live there for life. I thought I was serving my country, and did so, while we were not at war, nor fomenting one. At the end of my enlistment, in 79, Mr. Carter noted the Soviets were using both diplomacy and war, to defend their borders, and suggested “let’s give the Soviet’s their own Vietnam”, and went from training, clandestinely, to openly arming, training, and trafficking in opium, to fund the operation.
I left the Corps for that reason, knowing we would be in Afghanistan, when we’d finished using them, it was the natural way of things, called “blow-back”. I re-enlisted in 82, because we got a conservative government, I thought, and I was party to the “Multi-National Peace-keeping Force” that landed in Beirut, in summer of 82, and we truly did stop the invasion of the IDF, clearing the wreckage of the war waged, and re-establishing the City of Beirut, open to trade again. I worked shoulder to shoulder with soldiers from half a dozen Nations, including Syria, and we changed the paradigm.
I have never believed “embassy row” or “the Marine Barracks” which I personally safety inspected, were attacked by Iran, or terrorists, but find the words of the Lebanese, far more reasonable, reflecting the fact, Israel returned, several times, and was the primary enemy.
I ended up staying in for twenty precisely because such a few, carry all the water for the whole, it takes moral, principled leaders, to keep first principles first, and prevent the sort of acts, Edward Snowden exposed, as happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The beginning of “ISIS” was in 77, as we began arming Jihad, and the mujahideen began bringing down the choppers that were their most serious problems. It’s kind of like the inverse of “the little Dutch boy”, and the dike. Without his finger, a study could have been made of how dikes fail, describing in intricate detail, step by step, grain by grain, losing connection.
Once stopped, no process, not stopped, at some point, the process will continue despite any effort, there is a tipping point, point of no return, for any equivocal issue and wisdom suggests determining it, as a primary effort.
We could learn a bit more from history, if we bothered.
Semper Fidelis,
John McClain
GySgt, USMC, ret.
Vanceboro, NC, USA
Your direct experience is appreciated again, Sir.
I am hopeful that the Yemeni Killer Drones might also help bring some temporary peace to the Mideast. “Blowback”.
I agree about who blows things up in Lebanon. Dangerous to do that, now.
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/09/glass-house-dwellers-house-of-saud-has.html
Thank you for this information. My heart broke a little with the Jimmy Carter quote. Still naive at 65.
I am a Navy Vietnam veteran, that enlisted due to being a propagandized youth, of which you speak of very clearly. Since then I have educated myself on that war and the imperialistic war machine and have become a member of Veterans for Peace and wave my Veterans for Peace flag on a busy intersection almost every Saturday morning. But I am still perplexed for a response to people when they say “Thank you for your service.” It seems like an opportune time to sow a seed of enlightenment for people but I have not figured out a way to do that. Any ideas!
“Thank you for being *responsible*.”
—
Which means to be an informed citizen and to hold your politicians accountable.
—
Veterans went to war “in your name”. People cannot be *irresponsible*. They must be informed and choose their politicians wisely.
Mike, you are a friend of mine. you inspire hope, respect, and love for humanity. we should keep trying to reach those who can’t break out of the prison of conscience on their own. i’m sure i have my own prison in other matters…
Mike wrote: “But I am still perplexed for a response to people when they say “Thank you for your service.” It seems like an opportune time to sow a seed of enlightenment for people but I have not figured out a way to do that. Any ideas!”
.
A possible answer:
.
“Thank you, and please support our troops, call your representative to help bring them home.”
.
If they ask why, you can explain in more detail, for example:
.
“We enlisted to defend our country. No one is invading America. Until then, please support our troops in foreign wars and help bring them home.”
.
—
.
Seen on the street:
.
Support Our Troops
BRING THEM HOME NOW
.
https://media.salon.com/2003/03/the_billboard_bush_cant_see.jpg
“JMG”; Hey, somebody who writes about “the long decline” has those initials and a blog, and a different religion than most.
Maybe you are referring to another JMG, John Michael Greer, author of “The Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial Age”, and other books. I didn’t know him, but it seems interesting that he writes about ecology, spirituality, and the future of society.
Interesting question. How to respond to “thank you for your service”. That’s really hard. Any deviation from the cultural norm will probably not land well. Maybe:
“thanks, but I regret it now.” Or,
“thanks, but I wish I’d known what I would be serving.” Or,
“thanks, but I didn’t serve what I thought.” Or,
“thanks, but I hope no one else serves that way again.” Or,
“thanks, but we need to think harder about what we serve.”
Thanks for becoming a member of Veterans for Peace.
I smile as I say “Thank you for your service Mike – on that busy intersection!”
Thanks, very clever!
It’s complicated. I would suggest talking with the older ones first, or walking a mile in their shoes. They can hold their own and know more than you think, many of them anyway.
there are many excuses for committing crimes. not every “job” is justified, though.
Just a couple of refs for all:
https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html
https://www.globalresearch.ca/fall-1941-pearl-harbor-and-the-wars-of-corporate-america/28159
Now your at the airport spitting on returning veterans! I don’t think anyone has ever thrown themselves on a grenade to save the imperial war machine. They do it for their buddies. Heroism is intrepidity, valor, prowess, gallantry, bravery, courage, daring, fortitude.
What you address is the military’s primary lesson learned from the Vietnam war — unit cohesion. At that time, one-off men were flown into a brigade or units were broken up at will. The military learned that such cavalier treatment of soldierly bonding greatly undermined the war effort, and in part contributed to the widespread fragging in Vietnam.
Going forward, the military learned to capitalize on the human nature of peer support. They institutionalized the group solidarity angle (e.g., always keep the unit together as a team). The military now gets soldiers to fight for the imperial war machine using psychological procedures based 100% on manipulating the fact that people will “do it for their buddies.”
I agree whole heatedly with this article.
Also, you make an important point re: the military manipulating the soldiers need for group cohesion & identity. Ultimately soldiers fight for each other.
Saying ALL military persons are “heroes ” is wrong on so many levels.
Heroism is real, it’s essential characteristic is self sacrifice. It is honoured because it is quite rare.
When all are heroes, none are heroes: an injustice to that small minority who do embody the meaning of the word “heroism”.
‘I couldn’t stop crying’: Soldier relives ‘collateral murder’ video
.
The US Army Asked Twitter How Service Has Impacted People. The Answers Were Gut-Wrenching. – Caitlin Johnstone
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/05/25/the-us-army-asked-twitter-how-service-has-impacted-people-the-answers-were-gut-wrenching/
David Swanson has a good article summarizing why World War Two wasn’t a good war either:
http://davidswanson.org/world-war-two-was-not-a-just-war/
This is a more recent statement from him on the same topic:
https://worldbeyondwar.org/can-world-war-ii-say-me-too/
Especially when you consider that guys like Rockefeller, Henry Ford and Prescott Bush along with others on Wall St. were financing the Nazis and helping them build up their war machine.
Bravo, extremely courageous. As for manufacturing consent, 9/11 is the big one. You might route your readers to https://www.ae911truth.org/ . 9/11 led to permanent war, middle class debt, and the theft of American freedoms due to the secrecy provisions of the Patriot Act. The fact that it was a covered-up false flag operation, is unknown by many in the USA, but I figure people like Bernie know. Your article also undermines your favorite and mine Tulsi’s candidacy. Bur Truth is Truth. Honesty often conflicts with Loyalty, unfortunately.
I doubt that Bernie knows, but Dick Cheney for sure does! He’s given at least 3 vastly different versions of exactly where he was between 9 and 10am on that morning. Doesn’t EVERYONE remember where they were that day?
Joseph Mirzoeff wrote: “Your article also undermines your favorite and mine Tulsi’s candidacy. Bur Truth is Truth. Honesty often conflicts with Loyalty, unfortunately.”
.
Naturally each person is unique but, in fact, Caitlin and Tulsi have many important views in common.
.
Caitlin’s point of view:
.
“What they went through was a horrible tragedy that nobody should ever have to go through, not a glorious thing that more people should aspire to enlist into. . . .
.
“I’m not saying to be mean to veterans, and I’m not saying veterans are bad people, in fact, one of the most heinous injustices about these corporate wars is that they turn many of our finest and bravest young people toward the very most toxic and pernicious ends possible. Many of them sincerely enlisted due to an impulse to help make the world a better place; it’s the same impulse which led Julian Assange to set up a leaking outlet to help expose unaccountable power structures, the only difference is that Assange saw clearly through the fog of propaganda and they did not. But the reverence and fairy tales have got to go.
.
“There are no war heroes. There are only war victims. It’s time to grow up and stop pretending otherwise.”
.
— Caitlin Johnstone
.
And Tulsi’s point of view:
.
“It’s Time To Bring Our Troops Home . . .
.
“These are men and women of all ages who are willing to put their lives on the line for our country. Incredible, incredible people who are putting service above self. They are why it’s so important, they are why it’s critical that we honor their service, that we honor their great sacrifice by making sure that they are only sent on missions that serve the interest of the American people, that keep us safe. That we end these regime change wars that have proven so costly in so many ways. . . .
.
“I will continue to do all that I can, I will continue to do everything I possibly can to bring them home as safely and quickly as possible, and to bring about this change in our foreign policy so that our troops are not continously being sent off to fight in these regime change wars, that the missions that they are sent on are truly worthy of the great sacrifices that they and their families are making.”
.
— US Army Major Tulsi Gabbard
.
It’s Time To Bring Our Troops Home #MemorialDay — Tulsi Gabbard
I couldn’t agree more with Ms. Johnstone’s observations regarding Afghanistan veteran Dan Crenshaw. Kurt Vonnegut in his last book, ‘A Man without a Country’, which was a scathing indictment against the GW Bush regime’s invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan said “unlike in WWII where there was actual ‘serving your country’ fighting the Germans and Japanese, the American soldiers who have invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan are little more than pawns, or toy soldiers for American plutocrats, business elite and imperialists.” Spot on! It is worth mentioning that Vonnegut served and fought in WWII, and was a prisoner of war in Dresden at the time the allies totally, completely destroyed the city: a city which has zero military or strategic value, had no German military based there, and was considered before this heinous war crime bombing instigated by Churchill to be a safe haven city of sick, wounded seeking safety. There is NOTHING honourable in serving in the Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria wars: these are illegal wars of aggression in violation of the U.N. Charter which states ‘no country shall aggressively attack, invade and occupy another sovereign nation’. Dan Crenshaw is a cynical, complete asshole to self-righteously quip that “we attack them over there so they don’t attack us here”: since when was Iraq or Afghanistan a threat to the USA? Never was, never will be. Crenshaw just recites typical bullshit republican talking points here. What a pathetic, lying sack of shit that guy is.
Just a point – Dresden was not completely destroyed. ‘Only’ the old part was. The major built up area surrounding that part was untouched, how I don’t know. Anyone can visit now and see the old buildings/houses built before WW2 still there.
What an odd comment: “Only the old part” was destroyed? That ‘old part’ was the city centre of Dresden, its historic and cultural center. It resulted in 25,000 deaths, destroyed the Frauen Kirche, Semperoper, and the other famous historic cultural monuments. Why would anyone want to travel to Dresden to visit the outskirts of Dresden!? Stop smoking crack before making comments, just a suggestion.
Well, I’ll be the only dissenting opinion, it appears.
I agree with this article, and I’m aware of the facts and stories behind it.
But killing Taliban and ISIS has been a good thing for the people affected, and for the world in general. Read some of the harrowing eyewitness accounts of what they did to their own people and then ask if violence is sometimes necessary. Eyes wide open.
You seem to have conveniently overlooked the fact that ISIS was, and has been generously supported by the US military and CIA in Syria–right up to this day in fact in Idlib governate, the last remaining pocket of resistance. So, not sure if your ‘eyes are as wide open’ as you disingenuously claim.
every time i think i have some event figured out, i discover that there’s another layer below the truth which changes everything. I can tell you that there is usually many more layers that few will ever see.
Utter nonsense.
Both the Taliban and ISIS have spawned from US creations.
The first one in Afghanistan to destabilise the socialist Afghan government and entrap its Soviet support, the second to destabilise and overthrow the Syrian government.
The US created, funded, trained and provides succor to ISIS (White Helmets / Black Hearts and all that..). And continues to do so to this day.
“But killing Taliban and ISIS has been a good thing for the people affected, and for the world in general”
—
You are irresponsible if you believe that. How could you be so uninformed?
Educate yourself !
—
Over a million people have been displaced in Afghanistan, thousands of civilians have been killed.
When we some day leave Afghanistan the drug lords will be in charge until the Taliban scorch their fields.
We have created a narco state in Afghanistan, very profitable for some, including our own CIA.
—
It is clear that you don’t read, so this is an effort in vain, but here:
The Making of a Narco State
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/afghanistan-the-making-of-a-narco-state-48475/
Exactly, Caitlin, there are no heroes anymore, only war victims! Most of them come home broken and are left to rot , suffering unimaginable pain, physical and emotional, for anyone not having had the experience impossible to comprehend, including the politicians who sent them to those far away countries. We live on a tiny planet, we are all human beings, brothers and sisters, we are connected, life is sacred, if we kill another human being, we kill a part of ourselves, we destroy the essence of what it means to be human. We can say collectively “NO” to this insanity of fighting wars which ultimately destroy our very own planet.
It seems to me that Caitlin has not heard that the USA allowed the attack on Hawaii in order to have a reason to join WW11. Then the USA joined WW11(late in the war) in order to take the lions’ share of the spoils!
If you don’t know the real history about WWII then you won’t know how to properly answer people who ask “But Caitlin!” “What about World War Two veterans?”
I’m a lawyer. When I started to excavate the hidden facts about WWII and reached the “sacrosanct” Nuremberg Trials I was shocked. Most of the defendants were tortured. It got to be so bad that a special Simpson Army Commission was set up to investigate, led by American Judge Edward van Roden, who reported the various methods used to extract confessions. Read his statement here: http://www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/Dachau/VanRoden1948.html
The defendants were tried with crimes against humanity, an offense not in existence at the time, thereby violating our ex post facto laws. Centuries of customs creating logical rules of evidence were thrown out the door, such as, hundreds if not thousands of affidavits from revengeful civilians were relied on as “proof” of crimes although no lawyer can cross-examine a piece of paper. Defendant Oswald Pohl was compelled against his will to testify against another defendant when feces were smeared on his face.
FDR just wanted to execute German officers but it was Stalin who insisted on holding trials – show trials! Indeed, the Soviet judge who sat at Nuremberg (judges came from each Allied country) had previously presided over some of the most notorious of the Stalin show trials of the 1930s. .
How many of you know that more Germans died after the war than during the war? Dig deep and you’ll learn the Official Narrative of World War II is a big fat lie and that lie still HEAVILY affects and influences politics and policy today.
Right-On, Sister, Colleen!
Superb Caitlin. In the UK we have ‘Help for Hero’s’ – an organisation that says that ALL veterens are patriots fighting for the freedom of the world. They hang on the coat-tails of my fathers generation who fought the Nazis. I hate it. Modern aid armies are always at the risk of becoming mercenaries – and that’s what the US military is.
Nice One. But, not even WW2, the same group of sociopaths that engineered that war, are still at it without having ever missed a heart beat. Being able to pass a DNA test, if in fact any of these sociopaths were ever subjected to one, would not prove them human. Like the story of a duck, if it acts like a lizard, it is, and that’s a bad thing to say NB about a lizard.
While many soldiers may have performed heroic acts (saving and protecting colleagues, civilians, etc.) during war, it really does seem inappropriate to say “thank you” to someone for choosing to participate in a war. Instead, I say, “I’m so sorry you went through that,” although not everyone thinks it is an appropriate thing to say. It’s the best I can come up with.
When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or anything else, you are being violent, do you see why it is violent? because you are separating yourself from the rest of Mankind . When you separate yourself by believe by nationality by tradition it breeds violence . So a human who is seeking to understand violence does not to any country ,to any religion to any political party or partial system ,he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind. KRISHNAMURTI
Caitlin…an outstanding post!
Spot on, the viewpoint few dare to air. What if, as John Lennon posited, war was declared and nobody turned up? What if parents across the western empire managed to dissuade their children from signing up? Nobody can wage war without service personnel. Unfortunately for many young people joining the military is the only way out of poverty and aimlessness. As long as that persists and there are insufficient productive jobs these youngsters will always be the willing, propagandised source of supply for the psychopathic war junkies. If I hear once more, “Thank you for your service” in yet another American film or TV series I think I may well have apoplexy. It’s actually a cynical manipulation of group think.
Well said. I feel the same. The reason I have always refused to visit the USA is because of what it did in Vietnam. The rage in me against indiscriminate murder has never dimmed. It made me hate America – but NOT Americans, in the same way I loath Israel, but not Israeli’s.
My father was in WWII, stationed in England with the Army Air Corps (as it was then called). He was a navigator in a plane that flew supplies behind German lines in France and dropped them off for the Resistance. He participated in D-Day, towing gliders over the English Channel. But by the time I knew him, he was a mean and violent man who beat us kids up and became an alcoholic, even though he was a professional man, the first in his whole working class family to go to college. I was surprised to learn recently from one of my brothers, who had it from my Dad’s older brother, that before he went to war, my Dad was a friendly, happy person who played the guitar to entertain his family and friends. I cannot imagine the man I later knew is the same one described by my uncle. War destroys young people and that destruction continues into the future as I know all too well.
Ms Johnstone as I read this article of yours I though back to my young years watching ” Victory at Sea ” which aired first every Saturday morning on TV right after the test pattern. Talk about indoctrination! After finishing your article I went to my FFF archives so I could post this here:
Some years ago I gave my expression to my own feeling – anti-patriotic feeling, it will doubtless be called – in a somewhat startling way. It was at the time of the second Afghan war, when, in pursuance of what were thought to be “our interests,” we were invading Afghanistan. News had come that some of our troops were in danger. At the Athenæum Club a well-known military man – then a captain but now a general – drew my attention to a telegram containing this news, and read it to me in a manner implying the belief that I should share his anxiety. I astounded him by replying – “When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves.”– Herbert Spencer, Facts and Comments [1902]
Brilliant! Thank you! I have been booed in public forums many times over the years for putting forth these exact same sentiments.
As for WWII, hands down, “The Good War” is the war most lied about. Fake news? Try fake history. Extreme censorship and propaganda have memory-holed everything from the Nuremberg show trials to the Eisenhower death camps to Churchill’s drunken lust for barbaric carnage.
With all due respect, I’d bet my entire life savings that few readers of this blog have any idea about the true history of WWII. For a look behind the curtain, for starters read Hellstorm by Thomas Goodrich.
I’ll take your life savings…. see my post below exposing more truth about WW2. There’s even more if you dig deep.
Stan Mrak – I *had read* what you wrote below — and saw that yes, you do have a clue. That is great — and exceptional for most people.
However, based on what you wrote, it was clear to me that there are still layers that you obviously are not aware of. For starters, read Hellstorm.
Yes, there’s much more, but i left out the really good stuff in deference to the closed-minded readers.
I went and took a look at Goodrich’s book, and noticed that the subtitle, “The Death of Nazi Germany” is incorrect, or at least misleading — The Nazi movement did not die, and is still active today. Thousands of Nazi scientists were brought over after the war and were used to launch NASA and others were placed in executive positions in many other major government agencies and private corporations.They never officially disavowed their dogmas and never pledged allegence to the USA. As the ice in Antarctica continues to melt, more secrets will be revealed.
You might be interested in Jim Marrs’ book, “The Rise of the Fourth Reich” which documents what the Nazis have been up to since WW2.
Among your best and most courageous posts. I tire of the obligatory “thanks for your service” that begins media interviews of veterans. Critics of a mercenary military will continue to be smeared and despised, but I say thanks to them as well for their service, Julian Assange included.
This article goes on a list of favorites from you.
However:
“Rather, they should be cared for because they spent time in a highly traumatic environment which sends home many highly traumatized people who will need a lot of help in order to reintegrate into society in a healthy way. What they went through was a horrible tragedy that nobody should ever have to go through, not a glorious thing that more people should aspire to enlist into.”
None of that reach for justification is necessary; to take care of their injuries and trauma merely fulfills an employment contract. That’s all the reason needed.
their employers on wall street simply do not want to turn the “traumatized” seasoned killers into their enemy by neglecting or abandoning them. rather, the wall street masters want to keep them on their side against any domestic rebellion. many returning war veterans are aggressively recruited and employed by the police and corporate security. we the 99% again pay for our masters’ security against us.
My grandmother was a nurse during WWI.
—
Part of her tour was in the terminal case ward.
—
She had never spoken about her experience in my presence.
My mother warned me off not to ask her about it as, “it had really disturbed her”.
—
One can only imagine what she had dealt with.
—
But one day, after she had long since deteriorated into
alzheimer’s, my grandmother said, “if they were stupid enough to
go over there, they got what they deserved”.
—
We chalked it up to the alzheimer’s, but I have always wondered
how much it reflected her deepest true feelings. Or was it just
an echo of one of the many moments of bitter, gripping anxiety she
had had to deal with.
—
Regardless, I am certain she would never have said anything that might encourage one of our present day young people to give themselves up to folly.
It was David Lloyd-George who coined the phrase ‘A country fit for heroes’ in 1918, to welcome home the victors of WWI. The victors wrote the history and dictated the treaties but the victors were not the returning heroes, and those treaties created the conditions which generated WWII.
My grandfather returned from WWI: my father from WWII. My father joined up on September 2nd 1939 and was discharged in February 1946. Through most of the intervening time he was operational in a Spitfire, including the Battle of Britain. A hero. But he couldn’t handle peacetime Britain and the cancer which killed him in 1977 was a blessed release for him and his family.
The end of WWII was an opportunity to create the conditions, the institutions and the culture for peace. But those have been subverted and abandoned. So we have to continually recall David Lloyd-George’s phrase in order to justify mankind’s complete inability to create and manage peace.
My father served from 1936 to the end of 1945 in the Royal Navy including the Arctic Convoys. He had no illusions about war, and hated it but fought fascism. He was a very easy-going man most of the time but I can remember him in tears screaming at the TV sometime in the 60’s at pictures of B52’s raining down bombs on Vietnam. He’d been through it and knew what it did to people. Those who glorify war are stupid.
Decoration Day as it was originally designated to decorate graves, dating back to the Civil War.
It was coopted my the MIC and friends in 1971 and renamed Memorial Day. Honoring military participants, living or dead.
https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/memorial-day-history
Armistice Day as it was originally named after the end of WW-I ( a.k.a. Remembrance Day in some Countries ), again, coopted by the military hawks, got papered over and renamed Veterans Day in 1954.
https://www.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.asp
With 300 and some other days, available on the calendar, you’d think the US could have picked other days to celebrate their war mongering.
Yes, I share Major General Smedley’s short but vitally important work all the time with those who think the wars this nation has been involved in have been for reasons of “spreading Democracy” and freedom. I cringe, particularly since the most obvious and monumental false flag in late summer of 2001 launched the fraudulent war on terror, when people blurt out “thank you for your service” when they see some one in military uniform.
We should be careful, however, because most of them join because they simply don’t know any better. Tulsi Gabbard volunteered for fight for what she thought was an honorable cause. Even now, she may not realize it was a false flag. But, secretly, I hope she is not saying that because she knows it would be death figuratively (hopefully not literally) to her days in politics.
Thanks.
Wouldn’t change a comma.
Truly a brilliant post, Caitlin. I agree with SAMINOREGON. This has needed to be said for a long, long time. At best, vets are victims. The brainwashing and flag-draping is shameless, but very effective.
if you are old enough to enlist, you’re no victim. if you redeem yourself after commiting crimes, you’re human.
Remember the reaction of thw political Elite when Donito Assolini said that McWar was NOT a hero? Caitlin, you should re-print one of your fine articles about the funeral service for John McWar — the one where all the poltical Elite honored the great mass-murderer. If only the Elite sitting in the church would remove their masks to reveal their rotten inner selves.
ick. this is an awful post.
Seems like a great post to me!
pointing our others’ crimes is easy. others pointing out your crimes is usually “awful”.
My cousin enlisted in the marines. My father told him not to. He came back a shell of his former self. He told my father that he was right and that he never should have enlisted. We didn’t see him as a hero but as someone who was chewed up and spit out by the war machine.
what has he done to redeem himself since?
Wiki/Business_Plot > in 1933, US bankers approached Major General Smedley Butler, USMC to be military dictator after the overthrow of FDR. Butler exposed them, but there were no trials.
“War is a Racket” > Butler’s book on US imperialism, 1935. Died under mysterious circumstances 1940.
Wiki/Business_Plot > in 1933, US bankers approached Major General Smedley Butler, USMC to be military dictator after the overthrow of FDR. Butler exposed them, but there were no trials.
“War is a Racket” > Butler’s book on US imperialism, 1935
why no trial? wall street parasites do NOT want to turn the seasoned killers into their enemy. that’s why the killers are called “heroes” by presstitutes on wall street’s payroll.
Sorry, but WW2 wasn’t any different. We were just more naive, and the victors write the history books, don’t they? We provoked Japan with blockades and “allowed” Pearl Harbor to happen so we’d have an excuse to go to war; when you think about it, that idea makes perfect sense. American corporations and banks (including Grandpa Bush’s) were helping finance the Nazis before the war — and even during it. After the war, we recruited thousands of Nazi scientists, forgave them their crimes, and used them to help start up NASA. (Werner von Braun was part of the SS). We didn’t care about their loyalties; we just wanted their brainpower, no matter what the cost. Of course, WW2 vets couldn’t know all this, but it was a time of innocence.
most avoid confronting the inconvenient truth, until they have to and until they benefit from own about-face.
Caitlin is 100% right. War is about geo-strategic “turf” just like drug dealers on street corners. It is about controlling the payments system and the global reserve currency. It is not about humanitarian concern for justice. Soldiers are soldiers, regardless of whether they wear a uniform or not. Only when we stop competing for markets will war have a chance to end.
Your comments about the use of the word hero may offend. I can understand such a response. Your major point about the brutality, inanity and killing of innocent victims prompted by ill-willed governments is right on point. Clearly, soldiers of any nation will lose eyes, ears, legs, etc, and their life. That is what happens when you go to war. The men, women, children and entire cultures that are decimated by war mongers is the crime. Repeatedly by this nation, and likely to continue.
Thank you for this, Caitlin. It’s something that has needed to be said for way too long.
“Hero” is polite. “Sucker” is rude. Don’t be rude to guys who got conned into killing gooks somewhere.
Maybe they have nightmares. Don’t make them think about it. Just be nice.
Don’t let them start talking about it. It’s bad for them.
There; all better, now!
“Hero” is not polite if it’s a lie. On this topic, it usually is.
“Victim” should be acceptable, even if they are technically responsible for their own victimhood.
I did not intend to make a simple statement, but to gently mock the societal position that pretending to be nice by pleasantly lying is the best approach.
I grew up on military bases during Vietnam, and was warned by young Marines “don’t believe what they say”.
Dad was a “lifer”.
They retired him. He died last year.