1) “In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby
killers, in shame and humiliation. It isn’t happening now, but I will
tell you, there has never been an [American] army as violent and
murderous as our army has been in Iraq.” —Seymour Hersh
2) “I haven't seen American Sniper, but correct me if I'm wrong: An
occupier mows down faceless Iraqis but the real victim is his anguished
soul.” – Max Blumenthal
3) “Put a man in uniform, preferably a white man, give him a gun, and
Americans will worship him. It is a particularly childish trait, of a
childlike culture, that insists on anointing all active military members
and police officers as ‘heroes.’ The rhetorical sloppiness and
intellectual shallowness of affixing such a reverent label to everyone in
the military or law enforcement betrays a frightening cultural streak of
nationalism, chauvinism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism, but it
also makes honest and serious conversations necessary for the maintenance
and enhancement of a fragile democracy nearly impossible….” -- David
Masciotra at Salon
4) “American fighters of the Pacific War were not heroes. The desperation
of island combat included exchanged barbarities of which no one would
willingly speak for a generation. On the American side, there were foul
racism, vengeful refusals to take prisoners, a generalized brutality that
extended to a savage air war.” —James Carrollin the Boston Globe
5) “…(P)erhaps some readers will understand why my friends and I rip
yellow ribbon ‘support the troops’ magnets off of cars or wherever people
have affixed them. By ripping off these ribbons, we find a way to deal
with our guilt, as though with each ribbon swiped we take back a life
that was taken by this senseless war started by our senseless president
and those who support him.
I will never say, ‘support the troops.’ I don’t believe in the validity
of that statement. People say, ‘I don’t support the war, I support the
troops’ as though you can actually separate the two. You cannot; the
troops are a part of the war, they have become the war and there is no
valid dissection of the two. Other people shout with glaring eyes that we
should give up our politics, give up our political affiliations in favor
of ‘just supporting the troops.’ I wish everything were that easy.”
—Thomas Naughton at the Daily Collegian
6) "Forget bringing the troops home from Iraq. We need to get the troops
home from World War II. Can anybody tell me why, in 2009, we still have
more than sixty thousand troops in Germany and thirty thousand in Japan?
At some point, these people are going to have to learn to rape
themselves." – Bill Maher
7) “My uncle killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were
cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren’t heroes. And invaders r
worse.”— Michael Moore
8) “What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there’s
not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier
nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in
Iraq….They target and kill journalists … uh, from other countries,
particularly Arab countries like Al -, like Arab news services like Al-
Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios
with impunity….” — Newspaper Guild President Linda Foley
9) “Democrat flaks jump on this like ducks on a June-bug, and in the
process themselves reproduce the sick militarism of this culture that
automatically valorizes anyone who wears a uniform. How dare you insult a
soldier! Like its some sacred calling instead of an imperial employment
program steeped in the culture of machismo and misogyny.(And you can gasp
as theatrically as you want… I spent more than two decades wearing a
uniform… that is exactly what it is.)” —Stan Goff at the Huffington Post
10) “Is your enemy the state?
Befriend a recruiter and keep your friends close and your enemies closer!
…
This campaign is not about (badgering?) recruiters. It is solely about
making friends and finding out more about the military that you don’t
trust…
Actions to take:…
Prank-call a recruiter to schedule appointments on the other side of
town.
Ask a recruiter to pick you up and then tell them you’re hungry.
Ask a recruiter to take you out to eat.” — A flier from Iraq Vets Against
the War
11) “THE United States now has a mercenary army. To be sure, our soldiers
are hired from within the citizenry, unlike the hated Hessians whom
George III recruited to fight against the American Revolutionaries. But
like those Hessians, today’s volunteers sign up for some mighty dangerous
work largely for wages and benefits….” —David M. Kennedy in the New York
Times
12) “You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard
and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you,
you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” —John Kerry
13) “If a young fella has an option of having a decent career or joining
the army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in
Iraq.” —Charles Rangel
14) “For someone who was responsible for, again, nobody knows, but a
certain amount of death of innocent people as John McCain was, the time
spent in a North Vietnamese prison where he claims to have been tortured
was probably time spent that a Catholic priest, for example, would find
completely understandable. It’s called doing penance, John. You don’t
bomb and kill people for no reason, even when corporate America or your
daddy, who was the supreme commander of Southeast Asian forces, South
Pacific forces, orders you to do it. You can’t just take orders, we
decided that at Nuremberg. So, if you suffered, I am sorry for your
suffering, I truly am, in and of itself, but John-John-John, did you
think about the suffering of the people you bombed and strafed? They were
civilians, you know.” —Mike Malloy
15) “I’m putting my life at risk, literally! And if I slipped… You never
know. And I think about it. I think about my family and I’m like, wow,
this is like being a police officer or something, in war or something.”
—Kanye West
16) “(It’s) very difficult to talk about the war dead and the fallen
without invoking valor, without invoking the words ‘heroes.’ I feel …
uncomfortable about the word hero because it seems to me that it is so
rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war.” —Chris Hayes
17) “Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they
killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” —John Murtha smears the troops
on Haditha
18) “The recent shootings at Ft. Hood and the resignation of top Foreign
Service officer Matthew Hoh demonstrate how even our military officers
are opposed to US strategy in Afghanistan.” —Code Pink
19) "A lot of (Kyle's) stories when he was back home in Texas, a lot of
his own personal opinions about what he was doing in Iraq, how he viewed
Iraqis. Some of what people have described as his racist tendencies
towards Iraqis and Muslims when he was going on some of these, you know,
killing sprees in Iraq on assignment. So I think there are issues... When
he was involved in his -- on assignments in terms of what he was doing. A
lot of the description that has come out from his book and some of the
terminology that he has used, people have described as racist." --
MSNBC's Ayman Mohyeldin
20) “Real freedom will come when [U.S.] soldiers in Iraq turn their guns
on their superiors.” — Warren County Community College adjunct English
professor, John Daly
21) “I don’t want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the
fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don’t,
then you’ve got, the Army, Iraq, I don’t know, something like that. It’s,
it’s not as bright. So, that’s my little commercial for that.” —Stephen
King
22) “Through every Abu aib and Haditha, through every rape and murder,
the American public has indulged those in uniform….We pay the soldiers a
decent wage, take care of their families, provide them with housing and
medical care and vast social support systems and ship obscene amenities
into the war zone for them, we support them in every possible way, and
their attitude is that we should in addition roll over and play dead,
defer to the military and the generals and let them fight their war, and
give up our rights and responsibilities to speak up because they are
above society?…[T]he recent NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the
price we pay for a mercenary — oops sorry, volunteer — force that thinks
it is doing the dirty work.” —Washington Post blogger, William Arkin
23) “I think Bowe Bergdahl, if he deserted, is a hero – I think
throughout history we should build monuments to the unknown deserters.” –
Bill Ayers
24) “Do our government’s poorly paid contract killers deserve our
‘support’ for blindly following orders?” —Ted Rall
25) “For those of you who do, as a matter of principle, oppose war in any
form, the idea of supporting a conscientious objector who’s already been
inducted [and] in his combat service in Iraq might have a certain appeal.
But let me ask you this: Would you render the same support to someone who
hadn’t conscientiously objected, but rather instead rolled a grenade
under their line officer in order to neutralize the combat capacity of
their unit?”
Later, in a question-and-answer period, Churchill was asked whether the
trauma “fragging” inflicts on that officer’s family back home should be
considered, he responded: “How do you feel about Adolf Eichmann’s
family?” — From Ward Churchill via WorldNetDaily
Source:
http://bit.ly/1ziHeBY
--
"Next question: Why hasn’t Obama ordered the Marine commandant at
Guantanamo Bay to stop providing an Islamic diet, prayer beads, prayer
rugs, and Korans to prisoners affiliated with al Qaeda, ISIL and other
terrorist groups if they’re not Islamic?" (Jan LaRue:
http://bit.ly/1ucU6Zp)
"Never underestimate the willingness of white progressives to be offended
on behalf of people who aren’t and to impose their will on those who
didn’t ask for it." (Derek Hunter)
"The term civil rights has unfortunately become a code phrase for the
left. Civil rights used to be about giving people the same rights that
others had – in the case of blacks, the right to vote, use public
accommodations, and be treated the same for job and school applications.
Now it means something completely different. Now civil rights is about
giving special rights to certain groups, while at the same time taking
away rights from everyone else." (Pedro Gonzales)