Raed Jarrar discussing the SOFA/WA – Just World News with Helena Cobban

As you think of the relief for Iraqi as they can finally anticipate a time when they see the back of America’s invasion force, think of all those Americans who heroically volunteered to protect the nation at great peril while the mass majority only worried about aquiring cheap gas to fill-er-up their SUVs. There scared souls will live with the Iraq war as so many live with their Vietnam War. Because of what their Commander-and-Chief ordered them to do it and how the Joint Chief ordered them to do it, they will be victims of their war forever– unless they died and left widows and orphans behind.
Below are two articles from WASHPOST that surprised me and my responses:
WHY A USAF INTEL OFFICER HAS NO RIGHT TO FEEL SORRY FOR HIMSELF….
In a WASHPOST oped Mathew Alexander, ex-USAF inel interrogator feels “still tortured by what I saw.” Ah, Matt, but a lot of Iraqis were tortured by what YOU DID and a lot of Americans died based on what you said. So bear responsibility, not self-pity:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802242_pf.html
In medicine there is a dictum: ABOVE ALL DO NO HARM. This makes us NOT intervene in the face of suffering and death for fear we may add to it. No, we do not pile on thinking that we are heroes and heroes can do no wrong a la Wolfowitz (who at least, unlike Rumsfeld, did honest hubris wrong), inflicting more suffering and death than there was just so that we not feel helpless after 9/11. Mr. Alexander went into Iraq intel blind, language deaf and culture dumb claiming to be an intel officer!
I honor his heroic devotion in those times when a few volunteer to risk life and limb for country– all putting their familes at risk, for now they are on average five years older than in the Vietnam draft– but that does not free them to break down Iraqi the doors of Iraqi homes at night, ransak houses and beat up the men in the house, taking them away for God knows how long (to Abu Graib perhaps?), leaving their families helpless and hopeless at best. All through the worst of Saddam, Iraq’s best and brightest “carried on.” We managed to make them all– 4 million of them– into refugees by fulfilling Zarqawi’s dream with our violent policies: sectarian fighting to the death. I honor you, Mr Alexander for your work in the Balkans, for I know personally what you did. But I decry your work in Iraq for there too I know personally what you did. Join me in crying for the dead and maimed instead of for yourself. Maybe we both should set ourselves on fire like South Vietnam’s “bar–b-cue monks” to state clearly our protest of the criminality of the Bush Administration:”this will not stand.” As a survivor of 9/11 I wonder if I earned my good fortune, having failed in stopping you and your mediocre intel teams from doing so much harm. We who failed deserve to die like those heroes who tried without daring to question the criminally negligent commander-and-chief that sent them in to kill more in fear than in purpose. I pity you and us all. Rather than cry let us be good and honest scientists trying to understand how we did so much harm so that next time we intervene it is knowing that we do no harm, but good instead. We can’t blame Zarqawi, for we made his dream a sick reality AFTER he died.
…TO WHY THE JOINT CHIEFS HAVE NO RIGHT TO JUDGE OBAMA…
The WASHPOST today carries a story on how the Joint Chiefs of Staff of GW Bush deem Obama a far more reasonable and realistic Commander and Chief than Bush– ALL WITHOUT OBAMA EVER HAVING TAKEN OFFICE– based on his accommodating words to them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/29/AR2008112901912.html
Yet it is hard to imagine these parrots on Rumsfeld’s shoulder judging anyone. President Obama will have to hold them accountable for the fate that befell out “stabbed in the back” brave volunteer hero moms and dad that took the absurd commands given them and did as best they could intel blind, language deaf and culture dumb….Now they leave military service BROKE and we should think this Christmas about what we owe them.
Below is my response– rather emotional for reasons you can surely understand:
In the military field we had two kinds of officers: ON ONE SIDE, the heroes who had enough and quit and the heroes who are still heroes because they don’t know how to be anything else; ON THE OTHER SIDE, we have liars and sycophants. I have been postponing appointments to meet the great military scholar Col. Andrew Bracevich (ret.) at Boston University because his son died in Iraq and mine didn’t even serve, like most Americans who only hoped for cheap oil to fill-er-up their SUVs. To do our part, my son and I both desperately tried to bring the boys home with honor and alive– but I weep and get suicidal, realizing that we failed. Thus we carry on our souls the pain of 4000 sets of families, including widows and orphans, all victims of this Bush-it Iraq war run by the whores in the Pentagon. As a survivor of 9/11 and of half a century of Communism, I am left to wonder why me so lucky when I proved so helpless in the face of such a fraudulent Administration (that I supported heart and soul in the 2000 presidential election). I worked hard for Obama’s victory. But it is unfair that he should be made to take blame for that dummy Bush the UN-decider and his ventriloquists Rumsfeld and Cheney during the first term, when all the harm was done, despite Bush’s insistence that there not be war in Afghanistan and Iraq at once during the late 2001 Camp David planning meetings. Rice ends her career as she would have ended a career as a pianist: totally not good-enough!
But Bush has his own sociopathic illusions that he will be redeemed by the Muse of History, Cleo…No chance, even if he rapes and tortures her!
And then there’s the JCS– a bunch of mechanics who were trying to do the jobs of engineers. Except for a most notable and commendable few, most were careerists who only protected their fiefdoms rather than the moms and dad volunteer soldiers that put their lives in their hands. They and Petraeus deserve dismissal for deception. They smiled and said “yes sir, we can…” sending our heroic volunteers into Iraq intel blind, language deaf and culture dumb. They, like Westmoreland, resorted to shooting ordnance in the dark and abusing Iraqis for revenge, encouraged only by yelps of pain as assurances that their bombs and bullets hit “something.” The lies published by the Pentagon are a record demanding declassification for which someone must pay with time in the brig– Petraeus, you did betray us!!!!!
So, whatever the JCS think of Obama doesn’t count. What we need to know is what Federal Judges and Juries think of the criminal negligence of Bush&Co– and that includes the JCS parrots on their shoulders. DERELICTION OF DUTY, bis!

One thought on “Raed Jarrar discussing the SOFA/WA”

DE Teodoru says:

November 30, 2008 at 7:56 pm

As you think of the relief for Iraqi as they can finally anticipate a time when they see the back of America’s invasion force, think of all those Americans who heroically volunteered to protect the nation at great peril while the mass majority only worried about aquiring cheap gas to fill-er-up their SUVs. There scared souls will live with the Iraq war as so many live with their Vietnam War. Because of what their Commander-and-Chief ordered them to do it and how the Joint Chief ordered them to do it, they will be victims of their war forever– unless they died and left widows and orphans behind.
Below are two articles from WASHPOST that surprised me and my responses:
WHY A USAF INTEL OFFICER HAS NO RIGHT TO FEEL SORRY FOR HIMSELF….
In a WASHPOST oped Mathew Alexander, ex-USAF inel interrogator feels “still tortured by what I saw.” Ah, Matt, but a lot of Iraqis were tortured by what YOU DID and a lot of Americans died based on what you said. So bear responsibility, not self-pity:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802242_pf.html
In medicine there is a dictum: ABOVE ALL DO NO HARM. This makes us NOT intervene in the face of suffering and death for fear we may add to it. No, we do not pile on thinking that we are heroes and heroes can do no wrong a la Wolfowitz (who at least, unlike Rumsfeld, did honest hubris wrong), inflicting more suffering and death than there was just so that we not feel helpless after 9/11. Mr. Alexander went into Iraq intel blind, language deaf and culture dumb claiming to be an intel officer!
I honor his heroic devotion in those times when a few volunteer to risk life and limb for country– all putting their familes at risk, for now they are on average five years older than in the Vietnam draft– but that does not free them to break down Iraqi the doors of Iraqi homes at night, ransak houses and beat up the men in the house, taking them away for God knows how long (to Abu Graib perhaps?), leaving their families helpless and hopeless at best. All through the worst of Saddam, Iraq’s best and brightest “carried on.” We managed to make them all– 4 million of them– into refugees by fulfilling Zarqawi’s dream with our violent policies: sectarian fighting to the death. I honor you, Mr Alexander for your work in the Balkans, for I know personally what you did. But I decry your work in Iraq for there too I know personally what you did. Join me in crying for the dead and maimed instead of for yourself. Maybe we both should set ourselves on fire like South Vietnam’s “bar–b-cue monks” to state clearly our protest of the criminality of the Bush Administration:”this will not stand.” As a survivor of 9/11 I wonder if I earned my good fortune, having failed in stopping you and your mediocre intel teams from doing so much harm. We who failed deserve to die like those heroes who tried without daring to question the criminally negligent commander-and-chief that sent them in to kill more in fear than in purpose. I pity you and us all. Rather than cry let us be good and honest scientists trying to understand how we did so much harm so that next time we intervene it is knowing that we do no harm, but good instead. We can’t blame Zarqawi, for we made his dream a sick reality AFTER he died.
…TO WHY THE JOINT CHIEFS HAVE NO RIGHT TO JUDGE OBAMA…
The WASHPOST today carries a story on how the Joint Chiefs of Staff of GW Bush deem Obama a far more reasonable and realistic Commander and Chief than Bush– ALL WITHOUT OBAMA EVER HAVING TAKEN OFFICE– based on his accommodating words to them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/29/AR2008112901912.html
Yet it is hard to imagine these parrots on Rumsfeld’s shoulder judging anyone. President Obama will have to hold them accountable for the fate that befell out “stabbed in the back” brave volunteer hero moms and dad that took the absurd commands given them and did as best they could intel blind, language deaf and culture dumb….Now they leave military service BROKE and we should think this Christmas about what we owe them.
Below is my response– rather emotional for reasons you can surely understand:
In the military field we had two kinds of officers: ON ONE SIDE, the heroes who had enough and quit and the heroes who are still heroes because they don’t know how to be anything else; ON THE OTHER SIDE, we have liars and sycophants. I have been postponing appointments to meet the great military scholar Col. Andrew Bracevich (ret.) at Boston University because his son died in Iraq and mine didn’t even serve, like most Americans who only hoped for cheap oil to fill-er-up their SUVs. To do our part, my son and I both desperately tried to bring the boys home with honor and alive– but I weep and get suicidal, realizing that we failed. Thus we carry on our souls the pain of 4000 sets of families, including widows and orphans, all victims of this Bush-it Iraq war run by the whores in the Pentagon. As a survivor of 9/11 and of half a century of Communism, I am left to wonder why me so lucky when I proved so helpless in the face of such a fraudulent Administration (that I supported heart and soul in the 2000 presidential election). I worked hard for Obama’s victory. But it is unfair that he should be made to take blame for that dummy Bush the UN-decider and his ventriloquists Rumsfeld and Cheney during the first term, when all the harm was done, despite Bush’s insistence that there not be war in Afghanistan and Iraq at once during the late 2001 Camp David planning meetings. Rice ends her career as she would have ended a career as a pianist: totally not good-enough!
But Bush has his own sociopathic illusions that he will be redeemed by the Muse of History, Cleo…No chance, even if he rapes and tortures her!
And then there’s the JCS– a bunch of mechanics who were trying to do the jobs of engineers. Except for a most notable and commendable few, most were careerists who only protected their fiefdoms rather than the moms and dad volunteer soldiers that put their lives in their hands. They and Petraeus deserve dismissal for deception. They smiled and said “yes sir, we can…” sending our heroic volunteers into Iraq intel blind, language deaf and culture dumb. They, like Westmoreland, resorted to shooting ordnance in the dark and abusing Iraqis for revenge, encouraged only by yelps of pain as assurances that their bombs and bullets hit “something.” The lies published by the Pentagon are a record demanding declassification for which someone must pay with time in the brig– Petraeus, you did betray us!!!!!
So, whatever the JCS think of Obama doesn’t count. What we need to know is what Federal Judges and Juries think of the criminal negligence of Bush&Co– and that includes the JCS parrots on their shoulders. DERELICTION OF DUTY, bis!

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