tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-95738970217731354.post5480710176749120980..comments2023-12-28T02:52:31.067-08:00Comments on Went 2 the Bridge: Is the U.S. doing the right thing fighting in Afghanistan? 69% Say NOLisa Savagehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06319699936783253064noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-95738970217731354.post-14663768024913691342012-03-29T03:52:04.959-07:002012-03-29T03:52:04.959-07:00There is a scene in "Saving Private Ryan"...There is a scene in "Saving Private Ryan", which Spielberg's history advises us to read as his finding the best he could say about the US war in Europe without, pun intended, white-washing US public virtue, where advanding US troops, escaping finally from the beaches' shooting galleries, shoot down German soldiers trying to surrender.<br />That war was generally, despite the "kraut" this and "kraut" that, a war of facts and their implications: a war against racism and genocide as proclaimed and executed by the enemy. The Pacific war was the opposite. A "Jap" was someone whose cities of paper and wood we bombed with floods of incendiary bombs in the belief that this was all these people understood.<br />Mylai massacres afterward, massacres in our suppression of the Philippine insurgency before, bring us to the Global War On Terror, the war against "Hajjis". A "Hajji" is not a Muslim who's gone to Mecca in the Haj, a "Hajji" is, as my African-American sergeant said to a Mainer captain, akin to a "nigger". The captain replied, "Oh, I don't call them that to their faces."<br />When you're at war with what you call a race, there is no law of warfare and no restrictions on the use of force. Israel has been at war with the "race" of those who occupy its claimed territory since long before it was "created" or found its "independence" in 1948. That is the war in which SSG Bales found his moment of historical significance. It'd be nice to hear what he thinks about the whole thing. I wonder if ex-Lt. Calley is still alive.chrisrushlauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11432949074147807503noreply@blogger.com