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Letters From Our Readers
December 1 - December 31, 2004
By Les Blough
Dec 18, 2004, 09:38
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This letter is from Richard, an American in Mexico, with Editor's reply below.
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Vidaurri
Sent: Friday, December 17, 2004 11:50 PM
To: rmcmail@speakeasy.net
Subject: napalm gas?
You know Les, there are probably worse things than a little knowledge and allot if ignorance, but none comes to mind at the moment. I really don't have any views about America's "fight for freedom" or the Third World's solidarity with the fine humanitarians of the Iraqi "resistance." Don't really care either way. What does bother me is that I go to Google this evening to look up a new book about the battle of Fallujah and what do I find? About three Google pages of shrill, hysterical denunciation regarding "America's secret use of Napalm Gas, phosphorous weapons and other outlawed weapons." The source seems to be some third Arabic news outlet. This silliness was even quoted by the London Mirror (who idiotically demanded to know if Mr. Blair knew). It was just too too much for me, Les. I picked your site to respond to this - not with any opinion - but with a some factual information (try Webster's Third for that one, Les). Here goes folks:
Napalm Gas...Secretly... : There is no such thing as Napalm Gas. Why? Because it's not a gas. It's a solid, a gelatin in fact. You can make it right in the comfort of your own tub. Just mix gasoline and soap flakes.
There is no way to "secretly" deploy napalm. A napalm attack is a fiery
spectacle if ever there was one.
"Melted bodies: No no no Ahmed, napalm does not melt bodies. Rather, it leaves sort of a well done corpse.
Banned, outlawed, illegal, or otherwise nasty weapons. Outlawed by whom? Oh, the UN back in 1980... or the "World Community" or whomever. As if the United States really cares. The toughest part to explain to you folks will be this: The U.S. military has not stocked napalm for years, decades in fact. Why? Because they're such a huggable bunch? No dummies, Because they have better weapons now. Things like cluster bombs; copperhead artillery rounds (molten copper, if that doesn't set your robe n' towel ensemble ablaze I can't think of what will; smart bombs; the list is long.
The mission of the American military in war time is to destroy its enemy as that enemy is defined by the president. Their novel view of this is to do that with maximum efficiency and the fewest possible number of American casualties. I mean, if you're going to deploy your army, what else are you going to do but that? At the end of the day it doesn't matter how armed forces kill each other - and any civilians hapless enough to be in the way - they're just as dead.
Napalm is difficult and dangerous to store, transport and deploy. That's why third world armies don't go near the stuff, although they'd all love to because of its low cost to manufacture. Come on Les, do you really think that third worlders are more peace loving than the industrialized nations?
Napalm was invented during the Vietnam War, and it was banned in 1980 after "world outrage" at the 1968 photo of a badly burned (by napalm) Vietnamese girl running down a road: Napalm was in fact first deployed during WWII. In case no one's noticed there was a bit of a time lag between that famous photo opportunity and 1980.
They used phosphorous bombs: This is more baloney. Phosphorous is the single most dangerous weapon for an armed force to transport and deploy by air. (Ahmed, the "eye witness" was talking about bombs). No way the U.S. would risk a $30 million aircraft to fry a few $2 Arabs, especially when they have such better, safer (for them) weapons.
There was, if you can believe it, more unlikely and unfounded garbage in those stories - including yours - but my fingers are falling off. In case you're wondering, Les, I get as frustrated at the bigger, sophisticated lies that the Bush administration is known to float around. And the "Freedom - Democracy - motherhood/apple" rhetoric is also enough to give a thoughtful man a rash. Les, I get as frustrated at the bigger, sophisticated lies that the Bush administration is known to float around. And the "Freedom - Democracy - motherhood/apple" rhetoric is also enough to give a thoughtful
man a rash. . Having said that I, personally, would rather sit down to a long lunch with well dressed people who bathe, have interesting jobs, and won't fly a 757 into my buildings. Bye Les
Dear Richard,
Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to write to us at Axis of Logic. Your claim that you do not have "any views about 'America's fight for freedom' or the Third World's solidarity with the fine humanitarians of the Iraqi 'resistance'." - is followed by the balance of your letter - a thinly-veiled, but transparent support for the war on the people of Iraq. In a word, your claim of neutrality is disingenuous.
Your parsing of terms, i.e. whether victims of the U.S. war on Iraq are "melted" or "well done" displays a complete lack of humanity toward all people of all nations except those who surround the comfortable neighborhood where you happened to be fortunate enough to be born, through no effort or choice of your own.
Your reference to new information you found in your simple google search and on Axis of Logic as "garbage" tells me you are incapable of courteous, civil debate.
Your fascination with military weapons profiled against your lack of compassion toward the killing and maiming of innocent civilians tells me that you have the same sociopathic tendencies as those in the Bush regime who can kill with impunity and without remorse.
Regarding your claim to be:
"frustrated at the bigger, sophisticated lies that the Bush administration is known to float around. And the "Freedom -Democracy - motherhood/apple" rhetoric is also enough to give a thoughtful man a rash." -
Your alleged frustration provides a thin veneer for your attack on the revelations that the U.S. has been using weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But it does not absolve you of your responsibility to support alternative media and others who confront the U.S. government and the corporate/government media's support of the war. You are as culpable for the Bush/Neocon mass murders in Iraq as Richard Perle and George W. Bush.
Your declaration: "I would rather sit down to a long lunch with well dressed people who bathe, have interesting jobs, and won't fly a 757 into my buildings", reveals among other things, the ignorance to believe that the Iraqi people had anything to do with the 9/11/01 attacks.
Your references to "frying $2 Arabs" and "setting [their] robe n' towel ensemble ablaze" and to Iraqi people who are not "well dressed", do not "bathe" or have "interesting jobs" - reveals the sad and ignorant racism of so many flag-waving Americans who support this horrible war on the Iraqi people.
Your epithets and unfounded beliefs on the part of so many Americans like yourself are enough, in and of themselves, to inform me of the impending defeat of the U.S., as a direct result of the ignorance and decadence within America and by the military force of the guerilla resistance in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
Your statement, "There are no prize winners in this war on truth" - drips with piety, but belies a cowardice and government-complicity that simply renders you incapable of confronting the disinformation/lies of the corporate media as we try to do at Axis of Logic.
Your smug salutation, of "bye, Les" reveals an arrogance, embedded in ignorance, that tells me that your mind is stagnant and closed to any new information that might rock your cradle.
Peace,
Les
Les Blough, Editor
Axis of Logic
Boston, MA (USA)
617-787-3498
Letter from Josh in California, with Editor's reply below
-----Original Message-----
From: Joshua (California)
Sent: Friday, December 17, 2004 12:39 PM
To: Axis of Logic
Subject: statement from Islamic Jihad
Dear Axis of Logic,
Somehow it would all be a lot more believable if not for:
1. Loading 50 unarmed men off buses and putting bullets through the back of their heads;
2. Hundreds of bombings, rocketings and suicide bombings which have killed far more Iraqis than US or British soldiers;
3. The gratuitous and sickening bomb attack on the UN mission - what did that gain for the people of Iraq?;
4. Nobody but Islamic Jihad has asserted that two million Iraqis died as a result of the sanctions;
5. Beheading journalists and businessmen. Aside from scaring the hell out of everybody and convincing the world that you are primitive barbarians, what has this gained you?
6. Blowing up unarmed Shia clerics and Occupational Govt officials.
6. The failure to participate in the political process.
So what if the political process currently controlled by the US? Take it back! Do you lack the courage to overcome the US politically? You can do it and you would receive the support of many people around the world in doing so.
What if the Iraqi anti-occupation forces put a million unarmed Iraqis in the streets every day for a week, just as the Ukrainians did in Kiev when they stopped a corrupt election controlled by the Russians? Would the US soldiers shoot you? Maybe. But they are shooting you now and they are blowing up your neighborhoods and your families and destroying your economy and your roads, workplaces and schools. Besides that, US citizens will never blame their soldiers for fighting you as long as you lay in wait for them, bomb them, mine them and assassinate their Iraqi political allies. US citizens will never sympathize with a campaign of murder vs. your own people, many of whom work for the occupational government simply because they need a job to support their families.
But what if you worked with your fellow Iraqis by any nonviolent political means available?. Non-cooperation, strikes, unarmed building occupations, daily protests at the gates to the Green Zone. Camp out nonviolently around US and British bases. Contact US, British and European news media and call for an end to occupation and the start of humanitarian aid and cooperation. Joining and taking leadership in the existing political parties. It would be difficult. There would be many setbacks and losses along the way. The future would not be certain. But it isn't certain now. Images of non-violent resistance and political organizing in Iraq would be met with sympathy by some here and in Britain. Others, would still be unsympathetic but would not be able to support the long term presence of US and British troops in a country where millions openly but peacefully oppose them. Eventually you would succeed in driving the US and British militaries out.
I believe that if the Iraqi resistance had taken this path, the US and British forces would already be out of Iraq and that most of the 30,000 Iraqis killed in this war would still be alive. So, what will it be? More killing, followed by more repression, from one side or other? Or the Iraqi people finally deciding their own destiny and re-building their country without the threat of bombs from either side.
Josh
California
Dear Joshua,
Thank you for your analysis and letter. I don't have time to discuss every point, but I do disagree with your premise and the ideas that flow from it. I think it is utterly naive' to expect a country under full scale invasion and occupation to roll over and trust or participate in a so-called "democratic process" installed by the invader. The invader has exposed to the world its own corrupt "democratic process" in the corporate funded 2004 U.S. elections. You place the blame for the human suffering on the Iraqi resistance. We place the blame on the invader/occupiers. I suspect that if your country were invaded, occupied, innocents slaughtered, natural resources stolen and cities destroyed, antiquities plundered, you would not hold the same position that you advance for someone else under the same conditions. The Iraqis had one of the highest literacy rates in the world prior to the 1991 attack and 8 years of sanctions. They are not fools. The sooner Americans wake up and bring the troops home, the fewer soldiers on both sides, the fewer civilian children, women and men will be maimed and killed. We stand in full support of the Iraqi resistance and their courageous defense against the U.S. and British invaders.
Thanks again for writing with your views on all of this.
Peace,
Les
Les Blough, Editor
Axis of Logic
Boston, MA (USA)
617-787-3498
Second exchange with Joshua in California
Dear Joshua,
My reply is below in black font and in brackets:
What is the "Iraqi resistance"? Until the IJ statement posted on axis of logic, they barely uttered a peep of explanation and barely took credit for anything. So who are you standing with?
[What is the "Iraqi resistance"? You referred to "the Iraqi Resistance" in your first letter: "I believe that if the Iraqi resistance had taken this path ..." You must have had something/someone in mind.]
It isn't necessary to "stand with" any side in this war in order to oppose the war.
[It "isn't necessary" if one sees no difference between the invader and the invaded. We see that distinction as the only distinction. It appears that you have bought into the methods of the corporate media, portraying the Iraqis as a who are divided in their stand against the invader/occupier. The method works well with an uneducated, flag-waving American public who find comfort in viewing the Iraqi people negatively, thus justifying continued war and occupation to "save them from themselves". We have never bought that line of propaganda.]
So far it is possible to identify at least 8 "sides" to this conflict:
1. Shia
2. Central region Sunni
3. Kurds (why don't "anti-imperialists" ever mention them?)
4. Freelance, opportunistic kidnappers, thieves and killers - who killed Margaret Hassan?
5. Remnants of the Baath Party and fellow travelers
6. The US regime
7. About 125 political parties that have swallowed their pride and jumped into the political fracas knowing full well that the rewards of such a strategy are likely to be severely limited by the extremely, ugly circumstances imposed by the occupiers and the bomb squads opposing them.
8. A lot of Iraqis who are keeping their heads down, not taking a side and hoping like hell that the whole thing quiets down soon.
[From the very beginning, it has become more and more clear that Iraqis are fighting the occupation as one. Only today, several credible reports that Sunnis and Shias are fighting side by side. Is their conflict among various groups? Of course! - just as there is major conflict in this country among various groups. Most Iraqis led relatively normal lives before 1991, despite their U.S. planted, bloody dictator who oppressed political opposition. Even with the evil of Saddam Hussein, most families had dinner together, went to the market, enjoyed the fruits of commerce and the arts, raised their children and enjoyed a good education and health care. Is it from this that the U.S. wanted to liberate them? Or does the U.S. intend to liberate them from their oil and provide room for expansion of the Zionist state that felt "threatened" despite their massive nuclear armaments in Dimona? Of course you won't read about that in the corporate media - but you will on Axis of Logic and many other credible alternative news sources. The real question is what one does with that information.]
Should I go on?
It's not a "full-scale invasion" either. The Pentagon wanted to go in with 300,000 troops. General Shinseki stated it publicly and was forced into retirement. Rumsfeld forced a scaled back 140,000 troop invasion on them. And after all that talk about shock and awe, they pulled back on the aerial bombardment. Look at Dresden or Tokyo, in 44 and 45 or Haiphong in 72 if you want to see what carpet bombing would have been like. Bad as it was, they didn't do that in Iraq.
[If you're home had been blown up and your children killed, I doubt that you would be parcing terms like "full scale invasion". Thankfully, the U.S. did not commit anything quite so complete as the burning of Dresden, but now, no doubt wish they had. Moreover, if they had had the troops in sufficient numbers, I'm certain they would have used them. Today we published a Boston Globe article reporting that the U.S. is calling for an increase in overall troop strength of 30%. The U.S. military appears to be in disarray, desperation and losing, just as they lost in Vietnam. Nothing in this ungodly war could please us more. You seem to be defending the U.S. as having demonstrated moral restraint in their atrocities! Perhaps you think Fallujah is a fine example of their moral restraint! Perhaps you wish now that General Shinseki had been given his way!]
You didn't answer a single one of my points. Apparently you do not dispute any of the substance of my comment.
[Incorrect! I wrote up front that I disagree with your premise and everything that flows from it. In any honest debate, the opponents must first admit to their suppositions. Otherwise, they are arguing "apples against oranges". I simply refused to participate on the basis of your set of assumptions.]
Instead you wave me off as "naive". Not really. I don't trust Paul Bremer's clean up crew anymore than you or a lot of Iraqis do. I don't trust the Democratic or Republican Party either. The point is, you don't have to trust your opponents. You have to beat them. And how do you do that? By blowing up 3 or 4 times as many of your own people as your occupiers? Why make excuses for butchery?
[The Iraqi resistance has focused most of it's attacks on Americans, British and those Iraqis who choose or have been coerced into supporting the invaders. It's interesting to me that you attack the resistance for the dead and maimed civilians and not the U.S. government. The U.S. has directly killed many, many civilians. Perhaps you would agree with the DC regime and corporate media that they are only "unfortunate collateral damage". Is your argument then reduced to argue who killed the most civilians?]
You also put words in my mouth. I never placed "the blame" on the Iraqis. I didn't actually place the blame on anybody. Re-read my message. And I don't think you need to place blame either. There is plenty to go around and no doubt the families of the dead and wounded have their own ideas about where it should be placed. I am blaming the Iraqi resistance for what it has done; not for the general situation in Iraq, although certainly they have contributed.
[I don't have to re-read your message. It is a full frontal attack on the Iraqi resistance - not on the invader.]
Finally, can you really support something called "Islamic Jihad" from a left-progressive perspective? How do you reconcile progressive public education, equal rights for women and protection for children, reproductive choice, universal health care, decent wages and working conditions for workers, respect for the environment and a non-aggressive foreign policy with Islamic Jihad? Iran is also a very educated, literate country. The educated, literate Ayatollah Khomeini sent 500,000 of his own people, most teenage boys and young men to their deaths in a completely pointless war vs.. Iraq among other well-documented, if smaller-scale atrocities. Was there a side we were supposed to take in that nightmare? Did it advance any left-progressive goals?
[I don't need to be educated about Iran. I have very close personal friends who live in Tehran and whose children died in the Iran Iraq war. This is a mixed and spurious argument. First, I support national sovereignty of any nation vis-a-vis the Westphalian Treaty (1648). Thus, it is illegal and morally wrong to interfere with the domestic affairs of any nation-state for any reason. It is the Iraqi people, Iranian people and any other people, including Americans who alone can change their own governments and lift themselves out of oppression. We support the values you list above as universal for all nations. But we don't believe invading, bombing and killing can ever "liberate" a people from their own governments or produce these values for them. If you wish to promote these values, you would be most effective in supporting them right here in the U.S. where they are virtually non-existant. Rather, you seem to support the so-called "intervention" by the U.S. which has slain millions over the decades from Nicaragua to Palestine and from Chile to the Congo. If you do, we are diametrically opposed to one another in that regard.]
The real question is how to win and what you win, when you win. What is all of this gaining for the people of Iraq? Who benefits? And which of us is being naive? Maybe it's naive to put your faith in warriors who talk about making their people free while recklessly butchering them. Of course, you are free when you're dead, in a way. Maybe that's what they mean. Is that your kind of freedom? It's not mine.
[Again, I do not accept your presupposition: "The real question is not how to win, what to win and when to win." First, nobody is "winning" in this U.S. initiated, deadly debacle. But if we must talk about "winning" - A better question is "Who should win". It is my hope that the Iraqis will win this war, not the invaders or their installed government which the corporate news now cynically calls, "The Iraqi Government". When I speak of the "Iraqis", I speak of the Iraqi people for whom the Iraqi guerilla army is fighting. When they do boot the invader out of their country, will there be a civil war? I don't know. The U.S. certainly had one after booting the British out of the land stolen by "settlers". What kind of government will the Iraqis install? I don't know the answer to that question either. But I fully support their right to work out their own governance as they see fit. Will they struggle under another Saddam Hussein? They will if the U.S. produces another Saddam as they produced the one now facing the show trial. They will if the U.S. wins and produces another "Shah" to steal the natural resources from the people, as the U.S. did in Iran. I know the people of Iran intimately and will be spending a week with Iranians in NYC next week who would rather have the religious clerics whom they do not like than another U.S. planted Shah. Likewise, I know Iraqis who would rather have Saddam than the invader occupying and plundering their land. We could go on and on with this argument. I think we understand one another pretty well. Real changes in one's world view only take place through careful self-examination, looking to underlying assumptions, values and agendas. I do exactly that every day and my world-view is dynamic and changing with new information. Do you practice such an exercise? Are you receptive to new information? Is your view dynamic and changing?]
I will be leaving until January 4. If you wish to take this up again, I'd be happy to oblige in early January!
Peace,
Les
Les Blough, Editor
Axis of Logic
Boston, MA (USA)
617-787-3498
Josh Reilly
Ben Lomond CA
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