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| Commemorating" the Vietnam War: One Marine's Perspective By Camillo Mac Bica, Truthout | Op-Ed March 29 has been designated "Vietnam Veterans Day,” according to a proclamation issued by President Obama in 2012. The Vietnam War, according to the proclamation, "is a story of patriots who braved the line of fire, who cast themselves into harm's way to save a friend, who fought hour after hour, day after day to preserve the liberties we hold dear." Now I have no problem acknowledging the debt owed to all whose lives were affected by this war, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians and Americans alike. What I find intolerable, even disgraceful, however, is that even 50 years later, our leaders are incapable of telling the truth about the war and choose rather to perpetuate the lie that these "sacrifices," at least those of the Americans, were "to preserve the liberties we hold dear." Such rhetoric - although perhaps inspiring to some - hinders reconciliation, dishonors the veteran, and damages the moral integrity of this nation. As we embark upon a congressionally mandated 13-year-long commemoration, probably "celebration" would be more accurate, of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, I feel a responsibility, as a veteran of that war, to contribute a perspective I fear will be ignored willfully at the official commemoration web site. I am certain that there are as many perspectives as there are individuals who served, observed, protested against and supported that very divisive war. Consequently, I offer no guarantee that my observations, interpretations and conclusions about the war are definitive, or better than those of someone with a profoundly different recollection and analysis. What I offer in this essay, then, is my personal narrative and a perspective on the Vietnam War by a former Marine Corps officer, Vietnam veteran and philosopher who has spent many years studying the theory of war, diverse historical accounts of the Vietnam war and, perhaps more to the point, contemplating a life profoundly impacted by the experience. My hope is to tell the truth as I see it and offer an analysis of the war that counters what I fear is the goal and purpose of this proclamation and commemoration. That is, to continue to perpetuate, if not ratchet up, the lie of 50 years ago and the mythological portrayal of the Vietnam War as justifiable, necessary and in the national interest. Childhood Memories: Learning About War I was born in Brooklyn, New York. My parents, like most immigrants at the time, were grateful to be living in this land of "unlimited opportunity." Influenced by Catholic school education, John Wayne movies and John F. Kennedy's admonishment to "ask what you can do for your country," I grew up stridently patriotic with a strong sense of duty to God and to country. The Old Ones As the old men played Briscola, a card game of Sicilian origin, they smoked DiNobli cigars and drank Caffe' Corretto, a grappa-laced espresso, in small cups. The cigar smoke lay heavy in the room, dispersing the glow of the single light bulb that hung precariously over the table. They spoke in broken English of coming to America. Some came illegally. Most flirted a bit with the mafia, and all worked hard to support their families in a difficult job market for laborers. Nervous and excited, I listened attentively, from a safe distance, hidden behind the old green sofa. On most occasions I was quickly discovered. And after a good-natured reprimand and a gentle "boot in the ass," I was sent on my way. On a few occasions, however, my perseverance was greatly rewarded. For reasons I can only speculate about, no one seemed to notice my presence. Even as a 10-year-old, I realized that this was a special place and I had no business eavesdropping on such privileged conversation. As they consumed the potent coffee, barriers lowered and the discussion, at least as I remember it, invariably turned to their experiences during the Second World War and the Korean conflict. Despite being immigrants, all were drafted into the American military. I listened intently as my father, while contemplating his next discard, recalled his experiences as a US Army interpreter fighting through the villages and countryside of Sicily, the land of his birth. Somberly, he described in great detail how American artillery and bombing had devastated the village in which he was born. How he had been torn between strong feelings of patriotism for his adopted homeland and a deep sense of shame and guilt he felt for the deaths of innocent villagers, some of whom had been his neighbors. I learned also that my Uncle Gasper, a SeaBee, had narrowly escaped being killed by a Japanese sniper while building an airfield on Guadalcanal. Uncle Tony, nicknamed "Squint Eye," but only addressed as such by a few of his closest friends, told of nearly being blinded by shrapnel during a kamikaze attack against his minesweeper in the South Pacific. What impressed me most, I think, was hearing my Uncle Joe relate, with great emotion, the heroic last stand of the Marines at the frozen Chosin Reservoir in Korea. I was amazed to see this very strong, austere and stoic man cry when he described gently holding a fellow Marine in his arms as the dying man gasped his last breath. As I listened to their stories, despite my young age, I empathized with their obvious pain and grief. Surely, the Old Ones were aware of my presence behind the old green sofa. I often wondered why, on those few occasions, I was allowed to remain and witness such intensely personal discussions of aspects of their lives they kept so well hidden from all except those who shared similar experiences. Perhaps they thought it important that I know the family history. In my more whimsical moments, however, I fancy that they were trying to educate me and make me aware of war's realities. In my youth, I was fascinated and exhilarated by war. Because of what I had learned from my hiding place behind the old green sofa, however, I was also wary of its devastating effects. War was an enigma I wished I could have discussed with the Old Ones. My concerns could never be addressed, however, as I realized the inappropriateness of discussing such matters outside the sanctuary of "the warrior's circle." Confronting the Vietnam War In 1968, America was at war. Communism was the menace; Vietnam, the focal point of the confrontation between good and evil, the domino of choice that must, at all costs, remain standing. To the Vietnamese, however, it was a continuing struggle against another in a seemingly endless series of colonial or occupying powers intent upon denying them independence, national unity and self-determination. To Americans, it was portrayed as a grass-roots struggle between north and south, a noble and necessary intervention to exorcize pervasive evil seeking world domination. Ultimately, however, it was a disaster, a quagmire, an immoral, illegal, unnecessary and divisive war few chose to fight, so many were conscripted. "The unwilling, led by the unqualified, doing the unnecessary for the indifferent and the ungrateful." Anonymous Grafitti As a consequence of the draft, many young Americans were confronted with a profound social and moral dilemma. Whether to severely disrupt their lives, possibly shame themselves and their families by expatriating - fleeing to Canada - or risk injury or death by answering the call, becoming a warrior and, in the view of many, a murderer, or an accessory to murder. However, I had an additional option. Upon graduating from college, I could have availed myself - quite rightly, my parents believed - of the deferment from military service offered to teachers at the time - a testimony, I guess, to the importance of education in creating the "Great Society" that Lyndon Johnson had hoped would be the legacy of his administration. Further, because the teaching position was at an "inner-city school," the social importance of such an undertaking, I reasoned, justified accepting the deferment. In truth, such rationalization was unnecessary, because avoiding military service was quite common and un-noteworthy, especially for the wealthy and the influential. For me, however, to remain at home while others fought and died in my place was cowardice. More importantly, it was an affront to the parents of my childhood friend Ralphie, who, a few months earlier, had dutifully, albeit reluctantly, sent their son to war. All they received in return were fragments of bone and sinew and a form letter from the president of the United States expressing the nation's regrets and gratitude for Ralphie's heroic sacrifice in behalf of freedom and democracy. Code words for a mistake, a paranoia-driven crusade against contrived evil that demanded the life of their child. As I watched the drama of Ralphie's funeral unfold, I remembered playing stickball on East 87th Street not many years before. I smiled, recalling how a foul ball had broken Eddie's mother's window and how Ralphie had quickly handed me the bat before shrewdly escaping to the sanctuary of Anthony's garage. No one believed I wasn't the culprit, until Ralphie abandoned his hiding place and with cobwebs hanging from his forehead, bravely admitted to the deed. As they lowered Ralphie's casket into the ground, I drifted among a tangle of childhood memories - ring-a-levio, kick- the-can on humid summer nights, and riding our bikes down "suicide hill." Ralphie was 20 years, 6 months and 2 days old when war ended his life. The lesson I learned from Ralphie's death was that in war young people die and old people grieve. The rational response would probably have been to put the tragedy behind me, to accept the deferment and go on with my life. But those were not rational times. Instead, I enlisted in the Marine Corps - understanding full well that a trip to Vietnam was guaranteed. I was excited and could not wait to tell my Uncle Joe. I thought for sure he would be pleased, proud that his nephew chose to emulate him and become a Marine. As I gave him the good news, I studied his time-worn face for approval. I sensed, perhaps for the first time, an uncharacteristic vulnerability, even frailty. He seemed much older than his years. "Why you do that?" he said as our eyes finally met. Without waiting for a response, he kissed me on both cheeks. "Che Dio vi benedica" were his last words to me as he turned and walked away. Rendered speechless by what had occurred, I didn't even think to return the blessing or to say goodbye. Soon after I had arrived in Vietnam, I learned my Uncle Joe had died. In retrospect, I'm not really certain why I decided not to accept the deferment. Perhaps, it was patriotism, or bravado, or even to avenge my friend's death. Or perhaps it was just to fulfill my destiny as a warrior and heir apparent to the legacy of the Old Ones. I left on July 5, 1968, for Marine Corps officer training at Quantico, Virginia. What I failed to realize at the time, however, was that I was leaving behind, forever, all that I had cherished and held sacred for the past 21 years. Most tragically, I was leaving behind the innocence of my youth. The Experience of War Marine Corps training was truly a life-altering experience. What ultimately enables a Marine to ignore the ethical limits normally placed on the use of violence – to kill and to die in battle – is not abstract ideology, or even patriotism, but rather a personal code of honor, self-respect, loyalty and accountability to one's comrades. I learned my lessons well and readily embraced the mythology of the warrior. Upon completion of my training, I felt part of a proud and chivalrous tradition, a select brotherhood of noble and courageous knights, empowered by God and country to exorcize the demonic agents of evil. I was prepared to kill and to selflessly sacrifice my life, if need be, for right and for good. After Ralphie's death and the sacrifices of the Old Ones, how could I do anything less? Soon after arriving in Vietnam, however, I learned that no one is truly prepared for the horror, inhumanity and destruction of "demythologized" war. Fear, inevitably, is the myth breaker, restoring to war a reality that is bleak, uncompromising and hellish. "My first experience of war was not auspicious. As mortar rounds walked in upon us, like giant steps of death and destruction, I was mesmerized by excitement and fear. Frozen in place, gauging the next footfall, I was pushed, rather unceremoniously, into a sandbagged bunker, more to clear the escape route than from a concern for my well-being. All that I had learned forgotten, I burrowed, wormlike, into the muddy bottom, seeking sanctuary, cursing my inability to disappear into the earthen mother's womb." (war journals, Bica, C.C., 1969) Despite my childhood fascination and Marine Corps indoctrination, I was never enthusiastic about war. Even those more motivated than I, those who viewed war as a means for advancement, lacked fervor for this particular enterprise. Yet men turned easily into killers, shedding a young lifetime of humanity and compassion. In a brief moment of frenzy, killing became orgasmic, and death, performance art. "A body of a dead Viet Cong sapper stood upright impaled in layers of concertina wire marking the no-man's land that surrounds the perimeter of a firebase north of Danang. Killed trying to breech the base's defenses, his catatonic body adorned by holiday revelers with Christmas decorations and a sign, soiled with blood and entrails, wishing all peace and good will from the United States Marines. As we passed and entered the base, few even took notice. I heard one young Marine, newly arrived in country, whisper to no one in particular, "Ho, fucking ho, fucking ho." The innocence of youth dies quickly when killing becomes a rite of passage." (war journals, Bica, C.C., 1969) The reality of the situation on the ground failed to match the rhetoric of our leaders. I felt a moral uneasiness with both the purpose of the war and the manner in which it was conducted. Because attrition became the strategy and the goal - seemingly the only strategy and goal - and identification of the enemy problematic, killing became indiscriminate and all too easy. Dying became routine, purposeless and seemingly inevitable ... and Ralphie's death all the more tragic. But yet, "With the Marine Corps Hymn lingering in the background of my mind, I persevered, like Sergeant Stryker charging valiantly up Suribachi, dying quickly, quietly, gently, and without pain or regret. In truth, most linger, scream for their mothers like children, first imploring God to let them live, then begging for death to end their suffering. Final glances exchanged eyes burned deeply into my soul. Faces of the soon to be dead, I'll remember for the rest of my life." (war journals, Bica, C.C., 1969) Patriotic hymns and anthems fade quickly amid the screams of the mutilated and the dying. As the warrior's mythology crumbled, I felt an overwhelming burden of responsibility, no longer to Corps and country but to those whose lives depended upon my abilities and decisions. I saw Ralphie in each of their young faces, made empty and hardened by war, and was deafened by the heartbreaking and poignant cries of parents pleading for the lives of their children. Survival was all that really mattered. What I failed to realize at the time, however, was that, at least in spirit, we were all already dead. War usurps the omnipotence of god, the power over life and death, and makes it anathema. Some found such power exhilarating. I knew people like that, didn't like them much. Thought them lucky, though, as killing and dying meant nothing. In a perverse way, they enjoyed it, enjoyed the jazz, the excitement, the power. Intoxicated by war, such men hated to see it end. For me, the war never ends. For the remainder of my time in country, I struggled with the conflicting responsibilities of an officer of Marines in war and of safeguarding the lives of those entrusted to my care. Tragically, what mattered least in this moral equation were those we were allegedly there to liberate and to protect. They became expendable as dead Vietnamese posed no threat to our survival and satisfied the military demand for body count. Like most, I did what "had to be done," and this is something I will live with for the rest of my life. ... All of war is atrocity. We often hear our military and political leaders speak of our nation's uncompromising commitment to the international and moral laws of war and rules of engagement. Such talk, however, is, in reality, part of the mythology, necessary to maintain a guise of legality and morality and to allow our national conscience to remain clean. As is clear from history, law as it applies to war, is merely a tactic of advantage, having relevance and application only should belligerent nations find such law and restrictions advantageous to the achievement of some important national goal or purpose. But when perceived political or military interest comes in conflict with legal and moral principles, it is inevitably the former that prevails. How else could one explain the systemic incineration of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children as a consequence of the saturation and nuclear bombing of cities during World War II, while, at the same time, countries doing the bombing condemned the genocide of Nazi death camps. How else can one explain torture, "targeted" drone assassination and signature strikes during the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc., while the perpetrators condemn the terrorism of al Qaeda. Make no mistake, however. Few if any go to war to murder innocent people. Most exert great effort, often at considerable personal risk, to protect the innocent and conduct themselves with decency and integrity. Unfortunately, either under the rubric of "supreme emergency," as was the case in World War II, or because of the morally untenable conditions of guerrilla and/or counterinsurgency warfare as in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers inevitably become the unwitting instruments of slaughter. Such occurrences are always tragic and regrettable but never more so than when war is misguided and unnecessary. Those removed from the chaos and confusion of the battlefield are understandably appalled by what, from their perspective, constitutes brutality and murder. When public outrage demands justice, it is invariably the warrior who is held accountable while those who initiated the war or who supported or did little or nothing to stop it are themselves absolved of responsibility and permitted to continue their charade of moral awareness and concern as they sit in judgment of our actions. We are the victims of their hypocrisy, the scapegoats for the inevitable affront to the national conscience and the sacrificial lambs sent to slaughter in retribution for our collective guilt and inadequacies. In fact, no one knows the sacrilege of war better than we who must fight it and then have to live with the memories of what we have done and what we have become. "The monster and I are one. I have feasted upon the flesh of decaying corpses and with their blood have quenched my thirst. The transformation is complete and I can never return. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa." (war journals, Bica, C.C., 1969) The Aftermath of War All who are touched by war are tainted. Upon my return to the the United States world, I felt a stranger in my own home, disoriented and adrift between the world I recognized as my place of origin - although now quite alien - and the world of killing and destruction of which I was a part. "Things were different . . . or maybe I was different. As much as I had come to hate the war, there at least I felt I belonged. I knew what was expected of me, and I had become proficient at fulfilling those expectations. Here I am a misfit, an aberration, isolated and alone." (postwar journals, Bica, C.C., 1971) Vietnam was the defining experience of my life. Although physical wounds may heal, the emotional, psychological and moral injuries of war linger and fester. Vietnam forever pervades my existence, condemning me to continually relive and question the past. Inevitable concerns of those who participate in an enterprise whose primary - no, sole - function is to take life and cause others to die. Despite the urging of well-meaning friends and loved ones, I can never forget Vietnam nor put it behind me. No one truly recovers from war. No one is ever made whole again. The best that can be hoped, I think, is to achieve a degree of benign acceptance. To that end, I strive each day to forgive and absolve myself of guilt and to live with the wounds of war that will never heal. "The endless screams of the dying forever echo in my mind. A sacrificial offering of virgins to placate the elder gods. I've become an atheist." (postwar journals, Bica, C.C., 1971) Of late, I think often of Ralphie and his parents, of ring-o-levio, and bike rides down "suicide hill." I often think too of the Old Ones, and sometimes, while deep in thought, or, perhaps, lost in a daydream, I can almost smell the faint aroma of DiNobili cigars and alcohol-tinged espresso. For a fleeting moment, I am 10 years old again, watching and listening from behind the old green sofa. But now the exhilaration, awe and wonder I enjoyed as a child is gone as I have learned the reality of war. I think of the Old Ones, still with admiration, but now tempered by understanding and sadness for all they had endured. I know now the true cost of war and the burden of life in its aftermath. I realize as well that all war is profane - and unnecessary war is sacrilege. And perhaps worst of all, I know the frustration of having to sit idly by, helpless, as it all happens again. I mourn young lives devastated by war. I see Ralphie in each of their faces and am deafened by the screams of devastated loved ones. Never had I missed the Old Ones more, especially my father. Never were my Uncle Joe and the Marine who died in his arms at the Chosin more clearly in my mind. Postscript Perhaps war is a reality that will not soon go away, and sacrifices on the field of battle will again be required. But rather than "commemorate" and "celebrate" Vietnam with lies, let us end the mythologizing of war and demand truth. Let us question war's purpose and necessity and ensure a clarity of vision rather than the blind compliance some wish to portray as patriotism. Let us ensure that war remains a means of last resort and that no other person will again have to kill, die or grieve the loss of their son or daughter for a cause that is misguided. Let us demand accountability for war criminals who dare to initiate such wars and connive to use deception and myth to encourage participation and support. Let us make this our legacy and celebrate peace rather than war. Camillo "Mac" Bica, PhD, is a professor of philosophy at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is a former Marine Corps officer, Vietnam veteran, longtime activist for peace and social justice, and the coordinator of the Long Island Chapter of Veterans for Peace. |
The Punishment of Gaza
Washington
is Complicit in
Israel’s Crimes
by PAUL FINDLEY
July 26th CounterPunch
While viewing the massacre of Gazans,
you may wonder why 1.8 million Arabs
are crowded on that tiny strip of
seashore and are being bombed day
and night into death and ruins by
Israel’s powerful military machine. A
glimpse of history is timely.
Facts set forth below are little known in
America:
Sixty years ago 800,000 Arabs fled
their ancestral homes in rural Palestine
fearing death as a Jewish onslaught
obliterated without a trace over 500
Arab towns, villages and hamlets.
Massacres were reported. Those who
fled are forbidden to return home.
Fifty years later, a survey show the
refugee problem staggering: 766,000
in Gaza; 741,000 in Jordan; 408,000 in
Syria; and 144,000 in Egypt; smaller
numbers in other Arab states.
Gaza soon become a part of Israel
Occupied Palestine. Refugees and
their descendants struggle there for
survival. Israeli controls are brutal.
Potable water is nearly gone. Most of
the population depends for survival on
food and water distributed by United
Nations officials. If supplies are not
increased starvation—not just
malnutrition–is certain. Arabs huddle
behind high fences equipped with
Israeli remote- controlled machine
guns. A gate that once served as an
occasional opening to freedom is now
kept locked by the government of
Egypt at Israel’s request.
Gaza has long been described as the
largest open-air prison in the world.
Israeli punishment of Gazans became
more severe seven years ago when
theuy exercised the right of self-
determination by electing the Hamas
Party to manage local affairs.
Once Hamas took control in Gaza,
Israel and the U.S. government
conspired in a sustained but
unsuccessful attempt to destroy the
organization. Hamas was reelected to
a second term and recently achieved a
cooperative arrangement with the
Fatah organization that maintains a
measure of authority in the West Bank.
Infuriated because all gates stay
closed, Hamas sends rockets over the
fence. They do little damage but incite
Israelis to launch heavy lethal
bombing. Revenge is not
commendable, but I understand why
people penned up like cattle may
welcome pain and discomfort for their
oppressors.
The current assault on Gaza is Israel’s
third in seven years. This is the first
time Hamas has used sustained rocket
fire, but it is no match for Israel’s
artillery, missiles and bombs. Thanks to
U.S. taxpayers, Israel has high tech
missiles that shoot down Hamas
rockets while still in the air. Hamas has
no such defense, in fact, no defense at
all.
The late radical Rabbi Meir Kahane,
wrote a book titled “They Must Go.” In
it he contended that all Arabs must be
removed from Palestine so an all-
Jewish Eretz Israel, the dream of
Zionism, can come into being. Eretz
Israel consists of entirety of Palestine,
including the West Bank, East
Jerusalem and Gaza, plus the Golan
Heights, long a part of Syria, exactly
the Arab territory Israel now controls.
All Arabs are not gone, but nearly two
million are imprisoned in Gaza.
Elsewhere in Occupied Palestine, 4.2
million Arabs are abused and denied
basic liberties. Their property and
livelihood are steadily being seized by
Israel to provide illegal housing for
Jews-only settlements. These Arabs
are squeezed into an ever-shrinking
part of their birthright. More than one-
half of the Palestinian West Bank is
now populated by more than 500,000
Israeli settlers. Zionist dreamers can
boast they are more than halfway
toward their dream.
Who is responsible for this tragic
treatment of Palestinians? If you
ponder that question, bear in mind that
Israel could not possibly commit this
criminal behavior without automatic,
unqualified, U.S. government support
year after year.
Pro-Issrael lobby pressure controls all
major news media. Congress behaves
like a committee of the Israeli
parliament. No president since Dwight
Eisenhower has had the courage to
stand up to Israeli wrongdoing. Those
who know the truth are afraid to speak
out for fear of paying a heavy price–
maybe loss of employment.
All citizens of the United States must
face the truth: Our government is
complicit in in Israeli crimes against
humanity. This is an election year.
We should elect a Congress that will
suspend all aid until Israel behaves.
The bloody standoff in Gaza will stop if
Israel opens the gate to Egypt and
keeps it open. When that happens
Arabs living there can “breathe free,” a
precious right our Statue of Liberty
proclaims for all humankind.
Paul Findley served as a member of
United States House of
Representatives for 22 years. His
books include ”Deliberate Deceptions:
Facing the Facts About the U.S.-Israeli
Relationship.”
Washington
is Complicit in
Israel’s Crimes
by PAUL FINDLEY
July 26th CounterPunch
While viewing the massacre of Gazans,
you may wonder why 1.8 million Arabs
are crowded on that tiny strip of
seashore and are being bombed day
and night into death and ruins by
Israel’s powerful military machine. A
glimpse of history is timely.
Facts set forth below are little known in
America:
Sixty years ago 800,000 Arabs fled
their ancestral homes in rural Palestine
fearing death as a Jewish onslaught
obliterated without a trace over 500
Arab towns, villages and hamlets.
Massacres were reported. Those who
fled are forbidden to return home.
Fifty years later, a survey show the
refugee problem staggering: 766,000
in Gaza; 741,000 in Jordan; 408,000 in
Syria; and 144,000 in Egypt; smaller
numbers in other Arab states.
Gaza soon become a part of Israel
Occupied Palestine. Refugees and
their descendants struggle there for
survival. Israeli controls are brutal.
Potable water is nearly gone. Most of
the population depends for survival on
food and water distributed by United
Nations officials. If supplies are not
increased starvation—not just
malnutrition–is certain. Arabs huddle
behind high fences equipped with
Israeli remote- controlled machine
guns. A gate that once served as an
occasional opening to freedom is now
kept locked by the government of
Egypt at Israel’s request.
Gaza has long been described as the
largest open-air prison in the world.
Israeli punishment of Gazans became
more severe seven years ago when
theuy exercised the right of self-
determination by electing the Hamas
Party to manage local affairs.
Once Hamas took control in Gaza,
Israel and the U.S. government
conspired in a sustained but
unsuccessful attempt to destroy the
organization. Hamas was reelected to
a second term and recently achieved a
cooperative arrangement with the
Fatah organization that maintains a
measure of authority in the West Bank.
Infuriated because all gates stay
closed, Hamas sends rockets over the
fence. They do little damage but incite
Israelis to launch heavy lethal
bombing. Revenge is not
commendable, but I understand why
people penned up like cattle may
welcome pain and discomfort for their
oppressors.
The current assault on Gaza is Israel’s
third in seven years. This is the first
time Hamas has used sustained rocket
fire, but it is no match for Israel’s
artillery, missiles and bombs. Thanks to
U.S. taxpayers, Israel has high tech
missiles that shoot down Hamas
rockets while still in the air. Hamas has
no such defense, in fact, no defense at
all.
The late radical Rabbi Meir Kahane,
wrote a book titled “They Must Go.” In
it he contended that all Arabs must be
removed from Palestine so an all-
Jewish Eretz Israel, the dream of
Zionism, can come into being. Eretz
Israel consists of entirety of Palestine,
including the West Bank, East
Jerusalem and Gaza, plus the Golan
Heights, long a part of Syria, exactly
the Arab territory Israel now controls.
All Arabs are not gone, but nearly two
million are imprisoned in Gaza.
Elsewhere in Occupied Palestine, 4.2
million Arabs are abused and denied
basic liberties. Their property and
livelihood are steadily being seized by
Israel to provide illegal housing for
Jews-only settlements. These Arabs
are squeezed into an ever-shrinking
part of their birthright. More than one-
half of the Palestinian West Bank is
now populated by more than 500,000
Israeli settlers. Zionist dreamers can
boast they are more than halfway
toward their dream.
Who is responsible for this tragic
treatment of Palestinians? If you
ponder that question, bear in mind that
Israel could not possibly commit this
criminal behavior without automatic,
unqualified, U.S. government support
year after year.
Pro-Issrael lobby pressure controls all
major news media. Congress behaves
like a committee of the Israeli
parliament. No president since Dwight
Eisenhower has had the courage to
stand up to Israeli wrongdoing. Those
who know the truth are afraid to speak
out for fear of paying a heavy price–
maybe loss of employment.
All citizens of the United States must
face the truth: Our government is
complicit in in Israeli crimes against
humanity. This is an election year.
We should elect a Congress that will
suspend all aid until Israel behaves.
The bloody standoff in Gaza will stop if
Israel opens the gate to Egypt and
keeps it open. When that happens
Arabs living there can “breathe free,” a
precious right our Statue of Liberty
proclaims for all humankind.
Paul Findley served as a member of
United States House of
Representatives for 22 years. His
books include ”Deliberate Deceptions:
Facing the Facts About the U.S.-Israeli
Relationship.”
| More of the Same An Unlearned Lesson from 9/11 by CESAR CHELALA Sept 10th, 2014 On a rainy morning on April 1958, in Washington DC, Ezra Pound -then a seventy-two year-old man- was declared “incurably insane” by Judge Bolitha J. Laws, who set him free. As he prepared to leave for Italy Pound declared “Any man who could live in America is insane.” I wonder what Pound –one of America’s greatest poets- would think today of the state of the country, which is suffering from a long blood- letting process resulting from unjust, unjustified wars. This situation is particularly evident when one returns to the US after staying from some time overseas. What one sees, as many friends told me, is an American government bent on an almost suicidal road to war. It has been shown almost ad infinitum that following the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to cite only the most important ones, that the climate of worldwide violence has increased substantially, and shows no signs of diminishing. And while we are justifiably horrified by the recent beheadings of two American journalists, we were not equally horrified by the killings by drones of whole families in countries overseas. Nor we were equally horrified by the hundreds of Palestinian children and the destruction of thousands of homes of people fighting for the right to live in their own land. In the meantime, meretricious US politicians repeated like a mantra that they supported the right of Israel to defend itself, without any mention of Palestinians’ suffering. In the meantime, few people seem to be concerned about the tortures and humiliations at Guantanamo, Iraq, Afghanistan and so many other countries where prisoners were sent to be tortured by the US authorities. And while President Barak Obama has promised, even before being elected, that he would close Guantanamo this is yet to happen, and the issue has become one of the darkest episodes in the US’s moral history. This is happening while more attacks are being carried out on Iraq and in Syria, the same rebels we have armed, are proving to be a nightmare for US forces and a huge hindrance to eventually reach peace in that region. In the meantime, the US intervention in Libya, rather than democratizing the country, has left a mess of deadly rivalries of conflicting armies without a solution in sight. And while an agreement with Iran over its nuclear program is pursued, new sanctions were imposed on that country that in the least are an irritant and at most an obstacle to an agreement. To add to this panorama of desolation, we see the slow disintegration of Ukraine, the hapless country in the middle of conflicting US and Russian interests. And rather than trying to calm the waters of dissent, the US is slowly encircling Russia through NATO, unconcerned that a similar situation on the US borders would be unacceptable to the US. The “war on terror” has not defeated it but brought more terror to the world. As Rami G. Khouri, a contributing editor to the Beirut Daily Star, and a keen observer of international politics recently wrote, “Dear Mr. Obama, Mr. Biden and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom: before you launch a new global war on terror and another coalition of countries to fight ISIS, please note that the last three decades of your global war on terror have sparked the greatest expansion of Islamist militancy and terrorism in modern history. This partly, maybe largely, because your military actions in Islamic lands usually destabilize those lands, allowing your enemies to organize and take root, and also provide the greatest magnet that attracts mostly fringe and lost young men to give meaning to their lives by joining what they see as a defensive jihad to save Islamic societies from your aggression.” To continue the war on terror is thus not only counterproductive and will not bring peace to the world but will show, sadly, that the main lesson of 9/11 has not been learned. Dr. Cesar Chelala is a winner of an overseas Press Club of America award for an article on human rights. |
| Workers in Maine Buy Out Their Jobs, Set an Example for the Nation Saturday, 13 September 2014 10:25 By Rob Brown, Noemi Giszpenc and Brian Van Slyke, Truthout | Op-Ed t(On remote Deer Isle, Maine, the movement for a more just and democratic economy won a major victory this summer. More than 60 employees of three retail businesses - Burnt Cove Market, V&S Variety and Pharmacy, and The Galley - banded together to buy the stores and create the largest worker cooperative in Maine and the second largest in New England. Now the workers own and run the businesses together under one banner, known as the Island Employee Cooperative (IEC). This is the first time that multiple businesses of this size and scope have been merged and converted into one worker cooperative - making this a particularly groundbreaking achievement in advancing economic democracy. Getting There: What It Took When the local couple that had owned the three businesses for 43 years began to think about selling their stores and retiring, the workers became concerned. The stores were one of the island's biggest employers and a potential buyer probably would not have come from within the community or maintained the same level of jobs and services. Only a worker buy-out could achieve stability. Because these workers were trying to accomplish something historic, it took more than a year - and it wasn't always an easy road. But the workers' strength lay in their own determination, and in the ability to rely on a group of allies dedicated to growing the cooperative movement. The Independent Retailers Shared Services Cooperative (IRSSC) and the Cooperative Development Institute, helped them develop their management, governance, legal and financial structures. They were also able to secure financing from Maine-based Coastal Enterprises and the Cooperative Fund of New England, both Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs). Without that dedicated technical assistance and available capital, it is doubtful the IEC would be here today. More Is Needed While the creation of the IEC maintained dozens of decent paying jobs and a remote community's only nearby access to essentials such as groceries and prescription medications, it also points to a successful model that could be used across the country to expand ownership and wealth to regular working people. This experience shows that if only we had more resources to experiment with grounded, practical economic policies, we could create many more of the living-wage jobs and community-sustaining businesses we desperately need. The Great Recession has led many to consider better ways to organize our economy, as always happens during economic downturns. But the reality is that our economy, even during the "good times," has always been failing working people. So we need to think long term and change our strategies in order to build a durable, democratic, equitable and just economy. The Great Recession in Maine: A Bad Situation Gets Worse In the aftermath of the Great Recession, Maine has won back less than half of the jobs we lost (ranking us 46th among the states): We are second from the bottom for total job growth, and we have one of the highest numbers of part-time workers who want more employment but can't find it. Nearly one-third of unemployed Mainers have been looking for work for more than six months, which is more than twice the national average. And what little growth there has been has occurred almost exclusively in the Portland metro region, in far southern Maine. But it's not as if our workers were prospering before the Great Recession. Over the last 30 years, the incomes of the poorest Maine workers grew by only 27 percent, while incomes for the wealthiest Mainers jumped by 67 percent. Starting in the late '90s, Maine lost more manufacturing jobs per capita than any other state. Maine workers also have the lowest average incomes of all the New England states and, of Maine's 16 counties, 14 of them are among the poorest in the region. As a result, one in seven Mainers overall and more than one in five children live in poverty. Most shamefully, poverty characterizes more than one in four young children, and one in three in our poorest counties. In short, Maine's low wages, limited job prospects, deepening poverty and growing inequality are not just the result of the Great Recession; it is structural and long-standing. We've needed to change the way the economy works for quite a while. And that's exactly why strategies to create sustainable, democratic businesses like the Island Employee Cooperative are so critical. The Island Employee Cooperative: A Model for Maine and the Nation Worker cooperatives hold the promise of fundamentally addressing our longstanding economic woes. Because they give members an equal voice in the co-op's governance, a worker co-op will almost never pick up and leave its community. Those jobs are democratically owned by the people who work and live there. In addition, in worker co-ops, employees have an incentive to work harder and smarter, because they benefit from an equitable share of the profits. And when a worker co-op is facing financial difficulty, the first response isn't to lay people off. That's because the worker-owners are sharing the risks and burdens of the business as well. Instead, members often come together to find democratic solutions to their problems, such as temporarily lowering wages or cutting hours for all workers, so that no one person has to lose their job. This is one of the major factors that also make worker co-ops more economically sustainable in low-income communities. For the new worker-owners of the Island Employee Cooperative, the transformation into a co-op will, over time, create profound changes in their lives as they begin investing some of the business' profits into better wages and benefits - something that is extremely uncommon for those in the retail business. The co-op is also already collaborating with the Maine Community College System to deliver education programs on-site so that the workers can improve their knowledge and skills. While retail jobs are often depicted as low-wage and dead-end, these retail workers are now business owners who will learn to make many hard decisions together. And because IEC is one of the island's largest employers, the cooperative ownership model will make a tremendous impact on the community as many more families build wealth through democratic ownership. That's a model we can and should scale up. A New Approach to Economic Development Unfortunately, successful examples like the IEC are rare in the United States because worker cooperative development gets little to no support from city, state and federal governments. Instead, these institutions spend a fortune on economic development programs that create windfall profits for corporations, but very few sustainable, living-wage jobs. The way states have traditionally pursued economic development relies primarily on "chasing smokestacks" and dreaming up new tax giveaways for out-of-state corporations. That serves to benefit the 1% while leaving workers in the dust. A less costly, more effective and more equitable strategy of focusing on worker co-op development would drive investments into grassroots initiatives for economic sustainability. Some support already exists: For example, New York City just passed its 2015 budget and is investing over $1 million in a comprehensive program to support the development of worker cooperatives, including directing existing business-development resources to be more supportive of worker co-ops. Ohio has provided small grants for feasibility studies and technical assistance to employees considering a cooperative buyout of their workplace, using federal funds that are available in every state (but utilized by only a half-dozen or so). Rural Cooperative Development Grants from the US Department of Agriculture support state and regional groups that provide cooperative development services in rural areas (though not just to worker co-ops). There are more examples of supportive policies, but they all amount to a tiny drop in the bucket compared to what is spent on typical economic development approaches that do little for working people. In order to begin scaling up worker co-op development, we need to provide technical assistance and small pre-development grants to people starting co-ops within their own communities, make available better education on how to operate a cooperative, provide loan guarantees for groups who would otherwise struggle to access credit, and offer targeted, accountable tax incentives. Communities across the country would benefit from more initiatives that support development of new co-ops, as well as converting existing businesses into worker-owned ones like the Island Employee Cooperative. This approach would allow many more communities to sustain themselves, cultivate jobs with dignity, improve wages and help more people build wealth through democratic ownership. And then we might see a transformation into an economy that truly and sustainably serves the needs of all. |
| Again the American people have been summoned to wage war against a dangerous “terrorist” adversary – this time it's the Islamic State (ISIL). Again, we are told this enemy is uniquely evil and that U.S. military force is the only solution. And while the Obama Administration promises to avoid ground combat, the calls for more troops grow more insistent with each passing day, with disturbing evidence of “mission creep.” U.S.military power as a means of stopping “terrorism” in the Muslim world has not and never will succeed. Over the past thirteen years, we have observed two major US wars in which early euphoria gave way to chaos, corruption and greater violence in the places the United States claimed to be “liberating.” We recognize that the Islamic State (ISIL) is a dangerous entity, which needs to be stopped. But this cannot be a U.S. directed project, nor can we afford to repeat the mistakes of the past. We cannot bomb an ideology, or heal sectarian conflicts with the barrel of a gun. The narcotic effect of air strikes, which spare the lives of US soldiers, while killing others, takes the story off the front pages. Invisible to the public, the bombing inevitably causes widespread suffering among innocent people, multiplying enemies and provoking further 'terrorism." More constructive alternatives to military intervention include: •accelerating humanitarian assistance for displaced people, •halting the flow of US arms to the region, •pressuring allies to halt the financing and the flow of weapons and IS personnel through their territories, •prioritizing diplomatic intervention under United Nations auspices, •insisting on a renewed peace process for Syria that includes all parties, •involving Iran and other regional actors in the negotiations over Iraq’s future, which include the diversity of groups within that country. While none of these options is fool-proof, an American war is a proven failure. This is a critical time to speak-up before the US becomes fully engaged in a new war that could embroil us in conflict for decades. Remind the public and our elected officials that diplomacy and humanitarian assistance ARE more effective than American military intervention. During the next two weeks United for Peace and Justice together with other peace and justice groups around the country will be making our opposition visible . Please join this effort: *Call your Congressional and Senate offices and ask where that elected official stands on the new conflict with ISIL? Send a clear message that you are opposed to the bombing, as well as the addition of more “boots on the ground.” Urge them to vote against any authorization for the use of force against ISIL. Find contact info for your representatives here: http://capwiz. com/fconl/directory/congdir.tt *Organize a delegation to meet with your representatives or a staff member. If nobody is available to meet with you, arrange a vigil outside their office and call the local media. * Organize a community meeting, which can address some of the questions and genuine concerns that people have about the expansion of ISIL and the role of the United States *Write a letter to the editor of a local paper raising your objections to the present course. Be sure to include information about how much this new war is costing. Link here for a useful article on the cost of fighting ISIL: http://www.bostonglobe. com/opinion/2014/10/07/fighting-islamic-state-how-much-will- cost/xub6sT2eWP1k67t1HWBsFL/story.html |
| The Last Letter A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From: Tomas Young I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care. I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans, —my fellow veterans—whose future you stole. I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr.Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans —my fellow veterans—whose future you stole. Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage. I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass- destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences. I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire. I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul. My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness. |
| In March 2013, Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges published an interview with Young about his worldview and circumstances.Young was in hospice care at the time of the interview, which was conducted at his home in Kansas City. Although he has contemplated suicide on various occasions, he decided "to go on hospice care, to stop feeding and fade away. This way, instead of committing the conventional suicide and I am out of the picture, people have a way to stop by or call and say their goodbyes." He later changed his mind, saying "I want to spend as much time as possible with my wife, and no decent son wants his obituary to read that he was survived by his mother. "Young died on November 10, 2014 in Seattle. In November 2014, Hedges wrote a column on Young's passing, in which he stated that "Young hung on as long as he could. Now he is gone. He understood what the masters of war had done to him, how he had been used and turned into human refuse." |
| Weekend Edition December 12-14, 2014 Bill Alberts, the CounterPunching Minister Drawing the Line by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR Americans want to be loved, yet are feared almost everywhere in the world. Americans see themselves as just and righteous, yet daily countenance harrowing transgressions of international law and basic human rights. We believe ourselves to be agents of freedom, yet most of us refuse to reflect on the ethical consequences of our imperial aggressions. We prefer not to know what is done in our name, not to see the mounds of corpses that litter the distant rims of the world from American missile and drone strikes. We don’t want to know, because such an inquiry threatens the essential tenets of our self-identity, undermines the comforting fabric of our beliefs, shatters the spectral illusion of our national psyche. What does it take to excite America’s moral nerve endings? Bombing kids with cluster bombs or shredding wedding parties with drone attacks doesn’t seem to do it any more. Nor does torture. Oh, sure, there was a collective gasp when lurid photos of American soldiers laughing as they prodded naked Iraqi captives with electrodes or threatened anguished prisoners with snarling German shepherds. But the outrage soon faded, the scenes soon acquiring the familiarity of a re-run of the Sopranos. Torture, naturally, is nothing new. One of the darkest threads of US imperial history has been the CIA’s involvement with torture, as an instructor at the School of the Americas, as a practitioner, or a contractor to experienced hands in Egypt, South Africa or Honduras. Since its inception the CIA has taken a keen interest in torture, avidly studying Nazi techniques and protecting exponents such as Klaus Barbie. The CIA’s official line is that torture is wrong and ineffective. It is indeed morally bankrupt. However, on numerous occasions it has proved diabolically effective. In the months after the 9/11 attacks, “truth drugs” were hailed by some columnists, such as Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, for use in the war against al-Qaeda. This was an enthusiasm shared by the US Navy after the war on Hitler, when its intelligence officers got on the trail of Dr. Kurt Plotner’s research into “truth serums” at Dachau. Plotner gave Jewish and Russian prisoners high doses of mescaline and then observed their behavior, in which they expressed hatred for their guards and made confessional statements about their own psychological makeup. As part of the MK-ULTRA project, the CIA gave money to Dr. Ewen Cameron at McGill University in Montreal. Cameron was a pioneer in sensory-deprivation techniques. The doctor once locked a woman in a small white box for thirty-five days, deprived of light, smell and sound. The CIA doctors were amazed by this “experiment.” The knew from their own “research” into sensory-deprivation tanks in 1955 that severe psychological reactions had been induced in less than forty hours. Start torturing, even in the name of “science,” and it’s easy to get carried away. In 1968, the CIA got frustrated by its inability to break suspected leaders of Vietnam’s National Liberation Front by its usual methods of interrogation and torture. So the agency began to adopt more aggressive methods. In one instance it anesthetized three prisoners, opened their skulls and planted electrodes in their brains. They were revived, put in a room and given knives. The CIA psychologists then activated the electrodes, hoping the prisoners would attack each other. They didn’t. The electrodes were removed, the prisoners shot, and their bodies burned. (For a full account of these and similar atrocities see Douglas Valentine’s excellent book on the CIA in Vietnam The Phoenix Program.) In recent years the United States has been charged by the UN and also human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International with tolerating torture in American prisons, by methods ranging from solitary, twenty-three-hours-a-day confinement in concrete boxes for years on end, to activating 50,000 volt shocks through a mandatory belt worn by prisoners. Many of the Military Police guards at Abu Ghraib and Bagram prisons earned their stripes working as guards in alberts federal and state prisons, where official abuse is a daily occurrence almost unnoted by the corporate press. Indeed, Charles Granier, one of the chief abusers at Abu Ghraib and the lover of Lynndie England, the Trailer Park Torturer, worked as a guard at Pennsylvania’s notorious Greene Correctional Unit and after his tour in Iraq was over went back to work there before being arrest, tried and convicted for his sadistic activities in Iraq. Then there is the story of Abu Wa’el Dhiab. Swept up during raids in Pakistan in 2002, Mr. Dhiab was brutally interrogated numerous times, shuttled from one CIA controlled prison to another, before being warehoused in the grim corridors of Guantanamo Bay. By that time any suspicions that Mr. Dhiab might be a terrorist had long been extinguished. In 2009, Mr. Dhiab was cleared for release, but the father of four remained locked his cell. He has never been charged or tried. Over his years of confinement, Mr. Dhiab’s health began to deteriorate. He ultimately became restricted to a wheelchair. With little hope going home and seeing his family again, Mr. Dhiab began a hunger strike in 2014. He said he’d rather die than continue to live such a confined and hopeless existence. A few days into his hunger strike, Gitmo guards entered his cell, removed him to a medical room, shacked him to a gurney, inserted feeding tubes in his nostrils and down his throat and began force-feeding him liquid nutrition against his will. The force-feeding process has been condemned by the UN Human Rights Commission and World Medical Association as a painful and humiliating form of torture. These gratuitous cruelties were being inflicted for his own good, the government’s lawyers argued. In other words, Mr. Dhiab should have been grateful for this excruciating experience, he was the recipient of compassionate torture. Thus does torture destroy the tortured and corrupt the society that sanctions it. How much will we tolerate? At what point will Americans draw the line? What will it take to rouse us from our moral torpor? How is it that one of the world’s most self-consciously religious nations passively tolerates and rationalizes extreme violations of cherished codes of ethical conduct? When will we revolt at the horrors committed by our government and seek to reassert popular control over our fragmenting democracy? These are the core themes raised in this compelling collection of essays by Rev. William E. Alberts. Few writers are better positioned to fashion these inquiries than Bill Alberts. A veteran of World War II, Alberts returned from the Pacific, and became motivated to work for peace and social justice, to minister to the poor and underprivileged. He received a Masters in Divinity at Wesley Theological Seminary (right next door to my alma mater, American University, in Washington, DC), followed by a doctorate in psychology and pastoral counseling at Boston University. In 1965 he was appointed co-minister of the Old West Church in the heart of Boston, where he directed its social programs. It was a fraught time in Boston, as both the civil rights and anti-war movements were beginning to make things uncomfortable for the elites. Bill was right in the middle of it all, reporting on police violence against hippies camped out on Boston Common, participating in anti-war protests, providing sanctuary for the pro-Cuban Venecremos Brigade, facilitating a Conference-wide group calling for the investigation of racism alleged against a member of the Methodist Conference’s hierarchy itself, and writing articles on these issues, published in The Boston Globe. In 1971, Alberts performed the same-sex marriage of two women at the Old West Church. Despite having the backing of the church’s Parish Relations Committee, the ceremony, like certain of his other involvements, unnerved the hierarchy of the Methodist Conference, who’s Book of Discipline admonishes that “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” Even so, two years later Alberts presided over the same-sex marriage of two male church members, both of whom had been students at the Boston University School of Theology. This marriage infuriated the bishop of the church and a few months later the Conference instituted proceedings to forcibly retire Alberts from his position, despite the fact that members of the Old West Church’s Council on Ministries had rallied to his defense. That’s when matters turned ugly. Alberts’ bishop and other leaders of the Conference launched a vicious campaign of character assassination, meant to smear him, not just as a pastor of the church but as a man. The two church leaders tracked down Alberts’ former psychiatrist, induced him to breech the confidence of his psychiatric sessions and used these allegations to publicly brand Alberts as “mentally ill.” Alberts immediately countered this shocking betrayal of his privacy by offering himself up for examination by two other psychiatrists and a psychologist who pronounced him in sound mental and emotional health. These assessments were ignored by the bishop and Alberts was dismissed. The story didn’t end there. Alberts sued, charging that the psychiatrist and the bishop had violated his privacy rights. After 12 years of hearings and appeals, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in Alberts’ favor, holding both the psychiatrist and the bishop liable for breeching his rights. The landmark ruling set a precedent; protecting the rights of workers and whistleblowers against unlawful incursions into their private affairs by bosses attempting to terminate their employment. This dismal experience only hardened Alberts’ resolve. As minister at the non-sectarian Community Church of Boston, he helped lead the New England effort to provide sanctuary for Guatemalan refugees fleeing the US-sponsored death squads that were ravaging their country. In 1989, Bill was part of a team that went to El Salvador to investigate an army attack on a rebel field hospital, where 10 people were killed and two medical workers raped. For nearly 20 years, Alberts also served as a hospital chaplain at Boston Medical Center, where he got a first-hand look at how trauma, illness and death can radically alter the lives of American families. Alberts wrote about his experiences there in his evocative memoir, A Hospital Chaplin at the Crossroads of Humanity, released in 2012. I first encountered Bill in 2004, when a submission landed in my inbox at CounterPunch titled “Faith-Based Deceptions.” The essay was a calmly-worded, meticulously argued demolition of the false pieties of the Bush crowd, which was using the cover of religion to pursue a vicious imperialistic agenda abroad and cruel economic policies at home. Over the next ten years, the essays kept coming, one after another, on drones, war, torture, health care, economic inequality, bigotry. Alberts, a grandfather of six and great-grandfather of six, will soon be 88 years old, but his voice is as clear and resonant as ever. Bill Alberts is a moralist, but never a moralizer. Alberts understands human weakness and failings. He’s seen it up close. He has tended to the wreckage. As a witness to the savage history of our generation, Alberts argues that weakness is not the enemy. Indifference to suffering is the real foe; indifference, lack of empathy, is what saps us of our moral footing. The real struggle of our generation is to resist the machinations of a political system that renders people into a state of powerlessness, into mere objects of exploitation, into things. To abstain from this struggle is, in essence, to confirm the crimes that are being committed in our name. Our humanity accrues meaning only to the extent that we defend the humanity of others. –this excerpted from the Foreword to Rev. William E. Alberts’ new book: The CounterPunching Minister (Who Couldn’t be ‘Preyed’ Away). Jeffrey St. Clair is editor of CounterPunch. His new book is Killing Trayvons: an Anthology of American Violence (with JoAnn Wypijewski and Kevin Alexander Gray). He can be reached at: sitka@comcast.net. |
| Dr. Roberts Public Service ~ President Reagan appointed Dr. Roberts Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and he was confirmed in office by the U.S. Senate. From 1975 to 1978, Dr. Roberts served on the congressional staff where he drafted the Kemp-Roth bill and played a leading role in developing bipartisan support for a supply-side economic policy. After leaving the Treasury, he served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense & the U.S. Department of Commerce. More on Dr. Roberts and his book at paulcraigroberts,org |
| I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it. — Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding. — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) |
| There was never a good war or a bad peace. — Ben Franklin (1706-1790) |
| Out with 2014, In with 2015, and Up with People We’ve made progress this past year — raising the minimum wage in dozens of states and cities, providing equal marriage rights in a majority of states, limiting carbon emissions. But there’s far more to do. The economy looks like it’s improving but most Americans are still stuck in recession, and almost all the economic gains are still going to the top. The only way we can have an economy that works for the many, not the few, is to get big money out of politics — so the rules of the economic game aren’t biased in favor of big corporations, Wall Street, and the rich. And to get more people fighting for equal opportunity and shared prosperity. But many Americans have become so cynical about politics they no longer even bother to vote. Turnout in the 2014 midterm elections was the lowest in decades. This is exactly what the moneyed interests want. If we give up on politics we give up on democracy, and they can take over all of it. Never underestimate what we can, and will, accomplish together. Organizing. Mobilizing. Energizing. Making a ruckus. Here’s to your and yours for a great 2015. |