The War is over in Iraq… President Obama called an end to it yesterday. No big headlines. No party. No parades. Kinda like Vietnam, a quiet ending. The tally: seven years of US troops and civilians killed – 4,427 at last count with 34,265 wounded. Less than 50,000 troops still in Iraq at this time.  22 Responses to Glazer: War’s Over but Hold the Hoopla |
Jimmy
When I
MrOlathe
Are we still at war with the Predator? Or are we friends with him now?
chuck
Tony complained on his blog the other day re: the Liberty Memorial and the cost—he thought it was too much.
Too much.
Way too much for guys no one even remembers he said. For a war no one remembers.
I posted this…
“Tony is correct about the war being fought for nothing. The idea of great antions going to war over the assasination of the Arch Duke Ferdinand in Serbia for chrissakes is preposterous to imagine in this day and age.
Then again, you would think, that after the bullshit excuse Gulf of Tonkin catalyst, for another useless war, that America wouldn’t be pulled into a WMD bullshit excuse again.
All that notwithstanding, the war was fought (My Grampa got gassed a gut shot at Bellau Woods.), and the reason for the tribute, is NOT the idiot politicians (Like Bush – Cheney, who might have been in harms way during a college “kegger” but never had any real military service.), or pundits like R Limbaugh (Who dodged the draft with a cse of “ass wart” I shit you not.), but for the poor schmucks who went their and died or got fucked up for life.
Those of us, we Americans, who have been tricked by leaders who found quarrel in a straw, who for imaginary glory, a fantasy and a trick of fame have gone to our graves like beds.
That Tony, is what the memorial really stands for, “We The Dead”.
My generation hoped the Who was on the money when they screamed “We won’t get fooled again!”
We did, we died, so did those guys in 1917.
Here is to those fighting men and women who exsanguinated into foriegn sand for dubious cause, mixed results and little reward.
God bless ya.
8/30/10 8:20 AM”
I got comments on my spelling. Fuk spelchek, I am old and grouchy and “WE WALKED TO SCHOOL IN TWO FEEET OF SNOE AND WE LIKED IT!!!!!!”
Spellin for fuckssake.
My dad went too–he was at Pearl on Dec 7 1941 with one week to go. Fought at Leyte Gulf, savo island, coral midway, et etc–my number was 19 in 1969 and i went in the navy for 4 years.
You nailed in Craig. fuckin nailed it.
I remember, so do my friends and family.
I am reading “The Good Soldiers” (Finkel) right now.
Fuck that war. Fuck George Bush.
jojo
standing ovation for chuck…..
when rich people have to fight the wars there
will be no wars!
Ptolemy
What a bunch of naval-watching communists!
If a lineman gets electrocuted working on restoring power (I know someone who did), do you worry about answering his parents or wife when they say, “My son died giving you electricity”? There were a couple of guys killed installing needless pollution controls on the Iatan power plant in Weston. Does somebody worry about answering their kids when they say, “My dad died working to provide you with clean air.”
Why is a career in the military any different? If you choose to serve in the military, being sent to a foreign land to protect US interests is part of the equation. It has been so for 234 years. Move along already.
And I highly doubt Glazer has spent much time reading high school history books.
Pretty Simple
Wars are for making money. period.
Dwight Eisenhower warned us, but we did not listen.
President Eisenhower explained, very clearly the military industrial complex would keep starting wars for profit, but we did not listen.
Look up the facts on your own, watch this lil clip, read, learn DO SOMETHING!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY
NO ONE OWES YOU ,,,DO IT YOUR SELF!!
IT IS SO SIMPLE ..YET NO ONE LISTEND!!! IF YOU AND YOU AND YOU…do not start speaking up asking our supposed leaders of our buncrupt country to stop the crap…. we are fkd…. maybe we are fkd already.
YOU AND YOU AND YOU MUST BE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR COUNTRY.
I do my small part, but my small voice is nothing, it takes ALL OF US doing it together, or it will never work and within 50 years the national language will be Chinese.
It is not magic that makes this all happen, it is people with an agenda. WHAT IS YOUR AGENDA?
I know our forefathers 200 years ago had an agenda to escape the grasp of power where a few people have all of the wealth…
well guess what? ….
It took about 150 years…
but it just happened again, right here in America.
Wanna know a secret? There is no recession or bad times, not for the CEOs who earn 300-3000 times what the lower worker makes.
When 1% control 42% of the wealth, and they do not share or spend that wealth, it causes what we are seeing right now.
If the wealth was shared, then people would spend and the good times would return, but the wealth is being hoarded by a few …. and you see what happens.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY
MrOlathe
Chuck….you lose some credibility by blaming it all on Bush, Cheney, & Limbaugh. Try to be a little more objective and your point will have more meaning.
MrOlathe
PT: “And I highly doubt Glazer has spent much time reading high school history books”
He does so he can have something to talk to his dates about.
Dino
I read the King of Sting, great read by the way. Glazer explains he got his ideas from books on famous lawmen and bad guys. Books he read in the library in high school. So I think he does or did read history books. My son is in high school, Glazer is right, his history book is much thinner then mine was regarding past conflicts. Not much on wars we fought before Vietnam. Civil War was one and a half pages, my God when I was in school it was at least a chapter or two.
Markus Aurelius
With regards to those you voluntarily enlist, I’m in total agreement, Ptolemy. However, I don’t think it’s fair to compare those persons who were involuntarily drafted by their government to the person that chooses to work for KCPL and is tragically and unfortunately killed during his employment. However, we’re not talking about Vietnam here, we’re talking about the Iraq war — one that only involved men and woman who chose to put themselves in harm’s way. Just as many people do in other professions. The lineman who is killed in the line of duty is equally deserving of the respect and honor afforded the member of the armed forces serving in Iraq, or the policeman working the beat, or the fireman on the call. These people could have chosen different career paths that involved less, if not no, risk to life or limb but they didn’t. They knew when they enlisted in, for example, the Army or police academy that they were potentially putting their life on the line. That doesn’t make their injury or death less honorable but neither does it make it more honorable.
KCMO staffer
Voted for Bush. Hate this war now, it is another Vietnam. Glazer you are right, “died for what?” I did see some of those beheadings. My God. We should bomb them to hell. Take their gold,oil and cash, give it to our hurting economy. Who will stop us? Nobody. This is what comes of no public protests anymmore. Guess I used to be a hippie, but now I voted Bush? Damn.
DowntownDavy
Glazer and Hearne, YES, finally we agree on something. Skunk those bastards.
____________________
HC: What do you mean, “we”? Did you see my name on here somewhere?
Maureen
Nice, look at the big brain on Craig. Who you dating now? I see Whinny Whitney is not on the blog anymore, guess she is history? Huh.
jweinberg
Craig great take on this entire mess. Maybe you should write more in your stories on things from your own book and life, people seem to enjoy that, I do.
KellysGuy
We are on the same page on this one. We don’t allow Arabs in Westport anymore, unless they are hot girls.
MGarr
Was in Desert Storm, nobody even mentions that one anymore, like it never happened. Lives lost, men and women crippled to this day, and for what?
We will never get along with Iraq or Iran or any of those countries. Wish Isreal was let loose to take over those spots and watch them for us. I don’t think it will ever be over with the way they think. They hate us. No reason, they just do.
SimonSays
In a world guarded by men with guns, you will need them on the wall, at all times. From a movie I saw. Its the awful truth, nothing good about it my friends. No bands, no parade, no love, well their families will be happy to have them home.
Rob Lane
Horrible world we live in at times. Glad the shooting war is over in Iraq, lots of good Americans killed over there.
I met Don Woodbeck in Los Angeles in l981. Chrismatic man, tough guy. He died too young, I see it still bothers you. The choices we make often haunt us all the time.
Susan Dunlap
I’m sure the families of these troops will be very happy when they return. Lots of wasted lives, and tax dollars.
smartman
MGarr, They hate us because they see us as a Godless, imperialistic and perverse society.
Contrary to Gen. George Patton’s statement about winning wars by making the other sonsabitches die for their country the rules have changed. The terrorists are ready and willing to take one for Allah. Figure a 1:20 kill ratio with IED’s and suicide bombers and it doesn’t take long for the numbers to favor them in the global jihad.
The wars in the Middle East aren’t about hearts and minds, they’re about culture, which is almost impossible to change in less than 100 years. Hell we can’t even get rappers to stop saying “nigger” here in the US and we expect the Muslim diaspora in the Middle East and around the world to buy into some perverted strain of our version of a republic?
Until we get back in touch with what the true meaning of VICTORY is, we’re in big trouble. In ten years Iraq and Afghanistan won’t look any different then they did before we went to war.
We could have had more impact by dropping a dozen nukes in each country. Worked pretty damn well the last time we did it, and it wouldn’t have cost us a single life.
chuck
Ptolemy.
Your premise is faulty.
“Why is a career in the military any different? If you choose to serve in the military, being sent to a foreign land to protect US interests is part of the equation. It has been so for 234 years. Move along already”
Apparantly, you have led a life bereft of noble aspirations. Thats fine, but the comparrison of men in combat, weather drafted (I was), or weather a volunteer, to a lineman, or a blue collar worker is, imo specious.
The lineman goes to work for himself and his family, and expects to come home again that night.
Combat veterans, go to work for themselves and for their country, and expect to come home again, but maybe not in one piece. 4,000 of them are coming home, in body bags. 50,000 more are missing limbs, eyes, are burned and scarred inside and out, and thats just the ones in the most recent conflict. A conflict that did NOT need to be fought (There are 100,000 dead Iraqis too, and Smartman is right, the only thing we changed there was the balance of power, from Sunni to Shia, here comes Iran. If we dug up Saddam Hussein and put the paddles on him, put him back in power, America is light years better off.)
Ptolemy, you may think, fuck ’em, thats the breaks, they volunteered.
Me, I dunno, I like to think that those kids came from military families with a long tradition of serving their country in times of need.
I like to think they were like my dad, who said “Charles, we knew we had to go, all of my friends and I, it was the right thing to do.” He was serious, he wasn’t fukin kiddin a bit,in his deep serious dad voice that connotated what seemed obvious to him and he was confirming to me, in a way you tell someone something you KNOW they already know. Then he nodded and went back to whatever he was doing.
I like to think they are like Walter Tull, son of a slave who was the first black officer in the British Army. ” On 25th March, 1918, 2nd Lieutenant Tull was ordered to lead his men on an attack on the German trenches at Favreuil. Soon after entering No Mans Land Tull was hit by a German bullet. Tull was such a popular officer that several of his men made valiant efforts under heavy fire from German machine-guns to bring him back.” His body, never recovered, but I am thinking about him now, bet his grandkids do too. I think about my grandad, gut shot and gassed Ptolemy, shit like that hardly EVER happens to lineman.
I like to think they are like the guys in the 2-16 who roll out every day past the wire in Bagdad and get their dicks blown off and burned alive like Duncan Crookston, or loose and eye and two limbs like Adam Schuman or any of the other 54,000 wounded and dead kids that that kept their chins up till the last moment. They didn’t get paid as much as lineman, but they sure earned their money.
“Move along already.”
Maybe in the next useless stupid war the Government will draft one of your kids and they can “Move along already” to the front lines of some shitheel country and see the elephant. I bet if they do, and they make it back, they will fix that insouciant attitude your sportin, ricky fukin ticky pal.
smartman
To Chuck and PT. Very nice exchange of opposing ideas and points of view!