DefenseWatch "The Voice of the Grunt"

06-17-2003

Hack's Target

Loyalty to the Country Always

By David H. Hackworth

 

My wife and I just returned from an eye-opening, two-week trip to Ireland, a lush island where everyone we encountered seems to love Yankee Doodle Dandies. You can still count on being welcomed by friendly faces and heart-warming hospitality, probably because Americans provided a safe harbor and shiploads of food during the 19th-century famines and have been there for these long-oppressed, freedom-loving people ever since.

            

But the folks we yarned with aren't keen on our government’s recent behavior – and it’s not about Bill Clinton’s Irish background as opposed to George Bush’s English genes. Our aggressive new “Pre-emptive First Strike” stance worries them as much as it does other “old” Europeans. The most frequent question we encountered – I kid you not – was “Do you think we'll be invaded next?”

            

My response: “North Korea and Iran lead the administration’s termination list. Relax. Ireland’s safe as long as it continues to export Guinness beer.”

            

But in Ireland, Bush is clearly out and those other Texans, the Dixie Chicks – who are big-time box office overseas – are in.

            

Like the Dixie Chicks, the Irish people aren’t afraid to sound off. Forever mindful of their hard fight for liberty, they don’t take freedom of speech for granted. And their stand-up-and-be-counted electronic media regularly – and righteously – go for their politicians’ jugular veins with a vengeance seldom seen in the USA these days. I suspect the reason for the difference is Corporate America’s control over our airways; the big guys are now shamelessly riding the same corrupting pork train as most Washington-based power players.

            

But what a price the Dixie Chicks have paid here in the USA for sounding off. They took the same terrible hit as many others for daring to ask how real a threat Iraq’s much-hyped Weapons of Mass Destruction posed and if it was smart to place our sons and daughters at risk in a fight that didn’t truly involve our national security.

            

It seems that in America it’s unpatriotic to ask, “Was this war necessary?” Today, a highly organized right-wing juggernaut is quick to attack anyone who protests Washington’s war plans, calling these truth-seekers un-American and traitorous.

            

Many of us have chosen to shut up and look the other way out of dread of being accused of not supporting our country and our troops. Anyone expressing the slightest dissent is warned: “It's our way or the highway. If you don't like where the country’s going, then move to Germany or France.”

            

Doubting Americans seem too cowed to sound off and question these self-proclaimed patriots – the majority of whom dodged combat service during past conflicts as diligently as most of us are avoiding Hong Kong and Toronto today.

            

In spite of their residence in a very hot place, demagogue Joe McCarthy and the rabid members of his Committee on Un-American Activities – which did such appalling damage to our country’s integrity in the 1950s – must be gloating over the Hawks Club following in their footsteps, wrapped as they were in the American flag.

            

Sadly, too many of us seem to have bought into the same sort of fear and base propaganda as the good people of Germany when Hitler was promoting his Sieg Heils in the mid-1930s: My country, right or wrong, my country.

            

Beginning with much of the media, we seem to have forgotten Mark Twain's sage comment: “Loyalty to the country always, loyalty to the government when it deserves it.”

            

Bet your boots that more than 200,000 American troops now stuck in the Middle Eastern deserts – many living in primitive conditions that we don’t tolerate for farm animals, dodging bullets that cut into American flesh almost daily – surely would appreciate more Americans standing tall and asking the billion-dollar question: Was the Iraq War critical to our country’s national interest, and is the occupation worth the bloody price our grunts continue to pay?

            

We need to remember that dissent is what America is all about. Wise men long ago guaranteed our freedom to attack city hall by the magic documents that a bunch of dedicated people have fought McCarthy-type gangs time and again over the years to keep alive: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

 

Http://www.hackworth.com is the address of David Hackworth's home page. Sign in for the free weekly Defending America column at his Web site. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831. His newest book is “Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts.”

© 2003 David H. Hackworth.

...Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee Haaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Stuff it Shills.

Viva La Resistance'!

Who can blame the Irish for being worried. How many times in the past weeks and months has the Bush Administration verbally told the soverign nation of Ireland that the Marines would be landing on their shores any day now? I've frankly lost count.

And the Dixie Chicks, who couldn't love them. The Irish loving them is just wonderful! It reminds me of how the French consider Jerry Lewis to be one of the greatest film actors ever to hit the silver screen. Europe is SO far ahead of this police state.

The Army and Marine Corps love Europe; that is why they are not wearing helmets that make them look like WWII German stormtroopers.

I meant that they are wearing such helmets. They look like they are ready to storm the Warsaw Ghetto or lay siege to Stalingrad.

Very true! The police state of the US should have never set up bases in the "NATO" countries that bordered the USSR. The USSR had no desire to expand and to take over Europe. And had they, any country with an army the size of Belgiums could have easily pushed them back. But that wouldn't have happened. The USSR was a peace loving nation whose people were the most bountiful and free people who have ever existed. Fascist US troops should have never been there presenting an ongoing threat to such a peace loving nation as the USSR and their friends in what was so rudly and incorrectly called the "Soviet Bloc".

...the above post is so much of a parody it has to be a shill.

The Soviet Union was Brutal and Expansionistic.

Yes, he's making fun of you.

No, he's not a shill.

Believe it or not, Dio, everyone who doesn't buy the usual crap aroound here isn't paid to do so. As a matter of fact, no one here is paid to disagree.

This place is just not important enough to spend tax dollars on.

Anywhere outside your head, that is.

...with your credibility level I put a lot of stock in what you have to Parrot - ooh scuse me say.

Your hypothesis of course explains all of the attacks on this Web Site to disrupt its' functionality and viability as a place to exchange ideas and communicate.

Fascists do not like free and open debate. It disturbs their plans.

Of course, it is a complete coincidence that a number of left message boards became filled with postings from rightwingers just as the US was preparing to invade Iraq. Cointelpro was a big myth, too - created by the same liars that said J.Edgar Hoover wore dresses. We all know, however, that he really wore miniskirts; they showed off his thick but shapely legs.

were they really that shapely? I know tastes differ....

daveman probably has little pipe stem legs from sitting down so much.

He needs to be carrying a nice big heavy toolbox. You know, working.

This is no parody, Diogenes. The things you write are things I admire and agree with to the upmost.

The "myths" regarding the USSR were feed to us by our fascist government to keep us in fear of those "bad commies" so they could continue to keep the boot of subserviance on our neck.

Sheepdog: well, maybe Tolson, Joe McCarthy, Cardinal Spellman and Roy Cohn found them shapely. There is no accounting for taste.

Notiice Daveman's attempt to link the left with nutty theories about the Illuminati and other nonsense. Either he doesn't know or doesn't want to know that the people interested in this nonsense tend to be ultra-right wingers, with opinions that don't differ all that much from good old Daveman's. Maybe he should take note the next time some Bircher general or admiral gets invited to retire after he goes off the deep end and reveals his beliefs in a public speech. And let's not forget General Walker; flying the flag upside down in no way incited right wing loons in Dallas to violence in the 1960's.

...one of the stated functions of the Rockefeller Foundation, per it's head in the 50's, was to bring American Society to the point where there would be an easy merger between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

So, your parody is probably closer to the truth than you would like to admit.

What a maroon.

"What a maroon."

More like a lovely mauve. It's a good thing!

Have any of the lurkers actually commented on the article?

No.

Wonder why?

Hack is not a Liberal.

He is a highly decorated Combat Veteran asking the same questions people have been asking here for months.

He doesn't intimidate easily.

"You can still count on being welcomed by friendly faces and heart-warming hospitality, probably because Americans provided a safe harbor and shiploads of food during the 19th-century famines and have been there for these long-oppressed, freedom-loving people ever since."

Not to mention those tourist dollars!

'The most frequent question we encountered – I kid you not – was “Do you think we'll be invaded next?”'

Sure...like Ireland has anything to be worried about.

"But what a price the Dixie Chicks have paid here in the USA for sounding off."

No, they didn't. Check the record and ticket sales.

"They took the same terrible hit as many others for daring to ask how real a threat Iraq’s much-hyped Weapons of Mass Destruction posed and if it was smart to place our sons and daughters at risk in a fight that didn’t truly involve our national security."

No, they didn't. They said they were embarrassed that Bush was from Texas. To read that much political commentary into their embarrassment is wishful thinking.

"Today, a highly organized right-wing juggernaut is quick to attack anyone who protests Washington’s war plans, calling these truth-seekers un-American and traitorous."

If you're that worried about being called names...

"Anyone expressing the slightest dissent is warned: “It's our way or the highway. If you don't like where the country’s going, then move to Germany or France.”

Yeah, it's not like you're told you're going to be deported...or put through a plastic shredder. Besides, any of the people who SAID they were going to move...haven't.

"Sadly, too many of us seem to have bought into the same sort of fear and base propaganda as the good people of Germany when Hitler was promoting his Sieg Heils in the mid-1930s: My country, right or wrong, my country."

The very second you compare America to Germany in the 30's, you lose all credibility.

"Bet your boots that more than 200,000 American troops now stuck in the Middle Eastern deserts – many living in primitive conditions that we don’t tolerate for farm animals, dodging bullets that cut into American flesh almost daily – surely would appreciate more Americans standing tall and asking the billion-dollar question: Was the Iraq War critical to our country’s national interest, and is the occupation worth the bloody price our grunts continue to pay?"

Sure..tell'em you think their service is a waste, and they'll thank you for it. Right. Never mind the fact that Saddam and the Ba'ath Party are out of the game, no longer torturing and killing...the grunts are too stupid to know what that means, anyway.

"We need to remember that dissent is what America is all about. Wise men long ago guaranteed our freedom to attack city hall by the magic documents that a bunch of dedicated people have fought McCarthy-type gangs time and again over the years to keep alive: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights."

Uh, last time I checked, those documents are still active and in force. No one is silenced for their dissent; no one is "disappeared". To claim otherwise is sheer paranoia.

'His newest book is “Steel My Soldiers’ Hearts.”"

Gee...Mr. Hackworth has a book to sell. Who'd-a thunk it.

OK, you paranoid dissenters, listen to the wisdom of our philosopher Daveman: as long as the measures taken against dissenters are not as bad as those that the Nazis took in the 1930's. (at least not yet) you have nothing to complain about -- so shut up.

Of course, that would would mean that dissenters in Franco's Spain, Batista's Cuba, Salazar's Portugal, Greece under the Colonels, or Chile under the free market enthusiast General Pinochet had nothing to complain about, either. Tapping of phone lines? Keeping track of what books people buy or check out of the library? Refusing to sell plane tickets to US citizens who are on a watch list because they are anti-war activists? Violating all rules of international law and the laws of war buy keeping pows in cages in Cuba? Urging neighbors to turn in people they think might be "terrorists"? Interviewing employers and landlords about people with Arabic names or the wrong kind of political opinions? Not to worry! None of this will ever happen to you, nor will it lead to greater inroads on the Bill of Rights. The only thing we have to worry about is attacks on our "liberty" by "big government" rufusing to let school districts force children to engage in school prayer, or outrageously requiring auto manufacturers to install gas tanks that don't explode at the slightest impact.

Jeez. You mean the government cares that I checked out "Jude the Obscure" last week? Wow. They have a lot of time on their hands. They tapped my phone? Doubt it. I bought an airline ticket the other day. Let's see if they let me board the plane on Wednesday. I bet they will. To the best of my knowledge, none of my neighbors have turned me in. I know I haven't turned them in. None of my Pakastani-American friend's neighbors have turned him in yet either. Must be an oversight.

I am grateful that the government has kept the terrorists in jail. And killed others. On 9/11, I never would have guessed we would have gone this long without a second attack. Somebody is doing their job. Thanks god.

Come to think of it, since we have "bought into the same sort of fear and base propaganda as the good people of Germany when Hitler was promoting his Sieg Heils in the mid-1930s", I haven't noticed anything (other than a tax reduction) since Clinton was president. Silly me.

...for years.

Gosh, if I read davie correctly anyone who has ever written a book is immediately suspect.

Thankfully that leaves out most Bush supporters.

BUSH LIED, AND PEOPLE DIED. It really is that simple.

Good old Eddie; he's figured it out. He hasn't been prevented from boarding a plane, so that means that no one else has. And the government hasn't told him that they are tapping his phone or keeping track of what he reads, so this means they never do this to anyone, or, if they do, they always let them know about it. And all the people locked up are terrorists; that is why another 9/11 hasn't happened. And he isn't locked up in a zoo cage in Cuba, so that means that there is nothing to worry about and other nations who capture Americans will never, never be tempted to give them the same treatment. He belongs on the cover of Mad Magazine - "What, me worry?"

Hi! I live in fear without cause. I try and make others live as I do. I'm not having much success.

and therefore you are perfect for us. Please hold this bag.

No! You are COINTELPRO. I can tell by the typewriter you are using.

thank you Your USID card wil larrive by special agent.