Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/11/11
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]What's really horrifying, not to diminish the hell that is war, is that so many more people are murdered by their own governments than die in foreign and internal wars. In the 20th century Prof R.J. Rummel estimates that 262,000,000 people died at the hands of their own governments, about six times the number of war deaths. Personal liberty seems to be the shield against this. Also, no democracy has ever gone to war against another democracy. Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone ----- Reply message ----- From: "scleroplex" <scleroplex at gmail.com> To: <lug at leica-users.org> Subject: [Leica] Veterans Day 2012 Date: Sun, Nov 11, 2012 3:51 pm "*Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a solder dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.? **~ Otto Von Bismark.* " i wish!!!! :-I here is today's Boston Globe - "Some veterans wonder whether the public, largely disengaged from the wars while they raged, is now playing catch-up. Reflecting on the welcome received following his Army tour in Iraq, Lowell native Sean Casey confides in a poem that such a ?celebration of his violent profession unnerves him. He understands now, by his time in the desert, that if they knew the true story of his profession, they?d be more reserved. He shares his views in writing, he says, because doing so helps bring ?order to the internal chaos? he feels. While the vast majority of US military personnel do not publicly question what they were tasked to do in the two post-9/11 wars, some express bitterness at the lack of accountability of those who dispatched them into the fray. In his ?Letter to the War Presidents? ? among whom he includes chief executives who presided over earlier wars as well as the global war on terror ? Raymond Camper, who served in Iraq with Virginia and Minnesota National Guard units, makes an impassioned appeal to US commanders in chief. Would you shed one drop of blood for the gallons that we?ve given, would you last one day in the conditions we?ve spent years in? Would you be able to sign on the dotted line, and follow the directives sent down from on high when they went against your convictions of wrong and right? Would you be able to look your family in the face, and tell them it was worth it, when you can?t forgive yourself, for the carnage you partook in? You have not engaged your enemy at close range, seen the sweat and fear upon his face, before you forever erased him away. My generation has done this and more, some of us while questioning, others while adoring, nonetheless, we are the children who you will bury, without ever knowing what our level of sacrifice feels like." Veterans and new-breed veterans? groups are challenging not only presidents and members of Congress but also the American public, to whom elected officials are accountable. Aidan Delgado, posted at Abu Ghraib, is convinced that ?if people could see the bodies, the blood, they wouldn?t be able to support this war with a clear conscience.? Some veterans believe and hope that long after the last American body is repatriated, questions about the wisdom of the wars and the effectiveness of the strategies and tactics employed will continue to insist on answers. The airport ?thank you?? ritual, like the yellow ribbon campaign before it, strikes some veterans as a substitute for dialogue rather than as the opening of a serious conversation. " bharani On Nov 10, 2012, at 9:21 PM, Quan Tran <quantran101 at gmail.com> wrote: > To our veterans: > > http://fluxlux.blogspot.com/2012/11/veterans-day-2012.html > > -- > -Quan. > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information _______________________________________________ Leica Users Group. See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information