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Thread 9358

Thread ID: 9358 | Posts: 9 | Started: 2003-08-28

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Leveller [OP]

2003-08-28 14:43 | User Profile

Soldiering is for others Taki

[url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old&section=current&issue=2003-08-30&id=3462]http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?ta...3-08-30&id=3462[/url]

All Quiet on the Western Front was written in 1929 and became an instant best-seller; in Germany alone more than 3 million copies were sold within 18 months. Hollywood made a film of it the following year and it won an Oscar for Best Picture. I read it during the closing days of the second world war, my great uncle, a German scholar, helping me along. I saw the film in 1949 and never forgot the haunting scene when the hero, Paul Baumer, kills a Frenchman who had randomly jumped into his foxhole in no-man’s-land. Baumer bayonets him in the throat, after which he watches the man die slowly, gurgling blood. Overcome by guilt, the German comforts the Frenchman and, after the latter’s death, he finds photographs of his loved ones tucked inside his uniform. In other words, the enemy is just like us.

Don McCullin echoed the haunting scenario when he photographed a dead Viet Cong soldier in Hue in 1968, his plundered belongings lying beside him, a picture of his pretty sweetheart facing his dead eyes. I remember the photo only too well. It shook me like no other. The evil, or so we thought, VC also had feelings, and took pictures of their loved ones into combat just like the rest of us. Both the film and Don’s photograph were in black and white, adding great dramatic effect.

I’ve just been given the McCullin book, and an Erich Maria Remarque biography by Hilton Tims for my birthday, both books confirming my recent anti-war feelings about old men sending young ones to die. Here’s a United States Marine, Roger McGrath, writing in Chronicles magazine (best American monthly by far) about war:

And who is to do it? Certainly not the neoconservatives. They use such terms as moral clarity and the need to project our power — but it is to be done with someone else’s body. A conversation I had with a budding neocon reveals their version of moral clarity. Who was included when he said ‘we’. He looked at me as if I were a bit dense and said, ‘We, the United States.’ ‘Does that mean you?’ I asked. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘the guys in the army.’

McGrath goes on to ask the neocon whether our boys should be put in harm’s way for interests that have nothing to do with the defence of the United States. ‘Are you willing to do what you call the right thing with your own body?’ asks the Marine. ‘Those guys are volunteers — they chose to do it. I’m just finishing my degree and have a good job lined up.’

Need I say more? The neocon is not a soldier and does not plan to become one. Soldiering is for others. In a republic, it is the job of citizens. In an empire, it is imperial forces who do the fighting. Another Marine, Major-General Smedley Butler, twice decorated with the Medal of Honour, making him one of only two Marines in history to win the greatest battlefield decoration twice, had this to say about war: ‘War is just a racket...I believe in adequate defence of our coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes here, then we’ll fight. I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. I would only fight for the defence of our homes and for the Bill of Rights.’

Hear, hear! I remember landing in Tel Aviv in 1973. The Yom Kippur war had just begun and I was covering it for a Greek newspaper and National Review. I had to file two stories a day from the Golan front where vicious fighting was raging. The Syrians gave a good account of themselves, as did the Egyptians on the Sinai side. But they did not take care of their dead soldiers. Unlike the Israelis who picked up their dead, the Arabs left them to rot in the desert. I saw hundreds of young bodies lying around, and imagined their fat masters back in Damascus and Cairo covered in medals and sipping sweet coffee.

After Hue in 1972, where the expected battle never took place — American air strikes by B-52s caught the invading Giap army in the open (I can still remember the stink of dead human flesh) — and the Yom Kippur war, I decided war was not such a good thing after all. All Quiet on the Western Front attests to a common humanity transcending nation, race, and religion. Erich Maria Remarque became a pacifist because he had fought the war in the trenches. The neocons never have and do not plan to, and do not deserve the right to send anyone to die except themselves.

edward gibbon

2003-08-28 15:11 | User Profile

Taki read excerpts of my book and had this to write: [url=http://www.nypress.com/content.cfm?content_id=1947&now=05/23/2000&content_section=1]http://www.nypress.com/content.cfm?content...ntent_section=1[/url]

A very important book on Vietnam has reached my desk. *[color=blue]War, Money and American Memory: Myths of Virtue, Valor and Patriotism*[/color], by Richard Earley (DIANE Publishing Co.), is a meticulously researched, documented and footnoted book, as well as a very brave one. Space prohibits me from quoting at length from it, but I will give you a small example. When Abe Rosenthal, then a columnist for the Times, accused Pat Buchanan of anti-Semitism because Pat said in 1990 that "there are only two groups banging the drums for war, the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the United States," the mud stuck. Pat had written that the fighting would be done by people with names like McAllister, Murphy, Gonzales and Leroy Brown. The author lists the dead: 11 McAllisters, 81 Murphys, 84 Gonzaleses, 380 Browns. "More than twice as many Murphys, Gonzales and Browns perished in Vietnam than Jews. No public apology or explanation from Rosenthal has ever come forth." 

See what I mean about facts? And the importance of this book? The opus also includes who among the rich and powerful did the fighting. Almost nobody **

If America will come out of what is quickly becoming an uncontrollable tailspin, people other than Taki will have to start making public statements about Jews and their undeniable cowardice in American wars and their willingness to sacrifice others. I wrote on much more than Vietnam.

Leveller

2003-08-28 15:46 | User Profile

Great that Taki knows your book Edward. I had your writing in mind when I read the article. Sounds like Taki had it in mind when he wrote it.

prozak

2003-08-30 13:12 | User Profile

*Originally posted by Leveller@Aug 28 2003, 08:43 * ** All Quiet on the Western Front attests to a common humanity transcending nation, race, and religion. Erich Maria Remarque became a pacifist because he had fought the war in the trenches. The neocons never have and do not plan to, and do not deserve the right to send anyone to die except themselves. **

It seems to me he leaps to an extreme.

WWI was an error; Viet Nam was an error; Iraq is error.

Not because they are war, but because they are unnecessary.

I have no problems sending myself or others into combat that is necessary, but fighting over political tokens and Judeo-Christian moral dogma is something I will never support: it's fantasy taken as reality.

Dan Dare

2003-08-30 18:31 | User Profile

Per Taki

**Chronicles magazine (best American monthly by far) **

Isn't The American Conservative a monthly too? Isn't Taki the publisher?

On the other hand he may be right, I chose not to renew my subscription to TAC, having grown tired of the incessant mewling about Iraq and the nasty neocons.

Ausonius

2003-09-01 21:41 | User Profile

I served 10 years active duty. Army. I could not agree more with the good Major-General Butler.

Ausonius

Centinel

2003-09-01 22:07 | User Profile

Dan Dare:

**Isn't The American Conservative a monthly too? Isn't Taki the publisher?

On the other hand he may be right, I chose not to renew my subscription to TAC, having grown tired of the incessant mewling about Iraq and the nasty neocons. **

TAC is published fortnightly. Yes, Taki is the publisher.

Scott McConnell is the executive editor, which is why I dropped my subscription as well. He won't let Joe Sobran write for the mag, and it's defiled with neocon advertisers like WorldNetDaily, the (neo)Conservative Book Club, and the Heritage Foundation.

I've basically come to the conclusion that any political rag you can find on the rack at your local Borders or B&N sucks. Anything worthwhile is either on the net or you have to mail order.

Sertorius

2003-09-02 11:23 | User Profile

And who is to do it? Certainly not the neoconservatives. They use such terms as moral clarity and the need to project our power — but it is to be done with someone else’s body. A conversation I had with a budding neocon reveals their version of moral clarity. Who was included when he said ‘we’. He looked at me as if I were a bit dense and said, ‘We, the United States.’ ‘Does that mean you?’ I asked. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘the guys in the army.’ ****

Years ago I heard a polish proverb that sums up this attitude: "Something is always easy as long as someone else is doing it."

**McGrath goes on to ask the neocon whether our boys should be put in harm’s way for interests that have nothing to do with the defence of the United States. ‘Are you willing to do what you call the right thing with your own body?’ asks the Marine. ‘Those guys are volunteers — they chose to do it. I’m just finishing my degree and have a good job lined up.’

**

And it is because of this attitude that I loath these cowards and materialists as much as I do. They don't have the guts to get out there and do this-- no, they are special, meant to be the future "leaders" and rake in the benefits without ever taking any of the responsibility. Their bones should be over in Iraq instead of their betters.

Taki has written a fine column. I would only change one thing. Instead of All's Quiet on the Western Front, I would have used James Webb's Fields of Fire.

Edward, I'm glad to read that Taki has seen your book. I agree with his assessment.

il ragno

2003-09-02 12:49 | User Profile

Great to see Taki citing your book...and citing it with praise.

We all want to see American servicemen come through this Jew-orchestrated ordeal in Iraq with as few casualties as possible (and every casualty we suffer over there is the responsibility of Team Shmuel), but I'm glad to see Taki indirectly hinting at a second tragedy that the Jews need to be brought to the dock for, and that is forcing American servicemen to kill people they (and we) have no quarrel with. It is not an easy or a pleasant thing to kill another human being, and the necessity of doing so should damn well be reserved for actual belligerent enemies of the US.

We all know that in these types of extended guerrilla skirmishes, women, children and the infirm are often killed by accident (the 'collateral damage' so beloved to Messrs Perle & Wolffowitz). My God, you could almost forgive the Jews for the damage they've done to our institutions...but to put an 18 or 19-year-old boy in the position of having a child or a woman's blood on his hands, and in his memory - forever.....this is unforgivable.

Both our dead, and theirs, are on the heads and hands of the power Jews who smugly lecture the rest of us daily in 'geopolitics' and 'patriotism'. There isn't a Hell hot enough to roast the Podhoretzim in.

When do we extract reparation payments from **Israel ** - and her skullcapped acolytes the world over?