I just got this video from Lisa; and it's...chilling.
I hope to the Gods that this Scott Ritter is exaggerating or mistaken. I do not want nuclear war; do they not know that MAD stands for Mutually Assured Destruction?
I agree with Lisa; we cannot let McCain win.
Almost forgot, Don't click play if you can't handle disturbing video. Including small children who are injured/dead.
ETA: Sorry Andy, I completely forgot to give a summary I watched the video and thought "I have to post this, I am terrified of this possibility"; parts of the video are text though.
Basically its a bunch of quotes from Republicans and various military higher-ups about how McCain is a loose-cannon and the idea of him being POTUS scares the hell out of them.
I'm not sure about the details or the validity of his statements, but the author Scott Ritter is talking about his book and how the Bush administration has made it easier to use nukes on "enemies".
Theres also a lot of quotes from McCain about how we'll be in Iraq for 100 years and how there will be more wars in the next few years (Iran was mentioned as a specific example). Also about how the "young people" in his audience would be serving in those wars.
This makes me hope that if McCain wins, DADT stays in place; because you just know they will make it impossible for us to get out of McCain's draft otherwise. And yes, McCain would like to reinstate the draft. Fyi, my spiritual beliefs would make me unable to participate in a war unless it was entirely defensive (like, if Canada invaded MI) but because I'm not a Christian, and my beliefs aren't written in some holy book, so theres no way they'd let me out of a draft.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
War
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Is there a transcript for the video? Or can you do a synopsis?
Thanks!
"Don't click play if you can't handle disturbing video. Including small children who are injured/dead."
Just to say I really appreciate this warning, thanks Drakyn. I nearly did press "play" and then saw the warning and just stopped myself. I cannot deal with injured or dead children.
And, in light of that, thanks for the transcript too. xx
Well, firstly, unless you had to go down and register for the draft when you were 18, you won't get drafted. But McCain would perhaps change that female-sexed-at-birth people exemption, although I doubt it.
Secondly, you want to know how to mobilize millions of young people (and many of their older friends and relatives) into adamant anti-war protesters? Reinstate the draft. I fuckin' dare him.
(As a side note: A lot of the people in the military aren't crazy about a draft either for a lot of reasons.)
The video underestimates the number of dead civilians by a factor of ten, given that they are probably going with "civilians killed directly by American forces" rather than "civilians killed as a result of the invasion", which includes us setting off an all out civil war, civilians dying due to our disruption of infrastructure, etc. The actual count of Iraqi civilians whose blood is on our hands? About a million during the blockade of the Clinton years, and about a million more due to Bush. Millions more are displaced. It's genocide. It's what happens when an imperial power starts a new colony - wipe out as many of the inhabitants as you can, destroy the culture of the rest.
Here's the scary thing, and for background, this post from Lenin's Tomb is a good read:
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/08/schisms-and-cataclyms-of-new-world.html
If McCain's is elected, there will definitely be war with Iran (yet another completely unprovoked war that is nothing but a colonialist venture), and continuation of the process to turn Iraq into a permanent colony through brutal military force.
The real worry is not that the use of nuclear weapons in Iran will provoke Islamic radicals who manage to get their hands on a nuclear bomb to destroy a US city (remember, Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and no intent to start one, no matter what the US government wants you to believe). The scarier scenario is the fact that Iran is a close ally of Russia.
Any use of nuclear weapons on Iran will bring about war with Russia. And Russia, without using their vast nuclear arsenal, is outmatched if we don't have our military over extended, and if they're just going into Iran to drive us out. Either we'll attack a Russian military target with nuclear weapons, or they'll realize it's the only chance they have - and they don't have fancy targeting systems...so they can attack our cities.
You're right, it's Mutually Assured Destruction. It won't be one US city gone, it'll be all of North America, Europe, and western Eurasia and Central Asia. Who knows who else would get involved?
Now, Obama is far less likely to attack Iran - though he'll still posture and threaten. However, his foreign policy adviser (if you read that blog post I linked to) is even more enthusiastic about encircling and enveloping Russia and continuing to establish a strong US military presence in Central Asia. Which Russia sees as its territory. Obama is talking about seriously increasing US forces in Afghanistan.
Obama is almost as likely to draw us into a war with Russia as McCain. At the very least, the Cold War is starting again. Other than Bush's flat out invasion of Iraq (Gore would have just continued the blockade and slowly starved all the civilians to death), US foreign policy has been remarkably bipartisan for decades.
Meanwhile, it's too late to prevent catastrophic climate change, neither candidate is going to address the fact that capitalism doesn't work, and the current long standing system of government bail outs just saves the rich at the expense of everyone else as the economy gets weaker and weaker, even Obama won't do nearly enough to prevent a serious energy crisis (not expensive fuel, lack of fuel), healthcare will continue to be private and not get more expensive, etc.
Obviously Obama is better than McCain. Slightly. But we're still headed for who knows how many rough years, and decades more of constant warfare no matter who is elected. With what Obama has given as his actual ideas and policies, he's not good for the US - just not as bad as McCain. If I'm in a swing state, I'll do my duty to make sure it's possible that we survive the next few decades, but if I know the state is definitely going one way or the other? I'm voting Green, even though it's completely useless.
We need to realize as a country that no elected official is ever going to really fix anything. Real change comes directly from the people. We can just hope to get presidents who leave us time to make that happen.
gauge: you're right to a large extent, but the "Muslim menace" (gods I hate phrases like that) is easier to express, and to many people more frightening. "We've beaten the Russians once already right?!"
I've seen this video in other places, and it truly is frightening. I recommend listening to it, even if you don't want the imagery... some things cannot be expressed as well in text.
Sorry for not replying for so long, I've just been not in the mood for real thinking.
Andy, trans* guys who get their marker changed to M do actually have to sign up or send in an exemption letter.
And I have friends and family in the military/ROTC or who used to be. None of them want a draft either. And, yep, it will be Vietnam protests all over if they reinstate the draft.
Gauge, I totally agree with you. Thanks for your comment and all the info. ^.^
I agree Polerin, just listening or watching the first bit which (other than military coffins, if I recall correctly) doesn't have much violent images.
Post a Comment