Saturday, August 27, 2005

Walter Reed Protest

Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC has treated military patients for nearly a century. It has helped heal 3,985 patients from Operation Iraqi Freedom, 1,050 of them wounded in battle in Iraq, including Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch. Many of them are amputees injured by improvised roadside bombs. Walter Reed treats them in a large orthopaedic ward there where amputees are fitted with prosthetics made on site.

Code Pink, a Marxist organization posing as a group of spontaneously organized concerned citizens, has been demonstrating weekly against the war outside Walter Reed in a gesture of monumental insensitivity to the wounded. They have drawn conservative counter-protestors. Last Friday night I visited the demonstration and took these photos.

The Code Pink protestors (the name was taken from hospital code for a kidnapped baby or it's a spoof of the color-coded terror alerts, depending on who you read) set up camp on the south side of the main entrance to Walter Reed on Georgia Avenue, about five miles north of the White House. Whatever you think of them, you must admit that by taking pink as their color, they have branded themselves accurately. Portraying themselves as pink is truth in packaging if ever I saw it.

According to their website, Code Pink portrays their demonstration as an effort to "to shed light on the plight of injured soldiers. ... These are vigils, not protests ...." However, it's quite transparently an anti-war protest to the casual observer. When talking to friendly media like the liberal Independent from Great Britain, Ellen Taylor, Code Pink spokeswoman, is more candid about the Walter Reed demonstration, "I think that a lot of information about this war is being kept from the public. That is what we are protesting about." A protest, not a vigil.

Code Pink makes wild claims of a military coverup at the hospital: "Gravely and seriously injured soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan arrive at Walter Reed for treatment late at night, under cover of darkness, so that the public does not become aware of the number of soldiers wounded and the severity of their injuries." This parrots the same charge by the Socialist Worker Online that wounded soldiers are "brought back to the U.S. under the cover of darkness to keep them hidden from the media and the public." Yet Walter Reed regularly makes public the number of wounded soldiers it treats, as cited above.

The Air Force rebuts the paranoid accusation by citing the need for patient processing and German restrictions on the airfield, Ramstein Air Base, from which some of the aeromedical evacuation flights are launched. Walter Reed spokeswoman Lyn Kurkal adds, "Night arrivals are beneficial to the patient, as they allow for a regular night of sleep, and then for doctors in Europe to make final determination on their ability to make the long flight, move patients from Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, and board the plane."

However, Ramstein is not the only source of flights to Walter Reed. Wounded troops are also flown in from a military hospital in Rota, Spain during the day. Only the flights from Germany arrive at night, which blows a hole in the Code Pink conspiracy theory.

There is also criticism that the military prohibits the media from photographing incoming patients from Iraq. Apparently, the Left does not consider that such photography would be intrusive and abusive. No family would want to see a photo of their shattered son arriving on a guerney, intubated, with a bag of bloody urine hanging over the side. But the Left wants to exploit such wounded soldiers as bloody hand puppets in their protest horror show.

Accusations of war profiteering is a rather standard sample from the Marxist panoply of rhetoric. Halliburton, Code Pink's capitalist bogeyman, is singled out for taking multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts from the government to provide goods and services in Iraq. However, bidding out war contracts is no way to win.

As any business knows that has bid on a government contract, it can take a year to go through the normal bidding process. That's barely tolerable in peacetime but it's insufferable in wartime when speed is of the essence. After Pearl Harbor, military contracting officers fanned out across America to kick start the construction of a network of war plants to win WWII. Some aircraft plants were moving fuselages down the production line within two months of their no-bid contract. They started up on handshake deals and let the paperwork follow. The result was massive war production with remarkable little corruption. Just like now.

Andrea Buffa of CODEPINK claims, "Halliburton is the poster child for war profiteering. The company has made billions off the killing in Iraq, and is ripping off American taxpayers and Iraqis, but they’re never held accountable." If you listen to socialist sources such as "The Nation", then Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) "has been authorized to take profits of up to $490 million." However, here in the real world, war work has hardly been a cash cow for Halliburton, which is only making a teeny tiny 1.5% net profit on its Iraq contracts. For most businesses, 6% is a decent average net profit. I could make more for Halliburton depositing their working capital in my savings account. Another liberal myth busted.

The bottom line is that Halliburton supports our troops far more than Code Pink by driving the beans and bullets to the troops at great risk, serving them hot meals all day, and keeping the plumbing and air conditioning working in their barracks. What has Code Pink done?


This Code Pink sign conveys another bogus criticism, accusing America of shortchanging the treatment of our combat casualties. In fact, our wounded are getting the best care. For example, amputees are fitted with hundred thousand dollar prosthetics at Walter Reed. Even Mark Benjamin, of the left-leaning Salon online magazine, concedes after examining Walter Reed:

"Nothing I uncovered in my reporting ever suggested that troops with serious physical wounds -- amputees or gunshot victims -- were getting anything less than the care and attention they deserve. Indeed, the Pentagon and Walter Reed have allowed reporters and photographers to cover amputees recuperating at Walter Reed and Army doctors pulling out all the stops to save critically wounded troops on the sandy battlefields of Iraq. By all accounts, these are the things the Army does well. They represent "good news" stories for the Pentagon, showing the great lengths the military goes to care for downed soldiers."

OK, so this lefty chick was kinda cute. For a minute, I thought maybe I'd sidle over to her and start laying a line on her about what a bitchin' righteous dude that Che was and wasn't that "Motorcycle Diaries" a great movie and hey I'm a veteran too and I'm in favor of peace, just like you. Maybe more. But then I snapped out of it. Hey, I'm only flesh and blood. I have weak moments. Forgive me.



Some of the peace protestors just looked pissed off, like this one. Somehow it just seems wrong to be an angry pacifist. Of course, Code Pink people are not really pacifists who oppose war. They just oppose America in this war.

Code Pink has cleaned up its protest. They got rid of the flag-draped mock coffins that did not sit well with the wounded troops or really anyone with any sense. They ditched the really obnoxious signs like "Maimed for Lies" and "Enlist here and die for Halliburton." Lately Code Pink has been claiming that those offensive signs were brought by right-wing infiltrators to sully their protest, but it turns out one of the organizers of the Code Pink protest was carrying the "Maimed for Lies" sign. Oops. They have sanitized their demonstration quite a bit, probably due to unfavorable publicity. But you can't hold an anti-war protest without having some moonbats fly in, like this guy.

His sign reads, "The extreme right slanders grieving mothers, shoots up peaceful vigils, runs over crosses. How long 'til they start burning them again?"

It just wouldn't be a real peace rally unless the loony lefties call you a klan member or a Nazi or both. However, the folks who oppose Code Pink's wrongheaded hospital protest are not the jack-booted Nazis nor sheet-wearing klansmen of their fevered paranoid dreams.

Across the main entrance on the north side stood the counter-protestors of "Operation Red, White, Blue." One of the organizers, Lori-Ann Smith, writes in their flier that they come out specifically to oppose Code Pink: "To say that their actions are in poor taste is an understatement. We should all be defenders of free speech, but the issue here is that these people are protesting in front of a hospital where our soldiers are coming home from war- this is their time and place to begin to heal. They and their families need our compassion. It is unfair that they be tormented by angry citizens with a political agenda right outside their gates."


The counter-protestors were a moderately boisterous lot, with individual voices occassionally shouting challenges at the Code Pink crew: "Take your protest to the White House where the politicians are! This place is for heroes!" and "Pretty shameful to use the wounded in a protest!" and "Let the troops heal in peace!" and "Leave the wounded alone!" and "You're expoiting the injured!" and "It's pretty low when you take advantage of the wounded for your politics!" and "You don't speak for the veterans" and "This is a place of honor" and "You are shaming this place!" and "We'll make a deal with you - we'll meet in front of the White House in a week!" and "Where's your thank you sign?!"

The Code Pink people remained quiet for most of the night. Only once did one of them raise his voice to reply, weakly, "We love the troops." It was not very convincing to me or to anybody else.

The counter-protestors were notably unsympathetic to Code Pink, as seen in this sign: "Hey Pinkos, You can support our troops by getting jobs and paying taxes!"



Many of the counter-protestor crowd were girlfriends and wives of military men, like these cutie-pies. They were unabashedly for the troops.
By comparison, Code Pink sported no signs thanking the troops. Nor did any of their signs wish them to get well.

As I stood with the counter-protestors, a car paused at the curb before turning right into Walter Reed. A soldier patient sat in the passenger seat with a healed scar across the right of his face. "Thanks," he said quietly to the counter-protestors who went silent. "Thank you very much."

Across the street from the main gate was another, larger band of counter-protestors with more and bigger signs. Code Pink takes a dim view of the counterprotestors in its website. It considers the counter-protests as "right-wing attacks." In the world of Code Pink, dissenting from their view is an attack. No disagreement with their position is legitimate. Nobody has the moral right to oppose their anti-war protests. In the lefty world, only lefties have free speech. To them, counter-protesting seems terribly unfair and wrong. They are uncomfortable with having their own tactics turned against them. That's what makes it all so delicious for a conservative.

The Right has learned that we can not concede the high ground of the media to the Left. We must oppose protests and offer a countervailing message lest the leftist view prevail by default.

Code Pink held one corner of the intersection while the counter-protestors held the other three. I counted 22 Code Pink protestors with 52 counter-protestors opposing them, outnumbering them more than two to one.

To be honest, the response of passing drivers was mixed. Some honked wildly and waved at the counter-protestors. Others honked and gave the peace sign to the Code Pink protestors. DC is a completely Democratic political stronghold. Driving through the north side of the District, where Walter Reed sits, during the last election I did not see a single Bush sign anywhere. So the show of support for Code Pink was not much of a surprise, considering the location. If I had to make an estimate, perhaps I saw slightly more honks for the counter-protestors but it was really too close to call.


Many of the counter-protestors were associated with Free Republic, the conservative web site, who are often called Freepers. One of the Freepers complaints against Code Pink is their gift of $600,000 in cash, food and supplies including medicine, antiseptics, sutures and blood pressure readers to the terrorist haven of Fallujah, ostensibly for "humanitarian aid." In the words of Code Pink co-founder, Medea Benjamin, "I don't know of any other case in history in which the parents of fallen soldiers collected medicine ... for the families of the 'other side'." And therein lies the problem: aiding and comforting the enemy.

While Code Pink accuses Halliburton of being unaccountable to the American public, they have made no account of the disposition of their cash and supplies to Fallujah, whose inhabitants were actively sympathetic to the most vicious jihadis who made camp there. It was there that Zarqawi set up his Al Qaeda headquarters, where four contractors were burned and hung from a bridge, where innocent captives were taken for beheading in snuff videos. After the Marines cleaned out the jihadis, one Fallujan woman, Umm Marwan, said, "You see when the mujahedeen saw all the attacks, many, many men began becoming mujahedeen. The place is now filled with mujahedeen; there is not a neighborhood in Fallujah that doesn't have mujahedeen."

It's intuitively obvious that much of the $600,000 in aid delivered by Code Pink benefitted the most savage jihadists fighting America in Iraq. The bulk of the civilian population left Fallujah before the Marine assault. Only the jihadis remained to fight, cocksure that Allah would grant them victory. Consequently, only the wounded jihadis would have great need of medicine, antiseptic and sutures. Code Pink delivered what the jihadis needed to recover and fight again another day. One wonders how much of the cash went to buying parts for bombs to kill more of our GIs and Iraqi civilians.

The bottom line is that if Code Pink really supported the soldiers they would have delivered that $600,000 to them at Walter Reed rather than to the jihadists who are killing and maiming them.

And while they were there in Fallujah, why didn't Code Pink urge the foreign jihadis to go home, as they do our troops? Why don't they mount protests calling the Baathists Nazis, as they quite literally are? Instead of a bogus protest that American conservatives are burning crosses, why didn't they protest Fallujans for burning contractors? What anti-war protest did they mount in Fallujah to convince the suicide bombers to lay down their bombs? If Code Pink is against war in general, why do they protest only the American side? When you cut through their phony pacifist rhetoric and examine the recipients of their aid and the targets of their protest, they are indisputably anti-American.

One of the Code Pink people, a polite but mildly irritated middle-aged woman, singled me out for some reason to earnestly complain about this sign calling the Code Pink people Marxists. I politely disagreed, saying that it was a fair sign and gently pointed out that Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of Code Pink, was a Marxist with a long history of supporting enemies of America. She blinked hard a couple times. My impression was that she had never heard that before.

She changed the subject to WMDs, saying the CIA had said there weren't any in Iraq. I politely disagreed, pointing out that while large stocks of WMDs had not been found, dozens of chemical weapons had been found, as documented in the Duelfer report. I added that a binary chemical shell with about a gallon of Sarin nerve agent had been used to attack two of our guys, who survived because it had not been rigged properly. She blinked hard again. Hadn't heard that, either.

She returned to the other side of the street to pick up her pink banner again. Later, when I ambled over, she struck up a conversation again which her banner-mate joined in. As we talked about Iraq, I pointed out that Iraq had attacked us. That made both their heads snap back.

The first attack came when Saddam attempted to assassinate ex-President Bush. Neither one of them had heard of that. The Nice Lady's banner-mate said it never happenned.

I also mentioned that Iraq had launched hundreds of SAMs at our aircraft patrolling the no-fly zones over Iraq after the first Gulf War. That constituted a casus belli. I forgot to mention the bounties Saddam vowed to pay to any Iraqi who shot down an American flier. They didn't have much to say about that provocation.

Her more strident banner-mate cut in, demanding, "Can you accept that a Marxist can support America?" I allowed it could be possible in theory, though I hadn't seen it in practice. It seemed a rather revealing question. She kept ordering me where to stand while we chatted. One thing I've learned from going to "peace" rallies in DC is that the commies love to order people around in the public streets. They're control freaks.

It seemed amusing that the Nice Code Pink Lady who complained about being called a Marxist didn't know there was a Marxist holding the other end of her protest banner. My impression of the few Code Pinkers I chatted with was that they were heavily invested emotionally in their cause but they had not made much of an intellectual investment in it. They didn't know current events relating to the war published in the newspaper and broadcast on the news. My speculation is that they acquired their opinions by word of mouth from their circle of radicalized friends. They find it difficult and frustrating to talk to people who don't share their frame of reference. They were unaware of the sinister character of their leadership and its connections.

This lack of intellectual preparation of their positions contributes to their desultory style of argument. Their positions are slogan-thin. When successfully challenged on one, they are unable to defend it in any depth, and hop to another topic, another slogan. They never concede a position, they simply retreat to another one, then another and another. In that sense, a Code Pinker's mind resembles the back bumper of the typical lefty's Volvo, a collection of bumper stickers for various causes. They adopt poses, not thoughtful positions.

They seemed naive, without much experience of the world. I suppose that makes it easier to subscribe to the cartoonish conspiracy theories they hold of the military and business world. They came across as well-intentioned but wrongheaded. All of them were polite and civil, which is not the case at all "peace" rallies. But they are very wrong to stage their protest in front of Walter Reed.

About a quarter to nine, a bus full of military patients pulled into the entrance. They take the wounded guys out for dinner and shows on Friday night. Lots of places around town give them free tickets and meals. The counter-protestors broke into a loud chant: "USA! USA! USA!" Some of the wounded flipped Code Pink the bird through the bus windows.

Code Pink lost the revolutionary spirit a few minutes after 9 PM and decamped from their perch on the main gate to leave this protest battlefield to the Freepers, who had enough adrenaline pumping to go on for hours more, from what I could see. They've been out here for eighteen Fridays so far and look game to be there for the duration.

They posed for a class photo and departed for home in triumph.

*** UPDATE ***

Tantor returns to the Code Pink protest a month later on September 23, 2005.

29 Comments:

Blogger GunnNutt said...

You are so cool. Thank you for writing such an excellent article about the event. I hope you come back again on another Friday evening.

Sun Aug 28, 10:13:00 PM 2005  
Blogger Jill said...

Awesome article, Steve. Give the Pinkos hell from all us patriots down here in Texas.

Sun Aug 28, 10:33:00 PM 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am so happy that all of you keep going out to counter Code Pink --I am sure it means the world to the soldiers/marines that are recovering there!
Thank you!

Mon Aug 29, 07:54:00 AM 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I just noticed.
The only group having signs that deride the other is not "CodePink" or the "Veterans for Peace".

Would it not be better if those that are there to support the troops maybe didnt make those attacks against CodePink ?

As a matter of fact, none of the codepink signs posted are derogatory to the soldiers in any shape or form. Just to those in power.

I guess I am saying, I am happy there are people there to show their support for the troops. I just think the anti CodePink signs are bit out of place.

JVoss

Mon Aug 29, 09:30:00 AM 2005  
Blogger SGT Ted said...

Not only is it important to support the troops but its also important to unmask the Code Pink-o's leadership for what they are: America hating Marxists who are actively rooting for terrorists to beat their own nation in a war. Thanks for a great report.

Mon Aug 29, 10:42:00 AM 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

" I just think the anti CodePink signs are bit out of place."

Conservatives were polite about the protests against the Vietnam War. It was largely due to the Anti-war protests at that time that the politicians allowed us to be defeated mentally, if not physically. I think we've reached the point of "never again". So...I disagree with you. If being "anti" Code Pink, and "anti" Cindy sheehan is what it takes counter such "anti" movements, then that's what we need to do. Many of these protesters are like children having tantrums. Instead of giving them candy when they misbehave, they need to taken for a trip to the woodshed!
My thanks too, to those who are close enough to participate and take the time to do it. And also to Steve who took the time to report on it.

Mon Aug 29, 11:15:00 AM 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The derision gushing from the anti-war side is pretty obvious. Their signs show a complete lack of respect for the soldiers.

Mon Aug 29, 07:24:00 PM 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank you for the excellent coverage!! Thanks to the people who are there supporting our Heros!! Our wounded Heros need to see that most people in the USA are greatful to them for protecting our freedom. Proud Army, 1st Cav. Mom

Mon Aug 29, 07:32:00 PM 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Terrific writing. My profound thanks and respect. Many thanks to all those who countered the pinko-commies. You are Heroes for the Heroes!!
Servicemom - right on target, I agree completely. I am tired of being polite when fellow citizens (for sure they are not patriots!) are trying to give our great nation away. This anti-war, bring our troops home, it's all about oil, poor cindy, Halliburton and Bush lied - enough already - people, please educate yourself and do the math!!! September 11, 2001 - they attacked us. After Clinton ignored all the previous attacks, the terrorists didn't think the USA would answer another attack - ha - they think - new President - no cahones. Wrong answer! I would love to address dear Casey's mother, but out of respect for the man and his beliefs, I will refrain.
To the USA Military - you rock!! and are the most respectful and respected persons. Don't give an ass-grin what stupid people think - just know how stupid they are and be glad you/we aren't like that.
God bless the troops! God bless the USA!

Mon Aug 29, 08:29:00 PM 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just came over here from Mudville. Great post and thank you for walking the walk to support the troops.

Mon Aug 29, 11:11:00 PM 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great coverage. When I was a kid, I lived in Concord, CA, home to the Concord Naval Weapons Base. They used to have anti-war protests here in the 80s. They were protesting arms shipments to the Contras and the El Salvadorean Gov't. Several friends and I used to go out and lead counter-protests to show our support for our country and the troops on the base. One time, it was myself and one other teenage boy facing hundreds of Marxists. The arguments we heard and names we were called. The exact same arguments they yelled in the 60's. The exact same arguments they are yelling today by the Code Pinkos. The banners have not changed, only been recycled. Clinton should have taught us something. If you tell the lie enough, people will start believing it. Last month I volunteered for my third tour of duty in Iraq/A-stan. Thanks fior the support. It is making a difference.

Matthew Silverman
CW3, US Army

Tue Aug 30, 12:25:00 AM 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nathan,

Thanks for reading my blog and posting your comments. Quite frankly, it's rare for liberals to read the other side, engage them in real dialogue, or even remain civil. That speaks well for you. However, it probably is no surprise that I disagree with some of your points.

If you read the Duelfer report, you might remember that the reason Saddam destroyed the bulk of his WMD stockpiles was to temporarily get the heat off himself. His plan, according to interrogations of his subordinates, was to begin production anew after the inspection regime lifted. Duelfer also reports the discovery of a network of covert weapons labs that would carry that strategy out. They also discovered plans to ship ricin and other poisons to Europe and America disguised in perfume bottles. Our invasion of Iraq stopped that plan from being implemented.

Yes, it would be crazy to hold peace protests in Iraq, wouldn't it? The insurgents do not allow the freedom of speech to criticize them that America grants you. The jihadists and/or Baathists would simply kill you for opposing them even in a whisper. Wouldn't that be a good reason not to support them with cash and supplies? Do you see the irony that you are supporting a side that, if they won, would murder people like you?

And you are free in America to protest the violence of the jihadis and the Baathists. Why do you choose not to do so, if you are opposed to war in general? Why does all your protest target America?

I would tend to agree with your Christian pacifism as a default position in everyday life. It is best to forgive misdemeanors and coax the truculent to join in the common good by extending compassion to them. However, such pacifism works only when there is some spark of humanity in your opponent that can be nurtured. In some people, there is no sense of shared humanity that can be nourished by good deeds. In such cases, pacifism enables evil.

Ghandi explicitly mentioned this when writing of his nonviolent strategy for opposing the British. He made clear that nonviolence only works against a moral opponent. His pacifist strategy worked against the British because they were sickened by Indian bloodshed.

By contrast, pacifism worked poorly against the Nazis. It was common at the unloading ramp at Auschwitz for a Jew or two to simply refuse to move, to passively resist the Nazi orders. The SS officers waited until the rest of the group had moved on, shot the passive resister in the back of the head, and had the kapos feed him into the oven. I consider that an ineffective resistance strategy.

The history of WWII is a case study in the ineffectiveness of pacifism, which merely encouraged the aggressor nations and ultimately widened the scope of the war, increasing the bloodshed. When you are dealing with nations whose policy is mass murder, pacifism is ineffective. To remain a pacifist in the face of such evil is to facilitate the evil, to become a passive accomplice to it. The more moral course is to use violence to stop it.

I read your link and disagree with your protest at the Pentagon on the anniversary of Nagasaki on several levels. First, I don't think you should be playing protest games at the Pentagon. There is a real security threat against it. You are complicating the defense against that threat and endangering people's lives. You are helping those terrorists who would like to have a second swing at the Pentagon by showing how far you can penetrate security and what assets will be mobilized. In short, you are acting as a de facto scout for the enemy. If you must protest, there are plenty of places close to the Pentagon where you can make your point that doesn't help the Islamist terrorists in their search for vulnerabilities to exploit.

Second, your protest of the Nagasaki bombing was wrongheaded. It was the Nagasaki bombing that persuaded Hirohito to surrender and end a savage war of Japanese conquest that cost fifty million lives. Even then, it almost did not happen because military resistance to surrender was furious.

At this time, the Japanese occupation of China was snuffing out the lives of Chinese at about the rate of the population of Hiroshima every two weeks, not to mention the carnage it was wreaking elsewhere. The atom bombs brought all that to a screeching halt. Had we fought the war conventionally, as you seem to support, it would have gone on for another year and consumed the equivalent of two dozen Hiroshimas in Chinese victims.

Fighting the war conventionally in Japan would have caused millions of Japanese deaths. Our Navy would have blockaded Japan, stopping all food shipments in and around it. Japan could just about feed itself, but it relied on the railroad network to transport its foodstuffs internally. The railnet was especially vulnerable because the Japanese islands are compartmented by mountain ranges, allowing for the easy cutting of rail lines between isolated pockets of population. Our Air Force would have dismantled the railnet, which would have left most of Japan to slowly starve.

North Korea lost two million people out of twenty-five million to famine in the late 1990s without the state losing control. If you apply the North Korean model to WWII Japan's population of 60 million, you could say that Japan might suffer over four million deaths to famine without cracking. Of course, people don't really starve to death but waste away until their immune systems collapse. Then they get sick and die. At the same time, our Army and Marines would have been fighting their way through Kyushu in Operation Olympic and then into Tokyo in Operation Coronet, with vast casualties on both sides.

Perhaps 300,000 Japanese died in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, about half of them immediately from blunt trauma. That seems a better outcome than the deaths of hundreds of thousands in conventional land combat to invade Japan and the slow death by famine of millions of Japanese. Fighting the war conventionally would have cost lives equivalent to perhaps two dozen Hiroshimas/Nagasakis within Japan and in its occupied territories. That is not a superior moral outcome.

The lesson of military history is that a war fought quickly and lethally with a maximum of force is less deadly than a war fought at moderate intensity at length.

Your opposition to the Nagasaki bombing is uninformed and wrongheaded. Your protest of it is not a thoughtful moral position but rather moralistic posturing. You should abandon your support of a conventional course of action that would have killed far more people and support the more moral course of the atom bombings which ended the war with the greatest economy of life.

You should also thank the Pentagon for ending the racist tyranny of Japan with such dispatch and so authoritatively with such heroic effort. By contrast, pacifists contributed nothing to end this horrific chapter in human history. In that sense, pacifists lack the moral authority to criticize the US military which did all the work and made all the sacrifices to stop WWII.

Tantor

Tue Aug 30, 05:27:00 PM 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nathan,
Thanks for your polite reply.

Nathan: "Most of the signs we have at the pentagon and white house are general indictments of all war, not just America. "Love your enemies...", "Wage peace...", "Nonviolence is the way..." etc."

Signs like "Maimed for lies" and "Enlist here and die for Halliburton", which were carried by Code Pink at the Walter Reed protest, do specifically target America. So do mock coffins draped with American flags. Why don't any of Code Pink's signs target jihadi suicide bombers who murder Iraqi civilians en masse or Baathist death squads who assassinate Iraqi officials trying to write a democratic Constitution? If you condemned all the combatants equally, you would be carrying signs like "Maimed for Saddam" and "Enlist and die for the jihad." Your mock coffins would be draped with the flags of Saddam's Iraq. But they aren't. Why?

When you carry signs that generally indict war to places like the White House and the Pentagon, that too specifically targets America by context, as opposed to protesting in a neutral location. Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran are sending combatants into Iraq to wage war against Americans and Iraqis. If your protests do not target America, why don't you protest outside the embassies of those other combatants? Why do your protests target only America? It's quite obvious that all these "peace" protests bear an overarching anti-American theme.

Nathan: "As far as specifically protesting against the terrorists... well... the terrorists shouldn't need us to show them that their actions are evil. Their consciences should be enough for that. On a more pragmatic level, I don't speak Arabic. Yet. ;)"

This seems to imply that America requires your protest to develop our moral sense, which is less developed than the terrorists.

Your rebuttal that you don't know Arabic is not very persuasive, but rather an evasion. Your organization has never even considered protesting the other side of this conflict, has it? Why?

Nathan: "I don't approve of sending people cash and guns, but I think medical supplies were sent. I'm not certain on that, though. But I have no problem sending my enemies good health, good blessings, and all the love I can muster. Even if it means being killed... (or nailed to a cross)."

Cash was sent, which is easily converted into guns and bombs in Iraq, and undoubtedly was. Contributing such means to the enemy, particularly to the head-cutting jihadists who disembowel women aid workers in the street, is hardly a pacifist action, but rather taking sides against America and the Iraqi people. If you wanted to support the people of Iraq in a neutral way, you could have given this aid to the hospitals in Baghdad treating the victims of the jihadis suicide bombs, rather than to the jihadis who do this evil.

Your assumption of the risk of being killed by sending such supplies to Zarqawis home base is rather an empty statement, as it puts you in no danger. The people bearing the risk of your support of the enemy are the ordinary citizens of Iraq who are in peril of their lives from jihadi car bombs.

I am also curious as to what equivalent support you have given to our own troops? I'm guessing you have given none. Why?

Nathan: "But pacifism does not mean passive. It is every man's moral obligation to resist evil with his entire being. "

Giving aid to Zarqawi's jihadis is not resisting evil, but promoting it. It is your moral obligation to resist people who kill for their religion, rather than help them.

Nathan: "If I can save my enemy's soul by sacrificing my life, then I hope I'd have the courage to do so."

Supporting the jihadi headcutters with cash and medical supplies sacrifices the lives of their innocent victims, not yours. You are not saving the souls of the jihadis, who regard you as a helpful but foolish infidel, but rather helping take lives of innocent Iraqi people merely walking down the street.

Nathan: "Nagasaki... Intentionally targeting civilians is often described as terrorism. Even in the Iraqi war, we are always careful to say that we never intentionally target civilians, that any civilian deaths are regretable, and that we always do our best to avoid it. Yet with WWII, we openly admit that we destroyed civilian populations in order to win a war."

Nagasaki had no civilian population. The militarist Japanese government had militarized the entire civilian population and tasked them to fight the coming American invasion of the Japanese home islands. Every civilian was drafted into the military defense of the islands, for practical purposes. Even kindergarteners were supplied with bamboo spears and given bayonet drill, with the expectation that they would fight. This was expressed in the government slogan, "One Hundred Million Lives For The Emperor!" That meant that the Japanese government expected every Japanese subject to defend the god emperorer Hirohito to the death. There were only about sixty million Japanese, but they generously included their captive populations in Asia who should die as well for Hirohito. This was all part of the philosophy they called "the shattering of the jewel," in which Japan should prevail or be destroyed utterly.

The grim reality of this policy was demonstrated during the invasion of Okinawa, when Japanese subjects were issued grenades with which to kill themselves and advised by their government to each take one American soldier with them to their deaths. That made the fighting very bloody. It also gave a grim preview of what combat would be like in Japan proper, where every civilian had been impressed to be a combatant.

The general city of Nagasaki also was a proper military target due to the peculiar nature of Japanese industry. Unlike Western industry, where production was centralized in factories, Japanese industry was decentralized. There were small factories to assemble major components, but the subassemblies were built in small shops all across the city, usually attached to private homes. The dispersal of war production throughout the erstwhile civilian population made it a legitimate target. If you are making bullets for the Japanese Army in your home, you can not expect it to be a sanctuary from attack.

If you are truly protesting the targeting of civilians, you should be protesting the Japanese conquest and occupation of China, rather than the US bombing of Nagasaki. Far more people died by samurai swords than by atom bomb. At least ten million Chinese died under the Japanese, by some sources. The Chinese claim thirty million. During that occupation which lasted over a decade, each Japanese soldier who served a tour in the 700,000 man Kwantung army was oriented upon arrival by killing a Chinese prisoner. A group of enlisted men would take turns bayonetting a bound Chinese. For officers, each would behead a Chinese captive to blood his samurai sword. The samurai sword is the proper target of your protest rather than the atom bomb which brought its bloody reign to an end. Why aren't you protesting at the Japanese embassy the millions of civilian deaths by samurai sword by Japanese aggressors rather than the deaths of 300,000 Japanese combatants by Americans defending against a racist war of aggression?

In both the current war in Iraq and WWII, you chose to overlook the crimes of our enemies and target your protests only against America. It's rather easy to conclude that the hidden assumption underlying all these protests is anti-Americanism. You should reconsider these protests, abandon them, and support America rather than its enemies.

Tantor

Wed Aug 31, 10:49:00 AM 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nathan, since we're talking about Christianity and pacifism, will you permit some honest questions? Jesus taught that if someone strikes you on one cheek, turn the other and let him strike that one too. By extension, if someone wants to take your life, you should die rather than resist by force, and Christ's own sacrifice would seem to support this.

But do the Gospels say anything about your obligation to people dependent on you, who can't defend themselves? Suppose someone strikes your child on one cheek, do you turn your child's other cheek to them? Do you pray for an enemy while you watch him slaughter your family? In other words, do the strictures that Christ placed on individuals apply to families, or to nations? Is this covered in scripture?

Wed Aug 31, 10:52:00 AM 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

There is some dispute about the translation of that episode from the Bible. It may have been garbled on its way through several other languages before it got to English. Some recent scholarship suggests that Jesus was really suggesting a taunt.

The revised version is that Jesus was saying that you should object to somebody slapping you with the back of the hand as if you were his servant by offering your other cheek and daring him to hit you with his open hand like an equal. In that sense, Jesus comes off as a tough guy saying a slap doesn't bother him, rather than the pacifist interpretation which may well be based on a corrupt translation.

Even accepting the othodox interpretation, Jesus is saying to be tolerant of misdemeanors, not graver offenses. He doesn't say if somebody cuts off your arm, offer him the other arm or if somebody kills your child, offer him the other child. And Jesus demonstrated that violence was acceptable in dealing with the money changers in the temple.

Therefore, it doesn't follow that Jesus would accept acquiescence to murder. It is an error of generalization to apply turning the other cheek to larger offenses such as accepting Pearl Harbor and offering San Diego to the Japanese to bomb, or, like Richard Gere, to answer the deaths of Sep 11 with compassion and understanding for the killers.

Tantor

Wed Aug 31, 12:48:00 PM 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the good looking photo of me (the cute Westie with the USA Flag Collar) and my owner's foot at the counter protest. I was promised grilled Code Pinko with hot sauce but it never happened. I am bringing more help this Friday with me so we can EAT the blood suckers!

Sadie
West Highland White Terrier
Age 12

Thu Sep 01, 09:47:00 AM 2005  
Blogger Ingrid J. Jones said...

Hello Tantor, Hope this finds you well. Full marks for a such a terrific post. Sorry I've nothing to add, except some quotes I found at Talk Politics:

At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols. - Aldous Huxley

There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust. - Demosthenes

Man will never be free until the last King is strangled with the entrails of the last Priest. - Denis Diderot

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

P.S. Here is a copy of a post by British blogger Captain Marlow that I thought you might find amusing - scuse the asterisks but I am mindful of the 12 year old commenting at your post!

Crock of cr*p from the Post

(Via Rantburg): Published reports that al-Qaida forces have taken over the Iraqi city of Qaim are false, a Marine official in Iraq said on Sept. 9. Witnesses and residents in Qaim, as well as people living in the surrounding villages, said Abu Musab Zarqawi’s al-Qaida forces brazenly took control of the city, according to a Sept. 5 Washington Post report.

Maj. Neil Murphy, a spokesman for II Marine Expeditionary Force, told Marine Corps Times that reports detailing an all-out al-Qaida takeover in Qaim were a “crock of cr*p.”

Iraq, Zarqawi, Al Quaeda, Qaim

Captain Marlow 10/09/2005
http://cmarlow.blogspot.com/2005/09/crock-of-crap-from-post-via-rantburg.html

Sun Sep 11, 11:25:00 AM 2005  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nathan: "Before addressing those questions, I should clarify my own position: I'm not involved with Code-Pink, and I know little about them. Nor have I sent anything into Iraq - neither cash nor medical supplies. I do volunteer with the Catholic Workers in Washington DC. Today we're feeding homeless downtown. Half our time is spent ministering to the poor, the other half is spent resisting war."

You show sound judgement to distance yourself from Code Pink and their insensitive and contemptuous protest at Walter Reed. Likewise, helping the poor is admirable.

As for resisting war, there are at any one time about sixty wars in progress. Yet your protests seem to focus on the USA, which has been reluctant to make war, rather than those nations who resort to war first. North Korea is the most warlike and belligerent country on Earth, refusing to end a half century old war. What protests of yours have targeted them? Saudi Arabia promotes a foreign policy of terrorism around the world to promote Wahhabism. When will you be protesting in front of their embassy?

Nathan: "1) Are our protests Anti-American? We protest in America because we live in America."

What a cute piece of rhetoric. When you frame the issue so that only America can be protested, you define yourself as anti-American. Your argument is none too convincing when your morality stops at the US border and turns a blind eye to predators lurking beyond.

Your protest lacks integrity between its expressed message and its execution. You condemn war in general but make America your specific target. That mismatch between message and target leads one to believe that the overt message is meant to deceive and distract from the implicit criticism of America.

If you are claiming that you have no access to other targets of protest other than America, that is refuted by the easy access to embassies in Washington, DC, only a few miles from your protests at the Pentagon.

Nathan: "Protests in America have the potential to awaken people's consciences."

This assertion contains a rather self-righteous assumption that your position is morally superior. It is not. Your pacifist strategy has the practical effect of facilitating evil. Confronting terrorists and tyrants with pacifist protests have no effect on them, as you concede. They only respond to military force, which you oppose, but only when America uses it. Had we relied on such pacifism to combat the Nazis, all of European Jewry and more would have been consumed by the Holocaust. From my perspective, the soldiers who shut down the death camps with violence have a more grounded and developed moral conscience than pacifists who oppose such direct confrontation.

Nathan: "By the same token, some of us go into Iraq to do their best to stop the violence. A man named Matt will be going as a Christian Peacemaker in a month or two."

Perhaps he can help stop the violence best by serving as a human shield at one of the polling places during the coming election.

Nathan: 3) Nagasaki had no civilian population? Total war had been condemned by pope after pope, and bishop after bishop. On this, at least, I can claim to be in the mainstream of Catholic moral thought. Even though many accept war under certain circumstances, they have often tried to restrain the violence through things like Just Wars and Justice in War. Total war discards that - making everyone a target, and making all means of warfare licit. It is a logical point you make. But one whose consequences are beyond many men's ability to condone - including mine."

If you oppose total war, shouldn't your criticism then be directed at Japan for militarizing their entire population, commanding all their citizens to fight as soldiers in the coming invasion, for ratcheting the fight up into total war? You instead protest America for reacting to Japan's provocation. It was Japan, after all, which defined all its civilians as military, not the US.

Nathan: 4) Christ approves of resisting evil with violence? Actions speak louder than words. Christ and his apostles died as martyrs - with crosses on their backs, not swords in their hands. If we are to follow their example, we will resist evil boldly, but without violence. When crowds attempted to kill Jesus, he simply slipped away. He could have fought back, but he didn't. In all his actions, Jesus lived one command: "Love your enemies." Even in the temple, he only whipped animals, not men."

I don't see where allowing evil men to go unopposed in making martyrs of peaceful populations is a superior moral outcome. You are simply facilitating the murder of innocents through inaction.

Nathan: "But perhaps violence can be justified. Perhaps it can be moral. Yet Jesus tells us to go further. He commands us to be perfect. He says that he has something new for us: "I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you." Jesus' example is clear: He loves those who do evil, and gives his life to save them. Even in the garden, when Judas betrays him, he names Judas a "friend." And when Peter wants to defend his master, Christ gives the summary of his stance on violence: "all who take the sword shall die by the sword."" Maybe the sword is a just response to evil. But Christ offers a better response: sacrificial love. I believe we can defeated evil as Christ defeated evil - by the cross and its resurrection, not the sword and its wars. We defend ourselves against evil by refusing to succumb to it. We destroy a sinner by turning him into a saint. And we must start with ourselves."

The moral problem here is that you demand that other people die for your religion. While Wahhabi jihadists kill people directly with terrorist action for their religion, you Christian pacifists advocate killing innocent people indirectly for your religion through your inaction. If killing one terrorist saves a hundred innocent victims, it is a rather simple moral calculation in my view. The soldier who puts himself at risk to save those hundred lives by killing a terrorist is far more moral and selfless than the pacifist who allows those hundred to die so that he may gain his own selfish reward in heaven.

Tantor

Sun Sep 11, 02:15:00 PM 2005  
Blogger Maddawg said...

Outstanding post, exposing the blatent anti-americanism of many on the left in such a obvious way. The outright hypocrasy that they exhibit when other people protest against them is really telling how much they actually believe in an equal oppertunity for all people to share what they think. If i get wounded when in country (should be next year sometime) i would hate to look out the window and see these fools. Thanks for posting this and just as much for showing all the counterprotestors, something the media almost never does.

Mon Dec 05, 03:04:00 PM 2005  
Blogger Salgado said...

FAGGOT

Fri Jan 27, 03:44:00 PM 2006  
Blogger Steverino said...

Free0352 of Roswell, GA,

That's about as intelligent as the rebuttals get from liberals, who enter such battle of wits empty-handed. Thanks for confirming the low intellect of the unwashed Left.

Fri Jan 27, 04:22:00 PM 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Most military families don't oppose war-only the misuse of their soldiers lives.

If the war in Iraq is good and just-why aren't you there? My son just returned and will be the first to tell you the average Iraqi HATES Americans NOW more than EVER and want us to LEAVE their country.

Bush is bombing Iraq back to the stoneage for one reason and one reason only-OIL. Are you aware our soldiers over there call it Operation OIL?

Wake up -stop supporting the misuse of our military. Before they turn on YOU...

Sun Apr 02, 10:26:00 AM 2006  
Blogger Steverino said...

Anon: "Most military families don't oppose war-only the misuse of their soldiers lives."

Most military families support the war. Those who don't are a minority.

Anon: "If the war in Iraq is good and just-why aren't you there?."

Because I am too old to reenlist.

However, your logic is fallacious. It's preposterous to say that anyone who who supports the war must join the military. A population can at most support five percent of itself as soldiers in any just war. In your bogus logic, those 95% who don't join would be hypocrites.

Following your false logic to its absurd conclusion, you must not really oppose homicide unless you have joined the police forc, you must not oppose arson unless you join the fire department, you must not oppose disease unless you became a doctor.

You are arguing a non sequitur.

Anon: "My son just returned and will be the first to tell you the average Iraqi HATES Americans NOW more than EVER and want us to LEAVE their country."

That's not what I'm hearing from other US soldiers returning from Iraq and from the Iraqi bloggers writing from Iraq. Most Iraqis rightly believe that if the US pulled out now, Iraq would be plunged into a bloody civil war.

Anon: "Bush is bombing Iraq back to the stoneage for one reason and one reason only-OIL. Are you aware our soldiers over there call it Operation OIL?."

There is no substantial bombing being done by the US in Iraq, so you have fabricated the premise of your argument. The majority of bombing in Iraq is perpetrated by insurgents targeting civilians.

Your argument that we are there to take Iraqi oil is likewise false. If that were our aim, we would have taken it in the first Gulf War. It would have been much cheaper to buy the oil from Saddam rather than pay $300 billion to conquer Iraq. At the moment, Iraq is not a net exporter of oil, which again defeats your false argument.

Anon: "Wake up -stop supporting the misuse of our military. Before they turn on YOU...."

Quite frankly, you are the one who is asleep to facts and logic in making your badly argued and unsupported arguments.

I'm very thankful my military is fighting the terrorists on their doorstep rather than mine. The sooner they build a democracy in Iraq, the safer we will be.

Sun Apr 02, 11:51:00 AM 2006  
Blogger Steverino said...

Anon,

I'm also curious about how it is that somebody who is posting from Ottawa, Canada claims to be an American with a son in the US military.

Is it possible that you are an imposter, an American-hating Canadian posing as an American military parent to make your point? Could you clear that up?

Sun Apr 02, 12:05:00 PM 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I was at Walter Reed for 6 months. I always appreciated both groups outside the gate on Fridays. I'd give a peace sign to one group and that country, one finger wave to the other. The simple fact that two very different opinions coexist next to one another is sign of how free we are and is a sort of metaphorical "thank you" to the troops.

Thu Mar 01, 05:02:00 PM 2007  
Blogger Paolo Baladad said...

Well posted...

Give those deluded pink bastards hell! I think it's insulting to call them Marxists. Well, it's insulting to the Marxists to call the Pinkos on of them. At least the Marxists had intellect, unlike a certain "Pink" organization I know.

Sat Aug 04, 10:51:00 PM 2007  
Blogger Paolo Baladad said...

"4) Christ approves of resisting evil with violence? Actions speak louder than words. Christ and his apostles died as martyrs - with crosses on their backs, not swords in their hands. If we are to follow their example, we will resist evil boldly, but...blahblahblah" -Nathan Ael

Ah yes...lying down and letting people who have already admitted hating America just bomb civilians all to hell sounds so morally correct to you eh?

I hope you get mugged in an alley. Oh better yet, I hope you get mugged in an alley while the criminals make you watch a close female relative/friend be violated in front of your eyes. I hope I'll be there to see what you'll choose to do.

PS
Jesus had a safety net. I bet anyone who knew they were immortal would do LOADS of things they wouldn't do if they were mere mortals.

Sat Aug 04, 11:04:00 PM 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I guess peace doesn't support life and sentimental get wells do? I don't know about you, but I'd probably be upset and noncompliant too if another country invaded this one, told me that my values and way of life are wrong, and that we were getting a new government, new laws, etc. Nobody has that right, yet we allow it to happen and our soldiers aren't the only ones getting injured and dying. It's an unnecessary fiasco and it detracts attention away from problems in the homeland.

Thu Oct 16, 12:13:00 PM 2008  
Blogger Steverino said...

Anonymous,

Yes, in this case the peace movement does not support life, but death. Saddam's Baathist regime had institutionalized mass killing, yet you object to overturning that government, its laws, its values, and its way of life. It's true that our soldiers aren't the only ones dying. The insurgents and jihadis were killing 600 Iraqi civilians with their terror campaign for every Iraqi killed inadvertently by US forces, yet you have no criticism for them. Far from a fiasco, we're winning in Iraq, replacing Saddam's bloody tyranny and state terror with a democracy. That is a very good thing. Your objection to it serves evil.

Thu Oct 16, 12:22:00 PM 2008  

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