Progress Radio: 3rd Anniversary of the Iraq War

First Podcast


By the way you all, this was Senator Cleland's first podcast. He was excited by that. We were too. So, listen and enjoy as we help introduce Senator Max Cleland to the 21st!

He loved the fact that with little money and no big TV or Radio network, we could blast this interview out to millions of folks around the world. Yes...the joys of the internet.

Fawcett and Max


Fawcett and Max Cleland



I respect Fawcett and Max Cleland. However, I can not consider them, or any other combatant, as "heroes" in the Vietnam War. My definition of hero can not include being part of killing over three million people in Southeast Asia.



Nor does being a Vietnam veteran make one an authority on the Iraq war. We are constantly reminded of the "lessons" of Vietnam. Many of these are contradictory. My own take is that the American People allowed the leaders of our government to do something utterly horrible. Tragically, we have done it again. No doubt, this will happen in the future. Leaders have been able to manipulate their populations into murderous mayhem since the beginning of the human race. Chalk it up to human nature.



Any voices to stop the Bush war in Iraq are welcome; and of course, talk from veterans tends to have more effect. Still, this country has never really come to grips for its yen for war. There has never been a true debate. The UN, the Geneva Accords and the Nuremburg Trials were about trying to control these urges. But note how easily the Bush Regime sidestepped all that.



As the geopolitical struggle for oil and gas intensifies so will the likelihood of more and fiercer conflicts.



The true heroes will be the citizens and leaders that will work to steer us though the coming crises.

Have we failed Ike?


Have we failed to heed Ike's warning and allowed this to happen? Film maker Jarecki says that we have done just that let happen what Ike told us to guard against. It may not be too late to reverse this if we will listen and act to these two heroes.



Jarecki reverses the thrust of the title; if Capra’s title might have been Why We Have to Fight, then Jarecki’s might be Why We Fight When We Don’t Really Have To. Jarecki begins and ends his film with former President Eisenhower’s farewell address, warning against the growing influence of the “military-industrial complex.” Why we fight, Jarecki says, is because the military-industrial complex has grown too big for its britches--is now, in fact, the military-industrial-congressio nal-think-tank complex and has become the tail wagging the dog of the U.S. government.



Jarecki seems to suggest that, although the sort of military coup imagined by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II in their novel Seven Days in May never actually came to pass, what we have today is a de-facto coup much more subtle and insidious, with the arms industry ensuring its own prosperity by currying broad support in Congress while nominating a fresh batch of enemies every few years to frighten the common folk and keep them in a fighting mood.





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WHATS GOOD FOR AMERIKA


"What's good for Halliburton is good for Amerika"

your truly VICE president and Halliburton War Hero, F-You Cheney



p.s. I approve this importanet news alert: Karl "Turd blossom" Rove, White HousePimp-Madam