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Drone: From The Greatest Generation to The Blackwater Generation

By Frank Naif on October 8, 2007 at 9:41 PM in Current Affairs

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  • Montag

    Machiavelli wrote in “The Prince” that if a mercenary commander is incompetent You (The Prince) will lose the war–if he’s competent You’ll lose your throne to him. Funny how history keeps repeating itself.

  • http://cujo359.blogspot.com Cujo359

    We’ve fallen remarkably far in a short time, haven’t we?

  • Yogi-one

    My dad was in WWII and we lived in Germany when I was a kid, so I have still a pretty big consciousness of WWII. My father really believed he was fighting a war to end wars, and he often told me he suffered war so I didn’t have to.

    My father was a soldier. He was not pro-war. He did not believe in brutalizing other people. He believed in fairness and he helped a lot of people in his life. And he was a good soldier.

    So I think that the history of WWII should be kept alive so its lessons cannot be forgotten.

    Unfortunately, that it not how it has been used. WWII is being used to distract us from the reality of the Gulf Wars. The “Good War” glow of WWII is being used to plaster over the top of our Vietnam memories.

    The “Good War” Paste gets smeared all over bad politicians to trry to make them palatable to the public. The God War Paste gets slathered on us at prime time in the television, and the stories of all the heroes and how great they were are blasted away constantly at us on the history channel.

    We are not presented with WWII in the way that helps us understand its lessons. Instead we are blasted with it the way a firehose is used to disperse protesters.

    The message is clear: don’t look at what we are now, just think about how great we were in some dim past that happened before most of you were born.

    There is no way someone who actually learned the lessons of WWII can support the Iraq War or a war with Iran.

    We have become the other side – the attackers, the colonizers, the propagandized sleeping masses, the greedy, power-hungry superstate wanting to gobble up all other nations in our path.

    We have become that against which we so valiantly battled in WWII.

    Whoever did learn the lessons of WWII sees it all too painfully clearly.

    The horror that we are about to unleash on our planet is unlike anything before it.

    And that politicians like Hillary and Nancy are leading us into it in order to get campaign funding simply doubles the tragedy.

    We expect Dick and George to embody the Big Evil. They always have.

    But the final insult before the tragedy is to be so wantonly, viciously backstabbed by those who said they were on our side.

  • Dee Loralei

    Yogi-One, so eloquent, so righteous. Seems to me, our Dem leaders in DC have become “the good Germans”. It instills in me a deep fear and a cold hard anger. With the Kyl- Leiberman Bill they’ve given blanket permission to Dubya to do whatever he will with Iran. Knowing what they all know, they still gave that war criminal the means neccessary to wage another unprovoked and illegal war.

    Sunday, Nancy Pelosi admitted that the President broke the law and our treaty obligations by endorsing torture, and she still says impeachment is off the table. WTF??? You swore an oath to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic and still refuse to consider impeachment??? Dear Madame Speaker, when we send Dubs, and Dick and Condi and Alberto and all the neo-cons off to the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity, you will also be on that flight. You and Hillary. 6 1/2 years into this Presidency. no one has an excuse for going along to get along. You are all traitors.

    I want my Constitution back!

  • Thinker

    America terrorised the native Indians, offered coloured peoples albeit no constitutional rights and now She pretends to be the prism of morality.

    Scrap the constitution and start over is the only answer. Hmmmmm, seems that’s what Cheney & Bush are tryin’ to do. Better idea, scrap money, prisons & weapons. Love becomes the only recognisable currency. That might, might just effect a positive revolution.

    Understood policemen would still be necessary, but these would be guys with integrity and no judgement. They would safeguard the administration of love. Love is a two way communication. It cannot be imposed. It can only be accepted or rejected.

  • http://NewChautauqua.org NewChautauqua.org

    Dee-

    You say what needs to be said, Hell, it needs to be YELLED until someone pays attention.

    Madame Speaker should be scheduled for a remedial civics class as she has totally lost sight of her responsibilities.

    Pelosi, Feinstein, Boxer (yeah, I’m in California), Clinton, and Reid all deserve seats on the flight to the Hague.

    Where are the Patriots? Is everyone so connected with the corporate citizenry that they’ve lost every bit of that special nerve which turns your stomach when you see what is done in your name?

    Arrrrrrrrrgh!

  • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

    I just want to say that this is powerful cartooning, drawing on two key recent nationally shared events. It hit me in the gut.

  • Fred C. Dobbs

    This may ramble a bit, but bear with an old Country Boy.

    Back in the 60′s my mother was involved in little theatre in our sleepy backwater town. In 1964 they did, “Lil Abner.” My late father and I both had parts, since we could both sing loudly enough to be heard at the back of the house.

    Now “Lil Abner” isn’t about hillbillies. It’s about politics. Johnny Mercer and Gene de Paul wrote the libretto, giving us a couple of great songs for this era.

    My favorite: “The Country’s In The Very Best of Hands!”
    Them city-folks and we-ums,
    Are perty much alike.
    (Though they ain’t used to livin’ in the sticks)
    We don’t like stone or cement,
    (But we is in agreement,)
    When we gets down to talkin’ politics….

    The country’s in the very best of hands,
    The best of haaaaaaaaaaaaaands,
    The best of hands.

    The Treasury says the national debt is climbin’ to the sky.
    And government expenditures have never been so high.
    It makes a fella get a gleam of pride within his eye,
    To see how our economy expands.
    The country’s in the very best of hands!

    The country’s in the very best of hands,
    The best of haaaaaaaaaaaaaands,
    The best of hands.

    You oughta hear the Senate when they drawin’ up a bill.
    “Whereases” and “to whits” are crowded in each codicil.
    Such legal terminology would give your heart a thrill,
    There’s phrases there that no one understands.
    The country’s in the very best of hands!

    The building boom they say is getting bigger every day,
    And when I ask a fella, “How can everybody pay?”
    He comes up with an answer that makes everything OK:
    Supplies are gettin’ greater than demands.
    The country’s in the very best of hands!

    Don’t you believe them Congressmen and Senators are dumb.
    When they run into problems that is tough to overcome,
    They just declares a thing they calls a moratorium,
    The upper and the lower house disbands.
    The country’s in the very best of hands!

    Us voters is connected to the nominee.
    The nominee’s connected to the Treasury.
    When he ain’t connected to the Treasury,
    He sits around on his thigh bones.

    They sits around in this place they got,
    This big Congressional parking lot,
    Just sits around on they you-know-whats!
    Up there they calls ‘em they thigh-bones.

    Them bones, them bones, gonna rise again,
    Gonna exercise the franchise again
    While the budget doubles in size again,
    When they gets up off-a their thigh-bones.
    The country’s in the very best of hands,
    The best of haaaaaaaaaaaaaands,
    The best of hands.

    “The farm bill should be eighty-nine percent of parity.”
    Another fella recomends it should be ninety-three.
    But eighty, ninety-five percent, who care’s about degree,
    It’s parity that no-one understands.
    The country’s in the very best of hands!

    Them GOPs and Democrats, each hates the other one.
    They’s always criticizing how the country should be run.
    But neither tells the public what the other’s gone and done.
    As long as no-one knows where no-one stands,
    The country’s in the very best of hands!

    They sits around in this place they’re at,
    Where folks in Congress has always sat.
    Just sits around on their excess fat!
    Up there they calls ‘em they thigh-bones.

    They sits around ’til they starts to snore,
    Jumps up and hollers “I has the floor!”
    Then sits right down where they sat before.
    Up there they calls ‘em they thigh-bones.

    Them bones, them bones, gonna rise again
    So dignified and so wise again.
    While the budget doubles in size again.
    When they gets up off of their thigh-bones.
    The country’s in the very best of hands,
    The best of haaaaaaaaaaaaaands,
    The best of hands.

    The money that they taxes us is known as revenues,
    They compounds the collateral, subtracts the residues
    Don’t worry ’bout the principal, or interest that accrues,
    They’re shippin’ all that stuff to foreign lands.

    The country’s in the very best of haaa-aaaaaaa-aaands!”

    La plus ca change…

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