Post by repeat on Apr 4, 2005 17:06:14 GMT -5
Operation (Un)Truth
A Trojan Jackass for the Anti-War Movement
By STAN GOFF
Fayetteville, North Carolina
"To mark the second anniversary of the U.S.-led war in Iraq on March 19, various anti-war groups are planning to protest in Fayetteville, N.C., the home of Fort Bragg. It's not the protest, but the location that has some people upset.
"An organization representing veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan said demonstrators are 'wrong and insensitive' to take their complaints to Fort Bragg, because it blames the warriors for the war.
"'The decision makers are not at Fort Bragg, they are in Washington. Rallying against the war by marching at Fort Bragg is like protesting the cows if you don't like McDonalds,' said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Operation Truth."
-from "Anti-War Groups Protesting US Troops Instead of Decision-Makers," by Susan Jones, CNSNews.com, March 17, 2005
Everyone knows the story of the Trojan Horse. An act of friendship used to smuggle the enemy force inside your gates.
Actually, that's the dumbed down version.
The Greeks led the Trojans to believe that the great wooden horse was a Greek war offering to Athena, alleging it had been abandoned on the battlefield. The Greeks left a soldier behind, pretending he was now a non-combatant, to convince the Trojans that if they didn't carry the ligneous steed back into fortified Troy, the Trojans themselves would risk the wrath of the goddess Athena. It's a better story this way. Maybe it's a more apt metaphor, too, for what Paul Rieckhoff and "Operation Truth" are up to with the antiwar movement.
Paul Rieckhoff, a former first-looey in the Reserves who went to Iraq, has now found his political niche as a plant for the Democratic Party, using his outfit's non-profit status to give him plausible deniability. The NGO in question is Operation Truth, which has somehow managed to pass itself off as an antiwar group every since its inception while explicitly not taking a position against the war. It's a little like calling Camille Paglia a feminist or James Carville a leftist. Say it a couple of times in the press and its riveted together in the public consciousness. Feminist Camille Paglia... "from the left, James Carville." Basically, people can get away with any damn thing these days, or think they can. Not this, though.
Let me be frank. Operation Truth is a sham, and it's staff commandant is a jackass.
Just so no one tries to attribute my remarks to anyone or any organization or any campaign I might be in now, or any in the future, I say again... I am speaking for myself. I have a number of friends and colleagues who are a good deal more diplomatic than I am that can speak for their organizations. But after Reickhoff's creepy little attack on the Fayetteville, North Carolina antiwar action of March 19th , I can hold my tongue no longer on either Rieckhoff or the attempt by the operatives of liberal imperialism more generally to blunt the sharpening anti-imperial edge of the broad movement against the Mesopotamian misadventure.
Let me reiterate again that I am speaking for myself, personally, representing no organization... so no one like Rieckhoff can attribute anything I say to any of my allies in any current or campaign within the antiwar movement.
I'm speaking for myself as an unabashed leftist -- that's someone who opposes capitalism, in case this term is confusing. (James Carville is not a leftist. He is an obnoxious asshole, which is just one current within the Democratic Party... the Republicans have a lot of obnoxious assholes, too.) Leftism is part of the broad antiwar movement, openly so, and we argue openly for our position: that capitalism as a system, and not some moral or intellectual failure, causes these wars.
My reaction here doesn't only include Operation Truth, but the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC), and all the rest of these bombardier-liberal shills. I haven't gotten ugly with any of them in public in the past because they were still mixed in with us when the pre-2004-election antiwar efforts were homogenized within a movement that was not antiwar, but anti-Bush. And this is the first time they have very publicly attacked those of us who are organizing among military families, veterans, and GI's.
Just two weeks ago, Operation Truth's Rieckhoff launched a full frontal bullshit assault against that action in the press saying, "If you support the troops, don't protest them in their backyards -- especially not as they're sent to war or returning home."
Of course, the entire call-up for that event was painfully clear from the very beginning that this was not a protest "against troops," which is a red herring in any case, and the speaker line-up was ponderously heaped with the families of military members, veterans, and the surviving families of the war dead. Rieckhoff knew this, and he lied about the character of the demo anyway.
Anyone who cares to search Rieckhoff's Operation Truth website, by the way, hungry for a single statement opposing either the invasion or occupation of Iraq will go home with an empty stomach. That's because it is not an antiwar NGO. It is criticizing the conduct of the war and the actions of the Republican administration on veterans benefits in a way calculated to bewilder people into believing it is an ally of the antiwar movement.
So here's my message to Rieckhoff. We got your number. Go home to your imperial buddies.
The same goes for Eric Gustafson who heads up the Education for Peace in Iraq Coalition (EPIC), another vet mired in the issue-policy swamp of liberal pluralism. From their own news release in which they piled onto the campaign of lies directed at the Fayetteville action: "Founded in 1998 by human rights advocates, EPIC promotes peace, human rights, and democracy for the people of Iraq. Since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq two years ago this week, EPIC has advocated U.S. and international assistance for Iraqi-led nation-building and opposed the withdrawal of UN-sanctioned forces until Iraq is able to provide for its own security."
EPIC's website claims is "was" against the war, but now... here's the uniform mantra among these fronts... WE cannot "abandon" Iraq. The caps are intentional, and the claim is mendacious. Their opposition was not to invading and occupying Iraq, but to the way in which the neocons went about it... that is, without a resolution from the UN Security Council.
'Give me a Security Council resolution, and I'll release my masculine energy on those wogs in a cloudburst of 500-pound bombs!'
The other speciality of this "tendency" is to red-bait. So I might as well take that away right here. I'm as red as a baboon's ass and proud of it.
I don't have to put on a red hat, though, to talk about this WE business... this WE must not "abandon Iraq." Even my movement allies in the hardly-seditious North Carolina Council of Churches -- who co-sponsored the Fayetteville action -- know that support of ANY continuation of ANY imperial military occupation is NOT antiwar. If you support a military occupation, then you are supporting a war. Two plus two. This is not complicated.
Just for the record, Paul & Eric, the US military is not in Iraq to do a damned thing for the Iraqi people. What particular brand of cheap magical-mystery acid does someone take when he implies that Pizarro should be nominated to help the Incas with reconstruction? WE are the barbarians here!
A Trojan Jackass for the Anti-War Movement
By STAN GOFF
Fayetteville, North Carolina
"To mark the second anniversary of the U.S.-led war in Iraq on March 19, various anti-war groups are planning to protest in Fayetteville, N.C., the home of Fort Bragg. It's not the protest, but the location that has some people upset.
"An organization representing veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan said demonstrators are 'wrong and insensitive' to take their complaints to Fort Bragg, because it blames the warriors for the war.
"'The decision makers are not at Fort Bragg, they are in Washington. Rallying against the war by marching at Fort Bragg is like protesting the cows if you don't like McDonalds,' said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Operation Truth."
-from "Anti-War Groups Protesting US Troops Instead of Decision-Makers," by Susan Jones, CNSNews.com, March 17, 2005
Everyone knows the story of the Trojan Horse. An act of friendship used to smuggle the enemy force inside your gates.
Actually, that's the dumbed down version.
The Greeks led the Trojans to believe that the great wooden horse was a Greek war offering to Athena, alleging it had been abandoned on the battlefield. The Greeks left a soldier behind, pretending he was now a non-combatant, to convince the Trojans that if they didn't carry the ligneous steed back into fortified Troy, the Trojans themselves would risk the wrath of the goddess Athena. It's a better story this way. Maybe it's a more apt metaphor, too, for what Paul Rieckhoff and "Operation Truth" are up to with the antiwar movement.
Paul Rieckhoff, a former first-looey in the Reserves who went to Iraq, has now found his political niche as a plant for the Democratic Party, using his outfit's non-profit status to give him plausible deniability. The NGO in question is Operation Truth, which has somehow managed to pass itself off as an antiwar group every since its inception while explicitly not taking a position against the war. It's a little like calling Camille Paglia a feminist or James Carville a leftist. Say it a couple of times in the press and its riveted together in the public consciousness. Feminist Camille Paglia... "from the left, James Carville." Basically, people can get away with any damn thing these days, or think they can. Not this, though.
Let me be frank. Operation Truth is a sham, and it's staff commandant is a jackass.
Just so no one tries to attribute my remarks to anyone or any organization or any campaign I might be in now, or any in the future, I say again... I am speaking for myself. I have a number of friends and colleagues who are a good deal more diplomatic than I am that can speak for their organizations. But after Reickhoff's creepy little attack on the Fayetteville, North Carolina antiwar action of March 19th , I can hold my tongue no longer on either Rieckhoff or the attempt by the operatives of liberal imperialism more generally to blunt the sharpening anti-imperial edge of the broad movement against the Mesopotamian misadventure.
Let me reiterate again that I am speaking for myself, personally, representing no organization... so no one like Rieckhoff can attribute anything I say to any of my allies in any current or campaign within the antiwar movement.
I'm speaking for myself as an unabashed leftist -- that's someone who opposes capitalism, in case this term is confusing. (James Carville is not a leftist. He is an obnoxious asshole, which is just one current within the Democratic Party... the Republicans have a lot of obnoxious assholes, too.) Leftism is part of the broad antiwar movement, openly so, and we argue openly for our position: that capitalism as a system, and not some moral or intellectual failure, causes these wars.
My reaction here doesn't only include Operation Truth, but the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC), and all the rest of these bombardier-liberal shills. I haven't gotten ugly with any of them in public in the past because they were still mixed in with us when the pre-2004-election antiwar efforts were homogenized within a movement that was not antiwar, but anti-Bush. And this is the first time they have very publicly attacked those of us who are organizing among military families, veterans, and GI's.
Just two weeks ago, Operation Truth's Rieckhoff launched a full frontal bullshit assault against that action in the press saying, "If you support the troops, don't protest them in their backyards -- especially not as they're sent to war or returning home."
Of course, the entire call-up for that event was painfully clear from the very beginning that this was not a protest "against troops," which is a red herring in any case, and the speaker line-up was ponderously heaped with the families of military members, veterans, and the surviving families of the war dead. Rieckhoff knew this, and he lied about the character of the demo anyway.
Anyone who cares to search Rieckhoff's Operation Truth website, by the way, hungry for a single statement opposing either the invasion or occupation of Iraq will go home with an empty stomach. That's because it is not an antiwar NGO. It is criticizing the conduct of the war and the actions of the Republican administration on veterans benefits in a way calculated to bewilder people into believing it is an ally of the antiwar movement.
So here's my message to Rieckhoff. We got your number. Go home to your imperial buddies.
The same goes for Eric Gustafson who heads up the Education for Peace in Iraq Coalition (EPIC), another vet mired in the issue-policy swamp of liberal pluralism. From their own news release in which they piled onto the campaign of lies directed at the Fayetteville action: "Founded in 1998 by human rights advocates, EPIC promotes peace, human rights, and democracy for the people of Iraq. Since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq two years ago this week, EPIC has advocated U.S. and international assistance for Iraqi-led nation-building and opposed the withdrawal of UN-sanctioned forces until Iraq is able to provide for its own security."
EPIC's website claims is "was" against the war, but now... here's the uniform mantra among these fronts... WE cannot "abandon" Iraq. The caps are intentional, and the claim is mendacious. Their opposition was not to invading and occupying Iraq, but to the way in which the neocons went about it... that is, without a resolution from the UN Security Council.
'Give me a Security Council resolution, and I'll release my masculine energy on those wogs in a cloudburst of 500-pound bombs!'
The other speciality of this "tendency" is to red-bait. So I might as well take that away right here. I'm as red as a baboon's ass and proud of it.
I don't have to put on a red hat, though, to talk about this WE business... this WE must not "abandon Iraq." Even my movement allies in the hardly-seditious North Carolina Council of Churches -- who co-sponsored the Fayetteville action -- know that support of ANY continuation of ANY imperial military occupation is NOT antiwar. If you support a military occupation, then you are supporting a war. Two plus two. This is not complicated.
Just for the record, Paul & Eric, the US military is not in Iraq to do a damned thing for the Iraqi people. What particular brand of cheap magical-mystery acid does someone take when he implies that Pizarro should be nominated to help the Incas with reconstruction? WE are the barbarians here!