Neo-Con Sobieski
February 17, 2006
To
the Editor: (Southwest News-Herald)
Once again, we see another Neo-Conservative,
in this case, Daniel John Sobieski thumping his chest giving out his war
cry in support of this insane war in Iraq.
Well Mr. Sobieski, I was in war in a place I'm
sure you heard of, called Viet Nam. I celebrated my 21st birthday in a
sand bag bunker high up in the mountains of Bihn Dihn Province near the
Cambodian border.
At that time, I would have given
anything to get back to America in one piece, alive. Later, when my
unit, Company C, 1st Battalion, 12th Regiment of the 4th Infantry
Division was ordered to invade Cambodia in 1970, and we were pinned
down in an open bombed out field for over 8 hours and lost all our medics who
died trying to get to a soldier in intense pain with his intestines hanging out,
I would have given anything to be back in my bunker on that mountain in Viet
Nam.
Still later in the year, when the division was
ordered to a new mission down in the lowlands, because the Viet Cong were
making a comeback in a previously "pacified," province, I was
then a "short-timer" with less than a month until I was due to
return back to this country. I didn't have to go with my unit into an even
more dangerous combat zone, but I did and so did all the other "short-timers,"
in our company.
Why? It had nothing to do with my willingness to
fight and die for the Vietnamese people or their freedom to ride about on Honda
motorcycles while we fought to keep highway 19 open for their
pleasure.
Nor by then did I feel I was fighting for my
country and our freedoms. I realized later I was fighting for Big
Businesses and their freedom to make billions of dollars in war
profits off the sacrifices of Americans and Vietnamese alike.
But that is not what motivated me to go with my
unit - fighting for freedom - theirs or ours. No, I stayed with my
unit to fight to keep alive my friends that I made in the company, the
platoon, the comrades in my squad.
That Mr. Sobieski is called "unit
cohesion," or "the spirit of the corps," as it is
known in the U.S. Marines.
I wanted to do everything I could to help my
buddies stay alive, because at other times too numerous to list here, they
helped to keep me alive.
That is why Casey Sheehan went back and
that is why others go back, if they physically can and have a desire to.
The war in Iraq is based on a mountain of lies.
The Iraqi Constitution contains no Bill of Rights for the Iraqi
people. It is a parliamentary system which guarantees years and
years of political instability, which means years and years of American
occupation which translates into thousands of dead and disabled
Americans.
But that suits the big corporations
building huge bases in Iraq receiving billions of dollars in
profits; that suits the defense industry, and the oil industry and
it especially pleases the Israeli government who with the help of
all you Neo-Cons, will soon have us fighting in Iran, while they
have a free hand to take over more Palestinian land. And if you really
work at it, we'll be fighting in Venezuela or maybe we can go fight for
freedom in North Korea!
It is a fools argument to say we must stay
in Iraq to finish a job we never should have begun. And it is even more
foolish to use the deaths of almost 3,000 Americans to justify
getting another 3,000, 5,000,10,000 or 50,000 Americans killed for a
cause not worth one American life.
Before I went to Viet Nam, that same argument was
used to keep us there 12 years. This war the great warrior Rumsfeld
says, could last over 20 years!
That means, children now in elementary
schools, are already predestined to be fighting in some third
world hell hole when they are right out of school.
Is this the future American parents want for
their children? I sincerely doubt it. Yet, this is the pathway fearless Neo-Cons
like 5-times deferred, deadeye Dick Cheney and the AWOL
jet-jockey George Bush have cleared the way for: endless war!
Well, as a Republican I am outraged that this
President is so reckless with American lives. I am angry enough to
join with Democrats in Congress and true Republicans, to
call for, and work for, the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, for the
lies they have told and the lives they have lost in their phony "War
on Terrorism."
Cindy Sheehan lost a son, but she is fighting
to save her country. She is a brave woman taking on the most
powerful, corrupt men in the government of the most powerful
country on earth.
For that I salute her and stand with her.
Arthur J. Jones
Republican Candidate, 3rd Congressional
District
From:
Southwest News-Herald - February 16, 2006
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