"They make a wasteland, and they call it Peace."

[Redstone]

That's all I have to say to the people who think we should "stay the course" and "finish the job" by putting more soldiers into Iraq, and/or think we should keep our soldiers there indefinitely.

Oh, except one other thing: 58,000 names on a Wall. Do we ever learn?

Redstone

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Santayana: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Particularly, when it not THEIR children who are doing the fighting!!!!

[peacebird]

2. what about those of us who learned but have to watch it repeat because

of our utterly corrupt government?

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Beyond frustration!!!!

[Redstone]

19. We can only do what we can.

Redstone

[Redstone]

8. Of COURSE, their kids don't go. They never have.

Redstone

[ismnotwasm]

4. All the bombed out cities

Used to be homes and workplaces.

[Redstone]

5. Excellent point.

Redstone

[Lisa]

9. But to the Defense Department, they are the settings for wargames

"urban guerilla" combat, nifty high-tech simulations, backdrops for gallant embedded war correspondents, etc.

So many popular video games these days seem to feature bombed-out urban ruins -- generally designed in such a way that the player is never obliged to face the fact that in the real world, these were places where people like them lived, played, worked -- and maybe died.

During the Cold War, NORAD had plans to intercept incoming missiles over northern Canada, letting the radioactive debris fall down "safely" on those big empty land masses portrayed on their satellite images and radar screens. Land which, as it turns out, IS inhabited. The people, the wildlife, the air and water -- would have been doomed for generations. As it turned out, the missiles didn't come ... but there's certainly a lot of depleted uranium drifting around Iraq and Afghanistan these days.

Playing "Risk" or "Doom", with real countries and cities. This is how they want us to think of the world -- as a background for geopolitical games, never mind the lives ruined.

[Redstone]

11. And I'm absolutely convinced that "depleted" uranium is the

reason why we have over three hundred thousand veterans of Gulf War 1 who are sick.

That's a national disgrace (and one that nobody talks about) that's worse than the Agent Orange disgrace by a factor of 100.

But does our "support the troops" administration give a flying fuck about those sick vets?

No, they don't.

Redstone

[Lisa]

13. to people with that mindset, the soldiers aren't real either ...

Just expendable plastic figurines which you throw in a box and push away out of sight when you're done playing with them.

[Redstone]

15. Yes, indeed.

Redstone

[BrklynLiberal]

18. I agree with you. It is th most under played scandal in the country.

[Jigarotta]

22. I am still flabbergasted by those numbers.

and how their suffering is not heard in the proper arena. I am flabbergasted by so much - I think that's the program, to make us feel so helpless in so many issues bam bamming us in the head every day.

desensititation by volumne.

[cornermouse]

14. I'm not so sure its a video game as much as it is an attempt to

demonstrate world supremacy, intimidate others, and on the side create future sales of some of the arms that they're "demonstrating" now.

[Redstone]

16. But of course. Profits (for the well-connected companies) are all.

Redstone

[Lisa]

17. by encouraging people to think of it as a game ...

... in an abstract place where there are no repercussions, which you will never visit (or if you do as a soldier, you will be able to return home to a "safe" place) ... in itself, this is a form of displaying control and supremacy. I'm not saying that video games are to blame for this ... in fact, even the way in which we draw maps can be used to make other countries appear remote, hostile, and/or part of our entitlement. "Fighting the war over there", and editing what we are seeing of it on TV, is a way to keep the disturbing images at arm's length. (Although they let enough of the bad news leak through our borders, to help justify domestic security crackdowns.)

[Redstone]

20. Yes, the video games ARE to blame.

Redstone

[Jigarotta]

6. us pleebs learn it, all around the world.

but there's the aspect of power and greed in garantuan proportions.

You must qualify the 'we' you speak of.

[Redstone]

7. Oh, yes, that statement had unspoken qualifications. I understand.

Redstone

[AuntPatsy]

10. That's so incredibly sad, how people cannot understand

that what you say is true is even sadder.

[Redstone]

12. I believe that they CAN understand. They just don't WANT to.

Redstone

[Terran1212]

21. Send all warmongers to Baghdad

Have them patrol their happy liberated iraqis they're loving.

[Redstone]

23. If there was True Justice in this world, that's exactly what would happen.

Redstone