April 24, 2005


In the wake of Bush’s invasion of Iraq and all the corporate media driven drivel supporting it, I have yet to encounter a coherent explanation of what it means to "support our troops." I am told that I can be against the "war" (invasion and occupation) and still "support our troops." How one can "support" the soldiers who are exacting Bush’s bloody aggression against the people of Iraq and claim to be against the "war" is not explained. It is impossible to separate the two. If you "support the troops," you support killing 100,000 Iraqis, you support eventually killing innumerable Iraqis with depleted uranium, you support malnutrition, disease, and misery. It’s that simple.

Enter "country music legend" Dolly Parton. Ms. Parton "hosted" a "special broadcast" of the War and Mass Murder Department’s (otherwise known as the Defense Department) "America Supports You" campaign aired live on the War Department’s American Forces Television yesterday. "Performers at the live show, which included Parton, The Grascals, Hanna-McEuen and Jo Dee Messina, dedicated songs to servicemembers," reports Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample of the American Forces Press Service ( http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2005/20050424_724.html ) . "And in the audience, Parton welcomed a surprise special guest on stage, the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry family, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld."

Sort of like welcoming Herman Goring, Martin Bormann, or Heinrich Himmler into the family.

After thanking Parton, the other artists and country music lovers from around the world for supporting the military, the secretary presented a special message to troops watching the program overseas and those listening here at home.

"I’d like to say to each of them, volunteers all, 'Thank you so much for your service to the country. And thank you to your families and your loved ones as well because they too sacrifice, and we appreciate them,’" he said.

"And each of the men and women in uniform needs to know that the great sweep of history is from freedom, and they are on freedom’s side. They are on that side, and it’s the right side," he said. "So God bless them, and God bless their families, and God bless this wonderful country of ours."

Is it possible "country music lovers from around the world" support invading sovereign nations and killing thousands of innocent people? Is it possible they find it acceptable to "sacrifice" their loved ones in the name of "reshaping" the Middle East, in other words bombing the hell out of the place until it becomes a "functioning democracy" (as Richard Haass < http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/why/domi
noes.html >, U.S. State Department policy planning director and president of the Council on Foreign Relations, terms it)? Naturally, democracies, especially for Arabs, work best after their civilian infrastructure is decimated, hospitals ransacked as "propaganda centers," ambulance drivers executed. Bushcon democracy works best after twelve years of medieval siege-like sanctions have killed 500,000 children, after tons of depleted uranium are scattered about the country, resulting in a cancer epidemic. Democracy, in the "real world" so scorned by Bushcons and Republicans (and no small number of Democrats), translates into massive and unrelenting misery—streets awash in sewage, intermittent electricity, Israeli-like checkpoints, and street violence and lawlessness unheard of before Saddam Hussein was deposed.

Yes, it is possible, in fact it is exactly what Rumsfeld and Parton are saying, although Parton may not possess the intelligence to discern otherwise, whereas Rumsfeld, like Herman Goring, as president of the Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich and General of the SS, knows exactly what he is doing.

Parton told the audience that she was happy to host the show in partnership with the Defense Department’s America Supports You campaign "to show our wonderful soldiers all over the world how much we appreciate and support them."

Sorry, Dolly. But this American does not support "our wonderful soldiers," regardless of the absurd dictum that if one does not enthusiastically support mass murder and flattening cities (Falluja) in Stalingradesque fashion, one is "un-American" or even a traitor. I can’t think of anything more disgusting and reprehensible than sidling up to one of history’s most notorious war criminals and cheering on the murder of thousands stacked upon thousands of babies and grandmothers in Iraq.

I will support "our wonderful soldiers" when they return to the United States and do what they are supposed to do—protect this country, not be used as shock troops and SA units in the neocon-neolib plan to "reshape" the Middle East in the name of marauding multinational corporations and racist Zionists who view themselves as suzerains.