Evils Worse Than War

"It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace." -Andre Gide, author, Nobel laureate (1869-1951


On another forum a member said there are worse evils than war. I certainly agree. Some wars are even moral and just.

I am not against all wars. I am against unnecessary wars.

The Korean War and the Vietnam War were unnecessary. It called young men who wanted to do the right thing and protect their families and country. They wanted to fight in a noble and just war. They wanted to be tested, and to prove their worth, to be the next Odysseus with a faithful Penelope who would wait 20 years for their return.

These young men's desires were exploited by old men who had big egos. Men like Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson and their staffs of war mongering sycophants, offered young men as human sacrifices to the Commander in Chiefs' egos and careers. The Chiefs wrapped themselves in flags while bugles played, "Hail to the Chief", and the chiefs spoke magic words which inspired the young men to march into the hell of an unnecessary war.

Yes, there are worse evils than war. One of the worst is old men who start unnecessary wars.

Charles Tolleson

Memorial Day 2007

On Memorial Day we should honor the memory of men who did their duty, and we should thank them for their part in protecting our group. We should also condemn the men like Truman and Johnson who started unnecessary wars that took the lives of these brave men.

This Memorial Day weekend we will hear the many usual platitudes to military men and women who served our country. We will hear how they fought for our freedoms. This is the usual technique of using guilt to collect a debt. They say, "I fought for your right to free speech, now shut up and support the war."

President Bush in his radio address on May 26, 2007 continued the praise of fighting for freedom. "In Iraq and Afghanistan, millions have shown their desire to be free." He also said, "We are determined to help them secure their liberty". And this, "From Valley Forge to Vietnam, from Kuwait to Kandahar, from Berlin to Baghdad, brave men and women have given up their own futures so that others might have a future of freedom."

And more for freedom from President Bush. "Because of their sacrifice, millions here and around the world enjoy the blessings of liberty. And wherever these patriots rest, we offer them the respect and gratitude of our nation." And last, "On Memorial Day, we rededicate ourselves to freedom's cause."

Throughout history men have fought who were not free. They fought for God, King, Queen, Pope, Caliph, etc. They were bribed, blackmailed, coerced, shanghaied, or shamed into fighting. Combat veterans have said their biggest reason for fighting was the fear they would let their comrades down if they did not fight. (Self Preservation) The Germans, Russians, Japanese, North Koreans, Chinese, and North Vietnamese fought hard, and they were not free. Why? Because they were fighting for the same reasons men have always fought. Only a small percentage of men in recent history have been told they were/are fighting for freedom.

Men are always given some external excuse for fighting. The reasons are internal; pride, desire, glory, and self preservation.

I knew many men in my unit who were drafted. They hated the idea of going to Korea to fight. We were as they say, cannon fodder, told over and over we were expendable. I think 64% of the men in WW II were drafted. They fought for the same reasons men have fought. The lives lost in Korea and Vietnam had nothing to do with fighting for my freedom to speak out. The North Koreans and the Vietnamese did not, and have not threatened my freedoms.

Since so much blood has been shed for our right to speak out, should we become reticent and aloof? As Victor Hanson said in his recent article, and I strongly agree, "That brings us to the United States' greatest strength: radical self-critique". Some seem to resent those who exercise that strength to speak against war, and praise those who exercise that strength to speak in support of war.

I remember the freedoms we had as a kid. I could drive around in my dad's truck with my rifle inside. No gun license. We had more freedoms then. The more blood we spill it seems we lose more freedoms. If a man, one of those who fought for freedom in a far off land, yells at his wife today, he can end up in jail! Men who fought for freedom constantly have their children taken from them by the government in divorces. President Bush tried to stiff arm the justice department into wiretapping without a search warrant.

Why don't we have a Memorial Day for all those who died: producing food, building our homes, hauling away our garbage, timber workers, and other fields that built this country? Because they are all private individuals. Memorial Day is for dead government employees. It is designed for them and to promote more statist enablers.

Appended below is an exercpt from an Associated Press story of May 26, 2007 that gives an example of more laws we are forced to live under the Nanny State.

Men who go to far off lands to fight for freedom should be aware, freedom back home is an unfaithful mistress.

Charles Tolleson

Dig N.J. beaches? Better know the rules
By WAYNE PARRY, Associated Press Writer
Welcome to the Jersey Shore! Have a great time, but please don't dig too deeply in the sand in Surf City (you could get blown up), feed the seagulls in Ocean City (you could catch a disease), or draw dirty pictures in the sand in Belmar (it's rude).

If you have tummy trouble, don't even think of going to Sea Bright, and if you come to Spring Lake, leave your spear gun at home. Other beaches won't let you eat, pick flowers, fly a kite, gamble or ride a camel.

"I used to take pictures of signs at the entrance to beaches that had long lists of all the things you couldn't do," said Dery Bennett, head of the American Littoral Society's Sandy Hook chapter. "There was one with a big word `NO' in red letters at the top and all these things listed underneath it, and at the bottom, someone put tape on it and wrote in `fun allowed.'"

Many of the beach towns on Long Beach Island, one of New Jersey's most popular summer vacation spots, have laws prohibiting people from digging deeper than 12 inches in the sand. They stem from an accident several years ago in which a teenager died when a deep hole he was digging collapsed, burying him.

Belmar, for example, prohibits smoking, gambling, cursing or changing clothes on its beach. It also says no one may "model, draw or depict any obscene or rude figures upon the beachfront."

In Wildwood, don't even think about riding a camel on the beach. That law came about after a vendor in 2000 proposed charging people a few dollars to ride on a camel's back for the quarter-to-half mile it takes to get from the boardwalk to the water's edge.

"We said no," Mayor Ernie Troiano said. "Our beaches are as wide as a desert, but you won't find any camels on our sand."

Other no-nos in Wildwood: standing under the boardwalk and looking up through slits between the boards as people walk above your head.

Elsewhere on the Jersey shore, it is illegal to possess a spear gun on the beach in Spring Lake. In Brigantine, you can't impersonate a member of the beach patrol, or "revel, disport or behave in an annoying, boisterous manner, emitting loud cries."

Meanwhile, the borough of Sea Bright appears to be very interested in your innards. A sign posted at the entrance to the beach commands: "Do not enter the water if you are experiencing or recovering from diarrhea, or have had any signs of symptoms of a gastrointestinal disease in the past seven days."

Bill Mack, the borough's water safety director, acknowledges that's something his badge checkers and lifeguards aren't likely to keep tabs on.

Take Long Branch's prohibition on parking a baby carriage on the sand within 15 feet of a beach entrance. "I can't fathom what the thought process was behind that one," said Mayor Adam Schneider, who did not know the law existed until a reporter questioned him on it. "We can do a pretty good job of looking foolish when we enforce `real' ordinances, let alone something like this. I just hope I don't get embarrassed and find out I voted for it in the past."

Former Senator Bob Kerrey

Former Senator Bob Kerrey had an article at the Wall Street Journal on May 22, 2007.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010107 Senator Kerrey advocates the use of force to spread democracy in Iraq.

Mr. Kerrey lost part of a leg in Vietnam as a leader of a SEAL unit. He also won the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Over 2000 years ago, Demosthenes said: "Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true."

In Senator Kerrey's biography he admitted some role in the killings of 21 innocents in a village in Vietnam. The Vietnamese have charged him with war crimes.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jun2002/kerr-j06.shtml

Senator Kerrey was using force in Vietnam to "do good". Now he is advocating the use of force in Iraq to "do good". Socialists, communists, and fascists all advocate the use of force to do good. There has been more deaths and horrors committed in the name of doing good than one can imagine. Niccolo Machiavelli said it best, "Human beings are by nature not good; they are concerned with self preservation".

We kill for the same reasons wild animals kill; food, territory, mating, and self preservation. Unlike wild animals, humans have developed a language and a conscience. We use words like; honor, doing good, and patriotism to salve our conscience.

"Most of the harm in the world is done by good people.... It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.... Something is terribly wrong in the procedure, somewhere. What is it? The means is the power of the collective; and the premise is that ‘good’ is collective. The humanitarian in theory is the terrorist in action.” -Isabel Paterson, "The Humanitarian with the Guillotine."

Charles Tolleson

President Bush's Commencement Address

"Now, many critics compare the battle in Iraq to the situation we faced in Vietnam. There are many differences between the two conflicts, but one stands out above all: The enemy in Vietnam had neither the intent nor the capability to strike our homeland. The enemy in Iraq does. Nine-eleven taught us that to protect the American people, we must fight the terrorists where they live so that we don't have to fight them where we live." -President Bush in the commencement address at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn.

Mr. President, if the enemy in Vietnam had neither the intent nor the capability to strike our homeland, why were we there? Our leaders kept telling us Communism was going to take over the world. Now they are telling us Islam is going to do the same. Were we in Vietnam out of fear, or just the chest thumping alpha male egos of our leaders, the same as today? Like the middle east, we did not know friend or foe in Vietnam. The Vietnamese could have carried out a "terrorist" attack if they desired, and rest assured, had we been meddling in Vietnam as long as we have in the Middle East, and if we had defeated their huge army, and were still there, we would be attacked by Vietnamese terrorists. One thing that is the same, you avoided serving in Vietnam, and you and your children avoid the Iraq war.

When we pulled out of Vietnam they did not follow us here as we feared. Instead many Vietnamese came here and became very productive capitalists. The same will happen with the Muslims if we pull our troops out of the Middle East and stop supporting Israel. They will want to come here, not to bomb us, but to become entrepreneurs like the Vietnamese.

The enemy in Vietnam had an air force and army. They had the huge resources of the Chinese and Russian communists. Millions of men under arms. Compare that to al-Qaida, a rag tag group of zealots who will disappear like other cults if left alone. Yet you say these rag tags with no air force or navy will follow us here!

There are two differences in Vietnam and Iraq you failed to mention. The first is Vietnam was not an enemy of Israel. The Vietnamese did not follow the dictates of con men like Moses and Muhammad.

Another difference in Vietnam and Iraq is Vietnam does not sit on one of the world's largest oil reserves.

Stop fighting Israel's religious wars for them. Bring the troops home, all of them, to do what they are supposed to do, defend America. The Defense Department used to be named the War Department. With the current U. S. foreign policy we should change the name back to the "War Department" because that is what it does best, make war. It is no longer a "Defense" Department.

Charles Tolleson

Who Profits From War?

"Only the dead have seen the end of war" -

We often hear about big industrial companies profiting from war. Seldom do we hear of the individuals who profit from war.

The individuals on the assembly line of an industrial company that make bombs, bullets, radar, airplanes, ships, missiles, tanks, helmets, night goggles, food rations, medical kits, and on and on,- the millions of items needed for a war, helps the worker making those items profit from the war.

Other profits come from the published memoirs by those who participated in the death, debt, and destruction of war. Former CIA Director George Tenet's just-published, best-selling memoirs, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA earned him four million dollars!

Other big winners in the war racket are the media. The networks and newspapers can sell more newspapers if there is something dramatic to write about, such as war. More newspapers mean more advertising revenue. News media editors and producers hate a slow news day. How many hours can the talking heads on TV mention the latest divorce of some celebrity? In the world of 24 hour news, war is a good way to fill the time.

Some other big profiteers of war are the reporters who cover wars. Covering a war looks great on their resume. They profit from war because they get their names and faces shown to millions of readers and viewers. Young reporters will ride their war experiences for the rest of their career. Some reporters from World War II and Vietnam earned huge sums during their careers based on their coverage of war. Neophyte reporters know a way to enhance their careers is to cover some war.

Military personnel profit from war because it means promotions. Most military personnel do not fight in wars. There are usually 5 to 6 support personnel for each combat person, so many military personnel know they will not be in danger, but will gain promotions. Alexis de Tocqueville said in a democracy, war was a way for the lower and middle class to join the military and increase their upward mobility in social and economic class.

Charles Tolleson

Quote of the Day

On a previous forum a member posted the following quote in a suggestive manner that those in congress who oppose the Iraq war should be treated as Lincoln suggested.

"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale, and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled or hanged." President Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln did arrest people who resisted his war. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Lincoln did not believe the words in our own Declaration of Independence.

Woodrow Wilson was another "great" president who had people arrested for speaking out against his war "to end all wars and spread democracy around the world". Wilson had the Espionage Act of 1917 passed, and he jailed people
who spoke out against his war. It was amended in 1918 to prohibit criticizing the government. Incredibly, the Supreme Court upheld the law by a 7-2 margin. Some of the laws have been repealed.

These two war presidents are idolized by the intellectual historians. Presidents who kept us out of war and tried to limit the power of the federal government are ignored by the intellectuals.

The leaders are afraid of dissent. They might be proven wrong in an open debate. Being wrong means you lose power. No one wants to follow someone who is wrong. It is an old policy, silence the messenger.

During war the leaders of both fighting groups have the same method, silence the messengers. Do not allow any dissent. Through war both leaders gain power, their food for living.

Alexis de Tocqueville said that nothing is so threatening to individual liberty as extended war.-- "A long war almost always places nations in this sad alternative: that their defeat delivers them to destruction and their triumph to despotism."

Randolph Bourne-"The moment war is declared, however, the mass of the people, through some spiritual alchemy, become convinced that they have willed and executed the deed themselves. They then, with the exception of a few
malcontents, proceed to allow themselves to be regimented, coerced, deranged in all the environments of their lives, and turned into a solid manufactory of destruction toward whatever other people may have, in the appointed scheme of things, come within the range of the Government's disapprobation. The citizen throws off his contempt and indifference to Government, identifies himself with its purposes, revives all his military memories and symbols, and the State once more walks, an august presence, through the imaginations of men. Patriotism becomes the dominant feeling, and produces immediately that intense and hopeless confusion between the relations which the individual bears and should bear toward the society of which he is a part." Randolph Bourne, "War is the Health of the State"
http://www.bopsecrets.org/CF/bourne.htm

Bilbo Baggins

Max Boot Column in WSJ

WSJ.com Opinion Journal
AT WAR Surging Ahead in Iraq The new strategy can work. But Washington has to give it time.
BY MAX BOOTTuesday, May 15, 2007 12:01 a.m.

Max Boot wrote- many commentators and politicians will write off the surge as a failure. Many are already doing so, even though the Baghdad Security Plan is barely three months old.

No Mr. Boot, the Baghdad Security Plan is over four years old!


Boot wrote- An article in USA Today reported on a Pentagon-funded study which confirms what military historians already know--an average insurgency can run for a decade, but most fail in the end.

And they failed without the help of the United States, so good. Let this one fail to, without our help.

Boot wrote- The far more likely consequence would be an all-out civil war. Not only would this be a humanitarian tragedy for which the U.S. would bear indirect responsibility.

"Indirect" responsibility. Wrong. The "Decider" and his followers would bear responsibility. Not me!

Boot wrote- If we are seen as the losers in Iraq, al Qaeda would be seen as the winner. The perception of American weakness fed by a pullout would lead to increased terrorism against the U.S. and our allies, just as occurred following our withdrawal from Somalia in 1993 and from Beirut in 1983.

What were we doing in Somalia and Beirut? Making more enemies! If al Qaeda becomes a winner does that mean they will take over the world? No. It means they will have many enemies. If the U.S. becomes a winner does that mean we will take over the world? No. It means we will have many enemies.

Boot wrote- In the ensuing chaos, it is quite possible that al Qaeda terrorists would succeed in turning western Iraq into a Taliban-style base for international terrorism.

"Quiet possible"? I guess it is possible. So what. Terrorism against who? Will they attack Mexico, a nation filled with infidels? Will they attack Vatican City, the head of a large nation of infidels? Why do they only attack the U. S. and other European countries. What is different about the United States' foreign policy and the foreign policy of that infidel country, Mexico? When you figure that out Mr. Boot, you will know why they hate the U. S. Let them concentrate in Iraq. Then we will know where they are and we can bomb the hell out of them. That's the American way. Right?

Boot wrote- Although the momentum at the moment is running against al Qaeda in Anbar Province, the tribal forces who are now cooperating with the Iraqi government would be incapable of defeating al Qaeda on their own.

Not true. What will be the downfall of any insurgent group is the lack of local support.

Boot wrote- It's still possible to stave off catastrophic defeat in Iraq. But the only way to do it is to give Gen. Petraeus and his troops more time--at least another year--to try to change the dynamics on the ground. The surge strategy may be a long shot but every alternative is even worse.

A withdrawal does not mean defeat, especially a "catastrophic" defeat. Such alarmist adjectives you war lovers use! Give Petraeus more time, then a year from now you will create a new reason to keep your empirical illusions alive and fight Israel's six decades long religious war. And no, every alternative is not worse.

Mr. Boot, try to imagine how a group of young Muslim men feel when the handsome American troops in their clean and well fitted uniforms with their high tech gear and their fashionable wrap around sun glasses, invade the men's homes and humiliate the men in front of their women. The Arab society is a patriarchal society where humiliation in front of women carries a heavy sting. American men have been desensitized so much they do not feel humiliated in front of women. American men expect to be denigrated in front of their women. America has become a matriarchal society. But the young Arab men who see their fathers, sons, and brothers humiliated, sit around after the Americans leave, and their envy and resentment starts to boil their passions. They plot revenge, and when they go to their Mosque, they pray to Allah to help them kill, not a Mexican, not a Swiss, not a Venezuelan, but, an American.

Charles Tolleson

The White Feather

"Lots of times you have to pretend to join a parade in which you're not really interested in order to get where you're going". -Christopher Morley

We all know how aggressive males can be. However we seldom think about how females contribute to the support of war, or their lack of support. When female support waned for the Vietnam War, male morale declined.

The Order of the White Feather in England was designed to shame men into going to hell in WW I to fight the fight to end all fighting. Instead, they wiped out a generation of young men for nothing.

The Iraq war will be fodder for the intellectual class and historians to write books about, and then it will become a footnote to history, like the thousands of wars during the past five thousand years.
( http://pieterfriedrich.com/hogwash.html Richard Maybury says that "in 1984, the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and University of Oslo calculated that since the year 3,600 B.C., there have been more than 14,000 wars. The vast majority of wars have been in the Old World, and they have killed an estimated 3.6 billion - not 3.6 million, 3.6 billion." )

Now there are some who advocate bringing back the White Feather campaign and giving a feather to those "cowards" who do not support the war. http://www.michellemalkin.com/archives/007394.htm

You can buy your white feathers in bulk here- http://tinyurl.com/22o7l4

Below is a poem from the White Feather campaign in Britain in WW I. Talk about peer pressure to protect the group! It must be in our genes. I'm sure the Germans of WW I had pressure on their young men to defend the tribe.

Bilbo Baggins


"What will you lack, sonny, what will you lack,
When the girls line up the street
Shouting their love to the lads to come back
From the foe they rushed to beat?

Will you send a strangled cheer to the sky
And grin till your cheeks are red?
But what will you lack when your mate goes by
With a girl who cuts you dead?

Where will you look, sonny, where will you look,
When your children yet to be Clamour to learn of the part you took
In the War that kept men free?

Will you say it was naught to you if France
Stood up to her foe or bunked?
But where will you look when they give the glance
That tells you they know you funked?

How will you fare, sonny, how will you fare
In the far-off winter night,
When you sit by the fire in an old man's chair
And your neighbours talk of the fight?

Will you slink away, as it were from a blow,
Your old head shamed and bent?
Or say - I was not with the first to go,
But I went, thank God, I went?

Why do they call, sonny, why do they call
For men who are brave and strong?
Is it naught to you if your country fall,
And Right is smashed by Wrong?

Is it football still and the picture show,
The pub and the betting odds,
When your brothers stand to the tyrant's blow,
And England's call is God's!"

Stay at home moms are not underpaid

Whatever feminists want for women, women get, and whatever feminists don't want for women, men get. Jerry Boggs

"If the typical stay-at-home mother in the United States were paid for her work as a housekeeper, cook and psychologist among other roles, she would earn $138,095 a year, according to research released on Wednesday. This reflected a 3 percent raise from last year's $134,121, according to ****com Inc, Waltham, Massachusetts-based compensation experts. The 10 jobs listed as comprising a mother's work were housekeeper, cook, day care center teacher, laundry machine operator, van driver, facilities manager, janitor, computer operator, chief executive officer and psychologist, it said. The typical mother puts in a 92-hour work week, it said, working 40 hours at base pay and 52 hours overtime."

I purposefully left out the link to the organization that released this story. They wanted publicity and they got it, but I will not contribute.

The above story is typical of American females trying to over inflate their value. They have been told so often, by men as well as women, that because a woman has a vagina she is to be worshiped.

Fifty two hours of overtime! The pleasure of reading a bedtime story to your children is considered overtime! She should pay for the privilege. Many divorced dads would pay for such a privilege. Wait. They do. Its called alimony and child support.

They fail to see how much a mother is paid in psychic income for staying home with her children instead of fighting the rat race of earning a living. They fail to point out how much of her earnings are paid for by none other than a man.

The whole gambit is to make the husband appreciate the little woman and give her even more power. It is designed to make the man work harder to pay for the woman's "market" value. If the husband is not paying the market salary, he is and abusive employer.

What is the typical stay at home mom? Why assume they are all great mothers? How much should the stay at home mom makes who is a lazy drunk? What if the working husband has to do the laundry, dishes, and put the kids to bed? Should the wife pay him for her parasitic existence?

Bilbo Baggins