So back in 2003, this SWAT team busted down my door because they claimed I had a very dangerous illegal weapon. In the process, the house was almost totaled, many of my family died, but as time went on they kept claiming they were making our family safe and free. Sure they bought an oven and then a fridge BUT they are the ones that use those appliances the most. The electrical is still flaky as we lose power for seconds or minutes a few times a week. There was a time when they claimed they left in 2007 or so but by 2014 they were back using the oven and fridge again. It seems they have a thing for our neighbor too, swearing at them at every opportunity and robbing them of their Amazon packages off the porch. They have also claimed that they were bad people so that others would not deal with them, and would not sell them things they need to them and their kids.
Just last week was the icing on the cake. They not only killed our uncle right in our house, but killed the next door neighbor’s uncle who happened to be in our home too! That was the last straw, we told them to leave but they said F*** Y**, we want to renegotiate our “partnership”.
Are you kidding me? Stay in this abusive relationship where no one knows who will get killed next and the house never gets fixed to the point it was in 2003? I don’t think so. Look at my house back in the day:
Look at my relatives in my home:
I hope you know by now this is not MY house, but the nation of Iraq.
The SWAT team that has stayed in control in this abusive one-sided relationship is the US Empire. They flat out refuse to leave!
Iraq’s caretaker prime minister asked Washington to start working out a road map for an American troop withdrawal, but the U.S. State Department on Friday bluntly rejected the request, saying the two sides should instead talk about how to “recommit” to their partnership.
Main stream media (MSM – propaganda arm of the US Empire), specifically the Associated Press (AP) got it all wrong then they claimed:
… the move was “stoked by the American drone strike on Jan. 3 that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani”. The move was stoked five days earlier when the U.S. killed 31 Iraqi security forces near the Syrian border despite the demands by the Iraqi prime minister and president not to do so. It was further stoked when the U.S. assassinated Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes, the deputy commander of the Popular Militia Forces and a national hero in Iraq.
No s**t .. confusing Iran and Iraq again .. just like their confusion between Shia and Sunni .. but I digress.
The [US] State Department issued a rather aggressive response to Abdul-Mahdi’s request:
America is a force for good in the Middle East. Our military presence in Iraq is to continue the fight against ISIS and as the Secretary has said, we are committed to protecting Americans, Iraqis, and our coalition partners.
Notice the order, just like the police protect themselves 1st, the US Empire also protects itself 1st .. and that is where the partnership is not nor will ever be equal. The US Empire is not “protecting” Iraq, they are projecting through Iraq in this region to continue to interfere in Iran and Syria.
Iraq continues to be used and abused in this relationship. Trump implies that when he thought that extending NATO to the Middle East .. oh yeah, what the Middle East “needs” is another dysfunctional “partner”.
Epic BS on the part of the war party in DC who all love the profits and lobbyists money from MIC and job security for the CIA while keeping the CIA black budget funded from Afghanistan poppy fields.
Yes, thanks to a “slight” miscalculation on the part of the US Empire, I think many people will wake up to the fact of what has been coming down for 40 years in the Middle East.
Before this era, there was little terrorism while there were a couple of world wars. Which do you prefer? Personally, I prefer none, not for me mind you, but for my kids and my grand-kids I prefer peace.
The “slight” miscalculation is highlighted in this article that rightly makes prominent what most of MSM (no surprise there) and most people are missing:
The US did not plan to kill the vice commander of the Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi brigade Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes when it assassinated Iranian Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani on Thursday at 11:00 PM local time at Baghdad airport. Usually, when Soleimani was arriving in Baghdad, security commander Abu Zeinab al-Lami, a deputy officer to al Muhandes, would have welcomed him. This time, al-Lami was outside Iraq and al-Muhandes replaced him. The US plan was to assassinate an Iranian General on Iraqi soil, not to kill a high-ranking Iraqi officer. By killing al-Muhandes, the US violated its treaty obligation to respect the sovereignty of Iraq and to limit its activity to training and offering intelligence to fight the “Islamic State”, ISIS. It has also violated its commitment to refrain from overflying Iraq without permission of the Iraqi authorities.
As the article states, the US and Iraq are both embarrassed by this turn of events that unmasks the US Empire’s true intentions, on behalf of Israel. This has coalesced most of the various militias in the region (except ISIS of course, sponsored by US, Israel and Saudi Arabia) and has now linked former enemies Iraq and Iran to have common ground. It will be interesting the uptake of this outside the region as Russia and China, along with Syria find each others as friends with a common enemy, especially with all the trade sanctions and tariffs that the US has instigated. I am thinking too that the European “coalition” days are numbered as what nation in Europe will side with the US Empire at this point?
So is the US Empire at the 1775 point of the British Empire? An unmasked and revealed belligerent imperialist force for bad verses American Exceptionalism, a Global Force for Good. Time will tell.
I am pretty sure that with Brexit, and with Trump’s blunder on Iraqi soil, we will all see much clearer in 2020. As more and more people distrust huge government, distrust its partner in crime, the media, there will be all sorts of things that can be revealed in this new year.
One thing I do want to draw attention to is the difference in character between the typical US politician and the man (i.e. labeled a bad guy by Trump) that was murdered after a non-private commercial flight from Damascus, Syria to Baghdad, Iraq:
Soleimani’s handwritten will: “My wife, I have chosen my burial place in the cemetery of the Martyrs of Kerman, Mahmoud knows it. I want my gravestone to be simple. Just write ‘Soldier Qassem Soleimani’ no more titles and phrases.”
Quite the difference, no?
Interesting days to come .. enjoy each day and the blessings that God the Creator has blessed us with in the midst of “wars and rumors of wars” – Jesus in Matthew 24:6.
Hug your kids, your grand-kids and good friends!
I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
Oh, yes I can make it now the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
(Ooh…) Look all around, there’s nothing but blue skies
Look straight ahead, there’s nothing but blue skies
I hate lies. I love truth. Friends don’t let friends believe in lies .. but they also allow someone that process .. towards truth .. it is a different timeline for everyone .. everyone is unique and ultimately have to own their own beliefs, values, mission, etc.
Along these lines, once I found out what “Honest Abe” did to the much more honorable Robert E. Lee, I had my suspicions that Lincoln was not everything the state says he was, Father Abraham to the freed Blacks, a saint that ended slavery, and the list goes on and on to this deified man. The very fact that the “state” does this should make everyone suspicious!
I detest the way the Lincoln administration chose to bury their dead on an honorable man’s private property .. a man who had 100x the character of Lincoln himself when it came to principles. Lincoln’s words in 1848 about a very Jefferson idea about the consent of the governed would have been something that Robert E. Lee would have agreed with .. and when Lee acted on this belief, Lincoln made sure Lee could never return to his home.
16,000 Union solders buried in Lee’s garden
Obviously, Lincoln was all words (typical politician) and Lee was principles and character, not moved by conditions or time.
The quote Lee and Lincoln would agree to:
“Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movements.” ~ Lincoln January 12 1848, expressing the near-universally held Jeffersonian principle
Anyway, Jacob Hornberger at FFF (The Future of Freedom Foundation) shared this article a few years ago about Memorial Day, but I thought that as 2019 wrapped up it was good to reflect on the nation we find ourselves a part of, and its real history, including a good dose of truth!
Today, Memorial Day, Americans across the land will hear the same message: that U.S. soldiers who have died in America’s foreign wars and foreign interventions have done so in the defense of our rights and freedoms. It is a message that will be heard in sporting events, memorial services, airports, churches, and everywhere else that Memorial Day is being commemorated.
There is one big thing wrong, however. It’s a lie. None of those soldiers died protecting our rights and freedoms. That’s because our rights and freedoms were never being threatened by the enemy forces that killed those soldiers.
Yes, lets look at how the US military defended our rights and freedoms … it should not take long and you will see that it has been a LONG time since they actually did that:
Syria. The Syrian government has never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who has died in Syria was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.
Niger. The Niger government has never invaded the United States and tried to take away our freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who has died in Niger was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.
Iraq. The Iraq government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who has died in Iraq was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.
Afghanistan. The Afghan government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who has died in Afghanistan was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms. Even al-Qaeda never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Its terrorist attacks, including the one on 9/11, were retaliation for U.S. interventionism in the Middle East.
Panama. The Panama government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in Panama was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.
Grenada. The Grenada government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in Grenada was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.
Vietnam. The North Vietnam government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in Vietnam was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.
Korea. The North Korean government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in Korea was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.
World War II.
The Japanese government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in the Pacific theater in World War II was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms. The Japanese attack on U.S. Naval forces on Hawaii was intended solely to prevent the U.S. Navy from interfering with Japanese attempts to acquire oil in the Dutch East Indies in response to President Roosevelt’s oil embargo, whose aim was to provoke the Japanese into attacking the United States so that the U.S. could get into the European part of war.
The German government never invaded the United States and try to take away our rights and freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in the European theater in World War II was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms. Germany wasn’t even able to cross the English Channel to invade England, much less the Atlantic Ocean to invade the United States. In fact, the last thing that Germany wanted was war with the United States, as reflected by Germany’s refusal to react to President Roosevelt’s repeated provocations to get Germany to attack the United States. Germany only declared war on the United States after FDR successfully provoked the Japanese into attacking the U.S. Navy fleet at Pearl Harbor, in the hope that this would provide a back door to entry into the war in Europe.
World War I. The German government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights freedoms. Therefore, any U.S. soldier who died in World War I was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms, especially given the ridiculous aims of U.S. intervention into the war: to “end all wars” and to “make the world safe for democracy,” a word that isn’t even in the U.S. Constitution. In fact, it is perversely ironic that it was U.S. interventionism into the conflict that contributed to the rise of Nazi Germany and World War II.
The Spanish-American War. The Spanish government never invaded the United States and tried to take away our rights freedoms. Therefore, any soldier who died in the Spanish-American War was not killed protecting our rights and freedoms.
I will add the following:
The War Against Southern Independence (of seven states originally, wrongly called a civil war, wrong because the southern states did not want any other territory, PERIOD).
The South Carolina militia in Dec 1860 to April 1861 never invaded the United States and try to take away the rights of those in other states. As a sovereign entity (reclaiming what it had before the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation) it said LEAVE US ALONE.
The Confederate States of America from Feb to April 1861 never invaded the United States and try to take away the rights of those in other states. While after the US Army detachment in Fort Moultrie violated the agreement in place since Dec 1860 when it agreed NOT to take any action in Charleston Harbor and remained at peace in what was now South Carolina territory (seceded from USA), Gen. Anderson, in the cover of night moved his troops to Fort Sumter. When Lincoln attempted to resupply the fort with provisions AND troops was when the forces around Charleston Harbor chose to fire on Fort Sumter .. KILLING NO ONE.
The Confederate States of America (now 11 states) from April – July 1861 never invaded the United States and try to take away the rights of those in other states.
So why celebrate Memorial Day when the reason for its existence is based on lies .. it is yet another government piece of propaganda that when repeated enough get into the heads of the sheep!
Bottom line is that while the defense of the United States in the War of 1812 was ‘honorable’, even that war was entered into under questionable circumstances and outright lies. Know that by 1814 the NORTH was ready to secede from the United States (peacefully) .. you might want to research the “Hartford Convention of 1814”
“… the Hartford Convention began a three-week debate about the relationship between the then 18 states and the federal government. The meeting was held in secret by New England members of the Federalist Party and there were nationwide fears that the Hartford Convention would call for New England’s secession from the Union …”
New Englanders were unhappy over political concerns that they were being badly treated by the Union. Since Thomas Jefferson’s election in 1800, the president had been a Southerner chosen by an electoral system that allowed the slave-holding Southern states to count each slave as 60 percent of a free person for their allocation of congressional seats and the number of presidential electors…”
Did the southern states invade the north to keep this from happening? No! As early as 1804, sensing that New England was not happy with things (this time it was the Louisiana Purchase, another time when secession was discussed in the North.):
“Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part. Those of the western confederacy will be as much our children & descendants as those of the eastern, and I feel myself as much identified with that country, in future time, as with this; and did I now foresee a separation at some future day, yet I should feel the duty & the desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern, doing all the good for both portions of our future family which should fall within my power.”
–Letter from President Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Joseph Priestly, Jan. 29, 1804
So maybe the American Revolutionary War was really the last time the government’s troops fought for our freedom and for our rights. Think about that!
PS Also, if you think George Washington was really the tactical hero of Yorktown, just know that when the French general Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau told Washington to move his troops to Yorktown as the French fleet was coming to contain the British troops under Cornwallis there, Washington had a melt-down and at first refused the thought thinking as he had the last few years that the decisive battle HAD to take place against the British in New York harbor.
I have a (bad?) habit. When I hear of some historical event, I look for the context and the history that preceded that event. Do I have a CSI in my DNA? I guess I just want to know the event in a holistic way so that I do not judge it by it’s appearance only. (My family knows this reference, but it works really well here)
As I pointed out in a previous post a couple of weeks ago:
My point today is that any book on any subject that has you reflecting on what you thought you knew, can launch you into doing research in and around the book reading to attempt to get at the nugget of truth that is typically obscured by an overriding narrative that the masses like to believe.
Reading a “wrong” book or a book from a different perspective from your own should never be seen as a waste of time. In fact, it is usually this kind of ‘entertaining a thought without accepting it’ is essential towards being a true CSI’er of our history.
One of the books I am reading is “Appeasement”, by Tim Bouverie. Primarily about the steps Britain took, or failed to take, with Hitler that led to a disastrous start to WWII. It is assumed in this book, written from a primarily Oxford viewpoint, that the treaty signed at the end of WWI should have kept Germany from rearming causing the British to once again cross that channel and save the day for the continent of Europe.
Well today I want to shed a little light on that treaty, which as of this past week turned 100 years old. Just today, at Lew Rockwell, a post appeared that helped me to mine this time period even more for the wisdom that can come out of understanding history, which is basically just “relationships” at a macro level.
The work by the author, Edward W. Fuller, is fascinating in that it really tells the story of the “tree” that was planted in 1919 which makes the fruit that we see in the 1930s, with Hitler’s rise to power, give us no real surprise.
I contend, that if we all really knew history well, even events that happen today might have us all asking the right questions in the search for truth. We want to be like The Who in their song “We won’t get fooled again”:
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again
Don’t want to get fooled again
No, no!
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
So let me assist in getting some major points down on the situation 100 years ago when many nations attempted to draw up a treaty to ensure that “The Great War” would not be repeated:
June 28, 2019 is the centenary of the Treaty of Versailles. The notorious treaty, signed by Germany on June 28, 1919, was the most important of the peace treaties that ended the First World War. Although each defeated nation signed its own treaty, the entire settlement is often called the Treaty of Versailles.
Yes Germany signed this treaty, however, doesn’t it really take two (or more) to actively work on hammering out a real treaty? I do think that the author of the book “Appeasement” and 95% of US citizens think and have been taught that this treaty was indeed honorable, not only in its terms but also in its inception. Mr. Fuller points out something interesting:
In early January, 1919, delegates from Britain, France, Italy, and the United States congregated in Paris. Initially, the Allies’ plan was to have a preliminary conference amongst themselves to decide on the peace terms to offer Germany. After the brief preliminary conference, the plan was to invite Germany to a full-scale peace conference to negotiate the terms.
As the Allies squabbled amongst themselves, the preliminary conference gradually developed into the full-scale conference. The Germans were not summoned to Paris until early May. And when they finally arrived, they were never allowed to negotiate the terms of the treaty. Thus, the Treaty of Versailles was a dictated treaty, not a negotiated treaty.
Whoa! While I knew that Germany got really ripped off in this treaty, I mean, it had not even entered this conflict on its own, as Eric Margolis shares:
.. Germany’s role in the conflict was no greater than the other belligerents, and perhaps less than commonly believed. Starved into submission by Britain’s naval blockade, Germany was unfairly and foolishly saddled with total war guilt, and saw 10% of its territory and 7 million of its people torn away at Versailles by the war’s rapacious victors.
One thing that stood out to me in my read of “Appeasement” is how inadequate was my own high school and post high school history “official” education. I am so glad that at this date I can re/un-learn enough to really know what was going on and why.
Just yesterday I read that Serbia, Bosnia, Iraq, Jordan and Palestine all were relinquished by the German’s with this treaty and France and Britain would be the new overseers. Don’t tell me that this has nothing to do with the Middle East as it stands today. Something tells be there is a lot more to this story.
Eric Margolis hints at why the French and the British did not include Germany at the negotiation table when he says:
Both of these imperial powers feared Germany’s growing commercial and military power (just as the US today fears China’s rise). Germany’s vibrant social democracy with its worker’s rights and concern for the poor posed a threat to the capitalists of Britain and France. Britain’s imperialists were deeply worried by the creation of a feeble little German Empire based in Africa. At the time they controlled a quarter of the globe and all of its oceans.
One has to wonder how the world might have been if England would have acted honorably for once and put the brakes on the rush to war fever that initially was primarily a French emotion:
A total conflagration could still have been averted if Great Britain, which had been playing neutral, had boldly demanded the rush to war cease. France would have been unlikely to go to war without Britain’s supporting its left flank in Flanders.
… a coterie of anti-German officials in Britain, led by the duplicitous foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey and the ambitious, war-yearning imperialist, Winston Churchill, pushed the British Empire to war against Germany. They were joined by a cabal of German-haters in the French government. British and French industrialists, fearful of German competition, and seeing huge profits to be made, backed the war party.
Does this sound familiar or what. How much DNA was transferred to the USA when the British Empire help the American colonies get established in the 1600s?
Beyond not being an equal partner in the “negotiation” of this treaty, the obedience to the treaty’s terms were also an issue:
The military clauses of the treaty disarmed Germany. But the German disarmament was supposed to be part of general European disarmament sponsored by the League of Nations. While the Germans were disarmed by the treaty, the Allies did not fulfill their promise to disarm. This was unfair, and the Allies’ broken promise infuriated German public opinion.
Psychologically, there was more damage from this treaty to those German citizens who knew better. Consider this “feature”:
The reparations section of the treaty included Article 231 – the infamous war-guilt clause. Article 231 required Germany to accept responsibility for starting the war. This clause was unfair, because Germany was not solely responsible for the war. All the major European powers share the blame.
Anger, resentment, punishment all lead to a sense of GROSS INJUSTICE!
I, myself, am wired in a way that is incensed by injustice. Beyond injustice, is my own drive to give individuals on a micro level, and people groups on a macro level the ability to give their consent to those who would govern them, otherwise this becomes slavery even if it comes under the guise of “government” for the greater good.
.. the Allied leaders assured the world that the peace would be based on the principle of national self-determination. Their actions proved otherwise. At the conference, the Allies imperialistically carved up the world and created new but unsustainable nation states with government coercion.
Is this believable? In 2019, after a century of war with 200 million killed by governments, you just have to agree that they do lie, they all do!
So for Germany, what did this mean?
… how could a lunatic like Hitler rise to power in Germany? The answer is the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles. The German population thought the treaty was unfair, and they wanted someone to oppose it. The treaty created the platform for Hitler’s rise to power. For this reason, the Treaty of Versailles must be considered a major cause of the Second World War.
The fruit of this non-negotiated treaty was more war. Such is the wisdom of men (including woMEN) in committees … stupid is multiplied!
For the rest of the world the author concludes:
The First World War and the Paris Peace Conference led to Nazism in Germany, fascism in Italy, militarism in Japan, extremism in the Middle East, and communism in Russia, China, Korea, and Vietnam. What must be learned from the war and peace settlement? Here is the most important lesson: the free market economy is the only way to lasting world peace.
The war was caused by Europe’s imperialistic intervention in foreign trade. In the decades before the war, there was a massive drive by the European powers to expand their empires. This put the European powers on a collision course. Why the imperial expansion? The European powers did not allow other powers to trade freely in their empires. For this reason, the European powers viewed imperial expansion as the only way to gain new markets for their goods. Europe’s rejection of the principle of free trade was the fundamental cause of the First World War.
I am fully aware that the term “collateral damage” as used by the US Empire refers to the “unfortunate” death of innocent civilians as a result of “pre-war” sanctions. The most popular clip on the Internet is Secretary of State Madeline Albright being interviewed about the 500,000 children that died as a result of sanctions on Iraq between Gulf War I and II:
The reason I ‘air-quote’ the term pre-war is that in all reality, sanctions themselves are an act of war, even though it is on the economic variety. While there are no guns used, there is force used to ensure that the economic activity sanctioned actually does not take place, and that is indeed backed by guns. It is both coercion and violence-based. The state dictates that peaceful trade can not take place and its edicts will be followed, as the consequences to any business is well known. No business can go rogue in the sanction war.
Truth be told, we in the US on the domestic front are again close to having personal conversation scrutinized for words of support towards these sanctioned countries filled with people who desire peaceful trade with American citizens. If one supports Palestinian people, one is assumed to be anti-Semitic, if one supports Russian people, one is assumed to be a Russian-bot.
There was a time when war’s harm toward civilians caught in the crossfire was recognized and attempts were made toward international rules that safeguarded citizens as much as possible from the political conflicts that broke out across the world. By the 1700s in fact, this was the norm, which is why there was such disgust when British dragoon leader Banastre Tarleton would kill both the wounded enemy as well as civilians that appeared to “aid the enemy”.
By the time seven states decided to leave the American union in 1861, this norm had not yet changed. Most of the civilized world’s battles took place on the outskirts of cities.
From an article written by one who has seen war with his own eyes since Vietnam, Tom’s Dispatch writes about this time period:
In fact, the classic American instance of war-as-spectator-sport occurred in 1861 in the initial major land battle of the Civil War, Bull Run (or, for those reading this below the Mason-Dixon line, the first battle of Manassas). “On the hill beside me there was a crowd of civilians on horseback, and in all sorts of vehicles, with a few of the fairer, if not gentler sex,” wrote William Howard Russell who covered the battle for the London Times. “The spectators were all excited, and a lady with an opera glass who was near me was quite beside herself when an unusually heavy discharge roused the current of her blood — ‘That is splendid, Oh my! Is not that first rate? I guess we will be in Richmond tomorrow.’”
Yes, a picnic lunch adjacent to a large battle. You now know how everyone assumed that civilians would not be targeted. People in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Syria, Pakistan, Yemen and Libya pretty much know the opposite is true with the US Empire in the 21st century.
Reflecting back once more:
That woman would be sorely disappointed. U.S. forces not only failed to defeat their Confederate foes and press on toward the capital of the secessionist South but fled, pell-mell, in ignominious retreat toward Washington. It was a rout of the first order. Still, not one of the many spectators on the scene, including Congressman Alfred Ely of New York, taken prisoner by the 8th South Carolina Infantry, was killed.
By in large, the southern armies were driven by principles. The leadership time and again desired to spare the civilian population of the havoc of war. When Robert E. Lee’s army invaded the northern states of Maryland and Pennsylvania, his men were under strict orders NOT to help themselves to the resources of these civilians but rely on their own supplies. This was even apparent at the end of the war in 1865 when a hungry, tired and destitute southern army under Robert E. Lee retreated from Richmond and came across a rare cow in the countryside. Robert E. Lee directed his hungry men to return that cow to its rightful owner.
We do however know that there were civilian deaths during this internal conflict where one section of the country desired to depart in peace. Tom’s Dispatch explains:
Judith Carter Henry was as old as the imperiled republic at the time of the battle. Born in 1776, the widow of a U.S. Navy officer, she was an invalid, confined to her bed, living with her daughter, Ellen, and a leased, enslaved woman named Lucy Griffith when Confederate snipers stormed her hilltop home and took up positions on the second floor.
“We ascended the hill near the Henry house, which was at that time filled with sharpshooters. I had scarcely gotten to the battery before I saw some of my horses fall and some of my men wounded by sharpshooters,” Captain James Ricketts, commander of Battery 1, First U.S. Artillery, wrote in his official report. “I turned my guns on that house and literally riddled it. It has been said that there was a woman killed there by our guns.” Indeed, a 10-pound shell crashed through Judith Henry’s bedroom and tore off her foot. She died later that day, the first civilian death of America’s Civil War.
We know she was not the last to die. Many would die as Union army cut swaths through the south in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. Civilian’s fields, silver and homes would not be spared, nor were their personal bodies as many women were raped by the marauding troops from the north. As in many countries in the Middle East today, these atrocities would not soon be forgotten.
Tom’s Dispatch (Nick Turse) continues:
No one knows how many civilians died in the war between the states. No one thought to count. Maybe 50,000, including those who died from war-related disease, starvation, crossfire, riots, and other mishaps. By comparison, around 620,000 to 750,000 American soldiers died in the conflict — close to 1,000 of them at that initial battle at Bull Run.
So by 1865 these ratios were starting to change. Civilian deaths are hard to estimate, but you can be assured that military deaths these days are minimal when compared to those of innocent civilians.
In Vietnam, we saw this on black and white TV before the government decided to control more of what the masses would view:
A century later, U.S. troops had traded their blue coats for olive fatigues and the wartime death tolls were inverted. More than 58,000 Americans lost their lives in Vietnam. Estimates of the Vietnamese civilian toll, on the other hand, hover around two million. Of course, we’ll never know the actual number, just as we’ll never know how many died in air strikes as reporters watched from the rooftop bar of Saigon’s Caravelle Hotel ..
Since the 1960s, this trend has only accelerated and has not only produced more of what our own CIA calls “blowback” (I mean, when you blow up funeral processions with drones, you will multiply the number of freedom-fighters, errr I mean “terrorists” in a region) but it also has cause economic and political refugees seeking a better life in other regions of the world. For both the military-industrial complex and politicians, this is actually a win-win for them. How sick is that?
Tom’s Dispatch article winds down by saying:
In this century, it’s a story that has occurred repeatedly, each time with its own individual horrors, as the American war on terror spread from Afghanistan to Iraq and then on to other countries; as Russia fought in Georgia, Ukraine, and elsewhere; as bloodlettings have bloomed from the Democratic Republic of Congo to South Sudan, from Myanmar to Kashmir. War watchers like me and like those reporters atop the Caravelle decades ago are, of course, the lucky ones. We can sit on the rooftops of hotels and listen to the low rumble of homes being chewed up by artillery. We can make targeted runs into no-go zones to glimpse the destruction. We can visit schools transformed into shelters. We can speak to real estate agents who have morphed into war victims. Some of us, like Hedrick Smith, Michael Herr, or me, will then write about it — often from a safe distance and with the knowledge that, unlike Salah Isaid and most other civilian victims of such wars, we can always find an even safer place.
A safer place. I am sure this is what those imprisoned in Gaza feel, or those in Libya near Tripoli these days, or in various areas of Iraq and Afghanistan and even in areas of Syria.
This will probably all “come home to roost” as our foreign policy of intervention and disruption plus regime change causes people to uproot and move. There is always “baggage” involved when violence displaces families.
This all will not end well, nor will this country be exempt from the fallout.
