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Show THE ZEPHYR/ APRIL-MAY 2007 bombing campaign against North Korean cities. _ Other U‘S. military intrusions in the cold war era include the CIA-sponsored attempt on Cuba (Bay of Pigs); invasion of Grenada, covert war in Nicaragua; invasion of Panama. We “won” the cold war. More war followed: Iraq I, Somalia, full-scale bombardment of Serbia. What did these do for us? They prepared the way for Afghanistan and Iraq II. Over 3,000 of our soldiers have died in Iraq, many more wounded. Iraqi civilians too, a huge toll. What is this war doing for us? Laying the groundwork for an attack on Iran? Venezuela? Cuba? We can quibble till the cows come home about whether certain wars are worth fighting. But one fact is clear, twentieth and twenty first century high-tech wars are clumsy, dumb-bomb systems, their killings and woundings more indiscriminate than ever before in the history of our species. That’s one reason modern war has no moral standing. Furthermore, the war hawks of today are still on that age-old moth-eaten track, sending the poor and powerless to kill and die for ever more outrageous demands by the rich and powerful for control of Nature's “resources,” and peoples’ livlihoods and ways of living. From MARTIN MURIE skerihog@ Examine, if you have time, post WWII history in Asia where France and England mopped up Japanese resistance with one hand, re-installed the same old colonial arrangements with the other. Our government and military got in on that too, when we took over “cus- westelcom.com tody” of Indochina from France. Vietnam war. Cold War? Not hardly. Meanwhile our home planet has been suffering under wholesale plundering, from the southern regions where 12 penguin species are endangered to northern regions where polar bears, woodland caribou and many others are threatened with extinction. It’s not global climate change alone. It’s reckless mining, lumbering, urban sprawl, chemical agriculture, plastic proliferation, over-fishing, over grazing, acid rain, mercury contamina- LOSING SOLITUDE tion of the food chain, crazy motorized recreation, lavish resorts for the rich, underpaid temp jobs for workers, and more, lots more. You know all this. Why repeat it? It bears repeating, that’s why. But I have been indulging in a lot of abstractions. I’m going to kick myself, gear down to confessional mode, personal snapshots. ITALY. 1945 New offensive in the Italian Appenines, G company, WAR: A RECENT & PERSONAL HISTORY A World War One veteran with a hook for a hand was invited to talk to my grade school class. He showed us a helmet, didn’t say much, but we were fascinated by the hook. That war was a hellish slaughter: over the top, bayonets fixed, to die in mud as European states tangled with each other for empire status, colonies in Africa and Asia. ‘Trench warfare ended on Armistice Day and war went on, Europe and the United States intervening in a vast internal struggle in the new Soviet Union, Reds against Whites. In 1934 Italy went fascist, a forced harnessing of corporate and governmental power to re- 86th Mountain Infantry in re- serve. We knew that later in the day or the next day or so, we would be moved from reserve to point. A little dark snake crossed my path, disappeared. I wanted to join that snake, live its life, slip away into survival. This strange, but real, fantasy, lasting two seconds at most, had nothing to do with being human, it had everything to do with staying alive. fashion the state. To do that, it was necessary to repress internal dissent. Then Germany, Hitler in charge. Civil war broke out in Spain, Reds against Fascists. Fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia. Japan, already masters of Korea and Taiwan, invaded Manchuria, then China. The U.S. annexed Hawaii. What did World War One and its massive collateral reverberations do for humanity? It set the stage for World War Two. Gradually I learned, and there were plenty of teachers, even in remote Jackson’s Hole, that our land had enemies, homegrown commies and fellow travelers, spying, taking advantage of our open society, our freedoms. Something had to be done. Something had already been done, by Federal Attorney General Palmer who in the nineteen twenties launched a search-and-export drive against immigrants, most of whom were impoverished, fleeing from rough economic downturns in war-ravaged Europe, equally poverty stricken in their new home. Many of them turned toward union organizing and other unacceptable projects. The Palmer raids swept up thousands, put them on boats, sent them back to where they came from. Out of the inner workings of that turmoil emerged an investigative agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover in charge. Later, by one of those quirks of history we found ourselves allied with the Soviet Union against the Nazis. The Red Army Chorus made a triumphal tour across our land. Corporate power brokers and their media flacks didn’t like any of that one bit, The mean, gutter propaganda barrage directed against Roosevelt and Eleanor, and their dog, Fala, went on, and on, unrelenting. Our high school principal used generous chunks of class time to rail against the government and “that man in Washington.” Fascism and war brought horrendous holocausts for European Jews, Communists and Gypsies, for soldiers, for civilians trapped in air attacks on cities. Hitler changed tactics, sent his tiger tanks east against the Soviet Union. This was, at last, the option most favored among many of Jackson’s leading citizens, but it didn’t go the way it was supposed to. It ground down into a terrible winter stalemate and then the Soviets turned from retreat into offense, won decisive battles with huge tank battles and massive losses. American losses were high too, but nowhere near the grand total of deaths -- millions upon millions ... from Leningrad in the east to the Lowlands and France and Britain in the west. ; : ; What did World War Two do for us? Laid the groundwork for the Cold War. A military cemetery in Italy. 1945 WHAT DID WORLD WAR IJ DO FOR US? LAY THE GROUNDWORK FOR THE COLD WAR — My regiment was no longer a bunch of green innocents; we had been present at violent deaths of comrades; we had walked silently past a grieving Italian farm woman standing by the stiff, ashen body of her husband; we had dug countless foxholes, racing like frantic woodchucks against the next artillery attack. Back home magazines and newspapers trumpeted that there were no atheists in foxholes. Please file that under “creative non-fiction.” Yes, some soldiers pray. Once a devout Catholic urged me to go with him to a service in an Italian church. I told him I was not a Catholic. He said that didn’t matter. . Actually, it was hot. The war in Korea, pompous General MacArthur in charge, was essentially another intervention in a civil war, North Korea, Soviet influence and South Korea, U.S. influence. (That's a simplification). Fifty four thousand Americans died, along He kept at me, so I went. with millions of Chinese and Korean soldiers and uncounted civilians, victims of the don’t whisper, you listen. You are one with the air. But you don’t dig foxholes to have a place to pray. You are totally focused on the next artillery round, the German 88 or the American 105 (friendly fire). You don’t speak, you NOW AVAILABLE BREAKOUT. 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