3 Faces of Shock, Awe and Death

When I was a nineteen-year-old soldier in South Viet Nam, one of the tunes played most often on Armed Forces radio was “Jimmy Mack” by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. Although a great pop classic with pulsing bass and a tight horn section underneath Martha’s fabulous vocal, the content of “Jimmy Mack” was about little more than a girl caught in a triangle. If Jimmy Mack didn’t make it home soon, she warned Jimmy (and all of us), the other boy just might win her affections.

But for young GIs far from home, the central question of “Jimmy Mack” always carried an extra level of meaning with a special weightiness. Yes, we had girlfriends back home who might decide that they had waited long enough. The “Dear John” letter was a well-known phenomenon in hooches in country. What was even more troubling though was the always unspoken follow-up question to “When are you comin’ back?” The ultimate question for all of us was “Are you comin’ back at all?” Or are you going to die thousands of miles away for reasons no one really understands?

Watch FOX and CNN interviews with GIs in Kuwait and you will see the same unarticulated anxiety behind the eyes of young men waiting for war. One CNN reporter disturbs a handsome African American youth trying to get some sleep. Pressured by the reporter about whether he wants to fight, he answers, “That’s what we’re here for.” “I just want to get this over with,” he adds. “Yeah, right. So you can sleep,” jokes the reporter. “Yeah, so I can sleep.” The terrible irony strikes me that should war come to this young man, someone’s son, husband, and father, he may be “sleeping” forever.

Another GI, a Southern boy who sings and plays guitar, performs briefly and CNN affords him fifteen seconds of international fame. He wants to be a country singer he tells the reporter. As soon as this war is over, he’ll get serious about his career. We can only wish him every success.

Like those of us who served in America’s war in Southeast Asia a generation ago, these young men know little about the whys and wherefore of diplomatic maneuvering, foreign policy debates, and geo-political strategies. Are they about to sacrifice their lives to “disarm a regime,” overthrow a brutal dictator, liberate the Iraqi masses or all of the above? Or none of the above? Are they going to fight and die “to protect our freedom”? No more so than did those of us who were in Viet Nam. I have no doubt that what motivates the majority of these young men is one thing and one thing only – to survive the conflict and get back to their families.

Do those of us who disagree with Bush’s drive to war support our troops? I would argue that we support them much more than the flag-waving jingoes lining up at pro-war rallies and posing as FOX anchors. We support them so much that we want them home now, alive and psychologically sound. We want them home now so that young girlfriends and wives can embrace them and need no longer sing, “Jimmy Mack, when are you comin’ back? Need your lovin’s”

Jorge Mariscal was a Specialist 4th Class in the U.S. Army who spent most of 1969 in South Viet Nam.

Secretary of State Colin Powell gets good press. He’s often portrayed as a war hero, a diplomat, a moderate, who lends balance to the Bush administration. He’s a white media darling. However, Powell’s actual record in foreign affairs contradicts the good-cop image. Powell has always been a militarist seeking to extend U.S. corporate power through force of arms, with or without U.N. support.

Colin Powell was a key player in the Iran-Contra scandal. As top deputy to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Powell supervised the army transfer of 4,508 TOW missiles to the CIA, missiles that became part of the illegal arms-for-hostage swap with Iran. Powell promoted illegal CIA-Contra attempts to overthrow the government of Nicaragua. In defiance of the World Court, he supported the Contra terrorists when they were killing thousands of civilians. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell led a brutal invasion of Panama. On the first day, when hundreds of civilians died, Powell declared: “We have put a shingle outside our door saying, ‘Superpower lives here.'” Three thousand Panamanian civilians – the same number that died on 9/1l – were bombed and gunned down in Panama City.

There is nothing moderate or reasonable about Colin Powell’s approach to the First Amendment during wartime. Along with then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, Powell played a decisive role in creating a new system of military control of the press in wartime. When the air war began in Iraq in 1991, Powell and General Norman Schwarzkopf fed carefully selected footage to Washington.

In an essay on the “limitations imposed on reporters on the battlefield,” Pulitzer Prize author Patrick J. Sloyan wrote: “Under rules developed by Cheney and Powell, journalists were not allowed to move without military escorts. All interviews had to be monitored by military public affairs escorts. Every line of copy, every still photograph, every strip of film had to be approved – censored – before being filed. And these rules were ruthlessly enforced.”

Under Powell directives, the administration “produced not a single picture or video of anyone being killed. This sanitized, bloodless presentation by military briefers left the world presuming Desert Storm was a war without death.” Powell’s victory over the compliant press may be his greatest conquest of all.

Powell’s Propaganda Challenged

In September 1995, Colin Powell conducted a national tour to promote his autobiography, “My American Journey.”

In “Target Iraq: What the news media didn’t tell you,” media critics Norman Solomon and Reese Erlich recount an incident that took place in San Francisco. As Powell praised U.S. military invasions abroad, a middle-aged man, hunched in a wheelchair, shouted from the back of the room: “You didn’t tell the truth about the war in the Gulf, General.” Powell ignored the interruption. He continued to speak about the glory of the wars that brought him fame: “It is very rewarding to see this change in attitude toward the military.”

The man in the wheelchair was Ron Kovac, author of “Born on the Fourth of July.” Struggling to be heard, he raised his voice: “I want the American people to know what the General hid from the American public during the Gulf War. They hid the casualties. They hid the horror. They hid the violence. We don’t need any more violence in our country…. We need leaders who understand the tragedy of using violence in solving our problems.”

Regarding the issues of race, Powell is duplicitous. He supports affirmative action. Far more important, however, is Powell’s support for world empire, international white supremacy. Powell’s ascendancy is associated with the suffering and deaths of thousands of innocent people of color – civilians in Grenada whose psychiatric hospital was bombed; the Black Panamanians who lost their lives in Panama City; half a million Iraqi children killed by air raids and years of sanctions. When asked about the number of Panamanians killed by U.S. intervention, Powell said: “It isn’t a figure I think about.”

Under the Bush doctrine, countries of color, nations of the Third World, have no sovereignty, no rights, which the Anglo powers are bound to respect.

Colin Powell is hardly a moderate . He’s a hawk with smooth talons.

Paul Rockwell is a writer in the San Francisco Bay Area. He may be contacted at [email protected]

Hail and Salaam to the Coalition of the Willing, to your Leaders, to your Senators, and to your Citizens !

We, the Citizens of Iraq, are gathered here for your entertainment in the first 21st Century media circus, to celebrate once again the tradition inaugurated by your forefathers during the time of the Roman Empire – an empire that your current Leader aspires to emulate.

“We who are about to die salute you” was the phrase traditionally used by those about to die in the gladiatorial circus arenas of that time. Now millions of you can enjoy the slaughter through the technology with which it is effected. But it remains appropriate that we salute you with those same words – in the language of that now fallen Empire: Nos Morituri Te Salutamus !

We salute you…

for your God-given trust, and lack of doubt, that you have a historical mission to safeguard civilization – including our own, even though it is so distant from yours in many ways

As we die on your TV programs, kindly brought to you by CNN and its sponsors, we will try to think of you entertained in your homes and bars, eating your popcorn and pizzas with a cool drink – and switching to Star Trek when our agonies offend your sensibilities or become too boring.

Hail and Salaam to the Coalition of the Willing, to your Leaders, to your Senators, and to your Citizens !

About to Die, We – men and women, old and young – of the Iraqi people Salute You

Nos Morituri Te Salutamus !

The preceeding commentary was submitted to BlackCommentator.com by Prof. Roldan Tomasz Suárez L. Centro de Investigaciones en Sistemología Interpretativa Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Los Andes Mérida, Venezuela

The author of the preceeding guest commentary is Anthony Judge Director, Communications and Research, Union of International Associations Rue Washington 40, B-1050 Brussels, BELGIUM http://www.uia.org. Mr. Judge can be reached at [email protected]