Cassi Creek: The last
5 years have been an excellent example of a tactic stemming from the VietNam
war.
'We had to destroy
the village to save it'
Attributed to many different people, including war
correspondent Peter Arnett who supposedly attributed the quote to an
unidentified Army officer. Used circa 1968, perhaps during the bloody Tet
offensive. Some people believe the phrase applies to the massacre at My Lai ,
where approximately 500 unarmed villagers were murdered by rampaging US troops.
Army Lt. William Calley was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment but
served only three years before being pardoned by President Richard Nixon. Tim
Larimer of Time magazine returned to My Lai 30 years later and said, ' My Lai
's place in American history is firmly entrenched, as a disturbing wake-up call
that the US military could be as guilty of inhumane acts as any army.' A
Vietnamese war veteran who returned to the village to find his entire family
murdered and then hastily buried, remarked, 'There were many My Lais.' Recently
the Toledo Blade corroborated
his remark, uncovering other atrocities and war crimes in Vietnam. Lately the
Israelis seem to have adopted the 'We had to destroy the village to save it'
policy in Palestinian territory, and the likelihood is we will in Iraq , since
we've asked the Israelis for advice.”
Quite a few comparisons can be made between VietNam and our
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of
them are valid and some no longer have any merit, if indeed they ever did.
What is frightening
to me is that our GOP controlled House; along with the GOP base and other
elected officials have spent the last 5 years doing everything they can to
destroy the U.S. economy. They, the
bought and paid for Representatives for the ultra wealthy and for corporate
America, are entirely willing to destroy our remaining middle class and to
impoverish most of our citizens in order to provide their owners with a
continued oligarchy. I’m willing to vote
them all out of office in order to clear the corruption and corporations out of
congress. 2014 is a good time to begin
the process.
Can we save
Congress by demolishing it in its current configuration, or is it already too
late?
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