Keep Memorial Day Safe & Non-Partisan | National Catholic Reporter

Keep Memorial Day Safe & Non-Partisan | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: Memorial Day has always been about binding the nation's wounds, which is the phrase Lincoln used at Gettysburg, however once Freemen started the pactice of cleaning Union cemeteries purely to shame those defeated traitors who let them go to seed, the Confederate veterans got really interested in a nostaligia that left them partners in an epic struggle rather than the paid soldiers of the Slave Power.  That myth made Jim Crow possible and forever changed the history of the 20th Century.



Is for Iraq, Obama's advisors wanted a new status of forces agreement but they also did not want to bow to ending extraterritorial justice for American soldiers an marines. Obama inherited this stalemate from Bush and saw nothing for America in staying. That would have been like Canadian troops intervening after Shiloh and not being able to leave because they were policing the treatment of Freemen.  Now THAT might be a neat alternative history story.  Truth is that Berkowitz who should rename his by-line Real Clear Zionism) and his neoconservative readers, espeicially MSW, want a pressence in Iraq as a bulwark against some mythical Iranian attack on Israel.  They think revenge force keeps Iran from genocide or from stopping the Israeli Aparthied (I have Jewish and Samaritan ancestors, as close as my father, so don't you dare call me anti-semetic). If Israel would bind its wounds with the Arabs and Palestinians, the Iraq and Iran issues would go away.



I wonder when the Baathists were fired from the military and sent to Syria, whether some weapons of mass destruction did not go with them. Both sides got them someplace.  We need to interview some people to find out. I would start with Cheney and find out at least who worked the issues (they can then tell us who knew what when and who was the decison authority.  I like the idea of a civilian control day. Of course, nowadays the military can't really step out that far - unlike during th wars where the generals did not have or need babysitters.  Thing is, the problem is the civilians, specifically the appointees who think they work for the soldiers. That attitude kills any oversight at all. It was one of my pet peeves when I was a civil servant.  Of coure, then you have the elected officials who go over board (you can't fire a Vice President). Iraq and its aftermath would be different if you could.