Colonel Blimp

I watched The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp with Deborah Kerr and Roger Livesey the other night. Filmed during The War, this is a portrait of how we see ourselves here in the world-wide Anglo-American empire. According to Blimp, we are long-suffering, good humoured and forgiving. We are generous to a fault, especially if we are British. (We can't be too sure about those Americans, you know.) We fight to win, but we never fight dirty. We are the perennial good-guys, helping everyone, even our enemies. We spread good cheer.

Actually, we may have been the main source of trouble in the world since Queen Elizabeth I (Good Queen Bess) and her father, King Henry VIII. The Tudors. But this may actually go back a thousand years, all the way back to William the Conqueror who brought military dictatorship to Saxon Britain. Remember Richard Coeur de Lion (Good King Richard, the Great Crusader)? Watch this movie, Blimp, if you have a chance.

Have you noticed how we can say "The War" without saying which war? That may be because "The War" or "The good War" was the last war we "won". Although we continue to run a world-wide empire, things have not really been going that well since 1945. We haven't won a war since then. Why not? Why did we win that war?

Let's consider that the main business of the 20th century was not its innumerable wars. Let's consider that it was not even about the destruction of the "old order" — all eleven of the empires that existed until 1900 would be swept away. Let's consider that the main business of the 20th century was the shift of power in the empire from London (the British Empire) to Washington (the American Empire) and that though we "won" The War (that is, WW I and WWII which were really one war), we may not really be in control of anything.

It is possible that nobody is in control: not of what has happened, not of what is happening now, and not of what is going to happen. What people do does affect what happens, but it doesn't determine the overall direction, or result. Intriguing…

Robert Dziekanski KILLING

TO: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police RCMP/GRC

RE: Robert Dziekanski KILLING at Vancouver International Airport November 2007

*** THIS IS A CRIME *** WAKE UP *** PAY ATTENTION ***

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU, RCMP?? I am not amazed, but I am disgusted. This is just one more outrage from the world's most sanctimonious police force. You claim to have high standards at the RCMP. You had better start living up to them. You killed Mr. Dziekanski for nothing. He's dead because you are STUPID. An interpreter? Sure. Why didn't someone give him a sandwich, a glass of water and a place to lie down? He had been kept on his feet waiting for TEN HOURS. Waiting for WHAT? The idiots who run the airport are as culpable as the officers themselves and the morons who trained them and administer their activities. Someone should shoot them all with a TASER to WAKE THEM UP. WAKE UP! Don't go off to train other policemen in places where they don't have the Rule of Law and where they do not have Justice. (Poor devils. Here in Canada we have those things. DON'T WE, RCMP??) Don't have any more of your stupid parades. Get busy and fix yourselves. Start today before you kill someone else, and that includes your own officers who are put in harm's way by their thoughtless supervisors. For the next parade, after you have cleaned house, officers should be wearing sack cloth and dung. WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU??

I am pretty mad. You should be ashamed.

This is not a confidential message. You can broadcast it to the world. AND YOU SHOULD.

*** POST THIS PROMINENTLY IN EVERY DETACHMENT ***



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHKk5qQRzL4

REMEMBRANCE DAY

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of every year, Canadians solemnly commemorate the tragedy of past wars. We remember those who have died. We pray such waste will be avoided evermore. We work to build a peaceful and just world for ourselves and for our children and for their children and for generations yet unborn.

And we stand before our troops who are massed in resplendent uniforms. Jets fly overhead. We fire guns, sing anthems and congratulate ourselves on what wonderful people we are now and have been as we smashed the forces of evil on our way to win The Great Victory. Good Defeats Evil.

What we should be doing is educating ourselves about what actually happened in the past. Then we would have a chance to see the errors of our ways and not merely remember the errors of our enemies. Then we would have a chance to avoid past mistakes and go on to build a better world, for us and for them, our enemies. We should say a prayer.

A look at honest history would surprise most people.

A Golden Dawn

Hi Doug,

I would like to thank you for raising your question* after the presentation by Brigadier-General Walker at Kiwanis. With no disrespect intended to our honourable guest, I definitely DO NOT agree that atom bombing Japan was necessary to "save a million lives" or anything else. I do think the horrific picture he painted of the invasion of the Japanese home islands is true to what Washington planners had conjured. It is how they think inside the Pentagon. I hope I can get General Walker to give me a copy of his presentation.

Honest history shows military plans are usually exercises in extravagant and wishful thinking. Napoleon's adventures are an excellent example. Only as recently as a few years ago, we heard of extensive militarization of the caves of Torah Bora. Detailed illustrations of them appeared in Time Magazine and animated graphics were available on the Internet. These were straight out of Sgt. Rock comic books.

As far as WW II goes there are more than a few questions that have been asked and answered. Here are some:

1). Did the Japanese start seeking an honourable peace 5 months before Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
2). Why was there no resistance by "die hards" after the Japanese surrender if the Japanese were crazed fanatics who would fight to the last man, woman and child?
3). When was U.S. Naval Intelligence able to read all the Japanese diplomatic and military codes?
4). When were the British able to read all the German diplomatic and military codes?
5). What was the U.S. military doing in the Pacific theatre before Pearl Harbour?
6). Was the Imperial Navy of Japan the largest and most modern navy in the world in 1941?
7). How did the Empire of Japan fail to win even one major battle in WW II? (Except against the British Empire in the Far East, which it defeated in 3 days.) The Japanese hadn't lost a war in several hundred years.
8). How did the U.S. — at the height of its power — "lose China" 1945-49?
9). How did the United States fail to win in Korea only 5 years after the Great Victory of WW II?
10). Did the U.S. really disarm after 1945 or did it immediately find a new enemy?

General Douglas MacArthur is an American military icon. He was the most decorated American in WW I. He had a distinguished career before that war. He had a distinguished career after that war. But MacArthur was on his way out when he left the Academy to take a job in the Philippines. All of his messages sounding the alarm about an aggressive Empire of Japan were ignored in Washington. His requests for aid were largely ignored by Washington before and after Pearl Harbour and even after MacArthur assumed command of the occupation of Japan. During WW II, MacArthur was given the title "Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers" (SCAP), but the real power went to Admiral Ernest J. King (Joint Chiefs) and Admiral Chester Nimitz who used unlimited naval force to smash the Japanese. Their first exercise at Tarawa was a sickening and unnecessary waste of life (American and Japanese), according to MacArthur. MacArthur, like Eisenhower, didn't even know about the atom bomb until it was dropped. Both were appalled.

And on and on. These things are known facts. "Peace through Strength" has always been the guiding principle of the U.S.A. It is more than a vain hope. It is a nightmare of wars without end, which is what we have had for the century the U.S.A. has been running things and what the Pentagon promises will continue. WAR is their dream. No one else need dream it. Nudge someone and wake him up. Awaken to the golden dawn that is breaking. We have a wonderful future. Let's live it.

- Morley

* Doug wondered how the Pentagon planned to launch an invasion of Japan that would be hundreds of times larger than "Overlord" when they would have to transport everything across thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean compared to only a few dozen miles across the English Channel from England to Normandy.

Going Down For The Third Time

It just could be that "Pax Americana" was only a mirage that appeared before the eyes of Washington's élite just when the U.S.A. became, in their own words, "the world's only remaining superpower". It just could be that The United States of America is like a drowning man whose thrashings in Iraq are the last desperate attempt of a fool who is going down for the third time.

Good-by.

"The Great Victory" of 1945 was followed by 1) Korea, 2) Vietnam 3). Iraq . . . blub

http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=11842