Ostomy Memories of War

WHAT AN INTERESTING, DANGEROUS, INCREASINGLY COMPLEX world I have been alive in. Born in the middle of World War II, I have witnessed the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the turbulent Sixties, and – most recently – the endless Middle East wars. During these years, the mimeograph machine has morphed into a high-speed copier; the ice box has become a refrigerator; communication has progressed from mail to email, from the radio to television to the Internet. And the telephone! It has evolved from a clunker on the desk to a pocket-sized all-purpose portable computer/communicator/camera. American politics has deteriorated from relatively benign backroom deal-making to open malignancy. And the American citizenry? It has become an armed camp of Us vs. Them, an ongoing Civil Cold War with increasingly alarming open skirmishes. In every war, the victims and the victors remain the same: the victims are the ones who die, suffer grievous injury, lose their homes, the upfront sufferers; the victors are the corporations and the bigwigs who profit from the fighting. Blood seeps out of the dying; riches seep into the pockets of the sponsors of the mayhem.

Hello HenryM.
Interesting indeed!
From my perspective, wars are just another form of 'bullying', so obviously I have written profusely about them, their origins, and motivations.
I'll just pick one rhyme for my reply, otherwise this thread could become swamped with them. Of course, as implied in verse 3, the rhyme does not only refer to wars in Africa.

Best wishes
Bill

THE WONDER OF WAR.

Why wonder we war in Africa
while tribal instinct remain.
The plan of the clan is to shun anyone
who does not fit ‘their strain’.

No wonder we war in Africa
it’s part of the culture you see.
Prouder than proud and righter than right;
fools will fight when they cannot agree.

What wonder we war in Africa
or anywhere else on the globe.
When will we see, each offspring will be
one more little xenophobe.

Who wonders we war in Africa?
Who wonders when it will end?
If we could forgive, would we then live
together as equals and friends?

                                    B. WITHERS 1994

                               (in- ‘Reflections’ 1998 p18

                 & A Prelude To Bullying 2016 p283.)

So really Henry you have I guess been there done that and got the t-shirt . XX

Hi Henry ,you have a knack for hitting all the right buttons in your posts . I remember my Mom telling me / us about when she was a child and people talked about what the future would bring. Flying Hotels was just one of the interesting items in our future . When she flew on a 747 from Dublin Ireland to San Francisco non-stop she thought that was a pretty close prediction . My Brother used to work for the airlines so he could get them on at least one First Class trip and that was the icing on the cake of luxury at 37 thousand feet . My Mom risked walking next door to a neighbor when she was a little girl and that should be a harmless thing to do ....but no !! The "Black and Tans " ( misfits and some criminals given guns and the freedom to shoot at will , especially in the West of Ireland where resistance to occupation was intense )murder squads were driving around shooting people out after curfew . She said she could never forget the crack of the rifle and a hole appearing in the wall beside her head , missing her head by inches . I sometimes think of that and all the future families that would never have been if that shot had been more accurate , the dozens and dozens of people who would not exist .

There is a movie called " Lord of War " which gives a very interesting inside view of armed conflict around the worldsince the last righteous war where there was a very clear distinction between the " good guys "and the " bad guys " . ( I would also put the Yougoslavia war / civil war in that category , intervention to stop ongoing Genocide in the guise of a civil war ) . Nicolas Cage in one of his best roles portrays an illegal arms dealer named Viktor Bout whi is currently in a US high security prison and has been proposed for a prisoner exchange with Russia. Bout boasted that he was merely doing the bidding of Governments and spy agencies all over the world . He said that Governments would look the other way as he shipped all kinds of weapons all over the world . In one case 200,000AK47s went missing from a plane that was owned by his transport company . He appeared to be the conduit by which powerful governments bypassed arms embargoes to get arms to Dictators and Despots around the world. His planes had access to many countries because they operated in transporting aid supplies for the UN and aid agencies, his cover story. He maintained that he worked to aid governments in carrying out their secret agendas all over the world . In the movie "Lord of War"Cage is at a jungle landing strip in an African country where there is a long line of military Tanks beside the runway and in another scene there is a huge mountain of AK47sand thousands of other machine gunsjust piled up in a huge heap in a warehouse, These were not CGIcreated scenes . In a discussion about the moviethe Producers said that these were weapons owned by an unnamed Illegal weapons dealer that were waiting to be shipped to an African war zone. He was allowed access to the weapons for the movie as dramatic props . To use the weapons for the movie the studio had to buy everything ( on paper ) including the Tanks and when they finished the scenes the gun runner would buy back the weapons at a substantial discount , the difference was his fee and if the authorities(?)seized the weapons of they were damaged or disappearedthen the gun runner would not lose anything .

Maggie Thatcher's Son, Mark Thatcher was arrested in Africa for plotting and arming a Coup in Equatorial Guinea in AFrica . Why some little obscure country in Africa you might ask . As is the case in most of these cases , Oil wasdiscovered and it would be a Coup with a huge payday for those backing it . In testimony Maggie Thatcher herself was implicated as approving this misadventure in Africa and a proposed Coup in Venezuela against Hugo Chavez . Mark Thatcher was convicted in South Africaof providing Helicopters to carry out the Coup and was fined 500,000and given 4 years probation by the South African courts . One of his accomplices Simon Mann a former SASofficer wasalso arrestedand served 5 years in a South African Prison .

Money and valuable resources are usually behind most wars and Hostile Takeovers ( yea ...just like Corporations . ) but the real criminals are rarely brought to justice or exposed for their roles in mass murder of civilians and the destruction of whole countries. Tony Blair declared that simple Military Mortar Tubes bought by Iraqwere actually Centrifuges to purify Plutonium for Nuclear weapons . As they say in Ireland and England , the Dogs in the Streetknew that Blair was making up this whole Nuclear evidence story t back up the Illegal Bush invasion of Iraq . Colin Powell mirroredBlair's actions by holding up vials of white powder to claim that Iraq had retained chemical and biological weaponswhen All Inspectors declared that they found nothing to back up Colin Powells story . Several people involved said that Powell was fully aware that the so called evidence did not exist . Saying that if he would have to get before a Govt committee with false evidence then the head of the CIA ( George Tenet ) woul have to sit behind him in that hearing .

Wars since WWIIcould generally be equated toOrganized Crime , a money making enterprise base in criminal activity with little or no regard for the inevitablecivilian mass casualties . The First World War was , after all a family dispute within theInterbred Royal Families . The Russian Tzar Nicholaswas theCousinof Britain's King Georgeand the Third Cousin was The German Kaiser . At the time of WW!the leaders of Europe were all members of the Same Family. The British Royal Family found it was advantageous to rename their extended family as The Windsors to disguise the fact that the family is German in origin . The original name attached to the British Royal Familywas Saxe-Coburg-Gotha . The Official Royal Name was changed toThe House of Windsorin 1917when their German name could have been a bit awkwardwhen people realized that theGreat War wasjust a family squabblethat the public would pay for in blood .

The First time I had a class in Computer Science I had to use that monster Card Writer to generate Punch Cards which would be given to the Sys Op to run on the Mainframe . It would take an hour to get the printout of the results . Each line of the computer program was printed and punched on one card ,If you were unfortunate enough to drop a stack of 50 or 60 cards then God Help you because nobody else could , you would sit for hours trying to them all stacked in the correct order again !!the mainframe that could fit on just one corner of a postage stamp in today's world . Even the humble Flip Phone has many more times the computer power than all the computing power used for Apollo Missions .

The changes we have seen in a very short time are astounding and uplifting , all we have to do now is quit the Family Squabbling and conflicts which would allow everyone to progress into the next phase of our so-called civilization . Sadly that will be much harder than getting a man / woman to the Moonor Mars or Alpha Centauri . We will need the Patience of a Saint asmy Dear old Mom would say , if we are to get even close to Wholred Peas ....I mean World Peace.

Not sure where this belongs but I'l stick it here just to get it out of my system , may be a biteen ( a Biteen is something smaller than aBitin Ireland , just add" een"when something is a small bit bigger, or a small Bit smaller etc )disjointed , like me

Eamon .

Hello Eamon.
Thank you for your own 'memories/reflections of war'. I have always found it 'interesting' to hear the Irish versions of the so-called 'conflict' between Britain and Ireland. Of course, the stories of the murderous British-supported 'Black n Tans' and the atrocities of the British occupying forces were always either denied or made out to be simply unfounded 'rumours' and conspiracy theories (nothing much changes over the years). Anyway, I documented my own contmeplations on the subject of 'memories' about that situation and how it might become more accurately recorded for the sake of history, which you might be interested in.

Best wishes
Bill

WHEN HIST’RY’S WRIT
THROUGH IRISH EYES.

They’ll tell and write of so much more
than hundreds of years in a long-fought war
and it will come as no surprise
when hist’ry’s writ though Irish eyes.

When truth is out they will deplore
all propaganda gone before
and they will lay those English lies
when hist’ry’s writ though Irish eyes.

When all Englishmen withdraw
from Irish land and from their shore.
No doubt not one more person dies
when hist’ry’s writ though Irish eyes.

Be gone the dreaded knock on door
with deadly shot from cruel small bore.
There’s time to heal those mournful sighs
when hist’ry’s writ though Irish eyes.

Up will come esprit de corps
when politicians they ignore.
No need you see to milit’rize
when hist’ry’s writ though Irish eyes.

Let Irish people’s faith restore
as new truths they will now explore.
No need to over-dramatize
when hist’ry’s writ though Irish eyes.

If people came and people saw
then they would know what to abhor.
These people will not polarize
when hist’ry’s writ though Irish eyes.

                                        B. WITHERS 1989
                                       (in- ‘Evidence’ 1992 p36.)

 

Hi Bill and thank you for your comments as always , a Gentleman and a Scholar . When I write about that conflict it is generally to make a point that has relevence in today's conflicts . American Politicians always talked about " winning over hearts and minds , an Admirable goal if it was implemented . When British Soldiers arrived in the North in the late sixties it was declared that they were there to protectCatholics /Republicans from Protestant / Unionist mobs who were burning Catholics areas . The People being Protected are shown in old videosbringing tea and biscuits to the soldiers . Similar to US / British etc .. troops attempting to be friendly towards Afgan families . As in most situations like this , the protectors soon become the enemyand the people who had been making tea are the victims . Shoot to Kill Armysquads and Paramilitaries backed and armed by the Army and given a free hand ( get out of jail free cards ) in their approach to " peacekeeping " . I don't write these things out of vengefullness or hatred for the British people but to try to inform people about how these conflicts that begin with small skirmishes turn into bloody , messy terror . Very manyNationalists / Republicans have always believed that the six counties will eventually join with the South at some future date but until that time would come they just wanted the same civil rights enjoyed by Unionists . As the with Black US protests in the US they didn't want to dominate anyone , they just wanted equal treatment by the local Authorities and the British Government. As you said Bill , being a Bully never results in a good outcome for anyone.

Don't know if you saw before but my First Love was a 19 year old young lady from Putney , London , The subject never really came up for us but I think she was Protestant but we really never even talked about that aspect of the relationship . What I did learn however was that little or no teaching in British schools that could have informed British people about the conflict and the reasons for it .

Well it's way past my bedtime Bill so I will bid you a Bon Nuitand hot the hay . As usual Bill your poetic talent is always appreciated , you hit it on the head with this one my friend .

Best wishes and stay healthy Bill , love and best wishes to your family .

Eamon .