How is Colorado Springs marking the 8th year of war in Afghanistan? Couple choices. Visiting priest-activist Louie Vitale will speak at Colorado College on the THE MORAL DIMENSION OF DRONE WARFARE.
CC students were dissuaded from hosting a peace rally on campus which might have interfered with the week’s homecoming activities. Instead, beginning at 1PM Wednesday, the CC students will chalk the sidewalks of Acacia Park with the names of the 869 US soldiers killed in the Afghan campaign. Coloradans For Peace will join the boot- counting but will commemorate Afghan deaths, whose number is “n/a.”
Not My Tribe
The Myth of Middle Ground
The CC students didn’t bother showing up. And the J&P are presenting the priest, ‘Father’ Vitale, who is supposed to be some grand role model for the religious pacifist vice of always getting themselves arrested (per Wiki he got himself arrested some 200+ times! Ain’t that just grand?)
I just don’t have the stomach to attend this sort of event much any more. If these religious folk would do something public I would be the first to go out and help do it with them. But they seem always to specialize in talking to themselves (it’s more peaceful that way). One just gets sick of the same prayerful attitude, and especially when it comes to the Catholic Church ones.
It’s a sad commentary, wish it were better but it ain’t… Boot-Counting appears to be the most effective way of showing people the cost of war.
That maybe they’ll give a damn or a larger fraction of a dead rat’s ass about it if one of their family or friends is among “The Great Fallen”
The news tonight had about 10 minutes of blathering about how they “sacrificed” themselves for “Our Country”.
Sacrifice means literally to Make Holy.
Instead, they made holes.
They had a Chaplain talking too.
You kids know my feeling on that, but I’ll reiterate it for the sake of new viewers of our Reality Show here.
Chaplains are considered Combatants under the Geneva and Hague conventions. So are doctors and nurses and really, anybody in the military. Chaplains have the job of bolstering and maintaining morale among “the troops”. Doctors are in charge of maintaining the fitness for combat (or fitness for combat support roles) of “the Troops”, the Doctor and the Chaplain are just maintaining “equipment”. Same as the Base Armorer who repairs the rifles and machine-guns and Artillery, the Avionics Technician who maintains the computerized aiming and delivery systems for the bullets and bombs.
The Chaplains, they don’t and indeed, CAN’T, tend to the spiritual needs of the soldiers. The Army ain’t interested in your soul. The Chaplain and the Psychologists are there to keep you from feeling the very natural emotions of Remorse and Guilt that come from killing people for a living. Nothing more.
Unlike toilet paper, where you have to turn in an empty TP core to get a fresh roll, or light bulbs, where you have to turn in a broken or burned out bulb to get a replacement, Soldiers are one of the few things you don’t have to turn in a dead one thereof to get a replacement.
That’s pretty low.
Chaplains not only sell their own souls, they sell their Priesthood. And the soul of every soldier they convince that it’s right for him to kill and die “for the Country”.
There were German and Austrian chaplains in WW 1 who told the soldiers to go forth and kill “The Enemy” and instructed them to shout “Gott Mit Uns!” which means God is on OUR side… as they made mass bayonet charges against water cooled belt fed machine guns.
The British and French and Belgians and Russians and Americans and, oh, Hell, everybody involved, had their chaplains telling them the same bullshit.
The British were instructed to shout “God and King!” when they did the same thing.