Friday Anti-War Song

From Antiwar.com:

Here is an anti-war song sent to me from a reader. He says that it was written and sung by the British in protest to that Empire’s wars around the turn of the century. The song was revived for WWI. It then became “Americanized,” and was used to protest the USA being engaged in the WWI.

Below is the British version of the lyrics. I have linked to an American version of the song with slightly different lyrics.

I Didn’t Raise My Son To Be A Soldier

I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier
I brought him up to be my pride and joy
Who dares to put a musket on his shoulder
To shoot another mother’s darling boy
Why should he fight in someone else’s quarrels
It’s time to throw the sword and gun away
There would be no war today
If the nations all would say
No I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier

I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier
To go fighting in some far-off foreign land
He may get killed before he’s any older
For a cause that he will never understand
Why should he fight another rich man’s battle
While they stay at home and while their time away
Let those with most to lose
Fight each other if they choose
For I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier

I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier
To go fighting heathens round the Horn
If God required to prove that boys are bolder
They’d have uniforms and guns when they were born
Why should we have wars about religion
When Jesus came to teach us not to kill
Do Zulus and Hindoos
Not have the right to choose
For I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier

I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier
I raised him up to be a gentleman
To find a sweet young girl and love and hold her
Bring me some grandchildren when they can
Why can’t we decide that the Empire
Is just as large as it requires to be
And I’d rather lose it all
Than to see my laddie fall
For I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier

 

Is It A Civil War Yet?

I decided to cut the last post in two. Going from my post-holiday trauma to the mess in Iraq was kind of a train of thought thing, and while most intelligent readers would know I wasn’t comparing them, I wouldn’t want the last remaining dregs of Bush supporters to become confused.

* * *

I read this morning that Chimpy McFlightSuit called 10 servicemembers to wish them a Happy Holiday. I guess the zookeepers decided it might just be a little dangerous to pull another ‘Eat and Run’ visit in Iraq this year.

Not that Chimpy’s aware of the danger going to Iraq might pose to his life. After all things are going great! Really. Democracy, freedom, blah blah 9/11 blah, win if we don’t quit, blah blah support the troops blah, we were attacked, blah blah hate our freedoms blah, terr’ists, blah blah blah, ……. ad nauseum.

It was a great day in Iraq. As we sat on our (over-sized) behinds watching football or “It’s a Wonderful Life” more than 215 Iraqis died in the worst violence since the start of the war.

From the Washington Post:

A barrage of car bombs, mortar attacks and missiles battered the Shiite Muslim slum of Sadr City on Thursday afternoon, killing around 200 people and injuring as many more in the single deadliest assault on Iraqi civilians since the start of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

The highly orchestrated attacks on the stronghold of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened to unleash yet another cycle of reprisal killings and push the country closer to all-out civil war. The attacks, targeting the heart of Baghdad’s Shiite community, seem designed to stoke the sectarian rage gripping Iraq.

Even as mourners gathered Friday for a heavily guarded funeral procession the attacks continued. Local authorities reported that 17 people died when a car bomb exploded near an auto dealership in Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad. The Associated Press reported that several mortar rounds exploded near the Abu Hanifa mosque, a site important to Sunni Muslims.

Following Thursday’s bombings, plumes of black smoke, and anguished screams, rose above a chaotic landscape of flames and charred cars, witnesses said. Bodies littered the streets and the smell of burned flesh filled the air. Relatives searched for loved ones as strangers helped the wounded reach hospitals overflowing with victims.

Meanwhile, angry Shiite residents and men from Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, wielding guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, roamed the streets, hurling curses and vowing revenge against Sunni Arabs.

“Our bellies are full of blood,” declared Ibrahim Tabour, a resident. “We’re going to fight the terrorists until the last breath.”

[...]

Shiite and Sunni leaders delivered statements on state television Thursday night, with some urging Iraq’s two main sects to leash their fury.

[...]

The dead included women and children, witnesses said. “I saw a child who was totally burned,” Abu Mohammed said. “I saw another child who was carried by an old man.”

The carnage spoke of the deepening sectarian divide and the dread that has engulfed the capital. “No one believes that any Shiite would kill their Shiite brothers. It’s the Sunnis and the Americans who did this,” said Kareem Hendul Miyahem, 40, a driver.

Tabour, like so many other Shiites, was thinking about revenge.

“If I catch a terrorist, I will not kill him with a weapon. I will not turn him over to the government,” he said. “I’ll catch him and cut him to pieces and drink his blood until the last drop.” [emphasis mine]

Okay…so now the Sunni and Shia factions have picked up the “War on Terror” theme. Great. Can we call it a civil war yet?

Meanwhile, Bob Novak – *snort* – tells us Rummy’s firing indicates something being terribly wrong with Chimpy’s presidency:

Donald Rumsfeld, one week after his sacking as secretary of defense, was treated as a conquering hero, accorded one standing ovation after another at the conservative American Spectator magazine’s annual dinner in Washington. The enthusiasm may have indicated less total support for Rumsfeld’s six-year record at the Pentagon than resentment over the way President Bush fired him.

[...]

In the two weeks since the election, I have asked a wide assortment of Republican notables their opinion of the Rumsfeld sacking. Only one went on the record: Rep. Duncan Hunter, the House Armed Services Committee chairman. A rare undeviating supporter of Rumsfeld, Hunter told me that “it was a mistake for him to resign.” The others, less supportive of Rumsfeld, said they were “appalled” — the most common descriptive word — by the president’s performance.

The treatment of his war minister connotes something deeply wrong with George W. Bush’s presidency in its sixth year. Apart from Rumsfeld’s failures in personal relations, he never has been anything short of loyal in executing the president’s wishes. But loyalty appears to be a one-way street for Bush. His shrouded decision to sack Rumsfeld after declaring that he would serve out the second term fits the pattern of a president who is secretive and impersonal.

[...]

Bush is no malevolent tyrant who concocts unpleasant surprises for his Cabinet members. Rather, letting the terminated official be one of the last to know of his imminent removal derives from congenital phobia over White House leaks that I have seen exhibited by Republicans dating to President Dwight Eisenhower (and leading to President Richard Nixon’s fateful use of “plumbers” to plug leaks).

News flash, Bob: Bush being elected president was terribly wrong. Everything was downhill from there.

Personally, I think Rummy should go to the Hague and face charges. Not just for being part of the marching band that drummed us into this war, but for thinking it could be done on the cheap. For allowing the military – which he was responsible for – to be ill-equiped for the terrain, the insurgency, for failing to plan for an occupation.

And, let’s not forget this:

This photo has probably gone around the world a hundred million times, but it’s always worth another look.

Yep, that is Donald Rumsfeld and yep, that guy he’s shaking hands with is indeed Saddam Hussein at a meeting on December 20th, 1983. Which would have been around the time that Saddam was busy killing, maiming, and torturing people for whom he would later go on trial.

Back then, you see, we hated the Iranians. And following the ‘an enemy of my enemy is my friend” policy of diplomacy, the US became buddies with Iraq and helped them in their war against Iran. Helped them by giving them all kinds of money and weapons that were not only used in the Iran-Iraq war, but were used by Saddam to kill his own people.

In effect, the United States is an unindicted co-conspirator in the murders for which Saddam was charged, convicted, and sentenced to death.

Doesn’t that just give you the warm fuzzies?

The Post-Holiday Post

*Author’s note: This is a new and improved (read: rewritten) version. I was getting a headache reading the first version and, as I was rewriting, decided to add a few more details.

– Jenn

* * *

I’m in a weird mood, possibly the result of eating too much at my mom’s yesterday afternoon, drinking three glasses of wine, and watching “The Prairie Home Companion” twice. That part of the day was great. I really recommend watching the movie, especially if you’re already a fan of the radio show.

Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly have some of the funniest (and a tad tasteless) musical lines in the movie. (“I used to work in Chicago, at a convenience store. / I used to work in Chicago. I did but I don’t anymore. / A lady walked in with some porcelain skin and I asked her what she came in for. / “Liquor,” she said, and lick her I did, and I don’t work there anymore.”)

After returning home loaded to the roof with leftovers, the not-great part was listening to my 4yo nephew whine for half the evening and listening to Darling Daughter screech for half the evening. At that point, I would have sold my soul to the Hypothetical Boogyman for a set of ear plugs.

Meanwhile, Precious Son #2 vanished to visit his girlfriend (two hours away) and Beloved Son #1 had a few friends over; like 20 – maybe 30 people. (Okay, not quite that many, but it sure seemed like it.)

There was the midnight raiding of the leftovers, the 2am raiding of the leftovers, and the 3am warning to the roaming hordes of teenage boys that, no, they could not eat again. I mean, is it too much to ask that the stuff not be completely wiped out before I get a freakin’ ham sandwich and a piece of pie??

Locusts. I’m telling you. Teenage boys are to a pantry and refrigerator what locusts are to fields. They swoop in, eat every blessed thing in sight, and vanish.

By the end of the night, I was still thankful, though.

“Thank you, Goddess, for keeping me from killing the little brats.