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Two days after JFK's assassination, 11/24/1963, LBJ ramped up US involvement in Vietnam, "a war fought primarily by the sons of the lower classes. USMC 1969-1971." (Commenter Lytle). 50 years later, lower classes populate 11+ year US taxpayer funded massacre and annexation of Syria.
"Country Joe and the Fish--I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag (vinyl rip) {EP version},"
"The EP version of the classic protest song by Country Joe and the Fish. Released on a 33rpm 7" in 1965 along with an alternative version of "Superbird" and the tracks "Fire in the city" and "Johnny's gone to the war". Clips from various Vietnam War newsreels." You Tube page text
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Added: "Country Joe Mcdonald-Feel Like i'm Fixing to Die Rag - Woodstock '69," song that plays behind above video, lyrics posted below
Lyrics to above Country Joe McDonald song:
"Well, come on all of you, big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again
He's got himself in a terrible jam
Way down yonder in Vietnam
So put down your books and pick up a gun,
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Now, come on Wall Street, don't move slow,
Why man, this is war au-go-go.
There's plenty good money to be made
Supplying the Army with the tools of the trade,
Just hope and pray that if they drop the bomb,
They drop it on the Viet Cong.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Now, come on generals, let's move fast;
Your big chance is here at last.
Now you can go out and get those reds -
The only good commie is the one who's dead
And you know that peace can only be won
When we've blown 'em all to kingdom come.
SING IT
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
Now, come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, don't hesitate,
Send 'em off before it's too late.
Be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box.
ALRIGHT!
And it's one, two, three,
What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopee! we're all gonna die.
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Among comments to top video:
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"Robert Lytle, 2 years ago [2019]
When I was in Schools Battalion at Camp Lejeune, this was one of the more popular songs being played. We all knew by 1970 that the war was nothing but a big fuckup. We'd kick the NVA's ass at some hill and a week later we would abandon it and the NVA would move right back in. The war was unwinnable as there were never any clear objectives. The politicians knew it clear back in 1967 but they didn't know how to tell the public without committing political suicide. [Meaning, admitting they'd made a mistake]. In 1967 there were only about11,000 dead. When we got out there were 58,000 dead. Fortunately for the politicians, their sons, and the sons of the rich and powerful could avoid serving. It was a war fought primarily by the sons of the lower classes. USMC1969-1971."
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Blog editor just wondering: Why aren't lots of Hollywood stars on the ground in Syria-or even in front of the White House-demanding US end its 11 years of slaughter, billions of US tax dollars used to fund terrorists, running of massive amounts of weapons to terrorists in the region, seizure of one third of Syrian land, deliberate depriving Syrian children and families of aid unless they live in terrorist controlled areas, and US threats to countries who dare try to help Syria rebuild from US genocide?-blog editor
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March 30, 2018, "The largely unrecognised US occupation of Syria," New Zealand Herald, Stephen Gowans Correspondent, opinion
"An emblematic Wall Street Journal report, for example, asserted that the US [Trump bombing] airstrike was a defensive response to an unprovoked attack by Syrian forces, as if the Syrians, on their own soil, were aggressors, and the invading Americans, victims.
We might inquire into the soundness of describing an aggression by invaders on a domestic military force operating within its own territory as a defensive response to an unprovoked attack. Likewise, we can inquire into the cogency of Washington’s insistence that it does not intend to wage war on the Syrian Arab Army.
That this statement can be accepted as reasonable suggests the operation of what Charles Mills calls an epistemology of ignorance — a resistance to understanding the obvious. It should be evident — indeed, it’s axiomatic — that the unprovoked invasion and occupation of a country constitutes an aggression, but apparently this is not the case in the specially constructed reality of the Western media.
Could Russia invade the US west of the Colorado River, control the territory’s airspace, plunder its resources, establish new government and administrative structures to supplant local, state, and federal authority, and then credibly declare that it does not seek war with the US and its armed services? Invasion and occupation are aggressive acts, a statement that shouldn’t need to be made.
Washington’s February 7 attack on Syrian forces was not the first. “American troops carried out strikes against forces loyal to President Bashar Assad of Syria several times in 2017,” reported the New York Times. In other words, the US has invaded Syria, is occupying nearly a third of its territory, and has carried out attacks on the Syrian military, and this aggression is supposed to be understood as a defensive response to Syrian provocations.
It is incontestable that US control of the airspace of eastern Syria, the invasion of the country by untold thousands of US military and diplomatic personnel, the plunder of the Levantine nation’s resources, and attacks on its military forces, are flagrant violations of international law.
No country has more contempt for the rule of law than the United States, yet, in emetic fashion, its government incessantly invokes the very rule of law it spurns to justify its outrages against it. But what of US law?
If, to Washington, international law is merely an impediment to be overcome on its way to expanding its empire, are the US invasion and occupation of Syria, and attacks on Syrian forces, in harmony with the laws of the US? If you ask the White House and Pentagon the answer is yes, but that is tantamount to asking a thief to rule on his or her theft.
The question is, does the US executive’s claim that its actions in Syria comport with US law stand up to scrutiny? Not only does it not, the claim is risible. “Under both Mr Obama and Mr Trump,” explains the New York Times’ Charlie Savage, “the executive branch has argued that the war against Islamic State is covered by a 2001 law authorizing the use of military force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks (my emphasis) and a 2002 law authorising the invasion of Iraq.” However, while “ISIS grew out an offshoot of Al Qaeda, the two groups by 2014 had split and became warring rivals,” and ISIS did not perpetrate the 9/11 attacks. What’s more, before the rise of ISIS, the Obama administration had deemed the Iraq war over.
Washington’s argument has other problems, as well. While the 2001 law does not authorise the use of military force against ISIS, it does authorise military action against Al Qaeda. Yet from 2011 to today, the United States has not only failed to use force against the Syrian-based Jabhat al-Nusra, Al Qaeda’s largest branch, it has trained and equipped Islamist fighters who are intermingled with, cooperate on the battle field with, share weapons with, and operate under licence to, the group, as I showed in my book “Washington’s Long War on Syria”, citing the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Post, which have extensively reported on the interconnections between US trained and armed fighters and the organisation founded by Osama bin Laden.
Finally, by implication, since the law does not authorise the use of force against ISIS, it does not authorise the presence of US aircrews in Syrian airspace or US military and diplomatic personnel on Syrian soil. In addition, it certainly does not authorise the use of force against a Syrian military operating within its own borders.
Let’s look again at Washington’s stated reasons for its planned indefinite occupation of Syria:
*to prevent the return of ISIS;
*to stop the Syrian Arab Republic from exercising sovereignty over all of its territory; and
*to eclipse Iranian influence in Syria.
For only one of these reasons, the first, does Washington offer any sort of legal justification.
The latter two objectives are so totally devoid of legal warrant that Washington has not even tried to mount a legal defence of them. Yet, these are the authentic reasons for the US invasion and occupation of Syria. As to the first reason, if Washington were seriously motivated to use military force to crush Al Qaeda, it would not have armed, trained and directed the group’s auxiliaries in its war against Arab nationalist power in Damascus.
Regarding Washington’s stated aim of eclipsing Iranian influence in Syria, we may remind ourselves of the contents of a leaked 2012 US. Defence Intelligence Agency report. That report revealed that the [terrorist] insurgency in Syria was sectarian and led by the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda in Iraq, the forerunner of Islamic State. The report also disclosed that the United States, Arab Gulf oil monarchies and Turkey supported the [terrorist] insurgents.
The analysis correctly predicted the establishment of a “Salafist principality,” an Islamic state, in eastern Syria, noting that this was desired by the insurgency’s foreign backers, which wanted to see the secular Arab nationalists isolated and cut-off from Iran. The United States has since decided to take on the role that it had once planned for a Salafist principality. A planned Saudi-style state dividing Damascus from Tehran has become an indefinite US occupation, from whose womb US planners hope to midwife the birth of a Kurd mini-state as a new Israel.
The reality that the US operation in Syria is illegal may account for why, with Washington’s misdirection and the Press’ collusion, it has largely flown under the radar of public awareness. Misdirection is accomplished by disguising the US occupation of eastern Syria as a Kurd, or SDF-effort, which the United States is merely assisting, rather than directing.
The misdirection appears to be successful, because the narrative has been widely mentally imbibed, including by otherwise critical people. There are parallels. The United States is prosecuting a war of aggression in Yemen, against a movement that threatens US hegemony in the Middle East, as the Syrian Arab Republic, Iran and Hezbollah do. The aggression against Yemen is as lacking in legal warrant as is the US war on Syria.
It flagrantly violates international law; the Houthis did not attack Saudi Arabia, let alone the United States, and therefore there is no justification for military action on international legal grounds against them. What’s more, the Pentagon can’t even point to authorization for the use of force against Yemen’s rebels under US domestic law since they are not Al Qaeda and have no connection to the 9/11 attacks. To side step the difficulty of deploying military force without a legal warrant, the war, then, is presented as “Saudi-led”, with the involvement of the United States relegated in the hermeneutics to the periphery. Yet Washington is directing the war.
The US flies its own drones and reconnaissance aircraft over Yemen to gather intelligence to select targets for Saudi pilots. It refuels Saudi bombers in flight. Its warships enforce a naval blockade. And significantly, it runs an operations centre to coordinate the bombing campaign among the US satellites who participate in it. In the language of the military, the United States has command and control of the aggression against Yemen.
The only US absence is in the provision of pilots to drop the bombs, this role having been farmed out to Arab allies. And that is the key to the misdirection. Because Saudi pilots handle one visible aspect of the multi-dimensional war, (whose various other dimensions are run by the Americans), it can be passed off to the public as a Saudi affair, while those who find the Saudi monarchy abhorrent (which it is) can vent their spleen on a scapegoat.
We do the same to the Kurds, hurling rhetorical thunderbolts at them, when they are merely pawns of the US government pursuing a project of empire-building. Jeremy Corbyn, the British Labour Party leader, has seen through the misdirection, declaring that it is the West, not the Saudis, who are ‘directing the war’ in Yemen....
I leave the last word to the Syrian government, whose voice is hardly ever heard above the din of Western war propaganda. The invasion and occupation of eastern Syria is “a blatant interference, a flagrant violation of (the) UN Charter’s principles…an unjustified aggression on the sovereignty and independence of Syria.” None of this is controversial. For his part, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has pointed out incontestably that foreign troops in Syria “without our invitation or consultation or permission…are invaders.”
It is time the US invasion and occupation of Syria — illegal, anti-democratic, plunderous, and a project of recolonisation — was recognised, opposed, and ended.
There is far more to Washington’s long war on Syria than Al Qaeda, the White Helmets and the Kurds. As significant as these forces are, the threat they pose to the Syrian centre of opposition to foreign tyranny has been surpassed by a more formidable challenge — the war’s escalation into a US military and diplomatic occupation accompanied by direct US military confrontation with the Syrian Arab Army and its allies."
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