US Troops and Warships

US troops and warships are gathering in the Caribbean. It reminds me of my college years and the impending war against against Vietnam. Back then the big lie was that North Vietnam had attacked US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. It didn't really happen, although President Johnson went to Congress the next day and said that it had. 58,000 US soldiers were to die because of this fabricated story. So were over two million Vietnamese.

US troops and warships are on their way again. The big lie this time is that Venezuela is responsible for drug trafficking to the US. And the truth? Fentanyl is not made in Venezuela, and there are much better routs for sending drugs to the US. But lies don't matter when the US war machine decides it wants another bloodbath.

Our media has been repeating this lie for several years. Our beleaguered pedophile in chief needs a major distraction right now, and war against Venezuela fits the bill. His crazy tariffs and giveaways to his Gilded Age billionaires have brought our economy to the brink. Trump needs a war against Venezuela, with the world's largest oil reserves.

I was drafted in 1967, so I have seen the long term destruction of war on our society. I know Vietnam vets who have never fully recovered. I have witnessed the takeover of our democracy by the "Military Industrial Complex." The invasion of Venezuela will be yet another US war crime gone bad.     

 

The Barricades Are Gone

We find ourselves much closer to a runaway fascist regime than we ever thought was possible. It is Dick Nixon without any respect for the law or the Constitution. "Tricky" Dick was certainly a liar, but all the while he seemed to know the difference between what was false and what was true. Trump, with a gusto shared by war criminals throughout the world, doesn't accept the need to hide the facts. For the facts are only what the dictator says they are.

The barricades to fascism that we all thought would save us seemed to disappear overnight. Trump threatened the nation's colleges, and they capitulated. Run by billionaires, these institutions were throughly corrupted already. They were little corporations, always ready to trade academic freedom for millions in Federal aid. And they were willing to fire or expel any teachers or students who disagreed.

Another surprising failure was the national media. Again, most of it was purchased by the billionaire class and already corrupted. Reporters, commentators, actors and comedians were all shown the door unless they learned to love the dictator.

Since there was no limit to how much money the ruling class could give politicians, there were no "checks and balances" to be found. Congress had long ago given up serving the common good. Now, like other protections against tyranny, there was nothing left to save us.

In fact, a billionaire class almost always leads to the end of democracy. In its place we fund war crimes and genocide.

The Last Days of Democracy

The Last Days of Democracy

Trump and his unelected gang of billionaire thieves have moved much faster than anyone expected. Or maybe it's the glacial pace of the opposition, old white men who have been so thoroughly corrupted by corporate money that they seem paralyzed.

Who is to blame for the current madman in the White House? Both major parties are, since they are designed to benefit the very rich. Is there any way out? Now that Trump is threatening the nation's federal judges, one more safety switch is being turned off. And there aren't many safeguards left. Not only does Trump control the US military and the boarder patrol, but he has a right wing civilian militia that is armed to the teeth. All he needs to do is point out his political enemies and his death squads may just kill them. Those who are apprehended and charged with murder would all be pardoned by our runaway tyrant.

Do you think you are watching some Third World dictatorship put in place by the CIA? No, the enormity of our military power has created a world of perpetual war. Even our closest allies will be looking for ways to protect themselves from our threats of invasion.

The best outcome may be a long shot. Trump may get so enamored with his fame and dominance, that he makes terrible mistakes both on the battlefield and off. Once Trump shows signs of deranged thinking, why the billionaires may sacrifice him and put someone else in his place.

Fred Nagel

Wrapped in the Star of David

One fine day we wake up and realize that the people who rule us are war criminals. They have been sending planes and bombs to help in the extermination of two million Palestinians. And instead of ending the US supported butchery, they push on with the destruction of Gaza's hospitals, doctors, and universities. Can we be part of this genocide? And once we see it clearly, just how can we forget?

We must be careful about what we say though. Students have been suspended or expelled for pointing out Israel's savagery. Teachers have lost their jobs. For all this talk about the First Amendment, there are few free speech rights when it comes to Israel. The American Empire has wrapped itself in the Star of David as it marches toward hell.

But the blood shows through. There is no forgiveness for starving and slaughtering 20 thousand children. We bow our heads and weep for the monstrous country that we are part of. After so much talk about freedom and human rights, what liars we have making decisions for us.

Who is to blame? Why it is the billionaires and the venal congress that they love to bribe. There is simply too much money to be made and the scoundrels of both major parties live on greed. The American Empire is a failed state for all its history of noble ideas.

We the people must take to the streets. We have a right to demand that our government represent us and not the Israeli warmongers.

Fred Nagel

Incomprehensible to the normal mind

The troops of the American 82nd Airborne Division were among the first to liberate Wöbbelin, a concentration camp northwest of Berlin. What they found that May 6, 1945 defied all notions of humanity. A US soldier predicted that the camps “will stand for all time as one of history’s most gruesome symbols of inhumanity. There our troops found sights, sounds and stenches horrible beyond belief, cruelties so enormous as to be incomprehensible to the normal mind."

In Wobbelin, as in some other concentration camps, US troops decided to show ordinary Germans from the surrounding villages what they had done. The townspeople were forced to view the corpses, bury hundreds of bodies and attend their funerals. Pictures of Germans show them holding scarves over their noses as they looked at the dead bodies.

A few Germans were indignant, insisting that they hadn't known what was going on in the camps. And speaking out against Hitler or the Third Reich almost always resulted in the death penalty. What was a good German citizen to do? Most townspeople, however, walked through the camps in shock and disbelief.

The slaughter of Jews and Romany had accelerated in the final months of the WW II. Dachau in southern Germany saw between 2,600 and 4,000 inmates die of disease and starvation each month. That's roughly 100 every day, about the same death rate of Palestinians in Gaza.

Are Americans more aware of the Palestinian genocide than German citizens were of the Holocaust? There has been no blackout of news coverage and pictures of starving Palestinian children. Moreover, criticism of Israel's war crimes is not a capital offense. So far, we still have our First Amendment freedom of speech.

So what is our excuse for arming and supporting the murderous Israeli death machine? Will we be taken some day through the killing fields of Gaza with our handkerchiefs over our noses? We already know what a good American citizen should be doing.   

Fred Nagel

letter to the editor

 Starving the Children

The United Staes has reached a new low in its foreign policy. We are starving tens of thousands of children to death in Gaza. First we destroyed their schools and colleges. Then we blasted their houses into dust. We demolished all their hospitals and medical facilities, and destroyed their access to potable water. At this point, we have turned the Gaza Strip into a killing field, with millions of Palestinians digging through the rubble just to find their children.

Of course, there have been other holocausts in history. But even the Nazis tried to cover up their mass extermination of Jews and Romany. Towards the end of World War II, they buried millions in secret graves. Even the Nazis knew that their slaughter was beyond any boundaries of human kind. Even the Nazis knew enough to feel shame.

We, as citizens of the most powerful military empire the world has ever seen, have complete access to pictures and stories of this Palestinian holocaust. Our mainstream media doesn't dwell on it much, but the charnel house of Gaza isn't kept a secret. An internet search of "children" and "Gaza" will fill your mind with the unbearable images of our country's war crimes. Yet few in our government seem to care very much. They sit around and spout Israeli talking points while collecting their hundreds of thousands in bribes from Zionist billionaires.

And we are oblivious to what our government is doing, as we turn a blind eye to this wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people.

Fred Nagel

letter to the editor

The SS Troopers

I was hospitalized last week. It is an unusual time when one gets to watch other people up close and working on you. Their intensity, all focused on what happens to you, is humbling. Could I be as selflessly dedicated to a person I had never met before?

It made me think about the doctors and nurses who saved hundreds during 9/11. Or of the medical workers who risked their lives by working with COVID patients. In some ways these people are the best of what we are.

Unfortunately, the worst of what we are is never far away. To think that a country like Israel has destroyed 36 hospitals in Gaza's is like reading the Nuremberg War Tribunals. Do human beings do such things? Do they end up slaughtering 1,400 Palestinian healthcare workers, or dropping 2,000 bombs on people waiting in line for their life giving care? Who are these monsters? And what will they say when their apartheid state finally comes to its just ending? That they were only "following orders"?

But they are doing more than that. The SS troopers of this century's worst genocide are often filmed dancing and singing around their victims. They seem to take delight in shooting into lines of starving children. They are serial killers, all armed and protected by the one country capable of stopping the butchery, our very own United States, land of the free and home of the brave.

Join our peace vigil every Saturday from 12:30 to 1:30 at the sidewalk of Elting Library in New Paltz.  

Fred Nagel