The Cost of War / Election Greed | Eastern North Carolina Now

    We have a new post which digs into the Vietnam War and the election of Richard Nixon as President:

    This clearly cites the cost in lives of our soldiers and the lust for power in the Oval Office. It clearly shows how lust for office and orders of the military are entwined. The real costs of war are lives of both our soldiers and people we kill with a new technology hard to imagine. Guided bombs can go through a designated window. Gatling guns on flying platforms can turn human bodies into mush before your very eyes. Those who administer such atrocities come home with PTSD over innocent women and children killed because they "got too close."

    In this case we are now privileged to see and hear tapes from the White House with both LBJ and Nixon. Nixon lusted after the office. He got it. The war lagged on despite promises from him to end it.

    The truth always rises to the surface in time. We can never know the cold hard truth when PR runs our lives. Only after enough time do we find out about secret aircraft and military weapons. Even worse are the schemes of people to get rich off war and send our military to follow orders from the Chain of Command --- which starts with the President as head of our military.

    Whether we like it or not, this is still a case under investigation with the recent revelations of Prisoner of War treatment against our sworn allegiance to the Geneva Convention rules against such. As a nation with a free press, we have known of this for quite a few years. We justified it and Dick Cheney still does. John McCain is another conservative voice showing contrition and concern. We have YET to face a World Court on possible charges of violation of the Geneva Conventions and torture. That is coming soon.

    What will we do with it as a nation?

    Ignore it and act as if it were justified?

    Fail to act and then have the world see FOR SURE that we talk one way and do another?

    Nixon did such as the record now discloses. He was impeached over the illegal activities of Watergate. He was given a pardon by Gerald Ford to end the embarrassment. My great concern then was that the pardon did not require any further confession from Richard Nixon.

    In our courts a pardon is never given without a jury trial and then its decision over-ridden by a governor or president. When we do justice in an open forum and trial by jury it is DUE PROCESS. In our torture camps there was no due process for any prisoner of war. It is proven to be a most poor way of getting information. Even with such, Osama bin Laden was given justice under the current President and a brave order to dispatch Special Forces to get him. Even with that, some doubted we really got him.

    Deeds done in secrecy are seldom "good deeds." Those made in the clear light of public disclosure require us to evaluate them fairly at the time they were done. Truth eventually rises and let the chips fall where they may. . .