Sarah Dawson, 13, began marching in 2001 [when John Howard and his corporate cronies started to promote the war in Iraq and religious right wing nationalism] Sarah now says that "she marches in memory of her great-grandfather Harrie James Dawson, who fought in World War I as part of the 21st Battalion." But most likely she does however moved by the corporate claim that 'nationalism promotes wars' like Iraq and Afghanistan. What better way to encourage that by promoting and indoctrinating the youth with past wars as something to be proud about? ] "lf dawson, didn't die?" [Or if Sarah wasn't exploited at 13 years of age?]
[This is "A" typical of corporatism and propaganda and now the Sydney Morning Herald readers are supposed to see the pretty face, feel sorry for the girl who is still being exploited by them and then vote all the war criminals into having more power. Typical of AIPAC - America's Pro-Israel Lobby working in Australia to promote war as a good thing. All any country needs is a Humanitarian Aid Group that can defend as well as help people and the very idea of war and defence is just indoctrination just as they've used this girl to do the very same thing. Note also that this new photo wipes out the girl's face completely in favour of the medals and the dead soldier??? So be advised truthseekers and stay at home with your family on Anzac Day and don't honour kiling and death in the name of imperialism and resource wars.]
IT HAS become a powerful [ promotional nationalist-corporate John Howard & Anzac Biscuits ] symbol of the recent Anzac revival - scores of youngsters wearing the medals of their fighting forebears marching beside weary but determined veterans [killers and diggers who buried their dead.]
[If you speak to people who have, in their own lifetimes, endured war in their homeland you will find that the majority abhor the idea of militarism. The memory of World War II, fought in their countryside, was certainly a large factor in the refusal of France and Germany to join the Coalition of the Killing [CoK] in attacking Iraq. There is little doubt that there are Old Order elites in Europe, in France and in Germany, that would have supported, and joined, the CoK invasions. But the people of Europe have had enough of war, and it these circumstances it was politically difficult for governments to commit to the strikes.]
But this year the veterans will undertake the journey alone. Rather than finding a place in the units where their grandfathers or great aunts once stood, the NSW branch of the RSL has told the diggers' [killers and those who buried their dead] descendants that they must go to the back of the queue.
[It is significant that in countries such as the US, the UK and Australia, which have not been invaded during the living memory of their citizens, it was easier for politicians, and the state-serving media, to fan support for a War on Terror, and invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Nonetheless, many people in CoK countries have voiced their objection to war as a solution to terrorism, and to the human rights violations that are carried out in the name of anti-terrorist precautions.]
So enthusiastic and so numerous have the descendants become, the RSL says, the dwindling ranks of World War II diggers [killers and those who buried their dead] are being left in their wake. "We want to encourage them to attend, but at the end of the day they weren't the ones who fought in Tobruk or on the Kokoda Trail or the Middle East," said the state secretary of the RSL, Chris Perrin.
"We ended up with a situation where the diggers [kilers and those who buried their dead] were being swamped - outnumbered in their own units by the descendants.
"It was getting to the point where the old diggers [killers and those who buried their dead] watching on television couldn't see their mates marching."
[People who speak out in these terms are courageous. Just as it was highly dangerous, if not suicidal, to speak out against the Inquisition or the dogma of the Roman Church, it is now dangerous to voice opposition, however justified it might be, to the War on Terror. In reality, the War on Terror is exactly what the War on Witches was. It is a WAR on DISSENT, and it is calculated to help the Old World Order hold onto power for a little while longer.]
But the decision has left a sour taste in the mouths of some descendants and veterans, and the RSL has been receiving daily calls from those disappointed by the change.
"Some people are disappointed because originally we were marching up the front," said Barbara Gentilcore, a descendant of a World War I veteran.
"And some of those who have been marching with the units of their ancestors will no doubt be disappointed with having to go down the back. But I think most of us appreciate that the march is about the diggers [killers and those who buried their dead]."
[It is impossible to fool all the people all the time. And it is impossible to silence everyone. Since the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions there have been many expressions of disgust and disenchantment concerning the actions of the CoK. Dissent has been aired in the few remaining pockets of a free press, on the Internet, from the stage, and on the streets.]
A fellow descendant, Phillip Comfort, said he believed most descendants were unaware of the RSL ruling and would continue to march as they had always done. "If they've got the medals then I think it's a really nice thing for them to be part of the unit," he said.
[Numerous war criminals were tried and convicted following World War II. They were German, Italian, or Japanese. However, there were major atrocities perpetrated by the Allied forces as well. Nobody faced a Nuremberg trial for the murder of at least 200,000 civilians in the deliberate fire bombing of Dresden, in Saxony. Nobody was ever tried, or even reprimanded, over the mass rapes of the women of Berlin during the Russian occupation. And, of course, nobody ever faced trial for the horrific deployment of atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Indeed, President Harry Truman called the Hiroshima explosion, "..the greatest thing in history."]
The number of descendants taking part in the march has increased greatly in recent years as part of a revival of interest in Anzac Day.
Sarah Dawson, 13, began marching in 2001 in memory of her great-grandfather Harrie James Dawson, who fought in World War I as part of the 21st Battalion.
Harrie Dawson lost his brother Walter at Gallipoli and was injured in France, but made it home and stayed in the army through both world wars.
"A lot of my friends are taking an interest in it now - I think they're proud of the fact that these people fought for us," Sarah said.
"I don't really mind where I march. It's just good to be there."
[The Four Generations of Warfare
William S. Lind is a director at the Free Congress Foundation think tank in Washington. He is a specialist in military theory and doctrine, and he vigorously opposed the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, on the grounds of their utter futility.
Lind has identified four generations of warfare, beginning with the Thirty Years War in Renaissance Europe, that ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, and progressing through to the present war in Iraq. Lind categorises the four generations of war as follows.
"First Generation War, which lasted from 1648 to around the time of the American Civil War, was fought by state armies using line and column tactics."
Prior to war becoming a monopoly of nation states, Lind notes that cities fought wars, tribes fought wars, religions fought wars, and even some business empires fought wars.
"Most of the things that distinguish 'military' from 'civilian' - uniforms, saluting, promotion systems - come from the First Generation and are intended to reinforce the culture of order."
"Starting in the mid-19th century, with the development of mass armies and weapons such as machine guns and quick-firing artillery, the order of the battlefield began to break down. The result was the central problem that has faced state armies ever since, the growing contradiction between the disorderly battlefield and a military culture of order."
"Second Generation War relies on firepower to cause attrition. It is war by body count. In the French army, in World War I , the firepower came mostly from artillery. In the American military today, the firepower increasingly comes from aircraft and missiles, but the goal is still victory through attrition."
"The US Army learned Second Generation War from the French during and after World War I, and it remains the American way of war. New technology, in Donald Rumsfeld's strategy, is used, not to move beyond this Second Generation of war, but to make it more efficient and 'precise'."
"Third Generation Warfare was a German product with roots going back to the Scharnhorst reforms in the Prussian army that followed Prussia's defeat by Napoleon. It is fought more in time than in place. Speed, not firepower, is the main weapon, and firepower is used to create opportunities for manoeuvre, rather than merely to run up the body count."
"Fourth Generation War, which is now killing a few more American soldiers every day in Iraq, marks the end of the state's monopoly on war."
"All around the world, state militaries are facing non-state opponents, groups such as al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. Almost everywhere, the state is losing."
"Because these enemies are not states they have nothing we can bomb, no tanks we can take out, no capital we can occupy. And each one is a Hydra. Every time we kill an enemy, we recruit more."]
While interest in Anzac Day continues to grow, the number of World War II veterans has shrunk considerably.
Figures from the Department of Veterans' Affairs indicate that just 119,600 servicemen and women from that conflict remain, down from 225,500 in 2002.
"Sadly, we are coming to the point where there won't be any Second World War veterans in the march at all because they will not be well enough to do it," said the president of the NSW RSL, Don Rowe.
[The magnitude of these and other atrocities committed by the Allied forces in World War II was as great, if not greater, than the war crimes of the Axis and Japanese armies. The incendiary attack on the university city of Dresden, where many German civilians had gathered to escape bombing aimed at industrial and military targets elsewhere, is recorded as the deadliest of any war to date.]
[Eleven square miles of the city was destroyed by some 3,000 tons of explosives and phosphorous incendiaries. During the war Dresden had become a centre for wounded, both civilian and military. There were 19 hospitals in Dresden at the time. Of these, 16 were badly damaged. Three of the hospitals were totally destroyed, and one of these was the maternity clinic. German figures show that out of 28,400 houses in the inner city, 24,900 were destroyed. Dresden had a population of some 1.2 million people at the time, but after the attacks were over it is recorded that there were not enough uninjured people left to bury the dead.
In February, 1945, there was no military imperative to attack the medieval city of Dresden. The end of the war in Europe was already in sight, there were no wartime industries associated with the city, there were no anti-aircraft or other defences, because the German army did not consider that there was anything to defend there. Dresden's population was swollen with injured soldiers and civilian refugees, but there were hardly any fighting men in the city or its surrounds. There have been claims, after the war, that Dresden was the main communications centre for part of the Eastern front. However, had this been true, the city would have been defended, and it was not.
Two attacks were flown by the RAF, and they were timed so that the second raid would catch rescuers and fire fighting teams in the open. A third attack by the USAF completed the carnage. Given the terrible nature of the new incendiary weapons; the way a mixture of phosphorous, magnesium and petroleum created 1,000 degree fireballs and 100 miles per hour winds that sucked people to their deaths in the inferno, the bombing raids on Dresden were coldly calculated murder.
Other Souces
2nd Renaissance - Beyond Industrial Capitalism and Nation States
Related:
US military ups recruitment of criminals
A United States Congressional committee is asking the Pentagon to explain whether the increase in convicted criminals being recruited into the US military can be linked to the strains from the Iraq war. Last year the US Army granted waivers to allow 511 convicted criminals to join up, almost double the number from the year before. Almost 250 Army and Marine recruits had convictions for burglary while 130 had been charged with drug offences, excluding marijuana. There were also a handful of waivers given for those convicted of rape and sexual assault, along with terrorist threats, including bomb threats.
Unknown News
"News that's not known, or not known enough."
-- IN IRAQ --
30,000 IRAQI TROOPS KILLED
and 90,000 SERIOUSLY INJURED Aug. 2003
785,957 IRAQI CIVILIANS KILLED
and 1,414,723 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007
3,615 U.S. TROOPS KILLED
and 50,677 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007
287 OTHER COALITION TROOPS KILLED
and 861 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007
160 U.S. CIVILIANS KILLED
and 288 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007
251 OTHER COALITION CIVILIANS KILLED
and 452 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007
-- IN AFGHANISTAN --
8,587 AFGHAN TROOPS KILLED
and 25,761 SERIOUSLY INJURED July 2004
3,485 AFGHAN CIVILIANS KILLED
and 6,273 SERIOUSLY INJURED July 2004
342 U.S. TROOPS KILLED
and 1,026 SERIOUSLY INJURED Jan. 2007
278 OTHER COALITION TROOPS KILLED
and 834 SERIOUSLY INJURED June 2007
? U.S. and COALITION CIVILIANS KILLED
and ? SERIOUSLY INJURED
Things can only get better, Howard tells party faithful
What about asking about John Howard's top three failures? War crimes against humanity. Waging illegal and degrading war against innocent citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan. Introducing draconian laws and racism.
Thousands take part in anti-war protests
Thousands of anti-war protesters have marched in Britain and the United States to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq
Defence chiefs unhappy with work experience plan
Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon is trying to convince the Defence Force that it is safe - and vital for recruitment - to allow students onto bases for work experience
I was only 19
Soldier spoke of death wish, inquiry told
AN ARMY private who died by his own hand in an East Timor toilet block last year may have enlisted in an effort to kill himself, a military inquiry has been told. The inquiry into the death of Private Ashley Baker reopened in Brisbane yesterday. His body was found next to an automatic rifle in Dili on November 5, three days after his 19th birthday.
WWII veterans head to Israel
Seven World War II veterans have visited the Anzac memorial in Sydney's Hyde Park ahead of their journey to Israel for the dedication of a memorial to the Australian Light Horse. The Park of the Australian Soldier is at Beersheba, the site of a famous World War I battle involving the Light Horse. The World War II veterans, aged in their eighties, are attending the ceremony in Israel because there are no surviving Light Horsemen from World War I. The stay in Israel will begin with an Anzac Day dawn service at the Mount Scopus Commonwealth War Cemetery in Jerusalem.
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