By Debra Sweet

It's worth examining the administration's public statements, downplayed as they were, about the biggest loss of U.S. military personnel so far in Afghanistan. Their identities are being kept secret because "there is hesitancy to release the names because the majority were from secretive special operations forces."

Obama called a hasty press conference/pep talk Monday about the Wall Street crash, assuring us that  “No matter what some agency may say, we've always been, and always will be a AAA country.”  He went on to speak about the Saturday Chinook helicopter crash, which killed 22 Navy Seals, eight other US military personnel, and 8 Afghan soldiers:

“These men and women put their lives on the line for the values that bind us together as a nation... And some of them, like the 30 Americans who were lost this weekend, give their lives for their country."

Leon Panetta, who just moved from running the C.I.A. to the Pentagon, said “This is a reminder, a reminder to the American people that we remain a nation still at war.”  Politico reported that Panetta said "the best way to honor those lost in the crash was to accept the risk and push on."

"They gave their lives for their country, and their deaths justify staying the course."  I've been hearing this s**** from every president since LBJ.  Here are two different perspectives on how these statement are lies:

Ray McGovern, in They Died in Vain - Deal With It says:

"The Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) can be expected to beat a steady drumbeat of 'they shall not have died in vain...what you will hear in the days ahead from the FCM is well honed rhetoric not only about how our troops 'cannot have died in vain,' but also that Americans must now redouble our resolve to 'honor their sacrifice'...Gen. John R. Allen, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, also primed the pump for the FCM, saying Saturday, 'All of those killed in this operation were true heroes who had already given so much in the defense of freedom.'

Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen went even further in professing to know 'what our fallen would have wanted' us to do — namely, 'keep fighting.' Mullen added that, 'it is certainly what we are going to do.' All this was duly reported in Sunday's Washington Post and other leading U.S. newspapers —without much comment." 

I read this in the new book BAsics from the Talks and Writings of Bob Avakian:

"It is not uncommon to hear these days, from government officials and others, that only 1 percent of the population is in the U.S. military but that this 1 percent is fighting for the freedom of the other 99 percent. The truth, however, is this: That 1 percent, in the military, is in reality fighting for the other 1 percent: the big capitalist-imperialists who run this country—who control the economy, the political system, the military, the media, and the other key institutions— and who dominate large parts of the world, wreaking havoc and causing great suffering for literally billions of people. It is the “freedom” of these capitalist-imperialists—their freedom to exploit, oppress, and plunder—that this 1 percent in the military is actually killing and sometimes dying for."

We're not going to get the truth from people leading an illegitmate, unjust, immoral occupation.  But it's not enough, on our part, to leave it there: we have to come back with what is true and get that in front of people.

 Quote this article on your site

Share Link: