A Letter to Dad
Date: 2/1/2003 5:47:02 AM
Dear Dad,
A funny thing happened to me yesterday at Camp Bondsteel (Bosnia): A
French army officer walked up to me in the PX, and told me he thought we
(Americans) were a bunch of cowboys and were going to provoke a war in
Iraq.
He said if such a thing happens, we wouldn't be able to count on the
support of France. I told him that it didn't surprise me. Since we had come to
France's rescue in World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the Cold War,
their ingratitude and jealousy was due to surface at some point in the
near future anyway.
I also told him that is why France is a third-rate military power with a
socialist economy and a bunch of faggots for soldiers. I additionally
told him that America, being a nation of deeds and action, not words, would
do whatever it had to do, and France's support was only for show anyway.
Just like in ALL NATO exercises, the US would shoulder 85% of the burden, as
evidenced by the fact that this French officer was shopping in the
American PX, and not the other way around.
He began to get belligerent at that point, and I told him if he would
like to, I would meet him outside in front of the Burger King and whip his
ass in front of the entire Multi-National Brigade East, thus demonstrating that
even the smallest American had more fight in him than the average
Frenchman.
He called me a barbarian cowboy and walked away in a huff. With friends
like these, who needs enemies?
Tell Mom I love her, Your loving daughter Mary Beth Johnson LtCol, USMC
Date: 2/1/2003 5:47:02 AM
Dear Dad,
A funny thing happened to me yesterday at Camp Bondsteel (Bosnia): A
French army officer walked up to me in the PX, and told me he thought we
(Americans) were a bunch of cowboys and were going to provoke a war in
Iraq.
He said if such a thing happens, we wouldn't be able to count on the
support of France. I told him that it didn't surprise me. Since we had come to
France's rescue in World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the Cold War,
their ingratitude and jealousy was due to surface at some point in the
near future anyway.
I also told him that is why France is a third-rate military power with a
socialist economy and a bunch of faggots for soldiers. I additionally
told him that America, being a nation of deeds and action, not words, would
do whatever it had to do, and France's support was only for show anyway.
Just like in ALL NATO exercises, the US would shoulder 85% of the burden, as
evidenced by the fact that this French officer was shopping in the
American PX, and not the other way around.
He began to get belligerent at that point, and I told him if he would
like to, I would meet him outside in front of the Burger King and whip his
ass in front of the entire Multi-National Brigade East, thus demonstrating that
even the smallest American had more fight in him than the average
Frenchman.
He called me a barbarian cowboy and walked away in a huff. With friends
like these, who needs enemies?
Tell Mom I love her, Your loving daughter Mary Beth Johnson LtCol, USMC
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/video/film/redux.html
S-11 Redux:
(Channel) Surfing the Apocalypse
It is a well-known and widely accepted fact that, during wartime, news companies and governmental representatives fuse their voices together into one univocal beam of support for the national military objective. And, while, for many, this is a vital aspect of institutional patriotism, it is also a very dangerous and troubling reality. For, if the news media have abandoned their responsibility to objectively inform the population, then our concept of a democracy (which is founded on the ability for all citizens to choose their nation's destiny based on a full spectrum of information) is in desperate peril.
But imagine a mediascape in which politicians actually said what they meant and meant what they said. One where the talking heads on broadcast news actually challenged the powerful interests in Washington not with fangless sensationalism, but with insightful deconstructions of true power and its manipulations.
We can't.
At least, not in the current corporate controlled environment of media ownership. And especially not with the so-called War on Terrorism and its burgeoning McCarthyistic clampdown on open displays of dissent.
So, in the face of our media's shameless propaganda campaign, we have taken it upon ourselves to intuit what the intentions and goals of this war truly are. In what is surely a departure from our traditional NewsVideo format, GNN presents S-11 Redux: (Channel) Surfing the Apocalypse. Culled from over 20 hours of television footage recorded over a one month period and across 13 networks, S-11 Redux is a sound-bite blitzkrieg that challenges the messages we have been fed from our mainstream media and the government it serves. Be warned - this video moves quickly and will require at least two viewings to digest its full impact. You may never be able to look at S-11 and its post-impact coverage the same way, ever again.