Gordon Duff, a combat veteran of the Vietnam war, dismisses “Sniper heroics,” in a powerful piece at Veterans Today:
“If you kill more than a dozen people as a sniper and you aren’t guilty of murdering innocent civilians, I would be very surprised. If you are insane enough to convince yourself, let’s say you are in Afghanistan or Iraq, countries where it is legal for any civilian to carry a weapon and no sane person would go outside without one, that shooting “armed Muslims” makes you a hero, you are both a liar and a fool. You are probably also a psychopath.
Most of the armed “insurgents” the US has killed during the War on Terror were friendly militias, local herdsmen or, at best, armed tribal units that were armed tribal units when they fought the British and Russians as well for hundreds of years. We are talking about “patriots” defending their country against foreign invaders who support drug cartels and criminal politicians like the governments the US has placed in power over and over.
I do expect this; I expect an American Sniper to use his skills to protect American personnel from attack even if America is there as part of an armed aggression on the part of whoever it is that runs America, which sure as hell isn’t the American people. …… Yes, this is not a simple story and there are no entire good or bad people. Welcome to reality…..
99% of talk about snipers is plain bull and mythology. I am not the world expert but I have “done the work” in the worst place on earth, I collect sniper rifles and own a company that builds them. …..
I make weapons and can only hope they are used properly. There are bad people who deserve killing but most of them are trained and supplied by the Mossad, CIA and our British and French allies, I am talking Boko Harum, ISIS and that gang. You didn’t know that? Imagine that…..
In South Vietnam there were some legitimate targets, sort of. In truth, the US was in South Vietnam illegally and on the wrong side in the first place so any moral high ground disappears immediately anyway. So, if you were a “sniper” killing the enemy, one thing for certain, you were shooting people better than you are.
It took a fat minute to figure that one out and absolutely everyone knew it, something we aren’t so sure about with our new “professional” military today. …..
While working for an intelligence organization long ago, I remember meeting with fellow “Vietnam vets,” all claiming to be Navy Seals, Marines or Ranger/Special Forces. They were cooks and truck drivers, honorable occupations of course and perhaps they shouldn’t have felt pressured to make things up, but you see where I am going with this…
During one “ambush” we killed 3 people, a woman, a child and someone over 70. They had one weapon, an unloaded and broken AK47.
This was during a truce, they were coming back to see their family as per agreement and we were there to kill them in violation of the truce, something we always did. Nobody talks about such things? Imagine that……..
What we are saying is simple, snipers played no real role in Vietnam……..
Many of the special operations units spent 90% of their time in rear areas living as well as possible doing exactly what the rest of us would do if we were as smart as them. It would be impossible for any of these people to see as much real combat as an Army draftee who served as a simple “combat infantryman.”
What has been confirmed is that some American units serving in both Iraq and Afghanistan simply murdered civilians, and we mean women and children in “drive by” type shootings. They would drive down the road and simply shoot at people walking by. Americans have been convicted of this. Another “trick” is to drive by a group of kids and toss a hand grenade at them.
Were these deaths added to the “sniper kills?” My guess would be yes.
Another point that isn’t bought up is that within the US military street gangs have a very strong presence. This has made the US military an unreliable guest anywhere in the world. In Vietnam we had units that were basically “trash.” Remember the Mai La massacre? An American unit made up mostly of draftees and 3rd string officers murdered between 400 and up to 800 civilians, lining them up and shooting them down, we are talking only women, babies, small children and a few old men……
War is about thugs with guns working for banks and oil companies, for drug cartels and crooked politicians. War is a racket, but wait a minute, I stole that from someone else. There are no good wars, there never were. The Civil War wasn’t fought over slaves and the American War of Independence, in the end, turned out to be a struggle between international banking cartels with the worst one winning in the end when the Rothschilds took over the US in 1913.
After that, we fought World War I and II on their behalf and the rest is history, a history we live every day. Hiring criminals from “clown colleges” to rewrite history, making movies about snipers and staging Paris street theatre isn’t going to change any of it. The whole thing is a con.
No one has clean hands, not me, not anyone. Even speaking up isn’t enough and few speak up at all. Simply put, if you leave the US and kill a citizen of another country because George W. Bush and Dick Cheney or their friend Netanyahu makes a buck from it and you consider yourself a hero instead of a fool or criminal, talking to you isn’t going to help.”
Hi. I am less than impressed by this self flagellation characteristic of america’s war veterans who congregate on vt and dr duff is pandering to them to gather more dissenters around him as their “collection agent” so that the armed and well-versed in combat war veterans suffering ptsd and on drugs and Marijuana don’t stray too far off the controlled and well layed out path of venting hot air or steam — had our gallant conscience-leader of the tortured souls instead folllowed up on the letter to editor that he had published in 2010 on vt it might surely have been a tad more genuine dissent and show of remorse:
America’s War Veterans: PTSD and its Cure – Letter to Editor By Zahir Ebrahim
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2010/12/letter-american-war-veteran-ptsd-cure.html
The political science behind his “confession” of killings for which dr duff blithely avers ( as quoted in the excerpt above by Lila ) “No one has clean hands. Not me, not anyone.”, and which he obviously confesses only for himself and his coterie of celebrated purple-hearted bemedlalled “heroes” who murder in large numbers to the sound of trumpet, and trying to assuage his and their guilt by attributing his and their crimes to all of mankind with the grand generalization of “No one”, is this in a nutshell – as if dr duff does not know it that both insurgency and counter-insurgency are military tactics that go hand in hand to make and sustain war; the purpose behind counter-insurgency is to continually “tickle” insurgency in order to keep the war times going, which is what is behind dr duff’s statement of american soldiers shooting civilians (raping them, dehimanizing them, abu garib, and Lila has also explained it in her book), but you wont get that comprehension reading vt, funded by the pentagon as a benefit to the veterans to help vent excess steam under guidance of opinion makers like dr duff; and he attracts other civilian “malcontents” in his wake:
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2010/10/insurgency-vs-counter-insurgency.html
Only my two cents’ worth.
Thanks
Zahir
Hi Zahir,
On this one occasion, I will disagree with you. I’m quite aware that Duff is connected to intelligence and that some of the stuff he writes and publishes is disinformation. I also think that is probably the price he has to pay to have that media presence and be a voice for veterans.
This piece is opinion writing and I thought it was convincing and affecting.
I am sorry you thought otherwise.
Each to his own.
http://redefininggod.com/category/veterans-today/
Thanks R.
VT is a strange place, with no doubt a lot of disinfo in it, but still, there’s lots of good information there too, some of which you cannot find anywhere else.
Hi. I am less than impressed by this self flagellation characteristic of america’s war veterans who congregate on vt and dr duff is pandering to them to gather more dissenters around him as their “collection agent” so that the armed and well-versed in combat war veterans suffering ptsd and on drugs and Marijuana don’t stray too far off the controlled and well layed out path of venting hot air or steam — had our gallant conscience-leader of the tortured souls instead folllowed up on the letter to editor that he had published in 2010 on vt it might surely have been a tad more genuine dissent and show of remorse:
America’s War Veterans: PTSD and its Cure – Letter to Editor By Zahir Ebrahim
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2010/12/letter-american-war-veteran-ptsd-cure.html
The political science behind these “confession” of killings for which dr duff blithely avers ( as quoted in the excerpt above by Lila ) “No one has clean hands. Not me, not anyone.”, and which he obviously confesses only for himself and his coterie of celebrated purple-hearted bemedlalled “heroes” who murder in large numbers to the sound of trumpet but trying to assuage his and their guilt by attributing his and their crimes to all of mankind with the grand generalization of “No one”, is this in a nutshell – as if dr duff does not know it that both insurgency and counter-insurgency are military tactics that go hand in hand to make and sustain war; the purpose behind counter-insurgency is to continually “tickle” insurgency in order to keep the war times going, which is what is behind dr duff’s statement of american soldiers shooting civilians (raping them, dehimanizing them, abu garib, and Lila has also explained it well in her book), but you wont get that comprehension reading vt, funded by the pentagon as part of some retirement benefit to the veterans to help vent excess steam under guidance of asset opinion makers like dr duff; and he attracts other civilian “malcontents” in his boisterous wake for he tells all the already known and half truths with great honesty to attract them and channels their creative energies towards nothingness, inefficacy, self flagellation, etc;
http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2010/10/insurgency-vs-counter-insurgency.html
As for the charlie hebdo cartoons you published on your website Lila, i would like you to know that i found it offensive that you of all people should print them. Not only are the cartoons offensive to muslims, but your publishing them in the name of freedom of journalism indicates your own bent of mind. I am saddened by your act.
Zahir
Hi Zahir,
I will reply only to your last comment, which actually saddens me. You do not know my “bent of mind,” as you put it.
As you can see, I carefully included a picture offensive to Christians (like me) and I published BOTH, because a large number of people – including family members – were not shown what was actually published at Hebdo and thus did not know why people were offended by it.
They were under the impression that the cartoons were just coarse humor. They didn’t know the degree of vileness.
So yes, I thought it was necessary to publish the actual cartoons, not because of any absolute right of freedom, to which, if you’ve read my writing, I do not subscribe at all, but, precisely because I think such speech violates the norms of free expression.
I submit that the CONTEXT of my publishing the pictures quite clearly shows “my bent of mind” and it is something other than what you charge.
The CONTEXT is analysis, a call for repudiation of Hebdo, support for Muslims, and outrage at outrage to them.
How do you get from that any intent to harm?
Only if you yourself are devoid of the ability to contextualize and interpret and are as fundamentalist as a free speech fundamentalist.
Intent is everything, my friend, and context reveals it.
It is precisely LACK of context on which the powers-that-be rely to propagandize.
I am sorry that you – uncharitably and erroneously – have put your own construction on things rather than the plain meaning evidenced from the context.
Sorry. But that is not my doing but yours.
In fact, I must tell you that several Christians who thought that Muslims were “overreacting” changed their minds when they saw the actual content of the Hebdo cartoons.
They are my target audience.
And you, as a reader of my blog, should know it.
Just as it is impossible to analyze Abu Ghraib correctly without showing the offensive photos, so too it’s not possible to show the extent of Hebdo’s propaganda (or Streicher’s) without reproducing the pictures.
A nude illustration in a medical textbook is not the same thing as a racist cartoon in a propaganda sheet. I submit my reproduction resembles the first, not the second.
Moreover, while an actual human being can be hurt by such a depiction (so that I would not reproduce a sexually abused child in the act of abuse), Almighty God is beyond form.
The lewd representations of aggressive atheists have no effect on him or on his true believers.
The only people on whom they can have effect is the flock of the undecided, who do not know the true story.
Those are the ones whom I aim to persuade and who, I am happy to say, WERE persuaded by my reproduction of the cartoons.
Mission accomplished.
Regretfully, therefore, I must disagree with your interpretation, express my disappointment with its petulance, and repudiate it completely as a momentary lapse of judgment on the part of an otherwise level-headed reader.
And, because your mischaracterizations might make someone wrongly suspect my own motives, I went back and deleted the cartoons from my post
.
Of course, anyone reading it will at once google the images and find them.
But nonetheless, since the idea is to promote good-will and not offense, I’ve removed them. But I think you should reconsider your tendency to ascribe malice to all and sundry at the drop of a hat.
Someone might wonder what YOUR own motivations were.