Columnist – John Sammon
This little North Korean boy jeering at me with his fist at the Bridge of No Return at Panmunjom in 1972 is the reason North Korea continues to represent a threat to world peace.

The children were brought in on a bus from North Korea and toured the North Korean side of the truce village of Panmunjom. They were told propaganda and twisted facts to inflame their hatred of America. On their departure from the area back to North Korea, they not only made fists and shouted abuse, but pelted myself and two others at Checkpoint Three, called the Loneliest Outpost in the World, with little balls of refined sugar, given them to suck as candy.

I made a joke at the time that they sucked.

This could be a comic moment. I mean, it wasn’t exactly a page of glorious history in warfare to be pelted with candy by children. However, this is near the same spot where a mob of North Korean (grown up) soldiers attacked a party of Americans and chopped two officers to pieces, an ugly incident that has been labeled the “Panmunjom axe murder.”

What is important is that this boy is now about 45 years old and still believes the lies he was told and still hates America. He has no doubt taught that hatred to his own children. I’m not going to maintain America is blameless in the world or not guilty of wrongdoing. We’ve made our mistakes.

But this kid is brainwashed in a closed hermit society in which freedom is impossible, a regimented police state where the cult of the infallible leader (Kim Jong Il) is pervasive. Perhaps no other children anywhere in the world would react the way this boy is without plenty of indoctrination. Hatred is something that has to be nurtured and cultured like growing a plant in a pot.

If it takes root and grows, it will spread.

In our dealings with North Korea, we have to remember we’re dealing with an extremist state and a brutal dictatorship. It’s very difficult to reason with such people. To them, the world is whatever they say it is, and truth is however it can be bent.

To them, up is down, square is round, and black is white.

The Korean Peninsula is still the most dangerous place in the world, more dangerous than the Middle East because two huge armies face each other in an unresolved situation in which a spark or a miscalculation can set off a conflagration.

As you look into the face of this boy remember. They remain our committed enemy, and attempting to reason with them should take this into account.

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   Columnist – John Sammon
One of the paradoxes of the last fifty years is that members of the Republican Party, the ultra right of which champions both morality and patriotism, almost never serve in the military. John McCain is a rare exception. Since criticizing others for lacking patriotism is a center pillar activity of the far right, why do the American people not fault the party for its almost total no-show in the military service?

Isn’t backing war when you yourself won’t serve in one, isn’t that a form of hypocrisy?

Democrats in Congress have out-served Republicans in the military almost two to one. Even little Teddy Kennedy with all his millions served in the Navy.

Rush Limbaugh and Romney and Newt and all the rest of them never served. Since patriotism is so important to them, why do they never serve? In fairness to Palin, she did hint that she had some front line experience because she lived in Alaska which is near Russia.

Here are 10 reasons why so few Republicans show up at the military induction center.

1.   World War Two was the last white war. A war fought with a large white participation. Korea saw a growth in minority participation, but by the time of Vietnam, class distinctions had grown, and war was mainly fought by a collection of white trash southern hillbillies, whites on the run from the law in the States, and blacks and Mexicans. War became a half-way house for those perceived as losers, while increasing numbers of whites decided to spend their time going to college on student deferments and amassing cash in lucrative careers.

2.   Many white right-wingers, while they won’t admit it, don’t like blacks because they consider them to be lowly niggers. They don’t want to eat next to one in the mess hall, and certainly not sleep under one in a bunk bed.

3.   Most right wing successful politicians and pundits got where they are because they focused on the prize, advancing themselves. There are some Democrats like this, Slick Willy Clinton for example. It takes a lot of work to achieve a position in Congress or on a network radio hookup. They correctly saw the service as a counterproductive waste of time, as well as a sucker game. However, they like others to fight wars.

4.   John Wayne is their hero. He was a slacker from World War Two. His own former wife said he became an ultra conservative, advising young men to go to war in Vietnam, because he felt shame that he missed WW2. While old Clark Gable flew combat missions over Germany and liberal Henry Fonda sat on a ship in the Pacific, Duke lived the sweet life in Hollywood. Congress gave him a medal for it.

5.   Many white, ultra conservatives are pudgy short men with medical problems which preclude them from fighting. They like to talk about it more than do it.

6.   George Will, the intelligent, urbane columnist of the right wing, when asked why he didn’t serve, answered vaguely that the draft hadn’t started when he was pursuing a Master’s Degree in the early 1960s. In other words, I won’t go in unless I’m forced to. In fairness to George, he does look like he might be raped by other recruits in Basic Training.

7.   Bland mess hall food doesn’t appeal to conservatives, many of whom are overweight (see number 5 above).

8.   Conservatives have a secret agenda that they don’t believe enough in the wars they support to take part themselves. And they don’t want their children to either. This was neatly summed up to me in person one time years ago when a conservative said to me, “I’m not laying my life down for a bunch of gooks.”

9.   Conservatives, especially lately, are too busy pursuing extramarital affairs to bother with service to their country.

10.   Conservatives are hypocrites (all of the above).

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The US military were once proud men who fought with the Founding Father’s courage, determination and goals. The individual soldier still tries his or her best to do so today, but now the military-industrial complex (US Chamber of Commerce a/k/a Corporate America) has taken over and senior officers, like the members of Congress, are now just an extension of the long arm of lobbyists.

Since the Korean War, the American military has been used as corporate rent-a-cops. The consequence of this is showing up in the won/loss column, and it can be seen on many of our soldiers’ faces and heard in their voices. They’re like zombies, disinterested without liability or high merit. If ordered, or left to believe that torturing people is acceptable, they will do it calmly as if they had done nothing at all (Abu-Ghraib). After their military tours are over, there is a hopeless lack of resourcefulness in them which makes them some of the least determined people I’ve ever met. The Veteran Affairs hospitals and homeless shelters are overflowing with these once proud Americans.

When I arrived in Vietnam in 1968, the very last things on earth that a person needed in order to think clearly and calmly were in abundance. Cases of candy, soft drinks, and cigarettes were stacked from floor to ceiling. Then there were the bags of unmentionable stuff without labels. All of these things, void of one iota of concern, were provided free of charge by the corporate butt boys in our nation’s capital. We were delivered into the hands of our enemies for them to do as they pleased with us; and should we survive, we would return home to fight yet another war, a war of hostility, bureaucracy and self-loathing.

Watching the Iraq War and the soldiers returning is nothing but a rerun of the Vietnam War for me. To believe the Arabs in the Middle East are our friends is to believe Feisal adored Jemal. Every Arab in Iraq who is not trying to kill Americans is being paid by the Pentagon and the CIA not to kill them. It’s not the surge of soldiers; it’s the surge of U.S. dollars that has reduced American casualties. Every American in the Middle East has a price on his or her head. Stop paying the price, and off will come the heads.

"This is a government of the people, by the people and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations." -Rutherford B. Hayes

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