Not so Secret
He ended by saying, "Right now there is a chance to win this goddamn war, and that's probably what we are going to have to do because we are not going to do anything at the conference table."
Mr. Kissinger immediately relayed the order: "A massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. Anything that flies on anything that moves."
that's from the New York Times. it's Nixon talking to Kissinger off these newly released archive tapes. about the so-called "secret war."
and it sort of makes my brain boil, because i've been to cambodia. and i've been to laos. and i've seen what constituted "anything that moves." i suppose if you're as slow as Nixon, a stilt hut filled with farmers could appear to move. or maybe if you're in a B-52 everything is so far far away and so teeny-weeny a pig could look like ho chi minh.
good thing we've chosen better leaders this time around! i love me a war-time president with a clear sense of the relative value of human life, environmental stability, and their public image.
there's also some juicy stuff about when the photos of the My Lai Massacre surfaced. must have been the same bad apples we've got around now, huh? i bet dick clark shares his youthful secrets with them, which explains why they don't look so old in these new photos.
yep! war's good for you and me. unless you're some kind of bad apple! we should declare war on the bad apples! yeah! let's get 'em! the axis of bad apples! they must be.... terrorists!
on topic, but funnier; i highly recommend watching the 1943 film The Miracle of Morgan's Creek by Preston Sturges. we watched it as part of cinema jejune tuesday night and it was one of the most perfect jejune films we've ever screened. totally hysterical and mindboggling. it's about a happy go-lucky girl who sneaks off to the dance to say goodbye to the soldiers and wakes up the next morning to find herself married and pregnant, but she don't know to/by whom. she thinks, *thinks* mind you, his name had a "z" in it. after some thought she decides his name might have been ignatz ratzkywatzky. or something.
hillarity ensues. as well as, i'm certain, a shovelful of subversive commentary on the war (then wwii) and the power of the press. our combined jejune intelligence couldn't quite decipher what those comments were exactly, but still. good stuff! if you watch it and have any insights, i'd be happy to hear them.
until then, bomb anything that moves. let's start giving them a little shock (and awe).
Love the Sturges.
doh! preston sturges! sorry i missed it. bad ed.