The Year of the Water Dragon and the Beginning of Peace

             
"If it's natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?"

- Joan Baez

This year, starting January 23, 2012, is the Chinese Year of the Dragon.  More specifically, it is the Year of the Water Dragon.  The last year of the "water" Dragon was 1952.  The Water Wragon is said to calm the Dragon's fire.  Of the five different types of Dragons (Metal, Earth, Wood, Fire), water represents family and the courage that flows from the love between family members.

Hopefully this year will be characterized by calming, peaceful forces that begin to recognize the real desires of a free humanity.  Human compassion, largely forgotten since the last Year of the Dragon (Metal), will hopefully make a comeback and begin to heal the Earth and humanity.  War, poverty, and greed have ruled the first decade of the new millennium and mankind is ready for a real change in attitude and action.  Evil, arrogant powers have brainwashed normally peaceful people into a war-mongering mob that cannot seem to see the relationship between foreign people and themselves.  They have been manipulated into a reactionary fear constructed by lies and prejudice.  Listen to the crowd in South Carolina maniacally boo presidential candidate Ron Paul when he suggests that Americans should examine how they might feel were foreign powers to relentlessly bomb and invade their homeland.  Certainly there were a number of pro-war plants in the audience, but there were probably a bunch of regular people who are just boneheaded and cannot accept the fact that the wars they supported were wrong and have helped to hasten America's ruin and plunge the world into chaos.   

             

Eagle Carries Off the Bleeding Earth, designed by Gerald Scarfe;
from Pink Floyd's movie, Pink Floyd The Wall, 1982 


Unceremoniously, the war in Iraq was declared over on December 15, 2011.  Though Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared the U.S. role over, Iraq was far from stable, and nothing was won.  The United States was really forced out by the Iraqi government who refused to extend immunity from prosecution to the occupying soldiers into 2012. A lot of blood and treasure has been lost, though.  Therefore, with nothing really concluded, and no positive feeling to be had by anybody, no parade was scheduled for the soldiers returning home.  

The crusade in the Middle East, started by George W. Bush is not close to being finished.  Bush and those around him purposely designed the conflict poorly, with foggy rules of engagement and no real plan.  The plan was just to harm a lot of people as well as our own and stretch the conflict into perpetuity.  It is clear to most, and should be now especially clear to those who have served that, the wars in the Middle East are aggressions against ALL people in the world, especially those who enjoy a decent standard of living today.  The real issue isn't about Iran pursuing nuclear capability-  The real issue is power; gaining the economic and political muscle over the Iranian people to control their resources and pull the world that much closer to the New World Order slave state envisioned by the global elite.         
              
And so, with zero fanfare or appreciation other than at NFL football games and Miller beer commercials, veterans have come home to an America significantly poorer than when they left full of righteousness.  The disillusionment, the psychological and emotional trauma of war with poor rules of engagement and no clearly defined enemey could be the reason why more American soldiers have committed suicide than have been killed in action in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined for 2010 and 2011.  Recently, those veterans still alive and released from service have acted out violently in civilian life.  Here is a look at some of these sad cases:   

• Iztcoatl Ocampo, U.S. Marine,  was charged in the stabbing killings of 4 homeless men.  Ocampo's father, Refugio Ocampo, said his son came back a changed man after he was deployed to Iraq in 2008. He said his son expressed disillusionment and became ever darker as he struggled to find his way as a civilian.
•  Benjamin Colton Barnes shot 4 people at a party and then drove to Mt. Rainier National Park where he killed a park ranger.  Authorities determined Barnes died in chest-deep snow from the elements.   Private Barnes, 24, had been in trouble for a long time. He’d been discharged from the Army for alcohol issues and had lost a child custody battle. He was also dealing with the suicide of a close friend and fellow Iraq War veteran who killed himself two months earlier. 
• Robert G. Long, 26, was shot by Raytown, MO police after threatening officers with a rifle. 
  "After coming back from Iraq he had felt a bit helpless, given the role he had had in the Air Force,” said Brett Long, an uncle of Robert Long.
• David Frederickson, 29, surrendered to police after a 4-hour standoff with police after a domestic dispute.  During the four hour standoff, Fredrickson called NewsChannel 5 and talked to one of our producers for about 20 minutes. He told her he had served in Iraq and Afghanistan and was not going to give up to police.
• Last September, 4 Oklahoma based soldiers were charged in a violent home invasion in which four people were shot.  The base commander issued a statement Tuesday saying the Army was cooperating with police and calling it an “isolated incident."

"Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come."

-Carl Sandburg