Author Colby Buzzell Being Sent Back to Iraq

Colby Buzzell, author of My War: Killing Time in Iraq one of the best Iraq memoirs out there--has been called up from the IRR and will be returning to Iraq. For reasons that I've specified in the past, this is utter horseshit. Our country is in sad shape when cowards like Matthew Continetti and Jason Mattera are allowed to refuse to serve--instead choosing to cheer from the bench--while people like Colby Buzzell are forced to go involuntarily again and again.

This is nothing less than a backdoor draft. And it's wrong. We need to either have a draft or not have a draft. But one way or the other, these IRR mobilizations need to stop.

Here's part of Buzzell's take on his own situation (though you should go read the whole thing in the San Francisco Chronicle:

SNIP

Vietnam, Iraq and Cognitive Dissonance

by James Craven
Thu Aug 23, 2007

"Chutzpah" used to be defined as "Killing one's parents and then pleading mercy of the court on the grounds that one is now an orphan." The new definition of "Chutzpah" is Chickenhawk and Deserter-During-Wartime Bush and Chickenhawk Cheney speaking to a VFW audience--and, speaking on the need for "Staying the Course" in Iraq as "WE" should have "stayed the course" in the Vietnam War they both worked so hard to avoid. What is also disgusting is all those patently stupid and backward VFW types (the older they get the bigger "heroes" they used to be) actually sitting and listening to the lies and rationalizations of failure of both of them and even applauding.

The Chickenhawk: A Sub-Protozoan Life Form

by James Craven/Omahkohkiaayo i'poyi

It is so amazing how nothing more than a macho-full-of-onseself swagger, wearing some faux military gear, a few Tom-Clancy-ish technobabble words and sense of absolutely certainty, can be passed-off as "national security" credentials and expertise among many of the American electorate. As Marx (Groucho) said: "The two keys to success are honesty and sincerity; and if you can fake those, the sky's the limit."