{"id":396,"date":"2017-02-03T00:03:04","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T00:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hippy.com\/hip\/uncategorized\/napalm-not-your-ordinary-jelly\/"},"modified":"2017-02-03T00:03:04","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T00:03:04","slug":"napalm-not-your-ordinary-jelly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/guest-columns\/napalm-not-your-ordinary-jelly\/","title":{"rendered":"Napalm: Not Your Ordinary Jelly"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tby Harrell Graham<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 60\u2019s burned certain images into our consciousness. One of them is what napalm does to human
\nskin.
\nNapalm:<\/strong>
\nI bet the current generation doesn\u2019t even know what this stuff is:
\ngasoline mixed with petroleum jelly so that when it is dropped on
\nyou, burning, it sticks, all gooey-like\u2014burning, with no way to
\nwipe the jelly fire off causing exquisite pain. If we had been
\ndropping it on Nazis in a real war that would have been okay with me.
\nBut we were dropping it on civilians in their grass hut villages.<\/p>\n

What
\nis it, exactly, about<\/p>\n

fire bombing civilians <\/strong><\/p>\n

that
\nthe American military is so infatuated with?
\nThe US Napalmed Vietnamese Children<\/p>\n

It
\nwas an actual war strategy of the Second World War, too: outfit the
\nlatest flying fortresses with incendiary bombs and drop them on
\ndozens of cities\u2014yes, setting entire cities on fire–in both
\nGermany and Japan, killing primarily–or only–civilians. These
\nweren\u2019t \u2018mistakes\u2019, or \u2018accidents\u2019 but carefully planned
\nattacks on men, women and children who were not, by any stretch of
\nthe imagination, soldiers.<\/p>\n

If
\nyou require more understanding of these sorry episodes in American
\nhistory then I suggest you rent the movie, \u201cThe
\nFog of War<\/strong>\u201d
\nin which Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara lays bare these
\nsickening acts of cowardice disguised as \u2018battle\u2019. McNamara
\ncries in front of the camera as he remembers what he was a part of<\/u>.<\/p>\n

Maybe
\nthere <\/strong>is<\/strong><\/em>
\nstill hope for humanity <\/strong><\/p>\n

if
\na proponent of burning civilians can realize the mistakes he\u2019s
\nmade.<\/p>\n

I
\ncouldn\u2019t understand why some were so angry with those of us in the
\n60\u2019s and 70\u2019s who just simply didn\u2019t want to pour gasoline
\njelly on rice farmers and their families. They called us cowards
\nfor refusing to fight in Vietnam but, truly, it was they who were
\ncowards for not having the courage to stand up and say \u201cNo\u201d to a
\nbullshit war. Secretary of Defense McNamarra all but admits this as
\nhis singular failure as an American: his inability to say \u201cNo\u201d
\nwhen it really mattered<\/u>.<\/p>\n

There
\nare rules for war that are agreed to in international law. Number one
\namong them is: no deliberate targeting of civilians. If the United
\nStates of America continues to deliberately target civilians then it,
\ntoo, will go the way of other great powers who have faded into
\nhistory because they turned against humanity by not adhering to the
\nrules of war. (Read the excellent book, \u201cThe
\nLessons of Terror\u201d,<\/strong><\/u>
\nfor a greater historical understanding of how using terror to fight
\nterror is ultimately self-defeating.)<\/p>\n

Few
\nthings would give me greater pleasure than to find a Hitler in my
\ncrosshairs while I squeezed the trigger. In that case, happiness
\nwould truly be a warm gun, as John Lennon said. But murdering
\ncivilians should not be on the agenda of anyone claiming to represent
\nwhat is good about the United States of America.<\/p>\n

So
\nI\u2019m waiting for the day when another kind of Vietnam memorial is
\nerected, one that pays homage to the hundreds of thousands of
\nAmerican citizens who rallied to stop the war in Vietnam, to bring
\nthe troops home, to end that terrible, wasteful, murderous chapter in
\nAmerican history. How many lives did the Vietnam protesters save by
\nshortening the war? Yes, erect a wall to them<\/em>
\nso that we may go there rejoicing in the power of the human spirit to
\ndefy a war machine run amock.<\/p>\n

And
\nyet even another
\nmemorial<\/strong>
\nwould be in order: not just for the antiwar protesters but also one
\nfor the<\/p>\n

millions
\nof Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian civilians killed in the war<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As
\nif the only casualties or heroes deserving a memorial were the
\nAmerican kids sent by their blood-thirsty parents and elected
\nofficials to die in the muck of Vietnam.<\/p>\n

Posted by: Harrell Graham
\nViews: 8907
\nTopic:1\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Harrell Graham The 60\u2019s burned certain images into our consciousness. One of them is what napalm does to human skin. Napalm: I bet the current generation doesn\u2019t even know what this stuff is: gasoline mixed with petroleum jelly so that when it is dropped on you, burning, it sticks, all gooey-like\u2014burning, with no way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hipplanet.com\/hip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}