Ms. Baez calls the snub “strange irony”—which leads me to conclude that she defines “strange irony” differently than most of us. Say, as “completely predictable.” From the Washington Post:
Folk singer and anti-war activist Joan Baez says she doesn’t know why she was not allowed to perform for recovering soldiers recently at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as she planned.
In a letter to The Washington Post published Wednesday, she said rocker John Mellencamp had asked her to perform with him last Friday and that she accepted his invitation.
“I have always been an advocate for nonviolence and I have stood as firmly against the Iraq war as I did the Vietnam War 40 years ago,” she wrote. “I realize now that I might have contributed to a better welcome home for those soldiers fresh from Vietnam. Maybe that’s why I didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation to sing for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. In the end, four days before the concert, I was not ‘approved’ by the Army to take part. Strange irony.”
Mellencamp, too, is anti-war. But evidently the soldiers are willing to put up with his rural Indiana populism in exchange for a live version of “Jack and Diane.” And maybe a few hottie backup singers.
Whereas a 66-year old preening pacifist doing an acoustic “Joe Hill” doesn’t have quite the same trade-off value.
Somewhere, the ghosts of several million Cambodians enjoy a good belly laugh.
****
update: Hot Air has more. Seems Dan Rather ain’t particularly welcome, either.
Boo-fucken-yah!
Maybe she can go sing for Murtha and Murtha the Younger…
She thinks those ghosts should just get over it.
I like to think they had the courtesy to ask the soldiers whether they wanted to listen to this silly, hypocritical old bat.
TW thinking55 Wrong, 66 if she’s a day.
Johnny “Cougar” Mellencamp AND Joan Baez? My God, haven’t they suffered enough??!!!
Baez was reportedly particularly upset because the bedridden wounded soldiers made up the only audience she could be SURE wouldn’t get up and leave…
Evidently Baez thinks that she has a God-given right to inflict her irrelevance on others in order to atone for her (possibly, according to her) prior loutish behavior.
This is blantant censorship. Nice “free speech you guys got going. But I bet if she went in there and promise to sing a PRO war song like Born in The USA or wahtever then they’d be all over it.
Personally if your a Troop your life could only be enlightened by hearing the lilting melody of Love Strong To A STranger. Not that you dhinger’s could appreciate that.
Got to be a parody. Just has to be.
“Born in the USA” is an anti-war song. You’d know that if you actually listened to the lyrics, and uh, you know, read anything Bruce Springsteen has said about it. Thanks for the insight, though.
Joan Baez singing her version of “The Night They Drove Dixie Down” would incite the troops to riot, even if she was 40 years younger and performed buck naked.
TW: She’s inside76. Barely.
I’m curious as to why people think that the Cambodian genocide was proximately caused by the US withdrawal from Vietnam. It was the Vietnamese who deposed the Khmer Rouge, while the US supported them with diplomatic and food aid.
How many of those young guys in the hospital have even heard of Joan Baez? What’s the appeal? At least Mellancamp will rock. Baez only has a beautiful voice, which may not really appeal to your average soldier.
Personally, I would rather listen to Baez in spite of her horrid politics. But I wouldn’t try to sell that to today’s soldiers. Really, did you ever hear a Baez song in Apocalypse Now or Jarhead or any other recent war movie? Come on, guys, sometimes it really is a consumer issue.
Thought about that too, AFKAF. But at this point, who knows? Couldn’t do any worse than Andrew Sullivan did yesterday…
TW: possible92? Anything is.
Yeah? Then why did Mellencamp sandbag Walter Reed with Joan Baez and Dan Rather at very nearly the last minute?
A consumer issue? Puh-leeze!
What, were Country Joe MacDonald and the Fish booked already?
Hey, Liberal Larry’s here! Finally, someone bseides me and alphie reelizes that the Irak War is Wrong!
Rumor has it Mellencamp is one of the biggest, demanding, arrogant pricks on tour and he’s really short.
A trawl through iraqwarwrong gives the impression that bits of it are amusing satire, other bits try but fail and still other bits seem an attempt to be serious. So it’s hard to tell. On the other hand, anything that amuses has a place in life, however humble, viz Ted Kennedy and
has a certain sandpit charm.
Iraq War is Wrong is a parody site. And a good one.
Moops —
That question has been asked and answered here on several occasions, in great depth, by various commenters. The last time it was either timmyb or alphie who raised the question.
I can’t recall the post, but you might do a search for “cambodians” and look through the threads. If you aren’t satisfied with the answers given, then you can raise the objections here.
Or perhaps somebody else will have the patience enough to rehash those particular exchanges.
Maybe one day she’ll feel about the Kurds the way she once felt about the boat people.
topsecret: I have seen him a number of times in concert (my ex was a huge fan) and I loathe his music. He IS a tiny little man.
Moops: It is accepted by many people here at PW that the Cambodian genocide was the “left’s” fault.
Jeff said recently (on 4/16) said Walter Cronkite was responsible indirectly for it and now Joan Baez. I’m sure he has a reason and, if he doesn’t, then other posters will respond.
Let me also say that your reading of history is right. The most we did to encourage any part of the Khmer Rouge was to destabilize Cambodia’s institutions with bombs in 1971. It’s almost like blaming us for the rise of the Hutus in Rwanda or the jajaweed in the Sudan.
Creating such a mental image has to be some sort of crime!
Sorry my post was late. The date was 4/16 and it neither satisfied me or Jeff. People believe what they want.
On a different note: Mellencamp does suck
Meawhile, a stunning entry in the Understatement of the Year contest was filed by a guitar toting harpy named Joan Baez. Here’s that worthy contender for top honors:
.
Wow.
Now that’s just harsh, timmy! Then again, maybe you’re right. After he dropped the “Cougar”, he got crappier and crappier.
What Cambodian genocide? Noam Chomsky said it never happened! If you can’t believe Noam “Silent Genocide in Afghanistan” who can you believe?
I like lots of his stuff, so my history of disagreement with timmyb remains consistent.
As long as we don’t talk about libations, that is.
If it’s not clear already, no one here will be able to convince you.
Well, since the US is often castigated for failing to help others in time of peril, then yeah, according to such sources we are partly to blame. Especially when we choose to ignore reports from that area AND refuse to suppoort peacekeepers who were already there (Rwanda) or when we (as part of the UN)sit idly debating whether or not genocide is really what’s happening whilst carnage ensues (Darfur). Let’s not forget China extending it’s oil claims in the Sudan. No wait, wars for oil are only waged by the eeeeeeeeveil US.
Blue Hen, on the subject of Rwanda and Darfur, I was addressing causation. I agree with you, though, that our active disinterest in helping the Tutsis in ‘94 was disgusting and our current feckless disinterest in the Sudan is only slightly less so. What I mean by that is that this President is eager to see the Darfur stop without too much of our help, while the Clintons were actively involved in stopping ANY help in 1994.
Dangedest thing, I like a lot of Mellenhead’s music but when he stops singing and starts preaching I can’t help hearing Natalie Maines’ voice.
So I guess you have no issue with us keeping another genocide from happening in Iraq?
Or is it a matter of, once more, that what is done is insignificant, and what is not done is paramount?
As was I. By stopping the peacekeepers from acting, by lying about what was starting to happen, they provided some of the necessary and sufficient factors for this to occur. Every time we choose to either engage or not engage, whether it be militarily, economically, diplomatically or any comibination of the above, we set the stage for SOMETHING to occur or not occur. Determining causation in events past is the work of historians and Political Scientists. Trying to determine how others are reading current events and predicting the implications for the future belongs to policy makers.
That’s what they get payed for. Announcing that we don’t give a tinker’s damn what happens to people we had supported for over 25 years (S Vietnamese) might be taken by some (Pol Pot)as being a subtle hint that we don’t give a tinker’s damn.
Further example: How many times did Saddam attack the Kurds? When did it stop.? What changed between?
’paid’.
Sorry about that.
Except we are there, Rob, and we will continue to be there or near there under any serious Dem plan. Redeployment is not withdrawal from the Middle East.
Seriously, I know these political arguments are easy to participate when one side is good and one side is evil, but Democrats are not evil. One of the reasons most Democrats were and are against the war is the loss of life. You think, since I opposed the war for precisely that reason, that I am unconcerned? Check that, we know what cartoons the other side is.
Genocide in Iraq is not possible. The Hutus slaughtered the unarmed, no militia having Tutsis until the armed Tutsis arrived and chased them away. The residents of Darfur have no way to defend themselves from helicopters and the janjaweed.
The Shia, the Sunni, and the Kurds are equally armed. There would be a continuation of the civil war, but there would be no genocide.
Frankly, I find the concern for the Sunnis to be touching. US combat operations are directed almost solely at the Sunnis. And, Sunni insurgents are the ones killing our soldiers. Yet, it is argued that the US should be the ones killing them and being killed by them. But, it would be a disaster if the Shiah should fight the Sunnis. All I’m saying is that seems strange to me.
I did not blame Walter Cronkite for the Cambodian slaughter. As I made clear at the time.
It’s one thing for the MSM to willfully ignore when the record has been set straight, but I’m not going to allow revisionist history be carried out on this site.
Incidentally, your concern for loss of life is touching, timmyb.
If it seems like the US is fighting the Sunnis, that’s because the insurgency is coming from Sunnis. With al Qaeda terrorists along to help out and hopefully stoke sectarian violence.
The Sunnis are worried that the US is fighting for the Shia. When what they are really doing are trying to stamp out the insurgency to bring the sects together politically.
So it doesn’t help when Americans add to the confusion and misinformation—which is what the Sunnis are already getting from insurgent leaders and those who wish to see democracy in Iraq fail.
Concerning Baez, anyone who thinks they channel a 13-14 year old black girl in Georgia – and actually did it while ‘in concert’ – is simply not to be trusted anywhere.
h/t Anecdotal report I read from a guy who took his aging hippy parents to one of Joan’s more recent concerts.
I am interested in where you come to that conclusion. Could you lay that out a bit more, please?
Let’s discuss Mr. Mellencamp’s blazin’ wife. Personally, I’d dip her undies in a pot of hot water and make a delicious soup out of it.
Johnmellon Cougarcamp? You mean…
This is Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr Countreeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
I’m a reader of ESPN’s The Sports Guy, and I disapproved this message.
Is timmyb a parody of iraqwarwrong?
So what is your definition of genocide?
TW: I have an idea32 that it’s a little off.
Hey, who moved Okinawa?
Joan Baez? She is still alive?
Is Jane Fonda on the invite list?
Counterpart blog to Iraqwarwrong blog: d
timb, Moops,
In re: Cambodia
From wikipedia, so caveat emptor, and all that.
Major John,
From everything I have heard the most professional armed force in Iraq is the Peshmerga (after the US troops). My brother-in-law told me that was a common joke in Basrah, where he was a liaison with the Brits. He may have just been annoyed with a year of eating English food (which he described as “terrible.” Sorry, furriskey, no offense meant) and he certainly met very few Kurds, but I think that jibes with what I’ve read. I think that means they can protect themselves (not only that, but every withdrawal plan I have read involves stationing US troops in Kurdistan to protect them and keep the Turks out).
The Shia are the majority and seem to control the Interior Ministry, its exciting and democratic death squads, and the Army.
The Sunnis, and I know you know this, have sort of been fighting us for the last 5 years and their militias seems to be decent at protecting their homes.
Seems like close to a balance of power to me and I may channel a little Bismarck, that works for me.
As I’ve noted at my regular gig, Baez says she wanted so sing at Walter reed because she she “might have contributed to a better welcome home for those soldiers fresh from Vietnam.” But what Baez does is align herself with Code Pink, which paraded coffins around Walter Reed. If Baez really want to show how sincere she is, she might try publicly urging her fellow travelers to shape up.
The concepts of balance of power and ‘nation building’ as practiced by Bismarck were at the nation state level, not within one country. In Bismarck’s time, the various principalities, duchies and staats were amalgated into what we know as ‘modern’ Germany. I think that Bismarck would slap you upside the head if he heard your claim that partition along ethnic AND sectarian lines was an example of his nation building.
To put the 21st century spin on it, at the nation state level, he was a uniter, not a divider.
You, and your brother in law are correct about the Peshmerga. The Sunni cannot stack up tho’ compared to the various Iraqi government forces, or Shia private ones. Numbers alone would defeat them. Not to mention the material advantages of their enemies.
So the way I would think it; Kurds able to stand watch on their own, Sunnis being hunkered down and outgunned. The reason there has not been genocide is twofold – we won’t allow it, and the majority of Shia don’t want it.
So instead of Bismarck, I’d think the Conte d’ Cavour…
Thanks, BRD. But that attributes the rise of the Khmer Rouge to suspesion of US aid to Cambodia, not withrdawal from Vietnam. Also, from the same source:
And also:
So it appears the line of causation is just a bit more complicated than the “Hippies –> U.S. pullout –> Cambodian genocide” narrative being pushed here.
Food aid!?! The Soviet Union received food aid from us in the 1970’s. That means that we were in favor of the Gulags?
Food aid was just one aspect. Please to read more carefully, good sir. Also, the Soviet Gulag was ended (at least officially) in 1960.
I think the better rhetorical strategy for those seeking to draw parallels between SE Asia and the current Iraq situation is to point out that our support for Brother Number One was due to the realpolitik mindset.
We also provide food aid to Cuba. Are we responsible for Castro’s police state?
We also provide food aid to North Korea. Are we responsible for Kim’s police state?
Or should we stop sending food to despotic governments? Would that provide sufficient insulation from their misdeeds? Or (more likely) would we be blamed for the famines and wars that follow?
In all acts, apparently, the instigator is the US. Non-Americans are incapable of making choices; they are marionettes dancing to our tune.
We provided the Soviets with food and weapons for quite a while in the ‘40s. The gulags were filling up at quite a clip at the time.
BRD, don’t bother to try to explain actual history to timmyb, he’s just regurgitating socialist propaganda from Chomsky.
Wrong. As. usual.
And who the hell sucks on a chili dog? Am I missing something?
Joan Baez is still alive? I thought she and Pete Seeger died years ago. Folk music sucks anyway.
Well…Lieberman’s not.
Oh wait…he got tossed out by the Dems. Nevermind.
And none taken, at least as regards the army food.
I understand the French army eats very well but I wouldn’t extrapolate any other conclusions from that…
Your points about the 3 main ethnic/religious groups are understood, but balance, or a degree of balance, can have the effect of exacerbating rather than forestalling a conflict.
In this case the issue is complicated by the fact that the shia’ will be supported by Iran and the sunni will if things get out of hand be supported by Saudi.
The continuing presence of US & Allied troops on the ground across Iraq is therefore in my view essential if we are to avoid a bloodbath of nauseating proportions.
“From everything I have heard the most professional armed force in Iraq is the Peshmerga (after the US troops). My brother-in-law told me that was a common joke in Basrah, where he was a liaison with the Brits. He may have just been annoyed with a year of eating English food (which he described as “terrible.†Sorry, furriskey, no offense meant) and he certainly met very few Kurds, but I think that jibes with what I’ve read. I think that means they can protect themselves (not only that, but every withdrawal plan I have read involves stationing US troops in Kurdistan to protect them and keep the Turks out).”
Now explain how we are going to keep troops supplied in Kurdistan if we withdraw from Southern Iraq. Through Syria? Through Turkey? Iran?
Since I was the one who previously gave Alphie his Cambodian history lesson, I’ll do it again for the recent one.
The Democratic controlled Congress made it illegal for us to give military aid to the military government that was fighting the Khmer Rouge, who were being supported, as good Communists, by the North Vietnamese Communists.
The anti-war movement had already withdrawn the the United States Army, the only organization strong enough to keep the Khmer Rouge out of power – and then made it illegal to give money to the Cambodian government that was fighting them.
Why?
Because as Anthony Lewis, literary notable wrote: “What future possibility could be more terrible than the reality of what is happening to Cambodia now?”
You see, they were forward thinkers then, as they are forward thinkers now.
When Pol Pot first went to work, “serious thinkers” like Noam Chompsky denied what was happening. Then when they couldn’t deny it, they blamed Nixon. The one man who had done the most to prevent it.
As for the mentioned [regrettable] support to the Khmer Rouge; it came in the late 1970s when we were working with the PRC against the North Vietnamese, who had invaded Cambodia subsequently, and were dependable Soviet allies.
Who knew Abie Hoffman was so powerful?
There’s no evidence, of course, that the US army would have done any such thing had it remained. Also, this conveniently whitewashes the fact that US bombing radicalized the population and created the chaotic conditions that made it possible for the Khmer Rouge to gain strength.
You’ll have to try a bit harder to establish the causal link between Joan Baez and the killing fields.
And there was no actual proof in 1950 that Dean Acheson excluding Korea from the declared sphere of American vital interests wouldn’t be ignored by the US, which sent troops to Korea. And so the N. Koreans did attack, and we did intervene. In that case, we did the opposite of what we ourselves declared that we would do.
The point in Cambodia is that the one entity that might have intervened in that area was decidly doing the exact opposite. And that’s when they attacked. In this case, we declared that we were interested in polls and Congressional races, not human rights. And here, our word was good. Except for those promises made to the S. Vietnamese, but they quieted down once the T-55s ran over them.
1.Do ya think that some of them were “radicalized” by this?
</blockquote>conveniently whitewashes the fact that US bombing radicalized the population and created the chaotic conditions <blockquote>
As for this leap of faith, you think that the presence of absence of countervaling force is not relevant, but you can prove that US bombing did in fact radicalize the population? I noticed that you pluralized the word conditions. Your assertion is that multiple conditions were caused by one source. Nice. And Convenient.
He’s what we call an apologist for mass murderers.
Or, as was so adaquately described, the ‘blame America first’ crowd.
Faith-based history.
If you obfuscate enough, it can be made to look like we’re to blame for the actions of psychotic murderers who we were fighting against. Even more crucial in this case because you can draw such a clear line between the goals of the anti-war movement and the consquences.
There’ll be another teachable moment coming soon, I suspect.
They aren’t “anti-war”, just anti-any conceivable cause the US will fight for. As such, they’re rhetoric is hostage to what the other side does, because obviously, they have no control over them.
The war doesn’t end, it just doesn’t involve us, with all that that implies.