Small-town families did not expect war on terror to hit them so hard

[CShine]

Paul Johnson's son had made the simplest, most heartfelt of pleas for his father's freedom. "I just want to ask the President of the United States and the Saudi officials to please make this happen," he said in a television interview 24 hours before the kidnappers' ultimatum on his life ran out. "Father's Day is right here. Please bring my father home for Father's Day."

It was not to be. Yesterday, as news of Mr Johnson's beheading was flashed across television screens and the internet, Paul Johnson III, Mr Johnson's sister Donna Mayeux and other family members were in seclusion in the small New Jersey town of Eagleswood, about an hour's drive up the shore from Atlantic City. An American flag hung off the porch, which was also adorned with a yellow ribbon.

The ripples of George Bush's war on terror have now come to small town America. As the President reels from the political fallout, American families across the country are counting the cost of the Iraq war as soldiers return home in body bags. But the families of expatriate workers never expected to be hit so hard.

Mr Johnson had scarcely set foot in his home town since moving to Saudi Arabia as an engineer for the military contractor Lockheed Martin a decade ago. That, however, did not stop his home town from pouring its heart out to him and his loved ones. Eagleswood organised prayers, church services and a candlelit vigil on Thursday night, as did his son's home town in Port St John, Florida.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=533088

[Kinkistyle]

1. Funny how small-town America supported Bush

while Big-Town Americans were scorned and called "anti-American", "bleeding heart libruls", "appeasers", "elitists", and of course "traitors". Karma's a bitch ain't it? So whatcha gonna do in November, small-town America?

[neuvocat]

2. I'm sure they feel safer with Bush in the White House.

Yes, even though nothing like this was even conceivable during Clinton's term as President.

</sarcasm>

[Media_Lies_Daily]

3. No sense in rubbing their noses in it...they hurt bad enough already.

[Kinkistyle]

4. I sure hope so.

I sure hope that the pain threshold has been reached. America (small and big-town) need to wake up, and dear god, if 4 beheadings and 800 dead sons and daughters won't grab the attention of the 65 million people who base their lives around "American Idol" - I don't know what will.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

13. Based on your posting style exhibited to date, I don't believe you're....

...someone with whom I wish to converse.

Good-bye, so long, and good luck.

[ClassWarrior]

7. Nobody wants to rub the Johnsons' noses in it.

My heart goes out to anyone who's lost a loved one in this mistake of a conflict. But how could people who were cheerleading for the invasion have NOT SEEN THIS COMING??!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

14. Because they don't have access to the same amount of information...

...that we do. Very few "small town Americans" are plugged into the Internet...the information they get is limited to what they're being told by the mainstream media.

[havocmom]

10. yes, they are coming around, don't beat on them

During our recent primary, in a county where bush* took 80% in 2000, he did not take all. I helped count republican votes, and there were lots of "no preference" marked and lots of ballots with the office of President left blank rather than marked by the one name on the ballot. There was even a write in for John Kerry!

Gotta love paper ballots and small town voting. We can do a recount in no time if we need to

Oh, and our primary was held the week after we buried a local lad who was killed in Iraq. No, do not beat up on small town America. They are getting the picture.

Even though most here are self employed, they are enraged about the outsourcing. They are coming around to the relization that the corporationists are the big problem.

[Skittles]

18. F*** THEM

small-town America enabled this incompetent bastard to become "president". THEY HAVE BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS. And a LOT OF THEM will be VOTING FOR BUSH AGAIN.

[dArKeR]

5. Being an X Lockheed employee it makes me feel worse than normal

than hearing all of the other deaths. Maybe because it could have been me on assignment there?

Somehow the world has to start getting along and I'm sure that's impossible under republican leadership. I love to travel and work in other countries as I'm sure Paul did. In one of his pics published by CBS, it looks at though his wife is Filipino, Thai or Indonesian as Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest markets for 'brown' slave labor. I have read nothing about his wife and I'm just guessing he met her while he was on assignment. Somehow I also attrack to these wonderful girls when I'm overseas too. I can exactly see Paul's life as my own.

But you have to think how to stop this from happening in the future.

Something I heard on many TV reports and read online sights, 'If the Americans leave Saudi Arabia the entire oil industry will collapse.' I never heard any details on this. Never heard and editorial on this. Never heard a rebuttal from Saudi Arabia.

I wish someone of moral integrity could address this. Does it mean the Saudi citizens are too stupid and incompetent to run a business? Or does it mean the businesses and profits of American companies in Saudi Arabia will 'collapse'.

Are there actually people in America who think Saudi Arabi citizens are too stupid to run there own oil businesses?

For these questions not being aired on American media is a cause for Paul's death and future killings of workers who will be hired to take his place.

[ClassWarrior]

6. "Noooo... Wait..."

"This war is supposed to be entertaining. Like some big reality TV show. Fear Factory Iraqi-Style. It's not supposed to hurt US..."

[FlemingsGhost]

8. Can't say they weren't warned ...

Maybe if they stoppped to listen to those who organised to stop the war, they wouldn't be organising to mourn their dead.

[nodehopper]

12. Now is the time to organize

They couldn't have helped us stop the war. Millions marched, wrote, did direct action, it made no difference. The crazy neocons don't care about their incumbents, they don't care if people are unhappy--they can always declare code Red.
But they can help us now.

[SoCalDem]

9. Middle eastern terrorists do not "celebrate" father's day..

The "Rockwell-esque America" does not 'sell well' in other parts of the world.. Backyard barbeques, tire swings, redwood picnic tables, Mom's apple pie...all of these are meaningless, and people who "chase the dollar" overseas in "contractor" jobs MUST KNOW THIS..

The fact that there are few jobs here anymore that allow a blue collar guy to make decent money, is the REAL cause for all of this "drama"..

I am sorry that Mr. Johnson was killed, but anyone who ventures into the middle east or south asia should have known that things are "different" now..

This whoe scenario is very reminiscent of the "settlers" moving into "Indian country" back in the 1800s.. The settlers were determined to bring "civilization" out west, and the "Indians" were not that eager to be invaded, so they they often fought back..

The people in the middle east see outsiders who do not know their language or customs coming there and being paid HUGE sums of money, to do what they feel should be THEIR jobs.. Does THAT ring a bell, folks?? The same people who scream bloody murder about outsourcing and immigrants HERE, see nothing wrong with sending americans to foreign countries to be "contractors".. WE are THEIR outsourced labor..

Most of their men have no jobs, yet they see "rich" americans, in plush "compunds", living it up.. That's part of the anger..

[bushwakker]

11. There are consequences to elections people

get your heads out of your asses.

[Hekate]

15. The Johnson family has behaved with dignity throughout, imo

My god, some DUers can be mean.
The Johnsons have not called for revenge, though their tragedy will be used by others. The Johnson family, through a spokesman, instead said how much Paul J. loved Saudi Arabia, the Arabian people, and their culture, and how his murder was the work of a few...

The reasons most people go overseas to work are many, and are not evil: to make good money tax-free, to experience people and cultures that are different, and to maybe have an adventure or two. Think about it.

Regarding the money: DUers of all people should know that in these economically stressed times overseas contractors can have their pick of skilled workers who may be facing the worst back home.

Even in good times, the money the Saudis can offer is mighty tempting, let me tell you. About 15 years ago my husband answered an ad in the LA Times for computer programmers to be involved in building a new hospital for the Saudi royals. The salary was amazing. I kept saying "no way" but he pursued it through the interview process, where to my relief he was informed by the American interviewer that (ahem) although it's illegal to actually *say* this in the US, in reality the Saudis would not hire a person who had been to Israel and was also Jewish.

As to small-town America: How do you think we will dump Bush without them? By alienating them and pouring salt on their wounds? It's no crime to want to believe your president when you already like the man and think he's got a good character.It's got to be a damn hard process to give up on a man you believed in, even absent a personal loss.

Hekate

[daleo]

16. He may have loved Saudi Arabia, etc.

But working on target acquisition software for Apache helicopters is bound to make you some enemies. There seems to something approaching a civil war coming in Saudi Arabia, and any foreigners there are not likely to be appreciated by someone, especially any that are closely associated with the military industrial complex.

For example, someone working for Franco's military in 1930's Spain could have loved Spanish culture, but he would have been a target for the other side none the less.

I feel sorry for him and his family, but it is naive to think you can work for a corporation closely tied to a foreign military in an unstable country, from inside that country, and not draw somebody's ire.

[Sugarbleus]

17. I like your post Hekate....

Some people are so ideologically narrow that they don't see the whole picture.

Some people are simply uninformed. Some are too young to really thoroughly understand what goes on around the world. People have worked in other countries since before we were born! Many, MANY times it is at the request--a job offer FROM the country in question.

There are teachers and dam builders and road workers and doctors and many many types of jobs that all nationalities go and take in foreign lands. Part of it is the excitement and of living in an exotic place, part is the money, part is altruistic. Hell, as a child, I dreamed of being a world traveler. I wanted to see the world and learn from other cultures. I thought it would be enriching AND exciting. At one point I remember thinking about working on a freighter so I could go all over the world as I worked.
As for this guy working on helicopters; how does anyone know for whom they were built? Maybe the Saudis were buying them. Geeez

I have no love for SA. Their own people are pretty disgusted by the greed and lack of work. But that's not Mr. Johnson's fault..it's the damned Royal Family's fault!!! This man was there for TEN YEARS..long before this Iraqi mess came up. There are people who have been living in foreign lands(and Saudi Arabia) much, much longer than that even. We've got foreigners coming here at our invitation to design and build things (japanese ring a bell?)

If people continue to connect a person's livlihood, in terms of it's possible connection to our government and/or military, with the Iraq war and terrorism et al, then the logic would follow that the people working at the murra federal building (OKC) deserved to die also...the twin towers represented the global economy and "western values" and officed military/cia components--did it deserve to come down? Geez, where does the madness stop in all this?

Try to make a distinction between MURDER (whether by us or by others) and a resistance movement.
Think with your head and your heart and the facts....don't think with "the pack".