BECK
By Nancy Greggs
To: Glenn Beck
CNN Headline News
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?69Beck:
RE your March 8th airing on CNN Headline News, and your comments about the Democratic Party leaders’ proposed bill calling for bringing the troops home from Iraq by early next year.
You stated that: “The blood of our troops will be on the hands of Congress soon. Here's how I got there.”
I hate to be the one to tell you, Beck, but the blood of our troops has already been accounted for; it’s on the hands of this president, this administration, and those who have supported the slaughter in Iraq from day one. And there, I can assure you, it will remain.
And here’s
how I got there:
This war was predicated on lies, deceit and manipulation from the beginning – and if you obtained your information from a
legitimate news source once in a while (as opposed to the network that employs you), you would have been aware of that for some time now, along with the majority of the country.
Along with realizing they’ve been lied to about the reasons for this war, the populace is now also aware of its conduct – and despite Dick “The Insurgency is in its Last Throes” Cheney being trotted out every now and again to extol the many ‘successes’ we are having in Iraq, the citizenry, and the world, now knows better.
We are stuck in a quagmire of epic proportions, and our troops are not being
supported; they are being used by the very people who sent them to Iraq in the first place, and now insist they not only stay there, but that they be joined by even more cannon fodder in the name of BushCo’s wet dream: possession of oil reserves that won’t make the world any safer, but will go a long way in making some people much richer.
The American people have had enough, Beck. Not because they have no stomach for the fight, but because the
fight has nothing to do with securing democracy or destroying the enemy, and has
everything to do with putting money into the bank accounts of the
right people.
Talk is cheap, Beck. As cheap as a soldier’s life, as valued by the people who sent them to Iraq, and continue to profit by their sacrifice.
Once the questions started being asked, it was obvious that the answers weren’t satisfactory. No body armor, no vehicle armor, no weapons, no training? Answer: No problem!
We’ve seen the literal translation of “Support the Troops”: Use ‘em up, and spit ‘em out. Cut their pay and benefits while they’re on the battlefield; war-on-the-cheap, at the expense of those doing the actual fighting.
If they die, they die – the cost of a body-bag won’t break the bank. And if they survive, there’s still a buck to be made. Just ship ‘em to Walter Reed, or some other hellhole being passed off as a suitable medical facility for treating those who lost their limbs, or their sight, or their mental stability. The ‘private contractors’ (by pure coincidence, all administration cronies) who run the facilities can turn a good profit – and isn’t that what it’s all about?
Wounded soldiers being a financial drain on the system? Not a chance! Make access to disability payouts a bureaucratic nightmare, and those complaining SOBs who put their lives on the line will shut up pronto.
“If your bill goes through, I hope you can't go to bed any single night without the images of body bags of our American soldiers coming off those planes. I hope they dance in your head every single night, because you will be just as responsible for their deaths as anyone who has ever strapped a bomb to their chest and screamed, "Allah Akbar."
Well, you’re right on one account, Beck; there
are people who should be losing sleep over their responsibility for this debacle. And we all know
who those people are.
They’re the armchair military strategists who promote the sending of our sons and daughters into combat, while never having served themselves. They’re the wealthy tax-cut recipients whose own kids are safely ensconced in private schools while they insist that other people’s children should die for a lost cause. They are those who support
the surge (i.e. sending more kids into the meatgrinder – only this time, we send them with insufficient training and weaponry, along with that ever-elusive body armor).
They are those who demand patience while we “give this new plan a chance to work” – knowing full well that it’s the same old plan it always was (a.k.a.
no plan), and if more Americans and Iraqis die during the let’s-see-how-
this-works period – well, hey,
shit happens, so let’s conveniently forget those who have suffered and died during the try-out period, and go back to the drawing board.
It’s the people who have access to the airwaves and use that power to spew a lethal combination of war-mongering, hatred and utter nonsense to an audience too stupid and/or lazy to change the channel. (The
good news being that the same audience is comprised of people too stupid and/or lazy to get up off the couch and vote.)
All of that being said, these facts just bring the now-infamous rhetorical statement to the forefront yet again: “We’re fighting ‘em over there so we don’t have to fight ‘em over here.”
The thing is we
do have to fight ‘em over here, Beck – because the enemies of our democracy have been
here all along. And the
enemy is easy to spot. It’s the guy who keeps promoting a war that generates profits, and doesn’t allow the wounded and the dying to stand in the way of a buck.
And in
that fight, we all know whose side
you’re on.
As Always,
Nancy Greggs
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