But no one in their right mind argues that Saddam was anything less than a monster. However, for 40 years he was "our monster," nurtured in the bosom of the CIA. Why was Rummy so sure Saddam had bad weapons? 'Cause the receipts for them were in Rummy's pocket.
So--karmically speaking--our nation has a little explaining to do, don't you think?
No one argues that 3,000 people of all nationalities died on 9-11. The World Trade Center really was the world in a sense. Everyone in this country probably knows someone who knows someone who died that day. I live on the West Coast, but my niece and nephew on the East Coast each have a friend who has a grandmother who died on flights from Boston. My cousin's husband works out of the Pentagon, and you bet he lost friends that day. My best friend and her husband work in DC, and as far as I know she still shudders at loud noises. Oh, and by the way, he is Afghan-American living here for 35 years, and has definitely felt the sting of bigotry.
We all will remember for the rest of our lives what we were doing when the news came.
No one says our men and women in uniform are not courageous. They are. The question is: are they being thrown away like action figures in someone's sandbox?
Are their deaths real to the people who send them there? They're real to me --they are so damn young it breaks my heart.
The question is -- crap, there are so many questions about their treatment, equipment, meals, rehab when maimed that it could fill books. Many people on this board write about these issues. We have military families who are frantic with worry and who are being threatened in their home towns for speaking out -- at DU they get support!
Bush* took troops out of Afghanistan, forgot Osama bin Ladin, and started beating the war drums for an invasion of Iraq.
The 9-11 hijackers were Saudi Arabians. SAUDI ARABIANS. Helloooooo? Not one was an Iraqi. Osama bin Ladin is a religious fanatic who hates secularists. Saddam Hussein is a secularist who has no use for religious fanatics. No matter how many times members of the Bush* administration say "9-11" and "Iraq" in the same sentence, it doesn't change those facts.
Speaking of Saudi Arabians, Osama bin Ladin is a Saudi. Speaking of bin Ladins, many were among the 140 Saudis who were whisked out of the US while every other flight was grounded. Speaking of Saudis, the Bushes have been kissing cousins to the House of Saud for three generations. GOLLY! as Rumsfeld would say. What can this mean?
If it was your kid over there in the sand with another summer coming on, with Halliburton in charge of water and meals that sometimes come and sometimes don't, with one unit getting up-to-the-minute body armor and another unit getting Vietnam-era flak jackets with panels missing, wouldn't you want to have some assurance that he or she was being put in harm's way for the truth and not for a pack of lies?
If it was your kid in the Reserves who was blown all to hell, wouldn't you want to know they were going to get the best possible treatment and rehab in Walter Reed, as opposed to being warehoused out at some fort in the boonies waiting and waiting and waiting?
If it was your kid coming home to take up "normal" life again, wouldn't you want to know that their right to earn overtime pay was preserved? Because right now the Bush* administration and their friends in Congress are pushing through legislation that will reclassify veterans as ineligible for OT because (get this) their military training takes them out of blue collar hourly work and into white collar salaried work.
These issues are beyond labels of liberal and conservative, and go to the heart of what makes us the US.
Hekate
"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war." ~Donald Rumsfeld
"But why should we hear about body bags and deaths and how many,
what day it's going to happen, and how many this or what do you
suppose? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my
beautiful mind on something like that?" ~Barbara Bush
"Do these people live on another planet?" ~Hekate
ARLINGTON WEST, SANTA BARBARA CALIF.
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Default.htmclick on the large photo of AW to go here and scroll down:
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Arlington_west_121003.htm
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