Are We Ready to Welcome the Soldiers That Obama's Bringing Home from Iraq?

[babsbunny]

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/129393/are_we_ready_to_welcome_the_soldiers_that_obama%27s_bringing_home_from_iraq/

President Obama traveled to Camp Lejeune this week to announce the eventual drawdown of combat troops in Iraq. There's sure to be a lot of discussion about the details of the timeline, and a lot of politics getting in the way of any coherent military analysis.

But whether it is 16 months or 19 months or 23 months, whether the residual force is 10,000 or 50,000 troops, the president's new plan will create a surge of new veterans coming home in 2009 and 2010. We need to be ready.

Our duty to these brave men and women doesn't end when they leave the battlefield. Military families have borne a tremendous strain through more than eight years of conflict, and our troops are returning to the worst economy we've seen in decades. No veteran's 'welcome home' should come in the form of an unemployment check.

[patrice]

1. I am ready to pay all of the taxes necessary to care for Veterans, even though I was against

this War from the very first whisper.

So, do you think employers should have hiring preferences that, all things being equal, place Veterans first? Why should such a thing be possible for my job, or any job I might try to get, when I would NEVER have sent these soldiers to Iraq in the first place? AND I've been active to get them out of that situation ever since? And it isn't about politics to me; it's about a guy named Jesus, who was KILLED by his church-state, even though he was INNOCENT, just like the Native Americans in this country who were SACRIFICED to politics.

[Karenina]

2. Read this and get back to me!

http://www.energybulletin.net/print/48082

[Buck Laser]

3. With the economy as it is, it would be nice if we could guarantee jobs.

[Karenina]

4. The POINT is to weaken the populace

rendering them incapable of fighting for their fair share.