2004-09-16

2004-09-17

Editorial

Where's The Anger? Where's The Rage?

-As reports continually pour out of Iraq describing the horrible political mess we have made in that country and the daily bloody incidents that result in the killing and maiming of both American soldiers and Iraqi partisans and innocent civilians and

-As numerous websites show photographs of the first 1000 American soldiers killed in Iraq combat in Iraq;

I am amazed at the lack of anger, the lack of rage, on the part of so-called "decent," "caring" American citizens.

All we seem to be able to do is discuss John Kerry's record in Vietnam.

Where's the anger about what is happening in Iraq? You say "anger doesn't get you anywhere?" I say, "yes, it does." It can get us a new President. Anger will not only motivate you to vote, but when you go into the voting booth, if you understand what has been happening to our country and are full of anger, you will vote to say goodbye forever to the Bush Administration.

Perhaps my perspective is colored by the fact that I worked for 38 years with young soldiers, most of them not unlike the 1000 dead young people pictured on the various websites. Their deaths strike home very deeply because I know what most of these dead were like and that they were caught in a deathtrap not of their own making. And I know that the deathtrap was created by politicians who knowingly used those people for their own ends.

Some call those ends "for oil," some call those ends "establishing a U.S. presence in the Middle East," some call those ends "protecting Israel," but regardless of what they are called, the invasion of Iraq was based on a combination of false premises, lies, poor intelligence, arrogance and incredible ignorance of the cultures, religions and history of Iraq - all unforgiveable failures as part of a foreign policy for the United States of America.

Perhaps most of you do not share my perspective; not everyone has worked with young soldiers for an entire career. Perhaps the battlefields of Iraq are too far removed from your awareness for you to assign reality to them. Perhaps you deliberately avoid exposing yourself to disturbing events. Perhaps, even, your perception of the Bush government has been and is distorted by the media you read and the lies you have heard.

You may offer your own excuses. But we are now beyond excuses.

It is time for a reality check and I want to bring it to you. It is time to get beyond the huffing and puffing and intellectualizing and all of the political BS that is going on and to face up to the horrors that the misguided Bush administration has caused.

Frankly, I want to make you angry. I want to motivate you to do something about what I consider the greatest obscenity of my lifetime --- the effort by George W. Bush and Cohorts to take over the government of the United States and overthrow the fundamental principles laid down by our founding fathers. By founding fathers, we're talking about Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln and other like luminaries in our country's history, those who built the foundation of freedom and democracy that we so cherish and that has been so carelessly trod upon by George W. Bush and Co.

So, lets get started.

Let's start with some of G. Bush's origins.

At a dinner with several friends and acquaintances recently, the talk turned to politics as it frequently does these days. One lady mused out loud that she was having difficulty deciding between Bush and Kerry. The man next to her responded, "I hate the son of a bitch." "Who?" she asked. "Bush," was the reply.

That's a strong response. Should we take his "son of a bitch" literally? You must decide for yourself after reading the following excerpts concerning Barbara Bush, George W. Bush's mother. If George were indeed a "son of a bitch," the bitch, of course, would be Barbara. I think it's worth looking at.

1. from the White House Official Site:

Barbara Pierce Bush

Rarely has a First Lady been greeted by the American people and the press with the approbation and warmth accorded to Barbara Pierce Bush. Perhaps this is prompted by the image she calls "everybody's grandmother." People are comfortable with her white hair, relaxed manner, and her keen wit. With characteristic directness, she says people like her because they know "I'm fair and I like children and I adore my husband."

2. from the transcript of the March 18, 2003 Good Morning America show:

DIANE SAWYER, ABC NEWS: You said that, that Mrs. Bush at one point had said to the two of you, don't watch too much TV. You may be watching too much TV?

FORMER FIRST LADY BARBARA BUSH, UNITED STATES: No question.

DIANE SAWYER, ABC news: "You do watch?

FORMER FIRST LADY BARBARA BUSH, UNITED STATES: I watch none. He sits and listens and I read books, because I know perfectly well that, don't take offense, that 90 percent of what I hear on television is supposition, when we're talking about news. And he's not, not as understanding of my pettiness about that. But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that. And watch him suffer. [emphasis by editor, fiatlux]

[This part of the interview is not mentioned in the sanitized Good Morning America Web Page Overview of the March 18, 2003 segment.]

Well, I hate to pick on somebody's mother, but "everybody's grandmother," as she calls herself, wants not to waste her beautiful mind on "body bags and deaths" and other such "irrelevant" matters. Is George W. a son of a bitch? You decide.

I should also add several Barbara Bush quotes. (These are from:

http://womenshistory.about.com/library/qu/blqubush.htm)

"War is not nice."

"Son, I love your strategy, but don't let them get to know you."

"I may be the only mother in America who knows exactly what their (sic) child is up to all of the time."

I mention these three quotes particularly because one of George Bush's professors at the Harvard Business School has just written about his experiences with Bush (see Guest Editorials, 20040916, "The Dunce). Of interest here is Professor Tsurumi's comment that "Bush is not as dumb as his detractors allege. He was just badly brought up, with no discipline, and no compassion." Reading "Grandma" Bush's comments above, we can see where George acquired his lack of compassion.

Let's turn to Mr. Bush himself.

Barbara Walters interview with George and Laura Bush, 20/20 12/13/-2002 ABC News

WALTERS: Well, if you were certain that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, would you go ahead with the war on Iraq without the support of the United Nations?

PRESIDENT BUSH: War is my last option, not my first option. See, it's easy in this town for people to commit troops, the U.S. troops, to combat, through opinion and the noise you hear in Washington. But there's only one person who is responsible for making that decision, and that's me. And there's only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids on the death of their loved ones. Others hug, but having committed the troops, I've got an additional responsibility to hug, and that's me, and I know what it's like. [emphasis added by me,BJF]

Obviously, this poor man is burdened not by the deaths he has caused, but by the responsibility of hugging the loved ones. Never an expression of regret. Never a concern about another human being. Never compassion. His primary concern is with the burden of hugging that he must bear.

Let's examine that burden and what was in those "irrelevant" body bags on which Granny Bush didn't want to waste her "beautiful" mind. Let's see what her son's concern with hugging is all about.

The following link will take you to photos of the first 1000 American soldiers killed in Iraq. Because there are 1000 photos, a great deal of space will be taken up on your computer. Be sure that you have very few files open before proceeding. When you are finished, please return here for more discussion.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/091004W.shtml

How did you feel about that? Was it your judgment that those 1000 young people are "irrelevant?" Should Bush be concerned about hugging, or perhaps more appropriately about killing our young? I'm sad and I'm angry. You have to find your own proper emotion and live with your own sense of grief.

And what about the more than 7000 (conservative estimate) U.S. soldiers who have been wounded, some horribly? Is that enough to make you angry? Is it of concern to you that at the same time that these injured troops are (were) returning, many were forced to wait unduly long times for treatment? And that isn't the half of it. Most of the 7000 are those who were physically injured. The mental problems caused by exposure to the death and destruction and fear of war and the other potential delayed problems that may occur as a result of exposure to residues of our depleted uranium armaments may add many thousands of casualties to the list. The final casualty results probably will be much the same as those from Vietnam from Agent Orange and from the Gulf War from various toxic agents released by the burning of Iraqi ammunition depots as well as from our own use of depleted uranium weapons.

Our government always emphasizes "lessons learned." Most of you don't realize that, but one of the catchwords in the bureaucracy, particularly in the military, is "lessons learned." Everyone who does something or goes somewhere has to write a report on "lessons learned." We obviously learned nothing from Vietnam or from the Gulf War except that we are too stupid to learn anything.

If you click on the following link, you will get to meet some of our injured young people. It's tough viewing, but you owe it to yourself and to your country, as a patriotic American, to see for yourself what the Bush administration has caused. This is particularly true if you voted for George Bush. Some of the responsibility is yours.

Please return to this site when you have finished viewing our young wounded soldiers.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/wounded/gallery.htm

Welcome back. I thank Russ Kick for his informative site, TheMemoryHole. He has taken it upon himself to convey tough information to the American people. And tough information it is. His site is well worth examining for all of the hard-to-find documents he has on it.

I've consistently maintained that one of the major problems that this country has with war is that our innocent young go off and experience its horrors and then come home and don't talk about it. Their parents, loved ones, friends and associates are shut out in terms of understanding what they, the combat vets, had to go through. And so it goes from one generation to the next. It's the young who suffer and the old who put them through the cannon fodder exercise and no one knows what is experienced in combat.

By not talking about combat experiences, we preserve the myth that war is a wonderful, exciting, exhilerating experience. You know, you see the myth in most of those war films and TV programs we're spoon-fed. Rarely do we see movies in which the main character is huddled in a hole somewhere, frightened nearly to death, wallowing in his own excrement. Not very heroic. As if war is glamorous. As if war is heroic. Yes, there are heroes, but war isn't heroic. Dwight Eisenhower said it most succinctly: "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, as only one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its STUPIDITY." I vividly remember Eisenhower's description of his walking on a battlefield littered with body parts as far as the eye could see. Ike knew. How we need him now.

While the stink and noise and filth and the yelling and screaming of combat can't easily be conveyed, photographs can help us comprehend the enormous depravity of war. We owe much to heroic people such as the outstanding British news correspondent Robert Fisk who has photographically catalogued the horrors of war and is not afraid of displaying his photos to the world. Mr. Fisk takes us to the hell that many of our young people have experienced and shows us why they come home and don't want to talk about it. They've witnessed so much killing, of their friends, their buddies and of innocent men, women and children that they can't talk about it. And, sadly, they've done much of the killing and wounding themselves. For them, it's hard to talk about and harder to avoid thinking about, long after you've been there.

You have to see for yourselves to understand. Robert Fisk's website gives you that opportunity. The choice is yours. I personally feel that viewing this site should be required for everyone who runs for any public office in which he or she could possibly make a decision involving sending others to die.

This part of Mr. Fisk's site is so riveting, so horribly sad, so touching, so disgusting, so horrifying all at once. But it tells you why your husband, wife, kid won't talk about it when he/she comes home. Some of the damage shown was inflicted by Americans, some by Iraqis, but does it matter? Dead is dead and it becomes so obvious that in death and suffering, we are all equally fragile. Our flesh and blood and their flesh and blood looks the same. Americans or Iraqis, it makes no difference. And it is obvious that expressions of horror are also universal.

I recommend Mr. Fisk's site is a memorial to the folly of the George Bush administration, a body of arrogant, unbelievably incompetent, unfeeling beings who are responsible for the needless killing and maiming of so many thousands of people and for justifying it all with lies. Bald faced lies.

I shall express my anger at the ballot box. I urge you to do the same. Prior to that, please call this site to the attention of every potential Bush voter that you can and urge them to visit it so that they can see what their hero has wrought.

CAUTION: THE FOLLOWING SITE SHOULD NOT BE VIEWED BY CHILDREN. ADULTS VIEW AT THEIR OWN DISCRETION. I RECOMMEND THIS SITE IN THE HOPE THAT VIEWING ITS CONTENTS WILL BRING PEOPLE TO THEIR SENSES WHEN THEY SEE WHAT THEY HAVE CAUSED BY VOTING FOR AND SUPPORTING GEORGE W. BUSH AND HIS FELLOW CONSPIRATORS IN AN EXERCISE OF HORROR AND FUTILITY.

http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_mar2003.htm

also see: http://www.marchforjustice.com/shock&awe.php

OH GOD! TO WHOM SHALL WE TURN IN OUR SORROW? OH GOD! TO WHOM SHALL WE ADDRESS OUR GRIEF? WE'RE JUST POOR PEOPLE WHO WANTED TO LIVE IN PEACE." - Sumaya Abed, whose family was blown to pieces in Baghdad, Friday night (March 28) by a 'coalition' missile.- From

www.Virtualtome.org