| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
07 Dec 2005 11:22:29 AM |
| Object: |
Well, waddya know, Wolf, they ain't throwin' flowers |
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0512/S00056.htm
6 December 2005
Don't Let It Bring You Down
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
"Don't let it bring you down,
It's only castles burning,
Find someone who's turning,
And you will come around..."
-- Neil Young
Wolf Blitzer got up on his hind legs during his Sunday morning confab
with Senator Biden on CNN and expressed his outrage that the Iraqi
people and their so-called leaders have not thanked the United States
for invading and occupying their country.
"There was not one word of appreciation," said Blitzer, "to the United
States for liberating Iraq from Saddam Hussein."
Wolf went on to ask Biden if the Senator found this as alarming and
depressing as he did.
The disconnection is staggering, the comment so two years ago.
Remember when ***** Cheney told us before the war that, "My belief is
we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators"?
The vast gulf between our present reality and Cheney's pre-invasion
optimism is wide enough to sail the Sixth Fleet through with room to
spare.
Yet there was Wolf, still waiting for the hearts and flowers.
Blitzer, one can assume, would be appalled by another video on the
'net of a caravan of oil tankers being driven by US troops through
Iraq.
One troop, driving the tanker and narrating the video, tells the
viewer to be ready for the next stretch of road.
Children, it seems, gather on that stretch of road to throw rocks at
the passing soldiers.
The video clearly shows young Iraqis pelting the truck as it rolls
along; one rock smashes the windshield.
The soldier in the video is vocally frustrated by the rules of
engagement which keep him from shooting the rock-throwers.
Maybe those kids are foreign fighters, insurgents shipped in from Iran
and Syria to disrupt the march of democracy.
Let's see.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed and maimed during this
occupation.
70% of the population is unemployed.
Long gas lines are the rule of the day.
Hospitals don't work.
Electricity is intermittent.
Potable water is hard to come by.
Bombs go off every day, slaying civilians, police and soldiers
indiscriminately.
Iraqis disappear into torture chambers.
Religious factions growl at each other like dogs in a fighting pit.
Even the children throw rocks.
Where's the love, Wolf?
Where's the thanks?
Don't let it bring you down, Wolf.
It's merely an accent in the symphony.
There are a number of people walking around these days groaning for a
little love, for those good old days when things like rules and laws
were for other people.
The Abramoff scandal has a whole pile of Republican trough-diggers in
Congress thinking about keeping a bail-bondsman on speed dial.
It didn't used to be this way for them, and more than a few are
wondering when the rug is going to get jerked out from under them.
Big George and the boys are likewise feeling the heat, and have
coughed up a scattered bag of platitudes and blue-sky predictions in
the form of a "plan" to "win" in Iraq.
Rep. Murtha put a burr under their collective saddle when he demanded
a withdrawal from Iraq, and the White House PR mavens still haven't
quite figured out how to deal with him.
The old chestnuts about elitist liberal weenies don't scan with
Murtha; the only time he ever stuck his pinkie finger out while
drinking a latte was so he could pick up the Distinguished Service
Cross he earned after a lifetime in the Marine Corps.
There is video from Al Jazeera floating around on the 'net allegedly
showing the explosion that killed ten Marines in Fallujah last week.
The Pentagon folks are vehemently denying that this video actually
shows those ten Marines getting blown up.
Perhaps they are correct, but one thing is certain.
The video definitely shows a crowd of American soldiers and a Humvee
disappearing into the vortex of a terrible detonation.
Those ten Marines who died last week, by the way, had names and homes.
Almost half of them were not old enough to legally buy a beer in
America when they died in Iraq.
Adam Kaiser was 19, and was from Naperville, Illinois.
Andrew Patten was also 19, and was from Byron, Illinois.
Anthony McElveen was 20, and was from Little Falls, Minnesota.
Robert Martinez was also 20, and was from Splendora, Texas.
Craig Watson was 21, and was from Union City, Michigan.
John Holmason was also 21, and was from Scappoose, Oregon.
Scott Modeen was 24, and was from Hennepin, Minnesota.
David Huhn was also 24, and was from Portland, Michigan.
Daniel Clay was 27, and was from Pensacola, Florida.
Andy Stevens was 29, and was from Tomah, Wisconsin.
It is important to know their names, because you will never get to
meet them.
Since January 2001, we have lost faith in the idea that our votes
matter,
we have lost two towers in New York,
we have lost an entire city in Louisiana,
we have lost two thousand one hundred and twenty nine soldiers to
Iraq,
somewhere along the way we lost a whole pile of weapons of mass
destruction those soldiers died trying to find,
we have lost a substantial portion of our children's future by
spending hundreds of billions of dollars so those soldiers could die
far from home,
we have lost our standing with the international community, and a good
portion of the planet looks long and hard at us, wondering if we have
also lost our minds.
Don't let it bring you down, though.
We're staying the course, fighting them over there so we don't have to
fight them here, spreading democracy, rolling with the noble cause,
doing the Lord's work and saving Christmas, all at the same time.
It's all good.
*************
.
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
