| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
23 Aug 2004 08:33:19 PM |
| Object: |
Your Children are Burning. |
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/082404A.shtml
Your Children are Burning
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 24 August 2004
"Ladybug! Ladybug!
Fly away home.
Your house is on fire,
And your children all gone."
- Children's nursery rhyme, author unknown
The presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and John Kerry are at
each other's throats like dogs in a fighting pit over a war that ended
29 years ago.
The mainstream news media, along with the alternative news media, have
enjoyed watching the show, dutifully reporting every detail and nuance
of the fiery exchanges between the camps.
Somewhere in these last 24 days of August, however, while arguing over
a three-decades-old war, we managed to forget that another war is
happening.
Here are some details that have been missed:
Army Spc. Armando Hernandez, age 22; Army Spc. Anthony J. Dixon, age
20;Marine Cpl. Dean P. Pratt, age 22; Army Spc. Justin B. Onwordi, age
28; Marine Sgt. Juan Calderon Jr., age 26; Army Pfc. Harry N. Shondee,
Jr., age 19; Marine Capt. Gregory A Ratzlaff, age 36; Army Sgt. Tommy
L. Gray, age 34; Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph L. Nice, age 19; Marine
Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, age 30; Army Spc. Donald R. McCune,
age 20; Marine Sgt. Moses D. Rocha, age 33; Army Pfc. Raymond J.
Faulstich Jr., age 24; Marine Sgt. Yadir G. Reynoso, age 27; Marine
Lance Cpl. Larry L. Wells, age 22; Army Spc. Joshua I. Bunch, age 23;
Marine Cpl. Roberto Abad, age 22; Army Pfc. David L. Potter, age 22;
Marine Lance Cpl. Jonathan W. Collins, age 19; Army Capt. Andrew R.
Houghton, age 25; Marine Lance Cpl. Tavon L. Hubbard, age 24; Marine
Staff Sgt. John R. Howard, age 26; Army Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky,
age 30; Marine Lance Cpl. Kane M. Funke, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl.
Nicholas B. Morrison, age 23; Army 1st Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello,
age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Geoffrey Perez, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc.
Fernando B. Hannon, age 19; Army Spc. Mark Anthony Zapata, age 27;
Army 2nd Lt. James Michael Goins, age 23; Army Sgt. Daniel Michael
Shepherd, age 23; Army Pfc. Brandon R. Sapp, age 21; Army Sgt. David
M. Heath, age 30; Army Spc. Brandon T. Titus, age 20; Marine Lance
Cpl. Caleb J. Powers, age 21; Army Spc. Jacob D. Martir, age 21;
Marine Sgt. Harvey E. Parkerson III, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Dustin
R. Fitzgerald, age 22; Army Pfc. Henry C. Risner, age 26; Pfc. Kevin
A. Cuming, age 22; 1st Lt. Charles L. Wilkins III, age 38; Pfc. Ryan
A. Martin, age 22.
That is the list of dead American soldiers in Iraq from the last 24
days.
That is August, so far.
Two other American soldiers - Army Sgt. Bobby E. Beasley, age 36, and
Army Staff Sgt. Craig W. Cherry, age 39 - were killed in Afghanistan
by an improvised explosive device on August 7th.
We don't talk about that war anymore, either.
964 dead American soldiers, 52 since August 1st.
522 days ago, the administration of George W. Bush began the 'Shock
and Awe' bombing campaign in Iraq, an opening salvo that has broadened
into a conflict which has left well over ten thousand innocent Iraqi
civilians dead.
According to the rhetoric that loosed those bombs 74 weeks ago, we
went into Iraq because:
-----Iraq was in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters
of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX gas, 30,000
munitions to deliver these agents, unmanned aerial drones to deliver
these agents, mobile biological weapons labs, and uranium 'yellowcake'
from Niger for use in the development of nuclear bombs.
-----The Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein enjoyed operational
relationships with Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorists, and
were involved in the attacks of September 11. Because of this
relationship, Hussein would happily hand over the aforementioned
weapons of mass destruction for bin Laden to use against the United
States.
-----The Iraqi people desperately want a democratic government, and
will welcome the United States as liberators.
-----Saddam Hussein was a bad man.
Let's take these one at a time.
-----No weapons of mass destruction have been found.
The few 'unmanned aerial drones' were pathetic model-airplane
specimens apparently made from tongue depressors and Q-tips, none of
which had a prayer off getting off the ground.
The 'mobile biological weapons labs' were in fact helium weather
balloon launching platforms sold to Iraq by the British in the 1980s.
The 'yellowcake' story was based upon fabricated evidence, and has led
to a political scandal involving the exposure of a deep-cover CIA
agent whose husband had the gall to call Bush a liar in the public
prints.
-----No relationship whatsoever has been established between Hussein
and bin Laden.
In fact, bin Laden despised Hussein because Hussein was a self-styled
Socialist, Godless to the core, who killed every Islamic
fundamentalist he could get his hands on.
The U.S. has, in fact, done bin Laden a great service by disposing of
his Iraqi enemy.
Now, the stage is set for an Islamic fundamentalist takeover of Iraq,
something bin Laden would very much like to see.
As for Hussein giving bin Laden weapons of mass destruction,
well...you can't give what you don't have.
-----It is entirely possible the Iraqi people would have embraced
democracy, if that is what Bush's plan actually had in mind.
Unfortunately for them, the whole push for democracy was a farce to
begin with; Bush wanted to establish a government-by-remote-control in
Iraq, so as to maintain control of the oil fields and the development
of military bases.
In a nation where the Shia enjoy a 60% majority, a democratic vote
would have elected a Shia government, which would have then had the
temerity to act as it pleased, regardless of American desires.
It was never going to happen, and it never will happen, so long as
Bush's people man the stick.
-----Saddam Hussein was indeed a bad man, whose fortunes were created
and augmented by the U.S. government over a period of 20 years.
We knew he was developing and using chemical weapons.
We helped him do it.
We didn't care, so long as he was gassing Iranians.
Beyond that, the math is pretty straightforward.
If the U.S. is going to adopt an Invade Every Country Run By A Bad Man
foreign policy doctrine, everyone reading these words who approves of
the notion better haul ***** down to their local military recruiting
office.
We're going to need every warm body we can get.
How about you, and right now.
Go.
These guys went:
Army Spc. Armando Hernandez, age 22; Army Spc. Anthony J. Dixon, age
20;Marine Cpl. Dean P. Pratt, age 22; Army Spc. Justin B. Onwordi, age
28; Marine Sgt. Juan Calderon Jr., age 26; Army Pfc. Harry N. Shondee,
Jr., age 19; Marine Capt. Gregory A Ratzlaff, age 36; Army Sgt. Tommy
L. Gray, age 34; Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph L. Nice, age 19; Marine
Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, age 30; Army Spc. Donald R. McCune,
age 20; Marine Sgt. Moses D. Rocha, age 33; Army Pfc. Raymond J.
Faulstich Jr., age 24; Marine Sgt. Yadir G. Reynoso, age 27; Marine
Lance Cpl. Larry L. Wells, age 22; Army Spc. Joshua I. Bunch, age 23;
Marine Cpl. Roberto Abad, age 22; Army Pfc. David L. Potter, age 22;
Marine Lance Cpl. Jonathan W. Collins, age 19; Army Capt. Andrew R.
Houghton, age 25; Marine Lance Cpl. Tavon L. Hubbard, age 24; Marine
Staff Sgt. John R. Howard, age 26; Army Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky,
age 30; Marine Lance Cpl. Kane M. Funke, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl.
Nicholas B. Morrison, age 23; Army 1st Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello,
age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Geoffrey Perez, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc.
Fernando B. Hannon, age 19; Army Spc. Mark Anthony Zapata, age 27;
Army 2nd Lt. James Michael Goins, age 23; Army Sgt. Daniel Michael
Shepherd, age 23; Army Pfc. Brandon R. Sapp, age 21; Army Sgt. David
M. Heath, age 30; Army Spc. Brandon T. Titus, age 20; Marine Lance
Cpl. Caleb J. Powers, age 21; Army Spc. Jacob D. Martir, age 21;
Marine Sgt. Harvey E. Parkerson III, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Dustin
R. Fitzgerald, age 22; Army Pfc. Henry C. Risner, age 26; Pfc. Kevin
A. Cuming, age 22; 1st Lt. Charles L. Wilkins III, age 38; Pfc. Ryan
A. Martin, age 22.
Now they are dead.
They never found weapons of mass destruction, they never found a
connection between Saddam and 9/11, they never got the chance to
create a democracy, and they were never fully informed that part of
their mission was the removal from power of a former employee of the
United States government.
In Iraq today, 780,000 cubic yards of human and industrial waste is
dumped into the Diyala River every day by one sewage plant.
The Diyala joins the Tigris seven miles downstream.
There isn't anything the plant can do about it; it is shattered from
the war. Power, water, road, health care and educational
infrastructures are completely wrecked.
The World Bank estimates that it will cost $55 billion to repair all
of this damage, and it will take over four years to do it.
$24 billion in U.S. tax money has been allocated to 'rebuild' Iraq.
According to Christian Parenti, who has reported from Iraq on the
reconstruction process for The Nation magazine, "Only $5.3 billion had
been allocated to specific reconstruction contracts as of late June
2004.
According to a report from the White House Office of Management and
Budget, of the $18.4 billion reconstruction honey-pot approved last
fall only $366 million had been spent by late June - that is, invested
in Iraq.
Instead of creating 250,000 jobs for Iraqis, as was the original goal,
at most 24,000 local workers have been hired."
"Most amazing of all," writes Parenti, "the OMB report showed that not
a single cent of US tax money had been spent on Iraqi healthcare,
water treatment or sanitation projects - though $9 million was
dithered away on administrative costs of the now defunct Coalition
Provisional Authority.
Most of the little that has been invested in healthcare, water
treatment and sanitation has come from Iraqi oil revenues, managed for
most of last year by the Development Fund for Iraq, a US controlled
successor to the UN-run Oil for Food program.
In all, the CPA spent roughly $19 billion of Iraqi oil money - on what
exactly is not quite clear."
And we wonder why there is an 'insurgency.'
We wonder why a nobody named Moqtada al-Sadr has emerged as an Iraqi
version of Thomas Jefferson, fighting the good fight against imperial
usurpers.
We wonder why so many Iraqis flock to his banner, pick up a weapon,
and shoot Americans.
Sit in the dark for a year,
be unemployed because all the jobs have gone to non-Iraqis,
have no place to see your children schooled,
have no place to bring your children if they get sick, drink water
that tastes like something you squeezed into your toilet,
and stand a good chance whenever you step outside of being shot by a
sniper,
blown up by a laser-guided bomb,
or run down by a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and you might think about
picking up a weapon, too.
This is how terrorists and suicide bombers are created.
Desperation is the seed, time is the fertilizer, and rage is the crop
reaped by American soldiers sent far from home to die because they
were lied to, as were we all.
This is, perhaps, the most galling aspect of the whole Swift Boat
Veterans nonsense.
It has distracted us from realizing that our children still burn in
Iraq, while simultaneously insulting every veteran who was given a
medal for service in action.
It implies that medals awarded for service in Vietnam somehow do not
count, which when taken to the end of the argument, implies that
medals awarded for service anywhere do not count.
In a recent and eloquent truthout essay, Vietnam veteran John Cory
wrote the following words:
"There are veterans of all conflicts, who fall in love with the
terrible sweet beauty of war. Men who polish their armor long after
the parades have faded. Their glory is not in duty, honor, and
country; but in the carnival mirrors of their own warped reflections.
These are veterans who march with swagger and blaring brass, like
small boys struggling to be seen and heard. There are veterans who
have paid passage through the heart of darkness; who dedicate their
lives to eliminating the horrors that hide behind their eyes at night,
when they dream. These veterans testify to the unreal and repulsive
acts of war that forever wound the soul. And there are veterans who
let it go and never look back again. Not that they forget, they simply
choose not to dwell in those memories. They seek peace of mind and
hope."
The men who have foisted this rending open of old wounds upon us are
the ones who polish their armor, who revel in their own warped
reflections.
They insult fellow veterans everywhere.
My father earned a Bronze Star in Vietnam.
Should he give it back?
The men and women serving and dying in Iraq have earned thousands of
medals, many of them Purple Hearts to replace missing legs or faces.
Should they give theirs back?
How many medals did George W. Bush earn to allow him to make this
frontal assault upon those who served in his stead a generation ago,
and those who serve now in the free-fire zone he placed them in with
his deceptions?
When a person puts on the uniform of the United States military and
swears an oath, that person is promising to sacrifice their life for
their country.
The only promise they expect in return is that their life not be spent
for no good reason.
That promise was broken.
Do not forget your dying children.
They wear the uniform of your country, they live and die for all of
us.
Some lie still, wrapped in your flag.
Some walk the land trying to remember, or trying to forget, how they
got their scars so long ago.
Some yet fight, in a war of choice that was not their doing.
Do not forget them.
Do not insult them.
They are your children.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harry
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| User: "Bill Levinson" |
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| Title: Re: Your Children are Burning. |
23 Aug 2004 08:46:14 PM |
|
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Harry Hope wrote:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/082404A.shtml
Your Children are Burning
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 24 August 2004
"Ladybug! Ladybug!
Fly away home.
Your house is on fire,
And your children all gone."
- Children's nursery rhyme, author unknown
The presidential campaigns of George W. Bush and John Kerry are at
each other's throats like dogs in a fighting pit over a war that ended
29 years ago.
The mainstream news media, along with the alternative news media, have
enjoyed watching the show, dutifully reporting every detail and nuance
of the fiery exchanges between the camps.
Somewhere in these last 24 days of August, however, while arguing over
a three-decades-old war, we managed to forget that another war is
happening.
Here are some details that have been missed:
Army Spc. Armando Hernandez, age 22; Army Spc. Anthony J. Dixon, age
20;Marine Cpl. Dean P. Pratt, age 22; Army Spc. Justin B. Onwordi, age
28; Marine Sgt. Juan Calderon Jr., age 26; Army Pfc. Harry N. Shondee,
Jr., age 19; Marine Capt. Gregory A Ratzlaff, age 36; Army Sgt. Tommy
L. Gray, age 34; Marine Lance Cpl. Joseph L. Nice, age 19; Marine
Gunnery Sgt. Elia P. Fontecchio, age 30; Army Spc. Donald R. McCune,
age 20; Marine Sgt. Moses D. Rocha, age 33; Army Pfc. Raymond J.
Faulstich Jr., age 24; Marine Sgt. Yadir G. Reynoso, age 27; Marine
Lance Cpl. Larry L. Wells, age 22; Army Spc. Joshua I. Bunch, age 23;
Marine Cpl. Roberto Abad, age 22; Army Pfc. David L. Potter, age 22;
Marine Lance Cpl. Jonathan W. Collins, age 19; Army Capt. Andrew R.
Houghton, age 25; Marine Lance Cpl. Tavon L. Hubbard, age 24; Marine
Staff Sgt. John R. Howard, age 26; Army Capt. Michael Yury Tarlavsky,
age 30; Marine Lance Cpl. Kane M. Funke, age 20; Marine Lance Cpl.
Nicholas B. Morrison, age 23; Army 1st Lt. Neil Anthony Santoriello,
age 24; Marine Corps Pfc. Geoffrey Perez, age 24; Marine Corps Pfc.
Fernando B. Hannon, age 19; Army Spc. Mark Anthony Zapata, age 27;
Army 2nd Lt. James Michael Goins, age 23; Army Sgt. Daniel Michael
Shepherd, age 23; Army Pfc. Brandon R. Sapp, age 21; Army Sgt. David
M. Heath, age 30; Army Spc. Brandon T. Titus, age 20; Marine Lance
Cpl. Caleb J. Powers, age 21; Army Spc. Jacob D. Martir, age 21;
Marine Sgt. Harvey E. Parkerson III, age 27; Marine Lance Cpl. Dustin
R. Fitzgerald, age 22; Army Pfc. Henry C. Risner, age 26; Pfc. Kevin
A. Cuming, age 22; 1st Lt. Charles L. Wilkins III, age 38; Pfc. Ryan
A. Martin, age 22.
That is the list of dead American soldiers in Iraq from the last 24
days.
That is August, so far.
And you leftists carve another notch in your keyboards everyt ime we
lose a man, becuae you are so desperate for Bush to be proven "wrong"
that you (like Michael Manure) stoop to rooting for the enemy.
--Bill
http://www.stentorian.com/politics/kerry/ Dossier on John Kerry, his war
crimes, and his association with proven racists, bigots, and
anti-Semites. Downloadable royalty-free leaflets
http://www.stentorian.com/politics/vietcong.html Vietnam Veterans for
John Kerry! (Really; they ARE Vietnam veterans!) Free leaflet
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| User: "AH" |
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| Title: Re: Your Children are Burning. |
24 Aug 2004 07:13:38 AM |
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"Bill Levinson" <wlevinson@NOSPAM.stentorian.com> wrote in message
news:G5xWc.2010$Y%3.1255@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
And you leftists carve another notch in your keyboards everyt ime we lose
a man, becuae you are so desperate for Bush to be proven "wrong" that you
(like Michael Manure) stoop to rooting for the enemy.
Did it sound like the author loved the idea of this ridiculous war we're
fighting?
How about you get some guts and write something like this to get those kids
out of there.. you are the scum responsible for this mess.. we should send
everyone that agree's with starting a war to fight in the war. There would
soon be very few wars on this earth.
.
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