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Science > Prophecies-Of-Nostradamus |
| User: |
"=?utf-8?B?V2FsbHkgTG9ybmXihKI=?=" |
| Date: |
30 May 2007 11:55:07 PM |
| Object: |
another 10 bite the proverbial frickin' dust. It just keeps on going on & on & up & up & up, peoplez !!! |
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2022.shtml
Congress gives Iraq war profiteers another hundred billion
By Evelyn Pringle
Online Journal Contributing Writer
May 30, 2007, 00:15
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Congress has demonstrated its unconditional love for the Bush
administration by handing the war profiteers another $100 billion
worth of good reasons to keep the war in Iraq rolling along at full-
throttle.
And last Thursday there was the president, whose only military
experience consists of draft-dodging, going AWOL from a cushy stint in
the Air National Guard, set up by daddy, and finishing his term of
duty as grounded fighter pilot, calling a press conference to inform
Americans for the umpteenth time that the only way to the keep the
terrorist at bay is by allowing the slaughtering in Iraq to continue;
forever apparently.
Over the past month, the majority of political discussions on cable
news talk shows related to an Iraq funding bill were focused on how
members of Congress and especially those who are presidential
candidates are consumed with worry over how their votes on funding
will affect the results of the next elections.
Once elected, it would be interesting to find out exactly how long it
takes for politicians to lose the ability to feel and vote with their
hearts when they know that a policy such as the Iraq war is terribly
wrong, without thinking about how the decision will effect the vote
tally in the next election.
As citizens, we have no control over our own government. Never in my
57 years on this earth have I been so ashamed to be an American,
knowing that every day that the war continues we are knowingly
allowing our soldiers and innocent Iraqis to be killed or injured with
absolutely no justification, other than because politicians believe it
will be beneficial to their careers to allow Bush=E2=80=99s failed war
policies to continue.
While political commentators discuss voter odds, I and probably most
Americans are sitting at home unable to watch the news without
breaking down crying as the latest pictures flash on the screen
showing the happy faces of the young soldiers who are now dead,
knowing full well that the next night there will be more pictures of
dead soldiers because the politicians have made it clear that the
citizens paying their salaries have no right to demand that their
elected officials put an end to the killing in Iraq.
It would be interesting to take a poll to see how often each
politician even looks at the smiling faces of the dead soldiers and
the second question in the poll should be, for those who claim that
they do look at these faces every day and still vote to give Bush more
funding, how many had to use drugs or alcohol to get to sleep during
the seven days following the vote.
For this poll, a high number of drugs and alcohol users would be
viewed as positive because the reason for the question is to determine
how many politicians still have the capacity to feel guilt.
Congress needs to get one thing straight, the war funding is not about
politics, it is about more deaths and injuries every single day that
ticks off the calendar, all because Bush took this country into a
senseless war based on lies. Every single day matters to the soldiers
and their families, and to those of us who feel extremely guilty about
not being able to find a away to get them out of Bush=E2=80=99s war.
Why is there no in-depth discussion by any members of Congress on
political talk shows about where these tax dollars are actually ending
up, aside from an occasional flare-up of indignation about
Halliburton?
There is nothing positive in Iraq to hold up to show Americans how
Iraqis have benefited from all the tax dollars already poured into a
bottomless pit.
The issue of war profiteering is like the elephant in the middle of
the living room, every member of Congress knows where the funding is
going, but Americans don=E2=80=99t hear them on talk shows letting people k=
now
that these kids are being killed in the name of war profits.
And the statements in speeches made by members of Congress while
debating the bills don=E2=80=99t mean anything because 95 percent of Americ=
ans
never hear those speeches. Honest politicians should be out screaming
to any reporter who will listen to educate Americans about where the
hundreds of billions of tax dollars have ended up.
This war is 100 times worse than Vietnam. A least with Vietnam, the
war profits were not being funneled over the backs of our dead
soldiers in plain sight directly into the bank accounts of current and
former members of the administrations in power at the time.
Nor were they being funneled to the family bank accounts of the
presidents who were in office during the Vietnam war.
Former Nixon administration official John Dean has said that the Bush
administration is worse than the Nixon=E2=80=99s. He=E2=80=99s right; the B=
ush gang
makes the Nixon administration look saintly and gives a whole new
meaning to Nixon=E2=80=99s famous line of =E2=80=9CI am not a crook.=E2=80=
=9D In comparison to
the actions of the current regime, it could indeed be said that Nixon
was not a crook.
It=E2=80=99s easy to understand why most Republicans are not about to tell =
the
world that the leader of their party is a war profiteering crook but
the question remains, when are Democrats going to start addressing the
issue of who is benefiting from all this war funding and start
publicly naming names along with the companies they are connected
with?
They have the ability to draw press coverage and give the specific
names of current and former administration officials and Bush family
members who have set up companies to profit off the war or steered
contracts to companies they now work for.
Last year, most clearly in the fall elections, Americans told Bush and
Congress to get our troops out of Iraq. Democrats took control of
Congress in January, and there was Bush in a televised address on
January 10, announcing that he had ordered the deployment of five more
combat brigades to serve as sitting ducks in Iraq, in addition to the
15 brigades that were already there. Since then, he has extended
combat tours from 12 months to 15 months and announced the deployment
of still more troops.
According to an analysis by Hearst Newspapers, when support troops are
added in, the total number of soldiers in Iraq is about 162,000, and
could be 200,000 by Christmas.
In the years to come, the history books will chronicle the Bush
presidency and the details of a grand war profiteering scheme
nicknamed the =E2=80=9Cwar on terror,=E2=80=9D and, with that in mind, memb=
ers of
Congress would be wise to start speaking out against the war
profiteers to make damn sure that the historians will be able to
report that that they were out there calling a spade a spade and
trying to put an end to the death for profit disaster in Iraq.
One commentator on a recent cable talk show made the statement that
when voting on the Iraq funding, politicians are not in lock step with
how strongly Americans feel about ending this war. That comment was an
understatement, because Americans are as fed up with politicians
debating money as much as they are with the war itself.
Members of Congress and the presidential candidates should quit trying
to second guess how American will vote in the next election and think
about how much longer they are going to be willing to sit at home in
front of their television sets depressed and driven to tears by
looking at flashes of the happy faces of soldiers who were killed that
day.
As for presidential candidates, the name John Murtha should be added
to the ballot, as he seems to be about the only member of Congress
willing to go public and speak from the heart when trying to get the
rest of Congress to recognize the need for an immediate plan to rescue
our young men and women stranded in Iraq.
The candidates that are working hard to try to end the war get little
credit or media coverage. Dennis Kucinich is rarely mentioned and he
is working tirelessly to come up with ways to get our soldiers out of
Iraq.
By the time the 2008 election rolls around, who knows, after weighing
the few options available maybe Americans will decide that no
candidate who is a current member of Congress and refused to listen to
the people on such an important issue as the Iraq war can be trusted
to serve as president.
Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for OpEd News and an investigative
journalist focusing on exposing corruption in government and corporate
America.. She can be reached at: evelyn.pringle@sbcglobal.net.
Hi peoplez !!!
This one's a doozy, peoplez !!
The Iraq War Coalition Fatalities Project is an interactive animated
chart of US and coalition military fatalities that have occured in the
war in Iraq ...
http://www.obleek.com/iraq/
---
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
http://icasualties.org/oif/
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_casualties.htm
http://www.costofwar.com/
http://www.militarycity.com/valor/honor.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_conflict_in_Iraq_since_2003
HOOROO =E2=98=BB
UNCLE WALLY =E2=98=BB
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