Happy 10th Birthday...

[Ibanez]

I still think it's funny that people argue if Iraq had WMDs. Of course he did. How do I know? We gave him the weapons, check the receipt.

[Baldy]

Most here probably aren't old enough to remember that the supreme irony is that Saddam was installed in power by the Reagan admin to be a counterweight to Iran.

We probably would have let him have Kuwait if he hadn't started talking about decoupling his oil from the US dollar. Now we need to find another counterweight and get them to start bleeding each other dry like back in the day.

Or in your case, too old to remember correctly.

Hussein became Iraq's de-facto leader in the mid 1970's and assumed the 'official' role of president in July of 1979. Reagan wasn't inaugurated until 18 months later.

houndawg revising history right before our eyes.

[Bronco]

-
I can't believe that liar sKerry was nominated by BHO to be our Sec of State
He is only respected by our enemies

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

Vietnam Veterans for Kerry
Despite his disgraceful performance during his short stint in Vietnam, appallingly documented in Unfit for Command, and his secret meeting with the enemy and treasonous slandering of American troops after he had gamed the system for enough Purple Hearts to get sent home, Kerry has managed to secure the support of Vietnam vets in his bid to become the diplomatic face of the USA:

[Ibanez]

Most here probably aren't old enough to remember that the supreme irony is that Saddam was installed in power by the Reagan admin to be a counterweight to Iran.

We probably would have let him have Kuwait if he hadn't started talking about decoupling his oil from the US dollar. Now we need to find another counterweight and get them to start bleeding each other dry like back in the day.

Or in your case, too old to remember correctly.

Hussein became Iraq's de-facto leader in the mid 1970's and assumed the 'official' role of president in July of 1979. Reagan wasn't inaugurated until 18 months later.

houndawg revising history right before our eyes.

That's what they want you to believe!

[houndawg]

Most here probably aren't old enough to remember that the supreme irony is that Saddam was installed in power by the Reagan admin to be a counterweight to Iran.

We probably would have let him have Kuwait if he hadn't started talking about decoupling his oil from the US dollar. Now we need to find another counterweight and get them to start bleeding each other dry like back in the day.

Or in your case, too old to remember correctly.

Hussein became Iraq's de-facto leader in the mid 1970's and assumed the 'official' role of president in July of 1979. Reagan wasn't inaugurated until 18 months later.

houndawg revising history right before our eyes.

With a little help from my friends too- Hussein took power in '79 (not the mid-70s) after then-President al-Bakr tried to demote VP Saddam to obscurity and he responded with a coup.

What I should have said was that it was the Reagan admin who armed him up for the war with Iran. That's how we knew he had chemical weapons: between Reagan and HW there were 771 export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq approved, such as anthrax and bubonic plague, chemicals that can be used for agriculture or making chemical weapons....771. Probably in Syria now.

[Bronco]

-
What a horrible little man this hero of the left is

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): “Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think that the President's approaching this in the right fashion.” (CNN's "Inside Politics," 09/18/02)

Another liar

Implied today that the Marines killed in Nevada was the result of the sequester

Horrible little man

[houndawg]

-
What a horrible little man this hero of the left is

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): “Saddam Hussein, in effect, has thumbed his nose at the world community. And I think that the President's approaching this in the right fashion.” (CNN's "Inside Politics," 09/18/02)

Another liar

Implied today that the Marines killed in Nevada was the result of the sequester

Horrible little man

Shut up, you stupid conk fvck.

[YoUDeeMan]

What is really shameful, past all the lies about nuclear weapons and the like, is the fact that we used our dollars, our kids blood, and our credibility in the world to deliver most of Iraq to Iran. Something they had tried to do by themselves, but could not.

Way to fucking go GWB and associated ass hats, way to fucking go..

Hmmmm...we've had more of our people's blood shed in Afghanistan under Obama than under Bush...and we're still giving Karsi and his corrupt friends hundreds of millions of money to steal...all while nothing has changed. Well, except now Obama is killing a lot of Pakistani civilians.

Obushma tried valiantly to EXTEND (yes, you read that right...Obama wanted our troops to stay in Iraq, depsite his promised to Americans to get them out...actually, you didn't read that because you have your head up your azz ), our stay in Iraq...but the Iraqis denied Obama's terms.

Syria has had 50,000-70,000 dead in the last two years under Obushma.

Tens of thousands died in Libya under Obushma.

Egypt elected the Muslim Brotherhood under Obushma's watch...and he's giving them billions (while he tightening the money to our schools).

Detroit had 379 murders last year under Obushma.

Bankers still rolling in dough under Obushma. Still waiting for convictions of those bad, bad Wall Street folks...

Gitmo still open under Obushma...government is even less transparent under Obushma...

Credibility.

[HI54UNI]

What is really shameful, past all the lies about nuclear weapons and the like, is the fact that we used our dollars, our kids blood, and our credibility in the world to deliver most of Iraq to Iran. Something they had tried to do by themselves, but could not.

Way to fucking go GWB and associated ass hats, way to fucking go..

Hmmmm...we've had more of our people's blood shed in Afghanistan under Obama than under Bush...and we're still giving Karsi and his corrupt friends hundreds of millions of money to steal...all while nothing has changed. Well, except now Obama is killing a lot of Pakistani civilians.

Obushma tried valiantly to EXTEND (yes, you read that right...Obama wanted our troops to stay in Iraq, depsite his promised to Americans to get them out...actually, you didn't read that because you have your head up your azz ), our stay in Iraq...but the Iraqis denied Obama's terms.

Syria has had 50,000-70,000 dead in the last two years under Obushma.

Tens of thousands died in Libya under Obushma.

Egypt elected the Muslim Brotherhood under Obushma's watch...and he's giving them billions (while he tightening the money to our schools).

Detroit had 379 murders last year under Obushma.

Bankers still rolling in dough under Obushma. Still waiting for convictions of those bad, bad Wall Street folks...

Gitmo still open under Obushma...government is even less transparent under Obushma...

Credibility.

quoted in case you are still on Wedgie's ignore.

[Seahawks08]

http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_la ... _20130318/

The Last Letter

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

[houndawg]

http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_la ... _20130318/

The Last Letter

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

[Baldy]

Or in your case, too old to remember correctly.

Hussein became Iraq's de-facto leader in the mid 1970's and assumed the 'official' role of president in July of 1979. Reagan wasn't inaugurated until 18 months later.

houndawg revising history right before our eyes.

With a little help from my friends too- Hussein took power in '79 (not the mid-70s) after then-President al-Bakr tried to demote VP Saddam to obscurity and he responded with a coup.

What I should have said was that it was the Reagan admin who armed him up for the war with Iran. That's how we knew he had chemical weapons: between Reagan and HW there were 771 export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq approved, such as anthrax and bubonic plague, chemicals that can be used for agriculture or making chemical weapons....771. Probably in Syria now.

We don't and probably never will know the details of the 'transfer' of power in Iraq, but al-Bakr was in bad health at the time and as VP, Hussein was the international face of Iraq.

Yes, we sold them all types of dual use equipment and weapons, but that's par for the course. Even today we're giving F-16's to the Mussie Brotherhood in Egypt. One would think we would have learned our lesson by now.

[kalm]

With a little help from my friends too- Hussein took power in '79 (not the mid-70s) after then-President al-Bakr tried to demote VP Saddam to obscurity and he responded with a coup.

What I should have said was that it was the Reagan admin who armed him up for the war with Iran. That's how we knew he had chemical weapons: between Reagan and HW there were 771 export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq approved, such as anthrax and bubonic plague, chemicals that can be used for agriculture or making chemical weapons....771. Probably in Syria now.

We don't and probably never will know the details of the 'transfer' of power in Iraq, but al-Bakr was in bad health at the time and as VP, Hussein was the international face of Iraq.

Yes, we sold them all types of dual use equipment and weapons, but that's par for the course. Even today we're giving F-16's to the Mussie Brotherhood in Egypt. One would think we would have learned our lesson by now.

I blame Ibanez.

[houndawg]

With a little help from my friends too- Hussein took power in '79 (not the mid-70s) after then-President al-Bakr tried to demote VP Saddam to obscurity and he responded with a coup.

What I should have said was that it was the Reagan admin who armed him up for the war with Iran. That's how we knew he had chemical weapons: between Reagan and HW there were 771 export licenses for sale of dual-use technology to Iraq approved, such as anthrax and bubonic plague, chemicals that can be used for agriculture or making chemical weapons....771. Probably in Syria now.

We don't and probably never will know the details of the 'transfer' of power in Iraq, but al-Bakr was in bad health at the time and as VP, Hussein was the international face of Iraq.

Yes, we sold them all types of dual use equipment and weapons, but that's par for the course. Even today we're giving F-16's to the Mussie Brotherhood in Egypt. One would think we would have learned our lesson by now.

If you're from the right social strata you can make money selling them chemical weapons now and cash in again later on military contracts. Best of all, it won't be your kids that get sent to fight them.

[Ibanez]

We don't and probably never will know the details of the 'transfer' of power in Iraq, but al-Bakr was in bad health at the time and as VP, Hussein was the international face of Iraq.

Yes, we sold them all types of dual use equipment and weapons, but that's par for the course. Even today we're giving F-16's to the Mussie Brotherhood in Egypt. One would think we would have learned our lesson by now.

I blame Ibanez.

Naw dawg. That whan't me.

[CAA Flagship]

The best $4 Trillion the US has ever spent.




Not really. It is funny to see Republicans bitching about $1 million for arts, etc, when they gave DUMBYA a blank check to fight his personal war, and refused to find a way to pay for it other than debt.

It was $50 million for arts.

And it is still bullshit.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/stimul ... /id/327981" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mrklean]

http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_la ... _20130318/

The Last Letter

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

1000%

[mrklean]

http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_la ... _20130318/

The Last Letter

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

[GannonFan]

http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_la ... _20130318/

The Last Letter

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

Sadly, every war we've ever fought has seen broken veterans or their surviving loved ones write letters like this. LBJ had many of them for Vietnam, Truman had some well publicized ones for the Korean War, FDR got his for WWII, and Lincoln certainly got his share of them in the Civil War. The terrible price of war is that the people who fight them, and their families, suffer the most, and that personal price will never seem worth whatever the larger goal was that people were fighting for in the first place.

[GrizFanStuckInUtah]

Sadly, every war we've ever fought has seen broken veterans or their surviving loved ones write letters like this. LBJ had many of them for Vietnam, Truman had some well publicized ones for the Korean War, FDR got his for WWII, and Lincoln certainly got his share of them in the Civil War. The terrible price of war is that the people who fight them, and their families, suffer the most, and that personal price will never seem worth whatever the larger goal was that people were fighting for in the first place.

Ours is not to reason why. Ours is but to do and die.

We are an all volunteer military right now and have been since VietNam. While I feel compasion for Mr. Young, he is misguided. Anyone that signs up today, knows exactly what they are getting into. You have people that want into the military and can't right now so it must not be that bad. Go talk to the veterans these days, there are lots of them. I don't think you will find many that feel so bleakly about our country even with it's current leadership.

[mrklean]

Sadly, every war we've ever fought has seen broken veterans or their surviving loved ones write letters like this. LBJ had many of them for Vietnam, Truman had some well publicized ones for the Korean War, FDR got his for WWII, and Lincoln certainly got his share of them in the Civil War. The terrible price of war is that the people who fight them, and their families, suffer the most, and that personal price will never seem worth whatever the larger goal was that people were fighting for in the first place.

Ours is not to reason why. Ours is but to do and die.

We are an all volunteer military right now and have been since VietNam. While I feel compasion for Mr. Young, he is misguided. Anyone that signs up today, knows exactly what they are getting into. You have people that want into the military and can't right now so it must not be that bad. Go talk to the veterans these days, there are lots of them. I don't think you will find many that feel so bleakly about our country even with it's current leadership.

No on expects the Commander and Chump to lie to them. I would be pissed off as well if I knew the WMD's crap was a big azz LIE!!!!!

[GrizFanStuckInUtah]

We are an all volunteer military right now and have been since VietNam. While I feel compasion for Mr. Young, he is misguided. Anyone that signs up today, knows exactly what they are getting into. You have people that want into the military and can't right now so it must not be that bad. Go talk to the veterans these days, there are lots of them. I don't think you will find many that feel so bleakly about our country even with it's current leadership.

No on expects the Commander and Chump to lie to them. I would be pissed off as well if I knew the WMD's crap was a big azz LIE!!!!!

Did you not read any of the posts before this?

I never thought I would hear you talk about Obama like that , but glad to see it happen!

[Ibanez]

Sadly, every war we've ever fought has seen broken veterans or their surviving loved ones write letters like this. LBJ had many of them for Vietnam, Truman had some well publicized ones for the Korean War, FDR got his for WWII, and Lincoln certainly got his share of them in the Civil War. The terrible price of war is that the people who fight them, and their families, suffer the most, and that personal price will never seem worth whatever the larger goal was that people were fighting for in the first place.

Ours is not to reason why. Ours is but to do and die.

We are an all volunteer military right now and have been since VietNam. While I feel compasion for Mr. Young, he is misguided. Anyone that signs up today, knows exactly what they are getting into. You have people that want into the military and can't right now so it must not be that bad. Go talk to the veterans these days, there are lots of them. I don't think you will find many that feel so bleakly about our country even with it's current leadership.

One of my best friends was a tank commander in Iraq. He went through The Citadel and was an Army Officer. He was discharged as a Major and has his good days. But he's in therapy twice a week, battling with the fact that he killed people. He understands what it means to be in the military and that you may have kill but he never imagined the effect that it would have on his pysche. It's almost too much at times, especially if he's been drinking. He gets very depressed and will start shouting how he's a murderer and Bush put him in that position. It's very sad.

[D1B]

http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_la ... _20130318/

The Last Letter

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Baldy and AZgrizzfan, ALPACAjizz1, PWNS, John St. Fuckhead, BDFCK, Cluck, Gannonfan, Tman 67, GrizfuckinUtah and Jaybilas From a Dying Veteran
To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

Fixed.

[GannonFan]

http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_la ... _20130318/

Fixed.

Huh? I think it's horrible what happened to the guy. How do you suppose I don't?