BUSH'S WAR
"Roadside Bombs Kill Troops at Highest Rate of Iraq War"
--headline, Boston Globe, December 17, 2006
"Attacks in Iraq at Record High, Pentagon Says"
--headline, New York Times, December 19, 2006
"Pentagon Sites Success of Anti-American Forces in Iraq"
--headline, Washington Post, December 19, 2006
"On the War, Determined to Go His Own Way"
--headline, Washington Post, December 20, 2006
"White House, Joint Chiefs at Odds on Adding Troops"
--headline, Washington Post, December 19, 2006
"Bush No Longer Listening to Commanders on Troop Levels in Iraq"
--headline, Buzzflash.com, December 21, 2006
"Troop 'Surge' for Iraq Meets Growing Opposition in US"
--headline, Yahoo! News, December 25, 2006
According to a CNN poll conducted in mid-December, ONLY 11 PERCENT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SUPPORT A TROOP "SURGE" INTO IRAQ.
Even more telling, perhaps, than the flat-out opposition of the American people to an escalation of the war in Iraq is that the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as two generals on the ground in Iraq--not to mention, the Iraq Study Group--OPPOSE troop escalation.
As late as October of '06, right about the time that Bush stated, "absolutely, we're winning," the war he started in Iraq, he repeated what he has said over and over again, that he would depend upon the generals on the ground to tell him whether more troops were needed.
Then, right about the time that he admitted, murkily, that, "we're not winning, but we're not losing, either," Bush started to ignore not only what his Joint Chiefs of Staff--right down to the last man--were telling him, but what the generals on the ground were saying, as well.
Then there came the usual tell-tale White House PR push to "roll out" a new marketing product, in this case, Bush's new war plan to escalate the war by not only sending more troops to Baghdad--which he will get by keeping troops who are already there in-country after they are supposed to go home, as well as rushing the deployments of those scheduled to depart later--but by building up the armed forces, altogether.
Some have suggested that he has even used the "building up the army" plan as a BRIBE to get reluctant commanders to go along with his scheme to secure Baghdad by sending in more troops.
I don't know about that. I do know that the two main generals on the ground who have opposed this plan will be "retiring" in a couple of months, and that after a hasty, three-day visit by the new secretary of defense, they are now mumbling garbled sentax about how, okay, it might be all right to send more troops into Baghdad IF there is a good strategy for their use.
So of course, Bush, the master strategy-manipulator who has, so far, trotted out six different reasons for unseating Saddam, coming up with a new war-rationale every time the old one is proven to be a lie or at least a massive miscalculation, will only be too obliging to provide a new "strategy" to effect his latest plan which is, after all, more of the same. A do-over, basically.
It's like saying, Okay, you said we didn't have enough troops. So, fine, we'll send more troops!
Of course, it's too late, now. In the beginning, those who were in-country fighting the war in '03 say that, as soon as the looting began, if we'd had enough troops at the time, as generals had been requesting from the beginning, we could have curtailed it and brought order and made the Iraqi people feel secure.
But our recently-feted secretary of defense said only, "Stuff happens." And ordered our troops to stand by and watch, which was the first clear signal to the Iraqis that they were on their own, and thus, caused the birth of the death-squad militias to "protect" the people. Meanwhile, when American troop commanders on the ground warned Rumsfeld about a growing insurgency, he dismissed them as "dead-enders."
As far as sending more troops into Baghdad, we already sent more troops into Baghdad, several months ago, and the Pentagon's own report stated that the troop escalation was a huge flop and that, rather than cutting down the violence in the capitol, it merely caused it to go UP.
So Bush says he's "listening" now. But those who have met with him, who have tried to present the unvarnished truth--which he claims he wants to hear--have been met with respectful but stony silence and brief meetings of a half-hour or so. No questions or follow-up to their presentations.
But Bush can state--unequivocally--that he did, indeed, "listen" to them.
Yet those hawks--the same neocon geniuses who pushed us into this miserable war in the first place and who, to this day, refuse to admit that they were wrong, preferring instead to blame Bush for screwing up their glorious little war--those who have all sorts of great plans for fixing it--like, say, escalating the troops--get a long meeting of two hours or more, peppered with questions.
In other words, Bush already knows what he wants to do and is, yet again, pretending to consider all options while, really, cherry-picking those arguments that fit his predisposed ideas, so that he can present his plan with a great flourish to the American people complete with more flags than you can count.
Expect his big speech to be full of praise for the ideas of those who opposed him, and small concessions to them, as if he really did care what they had to say. But don't expect him to actually change his disastrous policy in a war that is, increasingly, his own personal war.
"There's something much worse than being accused of 'flip-flopping': refusing to flip when it's obvious that your course of action is a flop…
"Half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial died after America's leaders knew that our strategy in that war was not working. Was then-secretary of defense Robert McNamara steadfast as he continued to send American troops to die for a war he knew privately could not be won? History does not remember his resolve--it remembers his refusal to confront reality."
--"When Resolve Turns to Recklessness," Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), Washington Post, December 24, 2006
Remember when Donald Rumsfeld made his victory lap around Iraq the week before he left office, telling the longsuffering troops that, "History will show that I am right"?
If we really wanted to be shown--and not told--Bush's attitude toward Bush's War, we need only turn our attention to the obscene and tasteless display of egotism and arrogance put on by the White House to honor outgoing secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who, it could be argued, single-handedly caused the destruction of a nation, unparalleled war-profiteering at the hands of administration cronies, and horrendous losses of precious American blood and treasure in a war one Republican senator called, "misunderstood, misread, misplanned, and mismanaged…with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam." (Sen. Chuck Hagel, Neb.)
Here's a glimpse of all the toy-soldier pomp and circumstance, in which Maureen Dowd described Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld--the true "architects" of the Iraq war:
"The Defiant Ones came striding from the Pentagon yesterday, the troika of wayward warriors marching abreast in their dark suits and power ties. W., Rummy and Dick Cheney were so full of quick-draw confidence that they might have been sauntering down the main drag of Deadwood."
She goes on to describe the ceremony accurately, for I saw it, over and over again, on the evening news B-Roll they are so enamored of:
Yesterday's tribute had full military honors, a color guard, a 19-gun salute, an Old Guard performance with marching musicians--including piccolo players--in Revolutionary War costumes, John Philip Sousa music and the chuckleheaded neocons and ex-Rummy deputies who helped screw up the occupation, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, cheering in the audience.
It was surreal: the septuagenarian who arrogantly dismissed initial advice to send more troops to secure Iraq, being praised as "the finest secretary of defense this nation has ever had," by his pal, the vice president, even as a desperate White House drafted ways to reinvade Iraq by sending more troops in a grasping-at-straws effort to reverse the chaos caused by Rummy's mistakes.
--"Farewell, Dense Prince," Maureen Dowd, New York Times op-ed, December 19, 2006
This is as clear an indication of how Bush really feels about the way the war is going as fifty flag-draped speeches to the contrary. If Bush really felt that Rumsfeld had screwed up his war, he'd have not only fired him years ago, but he would have sent him packing in ignoble defeat.
You know, like what happened to Colin Powell, who was the only Cabinet member to oppose the war to Bush's face, back in 2002, the one who famously told the president the "Pottery Barn" policy, that, "You break it, you own it."
Never forget that this man was also, at one time, secretary of defense, one who actually WON a war in Iraq, one who had served his country in combat and with honor and distinction--a Republican, by the way--who did not get marching bands in Revolutionary War costumes when he was run out of office and replaced as secretary of state. And here is what Gen. Powell had to say about the latest "plan for victory" in Bush's War:
Speaking on CBS's "Face the Nation," former secretary of state, Colin Powell, seemed to draw as much from his 35-year Army career, including four years as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as from his more recent and difficult tenure as Bush's chief diplomat.
The summer's surge of U.S. troops to try to stabilize Baghdad failed, he said, and any new attempt is unlikely to succeed. "If somebody proposes that additional troops be sent, if I was still chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff, my first question… is what mission is it these troops are supposed to accomplish?...Is it something that is really accomplishable?...Do we have enough troops to accomplish it?
…"Sooner or later you have to begin the baton pass, passing it off to the Iraqis for their security and to begin the drawdown of U.S forces. I think that's got to happen sometime before the middle of next year."
Before any decision to increase troops, he said, "I'd want to have a clear understanding of what it is they're going for, how long they're going for. And let's be clear about something else…THERE REALLY ARE NO ADDITIONAL TROOPS. ALL WE WOULD BE DOING IS KEEPING SOME OF THE TROOPS WHO WERE THERE, THERE LONGER AND ESCALATING OR ACCELERATING THE ARRIVAL OF OTHER TROOPS."
He added, "THAT'S HOW YOU SURGE. AND THAT SURGE CANNOT BE SUSTAINED." (emphasis mine)
--"Powell Says U.S. Losing in Iraq, Calls for Drawdown by Mid-2007," Karen deYoung, Washington Post, December 18, 2006
Recent polls show that, even as only a stunning eleven percent of the American people support Bush's War the way Bush wants to run it, fewer than half of all Republicans and only one-third of conservatives approve of his war strategy.
One of the staunchest hawks on Capitol Hill, a conservative Republican who supported Bush all the way, said in a speech in the Senate chambers, "I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal." (Sen. Gordon Smith, Ore.)
The only supporters left of Bush's war, are, as Cokie Roberts referred to them in the Austin American-Statesman, "GOP hardliners--like Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney, who don't have to stand for office, or send their own children to war--are still telling Bush to ignore the 'surrender monkeys,' as one headline put it."
Ms. Roberts puts Bush's War--and all its tragic implications--into half a dozen succinct sentences that require no explanation:
This is Bush's War. He broke Iraq and now he owns it.
The nation is facing an enormous tragedy. Bush can't or won't leave Iraq, but staying means Pflugerville, TX (and Cheektowaga, NY, and Westerville, OH, and Oxford, AL, and Redding, CA) will keep burying its children. Only a new president will be able to stop the dying.
--"America Wakes Up to Dying Dreams, Dead Soldiers," Cokie Roberts and Steven V. Roberts, Newspaper Enterprise Assn., reprinted Austin American-Statesman, December 18, 2006
Now, as the mother of a two-time Marine combat vet of Iraq who may yet be shipped back, and the aunt of one Marine who's been there three times in combat deployments and could be sent back even though he is now out of the Marine Corps--but still has his reserve commitment--and the aunt of another due to deploy in May…I have to say, that when I consider the fact that we may have AT LEAST TWO MORE YEARS OF BLOODSHED IN BUSH'S WAR, it makes me despair to the heavens. (By 2009, we will have been at war in Iraq for SIX YEARS. As of this date, we have already been at war longer than it took to whip the Nazis and have lost more soldiers and Marines than all the deaths from the 9-11 attacks.)
But, even though this man is "commander-in-chief"--this is still, the last time I checked, a representative democracy. And we will have a whole new batch of representatives sitting in congress and the senate, come January 4. Those people--Republicans and Democrats--must answer to the 89 percent of constituents who do not want to see this war escalated.
And there is only so much a president can do, at war, in a constitutional government before he must seek the help and support of that representative congress.
It is our duty, as citizens of the United States of America, to make our voices heard--loud and clear--not just in voting booths, but on editorial pages and in e-mails and letters and petitions and blogs and phone calls to the halls of congress--it is our civic duty and personal responsibility to lift our voices into a howl and a cry of outrage that WILL BE HEARD.
Bush cannot fight his war alone.
Not without our support.
He has got to be held accountable for his disastrous decisions.
DO NOT FALL FOR the marketing ploy that will begin to saturate the newsprint and airwaves in the days leading up to and following his big address to the nation, when administration puppets will fan out, pushing Bush's policies and justifying his cock-eyed rationale.
Make it your business to educate yourself. And speak out. Speak out to your congressperson and your senator. Speak out in letters to the editor. Speak out to the White House.
Let it be known that you will not support for election or re-election anyone who accepts without question yet another disastrous, arrogant, and egotistical war-plan out of this White House.
WE HAVE THE POWER. WE ARE THE PEOPLE. IT IS UP TO US.
We shouldn't have to wait two more long bloody years, until there is another president, to see a real and serious course-reversal in Iraq.
This month is inching up toward the bloodiest month since the Battle of Fallujah. We are losing 100 men and women every month in this quagmire. Ten times as many are being grievously wounded. At that rate, our losses will run more than 5,000--with 50,000 wounded--by January of '09, when a new president is finally sworn in.
This is a hemorrhage of American blood. What can we do to stop it?
We can pay attention.
If, for example, Bush and his minions tout a "temporary surge"--HOLD HIM TO IT. Give it two to three months. Then start watching and reading news accounts carefully. See if, in fact, that "surge" becomes permanent.
Listen for administration puppets to keep saying that "the next six months will be crucial." We've been hearing that for three years.
Don't let them slip things past you. Be alert. Be involved. Be aware.
We can fight for our fighters. We can go to war here on the homeland on behalf of our warriors.
Like Rep. John Murtha said, they have done everything we have asked of them, and so much more. They deserve not to live with the constant dread of having to return to the same battlefield over and over again, with their odds of making it home in one piece shrinking every time.
(And I'm not even going to go into the psychologically crippling aspects of this, or of the destructiveness to young military families. Nor am I going to go into the terribly sad loss to the United States military of fine officers and enlisted men who--but for this godforsaken war--would have made a career out of the military but who now can't get out fast enough. Or of those who have served their full enlistments but, due to stop-loss dirty tricks, are being forced to remain in the service against their will and are then redeployed to Iraq.)
As we go into the fourth year of this insane war, many, many soldiers and Marines are returning for their FOURTH deployments.
This has to stop.
WE CAN MAKE THE TOY SOLDIERS--WHO LOVE TO MARCH TO REVOLUTONARY WAR PICCOLOS AND GIVE STIRRING SPEECHES CONGRATULATING THEMSELVES--LISTEN TO THE REAL SOLDIERS WHO HAVE BRAVED REAL BATTLE.
Like the generals and the joint chiefs and the Pentagon, we can demand common sense strategies and solutions from our civilian leadership.
Our warriors are sinking down into the quicksand, but it's not too late.
Line up, dig in, grab the end of this rope, here--and help to pull them out.
--headline, Boston Globe, December 17, 2006
"Attacks in Iraq at Record High, Pentagon Says"
--headline, New York Times, December 19, 2006
"Pentagon Sites Success of Anti-American Forces in Iraq"
--headline, Washington Post, December 19, 2006
"On the War, Determined to Go His Own Way"
--headline, Washington Post, December 20, 2006
"White House, Joint Chiefs at Odds on Adding Troops"
--headline, Washington Post, December 19, 2006
"Bush No Longer Listening to Commanders on Troop Levels in Iraq"
--headline, Buzzflash.com, December 21, 2006
"Troop 'Surge' for Iraq Meets Growing Opposition in US"
--headline, Yahoo! News, December 25, 2006
According to a CNN poll conducted in mid-December, ONLY 11 PERCENT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE SUPPORT A TROOP "SURGE" INTO IRAQ.
Even more telling, perhaps, than the flat-out opposition of the American people to an escalation of the war in Iraq is that the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as two generals on the ground in Iraq--not to mention, the Iraq Study Group--OPPOSE troop escalation.
As late as October of '06, right about the time that Bush stated, "absolutely, we're winning," the war he started in Iraq, he repeated what he has said over and over again, that he would depend upon the generals on the ground to tell him whether more troops were needed.
Then, right about the time that he admitted, murkily, that, "we're not winning, but we're not losing, either," Bush started to ignore not only what his Joint Chiefs of Staff--right down to the last man--were telling him, but what the generals on the ground were saying, as well.
Then there came the usual tell-tale White House PR push to "roll out" a new marketing product, in this case, Bush's new war plan to escalate the war by not only sending more troops to Baghdad--which he will get by keeping troops who are already there in-country after they are supposed to go home, as well as rushing the deployments of those scheduled to depart later--but by building up the armed forces, altogether.
Some have suggested that he has even used the "building up the army" plan as a BRIBE to get reluctant commanders to go along with his scheme to secure Baghdad by sending in more troops.
I don't know about that. I do know that the two main generals on the ground who have opposed this plan will be "retiring" in a couple of months, and that after a hasty, three-day visit by the new secretary of defense, they are now mumbling garbled sentax about how, okay, it might be all right to send more troops into Baghdad IF there is a good strategy for their use.
So of course, Bush, the master strategy-manipulator who has, so far, trotted out six different reasons for unseating Saddam, coming up with a new war-rationale every time the old one is proven to be a lie or at least a massive miscalculation, will only be too obliging to provide a new "strategy" to effect his latest plan which is, after all, more of the same. A do-over, basically.
It's like saying, Okay, you said we didn't have enough troops. So, fine, we'll send more troops!
Of course, it's too late, now. In the beginning, those who were in-country fighting the war in '03 say that, as soon as the looting began, if we'd had enough troops at the time, as generals had been requesting from the beginning, we could have curtailed it and brought order and made the Iraqi people feel secure.
But our recently-feted secretary of defense said only, "Stuff happens." And ordered our troops to stand by and watch, which was the first clear signal to the Iraqis that they were on their own, and thus, caused the birth of the death-squad militias to "protect" the people. Meanwhile, when American troop commanders on the ground warned Rumsfeld about a growing insurgency, he dismissed them as "dead-enders."
As far as sending more troops into Baghdad, we already sent more troops into Baghdad, several months ago, and the Pentagon's own report stated that the troop escalation was a huge flop and that, rather than cutting down the violence in the capitol, it merely caused it to go UP.
So Bush says he's "listening" now. But those who have met with him, who have tried to present the unvarnished truth--which he claims he wants to hear--have been met with respectful but stony silence and brief meetings of a half-hour or so. No questions or follow-up to their presentations.
But Bush can state--unequivocally--that he did, indeed, "listen" to them.
Yet those hawks--the same neocon geniuses who pushed us into this miserable war in the first place and who, to this day, refuse to admit that they were wrong, preferring instead to blame Bush for screwing up their glorious little war--those who have all sorts of great plans for fixing it--like, say, escalating the troops--get a long meeting of two hours or more, peppered with questions.
In other words, Bush already knows what he wants to do and is, yet again, pretending to consider all options while, really, cherry-picking those arguments that fit his predisposed ideas, so that he can present his plan with a great flourish to the American people complete with more flags than you can count.
Expect his big speech to be full of praise for the ideas of those who opposed him, and small concessions to them, as if he really did care what they had to say. But don't expect him to actually change his disastrous policy in a war that is, increasingly, his own personal war.
"There's something much worse than being accused of 'flip-flopping': refusing to flip when it's obvious that your course of action is a flop…
"Half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial died after America's leaders knew that our strategy in that war was not working. Was then-secretary of defense Robert McNamara steadfast as he continued to send American troops to die for a war he knew privately could not be won? History does not remember his resolve--it remembers his refusal to confront reality."
--"When Resolve Turns to Recklessness," Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass), Washington Post, December 24, 2006
Remember when Donald Rumsfeld made his victory lap around Iraq the week before he left office, telling the longsuffering troops that, "History will show that I am right"?
If we really wanted to be shown--and not told--Bush's attitude toward Bush's War, we need only turn our attention to the obscene and tasteless display of egotism and arrogance put on by the White House to honor outgoing secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who, it could be argued, single-handedly caused the destruction of a nation, unparalleled war-profiteering at the hands of administration cronies, and horrendous losses of precious American blood and treasure in a war one Republican senator called, "misunderstood, misread, misplanned, and mismanaged…with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam." (Sen. Chuck Hagel, Neb.)
Here's a glimpse of all the toy-soldier pomp and circumstance, in which Maureen Dowd described Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld--the true "architects" of the Iraq war:
"The Defiant Ones came striding from the Pentagon yesterday, the troika of wayward warriors marching abreast in their dark suits and power ties. W., Rummy and Dick Cheney were so full of quick-draw confidence that they might have been sauntering down the main drag of Deadwood."
She goes on to describe the ceremony accurately, for I saw it, over and over again, on the evening news B-Roll they are so enamored of:
Yesterday's tribute had full military honors, a color guard, a 19-gun salute, an Old Guard performance with marching musicians--including piccolo players--in Revolutionary War costumes, John Philip Sousa music and the chuckleheaded neocons and ex-Rummy deputies who helped screw up the occupation, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, cheering in the audience.
It was surreal: the septuagenarian who arrogantly dismissed initial advice to send more troops to secure Iraq, being praised as "the finest secretary of defense this nation has ever had," by his pal, the vice president, even as a desperate White House drafted ways to reinvade Iraq by sending more troops in a grasping-at-straws effort to reverse the chaos caused by Rummy's mistakes.
--"Farewell, Dense Prince," Maureen Dowd, New York Times op-ed, December 19, 2006
This is as clear an indication of how Bush really feels about the way the war is going as fifty flag-draped speeches to the contrary. If Bush really felt that Rumsfeld had screwed up his war, he'd have not only fired him years ago, but he would have sent him packing in ignoble defeat.
You know, like what happened to Colin Powell, who was the only Cabinet member to oppose the war to Bush's face, back in 2002, the one who famously told the president the "Pottery Barn" policy, that, "You break it, you own it."
Never forget that this man was also, at one time, secretary of defense, one who actually WON a war in Iraq, one who had served his country in combat and with honor and distinction--a Republican, by the way--who did not get marching bands in Revolutionary War costumes when he was run out of office and replaced as secretary of state. And here is what Gen. Powell had to say about the latest "plan for victory" in Bush's War:
Speaking on CBS's "Face the Nation," former secretary of state, Colin Powell, seemed to draw as much from his 35-year Army career, including four years as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as from his more recent and difficult tenure as Bush's chief diplomat.
The summer's surge of U.S. troops to try to stabilize Baghdad failed, he said, and any new attempt is unlikely to succeed. "If somebody proposes that additional troops be sent, if I was still chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff, my first question… is what mission is it these troops are supposed to accomplish?...Is it something that is really accomplishable?...Do we have enough troops to accomplish it?
…"Sooner or later you have to begin the baton pass, passing it off to the Iraqis for their security and to begin the drawdown of U.S forces. I think that's got to happen sometime before the middle of next year."
Before any decision to increase troops, he said, "I'd want to have a clear understanding of what it is they're going for, how long they're going for. And let's be clear about something else…THERE REALLY ARE NO ADDITIONAL TROOPS. ALL WE WOULD BE DOING IS KEEPING SOME OF THE TROOPS WHO WERE THERE, THERE LONGER AND ESCALATING OR ACCELERATING THE ARRIVAL OF OTHER TROOPS."
He added, "THAT'S HOW YOU SURGE. AND THAT SURGE CANNOT BE SUSTAINED." (emphasis mine)
--"Powell Says U.S. Losing in Iraq, Calls for Drawdown by Mid-2007," Karen deYoung, Washington Post, December 18, 2006
Recent polls show that, even as only a stunning eleven percent of the American people support Bush's War the way Bush wants to run it, fewer than half of all Republicans and only one-third of conservatives approve of his war strategy.
One of the staunchest hawks on Capitol Hill, a conservative Republican who supported Bush all the way, said in a speech in the Senate chambers, "I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal." (Sen. Gordon Smith, Ore.)
The only supporters left of Bush's war, are, as Cokie Roberts referred to them in the Austin American-Statesman, "GOP hardliners--like Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney, who don't have to stand for office, or send their own children to war--are still telling Bush to ignore the 'surrender monkeys,' as one headline put it."
Ms. Roberts puts Bush's War--and all its tragic implications--into half a dozen succinct sentences that require no explanation:
This is Bush's War. He broke Iraq and now he owns it.
The nation is facing an enormous tragedy. Bush can't or won't leave Iraq, but staying means Pflugerville, TX (and Cheektowaga, NY, and Westerville, OH, and Oxford, AL, and Redding, CA) will keep burying its children. Only a new president will be able to stop the dying.
--"America Wakes Up to Dying Dreams, Dead Soldiers," Cokie Roberts and Steven V. Roberts, Newspaper Enterprise Assn., reprinted Austin American-Statesman, December 18, 2006
Now, as the mother of a two-time Marine combat vet of Iraq who may yet be shipped back, and the aunt of one Marine who's been there three times in combat deployments and could be sent back even though he is now out of the Marine Corps--but still has his reserve commitment--and the aunt of another due to deploy in May…I have to say, that when I consider the fact that we may have AT LEAST TWO MORE YEARS OF BLOODSHED IN BUSH'S WAR, it makes me despair to the heavens. (By 2009, we will have been at war in Iraq for SIX YEARS. As of this date, we have already been at war longer than it took to whip the Nazis and have lost more soldiers and Marines than all the deaths from the 9-11 attacks.)
But, even though this man is "commander-in-chief"--this is still, the last time I checked, a representative democracy. And we will have a whole new batch of representatives sitting in congress and the senate, come January 4. Those people--Republicans and Democrats--must answer to the 89 percent of constituents who do not want to see this war escalated.
And there is only so much a president can do, at war, in a constitutional government before he must seek the help and support of that representative congress.
It is our duty, as citizens of the United States of America, to make our voices heard--loud and clear--not just in voting booths, but on editorial pages and in e-mails and letters and petitions and blogs and phone calls to the halls of congress--it is our civic duty and personal responsibility to lift our voices into a howl and a cry of outrage that WILL BE HEARD.
Bush cannot fight his war alone.
Not without our support.
He has got to be held accountable for his disastrous decisions.
DO NOT FALL FOR the marketing ploy that will begin to saturate the newsprint and airwaves in the days leading up to and following his big address to the nation, when administration puppets will fan out, pushing Bush's policies and justifying his cock-eyed rationale.
Make it your business to educate yourself. And speak out. Speak out to your congressperson and your senator. Speak out in letters to the editor. Speak out to the White House.
Let it be known that you will not support for election or re-election anyone who accepts without question yet another disastrous, arrogant, and egotistical war-plan out of this White House.
WE HAVE THE POWER. WE ARE THE PEOPLE. IT IS UP TO US.
We shouldn't have to wait two more long bloody years, until there is another president, to see a real and serious course-reversal in Iraq.
This month is inching up toward the bloodiest month since the Battle of Fallujah. We are losing 100 men and women every month in this quagmire. Ten times as many are being grievously wounded. At that rate, our losses will run more than 5,000--with 50,000 wounded--by January of '09, when a new president is finally sworn in.
This is a hemorrhage of American blood. What can we do to stop it?
We can pay attention.
If, for example, Bush and his minions tout a "temporary surge"--HOLD HIM TO IT. Give it two to three months. Then start watching and reading news accounts carefully. See if, in fact, that "surge" becomes permanent.
Listen for administration puppets to keep saying that "the next six months will be crucial." We've been hearing that for three years.
Don't let them slip things past you. Be alert. Be involved. Be aware.
We can fight for our fighters. We can go to war here on the homeland on behalf of our warriors.
Like Rep. John Murtha said, they have done everything we have asked of them, and so much more. They deserve not to live with the constant dread of having to return to the same battlefield over and over again, with their odds of making it home in one piece shrinking every time.
(And I'm not even going to go into the psychologically crippling aspects of this, or of the destructiveness to young military families. Nor am I going to go into the terribly sad loss to the United States military of fine officers and enlisted men who--but for this godforsaken war--would have made a career out of the military but who now can't get out fast enough. Or of those who have served their full enlistments but, due to stop-loss dirty tricks, are being forced to remain in the service against their will and are then redeployed to Iraq.)
As we go into the fourth year of this insane war, many, many soldiers and Marines are returning for their FOURTH deployments.
This has to stop.
WE CAN MAKE THE TOY SOLDIERS--WHO LOVE TO MARCH TO REVOLUTONARY WAR PICCOLOS AND GIVE STIRRING SPEECHES CONGRATULATING THEMSELVES--LISTEN TO THE REAL SOLDIERS WHO HAVE BRAVED REAL BATTLE.
Like the generals and the joint chiefs and the Pentagon, we can demand common sense strategies and solutions from our civilian leadership.
Our warriors are sinking down into the quicksand, but it's not too late.
Line up, dig in, grab the end of this rope, here--and help to pull them out.
posted by Deanie Mills at 5:25 AM
5 Comments:
Here is an letter that posted in an Editorial Section of the Philadelphia Inquirer Newspaper. It speaks volumes about the reality of "Bush's War" and what our troops and health care givers face avery day. We have to be their voice. Kathy
A surgeon at the Iraqi front whose soul is often wounded.
John P. Pryor
is a trauma surgeon at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a major in the U.S. Army Reserve Medical Corps. He has just returned from a tour of active duty in which he was the general/trauma surgeon for the 344th Combat Support Hospital in Abu Ghraib, Iraq.
Today the warning came over the radio: "Urgent litter coming in by ground." I immediately went to the Emergency Treatment Room (ETR).
"IED, Marines," was all the nurse said as I walked in, IED meaning "improvised explosive device." The hospital staff went into full swing. These people are at the end of a yearlong deployment here. They are experienced, hardened, and cool under pressure, their activities programmed and efficient. I took my position at the head of bed number one, put my head down, and waited.
Within a few minutes, the litter team burst into the ETR. The patient's arms dangled off the stretcher with bone exposed, and I immediately knew that this was going to be a bad one. When the litter was pulled beside the bed, I saw the full extent of what I was up against. Driver, I thought to myself. Drivers always seem to get the full force. There is a pungent smell of gasoline and burned flesh.
My first order of business was to remove his body armor before we move him over; to do this, we have to sit him up to pull the arms through the sleeves. When we did, his arms, each broken in several places, flopped around like a puppet's. As we moved him over, I tried to ignore the massive destruction of his legs and focus on potential life-threatening chest and abdomen wounds. He was moaning, actually a good sign: The brain was still getting blood flow. Anesthesia moved to intubate him, as the emergency medicine physician started the primary survey. Nurses started lines, lab was there to bring blood, medics held pressure on bleeding wounds, all in a dance that has been repeated so many times before.
The other patients began to file in, eventually filling the ETR. One soldier in a bed next to ours was calling out to my patient, ignoring his own gaping wounds: "You're going to be OK, man, hang in there."
I began to focus on the problem and my plan. Both legs had massive injuries. The left thigh was torn apart and burned with a tourniquet at the groin. The right leg was mangled below the knee with a tourniquet above that. There was a neck wound that wasn't bleeding and shrapnel to the face. Both arms had multiple levels of open fractures. The pulse was weak, and the blood pressure was barely readable.
We hung blood immediately. The chest X-ray did not show any thoracic injury. We shot an abdominal film to look for shrapnel that may have gone into the belly - none. As we moved to the operating room, the hospital commander stopped me to ask if this patient was going to make it. I told him I was worried that once we started to resuscitate him, the bleeding would become even worse; I didn't know whether he would make it. His head dropped as he walked back to the chaos of the ETR.
In the operating room, we started by getting control of the external bleeding of the legs. Blood was coming from everywhere: bright-red arterial blood, dark-blue venous blood, and swirls of the two together in pools between the flesh.
Two orthopedic surgeons and I worked frantically to get control of the bleeding, which, as predicted, became worse as we started to resuscitate him. Anesthesia was struggling to keep a blood pressure, infusing unit after unit of packed red blood cells and plasma. I was going deeper and deeper into the groin to track down the source of the bleeding. Suddenly, my hand broke into a space, and a gush of blood came out. I realized I was in the retroperitoneal space; the bleeding was coming from there. This was the worst-case scenario. Bleeding from this location is the toughest in the body to control. Bleeding from this area is almost always from large veins that cannot be controlled with sutures or arterial control.
We opened the abdominal cavity and clamped the arteries that feed the pelvis, but it didn't help. We packed as tight as we could, and then put a sheet around the pelvis to pull the bones together in an attempt to tamponade the bleeding, but it was not enough. His heart went into a lethal arrhythmia. We shocked him and pumped epinephrine into his bloodstream. After a few minutes, his heart stopped for the last time.
There was an immediate silence in the operating room as soon as I announced the time of death. Most of the staff had tears running down their faces; this was a long year for them, with so many of these kids dying in this room. I could not move for several minutes. I looked at this kid, a child, and I apologized to him for not being skillful enough to save him.
As a trauma surgeon, every death I have is painful; every one takes a little out of me. Losing these kids here in Iraq rips a hole through my soul so large that it's hard for me to continue breathing. After a few minutes, I collected myself and began to direct the care for his final journey home. We closed what we could of the wounds and wrapped the ones we couldn't get together. We washed all of the dirt and oil off his skin, combed his hair and washed his face. He was transferred to a litter and brought to a private, enclosed room where we placed him inside a heavy black body bag. The body was draped with the American flag, and a guard was posted. The chaplain gathered some of the providers, and we said prayers over the body.
There was, and always is, a palpable grief that comes over the entire staff when we lose an American solider. Everyone is affected, and everyone deals with it in a different way. For me, this is not an objective, depressing thing to be a part of; it is very, very personal. I was the surgeon who couldn't save him. For me the grief is intolerable. I become the focus of the mourning, for the staff people come and give me a hug. They ask me if I am OK; they pray for me. I appreciate it and hate it at the same time.
Often my misery turns into anger. Sometimes I become angry with God for allowing this to happen. I just want the whole thing to be over, and all of these kids to go home to their families and live long lives. I have seen so many soldiers and Marines die here; I just want it all to end.
We arrange for his buddies to come in and say goodbye, something I cannot even bear to watch. After a time of reflection, the unit gathers the equipment and prepares to go out again that night. Courage: to lose a friend in battle and go right back into the fight. I love every single one of them.
The body was eventually taken to the loading zone and loaded into a helicopter with some of his buddies as escorts. He is taken to Baghdad International Airport (BIAP), where mortuary affairs prepared the body for transport home. When the casket is brought onto the airstrip, all personnel stop what they are doing and attend a 45-minute ceremony on the airstrip. They tell me that this happens two to three times a day, but everyone takes time out to attend the ceremonies. An honor guard then brings the flag-draped casket onto the C-130 with full military honors.
In Kuwait, the casket is removed first, again with a full honor guard. The Marine will be brought to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware and eventually home and to his final resting place.
If I could say something to this Marine's parents, it would be this: I am so sorry that you have lost your son. We, more than almost everyone else, know he was a true American hero. I want you to know that the Marines, medics, doctors and nurses of the 344th Combat Support Hospital did everything possible to save him. I want you to know I personally did everything I could, and that I am sorry that it wasn't enough. Although we never knew your son, we loved him. I want you to know that although he lost his life, we preserved his dignity after death. We held his hand when he died and prayed for his soul and for God to give you strength. I want you to know that he had great friends who cared deeply for him, and that they were also here when he died. He was never alone for his journey back to you. I also want you to know that I will never forget your son, and that I will pray for him and all of the children lost in this war.
________________________________________
Contact John P. Pryor at pryorj@uphs.upenn.edu.
Dear Roseecoveredglasses,
First of all, thank you for your service to our nation.
Secondly, You absolutely shot the arrow straight through the heart of this whole subject; as Pres. Eisenhower so presciently pointed out back when he warned America of the "military-industrial complex" that would, basically, revolve inexorably, around war. War would fund and support it and war would make it grow and keep it alive.
My brother-in-law recently retired as a Brig. Gen. in the Army Special Forces, and he is now juggling lucrative job offers from that defense industry complex--as will the soon-to-retire generals who have been operating this war. (Yes, they have to wait a year, technically, to go to work for a defense contractor, but they can be hired to do "other things" until the big contracts start rolling in.)
The point is that, the generals making the policy are as big of politicians as the civilian leadership; they know that how much money they make after they retire is incombent upon their pleasing their boss NOW, so they will go along with DISASTROUS policies rather than speak out and risk their fat jobs now and their fat jobs later.
It's all about ego, power, and $$$.
The actual soldiers and Marines are, well, cannon fodder.
What I want to know is...What CAN we do?
I know that the Vietnam war ended when Congress refused to fund it any more. The organization, Military Families Speak Out, is advocating that same thing, as we speak.
I'm not ready to go that far, even though I know there are ways to cut off funding for things that won't directly effect food and armor and ammo for the troops. STILL, it sounds extreme.
BUT...Is there any other alternative?
If you scroll on down and read the incredible, eloquent posted comment from a nurse who works at a VA hospital with Iraq and Afghanistan wounded, you will see the difference between what the troops on the ground see, versus what the plotters and planners see.
This is my greatest grief and frustration. As a combat vet, you know what I am talking about.
Only recently, my son mentioned that their company commander would always kiss the dead Marines on their foreheads before zipping up the body bags and sending them home.
How do you keep from having your heart torn out?
And HOW DO WE STOP THIS??? I know it can be done. This nation was at peace for an entire generation. And if they want a war, we've still got a viable one going in Afghanistan. Those contracts aren't going anywhere any time soon in tihs post-911 paranoia.
Semper fi,
Deanie
Kathy, honest to God, you are the most eloquent voice I have heard in a very long time.
Why don't you e-mail me at deaniemills@yahoo.com, and I'll send you a head's up whenever I make a new post.
I think I'll e-mail the doctor who wrote this incredible letter, and ask for permission to reprint it on my blog. Thank you for sharing it with us.
I was just telling rosecoveredglasses, there, that my son only recently mentioned that their company commander would always kiss the dead Marines on the forehead before zipping up their body bags and sending them home.
God. It just rips your heart out.
There are other war dead--as you well know--who don't even make the statistics. Like a buddy of his who had both legs and an arm blown off by an IED. He hung on for two months in a hospital with his devastated family at his side before he finally succombed.
His death won't be counted as combat dead, but that is what he was. Who knows how many others like him are out there?
I just want it to stop. Somehow, some way. I may be a Pollyanna, and I've read all the dire predictions of what will happen if we pull out, but I can't help but think there must be a way to end this.
And for every day that the policy-makers and pundits argue, more die.
Love and semper fi,
Deanie
From Lee:
"Secondly, You absolutely shot the arrow straight through the heart of this whole subject; as Pres. Eisenhower so presciently pointed out back when he warned America of the "military-industrial complex" that would, basically, revolve inexorably, around war. War would fund and support it and war would make it grow and keep it alive."
Thanks for saving me the time and effort. I was just about to search out General Eisenhower's exact quotes, when you made the point for me but his quotes are even more educational and illuminating. He said:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together. "
Lee! Your post didn't come through to my e-mail, so I didn't realize you'd made a comment, and thank you sooo much for the quote. I've been wanting to get my hands on it ever since I saw it, but have been too busy to do the homework. Thanks, buddy! (And you even got an Amen from Anonymous. Wow.)
Love and semper fi,
Deanie
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