pIt's almost enough to make your head explode. Time and time again we see Bush and his cohorts hide behind the flag, and those dumb little "Support the Troops" magnets - for everything they do even everything they don't do to protect this nation.
I for one, am well sick of it.
Last week we had the absolute coup de gras revealed by the Dana Priest at the Washington Post that Walter Reed, the Hospital responsible for taking care of our many thousands of wounded returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, is a rat and roach infested shithole.
But the signs were well displayed on the wall long before this recent report. Long before...
Here's a quote we should all be committing to memory.
Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.
On the worst days, soldiers say they feel like they are living a chapter of "Catch-22." The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk of suicide.
But this isn't the picture that the Bush Administation - who frequently used Walter Reed as a shining example of their "commitment to the troops" - would like to paint.
This world is invisible to outsiders. Walter Reed occasionally showcases the heroism of these wounded soldiers and emphasizes that all is well under the circumstances. President Bush, former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and members of Congress have promised the best care during their regular visits to the hospital's spit-polished amputee unit, Ward 57.
"We owe them all we can give them," Bush said during his last visit, a few days before Christmas. "Not only for when they're in harm's way, but when they come home to help them adjust if they have wounds, or help them adjust after their time in service."
They'd like to keep this ugly little secret hidden - unfortunately the WaPo blew their cover and they've been scrambling like ants under a magnifying glass ever since with Tony Snow first declaring that Bush knew all about it and then that he didn't. Flip-flop much Tony?
But Walter Reed is just the tip of the iceberg.
The issue of equiping our troops with proper armor, aging equipment, helmets and Frag 5 kits has been going on for as long as the war.
Many of those who are in walter Reed with amputations and brain injuries wouldn't even be there if proper precautions had been taken in the first place. (Nor or course, would they be there if we hadn't started a bogus war in the first place - although that fact is beside the point of this post)
The true disgrace here is that even with all of these clear shortfalls in spending and legitimate support for the troops the U.S. has simultaneously wasted over $10 Billion in Iraq in addition to the $8.8 Billion that the Coalition Provisional Authority just plain lost.
The three top auditors overseeing contract work in Iraq told a House committee of $10 billion in spending that was wasteful or poorly tracked. They pointed to numerous instances in which Defense and State department officials condoned or otherwise allowed poor accounting, repeated work delays, bloated expenses and payments for work shoddily or never done by U.S. contractors.
Yet when someone like John Murtha (who visits Walter Reed every week) steps forward to try and truly give the troops the support they deserve and need - including ensuring they receive proper training, proper equipment and proper rest prior to redeployment - he is vilified by the right for attempting to "slow bleed" us out of the war.
What a surprise that is, eh?
We all know about Jean Schmidt accusing a decorated Marine veteran like Murtha of being a "coward" who "cuts and runs". This follows perfectly with thier attacks on John Kerry for simply stating the truth about Vietnam, just as they've tried to White-Wash Abu Ghraib, Haditha and Mahmoudiya.
Should we expect any less after Bush sets up a staged interview with the troops just so they can tell America "everything is going great" - especially the training of the Iraqi Army - which we subsequently learned had been completely botched and fubar'd just like everything else the Bush Administration has tried, and failed to do in this war?
Just as they love to tear down real heroes - they also love to create false stories about them such as the ones about Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman.
Meanwhile they ignore the fact that repeated deployments and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and anti-depressants are leading our troops into record breaking levels of suicide.
Twenty-two U.S. troops committed suicide in Iraq last year, accounting for nearly one in five of all non-combat deaths and the highest suicide rate since the war started, the newspaper said.
Some service members who committed suicide in 2004 and 2005 were kept on duty despite clear signs of mental distress, sometimes after being prescribed antidepressants with little or no mental health counseling or monitoring, the Courant reported. Those findings conflict with regulations adopted last year by the Army that caution against the use of antidepressants for "extended deployments."
"I can't imagine something more irresponsible than putting a soldier suffering from stress on (antidepressants), when you know these drugs can cause people to become suicidal and homicidal," said Vera Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a New York-based advocacy group. "You're creating chemically activated time bombs."
Yet to them, Murtha is the one who "doesn't support the troops" - if you can believe that.
They call it their 'slow-bleed' plan. Instead of supporting the troops in Iraq, or simply bringing them home, the Democrats intend to gradually make it harder and harder for them to do their jobs.
'Slow-bleed' is exactly the right name for this incredibly irresponsible and dangerous strategy. Cutting and running is bad enough. But the Murtha-Pelosi 'slow-bleed' plan is far worse. It is a cynical and dangerous erosion of our ability to fight the terrorists while we still have men and women on the ground in Iraq. It will put their lives in far greater danger, as resources slowly dry up. How can our troops operate without bases? How can they fight without backup?
But of course, if Democrats were to cut funding or try to put a cap on the troops - the Republicans would scream bloody murder about it wouldn't they? It's not like they didn't seriously entertain doing the exact same thing (impose a cap and cut funding) for President Clinton's campaigns in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo.
Oh wait, they did.
At a certain point you simply have to admit that this is a complete pile of bullcrap.
These guys don't really care about our troops - they simply using them as a political tool to enrich their own positions of power. And even after that has clearly stopped working on the American people - amazingly, they're still doing it. They've been getting away with this shit for so long , they don't when it's time to quit the game and go home.
It truly boggles the mind.
This Sunday 60 Minutes did a report on a number of Iraq Veterans who have now turned against the War.
"It's not about speaking out against the military or speaking out against the war. It's just, we're here four years down the line and there's not an end to it," Sgt. Evans, one of the dissenters, tells Logan.
"What are we trying to accomplish over there? I mean, what is what are we trying to do in Iraq?" another soldier, Sgt. Ronn Cantu asks.
What does he think?
"I don't even know anymore," he tells Logan.
...
"We’re not telling young men and women that it’s not worth it, to serve their country. We’ve served our country. The men and women who have signed the appeal have served their country. So those, we’re not saying it’s not worth it. We’re saying that, if you have reservations about it to communicate it. That’s simply what it is," Hutto says.
"There are gonna be a lot of people who don't like what you’re doing," Logan says.
"By volunteering we've done more than about 99 percent of the population. And anybody who joined after 9/11 when the country was at a state of war, it's my opinion that nobody has the right to question that soldier's patriotism, nobody," Cantu replies.
"There are going to be a lot of people listening to this who say that, 'You're a traitor. You're betraying your uniform. You don't deserve to wear it,'" says Logan.
"I hope there aren't people that think that," says Lt. Commander Mark Dearden.
Oh but they will think that, particularly those in the right-wing state of mind.
In response Hannity practically had an aneurysm, claiming that "CBS is distorting the truth - they're lying." He's promising to expose them and has setup an email address (VictoryInIraq@foxnews.com) for veterans who continue to support this war and the way that it's being fought.
He had "expert" testimony for Oliver North who claimed "I've never heard any troops complain to me" about Iraq. Hm, maybe those that would complain probably don't think it's worth their time to talk to neo-facists like North or Hannity - ya think?
Then again, I think a few Dkos vets might have a thing or too to say to Mr. Hannity.
The good news is that these ploys really are beginning to fail. People don't believe this tripe anymore. 67% of the public currently disapproves of how the Iraq war is being handled. 64% don't think Iraq wasn't worth fighting for. 56% feel we should withdraw our forces before civil order is restored. 67% oppose "the Surge". 58% would support a plan similar to Murtha's requiring better training and more rest time.
They don't believe Cheney when he say's everything is going fine in Afghanistan - not after al-Qaeda attempts to kill him with a suicide-bombing.
They don't believe Laura Bush when she claims "Much Of Iraq Is ‘Stable,’ There’s Just ‘One Bombing A Day That Discourages Everybody’" - while figures show that there are over 185 militia and insurgent attacks a day.
The rights pathological hatred and disgust for the troops welfare is obvious for all to see - which may explain why they fight so hard to over-compensate for it.
They resent the Troops. Possibly because those men and women who serve have either shown the type of courage almost none of them possess or have come from dire financial straights which the pampered blue-bloods of the reich wing will never truly relate too.
Whatever the reason - it's clear that all they really care about is basking in the endless shower of money for defense contracts and sub-contracts that perpetual war will guarantee for generations. As was shown in Robert Greenwald's film "Iraq for Sale" this is all about enabling War Profiteers, nothing more.
The right doesn't want to "Win" this war - they simply want the fighting to go on and on and on...
It's better for the bottom line of Halliburton, CACI and Blackwater, so what if our troops pay for it with their bodies and blood?
And that's why - From DAY ONE - they have shown nothing but contempt for the "poor rubes" who let themselves be suckered into a uniform.
2008 can't come soon enough for their day of reckoning.
Vyan
