by Just Me

Approaching this Memorial Day Weekend it was announced that sadly the casualty count of U.S. soldiers that have died in Afghanistan is now over 1,000 – AN ILLEGAL AND FUTILE WAR in its 9th year. A war in a country commonly known as the “Graveyard of Empires.” Add to that, the number of wounded in action is over 5,500, while the number of medically evacuated due to injury or disease is over 9,400.

Total U.S. casualties Afghanistan as of 4/13/10 is over 15,900.

The Iraq war, now entering into the 7th year, claims the lives of over 4400, and records indicate wounded in action close to 32,000, and a third category of medically evacuated due to injury or disease of close to 39,000.

Total U.S. casualties Iraq as of 4/13/10 is over 75,000.

We must also realize this figure doesn’t include the number of wounded
that must be cared for, nor the ones who suffer emotionally and
psychologically.

It is reported that 300,000 vets have mental problems and 320,000 vets
have brain injuries. These figures are U.S. troops from Iraq and
Afghanistan.

Reportedly there are 18 vet suicides per day – many occur after learning
they are going to re-deploy back to Iraq and Afghanistan war zones. The
number of soldiers deployed twice or more to war zones is a staggering
831,169 as of 4/13/10.

These figures do not include the casualties of innocent men, women and
children in either of these countries, which number in the millions. Nor
does it include the number of births – children that are seriously deformed
and defected because of the lethal weapons that employ nuclear material
used in fighting these wars. Viewing photographs of these deformities will
literally make you sick at your stomach. But look we must. We no longer
can or should support these wars of aggression for our sake and the sake of
all other countries fighting alongside our men and women.

Below is a memo from Ray McGovern to Congressman David Obey as it
appears at Antiwar dot com. The recent war budget sugar coated
with money for teachers is classic mode of operandi. It speaks volumes as
the folks on The Hill continue to line the pockets of the global elite who
always fund both sides of the war, and show little concern for human lives.
I would challenge all of you to follow Ray McGovern’s lead and ask that you
take the time this Memorial Day, in honor of those serving and those who
have served this country, to write to your congressmen/women and tell
them ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Pack up the troops and bring ‘em home!

###

MEMORANDUM FOR: Congressman David Obey
FROM: A Former Admirer
SUBJECT: Ducking the Challenge

“We can sit, frozen in our own indifference, as President Roosevelt once
said…” That’s what you said yesterday in connection with saving teachers’
jobs. Sadly, it also applies — in spades — to saving lives in an unnecessary
war.

It is amazing how you’ve changed, Dave, in the 25 years since you told then-
Secretary George Shultz from your subcommittee chairman seat, “I did not
take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States
until I got tired.” (As you’ll recall, Shultz had made the mistake of saying, in
effect, screw the law; the American people are tired of hearing about Iran-
Contra.)

Now we are supposed to feel sorry for you because you say you are too
“bone tired” to do your duty to defend the Constitution as it continues to be
undermined by an illegal and futile war in Afghanistan in which over 1,000
American soldiers have already died.

Have you made your colleagues aware of the unconscionable fact that little
thought has been given to the need to appropriate hundreds of billions
more to care for those wounded in battle? Even now, most of our veterans
are already being treated shabbily. You know that.

You recently told a TV interviewer you thought the war in Afghanistan was
a “fool’s errand.” But you then added quickly that, if we are to pursue this
errand, it must be fully funded. You are smart enough to know there is no
logic in that.

Two important things happened yesterday:

1-You made it clear that your “chairman’s mark” on the supplemental that
provides for $33 billion more for the war will be augmented by the lipstick
of $23 billion for teachers’ jobs in what you plan to send forward from
Appropriations.

2-You refused to meet with former Iraq War veteran Josh Stieber to hear
how the Pentagon’s “rules of engagement” have brutalized our own soldiers
— not to mention countless Iraqis and Afghans. Stieber’s two-week attempt
to get a few minutes of your time was given the cold shoulder — even
though he spent from 8:15 AM to 6:30 PM yesterday in the Rayburn
building.

You owe the Josh Stiebers of our armed forces big time. We all do. You
must not have taken the time to view “Collateral Murder,” the Army gunbarrel video showing American troops killing Iraqi civilians in a turkeyshoot on July 12, 2007 during the “surge” in Baghdad. In blowing off Josh Stieber (who was in that unit), you also blew off the 100,000 of his former buddies already in, or headed to, Afghanistan. Thousands of those will have their lives destroyed, in one way or another, with the help of $33 billion more for what you, in a candid moment, called a “fool’s errand.”

A sad irony here is that when you came to Congress, you helped end the
Vietnam War by cutting off funding. Another sad reality is this: I know that
you know that Afghanistan is another Vietnam — only more feckless.
Sadder still is the fact that you are unwilling to tell your colleague about Joe
McCarthy and scare tactics — whether they are about communists or
terrorists. And it is both profoundly sad, and highly ironic, that Joe
McCarthy’s demagoguery was what prompted you to get involved in
politics.

Not all that hard to do, I suppose — I mean, to give President Obama the
wherewithal to fund the war rather than wind it down. After all, your sons
will not have to go; nor will any of your neighbors in the 22207 zip-code
area of Arlington. Neither will the sons of your colleagues in Congress. Our
“professional army” is a poverty draft, and you know it. “Preferential option
for the poor” be damned.

In my mind’s eye I can see a long line of people, once proud of you, now
wondering what has happened. I don’t mean only La Follette, who of course
didn’t know you, but after whom you have styled yourself. No, I mean
people who did know you and once admired you: people like Sister
Margaret, Sister Tecla, John Francis Dearden, Tom Gumbleton. And people
like me.

When “heartland progressives,” as you call yourself on the cover of your
book, get “bone-tired,” that is precisely the time when they should stick to
their principles and go out fighting. What, in God’s name, have you got to
lose?

Call me an “idiot liberal,” if you will. I’ll refrain from name-calling —
although quite a few come to mind. I just want to register my profound
disappointment at, and inability to understand, the Faustian bargain you
appear to have struck, as well as my grief over the lives that will be lost and
damaged as a result.

Yours truly,
/s/
Ray McGovern
Arlington, Virginia
May 27, 2010