Our Troops Get Shafted. Again.

Saturday, April 12th, 2008

Part 1: Tour of Duty Changes
Bush made a big fucking deal about changing the tour of duty from 15 months to 12 months. While it was recommended to be 12 months deployed and 24 months home to keep troop moral and mental health high they decided that 12 on and 12 off was good enough. Well, at least it is a step in the right direction, right?
As with everything else with this administration there is small print: This offer only valid to troops starting their tours after August 1st. Now I bet we will see the rapid redefining of the term “tour of duty”.

Part 2: Voting Rights
VA secretary James Peake, in response to a letter from Senators Kerry and Feinstein, say they will not reverse their ban on either allowing injured veterans to register to vote or even helping an injured vet get somewhere where they could register to vote. The reasoning?
They consider registering to vote a “partisan political activity”. So if you are injured fighting for this administration and are laid up in a VA hospital somewhere your right to vote gets essentially revoked.

This administration makes the charge that people who are against the war are not supporting the troops. Here they are, yet again proving that they are truly the ones that are against the troops.
It is easy to get the masses worked into a frenzy powered by fear. Fear of terrorism. Fear of extremists. Fear of people who are different. Fear of who and what they want you to fear. Fear is what got us here and fear is what is keeping us here. I, for one, say fuck you. I will not fear what and when it is convenient for this administration. I will not have a Pavlovian-like fear on command response to the words “Muslim” or “terrorist”. I will not ignore your misdeeds in the name of your redefinition for freedom out of fear.
I will not fear you.
I don’t understand how you could continue to put our soldiers in harms way without the proper armor. Without the proper gear. Without the proper care. How you could continue this and still pretend to have the best interests of the troops in mind. You, Mr. Bush, you and all those working with you are traitors to this country and should be dealt with as such.


Five years.

Wednesday, March 19th, 2008

Five years.
Boots.
U.S. deaths confirmed by the DoD: 3988.
An unknown amount of Iraqi civilian deaths.
Happy anniversary.


Four Years Ago Yesterday.

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007

A war began.
The cost has been high. 3,213 U.S. deaths currently confirmed by the D.O.D. with another 24,042 officially listed as wounded. 5 more deaths await D.O.D. confirmation. Number of those deaths that came after Bush told us “Mission accomplished”: 3,079. The death toll for non-U.S. coalition troops is listed at 257. There have also been between 59,326 and 65,160 civilians killed by military action.
No link to the 9/11 attacks have ever been made to Iraq, no WMDs found and Bin Laden has been forgotten.
All this time wasted and all these lives lost and we still don’t have a light at the end of the tunnel.

The Democrats are pushing for a troop withdrawal. The Republican side argues back with their standard “the terrorists will win” bullshit to try to instill more fear into the nation and keep us behind them like a herd of scared sheep.

All this and what amuses me the most is, while less than one-third of Americans support the war, Bush threatens to veto any measures passed to push through a troop withdrawal.
The fuck?
Last I checked he was elected by the people of this country to work for the people of this country. Basically a civil servant with less requirements and more power.

Now, I’m not saying that Bush should just cave in and pull all the troops out now but I think he should at least be coming to the table. Problem is, he knows he is on the way out and the Republicans along with him. By not making any decisions about the war the Democrats will have a giant hole to dig out of when they take over the White House.

So that is what it takes? 4 years and a ton of deaths to give the other team a wedgie.