Today is Memorial Day in which there are parades, picnics, speeches and articles written nationwide to honor our country's heroes, the men and women who are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to defend our country. Tragically, all too many of our heroes have made this sacrifice. They leave behind loved ones whose lives have been terribly and irrevocably changed.
Though it is painful to view the body bags of our fallen returning home, or see televised interviews with the maimed soldiers, many of them barely in their teens, it is absolutely critical that the citizens of this country know the reality of warfare. It is not TV. It is not a film. It's not about Rambo or "Make My Day” Clint Eastwood, or Robo Cop or any other fictional macho action character and overly romanticized situation. It is real, not make believe. It is horrible. It is terrifying. It is cataclysmic. It is life changing and life taking. It is hell in every way, shape and form. It should be avoided at all costs.
The administration's reluctance if not blatant refusal to grant us access to witness our fallen's return home should be telling.
War is so tragically devastating on all levels that it should be declared only when it is the final option available to avoid catastrophe, that is, real and imminent threat to our national security. That all other possibilities for negotiation and peace have been exhausted and have failed.
We know now, even before the Downing Street Memo, that the situation in Iraq did not pose an imminent threat to our national security. There is no justification for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. None whatsoever.
In all of the fanfare surrounding this sacred day to honor our fallen military, it would be nice if one member of the Bush Administration were to be forthright, step forward and explain the outrageous allegations contained in the Downing Street Memo. Did you or did you not, Mr. President, force the fixing of intelligence to suit your policy, that is, your unrelenting will to wage war with Iraq? Can you look at the graves of the our dead soldiers, some barely in their teens, and look into the eyes of their grief-stricken, heartbroken and devastated parents, their spouses, their siblings, their children, their relatives and friends and tell them that yes, it was absolutely imperative for us to go to war? That there were no other viable options left to us? Not one? Can you tell us that, Mr. President? LS
News dedicated to seeking the truth.
BUSH LIED AND WE LET HIM.
Yes, me most certainly did. All of us.
Found on Raw Story, a piece in the Star Tribune of Minneapolis hammers Bush on Memogate.
Excerpt:
It turns out that former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill were right. Both have been pilloried for writing that by summer 2002 Bush had already decided to invade.
BUSH LIED AND WE LET HIM
THE REAL CASUALTY
Found on the Baltimore Sun.com via Buzz Flash. Although this article does not address Memogate it takes Bush to task for the reckless and irresponsible way in which we went to war in Iraq.
THE REAL CASUALTY
A MOTHER'S WAR from the NYT.
I read this article the NY Times Magazine yesterday. It focussses on the day-to-day lives of mothers whose children are in Iraq. The piece will give anyone in love with the idea of war a well-deserved reality check.
The article is also posted on Truth out.org.
Excerpt:
Tracy's closest friends in the world right now are other parents whose sons and daughters have served in Iraq or are serving there now. Some of these parents think the war is righteous, some think it was wrongheaded from the outset and some, like Tracy, have made fierce internal bargains with themselves about what they will and will not think about as long as their children and their children's comrades remain in uniform and in harm's way. The women Tracy meets every week for dinner, each of whom has a son in the Marines or the Army, have a "no politics" rule around their table; this was one of two things I remember Tracy telling me the first time she took me to a gathering of the mothers. The other thing was that draped over a banister in Tracy's house was an unwashed T-shirt Derrick had dropped during his last visit home. I thought Tracy was apologizing for her housekeeping, which I had already seen was much better than mine, but she cleared her throat and said that what I needed to understand was that she hadn't washed the T-shirt because if the Marine Corps has to send you your deceased child's personal effects, it launders the clothing first. "That means there's no smell," Tracy said.
A MOTHER'S WAR"
WOUNDS HEAL BUT TRAUMA FROM COMBAT REMAIN. A returning soldier talks about his experiences in Iraq. Questions our role there.
Found on the Baltimore Sun.com via Buzz Flash
SOLDIER'S EXPERIENCES
INTERVIEW WITH THOM HARTMANN AND BRITISH MP GEORGE GALLOWAY
Found on Common Dreams.org via Buzz Flash.
Remember Mr. Galloway, the British MP who delivered scathing and outraged testimony to the Senate Hearing on his "wrongdoings" in Iraq? Mr. Galloway essentially called the Senators on U.S. hypocrisy and corruption in Iraq, not to mention our own home grown corrupted politics. LS
Excerpt:
From Mr. Galloway..... Well, you know, we're used to sending observers to third world countries and former banana republics to observe their elections. But the British election recently, and your election just a little more distantly, and the one in 2000 for that matter, really, if they had been observed by third world observers would have been declared bogus and deeply flawed.
Your president stole the presidency in Florida using his brother and his brother's close friends to cheat the people of the United States out of their freely elected president who was undoubtedly Al Gore. Even if you only counted the votes that actually made it through the hoops in order to be cast, the president was really Al Gore. And in Ohio, and I've read the stuff that Congressman Conyers is doing and I commend it, it's clear enough on the face of it that there was substantial fraud in that state and thus delivering the Electoral College vote for president Bush.
GEORGE GALLOWAY
WALL STREET JOURNAL BLASTS REPUBLICANS.
This surprising piece was found on Buzz Flash.com.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
BLACK BOX VOTING/US COUNTS VOTES Updates.
If you want to know what is going on behind the scenes with regard to voter fraud/voter reform, check out the site below. It does not make for exciting reading - au contraire some of it is quite tedious. But if you want to know what is going on in this realm, it is a must read.
BLACK BOX VOTING
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