Vagabond Scholar: Day of Shame

Botocchio hits one out of the park:

Vagabond Scholar: Day of Shame

It's long, and there many out links, but it is pretty damn comprehensive.

Go check it out.

Err, WTF????

Ok, I thought I’d seen it all. I have become jaded and cynical when it comes to this administration and it’s “support the troops” rhetoric. I really didn’t think I could be shocked anymore, and certainly not surprised by anything that the Pentagon, and by extension this administration could pull.

I was wrong.

The military is demanding soldiers injured in service repay signing bonuses because they cannot complete their commitments.

What.

The.

Fuck?

Let me get this straight. If a soldier loses an eye, or an arm, or a leg and gets sent home they have to pay back any bonus they received for volunteering?

I don’t believe in hell, but I hope it exist so these fuckers can burn in it.

Recommended Reading

Minstrel Boy lets out an excellent rant over at Harp and Sword. I can't say it any better so go check it out.

What do you guys have today?

How Can This Happen?

I am so blinded by rage at this article that this post probably won’t even make sense.

As I have mentioned before. I am a single father. The minefield that is post-divorce child-rearing, visitation, dealing with the ex is my daily fare. I live in constant fear that the slightest accident or misstep will mean another trip to family court and the kids going to their mother. The logical part of my brain knows this is highly unlikely, but the fear is so deep rooted that it is impossible to dispel.

Then this.

Deployed soldiers are losing custody of their children while they are gone fighting the war. I just really can’t write anymore about this. Go read it, and get pissed off.

Come Back Here and I'll Bite Your Legs Off!

Best Political Analogy ever!!

Rock on Mr. Shakes!!

Your Tax Dollars At Work

As today is tax day, and no doubt the evening news reports will be awash in video of long lines at the post office hoping to beat the deadline, I thought it might be appropriate to take a look at what we are paying for.

The war in Iraq seems to have taken a backseat in the news lately. Things vastly more important have been filling the airwaves. Things like the DNA test of Anna Nicole’s baby, the Imus brouhaha, Angelina’s attempt to overtake Mia Farrow in adoptions, you know, important stuff.

Of course there is the other news also, the impending testimony of A.G. Weasel Gonzales, and sadly, yesterday’s chilling rampage at Virginia Tech. But in the midst of this real news, and fluff, let’s not forget that what Americans witnessed in Blacksburg Virginia yesterday is a daily occurrence in Baghdad.

In an outstanding article printed in the Niagara Falls Reporter, Bill Gallagher recounts the consequences of our involvement in Iraq.

This is heartbreaking stuff people.

When confronted with politicians in the media selling the progress being made, the Red Cross workers took a poll of their own. They asked several Iraqi women what was "their most pressing need". One woman's answer may well stick with me for the rest of my life.

"The most important thing that anyone could do is to help collect the bodies that line the streets in front of our homes every morning. No one dares to touch them, but for us it is unbearable to have to expose our children to such images every day as we try to bring them to school."

Stop for a moment and imagine that. I am a single Dad. I worry about my kids eating right, I worry if they brush their teeth enough, I worry that are hanging out with the right crowd, but I don’t worry about them dodging corpses on the way to school. Let that sink in. She didn’t ask for electricity, or clean water, or security, she wants the corpses picked up a daily basis. This is a world I cannot fathom. This makes the worlds of Beckett and Pirandello seem safe and predictable. Yet that is what these people face every single day; Courtesy of the American Tax Payer.

Wait a minute you say, I don’t support the war, I didn’t even vote for the criminals running our country. Perhaps not, but it is our Government, our tax dollars committing these atrocities. Where are the protests? Where are the masses marching through the streets demanding an end to these crimes being done in our name?

They are at home wondering if tonight is the night Sanjaya finally gets voted off.

Wake up America, perception is reality, and the world perceives that Americans are responsible for the lives of untold thousands of civilians.

This article goes on and very adeptly summarizes the failures of our policy. Please go read it. I had meant to summarize the whole thing, but I find myself too disgusted to write rationally.

Sacrifice Isn't A Four Letter Word.

Via Shakes -

Do you have time to send a letter to your Senator/Representative?

Below is the letter written by Michael Dunford, whose wife is an Army Officer.

I will be sending one to my Senators and Rep. Please do the Same.

I am the husband of a currently deployed Army officer stationed in Hawaii, and with a home of record in New York. I'm writing today for two reasons: to thank you for your support of emergency war funding legislation that included a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq and to ask you to take an additional step and require that any additional funding for the current conflict be paid for immediately, through a tax increase.

When my wife was deployed in Afghanistan two years ago, I found the deployment easier to deal with than her current Iraq tour, even though she was probably in more physical danger in Afghanistan. At that time, I at least had the comfort of believing in the cause that she was fighting for. Right now, I'm not sure I even know just why she - or the rest of our troops - are there. I'm a bit of a cynic by nature, and did not expect my view of the cause to make a difference in how easy it would be to face the separation. To my surprise, I've discovered that it's much easier to make sacrifices when you know why you are being asked to make them.

This brings me to one of the reasons that I am asking that you attach a tax increase to any further war spending - sacrifice. Last night, when my wife called from the FOB she's stationed at, I mentioned that I had learned about the decision to extend Army tours through the media instead of through Army channels, but that it was nowhere near the top story of the night. A radio DJ getting fired for making insensitive and racist comments, the (criminal) innocence of college athletes, and the implications of the Anna Nicole paternity test were all apparently much more newsworthy events. My wife was surprised that this surprised me. Her response was, "Of course it isn't. Why would most people care about this."

She's right. The vast majority of the American public has little at stake in this conflict. The sacrifices are being made by the military and by military families. As retired Major General John Batiste put it last year, "Most Americans only confront this issue by deciding what color of magnet [to put] on the back end of their SUV." I think that if more Americans were being asked to make sacrifices to support this war effort, more Americans would pay closer attention to what has been (and is) going on.

Sacrifice isn't the only reason to make sure that this war is funded through taxes now. We also have a responsibility to our descendants. Right now, our two children are already being asked to sacrifice a great deal for this war effort - their mother has been away during 18 of the last 33 months. It is unfair, unreasonable, and irresponsible to ask them, when they grow up, to also pay the financial costs of the war. The current policies, unfortunately, do just that.

Please consider taking these actions, both to support the troops who are deployed now and to support those who are being asked to pay for the war later.

In addition to emailing this letter to you, I am also posting it on my blog (http://scienceblogs.com/authority). I would encourage anyone who reads it there to send a similar letter to their Representatives and Congressmen.

Thank you for your time and consideration.
Michael Dunford

If every American had to bear the sacrifice equally, we would be out of Iraq by tomorrow evening. His point about asking our children to pay for the war is an especially poignant one. Not only are we killing (both directly and indirectly) civilians, women and children, we are passing the buck to the next generation to pay for it.

Wake up America!

Hey Buddy, Can You Spare 1.2 Trillion?

What is your pet project?

If Nancy Pelosi called you up and guaranteed funding for whatever you would like the government to do, what would you request?

Universal health care, rebuild New Orleans, fund research on alternative fuels, really address poverty? Whoaaaa we can’t have all that, its way too expensive you say, right? According to this New York Times article, (in the business section, no less), we’ve already spent it on Iraq. Click on the above graphic to bring it into perspective.

This little tidbit should whet your appitite for the whole article:

In the days before the war almost five years ago, the Pentagon estimated that it would cost about $50 billion. Democratic staff members in Congress largely agreed. Lawrence Lindsey, a White House economic adviser, was a bit more realistic, predicting that the cost could go as high as $200 billion, but President Bush fired him in part for saying so. These estimates probably would have turned out to be too optimistic even if the war had gone well. Throughout history, people have typically underestimated the cost of war, as William Nordhaus, a Yale economist, has pointed out. But the deteriorating situation in Iraq has caused the initial predictions to be off the mark by a scale that is difficult to fathom. The operation itself — the helicopters,the
tanks, the fuel needed to run them, the combat pay for enlisted troops, the salaries of reservists and contractors, the rebuilding of Iraq — is costing more than $300 million a day, estimates Scott Wallsten, an economist in Washington.

At this point the estimate begins to differ on the long term cost of the war. If you read the side bar, these estimates have risen since they were published. Even the most conservative put it over a trillion dollars. I strongly urge you to read the entire article and its accompanying reports.

We often focus on the human cost of the war, (and rightfully so), but this is a cold slap in the face when you consider who is financing this war; the poor, the sick, the uneducated children. This, my friends is the true face of the Republican Party. We will never be able to afford universal health care, or true educational reforms, or to feed our hungry, but we can give tax cuts to the richest Americans, and all the while throw stomach wrenching amounts of money into the desert sand to appease the narcissistic, masturbatory urges of our dick-wad mass murderer in chief.

When will America wake up?

History Repeats Itself .....

I don't have as much time to discuss this as I'd like, but I found this to be an insightful analysis of the Iraq/Vietnam comparison.

A good read indeed.