Topic: Iraq
Andrea Gibson's "For Eli", Vern McKinley and Anti-war Reflections Are you sick of our wars yet? Check out Vern McKinley and a poem from Andrea Gibson - "For Eli" to recharge.by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution
(Libertarian)
Monday, May 5, 2008
4,567 American soldiers are dead due to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
1,150,000 million Iraqis have died if the mortality rate from the 2006 Lancet study is extrapolated.
Congress and the Bush Administration have forgotten they are Tools of We the People, not our Overlords. The Democrats in Congress have no integrity, no principles since they failed to do the job they were elected to do in 2006, to bring the troops home. Growing numbers of Americans are sick of these wars Growing numbers of Americans are sick of these wars, and Iraq in particular has eerily strange parallels to Vietnam (see My Father's Vietnam is My Iraq - Disturbing Parallels).
The Republican mainstream candidate from the Senate is vociferously for the War, and the Democrats candidates are at best weak-hearted and indecisive about the withdrawal, their lack of leadership in the Senate to end the war continues today, and their tacit agreement to bankroll the invasion continues. Senator Clinton even sounds like McCain these days stating that if Iran attacks Israel, the USA will "totally obliterate them" As the oath for the office of the President has nothing to do with the state security of Israel, or how much $$ is received from the Israel Lobby, Clinton sounds more like Hitler than a future POTUS. Ever hear of diplomacy? So now we face the Clear and Present Danger to Ourselves! of bombing Iran, a neutral state that appears in a panic state as it proclaims non-aggression towards all and is frantically searching for friends, see Iran Declares War on the Dollar = More War for America
I continue to search for other candidates that will not go to war so carelessly, and I am pleased to report I found another. Vern McKinley is running for the House in the 10th congressional district of Virginia. I wrote Vern an email (info@mckinleyforcongress.com) inquiring as to his stance on wars before sending a donation, with two caveats that I was only considering a piddly donation, and that I didn't even live in Virginia.
His name is Vern McKinley, and he did something very strange. He wrote me back. (Background - this is from a California resident who has written his Representative and Senators over 60 times, sometimes from a personal email and sometimes using www.downsizedc.org, sometimes reasonably and sometimes frantically. I am still waiting for my first reply, its like writing to a wall)
Vern explained his stance was he "would not sanction war against any other nation outside of Iraq unless it was in our ‘national interest’ defined narrowly to mean if we were under clear and imminent threat of attack or had been attacked. Like Dr. Paul [he feels] the only justified war that met this test the last 100 years was WW II."
Vern is running on a limited government platform, and is billed as the "First Ron Paul Republican," since he decided to run before Dr. Paul announced his candidacy for President. You can research him if you like by using the links provided below
Imagine yourself as a soldier in the sands of Iraq. It's pretty hot and people want to kill you.
Imagine yourself as a parent and your son/daughter dies one day in Afghanistan. You still have to regularly pump that black Oil s*** into your car to get to work.
Raw emotion is good if you can channel it for a purpose. I will leave you with a poem from Andrea Gibson called "For Eli" and a final comment from me. (However, f any readers are able to figure out the teddy bear thing, please leave a comment, as I am easily confused) This article is so obviously dedicated to my brother.
"Eli came back from Iraq and tattooed a teddy bear onto the inside of his wrist above that a medic with an IV bag above that an angel but Eli says the teddy bear won't live and I know I don't know but I say, "I know" cause Eli's only twenty-four and I've never seen eyes further away from childhood than his eyes old with a wisdom he knows I'd rather not have Eli's mother traces a teddy bear onto the inside of my arm and says, "not all casualties come home in body bags" and I swear I'd spend the rest of my life writing nothing but the word light at the end of this tunnel if I could find the fucking tunnel I'd write nothing but white flags somebody pray for the soldiers somebody pray for what's lost somebody pray for the mailbox that holds the official letters to the mothers, --------------fathers, --------------------sisters, and little brothers of Micheal 19... Steven 21... John 33 how ironic that their deaths sound like bible verses the hearse is parked in the halls of the high school recruiting black, brown and poor while anti-war activists outside walter reed army hospital scream 100, 000 slain as an amputee on the third floor breathes forget-me-nots onto the window pain but how can we forget what we never knew our sky is so perfectly blue it's repulsive somebody tell me where god lives cause if god is truth god doesn't live here our lies have seared the sun too hot to live by there are ghosts of kids who are still alive touting M16s with trembling hands while we dream ourselves stars on Survivor another missile sets fire to the face in the locket of a mother who's son needed money for college and she swears she can feel his photograph burn how many wars will it take us to learn that only the dead return the rest remain forever caught between worlds of shrapnel shatters body of three year old girl to welcome to McDonalds can I take your order? the mortar of sanity crumbling stumbling back home to a home that will never be home again Eli doesn't know if he can ever write a poem again one third of the homeless men in this country are veterans and we have the nerve to Support Our Troops with pretty yellow ribbons while giving nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched hands tell me what land of the free sets free its eighteen-year-old kids into greedy war zones hones them like missiles then returns their bones in the middle of the night so no one can see each death swept beneath the carpet and hidden like dirt each life a promise we never kept Jeff Lucey came back from Iraq and hung himself in his parents basement with a garden hose the night before he died he spent forty five minutes on his fathers lap rocking like a baby rocking like daddy, save me and don't think for a minute he too isn't collateral damage in the mansions of washington they are watching them burn and hoarding the water no senators' sons are being sent out to slaughter no presidents' daughters are licking ashes from their lips or dreaming up ropes to wrap around their necks in case they ever make it home alive our eyes are closed america there are souls in the boots of the soldiers america fuck your yellow ribbon you wanna support our troops bring them home and hold them tight when they get here"
What a world this would be if on the day the new President took office he said, "World, I am so sorry for the events of the last 8 years, and we profess non-aggression to all nations. The Iraq war was wrong, the Afghanistan war was wrong. We especially apologize to the people of both these countries. We will immediately leave these states, and wish both nations luck in fixing the mess we made. Sorry but we are broke, America has been neglected for far too long. You can keep all of the supplies and infrastructure the American taxpayer paid for, we will leave these all behind. We will also make plans for leaving all of the 700 military bases we have built in 130 countries. Our military empire is over, we will lead the world in ushering in true peace and bind our world together by the economies. Pax Americana starts now. Fellow Americans and the World, I apologize for the deceit of Powell, Bush, Cheney and many others – and they will be accountable for any crimes they are charged with and found guilty of, a right we denied to the occupants of Guantanamo and many other prisons. This was evil and inhumane, and they will be released back to their home countries immediately and with reparations. Even if they did commit terrorist acts, we have broken the rule of law and worse, our American principles, in holding them for years and years without trial in conditions that knowingly failed to meet the Geneva conventions." and so forth.
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2008 Jake, the Champion of the Constitution, all rights reserved.
Published: Monday, May 5, 2008
Last modified: Sunday, May 18, 2008
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2008 Jake, the Champion of the Constitution, all rights reserved.