How Bush supports troops (Jim Hightower)

[struggle4progress]

<snip> I’m nauseated by the disgusting treatment that the Bushites keep giving to the troops they publicly profess to love—troops they are all too willing to use for their own political purposes. We’ve learned about the Pentagon’s deadly failure to provide body and vehicle armor for the troops in Iraq, about the Bushites shameful efforts to keep America’s wounded soldiers out of the public eye and even to deny them health care, about the sickening stonewalling by the White House and Pentagon brass so the entire blame for prisoner torture falls on a few lowly grunts—but the scandals just keep coming.

How about Tourniquet-Gate? Just when you thought your disgust-O-meter couldn’t register any higher, it's now been revealed that troops in Iraq are being sent into the hell of battle without something so simple and life-saving as tourniquets to apply when wounded. This small, inexpensive item is no small thing to our soldiers—the Army estimates that tens of thousands of U.S. fighters are in combat without tourniquets. Officials now concede that untold numbers have bled to death from injuries that would not have been fatal if a tourniquet had been applied.

Apparently, the Pentagon chiefs have not placed an order for first-aid kits containing tourniquets because—get ready to barf—they have not yet developed training manuals and a pouch for carrying the tourniquets!

Here’s another one. While hundreds of private companies and state governments have stepped up to pay the difference between the low military wages that Reservists and National Guard members are getting in Iraq and the higher pay they got in civilian life, one big employer has not stepped up: The federal government. The Bushites have exempted themselves from doing what’s right for these troops on the grounds that it could cost too much. <snip>

http://www.pulsetc.com/article.php?sid=1733

[GainesT1958]

1. "Tourniquet-Gate", huh?

Next time I see one of those Repub-occupied big-a$$ed SUVs with a "support our troops" magnetic ribbon on it next to that umbiquitous "Dub '04" sticker, I'll have to pull alongside and remind 'em about just how much the Pentagon REALLY "supports" our troops--by leaving them to be sitting ducks!:mad:

As for our Secretary of Defense; well, you know he's got to be one dispicable sumbitch when even Henry Kissinger calls Rummy "one of the most ruthless men I have ever met"!:grr:

B-)

[dbeach]

2. hightower has been after bushfruad for yrs..

rummy more evil than the kiss..WHOAH Nellie!

Watch video of McKinney grilling rummy,meyers and the criminals..She was outstanding.

I just posted it here.

[Carolab]

3. Anyone watch the C-Span "report" at Walter Reed Hospital today?

That disgusting bitch was interviewing amputees and it was pretty clear this was very selective. She interviewed that Major Duckworth who was at the SOTU address and her husband and this woman has to be nuts to be okay with her injuries and she still thinks she can fly. There was a 23-year-old whose statement was "remember there were planes flown into the WTC; alot of people have forgotten about that, and these people want to kill you. They want to kill Americans because they hate us for our way of life, our freedom, our music, and the way our society treats women." (Hello, sweetie--it wasn't IRAQIS who flew the planes...) They showed footage of the rehab these two are getting and how well they are getting along with their multi-thousand-dollar prostetics.

What an obvious PR job.

Disgusting.

[stopwastingmymoney]

4. sad

My brother was in Iraq for two tours (and came home whole, thankfully) and he saw terrible things that haunt him.

He has said to me almost exactly what this woman was quoted as saying. I think there are two reasons: one, it has been drilled into them by all of their higher ups and two, having seen and been through what they have, they need to believe that it was worthwhile, to admit that it was not is just too horrible for them to comprehend.

Human nature, I guess, but very sad.

[loudsue]

5. Welcome to DU, stopwastingmymoney!!

:hi::toast::beer: We're glad you're here! :party::silly::smoke:

That is one of the things that baffles me the most: there are LOTS of soldiers in Iraq that were VERY much against boosh in the last election. I don't understand why the others haven't joined their ranks!

But, you're right....they're probably just trying to deal with the horror the best way their brains will handle it.

:kick:

[stopwastingmymoney]

6. loudsue....

Thanks for the welcome

I have been lurking for some time, very tasty reading in this forum, I enjoy it very much, gives me some good ammunition for arguing with certain people!