Howard Zinn and the truth about Iraq (and war) -

[the_real_38]

here:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0219-05.htm

<snip>
I cannot get out of my mind the photo that appeared on the front page of The New York Times on December 30, alongside a story by Jeffrey Gettleman. It showed a young man sitting on a chair facing a class of sixth graders in Blairsville, Pennsylvania. Next to him was a woman. Not the teacher of the class, but the young fellow's mother. She was there to help him because he is blind.

That was Jeremy Feldbusch, twenty-four years old, a sergeant in the Army Rangers, who was guarding a dam along the Euphrates River on April 3 when a shell exploded 100 feet away, and shrapnel tore into his face. When he came out of a coma in an Army Medical Center five weeks later, he could not see. Two weeks later, he was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, but he still could not see. His father, sitting at his bedside, said: "Maybe God thought you had seen enough killing."

The newspapers on December 30 reported that 477 American GIs had died in the war. But what is not usually reported is that for every death there are four or five men and women seriously wounded.


Sgt. Jeremy Feldbusch, blinded in Iraq, and his mother with sixth graders recently in Blairsville, Pa. (NYT Photo/Ozier Muhammad)
The term "seriously wounded" does not begin to convey the horror. Sergeant Feldbusch's mother, Charlene Feldbusch, who, along with his father, virtually lived at his bedside for two months, one day saw a young woman soldier crawling past her in the corridor. She had no legs, and her three-year-old son was trailing behind.

She started to cry. Later she told Gettleman, "Do you know how many times I walked up and down those hallways and saw those people without arms or legs and thought: Why couldn't this be my son? Why his eyes?"

George Bush was eager to send young men and women half a world away into the heart of another nation. And even though they had fearsome weapons, they were still vulnerable to guerrilla attacks that have left so many of them blinded and crippled. Is this not the ultimate betrayal of our young by our government?
</snip>

I say this every time I see something like this : God forgive us for allowing that Son of a bitch into the white house.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

1. Stories like this make me cry

Fuck Bush for wasting the lives of these young soldiers!

[Mountainman]

2. While they continue to be killed and maimed the country has moved on

The administration cannot wait till June to wipe it's hands clean of the Iraq war and hand it off to Powell yet our young people will continue to be killed and maimed and the country will have moved on if Bush remains in the White House.

[FloridaPat]

3. Even if Bush doesn't remain in the WH, the current likely

Dem candidates aren't going to immediately pull out. They will try to get a real coalition going and a new government in Iraq. Bush knew we would get stuck with this for decades. Life in prison is too good for him

[reprehensor]

4. Thanks for posting. n/t

[John_Shadows_1]

5. Yes, our 'Christian' president ...

... you didn't see any of these wounded men at his State of the Union - he doesn't want anybody to suspect whose gospel he's really preaching - the War Industry's.

[Malva Zebrina]

6. this essay brought tears to my eyes when I read it yesterday

it is, indeed,poingnant. Zinn is one of my favorite writers.

Yes, we did let the sonumbitch into the white house. Ever since Bush breezed in there illegally, on the strength of a coward's arrogance, bullying and friends in high places, he has worked continually to break down our system of democracy and freedom as well as our compassion toward all citizens, rich or poor.

Indeed, I think now he wants to make the gay marrieage thing probited by changing the constitution. How stupid can one,insane bigoted man be?

People gave their lives for that constitution. They fought for independance and great orators and great men put down in writing what was to be the guiding parameters of this nation. It was ratified after long , long , energetic and vigorous debate. He knows nothing of this, even though he claimns to be a history major. and if he, by some chance happens to remember his history lessons, it looks as though he has nothing but contempt for it.

And a strutting, chimpanic jerk, who was not even elected by the people, who was satisfied to NOT count all the votes of the people he planned to dictate to once he was installed, wants to change that to actually take away the freedoms and liberties and the legal rights of people living in a democracy by being the one who altered the Constitution--the law of the land--an idiot wants to change that--a man who cannot with dignity stand withing a hundred feet of the brilliant founders of this nation.

A coward who ran away from the chaos and the absolute terror and fear his people were suffering on 9-11. People were jumping out of a skyscraper, and he was running away. He returned, and forced a woman to give him her husband's firefighter badge so he could make a photo op speech on the top of the corpses buried under the rubble. Like a real "leader" only we all knew he was nothing but a coward who ran out of his own fear of assissination. A coward whose military record is in severe doubt as to it's veracity . If he really were an American patriot he would be proud to show us all that record. He would be PROUD. How come he is not andhow come he is avoiding showing us all the records and is spinning it so it will not be noticeable?

You know, it would actually be a subject for debate if this man were not so dull witted, stupid and ignorant and so slow intellectually.