Monday, March 25, 2013

This is an open letter to George W. Bush. It is written by an Iraq veteran who is terminally ill as a result of his service and sacrifice for Mr. Bush. I post it on my blog to honor this veteran---and because no one...and I do mean no one--- has said it better!!  Bill Sanders

 I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

 And as a soldier in Iraq I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbageback at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens.
 I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion.
I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the admin of this web page is genuinely working hard in favor of his web page, because here every data is quality based material.


Also visit my homepage KestalKayden

Anonymous said...

Hi! This is my 1st comment here so I just wanted to
give a quick shout out and say I genuinely enjoy reading your posts.
Can you suggest any other blogs/websites/forums
that cover the same topics? Thanks for your time!


Here is my web blog ... Wireless Redstone Mod

Anonymous said...

If some one needs to be updated with most up-to-date technologies
afterward he must be visit this website and be up to date all the time.



my blog - Path of Exile

Anonymous said...

I hardly comment, however i did a few searching and wound up
here Untitled. And I actually do have 2 questions for you if you tend not to mind.
Could it be only me or does it appear like a few of these
comments appear as if they are coming from brain dead folks?
:-P And, if you are posting at other places, I would like
to follow everything fresh you have to post. Would you list of every one of your social sites like your linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?


Feel free to visit my blog - Minecraft Bukkit Server