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| Topic: DEFEAT WITHOUT END | |
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Many in this chamber understand that America must not fail in Iraq, because you understand that the consequences of failure would be grievous and far-reaching . . ."
Comment There it is again, that choking lie, so smoothly administered -- with just enough fear to help America gag down all that righteousness. President Bush told it again in his final State of the Union address the other night, of course. What choice did he have? The truth, coming from him at this point, would be . . . too weird, too offensive, impossible to comprehend. But the truth is that we've already failed in Iraq, and throughout the Middle East and Central Asia -- failed with consequences beyond reckoning. God knows someone will have to take a swig of political courage and acknowledge it one of these days, simply to stop the lie -- the lies, a governmental cluster bomb of them -- from doing further harm. It's common knowledge now that we "went to war on a lie" -- the WMD scam -- but what isn't common knowledge is how the war is sustained on a daily basis by lies and partial truths and desperate, behind-the-scenes financial damage control. The war is all weapons systems and public relations, with the reality of wrecked countries and wrecked lives and a hemorrhaging of the national treasury suspended in media hoodoo and denial. Consider the number 72,000. This number -- of total U.S. battlefield casualties in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, through Jan. 5, 2008 -- is simple enough, but as I ponder the fact that Paul Sullivan and his organization, Veterans for Common Sense, had to wrest it from the Department of Defense with a Freedom of Information Act request, and the fact that the only media outlet to pick up on it so far is the Scottish newspaper The Herald, I begin to grasp the extent of the deception in place sustaining the war on terror. The reason that the casualty totals reported are far lower, Sullivan explained to me, is that the Defense Department releases the stats on only one category of battlefield casualty to the media, the number of GIs "wounded" in action, that is, harmed by the instrumentation of war: bullet, shrapnel or knife. A GI who cracks his head on the windshield of his Humvee in a crash, though he may have suffered brain damage and had to be evacuated from the battlefield, is considered "injured," not "wounded," Sullivan explained, and thus doesn't show up in the figure the DoD releases and the media misleadingly report. Likewise, a GI who suffers a heart attack, or, let's say, one of those desert mystery illnesses, or a severe emotional collapse, is "ill," not "wounded," and is also MIA from the official casualty count. And in this way does the war remain a tad more statistically palatable to a distracted public. "This administration has a concerted plan to conceal the human and financial costs of these two wars to maintain public support," said Sullivan, a Gulf War 1 vet and former Veterans Administration project manager who was blowing the whistle on the shoddy quality of vets' health care long before the Washington Post "broke" the Walter Reed scandal a year ago. "There are some in the VA -- top political appointees -- who are fundamentally opposed to providing health care to vets," Sullivan went on, talking about the deeper deceptions of the war on terror that keep the political debate focused on vague future "consequences of failure" rather than the present-day consequences of a criminally inept, shoot-from-the-hip foreign policy of aggression. It is at this level of deception that things get horrific: in the denial of care for physically and, especially, emotionally wounded vets -- men and women suffering from the private hell of post-traumatic stress disorder. "VA hospitals and clinics have already treated 263,909 unplanned patients from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars," according to a Vets for Common Sense press release. "On top of that, VA reported 245,034 unanticipated disability claims from veterans of the two wars." Note well the words "unplanned" and "unanticipated." This facet of the Bush administration's lack of planning for its invasions has so far escaped significant notice. Apparently the neocon brain trust expected such a cakewalk that the costs and logistics of GI medical care weren't taken into account. Sullivan said he fully expects the VA to face as many as 700,000 patient claims -- including staggering numbers of PTSD claims as our battle-weary troops "deploy for a third or fourth combat tour in an escalating war that surrounds our troops with 360-degree combat 24 hours per day" -- which could run up a tab of $700 billion. The only way to control this monster expense is routine claim denial. "This administration is so absolutely corrupt, incompetent and malevolent, it pales anything that came before it," Sullivan said. "Why is our economy tanking? The war, the war, the war." Note particularly that the human and financial costs Sullivan and others are making are not "projections" for an endless war but estimates based on where things stand at the moment. But this is a war we can keep on losing into the indefinite future. - - - Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-koehler/defeat-without-end_b_84253.html |
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Many in this chamber understand that America must not fail in Iraq, because you understand that the consequences of failure would be grievous and far-reaching . . ." Comment There it is again, that choking lie, so smoothly administered -- with just enough fear to help America gag down all that righteousness. President Bush told it again in his final State of the Union address the other night, of course. What choice did he have? The truth, coming from him at this point, would be . . . too weird, too offensive, impossible to comprehend. But the truth is that we've already failed in Iraq, and throughout the Middle East and Central Asia -- failed with consequences beyond reckoning. God knows someone will have to take a swig of political courage and acknowledge it one of these days, simply to stop the lie -- the lies, a governmental cluster bomb of them -- from doing further harm. It's common knowledge now that we "went to war on a lie" -- the WMD scam -- but what isn't common knowledge is how the war is sustained on a daily basis by lies and partial truths and desperate, behind-the-scenes financial damage control. The war is all weapons systems and public relations, with the reality of wrecked countries and wrecked lives and a hemorrhaging of the national treasury suspended in media hoodoo and denial. Consider the number 72,000. This number -- of total U.S. battlefield casualties in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, through Jan. 5, 2008 -- is simple enough, but as I ponder the fact that Paul Sullivan and his organization, Veterans for Common Sense, had to wrest it from the Department of Defense with a Freedom of Information Act request, and the fact that the only media outlet to pick up on it so far is the Scottish newspaper The Herald, I begin to grasp the extent of the deception in place sustaining the war on terror. The reason that the casualty totals reported are far lower, Sullivan explained to me, is that the Defense Department releases the stats on only one category of battlefield casualty to the media, the number of GIs "wounded" in action, that is, harmed by the instrumentation of war: bullet, shrapnel or knife. A GI who cracks his head on the windshield of his Humvee in a crash, though he may have suffered brain damage and had to be evacuated from the battlefield, is considered "injured," not "wounded," Sullivan explained, and thus doesn't show up in the figure the DoD releases and the media misleadingly report. Likewise, a GI who suffers a heart attack, or, let's say, one of those desert mystery illnesses, or a severe emotional collapse, is "ill," not "wounded," and is also MIA from the official casualty count. And in this way does the war remain a tad more statistically palatable to a distracted public. "This administration has a concerted plan to conceal the human and financial costs of these two wars to maintain public support," said Sullivan, a Gulf War 1 vet and former Veterans Administration project manager who was blowing the whistle on the shoddy quality of vets' health care long before the Washington Post "broke" the Walter Reed scandal a year ago. "There are some in the VA -- top political appointees -- who are fundamentally opposed to providing health care to vets," Sullivan went on, talking about the deeper deceptions of the war on terror that keep the political debate focused on vague future "consequences of failure" rather than the present-day consequences of a criminally inept, shoot-from-the-hip foreign policy of aggression. It is at this level of deception that things get horrific: in the denial of care for physically and, especially, emotionally wounded vets -- men and women suffering from the private hell of post-traumatic stress disorder. "VA hospitals and clinics have already treated 263,909 unplanned patients from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars," according to a Vets for Common Sense press release. "On top of that, VA reported 245,034 unanticipated disability claims from veterans of the two wars." Note well the words "unplanned" and "unanticipated." This facet of the Bush administration's lack of planning for its invasions has so far escaped significant notice. Apparently the neocon brain trust expected such a cakewalk that the costs and logistics of GI medical care weren't taken into account. Sullivan said he fully expects the VA to face as many as 700,000 patient claims -- including staggering numbers of PTSD claims as our battle-weary troops "deploy for a third or fourth combat tour in an escalating war that surrounds our troops with 360-degree combat 24 hours per day" -- which could run up a tab of $700 billion. The only way to control this monster expense is routine claim denial. "This administration is so absolutely corrupt, incompetent and malevolent, it pales anything that came before it," Sullivan said. "Why is our economy tanking? The war, the war, the war." Note particularly that the human and financial costs Sullivan and others are making are not "projections" for an endless war but estimates based on where things stand at the moment. But this is a war we can keep on losing into the indefinite future. - - - Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-koehler/defeat-without-end_b_84253.html 
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retarded
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yup doc. agreed. armchair liberals....They should spend some time on the front lines for a reality check.
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retarded let me reiterate, retarded. do you have your own personal regurgitation or are you content with the scribblings of mr koelher? the weak minded being led around by a weaker minded, who is infecting yet more weak minded. pass the needle your making ME want to shoot up too. |
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retarded |
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yup doc. agreed. armchair liberals....They should spend some time on the front lines for a reality check. you would think that someone without a clue how to hang glide might step away from the cliffs. but they never learn, its like watching flies trying to go out the sliding glass door. mad cant really be this fanatical in person, think he is putting up a front to impress some female. |
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mad, no offence intended but you really shouldent spout liberal dribble unless you have first hand knowledge of the facts. Someones website dont count. What have you personally seen? Do you know about all the good things happening in country? Talk to any returning veteran for a heads up.Your never gonna hear the facts on our liberal/commie media.
besides all this retoric about how illegal the war was is irrelavent. WE ARE THERE. What do we do now? thats the real question. Do we fold and let all our good work and sacrifice go to waste or do we finish the job we started.. ( something we havent done since W2 by the way...) |
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retarded let me reiterate, retarded. do you have your own personal regurgitation or are you content with the scribblings of mr koelher? the weak minded being led around by a weaker minded, who is infecting yet more weak minded. pass the needle your making ME want to shoot up too. |
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Edited by
rambill79
on
Mon 02/04/08 01:36 PM
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Doc have you been in country? My war is in the past but all these wars have a similar thread... armchair liberals trying to monday morning quarterback without a clue as to the real facts. I have friends in really hi places in the govt, so im privy to a lot of info that the general public isnt informed about. I havee very litttle patience for people who thinkk they have all the facts cause they found someones website, which is probably a direct connection with the enemy. FACTS, not emotion. No one hates war more than myself, or anyone who has expierenced it personally, but sometimes it is necessasary.
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In all seriousness, when you mean research do you mean searching the internet for sites that confirm your beliefs or go and talk to people that are actually there? You cant trust the internet. I mean I googled "aliens controlling the government" and found this.
http://www.sherryshriner.com/sherry/reality.htm it was the first link. I mean if you want to believe everything on the net be prepared to protect yourself from the armies from the 4th dimension. 
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Edited by
Dragoness
on
Mon 02/04/08 01:53 PM
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Many in this chamber understand that America must not fail in Iraq, because you understand that the consequences of failure would be grievous and far-reaching . . ." Comment There it is again, that choking lie, so smoothly administered -- with just enough fear to help America gag down all that righteousness. President Bush told it again in his final State of the Union address the other night, of course. What choice did he have? The truth, coming from him at this point, would be . . . too weird, too offensive, impossible to comprehend. But the truth is that we've already failed in Iraq, and throughout the Middle East and Central Asia -- failed with consequences beyond reckoning. God knows someone will have to take a swig of political courage and acknowledge it one of these days, simply to stop the lie -- the lies, a governmental cluster bomb of them -- from doing further harm. It's common knowledge now that we "went to war on a lie" -- the WMD scam -- but what isn't common knowledge is how the war is sustained on a daily basis by lies and partial truths and desperate, behind-the-scenes financial damage control. The war is all weapons systems and public relations, with the reality of wrecked countries and wrecked lives and a hemorrhaging of the national treasury suspended in media hoodoo and denial. Consider the number 72,000. This number -- of total U.S. battlefield casualties in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, through Jan. 5, 2008 -- is simple enough, but as I ponder the fact that Paul Sullivan and his organization, Veterans for Common Sense, had to wrest it from the Department of Defense with a Freedom of Information Act request, and the fact that the only media outlet to pick up on it so far is the Scottish newspaper The Herald, I begin to grasp the extent of the deception in place sustaining the war on terror. The reason that the casualty totals reported are far lower, Sullivan explained to me, is that the Defense Department releases the stats on only one category of battlefield casualty to the media, the number of GIs "wounded" in action, that is, harmed by the instrumentation of war: bullet, shrapnel or knife. A GI who cracks his head on the windshield of his Humvee in a crash, though he may have suffered brain damage and had to be evacuated from the battlefield, is considered "injured," not "wounded," Sullivan explained, and thus doesn't show up in the figure the DoD releases and the media misleadingly report. Likewise, a GI who suffers a heart attack, or, let's say, one of those desert mystery illnesses, or a severe emotional collapse, is "ill," not "wounded," and is also MIA from the official casualty count. And in this way does the war remain a tad more statistically palatable to a distracted public. "This administration has a concerted plan to conceal the human and financial costs of these two wars to maintain public support," said Sullivan, a Gulf War 1 vet and former Veterans Administration project manager who was blowing the whistle on the shoddy quality of vets' health care long before the Washington Post "broke" the Walter Reed scandal a year ago. "There are some in the VA -- top political appointees -- who are fundamentally opposed to providing health care to vets," Sullivan went on, talking about the deeper deceptions of the war on terror that keep the political debate focused on vague future "consequences of failure" rather than the present-day consequences of a criminally inept, shoot-from-the-hip foreign policy of aggression. It is at this level of deception that things get horrific: in the denial of care for physically and, especially, emotionally wounded vets -- men and women suffering from the private hell of post-traumatic stress disorder. "VA hospitals and clinics have already treated 263,909 unplanned patients from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars," according to a Vets for Common Sense press release. "On top of that, VA reported 245,034 unanticipated disability claims from veterans of the two wars." Note well the words "unplanned" and "unanticipated." This facet of the Bush administration's lack of planning for its invasions has so far escaped significant notice. Apparently the neocon brain trust expected such a cakewalk that the costs and logistics of GI medical care weren't taken into account. Sullivan said he fully expects the VA to face as many as 700,000 patient claims -- including staggering numbers of PTSD claims as our battle-weary troops "deploy for a third or fourth combat tour in an escalating war that surrounds our troops with 360-degree combat 24 hours per day" -- which could run up a tab of $700 billion. The only way to control this monster expense is routine claim denial. "This administration is so absolutely corrupt, incompetent and malevolent, it pales anything that came before it," Sullivan said. "Why is our economy tanking? The war, the war, the war." Note particularly that the human and financial costs Sullivan and others are making are not "projections" for an endless war but estimates based on where things stand at the moment. But this is a war we can keep on losing into the indefinite future. - - - Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-koehler/defeat-without-end_b_84253.html I am offended every time he tells this lie, as to the fact he thinks we are sooooooo very stupid that we cannot see past his agenda and his bull..............    
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In all seriousness, when you mean research do you mean searching the internet for sites that confirm your beliefs or go and talk to people that are actually there? You cant trust the internet. I mean I googled "aliens controlling the government" and found this. http://www.sherryshriner.com/sherry/reality.htm it was the first link. I mean if you want to believe everything on the net be prepared to protect yourself from the armies from the 4th dimension. |
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Doc have you been in country? My war is in the past but all these wars have a similar thread... armchair liberals trying to monday morning quarterback without a clue as to the real facts. I have friends in really hi places in the govt, so im privy to a lot of info that the general public isnt informed about. I havee very litttle patience for people who thinkk they have all the facts cause they found someones website, which is probably a direct connection with the enemy. FACTS, not emotion. No one hates war more than myself, or anyone who has expierenced it personally, but sometimes it is necessasary. 
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retarded let me reiterate, retarded. do you have your own personal regurgitation or are you content with the scribblings of mr koelher? the weak minded being led around by a weaker minded, who is infecting yet more weak minded. pass the needle your making ME want to shoot up too. I feel the weak minded individuals are the ones who followed blindly as this man took us to war with a country THAT DID NOT DO 9/11, HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH 9/11. Those are the weak minded people in our country. Noone stood up for ourselves and said "Hey quit with the bullsh*t and let's get the perpetrator of 9/11" No one. So the weak minded, lead by the nose hairs are those in support of an illegal war who is punishing Iraq and Saddam for 9/11. Can't get over that. And WHERE THE HELL IS THE PERPETRAROR OF 9/11?????!!!!!!! 6 years into the illegal war and WHERE THE HELL IS THE PERPETRATOR OF 9/11????!!!!!! Saddam paid for 9/11 with his life, Iraqians pay for it daily with their blood and WHERE THE HELL IS THE PERPETRATOR OF 9/11???????!!!!!!!! |
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In all seriousness, when you mean research do you mean searching the internet for sites that confirm your beliefs or go and talk to people that are actually there? You cant trust the internet. I mean I googled "aliens controlling the government" and found this. http://www.sherryshriner.com/sherry/reality.htm it was the first link. I mean if you want to believe everything on the net be prepared to protect yourself from the armies from the 4th dimension. to answer an earlier question, sucking sand (again) as we speak. blather yourself? you are right not a very poetic person, but thats okay, it means that we can take this to a mental street fight. Heres what i need for you to do mad man, ive got a mission that kicks off in 3.5 hours I gotta grab some rack prior to so,,,,, study up today, research, pickout some topic(s) Im sure I'll run into you in the next day or two, we can debate or talk about whatever your blessed little heart desires. |
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how can i take madman seriously when he equates our military to the NAZIS? Mabe you should move to iraq and live the dream.
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In all seriousness, when you mean research do you mean searching the internet for sites that confirm your beliefs or go and talk to people that are actually there? You cant trust the internet. I mean I googled "aliens controlling the government" and found this. http://www.sherryshriner.com/sherry/reality.htm it was the first link. I mean if you want to believe everything on the net be prepared to protect yourself from the armies from the 4th dimension. to answer an earlier question, sucking sand (again) as we speak. blather yourself? you are right not a very poetic person, but thats okay, it means that we can take this to a mental street fight. Heres what i need for you to do mad man, ive got a mission that kicks off in 3.5 hours I gotta grab some rack prior to so,,,,, study up today, research, pickout some topic(s) Im sure I'll run into you in the next day or two, we can debate or talk about whatever your blessed little heart desires. |
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In all seriousness, when you mean research do you mean searching the internet for sites that confirm your beliefs or go and talk to people that are actually there? You cant trust the internet. I mean I googled "aliens controlling the government" and found this. http://www.sherryshriner.com/sherry/reality.htm it was the first link. I mean if you want to believe everything on the net be prepared to protect yourself from the armies from the 4th dimension. I was asking a serious question and you still didnt answer it. Have you personally talked to anyone that was there? People and documents are two different things. I have seen in your other post you quoting conspiracy theories about 9/11 and when I give you a link that explains the physics and science of why and how the towers fell like they did you would still tell people that you didn't understand why the towers fell straight down. http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/165.php?nid=&id=&pnt=165&lb=brme This talks about a bunch of stuff in Iraq but makes the point that only 35% of Iraqis want us gone now. Another 35% says 2 years and 29% say once things get better. I would say that means that most Iraqis don't want us gone now. |
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In all seriousness, when you mean research do you mean searching the internet for sites that confirm your beliefs or go and talk to people that are actually there? You cant trust the internet. I mean I googled "aliens controlling the government" and found this. http://www.sherryshriner.com/sherry/reality.htm it was the first link. I mean if you want to believe everything on the net be prepared to protect yourself from the armies from the 4th dimension. I was asking a serious question and you still didnt answer it. Have you personally talked to anyone that was there? People and documents are two different things. I have seen in your other post you quoting conspiracy theories about 9/11 and when I give you a link that explains the physics and science of why and how the towers fell like they did you would still tell people that you didn't understand why the towers fell straight down. http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/165.php?nid=&id=&pnt=165&lb=brme This talks about a bunch of stuff in Iraq but makes the point that only 35% of Iraqis want us gone now. Another 35% says 2 years and 29% say once things get better. I would say that means that most Iraqis don't want us gone now. |
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