Re: Bush lies to American public about his Thanksgiving plans.

"MLL" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> But we gave these fine soldiers such a wonderful welcome home, didn't we?
> Parades, homecomings, financial support and the support of the American
> people happened, didn't they?
> http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/wounded/index.htm
>
> And now, the rest of the story.
> http://lunaville.org/warcasualties/Summary.aspx
>
> Isn't war grand.
>-------------

Good information - thanks for posting it. Here are excerpts from other
articles....
====================

Aides Prodded Reluctant Bush on Iraq Trip
Fri Nov 28, 2003

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - For a president fond of a tough-guy image, George
W. Bush was uneasy when an aide casually asked him, "You want to go to
Baghdad?"

Bush conceded about the Iraq visit, "I was the biggest skeptic of all."

Bush acknowledged he thought "all along" it might be too risky and that he "had
a lot of questions" about security.

"The president had made clear that he was prepared to call this off at any
time," Rice said.

Before giving the final green light, he convened a meeting with his top
advisers.

"The (military) commanders still wanted this to go forward. And the president
went around the room and just said, 'Do you still think this is the right thing
to do?'

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=584&ncid=584&e=1&u=/nm/20031128/pl_nm/bush_iraq_dc
====================

Iraqi Girl Blog
11/29/03

Bush was in Iraq on the 27th. He made a fleeting visit to Baghdad International
Airport. Don't let the name fool you - Baghdad Airport is about 20 minutes
outside of Baghdad. It's in this empty, desert-like area that no one is allowed
to go near. No one knew about it until he was gone and then we were all saying,
"Huh? What was that about?!"

Everyone here sees it for what it is - just a lame attempt to try to look good.
I just think the whole thing could have been a little bit less transparent (and
I expected it would occur closer to elections).

Seeing him on tv was amusing- so why did he have to sneak into and out of Iraq
with such secrecy? Why didn't he walk the streets of the country he helped
'liberate'? Why didn't he at least *hover* above the country he 'liberated'? He
constantly claims the situation is much better now than pre-war, so why isn't
he taking advantage of our excellent security situation?! We all sat there,
watching him garble out the usual stream of words and shook our heads. he's
just as much of an ass in Baghdad as he is in Washington.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5309.htm
====================

To President Bush, America's soldiers are nothing more than props for his
never-ending campaign. They were props on May 1 and they were props on
Thanksgiving Day. An appearance at the funeral of one of the soldiers who has
died in a war that has increased the terrorist threat against America, not
diminished it, would be far more meaningful. So would an appearance to greet
the coffins coming back from Iraq, ending an unprecedented policy forbidding
the media from filming the arrival of America's war dead. Of course, footage
like that would not make for jolly White House political propaganda.

It is worth remembering that while the president enjoys being photographed with
soldiers he passed on an opportunity to become a soldier himself, ducking out
to the National Guard -- and then going AWOL from the guard.

The May 1 campaign appearance produced the Flight-jacket George doll, and
perhaps the Thanksgiving photo op will give us Army-jacketed George delivering
a plate of turkey. The turkey can symbolize his Iraq policy.

http://www.berkshireeagle.com/Stories/0,1413,101%7E6267%7E1798194,00.html
====================

"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to
overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the
Constitution."  (Abraham Lincoln, 1809-65)
====================

Bush Betrays P.O.W.'s

By Jim Hightower, AlterNet
November 25, 2003

George W and his regime of warmongering chicken hawks are constantly doing
political photo-ops with our soldiers and piously admonishing everyone to
"support the troops." But you might ask Lt. Col. Dale Starr, Col. David Everly,
Col. Clifford Acree, and several other soldiers about how the Bushites
themselves support our troops.

These combat veterans were captured, imprisoned, and tortured by Saddam
Hussein's minions during the 1991 war with Iraq. As prisoners of war, they
sustained fractured skulls, burnings, broken bones, threats of dismemberment
and castration during their nightmarish confinement, yet they survived and made
it home. Here they found some solace in a 1996 U.S. law that allowed them to
sue the Iraqi government for the physical and emotional injuries they suffered,
with payments to be made from Iraqi assets that had been frozen by our
government. Last summer, a federal court awarded this group nearly a billion
dollars in damages.

So, guess who is trying to keep them from collecting even a dime of it? Bush
and gang, that's who. They've taken the soldiers back to court, arguing that
this money is now needed for rebuilding Iraq. White House mouthpiece Scott
McClellan and our Iraqi occupation czar, L. Paul Bremer III, both have been
trotted out to say that these tortured POWs cannot be allowed to "get in the
way" of the administration's nation-building scheme in Iraq.

Get in the way? These soldiers put themselves in the way of horrendous harm,
only to be betrayed now by a money-grubbing, draft-dodging, commander-in-chief
who's shamelessly trying to stiff them. The next time you see George W posing
for another self-serving photo-op with our troops, remember this picture.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17259
====================

By Jack Dalton - In These Times
11.27.03

As a disabled Vietnam veteran and one that has had to fight his own government
for over 35 years for service connected disabilities, I am firmly convinced
that this current administration does not give a damn about it's veterans nor
it's active duty military. Bush & Co. has deliberately and with malice of
forethought, betrayed not only the veterans in this country, but their own
active duty personnel that they have compelled to go into harms way.

I'm sitting here as I write this, watching Bush on C-Span help serve meals to
military personel...obscene is the only word that comes to mind. Equally as
obscene and outrageous is the speech he just gave still connecting Saddam with
9/11. This man, as far as I am concerned, is morally bankrupt, as are those he
has surrounded himself. Support the troops, support veterans...Bush & Co. have
no concept of what that means!
-----

By Military Brat
11.27.03

Mr. "Bring 'em on" was AWOL during Vietnam, and he is AWOL in his duty to our
troops now. He needs to start putting his money where his mouth is, instead of
in his friends' pockets.
-----

Bush administration slashes veteran's benefits

By Dave Lindorff - In These Times
11.26.03

Over the last year and a half, President Bush has staged more than a third of
his major public events before active military personnel or veterans. His rowdy
"Hoo-ah"s and policy pronouncements-even when they have nothing to do with
military matters-are predictably greeted with rabid applause.

But those easy and unquestioning crowds at military bases and American Legion
halls will be increasingly hard to come by as soldiers and veterans start to
notice the string of insults and budget cuts inflicted upon them.

Even more than his father, and Ronald Reagan before him, Bush is cutting
budgets for myriad programs intended to protect or improve the lives of
veterans and active-duty soldiers. Bush's handlers have worked hard, through
the use of snappy salutes and fly-boy stunts, to present the service-ducking
former National Guardsman as the soldiers' friend.

Increasingly, veterans, troops and their families are getting angry. Army
Times, a newspaper widely read in military circles, ran a June 30 editorial
saying: "President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have missed no
opportunity to heap richly deserved praise on the military. But talk is cheap
and getting cheaper by the day, judging by the nickel-and-dime treatment the
troops are getting lately." Ronald Conley, commander of the conservative
American Legion, also recently blasted the White House for VA budget cuts and
surcharges, saying: "This is a raw deal for veterans no matter how you cut it.
The administration is sending a message that these vets are not a priority at
all."

http://inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=465_0_2_0_C
====================

Toll on U.S. troops in Iraq grows as wounded rolls approach 10,000

BY ROGER ROY in The Orlando Sentinel
Fri, Nov. 28, 2003

ORLANDO, Fla. - (KRT) - Nearly 10,000 U.S. troops have been killed,
wounded, injured or become ill enough to require evacuation from Iraq since the
war began, the equivalent of almost one Army division, according to the
Pentagon.

Unlike the more than 2,800 American fighting men and women logged by the
Defense Department as killed and wounded by weapons in Iraq, the numbers of
injured and sick have been more difficult to track, leading critics to accuse
the military of under-reporting casualty numbers.

Military officials deny they are fudging the numbers. But the latest
figures show that 9,675 U.S. troops have been killed, wounded, injured such as
in accidents, or become sick enough to require airlifting out of Iraq.

"I don't think even that is the whole story," said Nancy Lessin of
Boston, the mother of an Iraq war veteran and co-founder of Military Families
Speak Out, a group opposed to the war in Iraq.

"We really think there's an effort to hide the true cost in life, limb
and the mental health of our soldiers," Lessin said. "There's a larger picture
here of really trying to hide and obfuscate what's going on, and the wounded
and injured are part of it."

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/7368173.htm
-----

The Pentagons Death And Deception

11/29/03: (ICH) In Iraq War I, the death rate of the combat wounded was 24%.
That is, 24% of soldiers wounded in combat later died of their wounds. In Iraq
War II the reported death rate is 0.37%. Are flak vests and medical facilities
really that much better now or is the Pentagon lying through its teeth as it
has so often before?

The number of deaths of the wounded reported is astoundingly low. In World War
II the wounded death rate was about 40%. Medical advances and superior flak
protection reduced the rate in the Viet Nam War to 25% and further to 24%
during Iraq War I. Are we really supposed to believe that the rate is now
0.37%? If the real rate were only 10%, 201 soldiers would have died from their
wounds, if 20%, 402 soldiers would have died. These numbers compare to the
killed in action total of 298, as of Nov. 26. No wonder Rumsfeld has suppressed
this information.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5315.htm
====================

"We Support Our Troops."

Takes awhile to download but well worth the wait.

http://www.gcsdistributing.com/WeSupportU.htm
====================

War Wounds

Who really supports the troops?

by Alan Bisbort - November 27, 2003
(Excerpts)

I don't consider condemning the current carnage to be
"politicizing" the deaths of American troops. To ignore it or to pretend that
our civilian war-making leaders are right -- when they are so clearly,
demonstrably, damnably wrong -- is to relinquish any responsibility as citizens
in a democracy.

Rather, I mourn the deaths of these soldiers. With each death, in fact, my
loathing for the leaders who put them in harm's way grows. Millions of us
"supported the troops" for the entire year leading up to this debacle in Iraq
by screaming ourselves hoarse that our best and bravest NOT be put in harm's
way. At least, not for such deceptive and ever-changing reasons given by a
commander in chief who went AWOL from his own military duties and a vice
president who "had other things" to attend to while 55,000 members of his own
generation died in the rice paddies of Southeast Asia.

What has the "pro-war" side done to support the troops?

For starters, the president "politicized" their deaths by dressing up like a
soldier and landing on an aircraft festooned with "Mission Accomplished" banner
that was created by his own staff. Then, when the deaths continued and he was
criticized for this publicity stunt, the little man in the flight suit blamed
the soldiers for the banner.

And while he waves a flag, Bush  blocked a pay raise for those troops in the
combat zone, and cut benefits to the Veterans Administration.

And he has, in his most unforgivable politicizing gesture, taunted the Iraqis
to "bring it on" at a point in the conflict when such language would knowingly
lead to more deaths of our troops.

Were Bush really a soldier, he would be court-martialed.

http://hartfordadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:44098
====================

"Non Confucius cum factum, mi mentis firmus est" -- "Don't confuse me with
facts, my mind is made up."