Wave the Flag, Consider the real cost of war

Go ahead and wave the flag and stick a yellow ribbon on the back of your SUV. You really should. After all, we spend billions in taxpayer money every year to keep our gasoline cheap. How do we do that? Our soldiers are sent to strategic areas all over the world to make sure our crude oil keeps flowing.. Sometimes they are sent to unfortunate places, like Iraq. Some are killed and many are maimed for life. Our government is spending at least 177-million dollars a DAY on Iraq alone

But since our soldiers do so much for us, protecting the American way of Life, including our gas and diesel consumption, let’s zoom in a little closer for a look at the glories of war.

For exhibit A let’s visit the wedding of Marine Sergeant Ty Ziegel. Sergeant Ziegal was severely wounded by a suicide car bomber while serving in Iraq in 2004. After 19 months in recovery at Brooke Army Hospital, he married his sweetheart Renee Kline. Yes, she went ahead with the wedding even though her fiancée’s appearance had been.... altered. These award winning photos were taken by photojournalist Nina Berman, god bless her.

Now remember this, more than 20,000 young Americans have suffered severe war injuries in Iraq alone. Now remember hardly any members of congress, the executives at the White House, or highest ranking civilians at the Pentagon have family members serving in our Armed Forces.

These photos are not pleasant but they are a reminder what war is about. Wave that flag; freshen up that yellow ribbon sticker. Then ask yourself, why in hell are we there, except to keep the cheap gas flowing, is the gas really cheap, and is it worth it???

Wounded GI photos here:

http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/wounded/gallery.htm

Marine wedding slideshow here: http://www.ninaberman.com/index3.php?pag=prt&dir=marine

A lifelong Republican thinks about Iran

Dear Harry,

My nephew called me the other night and asked if I didn’t think we should go ahead and “take Iran out” since the government says they have been helping the bad guys in Iraq. I thought I would share with you what I told him, since it represents a little different perspective on my part. As you know I fought in Korea, and was in the VFW and have been a big backer of our Presidents, even Clinton. I voted for Eisenhower, Goldwater, Nixon and Ford, and in 1980 voted for John Anderson, because I thought he’d be a better president than a retired actor.

I did vote for Reagan later on, and a couple of times for Perot, who I thought had a lot of common sense.

But I now deeply regret voting for George W. Bush. I never liked the Bush bunch, much. Rich guys who seemed only interested in making a buck off the voters. Barry Goldwater would have called George W. Bush a fraud, and as I recall, didn’t have a whole lot of regard for the first Bush, either.

I haven’t answered the Iran question yet, because I wanted to remind you of where my support has been over the years. These people running our government now have put me in a bind. I no longer am sure I can believe what our government tells us. They’ve been lying to us, Harry, and twice bit, three times shy.

It seems like only yesterday that the President pounded on the lectern during his State of the Union address and talked about how Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, maybe nukes and was helping out Osama bin Laden. We now know none of this was true.

Then we saw Secretary of State Powell at the U.N. showing images of how the Iraqis were playing games, hiding their weapons from the U.N. inspectors. We now know this was not true, either.

Then we heard from the Vice-President and Rumsfeld about how things were getting better all the time in Iraq, and now only an idiot would believe him. That no-bid deal Cheney and Rumsfeld put through with Halliburton bothered me a lot to begin with.

Now we read our wounded veterans aren’t getting the care they need because the guys running the White House and the congress didn’t put through enough funds, not to mention the badly equipped men in the field all over Iraq.

These guys are either complete liars or are complete fools, and they must think we are fools, too.

Now they are telling us they think Iran has been supplying the bad guys in Iraq with weapons and they are sounding like Iran will be next on the list. But the government of Iran says they have not been doing this, and Harry, I hate to say it, but why should I believe our government over the Iran government? The guys in Washington have lied to us over and over again about Iraq, while they let Osama bin Laden get away. It is a hell of mess when Americans can’t even believe our own government about something as important as war.

So, I told my nephew that no, I don’t think we should “take Iran out.” I think we should “take the liars in the White House out”, instead. Impeachment proceedings would be well deserved. I doubt anybody in Washington has the spine to do it, but it would be a bright day in America, if they did.