rigorousintuition.ca

Posted: **Mon Jan 16, 2006 12:54 pm**

A Message From Cannon Fodder In Iraq "This is from a friend of mine whose son is in the Army, stationed in Baghdad. And the Peace Community is accused of not supporting our troops???...GRAPHIC..." By Cindy Sheehan Daily Kos, January 9, 2006 This is from a friend of mine whose son is in the Army, stationed in Baghdad. And the Peace Community is accused of not supporting our troops??? This is ***** barbaric and we are letting this stuff continue in our names. Excuse my language, but my friend almost became a Gold Star Mom on the 27th.... but for the grace of god or whatever, she didn't. Our government is creating Gold Star Moms at a very rapid clip and the Iraqi people that they are klling or turning into people who have to fight to survive is obscene. What are we willing to do to stop the inhumanity and war crimes? Cindy *WARNING* FYI.....This is pretty graphic..... I was thrilled yesterday to wake to an email from Micah. The last correspondence I had from him was the email on Dec. 26. Then 2 guys in his battalion were killed and one wounded on the 27th (the wounded soldier has since passed away from his injuries). All communications were shut down until notification of their deaths by the Army to their families....but still no word from Micah. I knew that he would contact us as soon as he could...but that didn't make the waiting any easier. He emailed yesterday to reassure me that he was "fine"....which of course I was glad to hear. Then he called me later in the day..... It was wonderful to hear his voice....be able to talk to him. I asked him about the incident that ended those 3 guys lives.....ages 26, 23, and 20. He said he hadn't planned on telling me about it, but then knew that I already knew about it...aware that I had received the email from the military explaining why we may not be hearing from our soldiers. I asked him if he knew what happened....he hesitantly told me....."Yes".....he was there when it happened! That....I wasn't prepared for. He wanted to spare me the details....but Micah and I can and do talk very frankly about everything.....I knew he needed to talk to someone about it....so I told him not to hold anything back. I told him I already know he is in harms way, I know there are horrible things going on there....things I can't even imagine.....but I wanted to know....and I wanted him to be able to talk about it with me. He said it was their first mission since arriving in Baghdad. A group of them had to walk through a field to a "destination". He said just in front of him....about 100 yards was an explosion. Someone had stepped on a buried mine that exploded.....they were walking in a mine field! He said nothing was left....except an arm....a leg.....fingers..... They continued walking....then a second explosion.....the next two victims. They radioed for a helicopter that was not to come. So they were instructed to turn back and walk BACK thru the field......9 hours they walked......4 1/2 one way....4 1/2 back....nothing accomplished.....3 lives lost. The tension and fear that your next step, placement of your foot would be you.....your friend at any moment..... This is our war.......... Why not take a high school class out on the edge of the expressway and have them run back and forth....who gets hit does...who's lucky enough not to....well is just lucky. It was horrifying knowing he witnessed it, knowing he was filled with fear and images that will stay with him forever. I asked him about the Iraqis.....the Iraqi soldiers he was with. "Their crazy" was his reply. He said that morning a dog was running down the street and an Iraqi man beat it to death with a shovel then threw it on the side of the road. He said, "That's normal here." I immediately knew when I started talking to him that he had a cold.....he said, "Yeah, I do, but I'm ok." I asked if he was eating good....what did they have for them to eat?....American food....Iraqi food? He said they get ONE meal a day. A "meal" that is either a 6 inch cold pizza, or well, he had 5 cold chicken wings one day, oh and a hotdog one day....well a lone hotdog....no bun. One meal a day!!! Prisoners in this country are required to receive 3 full meals a day in prison or it's infringing on their rights??!!! He said they have 2 microwave ovens that are broken and a toaster oven that doesn't work well....the government is apparently spoiling them! Our sons and daughters are in the U.S. military.....fighting for our country.....have committed no crimes and this is what they feed them??? It's like the Twilight Zone or some parallel universe.....a bad dream that upon waking makes no real sense.... He took his first shower yesterday.....his first since Dec. 20. That was good he said. The Army is wondering why no one wants to join??? Why no one wants to go back??? Are the American people really that dense to think that we are doing the right thing.....doing good? The government wants to spin this into that they're protecting us from terrorists.....payback for 9/11. Osama Bin Ladin is no where near Iraq! So is anyone on his trail? I know they're in harms way.....thousands of miles away from home and family but can they for God's sake treat them better than a prisoner....than an animal? You mistreat an animal in this country and all kinds of organizations are on your back.....you go to jail. Our government is mistreating our soldiers and we stand back and watch......well not really because we don't see THIS on the news. We only see what they want us to see. Most of the guys that joined were promised to be able to go to college....on the government...and could start even while in the military. Micah was included in this group. He was met with....you don't have time for college you can go when you get out. But....our prisoners are receiving college degrees while serving their sentences! Is it me or is it just backwards?? Micah is already skinny as a rail.....how do they expect a 20 yr old boy to live on what they are feeding them? Guess it doesn't matter much....why waste food on people you make walk thru mine fields? Doesn't this sound a little like the Holocaust? So.....Micah says....he's "ok". I'm sorry to vent but THIS HAS TO STOP!!!! PLEASE!!!!!! Email, write, call your congressmen, state representatives....etc. Go to some of the websites I have listed below....read the stories of the people....one after another..... I will email the links again to find your state officials. EDUCATE YOURSELF!! I don't want to wait over the next year for a knock at my door....and I don't want one more mother, wife, family member to either. These Iraqi people apparently have no regard for life.....theirs, their women and children, ours, even animals. WHY ARE WE THERE?? And I voted for Bush.....TWICE! You don't see the Bush twins in Iraq.....no manicures or shopping sprees. Don't want to ruin your day.....just want to get you thinking.....and MAD!!! Send what you can to our troops....they definitely need it...apparently especially FOOD!!! Please feel free to forward this email to anyone and everyone you can! I feel helpless.....I want to jump on a plane like that 16 yr old from Florida and grab my son and bring him home..... PLEASE VISIT THESE WEBSITES: www.bringthemhomenow.org www.stopthelie.com www.unitedforpeace.org Gold Star Families for Peace: www.gsfp.org Military Families Speak Out: www.mfso.org www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/iraq/casualties/facesoft hefallen.htm WHERE TO SEND PACKAGES TO OTHER SOLDIERS: www.anysoldier.com www.give2thetroops.org www.treatanysoldier.com

Posted: **Mon Jan 16, 2006 4:24 pm**

Jeez, I don't know where to start. This letter definitely sounds like it's from a chronic bubble-world recidivist Republican -- there's an attitude there of stubborn resistance to see the wider picture, they can only 'deal' with the rude facts of some particular outrage that upsets their personal-space sense of propriety, and resist waking-up too-much lest their whole reality paradigm fail -- In this case, it's a mother's natural but focused concern for her son, in 'seeing' and feeling the discomforts and palpable-fear horror of what her son is experiencing in a war zone. I suppose there's SOMETHING positive in this mother speaking-out, instead of just going-along with the powerful 'We Support Our Troops!' social-conditioning military-culture attitude that doesn't make waves, that is easily coopted and kept numb or at least tractable by Military Complex idealists and DemoRepub gleeclub cheerleaders and Bush apologists and corporate-neocon propagandists. What I found especially annoying was her utter lack of understanding the bigger picture of how the Iraq War is just a more visible example of how American policy has been used to devastate nations in order to enable International Banks and multinational Corporations to pillage and steal , as in Latin America, Africa and Yugoslavia -- as well as her evident lack of compassion for the Iraqi people who have been repeatedly victimized and brutalized by a long history of injustices and depradations and outrages, extending from American interference and violation of sovereignty. "These Iraqi people apparently have no regard for life.....theirs, their women and children, ours, even animals." What in the WORLD does this lady think, IF at all, about the effect of America's now 15-year war on the people of Iraq -- having forced the Ba'athe Party and Saddam on them as America's chosen Strongman in the Middle East, encouraging and surreptitiously arming both Iran and Iraq in their senseless past war, manipulating Saddam to invade Kuwait as a pretext to bomb Iraq into the Bronze age and impose crippling sanctions that killed at least a million citizens and kept a huge amount of oil off the world market, and then this most recent invasion/occupation that bombed Iraq into the stone age, featuring ultimate degradations of massive looting and murdering protesters and home-invasions and indiscriminate torture and unemployment and wholesale Bremer-authorized legalized Corporate theft and the Military's institutionalizing Rascism (and demonization of Islam). Jeez -- I'm always amazed at the show of ignorance, and the arrogant contempt which encourages Real World ignorance, of people who fail to see that historically, America's war violence repeatedly demonstrates NO regard for the lives of the 'brown and red and yellow and black' peoples of the world, where US troops use some of the most horrible, gawdawful weapons ever invented -- Agent Orange in Vietnam and SE Asia, Agent Green in South America, Depleted Uranium, Cluster Bombs and Air-fuel Bombs and 2000-pound Bunker Busters and SADM bombs and Napalm and White Phosphorus -- as well as targetting civil infrastructure, agriculture, hospitals, destroying neighborhoods and whole cities (Falluja, Dresden), carpet-bombing ... Sometimes, I think that the blowback Karma of America's horrible, depraved indifference for nations it has made their 'enemy', along with the public's stupidity about what has been done in their names and WHY, must result in a terrible consequence, so that this mother, for instance, will suffer in their turn and have to face the fact of their historic indifference for the enormous suffering America's 'leaders' and policy makers (and the whole insidious Military Industrial Complex and Corporatism) have caused for hundreds of millions of people. It seems much of America's contemporary political and military ideology is concerned with indefinitely deferring this threat of being paid 'back' for what it has inflicted the past fifty years. Oh well- sorri for the rant. Support our Troops! Bring 'em home and hang the goddamned Chain of Command War Criminals! Starman

Posted: **Mon Jan 16, 2006 4:37 pm**

Starman, You are so right! Brilliant analysis! Thanks for daring to say it. I would add that her suggestion of sending food to the soldiers is pretty trite. Her whole letter sounds like a put-on, like one of those chain emails you get and are so annoyed by. Or like a screenplay for a war movie. I think Cindy was had. Sorry to be so hard-hearted, but I just don't buy it. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for bringing the troops home.

Posted: **Mon Jan 16, 2006 5:10 pm**

When 100,000 Iraqis die, the war is good. When her son is fed poorly, the war is bad. ...whatever gets us out of there and diffuses the violence, I guess.

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A Message From Cannon Fodder In Iraq (Please pass along)

A Message From Cannon Fodder In Iraq (Please pass along)

Re: A Message From Cannon Fodder In Iraq (Please pass along)

Re: A Message From Cannon Fodder In Iraq (Please pass along)

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