Numbers you can’t count on – Five Years too many
This is part of the March 19th Blogswarm – go here for more information.
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Five years. 60 months. 260 weeks. 1,826 days. 2,629,440 minutes. 157,766,400 seconds. Half a decade. Nearly one-tenth of my life. But these are all superficial numbers. The numbers that matter, are the ones that affect us as a nation – the toll on our nation’s treasure, the casualties we have suffered in spilled blood, the respect of our country and our stature in the world community – and the impact on each of us as individuals.
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In September 2005, I made a vow not to cut my hair until we begin a concerted effort to bring our troops home. To the left, you can see the before and after. But this isn’t the personal impact I was referring to. When George W. Bush ordered our troops to go into the sovereign nation of Iraq, my son, Harrison, was only 10 months old and my daughter, McCartney, would not arrive for another six months. Today, Harrison is in kindergarten and acting as a reading tutor for his fellow students. McCartney will be five in September. Their entire lives have been framed by this war and my actions opposing the war.
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During my children’s lifetime I have journeyed to our nation’s capitol and other cities over a dozen times for peace marches and rallies, I have attended monthly rallies in Fort Wayne, I have written more “letters to the editor” than at any other time in my life, I have journeyed to Crawford, TX and spent time with many Camp Casey alumni, some who have remained close and great friends. People like Erik Lobo, a Chicago area policeman and Vietnam era vet who I consider one of my closest friends. Tina Richards who has worked tirelessly for her son, Cloy, an Iraq war vet. Even after finally keeping Cloy from returning to Iraq as part of the unfair “Stop Loss” program, Tina continued to work for other vets. She moved to the DC area and became a citizens lobbyist for the soldiers and eventually founded the Grassroots America Campaign.
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I have met some remarkable people who will be remembered in the annals of history long after all of us have tossed off this mortal coil. Former AG Ramsey Clark, Dan Ellsberg, Col. 
Ann Wright, Cindy Sheehan, and the Dean of the Civil Rights movement, Rev. Joseph Lowery. Yet I would give up these friends and those memories if it would mean that this illegal and immoral war had never started. I would prefer to have back the nearly 4000 young men and women who gave that last full measure of devotion to their country.
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The war that was supposed to pay for itself has ended up costing us – so far – over $500-Billion. The Vietnam war, which lasted ten years cost $136-Billion, however, when you adjust for cost of living, Vietnam cost $560-Billion. This means we are spending nearly twice as much in Iraq and getting the same result – a needless and senseless war that is draining our coffers and our blood, sweat and tears.
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Perhaps we cannot fully appreciate what this has done to our reputation abroad without going abroad, but we can see signs. Americans put Canadian stickers on their luggage out of fear of being tagged as Americans. George W. Bush and his actions – especially those in and around Iraq have reshaped the United States as the world’s bully. Everyone – with the exclusion of his closest supporters – see the man as a lying sack of shit who is incapable of even finding an exit strategy from a speech in China, let alone a way to get out of Iraq.
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Some might ask why I would dare to call our own president a liar. I suppose it makes it easier to call someone a liar when they are a liar. Examples you say?
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- LIE - “The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program … Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment need for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.” – George “Dubya” Bush, Oct. 7, 2002, in Cincinnati. TRUTH - Department of Energy officials, who monitor nuclear plants, say the tubes could not be used for enriching uranium. One intelligence analyst, who was part of the tubes investigation, said, “You had senior American officials like Condoleezza Rice saying the only use of this aluminum really is uranium centrifuges. She said that on television. And that’s just a lie.“
- LIE - “We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases … Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.” – Bush, Oct. 7, 2002. TRUTH - As recently as last week, the Pentagon reported that there was no sign of al Qaeda in Iraq until AFTER th United States created a vacuum with their ill-advised and deadly invasion and occupation – okay, I added the “ill-advised and deadly parts”.
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Of course, these are just two of the hundreds of lies Bush and his minions have foisted upon we the people since they first started planning this invasion – some say even before Bush was ever elected.
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Because of this war and then occupation of Iraq, George W. Bush has borrowed more money than all the previous presidents combined. Yet he doesn’t feel we need to unfairly tax the wealthy in this country. While refusing to come to the aid of Americans losing their homes, he has no problem using taxpayer dollars to bail out the country club set – witness the Morgan -Stanley/Bear Stine travesty. Even worse, the vast majority of the money he has borrowed comes from the Chinese. Not only will the Chinese government continue to make money from Wal-Mart through the sale of their lead-tainted toys and anti-freeze-tainted toothpaste, they will also make money through the outlandish interest on the Billions Bush has borrowed.
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Yet I digress, this is about the war and occupation of Iraq and this fifth anniversary of the invasion. I recall watching as our news organizations gathered en masse to support Bush’s war. Back then Bush wanted total coverage of what he and his people were promising would be a short invasion and occupation. We watched as reporter after reporter filed reports from the units they were embedded with. But this wouldn’t last.
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On May 5, 2003, while standing a few miles off the coast of San Diego, CA, on the deck of the aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln – before a banner reading “Mission Accomplished” – George Bush gave a speech that included, “… my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”
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The occupation quickly spiraled out of control. Our invasion of Iraq gave terrorists from all over the Islamic world a reason to migrate to Iraq. Thousands of Iraqi citizens had a reason to become what our government called insurgents – although they probably refer to themselves as freedom fighters. George Bush and his personal war became the greatest recruiting tool terrorists ever had. A common enemy from the west who lied to everyone and a man whose actions had led to the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children.
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At the beginning of the war nearly 75% of the American public had bought into Bush’s bullshit. But with the war becoming stagnate and started looking more and more like another Vietnam, the tide slowly changed until fewer than 30% actually supported Bush and his war. More people hit the streets. Blogs popped up – especially after Bush won his second term. The press was slower to turn the corner. In May 2005, many bloggers, including this one, made the Downing Street Minutes an almost daily issue, with nary a mention in the main stream media. Eventually the weight would become too much to bear and during a few weeks span in the late summer of 2005 a confluence of events would lead the rest of the nation to finally take notice 
of how really arrogant and incompetent the Bush administration really was. August saw the arrival of Cindy Sheehan at George Bush’s doorstep in Crawford. Then came Hurricane Katrina and the disaster in New Orleans. This was followed by one of the largest anti-war marches in US history (click image on left for full resolution) in September.
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Yet Bush stubbornly stood by his deceit and his obnoxious mantra of “stay the course“. More and more soldiers and civilians died, but this war was making money for Bush and Cheney’s friends and cronies and we all know they are more interested in the all mighty dollar than anything as useless as human life.
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This November might be the first real opportunity we have to finally bring this war to a close. We will most certainly be remembering all of this again on the sixth anniversary and perhaps even the seventh, but with a fair vote and intelligent voters, we can be pretty certain that there will be no eighth anniversary. John McCain has announced he not only wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years, he has also stated this would be a good time period for Afghanistan. As the campaign for president progresses, it is important to this nation and to the men and women who represent this nation in uniform that we keep the issue of Iraq in the spotlight.
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So, how should we commemorate this auspicious anniversary? I wanted to be in Washington, DC today, but this war has put a strain on my pocketbook. I cannot afford to go to all the rallies, however, here in Fort Wayne, we are holding a candlelight vigil tonight in front of the Allen County Courthouse. It will be a solemn even as we read off the names of the war dead from Indiana.
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This past Saturday, we held a rally that attracted over fifty individuals. For the most part we received a lot of honking horns and peace signs – although some of the Hoosiers driving by in huge SUVs forgot to extend the index finger when they flashed the peace sign – and it was backwards to boot!
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Here is a quick video of some of that rally and why some of the people showed up.
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I want to finish this post with a song I wrote back in 2005, “Not One More Man“.
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5 Responses to “Numbers you can’t count on – Five Years too many”
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It’s been interesting to see the different blogswarms today, all filled with so much anger and despair.Then I think of the innocent Iraqi’s and can’t even fathom the despair they are feeling. Anniversaries must not mean that much to them, they’re living this nightmare daily and can only think of whether they will live to see another day.
Bush will…or should go down in history as the most evil man that has ever lead this country. That doesn’t bother him, though. He’s walking with a new spring in his step, doing a soft shoe dance for the reporters. Why? He’s going to start another romantic and exciting war in Iran soon. Cheney was in Iraq last week, the plans are most likely almost complete…..then will the protests get louder? We’ll see…we’ll see.
Hope you get a chance to check out my post, also. I’d appreciate it if you could pop over.
It was obvious from inception that everything was a lie and attacking Iraq was a forgone conclusion. Breaking America and attacking Iran were only two of the original goals and they will both happen. This like it or not is just beginning and will have to be fought period now.
Advocates of this still just developing nightmare say it doesn’t matter if the attack was a mistake at this point. I beg to differ it does. McCain wants to compound his original mistake. Staying there will do nothing but ensure we are there when an excuse to attack Iran is found.
Polishifter just pointed out that McCain said in Israel that he wants Jerusalem to be Israel’s Capital. I told you they do not want peace only their way. Divide and Conquer once again. The entire world has to be embroiled and they will be before Bush can fight his new world order forever war abd their will be no avoiding it.
one of my sons is over there flying support for about 5 more weeks and the one in EOD arrives any day. I can only say and ask, what a future and what is their future and ours for that matter?
I have been hearing Bush, McCain, and Cheney bragging all day how great things are there while we hear the truth and tyhat idiot Cheney is fishing inj the gulf somewhere. AAARRRGGGHHH!
This is excellent Robert. I was bummed about the vigil. The notice I got from Move.on said it started at 7:00. So we were late, but on second thought it worked out. The kids and I helped the last two guys there (uh, you know the ones with all the signs… dang, we forgot to introduce ourselves) gather everything up and put it in their cars. I was beside myself as my kids helped gather the American flags that represented the Indiana soldiers’ lives that have been lost. Again, excellent post!
what a terrific post robert……we can only keep fighting the battle
it is amazing that 70-80% country wants this over but the’ruling elite’ doesnt even know we exist
and that includes a lot of the press and all of congress
they know better
i wish there was a way to make them ALL magically go away…. i just dont understand why this country has such dissonance –says one thing and elects another
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