Reply #12: Thank All Of You For Your Comments On This - Here's How I Responded To My Friend......

[global1]

I got your e-mail and it touched off something in me. I don't normally respond to these circulating and recirculating e-mails - but felt that I had to with this one. Who is Bxxxxxx Jxxxxxx? Who is Dxx Dxxx? Who are Bxxx Jxxxxx, Kxxxxxxx Zxxxx and Pxxxxx Kxxxxxxx? Does anybody really know who these people are that originated this e-mail?

I went to the website cited in the e-mail to see if I could verify any of the statements. It is our own Dept of Defense website. I couldn't find any of the statements that were made in the e-mail at this website. I noodled around it for quite some time and came up empty with the exact statements that were made in this e-mail. If they are cited at this website - I would like to know where - because I agree - things look good based on what was stated in the e-mail. But I can't verify them. I wonder how many people that received this e-mail tried to verify these statements at the attached website?

In fact with a little checking on the internet - I found out that this e-mail has been circulating for a couple of years now. If things are so good in Iraq - how come we're still there? How come we had to send in more troops for the surge since then? How come this e-mail is still circulating? How come George W. Bush doesn't hold a news conference and show and tell us all these wonderful things? Surely he has the power to do that and the media would broadcast it. After all - he is our president. It's beside the fact that he only has a 19% approval rating.

Visit this site: http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/combatend.asp and see what they have to say about this e-mail.

Like the e-mail says - our media doesn't tell us many things.

Here are some more things that the media doesn't show or tell us to any great extent.

Our U.S. infrastructure is crumbling. Close to 50 million people without healthcare in the U.S. Bush vetoed the SCHIP bill that would have insured children. Unemployment is rising -and we're sending our jobs overseas. In fact - just last night I heard that some big contract worth billions to replace 'tankers' was awarded to Airbus overseas and that this means we'll lose another 40,000 jobs in the U.S. because our government wouldn't award this contract to U.S. based firms. Schools in the U.S. are deteriorating and are being closed. People can't afford to send their kids to college. Academic standards are depreciating in the U.S. The dumbing down of America. Did you ever notice that the kids that wait on you at the store can't make change unless they are told by the cash registers. Electrical grids are in peril throughout this country - witness the blackouts in Ohio and Florida. We have a subprime loan crisis. The housing bubble has burst. We have a shaky stock market with real frightened investors. A recession is looming - though our president won't admit it. Our dollar is trading lower and lower every day against foreign currencies. Prices for everything going up - gas, food, healtcare, etc. All this at a time when us baby boomers are facing retirement after we've saved all our lives and put money into the stock market, IRA's, our homes, etc. We're watching this savings dwindle before our eyes. We're losing our freedoms. We're being spied on. We now torture people and don't abide by the Geneva Convention. McCain says we'll be in Iraq for 100 years. We're making overtures to do the same to Iran.

Need I go on? I could.

Well what about the war? What has this war has cost us - in terms of lives and money?

Here's a piece from the Australian media - because our U.S. media won't tell us this we have to look elsewhere:

Iraq war 'caused slowdown in the US'
Source: The Australian

THE Iraq war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush administration predicted and was a central cause of the sub-prime banking crisis threatening the world economy, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The former World Bank vice-president yesterday said the war had, so far, cost the US something like $US3trillion ($3.3 trillion) compared with the $US50-$US60-billion predicted in 2003.

Australia also faced a real bill much greater than the $2.2billion in military spending reported last week by Australian Defence Force chief Angus Houston, Professor Stiglitz said, pointing to higher oil prices and other indirect costs of the wars.

Professor Stiglitz told the Chatham House think tank in London that the Bush White House was currently estimating the cost of the war at about $US500 billion, but that figure massively understated things such as the medical and welfare costs of US military servicemen.

The war was now the second-most expensive in US history after World War II and the second-longest after Vietnam, he said.

Read more: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,2328...


And I ask what could have happened here in the U.S. if we spent this money for our purposes?

Here's a little fact that was left out of the e-mail in question.

This war's gravest toll has been paid in blood. Fighting in Iraq has so far taken the lives of 3,973 U.S. troops and left nearly 29,300 wounded. Its staggering expense, however, has dwarfed the 2003 White House war estimate of $60 billion, and the price is rising. We are neglecting the veterans that come back from these wars and are not taking care of them. There are countless horror stories out there that talk about these neglected war hero's. And here's an afterthought - the suicide rate it rising in these veterans. Google "Walter Reed", "suicide rates of Iraqi veterans". "homeless veterans", "lack of medical care for veterans", etc, and you can find out more that our media isn't telling us about these brave troops that are risking their lives for us and being taken advantage of by our government in return.

And how many years have we've been fighting in Iraq? Look at a Thursday, Feb 28, 2008 headline in USA TODAY.

"Concerns Widen On Waits For Iraq Gear"
This article goes on to say that "Four U.S. Senators have asked the Defense Department (the very same Department that had the link in the e-mail) for a sweeping review of the Pentagon's failures to quickly get troops in Iraq "the best possible equipment", including armoured vehicles that protect against some of the most lethal types of roadside bombs. This request, contained in a letter sent Wednesday to Defense Secretary Rober Gates, comes eight months after a USA TODAY investigation showed top Pentagon officials repeatedly balked at requests from troops in Iraq for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAP's.

Here's a link to the whole article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2008-02-27-MRAP_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

We still don't have the equipment there to keep our troops safe after how many years we've been in Iraq? SAD.

And here's a recent article from MSNBC

Iraq casualties rise again after Qaeda bombs

Source: MSNBC

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Violent civilian deaths in Iraq rose 36 percent in February from the previous month after a series of large-scale bombings blamed on al Qaeda, Iraqi government figures showed on Saturday.

A total of 633 civilians died violently in February, compared with 466 in January, according to figures released by Iraq's interior, defense and health ministries. It was the first increase after six consecutive months of falling casualty tolls.

Despite its sharp rise, the February 2008 figure was still dramatically lower than the 1,645 civilians who died violently in the same month a year ago. A total of 701 civilians were wounded, compared with 2,700 a year ago.

Declining civilian casualties have been hailed by Iraqi and U.S. military officials as proof that new counter-insurgency tactics adopted last year have been working and Iraq is safer.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080301/ts_nm/iraq_dc

Here's something direct from the region - by someone that has lived and still lives there. It is a little dated but something from someone that is experiencing things firsthand.

May 27, 2007
"Baghdad is a smashed city..."
Below is an email received from a translator Abu Talat. While he has fled Baghdad with his family and is now a refugee in Syria, he recently had to return to Baghdad in order to try to salvage what is left of his former life (his car, belongings from his house, etc.) before returning back to Syria. His note is instructive as to the current living conditions in the capital city of Iraq. Here is the full text of his message:


Habibi…

Baghdad is a SMASHED city…no roads to drive on…most of them are closed off by concrete obstacles with concertina wire. In addition, the presence of the Iraqi military, who cover their faces with black masks and hold their guns in such a way that when you see them you will definitely be afraid that they will shoot you.

The shops in most of the area I went to see are closed. I asked one of the shop owners I know, 55-year-old Abu Fadhil, since I heard that his shop was robbed. I found his door closed and locked and he was nowhere to be found.

Later, on my way to Sadr City, I found that two of the three roads which lead all the way from south to north Baghdad are either partially or totally closed in some places. You still remember the highways in Baghdad…well now most of them are closed, or at least fenced off with obstacles, yet they say there is some progress in the security situation inside the city! Everyday two or three cars explode across Baghdad, killing big numbers of civilians.

When I returned to my neighborhood of al-Adhamiya, I couldn’t get in unless the soldiers checked my ID and my car, even though the guards are from the same neighborhood and they know me personally. But they had to check it to ensure that no car bombs might happen. Nevertheless, daily mortars shell my neighborhood and those are out of control, despite this concrete wall placed by the Americans which now surrounds our neighborhood. Despite all that they do, they cannot bring security to our small neighborhood.

Needless to say, Baghdad has been changed into THE CITY OF GARBAGE. You can find it everywhere. You can smell the stench of dead bodies wherever you go.

Talking of electricity, there is now only one hour daily. That’s it. From where we’re staying in the city center, in Bab al-Muadham, I can see from the balcony that people sleep nearly naked on their rooftops because it is so hot and there is no electricity to run fans or air conditioners. Thank God that there are two large generators that maintain electricity in our building.

Everyday by 2-3 pm the buildings where we are staying are closed so that noone can leave or enter. That way it is kept secure, and this is how it remains until the next morning.

As far as my family life in this condition, we are as though we are in jail from 2-3 pm until the second morning where the doors are opened at 7 am.

My son goes to the hospital to work, but for the last two days he finds it without any running water. For the last 2 weeks, as he told me, the hospital has been without any air conditioning and almost without patients, although it’s the biggest hospital in Iraq.

My sons wife, who is also a doctor, has to go to another hospital just to try to assist since there is a drastic lack of Gynecologists. She stays in her hospital for three days continuously before my son picks her up with his car on the fourth day to bring her home, in order to insure her safety so she doesn’t have to take a bus or taxi.

As for my daughter, she has not passed out the doorway of this apartment where we are staying for the last week except for one time for some work she had to accomplish.

My wife left here only once, when she went to her job (which she has been on leave from since we left to Syria) in order to apply for a full year vacation. Thank God she got it.

As for me, I found my car ruined, so I had to repair it. For that I called the mechanic to come to my home and repair it, since I couldn’t take the car to him since all the mechanics shops are closed and there is no place to have a car repaired. All of those shops are totally closed.

When I saw the mechanic he said, “We cannot live anymore, and there is no job we can find.”

Dahr, this short letter gives you just a glance of the current situation in Baghdad. With the next letter I will tell you some more.

Posted by Dahr_Jamail at May 27, 2007 05:40 PM

Here are a couple of videos. Granted these are a little old too - but the sentiments expressed are real and still true today. They happened on both coasts of this country. I probably could come up with more recent videos and from middle America and more recent - but these hold up well. Look at the amounts of people in the videos that took part. The media didn't show us this. Listen to what the returning G.I.'s are saying. Listen to the parents of kids that died there are saying.

Veterans Against The War - New York
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=248vX9K9qT4


Iraq Vets Against the War & Vets For Peace Lead Peace March - San Francisco
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hURkv05u_rM

The big question that I ask - Is All This Worth It?

Here's where I'm at today about this:

"I don't want to just end the war, I want to end the mind-set that got us into war in the first place." -Barack Obama

I don’t know if that can be done, but don’t we have to try?

John McCain thinks this war was a good idea. He wants us in Iraq indefinitely, or forever, whichever comes first.

Hillary though she says she regrets her vote (probably more because it will cost her the presidency versus what this war has done to the United States) refuses still to call her vote to authorize war a mistake.

Obama seems to be the only one who sees the big picture?

The war against “radical Islamic extremists” is NOT, as McCain tried to argue, “the transcendent challenge of the 21st century.”

The real transcendent challenge is to change “the mind-set that got us into war in the first place”

If we don’t, we’ll get more of the same.

This issue trumps all others.

All others!

Barack Obama is the one remaining viable presidential candidate from either side that will even suggest that we need to change our mind-set about war.

We have to give him the chance.

Sorry for going on and on about this. I'm obsessed with all of this. I've become a political wonk. No - I wasn't in the armed forces. I didn't fight in Viet Nam. So I guess I'm not a patriot and don't have the right to state my case these days because of that.

But I still hold true to my feelings back then during Viet Nam days and today.

War Is Bad.

George Orwell in his novel 1984 tried to warn us of what could happen to governments.

This Bush administration has for the last 7+ years tried to do the same.

War is Peace.

Freedom is Slavery.

and

Ignorance is Strength.

Well I can't buy into that. Sorry.