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- When will they stop betraying this country?
- by Steve Gilliard
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- OpEdNews.Com
OK, since this is Valerie Plame day in Blogistan, a woman none of us
who don't know the Wilson's personally would ever recognize, here's a
larger question: when will the Bushies stop betraying those who serve
this country?
The wingnuts are trying to argue that "Oh, Plame was an analyst,
revealing her name was no big deal". Oh really? Considering that
she did travel overseas, under a legend, this is bullshit. It places
everything and everyone she touched in danger. besides being a crime,
it places entire operations at risk. Innocent people as well as US
assets.
But the Bushies don't stop there. As Joe Galloway has reported,
the Army is near the breaking point, filled with poilitical appointees
rung through the gauntlet , deploying National Guard brigades for over
a year, with the resulting loss of soldiers who retire or leave the
service, disgusted with the interruption of their lives and loss of
their business.
American troops live in filth, lacking bottled water, body armor and
weapons while Halliburton makes millions, a scandal unseen since the
Spanish-American war. They have no idea when they're supposed to come
home, if they'll make it home in one piece, and if their sacrifice
will be worth it.
As soldiers sit and stew in the desert, their combat pay, veterans
benefits are cut while they have to pay for their hospital food.
Nothing better than a private with half a leg being presented with a
bill for a few hundred dollars for his food when he can barely feed
his family as is. Then there are the planned cut to veterans benefits
as well.
Then there are the darker rumors, the attack on the Syrian border
which may be less accidental than one thinks, the random detentions of
"embarassing" Iraqi prisoners.
At every point, with a zeal only the Red Guards managed to muster, the
Bushies rewrite history and make it so perfectly clear that all they
care about is what is best for them. Not the country, not those who
defend it. All that matters is their theories of empire. America
imperialis is what they care about. The sea of dead and wounded around
them, of shattered lives and broken dreams do not count for them. Just
the glory of war.
So they ruin a CIA officer's life for petty revenge. So they cut
benefits for veterans. Douglas Feith and Scooter Libby, along with the
rest of the PNAC crew, probably believe they are great men with great
ideas. They won't be sitting around any hotels in Baku waiting for a
source or humping a '16 through a neighborhood where people stare at
them with daggers in their eyes. They're too good for that kind of
thing. They were meant for greater things. The actual sacrifice of
empire, the kind that fills Ward 57 at Bethesda and that wall at
Langley, is beneath them.
Whatever these people believe, what ever they think, they don't
believe in America. Not the one 140,000 people are serving in Iraq.
They have a vision of the world which only they signed up for.
The sad part, the truly sad part, is that there are people who think
these folks are patriots. Who buy Bush's and Cheney's act. And that's
all it is. They care more about the bottom line of Halliburton than
the people of the United States. And their plan to remake the world,
no matter what else it costs. No matter who else pays for it.-
- Steve Gilliard's Blog is at http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/
and it's definitely worth visiting.
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