Since corporate media found the story news worthy it was an antiwar narrative that was finally told.
The message is now moving across the country carried on three RV's filled with military families and Iraq vets, all of whom have "skin in the game". They have children or spouses who have been killed or family members who are currently at risk of being killed in Iraq. When Camp Casey-Texas ceased to be a physical site, these travelers became the powerful moving force in the call for an end to this war. They articulate the message clearly: end the occupation, bring home the troops now, take care of them when they get here and never again send children to die or kill others children in a war based on lies.
That message is now being told in the context of the current tragedy and national trauma unfolding in the gulf coast. What is happening there in the aftermath of the hurricane is directly connected to this story. Their message is more relevant and pressing than ever. The fictitious veil of competence and credibility which has thinly covered the national leadership in this country has finally been ripped apart. We have been forced to confront the reality that in a time of life threatening crisis this administration, which has taken us into a war based on lies, under the pretext of enhancing our homeland security, is completely ill prepared and wildly inept in addressing true national emergencies. Our children and the children of Iraq are being killed daily and thousands of our people in Mississippi and Louisiana have died and are dying as a direct result of this incompetence and malevolence.
As I waved goodbye last week to the good people on the "Bring Them Home Now" tour bus, as they left the Chicago area, I thought of the prophetic words of Rev. Martin Luther King when he spoke at the Riverside Church in NYC thirty eight years ago: " A time comes when silence is betrayal. That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam" (today I am sure he would substitute Iraq). "We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak"there is such a thing as being too late".life often leaves us standing naked and dejected with lost opportunity"..over the bleached bones of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words----Too Late".
The travelers on these buses will keep on speaking their truth in cities across this country, continuing to inspire others along their path to speak out, until we all converge on September 24 to bring the message of this chapter of the story to Washington DC, because we are not willing to wait until it is too late!!!!
