The family released a statement...
"Mass round-ups and detentions of innocent civilians, torture and abuse of prisoners and detainees, America’s honor and prestige at the lowest point ever, and investigations that whitewash the president’s men and blame it all on the enlisted personnel. Thus the obscene spectacle of the grieving families at funerals forced by the president’s dishonesty to defend the honor of their dead even as they mourn: Small wonder that the president, desperately attempting to hide behind a façade of rigid religiosity that glorifies war and false patriotism that exalts the very evils it claims to despise, never attends the funerals of those who have died in the line of duty. How could he?"
by Michael Gillespie05/13/05 "MMN"
- - If you've been paying attention to the exclusively local media coverage of the funerals of the mostly young American servicemen and security contractors killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, you will have noticed that the families are increasingly finding it necessary to make public statements declaring the goodness and decency of their loved ones who have given their lives in the line of duty or in the service of the corporations that provide manpower to meet the Pentagon's still growing demand for private security contractors.
"He was noble and always carried himself with honor. He was kind and gentle and always gave all he could without hesitation. He was a loving husband and father. [He] believed in his mission in Iraq. He was a strong man and stood up for what he knew was right."
"[He] died serving his country and protecting our freedom. [He was] a loving husband and father, a devoted son and brother. He was the best of the best our country had to offer.
" And, in the case of a security contractor, "[He was] a true patriot, a beloved brother, son and friend. . . . It was [his] deep sense of patriotism and his abiding Christian faith that led him to work in Iraq. He wanted to go where good people needed help. He will be dearly missed.
” The sentiments expressed by these families reflect some of the most painful and deeply felt of all human emotions, and none can doubt the families' sincerity. Surely very few Americans, perhaps especially those who oppose the war, many because they have personally experienced the horror and terrible grief that accompany war, feel anything other than an empathetic sorrow at these families' grief.
Though few commentators have dared to broach the topic, it is almost impossible not to recognize that there is something else, something other than shock, loss, and grief at work in these public declarations of the goodness, decency, selflessness, and nobility of America's fallen heroes. The public statements now in vogue are irrefutable evidence of the families’ evidently felt need to defend the honor and integrity of their loved ones. There can be little doubt why the families of America’s war dead find it necessary to issue such statements. They are a response to the ugly, demoralizing truth about America’s so-called war on terror.
In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, President Bush and his administration over-reacted. The cowboy president and his neoconservative cabal tossed aside the Geneva Conventions and more than half a century of progress in the area of human rights law. They privatized many of the functions of the U.S. military and pressured U.S. intelligence agencies and organizations to provide information favorable to their war plans. Then they and their willingly compliant media operatives used the public airways to stampede the nation into an unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq on the basis of unreliable and falsified intelligence findings.
In the days following September 11, as soon as he regained his typically arrogant bearing, the president, presumably as part of an effort to distract attention from his administration’s culpability in the massive intelligence failure that allowed the worst ever attack on the United States to succeed, publicly appealed to a vigilante ethic, the rough justice of the Old West that predates the established rule of law. "I want justice," Bush said. "And there's an old poster out West, I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.'" [1] On September 17, 2001, the president sounded more like a frontier town marshal getting up a posse or a lynch mob than a president taking the modern world’s only superpower nation to war. That, as it turns out, was no accident.
The tone the president set early on, which appears to have been an accurate reflection of his personal convictions, has had a profound influence on his administration’s war on terror. It’s effects, the unsurprising but nonetheless shocking result of incompetence, malfeasance, haste, and excess in support of questionable ideological goals, can be seen everywhere: A demoralizing torture and abuse scandal of unprecedented proportions that continues to resist all the administration’s attempts at whitewash and cover-up; reluctant allies abandoning a bloody, destructive, and enormously expensive occupation gone-wrong in Iraq; and a counter-
productive foreign policy driven by a war on terror that produces more terrorists than it eliminates, all with no end in sight. >>>>continued A must Read
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8830.htm
"Mass round-ups and detentions of innocent civilians, torture and abuse of prisoners and detainees, America’s honor and prestige at the lowest point ever, and investigations that whitewash the president’s men and blame it all on the enlisted personnel. Thus the obscene spectacle of the grieving families at funerals forced by the president’s dishonesty to defend the honor of their dead even as they mourn: Small wonder that the president, desperately attempting to hide behind a façade of rigid religiosity that glorifies war and false patriotism that exalts the very evils it claims to despise, never attends the funerals of those who have died in the line of duty. How could he?"
by Michael Gillespie05/13/05 "MMN"
- - If you've been paying attention to the exclusively local media coverage of the funerals of the mostly young American servicemen and security contractors killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, you will have noticed that the families are increasingly finding it necessary to make public statements declaring the goodness and decency of their loved ones who have given their lives in the line of duty or in the service of the corporations that provide manpower to meet the Pentagon's still growing demand for private security contractors.
"He was noble and always carried himself with honor. He was kind and gentle and always gave all he could without hesitation. He was a loving husband and father. [He] believed in his mission in Iraq. He was a strong man and stood up for what he knew was right."
"[He] died serving his country and protecting our freedom. [He was] a loving husband and father, a devoted son and brother. He was the best of the best our country had to offer.
" And, in the case of a security contractor, "[He was] a true patriot, a beloved brother, son and friend. . . . It was [his] deep sense of patriotism and his abiding Christian faith that led him to work in Iraq. He wanted to go where good people needed help. He will be dearly missed.
” The sentiments expressed by these families reflect some of the most painful and deeply felt of all human emotions, and none can doubt the families' sincerity. Surely very few Americans, perhaps especially those who oppose the war, many because they have personally experienced the horror and terrible grief that accompany war, feel anything other than an empathetic sorrow at these families' grief.
Though few commentators have dared to broach the topic, it is almost impossible not to recognize that there is something else, something other than shock, loss, and grief at work in these public declarations of the goodness, decency, selflessness, and nobility of America's fallen heroes. The public statements now in vogue are irrefutable evidence of the families’ evidently felt need to defend the honor and integrity of their loved ones. There can be little doubt why the families of America’s war dead find it necessary to issue such statements. They are a response to the ugly, demoralizing truth about America’s so-called war on terror.
In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, President Bush and his administration over-reacted. The cowboy president and his neoconservative cabal tossed aside the Geneva Conventions and more than half a century of progress in the area of human rights law. They privatized many of the functions of the U.S. military and pressured U.S. intelligence agencies and organizations to provide information favorable to their war plans. Then they and their willingly compliant media operatives used the public airways to stampede the nation into an unnecessary and illegal war in Iraq on the basis of unreliable and falsified intelligence findings.
In the days following September 11, as soon as he regained his typically arrogant bearing, the president, presumably as part of an effort to distract attention from his administration’s culpability in the massive intelligence failure that allowed the worst ever attack on the United States to succeed, publicly appealed to a vigilante ethic, the rough justice of the Old West that predates the established rule of law. "I want justice," Bush said. "And there's an old poster out West, I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.'" [1] On September 17, 2001, the president sounded more like a frontier town marshal getting up a posse or a lynch mob than a president taking the modern world’s only superpower nation to war. That, as it turns out, was no accident.
The tone the president set early on, which appears to have been an accurate reflection of his personal convictions, has had a profound influence on his administration’s war on terror. It’s effects, the unsurprising but nonetheless shocking result of incompetence, malfeasance, haste, and excess in support of questionable ideological goals, can be seen everywhere: A demoralizing torture and abuse scandal of unprecedented proportions that continues to resist all the administration’s attempts at whitewash and cover-up; reluctant allies abandoning a bloody, destructive, and enormously expensive occupation gone-wrong in Iraq; and a counter-
productive foreign policy driven by a war on terror that produces more terrorists than it eliminates, all with no end in sight. >>>>continued A must Read
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8830.htm
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 1:54 AM
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