Look, Oh Totally Illogical One,

First, You are an insult to the Marines. (Most marines will agree with that, as the 24,000 plus members of Vets For Freedom and so will many, many millions of other Americans.)

Second, I care less what this “Human Rights Watch” found. Anyone with even half a brain and modicum of knowledge knows better.

JUST the Prison for LITTLE KIDS YOU REPORTED ON PROVES they are WRONG.

TORTURING TWO YEAR OLDS PROVE IT!

The HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Iraqi’s tortured by Saddam PROVE them WRONG!

The THOUSANDS of men, women children and babies KILLED BY Saddam’s Poison Gas PROVE they are WRONG!

The Average of 30,000 Iraqis executed EVERY YEAR by Saddam PROVES they are WRONG.

The Dead killed by Iraqi forces in Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia PROVE THEY ARE WRONG!

The dead Americans and others killed by the terrorists in the Philippines and supported by Saddam for over eight years PROVE they are WRONG.

Saddam paid $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers who had killed men, women, children & babies. And these DEAD PROVE your IDIOT “Human Rights Watch” is WRONG!

And YOU Oh Clueless One, is WRONG as well only you are too damn dumb to know it.

Neil C. Reinhardt

“A Pro Iraq War Agnostic Atheist Activist, a Vet, and a Iconoclastic Philosophizing Grumpy Old Son Of A Beach!”

http://www.nj.com/centraljersey/index.ssf/2008/03/w_windsor_man_pleads_guilty_in.html

Dear Ardee,(the grandmother of fourteen (?)grandchildren)
You can repeat your martra of six million of incinerated Jews as long as you please, but there is absolutely no evidence to confirm it, except the incessant Jewish propaganda which ,curiously, reappears every time the bestial treatment of Palestinians by the Israelis can no longer be dressed up as a ‘legitimate war on terror’.
Jews did suffer disproportionately in the hands of the Nazies but the inflation of the figures (unless they count all those numerous ‘survivals’ as ‘incinerated’) doesn’t do the justice to the real victims, and much less justify their abominable treatement of the Palestinians.
If you continue shrieking this rubbish, don’t get surprised if the people start thinking the whole thing was simply a Jewish hoax.

I appreciated your post. I don’t find Howard Zinn ‘radical’ at all. Unless you mean by that that it is a ‘people’s history.’

I understand that the Israeli press is far more critical of it’s own govt. than the so-called ‘free press’ of the USA. Would that we had more access to their press or that it would be acknowleged in this country.

Insightful statements. We desperately need to get the corporate boot off our necks. The sooner the better.

Captain Scott Shields and BEAR - hero of WTC etc.,

- please look at http://www.scottshieldsfraud.co.uk.

He has been indited for Fraud against US GOV, FEMA, RED CROSS and Mail fraud.
Faces 35 years in jail.
Please do not buy the fictional book or give to his foundation - it all goes in his pocket!

http://www.scottshieldsfraud.co.uk

Captain Scott Shields and Dog - responder and hero of WTC - no fraud!!!!

http://www.scottshieldsfraud.co.uk - he is no indited by US Gov. and faces 35 years for mail fraud, RED CROSS and FEMA fraud.

There are many articles on the web http://www.landofpuregold.com is a super one.

He is not a captain, he and his dog were not trained in search and rescue.  he has never been a responder at WTC or Katrina but turned up and was put off after a day.  He was not at oklahoma, sago, turkey or gulf - he was never in army or navy.  He is a fraud pure and simple.

His web site bearsearchandrescue.org and his book Bear heart of a hero - full of exagerations and fabrication - read Nancy West’s take on her ex co-author of the book - interesting eh

He and his sister are indited now.

http://www.scottshieldsfraud.co.uk for more information.

HIRNLEGO………You’ve provided powerful links to truth.  Thank you for the education!  I am surprised at the length of time our Global Domination has been in the the works……from Poppy, through Clinton, and on to Jr…...and worked on by Powell, Scooter, Wolfowitz, etal from before they ever took office.  The inevitability of it all fills me with sadness.

And renews my doubt in the 9-11 story.  As Brzezinski said in his book of plans for our global dominion,
“……..The public supported America’s engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.” He predicts that because of popular resistance to US military expansionism, his ambitious Central Asian strategy can not be implemented “except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.” [Brzezinski, 1997, pp. 24-25, 210-11]

Such a scenario has been portrayed by others as a necessary preface for military action.  So we’re told our friendly Saudis conveniently provided the whole play.  And our Commander in Chief said, “Am I lucky?  I just hit the trifecta!”

@ shz
In order to control the world you need the oil. Cheney didn’t have an energy task force for nothing and the PNAC document"RAD” mentions the need to protect “the continues flow of oil”.
Mr Ritter is one of the best voices today for some real information. I’d like to share some links:
The US War with Iran has Already Begun (2005):
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0620-31.htm
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11503.htm
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/horton.php?articleid=10595
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/16/144204
http://www.traprockpeace.org/traprock_video/index.php/2007/04/20/scott-ritter-target-iran-part-1/
Other information that might be useful to read about:
Office of special plans, joint vision 2020; full spectrum dominance, P2OG
A link that gives a brief overview of the world dominance plans: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&geopolitics;_and_9/11=centralAsia

Once again we get logical arguments on a very narrow point. Wars, other than perhaps World War II, are rarely “moral”. Goering was absolutely right,

“Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don’t want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in
any country.”

Yes, the war was an absolute lie. Most wars are based upon lies. But what is required is a way out. Until the military industrial complex is given another mission, war will continue to be economic policy. The Democrats and Republicans have approved every single Pentagon budget which of course has pork for their pet military base or defense contractor. When the war began both parties were falling over themselves on who was “tougher” on “terrorists”.

A partial solution to the militarization of our economy and disaster of a foreign policy is give the aerospace contractors the exploration of the inner solar system. Give the navy contractors protection of the wildlife in the ocean by creating wildlife zones and actual exploration of the ocean floor.

As most of you who are reading this are aware, we spend more money on “national security” then the next 20 nations combined. Corporate America will never walk away from tax payer dollars as long as they can find a way to justify these massive defense budgets. Without a “communist threat” to justify the $500 billion dollar plus armnaments juggernaut, a “threat” had to be created. What better villian then the “war on terror”. Bush is talking about this new “war on terror” lasting the rest of this century. But war is a disaster for an economy.

Our false war economy with deficit spending has been propped up by Japanese and Chinese purchasing of our bonds. When, not if, our Asian rivals stop purchasing our bonds, the dollar will fall and our economy will have a recession. What happens next will be very dangerous. In times of economic trouble the masses turn to fascists.

We cannot fight the evil in the world with just military means. We must also use individual acts of kindness and help poor families in the Third World.
All of us get so caught up in the moment we overlook the obvious.

There are no “Iraqis”, “Americans”, “insurgents” or even “terrorists”. There are only people, plants and animals on a very small planet that are at times frustrated, angry, greedy and sometimes hopeful.

Once we look at this and other “political” problems from a historical, astronomical context, we will see the way out. We need to explore again. The key to peace on earth is exploration of the ocean floor and the eventual colonalization of Mars. Until we slowly re-direct defense spending and give the military industrial complex a new mission, we will continue to have more mothers weep over their fallen loved ones.

Danny Quintana
author of “Pax Americana, The Military Industrial Complex And The War On Terror” free online at
huntingandgathering.org

As publisher of the online magazine of Jewish culture, lifestyle and politics, the Gantseh Megillah, please allow me to applaud you Mr. Ritter.

Your insights and plain facts of the case are compelling and bring the atrocity of the Iraq invasion by the U.S. into its true perspective.  Mr. Dershowitz and his allies have been using all kinds of hideous scare tactics, and knee-jerk reaction causing illustrations such as the Holocaust as a way of achieving his own political agenda. This is below contempt, and I have said so many times in letters to my thousands of readers.  I hope your article will help spread the word about the danger in taking most of what war monger Dershowitz has to say, and lead people to think and use their own sense of moral right and wrong to fully judge what we are doing in Iraq.

Over time Mr. Dershowitz has proven an embarrassment to the legal profession and a liability to Harvard. As an apologist for Zionism and shameless crusader for the doctrine of Jews as a uniquely privileged and chosen people, his argument for “legitimate belligerent reprisal” should be viewed in the light of his true agenda—one in which America has only a supporting role to the real star player.

It’s a little sad that we are still gifting credibility to this self-destructing propagandist by airing his ideas - even if it is to dismantle them.  But, tempting as it is, it is a mistake to dismiss him out of hand.  If the Bush administration has taught us anything, it is that in the heat of the moment, an argument need not be correct to achieve it’s aims.

Excellent article by Ritter!
And some excellent comments from the readers!
Truthdig is so incredibly worthwhile and important!

Esp. appreciated HIRNLEGO’S link to “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”.  Most frightening article I’ve ever read.  It puts the lie to our naive belief that this war is over oil….It’s about AMERICAN CONTROL OF THE WORLD!  Please….everybody read http://www.antiwar.com/orig/stockbauer1.html

And thanks to TRUTHSEEKER for the link to Manuel Valenzuelas.  Great writing.  Looking forward to reading all of his articles.  http://valenzuelasveritas.blogspot.com/2006/02/land-of-puppet-people_15.html

As a kid I’d often go to the VFW with my aunt and uncle, a WW1 vet.  Just another bar with an excess of macho, John Wayne fantasies.  Most vets don’t belong.

So, Scott Ritter’s finally come out of the closet: he is an Anti-Semite (!)
  Yes sir, he dared to mention Dershovits and if there was any more proof needed, he didn’t inform us about that famous Saddam’s prison for under 12-year olds, just to prevent us from attacking Iraq.
  Good Grief!and we thought we had a hero.
  Since I’ve been declared myself an Anti-Semite, I’ll venture to say something on this subject.
  Frankly, I thought Scott wasn’t one of “us” as he tried to clubber me, preemptively, for my ” six million victims” disbelief. Now, he has been classified in the same cathegory as Jimmy Carter, by those ever vigilant guardians of the Holocaust Orthodoxy. But, this prison for under 12, where the kids were “starved, beaten, raped, tortured and murdered” is the real nub of the story of Scott’s depravation, since an anti-Dershowits stand doesn’t impress much anybody out of the closed and shrinking circles of his true believers.
  That horror prison for kids was most likely no more than an orphanage with all its current abuses, and that Scott didn’t want to join the hollering bloodthirsty crowd of Dershowits type, it is entirely to his credit.
  What is forgotten now, are some other horror stories promoted by our office of special operations (run by the tandem Rumsfeld,Wolfowits,Perle). Here is one:
Saddam has adapted a shredding mashine to shred “slowly” his political oponents. There was no investigation to the truth of this by our sorry “free media” (because they liked the story) and we went to the War with it. It is only when we “won” that this proved to be a total fabrication (inter alia)
(But,of course,since Saddam was so bad “it could have been true”).There was no mention of this any longer and Dershowits&Co; had it their way,only for a while- though, they want now more of the same for Iran.
  If Scott didn’t report these, it is absolutely to his credit. If the abuse of children could be a legitimate ‘causus belli’, the whole world would have ganged up on US a long time ago.
  So, gentlemen Semites, get off your imaginary high moral horse, you are fooling nobody any longer.
Your anti-Semitic anathemas are wearing thin and your victories are every time more pyrrhic for it is your very behaviour which creates anti-Semites.
  Such bloody fools.

Well done Marine! Your artical is right on point. I served four years in the U.S.Navy on Submaines during “The Forgotten War”, Korea and did not join any Veterans Organization for much the same reasons you mention.

Keep up the good work, you are a credit to our country and your service to the country is greatly appreciated.

The fact that Scott Ritter did not report the child prisons has nothing to do with supporting the invasion of Iraq.  One can be against the invasion and against Saddam’s child prisons but for another means of dealing with the problem.  For Scott Ritter to distort truths in order to press his own political agenda is repulsive.  It reminds me of other repulsive individuals (Bush, Rummy, Cheney) who did the same thing to support the invasion.  Scott Ritter is no better or worse than Bush on this account.  I believe that was the argument made against Scott Ritter by Reinhardt not an argument for the war.  Scott has another strike against him.  He is an anti-Semite much like the majority of responders to this article who chose to deny the Holacaust and sling irrational criticisms based on hate rather than intelligent thought.  Thank you Ardee for bringing this to light.  This ignorance is dooming the left to become irrelevant.  Where are all the intelligent people?

I will not allow this thread to be hijacked into a sidebar discussion of a proven fact; that six million jews, one million gypsies and about one hundred thousand homosexuals were slaughtered in the camps. As a child in the Bronx, NY I knew far too many who wore the tattoo on their forearm to fall for this posters agendised rant. I will say, in my final response to one who does appear to conflate the religion of the jew with the policy of the Israeli government, that the fact that so many survived had far more to do with the rapid deterioration of the German defenses than with the fact of the holocaust as myth. A people who thought their reich would survive for a thousand years also thought that they had plenty of time to exterminate the jewish people. The ovens and gas chambers worked around the clock in the closing days of WW2 and thank goodness that even the efficiency of the German machine paled before the task at hand.

I do not, in any way, support the policies of the Israeli government towards the indigenous peoples of that region. I despise, in the strongest terms, the way the lands of the arabs were stolen, the treatment of the palestinians by the JDL and the govt of Israel and the refusal of Israel to address its violations of international law and the laws of human decency and morality. But unlike Peter RV I am quite able to understand that it isnt Judaism that is the culprit here, any more than Protestantism is responsible for the ridiculous interpretation of that religion by Bush 41 and his coterie of insane right wing christian extremists. I focus my anger where it rightly belongs, on the actions of a government that is failing its people and its neighbors.

By the by it might be mentioned here that Israel and Lebanon are both democracies and are the only such in the middle east. Having been in Israel on three separate occasions I am all too aware that the coffee houses in Jerusalm and Haifa are filled with those who strongly dissent with the policies of their government and will, sooner or later, effect the necesary changes to those policies. That they are also Jews is again secondary to the fact of their citizenship.

Amongst the manufactured evidence is the artificially low death estimates given by the war faction, foolishly abetted by Iraq Body Count and one or two others. The attached is grim but necessary reading. It further gives the lie to Iraq Body Count and other agencies who are, willingly or not, underestimating the carnage in Iraq. These figures are just those which have come to the attention of the Karbala authorities.

http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=nw20070515125826979C680577

Scott Ritter has consistently spoken out against the manufactured “evidence” leading the foolish American to eagerly support a weak presidents desire to attack a basically defenseless nation. For that reason, he has been vilified and denigrated almost non-stop by those who took offense at his fact backed truth.

People so enamored by their fantasy memories of war that they prefer being lied to is sad enough. That they encourage their loved ones to take up arms and possibly die for this weak presidents fantasy is beyond comprehension.

Saddam was a bad man.  Attacking an entire nation to catch a single bad man, and killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in the process was just plain stupid. So like it or not, we are left with the question, why did we attack Iraq anyway?

We know, it was not because Saddam had anything to do with 9/11. He did not. We also know it had nothing to do with his Weapons of Mass Destruction. He had none. Which leaves us with two possibilities.

Oil and Stupidity.

Either this president badly wanted to gain control over Iraq’s oil, or he is an incredibly stupid man. Take your pick.

Those are the obvious simple answers, but there’s more. The wish to expand opportunities to those corporations that quickly moved into position to make huge profits from this war. And the need to justify an out of control wish to be the Empire that controls the world through force.

Those who engage in war-profiteering need no explanation. Their blood-stained greed can be seen by all. Those who support Empire display their ignorance of the human cost of war and their cowardice, having never fought in one. 

For a president and congress who are supposed to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and serve the people who put them in office, there is no explanation or excuse.

Which brings us back to the heroes, the veterans, the legionnaires.

They of all people know the human cost of war. They of all people should be outraged at having been lied to. They more than anyone else should see the futility of human sacrifice to support greed and stupidity.

There is nothing glorious about starting a war. There is nothing noble about killing thousands of innocent children. And there is no rational justification for accepting and repeating a lie, rather than accepting you were lied too.

Scott Ritter needs no defense. But, who will defend the indefensible?
The lies that have taken so many lives.
The lying that continues to demand human sacrifice.

The time for excuses has passed. The time for real courage is here.
That courage that will say no more lies and demand accountability.
That courage that will risk being ridiculed and demand no more human sacrifice for oil and profit and stupidity.

That courage that will demand no more dying for the vanity of Empire!

Reference
  C#69879 Ardee
  You may know some “holocaust denier” like myself but I also know a lot of “holocaust peddlers” which are by far more obnoxious species.
  We are being led by these gentlemen to accept the most absurd of the conclusions:
  On one hand, Germans were fanatically meticulous in keeping record on their crimes, and at the same time equally sloppy in letting so many Jews escape alive, ungassed.
  Whoever wants to believe in this nonsense, he is entitled to it. I’m not one of them.
(This is ,in fact, what thousands of Hollywood’s holocaust movies suggest us to accept as the unique morally correct way of thinking).
  But, there’s more.
  Jews are the most ancient myth-makers and the “six million” victims comes naturally to those who believe that God has promised Abraham all the land between Nile and Euphrates.
  Much more recently, Golda Meir, the prime minister of “the only democracy in the Middle East” said that “there is no such a thing as a Palestinian People. It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist”.
  And, how about the Zionist slogan “Land without People to the People without Land” which was raging
until it was debunked by the reality- the terrorist atacks from those who “did not exist”?
  The latest specimen of fabulation is, of course, our own Paul Wolfowits who bestowed upon our Nation the concept of the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction for which we bravely wage this war ever since.
  Why should anybody believe anything these people say, when they lie so blatantly?
  If I were a Jew, I would insist very much for my tribe to get out of this dangerous trance they are in (but that is not my business).

Neil C. Reinhardt complains:

“Scott Ritter is a low life jerk.  I have no respect for him or anything he says!

“He knew about the special
prison Saddam set up for children (age 12 & under)
where they were held, starved, beaten, tortured raped and murdered. Yet he did not want to make it public knowledge as it would further justify the Iraq War.”
——————

Undear Neil, listen up.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), after an exhaustive study, found that the US invasion of Iraq could not be justified on humanitarian grounds.

HRW holds that war is indeed sometimes justified as a humanitarian intervention, but must be severely weighed against its inevitable horrors in order to be justified. HRW did a study of the human rights situation in Iraq at the time of the US invasion. Their conclusion? This:

“In sum, the invasion of Iraq failed to meet the test for a humanitarian intervention.”

http://hrw.org/wr2k4/3.htm#_Toc58744952

So shut up.

Scott Ritter is a low life jerk.  I have no respect for him or anything he says!

He knew about the special
prison Saddam set up for children (age 12 & under)
where they were held, starved, beaten, tortured raped and murdered. Yet he did not want to make it public knowledge as it would further justify the Iraq War.

Neil C. Reinhardt

The basic premise of the article is right on.  The use of Alan Dershowitz’s comments to make a point about the immoral war in Iraq and the human rights violations at Guantanamo is disingenuous.  The comments made by Dershowitz have NOTHING to do with these issues.  Dershowitz made the argument to address an entirely different topic.  Either the author does not understand the point being made by Dershowitz or he is has an ulterior motive.  Judging from the well written and persuasive rhetoric I do not think this author can hide behind ignorance.  I wonder what else would motivate devoting such a large percentage of the article to simply to denigrate a person on a tangential issue?  Is this an ad hominum attack in disguise or are there other targets?  Has TruthDig become Fox News using rhetoric to pull at heart strings rather than vetting posted pieces for accuracy?  This bothers me so much because I am normally a very strong supporter of the content and platform of TruthDig.  It’s for this reason that I hope that people who disagree with my post or would like more information about my argument respond to my post so that I may present an alternative interpretation of this article.  Thank you.

I commend you on your bravery mr.Ritter…
It is very hard to recognize the bad you have done in the name of something you hold dear (your country) and require much more than faith in yourself. And it is harder to do anything about it. Especially to admit that last line…..

Scott Ritter is marvelous as usual. Amazing man who has told the truth from the get go about Iraq and this evil, sleazy war foisted on naive Americans with lies from their government. And kudos to him for pointing out the nonsense of trying to justify what our troops have done. These guys have been duped and used, and they need to have the courage to understand and admit that is what has happened and direct their anger at those who have so cruelly used them.

I remember hearing my parents and their friends speak in hushed tones about solving the “Jewish Problem”

I remember the collective sighs of relief when the powers that be assisted the Jews in locating on Palestinian land.

I remember news reels at the afternoon matinee, showing the piles of dead and dying in Germany. I remember the German people being marched to the concentration camps by the occupying forces. I remember them in their Sunday best, looking as though they were going on a picnic. I remember them coming back ... weeping and distraught. Some unable to walk, others fainting or throwing up. Learning the truth can be a horribly painful experience.

Somewhere along the way, I remember my uncle returning from the war. Looking twenty years older. Not quite so quick to laugh and joke. A little jumpy. I remember hearing him cry, when he spoke to my Mother. I wondered why he cried.

Later, a friend from High School fought in the Korean War. He came home shattered. They called it “mommyism” back then. We still knew so little about the damage that happens when a good man kills another. Or sees his buddy blown up. My friend died in a Nursing Home before he turned thirty. I often wondered, could he have gotten better if he had just been able to cry?

When those “good” German people were forced to see the consequence of looking the other way, it saved their lives. And eventually helped re-build their national identity. They cried. They cried until there were no more tears. Then they healed.

Perhaps we have done a great disservice to the residents of Israel. Perhaps the tears that spring from remorse are essential to healing the soul. More than that, perhaps it’s time for all of us to get a little honesty. The world at large welcomed the opportunity to remove the Jews from European society and ship them off to Palestine. To ‘solve’ the Jewish problem. Now they seem helpless to deal with the problem they helped create.

Building justification for stealing from one to give to another often leads to a focus on the suffering of the other and ignoring the suffering of the one. And of course leads to an expansion and exaggeration of the original loss leading to the theft. A simple review of history lays out the uncomfortable reality that most Palestinians and Israelis are an incredibly long-suffering, not to mention tolerant people. As are most Iraqis and Afghanistan’s.

One mans ‘law and order’ guy is another mans terrorist. Same here as everywhere. Why does everyone have so much trouble understanding that? Terrorism is a state of mind inflicted on innocents by those who would commit crime. We have it, they have it. It’s like the need for food. Everybody has it.

Just as we have gangs and crime and killers here, they have them in Palestine and Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan. Their killers may claim their crime is motivated by a wish to bring security to their people, but is that so different from organizations in this country who under the protection of law and order shoot and beat and arrest and lock up anyone seen as a threat because they disagree with pre-emptive war, or the notion that our military can actually defeat terrorism?

Perhaps the Legionnaires suffer from selective memory. Or, maybe they never cried.  Maybe they chose instead to build a comfort zone of self forgiveness absolving themselves of any pain or suffering they may have inflicted on the innocent. Because there is no question, far more innocents die in war than guilty. And no one should know that better than the veterans of all foreign wars. Their inability to look squarely at the horror of war, and their part in it spills over and shapes the lie that shapes the ‘cause’ their sons and grandsons eagerly march off too die for.
How vain is that?

The true agenda for the Iraq war can be found through the neoconservative think thank PNAC. Here’s a short summary of their own “mein kampf”:

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/stockbauer1.html

I was a member of the American Legion (my service as a combat medical corpsman circa ‘67-‘68 in ‘Nam giving me access).  I have stopped going and paying dues primarily because of their continuing “war-mongering”.  I support our troops, but not the administration, and not this illegal occupation if Iraq.  We were told many reasons we had to go to Iraq, the initial ones were lies, the ones that follow were great media spin to keep the public dumbed down and accepting of new lies.  As long as Bush is “Mission Accomplishing in Office” he is not going to quit Iraq.  Has he yet attended a funeral of a fallen military personnel?

regarding:
C#69454 by Peter RV on 5/11 at 5:01 pm
(Unregistered commenter)

“I must be one of those who “deserves condemnation”, according to Scott Ritter, for “minimizing the holocaust”.Dershowits will hit the ceiling if he reads this but since he granted me the right of free speech, I’ll take it(thanks Professor)
I don’t deny that Jews were the main Nazi victims (along with Russians) but I have serious difficulty in accepting the “six million” version of it…....”

I have seen these holocaust denial folks before and wonder at their ability to selectively filter out the facts. While I certainly do not infer that this person has no right to an opinion, consideration must be given to the tons upon tons of methodical record keeping by the Nazis, detailing the life and death of every jew, gypsy, homosexual et al in their keeping. These records are open to the public and I recommend that Peter take a vacation to Germany and peruse them, it might be an experience that changes his perspective if not his political opinions.

To David, #69372

go back to school, and take a few math classes. The projected cost is not $2,000,000,000 ($2 billion), which make it cheap (in dollar terms, not lives), but $2,000,000,000,000 ($2 trillion). the extra few zeros make a difference, especially to your children and grandchildren when thay have to pay for it. And if anyone thinks the costs will stop at $2 trillion, do a little more homework on past government expenditures, and incidental costs, etc. And that is to lose the war, and that doesn’t count Afganistan, the “hidden disaster” that no one talks about only becasue Iraq is such a mess. And what if(when?) China decides one day to stop loaning the US $1 billion/day, or if (when?) other nations decide to sell their oil in Euros and not dollars, has anuone thought about what a collapse of the overvalued US $ will be?

as Talleyrand said about Napoleon’s decision to abduct and kill a royal rival, “it was worse than a crime, it was a blunder”

Mr. Ritter I heartily agree with your article on the anti-war.com and as a WW2 combat veteran I have lost confidence in the writings of the American Legion Magazine because of their many anti-American issues especially those of the Zionist’s position. As an example the USS Liberty attack by the Israelis and the Pollard spy case.

Thank you for calling a spade a spade.

Tell Boehner & McConnell
The Barrage of Bush/Cheney Lies
Is the Cover-Up To The
BIG LIE
The End Game is The U.S. Corporate Control of 687.8 Billion Barrels of Middle East Oil & Trillions for Mobil/Exxon & Big Oil!  IT WAS NOT ABOUT WMD, It Was Not About Saddam Hussein The Tyrant, it Was Not About Democracy For the 28 Million Iraqi People or About The Security for the 301 Million American People OR The Security for the 7 Million Israeli People or The 19 Million Syrians or The 71 Million Iranians CERTAINLY WAS NOT ABOUT SUPPORTING THE TROOPS!  IT WAS ALL ABOUT The Bush/Cheney Administration, Orchestrating A War & Using The U.S. Troop Occupation In Order To Seize U.S. Corporate Control of Over 44 Trillion Dollars Worth of Middle East Oil Reserves For The Next 30 Years Plus.  Including Gasoline 4-5 Dollars Per Gallon!
General David Petraeus Said,
The top U.S. commander in Iraq, depicted the situation there as “exceedingly complex and very tough” Thursday and said the U.S. effort “might become more difficult before it gets easier”
To General David Petraeus & Congress:
It’s Not Complex! It’s Very, Very Simple!
(Simple Fact #1 ) 

The Bush/Cheney Administration Invades Iraq Based On Lies To Ensure US Corporate Control of Middle East Oil Reserves & Military Industrial Profit, Installs a Democracy With Bullets & Bombs, Creates an (Oil Rich) US Backed Shia Controlled Government in Iraq, Which Will Force 6 Million (Oil Empty) Sunnis in Iraq To Choose Between Eating Sand or Setting Bombs! Oil Accounts for More 70% of Iraq’s GDP and 95% of Government Revenue. The New Iraq Oil Law, Largely Written by the Coalition Provisional Authority, is Planned for Ratification By June. This law cedes control of Iraq’s Oil to Western Powers for 30 Years. The Bush/Cheney Administration is Working Hard to Surmount This Opposition by Appealing Directly to the Al-Maliki Government in Iraq.
(Simple Fact #2 )
Al-Qaeda and The People in the Middle East Do Not Hate Americans; Do Not Hate Our Freedoms, But They Do Hate, Very Much, Unfair U.S. Government Policies, Including Having Our Troops Marching On Their Sacred Land – Be It U.S. Troops or Soviet Troops!
To: General David Petraeus & Congress:
It’s Not Tough!  It’s Mission Impossible!
(Simple Fact #3 )
There is NO Iraqi Government - There are only US Backed Shia Iraqi Death Squads Fighting Sunni Iraqi Death Squads! There Can Be and Will Be No End To The Civil War(s) in Iraq Until All U.S. Troops Are Removed From Iraq Because the U.S. Military Presence Delegitimizes Any Outcome! To Come To an Understanding of How Wealth and Power in Iraq Will be Shared, The Political Forces There, Must Measure Their Relative Capacity and Will!
U.S. Diplomacy YES!  U.S. Military Intervention NO!
Support Senate Resolution S 759 IS   Senator James Webb
PROHIBITS THE USE OF FUNDS FOR MILITARY OPERATIONS IN IRAN WITHOUT EXPRESS CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL
Support House Joint Resolution 14 Congressman Walter Jones
REQUIRING CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL PRIOR TO USE OF MILITARY FORCE AGAINST IRAN
Support H.R. 413 Congressman Sam Farr
LEGISLATION WHICH REPEALS THE IRAQ WAR RESOLUTION OF (2002) AND REQUIRES THE PRESIDENT TO START WITHDRAW

Very interested in all your comments & very much in tune with what most thinking Australians would say. Having lived & worked throughout the Middle East countries, I believe the Bush administration, supported by the so-called “Coalition of the willing” that includes Blair of the UK & Howard of Australia have sabotaged any real opportunity of peace in our time. My son who recently left the Australian military after 20 years service and served in the peace keeping forces overseas, agrees. Kind regards, John Jamieson from Western Australia.

Scott, ever since I “supported” you personally in your UN quest to shake the trees in Iraq in the late 1990s, I never thought you and I would be in the same camp about this disasterous, immoral war.  But I could not have expressed your sentiments better.  We cannot abate our expressions and actions of outrage over this administration’s truly misguided foreign policy that has killed so many civilians and soldiers and inflicted so many injuries.  For what?  Our government uses the word “kill” as though it is what makes America great.  It disgusts me.  Today, Mothers Day, must be so painful for the thousands of American mothers and we hear of more young troops killed south of Baghdad.  For What?  For peace?  For freedom?  I don’t think so.

Bert

Dershowitz wants Hamas to recognize Israel. How do you recognize a country with not just undefined borders, but huge swathes of terretories stolen to accommodate European converts to Judaism, all of
whom describe themselves as White/Caucasian; yet swear by the Torah that middle eastern land belongs to them.
The man is pure unadulterated evil.

American Legion and VFW members must be honoured for their service to their country.  However it is a shame that the leadership of the Legion and the VFW permit the Bush administration to use their organizations as a platform to justify the continuation of the wars in Iraq and Afganistan
I see Dick Cheney invited again and again. Yet this man lacks the basic qualifications for membership for either organization, due to the fact that he was too busy pushing his personal agenda let alone risking his life defending his country during the period 1962-1975. Why is he allowed to wear the honored cap of the Legion and the VFW?

  The next time Mr Cheney comes to one of these events, shouldn’t he be asked about the dreadful way the Aministration has treated the wounded returned veterans.

Unless the Legion and the VFW start standing up to the Bush administration and demanding fair treatment for the veterans of Iraq and Afganistan.
They have no future.

Thank you Mr. Ritter…this is a superb post. Mr. Dershwitz lost any objectivity long ago…he sees iraq war in the arab-jew context which also explains his support for the war. For Mr. Dershwitz, any one who criticizes Israel’s policies towards palestinians who have been made to live in abject and harsh conditions under its occupation is anti-semitic. By that definition, I am proud to be one.

Mr. Ritter, A great article. I’m sure you’ve read the Chalmers Johnson trilogy, starting with ‘Blowback’ but may I recommend it to others here. It is a withering indictment of the imperial ambitions of the US since the Spanish-American War. Well researched and documented and much less ‘radical’ than Howard Zinn, bless his heart. I do, however, feel that we have had imperial ambitions since the inception of this country, starting with Native American Indians. Mr. Johnson argues that merely HAVING a standing army predisposes us to wars of imperialism and so called ‘good wars’. So, why do we need a standing army if we act like real human beings in the world? I’ll bet we wouldn’t. And, a last bit of free advertising for ‘The Authoritarians’ by Bob Altemeyer on the web. 20+ years of testing his psych 101 students for right wing authoritarian tendencies. It’s fascinating reading, and it ties in with many of the comments here. He dovetails with George Lakoff’s work in understanding many right wing attitudes, (and to be fair anyone who exhibits authoritarian tendencies). Please keep writing Mr. Ritter, we need cogent voices like yours.

to jon raughter:

You comment 69419 is so typical of the blind right in that when you can’t come up with an intelligent response or arguement, you resort to mud-slinging.  I wouldn’t go around bragging to be the editor of anything with that attitude, its childish and it ruins your credibility.

911 Truth Ends War!

911 Truth will deliver a whole new world from bottom to top.

http://www.patriotsquestion911.com <<<< start here

In your quest for Truth try to avoid the Tin Foil Hats and their wild conspiracies. Stick to fundamentals like the Law of Physics and a basic understanding of statistics. From that point, you’ll conclude that the Official story of 911 is a lie. The real challenge ahead of you is trying to figure out just who is responsible. The easiest thing you’ll realize is that we need to Investigate 911.

911 Truth Ends War!

Empathy here for Harold Schreiber’s comments (#69329).  I volunteered for World War II, even insisted on going after they first tried to disqualify on health grounds; then stupidly joined the VFW for as long as it took for me to realize it was mainly a drinking club. Eventually became a university teacher, attempting to promote peace, diplomacy, career civil service and intellectualism.  Marched with A.N.S.W.E.R. just before the invasion of Iraq, not because I thought it would persuade anyone in the White House but because I wanted to appear in the FBI/CIA photos to later be able to prove where I stood.  But all in vain, clearly.  We have become a very hostile empire, a far cry from what the Founders intended.  Scott Ritter and Harold Schreiber are, I regret to say, spot on target for where we as a culture are heading.

Thank you, Mr Ritter, for this post. At some point enough people have to have the courage to stand up and say “I don’t support the troops!” or else this kind of imperalist war-mongering will continue indefinitely.  We know our leaders don’t mean the actual physical soldiers when they say they support the troops - they mean that they support American militarism. I, for one, refuse to be intimidated by the “support our troops” or the “don’t let our soldiers die in vain” mantra into accepting one imperialist atrocity after another.  Just because the Iraq war is worthless doesn’t mean the soldiers “died in vain” any more than being run over by a milk truck makes one’s death “in vain.”  The truth is, all deaths are somewhat meaningless and “in vain” - not just those lost in a stupid war.

Bravo, Scott Ritter! You are a breath of fresh air in a world polluted by blowhards! From the outset, I have screamed in every arena I could against this war. I have a nephew in the Gulf. He is so young, father of a baby daughter. His wife is scarcely out of childhood herself. I cannot bear to think of the psychological scars this immoral, illegal war will leave upon him, if he is spared death. I feel so furious about what this monstrous, usurping group of murderers who call themselves our government have done, I am ready to leave this country. I have been ashamed of this country most of my life. I was born just before Vietnam and wore a McCain POW bracelet through the last years of that war. I didn’t know who he was until years later. Despite the fact he is so out of touch, just the sort of vet to whom Ritter refers, I am relieved he made it back. We actually made a difference with protests back then, but Americans have allowed the fatcat corporations, who staged their own bloodless coup of deregulation during the Reagan and Bush 41 administrations, to completely lead them around by the nose, or is that by the Blackberry and iPod? I can’t remember a more smug, self-absorbed populace than the one we have now.

To Rebecca, you are more full of crap than a septic tank. Time to pull all that cotton from the crevice that should house your brain, honey.  Has anyone else noticed the only people still defending this atrocious administration seem to have checked their brains at the door? I heard a commentator say a few months ago that Republicans and conservatives in general remind him of children, always looking to big Daddy for a rigid stand about all the issues. They don’t care whether they are right or wrong, just that the leader be unwavering. Any intelligent person knows, you must be willing to adjust your approaches to problems based on shifting conditions and information.  If George Bush or Dick Cheney is your daddy, then you should go slit your wrists. The only truth being spoken in this spoiled, selfish country stems from alternative media, and Scott Ritter, with his articulate, well-reasoned prose (a true compliment from an English professor turned novelist!).

As many of you have said, there is still too little investigation of the phony terror attacks on 9/11; how long will it be before the second phony attack arrives to plunge us into martial law? Talk about the long, national nightmare! I was a professor at a small college in metro NY on 9/11. I watched my students wait to hear from loved ones, who would never return their frantic calls. I tried to find a friend who could have been on one of the flights, only to learn his college roommate was on the second plane. In the names of those martyred by their own cowardly government on that grim day, the rest of us must get off our collective asses and fight against this rogue administration with every ounce of strength we have. Impeach Cheney first, and let the rest fall like dominoes! Do it today! Scott Ritter for President!

Scott,
Right on!

I am a former commissioned army officer and disabled Vietnam Vet and a retired college professor.

Why do we fail to understand that those who live by the sword die by the sword? We now have an all volunteer military. Every military person in Iraq, as well as other places in harms way, are volunteers. We no longer have the draft to supply cannon fodder. Military people have chosen how they want to live and die. I shed not a tear for them but only for their victims.

CheneyCo has a plan for the time when Americans are fed up with the war.  After the oil law and PSAs are inked, the US will claim that its military presence is vital to protection of the world’s most precious resource.  However, troops want to come home (by Christmas 2007 if possible), so—well, look what we have here! It’s a whole cadre of fully equipped totally gung-ho private military contractors!

You want your kid to come home?  Fine.  Pay the nice mercs.

There’s a big difference between US marines in Iraq and SS soldiers fighting in the Ukraine and Poland. For a start marines aren’t the SS, there marines! Our soldiers didn’t go into Iraq with the aim of slaughtering civilians, they went in to save lives and “liberate” Iraq from a brutal dictator. At least that’s what they were told; the marines, like the rest of America were duped and lied to by a corrupt and corrupting group of gangsters in the White House.

If Bush had said we’re going into Iraq because we need their oil, he wouldn’t have had an army! Whilst Germany was already a vicious dictatorship before the second world war began, America is still a democracy. So making comparisons between the US and Germany is a tricky area to get into, and can lead to some pretty foolish ideas being shoved around!

Though I still think the US is a democracy, I’m not sure for how long, given the way things are going. I think Iran is the big test. If an attack on Iran can be prevented, then we’ve got a chance to save the republic and our tested, but still functioning institutions. Only I’m not sure we’ll survive a massive attack on Iran, especially if they choose to fight back! So, the big question for me is, will democracy survive an attack on Iran?

There are many “Jewish Nazis” in America today.  Dershowitz is one of them.

I must be one of those who “deserves condemnation”, according to Scott Ritter, for “minimizing the holocaust”.Dershowits will hit the ceiling if he reads this but since he granted me the right of free speech, I’ll take it(thanks Professor)
I don’t deny that Jews were the main Nazi victims (along with Russians) but I have serious difficulty in accepting the “six million” version of it.
First, if Hitler wanted to exterminate all the Jews,
he made his death camps not quite so deadly, which clearly denies the famous German efficiency. Lots of Jews survived these concentration camps ( so many of them appeared to claim compensations from the German Government that Finkelstein’s mother wondered “who did Hitler kill”?).
Second, it is known that Germans considered Jews as people who always avoid hard work so they designed those camps under sarcastic slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei”(Work makes free), iron discipline and very hard manual labor. Conditions were atrocious and many died.Others survived. It seems that Germans were mainly interested in work performance for their war effort regardless, of course, of the consequences.( Nazis were obsessed with the concept of social parasitism which they considered as a capital sin.)
There exist some Nazi documents indicating that Hitler’s intention, at one point, was to exile all the Jews to Madagascar.
Some Jews have made a very lucrative business in exploiting these sufferings, milking the guilt out of the German Government.
Of course, the holocaust was also exploited to the hilt when defending Israel’s wrongdoing in Palestine by peddling the feeling of guilt on all goyim. Jewish sufferings always had to be unique and eternal.
Also, Jews, un-generously, largely opposed the recognition of the Armenian holocaust.
Armenians never got a bean from the Turks.

This world is in desperate need of more men like Scott Ritter. We have become a nation of sheep and live our lives without thought or care of what is taking place outside our own small cacoon.Bush asks for our sacrifice by asking us to go shopping,while our military referees a civil war.We are sending more “targets” to come home in caskets while Haliburton enriches themselves!

Scott Ritter’s article is informed by a mindful analysis of the issues and a clear awareness of the limits and consequences of military action.  US war planners have a short term political focus and believe in achieving political results rather than assessing consequences. There is no Pentagon department for addressing the consequences of allowing US corporations to narrowly define and dictate US interests. 

US policy (apparently unbeknown to the American Legion) is no longer intended to achieve a peaceful world as a basis for securing America’s future.  America’s security, following the interests of its most aggressive corporations, has shifted from security through peace to security through belligerence.  As you might expect, this tectonic shift towards aggressive militarism in support of corporate interests produces countless instances of civil reaction against corporate plunder, civil disentitlement and belligerent posturing.  Each reaction is amplified through US mainstream media to convince Americans that their values and Constitution are hated and threatened abroad. 

US citizens remaining unaware that their country has disavowed peace for belligerence, still leap to defend their flag even though it has been taken to camoflage the global plunder of world’s most exploitative corporations. 

The USA itself is being highjacked from American citizens and converted into an extensible bulwark for corporate empire.  For our domestic consumption threats can be invented to frame US interests as the terrified victims of a malevolent world just as often as the most powerful international corporations need military assistance to subdue citizens and release their resources for plunder. 

Unless Americans immediately and explicitly separate corporations from direct access to US military power the Constitution and humane & democratic principles of the United States will become historical footnotes on the brutal path to corporate dominion.

Rebecca, you are morally corrupt.  You accuse Scott Ritter of “making up fake information” but address nothing he wrote, instead blathering about Iraqis being thrilled to have Hussein gone, as if Ritter had said otherwise—did you even read his article?  Your only purpose here seems to be to justify the invasion and subsequent occupation.  What you omit is that “the vast majority of Iraqis” consider the Americans occupiers and want them to leave, and a majority considers violence against Americans to be justified.

The answer to the mother’s question “Why did he die?” is simple—because morons and American exceptionalists like herself voted for and support a chimpanzee with the ethics of a rattlesnake, a spoiled self-centered dimwitted fratboy, along with his dark companion, the vicious and brooding Dick Cheney, and a whole cabal of evil-doing neocons and dominionists.  Being morally depraved, she won’t accept responsibility for her own actions, and instead blames those who speak the truth, and tries to give her son’s death meaning by talking about a “mission”, the accomplishment of which would entail the death of every single person that we supposedly freed.  Talk to any war supporter and it doesn’t take long to uncover the fact that they consider “the enemy” to be Arabs, Muslims, “ragheads”, “sand niggers”, Iraqis ... all this talk about liberation and freedom is just a front—none of these warhawks, not a one, gives a damn, in their hearts, about the actual human beings in Iraq.

How can anybody “support” our soldiers after learning that a high percentage of them are sadist
and criminals and the rest of them are intimidated
cowards who don’t have guts to denounce their crimes?
  This immoral war has brought to light the horrendous state of immorality in our Armed Forces.
To blame all on some “rotten apples” won’t do the trick any longer. We have too many exemples to conclude that everything could be straightened by some fake courtmarshals which amount to no more than busting of the ranks or “deshonorable discharges”.
What happened to the time honored execution by firing squads for heinious crimes? (Bush was hanging people in Texas for much less)
Why don’t we send this message to our own troops?
Empty words and patriotic speeches can’t save any longer the honor of our armed promotors of democracy.

Dershowitz is all about Israel.

To make Dershowitz happy, we have to kill everybody and destroy every nation that stands in the way of Israel’s ambitions, which go far beyond any reasonable notion of “security” (and are not rightly OUR concern anyway).

If we’re not DELIGHTED to do this, regardless of the extravagant and possibly suicidal cost to the USA, we’re “anti-Semites”.

Scott,
As editor of The American Legion Magazine I was quite interested in your article.
I haven’t seen you on television in quite awhile. I keep looking for you on Chris Hanson’s “To Catch a Predator.” After all given your past, I think a comparison between you and the featured pedophiles on Dateline NBC is certainly more apt than the one you drew between U.S. troops and Nazis.
Sincerely,
John Raughter

Excellent article, kudos! It’s so true…does it make those people feel better when more soldiers die, after losing of their own? That is pure evil….

I take strong exception to the stereotypical slandering of German women who were supposedly seduced by ‘chocolates and nylons.’

After WWII, Germany was in ruins. There was little food because most of the able-bodied farmers were forced to serve in the military and what the left-behind women, the elderly, and children had produced was regularly confiscated by the retreating military to feed the soldiers. Therefore, women often had to choose between prostituting themselves to the occupying forces for food or watching their children go hungry. This a choice no woman wants to face, but for a mother, there is no choice.

Both my mother and grandmother lived through this time and counted themselves blessed because they could make it without having to barter their dignity and values. My grandmother raised illegal livestock in caves to sell on the black market and my mother was an accommplished seamstress and so could trade her skill rather than her body for food. They were the lucky ones. 

Please do not belittle the sacrifices women have to make to care for their families in a time of MAN-made war and MALE-dominated occupation. Resistance takes many forms. Survival is a form of resistance.   

It’s Mother’s Day this Sunday. Think about what your mother would have done to keep you alive and well during war and occupation! Chocolates and nylons don’t even come close.

Scott Ritter courageously warned Americans from the very beginning that we were headed the wrong way, but few listened.  Instead, too many Americans fell into lockstep behind the jingoistic, false patriotism of the “chickenhawks”.  Even now, Ritter is portrayed by the “America, right or wrong, is RIGHT!” crowd as a traitor for telling the truth, instead of being honored as the true American hero he is.

Scott, your article is sound, strong.  I wish you could get around to looking at the 9/ll coverup.  Many people are.  Look at nineleven.co.uk. Eventually this will erase all this official reality.

why aren’t we impeaching?

The war in Iraq is only partially about oil. The Arabs would give us all the oil we wanted as cheap as we wanted, if we stopped supporting Israel. That makes this nothing but a race war. The Zionists wish for an Israel of the same size of that in the Old Testament (the Torah) and that includes all Syria and Jordan. So all the arab countries like Iraq and Iran that might stand in the way, need to be wiped out by us.

Scott,

It’s good to see that you’re still speaking truth to power.  Your insight is unimpeachable, brave and unfortunately…rare. 

However, given the failure of the Dems to adequately do anything substantive in confronting the Empire over the Iraq Debacle, I’m not optimistic in regard to your blunt assessment and warnings.

Good to hear from you and I hope our paths cross again someday.

Thanks
Craig

public lynchings on the south lawn would suffice…

This article is a joke. I hate our phony war on terror as much as anyone, but when you start making up fake information like the author of this article- you’re not any better than the Bush administration.

The truth is that the vast majority of Iraqis were thrilled to have Hussein gone. They are not angry at Americans for liberating them from an oppressive dictator. They are fighting now between various ethnic groups for control of the country. This silly article could mislead people into believing that if Americans left, the fighting would be over.

We never should have invaded Iraq, but lets be truthful about the facts. The war in Iraq is about oil and power- it was never about freedom and democracy. However, many Iraqis don’t want Americans to leave because they know the bloodbath will only increase. Unfortunately, there are no easy answers.

It really has been all about oil, hasn’t it?  Let’s see, at $70 a bbl, with the total final cost of the war, including incidentals like vet care to be at $2,000,000,000.00, that works out to 28,571,428 bbl of oil.  We use 20,730,000 bbl/day in the good ole USA.  http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption

I’m sure it looks like a really good investment to, say, a MBA type.  Man, what a country!

Of course its oil. But There’s far more to it than just getting those 30 year corporate giveaway oil contracts signed. There are permanent air bases intent on control of more than just Iraq. There continue to be fortunes made by a number of favored corporations and their CEOs and other officers. The building of private armies such as Blackwater is another objective. The whole thing is a put up job for fraud and war profiteering from the get go. Coming back to the US, the same strategies for profiteering have been loosed on the Gulf Coast. We can see how it works right here at home.

The GOP’s Commander in Snuff is now their Presidential Lemming.

So how many will follow him over the oil/gun barrel edge? Strange these magnets of mental oddities. And at such great cost.

“Troops” is a euphamism for “Bush”. 

“Winning” means staying, “losing” means leaving.

Maybe we need smell-o-vision.

I hope Mr. Ritter posted this with the American Legion magazine, as it is clear they need a dose of reality.

We can not claim that service in Iraq is meaningful when we now know that all of the reasons given for being there were a lie. Military response should have had something to do with 9/11 and yet Iraq was the lest involved of any moslem country. Saudi Arabia was and for decades the banker, the cheer leader for a radical and hostile Islam. Switch to Bush walking hand in hand with Saudi Royal, making him look like a not very bright grandson with his grandfather. Consider the amount of Saudi money that has gone to support Bush Family in the past and wonder what that was all about.

We can not make meaningful a service in a corrupt war, sold to the country by a group of liars and military pretenders, with no credentials.

Great article Scott.  As a former Marine myself, I can relate to your American Legion experience.  It’s amazing how many VFW members want to bomb the world.  “Turn Iraq into glass” is a common statement made by people who should know better.  Is that a way to LIBERATE people?  As your atricle noted, there are 655,000 Iraq’s who will never know freedom.  They are dead.  We killed them.  That’s what Marines are trained to do - kill people.  Sometimes it is necessary to protect America from an invader - as in WWII.  But, expecting our sacred military to build a nation, is way out of their realm of expertise.  Then, to say things like”...we can’t lose in Iraq, so we’ll stay until the job is done…”  points at the military as the failing institution.  The military WON in Iraq.  The “Mission Accomplished” sign was correct for the military - it was over militarily in 2003.  Now, the civilians who blew it (Bush, Cheney, Pearle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfield, et al…)don’t have the courage to admit THEIR failure.  They support our troops by sending them back into the shooting gallery over and over again.  Shame on them.  And, Scott, shame on us for not being good Americans and putting a stop to this crap.

I voted to put the bastards out of business. I speak up at the VFW but usually get shouted down by drunk war mongers.  Sometimes, I think the world has gone madd.  There are so many better things we could be doing than promoting war.  Things that would make us proud.  The problem is, the wrong people are in power - people who won’t serve themselves, but are all too ready to send our kids into harms way for far less than a “good reason”.  They are cowards and they are in charge. What can we do???

EVERY AMERICAN NEEDS TO READ THIS POST. THE SPOKEN TRUTH IF I EVER READ IT. THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THE BIGGEST BLUNDER EVER. WE ALL IN THE END PAY FOR THIS ONE.
GAETAN POZSGAY
CANADA