Editorial Cartoon of the Week: Imagine

 

 

 

Welcome Home Soldiers......

 

 

"Officially" the war is over. After near 5,000 American dead, over 30,000 badly wounded and at least 100,000 Iraq civilians killed this war is finally over. While we will have some presence in Iraq and it is still possible for Americans to be killed, President Obama has kept his promise and brought the troops home. Having lived with this horror that was created by lies, deception and hysteria, it is hard to believe that it is over.

First and foremost, welcome home to our soldiers. The men and women who have served this country. My prayer this holiday season is that this is the last war you will have to fight. That President Obama will keep his promise to start removing troops from Afghanistan and you will be able to finally be with your families, friends and neighbors. America needs you home because we are in trouble. The wars have drained our funds and we need your talents, skills, energy and passion to rebuild this nation. You can help us create jobs, rebuild decaying infrastructure and teach our children the reality of war so they will never have to fight one.

Second, my since hope for each and everyone of you is that you return home to a loving family and a job. That the trauma you experienced heals with time and that the services are available to you to help you through the difficult times. Trust us that we understand that the sights and sounds of war do not leave the mind or body quickly. We will be there for you.

No matter what our politics or our belief in this war we thank you for your service. Welcome home.

Iraq: Coming Home........

 

 

By the holidays in December, the remaining 40,000 American troops will be home from Iraq. The good news is that the Iraq War is over. After eight years of warfare, over 5,000 Americans lives lost, tens of thousands civilian causalities and the wholesale destruction of a nation, we are coming home. The bad news is that these same soldiers could be shortly sent to Afghanistan. The President promised us that within four years he would bring the troops home and he has kept the promise.

Remembering is important.

This war was based on fraud, deception, lies, hysteria and politics in the administration of President George W. Bush. There was no need for this engagement. Iraq was not involved in the planning of 9/11. They found no nuclear or biological weapons. Yes, Saddam Hussein was dictator but there were numerous dictators around the world and we didn't invade those nations. Is Iraq now a democracy and free nation? Oh, hell no...

The war started with a massive and horrific 'shock and awe' on March 20, 2003. By April 14, we had officially declared victory. There has been no victory. No one won. For eight more years Americans have died and the citizens of Iraq have suffered. Entire cities, like Fallujuh, were destroyed in name of 'creating a democratic state in the Middle East.'

Over 35,000 American soldiers came home with injuries both physically and mentally - a huge number of lost limbs and severe head injures because of IED's in this war. Many are returning with no programs to help them find jobs or jobs are simply not available. Some had to leave their good paying and long term jobs to serve in the National Guard.

Our nation's debt skyrocketed with this war. A very conservative direct estimate of the coast of this war is $800 billion dollars. For that price tag 390 million people could receive free groceries for an entire year!

Thank you, Mr. President for bringing the entire 40,000 home by the end of the year. The Iraqi people must determine their own future for better or worse. You will receive heavy criticism for not maintaining a military presence there. That criticism will come from the very same people who lied and deceived us into this war.

Jonathan Stollers Picture of the Week: Peace

 

 

"And God would bid His warfare cease,
Saying all things were well;
And softly make a rosy peace,
A peace of Heaven with Hell."

    -William Butler Yeats

 

Sunday's Poetry Corner: Pablo Neruda

 

 

 
 
Arrival In Madrid of the International Brigade by Pablo Neruda

One morning in a cold month,
a dying month, spattered with mud and smoke,
a month without knees, a sad month of siege and
misfortune,
when through the frosted windows of my house African
jackels
could be heard
howling with rifles and bloody teeth, then,
when we had no more hope than a dream of gunpowder,
when we now thought
the world was filled only with devouring monsters and
furies,
then, breaking through the frost of a cold Madrid month,
through the mist
of dawn
I saw with these eyes I have, with this heart that sees,
I saw the bright and spirited and commanding combatants
of the lean, tough, mature, ardent, and steadfast brigade
arrive.

It was an anguished time when women
bore an absence like a terrible chunk of coal,
and Spanish death, more bitting, more piercing than other
deaths,
filled the countryside up to then honored by wheat.

Through the streets the spilled blood of man joined
with water spilling from the devastated heart of houses:
the bones of broken children, the heartrending
silence of mothers in mourning, the eyes
of the defenseless shut forever,
were like misery and loss, were like a graden spit upon,
were faith and the flower murdered forever.

Comrades,
then
I saw you,
and my eyes are even now filled with pride,
because I saw you through the morning mist arrive to the
pure front of Castile
silent and steadfast
like bells before sunrise,
full of solemnity and with blue eyes from far, far away,
from your corners, from your lost countires, from your
dreams
full of raging gentleness and rifles
to defend the Spanish city in with corralled liberty
might fall and die, devoured by beasts.

Brothers, from this day forward
let your nobility, your stength, your solemn history
be known to the child, the man, to the woman and the
old man,
let it reach every human without hope, let it descend the
mines
corroded by sulphuric air,
let it climb every inhuman stairway to the slave,
that all the stars, all the wheat of Castile and the world
may write down your name, your steadfast struggle
and your victory, strong and earthy as a red oak.
Because by your sacrifice you have revived
lost faith, absence of soul, trust on earth,
and through your abundance, your nobility, your deaths,
and through a valley of hard bloodied rocks,
an immense river passes with doves of steel and of hope.

Mayor Ed Koch: Bring Our Soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq Home. All of Them. Now.

 

 

 
Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch has written a powerful commentary calling for all the troops to come home now from Afghanistan. He quotes at length the exasperated former United States Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry. In the Ambassador's farewell address at Herat University on June 19th, he stated:

And – as we prepare to return home to my family after my most recent two years here – I must tell you that I find occasional comments from some of your leaders hurtful and inappropriate. When Americans, who are serving in your country at great cost – in terms of lives and treasure – hear themselves compared with occupiers, told that they are only here to advance their own interest, and likened to the brutal enemies of the Afghan people … they are filled with confusion and grow weary of our effort here. Mothers and fathers of fallen soldiers, spouses of soldiers who have lost arms and legs, children of those who lost their lives in your country – they ask themselves about the meaning of their loved one’s sacrifice.

In a no holds barred commentary, the Mayor proclaims:

The American public is fed up with the attacks made upon the U.S. by the Afghan president Hamid Karzai. Our soldiers have paid an awful price in terms of deaths and injuries in defending Afghanistan, let alone the hundreds of billions spent in rebuilding that country, much of it skimmed off by the corrupt leaders of the Afghan government, sent abroad to their bank accounts in Switzerland and elsewhere.

Those Afghan leaders are asking the Taliban leaders and followers to foreswear violence and join their fellow citizens in rebuilding their country. Indeed, the U.S. is offering millions to the insurgents to drop their arms and reconcile. Let’s assume that happens. The probability is they will take the money and remain insurgents. Who will prevail in a free election? The Taliban, which supports Sharia and a fanatical Islamic government with the elimination of corruption, or the Karzai government, which so many media observers have labeled as corrupt, with the Karzai family deeply involved in the illegal business of controlling the drug trade?

The Mayor finishes his column with:

Mr. President, I believe the deaths and injuries of our young soldiers that will take place between now and 2014 are simply too much to bear and our suffering and money expenditures will be all for naught. To date, in Afghanistan, we have suffered the deaths of 1,637 soldiers and 11,191 injured. In Iraq, we have suffered the deaths of 4,463 and 31,827 injured. Also, in Afghanistan, we are spending on the war $2 billion a week. The war in Afghanistan has gone on for ten years. The war in Iraq has gone on for eight. Enough.

President Obama in 2011 should be unable, as Ambassador Eikenberry stated referring to the comments of Afghan leaders – read Karzai – to “look at these mourning parents, spouses and children in the eye and give them a comforting reply.

Mr. President, why are you waiting? We are going to leave anyway. Bring our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq home. All of them. Now.

Afghanistan: Twenty-Seven Senators Push For Sizeable Withdrawal

 

 

 

This week twenty-seven United States senators sent a letter to President Obama asking him not only to keep to his own withdrawal plan of the troops from Afghanistan, but actually to increase the numbers of American soldiers that are to be brought home from war. The letter was organized by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) and Senator Mike Lee (R-UT). Others who signed the letter are:

Max Baucus (D-MT), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Al Franken (D-MN), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Patty Murray (D-WA), Rand Paul (R-KY), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).

You can read the entire letter but here is an excerpt:

"In addition, over the past few years, U.S. forces have killed or captured dozens of significant al Qaeda leaders. Then, on May 2, 2011, American Special Forces acting under your direction located and killed Osama bin Laden. The death of the founder of al Qaeda is a major blow that further weakens the terrorist organization.

From the initial authorization of military force through your most recent State of the Union speech, combating al Qaeda has always been the rationale for our military presence in Afghanistan. Given our successes, it is the right moment to initiate a sizable and sustained reduction in forces, with the goal of steadily redeploying all regular combat troops.

There are those who argue that rather than reduce our forces, we should maintain a significant number of troops in order to support a lengthy counter-insurgency and nation building effort. This is misguided. We will never be able to secure and police every town and village in Afghanistan. Nor will we be able to build Afghanistan from the ground up into a Western-style democracy.

Endemic corruption in Afghanistan diverts resources intended to build roads, schools, and clinics, and some of these funds end up in the hands of the insurgents. Appointments of provincial and local officials on the basis of personal alliances and graft leads to deep mistrust by the Afghan population. While it is a laudable objective to attempt to build new civic institutions in Afghanistan, this goal does not justify the loss of American lives or the investment of hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars.

Instead of continuing to be embroiled in ancient local and regional conflicts in Afghanistan, we must accelerate the transfer of responsibility for Afghanistan's development to the Afghan people and their government. We should maintain our capacity to eliminate any new terrorist threats, continue to train the Afghan National Security Forces, and maintain our diplomatic and humanitarian efforts. However, these objectives do not require the presence of over 100,000 American troops engaged in intensive combat operations."