Another favorite “Enron” technique of cooking the books: If you’re a contractor, even though you are performing a function of the military, your death isn’t added to the tally.

Amendment #1 – We gave up freedom of the press long ago (they couldn’t cover the First Gulf War, either – except for the fireworks show – remember?) If we protest governmental action, or show up at a funtion being held by a pol we disagree with, we are summarily removed, arrested or ticketed for trespassing.

Amendment #’s Four (no unreasonable searches & siezures, probable cause & warrants issued by judge), Five (Due Process,indictments, etc required), Six (right to fair & speedy trial; and right to know charges & confront winesses, etc – Jose Padilla, anyone?), and Eight (cruel & unusual punishment – anyone noticed the atrocities in our prison system,lately? And, of course, torture’s fine, now too) have all gone by the wayside, long ago; just nobody noticed or cared (and still don’t).

Bush & Cheney were allowed to ignore #Twelve (both were RESIDENTS of Texas when they decided to run together for Pres & Vice – Cheney simply changed his voter registration back to Wyoming). No one objected.

All these rights the Constitution says Congress “shall make no law” abridging – Congress HAS made many such laws. Some want the Ten Commandments posted in public buildings – We need the Constitution ENGRAVED in all government buildings throughout this country, just so it can easily be referred to by everyone. And it should be tatooed on the right hand of our elected Federal officials, so they know what it is they are swearing to protect & defend.

July 10th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
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What accomplishments? I invite you again to name one concrete accomplishment, one lasting, sustainable military success or achievement. Just one. Can you?

Hint – “only” 500 civilian deaths in a month versus 1000 civilian deaths in a prior month is really not the kind of “achievement” I’m referring to.

July 10th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
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What successes did our soldiers and marines die for, exactly? The start of a multi-ethnic civil war? The installation of an ineffectual puppet government? The ethnic cleansing of Baghdad? The creation fo 4 million refugees and IDPs? The deaths of 1.2 million innocent Iraqi civilians? The plunging of Iraq into five years without clean water or sanitation or reliable electricity? The decimating of Iraq’s industrial and agricultural sector by opening up the country to unlimited cheap imports? The auctioning off of Iraq’s banking sector and government services to the highest bidders? The pending production-sharing agreements with Shell, Total, Exxon-Mobil, and BP?

Do tell me, Tripplekick – what successes are you referring to?

“Yawn”. At least your forearms are getting a good workout carrying all that water for the Dumbya criminal White House.

July 10th, 2008 at 11:43 am
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Also uncounted are the ones who are mentally wounded over there and commit suicide when they return home, like Army Specialist Joseph Dwyer earlier this week:

Army Vet Seen in Iconic Photo Dies of Overdose

An Army medic who became famous for being photographed in 2003 carrying an Iraqi child to safety has died at the age of thirty-one after overdosing on a computer cleaner aerosol. Army Specialist Joseph Dwyer had been struggling with post-traumatic stress syndrome. After he returned from Iraq, his marriage fell apart, and he spiraled into substance abuse and depression. In 2005, he shot up his El Paso, Texas apartment and held police at bay for three hours with a 9-mm handgun, believing Iraqis were trying to get in. The March 2003 photo of Dwyer was published around the world and has been described as one of the most iconic images of the US invasion. His mother Maureen Dwyer said, “He loved the picture, don’t get me wrong, but he just couldn’t get over the war. He wasn’t Joseph anymore. Joseph never came home.”

I believe that you have to die on Iraqi soil to be counted in the Iraq War Dead Total. If you are wounded over there, but die after you’re airlifted out, it doesn’t count toward that total.

They’re cooking the books on that one, too.

http://democurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2008/06/what-we-wont-see-troops-honored-as-we.html

The topic today is an adversary that poses a threat, a serious threat, to the security of the United States of America. This adversary is one of the world’s last bastions of central planning. It governs by dictating five-year plans. From a single capital, it attempts to impose its demands across time zones, continents, oceans and beyond. With brutal consistency, it stifles free thought and crushes new ideas. It disrupts the defense of the United States and places the lives of men and women in uniform at risk.

Perhaps this adversary sounds like the former Soviet Union, but that enemy is gone: our foes are more subtle and implacable today. You may think I’m describing one of the last decrepit dictators of the world. But their day, too, is almost past, and they cannot match the strength and size of this adversary.

The adversary’s closer to home. It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy.

Donald Rumsfeld – 09/10/01

The Bush Regime has the same mindset. When what they are doing isn’t working, they think it’s because they aren’t doing enough of it. Never mind Bush’s 23% spproval rating.

as long as they are in agreement with the government.

The military is just a deprecated relic of the old world order. In this new era of corporate warfare don’t need no stinkin’ military anymore!

Media coverage of the funerals of young men and young women killed in Iraq would contribute to the public turning against the war.

If the public turns against the war, the public is no longer supporting the President.

If the public is no longer supporting the President, they are supporting the terrorists.

If the public is supporting the terrorists, they are giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

If the public is giving aid and comfort to the enemy, the public is committing treason.

If the public is committing treason, the public should be executed.

If the public is executed, there will be no one left to fight the war.

If there’s no one left to fight the war, the terrorists win.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING

extensive training in weeding out the “enemy combatants”, hauling them into selected detentions centers, extensive training in the latest of new Oven Technologies.

Our Motto: Exterminate the Truth Tellers.

http://progressiveworldreview.com

And that the meme “they hate us for our freedoms” is meaningless when our freedoms are eroding faster than a sugar cube in hot coffee.