Fuck You, GW Bush and Dick Cheney!

[CuteOldGuy]

A letter from a veteran, on the 10th anniversary of the start of the War in Iraq.

Dying vet’s ‘fuck you’ letter to George Bush & Dick Cheney needs to be read by every American

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

—Tomas Young

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/d...eds_to_be_read

[CJ7]

I been tellin' GW & Shotgun to get fucked for years

[CuteOldGuy]

Probably one of the very few things we agree on, CBJ7.

[Yssup Rider]

If you can't lick'em...

[gary5912]

I see where this thread serves no purpose this could be said about any president that was in office during any war Wilson, Roosevelt,( LBJ proably worst of the bunch) since he was the one in office during my time of service Nixon who really wanted to prolong the Viet Nam war , one thing can be said about the Irag vets they came home and was treated like the hero's they are

[IIFFOFRDB]

Very sad...

[TexTushHog]

But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath
a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and
arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join
together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at
such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a
surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind
them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their
children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die
well that die in a battle; for how can they
charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their
argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it
will be a black matter for the king that led them to
it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of
subjection.

Henry V, Act IV, Scene 1.

[cptjohnstone]

funny how 10 years ago 98% of the people were for this war

IB had a great list of reasons why, btw where has IB been? over a week without a post

[JD Barleycorn]

Tomas Young for all of his problems does not have the right to say he speaks for so many Iraqi veterans. He only speaks for himself. I am sorry for his problems but many others took the same chances that he did.

Young accuses Bush and Cheney of war crimes, plunder, and murder but without proof. It is opinion only.
I ask COG again, detail these war crimes. A war crime is a very specific thing. Wars are not tidy and things happen that go directly against orders from above. I understand that "the buck stops here" but what more can a commander do after giving the orders and punishing those who disobey them. The Constitution (the code of laws we live under) says that a president must go to Congress for authorization to go to war. The War Powers Act complicates matters by giving a chief executive wiggle room for what is a war and what is a deployment. Bush didn't do any of this. No American went to Iraq until after the Congress voted and passed the authorization. This is the wisdom of the founders. They did not want a divided government in time of war. They put the onus of going to war on both the president and the congress. I guess they never thought of modern progressives who just lie to cover up what they have done.

COG I have heard you bellyache about this time after time. So once again, detail the specific crimes committed by George Bush and Dick Cheney. By the way, the number of 1 million dead Iraqi came from the leftist organization of concerned doctors through the British publication the Lancet. It was debunked about seven years ago. They reached that number by adding all the deaths in Iraq and blaming them on the US. This included deaths from the Republican Guard and insurgents. Also, the cost of BOTH wars was measured at 1.2 trillion dollars in 2010 and not over 3 trillion dollars.

Bitter opinion and worthless facts don't make a good argument.

[CuteOldGuy]

Did that, JD. Pay attention, please.

http://www.uswarcrimes.com/

[JD Barleycorn]

I would like your words please. That way I have absolute faith that you believe them.

[TexTushHog]

Originally Posted by cptjohnstone

funny how 10 years ago 98% of the people were for this war

IB had a great list of reasons why, btw where has IB been? over a week without a post

Your percentages are way fucked up. Lots of folks were against the war. Probably 30%+.

[TexTushHog]

JD, waterboarding.

See 18 USC § 2340

As used in this chapter—

(1) “torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;

(2) “severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—

(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;

(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;

(C) the threat of imminent death; or

(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality;

[Randy4Candy]

Originally Posted by cptjohnstone

funny how 10 years ago 98% of the people were for this war Not very funny, since they were lied to about WMD, other threats Iraq supposedly posed and the bullshit about Iraqi oil paying all the tab. Yeah, yeah, you can now post more of your foolish nonsense, like gary5912 did, about how ALL presidents during wartime lie. While true in some cases, any parallel between either of the World Wars and the Iraq adventure as a threat to our country and others' freedoms just doesn't exist. Besides, no one but Dick Cheney, Henry Kissinger and a few other Nixonistas who who beat the "warriors'" drum (as long as they don't have to fight) think that Viet Nam is an example of anything except how NOT to conduct a war. For the record, all of Lyndon Bird's warhawks came clean and admitted how big of a group of fuckups they were and how they got it wrong about Viet Nam. Nixon's guys, not so much - shocking!

IB had a great list of reasons why, btw where has IB been? over a week without a post He's probably trying to find where on some rat wang teafag blog he found them to cut'n'paste

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

Tomas Young for all of his problems does not have the right to say he speaks for so many Iraqi veterans. Why not, you think you have the right to speak for your mommie's dog. He only speaks for himself. I am sorry for his problems I doubt that you're that sorry, you're too wrapped up in your own self-pity party but many others took the same chances that he did. And, you're thinking that that statement makes any sort of point?

Young accuses Bush and Cheney of war crimes, plunder, and murder but without proof. It is opinion only. I ask COG again, detail these war crimes. A war crime is a very specific thing. Wars are not tidy and things happen that go directly against orders from above. I understand that "the buck stops here" but what more can a commander do after giving the orders and punishing those who disobey them. The Constitution (the code of laws we live under) says that a president must go to Congress for authorization to go to war. The War Powers Act complicates matters by giving a chief executive wiggle room for what is a war and what is a deployment. Bush didn't do any of this. No American went to Iraq until after the Congress voted and passed the authorization. This is the wisdom of the founders. They did not want a divided government in time of war. They put the onus of going to war on both the president and the congress. I guess they never thought of modern progressives who just lie to cover up what they have done. You have much wind and little substance. Please remember that you are not in your little, imaginary "klassroom."

COG I have heard you bellyache about this time after time. So once again, detail the specific crimes committed by George Bush and Dick Cheney. By the way, the number of 1 million dead Iraqi came from the leftist organization of concerned doctors through the British publication the Lancet. It was debunked about seven years ago. They reached that number by adding all the deaths in Iraq and blaming them on the US. This included deaths from the Republican Guard and insurgents L-O-fucking-L, I guess that their actions occurred in a vacuum (like what surrounds your mouth). Also, the cost of BOTH wars was measured at 1.2 trillion dollars in 2010 duh, it's 2013 and we're still there, why not pick a figure from 2005, dolt and not over 3 trillion dollars.

Bitter opinion and worthless facts don't make a good argument. Isn't it so cute when lovers have a little spat?

As usual, Corneyhole is off to the races with lots of ideas of how things happened and why they did. Unfortunately, none of them have any basis in the facts since they are twists on platitudes, misdirections and stuff he's made up.

The sad and potentially dangerous thing about all of this is that our little Iraqi adventure has made it harder for us in the future to actually respond to a REAL threat. Every time facts are distorted it weakens what little remains of the trust and respect for our leaders' ideas and decisions. It began with Viet Nam and has been made worse by Iraq. But, given the track redcord, that may not be all bad.

[Guest123018-4]

Once again, another good reason to stop being the the police force for the world.
We need to leave Iraq and Afghanistan completely and for good.
The people of those areas do not deserve the loss of a single American life.

The treatment of our veterans is shameful in the least and criminal. People that have done absolutely nothing for this nation get better treatment than our vets.