HALF A LEAGUE ONWARD

"They are over there protecting you and risking their lives and you are undermining them. You are always telling about horrible things happening in Iraq. Why don~Rt you concentrate on telling about all the good things our troops have done and how much better it is for the Iraqi people because we are there?"

This accusation really isn't a new twist on the blame game that the bushies play so well. The idea is to make us feel we are in the wrong to ever oppose Bush on anything.

We are supposed to be so pleased that there are now new and better schools for Iraqi children with better textbooks that we bow down before Bush, the liberator of the Iraqi people.

We are supposed to ignore the fact that in many areas of Iraq the children are not safe either in the schools or coming or going to them. And neither are the teachers or their parents or their government.

We are supposed to rave about the fact that water and electricity has been returned to much of Iraq and ignore the fact that we bombed the hell out of Iraqi infrastructure and utilities.

The media is not allowed to show us the flag draped coffins of our troops coming back from Iraq, and we are not given the horrible details of the many mutilated troops who populate our service and veteran's hospitals.

"War is messy." So says Rummy who wants us to take all the nasty stuff for granted and focus instead on his propaganda of Iraq as the land of milk and honey. Whatever you do, don't mention the loss of thousands of Iraqi and 1278+ American lives.

They insist that facing reality is hurting our troops. Well, we get the message. Always support the C in C. Accent the positive, eliminate the negative. It is the patriotic thing to do.

But why, we ask, if this is so important, why wasn't it done when President Clinton was Commander-in-Chief? His administration fought terrorism yet the Republicans and the media concentrated on dumping everything but the kitchen sink on him to discredit all his efforts.

When Clinton made military strikes against al Quida, he was derided for "wagging the dog," then criticized post 9/11 for not wiping them out when he was in office. How did the troops feel about that treatment of their Commander? Didn't that also affect their morale?

Despite all the things Clinton was doing, the Republican Congress put everything aside, neglected their duties and filled the airways with trash-talk in an effort to depose a sitting, duly elected president.

They spared no effort to impeach a president who was effectively working for a peaceful settlement between Israel and Palestine; was building a strong economy, increasing jobs and protecting the environment.

Contrast that with Bush's four years spent alienating our country from the rest of the world, assaulting the Constitution and environment, and waging preemptive war with the bodies of our sons and daughters.

On Veterans Day, he visited some marines and gave a speech. He mentioned the need to sacrifice. Of course, theirs was the sacrifice he was talking about, not his. He is seemingly oblivious to the price in lives and limbs the marines have paid in the Iraq quagmire.

As usual, he bragged saying, "We took Saddam out of his palace and put him in a spider hole." Gloryosky! That explains why Bush chose to send troops to war with insufficient armament. Does it justify the plethora of blunders by Bush's man-o-war, Rummy or slavish loyalty to a failed president?

Forward, the Light Brigade!
Was there a man dismay'd?
No tho' the soldier knew,
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs but to do or die;
Into the Valley of Death Rode the six hundred.

-- from The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1853 http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/english/ltbrigad.htm

gapperserve@peoplepc.com

2004-050

Copyright 2004 Renee T. Louise and Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D. These articles may be republished for noncommercial use only, provided that they are copied intact, and that this copyright notice is attached. Address all queries to: twanda@sover.net.