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Onward,
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Weekend
Edition
November 4 / 5, 2006
A Contemptuous Indifference
Failure
Across All Fronts
By RALPH NADER
The baying pack of belligerent draft
dodgers--Messrs. Bush, Cheney and Limbaugh--were out in verbal
force this week against John Kerry. The Senator miscued a joke
about Bush by reading without the "us" in the line,
"You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq. Just ask
President Bush." The missing of the "us" word
gave the messianic militarists an opening to demand that Kerry
apologize to the U.S. troops for his "insulting" and
"shameful" remarks.
Interesting isn't it, how a
mis-reading of a word can be seen as cause for apology when thousands
of illegal and destructive deeds and tortures constitute the
Bush regime's "business as usual."
There will likely be no apologies
from Bush/Cheney for putting U.S. soldiers into a fabricated
war-quagmire--a disastrous, costly boomeranging invasion. But
to set the record straight about who should apologize, here are
on the ground reasons for nine Bush/Cheney mea culpas.
1. FAILURE TO PROVIDE ADEQUATE
BODY ARMOR AND TRUCK ARMOR IN A TIMELY FASHION.
A Pentagon study found that
"as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed
in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if
they had had extra body armor," according to a New York
Times report. Hundreds of soldiers died who could have been saved.
The Washington Post reported
"that in some places in Iraq the U.S. military could provide
only one Interceptor vest with protective plates for every three
U.S. soldiers."
2. FAILURE TO ACCURATELY REPORT
CASUALTIES.
The Bush administration has
undercounted injuries to soldiers in Iraq to hold down opposition
to the war. Injuries that were not incurred in the middle of
battle are not part of the official casualty count by the Bush
Administration. Cases of diseases, such as thousands of Sand
Fly afflictions, are not even counted. This disrespects these
soldiers and their families to bolster a cynical political calculation.
3. FAILURE TO PROVIDE SUFFICIENT
TROOP STRENGTH IN IRAQ
The Washington Times reports
that retired military leaders who served in Iraq said that Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "ignored advice for more troops,
failed to make a post- invasion plan or equip troops properly
and hid information from the public."
"I believe that Secretary
Rumsfeld and others in the administration did not tell the American
people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq,"
retired Army Maj. Gen. John R.S. Batiste told the panel. Mr.
Batiste, a self-described Republican who has been criticizing
Mr. Rumsfeld for months, said the secretary "forbade military
planners from developing plans for securing a postwar Iraq"
and helped create the current insurgency by ignoring the potential
for one, though it was "an absolute certainty."
Retired Army Maj. General Paul
D. Eaton, who criticized Mr. Rumsfeld in the New York Times last
spring, said the post-invasion effort in Iraq is about 60,000
troops short of what it needs for success and that the Army "is
in terrible shape," lacking proper equipment and resources.
President Bush should never
have invaded Iraq, but whenever troops are deployed they should
be at levels which are necessary to protect the civilian population
-- an obligation military occupiers are required, under international
law, to fulfill. Hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi women,
men and children have become the casualties of incompetent planning.
4. FAILURE TO PROVIDE TROOPS
IN IRAQ WITH SAFE DRINKING WATER.
Former Halliburton employees and army officials have testified
before Congress that Halliburton provided our troops in Iraq
with very contaminated water, which the troops used to shower,
wash their hands and their faces, brush their teeth, wash their
clothes, and sometimes even make coffee.
5. Sending part-time soldiers
from the Reserves and National Guard on dangerous missions--such
as roadside mine searches--without anything resembling adequate
training.
6. FAILING TO CARE FOR RETURNING
TROOPS.
The Knight Ridder News Service
reported that the Government Accountability Office found that
the Veterans Administration "badly underestimated how many
soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan might seek medical
and other services, in part because of problems in getting accurate
information from the Pentagon." Consequently many returning
troops have had difficulty getting prompt medical attention.
7. FAILURE TO HELP VETERANS
WITH POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD).
The Washington Post reports
that a Government Accountability Office report concluded: "Nearly
four in five service members returning from the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan who were found to be at risk for post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD) were never referred by government clinicians
for further help..."
8. FAILURE TO PROTECT SOLDIERS
AND VETERANS FROM OFF-BASE SCAMS.
The New York Times reports
that "several financial services companies or their agents
are using questionable tactics on military bases to sell insurance
and investments that may not fit the needs of people in uniform."
USA TODAY reports that a Defense Department report said "the
average borrower pays $827 on a $339 loan and called the lending
predatory." A recently passed law will cap interest rates
at 36 percent. The Defense Department should have cracked down
on the corporate and economic predators that prey on military
personnel and their families.
9. FAILURE TO ADEQUATELY PAY
TROOPS WHEN ABROAD AND WHEN INJURED.
The Baltimore Sun reports that
deployment in Iraq is "taking a financial toll on part-time
soldiers who make up about half of the 150,000 troops there.
Forty-one percent of National Guard and Reserve soldiers are
losing thousands of dollars through a "pay gap" between
their civilian salary and military pay..."
These inexcusable, contemptuous
indifferences to the well-being of the soldiers, combined with
the rush to wage an unnecessary, immoral and unconstitutional
war, characterized by corrupt, wasteful contracting debacles
of unprecedented proportions, should compel President George
W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney not only to apologize,
but to resign.
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