New headline: Bush Rips Critics

By dwyerj1,

Sat Nov 12th, 2005 at 02:03:25 AM EDT :: War on Terror

Predictably, Bush's Veterans Day appearance was with military backdrop and thousands of filtered approve-of-Bush audience support. Predictably, Mr. Bush attempted to denigrate those who have challenged him as unpatriotic, not supporting, our troops, giving the enemy the signal that we are weak, rewriting history. I'm his critic and I don't feel he ripped into me. I haven't rewritten history. I've paid good attention to current events, too, and collected a pretty eclectic compendium of what's been happening since Mr. Bush's ascension to the throne. I've developed callouses because I've heard his charges so often. The 35% of the country who still supports him and his lies seem to live right here in my community of Naples and many would happily make up a crowd of cheerleaderly enthusiasm for a photo-op. Those people have shared the communion cup of his brew of lies. Just look at our hometown newspaper for yesterday celebrating the sorrow of a local family who lost their 35 year old son to a roadside bomb as he manned the gun atop a Humvee. They claim to be honoring their son by appearing around town in public and insisting he gave his life for our freedom. I hope he was not among those who attacked Falluja for the collective guilt of that operation gives honor to no one nor has it insured America's freedom. Would you feel sorrowfully good about having offered your son or daughter upon the altar worshipping the father of lies? Would you say: had I as many sons as I have hairs, I would not wish them to a fairer death (than say Specialist Tillman with three closely patterned American bullet holes in his forehead)? The Guardian reports: One year ago this week, US-led occupying forces launched a devastating assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja. The mood was set by Lt Col Gary Brandl: "The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He's in Falluja. And we're going to destroy him." The assault was preceded by eight weeks of aerial bombardment. US troops cut off the city's water, power and food supplies, condemned as a violation of the Geneva convention by a UN special rapporteur, who accused occupying forces of "using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population". Two-thirds of the city's 300,000 residents fled, many to squatters' camps without basic facilities. As the siege tightened, the Red Cross, Red Crescent and the media were kept out, while males between the ages of 15 and 55 were kept in. US sources claimed between 600 and 6,000 insurgents were holed up inside the city - which means that the vast majority of the remaining inhabitants were non-combatants. On November 8, 10,000 US troops, supported by 2,000 Iraqi recruits, equipped with artillery and tanks, supported from the air by bombers and helicopter gunships, blasted their way into a city the size of Leicester. It took a week to establish control of the main roads; another two before victory was claimed. The city's main hospital was selected as the first target, the New York Times reported, "because the US military believed it was the source of rumours about heavy casualties". An AP photographer described US helicopters killing a family of five trying to ford a river to safety. "There were American snipers on top of the hospital shooting everyone," said Burhan Fasa'am, a photographer with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. "With no medical supplies, people died from their wounds. Everyone in the street was a target for the Americans." The US also deployed incendiary weapons, including white phosphorous. "Usually we keep the gloves on," Captain Erik Krivda said, but "for this operation, we took the gloves off". By the end of operations, the city lay in ruins. Falluja's compensation commissioner has reported that 36,000 of the city's 50,000 homes were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines. _________ How can Mr. Bush or veterans either be proud, self-satisfied, ask for "support" for such barbarism that ranks alongside that demonstrated at My Lai, Guernica, and Halabja? Supporting barbaric behavior like that advances the cause of freedom? Thank God none of my sons were there and that I do not have to bear familial guilt for what was done in the many names and masks put upon the action by Mr. Bush and those Americans infected with Bushitis. The glory of gore. The flag-wrapped self-deceit of those who must bear that guilt will surely add coals upon the heads of us whose brief sojourn on earth is nearly over. Death and fragmentation are what comprise Mr. Bush's witches' brew. He has even thrown into his kettle of hatred and fear the barbaric