[Mb-civic] Mission Accomplished Day.....A Turning Point

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Here are two clarifications about the anniversary of the end of "major 
combat" on May 1 2003....Note the reference in the 2nd article to the recently 
revealed fact that Valerie Plame, CIA agent outed by the Bush administration, 
was involved in tracking IRan's nuclear program, an endeavor that was 
wrecked by the outing...and now Bush and co. are blindly threatening Iran...

Mission Accomplished Day
    By Cindy Sheehan
    t r u t h o u t | Perspective
    Monday 01 May 2006
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050106A.shtml

    May 1st, 2006, is the third anniversary of the end of "major combat"  in
Iraq. It was a glorious day when George Bush flew onto the deck of the
Abraham Lincoln and was hailed by the rapturous throngs of toadie "news"
persons like Chris Matthews ("And that's the president looking very much
like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star." "Hardball," May 1, 2003)
and Bob Schieffer ("As far as I'm concerned, that was one of the great
pictures of all time. And if you're a political consultant, you can just
see campaign commercial written all over the pictures of George Bush."
"Meet the Press," May 4, 2003). What a fast and clean war! G. Gordon Liddy
was enthralled with the president's package ("All those women who say size
doesn't count - they're all liars." "Hardball," May 7, 2003) and a new era
free from terrorism was ushered in.

    This is the faith-based fable of what happened almost exactly three
years ago. The reality-based scenario goes something like this:

  a.. Over 2,400 American soldiers (including my son, who was killed almost
a year after Mission Accomplished Day) have come home in cardboard boxes
in cargo areas of planes in the secrecy of the night.


  b.. Thousands of our young people have been wounded, many grievously, 
and bused into Walter Reed and other hospitals in the dark of the night.


  c.. There are tons of rubble upon rubble in Iraq with inconsistent
electrical power still and not much clean water, or chance of future power
and clean water.


  d.. Hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians are dead, being
punished for the sins of a leader who was propped up, armed, and supported
by many US regimes.

The Mission Accomplished Day (or Operation Codpiece) public relations
dream for the presidential pelvic zone has turned into a frighteningly
real nightmare for so many people around the world who have had sons,
daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, and oftentimes entire
families wiped out and devastated by the strutting and smirking terrorist
who was feeling mighty "chipper" last night at the Washington
Correspondent's annual dinner as the 2,400th soldier was being killed and
as the 2,400th Gold Star Mother was falling on the floor screaming for her
child. There are hundreds of thousands of people on our planet who will
have a hard time ever feeling chipper again because of George Bush, no
matter how good he looks in a flight suit.

    Now that BushCo has done such a fantastic job with the invasion and
occupation of Iraq that never should have happened - but now that it has
happened and is extraordinarily evil in its scope and tactics - he is
warning Iran that if it doesn't shape up, the US is going to come and
impose freedom and democracy on that country. The rah-rah, "yes, sir"
Congress, which has an easy job of approving everything that George Bush
does, thereby eliminating critical thinking, debate, or any semblance of
rational discussion, has voted for sanctions that will lead to an attack
on Iran that will be devastating for our troops in Iraq and for that poor
region that had the unfortunate luck to be built upon tremendous oil and
natural gas reserves.

    Only 21 Congress people voted "nay" on the Iran Freedom Support Act,
which is incredible, considering what happened when they voted "yea" to
give George Bush the green light for every sanction against Iraq and to
invade it. I ran into one of the "yea" voters on the Iran Freedom Support
Act, Rep. Major Owens, and I asked him why he voted that way. He said it
was because he hated the "evil" regime of Iran. I asked him about our own
evil, irresponsible regime! The radical President of Iran says very
irresponsible and inflammatory things, but by all accounts is over a
decade away from a nuclear weapon and is reined in by the mullahs and the
young population of Iran that is very westernized. We are in trouble with
our one-party system of government, which is the War Party.

    Before we the people need to be subjected to another swaggering
spectacle from George after he has bombed Iran back into the stone ages
and has made we the people of the United States of America even more hated
around the world, it is time to rein him in ourselves. Congress won't do
it and the media is falling into lockstep behind the murderer again.

    It is time to fire the warniks, whose bloodlust cannot be sated, and
hire people who will finally use their wisdom, integrity, and non-violence
to solve problems, and who won't create imaginary problems out of smoke
and mirrors. We need a Congress that will hold George accountable, not one
that is complicit in the war crimes.

    Martin Luther King Jr. said: "We must live together as brothers, or
perish together as fools." God protect us from the fools that we elected
to protect us!

    -------- 

    Cindy Sheehan is the mother of American war victim Casey Sheehan, who
was killed on 4/4/2004. She founded Gold Star Families for Peace and is
the author of Not One More Mother's Child.

--------
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050206R.shtml
A Turning Point 
By William Rivers Pitt 
t r u t h o u t | Perspective 
Tuesday 02 May 2006 
    If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular 
    error. 
    -- John Kenneth Galbraith
George W. Bush marked the three-year anniversary of "Mission 
Accomplished" in Iraq by declaring that a "turning point" has been reached in 
that shattered nation. His crotch-bulging strut across the aircraft carrier 
Abraham Lincoln, some 1,097 days ago, was intended to show America and 
the world that victory had been achieved. On May 1st, 2006, the best he could 
do was promise that victory might possibly come at some indeterminate point 
in the future. 
This is, by the best estimates, the four hundred and twelfth "turning point" 
that has been reached in Iraq since the disastrous invasion was undertaken. 
One could argue that, in fact, this "turning point" is for real; after all, 
Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld managed to go to Iraq and return 
without getting blown sideways out of a Humvee or without having their 
airplane shot down over Baghdad. That has to count for something. 
A look at a few of the headlines from the day after Bush's declaration of a 
"turning point" show us all how close complete and total victory is. On May 
2nd, it was reported that two civilians were kidnapped in Buhriz. Three Iraqi 
soldiers were wounded by a roadside bomb in Dora. Hundreds of other Iraqi 
soldiers flipped out and tore off their uniforms when informed that they would 
not be deployed to their home regions. Fifteen bodies, bound and blindfolded, 
were found bullet-riddled in Baghdad. Four other bodies, each showing signs 
of horrific torture, were found in Shula. Three other tortured, bullet-shattered 
bodies were found in Yusufiya. 
76 American soldiers were killed in Iraq during the month of April, the 
highest count since November of 2005. It had been almost peaceful until 
April came along. After all, only 31 troops died in March, only 55 died in 
February, only 62 died in January, and only 68 died in December. The first 
soldier to die in May was killed on Monday night by a roadside bomb outside 
Baghdad. The total for the entire conflict now stands at 2,405. 
The good news for April is that, according to the Department of Defense, only 
12 soldiers were wounded. 489 had been wounded in March, so April 
represented a big leap forward. A lot fewer soldiers ended April with their 
brains scrambled, their limbs maimed or their flesh charred. The fact that 
most of the wounded up and died isn't really something to be discussed in 
polite company. It just doesn't jibe with the "turning point" talk. 
Oh, and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that the need for military 
blood donations has skyrocketed. "Injuries caused by insurgent attacks in Iraq 
have forced military donation centers to meet supply levels that exceed 
peacetime needs," reported the Tribune. "The demand for blood - almost all 
of which goes to a battlefield - has grown 400 percent since the war in Iraq 
began." 
It seems, as we celebrate this "turning point," that there is blood aplenty in 
Iraq. Unfortunately, it is all in the wrong place. So, apparently, is the money. 
Billions of taxpayer dollars have been funneled into Iraq for reconstruction of 
the petroleum industry and basic infrastructure. Almost none of this 
reconstruction has been completed, despite the fact that most of the money 
has somehow been spent. This was the perfect capitalist war: a few people got 
very rich by stealing all these funds, and the children who have no schools 
and the families who have neither clean water nor electricity can go pound 
sand. Literally. 
Our "turning point" in Iraq means we can now concentrate on making another 
disastrous error in Iran. Bush and the crew are pushing for a United Nations 
resolution for sanctions against Iran, an attempt to curb that nation's alleged 
nuclear ambitions. There is a lot of tough talk flying around, all of which is as 
substantial as smoke. China and Russia won't let any sanctions against Iran 
pass the Security Council, so the point of this quasi-diplomatic effort is 
difficult to find. 
The trouble, of course, is that nobody quite knows what Iran is up to. America 
had an intelligence network aimed at Iran's nuclear capabilities, but that 
network hasn't been in place for three long years. CIA agent Valerie Plame, 
you see, was the one running that network. Because her husband, Ambassador 
Joseph Wilson, had the temerity to publicly question the Bush administration's 
right to lie with impunity regarding the threat posed by Iraq, agent Plame was 
outed by the White House as punishment. In the three years since that 
happened, our knowledge of Iran's activities has devolved into a big black 
hole. It's a good thing for all of us this administration cares so much about our 
national security. 
Never fear, however. All this depressing information will soon be much more 
difficult to come by, even without White House criminals trashing intelligence 
networks to exact some political revenge. Newly-minted White House chief of 
staff Josh Bolten has signaled his desire to end the traditional publicly-
televised daily press conferences with the White House press secretary. This 
will take a load off Tony Snow's mind, to be sure, and will save the rest of us 
from having to hear so many sad, disquieting, disturbing facts. 
Bill Maher, host of the HBO program "Real Time," threw a thought for 
George W. Bush against the wall during his closing monologue the other 
night. "You govern like Billy Joel drives," said Maher to Bush. "You've 
performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. 
You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a s****y 
president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and 
snakes. On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four 
airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon, and the City of New 
Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this 
country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the 
other side." 
Indeed. 


William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling 
author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to 
Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence. 
-------

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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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