From Truthdig – The Last Letter of Tomas Young

The Last Letter

A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

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.

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.

From The Rachel Maddow Show

Republicans Revising History Once Again

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Congressman Blackburn

by Dee Newman

The 2010 midterms elections gave Tennessee Republicans the control of the state's House and Senate, the governorship, and seven of Tennessee’s nine U.S. Congressional seats, making 2011 the first year in the state's history when the GOP would control redistricting.

A year ago in January 2012 the Republican controlled Tennessee General Assembly finally unveiled and passed their long-awaited congressional redistricting proposal. They removed several moderately blue counties on the east end of Tennessee’s old 8th District, shifting it further to the right. In doing so, it made Tennessee’s 7th District represented by Marsha Blackburn somewhat less red, but still a safe Republican seat, secured with the heavily populated rich GOP suburbs of Williamson County.

For me the change was both good and bad. Good, because Jim Cooper became my Congressman, someone who at least on occasion will represent my interests. Bad, because I can no longer vote against Marsha Blackburn, someone who never represented my interests or that of the vast majority of Tennesseans.

“Congressman” Blackburn (as she perfers to be called) is an extremely fiscal and social conservative who has acted on behalf of her rich and powerful constituents extremely well, while at the same time ably hoodwinking the majority of her less wealthy constituents into believing she embodies and represents their interests.

Congressman Blackburn has always appeared to me to be intellectual stunted, if not dim-witted. She often makes comments that are both factually inaccurate and ironically absurd. For example: In her most recent criticism of President Obama, she tried to ridicule the President’s call for a $9 minimum wage during his State of Union Address by saying that as a teenager in Mississippi, she was glad to have a job at $2.15 an hour.

Either Congressman Blackburn is intellectually slow or she believes her constituents are. When she was a teenager in the late 1960s the $2.15 an hour she made back then (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics) would be equivalent to an hourly wage in today’s dollars between $12.72 and $14.18. At the time minimum wage was $1.60 an hour, equivalent to $10.56 in today’s dollars, over $3.00 more than today’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

As a teenager Congressman Blackburn entered the workforce making nearly double the wage she now says is sufficient for millions of adult Americans. Her disdain for the vast majority of her constituents is clear. She obviously believes they are naïve and easily deceived. Apparently, she’s right. They keep voting for her.

Forty Years After Roe V. Wade

by Dee Newman

The ongoing debate surrounding the moral and legal status of abortion has been championed by two main activist groups – the so-called "pro-life" and "pro-choice" movements. Both factions, with varying results, have tried to influence public opinion and attain or maintain legal support for their positions. Ironically, some "pro-life" advocates have used physical violence (even murder) to try and achieve their objectives, provoking some pro-choice activist to portray all anti-abortionists as extreme and irrational fanatics.

Despite the adversarial positions the two groups have championed, their underlying beliefs about abortion are not as incompatible or conflicting as the two groups would have us believe. For example, those who wish to maintain a woman’s right to choose are no less pro-life than those who believe that abortion is murder and should be illegal. Both groups fervently want abortions to be unnecessary.

I’ve lived on this planet nearly seventy years and in all that time I’ve never met a woman, sane or otherwise, who aspired to have an abortion, who purposefully set out to get pregnant so that she could abort the fetus. Having an abortion is not a pleasurable experience.

Regardless of what both groups may claim, our efforts as a species to demonstrate our value for the sanctity of life have been feeble at best. In reality, we have pretty well proven that when it really matters a significant number of us don't give damn about anyone’s life but our own.

Our shrugging acceptance of the enduring legacy of men, women and children living in poverty in the riches nation on earth, our disgraceful indifference for the plight of those suffering from emotional and mental disorders, our continuing and unrestrained use of war as a means to an end, our irrational devotion to the death penalty as a so-called deterrent to crime, our reverence for the right to bear arms in order to defend our person and property, not to mention the killing of other sentient beings for “the sport of it”, our despicable treatment, disregard and exploitation of other sentient beings shows us that, whatever we may tell ourselves, the life of others is expendable, easily sacrificed to advance our own interests or even fulfill some needless desire.

We proclaim that we believe in and adhere to the Golden Rule – do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Yet, in reality, our actions reveal a very different devotion. Exploitation rather than reciprocity has become our code of conduct. We seem more incline to screw others before they screw us.

As someone who has spent his entire adult life as an advocate for all existence, who fervently believes that it is morally wrong to allow our wanton desires to interfere with the basic needs and interests of others, I have often been challenged to justify my moral perspective on a woman’s right to choose an abortion.

Let me first say, if I were a woman (which I’m not), I hope I would choose (no matter the circumstances of my pregnancy – inconvenient, unwanted, life-threatening or rape-induced) to give birth rather than to abort the child developing within my body.

You see, I believe, in spite of the fact that few of us are, most of us want to be heroes. We picture ourselves as someone willing to sacrifice our own well-being and even our life for the interest of others. And yet, when push comes to shove, our actions frequently do not live up to our stated principles and/or our imagined esteem. Fear and self-preservation too often determine our actions.

With that said, adherence to the fundamental principle of morality (the Golden Rule) does not require us to be heroes, to give up our interests for the interests of others. It only requires us to abandon our wanton desires for the interests of others – to stop screwing others before they screw us.

A woman who is pregnant is in an extraordinarily unique position. She has another’s interests developing within her interests. No one has the right to demand that anyone to be a hero, to give up his or her interests for the interests of another. I guarandamntee you that if men could bear children abortion would be an unquestionable and inalienable right, protected by a constitutional amendment if need be.

In conclusion: It would be easy to continue to shout accusations at one another. I’m sure it would make some of us feel righteous and morally superior, but would it do anything to solve the problem?

Suppose both sides got together, stopped demonizing one another and decided to accomplish the one thing they have in common – a desire to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

The alternative is more of the same – dissension, resentment, anger, hostility and of course – more abortions.

Bloody Sunday

Today marks the anniversary of the first of three Marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, known as "Bloody Sunday." On March 7, 1965, an estimated 600 civil rights activists headed east out of Selma to march the 54 miles to the state capitol. They were demonstrating for African-American voting rights and to protest the killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson who was shot by Alabama State Trooper, corporal James Bonard Fowler, during another voting rights march in Perry County earlier that year.

The march was led by John Lewis of SNCC, the Reverend Hosea Williams of SCLC, Bob Mants of SNCC and Albert Turner of SCLC. Though the march began smoothly they had walked only a mile when they met a wall of state troopers waiting for them on the other side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Earlier that morning Sheriff Jim Clark issued an order for all white males in Dallas County over the age of 21 to report to the courthouse to be deputized. Though the Rev. Williams tried in vain to speak to the commanding officer John Cloud, he was told to disband at once and go home. Moments later, the troopers began to assault the demonstrators, knocking them to the ground, beating them with nightsticks and firing tear gas as other troopers mounted on horseback charged the protesters. Seventeen marchers were severely injured and hospitalized.

That night televised footage of the brutal attack was seen around the world. The horrifying images of the marchers being attacked by officers of the law shifted national public opinion about the civil rights movement. Demonstrations broke out across the country.

Two days later, on March 9, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led about 2500 marchers to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. There they held a short prayer session before turning around, obeying the court order preventing them from marching all the way to Montgomery.

Two weeks later, on March 21, the third March from Selma to Montgomery began with 8,000 protesters. It too was led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When the march ended on Thursday, March 25, over 25,000 people marched to the steps of the State Capitol Building where King delivered the speech "How Long, Not Long."

156 Years Ago Today

In 1833 Dred Scott was sold to John Emerson, an army surgeon in Saint Louis, Missouri. Scott was then taken to the free State of Illinois and then on to the free Territory of Wisconsin before returning to Missouri.

When his “master” died in 1843, Scott sued Emerson's widow for his freedom, claiming that his residence in a “free state” made him a free man.

After being defeated in the State Supreme Court, Scott’s attorneys brought suit in federal court against Mrs. Emerson's agent in the litigation, her brother John Sanford of New York. Eleven years after Scott's initial suit the case came before the United States Supreme Court.

The Dred Scott Decision, written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney on March 6, 1857, held that Scott, as a Negro and a slave, was not a citizen of the United States, and therefore, had no right to sue in federal court. The 7 to 2 Decision was contrary to both federal and state laws.

Taney went on to hold that Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories, declaring the anti-slavery provision of the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, because slaves are personal property protected under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The two dissenting opinions from Justices John McLean and Benjamin Curtis were strong and sharply worded exceptions to the chief justice's sweeping opinion.

Intended to be the definitive ruling that would settle the growing and contentious controversy threatening the Union, the Dred Scott Decision instead helped to move the nation one step closer toward civil war.

Two months after the Decision, on May 26, 1857, Peter Blow, the son of Scott's first owner, purchased freedom for Scott and his family. During that same month, John Sanford died, in an asylum for the insane.

Photos of Sydney's Art

From The Daily Show (Rachel with Jon)