by Mickey Walker-December 7, 2008
They are
spoolin’ ‘em up and marching out of the Capitol much like the British did after
burning Washington in 1812. They,
the Chicken Hawk Commander-In-Chief Bush and his henchmen, as they vacate the
White House and the majority halls of Congress, remind you of when Quantrill
burned Lawrence, Kansas, leaving devastation in their wake. Only difference is that we, the people,
gave Bush and his raiders permission and the authority to be there. The British and Quantrill were
outsiders and invaders.
We have a
10-Trillion-dollar debt now, thanks to Bush’s wanton attack of Iraq and off-budget borrowing and spending down the Clinton surplus
to our present state of financial and fiscal pandemonium. They must be laughing, popping corks of
champagne, and toasting their brilliant success in shifting enormous wealth to
the already rich deep pockets of Bush’s war corporation cronies who played us
and no-bid contracts like a fiddle. Smug, they prance as they dance to their secret caches of war and tax
spoils havens such as Dubai and numerous offshore banks where law or justice
can never get to them. Bush is
poised to pardon himself and all his lieutenants of any crimes so that nobody
or no nation can ever prosecute them for anything moral or criminal. They pulled it off. They suckered us. And they are marching to glory away
from the financial rabble and ruin that used to be our country. Gone are Merrill-Lynch, Bear Stearns,
Lehman Brothers, AIG, Freddie and Fannie, and many other financial icons we
used to have less than a year ago. (Poof) Gone are the jobs (Citibank
recently laid off over 50,000) we used to know, but that’s just the beginning,
and I think we are beginning to realize this.
On the
Occupation and War Front, casualties mount as the nightmare of Iraq and
Afghanistan continues. All the
while, al Qaeda, apparently concentrated in Pakistan, blows up hundreds of
civilians in Indian hotels. Our
own Reserve soldiers are stop-gapped, chronically, into more tours in bedlam,
and are becoming basket cases of stress. The wounds, mental and physical, are deep. http://www.examiner.com/printa-1716496~Bases_brace_for_surge_in_stress-related_disorders.html
Jack Elton,
an old friend and former member of the 82nd Airborne, expressed his
outrage recently about Bush continuing to misuse and abuse our Reserve troops
for combat in Iraq, a national tragedy. “Some say that ‘So what, they all volunteered’... I was told this not long ago and the old bear
started growling inside to break his jaw....I'm glad I
didn't, he is just a loud mouth little punk anyways.....” Jack and I happen to agree that Chicken
Hawks like Bush and Cheney who never served a day in combat have no business
playing war with our brave soldiers, especially since the Iraq attack was based
upon lies told by our own president. And that Reservists, who were never trained for
an ongoing five-year Iraq combat and police action, must cease to be the brunt
of Bush’s War.
Never in the history of our
military have so many of our bravest been maimed and tortured so severely
by so few (Chicken Hawks). Never has apathy on our part as a nation been
so dark that we did not raise a voice in protest over inadequate armor and stop-gap retouring of Reserve soldiers time and again in
endless combat. We didn't stand up when it counted. We have defined
ourselves as cowards by our inaction and by not demanding accountability for
Bush's illegal and immoral wars based upon lies, no-bid crony contracts, and 5
times the pay for mercenary soldier contractors like
Blackwater. Our celebrating our finest and bravest on Veterans Day
has become a mockery of our own collective conscience as a nation
which used to stand for good and protecting the common men and women,
the ones who serve us in uniform. As a veteran of the Viet Nam War, I am
ashamed of how we have treated our men and women who return from Iraq and
Afghanistan. We are just now acknowledging that Post Traumatic Stress
Syndrome is legitimate. I am ashamed of us that we allowed a cheerleader
and a 5-time deferment VP to continue to desecrate the name, the hearts, and
the souls of our soldiers who bravely serve. So that Halliburton can
charge our military 40 million dollars for meals they never served to our
soldiers and can gouge the Pentagon and the American people on the price per
gallon of gasoline in Iraq. Sending Reserve Troops to combat 3 or more
times is blatant abuse of our own. Kinda like
exposing the secret identity of an undercover CIA operative or the like.
Or that Wolfowitz and Negroponte can lose $ 12 BILLION DOLLARS in cash they
took to Iraq to pay wages for Iraqi soldiers and policemen and still be walking
around instead of living behind bars. That these Chicken Hawks who never
served or whose daddy got them out of combat by cushy tours in the Texas Air Guard;
have no heart, no morals, and no conscience. And we let them smirk as
they leave office and we just shrug our shoulders. And as Jack says, some
say that "So what, they all volunteered." Show me somebody that
says that and I will show you someone who cannot look the truth in the eye and
call it what it is. Show me somebody who would say such a thing, and I
would imagine that such a person wouldn't care either if their
grandmothers and 14-year-old kids got retoured in Iraq combat 3 or more
times.
Many Americans, from lack of
protest, have already shown that we don't care that our children's and grandchildren's futures have been bankrupted by the 10-Trillion dollar debt
that Bush has stacked up from borrowing and spending (off budget) for wars and
occupation of foreign countries who want us the hell out. But the next
time we are feeling pious and like champions of the underdogs just
remember our soldiers, our stop-gapped, retoured Reserve soldiers that we
turned our backs on and forgot to champion when they needed us the
most. "But after all, they all volunteered, didn't
they?"
Ah, these Chicken Hawks, they
march through our lives, spend our nation and our soldiers and march out of
Washington to bigger and better action, like basking on the billion-dollar
beaches and condos in Dubai. Laughing with each step, they march on and away, never looking back,
never with a pang of conscience, never to be held accountable for desecrating
the Constitution, pillaging the Treasury, bankrupting our dollar, and sending
our jobs overseas to other countries. The Chicken Hawk phenomenon is exemplified best by when we gave up our
“John Wayne” image of what a hearty president should be for that of a White
House where Howdy Doody and Mister Bluster really did hang their hats for 8
years.
Poor old Dan Rather took the
rap for a bogus document he used to tell of Bush’s failure to appear for
military drills when the Viet Nam War raged. That scapegoat sacrifice got the hounds off Bush’s trail, as
if all the valid documentation presented by the Boston Globe and the LA Times
for the past 8 years, had been bogus, too. We snapped as a nation. We accepted the fact that Chicken Hawks, with no valid
military service, could be president, lead us into, and keep us at war. And now, as they march out of
Washington and away, I am reminded of the sentiment of the Bush Administration
and “ho hum” voters who think it’s impossible to be a nation of the
people. After Dan Rather was
skewered into oblivion, there was a cartoon that followed where Bush is sitting
at his desk in the Oval Office with Cheney looking over his shoulder. Bush said: “Since Rather’s reporting was bogus, does this mean that I
really did attend all those Air Guard Reserve meetings in Alabama?” Chicken Hawks,
indeed. Hope you all had a
good time at our expense. What a
blow to common decency. What a
dark period in American history. 