Mission Accomplished Day
By Cindy Sheehan
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 01 May 2006
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.
***
NEIL YOUNG: new ANTIWAR RECORD
power-trio grunge sound with 100-voice backup chorus, a trumpet and a
harmonica
Listen to the entire thing FREE at http://neilyoung.com (since Friday Aug.
28th)
but worth buying too. (I wish it would go number one, as a kind of public
poll.)
---
LOS ANGELES TIMES - NEIL YOUNG'S HARSH WORDS
The rocker assails Bush in a new collection. "I was waiting for some young
singer to write these," he says.
http://www.calendarlive.com/music/cl-et-young21apr21,0,3636422.story?coll=cl
-home-more-channels
---
** snips of LYRICS ::
Won't need no shadow man
runnin the government
won't need no stinkin WAR
===
And when the dawn breaks I see my fellow man
and on the flat-screen we kill and we're killed again
and when the night falls, I pray for PEACE,
Try to remember PEACE
I join the multitudes
I raise my hand in PEACE
I never bow to the laws of the thought police
I take a holy vow
to never kill again
to never kill again
...
In the crowded streets
in the big hotels
in the mosques and the doors of the old museum
I take a holy vow
to never kill again.
Try to remember PEACE
===
let's impeach the president for lyin
misleading our country into WAR
abusing all the power that we gave him
and shipping all our money out the door
who's the man who hired all the criminals
the white house shadows who hide behind closed doors
and bend the facts to fit with their new story
of why we have to send our men to war
let's impeach the president for spyin
on citizens inside their own homes
breaking ev'ry law in the country
by tapping our computers and telephones
===
Dont need no ad machine
telling me what I need
dont need no Madison Avenue War
...
how do you pay for war
and leave us dyin'?
When you could do so much more
You're not even tryin
...
don't need no more lies
===
thousands of children scarred for life
-----
`Living With War' a howl of dissent from rocker Neil Young: Protest album
made in 3 weeks
by Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune music critic
Published April 30, 2006
************
read more reviews and ALL LYRICS at: http://livingwithwar.blogspot.com/
upcoming concert dates: http://www.myspace.com/neilyoung
sign petition for Russ Feingold's antiwar legislation, with music attached,
at
http://action.truemajority.org/campaign/living_with_war?ema_code=google&gcli
d=COuE1ez01YQCFTQJIgod_H99dg
put Neil Young's album stream on your own website:
http://www.hyfntrak.com/neilyoung2/3p/
############
other good news:
Pearl Jam's new single, "World Wide Suicide," the story of a mother
mourning a son killed in battle because his was a life "the President took
for granted," tops Billboard's Modern Rock chart. Bruce Springsteen has
recorded a rollicking tribute to protest songs by the country's most famous
folk singer in a new album, The Seeger Sessions: We Shall Overcome. Moby
and REM's Michael Stipe just headlined an antiwar "Bring 'Em Home Now"
concert, and the Dixie Chicks are letting Bush know they're not backing
down, with their new single, "Not Ready to Make Nice." The extent to which
Bush's fortunes have turned may be summed up by the news that pop singer
Pink, who began the Bush era promising to "Get the Party Started," is
ending it with a sobering lament, "Dear Mr. President," that savages Bush's
stances on gay rights, the minimum wage and the war.
For years, Justin Sane, lead singer of the political punk band Anti-Flag,
said it was "left to artists to make the statements that should be getting
put into the public discourse." But Anti-Flag is no longer shouting from
the sidelines. The band's new CD, For Blood and Empire, features the song
"Depleted Uranium Is a War Crime." It was inspired by an appearance at a
2004 Punk Voter rally in Seattle with Representative Jim McDermott, a
Vietnam-era vet who has introduced legislation calling for an investigation
of the military's use of DU. McDermott is on the CD, and the band is
spearheading a drive to get Congress to act on the bill.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042806N.shtml
---
next month, Paul Simon, another '60s crusader, will release his album
"Surprise," which includes the song "Wartime Prayers," a disheartened
meditation about psychic war wounds....
---
Posted on Sun, Apr. 30, 2006
Powerful Pearl Jam, full of righteous rage
By Dan DeLuca, Inquirer Music Critic
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/entertainment/14451377.htm
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