A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

All we know is that allowing Bush to put more soldiers in harm’s way in a war that Bush claimed had achieved its mission years ago – and has since degenerated into an imploding civil war which America has no cause to be involved with – is akin to giving an alcoholic a couple of bottles of 100 proof Vodka, handing him the keys to a car, and pointing him toward a pedestrian mall. -- BuzzFlash

The likes of McCain, Graham, McConnell and Lieberman [1] betray our GIs and abandon them to their deaths.

Nothing could be more tragically ironic at this time than the issuance of a report from the Inspector General for the Defense Dept. that our troops are inadequately supplied, protected and armed.

According to Business Week [2], "The Inspector General found that the Pentagon hasn't been able to properly equip the soldiers it already has. Many have gone without enough guns, ammunition, and other necessary supplies to 'effectively complete their missions' and have had to cancel or postpone some assignments while waiting for the proper gear, according to the report from auditors with the Defense Dept. Inspector General's office. Soldiers have also found themselves short on body armor, armored vehicles, and communications equipment, among other things, auditors found."

And with the so-called escalation, it will only get worse. More soldiers and fewer resources. Sending more troops to Iraq, as we have noted, is akin to signing their death warrants, all for the partisan egomaniacal purpose of saving Bush and Cheney from the embarrassment of their bloody and costly failures.

Politics plays out like a sport, but it is never as deadly as when national elected officials play a sort of game of chicken over "who is undercutting the troops in battle."

All we know is that allowing Bush to put more soldiers in harm’s way in a war that Bush claimed had achieved its mission years ago – and has since degenerated into an imploding civil war which America has no cause to be involved with – is akin to giving an alcoholic a couple of bottles of 100 proof Vodka, handing him the keys to a car, and pointing him toward a pedestrian mall.

As James Carroll trenchantly observes [3] in the Boston Globe, "At the same time, just by being in the streets to shoot at, our well-armed soldiers empower the gunmen on all sides. Perhaps the most destructive unintended consequence of America's lethal presence has been the way the lethal power of all belligerents has scaled up to match it. Our young people are surrounded now by killers united only in the will to kill them. Operation deathtrap, exactly."

The outcome of the Iraq quagmire is not in doubt. It is beyond our ability to remedy through military means. But the illusion of military victory is important to those who seek to prove themselves "manly" and who want to avoid political "embarrassment." The last stalwart Bushevik/Cheney Republicans – and Lieberman – never have really cared about our GIs, the mounting death toll and the tens of thousands wounded (not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed and wounded). They have not cared about the $500 billion dollar and climbing price tag of the war for which "victory" is a delusional term without a goal, other than to keep sending GIs to die so that some people can hold onto power in the United States.

Long ago, the Busheviks abandoned our GIs by using them to achieve personal political goals – and for profiteering on behalf of their corporate campaign contributors (and even themselves).

Before the Iraq War began, we noted in one of our BuzzFlash editorials that Cheney wanted to achieve the same goal that an enforcer does when he takes a baseball bat and batters the hood of your car while you are in it with your family. He wants everyone to know who controls the neighborhood -- and who can destroy or take whatever property they wish.

McCain, Graham, McConnell, Lieberman and their cohorts betray our men and women in the military in a shameless display of loyalty to an administration that has failed at nearly everything it has touched -- unless you count the creation of chaos and mass bloodshed, while bankrupting the nation, a success.

It is an ignominious act of shame to stab our GIs and reservists in the back – many of them mothers and even grandmothers and grandfathers – for the purpose of political positioning.

It is unforgivable, a sin that cannot be absolved or removed from one’s life.

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL