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Wednesday, August 03, 2005

The America that George W. Bush has wrought
Posted by Jill | 1:27 PM

Lately there seem to be more and more people becoming disillusioned with the vision of a poorer, more frightened, bleaker America that the Bush Administration has brought us. I wonder sometimes about people like Cindy Sheehan, whose son died in Iraq and who is now a member of Gold Star Families for Peace, or the four New Jersey widows, many of them formerly staunch Republicans, who fought to get a 9/11 commission created so that the Administration could ignore everything it recommended. Then I wonder about the people, some of whom persist in commenting here at B@B, who are still drinking the kool-aid, unable to admit that they were wrong, or even that they were duped. Instead, they prefer to let the entire country go down the tubes, just so they can keep their illusions.

Cindy Sheehan is travelling the country appearing at anti-war events, and in her travels has encountered some horror stories of what is happening to ordinary Americans at the hands of the Bush Administration:

I was driving from one event to another the other day, and I got a call from an Iranian woman who is now a citizen of the United States, and who has been in the US for 30 years, is married to an American, has a 5 year old son, and a brother who has been in prison for 9 months for wanting to serve America.

My new Iranian/American friend, I will call her Susie, since her family is in danger of reprisal, told me that her brother signed up for the National Guard to give something back to the country that he has adopted as his own. He was lied to by his recruiter, who said he could have his student loans paid off and become an American citizen within a year. He also has severe learning disabilities and his recruiter falsified his test scores and his application. Susie's brother was told that the mistakes would be "corrected" before the application was turned in. Like my KIA son, Casey, Susie's brother naïvely trusted his recruiter.

One day, Susie's brother, who was at that time in training as a chemical specialist, was sitting in class, when FBI agents came in and hauled him off to prison. He was told it was because he went to Iran twice after 9/11 (his country of birth and his family's country), and because he falsified his application to get in the National Guard. Susie's brother thought going into the National Guard was going to be a good and admirable thing, and he was deceived and betrayed. He didn't get his student loans paid off, he didn't get citizenship, but he did get thrown in jail without proper legal representation. Susie called her state's senators to see if they could help her and her brother and she was told to quit making trouble, or her entire family would be investigated.

Then yesterday when I was traveling from event to event again, I got another phone call from a hysterical mom, Summer, whose son had been killed in Iraq in April of this year. Her medic son was found face down on his bunk with some morphine bottles around him. Summer was told that he died of a drug overdose and the report stated that her daughter-in-law and her son's battle buddies all said that he abused drugs in Iraq. Summer was devastated. She knew her boy. She knew her son didn't take drugs. She finally got a hold of the reports that contradicted what she was told by the military. All of the people interviewed said her son DID NOT abuse drugs. She received the toxicology report 2 months after her son died and he DID NOT have any drugs in his system. How did Summer's son die and why is the Army trying to cover it up? Wasn't it bad enough that this government took Summer's son and killed him in an unjust, immoral, and illegal war? They had to lie to her, too?


Cindy Sheehan gave up her son to this war. We all owe it to her, and to her son Casey, to read what she has to say.
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