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The unseen cost of the war in Iraq US Politics Published: 10-Feb-2004 By: Jonathan Miller The true extent of US casualties in Iraq are still unknown. This has fuelled suspicion that the administration may be hiding the true human cost of the war and its aftermath. Channel Four News has been allowed a rare opportunity to meet some of America's wounded soldiers. In a dark corner of Andrews Air Force base on the outskirts of Washington DC, America's war-wounded come home. The human cost of humbling tyrants. No ceremony, no big welcome. More than 11,000 medical evacuees have come through Andrews in the past nine months, the Air Force says. Most, we suspect, from Iraq. But that's 8,000 more than the Pentagon says have been wounded there. Most of those wounded in action come through the vast Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington. The American public is, for the most part, unaware that the true casualty count of the war in Iraq may actually be higher than official figures suggest. The apparent discrepancy is fuelling suspicion that the US government's got something to hide. There'd been a suicide at the Center the previous week. Another of what the Pentagon terms a "non-hostile" death - in other words, one that won't figure on its list of fatalities, We were the first foreign TV crew to film at Walter Reed Army Medical Center since the invasion of Iraq one year ago. One patient, Staff Sergeant Maurice Craft, had his leg blown off in November by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. He'd gone to liberate a land whose people turned out to be hostile. It was a nasty surprise : "Doing that kind of operation over there, you don't really know who the enemy is. They use cowardly tactics, women and children." Another patient, Staff Sergeant Roy Mitchell, lost his leg in Afghanistan three months ago: "The ones that are covered are the KIAs. The

My sister is stateside right now but she's going back over in early June. She spent Jan-June over there in 2003. We'll get a visit from her in early May before she goes over.

LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION (cont) James said "Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved (proved), he will recieve the crown of life...."(James 1:12) If we are blessed when we endure temptation, then why would Jesus teach us to pray "Lead us not into temptation?" I have spent many days contemplating this question. If temptation is the crucible that would try us and prove us, why would we pray to avoid it? How are we to be crowned as overcomers if we pass over that which we must overcome? I don't have a definitive answer but I have some thoughts I would share on this seeming paradox. 1. We may be asking not to be led into temptation greater than we can bear. (1 Cor 10:13) This seems like a weak explanation of the verse, but we do know there is a Great Temptation, the Hour of Trial in Rev 3:10 which says "Because you have kept my command to perservere, I will also keep you from the hour of trial which shall come on the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth." This is an interesting verse, because what could perservering be but to resist and overcome various temptations and trials (those that are common to man) that beset us on our journey, yet there is an hour of trial that He promises to deliver us from. In this hour the whole world will be tested.......who will stand?? In 1 Cor 10:13 we see that "no temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man", and yet this hour of trial will be more than that which is common, therefore He will provide the way of escape for us. So here it appears He will lead us not into a temptation greater than we could bear. 2. We may be asking to be led through and beyond temptation rather than into. This little word INTO might be the key to this verse. INTO: A motion or direction toward the inner part of a place or thing (Webster's) What lies in the inner part of temptation, at the very heart of temptation? The Evil One! The next verse in the prayer is 'deliver us from the evil one'. Satan, the evil one, is lurking in the heart or inner part of every temptation with his snares and nets and traps and pits (Prov 1:10-15). When we come INTO a temptation we risk falling right into his hands. When we ask our Father to lead us not INTO temptation, we are asking Him to lead us straight on through the temptation, on the path of righteousness, straying neither to the right nor to the left. We are asking Him not to lead us INTO the hands of the evil one, lying in wait in the inner part of the temptation, but to deliver us! Just as He led Israel through the Red Sea, He will make a way of escape for us! This is how we endure temptation! But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.(1 Cor 10:13) The path of righteousness wil lead us through every temptation that besets us. We are counselled to "Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you. Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established. Do not turn to the right or the left; remove your foot from evil." Lord, lead us not into temptation but lead us in Your paths of righteousness, where Your Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Thank you for leading us, help us to follow You.

LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION This is a really interesting passage. At first glance it seems pretty cut and dry---we are to ask God not to lead us into temptation, not to challenge us, not to test us. In other words, "Lead us down Easy Street, don't give us anything too hard that might cause us to stumble." This appears to be a cry issuing from our desire to escape temptation and testing. But in a deeper examination of this verse, it is much more complex than that. There is much hidden in these five words. Let's open up this scripture and search out the hidden treasure buried within. Here, as in every other part of the Lord's Prayer, we see a major Biblical theme--temptation. This is a themes that runs through the entire Bible, from the opening scene in the Garden of Eden to the overcoming ones in the Book of Revelation. We see temptation at every turn, in every narrative, pracitcally on every page. Not even Jesus escaped temptation, it is woven throughout the gospels as well. So what is temptation and what is the purpose of it? TEMPTATION comes from the verb TEMPT which in Webster's means: to try, to test, to prove to seduce to entice to an act which is evil, immoral or unwise to invite or allure to try the patience of or provoke to put to a test TEMPTATION is the act of tempting OR the state of being tempted (we'll look at both sides of this later) The Hebrew and Greek words for "tempt" are also translated as "test" or "trial" in various translations. Temptation is thus the vehicle through which we are tested or tried. And what is being tested or tried? The character of the one being tempted! Every time a temptation is put into our path, we are essentially being put on trial to prove our character, to see whether we would choose the blessing or the curse, the good or the evil, life or death (Deut 30:19). The Book of Job is a wonderful illustration of this. The entire Book of Proverbs is a handbook of the art of overcoming temptations. It clearly delineates the choices we are given between the Faithful Wife and the Harlot, Wisdom and Folly, in the opening chapters. The Harlot is portrayed graphically as a master temptress, standing practically side by side with Wisdom, both of them crying out the the people to come to them--yet one leads to life and the other to death. What an awesome picture of temptation! The rest of the book is filled with proverbs that show the contrast between the consequences of our choices. The whole book is literally pleading with us, the sons and daughters of God, to choose the paths of righteousness. The very first temptation was, of course, that of Adam and Eve--in which the first Adam chose the way that leads to death and mankind has been living in the fallout zone of that yielding ever since. But Christ, the last Adam, was tempted in all points the same way, (Hebrews 4:15) yet came forth as gold (Job 23:10)---He was the overcomer and He got the victory and is now leading His children in the way that leads to life, reversing the destruction and curse that was wrought when the first Adam succumbed to the seductress. Every character in the Bible was tempted, some falling, some walking in victory. Each story is meant as an ensample for us (1 Cor 10:11), as in like manner, every one of us must be confronted with temptation, not just once but many times over in our lifetime. Even daily in the small matters, and at key points in our lives with grand trials and tribulations. Our response to each temptation defines or demonstrates our character. We either come forth as pure gold (Job 23:10), as overcomers (Rev 21:7), as one washed with the fuller's soap (Malachai 3:3), OR we fall into the snares, nets, and traps laid by the fowler (Prov 7:22,23).

I agree with Hi son on this one. The arguments that there are no second chances after death are pretty weak. Commentators go all over the place trying to explain away the said verse in Peter's epistle.

Here's a page of soundbite reviews, that express both sides of the spectrum-those who found it profoundly moving in it's graphic depiction of what He suffered for us, and those who found it long in graphics and short in spritualaity: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ThePassion...Christ-1129941/

I'm just wondering how unbelievers and secular folks are going to be able to get in to see the Passion, since churches are buying up large blocks of seats in the theaters. In my small town, there are enough churches to buy out the theater for at least a week, if not longer. If my husband and I chose to go see it, I'm not so sure we would even get in because we don't belong to a church. Anyone else foreseeing problems getting in?

Jesus' suffering was not just physical. I think the greater portion of Jesus' suffering was in having the sins of the world laid on Him. His physical suffering was not more than what others have experienced in the history of this world. There were thousands of people who died on crosses in that era and who were probably severely beaten, humiliated and neglected in prisons as well. There are stories of torture that people have endured that seems equally if not more painful than the physical suffering that Jesus endured. I believe the greater suffering was the spiritual anguish He had to endure when the sins of the whole world, which are exceedingly many, were laid upon Him and when He was momentarily forsaken of God in His death. This suffering we will never begin to grasp in our wildest imaginings, nor could Gibson capture it in a Hollywood rendition of the cross. Nevertheless if it be a witness to the many and brings someone to his knees, then it served the higher purpose, in spite of my own private interpretations.

ted, guess what, I LOVE to do the dishes!!!! So no contention there!!!

Here is something else I was thinking about last night and discussing with my husband regarding this movie: If I were put in a situation where I had to endure severe torture for the sake of my children, would I later wish for them to have to watch every intimate and agonizing detail of my suffering so they would know how much I loved them? I think not. I don't even want my children to have to 're-live' the pain and suffering I endured in childbirth, or to be familliar with every gory detail, in order to bring them into this world. I wish that the suffering were not the main point of the movie, because there was so much more to Christ's ministry that is important for us to get intimate with. My father, who is an atheist, thinks that it's perverted for a Christian to want to watch the suffering and torture of one who they love so much. Now I know that atheist's opinions don't count for much with Christians, but it is an interesting perspective. I know I could never bear to watch my children be tortured, I honestly don't believe I could watch my Saviour either. I don't think I will be going to the movie. On the lighter side, I'm not even sure if we would be able to get in since we don't belong to a particular church! The churches are buying up all the seats, how are the unbelievers even going to get in?????????

I try to see it through Jesus' eyes.........do you think He wants us to watch it????? Do you think He really wants us to have an intimate protrait of His great suffering? Would we want to watch movies of the saints being boiled in oil or graphic portrayals of them being ripped apart by lions and such? Even the movies like Quo Vadis that were more suggestive of the violence were hard enough to watch. I think the thing that disappoints me most about this movie so far is that they did not balance the suffering with a grandiose portrayal of the resurrection. I hear the resurrection was rather anti-climatic. I think the resurrection should be the defintive scene in the movie and the most improtant impression left in someone's mind. The reviews I've seen have virtually nothing about the resurrection and everything about the suffering and torture.

Ted: Good post, i hear what you are saying and understand where you are coming from. However.......... :oww: ..........this goes back a little bit to the recruitment techniques that are used to get people enlisted. They pretty much make an offer that you can't refuse, I'm sure there's a bit of salesmenship involved in selling the idea of a military career. It's wrapped up in a nice package, the billboards are appealing, enticing advertisemnets. Also......... :oww: ...........many who enlist are poor, coming from less privileged backgrounds with not a whole lot of choices in life, no money for college, etc. and the military offers a pretty good option for setting oneself up for life, regardless of ones political beliefs. Unfortunately many enlist for reasons like these or others, not necessarily out of a patriotic duty. On the positive side.......... .............it's far better than conscription and I am so thankful there is not an active draft at this time. We are very fortunate for this.

WIP: I would suggest that you not sign him up for the first viewing, and see it for yourself and then decide if it's appropriate for him.I'm sure there will be other opportunities for him to see it. My littlest is 4 and there's no way I would allow her to see this movie. In fact, I am having trouble with standing in line at the grocery store and having the cover of Time and Newsweek showing these horribly bloody pictures of Jesus where she can see them. It's a very startling image for one her age. I also have a 13 yo son (today is his birthday in fact) and he has already unfortuantely been exposed to a lot of violent images in video games and movies at friend's houses and elsewhere, so he's a bit more de-sensitized and could probably handle it, but I'm not sure what conclusions he would draw up, would he be revolted and distressed as he should be, would it cause him to love Jesus more, would it give him nightmares, would he get some perverse pleasure in watching it, I have to say I honestly don't know. I have a 16 yo daughter as well, and I'm not so sure it would benefit her either to have those images imprinted in her mind at this time. Would she really equate this with His love? We've seen several other Jesus movies, and most have a pretty gory cross scene, so we've watched the nails being driven in before, but apparently this movie takes it to the edge and beyond in graphic images.

I just read an interesting review in Newsweek on the Passion, and the critic expressed some of the same concerns I have about the film. Here is the review: So What's the Good News? The debate over 'The Passion' may be less harsh than the film Philippe Antonello 'The Passion': James Caviezel gives an eloquent physical performance, but he has little opportunity to show the Messiah's spiritual charisma By David Ansen NewsweekMarch 1 issue - I have no doubt that Mel Gibson loves Jesus. From the evidence of "The Passion of the Christ," however, what he seems to love as much is the cinematic depiction of flayed, severed, swollen, scarred flesh and rivulets of spilled blood, the crack of bashed bones and the groans of someone enduring the ultimate physical agony. This peculiar, deeply personal expression of the filmmaker's faith is a far cry from the sentimental, pious depictions of Christ that popular culture has often served up. Relentlessly savage, "The Passion" plays like the Gospel according to the Marquis de Sade. The film that has been getting rapturous advance raves from evangelical Christians turns out to be an R-rated inspirational movie no child can, or should, see. To these secular eyes at least, Gibson's movie is more likely to inspire nightmares than devotion. It's the sadism, not the alleged anti-Semitism, that is most striking. (For the record, I don't think Gibson is anti-Semitic; but those inclined toward bigotry could easily find fuel for their fire here.) There's always been a pronounced streak of sadomasochism and martyrdom running through Gibson's movies, both as an actor and as a filmmaker. The Oscar-winning "Braveheart" reveled in decapitations and disembowelments, not to mention the spectacle of Gibson himself, as the Scottish warrior hero, impaled on a cross. In "Mad Max," the "Lethal Weapon" movies, "Ransom" and "Signs" (where he's a cleric who's lost his faith), the Gibson hero is pummeled and persecuted, driven to suicidal extremes. From these pop passion plays to the Passion itself is a logical progression; it gives rise to the suspicion that on some unconscious level "The Passion of the Christ" is, for Gibson, autobiography. With the exception of a few brief flashbacks, "The Passion" focuses on the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. We first glimpse Jesus (James Caviezel) racked with fear, praying in a mist-shrouded Gethsemane, where he is tempted by Satan, depicted here as a pale, hooded, androgynous woman who might have stepped out of an Ingmar Bergman movie. (In the subtitled film, the actors speak Aramaic and Latin.) Gibson's iconography is wildly eclectic: at various moments his images call to mind the paintings of Caravaggio (the grotesque cherubs who hound Judas to suicide), grisly 15th- and 16th-century paintings of the Crucifixion and Pieta, and such horror movies as "The Exorcist" and "Jacob's Ladder." When Jesus is arrested by the Jewish high priest Caiaphas's men, a fight breaks out: Peter slices off the ear of a soldier and, for the first of many times, Gibson switches to slow motion, inviting us to linger on the physical abuse and humiliation. There is real power in Gibson's filmmaking: he knows how to work an audience over. The dark, queasy strength of the images

I hear ya bro! Yea this is Josephstrks Ha! Ha! Like I said before, whats happening over thier is out of our hands, weather we like it or not. I feel the Lord is moving in many different ways in the world as of late, and the mystries are just now starting to unfold. My wife being a pacifist, and me from the old school, sometimes dont see I to I, but I believe what it says in the good book, that is we have to submit to athority. Ha!!!!! Hear that one comming from an old rebel Ha!!! Well anyways I pray this finds all of my brothers and sisters over there in harms way, in good spirits. And in the end it wont matter any ways, as its said in the good book all is vanity under the sun. We as christians need to remember one thing, we dont live to this world as others of this world, but we are to live as EXAMPLE???We need to start showing more love and compassion for each other, and the people of this world. The stuff Ive read on this board as of late really makes me wander where some of you are comming from?? I pray the holy spirit convict all are hearts, we all need to reread some of what the Lord said, and put into practice of wearing holes in our Knees. I cant believe some of the bashing going on, we should all be ashamed. If a person believes in none voilance, we should all respect that, cause not all of us have that gift.Cause some of the bashing towards my wife, has got my ruffels up, its one thing for the world to bash us, but we are falling right into the dark ones hands when we bash each other. Think about it, we are to be EXAMPLES..Hope I didnt get off the subject? Well Ive said my piece, may the good Lord soften all our hearts, and may we all shine in his light Josephstrks

You have every right to be confused on this, Catsmeow. I am too and I'm not afraid to admit it. Basically I deal with it by believing that God's love is wider, deeper, higher and broader than anything we can ever imagine and it will all come out right in the end. Turst Him with all your heart, and believe on His steadfast love and manifold mercies, let Him pour this love into your heart and you pour it right back out on your fellow man like a river of life flowing from His throne.

Here also is a little analogy one might consider in light of the topic question: ""When addressing the unsaved, an evangelist often drew an analogy between God's sending of the Gospel to the sinner, and a sick man in bed, with some healing medicine on a table by his side: all he needs to do is reach forth his hand and take it. But in order for this illustration to be in any wise true to the picture which Scripture gives us of the fallen and depraved sinner, the sick man in bed must be described as one who is blind (Eph. 4:18) so that he cannot see the medicine, his hand paralyzed (Rom. 5:6) so that he is unable to reach forth for it, and his heart not only devoid of all confidence in the medicine but filled with hatred against the physician himself (Jn. 15:18). Oh, what superficial views of man's desperate plight are not entertained! Christ came here not to help those who were willing to help themselves, or even those willing to be helped, but to do for people what they were incapable of doing for themselves: "To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house" (Isa. 42:7).""

Dear Russell: This is a very good question and worthy of a serious study. It distills down into the question of whether God created evil, or did evil somehow 'choose' to exist. It is also most definitely a freewill vs predestination issue, of which theologians have been divided for centuries. The verse you put forth from Romans 9 is a very interesting verse to examine in this matter, we also see in Romans 9:18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He will He hardens. In verse 21 it speaks of "vessels of wrath prepared for destruction", and later in 23 of vessels of mercy, prepared beforehand for glory. Another verse along these lines is Proverbs 16:4 The Lord has made all for Himself, yes even the wicked for the day of doom. On the other hand, we can look at 2 Timothy 2:20,21 But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work. This verse seems to suggest that it is possible for someone to cleanse himself from being a vessel of dishonor. Personally I ride the fence on this issue, in other words I am flexible and open to exploring both sides.

The Ultimate Betrayal I cannot get out of my mind the photo that appeared on the front page of The New York Times on December 30, alongside a story by Jeffrey Gettleman. It showed a young man sitting on a chair facing a class of sixth graders in Blairsville, Pennsylvania. Next to him was a woman. Not the teacher of the class, but the young fellow's mother. She was there to help him because he is blind. That was Jeremy Feldbusch, twenty-four years old, a sergeant in the Army Rangers, who was guarding a dam along the Euphrates River on April 3 when a shell exploded 100 feet away, and shrapnel tore into his face. When he came out of a coma in an Army Medical Center five weeks later, he could not see. Two weeks later, he was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, but he still could not see. His father, sitting at his bedside, said: "Maybe God thought you had seen enough killing." The newspapers on December 30 reported that 477 American GIs had died in the war. But what is not usually reported is that for every death there are four or five men and women seriously wounded. The term "seriously wounded" does not begin to convey the horror. Sergeant Feldbusch's mother, Charlene Feldbusch, who, along with his father, virtually lived at his bedside for two months, one day saw a young woman soldier crawling past her in the corridor. She had no legs, and her three-year-old son was trailing behind. She started to cry. Later she told Gettleman, "Do you know how many times I walked up and down those hallways and saw those people without arms or legs and thought: Why couldn't this be my son? Why his eyes?" George Bush was eager to send young men and women half a world away into the heart of another nation. And even though they had fearsome weapons, they were still vulnerable to guerrilla attacks that have left so many of them blinded and crippled. Is this not the ultimate betrayal of our young by our government? Their families very often understand this before their sons and daughters do, and remonstrate with them before they go off. Ruth Aitken did so with her son, an Army captain, telling him it was a war for oil, while he insisted he was protecting the country from terrorists. He was killed on April 4, in a battle around Baghdad airport. "He was doing his job," his mother said. "But it makes me mad that this whole war was sold to the American public and to the soldiers as something it wasn't." One father, in Escondido, California, Fernando Suarez del Solar, told reporters that his son, a lance corporal in the Marines, had died for "Bush's oil." Another father in Baltimore, whose son, Kendall Waters-Bey, a staff sergeant in the Marine Corps, was killed, held up a photo of his son for the news cameras, and said: "President Bush, you took my only son away from me." Of course, they and their families are not the only ones betrayed. The Iraqi people, promised freedom from tyranny, saw their country, already devastated by two wars and twelve years of sanctions, were attacked by the most powerful military machine in history. The Pentagon proudly announced a campaign of "shock and awe," which left 10,000 or more Iraqi men, women, and children, dead, and many thousands more maimed. The list of betrayals is long. This government has betrayed the hopes of the world for peace. After fifty million died in the Second World War, the United Nations was set up, as its charter promised, "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." The people of the United States have been betrayed, because with the Cold War over and "the threat of communism" no longer able to justify the stealing of trillions of the public's tax dollars for the military budget, that theft of the national wealth continues. It continues at the expense of the sick, the children, the elderly, the homeless, the unemployed, wiping out the expectations after the fall of the Soviet Union that there would be a "peace dividend" to bring prosperity to all. And yes, we come back to the ultimate betrayal, the betrayal of the young, sent to war with grandiose promises and lying words about freedom and democracy, about duty and patriotism. We are not historically literate enough to remember that these promises, those lies, started far back in the country's past. Young men--boys, in fact (for the armies of the world, including ours, have always been made up of boys)--were enticed into the Revolutionary Army of the Founding Fathers by the grand words of the Declaration of Independence. But they found themselves mistreated, in rags and without boots, while their officers lived in luxury and merchants were making war profits. Thousands mutinied, and some were executed by order of General Washington. When, after the war, farmers in Western Massachusetts, many of them veterans, rebelled against the foreclosures of their farms, they were put down by armed force. It is a long story, the betrayal of the very ones sent to kill and die in wars. When soldiers realize this, they rebel. Thousands deserted in the Mexican War, and in the Civil War there was deep resentment that the rich could buy their way out of service, and that financiers like J. P. Morgan were profiting as the bodies piled up on the battlefields. The black soldiers who joined the Union Army and were decisive in the victory came home to poverty and racism. The returning soldiers of World War I, many of them crippled and shell-shocked, were hit hard, barely a dozen years after the end of the war, by the Depression. Unemployed, their families hungry, they descended on Washington, 20,000 of them from every part of the country, set up tents across the Potomac from the capital, and demanded that Congress pay the bonus it had promised. Instead, the army was called out, and they were fired on, tear-gassed, dispersed. Perhaps it was to wipe out that ugly memory, or perhaps it was the glow accompanying the great victory over fascism, but the veterans of World War II received a GI Bill of Rights--free college education, low interest home mortgages, life insurance. The Vietnam War veterans, on the other hand, came home to find that the same government that had sent them into an immoral and fruitless war, leaving so many of them wounded in body and mind, now wanted to forget about them. The United States had sprayed huge parts of Vietnam with the chemical defoliant Agent Orange, resulting for the Vietnamese in hundreds of thousands of deaths, lingering cancers, birth defects. American GIs were also exposed in great numbers, and tens of thousands, pointing to sickness, to birth defects in their children, asked the Veterans Administration for help. But the government denied responsibility. However, a suit against Dow Chemical, which made the defoliant, was settled out of court for $180 million, with each family receiving $1,000, which suggests that more than 100,000 families claimed injuries from the spraying. As the government pours hundreds of billions into war, it has no money to take care of the Vietnam veterans who are homeless, who linger in VA hospitals, who suffer from mental disorders, and who commit suicide in shocking numbers. It is a bitter legacy. The United States government was proud that, although perhaps 100,000 Iraqis had died in the Gulf War of 1991, there were only 148 American battle casualties. What it has concealed from the public is that 206,000 veterans of that war filed claims with the Veterans Administration for injuries and illnesses. In the dozen or so years since that war, 8,300 veterans have died, and 160,000 claims for disability have been recognized by the VA. The betrayal of GIs and veterans continues in the so-called war on terrorism. The promises that the U.S. military would be greeted with flowers as liberators have disintegrated as soldiers die every day in a deadly guerrilla warfare that tells the GIs they are not wanted in Iraq. An article last July in The Christian Science Monitor quotes an officer in the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq as saying: "Make no mistake, the level of morale for most soldiers that I've seen has hit rock bottom." And those who come back alive, but blind or without arms or legs, find that the Bush Administration is cutting funds for veterans. Bush's State of the Union address, while going through the usual motions of thanking those serving in Iraq, continued his policy of ignoring the fact that thousands have come back wounded, in a war that is becoming increasingly unpopular. The quick Thanksgiving visit of Bush to Iraq, much ballyhooed in the press, was seen differently by an army nurse in Landstuhl, Germany, where casualties from the war are treated. She sent out an e-mail: "My 'Bush Thanksgiving' was a little different. I spent it at the hospital taking care of a young West Point lieutenant wounded in Iraq. . . . When he pressed his fists into his eyes and rocked his head back and forth he looked like a little boy. They all do, all nineteen on the ward that day, some missing limbs, eyes, or worse. . . . It's too bad Bush didn't add us to his holiday agenda. The men said the same, but you'll never read that in the paper." As for Jeremy Feldbusch, blinded in the war, his hometown of Blairsville, an old coal mining town of 3,600, held a parade for him, and the mayor honored him. I thought of the blinded, armless, legless soldier in Dalton Trumbo's novel Johnny Got His Gun, who, lying on his hospital cot, unable to speak or hear, remembers when his hometown gave him a send-off, with speeches about fighting for liberty and democracy. He finally learns how to communicate, by tapping Morse Code letters with his head, and asks the authorities to take him to schoolrooms everywhere, to show the children what war is like. But they do not respond. "In one terrible moment he saw the whole thing," Trumbo writes. "They wanted only to forget him." In a sense, the novel was asking, and now the returned veterans are asking, that we don't forget. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Howard Zinn, the author of "A People's History of the United States," is a columnist for The Progressive.

Sigh

My sister is in the navy and served 6 months over there and she pretty much says the same thing, that many don't agree with the war but are merely serving out their duty. I had commented that I thought that in wartime, troops would not be so free to express their opinions, but she said it was common among the comrades to have these dicussions. I would also add that most who disagree with the war do not fault the troops, they realize they are just pawns and it is the leaders and ruling elite who are responsible and held accountable. People always want to twist it so that it seems that they are bashing the soldiers.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02192004/news/...lnews/18338.htm

actually this had nothing to do with placating these cowards. It was to protect those who were courageous enough to fight from having to carry those wimps. He could have called them wimps and cowards and scum and ordered them to be stoned or cut off from their people, like you all seem to think they should be. But no, He said they could go back to their homes. Actually the more I renew my mind to the word of God, the more I desire to walk in the same love, mercy, compassion, forgiveness and grace towards my fellow man----and that means ALL of them, not some of them........as Jesus did. You're making it sound like I am supposed to be getting more warlike, judgemental, intolerant and vengeful. Or maybe you just mean I should be more selective about who I feel forgiveness and compassion for. Sorry, can't do it, it's not in my new born again nature.

What, protecting them from evil by killing our other neighbors? Or which neighbors do you mean, the ones who agree with us?