It disgusts me that still, five years later, so many still willingly play along with the let’s pretend game that ”only” 16 American soldiers and marines were destroyed by Bush’s war this month.

Never mind that it requires a complete distortion and convenient repurposing of the word ”casualty” from what it has actually meant in official and casual use since the beginning of war statistics collection. Never mind that it excludes the brain dead, the castrated, the paralyzed.
Never mind that it excludes mercenaries.

What disgusts me right now as I can’t sleep is that more than 16 American fighters have lost their lives and continue to lose their lives every single day as a direct result of this war, by their own hand. Every day.

Fuck icasualties dot org and their pretending.
These are real people who aren’t ever coming home. For a lie.
God damn Bush Cheney and what they pretend America is.

I for one shall remember my father’s repeated refrain, “I never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima,” and I will think of these jackals and others like them and how they never pay any price for the havoc they wreck upon the world. If there is a deity, I am quite certain she has a very special place and plan for monsters like these.

Yes.

I came here for my daily snark, tbogg, and you mugged me.

What a bunch of evil, shameless bastards.

In a perfect world, those pictured above would be sentenced to the Stalag 17 “treatment”. Thrown onto the streets of Sadr City with “I _____ did this to you” tattooed on their chest in Arabic.

To the Hague with all of them!

None of these guys will ever leave the country again without fear of arrest. That our own country will do nothing about the crimes and atrocities perpetrated by this bunch is shameful beyond description.

But I really do believe there will be a reckoning..

“STAR-SPANGLED” NAILS

You’ve got
Some “Star-Spangled”
Nails
In your coffin, kid.
That’s what
They’ve done for you,
Son.

-Richard Brautigan

This was written around the time that I served in Vietnam. The pity is that it’s relevant again.

He died in that war along with 4081 other Americans all of whom were once someone’s child, father, mother, brother, or sister.

Enjoy your backyard barbeque burgers today gentlemen….

oh yeah, and don’t forget to get mustard

And some freedom fries …

These assholes give new meaning to “motherfucker”.

I’ve gotta go with the obvious:

And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
‘Til I’m sure that you’re dead
-Bob Dylan

I posted an angry anti memorial day post over at IIRTZ and you’ve made me sad that I wasted my post. That casey sheehan picture says it all. The truth is that memorial day as an observance makes me enraged and brings all this grief to a boil because the very notion of the commemoration seems to stifle us. I’d like to see a memorial day that rededicates us to fighting against war, and fighting against unnecessary wars, and to educating the children of our (and the Iraqi) fallen, and caring for the husbands, wives, mothers, fathers and children of those who have been killed or damaged in this war. Its a lot of people, at this point, stretching out into infinity.

aimai

I wanted to be angry after reading your text, but I can’t take my eyes off the picture of Casey, and it just makes this 47 year old angry liberal tear up at work.

For kicks, here is a translation of a Ruben Dario (noted nicaraguan poet) poem:

Lo Fatal [The Fatal]…English right below each spanish line

Dichoso el árbol, que es apenas sensitivo,

Lucky the tree which is hardly sensitive

y más la piedra dura porque ésa ya no siente,

and even more so the hard stone because it doesn’t feel anything

pues no hay dolor más grande que el dolor de ser vivo

Because there is no greater pain than the pain of being alive

ni mayor pesadumbre que la vida consciente.

nor greater sorrow than concious life

Ser, y no saber nada, y ser sin rumbo cierto,

To be, and not know anything, and to be without true bearing

y el temor de haber sido y un futuro terror…

and the fear of having being and an uncertain future

¡Y el espanto seguro de estar mañana muerto,

and the sure horror of being dead tomorrow

y sufrir por la vida y por la sombra y por

and to suffer for life and for the shadow and for

lo que no conocemos y apenas sospechamos,

that which we don’t know and barely suspect

y la carne que tienta con sus frescos racimos,

and the flesh that tempts us with its luring tentacles

y la tumba que aguarda con sus fúnebres ramos

and the tomb that awaits with its flowery arrangements

y no saber adónde vamos,

and not knowing where we are going

ni de dónde venimos!…

nor from where we came…

“METAFREEDOM”

After five long years
only the ideal remains
to fight and die for.

The picture of the war-starters is conspicuously missing one rather important face…