WAKE UP AMERICA: Your heritage is being stolen.
"Hope has two lovely daughters: anger and courage.
Anger at what's wrong;
courage to set it right."
--St. Augustine
Friends:
I am proud to be a peace activist in my community. I am not a pacificist. Actually, I have served in or with all four branches of the US military. Active and reserve, enlisted and commissioned, and had two different commissions in the US Navy Reserve, first as chaplain and later as psychologist in the Medical Service Corps, before resigning during the Vietnam conflict.
Half way through the Vietnam war, it was evident to our military strategists that the war could not be won without using nuclear weapons. Daniel Ellsberg revealed this in his release of the Pentagon Papers and the Nixon White House burglarized his psychiatrists office looking for dirt on him. Because our leaders would not face that strategic outcome, we sent another 25,000 American men and women to their deaths there. Think about that number 25,000. I can never forget it. I had classmates who were lost in that war which we know now was unnecessary and unjustified.
We are now in the midst of another terrible betrayal of the American people and our military. We now know that the Bush White House deliberately, knowingly, faked the intelligence to justify this war, that there was a secret conspiracy that worked outside the usual procedures to justify and to sell this war. There was and is no connection between 911 and Iraq. Only since the summer has Bush stopped repeating this connection. Just indicted in the cover up is Libby, one of the key persons this past week. This story, known for months by the alternative media, is now un-ravelling in the main media.
Our generals have been telling us for months that no military victory is possible in Iraq. The violence there is a direct result of our unprovoked invasion of a Muslim country, as well as our imperialist policies in the Middle East over many decades. There is no peace possible as long as our Military or our endorsed puppets remain there.
Moreover, we are now discovering that the CIA has secret prisoner of war camps all over Eastern Europe to evade the Geneva conventions of humane treatment of prisoners of war. The Senate has passed 90-9 a bill to restrict torture, but this president and his vice are opposing it. This bill is suppported by Senator McCain and the military, who know that our own military will be tortured if we allow our government to continue its practice in “torture light” justified by White House Lawyers, incluing Gonzales, current Attorney General.
A democracy works best when every citizen takes responsibility for what its government does. If you are keeping up you are discovering lately how cynical, dishonest and secretive has been this White House. It is our obligation to know what our government is doing in our name. It is currently being stolen by a small group of very conservative power hungry people who do not care about your children, the environment, the poor, minimum wage, and I could go on and on.
I write regularly about these issues via my web blogs. In my college social ethics course next week we will address whether our Government has the right to torture. I invite you to become informed. It is far worse than Watergate when a president was forced to resign over the cover up of a burglary. There is, in my opinion (and that of others) treason and betrayal at the highest level costing the lives of thousands of our military and that of innocent Iraqi civilians, women and children, numbered variously from 30,000 to 100,000. We are responsible for what our government does in our name. The Bush White House is making violence worse around the world. These the people we elected.
Our society is the strongest and most healthy when the people take their vote seriously and keep involved in their local communities. Robert Putnam in his book Bowling Alone demonstrates that those communities with high volunteer participation are the highest on all measureable health indices.
Please get or keep involved. Our government is being stolen from us, with grave consequences to the environment and to future generations of our children. Our military itself is gravely wounded. We now have veterans required to serve their third combat tour in Iraqi, with Guard and Reserve military being expended. My own sources (Iraqi war veterans) tell me that the military itself is demoralized both by this President and the war they are being asked to fight without sufficient troops or protection.
War, for a Christian, should be the last resort. War always hurts the poor more than any other group. This war was illegal, unjustified, unnecessary and immoral. Only now is the main media beginning to face this and its own complicity in simply endorsing the war propaganda of the Bush White house.
Wake up, America , your heritage and your freedoms are at risk.
Paschal Baute
www.paschalbaute.com/writing
Anger at what's wrong;
courage to set it right."
--St. Augustine
Friends:
I am proud to be a peace activist in my community. I am not a pacificist. Actually, I have served in or with all four branches of the US military. Active and reserve, enlisted and commissioned, and had two different commissions in the US Navy Reserve, first as chaplain and later as psychologist in the Medical Service Corps, before resigning during the Vietnam conflict.
Half way through the Vietnam war, it was evident to our military strategists that the war could not be won without using nuclear weapons. Daniel Ellsberg revealed this in his release of the Pentagon Papers and the Nixon White House burglarized his psychiatrists office looking for dirt on him. Because our leaders would not face that strategic outcome, we sent another 25,000 American men and women to their deaths there. Think about that number 25,000. I can never forget it. I had classmates who were lost in that war which we know now was unnecessary and unjustified.
We are now in the midst of another terrible betrayal of the American people and our military. We now know that the Bush White House deliberately, knowingly, faked the intelligence to justify this war, that there was a secret conspiracy that worked outside the usual procedures to justify and to sell this war. There was and is no connection between 911 and Iraq. Only since the summer has Bush stopped repeating this connection. Just indicted in the cover up is Libby, one of the key persons this past week. This story, known for months by the alternative media, is now un-ravelling in the main media.
Our generals have been telling us for months that no military victory is possible in Iraq. The violence there is a direct result of our unprovoked invasion of a Muslim country, as well as our imperialist policies in the Middle East over many decades. There is no peace possible as long as our Military or our endorsed puppets remain there.
Moreover, we are now discovering that the CIA has secret prisoner of war camps all over Eastern Europe to evade the Geneva conventions of humane treatment of prisoners of war. The Senate has passed 90-9 a bill to restrict torture, but this president and his vice are opposing it. This bill is suppported by Senator McCain and the military, who know that our own military will be tortured if we allow our government to continue its practice in “torture light” justified by White House Lawyers, incluing Gonzales, current Attorney General.
A democracy works best when every citizen takes responsibility for what its government does. If you are keeping up you are discovering lately how cynical, dishonest and secretive has been this White House. It is our obligation to know what our government is doing in our name. It is currently being stolen by a small group of very conservative power hungry people who do not care about your children, the environment, the poor, minimum wage, and I could go on and on.
I write regularly about these issues via my web blogs. In my college social ethics course next week we will address whether our Government has the right to torture. I invite you to become informed. It is far worse than Watergate when a president was forced to resign over the cover up of a burglary. There is, in my opinion (and that of others) treason and betrayal at the highest level costing the lives of thousands of our military and that of innocent Iraqi civilians, women and children, numbered variously from 30,000 to 100,000. We are responsible for what our government does in our name. The Bush White House is making violence worse around the world. These the people we elected.
Our society is the strongest and most healthy when the people take their vote seriously and keep involved in their local communities. Robert Putnam in his book Bowling Alone demonstrates that those communities with high volunteer participation are the highest on all measureable health indices.
Please get or keep involved. Our government is being stolen from us, with grave consequences to the environment and to future generations of our children. Our military itself is gravely wounded. We now have veterans required to serve their third combat tour in Iraqi, with Guard and Reserve military being expended. My own sources (Iraqi war veterans) tell me that the military itself is demoralized both by this President and the war they are being asked to fight without sufficient troops or protection.
War, for a Christian, should be the last resort. War always hurts the poor more than any other group. This war was illegal, unjustified, unnecessary and immoral. Only now is the main media beginning to face this and its own complicity in simply endorsing the war propaganda of the Bush White house.
Wake up, America , your heritage and your freedoms are at risk.
Paschal Baute
www.paschalbaute.com/writing
posted by Paschal Baute at 8:31 AM
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