EULOGY FOR OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM

By all accounts, 23-year-old David Hickman (below, left) from Greensboro, N.C. was pretty excited about coming home for Christmas. It is widely reported that he called his mother on November 13 to say so, but that would be their last conversation. On November 14, Hickman, an infantryman, was killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq. Critics of the Obama administration contend the president should never have announced in October that all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from Iraq by Christmas. According to some, Obama’s pronouncement only served to make the Iraqi insurgents step up their quest to knock off as many Americans as possible before the deadline. They may be right, and Hickman may be the unfortunate consequence of Obama’s grandstanding.

This week marked the official end of U.S. troop involvement in Iraq. It has been nine years since the U.S. involved itself in the ill-conceived “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Many Americans believe it was not this country’s responsibility to ensure democracy in Iraq. It is now well known that the U.S. entered the war with faulty intelligence and under less than noble circumstances. It is known that President George W. Bush's aggressive stance toward Iraq after 9/11 was a knee jerk reaction that proved ill-fated and fatal for many Americans.

As usual, the numbers tell the story. According to the government’s own figures, here is the human toll: U.S. Troop Casualties - 4,486 US troops; 98% male. 91% non-officers; 82% active duty, 11% National Guard; 74% Caucasian, 9% African-American, 11% Latino. 19% killed by non-hostile causes. 54% of US casualties were under 25 years old. 72% were from the US Army.

Here is the ongoing human toll: US Troops Wounded - 32,226, 20% of which are serious brain or spinal injuries. (Total excludes psychological injuries.) US Troops with Serious Mental Health Problems - 30% of US troops develop serious mental health problems within 3 to 4 months of returning home.

We learned from the Vietnam War that the human toll exacts consequences that transcend generations. Vets who are mentally or psychologically disabled try to re-acculturate and live somewhat normal lives, but their injuries and psychological wounds affect spouses, children, co-workers and most anyone with whom they interact. We know anecdotally that marriages crumble, domestic abuse skyrockets and child abuse intensifies among many vets.

And so there was little celebration this week, and there won’t be ticker tape parades or victory services at the National Cathedral or anything to truly mark the end of this war. That is because we know that people who were 20-something when they lost their eyes or their arms or legs or sanity will spend decades trying to right themselves. And we know that many of those 4,486 US troop casualties had children that will never know their parent(s). And we know that people like George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell who actively engaged the U.S. in this war will not be held legally accountable for their misguided decisions.

It is from the vets themselves that we learn the most about how bad decisions in Washington wreak havoc in lives from coast to coast. Watch and listen to vets recap their own experiences in a CNN report:
The war in Iraq was one of the most significant mistakes I've ever witnessed the American government make. With no weapons of mass destruction, and no evidentiary connection between Iraq and 9/11, 4,486 men and women were ordered to their deaths for absolutely no reason. That is how history will see the Iraq debacle.

It is critical that we recognize now the enormity of the error that was Iraq. I am hoping that our collective realization of the vulnerability and poor judgment of our government officials puts a kink in our blind trust of them. Every reasonable American knows now that we should never have gone to Iraq. If something similar happens in the future, we Americans are likely going to demand far more accountability from the president on down.

Like Vietnam, American history has nothing to be proud of with the Iraq war. Not a thing. And that, all by itself, should tell us Americans to become more engaged with the political process, to more carefully choose who will govern and to clearly convey to them what we expect.

YOUR GOVERNMENT IS KEEPING SECRETS

It comes as no surprise to many Americans that their government often operates in a clandestine fashion. If private information can be viewed as two ends of a spectrum – from reasonable discretion all the way over to full-on secrecy-- the U.S. government is trending toward the latter. Thanks largely to a savvier electorate that demands full information from its legislators and others in government, those secrets are revealing themselves now, albeit slowly. The citizens, coupled with an increasingly investigative mass media now know more than even a decade ago. If information is the new power in America, then here are some empowering reports of late:

• Some months ago in Greenberg Rants, we were happy to let you know the Huffington Post introduced something called its “Investigative Fund,” a non-profit, deep reporting unit that would use staffers and freelancers to dig into the important issues and report them. I had a good feeling about this group from the beginning and its recent revelation that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been keeping a secret validates my belief. It seems the EPA knew that atrazine, a powerful, commonly used herbicide has been found to exceed federal safety limits in drinking water in four states. Water customers have not been told and the EPA has not published the results, according to an August 24 Huffington Post report. To date, six states have sued Syngenta, the company that manufactures atrazine, for the cost of filtering the chemical out of their drinking water. While the EPA evidently does not consider the health hazard risk level high enough to ban the use of the chemical, individual states do. And it is significant that the European Union banned the use of atrazine anywhere in its 27 member nations, as far back as 2004. Watch this:


• Back in 2006, President George W. Bush acknowledged the existence of “black sites.” These were secret prisons operated by the CIA, where individuals identified as “unlawful enemy combatants” were held. He made this revelation only because the Washington Post had published a piece telling of the sites, written by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Dana Priest. Now, the ACLU has uncovered a 2006 document that shows the Bush administration was seeking something akin to the Nuremberg defense for U.S. military and intelligence personnel who seized the individuals who ended up in these black sites. The Nuremberg Defense holds that one cannot be held responsible for acts committed if they were following orders. Had Bush been successful in this effort, neither commanding officers nor subordinate military personnel would have been held accountable for randomly nabbing and imprisoning possible terrorists. The Bush administration’s attempts to establish this defense flies in the face of the Geneva Conventions, which were clearly designed to ensure humanitarian treatment of prisoners of war and others during armed conflict.

Would U.S. citizens ever have known of the existence of black sites without Priest’s expose? Further, just this week, a Muslim convert named Al-Kidd got the go ahead from three U.S. Court of Appeals judges to sue former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Al-Kidd was a post-9/11 detainee who was eventually released, and whose life was turned upside down by the U.S. Government, even after his exoneration. Were it not for Al-Kidd’s persistence, and the good work of investigative journalists, would Ashcroft and other Bush administration officials never be held accountable for unlawful seizure of innocent citizens? Keep your eye on the Al-Kidd story. It could be the first of many such cases, as the government is said to have rounded up many Muslims who were later found to have nothing to do with terrorism.

• Last month, Stars & Stripes, the official publication for the U.S. Military, revealed that journalists about to be embedded with U.S. troops were being profiled by a public relations firm hired by the Pentagon. Reportedly, the firm was to determine if previous published works by the targeted journalists had portrayed the U.S. military in a positive light. Negative reports resulted in some journalists being denied access to fighting units. Only after Stars and Stripe issued its report did the Pentagon issue a statement saying it was reviewing the program. The $1.5 million contract with the Rendon Group was terminated seven days after the published article.

"As the senior U.S. communicator in Afghanistan, it was clear that the issue of Rendon’s support to US forces in Afghanistan had become a distraction from our main mission,” said Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, in an e-mail sent Sunday to Stars and Stripes. No mention was made of the U.S. tradition of freedom of the press; not a word was said about the First Amendment to the Constitution; and nothing was mentioned about the danger of manipulating information that is conveyed to the American people.

And, as was the case with the EPA’s withholding information about poison in water supplies, or the Bush administration’s wish to hold harmless all activity related to secret detentions, no one seems to discuss the government’s penchant for secrecy. When do national security concerns become overly-exaggerated in the interest of withholding vital information from you and me? At what point do governmental rights of confidentiality begin to interfere with American citizens’ rights to know the truth? Keep your eyes and ears open. You and I are the reasons this government exists, and recent claims of governmental “transparency” need to be honored.

OF TORTURE AND CONSEQUENCES

I am one of those people who annoyingly and too frequently reminds people I know that life is a gift. So, in those rare moments in your life when someone you deeply care about talks of ending it all, or how much easier it would be to just “check out,” there I am, repeating my sometimes unwelcome mantra, “Life is a gift.”

That being said, you might guess how I feel about the latest debate over torture. I want to get ahold of torture proponents and remind them of a little something called the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted by the United Nations in 1984. Prior to that, in 1975, the General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Oh, and way before all that, in 1948, the U.N. enacted the the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which clearly stated ‘”No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Not only did all of this take place, but each of these instruments had safeguards in place that were supposed to ensure that any possible violations would be avoided.

So, tell me, what happened that a 21st century President of the United States, George W. Bush, found it permissible to allow simulated drowning (“waterboarding”) on his watch? And how is it that the self-proclaimed holiest among us, white evangelicals and Roman Catholics say in majority that torture can “sometimes” or “often” be justified? And tell me, when did life and death issues become fodder for glib, often uninformed talking heads on cable television, such as Sean Hannity and Keith Olberman? Watch this:



Further, has everybody conveniently forgotten about the U.S. Code? That’s the set of permanent U.S. Federal laws. I want to point out Title 18 of the Code: “Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.”

Listen, even if none of the above has any meaning to you, consider this: Even with its internationally tainted image, the United States is still looked upon as the epicenter of high civilization. If individuals at the highest levels of the American government demonstrate tolerance for something as uncivilized and inhumane as torture of human beings, will nations of lesser moral fiber and far lesser development not follow suit? If the U.S. does it, well it must be the thing to do, right? Irreversible precedents are being set here. Doesn’t anybody get that? Didn’t George W. Bush (right), Dick Cheney and Condaleeza Rice get that?

I could go on and on about how inhumane, unethical and primitive torture is. I could try to pull your heartstrings by reminding you that all of those individuals who have been tortured are human beings with somebody somewhere who loves them. I could try to scare you by reminding you that once we exercise leniency in the act of torturing other human beings, we open ourselves up to such an act if and when the global tables are turned on us. Instead, I think I’ll just appeal to your basic intelligence and sense of logic: If a person believes he or she is going to die as you simulate drowning on their person, isn’t it likely that they’ll say anything you want them to say? Even Olberman said that in his interview in the video you saw above. How accurate can information be when you are simply coercing someone to say what you want them to say by threatening their life? Aside from how disgusting the act itself is, the concept is idiotic.
So, how widespread is the use of “enhanced interrogation” techniques? That is what proponents of acts such as waterboarding call torture. Does it go way, way beyond Gitmo? Did Bush, Cheney, Condy, (left) et. al. cavalierly endorse the use of barbaric methods to get information that is probably not worth a damn anyway? Spain and the U.K. seem to think they did. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) concurs.

If torture was not okay in Nazi German, or in Rwanda, or in more than 150 countries in which Amnesty International has documented instances or torture, is it acceptable when the most highly civilized society in the world does it? I think not. It seems unfathomable that there is even debate about the use of torture. If the gracious and poised Ms. Rice condoned the use of “enhanced interrogation,” she must be held accountable. If the Prince of Darkness, Dick Cheney (right) encouraged the infliction of pain and suffering, even against terrorists, he likely disobeyed the law and should be punished. And since the buck clearly stopped at the desk of George W. Bush, it needs to be fully investigated, including interrogation of the former President, and ultimately appropriate punishment.

END OF THE YEAR BLUNDERS, MISTAKES AND BLOOPERS

George W. Bush is tired. So weary is the Chief Executive of Bad Judgment that last week he granted a pardon to a real estate developer who defrauded poor people. Oy. And it gets worse. The pardonee in question, one Mr. Isaac Robert Toussie of Brooklyn, is just the kind of standup guy you would want your President to unleash on civil society. Toussie pleaded guilty in 2001 to using false documents to get federally insured mortgages, and in 2002 to mail fraud for selling land to Suffolk County at twice the appraised value. Still, were it not for the fact that his father Robert Toussie made the maximum contribution of $30,800 to the Republican party a few months ago, the younger Toussie might be a free man. Unfortunately, with egg – no, let’s say eggs Benedict on its short-term face, the Bush administration was forced to rescind the pardon a day after it was granted.

I’m just saying Bush & Co. are tired. So tired. So tired they forgot to check to see if pardonee Toussie’s family had donated large to the cause. (The cause would ostensibly be the Republican party, with a thinly-veiled hidden agenda to get Jr. out of hock). But here at the end of 2008, it seems everybody’s a little tired. As long as we’re talking Republican fatigue, can somebody please explain Republican National Committtee (RNC) candidate Chip Saltsman? Saltsman’s holiday greeting
to the Committee members was a CD that included a song titled, “Barack The Magic Negro,” set to the tune of “Puff The Magic Dragon.” “We Hate the USA” is a satirical collection of songs by songwriter Paul Shanklin, that also features such songs as “John Edwards’ Poverty Tour,” “Wright place, wrong pastor,” “Love Client #9,” “Ivory and Ebony” and “The Star Spanglish banner.”

Note to Chip: First, there are certain words that we deliberately eliminate from the language. We eliminated Negro about 40 years ago, and these days, when you’re trying to snag a seat on the RNC, the way to fast track yourself to oblivion is to revive “Negro.” Second, in case you forgot, people are kind of keeping a sharp eye on RNC activities since the big RNC email scandal of 2007, when it was discovered that White House officials were using RNC email addresses to conduct governmental business – which, Chip, you should know is a no-no. If the email scandal got lots of media coverage, didn’t you think maybe a CD calling Barack Obama a Negro might garner a little attention, too?

I’m telling you – it’s that end-of-the-year malaise. Maybe the tryptophan in turkey has long term effects. Even our holy St. Oprah of Chicago is tripping on tryptophan. Get this: Remember the whole James Frey debacle with the memoir that turned out to be largely fictionalized? And Oprah had to have the guy back on the show to incur her highly-incensed wrath? Well, the buzz is that there’s a Frey Redux happening, but this time the author is a holocaust survivor who claims me met his wife while he was in detention, and that she lived on the other side of the camp’s fence. Supposedly they met years later in Brooklyn and were married. Now people are questioning the veracity of the author, Herman Rosenblat.

Let me see if I have this straight: The world economy is tanking, a new U.S. President is about to say “I do,” urban crime is peaking, Americans are losing their homes and their jobs in record numbers, and we are supposed to get excited about an elderly Jewish guy whose memory of what happened in a German prison camp 70 years ago might be a little hazy. Count me out.

But add me back in when you get to the part about Chrysler reportedly spending upwards of $100,000 on full page ads in major dailies including Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and USA Today. The ads are headlined with “Thank You America,” and include long-winded copy that thanks America for investing in Chrysler. Other than the time CEO Bob Nardelli took a private jet to D.C. to beg for a bailout, this has to be about the most thoughtless, ill-founded idea any of the Big Three automakers has drummed up this year. You go to Congress asking for some loan cash, and then you spend a big chunk of it thanking them for their “investment.” Billionaire Mark Cuban is pissed off about it, and…well…so am I.
Note to Bob Nardelli: Why not take the $100K and financially thank some workers who were laid off? Or, Nardelli, if you’re not feeling quite that benevolent, why not take the $100K and put it toward research and development of fuel-saving technology? Or here’s a novel thought: Why not spend it as it was intended to be spent, re-energizing the company so that it can once again show some muscle in the marketplace? Bob, we citizens out here are happy right now just to be able to pay the light bill. So you have to know we’re watching with eagle eyes every move you make in Detroit, since the U.S. government has spent billions bailing you out, but not a penney to ensure that we will have a roof over our heads. Don’t spend thousands saying “Thanks.” Build a better buggy, make it run on corn or soybeans or whatever, and put some people back to work. Capiche?

Listen, it's been a tough year, right? Why wouldn't it end with whacked-out Presidential pardons, tasteless holiday greetings, murky memoirs and a CEO who's got his financial head buried up his assets? I'm tired, too, aren't you? I need a drink. So do you. And put a damned umbrella in it and call it Happy New Year. Here's to ya. It's got to be cocktail hour somewhere.