To Know War Is To Know Madness In This World – President Lyndon B. Johnson

Chuck Hagel served in this war.  So did John Kerry.  Yet the yellow elephants that got deferments find fault with these warriors.

Here’s a few cowards that were unwilling to serve or made sure that they didn’t have to fight:

• George W. Bush – remained in the States
• Ted Nugent
• Rush Limbaugh
• Donald Rumsfeld
• Dick Cheney
• Mitt Romney

They wear flag pins and called themselves patriots.  Yet when ‘Uncle Sam’ called them to serve, they found ways to get out of fighting in a war.   I’m sure there are more names to add to this list.

Let’s take a look at this war…

We fight differently these days.  Now the drones fly over our ‘enemies’ and someone thousands of miles away gives the command to fire off the smart bomb.   Without the close contact, our enemies are faceless and their deaths have less of an emotional impact on us.

I once had a soldier tell me that firing a gun at someone that is 100 yards away isn’t that difficult.  Killing someone with a knife is hard to do because it is up close and personal.  It’s hard to kill someone when you are looking in their eyes.

There’s no two ways about it.  War sucks.

Playing for Change:

Give me love my brother, give me love my sister, it’s just a kiss away.

Enhanced Interrogation

Recently, John McCain has been talking up the “crosses in the dirt” incident during his time as a prisoner of war. He then talks about his “long time standing” which was painful. As a prisoner of war, John McCain was beaten, refused medical treatment, forced into “stress positions” and sleep deprived. McCain supporters want us to believe that this is torture.

According to Erik Saar, author of “Inside the Wire”, sleep deprivation, long time standing, beatings and forced stress positions were common techniques used during interrogation of “enemy combatants” at Guantanamo.

Andrew Sullivan, at the Daily Dish, has this to say:

According to the Bush administration’s definition of torture, McCain was therefore not tortured.

Cheney denies that McCain was tortured; as does Bush. So do John Yoo and David Addington and George Tenet. In the one indisputably authentic version of the story of a Vietnamese guard showing compassion, McCain talks of the agony of long-time standing. A quarter century later, Don Rumsfeld was putting his signature to memos lengthening the agony of “long-time standing” that victims of Bush’s torture regime would have to endure. These torture techniques are, according to the president of the United States, merely “enhanced interrogation.”

No war crimes were committed against McCain. And the techniques used are, according to the president, tools to extract accurate information. And so the false confessions that McCain was forced to make were, according to the logic of the Bush administration, as accurate as the “intelligence” we have procured from “interrogating” terror suspects. Feel safer?

(emphasis is mine)

So who are we to believe? McCain? The Bush administration? Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey doesn’t think that waterboarding is torture. The Bush Administration considers all of these forms of torture to be nothing more than forms of “enhanced interrogation”.

(Video of waterboarding)

By using the “new” and “improved” definitions of “enhanced interrogation”, John McCain was NOT tortured by his captors. The Vietnamese were merely using “enhanced interrogation” techniques. I’m sure John McCain would support the definition, after all, he voted “yea” on the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Senator Barach Obama voted “nay”.

Letter Home – Liar’s War

When you see all the flags flying to celebrate the 4th of July, remember, there are still coffins draped with flags returning from a war based on lies. When you watch fireworks this holiday weekend, remember our troops who are facing real gun fire.

This is a truly beautiful song.

Remember who sent them to war and who wants to keep them at war and who didn’t vote to increase veteran benefits.

The Real John McCain

Do you want to know how other Vietnam Vets and POWs think and feel about John McCain? Is John McCain really a hero or just the self-centered son of a Navy Admiral that spent 5 years in a POW camp along with hundreds of other American POWs. Dr. Butler wrote an article for Military.com about his experience as a POW and his experience as a freshman cadet at the navel academy during the time that McCain was a senior cadet.  According to people that know him, John McCain has always been reckless.  My guess is that John McCain has some very real anger issues.

Here’s a link to what other Vietnam Veteran POWs have to say about the real John McCain. It’s worth reading.

More on McCain and his involvement with the USS Forrestal fire in 1967.

John McCain was known to be reckless.  Reminds me of the boy Bush in his younger years.  The only difference is that John McCain served in Vietnam whereas the coward boy Bush decided Vietnam was something he wanted to skip participating in.