Fatalities as of October 21st -1994

And now they are looking for another diversion ???? The axis of evil is alive and well... right in the USA
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The Costs of War at Walter Reed

Date: Oct 19, 2005 - 11:13 AM

Inside Walter Reed Army Hospital is the horrible reality of the Iraq War, a reality that few Americans see, and fewer want to see.

By Stewart Nusbaumer

Washington, DC -- In the dining hall is a family of three. The mother’s shirt says “Thank a Soldier,” the father’s hat says “Vietnam Veteran,” and the son’s T-shirt says “Seattle Sonics.” A normal family, except the son has no legs.

The tough talking lions of the Bush Administration proclaimed “shock and awe” would destroy the Iraqi will to fight and then it would be a simple “cakewalk.” So the cocky civilians unleashed the “mother” of all air assaults on Baghdad and then our strutting commander in chief -- decked out in a fine flight suit -- proclaimed, “Mission Accomplished.”

But the flight-suit President dodged the Vietnam War, hiding in the Air National Guard’s “Champagne Unit,” strongly supporting the war from Texas. The Vice-President “had other options,” although he insisted other Americans had no option but to fight the war. The Secretary of Defense enrolled in Princeton University instead of the Korean War; after the war he enrolled in the Navy. All the hawkish Neocons were too busy arguing for the Vietnam War to actually fight in that war. Shame, they missed their “noble” causes. So when it came to Iraq, none of these men had a clue about the will to fight.

I see in the halls of Walter Reed hospital soldiers with leg braces and neck supports, soldiers with faces slashed by bombs and stitched up by doctors. Soldiers with legs terribly mangled, soldiers with no legs -- amputees with short stumps, with long stumps, without any stumps since entire limbs are missing. A man walks by without an arm. I suddenly travel back in time to another war, to another hospital when I was one of those young men without a limb. But the human carnage and waste in Walter Reed is too overwhelming to escape for more than a flash of time.

At the Army’s flagship medical facility, where thousands of wounded soldiers pass through, there is no political spin, no media filter, no presidential lies, and no patriotism without cost as there is in America. There are only the wounded and mangled from Iraq. There is the ground zero for ugly war reality. For these men and women there was no safe “Champagne Unit,” no other options, no Ivy League hiding, no just talking while others did the fighting. At Walter Reed there are not Chickenhawks.

Dining Made Difficult

In the large dining room, mothers prepare their son’s food, applying ketchup to hamburgers, cutting pork chops, raising tables for their wheelchairs to clear. Fathers mostly sit with slight smiles on their faces. The conversations are mundane, and sedate. Talk about family, talk about the weather, talk about the future. Recuperating from serious wounds is slow so it’s best not to go too far into the future.

In a wheelchair, a young man who barely looks 17 years old rolls by with a pair of ugly “road kill” legs -- the spaghetti I’m eating rumbles in my stomach -- followed by a soldier on crutches, doing a Frankenstein walk with stiff legs thrown outward. Several tables away, a slightly older soldier, in his early 30s, with a nasty looking scarred leg propped up on a chair, rubs his fingers over the smooth surface of his Purple Heart Medal. This is the medal given for combat wounds, to everyone wounded by enemy fire. This is the medal that delegates at the Republican Party mocked.... I need some fresh air.

In front of the hospital a man in his mid-20s sits down on the bench next to me. His right leg is bloated to at least double its normal size. Most of the top layer of skin had been removed, it’s raw reddish. Puss glistens in the sun light, or maybe it’s some kind of ointment.

“Looks like you had a bad day” I wisecrack gently.

“Yeah,” he snickers.

“An IED?” (Improvised Explosive Device, roadside bomb or land mine.)

“Nope, bullet, it splattered bone.”

The sergeant has been back from Iraq since January, nine months in Walter Reed, and his leg remains ugly looking. It will probably always be ugly looking. But in Walter Reed looks mean nothing, what matters is walking. I remember my obsession to walk, an obsession that overcame the pain and the blood, anything to be able to walk again. And the sergeant is walking, with crutches. But I doubt this sergeant will do much walking in his lifetime.

Sometimes it’s best to just cut the leg off, but doctors can not always do what is best. The sergeant stands up, struggles to walk five feet, stops for a rest. He looks over his shoulder and says, “I’ll make it, I have to make it.”

“Yes you will,” I say, knowing clearly that as the years pass his walking will become even more difficult, until there is no walking. All this sergeant from North Carolina ever wanted was a normal life, with a normal family, a boy and a girl. A smile broke his straight face when he said, “a boy, and a girl.” But his normal life is gone and all he has is the dream of returning home to North Carolina, and hopefully that boy and girl.

The Rules of War

In America’s shock and horror at Walter Reed there are rules. I will give you the four that I believe are most important.

Rule 1: talk to the person and not to the wound. This can be difficult in the beginning since ugly wounds tend to overwhelm. But the bearer of ugly wounds remains much more than a wounded person, and this you need to respect. You can ask about the wound, but you cannot talk to only the wound.

Rule 2: allow wounded soldiers to do what they can do themselves. Give them the space and the opportunity to have control over their lives, even when severely dependent upon other people.

When I was in Bethesda Naval hospital in the late 1960s, leg amputated and bed ridden, frustrated with my constant dependence on others, a visitor asked me for a cigarette -- in those days you could smoke right in the hospital -- and I was ecstatic to hand him one. It felt great to do something on my own, in this case hand another human being an simple item.

Rule 3: forget your moral questions about the war. Morality is for those who support the war and for those who oppose the war, not for those in the war. Those seriously wounded are still fighting the war so clam up about the immorality of this stupid war.

A corollary to this rule is never protest against a war in front of a military facility, especially a military hospital. That is a no-brainer. You demonstrate against those who made the policy to go to war, not against those who are sworn to carry out the order to go to war.

Rule 4: don’t assume this is a sad time for these recuperating men. For most their physical pain is receding or is being managed by drugs, and the true mental anguish has yet to sink in. They are focused on their future which after a close call with death looks darn rosy.

“Hey, man how you doing?” a soldier greets another stepping into the elevator.

“Great,” he replies. I notice out of the corner of my eye he is missing a chunk of his cheek, it’s ugly.

“Guess what, man? Smithy’s coming up!”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he’s driving up this weekend.”

“That’s great, man.”

This is the spirit that America sees when it sees anything of these wounded soldiers. It makes Americans feel good, proud of their country, confident about their military. But it is only part of the truth. There is a hidden truth. It is ugly.

The “For What” Questions

With spirits high -- hey, they just “cheated” death -- surrounded by fellow soldiers day and night, with family and friends visiting and attentive, life is not bad. But this is the easy middle, coming after the initial shock of being seriously wounded and before the tortuous work of transforming one’s identity to accept the new reality. The easy middle is relatively easy.

When discharged from the hospital, their tight support network disappears and the strong optimism in the wake of a close call begins to wane. There is now time and space to think, and to ask questions. Sitting alone in an apartment, probably a spartanly furnished apartment, maybe in a dingy bar with their back against the wall, the questions start. They always do, for those severely wounded. Those “for what” questions: for what do I have to put on an artificial limb every morning? For what must I live with this horrible pain every day? For what did my buddy die? For what was all the horror for?

Some will attempt to evade these questions, but that’s not possible. They paid too high a price. Some will turn to stock replies, such as, “It was for God, country, and family.” To the degree this works is the degree that they cut themselves off from reality. Vietnam was not for God, America, and family, and neither is Iraq. Most of the wounded will learn this, and then they will demand a real answer to, “For what?”

The only satisfactory answer is for defense of country. Nothing else justifies the sacrifices, sacrifices Americans quickly forget but endure a lifetime for these men and women. The other answers, to rebuild another country, to stay the course so others won’t perceive America as weak, to fulfill a president’s fantasy of a great legacy, to fill our vehicles’ gas tanks, to save the world from the latest new evil, they cannot withstand the ugly questions that come from horror and suffering. “For what?” is too strong for weak answers.

Barbara Porchia, whose son Jonathan was killed in Iraq, said if he had died in Afghanistan that would have probably been easier to accept -- still horribly difficult, of course, but easier than Jonathan dying in the worthless Iraq War. In defense of country is the only justification for our dead and wounded soldiers and marines, nothing else is acceptable in the long run. Nothing else is ever acceptable.

I am walking through Ward 57, the amputee ward, walking on the 5th floor. There are grisly sights here. Sights that the dinning room and outside benches do not want to see, that I do not want to see. Bodies wrapped in blood soaked bandages. Eyes covered in agony. Nurses’ huddled over broken bodies. The air is thick on the 5th floor, hard to breath. The flag of patriotism is less intensely displayed here. The pain of war is stronger. I feel a deep anger at America rising in me. Then I see -- I walk quickly, I need some fresh air.

But at Walther Reed, ground zero for ugly war, there is no break from horror. A young man sits down on the bench next to me -- “blew the lower part of my leg off … an IED … getting my first leg next week … going to college when I get out … girl friend visits ….”

Whether the “For what?” is answered with a closed mind, or with an honest answer, many seriously disabled veterans will in time turn bitter and cynical. But others will swallow hard, refusing to let the injustice crush them, and move on in life. But all will be deeply scarred. If their sacrifices were truly for the defense of our country, that helps a lot. That cause can justify the sacrifices, but an unworthy cause justifies nothing.

A veteran with Iraq Veterans Against the War recently commented that after the guys return home and realize that on the home front Americans barely cared about the war, that here patriotism is an empty gesture because no one sacrifices anything, they will become angry.

To this day, some 38 years later, when I hear someone on the radio discuss the World Series in 1967, or some similar remark about 1967, I cringe. That was the year I was fighting in Vietnam. That was the year thousands of young Americans were dying and losing limbs and their minds for, supposedly, their country. But our country was excited about the World Series, and…. If a war is important enough for soldiers to be maimed and to die for, it is important enough for all Americans to sacrifice something. Something!

The World Series of baseball should have been cancelled in 1967, as it should be cancelled today, because America has young men fighting in a war.

But Americans are barely paying attention and would refuse to give substance to their patriotism, a clear indication this is not a war for the defense of America. We have an administration that won’t fully fund veterans’ health care, while it does not properly equip our troops in war. And we are a people not insisting our veterans have adequate health care and our soldiers have proper equipment. This is wrong, America. Wrong to those with “road kill” legs, wrong to those with partial faces, wrong to those with missing limbs.

I stand up from the bench, it’s hard for me to sit for too long, and it’s hard for me to walk for very far. Instead of returning to the 5th floor, I return to my car. Driving through the gate of Walter Reed and onto Connecticut Avenue -- a cab whizzes by, a speeding van honks, a couple on the sidewalk hugs -- my head shoots back as pain rips through my stump, just as fast it leaves. But I know the pain will be back. This is for a lifetime. What's inside Walter Reed is also for a lifetime.

Stewart Nusbaumer is editor of Intervention Magazine. You can email Stewart at Stewart@interventionmag.com.


Posted Thursday, October 20, 2005


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This article comes from Intervention Magazine
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The deaths and horrific injuries from this war...Amazing isn't that Bush was able (and is still trying) to convince most Americans this war is being fought IN DEFENSE of our nation. His foggy reasoning about Iraq leading to democratization of the Arab world, which in turn makes America safer, still to this day, amazes me. But what amazes me even more, is that so many Americans, Congress and mainstream journalists bought into Bush's reasoning from the get-go . Minimal to zero serious debate about how Saddam played into this "war on terror" or alternatives for addresssing the Arab nations and understanding their role in the "war on terror". I will never get used to the idea that this nation authorized Bush to invade a nation as easily as if we were "okaying" relief aid to a natural disaster stricken area. I remain incredulous.

What is even more incredulous Amy, is that the sounds are now around indicating they are considering expanding this atrocity. I read an article this morning saying the US was pressuring Sharon and Israel to support their positions. The article stated that Israel doesn't want regime change in Syria as it would be infinitely more dangerous for them. And Rice's comments to the Congress this past week would seem to indicate it very well may be in the cards.

And they had the colossal gall to accuse Clinton of "Wag the Dog" ???

Hi CO,
Can you direct me to that article you mentioned here...I'm interested in reading it...thanks.

I think that every politician who supports this war should be required to make a complete tour of that hospital. I came home from Viet Nam in 1968 on a stretcher, nearly dead from hepatitis. I spent several months in Letterman General Hospital at the San Francisco Presidio. I was lucky. My body healed. Not so sure about my mind. I saw hundreds of guys no older than myself (20 years old) who were horribly disfigured and many who were not much more than vegetables. Seeing that kind of stuff can definitely change ones perspective pretty fast. Uncle Sam wants YOU for cannon fodder.

Wish I could Amy. I would have if I could have recalled where I saw it. I was reading WP, NYT, MSNBC, CNN, the Guardian, Salon, and even went slumming to Sludge.

I'll try to retrace my steps but I am not sure I'll find it. I usually copy things and save till I see if they have been posted but this morning I was lazy.

Ihat'sokay..I'll look for it when I'm reading the news.Thanks.

That's because the authorization was both an attempt to limit the conditions under which the war would occur (Bush lied, he agreed then didn't keep his word) and not even remotely needed for Bush to restart the war, it was to show unity to Saddam and get him to comply. Lies starting in the primaries clouded the reality. Bush could carry out the war for 90 days without ANY legislative action, at that point what could we do? Also a state of war already existed because it was merely a cease fire agreement from 91, not peace.

In other words the conditions were perfect for Bush to force a war on us, now the only place he has such an opportunity is Korea and he doesn't seem so inclined there.

Along with that tour they need to tour Iraqi hospitals and see the cost to Iraqi citizens, espeacially the children. The cost of war is high. It should never be fought unless the cost of not fighting it are just as high.

Things could change over time but he isn't in a position to start a war with Syria no matter what he makes up, people are just using fear to gain readers. Besides, there's only the normal posturing, nothing that indicates anyone trying to get serious about a military option. If you understood the diplomacy and politics of the region you'd see why nobody there is taking this seriously and if you knew how our military and intelligence people would react to such plans you'd wonder why anyone is wasting their time on this.

Couldn't say it better myself

To elaborate.

Also political power is an end unto itself with this administration to the extent I have never seen in my 51 yrs. The war was used as the ultimate Wedge Issue.

It still is the ultimate Wedge Issue because it still remains difficult to speak out against the "noble cause" when there are troops in the field

I think "national security" was the last thing they were thinking about.

Do I make sense to you all?. This is one of the pillars of this evil administration's evil policies.

Power and Profiteering with with Opposition and Soldiers held hostage

I understand what you are saying. But the problem I have had with this war is the fact that Congress didn't seriously debate the issue..... particularly post war plans...this could have been done even realizing Bush could go into Iraq without their approval..at the very least debate would have shown Americans that the potential for invasion was serious business and Congress was going to give the matter the attention it deserved if an invasion did occur. Congress holds the purse strings that finance this war. They could have insisted upon Bush presenting a detailed post war plan letting him know that their future support was contingent upon that plan.

I agree in hindsight, but nobody thought the entire administration could POSSIBLY be THAT stupid! To be blunt it was a series of blunders, bad decisions, violations of international law and abrogations of treaty obligations that nobody anticipated, if it hadn't been that way it could be fixed quickly without giving the indication of additional support that discussing post war plans would imply.

I've quickly scanned through and can't find that article. It discussed the fact that Sharon was balking at US requests.

I did find this article ...it refers to the Israel worries but doesn't go into detail like the one I read earlier.


Bashar in the eye of the storm


The Middle East is tensely awaiting publication of the interim results of the investigation into the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, which will be submitted to the UN secretary general today. If the report says that Syrian President Bashar Assad or one of his senior aides was responsible, either directly or indirectly, for Hariri's murder in February, this would seemingly constitute evidence incriminating Assad in all the crimes and failures of which Washington accuses him. If, on the other hand, the investigation finds no evidence of Syrian involvement in the murder, Assad is liable to be deemed innocent of any other crime as well.

Both of these approaches, however, are mistaken: A distinction must be made between Hariri's murder and Assad's flawed policies on the Lebanese and Iraqi fronts. Even ignoring the murder, the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon did not give Lebanon the full independence it sought. Syria continues to exert political and economic pressure on Lebanon, and wants to continue guiding the steps of the new Lebanese government. Assad still adheres to the doctrine of the unified track, which holds that Lebanon must not open channels of dialogue with Israel as long as there are no negotiations between Israel and Syria. And he will do everything in his power to continue to force this position upon Lebanon. Israel's desire to cut the Gordian knot between the two countries, and thereby also sever Hezbollah from its Syrian udder, requires no explanation. This is the root of the demand, which Washington, Paris and Jerusalem all support, that UN Resolution 1559 be implemented fully.

The establishment of an international front against Syria regarding Lebanon is a welcome development from Israel's standpoint. From the U.S. standpoint, however, Iraq is the burning issue. The United States accuses Syria of encouraging and assisting terrorists and saboteurs in Iraq to operate from its territory. Washington cannot accept a Syrian border that is wide open to those who kill American soldiers in Iraq. If it becomes clear today that Assad was responsible in any way for Hariri's murder, this suspicion will be linked with his role as an abettor of terror in Iraq, as well as with his efforts to continue to tie Lebanon to his coattails. As a result, he will be labeled, almost officially, as a "superfluous leader," whose country would be "appropriate" for American military action.

But if this is the operative conclusion derived from the investigative report, it is liable to be hasty and simplistic. Assad is not an enlightened ruler who does good for his people, but the alternative to his regime would not necessarily be any better. The regime's opponents represent extremist ideologies, both religious and nonreligious. An American invasion of Syria - even if it had British and French support along with UN approval - would be liable to create a second Iraq, this time on Israel's border. In the aftermath of a western invasion, the terror trickling from Syria into Iraq might also start trickling south and east, into Israel. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted this week that the military option is always on the president's desk. But for now, it must be hoped that the diplomatic approach led by Rice, who is more moderate than other voices in the Bush administration, will achieve the desired results without any military entanglements

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/636636.html

I wish I could be so certain, Tomhye.........the whole bunch of them scare the crap out of me. I just hope the leaders of other countries will prevail in the UN and see the Bush/Rice/Bolton trio for what it really is: cowards and bullies, using the American people and flag as a facade for their own insane agenda.

With promises of unlimited wealth and power, we can never be abolutely sure how even today's most benign and intelligent president, prime minister or premier will act tomorrow.

Maybe I am being simplistic here but the fact that the GOP controls the agenda and decides what is brought to the floor in either house may well have a lot to do with the fact that there wasn't more discussion.

There is no balance of power in the Congress. I am not suggesting that the Democrats tried and were unsuccessful, I have no way of knowing if that was the case or not. I am only offering it as a possibility.

Would any MSM outlet have given them a platform in those days ? They were all gung ho for Shock and Awe.

And the bottom line is .. Bush had lied to Congress when he said he would not go to war without the UN and allies and would bring it back to the Congress before going to war. He had no intention of doing either as subsequent events show. IMHO Congress is guilty of one major and colossal error. They believed the President of the United States.

Don't go by expecting anything decent from Bush (I don't), but don't go by the fear mongering either, go by what facts we can observe. We're making some belligerent noises, but Syria isn't taking them seriously, they'd be aware of a real threat long before the American public. We don't have an existing state of war, the administration would be branded as war criminals by almost the entire world (with very real risk of prosecution). It's illegal for the military to follow illegal orders, the level of cooperation would be low to nonexistent. The military and intelligence community know this would turn the entire world against us for at least a generation, many would betray the administration to avoid betraying our country.

What risk? Even if he wants to he can't implement it and there's absolutely no indication (taken in context) that he even has that intent.