DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Mucho on April 24, 2007, 12:47:47 PM
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http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/04/24/virginia_tech/print.html
A tale of two horrors
The Virginia Tech massacre made America shudder. But will it awaken us to the nightmare of suffering in Iraq?
By Gary Kamiya
Apr. 24, 2007 | It is every parent's worst nightmare. Your child is at school, going about his or her business, doing the ordinary, everyday things that are woven into your heart. Then someone who lives in an invisible universe of hatred suddenly appears and starts shooting. And the bullet that ends your child's life ends yours too. You may live on. But your old life, the life in which the world, or God, or whatever you stand on, seemed to be on your side -- that world no longer exists.
The Talmud says those who save one life save the world. Four hundred years ago, John Donne said the same thing, in reverse. "No man is an island, entire of itself ... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind." We like to think that we embrace these teachings, with the similar teachings of Jesus Christ and Mohammed and the Buddha, with the compassion for human suffering that lies at the core of every great religion.
But most of the time, we don't. In the age of universal media, it's impossible. In the modern world, death is at once too ubiquitous and too distant. The morning paper brings us dozens of deaths, each of which ends a miraculous human life, each of which diminishes us all. And we feel nothing. There are simply too many of them.
But there are deeper reasons. Our society pushes death offstage. Even when those close to us die, they usually do so in a rationalized, bureaucratic hospital setting which shrink-wraps death. The inexplicable mystery becomes as ordinary as a corporate newsletter from beyond.
It isn't just our society as a whole that is responsible for this. We demand it. Death is the great unthought, the face we don't want to see. As the cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker wrote in "The Denial of Death," denying death is wired into humans. Our very personalities, our religion, our sense of the heroic -- all, Becker argued, are a response to our fundamental terror at our finitude.
Certain public events, however, can shock us into a confrontation with death. The Virginia Tech massacre, in its metaphysical obscenity, forced us to take notice. With our defenses momentarily torn down, the subterranean river of simple fellow feeling flowed to the surface: sorrow for the young lives lost, admiration for the teacher who saved his students' lives at the cost of his own, compassion for the victims' families.
As humans do, we try to ensure that this awful spectacle of death was not for nothing. Hence our national soul-searching and debate. How could this happen? Is our society somehow to blame? Our values? Our gun laws? What could we have done differently to save this tortured soul?
But half a world away, similar horrors are happening every day -- horrors, unlike Seung-Hui Cho's slaughter, for which America bears direct responsibility. And we feel nothing.
On Sunday afternoon, 23 Iraqis were pulled out of their buses outside Mosul as they were on their way home from work, stood up against a wall, and shot to death. Their crime belonged to the Yezidis, a religious sect. The story appeared on page A-6 of the New York Times.
In Iraq, where dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people are brutally murdered every day, the Virginia Tech horror would be a respite. Yet we pay no attention. We put them in a little closed box marked "casualties of war."
The Iraq war is a tragic demonstration of one of the oldest, saddest truths in history: Victims often become executioners. Bloodshed and tragedy all too often lead not to wisdom and compassion but to more bloodshed and tragedy. The sadness and sickness in America's soul today is not just that we launched an unjustified war, and betrayed the humanity of the Iraqis we said we wanted to help, but that we betrayed our own humanity -- and the memory of those who died on Sept. 11.
The nightmare that is Iraq was born in the nightmare that was 9/11. A self-righteous president learned all the wrong lessons from that national tragedy. He truly believed he was honoring the dead and preventing another atrocity. But by launching an unjustified war, one that predictably went terribly wrong, he proved that he understood nothing about what war is -- and, ultimately, about what death is.
Bush's America is righteous. Baptized in the blood of the 9/11 victims, it has been born again. In its sanctity, it can do anything. This is an old story. Before they go to war, nations always insist that they are blameless victims. It is essential that a nation's people be convinced that God and right are on their side and that the enemy is evil and monstrous. The powerful drugs of patriotism and moral supremacy are necessary to sell the upcoming horror show.
Bush believed after 9/11 that he was called by God to fight a great war against Islamist evil. But Iraq is just the latest war to show that those who decide to play God can create not heaven on earth, but hell.
For years, America had believed that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of powerful weapons. But we put up with Saddam, even worked with him, correctly deeming that the risks of invading Iraq were much greater than the risk that Saddam would use those supposed weapons against us. As we know, Bush was thinking about attacking Iraq from the moment he took office, but 9/11 produced a kind of religious conversion in him and his administration. As Ron Suskind showed in his devastating portrait of the Bush administration, "The One Percent Doctrine," 9/11 led Dick Cheney to embrace the radical idea that if there was even a 1 percent chance that an Islamist enemy could get its hands on weapons of mass destruction, we had to attack. And it didn't matter who we attacked, or what the rationale was. "It's not about our analysis, or finding a preponderance of evidence," Cheney said. "It's about our response."
God, Aristotle's unmoved mover, couldn't have said it better himself. After 9/11, the Bush administration embraced a quasi- theological mindset. America was not only always right but also impervious to harm -- because in the Christian-patriotic world that Bush inhabits, those who are right cannot fail.
This messianic conviction still drives Bush today -- which is why his presidency, in which all doubts are banished and reality itself is shut out, is beginning more and more to resemble that of a religious fanatic. But it also sheds light on a strange and disturbing parallel between Bush's invasion of Iraq, justified as a preventive attack to prevent more 9/11s, and the Virginia Tech killings.
In the media's voluminous coverage of the murders, one dark question appears to have remained unasked: Are there ever circumstances under which it is justifiable to preemptively murder someone? If there was ever a murderer whose troubled soul was laid bare for all to see long before he snapped, it was Seung-Hui Cho. And it is hard not to fantasize about some scenario in which some Cassandra-like psychiatrist, or teacher, or family member, or classmate, killed him before he killed someone else.
In the Old West, and in outlaw societies, such preventive murders were and are not unheard of. But nations governed by law reject the idea, for an obvious reason: It is impossible to be certain that you're right. And when you're setting out to kill someone who hasn't done anything yet, being wrong is not an option.
But as we have seen, for Bush, 9/11 removed the constraints of law and logic. He was now acting in the name of God and the flag, and those truths were bigger than logic -- Cheney's "analysis" and "evidence" -- or law. He didn't need the law to take out Saddam. He had a mandate to do so. In Bush's eyes, then and now, invading Iraq was like killing Cho before he started his killing spree.
If Bush had been right that Saddam was planning to attack America -- although there is actually no way we would ever have known that he was -- invading Iraq might have been justifiable homicide. But he was wrong.
And so we are not the heroes in this story -- we are the murderers. Bush's war has created a Virginia Tech nightmare that never stops. To the Iraqis who have seen their houses destroyed, their children blown apart, and their country destroyed, the day America came was the day a whole army of Seung-Hui Chos walked through the door.
Of course I am not literally equating America, or Bush, with the deeply disturbed young man who killed 32 people. The Bush administration did not set out to intentionally cause the death of 650,000 Iraqis. In their eyes, their intentions were good. But those intentions are meaningless. Because even arrogant fools can have good intentions.
For the overwhelming majority of Iraqis, all that matters is that before we invaded, even if their lives were oppressed, impoverished and controlled by a brutal dictator, they could still live. Now they can't. Their friends, their families, their entire country, are dying before their eyes. To be sure, the butchery is being done by Iraqis themselves and a few foreigners, not -- with some horrible exceptions -- by Americans. But America is responsible because America started the war that opened the gates of hell. When you start a war, you have no idea where it will end. You have to be sure it's worth the risk.
America is responsible for the Iraq nightmare. But this truth must be repressed. It does not fit our official narrative. No state wants to be told that it is the national equivalent of Seung-Hui Cho. And so the Bush administration, which now has the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis on its hands as well as that of more than 3,300 Americans, clings to its Big Lie, insisting that the dreadful ongoing slaughter in Iraq proves that we were right to invade in the first place.
This is a profound perversion of logic and morality. Fortunately, fewer and fewer Americans believe it. But the mere fact that it is our official governmental narrative about a great human-rights catastrophe, one we set in motion, brings shame upon our country.
Bush does not represent the American spirit, thank God. But his leadership has shrunk our national soul. Bush is a devout Christian, but there is no charity, no spiritual generosity, in his vision. Our flag, under which he struts, once stood for an America bigger than itself. Bush's flag stands for an America that arrogates all the humanity and virtue in the world. It is a profoundly unreligious flag.
Which brings us back to individuals killed on Sept. 11, and in Virginia, and on the road from Mosul. What we owe them is what we owe every human being who was passed: the best of ourselves. We owe them remembrance, and respect, and clear thinking, and a resolution to make the world a better place. We owe them, in a word, our humanity.
The tragedy of America's response to 9/11 is that it did not reflect the best of America. The moral obscenity of the Iraq war is not only that it betrayed the Iraqi people, who never harmed us. It is that it betrayed the very people in whose name it was launched. It betrayed us all.
There is a way back to the humanity we have lost. We can find it in our compassionate response to the Virginia Tech tragedy, our prayers that solace will somehow come to those who have lost everything. We can find it by paying attention to an entire nation that is suffering because of a war we needlessly started. We can find it by accepting that we now owe the Iraqis everything, and that our hearts and pocketbooks must be theirs for our lifetime.
And we can find it by resolving to never again listen to leaders who believe that American blood is worth more than that of others, and who in the name of God and right lead us into righteous wars. Because there may be necessary wars, but there are no righteous ones. Because Donne was right, and every man's death diminishes us all. Because the Bible is right, and we must not kill. And those who would do good by waging war often end up becoming the very thing they feared: killers.
-- By Gary Kamiya
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Not a bit right.
The notion that we are further from the war than earlyer times is false , we can see the gore in our homes every day .
The cost of this war is a small fraction of the cost of wars like WWII or the Civil war , but it is happening all within arms reach.
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Not a bit right.
The notion that we are further from the war than earlyer times is false , we can see the gore in our homes every day .
The cost of this war is a small fraction of the cost of wars like WWII or the Civil war , but it is happening all within arms reach.
US poor babies having to see the death & destruction an idiot we stupidly elected brought to Iraq.
The small fraction of the cost is to US. The Iraqis are dying in the tens if not hundreds of thousands by the pandoras box the Bushidiot foolishly opened.
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The president of the Iraqi Red Crescent, the only relief organization operating in Iraq, is calling on the Democratic-led Congress to rethink its troop withdrawal strategy and recognize that Iraq suffers from a worsening humanitarian crisis. . . .
The Iraqi Red Crescent Society or Organization, as it is often referred to, is an auxiliary arm of the Iraqi government and is a member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Insisting that he is not a politician, Hakki — a U.S. citizen who spends most of his time in Iraq’s red zones — is pushing for a time-out in what he calls the “partisan squabble†over the U.S. troop withdrawal timetable.
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/president-of-iraqi-relief-organization-calls-on-dems-to-rethink-withdrawals-2007-04-23.html
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Not a bit right.
The notion that we are further from the war than earlyer times is false , we can see the gore in our homes every day .
The cost of this war is a small fraction of the cost of wars like WWII or the Civil war , but it is happening all within arms reach.
US poor babies having to see the death & destruction an idiot we stupidly elected brought to Iraq.
The small fraction of the cost is to US. The Iraqis are dying in the tens if not hundreds of thousands by the pandoras box the Bushidiot foolishly opened.
Is this your agreement that the war is not futher from our minds that were previous wars , and that this auhor is not perceveing the truth?
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Not a bit right.
The notion that we are further from the war than earlyer times is false , we can see the gore in our homes every day .
The cost of this war is a small fraction of the cost of wars like WWII or the Civil war , but it is happening all within arms reach.
US poor babies having to see the death & destruction an idiot we stupidly elected brought to Iraq.
The small fraction of the cost is to US. The Iraqis are dying in the tens if not hundreds of thousands by the pandoras box the Bushidiot foolishly opened.
Is this your agreement that the war is not futher from our minds that were previous wars , and that this auhor is not perceveing the truth?
Not at all and your silly spinning will not make reality false as you wish it to be.
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Not a bit right.
The notion that we are further from the war than earlyer times is false , we can see the gore in our homes every day .
The cost of this war is a small fraction of the cost of wars like WWII or the Civil war , but it is happening all within arms reach.
US poor babies having to see the death & destruction an idiot we stupidly elected brought to Iraq.
The small fraction of the cost is to US. The Iraqis are dying in the tens if not hundreds of thousands by the pandoras box the Bushidiot foolishly opened.
Is this your agreement that the war is not futher from our minds that were previous wars , and that this auhor is not perceveing the truth?
Not at all and your silly spinning will not make reality false as you wish it to be.
So you defend this authors thesis that the public is hardened and unaware of the suffering?
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>.So you defend this authors thesis that the public is hardened and unaware of the suffering?<<
I think people like you will never give a shit about others suffering , that normal people should be aware of it and that intelligent people like the author can recognize the similarity and should expose it to the less intelligent.
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>.So you defend this authors thesis that the public is hardened and unaware of the suffering?<<
I think people like you will never give a shit about others suffering , that normal people should be aware of it and that intelligent people like the author can recognize the similarity and should expose it to the less intelligent.
I don't think that he suggested anything that would reduce suffering for those people or for these.
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>.So you defend this authors thesis that the public is hardened and unaware of the suffering?<<
I think people like you will never give a shit about others suffering , that normal people should be aware of it and that intelligent people like the author can recognize the similarity and should expose it to the less intelligent.
I don't think that he suggested anything that would reduce suffering for those people or for these.
Waking up & getting out of Iraq would go a long way.
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>.So you defend this authors thesis that the public is hardened and unaware of the suffering?<<
I think people like you will never give a shit about others suffering , that normal people should be aware of it and that intelligent people like the author can recognize the similarity and should expose it to the less intelligent.
I don't think that he suggested anything that would reduce suffering for those people or for these.
Waking up & getting out of Iraq would go a long way.
Why should it?
Would giveing Mr. Cho the seat of the Dean at VT have improved the situation ?
Why would giveing Al Quieda a victory any cheaper than must be be any benefit to us?
We may be able to fight Al Quieda in Iraq to better advantage in Iraq than in the USA, whether or not this is so is the critical question to me , because we will not avoid fighting Al Quieda somewhere.
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I don't think that he suggested anything that would reduce suffering for those people or for these.
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Waking up & getting out of Iraq would go a long way.
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Why should it?
Would giveing Mr. Cho the seat of the Dean at VT have improved the situation ?
Why would giveing Al Quieda a victory any cheaper than must be be any benefit to us?
We may be able to fight Al Quieda in Iraq to better advantage in Iraq than in the USA, whether or not this is so is the critical question to me , because we will not avoid fighting Al Quieda somewhere.
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It will because our presence is what is stoking the fight.
Cho was crazy . He mighta made a good Repub President.
'Cause we will go broke long before they do.
Fighting in Iraq to keep from fighting here just proves the low opinion we have of Iraqi lives. Are they that much cheaper than our arrogant lives? I know this is past , but it would have been better to fight them where they were in Afghanistan where we had a real chance of wiping them out instead of in populous and intractable Iraq where they now have us stuck.
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I don't think that he suggested anything that would reduce suffering for those people or for these.
Waking up & getting out of Iraq would go a long way.
[/quote]
Why should it?
Would giveing Mr. Cho the seat of the Dean at VT have improved the situation ?
Why would giveing Al Quieda a victory any cheaper than must be be any benefit to us?
We may be able to fight Al Quieda in Iraq to better advantage in Iraq than in the USA, whether or not this is so is the critical question to me , because we will not avoid fighting Al Quieda somewhere.
[/quote]
It will because our presence is what is stoking the fight.
Cho was crazy . He mighta made a good Repub President.
'Cause we will go broke long before they do.
Fighting in Iraq to keep from fighting here just proves the low opinion we have of Iraqi lives. Are they that much cheaper than our arrogant lives? I know this is past , but it would have been better to fight them where they were in Afghanistan where we had a real chance of wiping them out instead of in populous and intractable Iraq where they now have us stuck.
[/quote]
I think few people have as high a reguard for Iriqui lives as does the President we have. It might be better if he were more callous and willing to cause collateral damage with more reliance on air power , if Clinton was superior in any way it would be that he was not so compassionate that it kept him from doing what it took to win as cheaply as possible.
If fighting the Al Quieda in Iraq makes winning against them more likely then I am still for it.In Afganistan they lost too quickly and we didn't grind them finely enough , they dropped all their plans and took off like so many rabbits . If we had declaired victory at that point wouldn't they have reformed themselves in other areas?
Looking to the past gives the benefit of hindsight , but looking ahead how can one have any confidence that a withdrawal from Iraq would save a single life?
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>>I think few people have as high a reguard for Iriqui lives as does the President we have. It might be better if he were more callous and willing to cause collateral damage with more reliance on air power , if Clinton was superior in any way it would be that he was not so compassionate that it kept him from doing what it took to win as cheaply as possible.
If fighting the Al Quieda in Iraq makes winning against them more likely then I am still for it.In Afganistan they lost too quickly and we didn't grind them finely enough , they dropped all their plans and took off like so many rabbits . If we had declaired victory at that point wouldn't they have reformed themselves in other areas?
Looking to the past gives the benefit of hindsight , but looking ahead how can one have any confidence that a withdrawal from Iraq would save a single life?<<
The Bushidiot gives not one shit about any adult human live onl;y cellular fetus probly because they are his only equal in lack of intelligence.
We did no not win in Afghanistan. Only capturing/killing Oasama and wiping out Al Quaeda there would have been a victory. Instead your idiot Pres took his eye of the ball and invaded Iraq o0n an ego trip to shor up Deddy.
We dont know that leaving will save a single life but we do know that staying will kill countless more. Only stupid Repubs think that you can correct a mistake by persisting in it.
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The Bushidiot gives not one shit about any adult human live
You don't know that, in fact there is plenty of evidence indicating the opposite.
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The Bushidiot gives not one shit about any adult human live
You don't know that, in fact there is plenty of evidence indicating the opposite.
I know it in my gut which is the only place W knows anyting. There is a lot more evidence to my assertion than yours starting with his record executions in TexAss and then him pissing on their graves after they are dead like he did to Karla Faye Tucker.
(http://www.ccadp.org/Bushplea.jpg)
http://www.ccadp.org/serialpresident.htm (http://www.ccadp.org/serialpresident.htm)
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He didn't piss on anyones grave.
Besides everyone knows apologies are worthless.
Look at Imus.
Wasn't his firing to send a signal?
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He didn't piss on anyones grave.
Besides everyone knows apologies are worthless.
Look at Imus.
Wasn't his firing to send a signal?
Yeah and we need the murderous Bushidiot's firing to send a message as well. No pissing on the graves you created.
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Yeah and we need the murderous Bushidiot's firing to send a message as well. No pissing on the graves you created.
Good luck with that.
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Yeah and we need the murderous Bushidiot's firing to send a message as well. No pissing on the graves you created.
Good luck with that.
My luck with that is getting better all the time. I am able to show 160+ deaths Bush created as Gov , over 3000 US servicefolks lives and tens if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives to show he has no regard for adult human life. I am interested in you showing even one example to show that he does give a shit. Your great debate acumen should allow you to do at least that instead of allowing me to make my point over & over.
Good luck with that.
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Let's see how well you make your case.
I am able to show 160+ deaths Bush created as Gov
Was he the judge? No
Was he the jury? No
Did he reintroduce the death penalty to Texas? No
did he commit the crimes that got the convicted there in the first place? No
So how exactly did he create these deaths?
Seems this "factoid" of yours is very weak.
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Let's see how well you make your case.
I am able to show 160+ deaths Bush created as Gov
Was he the judge? No
Was he the jury? No
Did he reintroduce the death penalty to Texas? No
did he commit the crimes that got the convicted there in the first place? No
So how exactly did he create these deaths?
Seems this "factoid" of yours is very weak.
In Texas the Govenor has no power to commute a death sentance.
This doesn't deseerve the dignity of the word "factiod".
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This doesn't deseerve the dignity of the word "factiod".
This is the kinder gentler BT. I didn't want to be accused of leaving knute without a shred of dignity.
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This doesn't deseerve the dignity of the word "factiod".
This is the kinder gentler BT. I didn't want to be accused of leaving knute without a shred of dignity.
Oh well ,...
I should have realised.
Do you suppose that Knute and Bush have something in common?
His humorous remark on the subject of a death row appeal strikes me as Knutian.
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I thought that humans were alone in our knowledge that we are going to die someday.
Here in this country, you're right, it's shrinkwrapped and shunted aside.
Not in all parts of the country, but in most areas.
I don't think this president cares much for human deaths or lives. I can't see it in his actions, and words are cheap.
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This doesn't deseerve the dignity of the word "factiod".
This is the kinder gentler BT. I didn't want to be accused of leaving knute without a shred of dignity.
Oh well ,...
I should have realised.
Do you suppose that Knute and Bush have something in common?
His humorous remark on the subject of a death row appeal strikes me as Knutian.
I dont make fun of people dying and if I did it wouldnt carry the power of a Governor. Your factoids suck as much as your logic or lack thereoff. You two still havent shown any of the reverence for adult human life by the Bushidiot.
Good luck with that .
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I dont make fun of people dying
Sure you do. You were the one who posted the photos and mocked the contractors killed in Fallujuah celebrating their crispy kritter death at the hands of the mob.
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Lanya sez:I don't think this president cares much for human deaths or lives. I can't see it in his actions, and words are cheap
(http://media.apn.co.nz/webcontent/image/jpg/bush-160.jpg)
George Bush on Thursday at the funeral of a marine killed in Iraq. Photo / Reuters
Hard to see with you eyes closed.
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I thought that humans were alone in our knowledge that we are going to die someday.
Here in this country, you're right, it's shrinkwrapped and shunted aside.
Not in all parts of the country, but in most areas.
I don't think this president cares much for human deaths or lives. I can't see it in his actions, and words are cheap.
Frankly I can't see that you ever pay attention to anything that Beorge Bush actually does or says.
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Lanya sez:I don't think this president cares much for human deaths or lives. I can't see it in his actions, and words are cheap
(http://media.apn.co.nz/webcontent/image/jpg/bush-160.jpg)
George Bush on Thursday at the funeral of a marine killed in Iraq. Photo / Reuters
Hard to see with you eyes closed.
I actually disagree with Lanya on one thing. This pic only proved he cares about human death especially when it serves his nefarious political purpose. Besides anyone can feign crying by pulling a hair from inside their nose.
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I dont make fun of people dying
Sure you do. You were the one who posted the photos and mocked the contractors killed in Fallujuah celebrating their crispy kritter death at the hands of the mob.
Those werent people, they were mercenary murderous Blackwater contractors who surely had killed lots of innocent Iraqi real people. I didnt feel bad for Mussolini either.
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Those contractors had mothers and fathers sisters and brothers just like normal people. Way to show that compassion.
And you fault Bush. What a hypocrit you are.
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Those contractors had mothers and fathers sisters and brothers just like normal people. Way to show that compassion.
And you fault Bush. What a hypocrit you are.
Just like normal people is exactly right. Unless the relatives were abused as they probly were by these monsters, I feel for them not these creeps who killed only for money.
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Unless the relatives were abused as they probly were by these monsters
You don't know anything about these men. You are simply projecting your own psychosis upon them.
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Unless the relatives were abused as they probly were by these monsters
You don't know anything about these men. You are simply projecting your own psychosis upon them.
I know a lot moren you do. They are my neighbors:
The Center for an Informed America
NEWSLETTER #58April 9, 2004
And Now For Something Completely Different ...
Well, folks, Hollywood has once again stepped up to the plate to deliver an uncannily timely dose of propaganda to the masses. On April 5, just five days after four American, uhmm, 'civilian contractors' were dragged through the streets of Fallujah, the Los Angeles Times ran an article by John Horn entitled "The Avengers." This is how the piece began:
Ready or not (and many in the country seem to be ready), several new films are about violent retribution.
It's payback time.
For each and every weekend this month, that's the mantra for a variety of movie characters determined to bring justice to an unjust world. Americans might feel toothless in their real lives, but violent film heroes in "Walking Tall," "The Punisher," "Kill Bill Vol.2," "Man on Fire" and "The Alamo" feel no such powerlessness. Rather than get mad, they get even, and after just two hours of effort, they can truthfully proclaim, "Mission accomplished."
Yes, my good friends, it's time get out there and whup some ass! It's time to teach those Iraqi barbarians a lesson that they won't soon forget. And Hollywood, as always, has come through in the clutch to pump the masses full of bloodlust and rally support for the carnage that is soon to be unleashed.
How do they do that? How do they manage to always have the right product ready at the right time? It's almost as if the studios knew long ago, when these films went into production, that the events of the last week would transpire at exactly this time. But that would be impossible, it would seem. Unless, of course, what happened in Fallujah was itself a Hollywood production.
Cast as the leading man was Stephen "Scott" Helvenston, who had bounced around the fringes of Hollywood for years. As has been widely reported, Helvenston, at age 17, became the youngest-ever Navy recruit to complete SEAL training. He remained a SEAL for the next 12 years, and then settled in Oceanside, California, just south of Camp Pendleton. He soon found work as Demi Moore's trainer on the film "G.I. Jane," in which he also appeared as a SEAL instructor. He also served as a consultant and stuntman on films such as "Face/Off" and "Three Ninjas," and he produced a series of workout videos through his company, Amphibian Athletics. More recently, "Survivor" producer Mark Burnett, himself a former special forces operative, cast Helvenston, whom he had known since 1993, as one of the stars of his cable reality series "Combat Missions." Helvenston also made an appearance on Fox's ludicrous (even by Fox's standards) reality show, "Man vs. Beast," and he had small acting parts on such television series as "Renegade" and "Silk Stockings."
After all that, Helvenston's next starring role was on March 31, 2004, when he inexplicably turned up in a burning vehicle on the streets of Fallujah, Iraq, in the very neighborhood where at least 18 Iraqis had been slaughtered by U.S. forces just five days before (though that fact is almost never mentioned in press reports). As an Associated Press release noted, "after years out of the service ... the former SEAL had left the comfort of his life in California behind him and headed for Iraq."
He had apparently done so quite recently, with press reports holding that he had been in Iraq for less than a month. Friends of the fallen commando were quoted as saying that they were not surprised by Helvenston's sudden return to the military life. According to Mark Burnett, "That's what, in a time of need, true American warriors like Scott would do."
Burnett didn't explain why this particular point in time is such a "time of need." After all, the Bush administration line for quite some time now has been that the Iraq situation is under control. Where, one wonders, was Helvenston a year ago, when U.S. mercenaries first rolled into Iraq? Better yet, where was he when U.S. troops poured into Afghanistan, allegedly in search of bin Laden? Surely if there were ever "a time of need" for a "true American warrior," it was in the immediate wake of the September 11 attacks. So it appears to me as though no one has really offered a reasonable explanation for why Helvenston chose this particular time to make a surprise appearance in what is quite likely the most dangerous city in the world for an American to suddenly find himself.
Helvenston was allegedly part of a security detail accompanying a food convoy, but witnesses have made no mention of any food convoy. The only vehicles involved in the incident were the two SUVs carrying the four soldiers-of-fortune. According to the Washington Post, the foursome "were in the dangerous Sunni Triangle area operating under more hazardous conditions - unarmored cars with no apparent backup - than the U.S. military or the CIA permit." A Los Angeles Times report held that the "victims were in two sport utility vehicles driving through the center of Fallouja's commercial district about 9:30 a.m." The rocket-propelled grenade attack occurred, according to the Times, while the vehicles were "stopped at an intersection" in what was described as an "anti-American stronghold."
One might be tempted to conclude, based on such reports, that Helvenston and his team were sent on a suicide mission, albeit not necessarily knowingly. It is difficult to imagine, after all, that there is any reasonable explanation for why four American mercenaries would be stopped at an intersection, in broad daylight, in unarmored vehicles, in the center of a city that is a hotbed of anti-American sentiment, in the very neighborhood where fresh Iraqi blood was on the ground. The only thing missing, it would seem, were the "Fuck Allah" signs on the sides of the vehicles.
As the Times reported, "U.S. military forces did not arrive on the scene until several hours after Wednesday's attack." Some reports suggested that that was because the area was considered too dangerous for U.S. forces to enter. Say what?? The area is considered too dangerous for the U.S. military to enter even with its dazzling array of weaponry and vast pool of manpower, and yet four (relatively) lightly-armed mercenaries had been dispatched to the very center of town?
The Washington Post reported that U.S. officials "suspect that the men were not victims of a random ambush but were set up as targets, which one defense official said suggested 'a higher degree of organization and sophistication' among insurgents." But was it really the Iraqi insurgents who set the men up as targets? Did the people of Fallujah lure the hired guns into the center of the city, or were they deliberately sent there?
An article in Time magazine noted that "the reasons for their decision to drive through such a hostile neighborhood remain murky ... Standard operating procedure for security teams like Blackwater's, according to a former private military-company operator with knowledge of Blackwater's operational tactics, is never to stop the car in a potentially hostile area." And yet four highly-trained mercenaries were indeed stopped at an intersection, virtually defenseless, deep in hostile territory. That would seem to suggest that the team did not know that they had been sent into a hostile area.*
Another article in the same issue of Time complained that, "Even by Pentagon standards, military officials were fuzzy about the exact nature of the Blackwater mission; several officers privately disputed the idea that the team was escorting a food convoy." Chris Bertelli, a spokesman for Blackwater, was quoted as saying, "We don't know what they were doing on the road at that time."
If the team's putative employer, Blackwater USA, doesn't know what they were doing there, and the team's actual employer, the Pentagon, doesn't know what they were doing there, then who exactly does know? Clearly the foursome didn't decide on their own to take a leisurely drive through downtown Fallujah. Someone had to have given them orders to go there.
A report in the LA Times revealed that as one of the bodies was dragged through the streets, a group of men, "most of them in Western-style clothing, ran alongside and cheered, according to witnesses and officials." Now that seems rather odd, doesn't it? You wouldn't think, after all, that virulently anti-American Shiite and Sunni Muslims would favor Western-style clothing. But I guess they do.
The Times report also quoted a witness as saying, "People were saying that they [the four mercenaries] were CIA." Apparently that happens quite frequently; according to Time, "Locals often mistake the guards for special forces or CIA personnel." I can't imagine where the Iraqi people would get a crazy notion like that.
Time also reported that just "before the vehicles arrived in town, according to eyewitness accounts, a small group of men in masks detonated a small explosive device, clearing the streets and prompting shopkeepers to shutter their doors." Who were these masked men who cleared a path for the commando team, and how did they know that there were special guests arriving shortly?
Scott Helvenston's final role/mission was, of course, faithfully recorded on film. And that film was, curiously enough, given massive media exposure, over the feigned objections of the Bush regime and in clear violation of the unspoken ban on showing the American people anything that could possibly be mistaken for an American casualty of war.
All four of the mercenaries had only recently been hired by Blackwater Security Consulting, one of many CIA fronts supplying soldiers-of-fortune to provide 'security' in Iraq. Helvenston had reportedly been in Iraq, and on Blackwater's payroll, for just two weeks. One of his accomplices, Michael "The Ice Man" Teague - a former member of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (aka the "Night Stalkers"), and a veteran of military operations in Grenada, Panama and Afghanistan - had reportedly only worked for Blackwater for two months. Another accomplice, Wesley Batalona, who served for 20+ years as an Army Ranger, had also worked for Blackwater for just two months. According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, "Batalona was unsure whether he wanted to go back to Iraq after a month off on the Big Island from security duty, a relative said. Pearl Batalona, wife of his uncle Jacob, said Batalona did not directly say why he felt that way after two months with Blackwater Security Consulting in Iraq."
The fourth member of the team, Jerko "Jerry" Zovko, a former Army Ranger with the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, had just joined Blackwater a month before the attack, according to his brother, Tom. Zovko left the service in 2001 and found work with a "private security firm [where he] worked in various capacities, sometimes as a bodyguard for celebrities such as diet doctor Robert Atkins," according to the Baltimore Sun. Brother Tom Zovko said that Jerry guarded "models and movie stars." Time magazine had him working "as a bodyguard for executives in Dubai."
All four of the men, like thousands of others like them, operated in the shadowy, secretive world of covert operations. Their own families cannot say with any certainty what kind of 'work' the hired guns actually did. Often the families did not even know what part of the world their loved one was in at any given time. At the time of his death, Zovko's mother thought her son was safe in Kuwait city, at the American Embassy.
The company that employed the mercenaries, Blackwater Security Consulting, is purportedly a non-governmental entity, as are the dozens of other similar operations in the United States. The overwhelming majority of Blackwater's business, however, comes from government contracts. And the company has such close ties to the Bush regime that it is Blackwater's men who provide the personal security for Bush's number-one man in Iraq, Paul Bremer.
Blackwater - based in Moyock, North Carolina, just south of the world's largest Naval base at Norfolk, Virginia - was formed in 1998 by former Navy SEALS. The company boasts a reportedly state-of-the-art, sprawling training center. According to Time, "the company has trained more than 50,000 military and law enforcement personnel" at its facilities. The LA Times added that those who have trained there "include Special Operations units from nearby Ft. Bragg, the U.S. Coast Guard, harbor security services and the Federal Aviation Administration." In 2002, the company was awarded a $35.7 million contract to train 10,000 Navy personnel.
Blackwater boasts that its clients "include federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of Defense, Department of State, and Department of Transportation, local and state entities from around the country, multinational corporations and friendly nations from all over the globe."
"Friendly" nations in this instance is not a reference to nations that have, say, a sterling human rights record. Rather, it is a reference to countries that are "friendly" to the interests of corporate America. Chile, for example, is a "friendly" nation. According to the Guardian, Blackwater has lately been in the business of training and employing former Chilean commandos: "Last month [February 2004] Blackwater USA flew a first group of 60 commandos, many of who had trained under the military government of Augusto Pinochet, from Santiago to a 2,400-acre (970-hectare) training camp in North Carolina."
According to company president Gary Jackson, Blackwater "scour the ends of the earth to find professionals - the Chilean commandos are very, very professional and they fit within the Blackwater system." Apparently the Blackwater system does not discriminate against rapists, torturers and assassins.
Elsewhere in the world, Blackwater has "a Defense Department contract 'to train, equip, and permanently establish a Naval Special Operations Unit in the Azerbaijan Armed Forces,'" according to an Associated Press report. In nearby Iraq, the company employs some 400 'security' professionals. And if all that isn't enough to keep the company busy, next month Blackwater's compound will host the World SWAT Challenge, scheduled to air on ESPN.
Blackwater is only one of dozens of private paramilitary firms that have sprung up in the last decade. As USA Today recounted, "After the 1991 Gulf War, the Pentagon, headed by then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, paid a Halliburton subsidiary, Brown & Root Services, nearly $9 million to study how private companies could provide support in combat zones." And soon after that, as we all know, Cheney resurfaced as the CEO of Halliburton, before later becoming the Vice-President-in-hiding of an administration that seems to have no shortage of work for all the private military companies that Halliburton helped to create.
These companies constitute a rapidly growing and largely unregulated industry that "reaps $100 billion a year worldwide," according to the News Observer. The elite 'security' personnel that work for these firms are paid salaries of up to $25,000 per month. According to both the LA Times and USA Today, some 15,000 of these security workers are currently at work in Iraq, employed by some three dozen private firms. USA Today noted that that makes the mercenaries "effectively the second-largest armed component of the coalition." The troops of our closest ally, the UK, are outnumbered roughly two-to-one by the soldiers-for-hire.
And who, you may be wondering, foots the bill for all those thousands of well paid mercenaries? The American taxpayers, of course. As the Los Angeles Times noted, "The vast majority of their work in Iraq is government-funded, either through direct contracts with government agencies or indirectly as security for firms that have contracts to help rebuild Iraq ... These days, almost every Western organization working in Iraq has private security."
In other words, a huge percentage of those multi-billion dollar 'reconstruction' contracts that Team Bush is handing out will go toward providing 'security' for the companies being awarded the contracts. Of course, no one seems to want to talk about why corporations conducting legitimate business enterprises would need their very own paramilitary goon squads to conduct that business.
The private security business "is booming, security experts said, because a surge in violence has come precisely as a flood of contractors is poised to roll into the country now that $8 billion in U.S. contracts have been awarded." So said the LA Times. And why do you suppose that is? As a general rule of thumb, people do not usually shoot at those who are working to provide for their well-being. They do, however, shoot at those who come to exploit their resources and slaughter their families.
"It was the occupation of Iraq that brought explosive growth to the young industry," according to the Sydney Morning Herald. In fact, it appears that the planned occupation of Iraq (and of Afghanistan, and of Haiti, and of ??) is one of the principal reasons that the 'industry' was created. The purpose of the mercenaries in Iraq, according to the Washington Post, is to "protect U.S. government employees, private firms, Iraqi facilities, and oil pipelines." Joining Blackwater in pursuing these endeavors are such firms as DynCorp - which provides personal security for Hamid Karzai, the illegitimate head of Afghanistan, just as Blackwater provides personal security for the illegitimate head of Iraq - and the Steele Foundation, which played a key role in the coup that recently deposed Aristide in Haiti.
These private goon squads, noted the LA Times, operate in secrecy and "outside the control of the U.S. military or any Iraqi authority ... Their clients, activities and even the names of their employees are largely kept from public view." The deaths of these secret warriors, needless to say, are almost never reported.
It is impossible to say how many paid mercenaries have been killed in Iraq, but it is safe to say that what happened to the Fallujah foursome was notable only for the manner in which the corpses were treated. It was certainly not the first time, and it won't be the last time, that 'civilian' contractors are 'murdered' in Iraq.
The Virginian-Pilot reported that "About 30 contractors have been killed in Iraq since fighting began a year ago." The LA Times held that "dozens of the heavily armed security workers have been killed since entering Iraq ... last April." A security expert was quoted as saying: "How many private security guys have been killed here? A lot. At least 50, maybe more; there's been six just this week." And CNN has reported that Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root alone "has lost seven employees in Iraq."
It is hard to see then how the deaths of the four commandos in Fallujah would have been a particularly significant event had it not been turned into one by the media, which certainly had the option of downplaying or even ignoring the story, as has been done so frequently in the past.
Bill Powell wrote the following for Time magazine: "As horrific as the killings were, what happened next would soon be televised around the world, forcing the U.S. military commanders to plan retaliation." So it's not that we want to retaliate, you see; it's that we are forced to. What else are we to do? After all, we can't let people start thinking that it is okay to kill our paid assassins, can we?
So retaliate we must. And retaliate we will, or so says Time: "According to a senior administration official, [General John] Abizaid [head of U.S. Central Command] called for 'a specific and overwhelming attack to restore justice' ... The decision by commanders in the field to respond with such force, he added, 'obviously pleased' Bush ... No one doubted that the military's response would be massive ... In a reflection of the anger the attacks induced, coalition officials said trying to earn the affection of local Iraqis was no longer the objective -- at least not when it came to responding in Fallujah."
It is unclear exactly what the U.S. response will be, but there is sure to be no shortage of blood on the streets of Fallujah. How many women's and children's lives are the lives of four hired guns worth? We will soon find out. As the LA Times' John Horn said, at the top of this newsletter: "It's payback time."
References:
Dao, James “For God, Country and Wallet: America’s Privatized Armies are Here to Stay,†Sydney Morning Herald, April 3, 2004
Duffy, Michael “When Private Armies Take to the Front Lines,†Time, April 12, 2004
Franklin, Jonathan “US Contractor Recruits Guards for Iraq in Chile,†The Guardian, March 5, 2004
Horn, John “The Avengers,†Los Angeles Times, April 5, 2004
Kimberlin, Joanne “Three Slain Blackwater Workers Identified,†The Virginian-Pilot, April 2, 2004
Marbella, Jean “A Life Taken in Iraq, a Job Left Unfinished,†Baltimore Sun, April 3, 2004
Merelman, Stephen “Insulting End for Ex-Soldier, a Jet-Setting Bodyguard,†News Observer, April 2, 2004
Powell, Bill “Into the Cauldron,†Time, April 12, 2004
“Isle Man Among 4 Killed by Iraqi Mob,†Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 3, 2004
Price, Jay “Armed Security Business Booms,†News Observer, April 2, 2004
Priest, Dana and Mary Pat Flaherty “Contractor’s Jobs Involve High Pay, Risk,†Washington Post, April 2, 2004
Ridgeway, James “U.S. Turns to Mercenaries,†The Village Voice, April 1, 2004
Rubin, Alissa J. and Esther Schrader “A Secret World of Security in Iraq,†Los Angeles Times, April 2, 2004
Sanders, Edmund “Iraqi Mob Kills 4 Americans,†Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2004
Schoch, Deborah, Julie Tamaki and Monte Morin “Death Came Brutally to a Man Who ‘Never Quit',†Los Angeles Times, April 3, 2004
Squitieri, Tom “Role of Security Companies Likely to Become More Visible,†USA Today, April 1, 2004
Stockstill, Mason “Fitness Guru Who Trained Stars Among Four Blackwater USA Employees Killed in Iraq,†Associated Press, April 2, 2004
“Four Slain Contractors In Iraq Were From U.S.,†Associated Press, March 31, 2004
“NC Firm Was Providing Security for Food Delivery in Iraq,†Associated Press, March 31, 2004
“Three of U.S. Security Guards Killed in Iraq Identified as Military Veterans,†CNews, April 1, 2004
“High Pay – and High Risks – for Contractors in Iraq,†CNN.com, April 1, 2004
“Hollywood Consultant One of Civilian Deaths in Iraq,†Associated Press, April 2, 2004
“Movie Stuntman Among 4 Civilians Killed in Iraq,†Associated Press, April 2, 2004
“Friend Remembers a Talented and Smart Scott Helvenston,†Polkonline.com, April 6, 2004
www.sealtraining.com
* Stan Goff, writing for From the Wilderness, has claimed that he has received inside information indicating that the mercenary team was supposed to have taken a bypass road around Fallujah, but someone had set up a detour that led them directly into the ambush. It seems rather unlikely, however, that the four men, with some 60 years of combined experience in 'special operations,' would have blindly followed an unmanned detour unless they had been specifically instructed to do so. [back]
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Besides anyone can feign crying by pulling a hair from inside their nose.
You would think that would be caught on video.
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Besides anyone can feign crying by pulling a hair from inside their nose.
You would think that would be caught on video.
You mean like this?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7374837076071553705&q=Bush+picking+his+nose (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7374837076071553705&q=Bush+picking+his+nose)
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No. I mean pulling nose hairs like you claimed he did to tear up.
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No. I mean pulling nose hairs like you claimed he did to tear up.
I said anyone could do that . Pathological liars and psychos like Bush can do it at will.
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I said anyone could do that . Pathological liars and psychos like Bush can do it at will.
Of course anyone can also shed tears at a funeral. Part of what makes up being human. And you haven't offered proof that that wasn't the case with Bush.
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I said anyone could do that . Pathological liars and psychos like Bush can do it at will.
Of course anyone can also shed tears at a funeral. Part of what makes up being human. And you haven't offered proof that that wasn't the case with Bush.
And you havent proved that he has any reverence for adult human life either. Only deaths that benefit him.
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I said anyone could do that . Pathological liars and psychos like Bush can do it at will.
Of course anyone can also shed tears at a funeral. Part of what makes up being human. And you haven't offered proof that that wasn't the case with Bush.
And you havent proved that he has any reverence for adult human life either. Only deaths that benefit him.
Why should the assumption be negative?
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I said anyone could do that . Pathological liars and psychos like Bush can do it at will.
Of course anyone can also shed tears at a funeral. Part of what makes up being human. And you haven't offered proof that that wasn't the case with Bush.
And you havent proved that he has any reverence for adult human life either. Only deaths that benefit him.
Why should the assumption be negative?
What negative. I want you two to prove that he reveres adult human life. That is a positive , no?
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Tears at a funeral is all the proof i need.
You try to split nose hairs.
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I said anyone could do that . Pathological liars and psychos like Bush can do it at will.
Of course anyone can also shed tears at a funeral. Part of what makes up being human. And you haven't offered proof that that wasn't the case with Bush.
And you haven't proved that he has any reverence for adult human life either. Only deaths that benefit him.
Why should the assumption be negative?
What negative. I want you two to prove that he reveres adult human life. That is a positive , no?
The assumption should be positive , he does revere human life .
I agree that mocking the prison conversion of a condemned murderer is gauche.
I disagree that it is serious proof that he is dismissive of life.
President Bush is one of the worlds most serious backers of HIV reduction efforts in Africa , an effort that brings more credit to president Carter than to himself , but who is actually doing more?
I don't know yet whether his "No Child Left Behind" program is good enough to make the change we need , but I am glad that someone was elected who had the courage to attempt.
If I have a serious complaint against him it is that he did not learn from the successes of his predecessor. President Clinton actually won one of his wars with no American deaths at all! What good does it do us to restrain ourselves from use of our greatest advantages ? President Clinton used air power to slam the enemy and made it clear to them that they could not win in anyway at all. President Bush acted compassionately and used greater finesse to preserve infrastructure and reduce collateral deaths , but what good is that, if the additional result is that the battle is so much longer that all the initial saving is eventually lost with intrest?
If I could change Bush in one way I would harden his heart to be more like President Clinton.
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>>If I could change Bush in one way I would harden his heart to be more like President Clinton.<<
The examples you gave had nothing to little to do with adult human life except for maybe the AIDS in Africa issue that was someone elses doing. No child left behind is waay of course.
It isnt Bill's hard heart that I wish the Bushidiot had but his good brain of which Bush has none.
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Tears at a funeral is all the proof i need.
You try to split nose hairs.
Your requirement for truth from your RW masters has always been ridiculously low. You are so easily bought 9a few tax cuts is all that is needed for you to sell your soul & mind) and have no hair on your ass because of it.
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>>If I could change Bush in one way I would harden his heart to be more like President Clinton.<<
The examples you gave had nothing to little to do with adult human life except for maybe the AIDS in Africa issue that was someone elses doing. No child left behind is waay of course.
It isnt Bill's hard heart that I wish the Bushidiot had but his good brain of which Bush has none.
Well then what about his tax policys which are not only intended to incrase the national wealth and reduce poverty , but also are succeeding .
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>>If I could change Bush in one way I would harden his heart to be more like President Clinton.<<
The examples you gave had nothing to little to do with adult human life except for maybe the AIDS in Africa issue that was someone elses doing. No child left behind is waay of course.
It isnt Bill's hard heart that I wish the Bushidiot had but his good brain of which Bush has none.
Well then what about his tax policys which are not only intended to incrase the national wealth and reduce poverty , but also are succeeding .
These do still not address any reverence for human life only human greed and besides, they are not true anyway. The rich are getting ricer and poverty is waay up under the Bushidiot.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/31/sotu-poverty-has-worsened-under-bush/ (http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/31/sotu-poverty-has-worsened-under-bush/)
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Your requirement for truth from your RW masters has always been ridiculously low.
And this has nothing to do with RW masters. It has to do with YOU backing up your claims.
Which btw you consistently fail to do.
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>>If I could change Bush in one way I would harden his heart to be more like President Clinton.<<
The examples you gave had nothing to little to do with adult human life except for maybe the AIDS in Africa issue that was someone elses doing. No child left behind is waay of course.
It isnt Bill's hard heart that I wish the Bushidiot had but his good brain of which Bush has none.
Well then what about his tax policys which are not only intended to incrase the national wealth and reduce poverty , but also are succeeding .
These do still not address any reverence for human life only human greed and besides, they are not true anyway. The rich are getting ricer and poverty is waay up under the Bushidiot.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/31/sotu-poverty-has-worsened-under-bush/ (http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/31/sotu-poverty-has-worsened-under-bush/)
If the subject is Bush having compassion then his policys I have mentioned and others produce a lot of evidence that is positive.
If the subject is his brainpower then the best evdence is the tax policy which has driven an increase in the advradge wealth of Americans and reduced poverty all round.
How unemployment can be down , poverty can be down , advradge income can be up , home ownership can be up and still the economy can be bemoaned as it continues to be settin upside records is fantastic.
I call it creativity , painting gloom over a great economy.
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"...and poverty is waay up under the Bushidiot."
Real median household income remained unchanged between 2003 and 2004 at $44,389, according to a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, the nation’s official poverty rate rose from 12.5 percent in 2003 to 12.7 percent in 2004. The percentage of the nation’s population without health insurance coverage remained stable, at 15.7 percent in 2004. The number of people with health insurance increased by 2.0 million to 245.3 million between 2003 and 2004, and the number without such coverage rose by 800,000 to 45.8 million. ."
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/005647.html
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The definition of "waay up" is 0.2% ?
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"...and poverty is waay up under the Bushidiot."
Real median household income remained unchanged between 2003 and 2004 at $44,389, according to a report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Meanwhile, the nation’s official poverty rate rose from 12.5 percent in 2003 to 12.7 percent in 2004. The percentage of the nation’s population without health insurance coverage remained stable, at 15.7 percent in 2004. The number of people with health insurance increased by 2.0 million to 245.3 million between 2003 and 2004, and the number without such coverage rose by 800,000 to 45.8 million. ."
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/005647.html
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The definition of "waay up" is 0.2% ?
It is if you are the .2% . But not to worry it is only among those pesky blacks and nasty little rug rats.
>>African-American poverty has risen from 22.7 percent in 2001 to 24.7 percent in 2004, and child poverty has gone from 16.3 percent in 2001 to 17.8 percent (1.3 million children under the age of 18). <<
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>>African-American poverty has risen from 22.7 percent in 2001 to 24.7 percent in 2004, and child poverty has gone from 16.3 percent in 2001 to 17.8 percent (1.3 million children under the age of 18). <<
The largest concentrations of minorities is in urban areas, long democrat strongholds. The best way out of poverty is through eduction an area also controlled by local interests in these same dem strongholds.
Doesn't sound like you guys are doing that good of a job.
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The Census bereau eeed to indicate that the rates of poverty were very stable , the margin of error is nearly the same as the entire measured increase.
Also the increase was almost all in midwestern whites.
The national welth increases apace , it is not a bad thing that the rich get richer they can't help butr drag us along in their wake a they progress.
Jelosy tho would have the rich be penalised even if the pnalty would be shaed with peope who cannot afford it.
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The cost of this war is a small fraction of the cost of wars like WWII or the Civil war , but it is happening all within arms reach.
Iraq is within arm's reach?
The funding of the Iraq war is within arms reach?
I do not think that this is even sort of true.
This war is costing less in lives than WWII, but that is because of body armor and better medivac sistems.
It is being financed entirely by Juniorbush printing money. Hence the decline in the value of the dollar vis a vis the Euro. Hence the fact that many foreign stock funds are outpacing domestic ones.
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The Census bereau eeed to indicate that the rates of poverty were very stable , the margin of error is nearly the same as the entire measured increase.
Also the increase was almost all in midwestern whites.
The national welth increases apace , it is not a bad thing that the rich get richer they can't help butr drag us along in their wake a they progress.
Jelosy tho would have the rich be penalised even if the pnalty would be shaed with peope who cannot afford it.
You have hit a new height of smarmy bullshit on this one. There is not one scintilla of evidence of any of this. It is all trickle down theory nonsense. The only thing that trickles down from the rich is the piss that shower the rest of US with.
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The Census bereau eeed to indicate that the rates of poverty were very stable , the margin of error is nearly the same as the entire measured increase.
Also the increase was almost all in midwestern whites.
The national welth increases apace , it is not a bad thing that the rich get richer they can't help butr drag us along in their wake a they progress.
Jelosy tho would have the rich be penalised even if the pnalty would be shaed with peope who cannot afford it.
You have hit a new height of smarmy bullshit on this one. There is not one scintilla of evidence of any of this. It is all trickle down theory nonsense. The only thing that trickles down from the rich is the piss that shower the rest of US with.
What evidence supports your opinion?
In countrys with few rich people is there a larger middle class?
In times when the gap between rich and middle class and poor are shrinking , are the pople enoying good times?
It is my opinion that fortunes hire people , poverty doesn't , trickle down is not what we should call the Niagra like flow of a robust economy.
Were you under the imprssion that "trickle down " is a conservative concept? It is not , it is the dismissive term used by criics of capitolism who do not understand what conservaivs are talking about. Our favoriate and more apt term is a "riseing tide". I doubt that you can find any serious conservative speaking well of "trickle down".
Taxes are not the only thing that can ruin an economy , but when used to excess they are as sure as shootin as a means for causeing unemployment.