In a few weeks we will celebrate Memorial Day. My sister will unwinterize the pool and have the first backyard BBQ of the season. Littleprop and her cousins will have an all day massive waterballoon and water pistol and water cannon, and wet sponge launcher (well you get the idea) fight punctuated by brief interludes for hot dogs, hamburgers, and the odd handful of cheeze doodles.
The local American Legions and Veterans of Foreign Wars and Viet Nam Veterans groups will sponsor parades and block parties. There will be marching bands and military music concerts. There will be red paper poppies to remind us of the fields of France where so many American war dead were buried during WWI. We will remember our fallen heroes from wars long past. And eat ice cream.
Today, should be a day to remember our war dead from a war that is NOT long past. To remember the dead and soon to be dead in an ongoing war that ESCALATED AFTER the President declared victory.
Today is the FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of "Mission Accomplished."
Don’t expect too many parades. Don’t expect to see the US Marine Corps Band giving a concert on the Washington Mall or the White House Lawn. This Adminstration does not honor our dead children lost in an ongoing war which he has already declared won, despite all evidence to the contrary.
So, there is no holiday today. There are no parades, no concerts. The Congress has not declared this a day of remembrance for this Nation’s dead sons and daughters.
But no one can stop us from remembering them, from honoring them, for acknowledging that they were willing to, and did, make the ultimate sacrifice that their patriotism inspired. Tonight, at sunset, I’m putting a sign on my lawn, "Thank you to all our brave servicemembers lost since ‘Mission Accomplished’" and lighting a candle in front of it. Maybe a small bouquet of flowers.
It is my hope that everyone who passes by and is reminded, will take a moment to say a prayer, or hold a good thought for the brave young men and women who fought and died in an unnecessary war of aggression started by a coward who used his Daddy’s influence to hide out in the National Guard when there was real fighting to do in Viet Nam, and then went AWOL, just to rub salt in the wound.
Yet, John McCain thinks it’s just swell to give us 4 more years of senseless war, let’s see that will take us all the way to 9 years after "Mission Accomplished?" When is the MSM going to wake up to the fact that McCain is running on a platform to continue a war that is opposed by the vast majority of the American people? When is he going to get pounded with this anti-democratic, imperialist platform plank?
Starting tomorrow, the best and most sincere thing we can do to honor our fallen sons and daughters is to make sure that the press, the Congress and every person we meet is talking about the war. How bad it is going, how pointless it is, how much worse off we are for having started it, how we need to end it. How John McCain doesn’t want to end it.
If we don’t remember our dead children who died in the war of George Bush’s convenience, no one will. If we don’t save our still living children from the continuation of this pointless slaughter, no one will. We must fight here at home, so our children don’t have to fight far from home.
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god bless our soldiers
LHP thank you for reminding us of our duty to think about those we have lost. Very fine post. Remember…
Amen.
“You will adore ME. That’s an order!“
We will remember
Why does the entire Bush family get a pass on serving in Bush’s war?
“it’s
notworth it.”thank you looseheadprop for reminding us.
bush started the war and he ESCALATED it after he declared victory.
there was no surge. It is an escalation, including ground troops and increased bombings.
Bush escalated the war.
the escalation has not succeeded. American troop deaths are rising again during the escalation.
Digg It folks. Let’s make this viral.
We can make our own national days of remeberence. We don’t need Congress, we don’t need Miss “Impeachment is off the Table” to set our agenda.
WE can provide the leadership so sorely lacking in Washington.
WE can show them how it’s done.
We, the People, are the sovereigns in this country, nor some tinpot dictator annointed by the Supreme Court.
WE can bury our own dead.
Many praises to the Bowling Green Daily News who had the journalisitic intergity to put service to their readership ahead of the wishes of the DOD and actually had the backbone to publish a picture of a flag draped coffin. My condolences to the family of Sgt. Adam J. Kohlhaas, whose coffin is pictured above. Sgt. Kohlhaas, 26, died April 21 in Bayji, Iraq, when his vehicle hit a roadside bomb.
LHP a Good Post! But do not lose sight of those who gave thier lives for all of us!
We will be celebrating Memorial Day soon and we must not forget those who answered the call of our country to serve. It is not about those who sent them to War but THEM, those hero’s who sacrificed all for us!
Digg it for LHp
Well said, LHP, the anniversary of “mission accomplished” should be the un-memorial day.
Digg it.
Damn, a triple digg.
Good job dakine01!
everybody should click on Bobby’s link
I like your ’sign’ of remembrance idea very much, LHP.
May a ‘thousand candles’ bring light to the darkness of complacency – and the loss of so much potential … for our people, as well as the people of Irak and Afghanistan …
oops I dugg this in a different category well lurking you decide which one to use… Still a good post and yes it should go VIRAL
Unfortunately, Digg only recognizes the last one I submitted as I understand it.
All Love and Blessings to Our Soldiers and Their Families!
Bush doesn’t want US to see your Sacrifices, but We haven’t Forgotten you!
Wow Looks like at least three of had the same idea… Shows us just how much this means to us… Is this a record for duplicate DIGGS?
Thanks. Pay it forward. Save the image and forward it far and wide.
My Dad and all four of his brothers served in WWII. Pop was in for seven years. He came back minus a leg. Only he and my Uncle Warren survived the war years.
I fucking bristle at the very image of the incoherent narcissistic war criminal coward George W. Bush.
The digg connected to the button up top is the one that we should concentrate on. That’s the one that will get the most diggs.
There’s also reddit…
Our flag and yellow ribbon persist out by the road, where they’ve been displayed for the duration of this wretched war. This current ribbon is all tangled and tattered from the winter winds, but even that speaks volumes. We as a country are entangled against our will.
I will, as usual, refresh both flag and ribbon before Memorial Day.
I would like to give a wish for full recovery and good health to Jim Lehrer (heart valve surgery just recently). I also want to thank him for the simple but thorough and poignant regular listing of names and home towns of the fallen U.S. servicepeople in Iraq and Afghanistan, and showing of their pictures “as they become available.” slowly – one by one – in silence. His is the only tv program I am aware of that regularly deals with them as people, not just numbers.
It could be M-A Day…pronounced as May Day (which it is) or Mayday as in the call for help when left adrift. So many mixed messages, which is also one of the hallmarks of this day. Lost, needing help, populist movements arising from the chaos.
Feeling a bit overwhelmed today.
Slightly O/T: any news coming from the West Coast protests?
Good Morning lhp and firedogs -
about to go to the mattresses with Am Legion, VFW – have been calling, writing letters to them, LTE’s for almost 5 years – calling them out for their ongoing support of the Murderous Imbecile and their willingness to provide a platform and photo ops for these pigs – last month they allowed McLiar, a guy not supporting Webb’s GI Bill to speak about veterans – and so many of them now in charge were VVAW – aaacccckkkk!
very frustrated in my efforts at more pointed, effective communication
I can’t watch those segments. I get all choked up.
I look at those faces and see my own kids. I have two, former, foster children. They are in their 20’s–draft age. I have a step daughter in college–draft age. Littleprop starts HS next fall–only 4 years until draft age.
If John McCain becomes our next president…. how many people’s children will die for a war of convenience? A war for oil?
Just think, if we as a nation had made the same committment in people and treasure to alternative energy that we have made to this pointless war, might we not be completely energy independent today.
Instead of dead, maimed and damaged, might not those same sons and daughters sacrified on the alter of Shrub’s ego, now be working in green collar jobs?
You want revenge for 9-11? make oil irrelevant and worthless!
No words necessary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFowNFvmUxw
Just think, if we as a nation had made the same committment in people and treasure to alternative enegry that we have made to this pointless war, might we not be completly energy independant today.
_________________
See my new rant on energy here.
We should consider NOT celebrating violence and death with more of the same. If you are willing to kill and ignore the little things, it is easier to ignore the big picture. Sometimes humanity shows no sign of advancement or worth. Perhaps we are at the end of the ride we paid for?
try living a life without killing other thinking life. the world could be a better place. a person can grow up if you analyze your habits objectively.
“Imam Ali hospital received during the last 24 hours one body and 28 wounded, while al-Sadr hospital received 10 bodies and 44 wounded,” the source, who asked for anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).
Aswat al Iraq
Superb ‘rant’, Bobby …
Thanks for this post, LHP.
I’ll be making a trip down to San Clemente CA on Memorial Day weekend- a good friend of my daughter’s (& of mine) lost her Marine fiance in an IED explosion in Iraq almost two yrs. ago. We’ll all go out for lunch, then a boat ride to throw flowers out in the Pacific off LowerTrestles, where he used to love to surf.
Don’t really know what else to write here, except that we cannot let McCain be elected to prolong this senseless, pointless tragedy. So much suffering both here & over there. It must stop. Personally, I’m fighting like hell to keep “100 Years in Iraq” McCain from making more coffins arrive @ Dover to ignore as Bush has done, more wounded, more displaced persons, more macho posturing/stupidity, more deceit while pretending to run our country.
From moveon.org- Candles
Have to finally drive in to work. Read you all later.
In the 80s Afghanistand proved the undoing of Soviet hegemony because of the ego and hubris of the government in Russia…
In the new millenium Iraq is proving the undoing of the once-mighty United States because of the ego and hubris of a bunch of men and women who were once too cowardly to put on their country’s uniform because they had other priorities, including sitting around getting richer and richer…
I hope that our great-grandchildren will be good servants to their Chinese Masters who will probably rule with an iron fist in a silk glove throughout millenia of Orwellian Prosperity on the planet Earth.
Fuck the Neocons and their eternal war.
Thank you. So, I’m not completely daft?
I say God Damn the Neocons
OT
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/m…..geId=1.1.1
Dc madam may have killed self or was ?
Going to name names ?
OT
MSNBC: Breaking News: All West Coast cargo traffic halted by port worker war protests
No link yet.
That’s why I ride my bike to work. When I was riding in the winter and it was 12 degrees and I was wiping ice out of my eyelashes, I made myself do it.
I am not advocating celebrating violence and death. And I am certainly not advocating for more of the same.
I am suggesting that we should collectively mourn this nations dead children, grieve for their families and stop the fucking war.
I am also suggesting that the best way to prevent more violence and death, is to make sure that we hang John McCain’s commitment to continue the war around his neck like the Albatross in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Yeah ! Hooray ! Whoopee ! I am so glad.
Hey, I still think the Edward’s campaign should have hired you …
Its worth it. – a Republican mantra. It is meaningless drivel, but it has become a popular aphorism. Republicans have successfully inserted its worth it into our lexicon.
The statement is not valid without defining each of the two its. What is worth what?
ho-ly crap !
For a day? for how long?
I started out by making myself watch and read, in silence.
Now it’s become almost a ritual. Tears? Oh yeah.
It’s hard not to have the mind wander, not away, but towards thoughts of what else, who else, is connected to this fuzzy-chinned 18-year-old kid, or the 40-something Master Sargeant who happens to be a black woman. The kid from Buzzards Bay MA, the grizzled 50-something fellow from AZ.
LOL!
I’ve been outa work now for 14 months. Starting to feel “unemployable.” My wife got laid off back in October, after 23 years with the same company. Gettin’ a bit scary.
Why, getting rid of Saddam and ensuring that Big Oil got bigger. That currency speculators got rich betting against the dollar. That the rich got infinitely richer and that the poor can’t exist without help (but not from our tax dollars, no sir), that we have ensured that the next president and all those who come after are going to have more and more unquestioned and unchecked power because the republicans bullied Nancy-pants into giving up impeachment.
Those things were all worth it for the republicans. For the rest of us, not so much.
Hear, hear. I am growing as many red poppies as I can (not sure how many I’ll get)to protest the criminality, dead soldiers and dead Iraqi civilians. Maybe I should put a cardboard sign up stressing the civilian part as well. The Iraqi children were someone else’s poppies, but still poppies, nonethe less. WWI senselessness meets the criminality of Chimpy. I hope to g*d, that a Dem will be president, and the poppies will be a memorial in a few years, and *not* an ongoing project. I bet I could arrange them in a peace sign on the lawn.
President Obama is going to need all of the best help he can find, of course if you are living in China, you might have to do a lot of flying …
Amen.
Thank you for this post, LHP.
Don’t know for how long. Here’s the AP story which doesn’t have a whole lot other than the basics for right now.
Logistics Management
Ocean cargo: ILWU shuts down West Coast ports in war protest
Patrick Burnson, Executive Editor — Logistics Management, 5/1/2008
SAN FRANCISCO—The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) made good on its threat to stage a virtual strike on May Day, effectively shutting down all U.S. and Canadian West Coast ports. The one-day “work-stoppage,” said ILWU officials, is to protest the war in Iraq and comes at a time when the union is in the middle of contract talks with the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA).
“We are very disappointed and angry about the event,” PMA spokesman, Steve Getzug, told LM today. “It comes after repeated assurances that only a few dockworkers would participate, and that the union would not encourage a mass walk out.”
Despite such promises, said Getzug, there is substantial evidence that union leadership mandated the action. Meanwhile, he said, the PMA would proceed “in good faith” to get a new six-year contract signed with the union before its July 1 deadline expires.
For shippers, however, the event may signal that more trouble lies ahead.
“Longshore workers are standing-down on the job and standing up for America,” said ILWU president Bob McEllrath. “We’re supporting the troops and telling politicians in Washington that it’s time to end the war in Iraq.”
According to McEllrath, the union notified the PMA, “but it refused to accommodate the union’s request.”
The ILWU represents 25,000 dockworkers on the Pacific coast and has staged political protests similar to this one for much of its storied history. The transport disruption, this time though, is happening when many shippers have already decided to source goods using an “all-water” route via the Suez Canal, and call U.S. East Coast ports instead.
Industry analysts have suggested that the unreliable and unstable labor force here may influence the long-term shipping and sourcing strategies of U.S. manufacturers and growers.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
…Lt. Col. John Macrae
It is a terrible thing to have draft-age children when the Republicans are in ‘power’.
Perhaps THIS time the Dems will do better …?
poppies.
to as*crawft that’d git ya on a list fer sure.
It does seem Whacky , and it doe’s it stop her from nameing names .
Not much to go on in the report .
Got to buy a big roll of tin foil .
Maybe its all starting to fall apart SOON!
I’m stuck in Vegas looking after my ailing geriatric parents now. Can’t relocate til both of them expire, which may yet be years notwithstanding their enervated states. Cheryl, though, may have to move to Shanghai if her latest job offer materializes fully. That will suck majorly on many counts.
I understand, Bobby, all too well …
But you have my deepest respect, and you are among those who are in my thoughts …
Mission Accomplished speech
Just a few choices lines:
How many lines of BS can you spot?
meant to post this on the day Murderous Imbecile got his 4000th ‘kill’
they ain’t just statistics – let this load, then mouse over
USA Today
you can leave it all blank and type in just your state
or you can type in ‘rank’ and see how these bastards have truly decimated Army and Marine Corps. – go ahead, check out Sgts, Staff Sgts, Capts, Lt Col’s – a repository of institutional intelligence – now gone. and of course you weep again knowing most of these truly honorable men perished in protecting their grunts – something their bosses at the Pentagon don’t know a gd thing about
http://www.logisticsmgmt.com/i…..id=6556680
SAN FRANCISCO—The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) made good on its threat to stage a virtual strike on May Day, effectively shutting down all U.S. and Canadian West Coast ports. The one-day “work-stoppage,” said ILWU officials, is to protest the war in Iraq and comes at a time when the union is in the middle of contract talks with the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA).
and somewhere, this old dfh is smilin’
“Labor can not stand still. It must not retreat. It must go on, or go under.” “Interfere with the foreign policy of the country?….Sure as hell! That’s our job, that’s our privilege, that’s our right, that’s our duty.’
Here’s more on the longshoremen article and video
from the link above:
Interesting priorities: war okay, disruption on the water not okay.
every sunday i make myself read each and every obituary on the military deaths page. name, age, hometown, the children left behind. i find myself numbed by the generic numbers in the daily headlines: 4 dead, 3 dead, day after day after day. i feel it’s my duty as a citizen to honor the real person behind that day’s number.
this past sunday i noticed several “non combat realated” deaths in iraq and kuwait. usually they specify truck accident, or something. but something about the wording made me think: suicide.
Harry Bridges, a true hero for those who understand …
Thanks, for remembering.
The thing is. George W. Bush is killing America’s sons and Daughters, for no reason!
If he came to your front door and tried to murder your child, you would fight him with all your might.
Well?
If John McCain rang your doorbell and said “if you elect me president, I, too, will come to your front door and seek to murder you child”, would you go ahead an vote for him?
I don’t think so.
I would hope someone will grill McCain on the issues important to troops and vets. What’s he going to do about Walter Reed, health care, living conditions, etc.? Does he know how many died today, this week, this month? The names of those who serve from his home state? IOW, does he really give a hoot or not? I think not.
Just because he was a “war hero” in the past shouldn’t prevent him from being one now for those who are giving their all now.
Might “on the water” mean mutiny, there-in lying the more serious implications for protesters?
The USS Abraham Lincoln is now back in the Gulf. Perhaps Bush was right on one point though. They won’t be fighting in the IRAQ war this time.
Oh, that is, unless the Iraqi militias and military and people rise up if we attack IRAN.
My understanding is that these workers are on the docks, not on the ships…
God Bless the Dockworkers! Maybe now we will start seeing some protests that will shake the complacent DEMOCRATS in Congress out of their nitogen narcosis and make them realize that they are gonna be saddled with this quagmire, not just for the short-term…but in perpetuity…if they don’t start resisting the Bush-Cheney plans to keep us there.
His place in history will be a footnote…a bit like Eisenhower’s was to Vietnam…if the whole manure-pile hits the fan.
I would point out that it’s the association of corporations (the Pacific Maritime Association) that is saying that “disruption on the water” is unacceptable, not the ILWU (the Longshoreman’s Union). I think that the strike initiated today (a day early) in order to forestall the PMA from rushing ships into port and off-loading them. The strike was known fabout for months so the PMA had scheduled around it to reduce its impact.
The ILWU threw those plans into chaos by starting it a day early. Thus there will be “disruption on the water”…ships backed up waiting to dock. It should be an interesting sight if you stroll out to the port of Seattle or SF or Long Beach. I wonder if there will be ships sitting in the Sacramento river, the crews twiddling their thumps saying WTF!
Read the links. It’s dock workers and they are trying to get the truckers to join in.
It’s not a mutiny at sea
Please don’t get me wrong, LHP. I mourn the loss of life and limb and mental health for a war with NO just cause, a war built on the lies and greed of heinous criminals. I want it stopped. I want the perpetrators in jail. Mere impeachment is not enough.
I will vote against any and all Republicans, because of this war; because they are destroying our country, other people’s lands, our environment, civilization and civility as we used to know it.
Yes. There were tears here also when the Afghanistan National Archives and Library were allowed to burn to the ground with virtually total loss of all contents. There are tears for the continuing losses there and in the many areas of the “cradle of civilization” in which the suffering and destruction continues unabated.
I will vote against anyone who enables these monsters to do their dirty deeds, with one caveat. I will, this time, vote FOR ANY Democrat, even if it’s merely a lampost with a burnt-out bulb. We MUST drive up the numbers of Democrats in the legislature to fight against the clueless, destructive, obstructionist mindset of most current members of the Republican party.
Mine too. I was responding to the report of a decision NOT to protest while on the water.
OT alex jones (yes, i listen to about anything, i move the dial around) just played an interview with debra palfrey, dc madam–that she had no plans for suicide, quite the opposite…hope she left notes in a safety deposit box. bet she did. think it’s been emptied yet?
i don’t usually chime in on the gossip stuff, cuz it’s gossip, but after hearing this interview there is NO WAY this woman killed herself….no way.
i’ve heard other interviews with her, and she was sittin’ on dynamite and knew it. and so did ’they’.
/g gossip tag now closed.
ok, on the road again…….
We are into the second window for an attack on Iran which I figure extends from April 29-May 12 with the best dates being the nights of May 3-7. Parenthetically, Israel’s 60th anniversary will be celebrated on May 8th.
Yes, thanks for clarifying and apologies for those I may have confused! I drive up to SF later today and will certainly be checking the bay to see what I can see!
Hopefully the captains are sharp and sober today.
Seriously, I was responding to the quote at your #64.
To wit:
I’m not trying to argue with you. I think we agree. What I said was meant as a possible explanation of why the PMA spokesman said what he did.
Yeah, I’ll just add to the gossip the fact that police say it’s a suicide for sure except that they won’t release manner of death…and females are known to be finicky about method. Details better be forthcoming PDQ!
I have no knowledge of anything about the Palfrey case but it reminds me of the Stalin era joke about the poet who killed himself. His last words were “Comrades, don’t shoot.”
How about a reminder to the (D) faithful that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have no real plans to withdraw US forces from the middle east, how both parrot the right-wing-talking-points of Dick Cheney that “all options are on the table” wrt the non-existent, neo-con hyped ‘threat’ from Iran… and how their flatfooted accomodation of the Bush’s next war of agression positions them to lose the election in Nov 2008, with the media in propaganda overdrive against the newest Hitler model…
without serious opposition on the part of (D) leaders their wedge-issue rhetoric against the failures of the Iraq strategy ring awfully hollow…
knew i shuddernt play wit fire in a firehouse.
sorry gang. time to…. whatever.
Adie. I think we agree also. And yes, I was being extra pissy about the PMA because, well blast it, I think the contrast between what’s acceptable at home and what’s acceptable in a faraway land where we don’t belong…that contrast just jumped out at me. I mean: that’s the whole point of the protest.
I’m yelling at the situation, not you! ;)
Hey, no hard feelings! at all. I don’t think anyone is upset with you. just so you know. see you later?
i warn’t no english major, but i do reckonize high anxiety.
P.E.A.C.E. Pups!
Thanks dosido. My
tortured (ouch – must be a better word)lousy clumsy reasoning doesn’t help my cause sometimes.Absolutely! I’m addicted to this place and all u pups. ;->
Adie, I don’t think anyone is mad at you. We just thought you were laboring under a misunderstanding and sought to give you what we believed were more accurate facts. No biggee
(((Hugs)))
Hey LHP, just to add insult to injury, mccain says mission accomplished banner not bush’s fault…do I have any hair left? did i pull it all out?
One of the good things about being bald is no hair left to be pulled out…
othing is ever Bush’s fault. he gets bailed out every time. That man has never known a nan second of accountability.
Thanks to Pelosi, he probably never will. ARRRRGGGGHhhhhh
This is way epu-ed but today on local radio they are marking the return of the remains of an 18-year-old soldier from Wahpeton, to the south of Fargo. The Patriot Guard motorcycle group will accompany him from the Fargo airport 60 miles or so down the highway, past the grade school and high school sites he left behind long ago.
He was 18. He was MIA. He died in Korea.
How long must this war’s families of soldiers bear such burdens? When is enough enough?
It’s really convenient that so many powerful people in DC found Palfrey a bit of a threat & wished she would shut up & go away. And now she has.
Sort of like the upscale whoremaster David Strathairn played in L.A. Confidential. He left a note, too, but the movie detectives noticed a couple of his fingers had been broken while he was “committing suicide”.
Wonder if there will be anything like an investigation of what caused the DC Madam’s death.