A Veteran's Letter to a Chickenhawk

Bob Geiger, US Navy Veteran and proprietor of the Yellow Dog Blog, has written a powerful open letter to our miserable (and rabidly partisan) Chickenhawk in Chief, Preznit Bring 'Em On, outlining his feelings about the Great Pretender's commitment to the military and true level of patriotism. On this Veteran's Day, when we find ourselves embroiled in a war of choice, an unnecessary, immoral and illegal engagement of preemptive carnage, it is important to remember the sacrifices that Veterans have made for this country in the past. It is just as important to recognize that those sacrifices are being cheapened and undercut by this administration's flippant disregard for the lives of its present-day soldiers, sending them off to be wounded and killed, and to kill and maim others for nothing more than a crock full of bald-faced lies, wrong-headed assumptions and no-bid crony contracts.

Here's some of what Bob has to say to Flightsuit AWOL:

It is now an indisputable matter of fact that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and no immediate way of attaining that capability. That didn't stop you, Vice President Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and anyone else you could get in front of a camera from lying about that contention which, at the very least, you had evidence to suggest might not be true. But then, we saw how much you listened to Ambassador Joe Wilson when he tried to set you straight, didn't we?

There was also no link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda and no connection between Iraq and the events of September 11, both of which you misled us about originally and continue to imply, in a despicable attempt to bolster your presidency to a nation that is now collectively seeing the truth.

As a Veteran, I resent this, I resent your administration and I most certainly resent you.

[snip]

Because of all of this, I "celebrate" Veterans Day by thinking of 2,057 Americans who, because of you, will never hug their spouses or parents again and will never see their kids grow up. I think of the 100,000 Iraqis you have killed by using the honorable intentions and service of those on active duty in such a dishonest and horrible way. I think of the 15,000 brave men and women who will exist for the rest of their lives minus a limb and those who will forever carry the mental images of war because of your personal agenda —an agenda that had nothing whatsoever to do with national security.

And, because of the budget cuts that your administration has visited on returning Veterans of the Iraq war, many of them cannot get desperately-needed treatment, which is the icing on the cake of your five-year display of bad faith toward those who have served.

There's more. Pay your respects to a genuine Veteran and read it all.