Tag: freedom

Iraq

There have been 4,491 coalition deaths — 4,177 Americans, 2 Australians, 1 Azerbaijani, 176 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, 1 Czech, 7 Danes, 2 Dutch, 2 Estonians, 1 Fijian, 5 Georgians, 1 Hungarian, 33 Italians, 1 Kazakh, 1 Korean, 3 Latvian, 22 Poles, 3 Romanians, 5 Salvadoran, 4 Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, 2 Thai and 18 Ukrainians — in the war in Iraq as of October 3, 2008, according to a CNN count. { Graphical breakdown of casualties }. The list below is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose deaths have been reported by their country’s governments. The list also includes seven employees of the U.S. Defense Department. At least 30,680 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon. View casualties in the war in Afghanistan.

Iraq

There have been 4,468 coalition deaths — 4,154 Americans, 2 Australians, 1 Azerbaijani, 176 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, 1 Czech, 7 Danes, 2 Dutch, 2 Estonians, 1 Fijian, 5 Georgians, 1 Hungarian, 33 Italians, 1 Kazakh, 1 Korean, 3 Latvian, 22 Poles, 3 Romanians, 5 Salvadoran, 4 Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, 2 Thai and 18 Ukrainians — in the war in Iraq as of September 5, 2008, according to a CNN count. { Graphical breakdown of casualties }. The list below is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose deaths have been reported by their country’s governments. The list also includes seven employees of the U.S. Defense Department. At least 30,568 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon. View casualties in the war in Afghanistan.

If my math is right, which is doubtful, 8 years equals 2,920 days. After the 2000 (s)election the Supreme Court sentenced us to 1460 days ( 4 years) of George “the torturer” Bush and his nefarious henchmen. Thus begun the Republican reign of Terror. The apparently masochistic American people, in a majority  just large enough to allow Rove’s Rat Fuckers carry the day, sentenced us to another 1460 days in november of 2004. Now like a prisoner scratching off the days on his cell wall, we are getting near the end of doing our time. Of being released from bondage. We are short timers now, about to be freed, but still with enough serious time left to not think about our day of deliverance too hard for fear of jinxing it somehow, for fear that our long awaited freedom will somehow, someway be denied.

80 days, “my friends,” 80 days until the election, 2 and a half months, less than a quarter of a year until the first milestone on our path to freedom. 80 days until we find out if we are finally paroled and then 78 more until we are truly free. That’s right 158 days until george Bush leaves office and rides into the sunset….hopefully hounded by not just his conscience, but by the Forces of Justice and the Hounds of Karma.

158 days….and at midnight tonight we are down to only 157!!! Five months and change. An eternity to wait while looking forward, but a mere sliver of time looking back over all the long dark minutes, hours, days, weeks months and years. There were times I thought the long dark days of madness would never end….but now finally, after all of the horrors of the Bush Eon,,,,,,we are within spitting distance of liberation. Of release. Of Freedom!

So though we most definitely DONT want to jinx it, (knock wood etc.) we all know that a really good party takes time to plan. And we have TWO parties to think about, one after election day….and then The Big One, Inauguration Day! It’s not too soon to start thinking about it, to start saving up the booze (and whatever) fund, think about ordering a cake and balloons, maybe even lay in some fireworks! But even that doesn’t seem like enough! What are your party plans? What can we do to really mark the end of an error, and celebrate VB Day?

Staff Sgt. Alex Jimenez comes home for funeral

A hearse bearing the remains of 25-year-old Staff Sgt. Alex Jimenez came to a halt in front of his father’s house in Lawrence, the scene of a 14-month vigil as the family awaited word of his fate. A memorial shrine with floral arrangements and half-burned votive candles was on the sidewalk. (7-25-08)

A Nation that sends its Sons and Daughters into Occupations?

A C-17 Airforce Transport plane arrives in Kandahar, Afghanistan to receive the bodies of five U.S. service members killed. Though more than 1,000 US and coalition forces were on hand to participate in the “ramp ceremony,” a Los Angeles Times reporter and photographer were asked to leave the area by a military public affairs officer. A Pentagon policy banning coverage of this particular event was cited as the reason. [Photo: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times]

It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.

Dick Cheney

• we’ll ask the prisoners at Gitmo and get back to you, dick…

• we’d like to ask those who died in Iraq for your oil buddies… just don’t how to reach them

• maybe you could survey, face-to-face, some of those who are no longer free to use their limbs or who lost their peace of mind, their sanity… ask them if your freedom to wage an illegal war was worth the price of their freedom

Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and

another of darkness on the confines of two everlasting hostile empires.

^{Thomas Carlyle}

We all remember the fanfare of the Bush administration declaring Iraq a sovereign country. Our war criminal king George stuck his thumbs into his arm pits and crowed.

“After decades of brutal rule by a terror regime, the Iraqi people have their country back,” Mr. Bush said in Istanbul at a gathering of NATO leaders, who agreed Monday to help rebuild Iraq’s security forces.

– Source

And who can forget the touching love note from Condi to Bush announcing that L. Paul Bremer had finished rewriting Iraqi laws and handed over the keys to Saddam’s palaces to the interim Iraqi government.

My question is what does Iraqi sovereignty mean? I have to ask because Iraqi airspace and territory have been repeatedly violated by Turkey, with the United States supplying the Turkish military with intelligence to conduct “incursions” into Iraq.