From The Hartford Courant, 5/25/08:
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/commentary/hc-runoverreeves0525.artmay25,0,6794295.story?track=rss
Bush's Dirty Trick On Iraq Veterans
By RICHARD REEVES
......................................................................................................
Whatever one thinks of the war and the officials who planned it, those
soldiers and reservists out there deserve more than moral sup****t.
My stomach literally turned when I read this paragraph in The New York
Times last Thursday morning:
"President Bush is threatening to veto a bill that would pay tuition
and other expenses at a four-year public university for anyone who has
served in the military for three years since the attacks of Sept. 11,
2001. A main reason is that it would hasten an exodus from the ranks."
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates put it this way:
"Serious retention issues could arise."
I bet they could.
And should.
The war is being fought by a tiny percentage of the American people,
and many of their lives are being ruined.
You want a war, Mr. President?
Then ask Congress to declare one.
You want soldiers to be retained?
Then ask for a draft.
You want to sup****t our boys and girls?
Then sup****t their education as other presidents and Congresses have
done since the passage of the great GI Bill of Rights during World War
II — legislation that is still benefiting this country.
What is being done to our troops in Iraq is more than a failure of
political leader****p;
it is an outrage.
Forget the fact that we never declared war, or that we never had a
real plan about what to do in Iraq, or that we are fighting on credit,
leaving the bills for our children and grandchildren.
Remember that only a small number are involved in this — the same
people, professionals and reservists, are being called back into
harm's way again and again.
Those young men and women, serving a government without the guts to
even talk about a draft, are essentially indentured servants.
Worse.
At least indentured servants knew when their obligation would be over.
This is more than unfair;
it is shameful, a stain on the democracy and its leaders.
And now the president is considering depriving them of a reward they
deserve because some of them might actually take it and not re-enlist.
This is a professional army?
There was a time when troops treated that way, no matter how
well-trained or equipped, were called cannon fodder.
We owe them.
The president whose ignorance put them in the Middle East owes them.
The Congress, which is ever looking the other way and has not declared
war on anyone since 1941, owes them.
This war is not worthy of a free country.
And unless we do something for the young people bravely taking the
punishment for the failings of their elders, we have no right to claim
this is a land of the free.
__________________________________________________
Richard Reeves on this Memorial Day
Harry
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