Of Irony, Sacrifice, and Betrayal

As I drove home today I was listening to a report about the Moussaoui trial. The segment I was listening to was about the testimony of a Firefighter who, on September 11, 2001, was watching as his friend and fellow Firefighter was killed by the falling body of a victim of the al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center who had jumped to his death. The irony of this event wasn’t lost on me nor was the pain that I felt and understood as I heard this report. The narrative triggered a series of thoughts and emotions that began as a flashback. I found myself reliving the lose of my friends and comrades in arms and I was seeing all of them falling and dying all over again but this time it was all of them at once. For anyone who has experienced such an event the shear horror of it cannot be expressed and the knowledge that on that day events such as that were occurring all around the Trade Center sickened my heart.

I then, in my minds eye, fast forwarded to the present and my thoughts moved to each of the 2,345 soldiers who have given their lives since the beginning of the Iraq conflict and each of the 17,469 soldiers who have spilled their blood and left parts of themselves in the deserts and streets of Iraq and then on to each of the estimated 100,000+ Iraqi deaths since the beginning of the conflict. My mind just kept reeling with the images of the men, women, and children dying and being crippled by the ravages of war.

The nausea was still with me earlier this evening as I watched the news and reports on how I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby testified before a Grand Jury that Vice President Cheney told him that President Bush had authorized him to leak classified information in the Valerie Plame case and Alberto Gonzales’ testifying before Congress that the President can authorize warrantless domestic wiretaps if they are al Qaeda related and then report after report of corruption and political cronyism. As I watched these reports, just as vividly as my flashbacks, came my remembered images of the endless series of interviews and speeches by President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Codolezza Rice, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld spewing a never ending series of purposefully deceptive statements, deceitful misrepresentations and plain lies. And just as vividly the never ending line of Republican Senators, Congressmen, and of course the sometimes suffocating masses of conservative talking heads spewing the same vile deceit and attempting to justify the grotesquely incompetent actions of their President and his administration.

As I watched and experienced these things the sickening reality came into crystal clear focus that on September 11, 2001 this nation was assaulted by a terrorist organization led by Osama Bin Laden that took the lives of thousands of Americans and the only member of that organization who has been brought to justice is a delusional “wanna be” named Moussaoui. The sickening reality came into crystal clear focus that our nation’s leadership, aided by both the active and complicit support of the Republican leadership of the Senate and House of Representatives and a parade of conservative pundits, misled and lied to the American people and took the nation to war and into an occupation of a sovereign nation that had absolutely nothing to do with the assault on the United States. As I watched these things the sickening reality came into crystal clear focus that thousands upon thousands of people have died as a result of their deception and immoral and illegal actions.

This nation has been betrayed by the President of the United States, his administration and the Republican Leadership of the Senate and Congress. They have been betrayed and the cost of that betrayal is absolutely inconceivable, disgusting and sad and stretches from the banks of the Tigress River to the Gulf shores of Mississippi and Louisiana touching the lives of Iraqis, Americans, and countless others.

Those Are The Sergeant Majors Thoughts On That.