I just finished watching the News Hour interview with Sen. Patty Murray, D-WA, and a truly reprehensible Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, about the VA/Military Hospitals care. Twice in the space of the interview Graham went out of his way to throw blame on Sgt's and maintenence workers and lower ranking officers for the mess at Walter Reed, and, incredibly enough, at Abu Ghraib.
And $250,000 was spent in 2005 to renovate the building. My question is, as a military lawyer for 20-something years, who was the first sergeant in charge of Building 18? Who was the company commander whose job it is to inspect facilities?
And we want to hold commanders at the highest level accountable, but there is also a chain of command down below. Some rooms in Building 218 got to be deplorable because it was just not structurally sound. Somebody in the Army is responsible for maintaining that building. I want to know who they were and why they didn't do a better job. [...]
What was Abu Ghraib about? It was about not enough people to run the jail who were poorly trained.
Nice. I'm surprised he didn't try to toss Bill Clinton that bus too.
Sen. Murray did a pretty good job making the case that the problem stems in large part from the failure of the administration to properly plan for Cheney's War of Occupation, and she also noted a couple of times that the Bush Administration is impeding the Congress in trying to correct the problems.
And I think that, you know, here in the Senate, we're not going to sit by idly and wait for more commissions. We are going to get to work and try to deal with this, but that takes honesty from this administration.
An honesty lacking by this administration and apologists like Lindsey Graham. They won't tell Congress how many traumatic brain injuries there are, as Murray clearly puts it, frankly, what we've seen from the V.A. is the same thing we've seen from the Pentagon, at this point, is that we haven't been given honest numbers and assessments of what this war is costing so that we can provide the resources that are needed.
And that's the crux of this matter, it's the filter you need to look through with every outrage surrounding this stinking "war."
We cannot know the true costs of this war, the real costs, the costs that affect and impact our actual lives, not the fantasy lives of the media narrative, of our national psyche, of our detached and disconnected world, no, we cannot know what this war is actually costing us, because if we do ever figure it out, the support for this "war" and the criminal corporate nationalistic enterprise it is feeding, will fall through the floor, and there will be some repurcussions unlike any this nation has ever seen. Mark my words, for there is no justification for this war. It was wrong the instant it was moved out of the bowels of PNAC, it was wrong in every way when it was pushed by Cheney's special plans group, by Rummy and Scooter and Powell and Graham and Lieberman and every other enabler and nationalist and oilogopolist. And maybe, just maybe, if we keep pushing this story of the failed care of our troops, if we keep pushing our weak-kneed Congressmen to act, maybe, just maybe, the scales will fall from our eyes, and we shall see; and seeing, we shall know the truth; and knowing the truth, we will be set free from our bonds of greed and fear.
And there will be celebrations across the land.
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