A Time for Change

On this Memorial Day, it is important to put things in context. First, remember those sons and daughters, wives and husbands, friends and lovers who have died and/or been injured in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The following statistics are from antiwar.com.  Each of these statistics represents a living, breathing loved one to someone prior to the war. 

American Military Casualties in Iraq

American Deaths

Since war began (3/19/03): 4300 Total   3448   In Combat

Since “Mission Accomplished” (5/1/03)  4,161 Total  3340 In combat

Total Wounded: 31285 Official     Others estimate Over 100,000

Latest Fatality May 23, 2009

CNN has an article about “area 60″ of Arlington National Cemetery where 500 soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan are buried. It is a very good story to remember when we think about our economic condition and how things used to be better.

Flowers arrived at Capt. Marissa Alexander’s office at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on June 3, 2005.

Her husband, Staff Sgt. Leroy Alexander, was half a world away fighting with the Special Forces in Afghanistan, but he had found a way to send a floral arrangement to his wife, who was five months pregnant with twins.

“He called me and asked me what building I worked in. He said he had to update some records,” Alexander said. The flowers lifted her spirits.

But a few hours later, her emotions would be thrown into a tailspin. Alexander saw two Armyofficers in dress uniforms knock on her front door.

One of the officers started to talk: “We regret to inform you…”

If he said any more, Alexander doesn’t remember. “The next memory I have is in my kitchen, banging on the floor. I just couldn’t believe it,” she said.

A roadside bomb had made her a widow.

Staff Sgt. Alexander now lies  in area 60 along with hundreds of other fallen soldiers.

Iraqi Deaths due to US Invasion

When you see the members of the Bush administration talk about how much better off the Iraqi people are than they were under Saddam Hussein consider the below statitstics from antiwar.com. If you want to know why the man who threw his shoes at Bush was such a hero in Iraq, try to wrap your mind around the following statistic and think again.  The next time Cheney brings himself back out of hiding to say how safe the Bush administration made us, think about the below number of Iraqi dead to date in this war, how collectively angry we were when foreigners came to our country and killed 3,000 people on our soil, how we wanted revenge for the murders and how we were willing to do whatever it takes to get that revenge.

1,331,578

Now think about how there never was any link between al Qaeda and Saddam and that Cheney and Bush tortured to try to establish that link to justify a war that had no basis in fact and which was premised upon multiple lies from the Bush administration.

Do you feel safer because of Cheney and Bush torture policies and their war in Iraq?  

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Yet another gun spree has resulted in two deaths and another five injured.  Among the dead and/or injured was a police officer and a 10 year  child who suffered a graze wound to the head.  This was allegedly prompted by some sort of “altercation” during a graduation party.  ”The suspect went to his car, got a gun and shot two people dead on the front lawn…Police were eventually able to persuade him to leave the house and give himself up,” according to CNN.  

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Buckingham Palace

A Buckingham Palace chauffeur, Brian Sirjusingh, is alleged to have accepted 1,000 pounds (or about $1,500 USD) to allow two reporters posing as welathy Middle-Eastern businessmen access to the Queen’s garage and cars.

Mazher Mahmood, of the London-based News of the World, claimed he was allowed to enter the London residence of Queen Elizabeth II without security checks after paying a man identified as a Buckingham chauffeur £1,000 ($1,591).

Footage of the incident filmed undercover showed the chauffeur giving Mahmood, whose face was blurred, a tour of the royal garage and, at one point, allowing him to sit in one of the vehicles.

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“Our investigator is sitting where the queen sits in the royal limo,” Jobson said, referring to the video. “And the fact is, we’ve been told that security has been tightened up, that these things wouldn’t happen again, new rules and regulations were brought in — they simply haven’t worked.”

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Meanwhile, Mahmood’s editor, Robert Jobson, told ITN: “Nobody stopped him, nobody actually challenged him. It actually exposes a serious lapse in security at Buckingham Palace.”

According to CNN, The chauffeur has since been suspended pending an investigation.  

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