Well of course they are getting screwed. Whenever I see Bush, Kristol, or any other of the neoCons denying this stuff is happening I fully expect them to flick a foot-long tongue at a passing fly at any given second. What do you expect?

Until men and women like this guy understand that their service is not valued in the slightest by the rulers of this nation, nor the majority of the citizens, you will continue to see this story. It goes back to the fuckin' Civil War. We need to stop acting like this is some new issue.

It's not.

The best way to avoid these sort of problems is to avoid signing up to kill people for no good reason.

That's right. And if you don't appreciate my question answer me this.

Why did we fight an illegal war in Vietnam?

Why are we occupying Iraq?

As most people know there are no good answers to those questions.

I know it is selfish, but every time I read about a vet who was injured and not getting the needed help from his/our government, I thank God (or whoever is there or not there) that our son, Kristofer, came back whole and mentally well.

After that, I get really angry and know why the 2nd amendment could really be important.

Earlier in this term, the VA was exposed for directing hearings officers to rule against veterans' claims to save money. This is criminal, and the administration is once again guilty of betraying those it deceives into fighting on, and on, and on, and on...

In RE #7:
Since it was the supreme court that anointed Bush, I wonder how they sleep at night, seeing what those few people have done to this once great country. And, in this case, its soldiers having to fight for what is rightfully theirs.
How different it would have been if they had let the vote count proceed and Gore win.

The right wing is hoping they get killed over there so we don't have to give them benefits over here.

They had a bill last year to increase benefits for the military but a prominent member of the Democrats who is running for president didn't bother to show up to vote. I'm not mentioning names because his butt kissers mess them selves. But if these type of things were made public we would see that Democrats as well as McCain are dissing our troops.

His regular chech was $730 a month?

Who the hell can live on $730 a month?

L.A. Confidential @ 17:

Apr 12 3:44 AM
Recent violence in Basra has convinced the administration of President George W. Bush that Iran and not Al-Qaeda is now the primary threat to US interests in Iraq.

Petraeus Points to War With Iran
6 hours ago
David Petraeus has been laying the predicate for US air strikes on Iran and a wider war in the Middle East. Iran, Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services.

'Iran building 6000-km range missile'
Janes: Iran seeks long-range missiles PRESS TV
Iran Secretly Tests Long-Range Missile NewsMax.com
Iran's secret missile launch site pinpointed: report AFP

CNN - 4 hours ago
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran denied a report that several of its boats taunted a US Navy vessel in the Persian Gulf on Thursday night, according to IRNA, ...
Iran denies confrontation with US in Persian Gulf ISNA
Iran: Naval encounter routine check PRESS TV
CNN: Iran confronted US in Persian Gulf IranMania News

See where we are heading?

Jake @ 21:

Tim Sanders is 32 years old. I would love to ask him who he voted for in '96, 2000, and 2004. Like many vets he probably voted for Dole and then Bush while calling Democrats "commie fags". Who's wearing the blue dress now?

I would not assume that. Stereotyping people is rather naive. It does not matter what a person's politics are, that is not the issue here.

Very distrubing. I wonder if either McCain, Hillary or Obama has taken this into
consideration when they talk about their respective "universal health care" proposals?
That is, click on the blue underscored "growing backlog of claims" above for some
statistical data as to the costs that are projected to be incurred w/respect to
military personnel returning from Iraq.

Underground Pirate @ 23:

Kharma anyone ?

It's Karma. Not Kharma

xoites defends Constitution @ 25:

Underground Pirate @ 23:

Kharma anyone ?These morons (US soldiers) enlisted to make a living by killing other humans. This is the payback that
they deserve. To hell with the soldiers and anyone who profits by the suffering of others!

Eat me.

Ditto that..."eat me too" Be reminded asshole, that many of the men and women
serving in Iraq at present are National Guard personnel, and had NO choice but to
leave their jobs/families/friends and be thrown into bush's disasterous war.

I AM RIGHT THERE WITH YOU BUDDY. I am a 2 time Iraq Farce Veteran, who will be relying on the VA to assist in what the government took away from me. I have had multiple brain injuries and will need the assistance of the VA to regulate difficulties that my wife and I have encountered through being Injured.
Since the VA money comes from a YEARLY allocation in the Federal Budget, ( information comes from Gore Vidal's, "Dreaming War") our emperors are continually diving into monetary allocations like the Veterans Affairs Trust, Social Security, and Medicare Trusts just to sustain the Military Budget. Unless we speak out and raise HELL ( which I am going to be doing my part in Salt Lake City in the next few months), more than just Veterans are going to be losing their entitlements! NONVIOLENT DIRECT ACTION is what this is going to take!

Just wait until the word gets out that John McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, Henry "The War Criminal" Kissinger said this:

"Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy."

http://www.vegsource.com/talk/flame/messages/1004833.html

I'd really like to see Wolf Blitzer or Sean Hannity confront Mr. "100 Years in Iraq" with this one. Here's what he'd say, "Humina, humina, humina."

Support the troops! Yeah, right.

Abbybwood @ 32:

Just wait until the word gets out that John McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, Henry "The War Criminal" Kissinger said this:

"Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy."

http://www.vegsource.com/talk/flame/messages/1004833.html

I'd really like to see Wolf Blitzer or Sean Hannity confront Mr. "100 Years in Iraq" with this one. Here's what he'd say, "Humina, humina, humina."

Support the troops! Yeah, right.

Henry Kissinger is one of the biggest disasters American Foriegn Policy has ever been influenced by. It was his idea to prolong the Vietnam War past Nixon's reelection bid for the sole purpose of winning the election. It was his idea to overthrow Salvadore Alliende in Chile. He can't go to Europe anymore for fear of arrest on War Crimes charges. I would vote Ronald McDonald before i would vote for anyone who has him as an advisor.

Donaldd @ 35:

I've "Stuck to my guns' all my life. It's a old expression meaning "Hang in there." I'll continue to "Stick (cling) to my guns" against John McCain's eligibility to run for president in violation of the 14th Amendment.

McCain was born in Colon, Republic of Panama Aug 29, 1936 not within the Canal Zone or on the Coco Solo military base that didn't have a hospital in service until Sept, 1942.

McCain is a Naturalized Citizen by Statute; not Natural Born.

If he was born to a Military parent while stationed overseas he is a citizen.

L.A. Confidential @ 13:

Pelosi will fix it.

When there is no answer, the wingnuts come up with a lame comment. How sad.

L.A. Confidential @ 20:

'Iran building 6000-km range missile'
Janes: Iran seeks long-range missiles PRESS TV
Iran Secretly Tests Long-Range Missile NewsMax.com
Iran's secret missile launch site pinpointed: report AFP

blah..blah..blah...

What does this have to do with the topic at hand?

Has anybody seen any coverage about the Iraq Veterans Against the War seizing the National Archives building on March 19, 2008?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxGX4QdURCo

Another one of Rush Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" no doubt.

Bush, Cheney etc come on the tube and I get sick when I see them wearing an American flag pin in their lapel. I want to scream at them to take it off until they do right by the vets. Whoever said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel was dead on.

Is there ANY agency in this REGIME that isn't inept or out and out criminial
I guess when chimpy took over the motto was get all you can and make sure you show that government doesn't work.

MountainMan23 @ 11:

Should be required reading in every high school, junior college, college and university in the US:

Major General Smedley Butler: War Is A Racket (1935)

Chapter 3: Who Pays The Bills?
Who provides the profits – these nice little profits of 20, 100, 300, 1,500 and 1,800 per cent? We all pay them – in taxation.
...
But the soldier pays the biggest part of the bill.

If you don't believe this, visit the American cemeteries on the battlefields abroad. Or visit any of the veteran's hospitals in the United States. On a tour of the country, in the midst of which I am at the time of this writing, I have visited eighteen government hospitals for veterans. In them are a total of about 50,000 destroyed men – men who were the pick of the nation eighteen years ago. The very able chief surgeon at the government hospital; at Milwaukee, where there are 3,800 of the living dead, told me that mortality among veterans is three times as great as among those who stayed at home.

Boys with a normal viewpoint were taken out of the fields and offices and factories and classrooms and put into the ranks. There they were remolded; they were made over; they were made to "about face"; to regard murder as the order of the day. They were put shoulder to shoulder and, through mass psychology, they were entirely changed. We used them for a couple of years and trained them to think nothing at all of killing or of being killed.

Then, suddenly, we discharged them and told them to make another "about face" ! This time they had to do their own readjustment, sans [without] mass psychology, sans officers' aid and advice and sans nation-wide propaganda. We didn't need them any more. So we scattered them about without any "three-minute" or "Liberty Loan" speeches or parades. Many, too many, of these fine young boys are eventually destroyed, mentally, because they could not make that final "about face" alone.

In the government hospital in Marion, Indiana, 1,800 of these boys are in pens! Five hundred of them in a barracks with steel bars and wires all around outside the buildings and on the porches. These already have been mentally destroyed. These boys don't even look like human beings. Oh, the looks on their faces! Physically, they are in good shape; mentally, they are gone.

There are thousands and thousands of these cases ...

that va hospital is in marion illinoise not indiana, and ive talked to vets whove been thier and theyd die before they went back!

A brave new world or a vision of the future, how GWB is going to solve the housing mortgage problem Herbert Hoover style.

tada Bushvilles from an archived newsie-holograph story dated 2028

A Bushville was the popular name for a shanty town, examples of which were found in many United States communities during the Great Depression of the 2000s.

The word "Bushville" derives from the name of the President of the United States at the beginning of the Depression, George W Bush. They used Bush's name because they were frustrated and disappointed with his involvement in the relief effort for the Depression.

These settlements were often formed in horrible neighborhoods or desolate areas and consisted of dozens or hundreds of shacks and tents that were temporary residences of those left unemployed and homeless by the Depression. People slept in anything from open piano crates to the ground. Authorities did not officially recognize these Bushvilles and occasionally removed the occupants for technically trespassing on private lands, but they were frequently tolerated out of necessity.

Some of the men who were made to live in these conditions possessed building skills and were able to build their houses out of stone. Most people, however, resorted to building their residences out of box wood, cardboard, and any scraps of metal they could find. Some individuals even lived in sewer mains.

Most of these unemployed residents of the Bushvilles begged for food from those who had housing during this era. Several other terms came into use during this era, such as "Bush blanket" (old newspaper used as blanketing) and "Bush flag" (an empty pocket turned inside out). "Bush leather" was cardboard used to line a shoe with the sole worn through. A "Bush wagon" was a car with horses tied to it because the owner could not afford fuel.

Unfortunately, the type of situation that Sanders is facing is all to common. I've been in and around the military and the VA for most of my life. Everyone I know that has served, which includes myself are and have been part of that system. Its always like that and with all of the benefits.  I guess for many people that have never served or never been around the VA it comes a great big shock.  It doesn't to us.  Its just as a friend of mine termed it, "Straight up ghetto."

By the way, Sanders is in for a long, long fight. At least he is listed as 50% disabled. It took my father 35 years to get that rating and he gets a check for about the same amount as Sanders.

Just hope we don't see this again

These veterans aren't going to take much more of this shit!

Heck of a way to support the troops, Bushie

Here's somethings you can do yourself:
Go to any rightwing,"we support and love the troops like no others do", blogpile of your choice and dial up their archives from 2/17/07 and work forward. That was the date of the Walter Reed AMC expose by Dana Priest in WaPo. See what they said about that. I checked out 3 and came up with zilch, nada, goose egg, zero, no comment. Remarkable!

Then start bombarding the American Legion with emails and ask them what they're going to do about this. That organization, which is supposed to represent veteran's interests, has been a consistently used friendly audience by Bush and Cheney as a backdrop for many of their Patriotism rants - you know, those old white headed guys with the blue piss cutters and lots of shiny stuff hanging all over them. They're the same organization that took out paid advertising pushing for Bush's FISA telecom amnesty plan. WTF did that have to do with veterans???
That's where you need to start turning up the heat - right under the seat of this biased Republican backing disgrace of a veteran's association.

StirFry @ 61:

Underground Pirate @ 23:

Kharma anyone ?These morons (US soldiers) enlisted to make a living by killing other humans. This is the payback that
they deserve. To hell with the soldiers and anyone who profits by the suffering of others!

Go Fox yourself.

Its easy and understandable to say war is bad and soldiering is a bad career, and worse for our economy and social attitudes,
but when its at an individual level, support has to be given and done.
Americas MIC and military spending is 10 times what any other country spends and over 50% of the worlds level.
America has 5% of the worlds population etc, so why spend 50%... something wrong there.
Do we really want to be a war economy, surely theres better ways to run a country and interact with the rest of the world.

this is why the webb gi bill is so important

anyone who serves their country must be treated with respect

bush hates the troops

maya @ 62:

Here's somethings you can do yourself:
Go to any rightwing,"we support and love the troops like no others do", blogpile of your choice and dial up their archives from 2/17/07 and work forward. That was the date of the Walter Reed AMC expose by Dana Priest in WaPo. See what they said about that. I checked out 3 and came up with zilch, nada, goose egg, zero, no comment. Remarkable!

Then start bombarding the American Legion with emails and ask them what they're going to do about this. That organization, which is supposed to represent veteran's interests, has been a consistently used friendly audience by Bush and Cheney as a backdrop for many of their Patriotism rants - you know, those old white headed guys with the blue piss cutters and lots of shiny stuff hanging all over them. They're the same organization that took out paid advertising pushing for Bush's FISA telecom amnesty plan. WTF did that have to do with veterans???
That's where you need to start turning up the heat - right under the seat of this biased Republican backing disgrace of a veteran's association.

the american legion isnt a veterans orginization , its a wanabe , most ex service people who never saw combat join it because the vfw doesnt allow them in unless theyve been in combat! but the vfw and the legion are both run by wormy repig lovers anyway , i shitcaned my membership in the vfw after i saw its leaders giveing reagan the finest blowjobs he could have asked for!

I want to send this guy my tax rebate check.

ferrofluid @ 64:

StirFry @ 61:

Underground Pirate @ 23:

Kharma anyone ?These morons (US soldiers) enlisted to make a living by killing other humans. This is the payback that
they deserve. To hell with the soldiers and anyone who profits by the suffering of others!

Go Fox yourself.

Its easy and understandable to say war is bad and soldiering is a bad career, and worse for our economy and social attitudes,
but when its at an individual level, support has to be given and done.
Americas MIC and military spending is 10 times what any other country spends and over 50% of the worlds level.
America has 5% of the worlds population etc, so why spend 50%... something wrong there.
Do we really want to be a war economy, surely theres better ways to run a country and interact with the rest of the world.

...Home of the brave!....except the 1/3 of the country that still supports Bush and the GOP. These bedwetters will gladly throw all their tax dollars at the military if The GOP tells them brown non-Christian people want to take away their free-dumb. These people are so scared of everything...gays, blacks, immigrants, tara-ists, Islamists, atheists,.....anybody the GOP says they should be afraid of to con them into voting against their own best interest and for the interests of the military industrial complex.

They're paying the 125,000 Blackwater mercenaries, with the Veterans' benefits money. Just disgusting.

20 L.A. Confidential Says: ‘Iran building 6000-km range missile’
Janes: Iran seeks long-range missiles PRESS TV
Iran Secretly Tests Long-Range Missile NewsMax.com
Iran’s secret missile launch site pinpointed: report AFP

CNN - 4 hours ago
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) — Iran denied a report that several of its boats taunted a US Navy vessel in the Persian Gulf on Thursday night, according to IRNA, …
Iran denies confrontation with US in Persian Gulf ISNA
Iran: Naval encounter routine check PRESS TV
CNN: Iran confronted US in Persian Gulf IranMania News

See where we are heading?
=================================
I saw on the "ticker tape" the US fired a warning shot, but there was no mention of it in the regular news coverage (CNN).

I'm so sick of every time a person puts on a uniform, any time a soldier is mentioned anywhere in the world ... the tone of the discussion suddenly becomes very reverent and the labels "heroic", "courageous", "brave", and "incredibly patriotic" start popping out all over. Let me clue you in a little bit. I worked as a contractor day in and day out with the troops in Iraq. They are just your average person. Most are very boring, and hum-drum like the majority of the population. Many are selfish, many are lazy, some are outstanding, and some are brilliant. Very, very few fit the bullshit hero label. The propaganda is getting so thick that we've lost sight of reality.

This is the same government that demands families return bonuses paid to soldiers who then died in Iraq, claiming that they did not fulfill the terms of their enlistment. Reality is the money that should be paid to veterans is being embezzled by the Embezzler-in-Chief, and his cronies, the unbid contractors. Wake up people! Bush is not only the worst president ever, he is worst war criminal ever and even pond scum wants nothing to do with him regarding him as too disgusting, too filthy for pond scum.