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Originally posted by shepwrite:
No, you should have to look at it before you support an unnecessary war. Reading names sounds noble and pretty. It isn't.

I hear the torture doc by the Thin Blue Line guy (Errol Morris) is absolutely stunning, horrifying, and draining. It lets you see what torture LOOKS like. How it reduces not just their humanity, but our own. How it diminishes us as a culture.

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You're using the disfigured face of a soldier - whose only "crime" was to serve his country - to conjure up a feeling of disgust. Not at his acts, but at him.

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Originally posted by sevknowsbetter:
I am not blaming Israel the country rather our government and unusually influential jewish population that compared to its relative poplulation swings a very large special interest stick.

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Many leading neocons, by their own admission, care greatly about Israel, but they want to impose their policy, not follow Jerusalem's. Unlike, for instance, AIPAC, which takes its lead from the Israeli government, and then tends to give it an extra twist to the right, the neocons adhere to a rigid ideological dogma and are not afraid to confront a government in Jerusalem they view as too "soft."

The view that sees neocons as spearheading the Israel lobby position under Bush has serious flaws. It is more likely that the neocons co-opted the Israel lobby, and Israel itself, to their own vision of regional transformation. Still, most members of the Israel lobby were willing accomplices, and this represents their historic error.

...

Walt and Mearsheimer explain Bush Middle East policy as Israel-lobby driven. Another way to look at it would be: This is the first Republican administration since the Christian evangelical Zionists emerged as a potent force in the GOP; since the mainstream pro-Israel community, which contained a sizable and senior neocon presence, planted itself firmly on the Likud right; and a hawk was ensconced in the Israeli Prime Minister's Residence. Then came 9/11 and the swagger and hubris that followed an apparently easy military victory in Afghanistan. This was a potent mix. These actors can all be described with some accuracy as pro-Israel, but they are also all different, and charting a future course is helped by recognizing that difference.

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Originally posted by shepwrite:

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You're using the disfigured face of a soldier - whose only "crime" was to serve his country - to conjure up a feeling of disgust. Not at his acts, but at him.

Couldn't possibly disagree more.

You're looking at the face of a victim. You're not conjuring disgust for him, but sadness and heartbreak.

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That kid is a victim. Same as the victims of torture. He may have signed up, but he didn't choose.

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Originally posted by shepwrite:
That kid is a victim. .

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Standing over a flag-draped coffin that arrived from Iraq this month, Air Force Chaplain Robert Cannon chose this invocation: "We pray and long for the day when war will be no more."

An honor guard removed the aluminum "transfer case" containing the body from the aircraft, as other military officers present to receive the slain servicemember snapped salutes. The honor guard process here at Dover — repeated hundreds of times since the Iraq war began — is dignified and reverent. And it's carried out in secret, off-limits to the media.

This wasn't always the case. Photographs and film footage of caskets coming home from battlefields have been a stark reminder for Americans of the toll of war. During the Vietnam War, the image of caskets arriving at Dover became a staple of the nightly news. The phrase "Dover Test" later came to signify public tolerance, or lack of it, for mounting war casualties.

Since 1991, the media have been banned from covering the arrival of remains at Dover. The air base houses the military's largest mortuary, where bodies are prepared for burial before they are sent to the families' hometowns.

In March, before the Iraq war began, the Pentagon clamped down on similar coverage from military installations around the world, such as Ramstein Air Base in Germany or in Afghanistan. "The prohibition includes ... the movement of remains at any point," the Pentagon guidelines say.

The result is that images of caskets being returned to U.S. soil are not shown to the American public. This policy contrasts with Italy's national display of grief last month when 19 of that country's troops died in an Iraq suicide bombing and received a state funeral through the streets of Rome.

There have been exceptions to the media ban at Dover. In February, NASA released photos of the caskets carrying remains of the seven astronauts killed in the Columbia shuttle explosion. When fighting began in Afghanistan in 2001, reporters were allowed to cover the honor guard ritual at Ramstein in Germany.

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But he didn't choose to have his face used for shock value either.

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After 150 surgeries, shocking loss of heroic, upbeat Marine Iraq vet

BY DAVE GOLDINER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, May 2nd 2008, 4:00 AM

An Iraq war veteran from New York has lost his inspiring three-year battle to overcome horrific burns suffered in a roadside bomb attack, the military announced Thursday.

Marine Sgt. Merlin German, 22, had been burned over 97% of his body and underwent 150 surgical procedures to repair the damage from the 2005 attack.

But he died last month after a relatively minor operation to help reconstruct his lip.

"It's tough, but we know he's in a better place," said Ariel German, 25, the sergeant's brother. "He had such a good heart."

German started making national headlines through his amazing will to recover - and his even more incredible urge to help others.

The wounded warrior hoped to use his story to inspire young burn victims and wanted to create a charity called Merlin's Miracle.

A memorial service will be held at 7 p.m. Friday night at German's alma mater, Woodlands High School in Hartsdale, Westchester County.

"What he went through, it really showed his character," said Jedd Chesterson of Hartsdale, a high school friend. "He's the toughest kid I know."

German was raised in Washington Heights and attended A. Philip Randolph High School in Harlem before moving to Hartsdale as a teenager.

He fulfilled a lifelong ambition when he joined the Marine Corps after graduation.

Just days away from returning home after fighting for nine months in Iraq, German was hit by a roadside bomb in strife-torn Anbar Province on Feb. 22, 2005.

Doctors gave him just a 3% chance of survival, but German refused to give up his fight to live. He stayed in the hospital for 17 months and underwent scores of surgeries to replace scorched skin.

"His strength, his will to live, had a lot to do with it," said Norma Guerra, an official at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Tex.

A born prankster, he would cheer up horribly disfigured fellow soldiers and concerned relatives with self-deprecating one-liners.

"He put a smile on everyone's face," Ariel German said.

German recovered enough to meet President Bush and to attend college basketball's Final Four as a guest of comedian Dennis Miller.

Friends and relatives were stunned when German died suddenly on April 11, after what was considered a fairly routine procedure.

The Marine Corps Thursday attributed his death to the wounds suffered three years ago in Iraq.

"For all of us, it was extremely unexpected," said Chesterson. "We thought he had been through the worst already."

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I am not blaming Israel the country rather our government and unusually influential jewish population that compared to its relative poplulation swings a very large special interest stick.

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Originally posted by Legacy Fan:

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I am not blaming Israel the country rather our government and unusually influential jewish population that compared to its relative poplulation swings a very large special interest stick.

Wow sev. I know you're not being anti-semitic here, but you couldn't be further from the truth. "Those Jews in NY" used their big stick to put Hillary Clinton in the senate.
Hillary Clinton - Wife of this guy:

How many of us have that photo in our wedding albums???
I'm not going to say that "The Jews" are uninformed, but... come on buddy.


And depending on how low the dem primaries go, I wouldn't be surprised to see a Hillary-Arafat sex tape.
Disgusted, but not surprised.

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I still think that post someone else pic, public or not, and attaching it to views that may not be theirs is wrong.

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Originally posted by shepwrite:
[QUOTE]I still think that post someone else pic, public or not, and attaching it to views that may not be theirs is wrong.