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What Is Wrong With Us?
by James Glaser September 4, 2013 
I know you see them on television, in magazines and newspapers, and hear them on the radio. What am I talking about? Advertisements for the Wounded Warrior Project. Isn't that the American way? We help the needy. We give out of our own pockets to help those who are suffering. We ask others to help by giving money to help those who fought for us. It's what we do! God bless America!! Wait a minute though, why the heck do our veterans need charity? What is wrong with this picture, and what is wrong with our nation that we will use our Soldiers, Marines, Airmen, and Sailors to fight in combat zones all over the world, but then throw them out like the trash when they are too hurt to fight anymore. You don't think that is true? Then why do Americans send millions of dollars to veteran charities? Why do the parents and wives of those disabled get on television and thank those charities for their work? A better question is why isn't the Veterans Administration helping these vets? Oh, wait a minute, those suffering vets must be part of the backlog of over 600,000 veterans who are waiting for the VA to figure out if they are in bad enough shape that they need help. Hmmm, so they will just have to suffer until the VA decides that they truly need help? Where are the Democratic and Republican Political Parties? They are the ones who sent these young men and women off to wars of choice in foreign lands. Remember, nobody from Iraq or Afghanistan were involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. No, those people came from countries who are our friends. Amazing isn't it? The 9/11 Memorial explains it like this:
Did you get that? 15 from Saudi Arabia. Not one from Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, or Syria. Are we fools or what? The Republicans and Democrats knew this, but there is money involved in war, and it would have hurt the rich Americans who back our two major political parties if we went after the countries whose citizens killed 3,000 Americans. Does that make sense? I guess not, but then not taking care of those we send off to war doesn't make sense either. Yesterday, Secretary of State John Kerry was at the Senate telling the Senators how we have to attack Syria, a country who has never attacked us or even talked about attacking us. In fact, Syria does not have the means with which to attack us, but then neither did Iraq or Afghanistan, and we used our "shock and awe" bombing campaigns to start those two wars. So, we have Secretary of State John Kerry, a multimillionaire, talking to other millionaires about how he wants to have young Americans punish Syria. He says we won't be putting "boots on the ground," and so he thinks that makes it OK. Every war we have ever had starts out small. Heck, Iraq wasn't going to cost us a dime, and when we attacked Afghanistan, there were few if any countries on earth as pitiful as Afghanistan, but we attacked there in 2001, and young Americans are still dying there. Four American Soldiers died there just this week! (You didn't hear that from the media though.) What is wrong with us? We have been fighting and dying in the Middle East for over a decade killing people in countries who never ever attacked us. What is wrong with us? We have a bunch of 1%ers in the Senate telling us we have to start a new war, and we can't even take care of the troops who fought and were maimed in our last two wars. What is wrong with us? Why the heck are we even listening to ultra-rich politicians? Politicians who will not appropriate enough tax money to take care of our wounded warriors. What is wrong with us? Don't we know that taking care of veterans does nothing for the profits of the rich Americans who own our defense industry, and those rich Americans are who our politicians look out for, not our wounded warriors. What is wrong with us. |
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