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A Gift for Our President ...................Paul Ryan
So while I have an immense amount of respect for our veterans (my father and grandfather are both veterans, as are many others in my family) and have no problem with anyone who proudly serves in our military, I'm going to use today's column to counteract Bush's propaganda. I'll accomplish this by posting a few pictures and facts about what happens when our military rushes into things that could be better settled with discussion and mutual understanding.
On the left is a photo of a man being attacked by a dog during a peaceful civil rights protest in Birmingham in 1963. The picture on the right is of another group of peaceful protestors getting hosed down by firefighters. While these pictures may be of police and fire fighters, not the military, the military produced their fair share of irrational violent acts during the civil rights movement.
The picture on the left is of a military man beating a doctor during the riots. The doctor was trying to help protesters who were injured. I use the term "riots" loosely, because the only violence was that from military and police, who had all removed their nametags and badges before confronting protesters. Apparently, they were planning on beating the crap out of everyone. The picture on the left is of a man holding up his arms in surrender as he is about to be beaten by an officer. Both photographs are by Paul Sequeira. In addition, here's a short excerpt from a column by the great Mike Royko, who was in the crowd during the protest. Shocking.
On March 16, 1968, the Charlie Company (11th Brigade, Americal Division) murdered over 300 unarmed Vietnamese civilians. Elderly villagers, women (at least one girl was raped before she was killed) and children were all killed during the unprovoked attack. And yes, that is a dead baby in the bottom middle of the piles of bodies.
Four students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State were killed and eight others were injured. The National Guard gunned them down. The famous Pulitzer Prize-winning photo on the left is by John Filo. On the right is a picture of Jeffrey Miller, the dead student seen laying facedown on the ground in the photo at the left.
We bombed Iraq once already, in the early 90s. While there are many pictures showing the hordes of children our bombs killed, I didn't feel it necessary to post an array of graphic and sickening pictures. This one picture is enough. It's of a few of the many victims from when we bombed an Iraq hospital. "Accidental" civilian casualties? It's pretty hard to "accidentally" bomb a hospital.
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It's Veteran's Day, and President Bush is already busy spewing out propaganda to encourage the war against Iraq. Unfortunately, this behavior will only get worse. Bush will probably give a variety of speeches today in honor of our veterans, and I can guarantee you that they will all include a little push for bombing Iraq. It's sad that President Bush would use this day to push a war, but two can play this game.
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