Friday, September 04, 2009

Obama takes the war, Obama takes the war, hi-ho . . .

How many more kids will President Obama sacrifice before he keeps his promise to end the occupation of Iraq and bring our youth home, not just send them to Afghanistan to die? What will it take for him to see the lessons we learned in Vietnam and those that Russia showed us in Afghanistan? The president is great in one thing: convincing the media to avoid reporting the deaths, continual deaths that is, and not preventing the Democrats from self-destruction (boy, are they in for a surprise in November). I used to vacation every year on Martha's Vineyard with our nine children; I wonder how many warriors died during Obama's time there? I voted for him and now I'm ashamed because of the wars, and his other broken promises of transparency, the lobbyists etc.
Please stop the killing; that would be one change he promised.
R. J. Deierlein
West Harrison


Above is a letter to the Lower Hudson Journal Valley. And yet . . . Ozarks First reports there will be a deployment ceremony this evening at Nutter Field House for 20 soldiers with the 13th Military Police Company of whom are headed for a one-year tour of duty in Iraq. And Travis Pillow (Gainesville Sun) reports on yesterday's ceremony for soldiers with the 347th Preventative Medicine Detachment who leave Monday for Iraq.

The unit's commander, 1st Lt. Anthony Jackson, said he is preparing for his fifth deployment. Previous missions have taken him to Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Bosnia and Afghanistan, but leaving behind his 11-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter is still not easy.
"They can never get used to it," he said. "But they know they won't lose contact with me."
Spc. [Kevin] Haseney said it's easy to get preoccupied while serving overseas, but he plans to contact his 7-year-old daughter, Sierra, and his fiancee, Rhonda Tompkins, whenever he can.
"After two years of training, I get to go on this huge adventure, and they're going to be wondering if I'm O.K."



Last night's entry included the wrong numbers for the death toll in Iraq and I've corrected it and added this:

***0-4-09 Numbers corrected. Thank you to Eli, Joan and Keelan who were the first to e-mail and point out that the numbers wrong. "Last Thursday" link now goes to last Thursday and not a Thursday in April. ICCC is still down, 2 deaths were announced Thursday, the total of 4338 is those 2 added to 4336 which was the count on Sunday. ****

Eli, Joan and Keelan were the first three to e-mail about my error. They weren't the only ones. I'm sorry, I didn't catch it and I should have. The "Last Thursday" link went to an April "I Hate The War" and that was because I was going backwards trying to find the last time the point was made regarding Republicans would flip on the issue of the Iraq War. I went back into 2008 and found examples but I was sure it had been commented on this year. Then I remembered it was a Sunday and Chris Hill's nomination. During that, I had checked and ICCC was still down and then I just forgot about it as I wrote the entry. (I copy and paste the lyrics and the toll in and then write the entry.) It was my error and it was a huge one and my apologies for that.


Because ICCC is still down, it's difficult to tell when Todd Selge died in Iraq. The press isn't helping by refusing to say when he died or where. The Pioner Press notes he was 25-years-old and that his family has explained he died in Iraq while serving there.

The following community sites updated yesterday:



Cedric's Big Mix
Desperate measures
11 hours ago

The Daily Jot
THIS JUST IN! THEY'RE DESPERATE!
11 hours ago

Thomas Friedman is a Great Man
Somerby, Loverboy
11 hours ago

Mikey Likes It!
Suzanne Ito, Iraq
12 hours ago

Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude
music & fashion
12 hours ago

SICKOFITRADLZ
Iraq War, Camp Ashraf
12 hours ago

Trina's Kitchen
Todd
12 hours ago

Ruth's Report
Joni Mitchell and Woodstock
12 hours ago

Oh Boy It Never Ends
Bob Somerby, Graham Nash
12 hours ago

The World Today Just Nuts
No Ethics Left Behind
12 hours ago

Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills)
Music snapshot (Carly, Cass, Carole, Cynthia, Ellie)
12 hours ago

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.







thomas friedman is a great man






oh boy it never ends