2013/03/21

Thomas Young: Dear George Bush and Dick Cheney. ,

You are guilty of murder, a letter from a dying Veteran. I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War, on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans, who have been wounded, and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end.. I am living under hospice care. I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers, who have lost sons and daughters, and on behalf of the fathers and mothers, who have lost sons and daughters, and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans, who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans, whose trauma and self revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq, have led to suicide, and on behalf of the active duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of us all, the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief. You may evade justice, but in our eyes, you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans, my fellow veterans, whose future you stole. I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr Bush and Mr Cheney. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with hundreds of thousands of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are, and what you have done. You may evade justice, but in our eyes, you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans, my fellow veterans, whose future you stole. Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege, and your power, cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation, but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men, and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war, with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.  

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