I couldn't take it.

[AirmensMom]

4,000 dead. It's more than a number. Every one of those deaths represents the end of a life and a fractured, heartbroken family. How do people go on?

Our family has so far been fortunate. We have a daughter and son-in-law in the Air Force and they have not gone to Iraq yet. One of them is overseas at this point, but not in harm's way. I dread the day when I get the news that one of them is deployed. It almost happened last year, but the one who was to be deployed had to be retrained for another job at the last minute. That was too close! But I fear I would lose my mind and my will to live if something happened to one of my kids, especially if they died for a lie.

Sometimes I surprise myself and am stronger than I expect to be. Still, it would take a very big surprise if I could get myself through something like that. Yet 4,000 families have had to do just that. They live with the knowledge that they will never see their loved one again. Never. How do they go on?

:cry:

[Echo In Light]

1. Imagine the families of Iraq & Afghanistan..hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced

[AirmensMom]

2. I just heard on MSNBC

that the number of Iraq deaths is between 80,000 and 600,000. Did I hear that correctly?

Yes, I do imagine what they have had to endure.

[mac2]

5. I'd say over the years more than that.

[Echo In Light]

19. Half a million, mostly children & the elderly, due to sanctions in the 90s

"In 1996, Albright, a staunch supporter of the Iraq sanctions while serving during the Clinton administration as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, told Leslie Stahl of CBS’s 60 Minutes that, despite the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children, “We think the price is worth it.” "

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/09/questioning-madam-secretary-about-the-mercy-credits-of-genocidaires/

[mac2]

13. And we will have to pay to right it all in the end.

[abluelady]

3. And Let's Not Forget the Wounded

If you caught Phil Donahue this weekend on Brian Lamb and Bill Moyers, you have to remember the wounded and their families are suffering, too. We have to remember the children who want to go to war worry about coming back alive. They haven't a clue how they can come back wounded. This atocity has to stop.

[AirmensMom]

6. True.

I know mine are not concerned about being wounded, or even about being affected mentally. I know about this first-hand, since my dad came back from Vietnam physically unharmed, but not the same man who left. I do know that the wounded and their families suffer. The number of dead hit me particularly hard this morning, but I have not forgotten that every person who is deployed and every family is changed in some way. Yes, this atrocity has to stop.

[mac2]

4. I feel your pain but do the crooks and liars in the White House?

If it is such a critical thing to "save civilization" as the President says, why aren't his young family over there? His other nieces and nephews, etc.?

Why not impeachment Congress?

Everyone away from home, even if they aren't in harms way, has had their lives changed. Their families worried.

I remember marching in a group who wanted to honor or dead in this illegal war. The number was 2000. I carried a Lilly for a dead Indiana soldier who died of "dehydration". He was a highly trained professional. Even then they knew it was wrong. Yet...the Congress went on to more deaths (ours and others from our allies...not to mention destroyed lives).

We have never lost a family member while doing military service so we were lucky. I hope you are too.

Read: Lying for Empire by David Model. It might be in your library if not they can search around for it.

Another good book to read (because knowledge is power) is Howard Zinn's, The People's History of the United State from 1492-Present. It is most certainly in your library since it was one of the most popular history books of our times. It is thick but take your time. I skipped letters, etc.

It's clear our education system has failed to give a truthful history of the country and some of our "criminal" abusive leaders. It doesn't have to be that way. It is "public service" not public office for wealth.

Congress has ignored our election mandate of 2006 to get out of Iraq and bring our troops home. We are not an Empire but a Nation whose laws have been abused. It was never the intent of the American people to rule the world. Nor to lose their country and young because of it (debt and mililtary death).

[AirmensMom]

7. You know the answer to that.

The crooks and liars in the White House are rolling Easter eggs at this moment.

Thank you for the reading list. I will look for both books.

I have no words to describe how disappointed I am these days. I'm almost glad Dad died before he had to see what has become of the country he loved.

[mac2]

8. deleted

[mac2]

10. And my uncles who served this country in WWII only to

see it become what they hated most. One was a highly decorated Marine.

[143tbone]

9. Everyone needs to start standing up and being visible.

Whenever there is a march, vigil or any kind of action---GO! Start showing your presence in resistance. Stop with the excuses that they don't do any good. Because it is an excuse. Just go. Make your voice heard and your presence felt. Have you come up with what DOES work? No we have not. Signing petitions, house parties with moveon, bumperstickers---forget about it. Get out on the streets. Show our numbers. Make noise. Put the pressure on. Back off for awhile if you neeed a break. But charge back in there when you're revived. Do it for the dead, do it for those suffering, do it for America. Do it for your conscience. Get a camcorder and learn how to use it. Be the media. Show the rest of America what your little corner of the world is doing.Be an example to other generations.
DO YOU SEE ANYTHING ELSE THAT IS WORKING?????

[mac2]

12. It was a crime to see how many were in the streets about the

war recently yet CSPAN and the media did not give them a voice. The local media gave them about half a minute on the news when there were thousands in the protests.

It was a violation of our free speech. We own and paid for the media and airways.

Congress why no action? Your people are being silenced in a democracy under your watch.

Only a national strike will get their attention. Our union leaders seem to be part of the group who silence us. Saying the reason we can't protest is we are at war is the reason we should. It is illegal and immoral. We do not approve. They did not attack us.

[143tbone]

11. We need to start standing up for these people!

Whenever there is a march, vigil or any kind of action---GO! Start showing your presence in resistance. Stop with the excuses that they don't do any good. Because it is an excuse. Just go. Make your voice heard and your presence felt. Have you come up with what DOES work? No we have not. Signing petitions, house parties with moveon, bumperstickers---forget about it. Get out on the streets. Show our numbers. Make noise. Put the pressure on. Back off for awhile if you neeed a break. But charge back in there when you're revived. Do it for the dead, do it for those suffering, do it for America. Do it for your conscience. Get a camcorder and learn how to use it. Be the media. Show the rest of America what your little corner of the world is doing.Be an example to other generations.
DO YOU SEE ANYTHING ELSE THAT IS WORKING?????

[goddess40]

14. It's well over 4000

we just don't know how many, the gov't is hiding the true number with outlandish rules as to which deaths get counted.

[AirmensMom]

15. That's true.

I've read several stories about people who have died and were not counted as casualties.

[democrank]

16. When will this madness end?

~PEACE~

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

17. Hugs to you here. Last night at about 11 PM, my son's girlfriend who was in the kitchen called out

to me infuriated. She was watching CNN and they were having a discussion about what 4000 dead really meant. She couldn't believe how cold these people were. I told her that they can't see passed the numbers. That each of those over 4000 people left loved ones never to be the same, and expotentially the people in those lives will be forever altered.

Not mentioned were the over 1 million innocent Iraqis dead, uncounted wounded.....

:hug:

[AirmensMom]

18. My point exactly.

I have a wonderful little grandson who is already showing the effects of one of his parents being away. Safe, but away from him. I see his parents struggling to keep things together. And this is a relatively minor inconvenience. I can't imagine the pain he would feel if one of his parents left and never came back. Or the pain we would feel. I don't want to imagine it. Yet all those families who have lost loved ones in this insane conflict have to do more than imagine it. They have to live with the nightmare they can't wake up from. And it's reported on the news as just another story, right before or after showing W start the Easter egg roll. I fear that too much of the country sees it in the same sanitized way that it's reported.


Thanks.
:hug: