#0123 | one-sixth could not drink

I wish I could afford to buy you even Folgers Instant in a styrofoam cup, but I’m living on ramen right now, so here’s another take:

Assuming that one count of homicide in this country usually brings life in prison or execution. Now let’s say that each member of the Bush administration responsible for starting this war were to face justice and receive 4,000 consecutive life sentences; one for each of the soldiers who has died.

Now let’s say that the sentencing was lenient so that each of these consecutive life terms was levied WITH the possibility of parole, and so to get out of prison, George, Dick and all the rest had to face a parole hearing for each life sentence they were ordered to serve. Of course, that would be a minimum of 4,000 parole hearings.

Now, if we assume that an inmate can only face one parole hearing per day, this means that our fallen leaders would be before the parole board for a minimum of 4,000 days before being let out of prison. If they were to begin these parole hearings today (3/24/08) and successfully pass each of the required 4,000 without taking a single day off, they would finally be released from prison on March 7, 2019.

What exactly is your point?

The way we should look at the number 4000 is how it relates to the 300000+ Iraqi civilians that have died as a result of our soldiers and the terrorists. Why are we so self centred on our losses but ignore the losses of others? USA pretends to follow christianity and puts down other religions, but in reality we don’t even recognize that Christianity promotes equality between all people. 304000 is the number of unfortunate souls lost to propaganda and war.

Good call, I K. I had this crazy, balls to the wall republican teacher in high school. She was a drivers-ed teacher, and she always knew that “More US soldiers would have statistically died in the US from traffic accidents if they were all still in America.” She never had anything to say when I mentioned all the Iraqi deaths. Yea, they’re heathens anyway. Right?

Although these hungers for justice and righteousness are to be admired, too many take an impossible road in dealing with this war and death. The question is no longer “why did we take this road?” The real question is how we extricate ourselves from there.

All casualties are very regrettable but moaning won’t bring them back. They’re dead, God give them rest.

The two pertinent questions are:

How do we get out of this war with the least possible damage considering all that has already occurred?

How do we support the maimed and the brain-damaged young soldiers who have given so much?

Unilaterally pulling out of Iraq would ultimately bring about Islamic fascism that would enslave the Iraqis more then they were under Hussein. The Maliki government, the Iraq military, and democracy itself is vastly too weak to combat Islamic extremists and Iran and Syria.

We’ve got to stay there until we reasonably fashion a stable government and give the Iraqis a chance to improve their military to withstand the assault of extremism. We can’t afford another Taliban inside Iraq.

Secondly, we should pull out all of the stops to take care of and nurture our badly wounded troops in our hospitals. No expense should be spared in taking care of the men and women who no longer cannot care for themselves. We also need to relieve the family members who must deal with the disabilities every day that they live. No price is too high for us to provide the care these soldiers need.

We need caretakers, nurses, therapists who will stay with these soldiers when they are released from health facilities so that the soldier’s families are not overwhelmed with their disabilities. This is righteous and just.

Our options are limited in seeking justice at this point in the war. There is no other tenable option. We have to face that fact that we’re there and deal with it.

Deal with it and come home. And keep our soldiers home.