I need help here, or else I might not make it through this story. But I have to tell it, or I'll have a total anger meltdown.

George W and his regime of warmongering chicken hawks are constantly doing political photo-ops with our soldiers and piously admonishing everyone to "support the troops." But you might ask Lt. Col. Dale Starr, Col. David Everly, Col. Clifford Acree, and several other soldiers about how the Bushites themselves support our troops.

These combat veterans were captured, imprisoned, and tortured by Saddam Hussein's minions during the 1991 war with Iraq. As prisoners of war, they sustained fractured skulls, burnings, broken bones, threats of dismemberment and castration during their nightmarish confinement, yet they survived and made it home. Here they found some solace in a 1996 U.S. law that allowed them to sue the Iraqi government for the physical and emotional injuries they suffered, with payments to be made from Iraqi assets that had been frozen by our government. Last summer, a federal court awarded this group nearly a billion dollars in damages.

So, guess who is trying to keep them from collecting even a dime of it? Bush and gang, that's who. They've taken the soldiers back to court, arguing that this money is now needed for rebuilding Iraq. White House mouthpiece Scott McClellan and our Iraqi occupation czar, L. Paul Bremer III, both have been trotted out to say that these tortured POWs cannot be allowed to "get in the way" of the administration's nation-building scheme in Iraq.

Get in the way? These soldiers put themselves in the way of horrendous harm, only to be betrayed now by a money-grubbing, draft-dodging, commander-in-chief who's shamelessly trying to stiff them. The next time you see George W posing for another self-serving photo-op with our troops, remember this picture.

Topplebush.com
Posted: December 5, 2003