30 January 2007

US Iraq War Amputee Center

As anti-war protests gather momentum in
America and GW Bush insists on sending 21,500
more troops to Iraq against the wishes of the
American people, expressed in the new Democrat-
controlled Congress, which itself is now doing
battle with the White House, a new rehabilitation
center has opened for soldiers returning from Iraq
either as amputees or with severe burns.

So far nearly 3,100 have been killed and around
20,000 injured, of these more than 500 have lost
at least one limb, many of them due to IEDs,
mainly roadside bombs, one of the insurgents'
most effective weapons.

For these, the privately-funded 50m dollar
high-tech Center for the Intrepid has just opened,
promising the soldiers: "We're going to take care
of you for as long as you need us, to get you back
to where you want to be".

All well and good, and nice words too, but where
does America think these young formerly fit men,
and women, would like to get back to?
They would all like their limbs and their former
lives back and of course they will never get either.

And why call it the Center for the Intrepid?
The typical American blend of make-believe
Hollywood romantics and Federal propaganda:
What is intrepid about going to Iraq as hapless
cannon-fodder to illegally invade a sovereign
nation based on a pack of obscene lies just in
order to serve the insatiable greed of Western
Corporate Totalitarianism?

They should never have been sent!
They should never have gone!
Far from being "intrepid all-American heroes"
they are state-terrorists pure and simple and
we should call things by their proper name.

Question: Is America going to provide the same
kind of facility throughout Iraq, and Afghanistan,
to help the tens of thousands maimed for life as
a direct result of its savagely brutal overseas
adventures?? Of course not - but it should!

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