Sen. Mikulski's Warmongering Exposed by Peace Activist
by William Hughes
(Wednesday, April 30, 2008)
The Iraq War is cra****ng our economy! We also now know that it was
launched by the Bush-Cheney
Gang based on 935 certifiable lies. Yet, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
continues to vote to fund
it to the tune of $514 billion. Her excuse is that she “sup****ts the
troops.” Vietnam War
veteran, nurse and Peace activist, Ms. Madeleine Mysko, isn’t buying
Mikulski’s dubious line.
She wants the war ended and the troop brought safely back home, now.
“I am here [at this demonstration] as a ‘personal’ witness!”
-- Activist, poet and Vietnam War veteran, Ms. Madeleine Mysko
Baltimore, MD - On April 24, 2008, a spirited antiwar protest was held in
this city in the
downtown area. It was sponsored by MoveOn.org and Progressive Maryland.
One of the activists
participating was Ms. Madeleine Mysko, a registered nurse and a veteran of
the Vietnam War. She
ripped into Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), who has consistently voted to
fund the Iraq War to
the tune of $514 billion. This pseudo-liberal politico has insisted to
constituents that she is
funding the war in order to “sup****t the troops.” She recently wrote Ms.
Mysko and vowed that
she won’t “abandon the troops.” Ms. Mysko, however, isn’t buying that
dubious line. She says:
“I saw a lot of soldiers die and suffer and I have not forgotten...I
resent it highly that my
being against the war and against the money that we are spending on it, is
interpreted [by Sen.
Mikulski] as not sup****ting the troops.” [1]
Here is the plain truth: Sen. Mikulski sup****ts the Military-Industrial
Complex, which is a
one-trillion-dollar a year drain on our treasury. [2] She doesn’t give a
good hoot about the
troops, who are dying and suffering in Iraq. Her votes for war-funding
puts the troops in
harm’s way, in a conflict which was launched by the Bush-Cheney Gang based
on 935 certifiable
lies. [3] When the Democrats took control of the Congress in January,
2007, Sen. Mikulski had
an op****tunity to stop funding this war and to bring the troops home
safely. She failed! As a
result, 1,055 troops have died since that date and thousands more have
been wounded. [4]
Ms. Mysko, a former U.S. Army nurse, continues: “I have seen first hand
[how our veterans are
really treated.] I think it is [still] going on now--how terribly,
terribly expensive--it is
going to be to take care of the fine young men and women who are serving
now [in Iraq], who I
do sup****t...We are not going to be able to take care of them. We’re not
taking care of them
appropriately, now.” Experts put the ultimate cost of the Iraq War at $3
trillion. The
seriously wounded U.S. troop number is now over 30,000.
Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) corroborates Ms. Mysko’s position about the tragic
situation with
respect to the Vietnam and Iraq War veterans. He’s the chair of the House
of Representatives’
Veterans’ Affairs Committee. At an event on Capitol Hill on Oct. 17, 2007,
the Congressman
said: “We did not take care of them [the Vietnam veterans]. We [the
government] made a mistake.
We can still rectify it for those who are [still] with us. Over half of
the homeless on the
streets tonight--200,000--are Vietnam Vets. As many Vietnam Vets have now
committed suicide as
died in the original war. That is over 58,000! We did something wrong.
And, we see ‘the same
thing’ happening again [with respect to the Iraq War]. The ‘suicide rates’
are back up to where
they were in the Vietnam period. We’ve seen homelessness already...The
President says: ‘SUP****T
TROOPS,’ ‘SUP****T TROOPS...’ but, when they [the troops] come home, they
are on their own.” [5]
Rep. Filner emphasized: “Because, what’s going on now is we’re ‘saving the
President’s face.’
Everybody has admitted that we can’t win this [the Iraq War]
militarily...It’s a political
thing. We’ve gotta get out...He [Bush] is going to ‘stay in.’ He’s going
to ‘stay in’ through
his term...That is to ‘save his face.’ Thousands of kids are going to come
back in caskets,
which we are not allowed to see, or with amputations, brain injuries, with
traumatic
stress...Everybody comes back with [this] incredible...sense of what they
went through and it’s
very difficult to reintegrate.” [5]
Getting back to Ms. Mysko. She believes: “They [the Iraq War veterans] are
struggling here in
Maryland to get help...[with] the head injuries. In my era, [during the
Vietnam War, Ms. Mysko
served stateside as a nurse], it was burns. It is still burns. I worked in
the burn ward, [at
Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, TX]. But, now it is these
devastating head injuries.
And, we are going to have to take care of them [the veterans.] And, where
are we going to have
the money for it, if our economy is crushed by this really inefficient
war?” [1] [6]
All of this makes me wonder about Sen. Mikulski. Her political career
started with such great
promise. However, as I note her ongoing complicity in the debacle that is
the Iraq War, (along
with her endorsement of the draconian U.S.A. Patriot Act), I feel
compelled to ask again: “Has
Sen. Mikulski lost her soul?” [7]
Thanks to Peace activists, like Ms. Mysko, Sen. Mikulski’s failure to do
her duty has been
exposed. The damnable truth is that she’s a doormat for the
Military-Industrial Complex! How
Sen. Mikulski can sleep at night with that on her conscience is a mystery
to me.
Notes:
[1]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8cbj0FvtVQ
and
http://www.madeleinemysko.com/Home_Page.html
and
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1108-26.htm
[2]. http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/
voices.php/2008/04/10/p24695#more24695
and
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=8694
[3]. http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/Default.
aspx?src=project_home&context=overview&id=945
[4]. http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/50943
[5]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsXx8HliKqU
and
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/67556
[6]. http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/83742/
[7]. http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/41941
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