I recently recieved an email titled "Photos too graphic for the media."
It was full of rosy pictures of smiling soldiers and Iraqis. Here is my reposne.
To the person who created this email:
I was going to attach random pictures of smiling Americans and then define them as American, but then I realized there are many Americans not smiling- the 40+ million living in poverty, 40+ million without health insurance, the thousands of homeless, the thousands of small business owners who were put out of business because their government gave Wal-Mart subsidiaries to open a new store across the street, the majority of Americans who voted in 2000 and didn't get their president- never mind the 2004 debacle, the discriminated and disenfranchised, drug addicted teenagers, victims of rape and child abuse, victims of one of the highest world wide rates of murder, the victims of environmental cancers, the families and survivors of the biggest conspiracy in U.S. history- 9/11, the 20,000 injured in Iraq and Afghanistan, widows and families of the several thousand killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the many more miserable Americans. These people are representative of America and they're not smiling, yet we don't see enough of them on the news either.
I think it's great to be positive and show the good (especially the compassion of our courageous troops), but these rosy pictures deceive the public into thinking Iraq and Afghanistan are these big successful humanitarian missions when they are certainly not. This is a one-sided batch of deceiving pictures, and we're not even really sure where the pictures originated from. These could have been easily taken in another region of the Middle East. Furthermore, the opinion of a select few does not represent a majority, of which does not really want us there. We certainly can't call the list of people liars who have been there and returned with bad news, just as we can't call others liars who have been there and returned with or sent back rosy pictures like these. We could compare the list of people who return with good news with the list of those who return with bad news, and maybe that's an exhaustive study someone should embark on.
Indeed, "Sometimes in our everyday lives we tend to forget what's going on elsewhere in the world and that the brave men and women of the service are just like you and I. They have family and friends back home who love them very much and are praying for their safe return." No argument here.
As for "pictures too graphic for the media," this sounds like an attack on the media, and while yes there should be an attack on the media, it should be for different reasons. Maybe because, when was the last time you really saw what was going on over there in the WAR? When was the last time you saw bombs going off on the nightly news? When was the last time you saw innocent Americans being blown to smithereens for no other reasons than oil and an old family vendetta between the Bush's and Hussein's? When was the last time you saw any of the flag draped coffins on the news? You didn't because the Bush administration banned the media from showing footage of fallen soldiers returning.
Honestly, who is the Army recruiter or member of the Defense Department who wrote this email?
"Of all the gifts you could give the US Military, Prayer is the very best one....."Decoded = The best gift you could give the U.S. military is passing around this email."
Well, in my opinion, first of all, prayer isn't good enough. Action is what is necessary-- bring the troops home. Secondly, if I'm going to pray at all, it's not going to be for the military as an institution, it's going to be specifically for the PEOPLE in the military and their safety.
The facts are the United States invaded and destroyed the nation of Iraq for unjust causes. No WMD! No links to terrorism! Just oil!
The U.S. created terrorism there in the form of insurgents and created a civil war!
I apologize if you don't (or refuse to) believe the truth. Read more about the facts in the book Broken Nation:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0741429780/102-9204042-8260957?v=glance&n=283155
Let's pass this email around and keep the wheel going. Let's bring the troops home, end the dying, and stop the lying.
