It's Official: My Brother Died in Vain

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Sat, 15 Jan 2005 19:38:08 EST

 

 

It's Official: My Brother Died in Vain

 

 

 

 

drymarc2003 writes:

 

January 15, 2005

 

It's Official: My Brother Died in Vain

By Dante Zappala

 

Why My Brother Died

After two years, the government has called off its fruitless hunt

for WMD.

 

 

Dante Zappala is a part-time teacher in Los Angeles. E-mail:

dante.zappala

 

http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1009011.htm

 

This week, the White House announced, with little fanfare, that

the two-year search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had

finally ended, and it acknowledged that no such weapons existed there

at the time of the U.S. invasion in 2003.

For many, this may be a story of only passing interest. But for me

and my family, it resonates with profound depth.

My brother was Sgt. Sherwood Baker. He was a member of the

Pennsylvania National Guard deployed a year ago with his unit out of

Wilkes-Barre. He said goodbye to his wife and his 9-year-old son,

boarded a bus and went to Ft. Dix, N.J., to be hastily retrained. His

seven years of Guard training as a forward observer was practically

worthless because he would not face combat. All he needed to do was

learn how to not die.

He received a crash course in convoy security, including practice

in running over cardboard cutouts of children. We bought him a GPS

unit and walkie-talkies because he wasn't supplied with them. In Iraq,

Sherwood was assigned to the Iraq Survey Group and joined the search

for weapons of mass destruction.

David Kay, who led the group until January 2004, had already

stated that they did not exist. Former United Nations weapons

inspector Hans Blix had expressed serious doubts about their presence

during prewar inspections. In fact, a cadre of former U.N. inspectors

and U.S. generals had been saying for years that Iraq posed no threat

to our country. On April 26, 2004, the Iraq Survey Group, at the

behest of the stubborn administration sitting safely in office

buildings in Washington, was still on its fruitless but dangerous

search. My brother stood atop his Humvee, securing the perimeter in

front of a suspect building in Baghdad. But as soldiers entered the

building, it exploded; the official cause is still not known. Sherwood

was struck by debris in the back of his head and neck, and he was killed.

Since that day, my family and I have lived with the grief of

losing a loved one. We have struggled to explain his death to his son.

We have gazed at the shards of life scattered at our feet, in wonder

of its fragility, in perpetual catharsis with God.

I have moved from frustration to disappointment to anger. And now

I have arrived at a place not of understanding but of hope †" blind

hope that this will change.

The Iraq Survey Group's final report, which was filed in October

but revealed only on Wednesday, confirmed what we knew all along. And

as my mother cried in the kitchen, the nation barely blinked.

I am left now with a single word seared into my consciousness:

accountability. The chance to hold our administration's feet to that

flame has passed. But what of our citizenry? We are the ones who truly

failed. We shut down our ability to think critically, to listen, to

converse and to act. We are to blame.

Even with every prewar assumption having been proved false, today

more than 130,000 U.S. soldiers are trying to stay alive in a foreign

desert with no clear mission at hand.

At home, the sidelines are overcrowded with patriots. These

Americans cower from the fight they instigated in Iraq. In a time of

war and record budget deficits, many are loath to even pay their

taxes. In the end, however, it is not their family members who are at

risk, and they do not sit up at night pleading with fate to spare them.

Change is vital. We must remind ourselves that the war with Iraq

was not a mistake but rather a flagrant abuse of power by our leaders

†" and a case of shameful negligence by the rest of us for letting it

happen. The consequence is more than a quagmire. The consequence is

the death of our national treasure †" our soldiers.

We are all accountable. We all share the responsibility of what

has been destroyed in our name. Let us begin to right the wrongs we

have done to our country by accepting that responsibility.

 

http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1009011.htm

 

 

______________________________\

_________________________________

 

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MARC PARENT

 

 

Political tags†" such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist,

fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth†" are never basic

criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want

people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.

 

- Robert A Heinlein

 

 

 

CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS

http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/

[Guest guest]

Re: It's Official: My Brother Died in Vain

By Dante Zappala

http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1009011.htm

 

Bush’s Sick Humor

Click on this below link to see Bush joke about the

“weapons of mass destruction.”

The implication seems to be that everyone at the

private dinner he is addressing knew that the WMD were

just a convenient pretext to invade Iraq and he is

sharing this private joke with them.

Right click on the screen to play in realplayer.

http://www.infowars.com/print/Secret_societies/sick_bush_joke.htm

 

Infowars.com

April 2, 2004

 

Not only did Bush make a completely sick and

inapproprate jokes about the weapons of mass

destruction, but his speech and slideshow included a

" funny " about Skull and Bones.

 

Could it be more in your face than this?

 

This next link links to a large archive of valuable

materials on the Iraq War and Weapons of Mass

Destruction. Click on below link to go to the Iraq War

Aftermath Archives for propagandamatrix .com

 

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/iraq.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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