In the hopes that some MSM reporter is browsing through kos while trying to find more ways to distort the Gannon story to fit Bush's spin, I reprint an old speech that may shame some of them into good journalism
I removed the author's name and the specific references to give you history buffs a chance to guess. The answer and the complete speech are on another diary (below the fold)
"A time comes when silence is betrayal." That time has come for us in relation to [this war]
The truth of these words is beyond doubt but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one. Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world...
Daily Kos :: Who said it ? STILL very relevant
... it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home.
It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking .. young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them .. thousand miles away to guarantee liberties [in another country] which they had not found [here in US] I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor...
Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. ...
Strange Liberators
And as I ponder the madness of [this war] and search within myself for ways to understand and respond to compassion my mind goes constantly to the people of that [country]. I speak now not of the soldiers of each side,... but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war ...
we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators ... [they] watched and cringed as he ruthlessly routed out all opposition... [they] watched as all this was presided over by U.S. influence ... When he was overthrown they may have been happy, but [we offered no real change] especially in terms of their need... .. All the while the people read our leaflets and received regular promises of peace and democracy ...
Now they languish under our bombs and consider us .. the real enemy... Where are the roots of the independent [country] we claim to be building?
... I should make it clear that ... I am as deeply concerned about our troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in [this war] is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war ..
We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved.... the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor.
This Madness Must Cease
Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor ...... I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.