You see them everywhere, the yellow ribbons, "support the troops", sported generally by well-meaning people who I hesitate to term self-satisfied supporters of the BushCorp
TM war machine. Though that IS the feeling I get.
But they have a chance to prove me wrong. Those who support our troops should be up in arms over yet another example of the cavalier manner in which BushCorpTM demonstrates its disregard for the actual human beings who risk life, limb and sanity for our safety.
there's more
From the
LA Times:
The latest chapter in the legal history of torture is being written by American pilots who were beaten and abused by Iraqis during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. And it's taken a strange twist.
The Bush administration is fighting the former prisoners of war in court, trying to prevent them from collecting nearly $1 billion from Iraq that a federal judge awarded them as compensation for their torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein's regime.
The rationale: Today's Iraqis are good guys, and they need the money.
These are 17 American heros who were tortured during the first Gulf War who sued Iraq and were subsequently awarded a total of $1 Billion in compensatory and punitive damages by a US court. Until the Bush administration moved to block the award on appeal.
To further add to the irony Defense Secretary Donald "Armored Humvees are for wimps" Rumsfeld thinks the victims of recent U.S. abuse at Abu Ghraib SHOULD be compensated:
Many of the pilots were tortured in the same Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, where American soldiers abused Iraqis 15 months ago. Those Iraqi victims, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said, deserve compensation from the United States.
But the American victims of Iraqi torturers are not entitled to similar payments from Iraq, the U.S. government says.
BushCorpTM claims the $1.7 Billion in frozen U.S. held Iraqi funds are needed for Iraqi reconstruction. Perhaps so. Since in Iraq $9 billion is apparently the Iraqi occupation equivalent of loose pocket change that no-one needs account for, they evidently need every penny they can get.
Still, if my SUV was sporting a yellow ribbon admonishing my fellow drivers to support our troops, I would be hopping mad that BushCorpTM is siding with Iraq against our heroic soldiers.
The last hope for the POWs rests with the Supreme Court. Their lawyers petitioned the high court last month to hear the case. Significantly, it has been renamed Acree vs. Iraq and the United States.
The POWs say the justices should decide the "important and recurring question [of] whether U.S. citizens who are victims of state-sponsored terrorism [may] seek redress against terrorist states in federal court."
This week, Justice Department lawyers are expected to file a brief urging the court to turn away the appeal.
Let's hope BushCorpTM drops its opposition to their suit and demonstrates its support amounts to more than mere bits of yellow colored cloth. But I'm not optimistic. To my recollection, the only bits of colored cloth BushCorpTM is interested in are green, with pictures of dead presidents.