MaximsNews

To Today's News from the U.N. and the World, visit: MaximsNews.com Established 1999.

Please CONFIRM your free Subscription to MaximsNews.com: http://www.topica.com/f/v.html?900070927.900015159

MaximsNews.com, News Network Reaching Over 10,000 in the International Community, now in association with MediaChannel.org and Globalvision News Network, global news and media information services with more than 300 news affiliates in 135 countries.

Fairleigh Dickinson University, Lenfell Hall, College at Florham: Wednesday, 13 October. Ian Williams will moderates at The People Speak: “American Power and Global Security,” with Dr. Edward Luck, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; Dr. Samuel Raphalides, Political Science, Fairleigh Dickinson University; and Mr. William Pace, Executive Director, World Federalist Movement. Refreshments 5 p.m., lecture 5:30 p.m., free, for information call 201-692-7360 or e-mail suhonjic@fdu.edu . (Sponsored by Fairleigh Dickinson University and the United Nations Foundation.)

Talking Leaves Bookstore, Monday, 18 October. Ian Williams will appear and sign copies of Deserter at Elmwood, Buffalo N.Y. Monday, October 18 at 7:00 p.m.

Yale University, Pearson College , Thursday 21 October. Ian Williams will appear and sign copies of Deserter.

Ian Williams is a journalist and U.N. Correspondent for The Nation and a weekly columnist for www.MaximsNews.com Order his new book from Amazon.com, Deserter: George Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past. See his Bio. See his columns listed below. IanWilliams@MaximsNews.com

UNITED NATIONS -- 13 October 2004 / www.MaximsNews.com / There are some soldiers interviewed in the media who are going to vote for George W. Bush because “he supports the military.”

If these gullible soldiers of misfortune are posted to Iraq , one can only hope that they did not believe the President when he said that the Iraqis would welcome the American troops with bouquets.

Those are not flowers that the Iraqis have been throwing, as even the most reality-challenged Republican GI may have noticed by now.

In fact, Iraq veterans can thank their lucky stars that their “Commander-in-Chief” was absolutely wrong about those WMD’s, because if he had been telling the truth, there may have been a lot more dead Americans by now.

While White Republican Americans may indeed vote from beyond the grave in states like Jeb Bush’s Florida – their relatives may have been displeased with the president.

We know that Bush and his courtiers went to war against the advice of General Eric Shinseki, in Iraq , with far fewer troops than he said were necessary.

Bush’s plaintive whining in last weeks debate with Kerry that he had all his generals agreeing with him should not obscure a simple truth: when you have sacked everyone who disagrees with you, those who are left behind are likely to agree with you.

Bush’s attempts to identify with the military, his obsessive appearances in military wardrobes, on military bases are pathological as well as political - somewhere under that Alfred E. Neumann smirk lurks a residual memory that he actually dodged the war he could have fought in.

However, his pretensions to comradeship in arms are pathetic as well as pathological.

In fact, he and his administration have treated the military the way they have any other group of poorly paid blue collar employees: they have copiously excreted on them from a great height.

While Star Wars spending shot up to $10 billion a year in so far unproven anti-missile technology which can only hit one target: the contractors’ annual reports, families of soldiers across the US were holding bake sales and maxing out their credit cards to buy highly appropriate technology: armored vests.

Most of the vehicles that went into Iraq were unarmored. The low technology weapons of the various Iraqi groups were highly effective.

Half the car-bomb fodder thus caught in Iraq are from the reserves and National Guard – who no longer have the option box that young Lt George W. Bush ticked, to say “no” to overseas service.

Indeed, nor do they have his option of going missing and then leaving a year earlier to go to Harvard instead.

Under “stop-loss orders” the Bush administration is keeping soldiers in service when their contracts run out. Bush said in the debate that he would not introduce conscription.

A soldier who is told that he must stay in Iraq when his term finishes may not be entirely sure of the difference.

After all, this is, famously, the President who does not do “nuance,” but this certainly looks like conscription to anyone faced with desertion charges if they try to leave on the date they signed up for.

Of course, one way to make it back home is to cop a disabling wound, but there again the fog of Bush seems to descend.

By April this year, some thirty thousand veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan had filed benefits claims with the Veterans Administration for service-related disabilities – about twice as many “non-mortal wounded” as the DoD claims for those conflicts -- and that does not include those still in service.

By October, a third of their claims, almost ten thousand, had not yet been processed – at least six months after they had been made.

But then, if Bush has his way, they will not get the full benefit of their disability payments.

Last year he tried to veto a bill that allowed veterans to collect disability pay and pensions simultaneously.

For those still fighting, in 2003, his administration also tried to cut combat pay from $225 to $150 a month and the family separation allowance from $250 to $100.

Most callously of all, the same year, the Yale graduate (just) who ducked a war that killed 58,000 American troops threatened to veto a proposal to double the $6,000 payment to relatives of soldiers killed in action.

The White House thought these types of payments were “wasteful and unnecessary.” Not like all that money spent training soon-to-be-absentee F-102 pilots in Texas , one presumes.

And just as there are redundant workers who lost their jobs and pensions to executive boardroom cronies of Bush -- but who are still going to vote for him, there are indeed some present and ex-military personnel who will still support the President.

This does indeed epitomize the supreme spirit of sacrifice that George W. Bush and his courtiers have so often honored in others but never practiced themselves: to vote selflessly against your own personal interests because you believe it is the right thing to do.

It is as if the three little pigs barbecued themselves for the Big Bad Wolf because they’d been told he was right on abortion and stem cell research.

William Safire – Warped, on Speed, or Just Running Mad Again? 13 July 2004

Hastily Contrived, Verbose, and Fudged: Security Council Resolution 1546 16 June 2004