a numbering system with room for thousands more / War Without End, Amen

Clicking makes it bigger.

Notice the leading zero. Iraq Warhawks are fond of pointing out that this isn't like Vietnam because comparatively few American troops have been killed in Iraq so far.

Measured in dead soldiers and Marines, Iraq is a real bargain.

But the Vietnam War showed that a practical numbering system for flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware will need the leading zero. During Vietnam, America's political leaders proved we're going to need the leading zero. We can be that bi-partisan suicidal genocidal children-eating dumb and foot-shooting crazy.

a Letter to the Editor of The Daily Hampshire Gazette, Northampton, Massachusetts USA (my home town paper):

Monday 7 May 2007

Wrong message for troops

To the editor:

I am writing regarding the article titled "Whately Backs Call For Impeachment" (Gazette, April 26). In my opinion, not all Whately residents feel the way George and Kathy Chapman do. The landslide vote which was referred to in the article consisted of approximately 40 residents of Whately, when the population of the town is 1,500-plus. As George said, "It's time for action. We've got to have change." But, being that our country is at war and people are dying, I feel that people should be backing our government instead of trying to undermine them. What message are we sending to all our servicemen and women of the armed services that are fighting this war?

David Petrizzi

Whately

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my reply, sent today via webform:
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Letters to the Editor
The Daily Hampshire Gazette

To the Editor:

In his letter "Wrong message for troops" (7 May), David Petrizzi writes: "... being that our country is at war and people are dying, I feel that people should be backing our government instead of trying to undermine them."

Protesting the disastrous War Without End in Iraq is the best, most America-loving message citizens can send to President Bush, to the new Democratic-led Congress, and to all our troops.

From 1846 to 1848, a young congressman repeatedly denounced the Mexican War in the loudest and harshest terms, calling it "a scoundrels' war" based on greed and lies. The anti-war congressman was Abraham Lincoln, a veteran of the Black Hawk War, and he voted for every appropriation to support American troops already committed to combat.

Thus Lincoln established and enshrined the American tradition of anti-war activism that supports our troops.

When I was a soldier during the Vietnam War, and saw American politicians, religious leaders, activists and entertainment figures trying to end the war, it was patriotic music to my ears. They were certainly supporting my brothers, sisters and me far better than my commander-in-chief, Richard Nixon, who was escalating the war and trying to get me killed. Nixon and his predecessor Lyndon Johnson ordered the deaths of 58,000 Americans in uniform in a disastrous, pre-doomed scoundrels' war founded on government lies.

Today, from Nancy Pelosi to Harry Reid to the Dixie Chicks, the Americans who support our troops the best are the Americans trying to end the war in Iraq. As we watch in disgust how our wounded warriors are treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and see the outlandish bonuses the Department of Veterans Affairs awards its incompetent administrators, who can think Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush is sending the right message to our troops?

From his invasion of Iraq to today, Bush has ordered the deaths of 3,377 of my neighbors' children, in a war that has dragged on longer than it took America to achieve total victory in World War II.

In Abraham Lincoln's spirit, I urge every American to support our troops and send them the right messages: Stop the Iraq War. Bring the troops home now.

Robert Merkin

SP5 U.S. Army 1969-1971

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An Iraq War Snapshot from the Homefront. Same newspaper.

Mount Holyoke College is one of America's most prestigious private liberal-arts colleges. Its students are almost all women. It's a 30-minute drive from Northampton.
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The Daily Hampshire Gazette
Northampton Massachusetts USA
Monday 7 May 2007

Police probe apparent theft
of anti-war banner
at Mount Holyoke

by JAMES F. LOWE, Staff Writer

SOUTH HADLEY -- Mount Holyoke College peace activists say they're surprised and disappointed by the alleged theft of an anti-war banner over the weekend.

Elizabeth Cooper, a first-year student at the college, said in an interview Monday that she spotted the men untying the 100-by-45-foot banner, which read

No more war
Human life is precious
No more war

about 9:45 p.m. Saturday. She said she asked them why they were taking the banner down, and that one of the men responded, "Because it's [expletive], that's why."

According to her, two of the three said they [were] members of the armed services, and one said he was about to deploy to Iraq. After taking the banner down, Cooper said, the men put it in the back of a silver pickup truck. Cooper said she tried to grab it back, but one of the men sat on top of it as the truck drove away.

Mount Holyoke's Public Safety department is investigating the incident as a case of larceny, according [to] Lt. Raymond LaBarre. He said witnesses had provided partial descriptions of the suspects, but weren't able to give them a license plate number.

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