Dying vet’s ‘fuck you’ letter to George Bush & Dick Cheney

Discussion in 'Politics' started by CityCoast, Mar 20, 2013.

  1. To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
    From: Tomas Young


    I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.



    I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all-the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.



    I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans-my fellow veterans-whose future you stole.



    Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.



    I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq's oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level-moral, strategic, military and economic-Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.



    I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.



    I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn't lying a sin? Isn't murder a sin? Aren't theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.



    My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

    -Tomas Young

    [​IMG]
    Dangerous Minds | Dying vet
     
  2. Bummmp....
     
  3. Wow, this was a very powerful and moving letter. Thanks very much for posting.

    I hope I can live to see the day where the war criminals face justice.

    This next hit is for this dying gentleman.
     
  4. Poor guy along with the thousands upon thousands of other victims. I'll pass his letter on.
     
  5. That was beautiful. Well in terms of weight.

    Hey, you fatcats up in Washington reading this (and I know you are considering how you view internet a threat because its free speech's last bastion, or rather your cronies who are reading this), go fuck yourselves, I hope you all die a thousand times for each innocent person whose life your petty ambitions took from us, and that you rot in hell for all the atrocities you have wrought on this world.




    If only the media had the balls to read this mans letter live on TV, it would show the people what's really been going on, and what great causes their loved ones have died for.
     
  6. Holy FUCK. :mad: :( :mad:

    This is why I am against 18 year olds running off to the Army when they don't know any better.
     
  7. Too bad the corporate puppet masters behind the scenes weren't mentioned. The event that he went to war for was an engineered stunt designed to enrage and mobilize the citizenry for a new level of imperial mobilization.

    Fuck Bush and Cheney for allowing themselves to be used as puppets and fuck the corporatocracy for engineering it all.
     
  8. Very moving. I hope this reaches where it needs to reach
     
  9. at least take care of the solders...give THEM the best healthcare and aftercare. i mean where does all the money go?
     
  10. Same place it always goes.

    In the pockets of the greedy and corrupt.

    And abuse against veterans is hardly a new concept.

    Go back in time, and you'll find plenty of similar sentiment over 40 years ago from the veterans of the Vietnam war.

    Only difference now is we're not spitting directly in their face when they return from an unjust war. That activity is now the Administration's job as they sit back and barely acknowledge issues like PTSD, and then offer band-aid treatments while scratching their heads over the suicide rate. :mad:
     
  11. Somebody give this guy a joint. Looks like he needs to eat something.

    I know very little about PTSD but I imagine weed would be an excellent thing for it.
     

  12. Every vet I know that has PTSD says weed is the ONLY thing that really helps it but if you get caught smoking it you lose all your benefits. Fucked up really.
     

  13. This was my initial thought.

    The least we could do to pay respect to this man is by passing his letter on.
    :)
     
  14. And forcing people to read it
     
  15. I'm going to get shit for this, but I have no sympathy for Iraq/Afghan war vets. War cannot exist without soldiers willing to fight, and none of them were drafted. They brought the wounds, death, and mental damage upon themselves.

    But yes, Bush & Cheney should be charged and locked up for war crimes.
     
  16. I still like Adam kokesh
     
  17. I didn't mean I don't like them. I just mean I don't feel sorry for them when they start whining.
     
  18. Very moving letter.

    We could have pattern bombed or nuked the hills Afghanistan, after 9/11, until they turned bin laden and others who were responsible over to us - dead or alive. It was a terrible waste of lives to send all those people over there, and Iraq was worse.
     
  19. #19 CityCoast, Mar 20, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 20, 2013
    I understand your position on that, I don't necessarily agree that we should show no sympathy or respect to someone that has been manipulated to believe he was fighting for the right cause, for he has given his life in the process of doing so.

    His last moments, his last breathes, his life slowly being taken away, and he chooses to take the time to write a letter exposing the real threat of it all.

    He may have made a mistake in the beginning, but at least he is trying to make up for that mistake. I find it courageous and honorable for the words he wrote, and hope these words speak wisdom to many young men/women who also want to help protect this country by joining the military.

    I don't know what actions he took during his service, but it may be too judgmental to say he is just as corrupt as any other soldier there.
     
  20. This Chris Hedges article with Tomas Young from a few days ago is crucial reading.

    I do warn that it's a sad, emotional read, even more so than the letter Young wrote. He's going to refuse the feeding tube he requires for sustenance because everyday life with his many injuries has become too much for him to bear any longer.



    I am pained that these bastards who got us into Iraq will never pay for their crimes. In fact, they're been rewarded handsomely as though they did nothing wrong. Much the same bastards are trying to get us into Iran.
     

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