Monday, March 12, 2007

THIS JUST IN! 'DO I LOOK LIKE A WALTER REED SCAPEGOAT?'

 
AWARD WINNER IN THE INTERNATIONAL BILLIE JEAN KING LOOKALIKE CONTEST ALBERTO GONZALES IS COMING UNDER NEW HEAT WITH REGARDS TO HIS DAY JOB AS U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL.
 
 
REACHED FOR COMMENT TODAY, GONZALES STATED HE WAS NOT TAKING THE "SUGGESTIONS" SERIOUSLY. 
 
"BLAH BLAH PATRIOT ACT, BLAH BLAH VIOLATIONS," GONZALES MOCKED.  "STEP DOWN?  DO I LOOK LIKE A WALTER REED SCAPEGOAT?"
 
THESE REPORTERS ASKED HIM WHAT HE PLANNED TO DO IF HE WAS NOT GOING TO STEP DOWN.
 
"OH, I AM SO BUSY!"  GONZALES EXPLAINED.  "BARBARA BUSH, BULLY MOMMA, HAS AGREED TO BE BOBBY RIGGS WHEN WE STAGE THE HISTORIC REMATCH OF THE BILLE JEAN KING AND BOBBY RIGGS MATCH THIS SEPTEMBER.  YOU KNOW, IT IS THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MATCH."
 
THESE REPORTERS POINTED OUT THAT SEPTEMBER 20, 2007 WOULD, IN FACT, BE THE 24TH ANNIVERSARY.
 
"GOOD THINK I'M NOT IN CHARGE OF THE TREASURY!" GONZALES CHUCKLED BEFORE HANGING UP THE PHONE.
 
 
 
Starting with the latest news in the continued scandal that is Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Tony Capaccio and Ken Fireman (Bloomberg News) report that the U.S. Army's surgeon general, Kevin Kiley, is "the third official to lost his job after disclosures last month of substand care for injured soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center" following in the footsteps of Secreatry of the Army Francis Harvey (March 2nd) and George Weightman (March 1st).  CNN reports that although the official explanation is the Kiley wanted to retire, he was, in fact, asked to resign.  Andrew Gray (Reuters) reports, "A senior U.S. defense official said surgeon general Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley had been asked to request retirement by acting Army Secretary Pete Geren."  Last month, reporting by Dana Priest and Anne Hull (Washington Post) and Bob Woodruff (ABC News) shined a spot light on the long ignored problem of the medical services for veterans.  At the Post, Josh White notes, "Kiley had faced intense scrutiny during hearings on Capitol Hill during the past two weeks, when numerous members of Congress asked him directly if he should resign either because he failed to notice horrid living conditions and a tangled bureaucracy at Walter Reed or because he failed to fix them. Kiley had said he wanted to stay on the job and lead the Army's medical community through systemic change, but he also acknowledged that he was in a tenuous position."  The position is no longer "tenuous," he has left after being asked to do so.
 
Across the Atlantic, similar problems with medical care are being noticed.  Mark Townsend and Ned Temko (The Observer) report that Selly Oak Hospital in Brimingham is providing questionable care and note that British soldier Jamie Cooper recently begged repeatedly (in front of his parents) for a nurse to empty his colostomy bag but, despite requests to three nurses, he had to continue begging before his very basic need could be met and notes that Cooper "may as well have begged for his dignity."  Kevin Sullivan (Washington Post) also examines the situation and speaks with Cooper's father, Phillip, who tells him that he and his wife have twice had to empty their hospitalized son's colostomy bag because nurses wouldn't,  "We didn't mind doing it -- he's our son -- but we shouldn't have had to."  The Royal British Legion's Sue Freeth calls the care "a national disgrace" and tells Sullivan, "They are not getting what they expect, nor are their family members getting what they expect."
 
Turning to news of war resistance, US war resister Joshua Key was interviewed on Australian TV last week.  Key, who remains in Canada, is the author of The Deserter's Tale.
 
TONY JONES: Now of the numerous raids and other incidents you participated in you've written, "It struck me that the American soldiers themselves were the terrorists." Now people back home, your own family, are going to be horrified to hear you say that.

JOSHUA KEY: I'm sure they will be, but the way I look at it, that was the truth. We had no justification after all them homes that I raided, there was no justification. I felt that we were more antagonising, causing in my picture to myself, we had become the terrorists. I wasn't getting terrorised. I was more doing the terrorising.

TONY JONES: In what regard? What do you mean by that?

JOSHUA KEY: Raiding the homes, taking their sons and their husbands. If they were over five foot tall they were sent off regardless of whether anything was found in that house or not. Through everyday night raids, of course, illumination rounds - used to do the rounds all night long, complete patrolling of the streets non-stop. It was more antagonising. We weren't -- we would go out on a patrol it's not -- we would be saying derogatory names even to the Iraqi women. We antagonised, we brought it -- we made it the way it was.

 
Key is a part of a movement of resistance within the military that includes  Agustin Aguayo,  Ehren Watada, Kyle Snyder, Agustin Aguayo, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart,  Ivan Brobeck, Darrell Anderson, Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Corey Glass, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.


Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
 
 
 
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"

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