My GI brother can't say it: Get troops out now

My GI brother can't say it: Get troops out now
BY LAURA WASHINGTON LauraSWashington@aol.com
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
July 30, 2007

People are always asking me how my younger brother is doing.

Thanks for asking, I say. Drew is fine. For now.

Army Sgt. Andrew Washington went to Afghanistan in 2002. A career enlistee, he was sent to Jordan in 2003 to help launch the Iraq war. After that, it was South Korea.

Now the word coming down from the Army brass: His unit may be headed to Iraq by the new year. That's a terrifying scenario, and not just for Drew.

He can't tell you that, of course. Our military heroes are asked to make the ultimate sacrifice to protect our democracy, yet they don't enjoy the opportunity to engage in the honest, freewheeling debate that our democracy is supposed to ensure.

Remember when the Pentagon forbade soldiers from posting on YouTube? You know why. The big boys with the medals were petrified of what they might say. Imagine if last week's You Tube/CNN debate had included a question from a soldier in Iraq. I can hear it now: The pitch to the Democratic presidential contenders: "Can you please get me the hell out of this hellhole?"

They can't say it. That's what I am here for. I am here to tell you that the thousands of singular men and women who signed up for duty deserve better than what this craven administration has offered them. They certainly don't deserve to die for the blatant lies and moronic mistakes that put us in the middle of a hellish civil war thousands of miles away from our soil. The Bush administration is asking the country which we invaded under false pretenses to remake itself into a place where American troops and commercial interests are welcome.

This whack-job of a policy was imposed on a political structure that has been turned topsy-turvy. Where Sunnis once ruled, now the Shiite hold sway. The Sunni leaders are expected to grin and be obsequious. Shiite leaders who look to Iran for inspiration are coddled and told to govern more effectively, and by the way, just ignore your centuries-long ally. These policies sound like something formulated while under the influence of some seriously mind-altering drugs.

More than 3,600 American soldiers have been killed in the Iraq War since March 2003. Thousands more -- 26,000 -- have been wounded and maimed. Since the government obviously didn't plan for such an extended conflict, preparations for wounded soldiers were given short shrift. Witness the scandalous incompetence and neglect at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

It gets pretty basic. They were sent into this desert conflagration without properly working equipment. We all know the stories about the shortage of body armor and the lightly-armored Humvees. The scandals involving commercial contracting are legendary. Halliburton, the Republican-connected oil services giant, was so craven that it changed its corporate address to Dubai and spun off a subsidiary, KBR, into a separate, stand-alone company to avoid the legal stench.

I'm sure Dick Cheney is exceedingly proud of his former employer.

This administration won't admit that the jig is up. Instead, they just drone on and on, saying that those of us who are anguished by the waste of this war should stand aside and wait. Wait until September, wait until October, wait even until next spring -- and things are sure to turn around.

Our soldiers can't say it, but I will. It's time to get our people out of that hopeless quagmire. And don't dare send any more in. Now more than ever, I am petrified for Drew and all the other good soldiers who are next up to go. They will go to fight in a war that is long lost.

Is anyone in Washington listening?