No Veteran Not Left Behind

Compassion, compassion, compassion.

That's what the Dalai Lama said.

Conservative, conservative, conservative.

That's what the black-heart neo-cons said.

If one scrolls below at No Blood for Hubris, one can see the charming stories such as, "First We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You," parts one and two, in which the tale of the notorious non-combatant Daddy's-Friends-Got-Me-Into-The-National-Guards-man and current president Bubble Boy, whose government looks for, and then creates ways to deny mental health treatment to veterans who have post-traumatic stress disorder (they do this by deciding, hey! dude! Your flashbacks aren't soooo bad, after all! Adios, amigo! See ya!)

Now, these cuddly neo-cons are doing it again--only it's arguably even more perverse.

Take a gander, but keep a tight fist on your vomit bag:

For Injured U.S. Troops, 'Financial Friendly Fire'

Flaws in Pay System Lead to Dunning, Credit Trouble

By Donna St. George

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 14, 2005; Page A01

His hand had been blown off in Iraq, his body pierced by shrapnel. He could not walk. Robert Loria was flown home for a long recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he tried to bear up against intense physical pain and reimagine his life's possibilities.

The last thing on his mind, he said, was whether the Army had correctly adjusted his pay rate -- downgrading it because he was out of the war zone -- or whether his combat gear had been accounted for properly: his Kevlar helmet, his suspenders, his rucksack.

At his home near Middletown, N.Y., Robert Loria plays a keyboard. He lost his left hand in a bombing in Iraq. (Dominick Fiorille - Middletown Times Herald Record) 'His hand had been blown off in Iraq, his body pierced by shrapnel. He could not walk. Robert Loria was flown home for a long recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he tried to bear up against intense physical pain and reimagine his life\'s possibilities.'

But nine months after Loria was wounded, the Army garnished his wages and then, as he prepared to leave the service, hit him with a $6,200 debt. That was just before last Christmas, and several lawmakers scrambled to help. This spring, a collection agency started calling. He owed another $646 for military housing.

"I was shocked," recalled Loria, now 28 and medically retired from the Army. "After everything that went on, they still had the nerve to ask me for money."

Although Loria's problems may be striking on their own, the Army has recently identified 331 other soldiers who have been hit with military debt after being wounded at war. The new analysis comes as the United States has more wounded troops than at any time since the Vietnam War, with thousands suffering serious injury in Iraq or Afghanistan."


I've asked it before, now I'm asking it again: what is frickin' wrong with these people?

Why have they no shame?

Why have they no care, no compassion, no sense of responsibility toward the post-born?

Why is it that only sentimentalist tales of lonely, sightless, womb-encased embryoes, quite unable to live on their own, are able to inspire any kind of fellow-feeling in them, if you can call it that?

Why have these people only charred, black hearts?

Just asking.


Veterans
Bush

Bubble Boy: Sending Our Kids to Die For His Right to Remain A Maroon!

Well, not just for Bubble Boy's right to remain a maroon*. It's really about fighting for all his Bubble Boy-ist maroons' right to retain their maroon-ness.

It's the big-time Dirty Bush trifecta for America: fighting to bring us fiscal bankruptcy, moral bankruptcy, and the right to remain an unregenerate maroon!

You've got to admit, he's as good at doing the true trifecta as he is at clearing brush and raising money.

Number one--there's no money left for anything, really. They spent it all on tax cuts and the Bubble Boy's war. There being no money left was Bubble Boy's Grover-Norquistian plan. Starve the beast. Help government shrivel away and DIE. And it's really working! They're dismantling military bases left and right--mostly in blue states, as punishment for not being red states.

There's no money left for helping with hurricanes like Katrina, there's no money left to treat all the veterans their evil maroon war gave PTSD to, there's no money to inspect air travelers' luggage, there's no money to protect city subways, they're shutting down Walter Reed--who needs hospitals when people can just pray?

Number two--bringing us moral bankruptcy. Rumsfeld gives orders to torture prisoners, but they need to frame it like it isn't torture, but of course, it is. Rummy tells the military, the military tries to object, Rummy tells the military to shut the fuck up. Rummy sends the Gitmo Guy to Abu Ghraib, and "contractors" -- that would be mercenaries -- come in and tell the grunts what kind of torture they want, and against whom. Then the grunts get caught, the mercenaries vanish, the grunts go to jail. Perfecta trifecta. The photos come out, & recruiting for Al Qaeda triples.

Don't forget--the best photos are still to come! Yes, yes, we're SO a Christian nation, big-time! Who would Jesus NOT torture? Who would Jesus NOT assassinate?

Number three--puffing up with MAROON PRIDE! Sending our (well, really, YOUR) children to die so WE can continue to be maroons, act like maroons, make stupid decisions like maroons, lie through our teeths like maroons, poison our very own air and water and food like maroons, make fun of smart people like maroons do, big-time name-call all non-maroons, and then, oops, now post-Cindy we're starting to come apart at the seams, like maroons in despair.

Oh, dear. It's getting SO hard to keep that maroon pride going. There are these maroon mood swings that make aides wonder if they need to call the little men in white coats, there's a suddenly chain-smoking ex-librarian, there are temper tantrums, there's intermittent explosive-type events, oopsie, there is gnashing of teeth and stomping of feet, and minions trying to cover it all up.

Yes, of course Bubble Boy is upset. He's losing the war he wanted to win so he could be a war president!!

Chokes on pretzels, falls off Segways, starts wars to compete with his Daddy, but it turns out after all, that Father knew best. Oh, my. What a maroon.



Bush, idiot
worst president ever
Dirty Bush
Iraq War


(N.B. "What a ma-ROON!" reprises Bugs Bunny's classic phrase conferring moron stature on him or her to whom said phrase is directed. Bugs Bunny is, well, Bugs Bunny.)

Dirty Bush to Vets, Part Deux: First, We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You. It's Hard Work.

Here, the story of Sgt. Daniel Cotnoir, a returned Iraq vet whose Iraq assignment was re-assembling the body parts of bombically disassembled humans. Think about that for a moment, or two. He came under psychological fire now that he's back home.

Will this returned soldier be able to meet the magic stress test so he can receive benefits due to a psychologically-maimed troop? Or will he be one of those veterans fobbed off onto the penal system, or else systematically down-graded to a lesser diagnosis in order to save the Bushist government more money?

See below.

Tell me again, Dirty Bush, why isn't there enough money to care for our soldiers? There's plenty of money for drilling offshore oil, and Alaska oil, and suchlike.

Just wondering.



Bush
Vets
Vets with PTSD
worst president ever

Dirty Bush to Vets: First We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You

No surprises, really. An administration that cuts taxes for rich folks and cuts corners for regular military folks, letting troops risking their lives go into battle without armor. Body armor, armor for vehicles; hey, dudes, you know, you have to invade countries that didn't invade you with the armor you have, not the armor you wish you had.

Now, finally cognizant that they've pissed away the Clinton surplus with their psychotic tax-cuts and no-tax-just-spendism, the Dirty Bushists are trying to balance the budget on the backs of psych-maimed vets.

Wow. Nice one.

Here's the technique: you take "another look" at your current military veterans who have been diagnosed with post-traumatic-stress disorder (you know, that thing that often happens when a guy or gal spends a lot of time watching buddies explode into masses of blood and guts, watching innocent civilians explode into shreds and piles of blood and guts, eye-witnessing various categories of human beings being slaughtered freely so they leave little indelible pieces of their brain and skin on your uniform and on your mind-stream, and so on).

Next, you try to CUT OFF as many of these suffering vets as possible from benefits, such as receiving disability pay and receiving standard of care psychological treatment for PTSD (you know, the kind of treatment which could cure their suffering).

How do you cut them off from benefits? Why, you cleverly "un-diagnose" them. You just move them from one column to the next. You say, your symptoms, debilitating as they are, just AREN'T enough as of today, so we now say, you're fine, just fine, we just don't give a shit. We don't care.

[post-Cindy-at-Crawford update: aha. A true Bushist leitmotif: We don't care! We don't care! We don't care! And, you know, they actually don't!]

Deal with it, major dudes. Commit suicide, homicide, who cares, tough nuts, it's all your fault if you're all fucked up now. Once you're dead, or in jail, we don't have to pay for your psychotherapy anymore. Heh, heh.

Isn't that charming? Isn't that just the way to save a buck?

There's more at Salon:


"Outraged vets say . . . plan is a callous attempt to cuts the costs of an increasingly expensive war."


Easy to sum up the Dirty Bushists: heartless, brainless, soulless.






Bush
Vets with PTSD
Vets
Rumsfeld