Appeal for Redress
QuestionGirl November 8th, 2007 - 10:55 am
The “Appeal for Redress” held a press conference, on Oct. 17, 2007, on Capitol Hill, in the Rayburn Building. The group of 2,050 active duty military members is calling on the U.S. Congress “to end the occupation of Iraq.” It is also warning the Bush-Cheney Gang from “repeating the same mistake in Iran.” For background on the “Appeal for Redress,” check out: www.appealforredress.org. Sponsoring the event was the “Institute for Policy Studies,” of which John Cavanagh is the Director. See for more info: www.ips-dc.org.
Some of Rep. Filner’s comments:
Rep. Filner, on Oct. 17, 2007, on Capitol Hill, said: “We did not take care of them. We [the government] made a mistake. We can still rectify it for those who are [still] with us. Over half of the homeless on the streets tonight, 200,000, are Vietnam Vets. As many Vietnam vets have now committed suicide as died in the original war.”
“That is over 58,000! We did something wrong. And, we see ‘the same thing’ happening again [with respect to the Iraq War]. The ’suicide rates’ are back up to where they were in the Vietnam period. We’ve seen homelessness already … The President says: `Support troops, support troops, support troops,’ but, when they [the troops] come home, `they are on their own.”’
Rep. Filner continued: “Because, what’s going on now is we’re `saving the President’s face.’ Everybody has admitted that we can’t win this [the Iraq War] militarily … It’s a political thing. We’ve gotta get out … He [Bush] is going to `stay in.’ He’s going to `stay in’ through his term. He’s going to make the Democrats take responsibility for this thing. That is to `save his face.’ Thousands of kids are going to come back in caskets, which we are not allowed to see, or with amputations, brain injuries, with traumatic stress … Everybody comes back with [this] incredible … sense of what they went through and it’s very difficult to reintegrate.”
