To Quote George Harrison, "Think for Yourself"

Today I opened my email to get a message from my friend who’d sent me a forward with the subject: "Makes you Think..." I read this email and the facts in it did not sit right in my soul. I thought about all the Americans who have/will read this and blindly believe what it is saying. After simmering on this for a few hours, I did some research. I found that this email has incorrect data and is just political propaganda with no basis in reality.

“Things that make you think a little........

There were 39 combat related killings in Iraq during January....
In the fair city of Detroit there were 35 murders in the month
of January.”

Actually 107 of US military personnel died in Iraq in January 2005. Plus 20 from our coalition of the willing. That's a total of 127. I see that 47 US military and 5 coalition members died in Jan. 2004. Maybe this email has been being forwarded for over a year. However, I still can’t figure out where the writer got their numbers.

A total of 1525 US military personnel have died.

Since the war started two years ago, 11,220 service people have been wounded.

Source: icasualties.org/oif/

That's not counting the thousands of innocent Iraqi civlian's who have died in the war.

The email went on to say, "That's just one American city, about as deadly as the entire war torn country of Iraq. When some claim President Bush shouldn't have started this war, think about the following ..

FDR led us into World War II. Germany never attacked us: Japan did. From 1941-1945, 450,000 lives were lost, an average
of 112,500 per year.

Truman finished that war and started one in Korea, North Korea
never attacked us. From 1950-1953, 55,000 lives were lost, an average of 18,334 per year.

John F. Kennedy started the Vietnam conflict in 1962. Vietnam
never attacked us. Johnson turned Vietnam intoa quagmir. From 1965-1975, 58,000 lives were lost, an average of 5,800 per year.

Clinton went to war in Bosnia without UN or French consent. Bosnia never attacked us. He was offered Osama bin Laden's head on a platter three times by Sudan and did nothing. Osama has attacked us on multiple occasions.

These are reasons to support or even go to war? These all sound like good reasons not to go to war to me. What about the 10 Commandments - "Though Shalt Not Kill"?

In the years since terrorists attacked us President Bush has liberated two countries, crushed the Taliban, crippled al-Qaida, put nuclear inspectors in Libya, Iran and North Korea without firing a shot, and captured a terrorist who slaughtered 300,000 of his own people.

Is it freedom to live in a country where insurgents are fighting the occupyingAmerican and coalition forces? Is it freedom for the thousands (many more than the US or coalition troops) of innocent Iraqi civilians who die in the firefights and violence?

Have we found any of the Weapons of Mass destruction that Bush, Powell and Rice said were there?

Have we captured Osama Bin Laden?

The Democrats are complaining about how long the war is taking, but... It took less time to take Iraq than it took Janet Reno to take the Branch Davidian compound. That was a 51-day operation.

We've been looking for evidence of chemical weapons in Iraq for less time than it took Hillary Clinton to find the Rose Law Firm billing records.

It took less time for the 3rd Infantry Division and the Marines to destroy the Medina Republican Guard than it took Ted Kennedy to call the police after his Oldsmobile sank at Chapaquiddick.

It took less time to take Iraq than it took to count the votes in Florida!!!!

Oh please. This is entirely stupid. It's been 2-years since the war started. That's a longer time than Waco, Clinton's Rose Law, Kennedy's Chapaquiddick or the Florida recount put together. And it is still a war, despite the “mission accomplished” photo opp that president Bush had to end the war (which also ended combat pay to our troops and reinstated peace-time wages)...our troops are still in Iraq and fighting and dying.

Our Commander-In-Chief is doing a GREAT JOB! The Military morale is high! The biased media hopes we are too ignorant to realize the facts.

This is more propaganda. Since this person did not share their name or their sources, couldn’t this email be considered biased media?

Military morale is not high. Why have we been talking constantly about the lack of enlistments since the war started? Why is the military having to enforce the “Stop Loss” rule and not allowing our service people to go home when their tours are done.

According to an Oklahoma TV news report about a deserter from Oklahoma National Guard Reservist, “The number of deserters has gone up from about 1,500 in 1995, to more than 5,500 since the war in Iraq began.”

According to a New Zealand Herald article, 100 service people have fled to Canada since the war started. Jeremy Hinzman, who just lost his bid for refuge in Canada, is one of them.

An article in the Canadian Press said...

“He said the U.S. military regarded all Arabs in the Middle East - Iraqis in particular - as potential terrorists to be eliminated and were referred to as ''savages.''

His case was bolstered by a former United States marine, who said trigger-happy American soldiers in Iraq routinely killed unarmed women and children, and murdered other Iraqis, in violation of international law.

Adjudicator Brian Goodman had previously ruled that the soldier's view of the legality of the war on Iraq could not be used to support his refugee claim.

As a deserter, Hinzman faces court martial if he returns to the United States and a potential five-year jail term.

A federal government lawyer said U.S. military deserters are normally sentenced to one year, but Hinzman said he would be treated more harshly because of his views on the Iraq war. ...”

What about the brave men and women who are serving and coming home extremely traumatized? Some are dealing with the things they have seen and done by creating home videos of explosions, fighting, violence and bloodshed.

One artist has made a photographic novella based on the graphic video and information from a soldier she met on a trip from Paris, France to Portland, Oregon. She has been corresponding with this soilder for a year now. He shares that he’s worried about coming home and hurting his daughter and family.

Read more on this.

The email's last part says: "JOHN GLENN ON THE SENATE FLOOR
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:13

Some people still don't understand why military personnel do what they do for a living. This exchange between Senators John Glenn and Senator Howard Metzenbaum is worth reading. Not only is it a pretty impressive impromptu speech, but it's also a good example of one man's explanation of why men and women in the armed services do what they do for a living. This IS a typical, though sad, example of what some who have never served think of the military.

Senator Metzenbaum to Senator Glenn:
"How can you run for Senate when you've never held a real job?"
Senator Glenn:
"I served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps. I served through two wars. I flew 149 missions. My plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire on 12 different occasions. I was in the space program. It wasn't my checkbook, Howard; it was my life on the line.

It was not a nine-to-five job, where I took time off to take the daily cash receipts to the bank. I ask you to go with me ... as I went the other day... to a veteran's hospital and look those men - with their mangled bodies - in the eye, and tell THEM they didn't hold a job!

You go with me to the Space Program at NASA and go, as I have gone, to the widows and Orphans of Ed White, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee... and you look those kids in the eye and tell them that their DADS didn't hold a job.

You go with me on Memorial Day and you stand in Arlington National Cemetery, where I have more friends buried than I'd like to remember, and you watch those waving flags. You stand there, and you think about this nation, and you tell ME that those people didn't have a job?

I'll tell you, Howard Metzenbaum; you should be on your knees every day of your life thanking God that there were some men - SOME MEN - who held REAL jobs. And they required a dedication to a purpose - and a love of country and a dedication to duty - that was more important than life itself. And their self-sacrifice is what made this country possible. I HAVE held a job, Howard! What about you?"

This is the only part the author got right.

People who haven’t served in the military cannot understand what it’s like. Myself included.

Interestingly enough most of the Bush administration and many prominent Republicans have never served in the military.
The whole list

Dick Cheney got 5 deferments in the Vietnam War. .

Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of the Iraq war and the former Deputy Secretary of Defense, never served.

Neither did John Ashcroft, Karl Rove, or Jeb Bush.

The only two in the Bush administration who have served are Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. Bush was in the Texas Air National Guard but did not see action in the Vietnam war. Rumsfeld was in the Navy from 1954-1957 and served as an aviator and flight instructor.

Meanwhile, two other Republicans who had military careers have been attacked by the Radicals in their own party. President Bush said during the 2000 election that John McCain became mentally unstable while he was POW. And General Colin Powell is attacked by the radical right as being an appeaser and being too soft on Sadam and other enemies.

Source 1
Source 2

Early on some military big-wigs were expressing concern about the Iraq war. General Schwarzkopf expressed concerns and said he felt there wasn’t enough evidence. Having also fought with the military in the first Gulf War he also knew what the military would be facing.

In 1998 Papa Bush wrote an essay for “Time” entitled “Why We Didn’t Remove Saddam”, in which he said, "Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different-and perhaps barren-outcome.”
Source

Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman once said, "It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry for blood, more vengeance. More desolation."

The people who are crying loudest for this war are the ones who've never actually seen combat. We are only increasing the hatred toward our country in the Middle East and eventually people will join the ranks of terrorists because of this war and the 50 plus years of our government's meddling in the region.

America study your history and think for yourself.