Sooner Be Blue

Mostly politics, a few current events, a squirt of seltzer down yer pants .. a little blog for my rambles and rants.

2008/4/29

Yes, but what does it have to do with Rev. Wright?

Tags:
@ 07:43 AM (2 months, 10 days ago)

4 Americans were killed in Iraq yesterday, 44 injured ...but watching TV you wouldn't know it. Just in case all those cable news talking heads are interested -- IF they can break away from their faux outrage over Rev. Wright's latest comments -- there is a war raging in Iraq. And it IS raging:
 
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, April 29, 2008; Page A10
 
"BAGHDAD, April 28 -- Four U.S. soldiers were killed in two rocket attacks in Baghdad on Monday as clashes between U.S.-backed Iraqi forces and Shiite militiamen intensified, the military said.
 
Three soldiers were killed about 1 p.m. in eastern Baghdad, where fighters loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have battled U.S. and Iraqi troops. The fourth American soldier was killed at 4:15 p.m. in the western part of the capital, a U.S. military spokesman said. The military provided few other details about the attacks.
 
The deaths marked one of the deadliest days for U.S. troops in Iraq since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launched an offensive against Shiite militias in the southern city of Basra in late March, prompting retaliation there and in the vast Shiite district of Sadr City in Baghdad. Forty-four U.S. troops have died in Iraq in April, according to iCasualties.org, which tracks military fatalities, more than any month since September. [..] "
 
http://tinyurl.com/634uqb
 
Our troops are not safe in that quagmire called Iraq even in the Green Zone. In fact, the Green Zone will prolly soon become the most dangerous area of the entire city of Baghdad. What an ironic -- yet totally expected -- turn in this sad ugly saga.
 
Obviously the insurgents have changed tactics. I read that they are flush with money from the poppy harvest and they can buy rockets with longer ranges. (Remember Hezbollah's bombardment of Israel?)
 
Where does this put John McCain...given that he has no problem with keeping our military in Iraq for 100 years, as long as our troops aren't shot or harmed while stationed there?
 
Who will be the last to die for a mistake?
Whose blood will spill?
Whose heart will break?
Who will be the last to die for a mistake?
-Bruce Springsteen
 

2008/4/26

Atheist Soldier Sues: 'I Believe in Plexiglas'

Tags:
@ 11:36 AM (2 months, 13 days ago)

If he wishes to serve his country, his belief or non-belief is irrelevant. The USA, last time I looked, had no religious requirement for citizenship or military service.
 
From AP, Apr 26, JUNCTION CITY, Kan. - Like hundreds of young men joining the Army in recent years, Jeremy Hall professes a desire to serve his country while it fights terrorism.
 
But the short and soft-spoken specialist is at the center of a legal controversy. He has filed a lawsuit alleging he's been harassed and his constitutional rights have been violated because he doesn't believe in God. The suit names Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
 
"I'm not in it for cash," Hall said. "I want no one else to go what I went through."
 
Known as "the atheist guy," Hall has been called immoral, a devil worshipper and — just as severe to some soldiers — gay, none of which, he says, is true.[..]"
 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080426/ap_on_re_us/army_atheist_speaks
 
He drove theists to church and paused in silence while they prayed. Seems respectful to me.
 
And no one has counter sued saying he was a bad soldier.
 
So why is it wrong for him to talk about the way he believes? The religious do it all the time.
 
MOST religions have fundamentalists in their ranks. This soldier's harassers act like members of a cult.
 
Think about it. A cult created by superstitious tribes in the Middle Eastern desert centuries ago, before science could prove them to be wrong.
 
We might have been better off if ALL Middle Eastern religion had stayed in the desert where it belongs. In the dust.