Last March, I came across a letter written to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from a paralyzed and dying Iraq war vet named Tomas Young. It touched me to such an extent, that I highlighted it on Liberty Blitzkrieg at the time. He died on Monday, the day before Veterans Day. If you really want to honor our nation’s soldiers, you should read the following and share it.
RIP Tomas Young.
Full letter below, from Counterpunch.
My Last Words to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
by TOMAS YOUNG
I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.
I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.
I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.
Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.
I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.
I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.
I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.
My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.
-Tomas Young
What’s so impressive about this letter, beyond the incredible emotion and pain behind it, is the fact that Mr. Young was so prescient about so many issues. He highlighted the debacle that became the Veterans Administration scandal before it broke, and he also pointed to the dangerous power vacuum created in Baghdad before the emergence of ISIS. We lost a special soul on Monday.
Another related post I would strongly suggest reading is: “Stop Thanking Me for My Service” – Former U.S. Army Ranger Blasts American Foreign Policy and The Corporate State.
Great letter and touches my heart.
What did admin say on the 11th?
Your choice, your consequences?
@John, nothing changes – these guys signed up for the unknown. Hopefully more will learn a little more of whats behind the curtain next time before signing away who they are for nearly nothing. If your a T4T reader, you’ll know why they won’t, unfortunately. Shame, guy sure wrote a cogent thought for sure.
@TOMMY
Kids are what join the military
They dont know to look behind the curtain. I was parroting admin, thats not my opinion.
@John, shame those same kids don’t have parents that give a shit enough to learn what the real issues are. So many just sign up and instant-presto, they’re now respectable members of the United States this-or-that…..from go nowhere couch potato’s to noble defenders. I suppose in a world of instant gratification ‘careers’ aren’t off limits.
War in the ME was and is about oil and the Petrodollar.
Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, stated the following on page 463 of his book, The Age of Turbulence:
“I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”
In a televised interview with Frontline, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III made the following statement regarding U.S. national security policy:
“I have been a member of four (Presidential) administrations. And in every one of those administrations we had written as a national security policy that we would go to war to protect the national energy reserves of the Persian Gulf, if necessary.”
General John Abizaid, who was formerly the Commander of the USCENTCOM during the Iraq war, stated during an October 2007 round table discussion entitled: “Courting Disaster: The Fight for Oil, Water and a Healthy Planet” at Stanford University:
“Of course (the Iraq war) is about oil, we can’t deny that.”
Former U.S. Ambassador, and war hawk, John Bolton publicly admitted in an interview on FoxNews dated Oct 22, 2011, that the multiple wars that America has fought in the Middle East have been about securing oil supplies. Speaking of the U.S.-Middle East conflicts, Bolton stated:
“The critical oil and natural gas producing region that we fought so many wars to try and protect our economy from the adverse impact of losing that supply or having it available only at very high prices.”
In June 2003, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz made the following comments after being asked why Iraq was being treated differently than North Korea on the question of a nuclear threat, while speaking to an Asian security summit in Singapore:
“Let’s look at it simply. The most important difference between North Korea and Iraq is that economically, we just had no choice in Iraq. The country swims on a sea of oil.”
http://ftmdaily.com/preparing-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-system-part-3/
The American people have shockingly short memories. How many times can people be lied into war before they revolt?
And then I remember where most Americans are educated – government schools – and suddenly their ignorance makes perfect sense.
Is maintaining the Petrodollar a vital National security issue for the United States? What happens when the Petrodollar collapse?
Now there’s a couple of questions that need answers.
I’ve heard statements that we really didn’t get any oil out of the Iraq war. I wonder at young men who sign up to be a foot soldier and put their life on the line, for what? I spent veterans day mad. These illegal wars for corporations. Idiotic. You think there is any threat to national security.
Then the bullshit the press say’s about Ukraine. And the world play’s along with this crap.
I would give the middle finger and laugh at Obama too, if i were Putin. Yes the U.S. is trying to setup another war.
yahsure says: ’Ive heard statements that we really didn’t get any oil out of the Iraq war.
It’s not about getting the oil. It’s about making sure oil can only be purchased with US dollars.
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The reason we went in to Iraq was to keep the petrodollar in place, also the reason we hit Libya.
“On September 24, 2000, Saddam Hussein allegedly “emerged from a meeting of his government and proclaimed that Iraq would soon transition its oil export transactions to the euro currency.”
Not long after this meeting, Saddam Hussein began preparing to make the switch from pricing his country’s oil exports in greenbacks to euros. As renegade and newsworthy this action was on the part of Iraq, it was sparsely reported in the corporate-controlled media.
http://ftmdaily.com/preparing-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-system-part-3/
If these disgruntled veterans and active duty soldiers want to make a real difference, they should write letters to all of the high school and college kids graduating from their alma mater. Writing to the people who sent them there, there ones they themselves recognize as not caring, is a waste of time.
Unless they were drafted, they have no one to blame but themselves. I’m eternally grateful to my father for steering me away from a military career that he himself had.
if you want to see your tax dollars and my tax euros at work in Ukraine, here’s a must see:
without 2 kids,my wife and job, I would join the freedom fighters, and I really mean it.