in memory of jeffrey lucey

to his friends, family and comrades, i am very sorry

to george bush and big dick. i blame YOU for his death
(and tens of thousands of other deaths)

What War Did to Jeffrey Lucey.
An American Suicide

by John B. Judis

n July 26, the parents of Jeffrey Lucey, an Iraq vet who committed suicide, filed suit in Massachusetts against the Department of Veterans Affairs for "wrongful death" and "medical malpractice." The Luceys could win their case. In April 2007, the VA's Inspector General concluded that the VA Medical Center in Leeds had made mistakes in dealing with Jeffrey Lucey. But the questions about this case go beyond the already well-documented incompetence of the Veterans Administration. They involve the effect of the Iraq war on the mental health of American soldiers.
Jeffrey Lucey was born in Springfield and raised in Belchertown, a small town in central Massachusetts. After graduating from Belchertown high school in 1999, he enlisted in the Marine Reserves, where he was assigned to the 6th Motor Transport Battalion. The 6th Motors, as they were called, participated in the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Moving northward, they ran into heavy resistance in Nasiriyah, where a thousand Iraqis, including many civilians, died in the fighting. In April, Lucey wrote his girlfriend that he had done "immoral" things. "I have done so much immoral shit during the last month that life is never going to seem the same, and all I want is to erase the past month, pretend it didn't happen."
In July, the 6th Motors returned home. When Lucey first filled out discharge papers, he wrote that he had memories of dead people, but his friends in his unit advised him that if he wrote things like that, he would be retained for psychiatric evaluation. In the debriefing questionnaire, he checked "no" to the question asking whether he needed psychiatric help. .......

(by the way, unless you have a strong stomach, do NOT google image camel spiders)

once again, i ask you to head on over to

immigration orange and check out

citizen's for boycotting chiquita

(please)

follow up to da liebs and da evangelical 'waiting for the rapture' christians

remember, the video? i posted it last week (or the week before)



Joe Lieberman Defends Speech to Fundamentalist Christian War-mongers



Posted by Sarah Posner at 12:00 PM on August 6, 2007.

Sarah Posner: Senator "liberated" from Democratic Party says end-of-days scenario is "private theological matter."




In his Salon interview with Walter Shapiro this morning, Joe Lieberman defends his speech to Christians United for Israel last month. The goods:
You got a lot of criticism from bloggers for making a recent speech to Christians United for Israel. Everybody in politics makes speeches to groups that they haven't fully researched. Did you know exactly what you were endorsing when you spoke to them?
I know that they were very supportive of Israel, as I am. That they were supportive of the war in Iraq, which I am. And that they were very agitated about the rise of this particular Iranian regime. So I certainly didn't know -- and I don't know -- I go before groups all the time when I don't agree with them on everything.
So you are not endorsing their belief that the Rapture is imminent and that war in the Middle East presages that.

I have seen some things where Pastor [John] Hagee himself, the founder of the group, doesn't give support to that notion. But that's a private theological matter. Two reasons I went. One is a sign of my independence and liberation. I'm a believer that the more people you have in politics, the better. And that includes people of faith. If that is their motivation -- and no pun intended -- God bless them.............

original posting (and DO click on it JUST to watch the video): the best part is...