dawkins writes:

This is unbelievable. Mind-boggling. Off the charts in terms of cynicism, coldness, and pure cruelty. Do we need any further proof that the “commander in chief” doesn’t give a shit about the men who are fighting, and have fought, to advance his political fortunes?

U.S. Opposes Money for Troops Jailed in Iraq
By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 — The Bush administration is seeking to block a group of American troops who were tortured in Iraqi prisons during the Persian Gulf war in 1991 from collecting any of the hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Iraqi assets they won last summer in a federal court ruling against the government of Saddam Hussein.

In a court challenge that the administration is winning so far but is not eager to publicize, administration lawyers have argued that Iraqi assets frozen in bank accounts in the United States are needed for Iraqi reconstruction and that the judgment won by the 17 former American prisoners should be overturned.

If the administration succeeds, the former prisoners would be deprived of the money they won and, they say, of the validation of a judge's ruling that documented their accounts of torture by the Iraqis — including beatings, burnings, starvation, mock executions and repeated threats of castration and dismemberment.

"I don't want to say that I feel betrayed, because I still believe in my country," said Lt. Col. Dale Storr, whose Air Force A-10 fighter jet was shot down by Iraqi fire in February 1991.

"I've always tried to keep in the back of my mind that we were never going to see any of the money," said Colonel Storr, who was held by the Iraqis for 33 days — a period in which he says his captors beat him with clubs, broke his nose, urinated on him and threatened to cut off his fingers if he did not disclose military secrets. "But it goes beyond frustration when I see our government trying to pretend that this whole case never happened."

The Bushies’ gall is mind-blowing:

"No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through at the hands of a truly brutal regime," said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman. "It was determined earlier this year by Congress and the administration that those assets were no longer assets of Iraq, but they were resources required for the urgent national security needs of rebuilding Iraq."

Translation:

"No amount of money can truly compensate these brave men and women for the suffering that they went through at the hands of a truly brutal regime," said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, “so that’s exactly what they’ll get: no amount of money at all. It was determined earlier this year by the administration that those assets were no longer assets of Iraq, but they were resources required for the urgent image-burnishing and ass-saving needs of President Bush and his desperate efforts to justify his disastrous war and cling to power."

In a related case, a federal judge in New York ruled in September that the families of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks could not claim any part of about $1.7 billion in frozen Iraqi assets in the United States.

What tangled webs. Wasn’t it the Bushies who’ve been making the case that Saddam was responsible for 9/11? Yeah, it was. And since we all now know that Saddam was behind 9/11 (and that Iraqi frozen assets ought to then, reasonably, go to compensate 9/11 families), the Bushies are screwing those families just as hard as they’re screwing the families of Gulf War P.O.W. torture victims.

Compassionate!

"This was a major human rights decision," said John Norton Moore, one of the lawyers and a professor of national security law at the University of Virginia. "It never occurred to me in my wildest dreams that I would then see our government coming in on the side of Saddam Hussein and his regime to absolve them of responsibility for the brutal torture of Americans."

Curious that (if you believe it was one of the reasons for the current war) when Bush looked upon the brutal torture leveled by Saddam upon his own citizens, he felt compassion and resolve and declared that the brutal regime must fall. Yet when he regarded the brutal torture leveled by Saddam upon American soldiers in the first Gulf War, he found the resolve to tell them: “Fuck you. It’s my money.”

The administration moved within days of Judge Roberts's decision to block the former prisoners from collecting any money. On July 30, the judge reluctantly sided with the government, saying Mr. Bush's actions after the overthrow of Mr. Hussein had barred the transfer of the frozen assets to the former prisoners.

He said he had no other choice even though the administration's position "that the P.O.W.'s are unable to recover any portion of their judgment as requested, despite their sacrifice in the service of their country, seems extreme." The former prisoners are appealing the case through the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

[Blicero adds: no worries, man: as long as Bush nominee Janice Brown gets onto this court by the time they hear the case, the POWs are sure to be treated fairly!]

That’s a nice touch. Bush won’t let the Gulf War P.O.W.’s get “any portion” of the money.

Will this story finally enable Americans (all Americans) to see Bush as the greedy, self-serving, cynical scoundrel he truly is?

Will the news media make it stick?

Will the Democrats pick this up run with it…?

Somebody?!?

dawkins sends the following to Wes Clark (also to Kerry):

Dear General Clark:

As an American and a supporter of the men and women who wear the uniform of our armed forces, I was appalled by the news that George W. Bush has sought to prevent American P.O.W.s who were tortured by the Iraqis in the first Gulf War from receiving damages for the horrific crimes inflicted upon them.

As a patriot and a veteran yourself, will you speak out against this miscarriage of justice and cynical political act perpetrated by a fraud we’re obligated to call “commander in chief”?

M. Dawkins
New York, NY