A Brief Foreword by Niagara At Large Publisher Doug Draper
Following a commentary I wrote and posted on Niagara At Large this March 19, expressing relief that Canada did not bend to the pressure of the U.S. Bush/Cheney administration to become a military partner in the Iraq War, a number of readers from both sides of the Canada/U.S. border sent me a copy of the following letter by U.S. marine veteran Tomas Young, which was beginning to make rounds in the blogosphere.
U.S. Iraq War veteran Thomas Young at one of many rallies against the war.
This open letter to former U.S. president George W. Bush and his vice-president Dick Cheney was written by Tomas Young, who was wounded and partially paralyzed in the early days of the Iraq War and who later became a vocal opponents of the war. Young wrote his “last letter” on the war this March as he prepared to stop being kept alive by a feeding tube. It is a moving testament and it speaks for itself.
So with just one last passing thought from me, that Thank God it was unnecessary for a Canadian veteran to write a similar letter to Canada’s leaders about this equally unnecessary and costly war, here is Thomas Young’s letter. Please read it and share your thoughts below.
“The Last Letter: A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran.”
From: 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.
George W. Bush consults with his brain, Dick Cheney. Both men, who managed to avoid fighting in the Vietnam War decades earlier, have declared that they have no regrets about the Iraq War.
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
The following story on Tomas Young recently appeared in the online news and commentary site Rabble. You can read it by clicking on http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/03/legacy-iraq-war-veteran-tomas-youngs-anti-war-message-and-decision-end-his-life .
(Niagara At Large invites you so share your views on this post. Remember that we only post comments by individuals who are willing to share their first and last names. Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to resident in our greater Niagara region and beyond.)
Niagara At Large 
Absolutley heartbreaking. I am American, and there certainly are times when I am ashamed of my government. This is one of those times.
LikeLike
Sad but true. The Iraq War was far from America’s finest hour. Sadly, Bush and Cheney will never stand trial for their war crimes. That Iraq’s government at the time the war broke was itself morally bankrupt, does not excuse the “pre-emptive” strike the U.S. made on the country. In retrospect the American thirst for cheap energy and its desire to gain a further control over Middle-East oil was a driving motive has become clearer. That this is not the first war begun by an American lie is also a reality; consider the Gulf of Tonkin incident that led to the Vietnamese War; that undertaking was also based on a lie. Lies may also have been the spark to the Spanish-American War! The Captain of the USS Maine had insisted the ship was sunk not by an unprovoked attack, but by a coal bin explosion. Investigations after the war proved that such had indeed been the case. No mine, just lies!
America has yet to learn it is not the policeman (“policeperson,” if you are more comfortable being politically correct in this regard) of the world. It is but one country in it. With their eyes on other countries that might aspire to have nuclear weapons, for instance, how do Americans justify their having them and not other countries doing so? Should those other countries undertake pre-emptive strikes against the U.S. in case — as the U.S. did in Iraq – the U.S. might attack them first?
There is a general “meaning” taking place in America of which is led and largely finance directly and indirectly by the U.S. military-industrial complex – about which former President and himself a war hero, Eisenhower, warned the country many years ago! The American propensity for violence is well documented at home and abroad. And, the meanness of American thinking is even appearing in sit-coms, commercials, and in interpersonal relationships.
Having children in the military of this country I do appreciate the need to have an armed force to defend our nation. I pray my children are never called to fight in a “pre-emptive” undertaking and I am very proud my country did not take part in the Iraq war. I personally believe, contrary to those of my family, who do serve our nation, that we should not have gotten tied up at all in Afghanistan either. Besides, I’m not convinced that Saudi Arabia ought not to be more of a concern for us. Indeed Saudis, it seems, were much to close to Bush and Cheney even during 911!
I commend marine veteran Tomas Young not only for his physical courage but his intellectual courage as well. He not only served his country in armed combat, but also serves it now – perhaps even more courageously – with his letter. Truth is an allusive commodity. He speaks it as one who has paid a huge price – the supreme price as it now appears – for love of his country. How revealing of America’s moral fiber that he now suffers as he does, without the care he fully deserves. He like so many other service personnel, both in the U.S. and here in Canada, are continuously neglected and hidden away by our governments. Shame on us!
Each year, on Remembrance Day we see the slogan “Lest we forget.” But, we do forget our troops. Perhaps because they hold before our eyes the guilt we should all bear as we put pursuit of profit over and above human justice and truth!
God bless you Tomas Young.
LikeLike
Sadly Tomas Young is one of many….TOO MANY! Phil Donahue profiled this young man several years ago and was chastised for doing do.
LikeLike
Hello There. I found your blog using msn. This is a really well written article. I’ll make sure to bookmark it and come back to read more of your useful information. Thanks for the post. I will definitely comeback.
LikeLike