the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Apr 1, 2013
A disabled Iraq War veteran, Tomas Young of Kansas City, is near death. Before entering hospice, he wrote a powerful open letter to former President George W. Bush and ex-Vice President Dick Cheney, accusing them of war crimes. He addressed them in part as follows:
"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."
The 33-year-old, who was in Phil Donahue’s 2007 documentary “Body of War,” drew a clear and powerful picture of the Iraq war and Cheney and Bush’s responsibility for it. The same picture could be drawn of the Afghanistan war–and of the Obama administration’s culpability in continuing both wars.
Young’s reflections on the war are an invaluable voice of truth for U.S. soldiers caught in the nightmare of war.