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   XPost: soc.culture.iraq, soc.culture.pakistan, soc.culture.syria   
   XPost: rec.sport.tennis   
   From: acoustic@panix.com   
      
   "What?  Aren't I allowed to defend myself when I'm attacked in public   
   and the accusations are false?" Trump protested.  His chief nemesis,   
   aka the neocons, are saying "Nyet!  'Cause they are our `gold-star'   
   parents.  Checkmate, Trump!"   
      
   It was, of course, the fraudulently waged Iraq War that killed the   
   Khans' son.   
      
   Yes, the Khans' son was killed by a suicide bomber.  But have any of   
   us ever thought for a minute that the bomber was a freedom fighter,   
   defending his country against a foreign invasion?   
      
     "The Khans have made the greatest possible sacrifice for our   
      country; they deserve to be heard and respected."  [Missouri   
      Senator Blunt was quoted as saying.]   
      
   What a horrific sacrifice to make for a fraudulently-waged war!   
      
   But Senator Blunt also said:   
      
     "I remember how much I worried about my son Matt during his years of   
     active duty,"   
      
   Notice how similar Blunt's feeling was to Ghazala Khan's own:   
      
     Mother of slain soldier in the Iraq War said she told her son:   
      
       "Be safe,   
        and don't become hero for me,   
        just be my son,   
        come back as a son."   
      
   The big difference is of course, Blunt's son Matt apparently came back   
   alive while Ghazala Khan's own came back as a "hero", or so was the   
   way she was comforted.   
      
   For Mr Khan Jr, it was a fatal, undeserved realization of George   
   Michael's song ---   
       Last Christmas,   
       I gaiyve you my heart,   
       But the very day,   
       You gaiyve it awaiy.   
      
   Our irresponsible government did not have to waste Captain Khan's   
   life.   
      
   The young Khan didn't have to die.   
      
   He wasn't planning to be blown up by a suicide bomber.   
      
   He had to do it because he had signed up for the military service.   
      
   His mother Ghazala didn't want him to die.   
      
   She wanted him to come home safe and sound - not as some kind of a   
   "hero" who will never die (again)!   
      
   By a mother's logic, if the son has to go and fight, it would be just   
   fine if he is at the headquarters and behind a fortress of protection,   
   even as unglamorous as a prison guard, a cook, or a janitor might be.   
      
   A mother knows how hard it is to bring a life into fruition.   
      
   And what a waste it would be after all these years of nourishing and   
   nurturing, her son would come back in a body bag, in a form blown up   
   beyond repair and even recognition.  What a waste it is, especially   
   when the war he lost his life in was waged fraudulently and caused so   
   many more innocent deaths.   
      
   Imagine a world in which the Khans hadn't immigrated (to paraphrase   
   George W Bush, the war criminal who brought us the Iraq War that   
   killed Khan)!  They wouldn't have to endure the current political   
   exploitation that is thrust upon them and would instead most likely   
   have adorable grandchildren on their laps - and that's what every   
   mother would want for her son or daughter to bring them in their old   
   age.   
      
   In fact, every casualty is a piece of statistics - and that's why you   
   always hear the word casualty being used by the Pentagon.  Only the   
   politicians are inventing the labels: sacrifice, greatest sacrifice,   
   gold star....  And they do so most cynically, to exonerate themselves   
   of their murderous role and to prolong and continue the wars that   
   killed and kills many times more.   
      
   Glenn Greenwald has said that the news media, which is influenced by   
   the government in Washington and is doing the bidding of the deep   
   state, is "100%" against Trump, which is a "shame", according to   
   Stephen Cohen, an academic affiliated with the NYU and Princeton and   
   specialized in East European history, because Trump is the proponent   
   of a campaign which represents a significant effort to try to overturn   
   the prevailing narrative preaching military intervention and hegemony.   
      
   To be fair, Trump did not initiate any statement attacking the Khans.   
      
   Hillary's campaign used the Khans to attack Trump.  He was accused of   
   having never read the Constitution and knowing nothing about liberty   
   or equal protection of the law, without any evidence to support the   
   assertion.   
      
   The first thing any American should ask, in my humble opinion, is:   
   "What does the Constitution have to say about liberty and equal   
   protection for the Iraqis, Afghans, the Libyans, and the Syrians, of   
   whom hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have been killed, maimed,   
   and made homeless by our wars.  Where is the law for their protection?   
   What is liberty for them?   
      
   And in what way has the killing all these innocent people in the   
   Middle East and Central Asia given us liberty or more protection?   
      
   Does the Constitution say our political leaders are at liberty to   
   wantonly kill others who were minding their own business?   
      
   Does the Constitution say: "Here, we have some gold stars ready for   
   you, if you return home as 'heros'?   
      
   Are our sons/daughters freely available to kill innocent defenseless   
   people with impunity and under a law that only protects them against   
   prosecution but does not protect those they killed?   
      
   It is horrible for politicians like Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and   
   Barack Obama who are currently at the service of the warmongers to use   
   and exploit parents of those who were killed in these sinister wars to   
   suppress the side who works to overturn their inhumane and extravagant   
   foreign policy for the past 15 years and who works to be heard.   
      
     "The Republican nominee's wild attacks on Khizr and Ghazala Khan",   
     said one headline.   
      
   Who has been making wild attacks on whom?   
      
   I don't think anyone can name a statement Trump made over the Khans   
   that can be called "wild".   
      
   To the contrary, a lack of understanding of the incongruence between   
   the Constitution and the millennium wars and the statements arising   
   from it certainly sound to me a lot more wild.   
      
   And Obama has been calling Trump "un-American", forgetting that China's   
   Long March rockets would probably still be in their alpha phase of   
   development hadn't those McCarthyists in Washington who called Qian   
   Xuesen "un-American" and drove him back to China in the early 1950s.   
      
   Of course, Trump is not Qian and it's ok if Trump decides to pack up   
   and go back to Scotland.  But the bigger problem is not the messenger,   
   but the message that Bush/Obama/Hillary/McCain gang has tried to stop   
   the American people from being exposed to - and that's that the wars   
   we've been fighting aren't good for America, nor the world as a whole.   
      
   The warmongers and their defenders just can't wait to make the first   
   stab that will completely silence Trump and his candidacy.   
      
   They may very well succeed in burying Trump this time, even though   
   they failed last time when Trump told the Republicans that it's ok to   
   question our interventionist foreign policy.  But if they do,   
   America's future will be dimmer and darker, as it is already pretty   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)