Memorial Day 2009

A few shots from Ft. Rosecrans National Cemetery in Point Loma, the southward jutting peninsula that separates the San Diego Bay from the Pacific Ocean.



The news at the end of last week, of course, was full of the competing speeches of President Obama and Dick Cheney, who still insists on advocating waterboarding terrorism suspects (not convicts, mind you, suspects!) and that that is not torture. That egoistical sadist ought to put his money where his mouth is and have himself waterboarded to get the taste of what he is wishing on others (who have not been proven guilty of anything). Especially, seeing how a bit of real experience can really make some talkative naysayers do a 180 turn in a flash when it comes to whether waterboarding is torture or not (the libertarian Christopher Hitchen had done it, the conservative radio head Erich Mancow Muller had done it, isn't it about time Cheney does it?).


How many of the vets entombed at cemeteries like Ft. Rosecrans had had to endure torture in the line of duty because the people they were fighting against can hide behind the excuse of retaliation against our own use of it? How many of them died in combat believing that the US has the moral high ground when it comes to torture? And that we do know the difference between justice and vengeance (and care more about getting the right perpetrators of crime rather than just getting a neck to hang the charge on regardless of whether it is the right neck or not)?

And for Cheney, who has never served a day in the military, to go around doubting the honor and loyalty of someone like General Colin Powell, the non-diva-like guy who served 3 distinguished tours in Vietnam and, with one big spot when he worked for Bush 43 and Cheney, has always done his best for the men and women in uniform, is a travesty. And that there are people who would take Cheney's utterly unreliable words (how many lies has he told while looking straight into the camera already?) over Powell's is sheer madness. Beware of people who loudly demand loyalty at street corners like a bunch of scribes and pharisees... They are the ones who don't get it that it isn't enough to ask someone 'are you loyal?' without clarifying 'loyal to WHAT? Country or You? I have no doubt about where General Powell's loyalty lies. I have plenty about Dick Cheney's... Too often have he and his stooges prioritized their own political agendas over the best interest of the country and the troops!