Deserting our troops, evading our principles.(10-3-03)

"Deserting Our Troops" by Steven Rosenfeld(tompaine.com) raises a very interesting question.

Would the hesitance to keep baseline medical records for our troops have anything to do with the possibility that DU (depleted uranium) if shown to cause cancer would then be considered a WMD of similar nature to a dirty bomb? Would not a cancer causing agent be a chemical or biological weapon (if not even nuclear), hence prohibited if not at least hypocritical? (Sweeping aside the vast difference between DU and actual fissionable material, the administration at least sweeps the slate of information or any basis for knowledge, discussion or debate.)

This, combined with the treatment of terrorist suspects, would make a mockery of why we went to war. If any weapons we can conceive of are OK for our own use and violating any rights crucial to a war on terrorism are justified, then what baseline do we even have to bring freedom and democracy to the rest of the world?

A hypocritical if not cynical attitude is their weapon of first report, going back to the candidate Bush saying he "trusted the people not the government" and was a "uniter not a divider", then blaming critics for not supporting our troops while not even protecting them.

Recent retreat to programs, potential and intent to acquire as an excuse for preemption rather than "eminent threat" are not new excuses but missed by the media or buried by the outright incompetence or intention of the original run-up to war.

Still today Cheney is defending preemption as a choice between the threat of dictators and terrorist or doing nothing. No wonder they see no choice when they can't see the alternatives nor the similarities.