Planetary Development

2132 Glenwood Road

January 21, 2008

Press & Sun-Bulletin

4417 Vestal Parkway East

Vestal, NY 13850

Phone: 607-798-1161

Or:       607-798-1234

Re: Guest Viewpoint

I have no words to describe the feelings I have for our Country as I listened to a news report tonight that Canada has now instructed their diplomatic staff to ask any of their citizens who have been detained here in the United States, whether they have been tortured by the US or not. I learned that this came about after the US had sent one Canadian citizen to Syria so that he could be tortured there for information, and another Canadian citizen who was a 15-year-old boy, was stripped naked and left in isolation in a cell in Guantanimo Bay. I learned that the jury is no longer out in Canada or Europe on whether we torture people or not, as they have determined that we do! I know now that our CIA and the Bush Administration do indeed torture people!

I am a Vietnam era veteran who served 6 years in the United States Air Force. I remember the feeling that if nothing else I knew that our Country was not like the other side, which did torture our guys, and thought nothing of doing so. From the time of George Washington through Bill Clinton we held the moral certainty that human life and dignity were to be demanded for all, even for our enemies. Out of WWII came the images from the German death camps, and stories and a movie of the Bataan Death March. Those realities framing our consciousness about how far governments can go when they cross the line of moral certainty! Now we have George Bush, Dick Cheney, and current Justice Department who have willfully & deliberately destroyed that moral certainty, and in American History are an ?Evil? like no other.

How can one describe one's feelings who has served this country, and who was willing to lay down his life for it! I think of all those who have fought. Spanning centuries, from George Washington forward, from the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, to the Iraq & Afghanistan Wars, from Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of the Civil War to Pat Tillman in the Afghanistan War, Americans have always fought for the highest ideals, and moral judgment. So what is it that they fight for, and why are they willing to die?

Images pass through the mind of home and family, of  kneeling at a church pew and offering oneself for larger service, of taking an extra moment to care for a neighbor, of struggling within oneself on issues of fidelity toward wife, community, and country. Images that overcome selfishness and require simple action! Americans also follow a dream of racial, gender, spiritual, economic, and political equality. We have in our minds the idea that if we work hard and play by the rules our lives will be better, and we grant to the next generation the same, and that all will be safe! In battle, all that passes from the mind with the assumption that as one fights for the ideals of life abroad, one has a government fighting for the ideals of life at home. Until Now!

Under George Bush's watch we now torture 15-year-old Canadian boys. I remind the reader, that we are defined by what we do to others, and not what others do to us! I have learned that none of the images that inspired me have meant anything to my Commander in Chief. George Bush and his crowd lied us into war that personally profited the Vice President's company, seen to it that millions of manufacturing jobs go overseas --- all for greed & profits, supported the sub-prime bilking of the American home owner, refuses to defend the borders here at home providing for the cheap labor sought by his corporate elites, saw to it that two border patrol agents be prosecuted for stopping an illegal alien drug smuggler to frighten other agents from doing their jobs, is on record for saying that the US Constitution is nothing but a "G.D." piece of paper, stated that he would do only what he was legally responsible to do for New Orleans & broken all his promises to them, cut funds to the Veterans Administration while claiming to support the troops, driven up the national debt to 9 trillion dollars & crippled us for decades to come, destroyed the US's standing in the world, one could go on and on, but ending with the destruction of our moral certainty. So how does one now fight on a foreign field, and for that man?

How does one describe the motives and personality of George Bush? One thinks of a willful disobedient child, one who tries to show up and supplant his own father, look at me, for I had the courage to get Saddam Hussein where my father did not! Seeking to overwrite a man who was shot down in WWII, and proclaim himself a Great War Hero. Refusing to seek out his father's wisdom, and belligerently defying all who opposed him, making up whatever facts he wished as a contrivance to promote and exalt his own image & agenda. One reads of such figures in the Bible, figures that are examples to us all of the nature of sin. Cloaked in the flag & religious piety is a man who wants what he wants when he wants it, revealing a spoiled and intemperate temperament. One who plans a 500 million dollar library to his Presidency, but literally has nothing to put in it. He is the great pretender, who suffers from moral bankruptcy. 

I have one simple thought on this. The Commander in Chief has broken his contract with the American people, the Constitution, and most importantly the foot soldier, which at this moment is the only defender of the American people, and that Constitution. Moral Certainty now rests with the foot soldier alone. As a veteran, I know that I would not fight for such a man as George Bush, so I suggest that no one in our Armed Forces should either. I call upon all who wear the US uniform to simply stop following his orders, and to reflect back to him the same belligerence, distain, and arrogance that he has shown to us and the world. It is the worst of all possible feelings for one who has served. I cry for our Country, and for what the world has just lost that shining city on the hill that was once the hope of the world!

Very Truly Yours

_________________________________________

Gary L. Pruitt

Vestal Resident