Real Kato Blog: Support Our Troops

The Bush administration is quietly attempting to deny 1991 Gulf War veterans a settlement claim against frozen Iraqi assets. The hypocrisy of this is just flabbergasting.

A number of soldiers in the 1991 Gulf War suffered severe physical and mental torture at the hands of Iraqi captors. This included beatings with clubs, burnings, starvation, being urinated upon, and threats of dismemberment and castration. Under a U.S. law created in 1996, the soldiers were entitled to sue the Iraqi government for compensation and punishment. So the soldiers did, and last summer, they won; hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Iraqi assets were awarded.

Now, the Bush administration is trying to take that money for the reconstruction effort in Iraq. My question is this: where is the moral outrage among Republicans, who have always argued that we must "support our troops"? We are blowing their money on fat contracts for Halliburton and others who have sacrificed nothing for the war, while we turn a blind eye towards those who have truly suffered. But should we oppose Bush on this, it is our patriotism that's called into question. That's hypocrisy.

Is Republican morality reserved for targeting juicy White House sex scandals? Is that what's really important nowadays?

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