This is heartbreaking yet I'm not sure a request for donations belongs on Alternet. There are millions of fantastic causes and I don't think Alternet can support them all. Perhaps Bush and Co., since they caused this, can pony up some cash...

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Is there any greater argument against war than this? Does there need to be any greater argument? I wish the administration would sit down and chat with this guy. Life goes on, but for so many it will never be the same.

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What a great photo!

What a tragic mistake this illegal war and immoral occupation is.

The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.

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Each week at my Unitarian Universalist fellowship I make up a fairly large "News of the Week" board with one side devoted to "War & Peace" issues. Many pictures I post say much more than words can, but when I copy this one & post it I'm sure it will draw a crowd! So sad, but in a way one has to admire the strength of love this couple displays! Puts a whole new spin on Valentine's Day! Best of luck to them both!

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Hopefully modern medicine can do something with the innovations in burn centers, face transplants, and skin grafting but he'll, obviously, never be the same physcially. But sadly this happens almost everyday in drunk driving accidents, suicide bombings, the acid that is thrown on women who 'shame' their families in Muslim cultures, the 'necklace' treatment favoured in the new South Africa (fill a rubber tire with petrol, place over head of victim, set alight, takes around 20-30 minutes to die and victim can't remove tire due to melting rubber and arms being pinned,) etc etc etc. Humans, sadly, never seem to tire of killing and maiming each other. We need to stop this war immediately and let the moslems sort each other out. Its not our business.

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Need to take a look here if they want to see real porn. War is million times worse than porn and is the most vile degradation of the human body known to man. Let's try having a lot less mutilation of human beings in the name of hate and greed.

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I suggest we cut troop funding right now bring home our troops, and instead spend the money that is now being wasted in Iraq, and distribute it to those real troops like this fellow who has landed home and brushed under our culture’s glamour only accepted life style. But alas not one in fifty Alternet readers can list off the names of vets living in poverty in their local communities as casualties unable to live a normal life again. They gave up their freedom so you can live in yours and ignore their suffering with the excuse that the Government is providing for them. This is not the case!
AlienSlave

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When I first saw this photo I thought it was a fake but I looked on the photographer's website and there are too many more photos of the same ilk. I have worked in Afghanistan, supporting American companies in the 're-construction' on the country and I was not impressed.
Out of the hundreds of millions of dollars that have supposedly been allocated for the improvement of the country, very little actually seems to be doing any good. For the most part the US seems to have pulled out of Afghanistan and left it to the British and Canadian troops. Why? Because the situation in Iraq needs more attention as it seems more of a pertinant enemy to the US way of life in its threat to the oil production of the region, and the threat to the Israel situation that the US holds so dear to its heart. Afghanistan and Iraq are so much more complicated than black or white. The various tribes, sects and religions of both these countries mean that no matter what we, the west, do, there will be many more years bloodshed before a solution is reached, if ever.
How many more of the western world's children are going to die in the quest for 'Freedom'?

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"A text of images gives you...a right to look, the simple right to look or appropriate with the gaze, but it denies you that right at the same time: by means of its very apparatus it retains that authority, keeping for itself the right of inspection over whatever discourses you might like to put forth or whatever yarns you might like to spin about it, and that in fact come to mind before your eyes. They arise, they grow within you like desire itself, they invade you."
Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)

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The Ziegels

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I thought nothing could make me angrier than I already was at the Bushies and their partners in crime and enablers (that's you, Hillary) who made all this nightmare real. I was wrong: this picture did, proof that images are much more powerful than words. And they keep saying that if we want to "support our troops" we need to send more young men and women to this massacre.

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what can you say, almost every emotion washes over you. How can you pick just one? I do find it interesting that all these wounded soldiers never get coverage by the media. The only mainstream media I know of that covers casualties is the news hour on pbs. How can the public understand just how truly addicted we are to oil unless they see these pictures.

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I feel bad for this young man because he probably just joined the military to get money for college. But he doesn't deserve any more of my sympathy than the people of Iraq. He chose to be there. He could have stayed at home and this never would happened to him. The Iraqi people are at home an they're being murdered by the thousands. I feel worse for them.

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You can see him and hear his thoughts on the Iraq Occupation by renting or buying the DVD documentary, "The Ground Truth". If you view him and the other war veterans against this neocon insanity, be prepared for a powerful kick to your stomach. Finally, if this video was shown by the MSM, we would begin leaving that "Hell Hole" the very next day!

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Robert Burns, famed Scottish poet once wrote, "Man's inhumanity to man makes thousands mourn". To have a heart so filled with anger and hate can only continue to destroy your soul. I mourn for you. May you somehow find peace within yourself.

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The worst thing of all, in the White House we have a man who has no appreciation of this, or empathy for the people. Grown up rich, doped up in Ivy League schools, his only domestic policy, tax cuts for the rich. His only foreign policy, war. He spoke with reporters today, and here are a few of the marvelous answers:

Reporter: Mr. Bush what is success in Iraq?

Bush: Well, ahhh, you know, it can't ever be perfect, we can't expect to ever get down to no car bombs at all or something like that.

Reporter: Mr. Bush, can you give us an assessment of Iraq?

Bush: Ahhh.,,, I'm in the White House you know, the White House, so I cannnot really tell you, you see, this is the White House!

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Somebody needs to show this stuff. The American media shows nothing. But, show also the pictures of the massacred Iraqi families, the children. Show it all. No more secrets. Bush won't even let photographers into Dover Air Force Base to photograph the coffins coming in. The best anti-war statements are often photographs. Why do you think none are getting into the American press, and the Pentagon is choking everything off? Because if the World could see it all, it would stop, and they want the stupid ass war.

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Of course the marine signed up to be sent to combat. But if you don't find your own humanity seriously distraught by his images, by the emotional trauma that they seem to represent, what motivates your reading of "alternative" news in the first place? If you're so far beyond feeling pity for the wrongful decisions of your fellow man, why bother to try changing the world — as your readership of alternet would suggest you aspire to do? Or do you think (as your comment would seem to indicate) that the real problem with this world and this war is that we just have too goddamn much pity for each other? Having no pity for all is infinitely easier than having compassion for those who make decisions with which you disagree — but only the latter is any kind of advance for this brutal world.

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You said it! You ARE a cold-hearted mother fucker!
At the beginning of this holocaust in Iraq, I forwarded to my redneck Republican nephew the photo of that little Iraqi girl of 4 or 5, bespattered with the blood and gore of her entire family, murdered before her very eyes by a nervous and trigger-happy GI, a little girl wailing in horror and disbelief. I thought it might melt his heart and change his attitude slightly, since he had a beautiful little daughter just the age of that little Iraqi girl now orphaned and scarred for life. My nephew responded in anger and called me "insane" for sending him that photo. His reaction was the purest projection, the insanity residing in his cold, mother-funcking heart. And in those who precipitated this on-going massacre in Iraq.
Your comment truly is frightening to me. How devoid of humanity can a person be, not to be moved by "the pity of war," as the poet Wilfred Owen put it so poignantly in his dying days in WWI?

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Bush/Cheney, their Oil Buddies, and cronies should be MADE to build STATE-OF-THE-ART Medical Facilities in EVERY STATE, or whichever State that has the most devastedly wounded troops. Then they should FLY all others to these facilities. They may have signed up for whatever reasons, but NOT to sacrifice their lives for Greed, and to take over another country for their Assets! This Administration, and the Oil Company's, begin this Pre-emptive Invasion behind their Cooking the Books and OUTRIGHT LIES and should be, and MUST BE held responsible for our injured troops and their families; and certainly to our Treasury that they've looted dry! No way should these scumbags walk away, nor get away with the US Treasury and our Dead and Wounded Troops!

Why should they make BILLION of DOLLARS, of UNHEARD Profits from using our troops for THEIR BLOODY, GREEDY, CORRUPT GAIN?

I pray to God that our new Democratic Congress lay down the Law and make these snakes pay restitution to our wounded and dead troops behind their OUTRIGHT murderous LIES!

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You, sir, are the definition, not of a cold, hard hearted, cultural warrior, which you would love to be thought of as; no, you sir, are an old-fashioned, anodyne, plain vanilla, run-of-the-mill anti-social idiot.

150 years ago you would have happily traded slaves. Then justified it with equivalently asinine false logic.

No one wants your pity, ass. But fuck you very much, anyway.

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One person posts photos of "our boys" at church. Why not save ALOT of room for the 655,000, ( and counting), human beings in Iraq "our boys" have killed so far? "Our boys" had a choice. By studying the history of this government and their past lies to us in murdering for them, they, (if they have the character to stand against the popular belief), could have learned the truth about all the lies told them to INVADE ANOTHER COUNTRY AND KILL IT"S PEOPLE!
I met a good looking mexican kid in basic training with our airborne unit in Ft. Campbell. When our orders came in, alot of the guys in Echo co. got 11 bravo. When we compared notes, I asked those who had asked for it why? when they hemmed and hawed about a straight forward answer, I ventured one for them. "are you doing it for the honor of sitting in a tavern and telling folks you were there, if you make it back?"
Almost without exception the answer with an 18 year old sheepish grin was "yup".
I hope Cortez is having a beer right now,.... and sleeps well at night knowing now what we didn't know then about the Gulf of Tonkin "attack."
There's a VAST difference between fighting to defend your country and choosing to allow yourself to be dupped into invading a country, (Irag, Afghanistan, and soon Iran), to murder for Israel and the the corporations that have WITHOUT FAIL shown their appreciation by screwing us all at home. Do I wish that sort of suffering on "our boys"? HELL NO! But as a human with a free will and mind, it behooves them to make sure what their doing is right. ESPECIALLY with the track record this country and the corporations that own it and our "leaders" have shown. So, why don't all you folks stop deifing those who will carry the scars of their misplaced loyalty and trust and applaud those who were fortunate and courageous enough to tell their peers and all those who continue to call "our boys" heroes, This is wrong, it's not defending our freedom, it's taking OTHERS freedom and I WILL NOT be a party to it!

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The request for donations goes like this:
Anyone seeking to help should send donations to www.fisherhouse.org, an organization that aids military families and has helped Ty and his family during his rehabilitation.

My question is, why should we pay for it? Shouldn't our government be paying for all his medical expenses? Isn't that what the Veteran's Administration does?

Oooooohhhhhh, that's right, Bush has cut funding for veterans.

"Ty and his family" should be cared for comfortably, and well compensated for being duped into The Fool's war.

....though I suppose this fisherhouse organization probably does a better job distributing funds than the VA does....

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The man is brave for goign to war, even if it was a disgusting and illegal one.

The woman, however, is brave as well for standing by her man in the face of hardship. So many women in that position would split and never look back.

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Good job with the censorship there AlterNet -- so much for that progressive ideal known as freedom of speech.

Your doctoring of message boards reveals you to be the organization that you are. It's quite evident that you are people no better than the rest, whether left, right, or center.

Pray tell me: is it difficult for you all to accept advertising funds from credit card companies, corporate book publishers, rip-off travel companies, and insurance companies while running articles on the evils of capitalism at the same time?

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with such injuries Would not have made the second tradgedy of marrying the creature he loved. He has killed her and the real Sgt died in iraq......just how it goes...thats all....A face that can't look at his face.....He is one of many thousands.

Captain OUT

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