Joe Wilson to Hillary Clinton in 2010: Baghdad “Has Been Bled to Death”

5.3.16

Joe Wilson to Hillary Clinton in 2010: Baghdad “Has Been Bled to Death”: [theintercept.com] --He then described the racism he saw on display at the store on the American military base at the Baghdad airport:

The soldiers I saw on the base are not infused with the commitment to help Iraqis help themselves. I scoured the PX for t-shirts for my kids to memorialize my trip but was hard put to find any that were not horribly bellicose or racist in nature. Shirts with mushroom clouds conveyed the Baghdad weather as 32,000 degrees and partly cloudy. Others referred to Arabs as camel jockeys and those were the least offensive. Were I the commander those shirts would not be on the shelves as they convey adolescent macho Pastor Terry Jones attitudes. The service people don’t see themselves there to bring peace, light, joy or even democracy to Iraq. They are there to kill the “camel jockeys.”

He concluded, “I think we all need a slap in the face to remember what hell we have wrought in Iraq and what the consequences of stupid wars can be.” He explained: “War is not diplomacy by other means; it is upheaval with all the uncertainty that comes with that. Our military leaders are far too powerful and their playing politics has to be slowed if not stopped lest we continue to have to endure their rather open blackmailing of our political system.”