Los Angeles National Veterans "Park", Chained gates of the National Veterans Home
Do Americans torture, or do we not! That’s the big question in the ongoing debate regarding a waterboarding technique used by the military and CIA to interrogate a few suspected terrorists in order to obtain information that could prevent any future attacks on the United States.
This back and forth battle of partisan politics has itself become torturous. As a result, everyone seems to have their own head under water because nobody is asking the most important question of the day: Is it torture when an American Veteran is Homeless? The answer is unequivocal: Absolutely!
So why isn’t this the paramount issue and concern of every American that appreciates his or her own freedom and safety? And why isn’t our government protecting and defending those who have protected and defended America’s citizenry instead of making it a priority of defending and protecting thug terrorists that would like to kill every American citizen?
It’s because Americans do not torture and being a homeless Veteran is really not torture, right? After all, we would never inflict torture on anyone because we’re just too good to ever ill-treat, abuse or mistreat anyone. That’s what Third World and barbaric countries do, but never Americans!
Is this torture? A homeless Veteran sleeps during the day outside the chained gates of the National Veterans Home because he must remain awake during the night for his own safety.
More importantly, America must show the world that we’re above all that and in order to prove it, we’ll even coddle and pamper a few brutal terrorists because they’ve purportedly been treated unkindly through aggressive interrogation, kept in isolation, and deprived of sleep at their residency on the tropical coast of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
President Obama has called the interrogation techniques used on a few suspected terrorists to gain information as “a dark and painful chapter in our history.”
In the Meantime …
Meanwhile, the Department of Veterans Affairs has declared that about one-third of the adult homeless population have served their country in the Armed Services. Current population estimates suggest that about 154,000 veterans (male and female) are homeless on any given night and perhaps twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year. Many other veterans are considered near homeless or at risk because of their poverty, lack of support from family and friends, and dismal living conditions in cheap hotels or in overcrowded or substandard housing.
Think about it, more than 150,000 of America’s Veterans are without shelter and hungry and each must fend for his or her own safety on the dangerous and crime-ridden streets of America.
Who Really Cares?
How many of these homeless Veterans have been subjected to coercive and aggressive interrogation by street criminals as to how much money they have and would they like to voluntarily part with a few begged coins in exchange for their own lives? How many have been robbed of a sandwich or beaten into submission for sexual favors, maimed for life, or actually killed? How more isolated could an individual be than homeless, alone, and sleeping with one eye open for your own safety. Who knows and who really cares, right?
We know for a fact that our government and the so-called “human rights police” certainly do not care or they would’ve done something about this torturous treatment a long time ago. And why should government and human rights organizations care about a couple hundred thousand homeless Veterans living in crime-infested squalor when all of their time and energy is spent on protecting the safety, treatment and quality of living conditions for a couple hundred al-Qaeda terrorists who even their own countries do not want returned into their society?
A Clueless Nation
The mantra of “Americans do not torture” is getting worn out. But do America really torture? Yes, we do! And so long as there’s one homeless Veteran living on the outside of our own society here on American soil, we are all guilty as charged!
But what the heck, they’re just “vets,” a bunch of second-class citizens and prospective “domestic terrorists” as declared by our Department of Homeland Security. Just ignore the problem and it will go away.
Is this torture? Two Veterans sleep alongside the multi-million dollar fence outside the Veterans Home during the day, the safest time for them to sleep.
The senseless debate that’s taking place right now is the most disgraceful period in American history and it’s time to issue a cease-fire on both sides of the political spectrum about what is torture and what is not.
Americans have become clueless as to what real torture is and we all need to face reality and demand that our homeless Veterans be protected and cared for with the same fervor as those whom they once fought against.
A Place Called “Home”
Here in Los Angeles there are an estimated 20,000 homeless Veterans. This is the largest VA in the nation and the land it sits upon was exclusively deeded in 1888 “to be permanently maintained as a National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers.”
And the Home is backed up by an 1887 Act of Congress, which specifically stipulates: “That all honorably discharged soldiers and sailors who served in the regular and volunteer forces of the United States, and who are disabled by disease, wounds, or otherwise, and who have no adequate means of support, and by reason of such disability are incapable of earning their living, shall be entitled to be admitted to said home for disabled volunteer soldiers.”
