If Only Saddam Had Injected HGH
17/02/08 "Antiwar" -- -- The recent spectacle of Congressional hearings on the alleged use of steroids and/or Human Growth Hormone (HGH) by Roger Clemons, a professional baseball player nicknamed "the Rocket," throws into question the viability and functionality of a Congress controlled by the Democratic Party. The House Government Reform Committee, chaired by Representative Henry Waxman (D-California), carried out its own made-for-television version of Court TV, grilling the All Star pitcher and his former trainer over their contradictory statements as to whether or not Clemons actually was injected with a banned performance enhancing substance. While this hearing was underway, thousands of miles away, in Iraq , American service members continued the ugly business of occupying Iraq . That Waxman would abuse his position by pursuing such trivia while Americans continued to fight and die in a war built exclusively on a framework of lies is disturbing.
True, Henry Waxman has chaired numerous hearings, and issued even more statements, which have resulted in several embarrassing questions being asked by the Government Reform Committee of a recalcitrant White House. But none of Henry Waxman's efforts have produced the high drama of the Clemons hearings, where every word was wrestled with, every context explored. Forensic data was introduced. Reputations were (and are) on the line. The consequences are potentially grave: perjury charges could be brought forward against Clemons and others. What was the source of this commotion? Simply put, a few syringes and a game. Baseball might be the national pastime, perhaps, but it remains a game nonetheless. War is all-too real, and the war in Iraq has cost nearly 4,000 Americans their lives, while wounding tens of thousands more, while killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19369.htm
Antiwar.com seems to be downplaying the true Iraqi death toll in this article. It's more like millions than "hundreds of thousands", and that's not including the wounded. Here's an excerpt from my Dying For Zion blog:
The respected British polling firm ORB released the results of their poll in September of 2007, showing that 22% of Iraqi households had lost a family member, which equates to more than 1.2 million dead Iraqis.
In February of 2007 a BBC poll came up with the figure of 17% for the same thing, so the findings roughly corroborate eachother. According to Professor Gilbert Burnham and Professor Les Roberts,
Dr Gideon Polya points out that even those figures are inaccurate, because they are the stats for violent deaths only and don't include the nonviolent deaths that have occurred as an indirect result of the invasions, such as the infant mortality rate amongst other things. She includes in her analysis UN agency data of excess non-violent post-invasion deaths, to reach a more accurate figure of the total human cost of military intervention in the middle east.
Eight million is a staggering figure if you think about it. That's about 850,000 more people than the current total population of Israel [118], which is, in my humble opinion, the prime mover behind all this bloodshed in the first place - we're out there killing and dying for zion.
I saw the Congressional hearing and I was shocked as well.
However, look at it this way: The Congress has given up to protect and defend the Constitution, and it must have something to fill its day, so why not dabble in the HGH issue in football?
That is something that everybody can have an opinion about!