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Watch: Traumatized Iraq Veteran is Coldly Refused an Apology from Karl Rove

Watch: Traumatized Iraq Veteran is Coldly Refused an Apology from Karl Rove

In this heartbreaking clip, veteran Ryan Henowitz (2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Division) confronts former Deputy Chief of Staff and neo-con patriarch Karl Rove, whose machinations played a key role in embroiling our nation in the invasion and botched occupation of Iraq in 2003.

Mr. Henowitz demands an apology from Rove, asking him to “take responsibility and apologize for your decision in sending a generation to lose their humanity and deal with the horrors of war, which you have never had the courage to face? Will you apologize to the millions of fathers and mothers who lost their children on both sides of this useless war?”

Rove refuses to apologize, asserts that the invasion was somehow still the “right thing” to do, and implicitly blames President Obama for withdrawing from Iraq too soon, in a shocking affront to not only decency but any credible account of the catastrophic deployment.

The invasion of Iraq will go down in history as one of America’s darkest moments, an episode of ideological insanity that was engineered by Rove and other Republican zealots. The alleged weapons of mass destruction that were the primary justification for the war were proved to be false. The entire operation was handled with cavalier incompetence, mismanaged and barely planned. The hubris of thinking that a decades old totalitarian regime could be deposed and a democracy installed in three months leaves Bush, Cheney, and Rove largely to blame for the utter chaos that has engulfs the entire region to this day, responsible for millions of deaths and thousands of billions in wasted taxpayer dollars. The sheer nerve of him to still try to defend it to this day is beyond comprehension or any concept of decency.

We applaud Mr. Henowitz for his courage in asking for an apology; he said in an interview with the Hartford Courant that he was inspired by his governor Dannel Malloy’s response to the Indiana discrimination bill. Kudos to you, sir.

Watch the video here:

Colin Taylor
Opinion columnist and former editor-in-chief of Occupy Democrats. He graduated from Bennington College with a Bachelor's degree in history and political science. He now focuses on advancing the cause of social justice and equality in America.

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