Wounded veterans plead to stop Iran nuke deal
'Congress and Obama will have blood of U.S. servicemembers on your hands'
Published: 9 hours ago
author-image Garth Kant About | Email | Archive
WASHINGTON – The star-studded rally is Wednesday but the heroes came to the Capitol Tuesday.
They came to deliver moving and impassioned pleas to stop the President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran.
Because their reasons had nothing to do with partisan politics.
It all came straight from the heart.
And the bitter lessons of experience they paid for with their own blood.
Brian Mast stood ramrod straight and proud, as befitting a former member the elite Joint Special Operations Command, looking sharp in his immaculately tailored gunmetal grey suit. Only, he was wearing shorts. And instead of legs, there was a pair of black, plastic prosthetic limbs. A life-long reminder of his last operation in Afghanistan as a bomb disposal expert after 12 years in the Army. His job was to find improvised explosive devices, or IEDs – made or funded by Iran – on a nightly basis.
Plastic legs or not, he still stood tall.
Robert Bartlett had his body ripped in half by an IED bearing Farsi inscriptions in Iraq in 2005. Farsi is the Iranian language. After the explosion, he died three times. Three times he was brought back to life. Bartlett then spent four-and-a-half years at Walter Reed Hospital having his body rebuilt. Members of the Bartlett family have fought for America since Valley Forge. His family name is on the Declaration of Independence.
His body damaged but his pride unbowed, Bartlett spoke with a spirit perhaps as strong as anyone who has ever stood in front of the Capitol steps.
Under a sweltering hot September sun, with just a hint of a heaven-sent breeze, there were also national security experts who spoke passionately about the need to stop the deal with Iran, at a news conference held by the Endowment for Middle East Truth, or EMET.
But it was the words of Mast and Bartlett that those in attendance most likely took home with them.
The big rally against the Iran deal on Wednesday will feature such luminaries as leading GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, fellow candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, former Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, and radio talk-show hosts Glenn Beck and Mark Levin.
But it was the lesser-known opponents of the deal who had the press spellbound on Tuesday.
Bartlett spoke of the horrors of war and the damage done on the battlefield by bombs made in Iran.
"My buddy did die next to me. In fact, I died three times and was resuscitated all three times. I am here to tell you the truth. They said they want to kill us. That is the reality."
He continued, "$150 billion goes directly to the people who killed me and my friends. Why would we do that? We are selling out the very men and women who wore the uniform and were willing to die for you."
Noting his family had fought for the country since the Revolutionary War, Bartlett warned, "I can't say my son will fight for this country because I don't know if he'll have a country left. This is the beginning of the end, if this deal goes through."
"A lot of people will die" around the world if the deal isn't stopped, he added.
He implored everyone to do what they could to make their voices heard.
"Call your friends, call your family members, tweet it, Facebook it across the world that we will not stand for terrorism in any country, period. And we will work together to stop it."
Barlett said those who discount the "Death to America" chants should think twice.
"Are they really willing to kill us? Well, they have. This is a blessing. I died for my country. I would die for it again. I am still up here fighting for you. I am still fighting for world peace."
Watch the video of wounded veteran Brian Mast:
Mast began by observing, "The America that I grew up in has never been a country that has looked at evil and done nothing about it. We've always been at the tip of the spear. We have always led the charge against evil. That's what out history is."
The world has always turned to America, he said, because it has always known, "We don't run, and we don't hide and we don't negotiate with terrorists."
"We can go to any town around the country and find Marines that have battled against fighters who were trained by Iran."
"We can go right down the road to Walter Reed Medical Center and find service members who are so badly burned that those who knew them before will never be able to recognize them again," because they were maimed by IEDs made by Iran.
"We can travel to any state and we can see the broken families whose protector will never come home again because of an Iranian-made IED."
He closed with a plea to reject the Iran agreement before it causes untold further damage.
"Congress, Senate, President Obama, if you push this deal through, you will have the blood of U.S. service members on your hands."
Watch the video of former CIA Director James Woolsey:
James Woolsey was director of the CIA under President Bill Clinton and a negotiator in four arms-control agreements.
He ridiculed the terms of this deal.
"Let's take the last one, for the Conventional Forces in Europe where I was the ambassador and chief negotiator. If I had come back from the negotiations in Vienna to call on my boss at the time [former Secretary of State] Jim Baker and said, 'Secretary, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that the Russians have agreed to a lot of verification procedures. The bad news is that they're not going to tell us what they are. But they think we ought to go along with them anyway. What do you say?'"
Woolsey deadpanned, "Jim Baker's a pretty blunt guy. He would have punted me out of his office. That might be the kindest thing he would have done."
EMET President Sarah Stern called the upcoming bill to stop the Iran deal," Perhaps the most important Congressional vote in history."
She asked Obama, 'What is it about 'Death to America' you don't understand?'"
Watch the video of EMET President Sarah Stern:
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