RESOURCES
Guess who served in the military?
As the drums beat loudly in the Middle East, it is interesting to see who among the prominent names in Washington ducked out when it came time to put their own lives on the line. Curiously, those most avid for risking the lives of American soldiers today were considerably less excited about risking their own in their younger days.
• President GW Bush - was able to get into the National Guard by leaping ahead of a waiting list of more than 1,000, but apparently went AWOL for at least one year and was later taken off flying status for reasons that have not been made public.
• Vice President Dick Cheney, several deferments, the last by marriage (in his own words, "had other priorities than military service").
• Att'y Gen. John Ashcroft - sought deferment to teach business ed at SW Missouri State.
• Karl Rove - avoided the draft, did not serve.
• Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert – avoided the draft, did not serve.
• Majority Leader Dick Armey- avoided the draft, did not serve.
• Majority Whip Tom Delay - avoided the draft, did not serve. "So many minority youths had volunteered ... that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like himself."
• Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott - avoided the draft, did notserve.
• Don Nickles, Senate Minority Whip - avoided the draft, did not serve.
• Former Speaker Newt Gingrich - avoided the draft, did not serve.
• Senator Phil Gramm - avoided the draft, did not serve, four (?) student deferments.
• Senator Richard Shelby, avoided the draft, did not serve.
• Former Representative "B-1" Bob Dornan – avoided Korean War combat duty by enrolling in college acting classes.
• Representative Saxby Chambliss, Georgia – did not serve, had a "bad knee."
• Representative JC Watts - did not serve.
• Former Representative Jack Kemp, did not serve(was fit enough for pro football, but failed" the physical?).
• Dan Quayle, avoided Vietnam service, got a slot in the journalism unit of the Indiana National Guard when the unit was at 150% capacity. (Unlike GW, at least he showed up for his duty.)
• Eliot Abrams, did not serve.
• Vin Weber, did not serve.
• Richard Perle, did not serve.
• Rudy Giuliani, did not serve.
• Former Michigan Governor John Engler, did not serve.
Pundits and Preachers
• George Will, did not serve
• Chris Matthews, did not serve.
• Bill O'Reilly, did not serve.
• Paul Gigot, did not serve.
• Bill Bennett, Did not serve.
• Pat Buchanan, did not serve.
• Rush Limbaugh, did not serve.
• Pat Robertson - did not serve, apparently used his daddy's connections to get off the ship in Tokyo while his buddies went on to Korea. (More recently and by his own admission on his TV show, he was much chagrined to find how difficult it was to buy the anthrax vaccine for himself and his family, thus illustrating that the first priority of the self-righteous is "me first.")
• Bill Kristol, did not serve. |
Top Military Recruitment Lies
The new book Army of None reveals the scummy truth about the military recruitment complex.
Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug Troops to Numb Them to Horrors of War
In June, the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health acknowledged "daunting and growing" psychological problems among our troops: Nearly 40 percent of soldiers, a third of Marines and half of National Guard members are presenting with serious mental health issues. They also reported "fundamental weaknesses" in the U.S. military's approach to psychological health. That report was followed in August by the Army Suicide Event Report (ASER), which reported that 2006 saw the highest rate of military suicides in 26 years. And last month, CBS News reported that, based on its own extensive research, over 6,250 American veterans took their own lives in 2005 alone -- that works out to a little more than 17 suicides every day. That's all pretty bleak, but there is reason for optimism in the long-overdue attention being paid to the emotional and psychic cost of these new wars. The shrill hypocrisy of an administration that has decked itself in yellow ribbons and mandatory lapel pins while ignoring a human crisis of monumental proportion is finally being exposed.
55% if Military family members feel Bush war on Iraq is wrong
Close family members of U.S. troops are split on whether the Iraq invasion was a mistake, and 55% disapprove of President Bush's job performance, according to USA TODAY/Gallup Polls focusing on immediate relatives of servicemembers. "They've maxed out on the troops. You've got guys who are over there on their fourth or fifth tours. It's ridiculous," says Jeanette Knowles, 40, of Mountain Home, Idaho, whose brother, Jeff, served a tour in Iraq with the Oregon National Guard.
All Terror, All the Time Is Giving Americans Heart Failure
A new UC Irvine study suggests that the Bush Administration's attempts to intensify fears of terrorism for political gain have significantly contributed to Americans' heart problems. Researchers showed that stress responses to the 9/11 attacks—particularly those that persisted for years afterward—were linked to a 53 percent increase in cardiac ailments. The most common triggers of renewed stress were videos of the attacks in the media (thanks, Rudy!) and—you guessed it—the rise and fall of DHS' terror alert levels. All that politically opportunistic drum-beating has actually made us sick. Perhaps if Americans had universal health insurance, the government would think twice about such callous manipulation.
Love Thy Enemy
A U.S. soldier who said his Christian beliefs compelled him to love his enemies, not kill them, has been granted conscientious objector status and honorably discharged, a civil liberties group said on Tuesday.
Water makes US troops in Iraq sick (Dick Cheney is still on the payroll of this former company owned by him )
WASHINGTON - Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says. A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.
We test US army's new secret weapon
This infernal machine is the modern face of warfare. It has a nice, friendly sounding name, Silent Guardian. I am told not to call it a ray-gun, though that is precisely what it is (the term "pain gun" is maybe better, but I suppose they would like that even less). "It is ethically dubious to say they are useful for crowd control when they will obviously be used by unscrupulous people for torture." We use the word "medieval" as shorthand for brutality. The truth is that new technology makes racks look benign.
America's Armageddonites Push for More War
Utopian fantasies have long transfixed the human race. Yet today a much rarer fantasy has become popular in the United States. Millions of Americans, the richest people in history, have a death wish. They are the new "Armageddonites," fundamentalist evangelicals who have moved from forecasting Armageddon to actually trying to bring it about.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Resigns
Veterans Affairs chief Jim Nicholson, who was forced to defend his agency's performance after revelations of shoddy health care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, announced Tuesday he is resigning to return to the private sector. Nicholson has been head of the VA since February, 2005. Before that, he was chairman of the Republican National Committee. He is the latest in a lengthening line of senior officials heading for the exits in the final years of President Bush's administration.
Waxman Expresses Concern Over State Department's Handling of Blackwater Shooting
I am writing to express concern that the State Department may have failed to report important facts about a private military contractor's killing of a guard for the Iraqi Vice President and thereby facilitated the hiring of that individual to work on another contract in support of the Iraq War only two months after the homicide.
Christianist Mercenaries, Michigan, and You
His name is Erik Prince, and he is the founder and CEO of a mercenary army that is receiving hundreds of millions of our tax dollars. His late father, Edgar, founded the anti-gay Family Research Council. His mother, Elsa Prince, gives lavish amounts of money to the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, and the Council for National Policy, an organization that wants to re-write our Constitution to make the United States one nation under their idea of God. Oh, and by the way - his brother-in-law, Dick DeVos, is a former and probably future candidate for Governor of the state of Michigan. In other words, these people are all right-wing religious extremists who want to criminalize our sexual orientations and gender identities. And not only do they have money and major ties to the White House, they also have access to a lot of automatic weapons. Scared yet?
Bush, Michigan, and Blackwater
When Blackwater contractors guarding a U.S. State Department convoy allegedly killed 11 unarmed Iraqi civilians on Sept. 16, it was only the latest in a series of controversial shooting incidents associated with the private security firm. Blackwater has a reputation for being quick on the draw. Since 2005, the North Carolina-based company, which has about 1,000 contractors in Iraq, has reported 195 "escalation of force incidents"; in 156 of those cases Blackwater guns fired first.
Fighting Fire With Fire? New Weapons Sales and Military Aid Will Not Bring Peace and Stability to the Middle East
The Bush administration’s recent announcement of tens of billions in new high-tech weapons and military aid for Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Gulf States was offered as the solution to many of the problems facing the region. But, critical and worthy goals like stability in Iraq, a nuclear-free Iran and peace in the Middle East cannot be achieved through the barrel of a gun, the point of a precision missile or the belly of a fighter plane. The policy amounts to fighting fire with fire– introducing more weapons into a highly volatile and militarized region in the name of peace. The announcement also shows a grim determination to ignore the lessons of history. Colombia, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Iraq in the 1980s, the Afghan mujahedeen in the 1970s-in each of these instances U.S. weapons, military aid and training have undermined security, been used against civilian populations, absorbed resources better devoted to human development and sowed the seeds of future conflicts. The Bush administration is making a grave mistake, and Congress must use its power to block these weapons transfers.
Gov't struggles to cope with wounded GIs
More than 800 GI's have lost an arm, a leg, fingers or toes. More than 100 are blind. Dozens need tubes and machines to keep them alive. Hundreds are disfigured by burns, and thousands have brain injuries and mangled minds.
Why Young People Join the Military
George Bush likes to say it's because they're patriots, but the truth may have more to do with financial need and recruiters targeting those with limited economic options.
US Failing To Support Our Soldiers
Sixty-three years ago today, 155,000 allied troops landed at Normandy Beach. Every year, on the sixth of June, I spend nearly the whole day thinking about what that meant. The logistics alone stagger the imagination. Think of the vessels that carried the soldiers there, the training camps where they learned to fight, the parents and loved ones and children and neighbors back home desperately praying and hoping for the best. Think of the provisions necessary: 155,000 pairs of boots, 155,000 guns, 155,000 dog tags, millions of bullets, and the list goes on. Factories on the home front converted from peacetime to wartime over the course of five years, churning out every item necessary, from underwear to hand grenades to aircraft. Folks back home struggled with rationing and loss as the U.S. government impressed men into service and locked down the equipment and supplies necessary for war. Simple commodities such as coffee and sugar, not themselves vital to the fight, were rationed because the fuel necessary to ship them had to be conserved. Corporations were expected to cut back as well. Congress passed laws making excessive profits illegal. The rich and powerful died alongside the poor and unknown. But who is profiting from war today?
Bush Administration: Smoke, Mirrors, and War
Each day a new installment of the Bill Moyers special on how the press bought into the Bush Administration's war... Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Governors say war has gutted Guard
As wildfires, floods and tornadoes batter the nation, the readiness of the National Guard to deal with those disasters, as well as potential terrorist assaults, is so depleted by deployments to foreign wars and equipment shortfalls that Congress is considering moves to curtail the president's powers over the Guard and require the Defense Department to analyze how prepared the country is for domestic emergencies.
A failure in generalship
For the second time in a generation, the United States faces the prospect of defeat at the hands of an insurgency. In April 1975, the U.S. fled the Republic of Vietnam, abandoning our allies to their fate at the hands of North Vietnamese communists. In 2007, Iraq's grave and deteriorating condition offers diminishing hope for an American victory and portends risk of an even wider and more destructive regional war. These debacles are not attributable to individual failures, but rather to a crisis in an entire institution: America's general officer corps. America's generals have failed to prepare our armed forces for war and advise civilian authorities on the application of force to achieve the aims of policy. The argument that follows consists of three elements. First, generals have a responsibility to society to provide policymakers with a correct estimate of strategic probabilities. Second, America's generals in Vietnam and Iraq failed to perform this responsibility. Third, remedying the crisis in American generalship requires the intervention of Congress. [NOTE: ARMY LT. COL. PAUL YINGLING is deputy commander, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. He has served two tours in Iraq, another in Bosnia and a fourth in Operation Desert Storm. He holds a master's degree in political science from the University of Chicago. The views expressed here are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of the Army or the Defense Department.]
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...the troops would be missing out on the video Mom put up of the baby's first steps that Daddy missed because he was busy keeping the world safe for democracy. FFS DOD, bandwidth is a commodity buy some more if you need it, all the telecom companies have tons of dark fiber laid carrying nothing. If you are gonna keep troops away from their families for 15 months at a shot you owe them the best contact possible with their families. If you are not willing to do that you have no right to ask those sacrifices. ~Blog entry by Uncle Jimbo |
Pentagon bans troops from MySpace and YouTube
US soldiers in Iraq reacted with dismay yesterday after the Pentagon blocked their access to websites including YouTube and MySpace, used widely to send and receive messages and pictures to loved ones at home. One sergeant from Arizona, speaking to The Times in Baghdad, said: “It will bring morale down. This is how a lot of people keep in touch with family and friends.
Retired General: Bush should sign Iraq bill
President Bush should sign legislation starting the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq on Oct. 1, retired Army Lt. Gen. William Odom said Saturday. "I hope the president seizes this moment for a basic change in course and signs the bill Congress has sent him," Odom said. Odom, an outspoken critic of the war who served as the Army's top intelligence officer and headed the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration, delivered the address at the request of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. He said he has never been a Democrat or a Republican.
Levin's moderate voice on war funding draws both praise and ire
Michigan's Carl Levin isn't giving up on President Bush. Levin, a Democrat and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, hopes Bush will sign the $124.2 billion war funding measure this week, despite the GOP president's pledges to veto the bill because it includes a timetable to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq. "Hopefully he'll understand that the Congress reflects last November's election results," said Levin, referring to the change in partisan control of Congress from Republicans to Democrats. "The public wants a thoughtful approach to changing the dynamic ... The public is already opposed to his policies and his rigidity."
Persian Gulf War Vets Show Brain-Volume Deficits
According to preliminary results from a study probing the possible effects of chemical exposure during the Persian Gulf War, soldiers displaying multiple health-related symptoms upon their return from combat have decreased volume in two brain regions intimately linked to learning and memory. The average soldier reported five symptoms out of a possible 20, which included forgetfulness, headaches, fatigue, nausea, skin rash and joint pain.
Bush Blames The Troops
Blame it on the military but make it look like you’re supporting the troops. That’s been the convenient gambit of failed emperors throughout history as they witnessed their empires decline. Not surprisingly then, it’s become the standard rhetorical trick employed by President Bush in shirking responsibility for the Iraq debacle of his making.Ignoring the fact that we have a system of civilian control over the military, which is why he, the elected president, is designated the commander in chief, Bush hides behind the fiction that the officers in the field are calling the shots when in fact he has put them in an unwinnable situation and refuses to even consider a timetable for getting them out.
Bush dishonors war dead by using their families
George W. Bush gave another White House speech on Monday in which he again misled the American people on the Iraq war and, at the same time, moved to new depths in his penchant for using the troops and their families as cheap props to eke out another sliver of faith in his failed policies. Bush lowered the ethical bar still more by using the Carlson family -- and even a poem about being a soldier that Michael had written in high school -- to goad Congressional Democrats into accepting his ridiculous stay-the-course policy. The Bush administration lied our country into a war and has kept us there longer than we were involved in World War II -- and things are getting worse there every day. The American people have turned against this war and want out, while our Chickenhawk-in-Chief uses the families of dead troops to pressure all of us to follow his miserable failure with more loss and more deaths.
Longer combat tours ‘will damage military’
“The decision to extend the tours of US service members by three months is an urgent warning that the Administration’s Iraq policy cannot be sustained without doing terrible long-term damage to our military,” said Joseph Biden, a Democrat senator and 2008 presidential hopeful. “We don’t have to guess at the impact on readiness, recruitment and retention.” Carl Levin, another Senate Democrat, said: “Once again the failures of this administration are being underwritten by our troops.”
'We Were Torturing People For No Reason' -- A Soldier's Tale
Tony Lagouranis is a 37-year-old bouncer at a bar in Chicago's Humboldt Park. He is also a former torturer. That was how he was described in an email promoting a panel discussion, "24: Torture Televised," hosted by the NYU School of Law's Center on Law and Security in New York on March 21. And he doesn't shy away from the description. As a specialist in a military intelligence battalion, Lagouranis interrogated prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Al Asad Airfield, and other places in Iraq from January through December 2004. Coercive techniques, including the use of military dogs, waterboarding, and prolonged stress positions, were employed on the detainees... The results of the hangings, shacklings, and prolonged stress positions -- sometimes for hours -- were devastating. "You take a healthy guy and you turn him into a cripple," Lagouranis tells me. "I don't care what Alberto Gonzales says. That's torture."
Neocon Godmother Considered Iraq War a Mistake
Kirkpatrick, best known as the combative UN ambassador during the Reagan administration who argued that the United States should be kind to authoritarian regimes that were partners in the crusade against communism, died last December. She expressed "grave reservations" about George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. She notes that at the time, "I was privately critical of the Bush administration's argument for the use of military force for preemptive self-defense." Most strikingly, she argues that the war--with respect to bringing democracy to Iraqis--did more harm than good. It's stunning criticism from a hawk who for over two decades has been a guiding light for the neocons who cheerleaded the nation to war in Iraq. In her book, she contends that the invasion has so far been counterproductive. No "due diligence." Kirkpatrick is politely charging that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and other top administration aides invaded a nation recklessly. Can there be a more damning indictment?
Bush's Shadow Army
A report on the Bush Administration's growing dependence on private security forces such as Blackwater [Blackwater is owned byErik Prince. Erik's sister is married to Dick DeVos. Devos lost his bid to be elected as governor of Michigan] USA and efforts in Congress to rein them in.
New Fort Detrick "Biodefense" Laboratory Reflects Bush Germ Warfare Initiative
Although no foreign power has threatened a bioterror attack against America, since 9/11 the Bush administration has allocated a stunning $43-billion to "defend" against one. Critics are now saying, however, Bush's newest "biodefense" initiative is both offensive and illegal. The latest development, according to the Associated Press, is that the U.S. Army is replacing its Military Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., "with a new laboratory that would be a component of a biodefense campus operated by several agencies." The Army told AP the laboratory is intended to continue research that is only meant for defense against biological threats. But University of Illinois international law professor Francis Boyle charged the Fort Detrick work will include "acquiring, growing, modifying, storing, packaging and dispersing classical, emerging and genetically engineered pathogens." Those activities, as well as planned study of the properties of pathogens when weaponized, "are unmistakable hallmarks of an offensive weapons program."
48 nations gather to fight cluster bombs
Norway -- Representatives from 48 nations on Thursday launched a global effort to ban the use, production and stockpiling of cluster bombs by the end of next year. [Editor: The United States is the leading manufacturer and perpetrator in using these hideously destructive weapons. The U.S. opposes the ban.]
Bush budget proposes $624.6B for defense
President Bush's 2008 budget request includes $624.6 billion in defense spending and marks the first time he has offered an estimate of how much the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost a year in advance. On top of $93.4 billion in additional money for this year's war operations and $141.7 billion in projected war costs for next year, the administration is seeking $481.4 billion to run the Defense Department in the budget year beginning Oct. 1. That is an 11.3 percent increase over the $432 billion approved by Congress for this year.
Coalition of the Willing - Soon to be a Party of One?
Tony
Blair's announcement that the UK will withdraw a large part of its forces from Iraq was bound to cause strong reactions. The German dailies wonder where this will leave Bush [already perceived worldwide to be an incompetent, imperialistic and fascist corporate owned regime.]
US soldier admits murdering girl
A second US soldier's plea of guilty to the gang rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the killing of her and her family has been accepted by a judge.
Who Will Get the Oil?
War and corruption have decimated Iraq's oil supply, and Western companies are angling for a cut of what's left. Iraq's postwar oil bonanza remains a mirage. The country has the second- or third-largest reserves in the world, making petroleum the heart and vast bulk of its economy. Thus in March 2003 did Paul Wolfowitz assure Congress that Iraq would "finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." American planners predicted that Iraq's oil production would triple to a feverish 6 million barrels per day by 2010. Instead war, corruption, sectarian slaughter and a massive crime wave have reduced the country's once mighty petroleum sector to an industrial zombie: still ambulatory, functional but essentially dead.
A Shock Wave of Brain Injurys
About 1,800 U.S. troops, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, are now suffering from traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) caused by penetrating wounds. But neurologists worry that hundreds of thousands more -- at least 30 percent of the troops who've engaged in active combat for four months or longer in Iraq and Afghanistan -- are at risk of potentially disabling neurological disorders from the blast waves of IEDs and mortars, all without suffering a scratch. For the first time, the U.S. military is treating more head injuries than chest or abdominal wounds, and it is ill-equipped to do so. According to a July 2005 estimate from Walter Reed Army Medical Center, two-thirds of all soldiers wounded in Iraq who don't immediately return to duty have traumatic brain injuries.
Iraq Veteran Speaks Out [MOVIE — 22 Minutes]
Today's news is most often generated by "official government sources". When we are given the opportunity, it is important for us to listen to the first hand accounts from the people who are working for the United States military and experiencing the war first hand.
Going AWOL vs. Going to Iraq
American and British soldiers are increasingly taking drastic action to avoid deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. As recently reported in the press, the Pentagon has "revised" the number of military desertions in 2006 upward to 3,196 active-duty soldiers -- 853 more than the Pentagon previously announced. And in a article released today, the British Independent newspaper reports that the UK Ministry of Defense "estimates there have been 10,000 AWOL incidents since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and 1,100 servicemen are currently 'on the run' from the Army." In the US, too, groups like Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace are growing. Nearly 1,600 enlisted soldiers have signed an appeal to the US Congress that reads: "Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price." And in Seattle, Lt. Ehren Watada, 29, is now grabbing headlines as the first American officer to be court-martialed for refusing to serve in Iraq. The Japanese American has called the conflict "an illegal and unjust war ... for profit and imperialistic domination."
Military Families on Front Lines of War Protest
Susan Tileston sets a half-full mug of beer on the table, and pulls an eagle's-head pendant and dog-tags from their hiding place underneath her jacket. The talismans are from her son, Army Specialist Levi Modrelle, who she says is "missing in action." Levi was part of the initial invasion of Iraq, and served almost eleven months with the 101st Airborne before coming home to Kentucky in late December of 2003. Susan was reunited with her 18-year-old son on Christmas Eve, but he was not the boy who went to war. "He barely talked. That wasn't like him. And he was shorter by about an inch and a half. I don't know why, but he was. He also had scars on the back of his head."
Agency to Test Military Draft Machinery
The Selective Service System is planning a comprehensive test of the military draft machinery, which hasn't been run since 1998. The Selective Service "readiness exercise" would test the system that randomly chooses draftees by birth date and the network of appeals boards that decide how to deal with conscientious objectors and others who want to delay reporting for duty, said Scott Campbell, Selective Service director for operations and chief information officer.
Gates Disses the Troops, and the American People
Strategy means being mindful that what you do today pays-off tomorrow. In communications, that means saying the things that build to an overall message. In action, it means understanding timing and gesture so that deeds and messages culminate with the intended outcome. Barely a day into the job, no doubt to hit the ground running and demonstrate the seriousness of the problem, Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates flew off to Baghdad with a gaggle of generals and aides (including politburo "minders" from the Vice President's office, but that's another point) to further his education.
Protect Our Troops from the President
It is astonishing to remember that a mere six years ago George Bush campaigned on the accusation that the Clinton administration had let the readiness of our military deteriorate. Today nearly all our military experts, even those speaking at peril to their careers, agree that our armed forces have been broken by the strategically idiotic occupation of Iraq. And yet the Bush administration has now coined a new slogan for "stay the course," in utter and diffident defiance of the will of American people. They are trying to sell us on yet one more "surge" in Iraq, perhaps the one that will finally break our own backs. What Germany could not do in World War II, what Japan could not do, George Bush has singlehandedly nearly accomplished already, the destruction of our armed forces. Our troops are in a shooting gallery where it is impossible to tell friend from foe. They are dying for absolutely no other reason but politicians who are too cowardly to admit they were wrong, with the pathological liars in the White House at the top of the indictment.
Iraq Vets Left in Physical and Mental Agony
On New Year's Eve, the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq passed 3,000. By Tuesday, the death toll had reached 3,004 -- 31 more than died in the Sep. 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. But the number of injured has far outstripped the dead, with the Veterans Administration reporting that more than 150,000 veterans of the Iraq war are receiving disability benefits. Advances in military technology are keeping the death rate much lower than during the Vietnam War and World War Two, Dr. Col. Vito Imbascini, an urologist and state surgeon with the California Army National Guard, told IPS, but soldiers who survive attacks are often severely disabled for life. "If you lost an arm or a leg in Vietnam, you were also tremendously injured in your chest and abdomen, which were not protected by the armour plates back then," he said. "Now, your heart and chest and lungs and heart are protected by armour, leaving only your extremities exposed." Dr. Imbascini just returned from a four-month deployment to Germany, where he treated the worst of the U.S. war wounded. He said that an extremely high number of wounded soldiers are coming home with their arms or legs amputated. Imbascini said he amputated the genitals of one or two men every day. "I walk into the operating room and the general surgeons are doing their work and there is the body of this Navy SEAL, which is a physical specimen to behold," he told IPS. "And his abdomen is open, they're exploring both intestines. He's missing both legs below the knee, one arm is blown off, he's got incisions on his thighs to relieve the pressure on the parts of the legs that are hopefully gonna survive and there's genital injuries, and you just want to cry."
Operation Helmet
Operation Helmet
provides helmet upgrade kits free of charge to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as to those ordered to deploy in the near future. These helmet upgrades do three primary things:
Dismay Grows Over US Torture School
The annual protest of the US Army's School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia, has grown dramatically in recent years, drawing 10,000 people in 2003, 16,000 in 2004 and 19,000 in 2005. Building on that momentum, the movement to close the controversial institution is expanding its horizons even further this weekend. As peace activists from throughout the United States converge at the gates of Fort Benning, SOA protesters will simultaneously take to the streets in Santiago, Bogotá, San Salvador and several other Latin American cities. The demonstrations offer a strong testament to the growing international movement to reject US military policy. Recent reports of the Bush Administration's decision to increase training and aid for the militaries of Latin America so as to reverse the region's leftward swing have only sharpened criticism at home and abroad. The Bush Administration's strategy to militarize the hemisphere, as reported November 10 by USA Today, has exacerbated the long-running controversy over the SOA and US training.
U.S. Marine Guilty in Philippine Rape Case
Dec. 4 — A Philippine court today convicted a United States marine accused of raping a Filipina, ending an emotional year-long case that tested Philippine-American relations and revived calls for the abrogation of a controversial defense agreement that is seen by many here as too lopsided in favor of Washington. The court sentenced Lance Corporal Daniel Smith, 21, of St. Louis, to life imprisonment — which, in the Philippines, could mean up to 40 years in prison — for raping 23-year-old Filipina in November 2005 inside a former American naval facility in Subic, Pampanga, a province just north of Manila.
“Lies got us into this war. Only the truth will get us out.”
The Best War Ever, by the best-selling authors of Weapons of Mass Deception, is a vital account of why America is losing in Iraq and the Middle East. We have met the enemy—and it's our own PR machine. One of the most tragic consequences of the Bush administration's reliance on spin, the authors argue, is its disdain for realistic planning. Repeatedly, when faced with predictions of problems, policymakers dismissed the warnings of Iraq experts, choosing instead to promulgate their own version of the war through conservative media outlets and PR campaigns. And as the book reveals, they're still doing it—as the people who sold us the war in Iraq are now trying to sell an expansion into Syria and Iran.
Be All That You Can Be: Leave the Army
With a military badly in need of reform and a war based on lies, desertion is an act of bravery.
98 Percent of Cluster Bomb Victims are Civilians
Handicap International Director General Angelo Simonazzi said at the launch. Cluster bombs continue to kill long after they are dropped. Illustrating this, Simonazzi showed a striking picture from Vietnam of unexploded cluster munitions lying among recently replanted paddies. Handicap International estimates that there are more than 100,000 victims of cluster bombs worldwide. More than 360 million sub-munitions of this kind have been dropped. Arsenals around the world contain an estimated stock of 4 billion pieces, Handicap says. This year they were used in Iraq, Lebanon and Israel. "The U.S. and Israel have used old stocks in Iraq and Lebanon -- which helps to explain why so many sub-munitions have not exploded immediately on impact," says Simonazzi. "In Iraq the coalition forced led by the U.S. have used 13 million cluster sub-munitions," says Hildegarde Vansintjan of Handicap International Belgium. "Assuming that one out of ten do not explode on impact, there are a million bombs lying around. The coalition troops give very little information."
The Pentagon's 12-Step Program to Create a Misfit Military
Iraq is driving down the number of new enlistees, and in desperation recruiters are bringing in a motley mix of underage teens, foreign fighters, neo-Nazis, and ex-cons.
Bush’s Brave New World of Torture
Now that Bush has signed the infamous Military Commissions Act into law and officially gutted the Geneva Conventions, what’s next?
Bush's Fight with Congress over Torture Defines Our Character
The standoff between the Senate and the Bush Administration over military tribunals, torture and war crimes will determine the kind of country America wishes to be.
Republican Torture Laws Will Live in History
If we learned anything from the Nuremberg trials it is that citizens are responsible for what their government does in their name. The right wing of Congress, which has shed any last vestige of being anything remotely conservative in substance or American in spirit, has, like a deranged peacock, proudly shown the world that it can and did "happen here." The passing of the pro-torture bill is a full handover of everything democratic into the arms of fascism. Our founding fathers are spinning in their graves at the thought of how Bush -- the deranged man-child; Cheney -- the most criminally corrupt government official to have ever been put into office; and Rummy -- a war criminal even before the war in Iraq have together burned the Constitution while the nation watched Survivor.
Bechtel Takes a Hit for War Profiteering
Government auditors who canceled Bechtel's $50 million contract will soon find reasons to cancel the company's $2.85 billion in Iraq contracts. A comprehensive U.S. government audit of a Bechtel project in Iraq has exposed gross mismanagement by the company.
Torture by a Different Name
Bush's latest plo: call torture "alternative set of interrogation procedures" and get Congress to legalize it.
The 10 Most Brazen War Profiteers
The history of American war profiteering is rife with egregious examples of incompetence, fraud, tax evasion, embezzlement, bribery and misconduct. As war historian Stuart Brandes has suggested, each new war is infected with new forms of war profiteering. Iraq is no exception. From criminal mismanagement of Iraq's oil revenues to armed private security contractors operating with virtual impunity, this war has created opportunities for an appalling amount of corruption. What follows is a list of some of the worst Iraq war profiteers who have bilked American taxpayers and undermined the military's mission.
Collateral Damage is Murder
Collateral damage is nothing more than a euphemism for state-sponsored mass murder. It is the term given to people killed in military actions who were "not intentionally targeted." In reality, this is pure propaganda. It has always been morally just to protect innocent people against aggressors. But, on the other hand, it has never been moral, nor has it ever been necessary, to bomb cities filled with innocent people.
Superbug Brought Back by Iraq War Casualties
Injured soldiers returning from Iraq have brought back a superbug that has been linked with outbreaks in NHS hospitals where they have been treated, a health minister has confirmed. The links between casualties brought back from Iraq and outbreaks in the NHS have caused alarm within the health service and led to renewed demands for more dedicated wards for Britain's armed forces to enable wounded soldiers to be isolated more effectively.
Veteran Policy-Makers Fear Disaster in U.S. Course
Alarms are definitely on the rise here. And it's not just because the British police arrested 21 people who were allegedly plotting to bomb up to 10 jetliners between London and the United States in mid-flight over the Atlantic Ocean. Although that probably didn't help. It's more the sense that the growing number of crises in the "new Middle East", proudly midwifed by the administration of President George W. Bush, is rapidly spinning out of control with potentially catastrophic consequences for the entire region and beyond. [Editor: Simply put, Team Bush in the U.S. is creating new terrorists faster than it can kill them. It's time to impeach George Bush and establish new international relationships that do not seek imperialist oil fueled domination through war.]
Rape, Murder, and the American GI
Abeer means "fragrance of flowers." She was 14 years old. The soldiers noticed her at a checkpoint. They stalked her after one or more of them expressed his intention to rape her. On March 12, after playing cards while slugging whisky mixed with a high-energy drink, they changed into black civvies and burst into Abeer's home in Mahmoudiya, a town 50 miles south of Baghdad. They killed her mother Fikhriya, father Qassim, and five-year-old sister Hadeel with bullets to the forehead, and "took turns" raping Abeer. Finally, they murdered her, drenched the bodies with kerosene, and lit them on fire to destroy the evidence. Then the GIs grilled chicken wings and practiced their golf swings. Note: U.S. troops are exempt from Iraqi prosecution. In September, a general will rule whether the accused should be court-martialed. The defense already pleads post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD- the equivenlent of the insanity plea in civilian court).
Military recruiters raping female enlistees
According to a report based upon a 6-month AP investigation, "more than 100 young women who expressed interest in joining the military in the past year were preyed upon sexually by their recruiters. Women were raped on recruiting office couches, assaulted in government cars and groped en route to entrance exams." "[The] AP investigation found that more than 80 military recruiters were disciplined last year for sexual misconduct with potential enlistees. The cases occurred across all branches of the military and in all regions of the country. The study also determined that the misconduct usually happens at recruiting stations, recruiters' apartments or inside government vehicles.
Freedom Central
A new web site by
Hugh Scott; an author, investigative journalist, Texas A&M graduate (Class of 1956), Vietnam vet, ex-USAF pilot, retired Continental Airlines captain, lifelong registered Republican, Barry Goldwater conservative, Ronald Reagan fan
Could Bush Be Prosecuted for War Crimes?
A Nuremberg chief prosecutor says there is a case for trying Bush for the 'supreme crime against humanity, an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.'
An Imperial Defeatist
Supposedly, the U.S. military has expanded its presence and combat role around the world to foster democracy and prevail in the President's War on Terror; and, without a doubt, many brave Americans have risked their lives -- and some have died - in the pursuit of these noble objectives. But this is not, I believe, what has motivated Messrs. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld in their pursuit of global supremacy. Rather, they appear driven by a messianic determination to impose American dominance on large swaths of the planet and to employ this hegemonic presence to gain control over global energy supplies. In attempting to do so, they are bankrupting the nation and exposing American citizens to a higher, not lower, risk of terrorist attack.
Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military
Nine out of ten women under fifty who had served in the U.S. military and had responded to a survey reported being sexually harassed while in the service. Reports of sexual assaults have skyrocketed recently, especially in hostile environments like Iraq and Afghanistan. The Washington Post reported, "In many U.S. military camps in Iraq, for example, signs are posted in female showers and other locations requiring U.S. servicewomen to be in the company of a 'battle buddy,' especially at night, for their safety."
Lieutenant Watada's War Against the War
In a remarkable, media-savvy protest, First Lieut. Ehren Watada has refused orders to go to Iraq, claiming the war and the occupation violate the Constitution, international law and Army regulations.
Thousands of troops say they won’t fight
Swept up by a wave of patriotism after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Chris Magaoay joined the Marine Corps in November 2004. The newly married Magaoay thought a military career would allow him to continue his college education, help his country and set his life on the right path. Less than two years later, Magaoay became one of thousands of military deserters who have chosen a lifetime of exile or possible court-martial rather than fight in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Marine To Return Service Medal To Bush In Protest
A Marine who service in Iraq earned several medals for serving his country, but he's giving back the War on Terrorism service medal to the White House as a form of protest. Bee said he is not anti-war, but rather pro-peace. He plans to travel to Washington, D.C., with a group of Marines who feel the same way he does. They will all try to return their War on Terrorism medal to Bush personally or to members of Congress.
Hate Groups Are Infiltrating the Military
A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization. As a professional soldier, my goal is to fill the ranks of the United States Army with skinheads. As street brawlers, you will be useless in the coming race war. As trained infantrymen, you will join the ranks of the Aryan warrior brotherhood, states Steven Barry, former Special Forces officer "We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad. That's a problem." Mr. Barfield [a Defense Department investigator] said Army recruiters struggled last year to meet goals. "They don't want to make a big deal about neo-Nazis in the military," he said, "because then parents who are already worried about their kids signing up and dying in Iraq are going to be even more reluctant about their kids enlisting if they feel they'll be exposed to gangs and white supremacists."
Young Marine holds cops at bay
An 18-year-old Marine who was distraught and apparently afraid of going to Iraq held an assault rifle to his head and threatened to pull the trigger Wednesday morning in a cul-de-sac. Victoria Lizotte, who said she is a friend of Christianson's, said he left her a voice mail early Wednesday. "He was crying and saying he didn't want to do it anymore and that I had been a good friend to him and that he didn't ever want to go to Iraq," Lizotte said...
Army charges officer who refused to deploy to Iraq
Watada, 28, first publicly announced his decision not to deploy on June 7. He has told Army Times that he began to question the war when he delved into international law, the history of war and the history of Iraq, and read articles by government and nongovernmental agencies, journalists and scholars about the situation in Iraq. He said he believes that several of the “major” premises used to make the case for war – including Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and his ties to al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks – were fabricated to boost approval for the war and to receive authorization from Congress. Watada submitted an official resignation packet in April that was later denied.
Torture "Widespread" under U.S. Custody: Amnesty
Torture and inhumane treatment are "widespread" in U.S.-run detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba and elsewhere despite Washington's denials, Amnesty International said on Wednesday. Protesters from the organization "Clergy & Laity Concerned About Iraq," take part in a protest demanding the shutdown of the U.S. operated prison at Guantanamo, Cuba, in front of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, in New York, May 1, 2006. On May 3, Amnesty International said torture and inhumane treatment are "widespread" in U.S.-run detention centers in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba and elsewhere despite Washington's denials.
In a report for the United Nations' Committee against Torture, the London-based human rights group also alleged abuses within the U.S. domestic law enforcement system, including use of excessive force by police and degrading conditions of isolation for inmates in high security prisons.
Personal data on millions of US veterans stolen
Personal data on 26.5 million U.S. veterans was stolen from the residence of a Department of Veterans Affairs employee who was not authorized to take the material home, exposing them to possible identity theft, the department said on Monday.
Killed by the U.S. Army
Pvt. Scarano once called himself a "living symbol" of the failure of the Army's rehabilitation system. Now he's a dead symbol.
Fog of War or War Crimes?
War on Iraq: Jimmy Massey, the Marines' most outspoken anti-war war advocate, talks about what really happened on the road to Baghdad. (If you haven't heard of him, Massey, a former Marine staff sergeant who spent 12 years in the Corps before being medically discharged with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and becoming a key figure in the peace movement with Veterans For Peace)
List of Rumsfeld critics gets longer
A sixth former general joined the criticism of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday, saying Rumsfeld should resign for mishandling the war in Iraq. "We need a new secretary of Defense," retired major general Charles Swannack, former commander of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, said on CNN. Major general Paul Eaton, who was in charge of training Iraqi troops in 2003 and 2004, wrote last month in The New York Times that Rumsfeld is "incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically." Marine lieutenant general Greg Newbold, the former Pentagon top operations officer, who called Iraq an "unnecessary war" in a Time magazine column this week.
Retired US Military Officers Call for Rumsfeld's Resignation
High-ranking retired U.S. Army officers are calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, echoing the recent criticisms of several other former high-ranking military officers.
The War Lovers
I sometimes remember these almost endearing fools when I find myself faced with another kind of war lover – the kind that has not seen war and has often done everything possible not to see it. The passion of these war lovers is a phenomenon; it never dims, regardless of the distance from the object of their desire. Pick up the Sunday papers and there they are, egocentrics of little harsh experience, other than a Saturday in Sainsbury's. Turn on the television and there they are again, night after night, intoning not so much their love of war as their sales pitch for it on behalf of the court to which they are assigned. "There's no doubt," said Matt Frei, the BBC's man in America, "that the desire to bring good, to bring American values to the rest of the world, and especially now to the Middle East … is now increasingly tied up with military power."
Lung Cancer Epidemic from Depleted Uranium
In the year 2005 there were 175,000 new cases of lung cancer in the United States. The months of January and February of 2006 have already yielded 172,000 new cases of lung cancer in our nation. What has lead to this shocking new development?
Support the Troops? Start By Listening to Them
According to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, a new poll shows that 72 percent of U.S. troops serving in Iraq favor complete withdrawal from that country within a year. Despite the claims of the armchair strategists in the White House and its amen corner in the media, who suggest that calls for withdrawal represent a failure to "support the troops," the troops themselves are ready to come home.
Torture as National Policy
Rights and Liberties: From Guantánamo to Iraq, the vicious abuse of prisoners by the U.S. military is business as usual.
Iraq takes toll on mental health
Iraq-war veterans are seeking mental-health treatment in high numbers, according to a Pentagon survey that for the first time tracks the psychological impact on U.S. troops as a war is unfolding. As a result of the continuous danger in Iraq, many soldiers and Marines live in a state of "hyper-vigilance" or "hyper-arousal" that can be hard to turn off once they return home. Back in the United States, they can be startled by loud noises, have trouble sleeping and struggle with anger issues.
Most Troops Want Swift US Pull-Out from Iraq
Seventy-two per cent of troops said the US should withdraw within 12 months; 29 per cent said they should pull out immediately. Meanwhile a CBS News poll recorded another record low for the president this week: only 30 per cent of respondents approved of Mr Bush’s handling of Iraq.
U.S. War Heroes of the Iraq War
Every War has its heroes, those who take risks to protect the values we cherish; this war is no different.
We honor those soldiers who risked loss of liberty, economic deprivation, and social ostracism. Each of these men and women of the military have at some point refused orders in this immoral, illegal, unjustified war the United States is currently waging in Iraq, or the occupation in Afghanistan. They obeyed their conscience over illegal orders.
 The Story of Blake Miller, Iraq War Veteran
The battle-weary face of Marine Blake Miller, widely known as the "Marlboro Man", became famous following the horrendous battle of Fallujah, Iraq, in November 2004. It personified, for some, the dedication of those who have
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