Saturday, July 15, 2006
'Veterans For America' on CNN Sunday
Sunday at 4 pm Eastern, CNN will air an interview with Veterans for America's Outreach Coordinator, Garett Reppenhagen, about the experience of readjustment from war. Garett served as a sniper in Iraq in 2004-2005, and now works with VFA to help Iraq and Afghanistan veterans get involved in changing policy. You can read Garett's blog and online profile HERE
Also on CNN this weekend (we don't know the time it will air) will be Steve Robinson, VFA's new legislative director. Steve is a retired Army Ranger who served in the first Gulf War and as the executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center. Steve is working closely with Congressional staff and the media to identify and address the consequences of the Global War on Terror.
Finally, VFA's War Kids Relief program was in the news this week in Albany, New York, with a profile of a young soldier who is trying to find ways to help Iraq's children. You can read the article online: HERE.
War Kids Relief Program Director Jonathan Powers published an essay yesterday in the Huffington Post addressing Post-traumatic stress and the latest reports of atrocities committed in Iraq. HERE
Tell A Friend About VFA
Veterans for America is making a big difference in Washington for fellow veterans. We need your help to grow and truly make an impact. You can help today by sending this email to at least five friends, and ask them to sign up.
We also invite you to set up your online profile, and find others in your area,: HERE
GWOT Veterans Survey
Have you served on active duty since September 11, 2001? Do you know someone who has?
If so, you can help Veterans for America address the consequences of war by helping us understand how the war is impacting military service members and veterans. VFA is conducting an online survey of veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan and the Global War on Terror. Anyone who served on active duty since September 11, 2001 can take the survey. If you did, please fill it out, and pass it on to others you know who have also served.
To find out more and take the survey, visit HERE
Veteran Bloggers
More and more veterans are keeping blogs on the Veterans for America site. A few weeks ago we opened the site to allow any subscriber to maintain a blog, because we want to hear what veterans are thinking and saying. Highlights of last week include:
Iraq War veteran Garrett Reppenhagen writes about the Sure Cure for Boredom: bringing back the draft, and poses the question: why does the Disabled American Veterans oppose allowing veterans to hire attorneys when dealing with VA? HERE
VFA Program Director and 1991 Gulf War veteran Paul Sullivan writes about the treatment of women in the military, freedom of the press, and more evidence of a broken military: HERE
Iraq War veteran Ben, from Fort Collins, CO, writes about his experiences in Iraq and trying to survive the Fourth of July: HERE
Want to post your own blog on VFA? Visit: HERE>
Support Our Work
You can help support our work. Consider a monthly contribution, or whatever you can send.
Veterans for America is a joint program of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization) and The Justice Project (a non-profit 501(c)(4) war veterans organization). Individual gifts made through The Justice Project are tax-deductible.
If you are interested in making a gift through a family or corporate foundation that can only support 501c3 organizations, you can also support our educational work through VVAF by contacting VVAF's development department at 202-483-9222.
Donate
Send a check
Checks should be made out to Veterans for America and mailed to:
Veterans for America
c/o The Justice Project
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As always, thank you for your continued support for our work.
With highest regards,
Charles Sheehan-Miles
Associate Director
Veterans for America
Little Ava....
Of Peace Takes Courage shares some more of the Love Letters{?} she has received from fans{?} .
The 32% Part II
(love letters from the Right)
Sesame Street helps army children
(Sesame Street's Elmo will be the key figure in the DVD)
US children's TV show Sesame Street is to be used to help American military families explain why a parent has to leave to serve overseas.
A DVD featuring popular character Elmo and his parents who are preparing for Elmo's dad to be deployed, will be handed out for free in August.
The DVD, produced in both English and Spanish, also features interviews with real-life families.
It also deals with the mixed feelings that occur when families are reunited.
About half a million children up to the age of five belong to families with one or both parents on active duty in the US, said Leslye Arsht, a US government undersecretary for military community and family policy.
Joanna Lopez and her family are featured in the DVD. Her husband has been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Some parents don't know how to deal with children when there is a deployment," she said.
"Other kids in school will say, 'My daddy is away killing bad guys.' This prepares the mom or dad to prepare the kids with better things to say."
The 32% Part II
(love letters from the Right)
Flash
-
WMV
If you didn't see Part 1 check it out HERE
AND:
Found this over at BooMan's Tribune
Elmo's Dad Goes To War
Sesame Street helps army children
(Sesame Street's Elmo will be the key figure in the DVD)US children's TV show Sesame Street is to be used to help American military families explain why a parent has to leave to serve overseas.
A DVD featuring popular character Elmo and his parents who are preparing for Elmo's dad to be deployed, will be handed out for free in August.
The DVD, produced in both English and Spanish, also features interviews with real-life families.
It also deals with the mixed feelings that occur when families are reunited.
About half a million children up to the age of five belong to families with one or both parents on active duty in the US, said Leslye Arsht, a US government undersecretary for military community and family policy.
Joanna Lopez and her family are featured in the DVD. Her husband has been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Some parents don't know how to deal with children when there is a deployment," she said.
"Other kids in school will say, 'My daddy is away killing bad guys.' This prepares the mom or dad to prepare the kids with better things to say."
Friday, July 14, 2006
Troubled Long Before Iraq
July 14, 2006
Accused G.I. Was Troubled Long Before Iraq
By JIM DWYER and ROBERT F. WORTH
On the last day of January 2005, Steven D. Green, the former Army private accused of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdering her family, sat in a Texas jail on alcohol-possession charges, an unemployed 19-year-old high school dropout who had just racked up his third misdemeanor conviction.
Days later, Mr. Green enlisted in a soldier-strapped Army, and was later assigned to a star-crossed unit to serve on an especially murderous patch of earth.
He arrived at the very moment that the Army was increasing by nearly half the rate at which it granted what it calls “moral waivers” to potential recruits. The change opened the ranks to more people like Mr. Green, those with minor criminal records and weak educational backgrounds. In Mr. Green’s case, his problems were emerging by junior high school, say people who knew him then.
Mr. Green’s Army waiver allowed a troubled young man into the heart of a war that bore little resemblance to its original declared purposes, but which continued to need thousands of fresh recruits.
Now, there is shame and rage in the Army — from the ranks of the enlisted to the officer corps — over the crimes attributed to Mr. Green, who was discharged in April on psychiatric grounds, and four other soldiers charged with a rape and four killings in March in Mahmudiya, a town about 20 miles south of Baghdad. A sixth soldier was charged with failing to report the matter after learning about it.
Mr. Green’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. Thomas Kunk, told his brother in a recent letter that “his worst fears, the nightmare every commander dreams of, has basically come true,’’ the brother, Peter Kunk, said in an interview describing the letter.
“The three or four people have apparently been involved in a situation that reflects so badly on the Army and all the people in these brigades and companies,” Mr. Kunk said.
In early 2005, a few weeks after enlisting, Private Green immersed himself in a baptismal pool in the back of an Army chapel in Fort Benning, Ga., one of hundreds of young recruits who embraced religion as they faced certain violence.
By year’s end, Private Green, then 20, was patrolling streets in one of the most bloodily contested corridors of Iraq, the so-called “triangle of death” south of Baghdad where thousands had died in sectarian violence since 2003. He served with Bravo Company, First Battalion, 502nd Infantry, part of the Army’s 101st Division.
In a photograph released by the Army on Dec. 9, Private Green can be seen laden with gear and aiming a weapon at a lock at an abandoned house. One of his sergeants, Ken Casica, was quoted on the subject of house searches in a news release that accompanied the picture.
The next day, Sergeant Casica and Sgt. Travis Nelson, also of Bravo Company, were shot dead at a checkpoint. Less than two weeks later, two more members of the company were killed by a roadside bomb.
Steven Green lasted only another four months in the Army, but it was a grim, violent and chaotic stretch. Seventeen battalion members were killed, two of them mutilated after being kidnapped; of those killed, eight belonged to Mr. Green’s Bravo Company of about 110 soldiers.
Even the modest quarters taken over the Bravo Company, an abandoned potato warehouse, burned to the ground in an accidental fire, destroying letters, video players, and the small personal tokens the soldiers had slipped into their war gear.
Mr. Kunk, the brother of the commanding officer of the battalion, said that Colonel Kunk had regarded this deployment as the most brutal stretch of his 22 years in the service.
“This is the toughest tour of duty he has ever had,” Mr. Kunk said. “You can tell by his letters. It has taken a terrible toll on him and his men. We’re heartsick about it. There’s been so many deaths, loss of limbs, injuries.”
Born May 2, 1985, Steven Dale Green spent some of his earliest years in Midland, Tex., in the western part of the state. His parents, John Green and Roxanne Simolke, divorced while he was a child, and Mr. Green moved with his mother to Seabrook, southeast of Houston on the Gulf Coast. She married Daniel Carr when Steven was around 8.
Willy Godfrey, a classmate of Mr. Green at Seabrook Intermediate School, remembered when Mr. Green moved into the area for sixth grade in 1997.
“He was always, like, in trouble, doing something in school,” said Mr. Godfrey, 21, an emergency medical technician. “He was always getting into a fight or saying something mean to a teacher. Something weird. It was just out of place. Gradewise and stuff, I don’t know if he did good or bad. But he did not mix well with other people. He was basically mad, or something like that.”
Lisa Godfrey, Mr. Godfrey’s mother, said she had worked with Mr. Green’s mother at Seabrook Classic Cafe and they had spoken often about their boys. His mother had trouble with Steven, Ms. Godfrey, 46, said.
“He was disruptive in his house,” she said. “I don’t know if he killed small cats or anything, but that’s the kind of kid he was. His mom had a lot of issues.”
Another schoolmate, Danielle Mundine, said Mr. Green used drugs at an unusually young age for Seabrook. “I think he did drugs and drink in junior high school,” Ms. Mundine, 19, said. “He did have some friends.”
In 2000, Mr. Green’s mother spent six months in jail on a drunken-driving conviction, records show. Around that time, Mr. Green returned to Midland, where his father still lived. There, he attended Viola M. Coleman High School, which offers courses for students who have difficulty with regular academic programs. He dropped out by 2002, around the 10th grade, but received a graduate equivalency diploma in 2003 from Midland Community College.
Mr. Green was convicted in October 2001 of possession of drug paraphernalia and fined $350. Five months later, he was charged as a minor in possession of tobacco, and was fined $300, according to records in Midland Municipal Court. On Jan. 31, 2005, he was arrested and charged as a minor in possession of alcohol, and again was fined $350. This time, he did not pay the fine, but served jail time.
“He laid off the fine in jail,” Sheriff Gary Painter of Midland County said. Mr. Green did not volunteer to work in the kitchen or at other jobs, which would have shortened his stay, Sheriff Painter said. He served four days.
The jail records hint at some complications in his family life. Mr. Green did not list either parent as a contact, but listed a man in Denver City, Tex., about 80 miles away. Sheriff Painter said he was not permitted to release the name of the contact. But Mr. Green had lived in Denver City with Daniel Carr, his former stepfather, who was estranged from Mr. Green’s mother.
In Denver City, B. J. Carr, the father of Daniel Carr, said Mr. Green had lived there with his son, who works in oil fields in Oklahoma.
The Army has released little information about its review of Mr. Green’s background before he joined the service.
The share of Army recruits who received “moral waivers” for criminal records increased last year and through the first half of 2006 by 15 percent from 10 percent or 11 percent before the war, according to statistics released this week. (According to the Pentagon, the number of waivers in 2001 totaled 7,640. The figure increased to 11,018 in 2005, and for the first six months of this fiscal year totaled 5,636.)
Asked how the Green situation might apply to someone who tried to enlist today, Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky., said it was not possible to apply the Army’s standards to a hypothetical case.
“A waiver is based on the actuality of the person, the totality of their life, the information we have on them — what have been their shortcomings, what have they done in their life to overcome a previous minor mistake,” Mr. Smith said.
On March 13, two months afte he was released from the Midland jail, Mr. Green was one of eight soldiers baptized during a Church of Christ service at Fort Benning.
“You hold that weapon for the first time, a lot of guys are holding weapons for the first time in their lives, and you know this M-16 is meant for engaging the enemy,” said Jason Garber, 19, who was baptized that day but did not complete training. “You wonder, if I do die, where am I going to go?”
A year later almost to the day, a federal criminal complaint says, Mr. Green and the four other soldiers charged in the case drank alcohol, changed into black clothes and then raided the home of a husband and wife and their two daughters.
Mr. Green, the complaint charges, went into a room and killed the parents and the younger daughter. Then, it says, he and a second soldier sexually assaulted the 14-year-old, shot her and tried to burn her body.
Reporting for this article was contributed by Thayer Evans in Seabrook, Tex.; Carolyn Marshall in Fort Campbell, Ky.; and Barbara Novovitch in Denver City, Tex. Alain Delaqueriere contributed research.
Accused G.I. Was Troubled Long Before Iraq
By JIM DWYER and ROBERT F. WORTH
On the last day of January 2005, Steven D. Green, the former Army private accused of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and murdering her family, sat in a Texas jail on alcohol-possession charges, an unemployed 19-year-old high school dropout who had just racked up his third misdemeanor conviction.
Days later, Mr. Green enlisted in a soldier-strapped Army, and was later assigned to a star-crossed unit to serve on an especially murderous patch of earth.
He arrived at the very moment that the Army was increasing by nearly half the rate at which it granted what it calls “moral waivers” to potential recruits. The change opened the ranks to more people like Mr. Green, those with minor criminal records and weak educational backgrounds. In Mr. Green’s case, his problems were emerging by junior high school, say people who knew him then.
Mr. Green’s Army waiver allowed a troubled young man into the heart of a war that bore little resemblance to its original declared purposes, but which continued to need thousands of fresh recruits.
Now, there is shame and rage in the Army — from the ranks of the enlisted to the officer corps — over the crimes attributed to Mr. Green, who was discharged in April on psychiatric grounds, and four other soldiers charged with a rape and four killings in March in Mahmudiya, a town about 20 miles south of Baghdad. A sixth soldier was charged with failing to report the matter after learning about it.
Mr. Green’s commanding officer, Lt. Col. Thomas Kunk, told his brother in a recent letter that “his worst fears, the nightmare every commander dreams of, has basically come true,’’ the brother, Peter Kunk, said in an interview describing the letter.
“The three or four people have apparently been involved in a situation that reflects so badly on the Army and all the people in these brigades and companies,” Mr. Kunk said.
In early 2005, a few weeks after enlisting, Private Green immersed himself in a baptismal pool in the back of an Army chapel in Fort Benning, Ga., one of hundreds of young recruits who embraced religion as they faced certain violence.
By year’s end, Private Green, then 20, was patrolling streets in one of the most bloodily contested corridors of Iraq, the so-called “triangle of death” south of Baghdad where thousands had died in sectarian violence since 2003. He served with Bravo Company, First Battalion, 502nd Infantry, part of the Army’s 101st Division.
In a photograph released by the Army on Dec. 9, Private Green can be seen laden with gear and aiming a weapon at a lock at an abandoned house. One of his sergeants, Ken Casica, was quoted on the subject of house searches in a news release that accompanied the picture.
The next day, Sergeant Casica and Sgt. Travis Nelson, also of Bravo Company, were shot dead at a checkpoint. Less than two weeks later, two more members of the company were killed by a roadside bomb.
Steven Green lasted only another four months in the Army, but it was a grim, violent and chaotic stretch. Seventeen battalion members were killed, two of them mutilated after being kidnapped; of those killed, eight belonged to Mr. Green’s Bravo Company of about 110 soldiers.
Even the modest quarters taken over the Bravo Company, an abandoned potato warehouse, burned to the ground in an accidental fire, destroying letters, video players, and the small personal tokens the soldiers had slipped into their war gear.
Mr. Kunk, the brother of the commanding officer of the battalion, said that Colonel Kunk had regarded this deployment as the most brutal stretch of his 22 years in the service.
“This is the toughest tour of duty he has ever had,” Mr. Kunk said. “You can tell by his letters. It has taken a terrible toll on him and his men. We’re heartsick about it. There’s been so many deaths, loss of limbs, injuries.”
Born May 2, 1985, Steven Dale Green spent some of his earliest years in Midland, Tex., in the western part of the state. His parents, John Green and Roxanne Simolke, divorced while he was a child, and Mr. Green moved with his mother to Seabrook, southeast of Houston on the Gulf Coast. She married Daniel Carr when Steven was around 8.
Willy Godfrey, a classmate of Mr. Green at Seabrook Intermediate School, remembered when Mr. Green moved into the area for sixth grade in 1997.
“He was always, like, in trouble, doing something in school,” said Mr. Godfrey, 21, an emergency medical technician. “He was always getting into a fight or saying something mean to a teacher. Something weird. It was just out of place. Gradewise and stuff, I don’t know if he did good or bad. But he did not mix well with other people. He was basically mad, or something like that.”
Lisa Godfrey, Mr. Godfrey’s mother, said she had worked with Mr. Green’s mother at Seabrook Classic Cafe and they had spoken often about their boys. His mother had trouble with Steven, Ms. Godfrey, 46, said.
“He was disruptive in his house,” she said. “I don’t know if he killed small cats or anything, but that’s the kind of kid he was. His mom had a lot of issues.”
Another schoolmate, Danielle Mundine, said Mr. Green used drugs at an unusually young age for Seabrook. “I think he did drugs and drink in junior high school,” Ms. Mundine, 19, said. “He did have some friends.”
In 2000, Mr. Green’s mother spent six months in jail on a drunken-driving conviction, records show. Around that time, Mr. Green returned to Midland, where his father still lived. There, he attended Viola M. Coleman High School, which offers courses for students who have difficulty with regular academic programs. He dropped out by 2002, around the 10th grade, but received a graduate equivalency diploma in 2003 from Midland Community College.
Mr. Green was convicted in October 2001 of possession of drug paraphernalia and fined $350. Five months later, he was charged as a minor in possession of tobacco, and was fined $300, according to records in Midland Municipal Court. On Jan. 31, 2005, he was arrested and charged as a minor in possession of alcohol, and again was fined $350. This time, he did not pay the fine, but served jail time.
“He laid off the fine in jail,” Sheriff Gary Painter of Midland County said. Mr. Green did not volunteer to work in the kitchen or at other jobs, which would have shortened his stay, Sheriff Painter said. He served four days.
The jail records hint at some complications in his family life. Mr. Green did not list either parent as a contact, but listed a man in Denver City, Tex., about 80 miles away. Sheriff Painter said he was not permitted to release the name of the contact. But Mr. Green had lived in Denver City with Daniel Carr, his former stepfather, who was estranged from Mr. Green’s mother.
In Denver City, B. J. Carr, the father of Daniel Carr, said Mr. Green had lived there with his son, who works in oil fields in Oklahoma.
The Army has released little information about its review of Mr. Green’s background before he joined the service.
The share of Army recruits who received “moral waivers” for criminal records increased last year and through the first half of 2006 by 15 percent from 10 percent or 11 percent before the war, according to statistics released this week. (According to the Pentagon, the number of waivers in 2001 totaled 7,640. The figure increased to 11,018 in 2005, and for the first six months of this fiscal year totaled 5,636.)
Asked how the Green situation might apply to someone who tried to enlist today, Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky., said it was not possible to apply the Army’s standards to a hypothetical case.
“A waiver is based on the actuality of the person, the totality of their life, the information we have on them — what have been their shortcomings, what have they done in their life to overcome a previous minor mistake,” Mr. Smith said.
On March 13, two months afte he was released from the Midland jail, Mr. Green was one of eight soldiers baptized during a Church of Christ service at Fort Benning.
“You hold that weapon for the first time, a lot of guys are holding weapons for the first time in their lives, and you know this M-16 is meant for engaging the enemy,” said Jason Garber, 19, who was baptized that day but did not complete training. “You wonder, if I do die, where am I going to go?”
A year later almost to the day, a federal criminal complaint says, Mr. Green and the four other soldiers charged in the case drank alcohol, changed into black clothes and then raided the home of a husband and wife and their two daughters.
Mr. Green, the complaint charges, went into a room and killed the parents and the younger daughter. Then, it says, he and a second soldier sexually assaulted the 14-year-old, shot her and tried to burn her body.
Reporting for this article was contributed by Thayer Evans in Seabrook, Tex.; Carolyn Marshall in Fort Campbell, Ky.; and Barbara Novovitch in Denver City, Tex. Alain Delaqueriere contributed research.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Stressed-Out Soldiers
(CBS) According to a recent report from the Veterans Administration, more than 50,000 vets from Iraq and Afghanistan are believed to be suffering from mental health problems — nearly half of them from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. It's well documented and, says the Pentagon, well treated both in the field and at home. But CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports that at least in one large military base in Colorado, soldiers are saying members of the Army Command are simply paying lip service, at best, to PTSD — hindering their treatment and upending their careers.(Photo-Lucian Read/World Picture Network)
Quote:
"I had panic attacks every time. And I had it all set up, I was going to hang myself."
Pvt. Tyler Jennings
Men At One Base Say The Army Is Ignoring PTSD Cases
FORT CARSON, Colo., July 12, 2006
The 2nd Brigade Combat Team in Fort Carson, Colo., is training to go back to Iraq after experiencing some of the fiercest combat last year. The unit lost soldiers at double the rate of other Army posts around the country, including Pfc. Sam Lee, who committed suicide at a Ramadi Army barracks.
"As he was going outside, that's pretty much when I came in the room and saw him fire on himself," says Pvt. Tyler Jennings.
"The second round actually came by and just missed my head and hit my weapon," adds Pvt. Corey Davis. "So I had to use his weapon. And I mean I got it with his blood on it still."
Jennings and Davis say that surreal scene, among many others, led to nightmares, flashbacks and anxiety attacks — classic symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
"I had panic attacks every time," says Jennings. "And I had it all set up, I was going to hang myself."
In a recent report, more than one-third of Iraqi war veterans sought help for mental health problems, including PTSD, within a year of returning home. A report from a congressional watchdog group detailed failures by the Department of Defense to identify and deal with anxiety issues like PTSD.
In the face of what some are calling an epidemic of PTSD in the military, nearly a dozen soldiers at Fort Carson told CBS News that their cries for mental health either went unanswered or they found themselves subject to unrelenting abuse and ridicule.
------
The Colorado Springs Independent contributed to this report.
------
Military ethicist Nancy Sherman talks about post-traumatic stress disorder.
------
Kaye Baron is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Colorado Springs, Colo. Each week, she counsels up to 25 soldiers and their families who are either unwilling or unable to face their problems while on base.
"I think it's a very big problem," says Baron. "They could potentially lose their promotion potential, or just feeling like they're not able to advance in their career. That it's kinda over for them."
Lt. Col. Eric Kruger, Commanding Officer of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team at Fort Carson, says he's concerned that soldiers aren't seeking help due to fears of fearing ridicule or reprisal.
"It's a tremendous concern," he says. "You don't want a soldier not to seek help for anything. They're our No. 1 asset. Leaders have to engage that every day — and in my experience here, we do.
Col. Kruger says the Army offers ample means to get help for PTSD without jeopardizing one's career — such as a comprehensive screening program in which soldiers are asked to answer questions about their mental state.
"You take this step; you fill out the boxes," says Keteyian.
"I did the right thing, 'cause I knew I needed help," Davis says.
"A cry for help, and nobody hears it?"
"No, there was no answer."
Today, Davis, like Jennings, has seen a once-promising career upended. Demoted to private for drug abuse — something experts say is a common coping mechanism for those suffering from the disorder — both face dishonorable discharges.
Both were forced to seek treatment off-base and have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Like many soldiers, they feel deserted by the Army they once so proudly served.
You Can View The Above Report Feeling The Stress Here.
You Can View Report Preceeding The Above The Mind Of A Soldier Here.
An added link from Brenda over at Boomans:
Mentally Unfit, Forced To Fight
Potent Mixture: Zoloft & A Rifle
The military told Congress that medications aren't used to keep soldiers with serious mental illness in combat. But a Courant investigation reveals that drugs are increasingly being handed out.
May 16, 2006
STORY By LISA CHEDEKEL And MATTHEW KAUFFMAN, The Hartford Courant
Undesirable Army
"A military that frets over the presence of gays while turning a blind eye to racist malcontents is in no position to win wars with outsiders when it can't defeat evil closer to home."
Editorial: Undesirable army / Shortfalls allow the entry of hate-filled recruits
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Homosexuals in the military have long had to deal with a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Gays and lesbians are shown the door the second their sexual orientation is known.
The military has been consistently ruthless in this regard, even when it meant thinning the ranks of capable translators and intelligence operators for an inconsequential factor like sexual identity.
But when it comes to the Pentagon's zero-tolerance policy for hate groups, recruiters appear more committed to making monthly quotas than ensuring the values of a racially diverse military. While the Iraq war grows more unpopular, recruiting shortfalls have allowed undesirables to fill the ranks.
Sensing an opportunity for mischief, white supremacists are enlisting and volunteering for battle assignments so they can get training in light infantry tactics they'll need for what they see as the coming race war in America. According to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, large numbers of neo-Nazis and white supremacist skinheads, possibly in the thousands, are on active duty in the U.S. military.
When a Defense Department investigator positively identified 320 racist extremists in the past year, only two were discharged, according to The New York Times. This reflects a "see no evil, hear no evil" stance by the military in a time of recruitment shortfalls.
A warm body, even if it has racist tendencies, is still a warm body to anxious recruiters. A volunteer military that tolerates a racially intolerant fifth column in its midst has decided that scraping the bottom of the barrel for recruits makes tactical and military sense. This is shortsighted and will prove disastrous in the long run.
A military that frets over the presence of gays while turning a blind eye to racist malcontents is in no position to win wars with outsiders when it can't defeat evil closer to home. A return to zero-tolerance for hate groups is the only way to guarantee that today's Army won't be training tomorrow's Oklahoma City bomber.
Editorial: Undesirable army / Shortfalls allow the entry of hate-filled recruits
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Homosexuals in the military have long had to deal with a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Gays and lesbians are shown the door the second their sexual orientation is known.
The military has been consistently ruthless in this regard, even when it meant thinning the ranks of capable translators and intelligence operators for an inconsequential factor like sexual identity.
But when it comes to the Pentagon's zero-tolerance policy for hate groups, recruiters appear more committed to making monthly quotas than ensuring the values of a racially diverse military. While the Iraq war grows more unpopular, recruiting shortfalls have allowed undesirables to fill the ranks.
Sensing an opportunity for mischief, white supremacists are enlisting and volunteering for battle assignments so they can get training in light infantry tactics they'll need for what they see as the coming race war in America. According to a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, large numbers of neo-Nazis and white supremacist skinheads, possibly in the thousands, are on active duty in the U.S. military.
When a Defense Department investigator positively identified 320 racist extremists in the past year, only two were discharged, according to The New York Times. This reflects a "see no evil, hear no evil" stance by the military in a time of recruitment shortfalls.
A warm body, even if it has racist tendencies, is still a warm body to anxious recruiters. A volunteer military that tolerates a racially intolerant fifth column in its midst has decided that scraping the bottom of the barrel for recruits makes tactical and military sense. This is shortsighted and will prove disastrous in the long run.
A military that frets over the presence of gays while turning a blind eye to racist malcontents is in no position to win wars with outsiders when it can't defeat evil closer to home. A return to zero-tolerance for hate groups is the only way to guarantee that today's Army won't be training tomorrow's Oklahoma City bomber.
The Yellow Rogue From Texas
The Yellow Rogue From Texas
By Ron Gillis: Member Veterans For Peace
There's a Yellow Rogue from Texas who moved up to DC
His pockets full of oil stock, He's screwing you and me.
His daddy always paid the bills no matter where he went
And his brother rigged the voting so now he's president.
He's the slickest little hustler that Texas ever saw
He proved that with connections you don't worry 'bout the law.
You may talk about Dick Nixon or sing of Bill's cigar
But the Yellow Rogue from Texas beats both of them by far.
Repeat Vs. 1
The Yellow Rogue is quick and slick, he sure can talk the talk,
It's just that when the bullets fly, he's one more chicken hawk.
Back when the Southeast Asian war sent thousands off to die,
The chicken hawks stayed safe at home, while others paid the price.
Repeat Vs. 1
He looks great in his pilot suit, a hero on TV,
He just can't stand the smell of death, he has an allergy.
The Yellow Rogue's no pacifist; he speaks what he thinks right
But if it puts his ass at risk, he disappears from sight.
Repeat Vs. 1
The chicken hawks are sitting high, they're making money still
They buy and sell while others die and think they always will.
It's up to us to face them down, to stand and speak what's true
Then run the bastards out of town, the whole damn thieving crew.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
"The Saddest Song I've Got"
Direct Link To Video To View, Rate and Comment If You So Wish!
From the producer:
I think there is a tendency by all of us in the United States, and especially this administration, to overlook the great suffering experienced by the Iraqi population.
I wanted to take this beautiful song by Annie Lennox, and these brilliant photographs, and show you all that war never solves anything.
I am not a dedicated born again Christian like George W. Bush. However, there is a quote by JC that I really like.
"This I command you, to love one another."
And Ava Has Another New Flash At Her Site:
"For Their Sake"
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
The following
was just posted at Rub's DKOS Diary-Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (photos) Day 495 by Cronesense on Tue Jul 11, 2006 at 01:32:11 PM EDT:
I highlighted a few more important points.
As I replied I will be passing this on to as many Groups and Individuals I can think of and Hopefully so will You All and any who read and pass on as well!!
A Great Tribute and Honor for Her Horrible Sacrifice and that of Most of Her Family, showing Our Disgust and Non Exceptance of Any Atrosity let alone the Biggest of All This Conflict!!!!!
PLEASE PASS ON THIS TRIBUTE IDEA!!
from the diaries posted about Abeer Qasim Hamza al Janabi short life and vicious death, a couple of us are trying to figure out how to get a candlelight vigil going across the nation for what would have been her 15th birthday on August 19th.
Do you think that some of the above organizations would be interested in promoting a candlelight vigil for her?
Is there a special way we should approach them?
I highlighted a few more important points.
As I replied I will be passing this on to as many Groups and Individuals I can think of and Hopefully so will You All and any who read and pass on as well!!
A Great Tribute and Honor for Her Horrible Sacrifice and that of Most of Her Family, showing Our Disgust and Non Exceptance of Any Atrosity let alone the Biggest of All This Conflict!!!!!
PLEASE PASS ON THIS TRIBUTE IDEA!!
Take Me Home
By Geoff Rutledge
100% of the net proceeds associated with this project benefit Veterans for Peace in support of their anti-war efforts.
"Take Me Home" is an enhanced CD - the accompanying award-winning video can be viewed on either a PC or Mac. Cinematographer Mark Howard. "Take Me Home" is available for purchase at these local retail outlets: Do Re Mi records in Carmel, Recycled Records in Monterey, Etc.Etc.Etc. in Santa Cruz. Available online at CD Baby.
Direct Link To View At You Tube Site To Rate and Comment If You So Wish.
This is a production of Ardens Garden with a number of Anti-War/Pro-Peace Music Artist Contributing their songs. Can also be purchased from Ardens Garden.
Why are these Video's, mostly produced not by the professionals but by just Regular Folks who want to Love and Respect their Country but feel So Betrayed by those we Hire to Lead, so important?
They are the Reality of a War that we No Longer can view on Any of the Oh So Many so called Journalistic MSM News Programs/Channels that exist today.
These are the Reality those of us who were sent to, and the population of this country, viewed almost Everyday of another Debacle of Invasion of an Innocent Country, Vietnam, that this Country Still Hasn't Come To Terms With!
Long before we had the 24/7 of CNN, MSNBC, FOX and any others that have come along since than, giving us Less News and only Singular Opinion of those they describe as Experts, a handfull of Empty/Emotionaless Faces with Empty/Hollow Words arguing instead of talking and listening.
Such as the Following:
All is Not Okay
A tribute to Douglas Barber, an Iraq vet who lost hs life to shortly after returning from Iraq. music by Seether. (warning this video contains graphic images of the war)
Direct Link To View At You Tube Site To Rate and Comment If You So Wish.
Support-IVAW in Honor to Douglas Barber, All who have perished In-Country or upon Returning taken their own lives, All who have been Maimed Physically and Mentally-PTSD, All the Tens Of Thousands of Iraqi Innocents who are no longer there to Help Rebuild 'Their' Country from the Destruction We Are Responsible For, Especially The Children, and those also Maimed Physically and Mentally-PTSD!
Support-IVAW in that which they are Continuing their Service to Country:
And all the endeavors they will take on in the Future!
Visit their site, if you haven't, to learn more about this growing band of Patriotic Veterans still giving to Society and Country! Once committed, in joining to Defend, they will continue to keep their voices and actions in the forefront of What This Country Should Be, not what it thinks it is and now has grown to be so rapidly, Hated By Many, Feared By Many!
There are many out there producing The Reality, such as the Brave Youngster Ava at Peace Takes Courage or the Young Veteran Tom Chelston of Tom Songs, producing not only the Video's but using his Own Songs giving even more feeling to his artistic work. You also have The Blasted Reality Network or Dick Eats bush {can't bring myself to capitalize the b of this little souless man!}. There is also NamGuardianAngel - Kathie Costos who has a site Here, her Blog Here and has produced her own Video's found Here. Than of course you have one of the 'Grandfathers' of this Artistic Work', a young man Eric of bushFlash, who's many personal flashvideo's you can view Here and will be shutting down his site at the end of this month for a number of reasons but probably, as you can read at his lastest entry at his Site about the Horrible Atrosity Committed by U.S. Soldiers on fifteen-year-old Abeer Qasim Hamza and part of her family, from Burnout and Disgust! I'm sure his Talented Video's will be Archived, as they are all over the Net as are the many he has hosted and produced by others, and I'm sure we haven't seen the Last of His Work.
Than you have Truthout-Multimedia producing their own News Video's of what you won't see on the so called MSM, keeping us informed.
We also have some like Thomas Barton, Vietnam Vet, who have brought back the G.I. Newsletters, produced on bases in Vietnam and the U.S. and around this world, on the G.I. movement Against the Vietnam War as seen now in the Documentary Sir! No Sir! to long kept quite by this country and denied by it's citizens. Thomas gives the Raw News of the New Generation of Debacles, Iraq and Afganistan, in his up to date Newsletters which can be found at Military Project {site now up after being shutdown for quite awhile} and at Traveling Soldier.
There are many many more being produced and hosted on individual sites and there are individual works hosted on places like You Tube. If you have any others list them, for these should be shared and passed on To Bring The Reality of Man's Destructive Nature in More Ways Than Just Words-Propaganda-Lies!!
We, as a Nation, should be Leading by the Real Examples of Peace-Freedom-and Democracy 'Of The People'!
~~~~~~~
The following were posted up in Replys to my posting this at Daily KOS by Sharon Jumper who's son is in Iraq.
100% of the net proceeds associated with this project benefit Veterans for Peace in support of their anti-war efforts.
"Take Me Home" is an enhanced CD - the accompanying award-winning video can be viewed on either a PC or Mac. Cinematographer Mark Howard. "Take Me Home" is available for purchase at these local retail outlets: Do Re Mi records in Carmel, Recycled Records in Monterey, Etc.Etc.Etc. in Santa Cruz. Available online at CD Baby.
Direct Link To View At You Tube Site To Rate and Comment If You So Wish.
This is a production of Ardens Garden with a number of Anti-War/Pro-Peace Music Artist Contributing their songs. Can also be purchased from Ardens Garden.
Why are these Video's, mostly produced not by the professionals but by just Regular Folks who want to Love and Respect their Country but feel So Betrayed by those we Hire to Lead, so important?
They are the Reality of a War that we No Longer can view on Any of the Oh So Many so called Journalistic MSM News Programs/Channels that exist today.
These are the Reality those of us who were sent to, and the population of this country, viewed almost Everyday of another Debacle of Invasion of an Innocent Country, Vietnam, that this Country Still Hasn't Come To Terms With!
Long before we had the 24/7 of CNN, MSNBC, FOX and any others that have come along since than, giving us Less News and only Singular Opinion of those they describe as Experts, a handfull of Empty/Emotionaless Faces with Empty/Hollow Words arguing instead of talking and listening.
Such as the Following:
All is Not Okay
A tribute to Douglas Barber, an Iraq vet who lost hs life to shortly after returning from Iraq. music by Seether. (warning this video contains graphic images of the war)
Direct Link To View At You Tube Site To Rate and Comment If You So Wish.
Support-IVAW in Honor to Douglas Barber, All who have perished In-Country or upon Returning taken their own lives, All who have been Maimed Physically and Mentally-PTSD, All the Tens Of Thousands of Iraqi Innocents who are no longer there to Help Rebuild 'Their' Country from the Destruction We Are Responsible For, Especially The Children, and those also Maimed Physically and Mentally-PTSD!
Support-IVAW in that which they are Continuing their Service to Country:
Veteran’s Summer Reconstruction Collective
Sweat with us this summer as we work in Louisiana with relief organizations including Bayou Liberty Relief and Common Ground. We will be building relationships with people in the hurricane-affected areas as we work together to repair a severely damaged and neglected area of our country. If you agree that the needs to bring our brave military women and men home from and focus our great resources on rebuilding here at home instead of demolishing in foreign countries, we need you!....More
And all the endeavors they will take on in the Future!
Visit their site, if you haven't, to learn more about this growing band of Patriotic Veterans still giving to Society and Country! Once committed, in joining to Defend, they will continue to keep their voices and actions in the forefront of What This Country Should Be, not what it thinks it is and now has grown to be so rapidly, Hated By Many, Feared By Many!
There are many out there producing The Reality, such as the Brave Youngster Ava at Peace Takes Courage or the Young Veteran Tom Chelston of Tom Songs, producing not only the Video's but using his Own Songs giving even more feeling to his artistic work. You also have The Blasted Reality Network or Dick Eats bush {can't bring myself to capitalize the b of this little souless man!}. There is also NamGuardianAngel - Kathie Costos who has a site Here, her Blog Here and has produced her own Video's found Here. Than of course you have one of the 'Grandfathers' of this Artistic Work', a young man Eric of bushFlash, who's many personal flashvideo's you can view Here and will be shutting down his site at the end of this month for a number of reasons but probably, as you can read at his lastest entry at his Site about the Horrible Atrosity Committed by U.S. Soldiers on fifteen-year-old Abeer Qasim Hamza and part of her family, from Burnout and Disgust! I'm sure his Talented Video's will be Archived, as they are all over the Net as are the many he has hosted and produced by others, and I'm sure we haven't seen the Last of His Work.
Than you have Truthout-Multimedia producing their own News Video's of what you won't see on the so called MSM, keeping us informed.
We also have some like Thomas Barton, Vietnam Vet, who have brought back the G.I. Newsletters, produced on bases in Vietnam and the U.S. and around this world, on the G.I. movement Against the Vietnam War as seen now in the Documentary Sir! No Sir! to long kept quite by this country and denied by it's citizens. Thomas gives the Raw News of the New Generation of Debacles, Iraq and Afganistan, in his up to date Newsletters which can be found at Military Project {site now up after being shutdown for quite awhile} and at Traveling Soldier.
There are many many more being produced and hosted on individual sites and there are individual works hosted on places like You Tube. If you have any others list them, for these should be shared and passed on To Bring The Reality of Man's Destructive Nature in More Ways Than Just Words-Propaganda-Lies!!
We, as a Nation, should be Leading by the Real Examples of Peace-Freedom-and Democracy 'Of The People'!
~~~~~~~
The following were posted up in Replys to my posting this at Daily KOS by Sharon Jumper who's son is in Iraq.
My son has uploaded videos from Iraq to YOUTUBE.
He has posted a 2-part interview he did in Baghdad with an Iraqi kid:
Interview with Iraqi kid, part 1
Direct Link To View At You Tube To Rate and Comment If You So Wish.
Interview with Iraqi kid, part 2
Direct Link To View At You Tube To Rate and Comment If You So Wish.
He also has posted a photo slide show set to music called "Patrol" that is very artistic (and not graphic at all):
Patrol
Direct Link To View At You Tube To Rate and Comment If You So Wish.
Monday, July 10, 2006
An Orgy of Greed
Let's face it, there are no high-minded principles involved, and there is no noble purpose at stake in our present predicament in Iraq. When you strip away all the bullshit it's all about greed. It's the same now as it was in Vietnam. These are wars waged to enhance the already engorged coffers of unprincipled American billionaires.
8.8 billion American taxpayer dollars are missing in Iraq. This may be the biggest theft in history. And if it were merely theft that would be one thing - but what is so much worse is that they started a bloody horrific war so that they could do this. Think about that. They sent untold thousands of living, breathing human beings to their wholly unnecessary deaths so that they could dip their bloody fingers in the till. This is beyond disgusting, this is beyond outrageous, this is a crime against humanity the magnitude of which has rarely been imagined.
You can Read the Rest of this Report, or as Daily KOS and other sites term them Diaries, HERE. The writer uses photo's and prose to report the Reality of what is going on and his Deep Feelings of same!! Be prepared as in this writing he has a couple of photo's of Iraqi Children that will Strike at your Heart and Emotions, even those of you who think you are Hard!!
As a recent contributor to the Dialy KOS, and now My Left Wing and I'm sure other sites, he has been putting up some Great Diary's, you can read them HERE.
And A Revisit Of Same Greed Topic:
Billions Wasted In Iraq?
U.S. Official Says Oversight Was "Nonexistent"
July 9, 2006
(CBS) This story originally aired on Feb. 12, 2006.
This aired again last night, 7-9-06. You can find a link at site to view this re-broadcast, or you can click HERE, this was only bringing up the first few minutes awhile ago, wether they'll have the whole report, to view, is up to CBSnews.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
14 years old {Updated}
ATTENTION EDITORS - CAPTION ADDITION ADDING DATE OF BIRTH A citizenship identification card issued by the Iraqi government in 1993 shows Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi with a date of birth of August 19, 1991, as translated from the identity card in this handout photo from her relatives in Baghdad July 9, 2006. Five U.S. soldiers were charged in a rape and multiple murder case that has outraged Iraqis, as documents obtained by Reuters on Sunday showed the rape victim was a minor aged just 14, and not over 20 as U.S. officials say.
EDITORIAL USE ONLY REUTERS/Handout (IRAQ)
Total 'Disgust' In My Country and Leadership
Light A Candle For
Peace, Tolerance, Understanding
and For The Children - Innocence Lost,
And Future We May Have Given Them!
And a Candle 'Especially' for the Child Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi and her Family
This Country not only allowed the soldier, already widely reported to have a Mental Disorder, to serve in it's Military, but Turned Around And Dumped Him Back Into The Society With An 'Honorable' Discharge!!
{The document above was found on todays Diary by RubDMC Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (photos) Day 493, click on his user name to visit the page with his almost Daily Diaries, posted at 'Daily KOS', 'Booman Tribune', and 'My Left Wing' amoung a few other sites.}
What Eric, over at bushFlash, says and I Agree, feeling much like he does:
JULY 10, 2006
THE NEW FACE OF THE IRAQ WAR
See the identity card to the left? It used to belong to fifteen-year-old Abeer Qasim Hamza- an Iraqi girl who lived in Mahmoudiya.Every day, she had to pass through a checkpoint, manned by American troops. She was always scared of them- she told her mother about how these strange american soldiers were making inappropriate advances towards her.
On march 10, 2006, Abeer's mother Fakhriyah had a conversation with a neighbor, Omar Janabi, expressing her fears that her daughter might be assaulted or raped by the americans. Janabi agreed to give Abeer shelter among the women of his household. But, after making his promise, he spoke with Abeer personally, and tried to assuage her fears.
He told her "the Americans would not do such a thing."
Alas- the next day...
American soldiers came to Abeer's house, separated her from her family, and raped her (apparently to death.) In an attempt to cover their crimes, these american soldiers fatally shot Abeer's mother, father and seven-year-old sister, before attempting to burn Abeer's body.
When neighbors entered the house after the incident, they found the dead family, along with Abeer sprawled in a corner, with her dress pulled up to her neck, her hair and a pillow next to her consumed by fire.
Now, before I proceed, the soldiers responsible for this horror have been arrested, and are certain to face a military court- however, they will go scott-free. The punishment for the crimes that these cretins committed, under the uniform code of military justice, is death, and there's no way that the assholes that are running this war are going to allow such a sentence to be carried out- it's just too much "bad press" for them to deal with, right now.
In the months following, this whole incident will be swept under the rug, and will be "old news", as the corporate media continues to spend more time covering "So you think you can dance", than the ongoing war.
I've been to Freeperville, to check their comments about this incident, and quite frankly, what they're saying doesn't warrant repeating- it's just too horrific- people are CHEERING and EXCUSING the rape of a 15-year-old girl, and the murder of her family.
Myself? This is another reason why I can't do animations. When I was reading the details of this atrocity, I was banging my head against my desk, and screaming bloody hell- I wanted to die, out of sheer shame of being a citizen of a country that would allow this sort of crap to happen.
The anger I feel about this war can no longer be portrayed in a flash slideshow, and things are just going to get worse. I don't say this as a pessimist, or a doomsayer- I say this, because that's the way things are going to be.
Security Advisory Revised
From After Downing Street
For larger Version Click HERE
DEMOCRACY NOW COVERAGE
On 1 July 2006 After Downing Street cover the story of a veterans who was arrested at a Veterans Administration Medical Center for wearing a Veterans for Peace t-shirt. Now, you can listen to Mike Ferner and Amy Goodman on Democracy Now discuss the incident.
For larger Version Click HERE
DEMOCRACY NOW COVERAGE
On 1 July 2006 After Downing Street cover the story of a veterans who was arrested at a Veterans Administration Medical Center for wearing a Veterans for Peace t-shirt. Now, you can listen to Mike Ferner and Amy Goodman on Democracy Now discuss the incident.
Hadji Girl
Racism is just another poison we're spreading in Iraq
by Robert C. Koehler
For some reason, the grunt’s love song made the brass cringe:
“I grabbed her little sister and put her in front of me . . . as the bullets began to fly, the blood sprayed from between her eyes, and then I laughed maniacally.”
Cpl. Joshua Belile had a recording contract and everything, but, uh-uh. No singing Marine’s gonna be regaling America with the sadistic pleasures to be had in occupied Iraq, no sir, not with all the atrocity investigations going on these days, and the dirty truth of our Middle East adventure oozing into the coverage of even the most administration-sympathetic media outlets.
Last week I wrote a column about horror on the macro level in Iraq: the likely serious health consequences resulting from widespread use of depleted uranium munitions, constituting a crime against not just the Iraqis but the whole world, because of airborne radiation poisoning. This week, horror on the micro level is once again making the news, with the arrest of Steven Green, a recently discharged GI, in connection with the rape and murder of a 15-year-old Iraqi girl, along with the murder of her parents and 7-year-old sister, four months ago in Mahmoudiya.
Atrocity damage control requires isolating such events, not just vertically (keep the blame as far down the chain of command as possible), but horizontally, so that journalists and the public at large don’t start thinking they see a pattern of barbarism in our mission to liberate Iraq. A perfunctory investigation followed by widely publicized punishment needs to end each matter as it comes up.
But suddenly the embedded media aren’t so compliant. As we read about the brutal, premeditated murders in Mahmoudiya on March 12, we’re likely to get a recap of other criminal investigations under way or recently concluded: the Haditha massacre, a shooting in Fallujah (eight servicemen charged with murder), another shooting in Ramadi, the deaths of detainees here and there. Indeed, we might even get a civilian body count thrown in. The acknowledged Iraqi dead are apparently up to 50,000 in the mainstream media (even though the British medical journal Lancet published a study putting the likely total at twice that — a year and a half ago).
All of which brings me back to Cpl. Belile’s derailed recording career. The song he’d posted on the Internet and hoped to make a splash with — “Hadji Girl” — tells the story of a GI who falls for a local girl at an Iraqi Burger King. He accompanies her home but, oops, it’s a trap. The dad and brother, shouting “jihad,” brandish their AK-47s, so he pulls the sister in front of him as a shield and (ha ha) she’s the one who gets shot. Then he returns fire with his M-16 and blows the rest of the family “to eternity.”
Adding to the tenderness of this song, which, according to Marine Times, the high command has apparently forbidden Belile to record, is the fact that “hadji” is a racist term, the new slur for Arabs and Muslims, Iraq war vet Aiden Delgado explained on blackcommentator.com. “It is used extensively in the military,” he said, “. . . with the same kind of connotation as ‘gook,’ ‘Charlie’ or the n-word. Official Army documents now use it in reference to Iraqis or Arabs. It’s real common.” He also said of his Army training: “We sang in cadences. And the chants had anti-Arab themes. Like burning turbans, killing ragheads.”
I humbly submit there’s no such thing as a benign occupation — that you cannot subjugate a people without also dehumanizing them. This is called racism. It’s the ever-present undercurrent of our mission in Iraq and it’s as insidious and life-threatening to Iraqis as DU poisoning, as the story of a real-life “Hadji Girl” in Mahmoudiya makes clear.
According to the Washington Post and other accounts, the young girl, Abeer Qasim Hamza, had the extraordinary misfortune of attracting, with her good looks, the interest of some of the GIs who manned the checkpoint she was required to pass through several times a day. They made advances at her. She was afraid, she told her mother. Her unspeakable tragedy illustrates a basic fact of occupation: Iraqi civilians are at the mercy of immature young Americans with guns. They have no rights.
A witness “found Abeer sprawled dead in a corner, her hair and a pillow next to her consumed by fire, and her dress pushed up to her neck,” the Post said.
Unlike the Marine in the song, the boys from the 502nd Infantry Regiment weren’t lured into temptation by a femme fatale. They were on the prowl for spoils. Pvt. Green and his buddies, accounts tell us, allegedly planned the operation in advance: rape the girl, kill her, set her on fire, kill the witnesses, blame it on the insurgents. It almost worked.
Only after an act of grotesque counter-barbarism — the torture and beheading of two American soldiers from the very same unit — did a guilt-ridden fellow soldier spill the beans about the Mahmoudiya atrocity, during a post-beheading session with a stress counselor.
John Pike, director of the think tank GlobalSecurity.org, suggests that what we’re witnessing is not necessarily a spike in GI murders of Iraqi civilians all of a sudden but, rather, a no-longer-avoidable pressure to investigate them. “It may be,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle, “that this has been going on all along and it was just not being reported.”
I’d say these murders are an absolutely predictable form of the “collateral damage” of occupation. Its architects are the ones who belong on trial, for the rape of a nation.
Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bob@commonwonders.com
Damage Continues From Defoliantes to Wildlife and Humans!
Vietnamese Wildlife Still Paying A High Price For Chemical Warefare
by Jessie King
Forty years on, much of the environmental damage caused to Vietnam by American forces during the Vietnam War has still not been repaired, according to a new study.
US planes shown dumping Agent Orange on the jungles of Vietnam during the war in the 1960s in order to kill the foliage and deprive Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces of natural cover. Decades later Vietnamese are suffering from the after-effects of the chemical and are still waiting for financial compensation. PHOTO: DPA
In particular, the effects of the massive amounts of chemical defoliants sprayed from the air to destroy the jungle hiding places of the Vietcong guerrillas are still being felt, says the study, the first comprehensive account of Vietnam's natural history written in English.
Between 1961 and 1971, more than 20 million gallons of herbicides, the most notorious being "Agent Orange", were sprayed by the US to defoliate forests, clear growth along the borders of military sites and eliminate enemy crops.
Some of the herbicides also contained dioxins - compounds potentially harmful to people and wildlife - while one, "Agent Blue" - used mainly for crop destruction - was made up mainly of an organic arsenic compound. Repeated applications of the chemicals "sometimes eradicated all vegetation", according to the study - Vietnam: A Natural History
- and the environment has still not recovered in many places. Weedy plant species such as alang-alang (also known as cogon or American grass) often invaded cleared areas, killing other plants and preventing normal regeneration of the forest. "In many areas, these weeds continue to dominate the landscape decades after the defoliants were sprayed," says the study.
As the spray was often concentrated along strategic waterways, it is believed to have had a long-term impact on wetlands and riverside vegetation. Scientists are finding that dioxins still surface in freshwater animals. The study adds: "In addition to effects on individuals, the defoliants undoubtedly modified species distribution patterns through habitat degradation and loss, particularly in wetland systems."
Direct attempts to eradicate Vietnam's forests were not the only military activities to affect its environment. The estimated 14 million tons of bombs or cluster-bombs dropped on to northern and southern Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia left an estimated 10 to 15 million large bomb craters.
In addition to the effects of these bombs, the impact of napalm, land mines, and other wartime technology on Vietnam's biological communities must also be taken into account, says the study.
It has been written by three wildlife specialists at the American Museum of Natural History - Eleanor Jane Sterling, Martha Maud Hurley and the Vietnamese expert Le Duc Minh. They say: "A country uncommonly rich in plants, animals and natural habitats, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam shelters a significant portion of the world's biological diversity, including rare and unique organisms and an unusual mixture of tropical and temperate species."
Most remarkably of all, in the past 15 years a whole suite of species hitherto unknown to science has been discovered in Vietnam, deep in jungles where scientific access had been made impossible by the war.
They include the saola, a large hoofed mammal of an entirely new genus - an antelope-like wild ox which is the world's largest land-dwelling animal discovered since 1937.
Vietnam: A Natural History is published by Yale University Press.
by Jessie King
Forty years on, much of the environmental damage caused to Vietnam by American forces during the Vietnam War has still not been repaired, according to a new study.
US planes shown dumping Agent Orange on the jungles of Vietnam during the war in the 1960s in order to kill the foliage and deprive Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces of natural cover. Decades later Vietnamese are suffering from the after-effects of the chemical and are still waiting for financial compensation. PHOTO: DPA
In particular, the effects of the massive amounts of chemical defoliants sprayed from the air to destroy the jungle hiding places of the Vietcong guerrillas are still being felt, says the study, the first comprehensive account of Vietnam's natural history written in English.
Between 1961 and 1971, more than 20 million gallons of herbicides, the most notorious being "Agent Orange", were sprayed by the US to defoliate forests, clear growth along the borders of military sites and eliminate enemy crops.
Some of the herbicides also contained dioxins - compounds potentially harmful to people and wildlife - while one, "Agent Blue" - used mainly for crop destruction - was made up mainly of an organic arsenic compound. Repeated applications of the chemicals "sometimes eradicated all vegetation", according to the study - Vietnam: A Natural History
- and the environment has still not recovered in many places. Weedy plant species such as alang-alang (also known as cogon or American grass) often invaded cleared areas, killing other plants and preventing normal regeneration of the forest. "In many areas, these weeds continue to dominate the landscape decades after the defoliants were sprayed," says the study. As the spray was often concentrated along strategic waterways, it is believed to have had a long-term impact on wetlands and riverside vegetation. Scientists are finding that dioxins still surface in freshwater animals. The study adds: "In addition to effects on individuals, the defoliants undoubtedly modified species distribution patterns through habitat degradation and loss, particularly in wetland systems."
Direct attempts to eradicate Vietnam's forests were not the only military activities to affect its environment. The estimated 14 million tons of bombs or cluster-bombs dropped on to northern and southern Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia left an estimated 10 to 15 million large bomb craters.
In addition to the effects of these bombs, the impact of napalm, land mines, and other wartime technology on Vietnam's biological communities must also be taken into account, says the study.
It has been written by three wildlife specialists at the American Museum of Natural History - Eleanor Jane Sterling, Martha Maud Hurley and the Vietnamese expert Le Duc Minh. They say: "A country uncommonly rich in plants, animals and natural habitats, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam shelters a significant portion of the world's biological diversity, including rare and unique organisms and an unusual mixture of tropical and temperate species."
Most remarkably of all, in the past 15 years a whole suite of species hitherto unknown to science has been discovered in Vietnam, deep in jungles where scientific access had been made impossible by the war.
They include the saola, a large hoofed mammal of an entirely new genus - an antelope-like wild ox which is the world's largest land-dwelling animal discovered since 1937.
Vietnam: A Natural History
is published by Yale University Press.
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