Memorial Day weekend starts with all the wrong questions.
How much will it cost to fill up the tank for that family getaway?
How tough will it be to crowd into the Hollywood holiday blockbuster?
Will it be steak, chicken or both on the barbecue grill?
Then maybe we get around to what this weekend truly honors: the spirit of the brave men and women who died in the nation's service.
Now there are even more reasons to think about the troops.
Congress this week approved legislation that funds the president's request for almost $100 billion for the war in Iraq. In May, the death toll for U.S. military in Iraq is nearly 90. That brings the total number of U.S. personnel killed in Iraq since March 2003 to more than 3,400.
Thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops continue to search for two U.S. soldiers missing since a May 12 ambush. The body of a third missing soldier was found and identified.
"In Tribute" reminders in the newspaper and on television reveal the individual humanity of every loss.
The very closeness that makes the sacrifices in Iraq so real and raw can make them more difficult to confront, even on a weekend set aside to remember.
Honoring past warriors is sometimes easier. Those wars are over; the history is written. Disagreements over who fought and why may not be settled, but they've settled down.
The Iraq war is the present, at the center of political debate and presidential politics. When and how it will end is unknown. Polls say the country is losing faith in the fight. But men and women continue to serve their country, sent over more than once.
One Huntersville family's son is returning to Iraq, to his unit. This is the Army reservist's third combat tour.
His father, who says, "I hope Memorial Day is not for him, period," believes there's "too much politics and not enough sense and reason" in the discussion of the war. He's an advocate of 18-year-olds spending two years in government service -- not necessarily in a combat role -- so all young people will know what it means to serve.
For some young people, service is aging soldiers lined up to parade and salute. But those World War II veterans were as young and anxious as those leaving for Iraq.
How can each person make this weekend special? Honoring troops -- past and present -- does not mean giving up the celebrations.
No need to stay glued to the television for a special on the pilots who served in the Pacific during World War II or for a documentary on three female soldiers injured in Iraq.
The war-movie marathons can wait for next year.
Don't cancel the pool parties or the trips to the beach.
Celebrations are a perfect time to be thankful if loved ones are not in danger, to be supportive if they are.
Taking a moment to realize that joy is paid for with sacrifice and to ask what every individual can contribute won't spoil the mood.
Memorial Day weekend may start with the wrong questions, but the right answer is pretty clear.
This Memorial Day, MSNBC.com asked readers to share photos and memories of loved ones killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are their stories, unedited and unvarnished. To view a special photo gallery honoring these soldiers, click here.
The Award Winning 1987 Radio Documentary Of Bill Lichtenstein
This has really been an amazing month for me. First, finding a complete version of the only existing Saigon, Vietnam Show that was recorded back in January 1971, then receiving from a fan a complete one hour NPR broadcasted documentary radio show that showcases historical audio archives of Hanoi Hanna, Adrian Cronauer, Dave Rabbit, just to name a few. It explores how radio was used by the enemy for propaganda, our own government in the “hearts and minds concept” and the eventual pirate radio era when the troops had enough of the bullshit and lies and wanted just a few simple truths. You are going to hear some audio that has not been heard for 20 years since the original broadcast back in 1987. For those of you that were there... it is a great trip full of memories. For those of you that weren’t, it will give you an insightful perspective to what Vietnam was really like and how the simple media of radio.... changed the war. They talk about me, Radio First Termer and some other of my brother pirate radio broadcasters during the second segment, about 48 minutes into the broadcast. By the way, Bill Lichtenstein so loved the name of my show, he named the documentary after it. Thanks Bill!
Bill Lichtenstein is a graduate of Brown University and the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Bill began his work in television at ABC and CBS Sports. He later worked at ABC News as an Emmy Award-winning producer of investigative reports for the ABC News magazine 20/20 and as a field producer for Nightline, World News Tonight, This Week with David Brinkley and other ABC News programs and specials.
Bill began his career at the age of 14 as a newscaster and disc jockey at WBCN-FM in Boston. His 1973 radio documentary What is News? won a National Public Radio "Youth Radio Award." Later he worked as Program Director at WBRU-FM in Providence and co-produced and co-wrote the 1987 Livingston Award winning NPR documentary Vietnam: Radio First Termer. {To listen to the broadcast scroll down and hit the Play Button.}
Row after row, more than 3,400 white crosses stand in a Statesville park this weekend, offering a silent salute to every American who has died in the Iraq war.
For Lipford, the memorial is a tribute to her son, who died three months after arriving in Iraq, as well as to other people's sons and daughters.
Gritty as her smoker's voice, Lipford doesn't give up easily. Salty and irreverent, she still wears the "Mother of a Soldier" dog tag her son gave her. Her voice cracks when she talks about him. Tears come with a stew of sorrow, frustration and anger.
A few weeks ago, Lipford heard a news bulletin announced from a TV in the next room. She ran in, stubbing her toe in the rush. But it wasn't what she thought. The bulletin: The latest on Anna Nicole Smith's baby."All these soldiers are dying every day, and there's no news flash," she says. "I never hear soldiers being talked about. People are so not touched by the war."
For those near enough come and visit and reflect: A 1:30 p.m. ceremony today will officially open the memorial. It's in Mac Anderson Park, on Race Street just west of downtown Statesville, about 40 miles north of Charlotte. The display will stay through Monday. It is named for Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, where more than 300,000 people are buried.
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Than we should also think about the Corruption and especially the Present Day 'War Of Choice'! Just one review that should have taken place long before this 'War Of Choice' was well into 4plus years! Not only an audit but why do we have a Private Army of Well Paid Mercenaries.
MOYOCK --The special inspector general for reconstruction in Iraq plans to audit Blackwater USA, a private security contractor based in North Carolina.
Stuart Bowen, the congressionally appointed special inspector general, will begin the audit in the coming months, his office said. "The full scope of this audit has yet to be determined," Bowen's spokeswoman, Denise Burgess, said in an e-mail to The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk, Va. "However, it will be a substantive audit."
Blackwater, based at a sprawling compound in the tiny town of Moyock, has won more than $700 million in federal contracts since 2004 to protect American diplomatic personnel in Iraq.
Anne Tyrrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, said the company has not yet been contacted by Bowen's auditors. -- associated press
Crosses honor fallen Iraq soldiers {Click on Photo for Video Report-Windows Media-Or visit site link for Video}
STATESVILLE, N.C. -- Nearly 3,500 wooden crosses were placed at a Statesville park Friday in a display its creators are calling the “Arlington Cemetery of the South.”
Each cross placed in Mac Anderson Park represents a U.S. soldier who has died in the Iraq War.
The project was spearheaded by Summer Lipford, an Iredell County mother whose son, Army PFC Steven Sirko, died in 2005 while serving in Iraq.
“It’s a place to come and reflect and to get a visual idea of how many of our troops have died,” said James Starowicz, a Vietnam War veteran who was among the volunteers installing the crosses. “We’re just not honoring them, and too many people aren’t even thinking about the war.”
Rick Warner, another Vietnam War veteran who was volunteering at the park, said he hoped the Memorial Day tribute would be as inspiring as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.
“This is a lot, a lot of crosses, a lot of soldiers dead,” Warner told WCNC.
The crosses will remain on display in the park at 433 Race Road in Statesville through Monday evening.
The display will coincide with ‘Prayer and Peace’ Vigils. The vigils will be held at the park from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday.
A recent study by the Department of Justice found that military veterans are twice as likely to be incarcerated for sexual assault than nonveterans. When asked about the finding, Margaret E. Noonan, one of the authors of the study, told the Associated Press, "We couldn't come to any definite conclusion as to why." The intrinsic and systemic connection between militarism and violence against women, however, makes this finding far from surprising.
Think....
Multiple Tours In These Theaters of War, and what will be coming from!
I happened to catch the followup to Daniel Zwerdings previous reports about the treatment of Combat Soldiers returning from Iraq and Afganistan and Fighting the Demons, better known as PTSD!
With all we now know about what Combat can do to many of those who serve We Haven't Learned A Damn Thing.
What is going on is Exactly what happened after Vietnam when there was finally a Name given to the Condition of what War can do to many minds, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and what has happened after Every Conflict this Nations Military Personal have fought in!
The Military, and Nation, is Once Again trying to sweep this out of sight, just as they do to those who do Serve, Out Of Sight Out Of Mind!
All Things Considered, May 24, 2007 · Six months ago, an NPR investigation found that leaders at Fort Carson, Colo., were punishing some soldiers who returned from war with serious mental health problems — and were preventing them from getting the treatment they needed. In some cases, officers kicked the soldiers out of the Army. Those stories sparked ongoing investigations of the post, including one by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators and another by Pentagon officials. SNIP: Read Rest at Link
Snipped Above As It Ends With This:
NPR recounted Knorr's comments for Dr. Xenakis. "It really saddens me" to hear that policy, Xenakis said. "It's inhumane."
All Things Considered, May 24, 2007 · Problems at Fort Carson in Colorado, where soldiers were punished despite showing symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and other conditions, prompted the base's commanders to vow that soldiers would get the help they need.
Aaron Glantz SAN FRANCISCO, May 15 (IPS) - At the beginning of May, Corporal Cloy Richards tried to kill himself....
His mother says he has knee and arm injuries, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder, and currently has a claim pending with the Army for a traumatic brain injury. “It’s something that affects us every single day,” Tina said, “when he’s 23 years old and he can’t even climb the stairs. He has bad nightmares where he thinks he’s back in Iraq.”
New guidelines released by the Pentagon in December allow commanders to redeploy soldiers suffering from traumatic stress disorders.
Seal told IPS that patients under her care have been deployed despite serious mental health conditions.
In addition, according to recent report by Linda Bilmes of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, waiting lists for returning veterans are “so long as to effectively deny treatment to a number of veterans.”
So, what we don't have is enough mental health care for veterans in these rural communities when they come home."
"The problem is that traumatic brain injury, which is an anatomic, physiologic problem, sort of intermingles with post-traumatic stress disorder," Dr. William Schecter, the chief of surgery at San Francisco General Hospital, explained to IPS. "This is going to be a lifelong challenge for the individuals who have suffered these injuries."
In a follow-up to his report on the financial costs of the war, NewsHour economics correspondent Paul Solman looks into who in America is paying the price. Listen To Report Read transcript at title link
Maps Of War Moving Map of the Occupations from BC to AD!
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And where is the 'Supplemental Going?' Well a good chuck of it flows into the hands of the Pampered and War Profitteers, that is when they have enough Military bodies to guard the convoys, in theater, to reach the Gated Communities of the Upper Crust.
Word is the pool lounge chairs have been off limits due to a few mortars, poor babies, oh well it is a WAR!
Congress and the White House may be sparring over funds for the U.S. effort in Iraq, but the mint chocolate chip is still flowing at the embassy in Baghdad. At least for now.
"We've run out of some things," Sreebny said. "I miss my yogurt in the morning and my fresh-cut melon."
"This has happened before, in terms of convoys," Sreebny said, although "this one may be a little bit longer than in the past. Then the food comes and we all gorge ourselves on apples and oranges and bananas again."
Yep to that last, while their counterparts here in the States, don't complain about the rising cost of fuel for their safe{?} suv's {as they tailgate and talk on their cells}, and don't forget that travel to those leasure time moments and showing themselves in their finest at the malls.
May 24, 2007 1:50 PM ABC's Ann Compton reports: An outdoor news conference in perfect spring weather, with birds chirping loudly in the magnolia trees, is not without its hazards.
As President Bush took a question Thursday in the White House Rose Garden about scandals involving his Attorney General, he remarked, "I've got confidence in Al Gonzales doin' the job."
Simultaneously, a sparrow flew overhead and left a splash on the President's sleeve, which Bush tried several times to wipe off.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Dana Perino promptly put the incident through the proper spin cycle, telling ABC News, "It was his lucky day...everyone knows that's a sign of good luck."
Those in the area, are you Really Upset, let it be known!
Join those, listed below, to make your feelings known, specially on Memorial Day weekend and at the Commencement Speach givin by one who wouldn't serve his country, along side of us who did, at the Military Academy while a War Of Choice rages. His War Of Choice!
Hudson Valley, NY - May 24, 2007 - Elected officials, veterans, military families, and grassroots citizen activists for peace, freedom, and justice will hold a march and rally at Veterans Park, Highland Falls, New York commencing at 8:30 am on May 26, 2007 as Vice President Dick Cheney delivers the commencement address to the graduating class of 2007 at the United States Military Academy. "When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war... I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity. War settles nothing." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, 5-Star General, 34th President of the United States, West Point Class of 1915 "I had other priorities in the 60's than military service." -- Dick Cheney And now, Cheney is the keynote speaker at the US Military Academy, sending young courageous officers off to war in his "preemptive war." Colonel Ann Wright, who reopened the American Embassy in Kabul but later resigned from the U.S. diplomatic corps over disagreement with plans by the Departments of State and Defense to invade Iraq , will be the featured speaker. Representatives of various chapters of Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against The War, Gold Star Families for Peace, and Military Families Speak Out will all be on hand to help bolster our demands to end this immoral, illegal, and failed policy and to truly support our troops by bringing them home safely and providing them with proper health care and benefits upon their return. "As a 29 year US Army/Army Reserve veteran who retired as a Colonel and a 16 year US diplomat who reopened the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in December, 2001 and who resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq, I will protest Vice President Dick Cheney's presence on May 28 at the West Point graduation," said Ann Wright, in announcing her decision to attend the West Point rally. "I strongly believe President Bush and Vice-President Cheney's war of choice on Iraq is a war of aggression, which is a war crime. Their policies of undercutting the Geneva Conventions have put our own soldiers at risk. Encouraging torture in violation of domestic and international law has undercut the professionalism and ethics of our military. Our cadets at West Point are at risk because of these policies. I believe every citizen should be protesting the policies of President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. I will proudly do so on Saturday, May 28 at West Point . -- Ann Wright, Colonel (Ret) US Army Reserves Jim Murphy, who served in Vietnam in 1968, Quang Tri (Northern I Corps), concurred. "When these West Point graduates were first thinking about coming here to serve their country, the Bush Administration was secretly planning this war, a war of choice based on lies," said Murphy, who is speaking on behalf of Veteran's for Peace. "If the war continues, they will be leading young men and women into combat to kill a enemy created by our immoral foreign policy. They will see their own soldiers killed and wounded but equally sad they will bear witness to dead children, dead old people, people that had just hoped to survive. AND like all veterans, whatever they see and whatever they do will always be with them... always," Murphy added. With over 45 organizations now sponsoring, including several with national reach, and a favorable weather forecast, record attendance is expected. People will begin assembling in Veteran's Park, Highland Falls, at 8:30 AM, and after a period of music and speakers during the gathering period, begin the march to the Thayer Gate by 10:00, followed by the concluding rally back at the assembly point. The main message of the rally is best summed up by Military Families Speak Out, a group consisting of family members of active-duty U.S. servicemembers serving overseas. "Military Families Speak Out continues to call on Congress to end funding for the war in Iraq, save what is needed to bring our troops home quickly and safely. Funding the war is not supporting our troops. The way to support our troops is to bring them home now and take care of them when they get here." As residents of Orange County and the Hudson Valley, we feel morally obligated to continue to protest the war in Iraq and to show this administration that people in this region will NOT accept the perpetuation of this war. Dick Cheney announced at the onset of the war that it will not end in our lifetime. We are assembling before the future leaders of the American military to say that in their best interests, and in ours as a nation, and as a people, we will not allow Cheney's dire prophecy to be fulfilled. Getting there & parking Flyer Website for more information
Memorial Day Cartoon by Jim Borgman
And Two Marines Need Your Help:
Marine Corps Trying To Punish Iraq Veterans For Opposing War
From: Kelly Dougherty, Iraq Veterans Against The War To: GI Special Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 3:23 PM Subject: Marine Corps Attempts to Stifle IVAW Free Speech
Dear IVAW Supporter, I am writing to let you know about an urgent issue that is affecting several of our IVAW members. Adam Kokesh and Liam Madden are both very active members and former Marines. Because of their outspoken opposition to the war, the Marine Corps is threatening to revoke their honorable discharges and change them to other than honorable. We cannot allow this suppression of free speech to occur! Adam and Liam need our help to pay for legal defense and travel to their hearings. Adam just found out his hearing is in Kansas City on June 4th, less than two weeks away! Attached below is a letter from Adam, describing his situation and asking for your help. Besides financial contributions, we also need people who are in the Kansas City area to gather support for Adam before his June 4th hearing. Please contact me at Kelly@ivaw.org if you are in the area and would like to find out how you can help. I will keep you updated on both Adam and Liam’s cases as they unfold. Thank you so much for your time and support, it really means everything to our veterans who dare to speak the truth. In Peace, Kelly Dougherty Former Sergeant Army National Guard Executive Director Iraq Veterans Against the War
Letter from Adam Kokesh
May 22, 2007
Dear Friend of Iraq Veterans Against the War,
My name is Adam Kokesh and I need your help. Because of my involvement in IVAW, I have been singled out and called for a military hearing to be made an example of for those of us who have spoken out against the war. I have been an active member of IVAW for a mere four months, but have already garnered enough attention to be perceived as a threat by those using our military to maintain political support for the occupation of Iraq. I was honorably discharged after serving over six years, and two tours in Iraq, last November. I am part of the Inactive Ready Reserve until June 18, 2007, less than a month away. After my discharge, I moved to Washington, DC to get a Masters in Political Management at GWU, and joined IVAW. I have since appeared on behalf of IVAW speaking at concerts, universities, and high schools. I have written about my views on the occupation and my military experience for the IVAW website and on my blog. Most notably, I participated in Operation First Casualty on March 19th. This was a mock combat patrol through Washington, DC in order to bring home the truth of the occupation of Iraq, because the first casualty of war is the truth. I appeared in my uniform, without my name, without rank, and without the patch that says US MARINES. I received an email of warning about possible violations of the UCMJ for appearing in uniform at a political event. Instead of ignoring it like everyone I know who has received similar emails, I wrote a strongly worded reply admonishing the Major who was “investigating” me for wasting time on such trivial matters. I soon received a package from the Marine Corps informing me of a separation hearing to re-separate me with an Other Than Honorable Discharge. I have sought private counsel for this hearing, as is my right. I intend to bring as many witnesses as possible to testify to both the character of my service and the nature of my involvement with IVAW. The Marine Corps only made it known to us today that the hearing will be held on June 4, in a mere 13 days. They have also decided to activate me for the hearing and hold it in Kansas City, home of the Marine Corps Mobilization Command. This case is important because the intimidation of servicemen and women who speak out will suppress the truth about the Iraq occupation. With the help of IVAW, I intend to fight this to the end and stand up for the rights of all members of our armed forces. Please support this effort by mailing a check made out to IVAW with “Adam Kokesh Legal Defense Fund” in the memo to PO Box 8296, Philadelphia, PA 19101 or by going here [www.ivaw.org/], clicking on “Donate Now” and including “Adam Kokesh Legal Defense Fund” in the Special Project Support window. Please feel free to email me with any questions or comments. Sincerely, Adam Kokesh adam@ivaw.org Sergeant Kokesh Goes to Washington
By Terry J. Allen, In These Times With over half of America's 1 million active and reserve soldiers enlisted as teens, the military is luring kids as young as 13 using a PR machine that would make Joe Camel proud.
Congratulations: You have lived long enough to cringe at the bad decisions you were seduced, dared, stoned, bullied, or inspired into making as a teenager. Thousands of America's children, however, are not so lucky. Almost 600,000 of America's 1 million active and reserve soldiers enlisted as teens. The military lures these physiologically immature kids with a PR machine that would make Joe Camel proud.
While the age of legal and cultural adulthood can vary, science is now able to determine the physiological markers of maturity. A recent study headed by Jay Giedd of the National Institutes of Health using MRI scans shows that the brain of an 18-year-old is not fully developed, with the limbic cortex-brain structures, the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex still undergoing substantial changes.
As of March 31, the U.S. military included 81,000 teenagers. Its 7,350 17-year-olds needed parental consent to enlist, and only this April were all barred from battle zones.
But the military aims even lower, marketing itself to children as young as 13 with multimedia videos, school visits and cold calls to teens' homes and cell phones. In Junior ROTC, kids get uniforms, win medals, fire real guns and play soldier, while adults trained in psychological manipulation steer them toward the army. The Army's JROTC website lists such motivating activities as "eating at concession stands." A mature prefrontal cortex, "the area of sober second thought," is vital not only to deciding whether to enlist, but also to choices made under the stress of deployment and the terrors of combat. But the prefrontal cortex, "important for controlling impulses, is among the last brain regions to mature," according to Giedd, and doesn't reach "adult dimensions until the early 20s."
Teenagers' brains simply lack the impulse control that can prevent a lifetime of regret, psychological and physical disability, and preventable deathstheir own, their fellow soldiers' and those of civilians.
The child soldier problem Is global and so is America's part in it. More than 300,000 children around the world, some as young as seven, serve as soldiers, or, in the case of girls, as military sex slaves. The State Department reports that 10 countries are violating international treaties against child soldiers. Washington provides military assistance to nine of these outlaw nations: Afghanistan, Burundi, Chad, Colombia, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.
The reason the United States and other militaries target children is their need for cannon fodder, coupled with the vulnerability of youth. In 2002, almost half of Marine recruits were 17 or 18. A Pentagon survey found that "for both males and females, propensity [to enlist] is highest among 16- and 17-year-olds." That "propensity" quickly declines with age.
A 2004 Pentagon database listed the number of 16- and 17-year- olds who applied for active service enlistment at 69,000 and 18- year-olds at 73,000. By 19, the count had dropped to 49,000 and by age 24 had plummeted to 9,700.
The Department of Defense (DoD) spends more than $4 billion a year on recruiting, with $1.5 billion for advertising and maintaining the recruiting stations staffed by more than 22,000 recruiters. Much of that money goes to convincing children to become soldiers.
A recruiters' handbook discusses creepy seduction techniques with all the subtlety of predatory stalking. Adult recruiters skilled in "projecting credibility" lurk in snack joints, set up laptops playing action-packed videos, proffer rides and promise friendship and fatherly advice. With blacks particularly skeptical of the war effort, the military is aggressively targeting Hispanics with multimillion dollar marketing campaigns that include chatting up mothers and attending church.
Recruiters get non- English speaking parents to sign enlistment papers for 17-year- olds by letting them believe that service is mandatory, or that they were approving blood tests, according to the New York Times.
Recruiters also try to win over high school guidance counselors with offers of "extended tours, VIP trips ( A day in the life of a sailor') or workshops." A DoD training manual instructs recruiters to appropriate the techniques that pharmaceutical salespeople use to convince doctors to prescribe the most profitable drugs: "Pharmaceutical representatives court doctors and provide incentives to them in exchange for listening to a sales pitch and considering their products." DoD advises following the pharma model by offering "personalized incentives in exchange for some of their time (bring food when asking favors.)"
The manual suggests bribing teachers: "Provide lunch for teachers in exchange for information." It quotes an anonymous teacher: "Giving teachers pencils and calendars lets us know that you understand our needs and support us. We, in turn, are more likely to support your efforts in the future."
"Chiefs of warfare reach out to children precisely because they are innocent, malleable, impressionable," says Olara Otunnu, the U.N. Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.
The science is clear: Turning children below the age of brain maturity into soldiers, whether in the United States or Sudan, exploits that vulnerability. Terry J. Allen is a senior editor of In These Times. Her work has appeared in Harper's, The Nation, New Scientist and other publications.
By William D. Hartung and Frida Berrigan, In These Times. Posted May 23, 2007.
While the United States demands that other countries end their nuclear programs, the Bush administration is busy planning a new generation of nuclear weapons known as "Complex 2030."
Only days before the fifth anniversary of September 11, President George W. Bush addressed military officers in Washington to warn that nuclear-armed terrorists could "blackmail the free world and spread their ideologies of hate and raise a moral threat to America."
This alarmist vision was accompanied by the White House's release of "A National Strategy for Combating Terrorism," which painted a picture of a "troubling potential WMD terrorism nexus emanating from Tehran." The administration is building the case for war against Iran -- a job made easier by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent announcement that Iran can now enrich uranium on an industrial scale -- despite the fact that many Iran-watchers and nuclear experts consider their claims of enrichment capacity to be an overblown boast.
This is not the first time the "no-nuclear-weapons-for-you" ploy has been used to lay the groundwork for a war. On Oct. 7, 2002, while making the case for regime change in Iraq, President Bush said: "America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud."
Yellow cake, aluminum tubes and histrionics about Saddam Hussein's nuclear capabilities followed ... all of which were challenged at the time, and have turned out to be completely fabricated. And, when not grinding the axe of pre-emptive war as counter-proliferation strategy, the administration periodically raises the specter of nuclear terrorism, in the form of dirty bombs and suitcase-sized warheads.
But while the United States demands that other countries end their nuclear programs, the Bush administration is busy planning a new generation of nuclear weapons. Nearly 20 years after the Berlin Wall crumbled, the United States is allocating more funding, on average, to nuclear weapons than during the Cold War.
The Bush administration is pumping this money -- more than $6 billion this year -- into renovating the nuclear weapons complex and designing new nuclear weapons. Such hypocrisy is one of the main obstacles to nuclear arms reductions because it runs the risk of shattering the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in which the nuclear-armed states pledged to begin the process of disarmament if the non-nuclear states opted not to pursue the deadly technology.
The centerpiece of the administration's move toward developing a new generation of nuclear weapons is "Complex 2030," a multiyear plan introduced last April by the National Nuclear Security Administration (the semi-autonomous agency within the Department of Energy that oversees the nuclear weapons program).
Complex 2030 calls for the construction of new or upgraded facilities at each of the National Nuclear Security Administration's eight nuclear weapons-related sites throughout the country. The plan also calls for building a new nuclear weapon, the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), inside the old warheads. The program was conceived in response to concerns that the cores of existing nuclear weapons could be wearing out and need to be replaced. But RRW development has gone much further than that.
The Department of Energy (DOE) notes in its summary of Complex 2030 that one of the major goals of the program is to "improve the capability to design, develop, certify and complete production of new or adapted warheads in the event of new military requirements." In short, while the Bush administration has publicly stressed reductions in nuclear weapons, it is working to produce new, more usable nuclear weapons.
Three small steps forward
As a candidate for president in 2000, and during his first months in office, Bush suggested that the United States should significantly cut its nuclear arsenal. In his first address before a joint session of Congress, the new president went so far as to pledge: "We can discard Cold War relics and reduce our own nuclear forces to reflect today's needs." He followed through on this promise with the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), which calls for reducing the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals from 6,000 each -- the limit established under the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty -- to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads each over a 10-year period.
Presidents Bush and Putin signed the treaty at Konstantin Palace in St. Petersburg right after the city celebrated its 300th birthday in June 2003. Also known as the Treaty of Moscow, SORT has serious flaws. It has no method for verifying that each side is meeting its commitments; the cuts are not permanent -- neither side is obligated to destroy or dismantle the warheads, only to take them "off-line;" and both sides would have to agree to extend the treaty if they have not met their obligations by the time the treaty expires in 2012. After the Senate unanimously voted to ratify the treaty, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) called it "as flimsy a treaty as the Senate has ever considered." Yet even with these flaws, SORT establishes important benchmarks and offers the potential of trust-building between the former superpower rivals.
Another positive development occurred in mid-February, when the Bush administration, after years of work through the "six party talks," announced a deal with North Korea. The hermit nation agreed to take the first steps toward dismantling its nuclear program in exchange for large supplies of fuel oil and eventual political recognition. The first phase of the agreement calls for North Korea to take concrete steps within 60 days, including closing down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, getting inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency on the ground, and beginning to reveal the locations of its other nuclear facilities. In exchange, it will receive 50,000 tons of fuel oil at the end of the 60-day period. The agreement demonstrates that the Bush administration is slowly learning the nuances of diplomacy -- you have to give to get.
More good news surrounds the recent fate of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP). One of the most controversial new weapon designs proposed by the nuclear weapons complex, the RNEP promised to destroy hardened and deeply buried targets, such as underground bunkers containing chemical and biological weapons and military command centers. Such a difficult challenge would necessitate decades of steady and climbing investment, making it the kind of techno-fantasy that the nuclear weapons complex of the future would love to tackle.
In 2003, Congress allocated $15 million to study the RNEP. But in 2004 and 2005, Rep. David Hobson (R-Ohio), then chair of the Water and Energy Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, led successful fights to defund the RNEP. Later, he boasted: "It's dead, forget about it! Go conventional. If I have to kick it three or four times, I'm going to keep kicking at it until we think we've totally gotten it out of the way."
Giant leaps backward
The Bush administration has aggressively counteracted these small positive developments with a succession of negative and destabilizing actions and statements -- the most significant of which is the assertion that nuclear weapons are a central component of U.S. military and political strategy.
This stunner was concealed within the administration's 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), a Pentagon report that relies on input from the Joint Chiefs and the armed services to define the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security. The final classified report concluded that nuclear weapons "play a critical role in the defense capabilities of the United States, its allies and friends."
Submitted to Congress in January 2002, the NPR was not made public until portions were leaked to the press two months later. It states, "The need is clear for a revitalized nuclear weapons complex that will ... be able, if directed, to design, develop, manufacture and certify new warheads in response to new national requirements; and maintain readiness to resume underground testing if required."
The NPR introduces the concept of a "new Triad," composed of nuclear and non-nuclear strike capabilities, defensive systems, and "responsive infrastructure" for maintaining and/or producing nuclear weapons as requested. The report also emphasizes the development of creative new nuclear weapons -- like low-yield or surgical warheads that are able to "reduce collateral damage," and nuclear bombs with "earth penetrating" capabilities.
The NPR concluded that nuclear weapons "provide credible military options to deter a wide range of threats, including WMD and large-scale conventional military force." The Bush NPR explicitly named potential targets -- Iran, Syria, North Korea, China and Russia. The review explained that the United States might use nuclear weapons to retaliate for the use of chemical or biological weapons against U.S. targets, as the ultimate tool in a military conflict over Taiwan, or, disturbingly, as a response to undefined "surprising developments." Proliferation trumps prevention
During the Cold War, spending on nuclear weapons averaged $4.2 billion a year. When the Cold War ended, DOE officials and members of Congress imagined the conversion of the nuclear weapons complex. But innovative proposals for civilian or green technology labs never got off the ground, and the nuclear labs successfully lobbied Congress for a new infusion of weapons money. By the end of President Clinton's tenure, nuclear weapons activities within the DOE's annual budget had jumped to $5.2 billion -- more than the Cold War average, but less than what the new Bush administration would say it needed.
Since then, spending on nuclear weapons has increased by almost 14 percent to a 2007 total of $6.4 billion (after adjustment for inflation), but it is not enough to satisfy a nuclear-obsessed administration. The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), formed in 2000 to manage the nation's nuclear weapons complex within the DOE, has a five-year "National Security Plan" that calls for annual increases that will push the nuclear weapons budget to $7.4 billion by 2012.
Compare these significant increases in nuclear spending to what the DOE is allocating for non-proliferation and prevention of nuclear conflict. The NNSA spends more than nine times more on "Atomic Energy Defense Activities" -- a category that includes nuclear weapons, naval nuclear reactors and environmental cleanup at military nuclear facilities -- than it does on nuclear arms reductions and non-proliferation.
In addition, spending on nuclear weapons research, development and maintenance in the DOE budget far outpaces the funding devoted to the development of alternative energy sources, a critical need in the age of global warming and dwindling oil supplies. The DOE's proposed budget for "Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy" -- which includes non-nuclear, non-fossil fuel forms of energy -- is $1.2 billion for FY 2008, one-thirteenth of expenditures on "Atomic Energy Defense Activities."
Upgrading nuclear capabilities
Under Complex 2030, the NNSA is taking steps to boost the U.S. ability to test and produce new warheads, and to consolidate production of uranium, plutonium and non-nuclear components within nuclear weapons.
The central component of Complex 2030 is the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program. The official rationale for the RRW program is to produce weapons that are safer and more durable than the warheads in the current stockpile. Supporters of RRW fear that the components of nuclear weapons could wear out and that the only way to know if the warheads are viable is to replace their inner workings. And -- the line of thinking continues -- as long as scientists are replacing the plutonium or uranium cores, they might as well "tweak" the weapon's design.
But the assertion that the old nuclear weapons need to be replaced by reliable new warheads is undermined by a recent NNSA study that indicates that the existing plutonium triggers, or "pits," may be viable for another 90 to 100 years. The report, issued in November and reviewed by an independent panel of scientists and academics, indicates the need for considerable skepticism of the Complex 2030 claims.
In addition, the RRW program will establish the infrastructure needed for future development of new warheads with new capabilities. A key element of this upgraded and consolidated nuclear infrastructure is a new facility to produce "pits," the plutonium triggers that set off the explosion of a hydrogen bomb. The DOE has proposed constructing a Modern Pit Facility, but Congress has deemed the $2 to $4 billion price tag too steep, and has rejected funding proposals for two years running.
As an alternative, the department is pushing the idea of a Consolidated Plutonium Center (CPC) that would bring all of the plutonium-related activities together at one site. The new facility would be a sort of "modern pit facility-plus," capable each year of producing 125 plutonium pits to trigger nuclear weapons, and at the same time develop new military applications for plutonium.
This more expansive concept is likely to cost more than the facility alone, but NNSA has yet to provide a cost estimate to Congress. A small down payment for the CPC -- $24.9 million -- is proposed in the FY 2008 budget; budget projections for continuing work on the CPC total $282 million through 2012.
Under Complex 2030, the new CPC will be one of a series "transformed" and "consolidated" nuclear sites. Currently, there are eight facilities -- Los Alamos National Laboratory (N.M.), Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (Calif.) and Sandia National Laboratories (N.M.), the Nevada Test Site (R&D activities, including sub-critical experiments), the Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant in Tennessee (uranium and other components), the Pantex Plant in Texas (warhead assembly, disassembly, disposal), the Kansas City Plant (non-nuclear components), and the Savannah River Site (tritium extraction and handling) in Georgia.
While Complex 2030 would mandate that some of the sites have a smaller "footprint" (less floor space), it would also require the investment of tens of billions of dollars for new or upgraded factories, including two new factories -- a Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) and a Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) -- at the Y-12 site; a new Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory to "support plutonium operations"; a new factory for the production of non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons at the current site of the Kansas City plant; and significant upgrades at the Pantex warhead assembly/disassembly facility. The spending on the CPC is only a small portion of the as yet unknown costs of the Complex 2030 initiative. Broken pledges, skeptical Congress
All of this raises concerns for Robert Civiak. A program examiner for Department of Energy national security programs in 1988 and 1989, Civiak now does research for Tri-Valley Cares, a group that advocates the elimination of nuclear weapons. He calls the Reliable Replacement Warhead a "multibillion dollar effort to redesign and replace every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal." Jay Coghlan, executive director at Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, agrees, calling RRW a "nukes forever program, and a Trojan horse for future new designs."
NNSA's planning documents call for the production of the first RRW by 2012, and according to analysis by James Sterngold in the San Francisco Chronicle, the work is already beginning. He writes, "Lab officials said researchers not only have produced extensive designs ... but they have already conducted non-nuclear tests of the critical detonation devices and other components. They have begun to plan in detail how the weapons would be manufactured."
Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), the new chairman of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, has criticized the RRW project for its "make-it-up-as-you-go-along" approach. "There appears to have been little thought given to the question of why the United States needs to build new nuclear warheads at this time," he says. "My preference is that the DOE would have spent their resources reconfiguring the old Cold War complex and dismantling obsolete warheads." He has not ruled out slowing or eliminating the RRW if the administration is unable to present a strategy "that defines the future mission, the emerging threats and the specific U.S. nuclear stockpile necessary to achieve strategic goals."
The 110th Congress and beyond
In an August 2005 speech to a symposium on post-cold war nuclear strategy, Rep. Hobson described the administration's call for research on new bombs and the Nuclear Earth Penetrator as "very provocative and overly aggressive policies that undermine our moral authority to argue that other nations should forgo nuclear weapons."
Hobson's concerns are shared by a number of his colleagues on the other side of the aisle, including Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), John Spratt (D-S.C.) and Lynne Woolsey (D-Calif.), all of whom joined him in successfully leading an effort to defund the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. Skepticism about the need for massive investment in nuclear weapons at a time of huge war bills and growing deficits, a growing sophistication about nuclear issues, and a Democratic majority means that for the first time in years the nuclear weapons complex is feeling the heat.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) represents the state that houses the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which recently won the Reliable Replacement Warhead competition. In a press release issued after the decision, she said, "While I appreciate the fact that Lawrence Livermore was selected, this in no way answers my questions about the Reliable Replacement Warhead program" -- a program that she remains "100 percent opposed to."
Despite support from the White House, the DOE, key contractors, and a number of powerful members of Congress such as Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) -- all of whom have nuclear weapons facilities in their states or districts -- the Complex 2030 plan to modernize the U.S. nuclear weapons infrastructure may be scaled back or rejected by congressional opponents, who will receive backing from arms control and environmental organizations.
But it will take more than cutting a million here or a billion there, more than gunning against a specific corner of the Complex 2030 plan, more than defunding the most aggressive or alarming aspects of the nuclear weapons complex, to deal with nuclear weapons in the 21st century. Members of Congress are going to need to challenge the bedrock of administration foreign policy -- that nuclear weapons should occupy center stage as a guarantor of U.S. security.
But they will not do that without being pushed -- and pushed hard -- by civil society. The urgency of the task creates opportunities for a big tent of strange bedfellows to work together: Weary cold warriors like George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn, who in January co-authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled "A World Free of Nuclear Weapons"; well-established Washington organizations like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Arms Control Association; disarmament activists like Helen Caldicott and the Abolition 2000 network; and members of the international community from the United Nations on down are all saying the same thing: The United States cannot insist that other nations disarm or opt not to pursue nuclear technology, while aggressively ramping up U.S. nuclear capabilities. This hypocrisy cannot stand.
Global security through nuclear disarmament or a world awash in nuclear weapons. The choice is obvious. And it is ours to make.
Memorial Day Essay: Supporting the Troops by Col. Dan Smith (USA, Ret.)
This Memorial Day, young men and women will have been dying in combat in Iraq for more than four years. It is time to declare that “support for the troops” is not demonstrated by continuing to increase the number of tombs and monuments on which flags and flowers will be placed next year. To die for a cause is easier than to live for and in accordance with a principle. Only when the majority of humans are willing to make the effort for life will Memorial Day become a memorial to the end of warfare. Read more. {or below} Urge Congress not to continue to support the same failed Iraq policy. Send a message to Congress and ask two friends to do the same.
A Different Memorial Day Remembrance “Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in blood of his followers and sacrifices of his friends.” - Dwight David Eisenhower
Every national holiday develops traditions that pass from generation to generation. Except for Armistice Day – now called Veterans Day – no holiday is observed with more melancholy than is Memorial Day. But this day, unlike, say, July Fourth, seems to have developed two traditions depending on whether or not the United States is at peace or the armed forces are in a hot war when the last weekend of May arrives.
On the surface, the rituals are the same: flags flying and wreaths laid at monuments and tombs by officials from president to mayors or, where even these latter do not exist, by organizations of veterans, by individuals, and always – always – by relatives of the dead.
While the symbols may be unitary and unchanging, the tenor of the rhetoric at “official”” ceremonies has tended to follow one of two traditions depending on whether the nation is at war or at peace. In years when the country is at peace, speeches traditionally dwell on previous generations whose “ultimate sacrifice” preserved the freedom and liberties enjoyed by present generations and the obligation of today’s citizenry to safeguard this heritage for following generations.
In that orators can range across past “glories” and sweep the broad horizon of future national greatness when the country is at peace, these are the easy years. Unfortunately, we have not experienced such a year since Memorial Day 2001, as reflected in the more than 3,820 U.S. military dead in Afghanistan and Iraq or – as noted by former assistant defense secretary John Hamre– in the transformation of the nation ‘s spirit from “confident and proud to paranoid and angry.”
So what should, what can, what needs to be said on Memorial Day in those years when the nation is in a war – particularly when the war is one a president chose to begin; when the U.S. had neither been attacked nor was in imminent danger of attack; when war was “justified” to the public and the Congress by the selective use of highly suspicious (even false) intelligence to create and then exaggerate the fiction of a threat – a war that not only was unnecessary but also was launched in defiance of the United Nations Security Council and in violation of the UN Charter? In war years, traditionally the first – or very nearly the first – theme in a speech by any public official is some variation on the need to continue “supporting the troops in the field.” This might be connected with a more emotionally charged call, either implicit or explicit, for “victory” so that those who have died in the current conflict “will not have died in vain.”
Then comes the awkward transition from the soaring poetry of patriotism and duty answered to the melancholy prose about promising careers cut short and contributions to community and country forever unrealized. Some speakers try to finesse the transition by using a variation of General George S. Patton’s comment on the occasion of his visit to the Allied Forces cemetery in Palermo, Italy on Armistice Day 1943: “In my mind, we came here to thank God that men like these have lived rather than to regret that they have died.” Others choose a theme echoing that on a tombstone in the American Cemetery at Collectibles Mere in Normandy (Omaha Beach): “Think not upon their passing but remember the glory of their spirit.” While Patton esteems the dedication that once moved those buried at Palermo to answer the nation’s call in its time of peril – and died – the marker at Omaha Beach suggests the need to move beyond esteeming lives lived and lost for liberty and seek to identify and live in harmony with the highest principles of shared humanity.
This Memorial Day, young men and women will have been dying in combat in Iraq for more than four years. As emotionally devastating as is death whenever it happens, the poignancy seems intensified in communities (especially within the military community) when the loss comes just before Memorial Day.
A death in point, one that entered the public domain in May 2007 through the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, various bogs and other unofficial sources, is that of Marine Corps Major Douglas Zombie killed in Baghdad May 11. A 1995 graduate of the Naval Academy, his funeral was May 16 at the Naval Academy Chapel with burial in Arlington National Cemetery. The May 17 Post, under a front-page color photograph of the burial site, noted that more than 1,000 people attended the service in the academy chapel.
May 11 was four months and one day after President Bush told the people of the United States that he would ignore their clearly expressed direction, recorded in the 2006 mid-term election that returned control of Congress to Democrats, to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. Instead, the president announced that he would increase the U.S. presence by five brigade combat teams (approximately 21,000 troops) through extending tours of troops already in-country and speeding the deployment of units already scheduled for duty in Iraq.
From the quantity and breadth of tributes and reminiscences one can find from Zombie’s friends and acquaintances, he will be remembered for his dedication to the Marines, his professional leadership as a warrior, the welfare of those in his unit, and his care and compassion for his troops. And he deserves to be remembered for his unwavering insistence that no matter the situation, no matter how terrible the fighting and how severe the losses, nothing justifies unlawful conduct:
*not the reality that most Iraqis view U.S. troops as occupiers, not liberators;
*not the repetitive separations from families that introduce additional and sometimes unbearable pressure on marriages; not the psychological impact of “mission time creep” – that is, arbitrarily lengthening combat tours in the pursuit of “victory”;
*not the constant, 24 hour, seven days per week stress of being in an active combat zone where there is no place safe from the enemy;
*not the fear that arises from knowing that the overwhelming majority of the people age hostile to your presence but in varying degrees – and you have no sure way to know who among the hostile population may be willing (or is trying) to kill you;
*not even watching men and women in the unit, friends and comrades-in-arms, be killed by road-side bombs or suicide truck bombers.
To say all the above is, however, to say only that humanity has been able to place some minimal limits on how an essential inhumane activity is performed. After the bloodiest 100 years of recorded history, disputes continue to be settled predominately through the application of the technology of death rather than through the arts of mediation, conciliation, and reconciliation that are the silent plea of all of the victims of war – warriors, civilians, families, friends, all of humanity.
In the end, only when this silence is broken will humankind begin to move beyond the recurring cycles of war and the rhetoric that elevates “dying for” (so that others will not “have died in vain”) above “living for” in the hierarchy of human principles. It is past time to break this silence, to declare that “support for the troops” is not demonstrated by continuing to increase the number of tombs and monuments on which flags and flowers will be placed next year.
In short, 2007 is an opportunity to reintegrate the two rhetorical traditions that have evolved out of Memorial Day observances. To die for a cause is easier than to live for and in accordance with a principle. But only when the majority of humans are willing to make the effort for life will Memorial Day become a memorial to the end of warfare.
This analysis was prepared by Col. Dan Smith, U.S. Army (Ret.). Dan, a West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, is FCNL's Senior Fellow on Military Affairs. Reviewed: 05/22/2007 More on Alternatives to War
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Iraq: Military Leaders Urge New War Strategy "No effective new strategy can be devised for the United States until it begins withdrawing its forces from Iraq.” ~ William Odom, U.S. Army (Retired) See what other current and past military leaders have to say about the war in Iraq. {or below} Military Leaders Speak on Iraq War
"The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going. I've never agreed on the basis of the war, and I'm still skeptical... Not only did we not plan properly for the war, we grossly underestimated the effect of sanctions and Saddam Hussein on the Iraqi people…There's the residue of the Cheney view -- 'We're going to win, al-Qaeda's there' -- that justifies anything we did. And then there's the pragmatist view -- how the hell do we get out of Dodge and survive? Unfortunately, the people with the former view are still in the positions of most influence." -Retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, former top NATO commander, April 2007
"There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq. Military action is necessary to help improve security... but it is not sufficient. There needs to be a political aspect." -General David Petreus, Commander of U.S. Forces in Iraq, March 2007
“Congress must ask hard questions about the means and ways for war as part of its oversight responsibility… Congress must be equally rigorous in ensuring that the ways of war contribute to conflict termination consistent with the aims of national policy. If our operations produce more enemies than they defeat, no amount of force is sufficient to prevail. Current oversight efforts have proved inadequate.” -Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, Deputy Commander, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, May 2007
“The longer we stay in Iraq, the more similarities (to Vietnam) will start to develop, meaning essentially that we are getting more and more bogged down, taking more and more casualties, more and more dissention and debate in the United States.” -Senator Hagel, former squad leader in Vietnam. Tale of Two Quagmires: Iraq, Vietnam, and the Hard Lessons of War, Kenneth J. Campbell, 2007
"No effective new strategy can be devised for the United States until it begins withdrawing its forces from Iraq. Only that step will break the paralysis that now confronts us. Withdrawal is the pre-condition for winning support from countries in Europe that have stood aside and other major powers including India, China, Japan, Russia. It will also shock and change attitudes in Iran, Syria, and other countries on Iraq's borders, making them far more likely to take seriously new U.S. approaches, not just to Iraq, but to restoring regional stability and heading off the spreading chaos that our war has caused.” -General William Odom, U.S. Army retired, April 2007
“This is a somber day but we need to mark it by supporting the troops still fighting. We can do that by finally instituting a timeline to redeploy our troops from Iraq and holding President Bush and the Iraqi government accountable with benchmarks… American troops have done all that’s been asked of them – and now, four years later, instead of sending more troops to referee an Iraqi religious civil war, we should start bringing them home.” -Representative Patrick Murphy (PA), former U.S. Army captain and Iraq war veteran, March 2007
Like many avowed liberals, I have a hard time getting past the personal history of Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Byrd spent a lot of his twenties as a member of the Ku Klux Klan -- something for which he has repeatedly expressed remorse and shame -- filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964, voted against the nomination of Thurgood Marshall to the United States Supreme Court in 1967 and was part of the "Gang of 14" who in 2005 compromised with Republicans on the appointment of right-wing judges.
But, at age 89, Byrd is the longest-serving Senator in U.S. history, is widely considered the Senate's foremost historian and expert in parliamentary matters and, when it comes to the Iraq war, was wise enough to be against it from the very beginning.
"Today I weep for my country. I have watched the events of recent months with a heavy, heavy heart," said Byrd in a Senate-floor speech on March 19, 2003, after George W. Bush ordered the Iraq invasion. "No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. The image of America has changed. Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned. Instead of reasoning with those with whom we disagree, we demand obedience or threaten recrimination."
And Byrd was prescient in his objection to the Iraq invasion, citing what he believed even then to be corrupt evidence for the war and the fact that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the events of September 11. Here's more from Senator Byrd on March 19, 2003:
"The case this administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence.We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason: This is not a war of necessity, but a war of choice.
"There is no credible information to connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11, at least up to this point.
"What is happening to this country--my country, your country, our country? When did we become a nation which ignores and berates our friends and calls them irrelevant? When did we decide to risk undermining international order by adopting a radical and doctrinaire approach to using our awesome military might? How can we abandon diplomatic efforts when the turmoil in the world cries out for diplomacy?"
I'm writing about all of this now because of another wonderful speech Byrd gave on the Senate floor just last Thursday in which he eviscerated Bush and his administration on the fight over the war's continuation. Byrd's opinion is notable not only because he has the frame of reference of 48 years in the Senate, but also because he is currently President pro tempore of the Senate and -- no matter how arcane this may sometimes seem -- this makes him third in line to the presidency behind Dick Cheney and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Take a look at what a man with the perspective of a half-century in the Senate has to say about the worst president in our country's history. I've included his floor speech of May 17, 2007 in its entirety below.
The United States of America has spent over $378 billion in Iraq. Do you know how much a billion dollars is? That is $1 for every minute since Jesus Christ was born. So the United States has spent over $378 billion in Iraq, and we are all familiar with the horrendous tales of waste and abuse by U.S. contractors in Iraq. The taxpayer -- that is you out there -- has been ravaged by the profiteering in Iraq. But even worse, despite the billions, our brave troops have been shortchanged with inadequate equipment to protect their lives and shoddy medical care, if they make it back home, to treat wounds of the body and of the mind.
Now the President has threatened to veto the House bill, which is before the Senate, because it sets a date to withdraw, provides funding until late July and "could unreasonably burden the President's exercise of his constitutional authorities, including his authority as Commander in Chief."
President Bush has also objected to funding for rebuilding the Gulf Coast States after Hurricane Katrina, funding to improve health care for our troops and our veterans, funding for the shortfall in the State Children's Health Insurance Program, funding for Low-Income Heating Assistance Program, and more funding for Homeland Security.
This President -- our President -- has a single-minded obsession with Iraq, and he appears to see no value in anything except continuing his chaotic "mission impossible." While tilting at windmills may have been a harmless procedure for Don Quixote, Mr. Bush's war is turning the sands of Iraq blood red.
Mr. Bush raises constitutional concerns in his latest veto threat. I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. I don't no whether to laugh or to cry. I suppose one could be encouraged that "constitutional concerns" exist in the Bush kingdom. After setting aside the Constitution whenever convenient to justify preemptive attacks, illegal searches, secret wiretapping, clandestine military tribunals, treaty violations, kidnapping, torture, and a rejection of habeas corpus, one has to wonder about the nature of these purported "constitutional concerns."
If the Constitution is finally to be read, let us read it in its entirety, including the articles which give the people's representatives -- that is us -- the power over the purse -- yes, the power over the purse; don't ever forget it. That is the real power. It gives the people's representatives the power over the purse and the power to declare war.
In its statement of administrative policy, the administration claims that the House bill before us "..... is likely to unleash chaos in Iraq. ....." Mr. President, what do we have now if not chaos in Iraq? Securing Iraq has unaccountably morphed into securing Baghdad, and even that goal eludes us. I doubt if building a wall around the green zone is going to be of much consequence in securing Baghdad, not to mention the very strange message such a wall conveys concerning our purported liberation of Iraq.
The President -- our President -- continues to miss the point. Iraq is at war with itself. America cannot create a stable democracy in Iraq at the point of a gun. While our troops succeeded in toppling Saddam Hussein, it is the President's profound misunderstanding of the dynamics in Iraq that have led to the failure of his Iraq policies. Why in the world should we now believe the claims that he makes in his veto threat?
There must be an end to this occupation of Iraq. Yes, I say occupation for it is no longer a war in which U.S. troops should be involved. Our troops won the war they were sent to fight, and they should not now be asked to serve as targets in a religious conflict between Sunni and Shiites that has raged for thousands of years. It is reported that even a majority in the Iraqi Parliament now supports legislation which demands a scheduled withdrawal and an immediate freeze on the number of foreign soldiers in Iraq.
In April, Congress set a new course for the war in Iraq. Sadly, the President -- our stubborn, uncompromising President -- chose to veto that bill. As we prepare to go to conference again, the President continues to close his eyes and cover his ears to the reality in Iraq, and the urgent need for a new direction. Whatever decision is made in conference will not be the last chapter in this sad story. God willing, this Senator will not close his eyes, nor will he cover his ears, nor will I stand by in silence.
Hear me.
We need to conclude this terrible, awful mistake that we have made in Iraq. I said in the beginning that we ought not go into Iraq. But we are there. Anti-Americanism is more robust now than in any period in our history because of Iraq. Do you hear that? The international community is skeptical -- why should they not be? They are skeptical of U.S. intentions because of Iraq. Our Constitution has been trampled -- hear that. Our Constitution has been trampled because of Iraq. Thousands of U.S. troops and Iraqi citizens have lost their lives because of Iraq. Thousands more are maimed physically or mentally because of Iraq. Billions of U.S. dollars have been wasted because of Iraq.
President Bush has lost all credibility. President Bush, our President, has lost all -- all -- credibility because of Iraq.
Terrorism is on the rise worldwide because of Iraq. May God grant this Congress -- that is, us -- may God grant this Congress the courage to come together and answer the cries of a majority of the people who sent us here. Find a way to end this horrible catastrophe, this unspeakable -- unspeakable -- ongoing calamity called Iraq. May God help us in the United States.
Bob Geiger is a political writer, specializing in coverage of the United States Senate for AlterNet and other Progressive web sites. You can reach Bob at geiger.bob@gmail.com and read more from him atBobGeiger.com.
I subscribed to a News Catch site some 4 to 6 months ago to see one: if it would give me any information on Depleted Uranium as to any articles popping up, and two: if it really worked as described.
Well for about the first couple of months I was getting report E's that were stating nothing was being reported, than those stopped, and I had forgotten about it.
Than this morning, before heading to work, I received the following:
Depleted uranium may post health hazard UPI.com Mon, May 7, 2007 07:00:00 PM CDT A U.S. study suggests exposure to particles of depleted uranium might increase the risk ...damage and lung cancer. Depleted uranium is the material remaining ...twice that of lead, depleted uranium is ideal for use ...Southern Maine have discovered depleted uranium dust produced in combat ...tested the effects of depleted uranium dust ...
Bingo!!
So I visited the link, than took a few of the important words and phrases and found the following:
Depleted uranium (DU) is commonly used in military armor and munitions, and thus, exposure of soldiers and non-combatants is potentially frequent and widespread. DU is considered a suspected human carcinogen, affecting the bronchial cells of the lung. However, few investigations have studied DU in human bronchial cells. Accordingly, we determined the cytotoxicity and clastogenicity of both particulate (water-insoluble) and soluble DU in human bronchial fibroblasts (WTHBF-6 cells). We used uranium trioxide (UO3) and uranyl acetate (UA) as prototypical particulate and soluble DU salts, respectively. After a 24 h exposure, both UO3 and UA induced concentration-dependent cytotoxicity in WTHBF-6 cells. Specifically, 0.1, 0.5, 1, and 5 g/cm2 UO3 induced 99, 57, 32, and 1% relative survival, respectively. Similarly, 100, 200, 400, and 800 M UA induced 98, 92, 70, and 56% relative survival, respectively. When treated with chronic exposure, up to 72 h, of either UO3 or UA, there was an increased degree of cytotoxicity. We assessed the clastogenicity of these compounds and found that at concentrations of 0, 0.5, 1, and 5 g/cm2 UO3, 5, 6, 10, and 15% of metaphase cells exhibit some form of chromosome damage. UA did not induce chromosome damage above background levels. There were slight increases in chromosome damage induced when we extended the UO3 treatment time to 48 or 72 h, but no meaningful increase in chromosome damage was observed with chronic exposure to UA.
Now, I'm not a scientist and it's been a looooong time since any high school chemistry classes, so I'll leave this up to those who get the lingo.
But the way I'm reading it, what was suspected, and seen in some pictures of the Iraqi people, this report/study may have punched a hole in the dam of information needed on what DU is really doing and our widespread use of!
MedIndia, India - May 15, 2007 Researchers at University of Southern Maine in Portland have revealed that Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons may cause cancer, though so far the US government ...
Health Sentinel - May 15, 2007 Governments deny it, but many people have long suspected that depleted uranium weapons may cause cancer. It looks as if the suspicions were right. ...
KPUA, HI - May 15, 2007 HONOLULU (AP) _ The Army claims its Stryker armored vehicles have never fired depleted uranium rounds in Hawaii. But critics are pushing for monitoring to ...
uruknet.info, Italy - May 15, 2007 London, May 15: Researchers at University of Southern Maine in Portland have revealed that Depleted Uranium (DU) weapons may cause cancer, though so far the ...
Honolulu Advertiser, HI - May 14, 2007 The Army says its Stryker armored vehicles have never fired depleted uranium rounds in Hawai'i, and there is no intent for them to ever do so. ...
Medical News Today (press release), UK - May 12, 2007 Exposure to particles of depleted uranium (DU), the source of growing international concern as a potential health hazard, may increase the risk of genetic ...
Honolulu Advertiser, HI - May 11, 2007 Depleted uranium that was left behind in Hawai'i in the 1960s came from a recoilless rifle capable of firing a 76-pound nuclear bomb, the Pentagon confirmed ...
Worldwide Faith News (press release), NY - May 11, 2007 The event is part of a CPT campaign that includes leaders from the Church of the Brethren, beginning work to end the use of depleted uranium weapons. ...
Vermont Guardian, VT - May 16, 2007 Louisiana last week became the first state to require returning troops to be tested for exposure to depleted uranium. And, like both the Louisiana House and ...
Science Daily (press release) - May 9, 2007 Science Daily — Exposure to particles of depleted uranium (DU), the source of growing international concern as a potential health hazard, may increase the ...
Is the Dam, on information about our Nuking others, once again, been finally Destroyed? If so than why haven't we seen these reports, especially the news report out of Hawaii, all over the MSM!
We've now been using ordinance containing Depleted Uranium for a number of years, and an overwelming amount in the theaters of Afganistan and Iraq. Especially in the larger ordinance called 'Bunker Busters', which keeps playing in my mind that these are also causing Faults within the Earth to Unnaturally Move causing the Devestating Earth Quakes we've seen these last few years.
We are not only Contaminating huge regions of the World but disregarding any Contamination on our own Citizens, and for what Power{?} and Greed{?}! Certainly not to Bring The Spread Of 'Freedom' and 'Democracy' to others, unless we consider their Suffering and Deaths to finally bring on their 'Freedom', forget 'Democracy' we're watching the failure of that Ideology!
If you live anywhere near, and it doesn't need to be very near, a Military Firing Practice Range, fires are relatively minor, be Worried, Very Worried, Especially for the Children. For we are giving our own the same lives that we have now givin to Hundreds of Thousands in other regions of the World!
Think they'll 'Thank Us', and throw flowers to us, for what we have done?
On 'Gulf War Syndrom'
This is a special update. After 16 years of intense fighting, Gulf War veterans now have answers -- scientific evidence -- that they were exposed to chemical warfare agents in 1991 and that those agents caused serious medical problems. Today, May 19, at 7:30 PM, Paul Sullivan, Executive Director of Veterans for Common Sense, will appear on Air America.
Paul was on last nights show talking with Laura about 'Gulf War Syndrom'! Laura Flanders - Radio Nation On Saturday, PAUL SULLIVAN of Veterans for Common Sense, on the biggest friendly fire incident in U.S. military history - in Gulf War I. Which, by the way, was apparently the last broadcast of Laura's saturday weekend Air America's shows, to nights will be the last sunday show.
He will discuss new scientific research a linking chemical warfare agent exposures near Khamisiyah, Iraq, on March 10, 1991, with brain damage among U.S. Gulf War veterans. In 1996, Sullivan called Khamisiyah "The World's Largest Friendly Fire Incident," as U.S. troops destroyed a chemical arms depot and exposed more than 100,000 fellow service members fighting in Desert Storm. Here is important background: Two days ago, the New York Times reported on the new scientific research. In 1996, the New York Times reported how the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses condemned the Pentagon's failures to assist Gulf War veterans. And in 1997, the New York Times again reported on how 100,000 soldiers were exposed, yet the Pentagon did not know why so many veterans were ill. Veterans for Common Sense will continue the fight for our Gulf War, Iraq War, and Afghanistan war veterans so we have answers on toxic exposures, including anthrax vaccines, PB pills, depleted uranium, Lariam, oil well fire pollution, and other health concerns. Thank you, Veterans for Common Sense
, Kenneth J. Campbell, 2007