Justice for Victims of Agent Orange 2

The Vietnamese government says this has left more than 3
million people disabled.

Please Visit The Following Links

Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign


The Thanh Xuan Peace Village in Vietnam


Agent orange girl determined to overcome her destiny


"Chorus for Justice"


Vietnamese Delegation in U.S. to Sue Chemical Companies for Ongoing
Effects of Agent Orange


Justice for Victims of Agent Orange
PLEASE HELP THEM BY SIGNING THIS PETITION

Iraqis to Bush:

“You have left us with nothing”

"Never had I fathomed, not even in my remotest imagination, that a day will come when God's houses will be attacked and destroyed. The way they are today, in Iraq...Never.

This Red Line is now crossed...Crossed, transgressed, trespassed into blasphemy." Layla Anwar "A Red Line" from An Arab Woman’s Blues

Here's something you won't read in the mainstream news: The real disposition of the war changed more than two years ago when it became apparent that the Iraqi resistance would not simply throw down their weapons and give up. That's when the assassination of teachers and intellectuals went into high-gear. That's when archeological sites, museums, and anything else connected to Iraqi cultural and historical identity-began to come under relentless and withering attack. The attacks on holy sites and mosques have persisted to this day. There is a conscious effort to destroy all the religious symbols and monuments which bind the people together in the shared experience of a common faith. The same sinister forces which are inciting the sectarian violence are trying to remove all sense of kinship, brotherhood, nationalism and spirituality. Their objective is to "wipe the slate clean" and rebuild the entire society according to their neoliberal model. If that is not genocide; then what is? Here is the story of one victim of the US occupation. It is a story of great personal loss and suffering. It's really the tale about all of Iraq; a nation that never threatened the United States, but which has been crushed by evil, ambitious men who care nothing about the death and suffering they have produced. The story is called "My Shrine" and it is by poet and author Layla Anwar... We have destroyed Iraq and left the people with nothing. The American people need to know this.....

Justice for Victims of Agent Orange

To: The U.S. President and others
AGENT ORANGE, THE CHEMICAL, has killed, is still killing, and causing great suffering to over three million people in Vietnam.

PLEASE HELP THEM BY SIGNING THIS PETITION.

We welcome and support the Civil Action brought by the Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin, and three Vietnamese victims. The documents have been submitted to a court in New York, on behalf of all affected by the chemicals used by the American Forces in their War on Vietnam.

This will be the first ever such action by Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange in any court of law.

We call upon the U.S. President, Government and the Chemical Companies named as defendants in the documents, to accept their responsibilities for the damage caused by their actions and products, and to pay full compensation to the victims.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

===============

U.S. warplanes dumped about 18 million gallons of Agent Orange {as well as other Defoliants} during the
Vietnam War. The Vietnamese government says this has left more than 3
million people disabled.

Slideshow | Agent Orange ravages Vietnam

Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign

Agent Orange - Vietnam

* Vietnamese Delegation in U.S. to Sue Chemical Companies for Ongoing
Effects of Agent Orange *

U.S. warplanes dumped about 18 million gallons of Agent Orange during the
Vietnam War. The Vietnamese government says this has left more than 3
million people disabled. We speak with two Vietnamese Agent Orange victims
and their lawyers about how the toxin has affected their lives and why
they¹re suing over three dozen U.S. chemical companies who manufactured it.

Listen/Watch/Read

"Thanks for the Memories"

Ahhhh, those were the days!
And once again we revisit the past in the present!
One thing about the Human Animal, we never learn from our mistakes, we just invent new meanings to words and actions to justify our frailties using what we call think{?} tanks, people actually getting paid to come up with 'double speak'.

The CIA's Family Jewels
You can bet there will be alot of black ink used on these jewels.
Many, who aren't the apathedic, have followed and voiced their opposition to the practises, in our names, carried out by those we hire. And we will be replaced with others, are you now or will you be one of them?

How many remember these 'Good Ole Days'?

Seymour Hersh broke the story of CIA's illegal domestic operations with a front page story in the New York Times on December 22, 1974.

Agency Violated Charter for 25 Years,
Wiretapped Journalists and Dissidents

CIA Announces Declassification of 1970s "Skeletons" File,
Archive Posts Justice Department Summary from 1975,
With White House Memcons on Damage Control
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 222
Edited by Thomas Blanton
Posted - June 21, 2007
Washington D.C., June 21, 2007 - The Central Intelligence Agency violated its charter for 25 years until revelations of illegal wiretapping, domestic surveillance, assassination plots, and human experimentation led to official investigations and reforms in the 1970s, according to declassified documents posted today on the Web by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

Then-CIA director Schlesinger commissioned the "family jewels" compilation with a May 9, 1973 directive after finding out that Watergate burglars E. Howard Hunt and James McCord (both veteran CIA officers) had cooperation from the Agency as they carried out "dirty tricks" for President Nixon. The Schlesinger directive, drafted by deputy director for operations William Colby, commanded senior CIA officials to report immediately on any current or past Agency matters that might fall outside CIA authority. By the end of May, Colby had been named to succeed Schlesinger as DCI, and his loose-leaf notebook of memos totaled 693 pages {see John Prados, Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby Oxford University Press, 2003, pp. 259-260.}
Colby's list included 18 specifics:
1. Confinement of a Russian defector that "might be regarded as a violation of the kidnapping laws."
2. Wiretapping of two syndicated columnists, Robert Allen and Paul Scott.
3. Physical surveillance of muckraker Jack Anderson and his associates, including current Fox News anchor Britt Hume.
4. Physical surveillance of then Washington Post reporter Michael Getler.
5. Break-in at the home of a former CIA employee.
6. Break-in at the office of a former defector.
7. Warrantless entry into the apartment of a former CIA employee.
8. Mail opening from 1953 to 1973 of letters to and from the Soviet Union.
9. Mail opening from 1969 to 1972 of letters to and from China.
10. Behavior modification experiments on "unwitting" U.S. citizens.
11. Assassination plots against Castro, Lumumba, and Trujillo (on the latter, "no active part" but a "faint connection" to the killers).
12. Surveillance of dissident groups between 1967 and 1971.
13. Surveillance of a particular Latin American female and U.S. citizens in Detroit.
14. Surveillance of a CIA critic and former officer, Victor Marchetti.
15. Amassing of files on 9,900-plus Americans related to the antiwar movement.
16. Polygraph experiments with the San Mateo, California, sheriff.
17. Fake CIA identification documents that might violate state laws.
18. Testing of electronic equipment on US telephone circuits.

Read the Documents

Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
Document 1: Colby Briefs President Ford on the Family Jewels
Memorandum of Conversation, 3 January 1975
Source: Gerald R. Ford President Library
Ten days after the appearance of Hersh's New York Times story, DCI William Colby tells President Ford how his predecessor James Schlesinger (then serving as Secretary of Defense) ordered CIA staffers to compile the "skeletons" in the Agency's closet, such as surveillance of student radicals, illegal wiretaps, assassination plots, and the three year confinement of a Soviet defector, Yuri Nosenko.
Document 2: Summary of the Family Jewels
Memorandum for the File, "CIA Matters," by James A. Wilderotter, Associate Deputy Attorney General, 3 January 1975
Source: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
On New Years' eve, 1974, DCI Colby met with Justice Department officials, including Deputy Attorney General Lawrence H. Silberman, to give them a full briefing of the "skeletons."
Document 3: Kissinger's Reaction
Memorandum of Conversation between President Ford and Secretary of State/National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, 4 January 1975
Source: Gerald R. Ford President Library
An apoplectic Kissinger argues that the unspilling of CIA secrets is "worse than the days of McCarthyism" when the Wisconsin Senator went after the State Department. Kissinger had met with former DCI Richard Helms who told him that "these stories are just the tip of the iceberg," citing as one example Robert F. Kennedy's role in assassination planning. Ford wondered whether to fire Colby, but Kissinger advised him to wait until after the investigations were complete when he could "put in someone of towering integrity." The "Blue Ribbon" announcement refers to the creation of a commission chaired by then-vice president Nelson A. Rockefeller.
Document 4: Investigations Continue
Memorandum of Conversation between Kissinger, Schlesinger, Colby et al., "Investigations of Allegations of CIA Domestic Activities," 20 February 1975
Source: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
Cabinet and sub-cabinet level officials led by Kissinger discuss ways and means to protect information sought by ongoing Senate (Church Committee) and House (Pike Committee) investigations of intelligence community abuses during the first decades of the Cold War. Worried about the foreign governments that have cooperated with U.S. intelligence agencies, Kissinger wants to "demonstrate to foreign countries that we aren't too dangerous to cooperate with because of leaks."

Related Postings from the National Security Archive site
CIA's Promises on Declassification
What Others Say about CIA's Promises
"C.I.A., Breaking Promises, Puts Off Release of Cold War Files"
By Tim Weiner
New York Times (Select)
July 15, 1998
CIA Proposed Rule on FOIA Fees Would Burden Requesters and the Agency
February 7, 2007
CIA Had Single Officer in Hungary 1956
October 31, 2006
CIA Claims the Right to Decide What is News
June 14, 2006
Secret Understanding Between National Archives and CIA Exposes Framework for Surreptitious Reclassification Program
April 19, 2006
CIA Wins 2006 "Rosemary Award" for Worst Freedom of Information Performance by a Federal Agency
March 13, 2006
Declassification in Reverse
February 21, 2006
PDB News - The President's Daily Brief
January 27, 2006
Judge Refuses In Camera Review of CIA Estimate on Iraq
October 21, 2005
Public Interest in Hidden CIA Operational Records Is High
January 21, 2005
Professor Sues CIA for President's Daily Briefs
December 23, 2004
Archive Calls on CIA and Congress to Address Loophole Shielding CIA Records From the Freedom of Information Act
October 15, 2004
CIA Whites Out Controversial Estimate on Iraq Weapons
July 9, 2004
Dubious Secrets
May 21, 2003
The Secret CIA History of the Iran Coup
November 29, 2000
Lawsuit calls CIA secrecy claims "facially incredible"
August 2, 2000
Archive Sues CIA
May 13, 1999

As long as we're taking a walk down memory lane lets visit a few items that have caused the extreme blowbacks from our failed policies of the past repeating in the near past and the present.

IRAN CIA - STATE DEPARTMENT FILES

4,600 pages of CIA and State Department files covering Iran, archived on CD-ROM.

300 pages of CIA files dating from 1953 to 1993. Subjects include: The political situation in Iran after 1953 coup against the Mossadeq government and the re-establishment of the power of the Shah, 1987 Mecca riots, Iran's relationship with the Soviet Union, and various aspects of the Iran-Iraq War.

4,300 pages of State Department files. Subjects include: The United States shootdown of the Iranian Airlines Flight 655, developments in the Iran-Iraq War, and terrorism.

Some reading materials on Iran

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
The 1950s
Iran (1953)
Operation TPAJAX

Just one from list:

New York Times Special Report on the Iranian Coup of 1953, 16 Apr. 2000.
For period photos, excerpts of the CIA history in PDF format, and timelines with links to contemporaneous New York Times stories
Risen, James. "Secrets of History: The CIA in Iran." New York Times, 16 Apr. 2000.
This is author's brief lead-in to his main story.
Risen, James. "How a Plot Convulsed Iran in '53 (and in '79)." New York Times, 16 Apr. 2000.
The New York Times has "obtained" a copy of the CIA's secret history of the 1953 Iranian coup. The history was written in March 1954 by Dr. Donald N. Wilber, "the C.I.A.'s chief coup planner," and "was provided ... by a former official who kept a copy." The still-classified document "discloses the pivotal role British intelligence officials played in initiating and planning the coup, and it shows that Washington and London shared an interest in maintaining the West's control over Iranian oil....
"The history says agency officers orchestrating the Iran coup worked directly with royalist Iranian military officers, handpicked the prime minister's replacement, sent a stream of envoys to bolster the shah's courage, directed a campaign of bombings by Iranians posing as members of the Communist Party, and planted articles and editorial cartoons in newspapers."

How about a visit to Iraq in the past

IRAQ CIA - STATE DEPARTMENT FILES

Subjects include: Bath party politics; consolidation of Saddam Hussein's power; the Kurdish issue; Iran/Iraq border clashes; relations with other Gulf states; Iran-Iraq war; Iraqi use of chemical weapons; technology transfers; repression of the Kurds; trade policy; farm export credits; U.S. diplomatic relations with Iraq; human rights violations and nuclear proliferation.

Iraq

According to certain authors the CIA supported the 1963 military coup d'état in Iraq against the Qassim government and supported the subsequently installed government of Saddam Hussein, until the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. U.S. support for the invasion was predicated upon the notion that Iraq was a key buffer state in geopolitical relations with the Soviet Union. There are U.S. court records indicating the CIA militarily and monetarily assisted Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War.
The CIA also supported the Ba'ath Party's 1968 coup d'état against the Government of Rahman Arif, with Saddam Husein eventually assuming power.

Shortly after the supposed capture of Saddam, Eric over at BushFlash, put together this video presentation Thanks For The Memories... on some of the already known facts of the U.S. relationship with our buddy Saddam over the years.

Now what about bin Laden.

Profile: Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden begins providing financial, organizational, and engineering aid for the mujaheddin in Afghanistan, with the advice and support of the Saudi royal family. New Yorker, 11/5/2001
Journalist Simon Reeve will claim in the 1999 book The New Jackals that US officials directly met with bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 1980s. He will write, “American emissaries are understood to have traveled to Pakistan for meetings with mujaheddin leaders… {A former CIA official} even suggests the US emissaries met directly with bin Laden, and that it was bin Laden, acting on advice from his friends in Saudi intelligence, who first suggested the mujaheddin should be given Stingers.” Reeve, 1999, pp. 167, 176 The CIA begins supplying Stinger missiles to the mujaheddin in 1986 {see September 1986}. After 9/11, the CIA will state, “Numerous comments in the media recently have reiterated a widely circulated but incorrect notion that the CIA once had a relationship with Osama bin Laden. For the record, you should know that the CIA never employed, paid, or maintained any relationship whatsoever with bin Laden.” US State Department, 1/14/2005

Lets see another 'Blast From The Past'
Should US return skulls of Vietnamese?

The Bones We Carried

THE White House visit today by President Nguyen Minh Triet of Vietnam will take place just a few miles from the resting place of some of his countrymen. When American G.I.’s returned from the Vietnam War, some tried to smuggle home the skulls of Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers. The graffiti-covered skulls served as ashtrays, candle holders and trophies. Six skulls were seized by the Customs Service. They remain in limbo, relegated to a drawer on the campus of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

At a time when President Bush plans to chastise the Vietnamese leader about human rights abuses, a question confronts his own administration: Should we return the Vietnamese trophy skulls?

And back a few days ago I posted up This Diary on Defoliants used in Vietnam, and we condemn on 'Human Rights'!
I have the Vietnamesse Song and plan on putting it to a video presentation, maybe this weekend as I'm taking today off.


And there is so much more. But ponder this little report for the future, near and far.

Iraq conflict 'will create a violent generation'

As we continue repeating that which we've started long ago, senseless death and destruction.

For what purpose or justification?

Exposed:

The Anatomy of a Torture Scandal
By Onnesha Roychoudhuri



Where does the buck stop when it comes to torture?



Not long before Lynndie England ever stepped foot in Iraq, long before she became the poster-child for torture, she was a whistleblower at Pilgrim's Pride chicken factory in Moorefield, W.Va. -- a notion that doesn't quite fit with her current image.

In the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, Americans were offered two kinds of analysis. We were given a choice regarding the horrendous abuse of those detained in Abu Ghraib (70 percent to 90 percent of which, according to the Red Cross, were arrested by mistake or had no intelligence value): Was it just a few bad apples -- a crazed night shift of sadists that raped, sodomized, beat and electrocuted prisoners (including women and children) -- or was it systemic, based on orders that came straight from the top?



Tara McKelvey's new book Monstering: Inside America's Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War offers a more nuanced and in-depth exploration of how and why incidents of abuse and torture like Abu Ghraib happened (and continue to happen) in the war on terror.



Rest At: Alternet



******************



If they were sent to fight, they are too few. If they were sent to die, they are too many!



Is 'Funding' Really For Troops?



What Happened To Funding and Oversite For Military/Veteran Care In Previous Congresses?

War Crazy

Beyond PTSD, Part Three The Moral Casualties of War: War Crazy

BY CAMILLO “MAC” BICA

In Part One and Part Two of this article, I asked the reader to utilize her ability to think and offered a theoretical analysis of what I termed “moral casualties.” I argued that as soldiers experience the horror and cruelty of war, especially guerrilla/counterinsurgency war such as was the case in Vietnam and now in Iraq, the moral gravity of their actions – displacing, torturing, injuring, and killing other human being – becomes apparent and problematic. As a consequence, soldiers suffer not only the effects of trauma, but from debilitating remorse, guilt, shame, disorientation, and alienation from the remainder of the moral community – moral injuries. In this installment, in the hope of providing a more complete picture of the psychological, emotional, and moral impact of war, I will offer, not theoretical analysis, but personal observations regarding the aftermath of war. In doing so, I will ask the reader not to think so much as to feel.
All who are touched by war are tainted. I have labored, over the years, to follow the advice of well-meaning, though “war-naïve” clinicians, family members, and friends to put the war behind me and go on with my life. I have failed miserably, I think, and have watched the tragedy of others failing as well. As a veteran suffering the effects of war and a philosopher studying war and morality, I have looked at the phenomenon and its human cost from both perspectives, experientially and theoretically – from the inside and from without. I have concluded that the psychological, emotional, and moral injures of war cannot be cured, that war never “goes away.” That for far too many, such war injuries are and have been terminal. For others, such as for me, they are chronic, demanding that we struggle each day through anger, perhaps even rage, guilt, shame, remorse, grave despair, and depression to come to grips with the experience, with “what I have done and what I have become.” With luck, and with love and support, the best that can be achieved, I think, is a benign acceptance, understanding, forgiveness and reconciliation.
In part one and two of this study, I spoke to you analytically as a philosopher. Now you will hear poetically from the veteran, the victimizer and the victim of man’s inhumanity to man.

War Crazy

Throughout my adult life,
I have thought myself a free spirit,
a philosopher mendicant,
seeking an alternative, more substantive, lifestyle.
So many others, however,
see my unorthodoxy, my “spiritual seeking,”
as abnormal and a clear indication of my insanity.
Perhaps I need to pause and to reevaluate my life.
After all, being insane is not something one readily admits.
I guess it’s part of being crazy to cling to a facade of sanity,
to think oneself normal and everyone else insane.

**

One thing I am certain of, however,
I haven’t always been crazy.
Wasn’t born crazy.
I think insanity crept up on me,
happened in Vietnam, in the war.
War does that you know, drives people crazy.
Shell shock, battle fatigue, soldier’s heart, PTSD,
all that killing and dying can make anyone crazy.

**

Some survive war quite well, they tell me.
Many even benefit from its virtues.
War’s effects, however, are not always apparent.
No one escapes war unscathed, in body and in mind.
All war, any war, every war, ain’t no virtue in war.

**

I think, of those not driven crazy by war,
many were crazy already.
Their insanity, however, was of a different kind,
a hard kind, and an uncaring kind.
I knew people like that.
While I did not like them much,
I thought them fortunate,
as killing and dying meant nothing.
In fact, in a perverse way, they enjoyed it,
enjoyed the jazz, the excitement, the power.
They became avenging angels,
even god herself,
making decisions of life and death,
but mostly death.
Those crazies hated to see the war end.
For me, the war never ends.

**

Sometimes things work out for the best, though,
as my unorthodoxy, my being crazy,
probably saved my life.
You see, sane people can’t live like this,
in a war that never ends.
Not all crazy people can either.
Guess I was lucky.
Sometimes being crazy helps you cope.
Sometimes, I wish I were crazier than I am.

**

Serious introspection has made clear
the foundations of my unorthodoxy,
the nature of my insanity.
It is a cruel wisdom allowing,
no better, compelling a clarity of vision.
I have seen the horror of war,
the futility and the waste.
I have endured the hypocrisy and the arrogance
of the influential and the wealthy,
have tolerated the ignorance and narrow mindedness
of the compliant and the easily led.
War’s malevolent benefactors,
who pretend and profess their patriotism
with bumper-sticker bravado,
with word but not deed,
intoxicated by war’s hysteria,
from a safe distance.
Appreciative of our sacrifices they claim
as they applaud the impending slaughter,
sanctioning by word, or action, or non-action,
sending other men and women
to be killed, and maimed, and driven crazy by war.

**

And when they benefit from the carnage no longer,
their yellow ribbon patriotism and shallow concern
fade quickly to apathy and indifference.
The living refuse of war that returns
are heroes no longer,
but outcasts and derelicts, and burdens on the economy.
The dead, they mythologize with memorials and speeches
of past and future suffering and loss.
Inspiring and prophetic words
by those who sanction the slaughter
to those who know nothing of sacrifice.

**

I used to try to explain war
to help them understand and to know its horror,
naively believing that war was a deficiency,
of information, understanding, discernment, and vision.
Being crazy has liberated me, however,
allowing me to see
that war is not a deficiency at all,
but an excess,
of greed, ambition, intolerance, and lust for power.
And we are its instruments,
the cannon fodder, expendable commodities
in the ruthless pursuit of wealth, power, hegemony, and empire.

**

Now, I accept and celebrate my unorthodoxy, my insanity,
as an indictment of the hypocrites and the arrogant,
of the ignorant and the narrow-minded
for a collective responsibility and guilt
for murder and mayhem,
and crimes against humanity.
And I offer my insanity
as a presage of their future accountability,
to humankind in the courts of history,
and to the god they invoke so often
to sanction and make credible their sacrilege of war.

*****************

If they were sent to fight, they are too few. If they were sent to die, they are too many!

Is 'Funding' Really For Troops?

What Happened To Funding and Oversite For Military/Veteran Care In Previous Congresses?

Iraq * U.S. * and The World We Live In

Slim Chance Of Finding an Arabic Speaker at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad

Of the 1,000 U.S. employees at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, only 10 have a working knowledge of Arabic, according to the State Department.
That is still a slight improvement from last year when, according to the Iraq Study Group, six people in the embassy spoke Arabic.

=====

Report: Iraq Violence Leading to Abortions, Drug Abuse Among Civilians

Pregnant Iraqi women who have been forced from their homes by worsening violence are obtaining illegal abortions because they are unable to get medical care for themselves and their unborn, according to a new report by a national humanitarian group.
Rape, theft and drug addiction have also become "commonplace" among the displaced, who live in government buildings, at relatives' homes, tents, or squat in abandoned homes or makeshift huts on empty land, according to the report, which was first noted on the Iraq news site Iraqslogger.com.

=====

U.S. acknowledges 'increasing pattern of attacks' in Green Zone

The U.S. military acknowledged "an increasing pattern of attacks" against the Green Zone, a day after a mortar barrage against the heavily fortified ara sent soldiers and contractors scrambling for cover.
Militants fired a volley of mortars into the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and British embassies as well as Iraqi government houses on the west bank of the Tigris River, officials said Tuesday. The U.S. Embassy said no casualties were reported, but the attack was the latest in what has become a nearly daily occurrence despite stringent security measures aimed at protecting the area.

=====

Iraq’s Lost Generation: Impact and Implications

Problems facing the intelligentsia of Iraq have been neglected in the scale of that country’s ongoing tragedy. Since 2003, the new phenomenon of targeted and systematic assassinations, kidnappings and threats to professionals and academics has surfaced. These are escalating. Over 830 assassinations have been documented, victims killed along with their families.

Numbers includes: 380 university academics and doctors, 210 lawyers and judges, and 243 journalists/media workers but not other experts, school teachers or students; neither professionals displaced internally and externally. All aspects of life are affected. The victims are often highly qualified, PhD or equivalent. Assassinations are not specific to sect or gender but victims are predominantly Arab.

The Human Cost of War

Two Million Iraqis Flee to Jordan and Syria for Safety, Face Economic Hardships
After his young son was badly burned in a missile attack and his daughter's school suffered repeated bombings, Hussein Ali decided it was time to pack up his family and leave Baghdad.
"I did not think we would survive another day," he said.

Bob Woodruff Talks With Iraqi Refugees - Video

Tens of thousands of Iraqis flee every month, mostly to Syria.

=====

William Rivers Pitt | A Time to Reap

William Rivers Pitt writes "There is something happening today in America. With the right kind of ears, you can hear it in the sound of millions of brows slowly furrowing in anger and disgust. It feels like those tense moments just before the eruption of a summer thunderstorm, those moments when the air is electric, the ozone reek of spent lightning fills the world, and you know something very loud is about to happen. What is happening, what can be heard and smelled and sensed all across the land, is the cresting wave of rage, betrayal and fury that is, finally, roaring across the shores of our collective American heart."

=====

Jim Hightower | Bushites Outsourced Our Government to Their Pals

Jim Hightower writes: "Since the Carter years, Washington has drifted toward more and more outsourcing of public functions to private contractors, but Bush Incorporated has turned that gradual increase into a fullblown, jet-powered rush to privatization. The shadowy and highly lucrative world of government contracting has boomed under George W., rising 86 percent since he's been in office and now totaling nearly $400 billion a year. Get this: There are now more people doing federal jobs under corporate contracts than there are people employed directly by the government. In other words, in today's government, corporate servants outnumber civil servants."

=====

400 million people live in ‘minefields’
* Report says thousands of civilians are known to have been killed or injured in recent years by the bombs

GENEVA: Some 400 million people around the world live and work in what are effectively minefields, at daily risk of death or maiming by cluster bombs, according to a report issued on Wednesday.

The report, from the campaign group Handicap International, said over 13,000 civilians are known to have been killed or injured in recent years by the bombs, but that the real figure was probably many times higher. In the wake of armed conflicts “unexploded cluster submunitions turn homes, livelihoods and social areas of 400 million people living in affected countries into de facto minefields,” the report said.

Soldiers and Mental Trauma

The Diane Rehm Show - NPR

A growing number of soldiers are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with mental issues related to combat stress. Two Washington Post reporters discuss the challenges some of these men and women face getting help.

Guests
Anne Hull, reporter, "The Washington Post"

Dana Priest, intelligence correspondent for "The Washington Post" and author of "The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military"

Col Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, MD, MPH, PSYCHIATRY CONSULTANT TO THE US ARMY SURGEON GENERAL

Listen In:
Real Media Player

Windows Media Player

nineteen eighty-four 1984

Got 1 hr 50 min 29 sec to spare?


, ahhhh those were the days that are here now!

Iraq now ranked second among world's failed states

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraq has emerged as the world's second most unstable country, behind Sudan, more than four years after President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, according to a survey released on Monday.

The 2007 Failed States Index, produced by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace, said Iraq suffered a third straight year of deterioration in 2006 with diminished results across a range of social, economic, political and military indicators. Iraq ranked fourth last year.

Afghanistan, another war-torn country where U.S. and NATO forces are battling a Taliban insurgency nearly six years after a U.S.-led invasion, was in eighth place.

"Iraq and Afghanistan, the two main fronts in the global war on terror, both suffered over the past year," a report that accompanied the figures said.

"Their experiences show that billions of dollars in development and security aid may be futile unless accompanied by a functioning government, trustworthy leaders, and realistic plans to keep the peace and develop the economy."

The index said Sudan, the world's worst failed state, appears to be dragging down its neighbors Central African Republic and Chad, with violence in the Darfur region responsible for at least 200,000 deaths and the displacement of 2 million to 3 million.

The authors of the index said one of the leading benchmarks for failed state status is the loss of physical control of territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.

Other attributes include the erosion of legitimate authority, an inability to provide reasonable public services and the inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community.

Foreign Policy magazine is published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think tank. The Fund for Peace is an independent research group devoted to preventing and resolving conflicts.

Foreign Policy Magazine - The Failed States Index 2007

Abu Ghraib Investigator Reveals Shocking New Details

Annals of National Security
The General’s Report
How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties.
by Seymour M. Hersh June 25, 2007



Taguba knew his report would make him unpopular: “If I lie, I lose. And, if I tell the truth, I lose.” Photograph by Mary Ellen Mark.

Related Links
Hersh on Abu Ghraib (2004): "Torture”; "Chain of Command”: "The Gray Zone.”

Keywords
Taguba, Antonio M. (Army Major General);
Abu Ghraib Prison;
Rumsfeld, Donald (Secretary of Defense);
The Taguba Report;
Prisoner Abuse;
Iraq War;
The Pentagon (Department of Defense)

On the afternoon of May 6, 2004, Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba was summoned to meet, for the first time, with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in his Pentagon conference room. Rumsfeld and his senior staff were to testify the next day, in televised hearings before the Senate and the House Armed Services Committees, about abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, in Iraq. The previous week, revelations about Abu Ghraib, including photographs showing prisoners stripped, abused, and sexually humiliated, had appeared on CBS and in The New Yorker. In response, Administration officials had insisted that only a few low-ranking soldiers were involved and that America did not torture prisoners. They emphasized that the Army itself had uncovered the scandal.

If there was a redeeming aspect to the affair, it was in the thoroughness and the passion of the Army’s initial investigation. The inquiry had begun in January, and was led by General Taguba, who was stationed in Kuwait at the time. Taguba filed his report in March. In it he found:

Numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees . . . systemic and illegal abuse.

SNIP

If they were sent to fight, they are too few. If they were sent to die, they are too many!

Is 'Funding' Really For Troops?

What Happened To Funding and Oversite For Military/Veteran Care In Previous Congresses?

Living With PTSD

Living With PTSD - Emille Tracy


Living With PTSD - Richard Hoffman


Visit The Washington Post for the two above as well as a 17min video of Q&A on PTSD by Dr. Arthur S. Blank Jr.
For a better understanding, and referances, on PTSD pick up a copy of the newly released: Moving a Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning Troops (Paperback)

Second Vietnam Agent Orange Justice Tour

This country has lost, very rapidly, any standing of leadership and moral authority on the world stage these last few years, and that's putting it mildly.

We can no longer condemn others for much of anything, especially on human rights, torture, and destroying countries we invade, for we have joined the ranks of those we once held in contempt for the same. We removed Saddam, only to inhabit his Palaces and build one of our own, while torturing many we have arrested in the country that this Saddam, our Saddam, once held power. We supposedly invaded because this Saddam, our Saddam, was torturing and killing his people!

Welcome to the 21st century of 1984!

We recently had a report, put out by our sometime Secretary of State on human trafficking while we as a nation have been grabbing people from all over, apparently loosing some also, and sending them to secret prisons and countries that practise torture, some while we have been condemning them of their human rights records and more, at the same time, strange bedfellows indeed. While reports keep coming out we've been doing our own torturing, must have made this Saddam, and our other bud bin Laden proud, before we hung this Saddam, or did we, what happened to all those look alikes we heard so much about.

We're past any point of redemtion and forgiveness by others.

Agent Orange still ravages Vietnam
Decades after war, dioxin levels are high at Danang


Nguyen Thi Kieu Nhung sits inside her family home next to the Danang airbase in Danang, Vietnam on Thursday, May 21, 2007. The girl was born with physical deformities, including twisted limbs, a misshapen head, and protruding eyes suspected by local health officials to have been caused by dioxin in the chemical defoliant Agent Orange. More than 30 years after the Vietnam War ended, the poisonous legacy of Agent Orange has emerged anew with a scientific study that has found extraordinarily high levels of health-threatening contamination at the former U.S. air base at Danang.


Five-year-old girl Tran Huynh Thuong Sinh, who was born without eyes in the Binh Dinh province of Vietnam, is fed breakfast by a nurse at the "Peace Village" center at Tu Du hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on Friday, May 25, 2007. Officials at the hospital suspect that the dioxin in Agent Orange blocks the receptors in a developing fetus, preventing the hormones that would normally instruct the cells to form eyes from doing so.

The Legacy of all Wars, but especially of Wars Of Choice! The innocents never stop suffering, nor do many who fight these conflicts, sent by those who won't! The damages live on even for those not living at the time but enter the once Devestated Countries years later through their birth's.

Deformed, in this case, by Toxins used as weapons of War. Or are killed and maimed by long ago ordinance, while out playing, still active enough to reek the damages it was first intended for, to kill and maim.

Slideshow | Agent Orange ravages Vietnam

Only one way to get any semblance of what we think we are and what the world thought we were is by coming to terms with our past.

Getting rid of our collective denial on Vietnam would be a great start, because we will need to come to terms with our disasterous current policies in Iraq and Afganistan starting Now also.

And first and formost is to help those in Vietnam still reaping the damages of the Toxins used in that small country that did nothing to deserve what we inflicted on it and the people of!

We already have seen the damages to the people, and especially the children, of our current debacles, and many of us can see what the future will bring to the innocents not here yet, and that collective damage must be in our own conciousness and not be forgotten. We must find the means to help, becoming the America we think we are, by Example and Action, with deep sorrow for what we allowed to happen!

Don't just pass by, click on the link above and read the report of the snippits from just below.

DANANG, Vietnam --

More than 30 years after the Vietnam War ended, the poisonous legacy of Agent Orange has emerged anew with a scientific study that has found extraordinarily high levels of health-threatening contamination at the former U.S. air base at Danang.
"They're the highest levels I've ever seen in my life," said Thomas Boivin, the scientist who conducted the tests this spring. "If this site were in the U.S. or Canada, it would require significant studies and immediate cleanup."

Or would it? Apparently not in Canada:

Pressure building on Ottawa to compensate vicitms of Agent Orange spraying

Federal Liberal Albina Guarnieri said Wednesday that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government are deliberately stalling on a commitment to compensate those affected by the testing of defoliants such as Agent Orange and Agent Purple in the 1960s.

Guarnieri, the party‘s veterans affairs critic, has raised the issue in the House of Commons, pointing out that both Harper and Veterans Affairs Minister Greg Thompson pledged speedy cash settlements in the controversy surrounding the testing of combat defoliants, as well as other powerful herbicides used at the base over the years.

And we here in the states know what happens when sites are found that are grossly contaminated by our good citizen corporations, as well as the DoD. But through the anger of the citizens, sooner rather than later, contaminated sites are cleaned up, ussually by us footing at least part of the bill the wealthy corporations, who did the known damage, won't.

Earlier tests by Hatfield, which has been working in Vietnam since 1994, showed that dioxin levels were safe across most of Vietnam. But until the study of the old air base at Danang, the consulting firm had never had access to some half-dozen "hotspots" where Agent Orange, a defoliant designed to deny Vietnamese jungle cover, was stored and mixed before being loaded onto planes.

Not knowing what your surroundings contain just doing what one must to survive can bring on a survival no one would want, especially for their children.

Nguyen Van Dung, 38, and his family have lived just outside the air base since 1990. Dung used to bring home fish he caught in Lotus Lake.
At about age 2, his daughter began manifesting grotesque health problems.
Now 7, Nguyen Thi Kieu Nhung's shin bones curve sharply and appear to be broken in several places, as though smashed with a hammer. Her right shoulder bone protrudes unnaturally, stretching her skin. She has only two teeth, her right eye bulges from its socket and she has sores on her face. She can't walk; she can only slide around on her rear end.

The Vietnamese military has taken some steps to contain the dioxin, but Le Ke Son, Vietnam's top Agent Orange official, said cleaning up Danang and other Agent Orange hotspots is likely to cost at least $40 million, far more than the developing country can afford.
"We have asked the American side to be more active, not just in doing research into the effects of Agent Orange but in overcoming its consequences," Son said. "Until we resolve this issue, we can't really say that we have truly normalized relations."

One of the only things left to the Vietnamesse, which should already be getting the full backing needed from us, who reaped the damage on their country, is to use our oft use own practise, bring Lawsuits!

And many of us who fought in that conflict and belong to veterans groups like Veterans For Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against The War and others, have joined the Vietnamesse people in their fight for the just compensation owed, not only against the Chemical Manufacturers, but also our Government.

Second Vietnam Agent Orange Justice Tour, June 10-28, 2007

Come out in Support of the Vietnamese AO Victims Lawsuit against the US Chemical Manufacturers
Court of Appeals hearing June 18, 2007.
Wars do not end when the bombs stop falling and the fighting ceases. The devastation continues long after, in the land and in the minds and bodies of the affected population.
Today, three million Vietnamese suffer the effects of chemical defoliants used by the United States during the Vietnam War.
Appeal of the Vietnam's Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin,
Biographies of the AO delegation
Read more...Much more

One of the places, in Vietnam, that are taking care of children, and others, inflicted with Toxin Poison is
The Thanh Xuan Peace Village in Vietnam

The full extent of the effects from the dioxin is still being researched in Vietnam. An estimated 3 million Vietnamese were exposed to the chemical and roughly one million suffer from health problems. The effects of dioxin on human beings is both physical and mental, but worst of all, trans-generational; which is to say that once in the human bloodstream and environmental air supply of an effected region, dioxin can effect children born generations from now.
Needs for the Peace Village
Just like a small family has many needs, so does a big family need even more. The Peace Village is a great example of this, and listed below are a few of the most needed items.
Meet the Children & More Photos

Visit the site above to find out much more about the Village, it's needs, those staying there, and goals.

Agent Orange victims in US for new hearing with a short Video at site page.

Some recent reports about Agent Orange:

New studies possible if 25-year Agent Orange study archive is saved

Agent orange girl determined to overcome her destiny

The strong-willed My teaches herself to read and write and even write stories although she has never gone to school

Documentary shows deadly impact of Agent Orange

Concert to support Vietnamese Agent Orange victims

VietNamNet Bridge - A concert themed “Raising singing for implement of justice” featuring the popular song Vi sao em chet? {What is the reason for your death?} by the late musician Thanh Truc, will be broadcast over the internet through the website “Chorus for Justice” at 3 p.m. on June 17.
The concert aims to support the lawsuit, due to take place in New York on June 18, filed by Vietnamese victims of the wartime defoliant Agent Orange.
The song is now up along with the ability for you to sign on to their Petition, joining them with your support.
What made you died?
Composer: Thanh Truc
The summer is coming in every street with the sound of the cicada but you still close your eyes painfully.

Oh my litte brother, a little orphan, no longer will you see. Oh my litte brother, a little orphan, no longer will you sing.

Its Dioxin which is killing you. Its Dioxin which is killing you.

Dioxin once killed my mother in a raid, leaving me with a little orphaned brother.
I have striven every moment of my life with difficulties to take you back from the darkness, from the Death. Bring you back to a brighter life
But now. It’s Dioxin once again. Being the war’s legacy. Corroding every cell in your body. And it’s killing you.

My little brother. My little orphan. Mummy, never can I meet my beloved brother again…

there's a player above the song transcript, click on one of the listed to hear the song

Cuba Says Vietnam Deserves US Compensation

And Cuba, along with many others, are right, Long Over Due Just Compensation!!
With Iraq and Afganistan Compensation coming on rapidly!!


If they were sent to fight, they are too few. If they were sent to die, they are too many!

Is 'Funding' Really For Troops?

What Happened To Funding and Oversite For Military/Veteran Care In Previous Congresses?