"Don't let the quiet fool you," a senior defense official says. "There's still a huge chasm between how the White House views Iraq and how we [in the Pentagon] view Iraq. The White House would like to have you believe the 'surge' has worked, that we somehow defeated the insurgency. That's just ludicrous. There's increasing quiet in Iraq, but that's happened because of our shift in strategy - the 'surge' had nothing to do with it."
And just a few sentences, so I followed the link. Here's abit more to hopefully get you to drop over to the Asia Times online and read the rest.
According to them this is Part 1
and we also find this
Moreover, these officers contend, the insurgency might not have put down roots in the country after the fall of Baghdad if it had not been for the White House and State Department - which undermined military efforts to strike deals with a number of Iraq's most disaffected tribal leaders. These officers point out that the first contact between high-level Pentagon officials and the nascent insurgency took place in Amman, Jordan, in August of 2003 - but senior Bush administration officials killed the talks.
A second round of meetings, this time with leaders of some of al-Anbar province's tribal chiefs, took place in November of 2004, but again senior administration officials refused to build on the contacts that were made. "We made the right contacts, we said the right things, we listened closely, we put a plan in place that would have saved a lot of time and trouble," a senior Pentagon official says. "And every time we were ready to go forward, the White House said 'no'."
I'll leave you with those, the rest you can find here
After you come back from the above report you might want to pay a visit to this Counter Punch editorial by By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS The Empire That Must Be Obeyed asking this question "What Gives the US the Right to Claim a Moral Monopoly Over the World?" and leading off with this:
"The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction."
Five Western military leaders.
I read the statement three times trying to figure out the typo. Then it hit me, the West has now out-Owellled Orwell: The West must nuke other countries in order to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction! In Westernspeak, the West nuking other countries does not qualify as the use of weapons of mass destruction.
Got ya wondering? Than trip on over and read, he's also got a link to the statement by these five western military leaders!
Then there's a great writeup on the upcoming Iraq Veterans To Testify at Their Own 'Winter Soldier'
Organizers Model Event After Vietnam Investigation
Vietnam veteran John Kerry testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971.
But while the investigation itself may have made little immediate impact, its disclosures would reverberate for decades. “We learned the meaning of free fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of orientals,” a 27-year old Navy veteran, John Kerry, told the Senate about what Winter Soldier uncovered. The bitterness that testimony sowed in other Vietnam veterans, who felt betrayed by Winter Soldier, stayed alive through 2004, when the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth falsely maligned Kerry’s service record as payback. Now, with another intractable conflict proving to be another defining moment in American history, some veterans of the Iraq war intend to take up the Winter Soldier banner. On March 13, Iraq Veterans Against the War, an organization inspired by Vietnam Veterans Against the War, will convene at the National Labor College just outside of Washington to say, in so many words, that it’s all happening again.
“What’s happening now is no different than over the past five years,” said Geoff Millard, 27, the president of the group’s Washington chapter. “It’s the result of systematic problems in the way we fight an occupation. It’s not that we’re going to outline these huge atrocities. It’s how the systematic nature of occupation is oppression.” This time around, Winter Soldier will have what its predecessor didn’t: digital video to back up the charges.
Organizers estimate that perhaps 45 to 55 Iraq veterans, and some from Afghanistan, will testify to such “terrible things” at Winter Soldier. Liam Madden, 23, a Marine veteran of Iraq who’s now a student at Northeastern University, came up with the idea for a second Winter Soldier in late 2006 with his fellow IVAW members Aaron Hughes in Chicago and Fernando Braga in New York. “The people I’ve talked to who are testifying are going to talk about their experiences in Iraq, how they’re put in positions to harm the people of Iraq and harm the image of America because of the position they’re put in, and the complete injustice involved in that,” Madden said. “Other people will talk about how a run-of-the-mill day in Iraq is. It adds up to a checkpoint here, a house raid there, a house raid there, a house raid there, to a population of Iraqis who can’t tolerate you any longer.”
The project’s interview and verification committees are just getting started. But glimpses of the expected testimony are beginning to emerge. One of the early interviewees, a medic, told IVAW about treating a two-year old shot in the thigh by U.S. soldiers, and witnessing “the mutilation of the dead,” according to Jose Vasquez, 33, a former Army sergeant who heads Winter Soldier’s verification team. The public should expect to hear about “unnecessary killing of noncombatants on the battlefield,” said Vasquez, an anthropology graduate student at the City University of New York. (Vasquez himself filed as a conscientious objector after finding himself unable to participate in the Iraq war.) Indeed, a frequent theme among group members in interviews has been the intensity of manning checkpoints, where Iraqi civilians can die for simply not approaching a checkpoint slowly enough to reassure an apprehensive soldier who doesn’t speak their language.
Now the organizers have this to say:
Yet the organizers of Winter Soldier will consider the event a failure if it appears to blame soldiers and Marines for the war.
It's the Occupation not the Military Personel, except for the Extreme Few, as it was in 'Nam and any Conflict, many devestating incidents are Not Atrosities or War Crimes, but it really doesn't matter how We Define Anything after we invade and occupy, it's the Perception of those we Invaded and their lands we Occupy, just as it would be if it were us!
This report gives you an insight to both sides of thought about this upcoming event of Winter Soldier, you can also get more over at Vet Voice in a post by ArmySergeant, he's Active Duty and one of the organizers.
While you're over there you might want to read this one as well PTSD Is Brought On By Days Like These, it's of an incident that might just bring a shiver to your spine!
And don't miss this one at Vet Voice as well Homeless and Facing Prison: An American Tradition, as a matter of fact you should pay a daily visit for some Great insight from Active Military personal and Veterans, this sight is growing and many of the reads are well worth it.
Change?
Real Change
By William Rivers Pitt
I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed.
- George Carlin
Also if you have a Blog or Website you may want to add An Eternal Flame Widget to it:
Follow This Link
to the Eternal Flame that you can leave on your blogs or sites Until The Troops Are Home and All Are Taken Care Of.
It was made by "notlightnessofbeing" who posts at a few of these sites as well as maintaining a blog.
Visit link and Copy the Code to Paste into your sites, as I put it on mine and our VFP Chapter site, and that's where it'll sit, Till We Bring Them Home and Take Care Of Them!!
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