War Crimes and the White House: {UpDated}

The Bush Administration's Cover-Up of the Dasht-e-Leili Massacre

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has issued a call for a criminal probe in the wake of a major New York Times story by James Risen with new evidence that the Bush Administration impeded at least three federal investigations into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan in 2002. ("U.S. Inaction Seen After Taliban P.O.W.s Died" - NYTimes)

PHR is calling for the Department of Justice to investigate why the Bush Administration impeded an FBI criminal probe of the alleged Dasht-e-Leili massacre.

According to US government documents obtained by PHR, as many as 2,000 surrendered Taliban fighters were reportedly suffocated in container trucks by Afghan forces operating jointly with the US in November 2001. The bodies were reportedly buried in mass graves in the Dasht-e-Leili desert near Sheberghan, Afghanistan. Notorious Afghan warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who was reportedly on the CIA payroll, is allegedly responsible for the massacre.

This video, detailing nearly eight years of advocacy and investigation by Physicians for Human Rights, explores the events surrounding the massacre and subsequent cover-up.



Featuring Physicians for Human Rights' CEO Frank Donaghue, Campaign Against Torture Director Nathaniel Raymond, and Deputy Director Susannah Sirkin. Written, directed, and narrated by Jared Voss.

For more information and to sign our petition calling for Attorney General Eric Holder to let the FBI do its job, visit Afghan Mass Grave.

UpDate: 7.12.09

President Obama Orders National Security Team To Investigate Dasht-e-Leili Massacre and Alleged Cover-Up

Physicians for Human Rights Hails the President's Commitment after Pressing for Accountability for Seven Years

Cambridge, MA – President Obama told CNN's Anderson Cooper that he has directed his national security team to look into the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners who allegedly were massacred by US-backed forces in Afghanistan. The President stated that the government needs to find out whether actions by the US contributed to possible war crimes........

New Evidence on Bush Administration

New Evidence that Bush Administration Impeded 3 Investigations into Alleged Massacre of Up to 2,000 Prisoners in Afghanistan

July 10, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Human rights group that discovered the mass grave and sued for release of government documents is available for comment.

Cambridge, MA-Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has issued a call for a criminal probe in the wake of a major New York Times story with new evidence that the Bush Administration impeded at least three federal investigations into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan in 2002.

PHR is calling for the Department of Justice to investigate why the Bush Administration impeded an FBI criminal probe of the alleged Dasht-e-Leili massacre.......Rest of Press Release Here with more back links.

POV: "The Reckoning."

Please take a minute to mark your calendar for this coming Tuesday, July 14th, so you can watch PBS's new documentary on the International Criminal Court, "The Reckoning." The documentary should air at 10 pm in most areas, but check here to see your local listing.

Synopsis: "Over 120 countries have united to form the International Criminal Court (ICC) - the first permanent court created to prosecute perpetrators, no matter how powerful, of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. The Reckoning follows dynamic ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo and his team for three years across four continents as he issues arrest warrants for Lord's Resistance Army leaders in Uganda, puts Congolese warlords on trial, shakes up the Colombian justice system, and charges Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir with genocide in Darfur. Like a deft thriller, The Reckoning keeps you on the edge of your seat. Will the prosecutor succeed? Will the world ensure that justice prevails? An Official Selection of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival." Read the full Description here

Use this link for more information "THE RECKONING": The Battle for the International Criminal Court.

Watch the trailer {warning - it is graphic}


So spread the word, invite your friends over, and spend this Tuesday night learning more about "the Battle for the International Criminal Court!"

I checked my local listings, here in North Carolina, and it isn't scheduled for the local PBS channel in the next two weeks. The other PBS channel we can receive, out of the University of North Carolina, has it scheduled for two nights, not the 14th, at 2AM. Typical of these PBS stations here, I've noticed, on important and possible controversial subject matter, especially not following a right wing agenda, so much for Public Broadcasting!!

Yet most places one goes, especially certain area's of these states motels, FOX is either on or exclusive to the cable hookups of these motels.

Another Doc to watch online.

Dignified transfer for the Fallen

The bodies of U.S. soldiers killed while serving in Afghanistan arrive at Dover Air Force Base July 8, 2009.



The service members are: Army Capt. Mark A. Garner of State Road, N.C.; Army Pfc. Nicolas H.J. Gideon of Murrieta, Calif.; Army Spc. Isaac L. Johnson of Columbus, Ga.; Army Sgt. Brock H. Chavers of Bulloch, Ga.; Navy Petty Officer Second Class Tony Michael Randolph of Henryetta, Okla.; Army Spc. Chester W. Hosford of Hastings, Minn.; and Army 2nd Lt. Derwin I. Williams of Glenwood, Ill.

"As You Were"

The NPR Diane Rehm Show 7.09.09

A reporter embeds with a Virginia National Guard unit as it heads to Iraq. He offers an inside account of the challenges citizen-soldiers face preparing for war, facing combat and returning to civilian life. Guests Christian Davenport, reporter for the "Washington Post."

You can listen with this link in Windows Media Player

Christian Davenport: "As You Were"

Valley Forge Village

This comes from Nadia McCaffery who's son Patrick was killed in Iraq. Her campaign to Honor her son, and all that serve:

Patrick McCaffrey Foundation

Sgt Patrick Ryan McCaffrey
May 26 1970 * June 22 2004



In Central Minnesota, there is a 244 acre facility with a history of providing healing and training to those in need. For ten years, it has been waiting for a new vision. Valley Forge Village is a vision of a place of peace and beauty for Veterans to heal. Either alone or with their families, they can allow the spirit of nature to soothe and heal, while learning new training skills in a rapidly changing workplace. We desperately need funding to keep this vision alive. Please visit us at Valley Forge Center for more information and/or to make a donation.

Children of Military Personal

Big increase in troops’ kids seeking mental help
Alarming number of children also hospitalized during time of Iraqi ‘surge’

Children of U.S. military troops sought outpatient mental health care 2 million times last year, double the number at the start of the Iraq war, and there was also an alarming spike in the number of military kids actually hospitalized for mental health reasons.

Internal Pentagon documents show the increases, which come as the services struggle with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a shortage of therapists.............

And never let the Children of War, in Greater Numbers then those of the serving military personal, who Live in these Theaters of Occupations, Leave Your Thoughts!!

Women of Afghanistan

Rethink Afghanistan (Part 5): Women of Afghanistan

Watch the new Rethink Afghanistan segment "Women of Afghanistan," and please consider a donation to RAWA to help provide food and blankets for families displaced by war in Afghanistan:

Life for women in Afghanistan has gotten worse since the Taliban were removed from power. Once they chafed under the slavish conditions the Taliban imposed on their daily lives. Today they suffer under the exact same conditions, this time under the rule of the regime of warlords put in place by the U.S.-led coalition. And in addition to this oppression, women in Afghanistan are forced to cope with war.

PTSD? Bull!

PTSD? Bull! it’s soldier’s heart!

The late George Carlin did not like the phrase "post-traumatic stress disorder." He said, ' I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't like words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation.”...........

It is not, however, a medical “disorder”. That is, it is not an illness – something you catch and which generally can be “cured”. It is very definitely an imposed condition – something real that the soldier has experienced and from which recovery is never complete, no matter how hard they and we try. Those who claim that they came back from combat unaffected are either psychopathic or lying to you and themselves.

But, by calling it a disorder – an illness – we can then point out that it doesn’t seem to affect everyone, therefore it must affect only those with an underlying weakness, or perhaps “they weren’t brought up to be tough”. Worst of all, we dismiss them from service under the cover of a “preexisting condition”. The soldier who knows that he or she was just fine when leaving home and joining the service, now is told that he or she was really always just spoiled goods............>>>>>Rest Here

"War, we have come to believe, is a spectator sport. The military and the press ... have turned war into a vast video arcade game. It’s very essence – death – is hidden from public view."
Chris Hedges Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter ,New York Times

Summer of Love 40yrs Later

Woodstock concert's undercover lovers, Nick and Bobbi Ercoline, 40 years after summer of love

Love in 1969: Nick and Bobbi Ercoline were immortalized on the cover of the original 'Woodstock' album in 1970, as well as on the movie poster.

Of all the images snapped during the original Woodstock weekend, one stands above all: a young couple huddled together in a blanket, standing alone in a sea of people lying on wet ground.

It's an enduring image of love, care and protection that earned iconic status through its placement on the cover of the original "Woodstock" album in 1970, as well as on the movie poster.

Forty years later, the couple in the photo - Nick and Bobbi Ercoline, both 60 - remain together. They married two summers after the fabled weekend, and they still live less than an hour's drive from the original concert site of Bethel, N.Y., and within spitting distance of where they both grew up....>>>>Rest Here

And still going strong in 2009 - the couple, now both age 60, reprise their iconic pose nearly 40 years later.

July 7, 1903: "March of the Mill Children"

Labor organizer Mary Harris "Mother" Jones led the "March of the Mill Children" over 100 miles from Philadelphia to Pres. Theodore Roosevelt's Long Island summer home in Oyster Bay, New York, to publicize the harsh conditions of child labor and to demand a 55-hour work week. It is during this march, on about the 24th, she delivered her famed "The Wail of the Children" speech. Roosevelt refused to see them.

The Autobiography of Mother Jones

In the spring of 1903 I went to Kensington, Pennsylvania, where seventy-five thousand textile workers were on strike. Of this number at least ten thousand were little children. The workers were striking for more pay and shorter hours.......

The Wail of the Children This article originally appeared in Mother Jones Speaks, ed. Philip S. Foner, Monad, 1 983

Mary Harris (Mother) Jones - Union Activist

We want President Roosevelt to hear the wail of the children who never have a chance to go to school but work 11 and 12 hours a day in the textile mills of Pennsylvania; who weave the carpets that he and you walk upon; and the lace curtains in your windows, and the clothes of the people. 50 years ago there was a cry against slavery and men gave up their lives to stop the selling of black children on the block. Today the white child is sold for two dollars a week to the manufacturers. 50 years ago the black babies were sold COD4. Today the white baby is sold on the installment plan.

In Georgia where children work day and night in the cotton mills they have just passed a bill to protect song birds. What about the little children from whom all song is gone?

I shall ask the President in the name of the aching hearts of these little ones that he emancipate them from slavery. I will tell the president that the prosperity he boasts of is the prosperity of the rich wrung from the poor and helpless.'

A Few Quotes of "Mother" Mary Jones:

*** Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.

*** My address is like my shoes. It travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong.

*** The employment of children is doing more to fill prisons, insane asylums, almshouses, reformatories, slums, and gin shops than all the efforts of reformers are doing to improve society.

*** I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator.

We need to get back to the idea of a real capitalist society, where all share in the wealth of their labor and investments! We need more "Mother" and "Father" Jones to step forward and rebuild what we once had started and carry that forward, not allowing it to be destroyed again!!

Those who came before fought to hard and we've let that disappear, and yet we think we're more educated!!

"AGENT ORANGE: 30+ YEARS LATER"

“AGENT ORANGE: 30 YEARS LATER” is a drama-documentary about the victims of Agent Orange 30 years after the Viet Nam War.

Agent Orange is the code name for the major herbicide that was used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War to deny coverage (trees and bushes) of the North Vietnamese guerrilla soldiers.

The film tells the story of several victims of Agent Orange - from the North to the South of Viet Nam - who were exposed to the substance when it was sprayed during the war. It interweaves compelling interviews with images culled from the archives to tell the tales of horror of people, from babies to grandparents, male and female, North and South Viet Nam living with difficult choices to make: pro-life or abortion, alien diseases, deformities, fear, loneliness, suicidal thoughts, pain, and poverty. It is more of a drama than a reportage, or merely an observation.

The goal of this documentary is to make the viewers aware of the impact of dioxin on the environment and the people. The film also underscores the need for compassion and heightens a sense of responsibility for our actions towards each other as stewards of the planet without regard for political differences.....>>>>>Much More Here

Reviews:

** “The film was artistically photographed and edited,….” by Jan Turetsky, L.A. Mentary (1/2009)

** "Despite the horror, the film is at times intensely moving and beautiful, showing also the better side of human nature—qualities like kindness, compassion, and forgiveness." by Reel Earth - Environmental Film Festival (4/2009)

** "The film was stark, powerful and very effective. Courageous to go to those most deeply affected, look into their eyes, and explore the depths of their pain. We were deeply moved." by Alice and Lincoln Day, Producers of "Scarred Lands and Wounded Lives" (6/2009)

Gold Star Dad, 4th of July

John Scripsick Comments on Bush's July 4th Visit

Former President Bush visits Oklahoma for the 4th of July, 2009. John Scripsick, who lost his son in the Iraq war, wrote an op ed piece saying "I wonder what Bush will say in his 40 minutes speech. I'm sure it will be sprinkled with patriotism, independence and how we were only attacked once during his presidency."

Johnny & Jane Marchin Home to........

Johnny comes marching home — to no job
Out of Iraq’s frying pan, into an economic fire

Why do we still continue to ignore the fact that women serve, Johnny comes marching home and similar, in greater numbers and are a big part of our military operations? They have always been a Big part of the Military Family and an Important part!

The gathering might have been even more boisterous were it not for the realization that these Guardsmen are coming home to face a new enemy — a swooning economy that has landed like a KO’d heavyweight on the canvas of their home towns......

Sgt. Russell See of Elkhart said he found out in April that his job as a welder at Valmont Industries had vanished, a development that was communicated via an e-mail from the human resources department........

Another of the many promises this Nation doesn't keep, though in tough times holding the jobs for those who serve in the Guard can be real tough for a small business. And the big corporations don't have the money left, even if there's work needed to be done to help their bottom lines and give to investors, after the hugely gross compensation packages, gross amount of company perks and those really gross bonuses even for total failure!

And why aren't they spending that money, keeping the reaganomics/free market promise of 'trickle down' to those that produced the products and services? Teabaggers pay attention!

While they serve, their civilian jobs are protected by the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), but that is no help when layoffs occur, unless discrimination can be demonstrated......

Oh, and how many of their kids are serving...

he figures he has only eight months or so to either find a job or consider what is now almost unthinkable — signing up for a third tour of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan......

Probably not many at all, no need to if sending the same fighting soldiers back over and over!

And oh again, speaking of the younger family members of the wealthy, as well as so many more. Just some more of those who are serving you as well: