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!!

Victims of bush's "War on Terror": Children

On January 12th 2009 President bush gave his final Press Conference to the Nation.

In it he made a number of statements that have been analyzed by many, my take on his answers and spin was his showing how little a man, who is in total denial and lacking any compassion or moral feelings, of how big a failure as a person, and especially as the President, he has been!

In one of his answers he said this:

"The most urgent threat that he'll have to deal with and other presidents after him will have to deal with is an attack on our homeland," Bush said. "You know, I wish I could report that's not the case, but there's still an enemy out there that would like to inflict damage on America."

And for once I agree with this incompetent,immoral, unrepentant little man?, he's created tens of thousands, that didn't exist before, who now wish this Country and It's Citizens Harm, "Mission Accomplished", for the coming decades!!

We can all see, daily, those who are retaliating for the policies he set forth, in Iraq and Afghanistan, from the death and destruction that is ongoing, with our soldiers still dying and being maimed as well as the innocent citizens of both countries, the word is "Blowback"! These policies have also brought about a rise of Criminal Terrorism, around the World, over these last 7 years.

What does the future hold and for how long?

I've done a few posts, this is but one, about that probable future and the possibility of reaching into the coming generations, how many, who knows right now. But it only takes a few who carry the hatreds that they have grown up with to create destructive blowback, and that builds towards more of the same.

Michael Haas has a recent write on just this probable future, more geared in the present of who should be brought to accountability, but there are certainly more who actually created the failed policies we've been party to. The name of Michael article is: Children As Unlamented Victims of Bush's 'War On Terror'.

He starts it out with:

Torture has received the most attention among the many war crimes of the Bush administration. But those who support Bush’s pursuit of the “war on terror” have not been impressed by recriminations over torture.

Some will try and argue that certain forms of torture really aren't, or that it's needed to get information, it isn't for it only gives weak or false information, yet we as a Nation have not only participated but helped write the laws on torture and ratified these laws making them our own. The link only gives one of the World Wide conventions held for the purpose of writing these laws that aim to end the use of inhumane treatment of torture, and more, that doesn't return what is sought, reliable intelligence. We were also the major contributor to the Geneva Conventions and major condemner of countries who don't follow what was done in Geneva. We are now publicly one of the participants, we can condemn no more.

We've all watched, most in total disbelief and rage, what has happened under this president and his administrations policies along with his political parties affiliation rubber stamping their wants, and we've done virtually nothing but allow it to continue.

Haas goes further into what most haven't paid attention to:

The best kept secret of the Bush’s war crimes is that thousands of children have been imprisoned, tortured, and otherwise denied rights under the Geneva Conventions and related international agreements. Yet both Congress and the media have strangely failed to identify the very existence of child prisoners as a war crime. In the Islamic world, however, there is no such silence. Indeed, the prophet Mohammed was the first to counsel warriors not to harm innocent children.

The first example of war crimes against children, which are well documented, occurred during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, when the children’s hospital in Kabul was bombed, its patients thereby murdered, contrary to the Red Cross Convention of 1864. Other children were killed as “collateral damage” during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, contrary to the Geneva Convention ban on indiscriminate killing in wartime, though numbers of dead are unknown. During spring 2004, during the assault on Falluja, Iraq, some 300 children, including peaceful demonstrators, were killed. Their dead bodies were filmed live on al-Jazeera Television throughout the Arabic-speaking world.

In 2008, the Bush administration reported to the UN-assisted Committee on the Rights of the Child that the United States from 2002 had detained 2,400 children in Iraq and 100 in Afghanistan, though another source claims that the figure for Afghanistan is at least 800 boys, aged 10 to 15, from whom as many as 64 were sent to Guantánamo, of which there were 21 as of May 2008. That month, the Committee upbraided the United States for charging minors with war crimes instead of treating underage persons as victims of war. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s two children, aged 7 and 9, were separately detained to intimidate him to confess.

Think about the above, as parents what would You do if your country was and is being destroyed and the children of were being treated as enemies or used for other purposes and excused as being in War! But there's more:

While detained, several children have been brutalized and tortured. At Abu Ghraib, American guards videotaped Iraqi male prisoners raping young boys but took no action to stop the offenses. Perhaps the worst incident at Abu Ghraib involved a girl aged 12 or 13 who screamed for help to her brother in an upper cell while stripped naked and beaten. Iraqi journalist Suhaib Badr-Addin al-Baz, who heard the girl’s screams, also witnessed an ill 15-year-old who was forced to run up and down Abu Ghraib with two heavy cans of water and beaten whenever he stopped. When he finally collapsed, guards stripped and poured cold water on him. Finally, a hooded man was brought in. When unhooded, the boy realized that the man was his father, who doubtless was being intimidated into confessing something upon sight of his brutalized son.

Those that want to denie, for argumentative our some twisted form of political ideology, what torture or inhumane treatment of others actually is or isn't, look at your's or other little kids, young teens, and ask if you would want them treated like animals, and if so to what purpose!

Michael Haas has a book out George W. Bush, War Criminal?: The Bush Administration's Liability for 269 War Crimes I haven't read as yet, as I just ordered it, but it will be read and added to the others and all that is now being written and discussed as to what this Nation must do, not only for our own survival of what we are, but the World view of us as a Leader of Nations and an Example to Emulate and Strive towards.

We must find the ways to bring Accountability for the Crimes against our Laws as well as the Laws we've helped form towards World stability and make our Constitution strong again, or we will collapse as a society and be scorned by the World!

And we must find a way, amongst All People, to stem the possibility of many of the children of today, growing up under occupation, death and destruction, don't become even more violent and destructive towards others than that we've already created through our failed policies of the past and the near past!

Guantanamo "Abandoned Our Values and Defiled Our Constitution!"


The video is a combination of three BBC News reports on Guantanamo from Dec. '08 to Jan '09, it's about 141/2 minutes long, the links to each individual video at their site found below.

Guantanamo 'a stain on US military' Dec 3rd '08

Guantanamo closure plan ordered Dec 19th '08

Former guard on Guantanamo 'torture' Jan 9th '09

The Special Prosecutor Petition

Hug Your Kid, if you've got one,

And think of the Children and what they are now, and have been, living in and with, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, Westbank, Israel, way too many places in Africa the forgotten continent and peoples, and other area's around the world, would You Want Your Kid Growing Up As They Are!!

Bearing the Wounds of War

The youngest victims of the Wars we adults wage, especially our Wars of Choice!

Bob Woodruff, of ABC News, did another of his outstanding reports on the 'Wounds of War', this one about the youngest victims, the children of those who serve.

As a Country cheers on the 'Shock and Awe' of Waging War on others, those others having done nothing to warrent our Invasion and Occupations, that same Country does little in Sacrifice!

We wear our shame with our Apathy and Arrogance!

This, Camp for Kids Coping With Parents at War

Community Helps Kids Deal With Parents Fighting, Wounded or Killed in Service, is the Woodruff report.

But first I would like you to view the Video that Bob Woodruff narrates, this will tug at your heart, you'll cry with the child, you'll cry with the father, and if you have any humanity at all you'll think about the children of Iraq and Afganistan and cry for them, thousands of the youngest victims!

More than 1.5 million troops have deployed in the last five years, meaning that as many as 700,000 children in this country have at least one parent deployed. And, according to the Department of Defense, there are at least 12,000 children with an injured parent. While their parents have been recognized for their service, these children are also veterans -- they each bear the wounds of war.

Visit the story link above to read more and here's a link to some photo's

What he wrote brought his father to tears. "Dear Journal," wrote Hunter. "My bad days are with Daddy."

Ask yourselves, "What are we doing? Especially to the children!"!

Five Million Orphans in Iraq

Alive in Baghdad - Among Iraq’s Children, Orphans Suffer Most

Saturday May 10th, 2008

We show this segment courtesy of Alive in Baghdad. Alive in Baghdad employs Iraqi journalists to produce video packages each week about a variety of topics on daily life in Iraq.

The number of Iraqi orphans increased in the last few years due to the war. According to official Iraqi government statistics released in December 2007, the number of Iraqi orphans had reached at least five million over the last three years. Many due to the Sunni-Shia conflict. There are several social organizations caring for a small number of these Iraqi orphans, such as Child Aid International. There are approximately 26 orphanages that Alive in Baghdad has been able to locate around Iraq. Eight orphanages are in Baghdad and another 18 are distributed all over Iraq and generally they accept kids between the age of 6 and 18 years old.

One of the biggest scandals that happened in the history of the Iraq conflict is the one that happened in Al-Hanan orphanage. There were many pictures distributed online and by television of Iraqi orphans lying on the floor naked, with no food for weeks, sick and nearly dying. After this the Iraqi government began to show more attention for the orphans, there were many stories being reported regarding Al-Hanan Orphanage, like sexual abuses and bad treatment of the kids living there.

Al-A’ssal House is one of the rare orphanages that still take care of the young children who have a dead father or who are orphans due to losing both parents. The house has a special method and it’s opposed to the toy guns due to Iraq’s situation and the reason behind it, which is the constant conflict that Iraq is undergoing. Another organization was also created by this house, and it’s called the Sazan organization. This organization is taking in orphans for free, with no payment at all. Also this house employs Iraq widows in order to help the Iraqi women support themselves during the war. Despite all their hard work, this orphanage has not yet received any funding from the Iraqi government or sponsorship by a bigger humanitarian aid organization while other orphanages such as Al-Hanan orphanage received funds from the Iraqi government without oversight.

Women and War

Yesterday, March 8th, was International Women's Day.

To often when reporting on War the women involved, from those living in the invaded conflict countries to those who are serving in greater numbers and rolls, combat included, are not mentioned enough.

Nor is it brought up enough of the effects of Conflicts on these women involved.

The other day NPR's The World had a report on about the women serving in Iraq and Afganistan.

Mental health issues for female vets

The World's Katy Clark reports on the challenges faced by female veterans after they return from Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of them face mental health issues, but little is known about how they are coping.
You can listen to this report which can be played in the Windows Media Player.

One of many books on PTSD and as the title states also covering studies of combat PTSD on women.

Haunted by Combat: Understanding PTSD in War Veterans Including Women, Reservists, and Those Coming Back from Iraq

A snippet of part of one review of book above:

"The men and women who follow orders to be sent thousands of miles from home, to fight wars in the most dangerous corners of the globe, are the very best America has to offer. They've seen destruction and chaos few others can imagine. And too many return home to their families struggling to make sense of their combat experiences and their personal lives. This book tells their stories in their own words and explores treatment options that will enable our nation to fulfill its promise to support our veterans." - Lynn Woolsey, Member of Congress 6th District, California

I did a little searching and quickly found some interesting reads on women and war.

Two women, one war

This story is about two young women who've never met. Christina Penrod, a Mahomet widow, and Stephanie James, a recent UI graduate and Army sergeant, have seen their lives stamped, shaped and unalterably changed by the events in a scorched part of the faraway Middle East called Iraq.

Women in war need greater safeguards

Rapes and other sexual crimes perpetrated against women in specific countries are a weapon of terror that prevent women - who are often left at home to mind children and tend to livestock - from being able to move freely within their own areas and thus get food, water and other necessities which their families depend upon.

Yet, this is just one example of the many ways that women bear the brunt of warfare - and are often the unaccounted for or hidden victims of conflict. Interviews conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross with widows of the Iraqi wars and the Bosnian war, show the impact of the loss of missing husbands on the lives of their wives long after these wars have ended.

What about the families and lives destroyed by our present invasions and occupations:

Heroines - the daily life of Iraq's war widows
Written by: Iraqi women's organisations

Eighty-two percent of the 2.4 million people displaced inside Iraq are women and young children under the age of 12. Many mothers have lost their husbands in the sectarian violence that has torn the nation apart. But in the face of adversity, they are proving to be true heroines.

These stories, collected by women's organisations in Iraq ahead of International Women's Day on March 8, give a rare insight into how Iraqi widows are helping their families survive while retaining their dignity in times of extreme suffering.

"This phenomenon was hardly visible prior to 2003," says Suhair. "We women face a lot of danger in doing this. The fear of having your children's lives, your life taken away is constant... Your mind stops functioning when on your way to work you see a car near you and you fear it could explode."

We seem to be shocked and enraged when we hear about women who become human bombs, yet we are shown little, to nothing, about their past, especially their recent past, how many have lost loved ones, especially children, to the bombs and bullets of war, and so much more. We act like women shouldn't be considered as wanting to retaliate for what war has done to them and their lives, yet we have women serving and fighting!

Exhibit explores history of women in US military
Mementos of what life was once like for women serving in the military stared at Army National Guard Major Margaret Oglesby from the walls of the forward compartment of the second deck of the USS Massachusetts.

Bill to spotlight issues for female veterans

Since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began, Murray has spent many hearings questioning VA officials about female veterans with histories of sexual trauma, whether research has been done to determine their health needs and whether VA hospitals are so focused on men’s health issues that women get left behind.

Jaipur hosts novel summit on war and feminity

They claim that women's ideas, so often ignored, can actually move the world away from war and that feminine gifts, like tolerance and patience, can bring solutions that wars and weapons can never accomplish.

Just one of the many Pro-Peace womens groups, with a great Peace Symbol graphic:

Women Against War
Women Against War brings together Capital District women to work for peace through:
*Direct action
*Educational events on the costs of war and the possibilities of peace
*Outreach to area Muslims negatively impacted by US post 9/11 policies

Women and war

Section covering the specific dangers and suffering confronting women in wartime, whose plight could be improved if the rules of humanitarian law were fully respected. Access to the ICRC study Women facing war as well as related resource materials and links to other sites concerning women.

Countless women and girls all over the world suffer the trauma of war - as widows or orphans, perhaps displaced from their homes, sometimes detained. They are often separated from loved ones and become victims of violence and intimidation.

For the most part they are civilians caught in the crossfire, and show astonishing resourcefulness and resilience in coping with the disintegration of their families, the loss of their home and their belongings and the destruction of their lives.

Women can also be fighters, and as such are due the same respect as men if wounded or captured. They are also bound by the same rules prohibiting illegal acts against other fighters or civilians.

International humanitarian law, which grants general protection to all war victims, regardless of gender, provides extensive specific protection for women in war. If these rules were better observed, the suffering faced by women in war would be greatly reduced.

Women and the Missing: the burden of those left behind

On the occasion of International Women’s Day (8 March), Florence Tercier, ICRC’s women and war adviser, explains the immensely challenging plight of women whose male relatives have gone missing in war and what the ICRC is doing to support them.

Women all over the world face great hardship when their male relatives go missing in war. Can you describe some of the challenges they face?

Military and War: Women's Roles

Women's Military and War History: women who fought in the military officially and unofficially, women who served in support roles, plus how women's roles changed for women who stayed home.

Women bear the children of this world, they carry the seeds of and nurture than give birth to the children. What about those children of war, the ones that survive?

Iraqi Psychiatrist Ali: Iraq’s Future is Wounded

According to Ali, the whole of Iraqi society, but especially the children, bear psychological scars from witnessing violence and death every day: “Iraq needs psychological help, too.”

The situation of women and childre is worst: “There are many nightmares and a fear of going outside. This is a real fear. Many children do not go to school anymore because of it. Also, it is said that US soldiers are detaining 200-500 “child convicts.”

“Domestic violence has increased, as has the number of widows. Since the occupation, the number of premature births and miscarriages has doubled. The number of caesarean births has increased because people are scared of uncontrollable situations. Women are weighed down with life and the stress of daily life has increased.”

Recently a video surfaced showing the training of children of the insurgency. Many condemn the treatment, and condemn it should be, but I doubt most of these kids need any propaganda brainwashing to turn them into a warrior. We've stolen all semblance of childhood of these kids, they've been living in the hell on earth of war, they've lost loved ones and friends, the hatreds have been embedded already, they are seeking a release of the anger and hatred, and the longer they live as they are the greater the want for retaliation and extreme blowback against those that have destroyed their lives!

For few, Iraq war has changed everything

After 5 years, Iraq war has changed little for some people; for others it's changed everything
Laura Youngblood is just 29 years old, but she insists she will not remarry. Her life is her children, now ages 2 and 7. One day, she says, she'll be buried in the plot with her husband at Arlington National Cemetery.
"I tell people I'm a happily married woman," she says, crying.

In a country destroyed, what are we leaving those who survive this carnage, and what will the future bring for all of us!

Tragically Little Help for Sick and Wounded Civilians in Baghdad

She is 16 years old and slowly bleeding to death internally.
Her mother speaks about her daughter with desperately pleading eyes. "Her blood is sick," she says, standing in the doorway of the local clinic near the Dora market in Baghdad, talking about her daughter's infection that the clinic's rudimentary antibiotics won't defeat. Dr. Mohammad, who runs the facility, is certain of two things: that his patient doesn't have long to live and that there is very little he can do about it without the trained surgeons Jasim needs for an operation.

A country, though living under a brutal dictator, we helped install and supported, that was well educated and fairly prosperous!

Got Kids, Meet Their Future

Thanks to us Responsible Adults!


An Iraqi boy reacts after seeing his sister and both of his parents killed in the car, in Ramadi, 60 miles west of Baghdad, Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2005

As we bring Freedom and Democray at the point of a gun!



Thousands of Homeless Children in Iraq Survive by Begging, Stealing or Scavenging Garbage for Food.

IRAQ: Child beggars proliferate in Baghdad


Child beggars are a common sight in the streets of Baghdad

Ahmed said he would rather beg than steal and that he had started begging before his parents died because they were a poor family. He said his mother died in Fallujah in August 2004. She was visiting her parents when their house was bombed by US-led coalition forces.

His father fell ill and could not work so he sent his children out to beg. If they did not come home with enough money, he would beat them, Ahmed said. His father died of kidney failure in April 2005

Only four years ago, the vast majority of these children were living at home with their families.

Many of those we are have been fighting, since we invaded, are the children who have grown since the first Gulf War and through the years of Sanctions, the ones who survived!


Illiteracy increasing among Iraq's refugee children


Azhar al Haidari, 47, center, is an Iraqi refugee in Damascus, Syria. While her two daughters, Inam, left, and Mary, are excelling in school, their older brothers are illiterate because they've been out of class for so long

Illiteracy is spreading rapidly among refugee children from Iraq, with at least 300,000 young Iraqis not attending school in the countries where their families have sought safety.

"The last time my kids were in school was 2003, right before the American invasion," said Hanaa Majeed, 32, an Iraqi refugee in Damascus who can't afford to send her two sons to school. "They can barely read. I buy books and try to teach them at home, but it's not the same. My boys see other kids with backpacks on, going off to school, and they ask why they can't go, too."
Education is a point of pride for Iraqis, the descendants of civilizations that invented cuneiform, one of the world's first writing systems.

Iraq: Children with serious illnesses abandoned

Over 1.6 million children under the age of 12 have become homeless in Iraq, according to the country's Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. That's almost 70 percent of the estimated 2.5 million Iraqis who are homeless inside the country.

"There are no reliable estimates of how many orphans and abandoned children are in Iraq today but we believe, according to some data collected by local NGOs, that over 8,000 children are in the same or a similar situation to that of Faleh," Mayada said.

Few Iraqis returning home from Jordan

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, more than two million Iraqis have fled to neighbouring countries, with Jordan (500,000-750,000) and Syria (1.2-1.4 million) hosting the greatest numbers.

The plight of Iraqi refugees

Demanding of our attention and action today is the terrible plight of Iraqi refugees, both those outside the country and internally displaced persons (IDPs). They number to date a fifth of the Iraqi population.

This tragic human dislocation has been created by the active violation of the UN Charter and other aspects of international law. This violation was demonstrated during the American terrorism of "Shock and Awe", and the invasion of sovereignty, disruption of culture, destruction of civilian infrastructure that it entailed and epitomised. Irreparable damage to society and fundamental human rights has ensued. This outrageous unprovoked act of aggression brought to Iraq yet again the horrors of war. Bush and Blair's pre-emptive strike has led to the deaths of many hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. Current credible estimations put the figure at over one million since 2003.

Over and above massive loss of civilian life, is the tragic consequence of refugees. It is estimated some 4.7 million children, women and men have been forced from their homes and have fled -- some displaced within and some outside Iraq. More that 20 per cent of the entire population have been brutally uprooted by the violence of this war of aggression -- a war crime for which the US-UK, along with others, must be held responsible.

Of these refugees, and those who haven't fled, many are the children, the children who we have stripped of their childhood! Those that are still in the War Ravaged Country of Iraq will try and maintain some semblance of chilhood activities, but their games of pretend are carried out amoung the devestation and destruction around them. And much of their pretend activities are the acting out of the forces of destruction they have witnessed, the only thing they know.



Money, Time Runs Out for Iraqi Refugees

The Iraqi government, eager to claim credit for the decline in violence, offers returnees free transportation to Iraq, provides protection to the bus convoys and gives families $800 each to help with resettling.

But American and U.N. officials warn that a big return of refugees could rekindle sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites and that some returnees have found their homes occupied by members of the other Muslim sect. Even the Iraqi government acknowledges it cannot handle a huge influx.

Harsh refugee life rather than improved security spurs return of Iraqi refugees

Most returnees did so because they were running out of money or because their visas had expired, states the report, with less than 15 per cent found to be returning because they believed the security situation had improved.

Recent visa restrictions in both Syria and Jordan have made it virtually impossible for new refugees to gain access to either country, and in Syria in particular, Iraqi refugees now find it hard to remain. By being denied work permits, Iraqis across the region are rapidly depleting their savings and are facing ever-worsening economic conditions.

Iraqi International Initiative on Refugee's

More than 4.5 million Iraqis — a fifth of the population — have been displaced inside and outside their country due to the sectarian policies of the occupation and the governments it has installed since the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003

The international community, the occupation powers, and the government in Iraq are legally required to support and protect Iraqi refugees

Iraqi refugees are Iraqi citizens who have a full right to live in dignity, a right to benefit equally from national resources, and a right to return to their homes

The UN Security Council, as the highest body of the UN, has the power and legal duty to ensure that the needs of Iraqi refugees are met by passing a resolution to require that the Iraqi state allocate proportionate revenue to responsible agencies and hosting countries

Visit above site and sign their Petition: Humanity is in distress in Iraq. Our moral responsibility is to save it. Join us.

And follow the many links given!

The Children Of Iraq - Photo's

Most of those who led the charge to War, and their supporters, try and lay the blame for what some of these children will, or already have, do on others who they say entice these children into violence and violent acts. These children don't need to be pushed nor taught, their anger and the life forced on them shapes what many will become, and it only takes a few, but there will be more than just a few. Those who lay the blame on others fear their own guilt that eventually will catch up to them!

And this is only about the Children of Iraq. How about the Children of Afganistan, or Darfur, or Palestine, or the many many other troubled spots on this planet! The disenfranchised have been rising up from the failed policies practiced by the powerful, leaving legacies of destruction to come!

Second Son - Too Much Sacrifice

Last night I posted a report, from ABC News, Here, Here, and Here

In the ABC report they talked with the father. He was none to keen on his sons joining the Military, especially the two younger brothers, after already losing the one son, but he Respected their choice and Backed them as a Father would.

Also in the ABC report we have this:

The family is now secluded in their home; friends say the boys' mother doesn't even want to come out of the bedroom.

"They're shocked, they're stunned," said their pastor Tim McLain Rolen. "The fact that they've been through it before doesn't prepare you for it again."

This is a combination of two reports, ABC still doesn't have their video up.




A Mother becomes a 'GoldStar Mom' for the second time, from the same failed policies.

Respect for 'GoldStar Families', as talked about in the first, like that for those who serve, Veterans, quickly wains in this country, or certainly is lacking, especially in todays world as few are actually sacrificing!

Politicians use the Troops, and 'GoldStar Moms and Families' as political tools and backdrops for their Policies of Choice, certainly not need, and as the Political Tool, calling it 'Patriotism' as they wave the Flag for more death and destruction with fear thrown into the mix, seeking support for already failed policies to further their own selfish needs and wants, Power!

'GoldStar Family Members' who speak of that support are rarely, if ever, attacked for their support, for they shouldn't, not by those who Respect the loss of their loved ones in Service to Country, right or wrong!

But let a 'GoldStar Mom' speak out, in her grief, against the failed policies of War's of Choice and Profit, and many Attack, Verbally Spitting and even pose threats against! For that isn't 'Politically Correct'!

Nothing changes, for that also took place in our last major Debacle, one I and many Vet brothers and sisters served, and Many Died! One who's Lessons, this country, as a single voice, said it would Never Forget, but in our Society 'Never' is a short lived term.

Then as now we put those, rather quickly, who actually Sacrifice quickly out of site and out of our Beautiful Minds for we can't be bothered with 'Remembrance' nor do we want to hear of the 'Costs', in Sacrifice and in what is Owed in taking care of those who return!

There are now 3724 DoD confirmed U.S. Military Death's from Iraq alone, and counting!

That's 3724 'GoldStar Mothers'!

That's thousands of 'GoldStar Family Members'!

The ones constantly in my thoughts are the Children left behind!

War's Developing Casualty: Military Kids


And not only those who lost Fathers and Mothers that serve our country, but especially those in the countries invaded and occupied, for many are killed and maimed, and those who survive quickly lose their childhood to the death and destruction around them.

Iraqi Orphan Wins Soldiers' Hearts


"Child of War"


And also those Veterans, my brothers and sisters, who can never leave the battlefields behind, it's in all of us, but for some the Trauma rises to the surface of the mind triggered by that around them bringing the battlefields back to life!

What's The Cost? Suicide - PTSD


These conflicts, especially Iraq, have greatly damaged what this country is supposed to be about, and endangered it's national security in the hatreds it has raised around this planet!

We will be living the results for many years, giving the children a world that should never have been!!!

Bring Them Home NOW, and Take Care Of Them When They Return, Everything Owed!!

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

War is not a GAME!

Especially for the children who survive, it's a training ground for hatred and retaliations, it's a mind altering experiance robbing the children of the childhood they should have, it's the total opposite of what they should be experiancing, it changes their lives from what they could have become, it destroys the lives around them and their own!

Kids Play Out Sectarian War

Toting menacing looking toy guns, young boys swarm around an abandoned car, chanting battle cries of a Shiite militia and pointing their play weapons at the “terrorist” in the driver’s seat.

In this day and age these 'games' are the training ground for the next Jihadists in that part of the world, to carry their 'game' outside of those confines!

“You coward! I will kill you,” shouted 6-year-old Haidar Faraj, who played a Shiite militiaman from the Shiite Mahdi Army militia on a recent afternoon in Hurriyah. His younger brother Abbas was the Sunni “terrorist.”

Their future is being laid out before them by us so called 'Responsible Adults'!

“They challenge teachers and even threaten them,” said biology teacher Abu Ali. “They are so frustrated and do not care about their work because they think they may end up displaced or killed, so why should they bother to study.”

A Recent Video Production I put together:

"Child of War"


After viewing you would be wise to visit these two Reports below.
This is just one of the results many of us, opposed to the failed policies, right from the beginning, were saying would happen if those policies were carried out, it has only gotten worse since they were!

The Next Jihadists: Iraq's Lost Children

Iraqi Kids Drawn Into Jihad

And 'Finally' there is a recognition of what already has been developing and not only as to the above! There is much more at the sites than the initial reports! And what will happen has Nothing to do with 'Hating' our Freedoms and Democracy nor Religious Ideologies!

"I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of
gratitude" - The pResident {Yep up to 655,000 are really Grateful, many in
their Mass Graves, as are their Survivors}


"I think once they get in harm's way, Congress's tradition is to
support those troops," Mr. Hadley said. {Harms Way, shows what the
administration thinks of the Troops, it's called a Strong Defense!}

The Failed Policies will Haunt Us and the World for Decades!

The Eyes of the Children

By John Roth
Sgt US Army. Combat tour OIF 3, Tal Afar.
Cavalry Scout
Many people ask me how it was. I try to give the best answer possible but, frankly, I'm very tired of telling the stories. I'm very tired of political debates. I can understand now why most war veterans do not wish to talk about their experience. I have started to believe that it is not because of the violence they witnessed, or the things they were forced to do. I believe that it is more to do with being tired of people asking about it.

"Did you kill anyone?"

"So, what do you think of the war?"

Of course this might now be the case for every veteran, but I find it is the case for me. I therefore have decided to write this account. I will carry it in my back pocket and when someone asks me about my experience I will simply hand it over. This should bring me a small ounce of relief I think.

In the fall of 2004, my unit, Blackjack Troop 2/14 Calvary and I were deployed to a northern city of Iraq called Tal Afar. Our mission was simple. Kill or Capture AIF, or Anti Iraqi Forces. There are many events I will remember from that year, and I could go on for ten more just talking about it. One I will share with you now is the events of November 14th, 2004. This was my platoon's baptism by fire, and it is a day that will, like the smell of the gunpowder, forever be burned into my memory.

It was the afternoon, and we had been sitting in a traffic circle on the southern corner of the city for almost two days. During Ramadan, insurgents had blown almost every police station from Mosul to the border. We were assigned to guard one of the last remaining in Tal Afar. It had been a quiet day so far, and it was close to my relief. I was eager to get off the gun and sleep for awhile. I was about to wake my driver, when I spotted a young teenager walk up to the station. He told us that "Ali Baba", the word used for a thief or someone with a bad label, were up the road and preparing for an attack. We geared up and moved out to patrol the area.

We spent about forty minutes patrolling the outskirts of Al Seriah*, the worst neighborhood in Tal Afar. This was a place where it wasn't if you got shot at, it was when. We headed up the road leading from Al Seriah to the main highway of the city, and turned around for a third pass. It was then that we passed by the police station at the entrance to the city. I surveyed the damage caused by a bomb the day before. It had been leveled. The perfect distraction, it seemed that the tip was a false alarm and I was going to get my rest after all. That was when someone yelled it.

"Grenade!"

I turned to see a young boy no older than twelve toss an object at our vehicle. Time slowed like one of those John Woo action films. I watched, mouth gaping, as the explosive flew over my dismount's head and landed on the other side of the Stryker. It exploded and shook the world.

Almost immediately, I heard the retort from his weapon. A pair of bullets ripped through the air, cracking past the boy as he bolted down the alley paralleling us. The street turned to utter chaos. People ran in every direction, cars sped away, groceries flew, mothers screamed. They knew what was coming. From every window AK-47 fire erupted in bursts. We were in the middle of a planned ambush. Most of the battle was a blur, accentuated by explosions, cracks of automatic gunfire, and the pink mists that appeared when they hit their targets. I was the gunner of our 50 caliber machine gun, and unleashed upon that street a lead hell. I fired at everything and everyone, because that was where the gunfire was coming from.

More clear than anything that day is a moment frozen in time. One single moment that wasn't drowned out by the noise and smell of gunfire and smoke. We had been separated from our convoy when my driver did not take a turn. This forced us back through the carnage, because I'll be damned if I was going into Al Seriah! Ahead of us, a car had driven across the road and smashed into a truck that was parked. It was blocking the road. My driver asked me what to do.

"Smash through it!" I screamed.

He slammed on the gas, and at the exact point of impact I glanced into the back of the truck. Time halted for that instant.

Curled in the bed of the truck was young boy. He couldn't have been any older than six. I have never seen anyone so terrified in my life. He looked up at me with those eyes and burned that moment into my soul. I will never forget those eyes and the face they were held in.

As quickly as it had stopped, time resumed. The car, the truck and everything in it flew onto the sidewalk in a twisted mess of steel and glass. We had made it out alive, but the street and everyone, and everything on it, had suffered a horrible wrath.

We headed back to our security spot to link up with the rest of our platoon. Fortunately, none of us had been hit. I could still feel the adrenaline flowing through my body. As we entered the traffic circle, crowds of people lined the streets. I screamed at them, waving my weapon in the air like a gladiator who had just won his match. I felt great. I felt alive. All we could do was laugh, because we had made it. Upon further investigation of my turret, I found a bullet hole that, at its trajectory, should have hit me square in the face. For some reason I'm still here. God knows we were protected that afternoon.

When I think about that day, I think about how lucky I am to be alive. I am grateful to have been born in a country where war and violence is not a daily part of life. I think about how I should never take advantage of a single second of this precious life we are given. Most of all, however, I think about the eyes of the children, and they will haunt me until my dying day.

* Spelling of this could be wrong..

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The Failed Policies will Haunt Us and the World for Decades!

"Child of War"

What trumps political ideology and religious ideology, yet both are used as the excuses in mans destructive behavior.

Trouble is neither can be effective to quell the hatreds that arise from our destructive policies and behavior, and it need only linger and grow in a few!

That which is the trump card of the now and coming future are the extremely misguided policy of, and Lost, War in Iraq and the forgotten already Lost War in Afganistan. Why is Afganistan a Lost Conflict, because it never accomplished what it was supposedly intended to do and that is to bring Justice to the Leaders of the Guilty 'Criminals' that are accused of the Attack of September 11th 2001. And that conflict is already, once again, spiralling out of control!
Why is Iraq an already Lost endevor, because it should never have occurred, and it was lost the moment we went in. We ripped apart Pandora's Box and the future will only bring more Death and Destruction.

And why,because We are an Occupying Military Force, in Iraq, and We have Once Again Installed a Puppet Government into Power, just as we did with Saddam and the years of Support given him!

I have put together a video presentation that while I'm no great producer I hope makes some Stop and Think of what may be coming and what we may have unleashed in the now and coming generations, and was this Exactly what the Neo-Cons wanted All Along!


You can also view this on YouTube

After viewing you would be wise to visit these two Reports below:
This is just one of the results many of us, opposed to the failed policies, right from the beginning, were saying would happen if those policies were carried out, it has only gotten worse since they were!
The Next Jihadists: Iraq’s Lost Children

Iraqi Kids Drawn Into Jihad
Don't just read the reports, use the links found at both Sites to hopefully further understand.

There are at least 3080 U.S. Military Casulties In-Country, 11 of those are still unconfirmed by the DoD, as of today 1-29-07. Many of those KIA's have children, no counts as to exactly how many have lost a father or mother. Those children aren't living in the Theater, the children of Iraq are and they, and the kids in that region, know full well what is going on, way too many children of Iraq have been Casulties!
Below are a few of the photo's used in the video, some having messages I wrote in but are hard to read except in the single photo form and relate to the photo's following them:

This one you can read clearly and it leads off the presentation:


This one speaks for itself, except it doesn't say that these kids need No Brainwashing to Start their Hatreds, their being Taught in Real Time:


Than we have this reality:


And this one:


And the Most Painfull as are the photo's following it:


And this one gives a Clear Message:


~~~~~

~~~~~

"I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of
gratitude" - The pResident {Yep up to 655,000 are really Grateful, many in
their Mass Graves, as are their Survivors}


"I think once they get in harm's way, Congress's tradition is to
support those troops," Mr. Hadley said. {Harms Way, shows what the
administration thinks of the Troops, it's called a Strong Defense!}

~~~~~
The Failed Policies will Haunt Us and the World for Decades!

This is Much Worse than Vietnam, than they only wanted us Out Of Their Country, now National Security, not only here but Around The World, are The Aces In The Deck!!
And those Aces have already been dealt!

Blog Crawl 1-24-07

PTSD Combat : Winning the War Within

DoD Mental Health Task Force Update
Posted: 24 Jan 2007 01:07 AM CST

Today's News-Tribune devotes 20 full column inches of real estate to the just-concluded two day DoD Mental Health Task Force meeting held in Tacoma, Wash. I'll update with a link to the full article when it's available. In the meantime, columnist Mike Gilbert's blog offers a few.............

The Search is On for Objective, Biological Test for PTSD
Posted: 23 Jan 2007 11:01 PM CST

From Marine Times: Rather than argue over whether a 15-minute survey can determine if service members suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, researchers are trying to find biological ways to make the diagnosis. “We’re looking for an objective, independent, biological...............

Reporting on Today's Changing Journalism
Posted: 23 Jan 2007 05:49 PM CST

Some quick links to share my coverage of the Journalism That Matters and National Conference for Media Reform gatherings in Memphis earlier this month. Most recent report at the top, filed just a few hours ago with ePluribus Media: War on Press -- Press on War Looking Back on.............

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Jan Barry
Children of War

For Americans to break our addiction to war, it will take families working together to live year-round the peace and joy to the world that we sing in Christmas and New Year’s greetings.

One of the tragedies of the war in Iraq is that our soldiers, many of whom are sons and daughters of Vietnam veterans, marched off to a war that bore all the warning signs of the disaster in Vietnam. Like their parents, they eagerly went off to fight in a foreign land they knew nothing about, for a cause that collapsed in the light of the actual facts. What does it take to break such a cycle of excitement and disaster?

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Mojo Blog:
Mother Jones
Our take on the news of the moment, updated hourly.

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An Arab Woman Blues
A Picture is worth a 1000 words.

My dear Friend K. sent me a photo of her country. A beautiful scenic view of a sunset, wishing that one day I will be able to visit this beauty spot where she lives.
I wanted to return in kind. So I checked not less than 100 pages on the Web.
I googled "Pictures of Iraq " "Photos from Iraq" and all that I could find were the following Pictures :

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NAM GUARDIAN ANGEL
Blair rejects call for Iraq withdrawal

Tony Blair has rejected a call for an October pull-out of UK troops from Iraq - but ducked discussing the issue with MPs at a Commons debate on the conflict.
In a deliberate breach of parliamentary etiquette, the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties appeared in the chamber - despite Mr Blair's decision to attend a CBI conference of business leaders in London instead.

Kathie also has some great Video Productions she has put together on her Long Activism on PTSD, at the top of the site

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Mike Ferner

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Eric Blumrich - BushFlash