Why they hate us........

How many Muslims has the U.S. killed in the past 30 years?

Tom Friedman had an especially fatuous column in Sunday's New York Times, which is saying something given his well-established capacity for smug self-assurance. According to Friedman, the big challenge we face in the Arab and Islamic world is "the Narrative" -- his patronizing term for Muslim views about America's supposedly negative role in the region. If Muslims weren't so irrational, he thinks, they would recognize that "U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny." He concedes that we made a few mistakes here and there (such as at Abu Ghraib), but the real problem is all those anti-American fairy tales that Muslims tell each other to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions.

I heard a different take on this subject at a recent conference on U.S. relations with the Islamic world. In addition to hearing a diverse set of views from different Islamic countries, one of the other participants (a prominent English journalist) put it quite simply. "If the United States wants to improve its image in the Islamic world," he said, "it should stop killing Muslims."

Snip

Contrary to what Friedman thinks, our real problem isn't a fictitious Muslim "narrative" about America's role in the region; it is mostly the actual things we have been doing in recent years. To say that in no way justifies anti-American terrorism or absolves other societies of responsibility for their own mistakes or misdeeds. But the self-righteousness on display in Friedman's op-ed isn't just simplistic; it is actively harmful. Why? Because whitewashing our own misconduct makes it harder for Americans to figure out why their country is so unpopular and makes us less likely to consider different (and more effective) approaches...>>>>

Nov. 20 1969, Forty Years Ago: "A clump of bodies"

My Lai photographer Ron Haeberle exposed a Vietnam massacre 40 years ago today in The Plain Dealer

November 20, 2009

Lisa DeJong, The Plain Dealer Ron Haeberle, a Fairview High School graduate, was a combat photographer in Vietnam. He was in the village of My Lai in 1968 when 300 Vietnamese civilians were killed by American troops. Haeberle, who still lives in Northeast Ohio, has finally broken his silence about got the photos and the impact they have had on his life and the history of his country.
Forty years ago today, black-and-white photographs of slaughtered women, children and old men in a Vietnamese village shocked the world -- or that portion of the world willing to believe American soldiers could gun down unarmed peasants and leave them to die in streets and ditches...>>>

Only speaking up brought light onto a reality of War and Occupation:

The Plain Dealer front page on Nov. 20, 1969
View full size
It was too hard, too painful, to comprehend.

But the atrocities committed by soldiers in the U.S. Army's Charlie Company were captured by combat photographer Sgt. Ron Haeberle, a Fairview High School graduate who'd been drafted after college.

The Army did not begin investigating My Lai until the spring of 1969, a year after the killings, after a former member of Charlie Company sent a letter to government officials, including President Richard Nixon and numerous members of Congress...>>>

The Plain Dealer's original My Lai coverage

Haeberle: Some photos destroyed

"First, I showed all the good we did there, what the medics did, and photos of Vietnamese people smiling. And then I'd go to the My Lai photos, and there'd be dead silence," says Haeberle today, in one of his first U.S. interviews in many decades...>>>

For any of the good to win hearts and minds they are quickly wiped out in the atrocities of war and the killing and maiming of the innocent citizens of any occupation, survivors don't forget, some join the battles to rid their land of those that occupy.

Unbelievable massacre still reverberates

On March 16, 1968, American soldiers, "the good guys," who were not under fire, entered a village where residents were eating breakfast, rousted them from their homes, raped young girls and then killed them, their siblings, parents and grandparents. When the injured moved among the corpses they lay with, they were shot again until they were still...>>>

What was the My Lai massacre?

* The My Lai massacre occurred on March 16, 1968, less than three months after the start of the Tet Offensive, a series of surprise attacks by Viet Cong and North Vietnamese on U.S. troops.

* By the time the U.S. Army's Charlie Company headed for My Lai, it had lost several men to mines and booby traps. The soldiers were warned that "VC" could be anyone and were hiding everywhere.

* That set the scene for the unit's attack and shootings that left hundreds dead in the village of My Lai..>>>

In Vietnam, a shocking memorial

In 2000, Haeberle went back to Vietnam for the first time. He bought a number of original works by Vietnamese artists, which hang in his living room today. Most are abstracts; one is a black-and-white, delicately needleworked portrait of a woman, gracefully reaching one arm toward the sky.

He and a group of cyclist friends biked 775 miles from Hanoi to Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City, with stops along the way.

One was at My Lai, where women still push and pull water buffalo alongside green rice fields and where there is now a museum and peace garden memorializing the dead.

Haeberle's traveling friends knew of his role in My Lai's past. "But we just kept it quiet. They were protective."

He walked into the small museum -- "It's beautiful," he says -- and was shocked to see the 16-by-20-inch photos on the wall. The massacre photos were all his, some color, some black-and-white; there was even a black-and-white shot of him.

"I never gave them the photos," he explains. "So the Army must have."

He won't say he got choked up, exactly, but he was affected by being in that space, his own powerful images of horror looking back at him from the walls.

"I found myself making an apology for what happened," he says. "I walked around by myself. No one else was around, and I was making silent amends.

"For something that didn't have to happen, but did." ...>>>>>Rest Here

The war photographs that should have changed history

The lessons were widely discussed, in particular what they revealed about the GI's attitude to the enemy they were fighting. Name-calling and indoctrination had dehumanized the Vietnamese in their minds to the extent that even violence against civilians seemed uncontroversial.

It would be good to think that this lesson stuck, but the pictures of Iraqi prisoners being tortured and humiliated at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad show it's a mind set that has never been eradicated.

After Haeberle's photographs were published, anti-war protests took on a new momentum, but just as vocal were the protests from "patriotic" Americans against the premeditated murder conviction and life sentence given to Calley. A year after the court martial, Nixon caved in to their uproar and had him freed pending a case review....>>>>>

Last night, November 20, 2009, on the Bill Moyers Journal LBJ'S PATH TO WAR

Bill Moyers considers a President's decision to escalate troop levels in a military conflict. Through LBJ's taped phone conversations and his own remembrances, Bill Moyers looks at Johnson's deliberations as he stepped up America's role in Vietnam. Explore a multimedia timeline.

The origins of the Vietnam War lie in 1945, when the British ignored Ho Chi Minh's declaration of independence and restored French rule to the country.

After a protracted conflict with Ho Chi Minh's nationalist forces and a massive defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the French left Vietnam in 1954.

During the Cold War many foreign policy analysts subscribed to "The Domino Theory" — which contended that should one country come under communist rule, its neighbors were likely to follow suit. President Eisenhower, worried about the spread of communism, sent U.S. advisors to train forces in South Vietnam in 1956, and President Kennedy increased American forces significantly, with 12,000 U.S. military advisors stationed in Vietnam by 1962.

But it was under President Johnson that the U.S. escalated the conflict to a full scale war...>>>>>

Times are different now and have been since our long ocupation of Vietnam, of which I served In-Country '70-'71. The Vietnamesse, wanting their Freedom, just wanted the invaders and occupiers of out of their country, first the French then the United States and the few coalition forces who joined us.

Since then the failed policies towards the smaller less powerful countries, by the powerful, have caused what we now refer to as terrorism and those that lash out terrorist, everybody not us.

The criminal acts of terrorism, knowing no borders, have taken untold numbers of lives of innocents of the countries carrying out their failed policies in the names of those they lead.

Today, as has been for long before the Sept 11th '01 attack within our borders, and many other countries before and since, the invasions and occupations as well as the continued failed foreign policies lead not only to extreme destructive attacks within the borders of the occupied countries but a greater occurance of same anywhere, especially towards those who's governments and more try to force their ideologies or seek the resources of others for themselves.

Lessons Never Learned, and Now we've created the destructive future for those who follow us!

I Would Strongly Suggest

If you didn't watch last night, that you visit the Bill Moyers Journal and watch both video's or read the transcripts of.

Knowing it seems hard for many to do, as you watch, listen or read, think of the present and place yourselves in those past times and now!!

Gen. Eric Shinseki: Short and Open Discussion

If history judges correctly, one of the Best of the Military Leaders of these past, failed policies of civilian and military leaders, to present times one name will stand out above all the others as a true Understanding Leader and that will be one General Eric Shinseki. Those of us in the present already know much about what this military leader was put through and by whom, but he has been brought back to lead again, lead in the way he seems to have also done, with compassion and understanding for those he has been placed in command of, throughout his military careerer and his life.

To fight for and try and rebuild an agency to long ignored by this Country, since after WWII, through their representatives. Especially this past decade as we allowed not one but two long running invasions and bloody occupations of two countries and No One Mentioned {those that forcefully supported}, or they blocked, any enhancement of what would be needed for those coming back from. Causing many of those that should be receiving the help they deserve for their service to country many problems and even denial of service, as well as the peoples representatives obstructing, doing the peoples will, the obvious results of the Wars and Occupations we send our military personal into. As well as causing those that work in, or even the volunteers, to do so under the restrictions placed on them by the government and especially the lack of funding, costing more in personal problems and funding as the agency continues to try and play catchup or do what is right under the pressures of limited resources, especially when sending new generations of soldiers into wars and occupations creating another huge influx of military and veterans seeking what was promised them and what they deserve.

This agency, as are most government agencies, has been forced to work with the technologies of the past decades and not quickly stay abreast of advancing technologies, this costs much more to operate, thus more funding needed to even function. Ret. General Shinseki is trying to help it join the 21st century.

This is a True Military and now Civilian Leader!

The following is a short discussion with the General on the Morning Edition on NPR radio on November 13, 2009:

Shinseki Measures Scope Of Veterans' Mental Issues

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki and President Obama mark Veterans Day on Wednesday during a ceremony at the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.

In his first nine months as head of the Department of Veterans Affairs, retired Gen. Eric Shinseki has spent hours just listening to veterans talk. Shinseki tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that he feels a strong obligation to "give back" to the men and women he once served with.

Last week, Shinseki spoke to a group of young veterans attending college. A former Army chief of staff who was wounded during his service in Vietnam, Shinseki asked the veterans if any of them suffered from post-traumatic stress.

He got only silence — so Shinseki asked about symptoms...>>>>Rest Here

Continuing the Veterans Day Messages......

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 11.11.09, I caught a couple of important discussions in the continuing known by us veterans are the results of wars and occupations of choice, or any war and occupation, as to the veterans and military personal once they've been sent to serve in and then return home, most being discharged from their service obligation after serving the time they signed up for, all at that point or later becoming the veterans of their service.

This first one is just a news report I happened upon but hits on the issue many of us are long time advocates of and adds to the rest posted below it.

Veterans struggle with stress, PTSD

November 11, 2009 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- Along with the common bond of serving the country, many veterans share the burden of dealing with post-war stress...>>>>>

On the NPR Diane Rehm show the following discussion took place in the first hour of her show:

Diane Rehm NPR Show: America's Wars Observed

Guest host: Susan Page

On the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan: A journalist and a photographer document, in unflinching detail, the complex, contradictory and often tragic experiences of U-S troops at war.
Guests

Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary, Department of Veterans Affairs

David Finkel, author of "The Good Soldiers" (Farrar,Straus & Giroux) national enterprise editor, The Washington Post

Peter van Agtmael, photographer, "2nd Tour Hope I Don't Die"

Listen to the Show:

Windows Media Player

Real Audio Player

Publisher Comments:

It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the surge. Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences, he told a skeptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them.

Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel was with them in Bagdad, and almost every grueling step of the way.

What was the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? Those are the questions he grapples with in his remarkable report from the front lines. Combining the action of Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down with the literary brio of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, The Good Soldiers is an unforgettable work of reportage. And in telling the story of these good soldiers, the heroes and the ruined, David Finkel has also produced an eternal tale--not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time.

Publisher Comments:

A collection of Peter van Agtmael's photography of America's Wars from January 2006 to December 2008

Then on last nights PBS News Hour this was part of their show, first part of a discussion with a veteran of our recent occupations then a discussion on Post Traumatic Stress in many military personal and veterans of all conflicts as to the stress of war:

PBS News Hour: For Some Veterans, the Battle Continues Against PTSD

After returning home from Iraq, Marine Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Workman struggled with the memories of war. As Betty Ann Bowser reports, soldiers like Workman are finding that often time, returning home can mean a new battle with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Snip

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Eventually, Workman was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

In his new book, "Shadow of the Sword: A Marine's Journey of War, Heroism, and Redemption" Workman chronicles that traumatic day in Fallujah and his five-year struggle with PTSD. After returning from Iraq, Workman was sent to Parris Island to be trained as a drill instructor, a much-respected job in the Marine Corps, but he found it made his PTSD worse.

SGT. JEREMIAH WORKMAN: It was pretty bad. I mean, mentally, it was just killing me inside...>>>>>Rest of Transcript Here with Audio Link

Part 1: Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Workman


Part 2: Counseling Soldiers with Traumatic Stress


Extended Comments with Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Workman

Publisher Comments:

Awarded the Navy Cross for gallantry under fire, Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Workman is one of the Marine Corps' best-known contemporary combat veterans. In this searing and inspiring memoir, he tells an unforgettable story of his service overseas-and of the emotional wars that continue to rage long after our fighting men come home.

Raised in a tiny blue-collar town in Ohio, Jeremiah Workman was a handsome and athletic high achiever. Having excelled on the sporting field, he believed that the Marine Corps would be the perfect way to harness his physical and professional drives.

In the Iraqi city of Fallujah in December 2004, Workman faced the challenge that would change his life. He and his platoon were searching for hidden caches of weapons and mopping up die-hard insurgent cells when they came upon a building in which a team of fanatical insurgents had their fellow Marines trapped. Leading repeated assaults on that building, Workman killed more than twenty of the enemy in a ferocious firefight that left three of his own men dead.

But Workman's most difficult fight lay ahead of him-in the battlefield of his mind. Burying his guilt about the deaths of his men, he returned stateside, where he was decorated for valor and then found himself assigned to the Marine base at Parris Island as a Kill Hat: a drill instructor with the least seniority and the most brutal responsibilities. He was instructed, only half in jest, to push his untested recruits to the brink of suicide. Haunted by the thought that he had failed his men overseas, Workman cracked, suffering a psychological breakdown in front of the men he was charged with leading and preparing for war.

In Shadow of the Sword, a memoir that brilliantly captures both wartime courage and its lifelong consequences, Workman candidly reveals the ordeal of post-traumatic stress disorder: the therapy and drug treatments that deadened his mind even as they eased his pain, the overwhelming stress that pushed his marriage to the brink, and the confrontations with anger and self-blame that he had internalized for years.

Having fought through the worst of his trials-and now the father of a young son-Workman has found not perfection or a panacea but a way to accommodate his traumas and to move forward toward hope, love, and reconciliation.

I recently was contacted by Michael Anthony, who last October returned home from a tour of duty from Iraq as an Operating Room Medic with the Army reserves. Upon returning home he began writing a memoir of his time in Iraq. A few months ago he signed a deal and his memoir is now in bookstores. The book is titled: "Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq"

Publisher Comments:
From the Introduction:

Look around, the drill sergeant said. In a few years, or even a few months, several of you will be dead. Some of you will be severely wounded or so badly mutilated that your own mother can't stand the sight of you. And for the real unlucky ones, you will come home so emotionally disfigured that you wish you had died over there.

It was Week 7 of Basic Training . . . 18 years old and I was preparing myself to die.

They say the Army makes a man out of you but for 18-year-old SPC Michael Anthony, that fabled rite of passage proved a very dark journey. After soliciting his parentsa approval to enlist at only 17, Anthony began his journey with an unshakeable faith in the military born of his family's long tradition of service. But when thrust into a medical unit of misfits as lost as he was, SPC Anthony not only witnessed the unspeakable horror of war but the undeniable misconduct of the military firsthand. Everything he ever believed in dissolved, forcing Anthony to rethink his loyalties, and ultimately risk his career and his freedom to challenge the military he had so firmly believed in.

This searing memoir chronicles the iconic experiences that changed one young soldier forever. A seasoned veteran before the age of twenty-one, he faced the truth about the war and himself in this shocking and unprecedented eyewitness account.

This is Michael Anthony's Website with more information about him as well as his book.

'These people just want to be left alone'

In Afghanistan the US soldiers are losing heart for a fight they feel their presence is only prolonging:

Sean Smith spent a month embedded with the US Army's 501st Parachute Regiment in June this year. With inadequate vehicles, relations with Afghan security forces at a standstill and the constant threat of IEDs, the soldiers are losing heart for a fight they feel their presence is only prolonging

Outside The Wire

The newest episode to the reports from the online series In Their Boots

Three women service members return from Iraq and Afghanistan to find they face a new battle—a battle to treat their wartime injuries.



American Women Veterans this is their Facebook site page.

This is their New Site Page: American Women Veterans

American Women Veterans is the nation's preeminent Women Veterans organization dedicated to being the voice of Women Service Members and Veterans. They welcome veterans and supporters from all branches and eras. They foster a continued desire to serve our country and our comrades by raising awareness of women veterans' issues in military, civilian and veterans' affairs. They strive to enlighten, engage and empower women veterans from all services and eras!

Israel: Remote Control Occupation?

Heading further down the road to total control of masses of people deemed by others as enemies or terrorist while waging terror on them remotely with high tech WMD Robots making or creating even more hatreds and enemies of!!

Baum: New technologies are allowing Israel to maintain control over its occupation remotely

This week, the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erakat, announced that because Israeli settlements continue to grow (with de facto US support) and annex the land planned for a future Palestine, the Palestinians may have to abandon hopes for an independent state. He therefore urged Palestinians to fight for one democratic state where all citizens will be equal. With this announcement, many are wondering what the future of the Israeli occupation would look like. Meanwhile, Israel is continuing its technological evolution of the occupation, making it possible to institutionalize control over the occupation remotely. At the end of October, the joint Israeli-Palestinian Alternative Information Center held a conference in Bethlehem on economy of the occupation. The Real News' Lia Tarachansky attended and spoke to Dalit Baum of Who Profits and Shir Hever, of the Alternative Information Center about the changing face of the Israeli occupation.
Bio

Dr. Dalit Baum is the founder of Who Profits? a project investigating corporate ties to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. She is an Israeli peace activist and a feminist educator, who taught science and women's studies at the University of California at Berkeley and at various Israeli universities.

Shir Hever is an economic researcher in the Alternative Information Center, a Palestinian-Israeli organization active in Jerusalem and Beit-Sahour. Researching the economic aspect of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, some of his research topics include international aid to the Palestinians and Israel, the effects of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories on the Israeli economy, and the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against Israel. He is a frequent speaker on the topic of the economy of the Israeli occupation.

Matthew Hoh: "I wish people would refute what I'm saying."

On October 29th 2009 the PBS News Hour had a discussion with Matthew Hoh the State Department Official who resigned over the Afghan War.

Ex-State Department Official Explains Exit Over Afghan War Strategy

A few of Matthews points made during their discussion and the video of same:

Matthew Hoh Former State Department Official
I believe it's only going to fuel the insurgency. It's only going to reinforce claims by our enemies that we are an occupying power, because we are an occupying power.

JUDY WOODRUFF: After five months serving with the State Department in Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest against American policies there.

In his September 10 letter of resignation, revealed this week in "The Washington Post," the former Marine captain said: "I fail to see the value or worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditure of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war."

Hoh's resignation was greeted more in sorrow than in anger by the State Department. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke said -- quote -- "We took his letter very seriously because he was a good officer."

Mr. Hoh joins us now:

MATTHEW HOH: I don't believe al-Qaida will come back.

I believe that, since 2001, al-Qaida has evolved. They have turned into, as I like to say, an ideological cloud that exists on the Internet and recruits worldwide. They -- if you look at the attacks al-Qaida has been successful with over the last seven, eight years, including attacks on 9/11, they weren't conducted by Afghans or Pakistanis.

And a lot of the preparation and training, it took place in Western Europe or even here in the United States. So, I don't think al-Qaida has any interest in ever tying itself again to a geographical or political boundary. I think they're content to exist as they have evolved. And they are a threat, and they should be our priority. We need to defeat them.

But, again, 60,000 troops in Afghanistan does not defeat al-Qaida.

"The idea that we're losing somebody's son or somebody's husband is dying to support a regime that's profiting off of our aid money is criminal. It's wrong."

MATTHEW HOH: Sure. And I wish people would refute what I'm saying. I have seen that criticism, but I have not seen anyone tell me why it's not a civil war.

I have not seen anyone tell me how stabilizing the Afghan government will defeat al-Qaida. I have not heard anyone tell me how keeping 60,000 troops, or 80,000, or 100,000 troops in Afghanistan will stabilize Pakistan. So, I haven't heard the answers to those questions.

As for the criticisms about my age or that I was only there for five months, I was there for five months. I was in two parts of the country. I worked with as many local people as I could. And I listened as much as possible.

At that point, what I wrote -- first off, what I wrote in my resignation letter, there's not a novel or unique thought in that. Those are thoughts shared by military officers and State Department officers as well. My concern is not how are we fighting this war, but why are we fighting this war...>>>Rest of Transcript {and audio & video links} found here

Matthew Hoh's Resignation Letter to the State Department

The Thin Gray Line: Afghanistan



The Thin Gray Line: The Education of Lt. Jake Kerr a U.S. Military outpost in Afganistan on the border with Pakistan.

October 29th 2009 0n NPR's All Things Considered they also have a discussion with Matthew Hoh:

A Sudden Exit Driven By An 'Irrational' War

A former Marine captain who became the first foreign service official to publicly resign in protest over the war in Afghanistan says staying in the country is not in America's interest.

"The losses of our soldiers do not merit anything that comes in line with our strategic interests or values," Matthew Hoh, who signed on as a foreign service official in Afghanistan after fighting in Iraq, tells NPR's Melissa Block.

Hoh resigned last month after spending five working months in Afghanistan. In his resignation letter, he said he had "lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purpose of the United States' presence in Afghanistan."...>>>Rest found here

You can listen with this link which brings up the NPR player.

Toll of War

At Dover, Obama feels toll of war

Hours after a personal encounter with the grim cost of war, President Barack Obama said Thursday the sight of 18 flag-covered cases holding the remains of Americans killed this week in Afghanistan can't help but influence his thinking about sending more troops overseas.

"It was a sobering reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices that our young men and women in uniform are engaging in every single day, not only our troops but their families as well," Obama said from the White House, reflecting briefly on his surprise middle-of-the-night trip to Dover Air Force Base to observe the return of the fallen Americans to the United States.

Speaking softly and somewhat haltingly, Obama said losses such as these are "something that I think about each and every day."..>>>

Malalai Joya: “A Woman Among Warlords”

The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice!

On October 27th a forum was held at the CUNY's Center for Place, Culture and Politics. After the forum Grit TV's Laura Flanders held a discussion with some of the women at the forum and with Malalai Joya who wrote "A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out"

Is a Benevolent Occupation Possible? Discussing Afghanistan

The war in Afghanistan will soon surpass Vietnam as the U.S.’s longest conflict, and yet for much of the past eight years it was overshadowed by the war in Iraq. It was considered both “the Good War” and the “Forgotten War,” but lately has taken center stage in the news once again, as public support has dropped and Tuesday morning Matthew Hoh, a Foreign Service officer and former Marine, became the first U.S. official to resign in protest over the conduct of the war.

Just what is the purpose of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan? Are we really there to protect people from the Taliban and to fight Al-Qaeda? Joining us to discuss are Kristen L. Rouse, founder of Veterans for Afghanistan, Nasrine Gross, President of Roqia Center for Rights, Studies and Education, Yifat Susskind, communications director for MADRE, and Jodie Evans of CodePink, who just returned from Afghanistan.

Laura Flanders with Malalai Joya, Awista Ayub, Nasrine Gross {first 23:30min is the discussion with the other guests then with Malalai leading into the rest of the show}


You can view the Video Here

The next day, the 28th of October, Malalai Joya visited Democracy Now and spoke with Amy Goodman about her book and life in Afghanistan, especially her recent past, as well.

Afghan Democracy Activist Malalai Joya Defies Threats to Challenge US Occupation, Local Warlords

To talk more about Afghanistan, we are joined by Malalai Joya, one of Afghanistan’s leading democracy activists. In 2005, she became the youngest person ever elected to the Afghan parliament. She was suspended in 2007 for her denunciation of warlords and their cronies in government. She has just written her memoir, "A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out". { includes transcript ]

Malalai Joya's Book:

Publisher Comments:

Malalai Joya has been called the bravest woman in Afghanistan. At a constitutional assembly in Kabul in 2003, she stood up and denounced her country's powerful NATO-backed warlords. She was twenty-five years old. Two years later, she became the youngest person elected to Afghanistan's new Parliament. In 2007, she was suspended from Parliament for her persistent criticism of the warlords and drug barons and their cronies. She has survived four assassination attempts to date, is accompanied at all times by armed guards, and sleeps only in safe houses.

Often compared to democratic leaders such as Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi, this extraordinary young woman was raised in the refugee camps of Iran and Pakistan. Inspired in part by her father's activism, Malalai became a teacher in secret girls' schools, holding classes in a series of basements. She hid her books under her burqa so the Taliban couldn't find them. She also helped establish a free medical clinic and orphanage in her impoverished home province of Farah. The endless wars of Afghanistan have created a generation of children without parents. Like so many others who have lost people they care about, Malalai lost one of her orphans when the girl's family members sold her into marriage.

While many have talked about the serious plight of women in Afghanistan, Malalai Joya takes us inside the country and shows us the desperate dayto-day situations these remarkable people face at every turn. She recounts some of the many acts of rebellion that are helping to change the country — the women who bravely take to the streets in peaceful protest against their oppression; the men who step forward and claim I am her mahram, so the fundamentalists won't punish a woman for walking alone; and the families that give their basements as classrooms for female students.

A controversial political figure in one of the most dangerous places on earth, Malalai Joya is a hero for our times, a young woman who refused to be silent, a young woman committed to making a difference in the world, no matter the cost.

"A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out"

Army Sgt. Richard Yarosh: Portrait in Smithsonian

Justified Honor and Remembrance for not only Sgt. Yarosh but all who served and are serving in these two theaters, burned soldier portrait to show at Smithsonian!

This is and will be for a long time a great tribute to this soldier, and all the Fallen and Maimed of these two continuing occupations. And like "The Wall", until we can build a Memorial for the Fallen of both these conflicts, it should be a Reminder to this Nation of what We Allowed "In Our Names!"!!

Army Sgt. Richard Yarosh

SAN ANTONIO — Retired Army Sgt. Richard Yarosh has gotten used to the stares. His face is blanketed in knotty scar tissue. His nose tip is missing. His ears are gone, as is part of his right leg. His fingers are permanently bent and rigid.

All is the result of an explosion in Iraq that doused him in fuel and fire three years ago.

“I know people are curious,” he said. “They’ll stop in their tracks and look. I guess I can understand. I probably would have stared, too.”

Snip

The gallery received more than 3,300 entries. Many are less conventional portraits, including video and photos, but others, like that of Yarosh, draw strength from the traditional head-and-shoulders composition, said curator Brandon Fortune.

Mitchell’s use of the style — historically reserved for nobility, a high-ranking military officer or a president, not a disfigured soldier in an Army T-shirt — democratizes such paintings, Fortune said.

“The portrait is clearly meant to honor him. I think that contributes to the gravity of the presentation,” she said.

Snip

Yarosh was astonished when he saw the completed portrait.

“It was perfect. I couldn’t believe that he captured me,” he said. “It captures my pride. I’m proud of the way I look. I’m proud of the reason for the way I look.”..>>>Rest Found Here

Speaking of a Memorial, I've had a picture in my head all these past years of another "Wall", facing ours but built up on the top of steps for each year we stay in these theaters, to tower above ours but making a Corridor for the public to walk through.

Towering above ours because we 'Nam Vets and this Nation didn't Keep Our Promise: To Learn The Lessons Of 'Nam And To Never To Allow Another 'War/Occupation of Choice!

The Steps to be the Sacrifice this Nation finally makes for what it allowed, All Visitors would need to walk up each step to reach the Names Engraved in Honor from this Country for their Service and Sacrifice!!

Eight Years Later:

Speak Out Against the War in Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Soldier Killed, CBS Reporter Injured

August 28, 2009



CBS News radio correspondent Cami McCormick was injured while on assignment in Afghanistan, as Harry Smith reports. McCormick injured in an IED blast while traveling with U.S. soldiers.

Soldier killed, CBS reporter wounded in bombing

KABUL — A CBS Radio News correspondent was being treated Saturday at Bagram Air Base after being seriously wounded by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan that also killed a U.S. service member, officials said.

The U.S. troop death made August the deadliest month of the nearly eight-year war for American forces. The intensified fighting has raised the risk to journalists embedded with the military............

Blast Walls: Baghdad Iraq

August 22 2009

AP – Workers place concrete blast walls in front of the Iraqi foreign ministry in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday

Iraqis begin restoring concrete walls in Baghdad

Workers used giant cranes to raise concrete walls around the blast-scarred Foreign Ministry and other government buildings on Saturday, as Iraqi authorities sought to bolster security after suicide truck bombings that killed scores in Baghdad.

The decision to reinforce vital institutions is a sharp reversal of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's desire to remove the barriers as part of his efforts to make life more normal for war-weary Iraqis before January's national elections............

Occupied and Controlled by Us now being Occupied and Controlled by their own, and We Tore That Lid Off The Pandora's Box!!

"Searching for Home"

Searching for Home:Coming Back from War {facebook site page}

A moving film from Director Eric Christiansen and Executive Producer Anthony Edwards

Tell your friends!

Please become a fan, at facebook, to keep up to date!

Trailer


Official "Searching for Home" website, which is still under construction as they just released the trailer, above, on their facebook page on 8.13.09

About the Film pdf

Some History of 28th July

The Bonus Army

Bonus Marchers on the Capitol Steps
July 28, 1932 Federal troops, under command of General Douglas MacArthur, forcibly dispersed the so-called “Bonus Expeditionary Force,” or Bonus Army. They were World War I veterans who had gathered in Washington, D.C., to demand money they had been promised but weren't scheduled to receive until 1945. Most of the marchers were unemployed veterans in desperate financial straits during the Great Depression........Rest Here

Film of the confrontation in Washington



From Wikipedia

The self-named Bonus Expeditionary Force was an assemblage of some 43,000 marchers — 17,000 World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups, who protested in Washington, D.C., in spring and summer of 1932....................

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

Pres. Lyndon Johnson: Vietnam

July 28, 1965 President Lyndon Johnson ordered 50,000 troops to Vietnam to join the 75,000 already there. By the end of the year 180,000 U.S. troops will have been sent to Vietnam; in 1966 the figure doubled. In addition to countless Vietnamese deaths, close to 1900 Americans were killed in 1965; the following year the number more than tripled. President Johnson explained: “We intend to convince the communists that we cannot be defeated by force of arms or by superior power.”

Part of a Tom Paxton’s anti-Vietnam-war song, “Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation”

Lyndon Johnson told the nation
Have no fear of escalation

I am trying everyone to please
Though it isn’t really
war

We’re sending fifty thousand more

To help save Vietnam from Vietnamese

Full lyrics of the song

“Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation” written and performed by Tom Paxton (1965)


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

Fourteenth Amendment

July 28, 1868

Passed in the wake of the Civil War, the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing due process, equal protection of the law, and full citizenship to all males over 21, including former slaves, went into effect.

Booklet {PDF} on the 14th Amendment from the Damon Keith Collection of African-American Legal History at Wayne State University Law School.

Families Send Basics To Marines In Afghanistan

For Marines serving in Afghanistan, mail call can be a little bit like Christmas in July. A package from home can supply everything from basic needs to small luxuries.

snip

At a Piggly Wiggly grocery store in North Carolina, customers have been donating goods for Marines deployed with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment out of nearby Camp Lejeune.

Assistant Manager Rosa Hamilton says some of the items catch shoppers off guard. "They were like, 'Clothes pins, huh? I never would have thought about that.' And we're like, 'Well, they don't have anywhere to hang their clothes,' " she says...........Rest Here

Or bring up the NPR Player with this link amd listen to the report

Listening to this report, or reading.......

But already known by many, it is frankly more then criminal the contrast between Afghanistan and Iraq. We went into Afghanistan to supposedly get the leaders of those who carried out 9/11 with promises of the sun and the moon on reconstruction, once again like after we supported the Mujahadeen against the Soviets but never kept those promises, for the Afghans after we rid them of the Taliban government.

"A lot of people think that Afghanistan is like Iraq right now, and it's not. They're two totally different things. Iraq is more set up with everything that the guys need," she says. "Afghanistan — they went in with nothing."

We quickly left and invaded Iraq taking our Military, everyone we could payoff to join us and all those promises, once again, of rebuilding monies. Dumping Billions, loosing same as well, in building bases, a huge Embassy, and in doing so much of that work was shoddy and unrecorded in a paper trail, paying off once insurgents so they wouldn't fight us, and on and on and on. And now we're back in Afghanistan, not yet leaving Iraq, trying to once again win 'Hearts and Minds!'.

Why Iraq, one reason it is centrally located not only for the oil in that region but the rivers, water, as well! The Neo-Cons, and their War Profitteers, wanted, and still want, the control over that region that occupying Iraq would give them, Afghanistan is none of that!!

And much of those billions are going to private contractors apparently because our leaders feel the professional military can't carry out their failed policy decisions alone, or their supporters need the War Profits of Blood Money:

Unfit translators struggling in Afghanistan

U.S. troops say companies that recruit military translators are sending linguists to southern Afghanistan who are unprepared to serve in combat, even as more are needed...........

Wartime Contracting...

Wartime contracting commission heads back to Iraq

A team investigating wartime contracting abuses has begun a 10-day trip to Kuwait and Iraq to examine the Defense Department's plans for transferring or disposing of $3 billion worth of in-theater property and equipment.

As U.S. troops begin to withdraw from Iraq, members of the congressionally mandated Commission on Wartime Contracting want to know the Pentagon's plan for removing more than 615,000 items of contractor-acquired, government-owned property from American bases in Iraq.......

The report said that as a result of poor documentation in the early days of Iraq operations and a shortage of property management officers, base commanders cannot account for every piece of property, document its ownership or confirm that it has been maintained properly......Rest Here

"Camp Hell" Afghanistan

"Camp Hell"!! Pay attention 'kombat keyboard chickenhawk rambo' cheerleaders, as well as the greater majority of this population that have forgotten our Two Occupations and the Veterans of, this is what Service in and War, Wars of Choice, Occupations, Look and Sound like!!

Despite 100 Attacks, Unit Leaves Afghan War With No Casualties
'Camp Hell' Attacked More Than Any Other Outpost in Afghanistan

Its job has been to disrupt al Qaeda and Taliban smuggling routes through the area.

Over the past year, the several dozen U.S. troops hunkered down in Combat Outpost Lowell have seen more firefights than any unit in Afghanistan.

Located on the northern part of Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, the troops in Combat Outpost Lowell did not see any reinforcements from the U.S. surge, which has been concentrated in southern part of the country.

But the Taliban has had a surge of its own, making July the bloodiest month of the Afghan war so far for U.S. troops. Part of the Taliban offensive was a determined effort to erase Lowell from the map. The Taliban attacked the outpost nearly 100 times in the past year.

With words of True Wisdom from one Soldier:

"After experiencing this, what I will say ... if I ever do a job interview again and they say have you ever found yourself in a stressful situation, I'll try not to smile," said Sgt. Matthew Bertran of San Jose, Calif.

And while this unit, now replaced with another, miraculously didn't suffer any casualties, this speaks of the Priorities, and Attention Spans of this Nation:

A Life Lost Out of the Spotlight

This is what Brian Bradshaw's, killed by an IED in Afghanistan, aunt Martha Gillis said, with tears in her eyes and overwhelming love showing in those eyes and words as well!

While a Nation and World Paid Tribute to a Passing Singer, a Small Town Mourned a Young Soldier Killed in Afghanistan

Members of the Patriot Guard salute the flag-draped casket of Brian N. Bradshaw, after it was loaded into a hearse at St. John's Bosco Church in Lakewood, Wash. on Monday, July 6, 2009. Bradshaw, from Steilacoom, Wash., was killed by an IED in Afghanistan on June 25. (AP/Dean J. Koepfler, News Tribune)

Millions around the world will remember the day Michael Jackson died. Martha Gillis will, too - but she'll be thinking of someone else. She shares her Opinion with us now: The Rest Here

Not A "SuperStar"........July 12, 2009

Watch CBS Videos Online

A Soldier Comes Home July 15 2009

On July 5, The Post published a letter from Martha Gillis of Springfield, whose nephew, Lt. Brian Bradshaw, was killed in Afghanistan on June 25, the day that Michael Jackson died. The letter criticized the extensive media coverage of Jackson's death compared with the brief coverage of Lt. Bradshaw's death. Among the responses was the following letter, written July 9 by an Air National Guard pilot and a fellow member of the crew that flew Lt. Bradshaw's body from a forward base in Afghanistan to Bagram Air Base. Capt. James Adair, one of the plane's pilots, asked the editorial page staff to forward the letter to the Bradshaw family. He and Brian Bradshaw's parents then agreed to publication of these excerpts.......Read Rest Here

The above letter, to the family, is a must read to fathom the deep Respect at least the Fallen receive from their brothers and sisters as a Nation pays little heed!

Lessons of Vietnam

Applicable to Today

It was half a century ago, on the night of July 8, 1959, that the first two American soldiers to die in the Vietnam War were slain when guerrillas surrounded and shot up a small mess hall where half a dozen advisers were watching a movie after dinner.

MSgt. Chester Ovnand, of Copperas Cove, Texas, and Maj. Dale Buis, of Imperial Beach, Calif., would become the first two names chiseled on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial — the first of 58,261 Americans who died in Vietnam during the next 16 years.

The deaths of Ovnand and Buis went largely unnoticed at the time, simply a small beginning of what would become a huge national tragedy.

Presidents from Harry Truman to Dwight Eisenhower to John F. Kennedy to Lyndon B. Johnson to Richard M. Nixon to Gerald R. Ford made decisions — some small and incremental, some large and disastrous — in building us so costly and tragic a war...........

"We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam." is the sequel to Joe Galloway's and Gen. Hal Moore's bestseller "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young."

Moving Tribute and a Primer on Leadership

"We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam". Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore, USA Ret., and Joseph L. Galloway. HarperCollins Publishers. 272 pages; maps; photographs; index; $24.95.

By Col. Cole C. Kingseed
U.S. Army retired

Literary sequels seldom live up to their advance billing and reader expectation, but We Are Soldiers Still by Lt. Gen. Harold (Hal) Moore, U.S. Army retired, and Joe Galloway is a notable exception. In writing a sequel to their New York Times best seller, We Were Soldiers Once … and Young, the authors address a new generation of warriors because “there is no such thing as closure for soldiers who have survived a war.” For Moore and Galloway, the survivors have “an obligation, a sacred duty, to remember those who fell in battle beside them and to bear witness to the insanity that is war.”......

A Life Lost Out of the Spotlight {UpDated}

This is what Brian Bradshaw's, killed by an IED in Afghanistan, aunt Martha Gillis said, with tears in her eyes and overwhelming love showing in those eyes and words as well!

While a Nation and World Paid Tribute to a Passing Singer, a Small Town Mourned a Young Soldier Killed in Afghanistan

Members of the Patriot Guard salute the flag-draped casket of Brian N. Bradshaw, after it was loaded into a hearse at St. John's Bosco Church in Lakewood, Wash. on Monday, July 6, 2009. Bradshaw, from Steilacoom, Wash., was killed by an IED in Afghanistan on June 25. (AP/Dean J. Koepfler, News Tribune)

Millions around the world will remember the day Michael Jackson died. Martha Gillis will, too - but she'll be thinking of someone else. She shares her Opinion with us now: The Rest Here

Not A "SuperStar"........July 12, 2009

Watch CBS Videos Online

UpDate
A Soldier Comes Home July 15 2009

On July 5, The Post published a letter from Martha Gillis of Springfield, whose nephew, Lt. Brian Bradshaw, was killed in Afghanistan on June 25, the day that Michael Jackson died. The letter criticized the extensive media coverage of Jackson's death compared with the brief coverage of Lt. Bradshaw's death. Among the responses was the following letter, written July 9 by an Air National Guard pilot and a fellow member of the crew that flew Lt. Bradshaw's body from a forward base in Afghanistan to Bagram Air Base. Capt. James Adair, one of the plane's pilots, asked the editorial page staff to forward the letter to the Bradshaw family. He and Brian Bradshaw's parents then agreed to publication of these excerpts.......Read Rest Here

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.