Category: War

A Day to Honor America’s Combat Wounded and Fallen Heroes

By Executive Order 9277, dated December 3, 1942, the decoration was extended to be applicable to all services and required that regulations of the Services be uniform in application as far as practicable. This executive order also authorized the award only for wounds received.

PURPLE HEART RECIPIENTS

   War I:                     250,000¹

   War II:                    964,409

   Korea:                    136,936

   Vietnam:               200,676

   Persian Gulf:                590

   Afghanistan:             3,495 *

   Iraq:                         34,808 *

   Total Estimated:      1.7 M¹

   NOTE¹:  Estimates only.  Battlefield awards and incomplete records; 1974 fire in St. Louis repository.

   *Data as of 6/20/2009

An Agent Orange activist calls on the first lady to help dioxin victims in Vietnam.

Vietnamese victims of the defoliant Agent Orange play at a social sponsorship center in Da Nang City June 26, 2009. US warplanes dropped about 18 million gallons of the defoliant on southern Vietnam for most of the 1960s.

The following is a letter sent to Michelle Obama by Secretary of the Britain-Vietnam Friendship Association Len Aldis, who has worked for years to spread awareness of Agent Orange victims’ plight.

August 2 marks the beginning of Orange Week, a government program to create Agent Orange awareness through various programs nationwide. Orange Week ends on August 10, 48 years to the day since the US military begin spraying the defoliant on Vietnam.

Dear Michelle Obama,

You can find the Letter Here

Note from the essayist:  Cross-posted at Daily Kos.  YELL LOUDER!  and  Stand. The. F. Up!  at your Congress Critters’ offices this August!

The live on-porch blogging was done from approximately 1:30 pm to 4 pm CDT.

As I wrote in a diary last week, Sen. Dick Durbin has an office in Springfield, Illinois, in the Lincoln Home National Historic Site.  It’s a beautiful little park full of historic Lincoln-era homes, owned by the Dept. of the Interior, and managed by the National Park Service.  Sen. Durbin has rented office space in the George Shutt House since Sen. Durbin was a member of the House of Representatives.  As is shown on the bottom of his Senate web site home page, the address is 525 S. 8th St, Springfield IL 62703.

I’m blogging away, right now, on the right side of the porch as you face it.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    We are about to learn exactly what was going on and where under the Bush/Cheney “Extra-ordinary” rendition program.

    Lawyers for Binyam Mohamed, who spent some seven years in US custody, five of them at Guantanamo, say that Jeppesen UK, a subsidiary of Boeing, has agreed to the presentation of evidence about the “ghost flights” it allegedly operated for the CIA – off-the-grid private jets that transferred terrorist suspects to sites where they would be tortured.

rawstory.com

   Binyam Mohamed, if you recall, had his genitals mutilated by either the CIA or one of the host countries where he was tortured.

   Mutilating genitals.

    What could possibly justify genital mutilation, or even the torture program itself? It’s not like the Bush/Cheney Administration was above bald faced lying to us. In my opinion they did it because they can.

    The Object of Torture IS Torture.

    The Object of Power IS Power.

    If you have not heard, Texas Tech University has taken on Ex-Bush Attorney General Alberto “I Don’t Recall” Gonzalez. According to thinkprogress.org

Gonzales will be a visiting professor leading a course on “contemporary issues in the executive branch” and focusing on “recruiting and retaining first generation and under-represented students.”

    Students and angry alumni quickly spoke out, starting Facebook groups and writing scathing editorials. Many of the Texas Tech faculty, however, remained silent.

Not any longer. Approximately 45 Texas Tech faculty members have signed onto a petition calling Gonzales’ hiring “objectionable.” They charge that Gonzales is nothing more than a “celebrity hire” who won’t be worth his $100,000 salary.

    Alberto Gonzalez claims that his course will, among other things, highlight the “accomplishes of the Bush Administration”.

    I guess that means that classes will be short.

   Contemporary issues in the executive branch, such as “how to commit war crimes” and “wiping your ass with the Constitution 101” will be covered in the course, unless Alberto Gonzalez forgets them or pleads the fifth.

    And, “under – represented students” must be code language for “We are going to need more batshit neo-conservatives”

    We’re gonna need a bigger boat. That way, we can set them all adrift together.

    The protest by Students and Faculty has picked up a lot of steam. You can support their boycott of Alberto Gonzalez by joining the facebook group here

    Despite the outrage coming from Texas Tech Students and Faculty, Texas Tech chancellor Kent Hance is standing by his hiring of Gonzalez, who he says is a ‘close friend’ of his.

    Why anyone would send their kid to a school for thousands of dollars so they can learn re-writing the rule of law from one of the worst liars and crappiest lawyers ever is beyond me. You’d be better off getting your law degree from Phoenix University online.

    But, there is a way to solve this problem. We can save the fragile little minds of a whole class of law students by doing something today.

    Investigate and Prosecute Bush/Cheney/Gonzalez et all for War Crimes.

    War Criminals don’t take Sunday’s off, and neither should we.

    You can find contact information for AG Eric Holder and President Obama beneath the fold. Send them an E-Mail this Sunday and demand a strong, independant Special Prosecutor who will go all the way in the fight to clear America’s name and prosecute the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Bush/Cheney Regime.

    And, of course, YELL LOUDER!

    Just don’t write the e-mail to AG Holder in all CAPS.

This is going to be short, but should get the notice it needs and the corrections in a system that is broken, in a military breaking, in many ways, because of the failed policies of the previous administration and those beating the drums of war but unwilling to serve!

Joshua Fry Was Recruited Out of Group Home for Mentally Disabled

Simulposted at Daily Kos

    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 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.

uswarcrimes.com

   

    Empathy is what keeps men from becoming MONSTERS.

 

A large U.S. military offensive is underway. Here is one example of what our troops face. The Guardian has what the newspaper is calling the First ever image of IED roadside explosion in Afghanistan.

The photo by Manpreet Romana shows a U.S. Marine running for safety moments after an IED blast. The roadside bomb explosion was photographed in the Garmsir district of Helmand province.

“The huge cloud of smoke and dirt in the picture, taken yesterday in the southern Helmand province, obscures the bodies of two other U.S. marines killed by the improvised explosive device (IED).”

Factoid only seven people on the planet know:  Bill Donahue, Roman Catholicism’s Abe Foxman, completed his dissertation on McCarthyism at LaRoche College in Pittsburgh’s north suburb, back in the day.

LaRoche College started out as the motherhouse/inhouse college for novices of the Divine Providence order.  When Donahue used its facilities, it was only slightly expanded from that, with classrooms in the motherhouse, in quonset huts, and in trailers plunked on hastily scraped lots.

Today the campus is large enough to have hosted several hundred peace activists from around the country at the second National Assembly anti-war conference.

This diary, honestly, sucks. Like, I am hung over and not even trying.

Do not Rec this essay. It is poorly written by a inebriated, dissident and a malcontent Dharma bum.

Now this diary here is well written, informative and should be rec’d liberally, as well as put on the front page.

Please Rec this diary linked below here like crazy.

Obama Admin Ends MTR Mining With A Name Change

If any one should like to stay after reading and recommending the much better diary linked above, I have left the Sagacious George Carlin hear to entertain you with his wholesome, family value based humor.

Enjoy

Crossposted at http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Panetta: “Agency officials did indeed mislead Congress and did so since 2001.”

~snip~

    ” Congress was not adequately informed about unspecified post – 9/11 activity, classified activity. ”

Investigate and Prosecute Bush/Cheney

   

    Now that Torture News Roundup has been discontinued for the time being I would like to carry on the hard work of Meteor Blades, Valtin and Patriots Daily News Clearinghouse.

    This will be an ongoing series of diaries detailing the evidence of criminal behavior engaged in by the Bush/Cheney Administration as well as the need to fully investigate and prosecute the Bush/Cheney Administration. I would like to find two or three other diarists who want to contribute to this series on a rotation so that we can keep others informed on a daily basis. If you wish to contribute please e-mail me at [email protected]

    Some reports state that the lies were in regards to torture, others say they are not. Who is to say what these “false statements” were? I will leave the issue of what the CIA was lying about be discussed in the comments below.

There is a brutal civil war taking place in The Democratic Republic of Congo — a war where the government is not strong enough to do more than patronize the bloody militias that fight amongst themselves. But what does this have to do with the environmental movement?

The DRC is rich in natural resources. Many of the metals that are used in green technology are found there. Electrodes in your cell phones, components in your computer, your catalytic converter, and materials of the green economy are regularly mined in The Democratic Republic of Congo. You might find electronic devices that funded this conflict in your pocket right now. These metals must be regulated just like the blood diamonds of Sierra Leone. H/t to Land of Enchantment for a great diary on Blood Diamonds.

We need to work toward a blanket prohibition on using blood minerals that come from The Democratic Republic of Congo.