Category: War

The Sundance Channel just launched a website in observance of the sixth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

From a post by Anna Brew, found at After Downing Street hattip for the lead:

The highlight of the site is a large collection of webisodes and clips from two documentaries that will premiere on television on March 19th (the date of the 2003 invasion): Hometown Baghdad and Heavy Metal in Baghdad. Both films capture the day-to-day realities confronted by Iraqi citizens.

I went over to ABC News to see if they had posted a video report that I caught last night, never got to that as this is what I found, and will be airing this morning on GMA.

Exclusive: ‘It Hurts,’ Says First Lady of Military Families on Food Stamps

First lady Michelle Obama wants military families to know they have a friend in the White House, she told “Good Morning America’s” Robin Roberts in an exclusive interview today at Fort Bragg, N.C. — her first network television interview since her husband took office.

“It hurts. It hurts,” the first lady said of hearing about military families on food stamps. “These are people who are willing to send their loved ones off to, perhaps, give their lives — the ultimate sacrifice. But yet, they’re living back at home on food stamps. It’s not right, and it’s not where we should be as a nation.”

I received this yesterday, on the 11th, from the Friends Committee on National Legislation and was going to post it around but couldn’t get the links to load, they’re fine now, So Please Use Them!

Iraq, Rapidly becoming the Forgotten War!!

There have been 4,572 coalition deaths — 4,255 Americans, 2 Australians, 1 Azerbaijani, 179 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, 1 Czech, 7 Danes, 2 Dutch, 2 Estonians, 1 Fijian, 5 Georgians, 1 Hungarian, 33 Italians, 1 Kazakh, 1 Korean, 3 Latvian, 22 Poles, 3 Romanians, 5 Salvadoran, 4 Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, 2 Thai and 18 Ukrainians — in the war in Iraq as of January 6, 2008, according to a CNN count. { Graphical breakdown of casualties }. The list below is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose deaths have been reported by their country’s governments. The list also includes seven employees of the U.S. Defense Department. At least 31,089 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon. View casualties in the war in Afghanistan.

War, And Results Of, Fast Becoming A Non-Issue!!

US Withdrawing as Media Retreat from Iraq – 03.03.2009

 

Iraq Veteran Going to Washington – KRGV 2.15.09

Reynaldo Leal, Jr. was part of Operation Phantom Fury, taking part in some of the heaviest fighting in Fallujah. For Leal, fighting overseas was like an out of body experience.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

Top row, left to right: Kenneth Eastridge, Ryan Alderman, Adam Lieberman, Robert Marko. Bottom row: John Needham, Kenneth Lehman, Mark Waltz, Chad Barrett.

In the final article in Salon’s series, we ask what President Obama will do about the rise of suicide and murder among U.S. soldiers returning from combat.

This is the conclusion to Salon’s weeklong “Coming Home” series, by Mark Benjamin and Michael de Yoanna, on preventable deaths at Fort Carson. You can read the introduction to the series here.

The subject title above is the third installment of a week long series of reports being run at Salon.com.

The first two installment reports can be found in links below or with this link of what I posted previously

Salon.com has a series running all this week called “Coming Home”, researched and written by Mark Benjamin and Michael de Yoanna.

The following is the description and lead in information on the series:

GRITtv with Laura Flanders

The ongoing and rapid collapse of the US and Global economy, far from being an abstract series of events, is being brought home forcefully and concretely to millions of people on a personal level with the loss of their jobs and consequent drastic reduction in their ability to not only purchase things they want for themselves and their families but even to purchase the basic necessities of life and obtain things they need.

A cycle pushing us into a self reinforcing deflationary spiral in which less and less people are able to support the dwindling economy with their purchases which causes even more job loss and less economic activity, and so on, as we saw highlighted in very sharp focus in How Bad? This Bad with the graph from Swampland compiled using Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers that:

…compares the job loss so far in this recession to job losses in the 1990-1991 recession and the 2001 recession — showing how dramatic and unprecedented the job loss over the last 13 months has been.  Over the last 13 months, our economy has lost a total of 3.6 million jobs – and continuing job losses in the next few months are predicted.

By comparison, we lost a total of 1.6 million jobs in the 1990-1991 recession, before the economy began turning around and jobs began increasing; and we lost a total of 2.7 million jobs in the 2001 recession, before the economy began turning around and jobs began increasing.

The response from the government so far, from the Bush administration and the Congress, and continuing through into the new Obama administration, has been attempts at bailouts of the very wealthy in the financial sector, through shoveling money at manufacturers such as the auto industry so they can continue producing products in the face of crippling reductions in sales revenues, effectively “stealing” money from their prospective customers who were already more and more unable to buy their products, to finally with the current administration to an ostensible “stimulus” bill supposedly aimed at “creating” jobs.

All of which has been and is being done by saddling taxpayers, the very people these attempts have been ostensibly aimed at “helping” with long-debunked “trickle down” economics, with enormous and growing crushing future debt and thus crippling their future as well as present ability to purchase products and services, and crippling future prospects for an economic recovery.  

The Hidden Casualties Of War: Suicide

Military Suicides at a 30-Year High

Suicide Rate Reflects Toll of Army Life

With Suicides at a 30-Year High, Army Vows to Address Problem

In 2008 alone, the Army reports there were at least 128 confirmed cases of suicide, more than a dozen of which are still under review.

U.S. Army Suicides Highest In 3 Decades