Category: War

H/t to Devin at Dkos

Joe Biden….excuse me, future Vice President, Joe Biden:

“In an Obama-Biden administration, we will not have an attorney general who blatantly breaks the law,” Biden said at a town-hall meeting in West Palm Beach, Florida, his voice at times drowned out by applause. “We will not have a president who doesn’t understand the Constitution. And I will not be a vice-president who thinks he’s not part of any of the three branches of government.”

snip

Looking to the future but with one eye on the past, Biden also promised that an Obama-Biden government would go through Bush administration data with “a fine-toothed comb” and pursue criminal charges if necessary.  

“If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation,” he said, “they will be pursued, not out of vengeance, not out of retribution – out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no one, no attorney general, no president, no one is above the law.”

Encouraging stuff, especially when reinforced by Obama’s previous statement to Will Bunch:

Note #1:  This is a highly personal diary but it touches on some important issues like education, prison reform, the drug war, the death penalty, war and peace, and man’s inhumanity to man.  To the extent that it is self-indulgent, I beg your forgiveness.  

Note #2:  I’ve been reluctant to post this for both personal and political reasons.  The personal will become obvious as you read, the political being all that’s going on right now such as the police state bullshit in MN, the repub convention and their ‘oh we’re so serious about governance’ choice of Palin for VeePee.  But it occurs to me that there’s always going to be a lot going on, so I probably should just post it now that it’s not quite ready.

Part I – Words Are Like Poison

I believe that we all have a story to tell…here’s mine.

I wrote about growing up as an Army brat in An American Tale.

Life as a military dependent was a fascinating way to grow up and contributed much to the formation of my personal point of view.  I would take nothing for the value I have derived from my interactions with other cultures.  It taught me that deep connections are often made between profoundly different people, suggesting what has become a theme in my life – that we are all more alike than we are different.  

Many of us, especially Veterans who are Advocates for our brothers and sisters and those Civilians who join that advocacy, have been writing about the Veterans Administration and especially Veterans Care, which in these times of conflicts also encompass the Military Care system as well. With this technology we can push our advocacy untill it’s paid the attention it should already have by those who do the job of reporting as a profession. And because of the extreme lack of oversight and concern by the representatives we hire, as the drums of war were first pounding and the years following, we find breaking stories far to often in these last months. Months that have brought out the problems with the care, the overwelming numbers needing care and being denied for months or just denied, the living conditions of those receiving the care and even serving, and so much more.

When we write about the needs or the lack oversight and funds we far to often, myself included though I try and remember in my rage, leave out the facts of the true dedication of the workers in the VA System. The workers, who like most of us working stiffs, give their all to the jobs and professions they perform and have to deal with what’s lacking from the administrations, top on down, of these agencies. In the government that administration starts with the Executive Branch, the Congress, the Political Appointee’s to head and the Political Appointee’s they bring in, and Especially to the Governed, Us, who fight the costs needed or follow political ideology leadership if not wanted.

Every once in awhile a report will surface of that dedication within:

Original article, by Simon Assaf, via www.socialistworker.org.uk:

The occupation of Afghanistan has entered a new and deeper crisis. A rising number of sophisticated attacks on foreign troops, combined with a growing rebellion in Pakistan and Russia’s crushing of Nato ally Georgia, have raised the prospect that the occupation is heading for defeat.

Things sound like they’re going swimmingly in Afghanistan, don’t they?

This is my LTE to numerous newspapers, locally and nationally!

Mr. Out of Touch, McCain!

As of April 22, 2008,

” . . . .When George W. Bush took office in 2000, oil was $28 per barrel, the euro was $.87 on the dollar, gold was $274 per ounce, and the national debt was $5.9 trillion. Today, oil is a record $114 per barrel, the euro is nudging $1.60 on the dollar, gold is $945 per ounce, and the National Debt is $9 trillion. The country is presently engaged in a $2 trillion war in Iraq with no end in sight. The federal government has expanded over 30% under Bush. Wages for working people have stagnated, unemployment has risen, 47 million Americans are without health care, and the economy is slipping into recession. By every objective standard, the country is worse off today than when Bush first took office. . . . (source: “Message To Fed Chief Bernanke: ‘Enough With The Cuts, Already'” — Mike is a freelance writer living in Washington state.)

We have two theaters of occupations of others in destroyed countries, destroyed by us, one in continuing destruction from others before to us now and our broken promises of helping to rebuild as that theater grows more dangerous, the other totally destroyed on the trumped up lies of a twisted ideology of a few, tens of thousands dead and maimed, millions living as refugee’s, billions of dollars wasted, stolen, lost in the machine of war profitteering, soldiers serving mutiple tours in both, families of same scraficing as a nation that is not moves along, most not caring what is happening In Their Names.

We call this “The War On Terror” and in the seven years these conflict theaters have been raging all we’ve created are the hatreds that will feed the ranks of the criminal terrorists leading to damaged National Securities around the globe and more theaters of death, destruction and occupations.

The sub title of this ‘War On Terrorism’ has been sold to all as a clash of twisted religious ideologies, a ‘Religious War’, on all sides. Those war hawks supporting and pushing these ideologies, few of them fighting, define everything about these clashes with political and religious labels, those opposed are left to define in same manner.

Heal the Country.

I most certainly am not an Edward Tick, author of War and the Soul: Healing Our Nation’s Veterans from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and a few other books, as well as the article in Yes Magazine linked above. He is also the director and senior psychotherapist of Soldier’s Heart: Veteran’s Safe Return Initiatives.

So I’ll give a few of the cuts from the article and add some other related information I’ve recently received.

The Economic Crisis defined by the neocons, isn’t the fact that folks are losing their homes/jobs/retirements, etc.  No, Economic Crisis for the neocons is the fact that folks are finally waking up to the fact that our country has been robbed blind and these sleepy folks may soon be seeking justice and/or blood.

The Political Crisis defined by the neocons isn’t the fact that our politicians and government have been bought by corporations and are corrupt to the core.  No, Political crisis for the neocons is the fact that folks are finally waking up to the fact that our politicians and government agencies have been bought by corporations and are corrupt to the core.

Its a pickle for the neocons…..how can they continue with business as usual when so many folks are on to them.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced in a nationally televised speech on Tuesday that he had ordered an end to the military campaign in Georgia, saying that the Russian military had punished Georgia and restored security.  Various skirmishes had continued overnight Monday but no major offensives on either side were being reported.

From the BBC: Medvedev’s statement included:

“I’ve decided to finish the operation to force the Georgian authorities to peace. The safety of our peacekeeping forces and civilian population has been restored.

“The aggressor has been punished, having sustained considerable losses. Its armed forces have been disorganised”

Yesterday my aunt in Arizona and I got into our usual squabble about politics and world events.  She’s an nice woman, a retired nurse that sadly has drunk the kool-aid John Airbus McCain has put out.  Well today she sent me an email with the subject line “John McCain would handle Russia”.  You can pretty much guess what the whole email was about.  At first I thought I would respond with highlight the usual deficiencies in neo-con foreign affairs.  Then it hit me, what’s going between Georgia and Russia was indeed because of neo-conservative foreign policy!    

Original Article with an untranslated title of ? ????? ?????? ???? ? ???? ???????????? ??????? via izvestia.ru.

Here’s the google translation link: http://translate.google.com/tr…

Ooops!

In South Ossetia captured Georgian group suicide, which is U.S. citizen, African American. ?? ???? ???????? “?????????? ?????”. It is reported “Osetinskoe radio.”