Category: Iraq

And the Reason for War, especially of Choice!!

Growing findings of Huge War Profiteering for their Blood Money on the Sacrifices of our Soldiers and their Families!!

Four War on Terra stories for a Wednesday afternoon:

1. The House of Representatives just voted No on a resolution to direct the President to remove the United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan within 30 days, or by Dec 31, 2010 if a later date is safer.  65 to 356.  H Conn RES 248 was sponsored by Dennish Kucinich of Ohio and had 19 co sponsors.     http://clerk.house.gov/evs/201…

Patrick Kennedy (D, RI) is down as a NO vote inspite of this story on HuffPo where he yells at the MSM for not paying attention to this national debate.   “We’re talking about war and peace, $3 billion, 1,000 lives and no press! No press !”  WTF?  No vote, dude!  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

The Yes on withdrawal votes were as follows.  We thank the 5 Republicans who also voted for this (marked with ••).

Baldwin

••Campbell, John, CA 48

Capuano

Chu

Clarke

Clay

Cleaver

Crowley

Davis (IL)

DeFazio

Doyle

••Duncan John TN- 2

Edwards (MD)

Ellison

Farr

Filner

Frank (MA)

Grayson

Grijalva

Gutierrez

Hastings (FL)

Jackson (IL)

Jackson Lee (TX)

••Johnson Timothy  (IL- 15)

Johnson, E. B.

••Jones Walter NC -3

Kagen

Kucinich

Larson (CT)

Lee (CA)

Lewis (GA)

Maffei

Maloney

Markey (MA)

McDermott

McGovern

Michaud

Miller, George

Nadler (NY)

Napolitano

Neal (MA)

Obey

Olver

••Paul, Ron, TX 14

Payne

Pingree (ME)

Polis (CO)

Quigley

Rangel

Richardson

Sánchez, Linda T.

Sanchez, Loretta

Schakowsky

Serrano

Speier

Stark

Stupak

Tierney

Towns

Tsongas

Velázquez

Waters

Watson

Welch

Woolsey

Spoken Publicly and with Force of Conviction!

And not only as to those leaders who send our Military to wars of choice but also the war profiteers who reap wealth from the huge defense budgets spent and these wars!

Unlawful killing: coroner attacks army inadequacies over blast that killed four

Crossposted at Daily Kos

THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS

This weekly diary takes a look at the past week’s important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with analysis and commentary added in by me.

When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge base and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?

2. Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?

3. Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?

The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist’s message.

:: ::

Chris Britt, Comics.com, see reader comments in the State Journal-Register

In that parallel world from the reality around them and elsewhere, you’ll get some as you go down but the kicker is the last report.

This type of thought process by the hawkish must end, unless the rest of the world communities want perpetual war and criminal terrorism as we’ve experienced over the last decades and now the chances of even more have been greatly enhanced with the death and destruction wrought by the so called mighty who followed same thought process into the creation of greater hatreds and enemies!

I have been trying to post up, as time permits and doing other issues, on the Inquiries, and related, especially as the number grew as well as the possibilities of more coming. Have them at a stand alone site here if interested.

Staying on: The last Brits in Iraq

13 February 2010

Most people think Britain’s military involvement in Iraq is over. But for the forgotten Royal Navy and Royal Marine teams that remain in the country, the truth is very different indeed

Royal Marine Danny Cole, of the Iraqi Training Advisory Mission at Umm Qasr, reflects: ‘It is sad to think that the rest of the world doesn’t even know that we are here’

His forehead furrowed with concentration, Sajad grips the wheel of the Defender twin-engined boat as he spins it into a perfectly executed turn at speed, sending out a swell of seawater and spray. Triumphantly, he looks to his boyhood friend from Basra, equally resplendent in his new Iraqi Navy uniform, and the pair share the laugh of lads who have just discovered an exciting toy. >>>>>

We’ve all heard from the Obama WH about the fact the the Great War on Terror, sometimes called The Long War, ended shortly after Obama took office in 2010, as was evidenced by the renaming of it to “Overseas Contingency Operations” last year.

Now after seven bloody years and by some counts over a million Iraqi deaths the Obama Administration has announced that Operation Iraqi Freedom is, according to the White House and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, finally over as well.

ABC News reported Thursday evening that…

…the Obama administration has decided to give the war in Iraq — currently known as Operation Iraqi Freedom — a new name.

The new name: “Operation New Dawn.”

In a February 17, 2010, memo to the Commander of Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the “requested operation name change is approved to take effect 1 September 2010, coinciding with the change of mission for U.S. forces in Iraq.”

You can read the memo — a copy of which was sent to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen – HERE [.pdf].

[snip]

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell had no comment on the memo, saying it speaks for itself.

The move has met with some criticism. In a statement, Brian Wise, executive director of Military Families United said, “You cannot end a war simply by changing its name.  Despite the Administration’s efforts to spin realities on the ground, their efforts do not change the situation at hand in Iraq. Operational military decisions should not be made for purposes of public relations, as the Secretary of Defense cites, but should be made in the best interests of our nation, the  troops on the ground and their families back home.”

If Gates was hoping that “Operation New Dawn” would convey a new period in the US-Iraq relationship, it’s not clear that was the best choice of name.

After all, Operation New Dawn was the name for the bloody and grueling 2004 battle for Fallujah.

Dahr Jamail has just posted a review of “Mass Casualties: A Young Medic’s True Story of Death, Deception and Dishonor in Iraq,” by Michael Anthony, with extensive quotes from the book.

“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.”

“I think about why I’m fighting this war and my eyes tear up. I think of all the people we’ve killed. I think of all the people’s families – mothers, fathers, siblings – and how they’ll never see them again … I think about the war and I feel nothing. I think about life and death, mine and everyone else’s, and I feel nothing. I think about myself and I don’t care if I live or die. On these nights, mortars go off and I won’t get out of bed. I’ll lie in bed as the bombs go off. I tell myself it doesn’t matter if I live or die, nothing matters – I like it when I feel nothing.”

“I had a friend who didn’t want to go to Iraq so he purposely failed five drug tests in a row (smoking pot and doing coke) he still got sent to Iraq. There was one guy in my unit who didn’t want to go to Iraq, he told our commanders he was suicidal, they said he still had to go. The soldier then went and got a swastika tattooed on his shoulder, he told the commanders that he was racist and hated everyone except white people; commanders said he still had to go to Iraq. The next day he takes a bottle of pills and tries to kill himself – and I’m sure if he were physically capable of it, he still would have had to go to Iraq. There was a guy in my unit who was on anti-depressant medication; our commanders said they couldn’t deploy him on that medication that he should stop taking it. The next day he tries to stab someone and is put in jail, he still went to Iraq with us. There are more and more of the same stories … There’s literally nothing you can do to not go to Iraq and I think that’s why suicidal and homicidal patients aren’t getting the care they need because before it’s time to go overseas, you’re going no matter what, and after you get back, the government doesn’t care.”

Meanwhile Fox News is screaming about “human shields” supposedly deployed by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

In an effort to create hostility between coalition troops and local Afghans, insurgents are also reportedly using civilians as human shields – deliberately trying to force coalition troops to fire upon non-combatants.

This very emotive phrase, “human shields,” was even solemly echoed by some dim-witted fourth-tier bloggers on usually progressive sites like firedoglake, where the in-house “expert” about Afghanistan Jim White wrote…

New reports are now suggesting that the largest civilian casualty event so far in the offensive may not have been due to improper targeting, but instead resulted from the use of civilians as human shields by Taliban fighters.

And the miserable Mr. White also quotes this steaming pile of horseshit…

The ISAF later suggested that the coalition’s initial apology (for killing 10 or 12 civilians including 6 children) had been in error. Coalition investigators now think that the rocket hit its target and two insurgents died in the strike in addition to the 12 civilians, ISAF officials said. They’re trying to determine whether those Taliban were holding the civilians prisoner.

White only adds that “it should not require pointing out that the use of civilian hostages as human shields is a war crime.”

So let’s retract that apology, because along with 6 children and 4 other civilians, maybe we also killed 2 Taliban!

And even supposing that the Taliban really were holding thoise civilians hostage, why is it supposedly okay, inevitable, no apology required, to kill ten civilians just to take out 2 Taliban? Ordinary policemen encounter hostage situations all the time, and it’s never okay, inevitable, no apology required if cops killed 10 civilians to take out 2 bank-robbers.

So what’s the tremendous, all-changing difference that somehow excuses civilian casualties in combat, no apology required?

In this particular instance, instead of making do with idiotic hand-waving about the “heat of battle” from some no-combat shit-head apologist for all things Obama, we actually have a specific explanation from an honest-to-God soldier in the combat zone, General Mohiudin Ghori.

Ghori, the senior commander for Afghan troops in the area, accused the Taliban of placing civilian hostages in the line of fire. “Especially in the south of Marjah, the enemy is fighting from compounds where soldiers can very clearly see women or children on the roof or in a second-floor or third-floor window,” he was quoted by Associated Press as saying. “They are trying to get us to fire on them and kill the civilians.”

His forces were having to choose between not returning fire and advancing much more slowly in order to distinguish militants from civilians, Ghori said, echoing comments by British commanders in the area about Taliban tactics.

Choose between not returning fire and advancing much more slowly in order to distinguish militants from civilians!

Choose between not returning fire and advancing much more slowly in order to distinguish militants from civilians!

The fiendish Taliban might force our forces to slow down and “distinguish militants from civilians!”

Unthinkable!

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    This will be, in the proper blogotoobz vernacular, a short diary.

    Simply put, I DEMAND media coverage of America’s wars NOW!

    If these wars are NOT worth media coverage, they are not worth fighting. If the threat America faces from it’s enemies is so great that it is absolutely necessary that we go to war, than it is absolutely necessary that the “free” press gives it ample coverage.

    Since the Presidential Primaries back in the Spring of 2008 coverage of America’s wars have almost entirely disappeared from the traditional media. With the exception of a few intrepid journalists the traditional media has given us NOTHING as far as details of what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan except for the times when Dick Cheney emerges from his crypt, when President Obama sent more troops to Afghanistan, when an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at George Bush’s idiot of a son and when Rudy “9/11,9/11,9/11” shows up to collect his royalty fee.

   In short, I want DETAILS, and if you’re not in the mood you better GET IN THE MOOD, Mister.

More below the fold

A two part series, from Time magazine, of a total breakdown of a platoon and especially one soldier’s descent into madness in Iraq. The leadership vacuum, moral and the chain of command not recognizing what was happening. {I added ‘abeers’ photo’s}

I’m sure we’ll be hearing much more about this book in the coming weeks!