Tag: Afghanistan

that, on the Third Friday and/or Third Weekend of every month, I will break my daily routine and take some action, by myself or with others, to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That’s the pledge that is at the heart of the Iraq Moratorium, whose 20th iteration is observed today (and tomorrow and Sunday). This no-budget, locally-based, grassroots-up initiative has had over 2000 listed organized events and tens of thousands of individual participants since it began on September 15, 2007.

Please do something today or over the weekend–call your congresscritter, wear a button or armband, put a sign in your window, join a vigil, pray.

We’d love you to check out the Iraq Moratorium website, newly revamped, and report what you did.

But do something!

The US media may not be reporting it and the politicians may not want to talk about it, but the situation in Iraq is deteriorating. On Friday, 5 US soldiers were killed in a truck bomb attack near Mosul, and another died Saturday when an IED hit his convoy north of Baghdad.

Nor can we forget that life for ordinary Iraqis is still full of danger–last week six simultaneous car bombs across Baghdad killed 32 and wounded 120–and full of misery–on a good day Iraqis are lucky to get four hours of electricity. No wonder tens of thousands filled the rain-drenched streets of Baghdad a week ago, chanting “No, No To America! No, No To Occupation!”

That war in Afghanistan, where 21,000 additional troops are being shipped into harm’s way? It’s actually a war in Afghanistan AND Pakistan. Two articles that you did not see in your local newspaper last week provide a much clearer picture. It is not a pretty one.

The News, an Pakistani paper published in English, laid out what those miraculous pilotless drones used by the US military actually do:

Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qa’eda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians.

One result of American death raining out of a clear sky is a massive refugee crisis. A new UN report says that 600,000 Pakistanis have from fled their homes in border areas rendered deadly by the drones and US-backed Pakistan Army operations. These internal refugees join 1.7 million homeless Afghan men, women and children who have fled into Pakistan!

How much more misery will the expansion of this war cause? How many more mujahidin fighters will it produce? It’s got to stop! We’ve got to stop it!

This Friday and this weekend mark the 20th observance of the Iraq Moratorium. Please take some action by yourself or with others to stop this war!

Crossposted at DailyKos.

You do not need to know his name to understand the enormity of what he is a part of, yet it is important that you do. You do not need to know that he died in Afghanistan, yet that point is not incidental to the existence of the flag-draped box left on the platform.

The coffin of Staff Sergeant Phillip Myers sits on the plane gangway at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware.

SSgt. Myers’ family gave permission for publication of this photo and it is the first published under the removal of the ban on photographs of coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan as they arrive at Dover Airforce Base.

For analysis of the photos and further discussion, see BAGnewsNotes.  

Below is a small collection of very recent reports of America’s Health Care and Veterans Issues and Care, coming out yesterday or within the last few days.

Once again the Frontline report is a must see!

 

In a fascinating article, Thomas Fuller an International Herald Tribune reporter, writes of Antoine Fayard, his maternal great-grandfather and a French colonial engineer “who built and designed roads, dams and canals across colonial Indochina.”

Fuller writes of his journey through Laos and Vietnam where he visited the locations his great-grandfather had been in the 1900s.

I knew where Fayard had traveled because our family had preserved his letters to his mother, photographs he took and a large and minutely detailed, hand-drawn silk map of what is now southern Laos.

Since reading Fuller’s article, “100 Years on, Tracing an Engineer’s Legacy“, I’ve mulled over the idea that maybe Americans have another lesson to learn from European colonialism when it comes to President Barack Obama’s ‘new’ strategy for Afghanistan.

Lessons from history are not always obvious. While Afghanistan is not Vietnam, I found some interesting parallels in the “civilian surge” part of Obama’s strategy with the efforts of French colonialists.

Last night the News Hour carried a report and the discussion with Petraeus and Holbrooke.

This is the site page link where you’ll find the transcript as well as the links for audio and video.

This link will give you their Video Player to watch from here.

There is No win in this now debacle. One thing about warfare these last couple of decades, outside of the bloviated power hawks talking tough to each other as others are sent to do the actual fighting, is every invasion turns to Guerilla Insurgency. It’s lost as soon as the Bombs start dropping, the Missiles Destroy, the Military Invades, ‘Hearts and Minds’ turn to Hate as their countries are destroyed but more important as their Loved Ones and Friends and Fellow Citizens are Blown To Bits or Cut Down by the Bullets Sprayed, than add in the arrests of Innocents, the Blackhole Worldwide Prisons and most of all Torture, Innocents become Enemies Real Fast, Real Fast! They either fight back or support those who do! It becomes an extreme uphill battle to win back a majority of those ‘Hearts and Minds’!!

Just ask yourself “What would you do if you were them?”!

Just think how many here felt after 9/11 and how that was used to kill and destroy many times over since!

Afghanistan stopped being about 9/11, in their eyes and the worlds eyes and minds as soon as the drums started beating towards Iraq. Security and money Stopped coming in to Stabilizes after the Taliban were removed and al Qaeda were forced to run, It Became The Quagmire That Exists Today and has expanded into Pakistan thus Inflaming the whole region even more!

Can stability be brought back, it’s possible, but the Hate will be Deeply Embedded, especially in the children growing up in the destruction and death, the ones that survive, and will linger for their decades of life!!

The only way a Guerilla Insurgency ends is on their time Not The Occupiers, but it than can be inflamed when policy is perceived  to be against those common folks, and they’ve got the fighting experience!!!!!!!

Just an added note, the Escalation, not ‘surge’, did not bring down the death and destruction in Iraq, the Iraqi people, sects, did. And that situation is a match just waiting to relight at anytime, the world can only dampen that match so it doesn’t until the Iraqi’s decide. We destroyed that Pandora’s Box, it’s up to us to try and help rebuild a new one but only if they want the help, and ours is shit in that country, others will fill the void!!  

Kathy Upton, pictured above in the red shirt, is the manager of the Best Western in George West. On Tuesday afternoon Upton donated two rooms to Rio Grande Valley veterans who are marching to San Antonio. This allowed the veterans to get showers after their 30-mile trek from Alice. (Photo: RGG/Joey Gomez)

A couple of days ago I posted about a group of Veterans Marching to San Antonio Texas to raise awareness of the need for Veterans Hospital in South Texas that’s been needed for a long time, the Texas Pols have promised but it never comes about, typical. {that link is for the post at my site}

This is to update that previous, with a few news reports, video and pictures, as these Vets are On The March!!

To View The Rest Of This Slide Show Click Here.