Tag: Afganistan

This being Memorial Day Weekend, while we are all celebrating, we need a reminder of what this “holiday” is really about.

Grim statistic: 1000th American Military Death in Afghanistan. Blessed Be.

   The toll of American soldiers killed in Afghanistan reached 1,000 on Friday, a grim milestone that came as Americans back home prepared to commemorate their war dead.

   News that the body count had ticked into four figures came with the death in a roadside bombing of an American serviceman, yet to be named, who was the 32nd US soldier to die in the past month. He is the 430th to be killed in Afghanistan since President Obama took office in January 2009.

Reflections of war

The Vietnam War’s length can be measured in many ways. The formal beginning of U.S. involvement often is dated to Aug. 7, 1964, when Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, giving the president a virtual carte blanche to wage war. By the time the last U.S. ground combat troops were withdrawn in March 1973, the war had lasted 103 months.

U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001. On June 7, the war will complete its 104th month. President Obama on Thursday reaffirmed his commitment to the war, saying “it is absolutely critical that we dismantle that network of extremists that are willing to attack us.”

This longest war is far from America’s bloodiest. It has drifted in and out of focus and, for much of its life, been obscured by another war, in Iraq.

When will we ever learn?

h/t Jim White at FDL

I’m going to hazard a few predictions here. I hope I’m wrong. If I am you can crucify me later.

Neither BP nor anyone else has any workable idea how to stop the leak. If they did it would have been stopped by now.

The leak will continue to flow into the ocean for the foreseeable future, until the reservoir pressure drops to lower than the pressure of the weight of the ocean pressing down on it. At some point perhaps the seabed will collapse into an emptying reservoir and there will be seabed earthquakes. And maybe tsunamis.

BP will not be “shoved aside”. The government will not take over the management of the disaster response. Neither BP nor any of its management will face any substantive sanctions or criminal charges for this. Nor will BP be “debarred” from government contracts by the EPA.

For a very simple and obvious reason.

The government has the largest military in the world to supply and operate, and the government has two military occupations in progress to run.

BP has been one of the biggest suppliers of fuel to the Pentagon in recent years, with much of its oil going to U.S. military operations in the Mideast. (It sold $2.2 billion in oil to the Pentagon last year, making it No. 1 among all the oil companies in sales to the military, according to the latest figures from the Defense Energy Support Center.)

The government is going to do everything they can possibly do to keep BP alive and healthy, to keep their largest supplier of fuel to the military operating profitably and supplying that fuel.

Ken Salazar spouting his “”We will keep our boot on their neck until the job gets done” line to the media is PR to keep the peasants from burning down the castle, and is probably the only way he has of avoiding being made the scapegoat and saving himself.

Sorry about the Gulf of Mexico, folks. It’s being sacrificed for the (heave) greater good.

In this mornings Editorial in the NYT, the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is labeled as “frustrating, difficult and – as his recent anti-American rants make especially clear – not a reliable partner.” Not necessarily an inaccurate description but then the US government backed him and is now whining because he is acting as the head of a sovereign nation and criticizing the policies of the US and NATO Allies

Muslim veterans in Charlotte condemn Fort Hood shooting

The vets said they hope not all Muslims would be blamed for the actions of one man. The suspected shooter who killed 13 people is Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who is said to be a devout Muslim.

“I’m not a terrorist. I love America,” said Salahuddin Hasan, a veteran of the Vietnam War.

Hasan and the other vets gathered at the Masjid Ash-Shaheed mosque on West Sugar Creek Road in Charlotte where Khalil Akbar is the Imam…>>>>>Rest Found Here

Dover ‘Old Guard’

Dover ‘Old Guard’ team shoulders heavy burden

Iraq, Rapidly becoming the Forgotten War!!

There have been 4,603 coalition deaths — 4,286 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 May 5 2009, 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 31,230 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon. View casualties in the war in Afghanistan.

First Photos of Fallen Soldier Ends 18-Year Ban – 4.05.09

An airman stands next to the coffin containing the body of Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers as it is lowered from a plane upon its return to the U.S. at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware April 5, 2009. Myers, of Hopewell, Virginia, died April 4 near Helmand province, Afghanistan of wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device. For the first time since the Obama administration reversed an 18-year-old ban on news coverage of returning fallen soldiers, the military allowed media to cover to cover the arrival tonight of an airman killed in Afghanistan. Collapse

(Joshua Roberts/REUTERS)

I wish to thank the families who allowed the press photo’s showing the respect the fallen receive and the real cost of war!!

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.

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

‘GoldStar Moms’ Honor Their Fallen, Christmas 2008