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POPSThe War Condolences Obama Hasn’t Sent
Chance was very troubled during his first tour of duty in Iraq, although he performed admirably by all accounts. At one point he was put on a suicide watch and had his ammunition taken away for a week. After Iraq, Chance declined a $27,000 reenlistment bonus and transitioned to the U.S. Army Reserves, hoping to avoid another deployment. He sought and was receiving treatment at a Veterans Affairs facility. Gregg said, “We sat down as a family, and we said, ‘President Obama is going to be elected, and President Obama will end this war, and you won’t have to go.’ ” But then his son’s orders to deploy came again. the GI Rights Hotline, which advises active-duty soldiers on options for leaving the military, says outside psychological professionals can help suicidal soldiers obtain a medical discharge: “The military wants to know whether the patient can perform their duties without causing trouble, embarrassment or expense. His or her welfare is distinctly less important.”
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POPS"There's No Way I'm Going to Deploy to Afghanistan" Another man of conscience chimes in: Having served three years and nine months in the U.S. Army, Agosto was to complete his contract and be discharged on Aug. 3. But due to his excellent record of service and accrued leave, he was to be released the end of June. Nevertheless, due to the stop-loss program, the Army decided to deploy him to Afghanistan anyway. Stop-loss is a program the military uses to keep soldiers enlisted beyond the terms of their contracts. Since Sep. 11, 2001, more than 140,000 troops have had tours extended by stop-loss. Agosto posted copies of the Counseling Statements issued by the Army on his Facebook page. Counseling Statements outline actions taken by the Army to discipline Agosto for his refusal to obey a direct order from his company commander. On one of them, dated May 1, Agosto's written statement appears: "There is no way I will deploy to Afghanistan. The occupation is immoral and unjust. It does not make the American people any safer. It has the
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POPSBrutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama Since taking office, Obama has: 1. Reconstituted the Military Commissions. 2. Denied detainees Constitutional and Geneva Conventions protections. 3. Praised torturers and murderers as dedicated public servants and vowed to violate US law to protect them from prosecution. 4. Expanded Bush's State Secrets legal theory. 5. Continued illegally spying on Americans. 6. Continued to use USAPATRIOT Act powers and not called for repeal. 7. Retained Gates as Secretary of Defense despite his tainted record. 8. Promoted General MacChrystal to commander in Afghanistan despite his tainted record. 9. Continued contracts with abusive, fraudulent private contractors. 10. Concealed evidence of war crimes. 11. Increased illegal attacks on Pakistan. 12. Increased drone attacks, with a horrific civilian death and injury rate, in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. 13. Not banned white phosphorus or cluster munitions. 14. Escalated the Afghan war. 15. Adopted Bush's Iraq war plan. 16. Threatene
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POPSObama's Middle East Imperialism Also morally questionable is the extension of the Afghanistan war into Pakistan, a bitter pill to swallow for those who once sincerely believed in Obama’s antiwar rhetoric. The house appropriations committee recently approved $2.3 billion in “emergency spending” for “assistance” to Pakistan, most of it for the purpose of making war: training Pakistani “counterinsurgency” forces and police and building a fortified U.S. super embassy. In an attempt to fool the American public about Pakistan, Obama has substituted the always-unpopular ground troops with unmanned drones, stepping up the use of this highly inaccurate form of combat since becoming President and consequently killing hundreds of civilians. Obama has also laid down the law for his puppet presidents in Afghanistan and Pakistan: they will fight his war to the end or be replaced. The recent scene in Washington of these two Presidents declaring “unity and cooperation” with Obama’s war plans was perhaps the most farcical imper
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POPSThe Cheney Bullshit is beginning to clear up Olbermann is on to the truth about the lead up to the war and how Cheney's psychotic torture obsession caused the USA to enter the war in Iraq. The guy should be hung by his feet on the Whitehouse lawn.
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POPS'The War Is Not a Game:' Gold Star Families Speak Out Expresses Outrage at Video Game "Just as Sony abandoned plans to launch a video game called Shock & Awe in 2003, Konami Atomic games should cancel their plans to release 'Six Days in Fallujah' before they instill more thoughtless pain on anyone" GSFSO member Joanna Polisena, sister of Army Staff Sergeant Edward Carman, Killed in Action in Iraq on April 17, 2004 added "When our loved one's 'health meter' dropped to '0', they didn't get to 'retry' the mission. When they took a bullet, they didn't just get to pick up a health pack and keep 'playing'...they suffered, they cried, they died. We - their parents, siblings, spouses, children and friends - absolutely find it disgusting and repulsive that those so far detached (and clinging to denial of reality) find it so easy to poke fun at such a thing." Joan Maymi, whose nephew, Captain Ernesto Manuel Blanco-Caldas, was Killed in Action in Iraq on December 28, 2003 said, "Unless you have suffered the death of loved one like we have, or are caring for the ones who have
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POPSObama's Triple Surge Into Afghanistan What Obama has not mentioned is that, in addition to soldiers and civilians, there is a third surge in his plan: private military contractors. Yes, another privatized army, such as the one in Iraq. There, the Halliburtons, Blackwaters and other war profiteers ran rampant, shortchanging our troops, ripping off taxpayers, killing civilians and doing deep damage to America's good name. Already, there are 71,000 private contractors operating in Afghanistan, and many more are preparing to deploy as Pentagon spending ramps up for Obama's war. The military is now offering new contracts to security firms to provide armed employees (aka, mercenaries) to guard U.S. bases and convoys. Despite the widespread contractor abuses in Iraq, Pentagon chief Robert Gates defends the ongoing privatization push: "The use of contractor security personnel is vital to supporting the forward-operating bases in certain parts of the country," he declared in a February letter to the Senate Armed Services Committ
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POPSThe True Death Toll of the Iraq War Unfortunately, the masses of ‘Merikan sheeple will never understand this or even be aware of it…but thanks for posting and I’ll pass it on…some of us actually DO CARE!
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POPSThe Afghan Scam-- The Untold Story see article--very good Instead, the Bush administration perpetrated a scam. It used the system it set up to dispense reconstruction aid to both the countries it "liberated," Afghanistan and Iraq, to transfer American taxpayer dollars from the national treasury directly into the pockets of private war profiteers. Think of Halliburton, Bechtel, and Blackwater in Iraq; Louis Berger Group, Bearing Point, and DynCorp International in Afghanistan. They're all in it together. So far, the Bush administration has bamboozled Americans about its shady aid program. Nobody talks about it. Yet the aid scam, which would be a scandal if it weren't so profitable for so many, explains far more than does troop strength about why, today, we are on the verge of watching the whole Afghan enterprise go belly up.
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POPSObama Must Get Out of Afghanistan Once again, as in the run-up to the War in Iraq, too few people in Congress and the mainstream media are asking tough questions. There are some notable exceptions--see Friedman and Herbert--and in Congress, there's Senator Russ Feingold who writes in a recent op-ed: Few people seem willing to ask whether the main solution that's being talked about- sending more troops to Afghanistan--will actually work. If the devastating policies of the current administration have proved anything, it's that we need to ask tough questions before deploying our brave service members--and that we need to be suspicious of Washington 'group think.' Otherwise, we are setting ourselves up for failure.
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POPSRobin Long's letter in support of Israeli objectors About 100 Israeli high school students have signed an open letter declaring their refusal to serve in the Israeli army and their opposition to "Israeli occupation and oppression policy in the occupied territories and the territories of Israel." In Israel, military service is mandatory for all graduating high school seniors, and resisters face the possibility of years in prison.
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POPSWe Arm the World e more we help one side, the more that regime’s opponents are driven to seek arms from another supplier, leading to an inevitable spiral of arms buying, provocation and conflict,” Klare says. According to Stohl, “The Bush administration has demonstrated a willingness to provide weapons and military training to weak and failing states and countries that have been repeatedly criticized by the U.S. State Department for human rights violations, lack of democracy and even support of terrorism.”
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POPSMost Popular Dude in Iraq I hope they didn't beat the uy too bad (they did beat him) and he should be given a parade, not jail time...They'll probably just deport him to Egypt.
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POPSIraq Cabinet Approves Removal of US troops Still, Kevin Drum argues that sticking to the deal would be good for Obama: since this essentially makes his decision to withdraw into a bipartisan agreement. After all, conservatives can hardly complain about Obama following a timetable that was negotiated and approved by Bush. Obama has enough on his plate already, and taking this issue off the table ought to be a considerable relief to him. Hmmm, maybe. But it wouldn't go down well with many progressives who expect Obama to stick to his promises to America before he sticks to Bush's promises to Iraq.
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POPSAnyone Remember the Cost of The Wars? Estimates of the true long-term costs of the President's war of choice, including payments of health care and veterans benefits into the distant future, soar into the budgetary stratosphere. They range from the Congressional Budget Office's $1-2 trillion to an estimate by economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes of up to $4-5 trillion. So we're talking somewhere between one-and-a-half and seven bailouts-worth of taxpayer dollars flowing into the morass of disaster, corruption, and carnage in Iraq. As Chalmers Johnson, author most recently of Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic, the final volume of his Blowback Trilogy, has pointed out for years, the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, and America's wars are in the process of bankrupting us.
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POPSThink we’re tough? Think again the war is illegal. Therefore, regardless the “provocation,” every person in Iraq who has been killed by a U.S. soldier, or died as a result of the occupation/invasion, has been murdered -- with the blood squarely traceable to America’s hands. So now, we just spill guts. Nonetheless, I’m sure if you look really, really hard, you may find some folks who consider those troops, and tons more like ‘em, to be real Americans, cut from the same cloth as the super-patriot archetype so frequently portrayed and firmly established decades ago by John Wayne. I wonder, though, how many of them would know Wayne never served in the military, receiving not one but two deferments during World War II. In other words, his persona was an illusion. And so, apparently, is the one we Americans have collectively assigned ourselves since childhood, that of liberty’s uncompromising defender who, upon sensing the slightest hint of mortal danger to the Constitution, would, along with a nation full of eq
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POPSZinn: US 'In Need of Rebellion' Obviously, since the war in Iraq, the rest of the world has fallen away from the United States, and if American foreign policy continues in the way it has been - that is aggressive and violent and uncaring about the feelings and thoughts of other people - then the influence of the United States is going to decline more and more. This is an empire which is on the one hand the most powerful empire that ever existed; on the other hand an empire that is crumbling - an empire that has no future ... because the rest of the world is alienated and simply because this empire is top-heavy with military commitments, with bases around the world, with the exhaustion of its own resources at home. leading to more and more discontent and home, so I think the American empire will go the way of other empires and I think it is on its way now. Q: What should the world know about the United States? HZ: What I find many people in the rest of the world don't know is that there is an oppos
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