DON'T SUPPORT THE TROOPS (If You Don't Support the War)

I started writing this essay on Memorial Day 2006. I had just finished listening on the radio to one of those obligatory Memorial Day lists of men and women who had died in Iraq in the past year. It was a long list, and that particular list only included military people with Massachusetts ties. There wasn't time to give the longer list of all the U. S. war casualties of the past three years.

According to the narrative accompanying the list, every man and every woman whose name was read was a hero. If you approve of this war, you probably agree. If you don't support the war well, you probably agree, also. But should you?

Over and over again, I hear people opposing this war in the strongest terms - citing its immorality, needless destructiveness of life and property, mercenary self-interest, and occasionally its sadistic viciousness. Then I hear these same people extolling the virtues of the young Americans involved in the conflict, admonishing everyone to "support our troops" no matter how wrong the war. Folks, this is nuts. Change the situation a little bit, then think about what you're saying:

*My son is a serial killer, but I support him.

*My daughter beats her children, but I support her.

*My husband is a pedophile, but I support him.

*My brother is stealing money from his business, but I support him.

Do you say those things? Maybe you do, but I bet what you really mean is that you hate what they''ve done, but you still love them, and you'll see they get a good attorney or psychiatrist, you'll visit them in jail, and you'll help them rehabilitate when they get out. You're not saying that you are going to help them keep doing the wrong things they've been doing. And yet, what you are really saying when you say you "support the troops" is that you are willing to continue enabling them to do immoral, illegal, mercenary and sadistic things.

Face it: If you feel the war is unjust, then it is unreasonable to regard the people fighting it as just or heroic.

This is a hard one for those opposing the war. Few want to appear unpatriotic (for, after all, patriotism is the hallmark of the true American); fewer still want to be branded (as they will be) as being indifferent to the loss of American lives. But remember that wars can only occur if there are people willing to fight them. Our current military is all voluntary. No one made any of these men and women fight against their wills. They are either: (1) mercenaries who fight for the money or the thrill; (2) people who consider themselves "patriots," who feel they are "fighting for their country," and that killing is a legitimate way to deal with problems; (3) folks who are in the military as a career, and are willing to follow any orders given them in order to maintain that career; or (4) people who never for a moment thought they would be in a war, who joined a National Guard unit either to serve in local emergencies or who sold themselves for (as one of the commercial come-ons put it) some extra money to buy a boat. None of these reasons is heroic in itself, and dying for any of these reasons does not constitute heroism.

I don't think there are any "just wars," but there are people opposed to this war who feel it is okay to kill people and destroy civilizations in other circumstances. These people often point out that military people have to fight this war, no matter what they think of it, because they aren't free to pick and choose between the wars they will and won't fight. Sure, they are. Just this morning (8 June 2006), the news reported that a career military officer had just refused to return to Iraq for a second tour of duty because he has become convinced that it is an unjust, immoral war. I'm sure there is a penalty for his decision - dishonorable discharge, possibly loss of pension, maybe even jail time - but apparently his personal integrity makes him willing to pay that penalty, rather than obeying orders he feels are immoral. Others have made similar decisions in the past; others will make them in the future. Anyone can make them who has a strong enough conviction that disobeying orders is worth the personal sacrifice. If we judge this war as evil, as our verbiage indicates we do, then these refusers are the people we should be considering heroes, not the ones who keep the conflict going.

Do you really want to "support the troops?" Then, help find a way to stop their senseless killing and being killed. Elect politicians who will see to it that war is not the first choice for settling differences between nations. Demand of our leaders that the United States become a cooperator with other nations, not a selfish bully. Work through your elected officials to make sure that there is a clear demarcation between the military and the National Guard, so those who chose to serve this country in its domestic needs are available in times of crisis, can support their families, and can be dependable employees when not on duty. And "support the troops" when they come home, with proper medical and psychological care so necessary after the damages of any war.

I feel sad that so many Americans have been killed in Iraq, but no sadder that I feel for all the Iraqi lives lost. I feel compassion for the American families who have lost husbands, wives, lovers, sons and daughters, but no more compassion than I feel for the far greater number of shattered Iraqi families. I support every effort to get our military and the Administration's private henchmen out of the Middle East. But I don't support the war. And I don't support the troops.

http://home.netcom.com/~symbios/troopsupport.html

Don't Support Our Troops

The slogan "Support Our Troops" has come to symbolize gas-guzzling SUV's with magnetic yellow ribbons on the back and American flag decals in the window. In an effort to guard themselves against accusations they are unpatriotic, Progressives have co-opted that phrase and added the words "Bring Them Home Now." The intention of this new slogan is to claim the troops as our own, not just pawns of the right wing. We support them by wanting to end the war and bring them home. Implicit in this support is the notion that they deserve our unflagging gratitude and enthusiasm because they are not responsible for their situation. They are only following orders. It is up to us to see to it that they are extricated from the desperate circumstances our politicians have created for them. Both uses of this sound bite ignore the despotic nature of the military industrial complex in this country. Both are wrong.

I manage the data base and produce the graphics for the Iraq/Afghanistan Memorial Installation, a 450-foot-long (and growing) series of 3 by 6 foot vinyl banners displaying the names, pictures and obituaries of the U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Installation is a project of the Santa Fe Chapter of Veterans for Peace. I have spent hundreds of hours staring at the faces and reading biographies of the nearly 3400 (as of the writing of this article) young men and women who have been killed in these two wars of aggression. Though I am not a veteran and have not lost a loved one to war, I carry a deep sense of the tragedy these lost lives represent. But I do not "Support Our Troops."

When did the truth become an unspeakably radical position? At a time when what we need most is frank and honest discussion about the imperialist role the United States plays in the nightmare of global violence and militarization, what we see instead is an effort on the part of the antiwar movement to play politics with language. Rather than having the courage to reject platitudes, we attempt to stake out some imagined middle ground of justice and the rule of law. We pretend to ignore inconvenient facts for fear we might be labeled anti-American. We frame the truth in a way that may serve our ends even though the means is not as noble as we might hope. Expediency supplants integrity.

What if the principal and many of the teachers at your local high school claim a neighboring school is hiding a cache of weapons? The school administrators can't produce any evidence this is true. But just in case, the students are being armed and trained and will be sent to attack the other school, burn it to the ground and kill many of the families in the surrounding neighborhood. Would you give those kids a pat on the back, a tearful hug and send them off to commit this mayhem? Or would you encourage them to question the school administrators, demand proof of their claims, call in police and other legal authorities to investigate the alleged threat represented by the other school?

If in the end you were unable to convince the students they were being lied to, that there was no real danger, would you go ahead and "support the troops" just because you felt the need to demonstrate your loyalty to their school and neighborhood? Would you send them cookies at the holidays, warm socks, perhaps a video game or two they could use to distract themselves during their off hours? Would you laud them as heroes on their return home? It's not really their fault, after all. They've been lied to. The fact that they are killing and maiming innocent people is a secondary consideration. First, we need to assure them we support them in this terrible time.
These are difficult and complex moral considerations. When does support become facilitation? When does care and concern lend itself to the commission of crimes against the populations of other countries? When does loyalty supplant responsibility? Though I have my own answers to these questions, I can't answer for others. But I do believe they are questions that need to be asked.

The Bush administration made outlandish claims about Iraq and the imminent threat posed by Saddam Hussein. They insisted that the government of Afghanistan was harboring those responsible for the attacks of 9/11. Incredibly, in the next breath, they convinced many people that Iraq was responsible for those same attacks. All this was done without presenting even the slightest legitimate evidence for these claims. Being the good patriotic citizens that many of us are, we willingly sent our children off to kill and be killed, to murder thousands of civilians in Afghanistan and hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq for no other reason than that a handful of politicians and media pundits told us to do so. And all the while we continue to chant the myopic slogan, "Support Our Troops."

Following the horrific devastation that resulted from World War II the collective nations of the world adopted the Nuremberg Principles and the Geneva Conventions. As absurd as the notion may be that we can establish "rules" for war, none the less, we as a global community determined standards for military engagement between nations. Since that time, the United States has continually violated these standards. We have openly attacked and secretly undermined sovereign governments in our efforts to achieve global hegemony. We have installed and maintained brutal dictatorships whenever and wherever it served our purposes. We have used our military to conduct state-sponsored terrorism in order to change political landscapes to advance our imperialist agenda.

Our military is engaged in war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace in both Afghanistan and Iraq, not to mention the more than 100 other countries where we maintain a military presence. We instigated wars of aggression against two nations whose governments did not attack us, nor did they pose any threat to us. Our forces have destroyed untold billions of dollars worth of civilian infrastructure and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children. As American citizens our jingoistic support of the military in such endeavors has enabled this abusive behavior.

Nuremberg Principle IV states: "The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him." The politicians and corporate moguls who orchestrate the United States' imperialist ventures bear the bulk of responsibility for the crimes being committed. But soldiers who engage in the implementation of these policies are also culpable, from the most senior officers to the lowest ranking enlisted personnel. As a result of a political system that is controlled by corporate interests we no longer can rely on our elected officials to abide by the rule of law. The burden then must fall to members of our military establishment to disobey illegal and immoral orders.

The invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan are wars of aggression that violate the law and defy common sense. We have turned our children into war criminals. We ourselves, as American citizens, are accessories before and after the fact. A moral choice is available, to us and to members of our military. Ehren Watada is only one example of many soldiers who are making such choices. He is the highest ranking officer yet to refuse service in Iraq, rightfully claiming the war and the occupation violate the Constitution, international law and Army regulations. He and others like him are the ones who truly deserve our support. They are the real heroes of our misbegotten wars.

It does not matter what lies were told to take us into these wars. We are the aggressors. We are the rogue nation. When politicians and pundits on the left and the right claim they were deceived by George Bush or Colin Powell or some other neoconservative ideologue, we should respond with the obvious facts. Hundreds of thousands, indeed millions of people in this country and around the world were not fooled by these lies. None of us who opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan believed that either of these countries posed a threat to the United States. None of us believed there was any justification for dropping bombs on innocent civilians. None of us condoned these illegal and immoral actions.

The truth is painful, and stating it is far from politically correct. We as a nation have allowed our military to become a criminal element that is rampaging around the globe inflicting death and destruction on innocent populations. If we claim to be a civilized society, we must practice the same behavior we purport to expect of others. There is no rational argument in favor of wars of aggression, collective punishment, torture and abuse of human rights. Those paradigms are ineffective, morally indefensible and should be rejected by us unconditionally.

The facts themselves are clear. The needed response is also clear and indisputable. "Bring Them Home Now." That slogan should stand alone as the mantra for the antiwar movement. We must demand the immediate withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan and Iraq as well as anywhere else they are functioning in an imperial capacity or in violation of accepted standards of morality. Our government must end financial and military support for any and all countries that do not abide by the Nuremberg Principles and the Geneva Conventions.

When our military is no longer committing war crimes, when we are in compliance with basic standards of human rights and social justice, then we can break out the bumper stickers and ribbons that say "Support Our Troops." We can support their physical and emotional rehabilitation. We can support their return to their families and reintegration into their communities. We can properly fund veterans benefits and educational and employment opportunities for veterans. We can become a model of egalitarian compassion in the world instead of a bloodthirsty juggernaut spewing death and destruction in the wake of its imperialist ambitions. Until then, every American, as well as our military, are guilty of crimes against peace.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Patriotism/Don%27t_Support_Our_Troops.html

The Troops Don’t Support the Constitution

Every U.S. soldier takes an express and solemn oath to “support and defend the Constitution.” That oath, however, is a sham because the troops do not support or defend the Constitution. Instead, when it comes to war the troops follow another oath they take — to obey the orders of the president, and they do this without regard to whether such orders violate the Constitution.

A textbook example involves President Bush’s war on Iraq.

The Constitution prohibits the president from waging war without first securing a declaration of war from Congress. By waging war on Iraq without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war, the president violated the Constitution.

Some people pooh-pooh the violation, perceiving the Constitution as simply a technical document that can be violated whenever the president feels that “national security” — or even the welfare of foreigners — necessitates it.

Some also make the claim that when Congress delegated its power to declare war on Iraq to the president (on the eve of the 2002 congressional elections), that delegation served as an adequate substitute for an actual declaration of war on Iraq.

They are wrong.

The Constitution is the supreme law of the land that we the people of the United States have imposed on our federal officials. Like it or not, U.S. officials are supposed to comply with its restrictions on power. If U.S. officials don’t like a particular constitutional provision or if they feel that it is outdated, the proper remedy is to seek a constitutional amendment, not ignore the provision.

Moreover, the Supreme Court, which is the final arbiter of constitutional interpretation under our system of government, has long held that no branch of the federal government can lawfully delegate its constitutional powers to another branch of government. Only the Congress, not the president, is authorized to declare war, and without that declaration the president cannot lawfully wage war on another nation.

We should bear in mind that had the president complied with the declaration-of-war requirement, the Congress might well have discovered in the process that the president’s WMD claims were defective. The Congress might also have concluded that invading a sovereign and independent country for the purpose of “spreading democracy” — a war in which tens of thousands of innocent people would be killed and maimed — could not be justified under moral principles.

“But we can’t refuse orders of the president. He’s our commander in chief,” say the troops. “It’s not our job to determine what is constitutional or not. We deployed to Iraq, like it or not, because the president ordered us to do so.”

Setting aside the moral implications of that position, doesn’t that mindset reflect that the oath that the troops take to support and defend the Constitution is in fact a sham? The troops know — or should know — that the Constitution prohibits the president from waging war without a congressional declaration of war. They also know that the Congress never declared war on Iraq. Nevertheless, they obeyed the president’s orders to attack Iraq.

The president’s war on Iraq reflects why our nation’s Founding Fathers opposed standing armies. Members of a professional army, who have vowed to obey the orders of the president, are unlikely to say no when the president orders them to attack another country.

On the other hand, a nation that relies instead on well-trained citizens (i.e., citizen-soldiers) to defend itself from a foreign attack would stand in a different position. Citizen-soldiers, while willing and prepared to rally to the defense of their own country in the event of an invasion, would be much less likely to answer the president’s call to leave their families and give up their jobs to attack a country thousands of miles away from American shores.

Isn’t it ironic that, even as the troops waging war in Iraq exhort the American people to support them, the troops, by invading Iraq without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war, have failed to support the Constitution?

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0510c.asp

Support the Troops? Why?

Imagine that you live in Nazi Germany, but you and your friends oppose the government, which possesses the mightiest military force in Europe, perhaps the world.

Now Adolf Hitler rumbles ominously about war. You know that the likely first targets of attack — places like Poland and Luxumbourg — pose no immediate threat to your security. You oppose further aggression. But on Sept. 1, 1939, tinny radio broadcasts announce a German invasion of hapless Poland, whose piteous soldiers try to fight Panzer divisions with mounted cavalry.

Oh, well. Time to "support the troops" and lay aside your religious, moral and practical convictions. War has begun!

Got a problem with that?

That's more or less what the U.S. government and a complicit media have badgered us into doing since the military adventures of the Ronald Reagan era. In the constant media barrage about a probable war with Iraq, how often have you heard something like, "Americans remain skeptical of a war. But once bombing starts, they will rally 'round the president and support the troops"?

(Disclaimer: The point of this simile is not to compare the United States with Nazi Germany, or George Bush to Hitler — a fool's pursuit — but merely to conjure a parallel military situation.)

I did not oppose the Persian Gulf war. I think the Bush administration was right to eject the terrorist-puppet Taliban regime. And I support a multifaceted campaign to disable terrorists before they can attack. But I do not support the war with Iraq. Therefore, I can't "support the troops."

Don't get me wrong. I wish no harm on any American, and I would never treat with disrespect the men and women who defend us. But I will not meekly surrender my opposition to the war simply because of government and media propaganda.

Since the frequent Reagan-era military adventures (remember the terrible threat of Grenada?) the American public has been bombarded by constant messages that we must "support the troops" — even if we oppose the war. In the '80s, the government figured out that it could play on our Vietnam guilt to squeeze public "consent" — more like emotional blackmail — for military action. If you don't support the troops or the president, why, you're giving aid and comfort to the enemy. What a load of crap.

No less than in our hypothetical 1939 case, it's disingenuous to lay aside reasonable moral objections and "support the troops." One need not "support" the deaths of innocents simply because the government has started an unnecessary war.

People aren't as stupid as Donald Rumsfeld wishes they were. Millions are skeptical of the Bush administration's flimsy, revolving-door justification for war. Bush has floated many trial balloons; all have plunged like lead zeppelins.

Some say we must present a "unified" front during war. What an appalling argument. Is unity so important that it should neuter and silence all concern for innocents slaughtered by "our troops," not to mention the danger to the troops themselves? Should Iraqi women and children die for having the misfortune of living under the thumb of a tinhorn dictator (and one-time U.S. ally)?

If you do not support this war, please don't say you "support the troops" when it begins. It's dishonest. It's undemocratic. It's un-American.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0209-01.htm

No I Don’t Support the War, No I Don’t Support the Troops

There I said it. Well, we know that many Canadians agree with the former, but many would be hesitant to say the latter, particularly in our current political climate.

I drove through Brandon, Manitoba last month and saw a town bedecked in yellow ribbons and war-time patriotism. In store windows, at city hall, around trees, and on almost every bumper, yellow ribbons stared judgingly at me. Given the proximity to CFB Shilo, it makes sense why there are so many. But it’s the unquestioning faith in the ‘support our troops’ mantra that divides many Canadians—even those on the left.

First off, I don’t place the life of a Canadian soldier any higher than the life of an Afghan child/mother/soldier.etc This tactic of appealing to narrow-minded nationalism is indicative of institutional racism. We should grieve for all those who die in today’s imperial wars, and we should remember that those who are at the recieving end of a rifle suffer most.

Second, the military remains a career choice for many. We don’t have conscription yet, and despite the opportunities the military provides, it is still a choice. What has become increasingly apparent is how the role of the military is becoming increasingly normalized in public institutions and spaces. Canada has always had an army, but it hasn’t had one with the budget, PR campaign and advertising strategy that’s driving the current one. The recent increase in military spending should’ve caused outrage but in a time of war this is disguised as a necessary cost.

Third, I don’t believe that you can bomb a country into peace and democracy, put a warlord government in power that continues oppression of women and homosexuals, and say we’re helping make their lives better. There’s much talk these days of ‘why we’re in Afghanistan,’ and the answer is simple. We’re not there because we blindly followed the US lead. We’re there because the Canadian state has a vested interest in US domination throughout the Middle East and this interest equals business. Imperialism plain and simple. Sustained Capital accumulation requires international coercion of nation states that refuse to open their markets to us. The Afghan pipeline is a prime example of this.

It was refreshing to read Christie Blatchford’s Fifteen Days because, despite her unwavering support for the mission in Afghanistan, she didn’t try and obscure it with false pretenses of development and democracy. In fact, she gave scant reasons for the war, except the reality of war itself.

The grim reality of the Afghan war isn’t about Canada building schools and hospitals, it’s about us being an active member in this so-called ‘war on terror.’ We’re a nation at war, and we need to stop watering down our criticism and take a stand against militarism and imperialism now.

http://canadiandimension.com/blog/1185

We Don't Support The Troops

Politics seems always to be a matter of saying one thing in order to get another. During the Vietnam War the antiwar movement had two approaches to the question of how active US soldiers were to be treated. One side said that allying with soldiers would cause dissension in the ranks and weaken the war machine from within – the war couldn't be fought without soldiers, so making them a part of the antiwar movement and building a campaign to bring them home was the most effective way to end the war. The other side said that soldiers who went to Vietnam were killers who didn't deserve our respect. When they came home they were shown contempt. Those still in battle saw this and eventually realized that what they were involved in was not supported and not honorable, and this led, properly, to their demoralization.

Those trying to end the war by stealth, siding with the troops for strategic reasons, were playing politics. Those who simply expressed the disrespect they felt were not making political calculations – they were direct, honest, and probably more effective in undermining support for the war. On a human level the soldier cares very much about how he is seen and whether the cause he is fighting for is deemed worthy. It makes a big difference if his family and friends and lover look at him as a willing accomplice in genocide, a dupe, and not a hero.

The attainment of political ends by stealth is Bush's way of doing things. He sold us a war for Israel and oil on the more palatable claim, or lie, that he was fighting for our security and Iraq's democracy. Why would we want to use the same tactics as Bush?

It is painful to say, but mothers who have lost their sons to the Iraq war, and active duty soldiers who have made a courageous stand in refusing to fight it, should not be put in front of the movement to end the war. This is simply another way of saying that our people are more important than the ones they have, afterall, been killing. It's the same with recent candlelight vigils marking the 2000th US soldier killed. The people we should be supporting are the Iraqis under Uncle Sam's hobnail boot, not the poor fools involved in carrying out his crimes. The number of Iraqis murdered in their own land by the US over the last 14 years numbers almost two million. If that number were only 200 the Iraqis would still deserve our primary attention because it was the US government who attacked them, not the other way around.

The war machine, from recruiters, to people "in the service", to local bases in our communities, deserve our active and vocal disrespect. Conscientious objectors and mourning mothers do not bother the Pentagon. What bothers the Pentagon is when significant numbers of the home population renounce any shred of support for what they do, when we honor the Iraqi dead with candlelight vigils, when we put on our protest stages the mothers of Iraqi martyrs, when we say we support those who are fighting US invaders in Iraq, and when we take action in our own country to undermine the war machine at its source, as it is our responsibility to do.

We don't support the troops. Why would we want to support or "bring home" people who have volunteered for murder? We support the Iraqi resistance. Were we wanted, and if it were possible for decent people in the US to do so, we would fight alongside them.

http://www.onepalestine.org/resources/articles/We_Dont_Support.html

They Shouldn’t Have Left Home in the First Place

In the late 80’s while a group of us were hanging around the newsroom of a weekly newspaper in a town on the California coast complaining about Reagan and wars and things of that nature one of my colleagues a guy named Walter said something very simply, “I don’t like soldiers. They kill people.” He knew whereof he spoke, he and two family members escaped from the Ukraine in the mid-1940s to Canada. The rest of his family were killed or “left to die in the death camps”, as he put it. When someone asked him whose army it was that killed his family, the Soviets or the Nazis, he answered, “What difference does that make?” He never did tell us the answer.

Around the same time the owner of the paper, Mr. Blake, an old time newspaper man from the Chicago Tribune had been sending out memos for weeks headed “Very Important” with the message that soon smoking would no longer be permitted at the newspaper. In the memos he confided that while he sympathized with the smokers for he had once “happily smoked many a cigar” he had no choice but to issue the edict. The folks in advertising got real upset. How could they work without smoking? With increasing frequency Mr. Blake tacked up new memos warning of the impending deadline of the smoking ban.

The day of the cease-smoking arrived. One avid cigarette smoker in advertising had a mini-breakdown. She literally had to go to the hospital. The same group of us commented on her demise. “Poor Shirley,” Walter the guy from the Ukraine said.

Suddenly the door burst open. It was Doug the graphic artist and Vietnam vet who somehow missed seeing all the memos, somehow missed all the agitated talk in the advertising room where the people had been hysterical for weeks about the no-smoking ban. Somehow missed Shirley being carted off to the hospital.

“What is this crap, that I can’t smoke?” he screamed at us. He didn’t often come into our end of the newspaper but I guess he figured his anger was worth sharing. “What do you mean I can’t smoke!” he shouted again. “I fought a fucking war for you people and this is what I get for it”?

The sports writer looked up from his copy. “Yeah”, he said nonchalantly. “But you didn’t win.”

At that Doug slammed his tattered brief case into a nearby trash can and stormed out. It remained in the trash for three days while he went on a bender. He retrieved it when he eventually came back to work. Shirley had come back too. She was adjusting to smoking standing outside the building under the eaves in the rain.

Forty years ago many of us knew that the State, either through conscription as in the Vietnam war, or what it devised after that war, a standing professional army, sends its military men and women off to other countries to kill people because the ruling classes decide they want a war. These wars have nothing to do with you or me. They have nothing to do with our defense or spreading democracy or overcoming evil rogue leaders. Wars are done in the interests of the ruling classes who propagandize a sentimental message of patriotism. And even patriotism isn’t enough. The soldier or the taxpayer must be given a “moral stake” in a war, a “moral responsibility” to put down “evil.”

Someone wrote recently that Cindy Sheehan perhaps finally figured out that the “system” was the “real problem” and that sudden realization is what caused her to give up her fight against our obscene killing of other people in foreign countries. What is the system? Is this not merely a euphemism for the State? And what propels the perpetuation of the aggrandizement of the State? The military. And what propels the military? Among other things, our sentimental attachment to soldiers.

I have little sympathy for hired killers. Why not call a spade a spade? I’m still angry about the funerals I went to in the 60’s and 70’s where I saw my classmates dead from that other war. I still think about those boys, some I had known from the third grade. But I agree with the Ukrainian who refused to sentimentalize what it is they do. Patriotism is for fools. Sympathy for grieving mothers whose children get killed in America’s wars sucks us in even further which is why we see the constant drone of grieving parents on television telling us how their kids died believing in the “fight for freedom.” The “system” in one way or another turns us all into cannon fodder.

http://unite.gnn.tv/blogs/23641/Don_t_support_the_troops

Supporting our troops

PERHAPS the most insidious byproduct of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has been a reflexive sanctification of the military. To put this in bumper stickerese: Support the Troops.

Well, I have an ugly confession to make: I don't support the troops - at least not unconditionally. When somebody tells me they serve in the military, my first impulse isn't to say, "Thank you for your service!" like those insufferable chickenhawks on talk radio.

My first impulse is to say, "I'm sorry to hear that." Because I am. I'm sorry to know that the person I'm talking to might someday be maimed or killed on the job, or might someday kill someone else. Or refuel a plane that drops bombs on buildings.

I can't see how anyone who calls himself or herself Christian - or human, for that matter - wouldn't be sorry.

The fact that we have an army, that we need an army, is inherently tragic. It's an admission that our species is still ruled by fear and aggression.

There are, of course, plenty of laudable functions that soldiers serve. But their sworn duty is to wage war. They may perform this duty with courage. They may feel great love for their country. But we don't pay them simply for their patriotism or integrity. We also pay them to kill people.

And here it's worth making a point often overlooked. Anyone who pays taxes in this country "supports the troops." We're the ones who subsidize their training and equipment and medical care and education.

I'm happy to do so, as long as I believe those soldiers are being deployed on a mission that feels morally necessary - targeting terrorists who seek to kill civilians, for instance, or trying to prevent a genocide.

The problem with the knee-jerk militarism of the past several years is that it has led to an absence of financial and moral oversight that is fundamentally undemocratic. Our troops have become human shields for war criminals and profiteers.

Consider the $1.39 billion contract awarded in 2003 to a subsidiary of Halliburton. The reconstruction project was secretly bid - to one company. There was much tough talk in Congress about preventing such sweetheart deals. But five years later, the US government continues to pay vast sums of our money to firms with ties to the administration.

In 2005, we learned that $9 billion allocated for reconstruction projects had been lost. With the US economy slumping, fighting this kind of flagrant graft and mismanagement shouldn't be politically risky. But then, anyone who cries foul runs the risk of being accused of . . . not supporting the troops.

No surprise. After all, this was the rallying cry used to silence dissent when the core rationale for invading Iraq evaporated. And it's still being used to justify the occupation.

It remains unthinkable for a politician (or public official of any sort) to say aloud that our troops sometimes commit atrocities, that they are not all worthy of support, that some of them - faced with a terrifying and ethically incoherent mission - are driven to savagery. This grim duty has been left to the soldiers themselves.

Americans have often looked to heroic violence as a means of spiritual regeneration. Our most powerful national myth is the notion that anyone fighting on our behalf is a hero. I understand why friends and families of our soldiers feel this way. But for the rest of us, too often "supporting the troops" isn't about the troops at all. It's about the childish desire to feel morally exempt from the violence carried out in our names.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/18/supporting_our_troops/

Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo

Jeremy Scahill reports the Obama administration is continuing to use a notorious military police unit at Guantanamo that regularly brutalizes unarmed prisoners, including gang-beating them, breaking their bones, gouging their eyes and dousing them with chemicals. This force, officially known as the Immediate Reaction Force, has been labeled the “Extreme Repression Force” by Guantanamo prisoners, and human rights lawyers call their actions illegal.

DEMOCRACY NOW TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: A coalition of advocacy groups have launched a campaign to disbar twelve former Bush administration attorneys connected to the administration’s torture program. The coalition, called the Velvet Revolution, filed legal ethics complaints with state bar associations Monday, saying the twelve attorneys violated the rules of professional responsibility by approving interrogation methods, including waterboarding, that constituted torture.

While there’s been a lot of focus on torture under the Bush administration, what about under President Obama? In a new article, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill writes the Obama administration is continuing to use a notorious military police unit at Guantanamo that regularly brutalizes unarmed prisoners, including gang-beating them, breaking their bones, gouging their eyes, dousing them with chemicals.

This force, officially known as the Immediate Reaction Force, has been labeled the “Extreme Repression Force” by Guantanamo prisoners, and human rights lawyers call their actions illegal, Jeremy writes.

Jeremy Scahill is an award-winning investigative journalist, author of the bestselling book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His writing and reporting is available at RebelReports.com.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Jeremy.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Thanks, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, describe what you call as this “little known military thug squad.”

JEREMY SCAHILL: When the Bush administration established the US prison camp at Guantanamo, of course, we know well that they set up a system where detainees were going to be systematically tortured. And, of course, Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats were briefed on this program, despite what they’re saying right now.

And while much of the focus has been on the tactical use of torture at Guantanamo, almost no attention had been paid to a parallel force that was torturing prisoners in a variety of ways, including waterboarding them, and that is this riot squad of sorts that you referred to called the Immediate Reaction Force. The prisoners and their lawyers at Guantanamo call it the “Extreme Repression Force.”

And basically what this is is a thug squad that is used to mercilessly punish prisoners who show the slightest bit of resistance or who do things that technically they’re not supposed to do, infractions like having two Styrofoam cups in their cell instead of one.

Guards will call in this goon squad. They come in with their Darth Vader outfits, and they literally gang-beat prisoners. There are five men, generally, that are sent in. Each of them is assigned to one body part of the prisoner: the head, the left arm, the right arm, the left leg, the right leg. They go in, and they hogtie the prisoner, sometimes leaving them hogtied for hours on end. They douse them with chemical agents. They have put their heads in toilets and flushed the toilets repeatedly. They have urinated on the heads of prisoners. They’ve squeezed their testicles in the course of restraining them. They’ve taken the feces from one prisoner and smeared it in the face of another prisoner.

And while Barack Obama, almost immediately upon taking office, issued an executive order saying he was going to close down Guantanamo within a year and that he was going to respect the Geneva Convention while his administration reviewed Guantanamo, this force has continued to operate and torture prisoners under the Obama administration.

In fact, in February of this year, about a month after Obama was inaugurated, there were sixteen prisoners on a hunger strike at Guantanamo. The Immediate Response—or Immediate Reaction Force was used to go in and violently shove massive tubes down their noses into their stomachs. And what the IRF teams, as they’re called—when they beat someone, it’s called IRF-ing, or to be IRF-ed up by these teams. They would use no anesthetics or any painkillers, shove this massive tube by force down their nose into their stomach and then yank it out. Some prisoners have described this as torture, torture, torture. And many have passed out from the sheer pain of this operation.

This force has received almost no scrutiny in the US Congress or the US media and operates at this moment.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you know about this?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I discovered these teams, because I’ve been covering the investigation being done by Judge Baltasar Garzon in Spain into the Bush torture system. What’s interesting is that the most aggressive investigation at this point into the Bush war crimes is being done an ocean away in Madrid.

And I came across a story of a prisoner named Omar Deghayes, and he is one of the four people that is cited directly in the Spanish investigation as having been tortured by the United States. He’s originally Libyan, is a British resident and is one of the subjects of Baltasar Garzon’s investigation. Omar Deghayes was repeatedly IRF-ed, was repeatedly abused by one of these squads. And so, when I came across this reference to this team that he was referring to in his testimony, I started to look into it and realized that there has been a multi-year pattern of abuse on the part of this team.

And yet, the only time when it’s really made any kind of a flash in the corporate media was when a US soldier, a young guy named Sean Baker, who was a Gulf War vet, was participating in a training exercise in Guantanamo in January of 2003, where he was ordered, he says, by his superiors to dress up in an orange jumpsuit and play the part of a restive or combative detainee at Guantanamo. He was told that the team that was going to come in to handle him knew that he was a US soldier, knew that it was a training drill, and he was given a word, a codeword, “red,” that when he said it, the beating was supposed to stop, or the subduing of him was supposed to stop. When he was in the cell, the team comes in. He describes them just mercilessly beating him, and he’s yelling out “Red!” and they continue to beat him, even after he then said, “I’m a US soldier! I’m a US soldier!” He describes how one of his fellow soldiers continued to beat him.

That young man, Sean Baker, has permanent brain damage, suffers from multiple seizures, and had actually sued Rumsfeld and other officials because of his treatment. So you had a flash, a moment in time in 2005, where this case came to public light, because of this lawsuit brought by a US soldier. As Scott Horton, a military and constitutional law expert I talked to, said, you know, this is one US soldier who received this kind of treatment; imagine what happens to these detainees.

And let’s be clear here, you read the New York Times today, and you realize that despite Obama’s rhetoric about how he’s going to reform the military tribunal system, we understand that it’s all cosmetic changes. The fact is, torture continues at Guantanamo. The place has not shut down. Interestingly, Ari Fleischer, the former propaganda chief for the Bush administration, said the other day, quite clearly, that he doesn’t believe Obama, in any universe, is going to be able to shut down Guantanamo in a year.

So, Amy, as far as I can tell from this in-depth investigation, we see the status quo alive and well, and it’s very, very damaging to the US Constitution, international law and the lives of these prisoners who remain in legal limbo.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, this force, known as the Immediate Reaction Force, or Emergency Reaction Force, IRF or ERF, are they being filmed when they go into these cells?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, according to—I’ve been reading the now-declassified Standard Operating Procedures for Guantanamo that were written by Major General Geoffrey Miller, the man was—who is believed to have started all of this, in terms of the tactical level at Guantanamo, and then Gitmo-ized Abu Ghraib and other US prisons. After he left Guantanamo, he went elsewhere and brought these torture tactics with him.

In the Standard Operating Procedures that General Miller issued in 2003, he said that all of the IRF teams, when they would go in to restrain a prisoner, that they had to videotape the operation and that all of the members on a team, immediately following an incident where they had to restrain a prisoner, had to give sworn statements. Well, the fact is that we know that at least 500 hours of video were filmed. The ACLU tried a few years ago to get those videos, and they failed to do so. The government resisted it.

But Brandon Neely, who is an Army specialist that was on one of the first IRF teams—and I talk about his story in here—says that his experience with IRF teams is that either the video camera wouldn’t have any tape in it, wouldn’t be turned on, or it would be pointed in a direction that was nowhere near what was actually happening.

And I went through hundreds of pages of incident reports, where these military police officers, as part of the IRF teams, gave their sworn statements. They were so robotic in their uniformity. They all had the exact same phrases to describe operations that went off without a hitch, detainees were never hurt, procedures were followed. Case closed. End of the day, a few handwritten sentences, almost uniformly identical in each instance.

So, Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights asks a very simple question: “Where are the tapes?” Presumably, if the Standard Operating Procedures were followed, we could see Omar Deghayes having his head repeatedly put in a toilet and flushed. We could see a prisoner, under the Obama administration, having his head urinated on after he was doused with chemicals by these forces. We could see the breaking of noses and other body parts on the part of prisoners. But in order to do that, we would have to have an administration that was going to come completely clean with the crimes of the past and make these videos available, along with the thousands of photos that show the systematic abuse of US prisoners.

But what we see at every turn is the Obama administration, backed up by the Wall Street Journal editorial board, backed up by the neoconservatives, backed up by the hawkish Republicans, on one side, and then the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and social justice and antiwar activists and human rights advocates, on the other side. This is a sad reality in America today, where you have a president that campaigned on a change that we can believe in continuing the most repressive policies of the Bush administration.

AMY GOODMAN: And medical personnel there?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Medical personnel not only were there during the operations of these IRF teams, particularly when they were force-feeding detainees by shoving these massive tubes down their noses, but in the case of Omar Deghayes, this prisoner that I’ve been referring to, he actually says that the medical personnel participated directly in his torture, would join in the torture with these IRF teams.

You, probably, Amy, on this show, have covered this issue of medical and psychological and psychiatric professionals participating in the US torture structure. Their role as part of these teams of repression should be thoroughly investigated, because this is an utter scandal and should be a scandal for every medical professional in this country.

AMY GOODMAN: Why do you say Nancy Pelosi knew about the torture?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. I mean, the fact is that Nancy Pelosi was fumbling in her press conference through a statement that someone else clearly wrote for her. This is not some secret that Nancy Pelosi was briefed on this. In fact, the Washington Post reported on this in 2007, that she had been briefed and that other Democrats that were senior figures in the Democratic leadership, particularly on the Intelligence Committee, had received briefings about the tactics that were being used at Guantanamo.

I think what’s going to be important is that we know that some of the members of Congress, Democrat and Republican, who were briefed actually pushed for stronger tactics to be used during these briefings. I think one of the reasons why the Democrats are—the Democratic leadership is not pushing for a special independent prosecutor in this case is because if you actually examine the record, you will find that the Democrats funded these programs, supported these programs, and refused to speak up when it actually mattered. That’s the pattern we saw through the eight years of the Bush administration. Now that the Democrats are in power, you see Obama—the right wing tries to say flip-flopping—you see Obama upholding the consistent one-party system in this country when it comes to foreign policy.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22674.htm

US soldier spared death penalty

A former US soldier convicted of rape and murder in Iraq has been spared the death penalty.

Steven Green, 24, will now be sentenced to life in prison, after jurors in the state of Kentucky could not agree unanimously on his punishment.

A judge is expected to formally sentence Green in September.

In May, the jury found Green guilty of the rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the killing of her and her family near Baghdad in 2006.

Four other soldiers are serving sentences of between five and 110 years for their roles in the 2006 incident.

Three had admitted holding down Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, raping her and then killing her, her parents and her younger sister at the family's home in Mahmudiya before torching the building.

Mr Green was discharged from the 101st Airborne Division before the case came to light.

He was the first ex-soldier to be charged under a US law that allows prosecution for crimes committed overseas.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8062705.stm

Military Attorney: Waterboarding is ‘Tip of the Iceberg’

A military attorney who represented a now-freed Guantanamo detainee told CNN on Wednesday that waterboarding is only “the tip of the iceberg”

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Yvonne Bradley was the lawyer for Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national who was arrested by the Pakistani government in April 2002 on suspicion of being a member of al Qaeda. He was then shuffled through a series of CIA “ghost prisons” before being imprisoned at Guantanamo for five years. Last winter, President Obama ordered him released to the United Kingdom, where he had been a legal resident.

Bradley told CNN that when she was first assigned to represent Mohamed, she did not question he was a hardened terrorist, because “my government was saying these were the worst of the worst.” However, she now says, “There’s no reliable evidence that Mr. Mohamed was going to do anything to the United States.”

According to Bradley, when Mohamed was first held at a CIA prison in Morocco, “They started this monthly treatment where they would come in with a scalpel or a razor type of instrument and they would slash his genitals, just with small cuts.”

Following that torture, Mohamed confessed that he had attended an al Qaeda training camp and discussed plans to make a dirty bomb. He also answered “No” to the question, “While in U.S. military custody have you been treated in any way that you would consider abusive?”

Now Bradley believes, “This has nothing to do about national security, it has to do with national embarrassment.”

In February, when Mohamed was still being held at Guantanamo, she wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian saying, “It is worth bearing in mind that all charges against Binyam have been dropped and that Binyam’s chief prosecutor resigned, citing the unfairness of the system. I profoundly hope that he is not being kept in Guantánamo to avoid information surrounding his rendition and torture coming out.”

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/20/worse-than-waterboarding/

I Don't Support the Troops..oops, there, I said it

This has been digging at me for, oh, about 4 years now. I have been hesitant to express this thought, in comments sections and in discussion with other people about the Iraq quagmire for fear of, I don't know, being called mean. Or, un-American. Or something.

Supporting the troops essentially means supporting the illegal war. It seems that us anti-war types have been doing all sorts of mental and philisophical gymnastics to try and work around this. What has emerged is a sort of low impact, mealy-mouthed common wisdom that is palatable to everyone but is ultimately going to allow us to stay in Iraq for years to come.

Even Jim Webb's shelved equal time legislation carries the scent of this erroneous wisdom.

Now, I don't intend to demean Jim Webb. He is determined and impressive in his stance against the war and the crippling of our military. But this kind of legislation allows us to comfortably continue to support acts of aggression, as long as we give the troops a long enough break in between.

Until we have another draft, this is a volunteer armed services. I am not even beginning to count the numerous mercenaries that are involved in the occupation. You signed up, you get to go to the desert and risk being shot at by brown skinned people who don't believe the lies you've been told. A war of aggression is immoral, period. If you believe in God, you can damned well be sure you are going to hell for your participation in it. The only troop I support is the man or woman who refuses to be deployed so that they can make the middle east accessible to profiteers who don't give a flying F about morality or democracy. Or a soldier's life.

When Sunni tribes got paid off enough to stop shooting at GIs and instead shoot at Al-Qaeda (in reality themselves) it is funny how they suddenly became Freedom Fighters. During WWII, French resistance fighters were also called terrorists and insurgents by their German occupiers. Can an anti-war proponent look at these Iraqi resistance fighters with the same admiration, even though they worship differently than us and when they eventually win are likely to install a distasteful (to Americans) theocratic tinged state. Can a person who doesn't believe in violence support that people's right to govern themselves, perhaps violently.

I am sorry but supporting the troops means supporting this illegal war.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/19/18384/0637

Why I Don’t Support the Troops

In the recent political battle around the Marine recruiting station in Berkeley there has been much confusion around the concept or slogan of “supporting the troops,” but opposing the unjust wars of the Bush regime. Many who oppose the Bush regime wars also say they “support the troops.” Let me say it straight out—I do not support the troops and neither should you. It is objectively impossible to support the troops of the imperialist military forces of the U.S. and at the same time oppose the wars in which they fight.

The United States has over 700 military bases or sites located in over 130 foreign countries. The hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in these countries are not there to preserve or foster freedom and democracy as the Bush regime would like to claim, but to maintain U.S. imperialist domination of the world. The United States now spends more on its military than all the other nations of the world combined.

If you “support the troops” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the other more than 100 countries in which they are located, you also objectively support U.S. hegemony in the world. I believe that the vast majority of people who say they support the troops do not wish to support U.S. imperialism, but that is what they are really doing by putting forth the slogan of “support the troops.”

We need to oppose the recruitment of men and women into the military. We need to support resisters within the military who have realized what they are doing and now choose to resist the role of the U.S. military. This includes people such as Lt. Ehren Watada who refused to deploy to Iraq. Watada stated, “Never did I imagine my president would lie to go to war, condone torture, spy on Americans…” He was the first officer to refuse to go to Iraq and he was court-martialed. Another resister is Camilo Mejia. In 2004 Sergeant Mejia was sentenced to one year in prison when he was court-martialed for refusing to assist the military in Iraq. Mejia said, “I am only a regular person that got tired of being afraid to follow his own conscience. For far too long I allowed others to direct my actions even when I knew that they were wrong....”

We need to expose that those in the U.S. military are trained to be part of a “killing machine.” While not every member of the military is an individual murderer, they are all part of a system that commits war crimes, including aggressive wars, massacres, rape, and other crimes against humanity, all in the service of U.S. imperialism. The bottom line is that even if these people are relatives or friends, you can not support the troops without also supporting the objective role that these troops play in the imperialist system.

United States troops are acting as destructive and murderous forces of invasion and occupation. The people of Iraq and Afghanistan see this on a daily basis. Hundreds of thousands have died as a direct result of the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Millions are either internal or external refugees. Tens of thousands have been detained in prisons, with thousands of these tortured and scores murdered. Haditha, Iraq where 24 Iraqis were massacred is just the best known of the massacres. Women and children are routinely described as “collateral damage” by military spokespersons when they are murdered in military operations.

“Support for the troops” has become political cover to support the wars. In Congress, many of those who claim they oppose the wars, use “support of the troops” to vote for hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the wars. These politicians are political opportunists, but there are also people who genuinely oppose the war, but who also say “I support the troops.”

But to decide whether U.S. troops deserve support you must analyze what they actually do in countries occupied by the U.S. The wars these troops are engaged in have the goal of maintaining and extending U.S. hegemony throughout the world. They are unjust, illegal, and immoral wars. Can you support the troops in these wars? Why is this any different from a German in World War II saying, “I oppose the wars launched by Hitler, but I support the troops of the German army which are making these wars possible.” When the Marines in Haditha massacred Iraqis, including women and children, would it have been correct to say I supported the Marines who killed those people, but not the massacre? This would be ridiculous, but no more so than supporting the troops engaged in the war that made the Haditha massacre possible in the first place.

In 1933 Marine Major General Smedley Butler clarified the role of the U.S. military. He stated, “War is just a racket…It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses…I spent 33 years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps…In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism...”

Like Butler, Watada, and Mejia, those in the military today must take responsibility for what the military does. Just like the German soldiers of World War 2 could not hide behind the “I was just following orders” excuse, military personnel today also can not hide behind it. Those of us who oppose the unjust wars of the Bush regime must struggle with those in the military and those that support them to expose what role the troops objectively play. Supporting the troops engaged in making war against other nations and people on behalf of U.S. imperialism is not acceptable.

http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2008-03-11/article/29447

Warriors and wusses

I don't support our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car.

Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on.

I'm sure I'd like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas.

And I've got no problem with other people -- the ones who were for the Iraq war -- supporting the troops. If you think invading Iraq was a good idea, then by all means, support away. Load up on those patriotic magnets and bracelets and other trinkets the Chinese are making money off of.

But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken -- and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.

Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there -- and who might one day want to send them somewhere else. Trust me, a guy who thought 50.7% was a mandate isn't going to pick up on the subtleties of a parade for just service in an unjust war. He's going to be looking for funnel cake.

Besides, those little yellow ribbons aren't really for the troops. They need body armor, shorter stays and a USO show by the cast of "Laguna Beach."

The real purpose of those ribbons is to ease some of the guilt we feel for voting to send them to war and then making absolutely no sacrifices other than enduring two Wolf Blitzer shows a day. Though there should be a ribbon for that.

I understand the guilt. We know we're sending recruits to do our dirty work, and we want to seem grateful.

After we've decided that we made a mistake, we don't want to blame the soldiers who were ordered to fight. Or even our representatives, who were deceived by false intelligence. And certainly not ourselves, who failed to object to a war we barely understood.

But blaming the president is a little too easy. The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying. An army of people ignoring their morality, by the way, is also Jack Abramoff's pet name for the House of Representatives.

I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I'm tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel.

But when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it's Vietnam.

And sometimes, for reasons I don't understand, you get to just hang out in Germany.

I know this is all easy to say for a guy who grew up with money, did well in school and hasn't so much as served on jury duty for his country. But it's really not that easy to say because anyone remotely affiliated with the military could easily beat me up, and I'm listed in the phone book.

I'm not advocating that we spit on returning veterans like they did after the Vietnam War, but we shouldn't be celebrating people for doing something we don't think was a good idea. All I'm asking is that we give our returning soldiers what they need: hospitals, pensions, mental health and a safe, immediate return. But, please, no parades.

Seriously, the traffic is insufferable.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-stein24jan24,0,4137172.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

U.S. military probes Blackwater Kabul killing

KABUL (Reuters) - The U.S. military is investigating a shooting incident in which four contractors from the re-named firm formerly called Blackwater are accused of killing an Afghan man after a traffic accident, a spokesman said on Sunday.

The military said it had asked the firm to keep the four men in Afghanistan until its investigation was complete. The firm said it was cooperating with the investigation and had fired the four men for failing to follow regulations.

A lawyer for the four men said they were being held against their will by the firm in Kabul.

The North Carolina firm, which once had a lucrative contract to defend U.S. diplomats in Iraq, has changed its name to Xe Services and lost its Iraq contract this year.

It gained notoriety in Iraq after its staff killed 17 civilians in Baghdad during a traffic incident in 2007. One Blackwater guard has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and other charges over that incident and five others are awaiting trial.

"At this time, we can confirm an incident involving some of our off-duty contractors for Paravant in Afghanistan," Anne Tyrell, spokeswoman for the firm, said in an e-mail to Reuters. She identified Paravant as a subsidiary of Xe, the renamed firm.

"Paravant terminated the contracts with the four individuals involved in the incident for failure to comply with the terms of their contract, which require, among other things, compliance with all laws, regulations, and company policies," she said.

U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Christian Kubik said the four men were employed to train Afghan troops.

After being involved in a car crash in Kabul on May 5, they fired on an oncoming car that they saw as a threat, wounding three Afghans, one of whom died two days later, Kubik said.

"The contracting company is cooperating with us. We have asked them to keep the individuals in-country until the investigation is complete," Kubik said.

"When you're talking about the death of an Afghan, that's very important to us. We want to get it right."

A U.S. lawyer, Daniel Callahan, who said he was representing the four men -- Chris Drotleff, Steve McClain, Justic Cannon and Armando Hamid -- said they were being held "captive" by the company at a "safe house" in a mosque in Kabul.

Xe spokeswoman Tyrell denied the men were being held, but said the company had told them they could not leave the country without the approval of the U.S. Defense Department, and the firm was trying to clarify whether they had permission to leave.

An Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman said he was looking into reports of the incident.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051700107.html

Rumsfeld's Renegade Unit Blamed for Afghan Deaths

A single American Special Forces group was behind at least three of Afghanistan's worst civilian casualty incidents, The Independent has learnt, raising fundamental questions about their ongoing role in the conflict.

Troops from the US Marines Corps' Special Operations Command, or MarSOC, were responsible for calling in air strikes in Bala Boluk, in Farah, last week – believed to have killed more than 140 men, women and children – as well as two other incidents in 2007 and 2008. News of MarSOC's involvement in the three incidents comes just days after a Special Forces expert, Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal, was named to take over as the top commander of US and Nato troops in Afghanistan. His surprise appointment has prompted speculation that commando counterinsurgency missions will increase in the battle to beat the Taliban.

MarSOC was created three years ago on the express orders of Donald Rumsfeld, US defence secretary at the time, despite opposition from within the Marine Corps and the wider Special Forces community. An article in the Marine Corps Times described the MarSOC troops as "cowboys" who brought shame on the corps.

The first controversial incident involving the unit happened just three weeks into its first deployment to Afghanistan on 4 March 2007. Speeding away from a suicide bomb attack close to the Pakistan border, around 120 men from Fox Company opened fire on civilians near Jalalabad, in Nangahar province. The Marines said they were shot at after the explosion; eyewitnesses said the Americans fired indiscriminately at pedestrians and civilian cars, killing at least 19 people.

The US Army commander in Nangahar at the time, Colonel John Nicholson, said he was "deeply ashamed" and described the incident as "a stain on our honour". The Marines' tour was cut short after a second incident on 9 March in which they allegedly rolled a car and fired on traffic again, and they were flown out of Afghanistan a few weeks later.

The top Special Operations officer at US Central Command, Army Major General Frank Kearney, refuted MarSOC's claims that they had been shot at. "We found no brass that we can confirm that small-arms fire came at them," he said, referring to ammunition casings. "We have testimony from Marines that is in conflict with unanimous testimony from civilians."

At the military hearings on the incident, which were held back in the US, soldiers said the MarSOC troops, who called themselves Taskforce Violence, were gung-ho and hungry to prove themselves in battle. The inquiry also heard testimony suggesting there were tensions between the Marine unit and its US Army counterparts in Nangahar province.

Col Nicholson told the court the unit would routinely stray into areas under his control without telling him, ignoring usual military courtesies. "There had been potentially 25 operations in my area of operations that I, as a commander, was not aware of," he said. Asked about the moment he was told of the March shootout, he added: "My initial reaction was, 'What are they doing out there?' " The three-week military inquiry ultimately spared the Marine unit from criminal charges.

There are around 2,500 troops in MarSOC. Around half are frontline troops, the rest are support and maintenance. Originally the unit was used to plug gaps in the Special Forces world and it has operated in more than 16 countries since being set up by Mr Rumsfeld in 2006. However, in a recent interview, its commanding officer, Major General Mastin Robeson, revealed he has been ordered to focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Today MarSOC answers to the Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command, based in Kabul. That in turn answers to US Forces Afghanistan, which is led by the top US commander, David McKiernan, who is soon to be replaced by General McChrystal.

In August last year, a 20-man MarSOC unit, fighting alongside Afghan commandos, directed fire from unmanned drones, attack helicopters and a cannon-armed Spectre gunship into compounds in Azizabad, in Herat province, leaving more than 90 people dead – many of them children.

And just last week, MarSOC troops called in the Bala Baluk air strikes to rescue an Afghan police patrol that had been ambushed in countryside in Farah province. US officials said two F18 fighter jets and a B1 bomber had swooped because men on the ground were overwhelmed. But villagers said the most devastating bombs were dropped on compounds some distance from the fighting, long after the battle was over, and when Taliban forces were retreating. Afghan officials said up to 147 people were killed, including more than 90 women and children.

US officials dispute the number of people killed in each of the MarSOC incidents, which sparked angry public demonstrations and condemnation from Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Greg Julian, denied reports that commanders have lost confidence in the Marine unit. "MarSOC was involved in these incidents, but it's not all the same guys. They get the lessons passed on from all of the rotations and experiences. Yet, they are human," he said. "They have the same rules of engagement that everyone has."

The so-called "tactical directive" was introduced last September in the wake of the international uproar that followed the Azizabad deaths. It requires troops to exercise "proportionality, restraint, and utmost discrimination" when calling in air strikes. Claims that bombs were dropped in last week's incident in Farah long after the fighting finished suggest those directives may not have been followed by MarSOC.

Meanwhile, Afghan MPs have called for new laws to regulate the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan, and limit use of air strikes, house searches and Special Forces operations. Sayed Hussein Alemi Balkhi, one of the chief proponents of the planned legislation, said: "Special Forces, all forces, should be regulated by the law. If they won't accept that we have to ask bigger questions about what they are doing here."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/rumsfelds-renegade-unit-blamed-for-afghan-deaths-1685704.html

The American accountability gap

Last week a trolley accident in Boston caused the injury of nearly 50 people. The operator of the Trolley had been texting a message on his cell phone when the accident occurred. Naturally this touched off a "debate" regarding the use of cell phones while driving or operating a vehicle. The resulting mini media fire storm that erupted was a typically American response to an accident in which any hint of culpability on the part of anyone a party to the incident is examined to death and debated seemingly endlessly. This is a country that is notoriously intolerant of "excuses" regarding all manner of calamities and accidents or even tragedies resulting from acts of God. If the slightest chance existed that an accident could have been avoided- that a tragedy averted- no matter how far fetched- no matter how costly or impractical the "solution", Americans want to see someone punished if not a whole new law passed to "make sure it doesn't happen again".

This isn't a phenomena particular to ideology or politics either. This control freak mentality is a deeply embedded cultural trait. Often times, what passes for "conservative" commentators in this country will deride and denounce such ridiculous political over reactions to things like proposing a whole new criminal category for driving while drowsy in response to a driver being killed by a teen who had played video games for 24 hours and then fell asleep at the wheel. But then, they will with equal fervor blame schools for not having guns on hand, presumably in every teacher's desk, when a blue moon appears and some alienated, social outcast, loser high school student goes on a shooting spree. Gotta blame someone, gotta blame something.

This is a society that actually puts warning messages on cups of hot beverages- telling us to be careful . . . the cup of hot liquid you bought is hot! McDonald's should have known that some of us carry cups of hot coffee between our legs while driving! No matter how far fetched- no matter how patently absurd Americans will demand accountability for acts and occurrences no one is even remotely responsible for, no one could reasonably foresee. We demand that we be protected from our own stupidity and recklessness. Whether it be a train derailing or a roller coaster losing a bolt and flying off the track- we demand answers. We demand that someone be blamed. Virtually any occurrence in which someone is killed or wounded in the United States is going to be documented by mounds of paper from insurance companies, to police, to personal injury lawyers and courts of law.

This control freak culture of demanding accountability for the uncontrollable- for the unforeseen- however, ends at the borders of the United States. It doesn't apply to foreigners. And it most certainly doesn't apply to foreigners who happen to be blessed by the presence of American combat troops. Not only do we not demand accountability from our armed forces in foreign lands, except in the most extreme cases in which criminal intent can't be denied, we actually blame the innocent civilians killed by American forces for their own deaths. The same culture that here, at home, holds night club owners criminally accountable for freak- one in a million chance fires that break out in their establishments that kill dozens- actually finds nothing wrong with the killing of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan that our military knows will occur whenever they drop a bomb or launch a drone. The bombing of villages, in which it is completely impossible to deny that you know you are going to kill civilians- in which the "enemy" forces may or may not be residing- is simply yawned at- shrugged at with the dismissive phrase "it's war". Well yes, a "war" in which one side may as well be using bows and arrows for all the good their light weapons can do against the 21st century fire power of the most technologically advanced military the world has ever seen. The "wars" in Iraq and Af-Pak are only wars if you consider a 300 pound seven foot tall man beating the tar out of a 45 pound 8 year old girl to be a "fight".

The intentional destruction of sewage plants and electrical grids that will indirectly kill thousands raises no hue or cry in this country. Twinkies left too long on a gas station mini mart shelf will concern Americans more than the daily carnage inflicted on civilians (nameless civilians) by the US military on the other side of the globe.

When it comes to the murder and mayhem caused by the US military in foreign countries- no excuse is too stupid, to idiotic- to outlandishly moronic (not to mention unspeakably callous) for Americans to accept. An American soldier executes at point blank range a motionless barely breathing wounded insurgent in a Mosque that had already been checked out by other American troops just minutes earlier? Hey- he could have had a grenade. He could have been a suicide bomber. The US military shoots up whole families in their cars for failing to slow down at some check point? Hey- it could have been a car bomb and the driver is to blame for not slowing down. Soldiers who signed up for war - with the understanding that they might get killed- shouldn't risk their lives even a little- better to kill car loads of nameless brown foreign families first than to entertain any risk that some American "combat" troops might be hurt or killed. Intentionally running down little kids on roads because there might be a roadside bomb is OK, nothing wrong with that all, but falling asleep at the wheel by accident because you played video games all night is a criminal act that surely must be "fought" with a new law.

100 plus villagers get literally ripped to pieces in a bombing run on their village? Oh- it's the "Taliban's" fault for not standing in open grass fields in the middle of nowhere firing off flares to tell the Americans where they are so they can be bombed more easily. And besides the "Taliban" probably killed them, packed them in the houses, and then "tricked" the US pilots into bombing them. And besides- the relatives get paid 2 grand for their loss- or the average earnings for one year in that part of the world. That is how much a family member being decapitated by an American bomb is worth- one year's income. That sum is about 48 thousand less than the average settlement in a whip lash car accident case in the United States.

There is more debate right now in this country about how combat stress centers in Iraq can protect troops from a freakish rare killing rampage than there is about how to not kill dozens of civilians every couple of weeks in aerial attacks that we know will kill innocents.

US troops kill entire families, shooting some family members in the face at point blank range, while throwing grenades into houses filled with cowering women and children? Hey- a sniper fired at them- so it's the fault of the insurgents.

None of these pathetic excuses for institutionalized American troop cowardice is however ever granted to the "terrorists". When a "terrorist" bomb goes off killing 20 Iraqi Quisling police officer cadets and 10 civilians why then- that is proof of how little the enemy values human life- proof of their fiendish disregard for the lives of innocents- evidence of their barbarism. And it is proof of their "cowardice" as well- the irony of suicide bombers being called cowards in our media actually never crosses our minds. But the US army lobbing shells or bombing from the air packed neighborhoods in response to a mortar attack is completely acceptable- even praiseworthy. That's "combat".

The same country that here at home vilifies landlords for a few lead paint chips - and demands they be held accountable for their callous disregard of parents who let their children crawl around on the floor unattended to eat these chips that they inexplicably haven't swept up- demands not one iota of accountability in the killing of 100 civilians in an indiscriminate bombing raid on a village. No, we would sooner entertain plainly imbecilic stories about how the Taliban killed over a hundred of their own men, women, and children and then put them in houses while waving down an American fighter to bomb the houses than demand an investigation of what is actually plausible. Americans would rather see 100 Afghan women and children put through a meat grinder than see so much as one American ground pounder risk a stubbed toe (begging the question why have ground troops at all if civilian life is of less concern than that of actual combatants- who signed up to fight and maybe die?) Is that what the US military means in its recruitment ads about "honor"? To use mass killing air-strikes that they know will kill civilians rather than risk the lives of soldiers? Men who knowingly signed up to engage in war?

Much is being made about the new torture photos that may or may not be released. The position that these photos will increase anti American hostility and thus jeopardize the safety of "the troops" is absurd. Could they really exacerbate hatred for Americans more than the wholly repulsive irresponsibility of a cretin like Bill O'Reilly and those like him, or American "military officials" who call Afghan villagers who lost their entire families greedy liars out to defraud the US out of a pittance? Or a media that is always more concerned about the policy "impact" civilian killing incidents have than the actual victims of these attacks? Could they really make the world hate America more than our own pathetic demand that we be swaddled in bubble wrap and kept safe from chance and probability themselves while blaming foreign women and children for hitting the bombs we drop on them with their bodies?

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3665-Boston-Libertarian-Examiner~y2009m5d15-The-American-accountability-gap

Villagers in Afghanistan Describe Chaos of U.S. Strikes

FARAH, Afghanistan — The number of civilians killed by the American airstrikes in Farah Province last week may never be fully known. But villagers, including two girls recovering from burn wounds, described devastation that officials and human rights workers are calling the worst episode of civilian casualties in eight years of war in Afghanistan.

“We were very nervous and afraid and my mother said, ‘Come quickly, we will go somewhere and we will be safe,’ ” said Tillah, 12, recounting from a hospital bed how women and children fled the bombing by taking refuge in a large compound, which was then hit.

The bombs were so powerful that people were ripped to shreds. Survivors said they collected only pieces of bodies. Several villagers said that they could not distinguish all of the dead and that they never found some of their relatives.

Government officials have accepted handwritten lists compiled by the villagers of 147 dead civilians. An independent Afghan human rights group said it had accounts from interviews of 117 dead. American officials say that even 100 is an exaggeration but have yet to issue their own count.

The calamity in the village of Granai, some 18 miles from here, illustrates in the grimmest terms the test for the Obama administration as it deploys more than 20,000 additional troops here and appoints a new commander, Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, in search of a fresh approach to combat the tenacious Taliban insurgency.

It is bombings like this one that have turned many Afghans against the American-backed government and the foreign military presence. The events in Granai have raised sharp questions once again about the appropriateness and effectiveness of aerial bombardment in a guerrilla war in which the insurgents deliberately blend into the civilian population to fight and flee.

Taliban insurgents are well aware of the weakness and are making the most of it, American and Afghan officials say. Farah, a vast province in the west, contains only a smattering of foreign special forces and trainers who work among Afghan police and army units. Exploiting the thin spread of forces, the insurgents sought to seize control of Granai and provoke a fierce battle over the heads of the civilian population, Afghan and American officials say.

After hours of fighting and taking a number of casualties, the American forces called in their heaviest weapon, airstrikes, on at least three targets in the village.

The rapid mass burial of the victims and the continuing presence of insurgents in the area have hampered investigations. Journalists were advised against visiting Granai. Villagers were interviewed here in Farah, the provincial capital, where they came to collect compensation payments, and in the neighboring province of Herat, where some were taken for treatment.

Much of the villagers’ descriptions matched accounts given by the United States military spokesman, Col. Greg Julian, and the provincial police chief, Col. Abdul Ghafar Watandar. But they differed on one important point: whether the Taliban had already left Granai before the bombing began.

There was particular anger among the villagers that the bombing came after, they say, the Taliban had already left at dusk, and the fighting had subsided, so much so that men had gone to evening prayers at 7 p.m. and returned and were sitting down with their families for dinner.

The police chief said that sporadic fighting continued into the night and that the Taliban were probably in the village until 1 a.m.

Whatever the case, American planes bombed after 8 p.m. in several waves when most of the villagers thought the fighting was over; and whatever the actual number of casualties, it is clear from the villagers’ accounts that dozens of women and children were killed after taking cover.

One group went to a spacious compound owned by a man named Said Naeem, on the north side of the village, where the two girls were wounded. Only one woman and six children in the compound survived, one of their fathers said.

Another group gathered in the house of the village imam, or religious leader, Mullah Manan. That, too, was bombed, causing an equally large number of casualties, villagers said. Colonel Julian, the American military spokesman, said that the airstrikes hit houses from which the Taliban were firing. The enormous explosions left such devastation that villagers struggled to describe it. “There was someone’s legs, someone’s shoulders, someone’s hands,” said Said Jamal, an old white-bearded man with rheumy eyes, who lost two sons and a daughter. “The dead were so many.”

A joint government and United States military delegation visited Granai last week but came back sharply divided in their conclusions. The Afghan government said that 140 civilians were killed and 25 wounded, and that 12 houses were destroyed.

The United States military said the Afghan numbers were far too high. This week, a senior military investigator, Brig. Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III of the United States Army, arrived to conduct an in-depth inquiry for the region’s overall military commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus.

An independent Afghan organization, Afghanistan Rights Monitor, said Wednesday that at least 117 civilians were killed — including 26 women and 61 children — drawing on interviews with 21 villagers and relatives of the dead. The group criticized both the Taliban for fighting among civilians, and the United States military for using excessive force.

The police chief, Colonel Watandar, confirmed much of the villagers’ accounts of the fighting. A large group of Taliban fighters, numbering about 400, they estimated, entered the village and took up positions at dawn on May 4. By midmorning, the Taliban began attacks on police posts on the main road, just yards from the village, they said.

The fighting raged all day. The police called in more police officers, Afghan Army units and an American quick reaction force from the town of Farah as reinforcements.

By midafternoon, the exchanges escalated sharply and moved deeper into the village. Taliban fighters were firing from the houses, and at one point a Marine unit called in airstrikes to allow Marines to go forward and rescue a wounded Afghan soldier, said Colonel Julian, the United States military spokesman. After that, Taliban fire dropped significantly, he said.

A villager named Multan said that one house along the southern edge of the village was hit by a bomb and that one Taliban fighter was killed there. But villagers did not report any civilian casualties until the American planes bombed that night.

Tillah, the 12-year-old girl, whose face bears the scars of a scorching blast, still twisted in pain from the burning in her leg at the provincial hospital in Herat, where she and other survivors were taken to a special burn unit. Her two sisters, Freshta, 5, and Nuria, 7, were barely visible under the bandages swathing their heads and limbs.

The three girls were visiting their aunt’s house with their mother when a plane bombed the nearby mosque, around 8 p.m., Tillah said. That is when they fled to Said Naeem’s seven-room home.

“When we reached there we felt safe and I fell asleep,” Tillah said. She said she heard the buzzing noise of a plane, but then only remembers coming to when someone pulled her from the rubble the next morning.

A second girl, Nazo, 9, beside her in another hospital bed, said she saw two red flashes in the courtyard that kicked up dust seconds before the explosion.

“I heard a loud explosion and the compound was burning and the roof fell in,” she said. Seven members of the family with her died, and four were wounded, her father, Said Malham, said.

“Why do they target the Taliban inside the village?” he asked wearily. “Why don’t they bomb them when they are outside the village?”

“The foreigners are guilty,” he continued. “Why don’t they bomb their targets, but instead they come and bomb our houses?”

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/students/pop/articles/15farah.html

Ghost of Haditha Haunts American Shooting Spree in Iraq

Now we know how the Iraqi people feel. For six years, nearly 150,000 exhausted, traumatized American soldiers have occupied the country governed by loose rules of engagement.

The result has been a series of massacres: a squad of angry Marines on their second tour kill 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha; in nearby Ishaqi, U.S. troops are caught on video storming a house, machine-gunning 11 civilians to death. In Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, an American soldier who displays symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, rapes and murders a young Iraqi girl after being prescribed sleeping pills and sent back into combat.

In each of these cases, the victims were Iraqi, the perpetrators American. But that all changed Monday, when John Russell, a U.S. Army Sergeant on his third tour in Iraq walked into a mental health clinic at Camp Liberty in Baghdad and went on a shooting spree, killing five of his fellow soldiers.

Russell’s killing rampage is getting a different kind of treatment from our government and the media, but long-time observers of America’s military know both types of killings come from the same place in the human psyche.

“The rage to kill out of control” is how Vietnam veteran Shad Meshad describes it. A licensed social worker, Meshad helped found a national network of storefront mental health clinics in the 1970s and now runs the National Veterans Foundation.

“These are situations where someone made the choice in a controlled environment to be uncontrolled and to kill,” Meshad said. “I don’t see any difference whether the victim is a civilian or an enemy prisoner of war, or a fellow soldier. When someone snaps and they go from anger to rage which is uncontrolled then anything can happen.”

While there is still much we don’t know about Sergeant Russell’s history and motivations, a picture is beginning to emerge of a soldier pushed to the brink of insanity by repeated and consistent exposure to war.

The 44-year-old Russell had spent many years of his life at war when he allegedly opened fire and killed five of his fellow soldiers. Russell was drawing to the end of his third tour in Iraq and had also served deployments in Bosnia and Kosovo.

And while it’s not yet clear what experiences Russell had during those deployments, veterans and mental health professionals have long drawn a link between these types of shootings by veterans to a combination of PTSD and a permissive attitude by the military command structure which looks the other way when American soldiers commit war crimes.

It’s for these reasons, they say, that crime statistics among Vietnam veterans are so frightening. By 1986, the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Survey reported that almost half of all Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD had been arrested or jailed at least once – 34.2 percent had been jailed more than once, 11.5 percent had been convicted of a felony.

“Every atrocity strengthens the enemy and potentially disables the service member who commits it,” psychiatrist Jonathan Shay wrote in his landmark book "Odysseus in America." “The overwhelming majority of people who join the armed services are not psychopaths; they are good people who will be seared by knowing themselves to be murderers.” Calling out politicians who say we need to support the troops by bending the rules of international law, Shay says, “You do not ‘support our service men,’ by mocking the law of land warfare and calling it a joke.”

Nearly 800,000 soldiers have served at least two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and the non-partisan Rand Corporation estimates more than 300,000 suffer from either Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or major depression.

Last May, USA Today reported the Pentagon had illegally deployed 43,000 soldiers deemed medically unfit for combat during the first five years of the Iraq war.

We are only now beginning to see the violent effects of these tragic decisions. So far, most of the victims have been Iraqis, but this week’s Baghdad shooting shows that increasingly we will see dead Americans as well.

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=395cafdd94b9667bea6ab607f8fa43a2