Monday, April 11, 2011

Veterans issues

The Houston Chronicle reports that there were 468 reported military suicides in 2010 and that Afghanistan and Iraq War veteran Clay Hunt took his own life March 31, 2011: "As reported by the Chronicle's Lindsay Wise, Hunt, who had been active in suicide prevention efforts, had a hard time adjusting to civilian life after his discharge in 2009. He dropped out of college, divorced and had suicidal thoughts. Things were looking up in recent months. He moved back to Houston, found a job and received medication for his depression and PTSD. But that didn't save him." Melissa Evans (Daily Breeze) adds, "The Texas native helped found a Santa Monica nonprofit called Team Rubicon, which deploys volunteers and resources in the wake of natural disasters around the world. He also had been involved in Ride2Recovery, a Calabasas-based organization that holds bike rides across the country to connect veterans. The decision to begin Team Rubicon and travel to Haiti within 24 hours of the country's devastating earthquake in January 2010 was spur of the moment, said Jake Wood, a close friend who served with Hunt in the 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment of the U.S. Marine Corps." Team Rubicon president Jake Wood noted:

Clay battled the demons of depression; our shared experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan only served to exacerbate those burdens. Clay was, above all, a brother, confidant, and loyal friend. His goal in life was to serve others and move our world towards the vision that he had for it. A vision where war wasn’t necessary and race, creed and class were nonexistent.
Clay's experiences with TR moved our organization in a new direction; a direction that focused on the value we brought to our nation’s veterans. This is a direction that cannot, and will not, be lost on us now. It is more important than ever to honor his legacy by ensuring that no veteran ever feels the pain of transition as Clay did.
For the time being let us mourn. My heart is heavy with this loss and my soul aches with our inability to have supported him.


Meanwhile the Democrats on the House Veterans Affairs Committee note:

Washington, D.C. - Ranking Democratic Member of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs Bob Filner reintroduced legislation that would further the goal of ending veteran homelessness in 5 years.
"We know the Department of Veterans Affairs has many programs to address currently homeless veterans, and they do a great job. However, the most important piece to ending homelessness among the nation's veteran population is to prevent it in the first place. It is unacceptable that even one of our veterans sleep on the streets or in shelters after risking their lives on behalf of this country. H.R. 806 will go a long way in strengthening our efforts to ultimately end homelessness.
According to recent VA reports, approximately one-third of the adult homeless population served in the Armed Services. Population estimates also suggest that about 131,000 veterans are homeless on any given night and perhaps twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year.
This bill increases funding to successful programs for homeless veterans; requires each VA medical center that provides supporting housing services to provide housing counselors; requries housing counselors to conduct landlord research; strengthens permanent housing programs, and pays special interest to the needs of homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children.

Nok-Noi Ricker (Bangor Daily News) reports that veterans were among those participating in Saturday's Bangor, Maine rally:


Ryan Tipping-Spitz, of the Maine People's Alliance, said the cost to Maine taxpayers for our country’s involvement in Iraq alone is staggering.
"The price tag in Iraq has risen while our programs here in Maine continue to struggle for even basic levels of funding,” he said. “Taxpayers in the state of Maine have paid $2.2 billion" since 2003.
If that money had stayed in the U.S., "we could be ensuring a safe, healthy and prosperous America at home with secure safety nets and assistance programs to any and all that need them in these uncertain times," Tipping-Spitz said.

Jane Fonda notes the passing of Sidney Lumet. (Starting with Elizabeth Taylor last month, I'm not writing about death unless it's Iraq or Iraq War veterans. That has to be covered here. Other deaths don't have to be. I'm not good around death and I don't enjoy noting deaths and am not going to rip myself apart to do so each morning unless it's Iraq-related.) She also blogs about receiving the Anne Marie Stass Ally Award last night at the Stonewall Democratic Club (Los Angeles chapter) at the 2011 Stoney Awards. Congratulations to her on a well deserved award. When many public figures were too 'nervous' to speak out for LGBT rights, Jane was happy to do so and to speak and march. Her committment to the LGBT community is long standing and predates the AIDS epidemic which brought many others on board with the issue. Again, it was a well deserved award. Bonnie notes Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Disappointment you can believe in!" went up last night. Today on Law and Disorder Radio (begins broadcasting at 9:00 am EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week), Michael Ratner, Heidi Boghosian and Michael S. Smith speak with Phil Weiss about The Goldstone Report and with the Coalition for the Homeless' Patrick Markee about rent laws.



We'll close with this from Sherwood Ross' "CUTS IN PENTAGON SPENDING POSSIBLE, AUTHORITIES SAY" (Veterans Today):


Americans can begin to hope that the current recession, coupled with the politics of debt reduction in Washington, may yet result in cuts in that runaway Pentagon budget, The Nation magazine says in its April 11th issue.
“War-weary Americans have turned decisively against the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and, according to polls, voters support cuts in military spending,” Contributing Editor Robert Dreyfuss writes.
“After 13 consecutive years of growth, between 1998 and 2011, spending on the military has reached an all-time high,” and for 2012 the Pentagon's Robert Gates “is asking Congress to authorize yet another increase, seeking $553 billion, plus an additional $118 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, for a total of $671 billion,” Dreyfuss writes. Throw in all war spending, homeland defense ($44 billion), Veterans Affairs ($122 billion), interest on military debt ($48 billion) and the war machine is costing the public in excess of $1 trillion a year.
“It's so much money,” Dreyfuss writes, President Obama's own National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform(NCFRR) pointed out the $80 billion the U.S. spends on military R&D alone “surpassed China's entire military budget by more than $10 billion.” Overall, Dreyfuss writes, the U.S. spends as much on military “as the rest of the world combined.”



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Sunday, April 10, 2011

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Disappointment you can believe in!"

Disappointment You Can Believe In

Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts "The Second Run." Barack Obama explains, "I'm announcing my decision to run for a second term as president. Now I know a lot of you are disappointed because I've broken all my campaign promises but I promise you if I get four more years, you won't feel the way you do now. No. I promise you will instead feel even more disappointed. Disappointment you can believe in!" Then Barack declares, "I'm Barack Obama and I'm just crazy enough to approve this message." Isaiah archives his comics at The World Today Just Nuts.







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And the war drags on . . .

Well look what the cat coughed up. The worthless Raed Jarrar shows up at Pacific Free Press wanting your help, your help!!!! Jar-Jar Blinks is a damn-damn liar. No one should sign onto his crappy little letter when, all this time later, he still can't get his facts straight. He's a damn liar and apologist for Barack Obama, a cheap, little whore for Obama, in fact. Barack mattered more than Iraq to Jar-Jar so he helped disperse the peace crowds with lies. Yes, lies. He was informed repeatedly that he was wrong in his intepretation of the SOFA. (I damn well know that.) And he chose to brush off everyone (myself included) who attempted to get him to tell the truth. He lied. He whored. The only thing he can offer now is a public apology.

But cheap whores are rarely known for their ethics. So Raed shows up to say that the SOFA "requires that all the US troops to leave Iraq" -- no, he hasn't gotten better at English in all of his many years in the US. He wants you to know that was a "binding deadline." No, it wasn't. He's still lying, he's still whoring. We explained the SOFA the day the White House released it (Thanksgiving Day, 2008 -- and believe me, I had a lot better things to do that day, with a house full of guests, then get online and analyze the SOFA). Others didn't bother.

The invasion of Iraq is illegal. The continued occupation has always had legal cover. (Which may or may not make it illegal.) The cover at first came from the United Nations. The UN didn't authorize the invasion; however, they did, after the invasion, authorize the occupation. It was a yearly UN mandate which gave the US (and other foreign forces) the right to be on Iraqi soil. The UN madate had to be renewed each year. In 2006, Nouri renewed it without telling the Iraqi government. They found out after the fact (much after the fact) and the Parliament was outraged. (This 2006 renewal covered the calendar year 2007.) Nouri swore any renewal in 2007 would go before the Parliament. He renewed it in 2007 without telling the Iraqi parliament. (This 2007 renewal covered the calendar year 2008.)

In order to continue the war, the UN mandate could have been extended. But it caused problems for Nouri and it also caused problems for US corporations who needed Iraq to move out of UN receivership. So the SOFA was the new agreement.

The SOFA first and foremost did away with yearly renewals so that Nouri would only have to face outrage once over three years. The contract covered a three year period. It did not contain a "binding deadline." That's like saying the UN mandate had a deadline. The UN mandate gave authorization for one year. It could be extended (and was twice under Nouri) or it could be replaced with a new agreement (as it was with the SOFA).

Jar-Jar Blinks now counts the US as his home. But not apparently enough to learn the Constitution. Nor does he know contract law. The only thing Jar-Jar needs to do right now is to issue an apology for three years of lying, for three years of insisting the Iraq War was over -- as Iraqis died, as US service members died -- for three years of lying. There's no excuse for what he did. It is not and will not be forgotten.

All he cared about was getting Barack to be the president of his newly adopted home (Raed's newly adopted home, for any confused). Like that was going to help Iraqis? It didn't. It didn't help them one damn bit. And until Raed can take accountability for that, he needs to sit his tired ass down because we don't need to hear it. He was put in a position of trust and he misused that position, he abused the trust and he used his position to rally support for Barack. He's a cheap whore and we are not interested in anything from him until he takes accountability for his lies and for the years of war his lies have allowed.

Let's be real damn clear, in 2009, had George W. Bush been sworn in, the peace movement would have continued calling for an immediate end to the Iraq War. If in January 2009, Bush had sworn on a Bible that all troops would be out Iraq no later than January 1, 2012, the peace movement would have (rightly) responded, "Not damn good enough!" The cry was "Out of Iraq Now!" It was not "Out of Iraq When You Feel Like It!" But liars and whores like Raed Jarrar worked overtime to make this seem acceptable. It was unacceptable and had it been presented to the grassroots, it would have been off with Raed's head. The liars covered for Barack, they whored for him. (Raed also whored for Samantha Power in 2008, insisting she was a voice of peace -- despite all evidence to the contrary. Now, thanks to the Libyan War, the peace movement's been confronted with the ugly reality of Samantha Power.)

Jar-Jar, Leslie Cagan and others did immeasurable harm to the peace movement, to Iraqs, to Afghanis, to the world. They're not going to sneak back in. These little liars who whored for a Corporatist War Hawk are not going to show up now and think they can cut in line. They lied, they whored. And they damn well better grasp that I've spent forty-six, forty-nine weeks on the road each year talking about Iraq. Do they get that? Do they get what that means?

If they don't let me break it down for them. In 2009, I was booed several times for telling the truth about the SOFA (more than "several") which is fine. But in 2010, I didn't get booed once. In 2010, I wasn't alone in bringing up the names of those who backstabbed and betrayed the peace movement. In fact, that was usually the most lively exchange in every talk as people rushed to have a turn at naming the names of those who sold out the peace movement. While Jar-Jar and Leslie have been on their own little pleasure cruise, America's grassroots have been working and they are damn well aware, on campuses across the country, who whored and prolonged the Iraq War.

If what I say online bothers Raed (and it does), he better grasp that what's said on campuses (and not by me -- I do a dead-on impersonation of a certain northern, half-American, Barack groupie and I stick to lampooning her in numerous skits) about him is far worse than anything that's ever gone up here -- and the most vocal? Iraqi-Americans who see him as the ultimate betrayer of Iraq.



They're just there to try and make the people free,
But the way that they're doing it, it don't seem like that to me.
Just more blood-letting and misery and tears
That this poor country's known for the last twenty years,
And the war drags on.
-- words and lyrics by Mick Softly (available on Donovan's Fairytale)

Last Sunday, the number of US military people killed in the Iraq War since the start of the illegal war was 4444. Tonight? PDF format warning, DoD still lists the the number of Americans killed serving in Iraq at 4449. And AP notes another American soldier has died in Iraq and this "marks the sixth U.S. soldier to die in Iraq so far this month." If that's new to you, see last week's "5 US soldiers have died this month."

Staying with deaths, Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) reports:

U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been causing huge civilian casualties with 63 percent of some 109,000 people killed in the Iraq war being civilians, according to a report on the U.S. human rights record released on Sunday.

The figures were quoted from a WikiLeaks trove by the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2010, which was released by the Information Office of China's State Council in response to the country reports on Human Rights Practices for 2010 issued by the U.S. Department of State.

Anyone questioning the numbers because of the Chinese government being the source should factor in that China's had better intelligence in and on Iraq then the west has. That's throughout the Iraq War. The US State Dept has long known that as has Britian's Foreign Ministry.


Reuters notes a Baghdad roadside bombing left two people injured, a Baghdad roadside bombing injured four people and that a Baghdad attack on a goldsmith shop resulted in the deaths of the owner and his son. Margaret Griffis (Antiwar.com) notes 5 dead and twelve injured in today's violence.

In major news, Ma'ad Fayad (Aswat al-Iraq) reports:

Salim al-Husni, a key figure in the Iraqi Islamic Dawa Party under the leadership of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, has revealed that the party is preparing for a general conference for the leaders of the Islamic Dawa Party. He said that the conference will announce Al-Maliki's removal from the party, because of his "abuse of the principles and ideas adopted by the Islamic Dawa Party."
Al-Husni, who is the former editor of the Islamic Dawa Party's newspaper (Al-Jihad) during the 1980s, said that: "Al-Maliki has used the Islamic Dawa Party and transformed it into a bridge to power." He noted that: "the ideas and principles of our party are far from power-mongering. Instead, it is a cultural and mass party that is founded on the principle of serving people, rather than serving officials and covering up for them."


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