Western Asia ("Middle East")

By John Grant

First it was Press Secretary Robert Gibbs attacking the “professional left” (whatever that means) for wanting to "eliminate the Pentagon." Then the liberal New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd kicked the left for “constantly sniping at Obama" and for considering "pragmatism a moral compromise."

Next, pragmatist Senator Harry Reid announced he opposed building an Islamic mosque two blocks from Ground Zero in New York, the sort of pragmatism power-Democrats understand, ie. pandering to the intolerant bigot vote in a tough election, in Reid’s case against Republican nutcase Sharron Angle.

The fact the New York mosque is far from Nevada and is the project of a Sufi element of Islam that preaches peace and love didn’t seem to bother Harry.

The left does not oppose pragmatism or compromise; the left can’t stand the absence of backbone and a moral compass.

Officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs believe that more than 6000 veterans will commit suicide in 2010.

According to an article in Foreign Policy, an average of one soldier a day committed suicide in June.

When Barack Obama spoke to Disabled Veterans of America (DVA) in Georgia on August 2, he addressed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), calling it “a pain like no other” and said: "… the hopelessness that has led too many of our troops and veterans to take their own lives. Today, I want to say to anyone who is struggling—do not suffer in silence. It’s not a sign of weakness to reach out for support—it’s a sign of strength. Your country needs you."

“Your country needs you.” Yes, the United States of American needs you.

Your country needs you for imperialist wars and occupations.

Your country needs you to secure the resources of other countries.

From OpEdNews.com, Ross Sherwood adds further details to the story of a battalion commander in Iraq who ordered his soldiers to engage in "360 degree rotational fire" upon being hit by an IED, and to shoot "every motherf*cker on the street," including women and children. Roy Corcoles recounts the training which reinforced the reaction to obey the order. You were asked, if you saw an attacker with many civilians close by and it was certain some would be killed or hurt, would you fire your weapon? The correct answer was "yes." But if you did not answer yes fast enough, you were beaten.

Ground Zero Mosque Not at Ground Zero and Not a Mosque : Veterans Today

Exchange among civilizations is a tremendous source for the creation of value and most of all, the value of diversity and tolerance

The above seems Not to be the ideals nor following the {re}written teachings of the so called self labeled 'christians' in the U.S. in this New Century carrying over from the previous but with louder whining and obscene hatreds, then they wonder why others shun them!!

Beyond the Military By Lt. Col. Barry Wingard
Aug 3rd, 2010

The U.S. government routinely uses the term “War on Terror” to describe its military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. But how do we really define this “War on Terror”? After all, terrorism dates back to at least the 14th century, and individuals, groups and even nations have employed it ever since.

It’s hard to argue that the deployment of a bigger gun or faster tank can actually alter the outcome of either the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, let alone defeat terrorism. The U.S. armed forces have undeniably defeated the organized militaries in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the question now is whether the military can obliterate the ideas and policies that drive the growing use of terrorism.

This is just the recent but think back these years and all read and heard or watched, this is what a big part of recruitment looks like {and rise of hatreds and thus blowback}, add in the killing, maiming, destruction and creating refugees from their homes and countries, and while in these theaters demeaning those that live there and their neighbors and not only in theater but across this country!

UN rights council names Gaza flotilla raid investigators

While this might be a great help for a few, mostly non combat in theater vets, I'm more then abit leery of having civilian professionals that have never served in the military let alone in an occupation theater diagnose military personal who have. They are fine for possible diagnosis in the civilian populations, which eventually will help them better understand Post Traumatic Stress from the trauma's and stresses of war suffered either directly or indirectly from a combat theater, thus understanding civilian PTS, but I have been watching as many keep trying to come up with the magic pill or magic instant cure while disregarding all that has been done by the few and mostly War Veterans, and some civilian dedicated professional and non professionals, of the past three plus decades.

Military Greenhouse Gas Emissions: EPA Should Recognize Environmental Impact of Protecting Foreign Oil, Researchers Urge

ScienceDaily (July 21, 2010) — U.S. military operations to protect oil imports coming from the Middle East are creating larger amounts of greenhouse gas emissions than once thought, new research from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln shows.

Regulators do not currently attribute these emissions to U.S. gasoline use -- but they should, the authors say.

UNL researchers Adam Liska and Richard Perrin estimate that emissions of heat-trapping gases resulting from military protection of supertankers in the Persian Gulf amount to 34.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent a year. In addition, the war in Iraq releases another 43.3 million metric tons of CO2 annually.

The millions of "rank amateurs" have yet, sadly, to be proven wrong in anything said before and through all these years of two destructive occupations, From the abandonment of Afghanistan in their much needed help to rebuild after decades of others trying to control them by focussing all attention on an innocent country and people in Iraq and reeking destructive terror on same, to today!

Manningham-Buller was right about the Iraq war

22 July 2010 Tony Blair ignored the MI5 boss's advice, as he did the public's protests, but history has proved her fears to be uncannily accurate

Eliza Manningham-Buller, former head of MI5. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Getty Images

UK's terror surge after Iraq invasion

21 July 2010 SECRET Service chiefs were "swamped" with terror plots by British Muslims after the invasion of Iraq, MI5's ex-boss said yesterday.

Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller told the official Iraq War inquiry the conflict in 2003 turned a generation of young "home-grown" Muslims into fanatics.

The invasion "substantially" increased the risk of terror attacks - to the point where she asked then-PM Tony Blair to DOUBLE her budget.

She said: "Our involvement in Iraq radicalised, for want of a better word, a whole generation of young people who saw our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as being an attack on Islam."

And adds to what already has taken place in the previous decade, brought on by the same, to make National Security Much Less Secure!!

Some of the nation's most sensitive duties have been doled out to private contractors, with exploding budgets and little oversight.

In June, a stone carver from Manassas, Va., chiseled another perfect star into a marble wall at CIA headquarters, one of 22 for agency workers killed in the global war initiated by the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The intent of the memorial is to publicly honor the courage of those who died in the line of duty, but it also conceals a deeper story about government in the post-9/11 era: Eight of the 22 were not CIA officers at all. They were private contractors.

By John Grant

Military violence has such a death-grip on national policy in America, it’s hard for citizens to grasp there are real alternatives to war.

Marine General James Mattis, the man appointed by President Obama to replace General David Petraeus as leader of the Central Command that oversees all US operations in the Iraq/Afghanistan theater, is a colorful case in point.

Mattis is famous for his tough guy statements. My favorite is: “Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”

His most quoted remark is about how much fun killing is, especially when one is killing Afghans who slap their women around.

“You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”

I’m happy to run with the six peaceniks that stood trial in DC Superior Court on July 12th. Three are with Peace of the Action (POTA) and include Cindy Sheehan, national director of the organization, as well as Jon Gold and Jim Veeder. They were acquitted. Elaine Brower of Military Families Speak Out and Matthis Chiroux of Iraq Veterans Against the War were convicted, as was Leflora Cunningham-Walsh. I applaud these citizens of the world and their devotion to peace and activism. Sheehan and Gold have articles about the trial on POTA’s web address: peaceoftheaction.org/.

On July 13th, some of us gathered at the White House. We took a bullhorn to the president’s presidio and told Barack Obama what we think of his George Bushiness foreign policy. This was gratifying, a celebratory wrap for POTA’s July action, especially since the defendants, prior to the trial, had been under a “stay away order” from this area of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Now, this:

Horrors of war get reality check

Sgt. Serena Hayden, a public affairs specialist deployed to Iraq from 2006 to 2008, poses with the niece of Diyala province Gov. Ra'ad Hameed Al-Mula Jowad Al-Tamimi during a visit to his house. But Hayden's deployment was hardly idyllic, and she has sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, which has been denied so far.

July 14, 2010 The dazzling smile Serena Hayden flashes in photographs masks the horrors of war she witnessed in Iraq.

She was a public affairs specialist, a job that some dismiss as cushy. Done right, however, the job means sharing the risks borne by combat soldiers. After all, you can't document a war if you're not in it.

Doesn't bring National Security, now frankly destroyed with the extreme rise of hatreds towards us and other so called Western Powers after the previous decade!!

And not to leave out the huge amount of graft, corruption and political crony-ism embedded with the budgets of each contract!

Gee ya think! that's why we the Brits and others condemn other countries for their Human Rights and much more, then we joined that same gutter thrash and expect to be justified, because well we're the righteous!!

A humane nation is a safer nation

7 July 2010 William Hague is right to put human rights at the heart of the UK's foreign policy – for practical as well as ethical reasons

The foreign secretary William Hague said last week that human rights should be the "irreducible core" of the UK's foreign policy. But he did not spell out why, or what that would mean in practice.

Our blanket support of the Israeli Neo-Con ideology government has and is creating long term National Security problems, as to country and citizens, and adding to the killing and maiming of our military forces still occupying Iraq and Afghanistan as well as one more major negative in implementing a Counter Insurgency program!

Israeli soldiers face criminal indictments in Gaza incursion

An Israeli tank near the Israel-Gaza border during Operation Cast Lead, undertaken by Israel in late 2008

Thus much easier to control your own, and prosper from in power, stature and wealth!

Thousands missing out on education in Gaza

Photo: Suhair Karam/IRIN Nuha Abed Rabbo, 9, on her way to an UNRWA elementary school in eastern Gaza

GAZA CITY, 5 July 2010 (IRIN) - Thousands of Palestinian refugee children in the Gaza Strip are unable to receive adequate education, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

About 39,000 child refugees in Gaza will not attend UNRWA schools this year, since the agency is unable to build or re-build schools due to the Israeli blockade, damage sustained during the 23-day Israeli offensive (27 December 2008 - 18 January 2009) and population growth, UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness said in Jerusalem.

This is unprecedented news and much needed research study. Except for many veterans, mostly of the brothers and sisters of our conflict in Vietnam, and some of the civilian professionals and advocates through these past decades, it is rare, if at all, that not only this country but any other takes into consideration those invaded and occupied especially the mental stress of living within or being forced into a refugee status for years or forever!

$2.6 million US-backed study at Wayne State targets trauma among Iraqi war refugees

July 4, 2010 The U.S. is funding a $2.6 million study of post-traumatic stress among Iraqi war refugees in the Detroit area.

Grist to the conspiracy mill

4 Jul 2010 Many of Blair’s former intimates would rather it were not any sort of deal. Each of the men bidding to become Labour’s next leader has discovered – just in time – that the Iraq war was a bit of a mistake and yet, somehow, nothing to do with them. David Miliband, for one, has urged that we all “move on”.

This is the same Miliband who, as Foreign Secretary, rose in the Commons to state categorically (and indignantly) that MI5 had not, and would never, involve itself in the torture of prisoners. He had better hope that the forthcoming Government inquiry into the issue is also happy to “move on”.

Charles Krauthammer's propaganda
By Glenn Greenwald | Salon

It's anything but news that Charles Kruathammer is a rank propagandist, but his column today is particularly egregious, though quite illustrative of how these issues are discussed. He lambastes the Obama administration for what he calls its "absurd and embarrassing refusal . . . to acknowledge who out there is trying to kill Americans and why." Krauthammer -- needless to say and for reasons too obvious to require explanation -- wants to claim that the True Cause of Terrorism is "radical Islam" by itself, and thus accuses the administration of dishonesty because it "has banned from its official vocabulary the terms jihadist, Islamist and Islamic terrorism." His primary evidence is this recent statement of Faisal Shazhad, when he pleaded guilty to attempting the Times Square bombing: "I consider myself a mujahid, a Muslim soldier." See, Krauthammer argues, even Shazhad admits it was Islam that caused his Terrorism, so why can't Obama admit it, too?

Except to make this accusation against Obama and Islam, Krauthammer hides from his readers what Shazhad actually said, because it completely negates his claim. When pleading guilty, Shazhad explained that his attempted bombing was in response to the violence and wars which the U.S. is perpetrating in the Muslim world, telling the court that violence aimed at Americans will continue unless and until the U.S. stops waging wars and spawning violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other Muslim countries: Read more.

By Missy Comley Beattie

My mother has an opera-quality voice. No training. Two of my siblings can sing. I can’t. At all.

I positioned the karaoke machine near the television set and plugged the auxiliary cables into the back of the TV for a wider word screen. I rarely watch television, except when “researching” the inadequacies of “mainstream” mediocrity for an article. Every now and then, when I read something important on the Internet, I turn on the tube to see if anyone is addressing the issue. Usually, the answer is either an “Update” sentence beneath the blathering blahblah blahers or a no.

So, largely, the TV monitor will be an accessory for the karaoke machine that is my scream therapy. “Sing, sing a song. Sing out loud. Sing out strong.”

GORDON DUFF: THE AFGHANISTAN CIRCUS, McCHRYSTAL LEAVES THE CENTER RING

RCMP investigation could reveal U.S., Syrian torture tactics: Arar

Jun. 14, 2010 The RCMP has conducted a four-year investigation called “Project Prism” that could lead to Canadian criminal charges of torture against American and Syrian officials, Maher Arar and his lawyer said Monday.

Arar revealed he is pinning some hope on the investigation after the top U.S. court on Monday refused his petition to sue the United States for his 2002 detention on false allegations of terrorism and forced removal to a prison in Syria where he was tortured.

Armada Of U.S. & Israeli Warships Head For Iran
Posted by ewingsc | Uncensored

[ Iran has not invaded another country in 200 years & the now the armada is on the way ]

More than twelve U.S. and Israeli warships, including an aircraft carrier, passed through the Suez Canal on Friday and are headed for the Red Sea.

“According to eyewitnesses, the U.S. battleships were the largest to have crossed the Canal in many years,” reported the London-based newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi on Saturday.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Egyptian opposition members criticized the government for cooperating with the U.S. and Israeli forces and allowing the passage of the ships through Egyptian territorial waters.

The Red Sea is the most direct route to the Persian Gulf from the Mediterranean. Read more.

One of the many destructive legacies of the Reagan Era was the effective Washington consensus that wars and other military spending exist on their own fiscal planet. Reagan got a Dixiecrat Congress to double military spending at a time when the U.S. was not at war (unless you were a poor person in Central America.) Meanwhile, Reagan got the Dixiecrat Congress to cut domestic spending - we just couldn't afford those costly social programs. Reagan pretended the two things were totally unrelated, and the Dixiecrat Congress went along.

At a time prior to one of the so called great powers on this planet decided it wanted to control.

Photos Of Afghanistan's Past: Modernity Lost

June 18, 2010 The Afghanistan of Mohammad Qayoumi's memory is far from that of a "broken 13th century country," as it was recently described by British Defense Secretary Liam Fox.

Qayoumi, now a university president in America, grew up in Kabul in the 1950s and '60s. It was a period of calm and prosperity — and even optimism — before the Soviet invasion.

What we brought to the Iraqi People, as we have others, for no reason, and what we'll once again walk away from, as we have others, not just the present mental issues but the present to long lasting physical results, happening to many at any time even those yet born, of occupations!!

100 psychiatrists serve nation of 30 million psychologically shattered by war

by Kenneth J. Theisen

On June 7th Amnestey International (AI) released a report and of a U.S.-manufactured cruise missile that carried cluster munitions.

The remnants of the cruise missile pictured in the AI report are what was on the ground after a savage December 17, 2009 strike on an alleged ‘terrorist” training camp in Yemen. The attack killed 55 people, including 14 women and 21 children.

For more on this story go to:

http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/news/40-recent-news/543-6-9-10-mu...