Tag: Iraq War (2003-2011)

The inspiration to do this story came from Paul Wisovaty a member of Vietnam Veteran Against the War (VVAW) who wrote about how Veterans...

By Eric Athas in the Post Mason Alsaleh was sound asleep when he was attacked at a U.S. Army outpost in northwest Iraq.What happened that...

Thomas B. Edsall has a first-rate review in Democracy,  A Journal of Ideas of Karl Rove's Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the...

It is estimated that there are 2 million World War II veterans left alive.  Many that served in World War II also served in...

WAR AND SUFFERING, SOLDIERS AND VETERANS DROWNING IN SORROW AND DESPAIR WHILE AMERICA FOCUSES ON THE "MOJAVE CROSS" By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor Click.  There it...

"Green Zone" takes a look at an Iraq War in a way that seems to be unique in that we aree not the heroes, but the bamboozled. The movie's message is that Iraq's feared "weapons of mass destruction" did not exist and that the NEOCONS within the George W. Bush administration completely fabricated and lied about them and killed to cover up the deception on the American people and the world.

Created in the wake of the scandal in 2007 over serious shortcomings at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Warrior Transition Units were intended to be sheltering way stations where injured soldiers could recuperate and return to duty or gently process out of the Army. There are currently about 7,200 soldiers at 32 transition units across the Army, with about 465 soldiers at Fort Carson’s unit.

Major League baseball players are honoring the sacrifices made by our nation's wounded warriors by launching an exclusive line of military-themed licensed products to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project, it was jointly announced today by the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) and the Wounded Warrior Project. Major Leaguers are also contributing an additional $100,000 from the Major League Baseball Players Trust to the Wounded Warrior Project, to support their efforts in ensuring this generation of wounded warriors is the most successful and well-adjusted in our nation's history.

Danny Schechter, who edits Mediachannel.org., recently posted his views on what has become obvious to anyone monitoring or just watching mainstream media that...

WATCH IT UNFOLD, THE "WIKI VIDEO, " SPECIAL FORCES MURDERS, MARINES PROTECTING DRUGS, McCHRYSTAL ADMISSIONS ISRAEL DEPLOYS THE CONTROLLED PRESS AND CONGRESSIONAL STOOGES AGAINST AMERICA By...

Many veterans like Mr. Oldani have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq burdened by post-traumatic stress, drug dependency and other problems. As veterans find themselves skirmishing with the law, judges are increasingly finding ways to provide them with a measure of leniency.

A not-so-trivial quiz By Maidhc O'Cathail for the Islam Times Maidhc Ó Cathail presents a detailed 20 question quiz with answers at the end. This quiz...

The GOP leadership is a much more serious threat to the American way than Al Qaeda can ever be. While Al Qaeda is undoubtedly a physical threat to the American people, the GOP is attacking America's soul. They're attempting to alter what America is as a nation - and you're failure to address that issue is so counter- intuitive to your political base, who, after all, voted for change, that many are beginning to wonder if you're not part of the problem.

The Peace rallies planned from 20 March were originally scheduled to be centered in three cities: Washington, DC, Los Angles, and San Francisco, California,...

An official at the United States Embassy in Iraq has told federal prosecutors that he believes that State Department officials sought to block any serious investigation of the 2007 shooting episode in which Blackwater Worldwide security guards were accused of murdering 17 Iraqi civilians, according to court testimony made public on Tuesday.

"We polled many Whispers associates and sources, and they were quick to size up the top five Obama cabinet members." Fifth on the list, according to Bedard, "is Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, who has turned an agency that is at the bottom of lists in past administrations into an example of how to bring federal services to the troops, injured veterans, and even homeless vets. He's showing that the VA has a heart."

George Bush and Ahmad Chalabi Turn Iraq Over to Iran 5000 American Dead Betrayed By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor The word is finally out.  The American...

This is a follow-up to my review of the film Severe Clear being released in March. Shot by First Lieutenant Mike Scotti on his Mini-DV...

Reposting this to rebuke those who would call the slaughter of Gazans a people's simply getting the raw end of the deal. Kill, starve...

"The military needs to step up and address this problem," said John Wilson of the advocacy group Disabled American Veterans, which maintains a registry of more than 500 veterans with disorders they blame on burn pits. The fumes emanating from the pits, he warned, could become the Agent Orange of the current war zone.

HARLINGEN, Feb. 14 - Adriana Alvarez of San Benito was killed in action in Iraq this past week. She is the first female soldier from the Rio Grande Valley to suffer such a fate. Our heartfelt condolences go to the family.

The act of killing is as fundamental to war as oxygen is to fire. Yet it is also the one thing many combat veterans avoid discussing when they return home, whether out of shame, guilt or a deep fear of being misunderstood. But a new study of Iraq war veterans by researchers in San Francisco suggests that more discussion of killing may help veterans cope with an array of mental health problems stemming from war.

When promoters of the film Severe Clear sent a screener copy to VT for review and comment, I volunteered to take this film review...

While the Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, invests Congress with the power “to declare War,” the law school dean points out this has been largely ignored since President Harry Truman in 1950 “de facto changed the Constitution so that not the Congress, but the President, and he alone, makes the decision on war.”

In Viet Nam, for example, U.S. leaders caused the deaths of thousands of their own men and several million Vietnamese after they already knew they had made probably the worst mistake in American history. Velvel writes, “Our top military men create(d) free fire zones where civilians are killed on sight, and bomb and defoliate to the nth degree.” In Iraq, our leaders unleashed “a horrendous reign of terror from the skies, create a thus far thoroughly destabilized post-war society, and then, when all their other myths have shown to be myths, retroactively justify the war by saying that we got rid of an admittedly horrible dictator, his equally horrible sons, and his entirely horrible government.”

Since World War Two, an indisputably necessary conflict, Velvel points out the U.S. has fought the Korean War, the Viet Nam War, secret wars in Laos and Cambodia, the First Gulf War, Afghanistan, and the Second Gulf War in Iraq. It has also invaded, bombed or “quarantined” Panama, Grenada, Cuba, Haiti, Somalia, the Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia and Libya, and has “declared” a global war on terrorists.

Areas in and near Iraq's largest towns and cities, including Najaf, Basra and ­Falluja, account for around 25% of the contaminated sites, which appear to coincide with communities that have seen increased rates of cancer and birth defects over the past five years. The joint study by the environment, health and science ministries found that scrap metal yards in and around Baghdad and Basra contain high levels of ionising radiation, which is thought to be a legacy of depleted uranium used in munitions during the first Gulf war and since the 2003 invasion.

This in from a Research medical meeting, CNS2010 in Canada:Pre-frontal Cortex Dysfunction in Gulf War IllnessG. Andrew J. Hillis1, Traci I. Sandoval1, Michael A....

Jon Renaud, a retired Army Warrant Officer turned fiction writer, pledged to donate all of his royalties from the sale of his new novel, Dereliction of Duty, to the Wounded Warrior Project. A charitable organization committed to helping the wounded veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

In short, eight months prior to the invasion of Iraq this official U.K. document indicated that Bush wanted to go after Saddam, but they were going to have to lie to justify it. The memo was leaked by the British press in 2005. But in spite of the senseless deaths of tens of thousands of innocent human beings - including our own American troops - as a direct result of this criminal deception, it's been all but ignored by the American media. They've given more coverage to Tiger Woods' sex life.

As part of his regular engagement with Iraq, Vice President Biden has arrived in Baghdad to meet with Iraqi leaders; receive updates from U.S....

Jeff Gates outlines how Israel, using game theory, has manipulated America, inflicting damage no enemy could, while acting as our closest ally. Through the careful application of complex game theory, terrorist acts have been planned based on superbly crafted plans meant to use public fear, outrage and the predictability of America to serve the interests of Israel while bringing about the systematic downfall of the United States.

This is a follow-up on Tom Barnes post Obama wants record $708 Billion for military next year – Washington Post

My last memory of Iraq was of boarding a transport plane on the flight line at Balad Air Base in late January 2008. It had been raining and we were hoping to get out of the country before “MUDCON,” or mud conditions, turned every inch of desert not hiding below flight line or rocks into peanut butter. From the corner of my eye I saw a helicopter coming in. It was early in the morning, we’d been awake all night. And there was a Black Hawk helicopter with its generic Red Cross symbol on the nose.