Tag: iraq

Michael Clauer is a captain in the Army Reserve who commanded over 100 soldiers in Iraq. But while he was fighting for his country, a different kind of battle was brewing on the home front. Last September, Michael returned to Frisco, Texas, to find that his homeowners' association had foreclosed on his $300,000 house—and sold it for $3,500. This story illustrates the type of legal quagmire that can get out of hand while soldiers are serving abroad and their families are dealing with the stress of their deployment. And fixing the mess isn't easy.

For a national population to stay even, women must average 2.1 to 2.3 births apiece.

THE ART OF KEEPING AMERICA AT RISK FOR FUN AND PROFIT By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER, Senior Editor This week, newspapers around the world received reports...

Senior Defense Department officials have stressed repeatedly in public they are doing everything they can to provide the best care possible to U.S. troops injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. But that might not be the case for the tens of thousands of troops who have experienced some form of brain injury.

  Call for Elections to be Halted, Government Seized Publication Demands "Interim Military Dictatorship" for America, says Scaife publication By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor (UNEDITED TEXT BELOW) Newsmax...

It Is Starting, America Is Being Called To Account Phony War, Forgotten Troops And Abused Veterans By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor After 9/11 it started.  We...

The bill would cut the DoD's budget and use that money to make the first $35,000 each American earns tax-free. Last week, as Congress prepared to pass yet another “emergency” spending bill to cover America’s costly operations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- to the tune of $159 billion this time around -- Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Florida, introduced a bill that would force the Pentagon to pick up the tab out of its ample regular budget.

The fighting in Afghanistan this week has resulted in the deaths of Canadian Colonel Geoff Parker, 42, of Oakville, Ontario, and U.S. Colonel John McHugh, 46, of W. Caldwell, New Jersey. It also claimed the lives of Lieutenant Colonels Paul Bartz, 43, of Waterloo, Wis., and Thomas Belkofer, 44, of Perrysburg, Ohio. Other fatalities were Staff Sgt. Richard Tieman, 28, of Waynesboro, Pa., and Specialist Joshua Tomlinson, 24, of Dubberly, La.

When it comes to America, most people from various parts of the world agree on two things, they all like the American films, and they all dislike the American foreign policy. At least that holds as true in the Arab world and the whole Middle East with an exception of a small and a new state in the region namely, Israel.

As Memorial Day approaches, thousands will make the pilgrimage to pay honor to loved ones lost to war. Some do not have to travel far. Others will make it an honorable effort to visit many cemeteries that bear the names and are home to our fallen military men and women.

CAN A REAL GLOBALISM BASED ON TRUTH AND HONOR SAVE THE WORLD? By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor I was asked during an interview on Al...

In order to be in the Army Luther had to pass the various medical and psychological examinations, so his condition couldn’t possibly be pre-existing. He was kept in an isolation chamber for one month, where he was treated worse than a prisoner, until he agreed to sign a pre-existing PD discharge. The Army’s officials found a way to get away with misdiagnosing him and he was denied treatment for his disabilities. The Army’s Chapter 5-13 says that any soldier with pre-existing PD should be discharged from the army with no medical benefits.

Do the leaders of all these countries know they are in a Nuclear War?

A team of exceptional athletes, many of whom are wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans representing all military branches, will depart from the Golden Gate Bridge on Saturday, May 22 for World T.E.A.M. Sports’ inaugural bike trek across America called Sea to Shining Sea. The goal of Sea to Shining Sea is to honor the courage of our service men and women, recognize the strength of the American spirit and challenge perceptions of how we view athletes. The ride will conclude in Virginia Beach on July 24.

Shell shock, battle fatigue, operational exhaustion, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are all reiterations of the same condition which has been scientifically recognized since World War I. The issue itself may not be new, but we are only now realizing the extent of its influence. A recent explosion of such cases has many worried that not enough resources exist to help the returning heroes.

NARCO NEXUS MAY BE MANAGING TERROR WAR By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor First we are told opium and heroin are financing world terrorism, then General...

During her yearlong tour of duty in Iraq Maj. Elizabeth A. Condon saw all manner of horror and heartbreak, from dead bodies in the street and memorials for fallen friends to “little babies with holes in their backs.” But it was a moment of tenderness, she said, that stuck with her most. It happened when she was helping to care for a young Iraqi woman, whose belly had been left ripped open and infected from an amateur cesarean.

Despite Prince’s attempts to shield his speeches from public scrutiny, The Nation magazine has obtained an audio recording of a recent, private speech delivered by Prince to a friendly audience. The speech, which Prince attempted to keep from public consumption, provides a stunning glimpse into his views and future plans and reveals details of previously undisclosed activities of Blackwater.

Kat Larson recently stood with several Vietnam War veterans on the site of what was once Camp Evans, an installation that served as a base camp during the war. “They’d see these places as battlefields, and as they talked about their experiences, you could tell in their eyes and their emotions that they were going back there,” the 22-year-old college student recalled.

There is a Middle Eastern country that requires all 18-year-olds to join national service for several years. This country even has a roughly comparable health care system to America for a population of 7,233,701, according to the CIA World Factbook. The country is Israel.

Veterans fighting to gain the benefits and care earned, deserved, and decades long over due!

Senators Propose TRICARE Dependent Coverage Extension Act A bill introduced to the U.S. Senate April 14 would, if passed into law, enable the dependent children...

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.

94 percent of Kandaharis interviewed last December prefer negotiating with the Taliban to military confrontation, Gareth Porter reports for Inter Press Service. Ninety-one percent supported the convening of a "Loya Jirga", or "grand assembly" of leaders as a way of ending the conflict. Interviewers conducted the survey only in areas which were not under Taliban control. An unclassified report on the survey was published in March by Glevum Associates, a "strategic communications" company under contract for the Human Terrain Systems program in Afghanistan. All this undermines the U.S. claim that the Kandahar offensive will be supported by locals, Porter notes.

FEW AMERICANS ARE AWARE THAT FOX NEWS IS DIRECTLY TIED TO LIKUD EXTREMISTS IN ISRAEL ISRAEL'S PROPAGANDA MACHINE, WAGING WAR AGAINST ISRAELI'S "ALLIES" By Gordon Duff...

A newly released Wikileaks “Collateral Murder” video has made international headlines showing a July 2007 shooting incident outside of Baghdad in which U.S. forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees. Two soldiers from Bravo Company 2-16, the company depicted in the video, have written an open letter of apology to the Iraqis who were injured or lost loved ones during the attack that, these former soldiers say, is a regular occurrence in this war.

Authorities might never completely determine why Jesse C. Huff dressed in Army fatigues, walked to the steps of the Dayton Veterans Affairs Department’s Medical Center and shot himself to death Friday morning. Police said they found no suicide note and knew of no ominous statements he made to employees while inside the medical center hours before his death.

DOING NOTHING AT ALL WOULD BE A HUGE IMPROVEMENT ALLOWING VETERANS TO DIE QUIETLY, BETTER THAN THE ABUSE By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor America has been at...

Revolving door of multiple tours linked to PTSD By SHARON COHEN (AP)  It wasn't his first tour in Iraq, but his second and third when Joe...

Not only did a U.S. military helicopter gunship mow them down amid macho jokes and chuckling – after mistaking a couple of cameras for weapons – but the American attackers then blew away several Iraqis who arrived in a van and tried to take one of the wounded newsmen to a hospital. Two children in the van were badly wounded.

EXCUSES, EXPLANATIONS OR CONSPIRACY AND MISPRISION OF A FELONY TIME FOR THE "SPIN MASTERS" TO "PAY THE FIDDLER" By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor MSNBC, in an...

Wikileaks has obtained and decrypted this previously unreleased video footage from a US Apache helicopter in 2007. It shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad. They are apparently assumed to be insurgents.

  HIGHLY CLASSIFIED MISSILE TECHNOLOGY TRANSFERRED TO CHINA "BY PRESIDENTIAL SIGNATURE"   SOLD THROUGH FAMILY OWNED BUSINESS...IRAQ REDUX By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor "I actually believe he was...

IF THERE IS ONE VIDEO THEN THERE IS TEN OR A HUNDRED DID BUSH WHITE HOUSE AUTHORIZE  MURDER OF CIVILIANS IN IRAQ? By Gordon Duff STAFF...

WIKILEAKS VIDEO EXPOSES 2007 "COLLATERAL MURDER" IN IRAQ By David Froomkin for Huffington Post (check site for additional video) Calling it a case of "collateral murder," the...

Three deadly bombings in the Iraqi capital Baghdad have killed at least 30 people and wounded 224 others, police sources told Al Jazeera. "] The explosions in Baghdad on Sunday were the first to shake the capital in recent weeks Photo: AFP Smoke could be seen rising into the sky above Baghdad on Sunday, as helicopters circled overhead. Gunfire could also be heard echoing across the city.

Who’s Afraid of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories? By Maidhc O'Cathail for VT  “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” —Queen Gertrude, Hamlet.  Whenever someone insists too strongly about something...

Normally, if two countries with powerful nuclear arsenals were openly musing about attacking a third country over mere suspicions that it might want to join the nuclear club, we’d tend to sympathize with the non-nuclear underdog as the victim of bullying and possible aggression.

Between 2002 and 2008, nearly 50,000 veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars received diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder. But fewer than 10 percent of those completed the recommended treatment of 10 to 12 weekly sessions within four months; the number only grew to fewer than 30 percent over a year, the study authors found.

Formerly homeless Veteran, Jeffery Anderson has stabilized home and family thanks to his new job at the Waco, Texas, VA Regional Office. In response to Secretary Shinseki’s charge to end homelessness among Veterans within five years, the Waco VA Regional Office began a Homeless Veterans Hiring Initiative.

U.S. forces hope to control Kandahar and surrounding areas by late summer, the Washington Post reports. Officials have pressed local leaders to eject the Taliban or their areas will be the focus of expanding military operations. Among those specifically warned by U.S. military commanders is Ahmed Wali Karzai, the elected head of Kandahar's provincial council, the unquestioned power broker in the province and brother of President Hamid Karzai [and also President Karzai's representative in talks with Taliban leader Mullah Baradar weeks before Baradar's arrest, a fact curiously unmentioned by the Post or the very similar New York Times story - JFP.]

CHARGED WITH:  "engaged in deceptive and illegal marketing practices by suggesting that all concert ticket sale revenue goes directly to scholarships for children of...