No Contractor Left Behind tells how American soldiers were not told they were exposed to a cancer-causing chemical at the Qarmat Ali electrical plant near Basra in the first months of the Iraq War. KBR, the Pentagon's biggest private contractor, was supposed to clean up the site. It did not. Instead, the company and the Army exposed hundreds of soldiers to a rust inhibitor that is a well known carcinogen and did not tell them about it until years later. Many of the Army National Guard soldiers from Oregon, Indiana, and West Virginia became very ill. Several have died. You will meet some of the soldiers who were exposed and see the depositions of KBR officials who did nothing to protect the Guardsmen. The story shows how the Senate, more concerned about KBR and the Pentagon than the health of our soldiers, left the investigation into this tragedy to the Democratic Policy Committee. The DPC is powerless to compel testimony from witnesses, or subpoena documents, or control the budgets of the Pentagon or the Veterans Administration to help these men who are facing huge health bills and years of medical treatment.
The Associated Press reports that there are already more than 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan working with 200,000 Afghan security forces and police. This adds up to a 12-1 numerical advantage over Taliban rebels, but it hasn't led to anything close to victory.The Associated Press reports that there are already more than 100,000 international... more
More than 1,000 US troops have been wounded in battle over the past three months in Afghanistan, accounting for one-fourth of those injured in combat since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. The dramatic increase in amputees and other seriously injured service members comes as October marks the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.More than 1,000 US troops have been wounded in battle over the past three months in... more
Trees for Troops has touched 50,082 military families by providing them a fresh, farm-grown Christmas tree for the holidays.Trees for Troops has touched 50,082 military families by providing them a fresh,... more
September 03, 2009
Christian Science Monitor|by Gordon Lubold
WASHINGTON -- When he got home from war, Rey Leal's biggest problem was that he couldn't sleep as he tried to free himself of the images of combat in Iraq.
"My thing was turning off that movie in my head," says Mr. Leal, a former marine and now a student at a college in south Texas. Ultimately, he sought mental-health assistance at a Veterans Affairs clinic in the Rio Grande Valley. But he found navigating the bureaucratic tangle a strain: He waited a month or more for appointments with the sole psychologist there.
CLICK FOR FULL ARTICLE....September 03, 2009
Christian Science Monitor|by Gordon Lubold
WASHINGTON -- When... more
I hope that more people can find the strength to do the same. I don't agree with a logistcal basis for refuting the war (it has/will cost too much), I think that is a self destructive mentality, but expressing one's mind at the threat of facing government oposition is comendable and courageous.I hope that more people can find the strength to do the same. I don't agree with a... more
Two soldiers in Iraq, Olga Elliot and April Turner, who got "a picture and a hug and a handshake" from the president talk to MSNBC's Tamron Hall. "I was extremely shocked," says one. "We are looking forward to our tour in Iraq," says the other, "and the president's visit just made it that much more important to us."
Watch:Two soldiers in Iraq, Olga Elliot and April Turner, who got "a picture and a hug and a... more
FORWARD OPERATING BASE BERNSTEIN, TUZ, Iraq – Iraq’s infrastructure has been jumping hurdles since 2003, but now it’s being rebuilt at an unprecedented rate in the Tuz Qada, according to local shaykhs and provincial leadership.
Lt. Col. Chris Stenman, commander of the Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, has been working in the Salah ad-Din Province since early November. Stenman and his team of experts routinely meet with key leaders in the area, assisting in local development and helping their Iraqi counterparts take the first tenuous steps away from the dictatorial rule to which they were accustomed.
“This is a young feeling – the relationship between me and democracy,” said Shaykh Adil Uthman, a tribal leader from Tuz who represents his clan in the District Council. “Most of Iraq’s people...read full storyFORWARD OPERATING BASE BERNSTEIN, TUZ, Iraq – Iraq’s infrastructure has been... more
Soldiers returning from Basra expecting a warm welcome home were instead faced with angry protests from anti-war demonstrators during an army homecoming parade for troops returning from Iraq in the Bedfordshire town of Luton today.
Over 200 military personnel from the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment marched with bagpipes through the English town just outside of London had their ceremony (organised by the local council) had the event interrupted by angry demonstrators with placards that read "Anglian Soldiers Go To Hell" and "Butchers of Basra".Soldiers returning from Basra expecting a warm welcome home were instead faced with... more
Top U.N. Official Accuses U.S. of Inhuman Atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan
By Fox News
"The aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations," said U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann
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A top U.N. official accused the United States of committing inhuman "atrocities" in Iraq and Afghanistan during a speech Wednesday to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.
"The aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations," said U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann.
• Click here to see the speech.
D'Escoto claimed that U.S. actions have directly led to more than a million Iraqi civilian deaths since 2003, a vastly inflated figure that does not correspond with the U.N.'s own estimates.
The U.N.'s health and medical agency, the World Health Organization, says 151,000 Iraqis have died since the 2003 invasion. IraqBodyCount.org puts the death toll between 90,000- 99,245.
D'Escoto's fiery speech came on the day the Obama administration decided to take up observer status on the Human Rights Council, which the Bush administration had boycotted because it was unable to crack down on despots and human rights abuses.
D'Escoto urged the Council to put the human rights situation in Iraq on its agenda, accusing the U.S. of war crimes and a series of human rights violations. "These must be addressed to bring an end to the scandalous present impunity," he said.
He also called on the U.S. to free five Cuban nationals being held in U.S. prisons. The group was convicted in a Miami court in 2001 on a range of charges including lying about their identities, trying to obtain U.S. military secrets and spying on Cuban exile groups.
D'Escoto, once the foreign minister for the Communist Sandinista government of Nicaragua, called the five "heroes" being held in "preposterous conditions."
D'Escoto said he was hopeful that the Obama administration would address his concerns and bring change to American policies concerning the imprisoned Cubans.
"The immediate ex-incarceration of the five Cuban heroes would help strengthen our confidence that the promised change is for real," he said.
==================================Top U.N. Official Accuses U.S. of Inhuman Atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan
By Fox... more
Dahr Jamail is an award-winning freelance journalist. His reporting from Iraq has earned him numerous awards, including the prestigious 2008 Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism, the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, and four Project Censored awards. His stories have been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald in Scotland, DemocracyNow.com, Al-Jazeera, and The Guardian to name a few, and he’s appeared on NPR and is a special correspondent for Flashpoints. He has spent a total of 8 months in Iraq, and in the Middle East, and he’s reported from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, as well as the region for 5 years. He has a new book out called Beyond the Green Zone which is a chronological collection of his dispatches from Iraq. His reporting is un-apologetic, and he isn’t afraid to go where the story is. We contacted him through his website, and here’s our conversation:
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Only within the last half-year has violence lessened, and street life returned to something akin to “normal,” which means that as opposed to 50-250 Iraqi being slaughtered each day, now it is an average of one, sometimes two dozen per day.
The relative lull has allowed me to travel around Baghdad with relative ease, eat at restaurants, and even conduct interviews on the street; all of which was unheard of during my last visits to Iraq. I’ve been taking stock of what has changed, and what hasn’t.
One of the first things I noted that has not changed did not occur in Iraq. Rather, when arriving in Amman, Jordan and exiting the airplane, I strode into customs to find a Jordanian man holding up a Blackwater USA sign, to be met by four rough looking middle-aged men. The next day, whilst flying into Baghdad, the commercial jet did a “soft-spiral” descent into Baghdad airport, unlike the hard corkscrew descent that they all did when I was last in Iraq, so as not to be shot at by resistance fighters just outside of the airport perimeter.Dahr Jamail is an award-winning freelance journalist. His reporting from Iraq has... more
PLEASE, watch the video and consider signing the petition. Even if you do not support the war, please support the men and women who were unjustly put in harm's way.
Please tell as many people as you can. There are families who are paying the ultimate price because of KBR's oversite and disregard.
Thanks.And now they deny the whole thing.
PLEASE, watch the video and consider signing the... more
Mr. Dont Knows piece of the life story is highlighted with sincerity by
a producer, Lisa Gonzales, of MTV News. He is an Iraq war Veteran.
We had met him earlier this year & got a lil bit of his
story. He is tru to himself, a good music artist & an inspiration.Mr. Dont Knows piece of the life story is highlighted with sincerity by
a producer,... more
I spent some time watching several times and paid close attention to this video. It is testimony we sure did not hear about on the local news, or any other news for that matter. I wonder what keeps this kid's story so quiet??
Now that the election is over, and we have a chance to make a change and a difference, please pass this on and make it heard! We need to get out of Iraq NOW!!I spent some time watching several times and paid close attention to this video. It... more
Since everyone is at least a bit familiar with John McCain’s record when it comes to strolling through a market in Baghdad with hundreds of his closest guards, or how he wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years (except when he flip flops on that).
But not that many really, truly know just how horrific his voting record is when it comes to the troops. And it is pretty consistent – whether it is for armor and equipment, for veteran’s health care, for adequate troop rest or anything that actually, you know, supports our troops.
Since everyone is at least a bit familiar with John McCain’s record when it comes... more
WASHINGTON — No one knows for sure, but auditors think the U.S. has paid well over $6 billion to private security companies who've been guarding diplomats, troops, Iraqi officials and reconstruction workers in Iraq.
The money amounts to about 12 percent of the $50 billion Americans are paying for reconstruction in the country, said Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen.
The figure, included in a report being released by Bowen's office Thursday, is likely to be taken as the most authoritative accounting so far of what it has cost taxpayers to provide private security since 2003 in the violence-plagued nation.
It included bodyguards for diplomats and top commanders and guards for U.S. military bases, as well as for military supply convoys, contractors, subcontractors and others supporting the U.S. mission and military.
Also included were personal security details for high-ranking Iraqi officials, as well as security advice and planning costs.
Government agencies in Iraq were not required to keep track in one place of how much money was going to security. So Bowen's office spent three months going through records from the State Department, Defense Department U.S. Agency for International Development and other government sources to try to pull together the figure.
There are likely more contractors he has yet to count and so the $6 billion is almost certainly not the full picture, he said in an interview Wednesday.
The report accompanies Bowen's quarterly reconstruction report to Congress, which included the following other findings:
More than $125.7 billion has now been committed to rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure and government since U.S.-led forces toppled the government of Saddam Hussein five years ago.
Though all of that has not been spent, it includes $50.77 billion in money appropriated by the U.S., $57.96 billion in Iraqi funds and $17 billion pledged by other international donor, the bulk of it in the latter in loans and under $5.3 billion in grants.
_ Iraq's rule-of-law system remains broken, most evidenced by the fact that Iraqi judges continue to be assassinated across the country. In 2008, terrorists killed seven judges, compared to 11 killed in 2007 and bringing the number to more than 40 judges and family members since 2003.
_ A serious problem remains with corruption _ which Bowen has long called a "second insurgency" in Iraq for the challenge it poses. For instance, auditors noted that a local contractor asked to be released from his work on three schools in Baghdad's Sadr City this quarter because he and his family were threatened when he refused repeated requests from government officials that he pay them bribes.
_ The United States has allocated nearly $25 billion to support training and equipping new Iraqi security forces and the justice system and spent more than $10 billion on Iraq infrastructure. WASHINGTON — No one knows for sure, but auditors think the U.S. has paid well over... more
Last Wednesday, while presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain debated domestic policy issues in front of a live television audience at the Long Island campus of Hofstra University, Nassau county police faced off with a few hundred spirited but peaceful demonstrators. And using excessive force, police -- on horses and in full riot gear -- trampled several people including Iraq vet Nick Morgan. I-Witness Video member Emily Forman captured the ensuing bedlam, police violence, and injuries on tape.
Earlier that night, a group of protesters from Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) had, in accordance with a pre-announced plan, assembled on the streets outside the Hofstra University venue where the debate was being held. IVAW had informed the police in advance that several of their members would be participating in a symbolic, non-violent, civil-disobedience action: attempting to deliver two questions for the candidates. The group has engaged in similar actions before, at the Democratic National Convention in Denver and the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Last week, at the presidential debate, the veterans hoped to ask Barack Obama if he would support soldiers who do not want to be deployed to an illegally occupied Iraq, and to ask McCain why he has voted against funding for the Veterans Administration since the beginning of the war in Iraq.
But the veterans' efforts to stage a peaceful protest last week were countered by violent police actions. After a small group of veterans was calmly taken into custody in a choreographed arrest, the police became very aggressive. The police commander on the scene ordered the horses and lines of riot police to push the crowd from the street onto the sidewalk. Mounted police officers charged into the assembled vets and other protesters, pushing the frightened people backwards and up onto the sidewalk. Riot police then forced some demonstrators to the ground, where police horses rode over them.
Former Army Reserve Sergeant Nick Morgan was caught under the hooves of a horse ridden by Nassau County police officer Quagliano. The horse stepped on Morgan's face, breaking his lower orbital (cheekbone) in three places. Bleeding heavily from his face, Morgan drifted in and out of consciousness until another police officer appeared and dragged him away from the scene. After a delay in which Nassau County police refused to take Morgan to the hospital, he was finally taken to Nassau County Medical Center, handcuffed to a gurney, given Motrin and a prescription for antibiotics, and sent on to jail.
Besides Morgan, several others were injured in the crush of horses and police, including Nadine Lubka, whose nose was broken. Fifteen people in total were arrested; they all received disorderly conduct charges.
Except for a brief Associated Press story and some video and photos uploaded to CNN's iReport website by citizen journalists, there has been almost no corporate media coverage of this story.Last Wednesday, while presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain debated... more
One can understand the raw adrenaline the Vets were running on, as they had committed a non violent act of civil disobedience and not only were they harassed by police, a member of their ranks was badly injured. Interview by GlobalPundit.Org, footage by Noah Kunin for theUptake.Org
One can understand the raw adrenaline the Vets were running on, as they had committed a non violent act of civil disobedience and not only were they harassed by police, a member of their ranks was badly injured. Interview by GlobalPundit.Org, footage by Noah Kunin for theUptake.OrgAfter the IVAW members were released by Nassau County police, we spoke 20 minutes... more
One can understand the raw adrenaline the Vets were running on, as they had committed a non violent act of civil disobedience and not only were they harassed by police, a member of their ranks was badly injured. Interview by GlobalPundit.Org, footage by Noah Kunin for theUptake.OrgAfter the IVAW members were released by Nassau County police, we spoke 20 minutes... more
