No surprise that the bloated military budget was spared.

Tom Englehart discusses the military's profligate use of $400/gallon (and even $800/gallon) gasoline in the Middle East. It's a symptom of a much bigger problem:

So here’s a question at a moment when financial mania has Washington by the throat: How would you define the state of mind of our war-makers, who are carrying on as if trillion-dollar wars were an American birthright, as if the only sensible role for the United States was to eternally police the planet, and as if garrisoning U.S. troops, corporate mercenaries, and special operations forces in scores and scores of countries was the essence of life as it should be lived on this planet?
How many military bases does the United States have, by the way? Gloria Shur Bilchik of Occasional Planet does her best to provide an answer to this straight-forward question:
You can’t get a consistent answer from news stories, that’s for sure. Recent articles, media reports and op-eds peg the number variously at 460, 507, 560, 662 and more than 1,000 . . . According to the Department of Defense’s 2010 Base Structure Report, as of 2009, the US military maintained 662 foreign sites in 38 countries around the world. . . . the official US military tally underreports our presence by nearly 500 bases.
Why not cut the military budget at this time of purported austerity? It's about what you'd expect from a bunch of psychopathic leaders, people not like you and me, people who cease serving as representatives of the People soon after hitting Washington D.C. and getting high on a non-ending hit of campaign cash.

Continue ReadingNo surprise that the bloated military budget was spared.

War on What’s Next?

Americans don't seem to understand much of anything unless we restate it in a war-metaphor: War on Drugs War on Terror War on Poverty War on Science War on Democracy And now there is a "War Against Floods," which we battle with the "Army Corp of Engineers." And I forgot to mention some of the other wars: [More . . . ]

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Who is the United States killing with its drone attacks in Pakistan?

Have you ever wondered who the United States is killing with its drone attacks in Pakistan? I have. Here's a comprehensive source of information from New America Foundation. The map will show you the drone attack sites and numbers of deaths. From 2004 - 2011 it is reported that the United States has killed a total of 2,290 people. You can also see that the military claims that 1,829 of these people were "militants." The above web page offers this link for an expanded view of the locations of the drone attacks. If you click that expanded view, you'll see some fascinating information. Click this link for recent drone-killings.   The most recent reported attack occurred on April 13, 2011. If you click on it, you'll see that 4-7 "militants" were killed, and an unknown number of "others." By clicking on the link, you can then view various news sources regarding the attack. [More . . . ]

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More on Bradley Manning

For many months, Glenn Greenwald has documented the many ramifications of the mistreatment of Bradley Manning, including the failures of the U.S. media and the moral failures of Barack Obama. I highly recommend his latest article for the latest information. His final line: "And it's quite telling how one must go to to a British newspaper to read about U.S. abuse of a U.S. service member." [Addendum of April 21, 2011]  Bradley Manning has been transferred out of the military brig at Quantico, and he's headed toward Leavenworth.  As usual, you can learn many of the details from Glenn Greenwald.   One can only hope that he is kept in more humane circumstances in Kansas. Greenwald takes a moment to celebrate the work and success of the independent press, which carried this story along where the mainstream media melted:

[T]his episode should be a potent antidote to defeatism, as it provides a template for how issues that would be otherwise ignored can be amplified by independent voices creatively using the democratizing and organizing power of the Internet, and meaningful activism achieved.

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Soldier tries to save a child, but is reprimanded

Last year, Wikileaks released the now-infamous video of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack that killed 12 men and wounded two children in Baghdad. (See here for more detail). Less well known is what happened on the ground after the attack, and the lesson it teaches regarding the mental health of soldiers. In this video, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now discusses the aftermath of the helicopter attack with a soldier who arrived at the scene after the helicopter attack. His name is Ethan McCord, and here are a few of the things he had to say:

Well, I placed the boy into the Bradley armored vehicle, and the Bradley was not a part of our unit, and neither were the Apaches. They were just attached to us that day. When I placed the boy into the Bradley armored vehicle, I was yelled at by my platoon leader for worrying about children instead of worrying about other—finding other people to kill.

. . .

Later on that evening, after the incident, when I was back at the FOB and I washing the blood of the children off of my uniforms, you know, my mind was a mess. I was very emotional, couldn’t really deal with what I had seen and, more importantly, was more upset with what I was a part of. So I went to my staff sergeant and asked to see mental health, so that I can talk about my feelings and what I was feeling. And I was denied to go to mental health. They told me I needed to suck it up and that there would be repercussions if I was to go see mental health, and I would be charged with malingering. And I was rather shocked that just by me needing to speak to somebody about what was going on and what I was feeling could constitute a crime in the Army.

. . .

I went to the Irwin Army hospital, where they had a psychologist who was on duty. He didn’t really talk to me or anything. They called my command, and one of the staff sergeants who were there came down to the hospital, and instead of—just degraded me while I was in there, said that I was nothing, I was nobody, because I was doing this.
Ethan appeared on Democracy Now to protest the military treatment of soldiers suffering from PTSD and other severe mental conditions:

They kicked me out, knowing I had PTSD, TBI and had metal rods and pins in my back. And they kicked me out on what’s called a Chapter 517, which states that all of my conditions were pre-existing. They’ve done this to over 250,000 soldiers. And it’s time to stop. It’s said between—twenty percent, at the minimum, of troops are suffering from some sort of trauma, whether it be TBI, PTSD or military sexual trauma. That’s an extreme amount of soldiers who are suffering. And they’re being denied their basic human rights to heal. And we’re trying to put a stop to that. It needs to end now. And we need to—we need to stop the redeployment of these troops.

Continue ReadingSoldier tries to save a child, but is reprimanded