Being a member of the military I believe I am in a unique position to state what I hear when John McCain's spouts his latest tripe about the SURGE-(TM).

Last week, I posted an interviewI did with former KBR worker, Ben Carter, and the reaction I got was huge. Many, many people congratulated Ben on having the courage to face public scrutiny in order to bring the abuses of KBR to the public, and hundreds of you sent an email to DoD Chief Financial Officer, Tina Jonas (or signed the petitionto her after she blocked her email address), asking her to cut off funding to KBR until a full public investigation is made into each of their alleged abuses.

I had ended my post with a heads up that the following week (meaning, today) I would be posting a breaking new story from Ben about a lawsuit against the contracting company that has been kept hidden by the Department of Justice. Well, bad news: Ben's story is so hot, it hasn't gotten the legal clearance to go public yet. I have been told to hold out for a few more days on that, so keep your fingers crossed!

One of the reasons I felt so buoyed by all the support shown for Ben is that I had long felt disturbed by both the magnitude of corruption among war contractors and the lack of coverage on the issue in the press.

"My shot made Joseph Dwyer famous. Did it also help lead to his death?"  So begins a new article in The Washington Post by Warren Zinn.

He is referring to a tragedy I wrote about here a couple of weeks ago:  A former Army medic made famous by a photograph that showed him carrying an injured Iraqi boy during the first week of the war had died of an apparent overdose.  Joseph Patrick Dwyer died at a hospital in Pinehurst, N.C., after battling PTSD.  He was 31.

The photograph, taken by Zinn in March 2003, showed Dwyer running to a makeshift military hospital while cradling the boy. The photo appeared in newspapers, magazines and television broadcasts worldwide, making Dwyer a symbol of heroism.  But he tried to deflect praise back to his entire unit.

Update: After receiving an influx of emails prompted by this story, the Cheif Financial Officer, Tina Jonas, took down or blocked her email address. This may cause you to get an error message. We are now compiling signatures for a petition, which will be sent to her: http://progressivefuture.org/...

[cross-posted from www.progressivefuture.org]

Ben Carter is a water safety expert and a caring family man. Passionate about his work, Carter went to Iraq to support the troops and reconstruction efforts. Yet soon after he arrived in Iraq he found KBR/Halliburton cutting essential corners, resulting in U.S. troops being forced to shower in wastewater. KBR’s indifference to the contaminated water led Carter to resign. Since leaving Iraq he’s spoken out about Halliburton, was one of the subjects of Brave New Films' "Iraq For Sale," testified before the Democratic Policy Committee and worked to warn soldiers of the dangers of contaminated water.

On Friday July 4th, Joshua Key, a US deserter, won his appeal to seek refugee status in Canada.  

The military has finally, after nine months, announced the results of its probe into the death by gunshot of a gay soldier in Afghanistan, who was engaged to marry her partner in Massachusetts, last fall but her family doesn't seem to be buying it.

The military's handling of the case has been disturbing from the outset, with claims of murder voiced by friends and family due to the fact that the victim was known to be gay and had written home that she had seen some troubling things that might cause her not to survive.

Officials first reported that Ciara Durkin, 30, of Quincy, Mass., who served in the National Guard, had died "in action," then revealed that she was killed in a "noncombat" incident that was being investigated.

Here are the top stories this week related to our soldiers here and abroad, taken from the Our Troops Newsladder.

A soldier with a history of mental health problems that may have made him ineligible for Army service at any other time dies in Iraq. The attrition rate for the first months of service has dropped 45% since 2004; has the Army lowered its standards for graduation from basic training so low that soldiers unfit for combat are being sent into battle? (newsweek.com)

A controversial new drug that dampens the memories of events that cause extreme stress is being tested as a treatment for soldiers with PTSD. Tests of the beta-blocker drug propranolol, which reduces hormone production to people exposed to such stress has so far been successful in reducing the emotional intensity with which sufferers recount traumatic experience. (prospect.org)

Last night on The Daily Show w/ Jon Stewart they had Lara Logan of CBS on for the interview segment. I have to say that it was surprisingly one of the best interviews I have EVER SEEN on the show. Her candor and commitment to substantive journalism is simply amazing and I found myself nodding my head in agreement and saying "amen" to much of what she said.

She has been covering America's foreign conflicts for some time now. Among the many great things she said, she was asked if she watches the news that we see back in America and responded "No - if I watched the news you all watch I'd blow my brains out."

She also recounts being asked by a reporter whether she feels responsible for the American public having a negative perception of the war(s) and she  asked the reporter when the last time he saw a dead American soldier was. She says that she feels responsible for nobody seeing that and truly understanding what is going on... she says she feels responsible for the troops feeling like they've been forgotten.

Amazing interview - watch it below and chime in with thoughts / opinions:

Well, not the funeral, but the wake.

The point is that he took a "short, unmarked motorcade" to St. Albans School to pay respects to one of the best newsmen of our day.

Why does this bother me?

To the flip ...

At the age of 63 I got drafted again.  I’m now in Ninepatch’s Army.  Our mission:   while in Austin for Net Roots Nation, we plan to pack and send 100 Care Packages to our troops.  Tonight we have Jonathan Norrell on the line [think of my role here as Larry King – without the paycheck or toupe].  Jonathan is still in the Army and has been a recipient of care packages – but not from Ninepatch or any of you.  

I know that it is that time of the campaign where the candidates experiment to see what will stick.  I've been disgusted with a lot of what John McCain has tried, but we really need to call him on this "surrender" nonsense.

It is Memorial Day Weekend and I've been thinking about what this holiday has meant to me in my life thus far. You know, when I was younger, I never really took to heart what Memorial Day meant. It's embarrassing to admit but as a teenager Memorial Day weekend was a weekend to hit the lake or attend barbecues and parties. Now that I'm a bit older and wiser, I finally see this holiday for what it is meant to be. It's a time to reflect the sacrifices of our service men and women and their families. We've lost 4,081 soldiers in Iraq and 507 in Afghanistan. There are other soldiers we are losing to this war and they're not included in the DOD's casualty numbers. Tonight I want to honor the men and women in uniform who have fallen victim to suicide. These soldiers are casualties of war and deserve to be honored.

More below the fold....

Crossposted at the EENR Blog

A Dollar Fifty Patriot
(or why I don't celebrate memorial day)

Monday is officially Memorial Day. This weekend, however, our nation's beaches will be full of laughing half-naked tourists looking to shake that pale, white tone of skin they earned through a winter full of Thanksgiving, Christmas and Superbowl dinners. The stores will be full of shoppers eager to make a penny on a buck savings on cheap, dime-store plastic items they really don't need. Backyards will be spent grilling and barbecuing cholesterol laden foods which will inevitably cause a night's worth of painful indigestion. Alcohol will be consumed by the gallons to be rewarded by a Monday or Tuesday morning hangover. All to remember our fallen dead.

On this coming Memorial Day, I'm sure we'll see a lot of diaries about how terrible the Iraq War is, how the Bush Administration is a bunch of criminals, what a bastard Bush is for giving up golf, etc. But what we won't see on this site are diaries about how terrible the overall US policy of maintaing a standing army and engaging in systematic wars of aggression, such as Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, and so on and on into history. Below is a little incomplete list of various major US military campaigns demonstrating the pattarn of aggression and atrocity exhibited by the US.

I call this day, as I have done before, with little success, for a new focus on what the people's, not the politicians' resposibility is for these wars. Why is it at this point in our history, with all we know about what the military has been used to do in the past, that it is still considered heroic for young men and women to become mercenaries ready to kill for any reason when ordered in any corner of the globe, ready to occupy, ready to imprison, ready to bomb civilian populations, ready to torture and interrogate? Why is this seen as heroic? We need to intverne, we need to educate, we need to oppose to prevent the willing transformation of our fellow citizens into killers.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


click to enlarge

For George W. Bush, "sacrifice" means giving up golf to show solidarity with the families of soldiers he's sent to fight his illegal war.

That's like saying that his war is a game.

Bush's false bravado isn't because he has any balls. In his mind, that's what the soldiers are for.

Congress needs to end this game now.

Sorry for the short diary; the image is the message, essentially. We have got to stop George from playing with his balls; breaking him of that habit will save lives.

I would venture to guess that almost every one of us on this planet knows what it feels like to want to strike out and smash things up when we're really pissed off. Even the most peaceful among us has felt that sharp stab of fury that raises the blood pressure and clouds the mind given the right set of circumstances.

Right now some of you who support Hillary Clinton are feeling the need to give a big fat finger to all of us Obama supporters. Hell, you even want to give that big fat finger to Obama himself - maybe ESPECIALLY to Obama.

This week, during a slight detour in my regular bleeding edge science reading gauntlet, I happened to come across the article America's Chemically Altered 21st Century Soldiers by Clayton Dach.  Its a pretty interesting read, considering the ever spanning scientific interests of DARPA, contemporary genomics, and the ever sharpening precision vectors of targeted drug delivery.