PORTLAND, Ore. - Veterans from the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, along with Iraqis, Afghans, Vietnam veterans, and family members of U.S. military personnel, converged in this West Coast city over the weekend to share stories of atrocities being committed daily in Iraq, in a continuation of the "Winter Soldier" hearings held in Silver Spring, Md., in March.
At the Unitarian Church downtown, some 300 people gathered to hear the testimonies, which left many in tears. The five-hour event was comprised of three panels: Voices of Veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, The Human Costs of War, and Building Resistance to War.
The goal of the event is to give veterans a platform from which to disseminate information about their experiences abroad to the general public.
"War changes people. You do not come out of a combat zone the same," Iraq war veteran Chanan Suarez Diaz told the audience while moderating the veteran's panel. "War is very numbing … it comes to a point that you see so much destruction you become numb. This bullsh*t about bringing democracy or liberation is nonsense – we've killed over 1 million Iraqis."
Jan Critchfield, an Army National Guard specialist, discussed his job working in Iraq as an Army "journalist"; in his words, "I was a propagandist, pure and simple."
A somber Critchfield said, "I'm not proud of any of what I did over there – it was inhumane and it changed me as a person. I didn't do anything but yell at people, push people around, and aim my gun at people."
Other vets spoke as photos taken by soldiers were shown on a large screen above the stage.
Josh Simpson explained his work as an Army counterintelligence agent in Iraq. "We would go to houses without any evidence, arrest people, and pay our source hundreds of dollars. This was common. It was a crazy cycle."
"We were raiding houses every night in Mosul," he continued. "You ransack their stuff, then ask our officer who he wanted to detain."
The number of people detained was a measure of success for a unit, Simpson explained. "People's mothers would be grabbing me, asking me why I was taking their child away, and I never had an answer. It's terrible to push an elderly Iraqi woman away so you can take her child and load her into your Stryker vehicle, when you don't even believe they belong there."
Evan Knappenberger served one year in Iraq with the Army 4th Infantry Division working as an intelligence analyst. "We are responsible as soldiers, we are murderers of over 1 million Iraqis," a visibly shaken Knappenberger said. "I participated in burglary, trespassing, knowledgeable negligence, criminal assault and battery, rape by association, and gangsterism. I am standing here today as a criminal – in a sense of the word that only someone who has worn the uniform can understand."
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10/22/2008
Winter Soldiers: 'We Have to Share This Pain'
10/15/2008
Ahmadinejad slams US for Iraq 'oil theft'
"Several months ago, we heard that an enormous amount of over 100-million barrels of Iraqi crude have gone unaccounted for since the US-led invasion of the country," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday.
The New York Times quoted a draft government report as saying in 2007 that "between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq's declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling."
Considering the four-year period, a total of 100-million barrels of unaccounted crude oil is a conservative estimate.
President Ahmadinejad also questioned the real motives behind the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.
According to the Iranian president, Washington has adopted a policy of exploiting the resources of other nations to extricate Americans from the various problems caused by US politicians.
Following the US-led invasion of Iraq, Washington secured UN approval to take financial control of Iraqi government affairs; US President George W. Bush vowed to spend Iraq's money wisely.
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10/10/2008
Blackwater to check itself on US arms export law
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Amid a federal probe into whether Blackwater Worldwide smuggled weapons into Iraq, the private security contractor said Thursday it has established a panel of defense experts and former prosecutors to ensure it follows U.S. export laws.
In a move that acknowledges the company may not have adequately complied with those laws in the past, founder and CEO Erik Prince said the creation of a three-person oversight committee directly responds to some of the challenges the company has faced in following U.S. controls.
"Our company has experienced remarkable growth in the last few years," he said in a news release. "This growth, our work for the U.S. government around the world, and the nature of the services we offer have created compliance challenges."
Federal authorities have been investigating since last year whether Blackwater improperly brought weapons into Iraq, allegations the company has strongly denied. Earlier this year, two former employees were sentenced on gun-running charges after the company said they stole from Blackwater's armory. And in June, federal agents seized 22 automatic rifles from a company vault.
Export control laws limit how companies and individuals handle sensitive resources, including weapons and information.
Andrew Howell, Blackwater's general counsel, said the company has had trouble integrating compliance controls into a global business that works under tight time constraints and in dangerous environments.
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Don't you feel better now?---------------------------NOT!
10/05/2008
You're Going To Guarantee A Depression!!! Ron Paul
Folks, if you have children whose future you care about, you'd damn sure better write Ron Paul in on the ballot this November. Otherwise, it will be the same stauts quo agenda of tearing America down.
http://waronyou.com/forums/index.php?topic=1161.n...
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Senate Passes Nuke Deal Over Escalation Fears
Excerpt: While the US Senate's approval of a controversial nuclear deal with India was hailed by the White House Thursday as a major advance in Washington's "strategic relationship" with the South Asian giant, weapons experts warned that it dealt a serious blow to more than 30 years of US and international nonproliferation efforts.
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Bailing Out Wall Street by Selling out Main Street
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In Politics, If You Have to Be Honest, Wait Until the End of Your Term
Excerpt: In politics, truth telling can be dangerous. Remember when Jimmy Carter was voted out of office, in part, for telling the American people, in a time of high inflation and unemployment, what they didn't want to hear -- that they were self indulgent and consumed too much?
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Bomb-Bomb Iran: To Avert EMP Attack?
According to the Guardian, a few months ago President Bush put the kibosh on Israel's plan to take out, in a preventative strike, Iran's nuclear facilities, despite all being duly subject to a Safeguards Agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, as required by the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Because Bush deemed such an attack to be immoral? To be contrary to the UN Charter? A violation of UN Security Council Resolution 487? Would further undermine the IAEA-NPT nuke proliferation-prevention regime?
No, No. Bush was reportedly concerned that the Iranians might retaliate for the dastardly Israeli deed and that said retaliation might disrupt oil shipments from the Persian Gulf, causing gasoline prices in America to go sky-high, just before the election.
Now comes a seemingly authoritative report that Russia's crushing retaliation for the Georgian attack on South Ossetia has put the kibosh on Israel's alternative plan; to launch that "preventative strike" from airfields in Southern Georgia.
Perhaps those reports are all true. How else to account for the spectacle of various neo-crazies and Likudniks, running around in circles of diminishing radius, muttering to themselves or shrieking incoherently.
Take Frank Gaffney, for instance, for the last 30 years or so a lickspittle of Likudnik Grand Pooh-Bah Richard Perle.
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, Gaffney essentially warned that "any day" now, Iran could detonate exo-atmospherically, somewhere over Kansas, a specially designed multi-megaton thermonuclear weapon, which could wipe out our entire electricity grid, causing a "catastrophic disaster."
"Such an attack could really cripple our 21st-century society, and I would suggest sort of push us back into preindustrial society in the blink of an eye. It would translate over time – not immediately but over time – into the deaths of perhaps as many as nine out of 10 Americans, because our society simply can't be sustained without electricity and all of the infrastructure that supports our urban settings."
So, Gaffney appears to have gone from Likudnik neo-crazy to just plain crazy. What could conceivably have moved Gaffney to make such charges?
Well, way back in 2004, the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack delivered its final report [.pdf] to Congress.
The Commission had been asked to assess – among other things – "the nature and magnitude of potential high-altitude EMP threats to the United States from all potentially hostile states or non-state actors that have or could acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles enabling them to perform a high-altitude EMP attack against the United States within the next 15 years."
You see, back in Operation Dominic, a series of nuke tests we conducted over the Pacific in 1962, we learned – much to our surprise – then when a multi-megaton-yield anti-ballistic-missile nuke warhead is detonated at the very high altitudes where incoming Soviet nuke warheads would be intercepted, in addition to destroying the incoming Soviet warhead, our ABM nuke's enhanced radiation also produces extreme charge separation in the underlying atmosphere. That is, the atoms in the air are not merely ionized – separated into positively-charged ions and negatively-charged electrons – but gadzillions of those ionization electrons are driven far away from the ions, creating humongous high-frequency dipole radio transmitters.
The resulting multi-frequency electromagnetic pulse – EMP – can interfere catastrophically with the operation of certain kinds of electrical and electronic systems at considerable distances. That first high-altitude megaton-yield nuke test over Johnson Island resulted in power system failures in Hawaii, more than 700 miles away.
Once the EMP effect was discovered, we did two things. One was to spend a zillion dollars EMP-proofing all military electrical and electronic components and weapons systems.
The second was to see if specially designed nukes of much lower yield could produce EMP as the primary "kill mechanism."
According to the Commission, China and Russia have done the same. In fact, in May 1999, during the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia, high-ranking members of the Russian Duma, meeting with a U.S. congressional delegation to discuss the Balkans conflict, reportedly raised the specter of a Russian EMP attack that would paralyze the United States.
The Commission concluded that such an attack – non-lethal, in and of, itself – "has the potential to hold our society at risk and might result in defeat of our military forces."
Now the Commission has burped again, this time detailing the grizzly details of what might happen if Russia or China or someone with that EMP-capability did attack us. Whereupon, Gaffney, on behalf of frustrated Likudniks, goes on Newsmax to warn that "any day" now, Iran could detonate exo-atmospherically, somewhere over Kansas, a specially designed multi-megaton thermonuclear weapon, which could wipe out our entire electricity grid, causing a "catastrophic disaster."
Of course, it is one thing for Russia or China to have that capability. It is quite another for a "potentially hostile state or non-state actor" to develop or acquire such a capability.
Is it conceivable that Iran could develop such a capability? Iran – one of the very largest producers of oil and natural gas in the world – can't even construct the refineries it needs to produce enough gasoline for its population.
In any case, if Iran was to somehow acquire a multi-megaton nuke (from the Russians or the Chinese?), why do the Likudniks think you're stupid enough to believe their claim that the Iranians would choose some non-lethal use for it? Like using a magic carpet to haul it up 50 miles or so above Kansas and detonating it? Is that what you'd do? Or would you use eight tiny reindeer?
Do the Likudniks really believe that you're stupid enough to believe that if the Israelis don't launch a "preventative strike" against the Mullahs and the Iranian IAEA-Safeguarded facilities this year or early next year that nine out of ten of us will – if we're the lucky ones – freeze in the dark?
Now, Gaffney apparently told Newsmax TV that he had been "an Assistant Secretary of Defense" – a PAS position, requiring Senate confirmation – "under Ronald Reagan" and if he did, he told them a bald-faced lie. He never was.
In fact, when Assistant Secretary Perle attempted to get the Senate to confirm his lickspittle, Gaffney, as his successor, the reaction of the Senate Armed Services Committee staff was – to put it politely – negative.
You can see why.
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House members rejected bailout because voters back home hated it
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Sunday: 25 Iraqis Killed, 10 Wounded
Excerpt: At least 25 Iraqis were killed and 10 more were wounded in the latest round of violence. Reports resumed out of Mosul after several days of relative quiet. Meanwhile, a Turkish general accused local authorities in northern Iraq of tolerating Kurdish separatists.
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9/04/2008
Will Obama-Biden question military dominance?
The Obama-Biden worldview Pt 2 with Eric Margolis, Phyllis Bennis and Paul Heinbecker
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[Source: The Real News Network
In Government We Trust? Part 1 by Ron Paul
Many who agree with me on a lot of other issues, do not understand my enthusiasm for gold and sound money or why I spend so much time studying and talking about monetary policy. It’s true that I talk about money differently than most, but the fact is sound money offers many benefits. For example [...]
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7/12/2008
Ron Paul-Iranians Tested Missiles AFTER Israel had WAR GAMES!
Ron Paul-Iranians Tested Missiles AFTER Israel had WAR GAMES!
July 10, 2008 C-SPAN
A blockade is any effort to prevent supplies, troops, information or aid from reaching an opposing force. Blockades are the cornerstone to nearly all military cam...
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[Source: Breaking News from WarOnYou.com - Posted by Ron Paul Revoloution]
Kucinich to Present Impeachment Case to House Judiciary Committee
Democratic leaders have agreed to give Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich a day before the House Judiciary Committee to make his case that President Bush ought to be impeached for allegedly lying to Congress in order to get approval to invade Iraq.Kucinich, D-Ohio, has introduced three impeachment resolutions one against Bush (HRes 1258) and two [...]
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[Source: Breaking News from WarOnYou.com - Posted by Ron Paul Revolution]
7/04/2008
4th of July Message (& who Im voting for in November) by Christine Smith
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liber...
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[Source: Breaking News from WarOnYou.com - Posted by Ron Paul Revolution]
