Tag: Military Families

Iraq War Logs

October 26, 2010: J. Rosencrantz

This weekend Wikileaks released the Iraq War Logs – 40,000 “Significant Incident Reports” from the period of 2004-2009 that together tell the most detailed story of the war in Iraq during that time.

As was the case with the Afghan War Logs, a number of news media outlets received advanced access to the documents and extensive competing coverage can be found in the The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Der Spiegel, and last and least, The New York Times, which decided to lead with a hit piece on the personality of the founder of Wikileaks, rather than on what the war logs themselves reveal.  CNN played the same game.  (Not suprising, of course, from an institutions that were essential to enabling the war itself.)

Like Afghan War wikileak, there is so much to read, so video summaries can be useful:  The Guardian has a short video on prevalence of “Frago 242″, which is a “fragmentary order” not to investigate torture, and some of the consequences thereof. Al Jazeera presents an hour long special here.  And here is good highlight reel from U.K. Channel 4′s current affairs program, “Dispatches“:

The U.N.’s chief torture investigator thinks there is torture to investigate, and reminds Obama of his legal obligation to do so.  Dig through the logs yourself here.

Image Censorship in Iraq

October 21, 2010: J. Rosencrantz

Bag News has a nice piece  in which photojournalist Michael Kamber talks about his experiences with military censorship of images in Iraq:

By the way, the idea that photographers are blocked from taking pictures of detainees in order to protect the detainees rights is a nice example of how the U.S. cynically employs its most lofty ideals in support of  its dark imperial agenda.

Animated IED Incident Map 2004 – 2009

July 30, 2010: J. Rosencrantz

Based on info from the leaked Afghanistan war logs:

I think the end tag – “Stop all illegal wars” – is a bit fuzzy, conceptually speaking, but the animation is good, and is a great example of the kind of things that can be done with the massive amount of leaked info.

Also, it is interesting to compare the trajectory explicit in the video with what the BBC published today:

Howard Zinn (1922 – 2010)

January 29, 2010: J. Rosencrantz

WGP_Zinn

Before Zinn was a historian, he was a U.S. Air Force bombardier who dropped bombs on people Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Germany and France during World War II, and was involved in some of the first military uses of Napalm.

The experience left him with lingering questions regarding the ultimate justice of that “good war”, and such critical self-reflection led him to study history under the G.I. Bill.

As a professor of history, he went on to radicalize the students at Spellman College on the eve of the explosion of the Civil Rights Movement, wrote the first book arguing for immediate U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, and helped Daniel Ellsberg hide the Pentegon Papers.

He was even part of a diplomatic effort to North Vietnam during the war, and helped secure the release of some U.S. POWs. While there he witnessed the effects of U.S. cluster bombs on Vietnamese toddlers.

He then spent the rest of his long life writing and teaching history, including the best introductory history of the United States ever written.

I always associate Zinn with that other great writer who died recently, Kurt Vonnegut. Although Zinn writes history and Vonnegut writes fiction, the work of both were animated in large part by their experiences in World War II. They both played a role at the military edge of the American Empire at its historic “best” – during its fight against fascism – but came away with deep misgivings about the whole enterprise, which required a personal evolution beyond nationalist patriotism and towards a more universal concern that made their books so radical and so valuable.

(He died hours before Obama’s first State of the Union address, but not before giving his own assessment of the President’s performance so far.)

ARMY SUICIDES

February 9, 2009: J. Rosencrantz

Last month, Army suicides outnumbered combat deaths in both Iraq and Afghanistan, continuing a steady rise in the number of Army suicides over the last 5 years.

This trend seems to be caused by the stress of repeated combat deployments, the trauma of returning from a combat zone, the bureaucratic obstacles at Veteran Affairs, the overuse of anti-depressants, and, just maybe, the immorality and incoherence of the wars.

John Soltz of VoteVets.org is interviewed on this topic here.

THE VICHY DEMOCRAT SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE

November 1, 2008: J. Rosencrantz


Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is the Representative of 8th Congressional District of California, but her seat is being challenged by Cindy Sheehan. Sheehan lost a son to the Iraq War, and her campaign is motivated by Pelosi’s collaboration with the Bush regime.

Before she became the Speaker of the House, Democratic Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi pledged that Bush would get no more “blank checks” for his Terror War. Since she became speaker in 2006, war appropriations have gone up $350 billion.

As Speaker of the House, Pelosi announced that impeachment of Bush was “off the table.”

In 2008, she voted to legitimize Bush’s warrant-less spying program and to grant retroactive immunity to the telecoms who collaborated with it. And she pushed the Wall Street bailout. And she capitulated on offshore drilling.


Pelosi was also one of the Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee briefed by the CIA on torture procedures in 2002, and kept it a secret from the public despite her pledge to defend the Constitution.

From an interview of Sheehan by Matt Gonzales:

“On a very personal and tragic level, the policies of torture at Abu Ghraib was one of the factors that led to a Shi’a uprising that killed my son, Casey, in Sadr City, Baghdad on April 4, 2004. Even with saying all that, my candidacy is not about vengeance, but about justice. Our elected officials from both parties must be held accountable for their crimes against humanity and our democracy.”

On Impeachment:

“I will work diligently to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney even when they are out of office. As long as a President, or Vice President takes any Federal help, such as a pension, or Secret Service protection, he can be impeached.”

FRIENDLY FIRE IN THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ

October 21, 2008: J. Rosencrantz

From the helmet-cam of Sgt. 1st Class Jack Robinson while stationed in Ramadi:

Part 2 here.

VETERAN SUICIDES

August 3, 2008: J. Rosencrantz

Lots of veterans are killing themselves after serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here is just one story:

The estimate of veteran suicide attempts is as high as 1,000 per month, although the head of Mental Health at Veteran Affairs seems to have been caught lying about the number.

AMERICAN NAIVETE, THE INVASION OF IRAQ, AND THE CONSEQUENT SHATTERING OF IRAQI AND AMERICAN FAMILIES

May 28, 2008: J. Rosencrantz

In the following segment from a recent This American Life episode, a mild mannered young Iraqi travels through Bush country talking to people and trying to make sense of why the U.S. invaded his country.

Here is part one:

And part two:

I think I know who I’m voting for in 2032.