President Obama mentioned a soldier from the Army's 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, who stated that he wished those who are no longer here could have seen the withdrawal.
In last week's LA Times, Ned Parker reported comments from the same Army 4th Brigade. One soldier, as they passed an Iraqi field said, "Saddam really hid those WMD well." Everyone laughed. Another said, "I have no faith in people whatsoever. Put two people in a room with a hammer and one of them will wind up dead." Parker's article is a cautionary tale that President Obama does not have the stomach to tell. He loves the troops, but like a father who can't admit that his son is in deep trouble and it may be from his parenting, neither Obama, Bush, nor the Pentagon will ever admit the deepest wound we have inflicted on our best and brightest. It is one thing to say a war is difficult and cost billions - it is not going well - it may not be won. It is quite another to admit to over 1.5 million volunteer soldiers as over 400,000 have already filed medical claims, that there was no mission, except to come home.
In Early Struggles of Soldier Charged in Leak Case, the New York Times published a portrait of Private Bradley Manning reminiscent of the type of character assassination J.Edgar Hoover planted in newspapers in the hey day of the communist witch hunts. The government agencies routinely planted such misinformation to discredit civil rights activists and others they considered a threat to our national security. Whistleblowers like Private Manning and Daniel Ellsberg before him are considered extremely dangerous and in the words of the then sitting (during the Pentagon Papers incident) president Richard M. Nixon ''need to be taken out'. President Nixon famously said that he did not need to wait and see if the courts would convict Ellsberg because he would destroy him in the court of public opinion. He then ordered the break in to the offices of Ellsberg's psychiatrist. Here we are again, four decades later convicting in the court of public opinion Private Bradley Manning.
CODEPINK co-organized a rally for Wikileaks whistleblower Private Bradley Manning yesterday in Quantico, VA. Manning is being held in solitary confinement in a military brig in Quantico.
Medea Benjamin of Code Pink told CNN, “We are here to say that if, indeed, he was the whistle-blower, then we are proud of him. We as Americans want to expose the truth of what’s happening in both Iraq and Afghanistan and we think that it will hasten the day to bring the troops home. We want our troops protecting us here in the United States, not fighting in what we consider unwinnable, unnecessary wars.”
Yesterday I heard that one of our best programs for helping high school students reach college and succeed there had huge cuts in funding. Upward Bound has been very successful with students I know, kids from families with one struggling single parent who works a lot, families in which no one has gone on to [...]
“Wondering “who are the Christians United for Israel (CUFI)?” Want to see CODEPINK and religious leaders take on CUFI with a press conference and by attempting to deliver a certificate for a Palestinian Olive Tree bought in their name? Then check out this video.”
What a spring! From the beginning of April through the Summer Solstice, CODEPINK local groups and the national team have been walking our talk through several campaigns: fighting war profiteers and oil corporations; boycotting Ahava as part of the international BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions of Israel) campaign; pressuring Congress to vote no on war funding; [...]
Thursday, September 2, 2010
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