A blog comment that will break your heart

I posted how veterans in rural areas of the country are suffering the most with the lack of facilities to care for them and received a comment on the post from the wife of a National Guardsman, not only wounded in his body but in his mind as well. They lost everything and ended up living with a relative. They lost their home, went into debt and are left with a zero disability rating.

When you read it, let the words of O'Reilly penetrate your conscience since he doesn't have one functioning. First he said there were no homeless veterans sleeping under overpasses, then said there were no homeless veterans. He followed that with, yes there are homeless veterans but they are all drunks and drug addicts and mental cases. Well here's a story of just one family O'Reilly would rather ignore than help. Go here to read their story.

http://woundedtimes.blogspot.com/2008/01/blog-comment-that-will-break-your-heart.html

Keep in mind her husband wouldn't be wounded if he didn't go, was not willing to join the National Guard for our sake. What can we do for his sake?

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Even GOP Congressman attacks Bush-Iraq long-term security deal

When even somebody as hawkishly conservative as Dana Rohrbacher says Bush needs to bring a proposed long-term security deal with Iraq before Congress, this baby as currently proposed is probably dead.

Will the Bush Administration back off this type of stubbornness?

“We don't anticipate now that these negotiations will lead to the status of a formal treaty which would then bring us to formal negotiations or formal inputs from the Congress,” General Douglas Lute, Bush’s deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, said in November when the White House announced the plan.

Here’s Rohrabacher’s recent take:

At a House hearing on the pact (Jan. 23), Rohrabacher, Republican of California and a former Reagan administration official, accused the Bush administration of “arrogance” for not consulting with Congress about the pact. If it includes any guarantees to Iraq, he said, Congress must sign off.

“We are here to fulfill the constitutional role established by the founding fathers,” Rohrabacher said, adding, “It is not all in the hands of the president and his appointees. We play a major role.”

The deal actually goes far beyond a status-of-forces security agreement anyway, including things like debt forgiveness and economic aid, as well as security commitments.

Globe commentator Savage notes that such a sweeping agreement has never been done before without Congressional approval and merely by presidential fiat.

And, this is becoming a political issue too, he notes:

Adding to the pressure, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has also repeatedly raised the topic in recent days. The New York senator has filed legislation that would block the expenditure of funds to implement any agreement with Iraq that was not submitted to Congress for approval. Her rival, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, became a cosponsor to the bill (Jan. 22).

As an I-don’t-give-a-damn lame duck, though, I foresee Bush ploughing ahead, and then daring his successor to retroactively seek Congressional approval, or the current Congress to actually not fund its provisions.

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First we celebrate, and then we bomb

Photo: American-backed Sunni militia men inspect weapons and roadside bombs which their found while searching the area around Arab Jabour, outside Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, Jan. 25, 2008. (AP Photo/ Loay Hameed)

As mentioned on Democracy Now! last week, the US is bombing more and more in Iraq. In 2007, the rate of dropping bomb is FIVE times higher than in 2006. And earlier this month, there was a massive bombing of an area in Iraq called Arab Jabour, which is farmland south of Baghdad. As Reuters reported on January 10, 2008: ARAB JABOUR - U.S. forces launched their biggest air strikes in at least a year, dropping 40,000 pounds of bombs within minutes on al Qaeda targets in date palm groves on Baghdad's southern outskirts, the U.S. military said.

The US military even made some video about this bombing, and it is available on YOU TUBE. They call this “Freedom Journal Iraq” and they clearly think that shooting has a lot to do with “freedom” - which I find rather bizarre. This video has shots of rural farm lands and buildings being bombed. They report success in going after the “terrorists” but no reports on possible civilian casualties. They claim they drop flyers ahead of time, so that civilians will know about upcoming “operations”. I guess they think the local AQI (their name for al Qaeda in Iraq) men don’t (or can’t) read.

Since it is the locals who own the buildings and farm lands, I imagine they would want to stay there on their land and in their homes. I imagine if anyone was to leave it would be outsiders that are part of AQI - unless AQI is made up of locals. If AQI is made up of locals, and since AQI did not exist before the US military arrived, then the intelligent solution would be for the military to just leave.

However, if the “terrorists” are not local Iraqis, why would they keep their operations and supplies in an area about to be bombed? Not likely.

In that video, they also mention how they detained “AQI associates” and found machine guns and grenades in other parts of Iraq. Just last week, I saw a picture of an Iraqi police officer with grenades hanging off his chest, with an Iraqi women sitting right next to him, and certainly not making a big deal of the grenades. The Iraqi police regularly carry machine guns. So, the reports by US military of finding this is about like finding empty bottles in the trash.

This video also mentions new solar-power street lights in Baghdad. No mention that this area had plenty of street lights prior to the US invasion, and had them for years. They talk about how the security in this area has recently improved to the best level it has seen in years. (Still not as good as it was in 2002, but that is not mentioned.) They did mention that these changes allow the locals to see a “light at the end of the tunnel” - without a hint of IRONY. This video was made on January 10, 2008.

But the point of this post is not to present to you the propaganda (devoid of logic and morality, in my opinion) of the US military. Rather, I want to let you know that on December 27, 2007, the US military was CELEBRATING with local Iraqis in Arab Jabour. They were celebrating the opening of the local “Arab Jabour Governance Center” by the local “concerned local citizens” and the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division. They made a film of that, too. This video shows the US military celebrating with the locals of Arab Jabour on the opening on the Governance Center. In the later scenes of the clip about the opening of the Governance Center, you see an American military guy eating the Iraqi food. There is music and dancing by the Iraqi men, and it looks like a speech or sermon was given also.

Video: Arab Jabour Governance Center

B-roll of the grand opening of the Arab Jabour Governance Center. Scenes include Iraqi locals singing, dancing and eating, and shots of the interior of the building. Produced by Sgt. Jay Townsend.

Video Location: IQ||Arab Jabour

Unit(s) Involved: 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division

Submitting Unit: 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division Public Affairs

Date Taken: 12-27-07

[This video link above came from Roads to Iraq blog. – dancewater]

I also found another video, from the same “Digital Video and Imagery Distribution System.” This is also from Arab Jabour, and dated October 2007. The second video is about how the “local concerned citizens” provide cover for US troops who are running a medical clinic for the locals, and has several interviews of US military discussing this area and how well things are going.

Video: Concerned Citizens Provide Cover

Package of U.S. Soldiers taking charge of the Arab Jabour area with the help of local concerned citizens. Produced by Spc. Jay Townsend. [Another “success” story from Arab Jabour. Wonder if the kids got bombed? – dancewater]

Video Location: IQ||Baghdad

Unit(s) Involved: 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division (Fort Stewart, US)

Interviewee(s): Capt. James Anthony (US), Commander, C Company, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment and Lt. Col. Ken Adgie (US), Commander, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment

Submitting Unit: 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division Public Affairs

Date Taken: 10-20-2007

I find it very bizarre that the US is celebrating with the Iraqis over the opening of the local “Governance Center” and then less than two weeks later dropping 40,000 pounds of bombs in the area. I posted this blog on Daily Kos and my own blog, Dancewater, earlier this week.

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Gulf War POW's still being denied justice under Bush

Gulf War POWs push for Iraqi reparations

By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Jan 25, 2008 14:30:59 EST

U.S. veterans of the 1991 Gulf War who were captured and tortured by Iraqi forces are renewing their efforts to get President Bush to relent and allow them to pursue damages against the Iraqi government that were awarded by a federal court in 2003.

Bush vetoed the 2008 defense authorization bill Dec. 28 over a provision that, in essence, would allow former prisoners of war to sue Iraq for damages for their torture while in captivity. Bush claimed that enacting the provision would, among other things, “allow plaintiffs’ lawyers to tie up billions of dollars in Iraqi funds for reconstruction that our troops in the field depend on to maintain security gains.”

According to a Dec. 28 report in Congressional Quarterly, Bush issued his veto after lawyers for the Iraqi government threatened to withdraw $25 billion worth of assets from U.S. banks if the provision was allowed to become law.

The American POWs were granted damages by a U.S. federal district court in July 2003. But earlier that year, after signing a bill that allowed Americans to collect court-ordered damages from the frozen assets of terrorist states — a list that included Iraq at that time — Bush had confiscated what was then $1.7 billion in Iraqi assets held in private banks. He allowed the payment of two judgments, including one for so-called “human shield” hostages held by Iraq in 1990, but none for the Americans taken prisoner in the 1991 Gulf War.
go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/01/military_gulfwar_pows_080125w/

Bush and Rumsfeld refused to honor these men from the Gulf War. Was it because what was done to them is still being done to those held by them? Or is it because Bush never cared about those he sent to risk their lives or those sent by his father? Why would he refuse to honor these men who suffered at the hands of Saddam?

There is Cliff Acree
“They had broken my nose many times. And I was just getting used,” says Col. Cliff Acree. “You just, kind of, get used to it.”

Acree was shot down during the second day of the war. He said his interrogations always began the same way: “They would have these six or eight people just beat you for 10, 15, 20 minutes. Just no questions asked, bring you into the room, and beat you with fists, feet, clubs, whatever.”

and Jeff Tice
Jeff Tice, now retired from the military, was captured after his F-16 was hit by a surface-to-air missile. He was tortured with a device he calls "the Talkman."

“They wrapped a wire around one ear, one underneath my chin, wrapped it around another ear and hooked it up to some electrical device. Asked a question. I wasn't interested in answering,” recalls Tice. Tice’s jaw was dislocated so many times that he says he was lucky to be able to put it back into place."

and Joseph Small
Joseph Small III was watching television Sunday morning in his Racine home when the first reports of American POWs flashed on the news.

He had nightmares, sometimes quite vivid ones, in the years after his release. Often when he was awake, he would get flashbacks. For the most part, Small said, he no longer has flashbacks or nightmares.

and Larry Slade
Capt. Larry "Rat" Slade retired in Norfolk on Thursday after 22 years in the Navy. US. Navy
Slade spent 43 days as a prisoner of war during the Gulf War

read the rest from http://woundedtimes.blogspot.com/


When you think that these men did their duty in one military action the majority of the country supported, it's virtually impossible to understand how anyone with a conscience could ever deny their right to seek justice.

All these years of hearing the words "support the troops" must have rung hollow in their ears as they knew their government was denying them their right to seek justice.

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Humor In Times Of Crisis: Video - New American Coins Of All Denominations Ready For Circulation

From Blip-TV: Economically a bit to the right side of the political spectrum, but humorous anyway considering the potential for a financial meltdown in the not-so-distant future. Thanks to Jim Devine on the [PEN-L] listserv for the link.

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Down the Rabbit Hole: HIV, Guantanamo, "Dirty Bombers" & the Devolution of the U.S. into a Torture State

"Whither I fly is Hell..."

Candace Gorman is reporting that her client, Guantanamo prisoner Abdul Hamid al-Ghizzawi, contracted AIDS at Guantanamo's Camp Delta. He believes he was infected during a "routine blood test."

Last October I wrote about Mr. al-Ghizzawi's dire medical state, and the Amnesty International campaign to save him. At that time, all we knew is that he was seriously ill with hepatitis B and tuberculosis. While Guantanamo authorities deny it, he claims he is not receiving adequate medical care. Eyewitness accounts from the U.S. prison confirm his charges.

His attorney wrote the following at The Guantanamo Blog last Sunday:

After I received the distressing news from Mr. Al-Ghizzawi that a doctor at the base has informed him that he has AIDS I sent an email to the government attorney who has been (mis)handling Mr. Al-Ghizzawi's case. I asked him if he could confirm for me whether or not Mr. Al-Ghizzawi has AIDS. Here is his response:

"We are not privy to the particulars of what your client may have been told by his doctor, if anything, but Guantanamo provides high-quality medical care to all detainees."

And so there you have it.... this criminal government will not deny the doctors diagnosis... (which in and of itself is telling) instead they provide an unresponsive answer...of course if it is true that Al-Ghizzawi has AIDS it means that he acquired the disease while at the base because the military claimed it did a complete physical when Al-Ghizzawi arrived and the ONLY condition he suffered from at that time was Hepatitis B....so I guess there is good reason why they don't want to confirm the diagnosis.

HIV transmission in U.S. prisons has long been a humanitarian disaster largely ignored in the press. University of California, San Francisco researchers have an excellent summary of research on this. But they attribute HIV transmission to homosexual sex, voluntary or via rape. (They estimate from 9 to 20% of federal inmates are subjected to homosexual rape.) -- But Al-Ghizzawi claims his infection was caused by medical tests. And the prison authorities are stonewalling on any more information. Just what the hell is happening at Guantanamo? Are experiments being done on prisoners there?

It wouldn't be the first time such experiments were done on prisoners without their consent. Jonathan Moreno, a well-respected academic, and former Clinton appointee to the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, wrote a book that summarizes some of what is known about this sinister and repressed history.

I have no evidence the U.S. government is involved in any experimentation at Guantanamo, but if one is even barely aware of the deadly history of U.S. involvement in secret experimentation, from MKULTRA to Edgewood Arsenal, from the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment to Willowbrook, then you couldn't help but wonder, is it possible the U.S. has been conducting medical experiments at Guantanamo?

I bet you never heard of the Willowbrook scandal. It was a doozy.

The Willowbrook study [mid-1950s to early 1970s] involved infecting mentally retarded children with a Hepatitis virus to study the progression of the disease and to test vaccinations that were being developed at the time. Due to overcrowding, children were denied entrance to the Willowbrook State Mental Hospital [in New York] unless parents enrolled their children into the less-crowded hepatitis ward. This practice did not allow for voluntary participation since there were scarce resources available to care for severely retarded children which limited the treatment options from which parents could select. The institution's director was in charge of the study and conducted subject recruitment by sending a misleading informed consent to parents that included an exaggeration of the study benefits.

So, maybe my questioning of how Mr. Al-Ghizzawi was infected with HIV isn't so tinfoil after all. At the very least, his case is one of criminal negligence and cover-up.

Meanwhile, Jose Padilla was sentenced to 17 years and 4 months for supposedly aiding a jihad cell. While he was never tied to any violent activities, and charges that he was planning to set off a "dirty bomb" in an a U.S. city were ditched after the government realized it needed to drop the "enemy combatant" label they'd given him, he was sentenced with no credit for time served. And what did that "time" look like?

The Christian Science Monitor states that Padilla was subjected to "isolated military detention without charge for nearly four years and subjected... to harsh interrogation techniques."

Padilla's cell measured nine feet by seven feet. The windows were covered over… He had no pillow. No sheet. No clock. No calendar. No radio. No television. No telephone calls. No visitors. Even Padilla's lawyer was prevented from seeing him for nearly two years. (Link to CSM quote from Alternet)

Padilla himself claims that during the period of his confinement he was subjected to severe sensory deprivation and isolation, in addition to suffering from sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures, stress positions, and injections of mind-altering drugs. Doctors who have examined him agree that his treatment caused him serious mental harm.

The question is cui bono? Who benefits? Certainly Padilla's treatment represents an attack on U.S. traditional jurisprudence norms, a conclusion ably represented in an article on the sentencing by Jacob Hornberger:

What happened to Padilla continues to hang over the head of every independent-minded American like a Damocles sword....

The reason that the Padilla case is so ominous for the American people is that it established that the government now wields the post-9/11 power to ignore and violate all of those constitutional protections, as long as it is the Pentagon that is doing the ignoring and the violating.

In other words, the Padilla case did not wipe out these constitutional protections as far as the police are concerned. But it does stand for the proposition that all of these constitutional protections are wiped out insofar as the military is concerned. And this despite the fact that the Bill of Rights expressly applies to the entire federal government, not just the non-military parts of the federal government.

While it's possible that the government continues to do experiments on incarceration that involves psychological torture, like sensory deprivation and sensory overload, isolation, use of drugs, etc. -- in fact, this seems likely -- it's certain that he represents a test case on how to subject a human being, in this case a U.S. citizen, to total government control, to break a person's body and will without any restraint of law or morality.

While Canada can't make up its mind whether the United States belongs on a list of nations that torture...

Amnesty International Canada... says it has ample evidence that prisoners are abused both in U.S. and Israeli jails....

"When it comes to an issue like torture, the government's main concern should not be embarrassing allies," Alex Neve, the group's secretary-general, told Reuters. The U.S. embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Under "definition of torture," the document [part of a training course manual on torture awareness given to Canadian diplomats] lists U.S. interrogation techniques such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation and blindfolding prisoners.

It also mentions the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba....

Down the rabbit hole, Alice got lost. But, in the end, she found herself and was returned to her comfortable home. We just keeping getting more lost.

Also posted at Invictus

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Lying liars- and now it's official!

Cross posted from Gold Star Mom Speaks Out
Hundreds of lies led to war is the headline in my local paper, the SF Chronicle. That headline is kind of a DUH for those of us who have been keeping track of the lies.

I'm glad that the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism finally made it official.

It's no surprise that the White House's response to the report was that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat. "The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said. Liar! Even presented with 935 examples of empirical evidence, this White House still lies.

I was surprised to read that the methodology used to come up with the 935 lies covered public statements made by eight top Bush administration officials from September 11, 2001, to September 11, 2003, regarding only 2 subjects, (1) Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction and (2) Iraq's links to Al Qaeda.

Let's name them and shame them, the worst offenders in spreading this pack of lies. George W. Bush, Richard "Dick" Cheney, Ari Fleischer, Scott McClellan, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz. If only there was a shred of decency in any of these men and woman. If there was, there might be a hope that they would be ashamed of their lies and ashamed of themselves, but not one of them is familiar with that emotion. They are too self righteous, too arrogant, and too damned powerful. We have suffered from their mere presence in our lives and our country has suffered.

The report said

Bush and the top officials of his administration have so far largely avoided the harsh, sustained glare of formal scrutiny about their personal responsibility for the litany of repeated, false statements in the run-up to the war in Iraq. There has been no congressional investigation, for example, into what exactly was going on inside the Bush White House in that period.

Congressional oversight has focused almost entirely on the quality of the U.S. government's pre-war intelligence — not the judgment, public statements, or public accountability of its highest officials. And, of course, only four of the officials — Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz — have testified before Congress about Iraq.

Short of such review, this project provides a heretofore unavailable framework for examining how the U.S. war in Iraq came to pass. Clearly, it calls into question the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were the unwitting victims of bad intelligence.

As much as we can blame this administration for lying about the war, the media did not escape the spotlight in the report.

The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war. Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, "independent" validation of the Bush administration's false statements about Iraq.

3931 US casualties divided by 935 lies works out to just more than 4 lies per dead US troop. That's really quite disturbing especially for those of us who have lost a loved one in this boondoggle of lies.

I weep for the loss of my only child, Lt Ken Ballard. I weep for all Gold Star families whose lives have been irreparably changed by the death of their loved one. I weep for our nation. There are no tears, however, for this gang of 8, who knew better. I cannot pray for their souls, because they have none.

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"Winning' in Iraq; What would that be, exactly?

Joe Johns of CNN asked Hillary Clinton:

Last week, you said the next president will, quote, "have a war to end in Iraq." In light of the new military and political progress on the ground there in Iraq, are you looking to end this war or win it?

To her credit, Clinton didn't take the bait, responding well to that inane question:

I'm looking to bring our troops home, starting within 60 days of my becoming president, and here's why, Joe. I have the greatest admiration for the American military. I serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I've been to Iraq three times. I've met with the leaders of the various factions. But there is no military solution, and our young men and women should not remain as the referees of their conflict.

Barack Obama and John Edwards also said they want to extract US troops and disengage, to a large degree, from Iraq. There are nuances, different language, different timelines, but none of the Democrats' Big Three is espousing "winning" in Iraq. Transcript.

It makes you wonder just what might constitute "victory." Someone should have asked Joe Johns. Or maybe John "100-Years-War" McCain or one of the other rabid Republicans would like to take a crack at it.

If victory means getting out alive, it's too late for nearly 4,000 US troops, and more than a million Iraqis.

Was regime change the goal? Would that constitute victory?

If so, US troops should have come home after George Bush's famous "Mission Accomplished" stunt. Saddam has not only been deposed, but captured and brutally executed. That shouls make us all feel better, even if it turns our that Bin Laden guy was in another country and is still at large, and that Saddam really wasn't intent on blowing up the world, or at least didn't have the capability even if he would have liked to.

A stable and successful Iraq will directly improve the national security of our own country," said Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-02), Co-Chair of the Victory in Iraq Caucus. "Today, we were grateful to be joined by (USAID) Director (Dawn) Liberi and General (John) Kelly, two officials who recognize the tremendous importance of building a civil society in Iraq and are dedicated to successfully completing this mission. Under their leadership, thousands of brave American men and women are working tirelessly to help ensure Iraqis live in a stable, democratic, and prosperous state." -- Link.

"Stable, democratic and prosperous." Waiting for that to come true really could mean a Hundred Years War. Political progress has been and will remain elusive.

Was access to oil our goal, as some critics claim? We seem to be able to buy all we want, as long as we're willing to pay in the neighborhood of twice what it cost a year ago. That hardly seems like victory.



Making money for Halliburton and KBR? Only the most cynical would suggest that Bush and Cheney started a war to help their old friends and political cronies. More likely that was just one of the positive side effects, from the Bush-Cheney point of view. Sort of like collateral damage to the US taxpayers and economy.

But let's say, for the sake of argument, that funneling tons of money to Halliburton was the goal. Then this administration really has accomplished its mission, and it's time to declare victory and bring the troops home.

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Bacevich: Iraq ‘surge’ deliberately designed to force long-term U.S. presence

That’s just one of the charges Bacevich levels at the Bush Administration, American Enterprise Institute and other neocon fellow travelers in a Washington Post column.

In only one respect has the surge achieved undeniable success: It has ensured that U.S. troops won't be coming home anytime soon. This was one of the main points of the exercise in the first place.

As AEI military analyst Thomas Donnelly has acknowledged with admirable candor, “part of the purpose of the surge was to redefine the Washington narrative,” thereby deflecting calls for a complete withdrawal of U.S. combat forces. Hawks who had pooh-poohed the risks of invasion now portrayed the risks of withdrawal as too awful to contemplate. But a prerequisite to perpetuating the war — and leaving it to the next president — was to get Iraq off the front pages and out of the nightly news. At least in this context, the surge qualifies as a masterstroke.

Beyond that, Bacevich points out that the Anbar Awakening has actually made what passes for a central government in Baghdad even less “sovereign” than before, and that it, more than the additional U.S. troops, is responsible for the decline in casualties in the second half of 2007.

And, in some way, shape or form, all the remaining Democratic presidential candidates not named Dennis Kucinich are willing to sign off on “long-term presence lite,” to put it bluntly. None has given a full-blows critique of the Anbar Awakening. None has explained how “long-term presence lite” will really advance U.S. interests or force Iraq’s central government to do something beyond what it is doing now and do it differently. None has come out against the oil privatization law; especially, none has noted its illegality under international law.

Of course, the GOP candidates are even worse, but they’re hopeless.

Unfortunately, Bacevich is right about one thing. Even before recession worries, the surge was getting Iraq off the front page, just as the neocons wanted.

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Lean Mean (Drugged) Killing Machines - HR3256 Psychological Kevlar Act of 2007

Pentagon's new lethal weapon
Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:55:17

The US Department of Defense's wide-ranging 'warfighter enhancement
program' is preparing grounds for the most lethal weapon ever.

Pentagon's 'the Psychological Kevlar Act of 2007' puts forward the
idea of using different drugs to insulate combat soldiers from the
stressful psychological element of killing.

The move not only desensitizes them to the horrendous aspect of war,
but also maximizes soldiers' lethality by bypassing their moral
autonomy.


Analyst Penny Coleman criticizes Pentagon's attempt to peddle magic pills
to chase away the horrors of war, saying: "The neurological and
genetic re-engineering of soldiers' minds and bodies is aimed at
creating what the Pentagon calls 'iron bodied and iron willed
personnel… tireless, relentless, remorseless, and unstoppable."

Barry Romo a national coordinator for Vietnam Veterans Against the
War, also denounces the plan: "That's the devil pill, that's the
monster pill, the anti-morality pill. That's the pill that can make
men and women do anything and think they can get away with it. Even if
it doesn't work, what's scary is that a young soldier could believe it
will."

SBB/RA

Press-TV (Iran)

More @ Google

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