Marines ignore Afghan opium so as not to upset locals

Associated Press
Published: Wednesday May 7, 2008
From: Raw Story
 GARMSER, Afghanistan — The Marines of Bravo Company’s 1st Platoon sleep beside a grove of poppies. Troops in the 2nd Platoon playfully swat at the heavy opium bulbs while walking through the fields. Afghan laborers scraping the plant’s gooey resin smile and wave.
Last week, the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit [...]

The Last Roundup

Source: Radar Magazine

“The technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny,” Church pointed out in 1975. “And there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately [...]

Back to Square 1 on soldiers’ safety?

Full Story Here
Expensive military vehicles designed to protect soldiers are blown up by IUDs. Good for military contractors, not so good for soldiers who die.

The Pentagon vs. America

Source: Truthdig
Former Marine and U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter has spoken out vehemently against the war, so it surprises some that he still embraces military service. In this article, Ritter explains why opposition to a war doesn’t mean lack of patriotism or a failure to “support the troops” and the services in which they serve. [...]

Networks continue to ignore NY Times’ military analyst story, but all find time for Hannah Montana

Source: Media Matters
Since The New York Times reported on the hidden ties between media military analysts and the Pentagon on April 20, the three major broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — have still not mentioned the report at all, according to a Media Matters for America search* of the Nexis news database.
Times [...]

Pentagon cuts funding for Iraq under pressure from Congress

Source: Google News

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has withdrawn a 171-million-dollar funding request to build police stations in Iraq after demands from Congress to have Baghdad take on a greater share of reconstruction costs, according to a letter released Tuesday.
Writing to Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, [...]

Unbelieveable! “al-Qaeda” Dismisses Conspiracy Theories, Defends Israel, Attacks Iran and Hizbollah!

Full Story: sott.net
By Joe Quinn
Ever since the 9/11 attacks, Sott.net, along with many others commentators (including US government officials), have repeatedly stated that “al-qaeda” is a fabricated enemy. That it is used to justify the Ziocon’s military rampage though the Middle East while simultaneously terrorising the folks back home.
In the past 7 years the world [...]

New Doubts About Health Care for US War Vets

Source: commondreams.org

Published on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 by One World.net
By Aaron Glantz

SAN FRANCISCO - About 300,000 U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or major depression. Another 320,000 veterans likely suffer from traumatic brain injury (TBI), a type of physical brain damage often caused by explosions [...]

Global Warming and the Iraq War

Source: climateandcapitalism.com
March 19, 2008
In 2006. the US spent more on the war in Iraq than the whole world spent on investment in renewable energy.
On the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, an advance edition of a new report from Oil Change International, entitled A Climate of War (pdf) quantifies both the greenhouse gas emissions of [...]

More War - 6 Months at a Time

Source: MoveOn.org
Dear MoveOn member,
No matter what happens in Iraq, the Bush administration and John McCain always have an answer: 6 more months.
When the “surge” began a year ago, they told America things would get better by September. In September, they said we’d know more by spring. And this week, General Petraeus is on Capitol Hill [...]