Nice. You get wounded, and then you are asked to REPAY part of your incentive to enlist in the first place? Insult upon injury. Literally. “Service members seriously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan after they received a $10,000 bonus for enlisting are being asked by the Pentagon to repay portions of the incentive money, says a U.S. senator who calls the practice an example of military policy gone wrong.” “A bill in the mail is not the kind of present…
Here is the original version of the editorial that ran on Op-Ed News. They had an exclusive for at least 48 hours on the pithier version – and it ran five days ago. Note the current status of the situation: 1. There is now a video that shows that Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation. 2. Blackwater is denying charges of arms smuggling. 3. Blackwater is back up and running in Iraq. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~…
I hear “betray us” whenever they say General Petraeus’ name too, but yeah, it was a bit cheap to play on the name. Making a stink about the childishness of of that would be fair, but the comments I’m hearing are really over the top. And with all of the concentration on the word play, the actual point of the ad was lost. Then there’s all this babbling about how the Democrats are “afraid” of irritating the members of Moveon.org….
Another must-read, by Jeremy Scahill from today’s U.K. Guardian, “A very private war.” Four years into the occupation, there is absolutely no effective system of oversight or accountability governing contractors and their operations. They have not been subjected to military justice, and only two cases have ever reached US civilian courts, under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which covers some contractors working abroad. (One man was charged with stabbing a fellow contractor, in a case that has yet to go…
Our government should provide the highest standard of care to women who have volunteered to serve our country. Federal law, however, does little to protect the reproductive rights of servicewomen. Why are servicewomen being denied birth control? Not only are the 350,000 women (almost 15 percent of all active-duty personnel) banned from accessing abortion care at military medical facilities, but some cannot even obtain emergency contraception, which can prevent unintended pregnancy if taken soon after sex, at their base pharmacy….
Bush’s comment on Islamic “fascists” continues to tickle at my mind, and I’m not alone. Some of the characteristics of some kinds of fascism are there, but fundamental and very essential traits are also missing – the economic, the nationalistic. Our own U.S. of A. is actually closer to an outright fascistic regime. Some say it’s already here. Classic projection onto the enemy, or at least that’s the reaction they are hoping for? Or is it just names at the…