BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE "DUE TO POPULAR OUTCRY," BARACK OBAMA TOLD THESE REPORTERS, "I HAVE DROPPED MY CHEAP ASS SCHEME TO MAKE WOUNDED VETERANS PAY FOR THEIR OWN CARE. SEE I DO THE RIGHT THING." RIGHT. WHEN YOU'RE PRESSURED, PUBLICLY SHAMED AND CALLED OUT. LOTS OF LUCK THAT HAPPENING VERY OFTEN WITH YOUR DEVOTED LOVE CULT. Friday's snapshot noted a video of US forces 'training' Iraqi police. We're revisiting the video because the critique offered Friday of how damaging it is for women when the US military condones that behavior is only more obvious today. At his site Adam Kokesh - Revolutionary Patriot, Adam Kokesh has posted the video so you can stream it there if you're able to stream and/or enjoy streaming. For those who can't, a transcript is below and, as noted Friday, the US service member mentions three areas that we're calling A and B and C (I have no idea what he's taling about): We're going to talk a little about how you are conducting yourselves as Iraqi police. Raise your hand if you're in the Mahdi militia. Let's see it. Who's in the militia? Who has militia ties? Which one of you are more loyal to the militia than to your own country? None of you? Bulls**t. Some of you in this formation are f**king lie right now. You know why I'm pissed off? I've come down here with my soldiers to try and train you and you're trying to f**king kill Americans, you're trying to kill your fellow f**king Iraqis cause you got no f**king backbone. You want everything from me. You want weapons and ammunition. You want fuel, you want trucks. But you're too f**king p**sy to go three kilometers down the road and go get the people that are tearing this f**king town apart. That's pure f**king cowardice. I'll take three g**damn trucks down the road any f**king day. [To an Iraqi, thumping him on the chest] You think this is f**king funny? You want to call me out? You think it's f**king funny? Why don't I take your ass out back and kick your little f**king ass? You better shut the f**k up. F**king pay attention. [To all] I have no problems beating anyone of your asses, not one. Because I don't give a f**k. Because you're acting like a bunch of f**king women. [To one Iraqi] Shut up when I'm talking. Shut your f**king mouth. [To all] I'm not going to come down here and waste my f**king time or my soldiers' lives because you don't want to do s**t. You guys better figure out where your loyalties lie. Are you loyal to Iraq, Shia, Sunni, what is it? You want to fight for your country or are you better off having me die for your country because you're too much of a f**king woman to do it yourself? You love seeing Americans die for your f**king country, you won't die for it yourself. I don't see your ass in my hometown. [Turning around] And you f**king leadership [ought to?] get off your ass too. Lead from the f**king front. When's the last time you went on patrol? Probably never. When's the last time you went these guys down to A, when did you take them to A and lead 'em on a f**king patrol? You never did, did you? Because you're too chicken s**t. [Facing front] Figure out what the f**k you want from us or I'm going to stop coming down here. And when the Sunnis from A come down here and cut your f**king heads off, I'm not going to do a g**damn thing about it. I'm going to let them bomb your f**king ass into oblivion with their mortars because you will not do s**t about it. I will not help people that will not help themselves. Get your heads out of this f**king bulls**t Mahdi militia and start fighting for Iraq. What do you want? Questions? . . . . [Question asked, then translated.] You wanna erase that image, you want to fix your image. This group right here, f**k your stupid checkpoints, they're worthless. Get together, get all your weapons and start marching south towards the river. I guarantee you'll get into a gunfight and I guarantee you'll f**k some people up. Get down there and kick some ass. What? You don't need trucks. Take some water, take some food. [shouting over him] Hey, quit making excuses. Don't f**king talk about US patrols. I never saw your ass down in ledge, where the f**k were you? I never saw you in B, C, so shut the f**k up. When I tell you to man up, you shut the f**k up. You guys want to be men, go down there and start beating some f**king asses. You're supposed to be Iraqi police. Why don't you try acting like it? You sit her with your thumb up your ass because you're too f**king scared to do your jobs. Those are the remarks. They're offensive and appling on every level including what a police force actually does, law and order and so much more. [See "Iraq," "Iraq roundtable," "The Iraq roundtable," "iraq roundtable," "Iraq," "Iraq in the Kitchen," "Talking Iraq," "Iraq around the table," "Roundtable on Iraq," "The roundtable," "Roundtable," "Friday roundtable," "Iraq roundtable" and "Talking Iraq".] They are also sexist remarks and, as such, they are offensive and damaging. For Iraqi women and for American women. The US military has no right to use female as a curse word, to use gender as a put down. MADRE's Yifat Susskind explains at CounterPunch how the illegal war and the US have impacted Iraqi women's lives: If you haven't thought about the Iraq War as a story of US allies systematically torturing and executing women, you're not alone. Likewise, if you were under the impression that Iraqi women were somehow better off under their new, US-sponsored government. In the spring of 2003, Fatin was a student of architecture at Baghdad University. Her days were filled with classes and hanging out in her favorite of Baghdad's many cafes, where she and her friends studied, shared music, and spun big plans for successful careers, happy marriages, and eventually, kids. Today, Fatin says that those feel like someone else's dreams. Soon after the US invasion, Fatin began seeing groups of bearded young Iraqi men patrolling the streets of Baghdad. They were looking for women like her, who wore modern clothes or were heading to professional jobs. The men screamed terrible insults at the women and sometimes beat them. By the fall, ordinary aspects of Fatin's life had become punishable by death. The "misery gangs," as Fatin calls them, were routinely killing women for wearing pants, appearing in public without a headscarf, or shaking hands and socializing with men. As the occupying power, the US was legally obligated to stop these attacks. But the Pentagon, preoccupied with battling the Iraqi insurgency, simply ignored the militias' reign of terror. In fact, some of the most treacherous armed groups belonged to the very political parties that the US had brought to power. By 2005, the Pentagon was giving weapons, money and military training to these Shiite militias, in the hope that they would help combat the Sunni-led insurgency. And after destroying women's lives, the US military thinks it is acceptable for one of their own to 'train' Iraqi police officers to further disrespect women? Train them to think that female is the ultimate insult? Really? That's acceptable? The US war destroyed the rights of women in Iraq and someone wants to pretend it's 'acceptable' for US service members to further destroy the lives of Iraqi women with little stunts like that 'training'? And what about the women in the US military? wowOwow notes, "A Pentagon report released Tuesday claims one in three women soldiers will be victims of some sort of sexual assault during their service, compared to one in six women civilians. In fiscal 2008, 2,923 sexual assaults were reported -- an 8 percent spike over the prior year; 63 percent were rapes or aggravated assaults. Also, 251 incidents occurred in combat areas, with 141 in Iraq and 22 in Afghanistan -- a 26 percent increase from fiscal 2007." On yesterday's CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, (here for text, here for video), Katie Couric reported on sexual assault and the principal Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Michael Dominguez told her, "Sexual assault injures troops, injures readiness. So regardless of the numbers we have, it is by definition too much." Katie observed that 2007 saw 2,200 reported sexual assaults and "only 181 were prosecuted" to which Dominguez responded, "Yes, we absolutely have to get better. Secretary Gates himself is driving this initiative this year to improve our ability to investigate, to prosecutre and convict." Remember that point, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is driving it. NBC Nightly News also offered (video only) a look at sexual assault in the military yesterday. Jim Miklaszewski filed the report and started with Angela Peacock who was sexually assaulted while serving. Angela Peacock: You want to stay in the army keep your mouth shut, suck it up and drive on. Jim Miklaszewski: Angela did drive on and later deployed to Iraq but under the lingering trauma of the sexual assault and the horrors of war she cracked. Angela Peacock: I started having panic attacks and like sleepless nights. I was spiraling down pretty fast. Jim Miklaszewski: She was diagnosed with post traumatic stress and discharged from the army. A Pentagon report on sexual assaults released today shows Angela is not alone. In 2008 there were more than 2900 sexual assaults in the military -- an 8% jump over the previous year. Perhaps more alarming, the number of sexual assaults in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan spiked by 26%. Pentagon officials insist they're taking the disturbing trend seriously. US House Rep Jane Harman smells a cover-up and tells Miklaszewski, "And anyone in the chain of command who covers up the act, and says 'Oh, it's just boys will be boys,' which is what has been happening, also should be prosecuted." Exactly but it's equally true that when a member of the US military -- in a training position -- insults women, makes it so that the worst thing in the world to be is a woman, he is encouraging assaults on women serving in the military. He's encouraging it and so is the military command which lets him get away with. If Robert Gates is seriously concerned, he'll need to address the culture. Mike Mount (CNN) speaks with the idiot Kaye Whitley ("director of the Pentagon's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response office) and Whitley is part of the problem as anyone who has attended a Congressional hearing on this issue knows. A victim provides testimony -- tears herself up to provide testimony -- and Kaye Whitley comes along on the next panel and gets all these little jabs in discrediting the witness -- out of compassion, you understand. She tells Mount that there's no increase in actual assaults, there's just an increase in them being reported. She's a damn fool, a damn liar and someone who should have been kicked off the tax payer payroll a long time ago. It's past time Kaye Whitley got a real job and stopped living off tax payers. Whitley pulled that crap most recently on January 28th where she pretended to be 'concerned' about Laura Waterson. Whitley was pimping for the military (and pimping's the only word) to push for more use of the trial programmed "restricted reports." What this does is allow a rape to go unreported. It counts . . . as a statistic. The women (and male victims as well) are 'counseled' by the military about this option and how it can 'help' them. And throughout their 'counseling' with the military's untrained (a seminar is not training, nor is reading a notebook) 'clinical staff' they will be counseled on whether they're prepared to step forward now or not. It's a crime. Crimes need to be reported. For the victim and especially for the attacker. A rapist may walk -- many do. But if I'm at Fort Lewis and I prosecute my rapist, even if he walks, that follows him because he's not just going to rape once. So the next victim who steps forward has a little easier way to go. As US House Rep Niki Tsongas pointed out to the dithering Whitley, with 1,896 Restricted Reports, "It means a significant number of people who committed these assaults are not accountable." They are not. Whitley wasn't concerned about the victim or about future victims. She declared that if you didn't have that restricted option (where no crime is reported and prosecuted) you would be left with something that "just tears a unit apart." Guess what, Dumb Ass Whitley, maybe it needs to. Maybe it f**king needs to. Maybe if enough units are "torn apart" by these sexual assaults, the military will get serious about preventing them. But that won't happen as long as apologists like Kaye Whitley are allowed to continue in their jobs. The woman needs to be removed from her job immediately. And civilian clinicians need to be brought in because we are talking about crimes and the military's history is one of hiding sexual assaults. Civilians who do not answer to the military chain of command need to be brought in as counselors. As Niki Tsongas also explained to Whitley "we do have new women coming into the military who have no real understanding of the threat that might exist" and "we have many young people coming into the services who we want to protect." "Restricted Rape" assists no one except the US military command which is already well versed in how to cover up sexual assault crimes. Those who missed Laura Watterson's powerful and moving testimony can refer to Jan. 28th's "Iraq snapshot," Kat's "When I tried to smoke a banana," Jan. 29th's "Iraq snapshot," Ruth's "Laura Watterson's testimony and its meaning" and Kat's "Laura Watterson's testimony." We're not done with the 'training' the US military is giving the Iraqi police. It disrespected the traditions of law and order, it confused the role of a civilian police. The US military -- which is not a trained civilian police force -- is giving 'training' lessons on topics they know nothing of. The civilian police force, in any country, is not supposed to attack civilians or suspects. They can arrest suspects but the US service member in the video isn't recommending that anyone be arrested, he is recommending that police become a viligante force. Rob Nordland (New York Times) reported earlier this week that six prisoners from Camp Bucca were released by the US military and they returned home. That was not the end of the story for them. A Haditha police "posse" was after them and "hunted them down, hancuffed them and shot them repeatedly, killing all six, according to a leader of their Al Bonemir tribe, Salal Rasheed al-Goud, was interviewed Saturday." al-Goud explains, "One of the police officers thought they had killed his brother more than a year ago." That's not justice and the US military is part of the problem when a US 'trainer' tells the Iraqi police, "This group right here, f**k your stupid checkpoints, they're worthless. Get together, get all your weapons and start marching south towards the river. I guarantee you'll get into a gunfight and I guarantee you'll f**k some people up. Get down there and kick some ass." The military is not the police and people who can't grasp that -- including the service member and all those ranking above him -- do as much longterm damage to Iraq as do any bombs dropped. This kind of 'training' -- with all the 'benefits' -- is why the US military needs to leave Iraq immediately. Tomorrow marks the sixth anniversary of the illegal war. Some will say it's going into year seven! We won't say that. When it comes to the basics, we stick with the basics. If you were born in 2003, let's say I gave birth to you, I would be throwing you your sixth birthday this year. If your birthday was tomorrow, you would be turning six years old. No one would say, "S/he's starting her/his seventh year!" If they said that, we'd probably all encourage them to leave the birthday party -- we certainly would serve them dry cake without ice cream. The Iraq War turns six-years-old tomorrow. It is the anniversary of the start of the illegal war. March 19, 2003, Bully Boy lied the world into war with the help of an eager and compliant media. It's Barack Obama's illegal war now. He has trashed all of his promises from the campaign (as we all knew he would) including removing a brigade a month. Barack Obama is not ending the illegal war, he is continuing it. If George W. Bush told us he needed 19 months to get US forces down to 50,000, the peace movement wouldn't have gone for it and wouldn't have mistaken that for ending an illegal war. If you want to live in the real world, World Can't Wait offers a list of other cities holding demonstrations. Saturday, those wanting to call out the illegal war can join with groups such as The National Assembly to End the Wars, the ANSWER coalition, World Can't Wait and Iraq Veterans Against the War -- all are taking part in a real action. Iraq Veterans Against the War explains: IVAW's Afghanistan Resolution and National Mobilization March 21st As an organization of service men and women who have served in Iraq, Afghanistan, stateside, and around the world, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War have seen the impact that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have had on the people of these occupied countries and our fellow service members and veterans, as well as the cost of the wars at home and abroad. In recognition that our struggle to withdraw troops from Iraq and demand reparations for the Iraqi people is only part of the struggle to right the wrongs being committed in our name, Iraq Veterans Against the War has voted to adopt an official resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and reparations for the Afghan people. (To read the full resolution, click here.) To that end, Iraq Veterans Against the War will be joining a national coalition which is being mobilized to march on the Pentagon, March 21st, to demand the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and further our mission and goals in solidarity with the national anti-war movement. This demonstration will be the first opportunity to show President Obama and the new administration that our struggle was not only against the Bush administration - and that we will not sit around and hope that troops are removed under his rule, but that we will demand they be removed immediately. For more information on the March 21st March on the Pentagon, and additional events being organized in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Orlando, to include transportation, meetings, and how you can get involved, please visit: www.pentagonmarch.org or www.answercoalition.org. Today the US Senate's Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Personnel held a hearing on suicides in the military. Senator Lindsey Graham is the Ranking [Republican] Member on the Subcommitee and he noted early on that the Army suicide rate has doubled since 2004, that the Air Force rate has been "neglible" (and he pointed out that the Air Force has had just as many deployments as other branches, he also noted that the Army deployments were longer than some branches), he felt the Marines and the Navy had a "pretty consistent rate" over the last years. US Marine Corps Assistant Commandant Gen James F. Amos explained that the Marine's rate went up in "'06, '07 and '08." This is a problem throughout the branches -- even in the Navy which has had a more steady rate (a steady rate is not zero). Republican Senator John Cornyn does not serve on the Committee or the Subcommittee. He participated in the meeting because he has pressed the military to investigate the suicides among recruiters stationed in Texas -- pressed them last fall. Cornyn spoke briefly, noted he was intrested in finding out the why and hows and spoke of "saving families." He stated, "It doesn't seem taking one's life is what you would call a normal response" and he pointed out that not everyone in the service (or civilian life) takes their own life. He wondered, "Is this something you think we need to do a better job of identifying on the front end when someone is recrutinged into the military . . . [or] when they return from deployments?" He wanted to know what 'the key" was for intervention. "That is a tough question," the Army's Vice Chief of Staff, Gen Peter Chiarellis said. "70% of those or greater, a little bit greater than that, had some sort of a relationship problem" at the time of their suicides. But these relationship problems were not the only factor, "it was compounded with something else" like deployments. Chiarellis wanted a "multi-discplinary approach" which would all for "attacking" it all points. "It's going to take a multi-disciplinary approach across the entire career of the soldier." The Navy's Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Patrick Walsh spoke of influencing factors such as alcohol, it's "glamorization," the stigma attached to asking for help and noted the differences in what the individaul reports and what the family does. Amos would echo the reporting issue when later replying to Senator Susan Collins' questions and note that family members -- wives and mothers -- were more likely to disclose more about the stress or behaviors of the individual than was the individual. (Would this include husbands disclosing more? That wasn't addressed.) To Cornyn, Amos wanted to make it clear that he did not feel there was a problem at the intake end -- meaning he refuted the notion that the problem was the 'wrong' people were being admitted. Amos referred to boot camp and how it was "designed to do a whole lot of things," to put an individual through "a stressful environment" for the purpose of identifying "those areas where he or she needs improvement -- where he or she needs our help". As for Cornyn's "why," the Air Force's Vice Chief of Staff Gen William Fraser declared, "There's no one suicide that's exactly the same as another" which is why they investigate. Senator Ben Nelson is the Committee Chair and he wanted to know what role help or assistance played in some of the suicides since "medical record reviews indicate of the recent victims that a majority" of those who took their own lives while serving had utilized some programs -- for drinking or other preventions -- and "while it's clear that they reached out for some help -- as their medical records would indicate, they still committed suicide. [. . .] What are your throughts on that fact? Prior use of the mental health services and yet it was not sufficient or may not have been sufficient -- it may have been something else that came along?" "That is something that we are trying to understand better," Fraser responded and noted that a suicide case where the deceased attempted to receive help "automatically triggers a mental health investigation" that attempts to discovere "was there something that happened in their care?" He was not clear in response initially, so let's be clear here. This automatic investigation does not start when someone in the military seeks help or after they have received help. This investigation only kicks in if someone takes their own life (or is thought to have taken their own life) and records show that they sought help or assistance of some form -- at that point the investigation automatically kicks in. Also of interest is that early on, Fraser would tell Senator Nelson, "We, too, are experiencing a shortage of mental health care providers . . . due to the shortage going on across the country." |
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
THIS JUST IN! THE REAL BARACK!
