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PTSD: The War Within. A Marine writes about his PTSD experience. This article from the January issue of the Marine Corps Gazette was written by USMC Staff Sergeant Travis N. Twiggs. Twiggs killed himself and his brother after a long police chase in Arizona earlier this week.

There are about 1000 suicide attempts by vets every week.

There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to it’s absolute peak and maximum. Can’t take anymore input. The nervous system has either (click) snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along and very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock! Battle fatigue. Then we had the war in Korea, 1950. Madison avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey, were up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase. It’s totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car. Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon.

– George Carlin

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For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. ‘If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,’ he said with no trace of remorse.

Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city’s Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.

Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. ‘They are men and know what honour is,’ he said.

Rand, who was studying English at Basra University, was deemed to have brought shame on her family after becoming infatuated with a British soldier, 22, known only as Paul.

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A Kuwaiti who had been imprisoned in Guantanamo for more than 3 1/2 years carried out a recent suicide attack in Iraq, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi took part in one of three suicide bomb attacks last month in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, said U.S. Navy Cmdr. Scott Rye, a military spokesman.

[..]

“It is unknown what motivated him to leave Kuwait and go to Iraq,” Rye said. “His family members reportedly were shocked to hear he had conducted a suicide bombing.”

Really? Shall I buy you a hint? How about this:

Military documents previously released to AP show that al-Ajmi was “constantly in trouble” while in Guantanamo and held in disciplinary blocks during his detention. He also allegedly told officials in August 2004 that “he now is a jihadist, an enemy combatant, and that he will kill as many Americans as he possibly can.”

Tom Wilner, a lawyer who represented Kuwaiti prisoners at Guantanamo, said al-Ajmi had a broken arm during one of their meetings at the base in Cuba and that he alleged he had been injured by guards who interrupted him while he prayed.

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Pfc. Monica Brown cracked open the door of her Humvee outside a remote village in eastern Afghanistan to the soft pop of bullets shot by Taliban fighters. But instead of taking cover, the 18-year-old medic grabbed her bag and ran through gunfire toward fellow soldiers in a crippled and burning vehicle.

Vice President Cheney pinned Brown, of Lake Jackson, Tex., with a Silver Star in March for repeatedly risking her life on April 25, 2007, to shield and treat her wounded comrades, displaying bravery and grit. She is the second woman since World War II to receive the nation’s third-highest combat medal.

Within a few days of her heroic acts, however, the Army pulled Brown out of the remote camp in Paktika province where she was serving with a cavalry unit — because, her platoon commander said, Army restrictions on women in combat barred her from such missions.

Having soldiers die is not as important as keeping women in their place, apparently.

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An Oregon couple received a frightening phone call from their son in Afghanistan when he inadvertently called home during battle.

Stephen Phillips and other soldiers in his Army MP company were battling insurgents when his phone was pressed against his Humvee. It redialed and called his parents in the small Oregon town of Otis.

Sandie Petee, Phillips’ mother, and her husband, Jeff Petee, weren’t home at the time of the call. They returned home to find a three-minute voice mail on their answering machine.

Warning - not for the faint of heart

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In a new memoir set to be published May 6, the former commander of US forces in Iraq provides new intimate details of the goings-on at high levels of the Bush Administration in the first year of the Iraq war.

His sharp tongued conclusion: “Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty.”

An excerpt from Sanchez’s book, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier’s Story, published in TIME, buries the quotation on the third page of the article.

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A Marine sergeant who became a symbol of resilience as he strove to recover from a roadside bomb blast in Iraq that blanketed 97 percent of his body with burns has died, the Defense Department said. He was 22.

Sgt. Merlin German died April 11 at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where he was continuing treatment for the injuries he suffered in combat on Feb. 22, 2005, the Pentagon said Thursday.

The former turret gunner was dubbed the “Miracle Man” for his determination in facing his wounds, which cost the former saxophone player his fingers and rippled his face with scars. He endured more than 40 surgeries, spent 17 months in a hospital and had to learn to walk again.

Meanwhile, he started a charity, Merlin’s Miracles, to aid child burn victims and considered college and a career.

[Dick Cheney, Five years ago on Mission Accomplished Day (May 1th, 2003):]

Every day, life in Iraq is improving as coalition troops secure unsafe areas, bring food and medical care to the needy and make sure Iraq’s drinking water is clean and dependable.

[Today, five years later:]

Iraq’s Nassriya Water Treatment Plant, the country’s largest reconstruction project, is a failure so far because it isn’t delivering sufficient water to enough people, a new audit says.

Inspectors in December and again in February found the U.S.-funded plant 200 miles (322 kilometers) south of Baghdad was operating at only 20 percent capacity, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction said in a report released today.

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ASHCROFT: No.  No it doesn’t violate the Geneva Conventions.  As for other laws, well, the U.S. is a party to the United Nations Convention against Torture.  And that convention, well, when we join a treaty like that we send it to the Senate to be ratified, and when the Senate ratifies they often add qualifiers, reservations, to the treaty which affect what exactly we follow.  Now, I don’t have a copy of the convention in front of me…

ME: (holding up my copy) I do! (boisterous applause and whistling from the audience)  Would you like to borrow it?

[..]

ME: Actually, Mr. Ashcroft, my question was about this other document. (laughter and applause)  This other document is a section from the judgment of the Tokyo War Tribunal.  After WWII, the Tokyo Tribunal was basically the Nuremberg Trials for Japan.  Many Japanese leaders were put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture.  And among the tortures listed was the “water treatment,” which we nowadays call waterboarding…

ASHCROFT: (interrupting) This is a speech, not a question.  I don’t mind, but it’s not a question.

ME: It will be, sir, just give me a moment.  The judgment describes this water treatment, and I quote, “the victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach.”  One man, Yukio Asano, was sentenced to fifteen years hard labor by the allies for waterboarding American troops to obtain information.  Since Yukio Asano was trying to get information to help defend his country–exactly what you, Mr. Ashcroft, say is acceptible for Americans to do–do you believe that his sentence was unjust? (boisterous applause and shouts of “Good question!”)

ASHCROFT: (angrily) Now, listen here.  You’re comparing apples and oranges, apples and oranges.  We don’t do anything like what you described.

ME: I’m sorry, I was under the impression that we still use the method of putting a cloth over someone’s face and pouring water down their throat…

ASHCROFT: (interrupting, red-faced, shouting) Pouring!  Pouring! Did you hear what she said?  ”Putting a cloth over someone’s face and pouring water on them.”  That’s not what you said before!  Read that again, what you said before!

ME: Sir, other reports of the time say…

ASHCROFT: (shouting) Read what you said before! (cries of “Answer her fucking question!” from the audience)  Read it!

ME: (firmly) Mr. Ashcroft, please answer the question.

ASHCROFT: (shouting) Read it back!

ME: “The victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach.”

ASHCROFT: (shouting) You hear that?  You hear it?  ”Forced!”  If you can’t tell the difference between forcing and pouring…does this college have an anatomy class?  If you can’t tell the difference between forcing and pouring…

ME: (firmly and loudly) Mr. Ashcroft, do you believe that Yukio Asano’s sentence was unjust?  Answer the question. (pause)

ASHCROFT: (more restrained) It’s not a fair question; there’s no comparison.  Next question! (loud chorus of boos from the audience)

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Gholam Ghaus Z., a 41-year-old of Afghan origin from Wuppertal in western Germany, had travelled to Kabul to visit relatives. When he entered a US military supermarket to buy a shaver in January he was arrested on suspicion of terrorism. The fact that he had banknotes in different currencies and telephone cards from several countries seemed to be enough to warrant his arrest. Although hours of interrogations did not provide any evidence that he was a terrorist, Z. man has been in US custody for the almost four months.

Officials with the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, have already questioned him in Kabul. Meanwhile Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has looked into his background in Germany and found no grounds for suspicion. “It was all totally clean,” a high-ranking security expert told SPIEGEL.

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One memorable montage of clips Stewart presented showed, in order, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, Vice President Cheney, President Bush, and former CIA Director George Tenet all saying, “We don’t torture.”

Quipped Stewart, “You may know that group as the non-profit organization ‘People for the Ethical Treatment of Nobody.’”

Video clip at the link. They are fucking war criminals.

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As you well informed blog readers all know by now, last week ABC broke an interesting little story. It was about how Condi Rice, Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, Colin Powell, George Tenent, John Ashcroft and other Bush “Principals” all gathered in regular meetings in the White House to discuss and approve of the various torture methods being used against prisoners held by the United States in the War On Terror. ABC interviewed the president a couple of days later and asked him if he was aware of these meetings and he said he was not only aware of them, but that he’d approved of them. Moreover, he specifically said he had no regrets about what was done to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who we know was tortured with simulated drowning — also known as “waterboarding” — which is considered by the entire civilized world to be torture.

As I said, we know all this. The blogs have been writing about it non-stop since last week, stunned and appalled at the picture of these high level public officials sitting around watching power point presentations about the efficacy of sexual humiliation and CIA operatives “acting out” various torture techniques for their approval.

[..]

They were aware that what they were doing was wrong, immoral. Attorney General John Ashcroft warned them that by doing such things, right in the White House, “history would not be kind.” But they did it. The president approved it. ABC reported it. And nobody else in the media cares.

I think they don’t care because, hey, it wasn’t Condoleezza Rice’s pastor who made the weird statements, right?

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Yes. Of course. “Drafting errors” that benefit Blackwater and Halliburton subsidiaries work their way into policy regulations all the time. How embarrassing.

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Crude oil futures topped $112 in Wednesday’s intraday trading in New York — up from about $35 a barrel before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Though Iraq’s oil exports have yet to top pre-war levels, the result of the price rise has been a $6.4 billion surplus for the Iraqi government, according to the Pentagon’s last quarterly report on the war.

Iraq has a budget surplus partly because they let the USA pay for just about all infrastructure building…

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Democratic leaders, who vowed in 2006 and 2007 to deny Bush any more “blank checks” for the war, now concede that a new supplemental war appropriation bill will almost surely pass without any meaningful constraints on Bush’s war policies.

Rather than challenge Bush over that funding, Democratic leaders fired off a letter asking Bush to reconsider his approach.

Ooooh, a letter! Surely that’ll convince W!

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A Wikipedia article about Maj. Alan Rogers, a gay soldier who was killed in January in Iraq, was apparently edited by someone in the Pentagon, who removed any mention that Rogers was gay.

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Iraqi doctors in al-Anbar province warn of a new disease they call “Blackwater” that threatens the lives of thousands. The disease is named after Blackwater Worldwide, the U.S. mercenary company operating in Iraq.

“This disease is a severe form of malarial infection caused by the parasite plasmodium falciparum, which is considered the worst type of malarial infection,” Dr. Ali Hakki from Fallujah told IPS. “It is one of the complications of that infection, and not the ordinary picture of the disease. Because of its frequent and severe complications, such as Blackwater fever, and its resistance to treatment, P. falciparum can cause death within 24 hours.”

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At least a dozen soldiers and Marines have been electrocuted in Iraq over the five years of the war, and investigators now are trying to learn what role improper grounding of electrical wires played in those deaths.

[..]

The investigation was prompted by the death of Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, of Pennsylvania, who was electrocuted Jan. 2 while taking a shower in his living quarters in the Radwaniyah Palace Complex in Baghdad.

[..]

In October 2004, the Army issued a safety warning after five soldiers had been electrocuted that year alone, Waxman said.

The warning noted that improper grounding of electrical wires is “a factor in nearly every electrocution,” Waxman said.

Altmire said those deaths were “easily preventable.”

[..]

KBR’s contract, the memo said, “only required KBR to fix the building (plumbing and electricity) as things broke. KBR did an initial survey of the building upon assuming responsibility and noted several safety issues concerning the improper grounding of electrical devices.

“The contract did not cover fixing potential hazards so those issues were never addressed,” the memo said.