I put this link here for those who don’t log on to my other blog. Click here

I have posted this on two of my blogs as I feel it is important especially on this day, Veterans Day.  Just click below.

Healing our troubled Vets

One of my referrer’s has this on his site:

Iraq War Casualty Pictures

Here is another site of interest.

We are at a turning point in US History. In 2008 the labor movement had a moment of triumph, playing a critical role in electing Barack Obama and a majority Democratic Congress. In 2009 we find ourselves still in the middle of a devastating economic crisis with wars and militarism standing between working people and the peaceful just world we seek and deserve.

BOGOTA (AFP) – Colombia is to seek UN help after Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez instructed his military to ready “for war.”
“Faced with these threats of war by the government of Venezuela, the government of Colombia is weighing heading to the Organization of American States and UN Security Council,” said a statement from President Alvaro Uribe, read out by his spokesman Cesar Velasquez on Sunday.

Two senior US envoys have held separate talks with Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein and detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi (C) looks on following a meeting with US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell (L) at a hotel in Yangon on November 4. The most senior US official to visit Myanmar for a decade and a half held talks with Aung San Suu Kyi after the ruling junta allowed the detained Nobel laureate to make a rare public appearance.

There is an excellent photo slide show at this site.

For the Burmese people, Aung San Suu Kyi represents their best and perhaps sole hope that one day there will be an end to the country’s military repression.

OK People this is an article that merits being here. It is a subject that I wholly and totally sympathize with more so in these times of continued conflict and continued loss of young lives in what appears to be yet another escalation of military activity in Afghanistan. I hope that everyone will read the entire article and contribute by way of comments and do read the many comments that have already been posted.
Hunterseeker

Dear Reader,
Over the course of four years as an AlterNet editor, I’ve never felt the need to reach out and urge our audience to read and forward an individual article.

Until today.

That’s because today, we’re publishing the first of a three-part series by Penny Coleman. Penny argues that in the aftermath of every war that America has fought in the last century – not just this war, or that war, the bad ones or the so-called “good” ones — the psychiatric casualties (which far outnumber the physical) have disappeared from official histories and public awareness.

Where did they go? We gave Penny an opportunity to find out and she interviewed generations of veterans, advocates and policy makers, dug through archives and musty files and looked hard at what the military had to say about this question.

What she found is that traumatized veterans are systematically disappeared – into prisons and mental institutions, into cardboard boxes on our streets or pine ones when they die young from overdoses, accidents or suicide.

It’s a vitally important dynamic because our veterans are the human evidence of what war really costs. With that evidence invisible and silenced, nothing gets interrogated, and the system gets off free.

What frequently happens to these vets is another kind of “blow-back” from American Empire – one rarely discussed, but just as harmful for society as anti-American sentiment or terrorism from abroad.

I hope you’ll read, and forward today’s first article. It shows how the criminal justice system has been manipulated to hide the astonishing numbers of injured veterans in our prisons and jails. In the coming weeks, Penny will look hard at other aspects of this important story, so keep an eye out for the whole series.

Joshua Holland
Senior Editor, AlterNet.org
___________________________________________________________

The Tragedy of Our ‘Disappeared’ Veterans

By Penny Coleman, AlterNet. Posted August 12, 2009.

He’s serving “three flat, with two years of post-release” at Groveland Prison in upstate New York.  More…

OK people let me first of all excuse myself for being gone for almost a month but I have been very ill.

Here is the latest regarding the journalist Laura Ling and Euna Lee that are being held in North Korea.

There will be a vigil at 6:30 p.m. Thursday night at San Francisco City Hall for the two Current TV journalists imprisoned in North Korea. Organizers are going to take a photo of all of the participants in Thursday’s vigil and send it to the women as a sign of their support back home. A few of their co-workers and friends and other supporters will speak, but organizers say this event is about “direct participation.”

Here’s what you can do to help: Supporters are being asked to write postcards to each of the women, Laura Ling and Euna Lee. (Separately, please, organizers ask. Try to refrain from “Hey Laura and Euna!”) Their families will bundle the cards and send them — through an intermediary — to the women. Family members who have spoken to the journalists say they are getting messages.

Lisa Ling said she spoke to her sister Tuesday night, and told “Good Day Sacramento” Wednesday about it.

“We actually received a call from my sister quite unexpectedly last night and she reported that she and Euna seemed to be treated fairly but they’re very, very stressed and concerned about being sent to a labor camp,” Lisa Ling said. She will appear at a rally in front of the state capitol in Sacramento Thursday night. Gov. Schwarzenegger and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson are expected to attend.

Here’s the address to send the cards:

Laura Ling and Euna Lee c/o PO Box 2174 Toluca Lake, CA 91610

You can also keep up with the support effort on Facebook and on Twitter.

Posted By: Joe Garofoli (Email) | July 08 2009 at 04:34 PM

DUBAI (Reuters) – Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden criticised U.S. President Barack Obama’s policies towards Muslim countries in a new recording, Al Jazeera television reported on Wednesday.
The Qatar-based station did not give further details in a news flash. Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia at a start of a tour that will also take him to Egypt

where he will deliver a
British hostage executed by Islamists in Mali
June 4, 2009, 2:54 am

Confirmed: Unreleased Torture Photos Did Show Rape and Sexual Assault
The Pentagon lied when it said “None of the photos in question depict the images that are described in that article.” Shocker.
Horton also obtained what he characterizes as “rarely seen Abu Ghraib torture photos,” which can be viewed here

Warning: The following photos contain graphic content.

Ex-Interrogators Are Mad as Hell About Torture, and They’re Not Gonna Take Cheney Anymore

Posted by ZP Heller, MoveOn.org at 8:51 AM on May 30, 2009.
VoteVets.org’s Jay Bagwell on Use of Torture

Jay Bagwell, who served in counterintelligence in Afghanistan speaks about why the U.S. cannot torture, how it emboldens our enemies, and why it is against military values.