A Tale of Two Men

Down in Texass the repuglican spin meisters are working overtime to proclaim that the alleged (remember, innocent until proven guilty?) shooter at Ft. Hood, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a loser and miscreant who just didn't feel like going to Iraq to shoot other Muslims. Born in America, Maj. Hasan was a Palestinian Muslim whose family fled for a better life. To be a dutiful American son, he volunteered for military service years before 9/11. Maj. Hasan considered the military his family. But he was just a soldier in a "volunteer" army, and that meant he had to take whatever shit they threw at him, including refusing requests to resign rather than be deployed to Afghanistan.

"He's disgruntled because he had a poor performance evaluation, he doesn't believe in the mission, he's looking at getting transferred to Afghanistan or Iraq," [Representative Michael] McCaul said. "He's not happy about all that."

Rep Michael McCaul and wife Linda at
POPE BENEDICT XVIS BIRTHDAY
The Italian Embassy on May 2008

Rep. McCaul, who bought his seat by using a couple millions from his wife's treasure chest (she's the daughter of Clear Channel's Chairman of the Board) can afford to look on the bright side of things. No chance is he going to face deployment to a hostile nation. No way was he not gonna git his way. Nope. Wealth and experience as a counterterror expert under W's presidency permits McCaul to say and do pretty much whatever he wants.

USA Today: 22 candidates dig deep into fortunes; only one wins

[...] In Texas, McCaul, a former counterterrorism specialist in the Justice Department, had the experience — and the cash. His wife, Linda, is the daughter of Lowry Mays, chairman of the board of Clear Channel Communications Inc.

McCaul spent $4 million to defeat millionaire Ben Streusand, a Houston-area mortgage banker, in a Republican runoff primary election. Since there was no Democratic candidate, McCaul won election to the House.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/2004-11-05-millionaires_x.htm

Please review the ideology of Mr. McCaul, courtesy of the internet tubes:
http://www.ontheissues.org/TX/Michael_McCaul.htm

This man McCaul will never receive an award for compassion or for even trying to walk in another man's shoes. Shit, second-hand was not part of the profile for this 4th generation prosecution attorney who wound up as a terrorISM expert.

Major Hasan was a psychiatrist who spent his days listening to soldiers relay the worst experiences and (probably) trying to patch them up enough so they could go back to the field and do more horrific damage to innocent people. If he survives his injuries it will be nearly miraculous if a Jack Ruby type doesn't assassinate him before any more facts come out.

I wonder how long Rep McCaul could last on a military base, with a case load of seriously damaged people filing in on the hour and out 10 minutes before, with precious little time to process, clear his head and write up the required progess notes before the next client walked in and then the next until his work day was over.

In the current atmosphere of financial desperation and dog eat dog under which most Americans must function, I doubt Michael McCaul could last a single day. But maybe he's got friends in Opus Dei with a special key to heaven. That might help, if you're a believer. I believe Jesus said a whole lot of good stuff about compassion. Too bad Michael McCaul didn't read those parts, or take them to heart. Maybe he will change. Maybe. Mostly, I just wish he'd keep his mouth shut until the facts are out. If he continues spewing out of his asshole, he might as well just pull the plug on Maj. Hasan's life support right now.

Here's more background about Maj. Hasan from sources I'd trust before CNN:
irishtimes.com
Texas Shooting leaves 13 dead

[...] Retired Colonel Terry Lee, who worked with Hasan, claimed the major was anti-war and argued with comrades who supported operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Hasan, a 39-year-old from Virginia, was also due to be sent to Afghanistan, something family members said would have been his “worst nightmare”.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1106/breaking1.htm

BBC News: Profile: Major Nidal Malik Hasan

[...] His cousin told US media that Maj Hasan had been opposed to an imminent deployment overseas, describing it as his "worst nightmare".

He also said that Maj Hasan had been battling racial harassment because of his "Middle Eastern ethnicity".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8345944.stm

No US Soldiers Dead in Falllujah???

IRAQ: Journalist Charges Censorship by
U.S. Military in Fallujah
Sunday, 13 July 2008
by Dahr Jamail
(IPS) - U.S. journalist Zoriah Miller says he was censored by the U.S. military in the Iraqi city of Fallujah after photographing Marines who died in a suicide bombing. On Jun. 26, a suicide bomber attacked a city council meeting in Fallujah, 69 kms west of Baghdad, between local tribal sheikhs and military officials. [...] Miller ran with the Marines he was with to the scene of the attack. "As I ran I saw human pieces...a skull cap with hair, bone shards," he told IPS during a telephone interview from the so-called Green Zone in Baghdad. "When we arrived at the building it was chaotic. [...] "I went in and there were over 20 people's remains all over the place," Miller continued, Of the Marines I jogged in with, someone started to vomit. Others were standing around, not knowing what to do. It was completely surreal." [...] "I thought, 'Nobody in the U.S. has any idea what it means when they hear that 20 people died in a suicide bombing.' I want people to be able to associate those numbers with the scene and the actual loss of human life. And to show why soldiers are suffering from PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]," Miller told IPS.
[...] In an Iraqi Police station in Karmah, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) was brought in to investigate the bombing. Millers' photos were the only ones of the scene, so the NCIS team asked for them. "I made them copies, but then one of the Marines came in and told me to delete my memory card after I give them the photos, and I refused," Miller told IPS, "I told the NCIS that if they forced me to delete them, I would stop sharing them. So they stopped pressing that issue." [...] Miller explained to IPS that he meticulously showed his photos to the Marines he was with to make sure he was not going to show any photos that would upset the family members of the deceased Marines. "They were all okay with them, so then about 96 hours after the bombing I published the photos on my blog." [...] "Tuesday [Jul. 1] I awoke to a call in their combat operations centre, and the person on the phone told me they were a PAO (Public Affairs Officer) at Camp Fallujah, and he wanted me to take my blog down right away," Miller told IPS. "I asked them why, and was told then called back after five minutes by a higher ranking PAO who claimed I had broken my contract by showing photos of dead Americans with U.S. uniforms and boots." [my bold] Miller said the PAO claimed he was not allowed, by the embed contract, to show dead or wounded U.S. citizens or soldiers in the field. "I never signed any contract for that," Miller said. He was called back after another five minutes and told his embed was terminated and they would send him back to Baghdad on the next flight. He was then taken back to Camp Fallujah where he said, "Everyone was extremely angry and fired up at me."
[...] Miller explained that he grew nervous when the flight was cancelled due to a sandstorm, and then a security guard was assigned to him.
"I started to feel uncomfortable with this," Miller explained. "The next day, Gen. Kelly, [Major General John Kelly, who is the Commanding General of the I Marine Expeditionary Force] wanted to have some words with me. I was to meet with him at 3 pm, and we sat outside in the sun for two hours and he never showed."
Miller was told he would be flown out that night, but he was deleted from the flight and told that General Kelly wanted to see him, so he waited again until Thursday, Jul. 3. Again the general did not appear, so Miller was given an official letter about the grounds for the termination of his embed, signed by Gen. Kelly, and flown to Baghdad.
"Now, as I think about it, I think they needed the extra time to figure out what they were going to say about my dismissal," Miller said. "Their original reason ended up being bogus, so they had to figure something else out." [...] Miller was given an official letter about the grounds for the termination of his embed, signed by Gen. Kelly, and flown to Baghdad.
[...] The letter he was given stated reasons for his dismissal as "you photographed the remains of U.S. soldiers", "you posted these images along with detailed commentary", and "by posting the images and your commentary you violated 14 H and O of the news media agreement you signed".
In addition, the letter, which Miller read to IPS, stated, "By providing detailed information of the effectiveness of the attack and the response of U.S. forces to it, you have put all U.S. forces in Iraq at greater risk for harm." [my bold] [...] The Pentagon would not comment on the story when contacted by IPS, saying they had no information on Miller's case beyond what Central Command had already posted.
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4280&Itemid=81

See his work here: http://www.zoriah.com/

Vietnam Veteran Will Finally Get US Citizenship

Thanks to Denis Hamill of NY Daily News. Well done! Mr. Thomas' story is too amazing to edit, so here is the whole story:
No way to treat a hero: Vet earned three Purple Hearts but still no citizenship
Thursday, June 5th 2008, 4:00 AM
This one looks like it might have a happy ending - but for the moment this disabled Vietnam veteran with three Purple Hearts is a man without a country.
In 1960, at 16, Rudolph Thomas Sr. came to America with his grandmother from Trinidad. He lived in his grandfather's house on Decatur St. in Bedford-Stuyvesant and, after graduating Franklin K. Lane High, he was drafted into the United States Army on March 8, 1965.
He did basic training in Fort Gordon, Ga., advanced individual training at Fort Dix, and then volunteered for the Army Airborne jump school at Fort Benning, Ga.
"In 1967, I was stationed in Fort Bragg with the 82nd Airborne when I got my orders to go to Vietnam," says Thomas, who lives in Flatbush. "When I reported to leave they said they couldn't send me because I was not a United States citizen."
He remained at Fort Bragg and three months later they issued new Vietnam orders. "They said, ‘Congratulations, we've naturalized you as a U.S. citizen and you're going to Vietnam,'" he says. "They checked yes on the papers where it asked if I was a U.S. citizen."
Thomas went to Vietnam with the 173rd Airborne and saw heavy action in places with names like Bon Song, An Khe, Bar Tuey.
"The first time I got shot it was in the right ankle," he says. "I got sent to Cam Ranh Bay to recuperate. Then I went back into the bush and was shot in my left foot. I got laid up in the hospital again. I got my third Purple Heart from a landmine, taking shrapnel in my right knee, left buttock and left shoulder. It burned the pants off me."
After the third injury he was sent back to the States.
Rudy Thomas reenlisted, spent six years in the army and received honorable discharge papers that clearly indicate he was an American citizen.
He returned to Brooklyn where he receives a 40% disability pension for post traumatic stress disorder.
His son from his first marriage, Rudy Thomas Jr., became a New York City police officer.
"In 1980 I was hired by New York State Department of Labor under the veteran's readjustment program," the father says. "I have been working there since as a disabled veteran's outreach specialist."
On July 4, 1993, his police officer son was off duty, waiting for his fiancée to come out of a deli on Pennsylvania Ave. in Brooklyn when a gunman demanded his motorcycle. When he identified himself as a cop, the armed man shot Rudy Thomas Jr. dead.
In 2005, when his grandfather died in Trinidad - in his late 90s - Thomas applied for his first American passport.
"The people at the passport office looked at my army papers and told me that I could not have a passport because I was not a United States citizen," Thomas says. "I was shocked. They told me to go to 26 Federal Plaza to apply for citizenship."
In December of 2005 Thomas went and applied for citizenship to the country for which he'd fought in a foreign war.
"The woman there said the information on my military papers was inaccurate and that I was never naturalized," he says. "They opened a case and told me to go home and wait."
He's still waiting - and he never got to attend his grandfather's funeral.
Last week, he sent me an e-mail: "I am writing to you with the hope that this matter can be taken care of as soon as possible since it didn't take this long to send me to Vietnam and fight and shed blood for this country when so many others were running away and dodging service ..."
I called Shawn Saucier, a spokesman at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, part of Homeland Security.
"There is a provision of U.S. immigration law that enables us to move forward on Mr. Thomas' citizenship application pending a criminal background check," he said after doing some research.
"Typically someone has to be a Green Card holder for five years before being eligible to apply for citizenship, but there is a provision ... for certain military veterans who served in active duty during a time of war ... It could possibly happen in the next few weeks."
"If the background check goes well," says Saucier, "we're glad to help someone who put his life on the line to defend the United States to become a citizen."
"That's great news," Thomas says. "Especially since I thought I was a U.S. citizen for the last 40 years since I went to Vietnam."

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2008/06/05/2008-06-05_no_way_to_treat_a_hero_vet_earned_three_.html

IVAW Adam Kokesh Delivers Congressional Stop Loss, Helps Bay Area Counter-Recruitment Groups

Winter Soldier Comes to Oakland and Marin:
Adam Kokesh of IVAW Speaks at the Oakland Federal Building and College of Marin; makes counter-recruitment visits to East Bay schools
WHEN/WHERE: Tuesday, May 6
12:00 noon: Oakland Federal Building, 1301 Clay St: weekly anti-war vigil
2:00 PM: Counter-Recruitment Visits to East Bay High Schools
5:00 PM LIVE on Flashpoints with Dennis Bernstein KPFA
7:00 PM College of Marin, Kentfield Campus– Student Center
WHAT: Iraq Veteran Reveals Truth About Iraq and Military Recruitment
Iraq war veteran and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Adam Kokesh, will speak at the weekly anti-war vigil at the Oakland Federal Building. This is the tenth year of the Tuesday vigil which was begun in early 1998 to oppose the genocidal sanctions imposed on Iraq which killed one and a half million Iraqis during the ten years they were in place. Now the vigil calls for and end to the murderous war and occupation on the people of Iraq. Kokesh will speak at noon.
Kokesh will also encourage students at East Bay high schools and the College of Marin not to enlist for military service. Thousands of service members are involuntarily having their tours of duty extended through the military’s stop loss program, keeping them in harms way and increasing the mental and emotional strain on each soldier. According to a study by the Rand Corporation, 1 in 5 U.S. soldiers who served in Iraq or Afghanistan – nearly 300,000 individuals – suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And documents released in a San Francisco Federal class action lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs reveal that 18 veterans kill themselves everyday. For the sake of the troops, and the people of Iraq, the war must end now.
Winter Soldier Comes to San Francisco: Adam Kokesh Delivers Stop-Loss Orders to Senators Feinstein and Boxer, and Speaker Pelosi
Congress Cannot Go Home Until All the Troops Come Home! Iraq War Veteran, Bay Area Residents, Demand Congress Do Their Duty: End the War
WHEN/WHERE: Wednesday, May 7, San Francisco:
12:00 noon: San Francisco State University, Rm 201 Hensill Hall
3:00 PM: Deliver Stop Loss Orders to Offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 450 Golden Gate Ave then, Senator Barbara Boxer, 1700 Montgomery St.
5:00 PM: Deliver Stop Loss Orders to Senator Diane Feinstein’s office #1 post St. With Code Pink
7:00 PM: Veterans Memorial Building, 401 Van Ness Blvd.
WHAT: Iraq war veteran, Adam Kokesh, and Bay Area residents will deliver “official” stop-loss notices to the offices of the San Francisco Congressional delegation. These will notify them that all of their leaves, vacations, passes and home visits have been cancelled until further notice. Just as active-duty personnel endure involuntary extensions of their tours of duty, veterans and citizens are notifying our representatives that they, too, will have their “tours of duty” involuntarily extended until every soldier and mercenary is out of Iraq and brought home.
Addressed to the individual members of Congress, the order reads in part:

“…By Order of the People of the United States; You are officially informed that all leave, vacation, passes, and family visits are hereby CANCELLED. You are ordered to remain at your posts until all U.S. troops and “private contractors” are removed from Iraq and Afghanistan, and all the wars are ended. You may not go home until all the troops are home.”

After delivering the orders, Kokesh will address San Franciscans at the Veterans Memorial Building.
Adam’s activities in the San Francisco Bay Area are organized by the SF Coalition to Host Adam Kokesh and are co-sponsored by: Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, American Friends Service Committee, U.S. Labor Against the War, United For Peace and Justice, Direct Action to Stop the War, Act Against Torture, the Ecumenical Peace Institute/CALC, the East Bay Coalition to Support Self-Rule for Iraqis, the Catalyst Project and the Marin Peace and Justice Center.
For more information see
http://kokesh.blogspot.com/2008/01/adam-kokesh-on-tour.html
http://www.kokesh.mpjc.org
http://www.stop-losscongress.org/
CONTACT:
David Rubinson, 415 441 7500
Michael Reagan, 510 846 0490
IVWA Adam Kokesh Demands Congress Stop Loss

An Army of Sociopaths on The Mourning After Pill

This report was originally in AlterNet and excerpts with comments are reposted in today's Winter Patriot. It discusses The Psychological Kevlar Act of 2007, the principles of “operant conditioning,” Battlemind Training and the moral implications of inhibiting natural human responses to horrific events. Please read and if you have time, follow the links. If implemented, we all will experience the repercussions. Imagine a nation of homeless, desensitized, militarized zombies. Wes Craven, the Pentagon calls you. [My emPHAsis in bold]
Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug Troops to Numb Them to Horrors of War
By Penny Coleman, AlterNet. Posted January 10, 2008.
The DoD is flirting with the idea of medicating soldiers to desensitize them to combat trauma -- will an army of unfeeling monsters result?
[...] Since World War II, our military has sought and found any number of ways to override the values and belief systems recruits have absorbed from their families, schools, communities and religions. Using the principles of operant conditioning, the military has found ways to reprogram their human software, overriding those characteristics that are inconvenient in a military context, most particularly the inherent resistance human beings have to killing others of their own species. [...] Soldiers are conditioned to act without considering the moral repercussions of their actions; they are enabled to kill without making the conscious decision to do so. If they are unable to justify to themselves the fact that they killed another human being, they will likely -- and understandably -- suffer enormous guilt. This guilt manifests itself as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), [quote from Lt. Col. Peter Kilner, a professor of philosophy and ethics at West Point]
[...] current U.S. military training also includes a component to desensitize male soldiers to the sounds of women being raped, so the enemy cannot use the cries of their fellow soldiers to leverage information. I think it not unreasonable to connect such desensitization techniques to the rates of domestic violence in the military, which are, according to the DoD, five times those in the civilian population
[...] The Psychological Kevlar Act perhaps holds out the promise of a prophylactic remedy, but it should come as no surprise that Big Pharma has been looking for a chemical intervention.
What they have come up with has already been dubbed "the mourning after pill." Propranalol, if taken immediately following a traumatic event, can subdue a victim's stress response and so soften his or her perception of the memory. That does not mean the memory has been erased, but proponents claim that the drug can render it emotionally toothless.
[...] Barry Romo, a national coordinator for Vietnam Veterans Against the War, is even more blunt. "That's the devil pill," he says. "That's the monster pill, the anti-morality pill. That's the pill that can make men and women do anything and think they can get away with it. Even if it doesn't work, what's scary is that a young soldier could believe it will."
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/72956?page=entire
In an older post linked to this story, Chris Floyd asked what made the "Greatest Generation" so great, and finds a very non-Steven Spielberg/Hollywood answer: MOST DIDN'T KILL!
[...] Killing the soul is the ultimate aim of those who seek to create tools for empire, instead of recruiting citizens to defend the Republic from attack. I wrote about this in 2004 (Manufacturing Intent:The Army's Cult of Killing Leaves a Generation Gap)
[...] Yet despite the vast tonnage of celluloid and printer's ink devoted to their praise, what is perhaps the truest, highest measure of their worth has been almost universally neglected. And what is this hidden glory, which does more honor to the people of the United States than every single military action ordered by their corruption-riddled leaders during the past fifty years? It's the fact that in the midst of history's most vicious, all-devouring, inhuman war, only about 15 percent of American soldiers on the battlefield actually tried to kill anyone.
In-depth studies by the U.S. Army after WWII showed that between 80 to 85 percent of the greatest generation never fired their weapons at an exposed enemy in combat, as military psychologist Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman reports. Many times they had the chance, but could not bring themselves to do it. They either withheld their fire altogether or else shot into the air, to the side, anywhere but at the fellow human beings – their blood kin in biology, mind and mortality – facing them across the line. This reticence is even more remarkable given the incessant demonization of the enemy by the top brass, especially in the Pacific, where the Japanese – soldiers and civilians – were routinely portrayed by military propaganda as simian, sub-human creatures fit only for extermination.
http://empireburlesquenow.blogspot.com/2005/03/manufacturing-intent-armys-cult-of.html

9/11 PTSD Stats Grow

9/11 anxiety caused heart problems for some
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS , Jan. 8, 2008
Americans who said they became anxious and stressed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- some just from watching the collapse of the Twin Towers on television -- reported higher rates of heart disease up to three years later, researchers said.
While several studies have found high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety in first responders or attack survivors, most of the some 2,000 participants in the study, published in January's editions of the Archives of General Psychiatry, had no direct connection to Sept. 11.
[...] In the three years after the attacks, they said they were either diagnosed for the first time, or diagnosed with worsening cases of hypertension, irregular heartbeats and other heart problems, said lead researcher Alison Holman of the University of California-Irvine.
http://www.amny.com/news/local/groundzero/am-groundzero0108,0,2805795.story?coll=amny_home_rail_headlines