‘We send these kids off to war — we make them see things people otherwise wouldn’t have to see. Then we expect them to come back and behave like the rest of us. It’s breaking my heart.’ (via Heartbreaking Photos Of A Troubled Iraq War Veteran Win Pulitzer Prize)
(Source: brianafahey)
Movie Trailer of the Day: A female soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan currently is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. The number of assaults in the last decade is estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands.
This epidemic of rape within the U.S. military is exposed in The Invisible War, an “incendiary” new investigative documentary from Academy Award-nominated director Kirby Dick.
Winner of the Audience Award at Sundance, the film is in theaters June 22.
[thedish]
This is important.
(Source: thedailywhat)
US army to open combat-related jobs to women
The US military is expanding the number of jobs available to female soldiers that potentially would bring them near the front lines.
The Pentagon has announced it will open more than 14,000 combat-related roles to women serving in the army, breaking with the long-held policy of excluding female soldiers from most jobs that would potentially put them in harms way.
The expansion is meant to help US women achieve promotion to the military’s highest ranks.
Al Jazeera’s Rosalind Jordan reports from Fort Bliss in the US.This is rather interesting news.
“We came, We saw, We destroyed, We forgot” by William Blum
An updated summary of the charming record of US foreign policy. Since the end of the Second World War, the United States of America has …
1. Attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, most of which were democratically-elected.
2. Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.
3. Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.
4. Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.
5. Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.In total: Since 1945, the United States has carried out one or more of the above actions, on one or more occasions, in the following 69 countries (more than one-third of the countries of the world):
If you’re American and aren’t aware of why your government isn’t popular with the rest of the world here is why!
I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.
What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.
Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.
Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.
A Privately Owned Nuclear Weapons Plant? In KANSAS CITY?
Yeah, it’s happening. On an old soybean field on the edge of town.
But check out the activists who found an old-school way to fight the plan.
(Photo: James Rea)
“In the eighteen years since the infamous ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident in Mogadishu,” The Nation’s Jeremy Scahill writes in an exclusive report in this week’s issue, “US policy on Somalia has been marked by neglect, miscalculation and failed attempts to use warlords to build indigenous counterterrorism capacity, many of which have backfired dramatically.” But now the US is intensifying its military and intelligence efforts in the country.
According to Scahill’s on-the-ground investigation in Mogadishu, conducted with filmmaker Richard Rowley, the CIA has not only opened a new base in the capital city, but also uses a secret prison in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency.
Credit: Richard Rowley, Big Noise Films
Read this.
