Face to Face Survey of US Soldiers

(Stars and Stripes) 72% of troops on the ground in Iraq think U.S. military forces should get out of the country within a year; according to a Zogby poll ….Only 23% of service members thought U.S. forces should stay “as long as they are needed.”

Of the 72%, 22% said troops should leave within the next six months, and 29% said they should withdraw “immediately.” 21% said the U.S. military presence should end within a year; 5% weren’t sure.

* * *

John Zogby, CEO of the polling company, said the poll was funded through Le Moyne College’s Center for Peace and Global Studies, which received money for the project from an anonymous, anti-war activist, but neither the activist nor the school had input on the content of the poll.

Zogby said the survey was conducted face-to-face throughout Iraq, with permission from commanders. Despite the difficulty of polling in a war zone, he said, pollsters were pleased with the results.

“This is a credible and representative look at what the troops are saying,” he said. “Clearly there are those [in the U.S.] who will speak for the troops, so there is a real value in seeing what they are actually saying.” (By Leo Shane III)

Source: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?article=35385&section=104

by which we arrive at that goal.”  -Martin Luther King, Jr.

(Zogby poll, Stars and Stripes) 85% of US troops stationed in Iraq believe that a major reason for the war is “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the Sept. 11 attacks.”

Of those surveyed, 75 percent have served multiple tours in Iraq, 63% were under 30 years old.

According to a Zogby poll, reported by Leo Shane III, www.stripes.com, March 2006.

Bold-Faced Lies by Republican Leaders

“President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war.” (By Leo Shane III)

U.S. Reports Al Qaida Recruiting Teens for Attacks

(World Tribune) BAGHDAD — The U.S. military reported that Al Qaida has been recruiting teenagers for suicide and other attacks in Iraq. Officials said Al Qaida and cells financed by the former regime of President Saddam Hussein were recruiting teenagers as young as 14 to hurl grenades at U.S. and Iraqi forces. They said the teenagers were also being trained to serve as suicide bombers against Shi’ite targets, Middle East Newsline reported.

“To endanger children with acts of terrorism is despicable,” U.S. Army Lt. Col Hugh McNeely, the deputy commander of 2nd Brigade Combat Team, said. “But when terrorists actively recruit them to risk their lives for goals that the child probably doesn’t even understand is evil. There’s just no other way to say it.”

Source: http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2009/me_iraq0452_06_08.asp

As soon as you get pulled over for a speeding ticket, they’re gonna see you’re a

deserter. They’re gonna apprehend you, take you to jail. So guess what, all that

lovey-dovey ‘I wanna go to college’ and all that? Guess what? You just threw it out the

window ’cause you just screwed your life.

Not only is none of that true, but it also violates regulations that prohibit the threatening of potential recruits…. Kelt did receive a reprimand, but he has since been promoted and put in charge of another Army recruiting station. (By David Martin)

Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/28/eveningnews/main4301305.shtml

Source: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/around-town/archive/Army-Arcade-Recruiting-Kids-in-Philly.html

While the age of legal and cultural adulthood can vary, science is now able to determine the physiological markers of maturity. A recent study headed by Jay Giedd of the National Institutes of Health using MRI scans shows that the brain of an 18-year-old is not fully developed, with the limbic cortex-brain structures, the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex still undergoing substantial changes….

As of March 31, the U.S. military included 81,000 teenagers. Its 7,350 17-year-olds needed parental consent to enlist, and only this April were all barred from battle zones.

But the military aims even lower, marketing itself to children as young as 13 with multimedia videos, school visits and cold calls to teens’ homes and cell phones. In Junior ROTC, kids get uniforms, win medals, fire real guns and play soldier, while adults trained in psychological manipulation steer them toward the army. The Army’s JROTC website lists such motivating activities as “eating at concession stands…”

The Department of Defense (DOD) spends more than $4 billion a year on recruiting, with $1.5 billion for advertising and maintaining the recruiting stations staffed by more than 22,000 recruiters. Much of that money goes to convincing children to become soldiers. (By Terry J. Allen)

Source: http://www.alternet.org/story/51889/

Source: http://usliberals.about.com/od/homelandsecurit1/a/ArmyHighSchool.htm

Nor did he give the recruiters his email address, Social Security number or details about his ethnicity, shopping habits or college plans. Yet they probably knew all that, too. In the past few years, the military has mounted a virtual invasion into the lives of young Americans. Using data mining, stealth websites, career tests and sophisticated marketing software, the Pentagon is harvesting and analyzing information on everything from high school students’ GPAs and SAT scores to which video games they play. Before an Army recruiter even picks up the phone to call a prospect like Travers, the soldier may know more about the kid’s habits than do his own parents.

The military has long struggled to find more effective ways to reach potential enlistees; for every new GI it signed up last year, the Army spent $24,500 on recruitment. (In contrast, four-year colleges spend an average of $2,000 per incoming student.) Recruiters hit pay dirt in 2002, when then-Rep. (now Sen.) David Vitter (R-LA.) slipped a provision into the No Child Left Behind Act that requires high schools to give recruiters the names and contact details of all juniors and seniors. Schools that fail to comply risk losing their NCLB funding. This little-known regulation effectively transformed President George W. Bush’s signature education bill into the most aggressive military recruitment tool since the draft. Students may sign an opt-out form—but not all school districts let them know about it.

Yet NCLB is just the tip of the data iceberg. In 2005, privacy advocates discovered that the Pentagon had spent the past two years quietly amassing records from Selective Service, state DMVS, and data brokers to create a database of tens of millions of young adults and teens, some as young as 15. (By David Goodman)

Source: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/09/few-good-kids

Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) was founded by Iraq war veterans in July 2004 at the annual convention of Veterans for Peace (VFP) in Boston to give a voice to the large number of active duty service people and veterans who are against this war, but are under various pressures to remain silent.

From its inception, IVAW has called for:

• Immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces in Iraq;
• Reparations for the human and structural damages Iraq has suffered, and stopping the corporate pillaging of Iraq so that their people can control their own lives and future; and
• Full benefits, adequate healthcare (including mental health), and other supports for returning servicemen and women.

Our membership includes recent veterans and active duty servicemen and women from all branches of military service, National Guard members and reservists who have served in the United States military since September 11, 2001.
Why are veterans, active duty, and National Guard men and women opposed to the Iraq war?

1. The Iraq war is based on lies and deception.

2. The Iraq war violates international law.

3. Corporate profiteering is driving the war in Iraq.

4. Overwhelming civilian casualties are a daily occurrence in Iraq.

5. Soldiers have the right to refuse illegal war.

6. Service members are facing serious health consequences due to our Government’s

negligence.

7. The war in Iraq is tearing our families apart.

8. The Iraq war is robbing us of funding sorely needed here at home.

9. The war dehumanizes Iraqis and denies them their right to self-determination.

10. Our military is being exhausted by repeated deployments, involuntary extensions

and activations of the Reserve and National Guard.

For more information, visit http://ivaw.org.

“I think there’s at least some chance of a modest acceleration,” this year, Gates said on his way back to Washington after a surprise Iraq visit for meetings with Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander there, and local officials.

Under the Obama administration’s current plan, two of 14 military brigades, roughly 10,000 troops, are scheduled to be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of this year. Gates said another brigade, or 5,000 troops, could come home by that time.

Gates said the consideration came because the situation is “better than expected.”

Source: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/military/july-dec09/iraqtroops_07-29.html.

“Obama spoke by phone to Jordan’s King Abdullah and agreed on the need to move forward on Middle East peace,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters . . .

Obama said on he saw encouraging signs of a softening of Israel’s resistance to his call for a freeze on settlement-building in the occupied West Bank.

“There has been movement in the right direction,” Obama said when asked about the latest development after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at the White House.

The two leaders, meeting for the third time in as many months, talked about how to jump-start the stalled Middle East peace process, a top foreign policy priority for Obama. (By Reuters and Haaretz Service)

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1109005.html

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About Time

Imagine a global economy offering fair opportunities to everyone and hope of a better future for all of our children. Efforts to attain that dream will do more to stop terrorism and avoid war than would any homeland security system or deadly weapon.