Oh uh uh, girl ....

That man is married to a Black woman!! I ain't thinkin' about thinkin' about that man for nothin'!

However ... I do hold out hope that he will, one day, come out of his fog ... proudly don his RBG Dashiki ... declare himself a born-again Democrat ... and write a tell-all book that sends GeeDubya & Co. to the gallows!

Marine testimony: All Iraqi men viewed as insurgents


Cpl. Trent D. Thomas faces murder charges after witnesses alleged he shot a 52-year-old Iraqi man.

CAMP PENDLETON, California (AP) -- A corporal testifying in a court-martial said Marines in his unit began routinely beating Iraqis after officers ordered them to "crank up the violence level."

Cpl. Saul H. Lopezromo testified Saturday at the murder trial of Cpl. Trent D. Thomas.

"We were told to crank up the violence level," said Lopezromo, testifying for the defense.

When a juror asked for further explanation, Lopezromo said: "We beat people, sir."

Within weeks of allegedly being scolded, seven Marines and a Navy corpsman went out late one night to find and kill a suspected insurgent in the village of Hamdaniya near the Abu Ghraib prison. The Marines and corpsman were from 2nd Platoon, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment.

Lopezromo said the suspected insurgent was known to his neighbors as the "prince of jihad," and had been arrested several times and later released by the Iraqi legal system.

Unable to find him, the Marines and corpsman dragged another man from his house, fatally shot him, and then planted an AK-47 assault rifle near the body to make it appear he had been killed in a shootout, according to court testimony.

Four Marines and the corpsman, initially charged with murder in the April 2006 killing, have pleaded guilty to reduced charges and been given jail sentences ranging from 10 months to eight years. Thomas, 25, from St. Louis, Missouri, pleaded guilty but withdrew his plea and is the first defendant to go to court-martial.

Lopezromo, who was not part of the squad on its late-night mission, said he saw nothing wrong with what Thomas did.

"I don't see it as an execution, sir," he told the judge. "I see it as killing the enemy."

He said Marines consider all Iraqi men part of the insurgency.

Lopezromo and two other Marines were charged in August with assaulting an Iraqi two weeks before the killing that led to charges against Thomas and the others. Charges against all three were later dropped.

Thomas' attorneys have said he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury from his combat duty in Falluja in 2004. They have argued that Thomas believed he was following a lawful order to get tougher with suspected insurgents.

Prosecution witnesses testified that Thomas shot the 52-year-old man at point-blank range after he had already been shot by other Marines and was lying on the ground.

Lopezromo said a procedure called "dead-checking" was routine. If Marines entered a house where a man was wounded, instead of checking to see whether he needed medical aid, they shot him to make sure he was dead, he testified.

"If somebody is worth shooting once, they're worth shooting twice," he said.

The jury is composed of three officers and six enlisted personnel, all of whom have served in Iraq. The trial was set to resume Monday.



Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/07/15/marines.iraq.ap/index.html

quote:

"I don't see it as an execution, sir," he told the judge. "I see it as killing the enemy."

When Muhammad Ali refused to enlist in the army during Vietnam his defense was: "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong." It seems that he didn't see them as "the enemy" and by refusing to enlist he was vilified by many Americans.

Unlike Ali perhaps Thomas felt that he was protecting our freedom/being heroic/patriotic/just doing his job.

Some people might say that that job is fighting for empire. If so, what a paradox.

quote:

Originally posted by Santana St. Cloud:

quote:

"I don't see it as an execution, sir," he told the judge. "I see it as killing the enemy."

Unlike Ali perhaps Thomas felt that he was protecting our freedom/being heroic/patriotic/just doing his job.

They are training our young men (and women) to be killers. And give them no more instruction regarding the enemy except that it's every man in the country.

It's really sad. And then they are coming home with mental problems and the VA won't treat them, so that they have no excuse and the gov't. can send them back into combat. That makes it even sadder.

Yeah, I was watching tv the other day and there was a story about a veteran who is now confined to a wheel chair. The feel good aspect of the story was how a new home with wheelchair access and all the necessary amenities was being built for him. But of course, the government didn't have anything to do with it.

I'm confused as to what/how much the government provides for its veterans. I mean this country's middle class arose out of the benefits of the GI bill. And I know a man who was able to purchase a home because of his veteran status. And there are VA hospitals around the country. But then there are homeless vets. Folks sacrifice their lives and homelessness is their reward?

I mean, do you get more benefits if you served in combat? or if you were in the Marines instead of the Army? I don't understand how benefits of distributed.

Hey EbRo!

what's up with the Trans Texas Corridor and Gov Rick Perry?

I heard some not so nice things on a radio show...

I'm hearing that it is just an urban myth. But I don't know.

Here in AZ, laws have been passed allowing Mexican truckers the ability to travel farther into the US and I'm noticing that North-South expressways are getting far more maintenance attention than East-West roads.

Makes a brutha wonda.

quote:

Originally posted by negrospiritual:
Hey EbRo!

what's up with the Trans Texas Corridor and Gov Rick Perry?

I heard some not so nice things on a radio show...

I dunno, NS ... I haven't heard much about it lately. I have a feeling Perry's not gonna get it though. He'll probably be gone before it gets initiated. He's trying to pay for it through more toll roads ... and even these (usually sheep) people are finally getting tired of all that!

I believe Texas spend more money on road construction and anything else! But, if the estimate to build it is 50 years ... it's going to take 75 at least!! And that's no joke!

quote:

Originally posted by Kweli4Real:
Here in AZ, laws have been passed allowing Mexican truckers the ability to travel farther into the US and I'm noticing that North-South expressways are getting far more maintenance attention than East-West roads.

So is that how they're getting in here!

quote:

Originally posted by Santana St. Cloud:
I mean, do you get more benefits if you served in combat? or if you were in the Marines instead of the Army? I don't understand how benefits of distributed.

The whole VA/benefits system is totally screwed up, SSC!

If I'm not mistaken, the amount and type of benefits are given out according things like rank, and level of disability, whether you were in combat, etc. The problem is, there is always some criteria to make a vet not eligible for the benefits they're really due, based on something arbitrary.

For instance ... a vet who gets diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder from an outside physician will not get the same diagnosis from a VA hospital ... so the gov't. doesn't have to give them the benefits that would go along with that. Or, if they are not diagnoses before final discharge, they do not get the same benefits as an active soldier would get.

Depending upon what % of disability a vet may have, they have a pay scale as to the amount of money they will pay you for losing an arm or a leg in combat. They are tossing most vets out of the military with only 30-40% of their pay as disability payments.

The G.I. bill that is money promised for housing or schooling is about the only program that the military actually will give up the money for. But, most soldiers don't use their G.I. benefit. But they (the gov't.) won't pay for medical care after they've maimed or traumatized them for life.

quote:

But, most soldiers don't use their G.I. benefit. But they (the gov't.) won't pay for medical care after they've maimed or traumatized them for life. Roll Eyes

Ohh-kaaay.... So where does this money go? (Rhetorical question.)

Patriotism, wanting to serve one's country, being a hero, money for college, learning a trade...whatever reasons people have for joining the military, more power to 'em; but, all the purple hearts/metals of valor aren't gonna to regenerate limbs or heal psychological traumas.

There was an article posted on truthdig.org on Valentine's Day about a marine who was terribly disfigured by a bomb. What a tragic reminder of war. I wonder if he feels that his efforts were worth it?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Santana St. Cloud,

***********************************

“It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” -- James Baldwin

Wow ... I'm not sure if that's a happy or sad story! But, you'd be surprised at how many of them get "wounded" like that and take it as their duty!

I watched one program about Walter Reed hospital (before the story broke at how run down it is! ) where a woman soldier had lost both legs and an arm. And her whole rehabilitation was geared around being able to work her prosthetics to the point that she could return to her unit. While she was told that was improbable, she was not told it was impossible ... so, she was going for it!

I watched another program where cameras were placed in a war zone hospital where they patched up the worst wounded in order to make them able to travel to a real hospital to get care. For one guy, this was his third trip there. This time, he was going to lose a leg, though. As he was being taken to the helicopter for further treatment, the doctor looked at the camera and said, "the only good thing about this is that I won't have to see him come in here again"!!

There's a guy suing the military right now to not have to go out on his 5th combat deployment!! Everytime he has gone, he loses his job, his house/apt., his wife and kids end up moving back in with her parents in order to survive. He's started school and has a new job that he knows he will lose if he goes ... but if he doesn't, he knows he can be prosecuted for desertion. And if he happens to get wounded ... he can only expect a 30% disability payout from Uncle Sam!

Marine loses rank for role in killing Iraqi civilian


(CNN) -- A Marine convicted for his role in the death of an Iraqi civilian was sentenced Friday to a reduction in rank and will be discharged.

Cpl. Trent D. Thomas was found guilty Wednesday of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit several offenses -- including murder, larceny, housebreaking, kidnapping, and making false official statements -- for his involvement in the April 2006 death in Hamdaniya, Iraq.

Thomas will be demoted to the rank of entry-level private and will receive a bad-conduct discharge.

The 25-year-old was among seven Marines and a Navy medic who were charged in connection with the death of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, 52.

The Marines accused in the case were members of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. They reported at the time that Awad planned to detonate a roadside bomb targeting their patrol.

But several residents of Hamdaniya, including relatives of the victim, gave a different account, prompting a criminal investigation.

Prosecutors accuse the group's squad leader, Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, of dragging Awad from his home, shooting him in the street and then making it look like he had planned to ambush American troops.

Hutchins has pleaded not guilty to murder, conspiracy and other charges in the case. He faces a sentence of life in prison if convicted.

Thomas changed his plea from guilty to not guilty in February, arguing that he had merely followed orders.

He told his attorneys that after reviewing the evidence against him, he realized "that what happened overseas happened as a result of obedience to orders, and he hasn't done anything wrong," defense attorney Victor Kelley said.

Thomas said in January, shortly after entering his guilty plea, that he was "truly sorry" for his role in the killing.

He could have been sentenced to life in prison under his original plea.



Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/07/20/Iraq.Hamdaniy...ex.html?iref=topnews

500 people. In one day, at one time. And the president says things are getting better ... that he knew what to do. But now they're talking genocide.

Iraqi officials: Truck bombings killed at least 500

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The death toll in the suicide bombings Tuesday in northern Iraq has risen to at least 500, local officials in Nineveh province said Wednesday.

Iraqi Army and Mosul police sources earlier put the number at 260, but said it was likely to rise. 320 were reported wounded.

The Tuesday truck bombs that targeted the villages of Qahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair, in northern Iraq near the border with Syria, were a "trademark al Qaeda event" designed to sway U.S. public opinion against the war, a U.S. general said Wednesday.

The attacks, targeting Kurdish villages of the Yazidi religious minority, were attempts to "break the will" of the American people and show that the U.S. troop escalation -- the "surge" -- is failing, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon said.

The bombings highlight the kind of sectarian tensions the troop surge was designed to stop.

Al Qaeda in Iraq is predominantly Sunni, and Mixon said members of the Yazidi religious minority have received threatening letters, called "night letters," telling them "to leave because they are infidels."

"This is an act of ethnic cleansing, if you will -- almost genocide when you consider the fact the target they attacked and the fact that these Yazidis, out in a very remote part of Nineveh province, where there is very little security and really no security required to this point," Mixon said. VideoWatch the grim aftermath of the suicide bombings »

Sunni militants, including members of al Qaeda in Iraq, have targeted Yazidis in the area before.

Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf, an Interior Ministry spokesman, said there were three suicide trucks carrying two tons of explosives. At least 30 houses and other buildings were destroyed.

Khalaf said the carnage looks like the aftermath of a "mini-nuclear explosion." More bodies are expected to be found. See a timeline of deadliest attacks in Iraq »

The U.S. military said there were five bombings -- four at a crowded bus station in Qahtaniya and a fifth in al-Jazeera.

The massacre comes ahead of next month's report to Congress by Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker on progress in Iraq.

"We still have a great deal of work to do against al Qaeda in Iraq, and we have great deal of work to do against al Qaeda networks in northern Iraq," Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a Multi-National Force-Iraq spokesman, said Wednesday.

The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed Sunni extremists for the "monstrous crime." He said a committee has been formed to investigate.

Ashraf Qazi, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for Iraq, called the attack an "abominable crime aimed at widening the sectarian and ethnic divide in Iraq."

Qazi urged Iraqi authorities to bolster their efforts to protect minorities.

The Yazidi sect is a mainly Kurdish minority, an ancient group that worships seven angels, in the form of peacocks, who are subordinate to the supreme god who created the universe.

A couple of related incidents in the spring highlighted the tensions between Sunnis and Yazidis.

In April, a Kurdish Yazidi teenage girl was brutally beaten, kicked and stoned to death in northern Iraq by other Yazidis in what authorities said was an "honor killing" after she was seen with a Sunni Muslim man. Although she had not married him or converted, her attackers believed she had.

The Yazidis condemn mixing with people of another faith.

That killing is said to have spurred the killings of about two dozen Yazidi men by Sunni Muslims in the Mosul area two weeks later.

Attackers affiliated with al Qaeda pulled 24 Yazidi men out of a bus and slaughtered them, according to a provincial official.

CNN's Arwa Damon, Mohammed Tawfeeq and Raja Razek contributed to this report.



Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/15/iraq.main/index.html

Thousands of Iraq War Vets Cope with Brain Damage

Date: Sunday, September 09, 2007
By: Marilynn Marchione, AP Medical Writer


NASHVILLE, Tenn. - (AP) The war in Iraq is not over, but one legacy is already here in this city and others across America: An epidemic of brain-damaged soldiers.

Thousands of troops have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, or TBI. These blast-caused head injuries are so different from the ones doctors are used to seeing from falls and car crashes that treating them is as much faith as it is science.

"I've been in the field for 20-plus years dealing with TBI. I have a very experienced staff. And they're saying to me, 'We're seeing things we've never seen before,'" said Sandy Schneider, director of Vanderbilt University's brain injury rehabilitation program.

Doctors also are realizing that symptoms overlap with post-traumatic stress disorder, and that both must be treated. Odd as it may seem, brain injury can protect against PTSD by blurring awareness of what happened.

But as memory improves, emotional problems can emerge: One of the first "graduates" of Vanderbilt's program committed suicide three weeks later.

"Of all the ones here, he would not have been the one we would have thought," Schneider said. "They called him the Michelangelo of Fort Campbell" -- a guy who planned to go to art school.

As more troops return from the war, brain injuries are a growing burden -- for them, for the few programs to treat them, and for taxpayers who pay for their care and disability if they cannot hold jobs.

Most TBIs are mild, and most of these patients recover within a year. But one-fifth of the troops with these mild injuries will have prolonged or lifelong symptoms and need continuing care, the military estimates. Nearly all of the moderate and severe ones will, too.

Though the full number of those suffering from TBI is still unknown, the problem is straining the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Until now, "they were dealing with a cohort of aging veterans with diabetes, heart disease, lung disease," said Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine and a VA adviser.

Now, these young, brain-injured troops need highly specialized care, and how much it will help long-term is unknown, he said.

People with TBI have frequent headaches, dizziness, and trouble concentrating and sleeping. They may be depressed, irritable and confused, and easily provoked or distracted. Speech or vision also can be impaired.

Some sufferers have been misdiagnosed with personality disorders. Others have lost jobs because of unrecognized and untreated symptoms.

"It's the so-called invisible injury. It's where a troop takes 10 times the normal time to pack his rucksack ... a complicated injury to the most complicated part of the body," said Dr. Alisa Gean, a neurosurgeon at the University of California, San Francisco.

Diagnosing it is imprecise -- damage rarely shows up on CAT scans or other tests.

Treating it is even more difficult. Lacking a cure, doctors focus on symptoms -- headaches, anxiety, vision problems, etc. But they lack good treatments for some of these, too, and are considering some experimental approaches being pushed by private companies with little proof they work.

Many troops get no care at all. Some are sent back to fight with their brain injuries undetected, especially if they had no obvious wounds.

What happened to Eric O'Brien and Bryan Malone shows the scope of this problem.

---

O'Brien, a 32-year-old Army staff sergeant from Iowa's Quad Cities, was teasing Malone, 22, a specialist from Haughton, La., in a Baghdad gym last summer.

"I told him and his workout partner: 'Put some more weight on it,'" prompting the men to get up. Seconds later, a rocket hit where they had sat. They survived, but a pressure wave from the blast coursed through their brains.

"I patted myself down head to toe, making sure I wasn't missing a limb," and felt odd, like "I must be missing a chunk of my head,'" O'Brien said. He remembers little else except walking through debris to pick up his iPod and sunglasses.

As for Malone, an air conditioning vent had fallen on his head and he had shrapnel wounds. He had multiple surgeries, spent several months in Walter Reed Army Medical Center and now has titanium mesh reinforcing his skull.

O'Brien, however, had shrapnel removed from his scalp and then was sent back to his unit -- "no antibiotics, no pain medication or anything. They just sent me on my way."

When he later complained of pain, doctors gave him Motrin. When he discovered a trickle of blood from his hip, they said he would be fine. Six weeks later, when he could barely walk, tests revealed shrapnel in his hip. By then, he was having headaches and trouble sleeping.

O'Brien had been through multiple previous explosions -- troops average one a month, a study found -- and each raises the risk that the next one will do harm. Soldiers and Marines are proud and reluctant to go "off mission" just because "they get their bell rung," said Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, a top Defense Department physician.

"Most of the treatment is explaining the situation and giving the tincture of time -- giving it time to heal," he said. If no big symptoms appear in eight to 12 hours, "they're probably ready to go back."

Officers also face pressure to return troops to duty, said Jordan Grafman, a neuroscientist who studies TBI at the National Institutes of Health.

"People don't want to lose these guys from their command -- they can't replace them fast enough," he said.

During a surprise visit to Iraq with President Bush on Labor Day, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military was "much smarter about this now," and urged troops to watch for signs of TBI and post-traumatic stress.

"They are every bit as much battle injuries as is a bullet or shrapnel. It is OK, it is OK to seek help for those kinds of war wounds, and I ask you all to help your buddies understand what you see in them," he said.

But that was long after O'Brien was hurt. His TBI was not diagnosed for months, until his hip injury landed him back at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. By then, the Army needed help treating TBI and was contracting with private rehab centers like Schneider's at Vanderbilt.

Malone and O'Brien had become friends, helping each other cope with wounds.

"They were sent to us together," Schneider said.

---

"I'll need to get milk and bread and eggs. Milk and bread and eggs. Next thing you know, I drive right by Wal-Mart," O'Brien said.

"I can vaguely tell you what we talked about at the beginning of this conversation," Malone said.

Memory trouble is a common sign of TBI. It isn't like Alzheimer's disease, where people are so disconnected from reality that they forget things like how a key works or where they live. It isn't like amnesia, where a chunk of the past is missing.

"I don't have any problem remembering the past. I have trouble with now," O'Brien said.

Multiple or complex tasks confound and irritate people with TBI. Therapists challenge them through exercises, like a computer game where they run a hot dog stand and must manage inventory, set prices, do banking and anticipate demand according to the weather.

Other therapy focuses on life skills like following directions while paying attention to something else.

"I counted three trash cans," O'Brien announced after a scouting mission to find landmarks using a map and tally cans along the way.

"I counted five," said therapist Jenny Owens.

Improving these skills is key to living a normal life, especially driving.

"Most of them don't drive. A van brings them down. They were hitting mailboxes, they'd get lost. We draw them maps and they forget when they're supposed to be here," Schneider said.

The Army gives some injured soldiers Palm Pilots -- handheld computers to help manage their lives.

"It costs them more for us to miss two appointments than to give us one of these," O'Brien explained.

But devices and mental exercises do only so much. Troops must be able to use information and reason, but TBI keeps many from being aware of their gaps.

"They don't realize their judgment is impaired," said Vanderbilt neuropsychologist Elizabeth Fenimore.

The training that helped them in combat situations is hurting them now.

"These guys are taught to be alert all the time," so they sleep poorly, Schneider said.

"Their nervous system becomes acclimated to being constantly on alert -- fight or flight," Fenimore said.

Malone knows it well.

"I worry about every little thing -- people breaking into my house, loud booms ... I'm jumpy," he said.

---

"I'm going to Afghanistan next year," said O'Brien, determined to stay in the Army and support his two daughters, who live with his ex-wife in Texas.

"I'm trying," added Malone. "They're telling me they don't think my brain can take it. I think, 'Why don't you let me decide?'"

Doctors don't know whether either will return. But after all they've been through, if one does and the other does not, "it's going to be tough," Malone said. "It's going to be tough for whichever one stays back."

---

Associated Press writer Christine Simmons in Washington contributed to this report.

The picture (President Bush poses with the troops at Al-Asad Airbase in Iraq’s Anbar province) appears on truthdig.com accompanied by an article titled, "Why is this man smiling?"

My guess is because Barbara and Jenna aren't posing with him.

You know that's right, Santana! Bush has never been in fear of losing even a fingernail to any war effort. I suppose that is something to smile about ... though I, in my experiences, wouldn't know. I have relatives in Iraq right now.