In the following pages, I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, other than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day. - Thomas Paine
Reader - Imagine you are in a room, alone with 20 American soldiers for one day. At sunset, all their bodies thud to the floor, stone dead. At dawn, 20 more enter the room and again die at sunset. It repeats every day for 7 years. It will repeat tomorrow. This is what I know of their story, their sad statistics.
Amid all the talk about the economy and election, Americans have forgotten the casualties of the War on Terror. This is your reminder.
Reader - The following has an excerpt from my previous post for background. It grew to be too long and too off topic so I created a separate article. Personally I view the topic to be extremely important as it appears that our government is covering up the suicide deaths of our veterans. Read on and decide for yourself. Although the CBS report of cover-up is not new, some of my research I do not believe is published, and I will refer this article to the CBS reporter who previously wrote about this issue.
I want to start by noting that there are also staggering levels of suicides by American military veterans. Per this 2007 email from Dr. Ira Katz, the Veteran’s Affairs Head of Mental Health:
“There are about 18 suicides per day among America’s 25 million veterans. This follows from CDC findings that 20% of suicides are among veterans. It is supported by the CBS numbers. Veteran Affair’s own data demonstrate 4-5 suicides per day among those who receive care from us.”
To do the calculation at 18 suicides per day, in the 7-year span of the Global War on Terror approximately 46,000 veterans have committed suicide.
Well how can CBS claim Katz is covering-up? I thank them for bringing this to public attention, but as it appears they failed to see that a criminal investigation was started, I have to question their integrity. Surely fraud and intent to deceive on such a topic like the below would be seen as worthy of at least forcibly and immediately removing Dr. Katz from his office? Apparently, there was not enough public outrage. From this February 2008 email aptly headed “FW:Not for the CBS News Interview Request” Katz wrote:
Shh! Our suicide prevention coordinators are indentifying about 1000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?
Cover-up here? No, no, no cover-up here. Move on, move on people. There is nothing to see here. NOTHING TO SEE HERE!! Please disperse and do not watch that 30-second video, it will completely rot your mind and cause laughter.
After watching the first two so-called main stream party debates it is quite refreshing to hear a candidate give very direct answers to the questions he is asked. Bob Barr did that during his 6 minutes on NPR yesterday. Instead of talking around the problem and answering direct questions with subterfuge like McCain, Palin, Obama, and Biden, Barr answers with precision. That must almost be enough for some people to vote for the guy even if they disagree with him.
The US House Committee on Foreign Affairs chaired a meeting published as “Defeating al-Qaeda’s Air Force: Pakistan’s F-16 Program in the Fight Against Terrorism.” The Champion of the Constitution reports on what this meeting covered, what it really demonstrated, and how it connects with the dream of Ron Paul, Dwight Eisenhower, myself and who knows? perhaps even you.
As you can see for yourself at this house.gov page, Congress did indeed call this meeting entitled “Defeating Al-Qaeda’s Air Force: Pakistan’s F-16 Program in the Fight Against Terrorism.” While I suppose if someone taught the neocon clerk or sub-committee chairman Gary Ackerman (D-NY) proper punctuation the title could be arranged to reflect the meeting contents much better, the first thing I want to note is the international consternation this title caused and the general geopolitical situation. Then I will summarize the meeting from my point of view - I did listen to the entire two-hour proceeding, which you can watch here, and give you my unbiased (grin grin) conclusion.
The Pakistan Situation
The Times of India, the Press Trust of India and Pakistan’s PakTribune were all highly interested and yet confused by the title of the meeting. While the meeting is of fairly high relevance to both Pakistan and India, most of the American public is either ignorant or don’t-give-a-damn (yours truly and the Reader excepted :). And I can see why, there are so many nations the US government does international arms contracts - Israel and most of the Middle East, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Pakistan, parts of Europe, ex-Soviet republics (like Georgia) and pretty much anywhere else people want to buy weapons to deter or kill others it is hard to keep track. Hey, everyone DOES know the United States of America is the world’s top international arms dealer by a long shot right?
The general geopolitical situation with Pakistan is that we are committing acts of war against this sovereign nation in what amounts to a just another undeclared war of terror. As I documented in “The Next American War of Terror in Pakistan Continues - Marriot Hotel Bombing Portends Blowback Event on American Soil“, the New York Times and Financial Times reported that Bush issued secret orders to start attacking Pakistan without governmental permission. However, in the same article is the vehement public stance of the Pakistani military’s army chief, Pervez Kiyani, which is to not allow foreign troops onto its soil and defend Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity “at all cost.” The Pakistanis have no choice if you understand this nation’s political situation which I tried to explain in my July article “Utter Chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan as Barack Obama Sanctions Preemptive War”
Welcome to next evolution of the Global War of Terror (GWOT) in Pakistan. Open your eyes and see the blowback possibilities for a Marriott Bombing on American soil. Bush is reducing our national security, as he has done since taking office in 2000.
It is pretty hard to miss a war, but the American press is trying their best. Since the American mainstream media is (mostly) ignoring this war, I will do my best to inform you. As I am short on time, I refer you to my past articles, which are at the end of the article. This article will take the form of a timeline, which will be incomplete but still hopefully give you a good idea of what is occurring in Pakistan. Quite frankly, it’s a mess. But first let’s start with a couple quotes:
Dr. Ron Paul (when permitted to speak) at the 07 Republican Presidential Debate on our logic in attacking Iraq instead of Bin Laden following 9/11
“Let me see if I get this right we need to borrow $10 Billion from China, and then we give it to Musharraf, who is a Military Dictator, who Overthrew an Elected Government, then We Go to War, Losing all these Lives, Promoting Democracy?”
Jake, the Champion of the Constitution, on 9/22/2008, in a vehement, furious tone to his unrestrained, unconstitutional government:
“Let me see if I get this right. We borrowed $10 Billion from China, then gave it Pakistan’s military dictator, and now we send in our troops into harm’s way KNOWING that the Pakistani military is going to fire at them with warplanes, bullets, and missiles they bought WE SUPPLIED TO THEM, just to give Bush a n extra chance to manipulate the November election by killing this bin Laden fugitive who has been living in caves for seven years that the Taliban wanted to handover to us for free^ - a guy we do not even have the legal evidence to prove in a court of law that he caused 9/11!”*
Although Ron flounders a little at the end there, he pretty much sums it up in a way that I think a lot of us have never fully considered: 16% of the country votes for one candidate, and the rest of us, the true majority, are all left feeling like “the minority”. Footage below, including what we can and need to do about it:
Drunk on the opiate of the McCain and Obama “We Can Change” conventions, the American press fails to notice the first attack involving American ground forces on Pakistani soil.
Since the American MSM media won’t cover it, I will. As previously reported in my July article “Utter Chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan as Barack Obama Sanctions Preemptive War” events are moving quickly towards destabilization and increased war in Central Asia, as America’s imperialist interventionist foreign policies continue. What blowback will we experience next?
The Associated Press and UK’s The Guardian have reported an anonymous American official confirmed an American attack helicopter strike on September 4th utilizing ground troops killed at least 15 Pakistanis, some reportedly women and children, in the small village of Jala Khel, 1 mile from the Afghanistan border. It is the first confirmed incursion by American ground forces, though unmanned Predator drone attacks are already infamous in the tribal areas for their high civilian casualty counts.
Neil Cavuto had a fantastic interview with Ron Paul today, in which they both discussed the election itself, as well as the policies and ideas of Ron Paul, and even the GOP’s utter shock when this “fringe” candidate ended up being a true force to contend with.
In at least two spots, Neil perfectly sums up the stance of Ron Paul and the Revolution, paraphrasing “Look, you guys [GOP, McCain, etc.] are the ones who abandoned the party, not me. I’m going back to what our roots are.”
The Council On Foreign Relations is a political slur according to many staunch Ron Paul supporters, but in an interview posted on the CFR site it is all business and unbiased.
Former Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) staged a protest rally on the sidelines of the Republican convention on September 2 to try to reclaim what he says are the true traditional virtues of the GOP, including limited government and less involvement in military campaigns abroad. He criticized some of the main national security policies of the party’s presumptive nominee, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), including his position on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and his staunch support of the Georgian government following the Russian invasion of Georgia in August. “This whole incident points out the fallacy of the current foreign policy,” Paul said. “We weren’t even capable of doing anything. It shows how bankrupt we are. We didn’t have the troops, nor the energy, to go in there.” But Paul does support expanded offshore drilling, a chief Republican platform plank, and a greater role for the private sector in developing domestic energy resources.
Here we are in Minnesota, site of the Republican National Convention, but at a rally that is not being held in honor of John McCain. What is the purpose of this rally?
The main purpose of the rally is to continue the momentum that was building during the presidential primary race, because a lot of young people joined us, they got enthusiastic. They really liked the message of limited government, personal liberties, and a different foreign policy. They didn’t want to quit. But the campaign had to come to an end, because John McCain did get the votes to be nominated. So in order to not discourage too many people and think that everything has ended, we decided to have a Rally for the Republic, a celebration of what we achieved, and actually to build momentum to continue this effort and to build for the future so that we can influence the Republican Party. Because we think the Republican Party has strayed from its original values of limited government, and we emphasize that. We want balanced budgets and strictly limited government and less controls and less taxes, and therefore we’re going to continue in this effort.
Turning to foreign policy, the Republicans have released their 2008 platform (PDF). Have you seen the platform? What policy initiatives would you like to see added to the GOP agenda?
I haven’t seen it, but I can probably guess. They’re probably not calling for the immediate removal of the troops from Iraq. They probably haven’t said, “We absolutely promise not to bomb Iran unless they attack us.” They probably haven’t promised to bring the troops home from Europe and Korea and Japan.
Bruce Fein puts together words with the best of them. During his speech at Ron Paul’s Rally For The Republic he again suggested that some of George Bush’s actions with respect to foreign and domestic policy are grounds for impeachment. Many people felt Fein’s speech was the best of the day. For me it certainly was a great speech, but it was only slightly behind Bill Kauffman’s. Get a dictionary, sit down, and watch Fein give you some liberty. The speech is in 3 parts.
Liberty Maven
