Sgt Matt Maupin- RIP

The final knock on the door came to Batavia, OH this morning. The first knock came nearly 4 years ago, early in the war on April 9, 2003, and that first knock on the door told Carolyn & Keith Maupin that their son had been captured and was missing in Iraq.

Four long years of hope and prayers, good thoughts, good karma, and whatever allowed them to hold on to something, anything that would bring their son home alive. It's not the news that they wanted or maybe even expected, and Matt's father said probably the only thing a parent could say, "My heart sinks, but I know they can't hurt him anymore.

The AP reported tonight Matt Maupin was a 20-year-old private first class when he was captured April 9, 2004, after his fuel convoy, part of the 724th Transportation Company, was ambushed west of Baghdad.

A week later, the Arab television network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape showing Maupin sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles.

That June, Al-Jazeera aired another tape purporting to show a U.S. soldier being shot. But the dark and grainy tape showed only the back of the victim's head and not the actual shooting.

The Maupins refused to believe it was their son, and the Army had listed him as missing-captured. The Maupins lobbied hard for the Army to continue listing their son as missing-captured, fearing that another designation would undermine efforts to find him.

Keith Maupin said the Army told him early on that there was only a 50 percent chance his son would be found alive. He said he doesn't hold the Army responsible for his son's death, but that he did hold the Army responsible for bringing his son home.

"I told them when we'd go up to the Pentagon, whether he walks off a plane or is carried off, you're not going to leave him in Iraq like you did those guys in Vietnam," Maupin said.

Another piece of my heart died tonight when I heard the terrible news. I cannot imagine these 4 years of hell for the Maupin family. At least when Ken was killed in Iraq 4 years ago, I knew that he was dead. I knew he was never coming back, it was final. What kind of cruel karmic twist is it to not know of your child's circumstances for 4 years? I imagine the Army will tell them the details they have, but I wonder if they, like the family of Pat Tillman will ever know the truth.

I met Carolyn & Keith Maupin the first time 3 years ago at Rolling Thunder at the Pentagon on Memorial Day weekend. They were distributing this photo pin of Matt so that people would be reminded that this war/ occupation has left us with soldiers Missing in Action or as they call them now, DUSTWUN (Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown). The pin has been hanging on my mirror in my bedroom, so I would think of Matt and his family every single day hoping that good news would arrive that day. The photo is inscribed "Love Never Loses it's Way Home". This story did not end the way we wished, but Matt is coming home, finally and the waiting is mercifully over. My condolences to the Maupin family and the friends who knew Matt and those who just knew of him.

Most people would be surprised to know that there are 3 other members of the military Missing in Action in Iraq. We should not forget Ahmed Qusai al-Taei: Status - missing-captured (23-Oct-2006), Spc. Alex R. Jimenez: Status - missing-captured
(12-May-2007), Pvt. Byron W. Fouty: Status - missing-captured 12-May-2007. Between 1900 - 2500 members of the military from the Viet Nam war are still listed as MIA. I'm sure a piece of their hearts died today when they heard the news about Matt. My thoughts are with all of these families, too, on this sad night. We will not forget.

The Real Meaning of 4,000 Dead

We would do well to read Lt Walsh's words-

The Real Meaning of 4,000 Dead

By Lieut. Sean Walsh
The passing of the 4,000th service member in Iraq is a tragic milestone and a testament to the cost of this war, but for those of us who live and fight in Iraq, we measure that cost in smaller, but much more personal numbers. For me those numbers are 8, the number of friends and classmates killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 3, the number of soldiers from my unit killed in this deployment. I'm 25, yet I've received more notifications for funerals than invitations to weddings.

The number 4,000 is too great to grasp even for us that are here in Iraq. When we soldiers read the newspaper, the latest AP casualty figures are glanced over with the same casual interest as a box score for a sport you don't follow. I am certain that I am not alone when I open up the Stars and Stripes, the military's daily paper, and immediately search for the section with the names of the fallen to see if they include anyone I know. While in a combat outpost in southwest Baghdad, it was in that distinctive bold Arial print in a two-week-old copy of the Stars and Stripes that I read that my best friend had been killed in Afghanistan. No phone call from a mutual friend or a visit to his family. All that had come and gone by the time I had learned about his death. I sometimes wonder, if I hadn't picked up that paper, how much longer I would have gone by without knowing — perhaps another day, perhaps a week or longer until I could find the time and the means to check my e-mail to find my messages unanswered and a death notification from a West Point distro list in my inbox. The dead in Afghanistan don't seem to inspire the keeping of lists the same way that those in Iraq do, but even if they did it wouldn't matter; he could only be number 7 to me.

I'm not asking for pity, only understanding for the cost of this war. We did, after all, volunteer for the Army and that is the key distinction between this army and the army of the Vietnam War. But even as I ask for that understanding I'm almost certain that you won't be able to obtain it. Even Shakespeare, with his now overused notion of soldiers as a "band of brothers," fails to capture the bonds, the sense of responsibility to each other, among soldiers. In many ways, Iraq has become my home (by the time my deployment ends I will have spent more time here than anywhere else in the army) and the soldiers I share that home with have become my family. Between working, eating and sleeping within a few feet of the same soldiers every single day, I doubt I am away from them for more than two hours a day. I'm engaged to the love of my life, but it will take several years of marriage before I've spent as much time with her as I have with the men I serve with today.

For the vast majority of Americans who don't have a loved one overseas, the only number they have to attempt to grasp the Iraq War is 4,000. I would ask that when you see that number, try to remember that it is made up of over 1 million smaller numbers; that every one of the 1 million service members who have fought in Iraq has his or her own personal numbers. Over 1 million 8's and 3's. When you are evaluating the price of the war, weighing potential rewards versus cost in blood and treasure, I would ask you to consider what is worth the lives of three of your loved ones? Or eight? Or more? It would be a tragedy for my 8 and 3 to have died without us being able to complete our mission, but it maybe even more tragic for 8 and 3 to become anything higher.

5th Anniversary on CNN Headline News

On the 5th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq I was invited to talk about my son, Lt Ken Ballard, who was killed in Najaf, Iraq on 5.30.2004 on CNN Headline News. I like talking about Ken so I accepted immediately. I was in a studio in Mountain View, CA and Mike Galanos, the host was in Atlanta, GA. It's always kind of strange to be sitting alone in a room, except for the camera operator, talking to the camera. I didn't see the final results until my friend, Mike, posted the excerpt on You Tube (thanks, Mike!)

You never know what you will be asked in an interview; the request is typically general, but you don't know specific questions. The initial request was We’d like to hear from parents who think enough children have already been lost. I'm one of those parents, Bring 'em home! NOW! That wasn't exactly how the conversation turned out, but it went fine.

I liked the part most of all when Mike Galanos said that he was glad to share in celebrating Ken's life; so was I.

4,000 Dead for What?

I couldn't say it any better, so today I'm turning this over to Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post.

Four thousand

When U.S. military deaths in Iraq hit a round number, as happened Sunday, there's usually a week or so of intense focus on the war -- its bogus rationale, its nebulous aims, its awful consequences for the families of the dead. Not likely this time, though. The nation is too busy worrying about more acute crises, some of them real -- the moribund housing market, the teetering financial system, the flagging economy -- and some of them manufactured, such as the shocking revelation that race can still be a divisive issue in American society.

So the fact that 4,000 men and women serving in the U.S. armed forces have been killed in Iraq is somehow less compelling than the zillionth playing of snippets from a sermon that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright preached more than six years ago.

For now, that is: Sooner or later, attention is bound to turn back to the war and the stark choice voters will face in November.

It may happen sooner. A few weeks ago, it looked as if Iraq might be entering another cycle of headline-grabbing violence. Now, the increase in mayhem is clear. On Sunday alone, more than 60 people were killed in several incidents, including a car bombing. Insurgents even sent rockets crashing into Baghdad's ostensibly secure Green Zone, a rare occurrence. While the violence hasn't risen to the levels that prevailed at this time a year ago, when the country seemed to be coming apart, it is clear that both civilian and military deaths are on the rise.

Dick Cheney, who in 2005 told us that the insurgency was "in the last throes, if you will," was asked last week about polls showing that two-thirds of Americans don't think the fight in Iraq is worth it. Cheney's response: "So?"

At least Cheney was being candid, if breathtakingly arrogant. He and George W. Bush have never cared what the American people think about this elective war. A little bamboozling was necessary at the beginning -- overblown claims about weapons of mass destruction, mushroom clouds and being "greeted as liberators" by smiling Iraqi children. Once that hurdle was surmounted, and once Saddam Hussein's government had been destroyed, there was essentially nothing anyone could do to force the Bush administration to bring the war to an end.

Let me revise that, since on three counts it's not quite accurate. First, the war did end once, an occasion Bush marked nearly five years ago in his "Mission Accomplished" speech; according to Associated Press, 97 percent of the 4,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq came after Bush stood on the deck of that aircraft carrier and declared major combat operations over. Second, we keep calling this conflict a war, but it's really an occupation, though the Bush administration doesn't like to use that word; it must not test well with focus groups. Third, the American people did what they could by snatching control of Congress from the Republicans. But even if Democrats in the House had the political will to end the occupation by cutting off funding, they don't have the 60 votes they would need in the Senate.

That's how we arrived at 4,000. And from the way John McCain talks, there's no telling what round-number milestones we'd have to mark if he were to become president.

On Iraq, McCain vows to continue the occupation as long as it takes for the United States to win. Like Bush and Cheney, he is quick to define any kind of withdrawal as defeat, but he makes no real attempt to describe what victory would look like. He at least realizes that the repressive and ambitious government of Iran has been the real beneficiary of the Bush administration's blundering in Iraq -- but the way he talks about Iran is just plain frightening.

The 71-year-old McCain's recent misstatement that al-Qaeda terrorists were being aided by the Iranian regime -- quickly corrected by Sen. Joseph Lieberman in a whispered aside -- might have been simply a senior moment. Or it might have reflected an intention to do something precipitous about Iran's growing stature in the region. Either way, scary.

It's understandable that Americans are riveted by the most exciting presidential nomination campaign in decades. It's natural that they're worried about the shrinking value of their homes and their 401(k) plans. Come the fall, though, they're going to have to decide on Iraq: Bring the troops home, as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both say they will do. Or keep them in, as McCain pledges -- and watch the numbers continue to rise.

The cost of the war..it isn't just dollars and cents

Hat tip to Dusty at OOIBC for one of the great posts from the March 19th Blogswarm:

4000 US Deaths in Iraq

In our 6th year of military operations in Iraq, we knew this day would come, we knew this number would come. 4000. Any death from Iraq is unacceptable, but to hear the announcement of the 4000th US death in Iraq on Easter, a day of joyous celebration, is an affront, one of those karmic ironies that should not happen.

This deathwatch started ticking on March 21, 2003 with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 dead American soldiers. Jose Antonio Gutierrez, Kendall Damon Waters-Day, Brian Matthew Kennedy, Ryan Anthony Beaupre, Jay Thomas Aubin, Therrel Shane Childers were the first to die in Iraq. Why was this country not offended by the death of these 6 soldiers, these sons, brothers, fathers, friends? What number of deaths is okay or acceptable? We know 6 was okay. We know that 818, my son, Lt Ken Ballard's number from back in May 2004 was okay. If people don't take to the streets or write their Congressperson, or do something about ending this war and ending these deaths, then we know that 4000 US deaths is also okay. I don't know what number is unacceptable to the citizens of this country, but I do know that any number more than zero is unacceptable for a war based on lies. The 44th president will determine what number is acceptable. If military operations continue for 100 more years, as one candidate has suggested, we can only imagine what that number will be.

Some might wonder if the 4000th death is more notable than the 3999th, Morten Ender, a US Military Academy sociaologist who studies the military says "4000 is a good round number people can grab hold of, it reminds us of what's going on with a war that, since the (military's troop) surge, seems to have lost its place in the public mind" .

With the American media and public paying less attention than ever, marking this grievous milestone should put the occupation in Iraq back on the front page for at least one news cycle. It's the least we can do for the military who continue to be in harms way. Regardless of our politics, these men and women are occupying a country in our name. They need to know that they have the support of the people back at home, you know, support the warrior even if you don't support the war. It's a slap in their faces if we don't at least acknowledge their presence and the service to their country. With such a small percentage who do serve in the military, about 1% of the US population, we must remember that they serve.

The fear of any Gold Star family member, who has lost a loved one while serving in the military, is that their loved one will be forgotten. We Gold Star families can and will never forget and neither should our population. If only for this reason, we should mark this sad milestone.

According to USA Today, of the 4000 members of the military, one in six were too young to buy a beer. About two dozen were old enough for an AARP card. Eleven died on Thanksgiving Day, 11 on Christmas, and at least five on their birthdays.

Tonight 160,000 US families marked their Easter Sunday with an empty seat at their table because their loved ones are deployed to Iraq. 8 of those families do not even know that the life that they woke up to this morning is over. One roadside bomb, one IED 6000 miles away took care of their future and in one knock on the door, they will hear the words that every military family fears, "I regret to inform you".

My heart goes out to these families who have joined the ranks of other Gold Star Families. No one wants to be in this club. We can make sure their are no more Gold Star families. What will you do today to stop this occupation?

5 Damned Long years in Iraq

Back in 1967 Martin Luther King was speaking about the war in Viet Nam when he said “I oppose the war because I love America. I speak out against this war, not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and, above all, with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world. It is so in 2008.

Here we are again- 5 years of war in Iraq! 5 long years! 3990 dead American soldiers, 60,000 plus wounded American soldiers, millions of Iraqis displaced, and we will never know how many Iraqis have died in this war turned occupation of their country. We are spending $12 Billion dollars a month, $17 million dollars every hour and $275 million dollars a day. We know that 935 lies were told by various members of the administration that instills fear so that the citizens of this country would support this Global War on Terror in Iraq. That’s quite a lot of numbers to keep track of; but the best number of all is 307 and that is the number of days left until January 19, 2009, which means, we will be free of the dangerous, fear mongering Bush administration.

Today on the 5^th anniversary of the invasion into Iraq, donning his rose colored glasses again, Bush told employees at the Pentagon, "War critics can no longer credibly argue that we are losing in Iraq," and "No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure, but those costs are necessary,". The war has come at a high cost, indeed, but the financial costs were not necessary, the psychological costs were not necessary and the human costs were never necessary; not for the United States and not for Iraq. Cheney says the US will complete the mission in Iraq, but that doesn’t mean any more today than when he said the same thing in 2003.

5 years ago, in 2003, most Americans did not have to be touched by the war unless you were sucked in by the rush to the glory of war as this country was wrapped in the American flag by Fox news and other corporate media. In 2008, you still do not have to be touched by the war. When Bush proclaims that America is at war, he ignores the fact that it is the 1% of this country who carries the burden of war, the military and their families. Military families bear the burden of repeated deployments, PTSD, increased rates of divorce, deployments for those with existing physical and psychological injuries and suicides at an alarming rate. But for most people, life goes on normally. This administration likes it that way just fine.

Instead of Bush going quietly at the end of his presidency, he continues to offend us with his vetoes, his threats and his smirks. We just wish he would just go away. We wish we could wake up from this national nightmare and find that these past 7 years have been a bad, bad dream. But we know better and we have much to do to repair the damage. When did the US become known for torture, spying & lying? When did the US lose our standing in the world? When did PEACE become a bad word?

If this president is clueless about the concept of a $4 gallon of gasoline, then how can we be surprised when he says speaking to members of the military in Afghanistan just this Friday, "I must say, I'm a little envious," "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines helping this young democracy succeed. "It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history." George Bush has really got to go!

We have marched, written letters, sent faxes, held meetings, made phone calls, and this week as we enter the 6^th year of this occupation, we will continue to do the same until the troops come home. If we do not, if we remain silent, then those in Washington will think that we do not care about the carnage being done in our good name or the $3 Trillion dollars being spent. BUT, we do care. The truth is, if ending the occupation in Iraq was a priority in Washington and around the world, our troops would be home! Our voices must make it a priority.

I am not so naïve as to think that any of the presidential candidates will really bring the troops home, not to our definition anyway. So we must remind them. OFTEN.

While we can all pretty much agree that this Congress has not produced what we asked, consider what they might have not done without our voices? We ARE their conscience! Back in November of 2000, I stayed up late watching the election returns much like watching an automobile accident unfold. As you might recall, it was morbidly fascinating. When it was finally announced that George Bush would be the 43^rd president of the United States, I remember thinking, “well, really how bad could it be? The term is only 4 years, how much damage can he do? Surely he will surround himself with experience people” And he did, but that would turn out to be a defining moment and the worst election of my life. I didn’t know it, but that November decision made by the Supreme Court laid the path to my role as a Gold Star Mother.

As for Ken, I miss him every minute of every day. When Ken was killed, people told me it would get better. They were wrong; it is different, but life without Ken will never be better. As a friend described Ken at his memorial, There was "no secret icing on the cake, just a plain, honest man . . . who would get crazy every so often.'' As a single mom, Ken was my north star, my grounding. But when Ken died, so did my future. We Gold Star families are the human cost of this war. We are left behind to pick up the pieces of our broken lives. We will go on with our lives, but there will always be a part of our heart that is a desperately empty black hole.

For those people who still think it would be a “travesty for everyone who has lost their lives to just pull out of Iraq”, I say it would be a travesty to lose more lives. I wouldn’t wish this life on anyone.

They say you do not get something if you don’t ask for it, so I am going to ask that you stay engaged in this movement to end the war as Iraq fatigue settles in and fades from the front page. Let Congress hear our voices. Someday they may really, really understand that the American people will stand with them, if they stand with the American people. They do not have to continue funding this war to show us that they support the troops. They are not unpatriotic because they want to bring this war to an end and to bring the troops home.

Five years of this war in Iraq is long enough, continuing it for one more day is just wrong. Bring the troops and the subcontractors home now!

This posting is a part of the March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm. Please wander over and see what others are saying about this sad anniversary.

Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan

These are the times that try men's souls. The summertime soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Thomas Paine

If you did not listen to or watch the Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan, Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations over the weekend you missed some compelling testimony on what has and is going on in our names in Iraq and Afghanistan. Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Military Families Speak Out, and Gold Star Families Speak Out attended the panels at Winter Soldier. As I listened to these young men and women, many of whom I have met along the way, I was proud to know them and proud that they stood up and told their truth. As difficult as it was for us to hear their stories, it was difficult for them to tell them and we owe them much gratitude. We must listen to their stories and not just gloss over their service as one of a hero, although surely many of these members of the military were indeed heroic. In her closing statement, Kelly Dougherty, co-founder nd Executive Director of Iraq Veterans Against the War said "It's not about the individual, it's about the occupation." The testimony of all of these veterans and active duty military should be required listening for every member of Congress and every American.

My friends Kevin & Joyce Lucey, fellow members of Gold Star Families Speak Out provided remarkable testimony about the suicide of their son, Jeffrey who had fought PTSD with no support from the VA. The Lucey's are suing the Department of Veterans affairs arguing the VA was negligent in caring for their son. A VA Inspector General’s Report notes VA officials turned Jeffrey Lucey a few days before he took his own life. The Lucey's are a class act and hearing their story makes me cry every time.

My friend Jeff Key spoke during the "Divide To Conquer: Gender and Sexuality in the Military" Panel. Jeff wears one of Ken's dog tags that I gave him a few years back when we first met.

I know how hard it is to get up in front of a crowd and tell your story. It is part of our healing, or at least moving forward. If we don't say something, if we don't tell people our story, then other families, other soldiers, will suffer as we do. If our voice can help one family, one soldier, then our own grief is benefiting others.

It was fitting that these hearings were held during the week of the fifth anniversary of Shock & Awe, or the invasion of Iraq. The corporate media gave little attention to this powerful testimony; they apparently do not find this newsworthy. The Stars & Stripes, a daily newspaper published for the U.S. military wrote briefly about the weekend. On the first night of the hearings in Washington DC, Nightline featured segments on the Girls-Gone-Wild guy, Joe Francis and singer Meatloaf; that's infotainment for you.

And a final note to Ronn Cantu, an active duty member of IVAW, Happy 30th Birthday to you. Because of your testimony, other soldiers will come home and celebrate their 3oth birthdays, unlike my son, who did not. We celebrated my son, Lt Ken Ballard's 30th birthday in memoriam last year because he was killed in Iraq nearly 4 years ago when he was 26.

Audio clips are available at The War Comes Home, a project of KPFA radio.
Complete Broadcast Archive, from KPFA.org: Mar. 14, 2008 Part 1, Part 2 | Mar. 15, 2008 Part 1, Part 2 | Mar. 16, 2008 Part 1, Part 2.

Iraq Fax-in

Thanks to Bob Fertick at www.democrats.com for getting the word out about the Iraq Fax-in. Frequently people cannot participate in rallys, vigils, or phone calls because they are working or are too far away to participate. There must be a way for those concerned to communicate with their members of Congress about their feelings on the occupation in Iraq. This fax-in is a good idea and easy to execute. However we can get the message to Washington about our demand to bring the troops home is a good thing, especially if it happens on the Fifth Anniversary of Shock & Awe.
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March 19 marks the 5th Anniversary of Bush's disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq - yet there is no end in sight.

The costs so far are staggering: 4,000 young Americans killed, tens of thousands maimed... 1 million Iraqis killed, millions maimed... $562 billion in tax dollars stolen from our children... $3 trillion cost to our economy through veterans care, weapons replacement, higher oil prices, and the collapsing dollar. All that in just 5 years!

We elected a Democratic Congress in 2006 to bring our troops home, but they keep giving Bush blank checks. Incredibly, Congress will soon vote on another $102 billion blank check.

On this 5th Anniversary, it is time for everyone who hates this occupation to do something about it. And we're making it as simple and effective as we can.

We're calling it a Fax-In. It's like a sit-in, only you can do it from home.
http://iraqfaxin.com

1. Fax an image to Congress that visually expresses how you feel about the endless occupation of Iraq. We've posted a few ideas here, but we welcome all of yours (post thumbnails please with link to original).
http://iraqfaxin.com

Just print it out in black & white and make sure it's readable enough to go through a fax.

Make a simple cover page with your name(s), street address, email address, and the number of years you have voted. Write a brief message explaining the image you chose and why you want to bring our troops home. It's easiest if you do this in your word processor and save the document (see below).

In big thick letters, write "OutOfIraq.org" on the cover page and the image itself.

Look up the fax (and phone) numbers of your Representative and Senators by entering your address on the right side here:
http://usalone.com/
or use this directory:
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt?command=congdir

2. Email your Representatives by signing our "Out of Iraq" petition on the right side here:
http://iraqfaxin.com

As you fill out the form, copy/paste your fax cover message (see above) into the "personal message" box.

This will accomplish several goals:

a. Tally how many people participate - we really need a million or more!
b. Let you forward this message to your friends.
c. Let your Representatives respond to you easily via email.

3. Share with Democrats.com your "personal message" and other thoughts on this effort by copy/pasting it as a comment reply here (login required):
http://iraqfaxin.com

4. Spread the word about this effort through other blogs, social networks like Facebook, talk radio, etc. Just tell everyone to visit IraqFaxIn.com

Polls show over 60% of Americans believe the war in Iraq wasn't worth fighting. That translates to 140 million Americans!

If we can get just 1 out of 100 Americans who oppose the war to join our fax-in, that's 1.4 million people.

So please participate - and pass this on to everyone you know who doesn't want to waste one more soldier, civilian, or dollar in Iraq.

As always, thanks for all you do.

Dear Hillary - Campaign ads

Dear Hillary-

I've been thinking about that ad of yours asking who would the American people prefer answering the White house phone at 3 a.m. It really didn't work for me. It felt like you took a page out of the fear mongering Republican play book. Frankly, I think most Americans are tired of that game. You may have won some people over but not me (again/still).

That "red phone" ad that your campaign put out just before the March Super Tuesday, starts out with "It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep"; you know the one. That part about our children being safe, well, that's my first problem because my child isn't asleep, he's dead and buried at Arlington Cemetery with more than 400 other members of the military who have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom since March 2003.

Remember, back in October 2002, you voted in favor of the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq. Even as recently as January 2008, you defended your vote saying that Chuck Hagel, who helped to draft the resolution said, 'It was not a vote for war,'

"Chuck said" is your explanation? Come on- while that may have been your excuse, it's a bit disingenuous to continue to use that as the reason you authorized this President to go to war.

This isn't about Chuck Hagel; by all accounts he is a good man. But with the most important, consequential decision you will ever make in your life; a vote that would impact our country, the lives and deaths of our military, our standing in the world, and you took the word of a colleague? Hillary, you had access to the full NIE report that might have given you insight into what this administration had in mind with regards to the march into the middle east. I know that only a handful of Senators actually looked at the complete document, but that's no excuse especially as you now claim, your judgment about matters of security would be better than those of your opponent.

It's tragic, really. This human and strategic tragedy that defines the War on Terror in Iraq. Nearly 4000 US casualties, 30,000 plus US injuries, some, with lifetime consequences. We cannot say how many Iraqi casualties or injuries, because that isn't something the administration let's us know or talk about. We know that more than 4 million Iraqis have been displaced and that alone would make this continued occupation wrong.

Hillary, you said yes to the war in Iraq when you should have said NO. While you still defend the vote, I find it indefensible. Apologize if you think your yes vote was wrong. I just don't think that you think it is. I don't know if I trust that you would make the right decision should that vote come up for Iran or whoever ends up on the US axis of terror list. Don't worry, I won't be voting for John McCain, he's more of a hawk than you could ever be. His 100 year plan in Iraq; well, that's just over the top and I definitely do not want him answering the phone in the White House.

Hillary, if that 3 a.m. ad was part of the "kitchen sink" campaign to win primary voters; I think it's time to get a new kitchen sink. You are better than that and those kinds of ads are just not necessary. An apology for your vote to authorize the war, however, is necessary.

John McCain's Message

Andy Wahl

Michelle's pride

Apparently there are some people who took offense with Michelle Obama's comments about her pride in America. The AP reports In Milwaukee on Monday, Michelle Obama said: "Let me tell you, for the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change." Oh really! Just as anyone in their right mind knew that Hillary Clinton wasn't faking the tears in New Hampshire, we know what Michelle Obama meant. And now the right wing pundits are piling on like a bunch of junkyard dogs. When Obama wins the Democratic nomination this summer, we will hear the Republicans playing Obama's wife's words over and over and over again, coloring her as some kind of unpatriotic traitor and America hater. That's what they do.

Michelle Robinson was 17 years old when Ronald Reagan started his presidency in 1981. George Herbert Walker Bush, as the 41st US president followed in 1989, when Michelle was 25. What's to like about those two? What's to be proud of? William Jefferson Clinton was the 42nd president from 1993- 2001. The man from Hope, Arkansas brought hope back to America during the 42nd administration, but beyond those years and since 2002, the George W Bush adminstration, not so much.

Michelle Obama said, for the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country. Perhaps she was overstating, or perhaps, as her husband said "Statements like this are made and people try to take it out of context and make a great big deal out of it, and that isn't at all what she meant," "What she meant was, this is the first time that she's been proud of the politics of America," "Because she's pretty cynical about the political process, and with good reason, and she's not alone. But she has seen large numbers of people get involved in the process, and she's encouraged."

It's all politics and people are tired of it; tired of the accusations, the misstatements and the mean spiritedness. Cindy McCain, standing by her man, was trotted out onstage to counter Michelle's comment "I'm proud of my country, I don't know about you, if you heard those words earlier." and "I have, and always will be, proud of my country," Nice, Cindy. Living in your world must be pretty.

I wish I could be proud of my country now, but I'm not. There are too many things in this country that were broken intentionally by people who had too much power and too much greed. We have lost so much of what makes America great. We have lost our moral standing and our good name in the world and the bar on the right and wrong scale has been lowered. So much of what once represented America is gone and forgotten, left to another day.

Where is the pride in knowing that nearly 4000 US flag covered caskets have come home to America from the sands of Iraq from an uneccesary war? Where is the pride in knowing that the same war has left countless numbers of dead, misplaced and wounded Iraqi's? How many children have been left behind in America? How much fearmongering can one country take and for how many years? And why, why, why?

Even though I don't find much to be proud about America these days, I do have hope that we can and we will find American pride once again. November 2008 anyone?

Army Buried Study Faulting Iraq Planning

MICHAEL R. GORDON of The New York Times reveals that the Army Buried Study Faulting Iraq Planning going back to 2005. With the revelations of all the lies in the run up to the war, news about this study should be of no surprise to any of us. I just wonder what else we don't know or haven't been told. Special thanks to George, Colin, Condi, Tommy and Donald for standing up for the military.....again.

The Army is accustomed to protecting classified information. But when it comes to the planning for the Iraq war, even an unclassified assessment can acquire the status of a state secret.

That is what happened to a detailed study of the planning for postwar Iraq prepared for the Army by the RAND Corporation, a federally financed center that conducts research for the military.

After 18 months of research, RAND submitted a report in the summer of 2005 called “Rebuilding Iraq.” RAND researchers provided an unclassified version of the report along with a secret one, hoping that its publication would contribute to the public debate on how to prepare for future conflicts.

But the study’s wide-ranging critique of the White House, the Defense Department and other government agencies was a concern for Army generals, and the Army has sought to keep the report under lock and key.

A review of the lengthy report — a draft of which was obtained by The New York Times — shows that it identified problems with nearly every organization that had a role in planning the war. That assessment parallels the verdicts of numerous former officials and independent analysts.

The study chided President Bush — and by implication Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who served as national security adviser when the war was planned — as having failed to resolve differences among rival agencies. “Throughout the planning process, tensions between the Defense Department and the State Department were never mediated by the president or his staff,” it said.

The Defense Department led by Donald H. Rumsfeld was given the lead in overseeing the postwar period in Iraq despite its “lack of capacity for civilian reconstruction planning and execution.”

The State Department led by Colin L. Powell produced a voluminous study on the future of Iraq that identified important issues but was of “uneven quality” and “did not constitute an actionable plan.”

Gen. Tommy R. Franks, whose Central Command oversaw the military operation in Iraq, had a “fundamental misunderstanding” of what the military needed to do to secure postwar Iraq, the study said.

The regulations that govern the Army’s relations with the Arroyo Center, the division of RAND that does research for the Army, stipulate that Army officials are to review reports in a timely fashion to ensure that classified information is not released. But the rules also note that the officials are not to “censor” analysis or prevent the dissemination of material critical of the Army.

The report on rebuilding Iraq was part of a seven-volume series by RAND on the lessons learned from the war. Asked why the report has not been published, Timothy Muchmore, a civilian Army official, said it had ventured too far from issues that directly involve the Army.
“After carefully reviewing the findings and recommendations of the thorough RAND assessment, the Army determined that the analysts had in some cases taken a broader perspective on the early planning and operational phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom than desired or chartered by the Army,” Mr. Muchmore said in a statement. “Some of the RAND findings and recommendations were determined to be outside the purview of the Army and therefore of limited value in informing Army policies, programs and priorities.”

Warren Robak, a RAND spokesman, declined to talk about the contents of the study but said the organization favored publication as a matter of general policy.

“RAND always endeavors to publish as much of our research as possible, in either unclassified form or in classified form for those with the proper security clearances,” Mr. Robak said in a statement. "The multivolume series on lessons learned from Operation Iraqi Freedom is no exception. We also, however, have a longstanding practice of not discussing work that has not yet been published."

When RAND researchers began their work, nobody expected it to become a bone of contention with the Army. The idea was to review the lessons learned from the war, as RAND had done with previous conflicts.

The research was formally sponsored by Lt. Gen. James Lovelace, who was then the chief operations officer for the Army and now oversees Army forces in the Middle East, and Lt. Gen. David Melcher, who had responsibility for the Army’s development and works now on budget issues.

A team of RAND researchers led by Nora Bensahel interviewed more than 50 civilian and military officials. As it became clear that decisions made by civilian officials had contributed to the Army’s difficulties in Iraq, researchers delved into those policies as well.

The report was submitted at a time when the Bush administration was trying to rebut building criticism of the war in Iraq by stressing the progress Mr. Bush said was being made. The approach culminated in his announcement in November 2005 of his “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.”

One serious problem the study described was the Bush administration’s assumption that the reconstruction requirements would be minimal. There was also little incentive to challenge that assumption, the report said.

“Building public support for any pre-emptive or preventative war is inherently challenging, since by definition, action is being taken before the threat has fully manifested itself,” it said. “Any serious discussion of the costs and challenges of reconstruction might undermine efforts to build that support.”

Another problem described was a general lack of coordination. “There was never an attempt to develop a single national plan that integrated humanitarian assistance, reconstruction, governance, infrastructure development and postwar security,” the study said.

One result was that “the U.S. government did not provide strategic policy guidance for postwar Iraq until shortly before major combat operations commenced.” The study said that problem was compounded by General Franks, saying he took a narrow view of the military’s responsibilities after Saddam Hussein was ousted and assumed that American civilian agencies would do much to rebuild the country.

General Franks’s command, the study asserted, also assumed that Iraq’s police and civil bureaucracy would stay on the job and had no fallback option in case that expectation proved wrong. When Baghdad fell, the study said, American forces there “were largely mechanized or armored forces, well suited to waging major battles but not to restoring civil order. That task would have been better carried out, ideally, by military police or, acceptably, by light infantry trained in urban combat.”

A “shortfall” in American troops was exacerbated when General Franks and Mr. Rumsfeld decided to stop the deployment of the Army’s First Cavalry Division when other American forces entered Baghdad, the study said, a move that reflected their assessment that the war had been won. Problems persisted during the occupation. In the months that followed, the report said, there were “significant tensions, most commonly between the civilian and military arms of the occupation.”

The poor planning had “the inadvertent effort of strengthening the insurgency,” as Iraqis experienced a lack of security and essential services and focused on “negative effects of the U.S. security presence.” The American military’s inability to seal Iraq’s borders, a task the 2005 report warned was still not a priority, enabled foreign support for the insurgents to flow into Iraq.

In its recommendations, the study advocated an “inverted planning process” in which military planners would begin by deciding what resources were needed to maintain security after an adversary was defeated on the battlefield instead of treating the postwar phase as virtually an afterthought. More broadly, it suggested that there was a need to change the military’s mind-set, which has long treated preparations to fight a major war as the top priority. The Army has recently moved to address this by drafting a new operations manual which casts the mission of stabilizing war-torn nations as equal in importance to winning a conventional war.

As the RAND study went through drafts, a chapter was written to emphasize the implications for the Army. An unclassified version was produced with numerous references to newspaper articles and books, an approach that was intended to facilitate publication.

Senior Army officials were not happy with the results, and questioned whether all of the information in the study was truly unclassified and its use of newspaper reports. RAND researchers sent a rebuttal. That failed to persuade the Army to allow publication of the unclassified report, and the classified version was not widely disseminated throughout the Pentagon.

Neither General Lovelace nor General Melcher agreed to be interviewed for this article, but General Lovelace provided a statement through a spokesman at his headquarters in Kuwait.
“The RAND study simply did not deliver a product that could have assisted the Army in paving a clear way ahead; it lacked the perspective needed for future planning by the U.S. Army,” he said.

A Pentagon official who is familiar with the episode offered a different interpretation: Army officials were concerned that the report would strain relations with a powerful defense secretary and become caught up in the political debate over the war. “The Army leaders who were involved did not want to take the chance of increasing the friction with Secretary Rumsfeld,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he did not want to alienate senior military officials.

The Army has asked that the entire RAND series be resubmitted and has said it will decide on its status thereafter.

Note to the Army; you get back to us on the status of the report; we'll be waiting. Note to the dead US troops killed in Iraq including my only child, Lt Ken Ballard, I'm so sorry that the citizens of this country allowed this adminstration to operate with the arrogance and secrecy that it has. There are alot of us really trying to change all that and I'm really sorry!

The Chicken Doves

MATT TAIBBI from Rolling Stone has some thoughts about ending the occupation in Iraq. While his language is a little blunt at the end, he makes some good points. Okay, now I'm really depresed!

Elected to end the war, Democrats have surrendered to Bush on Iraq and betrayed the peace movement for their own political ends

Quietly, while Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been inspiring Democrats everywhere with their rolling bitchfest, congressional superduo Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have completed one of the most awesome political collapses since Neville Chamberlain. At long last, the Democratic leaders of Congress have publicly surrendered on the Iraq War, just one year after being swept into power with a firm mandate to end it.

Solidifying his reputation as one of the biggest pussies in U.S. political history, Reid explained his decision to refocus his party's energies on topics other than ending the war by saying he just couldn't fit Iraq into his busy schedule. "We have the presidential election," Reid said recently. "Our time is really squeezed."

There was much public shedding of tears among the Democratic leadership, as Reid, Pelosi and other congressional heavyweights expressed deep sadness that their valiant charge up the hill of change had been thwarted by circumstances beyond their control — that, as much as they would love to continue trying to end the catastrophic Iraq deal, they would now have to wait until, oh, 2009 to try again. "We'll have a new president," said Pelosi. "And I do think at that time we'll take a fresh look at it."

Pelosi seemed especially broken up about having to surrender on Iraq, sounding like an NFL coach in a postgame presser, trying with a straight face to explain why he punted on first-and-goal. "We just didn't have any plays we liked down there," said the coach of the 0-15 Dems. "Sometimes you just have to play the field-position game...."

In reality, though, Pelosi and the Democrats were actually engaged in some serious point-shaving. Working behind the scenes, the Democrats have systematically taken over the anti-war movement, packing the nation's leading group with party consultants more interested in attacking the GOP than ending the war. "Our focus is on the Republicans," one Democratic apparatchik in charge of the anti-war coalition declared. "How can we juice up attacks on them?"
The story of how the Democrats finally betrayed the voters who handed them both houses of Congress a year ago is a depressing preview of what's to come if they win the White House. And if we don't pay attention to this sorry tale now, while there's still time to change our minds about whom to nominate, we might be stuck with this same bunch of spineless creeps for four more years. With no one but ourselves to blame.

The controversy over the Democratic "strategy" to end the war basically comes down to whom you believe. According to the Reid-Pelosi version of history, the Democrats tried hard to force President Bush's hand by repeatedly attempting to tie funding for the war to a scheduled withdrawal. Last spring they tried to get him to eat a timeline and failed to get the votes to override a presidential veto. Then they retreated and gave Bush his money, with the aim of trying again after the summer to convince a sufficient number of Republicans to cross the aisle in support of a timeline.

But in September, Gen. David Petraeus reported that Bush's "surge" in Iraq was working, giving Republicans who might otherwise have flipped sufficient cover to continue supporting the war. The Democrats had no choice, the legend goes, but to wait until 2009, in the hopes that things would be different under a Democratic president.

Democrats insist that the reason they can't cut off the money for the war, despite their majority in both houses, is purely political. "George Bush would be on TV every five minutes saying that the Democrats betrayed the troops," says Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Then he glumly adds another reason. "Also, it just wasn't going to happen."

Why it "just wasn't going to happen" is the controversy. In and around the halls of Congress, the notion that the Democrats made a sincere effort to end the war meets with, at best, derisive laughter. Though few congressional aides would think of saying so on the record, in private many dismiss their party's lame anti-war effort as an absurd dog-and-pony show, a calculated attempt to score political points without ever being serious about bringing the troops home.
"Yeah, the amount of expletives that flew in our office alone was unbelievable," says an aide to one staunchly anti-war House member. "It was all about the public show. Reid and Pelosi would say they were taking this tough stand against Bush, but if you actually looked at what they were sending to a vote, it was like Swiss cheese. Full of holes."

In the House, some seventy Democrats joined the Out of Iraq caucus and repeatedly butted heads with Reid and Pelosi, arguing passionately for tougher measures to end the war. The fight left some caucus members bitter about the party's failure. Rep. Barbara Lee of California was one of the first to submit an amendment to cut off funding unless it was tied to an immediate withdrawal. "I couldn't even get it through the Rules Committee in the spring," Lee says.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a fellow caucus member, says Democrats should have refused from the beginning to approve any funding that wasn't tied to a withdrawal. "If we'd been bold the minute we got control of the House — and that's why we got the majority, because the people of this country wanted us out of Iraq — if we'd been bold, even if we lost the votes, we would have gained our voice."

An honest attempt to end the war, say Democrats like Woolsey and Lee, would have involved forcing Bush to execute his veto and allowing the Republicans to filibuster all they wanted. Force a showdown, in other words, and use any means necessary to get the bloodshed ended.
"Can you imagine Tom DeLay and Denny Hastert taking no for an answer the way Reid and Pelosi did on Iraq?" asks the House aide in the expletive-filled office. "They'd find a way to get the votes. They'd get it done somehow."

But any suggestion that the Democrats had an obligation to fight this good fight infuriates the bund of hedging careerists in charge of the party. In fact, nothing sums up the current Democratic leadership better than its vitriolic criticisms of those recalcitrant party members who insist on interpreting their 2006 mandate as a command to actually end the war. Rep. David Obey, chair of the House Appropriations Committee and a key Pelosi-Reid ally, lambasted anti-war Democrats who "didn't want to get specks on those white robes of theirs." Obey even berated a soldier's mother who begged him to cut off funds for the war, accusing her and her friends of "smoking something illegal."

Rather than use the vast power they had to end the war, Democrats devoted their energy to making sure that "anti-war activism" became synonymous with "electing Democrats." Capitalizing on America's desire to end the war, they hijacked the anti-war movement itself, filling the ranks of peace groups with loyal party hacks. Anti-war organizations essentially became a political tool for the Democrats — one operated from inside the Beltway and devoted primarily to targeting Republicans.

This supposedly grass-roots "anti-war coalition" met regularly on K Street, the very capital of top-down Beltway politics. At the forefront of the groups are Thomas Matzzie and Brad Woodhouse of Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq, the leader of the anti-war lobby. Along with other K Street crusaders, the two have received iconic treatment from The Washington Post and The New York Times, both of which depicted the anti-war warriors as young idealist-progressives in shirtsleeves, riding a mirthful spirit into political combat — changing the world is fun!

But what exactly are these young idealists campaigning for? At its most recent meeting, the group eerily echoed the Reid-Pelosi "squeezed for time" mantra: Retreat from any attempt to end the war and focus on electing Democrats. "There was a lot of agreement that we can draw distinctions between anti-war Democrats and pro-war Republicans," a spokeswoman for Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq announced.

What the Post and the Times failed to note is that much of the anti-war group's leadership hails from a consulting firm called Hildebrand Tewes — whose partners, Steve Hildebrand and Paul Tewes, served as staffers for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). In addition, these anti-war leaders continue to consult for many of the same U.S. senators whom they need to pressure in order to end the war. This is the kind of conflict of interest that would normally be an embarrassment in the activist community.

Worst of all is the case of Woodhouse, who came to Hildebrand Tewes after years of working as the chief mouthpiece for the DSCC, where he campaigned actively to re-elect Democratic senators who supported the Iraq War in the first place. Anyone bothering to look — and clearly the Post and the Times did not before penning their ardent bios of Woodhouse — would have found the youthful idealist bragging to newspapers before the Iraq invasion about the pro-war credentials of North Carolina candidate Erskine Bowles. "No one has been stronger in this race in supporting President Bush in the War on Terror and his efforts to effect a regime change in Iraq," boasted the future "anti-war" activist Woodhouse.

With guys like this in charge of the anti-war movement, much of what has passed for peace activism in the past year was little more than a thinly veiled scheme to use popular discontent over the war to unseat vulnerable Republicans up for re-election in 2008. David Sirota, a former congressional staffer whose new book, The Uprising, excoriates the Democrats for their failure to end the war, expresses disgust at the strategy of targeting only Republicans. "The whole idea is based on this insane fiction that there is no such thing as a pro-war Democrat," he says. "Their strategy allows Democrats to take credit for being against the war without doing anything to stop it. It's crazy."

Justin Raimondo, the uncompromising editorial director of Antiwar.com, regrets contributing twenty dollars to Americans Against the Escalation in Iraq. "Not only did they use it to target Republicans," he says, "they went after the ones who were on the fence about Iraq." The most notorious case involved Lincoln Chafee, a moderate from Rhode Island who lost his Senate seat in 2006. Since then, Chafee has taken shots at Democrats like Reid, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, all of whom campaigned against him despite having voted for the war themselves.
"Look, I understand partisan politics," says Chafee, who now concedes that voters were correct to punish him for his war vote. "I just find it amusing that those who helped get us into this mess now say we need to change the Senate — because we're in a mess."

The really tragic thing about the Democratic surrender on Iraq is that it's now all but guaranteed that the war will be off the table during the presidential campaign. Once again — it happened in 2002, 2004 and 2006 — the Democrats have essentially decided to rely on the voters to give them credit for being anti-war, despite the fact that, for all the noise they've made to the contrary, in the end they've done nothing but vote for war and cough up every dime they've been asked to give, every step of the way.

Even beyond the war, the Democrats have repeatedly gone limp-dick every time the Bush administration so much as raises its voice. Most recently, twelve Democrats crossed the aisle to grant immunity to phone companies who participated in Bush's notorious wiretapping program. Before that, Democrats caved in and confirmed Mike Mukasey as attorney general after he kept his middle finger extended and refused to condemn waterboarding as torture. Democrats fattened by Wall Street also got cold feet about upsetting the country's gazillionaires, refusing to close a tax loophole that rewarded hedge-fund managers with a tax rate less than half that paid by ordinary citizens.

But the war is where they showed their real mettle. Before the 2006 elections, Democrats told us we could expect more specifics on their war plans after Election Day. Nearly two years have passed since then, and now they are once again telling us to wait until after an election to see real action to stop the war. In the meantime, of course, we're to remember that they're the good guys, the Republicans are the real enemy, and, well, go Hillary! Semper fi! Yay, team!
How much of this bullshit are we going to take? How long are we supposed to give the Reids and Pelosis and Hillarys of the world credit for wanting, deep down in their moldy hearts, to do the right thing?

Look, fuck your hearts, OK? Just get it done. Because if you don't, sooner or later this con is going to run dry. It may not be in '08, but it'll be soon. Even Americans can't be fooled forever.

Less Jobs. More War.

Less Jobs. More Wars.
Now is not the time for progressives to be silent. With Clinton and Obama battling each other we MUST start telling the story of McCain and his support for war.

Less Jobs. More War Thanks to Brave New Films for their continued efforts to keep focus on the costs in Iraq and the effects on our country.

It's Not Just the Economy, Stupid

Andrew Wahl

Today I am The Decider

Today is Super Tuesday. 15 primaries and 5 caucuses will take place in 24 states to determine how more than 2700 delegates will be designated in the presidential campaign.

Today I've earned the privilege to make my vote count, to decide who I want to be my president.

Today I am not voting for gender or race.

Today I am not voting because some celebrity told me how to vote.

Today I am the decider.

Today I am voting with hopes that my candidate will end the occupation in Iraq.

Today I am voting to honor those who can no longer vote.

Thank you Montel Williams

As the presidential campaign heats up and the economy falters, the story of the Iraq war moves further down in the coverage of news that's fit to print. Coverage of celebrity deaths get minute by minute coveragte, but who knows the name of any soldier killed in Iraq?

My heart goes out to Heath Ledger's family on his death. No one should bury a child, no child lose their father as young Mathilda Rose has.



Montel is right about hearing about the deaths of our soldiers. For those of you who care, let's make it personal, Here are the names of the US casualties from Iraq in January 2008

NAME NOT RELEASED YET
Hostile - hostile fire - RPG attack
1st Lieutenant David E. Schultz
Hostile - hostile fire - indirect fire
Captain Michael A. Norman
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Sergeant James E. Craig
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Staff Sergeant Gary W. Jeffries
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Specialist Evan A. Marshall
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Private 1st Class Brandon A. Meyer
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Private Joshua A. R. Young
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Sergeant Mikeal W. Miller
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Major Alan G. Rogers
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Staff Sergeant Robert J. Wilson
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Private 1st Class Duncan Charles Crookston
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Sergeant Tracy Renee Birkman
Non-hostile - injury
Sergeant Michael R. Sturdivant
Non-hostile - vehicle accident
Staff Sergeant Justin R. Whiting
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Lance Corporal James M. Gluff
Hostile - hostile fire
Specialist Richard B. Burress
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Specialist Jon M. Schoolcraft III
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Private 1st Class Danny L. Kimme
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire, grenade
Private 1st Class David H. Sharrett II
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire, grenade
Specialist John P. Sigsbee
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire, grenade
Private 1st Class Keith E. Lloyd
Hostile - hostile fire - IED
Lance Corporal Curtis A. Christensen Jr.
Non-hostile
Specialist Todd E. Davis
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack (house borne)
Staff Sergeant Sean M. Gaul
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack (house borne)
Sergeant Christopher A. Sanders
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack (house borne)
Sergeant 1st Class Matthew I. Pionk
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack (house borne)
Staff Sergeant Jonathan Kilian Dozier
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack (house borne)
Sergeant Zachary W. McBride
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack (house borne)
Sergeant David J. Hart
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
Private 1st Class Ivan E. Merlo
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
Private 1st Class Phillip J. Pannier
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
Private 1st Class Timothy R. Hanson
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
Specialist James D. Gudridge
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Private 1st Class Jason F. Lemke
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
Petty Officer 2nd Class Menelek M. Brown
Non-hostile - drowning
Major Andrew J. Olmsted
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
Captain Thomas J. Casey
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
Staff Sergeant Ryan D. Maseth
Non-hostile
Private 1st Class Joshua R. Anderson
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack

These 40 deaths, and one in February, whose name has also not been released should news. My condolences to the families who joine me as members of this Gold Star club that none of us wants to join.

For those of you who think the surge was successful and that the war is over, know that these 40 deaths are an increase in deaths from the previous months. There has been noise from Washington recently that the reduction in troop strength may slow or even stop depending on the actiity in Iraq. Unless and until there is some political solution to provide stability in Iraq, this war will never end and our troops will never come home.

And to the Fox News news-readers in this interview with Montel Williams, shame on you. Shame on you for saying that the audience wants to hear more about celebrity deaths than those of our troops. Your industry, the media has told Americans what they want to think and feel for a long time. Celebrity news is the crack that the media, as the dealer, has fed to viewers who think if they hear it on the news that it is important. You have a responsibility as the press, and if you don't tell people the news they need to hear, that that should hear, then you don't deserve to be called journalists. Shame, shame on you!

Dear Hillary

Dear Hillary-

As you watch the poll numbers narrow between you and Barack, I know you and your staff are wondering what you can do to prevail in the primaries and start measuring for drapes in the White House.

I am a white woman, single, 54 years old and I don't have children any longer, thanks to George Bush's war & occupation in Iraq. I think some might consider me to be a strong Hillary demographic. I grew up back in the 70's where the idea of a woman president in these United States was a far away dream, but we held tight to our hopes that just maybe it might happen in our lifetime. Here we are in 2008 and we have a viable female candidate. By all accounts, Hillary, you are well qualified, you have experience & knowledge and you know how Washington works.

You are kind of likable and over the years, I have found myself defending you to people who just hate you and Bill. I don't understand this rabid hate that people express about you two. I say this because we've never met, but I did have an opportunity to meet your husband back in 2006. You couldn't meet a nicer guy. His charisma was undeniable and for those 5 minutes, at that political rally in California, my friend Nadia and I were the only 2 people in his world and that meant everything to us as we spoke about our sons who were killed in Iraq. I thought Bill was a very good president; not perfect- who is? but shoot, the economy was doing well and there was hope in this country and our world was pretty darned peaceful! There was so much optimism for our future, we had good relations with other countries and I miss those times.

Many people have said that this country must end the Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton dynasty. They say some voters have never had the opportunity to vote for anyone except a Bush or a Clinton. I don't have a problem with this so-called dynasty if those candidates are the right people for the job and who have the right platform. You might be the right "people" for the job, but you do not have the right platform for me.

I was watching one of those interminable campaign ads that have invaded California recently and you were speaking about ending the war in Iraq. I was struck with your supposed passion now for ending the war. You didn't always say that, but now you do say you wouldn't have voted for the war knowing what you know now. I hope it was because you really believe that the war should be ended, and not that poll numbers showed that 70% of the people in this country believe it's time to end the war- that Democratic number is 91% in California, by the way. I'm not convinced what is behind your change.

Let's get personal for a minute, Hillary; we're both moms and we both raised only children. Your daughter, Chelsea will be turning 28 in a few weeks. I imagine you will take a little break from all this campaigning and have a celebration. There will be presents and family & friends might gather together for this happy occasion. See, that's part of what bothers me about your stand on ending the war in Iraq because there are alot of families like mine, who will never celebrate a happy occasion with their loved ones again. My only child, Lt Ken Ballard was killed May 2004 in Iraq; he was due to come home when his tour of duty was extended in April 2004. Ken had survived 384 days in Iraq, but he didn't survive the 385th. Last year would have been my son's 30th birthday. That was a real hard day for me because, you know, turning 30 is a pretty big milestone in our lives. Ken's friends and families gathered again to celebrate his life cut short by the war in Iraq. We let 30 gold balloons go into the sky in hopes our messages of love would reach heaven where his soul surely lives now. I'm pretty sure those balloons got to heaven.

Imagine your life without Chelsea. Imagine that she volunteered to serve this country and that she was sent off to an illegal war by an administration that outright lied to gain support for their endless war. Imagine the betrayal that the families felt that the Bush administration took advantage of the patriotism of our children in sending them to fight an unwarranted war. So, Chelsea goes off to war, and I can't describe to you how your own life would change while she was in harms way, but then imagine that one day she comes home in a box covered with a flag; your precious child is dead. A few days later you would be handed that flag, now folded just so, with the words "on behalf of a grateful nation, and on behalf of the President of the United States....." If you try to imagine how your life would change without Chelsea, you can't; it is unimaginable. You would never even be close to imagining how many tears that one body can cry, the sleepless nights and the days when you just wish you could have your old life back. Nearly 4000 families live with this nightmare every day and we would not wish this journey of bereavement on anyone, even a politician who voted to authorize war.

I don't want to get all emotional about the war, even though it's no secret that that is where my heart is. I know that voters and especially the media have a hard time with emotions and tears or even pre-tears from a candidate. But tears don't bother me and I didn't have a problem with that interview in New Hampshire. Any working woman knows that look you gave and why you responded that way.

I know when Congress votes to consider these things, that body count isn't at the top of the list of why we should or should not invade a country. But, the human cost, the loss of nearly 4000 of our country's best and brightest, the devastating injuries of many more thousands and the effect on their families and their communities, the heartbreaking casualties of Iraqis and the damage to their country just really makes that hard to disregard, especially when our country wasn't threatened by Iraq. Since most people in our country are far removed from this war thanks to George Bush's policies where we see no photographs of caskets being returned, pay no increased taxes to pay for this war; at least not for our generation, we've got to do a better job of connecting the dots with the war and the economy, our foreign policy and pretty much everything that is wrong in this country right now. Costing more than $270 million a day, I think our money can be spent in better ways than continuing the war in Iraq.

When John Edwards dropped out of the race last week, that bummed me out. He was my man; he had the right message, the right platform for me. His consistancy in ending the war was unrivaled among the top 3 Democratic candidates. Maybe someday we'll know the real reason why he dropped out, but it's a moot point now.

Hillary, my choice did not come out of gender or race, or any endorsements; it all comes down to your stand on the war and any intentions this country might have towards Iran; dumb wars, is how I'll call them. A few months back there seemed to be more of a divide in yours and Barack's positions on ending the war Iraq, but now your platforms seem to be more similar. I just hope both of you mean what you say when you talk about ending the war. I'm not sure you do, because when we voted in 2006, I was pretty sure that you people in Washington got the message about ending the war. If you did, you didn't listen. So when it all comes down to it, on Tuesday, I will be voting for Barack Obama and as a woman, I am sorry that you aren't the candidate for me.

Hillary, I know you are a busy woman and I thank you for taking the time to read my letter. I just wanted you to know why this female is not voting for you in the California primary. I know I kind of rambled on and I could have summed it all up in 4 words, "It's the War, Stupid", but I just wanted to get this off my chest.