They Put Their Lives On The Line. And Now...

These US soldiers fought in a war. Now they are back home. And how are we welcoming them back home?

We organize parades and spread "WELCOME HOME" banners across streets and on bridges. But that is not enough. A soldier who returned from a war carries his wounds, both physical and mental, and he needs help,- and that help can be awfully slow in coming. According to this Detroit News Online article,

Soldiers from Michigan who risked their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan are returning home to a veterans' benefit system that is overwhelmed, causing delays in medical and mental health treatment.

"I'm very frustrated I can't get the treatment I need," said Nathaniel Ganzeveld, 22, of Dearborn, a discharged lance corporal in the Marine Reserves who fought in Iraq and who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Ganzeveld says he has waited five months for any determination on most of his claim.

The problems in Michigan are part of a national logjam of 334,611 veterans from across the country who awaited approval of benefits at the end of October, according to statistics from the Department of Veterans Affairs. That is 40 percent more than the VA says it deems optimal, and far beyond what members of Congress and veterans' groups consider justified.

Since the end of October 2003, the number of pending cases has jumped 14 percent.

Many veterans are waiting for nearly six months. From October 2003 to October 2004, the number of cases pending nationally for more than 180 days increased by about 25 percent, from 57,414 to 71,406.

The VA seems to think there is not a systemic problem. Clearly, the vets who need its services opine differently.

"We've treated about 30,000 or 35,000 veterans of the war against terrorism, and they are in the network that is going to be taking care of about 5 million veterans," said Phil Budahn, a spokesman for the VA in Washington. "That should not strain the system."

But veterans say it does.

Ganzeveld says he cannot work and his condition puts pressure on his marriage and young family.

"My wife is at her wits' end dealing with me and dealing with the VA,' Ganzeveld said. "I mean, let's do something about my problems. They won't do anything without being kicked in the rear and scooted along."

Veterans groups are outraged. A presidential campaign event at the American Legion Fort Dearborn Post on Oct. 18 was interrupted by veterans who shouted questions at Dingell about when they would receive necessary medical services.

In Metro Detroit, the backlog of claims is 6,984, and 1,400 new cases are filed each month. There are two VA hospitals in southeast Michigan, one in Detroit and one in Ann Arbor.

"They are treated like dogs when they get home," said Dingell, who had already sent an official letter of inquiry to the secretary of the Army before he was confronted.

"I am trying to get the numbers on how much the VA is short of money. There is some claim that the entire VA has been underfunded in recent years by $9 billion. The two hospitals in Michigan are $2 million and $9 million short."

Treatment delayed

As Nate Ganzeveld marched along the road to Baghdad, witnessing the carnage of war, he said he had no idea his welcome home would be anything like this.

It would also be a mistake to think that the VA is merely failing to properly process the incoming enemies of the ongoing wars. I have an acquaintance whose step-father recently died of lung cancer. The man was a Vietnam veteran with multiple tours of duty under his belt. When he showed up at a VA hospital with an advanced form of cancer he was advised not to wait for help as the line was long and he should not expect to live long enough; that assessment turned out to be correct.

They put their lives on the line, in our name. This is what they get from us in their hour of need.

John Ashcroft's Record: 0 out of 5,000

Since September 11, 2001, the US Justice Department skippered by Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered the detention of over 5,000 people suspected of being involved in terror activities. Not a single one of them has been tried, found guilty and convicted in the court of law for the offenses they were originally accused of. The following is a nice summary of this spectacular performance.

Saddam Sure Did Have a Lot of Toys...

No, it is not the missing WMD's I was talking about. It is conventional weapons and materiel,- stuff that the former regime was allowed to have, and which it did have,- in significant quantities, I might add.

When the Coalition forces occupied Iraq, it appeared that those weapons were not all that important to the occupation authorities. Which must be why hundreds of tons of high-power explosives went missing from Qaqaa and other storage facilities. The US soldiers assigned to guard those facilities were, according to some reports, so badly outnumbered that they could not possibly stop the looting.

Now it turns out that not only did explosives go missing in Iraq, but also so did up to 4,000 shoulder-fired missiles. Looks like pilots worldwide had better brush up on their emergency landing and fire suppression procedures.

Bush supporters in the US almost unanimously site his aptitude to fight the "War on Terror" as one of the key reasons for their support. That must mean they support such unorthodox ways of fighting that war as allowing the terror groups easy access to the weaponry they might need. To those Bush supporters, I would like to suggest the following idea: let us fight crime by giving criminals access to military warehouses. Personally, I do not believe that doing this will make our life any safer,- but with street gangs using .50 machine guns and mortars instead of knives and handguns we are certainly going to get some entertainment value out of it. We might not be safe,- but sure as hell ain't gonna' be bored.

Election 2004: Early Impressions

I have already commented on the November 2 Election,- both before and after the fact. Here's more.

Let us take a look at the result and its implications. The fact that George W Bush remains President is a message, both to Americans and the rest of the world, that the US, as a society is willing to endorse the sort of policy the Bush Administration has been implementing over the last four years,- and to continue with this policy for the next four years. I would also like to emphasize that this is how the events are likely going to be perceived regardless of whether Bush won fair and square,- or, like in the 2000 Election, through fraud. The US claims to be a country governed by a representative government. "Well", most every observer is likely to say, "if this is who you chose to represent you, that says a thing or two about who you are yourself."

Let us now look at how we got there,- in other words, how the election was conducted. I hesitate to deliver a verdict just yet, but it is increasingly starting to look like this election was stolen using techniques not entirely dissimilar from those used in 2000 in Florida. Reports are starting to trickle in. One must credit the mainstream media with carrying some of them,- though, to get the full picture, one still has to go to the alternative media.

As I've already reported, 3,893 votes were erroneously assigned to Bush in Franklin County, Ohio, due to an electronic voting system glitch. This, in and of itself, is minor, however, it appears to only be a very small part of a highly repetitive pattern.

Here is one such report which,- granted the poster's unknown origin and clear political bias,- must be taken with a grain of salt. The report, however, is highly troubling.

Increasingly the very real possibility that this pResidential election was stolen by the criminal Bush Combine now infesting the Nation's Capitol looms ever larger. Most notably are the discrepencies showing up from districts using Electronic Voting Machines (or Electronic Votefraud Machines as I prefer to call them). Notably the exit polling in Paper Ballot areas was consistently within the Margin of Error and in Districts using E-Vote machines, particularly Diebold and Election Systems and Software (Note that ES&S was started by the brother of the owner of Diebold), the count is coming out with a fairly consistent 5% advantage for Duhbya.

It is worth noting that, statistically, the error in an estimation is equally likely to be in either direction. Thus, it is quite suspicious that in many areas the officially reported percentage of voters who had cast their vote for Bush is noticeably higher than the same percentage reported in exit polls. And it is doubly suspicious that such discrepancy was predominantly observed exclusively in areas where votes were counted by EVSs (Electronic Voting Systems). As I have previously reported, preparations for that sort of fraud were clearly underway before the Election Day, and it appears that the efforts of those behind such activities may, after all, not have been in vain.

It is heartening that not everyone is willing to let this scandal simply pass in silence.

November 3 - Toledo, Ohio Hundreds of angry Ohio residents marched through the streets of Columbus—Ohio’s Capital—this evening and stormed the Ohio State House, defying orders and arrest threats from Ohio State Troopers. "O-H-I-O ! suppressed democracy has got to go,"they chanted. After troopers pushed and scuffled with people, nearly a hundred people took over the steps and entrance to the State’s giant white column capital building and refused repeated orders to disperse or face arrest. People prepared for arrests, ready to face jail—writing lawyers phone numbers on their arms, signing jail support lists and discussing non-cooperation and active resistance (linking arms, but not fighting back).

However, the society at large appears apathetic. And with Kerry's November 3 surrender speech there is almost no chance anyone is going to really fight to find out what the true result of this election was.

"The truth shall set you free", the saying goes. We as a society do not want the truth; it rather looks like we are afraid of it. Well, then maybe we just deserve to be enslaved.

Phantom Bush Votes in Ohio

In Franklin County, Ohio George W Bush received an extra 3,893 votes due to a glitch in an electronic voting system. This is just one system, at one polling station. How many more illegitimate votes did Bush get? How many more systems like that are there out there countrywide? Do we have yet another stolen election?

Yet Another Case against Bush

As you can see, I've written a few pieces about the sitting President in the run-up to the election. It is Election day, and the polls will close in a matter of some hours. However, if you happen to read this article before you vote, and you still plan to vote for Bush, I urge you to carefully consider it. The article, authored by Judd Legum and published in The Nation, lists 100 points with a link to the source,- all of those points critical of President Bush and his Administration. The article is certainly partisan, and I can not say I agree with all of those points. However, some of them are so poignant as to make me say, "No need to go further. This man must be fired for that alone".

Take #2:

2. The Bush Administration sent troops into battle without adequate body armor or armored Humvees.

Sources: Fox News, The Boston Globe

And this is our "War President"? Think of it, regardless of whether you support the idea that our troops must be Iraq in the first place or not. Would you want to have somebody shoot at you with nothing but your t-shirt to stop the bullets with?

Or take #12:

12. After receiving a memo from the CIA in August 2001 titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack America," President Bush continued his monthlong vacation.

Source: CNN.com

The section on civil liberties the article underscores both the oppressive nature of this administration and its ineffectiveness to make any headway in the counter-terror effort,- the very effort which, they claimed, made it absolutely necessary to start harsh and oppressive practices.

81. Since 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft has detained 5,000 foreign nationals in antiterrorism sweeps; none have been convicted of a terrorist crime.

Source: hrwatch.org

82. The Bush Administration ignored pleas from the International Committee of the Red Cross to stop the abuse of prisoners in US custody.

Source: Wall Street Journal

83. In violation of international law, the Bush Administration hid prisoners from the Red Cross so the organization couldn't monitor their treatment.

Source: hrwatch.org

84. The Bush Administration, without ever charging him with a crime, arrested US citizen José Padilla at an airport in Chicago, held him on a naval brig in South Carolina for two years, denied him access to a lawyer and prohibited any contact with his friends and family.

Source: news.findlaw.com

85. President Bush's top legal adviser wrote a memo to the President advising him that he can legally authorize torture.

Source: news.findlaw.com

86. At the direction of Bush Administration officials, the FBI went door to door questioning people planning on protesting at the 2004 political conventions.

Source: New York Times

87. The Bush Administration refuses to support the creation of an independent commission to investigate the abuse of foreign prisoners in American custody. Instead, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld selected the members of a commission to review the conduct of his own department.

Source: humanrightsfirst.org

If I may insert a point of my own here,- it is worth remembering that, to the best of my knowledge, in the three years that have passed after 9/11 there Bush Administration has not succeeded in securing a single terror-related conviction by a jury. A few plea bargains resulted in terror-related sentences, but, given that data exists that coercion and a threat of indefinite detention was used to secure them, it is safe to say that the contribution of those convictions to the real progress in the fight against terrorism is probably marginal.

And if you believe that, contrary to Kerry The Flip-Flop, George W Bush is man of steadfast integrity,- the Flip Flops section of the article might convince you otherwise. For instance,

90. President Bush said he was committed to capturing Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" before he said, "I truly am not that concerned about him."

Source: americanprogressaction.org

This article is truly a must read, and I hope you get to read before you vote today. If not,- read it anyway.

The Election has Not Yet Started...

...But it looks like the theft of the Election has started already. Greg Palast, the man who reported in detail on the theft of the 2000 Election, has already discovered a few interesting occurrences.

It's not even Election Day yet, and the Kerry-Edwards campaign is already down by a almost a million votes. That's because, in important states like Ohio, Florida and New Mexico, voter names have been systematically removed from the rolls and absentee ballots have been overlooked—overwhelmingly in minority areas, like Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, where Hispanic voters have a 500 percent greater chance of their vote being "spoiled." Investigative journalist Greg Palast reports on the trashing of the election.

Some noteworthy things seem to be happening in Colorado.

Colorado Secretary of State Donetta Davidson just weeks ago removed several thousand voters from the state's voter rolls. She tagged felons as barred from voting. What makes this particularly noteworthy is that, unlike like Florida and a handful of other Deep South states, Colorado does not bar ex-cons from voting. Only those actually serving their sentence lose their rights.

There's no known, verified case of a Colorado convict voting illegally from the big house. Because previous purges have wiped away the rights of innocents, federal law now bars purges within 90 days of a presidential election to allow a voter to challenge their loss of civil rights.

To exempt her action from the federal rule, Secretary Davidson declared an "emergency." However, the only "emergency" in Colorado seems to be President Bush's running dead, even with John Kerry in the polls.

Why the sudden urge to purge? Davidson's chief of voting law enforcement is Drew Durham, who previously worked for the attorney general of Texas. This is what the former spokeswoman for the Lone Star state's attorney general says of Mr. Durham: He is, "unfit for public office... a man with a history of racism and ideological zealotry." Sounds just right for a purge that affects, in the majority, non-white voters.

From my own and government investigations of such purge lists, it is unlikely that this one contains many, if any, illegal voters.

But it does contain Democrats. The Dems may not like to shout about this, but studies indicate that 90-some percent of people who have served time for felonies will, after prison, vote Democratic. One suspects Colorado's Republican secretary of state knows that.

So it appears that some people are already busy at work to use statistics and dirty trick to one party's advantage,- namely, the Republicans.

I think this writing by Mr Palast is a must read for anyone concerned with the democracy in America. Personally, I find myself equally appalled and outraged by any kind of voter purging, regardless of who the perpetrator is. If you happen to know of an instance of election tampering by democrats, feel free to contact me with your stories, and if they are noteworthy I will publish them too.

However, as it appears at the moment, it is the Republicans who are mostly doing it,- from Republican election officials to the CEO of Diebold committing to deliver victory for Bush.

So, Who Took The Hot Loot at Qaqaa?

I have recently commented on the hundreds of tons of high-power explosives missing in Iraq. It is unclear what exactly happened to those explosives; some reports quote US military officials as saying that the explosives were removed from several storage facilities, including Qaqaa, prior to the Coalition forces' arrival. However, here is a report by Sara Daniel, a French journalist who claims to have witnessed the looting in progress as late as six months after the fall of Saddam's regime.

The account of Sara Daniel, which will be published Wednesday in the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, lends further weight to allegations that American occupying forces in Iraq failed to protect hundreds of tons of munitions from extremists plotting attacks against their own troops.

Much of the controversy has centered around the disappearance of about 380 tons of the powerful HMX explosive. The material, which had been monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency before the war and subsequently sealed in bunkers by its inspectors, was reported missing by Iraqi officials earlier this month.

Daniel, who spent nearly two hours at Qaqaa with a group that has since become known as the Islamic Army of Iraq, could not confirm seeing buildings that carried the agency's seal or explosives that were marked to be of the HMX variety. But her report is one of terrorists having easy access to a vast weapons inventory.

"I was utterly stupefied to see that a place like that was pretty much unguarded and that insurgents could help themselves for months on end," Daniel said on Friday. "We were there for a long time and no one disturbed the group while they were loading their truck."

A man who identified himself as Abu Abdallah and led the group Daniel was with, told her that his men and numerous other insurgent groups had rushed to Qaqaa after U.S.-led troops captured Baghdad on April 9 last year. The groups stole truck-loads of material from what used to be the biggest explosive factory in the Middle East in the expectation that coalition forces would move quickly to seal it off, Daniel was told.

Abu Abdullah and his men showed her the arsenal of rocket launchers, grenades and explosives hidden near their small farm houses, she said.

But much to the insurgents' surprise, Qaqaa was not sealed off by U.S. soldiers, leading many groups to stop hoarding and instead going for regular refills of explosive materials, according to Abu Abdullah.

Whoever has got it right here,- the US military or Sara Daniel,- no one appears to seriously dispute, at least at this point in time, the fact that the Qaqaa explosives storage facility has been emptied of its content by those other than the occupation military authorities. And it was just "the biggest explosive factory in the Middle East",- no big deal, really.

Questions, Questions...

In his The Nation article David Corn provides a list of questions and controversies surrounding President George W Bush. He mentions the absence of any sort of "October surprise" from either side of the divide,- something I view with relief as any such surprise could have had unpredictable consequences.

As of today--at least as of this moment--there has been no dramatic October Surprise orchestrated by the Bush crowd: no invasion of Iran, no capture of Osama bin Laden, no anti-Kerry charge that derails the challenger's campaign. And the time for any last-minute play is passing quickly. But Bush and his aides have successfully prevented another sort of October surprise, for in the weeks leading up to E Day a number of inconvenient and uncomfortable questions for Bush have continued to go unanswered. On several fronts, the Bushies have been able to dodge controversies without providing complete accounts. For example, as has been widely reported, the CIA's inspector general's report on the screw-up over Iraq's WMD is not being released before November 2. With voting already under way--thanks to early voting--and about to finish in days, they have run out the clock on critical matters, several of which might have had an impact on the final tally. Here is merely a partial list.

Corn then goes on to list those issues: the MIA WMD's in Iraq, the issue of planning of the war in Iraq (or lack of such planning), the Wilson leak, the phony Niger documents, the anthrax investigation (or, may I add, lack thereof), letting al-Zarqawi go, the censored Senate report on 9/11, Bush's past (his questionable military record and business career) and the controversy around his bother Neil's career (personally, I don't know how proper it is to bring this up,- I try to judge a person only based on his or her own record, disregarding that of their relatives). As Corn states, the list is partial, not complete. Yet, the question remains,- can the man who is at the center of all those unanswered questions be trusted to lead us for another four years?

For Those Who Are Undecided...

Here is a recommendation, courtesy Max Blumenthal. Basically, Max believes that if you still don't know who to vote for tomorrow, this is a website you ought to pay a visit to. Frankly, I only had time to watch the Eminem's "Mosh" video, which is a bit offensive but certainly powerful emotionally. Overall, the site looks like a good resource,- and definitely a good antidote to those who got exposed to too much of the neocon smear campaign against Kerry and others.