Next on POV: ‘Where Soldiers Come From’

Watch Where Soldiers Come From - Trailer on PBS. See more from POV.

From a snowy, small town in northern Michigan to the mountains of Afghanistan, Where Soldiers Come From follows the four-year journey of childhood friends who join the National Guard after graduating from high school. As it chronicles the young men’s transformation from restless teenagers to soldiers looking for roadside bombs to 23-year-old combat veterans trying to start their lives again, the film offers an intimate look at the young Americans who fight our wars, the families and towns they come from — and the way one faraway conflict changes everything. Visit POV’s Where Soldiers Come From website for video and interactive features about the film. READ MORE

Do Republicans really want $400 a gallon gas?

Tanker trucks that transport fuel to NATO forces in
Afghanistan are parked near oil terminals in
Pakistan's port city of Karachi on May 15, 2012.

Commentary: That’s what the military pays in Afghanistan. 

And some in the GOP have fought efforts to change that.

Roger SorkinJune 13, 2012 06:20


WASHINGTON — For years, military leaders have identified fossil fuel dependence as the greatest long-term threat to US national security — and not just dependence on foreign sources, but on all fossil fuels, period. The Pentagon has taken the lead in developing alternative fuels, an effort our military-industrial complex stands ready to support.


Given the severity of our security interests and the profit motive for innovative solutions, one would expect a concern for national security to provide the common ground upon which progressives and conservatives can support an off-ramp from oil, coal and gas. Regrettably, that is not the case.


A group of 14 Republican Congressmen recently sent a letter to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus advising him that his goal to make the Navy less reliant on fossil fuels is misguided. Coming from a party whose politicians regularly emphasize the importance of “listening to the generals,” especially on questions of force protection and mission effectiveness, the behavior of these 14 Republicans represents the height of irresponsibility and hypocrisy. They ignore the military’s understanding of the significant dangers of dependence on fossil fuels, both as a nation and for our military.  READ MORE

Increase In Multiple Amputations For Troops In Afghanistan

The Army Surgeon General’s office data reveals that amputations resulting in multiple limb-loss rose for U.S. troops serving in the Afghan war. Nearly half of last year’s record 226 combat amputations ended with the troop losing two or more of their arms and legs, compared with only a quarter in 2009. Bigger improvised explosive devices (IED) targeting U.S. forces and better techniques for hiding them alongside roads led to the increased limb-losses, said a former top military doctor. USA Today prepared this chart to go along with its report on the trend:

By Ali Gharib | Sourced from Think Progress

Posted at June 5, 2012, 12:25 pm

 

Building a 'Mature' Democracy in Afghanistan

Presidents Hamid Karzai and Barack Obama at the
White House. (photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com

09 March 12

ow primitive the Afghans are!  A New York Times account of faltering negotiations over a possible “strategic partnership” agreement to leave U.S. troops on bases in that country for years to come highlights just how far the Afghans have to go to become, like their U.S. mentor, a mature democracy.  Take the dispute over prisons.  Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been insisting that the U.S. turn over its prison facility at Bagram Air Base to his government.  (The recently burned Korans came from that prison's library.)  The Obama administration initially refused and now has suggested a six-month timetable for such a turnover, an option Karzai has, in turn, rejected.  No one, by the way, seems yet to be negotiating about a second $36-million prison at Bagram that, TomDispatch recently reported, the U.S. is now in the process of building.

The Times' Alissa Rubin suggests, however, that a major stumbling block remains to any such turnover.  She writes: “The challenges to a transfer are enormous, presenting serious security risks both for the Afghan government and American troops. Many of the estimated 3,200 people being detained [in Bagram's prison] cannot be tried under Afghan law because the evidence does not meet the legal standards required to be admitted in Afghan courts. Therefore, those people, including some suspected insurgents believed likely to return to the fight if released, would probably have to be released because Afghanistan has no law that allows for indefinite detention for national security reasons.”

Honestly, what kind of a backward country doesn't have a provision for the indefinite detention, on suspicion alone, of prisoners without charges or hope of trial?  As a mature democracy, we now stand proudly for global indefinite detention, not to speak of the democratic right to send robot assassins to take out those suspected of evil deeds anywhere on Earth.  As in any mature democracy, the White House has now taken on many of the traits of a legal system -- filling, that is, the roles of prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner.  READ MORE

Privatizing the War on Terror

America has become increasingly dependent on
military contractors to carry out military operations
abroad. (photo: JustinWrites.WordPress.com)

By John W. Whitehead, Antiwar.com

18 January 12

f all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
– James Madison

America’s troops may be returning home from Iraq, but contrary to President Obama’s assertion that "the tide of war is receding," we’re far from done paying the costs of war. In fact, at the same time that Obama is reducing the number of troops in Iraq, he’s replacing them with military contractors at far greater expense to the taxpayer and redeploying American troops to other parts of the globe, including Africa, Australia, and Israel. In this way, the war on terror is privatized, the American economy is bled dry, and the military-security-industrial complex makes a killing - literally and figuratively speaking.

The war effort in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan has already cost taxpayers more than $2 trillion and could go as high as $4.4 trillion before it’s all over. At least $31 billion (and as much as $60 billion or more) of that $2 trillion was lost to waste and fraud by military contractors, who do everything from janitorial and food service work to construction, security, and intelligence - jobs that used to be handled by the military. That translates to a loss of $12 million a day since the U.S. first invaded Afghanistan. To put it another way, the government is spending more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.  READ MORE

Wrong ringtone can get you killed in Afghanistan:

Taliban routinely check cell phones to see where loyalties lie
Travelers often carry extra SIM card with pro-Taliban content, just in case

BY David Boroff
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Friday, December 30 2011, 1:51 AM


The wrong ringtone can get you killed in the unpredictable and dangerous world of Afghanistan.
Thugs at Taliban checkpoints will often check the cells of travelers for hints of their allegiance.

If your ringtone is Lady Gaga, for instance, the militant group might view it as pro-American and react with hostility or even deadly violence.  As a result, many residents are forced to stock up on Taliban-friendly ringtones in case they are stopped at checkpoints.  READ MORE

Stop the War on Christmas: Cease Fire in Afghanistan

American soldiers during a push against insurgents in the Zhari district of Afghanistan, west of Kandahar city, on September 21, 2010. (Photo: Tyler Hicks / The New York Times)

Saturday 24 December 2011
by: Robert Naiman, Truthout | Op-Ed

"The Christmas truce has a rich history …
In December 1914, as war raged in Europe, Pope Benedict
XV called for a Christmas cease-fire … In one of the most compelling acts of mass civil disobedience in the 20th
century, rank-and-file troops carried out the action that the
Pope had called for, negotiating local Christmas cease-fires
on the Western Front…. Maybe, if we get busy, by Christmas 2014, the guns in Afghanistan will be silenced for good."
Read the Article

Major discovery: a purpose of the war in Afghanistan

Medical nurses of U.S Marines carry the injuried Afghan boy to hospital after he fell from a wall at Forward Operating Base Edi in the Helmand Province of southern Afghanistan

By Glenn Greenwald

The U.S. is determined to stay until there are no Afghans left who wants it gone. Then it can leave. Click here to read the entire article...

The Washington Post today describesthe failure of regimented programs in Afghanistan to reintegrate Taliban teenagers ("Taliban" (alt.: "Terrorist") means "any Afghan who fights against the presence of foreign military forces in their country" and "reintegrate" means "persuading or compelling them to passively acquiesce to those forces"):

The teenage insurgents spend their days learning to make shoes and bookshelves, listening to religious leaders denounce the radical interpretation of Islam they learned as children. But when they return to their cells at Kabul's juvenile rehabilitation center, the boys with wispy beards and cracking voices talk only of the holy war from which they were plucked and their plans to resume fighting for the Taliban. As the Taliban presses its efforts to recruit teenage fighters, Afghan officials and their international backers have crafted a program to reintegrate the country's youngest insurgents into mainstream society. But that ambition is coming up against the intransigence of the teens, who say they would rather be on the battlefield. READ MORE

Former Senator Bob Graham Urges Obama to Reopen Investigation into Saudi Role in 9/11 Attacks

Former Florida governor and senator Bob Graham is calling on President Obama to reopen the investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks after new information has emerged about the possible role of prominent Saudis in the 9/11 plot. According to recent news reports, a wealthy young Saudi couple fled their home in a gated community in Sarasota, Florida, just a week or so before Sept. 11, 2001, leaving behind three cars and nearly all of their possessions. The FBI was tipped off about the couple but never passed the information on to the 9/11 Commission investigating the attacks, even though phone records showed the couple had ties to Mohamed Atta and at least 10 other al-Qaeda suspects. Graham joins us to discuss the news he’s called "the most important thing about 9/11 to surface in the last seven or eight years." As the former chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, a post he held on September 11, 2001, Graham chaired the Congressional Joint Inquiry into the attacks. He’s just written a novel called "Keys to the Kingdom,” which follows a fictitious former senator and co-chair of the 9/11 congressional inquiry who is murdered near his Florida home after he uncovers an international conspiracy linking the Saudi Kingdom to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Graham says he chose to write the novel after his 2004 non-fiction book, "Intelligence Matters," was heavily censored. [includes rush transcript]