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Army's Divorce Rate Soars
The rate of divorce among army personnel has soared since the beginning of the Iraq War, as the stress of combat, long separations, and money problems begin to claim marriages as another part of the casualty count and collateral damage.
NEW YORK — While U.S. casualties steadily mount in Iraq, another toll is rising rapidly on the home front: The Army’s divorce rate has soared in the past three years, most notably for officers, as longer and more frequent war zone deployments place extra strain on couples. “We’ve seen nothing like this before,” said Col. Glen Bloomstrom, a chaplain who oversees family-support programs. “It indicates the amount of stress on couples, on families, as the Army conducts the global war on terrorism.”
The Army has begun extensive programs to help couples manage the strains that a war, with no discernible plan for winning, nor any possibily of ending in the forseeable future, wreaks havoc with families all across America.
While some of the Army’s programs aim to prepare couples for their first deployment-related separation, others try to help couples with the often-difficult adjustments when a spouse returns from combat-zone duty to a mate who has been shouldering extra responsibilities at home.
“Our hope is to change the culture,” Bloomstrom said. “Initially there’s a stigma about any program to do with relationships. We need to teach that there’s nothing wrong with preventive maintenance for marriage.”
While it's a good thing that the Army has begun to offer therapy to couples, I don't imagine the derogatory comments from Senior White House Advisor, Karl Rove (at a fundraiser in NY last week) helped to remove any stigmas, but likely created more than were there to begin with.
"Be skeptical of those who have a history of lying, do one's own research thoroughly, validate information whenever possible, and keep writing the truth as we know it."
Posted by: Karen at July 2, 2005 11:48 PM
Karen, when you say it, it seems so simple. Why can't our so-called journalists get it?
Corruption of Blood
Corruption of Blood was part of ancient English penalty for treason. It was usually part of a Bill of Attainder, which normally sentenced the accused to death. The corruption of blood would forbid the accused's family from inhereting his property. Such bills and punishments were often inflicted upon Tories by colonial governments immediately following independence.
Source: 381 US 437
Dear John,
I realized today that our government has been engaged in an illegal war...
Section 3 - Treason Note
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html#TREASON
OT -
http://www.live8live.com/
The organizers of the Live 8 concert are going to line a strategic street of Edinburgh with photos of people who support their efforts to end global poverty. If you want your picture to be in Edinburgh, here's the link:
http://www.live8live.com/
The site is extremely busy, so errors are occuring; be patient. The pictures go up on the 6th.
Heaven's Gate: Secret Air War Seals the Case for War Crime Charges
Published July 1, 2005 in The Moscow Times.
This week, George W. Bush gave a big speech "explaining" the Iraq war to the American people. It was the usual load of lying blather and false piety – deeply, even murderously cynical. But there's no point in wasting a single thought over these clown shows anymore. Bush is a nasty little moral cretin fronting a gang of elitist thugs whose only concerns are loot and power. Nothing he says has the slightest credibility. Only his actions – crimes soaked with human blood – have any meaning or truth.
So let's deal in truth. Let's talk about crime. Specifically, the flagrant war crime committed by Bush and his comrade in moral cretinhood, Tony Blair, in May 2002, as TomPaine.com reports. Yes, 2002 – long before the ground invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The "Downing Street Memos" – top-level UK government documents whose authenticity has been confirmed by Blair's own office – show clearly that Bush and Blair began a ferocious air war against Iraq in May 2002, despite the unequivocal ruling by Blair's own lawyers that such a campaign constituted a clear act of military aggression: the "supreme international crime" for which the Nazi leaders were condemned at Nuremberg.
The avowed purpose of this bombing campaign – openly admitted by U.S. military brass – was to destroy Iraq's defenses in preparation for the long-planned ground assault. It began months before the U.S. Congress gave its rather vague approval for possible military action to enforce the disarming of Iraq's non-existent WMD. And it had nothing to do with the "no-fly zones" maintained for years over southern Iraq by the US and UK, ostensibly to prevent Saddam Hussein from using aircraft to suppress Shiite unrest. (Strangely enough, the only time Saddam actually tried to use airpower against the Shiites, in 1991, he was given explicit permission to do so by America's leaders at the time: George H.W. Bush and Pentagon chief Dick Cheney.)
Bush and Blair's secret air war against Iraq is perhaps the most blatant and indefensible aspect of their multi-headed war crime in Iraq. No amount of contorted legal quibbling or weasel-worded readings of UN resolutions can justify such a large-scale military action undertaken without the approval – or even the notification – of Congress and Parliament. And the documents make clear that the Anglo-American leaders knew the air campaign was illegal – as was the whole case for "regime change," which the memos admit was "weak" and unsupported by evidence.
But the memos reveal that Bush and Blair had already decided on war, during their April 2002 meeting at Bush's ranch in Crawford. No doubt the two Christian leaders – who bray their faith in Jesus at every opportunity – knelt in prayer together as they sealed their pact of blood. From that point on, the memos show, Blair and Bush ignored all concerns about legality, all questions about the shaky WMD evidence, and the extensive worries of many insiders about the near-total lack of planning for the post-war situation. They sought only to "create the political conditions" for war, manufacturing public consent through slick, fearmongering propaganda and, in the memos' most famous phrase, by "fixing the facts and intelligence around the policy" of aggression.
Thus, with full knowledge that they were following in the footsteps of the Nuremberg criminals, Bush and Blair began the war in May 2002, pouring tons of bombs on Iraq during the next 10 months. Not only were they clearing the path for the coming invasion; the memos show that the leaders also hoped to provoke Saddam into retaliating, thereby giving them a PR excuse for war: "self-defense" against Iraqi "aggression."
But Saddam – this "raging madman" lusting to destroy America with his fearsome weapons – did nothing. He sat meekly while his air and naval defenses were pounded into rubble. And here we see how the bombing campaign strips bare the Big Lie that drove the whole sinister enterprise: the supposed threat of Saddam's alleged WMD. The Crawford knee-benders never would have launched their war if they really believed Saddam might rain anthrax on Jerusalem or slip Osama a plutonium core. They knew – as the lack of response to the air assault proved – that the WMD threat was empty, that Saddam, their former ally, was a broken reed.
In fact, Saddam spent the months of bombardment frantically offering a virtual surrender: armed, unhindered WMD inspections; free elections under international supervision; support for any U.S. position on Israel-Palestine; vast oil concessions. But these offers – negotiated through back-channels with American intelligence and leading neoconservatives – were spurned by Bush, the NY Times reported in November 2003. The moral cretins wanted conquest, not disarmament or Iraqi freedom; they wanted the enhanced power and historical status given to "war leaders," as Bush himself told the family biographer, Mickey Herskowitz, in 1999, CommonDreams reports.
"One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief," then-candidate Bush told Herskowitz. "My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade…I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency."
Thus by his own admission, Bush regards war – slaughter, ruin, chaos and terror – as the measure of success, the path to greatness. He sees blood as the prime lubricant for his rapacious domestic policies. He uses unprovoked military aggression to achieve his personal and political goals.
In what way, then, is he different from the moral cretins who were hanged at Nuremberg?
Chris Floyd
http://www.empireburlesquenow.blogspot.com/
Good post, rossi....
Did you check the comments section for that blog post? The first one had this link:
http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=11466&TagID=2
Shocking report of children being tortured by US Soldiers
Arrested Development
By Arlie Hochschild*
Source: New York Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rove3jul03,0,4543037.story?track=tottext
L.A. Times
Rove Talked But Did Not Tattle, His Attorney Says
The Bush advisor spoke with a Time reporter days before a CIA operative was outed.
By Richard B. Schmitt
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-assess3jul03,0,46403.story?track=tottext
L.A. Times
High Noon for High Court
A polarizing showdown over O'Connor's seat may alienate a public that prefers the middle.
By Doyle McManus
GOP Senate Keeps Bunker Buster Nuke Alive
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/070205C.shtml
[Why?!?!?]
Marjorie Cohn | The Creeping Draft
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/070105A.shtml
http://www.msnbc.com/comics/daily.asp?sfile=nq050702&vts=7320050213
A great cartoon for Polly Sigh and her fans!!!
NonnyO,
The cartoon is even funnier/sadder because the little gate house in it looks EXACTLY like the little gatehouses that have gone up around the Capitol and the White House.
I want to remind everyone reading this blog that we should not be wasting our energy on being paranoid about attacks from outside the country, or even fearing that the local police will somehow turn on people during the July 4th evacuation practice following the fireworks on the Mall. (as Christy seemed to be concerned on the previous thread).
A couple of points of information:
The security in Washington is 90% for show. It is ominous to see so many barriers up, and to know we are on video most of the time when we are down on the Mall--as we have been this past week for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
But the people who provide the coverage for the Capitol and who are watching us on video are our neighbors. The guardianship of the people of Washington comes from the people hired to oversee the everyday safety of the city, and those people are us.
The outsiders are the people who guard the President and the current administration. They are in a whole different category and they could care less about US.
In a real emergency, the people will take care of the people, and the strange men with trenchcoats and earpieces will take care of the "insiders".
I assume Howard Dean and the Democrats in the House and Senate will be on their own.
I will share that whenever the code here goes to "orange", and the Capitol police have to set up the checkpoints and stand out there as we all drive home from work or shopping, that they understand fully what they are doing. We who live here are recognized and waved through easily. Sometimes, they sigh ever so slightly.
Our kids know where they are to go in the event of an emergency, and they all have cell phones and they know the bus system well. They, too, understand, that our federal government will not be interested in protecting us: the citizens of this little colony.
We also hope that foreign powers and insurgent groups have enough intelligence (so far this has held up nicely) to know that President Bush and his crew are rarely here in town. The man simply does not work here. He is always in Texas, or at Camp David, or somewhere hawking some stupid idea like "private accounts".
So picture the people of Washington DC as everyday folks who know the country is being stratified and disenfranchised, and who voted overwhelmingly against this President (police voted too...). And picture this President and his "people' as fully aware that the 'hood folks are NOT on his team.
And let's focus on effective strategies for organizing to take this country back please. Let's not get distracted with unwinnable arguments or misplaced paranoia. There is plenty wrong that needs to be addressed square on.
What are you doing for the 4th of July? Note Five Minutes for this weekend on the front page...as a suggestion.
Photos and videos + protest
http://permanent.nouvelobs.com/etranger/20050616.OBS0360.html
Extraordinary day unfolds: We don't want Charity, We want Justice
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1520185,00.html
I've been handing out the torture is imoral & unpatriotic flags-shurt down Guantanamo
willhave to find link again.....
Putin Calls For World Cooperation on Iraq
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5115724,00.html
UK Aid Funds Iraqi Torture Units
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1520186,00.html
Making Prejudice History (the worldwide discrimination against homosexuals must be addressed, by Elton John)
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1520086,00.html
Official Secrecy Reaches All-Time Level
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/03/news/secrets.php
Seargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - live video of Paul McCartney performing at Live8
http://www.guardian.co.uk - check out top 2 feature articles - lots on Live8, live blogging, more videos
LA Times reports "Tens of Thousands" and NPR reported "Hundreds of Thousands."
I can not imagine the kind of life there in DC, Karen. Both parties have treated these citizens like dirt under their feet. They have taken advantage of them in the highest sense of the word--both Republicans and Democrats. Why have even current politicians refused to call DC it's own state? It is a colony. It is taxed.
I was happy to hear that the Democrats are going to support statehood for DC but I wonder why nobody has done it yet? Why didn't Clinton? Why didn't all these people who have lived there, seen the average citizen working and at play, and not realized, "They deserve representation too."
What's with all the secrecy?
First I read that more government documents are classified than ever before (International Herald Tribune, Seattle Times).
Then someone emails me a story about a woman who was turned away at US Customs because she wanted to come from Canada to care for her ailing mother in Hawaii for 6 months. She gave up her job and spent $1300 on an air ticket.
Then I read in (Miami Herald) about a US Marine just returned from Iraq who is blocked by CONGRESS from visiting his sons in Cuba. Castro blocks people from visiting relatives, and now we do too, he says.
Then I read headlines about Gonzales making a surprise visit to Iraq and Tony Blair making a surprise visit to Saudi Arabia but no where in the stories did it say what the visits were about!
I thought the Nixon era was secretive.
Posted by: Karen at July 3, 2005 07:55 AM
No, I did not suppose DC people did anything other than live their lives... Non Sequitur is a cartoon strip that often has satirical twists on politics that hit my funny bone just right, and on my MSN page I have that as one of the comic strips I get to read daily. (I don't know if that comes with MSN Messenger or the hotmail account one has to have to set up Messenger, but I have the newspaper headlines on one page and the cartoons on the other.)
I managed to watch most of the drivel on Good Morning America (about nodded off in boredom). The first news segment had a five or ten second blurb about Rove and nothing else. George Stephanopolous was trying to get both Senator Kennedy and Specter to speculate on four people he thinks are on the short list for SCOTUS nominations, and neither one took the bait, which frustrated Stephanopolous no end. I heard a brief mention about Rove in the opening segment, but if he was talked about at all, I was watching another channel. When I got back to it, the topic was once again SCOTUS.
Thunderstorms are predicted for today, and one already went through in the middle of the night. Storms will likely keep me offline for most of today, since there is a bank of ugly gray clouds on the horizon again, and there are T-storm warnings up for the whole state for most of the day.
I'm not going to worry too much about SCOTUS nominations until I hear who pResident Nitwit nominates.
I want to hear something about the Plame leak in connection with Rove, and I think it's time to write to the networks (national and local) and see if anything will get them to talk about Rove and the Plame leak.... It may be a ruse to get people talking about something other than what else may be going on behind the scenes, but I can walk and chew gum at the same time.... and I want to know who outed Plame, and why Novak's notes haven't been demanded....
Oh, and P.S.... The fireworks in town are set off about eight blocks south of where I live. I will be watching them the evening of the 4th from the porch upstairs where I live... much easier than fighting traffic, or even trying to walk to the park next to where they are set off (altho I did do that one year with neighbors). I have the perfect vantage point, and as long as the mosquitoes leave me alone, I can have a good view of all the fireworks on the 4th.....
Hope everyone else has a great time!!! :-)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/politics/politicsspecial1/03scotus.html?th&emc=th
Conservative Groups Rally Against Gonzales as Justice
WASHINGTON, July 2 - Within hours after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's announced retirement from the Supreme Court, members of conservative groups around the country convened in five national conference calls in which, participants said, they shared one big concern: heading off any effort by President Bush to nominate his attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales, to replace her.
[Click on link to read more. Not one mini-headline about Rove on the e-newsletter from NYTimes.]
With Stephanopolous, one of the commentators said something about Gonzales in Iraq, mentioned it would be good for him to be seen with the troops if he does come up for a nomination.... However, conservative groups don't like Gonzales for his moderate stance on their hot button issues (they don't seem to object to his attempt to redefine torture, or to Gonzales' saying pResident Nitwit is above the law, etc....).
Feds Raid Congressman's Home
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/070305Z.shtml