Iraq War

By Lindsay Pollard-Post

Americans and Afghans alike are rightly outraged over a video circulating on the Internet that allegedly shows U.S. Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. Pentagon officials are scrambling to do damage control, fearing that the video will hinder peace talks, and military officials are promising that those involved will be punished to the highest extent. But another video that surfaced recently also merits outrage and action: It shows a soldier viciously beating a sheep with a baseball bat while other soldiers laugh and cheer.

Blow after metallic, stomach-churning blow rains down on the terrified sheep’s skull. The convulsing and kicking animal tries in vain to rise and flee, but the man with the bat just keeps swinging. A local boy in the background jumps up and down in apparent delight while the sheep struggles on the ground. Despite a letter and phone calls from PETA to high-ranking Army officials, no action has been taken on this case after more than a month.

Animals don’t start wars. They don’t have political views, militaries or weapons. Yet they are often the victims of cruelty in combat zones. In 2008, video surfaced of a smiling Marine who hurled a live puppy off a cliff while another Marine laughed. Thankfully, after a massive public outcry and pressure from PETA, the puppy-tossing Marine was expelled, and another Marine in the video faced disciplinary action.

The same year, video that was allegedly taken from a CD found in Baghdad’s Green Zone depicts what appear to be U.S. soldiers taunting and tormenting a dog whose back legs were apparently crippled. The laughing men threw rocks at the dog, who snarled and yelped in pain before making a desperate attempt to flee on two legs. One of the men in the video said the dog’s attempt to run was “the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” Many other similar incidents of abuse have been recorded on video, and many more likely never see the light of day. Click to continue »

Corporal Matthew Boisvert Receives Fellowship to Volunteer with NEADS

LOWELL – After returning from his second tour in Iraq, Marine Corporal Mathew Boisvert was unsure how to continue his life of service here at home. Having lost a leg and the use of his hand in an IED blast, he was forced to give up his military career. Corporal Boisvert struggled to find a civilian equivalent to the sense of respect, trust and integrity he developed in the Marines. Then, he found The Mission Continues.

The Mission Continues Fellowship Program provides post-9/11 wounded and disabled veterans the opportunity to regain purpose in their lives after the military service has ended.  Veterans learn to translate their military experiences into civilian skill sets, while earning a modest living stipend.  A typical fellowship covers 28 weeks, during which the Fellow serves his or her community through a local charitable organization. 

Boisvert received a Mission Continues Fellowship to volunteer with National Education for Assistance Dog Services (NEADS), a non-profit that trains service dogs for veterans and disabled Americans. The project gave him a new purpose by uniting two of his most fundamental passions – the rehabilitation of shelter dogs and service to his fellow veterans.

In the future, Boisvert hopes to pursue a degree in applied animal behavior and open his own animal rescue shelter. His fellowship with NEADS provides the hands-on experience necessary to make that dream a reality. “After going through these life lessons and becoming part of the community again, you look at the world in a different way,” Matthew says, “I want to make things better for people.”

About The Mission Continues
The Mission Continues is a national nonprofit organization with a mission to build an America where every returning veteran can serve again as a citizen leader.  Founded in 2007 when Navy SEAL Eric Greitens returned from Iraq, the organization offers paid service fellowships to wounded and disabled veterans, awarding 156 fellowships in 25 states to date.  In addition, The Mission Continues has mobilized nearly 17,000 civilian and veteran volunteers to complete over 300 service projects across the nation.  For more information about The Mission Continues, please visit www.missioncontinues.org.

By Michael True

“The same war continues,” Denise Levertov wrote, in “Life at War.” Her lament is more appropriate for 2011 than as it was when she wrote the poem forty-five years ago.

Columnists and academics, including Andrew Bacevich, Boston University, are finally acknowledging facts familiar to anyone “awake” regarding failed U.S. policies, wasted lives and resources during this period, Willfully ignoring such facts, as Professor Bacevich wrote, “is to become complicit in the destruction of what most Americans profess to hold dear.”

At the beginning of this New Year, consequences of “life at war” stare us in the face: the victimization of military and civilian populations and a huge national debt, Click to continue »

By Michael Moore

We invaded Iraq because most Americans — including good liberals like Al Franken, Nicholas Kristof & Bill Keller of the New York Times, David Remnick of the New Yorker, the editors of the Atlantic and the New Republic, Harvey Weinstein, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and John Kerry — wanted to.

Of course the actual blame for the war goes to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz because they ordered the “precision” bombing, the invasion, the occupation, and the theft of our national treasury. I have no doubt that history will record that they committed the undisputed Crime of the (young) Century.

But how did they get away with it, considering they’d lost the presidential election by 543,895 votes? They also knew that the majority of the country probably wouldn’t back them in such a war (a Newsweek poll in October 2002 showed 61% thought it was “very important” for Bush to get formal approval from the United Nations for war — but that never happened). So how did they pull it off?

They did it by getting liberal voices to support their war. They did it by creating the look of bipartisanship. And they convinced other countries’ leaders like Tony Blair to get on board and make it look like it wasn’t just our intelligence agencies cooking the evidence. Click to continue »

By Michael Moore

We invaded Iraq because most Americans — including good liberals like Al Franken, Nicholas Kristof & Bill Keller of the New York Times, David Remnick of the New Yorker, the editors of the Atlantic and the New Republic, Harvey Weinstein, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and John Kerry — wanted to.

Of course, the actual blame for the war goes to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz because they ordered the “precision” bombing, the invasion, the occupation, and the theft of our national treasury. I have no doubt that history will record that they committed the undisputed Crime of the (young) Century.

But how did they get away with it, considering they’d lost the presidential election by 543,895 votes? They also knew that the majority of the country probably wouldn’t back them in such a war (a Newsweek poll in October 2002 showed 61% thought it was “very important” for Bush to get formal approval from the United Nations for war — but that never happened). So how did they pull it off?

They did it by getting liberal voices to support their war. They did it by creating the look of bipartisanship. And they convinced other countries’ leaders like Tony Blair to get on board and make it look like it wasn’t just our intelligence agencies cooking the evidence. Click to continue »

By Michael Moore

I know we’ve been “free” of the Iraq War for two weeks now and our minds have turned to the new football season and Fashion Week in New York. And how exciting that the new fall TV season is just days away!

But before we get too far away from something we would all just like to forget, will you please allow me to just say something plain and blunt and necessary:

We invaded Iraq because most Americans — including good liberals like Al Franken, Nicholas Kristof & Bill Keller of the New York Times, David Remnick of the New Yorker, the editors of the Atlantic and the New Republic, Harvey Weinstein, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and John Kerry — wanted to.

Of course the actual blame for the war goes to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz because they ordered the “precision” bombing, the invasion, the occupation, and the theft of our national treasury. I have no doubt that history will record that they committed the undisputed Crime of the (young) Century. Click to continue »

By Jack Hoffman

What do Angela Bennett, The New York Times, Julian Assange, Dan Ellsberg and Bradley E. Manning have in common?

Recently, while reading the latest news on the theft of 91,000 pages of TOP SECRET memos on the Afghanistan War, published in part by the New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel, and simultaneously watching the 1995 movie, “The NET,” I began to get that Deja vu moment once again about the Viet Nam War.

That period of time never seems to go away – especially the part about the truth being withheld from American citizens by our own government. And the media joined in on this conspiracy of lies! Click to continue »

By Jack Hoffman

Not so long ago when the country and Congress were debating the health care bill InCity Times little TV group (Straight Talk on TV 13) was getting ready to tape our weekly show.

What angered me so much during that show was the stupidity vis a vis the new Health Care Reform bill that was being expressed by the opposition. I doubt if anyone doing the yelling ever took the time to read just a little of the bill. I doubt if many of the folks in Congress did, too. Oops! Sorry! They have congressional aides for that.

So I said to ICT editor and publisher Rose [Tirella]: let’s talk about this stupidity.

She said: Jack, this will never go over in Worcester.

I’ll bet the folks up there might be a little embarrassed about just how stupid we really are so I’m letting it ride … . Click to continue »

By Michael True

In praising Gandhi, recently, President Barack Obama said that the effort to remain nonviolent in a polarized world “is still a work in progress.” Worcester’s new Center for Nonviolent Solutions, recently announced at the Saxe Room, in the Worcester Public Library, has committed itself to that effort.

The Center opened an office at 901 Pleasant St. in late October. It will cooperate with other local organizations devoted to de-escalating violence and building a peace culture, It will encourage public understanding of nonviolence as a way of life that rejects the use of violence by developing skills to construct peace in the family, the neighborhood and the schools. Click to continue »

By Richard Schmitt

Matthew Hoh fought in Iraq in 2004 – 2005 and again in 2006 – 2007, both as a commissioned officer in the US Marine Corps and as a civilian employee of the US government. He is a hero and a patriot. During the last six months he worked in Afghanistan as a foreign service officer. When he resigned his job last week, he stated that the war in Afghanistan, in his view, served no purpose. Human lives, by no means only American, and huge amounts of money were being wasted on a misguided undertaking.

From where we are in the US, it is difficult to say whether Hoh’s doubts about the Afghan war are correct. But the questions he raises are critical. Whatever President Obama and his advisors decide about that war, Hoh’s questions must be answered if our government chooses to continue that war in any form. Click to continue »