Antiwar.com Blog

Two recent articles in USA Today illustrate the hidden costs of the war.

The first is about an Army study that found mental issues in 25,000 troops that came back from Iraq, including “post-traumatic stress disorder and depression to substance abuse and family conflict.” 7,000 soldiers admitted to having a drinking problem.

The second is about police officers who come home from Iraq with symptoms of PTSD “that law enforcement and mental health authorities fear could put their judgment and public safety at risk.”

Americans who served in the military and those who have the misfortune of being in their family or otherwise dealing with them will be suffering from the effects of this evil war for years to come. When will this madness end? Will it have to drag out as long as Vietnam did?

[audio:http://wiredispatch.com/charles/2007-11-27glenngreenwald.mp3]

Lawyer, author and blogger Glenn Greenwald, discusses Scott McClellan’s revelations about the president’s lying, the pathetic American media, the defeat of former Australian PM Howard, the danger of war with Iran, Bush’s hilarious speech at the Federalist Society, his contempt for/ignorance of basic constitutional premises, his record spending and Rudy Giuliani’s insanity.

MP3 here. (17:51)

Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling book How Would a Patriot Act?, a critique of the Bush administration’s use of executive power, released in May 2006. His brand new book is A Tragic Legacy.

Liam Madden from Iraq Veterans Against the War sends the following:

In 1969, the My Lai massacre helped fuel popular opposition to the Vietnam War. U.S. political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. Members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War knew differently.

In January of 1971, over one hundred Vietnam Veterans gathered in Detroit to testify their experiences to America. Their testimony, called the Winter Soldier Investigation, revealed that atrocities were systemic and responsibility laid at the highest levels of government.

The U.S. Government lied to get us into war and continues to conceal the true nature of military occupation.

On the weekend of 13-15 March, 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will assemble history’s largest gathering of US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Iraqi and Afghan survivors. They will provide first hand accounts of their experiences and reveal the truth of occupation.

Click here to sign the statement of support.

Headmaster Sullivan tells us to clean our plates:

Imagine an Obama-McCain race: adult, graceful, necessary, and good for us.

Ah, Mr. Platitude vs. Mr. Come-Unglued: yep, it’ll be a regular Metamucil martini. Very adult!

Today’s nugget of conventional wisdom comes from liberal hawk George Packer:

In this election, the isolationist candidate is the Texas congressman Ron Paul. He frequently attacks the core rationale of Bush’s foreign policy, and receives enthusiastic applause for doing so, which indicates that Republican views about the war in Iraq might be more heterodox than the leading candidates and their strategists assume. But his brand of anti-interventionism reduces the Republican debate to hawks versus cranks. “They attack us because we’ve been over there. We’ve been bombing Iraq for ten years,” Paul said at a debate in South Carolina. “I’m suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it.”

Packer, who worked so hard to get us into Iraq that he cannot bear the thought of leaving, begins the very next paragraph as follows: “The room for genuine discussion in the Republican field is so limited…” Yes, it’s a shame that there are such narrow limits on our foreign policy discourse. How did we ever reach this sorry pass?

Link.

The November 21 Iraq Weekly Status Report, published by the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs of the US Department of State:

Senior military commanders now portray the intransigence of Iraq’s Shiite dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaida terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias. Several U.S. military officials have expressed growing concern over the Iraqi government’s failure to capitalize on sharp declines in attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians. A window of opportunity has opened for the government to reach out to its former foes, said Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the commander of day-to-day U.S. military operations in Iraq, but “it’s unclear how long that window is going to be open.”