ProgressOhio

"We just believe our heroes deserve to be treated better than that."

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered a review of the handling of the remains of US war dead and apologized after learning that some were cremated in a commercial facility that also cremates pets, the Pentagon said.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said there was no evidence that any US servicemember was cremated in an incinerator used for pets.

But Gates believed that the use of a commercial facility that cremated both humans and pets, albeit in separate incinerators, was "insensitive and entirely inappropriate for the dignified treatment of our fallen," Morrell said.

"The families of the fallen have the secretary's deepest apology," he added.

Watch it:

...until you consider the origins of Mother's Day.

Julia Ward Howe, who penned The Battle Hymn of the Republic, also authored a mothers' Declaration calling on women to oppose war, and worked to get recognition of a Mother’s Day for Peace. Says Code Pink: "Were she alive today, Julia probably would have told her kids to dispense with the roses and chocolates, and instead join her in an anti-war rally. Yes, Julia Ward Howe was a peacenik."

[Howe] saw some of the worst effects of the [civil] war -- not only the death and disease which killed and maimed the soldiers. She worked with the widows and orphans of soldiers on both sides of the war, and realized that the effects of the war go beyond the killing of soldiers in battle. She also saw the economic devastation of the Civil War, the economic crises that followed the war, the restructuring of the economies of both North and South.

In 1870, Julia Ward Howe took on a new issue and a new cause….She called in 1870 for women to rise up and oppose war in all its forms. She wanted women to come together across national lines, to recognize what we hold in common above what divides us, and commit to finding peaceful resolutions to conflicts. She issued a Declaration, hoping to gather together women in a congress of action.

Howe failed in her attempt to get formal recognition of a Mother's Day for Peace, but her effort was carried on by Anna Jarvis, who had organized women during the Civil War to work for better sanitary conditions for both sides, and then toward reconciliation of Union and Confederate neighbors.

Jarvis’ daughter, of the same name, then took up the campaign for Mother’s Day. After the custom spread to 45 states, President Woodrow Wilson declared the first national Mother’s Day in 1914.

Julia Ward Howe's Mothers' Declaration:

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Maybe Pryce, Schmidt, Tiberi, Chabot, Boehner, Regula, LaTourette, Hobson, and Turner have a thing against moms. But YOU can make this Mother's Day a Mother's Day For Peace.

Help CodePink help Iraqi refugee moms here.

Send a MomsRising Mother's Day card and tell the presidential candidates to fight for family-friendly policies. here.

Oh and don't forget to call the Congressional Switchboard at 1-800-839-5276 to give the above members of Congress a piece of your mind about H.R. 1113.

Do you have another suggestion for honoring Julia Ward Howe's Mothers' Declaration? Are you a mom working for peace? Leave a comment below.

Post-War Suicides May Exceed Combat Deaths, U.S. Says

The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said.

Community mental health centers, hobbled by financial limits, haven't provided enough scientifically sound care, especially in rural areas, said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He briefed reporters today at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in Washington.

Insel echoed a Rand Corporation study published last month that found about 20 percent of returning U.S. soldiers have post- traumatic stress disorder or depression, and only half of them receive treatment. About 1.6 million U.S. troops have fought in the two wars since October 2001, the report said. About 4,560 soldiers had died in the conflicts as of today, the Defense Department reported on its Web site.

Read the whole story here.

Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin'.
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drummin'.
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it.
Soldiers are cutting us down.
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her and
Found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

John McCain defended his now infamous “100 years in Iraq” comments made at a town hall back in January, contending the Democrats are deliberately distorting his remarks. He explained today that those who say he wants to fight in Iraq for 100 years are making a “direct falsification” and apologized that campaigns “have to deteriorate in this fashion.”

At a New Hampshire event five months ago, McCain had an exchange with a voter about the war. “President Bush has talked about staying in Iraq for 50 years,” the man said before McCain interrupted. “Maybe a hundred… We’ve been in Japan for 60 years, we’ve been in South Korea 50 years or so, that’d be fine with me. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, then it’s fine with me. I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al-Qaeda is training recruiting equipping and motivating people every single day,” McCain said.

Back in September, when President Bush first rolled out the Korea model of the permanent occupation of Iraq which Sen. McCain (R) has now embraced as his platform, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office did a study of what a 50 year 'Korea model' presence in Iraq would cost.

The study was done with highly conservative estimates, figuring a much smaller contingent of troops, and basically all the best case scenario numbers, including everything being basically chill over there like McCain says it'll be.

The CBO came up with an additional $2 trillion over 50 years.

Here, then, is a look back on John McCain's words on the mission accomplished in Iraq:

On the Run-Up to War

"Look, we're going to send young men and women in harm's way and that's always a great danger, but I cannot believe that there is an Iraqi soldier who is going to be willing to die for Saddam Hussein, particularly since he will know that our objective is to remove Saddam Hussein from power."
John McCain, September 15, 2002.

"But the fact is, I think we could go in with much smaller numbers than we had to do in the past. But any military man worth his salt is going to have to prepare for any contingency, but I don't believe it's going to be nearly the size and scope that it was in 1991."
John McCain, September 15, 2002.

"He's a patriot who has the best interests of his country at heart."
John McCain, on Ahmed Chalabi, 2003.

On Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction

"Proponents of containment claim that Iraq is in a "box." But it is a box with no lid, no bottom, and whose sides are falling out. Within this box are definitive footprints of germ, chemical and nuclear programs."
John McCain, February 13, 2003.

"I remain confident that we will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
John McCain, June 11, 2003.

On Being Greeted as Liberators

"Absolutely. Absolutely."
John McCain, asked by Chris Matthews, "you believe that the people of Iraq or at least a large number of them will treat us as liberators?" March 12, 2003.

"Not only that, they'll be relieved that he's not in the neighborhood because he has invaded his neighbors on several occasions."
John McCain, asked by Chris Matthews, "And you think the Arab world will come to a grudging recognition that what we did was necessary?" March 12, 2003.

"There's no doubt in my mind that we will prevail and there's no doubt in my mind, once these people are gone, that we will be welcomed as liberators."
John McCain, March 24, 2003.

On a Rapid Victory and Mission Accomplished

"I think the victory will be rapid, within about three weeks."
John McCain, January 28, 2003.

"It's clear that the end is very much in sight...It won't be long. It, it'll be a fairly short period of time."
John McCain, April 9, 2003.

"Well, then why was there a banner that said mission accomplished on the aircraft carrier?"
John McCain, responding to assertion by Fox News' Neil Cavuto that "many argue the conflict isn't over," June 11, 2003.

"I have said a long time that reconstruction of Iraq would be a long, long, difficult process, but the conflict -- the major conflict is over, the regime change has been accomplished, and it's very appropriate."
John McCain, June 11, 2003.

"I'm confident we're on the right course."
John McCain, March 7, 2004.

"We're either going to lose this thing or win this thing within the next several months."
John McCain, November 12, 2006.

"My friends, the war will be over soon, the war for all intents and purposes although the insurgency will go on for years and years and years."
John McCain, February 25, 2008.

On the Safe Streets of Baghdad

"[There] there "are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today."
John McCain, after touring a Baghdad market wearing a bulletproof vest and guarded by "100 American soldiers, with three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships overhead, April 1, 2007.

"There's problems in America with safe neighborhoods as we well know."
John McCain, March 8, 2008.

On President Bush and His Team

"We are very fortunate that our president in these challenging days can rely on the counsel of a man who has demonstrated time and again the resolve, experience, and patriotism that will be required for success and the hard-headed clear thinking necessary to prevail in this global fight between good and evil."
John McCain, on Dick Cheney, July 16, 2004.

"I think he strengthened our national defenses. I think he has a good team around him."
John McCain, on President Bush, September 3, 2004.

"I said no. My answer is still no. No confidence."
John McCain, on whether he had confidence in Bush Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, December 15, 2004.

On the Non-Existent Alliance Between Al Qaeda and Iran

"But Al Qaeda is there, they are functioning, they are supported in many times, in many ways by the Iranians."
John McCain, February 28, 2008.

"As you know, there are al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they're moving back into Iraq."
John McCain, March 17, 2008.

"[Iranian operatives are] "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."
John McCain, March 18, 2008.

"[It is] common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate."
John McCain, March 18, 2008.

"Al Qaeda and Shia extremists -- with support from external powers such as Iran -- are on the run but not defeated."
McCain campaign statement, March 19, 2008.

"To think that I would have some lack of knowledge about Sunni and Shia after my eighth visit and my deep involvement in this issue is a bit ludicrous."
John McCain, March 19, 2008.

"Do you still view Al Qaeda in Iraq as a major threat? Certainly not an obscure sect of the Shiites overall…"
John McCain, questioning General David Petraeus, April 8, 2008.

On a Permanent American Military Presence in Iraq

"We cannot keep our forces indefinitely staged in the region. Were we to attempt again to contain Saddam, we would eventually have to withdraw them. The world is full of dangers and, more likely than not, we will need some of those brave men and women to face them down."
John McCain, February 13, 2003.

"We have had troops in South Korea for 60 years and nobody minds."
John McCain, June 7, 2007.

"Make it a hundred."
John McCain, told that President Bush had said American troops could remain in Iraq for 50 years, January 3, 2008.

"I asked McCain about his 'hundred years' comment, and he reaffirmed the remark, excitedly declaring that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for 'a thousand years' or 'a million years,' as far as he was concerned."
David Corn, January 3, 2008.

"The U.S. could have a military presence anywhere in the world for a long period of time."
John McCain, February 20, 2008.

From the always great Perspectives Blog

George W. Bushmask took to Ohio's streets today to rub elbows with the common man and reflect upon the past five years since his doppleganger declared Mission Accomplished:

Fired up? At least somewhat amused? Either way click here to write a Letter to the Editor today!

In the five years since non-Bushmask declared “Mission Accomplished”:•The U.S. military is strained to the breaking point – our men and women are on their 4th and 5th deployments to Iraq
• Gas prices have doubled
• The national debt has increased at a rate of $1.46 billion per day
• Every family of four in the U.S. has paid $16,500 to finance the Iraq war
The Progress Ohio community knows this. But decisionmakers in Washington have continued to enable Bush’s reckless Iraq policy.

We need your help to spread the message loud and clear: Ohio cannot afford endless war.

Choose as many newspapers as you like, then use our template and personalize your letter.

In just a few minutes you’ll help us frame the message on this fifth anniversary of the day Bush stood aboard an aircraft carrier and declared “Mission Accomplished.”

It’s up to you to get the word out: Ohio cannot afford endless war.

Use Progress Ohio’s SpeakOut tool to write a letter to the editor of your daily newspaper.

ProgressOhio is enlisting you!

Operation Objective: Provide a better night's sleep for deployed members of the Ohio National Guard.

Targets:  60 Twin-Sized Sheets. 80 Mattress Covers. Phone Cards. Plastic Hangers.

Secondary Objective:  Provide rations for the soldiers' families that help package the supplies.

Further mission details, including coordinates for supply depots available here.

Brian Rothenberg
Executive Director
ProgressOhio.org

Please forward to your friends and colleagues!

ProgressOhio - "We're Powered By You"

BAGHDAD — The killings of three U.S. soldiers in separate attacks in Baghdad pushed the American death toll for April up to 47, making it the deadliest month since September.

One soldier died when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb. The other died of wounds sustained when he was attacked by small-arms fire, the military said Wednesday.

Both incidents occurred Tuesday in northwestern Baghdad. A third soldier died in a roadside bombing Tuesday night in the east of the capital, the military said.

The statement did not give a more specific location. But the eastern half of Baghdad includes embattled Sadr City and other neighborhoods that have been the focus of intense combat between Shiite militants and U.S.-Iraqi troops for more than a month.

In all, at least 4,059 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Cross Posted From:

Today at noon, some big-name Democrats, including Senator Jim Webb and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will be leading a press conference on the steps of the Capitol - and they'll be joined by some of Congress's leading Republicans, including Senators Chuck Hagel and John Warner. With the political situation so polarized this election year, it's like seeing players from the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox sit down for Sunday afternoon tea.

What has brought them together? A commitment to ensuring that troops coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan get the chance to go to college.

After World War II, the "GI Bill" ensured that more than two million combat veterans could get a college education. Economists have said this legislation rebuilt the country after five years of war. Now, however, the GI Bill pays only a fraction of the cost of a four-year college - and today's veterans just aren't getting the same readjustment opportunities afforded to the Greatest Generation.

Read The Full Story Here or you can sign the petition to support our troops here.

Presidential hopeful wants to keep troops from leaving military for a college education

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has suggested he would oppose a bipartisan measure by Virginia Sen. Jim Webb to expand college tuition benefits for military veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

McCain told reporters Monday he was working on alternative legislation aimed at ensuring that troops do not leave the military earlier than planned to go to college.

McCain echoed the concern voiced by some in the Defense Department who worry that the promise of full college tuition could entice many troops to leave the military sooner than they otherwise might at a time of war.

McCain is saying that we can't keep troops in Iraq for 100 years if we offer them what we offered WW II veterans after 4 years of service.

Somewhere right between shocking and shameful.

Among them is Södertälje, a town of about 80,000 people just south of Stockholm. Since 2003, it has welcomed between 5,000 and 6,000 Iraqis refugees -- slightly more than the US.

Fred Kaplan provides more background on where we're at on this problem and how we got here (hint: rhymes with 'tush').

On today's Meet The Press, Dean had a nice clutch of highlights, knocking at McCain in his inimitable blunt but backboned style

Especially good were Dean's moments defending the DNC's recent McCain ad.

McCain has continually protested that his "100 years of war" comment was taken out of context.

Dean suggested to Russert, that the point was that the war in Iraq couldn't be put in the same context of McCain's scenarios for a 100 years in Iraq without American casualties.

Watch it:

Few states let overseas troops vote by e-mail

WASHINGTON - U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan can speak to their families by Web camera and fight insurgents using sophisticated electronic warfare. Yet when it comes to voting, most troops are stuck in the past.

Communities in 13 states will send overseas troops presidential election ballots by e-mail this year, and districts in at least seven states will also let them return completed ballots over the Internet, according to data compiled by The Associated Press and the Overseas Vote Foundation.

That still leaves tens of thousands of service members in far-flung military bases struggling to meet voting deadlines and relying largely on regular mail to get ballots and cast votes — often at the last minute because of delays in ballot preparations in some states.

...

This year, when war is a key campaign issue, the election results in any state — particularly one with heavy military voting — could turn on the votes of thousands of troops on the front lines.

"The personnel that fight our wars, the people who are most affected by the decisions on the use of the military, are being systematically denied the right to vote," said Bob Carey, a board member of the Overseas Vote Foundation, a voting rights group.

Ohio's Overseas Vote Foundation project

-Ohio has developed a partnership with the Overseas Vote Foundation (OVF), a national non-partisan, non-profit organization whose mission is to facilitate and increase participation in federal elections of America's overseas and military voters and their dependents by providing public access to innovative voter registration tools and services.

-OVF's work serves to simplify for overseas and uniformed services voters the process of registration and voting when they are absent from their state or country.

-Ohio is one of the first states to actively join OVF's efforts to instantly provide our overseas and uniformed services voters a vastly improved online registration experience.

Another benefit of the leadership of Secretary of State Brunner!

Professor Haider Ala Hamoudi was born in Columbus to two Iraqi parents. After the fall of Baghdad, he moved to Iraq to help in the rebuilding process. Recently he gave an excellent interview about his book Howling in Mesopotamia.

Listen here:

"So I am giving my final warning ...... to the Iraqi government ...... to take the path of peace and abandon violence against its people," al-Sadr said. "If the government does not refrain ...... we will declare an open war until liberation." - Muqtada al-Sadr

BAGHDAD (AP) — Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gave a "final warning" to the government Saturday to halt a U.S.-Iraqi crackdown against his followers or he would declare "open war until liberation."

A full-blown uprising by al-Sadr, who led two rebellions against U.S.-led forces in 2004, could lead to a dramatic increase in violence in Iraq at a time when the Sunni extremist group al-Qaida in Iraq appears poised for new attacks after suffering severe blows last year.

Al-Sadr's warning appeared on his Web site as Iraq's Shiite-dominated government claimed success in a new push against Shiite militants in the southern city of Basra. Fighting claimed 14 more lives in Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.

Fighting in Sadr City and the crackdown in Basra are part of a government campaign against followers of al-Sadr and Iranian-backed Shiite splinter groups that the U.S. has identified as the gravest threat to a democratic Iraq.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, also a Shiite, has ordered al-Sadr to disband the Mahdi Army, Iraq's biggest Shiite militia, or face a ban from politics.

In the statement, al-Sadr lashed back, accusing the government of selling out to the Americans and branding his followers as criminals.

Al-Sadr, who is believed to be in Iran, said he had tried to defuse tensions last August by declaring a unilateral truce, only to see the government respond by closing his offices and "resorting to assassinations."

"So I am giving my final warning ... to the Iraqi government ... to take the path of peace and abandon violence against its people," al-Sadr said. "If the government does not refrain ... we will declare an open war until liberation."

Body of War is an intimate and transformational feature documentary about the true face of war today.

Meet Tomas Young, 25 years old, paralyzed from a bullet to his spine - wounded after serving in Iraq for less than a week.

Body of War is his coming home story as he evolves into a new person, dealing with his disability and finding his own unique and passionate voice against the war.

The film is produced and directed by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro; Karen Bernstein is co-producer; and Bernadine Colish serves as editor. The film features two original songs by Eddie Vedder.

Twenty-two year-old Tomas Young called his Army recruiter on September 13, 2001. He wanted to go to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Instead, his unit was sent to Iraq in March 2004. Less than a week after arriving, Young suffered a shot to the collarbone that left him paralyzed from the chest down.

While Young was recovering at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington DC, he met former talk-show host Phil Donahue. “I didn’t know then that I was going to make a movie,” Donahue said last night at a Reel Progress screening of the film. But upon hearing Young’s story, he wanted to show the human costs of war to a larger audience.

Donahue had never made a movie, so he partnered with documentary filmmaker Ellen Spiro. The resulting film, “Body of War,” follows Young from his 2005 wedding, through his daily struggles with physical disability, to his involvement in Iraq Veterans Against the War, all set against the backdrop of the 2002 congressional debate over whether to authorize the president to use military force in Iraq. The past year has seen a glut of films about the Iraq conflict, but none so pointedly from the perspective of a returned soldier.

Young cannot cough, nor can he control his bowel movements or body temperature. He has to wear a vest packed with ice when in warm environments. When Young tells Bobby Muller, a similarly paralyzed Vietnam veteran and president of Veterans for America, that he was only in the hospital for two or three months after his injury, Muller is shocked at the VA’s impetuousness.

When Muller was injured, he spent almost a year in the hospital, and another nine months as an outpatient. As Eddie Vedder sings in a song inspired by Young’s experience, “Nothing is too good for a veteran, so nothing’s what they’ll get.”

“Why do the American people tolerate this?” asked Donahue, referring both to the broken system of care for returning veterans and to the continued devastation the war is causing to families like Young’s and the U.S. military.

But, said Young, “The majority of families don’t feel the sting or sacrifice” for this war. “Until they do feel that sting, we will not have a strong enough groundswell to stop it.”