A Merry Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year

Let's hope it's a good one -- without any tears. War is over. If you want it.

Sgt. José Enrique Ulloa: R.I.P.

Sgt. José Enrique Ulloa, 23, a native of the Dominican Republic who immigrated to the U.S. at an early age, was killed Aug. 8 when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in Sadr City, Iraq.

“Esta es una guerra sin sentido que nos ha quitado mucho más de lo que nos está dando.” Francisca Mármol Ulloa, Sgt. Ulloa's sister

Ulloa is survived by his wife, Nieves Ulloa, and a seven-month-old son.

Related Links:
Otro soldado dominicano cae en la guerra de Irak
Nueva York rinde tributo a vegano caído en Irak
Mannheim servicemember killed in Baghdad

Hundreds Attend Funeral of Sgt. Alex Jimenez

Hundreds of mourners trekked up a flag-lined street Saturday for the funeral of Army Staff Sgt. Alex Jimenez, whose body was found 14 months after he and two fellow soldiers were captured during an ambush in Iraq.

The coffin arrived covered by an American flag and atop a horse-drawn carriage, escorted by fellow members of the Fort Drum, New York-based 10th Mountain Division.

Jimenez will be buried Aug. 2 at Long Island National Cemetery. He was born in New York and his mother, Maria Duran, lives in Corona, Queens.

Link: Hundreds attend funeral of soldier ambushed in Iraq

Related: Sgt. Alex Jiménez (POW/MIA): R.I.P.

Sgt. Alex Jiménez (POW/MIA): R.I.P.

Remember Army Sgt. Alex Jiménez, the soldier of Dominican birth missing in action (MIA) when he and two others were ambushed in May of 2007 in an area south of Baghdad known as the "triangle of death"?

Unfortunately, for his loved ones--including his young wife Yaderlin, he's dead. His remains were recently recovered.

When I heard about Sgt. Alex Jiménez' story last year, it was beyond disturbing. At the very moment that the heroic Sgt. Jiménez went missing in action in service to the U.S.A., his young wife, Yaderlin, was being threatened with deportation.

Of the many shameful acts committed against Latino immigrants in the last few years, attempting to deport the wife of a service man missing in action has to be among the worse.

Only after a public outcry, and the powerful advocacy of Senator John Kerry, did the federal authorities back-off. Yaderlin was subsequently awarded permanent residency a year ago July '07.

A year later, Yaderlin Hiraldo Jiménez' name has been added to the growing list of prematurely widowed Latina immigrants.

Newsclips:
Alex Jimenez' Wife Might Be Deported
Iraq: Missing soldiers' bodies recovered
May 2007 abduction of US soldiers in Iraq
Jimenez Family Waits
Alex Jimenez's MySpace page
Kerry Tells Homeland Security Not to Deport Wife of Missing Soldier
Woman's husband missing in Iraq since May; DHS halts her deportation

Lt. Col. Max A. Galea'i: One more Samoan soldier has died in Iraq

Lt. Col. Max A. Galea'i of the 2d Battalion, Marine Corps-Hawaii, was one of three Marines killed June 26th in a suicide bomb attack in Anbar Province, Iraq. Some 20 Iraqis also died in the bombing.

A native of Pago Pago, American Samoa, Lt. Col. Galea'i is survived by his wife, Evelyn Ho Ching Galea’i, and their four children.

"It reminds us of the sacrifices being made everyday. It's a very sad day for us as a family." Simon Sanchez, Cousin.

The death of Lt. Col. Galea’i brings the total number of Samoan soldiers killed in the Iraq/Afghanistan wars since 2003 to 17: 14 in Iraq and 3 in Afghanistan.

Lt. Col. Galea’i's service awards include two Bronze Stars, the Purple Heart and five Meritorious Service Medals.

News Clips:
Three Hawaii-based Marines killed in Iraq
Acting Gov. Faoa A. Sunia Offers Condolences on Death of Lt. Col. Max A. Galea’i in Iraq
Marine from Hawaii with ties to Guam killed in Iraq

The Iraq War IS for Oil

John McCain lets slip that the Iraq War is really a war for oil.






The Young Turks: Oil Companies Take Over Iraq


The former Austrailian prime minister admits that Iraq is about oil.


"The Iraq War is largely about OIL." - Alan Greenspan


Straight-shooter Congressman Lantos (now deceased) agreed that Iraq war was about oil.


BBC: The War for Oil 1


BBC: The War for Oil 2


BBC: The War for Oil 3


Ex-White House Aide McClellan: Bush Lied About Iraq!

Sgt. Nelson Rodríguez Ramírez: Another Boricua Sacrificed

Sgt. Nelson Rodríguez Ramírez, 22 years old, is the latest soldier of Puerto Rican heritage killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Some 70 Puerto Rican soldiers have died: 64 in Iraq and 6 in Afghanistan.

"He didn't like war, but it was in his heart to be there and protect those kids." Nelson's father

A specialist with the New York Army National Guard, Sgt. Rodriquez Ramirez and three other U.S. soldiers died on June 21st when their truck was hit by a roadside explosive and small arms fire in Afghanistan. The soldiers were on their way to a police-training assignment in Kandahar City.

Rodriquez Ramirez leaves behind a wife and two daughters.

Rodriquez Ramirez was posthumously promoted to the rank of Sergeant posthumously. All three men were also posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Combat Action Badge for their service in Afghanistan.

U.S. military war fatalities now total 4,620: 4,104 in Iraq and 516 in Afghanistan. Latinos represent about 11% or some 500 of the dead.

Links:
Fallen Revere soldier inspired by kids he met in the war
'Evil in the world has taken Nelson'
Hundreds gather at Revere soldier's funeral
Friends, family attend Mass. soldier's funeral
Faces of the Fallen

$23 Billion Iraq War Funds Lost or Stolen

A BBC investigation estimates that around $23bn may have been lost, stolen or just not properly accounted for in Iraq.

For the first time, the extent to which some private contractors have profited from the conflict and rebuilding has been researched by the BBC's Panorama using US and Iraqi government sources.

"It may...be the largest war profiteering in history."

A US gagging order is preventing discussion of the allegations.

The order applies to 70 court cases against some of the top US companies.

While George Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely the gagging orders will be lifted.

To date, no major US contractor faces trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.

More

Related:
Iraq Loses $Billions in U.S. Taxpayer Funds
Billions $ Lost In Iraq
Ex-White House Aide McClellan: Bush Lied About Iraq!
Iraq War Cost Update: 3,501 U.S. Soldiers Killed; up to 71,042 Iraqi Civilians killed; and $432.5 Billion Spent

Ex-White House Aide McClellan: Bush Lied About Iraq!

W's former White House Press Secretary Scott McCellan's book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception", was released and it's causing a political firestorm.

Why?

Because a White House insider is publicly confirming what Americans have long known:

President Bush and his West Wing spinners LIED about Iraq.

They repeatedly "shaded the truth"--i.e., lied--in order to ensure that war with Iraq was the only option.

McClellan's motivation for writing the book?

"Like many Americans, I am concerned about the poisonous atmosphere in Washington. I wanted to take readers inside the White House and provide them an open and honest look at how things went off course and what can be learned from it. Hopefully in some small way it will contribute to changing Washington for the better and move us beyond the hyper-partisan environment that has permeated Washington over the past 15 years."

His conclusion about the Iraq War?

"What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary."

Thanks for waiting so long to tell us. BTW: Good job, Scotty.

Hey, doesn't this "revelation" make Hillary and her Senate colleagues who voted for the Iraq War even bigger dupes?

Perhaps more importantly, where was the press? We know that FOX has been a 24/7 propaganda outlet, but what about the television networks and newspapers? Why were so many of them so easily manipulated?

And where--praytell--is the public outcry? Afterall, 4,000 Americans and 100,000 Iraqis--and counting--have died in a war based on lies.

Related:
Ex-Press Aide Writes That Bush Misled U.S. on Iraq
Former Press Secretary Points Finger at Bush, Cheney for Deceit in CIA Leak Scandal

Pope: Enough With Slaughters in Iraq

Pope Benedict XVI issued one of his strongest appeals for peace in Iraq on Sunday, days after the body of the kidnapped Chaldean Catholic archbishop was found near the northern city of Mosul.

The pope also denounced the 5-year-long Iraq war, saying it had provoked the complete breakup of Iraqi civilian life.

"Enough with the slaughters. Enough with the violence. Enough with the hatred in Iraq!" Pope Benedict, Palm Sunday Mass, St. Peter's Square

On Thursday, the body of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was found near Mosul. He had been abducted on Feb. 29.

More

Iraqis still ask if U.S. invasion was worth it

Five years after U.S. and British forces swept into Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein, many Iraqis are asking if the violence and upheaval that turned their lives upside down was worth it.

The human cost is staggering -- anywhere between 90,000 and 1 million Iraqi civilians killed, according to various estimates; nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers dead; while 4 million Iraqis are displaced.

More

Commander Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez: Iraq War is a nightmare with no end in sight

Retired Iraq War Commander, Lt. Gen. Ricardo , spoke out for the first time since leaving the military in 2006.

Speaking to a group of war reporters, the general said that the U.S. mission in Iraq is a "nightmare with no end in sight" because of political misjudgments after the fall of Saddam Hussein that continue today.

Additionally, Sanchez criticized national leaders for “[c]ontinued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy [which] will not achieve victory. The best we can do", he says, "with this flawed approach is stave off defeat.”

Related:

Former Top General in Iraq Faults Bush Administration
Ex-general: Iraq `nightmare' for US

W's Priorities: War, Yes; Children's Health, No

The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provides health coverage for 6 million of America's disadvantaged children. The modest program's costs are shared by the federal governments and the participating states.

Recently, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly approved a re authorization of the program with an expansion in an effort to reach more of the estimated 9 million still uninsured children--most of which are members of working class families. That is, American families that make too much for government Medicaid and too little to afford private health coverage.

The legislation was sent to the White House for the President's approval and signature. Instead, President Bush vetoed it--putting the program in jeopardy and denying millions of uninsured children health coverage.

We don't have money to insure children but we have plenty for misguided wars. We have already wasted $458,000,000,000 in Iraq--and President Bush has just sent Congress a bill for another $42,000,000,000. An enterprise which most people agree is really dumb war and wasteful. For example, the government's own accounting office reports billions in war funds are missing or stolen.

Think of all the good that could be done with $458,000,000,000.

According to The National Priorities Project, half of the funds spent in Iraq thus far would pay for health coverage for all of America's children. That's right! All of America's 80,000,000+ children. Just a fraction of the war budget would cover all 15 million uninsured children targeted by CHIP.

Is it me or does this government have the most backwards of priorities?

Related:

Reaction to Children's Health Veto
Why Bush Was Dumb To Veto SCHIP
States sue Bush administration over children's health insurance
Campaign for Children's Health Care

The Obama Army Takes NYC's Washington Square Park

All of the pundits, including Newt Gingrich--and even George W. Bush, have Hillary as the nominee of the Democrats in next years national elections--and today's polls do support their views.

However, while Hillary may very well be winning the votes of the establishment, Obama continues to inspire a new generation of voters.

Check it out! The Obama Army has now grown to an unheard of 345,973. These are not just people that say they support Obama, but folks that have demonstrated it by making a record 492,033 donations.

Incredibly, Obama has received more individual donations totaling more money than any of his Democratic or Republican competitors. (Hillary is 2nd and Rudy 3rd.) What does that say about America's desire for change from the status quo?

What's awesome is that the Obama folks are running what has to be the most sophisticated and interesting online and grassroots campaign ever. For example, Obama yesterday spoke to 25,000 voters packed into Manhattan's Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. But check out the pre- and post-event videos. They're informative, inspiring, even humorous, and stunningly effective.

Love it!

Related: NYC Rally Trailer
Obama08 Video of NYC Rally
Obama Distances Himself From Clinton, on Her Turf (includes video of Obama's speech)

Matt Sanchez - A Latino with a Different View of the Iraq War

Journalist and blogger Matt Sanchez wrote in to say that he offers a different perspective on the Iraq War than offered by Camilo Mejias (and, I guess, Omar Mora and his buddies).

Try a different Hispanic point of view here in Iraq. We wouldn't want to stereotype.

Fair enough.

With so many men and women serving honorably in the U.S. Military, including many Latinos on the front lines of the Iraq War, it's important for Americans (as well as the citizens of other nations) to see the war from different perspectives. Especially--as Mejias, Sanchez and Mora rightly insist--from the perspectives of those on the front lines. Amen!

With this objective in mind, please read Awakening' musters Iraqi courage against al-Qaida -- Sanchez' recently article published in WorldNetDaily.

Sanchez' writes about how change has started to root in Ramadi and Anbar when the courageous Sunni cleric, Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, sided with the U.S. in the battle against alQaeda. It was reported by General Patraeus, and others in recent weeks, that deaths were down and that the U.S. troop surge was working in part because of the alliance between the U.S. and Iraqis such as Sheik Sattar.

As evidence by his weblog postings, Sanchez was clearly impressed by the Sheik--even likening him to Abraham Lincoln:

Charismatic, determined and very ambitious we may see a lot more of Sheik Sattar in the near future, his role in the Awakening could make Ramadi the next Gettysburg.

However, making it clear that the success of the U.S. "Surge" rests on a very weak political foundation, Sheik Sattar was assassinated last week (9/13/07).

Not coincidently, September 13th was the first day of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. It was the 3rd day of General Patraeus' report before the U.S. Senate on the success of the "Surge". It was 10 days after President Bush's visit with the Sheik in Iraq. And it was just seven days after President Bush boasted to Australia Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile that "We're kicking ass".

I'm not a U.S. Soldier serving in Iraq, embedded journalist, or Washington insider, but it seems to me, Sanchez' views not withstanding, that good people have been put in a bad place by the poor policies of weak leaders.

Am I wrong?

Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejias is Out of Iraq

U.S. soldier and Iraq War critic, Omar Mora, continued serving in Iraq until his untimely death last week. Mora and a fellow war critic, Yance T. Gray, died when their U.S. Military vehicle overturned outside Baghdad.

Gray and Mora were part of a group of seven soldiers that wrote The War as We Saw It, a letter critical of the war published by the NYTimes in August.

Camilo Mejias--another soldier turned war critic--took a different path: He refused to return to the Iraqi war theatre. For that, Staff Sergeant Camilo was court-martialed and spent 9 months in a military prison.

In a war, the bad is often measured against what’s even worse, and that, in turn, makes a lot of deplorable things seem permissible.

Camilo, a Nicaraguan immigrant (Omar Mora was from Ecuador), has written Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejía (New Press), a book highly critical of the U.S. Iraq War, its prosecution and the appalling behavior of some soldiers.

The latest issue of Colorlines includes My Road Out Of Iraq--a piece from Camilo Mejias' Road from Ar Ramadi.

Soldiers Omar Mora & Yance Gray killed in Iraq -- yet their truth lives on

Two of the active-duty U.S. soldiers who wrote a controversial Op-Ed (The war as we saw it) in the New York Times questioning the direction of the Iraq war--Sgt. Omar Mora and Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray--died Monday in Baghdad.

Mora, 28, hailed from Texas City, Texas, and was a native of Ecuador, who had just become a U.S. citizen. He was due to leave Iraq in November and leaves behind a wife and daughter. Gray, 26, had lived in Ismay, Montana, and is also survived by a wife and infant daughter.

Jeremy Murphy, another of the seven authors, was shot in the head in Iraq on Aug. 12, before the Op-Ed was even published. He is recovering at the National Naval Medical Center in Maryland.

Tonight, President Bush is scheduled to tell the nation that the "surge" is working, Iraq is being pacified, and that we should stay the course. He follows General Petraeus' report to the U.S. Senate in which he honestly could not answer the question: Is America safer as a result of the U.S.-Iraqi War.

But as Mora and Gray understood, "pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities" is wrong--as well as deadly. May they rest in peace.

Here is an excerpt of their letter:

BAGHDAD -- Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counter insurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the "battle space" remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers' expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

Click here for the full letter.

Honor Mora and Gray by demanding that President Bush and the U.S. Congress end the foreign war in Iraq and the homeland war on immigrants.

Photo: Sgt. Omar Mora

Related The unsettling deaths of Omar Mora and Yance Gray.

It's 9/11--6 years Later

In honor of the people killed on 9/11 or fighting in the Iraqi theatre, I've posted Paul Mulshine's The neocons are losing their war (The Star Ledger - 9.11.07).

Those deep thinkers known as the neoconservatives like to make comparisons between the so-called "war on terror" and World War II.

Very well then, here's a comparison.

Six years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Adolf Hitler had already been dead and gone for 2 1/2 years. By that time, the United States had raised and trained a military of 16 million. By Dec. 7, 1947, much of that force had been disbanded because the enemy had been so thoroughly defeated.

"Democracy is like terrorism," says retired Gen. William Odom. "It's a sort of propaganda word that leads you into stupid policies."

But today, six years after the incident that began the war on terror, Osama bin Laden is alive and kicking. As for al Qaeda, it is no longer hiding in the hills of Afghanistan but instead is on the verge of taking over Iraq -- at least in the fevered minds of some neocons. Meanwhile, a commission reported the other day that it will take an additional 12 to 18 months to complete the training of an Iraqi security force that is one-50th the size of the forces the U.S. trained in World War II.

That highlights the true comparison between the war on terror and World War II. In World War II, we fought a total war against specific enemies. But in the aftermath of 9/11, George W. Bush embarked on war against one abstraction, terror, in favor of another abstraction, democracy.

More

Call at National Guard conference for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq greeted with standing ovation

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (David McFadden, AP - 8.25.07) - A call by Puerto Rico's [Governor Anibal Acevedo] for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq earned a standing ovation Saturday from a conference of more than 4,000 National Guardsmen.

''The war in Iraq has fractured the political will of the United States and the world,'' he said at the opening of the 129th National Guard Association general conference. ''Clearly, a new war strategy is required and urgently.''

Acevedo said sending more troops to Iraq would be a costly blunder.

''By increasing the number of National Guard and reserve troops, we put our soldiers in danger for the umpteenth time since the beginning of the global war on terrorism,'' said the governor, adding U.S. territories and states need Guard reserves in the event of natural disasters and domestic disturbances.

Col. David Carrion Baralt, the Guard's top official in the U.S. Caribbean territory, said Acevedo received a standing ovation.

The nonpartisan National Guard Association represents nearly 45,000 current and former Air and Army National Guard officers.

(Posted on Boricua Diaspora via truthout.org)

Independentistas Tap Puerto Rico's Anti-War Sentiment

Today's Washington Post article, Recruiting For Iraq War Undercut in Puerto Rico, reports on how the island's Independentistas are effectively campaigning against school-based recruitment for the Iraq War--and, in the process, renewing themselves as a political force.

"If the death of a Puerto Rican soldier is tragic, it's more tragic if that soldier has no say in that war." Juan Dalmau, PR Independence Party

Unbelievably, President Bush's education act, No Child Left Behind, includes a provision allowing U.S. military officials to directly recruit 16, 17 and 18 year olds enrolled in high schools receiving federal aid. Since the schools targeted for the federal aid enroll the bulk of the nation's disadvantaged and children of color, military recruiters have disproportionate access to such children, including almost all of Puerto Rico's high schoolers.

However, the law does contain an 'opt out' clause. That is, a parent wanting to keep military recruiters away from their child can do so by completing an 'opt out' form. As you can imagine, it's a right few parents of disadvantaged high schoolers know about.

However, the Independentista Party of Puerto Rico, in alliance with Madres Contra La Guerra (Mothers Against War), have made it their business to inform parents of Puerto Rico's highschoolers of this right and to encourage them to opt out.

The result thus far is that the U.S. War Recruiters are officially barred from soliciting 57%, or 65,000, of the island's 10th, 11th and 12th gradeers.

The Independentistas are mining a rich vein of discontent as fully 75% Puerto Rico's residents are now opposed to the US-Iraq War.