Fine, okay, it's a blog already!

The IAVA and the band Drowning Pool have gotten together to push an agenda called This is for the Soldiers. In a nutshell, it is an online petition to Representative Bob Filner, Chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, yes, a Democrat, to encourage him to push for the passage of HR 1354, the Lane Evans Bill. The bill would improve benefits for our veterans and require regular reports on our wars overseas. There is also a Senate version called S 117.

As those of you back home know, Lane Evans is a vet and was our long-serving US Representative from Illinois' 17th District. With my grandparents being involved in local politics back in the day, I got to meet him a few times and was very supportive of the Galva Guard during their deployment in Iraq recently. He decided not to run for re-election in 2006 due to complications with Parkinson's, an illness exploited by his evil witch GOP opponent in 2004.

More on him here for those who don't know him, and the text of Senator Dick Durbin's tribute to him on his retirement.

Basically, good man, and a good bill in his name. Get a hold of your congressman and senator to get them to vote on this bill.

IAVA also has a petition you can sign that goes to the Secretary of Veteran's Affairs to increase mental health staffing at VA hospitals. Let your voice be heard.

Our military and our treasury are not unlimited resources. The war in Iraq is breaking our fine Army and Marine Corps, and we are perilously close to doing damage that will take more than a decade to fix. Our brigades and divisions in Iraq today are at near full strength because the rest of the force has been gutted. We cannot place America in a position of weakness as it just begins its long war against world-wide Islamic extremism. The Republican administration is bleeding our national treasure in blood and dollars with little to show for it.

- Major General John Batiste, US Army (ret.)

If you read one thing I link this week - hell, this year - read this. Seven soldiers, fresh out of Iraq with the 82nd Airborne give a realistic view of the war. It doesn't jive with the Bush Administration, their pet General Petraeus, or with whatever Admiral in charge of soldiers and Marines they've had to dig up to justify their sorry excuse for a war plan. More on them here.

Apparently they still have enough rights to speak openly like this. Which is good I suppose, given all the lies coming out of Washington.

Recently retired Major General John Batiste, no liberal by any stretch of the imagination, has posted an editorial on ThinkProgress that fires a volley at the incompetence of Bush and his lackeys.

Meanwhile, the Army Secretary wants to limit the length of deployments, something the administration is completely oblivious to. This is response to news that we are burning out our military.

Things aren't going so well in Iraq, despite Bush's claims. Militias are taking over the power grid there.

Plus there's already major doubts that Petraeus' report won't be hijacked and politicized by the Bushites.

"President Bush failed to adequately address many of the urgent issues facing veterans today. The last thing these veterans needed was a history lesson. They remember America’s wars because they actually fought them. Instead of making references to previous conflicts, we need the President to take more seriously the myriad of issues facing veterans and their families right now."

- Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director, IAVA, on Bush's VFW speech this week

Received my copy of Chasing Ghosts today in the mail. Order your copy here and support the IAVA.

Recently a Navy veteran was told to go buy his own Purple Heart as we apparently seem to be out right now.

Police officers across the country are short on ammunition because of the Iraq War and conflict in Afghanistan. Some cannot qualify on their weapons; other practice using paint ball guns. And Bush calls this defending America?

Our troops continue having trouble combating IEDs, getting enough mine resistant vehicles, and getting the Iraqis to finish the reconstruction projects we started.

Bush's "War Czar" is concerned about the stresses being placed on our troops. Too bad his boss doesn't seem to have the same sense of urgency.

The Guardian covers this issue since the president won't. And, given the lack of

More thoughts on what it would take to pull our troops out of Iraq. For the time being, the military looks to reduce its role - and presumably its exposure to violence - in Iraq.

Last, but not least, the military has a growing problem with gang members in the ranks. With the increasingly lax recruiting standards, this problem isn't getting any better. Hell, train EVERY gang member in this country and then drop them off in Baghdad to occupy Iraq and let our actual law-abiding citizen soldiers come home to their families. I think every decent American can sign off on that idea.

“If the general remains silent while the statesman commits a nation to war with insufficient means, he shares culpability for the results."

Lt. Col. Paul Yingling

Army officers are assessing the military's role in Iraq. Namely, the administration couldn't have done all this without some complicity from their leadership. It's a sobering conclusion, and a discussion that needs to be had if we are to get out of this war.

"There has been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders."

Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez

Case in point, the former general in charge of US forces in Iraq, is harshly criticizing the Bush Administration for its mishandling of the war. Should he have done it sooner and risked his career by complaining while still in theatre? I don't think there's a good answer for that, but you've got to wonder. More on his comments here.

Speaking of other black marks that inadvertently affect our military, despite the fact that Bush and company is completely backing Blackwater, there is more proof emerging that no one was shoooting at them when they decided to go full auto on a crowd of civilians recently.

Income inequality is rising, no thanks to Bush's policies I'm sure. Robert Reich discusses this and other issues between our democracy and our economics in his new book Supercapitalism (read a review and an excerpt).

Bush continues to be bad for GOP candidates and that's still good news for me.

Oh, and some Republicans are retiring because the Democratic-led House is making them work five days a week. Oh no! And some even go as far as to blame Dems for being against families for making them work and travel. Look, I don't have a lot of sympathy for asshats who refuse to give kids health insurance, send our young adults off to war without end, rape the environment, give their cronies tax breaks, try to turn our country into a Christian version of Iran, and then bitch about having to work more than three days a week.

Screw those whiners and good riddance to them.

You know, I keep trying to find a good place to put this next story, and I haven't yet so I'll just post it on its own. We use a lot of four legged friends in Iraq to take care of our troops, and unfortunately some of them get as injured as our soldiers. Here is how we care for our dogs of war.

There's just a mess of good stories in there worth giving a read to.

And yeah, I'm a sucker for a good dog story too.

Garry Trudeau has been very supportive of our troops, even changing his Doonesbury cartoon to address some of the major personal issues of the war. He's also updated his Sandbox element of his website to allow the troops themselves to express themselves. He's collected the best of it in a book and here's a snippet on that.

Wilkinson let me know earlier about a mom trying to get Silly String to her son in Iraq. Apparently, you can shoot some into a doorway or threshold and it will snag on any tripwires. It is a cheap and easy way to save the lives of our troops. He's followed up on this story and she was finally able to ship about 80,000 cans of the stuff to our troops. Here's an audio story on the subject as well.

A horrible story about a unit in Iraq who still haven't found two of their own, and are shipping home in a couple weeks. you have got to feel for these guys.

In somewhat sunnier news, the tale of an Iraqi interpreter and his family who have been allow to

(Republicans will spend money) "to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough…to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."

Adding, later, "I have nothing but respect for our brave men and women in uniform and wish them the very best. But I respect neither the Commander-in-Chief who keeps them in harm's way nor the chickenhawks in Congress who vote to deny children health care."

- Rep. Pete Stark, CA on how Republicans can waste the lives of our young in Iraq, but won't provide poor children healthcare

I wonder when Rush is going to denigrate these soldier's service? Twelve career Army captains wrote an editorial in the Washington Post this week, describing the Iraq War from their point of view. Hint: it isn't about being hailed as "liberators".

I'm sure the conservative chickenhawks will find a way to discredit them.

The recent head of the National Counterterrorism Center verified what we already knew: Bush's actions have made us tactically less safe than we were before invading Iraq. And then he resigned a few days later, probably to avoid a pack of draft-dodging Republicans from dragging his name in the mud.

Also, someone for the warmongers to keep in mind. Black recruitment has dropped 58 percent since 2000. Guess our young African-Americans don't want to go fight a war for the Party of Racism. Go figure.

Want proof? Obama would like Bush's head of the DOJ's Voting Rights Division fired for saying that poll taxes only hurt the elderly "because our society is such that minorities don't become elderly the way white people do. They die first." So nice of you to say, asshat.

Blackwater may get kicked out of Iraq for doing things like, oh, shooting packs of unarmed civilians, for instance. NPR inexplicably gave Eric Prince (o'Darkness), head of Blackwater, a fluff interview where he stated that his boys are on the sides of the angels. It would be instructive to remember that the angel known as Lucifer Morningstar is now better known as Satan.

More, and worse, news on the cholera epidemic we inadvertently helped create in Iraq.

And with news that our "Coalition of the Willing" is increasingly less - well, willing - to let our foreign policy blunders kill their citizens soldiers, at least one nation is actually (and temporarily) increasing its military commitment: Georgia. You know, the place where someone tried to assassinate Bush a couple years ago but used a dud grenade? Yeah, them.

England is already planning to halve its forces there. And after today's election, Poland will likely just leave entirely.

Granted, there are a lot of things to fix in this country: stuff Bush did, stuff Bush didn't do, stuff Bush inadvertently caused because he's a dipshit. There are also long-standing issues that the Chimperor never addressed, but neither did anyone before him. So, let's take a look at some of all of the above that have come to mind recently.

Our new wars have brought forth new homeless vets. The government is obviously not as worried about this problem as they should be, though some groups are. There just aren't enough to take care of the problem.

Here is a look at the problem from Las Vegas.

Soldier suicides are a record levels and still only token political speech is given from Washington.

Our country is dead last in offering preventative health care among industrialized nations. Our citizens are dying from things we could treat if only our health care system didn't suck so much.

Also, if you are in a hospital and are a minority, you are less likely to receive pain medication. Lovely.

Latinos also earn far, far less than their white counterparts. Things you already knew, but a reminder never hurts.

More later I suppose.

A GI's phone accidentally called home from Afghanistan and left his parents a message they'd probably not want to hear. The story here.

And the audio:

A three minute glimpse into the front lines. Something this nation should be confronted with daily on the news except through the obstruction of Bush's secret gang of idiots and media fools like Rupert Murdoch who would rather sell you Paris Hilton than the hard truth.