CODEPINK: Women For Peace

A US soldier befriends a young Iraqi girl in Bacubah, Iraq.

A 10th Mountain Division soldier who went AWOL claiming his commanding officers threatened to send him back to Iraq despite his listing as medically unfit for combat planned to surrender Friday to Fort Drum authorities and ask for an investigation into his treatment.

Spc. Bryan Currie, 21, of Charleston, S.C., will ask Army Secretary Pete Geren to convene a court of inquiry — a rarely used administrative fact-finding process — to investigate top generals at Fort Carson, Colo.; Fort Drum, N.Y.; and Fort Hood, Texas, said Tod Ensign of the New York City-based veterans’ advocacy group CitizenSoldier.

The request calls for convening a panel to investigate the case of Currie and four other soldiers at Fort Carson and Fort Hood who also were set to be deployed despite medical holds.

A court of inquiry includes at least three high-ranking military officers and can subpoena civilians, Ensign said. Geren can refuse the request.

The court should “investigate the extent to which the generals have been derelict in failing to provide for the health and welfare of wounded soldiers,” according to the request.

Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using “unmonitored and potentially unsafe” water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company, the Pentagon’s internal watchdog says.

A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.

The Pentagon’s inspector general found water quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations.

It was impossible to link the dirty water definitively to all the illnesses, according to the report. But it said KBR’s water quality “was not maintained in accordance with field water sanitary standards” and the military-run sites “were not performing all required quality control tests.”

On the underside of the two stars that rest on each shoulder of Fort Carson’s top general, the names “Kevin” and “Jeff” are engraved.

This is one way Maj. Gen. Mark Graham honors his sons, two young men who did not live long enough to see their father pin on those stars.

Second Lt. Jeff Graham, 23, died Feb. 19, 2004, when a roadside bomb exploded in Kalidiyah, Iraq, while the young leader protected his platoon.

Kevin Graham, 21, a top ROTC cadet at the University of Kentucky, hanged himself June 21, 2003, from a ceiling fan in his apartment. No one saw the lethality of his depression.

“They both fought different enemies,” Graham said during a recent interview.

For a man who is not sure why he joined the military more than 30 years ago, no general in today’s Army has a more intimate understanding of war’s hardships and the mental health issues that follow than Fort Carson’s commander.

Not a day goes by that he doesn’t think about his sons. Their loss, he said, has made him a more compassionate officer.

2008 CODEPINK Major Campaigns UPDATE:

Don’t Buy Bush’s War: War tax resistance, pressuring Congress to defund the war with upcoming spending bill in late March, local cost of war actions
Impeach Bush and Cheney: Hungry for Impeachment rolling fast started by Leslie, petition

Prevent a War with Iran: Go on a peace delegation to Iran, Pass a City Resolution, Educate your Community

Counter-Recruitment: Direct action at recruiting centers and booths, campus info outreach, speaking events with vets, opt out, shut down JROTC programs in schools, Kiss-Ins, city zoning initiatives

Nurture and Build a Women-Led Movement: Activist Training Camps in March, V-Day, DC Activist House and summer weeklong trainings at the DC house

Create a Just and Peaceful World: Support the Rule of Law in Pakistan, Let Peace Activists Travel to Canada, Stop Torture and Close Guantanamo, Support Iraqi Women and Educate the Public about the Conditions for Women in Iraq, Support War Resisters, Stop Military Sexual Trauma; plus, Envision Creative Change: What will we do when the troops come home? How will we support them in our communities? What are the real alternatives to military enlistment? Don’t wait for the war to be over. Create hope and manifest change now.

Public Visible Opposition to the War in Iraq: Vigils, Freeway Bannering and Banner Drops, Peace Ribbon, Singing, 5th anniversary actions, etc.
Birddog Presidential Candidates and Elected Officials with anti-war message (Listen Hillary, Pelosi Watch, etc.). Make sure to maintain non-partisan stand at all times.

The flow of blood may be ebbing, but the flood of money into the Iraq war is steadily rising, new analyses show.

In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the “burn” rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book.

Beyond 2008, working with “best-case” and “realistic-moderate” scenarios, they project the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion — or more — by 2017.

Source: The Army Times