I know this is a hot political issue, but bottom line the policy is adversely affecting approximately 10,000 veterans and or their widows from Cold War tests that used Biological Weapons, Chemical Weapons and illicit drugs such as PCP, LSD etc. The story has been told a few times but no one has ever seen the story thru, the veterans and their families are still suffering without veterans benefits, and I feel it is due to political influence.

Here is the theory and the facts. If this were again to become public, it would prove embarrassing to the current administration due to the fact the two main characters at the heart of the problem in 1974 and 1975 are now more powerful than they were in 1974 and 1975. It also would discredit the reason that we went to war with Iraq, because Saddam used chemical weapons on the Kurds.  

These two men in 1974 and 1975 while part of the Ford Administration approved of and funded the human experimentation on enlisted army soldiers with Chemical Weapons at Edgewood Arsenal Maryland. This shows they were violating the Nuremberg Codes of 1947.

I am having a hard time digesting the Bush Administrations claims of the article's about the "financial data tracking" is a setback to our "National Security" and the talk of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times were asked not to run the story due to the risk to National Security, I watched Wayne Simmons (a Fox news contributor) calling them traitors, and the publishers should be jailed, he called them the "Jihad Times" funny they kept forgetting to mention that Cavuto's favorite newspaper ran the same story on the front page of today's Wall Street Journal, is that a "jihad Times" outlet to? Or is it okay for Republican papers to do "responsible" journalism and the only ones that have their patriotism questioned is the perceived left leaning papers?

We have all heard the White House's many statements of the separation of Vice President Dick Cheney and his contacts with Halliburton were severed when he became the Vice President.

We have been told that all he receives is deferred compensation from monies previously earned. We were told that his office played NO role in the award of the Halliburton contracts in the immediate aftermath of the invasion in 2003.

That he has not benefited financially because of the war.  The following documents and information obtained thru FOIA suits by Judicial Watch have uncovered documents showing the lies, and the links to the VP's office and the Corps of Engineer's thru the Pentagon.  Links after the jump.

I realize that I do not comprehend how our federal government works, it appears to be a good old boy network that rewards longevity and loyalty.

In the early 70's there use to be an Office of Economic Opportunity, it was a Cabinet Level Position it was occupied by Donald Rumsfeld, he had a bright young man working for him, Dick Cheney.

In August 1974, President Nixon abdicated his Presidency to a Congressman from Michigan, Gerald Ford on August 9th 1974. Donald Rumsfeld was named as Chief Of Staff for President Ford, of course he brought to the West Wing his protege, Dick Cheney.

Watching Mr Rumsfeld on Larry King live, just made my blood boil, after being disabled by actions he approved of as Chief of Staff and as the Secretary of Defense in 1974 and 1975. I admit I do not have much use for him or his right hand man, Dick Cheney, for those of you who are not aware of it, they became a team in the Office of Economic Opportunity in the Nixon Administration and it was a Cabinet level post. Cheney was so good at doing what he did, that when Rumsfeld was named Secretary of Defense in 1975, Cheney became the White House Chief of Staff for President Ford, gaining his own seat on the National Security Council due to the promotion.

As many of you know I am a totally disabled Army veteran. Yesterday due to the foresight of a friend of the family's, I was taken on a time trip to May 24 1972, the day before my father died, May 25th 1972, I was 16 at the time, soon to turn 17.

My brother joined the Army a week after our father died and wanted to go to Vietnam.Yes, I think he needed a check up from the neck up, he WANTED to go to Vietnam, he had to be crazy. They had decided to wind the war down by the time he finished basic and AIT, so they sent him to the DMZ of South Korea the last other war zone in 1972.

Why was this important, it took me back to the time of "real" anti-war protests, sit-ins, hippies, and Nixon, Watergate and all that was wrong in America, three decades ago.

The letters included the last legible letter my father ever wrote, to see his handwriting again 34 years later, shook me up for a few minutes, kind of like someone talking to you from their grave. He made me remember what a strong man he was, and the respect I had for him, and the lessons of life he taught me.

Secretary of State Rice has to be the most out-of-touch person on the planet to tell FOX News that she was "actually having a great time here in Iraq" ..........

"There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity."

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If it weren't so dangerously sad, the media gyrations to deflect attention from the sordid mess defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has made in Iraq would be amusing. But efforts to hide the truth are futile because Rumsfeld is literally surrounded by "stars" -- retired general officers speaking publicly about the fatal mistakes Rumsfeld made in his mad dash to "sweep everything up" and dash blindly off to war.

CNN and the Boston Globe say there are six officers, Fox News says "a handful," the New York Times says seven, the Christian Science Monitor plays it safe with "several," and Rumsfeld himself laughs it off with "two or three out of thousands."

There seems to be eight so far -- Gen. Eric Shinseki, former Army Chief of Staff, was cut off at the knees a year before his retirement for testifying under oath during a Senate hearing a month before the assault on Iraq that it would take "several hundred thousand" troops to quell ethnic tensions that could lead to an insurgency.

Todays diary is a fictional "chat" with Rummy and Dr Chu of the DOD and their feelings towards veterans.  I can only imagine this is their responses after seeing them "chat" with the troops, and testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Veterans Affairs Committee.

They need the military to accomplish their missions to form the world into their eyes and minds way of looking at it. Which is my firm belief that it as twisted of some of their other authorized programs from the days gone by.

Military forces are supposed to be used to deter the need for combat, they should be used as a last resort, not as the first choice. If you send men and women into harm's way, then you owe their families the decency of signing the condolence letters by hand and not a machine. And the wounded and injured veterans deserve all their benefits, not be told they are to expensive and a detriment to America's ability to fight future conflicts. If you can't afford the cost of a war, don't throw one. Injured and dead veterans have costs attached to them, besides emotional costs to the family.

This is a letter to our President and I regret I feel I must do it as an open letter, but I feel if I sent it to the White House, that he would never see it.

Right, wrong or indifferent he is an American President, not a republican not a Democrat, the seat you are occupying is an elected National seat, you are accountable to all of us and history.

You still have a chance to correct some of your mistakes, before history writes it's last chapter on your Presidency. I feel it is time you do a Ronald Reagan style "Mea Culpa" and below the fold is why:

I realize that this has been done to death by other folks elsewhere with Bush as the subject. But, I thought this had to be done, given the holiday this weekend and this past week's "thorn in the head" for Bushco in the press that just wouldn't go away... All I've got to say is... "Give us Abramoff!"

My apologies to anyone offended and heading out to church services tonight and tomorrow...; )

Generals who have chosen to speak out against Donald Rumsfeld have mentioned two of the biggest strategic mistakes made in the Iraq war (beyond going to war based on bull in the first place). The mistakes? Not going in with a large enough force to maintain the peace once the regime fell, and disbanding the Iraqi army.

I have one simple question that I have not heard a single reporter ask yet. Who made the decision to disband the Iraqi army?

When Medea Benjamin (founder of Global Exchange and Occupation Watch) returned from a trip to U.S. occupied Iraq soon after Baghdad fell, one of the key things she mentioned in her talks about the situation was the mistake the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority whom she referred to as the failed Texas businessmen running the apltly-named "Repbulican Palace") made in disbanding the Iraqi army. Military psy-ops had dropped leaflets across the country before the war started, telling Iraqi soldiers that if they took off their uniforms and stayed home when the bombing started, and didn't fight U.S. troops as they entered the country, the Iraqi troops could be partners in rebuilding a new, free Iraq.

When those troops did exactly as the leaflets asked, and didn't fight back, U.S. troops easily took the entire country. That's why George Bush was able to, mistakenly as it turns out, declare "Mission Accomplished" so quickly.

In winning the debate over Iran, there is only one talking point you need to remember: Iran is not building any nukes. All of the scientific evidence points to this fact. Iran does not have the capacity to make centrifuges for its own reactor, let alone make weapons-grade uranium.

Donald Rumsfeld talked about the role of the Bush administration in history in his op-ed yesterday. But given the fact that Iraq had no WMD's, given the fact that there is no crisis in Social Security, and given the fact that Iran is not building any nukes, the Bush administration will go down in history as the administration that cried wolf.

What was that you were saying, Donald?  Things are going great in Iraq?  The media is exaggerating the problems, the country is doing well, and violence is decreasing.  Those talking about civil war are just helping the terrorists.

Well, tell it to the PM.  In this case, former Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi.  In an interview with the BBC, Allawi says

"It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day as an average 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more.

"If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."

The man America put in place as Iraqi prime minister says Iraq is in civil war.  Looks like PM Allawi just joined the ranks of those radical left wingers who are pulling for the terrorists.

Chrs Floyd - Empire Burlesque

When I read the passage below from Moazzam Begg's account of his years in Bush's Terror War prisons, I had a strange feeling of dislocation: it was as if 30 years had suddenly fallen away and I was back in high school, reading Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago in stunned disbelief at the hideous cruelty inflicted on the prisoners -- deliberately, as a carefully calculated instrument of state policy. And all of it done in the name of national security, of course, to protect the nation against "terrorists" and "traitors."

Solzhenitsyn's books -- not just the factual Gulag but also the deep-delving fiction of his middle years, the powerful First Circle and Cancer Ward -- were enormous influences on my own understanding of politics, power and morality. Years later, I was in Moscow when he returned to Russia from his long exile, having outlasted the system of state terror that had consumed so many of his compatriots. However much I had come to disagree with some of his political positions on certain issues, it was a still a moment of triumph for the deeper truths and moral courage that he continued -- and continues -- to represent.