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POPSTraumatised Veterans get no CARE - just platitudes. This proves the lie that Labour cares for veterans. With 1 in 5 prisoners being former servicemen, there has to be some reason for this. What changes caring warriors into mindless thugs? Insults, neglect and total indifference. I charge all the major charities be they Royal British Legion, Soldiers,Sailors , Airmens Family Association to come up to the mark and put your money where your mouths are, and stop overpaying former generals and territorial officers for doing what volunteer carers do for nothing...care for the needy former soldier.
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POPSGuantanamo prosecutor who quit had 'grave misgivings' about fairness Cont.... Vandeveld is at least the fourth prosecutor to resign under protest. Questions about the fairness of the tribunals have been raised by the very people charged with conducting them, according to legal experts, human rights observers and current and former military officials. Vandeveld's claims are particularly explosive. In a declaration and subsequent testimony, he said the U.S. government was not providing defense lawyers with the evidence it had against their clients, including exculpatory information -- material considered helpful to the defense.
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POPSCan You Really Love Your Country? I support the innocent victims and the soldiers who were lied to and tricked into fighting in Iraq. But after the lies and evil were exposed and the truth came out , for all others who still choose to enlist and who still choose to pick up arms against innocent people and to knowingly aid in the occupation and devastation of an innocent sovereign nation ...then no. They get no sympathy from me. There's a big difference between being a soldier and being a mercenary. Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painful to change. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live. - Senator Edward M. Kennedy,
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POPSThe New Science of Fear: Can It Predict Bravery at 13,500 Feet?
"Mujica-Parodi says:"You're kind of like a rubber band, in that when you go up, you come back down right away. You're conserving your sympathetic dominance for when it's actually needed." These results, Mujica-Parodi says, mirror those of my fMRI session. It's not that I stayed cool when I was plummeting toward earth—"You were in actual danger," she says, so "a strong excitatory response was appropriate"—but that when I wasn't falling I suppressed the fear response and conserved my energy. The upshot: I might do well at keeping calm in the face of lethal danger, as most firemen and policemen do. More important, my results seem to reinforce Mujica-Parodi's theory, which could mean that in the future recruiters for the military and law enforcement will have a way to screen applicants for the most suitable training and job assignments. Our conversation turns back to the sky dive. "Would you go again?" Mujica-Parodi asks. "I think so," I tell her. But not right now. Maybe in a fe
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POPSGeorge Medal winner killed in Afghanistan Normally the bomb disposal soldiers use a remote- controlled razor blade to cut the wires, while they take cover in case the device is booby trapped with a secondary circuit. But WO2 O'Donnell was trapped with his fingers inside the trigger, and he couldn't get away without detonating the explosives. To make matters worse, he wasn't wearing a protective bomb suit, like soldiers in Britain often use to give them extra protection from a blast. The massive, unwieldy suits weigh 45kg and they make it difficult for the soldiers to defend themselves if they get attacked en route to a bomb site. In a single day, WO2 O'Donnell had to defuse eight Taliban bombs on a hill overlooking Helmand's deadly green zone, near Gereshk. The insurgents have started targeting high ground with record numbers of massive improvised explosive devices, because they know it is where the tanks and armoured cars go to provide back-up for soldiers in the valley below.
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POPS Poland Signs On! Glorious News! So much for the idea that Russia could intimidate and cower Eastern Europe with this show of criminal violance. The bravery of the proud and mighty people of Poland shines through. Bravo Poles! You will not regret your decision.
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POPSLong Tan awards 'right' for vets: PM I didn't agree with the Vietnam War, but have been saddened by the response to the Vets. Even shunned by Returned and Services League. They have had to fight for recognition and acceptance. This will help.
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POPSHero He used his own body armour and back-pack to save his comrades. Some guy!!
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POPSRoyal Marine awarded George Cross What is remarkable about this tale is that it is only a George Cross. despite having taken the blast, refusing evacuation, he went onto confront the Taliban and killed his enemy in a subsequent action. What people do not realise about the Royal Marines is that they do not expect to get reward. Fair payment and a covenant to took after them in ill-health and old age is all a Royal asks for. But who cares? Well done, Royal.
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POPSCourage of the flip-flop: Has McCain got it? Like when it was demonstrated to him that his religious companions were bigots that advocated murder. Was it cowardice or courage or the pope and the Catholics that made him have such a radical change of mind and dump his fundamentalist 'friends'? Apparently they have dumped him back. Hagee has put out a statement saying that he withdraws his endorsement from McCain because he has “become a distraction in what should be a national debate about important issues.” It takes one type of courage to drop bombs from the sky. Another altogether to order men into battle. A far greater courage to bring home the troops. Which courage does McCain have? Bush landed on a carrier. He wore the uniform. Did he demonstrate any courage?
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POPSDefending Wes Clark Cont... "Is what Wesley Clark said true? Let's check some other facts: John McCain made claims about progress in security by walking through the streets of Baghdad. But as I recall, he was protected by at least a platoon of American soldiers and helicopters lying overhead. In matters of national security, as General Clark pointed out, "it's a matter of understanding risk," and it's "gauging your opponents;" and it's also a "matter of being held accountable."
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POPSFair-Weather Civil Libertarians In January, Greenwald reports, Olbermann delivered an unhinged rant in which he called the immunity provision a "shameless, breathless, literally textbook example of fascism"--and in case you thought he meant the nongenocidal Italian kind, he also likened proponents of immunity to "the bureaucrats of the Third Reich." "But that was five whole months ago" Greenwald observes: Now that Barack Obama supports a law that does the same thing--and now that Obama justifies that support by claiming that this bill is necessary to keep us Safe from the Terrorists--everything has changed. . . . Olbermann invited Newsweek's Jonathan Alter onto his show to discuss Obama's support for the FISA. There wasn't a word of rational criticism of the bill. Instead, the two media stars jointly hailed Obama's bravery and strength--as evidenced by his "standing up to the left" in order to support this important centrist FISA compromise.
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POPSWill America Be The Next Nazi Germany? Everyone likes to say, "Hitler did this", and, "Hitler did that". But the truth is Hitler did very little. He was a world class tyrant, but the evil actually done by the Third Reich, from the slave-labor camps to WW2 was all done by German citizens who were afraid to question if what they were told by their government was the truth or not, and who because they did not want to admit to themselves that they were afraid to question the government, refused to see the truth behind the Reichstag Fire, refused to see the invasion by Poland was a staged fake, and followed Hitler into national disaster.
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POPSContractor Atrocity--It's Lying ... and It's Murder: How KBR Electrocuted US Troops
"... and marines in Iraq and Afghanistan. These deaths did not come while the soldiers were on patrol or by unexpected encounters with downed "hot" wires. These "accidents" happened in facilities used as base camps for U.S. units, camps that were to have been completely refurbished - including the wiring - under terms of a $30 billion no-bid contract awarded to the one-time Halliburton subsidiary KBR (formerly Kellogg-Brown-Root). The deaths reportedly all were the result of shoddy workmanship in the grounding of electrical sources, both in permanent structures and in machinery when in use. The problem is not new: in 2004, Army units in theatre were alerted concerning the potential for accidental electrocution. American electricians working for KBR in the war zone observed and notified KBR and even the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), the office that monitors contractor performance, of numerous instances of poor workmanship by undertrained and underpaid Iraqi and Afghan "e
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POPSMary Seacole: Black British Heroine Mary Jane Grant was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1805. Her father was a Scottish soldier, and her mother a Jamaican. Mary learned her nursing skills from her mother, who kept a boarding house for invalid soldiers. Although technically 'free', being of mixed race, Mary and her family had few civil rights - they could not vote, hold public office or enter the professions. In 1836, Mary married Edwin Seacole but the marriage was short-lived as he died in 1844.
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POPSConyers Says He's on Edge of Starting Impeachment Let's push Conyers over the edge by flooding his office with phone calls, faxes, and Emails on Monday and Tuesday. Let him know that only impeachment hearings 1-will make it on TV, 2-will force compliance with subpoenas by eliminating "executive privilege", 3-will hold brazen criminals accountable, and 4-will convince voters that Democrats care about the Constitution. Call 202-225-5126 Fax 202-225-0072 Email john.conyers@mail.house.gov