They served their time in the military in places like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and more recently, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Most returned in good health.
But an NBC 30 investigation has found that for some soldiers, their service has meant a long and debilitating death sentence with mysterious diseases.

“I have good days, I have bad days,” said M. Sterry, of New Haven. “There were eight of us that served together. Six of my friends are dead.”

She looks healthy, but Sterry is a very sick woman who has no idea how much longer she will live.

“I’ve had three heart attacks, two heart surgeries. I have chronic headaches, chronic upper respiratory infections. I get pneumonia two or three times a year,” she said. “I have chronic fatigue, joint aches, muscle aches. I have a rash that migrates all over my body.”

…State Sen. Gayle Slossberg said one of the sources of the diseases may be depleted uranium. She was one of those who helped pass legislation last year setting up a health registry in Connecticut, strictly to keep records on our military personnel.
nbc30.com

Washington – President Bush wants to sell more public land across the West to raise money for schools, conservation and deficit reduction.

Bush’s proposed 2007 federal budget, sent to Congress on Monday, calls for granting the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management new authority to sell off land. Those agencies together control hundreds of millions of acres in Western states.

Democrats and environmentalists compare the idea to recent proposals by Tom Tancredo and other Republicans in Congress to sell federal land to pay for hurricane relief and invigorate the mining industry.

Dave Alberswerth of the Wilderness Society dubbed the new sell-off proposal “a billion-dollar privatization program.”

And Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., sees it as a destructive way to pay for what he considers reckless tax cuts. “It’s like selling your homestead to pay your credit cards,” he said.
denverpost.com

A group of high school students and their parents filed a class-action lawsuit today against the State Board of Education on behalf of the tens of thousands of California students who have failed the exit exam required to graduate.

The suit seeks a court order allowing students in this year’s graduating class to earn their diploma regardless of whether they passed the math and English portions of the exam.

Lawyers for the students plan to argue that underfunded schools have failed to adequately prepare minority and disadvantaged students for the exam and that the state board did not consider alternatives to the test, as required by law.

“We are telling kids that they do not get a diploma if they do not pass an exit exam. We think that is unfair. It is unwise and it is illegal,” said Arturo Gonzalez, the lawyer for the group.

“Many students in California have not been given a fair opportunity to learn the material on the exam,” said Gonzalez, who filed the lawsuit in Sacramento.
latimes.com

…A long-lost 17th century manuscript charting the birth of modern science has been found gathering dust in a cupboard in a Hampshire home. Filled with crabby italics and acerbic asides, the 520 or so yellowing and stained pages are the handwritten minutes of the Royal Society as recorded by the brilliant scientist Robert Hooke, one of the society’s original fellows and curator of experiments.

The notes describe in detail some of the most astounding and outlandish scientific thinking from meetings of the society between 1661 to 1682. There is the very earliest work with microscopes, confirming the first sightings of sperm and micro-organisms. There is correspondence with Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Christopher Wren over the nature of gravity, with the latter’s proposal to fire bullets into the air to see where they might drop. And there is a page that lays to rest the bitter controversy over who designed the watch that would eventually lead to the first measurements of longitude.
guardian.co.uk

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Shortcomings in aid from the U.S. government are making New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin look to other nations for help in rebuilding his hurricane-damaged city.

Nagin, who has hosted a steady stream of foreign dignitaries since Hurricane Katrina hit in late August, says he may seek international assistance because U.S. aid has not been sufficient to get the city back on its feet.

“I know we had a little disappointment earlier with some signals we’re getting from Washington but the international community may be able to fill the gap,” Nagin said when a delegation of French government and business officials passed through on Friday to explore potential business partnerships.

Jordan’s King Abdullah also visited New Orleans on Friday and Nagin said he would encourage foreign interests to help redevelop some of the areas hardest hit by the storm.

“France can take Treme. The king of Jordan can take the Lower Ninth Ward,” he said, referring to two of the city’s neighborhoods.
reuters.com

The Bush administration’s re-characterisation of its “global war on terror” as the “long war” will be seen by critics as an admission that the US has started something it cannot finish. But from the Pentagon’s perspective, the change reflects a significant upgrading of the “generational” threat posed by worldwide Islamist militancy which it believes to have been seriously underestimated.

The reassessment, contained in the Pentagon’s quadrennial defence review presented to Congress yesterday, presages a new US drive to rally international allies for an ongoing conflict unlimited by time and space. That presents a problematic political, financial and military prospect for many European Nato members including Britain, as well as Middle Eastern governments.

According to the review, a “large-scale, potentially long duration, irregular warfare campaign including counter-insurgency and security, stability, transition and reconstruction operations” is necessary and unavoidable. Gone is the talk of swift victories that preceded the 2003 Iraq invasion. This will be a war of attrition, it says, fought on many fronts.

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, suggested at the weekend that western democracies must acknowledge they are locked in a life or death struggle comparable to those against fascism and communism. “The enemy have designed and distributed a map where national borders are erased and replaced by a global extremist Islamic empire.”
commondreams.org

Guns Over Butter, Abroad and at Home
WASHINGTON – Despite his administration’s growing concerns about preventing the collapse of states in strategic parts of the world, U.S. President George W. Bush has proposed cuts in development and disaster assistance while increasing the defence budget by almost seven percent.

We see that diplomacy and defence are well taken care of, but development is the weakest tool in our kit. Yet that’s where our long-term security lies.

Mohammad Akhter, president, InterAction
Under his 2007 budget request submitted to Congress Monday, Pentagon spending next year would rise to some 440 billion dollars, not including another 120 billion dollars that the administration is expected to ask for as a supplemental appropriation to fund U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through September, when fiscal 2006 ends.

By contrast, Bush’s proposed 2007 foreign-aid request will remain roughly the same as last year’s at some 24 billion dollars, the equivalent of what Washington spends in less than five months in Iraq.

Moreover, the president is calling for a nearly 20 percent cut in development aid — from roughly 1.5 billion dollars to 1.26 billion dollars in development aid — and similar cuts in disaster assistance and child-survival and health programmes.

“This administration has said there are three components to national security — diplomacy, defence, and development,” said Mohammad Akhter, president of InterAction, a coalition of some 160 U.S. non-governmental organisations (NGOs) active in developing countries. “We see that diplomacy and defence are well taken care of, but development is the weakest tool in our kit. Yet that’s where our long-term security lies.
Yes. We will ‘aid’ them into submission.

Senior Kadima figures Avi Dichter and Tzachi Hanegbi strongly oppose party leader and Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s vision of further unilateral withdrawals in the West Bank, Army Radio reported Wednesday.

In his first media interview since taking on the job of acting premier, Olmert said Tuesday that Israel “will separate from most of the Palestinian population that lives in the West Bank, and that will obligate us to separate as well from territories where the State of Israel currently is.”

“We will gather ourselves into the main settlement blocs and preserve united Jerusalem… Ma’aleh Adumim, Gush Etzion and Ariel will be part of the state of Israel,” Olmert told Channel 2 television.

Asked by interviewer Nissim Mishal what he intended to do with the Jordan Valley, Olmert responded: “It is impossible to give up control over Israel’s eastern border.”

“The direction is clear,” he continued. “We are moving toward separation from the Palestinians, toward setting Israel’s permanent border.”

The radio quoted former Shin Bet director Dichter as saying Wednesday morning that he was “staunchly opposed” to further withdrawals.

Aides to cabinet minister Hanegbi were quoted by the radio Wednesday as saying that he was also opposed and would continue to oppose Olmert’s vision of additional unilateral withdrawals.

In the interview, Olmert declined to offer any further details, and in particular failed to mention settlements such as Hebron, Beit El and Ofra, which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had viewed as part of the settlement blocs that Israel would retain.

“The Olmert plan for further unreciprocated withdrawals was exposed last night despite his efforts to camouflage it, fudge it and not say anything,” said Likud MK Gilad Erdan in response to Olmert’s interview.

“After the head of the Shin Bet [Yuval Diskin] warned against giving additional territory to Palestinian terror without any quid pro quo, Olmert continues to speak in a way that is detached from reality.”

“The public certainly notices that in the same day in which Olmert approves a negative, personal campaign against Netanyahu, he dares speak out against ‘a culture of personal insult’, by means of which he reached the pinnacle,” Erdan said.

Olmert also reiterated that the road map peace plan would remain the basis for any diplomatic negotiations with the Palestinians.

Regarding Iran, Olmert said: “The less we talk about Iran, and the more we coordinate international action as we have done with the United States and Europe, the better.” He also thanked U.S. President George Bush for pledging to defend Israel against any attack by Iran, terming this “the closest thing to an announcement of a military alliance with Israel.”

Earlier Tuesday, Olmert toured the separation fence around Jerusalem and Gush Etzion, and pledged that “we will make an enormous effort this year to finish the fence as quickly as possible.”
haaretz.com

02/06/06 (Santa Fe New Mexican, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) The former U.N. weapons inspector who said Iraq disarmed long before the U.S. invasion in 2003 is warning Americans to prepare for a war with Iran.

“We just don’t know when, but it’s going to happen,” Scott Ritter said to a crowd of about 150 at the James A. Little Theater on Sunday night.

Ritter described how the U.S. government might justify war with Iran in a scenario similar to the buildup to the Iraq invasion. He also argued that Iran wants a nuclear energy program, and not nuclear weapons. But the Bush administration, he said, refuses to believe Iran is telling the truth.

He predicted the matter will wind up before the U.N. Security Council, which will determine there is no evidence of a weapons program. Then, he said, John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, “will deliver a speech that has already been written. It says America cannot allow Iran to threaten the United States and we must unilaterally defend ourselves.”

“How do I know this? I’ve talked to Bolton’s speechwriter,” Ritter said.

Ritter also predicted the military strategy for war with Iran. First, American forces will bomb Iran. If Iranians don’t overthrow the current government, as Bush hopes they will, Iran will probably attack Israel. Then, Ritter said, the United States will drop a nuclear bomb on Iran.
informationclearinghouse.info

Russian Ultranationalist Leader Expects U.S. to Attack Iran in Late March
02/07/06 “Moscow News” — — A senior Russian parliamentary official and leader of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Vladimir Zhirinovsky believes that a US attack on Iran is inevitable, he has told Ekho Moskvy radio station.

“The war is inevitable because the Americans want this war,” he said. “Any country claiming a leading position in the world will need to wage wars. Otherwise it will simply not be able to retain its leading position. The date for the strike is already known — it is the election day in Israel (March 28). It is also known how much that war will cost,” Zhirinovsky said.

He went on to add that the publication of Prophet Muhammad cartoons in the European press was a planned action by the U.S. whose aim is “to provoke a row between Europe and the Islamic world”. “It will all end with European countries thanking the United States and paying, and giving soldiers,” he said. Russia should “choose a position of non-interference and express minimal solidarity with the Islamic world”, Zhirinovsky added.

‘Iran is world’s most serious threat since WWII’
Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Danny Ayalon said on Tuesday morning that Iran is the biggest problem facing the world since World War II.

He said the UN Security Council must force Iran to accept real supervision that would prevent the further development of its nuclear program.

If they continue with their plans, Ayalon warned, Iran may have the know-how needed for the production of nuclear weapons by the end of the year.

U.S. offers shield against attack by Iran
It has been mutually agreed that the U.S. will provide a defense umbrella to shield Israel from any Iranian attack, according to recent comments by U.S. President George Bush and Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Bush has raised the American commitment to Israel a notch closer to the defense level it provides for NATO. “It’s similar to the American defense umbrella on NATO members,” a source said.

Germany lambastes Iran for dragging Israel into cartoon fray
An Iranian newspaper’s call for Holocaust cartoons is an attempt to drag Israel into a conflict between Europe and the Muslim world over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, a German government minister said.

“After denying the right of Israel to exist and denying the Holocaust, the people around President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad are trying to escalate the situation,” Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler was quoted as saying in Wednesday’s edition of the Berliner Zeitung daily newspaper.

“This fills us with deep concern, that a state is using this clash of cultures as a tool to further its own dominance.”

Iran’s best-selling newspaper launched a competition on Tuesday to find the best cartoon about the Holocaust, in retaliation for the publication in Denmark and other European countries of caricatures of Islam’s most revered prophet.

There aren’t many elected officials in Washington who want to throw the gantlet down on Iran more than Hillary Clinton. The New York Senator believes the president has been too soft on the militant Islamic country, claiming that Bush has played down the threat of a nuclear-armed Tehran.

…You certainly don’t have to pull out a microscope to differentiate between George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton. Both want a continued occupation of Iraq. Both want sanctions on Iran. And they both claim to want democracy in the Middle East. Yet neither will accept a democratic outcome if it doesn’t favor US interests.
counterpunch.org

Today’s memorial service for civil rights activist Coretta Scott King — billed as a “celebration” of her life — turned suddenly political as one former president took a swipe at the current president, who was also lashed by an outspoken black pastor!

The outspoken Rev. Joseph Lowery, co-founder of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, ripped into President Bush during his short speech, ostensibly about the wife of Martin Luther King Jr.

“She extended Martin’s message against poverty, racism and war. She deplored the terror inflicted by our smart bombs on missions way afar. We know now that there were no weapons of mass destruction over there,” Lowery said.

The mostly black crowd applauded, then rose to its feet and cheered in a two-minute-long standing ovation.

A closed-circuit television in the mega-church outside Atlanta showed the president smiling uncomfortably.

“But Coretta knew, and we know,” Lowery continued, “That there are weapons of misdirection right down here,” he said, nodding his head toward the row of presidents past and present. “For war, billions more, but no more for the poor!” The crowd again cheered wildly.

Former President Jimmy Carter later swung at Bush as well, not once but twice. As he talked about the Kings, he said: “It was difficult for them then personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated as they became the target of secret government wiretaps.” The crowd cheered as Bush, under fire for a secret wiretapping program he ordered after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, again smiled weakly.

Later, Carter said Hurricane Katrina showed that all are not yet equal in America. Some black leaders have blamed Bush for the poor federal response, and rapper Kayne West said that Bush “hates” black people.
drudgereport.com

I thought he said Bush ‘doesn’t care about black people’ but we get the idea–it’s those black folks acting up again.