10/17/2012
Another Obama Executive Order Allows Seizure of Americans’ Bank Accounts
The latest executive order (EO) emanating from the White House October 9 now claims the power to freeze all bank accounts and stop any related financial transactions that a “sanctioned person” may own or try to perform — all in the name of “Iran Sanctions.”
Titled an “Executive Order from the President regarding Authorizing the Implementation of Certain Sanctions…” the order says that if an individual is declared by the president, the secretary of state, or the secretary of the treasury to be a “sanctioned person,” he (or she) will be unable to obtain access to his accounts, will be unable to process any loans (or make them), or move them to any other financial institution inside or outside the United States. In other words, his financial resources will have successfully been completely frozen. The EO expands its authority by making him unable to use any third party such as “a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, subgroup or other organization” that might wish to help him or allow him to obtain access to his funds.
And if the individual so “sanctioned” decides that the ruling is unfair, he isn't allowed to sue. In two words, the individual has successfully been robbed blind.
But it’s all very legal. The EO says the president has his “vested authority” to issue it, and then references endless previous EOs, including one dating back to 1995 which declared a “state of emergency” (which hasn’t been lifted): Executive Order 12957.
EO 12957 was issued by President Bill Clinton on March 15, 1995, which was also obliquely related to the Iran “problem”:
I, William J. Clinton, President of the United States of America, find that the actions and policies of the Government of Iran to constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.
Clinton’s EO further delegated such powers as were necessary to enforce the EO to the secretaries of the treasury and state “to employ all powers … as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate any of these functions to other officers and agencies of the United States Government.”
Such EOs are the perfect embodiment of what the Founders feared the most: the combining of the legislative, executive, and judicial functions into one body. Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution says: “All legislative powers herein shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” As Thomas Eddlem, writing for The New American, expressed it, “then it stands to reason [that] none is left for the president.”
But Joe Wolverton, also in The New American, pointed out the particular piece of language the Founders used to limit the powers of the president which totalitarians have twisted to allow such powers to expand: the “take care” clause, to wit: Article II, Section 3: he [the president] shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed…
With every EO, the president avoids the cumbersome constitutional safeguards spelled out by the Constitution, and uses them to implement policies he "knows" are right. Says Wolverton: "With every one of these … executive orders, then, the president elevates his mind and will above that of the people, Congress and the courts."
The current administration has had a lot of help in justifying and codifying the legitimacy of executive orders, going all the way back to President George Washington who in 1793 issued his “Neutrality Proclamation,” which declared that the United States would remain neutral in the current conflict between France and Great Britain, and would bring sanctions against any American citizen who attempted to provide assistance to either party. The language of Washington is eerily similar to that used by President Obama in the present case:
I have therefore thought fit by these presents to declare the disposition of the United States to observe the conduct aforesaid toward those powers respectively, and to exhort and warn the citizens of the United States carefully to avoid all acts and proceedings whatsoever which may in any manner tend to contravene such disposition…
I have given instructions to those officers to whom it belongs to cause prosecutions to be instituted against all persons who shall, within the cognizance of the courts of the United States, violate the law of nations with respect to the powers at war, or any of them.
When James Madison protested Washington’s usurpation of powers not intended for the president, Congress acquiesced and passed, retroactively, the Neutrality Act of 1794, validating Washington’s usurpation.
President Lincoln engaged in similar usurpations, using presidential “directives” to run the early months of the Civil War, presenting Congress with, as Todd Gaziano put it,
the decision either to adopt his [directives] as legislation or to cut off support for the Union army.
Within his first two months in office, on April 15, 1861, Lincoln issued a proclamation activating troops to defeat the Southern rebellion and for Congress to convene on July 4.
He also issued proclamations to procure warships and to expand the size of the military; in both cases, the proclamations provided for payment to be advanced from the Treasury without congressional approval.
These latter actions were probably unconstitutional, but Congress acquiesced in the face of wartime contingencies, and the matters were never challenged in court.
President Franklin Roosevelt often overlooked the niceties of constitutional restraints as well. As Gaziano expressed it, “FDR also showed a tendency to abuse his executive order authority and [to] claim powers that were not conferred on him in the Constitution or by statute.”
As far as numbers of executive orders issued, Obama is a piker. At the moment, although the list is growing, his administration has issued 138 executive orders. President Theodore Roosevelt issued 1,006 while President Woodrow Wilson issued 1,791. Even President Calvin Coolidge used the EO “privilege” 1,253 times.
The granddaddy of them all, FDR, issued an astounding 3,728 executive orders, but of course he was in office longer than Obama.
President Bill Clinton issued only 364 executive orders, but he made the most of them, using this extra-legal power to, among other things, wage war in Yugoslavia without congressional approval. Cliff Kincaid collated the numerous EOs issued by Clinton in 1998 and 1999, and concluded:
Clinton waged his war on Yugoslavia through executive order and presidential directive. Clinton used executive orders to designate a "war zone," call up troops, proclaim a "national emergency" with respect to Yugoslavia, and impose economic sanctions on the Belgrade government.
Clinton claimed war-making presidential authority through his "constitutional authority" to conduct "foreign relations," as "Commander in Chief" and as "Chief Executive." Under this self-designated authority, Clinton delegated command-and-control of U.S. forces to NATO and its Secretary-General Javier Solana, who decided when the air war would be discontinued…
The most outrageous executive order of all time was that issued by President Roosevelt that allowed the enforced internment of 120,000 Japanese-Americans: 9066.
Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) called EOs patently unconstitutional. When asked about them by Fox News’ Megan Kelly, Paul responded:
The Constitution says that only Congress passes laws. The executive branch is not allowed to pass laws, nor should the judicial system pass laws. So it is clearly unconstitutional to issue these executive orders.
They’ve been done for a long time, both parties have done it, but the Congress is careless. They allow and encourage and do these deals … to get the president to circumvent the Congress. If something’s unpopular and he can’t get it passed, well, let’s just sign an executive order. So I think that is blatantly wrong. I think this defies everything the founders intended. I think it’s a shame that Congress does it, and I think it’s a shame that the American people put up with it.
Correction: As originally written, this article placed the number of executive orders issued by the Obama administration at 900, based on an inaccurate source. We regret this misinformatiion. The figure cited in the article has now been corrected.
10/16/2012
Keshe: Peace Negotiations and Standing up to the Bullies
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
Keshe: Peace Negotiations and Standing up to the Bullies
Keshe's latest message about the threats from Israel and a new era of global peace.
Please note that China, Russia and Iran are working together towards this goal. In the arena of financial freedom and prosperity, with the ending of the iron fisted control by the elites and their banking cartel, recognition of the work of these countries and the vast multitude of nations that stand behind them is of great importance. The cabal controlled media continues it's propaganda campaign against these nations, spreading continuous waves of fear porn and perpetuating the racial/political/religious divisions that they have used for centuries to control the masses.
While the puppet media would try to convince you that the US and their G5 partners are the guiding light of the majority of the world, the actual fact is that they pretty much stand alone with a couple of their ass kissing sycophants for company. Over 120 nations of the Non-Aligned Movement stand with Iran, and over 95 of these nations have taken a firm stand against the Cabal's "United" Nations.
The G5 nations are about to find themselves playing "I'm the King of the castle".... all by themselves.
On the topic of threats. Five years ago I would have played the roll of peace-keeper. Today is a different story. Today, while I still abhor violence and warmongering tactics, I realize now that sometimes the best way to get the bully to stop picking on you is to bloody their nose. So yes I don't like countries threatening countries, but when the school yard bully continuously shouts threats and waves their fist around, maybe it's time for the rest of the kids to step up and blacken the bully's eye.
...or kick him in the balls.
Regardless, bullies are usually not very tough, especially if they're running home crying for their mommy.
In response to what has been put on the Keshe thoughts group which is going on now on the internet at this moment:Following our last call from the Keshe Foundation centre in Belgium for peace negotiations between the Iranian government and the government of Israel, we renew our call to both nations before the final move and total war between them.
The balance of the game has totally shifted in the last days in favour of Iran and Iran will win the war if any move is made against them by any nation, be it Israel or the US government.
Our cousins and brothers in all three nations, please accept our call for peace as we do not see a way out apart from total change of the map of the state of Israel if any military move is made by either country.
This checkmate position for Israel and the nations of the West is the result of their atrocities of past decades and is due to the wisdom of the Chinese and Russian leadership, the Syrian president and the foresight of the Iranian government and its religious leadership.
From now on the world will be a safer place for all of us as the bankrupt nations of the world calling themselves world super powers have been snookered into accepting the final checkmate by the peace loving nations of China, Iran and Russia.
Now world peace is nearly guaranteed and from the Keshe Foundation’s point of view we foresee the establishment of world peace through the wisdom of the Iranian, Russian and Chinese leadership.
We thank these governments for their wisdom and we offer our technology to support their move for the establishment of peace on the planet.
Let me explain what has happened and how the West will soon ask for peace talks which will result in a change of membership in the UN Security Council.
In their attempt to topple the Syrian government, using the excuse of its unjust leadership, the British and US got involved in the Syrian fighting and were planning through this intervention to topple the Iranian government as well. As they thought this time again as in the case of Libya no-one would stand in front of them to stop this continuous killing and robbing the nations of the Middle East of their central bank reserves, to replace their losses in the financial markets in the past years as was done in the Second World War by the Germans in respect to the European nations central banks.
Due to this checkmate the Israel nation will be forced into accepting the Iranian plan for the establishment of the state of Palestine with Jewish people as its citizens and consequently the UK and France will be forced out of the UN Security Council and these two nations will be replaced by Brazil and India.
In the coming months the US, UK and French past leaderships will be subjected to a full trial at the International Court of Justice for their unjust wars and for killing millions of people and for the human rights atrocities of the past thirty years.
Let us see how Iran, China and Russia made this amazing move and how the US, UK and Israel have been checkmated and have to accept the world peace put forward by these wining world peace nations.
First of all, if the present state of Israel does not accept the Iranian proposal for the establishment of the state of Palestine then it will cease to exist and will be merged with the new state of Palestine as has been for centuries. Thus the Iran leadership’s call for changing the map will be finalized and the nightmare of Israel attacking Iran will be over.
Israel, the UK and the US shot themselves in the foot by going into Syria and now they have to accept this change of policy in the Middle East, which will bring an end to war in this region for good.
What has happened is that as part of the joint military exercises being carried out by Syria, China, Russia and Iran, Iran is now sitting on Israel’s doorstep, bringing Israel’s worst nightmare to reality, and Iran can walk into the state of Israel any time they wish.
So if Israel goes ahead with its threat of attacking Iran while it has the Iranian military sitting on its borders, they with their short range missiles and trained army will literally walk through the state of Israel.
So this brings us to the call for peace between the present nation of Israel and Iran before this state ceases to exist and becomes part of the state of Palestine.
During these four state military exercises the US will not dare to attack Iran, China and Russia all at the same time, and in one move the US administration has become the underdog of the peace loving nations of Iran, China and Russia.
We congratulate the leadership of these nations who are working for the establishment of real world peace and not those who under the banner of world peace have caused so much suffering in the Middle East in recent years.
With this move, the economy of the west will start tumbling down as their economies based on the war-making machine come to a sudden halt, and in the coming weeks we will see the leaders of Europe change their address to the prisons of the international criminal courts for the crimes they have committed.
Maybe this is what was to be expected as the US as slave to the UK government could not get involved in more wars and lose more of its youth to end up in flag-draped coffins.
Now we all know why we started our teaching program from 21.9.2012, as from now we will all learn the real meaning of peace and can implement our ethos of the unity of mankind through the SSP program.
At the same time our calls goes to Iranians, Arabs and Palestinians of the region too, that use this opportunity to create everlasting peace and not make the mistakes of our Israel’s brothers in the past, you think that, now that you are free, it is your time to cause harm to others as you see it to be your right to do so for what they have done to you since late 1940’s.
Show the true meaning of words of the holy books and forgive and not forget that if forgotten then the same mistakes shall be made, if forgiven then this shows the maturity of the Palestinian's reaching peace through sufferings , that they would not like to see no others to go through the same pains again and for them to do to the same atrocities to others, even to those who have harmed them are all of their own cosines and Children’s and son’s of Abraham.
Forgiving has sweeter and longer lasting taste, and with this forgiving we shall restore and end with banishment of tribe of Mohammad from obscurity and give them the equal seat on the table of the sons of Man. With this we hope all have received what they have asked for and from now mankind can live in peace and harmony on this past troubled planet.
We see and hope for a better future for mankind, now that the tools of war have come to ceased to exist and from now on we see the factories of war making machines will become to work much harder by producing the tools of the peace and systems for transporting the mankind in to the spans of the universe, for us to take the ethos of peace with us to teach and announce to others as to show we have matured enough that we can take our place in the peaceful universal community.
Click HERE to read the original post by Keshe
10/08/2012
The Guardian – Jonathan Watts And Virginia Lopez – Hugo Chávez Is Re-Elected In Venezuela – 8 October 2012
Venezuelan president retains power after 14 years in office, recording 54.5% of the vote against rival Henrique Capriles
Venezuela‘s Hugo Chávez has once again defied his doubters by winning a new term of office in the presidential election after what had been billed as the closest race of his political life.
To the euphoria of supporters in and around his campaign headquarters, the National Electoral Council announced on Sunday the president had secured 54.4% of the votes, while his rival Capriles was behind with 44.9%. Some votes were still to be counted, but the council said the result was not in doubt.
Pumping his fist in the air, Chávez address his supporters from the balcony of the presidential palace as a barrage of fireworks lit up the sky. “The revolution has triumphed!” Chávez told the crowd, saying his supporters “voted for socialism.”
“Today we’ve shown that Venezuela’s democracy is one of the best democracies in the world, and we will continue to show it,” he shouted, waving a replica of Símon Bolivar sword.
As the result was announced, his supporters burst into cheers and songs of “Viva Le Patria” and “Ooh Aah, Chávez won’t go.”
“I’m crying with joy,” said Alirio Guevara, a fisherman from Vargas, who came to Caracas to vote and joined the joyous crowds at the Chávez campaign headquarters. “In the next six years, we will deepen the revolution.”
In accepting defeat, Capriles took solace in picking up more votes than any previous challenger and restricting Chávez to a single-digit margin of victory.
“In order to win, one must know how to lose. For me the people’s voices are sacred. For those who feel sad, I tell them, ‘we started to build a road and there it is’. We have 6 million people who want a new road.”
Underlining the intense interest in the campaign, the turnout among the 19 million registered voters was a record 80.4%.
Many analysts had warned that a slim margin of victory could lead to violence, but with an almost double-digit gap there was no immediate indication of unrest on Sunday evening.
Venezuelans had queued under the sun for up to five hours to cast their vote amid expectations of a possible change, prompted by vastly contrasting opinion surveys in the weeks before the poll.
After the result was announced, Chávez tweeted: “Thank you, my God. Thanks to everyone. Thanks my beloved people!!! Viva Venezuela!!!! Viva Bolivar!!!!!”
Chávez has held on to power for more than a decade despite an attempted coup, a nationwide oil strike and a yearlong fight with cancer, which may not be over.
With many voters unhappy at one of the world’s highest murder rates and crumbling infrastructure, his party had lost ground in recent legislative elections and his long illness had clearly restricted his campaign appearances, particularly in contrast to his 40-year-old rival who was making two stops a day in a energetic campaign that criss-crossed the country.
The opposition had felt this was their best chance to regain power, but the president ended strongly with a giant rally of hundreds of thousands of supporters in Caracas on the final day of the campaign on Thursday.
On the campaign trail, president Chávez vowed that if re-elected he would use the next six years to correct past mistakes, to continue to build a socialist alternative to the capitalist model, and to continue using the country’s vast oil revenues to redistribute wealth, promote the revolution overseas and to bolster ideological allies such as Cuba and Nicaragua.
But analysts say his reduced margin of victory – down from 26% in 2006 and 16% in 1998 – may prompt changes in the cabinet and the government’s policy, particularly with regard to public security and the economy. Health concerns are also likely to linger.
ZeroHedge – Columben : The World Is FIAT – 8 October 2012
COLUMBEN: THE WORLD IS FIAT
(WilliamBanzai7)
In the year two zero one and two
ColumBen sailed the fiat ocean blue.He had three ships and left insane;
QE 1, 2 and 3 and a Keynesian brain.He schemed by night; he fooled by day;
This PhD farce always got his way.A Keynesian compass helped him know
How to schtup each and every average Joe.Ninety men were on board;
Those men worked while the bankstas snored.Then when the workers went to sleep;
The bankstas screwed them like big sheep.Day after day they looked for Ponziland;
They dreamed of fiat trees and Ponzi sand.October 8 their dream came true,
You never saw a bigger BLS Bullshit stew!Look: “Employed Indians!” ColumBen cried;
His heart was filled with joyful pride.But “India” the land was not;
It was Amerika, and it’s economy was shot.The angry natives weren’t very nice;
All they gave the bankstas was a noose.ColumBen sailed to find some Ponzi gold
To bring back home, as he’d been told.He made the trip again and again,
But all he found was an empty Keynesian pen..
Open Letter to World Citizens
I invite every Gaia inhabitant to revisit October 12, 1492 with me. Seriously. You will see why it is important.
We all know that Christopher Columbus did not discover America. Many before him had anchored their boats in different landscapes of the wealthy Americas occupied by native people who worshiped the earth. There are plenty of stories from Americo Vespucio to the Vikings. Having said that, we can safely say that Christopher Columbus was the first one who came to from the North with enough power to colonize the vibrant American Continent. So, I invite you to evoke the story once more with a different set of eyes. The eyes of the truth… Let’s revisit the scene.
The story tells, around those days, after a long time navigating the deep ocean, Christopher Columbus finally reached the islands near the mainland in Central America. In procession with his 3 ships and several little boats, fully populated by other men like him, covered their bodies in an odd manner, setting foot on the bright white sand of the Island’s beach of Guanahaní (San Salvador, in the Bahamas), on a sunny day… One of those days where the horizon is crispy clear blue and the sun is bright…and there he was, waiting for Columbus and his sailors, the Holy man, the Shaman of the friendly Tahino Indian tribe, ready to receive them. The Caribbean breeze caressing his face, looking into Columbus eyes. Dressed his body with the partial nakedness of his proud brown color.
The holy man now is trying to grasp the entire scene of the unprecedented experience he is having at this moment, incredibly, something that already is completely out of the realm of his consciousness. While thinking : “Where did they come from…they must be gods”
Imagine, being in his mind at that very moment. Trying to assess and discern that level of a foreign intrusion in the realm of your reality. Faced with ever unseen, unprecedented elements invading your familiar scene.
Imagine the sound of the words when Columbus talks to him for the first time in that strange language that he can’t understand.
What is he thinking… What would it be like to be having that experience . What would it be like, to be under his skin looking through his eyes in that critical moment in history. Did we ever think of that?
Somehow, both men in front of each others worlds, meeting in the middle. Both of them facing the future they will create with their thoughts and their hearts in face of this re-discovery.
The remarkable re-discovery, carrying with it a rare opportunity for full potential in wholeness and oneness.
The remarkable re-discovery also carrying the seeds of conquest and separation. What is it going to be. The historic moment of choice.
So, back to our shaman… today, in the familiar everyday scene, stepping on the white sand… sharing the rain forest, the birds, the monkeys with their friends the wild animals, the blue sky, those things that he loves so much because of his awareness of being a part of them, and them being a part of him, (the way it always was). Today, added to the landscape of the present, there are a bunch of creatures that kind of look like him, but have different skin color, different eye color, more pale faces, and weird covers on their bodies. Some of them even have hair on their faces and their chest. They came from the sea, in some kind of rowing boats he had never in his life seen before.
Remarkably, Columbus somehow communicates in his unintelligible language through the voice message, the sound, charged with the enormous emotion from the amazing discovery, (re discovery) and the exuberant exhilaration of realizing him and his men are safe after a lethal journey by sea in three weak little boats from the other side of the world. Translating into something like “we came from afar in these row boats from those ships on the water”. His body language giving more emphasis to the spoken word.
The holy man’ eyes look at the horizon to see the part of the scene he is missing. It is empty! Clean, clear, familiar as always. Looks back at Columbus .
It is in that moment when time stops.
After the shaman receives the emotional voice vibration in his heart, send it to his eyes through his brain, and suddenly finally adjusting the fortuity of the unknown image to his own realm of reality, then is when he can actually start seeing from the corner of his eye for the first time the three ships floating on the sea further in the horizon.
Now, when he directs his eyes to the sea again, the horizon is not empty, clean, clear and familiar any more. There are three giant floating things with large cloths hanging from their sticks and red symbols.
People keep saying it was a good thing he was the shaman of the tribe. The truth is he was fulfilling his mission. The mission he has been preparing for. His healer training helped him do that adjustment from the vibration of the message in his heart to his brain and quickly materialize from his eyes what was there all along.
Being receptive to the frequency of the moment to connect to a part of the hologram that was out of his frame of reference, he was just showing his preparation for such a singular encounter. He was, after all, the chosen one with the privilege to greet his brother from the other side of the earth!
…And we don’t even know his name. We forgot to ask. We also forgot to ask everything else about him. We forgot he was our brother. We forgot he had a voice. We forgot he had a heart and a mind like us. We forgot he was also wearing a body to dress his spirit, exactly like ours. Maybe a little different in the outside but coming from the exact same spirit. Not only all that but we did the worst of all! With the ones we didn’t kill we enslaved and dismissed their religion. We embarked in the cause of conversion. How arrogant that can be…we didn’t even ask about their gods. We decided to impose our.
I would like to remind you that the Arab Empire invaded and conquered Spain and stayed for eight centuries of pacific coexistence…nobody messed with the Spaniards religion…go figure.
Think about it for a moment… How disregarding that can be. On the other hand, I guess you don’t need to ask the name of the person you are going to slaughter. Here is the story and what happened to the Tahino Indians. http://www.healing-arts.org/spider/tainoindians.htm
The Shaman is still there, standing, he doesn’t know yet that those 3 ships have female names and bring with them a way of thinking that is going to change his life and his world as he knows it for good.
It’s funny how we have created this mirage of false value in bringing “civilization” to the southern hemisphere. Perpetrating the false belief that the only value in that encounter was what we brought to the table.
Our self centered overrated “civilized” world. Carrying large technology and small sense of evolution. We were not interested in their ways. We were interested in their riches. Or in converting them to our beliefs without even asking about theirs to make them our slaves. What could those Indians possibly have provided to our world. They were in balance with nature…and we were running away from nature. The rest is history.
Now, let’s ask ourselves the question. “What would have happened if the people from the North had recognized the enormous value that people from the South was offering at that moment, by acknowledging them collectively. Proceeding to plant seeds of cooperation and unity in sharing the expansion of the abundant treasure at hand with the discovery, instead of perpetrating the separation and competition fallacy, rooted in lack. What would have happened.
If they would have chosen not to Impose their ways with a capital I of Invasion as the only valuable and possible ones. “My way or else”. What would have happened?
Sometimes it seems that what we are best at in this planet is creating bullies. Bullies who are incapable of sharing the experience. Because they are so far gone into their own story that nothing else seems real. Like relentlessly victimized children vigorously claiming the attention they lacked.
It makes sense, after you grow up seeing, feeling and acting only one side of the story in the History books, you become numb to the suffering on the other side of the story. There is no story there, It is irrelevant in your mind. You can’t feel it. You never were led to acknowledge it collectively. You never shared the experience by inviting them into your world. You assumed they didn’t have a voice.
Before you know, 500 hundred years have gone by, and you are bombing people’s lands calling your own human casualties “collateral damage”.
Did you ever ask yourself what would have happened if we really understood that around those days on October 12Th 1492 God/dess/matrix intention perhaps was to send three ships with female names, La Pinta, La Nina and La Santa Maria, was presenting us all as a species, with the amazing gift of a remarkable opportunity to encounter our own wholeness?
Yes. The other side of us. The one that completes and complements. Like one side of the earth completes and complements the other side. They are not separated…
The sad part is, that when we choose to separate the Shaman from our experience, and we cut the world like an orange, in two sides, instead of uniting and integrating its parts, spreading and combining knowledge through cooperation and unity coming from expansion, we continue to spread the virus of separation and competition coming from the perception of lack, deeply rooted into the collective consciousness.
What we are really doing here, is shutting out a part of ourselves. The nameless Shaman somehow represents that unhappy, unacknowledged unsatisfied and also nameless child inside. No kidding. It is the same conversation in the Shaman’s head we were not interested to acknowledge in 1492.
The same way we are not interested in half of the conversation in our head today in 2010. Repeating the pattern of refusing to incorporate the language of creativity, sustainability, questioning, big picture thinking, innocence and trust. The language of the right brain. The language of the child, the same language of the Shaman who is connected to nature.
The irony is, today, at this moment in history, we are facing changes that require a focused and passionate mechanism of adjustment. A different conversation in our heads. A real training to remember how to see with the eyes of the heart, in partnership with the ears of the mind again.
The irony is that now, 500 years later, we will not make it without the Shaman’s language. We need to integrate his conversation in our head not only at an individual but also at a collective level. Restore the balance with nature for one.
We are heading to collective resonance by matching the south and the north. The eagle of the north with the mind and the condor from the south with the heart. The Mayan and Ho pie prophecies narrate…the eagle from the north representing the mind will fly down south and the condor from the south representing the heart will fly up north and they will meet and mate in the middle. We need both. The mind and the heart. Working in unison. Not separated!
The Entrepreneur Visionary Mindset of the 21st C requires the shaman’s preparation and readiness to be alert at all times, to apply the needed instant adjustment to the multiple changes we are facing. It requires above all, believe it or not, the role modeling of the Shaman carrying the millennial dignity of his authenticity.
You can say that Integrity, Empathy and Authenticity are the three new marketing keywords behind the sales and business model of the 21st C. See how relevant it can be? When we started running away from nature, we also left our authenticity behind.
As you know, we already went full circle. We are at that moment where it is impossible to sustain the unsustainable any more..
I think part of the confusion is in the misleading message of separation and competition we get that you have to always compete to be number one. Pretty unrealistic goal with billions of people in the planet competing with you for one spot.
Or being compared with one another person all the time, like somebody attaching you to some invisible “cliché” of what you are supposed to be. Not who you are. Don’t you think? Honestly you don’t have much chance with that thinking at all.
It is completely unrealistic, and then, we ask why people are depressed, or commit suicide. They are in front of a sequence of one impossible task after another, while they are pushed to betray themselves. Hopelessly chasing the donkey with the stick and the carrot. A very sad destiny.
Isn’t it much easier to incorporate the more in alignment with yourself communal thinking that who you really are is “the one and only” instead of the only one? Why? Because the truth is, nobody in the world is like you. There will never be in the history of eternity anybody like you.
If that is the case, doesn’t make much more sense to capitalize on that uniqueness instead of capitalizing in such a hopeless task with so limited possibilities? We are talking about the asset you own. Your wealth. The only thing that is all yours. Your brilliance. No need to compete for something you don’t have when you have something nobody has. Makes sense?
Albert Einstein says: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” I love that quote. Seems like the foundation of critical thinking. That is why is so important to go back to 1492 and seriously reflect on that encounter. An exercise in adjusting your thinking. Giving it perspective.
How differently would you rewrite the story if it was happening today. If you were in Christopher Columbus shoes. Today, with the historical perspective, how handy would it have been to have learned one thing or two about how to maintain balance with nature from the holy man, 500 years ago. Think about it. Would the world be in this mess we are today? Not…
All that said, the truth is, when you can feel the shaman experience in your heart, because you are integrating that part of you, you actually have a great shot at success, because you changed the conversation in your head to inclusion, expansion and wholeness, first within. Now you are ready and open to entering the Shaman’ s conversation. Now you can have a real dialogue with the other half of the world and the other half of yourself. At the same time.
You are open to entering into a whole new world. You will be able to expand your thinking and enter your future clients heads from the coherence of your own being. You’ll be able to build genuine profitable relationships, while you seal your contribution to humanity.
It’s called collective resonance. It calls for a much less stressful business world. Can you imagine? No children pretending to be adults any more. More like human beings building consensus guided by their own creativity and authenticity working together for the good of all. With the innocence of a child.
I anticipate you want to make sure that that level of disconnection and division in our amazing planet never happens again. You want to acknowledge the Shaman, and this time, perhaps, start by asking his name, and asking about his ways. Perhaps offering your help. This time you will acknowledge his humanity. This time you will respect his culture and welcome the opportunity to learn from it to expand your own knowledge.
This time you will share the knowledge in cooperation, to cultivate co-creative coherence. Where both voices, the voice of the mind and the voice of the heart meet in the magic of the middle line. The zero zone. Between your left brain and your right brain. In the middle of the world. The middle of the Americas. Between the south and the north. Uniting your thoughts inside out. The eagle and the condor finally mating.
It is so necessary to go to the root cause of problems. History has a way of helping to do that. We have all grown a wide variety of masks, generation through generation, rooted in that old thinking. Where the heart representing the South didn’t have a chance, as well as your integrity and your authenticity. No chance. No room for any of it. Think about it…
Those masks have to fall. All of them. It takes some time to do it. You just start one by one and soon enough they all fall at once. Leaving the brilliance of your creativity behind. Your heart wearing the authenticity of the Shaman. Your own Inner Child in charge.
The day that we decide as Earth inhabitants to dedicate the adequate resources to make sure each and every child on the planet is raised to be fully acknowledged satisfied and happy instead of dedicating them to multiple wars creating poverty and hunger, will be the day we will eradicate violence for good from the face of the globe.
Alice Miller concludes “Violence is not genetic” after her lifetime study of human behavior. The first 7 years of a person’s life are critical.
Behind every violent act there is an unhappy, unacknowledged and unsatisfied child.
In the meantime, we have to start taking responsibility to co-create that vision inside out. Starting with ourselves.
Did you know that the 2nd cause of death among millennials is suicide?
Did you know that 45% of the college students are medicated?
Did you know that small businesses don’t make it beyond the first 5 year mark?Those obscene three numbers we look at, like the” why” is not important, inspired me to create a mechanism that acts as an antidote for those three serious issues in our society in one and only program.
It addresses two fundamental elements at the individual and collective level at once. Something like reversing business failure, by bringing the motor of motivation and passion of soul contract to the equation. Adding resources and innovation. Wrapped up in a Mastermind group structure.
I am convinced that in business and in life, things work if you find your fit. If they still don’t work is because somewhere around the scene is one or more unhappy and unsatisfied Inner Child sabotaging success, because his/her belief system is rooted in scarcity and fear. Again.
Here is the thing. A happy and satisfied Inner Child inside will not sabotage anything at all, because will be generating thoughts from the core belief of abundance and joy, not scarcity or fear…
The truth is that to succeed you have to become Fearless. Completely Fearless.
In a recent study by IBM to explore the new world leaders, among millennials, they selected creativity, globalization, sustainability as future trends for CEO Leadership.
Education Institutions are trying to come up with a way to teach creativity to meet the demand of the leaders of tomorrow. Millennials are identifying the 3 C’s of future leadership. Creativity, Innovation, Critical thinking and Community collaboration.
The best part? The majority of Millennials I would estimate are actually completely open to share the experience with the Shaman. As a generation, they are supporting inclusion. The greatest majority of them respect diversity as a way to connect, collaborate and share knowledge in expansion. It’s already in their DNA.
Interestingly enough the IBM study results, match perfectly with my own lifetime experiential research and developed project to Inspire Millennials Master the Art of the Entrepreneurial Visionary Mindset. They understand the world in a way we did, but didn’t have the strength to sustain. They have a different experience. They are setting the priorities straight. It makes me so happy, hopeful for the future and ever so grateful. That is why I am passionate about that hero special generation.
They named three of the attributes of the right brain. The attributes of the Inner Child.
Your God/dess given creativity to innovate, your capacity to question and critically think, your capacity to cooperate in oneness, or community collaboration, are things you need from your own childhood.
Actually, I don’t think you can teach creativity. Creativity is inherent and personal to the human being. We all have it. A better approach is to help people remember the creativity they already have and is written all over them and can’t see just yet.
Don’ t you think it is time we break the barriers of stuffy seriousness and bring some joy and fun into the business community? Don’t you agree that is time to play and have fun while we are making a living? One thing is for sure. It is a much more sustainable way.
The idea is to first help visionary Entrepreneurs give birth to their happy and satisfied Inner Child, to lead their Internal Visionary team securing creativity, big picture thinking, capacity to question and success. Associating them inside first…
While at the same time creating the stage for community collective coherence through experiential and experimental soul mastermind groups.
“It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.”
~Leo Buscaglia~Acknowledge the shaman within yourself and make sure starting with yourself you help me help others make sure we push the bullies to extinction for good, by turning every unhappy and unsatisfied child inside into a happy and satisfied child outside, who is eager to cooperate, combine and complement. Let’s make sure together that the South and the North unite to complement each other and there will never be again one more killing to silence the voice of diversity.
This is a movement.
Luz
The Thought Provoking, Irreverent Pearl Necklace Grandmother of the 21st C. Paradigm Shifter, Poet, Storyteller, Marketer, Visionary, Blogger, Coach. Mrs. Fire
“50/50 The Magic of the Middle Line”, Experience Coaching”
Founder Soul Hangout & Co-Creative Circles of Coherence, Soul Mastermind Groups. Consciously Connecting & Combining Intelligence with a touch of “Curry”. The 7 “C”‘s of the 7 Condiments of Cooperation
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On Afghan War 11th Anniversary, Vets Confront Mental Health Crisis, Soldier Suicides and Violence
< Headlines | Next Story >Friday, October 5, 2012 Full Show
On Afghan War 11th Anniversary, Vets Confront Mental Health Crisis, Soldier Suicides and Violence
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You can choose another option on the listen/watch page if you prefer.On the 11th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, we take a look at the invisible wounds of war here at home. Since the war began on Oct. 7, 2001, less than a month after the Sept. 11th attacks, at least 2,000 U.S. soldiers have died. Some 2.4 million U.S. soldiers have served in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the psychological toll of the wars is mounting. Last year, the Veterans Administration treated almost 100,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and soldier suicides reached an all-time high this year. In Colorado Springs, the commanders at Fort Carson have come under scrutiny for its handling of mental health concerns, with a 2010 joint NPR-ProPublica investigation finding that as many as 40 percent of Fort Carson soldiers had mild brain injuries missed by Army health screenings. Meanwhile in 2009, the Colorado Springs Gazette published a startling series called “Casualties of War,” written by our guest, investigative reporter Dave Philipps. His book, "Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home,” shows how a wave of violence swept across Colorado Springs when the 506th Infantry Regiment, known as "the Band of Brothers,” returned home from their first tour in Iraq. We are also joined by Georg-Andreas Pogány, a retired Army sergeant who is now an independent veterans’ advocate and investigator, and Graham Clumpner, an Afghanistan War veteran and Colorado regional organizer for Iraq Veterans Against the War. Democracy Now! is on the road, broadcasting from Colorado Springs, the home of five major military installations — Fort Carson, Peterson Air Force Base, the U.S. Air Force Academy, Schriever Air Force Base and the Cheyenne Mountain Air Station. [Includes rush transcript]
Filed under Veterans, Afghanistan, Iraq, Soldier Suicides, Graham Clumpner, Georg-Andreas Pogany, Dave Philipps
Guests:Graham Clumpner, Afghanistan War veteran and Colorado regional organizer for Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Georg-Andreas Pogany, An independent veterans’ advocate and investigator. He’s a retired sergeant first class from the U.S. Army.
Dave Philipps, An investigative reporter and author of "Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home." In 2009 he wrote the award-winning two-part series, "Casualties of War" for the Colorado Springs Gazette.
Related
- The Invisible Wounds of War: Number of Soldiers Committing Suicide Reaches Record High Aug 21, 2012 | Story
- Scott Olsen, U.S. Vet Who Nearly Lost Life at Occupy Protest, Brings Antiwar Message to NATO Summit May 28, 2012 | Story
- Mother of Iraq Veteran Who Committed Suicide: "Honor the Dead, Heal the Wounded, Stop the Wars" May 28, 2012 | Story
- Memorial Day Special: U.S. Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan Return War Medals at NATO Summit May 28, 2012 | Story
- "Mind Zone": New Film Tracks Therapists Guiding Soldiers Through Traumas of Afghan War Mar 16, 2012 | Story
Links
- Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home." By Dave Philipps (Palgrave MacMillan, 2012)
- Lethal Warriors Website
- "Casualties of War" Series By Dave Philipps (Colorado Springs Gazette)
- Iraq Veterans Against the War
- "Brain Injuries Remain Undiagnosed in Thousands of Soldiers." (NPR-ProPublica Investigation, 2010)
- 11 Year Archive of Democracy Now! Coverage of Afghanistan War
Editor's Picks
- The Invisible Wounds of War: Number of Soldiers Committing Suicide Reaches Record High Aug 21, 2012 | Story
- "What Have We Been Doing?": Decorated Veteran Aaron Hughes to Return War Medals at Anti-NATO Protest May 16, 2012 | Story
- Pentagon Stays Silent on Whether Suspect in Afghan Massacre Took Controversial Anti-Malaria Drug Mar 27, 2012 | Story
- Memorial Day Special: U.S. Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan Return War Medals at NATO Summit May 28, 2012 | Story
Rush Transcript
This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.Donate >
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: We’re on a 100-city Silenced Majority Election 2012 tour and today we are broadcasting from Colorado Springs, the second largest city in Colorado. In and around the city you’ll find five major military installations; Fort Carson, Peterson Air Force Base, The United States Air Force Academy and Schriever Air Force Base and the Cheyenne Mountain Air Station. This weekend marks the 11th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The invasion began on October 7, 2001, less than a month after the September 11 attacks. The war has gone on for more than 4,000 days, making it the longest war in U.S. history. At least two thousand U.S. soldiers have died in the war. The death toll in Afghanistan is unknown.
Today we will take a look at the invisible wounds of war here at home. Some 2.4 million soldiers have been through Iraq and Afghanistan and the psychological toll of the wars is mounting. Last year the Veterans Administration, or VA, treated almost 100,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans for PTSD. But many agree the numbers could be much higher because not everyone who suffers seeks treatment. Here in Colorado Springs, the commanders at Fort Carson have come under scrutiny for its handling of mental health concerns, with a 2010 joint NPR-ProPublica investigation finding as many as 40% of Fort Carson soldiers had mild brain injuries missed by Army health screenings.
Meanwhile, in 2009, The Colorado Springs Gazette published a startling series called "Casualties of War." It examined a part of war seldom discussed by the media or government officials — the difficulty of returning to civilian life after being trained to be a killer. The story focused on a single battalion based at Fort Carson here in Colorado Springs, the Second Battalion, 12th infantry regiment. The battalion’s nickname is "The Lethal lawyers." In Iraq, the unit fought in some of the war’s bloodiest battles. For some of the soldiers, the killing did not end when they return home.
The Gazette reported since 2006, ten infantry soldiers have been arrested and accused of murder, attempted murder or manslaughter. Others have committed other violent crimes. Some of the veterans have committed suicide. In a one year period from the fall of 2007 to the fall of 2008 the murder rate for members of the Army unit was 114 times the rate for Colorado springs.
The series was written by investigative reporter Dave Philipps. He turned his reporting into the book, "Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home." David Philipps joins us here in Colorado springs. Also with us in Colorado Springs is Georg-Andras Pogány, an independent veterans’ advocate and investigator. His a retired sergeant first class from the United States Army.
We’re also joined by Graham Clumpner, Afghanistan war vet, Colorado regional organizer for Iraq Veterans Against the War. And we welcome you all to Democracy Now! And thanks so much to Andrew and Graham for coming in from Denver, it is snowing.
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: It was snowing on the way down.
AMY GOODMAN: The first snow of the season. Graham Clumpner, you are a veteran of the Afghanistan war. Tomorrow marks the 11th anniversary of this war. Your thoughts today?
GRAHAM CLUMPNER: Well, when we look back 11 years ago Sunday at 11:00am Central Time, which is Colorado time, President Bush came on television and announced to the nation we had begun bombing the people of Afghanistan. And 11 years later, we have a lineage that has extended longer than any other war and we’re looking at a situation where we have so many millions of soldiers coming home to communities like Colorado Springs and not being able to separate the trauma that they experienced in those combat zones and outside of those combat zones, just by nature of being in the military, because participating in this militaristic system, whether you deploy or don’t deploy, is a traumatic experience. And people bring those traumas back to our communities. And what we are struggling with now is finding a way for these people, these soldiers, sailors, airmen, infantry, all of the members of the armed forces, to come come back and integrate into their communities.
AMY GOODMAN: You are organizing this weekend. You’re part of a group of soldiers and vets who have come together in Denver. Explain what’s happening.
GRAHAM CLUMPNER: In 2004, Iraq Veterans against the war was founded by the first returning soldiers from the Iraq war. Since then we have expanded to include any soldier or veteran who has served post 9/11 in the global War on Terror. Our organization has been prioritizing Afghanistan veterans recently, not only because we have the most problems coming out of Afghanistan, out of the six countries that we’re currently bombing, but also because Afghanistan veterans can speak to a larger concern. Which is, it’s very easy for the American people — and in fact some cases the world — to lose sight and stop paying attention to these conflicts. And as we sit here today, there are soldiers and there are civilians sitting in firefights and sitting in situations where their lives are at risk, and we don’t take a lot of time to look at other than the numbers on the front page of the newspaper that say four dead or seven dead. And it doesn’t mean anything to us.
So this weekend we’re having Iraq Veterans against the war first Afghanistan retreat. We’re bringing Afghanistan members from all over the country here to Colorado. We’re going to be meeting in Denver, and we’re going to be discussing what kind of things we have been successful at in the past and where we failed, and where we need to go in the future. Looking at organizing models that span the spectrum, from the Coalition of the Immokalee Workers to the civil-rights campaigns in the 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s to the environmental movement. And we’re taking those lessons and moving forward as we look at a larger path of militarism. It’s not just about Libya or Somalia or Iraq. We’re talking about Iran, we’re talking about the future, and we’re asking ourselves, how do we feel safer when we are involved in more bases and countries than we have been in history?
AMY GOODMAN: Dave Philipps, place us here today, here in Colorado Springs. For people around the country who don’t understand this city at the foot of the Rockies, talk about its military significance for the country.
DAVID PHILIPPS: Well, in a lot of ways Colorado Springs is an average town in terms of demographics, in terms of crime rates. Just about anything you could look at in the census. The big difference is, is that by far our largest industry, if you want to call it that, is the Department of Defense. How many active duty to we have here in Colorado Springs? Over 50,000, I believe. And so, that really is the lifeblood of our town.
AMY GOODMAN: This investigation that you did, the unit called Lethal Warriors, share with us what it is you found as you worked for The Gazette, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, your investigation.
DAVID PHILIPPS: It started with us just seeing a lot of soldiers getting arrested for murder. We didn’t know until we started digging that it wasn’t the entire 30,000 soldiers at Fort Carson that were really responsible, it was just one group of 500 guys. At that point, we said, my God, how could he have so much violence coming out of one small group? It must have to do with their collective story of their experience.
So, we started tracing that story by going to the prison, talking to the guys in there, finding their friends and talking to them. What we found out, essentially, is that these guys had been in the very worst places in Iraq. Had been through things that most people, even people who are familiar with the war would find unspeakable. When they came back, they came back to a system that had been prepared for an Iraq war that the administration thought would last six months, and was not prepared to really deal with any psychological casualties. And so, the army that they had served, when they started showing these psychological wounds from war, a lot of times instead of helping them, it punished them. It kicked them out. When that happens and these guys no longer have any help a lot of times they just spiraled into a very dark place and it ended in violence.
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, here at Fort Carson, the murder rate, 114 times the murder rate in Colorado Springs, for civilians in Colorado Springs?
DAVID PHILIPPS: For that Battalion that we looked at. You have to remember that a combat battalion is almost all young men. But, even when we correct for demographics, it is something like 20 times as high. Twice as high would have been amazingly significant. This was off the charts.
The funny thing is, when we called fort Carson to ask about this, a lot of times the official response was, we don’t know what the problem is that you’re talking about. It’s unfair for you to try to paint our brave war fighters as criminals. There was a reluctancy pick apart the problem and to try and solve it.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to talk more about this after the break. We are joined by Dave Philipps who wrote a remarkable book called, ["Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home."] We are going to be speaking with Andrew Pogany, who is a veteran from Iraq, and Graham Clumpner with us as well, a veteran from the Afghanistan war.
They have gathered in Denver for this gathering, the first Afghanistan retreat of Iraq Veterans against the war. We’ll continue this discussion as we broadcast from the Tim Gill Center for Public Media in Colorado Springs. It was just inaugurated last week it is an honor to be here with the first broadcast, not to mention the first global broadcast in this center’s history. Stay with us.
AMY GOODMAN: We are broadcasting from The Tim Gill Center for Public Media here in Colorado Springs. In Colorado, it is snowing for the first time. We are in the foot of the Rockies, and we’re in one of the most heavily militarized areas of this country. An area of bases, military bases for the Army, for the Air Force.
We continue our conversation with Dave Philipps, investigative reporter and author. In 2009 he wrote the award winning two-part series called "Casualties of War" for The Colorado Springs Gazette. "Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home" is his new book which shows how a wave of violence swept across Colorado Springs when the 506th infantry Regiment, known as The Band of Brothers, returned home from their first tour in Iraq.
The Band of Brothers had been deployed to the most violent places in Iraq and some of the soldiers continued suffering from what they had seen and done in combat, even after leaving the battlefield. Without much time to recover, they were sent back to the front lines. After their second tour, they battalion was renamed The Lethal Warriors since the soldiers once again brought the violence home. Also joined by Andrew Pogany who is a veteran of the Iraq war and by Graham Clumpner who served in Afghanistan and now part of Iraq Veterans Against the War, who’s organized with a number of others and Afghanistan retreat, a first of its kind for Iraq veterans against the war. They’re gathering in Denver. Andrew, you served in Iraq when?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: I was in Iraq in 2003.
AMY GOODMAN: In 2003, this was the first year of the U.S. invasion.
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: You are now a counselor, a psychologist, working —
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: No, no, I’m not a counselor. I am a veterans’ advocate. I’ve worked as a veterans advocate on the national level since my retirement from the Army in 2007. And that work has been combined with investigative work, which is what is part of my training as a professional. So that’s what I am. I have a colleague — my colleague who I do this work with — he is a counselor.
AMY GOODMAN: What are you finding?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: We’re finding that the system is very ill-equipped and that the system is also not adapting and the system is not changing. One of the things I want to add up front is we don’t have a political position on this. We don’t approach any of these issues from the position of whether the conflict is correct or we should be there or not be there.
Our only concern is that there is an epidemic that is brewing and it manifests itself mainly in suicides as well as other social problems, and there are some root causes that need to be addressed. That’s what we advocate on. Those are the types of cases we investigate and we try and bring them to the attention of senior leaders to bring about some change.
We fully acknowledge that sometimes — and people disagree with our position on this — sometimes war is important and sometimes war it is necessary. We take a historical look at this. There are democracies, there are nations, there are individuals, who owe their very existence to the fact that this is being done.
But as a nation, we must ask ourselves the question, what is the cost of doing this business? And if we don’t have an honest and open dialogue with the nation and its citizens about what this cost is, then we’re failing. And that cost is not just bombs and bullets. The cost is the psychological cost, the scars, the psychological injuries borne by those who survive war, come home, and then have to reintegrate back into normal life.
So, part of the work that we do also is to not just help individuals avoid the path to suicide or the path to homelessness or the path to being shoved off in the some fringe group of society labeled the mentally ill. Part of our work is to make sure to give those who have honorably served this nation in war, an opportunity to come home and reintegrate and to be able to fully participate in normal life.
AMY GOODMAN: Do think that the mental health services here in Colorado Springs at Fort Carson are working?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: They are working to an extent. They are very — there are some very innovative things that have happened at Fort Carson. It’s been a hard road, but Fort Carson has also — as part of the growth and the painful growth that they had to go through, they have had some very great experiences and some very innovative leaders and thinkers at Fort Carson to bring about some change.
One of the things that we see as the ongoing problem is that there are players in the system that, for whatever reason they’re doing what they’re doing, they are not doing the right thing. And what we’re referring to by saying this is that we encounter case after case after case where it’s painfully obvious that there is malfeasance involved. And that starts with misdiagnosing — purposely misdiagnosing — individuals and players with the system.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: We have individuals that have the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, and then when it comes to adjudicating that case, whether from an administrative standpoint or from a medical standpoint, specifically when it comes to affording the individual an opportunity to exit the military, those diagnoses are being changed. They’re being changed to diagnoses that don’t carry disability ratings, don’t carry benefits, and when you change someone’s diagnoses not only is unethical and immoral, but you are preventing them from receiving the proper and appropriate care.
So, if you have someone as post traumatic stress disorder and then they are fraudulently diagnosed as having an adjustment disorder, it’s, to us, it is a very, very serious problem, because for one, you are denying them the proper and appropriate care that they need.
Number two, is you are causing what is commonly referred to as betrayal trauma. Betrayal trauma is the social component of PTSD. You have an individual who has served, has an experience in combat, they come home with a combat-related injury an visible injury, and now you’re telling them that they’re just somehow mentally ill. And it’s wrong on every single level. Not to mention that from the clinical standpoint, if you look at the DSM4, which is the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual that is the book to help facilitate mental health diagnoses, it clearly states that for example, if an individual has an axis one diagnosis such as PTSD, then giving the diagnosis of adjustment disorder is inappropriate.
We have track this pattern for years now. In the beginning, it was diagnosing individuals with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries as having personality disorders. Then the next thing was the adjustment disorder, then it was anxiety disorder NOS. The new trend that we see now is all of the sudden individuals have somatoform disorder.
AMY GOODMAN: Somatoform?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: Somatoform, which is absurd. It is really, really absurd. So, recently for example, there was a scandal at joint base Lewis-McChord where it was uncovered —
AMY GOODMAN: In Washington State.
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: In Washington state, that providers were changing individuals diagnoses and denying the diagnosis of PTSD. When that came into the news cycle, I received calls and I was asked the question, what you think about this? And I said, that while this is tragic, this is not newsworthy. Why? Because this has been going on for years.
I was involved in an investigation in Fort Carson in 2008 where we identified a provider who admitted that they were purposely misdiagnosing so they don’t have to pay benefits. So this is an ongoing problem. It is one of the root causes that ultimately leads people to commit suicide.
So, this notion that’s Johnny comes home and some how committed suicide because he couldn’t balance his checkbook or he had relationship problems, that is only one aspect, and that might be the trigger that caused him to commit suicide, but nobody looks at the path to suicide. Suicide is not something that happens at the drop of a dime. People don’t wake up in the morning and say to themselves, what am I going to do today, commit suicide? That sounds like a good idea. No, people get on a path, a path that continuously deteriorates their mental state. And at some point in time, they’re so compromised that because of the emotional pain possible physical pain that they are suffering, they see no other way out than to take their own lives.
AMY GOODMAN: There was a suicide just at the beginning of the year.
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: What happened here?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: Well, there was an individual who took his own life by crashing his vehicle into a light pole, tree, fence kind of combination and then as a result of the vehicle accident he ended up passing away. And it was a suicide that the individual posted on Facebook that he was going to do that.
The reason that particular case is very relevant to us right now is because we have a case right now, which is — this one actually take the cake as far as we’re concerned —- on the eve on the heal of the Army’s national suicide prevention stand down in response to the rising numbers of what we call or consider catastrophic amounts of suicide, and an epidemic that is equivalent to a public health crisis, we get a case where an individual who has attempted to kill himself -—
AMY GOODMAN: This was this past May.
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: This past May. An individual who attempted to kill himself in the same manner by crashing his vehicle into an object. Now, that individual is being recommended and considered for administrative separation from the military without benefits as a result of misconduct. When we reviewed the file, the misconduct that they’re referring to is the actual suicide attempt.
So, we’re stunned. We’re baffled that leaders would say that we’re trying to prevent suicides, we’re trying to work on the issue of stigma and address stigma, and then behind closed doors, we have these types of cases. Now, is this prevalent across the board? Probably not, but there is a certain percentage that this is happening to. And there’s a certain percentage — when you look at numbers across the board, it’s always kind of like the same percentage.
AMY GOODMAN: This young man who attempted to kill himself, now the Army’s response is to sever him from the military without benefits.
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: You yourself, Andrew Pogany, you served in Iraq. Your were then court-martialed?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: I was not. I was brought up on some charges, on some fabricated charges by my command. I was wrongfully — my command wrongfully attempted to prosecute me for something that they alleged happened, but it didn’t happen. And ultimately, the case was very quickly dismissed so it never got to the point where it entered a court room.
AMY GOODMAN: What did you learn from this and what year was it?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: This was also in 2003. It started in 2003. The case was closed in 2004. What I learned from that is that, I mean, I learned various things. One, to stand up and fight for myself. And I also learned that there is certain things within a system that may or may not work to an individual’s benefit. And that when the system closes in and has an agenda, it can become very difficult for an individual to survive that. Myself, I was close to not surviving what was happening to me. But. luckily, I had a support system that I was able to rely on to make sure that I did come out on the other end.
AMY GOODMAN: Andrew, the case, even though it was thrown out, it is extremely important, I think. You were the first American soldier since the Vietnam War to be charged with what they call cowardice.
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: For what? Explain actually what took place in your first nights in Iraq.
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: I had a psychological breakdown, which was induced by toxic levels of an anti-malaria drug that we were administered. So toxic levels of the drug caused practically a malfunction in the brain and caused me to have both auditory and visual hallucinations. And it caused me to not be able to function. And when I approached my command and requested and sought medical help, they didn’t see it that way, initially.
AMY GOODMAN: You also saw an Iraqi killed.
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: Yes, there was an individual who had been —
AMY GOODMAN: What happened to him?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: He was shot by the main gun of a Bradley. I did not witness the actual shooting. I saw the aftermath.
AMY GOODMAN: Which was?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: Was an individual hit by the main gun of a Bradley fighting vehicle.
AMY GOODMAN: Which means he was...
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: He was very much disintegrated. It was a very grotesque view. But not anything that — it wasn’t something that was that bizarre or grotesque. I had seen similar things previously in my life. So, in response to me seeking medical help, my command in their infinite wisdom, they sought to court-martial me.
AMY GOODMAN: Cowardice is a charge punishable by death?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: Correct. So that was a sobering reality to me.
AMY GOODMAN: But what does cowardice mean?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: It just means cowardly conduct before the enemy, which didn’t even apply in my case.
AMY GOODMAN: Which came from you appealing to your superiors, to your commanding officer?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: And asking for medical help. And then within two weeks of the charge being brought, the charge was actually dismissed. And then it was replaced with another charge that was called willful dereliction of duty, which subsequently, about 30 days after that was also dismissed. And the the case just lingered for about nine months. And then the case was ultimately closed and the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, which I was a member of, they admitted that the anti-malaria drugs that they’ve given me had contributed to what had happened.
And I wasn’t the only one. By the time I was done, we found out that within the special operations community, there were at a minimum 12 individuals who had pretty much the same types of reactions and side effects from this particular drug. This drug is known to the medical community to cause problems; it’s a black label drug. Today out of those 10 or 12 individuals that have been identified, myself and another guy, actually that are still alive. Everybody else has committed suicide.
AMY GOODMAN: Everyone else has committed suicide.
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: How many?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: It was about ten.
AMY GOODMAN: Out of how many?
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: Out of the 12 that we — in our investigation — have connected to having severe side effects of this drug.
AMY GOODMAN: Wait, I think a lot of people right now who are listening, who are watching, who will read this will be shaking their heads. Say again.
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: Within the special operations community where I worked, we in the course of several years, we identified roughly 12 individuals — I think it’s 12 or 14 individuals, I have to go back and look at the numbers — that have had documented severe side effects from the anti-malaria drug, called Larium, that we were given. Out of those individuals, at a minimum, 10 have committed suicide as a result of side effects.
AMY GOODMAN: Graham Clumpner, Afghan War vet.
GRAHAM CLUMPNER: I think this is a larger, you know — his story is a microcosm of a larger problem, and that is the fact that the women and men who join the U.S. military are referred to as G.I.'s. G.I. means government issue, and that means that just like your helmet and your rifle, you are a piece of equipment. And so, the way that the military looks at it from a health care perspective, as you're an active duty soldier or military member, is that if you are broken, you can’t give them what they need from you.
So the military’s health care is essentially trying to keep that piece equipment working another six months, duct tape it, if you will. Then they toss you aside, especially now, because what we’re going through is a downturn in the number of total contractors and active duty personnel In the military. So, we’re looking at a situation where people are being pushed out; minor drug offenses, marijuana. You can go to a dispensary here in Colorado Springs, right down the street and purchase marijuana at as a civilian, but if you’re a soldier that gets caught with some marijuana on you, they will push you out of the military and ruin the rest of your life.
So, on a personal level, as I served in the military, there was numerous examples of family problems being not an issue to anybody in your chain of command; personal relationships with a spouse, car trouble. The simplest things that you would think a community that we talk about when we say Band of Brothers. And it’s not just a band of brothers, it’s a band of sisters and brothers now. And we are looking at a world where we’re asking these people to go sacrifice and come home and shut up and not talk about it, and just go stay in their rooms and once in awhile we’ll put a little bumper sticker on our car, we’ll have a little yellow ribbon. But, that is the extent of the conversation that we want to have.
So, we heard earlier about this feeling of betrayal. And it is really important to talk about trauma in terms of betrayal. Now, you can have an IED go off or a rocket attack and you can have 40 people in a platoon and maybe only five of them are the ones whose brains don’t heal from that. Thirty days later, the other 35 may be relatively fine. But, we can’t exactly figure it out, but we do see a parallel between people trusting — trusting their command, trusting their president, trusting the American people to make a proper choice about where and when we use these tools of war. And let’s be completely transparent. If you serve in the U.S. military, your first, last, and only job is to take the life — or as we call it in the military close with and kill the enemy. If you are in the military, you are serving a purpose.
And I think we are missing a larger conversation here because look at who is on this panel. We have three white men who have had experienced on some level relatively white community in Colorado springs. And the violence that we are participating in, whether actively or passively, is not being done to people — it’s being done to people of color from other nations. And we are in a situation where we never talk about those people.
I mean, I can come home and go to the VA, OK. I can remove myself from the source of my trauma. People in Afghanistan and Iraq and all of these other countries where we’re dropping drones — or having drone strikes, they cannot remove themselves from the source of their trauma. They do not have a Veterans Administration. In a lot of cases they don’t have access to basic healthcare. and we lose sight of having that conversation every time we sit down and talk about this. So, I think it’s very important that we acknowledge this is larger than just an American problem.
GEORG-ANDREAS POGANY: Amy, I want to add something to what he just talked about, specifically when it comes to the conduct of soldiers when they come home. There is a percentage of soldiers who engage in various activities that the military labels as misconduct, such as alcohol related offenses, drinking, substance abuse, drug-related offenses. Those are misconduct in the military. So of process of helping those who come home and need help and appropriate care should not be confused with diminishing or degrading a system of accountability within the military.
The military heavily depends on what is commonly referred to as the good order and discipline of the military. All of us in my field where we work, we acknowledge that. The problem that we encounter is that you have an individual who, for example, as a result of not being able to receive the proper and appropriate treatment or individually tailored treatment that they need, they resort to things like self medicating. The science has proven, research has proven that this is a fact. Our alcohol abuse or substance abuse, depression, those are the most common diagnoses in PTSD.
What we’re faced with is an archaic military justice system that has not adapted, even though their own research, their own military law reviews show that PTSD and substance abuse-related misconduct are close the related, that there is a nexus, that one comes from the other. What we are addressing is, we’re not asking the military to not have people held accountable for misconduct. If you need to go ahead and punish someone because they illegally or in violation of regulation abused illegal substances, go ahead and punish them. Punish them within the system, but that doesn’t mean that you have to go to the extent of imposing administrative sanctions that have an impact on the rest of their life such as taking away all their benefits and then putting that person without a safety net out into the community where they then become a problem in my community. And all they do is they end up draining the resources of my community. And that can be within the criminal justice system, homelessness, domestic violence, child abuse, and the list goes on and on and on.
So, there needs to be, when it comes to addressing the issue of stigma, there needs to be really a revamping of how the system administers punishment for misconduct and then subsequently administrative action in order to eliminate those individuals from service. We feel it is morally and ethically wrong to deprive those who have honorably served this nation in war of the benefits that they have earned, that this country has legislated that they should be getting.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to take a break, but we’re going to come back to this discussion. Our guest Dave Philipps, author of, "Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home." I want to talk more about this. You’re just returning to revisit some of the stories of the people you covered in this remarkable series first for The Gazette here in Colorado Springs and now as a book. Andrew Pogany with us, an Iraq War vet, now an [advocate] for soldiers returning home. And Graham Clumpner with Iraq Veterans Against the War, he drove in from Denver because this weekend, starting today, is the first Afghanistan retreat. He is an Afghan war vet for The Iraq Veterans Against the War are putting on, a gathering nationally. This is Democracy Now! We’re broadcasting from Colorado, springs on our hundred city tour. Stay with us.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re on the road in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This is the site of military bases all gathered here in Colorado — Air Force and Army. We’re joined by three men; Dave Philipps, author of "Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home," which we are going to talk about in a minute. Andrew Pogany served in Iraq, Graham Clumpner served in Afghanistan. This is the eve of the 11th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan.
We’re broadcasting from the Tim Gill Center for Public Media, which just opened, was inaugurated last Friday. We’re honored to be the first broadcast out of this center, teaching people in the community about civic engagement, citizen journalism. It is wonderful to be here before a group of people from Colorado Springs. This weekend we will be traveling the western slope of Colorado. You can check our website at tour.democracynow.org.
We are here with Dave Philipps. Dave, if you could talk about Lethal Warriors. Expand on what you said in the beginning. Because when you described these soldiers coming home, going back to work—Lethal Warriors. What happened on the base? Give us an example.
DAVID PHILIPPS: First let me say that when we talk about soldiers—the guys that I wrote about, guys that ended up getting arrested for prison—are really young guys. We tend to think of soldiers as grown-up adults, but these guys were 21, 22. Sometimes they weren’t even old enough to buy a beer. In Iraq they, essentially were given the mission of finding the enemy, but there was no enemy for them to find. There was no uniformed enemy, only IED’s that kept blowing up their friends and often blowing them up. That is a very hard thing for anyone to deal with, let alone someone that young.
So when they came home, the Army had a plan to make sure that everybody got screened to make sure they had no mental wounds from this war. It essentially was that they were all marched into a room and given a multiple choice piece of paper to fill out that said, “Did you see dead bodies? Did you kill anybody? Are you having trouble sleeping? Are you having trouble with substance abuse?” Things that would screen for symptoms of disaster down the road.
These guys all lied, or at least almost all of them did. They lied because they have been taught in the culture of the infantry that they were tough, they could handle it. Not only that, but if they could not handle it, they were somehow a defect that had no business being part of the army. So they lied and figured out that they could handle it on their own.
To be fair, some of them did and some of them had help from their friends. But some of them didn’t. And they started doing things that in retrospect are obscenely dangerous. Young men who have been taught how to use weapons literally expertly, were carrying a loaded firearm all the time around Colorado springs. There were drinking a lot, they were doing a lot of drugs.
We all have this inhibition to killing people, it is just part of our human nature, that had sort of eroded in them. When you mix together the alcohol, the weapons, and this ability to kill that I think most of us cannot even fathom, it was very easy to all of a sudden to have bodies. People were killed for no reason. One man shot another guy for throwing up in the back of his car. Another man just drove around—he would drive around with an AK-47 and just shoot people he did not even know.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to read—"in 2006, 21-year-old Anthony Marcus killed a small-time drug dealer by shooting him repeatedly with a stun gun and shot him in the heart. In August of 2007, 24-year-old Louis Bressler robbed and shot a soldier he picked up on a street in Colorado Springs. In 2007, three soldiers from the unit," — from Lethal Warriors Louis Bressler, Bruce Bastion, Kenneth Eastridge— "left the bullet riddled body of a soldier from their unit on Colorado Springs Street. Two months earlier the same group intentionally drove into a woman walking to work. One of the soldiers then repeatedly stabbed her. In May and June of 2008, police say Rodolfo Torres-Gandarilla and Jomar Falu-Vives drove around with an assault rifle, randomly shooting people. In 2008, police say John Needham beat a former girlfriend to death. Josh Butler was sent to prison for beating his pregnant wife. Months later, his child was born with severe birth defects and died. Butler blames himself for the child’s death." These are horrifying stories.
DAVID PHILIPPS: Yeah, and to a certain extent, what’s interesting is that this was going on very much under the radar for Colorado Springs. These guys all tend to hang out in their own circles. They come back from war together, they do everything together. It is possible to live, even in a city as military as Colorado Springs, and feel very removed from the war. It was only when we started digging that we uncovered how some of these horrific, senseless acts were really all connected to sort of a larger toxin that these guys have brought home.
AMY GOODMAN: Graham Clumpner, as we wrap up now, talk about more of what you’re doing this weekend.
GRAHAM CLUMPNER: Iraq Veterans Against the War has been using an organizing model since a little after President Obama was elected. As we have seen on the left in this country, it is been difficult to have an anti-war voice. On the one hand some people don’t want to push too hard and on the other hand they think it is falling on deaf ears.
Iraq Veterans Against the War is trying to make some decisions for the long-term. As we look at the Pentagon, they make a 20-30 year plan. They talk about climate change. They acknowledge it exists. They are willing to talk about all of the possible future threats. In the anti-war movement, and in a lot of these health care movements, we are reactionary. We do not plan ahead. This weekend is the beginning of starting to look forward and say, what is the next war? We’re not just going to be focused on bringing the war in Afghanistan to an end, bringing all of our soldiers home, and reparations for the Afghan people, as well full health care for our own returning veterans. That is part of what we are doing.
But we are taking this as a larger conversation because as we see the news on Syria and Turkey this week, or with it that Iran and the differences with the European powers and the United States, we are looking at a world that is not going to stop being militarized any time soon.
AMY GOODMAN: Where people meeting in Denver?
GRAHAM CLUMPNER: We’re going to be meeting at The 27 Social Center, it’s going to be right next to the football stadium. We’ve got about 20 participants at this point. It’s going to be for a lot of these veterans the first time that they get to talk with each other and share their stories. On Sunday morning, at 11am which will mark the 11th anniversary of the beginning of the Afghanistan War, we’re going to be spending some time for our own memorial. It’s going to be the first memorial that we have. Because every time we’ve had to go to these public memorials and stand there and hear all of these lies and hear these things that are just so broad, that don’t deal with the real loss, we’re going to be sharing those stores with each other for the first time.
AMY GOODMAN: Graham Clumpner, Andrew Pogany and thank you so much to Dave Philipps. That ends our broadcast here in Colorado Springs at The Tim Gil Center for Public Media, part of Rocky Mountain PBS. This weekend we’ll be in Salida on Saturday, Carbondale, Paona, Crested Butte, Telluride and Durango through Sunday. Check out details at our website tour.democracynow.org .
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