Barack's upcoming visit to Kabul and Baghdad is somewhat promising. He once pledged to bring troops home within sixteen months, a promise that is disappearing as he shifts focus away from Iraq and onto al-Qu'eda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The war issue seems to be falling behind a smokescreen of the current gas crisis. Now that the debate over drilling for oil in the US has grabbed so much of our passion, the war issue is slipping away. Obama appears to be buying into the military trance.
The July 11th episode of Democracy Now
(http://www.democracynow.org/) featured the topic of stop loss as the feature film, STOP LOSS (http://www.stoplossmovie.com/) is just released on DVD.
A growing number of creatives are writing books, blogging, and posting films on You Tube while serving in Iraq. The VietNam war was the first to appear on national television as journalists told that story. A new anthropology of war is taking shape as US troops in Iraq, email, IM, text, photograph and film. Self-expression is posted directly to the internet for our view. An uprising is underway as angry stop-lossed troops express the truth about what is happening.
Although, a new Stop Loss Compensation Act is attempting to offer an additional $1500 extra pay to those soldiers who are being asked to return to Iraq for unplanned tours of duty, this really is not the answer.
Stop-lossed soldier, Casey J. Porter, is back in Iraq as a soldier and undercover guerilla filmmaker. See his films at www.youtube.com/caseyjporter
Colby Buzzell had served and written a book, MY WAR: Killing Time In Iraq. Back home and about to begin taking college classes, he received the stop loss order. Read more about this at http://www.cbftw.blogspot.com/
Featured in the film, THE GROUND TRUTH, Aidan Delgado tells his story of a Buddhist fighting the war in Iraq in his book THE SUTRAS OF ABU GHRAIB: Notes from a Conscientious Objector.
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