"Mullen: Veterans will suffer for years; Their children and homelessness are concerns, he says" by Associated Press | April 3, 2009
NEW YORK - Homelessness, family strains and psychological problems among returning veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will persist in the United States for generations to come, the top US military officer said yesterday.
"This is not a 10-year problem. It is a 50- or 60- or 70-year problem," Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a lunchtime audience at the Hudson Union Society, a group that promotes nonpartisan debate.
Translation: Bush and his wars based on lies destroyed the U.S. military (and we haven't even seen a draft yet). AmeriKa really has no idea what he (and now Obama) did to this nation. We will be feeling the effects for the rest of our lives and beyond.
Mullen said he was particularly disturbed by the emergence of homelessness as a problem among war veterans. "I have started to meet with, in veterans hospitals, homeless veterans" of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said. "And they are every bit as homeless and every bit as tragic as any homeless vet we've ever had. We as a country should not allow that to happen."
What, no bailout for the homeless vets as war-looters steal trillions?
Gee, what a shocker. Maybe we could stuff them into the foreclosed homes?
At a White House news conference last week, President Obama said that some of the funding increases in his proposed budget for veterans affairs are directed at alleviating the problem of homelessness among veterans, which he said is a bigger problem, proportionally, than is homelessness in the rest of the American population.
Mullen said he also was worried by a rising number of suicides among US military members. "The trends are all in the wrong direction," he said, adding that "we're just at the beginning of understanding" how to deal with the psychological wounds and scars that military members incur during combat service.
"I believe the cumulative effects of these deployments, the pressure that so many are under, the impact of what . . . mostly our soldiers and Marines have been through" on the battlefield "in our eighth year of war has a lot to do with" the suicide and other stress-related problems that are plaguing the military and their families, he said.
Then WHY are you SENDING MORE over a LIE, sir?
Mullen said the military has added hundreds of mental health professionals to help with the problem, yet "we're struggling with respect to that." Another aspect of the problem, he added, is the impact on children, who can suffer from the extended and repeated absence of a mother or father going off to war.
Yeah, especially if they COME BACK in a BOX!!!!!
Why not BRING THEM ALL HOME, Mike?!!!!
But ENOUGH of the HAND-WRINGING over the troops.
We got WARS to PROMOTE, sayeth the MSM!!!!
In a wide-ranging question-and-answer session with his audience, Mullen also said he was "reasonably comfortable" that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are secure amid a rising tide of insurgent violence aimed at the government.
"We have invested in that [effort], they've taken significant steps in recent years, so I'm comfortable," he said. "My biggest concern is that if Pakistan gets to a point where it implodes, you've got a country that could be an Islamist, theocratic country with nuclear weapons which could both use them and proliferate them. One of our goals is to make sure that doesn't happen."
Translation: WE WILL be OCCUPYING SOON!!
Thank God Obama sent all those troops to Afghanistan, huh?
He also explicitly linked the Pakistani military's intelligence arm, the Inter-Services Intelligence, to elements of the insurgency inside Pakistan, a connection that others have said helps empower the Taliban and other extremist groups.
PUSHING the PROPAGANDA and LIES does NOT HELP our TROOPS, guy!!!!!!!!
The role of Pakistani intelligence was discussed Wednesday at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in which Army General David Petraeus, the top commander of US forces in the Middle East and in Afghanistan, said there have been cases where Pakistani intelligence warned the insurgents of impending US or Pakistani military strikes.
GOOD!! LESS INNOCENTS KILLED with our mass-murdering air bombs!!!
--more--"
"US confident on Afghanistan mission" by Reuters | April 6, 2009
KABUL, Afghanistan - The top US military officer said yesterday extra troops being sent to Afghanistan this year would start to turn the tide against the Taliban-led insurgency that has been gaining ground for three years.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, was visiting Kabul with US special envoy Richard Holbrooke a day after NATO agreed to boost troop numbers before Afghanistan's presidential election in August. NATO leaders agreed at a summit on Saturday to deploy 3,000 more troops to help provide security for the Aug. 20 election, the key test of US success in a mission that President Obama has made a centerpiece of his foreign policy.
Obama hails more 5,000 forces in Afghanistan
WTF, MSM? What's with the lies?
The NATO reinforcements will be on top of 17,000 extra US troops due in the country by July and 4,000 American soldiers due to arrive before September to train Afghan forces. They will join about 70,000 international troops already in Afghanistan. "I am convinced that the additional military capability will certainly start to allow us to turn the tide," Mullen told a news conference alongside Holbrooke.
Turn the tide? We been there for eight years!!!!
Turning the tide would mean COMING HOME, wouldn't it?
--more--"
Mullen sure forgot about those troop troubles in a hurry, didn't he?
