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12/31/11

Vets: Michelle Best-Ever First Lady - Washington Whispers (usnews.com)

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Vets: Michelle Best-Ever First Lady

December 30, 2011 RSS Feed Print

She's best known as America's First Mom, the First Beekeeper, and Veggie Gardener-in-Chief. But first lady Michelle Obama is also getting quite a name in military circles: First Booster for the troops. "Certainly other first ladies and presidents have taken an interest," says Joyce Raezer, executive director of the National Military Family Association. "But to make supporting military families [a priority], and not just to make it one of the things you do, this is a game-changer," adds an appreciative Raezer.

Often teamed with her lieutenant, Jill Biden, the vice president's wife, Obama has organized and attended more events for and with military veterans and their families than any previous first lady, according to veterans groups. This year alone, for example, she's participated in 50 events, many out of the eye of the media, and even dedicated the White House Christmas tree to supporting veterans. "There is this sense that this is genuine," says Raezer. "We haven't had this kind of visibility from the White House—ever."

[Photo gallery: The First Lady Reaches Out to Military Families.]

And it's also more than a simple stop-by to drop off gifts at a local Toys for Tots outlet, like she did the week before Christmas, or a quickie visit and speech to welcome home troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama and Biden are leading the charge to encourage businesses to hire veterans, an especially difficult challenge with unemployment sky-high, through an initiative called Joining Forces. Many companies like Google now have programs to hire veterans. The International Franchise Association credits Obama with boosting hiring efforts like its bid to get more veteran couples to become franchise owners. "The first lady's efforts accelerated those programs," says spokesman Matthew Haller.

[See pictures of Michelle Obama.]

The first lady is also eager to get Americans unaffected directly by war to pay attention to the military and war families. "That's one of the reasons why Jill and I started our Joining Forces initiative, because we wanted to rally all Americans to honor, recognize, and support our military families," Obama says. Addressing military families at a White House holiday event, she added: "We wanted to make sure that never again would someone have to ask the question, 'What is a Gold Star family and what does that sacrifice mean?' We all should know."

Sean O'Keefe, the former Navy secretary and NASA administrator, adds that Obama "has raised the visibility of the challenges confronted by the families of military service members—frequent relocation, psychological impact of children often raised by single parents due to long deployments, higher incidents of alcohol and drug abuse, and the often difficult access to healthcare." Now CEO of EADS North America, he adds, "Her focus has prompted Americans to be attentive to these consequences endured by the families of those called to national service on behalf of all of us."

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more foney baloney from axlerod-obaqma-moooooocher. Nov 6,2012 the Vets of this Nation will help throw obamas LYIN politicallly arse out of theWhite House.

bobojake of WA 12:29PM December 31, 2011

[report comment]

Is this article a joke??

calchick82 of CA 8:56AM December 31, 2011

[report comment]

Wow, the wonderful thing about America is that people are able to post their comments and opinions of what they assume or believe is correct with the amount of information that they are limited to. I have had the great pleasure of serving my country for the past 13 years and will continue to do so and will support who ever is the Commander in Chief. The wonderful thing about our country unlike many others I have been to if you do not like the way it is you are FREE to leave.

Rogers of PA 4:37AM December 31, 2011

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12/20/11

Thousands of Women Mass in Major March in Cairo - NYTimes.com

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Mass March by Cairo Women in Protest Over Soldiers’ Abuse

Asmaa Waguih/Reuters

Women protested against the military council violations against female demonstrators in Cairo, on Tuesday.

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Published: December 20, 2011

CAIRO — Thousands of woman marched through downtown Cairo on Tuesday evening to call for the end of military rule in an extraordinary expression of anger over images of soldiers beating, stripping and kicking a female demonstrator on the pavement of Tahrir Square.

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Egyptian protesters detained a suspected government collaborator, third from right, in Tahrir Square on Tuesday.

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Protesters threw rocks toward Egyptian forces near Tahrir Square in Cairo early Tuesday.

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“Drag me, strip me, my brothers’ blood will cover me!” they chanted. “Where is the field marshal?” they demanded, referring to Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the head of the military council holding onto power here. “The girls of Egypt are here.”

The event may have been the biggest women’s demonstration in Egypt’s history, and the most significant since a 1919 march led by pioneering Egyptian feminist Huda Shaarawi to protest British rule. The scale was stunning, and utterly unexpected in this strictly patriarchal society. Previous attempts to organize women’s events in Tahrir Square this year have either fizzled or, in at least one case, ended in the physical harassment of the handful of women who did turn out.

The women’s chants were evidently heard at military headquarters as well. On Tuesday evening, the ruling military council offered an abrupt apology.

“The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces expresses its utmost sorrow for the great women of Egypt, for the violations that took place during the recent events,” the council said in a statement. “It stresses its great appreciation for the women of Egypt and for their right to protest and to actively, positively participate in political life on the path of democratic transition.”

Although no one in the military has been publicly investigated or charged in connection with any misconduct, the statement asserted that the council had already taken “all the legal actions to hold whoever is responsible accountable.”

On the fifth of day of clashes between demonstrators and military police, the outpouring of women represented a stark shift for a protest movement that has often seemed to degenerate to crowds of young men trading volleys of rocks with riot police. It comes at a moment when many protesters were beginning to despair that they were losing a propaganda war against the military rulers’ attempts to portray them as vandals and arsonists out to ruin the country.

Just two hours before the women massed, a coalition of liberal and human rights groups unveiled a plan to try to break state media’s grip on public opinion by holding screenings around the country of video capturing recent military abuses. Groups of soldiers have been recorded beating prone demonstrators with clubs, firing rifles and handguns as they chased protestors, and more than one version of soldiers stripping female demonstrators.

In the most famous of those, a half dozen soldiers beating a woman with batons rip away her abaya to reveal her blue bra before one plants his boot on her chest. Fearful of the stigma that would come with her public humiliation, she has declined to step forward publicly, but the images of “blue bra girl” have been circulated over the Internet and broadcast by television stations around the world.

In Washington on Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton alluded to the episode when she called the recent events in Egypt “shocking.”

“Women are being beaten and humiliated in the same streets where they risked their lives for the revolution only a few short months ago,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Women are being attacked, stripped, and beaten in the streets,” she added, arguing that “this systematic degradation of Egyptian women “disgraces the state and its uniform.”

Relatively few Egyptians have Internet access or watch independent satellite television news, and many political organizers say they believed the scene is now more widely familiar in the United States than it is in Egypt. “Four blocks from here, no one knows about this,” said Aalam Wassef, a blogger and activist participating in the plan to try to spread the images.

That may have begun to change Monday when a general on the ruling military council acknowledged the event in a news conference broadcast on state television, arguing that the scene was taken out of context and other circumstances make help explain it. A veteran female journalist covering the military rose to ask the general for an apology specifically to Egyptian women for their treatment over the previous days.

“I demand that the military council gives serious and important consideration to the issue of women, or the next revolution will be a women revolution for real,” she warned. The general, however, first tried to interrupt her to announce that the military had learned of a new plan to attack the Parliament — already behind heavy barriers — and then brushed off her request.

Many Egyptian women said later that they were outraged by the general’s handling of the question and nonchalance about the attack.

When the core of activists called for a Tuesday march to protest the military’s treatment of women — organizers on the Internet service Twitter used the tag “BlueBra” — few could have expected the magnitude of the response.

By four in the afternoon, thousands had gathered in Tahrir Square. Instead of the usual core of activists, it was a broad spectrum including housewives demonstrating for the first time, young mothers carrying babies, a majority in traditional Muslim headscarves and a few in face-covering veils. And as they marched towards the headquarters of the journalists union, two long lines of hundreds of men joined hands on either side of the column of women to protect them from any possible harassment.

The crowd seemed to grew at each step as the women in the march called up to the apartment buildings lining the streets to urge others to join — “come down, come down,” they shouted in an echo of the protests that led to the ouster of Hosni Mubarak 10 months ago.

“If you don’t leave your house today to confront the militias of Tantawi, you will leave your house tomorrow so they can rape your daughter,” one sign declared.

“I am here because of our girls who were stripped in the street,” said Sohir Mahmoud, 50, a housewife who said she was demonstrating for the first time. “Men are not going to cover your flesh so we will,” she told a younger woman. “We have to come down and call for our rights nobody is going to call for our rights for us.”

In the days since the picture of the demonstrator in the blue bra have emerged some men here have questioned her presence in the square in the first place, wondering why her husband or father let her go. Others have argued that she must have wanted the exposure because she wore fancy lingerie, or that she should have worn more clothes under her abaya.

Activists have traded advice online that any woman heading to Tahrir Square should wear more layers than ever before. And some women in the march derided the men’s criticism, one joking to the other, “It is cold — you have to wear a blanket when you go out of the house!”

Along the sidewalks beside the march, some men came out to gawk and stare. Others chanted along with the women, “freedom, freedom.”

“I came so that girls are not stripped in the streets again,” said Afa Helal, 67, also demonstrating for the first time, “and because my daughters are always going to Tahrir. The army is supposed to protect the girls not strip them!”

Mayy el-Sheik contributed reporting.

20 Comments

Share your thoughts.

    • EgyptianForFreedom
    • LA

    Shame! Shame on the Army..corrupt ..corrupt and useless!

    • John
    • Atlanta, GA

    The Military Junta in Egypt is getting its orders from outside of the country. The Junta called their own Coup d’état a Revolution, and thought they can get away with this fake appellation. The Achilles-heel of these puppets is the building of the Egypt’s Ministry of Interior, where all the foreign orders are received. Take it and you liberate your country.

    • tewfic el-sawy
    • new york city
    NYT Pick

    The armchair pundits who express their misguided (and largely clueless) statements that Egypt is not ready for democracy astound me...but then I remember that they're clueless for a reason. They're unable to follow the news from Egypt, and rely either on the sanitized version of what passes for news in the US media or succumb to their own bias and bigotry...or both. To wit: a NYT 'trusted commentator' expressed his view that it would've been better if Mubarak had stayed in power...and questioned if Egypt was ready for democracy. Perhaps he ought to watch the interview today given by Ghada Kamal (the young woman who was beaten and humiliated by the military) expressing her resolve to have democracy in Egypt and bring the military to justice for what they've done to her -and to others- in detention...and for having hijacked the revolution. Look it up on YouTube.

    I can assure you, sir...she, as well as millions of Egyptians are ready for democracy. What they hope for is the support of fair-minded people...not bias, not bigotry, not off the cuff, clueless, demeaning and patronizing statements.

    • Wizarat
    • Moorestown, NJ

    When do we get any action from UN or NATO re saving the unarmed protestors,
    How about a no fly zone -
    no that is only for the other goons, these are our goons.

    • anton v. lersundi
    • Navarre

    The Egyptian military follow the same techniques that their colleagues in Chile.
    Murdering civilians, beating and undresing women, -in an Arab country- are their glorious deeds. And the US give 3b US$ every year to these filthy cowards.

    • TC
    • DC

    Blaming the protestors for the violence is about as ridiculous as Sadaam blaming the U.S. for his downfall.

    • abby
    • texas

    say hello to the new "boss" -- same as the "old" boss --- actually, the boss is the same -- the military....

    • Romy
    • NYC

    After watching the video of the young woman who was beaten, kicked, and dragged in the street by at least a half-dozen military with batons, the claim that protesters are to blame is ludicrous. Clearly, the military are intent on crushing any civilian action and subjecting unarmed individuals to their extremely violent ends.

    • hen3ry
    • New York

    This is an alarming development given the fact that the Egyptians wanted the freedom to choose their head of state. Now it seems as if the military will back their own candidate and enforce it through some of the same unsavory tactics used by other juntas.

    • Rob DL
    • Connecticut
    • Trusted

    So far, based on what we see, it would have been better if Mubarak stayed in power.

    Perhaps Hosni Mubarak resisted calls by the Obama Administration and the West for "democratic reform" because he knew his country simply wasn't ready for it.

    1. No way- this is part of a long and difficult process called "Democracy". Egyptians are doing an incredible job at pushing through a historic juncture, and deserve our continued support. Here in America we fought the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the 700,000 died in the Civil War before we were truly unified. Egypt has come a long way in 11 months.

      Egypt is ready for democracy, as the recent parliamentary elections attest. The vast majority of people voted, and peacefully. Its just that the military is attempting to cling to power. But with pressure from the street, the Muslim brotherhood, and the US, they WILL give up power to civilians.

      • tewfic el-sawy
      • new york city

      "...his country simply wasn't ready for it."

      I love it when armchair pundits pontificate about Egypt's political situation ... it's always so entertaining...so let me bite. Please expand on your statement that it would be better if Mubarak wasn't kicked out. Better for whom? And when you've tackled this, please explain when is a country "ready" for democratic reforms. I thought freedom is a human right.

      thanks a bunch.

      • Chris
      • Vermont

      Better for whom?

    • Mao
    • Sinai, Egypt

    Why is this surprise? The military have ruled Egypt since Nasser. They will not give up the reins of power voluntarily. Their actions speak louder than their words.

    • Steve Thompson
    • Maine

    According to a study by a well-respected think tank, Egypt has a history of being among the least free nations in the world. Here is an examination of how both civil and political freedom in Egypt is crushed, how the level of freedom in the country compares to other nations in the region and what changes need to be implemented to improve the situation for Egyptians:

    http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2011/11/freedom-in-egypt-what-are-p...

    • Madam Defarge
    • New York

    Mayor Bloomberg is considering outsourcing NYPD's crowd control activities to the a private security team associated with the Egyptian army. A spokesman from the Mayor's office stated that they do not expect there to be any increase in civil rights violations with this Wall Street changing of the guard. Most observer's agree that at increase in police violence is unlikely.

    • Buckeye
    • Ohio

    Dozens of protesting Egyptian patriots have been killed by thugs in uniform using bullets, beatings or toxic tear gas (made in the USA); hundreds have been severely wounded; women, in particular, have been brutally abused by police thugs, and the military rulers deny responsibility and arrogantly blame the victims of their bloody repression. These are the birth pangs of a new Egypt, one which will be governed by the spirit of Isis and Osiris and no longer by descendants of the killer god, Seth.

    • George Ennis
    • Toronto, Canada
    • Trusted

    Hopefully the Egyptian generals will be awarded medals for bravery. It takes a special person to attack unarmed women and children but the Egyptian generals rose to the challenge.

      • Yabaulee
      • NYC

      Yes sir...it's a junta.

    • Anniken Davenport
    • Harrisburg

    This is beginning to look a lot like a military coup. Where is Turkey? http://valhallapress.blogspot.com

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Smithsonian takes a shine to Post editor Richard Johnson’s raw images of life in war zones | News | National Post

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Smithsonian takes a shine to Post editor Richard Johnson’s raw images of life in war zones

Dec 16, 2011 – 9:17 AM ET | Last Updated: Dec 16, 2011 7:31 PM ET

Richard Johnson/National Post

Richard Johnson/National Post

By Juanita Bawagan, National Post

With relatively little pomp or circumstance, two era-defining conflicts came to an ostensible close Thursday. In Baghdad, U.S. forces formally ended their nine-year war in Iraq with a low-key flag ceremony, while across the globe, the last Canadian soldiers to leave Kandahar arrived in Ottawa.

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Brigadier-General Charles Lamarre, Commander of the Mission Transition Task Force in Afghanistan, and members of his team arrived at the Ottawa International Airport Thursday afternoon, signifying “the successful close out of military operations in southern Afghanistan,” according to Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

Yet there are thousands of stories from those conflicts still to be told, something news illustrator Richard Johnson hopes to help change. Johnson, the Graphics Editor for the National Post, has spent almost the past decade ensuring such tales reach war-weary readers. After tours in Iraq (2003), Afghanistan (2007) and another six weeks in Kandahar this past summer, Johnson has amassed a wealth of hand-drawn, subtle illustrations detailing the lives of both civilians and soldiers.

This past week, Johnson donated 20 of these pieces to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, in the hope his artwork can continue to tell these stories for generations to come.

The 45-year-old says his initial desire to head out into the field was born more out of frustration than anything else. “I find it at times personally very frustrating how little attention is paid to certain aspects of stories and for me the artwork is a way of making people pay attention to something they would normally not read,” he says.

With the long operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Johnson says readers were growing numb to the “sanitized” images they saw of burnt-out cars. “Nobody wants to be traumatized by seeing too many dead bodies,” he says.

Instead, Johnson’s images capture the everyday reality of life on the ground through a more “raw,” artistic approach, according to Jennifer Locke Jones, chair and curator of the Smithsonian’s division of armed forces. “He never goes back to it, or fill it in, and do the ‘prettying up’ that other artists do,” Jones says. Instead, she says, Johnson draws in the field, sparking an “immediacy and freshness” that traditional war illustrations lack.

When the Smithsonian learned Johnson would be returning to Afghanistan this year, Jones asked him if the museum could be the first to look at his work when he came back home. After viewing his latest illustrations, the Smithsonian ended up choosing 20 pieces, which represent not only the lives of individual soldiers but their day-to-day interactions with the local civilians. While the Smithsonian does not currently have an exhibition date set for Johnson’s work, Jones says she would like to co-ordinate something as the United States makes its way out of Iraq.

Richard Johnson/National Post

For his part, Johnson, who studied at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, Scotland, didn’t start out his career aiming to cover war zones. Working at the Detroit Free Press in 2003, Johnson proposed the paper fly out a war artist to Iraq.

“The war in Iraq was perhaps the most organized publicity war that I think that there has ever been,” he says. “Every news organization knew it was coming and knew they were in competition with every news organization, so they knew they had to find a way to make their work stand out.”

A newly hired editor, Joe Galloway, had fought in Vietnam and got behind Johnson’s proposal. Galloway had worked alongside combat artist Howard Brodie, one of Johnson’s idols, and believed illustrations were the greatest documentation of the war. One month later, in June 2003, Johnson was on the border of Iraq with 150,000 British, French and Australian soldiers. He lived with the troops day in and day out, attending patrols and being exposed to the same risks.

When Johnson returned to Afghanistan earlier this year for the Post, he says his experience was vastly different, as the mandate of Canadian Forces had shifted from combat to project-type work, including the building of schools and roads. This shift comes across clearly in many of the illustrations donated to the Smithsonian. One such image depicts a scene from the village of Salavat during an early morning patrol. Children are seen everywhere – working, collecting grass, getting water or going to school.

While Johnson says photographs can be striking, the process of illustration allows him to build a human connection with readers. “I think that stroke by stroke, line by line, it’s that kind of intensity of connection that comes across in the artwork.”

Richard Johnson/National Post

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12/16/11

Sununu the Younger: Newt shows 'bigotry' - POLITICO.com

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Sununu the Younger: Newt shows 'bigotry'

By ALEXANDER BURNS |
12/16/11 3:27 PM EST

Former New Hampshire Sen. John E. Sununu, who hasn’t endorsed in the 2012 race but whose father has been one of the Romney campaign’s main attack dogs against Newt Gingrich, accuses Gingrich of “bigotry” for his description of the Palestinian people as “invented”:

The egregiousness of Gingrich’s statement isn’t simply in its inaccuracy, but in its objective. It implies that the claims of Palestinians must also be invented — rights to land, to sovereignty, to self-governance. On Monday he asserted, “A right to return is based on a historically false story.’’ Although the right to reclaim or receive compensation for lost property is a question for Israeli-Palestinian negotiation, the historical facts are quite simple. And again, Gingrich has them wrong. …

My grandfather was born in Boston, but grew up in Jerusalem as a happy, well-educated Palestinian. As a Christian, he attended the French School and frequented the city’s historic YMCA. He returned to America in the 1930s and settled in New York. In 1948 the fighting forced his parents and cousins to leave their Jerusalem homes. They were never able to return; their houses were on the “wrong’’ side of the armistice line. Their property was taken, though today my cousins’ home looks the same as it did in photos from the 1930s. My great-grandparents lived out their lives in Lebanon. Does Gingrich consider the Lebanese an invented people too?

Gingrich is intelligent, which makes his bigotry all the more dangerous. He employs it not for self-satisfaction, but for political ends. His statements are wrong in fact — and contradict more than 40 years of bipartisan US policy. They reflect a cavalier attitude toward diplomacy, and send the message to allies in Europe and the Middle East that we are inconsistent and unreliable. They were designed to marginalize, not explain; and will be used by extremists on both sides to discourage reconciliation and compromise.

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