Warning: this Times Online story will make you really angry. The Metro Hotel in Woking, Surrey, refused to give Corporal Tomos Stringer, 24, a room for the night, because, he was told, it's "company policy not to accept members of the Armed Forces as guests."

How insane is that? It's like not allowing guests who are members of the priesthood or doctors.

Apparently, there had been some incidents involving soldiers from a nearby barracks, and the policy wasn't a blanket ban but an at-the-manager's-discretion rule, but nevertheless, denying shelter to a member of the armed forces is an outrage. And it gets worse!

John McCain recently got in some political trouble because he couldn't remember how many houses he has (that's when you know you're really rich). What was his excuse? He was a POW! If you're wondering what the connection is, you're not alone.

Rudy Giuliani couldn't stop talking about 9/11. Now, McCain is the equivalent for his POW record. As Joe Biden would say, every sentence has become "A noun, a verb and POW."

Listen to all the different times McCain has resorted to reminding people he is a POW to get out of a tough spot:




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LaVena Johnson, a private in the Army was brutally raped, beaten and killed in 2005. Her teeth were knocked in, her nose broken, she had teeth marks on her body and there was corrosive liquid poured into her vagina, most likely to destroy evidence. Then she was shot and her body set on fire. After all this, the military called it ... a suicide.

Who are they kidding? What is the real reason they are covering up this murder? A trail of blood from the private's body led into the tent of a military contractor from Kellogg, Brown & Root (a subsidiary of Halliburton at the time). I don't want to make any conclusions now about who might have done this and why it was covered up, but one thing that is exceedingly clear from the evidence is that she was murdered and there needs to be an investigation into who did it.

There is a website set up to follow this case and demand justice: http://www.lavenajohnson.com/

I got pretty worked up about this on last night's show. That's because I actually care about justice and I care about our troops (instead of just putting a bumper sticker on my car):




In my opinion, this was part of the atmosphere of lawlessness that was fostered in Iraq by the Bush administration. But I don't want my opinion to get in the way here because this should be something that we can all agree on. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has already improved a lot of the conditions on the ground in Iraq and this doesn't have to be political at this point. If Republicans care about the troops as they say they do, they have to care about what happened to PFC LaVena Johnson.

This is something we should be able to unite on. If we can't get justice for Private Johnson, who can we get justice for?

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Plenty of former officers have criticized the Iraq War, but there's only been one active duty career soldier who's not only come out against the War but also refused to go and fight in it. (He said he would go to Afghanistan instead, but that the Iraq war is "illegal").

That soldier is Lt. Ehren Watada, 30, a junior Army officer from Hawaii who's become a poster child for the anti-war movement. He's also become persona non grata within the military and is facing a possible sentence of six years in prison.

Our friend Tara McKelvey is the first journalist who has gotten close to him in more than a year. She's written an amazing story for The American Prospect about Watada, who's now in legal limbo and being subtly punished at a desk job.

Congress is voting this week on expanding the G.I. Bill dramatically, reports the AP. As you can see in this MTV News report, the costs of education have risen so sharply that a lot of soldiers wind up only getting a small portion of their tuition covered. One Marine reservist got just $282 a month toward his community college education when he returned from Iraq. According to MTV:

Phil Donahue was on our show yesterday to talk about his new award winning documentary, Body of War. It's the story of one wounded vet who has come back from Iraq to fight against what's happening. During the interview, he made a great point about the war -- it's an insult to our troops to be unconcerned about the human costs of this war because it's only the volunteer US troops who are dying and getting maimed for life.

You can watch the whole interview by clicking here or watch a short clip from the interview below:




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The New York Times has a terrific new article that explains how the Pentagon used former military commanders as puppets to fill the airwaves with pro-Bush propaganda. It sounds unbelievable but it makes perfect sense when you read it because the military analysts needed the access to the Pentagon to make money as lobbyists and advisers to defense contractors. They set up the perfect scheme for everyone get what they want, except for the American people, who were purposely misled and deceived by the people they trusted the most.

It's an absolute must read. Click here for a link to the article.

Below is my very brief summary of the article:




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1. The Petraeus Paradox: If we're doing well, it's because of the extra troops so we shouldn't pull them out. If we're doing poorly, obviously we need more troops. Either way, we need more troops and need to stay in Iraq longer. This supposition is obvious nonsense, yet we're taking it seriously.

2. The central government of Iraq is a myth. It is neither central nor a government. It doesn't govern anything outside of the Green Zone and is run by one Shiite militia and in no way encompasses the Sunnis, the Kurds or the other Shiite factions.

3. Giving more time to a project headed in the wrong direction doesn't help the project, it hurts it. If you're going the wrong way, people aren't helping you by giving you more time to head in the wrong direction.

Here's a quick explanation of the myths of the Iraq War:




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In the video below I summarize what General Petraeus told Congress yesterday -- and show why according to his logic we can never, ever leave Iraq:





Despite what George Bush believes, we do not live in a black and white world. So, Gen. Petraeus is neither pure evil nor pure good. As an officer serving in Iraq, he risks his life on a daily basis (maybe not as much as the people below him in the chain of command, but certainly plenty enough -- and hell of a lot more than the rest of us). He was smart to make deals with the Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia. This -- and not the extra troops -- brought the level of violence in Iraq down for awhile.

On the other hand, he was originally in charge of training the Iraqi troops and he was a miserable failure in that regard. To this day, many years later, they still remain woefully untrained. Since they are not ready to accept responsibility in for security in Iraq, we have to remain there. But to be fair, this is not really Gen. Petraeus's fault. They didn't want to be trained. They don't want to be part of the Iraqi Army. But that is what leads to Gen. Petraeus's greatest failure.

He refuses to recognize or acknowledge that the central government of Iraq is a fraud. It is neither central nor a government. It does not effectively govern any part of Iraq outside of the Green Zone. The Kurds run the north, the former Sunni insurgents now run the Anbar province and the Shiite militias run the south, including Basra. The so-called central government has been reduced to simply another large Shiite militia.

So, why are we backing one Shiite militia over another? Especially one that is more linked to Iran then even the Mahdi Army? There is no good answer for that. That is why Gen. Petraeus has been dutifully avoiding that topic for the last several days. And this is the core of my problem with Petraeus. He is following orders set by this administration and not being honest with Congress or the American people. He knows the central government of Iraq is a joke, has no real power and is tied to Iran. Yet, he helps to perpetrate this fraud upon the American people so that we can stay in Iraq longer.

The whole point of this exercise is to hand off this mess to the next president so that Bush can pretend he didn't lose Iraq. And for Petraeus to be complicit in that kind of political manipulation is unacceptable and unforgivable.

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Halliburton/KBR employees rape American women -- and there are no consequences. And now we find out that Blackwater gassed our own troops -- and there are no consequences. When are people going to get tired of this?

We explain how US troops were gassed by Blackwater employees in the video below:



If companies connected to Bill Clinton had done this during his administration, the Republicans would not have impeached him, they would have tried him for treason. Right-wing Blackwater does it and not a peep out of anyone.

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Army Times, a Gannett paper, is currently running a series about Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, in Iraq, and it's gripping. The third part of the series opens with an attack at a Baghdad Burger King but opens into a much broader issue: the disillusion and fury of some American troops in Iraq, and the difficulty that commanders have controlling, consoling, and inspiring them.

The package is long and complex, but it is worth it. It paints a chilling and tragic picture of soldiers who are both devoted to victory and, at the same time quickly reaching the end of their ropes.

This is so hardcore. Turkey has arrested its own soldiers that were taken hostage by Kurdish separatists. They were released by the terrorists and then arrested by their own country.

Turkey has charged them with "disobedience that could lead to a major catastrophe" and "undermining military discipline." In other words, they arrested them for not fighting to the death.

Don't forget, today is Remembrance Day in the commonwealth and Veteran's Day in America.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

-By John McCrae

Our troops are risking their lives to in Iraq and Afghanistan and there are a bunch of nosy do-gooders who are trying to prevent them from seeing any porn. This is a disgrace. Trying to keep porn away from the troops is un-American. See who the culprits are here:



I thought these people were pretending they supported the troops. If I was a soldier going overseas, I would hate these people more than anyone else. Get out of our lives, man. And leave our troops alone!

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This Washington Post article covers the stories of soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division in Iraq. Here's one of the money quotes, from Sgt. Victor Alarcon:

"I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life."

We explain the details of what they describe as a "hellhole" in the video below.



If these soldiers are right, as I suspect they are, and the Iraqi government is part of the problem and not part of the solution, then all of the surging in the world is utterly useless anyway. So, that leads to the powerful Sgt. Alarcon question:















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