From the BBC:
Iraq war a big no-no, actor says
Labour-supporting actor Richard Wilson says he suffered a “nasty and frightening” loss of heart in Prime Minister Tony Blair over the Iraq war.
Mr Wilson, who played Victor Meldrew in TV comedy One Foot in the Grave, has been a member of the party for years.
But interviewed for the parliamentary House Magazine, he said the Iraq invasion had been “a big no-no for me”.
He said he had thought he would never be “deeply upset” by the way Labour had “by and large moved to the right”.
In 2003, Mr Wilson wore a gag during a protest against the war in Parliament Square, London.
He and other stage actors, including Joseph Fiennes and Sheila Hancock, wore gags before reading out extracts from a Greek anti-war comedy.
Mr Wilson made his critical remarks ahead of his appearance in a new political play Whipping It Up.
‘Blair arrogance’
“I never thought I would see the day when I would be deeply upset and disappointed by the way the party had, by and large, moved to the right,” he said.
The 70-year-old actor said it was Mr Blair’s arrogance which angered him – “arrogance which makes him think he can stay, arrogance which makes him think he could run the country by himself”.
Big peace demonstration in London on 24 February: here.
Oil in Iraq: here.
Related articles
- Ex-UK PM faces criticism over Iraq war (philosophers-stone.co.uk)
- UK Spy Warns of Iraq War Disclosures (philosophers-stone.co.uk)
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
*Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army’s Top Medical Facility*
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:52 am (PST)
Here’s how “A.W.O.L. Bush” and “I had other priorities” Cheney “support
the troops” …
And, since the Republicans have been in charge of Congress for the past
six years, here is how THEY “support the troops” …
And, if you are feeling rage fatigue, I beg you to think about how rage
fatigued our wounded soldiers are, as they wait for a decent bed in a
decent room.
Soldiers discharged from the psychiatric ward are often assigned
to Building 18. Buses and ambulances blare all night. While injured
soldiers pull guard duty in the foyer, a broken garage door allows
unmonitored entry from the rear. Struggling with schizophrenia,
PTSD, paranoid delusional disorder and traumatic brain injury,
soldiers feel especially vulnerable in that setting, just outside
the post gates, on a street where drug dealers work the corner at
night. … “I hate it,” said Romero, who stays in his room all day.
“There are cockroaches. The elevator doesn’t work. The garage door
doesn’t work. Sometimes there’s no heat, no water. . . . I told my
platoon sergeant I want to leave. I told the town hall meeting. I
talked to the doctors and medical staff. They just said you kind of
got to get used to the outside world. . . . My platoon sergeant
said, ‘Suck it up!’ “>>
.
———————————————————-
**Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army’s Top Medical Facility*
/
/*/by Dana Priest and Anne Hull
The Washington Post
February 18, 2007; A01
/
last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead
from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the
hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed
hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
.
The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital that
shines as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of
sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution
into something else entirely — a holding ground for physically and
psychologically damaged outpatients. Almost 700 of them — the majority
soldiers, with some Marines — have been released from hospital beds but
still need treatment or are awaiting bureaucratic decisions before being
discharged or returned to active duty.
They suffer from brain injuries, severed arms and legs, organ and back
damage, and various degrees of post-traumatic stress. Their legions have
grown so exponentially — they outnumber hospital patients at Walter
Reed 17 to 1 — that they take up every available bed on post and spill
into dozens of nearby hotels and apartments leased by the Army. The
average stay is 10 months, but some have been stuck there for as long as
two years.
Not all of the quarters are as bleak as Duncan’s, but the despair of
Building 18 symbolizes a larger problem in Walter Reed’s treatment of
the wounded, according to dozens of soldiers, family members, veterans
aid groups, and current and former Walter Reed staff members interviewed
by two Washington Post reporters, who spent more than four months
visiting the outpatient world without the knowledge or permission of
Walter Reed officials. Many agreed to be quoted by name; others said
they feared Army retribution if they complained publicly.
While the hospital is a place of scrubbed-down order and daily miracles,
with medical advances saving more soldiers than ever, the outpatients in
the Other Walter Reed encounter a messy bureaucratic battlefield nearly
as chaotic as the real battlefields they faced overseas.
On the worst days, soldiers say they feel like they are living a chapter
of “Catch-22.” The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with
psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others
at risk of suicide.
Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case
managers fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers’ families who are
close to poverty, replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert
sand or helping a brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment.
“We’ve done our duty. We fought the war. We came home wounded. Fine. But
whoever the people are back here who are supposed to give us the easy
transition should be doing it,” said Marine Sgt. Ryan Groves, 26, an
amputee who lived at Walter Reed for 16 months. “We don’t know what to
do. The people who are supposed to know don’t have the answers. It’s a
nonstop process of stalling.”
Keep read the rest of this at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021701172_pf.html
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