The Peacemakers
~ ~ ~
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called the children of God.
– Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 5:9
Sightings from The Catbird Seat
~ o ~
May 25, 2009
Obama heads to Arlington cemetery for Memorial Day
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama sought to dodge racial controversy on Memorial Day, sending wreaths to a monument for Confederate soldiers and other flowers to a memorial honoring more than 200,000 African-Americans who fought for the Union during the Civil War.
Obama, the nation's first black president, planned to continue tradition and have aides leave a wreath at the Confederate Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, the 600-acre site that once was Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's estate. But the White House also will send a wreath to the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington's historically black U Street neighborhood.
Presidents traditionally visit Arlington to personally leave a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns, a marble structure housing the remains of unidentified U.S. military members who died during war. Presidents then have aides deliver wreaths to other memorials or monuments, generally including the Confederate memorial.
But a group of about 60 professors last week sent a petition to the White House asking Obama to avoid a memorial for Confederate military members who died during the war between the North and the South.
"The Arlington Confederate Monument is a denial of the wrong committed against African-Americans by slave owners, Confederates and neo-Confederates, through the monument's denial of slavery as the cause of secession and its holding up of Confederates as heroes," the petition said. "This implies that the humanity of Africans and African-Americans is of no significance."
Among the professors who signed the letter is 1960s radical William Ayers, a University of Chicago education professor who helped found the radical group the Weather Underground that carried out bombings at the Pentagon and the Capitol. Republicans tried to link Obama with Ayers during the presidential campaign; the two lived in the same neighborhood and served on a charity board together.
The African American Civil War Memorial had been discussed as a compromise in recent days.
"President Obama, why not send two wreaths?" Kirk Savage, an art history professor at the University of Pittsburgh, wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post. "One to the Confederate Memorial in Arlington Cemetery and another to the African American Civil War Memorial in the District, which commemorates the 200,000 black soldiers who fought for liberation from slavery in the Union armed forces."
The White House hoped to sidestep the distraction and spend Obama's first Memorial Day as president speaking in honor of the nation's veterans and their families. He scheduled a private breakfast at the White House with family members who had lost loved ones in war.
In person, Obama planned to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns and then speak about the nation's military members who died in battle.
"This is not only a time for celebration, it is also a time to reflect on what this holiday is all about; to pay tribute to our fallen heroes; and to remember the servicemen and women who cannot be with us this year because they are standing post far from home — in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world," Obama said during his weekly radio and Internet address ahead of the holiday.
Obama and his wife, Michelle, have made veterans and military families a priority during his young administration. Obama's budget proposed the largest single-year funding increase in the last three decades to revamp the Department of Veterans Affairs.
"Our fighting men and women — and the military families who love them — embody what is best in America. And we have a responsibility to serve all of them as well as they serve all of us," Obama said during his radio address.
"And yet, all too often in recent years and decades, we, as a nation, have failed to live up to that responsibility. We have failed to give them the support they need or pay them the respect they deserve. That is a betrayal of the sacred trust that America has with all who wear — and all who have worn — the proud uniform of our country."
The president also plans to send flowers to the USS Maine Memorial and the Spanish American War Memorial.
May 25, 2009
The Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP)
Spiritual Activism and the Politics of Meaning
[Many members of the NSP (Network of Spiritual Progressives) supported Obama in the primaries because they thought he would be more likely to end the war than Hillary Clinton. Imagine their shock to now discover that Obama has backed away from his promised time-table of withdrawal, and is meanwhile escalating the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As our religious and spiritual traditions teach: The path to peace is a path of peace. Meanwhile, the killing continues. ]
Requiem for the Last American Soldier to Die in Iraq
By BRIAN TURNER
At some point in the future, soldiers will pack up their rucks, equipment will be loaded
into huge shipping containers, C-130s will rise wheels-up off the tarmac, and Navy
transport ships will cross the high seas to return home once again. At some point - the
timing of which I don't have the slightest guess at - the war in Iraq will end. And I've
been thinking about this a lot lately - I've been thinking about the last American soldier
to die in Iraq.
Tonight, at 3 a.m., a hunter's moon shines down into the misty ravines of Vermont's
Green Mountains. I'm standing out on the back deck of a friend's house, listening to the
quiet of the woods. At the Fairbanks Museum in nearby St. Johnsbury, the lights have
been turned off for hours and all is dark inside the glass display cases, filled with Civil
War memorabilia. The checkerboard of Jefferson Davis. Smoothbore rifles. Canteens.
Reading glasses. Letters written home.
Four or five miles outside of town, past a long stretch of water where the moon is
crossing over, a blue and white house sits in a small clearing not far from where I stand
now. Chimney smoke rises from a fire burned down to embers. A couple spoon each
other in sleep, exhausted from lovemaking. One of them is beginning to snore. I want
them to wake up and make love again, even if they need the sleep and tomorrow's
workday holds more work than they might imagine.
Who can say where that last soldier is now, at this very moment? Kettlemen City.
Turlock. Wichita. Fredricksburg. Omaha. Duluth. She may be in the truck idling beside
us in traffic as we wait for the light to turn green. He may be ordering a slice of key lime
pie at Denny's, sitting at a booth with his friends after bowling all night. What name
waits to be etched on a stone not yet erected in America? Somewhere out in the vast
stretches of our country, somewhere out in Whitman's America, out among the wide
expanse of grasses, somewhere here among us the last soldier may lie dreaming in
bed before the dawn as the sun sets over Iraq.
***
At the Spar in Tacoma, Wash., the bartender - Jolene - is about to flip the lights for last
call. Let her wait a moment longer. If she can wait a few minutes more, the young
woman at the end of the bar will finally do what she's been wanting to do for hours. And
it will surprise the young man she's been talking with - she'll kiss him. It will never be
seen on a movie screen or written down in a book for people to enjoy centuries later.
No one at the bar will even notice it taking place. But they should, because it's one of
the all-time best kisses ever. As cheesy and hyper-romantic as it sounds, this is a kiss
for the ages, and it's as good as they get.
***
Let the quiet moments of a life be recognized and not glossed over with thoughts of the
past or thoughts of the future. For a rare, brief moment - let this moment be savored
and fully lived. Maybe that soldier will drive a thresher in the Kansas sun today. Maybe
she'll cheer at a Red Sox game as her husband laments the fate of his Yankees. Maybe
he's in Hollister, Calif., thinking of the 100 things he'd written as a child - the list he titled
"Things To Do Before I Die":
1. write a book
2. travel down the amazon
3. travel down the nile
4. visit each continent
5. live in a foreign country
6. learn to speak foreign languages
7. be a major-league baseball player
8. publish in Playboy magazine
9. ride a motorcycle across America
10. cross an ocean by boat
11. scuba dive
12. climb a mountain
13. go to every major league baseball park, especially Yankee Stadium
14. be a tourist on a moon mission with NASA or another space agency
15. ride on an elephant and a camel
16. visit Angor Wat, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall, the Hermitage, the Louvre, Stonehenge
17. invent something useful and helpful for people
18. …and on and on…
How many items will he have crossed off that list before he must put it away again?
***
Could that last soldier be in front of a video camera in Hollister right now,recording a
final message in case she doesn't make it back, making a videotape for a child who will
never know its own mother?
If you're watching this then it means I'm not around anymore. I imagine you're probably
in your late teens now. Maybe Mt. Kilimanjaro no longer has snow on its peak. Maybe
the ice shelves on the northern coasts of Alaska have melted back and polar bears are
dwindling in number. I always wanted to get up there and see Alaska. Maybe you'll
make it up there one day yourself. I wonder if it's somehow possible for you to buy a
plane ticket to Baghdad, to visit Iraq as a tourist. Will you visit the places where I've
been? Will you talk to the people there? Will you tell them my name?
***
What will the name be? Anthony. Lynette. Fernando. Paula. Joshua. Letitia. Roger…
Who will carve it in stone and who will leave flowers there as the years pass by? Who
will remember this soldier and what will those memories be? Does he have brothers
and sisters? Will his father sink into the grass in the backyard when he is told the
news? Will his mother stare into the street with eyes gone hollow and vacant, the cars
passing each day with their polished enamel reflecting the sunlight? What will the
officer say when he knocks on that door?
***
The next time I'm waiting for a transfer flight in Dallas, or in Denver, or in Chicago, I'm
going to make a point to watch for soldiers in uniform. If one of them is eating alone and
watching football on a wall-mounted television, I'll anonymously pick up the check for
them, like someone did for me once when I was in my desert fatigues and preparing to
deploy overseas.
***
Maybe, just maybe, as I stand here in the quiet moonlight of Vermont, the American
who will one day be the very last American soldier to die in Iraq - maybe that soldier is
doing a night jump in Ft. Bragg, N.C. Each parachute opens its canopy over the
darkness below - the wind an exhilaration, a cold rush of adrenaline, the jump an
exercise in being fully alive and in the moment, a way of learning how it feels to fall
within the rain, the way rain itself falls, to be a part of it all, the earth's gravity pulling
with its inexorable embrace.
web: www.spiritualprogressives.org
Copyright © 2009 Network of Spiritual Progressives®.
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November 11, 2008
Obama marks Veterans Day
with wreath-laying
By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO – President-elect Obama honored fallen troops Tuesday by placing a wreath at a memorial and making a Veterans Day pledge to the many Americans who have served in the military.
"Let us rededicate ourselves to keep a sacred trust with all who have worn the uniform of the United States of America: that America will serve you as well as you have served your country," Obama said in a statement. "As your next commander in chief, I promise to work every single day to keep that sacred trust with all who have served."
One week after winning the presidential election, Obama took a brief break from his primary tasks of mapping out his administration and monitoring the economic crisis to mark Veterans Day at the bronze soldiers memorial between the Field Museum and Soldier Field in Chicago.
The Illinois senator, who will inherit wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from President Bush, was accompanied by Tammy Duckworth, an Iraq war veteran who lost her legs in combat. She later ran unsuccessfully for Congress and now is the Illinois governor's veterans affairs director.
On a brisk autumn day, Obama moved a pre-positioned wreath a few feet closer to the front of the memorial that bore the phrase "dedicated to the defenders of our liberty." He and Duckworth bowed their heads briefly and then each saluted.
In his statement Obama praised "the extraordinary service and selfless sacrifice of our nation's veterans" who have "defended the American people and stood up for American values."
"Since 9/11, a new generation of American heroes has borne a heavy load in facing down the threats of the 21st century, and their families have been asked to bear the painful absence of a loved one. These Americans are the best and bravest among us, and they are all in our thoughts and prayers," he added....
November 10, 2008
Every year, VFP Chapters are denied entry into Veterans Day Parades, this year the following VFP Chapters were not allowed to march:
Chapter 157 - North Carolina Triangle (Raleigh) - read more
Chapter 136 - Central Florida
Chapter 009 - Eastern Mass, Smedley Butler Chapter
Chapter102 - Milwaukee, WI
For Immediate Release
VETERANS' DAY: Keeping faith with the original intent of Armistice Day > read more
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/
This page first appeared in The Catbird Seat on March 30, 2003
May 1, 2008
US Port Workers Strike
in Anti-War Protest
By Voice Of America News
Workers at ports on the west coast of the United States staged a one-day strike Thursday to call for an end to the war in Iraq, five years after President George Bush stood underneath a banner that declared "Mission Accomplished."
On May 1, 2003, the president visited a U.S. aircraft carriers the USS Abraham Lincoln to declare an end to major combat operations in Iraq and call it a victory in the war on terrorism.
West coast dockworkers marked the anniversary with a brief strike that halted loading and unloading of ships from southern California to Washington state. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union said at least 10 thousand workers stayed home.
The White House says the "Mission Accomplished" phrase referred to the aircraft carrier's completion of its 10-month mission at sea, not the military completing its mission in Iraq.
White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Thursday the Bush Administration is looking forward to helping the Iraqi government take greater responsibility for its own security.
Fratto also said President Bush is ignoring a new poll that shows the president's approval rating has dropped to just 27 percent. The poll indicates 73 percent of voters believe the country is on the wrong track.
The poll was conducted by the Wall Street Journal and NBC news between April 28 to April 28.
Democrats have repeatedly criticized the president for his Iraq policy and the mounting casualties there. The war is a major issue in the presidential campaign.
On Wednesday, a White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, told reporters that President Bush is well aware that the "Mission Accomplished" banner should have been more specific.
Since the war started, more than 4,000 members of the U.S. military have been killed, along with thousands of Iraqi civilians.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-05-01-voa73.cfm
May 2, 2008
West Coast ports shut down as
workers protest Iraq war
Stoppage anticipated, so few
major disruptions reported
By Ronald W. Powell, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Dole Fresh Fruit Co.'s San Diego operation reported a loss of $316,000 because of a work stoppage yesterday by West Coast dockworkers protesting the Iraq war.
Dole's report of losses, mostly in bananas, was the only one disclosed by local companies in the daylong protest, which involved thousands of workers at 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle.
The work stoppage had a larger effect on ports in Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland and Seattle, which are the primary gateways for container shipments from the Far East and other foreign ports....
The protest occurred as contract negotiations between the union and the Pacific Maritime Association are reaching a crucial point. The association saw the protest as a warning shot that more job actions could occur if a new contract is not signed before the current six-year pact expires July 1.
The association said the union defied the ruling of an independent arbitrator, who said last week that the union should fulfill its contract and report to work on May Day. Union heads said workers had the right to skip work to protest the war.
“Shutting down the ports in defiance of the contract and the arbitrator's order in no way benefits an already fragile U.S. economy,” said association spokesman Steve Getzug. “We have a lot of serious issues to resolve at the bargaining table, and the nation cannot afford uncertainty about the reliability of the West Coast ports.”
William Silva, president of Local 29 in San Diego, said the job action was about stopping the war – not getting a new contract.
“Today's action is not about leveraging negotiations at all,” Silva said. “We're supporting our soldiers in the Iraq war – period.”
May 3, 2008
Iraq War protesters to gather
outside Sunrise Mall
BY RHODA AMON, Newsday
Long Island peace activists are set to gather in front of the Westfield Sunrise Mall in Massapequa at 2 p.m. Saturday to call for an end to the Iraq War, honor the fallen and continue their protest of the arrest in March of an 80-year-old activist.
The protesters will be wearing white T-shirts that read "4000 Troops 1 million Iraqis dead," on the front and "Enough!" on the back.
Donald Zirkel, of Bethpage, a member of Pax Christi Long Island, the Catholic peace movement, was wearing the same anti-war T-shirt when he was arrested in the Smith Haven Mall in Lake Grove March 29, after security officers asked him to take off the shirt or leave. Zirkel, a church deacon, was removed in a wheelchair by Suffolk Police.
Mall management charged Zirkel with handing out leaflets in the food court, a charge he has denied. Nancy Dwyer, 74, of Valley Stream, one of three other Pax Christi seniors with Zirkel in the mall, testified recently before the public safety committee of the Suffolk Legislature that "at no time did any one of the four of us hand out or have in our possession any leaflets." The four were eating and chatting when they were surrounded by security officers, Dwyer said.
Zirkel is due to be arraigned on the matter May 22 in District Court in Central Islip.
Janet Egan of Huntington, a member of the Suffolk Peace Network, said the count of Iraqi war dead is now at 4065, including 33 from Long Island. During the protest, members will display photos of Long Islanders killed in Iraq, Egan said. "People need to be reminded of the human cost of this war."
The demonstration, jointly sponsored by two coalitions of local peace groups, the Suffolk Peace Network and the Nassau-based Long Island Alliance for Peaceful Alternatives, will convene on Sunrise Highway and Carmans Road outside Wal-Mart at the Westfield Sunrise Mall entrance.
April 25, 2008
Protest in Rural CT
Takes on Bush, Kissinger
by lao hong han
I just got a phone report from my friend Dody about today's demonstration in moneyed Kent, CT, where war criminal Henry Kissinger and his wife Nancy were hosting a Republican fundraising lunch (actually at the $1000 a plate level, it's probably a "luncheon"). The bash starred another Nuremberg Trial prospect, George W. Bush himself, as diaried here on Sunday.
Folks who've been working on the Iraq Moratorium in Cornwall, CT, the somewhat less posh rural town to Kent's immediate north, were part of a demonstration that they estimated at 60 or 70 at the start, when they tried to get close to the Kissinger residence. An arranged system of shuttles was to take folks inside the State Trooper blockade to protest, but when passengers on the first shuttle were bumrushed by the law when they tried to get out, plans were quickly adjusted.
Protesters, both locals and those organized by COW (Connecticut Opposed to the War) and mobilized through the statewide My Left Nutmeg website, wound up forming up a very slow car caravan, 45 vehicles strong, which drove through the area. The lead car towed a larger-than-life Bush effigy atop a missile mockup. The caravan then parked in the Kent town center where an improvised march down the main drag was held, numbering up to 200 by this point.
Dody was jazzed by the range of participants--a solid turnout from the Iraq Moratorium: Cornwall Edition and other neighbors, and also one of Connecticut's Iraq Veterans Against the War members, high school students from Torrington, a gritty declining industrial city nearby, and anti-war activists from around the state.
I've checked in with several participants by now, and all report very favorable responses overall from Kent residents and Route 7 motorists.
There's a bunch of great photos by Glenn from the Cornwall Moratorium crew here, like the one below. Looking at the pix, it's striking how many young folk were at this protest. And heartening.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/25/193451/118/829/503621
http://grassroots.unitedforpeace.org/node/84
September 16, 2007
More Than 190
War Protesters Arrested
By MATTHEW BARAKAT, AP
WASHINGTON (Sept. 15) - Several thousand anti-war demonstrators marched through downtown Washington on Saturday, clashing with police at the foot of the Capitol steps where more than 190 protesters were arrested.
The group marched from the White House to the Capitol to demand an end to the Iraq war. Their numbers stretched for blocks along Pennsylvania Avenue, and they held banners and signs and chanted, "What do we want? Troops out. When do we want it? Now."
Army veteran Justin Cliburn, 25, of Lawton, Okla., was among a contingent of Iraq veterans in attendance.
"We're occupying a people who do not want us there," Cliburn said of Iraq. "We're here to show that it isn't just a bunch of old hippies from the 60s who are against this war."
Counterprotesters lined the sidewalks behind metal barricades. There were some heated shouting matches between the two sides.
The arrests came after protesters lay down on the Capitol lawn in what they called a "die in" – with signs on top of their bodies to represent soldiers killed in Iraq. When police took no action, some of the protesters started climbing over a barricade at the foot of the Capitol steps.
Many were arrested without a struggle after they jumped over the waist-high barrier. But some grew angry as police with shields and riot gear attempted to push them back. At least two people were showered with chemical spray. Protesters responded by throwing signs and chanting: "Shame on you."
The number of arrests by Capitol Police on Saturday was much higher than previous anti-war rallies in Washington this year. Five people were arrested at a protest outside the Pentagon in March when they walked onto a bridge that had been closed off to accommodate the demonstration, then refused to leave. And at a rally in January, about 50 demonstrators blocked a street near the Capitol, but they were dispersed without arrests.
The protesters gathered earlier Saturday near the White House in Lafayette Park with signs saying "End the war now" and calling for President Bush 's impeachment. The rally was organized by the ANSWER Coalition and other groups.
Organizers estimated that nearly 100,000 people attended the rally and march. That number could not be confirmed; police did not give their own estimate. A permit for the march obtained in advance by the ANSWER Coalition had projected 10,000.
Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan told the crowd is was time to be assertive.
"It's time to lay our bodies on the line and say we've had enough," she said. "It's time to
shut this city down." ...
AOL News Story
May 29, 2007
Sheehan resigns as war
protest leader
Mother of fallen soldier drained by
biting criticism, partisan politics
The Associated Press
FORT WORTH, Texas - Cindy Sheehan, the soldier’s mother who galvanized an anti-war movement with her monthlong protest outside President Bush’s ranch, says she’s done being the public face of the movement.
“I’ve been wondering why I’m killing myself and wondering why the Democrats caved in to George Bush,” Sheehan told The Associated Press by phone Tuesday while driving from her property in Crawford to the airport, where she planned to return to her native California.
“I’m going home for awhile to try and be normal,” she said.
In what she described as a “resignation letter,” Sheehan wrote in her online diary on the “Daily Kos” blog: “Good-bye America ... you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.
“It’s up to you now.”
Sheehan began a grassroots peace movement in August 2005 when she set up camp outside the Bush ranch for 26 days, asking to talk with the president about the death of her son, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan. Casey Sheehan was 24 when he was killed in an ambush in Baghdad.
Protests grew in size
Cindy Sheehan started her protest small, but it quickly drew national attention. Over the following two years, she drew huge crowds as she spoke at protest events, but she also drew a great deal of criticism.
“I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called “Face” of the American anti-war movement,” Sheehan wrote in the diary.
Kristinn Taylor, spokesman for FreeRepublic.com, which has held pro-troop rallies and counter-protests of anti-war demonstrations, said dwindling crowds at Sheehan's Crawford protests since her initial vigil may have led to her decision. But he also said he hopes she will now be able to heal.
"Her politics have hurt a lot of people, including the troops and their families, but most of us who support the war on terror understand she is hurt very deeply," Taylor said Tuesday. "Those she got involved with in the anti-war movement realize it was to their benefit to keep her in that stage of anger."
‘Heartbreaking conclusions’
On Memorial Day, she came to some “heartbreaking conclusions,” she wrote.
When she had first taken on Bush, Sheehan was a darling of the liberal left. “However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the 'left' started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used,” she wrote.
“I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of 'right or left', but 'right and wrong,'” the diary says.
Sheehan criticized “blind party loyalty” as a danger, no matter which side it involved, and said the current two-party system is “corrupt” and “rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland.”
Harsh national assessment
Sheehan said she had sacrificed a 29-year marriage and endured threats to put all her energy into stopping the war. What she found, she wrote, was a movement “that often puts personal egos above peace and human life.”
But she said the most devastating conclusion she had reached “was that Casey did indeed die for nothing ... killed by his own country which is beholden to and run by a war machine that even controls what we think.”
“Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives,” she wrote. “It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most.”
“I am going to take whatever I have left and go home,” Sheehan wrote. “Camp Casey has served its purpose. It’s for sale. Anyone want to buy five beautiful acres in Crawford, Texas?”
Sheehan told the AP that she had considered leaving the peace movement since last summer while recovering from surgery.
She said she was returning to California on Tuesday because it was Casey’s birthday. He would have been 28.
“We’ve accomplished as much here as we’re going to,” Sheehan told the AP. “When we come back, it definitely won’t be with the peace movement with marches, with rallies and with protests. It will be more humanitarian efforts.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18919775/
~ ~ ~
For more of the story, GO TO > > >
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/29/1495/
April 26, 2007
BAGHDAD BURNING!
I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend,
where hearts can heal and souls can mend.
The Great Wall of Segregation...
…Which is the wall the current Iraqi government is building (with the support and guidance of the Americans). It's a wall that is intended to separate and isolate what is now considered the largest 'Sunni' area in Baghdad - let no one say the Americans are not building anything.
According to plans the Iraqi puppets and Americans cooked up, it will 'protect' A'adhamiya, a residential/mercantile area that the current Iraqi government and their death squads couldn't empty of Sunnis.
The wall, of course, will protect no one. I sometimes wonder if this is how the concentration camps began in Europe. The Nazi government probably said, "Oh look- we're just going to protect the Jews with this little wall here - it will be difficult for people to get into their special area to hurt them!"
And yet, it will also be difficult to get out.
The Wall is the latest effort to further break Iraqi society apart. Promoting and supporting civil war isn't enough, apparently - Iraqis have generally proven to be more tenacious and tolerant than their mullahs, ayatollahs, and Vichy leaders. It's time for America to physically divide and conquer - like Berlin before the wall came down or Palestine today. This way, they can continue chasing Sunnis out of "Shia areas" and Shia out of "Sunni areas".
I always hear the Iraqi pro-war crowd interviewed on television from foreign capitals (they can only appear on television from the safety of foreign capitals because I defy anyone to be publicly pro-war in Iraq). They refuse to believe that their religiously inclined, sectarian political parties fueled this whole Sunni/Shia conflict.
They refuse to acknowledge that this situation is a direct result of the war and occupation. They go on and on about Iraq's history and how Sunnis and Shia were always in conflict and I hate that. I hate that a handful of expats who haven't been to the country in decades pretend to know more about it than people actually living there.
I remember Baghdad before the war- one could live anywhere. We didn't know what our neighbors were- we didn't care. No one asked about religion or sect. No one bothered with what was considered a trivial topic: are you Sunni or Shia? You only asked something like that if you were uncouth and backward. Our lives revolve around it now. Our existence depends on hiding it or highlighting it- depending on the group of masked men who stop you or raid your home in the middle of the night.
On a personal note, we've finally decided to leave. I guess I've known we would be leaving for a while now. We discussed it as a family dozens of times. At first, someone would suggest it tentatively because, it was just a preposterous idea- leaving ones home and extended family- leaving ones country- and to what? To where?
Since last summer, we had been discussing it more and more. It was only a matter of time before what began as a suggestion - a last case scenario - soon took on solidity and developed into a plan. For the last couple of months, it has only been a matter of logistics. Plane or car? Jordan or Syria? Will we all leave together as a family? Or will it be only my brother and I at first?
After Jordan or Syria- where then? Obviously, either of those countries is going to be a transit to something else. They are both overflowing with Iraqi refugees, and every single Iraqi living in either country is complaining of the fact that work is difficult to come by, and getting a residency is even more difficult. There is also the little problem of being turned back at the border. Thousands of Iraqis aren't being let into Syria or Jordan - and there are no definite criteria for entry, the decision is based on the whim of the border patrol guard checking your passport.
An airplane isn't necessarily safer, as the trip to Baghdad International Airport is in itself risky and travelers are just as likely to be refused permission to enter the country (Syria and Jordan) if they arrive by airplane. And if you're wondering why Syria or Jordan, because they are the only two countries that will let Iraqis in without a visa. Following up visa issues with the few functioning embassies or consulates in Baghdad is next to impossible.
So we've been busy. Busy trying to decide what part of our lives to leave behind. Which memories are dispensable? We, like many Iraqis, are not the classic refugees- the ones with only the clothes on their backs and no choice. We are choosing to leave because the other option is simply a continuation of what has been one long nightmare - stay and wait and try to survive.
On the one hand, I know that leaving the country and starting a new life somewhere else- as yet unknown- is such a huge thing that it should dwarf every trivial concern. The funny thing is that it’s the trivial that seems to occupy our lives. We discuss whether to take photo albums or leave them behind. Can I bring along a stuffed animal I've had since the age of four? Is there room for E.'s guitar? What clothes do we take? Summer clothes? The winter clothes too? What about my books? What about the CDs, the baby pictures?
The problem is that we don't even know if we'll ever see this stuff again. We don't know if whatever we leave, including the house, will be available when and if we come back. There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends… And to what?
It's difficult to decide which is more frightening - car bombs and militias, or having to leave everything you know and love, to some unspecified place for a future where nothing is certain.
- River
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL
And the work of righteousness shall be peace...
– ISAIAH 32:16
I was born in Illinois, the “Land of Lincoln,” and I’ve been studying our sixteenth president all my life. For me, he was the wisest and most spiritual of our presidents. He was also one of only a few who have been in office when acts of war brought death and destruction to American soil.
Carved in the marble walls of the Lincoln Memorial are these eloquent words from Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address:
With malice toward none; with charity for all; and with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.
Our family explored what it means to seek peace when we invited a young Muslim student to dinner in our home a few months after September 11, 2001. As the meal progressed, one of our sons asked our guest haw she came to be in America.
“My father came here on a work visa,” she replied. “‘when the trouble came, he told us to pack to return home, because he was afraid of how Americans might treat us. Then, a few nights before we were to leave, he was watching the news on television. There was a group of people outside the White House, protesting American military action. A large, hostile crowd watched the protesters, and between the two groups were dozens and dozens of police.
“My father watched for a long time and then turned to the family and said, ‘Go unpack your bags. We are staying. Nowhere else in the world would the police protect the protesters. This is the freest land on earth, and we will make it our home’.”
Lord, as I remember Abraham Lincoln, let me remember the blessings of freedom we share with all who come to our shores.
- Eric Fellman, Daily Guideposts 2003
February 4, 2007
THE STRYKER BRIGADE AND THE WATADA CASE:
THE IRAQ WAR HITS HAWAI'I
By TIMOTHY J. FREEMAN
Two great volcanoes comprise most of the Big Island of Hawai'i. Mauna Loa, measured by volume, is the largest mountain in the world, and Mauna Kea, if measured from the sea floor, would rank as the tallest. Both peaks are considered sacred, the realm of the gods (wao akua), not just for Hawai'ians, but throughout all of Polynesia.
In October of 2002, the first of a series of protests against the imminent U.S. attack against Iraq took place at the Mo'oheau Bandstand on the Hilo Bayfront. As I drove down to Hilo, I was struck by the majestic and stunning presence of Mauna Kea rising 13,792 ft. above Hilo-so unusually clear on a rare cloudless morning. It was a day that was startling in its beauty even for Hawai'i, and as I listened to the various speakers call our attention to the horrors of what seemed about to take place in Iraq, my gaze often drifted to the tranquil bay and the waves softly rolling down on the sands below.
The contrast couldn't have been sharper between the peaceful setting of Hilo Bay and the looming war in Iraq. If it weren't for the voices of the Hawai'ian rights activists-reminding us of the illegal overthrow of the Hawai'ian nation-I might have thought only of the profound difference between these beautiful islands and the war-torn country of Iraq.
In fact, what was taking place a world away in Iraq was really not that far away at all and is, indeed, deeply connected to what happened and was still taking place in Hawai'i. I was reminded of the "infinite extent of our relations" as Thoreau once put it, and from this perspective, the connections between the war in Iraq, the overthrow of the Hawai'ian nation, and the continuing controversy surrounding the military's presence in Hawai'i become more and more clear.
THE STRYKER IN HAWAI'I
Hawai'i senior Senator Daniel Inouye apparently doesn't see these connections as is evident in a recent editorial in the Honolulu Advertiser in support of the Army's plan to transform the 2nd Brigade in Hawai'i into a Stryker Combat Brigade.
The Army's plan would involve basing about 300 Stryker vehicles at Schofield Barracks on Oahu and also expanding the Army's Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island which the brigade will use for training. The Army's project to bring a Stryker brigade to Hawai'i has met strong resistance for the last several years from native Hawai'ian groups as well as environmental and peace activists.
In October of 2006 a federal appellate court, in response to a lawsuit filed by the nonprofit environmental group Earthjustice acting on behalf of three native Hawai'ian groups, found that the Army had violated environmental laws in not adequately considering alternatives to locating the brigade in Hawai'i.
The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reversed an April 2005 decision by U.S. District Judge David Ezra allowing the Army to proceed with its plans to bring the Stryker brigade to Hawai'i.
The Army must now complete a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement assessing the feasability of alternative locations for the brigade. The appellate court decision ultimately sent the case back to Honolulu and U.S. District Judge Ezra in order to determine what an injunction must cover.
On the eve of Judge Ezra's decision Senator Inouye's editorial appeared in which he argued that for the safety of our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan "we must allow the training to resume while the Army completes the supplemental environmental study."
Not surprisingly, Judge Ezra's decision allows for the Army's plans to go forward while the SEIS is conducted. Live fire training of the Stryker brigade is expected to commence at Pohakuloa on the Big Island in February.
The Pohakuloa Training Area is already the largest live-fire military training area in the Pacific. It consists of approximately 109,000 acres of land that have been used for the last 60 years as a live-fire area and bombing range for an assortment of military weapons.
The Strykers will come to the Big Island on the new Hawai'ian Superferry, offloading at Kawaiihae Harbor and then traveling up to Pohakuloa via a newly constructed military road. It is partly for the construction of this access road, and also to increase the training area for the Strykers, that the military's plans include the expansion of the Pohakuloa Training Area by approximately 23,000 acres of land recently purchased from the Parker Ranch.
Pohakuloa sits between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Even the Army acknowledges, in its Environmental Impact Statement, that "the entirety of Mauna Kea, whose southwestern slopes form part of PTA's base, is considered holy."
Mauna Kea (The White Mountain) is associated with Poli'ahu, the snow goddess of the summit, while Mauna Loa (The Long Mountain), last erupting as recently as 1984, is associated with Pele, the goddess of volcanic fires.
The area between the two sacred mountains, considered to be a site of conflict between Poli'ahu and Pele, is called "Pohakuloa" (The Veil that Covers the Spiritual Realm). Within the Pohakuloa Training Area there are seven stone shrines and a reported 291 archeological sites.
By the Army's own admission in the EIS, Pohakuloa is "spiritually and historically one of the most important places in Hawai'ian tradition and history...
It is difficult to describe the emotional and spiritual link that exists between Native Hawai'ians and the natural setting. Hawai'ians generally believe that all things in nature have mana, or a certain spiritual power and life force. A custodial responsibility to preserve the natural setting is passed from generation to generation, and personal strength and spiritual well being are derived from this relationship. Because of this belief, Mauna Kea may be the most powerful and sacred natural formation in all Hawai'i."
The EIS acknowledges that there will be "significant unavoidable adverse biological impacts" upon the environment at Pohakuloa. The PTA is said, by former area commander Lt. Col. Dennis Owen, to have "the highest concentration of endangered species of any Army installation in the world."
The negative impacts will come from fires that result from live-fire training, as well as from off-road maneuvers by the Stryker vehicles that will adversely affect sensitive species and habitat.
The Army also acknowledges significant negative impacts on air quality (caused by wind erosion by the off-road maneuvers of the Strykers), soil loss and soil contamination from training activities, lead and asbestos contamination caused by the construction and demolition of buildings, and destructive impacts on such cultural, historic, and archeological resources such as the Ke'amuku Village and sacred sites such as the Pu'ukohola Heiau.
The Army also proposes an increase in live-fire training. This poses a significant risk, according to the EIS, to workers and army personnel from unexploded ordnance. Environmentalists have drawn attention to the danger from unexploded ordnance that litters many former military sites in Hawai'i, as well as the military's poor record of cleaning up these sites.
The EIS states that "only simulated biological agents" will be used and that hazardous materials do not pose a significant impact. There is also some concern about the potential toxic contamination from depleted uranium since the primary armament on Stryker vehicles is the Stryker Mobile Gun System which uses ammunition made from depleted uranium.
The Army has claimed that depleted uranium weapons will not be used in training at Pohakuloa, but this has hardly eased the concerns of local residents.
While the military promises to do what it can to limit the adverse impacts from the training at Pohakuloa, it states that there is a practical limit to mitigation measures. The bottom line is that these adverse impacts and potential dangers are considered acceptable by the military.
The issue that always looms large in the background of this controversy is the very presence of the U.S. military in Hawai'i. For Hawai'ian sovereignty activists, the proposed expansion of the Pohakuloa Training Area is only the latest issue in a long history of U.S. military acquisitions of Hawai'ian lands-going back most notably to the 1875 "Treaty of Reciprocity" that ceded control of Pearl Harbor to the U.S. Navy.
The military now controls 5 percent of land in Hawai'i, 22 percent of O'ahu (85,000 acres), and 4 percent of the Big Island (110,000 acres). Moreover, the proposed 23,000 acre expansion of the Pohakuloa Training Area is only about a quarter of the projected acquisition for the further development of the PTA.
It's a sad irony that this latest land acquisition is almost the size of Kaho'olawe (28,766 acres), the "Target Isle" used for bombing practice for nearly 50 years after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The Navy finally officially ceded control of Kaho'olawe on November 11, 2003, after over two decades of protests by peace and Hawai'ian sovereignty activists.
That campaign cost the lives of two Hawai'ian leaders, George Helm and Kimo Mitchell, who were lost at sea in 1977 in an effort to reach the island to protest the Navy's occupation and bombing of the island. Their deaths became an emotional turning point in the struggle for Hawai'ian rights. Now, just as the Navy finally cedes control of Kaho'olawe, the Army takes control of a similar-sized piece of land on the sacred slopes of Mauna Kea. It would be the largest military acquisition in Hawai'i since WWII....
LESSONS FROM THE WAR IN IRAQ
Since that cloudless Hilo day in October of 2002, the war in Iraq has unfolded in its all-too-easily predictable catastrophe. As the violence spirals out of control and any remaining vestige of a fraudulent justification of the invasion evaporate-that Iraq is better off from having been 'liberated' from a despotic dictator or that the world is safer from the threat of global terrorism-the American people have slowly come to the realization that it was all a terrible mistake.
It reminds me of a story I read in the paper a number of years ago when I was living in San Francisco about a jumper who had somehow managed to survive his plunge from the Golden Gate. As I remember it the hapless one said his first thought after his ill-conceived leap was "Oops, that was a mistake."
That's about where we are today as a nation after failing to heed the warnings of so many experts and hundreds of thousands of protestors around the world and instead following the Fox News and New York Times propaganda that cheered on the Bush Administration's leap into the abyss that is now the war in Iraq.
All the head-scratching about what to do now, including the proposals of the Iraq Study Group, are nothing but the desperate flailings of one grasping at thin air after the ground has fallen away.
The Bush Administration, of course, can only 'stay the course' and thus, with their sights now firmly set on 'surging' in Iraq and even more insanely on expanding the war into Iran, seems hell-bent on plunging the nation only further into the abyss. We've come to our "Oops" moment as a nation but we are still far from realizing just how devastating a mistake it was to launch this war.
Senator Inouye's editorial in support of the Stryker brigade in Hawai'i illustrates this point. The Senator writes: "Our country is at war. With the pace of operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, our Army is stretched thin. We simply cannot afford to stand down any of our forces right now."
After reminding us that he voted against the Iraq war, the Senator concludes that the "issue on the Stryker brigade should not be a referendum on the Iraq war." Perhaps it's the other way around, however, and that the Iraq war should be a referendum on the Stryker brigade.
Our country is at war-but it is a war that was completely unnecessary. The United States has the most powerful military force in the world, spending more on the military than all the other nations of the world combined; and yet the United States has demonstrated a propensity to use that great military force irresponsibly and that is one of the underlying causes and certainly not the solution to the problem of terrorism.
We cannot defeat the problem of terrorism by participating in terrorism and that is certainly what we are doing when we engage in unnecessary wars of aggression. Perhaps the lesson that should be drawn from the war in Iraq is that it is time to stand down all of our forces right now. The best hope for a peaceful world is for the United States to pull out of Iraq, stand down its military force, and recommit itself to the rule of law among nations.
The United States needs to overcome its addiction to war and a good place to start would be to pull out of Iraq and to shut down the Army's plan to base a Stryker brigade in Hawai'i.
As Kyle Kajihiro, program director of the American Friends Service Committee, puts it: "The Stryker Brigade in Hawai'i is an illegal and catastrophic project meant for use in an illegal and catastrophic war. The bitter history of the U.S. military in Hawai'i has demonstrated that if the military gets an inch, it will take a mile, or in this case, 25,000 acres of land. We refuse to allow our sacred 'aina to be used to perpetuate wars of aggression against other countries and peoples, or to let politicians send our loved ones to kill or be killed in such immoral and illegal wars."
Perhaps a concern for the safety of our troops is not the primary reason behind Inouye's support for the Stryker brigade. Obviously any training that needs to be done before the troops are withdrawn can be done at existing facilities elsewhere.
Kajihiro continues: "The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said that the Army failed to answer the question 'Why Hawai'i?' and ordered the Army to complete a supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) that considered alternatives. But it is unlikely that another EIS will be able to honestly answer such a question that is essentially political.
Stryker Brigades are in Hawai'i and Alaska because of the power of Hawai'i's and Alaska's Senators to secure 'military pork'. Politicians cannot claim to be against the war while promoting the military expansion that drives wars."
Perhaps the war in Iraq should be a referendum on the Stryker brigade in Hawai'i for there is a deep connection after all between the war in Iraq and the U.S. military's presence in Hawai'i-the war in Iraq is really only the latest symptom of the same problem that led to the overthrow of the Nation of Hawai'i in 1893.
Time and again U.S. military power has been used not really for the defense of 'freedom' but for the expansion of corporate global interests. War, if ever justified, should be an absolutely last resort. All peaceful means of resolving a conflict should be exhausted before resorting to war.
There is every indication that the Bush Administration, acting to extend those corporate global interests, did everything they could to avoid any peaceful solution and manufacture a reason for war...
THE WATADA CASE
Unfortunately, as Americans love their bread and circuses so much, the only hope for any restraint on the reckless militarism of the United States might be in the example set by the rare courage of the soldier from Hawai'i, Lt. Ehren Watada, who faces court martial for refusing deployment to Iraq.
The military judge presiding over the court martial has, however, denied the attempt by Lt. Watada's defense to 'put the war on trial.' The ruling by military circuit judge Lt. Col. John M. Head on January 16 denied the defense motion for a hearing on the "Nuremburg defense" thus preventing Watada's defense from presenting evidence on the legality of the war.
The highest ranking soldier to refuse deployment to Iraq, Lt. Watada has argued in his defense that according to the Nuremberg Principles and U.S. military regulations he was under oath to follow only "lawful orders" and that the war on Iraq is illegal under international treaties and under Article Six of the U.S. Constitution.
Lt. Watada's trial at Fort Lewis, Washington is set to begin on February 5.
The ruling by Judge Head conflicts with the statement by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunal, that the United States must be bound by the same rule of law used to prosecute the Germans: "If certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us."
The Nuremberg trials established that soldiers are not immune from prosecution for war crimes just because they were following orders. The judgement at Nuremberg means that the common view held by Judge Head and apparently many Americans that "soldiers like Lt. Watada can't pick and choose when to fight" is just flat out wrong.
In denying the "Nuremberg defense" the military is simply setting aside the judgement at Nuremberg and ignoring Justice Jackson's explicit statement...
The nation would be stronger not weaker if it recognized Lt. Watada's right to refuse deployment to an illegal war. If Lt. Watada's action is recognized as right, the nation would be far less prone to engage in unnecessary and immoral wars. In refusing deployment to Iraq Lt. Watada is serving the country with his conscience, and in so doing, is giving the highest service.
If Lt. Watada goes to prison, as seems now very likely, he will be a powerful symbol of the injustice of the nation and its shame in ignoring the judgement at Nuremberg and refusing to remember Justice Jackson's counsel.
Timothy J. Freeman teaches philosophy at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo. He can be reached at freeman@hawaii.edu
http://counterpunch.com/freeman02032007.html
See also: Nicholson vs. Harmon - Witness: General Eric Shinseki
December 17, 2006
Vermont grandmother facing
second trial over anti-war protest
By John Curran, Associated Press Writer
BENNINGTON, Vt. – Meet the anti-war movement's newest folk hero: She's a 69-year-old grandmother whose disorderly persons arrest has made her a cause celebre.
Arrested in a 2003 anti-war protest, Rosemarie Jackowski was found guilty -- only to have the state's highest court throw out the conviction last month.
Now, a prosecutor's plan to try her again is turning the feisty 4-foot-10 inch former schoolteacher into a darling of the dove crowd, with bloggers rallying behind her, peaceniks deluging her with messages of support and advocates establishing a defense fund.
"She's not a loony toon by any means," said Andrew Schoerke, 73, a retired U.S. Navy captain who was arrested with her. "She's a very down to earth, sensible, caring person with some very strong convictions."
Jackowski was one of a dozen protesters arrested at the March 20, 2003 protest, staged within hours of the start of the United States' "shock and awe" bombing campaign in Iraq. Carrying a sign that read "Impeach Bush" on one side and listed U.S. "war crimes" on the other, Jackowski refused police orders to get out of the street and was arrested for blocking traffic.
"It was really hard for me to stand there and just hold my sign," she said in an interview. "I came from a strict ethnic, religious background. I was taught to never ever be disobedient to anyone -- teacher, parent, policeman. That was my very first act of disobedience to anyone."
Asked during booking whether she had any aliases, she replied: "Yes, I do. `Mom.'"
To police, it was no laughing matter.
The protest clogged traffic in this southern Vermont town's busiest intersection, delaying at least one hospital-bound ambulance and infuriating truck drivers and others.
"It wasn't about the war in Iraq," said police Lt. Paul Doucette, who ordered the arrests at the scene. "It was public safety at risk. This whole scene could've turned very ugly very quickly. So we did what was best. Now all of them have paid the price, except this one."
The other members of the so-called "Bennington 12" pleaded guilty and were accepted into a court-ordered program for first-time offenders. Jackowski refused, saying she did nothing wrong. After a one-day trial, a jury took less than 15 minutes to find her guilty.
She appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court, her attorney insisting that the disorderly persons charge could only stick if it were proven she intended to disrupt traffic.
On Nov. 22, the justices threw out her conviction, saying trial Judge David Suntag erred in telling jurors they could convict her if they believed she was "practically certain" her conduct would cause public disruption.
Last week, Bennington County State's Attorney William Wright said he would seek to try her again.
"At this juncture, we are going forward with the case," he told the Bennington Banner newspaper. "We think that the evidence was overwhelming in our view, and we think that the jury should have another opportunity to decide Ms. Jackowski's guilt or innocence."
Wright, who lost his re-election and will be leaving office next month, did not return several calls seeking comment.
"It's time for everybody to just walk away from this case," said Stephen Saltonstall, her attorney. "This is an elderly woman who did something out of conscience. I believe she has been punished enough."
For her part, Jackowski -- a youthful-looking woman who gives her grandchildren "Give peace a chance" T-shirts and collects peace signs in her modest home -- insists that the bombing of Iraqi civilians during the war is grounds enough for her actions. She has no intention of pleading guilty or admitting she was wrong.
"I will never say I'm sorry for what I did," she said Wednesday. "I don't care if they want to lock me up for life."
She could get 60 days if convicted. First, she needs an attorney for the re-trial, although no date has been set.
Saltonstall has asked to withdraw as her lawyer because the prosecutor who handled the first trial has since joined his firm. She's been contacted by others, but money is an object. Jackowski, who lives alone, subsists on social security checks and says she can't afford high-priced counsel.
"I'm just a little old grandmother who has been really, really affected by the fact that my government is bombing children in Iraq. I can't tell you how deeply I feel about this," she said.
Doucette, the police lieutenant, doesn't buy it.
"What upsets me personally is `Oh, they're going to send a grandmother to jail.' This isn't about being a grandmother, it isn't about being 70 years old. It's about `You broke the law and now you have to suffer the consequences.' She could've gone to diversion, done some community service and apologized. But to her, it's all about what talk show she can get on and bash George Bush or the war," he said.
© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
See also: The Freedom To Sing
March 26, 2004
Crossing Lines
By Kathy Kelly, Voices in the Wilderness
This weekend, I’m preparing for an April 6, 2004 entry into the Pekin FCI (Federal Correctional Institute) in Peoria. I’m one of several dozen people who, on November 22, 2003, crossed the line at the US Army’s military combat training school in Fort Benning, Ga....
I could be harmed in prison, but that certainly could have happened to me while in Bagdad or several other places I’ve traveled by choice. I don’t feel anxiety beyond normal fear of the unknown....
I’ve felt somewhat insulated from attacks on self-esteem while in prison. I’m proud of line-crossings that protest pouring money into the Project ELF nuclear weapon facility in northern Wisconsin that fast tracks Tomahawk Cruise missiles to maim and kill people in Iraq. Likewise, it’s good to be part of the growing group who’ve crossed the line at a military combat training school in Fort Benning, GA. Graduates of the school have been responsible for massacres, assassinations and tortures. People should be crossing these lines every day of the week. No shame, no stigma here.
But I do feel troubled because I’ve been so distanced, in recent years, from some of the poorest people in our country. I need to better understand what’s happening to them. Am I right when I guess that the media successfully pressures young people in inner cities to consume, to buy, to have brand name this and that? Does this corporate push to buy certain lines of clothing, cosmetics, and cars push people further into an underground economy because they cant’ get a stake in the above ground economies after our education system has badly failed them?
Thinking of how George Fox, who helped found the Quaker faith, would stand on church pews during sermons and urge people to trod gently over the earth, seeing that of god in everyone, I’ve nurtured a fantasy related to court rooms. Suppose one were to stand up on a courtroom bench, risk contempt of court, and ask, “Could we just take a minute to analyze how many are “the raw material” feed this system? I’ll bet that the people making money would be, primarily, white and well educated. They’re the lawyers, the judges, the courtroom personnel.
And I’ll bet that the people feeding the system, keeping the well paid criminal justice system employees in business, would be African American, Hispanic, and Asian. If convicted, the “criminals” could find themselves earning 18 cents per hour laboring, within the prison industrial complex, for major US corporations who can hire prison labor without ever having to worry about paid vacations, benefits, overtime, hiring supervisors, or renting workspace. The prison industrial complex resembles enslavement and might be a precursor to fascism.
I want to nonviolently defy this system....
In our world, many of us who live in the US are perched, quite by accident, amidst inordinately luxurious surroundings, relative to the rest of the world. We’re the luckiest. We’re the most blest. And we have the greatest responsibility to build a better world.
My own logic tells me that when US troops “crossed the line,” in March 2003, they trespassed into a sovereign country, Iraq, based on the theory and argument that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat to people in the US. Now it’s clear that Iraq didn’t pose even a distant threat to people here.
At Fort Benning, GA, we crossed a line onto two feet of government grass at a place where it’s beyond dispute that graduates of the military combat training school have participated in torture, maiming, disappearance, massacre and assassination when they returned to their own countries....
On Monday, March 29, I’ll go to Madison, WI to face a one-month jail sentence for refusing to pay a $150 fine after twelve of us walked two feet across the line onto the Navy’s ELF/Trident transmitter site located in the northern woods of Wisconsin. ELF (extremely low-frequency waves) is used to trigger nuclear missiles. The ELF system is also used to trigger Cruise missiles. Cruise missiles were the weapon of choice among war planner as the Shock and Awe campaign against Iraq was developed.
On January 26, 2003, the Sun-Herald of Sydney, Australia reported, “The US intends to shatter Iraq ‘physically, emotionally and psychologically’ by raining down on its people as many as 800 cruise missiles in two days.”
“There will not be a safe place in Baghdad,” a Pentagon official told CBS News Feb. 8, 2003. “We want them to quit, not to fight,” said Harlan Ullman, author of the “shock and awe” attack plan, “so that you have this simultaneous effect – rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima – not taking days or weeks but minutes.”
Mr. Ullman told the Sun Herald, “You take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power and water. In two, three, four, five days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted.”
I felt deep dismay, in Baghdad, during that war, as the bombs thundered down on the city, morning, noon and night. I also promised myself a nonviolently defiant visit to a military facility that helped launch those bombs, at the earliest opportunity, upon return to the US....
Not all peace activists can be part of civil disobedience actions resulting in prison sentences. But for those who can, entering the prisons offers an opportunity to better understand how the once lauded war on poverty has become a war against the poor.
Those of us who ‘do time’ for crossing lines at Fort Benning and at Project ELF will be away from our desks, but we won’t be away from our work.
Kathy Kelly is a co-ordinator of Voices in the Wilderness - ph. 773-784-8065
For the complete article, and much more, visit http://vitw.us
To learn more about the campaign to shut down Project ELF, visit www.nukewatch.com
For more about private prison abuses, GO TO > > > Privatizing Hell
Philip Berrigan, Anti-War activist,
Dies at Home in Baltimore
From Veterans for Peace
“We got off the train. Tall, strong hard-muscled Americans. Our drill instructor taught us how to march, and how to crawl through machine gun fire. They taught us how to rip out the enemy’s throat and how to fire bullets into his brain. Some of these trainees would actually come home like Trumbo’s Johnny. Others would die crying for their girlfriends or mothers, mouths clogged with blood and snow, eyes frozen open. All of this would change us. Not for just awhile, but for the rest of our lives. War does that. Gets inside. Doesn’t want to leave. I carry it. A discovery, a wound, a challenge. A face that cries for mercy in the world where more than forty armed conflicts are raging.”
– Philip Berrigan
A FOND FAREWELL:
Phil Berrigan's Final Warning,
"The Times are Ominous!"
By William Hughes, Veterans for Peace
It was a Christian Wake service for Phil Berrigan, Dissenter Emeritus. They were all there, the usual suspects. Paying their respects to the deceased, on Dec. 8, 2002, were the kind of people that just love to say "No" to authority, any authority. In the old days, these spirited folks would have filled the rank and file of the legendary "Wobblies," the long-forgotten source of the modern trade union movement in America. Protesting is something they do. It's simply part of who they are. It is their identity. And, for over 30 years, Berrigan was their mentor.
To this overflow crowd, Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz is a "Dr. Strangelove," belonging not in the Pentagon, but in a straitjacket. They think George W. Bush Jr. is in way over his marginal intellect. That V.P. Dick Cheney is a lapdog for "Big Oil" and the military-industrial complex. That Israel's deranged Ariel Sharon is the worst thing that's happened to the Jewish people, since the Roman General Titus sacked Jerusalem in 70 A.D. And, that the U.S. Congress represents the best politicians that money can buy.
Paying homage: Former Attorney General Ramsay Clark.
The setting was St. Peter Claver's R.C. Church, located in West Baltimore. It's a working class neighborhood, where Berrigan was once stationed as a young parish priest back in the late 60s. The Church was dedicated in 1888, to the African-American community.
Berrigan's "No" to authority had always rung out loud and clear; whether it was his opposition to the Vietnam War, to the U.S. Establishment's nuclear arms race and misuse of depleted uranium; the death penalty; or, to the latest menace, known as the "New World Order."
He knew early on that his conscience couldn't permit him to live within a Church that was being led mostly by careerists. He became a master, too, at resisting the power of an LBJ or a Richard Nixon.
No wrongdoing-from Apartheid in South Africa; to British colonialism in the north of Ireland; to the violence of the death squads in Central and South America; or, to the evil of Israeli state's terrorism against the Palestinian people in the occupied territories-avoided his wrath.
The mourners had really come to "celebrate" Berrigan and his prophetic life mission of justice seeking. They knew the deceased was half Irish, and that a traditional "Wake" served that purpose. And besides, he wouldn't have wanted any tears shed over his death. He was laid out in the middle aisle, in a plain wooden box, with his distinguished poet brother, the Rev. Daniel Berrigan, S.J., greeting each viewer.
There were funny stories, and nostalgic songs, too, from his many close colleagues, during a sharing period in the service. One friend from Florida said, "Phil told me, 'prayer is great, but you need action, too.'" Another recalled how at a protest action at the Pentagon, he was doing a sit-down, but in the wrong place! Phil had to come over and physically tow him 40 yards away "to the right spot."
"Phil helped us to be peacemakers," said one man.
A young woman added, "Phil was wonderful, he would let anyone get arrested. I called him, 'General Berrigan.'" He was remembered as "courageous," "kind," "thoughtful," "the most righteous man," and "modest." Associates came from as far away as Florida and the West Coast to bid their fond good-byes.
The first sign I saw when walking into the church was a huge banner that read, "Stop Bombing the Children of Iraq."
Another sign blared out, "Plowshares vs. Depleted Uranium."
When one of the speakers asked if another activist was present in the church, she added, "Oh well, if I know her she's probably sitting in front of a bulldozer in Hebron."
Berrigan made a lot of powerful enemies in this life by speaking out on controversial issues. Henry Kissinger, America's Iago, was one of them. But Berrigan retained his soul, while the repulsive Kissinger is still looking for his. Berrigan gained a deeper kind of life that reflected his commitment to social justice. It also cost him 11 of his 79 years spent behind bars and resulted in him living near or below the poverty line.
Unlike his ideological opponents, Berrigan loved the American Republic. The fact that Elliott Abrams, a cheerleader for the Contra thugs, will soon be NSO's Condoleeza Rice's gofer for Near East and North African Affairs, would have brought the best out of him. Berrigan wanted America to live up to its highest values, while wire pullers like Abrams intend to use it for their own ends. Terry Allen was right on target when he labeled Abrams a "public serpent" (In These Times, 08/01 issue).
As a soldier in WWII, Berrigan had seen conflict at its bloodiest, from the beaches at Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge. His anti-war and anti-nuke philosophy didn't come out of any textbook or a Steven Spielberg Hollywood movie. He earned it the hard way--in the trenches.
In one of his last public appearances, on 03/19/02, Berrigan spoke at a Society of Friends' office in Baltimore. I had an opportunity to do a two- minute narrated film of that event. His final remarks deserve repeating. After expressing his deep concerns about our country slipping away from us, he warned:
"This is supposed to be a representative democracy, but less and less of that is happening. We'd better start using (our First Amendment Rights), because the times are ominous and they are critical."
© William Hughes 2002. Hughes is the author of Andrew Jackson vs. New World Order (Authors Choice Press) and Baltimore Iconoclast (Writer's Showcase), which are available online. He can be reached at liamhughes@mindspring.com.
Date: Sun, 04 Jul 2004 00:22:50 -0400
From: "James Finkelstein for U.S. Senate from Georgia"
To: thecatbird@the-catbird-seat.net
Subject: Investigation of Lockheed Martin re: James Finkelstein for U.S. Senate in Georgia
Dear "Catbird"
I would very much appreciate it if you would respond to let me know if you have any
further information by from or about the "Lone Engineer" report about Lockheed that
you posted- specifically whether this is real or bogus, and whether any investigation has
been launched by any official U.S. government agency or Congressional committee.
I am a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Georgia for Zell Miller's soon to
be vacated seat. The Senate primary is July 20, 2004, and there are two upcoming
televised debates. Lockheed Martin has contributed thousands of dollars to two
candidates in this race, both Representatives in Congress, and I have raised the issue
of conflicts of interest in their taking this contributions from defense contractors.
Obviously, any information you have may be of help.
Also, I have a brief message about my campaign which will give you some insight on
who I am and why I am running in this race. If you think my campaign has merit, please
pass it along or post it, as you will. Thank you!
Jim Finkelstein
Message to cut and paste:
WHY JAMES (Jim) FINKELSTEIN DECIDED TO RUN FOR THE JULY 20TH GEORGIA DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY FOR THE UNITED STATES SENATE
In March of 2003, when this country sent over a hundred thousand Marines and soldiers based in Kuwait to war in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of parents, spouses, and children back home had to endure indescribable emotions for weeks on end, waiting to hear any word from their loved ones- and dreading a knock on the door. I was one of those parents. When the combat phase of the war ended and I finally heard from my son Ben, a Sergeant in the Marine Corps, and found out he was safe, I can’t tell you how grateful I felt. Last August Ben and the members of his unit came home, and if you want to see how he looked at his homecoming at LeJeune, go to www.finkelstein4senate.org.
But over 5,000 wounded American soldiers and Marines didn’t come home safe, and over 800 more were flown back in flag draped coffins. I decided when my son came home last summer that if this war was still going on, if American lives were still being lost, that I would take a stand- not as a politician, but as a parent. I have no overwhelming desire to be a politician- my life is fulfilled. But I do have an obligation- a duty- to those who didn’t return in one piece, to the soldiers and Marines who are there now or who will be sent there soon, and to their parents, spouses, children, and other loved ones. That duty is to be a voice for them. At the very least, I will be a choice for Georgia voters on July 20th, for those who want to wrap up our mission in Iraq within the next six months and bring the troops home safe. We can accomplish this while leaving the Iraqis the means to retain their newly found freedom under the rule of law. To see how I propose doing this, go to www.finkelstein4senate.org
I also believe that at this moment in time, it is important to the United States of America and to the State of Georgia to have a person running for a national office who recognizes that the phrase “support our troops” means more than lip service. For that reason, I have discussed at debates and candidate forums the equipment, materials, and provisions for the families left behind that the troops in the field have been lacking. I have not hesitated to publicly embarrass three sitting members of the House of Representatives who are running for this Senate seat by revealing that they voted to provide billions of dollars to the defense contractors who funded their campaigns while sending our troops to war in canvas covered humvees that can't stop a rock, let alone a bullet or RPG, vests without the ceramic inserts that make the body armor work, the wrong boots for desert warfare, inadequate eye protection from the desert sand and wind, the wrong rifles for urban combat (M-16's instead of M-4's), and poor or nonexistent communications equipment for individual soldiers and Marines. In addition, they failed to provide for the families of reservists and national guardsmen who were left without medical insurance or other essential benefits.
I am not a “one note” or “one issue” candidate. If you click on "MY PLATFORM" at the
website, you will see some proposals that I think would make this a better country and a
better state. These include my "litmus test" for approving federal judges and Supreme
Court justices, which is a profound respect for the Constitution of the United States,
and, most importantly an understanding and appreciation for the Bill of Rights and the
Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. These also
include proposals to provide catastrophic health insurance for American families, to use
corporate profits from outsourcing jobs to educate, retrain, and if necessary employ laid
off workers, and to provide a system that will eliminate all medical malpractice
insurance premiums for doctors while fairly compensating injured patients without
regard to fault.
If you want to read the Coastal Courier's June 18, 2004, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution's June 25, 2004, feature articles on this campaign, click on:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12004357&BRD=1389&PAG=461&dept_id=161952&rfi=6
http://www.ajc.com/today/content/epaper/editions/today/metro_04bdbbef749ba074009f.html
For those who want to see and hear the U.S. Senate candidates, there will be two televised debates: July 11, 2004 at 4:00 P.M. on WSB TV 2 in Atlanta and July 18, 2004, 7:00 P.M. on GPTV. I hope that my presence in this campaign will mean that the debate will focus on issues of importance to this nation and to the State of Georgia.
JAMES N. FINKELSTEIN
Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate
"BRING THE TROOPS HOME SAFE"
_______________________________________________________
Campaign Headquarters: 606 Baldwin Drive ~ Albany, Georgia 31707
PHONE: (229) 436-7824; Toll Free: (888) 436-8445; Home: (229) 435-0533; Cell: (229)
894-0376; Fax: (229) 436-5657
e-mail: finkelstein4ga@bellsouth.net; www.finkelstein4senate.org
* * *
April 4, 2003
FRENCH PREMIER SAYS WAR ‘GRAVE MISTAKE’
PARIS – French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said yesterday the United States erred morally, politically and strategically by going to war with Iraq.
“It should be said, there was an alternative to war,” Raffarin said in a television interview. Going to war was a moral error, the said, when “one can disarm in other ways.”
Raffarin spoke a day before the foreign ministers of France, Russia and Germany – the three countries most vocal in their opposition to the war – were to meet in Paris.
* * *
April 4, 2003
IRAN’S LEADER WARNS OF ATTACKS ON U.S.
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s reformist president warned yesterday that terrorists would view the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as a “green light” to attack U.S. interests and called on Americans to “wake up” and stop the war.
“Those who drop bombs and missiles on Iraq will harvest nothing other than destruction and people’s hatred,” state-run Tehran television quoted President Mohammad Khatami as saying.
“If this war is not contained, its consequences for the world and the region will be many times more dangerous than the Vietnam tragedy.”
* * *
March 31, 2003
ANTI-WAR PROTESTS CONTINUE WORLDWIDE
The Courier-Journal
CAIRO, Egypt – Egyptian university students called for holy war against allied “aggression” in Iraq, and Indonesians accused America of terrorism as hundreds of thousands around the world staged more rallies yesterday denouncing the war.
In Alexandria, Egypt, more than 15,000 students burned U.S. and British flags, demanded boycotts of goods from both countries and called for jihad – or holy war – “to deter the oppressive American aggression.”
In Spain, protesters condemned their government for allowing coalition forces to use Spanish air space and bases for refueling.
One of the largest rallies was in Jakarta, Indonesia, where more than 100,000 people chanted “America imperialist, No. 1 terrorist!” and peacefully marched a mile from the British Embassy to the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta.
* * *
February 16, 2003
MILLIONS WORLDWIDE RALLY AGAINST WAR
Estimated 750,000 gather in London to show opposition
By Glenn Frankel, The Washington Post
LONDON - Several million demonstrators took to the streets of Europe and the rest of the world yesterday in a vast wave of protest against the prospect of a U.S.-led war against Iraq.
The largest rallies were in London, Rome, Berlin and Paris – the heart of Western Europe – where the generally peaceful demonstrations illustrated the breadth of opposition to U.S. policies among traditional allies. But there were also protests in dozens of other cities on five continents in an extraordinary display of global coordination.
In London, a sea of protesters estimated by police at more than 750,000 flooded into Hyde Park and clogged streets for several miles in what observers and organizers said was probably the largest political demonstration in British history. It was aimed not just at President Bush but also at Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair, who has been Bush’s staunchest ally in the campaign against Iraq but who is besieged by opposition at home from virtually every part of the political spectrum....
Nearly 1 million people turned out in Rome, where Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has also supported the U.S. position. Between 300,000 and 500,000 people demonstrated in Berlin, at the largest rally since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. About 100,000 demonstrators poured through the streets of Paris. Germany and France have emerged as the most vocal opponents of military action against Iraq.
In Brussels, tens of thousands of protesters braved freezing temperatures and fierce winds. Many residents placed white handkerchiefs in windows of homes, stores and pubs as an expression of support.
Patricia Tarabelsi, 23, an American student, said she couldn’t help but feel uneasy as anti-American sentiment has intensified in Europe. “It makes you feel like your country’s a target,” she said, “and I don’t really think Americans back home realize just how angry the world is at us right now.”
There were also demonstrations in Ukraine, Bosnia, Cyprus, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain, Greee, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Japan, India, Bangladesh, Hungary, South Korea, Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Thailand....
In Baghdad, tens of thousands of Iraqis, some carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles, demonstrated in support of Saddam Hussein. “Our swords are out of their sheaths, ready for battle,” read one of the hundreds of banners....
In Damascus, Syria, protesters chanted anti-U.S. and anti-Israel slogans as they marched to the People’s Assembly building.
About 2,000 anti-war protesters, both Jews and Palestinians, marched in a peaceful procession in central Tel Aviv that lasted about 90 minutes.
Many waved Israeli and Palestinian flags and carried pictures of gas masks and placards reading:
“Drop Bush not Bombs.”
* * *
February 16, 2003
U.S. RALLIES BRING OUT THOUSANDS TO PROTEST WAR
Associated Press
NEW YORK - Thousands of anti-war demonstrators packed more than 20 blocks near the United Nations headquarters yesterday, the largest of an estimated 150 peace rallies across the nation that filled city streets with banners, chanting and people from all walks of life.
“Just because you have the biggest gun does not mean you must use it,” Martin Luther King III told demonstrators in New York as he stood before an enormous banner reading: “The World Says No To War.”
Protests were held across the nation, from Maine to Hawaii, and from Texas to Minnesota.
And around the world – including many in the capitals of America’s traditional allies - similar rallies drew well over a million people in protest of possible U.S. military action against Iraq.
“Peace! Peace! Peace!” Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa said as he walked from a church service to a meeting with Kofi Annan at the United Nations.
“Let America listen to the rest of the world – and the rest of the world is saying, ‘Give the inspectors time.’”
Organizers of the New York rally estimated the crowd at anywhere from 375,000 to 500,000. New York Police Department Commissioner Raymond Kelly said about 100,000 people were in the crowd....
Other demonstrators, including about 1,000 in Manhattan, supported the possibility of U.S. military action.
“I want him to defeat the evil in Iraq, no matter what it takes,” said Gerry Timler, 72, who carried a sign reading, “God Bless America and President Bush.”
* * *
Veterans Working Together for Peace & Justice Through Non-violence.
Wage Peace!
Veterans for Peace, Inc. is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational and humanitarian organization dedicated to the abolishment of war. VFP was founded in 1985 by ex-service members committed to sharing the horrors they experienced.
We know the consequences of American foreign policy because once, at a time in our lives, many of us carried it out. We find it sad that war seems do delightful, so often, to those who have no knowledge of it. We will proudly, and patriotically, continue to denounce war despite whatever misguided sense of euphoria supports it.
Wage Peace!
March 30, 2003
Pope Makes Fresh Appeal
for End to Iraq War
New York Times On-Line
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope John Paul, making a fresh appeal for an end to the war in Iraq, said on Sunday the conflict was undermining humanity's hope for a better future.
The 82-year-old Roman Catholic leader, who is firmly opposed to the conflict, asked for prayers for peace during his weekly address to pilgrims and tourists in St Peter's Square.
Speaking from his window overlooking the square, the pope said “painful armed conflicts are ensnaring the hope of humanity for a better future.”
He appealed for prayers “for the victims of the ongoing conflict.”
On Saturday the pope said he hoped the human tragedy of the war in Iraq would not set Christians and Muslims against each other and spark “a religious catastrophe.”
The pope led the Vatican in a diplomatic campaign to try to avert the war. Before it started, he sent envoys to both President Bush and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
The Iraq conflict has put the Vatican on a collision course with Washington because the pope has refused to bless the conflict as a “just war.”
The Vatican is very concerned that the war could cause problems for Christians living in mainly Muslim countries....
Effects of Sanctions
From Iraq Water Project
“What we are doing is destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that.”
– By Denis Halliday (former UN coordinator of the Oil-for-Food Program and Nobel Peace Prize nominee)
The lack of clean water is the biggest killer of children, the sick, and the elderly. The majority of patients in Iraq’s hospitals are stricken with amoebic dysentery, gastroenteritis and other waterborne diseases. The effect of the 1990 Persian Gulf War was the destruction of much of the water delivery and sewage treatment infrastructure.
The U.S. government intentionally used sanctions against Iraq to degrade the country’s water supply after the Gulf War ended....
Hundred thousands of Iraqi people died as a consequence of military attacks and sanctions against the country. And still they are dying every day because of simplest diseases. Mostly those who can least resist the combined pressures of malnutrition, infections and diseases – the elderly and young children, women during pregnancy and childbirth. Perhaps the most tragic causes have been the unavailability of clean water and medicine....
For more, GO TO > > > Iraq Water Project
September 21, 2003
A SOLDIER’S DOUBTS
By Tim Premore
The writer is on active duty with the
101st Airborne Division near Mosul, Iraq.
FOR THE LAST SIX MONTHS, I have participated in what I believe to be the great modern lie: Operation Iraqi Freedom.
After the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001, and throughout the battle in Afghanistan, the groundwork was being laid for the invasion of Iraq. “Shock and awe” was the term used to describe the display of power the world was to view upon the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was to be a dramatic show of strength and advanced technology from within the arsenals of the American and British militaries.
But as a soldier preparing to take part in the invasion of Iraq, the words “shock and awe” rang deep within my psyche. Even as we prepared to depart, it seemed that these two great superpowers were about to break the very rules they demanded that others obey. Without the consent of the United Nations, and ignoring the pleas of their own citizens, the United States and Britain invaded Iraq.
“Shock and Awe?” Yes, the words correctly described the emotional impact I felt as we embarked on an act not of justice but of hypocrisy.
From the moment the first shot was fired in this so-called war of liberation and freedom, hypocrisy reigned. After the broadcasting of recorded images of captured and dead U.S. soldiers over Arab television, American and British leaders vowed revenge while verbally assaulting the networks for displaying such vivid images. Yet within hours of the deaths of Saddam Hussein’s two sons, the U.S. released horrific photographs of the two dead brothers for the world to view. Again, a “Do as we say and not as we do” scenario.
As soldiers serving in Iraq, we have been told that our purpose here is to help the people of Iraq by providing them the necessary assistance militarily as well as in humanitarian efforts. Then tell me where the humanity was in the recent Stars and Stripes account of two children taken to a U.S. military camp by their mother, in search of medical care. The children had been unknowingly playing with explosive ordinance they had found and as a result were severely burned. The account tells how they, after an hour-long wait, were denied care by two U.S. military doctors. A soldier described the incident as one of many “atrocities” he had witnessed on the part of the U.S. military.
Thankfully, I have not been a personal witness to any atrocities, unless of course you consider, as I do, this war to be the ultimate atrocity.
So then, what is our purpose here?
Was this invasion because of weapons of mass destruction, as we so often have heard? If so, where are they?
Did we invade to dispose of a leader and his regime because they were closely associated with Osama bin Laden? If so, where is the proof?
Or is it that our incursion is a result of our own economic advantage? Iraq’s oil can be refined at the lowest cost of any in the world. Coincidence?
This looks like a modern-day crusade not to free an oppressed dictator relentless in his pursuit of conquest and domination, but a crusade to control another nation’s natural resource. At least to me, oil seems to be the reason for our presence.
There is only one truth, and it is that Americans are dying. There are 10 to 14 attacks on our servicemen and women daily in Iraq, and it would appear that there is no end in sight. I once believed that I served for a cause: “to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Now I no longer believe that, I have lost my conviction, as well as my determination. I can no longer justify my service for what I believe to be half-truths and bold lies.
With age come wisdom, and at 36 years old I am no longer so blindly led as to believe without question. From my arrival at Ft. Campbell, Ky., last November, talk of deployment was heard, and as that talk turned to actual preparation my heart sank and my doubts grew. My doubts have never faded, instead my resolve and commitment have.
My time is almost done, as well as that of many others with whom I serve. We have all faced death in Iraq without reason or justification.
How many more must die?
How many more tears must be shed before Americans awake and demand the return of the men and women whose job it is to protect them rather than their leader’s interest?
– Special to the Los Angeles Times
* * * * *
ECO-DOOM
The last
bird in the world
sits sadly on a broken branch
and sweetly sings a song to the
shattered
blue moon.
– James VanHise, Fragments
* * * * *
U.S. Military Diplomacy - From Wounded Knee to Afghanistan
~ ~ ~
1890 Wounded Knee South Dakota - Lakota Sioux massacred by U.S. Army
a blue-coated motorcycle gang
armed with rifles and pistols
rolled into this peaceful
residential neighborhood at dawn today
community members were herded
together and shot down
unarmed men, women and children were
pulled from their homes
commenting on reports that
those trying to flee were run down and
shot in the back
one biker is quoted as saying
it was great sport
like fish in a barrel
reports of the number killed
range from 150 to 370
1890 Buenos Aires Argentina - U.S. troops intervene to protect U.S. business interests
1891 U.S. troops battle with nationalists in Chile
walking backward
my hidden face
does not go before me
I cannot see
the dogs of war
I hear
salt
blood and tears
dripping down
I hear
children become gravediggers
howling
boy soldiers flung into the dark
I hear
the knife
tearing cartilage between
the ribs
I hear
two lovers
one is walking backward
1891 U.S. Navy in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to protect American commerce
1892 U.S. Army kills 12 railroad workers on strike in Chicago
1893 U.S. Marines help overthrow the Kingdom of Hawaii
1894 U.S. Army occupies Bluefield in Nicaragua
1894-95 U.S. Marines land in China during the Sino-Japanese war
1894-96 U.S. Marines present in Seoul Korea
1895 U.S. Navy and Marines land in the Colombian Province which is now Panama
1896 U.S. Marines show the colors in Corinto, Nicaragua during political unrest
1897 U.S. troops suppress a silver miners strike in Idaho
Fathers. Sons.
dig the earth
stand up
we are men
twelve hundred imprisoned
we are men
shot down
we are men
1898-1901 U.S. Navy and Army seized Philippines from Spain killing 600,000 Filipinos
1898 U.S. Navy and Army seized Cuba from Spain, we still have base at Guantanamo Bay
1898 U.S. Navy and Army seized Puerto Rico from Spain; our occupation continues
1898 U.S. Navy and Army seized Guam from Spain; we still have bases there
1898 U.S. Marines land at San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua
1899 U.S Army battle Chippewa Indians at Leech Lake, Minnesota
1900 U.S. troops fight to help put down Boxer Rebellion in China
1900 U.S. Marines and Army again at Bluefield, Nicaragua
bluefield
eastern Nicaragua
tropical homeland
of Miskito, Rama, and Sumu
Spanish seeking gold and souls for God
British with their slavish ways
Afro-caribbean music
Palo de Mayo fertility dance
American commercial interests
afraid the people's revolution
will inhibit
their Manifest Destiny
on this Caribbean shore
1900 U.S. Army occupies Coeur d'Alene, Idaho silver mining region
1901 U.S. Army fights Creek Indians in Oklahoma
1902 U.S. Army and Navy support the province (now Panama) seceding from Colombia
1903 U.S. Marines intervene in revolution Honduras
1903 U.S. Marines land in Abyssinia
1903-04 U.S. Army intrudes in the Dominican Republic to protect U.S. business interests
1904 U.S. Marines land in Morocco
1904-05 U.S. Marines land in Korea during the Russo-Japanese War
1906 U.S. Marines move into Cuba during their elections
my enemies eat children
my enemies want mine
my enemies double park
my enemies don't speak American
my enemies cheat on their wives
my enemies are less
my enemies don't appreciate art
my enemies wear plaids with stripes
my enemies want to kill me
I must kill my enemy first
1907 U.S. Army sets up a protectorate in Nicaragua
1908 U.S. Marines land in Honduras during war with Nicaragua
1909 U.S. Marines intervene in elections in Panama
1910 U.S. Marines land again in Bluefield and Corinto Nicaragua
1911 U.S. Army goes into Honduras during a civil war to protect U.S. business interests
1911-41 30 year continuous occupation of parts of China by U.S. Navy and Army
min-tsu
nationalism is a government of the people
min-chuan
democracy is a government by the people
min-sheng
socialism is a government for the people
these three principles
of the people
are not approved
in America
1912 U.S. Army in Havana, Cuba to protect U.S. business interests
1912 U.S. Marines land in Honduras to protect U.S. economic interests
1912-33 U.S. Army 20 year occupation and war with guerillas in Nicaragua
1913 U.S. Navy intervenes to evacuate Americans from Mexico during revolution
1913 U.S. Marines land during election in Panama
1914-99 U.S. troops annex and occupy Panama Canal zone
1914 U.S. Navy fights with rebels over Santo Domingo in Dominican Republic
after we are the ones to survive
after the chill
after the heat
after we have killed but
before we have loved
we sing a manly song
martial and stirring
not low and blue
we sing
when and because
we are distanced from the front
a reminder to remember
to forget what we want forgotten
we sing our loud song of silence
we sing again
and again
until it is done
until it is gone
1914 U.S Army break miners strike Colorado
1914-18 U.S. Army and Navy in a series of interventions against Mexican nationalists
1915-34 U.S. Army 19 year occupation of Haiti
1916-24 U.S. Marines in 8 year occupation of Dominican Republic
1917-33 U.S. Army 16 year occupation of Cuba
1917-18 U.S. Army, Navy and Marines World War I
the war to end war
confusion to end confusion
hunger to end hunger
death to end death
hope to end hope
1918-20 U.S. Army and Navy land in Russia to fight against Bolsheviks
1918-20 U.S. troops in "police duty" after elections in Panama
1918 U.S. Army enters Mexico chasing 'banditos'
1919 U.S. Marines intervene in Yugoslavia for Italy against Serbs in Dalmatia
1920 U.S. Marines land in Honduras during election campaign
1920-21 U.S. Army intervenes against mine workers in West Virginia
it's one world war
ended
Coal Operators lay off miners
reduce the digging man's wages
actually jazz has
the Man's money
in the Sheriff's pocket
beatin'
harrassin'
arrestin'
those interested in the Union
evictin' from the Company's houses
Baldwin-Felts detectives on Money's side
when the Governor
called in the U.S. Army
three times
we can say that
war existed in Logan County
1921 U.S. Army in 2 week intervention in Guatemala against union organizers
1922 U.S. Army fought against nationalists in Smyrna, Turkey
1922-27 U.S. Navy and Army deployed in China during nationalist revolt
1924-25 U.S. Army landed twice in Honduras during elections
1925 U.S. Marines suppress a general strike in Panama
1926-33 U.S. Marines occupy Nicaragua
I have deemed it my duty to use the powers
committed to me to ensure the adequate protection of all American
interests in Nicaragua, whether they be endangered by internal
strife or by outside interference in the affairs of that republic.
– Calvin Coolidge, 1926
1932 U.S. Navy warships sent to El Salvador during Faribundo Marti revolt
1932 U.S. Army stops WWI veterans bonus protest in Washington D.C.
1933 U.S. Marines land in China at Foochow
1941 Greenland and Iceland taken under U.S. protection
1941-45 WWII; first nuclear strikes; U.S. Army guards camps for Japanese-American citizens
I have known war as few men now living know it. Its very
destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless
as a means of settling international disputes.
– Gen. Douglas MacArthur
1943 U.S. Army puts down Black rebellion in Detroit
1945 50,000 U.S. Marines sent to Northern China
1946 U.S. threatened Soviet troops in Iranian Azerbaijan with nuclear weapons
1946 U.S. Navy responded to shooting down of U.S. plane over Yugoslavia
1947 U.S. nuclear bombers deployed over Uruguay in show of strength
1948 U.S. Marines evacuate Americans from mainland China
cardinals and bishops call it a just war
just because the president said so
just because they hurt us
just because we can
just because no poet said no
just because the snow falls and the shadows grow longer every day
just because we see it on CNN
just because after the bomb falls there is no one left to hear
just because
1948 U.S. nuclear bombers guard Berlin Airlift
1948 U.S. Marines to Palestine
1950-53 U.S. troops fought China and North Korea in Korea; nuclear threat against China; still have bases in South Korea
1953 Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf Sr. helps overthrow democracy and installs Shah of Iran
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired,
signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not
fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
– Pres. D.D. Eisenhower 1953
1954 U.S. offers use of nuclear weapons to French to use against siege in Viet Nam
1955 U.S. bombs Guatemala from bases in Nicaragua after government nationalizes U.S. businesses
1956 U.S. troops evacuate foreigners; threaten Soviets with nuclear weapons during Suez Crisis Egypt
1958 U.S. Marines occupy Lebanon against rebels
1958- Iraq threatened with nuclear weapons in warning against invading Kuwait
1958- U.S. troops used during protests in Panama
1959 China threatened with nuclear weapons and told not to move against Taiwan
1960-75 U.S. troops used in Viet Nam; nuclear threats in 1968 and 1969
nights he still comes to me
eyes clear
black and white
unlike his body
yellow and red
this spectre
of a rising tide
of godless communism
turning
amidst the tangled pile
of bodies
the 300 piastres
and the red-starred belt
I took from his body
1961 U.S. military trains commandos for operation against Cuba at Bay of Pigs
1962 U.S threatens use of nuclear weapons in Berlin Wall crisis
1962 U.S. Naval blockade and nuclear threats during Cuban Missile Crisis
1963 U.S. Army shoots Panamanians for protesting about return of canal
madre llorosa
she was last seen
in a photograph
kneeling
peasant dress
little protection
between her and the roadstones
none
between her
and the boy soldiers
the body lying there
looked
something like her son
1964 U.S. assists army coup in Indonesia in which one million were killed
1965-66 U.S. Marines land in Dominican Republic during election campaigns
1966-67 U.S. Green Berets intervene in Guatemala against rebels
fortune of war
we move out of the tree line
spread out
surround the huts
the village headman says
two wounded men died
and were buried
several days before
a green black shimmer
rises (after three days;
the sun)
the skin
taut with gangrenous gas
bursts
with the weight of a landing fly
spewing
pus to dust
we dig
small men's bones
in a small hole
a soup of khaki straps and steel buckles
stirred and sifted
for intelligence
1967 U.S. Army battles citizens in Detroit killing 43
1968 21,000 U.S. troops on streets in American cities after M.L. King assassinated
1969 U.S. Army and Navy attack North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in Cambodia
a bullet manages to live
without a mind of it's own
slowed to sixteen frames per second
it barely precedes the out-flowering
crimson and grey
from the back of the skull
dead is still dead
despite the noise of martial music and honor
dead don't awaken
the bullet acts like it doesn't care
1970 U.S. troops invade Cambodia
1971 U.S. Air Force 'carpet-bombs' Laos while directing South Vietnamese invasion
1972 U.S. Army works with FBI in siege of Lakotas at Wounded Knee, South Dakota
1973 world-wide military alert nuclear threat during Mideast War
1974 U.S. command operation which kills elected marxist president Chile
the people are dumb - mute
they have no voice
that I can hear
except the faint responsorial
of what they've been told to say
and think
1975 U.S. bombs Cambodia during attempt to free captured ship Mayaguez
1976 U.S command assists South African rebels in Angola
1978 U.S. Air Force provides logistical support to French in Zaire
1980 U.S. troops in aborted bombing raid/rescue Iran Embassy hostages; nuclear threat Soviets
1981 U.S. Navy shoots down 2 Libyan jets during maneuvers
1981 U.S. troop advisers and over-flights aid anti-rebel war in El Salvador
1982 U.S. Navy mines harbor in Nicaragua as part of support of Contras
We have never interfered in the internal government of a country
and have no intention of doing so, never had any thought of that kind.
– Ronald Reagan 09-28-1982
1982 U.S. Marines expel PLO from Lebanon while U.S. Navy bombs Syrian positions
can a dumb people
create a smart bomb
can a smart bomb
distinguish
between
the four month old baby
and the
forty year old general
1983 U.S. military maneuvers used to build bases on border between Honduras and Nicaragua
1983 U.S. bombs and invades Grenada four years after their revolution
1984 U.S. military shoot down 2 Iranian jets over Persian Gulf
1985 U.S. Navy jet forces Egyptian commercial airliner to land in Sicily
does the bomb
value one
less than the other
1985 U.S. Army assist in raids on cocaine region Bolivia
1986 U.S. Navy bombs Libya killing Col. Khaddafi's daughter
1987-88 U.S. Navy bombs Iran on side of Iraq in their war
blue gulf
grey sand
black oil
whitehouse
green money
brown skin
red blood
1988 U.S. Navy shoots down 2 Libyan jets
1988 U.S. troops invade Panama killing 2,000 while arresting Pres. Noriega
1989 U.S. troops used to put down Black unrest after hurricane Virgin Islands, St. Croix
1989 U.S. jets provided air cover for Marcos government against non-violent coup in Philippines
1990 U.S. troops used to evacuate foreigners from civil war Liberia
1990-91 Gulf war; U.S. still has bases in Saudi Arabia
out here in the desert
golden hot sun
grey sand
made holy
by the footsteps of
the Prophet
from Medina to Mecca
out here in the desert
infidels from the west
foul the air
and land
for the faithful
out here in the desert
1991-2001 U.S. bombs Iraq hundreds of times killing many civilians maintaining no-fly zones
1990 U.S. Army and Marines deployed in Los Angeles during anti-police uprising
1992-94 U.S. Army and Navy bombing and raid in Somalia during U.S.-led U.N. occupation
1992-94 U.S. Navy and NATO blockade of Serbia and Montenegro
1993-95 U.S. jets bomb Serbs in Bosnia
I will teach you how
to perform a war
a clean operation
to remove that alien tissue
which can no longer be controlled
we first name it cancer
we curse it for a bastard
nothing legitimate to be found
the pathologic question
must be asked and answered
will a pound of flesh be enough
shared definitions in hand
we sharpen our knives
sanitary
chrome and steel
bright lights
remove any shadow
of doubts
patriotic anesthesia dulls the senses
common and other
to the loud cutting
ripping and
bleeding to come
once hidden viscera
bloody red
broken bone white
and hypoxic blue
stare out at us
unexpected collateral damage
can be dressed
with sterile white gauze
although the bloated smell
sometimes remains
afterwards
we will remove our gloves and
wash our hands
1994-96 U.S. Army and Navy blockade of Haiti
1995 U.S. jets bombed Serb airfields in Croatia
1996-97 U.S. Marines at Rwandan Hutu refugee camp Zaire
1997 U.S. troops evacuate foreigners from Liberia
1998 U.S. troops evacuate foreigners from Albania
1998 U.S. missiles attack pharmaceutical plant Sudan
1999 U.S. missiles attack former CIA training camps in Afghanistan
I think that the targeting of innocent civilians is the worst thing
about modern conflicts today. And to the extent which more and more
people seem to believe it is legitimate to target innocent civilians to reach
their larger political goals, I think that's something to be resisted at every
turn.
– Pres. Bill Clinton, March 21, 2000
2001 U.S forces attack Afghanistan in response to terrorist attack
I heard it on NPR
someone said we're at war
yeah that's terror
here in North America
now we get a taste of it
we get to see the other side
now our children die
now we see there are no accidents
only consequence
we gag on the dust and rubble and fumes
in New York
in Washington
in Pennsylvania
in Kabul
in Baghdad
now we gag on the truth
Larry Kerschner
© 2001
* * * * *
From Derailing Democracy: The America the Media Don’t Want You To See, by David McGowan:
The Outlaw Nation
Ironically, in light of its long-stated commitment to upholding human rights at home and in its foreign policy, the U.S. government today poses a threat to the universality of human rights....
– Human Rights Watch “World Report 1999"
Is the United States the number one defender of human rights in the world today, as most Americans have been taught by the schools and the media to believe? Or have the people merely been fooled by the world’s largest and most efficient propaganda machine?
America’s appalling record of ratifying human rights treaties and its all-too-obvious contempt for international law and world opinion reveals a far different face of America than that which is presented to its citizens and to the world community at large....
AT LEAST WE’RE NOT THE ONLY ONES
“Every country on earth has ratified the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits the death penalty for juvenile offenders, with two exceptions: Somalia, which effectively has no government, and the U.S. Even China, one of the world’s most enthusiastic criminal-killers, recently banned juvenile executions.”
– “Wasted Youth,” The Mojo Wire, December 23, 1999
“U.S. contempt for UN authority is shown by its defiance of the recent General Assembly vote of 157 nations versus 2 nations protesting the U.S. criminal blockade of Cuba...”
– Ramsey Clark (former U.S. Attorney General), Letter to the UN, November 1998
WE’RE GOING TO GET TO THAT,
WE’VE JUST BEEN A LITTLE BUSY
“The United States has refused to recognize any regional human rights treaties: it has not ratified the American Convention on Human Rights, adopted by the OAS (Organization of American States) in 1969, and has not even signed the Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons and the Inter-American Convention to Prevent, Punish and Eradicate Violence Against Women.”
– Amnesty International, October 1998
“The first UN human rights treaty ratified by the U.S.A. was the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It ratified the Convention in 1988, 40 years after signing it and after 97 other states had already ratified it. The U.S.A. took 28 years to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, after 133 other states had already ratified it. At least 71 other states ratified the Convention Against Torture before the U.S.A. It was only in 1992, after 109 other states, that the U.S.A. ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), 26 years after its adoption by the UN General Assembly. The ICCPR is one of two principal treaties protecting human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The other – the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – has still not been ratified by the U.S.A.”
– Amnesty International, October 1998
JUST PUT THAT ON MY TAB; I’M GOOD FOR IT
“The United States has failed to pay its dues on time for the past 13 years... The UN says the United States is $1.69 billion in arrears; the U.S. government disputes the figure, maintaining that it owes about $1 billion.”
– The Los Angeles Times, June 24, 1999
WE’LL MAKE THE RULES AND YOU FOLLOW THEM
“One of the clearest examples of the U.S.A.’s changing attitude to human rights violations in different circumstances is that of Iraq. During the 1980s Iraqi forces committed gross and widespread abuses... Amnesty International repeatedly appealed for action, yet neither the U.S. authorities nor the UN responded. ... After Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 ... the U.S.A. repeatedly cited the Iraqi government’s appalling human rights record to gather support for UN military intervention in the Gulf.”
– Amnesty International, October 1998
WE DON’T LIKE TO LIMIT OUR OPTIONS
“The U.S. blocked international efforts to end the use of child soldiers, arguing against a proposed optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that would raise the minimum age for military recruitment and participation in armed conflict to eighteen.”
– Human Rights Watch “World Report 1999, United States”
“In the case of landmines, the United States refused to join the 133 nations, including nearly every major U.S. ally, that had already signed the treaty by October 1998.”
– Human Rights Watch “World Report 1999, United States”
(In a seemingly deliberate and arrogant act of defiance of the global ban – set to go into effect on March 1, 1999 – President Clinton, in February 1999, asked Congress to approve expenditures of nearly $50,000,000 to begin production of a new state-of-the-art artillery-fired landmine system.)
~ ~ ~
The U.S. media have become quite adept at sterilizing war, shamelessly blurring the line between war and entertainment. The cable news networks in particular have pioneered the presentation of armed conflict as part video game and part mini-series, complete with theme music and logos. . . .
~ ~ ~
FOLLOWING THE BLOOD TRAIL...
IRAQ
Year: 1990- ?
Estimated Deaths: 1,500,000+
Overview: A six-week aerial bombardment directed at the civilian infrastructure featured the use of fuel-air bombs, depleted uranium, napalm, cluster bombs, cruise missiles, and “smart bombs.” Followed by nearly a decade of exceedingly harsh economic sanctions and periodic bombings.
Bonus Points: Featured extensive use of radioactive DU weaponry, which has resulted in alarmingly high cancer rates and birth abnormalities.
~ ~ ~
“The 6-week war in 1991 resulted in the large-scale destruction of military and civilian infrastructures alike. ... The sanctions imposed on Iraq and related circumstances have prevented the country from repairing all of its damaged or destroyed infrastructure ... This has affected the quality of life of countless Iraqi citizens ... The vast majority of the country’s population has been on a semi-starvation diet for years. ... Diseases such as malaria, typhoid and cholera, which were once almost under control, have rebounded since 1991 at epidemic levels, with the health sector as a helpless witness ...”
— The World Health Organization - March, 1996
~ ~ ~
“Sanctions have taken the lives of well over one million persons, 60% of whom are children under five years of age. The 1991 bombing campaign destroyed electric, water and sewage plants, as well as agricultural, food and medical production facilities. All of these structures continue to be inoperative, or function as sub-minimal levels, because the sanctions have made it impossible to buy spare parts for their repair. The bombing campaign, together with the total embargo in place since August 1990 was, and is, an attack against the civilian population of Iraq.”
— U.S. Bishops Statement on Iraq - Jan, 1998 - (Signed by 53 Catholic bishops)
~ ~ ~
“4,500 children under the age of five are dying each month from hunger and disease. ... Many are living on the very margin of survival.”
— UNICEF - Oct, 1996
~ ~ ~
“One of the clearest examples of the U.S.A.’s changing attitude to human rights violations in different circumstances is that of Iraq. During the 1980s, Iraqi forces committed gross and widespread abuses ... Amnesty International repeatedly appealed for action, yet neither the U.S. authorities nor the UN responded ... After Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990 ... the U.S.A. repeatedly cited the Iraqi government’s appalling human rights record to gather support for UN military intervention in the Gulf.”
— Amnesty International - October, 1998
~ ~ ~
“More than one million Iraqis have died— 567,000 of them children— as a direct consequence of economic sanctions ... As many as 12 percent of the children surveyed in Baghdad are wasted, 28 percent stunted and 29 percent underweight.”
— United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization - Dec, 1995
~ ~ ~
Lesley Stahl: “We have heard that half a million children have died. That is more than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”
Secretary of State Madeleline Albright: “I think this is a very hard choice. But the price— we think the price is worth it.”
— An exchange on CBS’s 60 Minutes - May, 1996
~ ~ ~
“We are not interested in seeing a relaxation of sanctions as long as Saddam Hussein is in power.”
— Secretary of State James Baker - May, 1991
~ ~ ~
“There is no difference between my policy and the policy of the (Bush) Administration ... I have no intention of normalizing relations with him.”
— President-Elect Bill Clinton - Jan, 1993
~ ~ ~
“We do not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted. Our view, which is unshakable, is that Iraq must prove its peaceful intentions ... And the evidence is overwhelming that Saddam Hussein’s intentions will never be peaceful.”
— Secretary of State Madeleine Albright - March, 1997
~ ~ ~
“Sanctions may stay on in perpetuity.”
— U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson - Aug, 1997
~ ~ ~
“What he has just done is to ensure that the sanctions will be there until the end of time...”
-- President Bill Clinton - Nov, 1997
~ ~ ~
Beginning in the Gulf War, U.S. military forces began using a new type of weapon whose attributes are rarely discussed in the American press.
These are sometimes referred to euphemistically as “tank killers” or “anti-tank rounds,” though what it is that renders them so effective for this purpose is never mentioned. These rounds are credited with destroying some 1,400 Iraqi tanks, performing well above Pentagon expectations and thereby assuring their continued use in future U.S. wars of aggression, as their deployment in both Bosnia and Kosovo clearly demonstrates.
Composed of an extremely dense metal, these weapons are able to concentrate an enormous amount of weight at the point of impact, giving them unprecedented penetrating power As an added bonus, the material from which these tank killers are manufactured is pyrophoric, fragmenting and igniting upon impact. And best of all, the material is cheap and readily available. In fact, prior to its recently discovered military use, vast stockpiles of it sat unused for years, decades even.
Of course, in those days it had a different name than it does today. Back then we knew it simply as “nuclear waste.”
Today, the military knows it as DU, or depleted uranium.
It is, in fact, a radioactive byproduct of the nuclear weapons and power industries, which previously had presented these industries with long-term storage problems.
But not anymore. Thanks to the ingenuity of U.S. weapons designers, we are now able to dump our radioactive waste on “rogue” nations such as Serbia and Iraq.
In “Operation Desert Storm” alone, some 940,000 small-caliber DU rounds were fired into Iraq and Kuwait from such aircraft as the A10 Warthog and the Apache helicopter. In addition, anywhere from 6,000 to 14,000 large-caliber DU rounds were fired from U.S. tanks.
All told, anywhere from 40 to 300 tons of radioactive uranium were left lettering the battlefields of the Gulf war, several times the 25 tons that a report by Britain’s Atomic Energy Authority concluded could cause “500,000 potential deaths.”...
~ ~ ~
“The Committee concludes that it is unlikely that health effects reports by Gulf War Veterans today are the result of exposure to depleted uranium during the Gulf War.”
— Presidential Advisory Committee of Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, “Final Report.” — Dec, 1996
~ ~ ~
“Inhaled insoluble oxides stay in the lungs longer and pose a potential cancer risk due to radiation. Ingested DU dust can also pose both a radioactive and a toxicity risk.”
— U.S. General Accounting Office, “Operation Desert Storm Army Not Adequately Prepared to Deal with Depleted Uranium Contamination” — Jan, 1993
~ ~ ~
“DU is inherently toxic. This toxicity can be managed, but it cannot be changed.”
— Army Environmental Policy Institute, “Health and Environmental Consequences of Depleted Uranium Use in the U.S. Army” — June, 1995
~ ~ ~
“Short-term effects of high doses can result in death, while long-term effects of low doses have been implicated in cancer.”
— AMMCOM, “Kinetic Energy Penetrator Long Term Strategy Study” — July, 1990
~ ~ ~
“The Pentagon’s assertion that no Gulf War veterans could be ill from exposure to DU ... contradicts numerous pre- and post-war reports, some form the U.S. Army itself.”
— Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI), Sept, 1998
~ ~ ~
“The number of cancer cases and birth defects among Iraqi civilians in Basra, Al-Amarah, An-Nasiriyah and Ad-Diwaniyah has grown at least threefold since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, according to Iraqi doctors and medical records. ... Most alarming, doctors say, is a sharp rise in leukemia cases among children, including some who were born more than nine months after the end of the war, suggesting that some environmental carcinogens may have lingered long after the war ended or that some war-related contaminants may be causing genetic damage...”
— San Jose Mercury News — Mar 19, 1998
~ ~ ~
From: Undisclosed
To: "V.K. Durham"
Sent: Saturday, August 19, 2006 8:28 PM
Subject: Some words about me - Re: Rainbow
Dear VK,
(You can call me XXXX, I have seen your photo and I suppose you are very younger than me - I am 45 year old)
I would like to tell you something about me:
I started to be a whistleblower in 1999, during the war in the Balkans, denouncing the NATO crazy use of uranium in the weapons there.
Well, I started before: in 1997 I unveiled a network of stay-behind officers here in Italy - they were the Italians of the Operation Gladio. Some of them encountered a death like your husband - mostly they were 'suicided' like Raul Gardini, Cagliari, etc. etc.
The August 13, 2006, at 8:30 P.M., an Hercules C130 aircraft cargo (Lockheed Martin) crashed in Piacenza, Italy, killing all abroad. This C130 was embedded with depleted uranium balance weights, which (uranium) is used in the US also to make depleted uranium (DU) kinetic penetrators, i.e. weapons to be used in humanitarian wars.
It was me who adviced the firefighters and other police forces last week to be aware of the uranium at Piacenza and to use precautions: they were not aware. Italy and US are ally, but regarding the DU issue... the Pentagram didn't told us very much about the real uranium dangers...
In 1999 I knew an Italian operative of the Mossad, Alberto Lanzi, who used DU weapons back in 1973 (Yom Kippur war). He assured to me: no danger! He died from cancer in 2004, at 53.
Now the history can go on, the latest sad thing is the death of my associate Sherman Skolnick from Chicago... (last week another: Giacinto Auriti, but he was 84)
I don't want to be annoying to you, so I stop here.
But I was able to find documents about Rainbow in 2001, in the Internet: those documents are not there anymore. (it was something involving BIO-RAD and a journalist writing a book entitled Octopus...)
Don't be angry with me for my amateurishly kind of enquiring.
Kind regards,
xxxx xxxx
http://www.voy.com/129276/329.html
~ ~ ~
For more, GO TO > > > An Octopus Named Wackenhut
Iraq says U.S.-British Air Strike
Kills 23; Allies Deny Charge
by Aleksandar Vasovic, Associated Press
June 21, 2001 (AP) - Iraq’s state-run television claimed yesterday that a U.S.-British air strike killed 23 people during a soccer game and showed children reportedly injured in the attack.
U.S. officials blamed a malfunctioning Iraqi anti-aircraft missile.
The Iraqi News Agency said allied planes attacked Tall Afar, 275 miles northwest of Baghdad. The victims were said to be buried yesterday.
Eleven others were injured, the agency said....
# # #
By its past and present actions, by its technological capabilities, by the merciless nature of its regime, Iraq is unique. As a former chief weapons inspector of the U.N. has said, ‘The fundamental problem with Iraq remains the nature of the regime, itself. Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction.’...
“We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas. Saddam Hussein also has experience in using chemical weapons. He has ordered chemical attacks on Iran, and on more than forty villages in his own country. These actions killed or injured at least 20,000 people, more than six times the number of people who died in the attacks of September the 11th....
“Iraq is a land rich in culture, resources, and talent. Freed from the weight of oppression, Iraq's people will be able to share in the progress and prosperity of our time. If military action is necessary, the United States and our allies will help the Iraqi people rebuild their economy, and create the institutions of liberty in a unified Iraq at peace with its neighbors.”...
– George W. Bush, October 7, 2000
t t t t t
National Priorities Project - Cost of War
$ $ $ $ $
A Timeline of Oil and Violence in Iraq
t t t t t
The Dixie Chicks: “I Hope”
THE EAGLE HOODED:
THE 9-11 COVERUP
* * * * *
X X X X X
t t t t t
X X X X X
! ! ! ! !
+ + +
* * * * *
SOME OF THE LATEST NEWS
http://www.impeachbush.org/site/PageServer
http://impeachbushcoalition.blogspot.com/
http://www.rawstory.com/printstory.php?story=2798
http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/182182.html
http://impeachbush.meetup.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/impeach-bush/
http://impeachforpeace.org/ImpeachNow.html
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/03/01/keillor/
http://www.thefourreasons.org/
http://www.friedwire.org/fried020305crooked.html
* * * * *
STILL NOT SURE WHO’S TELLING THE TRUTH?
THEN GO TO
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Birds that Drink from Cesspools
The Bribes and Boondoggles of Boeing
Condoleezza & The Chicken Hawks
Confessions of a Whistleblower
First Hawaiian Bank: Conquered by the French in ‘98
Tarnished Wings: The Greed at Lockheed
The United Defense Industries Matrix
Tracking the flock of AIPAC vultures
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CHRONOLOGY
March 30, 2003: Originally posted on www.the-catbird-seat.net
March 13, 2007: The U.S. Dept of Justice gets Order to shut down website
July 27, 2009: Latest update on www.kycbs.net
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