Friday, March 16, 2007

THIS JUST IN! AP SLIMES VALERIE PLAME AGAIN!

 
 
"I'M NOT LIKE DARLENE," JULIE HIRSHFELD DAVIS TOLD THESE REPORTERS.  "I THINK IT'S FUN TO LIE!"
 
AND THE A.P. 'REPORTER' PROVES IT BY COVERING VALERIE PLAME'S TESTIMONY ON CAPITOL HILL TODAY AND SAYING IT  "REVEALED LITTLE NEW INFORMATION".
 
 
1) SHE WAS A COVERT C.I.A. AGENT UNTIL THE WHITE HOUSE DECIDED TO BLOW HER COVER AND OUT HER.
 
2) THE OUTING HURT HER PERSONALLY.
 
3) THE OUTING RISKED EXPOSING OTHERS WHOM SHE HAD WORKED WITH.
 
4) THE OUTING HURT THE MORALE IN THE C.I.A.
 
5) THE OUTING MIGHT RESULT IN PEOPLE BEING LESS WILLING TO COME FORWARD WITH INFORMATION.
 
6) HER AREA OF EXPERTISE WAS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. 
 
7) SHE HAD BEEN UNDERCOVER OVERSEAS IN THE LAST 5 YEARS PRIOR TO HER OUTING. 
 
FURTHERMORE, THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF SECURITY FOR THE WHITE HOUSE, JAMES KNODELL, ALSO TESTIFIED TO THE HOUSE OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE TODAY AND HE REVEALED THAT, DESPITE BULLY BOY'S CLAIMS OF A "FULL INVESTIGATION" INTERNALLY, KNODELL REPEATEDLY REPLIED "NOT BY OFFICE" WHEN ASKED OF AN INTERNAL WHITE HOUSE INVESTIGATION -- ONE PROMISED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE BY THE BULLY BOY. 
 
WHEN ASKED WHY SHE DIDN'T FEEL THE NEED TO LEAD WITH ANY OF THE ABOVE, JULIE EXPLAINED TO US "A.P. STANDS FOR 'ASSHOLE PRESS' AND I LOVE IT!"
 
 
 
Starting with war resistance, today on KPFA's Making Contact, Aaron Glantz addressed the topic of Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq (June 2006) and the first to be court-martialed (last month).  Glantz noted that before the court-martial began, on a rainy Sunday night, people gathered to show their support.  Among those speaking were retired Lt. Col. and retired State Department Ann Wright, "
I have been here so many times and so many times for justice and principle."  Glantz noted how the presiding judge, Lt. Col. John Head (aka Judge Toilet) refused to allow Watada to put foward his best defense -- explaining why he refused to deploy.  A review of the court-martial's second day included Geoffrey Millard's observations (Millard reported on the court-martial for Truthout) that the prosecutions' own witnesses backed up Watada under cross examination.  This point was echoed by Jeff Paterson who told Glantz,  "All the prosecution's witnesses stood up there and said miltary service are important oaths are important but on cross examination they explained how Ehren Watada  was trying to fulfill his oath."  (Paterson covered the court-martial for Courage to Resist.) Glantz noted that the prosecution witnesses had stated that intent was important as the second day ended so there was a belief that Watada might be able to present his motivations when he took the stand the following day. 
 
"On Wednseday morning the court room was filled with anticipation," Glantz noted.  But that quickly changed as Judge Toilet zeroed in on a stipulation where Watada agreed to making public statements.  Judge Toilet had seen the stipulation the week prior, on Monday he had instructed the jury on the stipulation.  On Wednesday, it was suddenly an issue. Judge Toilet declared a mistrail (over the defense's objections).  Eric Seitz, Watada's civilian attorney, notes that double-jeopardy should prevent Watada from being court-martialed again; however, the military has scheduled Juyl 16th for the start of his second court-martial.
 
 
US war resister Joshua Key has told his story in the new book The Deserter's Tale.  In addition, he is also one of the war resisters profiled in Peter Laufer's Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq, from page 14:
 
Joshua still does not understand what he was doing in Iraq in the first place.  "I still couldn't tell you why I was there.  What purpose was it for?  Whose gain was it for?  I don't know the truth to it.  Like I tell my wife, that's the problem with war -- your president, your generals, they send you off to go fight these battles.  And all the way down to your commanding officers, they don't go out there with you.  They send you out there to fight and do the crazy sh*t and do the dirty stuff.  You're the one who has to live with the nightmares from it.  You come back, you're nothing, you know?  Guys are living on the streets that fought in Iraq just as well as I did.  I mean it's horrific."
 
Ehren Watada and Joshua Key are part of a movement of resistance within the military that also includes Darrell Anderson, Agustin Aguayo,  Kyle Snyder, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ivan Brobeck, Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Corey Glass, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.


Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
 
Joshua Key's statements ("You come back, you're nothing, you know?  Guys are living on the streets that fought in Iraq just as well as I did.  I mean it's horrific.")  are the jumping off point to the realities now more openly addressed: what passes for 'care' that many returning receive (or 'receive').  In light of the recent scandals about Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Gregg Zoroya (USA Today) establishes the point that not all have to deal with mold, rats and roaches -- some quarters are very nice such as the Esienhower Executive Nursing Suite (Ward 72) which "features heightened security, including bullet-proof windows and secure telephone lines.  Among the other touches are flat-panel television and curio cabinets filled with gifts from foreign leaders."  This is the VIP suite but US Rep John Tierney feels "the true VIPs" are the returning service members and not the ones who get the Esienhower Executive Nursing Suite: "the presidents, the vice president, federal judges, members of Congress and the Cabinet, high-ranking military officials and even foreign dignitaries and their spouse.  The only enlisted members of the military who are eligible to stay there are receipients of the Medal of Honor."  Conn Hallinan (Berkeley Daily Planet) observes that the problems with Walter Reed require more than show firings, "'addressing' the problem will require jettisoning former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's high-tech subsidies to the nation's arms makers at the expense of the grunts, as well as the White House's mania for privitaziation.  [Francis] Harvey [Army Secretary until recently] was brought in by Rumsfeld specifically to reduce the federal work force and, as he said in a speech last year, 'improve efficiency.'  A former executive for one of the nation's leading arms producers, Westinghouse, Harvey hired IAP Worldwide Services -- run by two former Halliburton executives -- which promptly reduced the number of people providing service at Walter Reed from 300 to 60.  The cutback and resulting increase in workloads kicked off an exodus of trained personnel, which an in-hospital study just released by the House Committee on Oversight and Governance found could lead to 'mission failure'."
 
One person who has been fighting for better service and for an end to the illegal war is Tina Richards whose son Cloy Richards has served two tours of duty in Iraq and now suffers from PTSD.  Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) spoke with Richards today and she explained what was next for her son in the Veterans Affairs system: "On March 24th, he's supposed to report in with documentation from Veterans Affairs as to his disabilities.  The problem is, is that he doesn't have that documentation, because we've ben fighting with the VA system for close to a year now, just trying to get him treatment.  Recently, I've been sitting in on the hearings, and I was interviewed by a Veterans Affairs Committee on the House.  And it appears that a lot symptoms that my son has is actually from traumatic brain injury, which can sometimbes be confused with PTSD, or it can be a combination of both.  You know, he definitely has undiagnosed traumatic brain injury." 
 
On today's Democracy Now!, Gonzalez and Goodman also spoke with Jean Stentz whose husband, Vietnam vet Willie Dougherty, died last year in a series of injustices that began when he was denied a VA hospital in his area -- Jean Stenz: "Because the VA hospital was full, and they wanted him to go to another one.  And so, Beaumont's two hours away from us, and Houston's an hour away, but they sent him to Beaumont.  And then, when they released him, I took him down by ambulance to the VA hospital emergency room, who refused him at that time, because they said he wasn't sick enough.  He had an infection.  He was perspiring profusely.  I mean, the pillows were wet.  He had fever.  He had trouble breathing.  But he wasn't sick enough.  So we came home.  We called on the phone -- in fact, my daughter and I had two phones going, the cell and the home phone -- trying to find help for him.  Finally, the VA doctor in Lufkin decided that he should be put in a nursing home.  He was in a nursing home in Huntsville less than two days and was very sick, was transferred to the Huntsville emergency room, who transferred him finally to the VA hospital in Houston, where he was in ICU -- very ill -- and transferred to their hospice room and died."
 
 
 

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