Friday, March 30, 2007

THIS JUST IN! BULLY BOY DOES A CHEER AND THEN SPLITS!

 
BULLY BOY STUMBLED AROUND WALTER REED MEDICAL ARMY CENTER TODAY LOOKING LIKE HE WAS DRUNK WITH THE FOOLISH GRIN PLASTERED ON HIS FACE.
 
AT 1 POINT, HE ISSUED A NON-APOLOGY.  SOME IN THE PRESS LAPPED IT UP.
 
IF BULLY BOY WANTS TO APOLOGIZE, AND THE PRESS WANTS TO DO THEIR JOB, THEY CAN BOTH START BY POINTING OUT THAT THE GOVERNMENT (UNDER THE LORDS OF PRIVATIZATION, BILL CLINTON AND AL GORE) DECIDED TO SEE WHETHER PRIVATE CONTRACTORS COULD DO THE JOB BETTER THAN GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES.  THE EVALUATION FOUND THAT THE GOVERNMENT COULD DO A BETTER JOB BUT THE ARMY AUDIT AGENCY, IN 2006, IGNORED THAT FINDING AND AWARDED I.A.P. A $120 MILLION CONTRACT.  I.A.P., FOR THOSE UNFAMILIAR WITH THE COMPANY, COULDN'T EVEN FULFILL THEIR CONTRACT TO GET ICE TO THE VICTIMS OF HURRICANE KATRINA.  AND, UNDER BULLY BOY'S WATCH, THEY'VE BEEN GIVEN A $120 MILLION CONTRACT.  THAT'S JUST STEP 1 OF THE APOLOGY BULLY BOY NEEDS TO MAKE.
 
BUT IT WAS ALL PHOTO OPS AS HE POSED AND PREENED, LOOKING EVERY BIT THE CHEERLEADER HE WAS IN PREP SCHOOL. 
 
PRESIDENT OF VETERANS FOR AMERICA BOBBY MULLER WAS LEFT TO DO THE WORK THE PRESS COULDN'T OR WOULDN'T: NOTING THAT BULLY BOY DIDN'T VISIT THE WAR "WHERE SOLDIERS ARE SUFFERING FROM ACUTE MENTAL HEALTH CONDITIONS, AND OUTPATIENT HOLDING FACILITIES WHERE SOLDIERS SEE LONG WAITS TO GET PROCESSED OUT OF THE ARMY."
 
 
 
Starting with war resisters.  In Canada, a US war resister appeared before the Immigration and Refugee Board today.  Matthew Chung (Toronto Star) reports that Corey Glass and his attorney, Jeffrey House, will attempt to argue that the Iraq war is illegal.  Chung notes: "Glass joined the National Guard in Indiana four years ago to, so he says, fill sand bags and help guard U.S. soil.  Instead he was sent to Iraq, a war he said he doesn't believe in.  He fled during a two-week leave."  So he says, Chung?  He's maintained that repeatedly including when he spoke at Tilley Hall Auditorium in October of last year "filling sand bags to stop a flood on American soil".  After self-checking out, Glass was underground for seven months before going to Canada and, during that time, the Army (which supposedly just waits for traffic violations to catch self-check outs) was visiting his parents, calling phone numbers trying to track him down.  As October started last year, Corey Glass, Justin Colby, Ryan Johnson and other war resisters in Canada were considering returning to US as a result of the way Darrell Anderson's discharge was resolved.  However, once the military attempted to screw over Kyle Snyder, that changed.  Glass told Brett Barrouqere (AP) at the start of November, "After what they did to him, I don't see anybody going back."  In September of last year, Glass stated, "I knew the war was wrong before I went, but I was going to fulfil my end of the bargain, right or wrong and eventually my conscience just caught up with me. . . I felt horrible for being a part of it.  If I could apologise to those people [Iraqis], every single on, I would."  The supposed independent body of the Immigration and Review Board has refused to grant asylum thus far to every Iraq war resister who has come before it. 
 
Staying on war resistance, Joshua Key, who is in Canada with his wife Brandi Key and their children,  wrote, with Lawrence Hill, his story in the new book The Deserter's Tale which has been receiving favorable reviews across the political spectrum.  Karen Alego Krizman (Rocky Mountain News) is the latest to review the book and observes, "Key admits he believed the recruiter who promised he wouldn't have to go overseas or into combat if he joined the Army - mere months after 9/11. Couple this naivete with the steady dose of racism Key says the Army fed recruits and it's no wonder that abuses such as Abu Ghraib occur."  Paul Gessel (Ottawa Citizen) notes the Ottawa International Writers Festival from April 15-22 will include Lawrence hill, David Suzuki, Tom Harpur, Roy MacGregor and Barbara Gowdy and reports: "Hill is riding high this year with two books, one a novel about the slave trade called The Book of Negroes and the other a non-fiction story called The Deserter's Tale, about an American soldier who went AWOL while home on leave from fighting in Iraq.  That soldier, Joshua Key, is trying to obtain refugee status in Canada and will be joining Hill at the festival April 16."
 
On Monday, CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees  took a look at Kyle Snyder and other war resisters who were making a life in Nelson British Columbia.  Cooper noted, "We all know the stories about Vietnam War-era deserters who fled to Canada.  But less well-known are the members of today's armed forces who are refusing to serve in Iraq.  Many have fled to the same town in Canada where they're being welcomed with open arms."  Thelma Gutierrez was the reporter for the segment.
 
Kyle Snyder: I joined when I was 19. . . I sat back, I put my weapon down beside me, and then, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, real quick, very, very loud, I could just remember the look on the man's face.  . . .  I was a .50 cal. machine gunner and I was an escort for very high-ranking officials.  What drew the line for me was one mission in particular where I had witnessed an innocent civilian shot in front of me. . . . I was first angry at that.  And then I became angry at the fact that there were no repercussions.  This -- there was nothing done to prevent this from happening again. . . . I made my decision off of the things that I personally witnessed in Iraq.  I didn't just wake up one morning and say, 'I'm going to leave my country, I'm going to leave my friends behind, I'm going to leave everything that I know and everything that I love and built my entire life on,' nobody does that. . . .  I can walk around shops here and, you know, I see "war resisters welcome here" signs.  I see community getting involved and getting together.  High schoolers come up and say, what can I do to support the anti-war movement?
 
Meanwhile, Canada's Chronicle Herald reports, "Police have initiated an investigation into" Snyder's arrest "which will be conducted by the Abbotsford police".  Snyder was pulled from the home he shares with Ryan and  Jen Johnson, the day before his wedding, arrested in his boxers and carried to a jail where he was held (still in his boxers) for several hours as a result of some sort of 'special' and 'unofficial' deal between the police and the US military.
 
Glass, Key, Snyder and Johnson are part of a movement of resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Darrell Anderson, Joshua Key, Dean Walcott, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, 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.
 
 
In the United States, the press continues to believe that claims of a withdrawal garner more interest than headlines of "Some Troops May Come Home . . . Someday."  The realities were addressed on yesterday's Flashpoints:
 
 
Meanwhile in Washington the Senate a sort time ago passed a long discussed resolution that ties military funding to non-specific suggestions that President Bush accept the goal but not the requirement of removing less than half of the 150,000 US occupation troops from Iraq by the unenforceable deadline of March 2008.  Nevertheless, President Bush has promised a veto.  Today's 51 to 47 vote was mostly along party lines and now the Senate and House must resolve their respective legislation neither of which require a full withdrawal of US troops from Iraq till well after the installation of the next American president.  And that's some of the news this Thursday, March 29th, 2007.  From exile, I'm Robert Knight.
 
 
Robert Knight has been one of the consistent voices throughout. (Also on yesterday's Flashpoints, Dennis Bernstein interviewed the Washington Post's Peter Eisner.  Rebecca will be covering that late tonight.)  This week's CounterSpin (which began airing today) featured a discussion on the issue of what the US House and Senate bills actually state as opposed to the way the press has portrayed them.  Co-host Janine Jackson spoke with The Institute for Policy Studies Erik Leaver.  Leaver noted that
the bills' "terms of reference only are for combat troops and if you look at the current number of troops deployed in Iraq only half of them would be considered as are combat troops."  Jackson, noting reality versus coverage, asked, "Well then are some of the press characterizations or glosses of this as a withdrawal bill, it sounds as though that's not quite on the money?"  To which Leaver responded, "That's exactly correct."
 
 
Janine Jackson: Well looking at that broader context and we don't have much time left, the majority of the population want an end to the occupation and the war and media acknowledge that, it's their polls that show that, but it doesn't seem somehow guide the questions that they ask or the sources that speak to and I wonder in this case were there not other pieces of legislation that maybe came closer to what the public was calling for?  Was there no way for journalists to kind of put this in the context of: "Is this going to end the war sooner?"
 
Eric Leavler:  I think that is the missing element in the story.  Again, if the news media reported on: "This brings half the troops home" I think you would see a lot more public discontent about the bill and they would  perhaps I think there would be a lot more dissatisfied with Democrats than they are. 
 
Michael Shank (Foreign Policy in Focus) interviews US House Rep and 2008 presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich explains why he refused to vote 'yes' on the House bill, "It's very simple: the bill kept the war going.  I want to see this war end.  I have created, with the help of people who worked on security and peacekeeping missions for years, a plan to end the war.  It's embodied in H.R. 1234.  It would end the U.S. occupation, close the bases, bring the troops home, establisha parallel process creating a peacekeeping and security force, reach out to the nations of the region and the international community for help -- something we won't get as long as we continue to occupy Iraq.  That plan is much more expansive and in the course of this interview I'd be happy to over it with you but in short, I oppose the resolution because it kept funding the war.  And I say we need to the war now.  Not a year from now, not two years from now, not five or ten years from now, but now."
 

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