Tuesday, June 19, 2007

THIS JUST IN! MIKE BLOOMBERG'S A WHAT!

 
NEW YORK CITY MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG SENT SHOCK WAVES THROUGH THE PRESS CORPS TODAY BY ANNOUNCING HE WAS SWITCHING HIS REGISTRATION TO "INDEPENDENT."
 
IN WHAT IS SEEN AS A POTENTIAL BID TO COURT THE "BOTH PARTIES ARE THE SAME SO LET'S PUT THEM ON ONE TICKET!" UNITY (SMALL) CROWD, MIKE BLOOMBERG STEPPED OUT OF HIS CLOSET TO ANNOUNCE THAT HE WAS NOT A REPUBLICAN.
 
REACTION ON THE STREETS OF NYC HAS BEEN LESS EXTREME THAN IN THE PRESS.  SAID A FALAFEL DEALER, "HE WAS A REPUBLICAN?  WELL AT LEAST RUDY'S STILL A DEMOCRAT."  A HOT DOG VENOR TOLD THESE REPORTERS, "I SUSPECTED HE WAS HIDING SOMETHING.  YOU CAN ALWAYS JUST TELL.  I FIGURED HE WAS EITHER A CROSSING DRESSING SERIAL KILLER OR A METH ADDICT SO THIS NEWS DOESN'T EVEN SHOCK ME THOUGH I AM GLAD TO KNOW HE HAS NO ADDICTION."  A SHOPPER TAKING A REST IN TIMES SQAURE SAID, "MIKE BLOOMFIELD?  I SAW HIM AT MONTEREY. I DID NOT KNOW HE WAS STILL RECORDING BUT IF HE WANTS TO BE AN INDEPENDENT, I CAN LIVE WITH THAT."  AND ROY TOLD THESE REPORTERS, "METS RULE!  METS RULE!  METS RULE!"
 
TO HONOR THE 'HIGH' 'STANDARDS' OF THE PRESS CORPS WE BELONG TO, WE SHOULD NOTE THAT THE POLLING DEMONSTRATES 100% OF NEW YORKERS HAVE NO OBJECTION.  OUR SAMPLE SIZE WAS FOUR AND WE NOW FEEL WE'RE READY TO GO TO WORK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES POLLING TEAM.
 
 
 
Iraq Veterans Against the War's Adam Kokesh appeared yesterday on Mark Levine's Inside Scoop discussing many topics for the hour.  He explained how he wanted to do reconstruction and looked forward to that before he went to Iraq.  After he had been there awhile:
 
I realized though that there was a futility in it.  That what we were doing on our small scale may be good for the Iraqis we were dealing with, you know, may be good that there's another clinic there, another school, these are great things that Iraq needs.  But in the scale of things, in the greater scale of things we're imposing martial law on a country and for every insurgent we kill today we piss of so many people in the process the next day we have two to kill.  And what the country really needs is rule of law. And in order to have military civil affairs. . .  in Iraq, we're imposing military law on the country and you can't create a standard rule of law that we take for granted in America with law enforcement, courts and precedent and a stable legal system with a foreign military there imposing martial law. . . .
There was a lot of resentment about that [US remaining].  It was like "Okay you got rid of Saddam, thanks, we'll take it from here." And everything that we tried to step in and do for them was really resented. 
 
It's an hour long interview, available for online streaming.  On the topic of aspirations and realities, Christina Hamlett (American Chronicle) reviews Plays and Playwrights 2007 and notes that "this anthonlogy is Brendon Bates' Corps Value in which a father's sense of duty to country is challenged when the Marine son he is so proud of for kicking ass in Iraq suddenly announces that he feels the war is unjust and is, therefore, turning AWOL. . . . Plays and Playwrights 2007 is a trade paperback of 492 pages".  Michael Criscuolo (NYTE) discusses the play with Brendon Bates who notes that the question he's raising "is our objective(s) in Iraq worth all this suffering?"
 
It's a question many ask and it's prompted action.  That includes those like Kokesh who serve and come back to speak out.  It also includes those resisting while still serving (depite the decision of the 'hearing,' Kokesh's service ended the second he was moved to IRR). 
The movement of resistance within the US military grows and includes Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Care, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty 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, Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
 
 
In Baghdad today, a truck bombing has resulted in mass deaths.  It is already the deadliest bombing since April 18th when 191 Iraqis were killed.  Richard Beeston (Times of London) sets the scene: "One of Baghdad's busiest commercial districts shuddered with the impact of the afternoon explosion, which went off in a parking lot near the Kholani mosque, one of Baghdad's best known landmarks.  A huge pall of black smoke obscured the area.  When it cleared the distinctive turquoise dome of the shrine appeared undamaged bu the explosion wreaked havoc in the crowded streets below." BBC observes that the usual Baghdad checkpoints along with mid-day traffic led to traffic jams in the time before the bomb exploded.  Julian E. Barnes and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) note that a house and some shops were destroyed and at least twenty cars were "ablaze" from the bombing.  CBS and AP report that shooting followed the explosion and quote eye witnesses Karim Abdullah stating, "I stopped in shock as I saw the smoke and people on the ground.  I saw two or three men in flames as they were getting out of their car."  AFP reports that, in the aftermath of the bombing, there was a rush to pull people out of burning cars and from underneath the rubble and "[g]roups of women wailed, while others chanted that the explosion was the work of those who blew up a Shiite shrine in the northern city of Samarra last Wednesday."  Al Jazeera notes the death toll to be 78 with 130 injured.  Beeston (Times of London) puts the injured at 200 and observes, "The move was a particular blow to the US military, which had earlier launched a massive military offensive outside Baghdad aimed at disrupting al-Qaeda from carrying out precisely the sort of attack that took place in the capital."  Reuters puts the wounded at 224 (78 for the dead).
 
CNN provides the following back story: "The mosque damaged in Tuesday's attack houses the tomb of Mohammed al-Khalani, who was the second deputy and messenger of the Mehdi, the 12th imam from the early days of Islam who is revered by Shiites.  The Mehdi is said to have disappeared during the funeral of his father in the 9th century.  Sunnis believe Allah withdrew the Mehdi from the eyes of the people and they are waiting for him to reappear as their leader."  And Simon Tisdall (Guardian of London) notes, "The mosque's imam, Sheikh Saleh al-Haidari, said civilian worshippers had been targeted in the blast as they left afternoon prayers."
 
 

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