Saturday, August 25, 2007

THIS JUST IN! DNC TO FLORIDA :"DROP DEAD!"

 
 
THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE IS IN AN UPROAR AND MAKING THREATS.  IRONICALLY IT WAS THE G.O.P. THAT SPAT ON FLORIDA VOTERS IN THE 2000 GENERAL ELECTION BY DISENFRANCHISING THEM.
 
TODAY IT'S THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
 
 
IOWA'S DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIR BOASTED AND BRAGGED, "I THINK IT'S A GOOD SIGN FOR IOWA." 
 
AND THAT'S WHAT REALLY MATTERS?
 
DOES THE DNC NOT GET THAT THE REST OF THE COUNTRY IS DAMN SICK OF BEING IGNORED WHILE MONTHS ARE SPENT IN IOWA AND NEW HAMPSHIRE -- NEITHER OF WHICH CAN CLAIM TO BE THE FIRST STATE IN THE UNION SO THEY'RE GETTING TO HOLD THE FIRST PRIMARIES EACH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEAR CAN'T EVEN BE JUSTIFIED ON THOSE GROUNDS.
 
THE SYSTEM IS SCREWED AND VOTERS AROUND THE COUNTRY ARE SCREWED OVER.  IF THE DNC WANTS TO INJECT THEMSELVES INTO STATE PRIMARY DEADLINES THEY SHOULD IMMEDIATELY FIX THE BROKEN SYSTEM THAT REWARDS A HANDFUL OF PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN TWO STATES WITH VERY SMALL POPULATIONS.
 
THE DNC SHOULD USE THIS DISCUSSION TO ANNOUNCE THAT THEY WILL ROTATE THE PRIMARIES THE WAY THE OLYMPICS ARE ROTATED.  BUT DON'T EXPECT TO SEE THAT. 
 
THE DNC IS SO SCREWED UP RIGHT NOW THAT HOWARD DEAN'S CRY OF RUN IN EVERY STATE HAS NOW MUTED INTO, "FLORIDA, DO WHAT WE SAY OR NONE OF YOUR CITIZENS' VOTES WILL COUNT."
 
FLORIDA SHOULD MOVE UP THEIR PRIMARY AND IF THE DNC WANTS TO THREATEN ONE OF THE LARGEST STATES IN THE NATION WITH DISENFRANCHISEMENT, YOU BETTER BELIEVE FLORIDA WILL GO REPUBLICAN IN 2008 WITHOUT THE G.O.P. HAVING TO BREAK ANY LAWS.  AND, SOMETHING TO KEEP IN MIND, FLORIDA HAS MORE VOTES IN THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE THAN DOES IOWA.
 
AS BRIAN E. CROWLEY OBSERVES "DNC TO FLORIDA: DON'T NEED YOU, DON'T WANT YOU" (PALM BEACH POST).
 
 
 
Starting with war resistance.  This week's NOW with David Brancaccio (PBS, begins airing in most markets Friday nights) takes a look at war resistance:

Choosing to go to war is both a government's decision and one made by individual enlistees. But changing your mind once you're in the army is a risky decision with serious consequences. On Friday, August 24 (checkyour local listings), we talk to two soldiers who went AWOL and eventually left the Army, but who took very different paths. NOW captures the moment when one man turns himself in, and when another applies for refugee status in Canada, becoming one of the 20,000 soldiers who have deserted the army since the War in Iraq began. Each describes what drove him to follow his conscience over his call to duty, and what penalties and criticism were endured as a result. "I see things differently having lived through the experience," former army medic Agustin Aguayo tells NOW. "When I returned from Iraq, after much reflection I knew deep within me I could never go back."The NOW website at www.pbs.org/now will offer more insight into the case made by conscientious objectors, as well as more stories of desertion in the ranks.

In addition to the broadcast, a preview of the show is posted at YouTube.  And the show will be available in various forms (audio, video, text -- though maybe not in full) at the NOW with David Brancaccio site.
 
Camilo Mejia is the new chair of Iraq Veterans Against the War. The decision of the new board members of IVAW were made last weekend.  Tony Pecinovsky (People's Weekly World) reports on the Veterans for Peace conference and quotes Mejia explaining, "There is no greater argument against war than the experience of war itself. In the military you're not free to decide for yourself what is right and wrong. The fog of war is very real. Your main concern is staying alive" and explaining his decision to self-checkout, "I couldn't return knowing that we are committing war crimes. This war is criminal. But I'm no longer a prisoner of fear. I have hope that we can end this war."  IVAW is gearing up for their big Truth in Recruting  campaign.  Adam Kokesh, who is co-chair of IVAW, is currently doing workshops (tonight at St. Bede's at the corner of St. Francis and San Mateo 7-9 pm PST). And Camilo Mejia tells his story in his own story of resistance in his new book Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia. 
 
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, 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, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
 
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at 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. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
 
Turning to the jibber-jabber.  The NIE was released yesterday.  It is a much kinder and less explicit version of Peter W. Galbraith's "Iraq: The Way to Go" (The New York Review of Books, August 16, 2007).  In the essay, Galbraith writes, "The Iraq war is lost.  Of course, neither the President nor the war's intellectual architects are prepared to admit this.  Nonetheless, the specter of defeat shapes their thinking in telling ways.  The case for the war is no longer defined by the benefits of winning -- a stable Iraq, democracy on the march in the Middle East, the collapse of the evil Iranian and Syrian regimes -- but by the consequences of defeat."  If that stance is still not clear, Alex Spillius (Telegraph of London) reports: "Frontline generals in Iraq spoke openly yesterday of the need to have a government that could function and guarantee security above all else, including democratic legitimacy.  Brig Gen John Bednarek, who commands forces in Diyala province, told CNN that 'democratic institutions are not necessarily the way ahead in the long-term future'."  As all the lies are dropped, the reality of the crimes being committed may be grasped.  Maybe not.
Michael Ware and Thomas Evans (CNN) report that "officials now say they are willing to settle for a government that functions and can bring security."  Yesterday, White House flack Gordon Johndroe declared (in Crawford, TX) that "we know that there are significant challenges ahead, especially in the political area. I would say that the strategy laid out by the President on January 10th was a strategy that provided for security first, so that there would be space for political reconciliation. The surge did not get fully operational until mid-summer. It is not surprising -- it is frustrating, but it's not surprising that the political reconciliation is lagging behind the security improvements. I think that is the way the strategy was laid out."  The 'improved' security is a lie.  Repeating, Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) reporting earlier this month that the US military claims of 'progress' were based on numbers they would not release and that McClatchy Newspapers' figures do not track with the findings the US military has trumpeted: "U.S. officials say the number of civilian casualties in the Iraqi capital is down 50 percent. But U.S. officials declined to provide specific numbers, and statistics gathered by McClatchy Newspapers don't support the claim." But clearly the generals, the officials and the White House are all on the same page regarding the 'problems' with democracy -- pure chance, of course. 
 
Greg Miller (Los Angeles Times) summarizes the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE): "Despite some military progress, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki is unable to govern his country effecitvely and the political situation is likely to become even more precarious in the next six to 12 months, the nation's intelligence agencies concluded in a new assessment released  Thursday.  The document, an update of a National Intelligence Estimate delivered in January, represents the view of all 16 U.S. spy agencies."
 
'Democracy' on hold or out the window . . . what to do, what to do?  Bring in a 'strong man' dictator?  Reuters reports that 3 "secularist ministers . . . will formally quit" the cabinet of Nour al-Maliki today and that three are from Iyad Allawi's party. Yesterday Democracy Now! noted  Allawyi is working with "Republican lobbying firm Barbour, Griffith, and Rogers" in an effort to become the new prime minister of Iraq (Allawi was previously interim prime minister). CIA asset Allawi was still working with the CIA in 2003, as Jim Lobe (Foreign Policy in Focus) noted, in attempted "Iraqification" which was a popular thing in late 2003 as the White House and hand maidens of the press attempted to treat "Iraqification" as a process which would put Iraqis in control.  The policy was at odds with much of the White House's aims and never got off the ground.  Had it, it still wouldn't have allowed for Iraqi control.  Allawi was interim Prime Minister following the start of the illegal war and, during that time, he made his 'mark' early on.  Paul McGeough (Sydney Morning Herald via Common Dreams, July 2004) reported in July 2004:  "Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings. They say the prisoners - handcuffed and blindfolded - were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security center, in the city's south-western suburbs."
 
Never having been handed democracy, Iraqis now face the very likely prospect that the puppet (al-Maliki) will be replaced with a dictator/strong man.  It's not about what the Iraqis want or desire on the US government's end, it's just more of the same.  A point driven home by the announcement that Abdel-Salam Aref has died in Jordan.  In 2004, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) explained, "The US-installed regime in Iraq said last night it would pay a monthly pension to a former president overthrown more than 35 years ago in a coup that brought Saddam Hussein's Baath party to power. The Iraqi Governing Council says it will pay Abdel-Rahman Aref $1,000 a month and allocate $5,000 to cover his medical bills in Jordan. Aref rose to prominence in 1963 when he was appointed army chief of staff by his elder brother, then President Abdel-Salam Aref. He was overthrown in July of 1968 in a coup that was aided by the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA also gave the Baath Party the names of some 5,000 Iraqi Communists who were then hunted down and killed or imprisoned. Following the coup, Baath party leader Ahmed Hasan al-Bakr became president, with Saddam as his right hand man."
 
 
 

Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and hotels with Yahoo! FareChase.
Posted by at