Thursday, September 13, 2007

THIS JUST IN! UGLY BULLY'S BACKSTAGE PROBLEMS!

 
MERE HOURS AWAY FROM THE DEBUT OF UGLY BULLY, AIRING AFTER UGLY BETTY ON ABC TONIGHT, BULLY BOY RECEIVED BAD NEWS.
 
THE SCRIPT HE REHEARSED INCLUDED LAVISH PRAISE FOR THE "MODEL PROVINCE" (TRADEMARK PENDING TO TONY SNOW) AL ANBAR BUT TODAY'S NEWS INCLUDED THE DEATH OF HIS CHIEF COLLABORATOR -- WHO DINED WITH BULLY BOY LAST MONDAY -- BY A BOMBING.
 
BULLY BOY WAS SO UPSET HE BEGAN ATTEMPTING TO GO ON A BENDER.  SADLY, LAURA BUSH REFUSED TO SHARE ANY OF HER BEER, INSISTING, "I ONLY HAVE 3 SIX PACKS!  I MAY NOT MAKE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT!"
 
REMEMBER HIS DAYS IN HOUSTON, BULLY BOY BEGAN LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO SNORT BUT SADLY COULD ONLY FIND GROUND RED PEPPER WHICH HE PROCEEDED TO SNORT 15 LINES OF.
 
"IT WAS SCARY FOR A BIT," EXPLAINED U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE AND ANGER CONDI RICE TO THESE REPORTERS.  "WE HAD TO SUMMON A DOCTOR BECAUSE HE HAS AN INTENSE SNEEZING AND WHEEZING FIT.  HIS EYES ARE BLOOD SHOT BUT AMERICA ALREADY OVERLOOKS THAT SO WE WERE FINE THERE BUT THERE WAS NO WAY, WITH THAT HOARSE VOICE, HE COULD PERFORM THE OPENING NUMBER SO WE CUT THAT."
 
BULLY BOY WAS HOLED UP IN HIS DRESSING ROOM IN CURLERS REPORTEDLY CONSUMING VAST AMOUNTS OF CHINESE FOOD AND ICED TEA TO FLUSH THE SNORTED RED PEPPER OUT OF HIS SYSTEM.
 
 
Ugly Bully follows Ugly Betty in primetime as Bully Boy -- currently at a 36% approval rating in the latest CNN poll "unchanged from an August poll and barely above where it was in January" -- attempts to resell his illegal war all over again.  But there's a problem with the sales pitch.  The "model province" was Al-Anbar Province (if you believed the soft and easy press -- that was never reality).  And now . . . a plot twist.
 
 
 
Starting with war resisters and returning to the roundtable where Brian Lenzo and Kyle Brown (US Socialist Worker) speak with war resister Eli Israel, war resister Camilo Mejia and Phil Aliff.  Lenzo and Brown asked Mejia and Israel why they made a decision to resist?
Mejia replies, "I got tired of being afraid.  I realized that with everything that happened in Iraq -- and a lot of messed-up sh*t happened, from the torture of prisoners to the killing of civilians to the unnecessary exposure of our own troops -- and the inability to stand for what I believed was the right thing to do, and being there with the political conviction that the war was wrong, freedom really has nothing to do with not being in shackles or chains but with your own ability to do what you believe in your heart to be the right thing to do.  I had to overcome my fear.  I knew all along what the right thing was but I hadn't had the freedom to act upon that belief.  It got to the point where I could no longer conciliate my conscience with my military duty, and I decided that whenever being a good soldier and being a good human being came into conflict, the right thing to do was be a good human being."
 
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, 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 [(877) 447-4487], 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.
 
 
 
Resistance is ongoing in the US and gearing up for Saturday, September 15th (see ANSWER for more information) mass protests will be taking place in DC and IVAW will lead a "die-in". This will be part of a several days of action lasting from the 15th through the 18th. September 17th IVAW will kick off Truth in Recruiting. CODEPINK will be conducting a Peoples March Inside Congress (along with other groups and individuals) on September 17th. United for Peace & Justice (along with others) will begin Iraq Moratorium on September 21st and follow it every third Friday of the month as people across the country are encouraged to wear and distribute black ribbons and armbands, purchase no gas on those Fridays, conduct vigils, pickets, teach-ins and rallies, etc. 
 
[. . .]
 
Turning to other news, Wednesday on WBAI's Wakeupcall Radio, Sue Udry (United For Peace and Justice) spoke with Deepa Fernades about [PDF format warning] "Iraq: The People's Report" which details a number of issues including the Iraqi refugee crisis, the lack of power and potable water.  Udry noted, "We're up close to half a trillion dollars -- five hundred billion dollars spent in Iraq. And the Bush administration is asking -- we're still not sure how much more he wants.  But between 140 and 200 billion more.  But that-that five-hundred billion could have been spent on for example, in the US could have built, over 4 million affordable housing units we could have paid 7 million public school teachers, we could have insured 272 million unisured childred."
 
The report  has many strong points.  But it's already led to complaints on campuses we've spoken at this week.  The question students want to know (wording it nicely here): Is there a reason Phyllis Bennis and Eric Lever low ball the number of Iraqis who have lost their lives?  "Estimates range from 71,017-600,000+" is shameful.  If they're going to go with the lower estimate (Iraq Body Count) it is incumbent upon Bennis and Lever to use the correct number from the Lancet Study which WAS NOT six-hundred-thousand-plus.  It was 655,000-plus. [PDF format warning] "Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey" was written by Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy and Les Roberts.  From the third paragraph of the summary: "We estimate that as of July 2006, there have been 654 965 (392979-942636) which corresponds to 2-5% of the population in the study area."  The number is 654,965 and that was the number through July 2006 -- last year.  In October of 2006, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) began the interview she and Juan Gonzalez conducted with Les Brown noting, "More than 650,000 people have died in Iraq since the U.S. led invasion of the country began in March of 2003.  This is according to a new study published in the scientific journal, The Lancet.  The studdy was conducted by researches at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad."  On March 27th of this year, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted, "BBC News is reporting the British government ignored the conclusions of its own experts when it dismissed a medical studdy estimating more than 650,000 Iraqis have died due to the Iraq war.  The study appeared in the British medical journal the Lancet last year.  Researches based their findings on interviews with a random sampling of households taken in clusters across Iraq.  In newly-released memos, the chief scientific adviser at Britain's Ministry of Defence called the researcher's methods 'close to best practice' and 'robust.'  Both the US and Britain publicly rejected the study and criticized its methods."
 
That may be understandable from government liars.  It is not understandable from peace groups. What could have been a strong resource for UFPJ has instead become a source of mockery or a source of anger on several college campuses.  And you know what?  The students are right to be angry.  Saying 600,000 is dishonest. And the number was over 600,000 in July of 2006 -- over a year ago.  Things like getting the numbers wrong (intentionally) go a long way towards explaining why so many students against the illegal war are writing off the established peace movement.  This is the warning and groups can heed it or they can ignore it.  But stunts like that are exactly why students are washing their hands of a number of groups and see them as inherently useless.  (The authors of the report should also be paying attention to the reaction.  Especially Bennis because she's better known and that's not a good thing in this instance.) 
 
1,040,369 is the current estimate of Iraqis killed during the illegal war.  That number is via Just Foreign Policy which uses the Lancet study as well as the deaths reported since then -- and notes that all deaths are not reported so the number is higher than their estimate.   In September of 2007, you need to do better than offer up a number from July of 2006 (which you still get wrong) and when you don't, you better accept the questions you're inviting about exactly how much value you place on Iraqi lives because the student movement has moved beyond the nonsense that's being pushed off on them.  They're not the timid crowd and they're not going to take direction from anyone but especially not from those they don't trust.  Something as basic as the numbers leads to questions, not trust.
 
 
Finally, on PBS' NOW with David Brancaccio: this week (Friday's on most PBS stations), the program expands to an hour for a special look at the Third Infantry's First Brigade which is on it's third deployment to Iraq. A preview is posted at YouTube. The earlier broadcast of interviewing the Third Infantry's First Brigade can be found here. And NOW is offering an online exclusive of interviews with members of the Third Infantry and their spouses.
 
 

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