Saturday, September 08, 2007

THIS JUST IN! HOPRAH TRIES TO SAVE OBAMA!

 
WAR HAWK, CHICKEN SOP FOR THE SOUL DISPENSER, U.S. SENATOR AND PRESIDENTIAL WANNABE BARACK OBAMA HAS FOUND HIMSELF IN EVEN DEEPER DO-DO.
 
 
WHEN ASKED, ONE CAMPAIGN STAFFER ADMITTED THAT THE MOVE WAS RISKY.
 
"WE'RE TALKING ABOUT A WOMAN PLAUGED BY RUMORS FOR YEARS," ADMITS THE STAFFER.  "ARE SHE AND GAYLE REALLY JUST FRIENDS?  IF NOT AND OPRAH'S FORCED OUT THE CLOSET, IT WILL DO TREMENDOUS HARM TO THE CAMPAIGN BECAUSE OPRAH HASN'T JUST DENIED THAT SHE'S A LESBIAN, SHE ALSO GOT MILEAGE IN THE 90S FOR HER 'TOLERANCE' AND GUEST STARRING ON ELLEN AS THE SHRINK WHO HELPED ELLEN REALIZE SHE'S GAY.  HOPRAH WILL LOOK LIKE THE WORLD'S BIGGEST HYPOCRITE SO WE'RE ALL PRAYING THAT IF THE RUMORS ARE TRUE, THEY STAY RUMORS UNTIL AFTER OBAMA CAN GET PUMPED UP IN THE POLLS.  I SHOULD ADD THAT WE'RE REALLY GRATEFUL TO OPRAH FOR ALLOWING HER FAME TO BE PIMPED FOR THE SENATOR'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN.  SHE DOESN'T PIMP JUST ANYTHING.  SHE'S VERY CHOOSEY.  IN FACT, THE LAST POLITICAL THING I'M AWARE OF IS WHEN SHE ALLOWED HER SHOW TO BE USED FOR A PROPAGANDA PUSH CLAIMING THAT THERE WERE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION IN IRAQ.  SHE'S VERY CHOOSEY, VERY CHOOSEY."
 
 

Starting with war resisters. Daryl Shandro (Political Affairs) reports on how the influx of war resisters into Canada has created the need for new chapters to be created (they were -- Ottawa, Kingston, Hamilton and London) and shares how war resister Steve Yoczik spoke informatively and amusingly about his own experience to a group in Sudbury: "Steve waged a concerted bid to be kicked out of the army. Over a period of months, he deliberately failed between 50 and 100 physical tests. When it became obvious that the officers would not file three consecutive failing reports so as to have his status reviewed, Steve started to fail to appear for the tests and was flippant, if not outright insubordinate, if these absences brought any reporach. Steve figures he was gone for a while before anyone realized that he was AWOL. He found out about the War Resisters Support Campaign in Canada through a friend -- a model soldier and US patriot who disagreed so strongly with the war in Iraq that he fled to Canada rather than participate in it." Shandro notes Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey's appeals to Canada's Supreme Court and that the "continues to lobby for the political solution: these War Resisters must be given sanctuary under a separate immigration category, much like the US war resisters of the Vietnam era received under the Trudeau government. In Sudbuy we are now fielding a serious inquiry every week from War Resisters. These are people 'checking into' Toronot and then moving to their host city within hours or days. They are calling from Germany (military hosipital) and bases all over the continental U.S., and they are coming. In Toronto the serious inquiries are about three a week; arrivals, both anticipated and unanticipated, are becoming more and more frequent."

Ehren Watada is also resisting the Iraq War. In June 2006, he became the first known officer to publicly refuse to deploy the war (he cited the illegal nature of the war). In February of this year, Judge Toilet (aka John Head) presided over the court-martial of Watada. Watada had elected to go with a jury of his peers. Judge Toilet saw Watada's case was being made for him by the prosecution witness and attempted to flush justice by delcaring a mistrial -- over defense objection and over the initial objection of the prosecution -- Toilet had to coax the prosecution into seeing that what he was offering was a 'do over.' However, the Constitution does not allow for 'do overs' and, as National Lawyers Guild president Marjorie Cohn has noted, double-jeopardy had already attached. Currently, Watada is due to stand for another court-martial next month. The appeals process are ongoing. Judge Toilet has said there is no double-jeopary and that he can be impartial and should be allowed to sit on a second court-martial. Howls of laughter echo through the land at both assertions. Last month, we noted the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL)'s statement regarding Watada. On Wednesday, Caroline Aoyagi-Strom (New American Media) noted the JACL's statement and the struggle it took to get that weak statement and notes Mas Hashimoto declaring, "Today we are at a crossroads. What kind of organization are we going to be? We need to take a stand, a firm and dedicated stand." while Alan Nishi declares, "We should take a more solid stance than we have in the past." The stand taken thus far is to note that Watada has civil rights and that he is "protected from double jeopardy" and, as Aoyagi-Strom notes, JALC is now supposed "to help educate other groups on the controversial issue."



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, 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. The G.I. Rights Hotline link has been included in the snapshots forever now, but please note that this is a new website. The new website is still being upgarded (but working) and with the new website comes a new phone number (877) 4474487 which is "GI RGHTS" the name but missing the second "I". To make sure everyone's aware that there is a new number and a new (toll free) number, we'll included this notice in the snapshot all week. Again, The G.I. Rights Hotline is a new and improved (and new and improving) website that will begin replacing the old site.
 
[. . .]
 
Not content to be useless, a number are gearing up for DC actions this month. Paul Schwartzman (Washington Post) reports that in Lafayette Square Thursday, the police staged a big rollout to disrupt a press conference and 'deal' with the very important 'crime' of sign posting. One police officer attempted to 'disarm' Tina Richards who held menacing glue (wheat paste). Schwartman reports, "A few feet away, Kristine Klein, 13, Richards's daughter, started crying. She said that another officer had grabbed her arm and pushed her. As Richards tried to call to her daughter from the cruiser, another officer closed the window." What a proud moment for DC police. They also nabbed Adam Kokesh and Ian Thompson. Don't you feel safer? The three were charged with "defacing public property." Descrating the Constitution is a-okay in DC which is why Bully Boy's still sitting pretty and not facing impeachment. But try to post a flier, and it's SWAT time. The Times of India quotes A.N.S.W.E.R.'s Brian Becker declaring, "The police suppressed the press conference. In the middle of the speeches, they grabbed the podium. Then, mounted police charged the media present to disperse them." The Times of India notes, "The charge caused a peaceful crowd of some 20 journalists and four or five protestors to scatter in terror, an AFP correspondent at the event in Layfayette Square said." The press conference was intended to get the word out on the actions in DC beginning September 15th with a march and a die-in. A.N.S.W.E.R. has a press release with photos and note the police officer pulling Kokesh's left arm behind his back to save the capital from . . . a posted flier. A video is posted on YouTube. You'll hear chatter about "a national security threat" as DC police swarm in. You'll see a police officer jerk Tina Richards by her arm repeatedly, call for "backup" over his radio before grabbing the bucket of paste. Backup takes a while to arrive (with sirens). Then a real idiot on horseback comes galloping up screeching, "Back up, folks, back up, back up, back up, back up" over and over like the idiot he is. The entire point was to disrupt the statements that Tina Richards was making to the press at the time.

Richards and Kokesh do not represent a minority view in the US. Nor are they in the minority around the world. A new BBC poll of 22 countries has found 39% say troops home right now and another "28% backed a gradual pull-out" while only 23% declared US troops should "stay until Iraq was safe".
 
 
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Thursday, September 06, 2007

THIS JUST IN! LAURA SAYS BULLY BOY IS NUTS!

 
DISCUSSING HER DAUGHTER'S UPCOMING WEDDING WHILE SLIGHTLY TIPSY TODAY, FIRST LADY LAURA BUSH REVEALED THAT THE BULLY BOY IS SO INSANE HE THINKS THE DOG BARNEY IS HIS SON. 
 
SHE REFUSED TO REVEAL WHERE THE WEDDING WOULD BE HELD LEADING TO SPECULATION THAT THE RUMORS ARE TRUE AND BULLY BOY (PICTURED BELOW IN A WEDDING DRESS MEETING FUTURE SON IN LAW HENRY HAGER) THINKS HE HIMSELF IS THE BRIDE.
 
bullbyomeetsjenna'sfiance
 
 
 
Staring with war resisters, Carolyn Nikodym (Canada's VUE Weekly) reports that the bands Nikki's Trick and Skull Device are getting the word out on war resisters in Canada via a cross country tour in Canada and that war resister Patrick Hart is Skull Device's lead guitarist. The tour is called "The Refuse and Resist Tour" and kicks off September 8th with a performance at The Office, 16 Cumberland Street South, Thunder Bay, Ontario.  Nikodym writes, "Patrick Hart's days in Canada are numbered.  The AWOL American soldier applied for refugee status here.  His application was denied.  He filed an appeal.  His appeal was denied.  It's his story, and similar stories of the other 30 or so soldiers seeking asylum in Canada, that the Refuse and Resist Tour wants to spread."  Nikodym explains how, after nine years of service, Hart decided he couldn't fight in the illegal war and he, Jill Hart and their child Rian made the decision to leave Fort Campbell and go to Canada.  Meanwhile People's Voice (Political Affairs) lists fifty-two reasons why the conservative Tory government in Canada needs to go including: "12. Nothing on Iraq disaster Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died as a direct result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which violated the most fundamental principles of international law. Nearly half a million Iraqis have fled their homes and registered for government aid. Even though most Iraqis feel their situation was better before the U.S.-led invasion, Harper, who supported the American-led Iraq War in 2003 even before becoming PM, has said nothing about the disastrous military occupation of that country. [;] 13. Ignoring war resisters Canada has granted asylum to only 14 of 740 U.S. refugee claimants in the past three years -- all of them babies born in the United States to foreign couples. All claims filed by U.S. Army war resisters have been rejected, even as the Iraq disaster rages on."  Currently, Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey are waiting to hear if Canada's Supreme Court will hear their appeal on their refugee status.
 
 
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, 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.  The G.I. Rights Hotline link has been included in the snapshots forever now, but please note that this is a new website.  The new website is still being upgarded (but working) and with the new website comes a new phone number (877) 4474487 which is "GI RGHTS" the name but missing the second "I".  To make sure everyone's aware that there is a new number and a new (toll free) number, we'll included this notice in the snapshot all week.  Again, The G.I. Rights Hotline is a new and improved (and new and improving) website that will begin replacing the old site.
 
In yesterday's snapshot, Zach was quoted regarding NOW with David Brancaccio having profiled war resisters and used the term.  This week (Friday night on most PBS stations), NOW with David Brancaccio takes a look at another issue in today's military:
 
Roughly one in seven of America's active duty military soldiers is a woman, but a NOW investigation found that sexual assault and rape is widespread. One study of National Guard and Reserve forces found that almost one in four women had been assaulted or raped. Last year alone, almost 3,000 soldiers reported sexual assault and rape by other soldiers.

On Friday, September 7 (check your local listings), in one of the only national television broadcasts of the issue, NOW features women who speak out for the first time about what happened. One woman recounts her ordeal of rape by her superior officer. Many more don't report the incidents for fear of how it will affect their careers. The shocking phenomenon has a label: military sexual trauma, or MST.

NOW meets women courageously battling to overcome their MST, bringing light to an issue that's putting the army in shame. A NOW exclusive investigation. The NOW website at www.pbs.org/now will offer the latest statistics on MST and insight into the challenges of reporting sexual abuse in the military
 
That's this weekend (Friday on most PBS stations) on NOW with David Brancaccio.  Today on Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman spoke with student Kot Hordynski about what it's like to be part of a group spied on by the US government (Students Against War):
 
KOT HORDYNSKI: Uh-huh. Yes, of course. I mean, you know, it was a pretty startling notion to realize that our peaceful protest made it onto a government database. But we realized that we had to do something about it, and so we organized, and we started speaking with the ACLU and basically trying to get to the bottom of how our group made it onto that list.
 
AMY GOODMAN: And what did you find out?
 
KOT HORDYNSKI: Well, you know, not very many conclusive things so far. The government has, of course, come out now and said that the TALON database will be closed. They've also in the past have said that all of those groups that made it onto the list that were peaceful groups that didn't belong there were put there on by mistake. But, you know, I think in many ways, as much as the TALON closure is a really good thing, I think that in many ways it's too little, too late, because I think, you know, in many ways the damage has been done. And I think --  
 
AMY GOODMAN: Did it damage your group? Did you get distracted from organizing?
 
KOT HORDYNSKI: No. You know, I think we were actually very fortunate that we didn't. We didn't get distracted, and I think as soon as we realized that this was something that was a lot more real than we had thought, that government spying was actually happening in this country, I think we realized that that meant we had to persevere and that we had to keep on doing what we were doing, because, you know, if we were doing these things that we saw as right and they were being seen as something that was a deviation from the party line, we knew that we had to keep on doing these things. But I think in a lot of other instances, you know, things like this could have a really chilling effect on society.
 
AMY GOODMAN: Tell me what you actually did, what Students Against War did -- yes, protesting the war, but the whole issue of focusing on recruitment.
 
KOT HORDYNSKI: I think, you know, simply put, if we stop recruitment, we stop the war. That's why we do counter-recruitment work. We focus a lot in the local community around the Santa Cruz area. There's a lot of recruitment that goes on in high schools, not only on college campuses. And so, what we did was we formed a group that would organize against recruitment wherever it happened. And so, even though not much recruitment goes on at the UC Santa Cruz campus, we thought that if recruiters were going to be there, it was our duty and our responsibility to confront them.
 
This follows up Goodman's interview yesterday with Anthony Romero, executive director of the ACLU on, among other topics, the government documents the ACLU obtained via FOIA about Iraqi civilians killed by US forces (Afghanistan civilians as well, just FYI). Today's broadcast also included excerpts of a discussion with Paul Ehrlich and Reagan loving George Shultz on global warming and global warring (in addition the excerpts taped last night, Goodman also interviewed Ehrlich).  Ehrlich from that disccusion:
 
I think Stanford Professor Gretchen Daily said it very well: if you think we're invading Iraq -- or would we be planning to invade Iraq if their major export were broccoli? We would just have left it. I'm not saying that this was in George Bush's head. God knows what was in his head. But certainly everybody who knew the history knew what would happen. We're now in a situation where the knowledgeable people haven't got a clue what to do, even though every person I know personally, Republican and Democrat, were opposed to the idea to begin with. Now we're in a mess where we're waiting for General Petraeus to come back and see if he's going to betray us.
 
 
Turning to retired generals,  Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) reported today, "A panel of retired US generals is urging the United States to disband and reorganize the Iraqi police force because of infiltration by sectarian militias.  The generals also report Iraq's security forces will be unable to fulfill their essential security responsibilities independently for at least another twelve to 18 months."  Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) explains that the national police force as well as the Iraq Interior Ministry are "riddled with sectarianism and corruption" by the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq headed by James Jones (Marine general) in there 150-plus page report which also finds the Iraqi army at least  a year to 18 months away from being able to handle "internal security".  Tim Reid (Times of London) reports, "The 20 member-panel also said today that the Iraqi Amry was incpable of acting independently from US forces for at least another 18 months, and 'cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven'."  In a bit of  bad timing, news of the panel's   report comes as Paul Bremer tries to stay in the news.  In Tuesday's snapshot, we noted:
 
 
Edmund L. Andrews (New York Times) reports that the former "top Iraq envoy" was not flying solo. Paul Bremer has provided the paper with correspondence which "shows that President Bush was told in advance by his top Iraq envoy in May 2003 of a plan to 'dissolve Saddam's military and intelligence structures'". Andrews writes, "In releasing the letters, Mr. Bremer said he wanted to refute the suggestion in Mr. Bush's comment that Mr. Bremer had acted to disband the army without the knowledge and concurrence of the White House." In one reply, Bully Boy lays it on thick writing, "Your leadership is apparent. You have quickly made a positive and significant impact. You have my full support and confidence."
 
Today L. Paul Bremer III learns that even writing so recklessly self-serving doesn't work out so well.  In today's New York Times, A25, he contributes "How I Didn't Dismantle Iraq's Army" which should contain the sub-heading "By Myself -- I Didn't Do It By Myself!"  The usual cast of criminals shows up -- Walter Slocombe, Paul Wolfowitz (no mention of his 'companion'), Donald of Rumsfled, Tommy Franks (& Beans), Bully Boy, etc.  Bremer wants to refute 'conventional wisdom' (someone tell him to put the gun down because conventional wisdom is the only thing keeping his public name on life support!) and spread the blame around.  That in and of itself is fine (if true) but Bremer admits he was for it then: "And it was the right decision."  He's not done: "Moreover, we were right to build a new Iraqi Army.  Despite all the difficulties encountered, Iraq's new professional soldiers are the country's most effective and trusted security forces."  Really?  What is that, a predicition?  Since they can't even "take over internal security" for at least 12 months more, what scale is Bremer grading on?  Conventional wisdom? 
 
 
 
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"

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Wednesday, September 05, 2007

THIS JUST IN! A TALE OF TWO WIVES!

 
THE SECOND MRS. ALBERTO GONZALES, REBECCA, IS BEING CREDITED WITH CONVINCING HER CRIMINAL HUSBAND TO RESIGN.  THE LATEST PLOT TWIST ADDS MORE INTRIGUE TO THE WOULD BE JACKIE COLLINS' SUMMER POT BOILER ATTORNEY GENERAL WIVES AS IT COMES AT A TIME THAT JANET ASHCROFT IS GETTING INK FOR HER RESPONSE TO ALBERTO GONZALES, THEN WHITE HOUSE MOUTHPIECE, AND ANDREW CARD VISITING HER HUSBAND JOHN IN THE HOSPITAL WHILE HE WAS RECOVERING FROM SURGERY AS THEY TRIED TO STRONG HIM INTO APPROVING THE BULLY BOY'S ILLEGAL SPYING PROGRAM.  AFTER HER HUSBAND TOLD THEM OFF, JANET ASHCROFT STUCK HER TONGUE OUT AT THE DEPARTING GONZALES AND CARD.
 
WHEN WORD REACHED FIRST LADY LAURA BUSH, SHE REPORTEDLY DECLARED, "ALL THE OTHER WIVES GET THE BEST MOMENTS."  THEN, GRABBING A SIX-PACK OF LONE STAR BEER, SHE RETIRED FOR THE EVENING.
 
 
 
"I remember one time we were driving around the city setting up checkpoints and we heard a huge explosion," remembers war resister Agustin Aguayo. "So we went to see what was happening and a vehicle of Iraqi police had been hit and my unit stayed back and I could see wounded people in the distance and we just stayed back. And I could see wounded people in the distance and we just stayed back and that seemed weird to me. A company commander was in charge of that convoy and I couldn't understand why we just stood there. So I couldn't understand why we couldn't just randomly." Aguayo went to Iraq as a medic and he's sharing the story with Aaron Glantz on The War Comes Home. The War Comes Home is a podcast that some Pacifica stations may carry as well. In addition to audio, as noted on the permalinks to the left, it also provides text. Jeff Key is another war resister Glantz speaks with. He served in Iraq and was released from the military after coming out as gay on CNN in March 2004. Glantz spoke of Key's stories on KPFK's Uprising yesterday and about The War Comes Home itself as he did on WBAI's Wakeupcall Radio today. The War Comes Home is a project Glantz will be writing, producing and narrating. It will cover a variety of issues facing service members. Today he spoke with Deepa Fernandes (Wakupcall Radio) about the large number of homeless veterans including Iraq veteran Michael Hall and how the homeless from this illegal war are already different -- Glantz explained, "What really concerns homeless advocates is that after the vets came back from Vietnam, it was nine or ten years before you start to see homeless Vietnam veterans but now we're seeing that already with the Iraq War."


Deepa Fernandes: Aaron, you've been busy because when one looks at this website, there are so many stories gathered. What links them all?

Aaron Glantz: Well what links them all is that each and every one of these stories on warcomeshome.org is about the impact going over to Iraq and really serving in this dreadful occupation has on the human soldier. . . . With each personal story, we have a fact that goes with them. And the one that just kind of sticks with me is on the story of Specialist Patrick Resta we have this fact that Walter Reed Medical Center did a study and found that 95 percent of soldiers deployed to Iraq had seen dead bodies, 95 percent had been shot at, 89 percent had been ambushed or attacked and 69 percent had seen an injured woman or child and felt they could not provide assistance. I mean, these are not things that you just walk away from when you come back to the United States. They're things that you know haunt you for the rest of your life even if you're lucky enough to have come home and not had a serious physical injury inflicted on you.

Speaking with Thenmozhi Soundararajan on yesterday's Uprising (Sonali Kolhatkar is on maternity leave), Aaron Glantz explained The War Comes Home, "What we want to do is we want to put the stories of the people who have seen the Iraq War first-hand and come back to this country, put their real life stories up on the internet and so that people can pass them around and share them." Of course, stories are online at Iraq Veterans Against the War and War Resisters Support Campaign and Courage to Resist among other places. And certainly, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) could (and time permitting surely would) assemble a special folder of their extensive and ongoing coverage of the illegal war which includes many service members sharing their stories and many Iraqis sharing their stories as well as many peace activists sharing. In the hard push for the site (as Rachel, Micah and Jonah noted of today's WBAI interview) Glantz is actually turning people off as he erects a barrier between the listeners on one side and himself and service members (he says "soldiers") on the other (translated as "Only we get it, man").

The reality is that this is really a pathetic project. I don't mean in terms of Glantz, I do mean in terms of Pacifica Radio. The illegal war hits the five year mark in March and this is all Pacifica has to show for it? (Democracy Now! is an independent program carried on Pacifica, it is not a Pacifica program.) It's not even a program, it's "spots" or "carts" that stations can insert or not for a few minutes. All this time later and no program addressing the Iraq War.

In terms of the project itself, it has its own problems. For starters, it currently has 10 profiles/stories up at the website. Look closely for any female veterans -- but look in vain. It's equally true that when Pacifica Radio elects to finally offer 'spots,' they go with the easiest thing out there: the treatment of the returning. That's the example Glantz gives in both interviews and it's what's represented at the website. It's a bit sad to hear him say these stories are beginning to get attention . . . seven months after Dana Priest and Anne Hull (Washington Post) launched their much discussed series. If the comeback is, "Oh, I meant independent media," it's equally true that Mother Jones has been an early leader on the stories of the wounded with one of the strongest photo essays. It's difficult to promote but the promotion would go down easier if Glantz appeared aware of what was already out there. Of course the story that needs to be covered -- the one that's actually not being told -- is the hunting down of war resisters in this country and outside of it.

So the indifference expressed in e-mails yesterday (after the KPFK interview) and today (after the WBAI interview) isn't surprising. And let's face it, you're dealing with a community who, unlike KPFA, didn't drop the Iraq War last summer and, unlike KPFA, doesn't get mixed up on Falluja and assume, wrongly, that November 2004 was something to be excited about. This feels like sop tossed out to listeners. Glantz is involved (and steering) so hopefully it will be something worth following. Those who've already checked it out and expressed their dismay might give it a month or two and then try again. But there's no question that the promotion has been a big mistake starting with the wall Glantz elected to erect between listeners (listeners one would assume the spots will need) on one side and himself and "soldiers" on the other. It's equally true that those who have waited and waited in vain for KPFA to create the program they owed listeners (one covering the Iraq War and only the Iraq War) are going to be more than disappointed with the easy scope (as it's being promoted by Glantz) of this project.

We already linked to it (on the permalinks) before Glantz was promoting it. If it has anything worth noting, we'll note it in a snapshot. One thing that needs to be noted is that it does feature audio and transcript. Possibly it will feature coverage of war resisters but, as Zach points out, search in vain, even in the Aguayo story, for that term. Zach: "I was going to say 'So timid it's NPR and PBS-like' but the reality is NOW with David Brancaccio profiled war resisters Agustin Aguayo and James Burmeister last month."

The War Comes Home really is timid. It's the sort of coverage to reach what, when I was a teenager, we would have seen as the blue-hair set who went to the matinees of The Odd Couple once a week to see something 'shocking'. Yes, that was a long time ago. Which makes The War Comes Home all the sadder especially when it's 'borrowing' a title that means so much more (even in this illegal war). It's non-thinking coverage that reduces it all to, "Look what they've done to our boys!" Empahsis on "our" and "boys." Rachel called it "an embarrassment to free speech radio" and I was wondering about that but now that I'm dictating this and thinking about it, she's 100% right. "War bad because of what it do to our boys." That's the "simplistic" message Glantz is putting out in the promotion and in the spots currently. (KPFA's very lucky Pauline Kael doesn't have a modern-day equivalent today.) If they can get those robo-fighters out of the planning stages, imagine how many more people can be killed around the world and, judging by projects like The War Comes Home, there will not be anything to object to because none of "our boys" are being injured or killed.

It's a candle-light, silent vigil by the likes of WalkOn.org which really calls into question whom Pacifica thinks their listening audience is? This is the sort of thing that would have fit in nicely back in the days of Baby Cries A Lot's radio show when he would start blubbering about his (adult) kids (who are not in the military) and how the US has to, has to, has to stay in Iraq. It's "anti-war" on that terrain. In the real world it's "The Stateside Minute!" covering stories that most of already well know. (As do listeners of Pacifica Radio.) It's about as 'political' as William Wyler's The Best Years Of Our Lives and let's not kid that that's going to end the illegal war. Maybe it will improve as it goes along. Maybe it will speak with Eli Israel (the first known service member to publicly refuse to serve in Iraq while stationed there)? Maybe it will explore command rape or some other topics the mainstream isn't already covering? And, let's be honest, women are the one being shut out of the discussion. Yes, Laura Flanders rightly noted that in terms of being invited to comment, but I'm talking about what I'm hearing from female veterans. They feel there was a 'flurry' of interest following the disgraceful treatment of Suzanne Swift and that interest then moved on. Certainly, the fact that The War Comes Home can post ten profile stories and not a one of them be about a woman backs their feelings up.

Though nothing at The War Comes Home yet indicates it, 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, Jeff Key, 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. The G.I. Rights Hotline link has been included in the snapshots forever now, but please note that this is a new website. The new website is still being upgarded (but working) and with the new website comes a new phone number (877) 4474487 which is "GI RGHTS" the name but missing the second "I". To make sure everyone's aware that there is a new number and a new (toll free) number, we'll included this notice in the snapshot all week. Again, The G.I. Rights Hotline is a new and improved (and new and improving) website that will begin replacing the old site.

Staying on the issue of veterans, Adam Kokesh (Sgt. Kogkesh Goes to Washington) notes that A.N.S.W.E.R. will be holding a "September 15th march from the White House to the Capital to demand an end to the occupation of Iraq. . . . followed by a week of direct action, will mark a turning point for the entire anti-war movement and possibly for the course of American Democracy. The theme of this 'protest' is 'Protesting is not enough. Come for the rally, stay for a week of direct action.' The day after the march will be a training day, followed by National Truth In Recuriting Day, Congressional Challenge Day, a day of Pentagon outreach, Veterans' Lobbying Day, and the Iraq Moratorium. There will be anumber of direct actions to participate in for those who are willing to work to bring our government back in line with the will of the people." Also noting those actions is Cindy Sheehan (writing at Common Dreams): "Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), who are leading the September 15th march, are calling for a "die-in" to end the march and begin the rally. The vets, unlike the chicken-hawk neocons, have actually served in war, particularly the one that Mr. [Willie] Kristol imagines is such a success. IVAW is asking activists to represent a killed service-member and at an appropriate time lie down. Taps will be played and also a simulated 21-gun salute. It sounds respectful to me, being the mom of one of the soldiers, and I will proudly, yet sorrowfully, be lying down for my son that day." John Nichols has a written a piece on Sheehan's campaign -- she's running for the US Congress from California's eighth district -- and when it shows up somewhere other than The Nation, we'll link to it. What we will do is note CODEPINK's Medea Benjamin (at Common Dreams) explaining some realities regarding US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's reaction to protests and hunger strikes: "It is a tactic that was successful with Senator Dianne Feinstein. After six days of having campers outside her home, Feinstein came out to have a cordial half-hour discussion with the fasters and promised a longer meeting. Not Pelosi. During the two-week campout and hunger strike, Pelosi's only interaction with the activists was her hostility toward them. Arriving home late one evening, hunger striker Toby Blome asked 'Why won't you meet with us?' 'I'll never meet with you,' the Speaker screamed. 'Get away fro my house.' When Blome asked her about the homes of all the Iraqis whose privacy we invade, Pelosi snapped and called her 'a nut'." For more on Pelosi, see "Getting to know . . . Pelosi" (The Third Estate Sunday Review).

 

 

Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha!
Play Monopoly Here and Now (it's updated for today's economy) at Yahoo! Games.
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THIS JUST IN! A TALE OF TWO WIVES!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIX MIX -- DC.

THE SECOND MRS. ALBERTO GONZALES, REBECCA, IS BEING CREDITED WITH CONVINCING HER CRIMINAL HUSBAND TO RESIGN. THE LATEST PLOT TWIST ADDS MORE INTRIGUE TO THE WOULD BE JACKIE COLLINS' SUMMER POT BOILER ATTORNEY GENERAL WIVES AS IT COMES AT A TIME THAT JANET ASHCROFT IS GETTING INK FOR HER RESPONSE TO ALBERTO GONZALES, THEN WHITE HOUSE MOUTHPIECE, AND ANDREW CARD VISITING HER HUSBAND JOHN IN THE HOSPITAL WHILE HE WAS RECOVERING FROM SURGERY AS THEY TRIED TO STRONG HIM INTO APPROVING THE BULLY BOY'S ILLEGAL SPYING PROGRAM. AFTER HER HUSBAND TOLD THEM OFF, JANET ASHCROFT STUCK HER TONGUE OUT AT THE DEPARTING GONZALES AND CARD.

WHEN WORD REACHED FIRST LADY LAURA BUSH, SHE REPORTEDLY DECLARED, "ALL THE OTHER WIVES GET THE BEST MOMENTS." THEN, GRABBING A SIX-PACK OF LONE STAR BEER, SHE RETIRED FOR THE EVENING.


FROM THE TCI WIRE:

"I remember one time we were driving around the city setting up checkpoints and we heard a huge explosion," remembers war resister Agustin Aguayo. "So we went to see what was happening and a vehicle of Iraqi police had been hit and my unit stayed back and I could see wounded people in the distance and we just stayed back. And I could see wounded people in the distance and we just stayed back and that seemed weird to me. A company commander was in charge of that convoy and I couldn't understand why we just stood there. So I couldn't understand why we couldn't just randomly." Aguayo went to Iraq as a medic and he's sharing the story with Aaron Glantz on The War Comes Home. The War Comes Home is a podcast that some Pacifica stations may carry as well. In addition to audio, as noted on the permalinks to the left, it also provides text. Jeff Key is another war resister Glantz speaks with. He served in Iraq and was released from the military after coming out as gay on CNN in March 2004. Glantz spoke of Key's stories on KPFK's Uprising yesterday and about The War Comes Home itself as he did on WBAI's Wakeupcall Radio today. The War Comes Home is a project Glantz will be writing, producing and narrating. It will cover a variety of issues facing service members. Today he spoke with Deepa Fernandes (Wakupcall Radio) about the large number of homeless veterans including Iraq veteran Michael Hall and how the homeless from this illegal war are already different -- Glantz explained, "What really concerns homeless advocates is that after the vets came back from Vietnam, it was nine or ten years before you start to see homeless Vietnam veterans but now we're seeing that already with the Iraq War."

Deepa Fernandes: Aaron, you've been busy because when one looks at this website, there are so many stories gathered. What links them all?

Aaron Glantz: Well what links them all is that each and every one of these stories on warcomeshome.org is about the impact going over to Iraq and really serving in this dreadful occupation has on the human soldier. . . . With each personal story, we have a fact that goes with them. And the one that just kind of sticks with me is on the story of Specialist Patrick Resta we have this fact that Walter Reed Medical Center did a study and found that 95 percent of soldiers deployed to Iraq had seen dead bodies, 95 percent had been shot at, 89 percent had been ambushed or attacked and 69 percent had seen an injured woman or child and felt they could not provide assistance. I mean, these are not things that you just walk away from when you come back to the United States. They're things that you know haunt you for the rest of your life even if you're lucky enough to have come home and not had a serious physical injury inflicted on you.

Speaking with Thenmozhi Soundararajan on yesterday's Uprising (Sonali Kolhatkar is on maternity leave), Aaron Glantz explained The War Comes Home, "What we want to do is we want to put the stories of the people who have seen the Iraq War first-hand and come back to this country, put their real life stories up on the internet and so that people can pass them around and share them." Of course, stories are online at Iraq Veterans Against the War and War Resisters Support Campaign and Courage to Resist among other places. And certainly, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) could (and time permitting surely would) assemble a special folder of their extensive and ongoing coverage of the illegal war which includes many service members sharing their stories and many Iraqis sharing their stories as well as many peace activists sharing. In the hard push for the site (as Rachel, Micah and Jonah noted of today's WBAI interview) Glantz is actually turning people off as he erects a barrier between the listeners on one side and himself and service members (he says "soldiers") on the other (translated as "Only we get it, man").

The reality is that this is really a pathetic project. I don't mean in terms of Glantz, I do mean in terms of Pacifica Radio. The illegal war hits the five year mark in March and this is all Pacifica has to show for it? (Democracy Now! is an independent program carried on Pacifica, it is not a Pacifica program.) It's not even a program, it's "spots" or "carts" that stations can insert or not for a few minutes. All this time later and no program addressing the Iraq War. In terms of the project itself, it has its own problems. For starters, it currently has 10 profiles/stories up at the website. Look closely for any female veterans -- but look in vain. It's equally true that when Pacifica Radio elects to finally offer 'spots,' they go with the easiest thing out there: the treatment of the returning. That's the example Glantz gives in both interviews and it's what's represented at the website. It's a bit sad to hear him say these stories are beginning to get attention . . . seven months after Dana Priest and Anne Hull (Washington Post) launched their much discussed series. If the comeback is, "Oh, I meant independent media," it's equally true that Mother Jones has been an early leader on the stories of the wounded with one of the strongest photo essays. It's difficult to promote but the promotion would go down easier if Glantz appeared aware of what was already out there. Of course the story that needs to be covered -- the one that's actually not being told -- is the hunting down of war resisters in this country and outside of it. So the indifference expressed in e-mails yesterday (after the KPFK interview) and today (after the WBAI interview) isn't surprising.

And let's face it, you're dealing with a community who, unlike KPFA, didn't drop the Iraq War last summer and, unlike KPFA, doesn't get mixed up on Falluja and assume, wrongly, that November 2004 was something to be excited about. This feels like sop tossed out to listeners. Glantz is involved (and steering) so hopefully it will be something worth following. Those who've already checked it out and expressed their dismay might give it a month or two and then try again. But there's no question that the promotion has been a big mistake starting with the wall Glantz elected to erect between listeners (listeners one would assume the spots will need) on one side and himself and "soldiers" on the other. It's equally true that those who have waited and waited in vain for KPFA to create the program they owed listeners (one covering the Iraq War and only the Iraq War) are going to be more than disappointed with the easy scope (as it's being promoted by Glantz) of this project. We already linked to it (on the permalinks) before Glantz was promoting it. If it has anything worth noting, we'll note it in a snapshot. One thing that needs to be noted is that it does feature audio and transcript.

Possibly it will feature coverage of war resisters but, as Zach points out, search in vain, even in the Aguayo story, for that term. Zach: "I was going to say 'So timid it's NPR and PBS-like' but the reality is NOW with David Brancaccio profiled war resisters Agustin Aguayo and James Burmeister last month." The War Comes Home really is timid. It's the sort of coverage to reach what, when I was a teenager, we would have seen as the blue-hair set who went to the matinees of The Odd Couple once a week to see something 'shocking'. Yes, that was a long time ago. Which makes The War Comes Home all the sadder especially when it's 'borrowing' a title that means so much more (even in this illegal war). It's non-thinking coverage that reduces it all to, "Look what they've done to our boys!" Empahsis on "our" and "boys." Rachel called it "an embarrassment to free speech radio" and I was wondering about that but now that I'm dictating this and thinking about it, she's 100% right.

"War bad because of what it do to our boys." That's the "simplistic" message Glantz is putting out in the promotion and in the spots currently. (KPFA's very lucky Pauline Kael doesn't have a modern-day equivalent today.) If they can get those robo-fighters out of the planning stages, imagine how many more people can be killed around the world and, judging by projects like The War Comes Home, there will not be anything to object to because none of "our boys" are being injured or killed. It's a candle-light, silent vigil by the likes of WalkOn.org which really calls into question whom Pacifica thinks their listening audience is? This is the sort of thing that would have fit in nicely back in the days of Baby Cries A Lot's radio show when he would start blubbering about his (adult) kids (who are not in the military) and how the US has to, has to, has to stay in Iraq. It's "anti-war" on that terrain.

In the real world it's "The Stateside Minute!" covering stories that most of already well know. (As do listeners of Pacifica Radio.) It's about as 'political' as William Wyler's The Best Years Of Our Lives and let's not kid that that's going to end the illegal war. Maybe it will improve as it goes along. Maybe it will speak with Eli Israel (the first known service member to publicly refuse to serve in Iraq while stationed there)? Maybe it will explore command rape or some other topics the mainstream isn't already covering? And, let's be honest, women are the one being shut out of the discussion. Yes, Laura Flanders rightly noted that in terms of being invited to comment, but I'm talking about what I'm hearing from female veterans. They feel there was a 'flurry' of interest following the disgraceful treatment of Suzanne Swift and that interest then moved on. Certainly, the fact that The War Comes Home can post ten profile stories and not a one of them be about a woman backs their feelings up.


Though nothing at The War Comes Home yet indicates it, 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, Jeff Key, 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. The G.I. Rights Hotline link has been included in the snapshots forever now, but please note that this is a new website. The new website is still being upgarded (but working) and with the new website comes a new phone number (877) 4474487 which is "GI RGHTS" the name but missing the second "I". To make sure everyone's aware that there is a new number and a new (toll free) number, we'll included this notice in the snapshot all week. Again, The G.I. Rights Hotline is a new and improved (and new and improving) website that will begin replacing the old site.

Staying on the issue of veterans, Adam Kokesh (Sgt. Kogkesh Goes to Washington) notes that A.N.S.W.E.R. will be holding a "September 15th march from the White House to the Capital to demand an end to the occupation of Iraq. . . . followed by a week of direct action, will mark a turning point for the entire anti-war movement and possibly for the course of American Democracy. The theme of this 'protest' is 'Protesting is not enough. Come for the rally, stay for a week of direct action.' The day after the march will be a training day, followed by National Truth In Recuriting Day, Congressional Challenge Day, a day of Pentagon outreach, Veterans' Lobbying Day, and the Iraq Moratorium. There will be anumber of direct actions to participate in for those who are willing to work to bring our government back in line with the will of the people." Also noting those actions is Cindy Sheehan (writing at Common Dreams): "Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), who are leading the September 15th march, are calling for a "die-in" to end the march and begin the rally. The vets, unlike the chicken-hawk neocons, have actually served in war, particularly the one that Mr. [Willie] Kristol imagines is such a success. IVAW is asking activists to represent a killed service-member and at an appropriate time lie down. Taps will be played and also a simulated 21-gun salute. It sounds respectful to me, being the mom of one of the soldiers, and I will proudly, yet sorrowfully, be lying down for my son that day." John Nichols has a written a piece on Sheehan's campaign -- she's running for the US Congress from California's eighth district -- and when it shows up somewhere other than The Nation, we'll link to it. What we will do is note CODEPINK's Medea Benjamin (at Common Dreams) explaining some realities regarding US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's reaction to protests and hunger strikes: "It is a tactic that was successful with Senator Dianne Feinstein. After six days of having campers outside her home, Feinstein came out to have a cordial half-hour discussion with the fasters and promised a longer meeting. Not Pelosi. During the two-week campout and hunger strike, Pelosi's only interaction with the activists was her hostility toward them. Arriving home late one evening, hunger striker Toby Blome asked 'Why won't you meet with us?' 'I'll never meet with you,' the Speaker screamed. 'Get away fro my house.' When Blome asked her about the homes of all the Iraqis whose privacy we invade, Pelosi snapped and called her 'a nut'." For more on Pelosi, see "Getting to know . . . Pelosi" (The Third Estate Sunday Review).

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"THIS JUST IN! WHEN THE PEOPLE GET SCREWED IT'S 'BI-PARTISAN'"
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Tuesday, September 04, 2007

THIS JUST IN! WHEN THE PEOPLE GET SCREWED IT'S "BI-PARTISAN"

 
DEMOCRATIC TRAITORS BILLED AS 'BI-PARTISAN'?  IT'S A FACT, AS THEY SAY ON KIDS ON THE HALL.
 
AP CALLS THEM "BIPARTISAN," THE HILL CALLS THEM "BIPARTISAN," BUT THE REALITY IS THEY ARE CRAPPY LITTLE WAR HAWKS.  ALLEN BOYD, FOR INSTANCE, VOTED IN FAVOR OF THE ILLEGAL WAR ON IRAQ. 
 
THE TRAITORS JOINED WITH REPUBLICAN WAR HAWKS TO CALL FOR MORE ILLEGAL WAR WRITING, "IT IS ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL THAT WE STABILIZE AND TRANSITION THE COMBAT MISSION TO THE IRAQIS".  TRANSLATION, THE TROOPS WILL STAY THERE.
 
THEY ARE THE "WE" THAT WILL FIGHT FOR THE SICKOS WITH BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS.  ALL DEMOCRATS SIGNING ARE KNOWN AS "BLUE DOGS" AND IT IS A SIGN OF NANCY PELOSI'S INCOMPETENCE AS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE THAT NOT ONLY CAN THEY ISSUE THIS PUBLIC LETTER TO HER BUT ALSO THAT THEY SIT ON VARIOUS COMMITTEES. 
 
THEY ARE TOMORROW'S JOE LIEBERMANS TODAY.
 
AND THEY WILL PROLONG THE ILLEGAL WAR BECAUSE THE HOUSE LEADERSHIP IS INEFFECTIVE AND THE DEMOCRATIC LEADERS DO NOT TRULY WANT TO END THE ILLEGAL WAR.
 
THE LESSON THE PRESS TEACHES TODAY IS WHEN TWO CONSERVATIVE GROUPS GROPE ONE ANOTHER IN PUBLIC IT IS CALLED "BI-PARTISANSHIP."  FAR FILTHIER THAN ANY BATHROOM SEX REVELEAD LAST WEEK OR EARLIER.  THE ONES SCREWING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE JOHN S. TANNER, TIM MAHONEY, ALLEN BOYD, DENNIS CARDOZA AND BOB BRADY.
 
 
 
 
Starting with war resisters, but with a twist.  As noted yesterday in "The Nation ignores war resisters even as it publishes the child of one," Rebecca's "the nation magazine ignores war resisters while publishing the child of one," Cedric's "The Nation refuses to cover war resisters while publishing the child of one," The Third Estate Sunday Review's "The Nation ignores war resisters even while publishing the child of one," Trina's "The Nation ignores war resisters while publishing the child of one," Betty's "The Nation refuses to cover war resisters while publishing the child of one," Elaine's "The Nation refuses to cover war resisters while publishing the child of one," Mike's "The Nation ignores war resisters while publishing the child of one" and Wally's "The Nation ignores war resisters even while publishing the child of one" (Ruth worked on the report as well) political theorist and writer Naomi Klein is the child of war resisters.  Her father could not serve in an illegal war and the family went to Canada.  The story isn't that uncommon in Canada (then or now) but it is worth noting at a time when some 'helpful' scolds want to insist that war resisters going to Canada today are 'destroying' their lives.  Many made that claim during Vietnam, well before and well after Pierre Trudeau's 1969 decision that Canada would welcome war resisters.  Klein, an internationally known author, activist and filmaker, is hardly toiling away in obscurity.  Her life was not destroyed by her parents' decision.  In fact, her latest book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, comes out in the United States later this month.  This is her follow up to her best selling No Logo (Fences and Windows was a collection of her previously published columns).  Joshua and Brandi Key have four children (Adam, Anna, Philip and Zackary), Jeremy Hinzman and Nga Nguyen have a son (Liam), Patrick and Jill Hart have a son (Rian), Kimberly and Mario Rivera have two children and those are just some of the war resisters in Canada with children.  They don't need lectures from 'well meaning' and 'helpful' types telling them it's "DOOM!  DOOM!  DOOM! I TELL YOU DOOM!"  Reality is Naomi Klein's life was not harmed or short changed because her parents went to Canada to avoid an illegal war.  It's bad enough when the BBC's War Hawk and John McCain lovin' Kathy Kay (subbing on NPR) tries that tactic with Joshua Key, it's even worse when this 'cautionary' note comes from those who are supposed to be supporting war resistance within the military.
 
 
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, 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.  The G.I. Rights Hotline link has been included in the snapshots forever now, but please note that this is a new website.  The new website is still being upgarded (but working) and with the new website comes a new phone number (877) 4474487 which is "GI RGHTS" the name but missing the second "I".  To make sure everyone's aware that there is a new number and a new (toll free) number, we'll included this notice in the snapshot all week.  Again, The G.I. Rights Hotline is a new and improved (and new and improving) website that will begin replacing the old site.
 
[. . .]
 
Staying on reality, today  KPFK's Uprising aired the latest radio commentary of Rahul Mahajan (not yet posted at his site Empire Notes) where he took on the piece of illegal war trash that is No End In Sight.  "Over the weekend, I had the dubious pleasure of watching No End in Sight, a documentary about the war on iraq made by Charles Ferguson, a political scientist, former consultant for the Brookings Institute and internet millionaire.  Although the film has been garnering excellent reviews, it has a must feel to it.  Ferguson prides himself on the fact that this film is neither a Republican nor a Democratic one.  The upshot is that it's a film about a reasonable foreign policy establishment, a reasonable invasion, and a bunch of reasonable people being sabotaged and undercut by a small handful of jackasses -- Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Bremer and the only onscreen villain -- a Washington bureaucrat named Walter Slocombe who first developed the military demobilization plan.  There is no examination of the sense of the larger project, of an establishment that mostly supported the war, or even of what the real motives of the invasion might have been.  George Packer and Samantha Power as outside critics are not the people to do this job . . .  What the film really brings home is that the story of this war is already written and heavily promoted and, unlike the case of Vietnam, it's a script for restoring the status quo ante.  It's a story told by members of the Council on Foreign Relations, New York Times journalists, Congresspeople, retired generals and mildly dissident members of the military-intelligence establishment -- a group not exactly noted for ever getting anything right.  So far, the antiwar movement has not made any headway in telling its own story -- insofar as it even has one." Or as we put it last month at The Third Estate Sunday Review, "No End In Sight when the peace movement gets behind crap."  And sadly, some are.  Some are plugging this hideous film that avoids the issue of the illegal war to 'teach' a better illegal war, one with better planning.  How stupid is the alleged peace movement?  Including one 'name' who included the public e-mail address for this site to pass on, "I agrfee [sic] completely with ____.  it is VERY powerful....with administration and high army officials 'playing themselves,' so to speak."  No, it's not a film for the peace movement to support (and why I was placed on this forward along with a hundred others, I have no idea).  To return to Naomi Klein, her  "Baghdad Year Zero" (Harper's magazine) outlined (in 2004) that the chaos in Iraq wasn't an accident, it was planned by the US administration.  Now either you support Klein's reporting (and Greg Palast's and Antonia Juhasz . . . ) or you support this 'filmmaker' (first time) with the Council for/of Foreign Relations and Brookings Institute to his 'credits,' this filmmaker who stated that the problem with "the war" (he doesn't call it illegal" was that there were not enough "boots on the ground" -- sell that 'surge,' Charlie, sell it!  And, sadly, he'll get a lot of help from that from people -- from 'names' -- that should know better -- that should damn well know better.  His fictional film (passed as a documentary) sells illegal wars by accepting them (and Charlie was for the illegal war and still is) as evidenced by public statements such as "if this had been done competently, it could have turned out much, much differently." (Those are his words when he appeared on Uprising July 31, 2007.)
 
In other news of get serious quick, Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas a rally was a failure.  It was a failure for multiple reasons including poor planning, location choice, time (you don't do a march or rally in the mid-day Texas heat), and just about every thing else that could have been done wrong.  Click here for our report at The Third Estate Sunday Review. And here for our report on the trip to Dallas: "The party was a big success. People talked about Iraq, had some great food (and drinks -- Jim's become an expert at mixing drinks), told jokes, shared, caught up, great tunes, you name it. Did it end the illegal war?  No. Neither did the crappy event in Fort Worth. But at least our spur of the moment party had attendance.  Comments by members (and my own) can be found here.  It was a 'leadership' failure where 'leadership' sent a message people picked up on: You aren't wanted.  And so they rightly stayed away.  There's a big lesson there.
 
 
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"

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