Saturday, September 29, 2007

THIS JUST IN! JUAN LOVES BILL!

 
NPR'S PROFESSIONAL HACK, PANAMANIAN JUAN WILLIAMS, PENS A MASH NOTE FOR HIS MAN BILL O'LIELLY FOR TIME MAGAZINE AND ENDS UP LOOKING EVEN MORE PATHETIC THAN USUAL WHICH IS A HANDY FEAT FOR WILLIAMS CONSIDERING HE WAS FORCED OUT OF THE WASHINGTON POST FOR SEXUALLY HARASSING FEMALE EMPLOYEES OF THE PAPER.
 
NPR SHOULD HAVE LONG AGO DECLARED THAT THE HAPLESS PANAMANIAN JUAN COULD NOT GO ON FOX 'NEWS' OR O'LIELLY'S RADIO SHOW SINCE JUAN HAS NEVER MET A RULE HE COULDN'T BREAK AS EVIDENCED BY THE FACT THAT HE THOUGHT SEXUAL HARASSMENT WAS PERFECTLY FINE UNTIL IT COST HIM HIS JOB.
 
MAYBE THAT'S HOW THEY DID THINGS IN PANAMA?  WE DON'T KNOW.
 
BUT WE DO KNOW IT'S NOT THE JOB OF ANYONE TO DEFEND A RACIST AND JUAN, IN THE MIDST OF SOBBING OVER BILL, ADMITS HE DOES JUST THAT.
 
HE NOTES BILL O'LIELLY EXPLAINED HIS GRANDMOTHER HAD BEEN A RACIST.  JUAN WRITES, "I DEFENDED HIS GRANDMA."  BUT THEN JUAN ALWAYS DEFENDS RACISTS.
 
HE TRIES TO HOP ON THE CROSS AND DECLARE HIMSELF SIMILAR TO PUDDING POPS KING -- WHO ALSO HAS A PROBLEM WITH THE WOMEN -- BILL COSBY.  WHAT HE FAILS TO GRASP IS THAT HE AND BILL COSBY ARE NOT TRYING TO MAKE THINGS BETTER FOR AFRICAN-AMERICANS, THEY ARE BLAMING AFRICAN-AMERICANS FOR THE DAMAGING MESSAGES THAT ARE BEING SPENT BY BIG-MONIED CORPORATIONS.  THERE IS A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE.
 
THE SAME MAN WHO REGULARLY ATTACKS INDIVIDUAL AFRICAN-AMERICANS AND TREATS A SYSTEMIC PROBLEM AS AN INDIVIDUAL ONE, FINDS IT IN HIS SOGGY BRAIN TO DEFEND A RACIST -- ONE EVEN BILL O'LIELY CALLED A RACIST.  SO IT'S NOT THAT HE CAN'T FEEL SYMPATHY FOR SOME INDIVIDUALS, IT'S JUST THAT HE HAS NO SYMPATHY FOR AFRICAN-AMERICANS.  POSSIBLY THERE'S SOME RIVALRY BETWEEN AFRICA AND PANAMA WE ARE UNAWARE OF.
 
JUAN WILLIAMS, LIKE HIS LITTLE BOY TONY, IS A REPUBLICAN AND NPR SHOULD HAVE STOPPED THE FOX 'NEWS' CIRCUS WILLIAMS ENGAGES IN ALONG WITH LIAR LIASSON YEARS AGO.  THAT THEY HAVEN'T GOES TO THE PROBLEMS AT NPR. 
 
THAT JUAN THINKS HE CAN GET AWAY WITH, YEAR AFTER YEAR, AVOIDING ADDRESSING AT LENGTH THE FACT THAT HE IS A SEXUAL HARASSER GOES A LONG WAY TOWARDS EXPLAINING WHY HE HANGS WITH O'LIELLY.
 
WHY NPR WAS WILLING TO EMPLOY A SEXUAL HARASSER THAT THE WASHINGTON POST KICKED TO THE CURB IS A QUESTION NPR SHOULD ANSWER AND ANSWER REAL DAMN SOON.  JUAN SHOULD FOCUS ON ADDRESSING THAT PROBLEM PUBLICLY AS WELL INSTEAD OF WHINING ABOUT THE WORDS RAPPERS USE.
 
WHILE THESE REPORTERS FIND MANY WORDS EMPLOYED BY RAPPERS OBJECTIONABLE WE CAN CALL IT WITHOUT LOOKING LIKE A HYPOCRITE BECAUSE WE'VE NEVER BELIEVED SEXUAL HARASSMENT WAS SOMETHING THAT BELONGED IN THE WORK PLACE LIKE A WEEKLY PAY CHECK.  LASTLY, WE WOULD NEVER CALL JUAN WILLIAMS A "HAPPY NEGRO."  A) HE IS NOT HAPPY.  HE IS A WHINING LITTLE WIMP.  B) WE DO NOT CONSIDER HIM BLACK.  HE'S PANAMAIAN WITH ROOTS TO NATIVE PEOPLE IN THAT COUNTRY.  BUT POSING BLACK AND USING A LATINO NAME HAS CERTAINLY ALLOWED HIM TO MOVE HIGH IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA, MUCH HIGHER THAN SOMEONE FIRED FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT WOULD BE EXPECTED TO MOVE.
 
 
Starting with war resistance.  As Iraq Veterans Against the War notes, the government's 'do-over' (double-jeopardy) attempt at court-martialing Ehren Watada is scheduled for October 9th and "Lt. Watada is facing four charges that could land him in jail for up to six years."  June 22, 2006, Ehren Watada became the first officer to publicly refuse to serve in the Iraq War (rightly) noting that the war is illegal.  Daniel Ellsberg gave a speech (posted at ICH) last week where he noted  Watada, "I've often said that Lt. Ehren Watada -- who still faces trial for refusing to obey orders to deploy to Iraq which he correctly perceives to be an unconstitutional and aggressive war -- is the single officer in the United States armed services who is taking seriously in upholding his oath."  Watada's attorneys are appealing on a number of grounds including the fact that Judge Toilet (aka John Head) thinks he can be impartial and preside again as well as the fact that a second court-martial (after Head ruled the February court-martial a mistrial over defense objection) would be in violation of the US Constitution which forbids double-jeopardy. 
 
At the start of the week, Audra D.S. Burch (Miami Herald) provided an overview of war resister Aidan Delgado's book  The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib: Notes From A Conscientious Objector In Iraq, noting, "This is a story of one young man's transformation from reserve volunteer to soldier to conscientious objector, practicing Buddhist, author and always -- always -- relentless critic of the Iraq War, a peace advocate with a point of view based on real wartime experiences."  Delgado is the third war resister to tell their story in book form this year. In May, Camilo Mejia shared his story in Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia while in February Joshua Key told his story in The Deserter's Tale.
 
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Derek Hess, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, 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.
 
ADDED:In media news, the latest episode of Bill Moyers Journal airs on PBS in many markets tonight (check your local listings) and he will remember two US service members who died recently (two of the seven who wrote the New York Times column "The War as We Saw It") and this is also up at YouTube..In addition Bill Moyers Journal  examines the Iraqi refugee crisis with NPR's Deborah Amos and War Hawk George Packer while also taking a look at the outrageous amount of monies being spent on the illegal war.
 
Also: This week (Fridays in most markets) PBS' NOW with David Brancaccio examines the issue of US service members wounded in the illegal war:  "For many Iraq and Gulf War veterans, the transition from battlefield to home front is difficult. Bouts of fierce anger, depression and anxiety that previous generations of soldiers described as "shell shock" or "combat/battle fatigue" now earn a clinical diagnosis: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. But the relatively new medical label doesn't guarantee soldiers will get the care they need. On Friday, September 28 at 8:30 pm (check local listings), NOW looks at how America's newest crop of returning soldiers is coping with the emotional scars of war, and some new and innovative treatments for them." 
 
On NPR's The Diane Rehm Show today (second hour), Al-Arabiya TV's Hisham Melhem explained the new meaning of Blackwater since the September 16th incident where they slaughtered at least 16 Iraqi civilians, "In the past, Susan [Page, USA Today], if you wanted to discredit the American war in Iraq or if you wanted to discredit the war on terror all you had to do is just invoke the names of places such as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib or Haditha.  Now you can add to that Blackwater USA.  I mean this is a huge embarrassment and a problem for the United States in the future.  These people are now seen by the Iraqis as the new face of the occupation. And the irony of all ironies now, because these people are in charge of providing protection to the American diplomats there -- I mean, you have a private army.  This is the privatization of war.  More than 30,000 men.  And I'm not saying that many of them . . . are [not] honorable and former good soldiers, the problem is that given what they've done, as Robin [Wright, Washington Post] said, just imagine Ryan Crocker, one of the best American diplomats serving in the Middle East, probably the best one available for Iraq now, trying to visit a neighborhood in Baghdad, after the surge, whatever, he's going to be protected by whom? By elements of the Blackwater.  That's the irony of ironies."
 

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Thursday, September 27, 2007

THIS JUST IN! BUT WHAT A HEAD OF HAIR!

 
IN YESTERDAY'S DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL FORUM, CONTENDER JOHN EDWARDS HAIR SHIMMERED, SHOOK AND DREW FAR MORE COMPLIMENTS THAN ANYTHING HE SAID.
 
TRAILING BADLY IN THE POLLS BEHIND FRONT RUNNER HILLARY CLINTON AND NO ONE'S FIRST CHOICE BARACK OBAMA, EDWARDS SET HIS SIGHTS ON CLINTON, APPARENTLY ASSUMING THAT THOSE WHO SOUND LIKE AN ANNOUNCER IN A WHATABURGER COMMERCIAL SHOULD FOCUS ON TAKING OUT NUMBER ONE AND AVOID NUMBER TWO.
 
THE ATTACKS CONTINUED TODAY WITH EDWARDS FLACK ERIC SCHULTZ DECLARING, "SENATOR CLINTON KEEPS COMBAT TROOPS IN IRAQ.  THAT MEANS SHE CONTINUES THE WAR."
 
LAST NIGHT EDWARDS DECLARED HE COULD NOT PROMISE THAT, IF ELECTED, ALL U.S. TROOPS WOULD BE BROUGHT HOME, "I CANNOT MAKE THAT COMMITTMENT."  ERIC SCHULTZ, THAT MEANS HE CONTINUES THE WAR.
 
WHEN CONTACTED BY THESE REPORTERS, A CAMPAIGN STAFFER -- WHO REFUSED TO GIVE HIS NAME -- EXPLAINED NO ONE IN A QUOTE GIVING CAPACITY WAS AVAILABLE FOR COMMENT, "THEY'RE ALL BUSY GETTING HIGHLIGHTS!  GO TEAM EDWARDS!"
 
 
Starting with war resistance.  Big news!  Canada cannot be reached by either phone or e-mail!  The apparent blockade must explain why All Things Media Big and Small in the US are unable to contact James Burmeister who served in Iraq and was publicly speaking of "kill teams" of US forces who intentionally left items (not just items that were weapons or could be used for making weapons -- as the mainstream narrative likes to insist) out in public so that Iraqis could be shot for touching "US property."  Apparently the blockade also includes Canada's borders being heavily guarded and Ottawa being ringed with armed guards -- possibly from the US mercenary company Blackwater.  In times long since past, independent media would have been all over this story instead they're all apparently imposing some self-gag order when it comes to the words: "James Burmeister."
 
As noted before, as appalling (and illegal) as the program is when guns and materials that might be used for making bombs are, public outrage is mitigated by the fact that some in the US will tell themselves, "Well, if they're touching it, they probably are guilty!"  Telling the truth (something independent media has a real problem with these days -- as evidence by the elevation to sainthood of a five times busted thug) would have Americans asking serious questions about the program (which already appears to be fading from public knowledge) because a camera, for example, is not a weapon.  But what should have been the minute where independent media stepped up to the plate, grabbed the spotlight and demonstrated just how important they could be instead became a time for travelogue.  Remember that when they next beg for money.
 
LeiLani Dowell (Workers World) notes the DC Encampment to Stop the War at Home and Abroad that is ongoing through September 28th and includes members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, CODEPINK, TONC, United for Peace and Justice and the Green Party.  They are calling for a cut off to funding the illegal war.  As noted in yesterday's snapshot, the hands are out and begging Congress to provide $190,000,000,000 dollars more to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Encampment is insisting that the war funding be cut off and troops be brought home.  Dowell quotes IVAW's Adam Kokesh explaining that the call is for all US forces, "we mean Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Blackwater, Hallibruton".
Dowell also reports that "a young war resister described how he enlisted in the military in 2005 because of limited career opportunities in his rural hometown. However, he says, 'I happened to join at the same time as Hurricane Katrina, and I saw on TV the bodies floating in the streets. It really hit home to me. I got out of training 25 weeks later and nothing had changed. Despite all the rhetoric about homeland security and national security, this government's priorities are not for the people'."

 
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Derek Hess, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, 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.
 
Meanwhile Iraq veteran Josh Gaines has returned his Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and National Defense Service Medal  that he received for serving in Iraq from 2004 to 2005.  Jillian Levy (Madison's The Daily Cardinal) reports on yesterday's event, "With shouts of protest and calls to end the war, more than 30 student activists marched to the state Capitol with Josh Gaines, Iraq War veteran and Madison resident, to watch him return his military medals in an act of protest Wednesday afternoon."  Alec Luhn (The Badger Herald) reports, "Gaines read the letter aloud to a crowd gathered on Library Mall Tuesday afternoon before leading dozens of protestors down State Street to the Capitol.  The march also protested the deployment of the Wisconsin National Guard to Iraq, calling for a "de-federalization" of the force to allow for its return. Once Gaines deposited the package in a postal box inside the Capitol, the group gathered outside the office of Gov. Jim Doyle to demand an audience about recalling Guard troops."
 
Josh Gaines declared, "I'm returning my National Defense Medal because I truly believe that I did not help defend my nation and I'm returning my Global War on Terrorism Medal because I do not believe that I helped defeat terrorism in Iraq."  Supporters present in Madison, Wisconsin included students with SDS, the Campus Anti-War Network, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace who met up at the Library Mall on the Univeristy of Wisconsin and then marched up State Street for what is the first known instance of an Iraq veteran returning his medals.  Gaines apologized for not being able to display the medals as he had already sealed the package and began explaining what had led to his decision.  Portland's KPTV estimates that at least 100 supporters were present. Wisconsin Radio Network provides audio of Gaines speech where he explains why he's mailing the medals to former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at the Hoover Institute on Stanford University, how his unit had to improvise their own armor, how chemical weapons (such as white phosphorus and "incidneary projectiles") were used in Iraq, and how KBR and others were "all about contracts and the profits are made by civilians who did not volunteer for this war but promote the very idea of occupation."  Gaines: "I was forced to ask, 'Are we really defeating terrorism with the scars of war?'" 
 

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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

THIS JUST IN! DISGRACED JUAN WILLIAMS VOUCHES FOR SOMEONE!

 
 
WHEN O'LIELLY NEEDS VOUCHING FOR WHAT ARE THE FOOLS AT NATIONAL JOURNAL TO DO?  RUSH TO THE KISS UP, THE SUCK UP, FOX HOUSE PET JUAN WILLIAMS WHO TOOK TIME AWAY FROM TRASHING AFRICAN-AMERICANS LONG ENOUGH TO VOUCH FOR THE MAN WHO PAYS HIS BILLS, BIG BILL O'LIELLY.
 
LIKE BELUAH THE MAID OF YORE, JUAN COMES RUSHING IN INSISTING, "THEM WHITE FOLKS LOVE ME!"  OF COURSE JUAN WILLIAMS ISN'T AFRICAN-AMERICAN.  HE TRACES BACK TO PANAMA.  AND OF COURSE WHY THE NATIONAL JOURNAL FEELS JUAN WILLIAMS IS SOMEONE TO VOUCH FOR 'CHARACTER' IS EQUALLY SURPRISING SINCE WILLIAMS -- ARDENT DEFENDER OF CLARENCE THOMAS WHEN ANITA HILL CAME FORWARD TO TESTIFY TO HOW THOMAS SEXUALLY HARASSED HER -- HAD TO LEAVE THE WASHINGTON POST BECAUSE OF HE SEXUALLY HARASSED FEMALE EMPLOYEES.
 
HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?  A RACIST GETS VOUCHED FOR BY A SEXUAL HARASSER? 
 
 
 
Starting with war resistance. Have you heard of Arizon's Tent City?  It's a federal facility that's now being used to house US service members from Fort Huachuca who go AWOL.
Not all service members who go AWOL or self-checkout are war resisters.  Some are.  And some will no doubt end up in Tent City.  Nikki Renner (The Arizona Republic) reports that the publicity flack for Fort Huachuca, Tanja Linton, is thrilled with Tent City and believes "that the AWOL soldiers' experience in Tent City will be close to the living accomodations of soldiers in Iraq."  Well let's hope Tanja keeps her legs crossed because what she considers "justice" is the sort of thing others would see as The Scarlet Letter type 'justice'.  She's not the most jazzed in public, however.  That dishonor goes to Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County. Phoenix's KPHO reports not only has he "agreed to accept all Fort Huachuca soldiers convicted of being" AWOL but he's also panting hot and heavy over how Tent City's "top bunk in each pod is 150 degrees.  Meals given to inmates are worth 30 cents a day."  But Joey saves most of his panting for Nikki Renner, he's all excited about putting these service members into 'pink panties.'  As he drools over the prospect, possibly someone might want to note that he couldn't get away with that with the prisoners the prison normally deals with.  As Little Joey nealy creams his shorts over the prospect of becoming 2007's Lynndie England, people might want to show some concern over the fact that Abu Ghraib is being set up in Arizona.  And there's no attempt to hide that, in fact, abuse and degradation of those convicted of going AWOL appears to be getting Little Joey aroused. AP noted Tent City earlier this week (in terms of boxer Mike Tyson), described it as "an open-air jail near a dog pound and a trash dump," note Little Joey self-describes as "America's Toughest Sherrif," included Little Joey referring to Tyson gleefully as a "crook," that Little Joey was salivating over the prospect of Tyson forced "to wear pink jail-issue underwear and eat bargain-basement meals that cost taxpayers 30 cents a day," and bragging -- while apparently humping the reporter's leg, "If I put him in the tents, I might have him on a chain gang."  We're not a sports site, but for the record, Tyson is an addict.  He's not convicted of a violent crime.  Nor are the service members who go AWOL.  Bully Boy's already led the US into the gutter and now Little Joey appears eager to roll around in it in public -- apparently because the cesspool is currently full.
 
noting, "Officers described the program, in unclassified statements obtained by The Post, as involving the placement of the items in insurgent areas and killing those who picked them up."  And Kim Sengupta (Indepent of London) reports, "A US military source said "baits" had been left by a number of units. 'The guys picking them up are sometimes bad guys. But how do you know each time?' Robert Emerson, a British security analyst, said: 'This seems a highly arbitrary and suspect way of carrying out counter-insurgency operations'."  But neither outlet notes war resister James Burmeister who went public about the "Kill Teams" in June.  And, in fact, cited them as one of the reasons he decided to self-checkout and move to Canada with his family.
 
 
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Derek Hess, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, 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.
 
As noted in yesterday's snapshot, the 3800 mark for US service members killed in Iraq was passed on Tuesday.  Wednesday morning's papers didn't run that headline.  Alan Zimmerman (C-Ville) notes it at the end of his column.  James Gerstenzang and Alexandra Zavis note it in the 24th paragraph of their article in today's Los Angeles Times. Now let's be really clear here Cuba's Prensa Latina can note it and others can't?  And this is not a problem with just one branch of media, this is a problem with All Things Media Big and Small.
 
"I am optimistic because I believe I am right.  I am at peace with myself," AFP quotes Bully Boy declaring February 22, 203 as he met with the then prime minister of Spain, Jose Maria Aznar, and explained that despite his public statements, the illegal war was 'on': "There are two weeks left.  In two weeks we will be ready militarily.  We will be in Baghdad at the end of March."  Although prepared to tell the Spanish prime minister that the illegal war was a sure thing, Bully Boy used March 6, 2003 primetime address to state that it might be likely or, as Duncan Campbell, Michael White and Patrick Wintour (Guardian of London) worded it, "President George Bush last night indicated that war was very close in an address to the American people on prime time television."  In Baghdad, March 20th would be the day the illegal war started.  Or, as Tom Brokaw dubbed at the opening of his interview with Bully Boy "that first night, when you surprised us all by launching the preemptive strike against the residence of Saddam Hussien."  That's the same April 24, 2003 interview where -- one month into the illegal war -- Bully Boy declared he "had obviously made up my mind that if we needed to, we would use troops to get rid of weapons of mass destruction to free the Iraqi people.  But the actual moment of making that decision was a heavy moment."  It should be an even heavier moment for him today for a number of reasons including that he lied, that he's been caught in his lies, that 3800 US service members have died in the illegal war and over 1,066,817 Iraqis have died in the illegal war.
 
Though All Things Media Big and Small elected not to note the 3800 mark, the deaths didn't stop to wait for them to get off their lazy, pathetic asses and catch up.  Today the US military announced: "A Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier was killed during a small-arms fire attack while conducting combat operations in an eastern section of the Iraqi captial Sept. 25."
 
 

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Tuesday, September 25, 2007

THIS JUST IN! WAXMAN EXPECT RICE TO READ!

 
 
AS THE CHAIR OF THE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, REP WAXMAN FIRED OFF A LETTER TO SECRETARY RICE:
 
Since your testimony at the Committee's hearing on July 26, 2007, current and former employees of the Office of Inspector General have contacted my staff with allegations that you interfered with on-going investigations to protect the State Department and the White House from political embarrassment...
The allegations made by these officials are not limited to a single unit or project within your office. Instead, they span all three major divisions of the Office of Inspector General -- investigations, audits, and inspections. The allegations were made by employees of varied rank, ranging from line staff to upper management...        
Some of the specific allegations include the following:                
  • Although the State Department has expended over $3.6 billion on contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, you refused to send any investigators to those countries to pursue investigations into wasteful spending or procurement fraud and have concluded no fraud investigations relating to the contracts.     
  • You prevented your investigators from cooperating with a Justice Department investigation into waste, fraud, and abuse relating to the new U.S. Embassy in Iraq and followed highly irregular procedures in exonerating the prime contractor, First Kuwaiti Trading Company, of charges of labor trafficking.                     
  • You prevented your investigators from seizing evidence that they believed would have implicated a large State Department contractor in procurement fraud in Afghanistan.   
  • You impeded efforts by your investigators to cooperate with a Justice Department probe into allegations that a large private security contractor was smuggling weapons into Iraq. 
  • You interfered with an on-going investigation into the conduct of Kenneth Tomlinson, the head of Voice of America and a close associate of Karl Rove, by passing information about the inquiry to Mr. Tomlinson.                
  • You censored portions of inspection reports on embassies so that critical information on security vulnerabilities was dropped from classified annexes and not disclosed to Congress.
  • You rejected audits of the State Department's financial statements that documented accounting concerns and refused to publish them until points critical of the Department had been removed.          
    •  
    WHEN REACHED FOR COMMENT BY THESE REPORTERS, SECRETARY RICE SAID, "HELLO?  HELLO?  DAMN.  NO I WILL NOT PULL YOUR FINGER, MR. BULLY BOY.  I SAID NO!  HELLO?  ARE YOU THERE?"
     
    WHEN ASKED OF THE LETTER, SECRETARY RICE BURST OUT LAUGHING AND DECLARED, "OH COME ON!  HE DOESN'T REALLY EXPECT ME TO READ IT, DOES HE?  I MEAN, COME ON, I WAS THE NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERT WHO NEVER READ THE REPORTS ON AL QAEDA BEFORE 9-11.  BUT I'VE GOT THE LATEST COPY OF NEOCON BLUEBOY AND I SEE WILLIE KRISTOL HAS A BIT OF A PROBLEM, A TINY, SMALL PROBLEM, BUT A PROBLEM NONE THE LESS.  WHO IS KENNETH THOMAS?"
     
     
     
    jamesnow 
    Starting with war resistance and starting with James Burmeister who shared his story with Maria Hinojosa PBS' NOW with David Brancaccio (first broadcast August 24th in most PBS markets -- click here for transcript and here for a/v). 23-year-old Burmeister explained why he signed up: "I always wanted to do something that would be a big help and it seemed like the perfect thing."  The segment focused on Burmeister and Agustin Aguayo and though Aguayo explained how his opinion changed while serving Iraq.  Burmeister?   Tape exists of why he changed his mind.  It didn't make the final cut.  NOW with David Brancaccio could air that footage or post it online and be seen as 'up to the minute' because one of the reasons Burmeister .  Instead, we skip over reasons for his opposition and are taken to "James saw only two options either go back to Iraq or go AWOL" with Burmeister going to Canada May 4th.  [At this site, screen cap is included and community member Eddie provided it.  It's used in Ava and my TV commentary from August 26, 2007.]
     
    What's missing from the story?  It's a story told on Canada's CBC if not PBS.  Click here for summary (which includes audio link as well) of the June 29th interview.
     
     
    James Burmeister: Myself, I was a Calvary scout.  We do a lot of reconnaissance, mapping out, a lot of raids.  Our platoon in particular would set up small groups called "Platoon Kill Teams" -- maybe a group of four, five people, some snipers and we would set up fake cameras, we would put "Property of US government" in English and Arabic and we would wait for an Iraqi to come up and touch it because that gives the US the right to kill them -- so they say.  That would be the typical thing we would do.
     
    Rob Benzie: You called this baiting.  Is that right?
     
    James Burmeister: Definitely. 
     
    "Baiting."  In the news this week.  The Washington Post yesterday, the New York Times today and it could have been PBS in August -- if they'd aired the video.  They didn't.  And they couldn't tell you why Burmeister turned against the illegal war without airing the video of that section of the interview.  Back to the CBC interview.
     
    James Burmeister: It had a lot to do with the small kill teams which really bothered me.  I didn't see how that was helping at all.  We would roll around in the streets of Baghdad looking for a fight, and go into the danger areas and wait for somebody to shoot just so we could shoot somebody else.  When I was back in Germany, after my six months there, I had threats to lie about my medical situation.  At that point . . .
     
    Rob Benzie: What took you to Germany after Iraq?
     
    James Burmeister: I was actually injured in a bomb blast.  I was a gunner on top of a Humvee and we were going up and down the same route several times something that you never should do in a combat situation.  Bomb just blew up to the left side of the truck, knocked me out, I lost the hearing in my right ear, some shrapnel in my face and they decided to send me back on two weeks of leave instead of actually sending me to a hospital and so I had to go back and on my two weeks of leave had to do all my own hospital work on my own time.  Eventually, I got my leave extended but after, after awhile they started to threaten me to lie about my medical situation or else they were just going to destroy my life. You know, they really wanted to get me back.
     
    Rob Benzie:  So you decided to leave?
     
    James Burmeister:  Definitely.  I kind of had the idea in my mind a little bit but it wasn't a certain thing,  Definitely after the threats and I had all these doubts about the war.  That was it for me.  
     
    Kill squads.  Platoon Kill Teams.  Due to the fact that cases are going on right now, court-martials, the mainstream press is semi-talking about Kill Teams.  They're zooming in on 'materials' of interest to 'insurgents' being left out.  That is not reality. 
     
    Now if war resisters were covered, this would have been a news topic some time ago.  But war resistance isn't covered and in terms of any coverage at all, it's done better by big media than small if you're looking volume.  PBS remains the only American national outlet to interveiw Burmeister.  Some papers in his the area he grew up in interviewed as well.  But All Things Media Big and Small took a pass.  For most of them, it was the same pass they've taken since the start of the illegal war. 
     
    In this morning's New York Times, Paul von Zielbauer reports on the "testimony presented in a military court" which some might argue is also known as "transcription."  PvZ notes "soldiers testifying for the defense have said the sniper team was employing a 'baiting program' developed at the Pentagon by the Asymmetrical Warfare Group, which met with Ranger sniper teams in Iraq in January and gave equipment to them."  Human Rights Watch weighs in their general useless manner (and demonstrates their ignorance with regards to war resisters -- no surprise).  Jorge G. Sandoval Jr., Michael A. Hensley and Evan Vela are the three US service members facing punishment -- and if more were public about the program, many higher ups would probably also be facing charges.  Across the Atlantic, the BBC demonstrates the stupidity (willfrul or just a natural state) isn't confined to the US as they note that the US military will not confirm or deny the program's existance and cite military flack Paul Boyce as delcaring that using "drop weapons" would not "appear legally justified, as the three snipers are accused of doing."  For those who paid attention, the wording is that way because the military is saying, "OH NO!  We didn't okay that!  But we're not going to go into what we did say and thank goodness no one uses Canada's CBC as a trusted news source so no one will ever raise the important issue!"
     
     
    On the subject of war resistance, The Fayetteville Observer interviewed Chuck Fager last weekend.  Fager is the director of the area's Quaker House and he reported that in 2002 there were 3,000 phone calls asking for assistance while in 2006 the number of calls had trippled to 9,000 "[a]nd most of the months this year have set records for each month.  As of the end of May, we have received 4,320 calls".  Fager explained that they were "getting more and more calls about (AWOL) . . . sometimes from people who are thinking about it and sometimes from people who already are."
     
    There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Derek Hess, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, 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.
     
    The 3800 marker has been reached.  Today the US military announced, "A Task Force Lightning Soldier was killed in Diyala Province, Tuesday, when an explosion occured near his vehicle."  3800 US service members have been announced killed in the illegal war.  As noted Sunday in "Editorial: Buying the illegal war" (The Third Estate Sunday Review): "In the November 2006 elections, Democrats were put back in charge of both houses of Congress with a mandate to end the illegal war. The session of the 110th Congress started on January 3rd. On January 4th, the first announced death to take place after Dems were sworn in was made ("A Multi-National Division - Baghdad patrol was attacked by small arms fire, killing one Soldier in the western part of the Iraqi capital today.") and that took the number of US service members to die in the illegal war to 3006. His name was Charles D. Allen."  3005 before Dems were sworn in, put in control of both houses.  3800 today.  795 deaths while they have been in power and they continue to fund the illegal war, they refuse to use the filibuster to end the funding, they've done nothing but pass 'symbolic' measures -- such as when they 'symbolically' agreed they weren't in favor of the escalation (aka "the surge").
     
    3800 dead
    Keep the number in your head
    36,943 maimed
    They will never be the same
    1.06 million Iraqis 'liberated' from their lives
    It was all based on lies
    It was all based on lies.
     
    Turning to the land of 'progress,' 'democracy' and 'liberation' -- Iraq.  A McClatchy Newspapers' Iraqi correspondent observes (at Inside Iraq) the realities for Iraqi women since the start of the illegal war, the loss of rights, and wonders, "Why?? Why have we lost our rights?  For what have we been pushed back into the dark ages?  How can this be liberation if my daughter has fewer rights than I did at her age?  If she has less control over her life than I did?  Fewer choices than even her grandmother had?"  Fewer choices.  Jay Price (McClatchy Newspapers) writes of the rash of burn victims (female) showing up in Kurdistan with many assumed to be suicide attempts (most of which are successful -- and many confess they were suicide attempts).  Why set yourself on fire with kerosene?  Don't you remember?  Newsweek said it was a trend!  And fashionable!  And just something little romantic teenager 'girls' do.  They do love their (false) trend stories at Newsweek.  Price writes, "The common factor, though, was usually the traditional, patriarchal culture, which often leaves women feeling powerless in dealings with husbands, fathers or even brothers.  That powerlessness is magnified when a girl marries young and comes under a husband's domination before she has a chance to learn much about life, Monsour said."  Meanwhile, AKI reports that a "newly formed women's caucus" in the parliament is attempting to apply prssure on the issue of assisting "victims of the war in Iraq, including widows and orphans, war victims' families and Iraqi refugee".
    .
     

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    THIS JUST IN! WAXMAN EXPECT RICE TO READ!

     
     
    AS THE CHAIR OF THE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, REP WAXMAN FIRED OFF A LETTER TO SECRETARY RICE:
     
    Since your testimony at the Committee's hearing on July 26, 2007, current and former employees of the Office of Inspector General have contacted my staff with allegations that you interfered with on-going investigations to protect the State Department and the White House from political embarrassment...
    The allegations made by these officials are not limited to a single unit or project within your office. Instead, they span all three major divisions of the Office of Inspector General -- investigations, audits, and inspections. The allegations were made by employees of varied rank, ranging from line staff to upper management...        
    Some of the specific allegations include the following:                
  • Although the State Department has expended over $3.6 billion on contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, you refused to send any investigators to those countries to pursue investigations into wasteful spending or procurement fraud and have concluded no fraud investigations relating to the contracts.     
  • You prevented your investigators from cooperating with a Justice Department investigation into waste, fraud, and abuse relating to the new U.S. Embassy in Iraq and followed highly irregular procedures in exonerating the prime contractor, First Kuwaiti Trading Company, of charges of labor trafficking.                     
  • You prevented your investigators from seizing evidence that they believed would have implicated a large State Department contractor in procurement fraud in Afghanistan.   
  • You impeded efforts by your investigators to cooperate with a Justice Department probe into allegations that a large private security contractor was smuggling weapons into Iraq. 
  • You interfered with an on-going investigation into the conduct of Kenneth Tomlinson, the head of Voice of America and a close associate of Karl Rove, by passing information about the inquiry to Mr. Tomlinson.                
  • You censored portions of inspection reports on embassies so that critical information on security vulnerabilities was dropped from classified annexes and not disclosed to Congress.
  • You rejected audits of the State Department's financial statements that documented accounting concerns and refused to publish them until points critical of the Department had been removed.          
    •  
    WHEN REACHED FOR COMMENT BY THESE REPORTERS, SECRETARY RICE SAID, "HELLO?  HELLO?  DAMN.  NO I WILL NOT PULL YOUR FINGER, MR. BULLY BOY.  I SAID NO!  HELLO?  ARE YOU THERE?"
     
    WHEN ASKED OF THE LETTER, SECRETARY RICE BURST OUT LAUGHING AND DECLARED, "OH COME ON!  HE DOESN'T REALLY EXPECT ME TO READ IT, DOES HE?  I MEAN, COME ON, I WAS THE NATIONAL SECURITY EXPERT WHO NEVER READ THE REPORTS ON AL QAEDA BEFORE 9-11.  BUT I'VE GOT THE LATEST COPY OF NEOCON BLUEBOY AND I SEE WILLIE KRISTOL HAS A BIT OF A PROBLEM, A TINY, SMALL PROBLEM, BUT A PROBLEM NONE THE LESS.  WHO IS KENNETH THOMAS?"
     
     
     
    jamesnow 
    Starting with war resistance and starting with James Burmeister who shared his story with Maria Hinojosa PBS' NOW with David Brancaccio (first broadcast August 24th in most PBS markets -- click here for transcript and here for a/v). 23-year-old Burmeister explained why he signed up: "I always wanted to do something that would be a big help and it seemed like the perfect thing."  The segment focused on Burmeister and Agustin Aguayo and though Aguayo explained how his opinion changed while serving Iraq.  Burmeister?   Tape exists of why he changed his mind.  It didn't make the final cut.  NOW with David Brancaccio could air that footage or post it online and be seen as 'up to the minute' because one of the reasons Burmeister .  Instead, we skip over reasons for his opposition and are taken to "James saw only two options either go back to Iraq or go AWOL" with Burmeister going to Canada May 4th.  [At this site, screen cap is included and community member Eddie provided it.  It's used in Ava and my TV commentary from August 26, 2007.]
     
    What's missing from the story?  It's a story told on Canada's CBC if not PBS.  Click here for summary (which includes audio link as well) of the June 29th interview.
     
     
    James Burmeister: Myself, I was a Calvary scout.  We do a lot of reconnaissance, mapping out, a lot of raids.  Our platoon in particular would set up small groups called "Platoon Kill Teams" -- maybe a group of four, five people, some snipers and we would set up fake cameras, we would put "Property of US government" in English and Arabic and we would wait for an Iraqi to come up and touch it because that gives the US the right to kill them -- so they say.  That would be the typical thing we would do.
     
    Rob Benzie: You called this baiting.  Is that right?
     
    James Burmeister: Definitely. 
     
    "Baiting."  In the news this week.  The Washington Post yesterday, the New York Times today and it could have been PBS in August -- if they'd aired the video.  They didn't.  And they couldn't tell you why Burmeister turned against the illegal war without airing the video of that section of the interview.  Back to the CBC interview.
     
    James Burmeister: It had a lot to do with the small kill teams which really bothered me.  I didn't see how that was helping at all.  We would roll around in the streets of Baghdad looking for a fight, and go into the danger areas and wait for somebody to shoot just so we could shoot somebody else.  When I was back in Germany, after my six months there, I had threats to lie about my medical situation.  At that point . . .
     
    Rob Benzie: What took you to Germany after Iraq?
     
    James Burmeister: I was actually injured in a bomb blast.  I was a gunner on top of a Humvee and we were going up and down the same route several times something that you never should do in a combat situation.  Bomb just blew up to the left side of the truck, knocked me out, I lost the hearing in my right ear, some shrapnel in my face and they decided to send me back on two weeks of leave instead of actually sending me to a hospital and so I had to go back and on my two weeks of leave had to do all my own hospital work on my own time.  Eventually, I got my leave extended but after, after awhile they started to threaten me to lie about my medical situation or else they were just going to destroy my life. You know, they really wanted to get me back.
     
    Rob Benzie:  So you decided to leave?
     
    James Burmeister:  Definitely.  I kind of had the idea in my mind a little bit but it wasn't a certain thing,  Definitely after the threats and I had all these doubts about the war.  That was it for me.  
     
    Kill squads.  Platoon Kill Teams.  Due to the fact that cases are going on right now, court-martials, the mainstream press is semi-talking about Kill Teams.  They're zooming in on 'materials' of interest to 'insurgents' being left out.  That is not reality. 
     
    Now if war resisters were covered, this would have been a news topic some time ago.  But war resistance isn't covered and in terms of any coverage at all, it's done better by big media than small if you're looking volume.  PBS remains the only American national outlet to interveiw Burmeister.  Some papers in his the area he grew up in interviewed as well.  But All Things Media Big and Small took a pass.  For most of them, it was the same pass they've taken since the start of the illegal war. 
     
    In this morning's New York Times, Paul von Zielbauer reports on the "testimony presented in a military court" which some might argue is also known as "transcription."  PvZ notes "soldiers testifying for the defense have said the sniper team was employing a 'baiting program' developed at the Pentagon by the Asymmetrical Warfare Group, which met with Ranger sniper teams in Iraq in January and gave equipment to them."  Human Rights Watch weighs in their general useless manner (and demonstrates their ignorance with regards to war resisters -- no surprise).  Jorge G. Sandoval Jr., Michael A. Hensley and Evan Vela are the three US service members facing punishment -- and if more were public about the program, many higher ups would probably also be facing charges.  Across the Atlantic, the BBC demonstrates the stupidity (willfrul or just a natural state) isn't confined to the US as they note that the US military will not confirm or deny the program's existance and cite military flack Paul Boyce as delcaring that using "drop weapons" would not "appear legally justified, as the three snipers are accused of doing."  For those who paid attention, the wording is that way because the military is saying, "OH NO!  We didn't okay that!  But we're not going to go into what we did say and thank goodness no one uses Canada's CBC as a trusted news source so no one will ever raise the important issue!"
     
     
    On the subject of war resistance, The Fayetteville Observer interviewed Chuck Fager last weekend.  Fager is the director of the area's Quaker House and he reported that in 2002 there were 3,000 phone calls asking for assistance while in 2006 the number of calls had trippled to 9,000 "[a]nd most of the months this year have set records for each month.  As of the end of May, we have received 4,320 calls".  Fager explained that they were "getting more and more calls about (AWOL) . . . sometimes from people who are thinking about it and sometimes from people who already are."
     
    There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Derek Hess, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, 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.
     
    The 3800 marker has been reached.  Today the US military announced, "A Task Force Lightning Soldier was killed in Diyala Province, Tuesday, when an explosion occured near his vehicle."  3800 US service members have been announced killed in the illegal war.  As noted Sunday in "Editorial: Buying the illegal war" (The Third Estate Sunday Review): "In the November 2006 elections, Democrats were put back in charge of both houses of Congress with a mandate to end the illegal war. The session of the 110th Congress started on January 3rd. On January 4th, the first announced death to take place after Dems were sworn in was made ("A Multi-National Division - Baghdad patrol was attacked by small arms fire, killing one Soldier in the western part of the Iraqi capital today.") and that took the number of US service members to die in the illegal war to 3006. His name was Charles D. Allen."  3005 before Dems were sworn in, put in control of both houses.  3800 today.  795 deaths while they have been in power and they continue to fund the illegal war, they refuse to use the filibuster to end the funding, they've done nothing but pass 'symbolic' measures -- such as when they 'symbolically' agreed they weren't in favor of the escalation (aka "the surge").
     
    3800 dead
    Keep the number in your head
    36,943 maimed
    They will never be the same
    1.06 million Iraqis 'liberated' from their lives
    It was all based on lies
    It was all based on lies.
     
    Turning to the land of 'progress,' 'democracy' and 'liberation' -- Iraq.  A McClatchy Newspapers' Iraqi correspondent observes (at Inside Iraq) the realities for Iraqi women since the start of the illegal war, the loss of rights, and wonders, "Why?? Why have we lost our rights?  For what have we been pushed back into the dark ages?  How can this be liberation if my daughter has fewer rights than I did at her age?  If she has less control over her life than I did?  Fewer choices than even her grandmother had?"  Fewer choices.  Jay Price (McClatchy Newspapers) writes of the rash of burn victims (female) showing up in Kurdistan with many assumed to be suicide attempts (most of which are successful -- and many confess they were suicide attempts).  Why set yourself on fire with kerosene?  Don't you remember?  Newsweek said it was a trend!  And fashionable!  And just something little romantic teenager 'girls' do.  They do love their (false) trend stories at Newsweek.  Price writes, "The common factor, though, was usually the traditional, patriarchal culture, which often leaves women feeling powerless in dealings with husbands, fathers or even brothers.  That powerlessness is magnified when a girl marries young and comes under a husband's domination before she has a chance to learn much about life, Monsour said."  Meanwhile, AKI reports that a "newly formed women's caucus" in the parliament is attempting to apply prssure on the issue of assisting "victims of the war in Iraq, including widows and orphans, war victims' families and Iraqi refugee".
    .
     

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    Monday, September 24, 2007

    THIS JUST IN! SUNSHINE STATE STANDS UP!

     
    FLORIDA SAYS "WE MATTER" AND ADAM C. SMITH PLAYS DUMB.  NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING DIFFERENT ABOUT EITHER.
     
    SUCK-ASS SMITH DEFENDS THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE IN THEIR DISCRIMINATION OF 46 STATES BY ALWAYS ALLOWING IOWA, NEW HAMPSHIRE, NEVADA AND SOUTH CAROLINA TO HOLD PRIMARIES 1ST -- OR AS THE 4 ARE MORE POPULARLLY KNOWN "THE ITTY BITTY STATES."
     
    THE FLORIDA DEMOCRATIC PARTY REALIZED WHAT THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION DIDN'T, THEY CAN'T AFFORD TO ANGER FLORIDA RESIDENTS.  SO THEY STUCK WITH THE PLAN FOR AN EARLY PRIMARY AND WILL HOLD IT JANUARY 29, 2008.
     
    THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE IS THREATENING TO STRIP FLORIDA OF THEIR DELAGATES.  YEAH, GO FOR THAT DUMB ASS D.N.C.  KEEP FLOATING THAT THREAT AND SEE HOW MANY DEMOCRATS IN FLORIA BOTHER TO TURN OUT AND VOTE DEMOCRATIC ON ELECTION DAY 2008.
     
    U.S. SENATOR BARACK OBAMA -- STILL BONING UP ON HIS ROLE AS THE COWARDLY LION IN THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL RACE -- DID HIS USUAL SPINELESS MOVE AND HAD HIS CAMPAIGN DECLARE THEY "WOULD HAVE NO COMMENT."  AND PEOPLE WONDER WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS SURE THING STATUS.
     
     
    Starting with war resistance.  The new chair of IVAW Camilo Mejia told his story in  Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia, tracing his awakening to the illegal war as he served in it.  Elizabeth Wrigley-Field reviews it in the September-October issue of ISR (the review is not currently available online, pages 73-74) noting, "Most of the book recounts Mejia's five months as a staff sergeant and leader of a nine-person squad in Iraq.  This account is invaluable not only because it presents a picture of the reality of the occupation -- infused, from the very beginning, with racism, brutality, and incompetence -- but also because it helps us understand the process through which soldiers can become resisters."  In Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia, Mejia concludes his story with the kangaroo court-martial and notes what he told the court:
     
    We're all on trial.  Not just me, sitting here, but everybody here in uniform, everybody in this country. . . .  War crimes?  Abuse of prisoners?  The U.S. Army?  No.  A few privates, perhaps, one sergeant; they did that.  They did that because they didn't have the courage to do what I did, because they were lost in a situation where it's hard to tell the difference between right and wrong.  Perhaps they were afraid not to do what they were told by people who are higher ranking.  Perhaps they decided that it was easier to do what everybody else was doing.  So now it's easier to judge these people and put them on trial and blame it on them. . . .  I'm not saying they're not responsible.  They have some responsibility, just like I have some responsibility for the things I did in Iraq.  Of course I do.  But if we really want to look at ourselves as military and we really want to keep our pride and honor as a military, then we have to start from the top.
     
    At which point the 'judge' interrupts.  The same 'judge' that refused to let arguments of the legalities of the illegal war be raised and felt that -- pay attention -- the judiciary had no oversight over the military -- that was something to be left to the Executive and Legislative branches.  That's real cute and I'm sure there are other matters that the two branches wish the judiciary would sit out.  Wrigley-Field concludes of the book, "Mejia was the first.  But he wasn't the last and there are many more to come.  We have much to learn from his story."
     
    A Matter Of Conscience is a new documentary about the illegal war and Kevin and Monica Benderman's strength when Kevin realized he was a conscientious objector.  Like Mejia, Kevin Benderman is among the early war resisters.  A preview of the documentary is available at YouTube.  More information on the film can be found at Kevin Benderman's website.  A Matter of Conscience: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War is a project by William Short and Willa Seidenberg (an incredible project) and, to be clear, that's not this documentary.  (There are other items with that title, I believe Kevin Benderman also wrote a column with that title.)  If you're interested in purchasing a copy of the documentary, e-mail Earl Brackett (Minehead Productions) at minehead@triad.rr.com
     
    War resister and Iraq veteran James Burmeister, his wife Angelique and their son Cornell went to Canada.  Burmeister has repeatedly spoken about his job in Iraq, the US military assigned him the duty of setting "traps" -- equipment left laying out so that any Iraqi who touched it could be shot for touching US property.  Burmeister is far from the only veteran of the illegal worker to speak of this. Today the topic makes the mainstream.  Josh White and Joshua Partlow (Washington Post) report that "military court documents" reveal this was being done to provide Iraq targets for "U.S. military snipers" and they note: "'Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy,' Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon attached to the 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, said in a sworn statement. 'Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. Forces.'  In documents obtained by The Washington Post from family members of the accused soldiers, Didier said members of the U.S. military's Asymmetric Warfare Group visited his unit in January and later passed along ammunition boxes filled with the 'drop items' to be used 'to disrupt the AIF [Anti-Iraq Forces] attempts at harming Coalition Forces and give us the upper hand in a fight'."

    There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Derek Hess, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, 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.
     
     
     

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