Wednesday, January 16, 2008

THIS JUST IN! JOHN NICHOLS HAS A DREAM!

 
IN A STATE SHE DIDN'T EVEN CAMPAIGN IN, SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON WON 55.4% OF ALL DEMOCRATIC VOTERS.  BARACK OBAMA AND JOHN EDWARDS WERE TOO CHICKEN-SH*T TO STAND UP TO THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL PARTY AND PUT THEIR NAMES ON THE BALLOT AND THAT IS -- PAY ATTENTION LITTLE JEFF SAINT CLARA -- IS A "SCAB.".  THEIR CAMPAIGNS, HOWEVER, DID THROW ALL THEIR WEIGHT INTO GETTING THEIR SUPPORTERS TO VOTE "UNCOMMITTED."
 
IN FACT, DO-NOTHING CHAIR OF THE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE JOHN CONYERS ALSO URGED HIS STATE'S VOTERS TO VOTE "UNCOMMITTED."
 
BUT DESPITE THE EFFORTS OF SO MANY, CITIZENS OF MICHIGAN VOTING IN THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY GAVE HILLARY CLINTON -- WHO DID NOT CAMPAIGN IN THE STATE -- THE BIGGEST VICTORY ANY DEMOCRATIC HAS HAD IN A PRIMARY OR CAUCUS THUS FAR THIS YEAR.
 
 
WHEN REACHED FOR COMMENT, NICHOLS TOLD THESE REPORTERS HE WOULD BE HAPPY TO RESPOND TO ANY QUESTIONS PROVIDED WE GAVE HIM ENOUGH TIME TO CALL THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN FOR HIS ANSWERS.
 
HE DID, HOWEVER, AGREE TO ANSWER ONE QUESTION ON HIS OWN: IF YOU COULD BE ANYONE OR ANYTHING ELSE, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
 
"THAT'S EASY!" EXCLAIMED NICHOLS.  "I'D BE THE Y-FRONT OF BARACK'S B.V.D.S.  THE INSIDE OF THE Y-FRONT SO I COULD BE WARM AND FRIENDLY AND CLOSER TO MY GOD."
 
 
Starting with war resisters. Heather Wokusch (American Chronicle) notes war resistance in Germany.  She notes Agustin Aguayo's resistance, Clifton Hicks and "John." We noted John when we noted Wokusch's article earlier.  Hicks' story is told in depth in Peter Laufer's Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq.  Hicks would get his CO status after serving in Iraq (twice, his unit made it to Kuwait and were then sent back in instead of heading out of the Mid East as planned).  Hicks shares this story with Laufer:
 
We heard a lot of gunfire up ahead and you could tell it wasn't just a couple AK-47s, it was some U.S. weapon firing back.  We knew somebody was in a fight up there.  We race ahead down the street and there's an 82 Airborne infantry platoon and they're all parked in their Humvees -- about four Humvees packed with guys.  There's a house with the lights on and people are all around the place.  There's a big fuss going on.
 
We pull up and we say, 'What's going on?  We heard some shooting up here.'  And they're like, 'Yeah, we got ambushed just now.'  They started clearing buildings to find out who was firing at them.  They kicked in this first door and there's a wedding party going on.  What they do in Baghdad, when there's a wedding, they shoot into the air.  These people were up on their roof, probably a little sauced up, happy there's a wedding, and I guess Grandpa is up on the roof shooting off his rifle at the same time as this 82nd patrol drives by and is engaged by insurgents from a field.  They returned fire in both directions, and I think most of them returned fire on the wedding party.  They returned fire on the wedding party and they shot three people, three people at a wedding party.  Because somebody was shooting into the air to celebrate, these guys wanted to kill him.   
 
The insurgents were fine, not a scrach on them.  They made it just fine.  The innocent people who were partying, just trying to celebrate a wedding, three of them had been shot.  One man had been shot in the arm, a girl had been shot in the leg, and one younger girl who was about six was dead -- laying on the ground, dead.  She was six years old, laying on the ground, face down, palms up, in a little flowery dress.  She was stone dead.  Mothers and women are all bawling and crying.  The men are all standing in shock.  We bandaged up the one guy.  The one little girl was crying, she was maybe ten, shot in the leg.  Everyone is sitting around like, 'Yeah, they f**king killed some little kid.'  I'm like, 'What the f**k?  That's pretty sh**ty.'        
 
The 82nd called it up to their guys and their command said, 'Charlike Mike [military parlance for 'Continue the mission'], just keep going.'  They packed up and drove off.  So we just hopped in our humvees and we drove off too.  
 
And that was the end of it.  They applied first aid to the people who had been shot.  The girl who was dead, they just left her there on the floor.  We drove off and continued the mission.
 
War resisters have resisted in a number of ways throughout the Iraq War.  That includes the ones who went to Canada seeking asylum.   November 15th, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear the appeals of  war resisters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey.  Parliament is the solution.Three e-mails addresses to focus on are: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. A few more can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use. Both War Resisters Support Campaign and Courage to Resist are calling for actions from January 24-26.  The War Resisters Support Campaign has more on the action in Canada:
 
The War Resisters Support Campaign has called a pan-Canadian mobilization on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 to ensure :
1) that deportation proceedings against U.S. war resisters currently in Canada cease immediately; and 2) that a provision be enacted by Parliament ensuring that U.S. war resisters refusing to fight in Iraq have a means to gain status in Canada.
For listings of local actions, see our Events page. If you are able to organize a rally in your community, contact the Campaign -- we will list events as details come in.
 
 
Join and support January 25 vigils and delegations in support of U.S. war resisters currently seeking sanctuary Canada. Actions are being planned in Washington D.C., New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Supporters will meet with officials at Canadian Consulates across the United States in order underscore that many Americans hope that the Canadian Parliament votes (possible as early as February) in favor of a provision to allow war resisters to remain. Download and distribute Jan. 25-26 action leaflet (PDF).
Supporting the war resisters in Canada is a concrete way to demonstrate your support of the troops who refuse to fight. Help end the war by supporting the growing GI resistance movement today!
Organize a delegation to a Canadian Consulate near you .
Host an event or house-party in support of war resisters.
 
Tomorrow (Thursday), Ann Wright (retired State Department, retired US Col.) will have an event for her new book Dissent: Voice of Conscience (Koa Books, out next week) that will benefit Courage to Resist's above campaign.  She will be at Oakland's First Congressional Church on 2501 Harrison along with Daniel Ellsberg.  Dissent: Voices of Conscience, written by Wright and Susan Dixon with an introduction by Ellsberg,
 
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara 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, Blake LeMoine, 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, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty 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. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
 
 

 
In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.
Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine's famous admonishing of the "summer soldier" who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.
Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming "a few bad apples" instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.
In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation's capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars. We hope you'll join us, because yours is a story that every American needs to hear.

 
March 13th through 16th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation. 
 
 

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