Monday, June 25, 2007

THIS JUST IN! WHINE ON ,CHRISTY, WHINE ON!

 
THE SCUM THAT IS THE COUNCIL FOR FOREIGN RELATIONS SAW ONE OF IT'S MEMBERS HIT THE NEWS TODAY IN
 
THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY MOUTH PIECE WAS IN D.C. TO TESTIFY NOT ABOUT NUKES, NOR TO SING "IT'S MY PARTY TOO! AND I'LL WHINE IF I WANT TO, WHINE IF I WANT TO, WHINE IF I WANT TO, YOU WOULD WHINE TOO IF YOU WERE ME AND NOT YOU,"  OR EVEN BEING ON THE SHORT LIST OF THE PRESIDENTIAL AND VICE-PRESIDENTIAL 2008 NOMINATIONS FROM THE LAUGHABLE "UNITY '08" CAMPAIGN.
 
CHRISTY TODD WHITMAN WAS THERE TO SPEAK OF HER DISASTER LEADERSHIP OF THE HEAD OF THE E.P.A. IN THE FIRST BULLY BOY'S ADMINISTRATION.
 
CHRISTY TODD WHITMAN BREEZED IN AND WAS VISIBLY STUNNED BY THE BOOS AND HISSES THAT GREETED HER CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY.
 
 
"I HAVE BEEN CALLED A LIAR," SHE ADMITTED BUT DID NOT GO ON TO DENY THE CHARGE.
 
ON THE WAY OUT OF THE HEARING, CHRISTY TODD WHITMAN SNAPPED AT A WOMAN AND ATTEMPTED TO SLUG HER. 
 
"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME!  WHAT DID YOU CALL ME!"  WHITMAN HOLLERED.
 
THE WOMAN REPEATED THE 5 LETTER WORD.
 
"OH THAT," SAID WHITMAN BACKING OFF.  "I THOUGHT YOU SAID I WAS 'A POOR'."
 
 
 
 
Starting with war resisters.  Chris Capps (Courage to Resist via Democracy Rising) shares his story which begins in "the Army Reserves in 2004 looking to earn money for college and basically to become independent," continues to Iraq (2005) where the "chow" at Camp Victory is among the surprises:
 
There were Philly cheese steaks, a good salad bar, a juice bar, Baskin Robbins Ice Cream, and food better then anything I had ever seen before.  There was a Pizza Hut, a giant PX store, a Subway, an Arby's, a Greens Beans, and a Popeye's Chicken too.
When you're expecting a combat zone and you walk into something like this you have to wonder "What the hell is going on here?"  It was surreal sitting there eating a Subway sandwich, listening to evelator music, and hearing explosions sou loud they could knock your drink right off the table, and gunfire in the distance.
KRB ran everything on Camp Victory.  I eventually figured out the deal.  I saw the Filipino and Pakistani contractors laboring hard while the American KBR employees drove around in brand new cars just to get from one end of the post to another.  Everyone talked about the corruption.  I learned about how much it cost the American taxpayer so that I could walk into that nice DFAC, sit down, and have a bite to eat.
 
In September 2006, he was stationed in Germany and, having seen what Kyle Huwer was going through attempting to get conscientious objector status, Capps decided to self-check out: "I remained AWOL for 60 days.  At that point my unit classified me as more then AWOL -- I was now in a 'deserter status.'  On May 8 I turned myself in at Fort Still, Oklahoma.  Kyle had suggested Fort Sill because it, along with Fort Knox, had a designated out processing center for AWOL soldiers who turn themselves in.  But if you're not yet in a 'deserter status,' chances are you will just be returned to the unit you left.  It doesn't always work out so smoothly, but on May 11 I was discharged from the Army with an 'other than honorable' discharge." 
 
Chris Capps resides in Germany now, is assisting other soldiers and attempting to start up "a chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War" there.  He concludes: "I don't believe in this war.  I would like to see more people choosing not to deploy.  I think this is the only direct and effective resistance that is going to make this war impossible to go on forever.  If the politicians refuse to listen to the people, then the people need to take action.  If we had resistance throughout the military then we could finally end this war here and now."
 
 
The movement of resistance within the US military grows and includes Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Care, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.

Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, 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.
 
Sunday, Kirsten Scharnberg (Chicago Tribune) examined the efforts of the US military brass to silence dissent [Scharnberg's article is also carried by The Baltimore Sun which requires no registration] and zoomed in on the attempts to punish Iraq Veterans Against the War's
Liam Madden, Cloy Richards and Adam Kokesh for speaking out against the illegal war with Scharnberg noting: "Many of the protests involving vets in uniform are all-out street theater, like on in Washington last spring at which protesters staged a mock patrol, manhandling people at stimulated gunpoint to illustrate how they say Iraqis are treated by American troops.  The intended subtext of the uniformed protests is apparent.  Protesters have additional credibility because they are denouncing a war they have witnessed firstand, that the very uniforms now being used in protest have walked the real battlefield."  Madden explains, "Guys like us -- veterans who served but then came believe the war is not only wrong but illegal -- are not who the military wants speaking on a national stage."  Which is what it comes down -- fatiques are not dress uniforms.  Those discharged (as Kokesh, Madden and Richards were) are not generally discharged from the IRR.  But the brass is working overtime in an attempt to clamp down and will resort to anything, no matter how shameful.
 
KBR, mentioned by Chris Capps, was Kellogg Brown and Root which came together when Brown and Root merged with Halliburton's M.W. Kellogg.  Jackie Northam (NPR) reported on the issue of the 120,000 contractors in Iraq for today's Morning Edition noting a hearing
exposed many other problems in the contracting industry  . . . in fact, at that hearing, a spokesperson for the army couldn't even say how many contracting companies were working in Iraq.  These issues have led to calls for more transperancy in the contracting industry . . .  There's no central data base, no single organization to keep track  of facts and figures and so that the most basic questions regarding civilian contractors cannot easily be answered.  What roles do the contractors play?  What nationalities?  How much is it costing the American taxpayer and how many contractors have been killed?  One of the most vexing questions is what legal framework do the contractors fall under?"
 
Heading into last weekend, the US military fatality count in Iraq stood at 3546 on Friday.  Today it stands at 3560.  The US military began announcing the 14 deaths on Saturday and Sunday and reaching 14 with this morning's announcement: "A Task Force Marne Soldier died in a small arms fire attack today" in Baghdad. The 14 dead come days after Peter Pace and US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates were attempting to push the notion that progress in Iraq had nothing to do with violence or deaths.  Today Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reports that "some American commanders expressed doubts about the ability of Iraqi troops to hold gains made in areas north of the capital last week . . .  The American commander in Baquba, Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, and his counterpart south of Baghdad, Maj. Gen Rick Lynch, pointed to a variety of problems with the Iraqi forces, including a shortage of trained troops and a lack of basic supplies like ammunition, radios and trucks."  BBC notes: "The BBC's Andrew North, in Baghdad, says US commanders blame a lack of committed and properly organised Iraqi troops for the failure of past efforts to secure the Baghdad region" and those problems do not appear to have vanished as the same-old-same-old spreads into the north.   Though doing the same thing with larger numbers in northern Iraq (don't call it strategy) resulted in as many as 10,000 US service members in the Diyala province, Baghdad has been the locale for deaths in the last few days -- US and Iraqis.
 
 
 

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