Friday, April 06, 2007

THIS JUST IN! DICK'S NEW LIE!

 
 
IN THE FACE OF THE JUST RELEASED DEFENSE DEPARTMENT REPORT THAT STATES THE C.I.A. AND THE DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY FOUND NO LINK BETWEEN SADDAM HUSSEIN AND AL QAEDA BEFORE THE U.S. ADMINISTRATION LAUNCHED THEIR ILLEGAL WAR ON IRAQ JUST AS  PRESIDENT OF VICE DICK CHENEY WAS TELLING RUSH LIMBAUGH AND HIS FEW HUNDRED LISTNERS THAT AL QAEDA WAS IN IRAQ "BEFORE WE EVER LAUNCHED" THE ILLEGAL WAR, THE DICKSTER IS NOW TRYING A NEW TACTIC.
 
VICE TOLD THESE REPORTERS, "I WAS NOT SAYING THAT SADDAM HUSSEIN AND AL QAEDA HAD A BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP.  IT WAS A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP.  A SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP.  THEY WERE HIS HAREM.  AND NANCY PELOSI'S HUSBAND IS AN UNDERCOVER C.I.A. AGENT -- BE SURE TO CREDIT THAT LAST PART TO HARRY REID'S OFFICE."
 
 
Starting with war resistance, approximately 40 US war resisters have self-checked out, moved to Canada and filed paperwork to be legally granted asylumn in Canada.  (Approximately 40 have filed papers, hundreds have gone to Canada and are not attempting to go through the legal process.)  Reuben Apple (Eye Weekly) notes that war resisters appearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board to argue their case are prevented from saying "We think this killing is unlawful" and they "are asking our Federal Court of Appeal for the right to say" those six words.  Apple notes that attorney Jeffry House -- who represents many war resisters -- is a Canadian citizen today because of the country's policies during an earlier illegal war (Vietnam) when a real prime minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, didn't cower before Tricky Dick Nixon but instead declared, "Canada should be a refuge from militarism."  Tricky Dick's response to that statement and policy was to call the Canadian prime minister an "asshole" and Trudeau's comeback was that he'd "been called worse things by better people." 
 
Apple notes war resisters Ryan Johnson ("wake up and get involved with something, nuclear disarmament, the Canadian Peace Alliance, the War Resisters Support Campaign, anything, because it's the people that can end this"), Jeremy Hinzman, Joshua Key: "Two weeks ago, three big men in trench coats, claiming to be 'Toronto police,' came with questions to the home of Winnie Ng, a campaigner who once hosted Key.  According to Toronto Star reports of the incident, it seems American military authorities would like to speak with Key.  If they want to discuss The Deserter's Tale with its author, they can go to his next talk, or they can call his lawyer, Jeffrey House.  Key has legal status in Canada as a refugee claimant, and officials should tell the American government that our police, if those men were our police, are not their messengers."
 
 
Earlier this week, Monday, on Canada's  Gorilla Radio, host Chris Cook interviewed the War Resisters Support Campaign's Lee Zaslofsky on the topic of US war resisters in Canada. Zaslofsky spoke of what was known and what wasn't known -- such as Kyle Snyder was detained by Canadian police (and that was on the US military's orders though Zaslofsky didn't note that) but he was not deported.  During this "mistaken arrest," Snyder was told he was being deported. (He legally cannot be deported.)  Cook noted that when a war resister appears before the Refugee and Immigration Board, they are not appearing before a group of people, the board has one person designated to hear that case.  Like attorney Jeffry House, Zaslofsky came to Canada during Vietnam as a war resister.  Zaslofsky noted that Synder's status in Canada has changed as a result of the fact that he is now married.  (That would be to Maleah Friesen, whom Zaslofsky didn't note.)  As Friesen's spouse, Snyder has more avenues available to Canadian citizenship.  March 19th, Zaslofsky noted, Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey were before the Federarl Court of Appeals and are awaiting a decision which, if necesarry, Zasolfsky states, "We'll appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada."
 
Snyder, Key, Hinzman and Hughey are part of a movement of resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada  Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson,  Corey Glass, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Dean Walcott, Patrick Hart, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight 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, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
 
From war resistance to reality as we dig into some of the lies of the illegal war.  From yesterday's Flashpoints:
 
 
 
Robert Knight: Also in Iraq, a spokesperson for Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is today denying reports that Sistani rejected a new draft law that would allow former members of the Baath party to retain or regain government employment.  Sistani's Beriut based representive, Hamed al-Kafaf said, "What some news agencies said, quoting who they described as an aide to al-Sistani about his position on the de-Baathification law was not true."  Recent reports that Sistani was against the draft law can be traced to a meeting earlier this week between Sistani and the prevaracating US intelligence asset Ahmed Chalabi who heads the so-called de-Baathification commission and who remains dead set against an easment of the anti-Baath legislation imposed by the occupation forces.  Sistani's representative added, "We are surprised by attempts trying to get the Shia clerical establisment involved in a case which is the speciality of constitutional organizations."
And in other news, the overnight release of 15 British sailors by the Iranian government has generated mixed signals in what some say was a quid pro quo that in regard to the 5 Iranian diplomats who were seized last Janurary by American forces in Iraq.  Iranian media reported overnight that an Iranian diplomatic official would be allowed to meet with the five diplomatic detainees.  But Secreatary of Defense Robert Gates said today that the Bush administration was not planning to release the five who were abducted in a raid on the Iranian consulate's office in the northern Iraqi city of Ibril.
And in a related note, a captain among the detained British sailors who were released was revealed to have admitted that there mission the Shaw al abray waterway between Ira1 and Iran, unsurprisingly did indeed involve elements of intelligence gathering Britain' s Murdoch owned Sky News is reporting today that Sky News went on patrol with Captain Chris Air and his team in Iraqi waters close to the area where they were arrested and just five days
before the crisis began, in an interview recorded the Thursday before the seizure that happened two weeks ago,  Captain Air stated to the interviewer that his crew's assignment was "To gather intelligence.  If they do not have any information because they're there for days at a time, the people on the boats can share it with us.  Whether it's about piracy or any sort of Iranian activity in the area  obviously we're right by the bufferzone with Iran."  And that's some of the news of this Thursday April 5, 2007.  From exile in New York, I'm Robert Knight for Flashpoinsts.
 
Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes today that "British Defense Secretary Des Browne defended the intelligence operation.  Browne said it was important to gather intelligence to 'keep our people safe'."  Goodman also noted that Sky News sat on the story "until the release of the sailors."
 
 
Turning to other lies of war, R. Jeffrey Smith (Washington Post) reports today that a US Defense Department report (declassifired yesterday and written by Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble) states the obvious -- in 2002 the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency both knew the claims that Saddam Hussein had a links to al Qaeda were incorrect.  Smith notes the report was released yesterday, "on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq 'before we ever launched' the war".  Dick Cheney's remarks are not merely 'incorrect,' they are lies. Peter Speigel (Los Angeles Times) reports that "The Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA each 'published reports that disavowed any "mature, symbiotic" cooperation between Iraq and Al Qaeda,' the inspector general's report found."  AP notes that US Senator Carl Levin "requested that the Pentagon declassify the report prepared by acting Defense Department Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble.  In a statement Thursday, Levin said the declassified document showed why a Defense Department investigation had concluded that some Pentagon prewar intelligence work was inappropriate."  Strangely in the face of Cheney's lies about terrorism, Michael Ware (CNN) reports that the US military is currently protecting a non al Qaeda group in Iraq that the US State Department has "labeled a terrorist organization"  -- Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) -- and that "[t]he U.S. military . . . regularly escorts MEK supply runs between Baghdad and its base, Camp Ashraf."  Why?  MEK is an anti-Iranian group.  Ware reports that the Iraqis government wants the group out and quotes Iraq's National Security Minister Shirwan al-Wa'eli stating, "We gave this organization a six-month deadline to leave Iraq, and we informed the Red Cross. And presumably our friends the Americans will respect our decision and they will not stay on Iraqi land."
 
 

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Thursday, April 05, 2007

THIS JUST IN! NEWT OFFERS TRAVEL ADVICE

 
TODAY NEWT GINGRICH APOLOGIZED BECAUSE HIS "WORD CHOICE WAS POOR" AND THAT BILINGUAL EDUCATION WAS NOT "THE LANGUAGE OF LIVING IN A GHETTO."
 
THE FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER AND SLAVE TO HIS PASSIONS NEWT RELEASED A VIDEO ON YOUTUBE TODAY WHERE HE DRESSED UP AS THE TACO BELL MASCOT AND ADVISED ALL WATCHING TO "HEAD SOUTH OF THE BORDER."
 
WHEN ASKED IF HE MEANT TO BE INSULTING WITH HIS YOUTUBE VIDEO, NEWT STORMED OFF, CURSING AND MUTTERING ABOUT HOW "THOSE PEOPLE NEED TO LEARN TO SPEAK AMERICAN."
 
 
 
 
Turning to news of war resistance, Ehren Watada has new legal representation.  Watada, the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq and the first to be court-martialed (in a court-martial Judge Toilet ruled a mistrial over the objection of the defense) is no longer represented by Eric Seitz.  William Cole (Honolulu Advertiser) quotes Seitz stating, "I think the way to put it is I'm not representing him anymore and he's found another firm" and Bob Watada (Ehren's father) stating, "I have the highest opinion of Eric Seitz.  But it's Ehren's decision."  Hawaii's KNDO notes that Watada's next court-martial is scheduled for July 16th.  Whether it will go foward or not is up in the air because double-jeporady should have attached when Judge Toilet (Lt. Col. Head) declared a mistrial, over defense objection, in the midst of the trial.  Cole notes Watada is now represented by Carney Badley Spellman in Seattle. Fort Lewis is in Seattle so that is one plus (Seitz resides in Hawaii).  Another is the strong lawyers working for the firm such as Jim Lobsenz.  AP notes "Watada is currently assigned to an administrative position at Fort Lewis."  Earlier this week, Paul Rockwell (Berkeley Daily Planet) summarzies Watada's case thus far and notes that "Watada never volunteered -- no soldier volunteers -- to violate human rights, to violate American treaties, to destroy the sovereignty of nations, to participate in aggression.  A contract to break the law has no legal standing."
 
 
Ehren Watada is a part of a movement of resistance within the military that also includes Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson,  Kyle Snyder , Joshua Key, Corey Glass, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Dean Walcott, Patrick Hart, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight 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, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
 
In Iraq today, another helicopter has gone down.  The Times of London reports that the downing took place "this morning after coming under fire in a Sunni militrant stonghold south of baghdad, an Iraqi army officials said. AFP reports that "four personnel on board a US army helicopter were wounded and 'evacuated' when it crashed south of Baghdad.  Five others on board were safe".  CNN reports that an unnamed US military official has stated that the helicopter "appeared to be damaged by small-arms fire" and notes that 8 helicopters "have been shot down or forced to make hard landings" since January 20, 2007.  Hard landings?  Sweeter word for "crash."  AP provides a list of 9 helicopter incidents (beginning on January 20th) leading up to today's which, they note, resulted from "an anti-aircraft heavy machine gun" according to an "Iraqi official."
 
Turning to the US Congress, Tuesday on Free Speech Radio News, Leigh Ann Caldwell reported on the latest talk of a new Senate bill regarding the war: "Responding to Bush's veto threats to the $124 billion war supplemental, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senator Russ Feingold have come up with a backup plan, a plan that goes further.  It would stop funding US combat missions on March 31st of next year.  It's important to note though that troops would remain for security reasons and to fight al Qaeda in Iraq."  (Thank you to Micah and another member who both transcribed Caldwell.)  On the measures passed by the House and Senate previously, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (CounterPunch) observe, "Although nothing of any significance actually happened on March 32, to read liberal commentators one would think we'd witnessed some profound upheaval, courtsey of Nancy Pelosi's skillful uniting of the various Democratic factions.  What she accomplished in practice was the neutering of the antiwar faction. . . .  Will Congressional opposition to the war now get stronger, anchored by Pelosi's bill?  Not likely.  The window of opportunity for that flew open right after the election when antiwar forces roared in outrage after being snubbed by Pelosi and Reid, who omitted the war and the Patriot Act from their must-do agenda.  Instead, the Democratic leadership chose merely to appear to oppose the war while continuing to fund it.  This they have now achieved, amid the satisfied cheers of the progressive sector."
 
 
As people of the United States, taking action to right these terrible wrongs is our greatest responsibility. Join us in letting our elected representatives know that we want the war to end and the troops to come home now!
Congress is now on recess, giving us an opportunity to take our message directly to them in their homes offices: Start bringing the troops home from Iraq now, bring all the troops home in 2007, and no war in Iran! The House of Representatives will be on recess March 31-April 15, and the Senate from March 31-April 9. Now is the time to make our voices heard. Click here for ways to take action.
Scheduled a meeting with your reps? Please post it on our events calendar.
Suggested reading on the supplemental:
 
Don't Buy Bush's War!  "CODEPINK believes that not one more dollar should be appropriated for continued war and occupation, and will continue to push the position that Congress should only fund the safe, orderly and rapid withdrawal of all troops by the end of this year."  Read more of CODEPINK's response to the passing of the supplemental bill.  We will continue our broad and exciting Don't Buy Bush's War Campaign. We need to flood the offices, halls, sidewalks and streets of Congress with people opposed to the war from now through this Fall. We're asking for your help to get people to Washington DC and to do similar actions locally. CALL CONGRESS: we're also asking you to call and email your member of Congress telling him or her to stop buying Bush's war.  Watch the Washington Post's film about this campaign.
 
Those who don't see the urgency in ending the war quickly should read Deborah Sontag's  (New York Times) article on Iraq veteran Sam Ross who returned from Iraq blind and missing a portion of his left leg and was left to address mental and emotional issues arises from his time in Iraq and his injuries with no help or assistance from the government that so gladly sent him into an illegal war.
 
Finally, though the plan is still to address the idiotic article in The Nation (noted last Friday), Bernadine Dohrn (writing at CounterPunch) has already done so: "Christopher Phelps has written a timely but ultimately disappointing article in The Nation about the vibrant and growing student movement.  He transforms the tough challenges of movement-building into a set of tepid forumulas about what not to do.  The new wave of student activism in American and around the world is a hopeful development worthy of our active participation and respect."  As noted last week, for those not interested in musings from the faux set, check out Doug Viehmeyer's article "Steppin It Up: The New SDS" (LeftTurn) about the SDS.
 
 
 
RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"

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Wednesday, April 04, 2007

THIS JUST IN! HE DOESN'T MEAN HALF OF WHAT HE SAYS

 
 
 
 
 

Starting with war resisters, yesterday Free Speech Radio News filed report on Robert Zabala by Aaron Glantz:
 
Aura Bogado: A federal judge in nothern California has over-ruled the military justice system, and ordered the Marine Corps discharge a soldier who says he wouldn't be able to kill.  In his ruling, US District Court Judge James Ware of San Jose ruled reservists Robert Zabala whould be discharged from the military as a conscientious objector.  It's extremely rare for civilian courts to over-rule military courts, but Zabala's attorney says it's at least the second time it's happened during the Iraq war.  FSRN's Aaron Glatnz reports.
 
Aaron Glantz: University of California Santa Cruz student Robert Zabala received money for school because he joined the military.  He entered the Marine Corps thinking it would be a place where he could find security after the death of his grandmother in 2003.  But when he came to boot camp that June, Zabala said he had an ethical awakening that would not allow him to kill other people.  Zabala was particularly appalled by boot camps' attempts to desensitize the recruits to violence.
 
Zabala: The response that all the recruits are supposed to say is "kill."  So in unison you have, maybe 400 recruits, you know, "Kill!  Kill!  Kill! Kill!"  And after awhile that word almost becomes nothing to you.  What does it mean?  You say it so often that you don't really think of the consequences of what it means to say kill over and over as you're performing this, you know, deadly technique, a knife to the throat."
 
Glantz: In his ruling, Judge Ware noted Zabala's experiences with his first commander, Capt. Sanchez  during basic training, Sanchez repeatedly gave speeches about blowing BLEEP up or kicking some BLEEP.  In 2003 when a fellow recruit committed suicide on the shooting range Sanchez commented in front of the recruits BLEEP him, BLEEP his parents for raising him,  and BLEEP the girl who dumped him.  Another boot camp instructor showed recruits a motivational clip video showing Iraqi corpses, explosions and gun fights and rockets set to heavy metal songs that included the lyrics "Let the bodies hit the floor."  Zabala he abhored the blood lust his commanders seemed to posses.  Aaron Hughes served six years in the Illionis Guard, including one tour as a military truck driver in occupied Iraq.  He says Robert Zabala's experiences are typical  of basic training.
 
Hughes: It's a lot of competition and a lot of learning how to not see yourself as a person or others as human beings.  It's just, you're a piece of property and that's the way it functions and that's your job is to function like an object under command.  I mean, it's a really simple life though when you're under complete complete orders.
 
Glantz: Hughes says at the time he believed basic training helped capture manhood
he felt he lacked being raised by his mother but after being sent to Iraq, he changed his mind. 
 
Hughes: I think it's wrong now looking back at it.  How can you not be see it as a step away from your humanity?  I mean basically you get in there and they --  you go -- you -- automatically start isolating you and they tell you how your girlfriend's not going to be there and she doesn't matter when you get home or your husband.  Like don't trust anyone but the military.  They really start fostering that as . . . your sole relationship in life.
 
Glantz: When Robert Zabala realized he couldn't kill another human being he submitted a written application to the reserves.   He saw two chaplains and a clinical psychologist who all agreed his moral objections were legitimate and that he should be discharged from the Marine Corps.  But his platoon commander . . . called Zabala insincere and recommended his petition be denied.  So Zabala went to federal court.  Geoff  Millard is the Washington DC representative  for Iraq Veterans Against the War.  He says Judge Ware's decision to force the military to discharge Zabala will make an impact.
 
Geoffrey Millard: Someone who's sitting back and thinking about c.o. and they really are very sincere, but they're not sure if their claim will make it, then this may give that person hope and will not have them violating their conscience.  That's the reason why we have a c.o. process in military relgulations is so that you make sure that you don't ask people to violate their conscience.
 
Glantz: The Marine Corps has yet to say whether they will appeal Judge Ware's decision.  For Free Speech Radio News, I'm Aaron Glantz.
 
Todd Guild (Santa Cruz Sentinel) quotes Stephen Collier, Zabala's attorney, "This ruling is important because it lets other potential conscientious objectors know that there is hope."  L.A. Chung (San Jose Mercury News) reports, "Steve Collier, Zabala's attorney, hopes the ruling will make it easier to obtain conscientious objector status.  And it is a victory for those who do not cite religious beliefs as the reason for appying for conscientious objector status.  Judge Ware, who teaches federal jurisdiction at Golden Gate University, took the unusual step of holding the hearing here, so that students could attend.  'The judge thought it was an interesting case,' Collier said."
 
 
Zabala is a part of a movement of resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Darrell Anderson,  Kyle Snyder , Joshua Key, Corey Glass, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Dean Walcott, Patrick Hart, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight 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, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
 
 
 
 
CBS and AP report on Bully Boy's White House nonsense yesterday where he called the Democrats "irresponsible."  Apparently, the man who convinced himself that WMDs were found has now convinced himself that someone else occupied the White House in 2003 when he illegally went to war on Iraq.  Staying on topics of the unhinged, Robert Gates, US Secretary of Defense has issued a predicition.  Reuters reports that Gates announced today that "one real possibility" of the US withdrawing from Iraq is that it could cause "ethnic cleansing."  After sharing that vision, Gates predicted the Indianapolis Colts to win the February 4, 2007 Superbowl and that the Democrats would gain Congressional seats in the November 2006 elections.  Going into a deep fugue state, Gates advised that JFK would be shot in Dallas and that Time Warner would merge with AOL "sometime around January 2000" and would live to regret the merger but "I see a rebounding for the long maligned victrola." 
 
In the real world, Tom Hayden (The Huffington Post) observes: "The time has come to understand the new de facto US policy in Iraq: to support, fund, arm and train a sectarian Shi'a-Kurdish state, one engaged in ethnic cleansing, mass detention and murder of Sunni Arabs.  If this description seems harsh, it is only because our minds are crowded with false or outdates paradigms.  First was the dream of Baghdad as an sexemplary democratic domino.  Then the kumbaya notion of a unitary neo-liberal state with proportional representation and revenue-sharing among Shi'a, Kurds and Sunnis.  All along, the US has described itself as a neutral arbiter among warring factions, a promoter of the rule of law and human rights in the Iraqi jungle.  Even as former US ambassador Khalilzad left Baghdad, he was struggling to clinch deals over oil revenue-sharing, reversal of de-Baathification laws, and inclusion of Sunni interests in constitutional reform and local governance.  The Shi'a, muttering that Khalilzad was a Sunni apologist, seemed uninterested in anything but window-dressing reforms.  Whether by accident or design, the reality since 2006 is that the Shi'a, with Kurdish approval, are carrying out a sectarian war against the Sunni population with American dollars and trainers."  Who are US tax dollars supporting?
 
 
 

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Tuesday, April 03, 2007

THIS JUST IN! OBAMA'S SOMEONE PERSONAL JESUS!

 
 
 
THE 24 YEAR OLD UNDERGRADUATE SEES OBAMA AS JESUS BUT THE MOST SURPRISING THING MAY BE A 24 YEAR OLD UNDERGRADUATE.  WHEN THESE REPORTERS REQUESTED OFFICIAL COLLEGE TRANSCRIPTS, WE WERE REBUFFED.
 
MEANWHILE, ROBERT NAIMAN RISKS BLASPHEMY BY SUGGESTING THAT OBAMA DOES NOT WALK ON WATER.  WRITING ABOUT BARACK OBAMA TELLING THE A.P. THAT NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, BULLY BOY WILL GET THE SUPPLEMENTAL, NAIMAN ASKS, "WHAT KIND OF AN ORGANIZER CONFIDES TO THE MEDIA THAT WHEN PUSH COMES TO SHOVE, HIS SIDE IS GOING TO BACK DOWN?"
 
ONE WHO CAVES FREQUENTLY OR DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH EXPERIENCE.
 
 
 
Starting with news of war resistance, Robert Zabala has received his conscientious objector status.  Tony Parry (Los Angeles Times) reports that the C.O. status was granted, not by the military, but instead by U.S. District Judge James Ware who "ordered the Marine Corps to discharge Zabala within 15 days."  Zabala's long journey is outlined in Peter Laufer's Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq.  Zabala comes from a military family, finished boot camp "at the top of his class"
as he grew more and more sure that he could not participate in warfare. 
 
Zarbala tells Sandra Gonzales (San Jose Mercury News) that 'motivational' shorts (music videos) and seeing the swapping of photos picturing dead Iraqis made him sent him on his journey and that, although "evaluated by a pshychologist and chaplains who believe he was qualified" for c.o. status, "the commandant of the Marine Corps" thought otherwise.  Henry K. Lee (San Francisco Chronicle) reports a 2004 excahnge "with a fellow Marine" which prompted even more contemplation -- Zabala, "I began to think about the thousands of people who died in the past year in war, who didn't die due to just one soldier or suicide bomber, but largely by an organization.  This organization trains to kill human life."
 
 
Zabala tells Peter Laufer that about discovering the classification of C.O., "You ever heard that song 'Pina Colada'?  The singer is reading off that description and he realizes, 'Hey, this is my wife!'  I was reading the CO description and I realized -- hey, this is me!  I wanted my conscientious objector discharge.  If they put me in a nonfighting job, I still saw myself as a cog in the Marine Corps machine."  In 2003, Robert Zabala completed his C.O. paperwork ("I will no longer participate in an organization that sustains war.")  Zabala told Laufer, "I will get my conscientious objector discharge.  I will make the Marine Corps see me as a conscientious objector regardless of what anybody says.  If they reject my claim I'm going to appeal."  It took the federal court system's help but Robert Zabala was awarded C.O. status.
 
Peter Laufer's book is Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq and it provides an overview of various war resisters and peace efforts.  Norman Solomon provides the foreward and the list price (US) is fourteen dollars.
 
Zabala is a part of a movement of resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Darrell Anderson,  Kyle Snyder , Joshua Key, Corey Glass, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight 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, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
 
 
 

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Monday, April 02, 2007

THIS JUST IN! MCCAIN PICKS UP SPARE CHANGE IN BAGHDAD!

 
DID ANYTHING HAPPEN IN DOMESTIC POLITICS TODAY, OR IS ALL PUT YOUR MONEY DOWN ON THE HORSE OF YOUR CHOICE?
 
AT THE O.T.B., THESE REPORTERS BUMPED INTO CRAZY JOHN MCCAIN WHO, CARRYING BRICKS OF CASH, EXPLAINED "The John McCain Showboat Express " HAD JUST RETURNED FROM IRAQ "WHERE THINGS ARE BETTER.  I FOUND THIS CASH IN THE U.S. EMBASSY THERE.  I THINK THE TALK OF THINGS NOT GOING SO WELL IS A LOT OF NAY SAYERS.  OH, GOTTA GO BET ON MY NAG -- AND I DON'T MEAN JOE LIEBERMAN!"
 
 
Starting with war resistance.  Randy Richmond (London Free Press) reports on the United in Song, United in Peace event in Canada yesterday where US war resister Tim Richard sang (Richard self-checked out in 2005) and US war resister Dean Walcott spoke about his "two tours of Iraq" and his decision to self-check out in Decemeber.  Walcott has applied for refugee status. Friday, US war resister Corey Glass appeared before the Canadian Immigration and Refugee board to plead his case.  Unlike during the Vietnam era, no war resister has yet been granted refugee status.  Today, 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. PST, Chris Cook's Gorilla Radio will feature War Resisters Support Campaign's Lee Zaslofsky discussing "treatment of a more sinister nature" such as the US military's harassment of Kyle Snyder via a supposedly Canadian police force.
 
Glass, Key, Snyder and Johnson are part of a movement of resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Darrell Anderson, Joshua Key, Ryan Johnson, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight 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, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
 
 
Resistance takes place outside the military and the Grandmothers Against the War were interviewed by Janet Coleman today on WBAI's CAT RADIO CAFE  about peace, the war and their arrest October 17, 2005 at Times Square Recruiting Center in NYC.  They group described this activism in a 2005 statement as: "We are grandmothers heartbroken over the huge loss of life and limb in Iraq.  We feel it is our patriotic duty to enlist in the United States military today in orders to replace our grandchildren who have been deployed there far too long and are anxious to come home now while they are still alive and whole.  By this action, we are not supporting the use of military force in Iraq -- in fact, we are totally against it.  But inasmuch as it exits, our goal in joining up is only to protect young people from further death and maiming."  Call, call, call, was one point, and tell your legislatures to vote for peace by stopping funding of the illegal war.  (AP's Mike Glover reports that Senator Barack Obama says if Bully Boy vetoes the proposed Congressional bill, "quickly" -- like whipped puppies -- Congress "will provide the money without the withdrawal timeline".  Obama would stand if he wasn't on all fours.)  The Congressional switchboard is (202) 224-3121. 
 
Meanwhile, US Senator Russ Feingold announces he's teamed up with the Majority Leader Harry Reid for a piece of legislation that, as described, is honestly disappointing coming from Feingold.  The way it will be reported -- by KPFA and others -- is "The bill ends funding for the war"!  The reality is the same escape clauses built into the House and Senate measures (House measure passed two weeks ago, Senate measure passed last week) that still need to be reconciled.  As with those measures, the bill, as described, says, "War is over . . . except for" and these are the exceptions:
 
(d) Exception for Limited Purposes -- The prohibition under subsection (c) shall not apply to the obligation or expenditure of funds for the limited purposes as follows:
 
(1) To conduct targeted operations, limited in duration and scope, against members of al Qaeda and other international terrorist organizations.
 
(2) To provide security for United States infrastructure and personnel.
 
(3) To train and equip Iraqi securit services.
 
If it all seems familiar, we're back to the age-old issue, "Are you a soldier or are you an adviser?"  As Robert Knight noted last Monday on Flashpoints, "This would leave an equal or greater number of US troops in Iraq under the vague but permanent classifications of counter-insurgency, security and training for what New York Senator Hillary Clinton calls 'remaining vital national security interests in the heart of the oil region.'  The rhetorical flourish of referring only to the withdrawal of combat troops recalls the tactic by which earlier administrations once referred to US soldiers in Vietnam as advisers rather than troops." (Those unable to utilize or benefit from the archived broadcast can click here for a text version -- with typos I'm sure.)  Lisa Goddard (CNN) asserts this proposed bill, if passed, "would end the majority of Iraq war funding after March 31, 2008".
 
Staying with politics and Iraq, US House Rep and 2008 presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich spoke to over 200 people in Olympia, Oregon.  Brad Shannon (The Olympian) reports that Kucinich stated, "We have to remember that Democrats are expected to stand for peace, to balance the power of this administration, to stand for the truth, to stand for social justice, and to stand for a domestic agenda instead of a military build-up. . . .  Congress should be using its power now to pull the plug on the war and to stop this war and to stop the bloodshed and take a new direction.  And Congress has the power to do it."
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Friday, March 30, 2007

THIS JUST IN! BULLY BOY DOES A CHEER AND THEN SPLITS!

 
BULLY BOY STUMBLED AROUND WALTER REED MEDICAL ARMY CENTER TODAY LOOKING LIKE HE WAS DRUNK WITH THE FOOLISH GRIN PLASTERED ON HIS FACE.
 
AT 1 POINT, HE ISSUED A NON-APOLOGY.  SOME IN THE PRESS LAPPED IT UP.
 
IF BULLY BOY WANTS TO APOLOGIZE, AND THE PRESS WANTS TO DO THEIR JOB, THEY CAN BOTH START BY POINTING OUT THAT THE GOVERNMENT (UNDER THE LORDS OF PRIVATIZATION, BILL CLINTON AND AL GORE) DECIDED TO SEE WHETHER PRIVATE CONTRACTORS COULD DO THE JOB BETTER THAN GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES.  THE EVALUATION FOUND THAT THE GOVERNMENT COULD DO A BETTER JOB BUT THE ARMY AUDIT AGENCY, IN 2006, IGNORED THAT FINDING AND AWARDED I.A.P. A $120 MILLION CONTRACT.  I.A.P., FOR THOSE UNFAMILIAR WITH THE COMPANY, COULDN'T EVEN FULFILL THEIR CONTRACT TO GET ICE TO THE VICTIMS OF HURRICANE KATRINA.  AND, UNDER BULLY BOY'S WATCH, THEY'VE BEEN GIVEN A $120 MILLION CONTRACT.  THAT'S JUST STEP 1 OF THE APOLOGY BULLY BOY NEEDS TO MAKE.
 
BUT IT WAS ALL PHOTO OPS AS HE POSED AND PREENED, LOOKING EVERY BIT THE CHEERLEADER HE WAS IN PREP SCHOOL. 
 
PRESIDENT OF VETERANS FOR AMERICA BOBBY MULLER WAS LEFT TO DO THE WORK THE PRESS COULDN'T OR WOULDN'T: NOTING THAT BULLY BOY DIDN'T VISIT THE WAR "WHERE SOLDIERS ARE SUFFERING FROM ACUTE MENTAL HEALTH CONDITIONS, AND OUTPATIENT HOLDING FACILITIES WHERE SOLDIERS SEE LONG WAITS TO GET PROCESSED OUT OF THE ARMY."
 
 
 
Starting with war resisters.  In Canada, a US war resister appeared before the Immigration and Refugee Board today.  Matthew Chung (Toronto Star) reports that Corey Glass and his attorney, Jeffrey House, will attempt to argue that the Iraq war is illegal.  Chung notes: "Glass joined the National Guard in Indiana four years ago to, so he says, fill sand bags and help guard U.S. soil.  Instead he was sent to Iraq, a war he said he doesn't believe in.  He fled during a two-week leave."  So he says, Chung?  He's maintained that repeatedly including when he spoke at Tilley Hall Auditorium in October of last year "filling sand bags to stop a flood on American soil".  After self-checking out, Glass was underground for seven months before going to Canada and, during that time, the Army (which supposedly just waits for traffic violations to catch self-check outs) was visiting his parents, calling phone numbers trying to track him down.  As October started last year, Corey Glass, Justin Colby, Ryan Johnson and other war resisters in Canada were considering returning to US as a result of the way Darrell Anderson's discharge was resolved.  However, once the military attempted to screw over Kyle Snyder, that changed.  Glass told Brett Barrouqere (AP) at the start of November, "After what they did to him, I don't see anybody going back."  In September of last year, Glass stated, "I knew the war was wrong before I went, but I was going to fulfil my end of the bargain, right or wrong and eventually my conscience just caught up with me. . . I felt horrible for being a part of it.  If I could apologise to those people [Iraqis], every single on, I would."  The supposed independent body of the Immigration and Review Board has refused to grant asylum thus far to every Iraq war resister who has come before it. 
 
Staying on war resistance, Joshua Key, who is in Canada with his wife Brandi Key and their children,  wrote, with Lawrence Hill, his story in the new book The Deserter's Tale which has been receiving favorable reviews across the political spectrum.  Karen Alego Krizman (Rocky Mountain News) is the latest to review the book and observes, "Key admits he believed the recruiter who promised he wouldn't have to go overseas or into combat if he joined the Army - mere months after 9/11. Couple this naivete with the steady dose of racism Key says the Army fed recruits and it's no wonder that abuses such as Abu Ghraib occur."  Paul Gessel (Ottawa Citizen) notes the Ottawa International Writers Festival from April 15-22 will include Lawrence hill, David Suzuki, Tom Harpur, Roy MacGregor and Barbara Gowdy and reports: "Hill is riding high this year with two books, one a novel about the slave trade called The Book of Negroes and the other a non-fiction story called The Deserter's Tale, about an American soldier who went AWOL while home on leave from fighting in Iraq.  That soldier, Joshua Key, is trying to obtain refugee status in Canada and will be joining Hill at the festival April 16."
 
On Monday, CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees  took a look at Kyle Snyder and other war resisters who were making a life in Nelson British Columbia.  Cooper noted, "We all know the stories about Vietnam War-era deserters who fled to Canada.  But less well-known are the members of today's armed forces who are refusing to serve in Iraq.  Many have fled to the same town in Canada where they're being welcomed with open arms."  Thelma Gutierrez was the reporter for the segment.
 
Kyle Snyder: I joined when I was 19. . . I sat back, I put my weapon down beside me, and then, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, real quick, very, very loud, I could just remember the look on the man's face.  . . .  I was a .50 cal. machine gunner and I was an escort for very high-ranking officials.  What drew the line for me was one mission in particular where I had witnessed an innocent civilian shot in front of me. . . . I was first angry at that.  And then I became angry at the fact that there were no repercussions.  This -- there was nothing done to prevent this from happening again. . . . I made my decision off of the things that I personally witnessed in Iraq.  I didn't just wake up one morning and say, 'I'm going to leave my country, I'm going to leave my friends behind, I'm going to leave everything that I know and everything that I love and built my entire life on,' nobody does that. . . .  I can walk around shops here and, you know, I see "war resisters welcome here" signs.  I see community getting involved and getting together.  High schoolers come up and say, what can I do to support the anti-war movement?
 
Meanwhile, Canada's Chronicle Herald reports, "Police have initiated an investigation into" Snyder's arrest "which will be conducted by the Abbotsford police".  Snyder was pulled from the home he shares with Ryan and  Jen Johnson, the day before his wedding, arrested in his boxers and carried to a jail where he was held (still in his boxers) for several hours as a result of some sort of 'special' and 'unofficial' deal between the police and the US military.
 
Glass, Key, Snyder and Johnson are part of a movement of resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Darrell Anderson, Joshua Key, Dean Walcott, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight 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, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
 
 
In the United States, the press continues to believe that claims of a withdrawal garner more interest than headlines of "Some Troops May Come Home . . . Someday."  The realities were addressed on yesterday's Flashpoints:
 
 
Meanwhile in Washington the Senate a sort time ago passed a long discussed resolution that ties military funding to non-specific suggestions that President Bush accept the goal but not the requirement of removing less than half of the 150,000 US occupation troops from Iraq by the unenforceable deadline of March 2008.  Nevertheless, President Bush has promised a veto.  Today's 51 to 47 vote was mostly along party lines and now the Senate and House must resolve their respective legislation neither of which require a full withdrawal of US troops from Iraq till well after the installation of the next American president.  And that's some of the news this Thursday, March 29th, 2007.  From exile, I'm Robert Knight.
 
 
Robert Knight has been one of the consistent voices throughout. (Also on yesterday's Flashpoints, Dennis Bernstein interviewed the Washington Post's Peter Eisner.  Rebecca will be covering that late tonight.)  This week's CounterSpin (which began airing today) featured a discussion on the issue of what the US House and Senate bills actually state as opposed to the way the press has portrayed them.  Co-host Janine Jackson spoke with The Institute for Policy Studies Erik Leaver.  Leaver noted that
the bills' "terms of reference only are for combat troops and if you look at the current number of troops deployed in Iraq only half of them would be considered as are combat troops."  Jackson, noting reality versus coverage, asked, "Well then are some of the press characterizations or glosses of this as a withdrawal bill, it sounds as though that's not quite on the money?"  To which Leaver responded, "That's exactly correct."
 
 
Janine Jackson: Well looking at that broader context and we don't have much time left, the majority of the population want an end to the occupation and the war and media acknowledge that, it's their polls that show that, but it doesn't seem somehow guide the questions that they ask or the sources that speak to and I wonder in this case were there not other pieces of legislation that maybe came closer to what the public was calling for?  Was there no way for journalists to kind of put this in the context of: "Is this going to end the war sooner?"
 
Eric Leavler:  I think that is the missing element in the story.  Again, if the news media reported on: "This brings half the troops home" I think you would see a lot more public discontent about the bill and they would  perhaps I think there would be a lot more dissatisfied with Democrats than they are. 
 
Michael Shank (Foreign Policy in Focus) interviews US House Rep and 2008 presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich explains why he refused to vote 'yes' on the House bill, "It's very simple: the bill kept the war going.  I want to see this war end.  I have created, with the help of people who worked on security and peacekeeping missions for years, a plan to end the war.  It's embodied in H.R. 1234.  It would end the U.S. occupation, close the bases, bring the troops home, establisha parallel process creating a peacekeeping and security force, reach out to the nations of the region and the international community for help -- something we won't get as long as we continue to occupy Iraq.  That plan is much more expansive and in the course of this interview I'd be happy to over it with you but in short, I oppose the resolution because it kept funding the war.  And I say we need to the war now.  Not a year from now, not two years from now, not five or ten years from now, but now."
 

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Thursday, March 29, 2007

THIS JUST IN! FOR AN EXTRA $5 THEY'LL SWALLOW TOO!

 
JOHNS ACROSS THE COUNTRY WERE OUT OF LUCK LAST NIGHT SINCE THE USUAL CALL GIRLS AND CALL BOYS THEY CAN COUNT ON FOR 'ENTERTAINMENT' WERE NOT TO BE FOUND UNDER THEIR USUAL STREET LAMPS BUT YUCKING IT UP WITH THE BULLY BOY AT AN ANNUAL EVENT IN THEIR DISHONOR.
 
WHILE KARL ROVE PROVED THAT VANILA ICE WASN'T THE WORST WHITE RAPPER AND THAT FAT BOYS CAN'T DANCE, BULLY BOY YUCKED IT UP WITH LINES THAT SHOULD HAVE CAUSED A WORKING PRESS TO LAUGH LESS AND SHOW SOME INDIGNATION ON BEHALF OF THE PEOPLE THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT.
 
 
LIKE GOOD HOOKERS ALL, THE WORKING PRESS LAUGHED SO HARD THEY ALMOST PISSED IN THEIR FISHNETS.
 
THEY SAVED THAT -- AN ACT THAT THEY GENERALLY CHARGE $15 FOR -- UNTIL BULLY BOY DECLARED, "WE REALLY BLEW THE WAY WE LET THOSE ATTORNEYS GO.  YOU KNOW YOU BOTCHED IT WHEN PEOPLE PITY LAWYERS."
 
AS THEY LET THEIR BLADDERS FLOW AND LAUGHED LIKE HYENIAS, THEY WERE LAUGHING AT THE BULLY BOY'S CONSPIRACY TO DEFRAUD THE PEOPLE AND THE CONGRESS. 
 
HA-HA.  MAYBE THEY WERE JUST HAPPY TO BE IN OFF THE STREETS FOR ONE NIGHT?
 
 
 
 
Starting with news of war resistance, US war resisters Kyle Snyder was arrested at the end of February in Canada, by the Canadian police on the orders of the US military.  More recently, 3 non-Canadian police officers posed as Canadian police officers while they searched for US war resister Joshua Key.  The search was conducted at the same time the US military admits they were looking for him.  Both Snyder and Key are in Canada attempting to receive refugee status.  CBC News reports that The New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP) is asking questions and spoke with Alex Atamaneko who "said Snyder should not have been arrested because being absent without leave from a foreign military is not an extraditable offence and Snyder has no criminal record" and that "Our concern is that there could be other Kyle Snyders in Canada.  We know that there are a couple of hundred other war resisters here.  Are there those that are being apprehended now?"
 
Snyder and Key are part of a movement of resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Darrell Anderson, Joshua Key, Dean Walcott, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Corey Glass, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight 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, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
 
 
In "THINKERS? WHO NEEDS STINKING THINKERS?" news, The Nation continues to embrace Party Hacks (and males -- 1 female byline to every 4 males is the current ratio for the print magazine in 2007) as opposed to real thinkers so it's not that surprising that a Party Hack -- consider him another one of Katrina vanden Heuvel's coffee fetchers -- weighs in to reveal not only how shallow he is but how shallow The Nation has become.  After a few 'cutes' on Dennis Kucinich, Ari Melber (at the ha-ha blog Campaign Matters) offers, "It's hard to imagine how the failure of a more 'pure' bill advancing immediate withdrawal would do more to end the war than the succss of Pelosi's bill."  It's hard to imagine who thought a Party Hack was fit to write for an opinion journal?  But for chuckles, click here for (cached version) of when Party Hacks Attack Each Other. Something truly amazing -- David Sirota (of all people) calling Melber a "Self-Promoting Sellouts."  For the record, both Party Hacks now regularly foul The Nation magazine.  For the record, Ari forgets to disclose MoveOn ties.
 
Hard to imagine, Ari?  Just for the intellectually stunted.  The Institute for Policy Studies is an actual think tank -- not a Democratic party talking points mill.  The IPS' Phyllis Bennis (via Democracy Rising) explains how the bill's not ending anything: "The Congressional resolution passed last week gives Bush another $100 billion to continue the U.S. occupation of Iraq.  That much is now guaranteed.  The timeslines and restrictions included in the bill -- clearly responding to the strong public support for ending the war -- were weakened almost to the disappearing point to allow the razor-thin vote. . . .  Congress is not the peace movement.  So the peace movement must stay unified on our principles and our demands, in the face of congressional waffling and 'realistic' pragmatism, unfortunately promoted by one influential part of our movement.  Whatever they do, we must stay consistent on demanding an end to the U.S. occupation: de-funding (not re-funding) the war, and bringing home (not redeploying) all (not just some) of the troops (including the mercenaries).  The longstanding AFSC slogan has it right: 'Not  one more death, not one more dollar.'  That means STOP funding the war.  STOP allowing Bush to send more U.S. troops to kill more Iraqis and be killed in the process.  Just stop."
 
Some of the Party Hacks are, feeling nostalgic, hoping they can drum this into a Bill Clinton drama: "The right's after him, we all must come to the aid!"  It's not playing that way because the measures do nothing and the Party Hacks spent most of last week proclaiming how stupid the peace movement was and even though, as Mike pointed out, one Party Hack quickly tried to shine on his faux populism, people are not buying it.  Yes, Bully Boy is against the bill.  So?
 
The Democratic Party ignored the people.  This is, as Robert Knight ( Flashpoints) reported Monday, the DLC's bill.  The left's job isn't to prop up the right-wing, not even the right-wing of the Democratic Party.  Norman Solomon (CounterPunch) made it very clear before any measure passed, "Pelosi and Reid have a job to do. The antiwar movement has a job to do. The jobs are not the same. This should be obvious -- but, judging from public and private debates now fiercely underway among progressive activists and organizations, there's a lot of confusion in the air. No amount of savvy Capitol-speak can change the fact that 'benchmarks' are euphemisms for more war. And when activists pretend otherwise, they play into the hands of those who want the war to go on . . . and on . . . and on." 
 
If Ari's still confused (or pretending to be), Bruce Dixon (Black Agenda Report) makes it very clear: "What House Democrats actually did was pass a special budget bill giving George Bush every dollar he requested for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus a few billion extra, and little more for vets health care, with a few tens of hundreds of millions worth of legislative prok on the side to secure the votes of reluctant Democrats on each flank.  The 'withdrawal measures' in the Democrat-approved war budget are unenforceable suggestions, a patchwork of loopholds held togethr by the empty pretense that President Bush and Pentagon will not lie to us."  Dixon notes that the Congressional Black Caucus "shattered" and "once again proved the near uselessness of the CBC as presently constituted."
 
CODEPINK's Gael Murphy spoke with Deepa Fernandes and Mitch Jeserich (WBAI's Wake Up Call Radio) Wednesday, who stated of the continued demonstrations to protest the continuation of the illegal war, "It's about having that opposition to this continuing war as visible as possible and as loud as possible."  Jeserich noted the more visible activity and Murphy agreed they had "stepped up our activity since the supplemental discussions and we will stay there through the Defense authorization debate. Fernandez wondered what the main goals were and Murphy replied, "Cut the funding for the war.  We want the war to end this year.  We want Congress to take its responsiblity and to, you know they've been repudiating the surge, they've been repudiating the conduct of the war so it's time for them to do something about it.  And we want them to cut the funding.  We want them to use whatever funding they have for a full, complete, rapid, safe, orderly withdrawal."   A clip was played by Robert Byrd "a new direction and it points the way out" and Free Speech Radio News' Leigh Ann Caldwell: "Well it's a suggested timeline for withdrawal next year, of March 2008.  That timeline is a goal. But what is binding is that the president is supposed to, or has to according to this, it's a statute that says that he has to start withdrawing troops within 120 days of the passage of this bill.  And so that part is binding and the real question is: Is the president actually going to listen to it?  He doesn't follow many of the other,  laws and regulations that are passed.  The fear that he'll sign a signing statement or that he just will ignore it.  The fear of many progressives is that it will end up in the courts." 
 
Caldwell then made the comment that "I know it doesn't go as far as many Democrats would like in cutting the funding."  Where is the funding cut?  No where.   Murphy stated CODEPINK's goal,  "Our call is absolutely, let's cut the funding now use whatever funding we have for the complete withdrawal.  So our focus is very much on what's going to happen when the supplemental leaves the conference -- cause what's going to happen after the House passes it's version they'll be a conference committee where the two resolutions will be reconciled and then what comes out will likely be a supplemental bill with a timeline and the benchmarks.  We're hoping that Bush does veto it because I think it is in our favor.  And when he does, we are expecting and will put pressure on  members of Congress not to go back to him with a weaker bill but, in fact, a stronger bill and that's where we're going to be putting our pressure to make sure that there is a stronger bill and that it's about getting the troops home by the end of the year."
 
As Robert Knight ( Flashpoints) noted yesterday, "Democrat and Republican senators continued quibbling over a 125 billion dollar appropriations bill that would guarantee a continued military presence in Iraq wll into the year 2008 if not beyond.  The Senate measure, which awaits a final vote and resolution with a similar non-specifically binding House bill is expected to be voted on later this week even though it faces a presidential veto.  Meanwhile Democratic leadership is already announcing that it's willing to negotiate with president Bush to water down the provisions during markup in order to avoid a veto." 
 
 
Progressive Democrats of America grasped the nature of the bills last week and issued their statement ("Disappointed in Democratic Leadership") -- PDA director Tim Carpenter, "It is antiwar sentiment that put Democrats into majority control of Congress.  The recent USA Today - Gallup poll showed 58 percent of Americans want U.S. troops out of Iraq within a year, or earlier.  We are profoundly disappointed that the Lee Amendment -- which reflects majority sentiment in the country -- was not allowed to be debated and voted upon by the full House.  In a free vote, we believe roughly 90 members of Congress would have supported the Lee Amendment and the desires of most Americans to get out of Iraq.  Having prevented that vote, the leadership's weak supplemental that prolongs funding of an unwinnable occupation is now more susceptible to wrong-headed attacks from Republicans and certain media circles as somehow risky or extreme."  This week, PDA has noted, "The bad news is that the House bill funds Bush's troop surge and won't bring our troops home until a Sept. 1 2008 'deadline' -- with provisions allowing troops to stay in Iraq beyond that on vaguely-defined 'training' or 'anti-terrorism' missions.  (That's why a group of progressive Congress members -- including Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey, Maxine Waters, Diane Watson, John Lewis and Dennis Kucinich -- felt the need to stand firm and vote no.)  More bad news is the disunity stirred up among antiwar progressives in Congress by the House leadership's arm-twisting and the intervention of MoveOn.org in support of the leadership's arm-twising."
 
Meanwhile, RadioNation with Laura Flanders'  Laura Flanders (The Nation via Common Dreams) observes, "Nonbinding this and that, deadline lah-di-dah, Bush/Cheney are going to ignore the mandate of the midterm elections and every pressure from Congress on Iraq, because Bush/Cheney know their opponents' bark has no bite.  And that's because those opponents have yet to renounced the Bush/Cheney vision of US supremacy in the world.  In fact, mostly, they share it."
 
Which gets to the heart of the matter.  Anne Flaherty (AP) reports that the Senate's bill has passed "a mostly party line 51-47 vote". Flaherty also quotes White House Flack Dana Perino stating, "I think the founders of our nation had great foresight in realizing that it would be better to have one commander in chief managing a war" blah, blah, blah.  Perino should realize the people of the nation have said no to the war and the issue of 'managing' is not a valid one -- the issue is ending the war.
 
[. . .]
 
Finally, returning to US political news. Yesterday the NOW PAC endorsed US Senator Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.  Later yesterday, "NOW members endorse Dennis Kucinich."  NOW members Kat, Rebecca, Dona, Ava, Betty, Gina, Krista, Keesha, Kayla, Elaine, Martha and Shirley as well as former NOW member Trina used their voices to note that NOW PAC, which did not poll membership, does not speak for them and to decry the removal of the white dove and slogan "PEACE IS A FEMINIST ISSUE" from the NOW website in time to endorse War Hawk Hillary Clinton.
Along with  "NOW members endorse Dennis Kucinich" (Kat's Korner). Elaine's "I endorse Dennis Kucinich for the 2008 primary" and Rebecca's "this now member is endorsing kucinich" also address the issue and why they are endorsing Dennis Kucinich for the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. All who signed encourage other NOW members to announce their own endorsement.  NOW PAC is a political arm of NOW but it is NOW and NOW members should, as they have so powerfully throught the years, use their own voices to speak for themselves.
 
This week, Kucinch amplified his call for a national discussion regarding impeachment.
 
 

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