Wednesday,
July 1, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, Kenneth Pollack Laments,
Patrick Murphy tackles Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and more.
Today
US House Rep Patrick Murphy spoke about the need to repeal Don't Ask,
Don't Tell. The Clinton era compromise came about when Colin Powell and
others flaunted their homophobia and refused to allow gays and lesbians
to serve openly in the military, a pledge Bill Clinton campaigned
upon. The compromise was that you couldn't be asked about your
sexuality and you couldn't talk about it. Unless you were straight.
It was a compromise and, for that time period, a step forward. Today
is out of date and out of step.
Josh Drobnyk (Pennslyvania Ave. Blog) reports
that with Ellen Tauscher's departure from Congress (she's now
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security),
Murphy will now take the lead on the Military Readiness Enhancement Act
which would not only repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, it would also allow
everyone to serve regardless of their sexuality and with no requirement
that they hide who they are. Iraq War veteran Murphy states, "This is
going to take months and months, but change is going to happen."
Yesterday Lt Dan Choi learned that a US Army board was recommending he be discharged because he is gay and refuses to hide in a closet.
Martin Wisckol (Orange County Register) quotes Choi, "I'm a leader. A setback is an opportunity to keep fighting, and I'm going to do that through my actions." Yesterday
Jasmyn Belcher (WRVO -- audio and text) spoke with Choi who explained,
"My job is to be here and to continue being an officer everything I was
trained to do regardless of the discomfort, regardless of the emotions
that are going on, you still do your duty. I believe this is my duty
to stand up and to fight to stay in." Choi is not done fighting and
hopefully he will be successful at a higher level but if he's not he
will be, as
Stan noted last night,
the 266th US service member to be discharged for being gay since Barack
Obama was sworn in as president. If Barack wanted to, all he need do
is issue an executive order for a stop-loss on discharges under Don't
Ask, Don't Tell. That would stop it right away. Congress could then
address it but all the people (over 200 under Obama already) being
discharged would no longer be drummed out of the military as a result
of that executive order.
CNN notes
this citing Knights Out's Sue Fulton: "Fulton said that while Obama
can't change the law himself, he could sign an executive order halting
discharges while the policy is under review." Barry O likes to play
helpless but he's not. One executive order is all it would take. The
Syracuse Post-Standard editorializes
for the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy to be eliminated and observes that
"enforcing the policy has cost taxpayers more than $400 million since
1994."
Joe Garofoli (San Francisco Chronicle) adds,
"Still, some analysts say Choi's case is another example of how
Washington leaders aren't showing much urgency -- or leadership -- in
overturning 'don't ask, don't tell.' Obama has said he wants Congress
to overturn the law; congressional laders say they are waiting for the
president to take the lead; and military leaders say they won't change
the policy unless directed by Congress."
Mike McAndrew and Mark Weiner (Syracuse Post-Standard) report
Choi "said he refuses to lie about being involved in a relationship
with another man. Choi said the relationship has made him a better
person, a better Christian and a better officer."
Alexa James (Times Herald-Record) quotes Choi explaining, "All I did was tell the truth. I refused to lie about my boyfriend. His name is Matthew, not Martha."
Sahar
Issa: National Sovereignty Day, of course, is a day that is celebrated
by the hearts of all Iraqis, you must know that Iraqi's pride -- is a
proud country -- Iraqis are proud people. It is difficult for them not
to be happy at the action of foreign troops leaving their cities and
streets. At the same time that they are happy to gain control over
their streets and cities there is doubt in their hearts whether the
Iraqi security forces are actually adequate to the task that is in
front of them in the coming days and weeks and months of keeping the
peace and keeping the population secure. This is as the bottom of the
doubts that you see: Is the Iraqi force actually adequate to the task?
Are the Iraqi forces infiltrated by many? The Iraqi force has been
formed upon somewhat sectarian lines. The Iraqi force also because of
the administrative corruption -- has many people who have brought in
their relatives, their friends, their neighbors, people who are not
professional. And after six years, perhaps it would be a legitimate
question to ask and to forward to the American forces: after six years
of training they have understaken to present Iraq with a new force
after dismantling the old one, why isn't the Iraqi force actually
adequate to the task? The people of Iraq ask this question. It is the
first question they ask. They are still not confident that the Iraqi
forces are capable.
Those observations jibe with those of
Alissa J. Rubin's (New York Times),
"The excitement however, has run hollow for many Iraqis, who fear that
their country's security forces are not ready to stand alone and who
see the government's claims of independence as overblown." Back to
the
Democracy Now! segment:
JUAN
GONZALEZ: And, Sahar Issa, what about the ability of the Iraqi
government to provide basic services to the population? There's
obviously many reports of corruption within the government and
continued infighting among the various factions. How has the public
seen the ability of the government to administer the society?
SAHAR
ISSA: To tell you the truth, if you look back a little bit, you will
find that with the height of violence that only started coming down in
the beginning of 2008, and while human life was at stake, violence was
like a blanket, cutting off a cross-section of what is really happening
inside the Iraqi government, because everything was so clouded, people
were hurt, they couldn't look further than their lot.
But
when the violence ebbed after the beginning of 2008, people started
picking up the reins of their lives, looking around to see what was
going on. And they found, horrendously, that the government is totally
riddled with corruption. It is totally built on tribal and sectarian
bases, where people have their relatives in very sensitive places
simply to make the profit. And the confidence in Iraqis that they had
at first when they went to elect their government, they lost this
confidence. They said, "Then what is the difference, if it is going to
be tribal again? What is the difference between this government and the
past, even if it is elected, if it is going to use the same lines?"
And
that is, of course, part of the problem, is that it is not a matter of
just putting the government out there. The problem is this government
needs to gain the confidence of the people. It needs to give them
something that they can hold onto. It needs to look at their very
difficult lives. They didn't have electricity when the -- you know,
outside this building, if I walk out now, it is so hot, toys will melt
in cars. To just to give you an idea, toys will melt in cars. That is
the heat. And people don't have electricity. After six years, they
don't have water in their homes.
I spoke
to a person yesterday in Beya'a neighborhood, when we were touring the
city for reactions. And she said, "How can I be happy with sovereignty,
if sovereignty has not brought me enough water to bathe, I can't wash
my clothes, if I don't have electricity so I can sleep at night? What
kind of sovereignty is this?"
We are struggling, my dear friend. We are struggling so hard to reach square one. And so far, we haven't achieved it yet.
AMY GOODMAN: Sahar Issa, are you afraid of having your image known, of being identified as a reporter?
SAHAR
ISSA: Oh, certainly, certainly, certainly. Working for a foreign --
never mind a US, American -- news agency will have me very clearly
titled as the pastor's pie or working for the occupation. People -- the
simpler people, let us say -- can't differentiate between a person who
is picking up information and lighting things and making things public
for -- to, how do you say, to extend a hand to other people to know
what is actually going on inside our country. They can't tell the
difference between this person and the person who's gathering
information perhaps for intelligence preferences. And therefore, yes,
of course, I am afraid. No one knows. Only my parents and my children
and the people working with me know. And even the people who are
working with me, not all of them know where I live. That's how bad it
is.
JEREMY
SCAHILL: Right. I mean, this is a very contrived sort of Hallmark
holiday here. I doubt that decades from now many Iraqis are going to
be, you know, telling their grandchildren where they were on National
Sovereignty Day. I mean, remember the whole stumbling of President
Bush: when he declared Iraqi sovereignty, he talked about the
definition of sovereignty as a sovereign entity. Paul Bremer already
officially handed over sovereignty to the Iraqis five years ago, and
yet we have 130,000 US troops that remain in the country. This really
is George Bush's Iraq plan that Barack Obama is now implementing and
taking the political risk of implementing, because if the violence
blows up, then of course it looks very much like Barack Obama has been
a failure in Iraq, and not George Bush. So Obama, in many ways, has
played into the Bush administration's hand.
But we
can see the clearest endgame of the US occupation in the fact that the
Iraqi government, on a day when they declare their own sovereignty and
you have the US military commander handing over the keys to the Defense
Ministry, the Iraqi Oil Ministry opens up the country for bidding now
on its oil resources, and you had eight of the ten top oil companies in
the world that are not part of a nationalized state apparatus. In other
words, eight of the ten most powerful private oil corporations in the
world are now bidding for large shares of the Iraqi oil supply. I mean,
to me, this is a grotesque symbol of what exactly is happening in Iraq.
And
let me just say, Juan, that while we're seeing the sort of contrived
celebrations, where ordinary Iraqis, for the most part, are not
permitted to go into these big celebrations -- it's largely off-duty
police officers, Iraqi soldiers and dignitaries -- the reality is that
US soldiers are simply going to the outskirts of the cities and could
easily go in to strike at them. General Ray Odierno, the top US
military commander there, would not be clear on how many US soldiers
are going to remain in the region. At the end of the day, the US has a
massive eighty-football-field-size embassy. They have thousands upon
thousands of contractors, 130,000 troops still in the country. And
they're going to keep a force of 35,000 to 50,000 residual US forces
when Obama is officially done withdrawing from Iraq.
So, in
reality, we see Barack Obama implementing, almost to the letter, George
Bush's and the neocons' plan for Iraq, while putting a Democratic stamp
on it and essentially downsizing and rebranding what remains a US
occupation. So, no, this is Hallmark holiday stuff. And I think it's
clear for anyone who's been following this that this is the same
situation as when Bush tried to declare Iraqi sovereignty, when Paul
Bremer snuck out of Baghdad in June of 2004.
While a lot of the media hype today focuses on the U.S. "withdrawal," that is hardly the reality. As previously reported,
U.S. military commanders have said they are preparing for an Iraq
presence for another 15-20 years, the U.S. embassy is the size of
Vatican City, there is no official plan for the withdrawal of
contractors and new corporate mercenary contracts are being awarded.
The Status of Forces Agreement (SoFA) between the U.S. and Iraq gives
the U.S. the right to extend the occupation indefinitely and to
continue intervening militarily in Iraq ad infinitum. Article 27
of the SoFA allows the U.S. to undertake military action, "or any other
measure," inside Iraq's borders "In the event of any external or
internal threat or aggression against Iraq." As
the airwaves and internet are flooded with reports of this new Iraqi
sovereignty and U.S. withdrawal, it is important to remember a bit of
history. Five years ago -- almost to the day -- President Bush put on
an almost identical show. His proconsul L. Paul Bremer "handed over
sovereignty" to the Iraqi government just before he skulked out of
Baghdad on a secret flight (right after he issued an order banning Iraq
from prosecuting contractors). Despite the pronouncements and
proclamations and media hype, the occupation continued and real
sovereignty was non-existent.
Meanwhile
CNN reports
that Moqtada al-Sadr has released a call for all US forces to leave
Iraq and stated their presence "shows that the (Iraqi) government and
the occupation are not serious about the withdrawal". Noting the
silence on Iraq in the US, Dan Baltz asks "
Have We Forgotten Iraq?" (
Washington Post)
in which he wonders, "If they [the White House] are wrong [about Iraq
being able to stand up], there may be questions about what kind of
country Americans are preparing to leave behind. Obama could find
himself under pressure to adjust the withdrawal timetable." Or he
could realize that it was a mistake to delay withdrawal because there
is nothing else the US military can do (even the war hawks should agree
with that) and allowing them to remain in the country as babysitters
really turns them into sitting ducks of the continued occupation. And
let's stop pretending the White House doesn't have plans. As we noted
in Third's "
Editorial: Save us from the panty sniffers" Sunday, US Ambassador to Iraq Chris Hill gave a press conference in the US June 18th:
What
should have bothered Americans was Hill's refusal to discuss
"contingency plans" for Iraq should the (partial) pull-back from cities
(June 30th) result in increased violence. "Well, again," he repeated,
"I don't want to discuss contingency plans." Why not?
And why aren't these contingency plans known to the American public?
While
Thomas E. Ricks (Foreign Policy) ignored Hill's press conference, he feels
something important is missed from the press conference Gen Ray Odierno
held yesterday in Baghdad: "We'll be operating in the belts around
Baghdad." Ricks takes that to mean "that the U.S. strategy in the
coming months will be to try to protect Baghdad by cutting off
insurgents and militias operating in the fields, towns and palm groves
that surround much of the capital. And that was where some of the
heaviest fighting took place during the spring and summer of 2007, as
'the surge' began." So that may be, that may be, as
Cass Elliot
once sang ("California Earthquake") but equally true, and reporters
know this, when a person loses it at a scheduled press conference,
that's also known as "very telling." Translation,
Reuters shouldn't have been the
only outlet to report on Odierno Earthquake
yesterday. And, no, Ricks hasn't written of that.
Here's some of the exchange from
the DoD transcript:
Q
General, it's Andrew Gray from Reuters. You talked about a small number
of U.S. forces remaining in the cities to train and advise. Can you put
a figure? How many U.S. forces will remain? GEN.
ODIERNO: Yeah, people have been trying to get me to say a figure now
for about a month. And the reason I won't do it is because it's going
to be different every single day, and it'll be based on how much
training, how much advising, how much coordination is required. That
will change each and every day. So I won't put a number on it. It
is a smaller number, a significantly smaller number than what we've had
in the cities now. But it has very specific missions: train the Iraqi
security forces, advise them as we continue to move forward, enable
them in order to -- potentially if they need some help with aviation,
logistics, et cetera. But more -- almost as important, coordinate and
help us to continue our situational awareness of all situations within
Iraq. And that will help us to better support the Iraqi security
forces.
Q
General, just to follow up briefly, I am disappointed you didn't give
us the scoop after a month of holding out, but I wonder if you could at
least give us a -- you know, is it an -- a few thousand? If you could
give us a kind of ballpark -- are we talking about several thousand?
Would that be a reasonable ballpark to use?
GEN.
ODIERNO: Again -- again, there's hundreds of cities around, and we have
hundreds of -- you know, and I've let the local commanders work this
out. So for me to give a number would frankly be inaccurate, and I just
don't want to do it. There'll be trainers, advisers, helping throughout
all of the Iraqi cities where we continue to support and advise Iraqi
security forces.
Q
Whatever the number is, how are you going to convince them basically,
the U.S. forces remaining, not to jump in and be helpful, where perhaps
you would prefer that the Iraqis take the lead? What
will be different about what they're told to do, in a situation where
they might think, their first instinct is, gosh, we can do that better.
GEN.
ODIERNO: Well, again this is -- I call it -- we are working on changing
our mindsets in the city. And I equate it to when we first started the
surge, where we had to change our mindset. So
pushing our soldiers back out, getting back into the communities,
really partnering with the Iraqi security forces and today, it's the
same kind of thing. We have to change our mindset. When
we're in the cities, there's very specific things that we'll do.
Actually we've been out of the cities, a large majority of the cities
now, for the last eight months. So it's really only Mosul and the last
remnants that we've had, in Baghdad, that have pulled out over the last
few weeks. So we've actually been
implementing this in many parts of Baghdad for a long time. And they
understand what their mission is. They understand what we expect them
to do. And you know, we have worked this very closely with all of the
leaders in Iraq. We've worked
-- I've worked very closely with the minister of defense, the minister
of interior, the operations commanders, the operational commanders in
order to work this out. And I feel very comfortable with where we're
at.
Q General, it's Tom Bowman with NPR. I
mean, you're reluctant to talk about how many trainers and mentors are
in the cities. And it raises a question about whether or not this is
just a show or not whether, you know, this is just semantics. There
are essentially U.S. soldiers with guns in the cities. You can call
them trainers or mentors. But how different is it from what we saw
maybe two-three weeks ago? And if you have U.S. soldiers just outside
the cities, I mean, what is this? Is this just a show for the American people?
GEN.
ODIERNO: Well, I would say, you probably didn't listen to what I just
said. Because what I just said was, having battalions and brigades
inside a city is significantly different than having trainers, advisers
and MiTT teams. And I said, we'll be operating in the belts around
Baghdad. I've been very clear about
this, just like we did in the surge. We had -- the reason we had to
surge forces is, we had to get people in the cities. And then we had to
eliminate safe havens and sanctuaries in the belts around Baghdad. It's
the same thing, except the Iraqis will take responsibility for security
in the cities. We will continue to do full-spectrum operations, outside
of the cities, to work the safe havens and sanctuaries around the
cities. And we will continue to do that. And it's legitimate,
legitimate operations that we'll continue to conduct outside of the
cities. If you're here in Baghdad, you would know. There is a significant change inside of the cities. There
are thousands among thousands of soldiers that have pulled out of
Baghdad. There -- and there hasn't been any soldiers in the cities in
southern Iraq, there hasn't been any soldiers in the cities in Ramadi,
there hasn't been any soldiers in the cities in Fallujah for months
now. And we've been executing this very well. So again, if you're here in Iraq, you would see it for yourself there is a significant change.
As we noted
yesterday,
he apologized for his outburst (and referred to it as his "temper").
But that's a key moment of the press conference and not just because
some reporters are now talking of starting a pool to see how quickly
they can get Odierno to explode in the next press briefing, but also
because that's not normal behavior from him. He's under huge pressure
from the White House to walk their line and stick to their script and
his feelings are rather well known about that at this late date. The
troops haven't left Mosul and are not leaving Baghdad and no one knows
what else and no one knows how many. Except Ray Odierno. He knows
exactly what is going on with US troops in Iraq. And he's not allowed
to reveal that. That's where his frustration comes in. He felt like
the biggest idiot in the world because he couldn't answer the question
that he knew the answer to but which the White House won't let him
speak on. That, Thomas E. Ricks, is an important detail.
Now
let's sit down at the piano, it's time for "Miss Kenneth Laments" --
the lost Cole Porter song. "Sure, well, first, of course," hemmed and
hawed War Hawk and Cheerleader Kenny Pollack, "as listeners of your
show are aware, 'cause I've been on the show any number of times to
talk about, this, I did believe that an, uh, invasion would be
necessary but not the invasion that we got. Not in the time that we
did it, not in the way that we did it, not how we did it or with whom
we did it. As for what have we accomplished? I think the jury is
still out." Brookings Boy Kenny sure was nervous and, please note, his
'answer' was to a question about whether or not the Iraq War was worth
it. Monday on
NPR's
The Diane Rehm Show,
Diane explained, "And here's a question for you, Ken Pollack, you were
among those who favored US invasion of Iraq. What do you believe we
have gained if anything?" The question wasn't did he support the
illegal war before it started.
And yet, he
nervously stated, before getting to the question he'd been asked,
""Sure, well, first, of course, as listeners of your show are aware,
'cause I've been on the show any number of times to talk about, this, I
did believe that an, uh, invasion would be necessary but not the
invasion that we got. Not in the time that we did it, not in the way
that we did it, not how we did it or with whom we did it." First,
let's again note, this is the talking point and War Hawks pushed it
after Vietnam as well. It goes like this: "The problem wasn't the war
and its illegality, the problem was the way it was fought." No, the
problem was the war. As for what he advocated for? His 2002 book
Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq made it pretty clear in
the title but in it he argues for the US "to mount a full-scale
invasion of Iraq to smash the Iraqi armed forces, depose Saddam's
regime, and rid the country of weapons of mass destruction." Saddam
had no WMDs. Kenny boy forgot to include that on NPR Monday. He
forgot to admit that or own any of his mistakes. Instead, he wanted to
complain that the war he dreamed of arrived in the wrong size and
color.
The Wall St. Journal's Gina Chon appears briefly at the start of the program, reporting from Iraq, but technical difficulties sideline her.
Diane Rehm: Okay, let's talk about what the Iraqi people can and cannot do.
Paul
Pillar: As part of the bargaining that Prime Minister Maliki had to get
agreement with his cabinet and Parliament for the security agreement,
he agreed that there would be a referendum to approve or disapprove the
agreement. Your caller is correct that July 30th was the date that
had been previously set but it appears that it is most likely going to
be delayed until January to coincide with the Parliamentary election.
So that will be an important outcome -- whether or not the Iraqi people
approve it. If they disapprove it, then what -- as I understand the
agreement -- what comes into play is the withdrawal clause which
basically says 'either party has a year to terminate the agreement'
which means that would move up the deadline for all US forces to -- to
get out by almost a year -- to 2010 rather than 2011. But, again, that
does not preclude some new agreement being negotiated between the
governments of the day in Baghdad and Washington.
Kenneth
Pollack: This is a really important point because what you're seeing
now is the Iraqis using the politics to deal with the security
situation in potentially very difficult ways, dangerous ways. We
talked a lot about how the Iraqis, the Iraqi people, are ambivalent
about the agreement. We haven't talked about Prime Minister Maliki and
his own ambivalence. At one level, he knows that he can't allow the
country to fall apart and he's nervous that his own security forces
can't hold it together. By the same token though, he sees the United
States as an impediment to his consolidation of power and I think that
there's a lot of evidence to suggest that he's moving it to January in
hope that it will either discredit all of his political adversaries or
cause a termination of the agreement prematurely exactly as Paul was
suggesting.
[. . .]
Diane
Rehm: Just before the break, one of our callers, Lily in Syracuse, New
York, had asked about the referendum that's going to take place -- the
decision of the Iraqi [. . .] [people] to stay or not to stay. That's
a really important point, Paul.
Paul:
It's very important and I'm glad we got the call, that raised the issue
but I would simply agree with what we heard from Ken before the break.
It's partly Maliki continuing to play a political game. But if -- if
the referendum, it's voted down, uh, in January, uh, there are going to
be extremely difficult decisions for the Obama administration to make
about its policy and posture in Iraq over the course of the next year.
To some extent, it might be seen as a political blessing for much of
his constituency, it means getting out earlier, but he is going to have
to sit down with his commanders, with General Petraeus, General
Odeireno, or who ever is occupying their jobs at that time and have
some very hard talk about the security situation in Iraq as of the end,
not of 2011, but of 2010.
Diane: Elise?
Elise
Labott: And let's not forget that President Obama won, in part, the
presidency on his campaign to withdraw US forces from Iraq. He said
that the war in Afghanistan was the more important war, the war that
was the greater threat to US national security with the emergent --
the reemergence of the Taliban and al Qaeda and he wanted to pay more
attention to that war and by all accounts you can't do that with
130,000 troops in Iraq. But the question is if the sectarian violence
gets worse, if Iraq continues to spiral, the question is: Does Barack
Obama have blood on his hands if -- if he withdraws all of his troops
from Iraq and a lot of people -- it's a moral dilemma for him.
Diane Rehm: Ken Pollack?
Kenneth
Pollack: Well I think that there's also a strategic consideration which
is that the truth is that Iraq is ultimately of far greater strategic
consequence to the United States than Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a
problem because of the terrorism problem and because of relationship to
Pakistan but you can't solve the problem of Afghanistan through
Pakistan.
That last Pollack 'gem' is
included to dissuade his cult from e-mailing and saying, "His 2002 book
said!" Don't give me that crap. Don't spit out the
Slate
book review claiming Kenny's 2002 book said Afghanistan was more
important. Kenny's all over the map, always has been, there's never
been a cohesive argument from him. Only baseless charges followed by
meaningless laments. The full hour was devoted to Iraq (
here for that segment itself)
for those who missed it. (I did. An NPR friend passed it on.) The
guests were (very briefly) Gina Chon, CNN's Elise Labott, Brookings
Kenneth Pollack and Georgetown's Paul Pilar.
Earlier
mid-June US Ambassador to Iraq Chris Hill claimed that fatalies were
down in the month of June. Silly Chris and silly reporters who fell
for that garbage.
Reuters reports
that there was a spike and that the official numbers from the Iraqi
Health Ministry is 373 for the month of June. Those are the Iraqi
government figures. The actual figures are likely far higher. In some
of today's violence,
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Iraqi forces shot dead a man in Mosul (a 'suspect') and that a Mosul roadside bombing injured a police officer.
The
recruiting system leaves out the second part of this. Recruiters talk
about travel, adventure, skill-training, and getting your college
education paid for. They don't mention that the travel and adventure
may involve being in 110 degree+ temperatures, loaded up with gear,
sleeping in tents, having your life threatened on a daily basis, and
maybe not even having enough clean water to drink. They don't mention
that the skill-training is usually not transferable to a civilian job,
or that some of the skills taught include how to be a prejudiced,
hate-filled, bigot, who can be capable of killing another human being
without feeling. They don't explain that the military will teach a
person to hate when he or she enlists, but doesn't teach love when the
soldier returns. And they certainly don't mention that only 14 percent
of soldiers who sign up for the GI Bill use the benefit.
The
lies of omission often go further. A recruiter may promise a job as a
pilot, knowing the soldier won't qualify and will possibly end up as a
truck driver in Iraq – one of the most dangerous jobs. A prospective
Navy medic may not understand that he or she may end up in a combat
zone since they are the ones who take care of Marines. Or the biggest
lie of all – they convince the soldier he or she is signing up for
three years, and don't point out that these days, with the stop-loss
program in place, the enlistment agreement (note I don't use the word
"contract") currently commits the soldier potentially to a life
sentence.
But
you know what, these are only a few of the lies involved in keeping a
war machine going. The bigger ones come from society itself. That war
is a good thing. That movies and video games represent reality. You
get killed in a video game, press a button, and start over. You don't
lose a friend, body parts, or your mind.
Nobel
Peace Prize Nominee, Human Rights' Activist and Gold Star Mother, Cindy
Sheehan, calls on the Israeli government to immediately release the
members and crew of the boat The Spirit of Humanity that was attempting
to deliver humanitarian aid to the devastated peoples of Gaza.
Speaking
from Newton, Mass, Ms. Sheehan commented: "The detention of the crew
and human rights' workers on The Spirit of Humanity is a clear
violation of international law, as the blockade of Gaza is a clear
violation of not only international law but the human rights of the
people of Gaza. Not only must the Israeli government immediately
release and recompense the captives, but it must allow the humanitarian
aid to penetrate the blockade."
She
continued: "I not only call on the Israeli government to do the right
thing, but I call on our own President, who has claimed that he is an
advocate for human rights, to condemn this act of international piracy
by the rogue state of Israel and also demand the release of the
kidnapped aid workers. This condemnation must be as strong and clear as
the condemnation for the Somali 'pirates' was. A very courageous and
dear friend of mine, Cynthia McKinney, was on that boat and the
captives must all be treated with dignity and respect and speedily
released."
Cindy Sheehan's Myth America Tour continues this month.
The dates for the start of the month include:
July 8th Wednesday 2 to 4 p.m. Cleveland Book Signing
Mac Bac's Books
1820 Coventry Road
Cleveland Hts. OH
Akron Main Public Library
July 8th 7 to 9 p.m.
60 S. High St.
Akron, OH 44326
Cleveland Community pot luck with Cindy
July 9th four to six p.m.
10220 Clifton Ave.
Lakewood, OH
St. Coleman's Parish Hall
July 9th seven to nine p.m.
West 65th and Madison
Drum Circle
July 10th noon to two p.m.
National Assembly to End the War
July 11th to 12th
Pittsburgh
Al
Franken in a US Senator. See, the US can do recounts and can be
patient. Al Franken and Norm Coleman (his Republican opponent who
lost) proved (probably not intentionally on Coleman's part) that the
Supreme Court did not need to stop the process in Bush v. Gore. The
votes could have been counted. And would have been easily before
Christmas 2000.
Al Franken is interviewed by former US Senator Fred Thompson here. The only one put out by the long drawn out process was
Senator Amy Klobuchar and even she and her staff managed. The US can do recounts, no matter what the Supreme Court thinks.
