The pretexts for starting the wars on Vietnam and Iraq preceded the pretexts for continuing them. While antiwar activism took hold and public opinion shifted against the war effort, the Congress lagged way behind. Today, the need for a cutoff of war funding remains unfulfilled. To watch rarely seen footage of Wayne Morse and Barbara Lee is to see a standard of decency that few of our purported representatives in Congress are meeting.
There’s no point in waiting for members of Congress to be heroic. When we're blessed with the living examples of a few genuine visionaries in office, they should inspire us to realize our own possibilities. Ultimately, our own actions -- and inaction -- are at issue.
"Incontestably, alas," James Baldwin wrote a few years after the killing of Martin Luther King Jr., while the war in Vietnam still raged, "most people are not, in action, worth very much; and yet, every human being is an unprecedented miracle. One tries to treat them as the miracles they are, while trying to protect oneself against the disasters they've become. This is not very different from the act of faith demanded by all those marches and petitions while Martin was still alive. One could scarcely be deluded by Americans anymore, one scarcely dared expect anything from the great, vast, blank generality; and yet one was compelled to demand of Americans -- and for their sakes, after all -- a generosity, a clarity, and a nobility which they did not dream of demanding of themselves.... Perhaps, however, the moral of the story (and the hope of the world) lies in what one demands, not of others, but of oneself."



The above, noted by Mia, is from Norman Solomon's "Let Us Now Praise an Infamous Woman -- and Our Own Possibilities" (CounterPunch). Cindy Sheehan officially announced her candidacy for the House seat from California's 8th Congressional District today (Rebecca noted it here). Bully Boy pinned the problems in Iraq on Iran. A helicopter had a 'forced landing' which is a really sweet way of saying 'crash' for any helicopter forced down in Iraq. NYU's Michael Oppenheimer is even more openly arguing that a dictator be installed in Iraq. The deaths continue to mount . . .


They're just there to try and make the people free,
But the way that they're doing it, it don't seem like that to me.
Just more blood-letting and misery and tears
That this poor country's known for the last twenty years,
And the war drags on.
-- words and lyrics by Mick Softly (available on Donovan's Fairytale)

Last Thursday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 3662. Tonight? 3684. British deaths since the start of the illegal war now stand at 168. Patrick Cockburn (Independent of London) reports:


Two more British soldiers were killed in southern Iraq yesterday, raising the death toll in the UK's least successful military campaign since Suez in 1956. In both cases the British casualties were low but British forces wholly failed to achieve their objectives.
Two Irish Guardsman were killed and two were seriously wounded in the early hours of yesterday when their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb near the Rumaila oilfields west of Basra. The deaths bring to 168 the number of British personnel who have died in Iraq since the invasion in 2003.
British losses have increased as they prepare to abandon their last base in Basra city and retreat to their frequently attacked air base on the outskirts of the city. Here the contingent of 5,500 troops has been hit by mortars and rockets more than 600 times in the past four months.

We've added Just Foreign Policy's counter to the site (to the left, always to the left) and it currently reads 1,000,985 Iraqi deaths due to the invasion. The dying goes on and on.

The lies go on and on. And when they're not called out, we're not stopping the illegal war, we're allowing it to continue.

Eddie e-mailed to note (language warning) Rob Nelson (Dallas Observer) and his "hideous" review of the hideous No End In Sight. Eddie's right, it is hideous. Possibly a critic who can't get through his opening sentence without using the f-word has problems that go beyond judgement? Nelson cites "the early title card" in the bad movie: "It is a story in which many people tried to save a nation." That alone should tell people this is a film that's selling the illegal war. No one in the US administration was attempting to "save" Iraq. Nelson feels it is a documentary about "the ultimate failure" and, like the dopey Council for Foreign Relations director, the "ultimate failure" is not an illegal war itself. The issues of how the illegal war came to be are not explored or questioned. Nelson manages to notice that the film "scarcely acknowledges the fraudulent justification and fundamental immorality of the Iraq invasion" so how does he end up praising it?

Because he's not very bright. He writes: "For those of us who've opposed the war for years, the movie is at once intensely frightening and, it must be admitted, disturbingly reassuring." Reassuring? Well glad Nelson got his jollies. But the reality is, and Nelson might try reading his own review because the points are there to note what an awful piece of propaganda the film is, No End In Sight exists for one reason and one reason only: Illegal war is okay but next time it needs to be planned better.

The title may be more telling than the reviewer, "No End In Sight" -- translation, get used to it and let's hunker down for better planned illegal wars next time!

Eddie mentioned that the Council for Foreign Relations got no mention in the review. Maybe Nelson's never heard of them? You can't be very bright when you praise a film that endorses illegal wars. Going back to Amy Goodman's point (made while the War Liars were moving forward but the illegal war hadn't started), if it's not the time to talk about the war itself before it starts or when it's going on, when is the time? After, when it's over?

No End In Sight doesn't want to address the reality. It wants to offer showy footage (that cost a fortune) that misleads audiences into thinking that they're seeing a film that's about the illegal war. But a film about the illegal war is one that requires addressing that aspect. Instead, the film offers highlights. It is as much a lie as The Deer Hunter was and exists for the exact same reason. (Maybe rumors will abound in a few years that the director of No End In Sight has gone the pre-op route as well?)

We're at a point where we can call out the mainstream media; however, the power of film being what it is, some get confused and think they're watching an indictment of illegal war. They aren't seeing that. They're seeng (and many will unknowingly internalize) an argument for illegal war when it's better planned. "No End In Sight when the peace movement gets behind crap" covers this and we noted in that, if you're looking for a real look at the issues underlying illegal wars and the lies that get countries into them, see Norman Solomon's War Made Easy. But strangely, I've not seen the peace crowd that put me on their foward when they were praising No End Sight do an e-mail on Solomon's film. Maybe because it's not got the rah-rah they need, the rah-rah they're addicted to? Solomon's film is a powerful one. If you've been tricked into seeing No End In Sight, you can wash that filth away with War Made Easy.

A friend called and I'm too tired to include something they noted. The program (at their network) will be noted in the snapshot tomorrow. I mention that because it has to do with the topic we're going out on. Pru notes "Iraq occupation uses Saddam's law to ban oil union" (Great Britain's Socialist Worker):

The pro-US Iraqi government has outlawed the country’s oil workers' union under a law passed during the regime of Saddam Hussein.
The order comes as opposition is mounting to a proposed oil law that would hand over the country’s natural resource to foreign companies.
The Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) has spearheaded opposition to the proposed law.
Earlier this year the government issued arrest warrants against Hassan Jumaa and other leaders of the IFOU after they organised successful strikes in the south of the country.
The latest attacks come after the government froze the assets and bank accounts of the oil union.
According to a statement from the Nafatna campaign (Arabic for "our oil") the ban is “a pre-emptive measure to weaken the union’s successful campaign against the proposed oil law, which was instigated and is being imposed on Iraq by the occupation government”.
The ministry of oil issued a directive on 18 July declaring that the union "no longer has legal status" under decree 150 -- issued at the height of the Iraq-Iran war in 1987.
"Popular opposition is such that the government has failed to meet several deadlines laid down for it by the George Bush administration and US Congress to enact the law," the Nafatna statement said.
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The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com. Tomorrow morning's entries will probably be late. It's late now and we're also speaking early in the morning. I'll probably have to do entries after that.

and the war drags on

donovan

iraq

norman solomon

the socialist worker

Six antiwar demonstrators were arrested Wednesday at the Garden Grove office of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Santa Ana) after camping there overnight and telling her they wouldn't leave unless she promised not to approve more funding for the war in Iraq.
Most of the protesters are members of the group Military Families Speak Out, and some have relatives in the armed forces. They entered the office about 7 p.m. Tuesday during an open house. They sat on the floor in the lobby and refused to leave unless the congresswoman made the statement they wanted. Sanchez, who opposes the war, refused.
[. . .]
Tuesday night Sanchez said she could not support the protesters because the $145 billion in Iraq war funding was in the same bill that would provide money to build the C-17 aircraft in California.
"I never voted for this war," she said. But "I'm not going to vote against $2.1 billion for C-17 production, which is in California. That is just not going to happen."

The above is from Jennifer Delson's "6 war protesters arrested at Democratic lawmaker's O.C. office" (Los Angeles Times) and embracing greed over a $2.1 billion contract is voting for the illegal war. Sanchez wants the big bucks from War Toys in her district so she'll support $145 billion in funding for the illegal war. That is blood money. And if all members of Congress can get some pork in each war funding bill, maybe the illegal war can go on and on forever. Bucks come before moralities and legalities to Sanchez, she made that very clear.

Maybe the protest will send a message to Sanchez? Like the way she was sent a message when she ran as a Republican and lost so she decided she was a Democrat? Sanchez not only sits on the Armed Service Committee (how do you think she rolled that $2.1 billion pork her own way), she votes for the illegal war repeatedly. She likes to point out that in 2002 she voted against the authorization (which required UN backing that was never received) but that vote is meaningless when her record is one of voting to fund the illegal war over and over and over.

In other let's tell the truth news, Anthony Cordesman is NOT "a consistent critic of the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq" if that is supposed to read (as it will to many) as Cordesman is against the illegal war. Senator Crazy's former advisor has been on board with the illegal war from the beginning. In 2002, he was putting forward the 'threat' Iraq was and arguing that they had WMD. Now we know they didn't but for some reason WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING Cordesman is suddenly a reliable voice to be profiled. Frontline puffed and fluffed Cordesman in 2006, allowing him to pontificate in the extreme and never pointing out that he had maintained Iraq had WMD -- not even when he declared, "There was, I think, a far more serious view of the Iraqi conventional forces and the risk of Iraq using weapons of mass discussion than was justified at the time, even with the intelligence mistakes we were making."
Justified at the time? Frontline never pointed out that Cordesman was one of the ones justifying that false argument. Never asked him a difficult or uncomfortable question. Never told viewers, "Cordesman advanced the now disproven lie that Iraq had WMD and advocated the illegal war from the start." He's not an analyst, he's an activist. He's one who was grossly mistaken. But the activists who call for war (Samantha Power) always get to be billed as impartial analysts in the mainstream media and the ones who call for peace aren't to be quoted, aren't to be trusted, even when they're right.

He has repeatedly advocated that the illegal war can be 'won' such as to the the Council for Foreign Relations in September 2004 and again in Januaray 2007. He's the dumb ass who only saw the attacks on helicopters (the crashing of US helicopters) in Feb. 2007, long after the media knew about them as did troops on the ground. Some analyst. That pattern was detectable in January.

So today he shows up on the pages of the Washington Post with his turkey waddle chins and his usual lies and wants the world to know that there's still a 'win' possible. At this late date, facing reality is probably too difficult for him. It would mean admitting that the blood of so many Iraqis, Americans, British and other people were on his hands.

He exists to justify his own actions and statements (which he's never called out on) and he exists to sell the lie (over and over) that an illegal war can have a 'win.'

Until the US leaves Iraq, he'll be trotted out by various outlets who refused to do their job before the illegal war because he provides comfort and they can say "He still thinks there's a 'win'!" Yes, and he though Iraq had WMD as well. And he can whine about economic planning (and pretend there was no plan when what happens today is exactly because there was a plan) but the reality was he wasn't making economic noises before the illegal war, he was screaming for war. With claims that have long been disproven. After US forces leave, he'll crawl under the rock he should be under right now for a brief spell and then re-emerge with his questionable image intact as he argues for more illegal war.

This week on NOW with David Brancaccio:

In America, the top one-tenth of one percent of earners makes about the same money per year collectively as the millions of Americans in the bottom fifty percent combined. This is putting a tight squeeze on the middle class, while leaving millions of others in the cold. On Friday, August 10 at 8:30 pm (check local listings), David Brancaccio talks with Pulitzer prize-winning financial reporter David Cay Johnston, as well as author and advocate Beth Shuman about the state of our country's vast income divide and how it's hurting those just trying to make ends meet.The NOW website at www.pbs.org/now will feature book excerpts from both authors and stories of low-wage earners fighting for income equality.

David Cay Johnston is a reporter for the New York Times. NOW with David Brancaccio begins airing on most PBS stations Friday evenings. Check your local listings.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

los angeles times
now with david branccacio
pbs

Today, the US military announced: "A Marine assigned to Multi National Force-West died Aug. 7 in a non-combat related incident in Al Anbar Province." And they announced: "A Marine assigned to Multi National Force-West died Aug. 7 in a non-combat related incident in Al Anbar Province." ICCC's total for US service members killed in the illegal war thus far this month is 24 and is 3683 since the start of the illegal war.

Martha notes Ann Scott Tyson's "Sunni Fighters Find Strategic Benefits in Tentative Alliance With U.S." (Washington Post):

"This is much less about al-Qaeda overstepping than about them [Sunnis] realizing that they've lost," said Lt. Col. Douglas Ollivant, a planner for the U.S. military command in Baghdad. As a result, Sunni groups are now "desperately trying to cut deals with us," he said. "This is all about the Sunnis' 'rightful' place to rule" in a future Iraqi government, he said.

Today the Sunnis are 'friends' in the US war (though the Shi'ites in power still maintain kill lists for various Sunni leaders and enemies). And yesterday there was an attack on the Shi'ite concentrated Sadr City section of Baghdad (while Nouri al-Maliki was out of the country -- that tends to be the pattern). Lloyd notes this from Megan Greenwell's "Major U.S. Raid in Sadr City Targets Shiite Militia Faction" (Washington Post):

U.S. forces staged a major two-pronged attack early Wednesday on a vast Baghdad district controlled by Shiite militia groups, killing at least 17 people, according to the military and Iraqi police.
The raid on Sadr City, an area dominated by loyalists to Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, was one of the largest in a series of U.S. attacks against Shiite militias. The most powerful group, Sadr's Mahdi Army, controls access to electricity, fuel and housing in much of eastern Baghdad as well as in some western neighborhoods.

Yesterday, on Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman spoke with The New Yorker's Jane Mayer about the psychological techniques used on prisoners by the US. Note that psychologists aren't the only social scientists 'helping out' and that the Pentagon launched a big push to bring in anthropologists to help them deceive the Iraqi people. Keeping that in mind, also grasp that the US has fostered the divide and fed the civil wars. This is from "The Black Sites: A Rare Look Inside the C.I.A.’s Secret Interrogation Program:"

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain more about this -- and you talk about this particularly with Abu Zubaydah -- but who these psychologists are?
JANE MAYER: Well, one of them is a man named James Mitchell. Another is somebody named Bruce Jessen. There are other names that have been bandied about, but I don't feel comfortable mentioning them, but they were people who had, again, advised on SERE techniques. And so, they knew a lot about the psychological steps people go through when they're being tortured, and they knew that -- you know, their expertise was in resistance, how to resist torture. And so, they -- what happened was they wound up being asked, well, "How do we get these hardened al-Qaeda figures to stop resisting?" They believed in -- or talked, at least, a lot about a program called "learned helplessness," which is a psychological theory that springs out of experiments done on animals, particularly on dogs, where they were subjected to so many electric shocks in so many kind of random ways that at a certain point the dogs just gave up trying to escape from a pen, even though the entrance was open. And they talked about sort of -- these psychologists talked about how you need to break resistance in the al-Qaeda figures, at least this is according to people I’ve interviewed. The psychologist, I should say, James Mitchell has denied that he was trying to apply learned helplessness to the al-Qaeda figures, but others who were in the room with him describe him talking about it incessantly, trying to break them down to a point where they stop trying to resist.

Substitute Iraqi for "al-Qaeda" (like Michael Gordon does in his 'reporting' on Iran) and you'll probably have a better understanding of what's going on. Keep them off balance, pit one side against the other and continue switching allegiances, and they'll "need" the foreign fighters in their country. The chaos and violence didn't just happen, it was created. And it's stirred to continue the illegal war because it can also be sold to the American people as, "Think how bad things will be if American troops leave."

In Damien Cave's laughable report in this morning's New York Times (covering the same basics as Greenwell but somehow forgetting to mention how many civilians Iraqi police and hospital staff say were killed -- obviously a minor detail to Cave) he notes this:

Lt. Col. Steven M. Miska, deputy commander of the brigade responsible for the area around the shrine, said American troops were working carefully to protect pilgrims and reduce tensions with Iraqi security forces.

Yes, the great protector, the great savior. The easiest way to reduce tension in Iraq is for US forces to leave because they breed the hostilities and the violence and Iraqis want them out of their country. But sell the nonsense that the US will protect them (tell that to the 19 killed in Sadr City by the US air strike) and keep them off balance and maybe at some point they will grab the knees of the American forces and beg, "Stay! Stay! We can't live without you!"

As The Toledo Blade editorialized yesterday "Iraq's demise."

The long and short of it is that, no matter what General Petraeus' assessment is next month, the United States has essentially destroyed Iraq as a country. . . . The only action left, assuming that the people of the United States do not want to take on Iraq as a project for the next 20 or 30 years, is to state categorically that we have done all that we are going to do there and leave.


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

democracy now
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the new york times
the washington post
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Wednesday, August 8, 2007.  Chaos and violence continue, the US military and the British military both announce deaths, a dawn air attack by the US on a residential area kills civilians, war resister Eli Israel tells his story, meet "The Other Iraq," and more.


Starting with war resisters.  Camilo Mejia is the first war resister to return to the US and refuse to return to the US.  Stephen Funk is the first war resister to refuse to to Iraq period.  Eli Israel is the first known war resister to refuse while serving in Iraq.  At Courage to Resist, Eli Isreal tells his story.  He writes of growing up "in the custody of state of Kentucky," living on the streets, attempting to join the Marines at 16 but having no diploma and no GED so being turned down.  Israel got his GED, took some college courses and, at 18, enlisted in the military.  After leaving the military, he re-enlisted in 2004.  In Iraq he was "a JVB Agent -- the JVB (Joint Visitors Bureau) served as protective service for 'three star generals and above' and their 'civilian equivalents'.  This included the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff," etc. and "when we didn't have any missions at JVB, it was common for us to be called on for 'search and cordon' operations and other infantry assignements".  Israel writes:

I claimed like many that my actions during these missions were justified in the name of "self-defense."  However, I came to realize it was that my perception was wrong.  I was in a country that I had no right to be in, violating the lives of people, and doing so without regard to the same standards of dignity and respect that we as Americans hold our own homes and our lives to.    
I had taken and/or destroyed the lives of people who were defending their families from being the "collateral damage" of the day.  Iraqi boys are joining groups like "Al Qaeda" for the same reason street kids in the U.S. join the "Crypts" and the Bloods".  It's about self protection, a sense of dignity, and a way of making a stand.          
The young man whose father and cousin we "accidentally" killed, and whose mother and siblings cry every time the tank rolls through the neighborhood, doesn't care about who Osama Bin Laden is. 

Israel writes of the destuction of Iraq, the daily deaths of Iraqis, martial law, the denial of basic services, and more leading to a realization: "The day I saw myself in the hateful eyes of a young Iraqi boy who stared at me was the day I realized I could no longer justify my role in the occupation."  So Eli Israel attempted to become a CO but when he informed his superios of that decision, he was immediately isolated and placed under military guard for two weeks after which he was sent to Camp Arifjan for 30 days in prison which became 25 and he's now  discharged and "scheduled to be out-processed from the Army within the month and plan on joining forces with anti-Iraq-War movements, such as Courage to Resist and Iraq Veterans Against the War."  That's a synopsis and, again, you can read his story in his own words at Courage to Resist.  He concludes, "Objecting to the war and standing up to the miliary was without question, one of the best decisions I have ever made.  I made a stand that was the right one, and I have my freedom back as a bonus.  Maybe ten years from now those of us resisting from within the military today will be seen as some of the first few to speak the truth and to follow up with action.  Even now I have many to remind me that I'm not alone in my thinking, even a majority of Americans who know that all the pieces of this conflict simply don't add up."


There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee,  Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.


Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. IVAW and others will be joining Veterans For Peace's conference in St. Louis, Missouri August 15th to 19th.

Turning to Iraq where the air war continues.  CBS and AP report that a dawn attack on the Sadr City section of Baghdad, a US helicopter attack, has left at least 9 civilians dead (2 women included in the fatalties).  Reuters says the number, according to hospital officials, is 13 and note: "Hundres of angry mourners later marched chanting through the streets of the slum after the raid on the eve of a major Shi'ite holy day."  BBC offers a series of photos of the mourners which include (a) a man seated on the ground holding his head while a small boy cries next to him, three boys and a man slumped over a table while two women cry, and a photo of marchers which numbers over a thousand -- not the "hundreds" billed -- taking to the treets, walking around buses, clutching their chests and their heads.  BBC reports eye witnesses stating children were also killed and that the US military does conceed the point that women and children were present -- obvious point, this is a residential area that was bombed at dawn -- they assert none died.  Later the US military is expected to also issue assertions that the Easter Bunny exists. Jaime Tarabay (NPR) notes that officials in "Sadr City say that there were no 30  terrorist killed  there were acutally 9 civilians killed and among those were women and children and there were also six people that were injured."

In other violence . . .

Bombings?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports four Baghdad mortar attacks that claimed 2 lives and wounded twelve, a Baghdad roadside bombing that left three Iraqi soldiers wounded, a Kirkuk roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 police officer (six more wounded), a Kirkuk car bombing left four police officers and a civilian wounded.  Reuters notes a bombing in a Baquba barbre shop that claimed 5 lives and left eight more wounded, a Samarra mortar attack that claimed 7 lives, and a Hawija roadside bombing that left one person dead.

Shootings?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports two women wounded ("a mother and her daughter") in a shooting attack, while attorney Emad Dosh was shot dead in Najaf and Talai Bilal was attacked in Kufa but survived -- two security guards were wounded.  Reuters notes a police officer was shot dead in Dujail and one person was shot dead in Jurf Al-Sakhar and another in Mahaweel.

Corpses?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 11 corpses discovered in Baghdad and the corpse of Muthhir Ali was discovered in Kirkuk.



Today the UK Ministry of Defence announced: "It is with deep sorrow that the Ministry of Defence must confirm the death of a British serviceman from 1 Squadron, RAF Regiment in Basra City, southern Iraq last night, Tuesday 7 August 2007.  The serviceman died as a result of small arms fire attack which occurred at approximately 2030 hours local time during an operation in the Karmat Ali district of Basra City."  ICCC's total for the number of British soldiers killed in Iraq is now 166.  This follows Monday's announced death in Basra of 20-year-old Craig Barber whom, the UK Ministry of Defense notes, "leaves behind his loving family, including his wife Donna and son Bradley."

And today the US military announced: "A Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldier was killed and four others wounded during combat operations in a western section of the Iraqi capital when an improvised explosive device detonated near their patrol Aug. 7."  ICCC pegs the number of US service members killed in Iraq this month at 22 thus far and since the start of the illegal war at 3681.

As all this goes on, Bernd Debusmann (Reuters) offers a story on tourism in Iraq or to what is billed as "The Other Iraq" -- the Kurdish area.  Why not? asks the headline.  Gee, maybe because of the cross border struggles with Turkey that yesterday's meet and greet with al-Maliki didn't solve.  Maybe because, as Steve Negus (Financial Times of London) pointed out a week ago, the census that was supposed to be taken of the area never was and December is when a vote is supposed to "determine the fate of a large oil-rich and bitterly disputed swathe of the country". Or how about  James Cogan (WSWS) noting that Massoud Barzani ("president of the autonomous Kurdish Regional Government") has called for "a real civil war" if Kirkuk ("oli-rich" Kirkuk) does not become part of the Kurdish territory.

Turning to Japan where recent elections shifted the power.  David Pilling (Financial Times of London) reports that the Democratic Party of Japan "took control of the upper house Tuesday" and "is considering introducing a bill to end Tokyo's logistical support in Iraq" meaning curtailing "the supply flights the Japan Air Self-Defence Force flew to Baghdad and northern Iraq from Kuwait." 


Could that increase the cost of the illegal war for the US?  On the topic of the cost . . .  On July 31st, Gordon England, the US Dept. Secretary of Defense, appeared before the House Budget Committee of the US Congress and declared, "As Secretary Gates has said, the Department is firmly committed to an open and transparent dialogue with the Congress about war costs."  Though only 8 days ago, England's remarks are already laughable.  Today Tom Vanden Brook (USA Today) reports that the Pentagon is now insisting that $750 million is needed immediately in order "to urgenly airlift needed armored vehichles to troops facing roadside bombs in Iraq."  As Cedric and Wally pointed out Monday, the House just approved $459.6 billion in funding to military spending.  Nicholas Johnston (Bloomberg News)  reported this was  "for fiscal year 2008".  John Nichols (link goes to CBS) observed there was "virtually no debate" before the House approved the bill and that the "amount does not include the extra $147 billion Iraq war funding that the Bush administration has demanded that Congress approve when the Congress returns from its August recess."  This latest last minute funding request comes as the cost of the illegal war continues to mount and not that long after noises about how Americans would not be paying for the illegal war in piecemeal, that the American people needed to know the true costs of the illegal war.  In fact, one of the people decrying this sort of "haphazard, piecemeal funding" was the Bully Boy of the United States himself  on May 10th.  At the end of last month, Walter Pincus (Washington Post) noted Congress gave  the Defense Department "$1.7 billion for military construction in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007, according to CRS [Congressional Research Service], but offered no breakdown of how the money was spent."  Dropping back to December  2006, Carl Hulse (New York Times via IHT) noted that the Democrats who had just won control of both houses in the November elections were "planning to assert more control over the billions of dollars a month being spent on the conflict [Iraq] when they take charge of Congress in January."  Hulse quoted two tough talkers.  In the Senate, Kent Conrad declared, "They have been playing hide-the-ball, and that does not serve the Congress well nor the county well, and we are not going to continue that practice."  From the House, John Spratt who stated, "We need to have a better breakout of the costs -- period."  Possibly, Hulse misquoted Spratt and he really said "breakout of the costs -- period period period"?  Ellipses would certainly make more sense when Spratt is quoted by Tom Vanden Brook today sounding ready to toss around the (public's) money without asking any questions such as why the Pentagon's only now interested in shipping the vehicles or what pork the Pentagon can eliminate on their own instead of expecting the US tax payers to foot the bill for every goody on their wish-list.  Noting the waste in the bloated budget, John Nichols wondered "why was there no serious debate on the Pentagon budget?  It's not just that the Bush administration and its Republican allies in Congress continue to use the war on terror as an excuse to enrich defense contractors such as Dick Cheney's Halliburton.  As Winslow Wheller, a veteran of 31 years working with mostly Republican senators on defense issues and a former assistant director of evaluations of national defense programs with the U.S. Government Accountablility Office, 'Now in control of Congress and having made multiple promises to restore oversight of the war in Iraq and the executive branch in general, the Democrats have been successfully rolled by the White House, the military services, and the big spender pundits'."  To repeat, July 31st, Dept. Secretary of Defense Gordon England stated to Congress that "the [Defense] Department is firmly committed to an open and transparent dialogue with the Congress about war costs."

Turning to US politics.  Yesterday the AFL-CIO hosted a 'debate' with Democratic hopefuls for the 2008 presidential nomination (Mike Gravel was not present).  US Senator Barack Obama is hindered by how much of his genuine rage (and he's got rage) he can show.  He declared, at one point, "I find it amusing that those who helped to authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation are now criticizing me".  He declared?  Well, he moved his lips.   Samantha Power scripted that line.  Samantha Power who immortalized herself with  the autobiography A Problem From Hell (oh, it's not an autobiography? well with that title . . .) Barack Obama yesterday: "the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation are now criticizing me."  Samantha Power August 3rd "the worst strategic blunder in the history of US foreign policy."  Sammy, get your axe.  Or at least your Blackberry.  The odor of Samantha Power lingers over the Barack Obama campaign and not merely because she was perviously an advisor to Obama.  It's also because you look a bit unhinged when you mass mail, as Power did last week, your thoughts on Obama to "Interested Parties."  Where Babmi can't show more than spunk, Power can.  She will do it, she can do it, and she will bloody well control the White House! 

That's actually how the unhinged Samantha Power plays out to many -- and for good reasons that aren't limited to the fact that she fires off those e-mails not from her own personal e-mail account but from the account she has as "Founding Executive Director, Harvard University Carr Center for Human Rights Policy".  As Noam Chomsky (ZNet) noted, in response to a question about Sammy Power, "A little more interesting is Power's tacit endorsement of the Bush doctrine that states that harbor terrorists are no different from terrorist states, and should be treated accordingly: bombed and invaded, and subjected to regime change"; "It's of some interst that Power is regarded -- and apparently regards herself -- as a harsh critic of US foreign policy.  The reason is that she excoriates Washington for not paying enough attention to the crimes of others."; and "From a desk at the Carr Center for Human Rights at the Kennedy School at Harvard, that's doubltess how it looks."

The Carr Center?  Tom Hayden (writing at The Nation, link goes to Hayden's site) asked last month: "Should a human rights center at the nation's most prestigious university be collaborating with the top U.S. general in Iraq in designing the counter-insurgency doctrine behind the current military surge?"   Hayden goes on to reveal how The Carr Center's Sarah Sewell steered the creation of "the new Army-Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual" which not only white washes the US involvement in the Salvadorian death squads of the Reagan years, it also seeks to use academic discipline to abuse a people.  Hayden cites Stephen Biddle ("Baghdad adviser to Gen Petraues") explaining the real purpose of the plan the Carr Center took part in: "to manipulate both Shi'as and Sunnis into depending on the US occupation for self-protection."  As Hayden points out, "counter-insurgency, being based on deception, shadow warfare and propaganda runs counter to the historic freedom of university life."  As noted before the academy is abused today by the US military recruiting anthropologists to figure out how to lie and trick Iraqis.  They've also found some psychologists eager to do their bidding and encourage torture which is a topic Amy Goodman again revists on today's Democracy Now! with The New Yorker's Jane Mayer and the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer.
 
But let's not leave Sammy Power just yet.  Hayden notes: "Power is a close adviser to Sen. Barack Obama who supports a withdrawal of US combat troops by next year with exceptions for 'advisers' and special units to battle al-Qaeda.  Power, who worked last year in Obama's Washington DC office, writes that even the proposed combat troop withdrawal can be reversed if Iraq's condition continues to worsen.  Intentionally or not, the cautious, complicated Obama proposal as described by Power leaves open the likelihood of thousands of American troops remaining in counter-insurgency roles for years ahead.  If that is the limit of legitimate debate at Harvard, the Pentagon occupation of the academic mind may last much longer than its occupation of Iraq, and may require an intellectual insurgency in response."  The Carr Center is a collaborator in an illegal war and that reality is only surprising to anyone who doesn't grasp the realities of Sammy "Get me the axe!" Power. 

While the War Hawk Loons seek ever more war, today The Toledo Blade editorializes on "Iraq's demise" noting that "the United States has essentially destoryed Iraq as a country" and concluding, "The only action left, assuming that the people of the United States do not want to take on Iraq as a project for the next 20 or 30 years, is to state categorically that we have done all that we are going to do there and leave." 

In other news, Matthew Rothschild (The Progressive) notes that even on something as mild as censure ("just a public spanking"), the Dems in Congress can't get it together and that if they really believe impeachment "would tie up" everything, what's their problem with censure?  Cynthia Cooper (FAIR's Extra!) points out that the mainstream media ignores the prospect of impeachment or mocks it and makes false comparisons such as claiming Bully Boy isn't as awful as Tricky Dick: "But the 'consensus' on Nixon came after five months of inquiry by the House Judiciary Commitee, complete with subpoenas, sworn testimony and a staff of 100.  A full consensus only emerged days later, when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered Nixon to release tapes that contained damning comments by the president, and Nixon resigned."  In disgrace, he resigned in disgrace.  No offense, but let's not forget that detail.  He was a petty crook and he left in disgrace.  On PBS, Bill Moyers offered a serious discussion on impeachment.  That one hour look (including guests such as John Nichols) at impeachment on Bill Moyers Journal  is repeating and can also be viewed, listened to or read online currently.




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bill moyers
bill moyers journal
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carl hulse
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cedrics big mix

In the Los Angeles Times this morning, Tony Parry . . . reports isn't the word. White washes the Pendleton Eight? From the fluff:

Two Marines who admitted taking part in the kidnapping and killing of an unarmed Iraqi man have been released from the brig at Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps announced Tuesday, leaving only one of the five men who pleaded guilty still behind bars.
[. . .]
All eight were members of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. Prosecutors said the killing was a coldblooded act of vigilante justice, but defense witnesses during the courts-martial said Marines were hoping to deter insurgent attacks.

Search in vain for the name of the man murdered. Search in vain for facts such as the man was pulled from his home in the dead of night for no crime, or that a gun and a shovel were planted on him to make him look like an 'insurgent,' or that they called in a cover story. Instead, some unnamed man is dead and the facts of how aren't addressed nor is there a need to go to any military expert and ask: How common is this that a War Crime takes place, that confessions and convictions are made, and people get slaps on the wrist?

Basic journalism, you're writing about a death that's led to convictions, you name the victim and you describe the details of the death.

AP offers up a look at Bully Boy's 'base':

To see the type of person who still backs him, President Bush need only look in the mirror. The president fits the composite of today's Bush supporter: a conservative, white, Republican man, an evangelical Christian who goes to church regularly.
Hammered by bad news in Iraq, congressional investigations and recent failed domestic initiatives such as immigration reform, Bush's job approval rating has spiraled to record lows for his presidency. Two-thirds of Republicans and about one-third of independents still support him, but virtually no Democrats are left in Bush's camp.
Bush says he leads and is not led by popular opinion. Yet the lower his polls go, the harder it is for him to push his agenda -- and bump the polls up when he has good news to impart.
"Maybe he's got it right, but hardly anybody believes him," said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato.
Overall, just one in three Americans approves of the job he is doing, according to a July AP-Ipsos poll. That's a long fall from his 90 percent approval rating after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

War pornographer Michael Gordon (New York Times) is back to selling war with Iran via charges he can't back up and doesn't want to. He's in repeat mode and the paper's happy to let him go there. Translation, the only thing that changed at the paper is Judith Miller left.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

los angeles times

The long and short of it is that, no matter what General Petraeus' assessment is next month, the United States has essentially destroyed Iraq as a country. The death knell of the occupation government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was probably sounded last week by the withdrawal of six cabinet ministers from the most important Sunni party. The government now includes only two representatives of the Sunnis, whose adherence to a unified Iraq is critical given their twofold importance for having ruled the country for the 71 years preceding the U.S. invasion and accounting for 20 percent of the population.
Iraq cannot be ruled successfully by a Shiite government; the Kurds are still in, but eyeing an increasingly independent Kurdistan. So, basically, no government.
Promised U.S. reconstruction efforts, estimated to have cost American taxpayers $40 billion so far, have turned into a trail of disappointments and broken promises. U.S. contractors and a host of U.S., Kuwaiti, Iraqi, and other subcontractors have reaped fortunes from the effort. Inspection reports spread the blame for construction failures - aside from the Iraqis themselves - among the companies, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. military.
Perhaps worst of all, apart from the thousands of Iraqi deaths (many of them unrecorded), the situation of the people is dire in humanitarian terms.



The above is from The Toledo Blade's "Iraq's demise." Today's editorial is worth reading in full. This isn't a cover-your-own ass type editorial (the way the New York Times' overly praised -- and under examined -- editorial was). It's a hard hitting editorial (which doesn't play the "We tried to give democracy but those people . . . " xeonophobia nonsense. It covers the recent report for Oxfam and more. Where it falters is in the refusal to call the war illegal and present it as a mistake. Elsewhere, it's on stronger ground and, overall, may be the strongest editorial by a domestic paper thus far.



On the subject of the New York Times, Damien Cave contributes "4 Americans Killed in Bombings in the Baghdad Area:"



Three of the Americans were killed Saturday in an attack involving several explosions on a road south of Baghdad. Witnesses said the blasts wounded several other soldiers and destroyed at least one armored vehicle.
The military said a fourth American soldier died Monday, and one was wounded, when an armor-piercing bomb exploded near their vehicle in western Baghdad.
The deaths set the pace for a higher military toll in August than in July, when 80 American service members died from hostile and nonhostile causes, said Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, a Web site that tracks military deaths. July's was the lowest monthly toll since November.
British military officials announced that a British soldier had died from wounds sustained Monday during a firefight in the southern city of Basra.



It's cute the way he pretends it's perfectly natural for the US military to announce Saturday deaths on a Tuesday. As though we're back in times of yore and the US military is dependent upon some sort of pony express to get the news of deaths to MNF. It's even cuter how he references witnesses who apparently were also carried back to the Green Zone via the pony express.



Wallowing in his own perceived cuteness, he then goes on to inform that the US and England have decided the UN's 'mandate' in Iraq should be extended. They decided? Nouri al-Maliki was Turkey yesterday and is in Iran today. The last time the 'mandate' was extended the Iraqi Parliament made it very clear that they did not appreciate having any foreign country go over their heads or having al-Maliki leave them out of the loop. They stated that any extensions of that would be addressed by them. So the US and England wait until the parliament is on their vacation (the same sort that the US Congress is currently on) and they, not Iraqi's supposedly independent government, declare that the 'mandate' needs to be extended.



He's stronger when he's discussing the agreement between Turkey and Iraq which other outlets are treating as big news even though it's not. From yesterday's snapshot:



Turkish Daily News reported today that al-Maliki and Turkey's prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, would sign an agreement; however, "Turkey will await implementation and wants to see concrete steps against the PKK". Selcuk Gokoluk (Reuters) reports that al-Maliki swore he would "crack down on Kurdish rebels" in northern Iraq; however, "Turkish officials said they knew Maliki had little clout in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq and that he had also been weakened both by Iraq's dire security situation and by fresh turmoil in his crumbling government in Baghdad."





In this morning's USA Today, Tom Vanden Brook reports that the Pentagon is insisting they maust have $750 million from Congress immediately and are stating that it is "to urgenly airlift needed armored vehicles to troops facing roadside bombs in Iraq". Roadside bombs in Iraq are a new thing the Pentagon just noticed?



As Cedric and Wally noted in their joint-posts Monday ("Hoyers explains the drawbacks to Congress" and "THIS JUST IN! HOYER LOVES CONGRESS, HATES VOTERS!"), Congress just allocated $459.6 billion dollars before going on their break. The $750 million wasn't included in the supplemental, it wasn't included in the $459.6 billion request. They are paying for this illegal war piece meal and grabbing a lot of 'goodies' while they refuse to use the money they are granted (the 'money' -- the debt, the US tax payers debt that will be paid off in coming generations) to fund what they claim they are doing. The $750 million should come out of the $450.6 billion and the Pentagon should give up some of their 'goodies.' (Or maybe Jack Murtha can declare the budget not fit for tax payer's eyes the way he just did with the intell budget?)



The $750 million request is part of another alleged "emergency request" by the Pentagon and the full amount they 'need' now is $12 billion. Like the announcement of the deahts, the announcement of the bills trickle out slowly.



The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.





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Tuesday, August 7, 2007.  Chaos and violence continue, Iraqis are rendered invisible in their own story, the US military announces more deaths, students get active and so do parents, FAIR gets a little loose with the words, and more.



Goldie Goes To Africa.  FAIR has issued a "Media Advisory" and whatever they're hoping to accomplish falls apart in the opening paragraph, in the opening sentence in fact, when they bill the overly praised Nation magazine article as an "investigation into the U.S. occupation's impact on Iraqi civilians".  As Rebecca noted last night, it is no such thing.  Not only is it no such thing, FAIR really flirts with xenophobia when they make that hyperbolic assertion.  The Nation's bad (really, really bad) article did not present a single Iraqi voice.  Iraqis can speak for themselves.  Not only can they speak for themselves it is shocking that a media watchdog would  ever claim that OCCUPYING FORCES in a country CAN OR SHOULD TELL the story of the people in an invaded country.  The Nation's article is a piece of crap (and a journalistic laugh) but FAIR can praise (or pass on) whatever it wants.  However, it cannot make XENOPHOBIC statements that betray the very reason FAIR was created without being called out.


If it's unclear to anyone how offensive the opening statement (echoed throughout the piece) is, ask whether or not members of the Israeli army should be hailed as tellers of the Palestinians' story, or whether the slaughter and genocide of  Native Americans should be told from the point of view of the US military?


That is what we're talking about.  In Robert Altman's The Player, there's a pitch for a project set in a foreign country and a backforth of dialogue ensues: "Goldie Goes To Africa!" "She's found by this tribe --" "Of small people!"  "She's found and they worship her."  "It's like The Gods Must Be Crazy except the Coke bottle is an actress."  That scene (script by Michael Tolkin) sends up the "fish out of water" concept --  travelogue movies can only hold an American audience if they have an American front and center.  The story of the Iraqi people is not and will not be told by non-Iraqis.


The very bad Nation article may do many things; however, it does not and cannot tell the story of what life is like for Iraqis today.  It can't because it speaks to no Iraqis.  It is their story to be told, it cannot be told for them.  FAIR hopefully rushed that advisory out quickly.  But the reality is that the wording is offensive and it shouldn't take Rebecca or myself to point out that very obvious fact.  "The Nation's investigation into the U.S. occupation's impact on Iraqi civilians" has never been published because it's never been researched.  To suggest otherwise is insulting.  The US didn't send the Red Cross into Iraq, it sent in a professional military (and a private one was sent also).  Only Iraqis can tell their story, only they should and to suggest otherwise is a grave insult. (I'm referring to the insult to the Iraqis but it's also true that suggesting otherwise is also an insult to the fine work FAIR has consistently done for many years.)


Turning to war resistance.  In April, we noted Terri Johnson who signed up and realized she couldn't support the illegal war so she droppsed out in basic training.  Johnson explained, "All you got to do is leave.  Throw the towel in.  They cannot stop you.  Stay gone for thirty-one days.  Get your two-way ticket to Lousiville, Kentucky.  The MPs will meet you there and pat you down.  You will be there for four days and eat this horrible food.  The only thing you cannot do is get a federal job.  Okay, I wasn't that interested in working for the federal government anyway.  The other thing you can't do is re-enlist in another branch of the military."


Terri Johson is a war resister.  So is Carla Gomez.  Gomez' story is told in Peter Laufer's Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq. Gomez was a 17-year-old high school student in Santa Cruz, Calif. when her new 'BFF' Sgt. Daniel Lopez entered her life.  After forcing his way into the Gomez family, Lopez wants her to take a physical.  Gomez was already having doubts.  He takes her to San Jose for a physical but what happens is she's forced -- by one man after another -- to sign enlistment papers.  A 17-year-old surrounded by adults, an hour from home, no way to get home, facing the equivalent of time-share sales people.
What saved Carla Gomez was knowledge that she didn't have to join.  No matter what she signed.  If you sign up on a delayed entry, you don't have to go.  You can write a letter stating you've changed your mind.  That should be all the contact you have with them.  Gomez tells Laufer her letter stated, "My parents and I were coerced by Sergeant Lopez.  The real reason why I ended up signing was because I was exhuasted.  I thought the only way to go home was by signing.  I feel I was not in my five senses at the time and I feel that I was pushed to sign the contract."  [Gomez' story appears on pages 78-85 of Laufer's book.]

We're focusing on this aspect of war resistance today for a number of reasons including Tony Allen-Mills (Times of London) reporting Sunday that new things were being imposed by the Pentagon including that drill sgts. may no longer use the words "maggot" or "worm"  as a result of what Allen-Mills describes as "a desperate bid to lower the fall-out rate among the dwindling numbers of young Americans ready to sign up".  So the answer is to provide "calm authority" and not derision.  Aimee Allison and David Solnit, in their book Army of None, detail the branding and marketing efforts to trick and deceive young people.  They also note the success of counterrecruiting and how the military's response was to drop "Be All That You Can Be" (sounded like a lecture from a parent, polling groups determined) and go with "There's strong, and then there's Army Strong."  (Which honestly sounds like one of those "Made for a man, but I like it too" advertisements.)  The advretising budget for "Army Strong" is 1.35 billion over five years. (Ads began airing in Oct. 2006.)  (Army of None, pages 45-66 which can be found at bookstores, online and via Courage to Resist).

Today, Prensa Latina reports: "Sectors from the Puerto Rican society will start a campaign next week against military recruitment in schools to enter the US Army, said activists from the Independentista Party of Puerto Rico (PIP) Monday."  You can't vote in the presidential elections, the US won't allow you your independence but your children can die in an illegal war started by the US.  And it's not just Puerto Rico and the US fighting military recruiters.  Matthew Holehouse (New Statesman) reports on Students Against the War's protest in Camden at the Kids Connections' offices last week.  What were they protesting Kids Connection was creating classroom modules (paid for by the UK Ministry of Defence) that propagandize about the illegal war.    Matthew Holehouse notes that, in the United Kingdom, the failure to meet targets "was forcing the military recruiters to target children as young as 14".  Returning to the US where, as Jorge Mariscal (Black Agenda Report) notes, "8,000 premanent resident aliens already enlist in the U.S. military every year".  In the land where 'bi-partisanship' so frequently translates as "screwed twice over," US Senators Edward Kennedy and Arlen Specter can reach across the aisle and, as Mariscal points out, use the DREAM Act of 2007 to tie documented residency in the US with military service.

And as students return to classes in Phoeniz, Arizona, activists are there to inform.  KVOA reports the citizens "are part of the Arizona Advocacy Network Foundation, the Arizona Counter Recruitment Coalition, Parents Against Violence in Education and the End the War Coalition" who fan out with postcards that the student and the parent can complete to opt out of the automatic data mining done by military recruiters (thanks to the "bi-partasian" nonsense that was the so-called No Child Left Behind).  Andy Harvey (KPNX) gives the background on this and also a report  on the protests (link contains text as well as streaming video).   Adam Loveless, military recruiter, looks ridiculous in the new military uniform (everyone does) and attempts to liken targeting high schoolers with targeting college students.  As Donna Winchester (St. Petersburg Times) points out, the opt-out forms must be filled out at the start of each school year.  The Vallejo Times-Herald notes that high schoolers  Aliesha Balde, Doris Le, Perla Pasayes and Shamar Theus are on the road through next Sunday working with the ACLU and other students "to scrutinize the military's recruitment campaign aimed at youth".  The student activists have entitled their project "The Truth Behind the Camouflage: A Youth Investigation into the Myths & Truths of Military Recruitment & Military Service."

Those are only some of the stories of resistance with war.  Carla Gomez is a war resister and there is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.


Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. IVAW and others will be joining Veterans For Peace's conference in St. Louis, Missouri August 15th to 19th.



On July 31, 2007, the snapshot included this:"In Baghdad a small number (tiny) remains. They are all elderly. The last study estimated that they numbered 19."  There is an update and a chuckle via AP which reports that 9 Jews remain in Baghdad and cite the same War Hawk (Andrew White) posing as a do-gooder who back on July 19th claimed there were no Jews in Iraq.  He testified "I know every single one of the Jews left."  Which was a LIE and why we noted the last study showed 19 Jews remaining in Baghdad.  Here's the chuckle, AP today tries to bill the War Hawk and Liar as someone "who watches over the tiny Jewish group".  Well watch a little closer, War Hawk White.  End of July you were testifying they were gone and now you want credit for the 8 that still remain? This is all the more important when you read White telling the AP that he gives the Jewish residents money.  Uh, you really aren't supposed to brag about charity.     We won't quote White -- a man of the cloth shouldn't lie so frequently in public.  We will note AP cites Jewish Agency in Jerusalem's Michael Jankelowitz as stating the 8 remaining do not want to leave.  This does sound reasonable because, long before the number dropped to 19, efforts were being made and the ones then choosing to stay felt Baghdad had been their whole lives.  Jankelowitz also says 4 are over 80 while 4 "are of working age".  The Hague's Israeli Embassy spokesperson echoes that and states they are "in weekly contact" with one of the eight remaining.  AP notes: "The eight Jews, belonging to four families, are all that is left in Iraq from the world's oldest Jewish community, dating to the 6th century B.C. when the Babylonians conquered ancient Palestine and exiled its people as slaves.  Over the centuries the Jews flourished, and Baghdad became a center of Jewish culture and learning."

Many are leaving.  In fact, many are leaving Nouri al-Maliki's cabinet.  Yesterday, 5 more decided to do just that.  Alexandra Zavis and Molly Hennessy-Fiske (Los Angeles Times) report that Salim Abudllah Jabouri (of the Sadr bloc that walked out last week) said the puppet was now on his "last chance to show goodwill" and if that doesn't happen there will be a move "to bring a vote of of no confidence" against the puppet. But though they have walked out,  Sudarsan Raghavan (Washington Post) notes that they maintain they will "continue to run their ministries but not attend any cabinet meetings. They cited as reasons for their action a lack of progress on issues such as the status of Iraqi detainees, the repatriation of displaced Iraqis and the return of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to government jobs."  The BBC notes that their Baghdad correspondent, Andy Gallacher, feels "the latest events leave the administration of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki looking more fragile than ever."

While the puppet's cabinet crumbles, Nouri hot foots it over to Turkey.  Turkish Daily News reported today that al-Maliki and Turkey's prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, would sign an agreement; however, "Turkey will await implementation and wants to see concrete steps against the PKK".  Selcuk Gokoluk (Reuters) reports that al-Maliki swore he would "crack down on Kurdish rebels" in northern Iraq; however, "Turkish officials said they knew Maliki had little clout in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq and that he had also been weakened both by Iraq's dire security situation and by fresh turmoil in his crumbling government in Baghdad."  And in other not-waiting-for-Maliki news, CBS and AP announce, "Iraq's autonomous Kurdish government approved a regional oil law on Tuesday, officials said, paving the way for foreign investment in their northern oil and gas fields while U.S.-backed federal legislation remained stalled. The measure gives the regional government the right to administer its oil wealth in the three northern governates -- Irbil, Sulaimaniyah and Dahuk --- as well as what it called 'disputed territories,' referring to Kirkuk, one of Iraq's largest crude production hubs."


Bombings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 Baghdad mortar attacks climed 7 lives (nine wounded), 1 Iraqi soldier died in a bombing outside Baquba.
Reuters notes a Samarra mortar attack that claimed the lives of 3 women and 2 children while a roadside bombing in Hilla left four police officers wounded.

Also, yesterday, on the Tal Afar bombing, this appeared: "CBS and AP note Brig. Gen Rahim al-Jibouri (Tal Afar police) states the death toll will most likely rise and that 9 are dead in a Baghdad roadside bombing (eight wounded)." Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) informs, "The police chief of Tal Afar MG Wathiq Al Hamdani said that the final result of the explosion of Tal Afar town increased into 30 killed and 32 injured."

Shootings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a woman was wounded during a home invasion in Hawija.  DPA reports a police officer "opened fire Tuesday on a crowd of civilians queuing outside an ice factory in Karbala, killing three people and wounding seven others in an apparently random shooting".


Corpses?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 16 corpses discovered in Baghdad, 7 corpses were turned over to the Mosul morgue, 1 corpse was discovered outside Baquba,  and 1 discovered in Kirkuk (cab driver).

Today, the UK Ministry of Defence announced: "It is with deep sorrow that the Ministry of Defense must confirm the death of a British soldier from 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh as a result of a small arms fire attack during an operation in Basra, southern Iraq, last night, Monday 6 August 2007."  As Nico Hines (Times of London) notes, this was the 165th British soldier to die in the illegal war since it began.

Today, the US military announced: "Three Task Force Marne Soldiers were killed when an improvised explosive device struck their convoy August 4, south of Baghdad."  For those not near a a calendar, those 3 died on Saturday.  But no one's supposed to notice that.  The US military also announced: "One Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldier was killed and another wounded when an explosively-formed penetrator detonated targeting their vehicle during combat operations in a western section of the Iraq capital Aug. 6." ICCC's total is 20 US service membres have died in Iraq for the month of August thus far; however, CBS and AP note, "The U.S. military tells CBSNews.com that 26 American service members have been killed in action in Iraq in the past week alone". That count apparently includes the last 3 days of July.   A number that is firm is 162,000.  AFP reports that's approximately how many US troops are currently on the ground in Iraq topping the previous high of January 2005 (about 161,000). 



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Today, the US military announced: "Three Task Force Marne Soldiers were killed when an improvised explosive device struck their convoy August 4, south of Baghdad." And, from yesterday, they announced: "One Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldier was killed and another wounded when an explosively-formed penetrator detonated targeting their vehicle during combat operations in a western section of the Iraqi capital Aug. 6." (Two other announcements, 5 deaths, were covered in the snapshot yesterday. I missed the one noted today.) Right now, ICCC lists the number of US service members killed in Iraq thus far this month at 18 with 3677 since the start of the illegal war.

Lloyd highlights the following from Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks' "As British Leave, Basra Deteriorates" (Washington Post):

For the past four years, the administration's narrative of the Iraq war has centered on al-Qaeda, Iran and the sectarian violence they have promoted. But in the homogenous south -- where there are virtually no U.S. troops or al-Qaeda fighters, few Sunnis, and by most accounts limited influence by Iran -- Shiite militias fight one another as well as British troops. A British strategy launched last fall to reclaim Basra neighborhoods from violent actors -- similar to the current U.S. strategy in Baghdad -- brought no lasting success.
"The British have basically been defeated in the south," a senior U.S. intelligence official said recently in Baghdad. They are abandoning their former headquarters at Basra Palace, where a recent official visitor from London described them as "surrounded like cowboys and Indians" by militia fighters. An airport base outside the city, where a regional U.S. Embassy office and Britain's remaining 5,500 troops are barricaded behind building-high sandbags, has been attacked with mortars or rockets nearly 600 times over the past four months.

The British were forced to leave a base in southern Iraq in August of 2006 (domestic press largely skipped that story) which was ripped apart (for scrap materials) by Iraqis shortly after they pulled out. Staying with the UK, Deborah Haynes, Richard Beeston and Greg Hurst (Times of London) report that it's not just the US that refuses grant to asylum to Iraqis:

Britain was accused yesterday of abandoning 91 Iraqi interpreters and their families to face persecution and possible death when British forces withdraw.
The Times has learnt that the Government has ignored personal appeals from senior army officers in Basra to relax asylum regulations and make special arrangements for Iraqis whose loyal services have put their lives at risk.
One interpreter, who has worked with the Army since 2004 and wanted to start a new life in Britain after British Forces pull out was told by Downing Street that he would receive no special favours and to read a government website.

And in the US, Geoff Boucher (Los Angeles Times) reports that the Dixie Chicks and the Eagles will perform joint concerts in LA on October 18th and 20th:

The Eagles plan an October release for "Long Road Out of Eden," their first studio album since "The Long Run" in 1979. The band -- Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit -- is expected to tour throughout 2008 to support the new collection. Henley told The Times in February that the CD will be sold exclusively through Wal-Mart for the first year, a deal that Henley said was spurred by the environmental initiatives by the world's largest private employer. Henley also said the title track was "about the war in Iraq and the evolution of man." He added, with tongue in cheek, that "there's a portion of a song you can dance to." The album as whole is laced, he said, with dark humor and political themes.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

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