[Repost of Cedric's "New York Times lies again!" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! NEW YORK TIMES LIES ABOUT PEACE MOVEMENT!" from this evening.]

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIX MIX -- KANSAS CITY, MO.

TOSSING OUT MORE CHICKEN SOP FOR THE SOUL BARACK OBAMA DECLARED TODAY, IN HIS SPEECH TO THE V.F.W., MANY PROMISES.

INSTEAD OF EXAMINING THEM OR ASKING WHERE HIS PLAN, FOR INSTANCE, TO IMPROVE THE WAIT TIME FOR VETERANS SEEKING HEALTH CARE, THE IDIOT AT THE NEW YORK TIMES, JEFF ZELENY DECIDES TO SLIME THE PEACE MOVEMENT.

ZELENY HEARS THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT BY OBAMA:

THE GRAVES OF OUR VETERANS ARE HALLOWED GROUND. WHEN MEN AND WOMEN WHO DIE IN SERVICE TO THIS COUNTRY ARE LAID TO REST, THERE MUST BE NO PROTESTS NEAR THE FUNERALS. IT'S WRONG AND IT NEEDS TO STOP.

AND WRITES UP: "HE ALSO SAID IT WAS WRONG FOR ANTI-WAR ACTIVISTS TO PROTEST AT MILITARY FUNERALS, DECLARING: 'IT NEEDS TO STOP'."

THE ONLY PROTESTS AT MILITARY FUNERALS HAS BEEN FROM FRED PHELPS' ANTI-GAY CROWD. THAT'S WHAT HAS UPSET CONGRESS.

JEFF ZELENY DOESN'T KNOW THE TRUTH FROM HIS IMPACTED COLON AND HE SMEARS THE PEACE MOVEMENT WITH A LIE WHICH WILL PROBABLY RESULT IN A RAISE AT THE PAPER THAT SOLD THE ILLEGAL WAR.

[BEFORE IT CHANGES, ZELENY: One of the biggest applause lines of his speech came when he pledged that during an Obama administration, veterans would not have to wait months -- or years -- for services at veterans hospitals. He also said it was wrong for anti-war activists to protest at military funerals, declaring: "It needs to stop."]





FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Starting with war resisters. Camilo Mejia served in Iraq, served in Iraq well after his contract ran out and, as a non-US citizen, the military couldn't extend his contract but they chose to pretend like they could. They also denied him CO status. He tells his story Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia in which was released in May. One story not in the book, because it just happened, is that he's just been elected the chair of Iraq Veterans Against the War board of directors.

Aaron Glantz (One World) reports that IVAW held their elections during the St. Louis Veterans for Peace conference and elected Mejia with Garrett Reppenhagen explaining that IVAW "decided to make support of war resisters a major part of what we do." Glantz reports on IVAW's big success in Fort Drum where the local chapter is up and running and now claims 20 members and, of course, has the first GI coffeehouse in the nation (for this illegal war) with Different Drummer as well as that September 17th IVAW will kick off Truth in Recruiting.
Mejia will be at Different Drummer this Thursday for a reading (starts at 6:30 pm) from Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia and the GI Coffee House is located in Watertown, NY (12 Paddock Arcade, 1 Public Square, 13601).

Mejia tells Glanz, "There's a sort of revolution taking place in the streets. It's not being reported by the mainstream media, but we in the antiwar movement know what's going on. There is a rebellion going on in the ranks of the military that is not being reported."

There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Timothy Richard, 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, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, 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.

John Stauber (CounterPunch) notes: "IVAW was founded in 2004 and today it is a rapidly growing grassroots, independent anti-war group with members active in 43 states and deployed on bases in Iraq. These rank and file soldiers are not partisans; they are Americans who have seen first hand the greatest political betrayal of our lifetime, the US attack on Iraq and the long occupation. Iraq Veterans Against the War are not the concoction of a liberal think tank or PR firm; they have very little funding; they are not avoiding criticism of Democrats; and they are not playing political games trying to bank-shot Democratic candidates into the White House and Congress in 2008. They are in open non-violent revolt against US foreign policy, criticizing politicians of all stripes who would exploit the war for political gain." If only the media -- big and small -- could do the same.

Yesterday, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted the Project for Excellence in Journalism "study shows corporate news coverage of the Iraq war has dropped sharply in the last four months. According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the Iraq war accounted for just fifteen percent of news coverage, down from twenty-two percent earlier this year. Network evening news coverage of the war went from forty-percent to nineteen percent. The Democratic and Republican presidential campaign emerged as the most-covered issue over the same period." The report, entitled "Campaign For President Takes Center Stage In Coverage," notes that during "the period from April through June of 2007 was that press coverage of the war in Iraq declined markedly. Together the three major storylines of the war -- the policy debate, events on the ground, and the impact on the U.S. homefront -- filled 15% of the total newshole in the quarter, a drop of roughly a third from the first three months of the year, when it filled 22%." And the report zooms in one period: "Attention to the Iraq war fell across all five media sectors in the second quarter. The bulk of the decline occurred after May 24, when Congress approved funding without including troop withdrawal timetables, a move widely viewed as a White House victory." So when the Democrats in Congress caved, the media followed the lead?
The report doesn't cover independent or public broadcast media (and focuses on TV) but to focus on that period (April through June), a few broadcasts deserve noting. Bill Moyers Journal (PBS) utilized the May 25th hour to examine Maxine Hong-Kingston and veterans efforts to explore war and peace (click here to watch/listen, here to read) and on May 11th, Moyers spent the third segment with Marilyn D. Young, editor with Lloyd C. Gardner of Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam (audio/video and transcript) with Young addressing the lies that the illegal war was built upon. May 28th, Free Speech Radio News presented a a special Memorial Day look at the some of the costs of the war in US anchored by Aaron Glantz where he spoke with veterans and their families (and drew on the knowledge and experience he has as a result of devoting so much time to covering all aspects of the illegal war). June 11th WBAI's Law and Disorder (Dalia Hashad, Michael Ratner, Michael Smith and Heidi Boghosian -- though I don't believe Boghosian was part of that discussion) explored the topic of resistance within the US military with Tod Ensign. Democracy Now! featured many segments during that period but we'll note three: June 6th Goodman discussed the efforts to steal/privatize Iraqi oil, the 'benchmarks' and the Democratically controlled Congress with Antonia Juhasz; the May 14 discussion with Yanar Mohammed about the realities of life for women in the 'liberated' Iraq; and the June 12 interview of Iraq Veterans Against the War Adam Kokesh discussing how the US military had targeted him for speaking out against the illegal war.

A few of the print media stories during this time worth noting would include Bay Fang's "The Talibanization of Iraq" (Ms. magazine, spring 2007 issue)and certainly CounterPunch and Matthew Rothschild (The Progressive) have seriously and repeatedly covered the illegal war during this period. And The Nation? They spent the first six months of this year offering more feature articles on the election than on the illegal war. They also were first out of the gate with the non-stop horse race gas bagging on the 2008 elections. In fact, their first article on the 2008 election appeard online November 3rd ("The Off-Year Primary" -- ran in the November 20th print edition) -- four days before the 2006 elections had taken place. Do we want to talk about the American Idol column that got disappeared? No? Didn't think so. (Though officially 'disappeared,' you can seeMike's "The Third Estate Sunday Review " and then Elaine's "Monday" and then Rebecca's "cynthia mckinney" -- each excerpted a section of the column after it had been 'disappeared' but before it was also gone from Google cache.)

At Truthdig (audio and transcript) James Harris and Josh Scheer speak with Matthew Rothschild about his new book You Have No Rights and Harris brings up the executive order the Bully Boy issued last month noting "it said, basically, that if you protest or threaten what he calls 'stabilization efforts in Iraq,' your property can be seized and you can be detained. Were you are aware of that?" Rothschild: "I have the order in my hand. I was just writing something on the computer to update our website with something on that. Yeah. If you are -- in the mind of the secretary of the Treasury -- posing a significant risk of committing an act of violence -- you don't have to have committed an act of violence. If he thinks you are at risk of committing an act of violence in order to protest the policies of the Iraqi government or the Bush administration's policies to promote what it calls 'economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq,' then the secretary of the Treasury can put a freeze on all your assets. This is unbelievable. What Bush is trying to achieve her, by executive order, are things that he can't achieve legislatively. Someone's got to put a stop to this. Congress has got to put a stop to it because he is seizing all sorts of authoritarian powers right now by executive decree."


RECOMMENDED: "Iraq snapshot"
"Camilo Meija elected chair of IVAW's board of directors"
"Bully Boy calls it 'progress'"
"al-sadr claims british forced out of iraq & more"
"Dave Lindorff, etc"
"Isaiah, Joseph Gerson, Ramzy Baroud"
"James Carroll, Third"
"He meant it, he really meant it!"
"THIS JUST IN! OBAMA WAS SERIOUS!"

the new york times
jeff zeleny
the daily jot
cedrics big mix

Tuesday, August 21, 2007.  Chaos and violence continue, Camilo Mejia chairs a board, the puppet of the occupation isn't feeling the love, Matthew Rothschild explains the need for impeachment, and more.

Starting with war resisters.  Camilo Mejia served in Iraq, served in Iraq well after his contract ran out and, as a non-US citizen, the military couldn't extend his contract but they chose to pretend like they could.  They also denied him CO status.  He tells his story Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia in which was released in May.  One story not in the book, because it just happened, is that he's just been elected the chair of  Iraq Veterans Against the War board of directors.

Aaron Glantz (One World) reports that IVAW held their elections during the St. Louis  Veterans for Peace conference and elected Mejia with Garrett Reppenhagen explaining that IVAW "decided to make support of war resisters a major part of what we do." Glantz  reports on IVAW's big success in Fort Drum where the local chapter is up and running and now claims 20 members and, of course, has the first GI coffeehouse in the nation (for this illegal war) with Different Drummer as well as that September 17th IVAW will kick off Truth in Recruiting.

Mejia will be at Different Drummer  this Thursday for a reading (starts at 6:30 pm)
from Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia and the GI Coffee House is located in Watertown, NY (12 Paddock Arcade, 1 Public Square, 13601).

Mejia tells Glanz, "There's a sort of revolution taking place in the streets.  It's not being reported by the mainstream media, but we in the antiwar movement know what's going on.  There is a rebellion going on in the ranks of the military that is not being reported."


There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Timothy Richard, 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, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, 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.

John Stauber (CounterPunch) notes: "IVAW was founded in 2004 and today it is a rapidly growing grassroots, independent anti-war group with members active in 43 states and deployed on bases in Iraq.  These rank and file soldiers are not partisans; they are Americans who have seen first hand the greatest political betrayal of our lifetime, the US attack on Iraq and the long occupation.  Iraq Veterans Against the War are not the concoction of a liberal think tank or PR firm; they have very little funding; they are not avoiding criticism of Democrats; and they are not playing political games trying to bank-shot Democratic candidates into the White House and Congress in 2008.  They are in open non-violent revolt against US foreign policy, criticizing politicians of all stripes who would exploit the war for political gain."  If only the media -- big and small -- could do the same.

Yesterday, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted the Project for Excellence in Journalism "study shows corporate news coverage of the Iraq war has dropped sharply in the last four months.  According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the Iraq war accounted for just fifteen percent of news coverage, down from twenty-two percent earlier this year. Network evening news coverage of the war went from forty-percent to nineteen percent. The Democratic and Republican presidential campaign emerged as the most-covered issue over the same period."
The report, entitled "Campaign For President Takes Center Stage In Coverage," notes that during "the period from April through June of 2007 was that press coverage of the war in Iraq declined markedly.  Together the three major storylines of the war -- the policy debate, events on the ground, and the impact on the U.S. homefront -- filled 15% of the total newshole in the quarter, a drop of roughly a third from the first three months of the year, when it filled 22%."  And the report zooms in one period: "Attention to the Iraq war fell across all five media sectors in the second quarter.  The bulk of the decline occurred after May 24, when Congress approved funding without including troop withdrawal timetables, a move widely viewed as a White House victory."  So when the Democrats in Congress caved, the media followed the lead?

The report doesn't cover independent or public broadcast media (and focuses on TV) but to focus on that period (April through June), a few broadcasts deserve noting.  Bill Moyers Journal (PBS) utilized the May 25th hour to examine Maxine Hong-Kingston and veterans efforts to explore war and peace (click here to watch/listen, here to read) and on May 11th, Moyers spent the third segment with Marilyn D. Young, editor with Lloyd C. Gardner of Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam (audio/video and transcript) with Young addressing the lies that the illegal war was built upon.  May 28th, Free Speech Radio News presented a
a special Memorial Day look at the some of the costs of the war in US  anchored by Aaron Glantz where he spoke with veterans and their families (and drew on the knowledge and experience he has as a result of devoting so much time to covering all aspects of the illegal war).   June 11th  WBAI's Law and Disorder (Dalia Hashad, Michael Ratner, Michael Smith and Heidi Boghosian -- though I don't believe Boghosian was part of that discussion) explored the topic of resistance within the US military with Tod Ensign.  Democracy Now! featured many segments during that period but we'll note three: June 6th Goodman discussed the efforts to steal/privatize Iraqi oil, the 'benchmarks' and the Democratically controlled Congress with Antonia Juhasz; the May 14 discussion with Yanar Mohammed about the realities of life for women in the 'liberated' Iraq;
and the June 12 interview of  Iraq Veterans Against the War Adam Kokesh   discussing how the US military had targeted him for speaking out against the illegal war.
 
A few of the print media stories during this time worth noting would include
Bay Fang's "The Talibanization of Iraq" (Ms. magazine, spring 2007 issue)
and certainly CounterPunch and Matthew Rothschild (The Progressive) have seriously and repeatedly covered the illegal war during this period.  And The Nation?  They spent the first six months of this year offering more feature articles on the election than on the illegal war.  They also were first out of the gate with the non-stop horse race gas bagging on the 2008 elections.  In fact, their first article on the 2008 election appeard online November 3rd ("The Off-Year Primary" -- ran in the November 20th print edition) -- four days before the 2006 elections had taken place.  Do we want to talk about the American Idol column that got disappeared?  No?  Didn't think so.  (Though officially 'disappeared,' you can see
Mike's "The Third Estate Sunday Review " and then Elaine's "Monday" and then Rebecca's "cynthia mckinney"  -- each excerpted a section of the column after it had been 'disappeared' but before it was also gone from Google cache.)

At Truthdig (audio and transcript) James Harris and Josh Scheer speak with Matthew Rothschild about his new book You Have No Rights and Harris brings up the executive order the Bully Boy issued last month noting "it said, basically, that if you protest or threaten what he calls 'stabilization efforts in Iraq,' your property can be seized and you can be detained.  Were you are aware of that?"  Rothschild: "I have the order in my hand.  I was just writing something on the computer to update our website with something on that.  Yeah.  If you are -- in the mind of the secretary of the Treasury -- posing a significant risk of committing an act of violence -- you don't have to have committed an act of violence.  If he thinks you are at risk of committing an act of violence in order to protest the policies of the Iraqi government or the Bush administration's policies to promote what it calls 'economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq,' then the secretary of the Treasury can put a freeze on all your assets.  This is unbelievable.  What Bush is trying to achieve her, by executive order, are things that he can't achieve legislatively.  Someone's got to put a stop to this.  Congress has got to put a stop to it because he is seizing all sorts of authoritarian powers right now by executive decree."

Harris: But Matthew, let's be real for a second.  Here we are, year four of this war.  Given what you've seen so far from Congress, can they really make a change in this war?  Can they really change the mind of George Bush?

Rothschild: They're going to have to step up to the plate sometime, or we can kiss our Constitution goodbye, because Bush is trampling all over it.  Cheney's trampling all over it.  What we need to happen, in my mind, is impeachment proceedings of the House Judiciary Committee against Bush and against Cheney, to make them know that they are going to be held accountable or at least there's going to be a process to try to hold them accountable, that they can't get away scot-free with all this stuff, and to tell the next president or the one after that that they can't get away with this stuff.

They will keep getting away with it as long as the media refuses to inform the public. Perfect example . . .

On August 17th when Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno spoke with reporters via a video-link, he did not simply state that there would be likely be a decrease in the number of US troops in Iraq next year (as many MSM outlets reported).  He sold this as a testing 'strategy': "By conducting a deliberate reduction of our forces is what's necessary in the future whenever we determine to do that.  By conducting a deliberate reduction, phased with the increase in the capabilities of Iraqi security forces, I think it significantly reduces the risk of us then losing the areas that we've been able to secure so far.  That's why a deliberate plan over time I think will be most successful. "  He then went on to avoid "specifics on numbers, because I think I need to leave that to General Petraues" but made clear that the escalation will most likely be ending next year.  His 'strategy' is to use that as a 'test'.  Which would mean the numbers could just as easily go right back up. Was he spinning?  Most likely.  But that is what he stated in the press briefing, that it was a means of testing (and also gave the impression that he'd always understood that the escalation would end in April of 2008).

And of course he pushed the myth (still no evidence provided, just charges) that Iran is doing this, that and everything but helping the sun rise each morning.  So the news, reported by KUNA today, that a Syrian, not an Iranian, was arrested in Mosul must have led to some sobbing at Centcom.

As the British prepare to withdraw from southern Iraq, the BBC interviewed Mike Colbourne ("UK's chief police adviser") who stated of the Basra police, "The corruption that we are talking about does range from financial corruption through to serious offences such as murder, kidnap.  There are a number of Iraqi police service officers who are clearly aligned to militias.  I think it is fair to say that there is sectarian violence that is being committed by both police officers and other Iraqi security forces officers.  That is just the truth of the situation as it is at the moment."

Staying on the topic of departures, AFP reports that US Senators Carl Levin and John Warner have released a joint statment calling for Nouri al-Maliki's government to be given one last chance: "We believe that the recent high-level meetings among Iraqi political leaders could be the last chance for this government to solve the Iraqi political crisis. And should it fail, we believe, the Iraqi Council of Representatives and the Iraqi people need to judge the government of Iraq's record and determine what actions should be taken - consistent with the Iraqi constitution - to form a true unity government to meet those responsibilities."  Jonathan Weisman (Washington Post) quotes Levin declaring, "I hope the parliament will vote the Maliki government out of office and will have the wisdom to replace it with a less sectarian and more unifying prime minister and government."  Megan Greenwell (Washington Post) notes that prior to leaving for Syria, al-Maliki had another 'alliance' meeting but the Iraqi Parliament doesn't return from their vacation until September 4th (the same day the US Congress returns from their vacation) and, "That timeline leaves a narrow window for the politicians to solve major issues before the Sept. 15 report.

The report . . . Tina Susman (Los Angeles Times) reports US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker has termed Iraq's 'progress' with regards to national reconciliation "extremely disappointing" (a more truthful term would be "non-existent") and that he repeated the lie about civilian deaths being down (apparently the Los Angeles Times doesn't read McClatchy Newspapers because that comment goes unchecked).  Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus are supposed to report to the US Congress Sept. 15th on the 'progress' in Iraq (in what many assume will be words written for them by the White House).  AP notes Crocker's stated "Washington's blueprint for reconciliation was insufficient to win back control of the country" but then he attempted to explain "Congressional benchmarks do not tell the whole story".  First, they are White House 'benchmarks' -- pushed by the White House, adopted by Congress.  Second, "insufficient to win back control of the country" pretty much says it all.

In some of today's violence . . .


Bombings? 

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad explosion that "targeted a US convoy" claimed the lives of 2 Iraqis and left four wounded.  Reuters notes that the number wounded rose to fourteen and that a bomber in vest killed themselves and left eight people wounded in Falluja

Shootings?

Reuters notes 7 family members were shot dead in a Latifiya home invasion ("included three women and a baby girl").

Corpses?

Reuters notes 12 corpses were discovered in Baghdad today.

Though the bombings in northern Iraq were only last week (last Tuesday in fact), many in the media have lost interest.  Lelia Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that the confirmed death toll now stands at 354 with "80 more are known to be missing" and the wounded toll is 600 while "[t]he pungent smell of the dead hangs low in this village, and not even the colorful headdresses the men have wrapped across their faces can keep it out."

The violence has created refugees -- externally and internally -- and today Jen Utz (Democracy Now!) filed a report from Damascus on refugees in Syria where she spoke with one Iraqi family and noted that "Iraqi refugees are forbidden from working in Syria, and the family's savings are running out.  Plus, they tell me that life in exile is emotionally criplling, and they have no hope they'll go home anytime soon" while Omar explains to her the problem: "What's happening in Iraq is because of your president.  He's the main reason.  Most of the Iraqis have been forced to leave their homes and their families.  They have had family members kidnapped or killed.  There is no house in Iraq that doesn't have a problem like this.  There must be a solution for the Iraqi people.  Why don't they find a solution?"

Okay, we're doing a transition here -- external refugees are immigrants.  Labor reporter David Bacon regularly covers the stories that usually don't get covered which includes immigration and he also addresses child labor such as children from the ages of 11-years-old to 17-years-old working the banana groves in the Philippines.



iraq
camilo mejia
iraq veterans against the war
democracy now
amy goodman
antonia juhasz
adam kokesh
bill moyers journal
maxine hong kingston
matthew rothschild
the washington post
megan greenwell
the los angeles times
leila fadel
mcclatchy newspapers
david bacon

Aaron Glantz' "Iraq War Resisters to Get Boost from Veterans Group" (One World) reports on some of the focus for Iraq Veterans Against the War at the Veterans for Peace conference in St. Louis that ran from last Wednesday through Sunday. Camilo Mejia (who tells his story in Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia which the New Press published in May) is now the chair of IVAW's board of directors as a result of the elections held this weekend. Garrett Rappenhagen explains that IVAW "decided to make support of war resisters a major part of what we do." Mejia declares, "There's a sort of revolution taking place in the streets. It's not being reported by the mainstream media, but we in the antiwar movement know what's going on. There is a rebellion going on in the ranks of the military that is not being reported." Glantz also notes IVAW's big success in Fort Drum where the local chapter is up and running and now claims 20 members and, of course, has the first GI coffeehouse in the nation (for this illegal war) with Different Drummer. Glantz notes other actions as well including that September 17th IVAW will kick off Truth in Recruiting. And, of course, their "funding the war is killing the troops campaign" is ongoing as well.

And what of funding and backing the puppet? AFP reports that US Senators Carl Levin and John Warner have released a joint statment calling for Nouri al-Maliki's government to be given one last chance: "We believe that the recent high-level meetings among Iraqi political leaders could be the last chance for this government to solve the Iraqi political crisis. And should it fail, we believe, the Iraqi Council of Representatives and the Iraqi people need to judge the government of Iraq's record and determine what actions should be taken - consistent with the Iraqi constitution - to form a true unity government to meet those responsibilities."

al-Maliki is the US installed and supported puppet. He has not represented Iraqis and why he's being given yet another chance is anyone's guess? For an Iraqi point of view on the puppet, click here.

There's at least one non-Iraq related item that will go in the snapshot that was e-mailed to the public account. It will go in because I don't have time for it now. Members are encouraged to use the private e-mail accounts. I'm trying to make sure no one has to go through the continued filth (from guess who) that continues to pour into the public account. As such, I'm way behind this morning. There's at least three e-mails from Friday to the public account that need a reply and more over the weekend. If you're a visitor who e-mailed give it a day or two before reminding me.

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


camilo mejia
iraq veterans against the war
mcclatchy newspapers

Yesterday, Mohammed Ali al-Hassani became the second governor in southern Iraq to be assassinated this month. Martha notes Megan Greenwell's "Governor Assassinated In Iraq's Oil-Rich South" (Washington Post):

The assassination appears to be part of a larger pattern of increasing violence between rival Shiite factions in Iraq's oil-rich south, which has few Sunni residents. Like the governor of Qadisiyah province, who was killed by a roadside bomb Aug. 11, Hassani was a member of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council. That group has been fighting the Mahdi Army, Iraq's most powerful Shiite militia, for control of the region, where the U.S. military has a minimal presence.
Control of Muthanna province was handed from British to Iraqi security forces last year. But continuing violence and political tensions among Shiite groups there present challenges for U.S. commanders seeking to steadily improve security in Iraq as a whole before a key report scheduled to be presented to Congress on Sept. 15.
Top military officials have consistently said that bringing a permanent end to sectarian violence will require political stability. That goal has proved elusive as political parties continue boycotts of the national government and provincial governors become targets of violence.

In the New York Times, Stephen Farrell offers "Governor of Iraqi Province Assassinated:"

The security forces of Mr. Hassani, the governor, fought heavy street battles with the Mahdi Army last month when the Mahdi Army tried to seize high buildings close to police compounds, and the police drove them out. Three policemen were killed in the fighting.
Mr. Hassani took an uncompromising stand, saying: "We will not negotiate with the militias, as they are outlaws. We will work to impose law and order in the city."
The death of Mr. Hassani follows that of Khalil Jalil Hamza, the governor of neighboring Qadisiya Province, who was killed with his police chief, Maj. Gen. Khalid Hassan, by a roadside bomb on Aug. 11 as they returned to the provincial capital, Diwaniya, 50 miles north of Samawa. The province has also been the site of running battles between the police and Mahdi Army militiamen.
The violence has alarmed politicians and security officials, who immediately imposed a curfew in Samawa until further notice.

Because it is the second assassination this month it is getting a great deal of attention. Today.
There has been no 'progress' in Iraq and each week something more disastorous happens which can lead something equally tragic, equally horrible seeming so long ago. For instance, last Tuesday in northern Iraq multiple bombings led to mass fatalities. Though many in the news media have gone on to other stories, Lelia Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) files "Smell of death permeates ruined Yazidis villages" which examines the still mounting death toll and the sect targeted:

The pungent smell of the dead hangs low in this village, and not even the colorful headdresses the men have wrapped across their faces can keep it out.
"Come here," a man shouts from atop a pile of rubble, summoning help from other men who are digging through the debris. His shovel has hit something. The digging quickens and dust fills the air. Then a lifeless arm appears, and soon the top half of a woman has been uncovered. The remains are placed in a pink floral comforter and carried off.
Nearly one week after four bombs blew apart this village and a neighboring one, Sheikh Khadar, the dead are still being recovered, adding to the toll that already had made last Tuesday’s bombings the deadliest terrorist attack since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
At least 354 people are confirmed dead and 80 more are known to be missing. The toll of the wounded stands at 600. Half of those are in serious condition, and many aren't expected to survive. On Sunday, 10 more bodies were discovered in the rubble of what used to be Tal al Azizziyah's core. A bulldozer beeped constantly as it pushed through the rubble. American Humvees, absent until last week's explosions, rolled along the dirt roads.
For most of the survivors, there's no doubt why their villages were targeted.
"The problem is we are Yazidis,” said one man as he stood among the remains of what had been at least 150 clay houses, now reduced to nothing more than broken shards. "We go to Mosul and Tal Afar, the Arabs and Turkmen try to kill us. …We didn't stand against anyone. What is our fault?"

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

the washington post
megan greenwell
the new york times
stephen farrell
leila fadel
mcclatchy newspapers

Monday, August 20, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces the death of another soldier, the Dems don't debate and the moderator doesn't care, another governor is assassinated in Iraq, UK and US troops are "stretched," and more.


Starting with war resisters. This year has seen three war resisters publish their stories in book form. First up was Joshua Key's The Deserter's Tale which was followed in May by Camilo Mejia's Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia and then, this month, Aidan Delgado's The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib: Notes From A Conscientious Objector In Iraq. Susan L. Rife (Sarasota Herald-Tribune) reports on Delgado who will "speak at various book-related events in Florida in September and October". Delgado explains, "As a child, I always thought of myself as a writer, always wanted to be a writer. . . . I encountered a lot of writer's block. So I would write whatever section seemed the most immediate to me, then once I had a bunch of little modules or sections, I'd write them together." Delgado is a reader (which always helps when writing a book). In a book discussion at The Third Estate Sunday Review, Mike noted that Delgado's "descriptions really make it come alive and he's a really strong writer," with Rebecca offering, "I think the book is a more 'You are there' approach than a reflection," while Cedric focused on the way Delgado captured his religious awakening in Iraq and Elaine comparing his writing style favorably to Lillian Hellman's noting, "He has a very good eye for physical detail but he also is very strong in zooming in on the telling incident." Rife writes, "The son of an American diplomat who had spent his childhood in Thailand, Senegal and Egypt, the former New College of Florida student was deployed to Iraq as a mechanic with the 320th Military Police in Nasiriyah and at the prison in Abu Ghraib. Outraged by treatment of Iraqi prisoners and prejudice against civilians, he filed for conscientious objector status." According to the Taguba Report, the US Army Criminal Investigation Command into the crimes at Abu Ghraib began in May 2003. As Delgado recounts on page 184-185, as late as January 2004, a commander was telling people to destroy evidence:

The first sergeant calls us to attention and then turns the formation over to the commander. The captain dispenses with the military formality and begins to rant at us immediately.

"I just came back from Brigade Headquarters with all the other company commanders, where General Karpinski chewed our asses about all these g**damn rumors going around! You all need to stamp this talk out! Immediately. Apparently there's word going around that some MPs were doing some things they weren't supposed to be doing and somebody took pictures of it all. You don't need to be writing about this to your families, you don't need to be telling them on the phone, and you don't need to be talking about it to each other. You better stop spreading these g**damn rumors!"

The commander pauses for a moment and then switches tactics, becoming suddenly congenial and chummy, "Look, we're all a family here. We don't air our dirty laundry in public. If we have a problem within the military, then we'll handle it internally. We don't need to let the media and the civilians into our business. If you have photos that you're not supposed to have, get rid of them. Don't talk about this to anyone, don't write about it to anyone back home. We're a family and we're going to handle this like a family. I don't want to hear any more of this kind of talk in my unit. You all just focus on going home in March, hoo-ah!"

Hoo-ah, we responded. The commander rambles on for a bit and then dismisses us. As I leave, I wonder what could have possibly gotten the entire base so worked up. There's no doubt now that everything we've heard about is true, and it must be even worse than we thought, for the commander himself to get on our backs about it. All a family? I laugh. We're only a family when the captain wants us to do his bidding or conceal some wrongdoing. The Army has tried that rhetoric before, talking about family and Army pride and everything else to try to get you to buy into what they do. When the Army talks about "handling something internally," it's only because they've done something so obviously wrong, they can't allow the rest of the country to see it. This doesn't surprise me. After all, if Americans back home saw Iraqi prisoners shot dead for throwing stones, saw the wretched conditions inside Abu, or saw the way the MPs dealt with the prisoners, what would they think of our glorious and righteous invasion? The truth about Abu Ghraib has to be concealed, has to be "kept in the family," because if the average citizen saw what we're doing to the people here, they would know in their guts that it's un-American.

Again, Delgado's The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib: Notes From A Conscientious Objector In Iraq came out this month.

There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Timothy Richard, 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, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, 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.

Veterans for Peace concluded their conference in St. Louis Sunday (it ran from August 15 through the 19th). It was their 22nd annual conference. They note that the "temperature was hot (100 degrees), the worshops were hot, the speakers were hot, and IVAW was hot!" Tim Townsend (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) reported on Dennis Kucinich's strong reception Friday noting that Kucinich declared "the U.S. Congress should force the Bush administration to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. But he also brought the crowd to its feet multiple times with a passionate delivery of his positions." AFP notes that Kucinich declared, "The Democratic leadership of the House and the Senate must finally live up to their responsibility and the promise they made to voters last year to end this war." This was followed with, "It doesn't take legislation, it simply requires a refusal to approve any additional funds and to use the $97 billion recently appropriated to bring our troops home as quickly as possible."

Earlier in the conference (Wednesday), Bud Deraps, WWII vet, spoke about Depleted Uranium: "We have learned that DU was first used in our 1991 Gulf War and that inhalation is the major cause of DU contamination. It has long been believed that it takes ten years or more for lung cancer to form from smoking. The NY Sun reported in an Aug. 6, 2007 article that there are increasing cancer cases being found in US troops that have served in the Gulf for as few as 2 to 3 years. For example, 40 year old Army chaplain Fran Sturart served in Iraq for a year after Mar. 2003. In Mar. 2006, she had a rare form of ovary germ cell cancer seen only before in teenage girls. Army Sgt. Lauderdale went to Kuwait in Jan. 2005. By the end of Mar. they found he had Stage 2 cell cancer of the mouth and tongue. Taken to Walter Reed on April 1, a doctor there said he had seen a 21 year old just back from Iraq with a similar cancer. Lauderdale, 59, died at Reed on July 14, 2006, a year and a half after arriving in Kuwait. Currently, the State Dept. Web says the US military cites four separate studies by NATO, the Rand Corp., the European Commission and the World Health Org - that found NO evidence of adverse health effects from Depleted Uranium! It is reported that we used over 320 tons of DU weapons in the brief Gulf War and over 2000 tons in the years 2003 and 04 alone. Massive bombings continue to this day. The Iraq environment minister confirms 350 sites DU contaminated by heavy bombing, saturating much of that destroyed nation. Frequent sand storms, helicopter take-offs and landings carry the deadly dust size ceramic particles aloft where they are being spread far and wide. Counting the Gulf and our present wars, we have had well over a million troops, contract and government workers cycle in and out of the region, many on their 4th tour, all possibly DU contaminated."

Larry Ingram (Collinsville Herald) reported last week on Roland James and Lane Anderson who made the decision to travel to the conference via bicycles and to do some from the Vietnam Veterans Against the war convention in Chicago because they trace the illegal war to the US "dependence on Persian Gulf oil". Zhanda Malone (Edwardsville Intelligencer) notes Anderson "handed out index cards" throughout the journey of "Things we can all do to prevent wars for oil" which "included drink needed liquid from the tap, not bottled water, drive and accelerate slower, walk and bike whenever possible; carpool to school and work; resist impulse buying; share, repair and care for power equipment; use manual tools; and grow food at home."

On September 15th (see ANSWER for more information) a mass protest will be taking place in DC and IVAW will lead a "die-in". This will be part of a several days of action lasting from the 15th through the 18th. September 17th IVAW will kick off Truth in Recruiting. CODEPINK will be conducting a Peoples March Inside Congress (along with other groups and individuals) on September 17th. United for Peace & Justice (along with others) will begin Iraq Moratorium on September 21st and follow it every third Friday of the month as people across the country are encouraged to wear and distribute black ribbons and armbands, purchase no gas on those Fridays, conduct vigils, pickets, teach-ins and rallies, etc. And those are only some of the upcoming actions.

On Saturday, Julian E. Barnes and Carol J. Williams (Los Angeles Times) reported that Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno declared that Bully Boy will need to change strategy or "the elevated U.S. troop levels in Iraq will continue until this time next year". That would mean, if Odierno is correct, any departures would come in August 2008, just in time for the GOP national convention. The numbers being tossed around for drawbacks (not withdrawal) would leave approximately 140,000 US forces in Iraq which is higher than the pre-escalation total present at the start of this year. Also on Saturday, Steven Lee Myers and Thom Shanker (New York Times) reported on the White House's intentions regarding the September 15th reports to Congress (Petraeus and Crocker) which is to use the reports to resell the illegal war all over again and cited unnamed White House officials including one who "made it clear that the goal of the planned annoucement was to counter public pressure for a more rpaid reduction and to try to win support for a plan that could keep American involvement in Iraq on 'a sustainable footing' at least through the end of the Bush presidency." On Sunday, the BBC reported UK General Richard Dannatt declaring that "the government has overstretched our armed forces" but, for some reason. Sarah Baxter and Michael Smith (Sunday Times of London) explained that Stephen Biddle, "military advisor to President George W Bush," that the British departure from Iraq will lead to "a number of British casualties" and the reporters note this is in keeping "with British military estimates that withdrawal could cost the lives of 10 to 15 soldiers." Tim Shipman (Telegraph of London) reported that British officers are listened to far less now by "America's top commanders" and quoted one "senior US officer familiar with Gen Petraues's thinking" summarizing it: "The short version is that the Brits have lost Basra, if indeed they ever had it. Britain is in a difficult spot because of the lack of political support at home, but for a long time -- more than a year -- they have not been engaged in Basra and have tried to avoid casualties. They did not have enough troops there even before they started cutting back. The situation is beyond their control." And, along with British troops being stretched, Lolita C. Baldor (AP) reported that "the [US] Army has nearly exhausted its fighting force and its options if the Bush administration decided to extend the Iraq buildup beyond next spring."

On Sunday, the New York Times ran a piece written by seven active duty service members entitled "Iraq As We See It" (click here for Common Dreams, click here for International Herald Tribune -- available in full at both without registration) which noted "Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricty, telephone services and sanitation. 'Lucky' Iraqis live in communities barricaded with concrete walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal. In an environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. . . . In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are -- an army of occupation -- and force our withdrawal." The piece is signed by US Army specialist Buddhika Jayamaha, Sgt. Wesley D. Smith, Sgt. Jeremy Roebuck, Sgt. Omar Mora, Sgt. Edward Sandmeier, Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, Staff Sgt. and Jeremy A. Murphy.

Of course the Iraqis have been clear, in poll after poll, about wanting ALL foreign troops out of their country. The puppet of the occupation, Nouri al-Maliki, is among the roadblocks. At Inside Iraq (McClatchy Newspapers), an Iraqi correspondent notes the puppet's claims that Iraq is now sovereign by describing Sadoon Street in Baghdad "Anyway whoever controls Sadoon Street, its not the Iraqi government which means that our Prime Minister doesn't tell the truth which means that we are not really sovereign country. When a government can't control a street, its not a government, its only a group of puppets. When a government can't provide the minimum level of security, its just a shadow, when a government take the instruction from other places than its country, its just a shadow. Its time to get rid of all the Iraqi puppets in the Green Zone and start searching for real Iraqi" leadership.

The puppet is in Syria now after his 'alliance' proved to be such a bust. Megan Greenwell (Washington Post) reported Sunday that the country's "top five government leaders began a review of the country's de-Baathification law Saturday but appeared not to have reached an agreement on that topic or any of the other critical issues that have plunged the country into a political crisis. . . . . The lack of concrete results from meetings this week diminish hopes of creating a unified government by Sept. 15, when President Bush and Congress are to receive a report about condtiions in Iraq." AFP notes the Bully Boy has stopped mentioning 'benchmarks' when speaking of Iraq and that's because the situation is so grave and because the puppet trashed 'benchmarks' two and sixteen when he shut Sunnis out of his new 'alliance.' On Sunday, Damien Cave (New York Times) offered an analysis of the puppet noting "Some American officials privately describe him as a paranoid failure," describing US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker's observation about the "pretty striking" visible Iraqi frustration with the puppet but "noted that there was as much anger within the government as outside, on the streets," while Iraqis either search for an alternative or "complain that they are not able to replace Mr. Maliki until the Americans signal strong opposition and identify a replacement."

And yet the disaster that the US government has intentionally (and illegally) created in Iraq doesn't dissuade an itching for war with Iran. Today Stephen Farrell (New York Times) observed US Major General Rick Lynch claimed that "50 members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps" training Shi'ite militias fell apart when the general "conceded that no Revolutionary guard members had been captured in his region . . . The accusations came days after United States officials said the White House might list the Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization."

Also this weekend came news of life in Iraqi prisons. Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted today, "In other Iraq news, new images have been released showing hundreds of Iraqi prisoners packed into cramped wire cages. The video was released after Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi visited the Rusafa prison camp in Baghdad. The prisoners are held by the dozens in wire mesh covered with plastic sheeting. On the tape, al-Hashemi is seen addressing the prisoners about their conditions. Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi: 'Those who are outside are no better than you, at least you have security. It is true that you do not have freedom , but you are better than many outside'." Saturday Waleed Ibrahim and Peter Graff (Reuters) reported on the "hundreds of inmates packed into tented wire-mesh cages" and the claim by Lt. Col. Christopher Garver that the US isn't responsible for the treatment or the conditions.

Turning to some of today's violence . . .

Bombings?

Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted "the governmor of the province of Muthanna has been killed in a roadside bombing. The assasination of Mohammed Ali al-Hassani is the second of provincial governor in Iraq in the last two weeks." Bushra Juhi (AP) reports that he was traveling in a SUV "en route to his office" with three bodyguards, an office manager and a driver -- along with al-Hassani, a bodyguard and the driver were killed. CBS and AP note that three people died besides the governor. On August 11th, Khalil Jalil Hamza was killed. He had been the governor of the Qadasiyah province. The Belfast Telegraph notes that both assasinated governors "were members of the Surpreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a Shi'ite group that has been fighting the Mahdi Army militia for control of oil-rich southern Iraq." As noted in Friday's snapshot, The assassinated Khalil Jalil Hamza was just replaced with Shiek Hamid al-Khudhan who is "secretary-general of the Badr Brigade".

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a motorcycle bombing in Baghdad that claimed 1 life (twelve wounded), a Baghdad car bombing that claimed 5 lives (twenty wounded), a Baghdad roadside bomb that left four wounded and a Kirkuk roadside bombing that claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier.

Shootings?

Reuters reports two police officers (brothers) were shot dead in Baiji and "a civil servant" was shot dead in Hawijia.

Corpses?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 12 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters reports 2 corpses (police officers) were discovered in Mosul.


Today the US military announced: "An MNC-I Soldier died of non-battle related causes August 19 in Baghdad." The announcement brought the ICCC total to 49 US service members killed in Iraq this month so far and 3707 killed in the illegal war since it began." The cause of death? "Under investigation." Last week, the US military announced 17 deaths, 3 of which were Baghdad deaths that have "an investigation ongoing" (the 2 US service members who died August 16th in Baghdad and Shawn D. Henset who died August 14th in Baghdad).

Turning to politics in the United States, yesterday at Drake University, the candidates for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination . . . met. Couldn't really call it a debate, couldn't call it a discussion since George Stephanopoulos has no idea how to moderate. For instance, a knowledgeable moderator wouldn't wait to well after the third way mark to finally get to the topic of Iraq while, at the same time, noting "I want to move on to another issue we're hearing about a lot from the voters from Iowa in the poll. More voters wrote in questions for us on the issue of Iraq than any other single issue." Again, Steph got to that well after a third of the debate was over, close to the half-way mark. If the point's not clear, voters wanted to hear about Iraq but Steph wasted everyone's time wondering about Obama and what was said about Obama and blah blah blah useless blah. Does he have a secret crush on Obama? In the Iraq section, Bill Richardson had a question for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and there's little Steph saying he wants "Obama on that question." Does Obama need that much hand holding just to make it through public appearances?

Bill Richardson declared: "Here's my plan: My plan is that, to end this war, we have to get all the troops out, all of them. Our kids are dying. Our troops have become targets. My plan has diplomacy, a tri-partite entity within Iraq, a reconciliation among the three groups. I would have a division of oil revenues. I'd have an all-Muslim peacekeeping force, headed by the United Nations, a donor conference. But none of this peace and peace building can begin until all of our troops are out. We have different positions here. I believe that if you leave any residual forces, then none of the peace that we are trying to bring can happen. And it's important. And it's critically important that we do this with an orderly timetable. But what is key is all of the troops out -- no residual forces. You leave residual forces behind, the peace cannot begin."

This was in opposition to Joe Biden and Richardson replied, "Well, Anthony Cordesman from ABC News, a distinguished military expert, many generals agree with me that we can complete this withdrawal within six to eight months."

Biden wants to partition Iraq into three regions. Apparently he's running for the role of God. Steph wanted to lunch time poll in the midst of a debate and the results were as stupid as his efforts. Hillary Clinton wanted to make something clear.

What? Who knows. Speaking of what needs to be done, by her plan, to get troops out of Iraq, she declared "this is going to be very dangerous and very difficult. A lot of people don't like to hear that." And since she thinks they don't want to hear it, she doesn't follow up on it changing the topic to equipment. Hillary Clinton stumbled around and the point is she's not for bringing all troops home -- not before the election, not if she's sworn in January 2009. The same is true of Barack Obama. A lot of people do NOT like to hear that. Not in the Democratic Party.

Chris Dodd was left out of the discussion -- apparently Steph has no crush on him. Edwards stated that he felt there was an "orderly way [to] bring our troops out over the next nine or 10 months." Instead of following that with an explanation, running with it to demonstrate a distinct reason why anyone should support him, he instead wasted the rest of his spot playing cheerleader for other candidates. Steph then all but served the question to Hillary's clone/twin Barack Obama who gave non-answers as well but -- as usual -- made a point of whining that in 2002 he was against the illegal war. In 2002, Obama was against the illegal war. In 2004, he was for continuing the illegal war and against bringing the troops home. Once sworn into the Senate in Januray 2005, he voted for every proposal to continue the illegal war until this past summer. But in 2002, America take note, in 2002 Barack Obama was against the war -- which appears to be all his campaign has to offer.

After Steph tossed to to Obama, Dennis Kucinich declared, "We can talk about George Bush driving a bus into a ditch, but let's not forget there was a Democratic Senate in charge that OK'ed the war. And those senators who are up on this stage helped to authorize that war and they have to take responsibility for that. Likewise, they have to take responsibility for funding the war. You say you're opposed to it, but you keep funding it. I think the American people have to look at that and ask, What's going on? Now, I've had a plan on the table for four years to get out of Iraq, and Democrats in Congress have to stand up to the pledge they made in 2006 to take us out of that war. They have to tell the president now, 'Bring the troops home. We're not going to give you any more money for that war.' The American people have a right to expect that we're going to take a new direction. But, frankly, you cannot expect a new direction with the same kind of thinking that took us into war in the first place. We cannot leave more troops there. We cannot privatize Iraq's oil. We cannot partition that country and expect there's going to be peace. We need a president who understands that, one who's been right from the start, and one who has shown the judgment, the wisdom, and the maturity to take the right stand at the time that it counted most, when the American people needed someone to stand up. And I'm the one who did that."

And that was pretty much it. Less than a third of the debate was spent on the issue of Iraq. Steph declared, before Chris Dodd could even weigh in, "Let's move on now. We've got a question -- we've got an e-mail question from Seth Ford of South Jordan, Utah." Seth wanted to know about prayer. Apparently he thought ABC was seeking input on the 20/20 'news' special "A Presidential Confidant." And too much reality makes Steph's do drip so it was off to nonsense. But remember what Steph said at the start of the tiny Iraq section: "I want to move on to another issue we're hearing about a lot from the voters from Iowa in the poll. More voters wrote in questions for us on the issue of Iraq than any other single issue. They all wanted to know what your plans were to get out of Iraq, and to get out safely from Iraq."

The voters wanted to know about Iraq. Steph wanted to talk prayer. Mike Gravel was cut off during the Iraq section. John Donnelly (Boston Globe) notes Gravel asking, "Why do we think that we can rule that country? This is American imperialism you're hearing up here, and that hasn't worked and it will never work."
Since Gravel wasn't allowed to speak freely (interruptions and crosstalk) and since he was shut out of the previous debate, we'll note that on August 8th, he was a guest for the first hour (the only guest) on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show.

Mike Gravel: It's important to be in these debates so that people can hear my voice and say that guy looks a little unusual, "I didn't know he was still alive" or "I never heard of him before." Keep in mind people who generally are over 40 who remember or are a little bit interested in politics 30, 25 years ago

Diane Rehm: You're 77.

Mike Gravel: That's right. They know who I am. I was very, very controversial. I was what they call a maverick. But also I took some very hard stands. And it's interesting, when you talk about ending the draft, when you talk about releasing the Pentagon Papers, stopping a nuclear testing on the North Pacific, starting the nuclear critique so that we wouldn't use it for, for a generation of electricity and then, at the time, I was looked at, I was marginalized by mainline media. And so now, when we look back 25 years, people say, "My God, you did a lot of courageous things." Well I did a lot of things that the media didn't buy into because I wasn't conventional wisdom then and I'm not now.

Diane Rehm: Considering the current situation in Iraq, do you believe it was a mistake to end the draft?

Mike Gravel: No, not in the slightest. In fact, I'm very proud of the fact that George Bush does not have the boots on the ground to invade Iran. They're going to have to do it with some other device. And thank God for Sy Hersh who blew the whistle on their possible use of nukes in that regard. And as you recall, in the first debate I challenged Hillary, Obama, Edwards, they all pledged that the nukes were still on the table with respect to Iran. Iran's done nothing to us. We're the -- they have have a beef with us. We destabilized. There were only two democracies in 1953 in the Middle East. One was Israel the other one was Iran. And what did we do? Our CIA and Kermit Roosevelt [Jr. -- known as "Kim"], the grandson of Teddy Roosevelt, was so proud, wrote a book [Countercoup] about how we destroyed their democracy and look what -- we put in a king, then a king got lost, now we got the ayatollahs. If we would just leave the Iranians alone, they have a real interesting record of moving to democracy.

On the topic of Iraq, he declared, "I see nobody in sight that's prepared to truly end the war. And what I see is politics as usual whether it's on the liberal side let's say with Dennis Kucinich or on the middle or the far . . . right with other Democrats. But there's no, I see no will to end the war because you end it right now in the Congress with the leadership, the Democrats have taken over, and this is a tragic failure. I submitted to the Congress a procedure, a law, I call it "The Withdrawal Act" that would make it a felony and would put Bush in jail or set up a prima facie case for impeachment if he did not follow the law. The Constitution's very clear: the Congress makes the laws, the Executive has to enforce and obey the laws. But you now have to set it up so that he'll veto and how do you get this passed, this law passed? Real simple. You see, they do a cloture vote. Oh one cloture vote, two, can't do it. Stop. Or an override veto. Can't do it? Stop. That's ridiculous. The rules permit to have a vote on cloture every single day, seven days a week, and all the way through this August recess which they're all taking -- and then when the bill comes back vetoed they can repeat it every single day and, I promise you, Diane, that in twenty, forty days we will have a law on the books to withdraw the troops from Iraq. Now time is fleeting. This could have been done by Labor Day and all, I mean all the troops, would come home by Christmas.

Of Sunday's debate, China's People Daily Online sums up the Iraq section with, "A few, including Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, talked about an immediate withdrawal, while others warned that it would be difficult to mount a swift withdrawal." Anne E. Kornblut (Washington Post) analyzes the debate here. Javier C. Hernandez ( Boston Globe) profiled Dennis Kucinich over the weekend in solo face time for the hour (the candidate was meeting with the Boston Globe's editorial board) during which Kucinich likened his foreign policy to Jimmy Carter's and noted that the White House was guilty of "committing a 'monstrous crime' by going to war in Iraq, pointing to what he described as hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties and to questions about whether administration officials lied in making the case for war. Kucinich, who has called for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney, said US forces should immediately end their 'occupation' of Iraq and said a multinational peacekeeping force should be brought in to help stabilize the country."

In the Democratic forum held yesterday, the moderator repeatedly refused to ask, "WHAT IS YOUR PLAN?" Candidates went soft and fuzzy (with the few exceptions noted already). That's a waste of time. It's also much worse because Iraq is dropping off the media radar yet again. Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) reported today, "In media news, a new study shows corporate news coverage of the Iraq war has dropped sharply in the last four months. According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the Iraq war accounted for just fifteen percent of news coverage, down from twenty-two percent earlier this year. Network evening news coverage of the war went from forty-percent to nineteen percent. The Democratic and Republican presidential campaign emerged as the most-covered issue over the same period."

iraq
aidan delgado
camilo mejia
joshua key
iraq veterans against the war
democracy now
amy goodman
the washington post
megan greenwell
anne e. kornblut
the new york times
damien cave
stephen farrell
the los angeles times
carol j. williams
leila fadel
mcclatchy newspapers
tina richards
military families speak out
iraq veterans against the war

The newest Democratic ad -- a somber commercial from Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.) claiming that he is the only candidate with a plan to end the war in Iraq -- came up as a debate question, and it triggered a spirited back-and-forth over how best to bring U.S. troops home. It was perhaps the most in-depth discussion the candidates have had over their exit plans, and it revealed a field sharply divided, some advocating a quick withdrawal and others favoring one that takes longer and is more cautious.
Richardson has advocated withdrawing troops within six to eight months, and he pressed that view again in trying to draw distinctions with the front-runners.
"We have different positions here," said Richardson, a former ambassador to the United Nations. "I believe that if you leave any residual forces, then none of the peace that we are trying to bring can happen. And it's important."
Biden countered: "If we leave Iraq and we leave it in chaos, there'll be regional war. The regional war will engulf us for a generation. It'll bring in the Shia, it'll bring in the Saudis, it'll bring in the Iranians, it'll bring in the Turks."
Clinton, Edwards and Obama said in effect that they supported Biden's position, cautioning that it will be necessary to leave some troops behind to assist Iraqi forces and Iraqis who have helped Americans on the ground.

Martha notes the above from Anne E. Kornblut's "Democratic Rivals Caution Against Swift Iraq Pullout" (Washington Post). The article is about the Iowa debate. Whether you agree with Biden or Richards, their opinions are consistent. Obama's actually is it's just that most people don't know about it. He's bragged and bragged about being opposed to the illegal war before it started. He's less public since he decided to run for president about being opposed to ending the war or withdrawal. He's made those comments since he was running for Senator in 2004 and they aren't as Chicken Sop for the Soul friendly so they tend to get overlooked as people assume anyone opposed to the illegal war before it began would be someone wanting to end it as quickly as possible.

John Donnelly (Boston Globe) notes the following on Democratic hopeful Mike Gravel:

Mike Gravel, a former US senator from Alaska, objected to the tone of the Iraq discussion.
"Why do we think that we can rule that country?" he said. "This is American imperialism you're hearing up here, and that hasn't worked and it will never work."

And from Javier C. Hernandez' profile (Boston Globe) on Dennis Kucinich that ran this weekend (suprisingly brief when Hernadez claims an hour of solo face time with the candidate):

Kucinich accused the Bush administration of committing a "monstrous crime" by going to war in Iraq, pointing to what he described as hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties and to questions about whether administration officials lied in making the case for war. Kucinich, who has called for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney, said US forces should immediately end their "occupation" of Iraq and said a multinational peacekeeping force should be brought in to help stabilize the country.
"As Shakespeare said: 'Hell is empty, and all the devils are here," he said, quoting from "The Tempest" and referring to the damage the war has inflicted and the "mercenaries" and private contractors working in the region.
Kucinich said he looked to the foreign policy of Jimmy Carter, whom the congressman said was the last president to demonstrate "fluency in being able to deal diplomatically with very serious crises."

China's People Daily Online notes of the debate, "A few, including Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel, talked about an immediate withdrawal, while others warned that it would be difficult to mount a swift withdrawal." Mark Geary (KCRG) observes:

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson pushed for a quicker exit from Iraq than the rest of the candidates.
But, the feasibility of his ideas drew some criticism. "The issue is troops there. It's not the timetable. I don't see why we need to keep troops there. All my opponents want to keep troops there, and that's not going to work," Richardson said.
Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich said Americans should trust his judgment because he's the only candidate who never voted for the war.
"If people would have listened to me, we wouldn't have had our troops die. We wouldn't be wasting 1-2 trillion dollars and one million innocent Iraqis wouldn't have perished," Kucinich said.

For those confused, prior to this summer's vote, Obama voted for the already started illegal war once he got into the Senate and did so repeatedly. AFP notes the following:

At the same time, the administration will argue that vital US interests in Iraq require a sustained commitment of US forces, said the paper.
Meanwhile, Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich, who is again running for president this year, urged fellow congressional Democrats to take decisive action and cut off funding for the Iraq war.
"The Democratic leadership of the House and the Senate must finally live up to their responsibility and the promise they made to voters last year to end this war," Kucinich told an annual convention of Veterans for Peace in St Louis, Missouri, on Friday.

That is from their article entitled "Bush avoids US benchmarks in assessing situation in Iraq" and of course Bully Boy's avoiding discussing the 'benchmarks' -- Nouri al-Maliki's 'alliance' last week trashed numbers two and sixteen.

Olive notes Frank Walker's brief story in the Sydney Morning Herald on Iraq Veterans Against the War's Matt Howard who is traveling through Australia and sharing the "horrors being carried out by US forces in Iraq" and call for "a mass mobilisation against the war when President [George] Bush comes for APEC. Let your voices be heard."

And Zach wanted the upcoming September 15th demonstration in the US noted again:

On Saturday, September 15, thousands of antiwar protesters from all over the United States will descend on Washington DC. The protest will coincide with the report by Gen. David Petraeus about progress of the Iraq war. The demonstration will culminate in a mass "die-in" led by Iraq war veterans.
About the September debate in Congress, Representative John Murtha, D-Pa., told the Associated Press, "This is big time," Murtha said, "When you get to September, this is history. This is when we're going to have a real confrontation with the president."
"It will not be a real debate without the voice of the people present," stated Brian Becker, National Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition. "The eyes of the national and international media will be focused on Washington DC and on the words and positions of the politicians and generals. We are determined to make sure that this so-called debate cannot take place inside Congress without them hearing the voices of thousands of angry veterans, students and working people demanding an immediate end to the war," Becker added.
Those organizing for the September 15th demonstration include the ANSWER Coalition; Ramsey Clark; United States Labor Against the War; Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation; Mounzer Sleiman, Vice Chair, National Council of Arab Americans; Cindy Sheehan; Cynthia McKinney; Veterans for Peace (National); Iraq Veterans Against the War; Tina Richards, CEO of Grassroots America; Rev. Lenox Yearwood, CEO of Hip Hop Caucus; Code Pink; Father Roy Bourgeois and Eric LeCompte, School of Americas Watch; Kevin Zeese, Democracy Rising; Navy Petty Officer Jonathan Hutto, co-founder Appeal for Redress; Liam Madden, Pres., Boston Chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War and co-founder of Appeal for Redress; Malik Rahim, founder of Common Ground Collective, New Orleans; Howard Zinn, Author and Historian; Carlos & Melida Arredondo, Gold Star Families for Peace.
The September 15 demonstration was initiated by the ANSWER Coalition, which has organized most of the large-scale demonstrations in Washington DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities since 2001.
To make arrangements for Interviews with antiwar leaders, organizers, activists and military families, call Sarah Sloan at 202-904-7949. For more information about the September 15 March on Washington, visit www.answercoalition.org.

And Reuters reports two police officers (brothers) shot dead in Baiji, a roadside bombing in Tuz Khurmato claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier, five truck drivers kidnapped in Baiji, a Baghdad bombing killed 3, two corpses were discovered in Mosul, a person was shot dead in Hawija.

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

the washington post
anne e. kornblut
iraq veterans against the war
 

In Iraq today, Mohammed Ali al-Hassani is dead. Bushra Juhi (AP) reports the governor of the Muthanna province was in a SUV "en route to his office in the provincial capital of Samawah" which his driver (Al-Hassani), three bodyguards and an officer manager -- Al-Hassani and one bodyguard were killed -- when they encountered a roadside bomb. The Belfast Telegraph notes he is the second governor of a southern province killed this month and that "Both governors were members of the Surpreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a Shi'ite group that has been fighting the Mahdi Army militia for control of oil-rich southern Iraq." The other governor, Khalil Jalil Hamza, was killed August 11th and, from Friday's snapshot:

Among the Shi'ite militias Sunnis have called "death squads" is the Badr Brigade. Last week, the governor of the Qadasiyah province was assassinated. CBS News and AP report today that Sheik Hamid al-Khudhan, "secretary-general of the Badr Brigade" has just been elected the new govenor "by a narrow majority" of council members. With these and other actions, the puppet's cry of "We must unite" seems less like a slogan and more like a threat.

Khalil Jalil Hamza, like Mohammed Ali al-Hassani, was a governor of a southern province, they both opposed the Badr Brigade, they both died in roadside bombings, last week the Badr Brigade installed one of their own to fill Khalil Jalil Hamza's spot as governor.

In the New York Times this morning, Stephen Farrell's "French Official’s Iraq Visit Offers Lift, U.S. Says" deals with the visit of the French foreign minister to the Green Zone and US Major General Rick Lynch's claim "that 50 memembers of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard Corps were operating in the area, training Shiite militias". Farrell goes on to observe:

General Lynch conceded that no Revolutionary Guard members had been captured in his region but said that 217 weapons with Iranian markings had been seized since April. The accusations came days after United States officials said the White House might list the Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization.

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

the new york times
stephen farrell

The Perfect Spy by Larry Berman, a political science professor at the University of California's Davis campus, is a fascinating account of An's life during the Vietnamese war with the US. Like Singer's biography of Debs, Berman's work presents the reader with a man whose life is more than the sum of its parts. An, who died a hero of the Vietnamese struggle for independence in 2006, lived two lives as a spy and a journalist. Berman's many interviews with An help him provide a picture of how An managed this while simultaneously keeping his allegiance to Americans he befriended and to the Vietnamese revolution. It's not 007 stuff that is related here, but intrigue exists, especially in the recounting of An's work prior to the Tet offensive in 1968 and in his efforts to get friends from the losing side out of Vietnam during the final days of the southern Vietnamese government in 1975.
Equally interesting to today's reader is the contextual information Berman provides throughout the book. As the United States edges closer to the fifth year of its war in Iraq, the descriptions of US tactics during the war in Vietnam make it clear that not only was the US involvement in Vietnam a combination of imperial hubris and human pride, it was very much a policy and not a mistake. As one analyzes US actions in that war forty years ago in light of the current one, it's quite apparent that many of the strategies that failed in Vietnam are being attempted again in Iraq and Afghanistan with minimal variation. Likewise, it becomes ever more apparent that , like the Vietnamese war, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not mistakes or blunders (as today's Democrats are so fond of saying),but essential parts of US geopolitical strategy. Even though it is clear by now that there are several differences between the US war on Vietnam and its current adventure in Iraq, there are similarities that can not be denied. One example came to me as I read Berman's description of the various factions in southern Vietnam and Washington's attempts to sort them out through bribery, political chicanery and murder. The description of these manipulations are reminiscent of the ongoing situation in Iraq, where multiple factions are struggling for control and US intelligence and other forces seem to shift their alliances every few months, seemingly without reason.
In the same manner that the US reader will see similarities between the way the war in Vietnam was waged in Vietnam and in the US media and political arena, so might the Iraqi or Afghani reader. Indeed, if I were a member of the resistance in those countries, I might even draw some useful lessons from An's insights and analysis as it was applied to the situation of the Vietnamese national liberation struggle by its fighters. Likewise, the astute reader of An's biography can not help but see how many of today's arguments used to justify the continued US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan are nothing but rehashed rationales from its debacle in Vietnam.

The above, noted by Mia, is from Ron Jacobs' "The Virtues of Resistance" (CounterPunch). An is Pham Xuan An and Jacobs is also reviewing Ray Singer's The Bending Cross, a biography on Eugene V. Debs. Meanwhile, the US military announces it is extended to the max and "nearly exhausted" while the country with the second largets number of troops on the ground in Iraq also notes that is extended to the max. And seven US service members ("Buddhika Jayamaha is a U.S. Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.") share their opinion in "Iraq As We See It" (click here for Common Dreams, click here for International Herald Tribune -- available in full at both without registration):

The most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. "Lucky" Iraqis live in communities barricaded with concrete walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal. In an environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act.
Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, "We need security, not free food."
In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are - an army of occupation -- and force our withdrawal.

Until then . . .


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 Sunday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 3689. Tonight? 3703. This as the US attempts to pull back from patrols in an attempt to lower fatalities in the lead up to Gen. David Petraues' September 15th report to Congress. While, as Tim Shipman (Telegraph of London) notes, also criticizing British forces for their own pull back:

A senior US officer familiar with Gen Petraeus's thinking said: "The short version is that the Brits have lost Basra, if indeed they ever had it. Britain is in a difficult spot because of the lack of political support at home, but for a long time - more than a year - they have not been engaged in Basra and have tried to avoid casualties.
"They did not have enough troops there even before they started cutting back. The situation is beyond their control.
"Quite frankly what they're doing right now is not any value-added. They're just sitting there. They're not involved. The situation there gets worse by the day.["]

Just Foreign Policy's count for the number of Iraqis killed since the start of the illegal war stands at 1,012,979. In some of the violence today . . . Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad motorcycle bombing that claimed 1 life, a Baghdad mortar attack that claimed 7 lives (forty-one wounded), a Baghdad roadside bombing that claimed 1 life, fifteen people kidnapped off a Baghdad bus, a 12-year-old boy (Hakam Falah Khalaf) kidnapped "in front of his family's house in Kirkuk (and, on Saturday, Raad Abdul was kidnapped in Al Hawija -- a truck driver) and 14 corpses discovered in Baghdad with another one discovered in Kirkuk ("Al Rashad area"). Reuters notes the Baghdad mortar attack death toll rose by 3 to ten, 1 person dead from a Baghdad bombing "in a garbage dump" and 3 people ("suspected insurgents") killed by US forces.

The illegal war has resulted in over four million Iraqis being turned into refugees internally and externally. A little over two million are external refugees. Dina Aboul Hson (Gulf News) reports on Sonia Azad, a twelve-year-old peace activist, who went to Jordan to film "a documentary about Iraqi children who are suffering in Jordan and make their voices heard in the United Kingdom and the United States. We will show the film at the House of Commons." China's People's Daily Online observes that "Jordanian Eductation ministry estimated taht at least 50,000 Iraqi students [children] were expected to flood scholl system on Sunday across Jordan" as a result of "a decision finalized by the Jordanian Ministry of Education last Monday, which allows all Iraqi students, with or without a residency permit, to study in public schools as of the beginning of this scholastic year." The bulk of the external refugees have gone to either Jordan or Syria. Martin Patience (BBC) notes that puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki will spend three days in Syria starting Monday and "The issue of Iraqi refugees is also expected to be raised as there are almost two million refugees in Syria." If that number is correct, then the number of external refugees has risen dramatically. In the spring, the estimate was 2.1 million external refugees with the bulk of them going to Jordan and Syria. Last month, Amnesty International estimated there were 1.5 million Iraqi refugees in Syria:


Syria is the only country that has so far kept its border open to refugees fleeing the sectarian violence in Iraq. It is estimated that there are now some 1.5 million Iraqis living in Syria, with around 30, 000 more arriving each month. The majority have arrived during the last 17 months following the bombing of al-'Askari Shi'a holy shrine in Samarra on 22 February 2006. This attack, apparently carried out by members of al-Qa'eeda in Iraq, severely damaged the shrine and also triggered a widespread intensification in the level of sectarian violence between Shi’a and Sunni armed groups.
Amnesty International sent a three-person fact-finding delegation to Syria between 13 and 30 June 2007 in order to investigate the situation of Iraqi refugees and asylum seekers. In particular, Amnesty International looked into their legal status, their access to services such as health, education and housing, the impact that the presence of Iraqi refugees is having on the local community and on the Syrian economy, and how the Syrian authorities have been responding to continuing influx of Iraqis. Amnesty International also sought to find out whether the pledges of economic and other assistance to Syria, and Jordan, the other main country of refuge for Iraqis, by governments that attended an international conference held on 17-18 April 2007 in Geneva, have been honoured or not. At that conference, convened by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) specifically to address the potential humanitarian crisis arising from the flight of refugees from Iraq, governments were invited to assist Syria, Jordan and other countries affected in their efforts to afford protection and meet the other needs of the refugees. In the course of the visit, Amnesty International's delegates met with several senior Syrian government officials, including the Deputy Ministers for Foreign Affairs, Health, Education, Higher Education, and the Minister for Cooperation with the Red Crescent Society. They also met with representatives of some national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), United Nations (UN) agencies, such as UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and some European Union (EU) diplomats.
Amnesty International's delegates interviewed dozens of Iraqis of diverse backgrounds who had been forced to leave Iraq and had gone to Syria in search of safety. Most of them had personally suffered serious human rights abuses, including rape and other forms of torture, and were traumatized as a result but with no possibility to receive appropriate treatment.

Turning to the internally displaced in Iraq, last Tuesday the Yazidi sect was targeted with multiple bombings in northern Iraq and the death toll climbed to over 300 (the BBC counts 344 dead from the bombings, four-hundred wounded, in their most recent report). With more on the region, this is from Corey Levine's "Baghdad Diary: Gripped by tragedy" (Kalinga Times):

Although the Yazidis, who are found onlin in northern Iraq, speak Kurmanji (a northern Kurdish language) and many of their cultural practices are observably Kurdish, they are not ethnologically considered Kurds. However, in the sectarian maelstrom that defines current day Iraq, Kurds are arguing for the Yazidis, whose numbers reach approximately a half million, to be recognized ethnically as Kurds, particularly as many Yazidis reside in communities near Mosul, the oil-rich city close to the border of Iraqi Kurdistan.
In a kind of tit-for-tat situaion, in the contested city of Kirkuk, on which a referendum will be held next year, the government of the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan has been quietly encouraging the migration of Arabs from the oil-rich city through generous relocation allowances and offers of exchanges of land with Kurds living in the south. Although benign compared to what Saddam enforced on the city's Kurdish population in the 1980's of murder, mayhem and forced expulsion in an attempt to 'Arabize' the city; an exodus is an exodus, is an exodus, particularly when the potentials spoils offers as great a reward as one of the prime oil fields in the world's second largest oil producing country.
In other places in Iraq, particularly Baghdad, the sectarian violence is also leaving its mark on the demographics of the country in terms of shifting populations. I am reminded of Bosnia at the height of the war there when previously ethnically mixed communites became mono-ethnic entities either due to forced expulsion or the sense that it was much safer to be with 'your own kind'.
With similar patterns of 'ethnic cleansing', Iraq is quickly becoming the country with the largest number of internally displaced. According to the UN agency responsible for refugees, the total number of internally displaced people in the country is inching towards the two million mark.

Internal and external refugees, well over a million Iraqis dead from the illegal war, basic services still not met (electricity, potable water, security, etc.), the US and the UK militaries both stating they are "stretched," the death count for foreign (non-Iraqi) forces rising constantly, the five year mark of the illegal war six months away and no 'progress' to show for the illegal war. (No surprise there.) Tell Congress, as Iraq Veterans Against the War, Tina Richards and Military Families Speak Out are, Fuding the war is killing the troops. It's not saving them, it's not saving Iraqis.

Pru gets the last highlight, from Great Britain's The Socialist Worker, "Get the troops out now: not one more day, not one more life:"

Why is Gordon Brown sending troops to kill and die in a war that is lost?
Another week, and another six young British soldiers lie dead in the mire of Iraq and Afghanistan.
These wars have been lost. They could never have been "won".
Yet Gordon Brown is prepared to throw away the lives of more soldiers, and countless Iraqi and Afghan civilians, so that George Bush can say that Britain is still on board in his "war on terror".
One such soldier was 20 year old private Craig Barber. He was killed last week trying to stop the constant barrage of mortars that are falling on the last remaining British outpost in Iraq.
British troops have little influence over the south of the country. They are under daily attack by a resistance movement that is growing more confident.
In September last year British commanders launched "Operation Sinbad". They hoped the operation would check the growing influence of the resistance.
It was the last roll of the dice by the occupation in the south in an attempt to win the war.
But far from bringing security, it accelerated the collapse of the Iraqi authorities installed by the British in 2003.
Shortly afterward British troops abandoned their headquarters in Basra and ­withdrew to the airport on the outskirts of the city.
Their presence at the airport serves no ­function beyond saving the reputation of George Bush.
The US fear that if the British withdraw fully then the pressure will mount on the US to do the same.
So British soldiers remain under siege, hunkered behind sand bags, occasionally sending out patrols. It was during one of these missions that private Craig Barber was killed.
The pointless death of Barber, and the 238 other servicemen and women before him, is the bloody price that British soliders pay for Gordon Brown's "special relationship" with the US.
The following should be read alongside this article: » Chaos in Iraq as occupation fails» Civilian casualties accelerate in Afghanistan
© Copyright Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original and leave this notice in place.
If you found this article useful please help us maintain SW by » making a donation.
top of page

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


iraq
and the war drags on
donovan
ron jacobs
iraq veterans against the war
tina richards
the socialist worker

Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts "Bully Boy Meets Jenna's Fiance." Bully Boy, in wedding drag, asks, "So do you do drugs? Do you like killing people? Do you believe in screwing over the average citizens? Are you a professional liar?" The fiance responds, "No sir." Bully Boy then asks, "Then how the hell do you expect to fit into this family?"

the world today just nuts
bully boy
bully boy meets jeannas fiance
comic
the common ills

In a flip, Damien Cave has the best piece (a "news analysis") in this morning's New York Times and Richard A. Oppel Jr. has the worst.

Oppel's piece runs on the front page and is entitled "Falluja’s Calm Is Seen as Fragile if US Leaves." It opens with what should have required a remark but apparently didn't: Falluja's chief of police (Faisal Ismail Hussein) waving around a photo of bucket containing a severed head. If anyone doesn't grasp it, that's not how you sell yourself to the press. (But Oppel appears not to notice.) If you're supposedly restoring order to a region, you shouldn't come off like a nut job who would keep a photo like that let alone wave it around to the press.

Falluja's always been a difficult region for the Times because they did so much to lie about what happened there. Actually, a few did attempt to get bits and pieces of truth out there. But there was Dexy with his 'award winning' rah-rah that took hold. (He will hopefully be stripped of the prize at a later date.) There's a vehicle ban, Oppel tells you. He even tells you about the concrete barriers that divide the destroyed city in 10 sections. He neglects to tell you about the retina scans. Maybe he feels that informing the US public the city has been divided (by the US) into ten sections gets the point across that there is no freedom in Falluja, only punishment? If so, opening with a nut case put in charge of the city waving around a photo of a severed head was the way to go.

But elsewhere he's repeating the myths that if US forces leave Falluja the city will fall apart. The city fell appart (and was largely reduced to rubble) because the US destroyed in November 2004. Men and boys were slaughtered. Those lucky enough to survive (many of whom fled before the slaughter) often now live in 'tent cities' -- well outside Falluja -- in abject poverty.

The 'success' has to do with Falluja being destroyed, with Falluja being turned from a city (even a destroyed one) into a nightmare vision of a police state.

It doesn't matter what the US does or what al-Maliki does. Falluja's going to pop. And when that time comes, if the US is still on ground there, it won't matter that they're present.

That's reality.

Foreign forces can't destroy a city and enforce their ideas of order and expect it to last. (In the US, apparently a hurricane can do the first part and the White House can get away with it.) (Can and still has.)

The walls will come down. Not by US choice but by the decisions of the citizens of Falluja.

Turning to Damien Cave who, again, offers the best thing he's done all week (I'm referring to last week, but I haven't been to sleep yet so it's still last week). It's entited "Iraqi Premier Stirs Discontent, Yet Hangs On" and, repeating, it's Cave best writing. He deserves praise for it.

Martha notes this from Megan Greenwell's "Iraqi Leaders' Talks Yield Scant Results" (Washington Post):

Iraq's top five government leaders began a review of the country's de-Baathification law Saturday but appeared not to have reached an agreement on that topic or any of the other critical issues that have plunged the country into a political crisis.
[. . .]
The lack of concrete results from meetings this week diminishes hopes of creating a unified government by Sept. 15, when President Bush and Congress are to receive a report about conditions in Iraq.

Gareth notes the BBC's "UK troops 'stretched but winning'" where General Sir Richard Dannatt says the UK troops are stretched (but 'winning'! -- he must have missed the Times of London today):

His comments came as Defence Secretary Des Browne denied claims the government is failing in its duty to UK troops who put their lives on the line for their country.
The Royal British Legion had said the Military Covenant - guaranteeing troops fair treatment in return for forgoing other rights - is not being upheld.
Shadow Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox said: "We face the problem that in Britain the government has overstretched our armed forces without giving them sufficient resources to do the job they're being asked to do."
He went on to criticise the level of commitment from Britain's allies.
Dr Fox said: "Our international allies, particularly some of our European allies and Nato, simply have not been stepping up to the plate in an international operation of this nature."

From Sarah Baxter and Michael Smith's "Britain faces Iraq rout says US" (Times of London):

A MILITARY adviser to President George W Bush has warned that British forces will have to fight their way out of Iraq in an “ugly and embarrassing” retreat.
Stephen Biddle, who also advises the US commander in Iraq, said Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias in the south would try to create the impression they were forcing a retreat. “They want to make it clear they have forced the British out. That means they’ll use car bombs, ambushes, RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] . . . and there will be a number of British casualties.”
The comments coincide with British military estimates that withdrawal could cost the lives of 10 to 15 soldiers.

New content at The Third Estate Sunday Review:

Truest statement of the week
A Note to Our Readers
Editorial: The death toll from the illegal war mou...
TV: Another cesspool trying to pass for news
Getting to know . . . Pelosi
17 US service members announced dead last week
The boom goes bust
Once up a time . . . A scary tale
Timothy J. Learn arrested for being AWOL in Ithaca...
Highlights


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

megan greenwell
the washington post
the new york times
damien cave
the third estate sunday review