Category: Iraq

The depraved beast on the environment, Israel, Jimmy Carter, and Iraq.

The Politico gives us the transcript of the dictator’s latest interview (if, by “interview”, you mean yet another tedious exercise in reportorial fellatio).

The shrub lies about what his regime has done about the environment, acknowledges Global Warming, says others have to do the work on fixing it before the U.S. can even get involved, and lies again about why he’s done nothing.

Q: I wonder if in your eight years in office what the changes have been, in your view, of climate change?

THE SHRUB: I think it’s been more clearly defined as a problem. But what hasn’t changed is the realistic notion that new technologies are going to be the solution, and the fundamental question is how do you grow the economy at the same time, and at the same time encourage new technologies. And my administration has done more for the new technologies necessary to change our lifestyles without sacrificing wealth than any other administration.

Q: For the record, is global warming real?

THE SHRUB: Yes, it is real, sure is. But the solutions — having said that, the solutions have got to be measured and realistic — you can’t have a solution to global warming unless China and India are part of any international pact. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t accept what’s called the Kyoto Protocol, and therefore was labeled as anti-environment. I’m a realistic guy. If the major emitters of greenhouse gases are not a part of a solution, then those who are part of a solution are acting in a way that’s simply not going to — it will affect their own economies, but it won’t affect the overall global warming issue.

So, yes, I put forth a very realistic, straightforward program that makes sense.

Q: Acknowledging those constraints, you’re an oil man — some people say that climate change, global warming could have been your Nixon-to-China. Do you wish you’d done more?

THE SHRUB: I did what I think is necessary to actually work, Michael. I mean, I could have signed a — I could have supported a lousy treaty and everybody would have went, “Oh, man, what a wonderful sounding fellow he is.” But it just wouldn’t have worked. I don’t think you want your president trying to be the cool guy and not end up with policies that actually make a difference.

So the policies I’ve outlined are policies that will actually make a difference: nuclear power for generating electricity; battery driven cars; ethanol. There’s a variety of initiatives — clean coal technology — all of which will help us sustain our economic vitality and at the same time be better stewards of the environment.

Ironing boards for peace

San Francisco organizers are taking it to the streets — their ironing board, that is.

Here’s what they’re suggesting as an Iraq Moratorium activity on Friday, the ninth monthly Moratorium action:

Make a difference – join us in neighborhood outreach! Stand at an ironing board at a busy location with a partner to help you and speak to that frustrated, angry person who doesn’t know what to do. Get them to write a message on a postcard to their congressperson or presidential candidate. It’s fun, people are so appreciative and eager to speak out! In an hour or two you will reach 50+ people. Please help, choose a time and location of your choice, we have materials! Locations: Golden Gate Park, City Hall, Farmer’s market, 9th and Irving, City College, Tenderloin and more.

One woman who’s tried it out lately says that is an effective way to engage people and get them to do something.  Why an ironing board?  They’re portable, quick and easy to set up, and allow people to write standing up.

Progressive organizers have spent many hours over the years sitting behind tables filled with literature, signs, petitions, and buttons — so many that the act of sitting at such a table has developed into a verb.  They call it “tabling.”

One of these days, will we be at a meeting where we hear talk of “ironing boarding?”

The ironing boards are but one facet of plans for Iraq Moratorium #9 on Friday, as evidenced by more than 100 events listed at the Moratorium website.

Cincinnati’s Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center will sponsor half a dozen neighborhood vigils in different parts of the city on Friday night.  

In Manitou Springs CO, Iraq Veterans Against the War will sponsor “Words of Resistance,” an evening of poetry and spoken word from Iraq veterans, and a chance to share your own as well.

In Naples FL, a group of military veterans and spouses from WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and parentswho have sons in Iraq will hold a roadside vigil.

In Chicago, it’s Art Against war, with a night of music and poetry at the Heartland Cafe.

And in Laramie WY, there will be a vigil on the corner where there has been a vigil every Friday since January 2003.  In Lansing MI there’s been a Friday vigil at the State Capitol since September, 2001.  Oak Park IL has more than five years of vigils as well.

There’s a full list on the website, along with some ideas about what you can do as an individual if you can’t find or attend an action where you live.

The whole idea is to do something — anything — to show your opposition to the war, whether it’s wearing an armband or writing your members of Congress or donating to a peace group working to end the war and occupation.  Or get out your own ironing board and do some outreach.  All it takes to have an action is two people and a sign.  Or maybe one person and an ironing board.

Friday’s the day.  Please do something.

 

NO LIES RADIO will broadcast LIVE the Winter Soldier hearing on Capitol Hill

Thursday May 15th at 6am Pacific – 9am Eastern – 01:00 GMT Repeated this Saturday May 17th at 9am Pacific – 12 Noon Eastern – 16:00 GMT Click Here to Listen and or save for thursdays hearings, also on graphic below.

Winter Soldier ’71, Winter Soldier ’08 Testimony, Congress May 15th

I was still in ‘Nam, counting down the days, real short, in returning back to ‘The World’ and my discharge after 4years of service, when ‘Winter Soldier Investigation ’71’ took place.


The Congressional Testimony than would follow the Detriot testimony of my brother ‘Nam Vets who had already returned from that Debacle and Occupation!


Sadly the Country that said, almost as one {many of us ‘Nam Vets said we would never allow again} we would remember the lessons of, We Didn’t, and history repeats!

UFPJ encourages Iraq Moratorium participation

By Leslie Cagan, National Coordinator, UFPJ:

Since last fall, on the third Friday of every month, people in cities and towns around the country have organized protest activities and other events as part of the nationally coordinated Iraq Moratorium. This coming Friday, May 16th, is Iraq Moratorium #9.

First, we want to congratulate the local organizers who keep pulling together these activities. And we also want to congratulate the national organizers who have maintained and expanded this effort, including the Iraq Moratorium website at: www.IraqMoratorium.org



Second, we want to encourage more local groups to get involved. There is still time to organize something in your community, at your school or workplace, or anywhere you might be able to reach people.

You can find reports from past Moratorium actions, as well as listings for events already planned for this Friday, at the Iraq Moratorium website. Reading through all of this will inspire you and might give you an idea of something you can do as part of this project. If you do plan something, please be sure to list it on the calendar.

Finally, if you are planning something for May 16, try to take some photos or video. Then we hope you’ll take a few minutes to go back to the site and post a report on what happened — not just numbers but anecdotes, descriptions of who came, etc. If you have them, include photos or video. What you do, and the stories you tell, can inspire others for future actions.

Again, the website for the Iraq Moratorium is www.IraqMoratorium.org – be sure to check it out!

(UFPJ — United for Peace and Justice — is the nation’s largest peace coalition, with more than 1,400 affiliated organizations.)

Corrupt Government – Totally Corrupt!!

What is this Country waiting for?

This is Our Government, those in Washington work for Us!

Little georgie likes to say “His Government”, it ain’t his, He Works For Us, as do everyone appointed and hired to federal jobs!

The Government we have isn’t just Incompetent, It’s Totally Corrupt!

And it isn’t only those hired to Represent that have no Backbone, it’s this Whole F**cking Country!

‘What about our own culpability’ for the Iraq war?

Kathy Kelly has more than paid her dues in the movement for peace through non-violence, putting herself in harm’s way and risking her freedom.

She is the latest endorser of the Iraq Moratorium, a growing grassroots initiative which will be observed on Friday, May 16, as it is on the third Friday of each month.  (She explains her endorsement below.)

The co-coordinator of Chicago-based Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Kelly helped initiate Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign to end UN/US sanctions against Iraq in 1996. For bringing “medicine and toys” to Iraq in open violation of the UN/US sanctions, she and other campaign members were fined $20,000, which they’ve refused to pay.

Voices in the Wilderness organized 70 delegations to visit Iraq in the period between 1996 and the beginning of the “Operation Shock and Awe” warfare (March 2003). Kelly has been to Iraq 24 times since January 1996. In October 2002, she joined Iraq Peace Team members in Baghdad where she and the team maintained a presence throughout the bombardment and invasion. Kelly left Iraq on April 19, 2003 and has returned three times, most recently in May of 2006 when she traveled to northern Iraq.

Along with three other Voices activists, Kathy was in Beirut, Lebanon during the final days of the Israel-Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006. (Photo at right.) They subsequently reported from southern Lebanon following a ceasefire.

In the spring of 2004, she served three months at Pekin federal prison for crossing the line as part of an ongoing effort to close an army military combat training school at Fort Benning, GA. In 1988 she was sentenced to one year in prison for planting corn on nuclear missile silo sites. Kelly served nine months of the sentence in Lexington KY maximum security prison.

She is currently organizing Witness Against War 2008,a nonviolent walk for peace from Chicago to the site of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Kathy Kelly: Why I endorse the Iraq Moratorium

Die Dolchstosslegende

The stab-in-the-back legend (German: Dolchstosslegende (helpĀ·info), literally “Dagger stab legend”) refers to a social myth and persecution-propaganda theory popular in Germany in the period after World War I through World War II. It attributed Germany’s defeat to a number of domestic factors instead of failed militarist geostrategy. Most notably, the theory proclaimed that the public had failed to respond to its “patriotic calling” at the most crucial of times and some had even intentionally “sabotaged the war effort.”

The legend echoed the epic poem Nibelungenlied in which the dragon-slaying hero Siegfried is stabbed in the back by Hagen von Tronje. Der Dolchstoss is cited as an important factor in Adolf Hitler’s later rise to power, as the Nazi Party grew its original political base largely from embittered World War I veterans, and those who were sympathetic to the Dolchstosslegende interpretation of Germany’s then-recent history. – Wikipedia

For those of you unfamiliar with this blood libel the melody goes kinda like this-

We were winning our war of aggression until those Jews dirty fucking hippies meddling kids stabbed us in the back.

What makes it blood libel is the implication that people who were against the war and saw the utimate futility of it “sacrificed” the blood of our brave soldiers for nothing as if to have “sacrificed” it to a real God like Mars or Mammon were any better.

Once you put your money in the pot boys, it’s gone.  I could so kick your ass at poker.

It’s hardly surprising that the American Theo-Corporatist Party is resurrecting this meme and their Presidential nominee is endorsing it-

(Glenn Greenwald below)

Final Salute

Remember this photo? I’m sure you’ve seen it a dozen times as it’s made it’s way around the web. Her name is Katherine Cathey and she’s a mother, a mother of a son who never met his father Marine 2nd. Lt. Jim Cathey. Katherine mentions this photo in a video, of which I’ll give you the link to in a moment, one you should view.

Senators Want Iraq to Pay for US Occupation

Last month’s Petraeus – Crocker, progress in Iraq, dog and pony show provided a forum which allowed them to tell us how well we are progressing in our endeavors to provide peace and stability in Iraq. The format was such that few hard questions were asked and few meaningful answers were given.

General Petraeus informs us:

“There has been significant but uneven security progress in Iraq.”

The gains, however, are “fragile and reversible,” he says, as he begins to outline a plan for a 45-day “period of consolidation and evaluation” to follow the end of the “surge” of extra American forces in July, before any more troops would be withdrawn.

“This process will be continuous, with recommendations for further reductions made as conditions permit,” he added. “This approach does not allow establishment of a set withdrawal timetable.”

NYT

There were no major surprises from Petraeus and Crocker, more wait and see, stall and delay. However there was something new and very significant from the Senators doing the questioning.

Over At ‘Vet Voice’

Author Colby Buzzell Being Sent Back to Iraq

Colby Buzzell, author of My War: Killing Time in Iraq one of the best Iraq memoirs out there–has been called up from the IRR and will be returning to Iraq. For reasons that I’ve specified in the past, this is utter horseshit. Our country is in sad shape when cowards like Matthew Continetti and Jason Mattera are allowed to refuse to serve–instead choosing to cheer from the bench–while people like Colby Buzzell are forced to go involuntarily again and again.


This is nothing less than a backdoor draft. And it’s wrong. We need to either have a draft or not have a draft. But one way or the other, these IRR mobilizations need to stop.


Here’s part of Buzzell’s take on his own situation (though you should go read the whole thing in the San Francisco Chronicle:


SNIP

Winter Soldiers – Congress – May 15th

Mark your calendars, History on our Military Occupations will, sadly, be made once again, as the Conflict Rages, the Truth be told!

Below you will find cuts from an IVAW Newsletter along with some well deserved recognition on the airing of the ‘Winter Soldier Testimony’ on March 14th to the 16th 2008.

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