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Sunday, October 30, 2005

Gold Star Aunt on Halloween,
and REAL Horrors

Dear BTHN,

I am a gold star aunt who has been waiting with everyone else for the s**t to hit the fan in DC. For a year and a half I have been speaking in public and screaming in private about the lies that took the life of my 19-year-old nephew, PFC William Ramirez. Getting the indictment on Libby is a good start, but somehow I don't feel like dancing in the streets as I thought I would. In fact, I've been having an especially bad weekend--I can't stop crying. It is amazing to hear the web of lies finally reported in main stream media, but William is still dead. Even when this war is over and the Bush crime family is in jail, William will still be gone--forever. There is no revenge or punishment or impeachment that will ever bring him back to the life he should have lived.

Maybe he is on my mind so much right now because Halloween was a time of year I could always count on seeing him. He loved to come over and play in all our Halloween decorations and we enjoyed spooking him and his sister. We loved sharing Halloween with him and watching his enjoyment throughout his childhood. With REAL horrors going on in so many places, the pretend stuff looses some of its charm. The photo of William as a child popping out from behind our fake tombstones is too ironic now.

I don't know what I'm trying to say and I don't understand how I'm feeling, but I know that the loss of my nephew is not going to go away and I have an idea that the damage and loss our country and Iraq have suffered on so many levels at the hands of these monsters is going to haunt us for generations.

Annette Pritchard
Oregon City, OR

posted 31 october 2005

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

A Letter from Fernando Suarez del Solar on the 2,oooth US Death Toll in Iraq
(in English y Español)

Today, October 25, 2005, the toll of U.S. fatalities in Iraq reached the significant number of 2000. On March 27, 2003, just seven days after the illegal occupation of Iraq began, the fifth U.S. casualty (and the second Latino) fell--my son Jesús Alberto Suarez del Solar Navarro. Now, two years and seven months later,we have reached 2000. 2000 young people, each with a dream, each with enormous potential, each manipulated and deceived for immoral reasons by the group of powerful men who dragged us into a criminal war. 2000 families destroyed, 4000 parents devastated, with their most precious treasure--their children--torn from them. And who cares? Who cares about these young people who are dying? Only the families care, it seems, since Bush's criminal government continues with its rhetoric about how Iraq is better off and how we will not leave until the mission is completed. What mission? The personal agenda of a ruling clique because clearly there is no humanitarian mission in Iraq. When I learned that we had reached the awful figure of 2000, I wept. I wept because the pain of knowing that another young American had died reminded me of my own tragedy and my own pain. I thought about his parents, his mother who must feel the ache in her soul knowing that her son died in an unnecessary war, and his father who, like me, was proud of his son and of his nation. And unexpectedly his nation betrayed him and his son was gone.

I do not know if Bush in his self absorption and his feigned Christianity understands the tremendous suffering he is causing--the families' anguish, the harm to our nation that he has placed in even greater danger. But I am sure about one thing. Bush will receive his punishment, a punishment that will make him cry tears of blood as my family and 1999 other families are shedding as they remember their lost children.

How much more blood will it take to end this criminal war? How many more Iraqi children have to die? How many more brave young Americans will have to make the ultimate sacrifice? How many more parents will have to weep for their sons and daughters? Who can answer me? Who?

We must demand that the lies and the dying stop today.

End the occupation of Iraq and
Bring our troops home now.

Fernando Suarez del Solar
Father of Jesus Suarez del Solar

www.guerreroazteca.org
****************************************************

Español
Hoy, Octubre 25 del 2005, me entero que las fatalidades del ejercito Americano en Irak llego a los 2000, numero por demás alto y significativo.el 27 de Marzo del 2003, a tan solo 7 días de iniciada la ocupación ilegal a Irak murió el numero 5 , el segundo hispano, Mi hijo Jesús Alberto Suarez del Solar Navarro, y a 2 años 7 meses de distancia ya estamos en el numero 2000, son 2000 cadáveres de jóvenes con un sueño, con una promesa de superación, manipulada y engañosamente usada para fines perversos de los poderosos que nos involucraron en esta guerra criminal. son 2000 familias destruidas, 4000 padres destrozados, que les arrebataron a sus mas preciosos tesoros que son nuestros hijos, y a quien le importa? a quien le interesa que estos jóvenes estén muriendo? tal parece que solo a las familias, ya que el gobierno encabezado por el criminal de Bush, continua con su retorica de que Irak esta en mejores condiciones, que todo esta bien, que no nos moveremos hasta completar la misión, cual misión? la personal, la de los intereses de la clase pudiente de este país, porque una misión humanitaria no existe en Irak.

Cuando me entere de que habíamos alcanzado esta cifra mayúscula, llore, si llore porque el dolor de saber que otro gran joven americano ha muerto me hace recordar mi propia tragedia, mi propio dolor, y pensé en los padres, en esa madre que estará con ese dolor en el pecho, en el alma al saber que su hijo murió en una guerra sin razón, pensé en el padre, que como yo, estaba orgulloso de su hijo, orgulloso de nuestro país, y como de la noche a la mañana, se lo arrebataron, como el país le traiciona.

No se si Bush, en su egolatría y en su falsa religiosidad se de cuenta del tremendo dolor que esta causando, del llanto que provoca en las familias, del daño a la nación que ha puesto en mas peligro que antes, pero de algo si estoy seguro. Bush recibirá su castigo, un castigo que le hará llorar lágrimas de sangre así como las mías, y las de las 2000 familias que hoy están derramándolas en recuerdo de nuestros hijos.

Cuanta sangre mas sera necesaria para parar esta criminal guerra, cuantos niños Iraquies deberán continuar muriendo? Cuantos jóvenes americanos tendrán que dar el máximo sacrificio? Cuantas mujeres mas tendrán que llorar por sus muertos? Quien tiene la respuesta? Quien?

Debemos exigir, hoy, que:

No mas mentiras, No mas muertes No mas dinero. Alto a la ocupación en Irak y el retorno inmediato de nuestras tropas.

Fernando Suarez del Solar

posted 28 october 2005

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

2,000 -- WHO WILL BE THE LAST TO DIE IN THIS ILLEGAL, IMMORAL WAR?

By Stan Goff

I knew the number would come up, because we've been counting these numbers as part of the Bring Them Home Now! campaign since we launched it when the number was around 200. It doesn't shock me, but I find myself blindsided by my own reaction to it. The foreknowledge is nothing more nor less than knowing that human beings are being fed into this senseless killing with such regularity now that it doesn't even show up in the news until we hit these sick, decimalized milestones. And I am feeling such rage right now that I can hardly hold back the tears.

I wonder if the Bush administration is reading about this right now. I doubt it, what with indictments and the other minutiae of high office that preoccupy them.

Richard Nixon and George W. Bush had one thing in common, aside from party affiliation. They didn't read the stuff people sent to them. They relied on agenda-laden advisors.

On June 13, 1971, President Nixon discovered a story in the newspaper about one of those reports he didn't read -- a hefty collection of reports that were headlined in the New York Times as "Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing U.S. Involvement." Daniel Ellsberg, a former Defense Department employee then working at the Rand Corporation, had grown so restive over his knowledge of these reports, and how they proved a pattern of systematic lying to the American public about the American invasion and occupation of Vietnam, that he could no longer in good conscience remain silent. He leaked what would become The Pentagon Papers to the press.

Nixon -- surely wishing now he were familiar with the content of said papers -- slowly became aware that this leak would prove two significant things: the government lied about the war... a lot, and many experts believed by 1968 that the war itself was unwinnable. More than half of the casualties -- over 58,000 US and almost 3 million Southeast Asians dead -- occurred after 1968. After military and political experts told two administrations that the war would be lost.

We have now passed the much smaller empirical milestone in Iraq of 2,000 American dead. This figure does not include Afghanistan, it does not include other "Coalition" countries' troops dead, it does not include more than 15,000 wounded nor over 400 who have lost limbs, nor does it include uncounted tens of thousands of Iraqis (some estimates as high as 150,000). There is nothing special about the number 2,000, except what was special about each numerical increments along the way. 2,000 times now, a military sedan with two or three uniformed service members has pulled up in front of some home in the United States or Puerto Rico to deliver news that tore the hearts out of people and shattered their lives.

So this round number is just a time to remind ourselves of what is going on... and what is not.

The rate of terror attacks worldwide has tripled since September 11th, so the world is no safer. No one has "won the war but lost the peace" in Iraq -- one of the most Orwellian phrases imaginable, repeated like a drunken mantra to sustain denial about the reality of Iraq. The war has never been won. All that was accomplished was a bloody occupation. According to every poll, the great majority of Iraqis want the US occupation out, so the majority will is not being respected in this alleged attempt to build democracy at gunpoint. The military is suffering such a profound retention and recruitment crisis that it has lowered standards and even resorted to recruiting among Katrina surviors at the Astrodome. The US taxpayer is footing a $6 billion a month bill for the war in Iraq; and future taxpayers will get the bill for over $8 trillion in national debt, 40% of which is debt now owned by foreign investors and central banks.

One trillion dollars is an enormous sum of money. So we aren't just sacrificing schools and health care and decent housing, but the futures of our children... who will be approached by more recruiters for more wars if something doesn't change.

2,000 is not just a number to reflect on, then go about our business. This is the equivalent of slapping one of those yellow ribbon magnets on a car that says "Support the Troops." It's easy, and it makes people feel better about their lack of action. It really is time to recognize a few things.

The US military occupation of Iraq is the single greatest catalyst for the violence there. Fewer than four percent of the fighters are foreign, and they are there because of the US presence. Over 75% of the daily attacks are directed at Americans, though more vulnerable civilians bear the brunt of these attacks. There are around 500 attacks per week in Iraq, and the recent referendum gymnastics have not changed this one whit -- in fact, these exclusive and US-managed affairs may actually make things much worse.

It's time to face these facts head-on, and to get out of Iraq now. Immediately. As quickly as the plans can be drawn up for redeployment. The Iraqis have coped with far more chaos from the occupation than they will without it, and -- however painful -- they will find their way better when it is THEIR way, not what the Bush administration DICTATES is their way. The argument that those who have died will have died in vain is sophistry of the cruelest kind. We do not say when children are killed by drunk drivers that they died in vain. We honor their memories by organizing to ensure that the same thing doesn't happen to others.

Who will be the last to die in an unwinnable war? And who will be accountable?

The way we support the troops -- as human beings, not occupiers -- and honor the memories of those who have already died -- whatever nationality, is to bring every American troop home, and do it now.

***

Stan Goff is a retired Special Forces Master Sergeant, whose son has been to Iraq with the US Army twice. Goff is the author of "Hideous Dream - A Soldier's Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti" (2000), "Full Spectrum Disorder - The Military in the New American Century" (2004) and "Sex & War" (to be released in February 2006 by Soft Skull Press). He is a member of Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out.

posted 25 october 2005

Tuesday, October 4, 2005

War-Hawk Republicans & Anti-War Democrats: What's the Difference?

By Cindy Sheehan

The past week in DC found me in many offices of our elected officials: Senators, Congresspersons, pro-war, "anti-war," Democrat, Republican. With a few notable exceptions, all of our employees toed party lines.

Thanks to those who met with me, because, except for Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), I was not their constituent. And I believe the Republicans who met with me, whether they knew it or not, were breaking with their leader on this, since he was too cowardly to meet with me.

The War Hawks I met with made my skin crawl. They so obviously are supporting a war that is not in our nation's best interest, nor is it making us more secure. I heard from Senators Dole (R-NC) and McCain (R-Ariz.) and Representative Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) about 9/11 and "fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here." That made me sick. George Bush and his lying band of imperialist greed-mongers exploited 9/11 and our national terror of other terrorist attacks to invade a country that had nothing to do with the attacks on our country. Now, in the aftermath of those lies, tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians are dead, and almost 2000 of our brave young men and women. What makes the Iraqi babies and families less precious than ours? The crime that these people committed was being born at the wrong place at the wrong time. George took his war OF terror to their doorsteps. I even asked Senator Dole when she thought the occupation would be able to end, and she was incredulous that I would even think of Iraq as an occupation: she sees it as a liberation. I really wanted to know how many of them we have to kill before she considered that they were liberated.

The War Hawks (or war-niks, as I like to call them) also use the rationale that Saddam used weapons of mass destruction on his own people. I asked Senator Dole three times where Saddam got those weapons, and she wouldn't answer me. Because the smiling, kind, patronizing War-Hawkette knew where Saddam got the weapons. He got them from the USA. Saddam was a bad guy, but he was our bad guy (see the famous picture of the grinning Rummy shaking Hussein's hand) until he decided to sell his oil to Russia and France for Euros ... then, "Oh my gosh, Saddam kills his own people!!"

We didn't care about Saddam killing his own people after the first Gulf War, when George the First encouraged the people of Iraq to rise up against Saddam. We didn't care about the Iraqi children dying from the bombings and the sanctions during the Clinton years. All of a sudden in March 2003 those things became so important that it was urgent that our troops invade Iraq. Besides, the memo to Congress in which George asked for the authority to invade Iraq specifically mentions WMDs and terrorism - it says nothing about Saddam being a "bad guy" or about spreading "freedom and democracy" to Iraq. The reasons for our continued occupation change as fast as the old ones are proven lies.

It was horrible to talk to these three war-mongering Republicans; I almost felt like I had to take a shower after each visit, but they did not affect my resolve. Congresswoman Musgrave was openly hostile when we were ushered (by her very nice staff) into her office. Ms. Musgrave actually has a son in the service, but she got very defensive when I asked which branch of the service her son, who is stationed in Italy, was in. I was asking mother-to-mother, but she basically said it wasn't any of my business. I told her she must be very worried about her son and he would be in my prayers.

I know that it is hard to have a child in military service whether in Iraq or Italy. She also "supports the president" 100%. Do these politicians not realize that the people are withdrawing their support for this war and for this president at an unprecedented clip? To support George at this point is to support a sinking stone. To support George at any time is and was a mistake of tragic and immense proportions.

The War-Hawk Dems I met with were equally, if not more, disheartening. Although my meeting with Senator Clinton (D-NY) went well, I don't believe she will do anything to alleviate the suffering of the Americans in Iraq or the Iraqi people. I don't believe that sending more troops is the solution; it will only aggravate an already untenable situation. We met in NYC with Senator Charles Schumer's aide, who told us that the Senator thinks the occupation of Iraq is a "good thing for America," but he wouldn't elaborate on why. The aide was asked if the Senator had a vested interest in keeping this war going, because the Senator is certainly not stupid enough to believe that this misbegotten misadventure in the Middle East is good for anyone. I don't think the people of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi would agree with the Senator that this illegal occupation is a "good thing."

The "Anti-War" Dems perplex me the most, however. Except for the good guys, like the members of the Out of Iraq Caucus and a few Senators, the Democratic party line is that we must allow Iraq a window of two months' time, and after the referendum on the constitution this month and the parliamentary elections in December, it will be time to attack the failed policies of George and his cabal of liars.

In my meeting with Howard Dean, he told me that the Iraq issue was "hard," and the new Democratic "Contract with America" is going to have 10 points, and the first one is going to be "Universal Health Care." I told Mr. Dean that if the Dems didn't come out strongly against the war and against George's disastrous policies, we were going to become irrelevant as a party (which is already happening) and the "hard" issue should be the one that is worked on the hardest! I'll admit that the issue doesn't seem so hard to me: George and his sycophantic band of criminals lied to the world; too many people are dead for the lies; too many people are in harm's way for the lies; it is time to bring our troops home. I am just hoping against hope that the war is on the Dems' contract somewhere. George is always pulling out the old saw that what he does in sending our children to die and kill is "hard work." I hate to see that same adjective used to describe bringing them home. The war issue is not complicated: Wrong to invade and wrong to stay. Bring our troops home. Simple.

I think if one is not speaking out right now against the killing in Iraq, one is supporting it. I believe that the members of Congress who have always been, or are now, opposed to this war, need our 100 percent support, admiration, and encouragement. Everyone else needs to be prodded in the right direction. I implored every member I spoke to this past week (and during our bus trip) to lead our country out of the desert. I believe that if they did, America would follow them through fire to bring our troops home.

Finally, I was harrassed at the Capitol Building by a thug security guard, who screamed at me to get out of the building until my next appointment. I complained to another security guard about the disrespectful treatment that I had received from the other guard and he said that most of the employees were "Republicans" and they didn't appreciate what I was doing. I have news for them: this is not about politics - to me, this is about flesh and blood. This is not about right and left, this is about right and wrong. 19 troops were needlessly killed in Iraq this past week. 19 families were destroyed senselessly and avoidably. Hundreds of innocent Iraqis were killed for just being home that day, just being out shopping, or just going about their daily lives. An average of almost three of our young men and women are killed every day in George's abomination. While the War-Hawk Repbublicans are wrongfully supporting a wrongheaded war and the "anti-war" Dems are hemming and hawing about the politics of this administration's misguided and evil policies, how many more families will get the news that their lives have been destroyed in the tragic meantime?

What are they waiting for?

Cindy Sheehan

posted 06 october 2005

September 22, 2005

Guess Who's Expected To Pay For Rebuilding New Orleans?

Operation Offset? What's Operation Offset? Was that the Tal Afar hide-and-seek deal? Naah, that was Operation Jungle Gym...so who's the target in Operation Offset?

Well, troop, we've got a little bad news for you. You are. Oh, yeah, so's your family.

Operation Offset is the tough-sounding, pretend-military name some House Republicans and their backers in the Bush administration have given their plan to deal with the devastation of Hurricane Katrina--and soon Rita--without rolling back the $336 billion in new tax cuts that the richest 1 percent are slated to get over the next five years.

It is a plan for no tax hikes and mammoth spending cuts in everything from medical care for the elderly to homeland security. Notable among the cuts they're looking to make is "trimming military quality-of-life programs, including health care," reports the current issue of Navy Times . The article goes on to say that troops will be asked to "accept reduced health care benefits for their families."

And that's not all. "The stateside system of elementary and secondary schools for military family members could be closed." Sound familiar? It should. This was Rumsfeld's program when he first took over as SecDef, "Why am I running stores? Why am I in education?"

An outburst of anger from within the ranks stopped the big cuts then, and the government has been using salami tactics since--taking away benefits and trimming programs one thin slice at a time.

Now unprecedented national disaster finds the chickenhawks going for another bite at the whole sausage. Support the troops? This crew will put on and pay for a bullshit "rally" like the Pentagon-sponsored farce that drew a few thousand two weekends ago, but they're busy closing VA hospitals at the same time.

As blogger David Sirotta points out, it was Texas Republican Tom DeLay who said before the Iraq invasion "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes." Why should a couple of Class 5 hurricanes change anything?

Dennis O'Neil

posted 23 september 2005

September 7, 2005

Here's How You Can Make an Immediate Difference in Louisiana

Friends,

There is much to be said and done about the manmade annihilation of New Orleans, caused NOT by a hurricane but by the very specific decisions made by the Bush administration in the past four and a half years. Do not listen to anyone who says we can discuss all this later. No, we can't. Our country is in an immediate state of vulnerability. More hurricanes, wars, and other disasters are on the way, and a lazy bunch of self-satisfied lunatics are still running the show.

So, in the next few days, I will write to you about what must be done about Bush and Co.

But today I want you to join with me in bypassing the colossally inept and incompetent Bush administration and get help DIRECTLY to the people of the New Orleans area -- right now.

A lot of you have written me to ask what you can do. Many don't know who to trust. Many want to do more than write a check. You are right to think that writing checks to relief agencies will not get water and aid to people in the next 48 hours. Checks will be needed later and can be written later.

I have a way, though, for each and every one of us to do something today that can affect people's lives TODAY.

For the past few days I've been working with a group that, I guarantee you, will get direct aid to the people who need it most.

Cindy Sheehan, the brave woman who dared to challenge Mr. Bush at his summer home, has now sent her Camp Casey from in front of Bush's ranch to the outskirts of New Orleans. The Veterans for Peace have taken all the equipment and staff of volunteers and set up camp in Covington, Louisiana, on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. They are accepting materials and personally distributing them to those in need.

This is where we come in. We need to ship supplies to them immediately. Today they need the following:

Paper plates, paper towels, toilet paper, baby diapers, baby wipes, baby formula, Pedialyte, baby items in general, powder, lotion, handy wipes, sterile gloves, electrolytes, LARGE cans of veggies, school supplies, and anything else to lift people's spirits.

You can ship these items by following the instructions on VFPRoadTrips.org. Or you can deliver them there in person. The roads to Covington are open. Here's how to get there. You can drop them off or you can stay and participate (if you stay, you'll be camping so bring your own tent and gear and mosquito spray).

If you can't ship these items or go there in person, then go to VFPRoadTrips.org and make an immediate donation through PayPal. Camp Casey-Covington will have immediate access to this cash and can buy the items themselves from stores that are open in Louisiana (all donations to Veterans for Peace, are tax deductible).

Each day I will post up-to-the minute information as to what is needed and the progress Camp Casey is making. Please visit MichaelMoore.com often and do what you can to help.

Many other groups are also doing good work. MoveOn.org has set up a system for people to offer rooms in their homes to the survivors.

There is no time to waste. People are suffering and dying. Each of us can do something. There is no other alternative.

Thank you in advance for your help. Tomorrow, we will take care of the other work we need to do about the ideologically hamstrung incompetents in charge.

Yours,
Michael Moore

posted 15 september 2005

September 8, 2005

THE GUARD AND THE HURRICANE, Part Two

"Stay at home and serve your country" was the slogan used to attract men and women into service to their communities and their country in the National Guard. The promise to the men and women of the Guard was also a promise to citizens of the various states that they would have a force available to them in time of emergency.

One weekend a month, two weeks each year, those who signed up to serve in the state militia known as the National Guard trained to protect Country and Constitution and to provide aid in times of local emergencies such as forest fires, floods, hurricanes, blizzards, and civil unrest. National Guard soldiers have specifically been trained to assist in emergencies such as the one that Hurricane Katrina brought to the Gulf Coast on August 28-29, 2005.

Unfortunately, about 35% of Louisiana's and 40% of Mississippi's National Guard troops have been deployed to Iraq - to a war that has nothing to do with protecting Country and Constitution. Along with the troops who have been deployed is much of the heavy equipment -- vehicles, generators, air support -- that is needed along the Gulf Coast today. While the Bush Administration claims that this in no way impeded rescue efforts along the Gulf Coast, those residents who waited days for water, food, shelter, medical assistance and evacuation -- and those who are still waiting, and those who watched this horror unfold across the nation -- have a very different view of the situation.

It appears that Guard troops just back from Iraq will be pressed into hurricane relief efforts. While personnel are desparately needed to aid in these relief efforts, it is critical that provisions be made to care for those returning soldiers who are suffering from symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of their service in Iraq.

In addition, the de-funding of efforts such as flood-control plans and mechanisms, and wetlands barriers, along with the earmarking of billions of dollars for the war effort in Iraq, raise serious questions about how much damage to life and property could have been avoided had there been real support for prevention measures along the Gulf Coast.

There are clearly many factors that contributed to the devastation from Hurricane Katrina, but among them is the fact that troops, equipment and billions of dollars have been devoted to an unjustifiable war, when troops, equipment and funds were needed here along the Gulf Coast.

posted 08 september 2005

September 7, 2005

Cindy Sheehan: "Come to DC Sept. 24

Dear Friends and Supporters of Peace,

On August 31st, we closed down Camp Casey on the outskirts of President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. In the three and a half weeks that we were in Crawford, thousands of people passed through - some for just a few hours and some for days or weeks. Throughout the country, hundreds of thousands of people responded to my vigil, calling on the President to meet with me and, just as importantly, adding their voices to the growing cry for an end to the war in Iraq.

The horrific events that have unfolded in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, in the wake of the deadly hurricane Katrina are stark reminders of just how lop-sided our nation's priorities are. Resources that could have been used to save lives are instead tied up in a war that continues to kill Iraqis and U.S. servicepeople. Our nation is at a crossroads: will we continue to squander resources and take lives in a war that never should have happened, or will we commit ourselves to the re-building of the Gulf Coast and the lives torn asunder by Katrina? It is clear that both cannot happen at the same time, and in this context our urgent call to end the war in Iraq must be as clear and strong as ever.

The same day Camp Casey closed two important initiatives were launched. Gold Star Families for Peace kicked off a campaign to hold Congress accountable for taking us into war, and also for ending this war. I sent a letter to every member of Congress - all 435 representatives and 100 senators - asking the same questions I've been asking President Bush. At the same time, three buses left Camp Casey to head North, East and South carrying members of Gold Star Families for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace to dozens of cities. The buses will converge on Washington, DC September 21, just days before the national anti-war protest being organized for the weekend of September 24-26. In addition to community forums and other events, on the road we will visit members of Congress asking for a meeting and answers to my questions. You can join this campaign as the buses pass through your community, or become a part of a delegation being organized in your Congressional district.

In case you have not already made plans to be there, I want to encourage you to join me in Washington, DC that weekend. I'll be marching on Saturday, September 24 with United for Peace and Justice, and later that same day will be speaking at the "Operation Ceasefire" free concert at the Washington Monument.

You know as well as I do that the majority of the people of this country oppose the war. As we talk to people from every part of the country, it is clear that the time is right for this demonstration in the nation's capital. You do not want to miss this crucial event - it's looking like the September 24-26 weekend will be the largest gathering so far of the movement to end the war in Iraq. It will also be the first opportunity since Katrina hit our shores to raise our voices in a call for new priorities.

Most importantly, I urge you to come to Washington on September 24, to tell President Bush and Congress in the strongest possible way that it's time to bring the troops home. But don't come alone - bring your friends and family, bring your co-workers, your classmates, your neighbors. Visit the United for Peace and Justice website for details about the day's events, and for information about the interfaith service, grassroots lobby day, and nonviolent civil disobedience action at the White House being planned for September 25 and 26.

And your help is needed in another way. To reach the potential of what will be a history-making event, United for Peace and Justice needs your financial support. Please take a moment right now to make the largest donation possible. I know that many of you have given and will continue to give to Katrina relief efforts, and it's important that we each do what we can to help out. But hopefully you also understand how important it is to lend your financial support to the Sept. 24-26 Mobilization.

I want to thank all of you who gave so much to support my efforts while I was in Texas. Now, as we all move into the next phase of our efforts to end the war in Iraq, I look forward to seeing you in Washington, DC on September 24.

Your friend,
Cindy Sheehan

posted 08 september 2005

September 6, 2005

OPEN LETTER TO ALL TROOPS
—Active Duty, National Guard, Reserve

By Stan Goff

We need you here!

You need to be here!

Email, write or phone your elected officials (Senators, Representatives, Governors) TODAY and tell them that we need the troops back home now. Tell your families and your friends to start bombarding those elected officials TODAY. Here is the link to get their contact information:

http://www.firstgov.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

Then send the things you want to say to the public, but can't because certain ass-kissing brass want to silence you to protect their careers, to the Bring Them Home Now! campaign at <bthn@mfso.org>. We will not print your name unless you specifically request it.

I can't tell you to do any more than that without risking being sent to jail.

Remember, you have every right to contact your elected officials, and this is one of the rare times when they have no choice but to listen. Public support for the occupation was already less than 40% and sinking in all major polls when Katrina was just a couple of cottony clouds off the coast of West Africa.

Fox News is probably all you are getting over there right now, so let me be the first to tell you. Fox News is complicit in one of the most bald-faced cover-ups I have ever seen, and I have seen my share. There has been no heroic attempt to help the victims of Katrina, except by the INDIVIDUALS among the emergency services, and National Guard. The Federal government's response to the Hurricane Katrina has been a disorganized mess on par with any you may have seen in Iraq. If you are currently deployed in Afghanistan or Iraq, you may not know just how horrifyingly screwed up things are in the Gulf Coast states. Thousands have already died, and most of the bodies haven't even been recovered. Tens of thousands are still suffering from hunger, disease, dehydration, and cold fear for their loved ones. The EPA has already said the toxins can't be cleaned up even spending the equivalent of the US Gross National Product.

Private efforts to get in and help HAVE BEEN TURNED AWAY BY SECURITY as part of the Bush administration "response."

A big part of that colossal snafu is the fact that so many of the traditional first responders to major crises within the US, the National Guard and the Army, have been shipped abroad to kill Arabs for Halliburton -- who by the way has already been handed a no-bid contract for the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast.

That's right. War profiteer Halliburton is now a disaster profiteer, too.

By the way, the 2005 hurricane season is only half over. A few major wildfires, an earthquake, or a nuclear accident and the cost of having 140,000 of you halfway round the world will be too great for the country to bear.

Many of you are surely and justifiably anxious about the fates of the people on the Gulf Coast. Some of you call this region home, and most of you would willingly assist this region in your own country if given the chance. Some of you are anxious, frustrated, and even angry that you are bottled up in a war based on lies, when you could be helping in places like New Orleans. Imagine how quickly people could be recovered in New Orleans right now if every helicopter currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan were available. Imagine how many field hospitals could be established. Imagine how many food and water drops could be accomplished. Imagine how many light water craft could be deployed.

Imagine how many poor people who couldn't heed the mandatory evacuation order because they had no automobiles could have been pre-evacuated with the fleet of C-5's, C-17's, C-141's, and C-130's that are currently being employed to occupy and dominate people far, far from your own homes. How many 5-tons, deuce-and-a-halfs, military buses, and "cattle trucks" could have been employed to shuttle people to the airport for evacuation.

You see, they KNEW that they needed more than an order. People wrote about it for years, and were warning about it just last year. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was downgraded from a cabinet-level position under Bush, placed under the Director of Homeland Security, and had its budget gutted... the same way Bush wanted to gut your benefits, the way this administration closes VA Hospitals. It neglected the warnings from its own generals that Iraq was a bad idea, just as it ignored the warnings that the levees in New Orleans could stand no more than a Category 3 hurricane. These are the same guys that sent you into combat based on bullshit stories, with hummers uparmored by scrap metal and prayers substituting for body armor.

The people in charge do not give a damn about you or the victims of this disaster, except in how you can help them pursue the agenda of the day. They only respond to your needs and not their needs when it becomes a political crisis for them. In the language you understand best, they are unfit for command.

When you see the images of the people still trapped tin the Gulf Coast, some of them children slowly dying of dehydration, many of them exposed to unspeakable toxins and pathogens, none of them rich... when you see an absentee President whose administration was ill-prepared because it cared nothing for the actual people there (except for the wealthy, of course)...when you see the President under pressure blurting out brave words about "law and order" instead of rescue... and when you see the President dropping in for a quick photo opportunity using victims as background--by the way, tons of aid supplies were put on hold to provide whirling helicopters as a backdrop for Bush's on-site visit... when you see all this...

Can you see your own reflections there?

Soldiers still trapped in Iraq, troops still dying (for lies and to enrich the war profiteers like Halliburton), exposed to DU and experimental vaccinations, none of you rich... when you remember the same President who read lies off the teleprompter, but wouldn't read his own intelligence briefings, who went on long vacations while you risked everything, who blurted out offensive foolishness like "bring 'em on," with no thought that he was challenging people to kill you, who will not attend your funerals or talk to your loved ones if they asked him what the war is for, and who uses troops as backdrops for publicity stunts... ...

Isn't that your own reflection in the victims of Katrina?

These politicians and CEO's do not care about working class and poor people. They'll offer you a minimum wage job near a toxic dump, as many of the poor, black, white, and Latino have discovered in Louisiana, and if you want out... well, then join the military and kill Muslims for us to help us get control over their oil. They will use you up in a dangerous or dead-end low-wage job, or use you as cannon fodder in their oil wars. But they use you. That's not caring. They care about you the way Tyson Foods cares about chickens.

Pat you on the head, tell you you're a hero to keep you going, give you some pretty ribbons in exchange for your health, your leg, or your life, and then you can go straight to hell as far as they're concerned. Ask the (good) people at the VA hospitals who can't deliver timely care because they have been defunded. Bush medical care for vets is a lot like Bush evacuation plans. Recover on your own, or die.

It took George W. Bush almost three days to get off his sorry ass and even appear in public about Katrina, and then with nothing but a photo of him peering out of the window of Air Force One, while he suppressed that mindless sociopathic smirk long enough for the shutter to snap. He played guitars and cut cakes after the storm, for the cameras, while people were trapped in 125 degree attics by foul stormwater without food or drinkable water. The suit he appointed to run the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) - Mike Brown - had no qualification for the job except Republican Party activism. Brown had run horse shows, and had been fired for incompetence, before he got his FEMA appointment. Kind of like some of the shit that floats to the top of the military hierarchy by kissing the right asses isn't it?

Tell everyone who will listen that you are needed in New Orleans and Biloxi, not Bagram or Baghdad.

Your emails, letters, and calls and those of your friends and families, can become a high pressure front in a new storm. Because there surely is a storm of anger growing here not only at the incompetence and callousness of the government and but also at the savage racism and killing contempt for poor folk and ordinary working people that underlie the failure to plan, the failure to act, and the failure to care!

Tell them: Bring Us Home Now!

posted 06 september 2005

September 2 , 2005

CAMP CASEY MEETS KATRINA!

Camp Casey, the close-knit community that grew up in Crawford,Texas outside of George Bush's ranch as Cindy Sheehan faced him down last month, closed August 30. But the departing participants have become Johnny Appleseeds for new organizing.

Some veterans and military families got directly on the three buses of the Bring Them Home Now Tour, currently criss-crossing America, headed for Washington DC. There, on September 24, they will join hundreds of thousands of other angry and determined people demanding: End The Occupation! Bring Them Home Now! (Tour routes & info: <http://www.bringthemhomenowtour.org/>)

In Texas, folks from the Crawford Peace House --the local institution which hosted Cindy and anchored Camp Casey-- are sorting and packing what's left of the supplies which donors provided last month. They have run three van loads with dry goods and hundreds of cases of water into Waco, the nearest dispersion point for refugees from Louisiana.

And a crew of Veterans For Peace members and supporters loaded VFP Chapter 116's bus with supplies from Crawford and headed into the disaster zone. Linked up with folks from the Louisiana Activist Network, they got as far as Covington, LA just North of Lake Pontchartrain. There, they set up a new Camp Casey, with the informal slogan Same Camp, Different Ditch. They report, "We are here, CAMP CASEY is alive, the food is cooking, and we are handing out supplies to the citizens of the community. We need help. Louisiana Activist Network and the VFP Chapter 116 are the only ones here in Covington."

If you live within traveling distance of Covington, and can help, they are in Reverend Peter Atkins Park at the corner of 28th and Tyler. Desperately needed supplies include: Chest with Ice, Baby supplies, Canned Foods, Water, Gasoline, Additional Generators, Shelter, Flashlights,Batteries, Portable toilets

posted 02 september 2005

August 31 , 2005

THE GUARD AND THE HURRICANE

With many experts calling Hurricane Katrina "the worst natural disaster in US history," millions of residents of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are in desperate need as the catastrophe deepens. Where is the National Guard, historically the shock troops who respond overnight to natural disasters and provide the backbone of relief efforts until recovery is underway? We all know the answer. Too many of them are in Iraq, cannon fodder in an unjust and unjustifiable occupation.

The National Guard and the Bush administration have spin doctors working overtime to paint a happy face on the situation, with press conferences and press releases talking about how they've got more than enough men and women to throw into the breach. Do a Google search for "National Guard" and "Katrina" and you will find dozens of stories with headlines like "National Guard: Enough GIs for Storm Duty."

The real deal is very different.

In early June, well before the hurricane season began, Guard officials knew they were in trouble. The Washinton Post reported then:

In Mississippi, the unit designated as "first responders" to repair hurricane damage, the 223rd Engineer Battalion, was deployed for the past year to Iraq. It has come home, said Maj. Gen. Harold A. Cross. But, he added, "they left the equipment in Iraq." He has been told that by hurricane season he will be given the gear belonging to another unit being deployed. He also noted that he has sent 21 helicopters to Iraq, leaving just five for post-storm rescues and transport of cargo and troops.

Today, 40% of the Mississippi Guard, 3,500 troops, are stationed in Baghdad. Over a quarter of the Alabama and Louisiana Guard are "in country" as well., These percentages are fudged already--the Alabama Army National Guard's roster of 11,000 is already 22% below what it is supposed to be. This is simply the local reflection of a nationwide recruitment and retention crisis in the Guard highlighted by the failure of recruiters to meet their goals for at least the last nine months running.

Furthermore the units most likely to be deployed in Iraq are exactly the ones trained in the skills most needed in the stricken areas right now, like military police, engineers, transport crews and heavy equipment operators and mechanics

Gulf Coast shortages are being hastily filled in by Guard units from around the country, who don't have the same local knowledge. A local news story from Normal, IL, reports on an Illinois State student who was told to report--with rain gear--for what may be a months-long deployment. Galen Parks says he's somewhat surprised a Guard unit from Illinois was being called up for the damage primarily in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

More information about how badly the occupation has hurt the National Guard's ability to respond to the Katrina crisis will doubtless start coming out in the next few days, as the extent of the disaster becomes clearer. Guard troops in Iraq helplessly watching their hometowns savaged and flooded by the storm half a world away will speak up.

And articles like this one will be accused of "politicizing a national tragedy." But It is the politicians responsible for the occupation of Iraq who have compounded the disaster, not us. It is Bush and company who sent troops and equipment now desperately needed in Katrina's wake into harm's way on the other side of he globe..We say: Bring Them Home Now!

posted 31 august 2005

August 27 , 2005

OPEN LETTER TO MR. BUSH
in English y Español

By Fernando Suarez del Solar

To the President of the United States

I write to you in order to call your attention to the current situation in our nation. Because of the immoral and criminal war you initiated against the innocent people of Iraq, the nation is divided. We can all support efforts to vigorously resist international terrorism because no one has the right to take the life of another in the name of some "freedom." Through a series of lies you involved us in a war whose primary justifications--WMDs, a connection between Iraq and the attacks of September 11, 2001, biological weapons--you have been unable to sustain over the last thirty months during which more than 1800 brave and noble U.S. soldiers have died (among them my beloved son Jesús Alberto) and thousands of Iraqi children, women, and old men have been killed.

I remember well when in May of 2003 you stood on an aircraft carrier dressed as a pilot in our glorious airforce. It was the end of major combat operations in Iraq and the banner read "Mission Accomplished." But just yesterday you had to repeat the same rhetoric and said "We will stay in Iraq until we accomplish the mission." Didn't you tell us that the mission was accomplished? Then why are we still in Iraq? Why have more than 1800 soldiers of our glorious armed forces had to die?

Today, outside the confines of your ranch in Texas, a mother like more than 1800 other mothers sits and demands that you, the president of all Americans, face us and personally explain to us why our children have died. You do not have the moral and civil courage to face our tears but you have the nerve to continue to send more young people to either kill or be killed in Iraq.

I ask you, Mr Bush, if you believe that this war is for "Our Freedom" and "Our Values" why don't you send your daughters to fight for freedom? Why don't your closest associates send their children to defend these values? Why are the children of immigrant families dying? Why are children from working families who are the least privileged dying? Why Mr Bush? Why?

Why don't you admit once and for all that you lied? You lied to the American people and to the world when you invaded Iraq because of their WMD. If you accept that you lied, you will save many innocent lives by ending the war you started. Or are you incapable of showing us the slightest human quality of humility and decency?

Cindy Sheehan is all of us. She is our representative but across the United States there are more than 1800 faces like hers who wait to meet you and receive your apology and your heartfelt explanation. Do you have the moral courage to do it? Or will you continue to send more young men and women to die for your vested interests? How much longer will you continue to massacre innocent Iraqis?

When you will stop your crimes, Mr Bush? When?

Can you sleep with so many innocent lives on your conscience? Can you face your own daughters? I hope that God forgives your crimes against humanity and that someday you find respite from the grave crimes for which you are responsible.

Awaiting your reply not to me but to all the victims' families.

Español
Carta al Sr. Bush.

Sr. Presidente de los Estados Unidos de Norte América, Presente.

Por medio de este medio quiero llamar su atención sobre la situación que actualmente estamos viviendo en nuestros país, situación de divisiones entre la población y todo esto gracias a la guerra inmoral y criminal que usted inicio contra el pueblo inocente de Irak, una cosa es el ataque frontal contra el terrorismo internacional, lo cual definitivamente apoyo, ya que nadie, NADIE tiene derecho de quitar la vida a otros en nombre de una "Libertad " y usted de una forma por demás mentirosa nos involucra en un guerra donde sus principales razones,"Armas de destrucción masiva" "relación de Irak con Sep. 11" "Armas químicas" no las ha podido sustentar a lo largo de estos largos 29 meses, en los cuales han muerto mas de 1800 valientes y valiosos soldados Norte Americanos,entre ellos mi amado hijo Jesús Alberto., y cientos de miles de niños,mujeres y ancianos Iraquies., recuerdo muy bien cuando el Primero de Mayo del 2003 usted se monta en un portaaviones y anuncia vestido de aviador de nuestra gloriosa fuerza área, el termino de las operaciones militares en Irak y dice,textualmente, "Misión Cumplida". mas sin embargo, en este año, usted repite su retorico discurso y anuncia que "Continuaremos en Irak hasta el cumplimiento de nuestra Misión" entonces? no según usted esa misión ya estaba cumplida? por que entonces continuamos en ese país? por que han tenido que morir mas de 1800 soldados de nuestro glorioso ejercito?

Y hoy, a las afueras de su rancho en el estado de Texas, una madre, como hay mas de 1800, se le planta y demanda que usted, si usted, el presidente de todos los Americanos, nos de la cara y personalmente nos explique por que motivos han muerto nuestros hijos? no tiene usted el valor moral ni civil de enfrentar las lágrimas de nosotros los padres,pero si tiene el valor; que le da su investidura de continuar mandando cada día mas y mas jóvenes a morir o matar a Irak, le pregunto yo,Sr. Bush, porque ,si tanto piensa usted que esta guerra es por "Nuestra Libertad" y "Nuestros valores", porque no manda a sus hijas a combatir en el nombre de esa "Libertad" porque no están los hijos e hijas de sus colaboradores mas cercanos defendiendo esos ideales que usted tanto pregona? porque solamente están muriendo los hijos de nosotros lo emigrantes? los hijos de las clases trabajadoras que son las mas desprotegidas? por que Sr. Bush? Por que?

Porque no Acepta usted, de una ves por todas, que mintió, que mintió al pueblo Americano, que mintió al mundo entero al declarar la guerra contra Irak por las supuestas Armas? y asi, al aceptar usted su mentira criminal,salvara muchas vidas inocentes al poner termino a la criminal guerra que usted nos involucro, o sera que su calidad de ser humano no le alcanza a tener un gesto de humildad y decencia para con nosotros ?

Cindy Sheehan es nuestro rostro allá en Texas, es la portavoz ,pero en toda la unión americana hay mas de 1800 rostros que están esperando ver el suyo frente a frente y recibir una disculpa, una explicación valiente y honrada, tendrá usted el valor moral de hacerlo?

Continuara usted mandando mas y mas jóvenes a morir por sus sucios intereses capitalistas? continuara usted masacrando a un pueblo inocente?

Hasta cuándo parara usted de sus crímenes Sr.. Bush? Hasta cuándo?

Puede usted dormir tranquilo teniendo en su conciencia las muertes de tantos inocentes? puede ver usted de frente a sus hijas? espero que dios le perdone sus crimenes contra la humanidad y que algun dia encuentyre usted el descanso que no ha de tener hoy gracias a sus horrendos crimenes.

En espera de su respuesta, no a mi, sino a nosotros las familias de sus victimas.
POR UNA GENERACION LLENA DE PAZ Y AMOR!!
EL GUERRERO AZTECA
Que dios les bendiga.
Atentamente:
Fam. Suarez del Solar.
Padres del "GUERRERO AZTECA"
Jesus Alberto Suarez del Solar Navarro Lance Corporal USMC
1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division
fernando@guerreroazteca.org
Fvsuarez2000@yahoo.com.mx

posted 27 august 2005

August 20, 2005

Hypocrites and Liars

By Cindy Sheehan

The media are wrong. The people who have come out to Camp Casey to help coordinate the press and events with me are not putting words in my mouth, they are taking words out of my mouth. I have been known for sometime as a person who speaks the truth and speaks it strongly. I have always called a liar a liar and a hypocrite a hypocrite. Now I am urged to use softer language to appeal to a wider audience. Why do my friends at Camp Casey think they are there? Why did such a big movement occur from such a small action on August 6, 2005?

    I haven't had much time to analyze the Camp Casey phenomena. I just read that I gave 250 interviews in less than a week's time. I believe it. I would go to bed with a raw throat every night. I got pretty tired of answering some questions, like: "What do you want to say to the President?" and "Do you really think he will meet with you?" However, since my mom has been sick I have had a chance to step back and ponder the flood gates that I opened in Crawford, Tx.

    I just read an article posted today on LewRockwell.com by artist Robert Shetterly who painted my portrait. The article reminded me of something I said at the Veteran's for Peace Convention the night before I set out to Bush's ranch in my probable futile quest for the truth. This is what I said:

I got an email the other day and it said, "Cindy if you didn't use so much profanity ... there's people on the fence that get offended.

And you know what I said? "You know what? You know what, god damn it? How in the world is anybody still sitting on that fence?"

If you fall on the side that is pro-George and pro-war, you get your ass over to Iraq, and take the place of somebody who wants to come home. And if you fall on the side that is against this war and against George Bush, stand up and speak out.

    This is what the Camp Casey miracle is all about. American citizens who oppose the war but never had a conduit for their disgust and dismay are dropping everything and traveling to Crawford to stand in solidarity with us who have made a commitment to sit outside of George's ranch for the duration of the miserable Texan August. If they can't come to Texas, they are attending vigils, writing letters to their elected officials and to their local newspapers; they are setting up Camp Casey branches in their hometowns; they are sending flowers, cards, letters, gifts, and donations here to us at Camp Casey. We are so grateful for all of the support, but I think pro-peace Americans are grateful for something to do, finally.

    One thing I haven't noticed or become aware of though is an increased number of pro-war, pro-Bush people on the other side of the fence enlisting to go and fight George Bush's war for imperialism and insatiable greed. The pro-peace side has gotten off their apathetic butts to be warriors for peace and justice. Where are the pro-war people? Everyday at Camp Casey we have a couple of anti-peace people on the other side of the road holding up signs that remind me that "Freedom isn't Free" but I don't see them putting their money where their mouths are. I don't think they are willing to pay even a small down payment for freedom by sacrificing their own blood or the flesh of their children. I still challenge them to go to Iraq and let another soldier come home. Perhaps a soldier that is on his/her third tour of duty, or one that has been stop-lossed after serving his/her country nobly and selflessly, only to be held hostage in Iraq by power mad hypocrites who have a long history of avoiding putting their own skin in the game.

    Contrary to what the main stream media thinks, I did not just fall off a pumpkin truck in Crawford, Tx. on that scorchingly hot day two weeks ago. I have been writing, speaking, testifying in front of Congressional committees, lobbying Congress, and doing interviews for over a year now. I have been pretty well known in the progressive, peace community and I had many, many supporters before I even left California. The people who supported me did so because they know that I uncompromisingly tell the truth about this war. I have stood up and said: "My son died for NOTHING, and George Bush and his evil cabal and their reckless policies killed him. My son was sent to fight in a war that had no basis in reality and was killed for it." I have never said "pretty please" or "thank you." I have never said anything wishy-washy like he uses "Patriotic Rhetoric." I say my son died for LIES. George Bush LIED to us and he knew he was LYING. The Downing Street Memos dated 23 July, 2002 prove that he knew that Saddam didn't have WMD's or any ties to Al Qaeda. I believe that George lied and he knew he was lying. He didn't use patriotic rhetoric. He lied and made us afraid of ghosts that weren't there. Now he is using patriotic rhetoric to keep the US military presence in Iraq: Patriotic rhetoric that is based on greed and nothing else.

    Now I am being vilified and dragged through the mud by the righties and so-called "fair and balanced" main stream media who are afraid of the truth and can't face someone who tells it by telling any truth of their own. Now they have to twist, distort, lie, and scrutinize anything I have ever said when they never scrutinize anything that George Bush said or is saying. Instead of asking George or Scotty McClellan if he will meet with me, why aren't they asking the questions they should have been asking all along: "Why are our young people fighting, dying, and killing in Iraq? What is this noble cause you are sending our young people to Iraq for? What do you hope to accomplish there? Why did you tell us there were WMD's and ties to Al Qaeda when you knew there weren't? Why did you lie to us? Why did you lie to the American people? Why did you lie to the world? Why are our nation's children still in harm's way and dying everyday when we all know you lied? Why do you continually say we have to "complete the mission" when you know damn well you have no idea what that mission is and you can change it at will like you change your cowboy shirts?"

    Camp Casey has grown and prospered and survived all attacks and challenges because America is sick and tired of liars and hypocrites and we want the answers to the tough questions that I was the first to dare ask. THIS is George Bush's accountability moment and he is failing ... miserably. George Bush and his advisers seriously "misunderestimated" me when they thought they could intimidate me into leaving before I had the answers, or before the end of August. I can take anything they throw at me, or Camp Casey. If it shortens the war by a minute or saves one life, it is worth it. I think they seriously "misunderestimated" all mothers. I wonder if any of them had authentic mother-child relationships and if they are surprised that there are so many mothers in this country who are bear-like when it comes to wanting the truth and who want to make meaning of their child's needless and seemingly meaningless deaths?

    The Camp Casey movement will not die until we have a genuine accounting of the truth and until our troops are brought home. Get used to it George, we are not going away.

posted 22 august 2005

August 09, 2005

HOMEGROWN RESISTANCE
— Of Hoisting and Petards

By Stan Goff

"I have learned from first hand experience that war is the destroyer of everything that is good in the world, it turns our young into soulless killers and we tell them that they are heroes when they master the 'art' of killing."
-Kevin Benderman

"I cannot tell anyone else how to live his or her life but I have determined how I want to live mine–by not participating in war any longer…"
-Monica Benderman

"Quit saying that U.S. troops died for a noble cause in Iraq, unless you say, 'well, except for Casey Sheehan.' Don't you dare spill any more blood in Casey's name. You do not have permission to use my son's name." (To President George W. Bush)
-Cindy Sheehan

On July 29th, Sergeant Kevin Benderman was sent to prison for 15 months for filing a conscientious objector application with the Army. This did not come out in his court martial because the court ruled early on that not one word was to be spoken in his defense that relied on his moral objection to the war in Iraq and – for Benderman – all wars of aggression. Because the court could not convict Benderman directly for conscientious objection, a right guaranteed by federal law, they rejected his application without showing adequate cause and forced him to refuse – in accordance with his stated moral objection to the war – redeployment to Iraq. They then multiply charged him with preposterous accusations – including larceny and desertion – in an attempt to intimidate him with the possibility of seven years in prison. At the end of the day on July 29th, only one charge stuck – intentionally missing movement – for which they gave him a stiff 15 months at the Fort Lewis, Washington stockade. The missing movement charge itself had to be trumped up with a series of shifting statements from a senior NCO about the verbal content of a 45-minute meeting. Even the normally timid Amnesty International has publicly acknowledged that Kevin Benderman is "a prisoner of conscience."

Monica Benderman, Kevin's life-partner, has been an active and articulate political-partner throughout this drama – a drama that, despite the Pentagon's efforts to spin, conceal, and minimize, has only served to highlight the dignity of exercising real freedom from within a cell and the utter decadence of those who never cease talking about freedom as an abstraction while they try to bomb and imprison their way out of another resistance.

Neither the administration nor the Pentagon wants anyone to understand this paradox of freedom – real freedom, the existential kind, not that bombast flowing out of Rove's beleaguered office like an overflowing toilet.

Soldiers and soldier's families are constantly instructed on something called courage. People can only hear that word so many times before they begin to actually reflect on what it means; and the briefest reflection reveals something much deeper than the pumped-up physical bravado required to engage in gunfights with strangers.

This administration knows now that the very training and indoctrination that prepares troops for battle can slip the leash and provide the will to face first the truth, and then themselves, and then even prison.

That really sucks for them, for Bush and Rumsfeld, who can never understand anything but the bravado of the rich bully. Because history will be far kinder to Kevin and Monica Benderman than it will be to George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld.

Back when warfare was not digital, and not even mechanized, there was a weapon used to blow holes in walls – an explosive device called a petard. From that era we get the chestnut about being "hoisted on his own petard." It's when one gets blown up by his own bomb… a kind of grim poetic justice. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, the people themselves are the potentially faithless weapons.

It was Brecht who wrote:

General, your tank is a powerful vehicle
It smashes down forests and crushes a hundred men.
But it has one defect:
It needs a driver.

General, your bomber is powerful.
It flies faster than a storm and carries more than an elephant.
But it has one defect:
It needs a mechanic.

General, man is very useful.
He can fly and he can kill.
But he has one defect:
He can think.

Perhaps this is why Donald Rumsfeld is hell-bent on building robot armies; but even still, as an Iraqi man tells a US infantry lieutenant in the upcoming (an d highly recommended) film Occupation: Dreamland, "America is very powerful. It can build nuclear rockets and put people on the moon. But we are the people. America cannot make the people. Only we can make the people."

So Rumsfeld and Cheney's ventriloquist dummy Bush are now looking at their nasty little petard and beginning to realize that it is made with an unstable explosive.

Benderman is the latest in a series of military resisters to face prison, both from the ranks and from the families – because we have to point out that a Monica Benderman is engaging in the same resistance as a Kevin Benderman, and her sacrifice is shared with Kevin's. The families, unlike during the GI resistance of the Vietnam era, are far more directly and aggressively involved in this resistance.

The one time that the sacrifice is not shared between family member and soldier is when the soldier is killed. Then only those who most loved the soldier are left behind with that terrible irreversible absence. The Bush administration doesn't want to talk about that either.

On the back of my old Veterans for Peace tee-shirt, there is a poem by Vietnam Veteran George Swiers:

If we do not
speak of it others
will surely rewrite
the script. Each
of the body bags
all of the mass
graves will be
opened and their
contents abracadabraed
into a noble cause.

Thus are the powerful now trapped in the starched and coiffed, securitized and scripted abracadabra of trying to make their war a noble cause, while Benderman sits in prison a free man because there is nothing they can take away from those who learn to walk past their fear.

The administration cannot talk about Kevin and Monica Benderman's sacrifice without putting Benderman's freedom on display – emboldening others to do the same – and they cannot talk with the aggrieved who have lost their flesh and blood in Iraq – like Cindy Sheehan.

Cindy Sheehan's son Casey was killed on April 4, 2004, during the Sadr rebellion – a rebellion provoked by the Coalition Provisional Authority's decision to bring democracy to the slums of Baghdad by closing their most popular newspaper, al Hawza. When demonstrators protested, American troops opened fire, killing several unarmed people and sparking the armed rebellion that killed Casey Sheehan.

Six days after Kevin Benderman went to prison and Monica started to look for a place in Washington State, Cindy Sheehan, who had come to Dallas for the Veterans for Peace Annual Convention, decided to interdict George W. Bush's vacation at the Crawford "Ranch" two and a half hours away.

She and about 50 conventioneers, including a squad of newly joined Iraq Veterans Against the War, loaded up an "Impeachment" bus and deposited Cindy in a tent adjacent to the Crawford snake and gopher ranch. Cindy said she will stay there until the police drag away a bereaved mother, until the President answers her one question face-to-face, or until Bush leaves Crawford:

"Why did my son die? What was the noble cause that he died for?"

Abracadabra.

Cindy Sheehan and Kevin Benderman and Monica Benderman, and the host of other Gold Star families and military resisters – many of whom were with us at the VFP Convention in Dallas last week, may not be able to wear the expensive clothes, or sport the expensive coifs, or ride in the armored and body-guarded limousines of those powerful men who are trapped in their abracadabra scripts and their tail-spinning agendas, but when you look at them you can see the straight line from freedom to dignity, how something real is inside these ordinary people who have discovered courage in extraordinary circumstances… people like the Bendermans and Cindy Sheehan. Alongside them compare the Bushes and the Rumsfelds and the Cheneys and the Roves – buffoons made dangerous with power, the C-Team of a ruling class in an epoch when their power is hemorrhaging through the wounds being opened by resistance from Baghdad to La Paz, men (and a few women) encircled by the demands of governance and fearful of even the tiniest truths.

Abracadabra… who is nobler than the nobles now?

posted 10 august 2005

July 08, 2005

BLOOD IN LONDON
Guerrero Azteca Project in English y Español

By Fernando Suarez del Solar

Today we awoke to the chilling news of the deaths caused by terrorist attacks in London--innocent people killed by immoral killers whose only recourse is violence and destruction. Unfortunately this will continue to occur as long as leaders like Bush and Blair refuse to reconsider their unethical acts of military assault and economic exploitation in those poor nations rich in natural resources.

When my son died from an illegal U.S. cluster bomb in Iraq I said that this is the beginning of a wave of death around the world. To my great sorrow, I was not mistaken. The dying continues everyday while Bush claims that we are safer because of the occupation of Iraq.

Today, the Aztec Warrior Project calls on the Iraqi insurgents, Muslim religious leaders around the world, and those responsible for the terrible attacks in London to join in the search for political solutions based on dialogue and tolerance. This is the moment to put a stop to the spilling of innocent blood and the suffering of young children who barely have begun their lives.

I also ask President Bush and Prime Minister Blair to call a ceasefire to their military campaign in Iraq and to search for methods to deal with the real enemy. Were they to do so, I am certain that their families would be proud unlike today when they bear the responsibility for thousands of deaths around the world. Indeed, they are responsible for the awakening of this latest wave of hate that produces the continued suffering of innocents.

To the citizens of London I send my steadfast solidarity and my condolences to those who have lost loved ones. But I also convey to them a plea for action that will force their leaders to immediately withdraw their troops from Iraq. Spain has given us a magnificent example after March 11. Let us follow their lead!

To my fellow citizens of the United States I ask in the name of the over 1700 soldiers and Marines who have fallen and the thousands of innocent children killed by the Bush administration that you demand an end to the occupation and the immediate return of our troops. Violence can only beget more violence; the spirit of the word will always lead us toward peace.

Español
Guerrero Azteca por la Paz, censura
de forma enérgica los fatídicos acontecimientos de Londres.

Hoy amanecí con una noticia desgarradora, "muertes en atentados terroristas en Londres", personas inocentes han muerto a manos de personas sin ningún tipo de escrúpulos, que la única voz que tienen para hacerse oír es la violencia ,destrucción y muerte, desgraciadamente esto sera al pan de cada día alrededor del mundo mientras personas como Bush,Blair y otros dirigentes, no recapaciten en sus acciones inmorales de expansionismo y termines de acosar,tanto económicamente,como militarmente a las naciones ricas en recursos naturales.

Cuando mi hijo murió por una bomba ilegal Norteamericana en suelo Iraquie, lo mencione, Este es el principio de una escalada de muertes alrededor del mundo y no solamente en Irak, y desgraciadamente no me equivoque.Las muertes continúan día a día, mientras Bush dice que hoy estamos mas seguros gracias a la ocupación en Irak.

"Guerrero Azteca por la Paz" hace un llamado a los lideres de la insurgencia Iraquie, a los lideres de esos grupos fundamenta listas religiosos, a los responsables de estos censurables ataques terroristas en Londres, un llamado a la concordia, a buscar soluciones por la vía del dialogo, de la tolerancia, es el momento de parar el derramamiento de sangre inocente, las muertes de criaturas que aun no despiertan al mundo y ya les están arrebatando la vida, hago un llamado al presidente Bush, al primer ministro Tony Blair, paren ya las acciones militares en contra de un pueblo inocente, busquen el dialogo concentrado con los mal llamados enemigos de la democracia, y estoy seguro que sus familias podrán verlos con la cabeza en alto y no como hoy, con la vergüenza de que ustedes son los directamente responsables de miles de muertes alrededor del mundo.si, los directamente responsables, ya que ustedes despertaron el odio en miles de personas y las consecuencias de sus acciones militares las tenemos a la vista,muertes de personas inocentes

Al pueblo de Londres, les envió mi mas estrecha solidaridad, mis condolencias por los fallecidos, pero al mismo tiempo les envió una demanda de acción, exigiendo a sus gobernantes el retiro inmediato de sus tropas de Irak. España nos dio un ejemplo magnifico cuando M-11, ustedes pueden hacerlo también!!

Al pueblo de USA, les pido, en nombre de los mas de 1700 soldados caídos en Irak, por los miles niños inocentes asesinados por nuestro gobierno, digamos ALTO a la ocupación y exigíamos el retiro de nuestras tropas inmediatamente.

La violencia solo engendra mas violencia,muerte y destrucción, la palabra con el corazón en la mano, lograra ,siempre la Paz.

posted 09 july 2005

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