Picture of the Week April 28, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in George W. Bush, Iraq and Afghanistan, War.Tags: abby zimet, bush library, George Bush, Iraq, Iraq war, Melissa Stockwell, roger hollander
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04.28.13 – 10:22 AM, http://www.commondreams.org
With all the boot-licking coverage of last week’s rewriting of history, this photo was nowhere in sight. Yes, it’s real: Melissa Stockwell, the first female U.S. soldier to lose a limb in Iraq, reading the Pledge of Allegiance. By Alex Wong for Getty. Worth many thousands of words.
277 Million Boston Bombings April 24, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in armaments, Arms, Asia, History, Iraq and Afghanistan, Laols, Vietnam, War.Tags: Afghanistan, armaments, arms, boston bombings, cluster bombs, history, Iraq, land mines, laos, Robert Scheer, roger hollander, terrorism, Vietnam War, weapons
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SharePosted on Apr 23, 2013, http://www.truthdig.com
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| AP/Brendon Smialowski |
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Then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton looks at a memorial about cluster bombing during a tour of the Cooperative Orthotic Prosthetic Enterprise (COPE) Center in Vientiane, Laos, in 2012. |
The horror of Boston should be a reminder that the choice of weaponry can be in itself an act of evil. “Boston Bombs Were Loaded to Maim” is the way The New York Times defined the hideousness of the weapons used, and President Obama made clear that “anytime bombs are used to target innocent civilians, it is an act of terror.” But are we as a society prepared to be judged by that standard?
The president’s deployment of drones that all too often treat innocent civilians as collateral damage comes quickly to mind. It should also be pointed out that the U.S. still maintains a nuclear arsenal and, as our killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese demonstrated, those weapons are inherently, by the president’s definition, weapons of terror. But it is America’s role in the deployment of antipersonnel land mines, and our country’s refusal to sign off on a ban on cluster munitions agreed to by most of the world’s nations, that offers the most glaring analogy with the carnage of Boston.
To this day, antipersonnel weapons—the technologically refined version of the primitive pressure cooker fragmentation bombs exploded in Boston—maim and kill farmers and their children in the Southeast Asian killing fields left over from our country’s past experiment in genocide. An experiment that as a sideshow to our obsession with replacing French colonialism in Vietnam involved dropping 277 million cluster bomblets on Laos between 1964 and 1973.
The whole point of a cluster weapon is to target an area the size of several football fields with the same bits of maiming steel that did so much damage in Boston. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has been active in attempting to clear land of remaining bomblets, estimates 10,000 Lao civilian casualties to date from such weapons. As many as twenty-seven million unexploded bomblets remain in the country, according to the committee.
Back in 1964 at the start of that bombing campaign, I reported from Laos, an economically primitive land where a pencil was a prize gift to students. It is staggering to me that the death we visited upon a people, then largely ignorant of life in America, still should be ongoing.and the deadly bomblets they contain has since expanded to most of the world, and they have been used by at least 15 nations. As a recent Congressional Research Service report noted:
“Cluster munitions were used by the Soviets in Afghanistan, by the British in the Falklands, by the Coalition in the Gulf War, and by the warring factions in Yugoslavia. In Kosovo and Yugoslavia in 1999, NATO forces dropped 1,765 cluster bombs containing approximately 295,000 submunitions. From 2001 through 2002, the United States dropped 1,228 cluster bombs containing 248,056 submunitions in Afghanistan, and U.S. and British forces used almost 13,000 cluster munitions containing an estimated 1.8 million to 2 million submunitions during the first three weeks of combat in Iraq in 2003.”
Israel is said to have dropped almost 1 million unexploded bomblets in Lebanon in the 2006 war against Hezbollah, which fired 113 cluster bombs filled with thousands of bomblets at targets in northern Israel.
I list all those dreary statistics to drive home the point that the horror of two pressure cooker bombs in Boston that has so traumatized us should help us grasp the significance of the 1.8 million bomblets dropped in Iraq over a three-week period.
Obama was right to blast the use of weapons that targeted civilians in Boston as inherent acts of terrorism, but by what standard do such weapons change their nature when they are deployed by governments against civilians?
On Aug. 1, 2010, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, banning such weapons, became a matter of international law for the 111 nations, including 18 NATO members, that signed the agreement. The U.S. was not one of them. Current American policy, according to the Congressional Research Service report, is that “cluster munitions are available for use by every combat aircraft in the U.S. inventory; they are integral to every Army or Marine maneuver element and in some cases constitute up to 50 percent of tactical indirect fire support.”
However, there is new legislation pending in Congress that would require the president to certify that cluster munitions would “only be used against clearly defined military targets” and not deployed “where civilians are known to be present or in areas normally inhabited by civilians.” Lots of luck with that.
The Last Letter March 20, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Imperialism, Iraq and Afghanistan, War.Tags: Dick Cheney, George Bush, Iraq, Iraq invasion, iraq veteran, Iraq war, roger hollander, tomas young, U.S. imperialism
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Roger’s note: I want you to picture Bush and Cheney reading this letter. Notice the arrogance, the smugness, the disgusting grins as they dismiss these heartfelt letter with less concern than they would flicking an annoying fly of the table. They are impervious to moral criticism, they act with virtually complete impunity. It is frustrating, it is infuriating that so much power is in the hands of such reduced human beings. It is our present reality. They coined the phrase “axis of evil.” Ironic.
“How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?” Bob Dylan
A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran
To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young
I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.
I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.
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I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.
Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.
I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.
| To read Chris Hedges’ recent interview with Tomas Young, click here. |
I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.
I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.
My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.
Iraq invasion ‘the most vile crime against humanity of many of our lifetimes’ March 19, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in History, Imperialism, Iraq and Afghanistan, War.Tags: fallujah, Iraq, iraq children, iraq deaths, iraq government, Iraq invasion, Iraq occupation, Iraq war, kevin baker, roger hollander, U.S. imperialism
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Thoughts on the 10th anniversary of the war on Iraq
By Kevin Baker
The author is a former Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army infantry who spent a total of 28 months in Iraq.
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| Millions of Iraqi children have suffered the death of a close family member at the hands of the U.S. military, and will forever be impacted by the trauma of living under a brutal occupation for nearly a decade. |
In the next few minutes, as you’re reading this, a mother will give birth in Fallujah. There is a 33% chance because of U.S.-used depleted uranium that the child will be born with a life-crippling birth defect, or dead; a young man will forge through piles of trash for food to feed his impoverished and displaced family. There are over 5 million displaced Iraqis, high estimates of over 1.3 million killed and an entire country with no secure future. Food, water, power, housing, education, safety, freedom of speech—all words absent from America’s “liberated Iraq.” Most of these events are rarely reported.
Today marks the tenth year “anniversary” of the U.S.-led invasion against the people of Iraq. But this wasn’t the beginning of the U.S. war against the people of Iraq, it began much earlier. The United States has been for over 22 years (and still to this day) torturing the Iraqi people. From the bombing of powdered milk factories to the destruction of water purification facilities, the United States government has targeted the most innocent of Iraqis, their children. 500,000 Iraqi children were executed by the United States in the form of sanctions, embargoes, starvation and bombing campaigns prior to the invasion in 2003.
Today Iraq is in shambles because of the almost decade-long US occupation and war. The majority of Iraqi people do not have access to continued supply of clean water, food, shelter, education, healthcare or security. The current Iraqi government has expressed its concern for the Iraqi people in the form of U.S.- supplied guns, bullets and misery. Peaceful demonstrations against government corruption and injustice are met with deadly violence from the new “democratic” government; organizers are jailed and tortured.
Explosions erupt in crowded cities tearing people and families apart, shattering brick and glass while soaking the streets with blood. The country’s once-united national identity, with no sectarian strife, was consciously demolished and manipulated by the U.S. occupation. The people of Iraq never asked for the U.S. invasion or occupation yet it is them who pay the price for it on a daily basis. For them, the Iraq war didn’t end the day the United States withdrew its occupying forces, for them the Iraq war is still very real.
The harsh reality of daily life for the Iraqi people seems to be missing from the mainstream media. The Bush administration submitted false intelligence reports while lying to the American people about WMD’s. Every piece of “evidence” that the Bush administration had introduced to justify going to war with Iraq is now known to be a lie. However, those that convinced the American people it was in our interests to send our loved ones to war and die are still free today.
In fact, those who lied to the American people sending us to die are now waging a new warfare on those service members they depended on to wager their war. They are waging an economic assaults against the enlisted rank-and-file in the form of exterminating the Tuition Assistance programs. The politicians chant slogans like “Support our Troops” while cutting medical aid to those wounded in their wars, and refusing to respond in any meaningful way to the suicide epidemic. The current Democratic administration continues to send young men and women to kill and be killed in the unpopular Afghanistan war, another war for profit based on lies. If this government does not care about its own service members, why would we buy the line that they care about liberating other nations?
On the tenth tragic anniversary of Iraq we send our deepest and most sincere condolences to the people of Iraq. Words cannot express the sorrow, sadness and regret we have for participating in the imperialists’ war. Every war and every act of aggression by the United States is cloaked in the noble cause of “humanitarian intervention” or “promotion of democracy” or “protecting civilians” as bombs, bullets and sanctions rained down upon the heads of the innocent.
Today we mark this anniversary as the most vile crime against humanity in many of our lifetimes. Until people in the United States see the class character of every U.S.- led war, enlisted service members will be sent to kill and die for the wealthy, and millions of innocent people will bear the brutal violence. It is our role as veterans to unmask and expose the real character of U.S. wars and defend the rights of those targeted by U.S.-aggression.
We will continue to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Iraq, fight the Afghanistan war and every war or “intervention” promoted by this government, and expose imperialism as a system we live under, not a policy. The United States government will not re-write history to fit its agenda. The historical tragedy that is known as the “Iraq War” will be remembered for what it is; an act of illegal aggression by the belligerent force of the United States. Together we will work to insure history does not repeat itself, ever again.
Confronting the lies about the Iraq invasion March 18, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Iraq and Afghanistan, Media, War.Tags: anti-war, anti-war movement, anti-war protests, brian becker, cheney, George Bush, history, Iraq, Iraq invasion, Iraq war, liberals, Media, roger hollander, saddam hussein, U.S. imperialism, us empire, wmd
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Please circulate this message widely among your friends and family.
Statement by Brian Becker, national coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition, on the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq Confronting the lies about the Iraq invasion Ten years ago, the United States and Britain invaded Iraq. The history of how this invasion came about has been largely falsified by both the right-wing supporters of the invasion and the liberal commentators who opposed the war.
500,000 rally against looming war on Jan 18, 2003
The core argument of the professional liberal commentators and historians is that Bush hoodwinked the country and the general public, with the help of a supplicant media, by scaring people into thinking that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and the Bush administration had to invade to defend America and its people. The fallacious handwringing liberal position was typified in the recent 10th-anniversary account of the war by Micah Sifry, published by the National Memo. “But 10 years ago, it was not a good time to be a war skeptic in America. It rarely is. The vast majority of ‘smart’ and ‘serious’ people had convinced themselves that in the face of Saddam Hussein’s alleged stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction, the prudent thing to do was to go to war to remove him from power,” writes Sifry. This is a fanciful and false account. The “country” was not hoodwinked. There was no general feeling that the U.S. must strike first or be engulfed by Saddam Hussein’s military. The opposite was true. The people of this country—and the world—mobilized in unprecedented numbers prior to a military conflict under the banner: “Stop the War Before it Starts.” An unprecedented, massive anti-war movement In the months prior to the invasion, I was the central organizer of the mass anti-war actions in Washington, D.C., that brought many hundreds of thousands of people into the streets of the capital in repeated demonstrations—on Oct. 26, 2002; Jan. 18, 2003; and March 15, 2003. The Jan. 18, 2003, demonstration filled up a vast expanse of the Mall west of the Capitol building, which houses the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The Washington Post described the Jan. 18 demonstration as the largest anti-war protest since the end of the Vietnam War. In addition to the Washington demonstrations, there were mass anti-war protests in cities throughout the United States, on both the east and west coasts and nearly everywhere in between. Thousands of organizations and millions of individuals were participants and organizers in this grassroots global movement. On Feb. 15, 2003, there were coinciding demonstrations in more than 1,000 cities in almost every country—including many hundreds of cities and towns in the United States. The rise of a global anti-war movement of such magnitude—before the actual start of military hostilities—was without precedent in human history. Mass anti-war movements and even revolutions have occurred inside one or more of the warring countries at the time of their defeat or perceived defeat, but the Iraq anti-war movement of 2002-2003 was in anticipation of a war and before the gruesome impact of the slaughter could be seen and felt. The depth of the movement was breathtaking for the organizers and the participants. Millions went into the streets over and over and over again. They knew that they were in a race against time. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were likewise racing to go to war, not because Iraq was getting stronger or closer to having weapons of mass destruction but because this global grassroots anti-war movement had the potential to shake the political status quo to its very foundations In February 2003, The New York Times described the global anti-war movement as the world’s “second super-power.” Why the race toward war It was under these circumstances that the “mass media” went into overdrive to promote the war. Anti-war voices on television were booted off the air. The airwaves were filled up with the obviously bogus imagery that Iraq in league with unspecified “Muslim terrorists” was about to engulf the United States in a nuclear mushroom cloud. The message was that war was inevitable and that protests were futile. Bush rushed hundreds of thousands of troops to Kuwait in a race to launch the invasion that they knew was likely to destroy the Iraqi military in a few weeks. The Democratic Party leaders in Congress had already acquiesced to Bush and Cheney’s war demands. Even though the calls and letters to Congress against the war were running 200 to 1, both the Senate and the House of Representatives, by lopsided margins, passed resolutions on Oct. 11, 2002, authorizing Bush to use the armed forces of the United States against Iraq. The Iraq invasion was a criminal enterprise. Millions of Iraqis died, more than five million were forced into the miserable life of refugees, thousands of U.S. troops were killed and tens of thousands of others suffered life-changing physical and mental injuries. Today, Bush and Cheney are writing books and collecting huge speaking fees. They are shielded from prosecution by the current Democratic-led government. The war in Iraq was not simply a “mistake” nor was it the consequence of a hoodwinked public. It was rather a symptom of the primary reality of the modern-day political system in the U.S. This system is addicted to war. It relies on organized violence, or the threat of violence, to maintain the dominant position of the United States all over the world. The U.S. has invaded or bombed one country after another since the end of the so-called Cold War. It has military bases in 130 countries and spends more on lethal violence than all other countries combined. Yes, in the United States the adult population is encouraged to vote every two or four years for one of two ruling-class parties that enforce the global projection of U.S. empire with equal vigor when they take turns at the helm. And this is labeled the exercise of “democracy” and proof that the United States is indeed the land of the free. The invasion of Iraq succeeded in creating mass human suffering and death. What Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld failed to anticipate was that the Iraqi people, like all people everywhere, would never willingly accept life under occupation. It was the unanticipated resistance of the Iraqi people that eventually forced the withdrawal of the occupation forces nine long years later. Brian Becker was the lead organizer of the largest anti-war demonstrations in Washington, D.C., between Oct. 26, 2002, and the start of the Iraq invasion on March 19, 2003. The October demonstration drew 200,000 people. Less than two months later, on Jan. 18, 2003, approximately 500,000 demonstrated again in what the Washington Post called the “largest anti-war demonstration” in Washington, D.C., since the end of the Vietnam War. On Feb. 15, 2003, millions of people demonstrated in nearly 1,000 cities around the world, including several hundred cities and towns in the United States. On March 15, just four days before the start of the invasion, 100,000 demonstrated once gain in Washington, D.C.
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Wounded Knee 122 Years Later December 29, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in First Nations, Genocide, History, Human Rights.Tags: black elk, frank baum, gaza, genocide, history, Iran, Iraq, johnny barber, lakota, lbj, massacre, roger hollander, sioux, vietnam, wounded knee
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Published on Saturday, December 29, 2012 by Common Dreams
December 29th marks the 122nd anniversary of the Massacre at Wounded Knee. It is a story that remains fresh in the lives of many indigenous peoples across America. Each generation is taught to never forget.
In 1891, reviewing the history leading up to the massacre, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Thomas Morgan said,
“It is hard to overestimate the magnitude of the calamity which happened to the Sioux people by the sudden disappearance of the buffalo. The boundless range was to be abandoned for the circumscribed reservation, and abundance of plenty to be supplanted by limited and decreasing government subsistence and supplies. Under these circumstances it is not in human nature not to be discontented and restless, even turbulent and violent.”
Commissioner Morgan was not empathetic about the plight of the indigenous people. He was just stating facts. One year prior to the massacre, in Oct 1889, he issued a policy paper stating his convictions regarding the native population.
“The Indians must conform to “the white man’s ways,” peaceably if they will, forcibly if they must. They must adjust themselves to their environment, and conform their mode of living substantially to our civilization. This civilization may not be the best possible, but it is the best the Indians can get. They cannot escape it, and must either conform to it or be crushed by it. The tribal relations should be broken up, socialism destroyed, and the family and the autonomy of the individual substituted.”
The Wounded Knee Massacre is still commonly depicted as a “battle” that no one can be blamed for, but if blame is assigned it is always made clear that a Lakota fired the first shot. This is the justification for all that followed. A century after the murders, Congress issued an apology, expressing “deep regret” for the events on that day in 1890 when upwards of 370 men, women, and children were gunned down as they fled for their lives. But the Wounded Knee Massacre was not an anomaly, nor was it an accident. Wounded Knee is the entire history of indigenous peoples relationship with Imperialism made manifest in a single event.
“I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.” Black Elk.
The ancestors of the victims commemorate the massacre in order to honor those who have fallen and to foster healing of their still devastated communities. The ancestors of the perpetrators ignore inflicting the wound and the wound festers.
From Wounded Knee, where just days after the massacre a young newspaper editor named Frank Baum (later to become famous for the children’s story “The Wizard of Oz”) opined, “The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.“
To Vietnam, where Lyndon Johnson’s call to win hearts and minds of the civilian population was corrupted by GI’s to, “When you have them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.”
To Iraq, where Madeline Albright was asked if the deaths of ½ million children during sanctions was worth it, she replied “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”
To Gaza, where Dov Weisglass said, “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”
To Iran where a new sanctions regime is in place and the state department claims, “The sanctions are beginning to bite,” and dozens of places in between, the wound festers.
In each case, the power with the superior military claims that the occupied and oppressed are dangerous and threaten the very existence of the state, even as the state starves the population, restricts their every move and denies them the most basic rights under the guise of “security”. All attempts by the “enemy” to seek peace are ignored or derided as “lies” while the theft of land and/or resources continue unabated. Each time the oppressed demand their rights or dare to strike back against their oppressors, the oppressor claims that the people are motivated by hate and seek the annihilation of the state. Negotiations are viewed as a sign of weakness and are rarely pursued unless they can be used as a tool to further oppression. The oppressors continually talk about “pursuing peace” as they systematically destroy any and all opposition.
We kill by starvation, we kill by denying medicine, and we kill by isolation. When that doesn’t silence dissent of the “malcontents” we do not hesitate to kill with bullets and bombs. Remember Commissioner Morgan’s words, “This civilization may not be the best possible, but it is the best they can get. They cannot escape it, and must either conform to it or be crushed by it.”
One day we too will be crushed by this flawed concept of civilization.
The Dahiya doctrine is a military strategy in which the Israeli army deliberately targets civilian infrastructure as a means of inducing suffering on the civilian population, making it so difficult to survive that fighting back or resisting occupation are no longer practical, thereby establishing deterrence. The doctrine is named after a southern suburb in Beirut with large apartment blocks. Israeli bombs flattened the entire neighborhood during the 2006 Lebanon War. But this doctrine is not a modern strategy for controlling populations. Nor is putting the people of Gaza on a “diet” new- subjugating an entire population through a combination of poverty, malnutrition, a struggle over limited resources, and violence is the American way, adopted by our closest allies, (and “the only democracy in the Middle East,” with the “most moral army in the world,”) the Israelis.
Dec 27th marks the 4th anniversary of the beginning of Operation Cast Lead, (the name derives from a popular Hannukah children’s song about a dreidel made from cast lead.) During this attack on Gaza, 1,417 people were killed (330 children), 4336 were wounded. 6,400 homes were destroyed. Hospitals, mosques, the power plant, and the sewage system were deliberately targeted.
Israel accuses Hamas of war crimes for shooting rockets without guidance systems indiscriminately into Israel. Israeli officials claim that “Hamas hides behind civilians” as a justification to bomb civilian population centers and infrastructure. Killing civilians in Gaza using precision munitions, is a war crime, no matter who is hiding behind them.
After the recent killing of 20 children in a Newtown, Connecticut grade school, President Obama, wiping tears from his eyes said,
“This is our first task — caring for our children. It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how, as a society, we will be judged. And by that measure, can we truly say, as a nation, that we are meeting our obligations?“
The just completed eight-day Israeli operation against Gaza called the Pillar of Cloud (The name is derived from a Biblical passage) saw three generations of the al-Dalu family wiped out in a single bombing, including 4 children between the ages of 1 and 7 years old. The surviving son does not speak of surrender, relinquishing the families land, or disappearing. He demands justice. His tears are mixed with fury. Can he be blamed?
As the ceasefire went in to effect there was one consistent message from the people of Gaza. We are here. This is our home. We will never leave. They will have to kill every one of us.
Upon cessation of the bombing, our Congress immediately voted to replenish Israel’s bombs and munitions in order for Israel to “protect itself”. The wound festers.
In his speech the President went on to say,
“If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that — then surely we have an obligation to try.”
Wounded Knee has not disappeared. The Lakota people remain. Gaza has not disappeared. The Palestinian people remain. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia people grieve for the loss of their children. The violence wrought upon them in our name continues. If we can take one step to save another child, we have an obligation to try.
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Johnny Barber is currently in Afghanistan as a member of a delegation from Voices for Creative Non-Violence. He has traveled to Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Gaza to bear witness and document the suffering of people who are affected by war. His work can be viewed at: www.oneBrightpearl-jb.blogspot.com and www.oneBrightpearl.com
‘Continuing Impunity’: No Charges for CIA in Detainee Torture, Deaths August 31, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Civil Liberties, Constitution, Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Torture.Tags: Abu Ghraib, aclu, afaghnaistan, cia, detainees, eric holder, Gul Rahman, human rights, Iraq, justice department, Manadel al-Jamadi, roger hollander, torture
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Published on Friday, August 31, 2012 by Common Dreams
Years-long Justice Dept. investigation ends without accountability
- Common Dreams staff
The CIA will face no charges over the torture and death of detainees while in custody, the U.S. Justice Department announced on Thursday as it ended a criminal investigation begun by Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham in 2008. Rights groups have called the decision “nothing short of a scandal.”
Gul Rahman, who died in 2002 while being held at a secret CIA facility known as the ‘Salt Pit’ in Afghanistan (photo: AP)
Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement, “Based on the fully developed factual record concerning the two deaths, the Department has declined prosecution because the admissible evidence would not be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Democracy Now! summarizes the part of the investigation begun in June of 2011 into the deaths of two detainees: “The Justice Department had been probing the deaths of two men: one in Iraq, and one in Afghanistan. Gul Rahman died in 2002 while being held at a secret CIA facility known as the ‘Salt Pit’ in Afghanistan. He had been shackled to a concrete wall in near-freezing temperatures. Manadel al-Jamadi died in 2003 while in CIA custody at Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison. His corpse was photographed packed in ice and wrapped in plastic.”
The ACLU slammed the decision.
“That the Justice Department will hold no one accountable for the killing of prisoners in CIA custody is nothing short of a scandal,” said Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director. “The Justice Department has declined to bring charges against the officials who authorized torture, the lawyers who sought to legitimate it, and the interrogators who used it. It has successfully shut down every legal suit meant to hold officials civilly liable.
“Continuing impunity threatens to undermine the universally recognized prohibition on torture and other abusive treatment and sends the dangerous signal to government officials that there will be no consequences for their use of torture and other cruelty. Today’s decision not to file charges against individuals who tortured prisoners to death is yet another entry in what is already a shameful record.”
The Center for Constitutional Rights also criticized the decision and noted the importance of independent investigations.
“Once again, the United States has shown it is committed to absolving itself of any responsibility for its crimes over the past decade. Today’s announcement belies U.S. claims that it can be trusted to hold accountable Americans who have perpetrated torture and other human rights abuses, and underscores the need for independent investigations elsewhere, such as the investigation underway in Spain, to continue. Impunity does not always cross borders,” the group stated.
In Iraq, Occupation by Another Name February 27, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Iraq and Afghanistan, War.Tags: roger hollander, Iraq war, Iraq, Iraq occupation, Iraq mercenaries, iraq contractors, iraq embassy, adil e. shamoo, us troops iraq, iraq cia
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Roger’s note: I admit that I was wrong in predicting the number of actual troops the US would leave behind as it “pulled out” of Iraq and declared a glorious victory (having been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and destroying the country’s infrastructure). I cannot find any realistic estimation of the number of troops left behind as “trainers,” but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were in the thousands. In any case, with the 16,000 “diplomats” left in the mother of all embassies, and the thousands of mercenaries there to protect them (from those ungrateful Iraqis), it is clear that a de facto occupation remains. And of course there is the CIA, god only knows how many of them are left behind. Here is one report: http://www.npr.org/2011/12/27/144198497/no-u-s-troops-but-an-army-of-contractors-in-iraq
by: Adil E. Shamoo, The Baltimore Sun | Op-Ed February 27, 2012
Two recent reports appearing on the same day last week in The New York Times and The Washington Post illustrate U.S. intentions in Iraq. What they reveal is that despite the heralded “end” of U.S. participation in the war there, U.S. policy continues to depend on our security apparatus to influence Iraq, at the expense of Iraqis’ sovereignty and dignity.
The Times report informed us that the U.S. State Departmentdecided to cut the U.S. embassy staff by 50 percent from its current 16,000 personnel. This is a good decision; the U.S. embassy in Baghdad is the largest in the world. The reason given for the decision is primarily to reduce the American footprint in Iraq with the hope of reducing Iraqi hostility toward these evident remnants of occupation.
The second report, in the Post, informs us that the U.S. is significantly ramping up the number of CIA personnel and covert Special Operations forces in order to make up for reducing the American military and diplomatic footprint. These added covert personnel will be distributed in safe houses in urban centers all across the country. This represents a new way to exert U.S. power, but it is betting on the Iraqis not noticing the increased covert personnel. Really? This is a bad decision as it contradicts the reasons for the decision to reduce embassy staff.
The Iraqis have suffered for nine years as a result of the U.S. invasion and occupation. The economic, educational and political systems in Iraq have been destroyed. Sectarianism, contrary to the belief of many in the U.S., has become the order of the day since the invasion. A significant percentage of Iraqis do not like us and do not want us to stay in Iraq. No Iraqi politicians want to openly be identified as pro-American.
Animosity toward the U.S. is on the rise because of the heavy U.S. presence in Iraq. Our projects in Iraq function to serve our interests, such as building and training security forces to keep the Iraqis in check (building the infrastructure for the promotion of democracy has taken a back seat). We have made sure that Iraq, for the foreseeable future, will depend on us for security equipment and spare parts, heavy industrial machinery, and banking. We built Iraq’s security forces but made sure it has no air force. And the half-hearted democracy we built is a shambles; graft and corruption are still rampant.
Iraqis can tell the difference between mutually beneficial programs and those that create the impression that the U.S. is powerful and can do what it wants in Iraq.
Four years ago, on this page, I speculated that the massive U.S. embassy being built in Baghdad would be pillaged by angry Iraqis blaming the U.S. for destroying their country. In a follow-up article, I suggested that as a goodwill gesture, the embassy be converted into a university staffed primarily by volunteers from the Iraqi expatriates community in the U.S. The conversion of the embassy into a university surely would not cost a large portion of the embassy’s current $6 billion budget. Such an institution, filling much of the compound’s soon-to-be-vacated space, would serve the U.S. interest much better than boots on the ground (or in safe houses) and turn a new page in our relationship with the Iraqi people.
U.S. policy in Iraq is in need of a wholesale change — not a ramping up of covert operations and certainly not in urban centers. All of the ingredients of Arab awakening are alive and well in Iraq. U.S. policy needs to realize this and build on it, not implement policies that denigrate Iraqi aspirations, hopes and autonomy.
Justice for Casey Sheehan and Hundreds of Thousands of Others October 23, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Iraq and Afghanistan, War.Tags: Casey Sheehan, Cindy Sheehan, cost of war, Iraq, Iraq mercenaries, iraq troops, Iraq war, maliki, war, War Crimes
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It was with great sorrow and fear that my family watched the insane and inexplicable rush of our nation to invade two countries that had absolutely nothing to do with the events on September 11, 2001.
It was with greater sorrow and fear that my family watched one of our indispensable members, Casey, march off to one of those immoral occupations in Iraq.
Our lives were shattered when he came home in a cardboard box, shortly after he was killed there on April 04, 2004. We picked Casey’s body up from the airport in San Francisco for the final time at a United Airlines loading dock, where his cardboard box was unceremoniously loaded into the hearse for his last ride home.(And the longest ride of my life).
Along with the rest of our family, Casey was opposed to these wars of aggression and before he left for Iraq, Casey, a Humvee mechanic, told everyone that he wouldn’t be able to “kill anyone.”
Well, one president, thousands of American deaths, over a million Iraqi deaths, and almost nine years later, Barack Obama has announced that all US troops would be leaving Iraq by the end of this year. I’d like to remind everyone that Barack Obama stated that ending the war in Iraq would be the “first thing” he did as President–and we could even “take it to the bank,” (probably one of the failed ones) and that this withdrawal is something Bush-Maliki scheduled back at the end of 2008.
I would like to send my deepest apologies to the people of Iraq for what my country has done there, but also my congratulations (no matter how reserved) because this is something that the people of Iraq have been fighting for and I am happy for them that US troops finally will be vacating their country.
However, did Obama just forget about the heavily fortified 104 acre US Embassy in Baghdad that employs 3000, or the enormous US consulates in Basra and Erbil, that will eventually employ about another 3000 people–or the thousands of paid mercenaries that will remain after the end of this year?
I didn’t hear Obama talk about the destruction of infrastructure and lives for the people of Iraq—or the high increases in cancer rates and birth defects from the usage of depleted uranium coated munitions.
The two most important things, though, that I did not hear Obama say are these: prosecuting members of the Bush regime for the hundreds of lies it told about Iraq, and paying reparations to the people of Iraq.
I can only hope that when US troops do pull out that the US puppet government pulls out of there, too, and the people of Iraq can finally and completely have their country back and with full and unfettered access to the natural resources that belong to the people. Unfortunately, with thousands of Americans, mercenary troops and foreign oil companies, I don’t think the struggle is over.
Also, which war will Obama send these troops that are leaving Iraq to? Pakistan? Afghanistan? Uganda? Iran? Or somewhere else that we can only imagine?
These wars have cost my family dearly and have sucked at least three trillion dollars out of our economy.
We will never get Casey back and no amount of death/destruction will make his “sacrifice” “worth it”—the only thing that could bring comfort to our family now is accountability and an end to war as the first go-to tool in the box of US foreign policy.
RIP, Casey Austin Sheehan and so many others who are dead for absolutely no reason other than profit for the few.
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Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan who was KIA in Iraq on 04/04/04. She is a co-founder and President of Gold Star Families for Peace and the author of two books: Not One More Mother’s Child and Dear President Bush.
The Iraq War Ain’t Over, No Matter What Obama Says October 21, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Barack Obama, Iraq and Afghanistan, War.Tags: al-Qaeda, cia, global strategies group, Iraq, Iraq mercenaries, Iraq war, jsoc, mercenaries, roger hollander, spencer ackerman, triple caopy
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- October 21, 2011 |
President Obama announced on Friday that all 41,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq will return home by December 31. “That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end,” he said. Don’t believe him.
Now: it’s a big deal that all U.S. troops are coming home. For much of the year, the military, fearful of Iranian influence, has sought a residual presence in Iraq of several thousand troops. But arduous negotiations with the Iraqi government about keeping a residual force stalled over the Iraqis’ reluctance to provide them with legal immunity.
But the fact is America’s military efforts in Iraq aren’t coming to an end. They are instead entering a new phase. On January 1, 2012, the State Department will command a hired army of about 5,500 security contractors, all to protect the largest U.S. diplomatic presence anywhere overseas.
The State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security does not have a promising record when it comes to managing its mercenaries. The 2007 Nisour Square shootings by State’s security contractors, in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed, marked one of the low points of the war. Now, State will be commanding a much larger security presence, the equivalent of a heavy combat brigade. In July, Danger Room exclusively reported that the Department blocked the Congressionally-appointed watchdog for Iraq from acquiring basic information about contractor security operations, such as the contractors’ rules of engagement.
That means no one outside the State Department knows how its contractors will behave as they ferry over 10,000 U.S. State Department employees throughout Iraq — which, in case anyone has forgotten, is still a war zone. Since Iraq wouldn’t grant legal immunity to U.S. troops, it is unlikely to grant it to U.S. contractors, particularly in the heat and anger of an accident resulting in the loss of Iraqi life.
It’s a situation with the potential for diplomatic disaster. And it’s being managed by an organization with no experience running the tight command structure that makes armies cohesive and effective.
You can also expect that there will be a shadow presence by the CIA, and possibly the Joint Special Operations Command, to hunt persons affiliated with al-Qaida. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has conspicuously stated that al-Qaida still has 1,000 Iraqi adherents, which would make it the largest al-Qaida affiliate in the world.
So far, there are three big security firms with lucrative contracts to protect U.S. diplomats. Triple Canopy, a longtime State guard company, has a contract worth up to $1.53 billion to keep diplos safe as they travel throughout Iraq. Global Strategies Group will guard the consulate at Basra for up to $401 million. SOC Incorporated will protect the mega-embassy in Baghdad for up to $974 million. State has yet to award contracts to guard consulates in multiethnic flashpoint cities Mosul and Kirkuk, as well as the outpost in placid Irbil.
“We can have the kind of protection our diplomats need,” Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough told reporters after Obama’s announcement. Whether the Iraqi people will have protection from the contractors that the State Department commands is a different question. And whatever you call their operations, the Obama administration hopes that you won’t be so rude as to call it “war.”
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
See Also:
- 5,500 Mercs to Protect U.S. Fortresses in Iraq
- Exclusive: U.S. Blocks Oversight of Its Mercenary Army in Iraq
- Two More Merc Firms Get Big Iraq Contracts
- Military to Iraq: Are You Really Gonna Kick Us Out?
- Iraqis Want Mercs, Not U.S. Troops, To Stick Around
- Exclusive: Blackwater Wins Piece of $10 Billion Mercenary Deal
Spencer Ackerman is Danger Room’s senior reporter, based out of Washington, D.C., covering weapons of doom and the strategies they’re used to implement.
Follow @attackerman and @dangerroom on Twitter.
Follow @attackerman and @dangerroom on Twitter.
27 Comments so far
“an end to war as the first go-to tool in the box of US foreign policy.”
It often seems to me that foreign policy is the first go-to tool of the military enthusiasts who use it as an excuse to make war. President Junior’s Iraq war is the best example of that: the decision to go to war came first then the supposed reasons were contrived and cobbled together.
Of course, since Obama/Biden and the Democrats have all continued the Bush/Cheney/Republican war crimes and crimes against humanity, and are as complicit in them, don’t ever expect prosecutions from this two-party Wall Street/Corporatist/Warmonger Ruling Class.
Unless and until we have a new economic/political system here, in which justice, obedience to the law and fairness are prominent features, true justice for Casey Sheehan and all the others murdered, maimed, tortured, or made refugees by U.S. imperial policies will have to wait.
Cindy, first off, I am sorry for your loss. I too lost a child and it stays with your forever.
Second, thank you for camping out and speeking out about the war.
Too bad the rest of the US was to stupid to understand what you were saying.
And the headlines all over the world should be:
THE US LOST THE WAR OF IRAQ! Not this bs that Obama is saying that he kept his promise. The weasel lost the right to stay and occupy a country that the US illegally invaded.
This is great – to hear from Cindy, an International Treasure. Thank you, Cindy, for sending apologies to the people in Iraq. Also, the U$A should pay reparations to the people of Iraq. We owe them big time. Wars will go on until US taxpayers have to pay for the destructuion they cause in other countries. It is now time to pay the bill to Iraq, Afgan, Pak, Diego Garcia, Haiti, Panama, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Cuba, Mexico, etc, etc, etc…
Cindy, you are awesome, thank you. Your light shines for all of us !
Yes, the fascist amerikan empire owes a lot to innocent nations. Amerika’s debt will be paid back in karma by the collapsing empire….for SURE !
Cindy: ” Which war will Obama send these troops that are leaving Iraq to”?
Whereever the war racketeers, Wall Street, the MIC, and the war profiteers tell him to send them.
Cindy, you have my deepest respect for all you do. Paul
Exactly. Out of the frying pan, into the fire–there is no end of places to meddle in, as long as there are profits to be made and people to exploit. I read today that many people in Iraq yearn for the days of Saddam. Mission accomplished, eh Obama?
I will always respect Cindy Sheehan for her courage in the needless death of her son. I’m sure Casey would be very proud–may he rest in peace.
We hear so much about ‘serving one’s country’, so much about sacrifice and heroes, so much about not giving up and ‘going the distance’….all very worthy but much depends on context. Cindy represents the truth, the real context…she is a hero. One will not soon forget her camped outside the ‘Crawford White House’ all those summers…Cindy represents perseverence sacrifice etc, and she deserves our thanks for it. I greatly resent the notion that those of us who don’t have loved ones ‘serving’ don;t understand…well we understand so much and care so much we didn’t want these people to go over there in the first place. We DO understand the legacy we inherit….the war is FAR from over, the broken families, lives, spirits and communities will last a very long time not to speak of the financial cost to us all except the very wealthy who have made so much at the expence of so many. Yes, Cindy is a hero, unsung and to our shame almost forgotten…best wishes and blessings Cindy. You have always told it like it is! Telling truth to power is a heroic deed.
It is to the eternal shame of the people of Nancy Pelosi’s district in California — and of San Francisco in particular — that they re-elected her over Cindy Sheehan in the last election.
And they certainly can not use “ignorance” as an excuse.
San Francisco has one of the most highly educated populations in the US.
And also (supposedly) one of the most “progressive”
What a joke..
Cindy Sheehan’s congressional bid! Slowly I turn, step by step, inch by inch…
Jimbojangles, even from clear across the continent, it became depressingly clear to me that Sheehan wasn’t getting much traction in SF because Pelosi is a well-connected Establishment politician with a fatuous progressive-liberal following.
Since I’ve never so much as visited San Francisco– and I’m not sure flowers would obtain sufficient purchase in my dwindling hair– I leave it to local residents to confirm, deny, or modify my belief that SF’s (and California’s) reputation as a freethinking, freewheeling multicultural/countercultural hotbed is mostly leftover hype from the Haight-Ashbury “flower power” era.
My sense is that, while the tradition of waving one’s freak flag high lives on here and there, and influences municipal and local politics, SF has an entrenched an Establishment as any other big Amerikan city. And that a true radical like Sheehan is anathema to the SF Establishment’s Democratic progressive-liberals
During Sheehan’s ill-fated campaign, I remember going back and forth in CD comments threads with some knucklehead “realist” who stubbornly rejected Sheehan as a hapless outsider– if not an outright self-indulgent “spoiler”, at best a misguided amateur who was out of her league could never “deliver the goods” the way seasoned, experienced Pelosi could.
And the genteel liberal-lites were– and are– also captive to the warped and pernicious excesses of identity politics; they were enthralled by Pelosi’s “Historic” position as the first woman Speaker of the House, and were not about to withdraw their drooling heads from Pelosi’s fundament and forsake her in order to support a true maverick like Sheehan just because Cindy is a woman of far more courage, wisdom, and integrity than the Gorgon Pelosi.
The progressive-liberal moderate “Heathers”: Salon’s Joan Walsh, the “Nation” women (Katrina vanden Heuvel, Katha Pollitt et al), and even Code Pink all ran from Sheehan as if escaping a particularly pungent fart because Cindy rejected their consensus that she was best suited to remaining the Democrats’ in-house “anti-war mom” mascot, devoting herself to cheerleading for Democratic “liberal” candidates– like Pelosi!
Eff THAT noise, Cindy quite correctly said. And off the table she went, just like Bush’s impeachment.
It still burns me up. Does it show?
You are not alone. Cindy, My name is Thomas, I visited you back at Camp Casey all those years ago, driving several hours from where I live in the DFW area. You inspired me to read more about Eugene Debs, Noam Chomsky, and a copy of Zinn’s “History” still rests, dog-eared but whole near my bedside to this day. I now have the courage to speak openly, at the Bedford Library, at Tarrant County College and to everyone that I meet about my growing conviction, made stronger not weaker as I age, that our salvation will come not from fear and hate and vengeance, but from love, sharing and socialism. I did not think it was possible for people to still exist that thought like you, and it made me feel like all my ideas died stillborn before their escape from my head. I was wrong, and for that reason alone, I cannot thank you enough.
Always a thrill and a pleasure to find Cindy Sheehan gracing the CommonDreams lineup.
Cindy’s commentaries unfailingly ring with clarity and truth. ♥ ☮
CommonDreams did not see fit to publish Cindy’s articles where she took sharp aim at Obama, shortly after he took office and quickly continued Bush’s far-right policies.
I remember copying and pasting several of Cindy’s articles here in the comments section.
It was unacceptable to censor one of the most important voices of the peace movement simply because a consensus had not yet been reached that Obama was a sell-out.
Our numbers are so small we absolutely cannot afford to have our most prominent members pushed out and ignored.
Yeah, and right now CD is providing several heaping helpings of “The Evil Gaddafi is Dead, Boo-Yahh, Long Live the Brave Democrats of Libya” . . .
>>Along with the rest of our family, Casey was opposed to these wars of aggression and before he left for Iraq, Casey, a Humvee mechanic, told everyone that he wouldn’t be able to “kill anyone”.<<
Then why did he enlist? Did you try to dissuade him? If not, why not?
indeed
service is voluntary
and if you choose to volunteer because you need a job
then you have chosen money over principle
She did try to dissuade him, but he had made a commitment. He was a mechanic. I know, he was still part of the war machine, but back then, too many bought into the BS that OBL blew up the towers.
Do you remember growing up with all those patriotic verses shoved down your throat everyday?
Did you ever play cowboys and indians?
Just because you are now enlightened, it take a lot of thinking to understand that the US is not the shining beacon on the hill.
It is the most violent country on the planet and the Elite’s muscle.
Many people join out of Patriotism, not just for a job.
My opinion.
Cindy, thank you for the example you set for the rest of us who think and care. You courageously point out the steaming piles of bs coming from the mouths and the deeds of our so-called leaders. You warn us not to contaminate our “souls” with it, not to be complicit in the US empire’s violent quest for world dominance. You study up, you get your facts straight, you tell the unvarnished truth. You were one of a very few who saw through Obama’s pile of crap. Too bad the great majority preferred to see it as a bunch of roses. Your defeat to Nancy Pelosi was telling as to how low American “progressives” are willing to be taken. Let’s hope the era of “Empire dearest, tell us what to do, what to think, and who to turn to for leadership” is over.
I don’t see a link to Cindy’s blog here at CD. Just fyi, here it is: http://www.cindysheehanssoapbox.com/ I for one would like to see more of her writings posted here. Thank you in advance.
Thank you Cindy for your story and your work. Your son did what he thought was the right thing to do, a choice many unsuspecting young people did in this country. Sort of like voting for a guy who claims so much and delivers so little. Yes, the Iraq soldiers willcome home to no jobs, little health care, extreme cost to get educated…and yet those multibillion dollar contractors get to stay in Iraq and suck the other side for awhile til someone declares Iraq a colony of the US. The lies and scams our government, someone’s government, not mine, continues with, are just disgusting. The cover of Mother Jones for December says it all.
I have to wonder how much more the Faux people can keep up with the charade. I learned the hard way as a child, that if you start with a lie, and a coverup attempt, that sooner or later, it can’t hold up under the weight if it compounds itself. The lies the 1% has told us since Reagan are already in the compounding mode. The initiation of the MIC during FDR, http://www.prisonplanet.com/the-military-industrial-complex-it%E2%80%99s-much-later-than-you-think.html …”Roosevelt was building up his “arsenal of democracy,” down to the present moment, public opinion has usually assumed that it involved more or less equitable relations—often termed a “partnership”—between the high command and civilian overlords of the United States military and privately-owned, for-profit manufacturing and service enterprises. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that, from the time they first emerged, these relations were never equitable.” So anything done since then, whether it is Dems or Reps..whatever, it ain’t equitable for the citizens of the US either. This is way out of whack, way worse than any of us say out loud. It’s almost too unbelievable that Americans would hate their countrymen so much that they would sacrifice an entire nation in order to just be rich, and have a boat, and a house, a lobster and Chevas, what ? really???
Can we say COVER UP? CORRUPTION?? EXTORTION?? MURDER??
What we have left to fight with is boycott-occupy-litigate. We still must pick a battle within this big lie, and the MIC is a pretty good bet for leader of the pack…PAC…so researching the MIC contracts and the companies and who we can affect through boycotting, occupying, or litigating. The answers are right in front of our nose, we just need to all be serious journalists and layman lawyers and find our way into the courts to end this nightmare. I believe families like the Sheehans ought suit the MIC for loss of life, cost of everything and pain and suffering, a civil suit…just thinking
I am so delighted to read something from Cindy Sheehan again, and hope her voice will remain strong.
my son also served in iraq (army infantry) during the time cindys son casey was there. i cannot imagine the heartache and devastation. i applaud cindys efforts. i am not sure i could do the same. must be a struggle to go on day to day. this same son is now over in afghanistan with the air force. i also have a younger son who is a new marine and yet to experience war. i pray he does not anytime soon.
while yes, i believe the war was wrong to initiate, and i, also, want an end to it, i believe it is vitally important to continue to support the men and women serving.
it is unrealistic to lobby for all to be removed from iraq. there is a us embassy there, for one.
whether or not we agree with any decision regarding the war, the fact remains it cannot be changed. events have transpired. what’s done is done. to waste any further energy over the past is futile and unproductive.
grumbling and griping about september 11 is not getting us anywhere. looking for instant miracles will lead to frustration. one goal achieved at a time will lead to hope. however, please don’t lose focus on the other living and breathing troops that are every bit as important as those who have lived, fought and died for their country not themselves.
Telling truth to power! The ghastly legacy of GWB will not end soon. This War Criminal has damaged all of us. Why was GWB not held accountable for his crimes? This is the #1 question in the world today. There is no question larger. Being Republican is to be in bed with a war criminal. And these candidates have a 50/50 chance of being elected? Shame on you America!
“However, did Obama just forget about the heavily fortified 104 acre US Embassy in Baghdad that employs 3000..”
No he didn’t “forget”. Cindy. He, the Federal Government of the United States and the American Press are doing what they’ve always done: Lie, hide and skew the truth. ABC, CBS NBC/GE, FOX and CNN. All liars.
They’ve got yet another foothold in the ME and they’re happy. Thats what they wanted all along.
They should all be driven east into the sea and drowned.
Moonpie, you have it correct. ” The United States and the American Press are doing what they have always done “. Destroy, pervert, and divert the truth, to keep the 1% in power. Support #OWS!
The U.S. lost the nation on the day George W. Bush attacked Iraq. It’s all downhill.
The one thing we can all be sure of is that none of this was necessary, none of it was worth it, not one life lost in these ideological ego driven invasion’s was “worth it”
To those that question Cindy, shame on you. It was her son’s decision to join and he was a man of his word. And at the time not everyone was as omniscient as you folks, certainly not a young man like many others who joined before things became clear. I sometimes despair of reasonable intelligence that is AWOL here sometimes.
Just remember Cindy, through you he had a greater effect than most, so he did not die in vain.
To quote one of my favorites….”Always a thrill and a pleasure to find Cindy Sheehan gracing the CommonDreams lineup.
Cindy’s commentaries unfailingly ring with clarity and truth. ♥ ☮”
Indeed!