SUPPORT THE TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME

Resolution: 72A-10-9, July 28, 2010

Our country is now engaged in a great national debate about the war in Afghanistan, whether we should be there at all, and, if so, what our mission is and what resources are needed to carry out that mission.

The fateful decision President Obama made to add 30,000 troops in Afghanistan will affect our own country in profound ways for years to come, including whether President Obama will be able to carry out his commitment to rebuild our own country.

The earlier decision by President Bush to go to war in Iraq was based on false information and has already cost our country more than 4,400 soldiers’ lives, over 30,000 wounded, and more than $733 billion.

The labor movement, having worked so hard to elect our president, has a direct stake in President Obama’s capacity to direct the necessary resources to create jobs and rebuild America.

Some 35,000 CWA members, including public sector workers and telecommunications workers and many others have been surplused during this economic downturn and need to be able to get back to work immediately at good union wages, providing needed healthcare and public services and building affordable broadband access for all of America.

The United States has spent over $283 billion in Afghanistan already. The decision to send 30,000 more troops will cost at least $33 billion more this year, and could cost at least $100 billion a year for years to come. These funds are urgently needed to create and keep jobs here at home, and for other pressing needs, including rebuilding the nation’s physical and telecommunications infrastructure; aid to city and state governments to maintain public services; full veterans’ benefits; health care and quality education for all; housing relief in the foreclosure crisis; and the creation of millions of good jobs at fair wages in manufacturing, services, and green jobs.

Hundreds of thousands of brave and patriotic Americans, including CWA members, have enlisted in these wars and too many have made the ultimate sacrifice; yet those who return home too often find that the government help they need to regain their health and rebuild their lives is sorely lacking.

Resolved: CWA calls for an end to the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Resolved: CWA calls for withdrawal of all U.S. military forces and contractors from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Resolved: CWA calls for the use of diplomatic and multilateral measures to resolve these and the many other pressing conflicts around the globe.

Resolved: CWA calls for rebuilding America and redirecting funds used for these wars to urgently needed public and private sector job creation in this country, and to aid for state and local governments.

Resolved: CWA continues to support our troops and believes that the best support is to bring them home and give them the benefits they deserve, including but not limited to adequate medical and mental health care, employment training, and placement in jobs paying a living wage.

ANTI-WAR GROUPS CALL FOR FULL TROOP WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ

By: Chie Saito

 

 To view the video, go to http://www.news8austin.com/content/top_stories/273764/anti-war-groups-call-for-full-troop-withdrawal-in-iraq 

RALLY FOR PEACE

By Amanda Kim Stairrett
Killeen Daily Herald
August 30, 2010

Peace activists gathered in Killeen Monday morning to speak out against U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The event, which was hosted at Killeen’s Under the Hood Café, focused on Iraq and the president’s recent announcement that U.S. combat operations ended there today. Speakers also questioned the deployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment to Iraq. The final of several thousand of the regiment’s troopers departed Fort Hood for the Middle East Friday in what military officials call an advise-and-assist mission. Those soldiers will assist Provincial Reconstruction Teams and help prepare Iraqi security forces to care for and protect their own nation.

The 1st Cavalry Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team will deploy soon for the same mission.

Central Texas activists were in town Aug. 23 to protest the regiment’s deployment. As buses carried soldiers from main post to West Fort Hood’s Robert Gray Army Airfield, demonstrators waited on the overpass with their headlights turned off, according to information from Fort Hood and videos posted on YouTube by participants.

As the buses drove south on Clarke Road Gate at about 3:40 a.m., the demonstrators held up banners and chanted. Several blocked the buses’ path for a short time.

“Acting to protect Department of Defense personnel and equipment, Fort Hood police moved the demonstrators away from the intersection to the sidewalk,” read a statement from Fort Hood.
Individuals were released without incident and the bus convoy continued to the airfield, it went on to read.

Post officials did have advance knowledge about the demonstration, they said.

Monday’s speakers included Cynthia Thomas, Under the Hood manager; Rep. Lon Burnam, a Democrat from Fort Worth and former director of the Dallas Peace Center; Dr. Dahlia Wasfi, a peace activist of Muslim and Jewish heritage; Larry Egly, of the Peace and Justice Support Network of Mennonite Church USA; and Leslie Cunningham, of Texas Labor Against the War.

CodePink Austin, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans For Peace were also represented.

Monday’s event was just one of two in Central Texas “aimed at peeling back the mass deception surrounding ‘the end of combat operations,’” according to information from Under the Hood. The first was a talk in Austin Sunday featuring Wasfi.

Most Americans are lulled to sleep because they think the war is over, Burnam said. He attacked Presidents Bush and Obama, saying the “expansionist” war was an illegal and immoral occupation — something that was fiscally wrong to start seven years ago.

Burnam heavily criticized the Iraq war’s financial burden on the country, saying it was wrong for Bush to start two “outrageous” wars while providing tax cuts. Burnam said he was tired of officials using the “financial back of us working folks” to fund conflicts, and quoted a 1953 speech by President Dwight Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

It is time for Obama to end the occupation, end tax cuts for the rich and cure a deficit that will hurt “our children and grandchildren,” Burnam went on to say.

Thomas said Under the Hood started a telephone campaign to make sure non-deployable soldiers were not deployed. The organization has previously worked with soldiers and families from the regiment who said they were not fit to deploy.

The administration and command know there aren’t enough soldiers to cover two wars, Thomas said, and they continue to ignore family members and soldiers instead of focusing on their well-being.

“This community is not going to be able to survive it much longer,” she said.

The 1 percent of the U.S. population in uniform are the ones fighting and paying the most, Thomas said.

If people really wanted to support the troops, they would be fighting for them to come home, she added.

Contact Amanda Kim Stairrett at astair@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7547. Follow her on Twitter at KDHmilitary or www.facebook.com/astairrett.

For more information

Under the Hood is located at 17 S. College St. It is open daily from 5 to 10 p.m. Visit the café online at www.underthehoodcafe.org.

For more information about Texas Labor Against the War, visit www.txlaboragainstwar.org or call (512) 470-8485.

Peace and Justice Support Network of Mennonite Church USA can be found online at http://peace.mennolink.org.

Fort Hood resistance against deployment of 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment to Iraq

see Jeff on Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/ZGraphix?v=wall&story_fbid=148285151858699#!/ZGraphix?v=wall and at http://www.zgraphix.org/

more info on this action:  http://txlaboragainstwar.org/2010/08/23/501/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: War Veterans/Military Family Members Successfully Blockade Fort Hood Deployment to Iraq.

Aug. 23, 2010 (KILLEEN, TX) – Five peace activists successfully blockaded six buses carrying Fort Hood Soldiers deploying to Iraq outside Fort Hood’s Clarke gate this morning at around 4 a.m. While the activists took the width of Clarke Rd. and slowed the buses to a halt, police made no arrests, but instead beat the activists out of the streets using automatic weapons and police dogs so the deploying Soldiers could proceed.

All five participants in the Fort Hood Disobeys blockade action. From left to right are Iraq Veterans Bobby Whittenberg-James and Crystal Colon, Jeff Grant, Military Spouse Cynthia Thomas and Afghanistan Veteran Matthis Chiroux. 

Among those blockading were three veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and one military spouse. (See attached bios) The action, organized by a group calling themselves “Fort Hood Disobeys,” was aimed at preventing the deployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Soldiers to what the veterans termed an illegal and immoral occupation.

While standing in the street, the activists held banners reading “Occupation is a Crime” and “Please Don’t Make the Same Mistake We Did. RESIST NOW.” From the TX HW-190 overpass, additional supporters attempted to hang larger banners that read, “Tell the Brass: ‘KISS MY ASS’ Your family needs you more” “Sick of Fighting Your Wars” and “Col. Allen [3 ACR Commander]: Do not deploy wounded Soldiers.”

This latest deployment comes less than two weeks after President Obama announced the second end to combat operations in Iraq. FHD organizers denounced this as a lie, and pointed to the deployment of the 3rd ACR, a combat regiment, to Iraq as clear proof. They have stated they will continue to organize direct action in the Fort Hood community to oppose the wars as long as troops continue to deploy.

The action organizers have established a website at forthooddisobeys.blogspot.com where they will be posting statements, photographs and video from the actions as they become available during the next 48 hours. As well, for the length of the day, FHD ran live webcasts updating their supporters and depicting portions of the direct action. All live broadcasts from the day are archived at http://bit.ly/b1WEyv.

 For more information or to arrange coverage of today’s events, call 347-613-8964 or write to forthooddisobeys@hushmail.com. See attached bios for more information on those who participated in today’s action. . . .

for more, go to http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=419661411852&id=1289128291

See also Alice Embree:  Protesters Block Fort Hood Troop Deployment | The Rag Blog, http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/alice-embree-protesters-block-fort-hood.html

http://www.blip.tv/file/4031183

Domestic workers union at USSF (LaborNotes, Jim West)

Above:  March against the world’s largest waste incinerator.

Excellent Democracy Now! interview with Yanar Mohammed, President of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, and Raed Jarrar, Iraq consultant for American Friends Service Committee and a senior fellow at Peace Action.  (Thanks to Fran Hanlon of CodePink Austin for posting this link.)

As usual, on the Democracy Now! website, you can also view a video of the whole interview.  http://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/20/obama_admin_claims_end_to_combat

JUAN GONZALEZ: We begin today’s show on Iraq. If you happened to have tuned into the NBC Nightly News on Wednesday night, you might have been led to believe the Iraq war was all but over. NBC news anchor Brian Williams led the evening’s broadcast with an exclusive story on the war.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Our chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel, who’s covered this war for so many years for us, with us from a moving convoy in the Iraqi desert tonight. And Richard, I understand your reporting of this at this hour tonight constitutes the official Pentagon announcement, correct?

RICHARD ENGEL: Yes, it is. Right now we are with the last American combat troops, and they are in the process of leaving this country right now. We are with the 4/2 Stryker Brigade. I’m broadcasting right now live from the top of a Stryker fighting vehicle. There are 440 American troops in this convoy. As soon as they cross border into Kuwait—and it is not far to the border, just about thirty miles from here—as soon as all these soldiers leave Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom, the combat mission in Iraq, will be over.

JUAN GONZALEZ: That was NBC’s Richard Engel in Iraq near the Kuwaiti border with his exclusive report that NBC described as, quote, the “official Pentagon announcement” of the withdrawal.

Although the withdrawal has been hailed as a major milestone in the Iraq war and an end to combat operations, 50,000 US troops will remain in Iraq after the end of this month to help with training and logistics. In addition, the US is keeping 4,500 special operations forces in Iraq to carry out counterterrroism operations. Tens of thousands of private contractors will also remain in the country.

State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley acknowledged earlier this week that the withdrawal of the combat brigades would lead to a doubling in the number of private contractors employed by the State Department

P.J. CROWLEY: Where the military has provided security in the past, we now have to provide that security. This is a case where contractors actually—for what we think is a transitory requirement, this is where contractors actually are fruitful. We’re able to ramp up an effort for a temporary period of time and then reduce that effort as the security situation improves.

REPORTER: So you’ve begun contacting them—DynCorp or Xi security?

P.J. CROWLEY: Yeah, we have—we have very specific plans to increase our security, you know, because—as the military is leaving. This will be expensive.

AMY GOODMAN: The State Department will use private contractors to guard the massive US embassy in Baghdad, the largest embassy in the world, as well as US consulates in Basra and Erbil and embassy branch offices in Kirkuk and Mosul.

The withdrawal of the US combat brigades also comes at a pivotal moment for Iraq. Elections were held in March, but a new government still hasn’t been formed. And Baghdad is still reeling from Monday’s suicide bombing outside an army recruitment center that killed at least sixty recruits. It was the deadliest attack in Iraq this year.

To talk more about the situation, we’re joined by two Iraqis. Raed Jarrar is in Washington. He is Iraq consultant for American Friends Service Committee and a senior fellow at Peace Action. Yanar Mohammed is joining us from Toronto. She’s president of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq.

Raed, let’s begin with you. Can you assess what the situation on the ground is right now?

RAED JARRAR: I don’t think what happened this week or what will be happening by the end of this month will have any real implications on the situation on the ground, because most of the US troops, the combat forces, have left Iraqi cities and towns and villages last June. So there are no real implications of what is happening now on the situation.

The situation in Iraq is extremely bad. It’s very bad. The services that the Iraqi public are receiving are dysfunctional. People don’t have access to very basic services like water, electricity, sewage, education and healthcare. The political situation is deteriorating. It’s very bad. Iraq does not have a government almost after six months of the election. And the security situation is extremely bad, as well.

But these are two different tracks, though. From an Iraqi perspective, although a majority of Iraqis, maybe a national consensus, would agree that the situation is extremely bad in Iraq, that Iraq is still broken, there is still a majority of Iraqis who want this occupation to end. So it’s not like Iraqis believe that prolonging the occupation would fix what this occupation has broken.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And Raed Jarrar, what about this issue of the seeming paralysis of the government in being able to, following elections—months have passed without a clear agreement on who will continue to run the government in Iraq?

RAED JARRAR: There are a number of reasons that have led to this delay. I mean, first of all, the election itself was a very important and positive development in Iraq, because the Iraqi public did vote for parties that has more nationalist tendencies, parties that are for ending the occupation, parties that are for ending sectarian divisions and sectarian allocationism in the government. So the election itself was good news.

Now, the reasons why the election has taken a long time to form the government, we’ve been having around—it’s been almost six months now. There are some external reasons—the fact that some regional governments, including the Iranian government, have been interfering in the process negatively. Some other interventions have been slowing down the process. And there are some domestic reasons—the inability of some Iraqi leaders to put their differences aside and move forward. But the main reason why we have this deadlock now is the fact that Iraq does not have a functional democracy. We cannot expect to have a functional democracy from Iraq that was imposed by a foreign occupation. That is why millions of Iraqis, including myself, said from the beginning this occupation should not have started, should not start, from the beginning, because there is no such thing as implanting a functional democracy from outside. It’s a broken system. It has many problems. But although, you know, the situation is very bad, I still have hope that Iraqi political leaders will manage to create a new government within the upcoming weeks.

AMY GOODMAN: On this issue, Raed, of Iraq’s failure to form a new government after the March election, this is what the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki said earlier this month.

PRIME MINISTER NOURI AL-MALIKI: [translated] I’m sure that if the next prime minister is weak and not supported by the majority of political blocs, entities and Parliament, the big danger is that it will affect the unity of Iraq and the security situation. Militias and gangs will return. Al-Qaeda will return. There will be conflicts. There are many people lurking who are waiting to seize any gap. We need a man who knows the map of existing challenges, diplomatic, external and internal relations, national unity, national reconciliation, and the unity of Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: That was the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki earlier this month. Raed, your response?

RAED JARRAR: I think this is a very destructive way of dealing with the situation by Mr. al-Maliki. Choosing the next prime minister is not like hiring a new employee, and they’re putting, you know, some requirements for the new prime minister. There are existing regulations and constitutional articles that show us how to choose the next prime minister. The prime minister should be chosen in accordance to the election results. Whomever won the—whomever is the head of the largest bloc in the Parliament gets to become the prime minister. Unfortunately, many Iraqi politicians, including Mr. al-Maliki, are trying to circumvent the results of the election and trying to make it an issue of, you know, who to choose based on their qualifications, rather than going back to the election results and abiding by what the Iraqi people have said.

AMY GOODMAN: Raed Jarrar, Iraq consultant for American Friends Service Committee, senior fellow at Peace Action. When we come back, we’ll also be joined by Yanar Mohammed. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest, Yanar Mohammed, president of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq.

Yanar, usually you’re in Iraq, but right now you’re in Toronto. Your thoughts on this moment, how important it is? What is happening on the ground with women?

YANAR MOHAMMED: To tell you the truth, if I wouldn’t have seen it on CNN, I wouldn’t have been aware of it at all. And it’s only two weeks since I’ve left Baghdad, and I’m going back in a few days. You don’t see the US troops on the streets anymore. They are in their bases. They are running the politics totally on their own terms, for their own interests. But they don’t have—they don’t need to have their troops on the ground. They have trained the Iraqi army to do the same oppressive acts that they do to the people on the ground. The number of detainments, the oppression against people everywhere, the Iraqi army is doing a very good job at that. They are representing the same tactics, so the US troops don’t need to be there, as long as the US politics have been put in place.

So, what do we feel about that? Well, we have heard in the report earlier that it was called Operation Iraqi Liberation or Iraq Freedom. In our opinion, we are back to point zero now. At this point, organizing—freedom of organizing does not exist, because as—I don’t know how many people in the US have heard that workers are not allowed to organize. Unions have been banned to organize in some of the ministries in Iraq. Civil society organizations are also being harassed by some facilities put in place by the government. And the democracy that has been imposed on Iraq by this occupation has brought forward a prime minister who runs prisons. Nouri al-Maliki runs a prison, and everybody knows that. The Human Rights Watch has written a report about it. He runs a prison where hundreds of men have been tortured. And I’m not speaking five years ago, six years ago; this was found out in April 2010. Nouri al-Maliki runs a prison in Baghdad where hundreds of men have been tortured Abu Ghraib-style. And we all know where those lessons have come from.

So, the fact that the troops are leaving is good, by itself, if you look at it as a separate fact of what’s happening on the ground. But what’s happening on the ground, there are no freedoms. We are back to the same dictatorship that we had in Saddam’s time. No freedom to organize for workers. Women are afraid to speak out. We are being harassed by some facilities of the government. And when we go back home to hide, trying to get some security, we don’t find electricity. We get water a few hours a day. And to tell you the truth, I ran from the heat in Baghdad, because I couldn’t tolerate it anymore. And that’s why I’m here in Toronto now. And it’s very hard to live an ordinary life if you are in Iraq now.

All stories of democracy—excuse me, we do not feel them in Iraq. And we are working in organizations. We are sometimes speaking politics. We are not ordinary people. We are a good gauge for these things. We don’t feel any of this. The Prime Minister, when he is the head of a prison, this is not a democracy to have. And the deadlock that’s on the dysfunctional government, it was expected. Nouri al-Maliki, having been prepared for—to take over in the last four years, would not let go of his chair easily. And what he said over the interview, there was a part that was missed in the translation. He says that a weak man cannot take over. When he says a weak man cannot take over, he means he is the strong man, because he is supported by the US policies. That’s the message in there. That’s his message to his colleague, Allawi—

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yanar Mohammed?

YANAR MOHAMMED: —that he is the one who’s chosen.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yanar Mohammed, I’d like to ask you—here in the United States, obviously, the media coverage is suggesting this is the end of the Iraq war that began with the invasion of 2003. But obviously you are aware, as millions of Iraqis are, that the conflict between the US and Iraq now is almost twenty years old from those days in ‘90, ’91, with the—Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. Your sense now, twenty years later, of the overall impact of the US hostilities—the bombing campaigns, the sanctions and then the invasion—on life in Iraq?

YANAR MOHAMMED: You need to have a cameraman visit Baghdad and see how destroyed the city still is. All the buildings look like they are thirty years old. And the streets are—the way I go from my house to my work, all the streets are bumpy, and none of them is fixed. The corruption, the level of corruption in Iraq is one of the highest in the world. The amounts of money that have been lost, meanwhile, in the last seven years and a half, I cannot even say the number. I cannot imagine it. So, using false words of democracy are good for the media in the US, but in reality, in our lives in Baghdad, level of unemployment is so high. And if CNN says it’s something around 60 percent level of employment, well, most of those are in the army, are in the police—young men who have to get some kind of job and later on get bombed while standing in a lineup. Level of unemployment among women is, I would say, 80 percent. How are we living? Scarce electricity, services, and everything is so expensive.

AMY GOODMAN: When you say “scarce electricity,” Yanar, what do you mean by “scarce electricity”? How much electricity do you have a day in Baghdad?

YANAR MOHAMMED: In my home, which is central Baghdad, I get almost three hours of electricity a day, and I have to pay somewhere between $150 and $250 for the guy who sells electricity next door. It means that the government finds herself not responsible of providing me with electricity. In the time when the temperature is 55 Celsius, you cannot stand in the street, you cannot sit in a room. You’re sweating. And the levels of deaths that happen with this high temperature is no concern of the Minister of Electricity, who is busy oppressing the workers who work in his ministry. He has banned unionizing, and he has been put on—he has two ministries. So, to make a long story short, our lives are so difficult in Iraq. And the confrontation with the US policies, for us, are getting harsher every—day after day. And we find out that we have to buy the oil that comes out of our own ground in a very high price that is not our—that isn’t proportional with the level of pay that we have. Unemployment is so high.

AMY GOODMAN: Yanar Mohammed, just for the record—

YANAR MOHAMMED: And the other thing, as a women’s organization—

AMY GOODMAN: —for the US audience—just for the record, for the US audience, when you talked about 55 degrees Celsius, that’s, what, about 131 degrees Fahrenheit, is what Yanar Mohammed is talking about.

The presence of the US, the embassy—eighty (80) football fields—the private security, the private companies. You know, Erik Prince, who’s the head of Blackwater, just moved to the United Arab Emirates. They don’t have an extradition treaty with the United States, as Blackwater is embroiled in various charges about its involvement in murder and torture. Can you talk about what the presence of the private security firms mean—they’re going to be doubling—and what this massive, the largest US embassy in the world means still in Iraq?

YANAR MOHAMMED: In what used to be called in Iraq the presidential palace, now there is a zone that none of us regular people can reach to. It is surrounded by almost five high concrete walls. And among these concrete walls, you have to be searched almost five times before you go inside. And if you don’t have three IDs on you, you will not reach into that zone. So the American embassy is something that we have not seen. I’ve just read about it in the magazines. You may know more about it than I do, while it is in our country.

As for what the—what we call—you call them the private contractors. We call them faraq al-qadera [phon.], which means the dirty gangs or dirty mobs, who are giving—I think most of them are working as bodyguards for the parliamentarians and for the VIPs in Iraq. And you have to be real careful when you see one of those convoys in front of you, because they have no problem shooting anybody in their way or hitting your car or jeopardizing your life. They are the ones that you need to be careful from. And you cannot stop them and ask them, “What’ss your ID? Are you American, or are you Iraqi?” because they have employed a big number of Iraqi young men who cannot find any other jobs, and they have taught them their same ways, unfortunately.

This point brings me to another conclusion. After seven-and-a-half years, we have a big population of young men who can work only as military. They are very good at killing. And after seven-and-a-half years, we are very aware who are the Sunni and who are the Shia. We are very aware who are the Arabs, the Kurds and the Turkmens and the rest of the ethnicities. We are very aware of all the reasons that could fight—that could start a civil war at any point. We have been given very strong lessons in the so-called democracy. They have very good reasons to kill each other for no reason at all.

AMY GOODMAN: Yanar Mohammed, I want to thank you for being with us, president of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq. And, of course, we’ll speak to you when you’re in Iraq, as well.

from Courage to Resist, http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/849/1/

Bradley Manning Support Network, www.bradleymanning.org.

Washington D.C., July 27, 2010 – The Bradley Manning Support Network is accepting donations for the defense of Private First Class Bradley Manning. The Network, a grassroots initiative formed to defend and support accused whistleblower Pfc. Bradley Manning, has partnered with Courage to Resist, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting military objectors.

• Click here to donate now to the Bradley Manning defense fund
  632 individuals have donated a total $33,114 as of 1pm PST Aug. 11, 2010

• Frequently asked questions regarding the defense fund. By Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist. Updated August 3, 2010
• Order “Free Bradley Manning” shirts, posters, and buttons
• “Blowing the whistle on a war crime is not a crime” PDF poster (11″x17″ PDF) (large JPG)
• Photos of Bradley Manning (facebook.com/couragetoresist)
• The Nation: “WikiLeaks in Baghdad”. By Sarah Lazare, Courage to Resist, and Ryan Harvey. July 29, 2010

Manning, a 22 year old intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq, stands accused of disclosing a classified video depicting American troops shooting civilians from an Apache helicopter in 2007. Eleven adults are killed in the video, including two Reuters employees, and two children critically injured. The video, available at www.collateralmurder.com, was published by WikiLeaks on April 5, 2010. No charges have been filed against the soldiers in the video.

Bradley Manning faces up to 52 years in prison if convicted of the charges against him.

While news sources have speculated about Manning’s involvement in a new leak of over 90,000 secret documents (collectively known as the Afghanistan “war logs”) made public by WikiLeaks on Sunday, no charges regarding this recent breach have been filed.

As of this writing, Manning has not yet chosen a civilian attorney to defend him in the expected trial. While several news sources had previously indicated that funding for Manning’s legal counsel was already arranged, the Bradley Manning Support Network states that there is an immediate need for donations to his legal defense.

Legal defense in this case will be particularly expensive because any legal team will most likely need a background in military law and the flexibility to travel overseas for the trial as well as secret security clearance. . . . .

Courage to Resist. July 14, 2010

“From what I’ve heard of (Pfc. Bradley) Manning, he is a new hero of mine.” —Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistle-blower

In April, the Wikileaks website released a video depicting a US helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed eleven unarmed Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters employees, and seriously wounded two children. Titled “Collateral Murder”, the video was widely posted and reported on.

Last week, the Army charged 22-year-old intelligence analyst Pfc. Bradley Manning with providing the video after he allegedly took credit for doing so online. For the past month, he has been held in isolation from supporters and civilian legal assistance in a US military confinement facility in Kuwait.

The Potomac, Maryland native was charged with two counts of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). The first encompasses eight alleged criminal offenses, and a second covers four noncriminal violations of Army regulations governing the handling of classified information and computers. According to the Army, the “classified video of a military operation in Iraq was transmitted to a third party, in violation of a section of the Espionage Act, 18 USC 793(e),” which involves passing classified information to an uncleared party, but not a foreign government. He allegedly also provided Wikileaks with 50 classified diplomatic cables that are thought to contain embarrassing insights into the state of the US occupation of Iraq.

News articles initially reported that the Iceland-based Wikileaks website intended to provide Bradley Manning with a legal defense team. However, the Army has so far blocked all communications with the soldier. Meanwhile, Army spokesperson Lt. Col. Eric Bloom has gone on record to deny that the isolation even exists.

It is possible that the Army prosecutors, in collaboration with an appointed military JAG “defense” lawyer, are using this time to pressure Bradley into accepting a plea bargain that will send him to prison for many years—but less than the threatened 52 years.

Courage to Resist, along with members of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) and Veterans for Peace, is launching an effort to support Bradley Manning. We know other concerned organizations and individuals around the world who are also in the process of finding ways to support Bradley Manning, and we expect to collaborate when possible. These include advocates for whistle-blowers and supporters of the freedom of information.

Writing a letter to Bradley is one step in attempting to break his isolation. Mail to: Inmate Bradley Manning; TFCF (Theater Field Confinement Facility); APO AE 09366; USA . . . . .

for the full story, see http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/846/122/

see also http://www.ivaw.org/, “IVAW Supports Bradley Manning,” with a video

Is endless war the American way?

Why militarism permeates our society.

By Jim Turpin / The Rag Blog / July 28, 2010

Orwell would be proud. The United States is about to begin its tenth year in Afghanistan in an attempt to prove that “endless war” is not only possible, but the accepted norm in American society.

But why has militarism become such an integral part of our political and social lives in this country?

I see three main areas of influence on why we accept the present state of aggressive militarism in this country:  

1. The state’s use of messaging on “war” and “terrorism.”
2. The media’s servitude towards aggressive militaristic policy.
3. The social and cultural reinforcement of militarism.

Messaging on war and terrorism, or
Why my brain is always scared

G.M. Gilbert, an American psychologist who interviewed Herman Goering at Nuremberg in his Nuremberg Diary quoted Goering as saying:

…the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

The human brain is well constructed to deal with danger and fear on an automated and highly developed level. The amygdala is responsible for both fear conditioning and memory consolidation. These combined are the neurological area of the brain to condition and retain fear memories.

In other words, a sweet spot to frighten at will and control the masses.

The use of the phrase “war on terror” is at best a disingenuous means of simultaneously stimulating the fear response and the use of metaphors that have no real meaning.

The words “terror” and “terrorism” are the most politically manipulated words of our time and may be applied to any country, group or individual you wish to bomb, torture, or indefinitely detain.

It may also be used by the United States to nimbly point out those who are “state sponsors of terrorism,” which presently include Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria. Never mind that we sponsored El Salvadoran death squads or backed the likes of Marcos, Mobutu, Pinochet, or the Shah for decades that led to the torture and death of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions.

The cowardly MSM or
How to be a poster child for cognitive dissonance

Does the mainstream media (MSM) really ignore what is happening or change reality to fit government policy?

As Glenn Greenwald, in a recent Salon article, so succinctly put it:

A newly released study from students at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government provides the latest evidence of how thoroughly devoted the American establishment media is to amplifying and serving (rather than checking) government officials. This new study examines how waterboarding has been discussed by America’s four largest newspapers over the past 100 years, and finds that the technique, almost invariably, was unequivocally referred to as “torture” — until the U.S. Government began openly using it and insisting that it was not torture… Similarly, American newspapers are highly inclined to refer to waterboarding as “torture” when practiced by other nations, but will suddenly refuse to use the term when it’s the U.S. employing that technique.

Greenwald also points out that such MSM outlets as “the NYT, The Washington Post and NPR explicitly adopted policies to ban the use of the word “torture” for techniques the U.S. Government had authorized, once government officials announced they should not be called “torture.”

So torture is now “harsh interrogation techniques”?

Is this the terminology used in the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment?

This is the document the United States signed in 1988 and reaffirmed in 1994 that defines torture in Article 1.1 as:

Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

Article 2.2 states:

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

Orwell was again right: “…the object of torture is torture… the object of power is power.”

Cultural and societal acceptance of war
Or, ‘That’s Militainment!’

“Militainment” or entertainment with military themes is ubiquitous in music, television, movies and video games.

It is even everywhere in clothing. Just look around the next time you walk down the street or go to a clothing store. Desert-style camo wear is EVERYWHERE. Women have camo shorts, men wear camo hats, and even babies have camo bibs and jumpers.

Sears ran a line of clothing in 2008 that “signed a deal with the U.S. Army to launch the All American Army Brand’s First Infantry Division clothing collection. It marks the first time the U.S. Army has officially licensed its marks and insignias; licensing fees will be used to support military programs for troops and their families.

The president of Sears Apparel said the brand will be prominently featured during the retailer’s Fall Forward fashion. The line will also be included in future marketing campaigns, including those slated for the holiday season.

“Over the years, military-inspired clothing has played a distinct role in shaping fashion trends,” Mr. Israel said. “We are now able to exclusively offer a line that is pure to the origins of that inspiration.” (Military.com 9/3/08)

Recent war video games are international best sellers (Call of Duty, Modern Warfare, and God of War) and are excellent training for future military recruits. At the least, they can be considered realistic “war porn.”

The Army recently had to close a $12 million recruiting station in Philadelphia with interactive video exhibits, nearly 80 video-gaming stations, a replica command-and-control center, conference rooms, and Black Hawk helicopter and Humvee combat simulators.

It was repeatedly targeted for protests by those who said the Army’s use of first-person-shooter video games desensitized visitors to violence and enticed teens into the military. Anyone over 13 could play games, though the most graphic ones were restricted to those 18 and older.

War movies and TV specials are making a comeback with The Hurt Locker (2009), Inglorious Basterds (2009), and the HBO special The Pacific (2010) which all sell war as the “Band of Brothers” myth to perpetuate heroism and nationalism.

Music sells war, especially the country genre including Toby Keith’s lyrics:

Justice will be served/ And the battle will rage/ This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage/ And you’ll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A./ ‘Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass/ It’s the American Way.

Endless war… It is indeed the “American way.”

From the Rag Blog:  http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/jim-turpin-endless-war-and-american.html