tomorrow ehren watada's article 32 hearing begins. did you do your part today? did you do anything?
i've got a lot of e-mails today and i see the usual 1s who do have done again - courtney and goldie (and goldie's mother marlene) for instance and stevie surprised me with her e-mail. so you 3 worked that run way. the rest of you? either you're awfully shy or you didn't do anything.
now i've got 1 from anna and i've got no problem with her. she's up front that she's not sure what to do. she said she's calling the pentagon tomorrow (703-545-6700) but she feels unsure what else to do? she did try to find something in her area and there was nothing. so what can she do besides call and say she support ehren watada?
now that's a good question. and maybe that's why the usual group that writes to tell me of their activism didn't today. (or maybe every 1 is still being active? i'm writing earlier than usual.) okay so nothing's going on in your area, what do you do?
do your own thing. that was the message of goldie and marlene's house party. you don't need to wait. you do your thing. now sometimes i see an e-mail from somebody who says they're not big on group activities. that's fine. i know friends like that (t's like that). you don't want to march with some 1 else's drum, march to your own.
but make some noise.
bang your own drum to your own tune but make some noise.
how many people did you see today? how many times did you bring up ehren watada?
hey, amy goodman didn't mention him. i don't see any of our print magazines writing about him on their web sites not even in an 'ACT NOW' kind of way. i see that every 1 and their dog is still weighing in on the ned lamont race.
way to go to the well and draw another pail.
not much of a way to provide support or help the movement.
i read this 1 laughable piece about lamont. from a wanna-be-beltway insider (can you guess who?) and it was all about stop slamming the net roots and blah blah blah.
i read that and thought, 'she has no idea what she's talking about.'
i read the lamont coverage and groan. that's my in-laws' state, that's the race my husband voted in. ralph nader is the only 1 who's gotten it right about that race. (1 more got it right and before nader, community member brady who wrote about it in the round-robin before nader wrote about it.)
and didn't c.i. call it this morning?
And the issue is will you be silent? You can count on a lot of people being silent, it's a given. Probably something happened on cable last night (with all the channels, something had to happen). Or there will be some other event to talk about or comment on. This is what we need to spend some of our time focusing on today (and we can do that -- while all things media big and small lost interest in Iraq, we continued to focus).
so when we got done, i made a point to check out some of the website and see who'd bothered to note it today. i didn't see any of websites to mags and online mags noting it.
i did see an idiot (another woman and i do try to be supportive of women but when you're an idiot, you're an idiot) explain - from her desk - what the movement was today and how it's not like vietnam and how bully boy is so different because in vietnam you had a policy that predated and blah blah blah.
how stupid are you? are you stupid as you write?
bully boy's continuing bill clinton's policies (just as clinton continued poppy bush's policy). now bully boy's ramped it up like when nixon bombed cambodia and ramped up lbj's plan but quit kidding your readers, step away from the beltway and trying telling the damn truth. jeremy scahill and dahr jamail tell the truth.
why do you think hillary didn't oppose the iraq war? because it continued her husband's policies.
we've been in a low-grade war with iraq for years.
so save your little speeches about how different it is.
you sound like an uninformed idiot.
why can bill clinton still not say the war is wrong? why does he play dumb when david letterman brings up the downing street memos? because the policies got juiced up under the bully boy but they were in place. they were continued under the bully boy in an extreme form.
so the desk jockey tells us what the movement's like today and she's got nothing to say about ehren watada, nothing to say about ricky clousing and nothing to say about anything.
for some 1 so damn determined to swear it's nothing like vietnam, she can't seem to leave vietnam behind her as she plays compare & contrast.
maybe if she, i don't know, followed what was happening, she could have made a case for how today is different?
it's not that different. what is it with all the 'it's so different' talk? it's a bunch of people who probably did a little, tiny bit of activism in their younger years and now live in fear of that sort of activism returning (let alone being amplified).
so you get a woman, with hair like a bag lady, telling you that it's nothing like the 60s but unable to talk about today. what rallies has she been at? i'm sure it looks quite different in snippets on tv then it does up close.
in this country activism is rising and all the scared little 60s types who want to keep playing like it's not going on aren't all that different from the 1s warming their seats in the 60s.
so get the word out on ehren watada. you saw a lot people with platforms today who didn't use them. they talked about old news, maybe a week old, maybe 2 weeks or more old, or they played the role of clampdown - telling you that it's not like it was then.
there's an energy in the country, in the world. from france, to mexico, from england to america, throughout latin america, that is taking root and the desk jockies can tell you it's not there but you know better.
like elaine said, use your power. own it. you can make a difference. need a starting point to talk about ehren watada tomorrow? wally's 'THIS JUST IN! BULLY BOY HAS SOME TIPS FOR EHREN WATADA!' and cedric's 'Bully Boy offers Ehren Watada some tips (humor)' (joint post) put ehren watada's actions (standing openly) into context with bully boy's weaseling out of the national guard with daddy's help.
here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Today, Wednesday, August 16, 2006, it's one day before Ehren Watada's Article 32 begins, a military inquiry learns that hypnosis was weighed as an option, chaos and violence continue in Iraq and curfews became the measure to address everything as the whack-a-mole 'strategy' grows more ludicrous. If news of Karbala, Mosul and Basra don't drive that point home, Ann Scott Tyson (Washington Post) reporting on the violence spreading outward from Baghdad should.
So the Bully Boy reportedly frets about who's got his back and allegedly peruses Camus and attempts to market "Adapt & Win" (on the grave yard markers of "Adapt or Die"). And the war drags on.
Today is the day that the New York Times editorial board offered "Meanwhile, in Baghdad . . ." which includes the following: "As Americans debate where to go from here on Iraq, one thing should be clear. Staying the course until President Bush leaves office 29 months from now is not an option. It is no longer even clear just what course America is on. Most of what Washington now claims to be doing cannot withstand the most elementary reality test." It's a day where the American military fatality count since the illegal invastion stands at 2604, a day where the wounded count since the beginning of Bully Boy's war of choice now numbers 19323. A day when Edward Wong and Damien Cave (New York Times) report that the July death toll for Iraqis at 3,438.
Tomorrow? Ehren Watada's Article 32 hearing begins over his refusal to deploy to Iraq and his attorney, Eric Seitz, "expects the hearing to be over in one day." Which is why it's important to get the word out. Speaking to Hal Bernton (Seattle Times) in June, Watada spoke of how speaking out publicly could result in retaliation: "I think they will do their best to make an example of me." And, as Gregg K. Kakesako (Honolulu Star-Bulletin) reported last week, the Army has now three times rejected Watada's offer of resignation leading attorney Seitz to offer that the military appears "To want to make a martyr out of him. If that is the case, then we are certainly eager to join issue with them because I think this whole episode is going to be much more embarrassing to the Army than it is going to be detrimental in the long run to Lt. Watada."
As Cedric Moon (KGMB9) notes the hearing is to determine whether "Ehren Watada will stand trial over his refusal to fight in Iraq". Robert Shikina (The Honolulu Advertiser) reports that the hearing is expected to include only four witness: one called by the Army, three called by Seitz. Nina Shaprio (Seattle Weekly) has reported the three witnesses for Watada: "Francis Boyle, a University of Illinois international law professor, who will testify about the legality of the war; Denis Haliday, a former United Nations assistant secretary general, presenting evidence on the same subject; and retired Army Col. Ann Wright, who will talk about how she used to train soldiers to decline orders if they appeared illegal." Seitz told Gregg K. Kakesako (Honolulu Star-Bulletin) that Army's witness will affirm that Watada did not board the buses with others in his regiment on June 22nd and that "the Army also plans to use news clippings and video news reports".
Why would the military have a need to make an example of Ehren Watada? As Susan Van Haitsma (Austin-American Statesman) points out: "Watada joins a growing number of soldiers whose moral convictions are leading to punitive convictions in military courts. Many soldiers who have sought conscientious objector status have been denied it. Thousands of soldiers have gone AWOL as a result of the formidable legal blcks to establishing moral objections to the Iraq war. Many have sought refuge in Canada, though political asylum for U.S. military war resisters is not official there."
More information can be found at Courage to Resist and ThankYouLt.org.
Cedric (Cedric's Big Mix) is advising those calling to leave a message for Donald Rumsfeld (703-545-6700) or mailing him (1000 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 20301-1000) to say: "Hands off Ehren Watada! Let him go." Billie advises that you can use public@defenselink.mil to e-mail the Pentagon. She suggests "Re: Ehren Watad" or "ATTN: DONALD RUMSFELD."
Some rallies going on today:
*Seattle, 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm, Intersate 5, at the entrance to Fort Lewis
*Portland holds the second of its rush hour bannerings today at 4:30 pm on I5's pedistrian overpass
*Kahului. Two events. Sign-holding at 4 pm on Kaahumanu Avenue. Teach-in at 6:00 pm, Maui Community College's Ka Lama Building Room 104A and Bob Watada, Ehren's father, will be at that event.
"On the one hand I had my duty as I knew it, to obey every order without question, to do what I was told, what everyone else was doing, goving over to Iraq and fight. On the other hand I knew that we were not fighting for Democracy, we were not fighting just terrorist, we were fighting an indigenouse insurgency who was resisting our occupation. And many lives were being sacrificed for what I thought was nothing. I came to the point where I could no longer look at the pain and suffering of so many members of the armed forces, os many families being devastated by these loses, and the grief and suffering of Iraqi citizens and all for what I felt was an intentional deception, to wage a war without any purpose, without any noble purpose."
-- Ehren Watada to Courtney Scott via Rougue Valley IMC
And today in Iraq?
Bombings?
The BBC reports that eight died and 28 were wounded when a bomb went off in Baghdad. The Associated Press notes a roadside bomb in Hillah that killed three Iraqi soldiers (and wounded four more) and states that "[b]ombs killed at least 19 people in the Iraqi captial Wednesday". CBS and AP report that in addition to the bomb that killed eight in Baghdad, eleven more died (for the 19 total) via "[t]wo other bombs . . . in central Baghdad". [Reuters has just upped the total to 21 killed in Baghdad from bombings today.] Reuters notes that, in Basra, Yusif al-Mousawi ("general secretary of Tharalla Islamic Party") was targeted with two roadside bombs (he survived); in Kut, a roadside bomb wounded two police officers; in Jbala, a roadside bomb left three Iraqi soldiers dead while four were wounded; and, in Baquba, a police officer was killed by a roadside bomb that wounded three others. In addition, Damien Cave (New York Times) reports on the bombing of a memorial dedicated to children killed last summer by a car bomber (and, I believe one American soldier was killed in the bombing as well). Cave speaks with Muhammad Khaitan, whose his 14-year-old son Saif Muhammad died in last year's bombing, who declares, "All they left was the foundation. They don't want the next generation to remember how we suffered."
Shootings?
Meanwhile, as Sandra Lupien noted on KPFA's The Morning Show noted, Basra is under curfew after the storming of a governor's office. Reuters reports that during the attacks on the city council and governor's office, one police officer was killed and five were wounded. The hour long fighting ending, AP notes, when British troops arrived. Reuters is a little more specific: "up to 180 British soldiers and 16 Warrior armored personnel carriers". By the way, in Basra fighting, rockets were used, the AFP reports. (We'll get back to rockets shortly.) And the answer to the violence? Curfew! curfew! curfew! as CNN reports. As the AFP notes, curfew's the sure cure for Karbala today as well -- in fact, forget 'crackdown' -- it's under "lockdown" -- consider it a lid tossed on a pot of boiling water. In Mosul, the armed fighting continued. AP places the death toll from the fighting at five. Reuters notes that these two cities follow the violence in Kerbala yesterday which Iraq's Defense Ministry says claimed the lives of 12 people yesterday. Finally, CBS and AP report that a "Danish soldier was shot in the back . . . in southern Iraq."
Corpses?
AP reports that three corpses were discovered in Kut ("bound, blindfolded . . . signs of torture").
Rockets? Poor William Caldwell IV, he was probably almost over Tuesday's sour stomach following his assurances that Sunday's most violent act in Baghdad was the result of a gas explosion. Well, someone pass him the Mylanta, CBS and the AP are reporting that the group claiming responsibility for the attack has now released a video of "showing a Katyusha rocket purportedly fired at the U.S.-controlled Green Zone." Because it was four Australian troops and not four American troops wounded in the Green Zone Sunday from a rocket attack, it appears that a number of people are unaware of the incident. That's allowed Caldwell to deny rockets and bombs on the Baghdad neighborhood and, then Tuesday, allowed the military to play the split-the-difference wherein they allowed that okay-bombs-were-used-but-that's-it! Eye witness testimony cites rockets. Caldwell better chug that Mylanta and hope those using rockets on residential buildings Sunday didn't tape their attack as well.
Of the four Australian soldiers wounded in Sunday's rocket attack on the Green Zone, three were released and able to return to duty, the fourth remains in a hospital in Baghdad. Her name is Sarah Webster and Ian McPhedran (Australia's Advertiser) reports the injuries are minor but include "bruising and lacerations."
In Australia, the inquiry into the April 21st death in Baghdad of Jake Kovco continues and . . . Well, what do you say after the Major Michael Pemberton ("head of the military police's special investigations branch") testifies to discussions of hypnotizing one of Jake Kovco's roommates? It's the headline, it's the lede where ever you look -- not surprising. But if we can move on that attempt (not implemented) to jog memory,
here's how Pemberton characterized his relationship with the army chiefs while conducting his investigation: "I would use the term interference" (AAP). Australia's ABC reports: "Backing up evidence given to the inquiry by another witness yesterday, Major Pemberton said senior military officials in Baghdad ignored his instructions that the body was not to be moved, potentially destroying vital forensic evidence before his investigators arrived." "Backing up evidence given to the inquiry by another witness yesterday"? That was addressed in yesterday's snapshot when Soldier 46's testimony directly contradicted the claims of others that they hadn't been instructed to secure the death/crime scene.
