starting late. i was talking to trina and not watching the time. that's fine, i'll just be a little late for the iraq study group because there are a few things i want to note.
i want to say a big thank you to every 1 for their e-mails. i am so happy to read how you've been talking up kyle snyder at your schools. he may not get the media coverage he deserves (or the support) but, where it matters, his story is getting out.
his story got out on democracy now today as well and c.i. called to give me a heads up. but didn't call me! my mother-in-law was coming over today to see what the redecorating looked like and c.i. phoned her and asked her to pass it on. c.i. phoned early (and my mother-in-law came by early) which is because i apparently scare every 1 before my 1st cup of coffee in the morning. (i'm joking. c.i. actually had to call her about a fund raiser she was doing and asked her to pass it on while they were on the phone.)
so we watched together and 1 guest was a total asshole. we both agreed on that. we also felt amy & juan should have challenged him on the 'data' he kept citing. click here to listen, watch or read. at the end, he held, between his thumb and a finger, what was supposed to be a fetus. it was brown. my mother-in-law & i both agreed it looked like a piece of shit. (she worded it more nicely than i did.) which had us wondering if he thought he was 'informed' because he'd had a bowel movement. now i've miscarried many times (and i've had an abortion). i haven't given birth but what i have been through was a bit more physically than taking a dump.
so when mr. pro-life births a child out his ass, by all means, feel free to talk to me about abortion. until then, shut the hell up.
honestly. i appreciate the men who speak out in favor of a woman's right to choose. but i really have no use for men who go around talking about how women's rights need to be reduced. (what needed to be reduced was his fat ass head.) if you want to ban something, find something that involves your own rights. work on banning viagra or something that honestly effects you directly.
his 'data' included the number of rapes that resulted in pregnancy. what an idiot. his data should have been challenged and it's also worth noting that not all women report rape. with regards to incest and rape, he offered the laughable claim that they could seek medical treatment within the 1st 10 days to prevent pregnancy.
that of course assumes you can speak of incest. many young women can't. many young girls can't. incest is rarely a 1-time thing. it's a pattern of abuse and it destroys a person. to expect that a young girl is able to dash off to the emergency room after her father (or whatever family member) rapes her and go through the whole procedure is insane.
i have a great father, i'm very lucky. if you're lucky or not, i want you to picture a family member raping you when your under 18 and think about the guilt you will have because although it is not your fault, rape alone still leaves some women with guilt, adult women, now imagine your a female child dealing with rape and incest. the man was an idiot.
(young males are also the victims of incest - from males and females. i'm not unaware of that. but i'm focusing on pregnancy here. for the same reason, i'm not going into the very real fact that some girls are sexually abused by women.)
oh he pissed me off.
my abortion did not destroy me. the fact that the fetus had no chance of a viable life if carried to term did screw with me. it was a difficult decision.
i was depressed after. that had nothing to do with the abortion. i'm glad i was able to have 1, i'm glad it was legal. i'm glad that my husband was supportive. (though i would have had it even had he not been.) the depression came from the realities of the pregnancies. the only positive of the entire ordeal was that the abortion prevented a child from possibly living through six months (if lucky) and then dying - after being in pain the entire time.
i don't need some fat ass pro-life man telling me about abortion. i know exactly what it is. i would not have ever thought i would have 1. that's because i always wanted kids. in both my marriages. (do i call it 3 marriages since fly boy and i married twice. or is 1 marriage and 2 weddings?) even when i wasn't married and got pregant i was thrilled.
i have never been raped and wasn't a victim of incest so i didn't have to deal with that. but i was always for legal abortion and always will be. it's a woman's choice. and when i had to face 1 of the worst bits of information a mother-to-be can, i was not upset that abortion an option. i was damn glad that it was legal and safe.
if, like me, you've had just about enough from the opinions of those who can't have an abortion (due to gender and biology) but want to weigh in, you may need an alternative, for the voices of women sharing their experiences with abortions click here to go to ms. magazine.
and because some 1 will ask in an e-mail, my mother-in-law loves what we've done with all the rooms but 1 bathroom. i was surprised because i expected her to hate the 'fun' room which is just a pop-culture den. she actually liked that. (i know her too well for her to fake it with me.) on the main bathroom, she didn't care for the faucets and, hate to say it, she's actually right. i had focused on everything but that. they really don't go with what's been changed so fly boy and i will get to work on picking out something else. (i need big. i have very long fingernails. the tiny knobs don't work for me. i need something i can knock up or down with the palm of my hand. or else i would have to, shudder, cut my nails.)
i wanted to note jason leopold's 'Rumsfeld's Lethal Denial' (truthout):
As the Iraq war continues to claim the lives of American troops on a near-daily basis and the country inches closer toward civil war, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wants the public to know that the carnage really isn't as bad as it seems.
"Progress is being made everywhere across the country," Rumsfeld said during a radio interview Wednesday, a transcript of which is posted on the Defense Department's web-site. "We're doing a great job of training and equipping their forces and passing over responsibility to them."
That's the visual Rumsfeld and other senior members want to indelibly etch into the minds of the American people when the public goes to the polls next week.
Five days before the hotly contested midterm elections, Rumsfeld, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and senior members of the administration are crisscrossing the country, using far-right media outlets to send a distorted message to the American people about the reality on the ground in Iraq, where 103 US troops were killed in October - the fourth highest monthly figure since the start of the war more than three years ago.
But it's not just the public the White House is duping.
Last month, the White House circulated an internal email, "Iraq Update: Political Progress," which included positive assessments of the war.
The email came on the heels of a blistering attack by one of their own - Senator John Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who said the situation in Iraq was "drifting sideways."
At the time, Warner had just returned from a trip to Iraq, which included a stop in Baghdad. He told reporters that if the violence did not begin to subside, the US should immediately consider a "change of course."
Susan Collins, the Republican Senator from Maine, agreed.
"We've heard over and over that as Iraqis stand up, our troops will stand down," Collins said in an interview with the New York Times October 7. "Well, there are now hundreds of thousands of Iraqi troops and security forces, and yet we have not seen any reduction in violence."
Perhaps Warner's and Collins's remarks were more about election season politics than a representation of their true feelings. Still, in the weeks since the senators broke ranks with their colleagues, the violence has worsened, and it appears ever more likely that tens of thousands of additional US troops will be deployed to the region.
At first, the White House blamed the escalating violence and the surge in the number of casualties on the Muslim holiday Ramadan. But the bodies of US soldiers continued to pile up even after Ramadan ended on October 23.
Now the administration has settled on a new rationale for the uptick in violence: terrorists are trying to impact next week's elections by slaughtering Iraqi civilians and American servicemen and women.
Moreover, according to Rumsfeld, terrorists are "trying to break the will of the American people," by manipulating the media into believing the war isn't going well and in doing so terrorists are shifting the "center of gravity away from the battlefield."
"You know, they're very good at manipulating the American press and managing the news in a way that advantages them and tries to break the will of the American people," Rumsfeld said during his interview with WPTF in Raleigh. "And they're good at it, they know what they're doing, they consciously plan their attacks to achieve that end. The military always talks about the center of gravity of a conflict, and logically one would think it would be in Afghanistan or Iraq or in the struggle against the violent extremists ... But in fact, because they are so calculating in attempting to break the will and to terrorize people and to alter our behavior, the center of gravity of this conflict very much is back in the United States. And they're very good at attempting to alter our behavior."
In response to what he sees as slanted news coverage of the war, Rumsfeld, who last week told reporters to "back off" when faced with hard-hitting questions about whether progress is being made in Iraq, is overseeing the launch of a Pentagon news channel that will convey stories about the successes in Iraq.
If that sounds like the start of a propaganda campaign it's because that's exactly what it is.
How can a reputable news organization cover stories about schools being built or roads being paved in one small part of the Iraq when a major city such as Baghdad (population 6 million) is so rife with violence that US soldiers are being picked off at the rate of three to five a day?
By and large it has been Rumsfeld's disastrous war planning that has led us into the quagmire we now face.
In October 2002, Rumsfeld ordered the military's regional commanders to rewrite all of their war plans to capitalize on precision weapons, better intelligence, and speedier deployment in the event the United States decided to invade Iraq.
The goal was to use fewer ground troops, a move that caused dismay among some in the military, who said that concern for the troops requires overwhelming numerical superiority to assure victory.
Rumsfeld refused to listen to his military commanders, saying that his plan would allow the military "to begin combat operations on less notice and with far fewer troops than thought possible - or thought wise - before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks," the New York Times reported in its October 13, 2002, edition.
Military officials viewed Rumsfeld's approach as injecting too much risk into war planning and said it could result in US casualties that might be prevented by amassing larger forces, according to published reports.
that's a long excerpt but it's a long article. (long in a good way, reading it will go very fast.) sherry told me that leopold had some new stuff up. i wasn't aware of that. i support jason leopold. i think he's a strong reporter. i may not catch all of his stuff, but what i do catch can always be highlighted here.
okay, i need to wrap up. i'm beyond fashionably late now. here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Friday, November 3, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, US war resister Kyle Snyder tells his story to Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on Democracy Now!, the Giddiest Gabor in the Green Zone mistakes himself for Jackson Pollock, Bully Boy finally wins at a poll but it's doubtful he'll be happy, nearly 60 corpses are discovered in Baghdad, eight US troops have died since Wednesday, John Dimitri Negroponte heads to Iraq for a surprise visit, and the US air force goes on a spending spree because, hey, it's not their money.
On Saturday, US war resister Kyle Snyder returned to the US from Canada where he'd self-checked out to in April 2005. Tuesday, he turned himself in at Fort Knox only to learn that the arrangement between the US military and his attorney, James Fennerty, was being tossed aside. At which point, Kyle Snyder self-checked out again.
Today, he spoke with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez for Democracy Now! detailing his experiences in Iraq and Canada. Synder detailed the promises of recruiters and how they mirrored the empty promises of the agreement the military offered Synder's attorney: "They can verbally promise anything, but once you are in their custody they can do anything they want with you." Between the broken promises of recruitment and return came the assignment to tasks he wasn't trained for. This is the point of the stand Melanie McPherson has taken. McPherson was trained to be a journalist for the military (at Fort Meade, MD) in April 2000 and then, just as her contract was winding down, she gets orders to report to Fort Bliss to ship out to Iraq. She reports on July 23 of this year and discovers she'll be serving in Iraq as a military police officer, something she has not been trained. McPherson tells her own story here (scroll down).
Jim Fennerty was also a guest and he explained that the military wants to send him (Snyder) to Fort Knox (KY) and that he can't get a call returned from Fort Leonard Wood (MO). Fennerty also addressed the issue of another of his clients, Ivan Brobeck. Brobeck is from Virgninia and went o Canada after serving seven months in Iraq. Like Synder, Brobeck arrived in Canada in April 2005. Unlike Snyder, Brobeck is in the Marines. Fennerty spoke of the different processes in the different branches of the US military and that "Ivan will be taken into custody" and "he'll be placed in the brig" at which point he would most likely face a court-martial.
Snyder stated to the following when asked by Goodman what he would say to other soldiers: "To the soldiers that are in Iraq, for the third or fourth time. A lot of them are scared to make decisions about moral and consientious choices, they're told by their commanders that they can't make these decisions Just follow your heart if you feel that you need to be in Iraq and that you're doing the right thing, that's fine and I understand that. But if you feel like you're doing the wrong thing, please speak out. The G.I. resistance is very important in changing the policits of this country right now and I feel that as G.I.s start coming out that's what's going to stop this war. And that's the only thing that's going to stop this war. As far as the soldiers that are in Canada right now, I love every single one of you, just know that whatever happens here, just keep that in mind, and I'll be keeping in contact with them."
On those still in Canada, Brett Barrouqere (AP) spoke with US war resisters Corey Glass and Patrick Hart who are currently in Canada. Glass is now reconsidering his own decision to return from Canada and both Glass and Hart consider the war to be based on lies. Glass states, "After what they did to him [Kyle Snyder], I don't see anybody going back." Hart says, "I could see going back under some kind of amnesty program or something like that. But I don't trust them."
More information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. In addition Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. On the latter, Courage to Resist is asking supporters to call 502-624-2707 to speak to Major General Robert M. Williams and tell him "Discharge Kyle Snyder!"
In other news of deployment status, Jamie McIntrye (CNN) reports that Santos Cardona will be sent to Kuwait and not Iraq, the Army has decided, due to the fact that Cardona was the "U.S. Army dog handler who was convicted of abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison". As to how he's been allowed to remain in the service? In June, Santos was "sentenced . . . to 90 days hard labor and a reduction in rank . . . found guilty of derelecition of duty and aggravated assault" (AP). The prosecution had recommended a discharge for bad conduct but apparently the actions fit into someone's understanding of 'service' and Cardona has managed to remain in the military instead of being drummed out of the service. On a similar note, AP reports that Steven D. Green has been indicted in a civilian court (he was discharged from the military before the allegations were public) in Kentucky for the "premeditated murder in the death of Abeer Kassem Hamza al-Janabi, her father, mother and 6-year-old sister in the central Iraqi town of Al-Mahmudiyah. Green is accused of raping the teen and then killing her after rounding up and killing her family with the help of other soldiers in his unit."
And in Iraq today.
Bombings?
CNN reports that mortar rounds in Baghdad claimed the lives of three and left six wounded. Reuters notes four police officers dead in Madaen from a roadside bomb, two young males dead from a landmine in Kut, and three people dead from a roadside bomb in Baghdad. (CBS and AP note: "Police Lt. Thaer Mahoud said the death toll in the rush hour bombing of a crowded market in Baghdad's Sadr City district Thursday had risen to 11 on Friday, with 51 reported wounded." Yesterday, the known dead from that bombing was seven.)
Shootings?
Reuters notes that "Resan al-Sayab, a local singer" was shot dead in Baghdad, while, in Kirkuk, a preacher (Sunni) and a gas station worker were shot dead (the preacher Thursday night), the shooting death of "a bodyguard of Shiite cleric Sadiq al-Hakim" near Najaf, and a cab driver shot dead in Baghdad.
Corpses?
Sinan Salaheddin (AP) reports that 56 corpses were discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes that the corpse of Abdul Majeed Ismael Khalil, freelance journalist, was discovered in Baghdad in addition to the 56 other corpses and that a severed head was found as well.
Today the US military announced "Three Marines assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7 died Nov. 2 from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province," "One Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 died from injuries sustained due to enemy action Thursday while operating in Al Anbar Province," "Three Multi-National Division -- Baghdad Soldiers died at approximately 2:15 p.m. Thursday when the vehicle they were riding in was strcuk by an improvised-explosive device in eastern Baghdad." That makes eight reported deaths for US troops since Wednesday. Iraq Coalition Casualties currently lists the toll for the month thus far as 11 dead (and 2829 dead since the start of the illegal war) which would indicate more announcements will be made later today or tomorrow. All as Italian troops prepare to leave Iraq and the so-called coalition continues to suffer from shrinkage.
Activst, author and Vietnam vet Ron Kovic (Truthdig) reflects on the wounded US troops in Iraq, noting that he was paralyzed January 20, 2968 while serving in Veitnam, and describes the moments after: "They are being put on a helicopter, with the wounded all around them. They try to stay calm. Some are amazed that they are still alive. You just have to keep trying to stay awake, make it to the next stage, keep moving toward the rear, toward another aid station, a corpsman, a doctor a nurse someone who can help you, someone who will operate and keep you alive so you can make it home, home to your backyard and your neighbors and your mother and father. To where it all began, to where it was once peaceful and safe. They just try to keep breathing because they have got to get back. . . . They are alone in their rooms all over this country, right now. Just as I was alone in my room in Massapequa. I know they're there -- just as I was. This is the part you never see. The part that is never reported in the news. The part that the president and vice president never mention. This is the agonizing part, the lonely part, when you have to awake to the wound each morning and suddenly realize what you've lost, what is gone forever. They're out there and they have mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives and children. And they're not saying much right now. Just like me they're just trying to get through each day."
As for the man responsible for so many US troops wounded and dead, for so many Iraqis wounded and dead, the polls haven't been very kind to him of late. However,
the Guardian of London is reporting that Bully Boy is 'Top of the Pops' in a new poll [ICM polled Isreal, Canada, Mexico and England for the poll]. Before Laura breaks out the good china and heats up the Frito Pie, the survey found that 69 percent of British respondents "believerd US policy had made the world less safe since 2001"; that 71 percent of British respondents felt the illegal war "was unustified, a view shared by 89% of Mexicans and 73% of Canadians"; and it "ranked President Bush with some of his bitterest enemies as a cause of global anxiety."
Anxiety was in the air as John Negroponte made a surprise visit to the heavily fortified Green Zone area of Baghdad. What exactly was the Director of National Intelligence doing in Iraq? Advising the death squads? Paying them off? He was a long way from Honduras or Nicaragua. John O'Neil (New York Times) reports that Negroponte had no public statements (proving he's smarter than the Giddiest Gabor in the Green Zone). Al Jazeera reminds that Negroponte "had served as the American ambassador to Iraq before the current envoy Zalmay Khalilzad." For those who've forgotten, it was his security detail that fired at the car carrying Giuliana Sgrena who had just been freed from her kidnappers. Nicola Calipari was in the car and killed. Sgrena sustained serious injuries. As AFP notes, the trip followed Stephen Hadley's (National Security Advisor for the Bully Boy administration) trip by three days and followed the video conference held last Saturday.
Staying in the Green Zone for news of the Giddiest Gabor, as Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted, Willie Caldwell made a surprising remark yesterday. Apparently inspired by the 140 million dollars a painting by Jackson Pollock fetched the other day, Little Willie decided to jazz it up a bit. Briefing the press yesterday, the Giddiest Gabor began with a presentation including slides ("Slide please"). The presentation included the following prepared remarks (note, this was not in response to a question, this was part of the presentation): "A transition is not always a pleasant thing to watch as it happens. But when common goals are achieved, speed bumps and differecnes of opinion along the way are soon forgotten. Every great work of art goes through messy phases while it is in transition. A lump of clay can become a sculpture; blobs of paint become paintings which inspire." As most know, there's no scarier stage than when a starlet fancies herself an artist.
Meanwhile, after requesting what Reuters called "a staggering 50 billion in emergency funding for fiscal 2007," the US air force quickly handed out contracts. Lockheed Martin got 30 million, DRS got $6.3 million, L-3 got $42 million and Boeing got a whopping $229.8 million. The whisper-it-to-the-press-but-don't-attribute 'reason' for the request in emergency funding is that, otherwise, wounded and dead US troops might not make it home. The shopping spree calls that 'reasoning' into question.
In more money being burned news, Thom Shanker and David S. Cloud (New York Times) report that the Pentagon is created a new office which will include the "rapid response unit" that they hope and pray will make all the reality vanish the way those waves of Operation Happy Talk used to. Remember the discolored fingers? Remember the any-day-now turned corner? Even most of the press sees new attempts at waves as a wipe out so the Pentagon intendes to dispense with the messenger and lie directly to the people.
Until then, some reality news still comes out. James Glanz (New York Times) reports that Stuart W. Bowen Jr. will be outed from his post as Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction next October as a result of Congressional legislation that no one in Congress appears able to explain or even able to figure out when that section entered the bill.
In election news, Carol Britton Meyer (TownOnline) reports that, in Massachusetts, Mary Sochacki, Shirley Brown, Katharine Sangree, and Chartis Tebbetts were among those members of the South Shore Peace Forum gathering signatures to put a resolution on next Tuesday's ballot "calling for an immediate end of the war in Iraq".
In other peace news, US war resister Mark Wilkerson reflects on his time in Iraq and notes: "Before I deployed to Iraq during OIF1, I was full of optimism for what we could do to help the people of Iraq. One of our missions, after all, was to 'win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people.' And in that regard, we have failed miserably. In the year I was in Iraq, I saw kids waving American flags in the first month. Then they threw rocks. Then they planted IEDs. Then they blew themselves and others up in city squares full of people. The only conlcusion I can come up with as to why this happened is the way the American troops have treated the Iraqi people as a whole. From random raids of whole city blocks, to checkpoints that interrupted the daily lives of the Iraqis, to incidents of torture and even massacres, a majority of Iraqis now feel as though the American soldiers, once hailed as heroes and saviors, are now seen as conquerors." Wilkerson still awaits news on what the army intends to do now that he's returned from his self-check out.
Wilkerson isn't the only war resister who has said no to war and still awaits a decision/ruling. Keeping the issue front and center, Ehren Watada's father Bob Watada and his step-mother Rosa Sakanishi continue their speaking tour to raise awareness on Ehren -- the first commissioned officer to refuse to deploy to Iraq. Upcoming dates include:
Nov 3, TBA St. Paul MN. Location: Quaker Peace Center -- 1725 Grand AvenueSponsors: Veterans for Peace Chapter 27 Contact: Barry Reisch, (H) 651-641-1087 © 612-269-8934 bwrvfp@earthlink.net
Nov 4, 11AM Milwaukee, WI. Location: Great Lakes Arlington EventContact: Mark Foreman, 441-760-9991, bethmark@execpc.comSponsor: VFP Chapter 102 * See the unveiling of a new "Arlington"
Nov. 5, 2PM Boston, MA Encuentro 5 33 Harrison Ave. 5th floor (Chinatown)Sponsors: Asian American Movement Ezine Asian American Resource Workshop Boston Hawaiian Club Chinese Progressive AssociationMassachusetts Global Action New England Japanese American Citizens League
Nov 5, 7PM Cambridge, MA. Location: Unitarian Church, Harvard SquareSponsor: Veterans for Peace Chapter 9, Smedley Butler Brigade and Chapter 45, Samantha Smith Chapter Contact: Lee VanderLaan, 978-257-2350
Nov 6, 2-4:30PM Boston, MA Location: University of Massachusetts/BostonSponsor: The Institute for Asian American Studies William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequence Time: 2-4:30 pm
Nov 6, 7PM Worcester, MA. Location: Clark University University Building, Lurie Room Sponsors: Veterans For Peace Chapter 10 Contact: Bob Flanagan, 508-755-1479, IrishBob54@aol.com
Nov 7, 4:30PM Portland, ME Location: Meditation Center Sponsor: Veterans for Peace, Chapter 1 Contact: Doug Rawlings, 207-293-2580, rawlings@maine.edu,
Nov. 7, 6-9PM Brunswick, ME Location: Morrill Room, Curtis Memorial Library, 23 Pleasant Street Pot luck supper and speaking engagement Time: 6 - 7:30pm
Nov 8, 7PM Albany, NY Sponsor: VFP National Location: TBAContact: Elliot Adams, 518-441-2697, elliottadams@juno.com
A full schedule can be found at Veterans for Peace and those interested in hosting a Bob Watada speaking engagement in their area are urged to contact Doug Zachary.
