'they want things done. they're not looking at whether you're voting with democrats.' lois debarry. what a 'brave voice' and aren't we lucky to hear that crap?
i'm in conn. where ned lamont is losing as we all knew would happen shortly after he won the primary. they piled it on thick about him, arianna huffington was 1 of the few exceptions, and couldn't do any real reporting, just cheerleading. if they'd been serious and offered up some real criticism, ned lamont might have been able to regain his momentum. instead, he became wishy-washy with each passing day and the 'independent' cheerleaders just made lamont more of a joke.
i don't vote in conn. fly boy does. we're at his parents' house and there's no surprise that lamont suffered premature evaluation. he lost it. no 1's fault but his own.
casey junior appears to have won. and we're all worse off for it. the dems don't seem to have control of the senate at this point, or much chance of that. so they killed a real democrat's campaign so that they could shove off the anti-choice, pro-war casey.
it appears ford junior has lost. dubarry was talking him up like crazy. he's disgusting. not more so than casey junior. both juniors are disgusting, equally. in a fair world, they would have both lost.
some dumb ass needs to shut up on pacifica right now. he has no idea of what he's talking about ('vangical voters) and is just spinning. there was a man from ohio who discussed the realities of the 'vangical voters and yet here we hear blah blah.
oh damn.
it was that stupid chip berlet. he's an idiot. as my mother-in-law just said, 'that explains it.'
i didn't realize that was who was speaking. chip berlet what a fool. every 1 who heard the reports from the other states throughout the night, knows chip berlet is a fool, and a fat fool.
some 1 kick him to the curb. whiny little ass.
i couldn't understand how some 1 could be so stupid (and racist - thinking conservative african-american 'vangical voters would vote democratic). it wasn't 2 hours ago that the guy in ohio was explaining how their might be a record turnout for african-americans voting republican as a result of the 'social issues.'
gas bags like berlet do not belong on air. they make the entire broadcast look stupid because they're pushing their own pet issues. you expect that from the people with campaign but the so-called independent voices are supposed to be aware of what they're speaking of.
chip berlet never knows what he's speaking of. it's as though all he's thinking is when he can run off and hit the rocky road ice cream.
the democrats just announced, kendrick meeks in d.c., that they'd won the control of the house.
they could have won the senate, they could have won the house by a wide margin. that would've required bravery.
there was none. ned lamont won the primary and then was like a declawed cat. fly boy and i were watching tv 3 weeks ago and he groaned and wondered why lamont didn't just disappear until election day? he didn't think vanishing could hurt lamont more than lamont's b.s. remarks.
of course all results are suspect without a paper trail. maybe ford junior would win with a paper trail? i don't think lamont would have. he became a joke. ned lamont turned into ned flanders (simpsons) over night. it was disgusting.
so my in-laws had every 1 over. i warned her iw as bringing my laptop both to blog and to listen to pacifica's coverage. on the big screen, they've got cnn but a number of people have come over throughout the night to the corner i've set up in. i told my mother-in-law that i didn't want to seem rude but that i intended to listen to the coverage. she was fine with that and she's been among the people who've come over throughout the evening. with mitch in d.c., larry in berkeley, deepa in new orleans, etc., i think they've done a pretty amazing job throughout the evening. larry has been especially strong with his questioning. he gets to the point quick and when he's being spun, he doesn't agree and build up to the question, he just gets to the question.
i know the gang's listening to kpfa (c.i., ava, jess, jim, ty and dona) so i assume they're hearing this too. i turned off my cell when the party started and that's driving me crazy. all of the jokes about me and phone use are true. but i didn't want to look even more rude in my little corner with my laptop and streaming audio.
my mother-in-law has really been a dream tonight. i told her she was scaring me. but thanksgiving is coming up and this will be the 1st since fly boy and i remarried. we've been talking, him and me, about how we were going to handle that and she brought that up tonight saying we could all get together on friday. so i'll call my family and tell them we'll do christmas eve with them and we'll do christmas here. i started to type, 'i wonder if i should invite elaine?'
her only family is her brother (their parents died when elaine was young). i know she usually does thanksgiving with c.i. but hates the 'madhouse' (all the guests) at christmas time. but i just realized, she'll be at mike's because they're a couple now. i wonder if she's doing that for both holidays? she usually does spend thanksgiving at c.i.'s. that started back in college. our 1st year in fact. c.i. and i were both going home and we found out elaine wasn't. her brother was working so there was nothing to go home to. so c.i. cancelled plans and stayed. they've missed thanksgivings before but i think it's been at least 5 years since they didn't spend it together.
i know jess' parents are coming out to c.i.'s for thanksgiving and ava's intending to stay out there for both holidays (she has family in new york and california). but i hadn't even thought about holidays other than what fly boy and i were doing until a few minutes ago. i think ty told me he was staying out there for thanksgiving because it's so short (the school break) and going home on christmas. jess is going home for christmas too (which is why his family is coming out for thanksgiving). ava grew up in california and really doesn't care for the east coast. i need to find out what dona and jim are doing. both because they are friends and because i doubt the site's going dead for either weekend.
okay enough gas baggery about elections. i keep stopping every few paragraphs to talk (and to drink). if i'd been focused on writing, i'd probably already be done. this is associated press via the guardian of london:
As of Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2006, at least 2,837 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,275 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
The AP count is three more than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Tuesday at 10 a.m. EST.
The British military has reported 121 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, six; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Romania, one death each.
Since the start of U.S. military operations in Iraq, 21,572 U.S. service members have been wounded, according to a Defense Department tally.
remember when it was going to be a 'cakewalk'? we're closing in on 3,000. you'd think with the increase in fatalities, there would be an increase in coverage but there really isn't. each year of the war seems to bring less and less coverage.
okay, i have to wind down. fly boy just came over and said he was getting ready to turn in and i'm kind of tired as well. it's 2 minutes until midnight. here's c.i.'s 'iraq snapshot:'
Tuesday, November 7, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, another US war resister returns to the US from Canada, Halliburton puts on Cher's Living Proof CD and plays dumb, and prison abuse back in the headlines.
"In Iraq, I found myself being the problem instead of the solution" -- Ivan Brobeck quoted by Alison Bodine (Fire This Time). Today, he became the latest US war resister to return from Canada to the United States. Quantico Marine Base in Quantico, VA is where he expects to be processed. Brobeck enlisted in the Marines and, as Jim Fennerty explained to Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) last Friday, there are different processes for different branches and Fennerty believes that Brobeck will "be placed in the brig" and very likely face a court-martial -- which wasn't the case for Darrell Anderson whom Fennerty also represented. Courage to Resist has posted the twenty-year-old war resister's open letter to the Bully Boy. Speaking with Nora Barrows Friedman on yesterday's Flashpoints Brobeck shared: "I'm sort of trying to teach them to open their eyes. It's easy to forget basic stuff in Iraq."
Ivan Brobeck in is own words via Pacific News Service:
I was in the Marines. I joined in June 2003, and after boot camp in March of 2004 I was sent directly to Iraq. This wasn't at all unsettling to me. You see, I went into the Army because I wanted to fight the bad guys. In school during history classes I learned that the Army and Marines had done all these wonderful things, and it all sounded so patriotic and I wanted to do the same. I wanted to fight for freedom.
I didn't care, and I still don't care, if I died fighting for a good and noble cause which is what I wanted to do.
In Iraq, I found myself being the problem instead of the solution. A problem in a normal town, in the life of normal people, like the people here in Toronto, trying to go about their life and risking getting shot at by me. Innocent people getting killed for misunderstandings, and for even more trivial things. I found myself in situations with my partners where we had to shoot at speeding cars, at people that probably were just trying to get out of our way.
All these insurgents, as they call them, they're not. They're people who have nothing left. There was this guy who was mad at us because we had killed his family. Wife, children, everybody but him had been killed. He was seeking some kind of retribution. That is not an insurgent, that's a desperate man.
My ethnic background is Salvadoran; my mom is from El Salvador. So the fight against tyranny is something that is dear to me, considering the history of El Salvador. I believed that the war in Iraq was a just war, and it was not. Now, before I get involved again, I really have to see somebody overcoming my country with weapons in hand.
Ivan Brobeck, Darrell Anderson, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Ehren Watada Camilo Meija, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Joshua Key, Jeremy Hinzman, Corey Glass, Patrick Hart, Clifford Cornell, Agustin Aguayo, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, and Kevin Benderman are among those who have been part of a movement of war resistance within the military.
Focusing on one US war resister mentioned above (also a Fennerty client), Kyle Snyder returned from Canada last week only to discover that the same military that lied to sign up, was still lying. Noting the ABC News investigation that found the lies of recruiters continue, Elaine commented: "Will anyone get in trouble for the above? No. But kids will be lied to. Young adults and peole who aren't even 18 yet will be lied to over and over. They'll believe the lies. They'll assume no one in uniform would say something if it wasn't true. My friend, who's back from Iraq and speaking to students so that they don't end up over there, has so many stories like this. He's speaking about twice a week now and there is never just a handful of students who are able to share the kind of lies they've been told, it's always a large number."
Why do recruiters lie? Because they can get away with it. Because they won't be punished. They can sign up someone, someone who is not even able to legally purchase a beer, to a 'contract' that could result in the loss of life and they can do so with any lie that can tumble out of their mouths because there is no accountability.
Information on recruiters and protecting schools can be found at Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools, Counter-Recruitment and Alternatives to the Military Program and Campus Anti-War Network. 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. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Appeal for Redress is collecting signatures of active duty service members calling on Congress to bring the troops home.
"When the money's gone/ Will you be my friend?" asks Cher in "When The Money's Gone" (Living Proof) and it's a question Halliburton may be wondering about the White House. James Glanz (New York Times) reports that a new scandal has emerged over their 2003 no-bid contract "to deliver gasoline to Iraq" which might seem simple easy enough but KRB [Kellogg Brown & Root] were charging "as much as $25,000 per month for each of as many as 1,8000 fuel trucks". Al Jazeera reports: "The audit of 15 noncompetitive contracts paid for by US government agencies with Iraqi oil money was unable to account for $22.4 million in funds, a UN-led watchdog said on Monday."
The report for the IAMB [International Advisory and Monitoring Board for Iraq] is available online, PDF format, and the auditing was done by KPMG.
Within Iraq, Sudarsan Raghavan (Washington Post) reports on the charges, brought by the Interior Ministry, "of 57 employees, including high-ranking officers, with human rights crime for their role in the torture of hundreds of detainees once jailed in a notorius eastern Baghdad prison known as Site 4". Kirk Semple (New York Times) notes that Site 4 is not the only Interior Ministry run prison that's been found to be a source of abuse. As they day has progressed the number charged has increased. Steve Negus (Financial Times of London) reports that those now charged include "[a] general and nearly 100 other members of Iraq's police force". The BBC reminds that Site Four was a "secret prison" until May when "Iraqi and US officials found the jail at a building in east Baghdad belonging to the Shia-Muslim dominated ministry." Discovered in May and dealt with in . . . November. On top of that, CBS and AP note:
"CBS News correspondent Cami McCormick reports that the Iraqis plan eventually to retrain all of their police batallions." Retrain all.
Crackdown, shake-up, country break up . . . But outside the press eye. The show trial still provides gas bags to pretend they're reporting. The US election allows people to shout out "IRAQ!" and act like they've offered coverage on it. Once again, it's time to treat the Iraq war as an after thought apparently.
A few of the events that actually got some coverage.
Bombings?
Christopher Bodeen (AP) reports that mortar attacks left 22 wounded in Baghdad. Reuters notes a bombing in Basra took one life and left seven wounded while three were killed and eight wonded from a roadside bomb in Falluja.
Shootings?
Reuters reports that a police officer was shot dead in Kirkuk. AP notes that "sniper attacks and a roadside bombing in Karmah" claimed the lives of six Iraqi soldiers.Corpses?
Sky News reports that 15 corpses were discovered in Suwayrah. AP reports that they were all found "blindfolded and bound at the wrists and ankles, before being shot in the head and chest." Reuters notes that two corpses "and a decapitated head" were discovered in Falluja.
And the Whack-a-mole goes on. Having attempted to seize the city of Falluja in April of 2004 and the slaughter that followed in November 2004, the checkpoints requiring bio-metric i.d.s to enter, et al., it may come as a surprise to learn, via Jay Price and Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers), that there is 'concern' over resistance in Falluja yet again.
While the US military and White House attempt to ignore the fact that it's the same fight over and over (and that the war is lost), the deaths continue to pile up on all sides. Today the US military announced: "A Multi-National Division -- Baghdad Soldier died at approximately 10:40 p.m. Monday from wounds he received after the vehicle he was riding in was struck by an improvised-explosive device in northwest Baghdad." The announcement brought to 19 the number of US troops killed in Iraq this month. Meanwhile, in England, Lee Glendinning (Times of London) reports on the British military announcing a Monday death: "The soldier, from the 2nd Battalion, Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, died after the army base came under small arms fire, the Ministry of Defence said." The death brought to 121 the number of British soldiers who have died in Iraq since the start of the illegal war and comes a day after mothers of two soldiers who died in Iraq took their case to the Court of Appeal.
Michael Evans (Times of London) reports that Beverley Clarke and Rose Gentle pressed their case yesterday as to the legality of the illegal war. Both women lost their songs (Trooper David Clarke and Fusilier Gordon Gentle) in Iraq. The BBC reports that outside the court, Rose Gentle stated: "Why can't Tony Blair be man enough to stand up and say he will give an inquiry and stop a lot of court cases going ahead? Ehat has he got to hide? Our boys are being killed day-by-bya. It we dod succeed in this case it will be a bonus. If we don't, we can say we tried and we fought for the boys and have got more backbone than the MPS who didn't stand up for them in last week's vote."
Another mother for peace, Cindy Sheehan is taking part in the Gold Star Families for Peace sit-in at the White House in DC. Today's actions including organizing exit poll teams (for the day's election) and the plan to hold an event this evening in Lafayette Square Park while tomorrow will include the delivery of a petition opposing an attack on Iraq. Other DC actions this week include Military Families Speak Out's plan to deliver a petition to Congress and Rummy demanding troops home now and an end to the backdoor draft.
Finally, 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 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
Nov 9, TBA Philadelphia, PA. Location: Annenberg School of Communication, Penn University, Room 109 Sponsors: Iraq Veterans Against the War, Delaware Valley Veterans for America, Military Families Speak Out, Gold Star MothersContact: Bill Perry, 215-945-3350, BpVetforPeace@aol.com
Nov 10, 7:30PM New York City, NY Location: St. Paul/St. Andrews Methodist Church West End Avenue and West 86th Streets, Sponsor: NYC Area Chapters of VFP & IVAW Contact: Thomas Brinson, 631-889-0203, ltbrin@earthlink.netGeorge McAnanama, gmacan@aol.com
Nov 11, 11AM-5PM New York City, NY Veterans Day Parade Sponsor: NYC Area Chapters of VFP & IVAW Contact: Thomas Brinson, 631-889-0203, ltbrin@earthlink.net
Nov 12, TBA Long Island, NY TBA
Nov 13, 7PM Ann Arbor, MI "The Ground Truth" and Bob Watada Location: TBA Sponsors: Michigan Peace Works http://michiganpeaceworks.org,Contact: Phillis Engelbert, 734-761-5922, philliseng@yahoo.com
