US Rep. Albert Russell Wynn (D-MD) has become the fourth total co-sponsor of US Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s (D-OH) bill to impeach Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney, Atlanta Progressive News has learned. In addition to Kucinich, the other two Members of Congress who have signed on to H. Res 333 are US Rep. Janice Schakowsky (D-IL) and William Lacy Clay (D-MO).
"Vice President Dick Cheney is the architect of the Administration's deception about the war. Cheney persistently and deliberately deceived the Congress and the American people about the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction and the alleged link between Saddam Hussein and the attack on September 11th. There should be a serious dialogue about the conduct of this Administration. Cheney should be held accountable for purposely misleading the American people. Despite the obvious lack of success on the ground, Vice President Cheney continued a barrage of propaganda claiming that we were winning the war and successfully rebuilding Iraq which is patently false. His statements and representations about the situation in Iraq amount to malfeasance for which he should be taken to task," said Wynn in a press release prepared for Atlanta Progressive News.
that is from matthew cardinale's 'Four US Reps for Cheney Impeachment' (atlanta progressive news). rebecca here. i told every 1 i was going to try to grab the weekend post. which i'm doing. it is late at night. trina and i are in her kitchen. i've just fed the baby and we're both knocking out our posts together.
i'll return to kucinich in a 2nd but 1st i want to note a war resister. have you noticed, by the way, how much the list of public war resisters continues to grow?
i'm reading camilo mejia's book, Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia, we all are (c.i., jess and elaine read it last month). i'm going to quote from a section in it, pp. 240-242, this is from the press conference where he announced he was turning himself in after self-checking out of the military:
I had decided not to write a speech, so after the bishop spoke I gave a brief statement from the heart, saying simply that I rejected all war, that I had been an instrument of violence in the past but was now choosing to be an instrument of peace. I declared myself a conscientious objector, and said that the war in Iraq was oil-motivated, that I was not a mercenary, and that I believed no soldier has signed up to travel halfway across the world to fight for oil.
"So if you want to support the troops," I continued, "you cannot support the war."
I concluded my remarks by referring to the decision of voters in Spain just the day before, to elect a new prime minister who was committed to withdrawing all of Spain's troops from Iraq.
"Yesterday the Spanish people voted 'no' to war. I hope the American people can do the same in November. Thank you very much."
"But, Camilo," yelled a newspaper reporter. "When you signed for the military, you knew you could end up in a war. What made you change your mind about it?"
"Well, I've been there and I can tell you it's not the people in power, the ones who declare wars, who pay the price; it's the soldiers, the civilians, and the innocent unarmed people."
"Yes, but you must have known that soldiers and people die in war," said a tall man in a blue suit who looked more like a Secret Service agent than anything else. "What was it that you saw that changed your mind?"
"well, we were ambushed and people were killed. But I also think that, regardless of whether you happen to be sheltered in a palace or out in the streets getting ambushed like I was, simply going to war for oil is immoral."
"Camilo," said a woman from a prominent Spanish TV network, "what difference do you see between what is reported here about the troops in Iraq and what you experienced there?"
"Yes," I answered, glad that she had asked that question. "One huge disappointment is that the news media report that troop morale is high in Iraq, and that we're all happy to be there. This is not the case. We were all lied to about weapons of mass destruction and connections between Iraq and terrorism to justify the war. In reality we're giving terrorism a reason to exist with this war. But even for those who supported the war, the truth is, we all feel trapped there because the Iraqi people don't want us there and there is no snese of mission. There is no electricity, no water, nothing is being reconstructed; the feeling is that we're only there to watch our own backs."
i like that section but i also know c.i. agreed to hold off 2 weeks from quoting the book due to members not wanting it to be spoiled. i figure if you wanted to get it when it came out, you have. if you didn't think it was interesting to you, maybe the above section will grab you. and it's also true that if you know camilo mejia's story at all, you know he turns himself in. so i don't think i've spoiled anything. even if you're only on page 38 currently, i don't think you can read the above and say, 'damn rebecca, she just told me bruce willis is already dead at the start of the sixth sense!' this really is a great book and i strongly recommend it.
stacy e-mailed me to complain about her local pbs station. stacy gave birth last month and we had been comparing pregnancy notes in e-mails. since the birth of my baby, i've honestly avoided stacy. i explained why in an e-mail thursday and she was replying to that. (the why was she has a very vocal baby that wakes all the time. i have a sleepy baby. i knew the hours were wiping her out and the last thing i wanted to do was write and say 'guess what, my baby hardly ever cries, sleeps constantly' blah blah. she wrote back that she has 1 close friend - out of 9 - who can make that same claim and she's not angry at me. so i'll be able to write more often now.) but stacy has to get up all hours. she has some help from her husband. but it's her with the baby non-stop. she's up feeding, she's up getting the baby changed, asleep, etc. and then there's stuff to clean up so about the time she finally can lay down to sleep, her baby's waking up. she spends a lot of time in the rocking chair late at night.
so pbs is what she sees (it's that or infomercials) and she's wondering what pbs' obsession with war is? they're about to start airing that dopey ken burns documentary and they're already airing (on stacy's pbs) a world world ii series. it's war, war, war all the time.
they don't have time for peace, but they've got time for war.
stacy says she feels like she's being indoctrinated and finally started putting on dvds to avoid pbs. she wondered about the 'toxic effects' of nursing her child while watching war porn. and there's a thing that i'll assume most people know about. i hope they do. but i was thinking about that this week. i've been off tuna since i learned i was pregnant and will stay off while nursing. but in case any1 isn't aware, this is 'Dennis Kucinich speaking from the Floor of the House' (march 2006):
"Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Wasserman Schultz amendment.
"It is widely known that mercury is a highly toxic chemical, especially to our children. It causes entire clusters of cells in the developing brain to die. It causes loss of fine motor skills, learning disabilities, and seizures. Later in life, it can translate into kidney diseases, and immune system disorders.
"One of the primary ways children are exposed to mercury is through consumption of fish -- either they eat it or their mother does. At the same time, eating fish that is not contaminated has been shown to be important to childrens' health.
"The best way to deal with the problem is to stop mercury from getting into our environment in the first place. Of course, this administration and Congress have repeatedly refused to take substantive action to require coal burning power plants to take responsibility for their toxic mercury releases that end up in our fish. But because mercury pollution is allowed to persist, people are forced to take on the coal plants' responsibility by trying to avoid fish that are contaminated.
"In recognition of this, some States are considering laws that will label fish that are high in mercury. It is a critical consumer empowerment tool that is the last line of defense for those who do not want their children or themselves to be exposed to this toxic substance.
"But the Food Uniformity Act would undercut States' ability to even provide that basic level of protection through labeling. So not only does the bill undercut States rights, but it also undercuts personal responsibility.
"The Wasserman Shultz amendment makes an exemption for labeling laws that apply to mercury and fish and shellfish. It is a commonsense amendment. Please join me in supporting it."
[Ed. note: The amendment was agreed to by recorded vote: 253 - 168 (Roll No. 30).]
Legislation:
H.R. 4167, National Uniformity for Food Act of 2005
Also See:
Issues: EnvironmentIssues: Genetically Engineered Food
see, i got in a plug for dennis and managed to touch on issue that should be a serious concern to all women. i remember seeing on now with bill moyers (back when he was the host) a report on these women with mysterious illnesses that doctors would try to treat to no effect. it turned out there actual problem was mercury poisoning from eating fish. it also turned out that the tuna makers had fought any sort of serious warning to the public and the clinton administration had gone along. from the report, i believe women store it in their bodies differently. both genders can be effected. but women store it differently or are more likely to eat tune. the women in the moyers' report were all women. so this isn't just if you're a pregnant woman or a woman nursing, this is an issue that effects all women (and men as well).
thank you to every 1 for filling in. (i may tap some 1 to fill in monday as well.) Jim's 'Jim filling in for Rebecca (and Betty)' was a pleasure to read. C.I. did an outstanding job with 'So-called apathy (C.I. guest posting).' Betty has done a wonderful job throughout and i loved 'This & That (Betty filling in for Rebecca).' i also enjoyed her ' Gonzales Cesspool, Robert Knight (Betty)' with 1 reservation: i didn't mean for her to be required to track down things to fill in. she did a wonderful job updating on the gonzales' scandal/crimes. but i know how much work that is so i wish she'd gone after something easier. that said, it is a pleasure to read. thank to you all of them and i may take off monday but i am trying to get back into the swing of things. (if i take off, some 1 will be filling in for me.) here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Friday, May 11, 2007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, Cheney lies again while the press plays silent, more US service members are announced dead in Iraq, and a campus activism takes place as the Bully Boy prepares to mumble through another canned speech.
Yesterday in Iraq, Cheney spun like crazy. As Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) pointed out, Dick Cheney quoted David H. Petraeus, top US commander in Iraq, repeatedly, "General Petraeus has underscored the fact that the enemy tactics are barbaric. . . . We can expect more violence as they try to destroy the hopes of the Iraqi people." As pep talks go, not a lot of reality. Last week, Rick Rogers (San Diego Union-Tribune) reported on a military study that found only 40% of US marines would be willing to "report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian" and the number of those in the army was 55 pecent. As Gregg Mitchell (Editor & Publisher) observered: "At the Associated Press' annual meeting in New York on Tuesday, I sat in the audience observing Gen. Petraeus on a huge screen, via satellite from Baghdad, as he answered questions from two AP journalists. Asked about a U.S. Army Surgeon General study of over 1,300 troops in Iraq, released last week, which showed increasing mental stress -- and an alarming spillover into poor treatment of noncombatants -- Petraeus replied, 'When I received that survey I was very concerned by the results. It showed a willingness of a fair number to not report the wrongdoing of their buddies.' That's true enough, but then he asserted that the survey showed that only a 'small number' admitted they may have mistreated "detainees" -- a profoundly misleading statement. Actually, the study found that at least 10% of U.S. forces reported that they had personally, and without cause, mistreated civilians (not detainees) through physical violence or damage to personal property. So much for the claims by President Bush, military leaders and conservative pundits that 99.9% of U.S. troops always behave honorably. Of course, that kind of record has never been achieved by any country in any war." Along with that reality, we have the first hand stories being told.
It was about two a.m., but I could see very well because there were streetlights on our road and because the American illumination rounds that kept the sky lit up all night.
Suddenly, I looked over to my left and saw the bodies of four decapitated Iraqis in their bloodied white robes, lying a few feet from a bullet-ridden pickup truck to the side of the road. Because I sat on top left of the vehicle, and because the bodies were on the left-hand side of the road, I had them in clear view. I assumed that someone had used a massive amount of gunfire to behead them.
"Sh*t," I said.
A few second later, our slow-moving APC came to a stop. Among the three APCs in our convoy, I was the only soldier immediately ordered down to the ground. As I slid down into the APC and then out the hatch, Sergeant Jones told me to look for brass casings, which would be signs that Iraqi fighers with AK-47s had been shooting at American soldiers in the area.
I saw no sign of brass casings, but I did see an American soldier shouting at the top of his lungs while two other soldiers stood quietly next to him."We f**king lost it, we just f**king lost it," the soldier was shouting. He was in a state of complete distress, but the soldiers next to him were not reacting. The distressed soldier stood about twenty yeards from me, and another forty or so yards from the four decapitated bodies.
Two other soldiers were laughing and kicking the heads of the decapitated Iraqis. It was clearly a moment of amusement for them. This was their twisted game of soccer.
I froze at the sight of it, and for a moment could not believe my eyes. But I saw what I saw, and was so revolted and horrified that I defied Sergeant Jones's orders and climbed right back into the APC.
[. . .]
I found Private First Class Hayes with a woman under an empty carport. He pointed his M-16 at her head but she would not stop screaming.
"What are you doing this for?" she said.
Hayes told her to shut up.
"We have done nothing to you," she went on.
Hayes was starting to lose it, and we weren't even supposed to be talking to this woman. I told her that we were there on orders and that we couldn't speak to her, but on and on and on she bawled at Hayes and me.
"You Americans are disgusting! Who do you think you are, to do this to us?"
Hayes slammed her in the face with the stock of his M-16. She fell facedown into the dirt, bleeding and silent. The woman lay still on the ground. I pushed Hayes away."What are you doing, man?" I said to him. "You have a wife and two kids! Don't be hitting her like that."
He looked at me with eyes full of hatred, as if he was ready to kill me for saying those words, but he did not touch the woman again. I found this incident with Hayes particularly disturbing because during other times I had seen him in action in Iraq, Hayes had showed himself to be one of the most levelheaded and calm soldiers in my company. I had the sense that if he could lose it and hit a woman the way he had, any of us could lose it.
The above is from US war resister Joshua Key's The Deserter's Tale -- the 'little' book that some expected to get a tiny flurry of attention the week of release and then quickly fade. Instead, it continues to get attention from across the political spectrum (and around the world), is stocked in bookstores across the country. ZNet runs the most recent review of it, by Derrick O'Keefe who found, "The Deserter's Tale is told in simple, compelling prose. Joshua Key's story may just be one perspective on the Iraq war, but in many ways the young war resister is also speaking on behalf of the voiceless thousands senselessly killed in this war. Relentlessly honest, and graphic, this book stands out as unique and significant amidst the shelves of books critiquing the Bush administration’s foreign policy. It will surely stand up long after this war is over as a condemnation both of the pretensions of empire, and of the grotesque inequality that scars life in the United States itself."
Key is not the only war resister to tell his story in book form. The just released Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia is Camilo Mejia's account, an account he is also sharing currently on a speaking tour with other war resisters. That includes, as Courage to Resist noted yesterday, Agustin Aguayo:
Army Spc. Agustin Aguayo stepped off of a plane today at Sacramento International Airport after being imprisoned by the U.S. Army and held in Germany for nine months. Agustin was convicted of missing movement and desertion for refusing to redeploy to Iraq last year and publicly speaking out against the war.
Agustin's wife Helga and Courage to Resist supporters met him at the airport, give him a couple hours to relax from his 18-hour journey from Germany, and whisked him to his first speaking event in California’s capitol. From here, Agustin is beginning a multi-city tour covering much of Northern California. In the upcoming days, Agustin will be joined by fellow Iraq War resisters Army Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejía, Navy Petty Officer Pablo Paredes, and Marine L/Cpl Robert Zabala.
The upcoming dates for the speaking out tour include:
Friday May 11 - Stockton 6pm at the Mexican Community Center, 609 S Lincoln St, Stockton. Featuring Agustin Aguayo.
Saturday May 12 - Monterey 7pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 490 Aguajito Rd, Carmel. Featuring Agustin Aguayo and Camilo Mejia. Sponsored by Veterans for Peace Chp. 69, Hartnell Students for Peace, Salinas Action League, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and Courage to Resist. More info: Kurt Brux 831-424-6447
Sunday May 13 - San Francisco 7pm at the Veterans War Memorial Bldg. (Room 223) , 401 Van Ness St, San Francisco. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia and Pablo Paredes. Sponsored by Courage to Resist, Veteran's for Peace Chp. 69 and SF Codepink.
Monday May 14 - Watsonville 7pm at the United Presbyterian Church, 112 E. Beach, Watsonville. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes and Robert Zabala. Sponsored by the GI Rights Hotline & Draft Alternatives program of the Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV), Santa Cruz Peace Coalition, Watsonville Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF), Watsonville Brown Berets, Courage to Resist and Santa Cruz Veterans for Peace Chp. 11. More info: Bob Fitch 831-722-3311
Tuesday May 15 - Palo Alto 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church (Fellowship Hall), 1140 Cowper, Palo Alto. Featuring Camilo Mejia. Sponsored by Pennisula Peace and Justice Center. More info: Paul George 650-326-8837
Wednesday May 16 - Eureka 7pm at the Eureka Labor Temple, 840 E St. (@9th), Eureka. Featuring Camilo Mejia. More info: Becky Luening 707-826-9197
Thursday May 17 - Oakland 4pm youth event and 7pm program at the Humanist Hall, 411 28th St, Oakland. Featuring Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes and the Alternatives to War through Education (A.W.E.) Youth Action Team. Sponsored by Veteran's for Peace Chp. 69, Courage to Resist, Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's (CCCO) and AWE Youth Action Team.
Friday May 18 - Berkeley 7pm at St. Joseph the Worker featuring Camilo Mejia.
US war resisters are part of a growing movement of war resistance within the military: Camilo Mejia, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Joshua Key, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
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.
Cheney made other laughable claims in Baghdad yesterday. Many in the press, including Joshua Partlow (Washington Post), Alissa J. Rubin and basically anyone filing from Iraq, noted that Cheney declared, "We are here, above all, because the terrorists who have declared war on America and other free nations have made Iraq the central front in that war. . . . The United States, also, has made a decision: As the prime target of a global war against terror, we will stay on the offensive. We will not sit back and wait to be hit again." If it sounds familiar, it's part of the scare lie that the US administration used to launch an illegal war. It's been disproven and discredited. Strangely, though major outlets found time to include the lie, there wasn't room to call it out. Now in the leadup to the illegal war this lie would be repeated over and over. It was a lie then but many in the mainstream ran with it (click here for one notable exception, McClatchy Newspapers -- then Knight-Ridder). After that and other lies were exposed -- after the US was involved in an illegal war -- some in the press would express shock that the discredited lie was believed by so many in the public. Why was that? Because despite mini-culpas there was no strong calling out of the lies and, even today, the lie can be jotted down and appear in print without a reporter feeling it is their duty (and it is their duty) to note that what Cheney uttered was a lie. One example, Warren P. Strobel and Margaret Talev's "Senate reports say Saddam rejected cooperating with terrorists" (McClatchy Newspapers) calling out the lie in September of last year:
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein rejected pleas for assistance from Osama bin Laden and tried to capture terrorist Abu Musab al Zarqawi when he was in Iraq, a Senate Intelligence Committee report released Friday found, casting further doubt on the Bush administration's rationale for invading Iraq.
President Bush and other administration officials repeatedly cited Saddam's alleged ties to radical Islamic terrorists before the March 2003 invasion as one reason to take military action against Iraq.
Yes and Cheney continues to do so without being called out on it, so don't blame the public when the press fails at its own job.
A failure of the British press currently is the slobbering going over about Mr Tony. As Tariq Ali noted at CounterPunch, "Tony Blair's success was limited to winning three general elections in a row. A second-rate actor, he turned out to be a crafty and avaricious politician, but without much substance; bereft of ideas he eagerly grasped and tried to improve upon the legacy of Margaret Thatcher. But though in many ways Blair's programme has been a euphemistic, if bloodier, version of Thatcher's, the style of their departures is very different. Thatcher's overthrow by her fellow-Conservatives was a matter of high drama: an announcement outside the Louvre's glass pyramid during the Paris Congress brokering the end of the Cold War; tears; a crowded House of Commons. Blair makes his unwilling exit against a backdrop of car-bombs and mass carnage in Iraq, with hundreds of thousands left dead or maimed from his policies, and London a prime target for terrorist attack. Thatcher's supporters described themselves afterwards as horror-struck by what they had done. Even Blair's greatest sycophants in the British media: Martin Kettle and Michael White (The Guardian), Andrew Rawnsley (Observer), Philip Stephens (FT) confess to a sense of relief as he finally quits." Speaking with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) today, Tariq Ali noted, "We had no real accounting of why he's leaving as prime minister. And the fact is he's leaving is, because he's hated. And the reason he's hated is because he joined the neocons in Washington and went to war against Iraq, which now 78% of the population in this country [England] oppose. And when people are being asked what will Blair’s legacy be, a large majority is saying Iraq. And I think that's what he will be remembered for, as a prime minister who took a reluctant and skeptical country into a war designed by Washington and its neoconservative strategists, all of whom are in crisis. And you listen to Blair now and his successor, Brown, and they sound much worse than any Democrat in the Senate or the House, because they realize the war's unpopular. These guys carry on living in a tiny bubble, media bubble, which they construct. And I think the BBC's sycophancy, the way in which they portrayed him yesterday as if he was a sort of dead Princess Diana, doesn't do them proud. It was a low point in BBC journalism, with one of their political correspondents saying, 'Gosh, look at him. Isn't he a winner?' Well, he isn't a winner, which is why he's leaving. And a reluctant party is saying farewell to him, because they think they’ll lose the next election if he’s in charge. That's what's going on."
And what's going on Iraq today?
Bombings?
Ibon Villelabeitia and Dean Yates (Reuters) report that Baghdad has seen truck bombing attacks on bridges today that have left at least 26 dead, at least 60 wounded and damanged bridges. Jenan (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Basra explosion that left one civilian wounded. Reuters reports a bridge outside Taiji was bombed "main highway connecting the capital [Baghdad] with cities in the north" and that four Iraqi soldiers were killed in the explosion, a Zaafaraniya bombing that left two dead and four wounded.
Shootings?
Jenan (McClatchy Newspapers) reports the Samara shooting death of "brigadier Amar Kareem Khlaf". Reuters reports a Kirkuk drive-by that left one person dead and the shooting death of Falluja's deputy mayor.
Corpses?
Reuters reports one corpses was discovered in Hawija.
Earlier today Reuters reported the Baghdad death of a US soldier (two more wounded) from a Thursday roadside bombing, the Tikrit death of a US soldier (9 wounded) from a Thursday bombing, the Thursday death of a US soldier in Diwaniya from "small-arms fire" and the Thursday death of a US soldier in Baghdad also from "small-arms fire".
This as AP reports that Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani , in a speech delivered at Cambridge, declared, "I think that in one or two years we will be able to recruit our forces, to prepare our forces and say goodbye to our friends." The total number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war is now 3386 -- that's 3386 'goodbyes' Talabani can say. Long after the four year mark has passed on the illegal war, everyone is supposed to buy that now (now!) it will only take one or two more years. And of course in one or two more years, no doubt, the message will still be "It'll just take a year or two more." How many deaths is it going to take? The next time someone -- in the US Congress, in the Iraqi Parliament, wherever -- wants to tell the world how much more X it will take for the illegal war to be 'won,' let's all ask them to drop the months or years and tell us how many more lives. How many more lives will this illegal war take? CBS and AP report: "The U.S. commander in northern Iraq, Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, said he doesn't have enough troops for the mission in Diyala, a province northeast of Baghdad that has seen a rise in violence blamed largely on militants who fled the Baghdad security operation. Mixon also said Iraqi government officials are not moving fast enough to provide the 'most powerful weapon' against insurgents -- a government that works and supplies services for the people." For such a government to exist, it would have to be one put foward by the Iraqi people and not yet another puppet government installed by the US. Meanwhile, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) reports this on CBS: "In media news, CBS has dismissed an Iraq war veteran over his involvement in an ad campaign criticizing the war. General John Batiste appears in an ad from the group VoteVets dot org. Batiste has been working as a CBS News consultant." Amy Goodman and Greg Palast will be on Sunday's Book TV (C-Span) (7:00 pm EST).
The US House of Representatives passed a measure today. It funds the Iraq war but by piecemeal. The Senate now takes up the vote. It's called going through the motions. Instead, we'll turn to campus activism where Bully Boy's speech today at St. Vincent college (in Penn.) has led to a huge outcry. James Gerstenzang (LA Times) reports that "Students vigorously debated the invitation at a town-hall meeting last month. A former St. Vincent College president wrote a scathing newspaper essay saying Bush had no place on the campus. About a quarter of the tenure-rank faculty wrote an open letter to Bush challenging the Iraq war as contrary to Roman Catholic doctrine. Several dozen people held a candlelight vigil Thursday night protesting the visit. And for several Sundays, nuns protested on the edge of the campus. The discord, polite and reasoned as it may be, is emblematic of passions across the country as the war moves further into its fifth year, with increasing military deployments and mounting death tolls among Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops." Jennifer Loven (AP) reports a crowd of at least 150 protesting and quotes philosophy major Ronny Menzie "I didn't finish my thesis because I didn't want my graduation with him. I think it's a blight, an embarrassment on a Catholic college." and Iraq war vet Jonas Merrill who made a 90 minute drive to protest the Bully Boy's appearance, "We're fighting for the guys still over there." This campus response isn't a brand new development for the administration. David Nitkin (Baltimore Sun) observes, "Graduation visits by Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials are galvanizing opponents at campuses across the country, sparking intense debates and frustrating White House hopes. A similar outcry greeted Bush last month at a South Florida community college. Protesters flocked to the campus even though it was considered to be an accommodating environment, with a large Cuban-American population." And Ron Hutcheson (McClatchy Newspapers) reminds, "Other even more conservative campuses also have been touched by unrest over the war. Last month, a small group of students and faculty at Brigham Young University, the nation's premier Mormon school, objected to a commencement address by Vice President Dick Cheney."
iraq tariq ali agustin aguayo democracy now amy goodman the new york times alissa j. rubin the washington post joshua partlow
