Friday, January 05, 2007

Lizzie West, students, Iraq, etc.

Betty's "The First Factually Challenged Fool" is up and be sure to read it. You'll love the humor (as always) but you'll also enjoy her correcting Thomas Friedman's column.

Next. Into White. Not Into the White. I'm not a Cat Stevens fan and never was. Sorry. Into White is the name of Carly Simon's new CD. That will be my next review. And I already have the next one planned as well, the one after Carly. While we were eating lunch, C.I. was catching Democracy Now! on the laptop. There was this wonderful song playing during today's broadcast. Jim and I were both asking, "Who is that?" C.I. goes Lizzie West -- with an eye roll because C.I.'s been recommending to everyone that we listen to Lizzie West since last spring. I actually intended to but the summer was so busy. And, as Jim pointed out, it would help if, when we all pick out CDs to play, C.I. would pick. (C.I. rarely does.) As soon as we landed, we went to C.I.'s (where I am now) and C.I. and called Betty because we knew she was waiting to post until she could try out the chapter on us. (It really is brilliant.) Then C.I. slipped the Lizzie West CD into my purse. So as soon as I do the Carly review, I'll be reviewing Lizzie West. Credit to Amy Goodman for playing it and noting that West sent it in (and that Democracy Now! would be eager to share other songs that fit the program if artists wanted to send them in).

We're all exhausted. Ty says he feels like even his eyelids are strained. I know what he means. Well, not all. I swear C.I. never gets tired. It's got to happen but all week, with five speaking engagements a minimum, C.I. never lagged and isn't lagging right now. I'm only good for four of those gigs a day and am feeling it by the fourth.

C.I. was trying out the snapshot (I think, maybe the snapshot just came out that way because C.I. was speaking about Watada? Who knows?) today repeatedly on various groups. And the feedback from students was basically, why isn't anyone walking us through this like that? (C.I.'s response, Well, now it's your job to walk others through it.) Most of the groups were made up of a great many people who already knew of Ehren Watada which is good and helpful but it was a new way of talking about him and a way that a lot of people were able to relate to. Not everyone was opposed to the war at the beginning and not everyone grasped their government was lying to them. Ehren Watada is a story of a man taking a courageous stand, absolutely, but when you tie in the awakening, he really does become a lot easier to relate to.

I think that's because people are looking for heroes (not a bad thing) and Ehren Watada does qualify for that but, with the young, when they make someone a hero it may be harder to relate to them. My own theory, feel free to disagree. So by making it, today, about the process and how it could have happened to them, they could have believed and been in the military believing only to start to grasp the truth, that really did hit home and led to a lot of sharing from students about when they started to realize the war was based on lies (a lot mentioned the Downing Street Memos).

C.I. was listening to Democracy Now!, working the phones and doing the snapshot while we were all eating lunch and when we got ready to go, Jess said, "Crap!" We all look and he goes, "Chinese." C.I. doesn't hate Mexican but everytime this week, we'd go through the, "What do you want to eat?" and someone would say "Mexican." Rebecca's pointed that out before. Next trip I'm on, I'll suggest Chinese right off the bat.

The excitement this morning came when C.I. was posting "And justice for none?" and starting "Other Items" because there was only seven minutes before we had to leave. Right in the middle of "Other Items," the laptog powers down. C.I. had another battery and Jim was already booting up his laptop but there wasn't time. We were riding to the first speaking gig and C.I. was dictating "Other Items" over the phone to a friend (and explaining how to do links). We were walking in the building and C.I. was still dictating. The head of the student group walks up to ask if C.I. could talk about some of the other war resisters as well (which wasn't a problem) and C.I.'s nodding and finishing up the entry. Right before C.I.'s about to speak, all the sudden the question is, "Did the Watada entry go up?" C.I. couldn't remember if that was posting when the laptop powered down or not. (It had gone up.) But it was really funny to see that moment of panic and then, a second later, C.I. smooth as honey, speaking to the group.

As tired as I get, I really do enjoy going on those gigs. I'm never sure what I'll talk about until it's my turn and doubt that I do a very good job but I really do enjoy the exchange because it is so not true that students do not care about the war. There were three college groups and two high school ones plus a group that was a mixture today (and C.I. also grabbed an impromptu group as well while the rest of us were getting our stuff together to leave) and anyone saying that students are apethetic is someone who's not talking to students.

One of the biggest complaints this week, high school and college, was how little attention the 3,000 mark (US troops killed in Iraq, we reached that Sunday) had gotten. Don't think that sort of thing goes unnoticed because it doesn't. They could list and list who hadn't noted it. This was a very big deal to them. (And should be to you as well.)

I also enjoyed, in the first group, watching their faces as C.I. was talking about various war resisters. There are a lot of assumptions made, I think, in the professional coverage, that doesn't allow the stories to resonate. C.I.'s really good about seizing upon a personal like or moment in someone's life and then using that as the entry point to discuss them. Those details, just watching, you can see the students sit up and lean in.

C.I. hits the four year mark on this next month so obviously a great deal has been learned through trial and error but I really wonder about the way so much of this is reported. It may be the best way for people who want their news quickly but I'm not sure how much of it reaches a person?

For this trip, C.I. just told us, "You really don't want to miss this one." We were all wondering why but all said, "Sure." Once we'd all agreed to go, C.I. said we'd be visiting Rebecca. That's like the recommending Lizzie West. Jim and I were laughing about that today. If we'd known at the start that we'd be visiting Rebecca, we'd all have said yes in a second but C.I. didn't want to pressure anyone. (Which you could carry over to the lunch choices as well.)

But visiting Rebecca was a highlight. It's one thing to hear her on the phone saying, "I'm fine, don't worry." It's another to see her in person. She really does look fine. (She said she was glad it was this week and not last because her color wasn't good last week.) That said, Jess did remind us all the next day that the schedule for the writing edition (implemented by Ava and C.I.) was done for a reason and we needed to stick to it. (We're starting on Saturday nights and sending everyone to sleep by midnight there time. Then they rejoin us early in the morning. Ava, Dona and C.I. did not want a thirty-plus hour session where Rebecca felt like she had to be present for every hour to be pulling her weight.)

And Jim's still asking what Ava and C.I. did on Christmas eve to get the edition finished on time (ahead of time) while maintaining that schedule? I have no idea. I know they would both say, "Okay, that's good enough." But I also know Dona does that normally. C.I. had roughed most of it out ahead of time, the topics we'd be covering, by touching base throughout the week. Ava handled the roundtable and did Jim and Dona's jobs which Jim's wondering if that was one of the key's? Dona usually watches time and Jim moderates. With Ava doing both, Jim wondered if that was it?

But it was more than one thing. I also think that Ava and C.I. were more quick to add their input. They're both very similar in letting others have their say and then some. They usually come in after everyone's had a chance to discuss and add input. I don't mean that they cut anyone off. I do mean that they'd say, for instance, "Okay, Wally, you have strong feelings about this, what are they?" They steered the edition more than it usually gets steered. It's also true, as Jim will admit, that he really loves the exploration. Dona will be frazzled, and on her second or third pack of cigarettes, saying, "We've got to finish!" and Jim will be saying, "Okay, but let's explore this thought a bit futher."

I don't think that it was any one thing or that it could be repeated. I think part of it was that Ava and C.I. feared that since they were the only ones representing the core six who run the site, the edition would be scrutinized for content and how quickly it went up. I actually think they were overly concerned with that. (C.I. kept worrying that the edition was too light -- all through the edition. It was only after everyone rejoined us and we did the roundtable that C.I. stopped worrying about that.) They were very aware of a pressure (that I doubt most readers would have placed on them -- for instance, they could have done a light edition and readers would've accepted it and noted it was Christmas eve) and I think that impacted the edition. Out here on the West Coast, we were done at a little after five p.m. and when you think about how it's usually eleven a.m. (and has been as late as 3:00 p.m.), that was really a shocker. In fact, when all the pieces were done, Ava noted how early it was and we ended up doing a last minute piece on war resisters.

But Jim is curious about that and wants to try to have us all done that quickly this Sunday. (I doubt it will happen which isn't saying I don't believe Jim, just noting that in all the time they've been doing the site, which includes without my help, they have never been finished that quickly.)

Okay, enough yacking. Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, January 5, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, US war resister Ehren Watada's pretrial hearing began yesterday, Bully Boy shuffles the deck while an "I told you so" travels across the Atlantic from France, and Ahmed Hadi Naji, who worked for AP, is discovered dead.


Monday, February 5th, the US military attempts to court-martial Ehren Watada. Watada is the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. Yesterday, at Fort Lewis in Washington, a pretrial hearing began that will determine what arguments are allowed in the court-martial and what arguments will be disallowed. The hearing was presided over by Lt. Col. John Head, the court-martial would have a jury made up of *a panel of* officers, and the AP reports that he will make his decision on "the parameters of the case" next week. Melanthia Mitchell (AP) reports that on Thursday: "Watada's parents sat in the back of the courtroom during the hearing, his father at times leaning forward on the bench with his hands clasped in front of him." As Linton Weeks (Washington Post) noted, Carolyn Ho, Ehren's mother, is a high school counselor who went on leave to raise awareness about her son and is on leave for the pretrial and the court-martial. Bob Watada, Ehren's father, has also been engaged in speaking tours around the country to raise awareness about Ehren and, for any wondering, Bob Watada recently retired (and recently remarried, Rosa Sakanishi, Ehren's step-mother, has accompanied Bob Watada on his speaking tours).

The US military wants to reduce the court-martial to a "yes" or "no" -- Did you refuse to deploy to Iraq? They wish to prevent Ehren Watada from explaining his decision -- in effect that are hoping to prevent him from making the best defense possible when he is facing six years in prison.

As Hal Bernton (Seattle Times) reported: "At a hearing Thursday at Fort Lewis, there was little dispute about the action taken by 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, who last June refused to deploy with his brigade to Iraq. But defense and prosecutors sparred much of the afternoon about whether Watada's motives for opting out of the war should affect the outcome of a February court-martial trial that could result in a six-year prison term." If the military was interested in justice (and sure of their case), they wouldn't be attempting to shut down Watada's defense.

The prosucetor, Captain Dan Kuecker has stated, "There is no rational doubt in this situation; . . . it's a lawful order." Were he as sure of himself as he pretends to the press, there would be no attempts to prevent Watada from explaining both his actions and the reasons behind them.

Watada explained the reasons most recently to Kevin Sites (Kevin Sites in The Hotzone): "I think that in March of 2003 when I joined up, I, like many Americans, believed the administration when they said the threat from Iraq was imminent -- that there were weapons of mass destruction all throughout Iraq; that there were stockpiles of it; and because of Saddam Hussein's ties to al-Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorist acts, the threat was imminent and we needed to invade that country immediately in order to neutralize that threat. Since then I think I, as many, many Americans are realizing, that those justifications were intentionally falsified in order to fit a policy established long before 9/11 of just toppling the Saddam Hussein regime and setting up an American presence in Iraq. . . . I think the facts are out there, they're not difficult to find, they just take a little bit of willingness and interest on behalf of anyone who is willing to seek out the truth and find the facts. All of it is in the mainstream media. But it is quickly buried and it is quickly hidden by other events that come and go. And all it takes is a little bit of logical reasoning. The Iraq Survey Group came out and said there were no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 and during 2003. The 9/11 Commission came out and said there were no ties with Iraq to 9/11 or al-Qaeda. The president himself came out and said nobody in his administration ever suggested that there was a link. And yet those ties to al-Qaeda and the weapons of mass destruction were strongly suggested. They said there was no doubt here were weapons of mass destruction all throughout 2002, 2003 and even 2004. So, they came out and they say this, and yet they say it was bad intelligence, not manipulated intelligence, that was the problem. And then you have veteran members of the CIA that come out and say, 'No. It was manipulated intelligence. We told them there was no WMD. We told them there were no tides to al-Qaeda. And they said that that's not what they wanted to hear'."


In essence, Ehren Watada is on trial for the media -- the media that sold the illegal war and the media that told the truth (eventually for some) about it. So it has been surprising to see nothing on Watada in the leading independent magazines in 2006. In 2007, The Nation discovered Watada on page 14 of the January 8 and 15th double issue in an article written by Marc Cooper (click here for Yahoo version -- subscribers only at The Nation website). Like many Americans, Watada believe the spin/lies from the US administration (repeated near word for word by most media outlets with little skepticism). Like many Americans, he's since come to see that reality and spin were two different things.


This new awareness is reflected not only in the civilian population but also, as Rachel Ensign (Citizen Soldier) reminds us, within the military as well: "A new poll conducted by the Army Times newspaper at the end of 2006 found that a majority of soldiers polled now disapprove of how Bush has conducted the Iraq war to date. . . . Only 41% of soldiers polled today think that we should have invaded Iraq -- down from 65% in 2003. This closely mirrors sentiment among civilians; only 45% of whom now believe that the war was a good idea."


Michael Gilbert (The News Tribune) reports that, based on comments and questions during the pretrial hearing, Lt. Col John Head "likely won't allow Lt. Ehren Watada to defend himself" by making the case for his actions and why he acted as he did and that Head declared, "At this point I'm not inclined to grant a hearing on the Nuremburg defense." The Nuremburg defense is in reference to the Nuremberg trials during which soldiers stating that they were only following orders were told that was not a legal excuse for their actions. As Ruth noted, following the August Article 32 hearing of Watada, "The message that Lieutenant Colonel Mark Keith appears to be endorsing is follow all orders but, if it later turns out that they were illegal, you are on your own and will take full responsibility. At best, like with Lieutenant Calley, the War Monger in the oval office may pardon you after you are convicted. What is the message? Why teach the obligation to follow only legal orders, why refute 'I was only following orders' as a defense and then punish Lieutenant Ehren Watada for doing just that while advising him that it is not his place to make such a determination when, in fact, the invididual who obeys the unlawful order is the one who will be held responsible by the military justice system?"


Why teach? Refer to Ruth's Report where she goes over retired Col. Ann Wright's testimony at the Article 32 hearing on what she taught soldiers at the JFK Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg while teaching the Law of Land Warfare. Taught is FM 27-10 (Law of Land Warfare):


Section IV. DEFENSES NOT AVAILABLE 509. Defense of Superior Orders
a. The fact that the law of war has been violated pursuant to an order of a superior authority, whether military or civil, does not deprive the act in question of its character of a war crime, nor does it constitute a defense in the trial of an accused individual, unless he did not know and could not reasonably have been expected to know that the act ordered was unlawful. In all cases where the order is held not to constitute a defense to an allegation of war crime, the fact that the individual was acting pursuant to orders may be considered in mitigation of punishment.


Ehren Watada could be prosecuted for actions committed during war by the above; however, the US military does not want to allow him to use the same law to defend himself. Only a fool would call that "justice." This is what Eric Seitz, Watada's attorney, is noting when he told Linton Weeks, "The United States talks out of both sides of its mouth. We've prosecuted soldiers in other countries for following orders to commit war crimes. But God forbid you should use that refusal as a defense in this country."


Christian Hill (The Olympian) reports, however, that the military prosecution may have outfoxed itself: "The judge, Lt. Col. John Head, told prosectors that he was not inclined to grant the evidentiary hearing, but 'they opened the door for him allowing it by prosecuting his statements'" thereby making it "relevant. Some of those statements have become relevant by the sheer nature of how the government has charged this case."

Head was not referring to the charge of missing deployment but the charge ("conduct unbecoming") based upon remarks Watada made about the war such as ""The wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of Iraqis is not only a terrible and moral injustice, but it's a contradiction to the Army's own law of land warfare. My participation would make me party to war crimes." Remember: A Citizens' Hearings is being convened January 20-22 at Evergreen State College.

Ehren Watada's awakening mirrors that of many Americans. It also has echoes
in the growing resistance within the military to the illegal war as many resisters vocalize sentiments similar to Watada's (usually noting the works of Howard Zinn). Others that a part of this growing resistance within the military include Kyle Snyder, Darrell Anderson, Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Joshua Key, Ivan Brobeck, Camilo Meija, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Jeremy Hinzman, Corey Glass, Patrick Hart, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight 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. Appeal for Redress is collecting signatures of active duty service members calling on Congress to bring the troops home -- the petition will be delivered to Congress this month.

While Watada faces court-martial for questioning the illegal war, France's president earns headlines for doing the same. AFP reports that Jacques Chirac speech today revolved largely around the illegal war: "As France had forseen and feared, the war in Iraq has sparked upheavals that have yet to show their full effects . . . exacerbated the divisions between communities and threatened the very integrity of Iraq. . . . It undermined the stability of the entire region, where every country now fears for its security and independence." (Chirac's also getting attention for, in the same speech, calling for slashing corporate taxes.)


Before noting some of the violence today in Iraq, let's note December again. Steve Negus (Financial Times of London) notes that the Iraq Interior Ministry's figure of 1,930 Iraqis dead for the month of December (an undercount) remains "a new high" for any month. Meanwhile, the count for US troop fatalities in Iraq for the month of December reached 115.


Bombings?

Reuters reports: "A roadside bomb struck a U.S. marine tank in the western city of Falluja on Friday", while a roadside bomb wounded four Iraqi soldiers and killed anohter in Baiji, and a roadside bomb in Kirkuk left two police officers wounded. Christopher Torchia (AP) reports
four Iraqis killed on the "outskirts" of Baghdad from mortar attacks.

Shootings?

Mohammed al Awsy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 Iraqi soldiers were shot dead in the Diyala Province. Reuters reports that "a former colonel" was shot dead in Mosul, as were a father and son in Iskandariya.

Corpses?

Mohammed al Awsy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 12 corpses were discovered in Baghdad ("2 sadr city, 2 dora, 2 amil, 2 jihad, 2 hurriyah, 1 kadhemiyah, 1 abu atsheer"). Reuters notes that three corpses were discovered in Iskandariya. And AP reports that Ahmed Hadi Naji, 28-years-old, "was found shot in the back of the head Friday, six days after he was last seen by his family leaving work". AP notes that he is "the second AP employee killed in less than a month" and that he is the fourth "to die violently" in the illegal war. They note that Ahmed Hadi Naji is survived by his wife, Sahba'a Mudhar Khalil, and his four-month-old twins, Zaid (male) and Rand (female). Christopher Torchia (AP) reports that Ahmed Hadi Naji had worked "for the AP for 2 1/2 years".


And Aref Mohmmed (Reuters) reports that one "American civilian contractor and two Iraqi translators" were kidnapped in Basra today.

Changing focus . . .

So let's be really clear, torture in Iraq is rampant and that's because it's policy even though we have had a replacement of Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld who infamously told . . . general, retired, now retired, but at the time general, [Janis] Karpinski 'make sure this happens' regarding specific torture techniques that he wanted to begin using inside places like Abu Ghraib well that policy hasn't changed as I said, these people are still being tortured, they're just not letting people bring in their video cameras and their digital cameras so that the images can find themselves splashed across the screens of 60 Minutes II program, for example.

What is that? Dahr Jamail speaking with Nora Barrows-Friedman on yesterday's
KPFA's Flashpoints (use either to listen to an archived broadcast -- Rebecca's "nora barrows-friedman interviewed dahr jamail on flashpoints" offers an overview of the interview).
For an hour, Nora Barrows-Friedman and Dahr Jamail reviewed the year 2006 in Iraq, focusing on the death squads, women, children, attacks on civilians and much more.

Nora Barrows-Friedman: Dahr, can you talk now about the permanent US military base structures this was being talked about openly and publicly in the spring of 2006. But how has that discussion progressed and what does a permananet US military base structure look like on the ground? How many are we talking here?


Dahr Jamail: We started out with over a hundred bases in Iraq and they are slowly consolidating this number down to, right now it's around, it was 53 last time I checked. So they're slowly consolidating them down and if people want an idea of what Iraq might look like in the next couple of years, well we just have to look at Afghanistan because that's where, kind of, this model started and there's a couple of years jump there. And if you look at Afghanistan, we've got, I believe, four major bases right around the area of where I believe the proposed pipeline's going to go. So we should expect something similar but more bases in Iraq. There's going to be, right now it looks like, between six and twelve, we're not real sure on the number, but between six and twelve of these permanent bases. The military and the corporate media won't call them permanent because they don't have to, because they just made sure that they would have permanent access into particular areas in Iraq and so there was nothing in the so-called constitutional referendum that took place on October 15 a year ago that banned access from a foreign country, that's why there was a lot of wrangling along that constitutional referendum and why even someone in the UN that I spoke with, I quoted him as saying there was 'undue, inappropriate, US influence on this constitution' and it was around Iraq's oil and it was also around permanent access. So as a result we have between six and twelves of these bases. Just to give you an example of what these bases look like there's one called Camp Anaconda which is actually an air field in Balad, just north of Baghdad, and Camp Anaconda is a base that has 250 of its own aircraft. Air Force officials there claim that it was the second busiest runway on earth. There are 20,000 soldiers on this base less than a thousand of whom ever leave whatsoever. There's a base exchange there where they sell televisions, iPods, CDs, DVDs, TVs, there's a first run movie theater, . . . very elaborate meals served by Kellog Brown & Root employing third country nationals which is kind of the way these people are referred to in Iraq by the contractors but really if we're going to call them what they are, they're slaves. They're people from places like India and Sri Lanka and Bangladesh working for slave wages serving these very elaborate meals because with the cost plus fix fee contract that means that when Halliburton is serving these very elaborate meals the more money they spend in Iraq, the more money they make. So that's what's being served in a huge base like that. Soldiers actually gain weight and if they don't of course want any of that food or if they get burnt out on it like say you would at a college, for example, at a college dorm, well then they can go to the 24 hour Burger King, they can go to the Popeye's Fried Chicken, they can go to the Subway sandwich shop, and then wash it down with a latte from Starbucks. So that's just one of these bases to give you an idea, there's also AT&T phone home centers, there's also a Hertz rental car which I find kind of amusing because it's not like they're going to leave the base and go for a little drive in Al-Anbar Province but there it is, Hertz-Rent-A-Car, . . . I like to specifically name these companies so people can take note of that. So that's what these bases look like in Iraq and to contextualize that a little bit, it sounds a lot like some of these bases we have in Germany now, doesn't it, which have been there, what are we talking now, a little over sixty years, so just to give people an idea of what the situation is on the ground regarding the bases, we talk about the US' so-called embassy in Baghdad that's being built as we speak. This was a $572 million contract that was awarded to a very corrupt . . . Kuwaiti construction firm with very direct ties to the Bush administration and this is an embassy that's going to have room for between 3 and 8,000 government employees, it has its own school . . . so I don't think we should expect any Iraqi kids at this school, it has the largest swimming pool in the country, yoga studios, barbershops, beauty shops, its own water plant, it's own electricity plant, it has apartment buildings. And when it's complete, it will be, it's 21 buildings and the area will be the size of the Vatican City. So that's the so-called embassy that's being built in Iraq so if we talk about when are we going to withdraw troops and why aren't the Democrats talking about withdrawal, this sort of thing, instead why is there talk of a 'surge'? It's because we . . . just need look no further than the physical evidence on the ground, augmented by the US policy like the National Security Strategy and the Quadrennial Defense Review Report -- all of these signs point towards permanent occupation of Iraq just like we have in Germany.



But never fear, Democrats are in power in the US Congress which translates as . . . a strongly worded letter. CNN reports that "leaders of the new Democratic Congress" sent an open letter to the Bully Boy which "said increasing troop levels in Iraq would be a 'serious mistake'." That's telling him! (And shades of the letter Carolyn Ho got from Congress.) AFP reports that the letter states "it is time to bring the war to a close." And no doubt, this wouldn't have even happened were it not for the activists on Wednesday (sse Thursday's snapshot). Cindy Sheehan, who handled the press conference Yawn Emmanuel and other Congress members fled from, today on Democracy Now!, addressed the realities too many elected Democrats want to avoid: that the war is costing the US 10 million dollars every hour, that plans and programs will cost money and defunding the war needs to be placed 'back on the table,' that the people want the war ended and the Democratic Party was voted into office not to wait around for another laughable 'plan' from the Bully Boy, to get the United States out of the illegal war.


Meanwhile, in shuffling the chairs on the deck of the Titanic, AFP reports that Bully Boy nominated the now former US director of national intelligence John Negroponte to be the Deputy Secretary of State -- second to Condi -- while he "announced that he had chosen vice adminiral Michael McConnell, a former head of the National Security Agency, to replace Negroponte at the head of all 16 US spy agencies". And as Christopher Torchia (AP) notes,
generals John P. Abizaid and George Casey will be replaced shortly.


Returning to news of war resisters, earlier this week, Mary Ambrose (New American Media) took a look at war resisters who seek asylum in Canada and noted the stories of Chris and Stephanie Teske -- Chris decided to self-checkout while stationed in Germany but US troops do not "have access to their passports" so, after deciding on Canada, Stephanie: "I cried a lot and told them we'd spent $3,000 on these tickets and my parents were waiting for us and frankly, we just got lucky."
Posted by at