Friday, October 19, 2007

Cedric subbing for Kat and talking Blackwater

Cedric subbing for Kat. Why?

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
and Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz

are all at Tori Amos' concert tonight. So we're all trying to help out and prevent them arriving home and needing to suddenly post or else wait until tomorrow morning and rush to post.

Betty did "Betty filling in for Rebecca" and Ty, Jim and Dona did "Ty, Jim & Dona filling in for Elaine." Wally's subbing Mike and I'm subbing for Kat. Wally was actually starting to post when I called him to explain that Jeremy Scahill was on PBS' Bill Moyers Journal tonight.

We had a topic for tonight's group (some relatives and some friends come over on Fridays and we do an Iraq study group) but since Schaill was on, I suggested we watch the program and then spend a half hour discussing it. That's what we ended up doing.

That worked out best because it was one of those days where you run behind all through it. So when I got home, I realized this was my night to provide the eats. I called in for pizzas. I wasn't in the mood to even toss stuff in the microwave and I didn't want to go back out after finally getting home.

Moyers and Scahill discussed the mercenary group Blackwater USA and, if you missed it, it's available online. You can also leave a question for Scahill here and he's going to come back next week and answer some of them.

It was a really strong discussion and the point that stands out to me most is the proposal that the FBI oversee Blackwater. Scahill explained how that was a joke. The FBI would set up an office in Iraq (probably the Green Zone) and be expected to oversee all 180,000 plus contractors in Iraq (more than the number of US troops in Iraq). That one office would then be responsible for investigating and then the issue would be decided in US courts. That's a joke. That's not oversight and the White House has so politicized the Justice Department that no one should expect justice. Scahill also made the point that not only does Blackwater protect the State Department and the Pentagon but when Congress goes to Iraq, their members are also protected by Blackwater. The idea that the FBI or anyone protected by Blackwater can offer oversight is just ludicrous.

Ruth has just started her own site, Ruth's Report, so make a point to visit that and here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, October 19, 2007, Iraq Moratorium Day. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces two more deaths, Amy Goodman shines a light on the Iraqi wounded, and more.

Starting with war resistance. War resister Camilo Mejia speaks Saturday in Madison, Wisconsin. Janet Parker (The Capital Times) notes, "This weekend at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, energy is building among student activists who are hosting a national event, Students Rising: The 5th Anniversary Summit of the Campus Antiwar Network. Their featured speaker will be brave conscientious objector to war, Camilo Mejia. In 2004 Staff Sgt. Mejia applied for a discharge from the Army. He was the first known Iraq veteran to refuse to fight, citing moral concerns about the war and occupation. His public talk will be in the Humanities Building, Room 3650, at 8 p.m. Saturday." Pablo Paredes is another war resister. On Wednesday, he was in Berkeley with CODEPINK and other activists to protest the recruiting center on Shattuck Ave. Henry K. Lee (San Francisco Chronicle) reports on the right wing activists descending upon the area to demonstrate their support for recruiting centers to send more people off to die in an illegal war and points out one right winger made a fool out of himself. The right-winger's son died in Iraq (this isn't in the article) and -- the then under-age son was able to join the military only because he signed a waiver. Instead of addressing that, he elected to scream at Pablo Paredes, "Are you a soldier? They wouldn't let you looking like that!" A soldier? Paredes was in the navy and was a Petty Officer Third Class. Lee writes, "Paredes said later that he had served five years in the Navy and that people of color like himself bore the brunt of military service. 'I think the color of my skin shouldn't make me be on the front line,' Paredes said, adding that he left the Navy because he refused orders and opposed the war in Iraq." Along with Mejia, Stephen Funk and Aiden Delgado, Paredes is one of the early faces of war resistance and they -- and many others including Carl Webb -- demonstrated from the start that the movement was not "White" -- despite the mistaken claims of many.

Demonstrating further the diversity is the fact that one Iraq War resister is the first officer to publicy refuse to serve in the illegal war. That officer is Ehren Watada. Today is Iraq Moratorium day and many participants will be showing their solidarity with Watada whose legal status is on hold as federal judge Benjamin Settle reviews issues arising from the first court-martial of Watada (in February) when Judge Toilet (aka John Head) declared a mistrial over defense objection which should have prevented any further court-martials due to the double-jeopardy clause in the US Constitution. In a letter to People's Weekly World entitled "Watada's Leadership," T. Kyoshi Nagano explains how Watada's refusal to engage in an illegal war was upholding the highest of military standards by juxtaposing Watada's statements with those of US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Watada: "I refuse to be silent any longer. I refuse to be party to an illegal and immoral war against people who did nothing to deserve our agression. My oath of office is to protect and defend America's laws and its people. By refusing unlawful orders for an illegal war, I fulfill that oath today."

Gates: "For a real leader, the elements of personal virtue -- self-reliance, self-control, honor, truthfulness, morality -- are absolute. They are absolute even when doing what is right may bring embarrassment or bad publicy to your unit or the service or to you. Those are the moements that will truly test the leader withing you -- test whether you will take the hard parth or the easy path, the wrong path or the right path. The willingness always to take the right path, even if it is the hard path, is called character. In every aspect of your life, whether personal or professional, you must always maintain the courage of your convictions -- your personal integrity."

T, Kyoshi Nagano observes, "There is a tradition in the Japanese American community to act on personal belief from volunteer 442/Nisei Linguist (while their family and friends were in camps), the NoNo Boys and the Vietnam War resisters. There are words, yet actions speak loudly." While the federal court examines the issue of double-jeopardy, a stay has been issued through at least October 26th.

New war resisters pop up daily and some go public and some don't. One who has decided to go public is Michael Espinal who self-checked out and went to Canada after serving in Iraq. Denis St. Pierre (The Sudbury Star) reports that Espinal "witnessed -- and participated in -- authorized missions that saw hundreds -- perhaps thousands of innocent Iraqis killed, injured, imprisoned and humiliated, their homes destroyed, their families ripped apart. In Espinal's view, he and his colleagues committed numerous human rights abuses and criminal acts. When his first tour of duy in Iraq ended, he resolved not to return. . . . Espinal and his partner, Jennifer Harrison, who are expecting their first child in April, have been living in Sudbury for the last few weeks. They are the first Americans to attempt to settle in the city with the help from the War Resisters Support Campaign. War Resisters is a country-wide coalition of community, faith, labour and other organizations and individuals helping U.S. soldiers who seek asylum in Canada rather than fight in Iraq." [Note: They are posting video to go with the text. If you click on the link try later. There's also an excerpt of the article in this entry.]

There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.

The National Lawyers Guild's convention begins shortly: The Military Law Task Force and the Center on Conscience & War are sponsoring a Continuing Legal Education seminar -- Representing Conscientious Objectors in Habeas Corpus Proceedings -- as part of the National Lawyers Guild National Convention in Washington, D.C. The half-day seminar will be held on Thursday, November 1st, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the convention site, the Holiday Inn on the Hill in D.C. This is a must-attend seminar, with excelent speakers and a wealth of information. The seminar will be moderated by the Military Law Task Force's co-chair Kathleen Gilberd and scheduled speakers are NYC Bar Association's Committee on Military Affairs and Justice's Deborah Karpatkin, the Center on Conscience & War's J.E. McNeil, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee's Peter Goldberger, Louis Font who has represented Camilo Mejia, Dr. Mary Hanna and others, and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's James Feldman. The fee is $60 for attorneys; $25 for non-profit attorneys, students and legal workers; and you can also enquire about scholarships or reduced fees. The convention itself will run from October 31st through November 4th and it's full circle on the 70th anniversary of NLG since they "began in Washington, D.C." where "the founding convention took place in the District at the height of the New Deal in 1937, Activist, progressive lawyers, tired of butting heads with the reactionary white male lawyers then comprising the American Bar Association, formed the nucleus of the Guild."

Each Wednesday, CODEPINK protests at the military recruiting center in Berkeley. As Medea Benjamin explained to Kristin Bender (Alameda Times-Star), "Our message is very clear. We are peaceful people. We don't want to send our sons and daughters into this war. I think the sentiment of Berkeley is on this side of the street." Bender notes, "The Golden State in 2001 was the nation's largest source of new enlistees, with 23,503 residents joining the military in 2001. But in 2006, 2,400 fewer residents heeded the call, and today California ranks second behind Texas in recruitment." Aimee Allison and David Solnit address counter-recruiting in their book Army Of None: Strategies to Counter Military Recruitment, End War, and Build a Better World (published by Seven Stories Press and available at Courage to Resist). Speaking with Matthew Rothschild last week on The Progressive Radio, Allison noted, "One of the things that I think the military recruiters on the ground rely on are sustained access, regular access to high school kids in particular so they can develop relationships. For the recruiter, they become father or friend or guide and take students out to Burger King and, you know. But of all of the messages that they learn, that recruiters learn, through their hard sell and sustained selling techniques, they never mention the word 'kill.' And the reason why is because it's very deeply ingrained in human beings not to kill. And we've all had these kind of, someone makes us mad and there's a reason we don't act on that because our church, and our family and our society condition us against that kind of violence. So it's the center of the recruiters' message to tell them all the things they can do with their life without letting them know about what the military really is and that is an institution designed to train someone to kill on command and that was the most surprising thing for me in my own experiences." CODEPINK's actions (and the actions of many others throughout the US) are an attempt to break the myths and silence.

A backdoor draft currently exists and is more popularly known as "stop loss." In addition, the US government has set up the framework that would be utilized should the draft be reinstated -- including Selective Service boards. Kyle Knight (University of Southern Indiana's The Shield) explores what would quickly happen if the draft were reinstated, "First, all 20 year-olds must report to their local draft board then 21, 22, and so on. Other aspects of the draft also differ from Vietnam. The S.S.S. states that no one can cite school as a possible deferment. At most, the student could postpone until the end of the semester and not until they finish their degree. The S.S.S. states 'beliefs which qualify a registrant for C.O. status may be religious in nature, but don't have to be. Beliefs may be moral or ethical; however, a man's reasons for not wanting to participate in a war must not be based on politics, expediency, or self-interest.' To claim conscientious objector you must appear before your local draft board and present a written statement on the influence of your beliefs on your life and how you arrived at them. You can even include someone to speak on your behalf, then the Selective Service Appeal Board will either reject or accept your claim. If accepted you must engage in one of two alternative service choices."

From yesterday's snapshot: "Reuters notes that 'three tribesmen, members of a local "Awakenings Council" aligned to U.S. forces' were whot dead in Dhuluiya. On Tuesday, Sheikh Saleh Fezea Shneitar, his son and nephew were killed outside of Falluja -- the sheikh was a member of "Anbar Awakenings Council," a group that works closely with the US military and whose members have been increasingly targeted for their collaboration. In a White House press conference today Nouri al-Maliki's spokesperson denied that the resistance was 'getting more sophisticated in who they go after'." Today, Ali al-Fadhily (IPS) explores the issue of collaborators zooming in on Abdul Sattar Abu Risha who was killed on September 13th, "It is no secret in Anbar province that Abu Risha's activities were not legal either before or after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. When the U.S. government began to support the 'Awakening of Anbar' led by Sattar Abu Risha, which operated under the flag of fighting al-Qaeda [in Iraq], some people did begin to think differently. 'Americans always choose the worst of their collaborators to be leaders of their campaigns,' Sheikh Ahmed Ali of the Muslim Scholars Association told IPS in Baghdad. 'Look at the governments and councils they choose to lead Iraq. This Sattar Abu Risha only provoked a division among the people of Anbar, and that was exactly what the Americans wanted'."

In some of today's reported violence . . .


Bombings?

Reuters notes a Baghdad mortar attack that left three wounded.

Shootings?

Reuters notes an attack on a Riyadh police chief that left two guards injured.

Corpses?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 6 corpses were discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes two corpses were discovered in Muwailha.

Today the US military announced: "A Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldier was killed and one other wounded when their unit was attacked by an improvised explosive device and small arms fire in a southern section of the Iraqi capital Oct. 18." And they announced: "A Task Force Lightning Soldier based in Salah ad Din province died as a result of a non-combat-related illness Wednesday after being evacuated to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany." ICCC's total for the month of October thus far is 26 dead with 3832 US service members killed in the illegal war since it started.

Turning to the topic of wounded US service members, yesterday on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, Rehm spoke with the Washington Post's Anne V. Hull and Dana Priest about the issue of medical care provided by the Veterans Affairs Dept. (for Hull and Priest's prior reporting at the Post on this issue click here).

Diane Rehm: What's extraordinary is that you say, Dana, the current Veterans Administration is pulled at the seams with some 800,000 cases of backlog.

Dana Priest: Yep. And it seems like it was just a surprise to them that this was going to happen. I don't know if anybody's tried to explain it away but certainly they haven't done a good job if they have. And not only do they have the case backlog, but they also are trying to merge the two disability systems. This is one of the recommendations -- the main recommendation -- of the Donna Shalala and Bob Dole panel that has just given the president their recommendations. They want to merge these two systems and, and -uh, give the burden to the VA to rate, to determine the level of disability that each soldier has and what will be their benefit, their pension, their disability payment from then on. So it's probably a good idea -- a lot of people do think it is a good idea because the army is having such trouble doing it. But it will add a lot of people onto the VA -- into the VA system -- that is already overcrowded and one assumes that they will be getting a lot more funding and some other personnel to do that.

[. . .]

Anne Hull: . . . And the heart of what Bush sent to Congress is, as Dana said, and to let the military determine whether or not a soldier is fit for duty let the VA rate for disability. And that's a huge culture shift and that is going to require legislation. There's already a lot of pushback from veterans' organizations who do not want the disability compensation system tinkered with in any way, it's known as "the third rail." They're afraid that older veterans might lose out and the younger veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are obviously concerned about their generation. Secondly, it expands family leave. The spouse of a soldier can get up to six months of unpaid leave --

Diane Rehm: Unpaid leave.

Anne Hull: Unpaid leave, that's right. In a two year period. So this is basically to safe guard their job but not to provide them money while they're caring for the wounded.

Diane Rehm: But how do they -- how do they manage while they're taking the six-month unpaid leave?

Anne Hull: This is the big story. This is . . . You know, we had a story on Sunday, one soldier's one year war becomes a wife's endless war. It is put upon the families to carry the burden of having a wounded soldier or marine in their life.

Dana Priest: And it's going to be awfully hard to monitor the getting the job back. I mean, it's already difficult for people who go away in the Guard and Reserve to make sure that they get the job that they had back as required by law and this is virtually unenforceable. The other recommendation they made had to do with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD]. And that would -- it opens up the door to say, "You don't have to prove to us when you got it or why you got it. Come on in and get an evaluation if you think you need it."

On Monday, Anne Hull participated in an online exchange at the Washington Post and it needs to be noted that the Turners (the subjects of the Sunday story) have received an outpouring of support from people (donations can be made care of the Washington Post, address at link) but where is the government, where is the VA? On the reporting she and Priest have been doing, Hull responds in the exchange as to how she and Priest have found their stories, "People have asked us this question over and over on the Walter Reed stories and the answer is quite simple: wounded soldiers and their families are frustrated and many feel abandoned by the country that they fought for. They don't feel heard. Many feel out of sight and forgotten, a long way from the bright parades of deployment. So they are okay about opening up and talking and letting us witness the small details of their lives, and almost to a person, the response is always this: 'As long as this will help other soldiers'." And, speaking to Rehm on Thursday, she noted that "we probably still get five calls, ten calls a day".

Staying on the topic of veterans, The War Comes Home's Aaron Glantz (IPS) covers the case of James Eggemeyer, a 25-year-old homeless veteran, "By December 2006, when James Eggemeyer filed a disability claim with the Veterans administration, he had already joined the ranks of the United State's burgeoning population of homeless veterans, and was living out of his girlfriend's Ford Explorer. So when the VA responded with a letter to his old address requesting that he come in for a physical examination, he missed the appointment. It's a vicious cycle so familiar to homeless people across the country. They need help from the government because they don't have a home, but can't receive mail because they don't have an address. . . . Since the start of the Iraq war, the backlog of unanswered disability claims has grown from 325,000 to more than 600,000. On average, a veteran must wait almost six months to have a claim heard. If a veteran loses and appeals a case, it usually takes at about three years. Veterans groups maintain that the backlog amounts to official negligence. Since the launch of the Iraq war more than four years ago, the number of people charged with reviewing and approving veteran's disability claims has actually dropped. According to the American Federation of Government Employees, the VA employed 1,392 Veterans Service Representatives in June 2007 compared to 1,516 in January 2003." An earlier, audio report Glantz did on homeless veterans can be found here.

Turning to US politics, Margaret Kimberley (Black Agenda Reports) weighs in on US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "Activists must keep protesting at her house and working for her defeat in the 2008 congressional elections. They must also cease cooperating with her. The farce must end before it is too late. Pelosi, like Bush, has no loyalty to her constitutionally based responsibilities. She must no longer be treated as though she is a friend when she has proven herself to to be an enemy. Civil liberties groups and antiwar groups must stop meeting with Pelosi or her staff. They must finally realize that they can only play a role in movement politics. It is said that insanity is defined as repeating the same action over and over yet expecting a different result. Progressives have waged many righteous battles in the last seven years, but they are about to go down in history as insane actors in a badly written play."

Today, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) spoke with Cole Miller (No More Victims) about his organizations work in raising awareness on the Iraqi wounded who noted "what was shocking was so many people in South Carolina seemed to be simply unaware that children were being hurt in Iraq. And that's, of course, a pretty profound criticism of the mainstream media." Amy Goodman then interviewed Salee Allawee a ten-year-old victim of a US air strike (precision, no doubt -- that is sarcasm) in which she lost both of her legs and Salee's father Hussein Allawee Feras:

AMY GOODMAN: Salee, you're wearing lots of jewelry. Can you talk about where you got it from?

SALEE ALLAWEE: [translated] This is from Georgia, and this is from South Carolina. So they are both from South Carolina and Georgia.

AMY GOODMAN: So these are all from friends you have made here in the United States?

SALEE ALLAWEE: [translated] These are her best friends, Ann and Cole.

AMY GOODMAN: From here. You have come here to America and have gotten new legs?

SALEE ALLAWEE: [translated] Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: How does it feel?

SALEE ALLAWEE: [translated] It feels good. One of my legs just hurts so much, and so I think it's just infected. It hurts when I wear it.

AMY GOODMAN: Hussein, how has it been for you to come to the United States? Can you -- we just watched the video where you describe what happened to Salee. Can you describe what you felt when you were invited to America?

HUSSEIN ALLAWEE FERAS: [translated] Honestly, I want to start with -- I thank very much the good American people. It is a very late information that we learned that the American people are good people. Because the US military is so harsh, they didn't leave us any time to feel that there are still good people in the US, that we just felt that everyone in the US is like the American army. But honestly, when I came to the US, I just saw a lot of people who were very interested to help Salee and other than Salee. I couldn't believe it. A big difference. Alas, we had a very bad impression on the people in the US. The American soldiers, alas, are really harsh on us.

AMY GOODMAN: You lost -- well, your daughter lost her legs, her best friend. You lost your son?

HUSSEIN ALLAWEE FERAS: [translated] Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: In that attack?

HUSSEIN ALLAWEE FERAS: [translated] Yes, the same incident.

AMY GOODMAN: And your other daughter?

HUSSEIN ALLAWEE FERAS: [translated] Yes. One of her legs has to be cut off.

AMY GOODMAN: Salee, what do you tell American children about what happened to you?

SALEE ALLAWEE: [translated] I want to tell them thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you going back to Iraq, Salee? Are you afraid to go back?

SALEE ALLAWEE: [translated] No, I'm not afraid.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you feel about going back, Hussein?

HUSSEIN ALLAWEE FERAS: [translated] As you know, my body is here, but my soul is over there. And I don't think worse things are going to happen in Iraq.

AMY GOODMAN: What was your experience with the US military before the air attack?

HUSSEIN ALLAWEE FERAS: [translated] There is nothing good to tell. Two months after the incident where Salee was injured, again random shooting started to happen in the neighborhood. At 3:00 in the morning one night, a tank was firing at a house while people were sleeping inside, and I saw the roof of that house collapsing on the people inside. We spent eleven hours to dig through the wreckage, trying to find someone who's alive, because we heard someone's voice who was still alive. Seven people out of eight were killed in that attack. Only one baby, who was four months old, was alive, and we were able to get him outside. And he's still alive. And now he's in Fallujah. This is one of the hundreds of thousands of the incidents and miseries Iraqis face every day.

Closing with TV. Sunday on CBS' 60 Minutes, Valerie Plame shares her story with Katie Couric. On Friday, PBS's NOW with David Brancaccio looks at immigration in America and "catches up with two New Jersey mayors who have sharply different -- and politically surprising -- approaches to dealing with undocumented immigrants in their communities" -- Democrat Don Cresitello (Morristown) wants to use federal enforcement powers, Republican Bob Patten has created "Sanctuary City". (Friday on most PBS stations, check local listings).



















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Thursday, October 18, 2007

Tori in Boston

We're trying to figure out about posting tomorrow night? Some of those who usually do won't be able to post anywhere near their usual time. This would effect:

Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz,
and Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude

We (along with C.I. and The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jess and Ava) will be going to Tori Amos' concert tomorrow night. Jess joined us today and let the cat out of the bag. I was being surprised. That's fine that I know now, I'm so excited that if I hadn't found out until Friday evening, I'd probably be hypervenalting! C.I. had said, "There's no pressure but the end of the week's going to be a treat." That was Sunday when I still hadn't decided if I was up for the road this week. (I told them to call me Monday morning when they were leaving the house and I'd decide then. Doing all the speaking is fun but it's also a lot of work. And wear and tear.) I knew Jess was going to join up on Thursday but I had no idea why. Then today, after we'd spoken to one group, he says, "You excited about tomorrow night?" I said something like I was a little tired but sure. Jess hits me with, "But you love Tori!" For about thirty seconds I'm just staring at him. For some reason, my mind goes to Scarlet's Walk, which we got yesterday. This is the "road copy" and we'll keep it packed. Last week, we all wanted to hear it and none of us remembered to pack it this week. So I'm thinking about Scarlet's Walk and wondering what the hell Jess is talking about?

Jess sort of gasps and exclaims that I didn't know about the concert? Nope.

But flying ever since. Tori will be coming out west so this is just a bonus thing. But it's a nice thing for us to do as a group (others can't make it for different reasons and Wally's seeing Tori next month when she's in Florida) and Tori is so incredible in concert. My favorite tour remains the Scarlet's Walk tour. I don't think I saw her for Little Earthquakes but I did see the tour after and I'm forgetting the album title. It's the one with "Pretty Good Year." She had an opening act I loathed. I mean I hated them. (I'm being kind. I remember who they were and they were big for about 2 seconds which was about 2 seconds more than they deserved.) I didn't see the Boys for Pele tour for some reason. But I did see Choirgirl and the thing that stood out was how different it was. I don't mean set list which is generally different. I'm talking about performance. Each tour she seems to find herself more onstage. The cover tour (the tour behind the Strange Girls CD) was like that and Scarlet's Walk was just amazing. I don't have a memory of The Beekeeper because Maggie got sick ten minutes in and I kept saying, "Are you okay?" She said she was. She wasn't. Twenty minutes in, Dak-Ho, Sumner and I said, "Let's go." So I'm really excited about seeing her in Boston tomorrow night. And I'm really excited to be going with such a great group of people. Maggie had a neighbor once who was a sad sack and she invited her along for an R.E.M. concert. It ruined the entire concert for us (Toni, Sumner and myself). The woman just sat there with a vacant expression throughout the entire concert. We tried plying her with beer thinking that would get her a buzz on and maybe get her in the mood. Didn't do a damn thing.

Speaking of didn't do a damn thing . . . Tori Amos made her name initially during the grunge/alternative era. There were a lot of people who did. So why is it only Tori and Pearl Jam can call out the Bully Boy? (Tori called out his father in real time as well.) Remember how everyone in grunge was so down with the peaceful feeling? Where are they? Or do they think "climate change" (those actions don't even call it global warming) events are "bravery"?

It's not bravery. They're artists. Where the hell are they? (Smashing Pumpkins addresses reality and Green Day has as well.) Where's STP? Where's Foo Fighters (a crap group with a crap drummer-singer who used to be in a great band called Nirvana)? Where's all the watered down ones trying to ride the gravy train? Matchbox 20? If at this late date, you can't get it together and call out the administration and the illegal war, you are an embarrassment.


Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, October 18, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, tensions continue between Turkey and Iraq, Mother Jones tries 'humor,' and more.

Starting with war resistance. Tomorrow is Iraq Moratorium day and many participating will be supporting a war resister. As Bill Simpich (East Bay Indymedia) notes, "A signature event for the Iraq Moratorium nationally this month is solidarity with Lt. Ehren Watada, who is facing a second trial in Tacoma, Washington for refusing to fight in the Iraq war. On October 19, federal judge Benjamin Settle will be determining if Lt. Watada must endure a second trial in the next few weeks, or whether double jeopardy may bar his case from going any further. Between 5-6 pm [in the Bay area, see the calendar of iraqmoratorium-sfbay.org.], Jack Hirschman, poet laureate of San Francisco, will be reading poetry in front of Sen. Feinstein's office at Post and Market (right near Montgomery BART). Members of the Watada Support Committee will also be addressing Lt. Watada's latest battle for freedom and to stop this illegal war." Iraq Moratorium is tomorrow and every third Friday of the month; in addition, they have also had a presidential candidate sign on, former US Senator and 2008 Democratic presidential hopeful Mike Gravel.

Again, that is tomorrow. Today Vietnam war resister Gerry Condon (Project Safe Haven) will be speaking in Newport, Oregon. The Newport News reports "a potluck dinner" starts at 5;30 this evening, then a showing of Michelle Mason's documentary Breaking Ranks and a presentation by Condon at the Newport Visual Arts Center, 777 NW Beach Dr. Condon is quoted declaring, "It's really tragic that our nation has been dragged into another unjust, unnecessary and unwinnable war. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed for no good reason. This war violates the Nuremberg Principles, the Geneva Conventions on War, the UN Charter, and U.S. law. Those who refuse to be part of this illegal war should not be punished for obeying international law and following their own consciences. U.S. soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen are seeking to remain in Canada as political refugees. The Supreme Court of Canada is expected to make a landmark ruling on their status in November. . . . Iraq War resisters are getting a lot of love and support from the Canadian people. Now it's time for people in the U.S. to step up to the plate."

Today Gerry Condon's speaking, tomorrow show support for Watada and on Saturday, war resister Camilo Mejia addresses the national conference of the Campus Antiwar Network being held at the University of Wisconsin Madison. IVAW member, co-founder of the Madison Chapter of IVAW and CAN member Todd Dennis (The Badger Herald) writes about Mejia's brave stand and how the mood has changed since then, "While Mr. Mejia was in jail, eight Iraq veterans formed Iraq Veterans Against the War in August 2004. Mr. Mejia was elected to become the chair of the board at IVAW's annual convention this past August. This weekend, CAN will be having its national conference, and Mr. Mejia will be the headling speaker. Everyone is invited to hear him talk about his experiences in Iraq and about being a member of both IVAW and CAN this Saturday at 8 p.m. in 3650 Humanities."

Meanwhile Robert Parry (Consortium News) notes the difference in reception when service members speak out against the war as opposed to non-think tankers, "Last summer when two pro-Iraq War pundits returned from a Pentagon-guided tour of Iraq, the New York Times gave them prime op-ed space to re-invent themselves as harsh war critics who had been won over by George W. Bush's 'surge.' . . . By contrast, a few weeks later, the Times editors buried a report by seven U.S. non-commissioned officers who were on 15-month tours in Iraq and offered a more negative assessment. The Times' editors stuck their account, entitled 'The War as We Saw It,' at the back of the Aug. 19 'Week in Review' section. . . . Now, senior Washington Post editors, who have been major Iraq War enthusiasts from the beginning, have given even more dismissive treatment to an anti-war op-ed written by 12 former Army captains who served in Iraq. On Oct. 16, the fifth anniversary of Bush's authorization to use force in Iraq, the Post's editors accepted the article from the captains but did not deign to publish it on the newspaper's influential op-ed page. The article, entitled 'The Real Iraq We Knew,' was consigned to the Post's Web site." Parry reprints the column in full and, just to be clear, "The War as We Saw It" did get attention from the paper -- after they discovered two of seven had just died that week. At which point, Times' management was suddenly available to the press to give quotes about . . . Well, not about people they knew. But about an op-ed they ran. Prior to that, the Times gave it no build up and running it on Sunday is not build up before someone decides to disagree with Parry. Yes, the Sunday edition of the paper has the largest circulation. People buy it for various sections and do not read all of them. For those interested in news, Sunday is the weakest day because they put the paper to bed early (strange that newspapers don't want to address that while addressing every over imagained techonological breakthrough). The 12 who wrote the column that the Washington Post didn't print are Jason Blindauer, Elizabeth Bostwick, Jeffrey Bouldin, Jason Bugajski, Anton Kemps, Kristy (Luken) McCormick, Luis Carlos Montalvan, William Murphy, Josh Rizzo, William "Jamie" Ruehl, Gregg Tharp and Gary Williams.

Robert Przybyski may or may not be a war resister. But, as John Vandiver (Stars and Stripes) notes, it is known that he has been missing from his base in Germany "for more than a week" and that he "was recently named a company commander within the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division. The 2-6 is deploying to Iraq along with the rest of the 2nd Brigade next March." Vandiver notes that the military released his name to the media but has refused to release a photo and has not "said whether there are any leads in the case or if it is thought that foul play could be a factor."

What also is known is that there is a military recruiting center in Berkeley and Jessica Kwong (The Daily Californian) reports, "The City Council plans to voice its disapproval of the center's mission through its Peace and Justice Commission, which is spearheading a proposal to make Berkeley a sanctuary for officers who choose not to serve in the Iraq conflict, meaning the city would not assist in locating or prosecuting war resisters." Commission chair Steve Freedkin explains, "There's a growing number of the military and members of the armed forces who are seeing that the Iraq war is immoral. As we saw in Vietnam, when there starts to be a strong opposition in the military, it has a huge impact on public policy."

There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.

The National Lawyers Guild's convention begins shortly: The Military Law Task Force and the Center on Conscience & War are sponsoring a Continuing Legal Education seminar -- Representing Conscientious Objectors in Habeas Corpus Proceedings -- as part of the National Lawyers Guild National Convention in Washington, D.C. The half-day seminar will be held on Thursday, November 1st, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the convention site, the Holiday Inn on the Hill in D.C. This is a must-attend seminar, with excelent speakers and a wealth of information. The seminar will be moderated by the Military Law Task Force's co-chair Kathleen Gilberd and scheduled speakers are NYC Bar Association's Committee on Military Affairs and Justice's Deborah Karpatkin, the Center on Conscience & War's J.E. McNeil, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee's Peter Goldberger, Louis Font who has represented Camilo Mejia, Dr. Mary Hanna and others, and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's James Feldman. The fee is $60 for attorneys; $25 for non-profit attorneys, students and legal workers; and you can also enquire about scholarships or reduced fees. The convention itself will run from October 31st through November 4th and it's full circle on the 70th anniversary of NLG since they "began in Washington, D.C." where "the founding convention took place in the District at the height of the New Deal in 1937, Activist, progressive lawyers, tired of butting heads with the reactionary white male lawyers then comprising the American Bar Association, formed the nucleus of the Guild."

Turning now to some of today's violence . . .

Bombings?

Reuters notes a Baghdad roadside bombing that claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier (three more injured), a Hawija car bombing left eight people wounded, a Mosul roadside bombing claimed the lives of 3 people (two police officers, 1 civilian) and a grenade thrown into a Basra high school left five students injured. CBS and AP note the school is "a private middle- and high-school complex in the Kut al-Hajaj are of Basra" and that the number wounded s six. Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing that injured one police officer "and two civilians" and an Al Sibaghiyah roadside bombing that claimed the life of Muayad Abdullah.

Shootings?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports: "Iraqi police accused U.S. military of shooting randomly in an intersection in Al Bunouk area in Baghdad. Iraqi police said five civilians were injured" "Iraqi police said American military shot and killed 3 men and one woman and injured one woman in their car on a road near Beiji city north of Baghdad"
Reuters notes that "three tribesmen, members of a local 'Awakenings Council' aligned to U.S. forces" were whot dead in Dhuluiya. On Tuesday, Sheikh Saleh Fezea Shneitar, his son and nephew were killed outside of Falluja -- the sheikh was a member of "Anbar Awakenings Council," a group that works closely with the US military and whose members have been increasingly targeted for their collaboration. In a White House press conference today Nouri al-Maliki's spokesperson denied that the resistance was "getting more sophisticated in who they go after". And in another incident of mercenaries killing civilians, AFP reports, "Guards from a British security firm fired on a taxi in Iraq on Thursday wounding three civilians, police said, in a shooting that will put new pressure on the government to rein in private contractors. A woman journalist was among the casualties when the guards opened fire after the taxi approached their convoy near the northern oil city of Kirkuk, police said."

Corpses?

Reuters reports 5 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 corpse found in Dour and "a chopped head" was discovered in Al Hawija.

Turning to the continued tensions between Turkey and Iraq. Yesim Borg (Los Angeles Times) reminds that the Turkish parliament passed the measure approving sending forces into Iraq on a vote of "507 to 19, with most of the opposing votes coming from Kurdish members of the parliament. Lwasmakers broke into applause when the results were announced. . . . The government is hoping the threat will pressure Iraqi and U.S. forces to act against guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, who have been attacking Turkish targets from bases in northern Iraq's Kurdistan autonomous region." The reaction in the northern region of Iraq was far from jubilant. Yahya Barzanji (AP) reports that over 5,000 people turned out to march and wave "the sunshine flag of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region and shouted slogans and songs praising Kurdish nationality". Kurdish nationality is what the PKK supports as well. They believe a region of what is currently Turkey should be a Kurdistan region, governed by Kurds. This is why the northern region has been tolerant of the PKK being in Iraq. This isn't a minor or new development. The PKK goes back to the early seventies and has been battling within Turkey since at least 1984. Whether someone agrees with the aims of the PKK or not, the point here is that the US (which as designated the PKK a terrorist group) knew about the long standing tensions long before Bully Boy declared his illegal war of choice. Having set the Kurds up on a higher level than the Sunni or Shia, the US made a decision to ignore many things including Turkey's pre-war warnings and Turkey's repeated warnings over the last few years. That's an important point. Deborah Haynes (Times of London) reports on the rallies and notes Renas Jano ("President of the Kurdistan Students' Union) "like many others was prepared to fight for his freedom alongside the Kurdish region's Peshmerga security force if Turkey did cross the border" and Nasser Ali (a teacher) who declares, "We are ready to defend our land." The Turkish Daily News explains, "Observers in Ankara say that an operation is not likely to be conducted before late November. Turkey will host an international summit on Iraq with the participation of the United States, G-8 countries and Iraq's neighbors early in November. Erdogan plans to visit the President of the United States George W. Bush in Washington mid November."

Sebnem Arsu and Sabrina Tavernise (New York Times) report Bully Boy's remarks: "We are making it very clear to Turkey that we don't think it is in their interests to send troops into Iraq. There's a better way to deal with the issue than having the Turks send massive troops into the country." Of course, it wasn't in the US interest to send troops into Iraq and, of course, there were better ways to deal with 'the issue' than the US sending massive troops into Iraq. But as Bully Boy makes his repeated pleas for patience and peace, it needs to be noted that the tensions didn't just emerge and that the White House was fully aware of the tensions before the start of the Iraq War.

AFP reports that throughout Iraq the reaction was "mixed" and "revealed the conflicting agendas of the central government in Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdish administration in the north." AFP notes puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki's reaction ("a flurry of conciliatory statements") and contrasts it with the responses in the north: "Compare this with the reaction of Iraqi Kurd leaders who have warned against making any concessions in the face of Ankara's threats." AFP provides the back story, "For all Maliki's talk of action, the situation on the ground means his options are limited: the Iraqi army is not deployed on the Turkish border, nor even in the region, which is controlled by Iraqi Kurdish fighters or peshmergas. Since it was placed under the protection of the United States in 1991, after the Gulf War, the province of Kurdistan has distanced itself more and more from Iraq's central government. After the fall of Saddam in 2003 and the passage of a constitution guaranteeing its autonomy in 2005, it has followed its own course of economic, social and political develpment." In a later report, AFP notes, "The Kurdish adminstration of northern Iraq, accused by Ankara of tolerating and even aiding the PKK, called for direct negotiations with Turkey as thousands of Iraqi Kurds took to the streets to protest against the Turkish threats." BBC notes that Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's Foreign Minister, has issued a request that the PKK "leave the north of the country as soon as possible." If that sounds weak, it is. The BBC forgets to note that Zebari is a Kurd. On Tuesday, Iraq's Sunni vice-president, Tariq al-Hashimi, visited Turkey. Today CNN reports that Iraqi president Jalal Talbani hails that visit as successful and doesn't "believe that there is an imminent Turkish attack into northern Iraq and I hope that it will not happen." Talbani is a Kurd and he has done nothing to avert the tensions. He is now in Paris and prior to that was spotted browsing bookstores in the US (no, that's not a joke, he was here to visit the Mayo Clinic). As Talbani continues his travels, the reality of what has Bully Boy worried comes via the foreign press. Alex Spillius (Telegraph of London) informs that the US government is worried that Turkey might deny the US "access to Incirclik air base" that act as a route for the US to both Iraq and Afghanistan and that, "The United States is looking for alternative ways to supply its troops in Iraq in case Turkey closes its borders in protest at a perceived snub by Washington. A Pentagon official said: 'There is planning going on,' adding that there would be 'serious operational impacts' if the Turks chose to obstruct US equipment." And today at the White House, al-Maliki's spokesperson was asked, "Iraqi Kurdistan is very much autonomous and there is in the Iraqi Kurdistan a lot of support for the PKK. So how do you intend to make good on your promises to ban all PKK activities?" al-Dabbagh replied at length but summed up with this on the Kurds in northern Iraq, "They had declared that they don't provide any support for them, but the natural feeling, which is that they are at the end, Kurds, and it is one race, so naturally they do feel sympathy with their brothers in Turkey."

Turning to the mercenaries. As noted earlier a British group of mercenaries has now fired on Iraqi civilians. Al Jazeera notes, "Blackwater USA, whose security forces were involved in the fatal shooting of civilians in Iraq last month, will leave the country once its contract to escort US diplomats expires in May, US officials say. But the company will not be fired, the officials said following a state department review of private firms providing such services in Iraq." Today Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) addressed the issue of Blackwater with the Center for Constitutional Rights president Michael Ratner who explained, "You see what you said in the earlier part of the program that the State Department is considering not renewing the contract. I think Blackwater is considering not even applying, because they know they're not going to get it. And then, of course, when he says they're doing their job, yeah, if their job is to terrorize the Iraqi population, they're doing their job." Thursday last week, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) broke the news that the Center for Constitutional Rights was filing a lawsuit against Blackwater over their slaughter of civilians in Baghdad September 16th (see "EXCLUSIVE - Family Members of Slain Iraqis Sue Blackwater USA for Deadly Baghdad Shooting"). Goodman asked Ratner today about Erik Prince (mainstream press darling) taking to the airwaves Sunday in an attempt to smear CCR and Ratner responded, "Well, obviously, I mean, this is like a transparent attempt to try and divert attention from Blackwater's actions, particularly in the September killings, where there's many, many witnesses and much evidence that basically says no one fired on Blackwater, Blackwater just fired and killed seventeen people. So that's an obvious attempt. It's barely worthy of a response, because that's all that's going on. Although the killing of the two FBI agents is important to bring out, because what he's speaking of there is the man who's in prison right now, Leonard Peltier, for those two killings at the reservation in South Dakota, and that man is unjustly -- that Indian man is unjustly in that prison. And so, that's a case that particularly is galling, because you have this Indian leader who's been unjustly imprisoned for twenty-five years." Ratner is also a co-host -- along with Heidi Boghosian, Dalia Hashad and Michael Smith -- of WBAI's Law and Disorder -- which also airs online and on other radio stations across the US. Mike covered the live special on WBAI Monday which included Naomi Wolf who rightly noted, "History also shows that bullies are cowards." IVAW's Jen Hogg, a war resister who left the military due to the illegal war, reveals the spin mercenaries recruit with such as "starting at $80,000 or more per year. We offer FULLY PAID benefits including 401K, life insurance, paid housing, paid meals, health, dental, and more. . . . All of our jobs are on civilian bases guarded by the military and are in the safe environments in Iraq." The reality of mercenaries, as Hogg notes, is: "If there is an unpopular war there is no need to worry, we can just hire a shadow army to pick up the slack and keep it out of the public's eyes." At the White House today, a press briefing was held by White House spokesperson Dana Perino and Nouri al-Maliki's spokesperson Dr. Ali Al-Dabbagh. Perino explained she had to "scoot" but hung around long enough to attempt to draw a line between "permanent bases" built in Iraq and "facilities" (when pressed on the difference, Perino begged off with, "Well they're working on all those details"). On the issue of Blackwater, Dr. al-Dabbagh declared, "We would like that the Blackwater to leave Iraq. This is at the end, is their position, is the State Department position. But there is anger, there is great anger among the Iraqis against the Blackwater. They should be held accountable. This is what Iraqi government needs. It's a crime, what they did in Baghdad. We have declared it. It's a crime and they should be kept to justice whether in Baghdad or United States. . . . We do need all the security companies to be liable and questionable and subject to accountability. No country in the world allows security companies to work in the way which they are working here in Iraq. Definitely that we do understand that they are -- they did good job for protection -- diplomat and immune from any questiong of -- from any accountability. That is what Iraqi government is working in order to keep them accountable."

Accountability for the Bully Boy still hasn't arrived. But one he claimed to have peered into the soul of is now taking potshots at the Bully Boy. AP reports, "President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the U.S. war in Iraq was a 'pointless' battle against the Iraqi people, the latest jab at Washington from the increasingly confrontational Russian leader." And Reuters reports Putin also declared there should be an announced withdrawal date of US forces from Iraq. This comes as James Glanz (New York Times) reports that Iraq is closer to the country that the US government continues to whisper is funding the resistance (but the US has no proof), "Iraq has agreed to award $1.1 billion in contracts to Iranian and Chinese companies to build a pair of enormous power plants, the Iraqi electricity minister said Tuesday. Word of the project prompted serious concerns among American military officials, who fear that Iranian commercial investments can mask military activities at a time of heightened tension with Iran." And in other bad news for the US, the p.r. blitz by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is falling apart. Despite the realities of the large rift between the US and the United Kingdom's governments over the decision to begin pulling British soldiers out of Basra -- the well reported realities -- Gates attempted to push the notion that the US government was for it all along. Kim Sengupta and Anne Penketh (Independent of London) report, "British forces were prevented from pulling out of their last base in Basra City for five months because the Americans refused to move their consulate, according to senior military sources."

In other reality news, Mark Seibel (McClatchy Newspapers) reports on the (US) Office of Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction which "said that poor security prevents U.S. and coalition civilian officials from meeting with many of their Iraqi counterparts, yet Iranians can travel unmolested in the region." AP notes on the report, "Teaching local officials in Iraq to govern themselves and provide their citizens with basic services will take 'years of steady engagement'." Meanwhile Mother Jones wonders "U.S. Out How? Introduction" which wrongly claims the Pottery Barn has a you-break-it-you-buy-it policy (they do not, Colin Powell was wrong) and argues, "Bush broke it. We own it." Which is so filled with xenophobia you'd expect it from The National Review and not Mother Jones. No American "owns" Iraq. If you come over to my home and burn it down, accidentally or intentionally, you do not "own" my home or the land it was on. You do "owe" me. The idea that a nation inhabited by millions could be "owned" by a foreign country (that would be the US) is insulting and it's appalling that Mother Jones wants to be so glib. (Hopefully, they were being glib. If not, they are being xenophobic.)

In the real world (where it's not 2004 and such crap doesn't fly), Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) interviews Molly Bingham and Steve Connors about their documentary Meeting Resistance:

AMY GOODMAN: Our guests are Molly Bingham and Steve Connors -- Molly, a US journalist; Steve Connors, a British journalist. They co-directed this new film that's opening in Washington, D.C. and in New York this weekend called Meeting Resistance. When you were interviewing these people, the resistance fighters, Molly, did they tell you when they were about to attack something? I mean, you had footage of actual explosions.

MOLLY BINGHAM: Actually, that footage of explosions came from us working as journalists the way everyone else was in Baghdad. We responded to bombings that we heard around the city in a way everyone else did. When we were interviewing the Iraqis and the one Syrian who were engaged in the insurgency, we actually specifically didn't ask about tomorrow or this afternoon. We didn't go out on bombing attacks with them for quite a few reasons, but the most important of which, I think, is that the film is really about who they are and what their backgrounds are and what their motivation is. You can see the consequences of their actions every day on the news. And we just thought, given how complicated it was ethically in this particular conflict, I think quite unfairly, to be seen to be talking with the other side, we thought that having -- if we had gone out with them on attacks, it would have overridden the entire understanding that we had come to by interviewing them and understanding who they are.

STEVE CONNORS: Could I just add to that? We were invited to go out with them. You know, they said, "Do you want to come out with us while we're attacking Americans?" And, you know, I don't have the same ethical problems, in many ways, as Molly does, you know, because she's an American and I'm not. But, ultimately, the decision came down to one thing, which was there was some important information in this film, and we didn't want to lose that to this criticism of us going out on attacks, which I've done in ten conflicts, gone out on attacks with both sides. It's not, you know -- for most journalists, it's not a big deal.

In the interview, Goodman brings up "Home from Iraq," a speech Bingham gave that was turned into a column in May of 2005. Common Dreams has it archived.

Closing with TV. Sunday on CBS' 60 Minutes, Valerie Plame shares her story with Katie Couric. On Friday, PBS's NOW with David Brancaccio looks at immigration in America and "catches up with two New Jersey mayors who have sharply different -- and politically surprising -- approaches to dealing with undocumented immigrants in their communities" -- Democrat Don Cresitello (Morristown) wants to use federal enforcement powers, Republican Bob Patten has created "Sanctuary City". (Friday on most PBS stations, check local listings).
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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Iraq, Crosby & Nash

Okay, you've probably already heard, but if not, AP's reported that 7 National Guard units are going to get notice that they are shipping off to Iraq (another 1 will go to Afghanistan).

Remember when the National Guard was supposed to protect the United States (and do so in the US)?

EuroNews reports that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is backing Turkey's position that they have a right to go into Iraq and combat the PKK.

Bloomberg News reports:

Crude oil was little changed after rising to a record $89 a barrel in New York on the vote by Turkish lawmakers allowing the use of military force against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.

Now music. David Crosby and Graham Nash are touring. This is from Bill Friskics-Warren's "Crosby and Nash bring harmonies, '60s vision to Nashville" (Robertson County Times):

Accounts vary as to how they met and formed, but according to Nash, he met Crosby first.
"Our dear friend Cass Elliot ('Mama' Cass of the Mamas and the Papas), whom I met in early '67, she introduced me to Crosby," he said. "Then one day he took me to this party and there was this guy pounding on the piano, and there was Stephen Stills."
Shortly after that, he added, they got together at the home of Mitchell, whom Nash was dating at the time, and formed the band that would sell millions of albums and, for better or worse, provide the template for the laid-back L.A. rock scene of the '70s.

Mitchell is, of course, Joni Mitchell. Back to the article:

Not only are message songs such as "Ohio" and Nash's "Chicago (We Can Change the World)" as big a part of the CSNY legacy as their inimitable harmonies, the prophetic voice they convey is as necessary today, Nash said, as it's ever been, and maybe more so.
"We need to wake up," he said. "The people running countries today would like nothing better than to make sheep of us. They're feeding us bread and circuses the way that the Romans did. They're distracting people with Desperate Housewives and America Idol in hopes of controlling them.
"Our leaders aren't interested in a populace that's bright and cares," Nash went on to say. "They want us to be sheep. Well I say, 'Come on, let's wake up! There are things going on in the world that are affecting our daily lives and those of our children and grandchildren. We need to be aware of what's happening so we can do something about it.' "

No, they are not interested. And good for Nash for speaking truth. I'm so sick of the ones who won't. I saw the two with Stephen Stills and Neil Young on the tour (that seems like it was yesterday) and I'd rush out to see Crosby and Nash tomorrow! You should as well if they come to your area.

And that's it. I thought I had time to blog. C.I., Ava and I just got back and C.I. said (it's after midnight -- we're EST), "I'll have dinner fixed in a few minutes." I thought, "Yeah, half and hour." But it's already ready and I'm starving. Lunch was the last time I ate. (Ava as well. C.I. took a nap.) We ended up grabbing two evening groups on the fly. One was with some service members who are active duty and that was probably my favorite one of the day but I loved them all. Now I'm starving.


Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Wednesday, October 17, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, war resisters meet new roadblocks in Canada, Turkey's parliament votes, and more.

Starting with war resistance. As noted in yesterday's snapshot, Peter D. Brown received conscientious objector (CO) status. Courage to Resist has an AP article up which explains, "While in Iraq, Brown applied for discharge from the Army as a conscientious objector. Though a chaplain appointed by the Army and an investigating officer both concluded that he was sincere and recommended an honorable discharge, the Army disagreed and denied his request. The ACLU and its New York chapter sued in July, asking a federal court to order the Army to reverse its decision. Before the court could act, the Army reconsidered and granted Brown's request Aug. 28, NYCLU spokeswoman Jennifer Carnig said. The announcement was delayed until after Brown's return from Iraq in September." Alexa James (New York's Times Herald-Record) reports that although the US government claims that 425 CO applications were evaluated from 2002 to 2006 with 53% of those applicants receiving CO status, the ACLU's Deborah Karpatkin "said those numbers are skewed. Conscientious objectors, she said, are subject to harassment and hostility. 'You have to be tough,' she said. '(Brown) was an officer. He was a West Point grad . . . he came out of mainstream Christianity." Lower Hudson Valley's The Journal News notes, "Brown successfully petitioned in federal court in Washington, D.C. for release from the U.S. Army". AP notes that Peter "Brown currently works in a non-combat capacity processing detainee information, according to 2nd Brigade Combat Team spokesman Maj. Webster Wright III." The New York Civil Liberties Union (NY ACLU chapter) issued a news release yesterday explaining the military's sudden decision to avoid a legal show down in a civilian court and quoting the legal director of the ACLU of the National Capital Area and co-counsel in Brown's lawsuit Arthur Spitzer explaining, "The ACLU's founder, Roger Baldwin, went to prison in 1918 because the World War I draft law made no provision for conscientious objectors. Civil liberties have advanced when the Army itself can recognize that a West Point graduate can be a sincere conscientious objector -- even if it took a lawsuit to wake them up." Had the military not rushed to a decision, Brown might have, like Robert Zabala and others, required a civilian court to declare him a CO -- something made necessary by the nonsense the military pulls -- some of which Deborah Karpatkin noted above but it also includes the military refusing to follow their own rules on COs such as playing games with the issue of religion when religion is not a requirement for CO status -- by the military's own guidelines.

Meanwhile, Veterans for Peace notes the new documentary Soldiers of Conscience which features war resisters Aiden Delgado, Camilo Mejia, Joshua Casteel and Kevin Benderman. The documentary, directed by Catherine Ryan and Gary Weimberg of Luna Productions in Berkeley, is narrated by Peter Coyote and playing at various festivals over the next weeks. Right not it is playing at the Hamptons International Film Festival (East Hampton, NY -- Oct. 17th through 21st), October 21st at 9:00 pm it plays in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Film Festival, October 22nd at 5:50 pm and October 27 at 7:50 pm it plays at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival in Arkansas, October 24th at 10:10 pm it plays in Stanford at the UN Association Film Festivals, it plays at the Starz Denver Film Festival (November 8th through 18th), and on November 16th, at 6:30 pm it plays in Olympia, Washington at The Capitol Theater. More information is available at the Soldiers of Conscience website.

And Ish Theilheimer (Canada's Straight Goods) reflects on his own experience as a war resister during the Vietnam era:

It was 40 years ago today, I stood on the steps of a courthouse in New York City and joined with up to 2,000 other young American men (Wikipedia says 1,000 -- they are wrong) in returning our draft cards to the US government to protest the immoral and disastrous war in Vietnam. We were among the waves and waves of protesters who eventually forced the end of the war.This particular action led to most of us being punitively drafted, which led to my adopting Canada as a new home. Now, with deep integration of immigration and policing, it is much harder for American war resisters to get into and stay in Canada as I was fortunate enough to do. It was hard enough for us in the laid-back '60s and '70s. I feel for today's deserters. Because they were volunteers, and generally not middle class, they don't get the public support we got. The Bush administration has been able to keep their protests in check.Our act of mass civil disobedience on October 16, 1967 didn't change a lot, but it contributed to the mass effort. Those punitive draft calls most of us received may have triggered an important change, though.The Supreme Court later declared these call-ups illegal because they were not due process of law. According to Wiki, "The charges of unfairness led to the institution of a draft lottery for the year 1970 in which a young man's birthday determined his relative risk of being drafted."That protest, on October 16 1967, was the pivotal turning point in my life. In many ways the fallout made my life a lot harder, though not as hard as being a prisoner, a soldier, a casualty, or a Vietnamese war victim. With all the things I might have done in life, I don't regret, for a moment, this one action.

Another war resister from that era, Gerry Condon (Soldier Say No!) observers, "There is a taboo in the antiwar movement against actually calling on the troops to resist. Only Iraq Veterans Against the War have begun to cross the line. What is behind this taboo? I believe there are a number of factors. One is fear of the perceived legal jeopardy. . . . Another part of the taboo against calling on the troops to resist is that many antiwar organizations, especially the larger and more established, are organized as nonprofit organizations (501c3) for purposes of receiving tax-deductible organizations. They fear they might lose their nonprofit status if they advocate actions the government would consider illegal. To my knowledge, this has not happened. But nonprofits' boards of directors tend to be pretty conservative about such matters. Many of them also wrongfully believe that their nonprofit status will be jeopardized if they engage in any advocacy or support legislative proposals. . . . I believe it is time for the antiwar movement to relocate to the gates of every military base in this country, and abroad. Democracy has failed in Washington. Seventy percent of the U.S. people want the troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. But the Congress says no way. And the leading presidential candidates of both parties say no way. In this election cycle, the antiwar movement should not spend one ounce of its energy backing any candidate who is not credibly committed to ending the war and giving Iraq back to the Iraqis. Instead of wasting our enery on the politicians, we in the antiwar movement should take democracy into our own hands. The slogan 'Troops Out Now' should be directed at the troops themselves. We should encourage and assist our citizen soldiers to vote with their feet. As Bertold Brecht famously suggested, the war machine cannot function if the troops won't fight. Even the drones and the robots require humans to direct and repair them. This is somewhat of a revolutionary proposal. But it now appears that nothing short of a revolutionary movement will bring an end to the Iraq War." That's an excerpt from Condon's piece. And Gerry Condon didn't just resist during Vietnam and then turn his backs on others. He's been there for war resisters of today including Kyle Snyder. Snyder, after serving in Iraq, self-checked out and went to Canada. In October 2006, he returned to the US to turn himself in on October 31st only to check back out when the military lied to him yet again. Condon was there for Snyder. And war resisters need even more support these days. In the October 5th snapshot, we noted Brad McCall who was arrested when he tried to enter Canada September 19, 2007 (he got in on his second attempt). McCall told Charlie Smith (Vancouver's Straight) that he was "driven to a jail in Surrey" and that, to the Canadian Border Services Agency, "I told them, 'Why are you playing the part of the hound dog for the U.S. army?' They didn't know what to say. They just started stuttering and mumbling." Brad McCall isn't the only one that's happened to. Andrew MacLeod (Canada's Monday Magazine) reports, "Four weeks ago an American soldier was jailed for two days while crossing from Washington State to B.C., says Michelle Robidoux, a WRSC organizer from Toronto who was visiting campaign supporters in Victoria this week. Officials with the Canada Border Services Agency called his base, then encouraged him to go back. Eventually he was allowed to make a refugee claim and enter Canada. Then last week another soldier arrived at the border and was refused entry to Canada after an official called his base. He was told he would never be allowed to return to Canada, says Robidoux. 'In both cases, the border guards called the military base where these fellows were stationed to consult the COs to see what their status was,' she says. 'These are things we believe the B.C. border guards are not entitled to do . . . People's military status in the United States should not be a concern for the border guards here'." The Canada Border Services Agency refused to confirm to MacLeod whether this was a change in policy or the behaviors of individuals.


There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.

The National Lawyers Guild's convention begins shortly: The Military Law Task Force and the Center on Conscience & War are sponsoring a Continuing Legal Education seminar -- Representing Conscientious Objectors in Habeas Corpus Proceedings -- as part of the National Lawyers Guild National Convention in Washington, D.C. The half-day seminar will be held on Thursday, November 1st, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the convention site, the Holiday Inn on the Hill in D.C. This is a must-attend seminar, with excelent speakers and a wealth of information. The seminar will be moderated by the Military Law Task Force's co-chair Kathleen Gilberd and scheduled speakers are NYC Bar Association's Committee on Military Affairs and Justice's Deborah Karpatkin, the Center on Conscience & War's J.E. McNeil, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee's Peter Goldberger, Louis Font who has represented Camilo Mejia, Dr. Mary Hanna and others, and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's James Feldman. The fee is $60 for attorneys; $25 for non-profit attorneys, students and legal workers; and you can also enquire about scholarships or reduced fees. The convention itself will run from October 31st through November 4th and it's full circle on the 70th anniversary of NLG since they "began in Washington, D.C." where "the founding convention took place in the District at the height of the New Deal in 1937, Activist, progressive lawyers, tired of butting heads with the reactionary white male lawyers then comprising the American Bar Association, formed the nucleus of the Guild."

Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Qadisiyah bombing that claimed the lives of 7 police officers "in Efach district 35 Kms south of Diwaniyah city" and a Jalawla bombing ("north of Baquba") claimed 1 life ("Kurdish security forces known as Bashmarga") with ten more injured. KUNA reports, "An Iraqi soldier was killed and four others were wounded when a booby-trapped car exploded on Wednesday in the Diyala province north-east of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad." AP reports that "a bomb exploded near a residential building in a predominately Shiite neighborhood of southeastern Baghdad. Police say at least two Iraqi civilians died in that blast and two others were wounded."

Shootings?

DPA reports, "Two people were seriously injured Wednesday when US forces opened a fire in a street near the Wehda neighbourhood of southern Baghdad, independent Voices of Iraq news agency reported, citing a police source" while, in Baquba, a gunfire exchange left 1 person dead and a police officer wounded. And KUNA reports that "US and Iraqi forces stormed into Al-Sadr City in eastern Baghdad this morning . . . backed up by helicopters . . . targeting a house in Al-Sadr City."

Corpses?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 4 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes the corpse of a police officer was discovered in Riyadh

The Age's report on an unnamed Australian soldier who was shot in Iraq of which little details are currently known -- though Prime Minister John Howard assures that the soldier will make a full recovery: "He will make a full recovery". On Australia's ABC's PM, Daniel Hoare reported, "Details about the circumstances of the soldier's shooting are limited. The Defence Force can only confirm that he was shot by a bullet coming from the opposite direction and it was a shot that most likely came from Iraqi insurgents. . . . The soldier was involved in a routine patrol in Dhi Qar province, about 60 kilometres from the Australian military base at Camp Terendak. The shooting happened at about midnight Iraqi time or five am on the Australian east coast. The soldier was given emergency first aid treatment and evacuated by US helicopter to a nearby hospital at Tallil."

Meanwhile Reuters notes: "One U.S. soldier was killed by small arms fire while conducting a raid south of Baghdad on Sunday, the US military said."

Turning to the issue of continued tensions between Turkey and Iraq. Chip Cummins and Russel Gold (Wall St. Journal) note, "Oil prices set record highs for the third straight trading day as tensions ramped up in Iraq, in the latest sign that the messy aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion four years ago continues to haunt petroleum markets. Fears that Turkey might invade the Kurdish area of Iraq sent crude-oil futures prices climbing $1.48 to $87.61 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, an exchange record, though oil remains shy of the inflation-adjusted record of more than $101 a barrel set in April 1980." Steve Gelsi (Market Watch) reveals that "legendary oil man T. Boone Pickens said he expects the price of oil to hit $100 a barrel within a year." Kirk Shinkle (Investor's Business Daily) offers, "Given the shaky state of the U.S. economy, record oil prices could be taken as a harbinger of a coming recession. . . . Sluggish U.S. economic growth hasn't kept oil prices from rising this time. America, while still the largest consumer of crude oil by far, no longer accounts for the biggest share in energy demand. China will account for 29% of the rise in global oil use, the Energy Information Administration estimates. That's almost double America's 15.3%." Elaine Frei (Oil Marketer) notes that "crude oil prices finally slowed on Wednesday" but not before West Texas Intermediate crude "peaked at a new record of $89 per barrel earlier in the session on the news that the Turkish Parliament had approved a measure to allow Turkish troops to cross the border with Iraq to fight the Kurds there." Yes, the measure was approved. Yesim Borg (Los Angeles Times) reports, "Turkey's parliament today overwhelmingly approved a government request to launch cross-border raids into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish separatists. Ignoring the pleas from Washington, Baghdad and other foreign capitals to refrain from actions that could inflame the region, Turkish lawmakers granted the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan permission to send counter-terrorism troops into Iraq at any time during the next year. The vote was 507 in favor to 19 against, with most of those opposing votes coming from Kurdish members of parliament. Lawmakers broke into applause when the widely expected results were announced." As the tensions flare between Iraq and Turkey, they also flare over this issue within Iraq. Steven R. Hurst (AP) informs, "Sami al-Askari, a close al-Maliki aide, complained in an interview with the U.S.-funded Radio Sawa that leaders of the autonomous Kurdish region only acknowledge they are part of Iraq when they need the central government to come to their rescue. 'They consider that whatever goes on in their region is a Kurdish affair, but when they face a crisis they remember they belong to the country and are part of the Iraqi government that should defend them,' he said." The PKK, labeled a terrorist organization by the US, is a Kurdish seperatist movement in Turkey. If not embraced, they've not been pushed away in northern Iraq which is a heavily Kurdish region. The Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq favor splitting off from a national Iraqi government which may explain some of the remarks made by al-Maliki's aide. CBS and AP cites Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declaring, "The passage of the motion in parliament does not mean that an operation will be carried out at once. Turkey will act with common sense and determination when necessary and when the time is ripe." Nico Hines and Jenny Booth (Times of London) report, "The Turkish Government's invasion threat has caused alarm in Baghdad. The Iraqi Government held a crisis cabinet meeting last night, and decided to send a high-level political and security delegation to Turkey to seek a diplomatic solution" and that "Brent Scowcroft, a former US National Security Council adviser, blamed Washington for failing to do enough to address Turkish concerns about the PKK." Meanwhile, Iraq's president Jalal Talabani does nothing of importance or weight -- continuing to send the impression that he supports or tolerates the PKK and their presence in northern Iraq. Al Jazeera notes, "In a telephone conversation on Wednesday, Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, told Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his Turkish counterpart, that Baghdad was 'absolutely determined' to end the presence of Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq. He assured Erdogan that he had given orders to the autonomous Kurdish administration in northern Iraq to take action against the PKK." KUNA offers, "The military move will be inevitable in case the United States and Iraq fail to neutralize the Kurd separatists in the northern Iraqi semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan."

In mercenary news, Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) notes, "The New York Times is reporting the Pentagon and the State Department are clashing over a proposal that would bring all private security companies like Blackwater USA under military oversight. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is said to be pushing for Pentagon control following Blackwater's killing of at least seventeen Iraqi civilians in Baghdad last month. The State Department currently employs Blackwater to guard high-level U.S. officials in Iraq. It remains unclear if Blackwater contractors would be subject to military law under the proposal." Meanwhile AP reports that the United Nations is looking into the mercenary issue and has sent "experts" into "Honduras, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Fiji over the past 14 months to look into recruiting and trainign practices by the private contractors. . . . Gomez del Prado said that he knew Blackwater had recruited soldiers and ex-soldiers from Chile and that the security companies in general had hired recruits from all over the world".

Turning to peace news, Sharon Smith (at CounterPunch) notes the Democrats refusal to utilize their "congressional majority . . . toward fulfilling the campaign promises that won them votes from the antiwar majority last November. If anything, they have accomplished less than nothing, since their rubber-stamping of Bush's troops surge last January raised the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to more than 160,000 for the foreseeable future." Noting the disgraces of US Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's public attacks/whines on/about peace activists, Smith turns an eye to United for Peace and Justice which she feels "remains undeterred from maintaining its amicable relationships with Democrats, however miserably that strategy failed in 2004 when pro-war neoliberal candidate John Kerry was the party's anointed candidate. . . . Given that most states have joined in the rush for early primaries, the Democrats' corporate-backed nominee should be in place by the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2008. If past pracitice is any indication, UFPJ can be expected to go into hibernation to weather the contradications of the coming election, as it did in 2004, to the detriment of the anti-war movement. UFPJ has called for regional antiwar mobilizations on October 27 -- an anticlimatic date, since it follows Congress' recent debate (and approval) of war funding. Yet UFPJ promises the protests will show the 'breadth and depth of antiwar sentiment' across the U.S. But organizers for the Midwest regional protest, to be held in Chicago, boast on their website that invited guest speakers include Obama, Senator Richard Durbin and Mayor Richard Daley. This list of elected officials came as a surprise to many local antiwar activists and endorsers who were not privy to the information before it was posted publicly. CodePINK's Chicago coordinator asked pointedly, 'The stated rationale for inviting Senator Obama to speak is that he is our Senator. We're mobilizing the Midwest, right? Is Ohio in the Midwest? Representative Kucinich is not listed as a potential speaker despite his stellar anti-war position. Presidential politics here?" Some organizations (including the 8th Day Center for Justice, the International Solidarity Movement and the International Socialist Organization) revoked their endorsements, while Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) has called for an [anti-]imperialist feeder march." Daley was re-elected in February of this year, however, Durbin is up for re-election and Obama is running for the Democratic presidential nomanation. Dennis Kucinich, who is running for both the presidential nomination and his House seat, apparently made the mistake of being too strongly in favor of peace for the rally? United For Peace and Justice is terming the activities a "NATIONAL MOBILIATION," a "FALL OUT AGAINST THE WAR" and "11 Massive Demostrations for Peace." UFPJ is an umbrella organization (coalition) made up of smaller groups. At the start of last month, we wrote "How Not To Stage A Rally" (The Third Estate Sunday Review) detailing what was billed as a public event but apparently was nothing but a private party desperate for public speakers and noted, "We strongly urge all groups and speakers not to participate with any event where the organizers cannot provide you (in writing) with their to-do lists to get attention for the event." That non-event wasn't a United for Peace and Justice but the events Smith's listing are not planned nationally (meaning the UFPJ steering committee presumably has no say in the planning). Should UFPJ be promoting them? In the case of the Chicago event, no. If politicians are needed up on stage (don't they already have platforms?), it should be because they've actively worked to end the illegal war. That is not the case with Durbin or the alleged anti-war candidate Obama (who, while campaigning for the Senate in 2004, made clear he didn't support withdrawal). If it's some sort of equal time argument that argument would only apply if Dennis Kucinich were included. Then the (weak) argument would be that Kucinich is running for re-election (as is Durbin) and for the Democratic presidential nomination (as is Obama) so inviting Kucinich means inviting the other two (and more). But Kucinich isn't invited and United for Peace and Justice should not be promoting the event as a result. UFPJ is structured to support the power of local grassroots but, as with the DFW non-event, some local groups really can't get their act together. [And I don't need a whiney e-mail from Charlie Jackson on this issue. We addressed his whine in "Roundtable" (The Third Estate Sunday Review). Take accountability for your inactions. Your organization was contacted by community members and they were all blown off.] When that is the case, promoting them does the peace movement no good.

On the subject of Students for a Democratic Society, SDS is "calling for SDS chapters and members to join us in supporting the mobilizations of the October Rebellion and No War No Warming. The October Rebellion is a locally organized mass mobilization targeting the meetings of the World Bank and IMF, running from Friday, October 19 to Sunday, October 22. It includes a massive and well-supported unpermitted march on the financial and shopping center of Washington, DC-Georgetown -- as well as a series of teach-ins and rallies on issues ranging from the gentrification of urban America to immigrant rights and shutting down the World Bank and IMF." Click here for more information.

Staying on the topic of peace. Yesterday, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) interviewed Yoko Ono about the Imagine Peace Tower, other activism, art and much more. Today, Goodman (via Truthdig) explores the legacies left behind and the ugly legacies resurfacing (such as illegal spying on citizens by the US government):

John Lennon would have turned 67 years old last week had he not been murdered in 1980, at the age of 40, by a mentally disturbed fan. On his birthday, Oct. 9, his widow, peace activist and artist Yoko Ono, realized a dream they shared. In Iceland, she inaugurated the Imagine Peace Tower, a pillar of light emerging from a wishing well, surrounded on the ground by the phrase "Imagine Peace" in 24 languages.
The legacy of Lennon is relevant now more than ever. The Nixon administration spied on him and tried to deport him, all because he opposed the war in Vietnam. Parallel details of the Bush administration's warrantless wiretap program and the Pentagon's participation in domestic spying, with mass roundups of immigrants, are chilling, and the lessons vital.
Ono conceived the peace tower 40 years ago, at the outset of her relationship with Lennon. She grew up in Japan, surviving the firebombing of Tokyo. She told me, "Because of that memory of what I went through in the Second World War, it is embedded in me how terrible it is to go through war."
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