Message to Jen, stay away from my boyfriend

I'm a grown woman and then some. I wouldn't think I would have to spend my life today stating something like but apparently I do. Message to Jen, stay away from my boyfriend.

I don't know why you think he needs to hear from you. He doesn't.

I don't know why you think he needs you shoving your problems off on him. He doesn't.

I don't know what your problems are but they aren't my problems and you're not one of my patients. My sympathy for you is nil.

Stay away from my boyfriend.

Not because I'm worried you'll steal him away. (Please.) But because I don't want him upset by you anymore. I don't want you dumping your garbage on him.

Now we can get as nasty and as personal about this as we have to.

But if the message isn't clear right now, we can make it damn clear.

Go find something else to do with your life.

But stay away from my boyfriend.

You really strike me as terribly pathetic and I've thought that of you since I first heard of you from Mike (Mikey Likes It!).

Now he's put up with your crap and your drama.

I won't do it.

I won't tolerate you using him.

I won't tolerate your crap.

I'm not sure if it's your ignorance or your arrogance that amazes me the most.

But let's make that something I ponder from a distance: Stay away from my boyfriend.

Let me repeat, I think you're pathetic and have thought that for months. Again, we can get as nasty and as personal as we need to. But you're not going to hurt him in your sick need to create drama, in your sick need to spread chaos so you can feel a little bit better about your own pathetic existance.

I know your kind very well.

Stay away from my boyfriend, don't contact him again, don't bore him with your problems, don't dump your garbage on him.

You really need to get a life of your own. You really need to stop.


"IRAQ: Hillary's Remarks at The George Washingon University" (HillaryClinton.com):
Good morning. I want to thank Secretary West for his years of service, not only as Secretary of the Army, but also to the Veteran’s Administration, to our men and women in uniform, to our country. I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady. That’s where we went.
I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base. But it was a moment of great pride for me to visit our troops, not only in our main base as Tuzla, but also at two outposts where they were serving in so many capacities to deactivate and remove landmines, to hunt and seek out those who had not complied with the Dayton Accords and put down their arms, and to build relationships with the people that might lead to a peace for them and their children.
.So it's a great honor being introduced by Secretary West. I also want to thank rear Admiral David Stone who commanded the fleet off of Kosovo and was an instrumental part of our successful efforts there. And Brigadier General Pat Foote and Major General George Buskirk who are representing the more than 30 generals and admirals who have endorsed me and who provide great assistance and counsel to me and to my staff. I want to thank President Steven Knapp for once again being the host. I’m getting credit for coming to GW, I come so often, and I’m thrilled to have that added to my academic career. And I want to thank the faculty, the staff, and the students at this great university.
I started my morning meeting with the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, to talk about the peace process in Northern Ireland, and it was a stark reminder of how long the road is toward peace, but how necessary it must be that we travel it. And we travel it with like-minded friends and allies and those willing to take risks for peace around the world. It has been five years this week since our president took us to war in Iraq. In that time, our brave men and women in uniform have done everything we ask of them and more. They were asked to remove Saddam Hussein from power and bring him to justice and they did. They were asked to give the Iraqi people the opportunity for free and fair elections and they did. They were asked to give the Iraqi government the space and time for political reconciliation, and they did. So for every American soldier who has made the ultimate sacrifice for this mission, we should imagine carved in stone "they gave their life for the greatest gift one can give to a fellow human being, the gift of freedom." And to our veterans and all those serving in Iraq today, I want to send a strong and clear message - your extraordinary devotion to our country and to your service makes us proud and profoundly grateful every single day.
The mistakes in Iraq are not the responsibility of our men and women in uniform but of their Commander-in-Chief. From the decision to rush to war without allowing the weapons inspectors to finish their work or waiting for diplomacy to run its course. To the failure to send enough troops and provide proper equipment for them. To the denial of the existence of a rising insurgency and the failure to adjust the military strategy. To the continued support for a government unwilling to make the necessary political compromises. The command decisions were rooted in politics and ideology, heedless of sound strategy and common sense.
Fortunately, ten months from now we will have a new president, and a new opportunity to change course in Iraq. Therefore, the critical question is how can we end this war responsibly and restore America’s leadership in the world? It won't be easy. There is no magic wand to wave. Bringing our troops home safely will take a president who is ready to be Commander-in-Chief on day one, a president who knows our military and has earned their respect. Bringing lasting stability to the region will take a president with the strength and determination, the knowledge and confidence to bring our troops home; to rebuild our military readiness, to care for our veterans, and to redouble our efforts against al-Qaeda. If you give me the chance, I will be that president.
I will start by facing the conditions on the ground in Iraq as they are, not as we hope or wish them to be. President Bush points to the reduction in violence in Iraq last year and claims the surge is working. Now, I applaud any decrease in violence. That is always good news. But the point of the surge was to give the Iraqis the time and space for political reconciliation. Yet today, the Iraqi government has failed to provide basic services for its citizens. They have yet to pass legislation ensuring the equitable distribution of oil revenues, yet even to pass a law setting the date of provincial elections. Corruption and dysfunction is rampant, and last week General Petraeus himself conceded that no one, in either the U.S. government or the Iraqi government, feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation.
So by the middle of this summer when the additional surge forces have been sent home, we'll be right back at square one with 130,000 or more troops on the ground in Iraq. That President Bush seems to want to keep as many troops there after the surge as before and says that doing otherwise would endanger our progress is a clear admission that the surge has not accomplished its goals. Meanwhile, as we continue to police Iraq’s civil war, the threats to our national security, our economy, and our standing in the world continue to mount.
The lives of our brave men and women are at stake. Nearly 4,000 of them have, by now, made that ultimate sacrifice. Tens of thousands more have suffered wounds both visible and invisible to their bodies, their minds, and their hearts. Their families have sacrificed, too, in empty places at the dinner table, in the struggle to raise children alone, in the wrenching reversal of parents burying children. The strength of our military is at stake. Only one of our army brigades is certified by the army to be ready. Our armed forces are stretched to near the breaking point with many of our troops on their second, third, or fourth tours of duty. Our economic security is at stake. Taking into consideration the long-term costs of replacing equipment and providing medical care for troops and survivors' benefits for their families, the war in Iraq could ultimately cost well over $1 trillion. That is enough to provide health care for all 47 million uninsured Americans and quality pre-kindergarten for every American child, solve the housing crisis once and for all, make college affordable for every American student, and provide tax relief to tens of millions of middle class families.
Our ability to win the war in Afghanistan is at stake. When I first visited Afghanistan in 2003, I was greeted by a soldier who said, "Welcome to the forgotten front line in the war on terror." Since then, the Taliban and al Qaeda have continued to gain new footholds throughout the country, and as a result, the overall terrorist threat, as our own intelligence community has noted, is growing.
Finally, our leadership in the world and our ability to front global challenges, present and future, is at stake. From extremism in Pakistan, to nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, to troubling antidemocratic trends in Russia and Latin America, to the threat of global epidemics and global warming and to the rise of China. The more the world regards us with suspicion rather than admiration, the more difficult it is to confront these challenges. Despite the evidence, President Bush is determined to continue his failed policy in Iraq until he leaves office. And Senator McCain will gladly accept the torch and stay the course, keeping troops in Iraq for up to 100 years if necessary.
They both want to keep us tied to another country's civil war, a war we cannot win. That in a nutshell is the Bush/McCain Iraq policy. Don’t learn from your mistakes, repeat them. Well, here is the inescapable reality. We can have hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground for 100 years, but that will not change the fact that there is no military solution to the situation in Iraq.
And don't just take it from me. At his confirmation hearing, Admiral Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that without national political reconciliation, no amount of troops in no amount of time will make much of a difference. We simply cannot give the Iraqi government an endless blank check. Each passing month we stay in Iraq gives the Iraqi government more time to avoid the hard decisions on how to split the oil money and how to share political power. Senator McCain and president bush claim withdrawal is defeat. Well, let's be clear, withdrawal is not defeat. Defeat is keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years.
We simply cannot give the Iraqi government an endless blank check. Each passing month we stay in Iraq gives the Iraqi government more time to avoid the hard decisions on how to split the oil money and how to share political power.
Senator McCain and President Bush claim withdrawal is defeat. Well, let's be clear, withdrawal is not defeat. Defeat is keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years. Defeat is straining our alliances and losing our standing in the world. Defeat is draining our resources and diverting attention from our key interests.
Now, withdrawal is not risk-free, but the risks of staying in Iraq are certain. And a well-planned withdrawal is the one and only path to a political solution. The only way to spur the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future and to ensure that we don't bear that responsibility indefinitely. The only way to spur other countries to do their part to help secure stability in the region. The commitment to staying in Iraq has driven President Bush's foreign policy. It looks like it would drive Senator McCain’s foreign policy as well, but it will not drive mine. My foreign policy will be driven by what is in America’s national security interests.
So it is time to end this war as quickly and responsibly as possible. That has been my mission in the Senate, and it will be my mission starting on day one as president of the United States.
For the past five years, I have served on the Senate Armed Services Committee. I have been to Iraq and Afghanistan three times. I have met with our soldiers and military leaders. I have met with Iraqi, local, regional, and national elected and other influential officials. Here at home I’ve attended countless meetings and committee hearings where I have challenged high-ranking Pentagon officials and military leaders investigating the situation in Iraq, probing the facts presented, and demanding real answers to tough questions. And I am honored that more than 30 of America’s most esteemed former admirals and generals, including two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and five retired officers of the four-star rank have endorsed my candidacy.
The American people don't have to guess whether I’m ready to lead or whether I understand the realities on the ground in Iraq or whether I’d be too dependent on advisers to help me determine the right way forward. I’ve been working day-in and day-out in the Senate to provide leadership to end this war. That’s why I cosponsored legislation with Senator Robert Byrd to reauthorize the war, legislation that would actually end the president's authority to fight it.
That’s why I’ve started laying the ground work for a swift and responsible withdrawal beginning in early 2009 by demanding that the Pentagon start planning for it now. I’ve introduced legislation ensuring that Congress would be briefed on those plans and that's also why I’m working to block President Bush's effort to keep this war going after he leaves office. I’ve introduced legislation banning him from unilaterally negotiating a long-term security commitment to Iraq, including the possibility of permanent bases.
I believe what matters in this campaign is not just the promises we've made to end the war; what matters is what we've actually done when it came time to match words with action. Because more than anything else, what we've done is an indication of what we'll do.
Now, my Democratic opponent talks a great deal about a speech he gave in 2002, and I commend him for making that speech. Speaking out for what you believe is a solemn, patriotic duty. He is asking us to judge him by his words, and words can be powerful, but only if the speaker translates them into action and solutions. Senator Obama holds up his original opposition to the war on the campaign trail, but he didn't start working aggressively to end the war until he started running for president. So when he had a chance to act on his speech, he chose silence instead. And out campaigning Senator Obama tells voters that as president he'd withdraw combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months, but one of his top foreign policy advisers told a different story. She told a British television reporter, and I quote, "he will, of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or as a U.S. Senator." Senator Obama has said often that words matter. I strongly agree. But giving speeches alone won't end the war and making campaign promises you might not keep certainly won't end it. In the end the true test is not the speeches a president delivers, it's whether the president delivers on the speeches.
I have concrete, detailed plans to end this war, and I have not waivered in my commitment to follow through on them. One choice in this election is Senator McCain. He’s willing to keep this war going for 100 years. You can count on him to do that. Another choice is Senator Obama who has promised to bring combat troops out in 16 months, but according to his foreign policy adviser, you can't count on him to do that. In uncertain times, we cannot afford uncertain leadership.
Here’s what you can count on me to do: provide the leadership to end this war quickly and responsibly. Today I’d like to talk about how I will do that, how as president, I will bring our troops home, work to bring stability in the region, and replace military force with a new diplomatic initiative to engage countries around the world in helping to secure Iraq’s future.
The most important part of my plan is the first step, to bring our troops home and send the strongest possible message to the Iraqis that they must take responsibly for their own future. No more talk of permanent occupation, no more policing a civil war, no more doing for the Iraqis what they need to be doing for themselves. As president, one of my first official actions will be to convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my Secretary of Defense and my National Security Council and direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to start bringing our troops home within the first 60 days of my taking office. A plan based on my consultation with the military to remove one to two brigades a month, a plan that reduces the risks of attack as they depart.
As we bring our troops home, I will ensure we are fully prepared to take care of them and their families once they have returned. I will direct the Department of Defense and the Department of Veteran’s Affairs to prepare a comprehensive plan to provide the highest quality of health care, disability benefits, and social services for every single service member including every member of the National Guard and Reserve as well as their families, and I will make sure this plan is promptly implemented.
In the Senate I’m proud to have reached across the aisle to provide access to TRICARE for all members of the National Guard and reserve, even when they're not deployed. and to have passed my heroes at home act to help family members care for those who traumatic brain injury, the signature injury of this war because I believe when brave men and women sign up to serve our country, we sign up to serve them too.
That is why I will also immediately adopt Representative John Murtha’s urgent proposal to reduce the strain on our troops by reducing the permissible length of overseas deployments. Going forward, we will ensure that our troops spend as much time at tome as they have spent deployed. So every month they spend in the field, they will be guaranteed one month here at home.
I will also implement a proposal that I, Representative Murtha, and others have been calling for, requiring that before any brigade is deployed, the Secretary of Defense must certify to Congress that it is fully combat ready. Sending brigades that do not meet this standard puts our soldiers in danger and our mission in Iraq or elsewhere at risk.
In addition to removing American troops from Iraq, I will also work to remove armed private military contractors who are conducting combat-oriented and security functions in Iraq. For five yeas their behavior and lack of supervision and accountability have often eroded our credibility, endangered U.S. and Iraqi lives and undermined our mission. Now, Senator Obama and I have a substantive disagreement here. He won't rule out continuing to use armed private military contractors in Iraq to do jobs that historically have been done by the U.S. military or government personnel. When I am president I will ask the Joint Chiefs for their help in reducing reliance on armed private military contractors. With the goal of ultimately implementing a ban on such contractors.
I’ve already cosponsored the Stop Security Outsourcing Act requiring that security services for personnel at any U.S. diplomatic or consular mission be provided only by federal government personnel.
It’s also a time we put an end, once and for all, to the no-bid contracts that squander taxpayer money while lining the pockets of the president's cronies. Between 2000 and 2006, spending on no-bid contracts more than doubled, representing half of all federal procurement spending. Today companies like Halliburton are enjoying record profits thanks to a 700% increase in taxpayer funds awarded to them. But a recent congressional report identified 187 contracts valued at $1.1 trillion where federal auditors found massive overcharges, wasteful spending and poor oversight. I’m proposing legislation to ensure that all new spending in 2009 is done through competitive contracting processes. The heads of each agency would have to certify to Congress under a sworn affidavit that their contracting awards processes are open and competitive. As president, I will work to pass this legislation into law and to end the era of no-bid contracts and handouts to Halliburton.
It’s an interesting comparison. We’ve had a lot of talk in this town and elsewhere about earmarks, and I am one of those who believe we need more transparency and disclosure in the earmark process. But no-bid contracts are ten times more costly than earmarks, and when I introduce my legislation to eliminate no-bid contracts, I could not get, at least as of this moment, Senator McCain’s support for that.
As we bring our troops and contractors home, we cannot lose sight of our strategic interests in this region. The reality is that this war has made the terrorists stronger. Well, they may not have been in Iraq before the war, they are there now, and we cannot allow Iraq to become a breeding ground and safe haven for terrorists who seek to attack us and our friends and allies. So let me be clear - under my plan, withdrawing from Iraq will not mean retreating from fighting terrorism in Iraq. That’s why I will order small, elite strike forces to engage in targeted operations against al Qaeda in Iraq. This will protect Iraqi citizens, our allies, and our families right here at home.
The second part of my plan involves working to secure stability within Iraq as we bring our troops home, stability that will be key to a successful withdrawal of our troops. I believe it's really quite simple, greater political and economic stability means safer conditions for our departing troops and a smoother disengagement from our military's actions across Iraq. Right now no one doubts that the Iraqi government is failing its citizens. Government officials refuse to take the steps need to order to advance a solution, improve the economy, quell sectarian violence and better the lives of ordinary Iraqis. These failings are, in part, the fault of the Iraqis and in part due to the Bush administration's failure to match military efforts with political ones.
For example, the U.S. has created an armed local security forces, such as the Awakening in Anbar and the "Concerned Local Citizens," but they fail to hold the Iraqi government to its agreement to integrate these local militias and volunteers into provincial police forces or the national army. Violence has fallen in the short run, but in the long run sectarian divisions among Iraqis may only deepen.
When I’m president, we will pursue a more integrated strategy. We’ll empower local leaders and use U.S. and international influence to press the Iraqis to reach political reconciliation, and I will call on the United Nations to strengthen its role in promoting this reconciliation. Not having been a party to the mistakes of the path five years, the U.N., which has already provided valuable technical assistance in Iraq, is far more likely to be viewed as a neutral, honest broker than the United States, especially when it acts on behalf of a broad coalition of concerned states and the international community. The new United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, has indicated he is willing to play a key role in assisting the Iraqis. I will also work with China and Russia to ensure that the U.N. envoy in Iraq has the necessary authority by obtaining the Security Council’s explicit endorsement of a strengthened U.N. mandate to promote reconciliation. I will also call upon the U.N. to help oversee the resettlement of the millions of refugees who have fled Iraq or have been displaced internally. Many are living in desperate conditions creating not just a humanitarian crisis but one affecting regional stability that poses direct threats to our security here at home which we must address immediately.
While we focus our efforts on improving conditions so Iraqis don't have to flee in the first place, we have to recognize our moral obligation to help those we have put at risk in Iraq, the interpreters, soldiers who have assisted our troops. We will work with governments in both the Middle East and the west, including of course the United States, to find places for asylum seekers, and we will work with the U.N. to develop a plan to help them return, if possible, to Iraq once the country has stabilized.
I would further seek to stabilize Iraq by insisting that the country's oil revenues, instead of U.S. taxpayer dollars, increasingly be used to fund Iraq’s reconstruction. When President Bush began this war, his administration claimed that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for Iraq’s reconstruction. Well, the Iraqi government has now earned tens of billions of dollars from oil. Some estimates indicate that revenues this year will top $55 billion. Yet since the beginning of the war, the U.S. has allocated roughly the same amount of money as Iraq for reconstruction, $47 billion from us versus $50 billion from them. And now it is even clearer that the Iraqi government is not spending its oil money on reconstruction. There are reports that Iraq spent less than a quarter of oil funds set aside for reconstruction in 2006, and the U.S. Comptroller General testified that as of November 2007 the capital expenditure rate for the central ministries in Iraq was only 7%. Oil profits are showing up in foreign banks even as Iraqi citizens lack basic services.
As president I would immediately direct the Inspector General for Iraq to appoint a special council to investigate and make recommendations directly to me for how to ensure Iraqi oil revenues and U.S. taxpayer dollars on a declining trend are used to rebuild Iraq. It is unacceptable that these oil revenues go unused or worse end up in private accounts while citizens lack electricity and clean drinking water. We will support Iraq’s efforts to rebuild their country, but we will not permit our money or theirs to be thrown away.
I will work to crack down on the black market for oil in Iraq. According to recent news reports, insurgent groups a profiteering from a substantial black market in oil. The money they make is going in part to pay for IEDs, car bombs, and other tools of terror. The Iraqi government simply has not done its part to crack down on this corruption. The equation here is simple, if we cut off or disrupt these illegal sources of funding, we can deny the insurgents the money they need to maintain their campaigns of violence. So I will order a joint nationwide U.S./Iraqi crackdown on black marketers and oil smugglers. We’ll beef up protection for oil lines to prevent illegal tapping and attacks. We will cut off illegal networks, identify where the stolen oil and other goods are going, who is stealing them, and capture those responsible. We will work with our international community to try to cut off access to the funds that hold these oil revenues. And we will maintain the crackdown success by sending a strong signal to the Iraqi government, show results in rooting out corruption or lose your aid.
The third and final part of my plan to end the war involves replacing our military force in Iraq with an intensive diplomatic initiative in the region. Over the past four years, we've learned the hard way about the need for a truly multilateral approach in Iraq, one built on sound strategy and long-range planning, not ideology and wishful thinking. the president's go it alone strategy has diminished our position in the region and around the world, and that diminished position, in turn, has made it increasingly difficult for us to bring about a political solution. Our friends and allies in the region have an especially large stake in building a stable Iraq, but until now in part because of the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war, they have lacked leadership and gotten a free pass. That must end.
Ten months from now we will have a new opportunity to reach out and engage our allies. One of my very first international meetings as president would be with our treaty allies and our friends in the region including the Gulf States, Jordan, Egypt, and our European allies. Over the course of my career I have known and worked with many of these leaders already, and I will send them a very clear message - what happens in Iraq affects all of our interests, and it is all of our responsibility. It’s time we did our part and paid our fair share. I will then convene a regional stabilization group composed of these key allies, other global parties, the states bordering Iraq. The mission of this group will be to develop and implement a strategy to create a stable Iraq. I would include in this regional stabilization group Iran and Syria. We must convince all countries in the region and beyond to refrain from getting involved in the Iraqi civil war, to hold themselves and others to their past pledges to provide funding in Iraq, and to support the central role for the United Nations.
These will be critical first steps toward establishing a new American approach in the world, one that draws on the strength of our alliances and the power of our diplomacy, and uses the greatest military force on earth as a last, not a first, resort. Achieving all of this will not be easy. But we don't have any choice. When I look at the road ahead, I think about the men and women in uniform whom I’ve had the profound honor of meeting and serving. Our troops serving not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but across the globe. Our veterans recovering in V.A. hospitals and rehabilitation centers here at home, many with serious and life-altering injuries. The countless veterans who are not given the support and services they need to reenter civilian life. These men and women have made extraordinary sacrifices serving the country they love, and I’m always struck by how no matter the extent and severity of their suffering, no matter how grave their own injuries, they always say the same thing to me, "promise that you'll take care of my buddies. They’re still over there. Promise you'll keep them safe." I have looked these men and women in the eye, and I have made that promise, and I intend to honor it by ending this war as responsibly and quickly as possible.
Thank you all very, very much.

Oh my goodness. I was going to write about the speech; however, C.I. told us this weekend about an endorsement of Hillary that was coming. I didn't doubt it but seeing the headline just now made my heart skip. John Murtha, a strong critic of the Iraq War and one Bambi sided against and threw to the wolves, has just endorsed Hillary Clinton. I've got a phrase from a Whitney Houston song going through my head for some reason, "A change is going to come." I think she says yi-yi-yi after. No, it's not the song "A Change Is Going To Come." It's off her last album of the 90s. It's the one that starts, "Friday night you and your friends went out . . ." I know the dance mix, believe it or not. I did think that was the best song Whitney ever did. She didn't jump all over to show her vocal gymanistics, she just tore into it and anchored herself. The finest work she ever did, it sounded like she meant every word and I doubt it went to number one but it was certainly one of the best performances of any song to grace the top ten in the latter half of the nineties.

This isn't over. Hillary or Barack, whomever is the nominee, will only be the nominee via the super delegates. With this weekend's revelation that Bambi actually got at least $250,000 donations from or raised by Antoin "Tony" Rezko, the whole Jeramiah Wright business and much more mean Bambi's sinking in the polls. He will only sink further if the press continues to dig. (There is plenty there.) Hillary could be the nominee.

Which would be a good thing because she attracts Democrats while Bambi attracts Republicans (at least "for a day") and a pool of people that were motivated to show up at primaries when he was the craze but it's another thing to show up at the polling place on election day. He had the press created hype. He'll never have it again. He peaked too early.

His speech was a joke. Damning America was something that needed to be (a) called out and (b) apologized for by Bambi. That was his mentor. He can't hide behind, "I don't agree with what he said." He had a longstanding relationship with Wright. Wright was part of his campaign until last weekend. He named a book out of one of Wright's saying and he went to that church for 20 years. He supported Wright as pastor for 20 years. It's too late to just say "I disagree." He needed to acknowledge his mistake, not toss out a ton of hog wash about the country. America didn't damn itself. Wright damned America and that's very serious. Bambi's lousy speech didn't begin to address that.

"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
March 18, 2008. Chaos and violence continue, more on Winter Soldier and, due to e-mails complaining about Panhandle Media, we're addressing the garbage Jeremiah Wright tossed into the public sphere, and more.

Briefly because there's not time, in November the Canadian Supreme Court refused to hear the appeals of Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey. Today, Canada's Parliament remaining the best hope for safe harbor war resisters have, you can make your voice heard by the Canadian parliament which has the ability to pass legislation to grant war resisters the right to remain in Canada. Three e-mails addresses to focus on are: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. A few more can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use. That is the sort of thing that should receive attention but instead it's ignored. We will note war resisters in Canada tomorrow. There is not time today, my apologies.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Matt Mishler, Josh Randall, Robby Keller, Justiniano Rodrigues, Chuck Wiley, James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, 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, Clara 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. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).



Iraq Veterans Against the War staged their Winter Soldier Investigation from last Thursday through Sunday. It was a very important action. Among those offering testimony were Iraq veteran Jesse Hamilton who testified on the Rules of Engagement panel Friday morning. Marcia's posted The Real News video here and we have it here. The Real News offers transcript of his testimony from which we'll note the following:

And my testimony is just based on the things that I saw in one battalion in Fallujah, in the Al Anbar province of Iraq from 2005 to 2006. I did have the opportunity to work with a lot of the Iraqi forces that are over there. And if you want my opinion as to whether or not rules of engagement actually exist within the Iraqi army, the answer is no. From what I saw, the Iraqis show little or no restraint in discharging their weapons. We had some phrases. I'm sure that there are a lot of soldiers and Marines out there who were in the cities, who worked with the Iraqi army, who'd recognize these phrases. "Spray 'n pray," where the Iraqis would just start shooting and pray that it hit the enemy if there was one. "The death blossom" was also a term that we used regularly, because once the shooting started, death would blossom all around. I never saw any civilians get killed by these actions, but one instance sticks out in my mind. I lived out in the city the whole time that I was in Iraq and on an Iraqi firm base. And the enemy would take potshots at us. They would shoot RPGs at us. We'd get mortared. And as soon as something like that would happen, the Iraqi guards on the roof would just start a barrage of fire. It didn't matter where the fire had initially come from, or even if it was just mortars or a combination, they would just start shooting. I ran up to the roof one day, and I was trying to see, you know, if there was an enemy, and if so, you know, where that enemy was. I couldn't see any incoming fire at the time. It was daylight. But I did see the Iraqis just shooting indiscriminately, and that was normal. I saw a civilian just running, and the wall that she was running in front of was just being pattered by bullets. The Iraqis weren't shooting at her. I know that for a fact. They weren't aiming at her. They were just shooting indiscriminately. More disturbing than the lack of discipline for rules of engagement shown by the Iraqi army is their treatment of their own people. The Iraqis--and this is not to say that they're bad; they just have a different culture than we do, they have different morals. I saw Iraqi soldiers just make the prisoners more or less run the gauntlet from the vehicle that they were being transported in to our firm base to where they would be questioned in the S2 intelligence office. Our job as American advisers in situations like that was to try our best to stop that, and we did. However, there's only so much you can do. And after awhile, you know, I was almost like, "I don't care. I'm over it," when it came to that. And I tried to stop it, but, you know, I just stopped caring. It was their people, and, you know, that's what they were going to do. I think it is very pretentious of us as Americans to think that we can go in there and spoon-feed them democracy and have them appreciate that democracy. I think it's even more pretentious to try to go in there and to try and change their culture and the way they handle situations. I think that it is a lost cause in Iraq. I think that regardless of when we leave, whether it is tomorrow or in 100 years, I think that the Iraqis, as soon as we leave that country, are going to handle things the way that they're going to handle them.

You can find more of The Real News Network's coverage of Iraq (including Winter Soldier) here. Vincent Emanuel also testified on Friday but on the second Rules of Engagement panel (note I believe he stated "Al Khan" -- I did the transcription and it may be another city):

An act that took place quite often in Iraq was that of taking pot shots at vehicles that drove by. This was quite easy for most Marines to get away with because our Rules of Engagement stated that the town of Al Khan had already been forewarned and knew to pull their cars to a complete stop when approaching a United States convoy. The Rules of Engagement stated that we should first fire a warning shot into the ground in front of the car, then the engine bloc, then the windshield. That is if the car was even moving in the first place. Many times cars that actually had pulled of to the side of the road were also shot at. Of course the consequences of such actions posed a huge problem for those of us who patrolled the streets every day. This was become friendlier with an already hostile local population. This was not an isolated incident and it took place for most of our eight month deployment. Another incident occured when we were sent out on a mission to blow a bridge that was supposedly being used to transport weapons across the Euphrates. During this mission we were ambused and forced to return fire in order to make our way out of the city. This incident took place in the middle of the day and most of those who were engaging us were not in clear view. Many had hidden in local houses and businesses and were part of the local population once again making it hard to determine who was shooting from where exactly to return fire. This led to our squad shooting at anything and everything i.e. properties, cars, people in order to push through the town. I remember firing myself into the town during this firefight and, while emptying most of my magazines issued to me, not once did I clearly identify the targets I was shooting at. The retrans site otherwise known as a retransmittions site was a communications post set up on a plateau overlooking the town of Al Khan. This communication site was there to provide communication between the main base at the railroad station where we were and an outpost called Hussaba where Bravo company's area of operations took place. We would encounter mortar fire on a daily basis most of the time we would return this fire with mortar fire of our own. Some of the time our counter-battery would call in a specific location for us to exchange fire. On occasion when the counter-battery could not call in a specific location we would fire anyway. Sometimes in the hills off to the west of the town where we had thought the mortar fire was coming from and other times straight on to the town of Al Kahn itself on buildings houses and businesses. Because of the lack of personell at the retran site very rarely if ever did we conduct a battle damage assesment to report civilian deaths and destruction. so almost all of the time these incidents went unreported and non-investigated. Once we were taking rocket fire from a town and a member from our squad mistakenly identified a tire shop as being the place where the rocket fire came from. Sure enough we mortared the shop. This was one of the only times we had actually had the chance to investigate what it was we had done and to be able to talk to the people we had directly effected. Luckily the family who owned the shop was still alive; however we were not able to compensate the family. Nor were we able to explain how he could rebuild his livelihood. This was not an isolated incident and took place over our eight month deployment.

Emanuele also spoke of prisoners and corpses and see the report by Jacob Wheeler (In These Times) about that section of his testimony and an overview on Winter Soldier. Wheeler's report went up Monday. Yes, now we're to the issue of getting the word out. In These Times couldn't be bothered to let people know that IVAW's hearings were going on and streaming live. They have filed a report after they're over. Mother Jones? David Corn's become a complete idiot but we'll get to that later in the snapshot. No, they didn't get the word out and they don't cover it now. They are the among the many shameful in Panhandle Media. But fear not, lot of shame to go around. Let's serve some up to The Progressive. We quote Matthew Rothschild in "Editorial: Are you ready to listen" (The Third Estate Sunday Review) when his response to our question of why IVAW's Winter Soldier Hearing was not being covered (on Friday) that there was a cover story and it would be up at the website (presumably, not a report on the actual hearings). It's not up. But guess what do you get at The Progressive right now? "LIVE behind the scenes updates from . . ." Winter Soldier? No, that's over. It's that crap-fest Take Back America. A Democratic Party bit of nonsense. The Progressive is supposed to be independent. They had the chance to cover a real event and didn't but can "LIVE" blog what is nothing but a make-work workshop for failed journalists who want to be tools of a political party. That gets live blogging. For the record, the elections in Mexico got "LIVE" blogging from The Progressive. But IVAW telling the truths about Iraq? Not important, can't be bothered. Let's move over to The Nation where Christopher Hayes (also noted in the editorial) promised that by Monday something would be up. He had to write the blog post himself but he did what he said. Thank you, Christopher Hayes. He's noting a section of Camilo Mejia's testimony. Hayes noted Friday when the hearings were going on as well. Peter Rothberg noted it the day before it started. As Elaine noted last night, nothing at CounterPunch and include today. They obviously have other things to do. Mike covered Common Dreams last night. Nothing today and only Jeff Cohen's nonsense (which Mike calls out and we called out as well). We're not done with Cohen. Foreign Policy in Focus wants credit for a March 7th article by journalist Aaron Glantz that they commissioned. They note it was on their webpage throughout the hearings. Yes it was and if you could scroll down the articles listed on the right, and if you could go through thirteen other articles, you'd finally find the article. Today, after Winter Soldier, they move it to the center of the page. (They've created a folder in 'honor' of the 5th anniversary. Over the weekend, the folder wasn't there, "Fiesta!" below it was what they were pushing.) Translation, when it mattered they weren't there and now that it's over, they still have nothing to say. Repeating the Tori Amos quote that enraged FPIF so on Saturday, "I guess in times like these, you know who your friends are" ("Taxi Ride, Scarlett's Walk).

To give some positive credit, Information Clearing House prominently announced the hearings when they were live, making it the top of their page. In Real Media, there was silence. AP and the Washington Post were two exceptions (here for Steve Vogel's text report, here for the paper's read or watch option). The rest played as dumb as Panhandle Media. Personal story. A friend at a cable news network text-d this morning to ask why I was ignoring him. (He wanted a favor and I had been ignoring his calls and text messages sent Sunday evening.) I replied "Im pissed that your network took part in the blackout on ivaw. But pissed doesnt begin to describe my feelings." The reply had Kat, Ava and I bursting into laughter: "what is ivaw?"

Today KPFA's The Morning Show featured Aimee Allison speaking to John Stauber (who did get the word out when it mattered) and Jeff Cohen who was still happy talking it. On air, Cohen praised sites that did NOT cover Winter Soldier indicating he thinks shout-outs are more important than truth. Some outlets are reposting his "What I Did This Weekend" essay that praises independent media. As Allison pointed out, it was very hard to find news of Winter Soldier online -- including at The Daily Toilet Scrubber -- and she wondered if that was due to (pay attention Matthew Rothschild) some bloggers . Jeff Cohen's really bad article is getting criticism at Dissident Voice where commentators are noting that both KPFT and WBAI -- Pacifica Radio stations -- had others things to do -- spin records -- on Saturday. How shameful. How very shameful. How shameful that Cohen wants to claim he listened on the radio in his car throughout the weekend when he was in NYC. He damn well didn't hear it in his car radio on WBAI. Want to explain that Coehen? He railed against the "US mainstream media" for ignoring Winter Soldier but had nothing to say about the silence of Panhandle Media. (Remember, they never criticize themselves.) Stauber offered reality and addressed "the corporate peace groups."

John Stauber: The Democrats are terrified of the peace movement. That's why they have -- through MoveOn and Americans Against Escalation in Iraq and their latest incarnation Campaign to Defend America -- really taken control of the peace movement and what I mean is this, MoveOn and its coalition Americans Against Escalation in Iraq and its new organization that seeks to raise 100 million dollars to run ads bashing McCain are completely alligned with the Democratic Party their number one goal is getting Demcoracts elected. And they ignored Winter Soldier because they don't want to be affiliated with soldiers resisting a war. A year ago the founder of one of the big organizations, whose name I won't mention, told me that exactly, that this is way to radical for them, that soldiers resisting is not their message. They've really created sort of their own vets group called Vote Vets. Here's the real gist of my point, hundreds of thousands, really millions of Americans contribute money to MoveOn and to True Majority and to the other groups that make up Americans Against Escalation in Iraq. These groups have raised and are going to raise through this election cycle, hundreds of millions of dollars bashing Republicans on the war. Just two weeks ago AAEI, the MoveOn coalition, announced they were going to spend twenty million dollars on ads blaming the recession on the Republicans on Iraq. Here's how Winter Soldier could have broken through the media blackout You take that 20 million dollars blaming the recession on Iraq, heck you take 5 of the 20 million dollars, and you buy full page ads in the Washington Post and the New York Times, you buy TV ads, you force Winter Soldier into the mainstream media in that way. But instead, as you point out, go ahead and do it, goggle "MoveOn" and "Winter Soldier," google "Americans Against Esclation in Iraq" and "Winter Soldier." You'll find nothing. That was a purposeful blackout.

Text, audio and video of Hart Viges Jason Washburn, Jason Lemieux, Geoff Millard and Domingo Rosas can be found here at Democracy Now! where Amy Goodman offered a second day of broadcasting the testimonies. We haven't noted Jason Lemieux so we'll provide a brief excerpt from his Rules of Engagement panel (the second one):

With no way to identify their attackers and no clear mission worth dying for, Marines viewed the rules of engagement as either a joke or a technicality to be worked around so that they could bring each other home alive. Not only are the misuse of rules of engagement in Iraq indicative of supreme strategic incompetence, they are also a moral disgrace. The people who have set them should be ashamed of ourselves, and they are just one of the many reasons why the troops should be withdrawn immediately from Iraq.

Domingo Rosas from the same panel:

I was stationed in the Al Anbar presence on the western edge on the Syrian border. We occupied a local train station there in an area called Al Qaim and which we called Tiger Base. While at Tiger Base, I was put in charge of the detainee site, which consisted merely of one of those shipping containers that we're all familiar with, at least most of us, and the shipping container and just a single building surrounded by barbed wire. I had two soldiers to back me up when I was handling the detainees. And I was briefed by the sergeant that I relieved that the men in the shipping container were captured combatants, and I was to deprive them of sleep. So I had them standing inside the shipping container facing the walls, no talking. I let them have blankets, because it was cold, but they were not allowed to sit down or lay down. Any time they started falling out or dozing off, they put their heads on the wall, I would be on the outside of the shipping container, and I'd just smack the shipping container with a pickax handle, try to wake them up and keep them awake. The men in the building were noncombatant detainees just being held for questioning. There were ninety-three men altogether. Using one of them to translate, I told them that they had a clean slate with me. If they didn't give me any trouble, then the next twenty-four hours will pass calmly. If they did, I told them it was going to be a long twenty-four hours. And I just prayed that they didn¡¯t give me any trouble, because I didn't know what I would have had to do. They even told me I was a good man while I was in charge of them.

Monday's program offered Jon Michael Turner and Jason Hurd's testimony -- also from Rules of Engagment. (We covered both already. Turner on Friday, Hurd yesterday.) Archives of Winter Soldier can be found at Iraq Veterans Against the War, at War Comes Home, at KPFK, at the Pacifica Radio homepage and at KPFA, here for Friday, here for Saturday, here for Sunday. Aimee Allison (co-host of the station's The Morning Show and co-author with David Solnit of Army Of None) and Aaron Glantz were the anchors for Pacifica's live coverage (and archives are now up at Pacifica Radio).

Onto some of today's reported violence in Iraq . . .

Bombings?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 Baghdad roadside bombings that claimed 4 lives and left thirteen wounded, a Baghdad car bombing that left seven people wounded, a Mosul car bombing that claimed 3 lives and left forty-two wounded and a Abu Saida roadside bombing that claimed the lives of 3 police officers and left three more wounded. Reuters notes 1 "Awakening" council member was killed in an Iskandariya roadside bombing while another was wounded.

Shootings?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 "Awakening" council members were shot dead "near Biji" today while Sheikh Abdul Atheem Al Edani's driver was shot dead in Basra (the Sheikh was injured the shooting) and 1 police officer was shot dead in Al Athia.

Kidnappings?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 police officer kidnapped in Salahuddin.

Corpses?

Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 5 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes 4 corpses were discovered on Monday in Madaen.

Turning to political news, CBS and AP report: "Iraq's Shiite prime minister opened a national conference Tuesday aimed at reconciling the country's rival sects, but the main Sunni bloc boycotted the proceedings -- a sign of the deep schisms still facing this country." Turning to US politics, Peter Baker (Washington Post) observes, "This was supposed to be the week of Iraq, the week that the fifth anniversary of the invasion focused the nation's attention back on its turbulent project in the Middle East. McCain in flak vest went to see the troops while his two Democratic rivals, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, denounced the war back home. Antiwar activists made plans to throng the streets of Washington to protest the institutions they blame for the Iraq war (including The Washington Post). And yet the war debate that gripped the capital last year has slipped off the front burner."

Baker's exactly right and blame the nit-wits and the liars for that and I'm not talking Real Media, I'm talking the ones who wallow in the cesspool like David Corn who has moved over to Mother Jones and lost all interest in Iraq but can pen a mash note to Obama near daily. Bambi gave a crap-ass speech today, an embarrassing speech and I'm really sorry that so many in Panhandle Media wouldn't know the inside of a church if you drug their tired asses into one. But here's reality, Jeremiah Wright's remarks were offensive. They weren't misconstrued though IDIOTS want to claim they were. From "Roundtable:"

Betty: It's a mess of issues in one boiling pot so everything will probably all bubble over. My father also wanted me to push to have that addressed. Reverand -- let's not even call him that. Jeremiah Wright gave sermons which were offensive to begin with but, on top of that, thought they were so delightful that they must be sold online. I'm wording carefully right here and want to note that my father would be very offended if Wright was quoted directly on the most offensive remark. He stated that Black Americans should not sing "God Bless America" but instead blank damn America. People are trying to act like that's acceptable and, I agree with Mike, I think a large reason for that is because the people in Panhandle Media are not know for their Christian beliefs. That's fine and dandy and I don't take offense to that in most cases. Believe or not believe what you want. But don't claim to speak for religious Americans about what is acceptable and what isn't. The next Malcolm X says it, I would applaud it. But there's a world of difference between what we expect from our clergy and what we expect from our activists. That is not acceptable behavior in a church coming from the leader of the congregation. It is offensive on so many levels including the most basic issue of langague.Marcia: Mike was right, like Betty's saying, if you weren't raised in a church, you're looking at it as "It's social criticism." But, as Betty's pointing out, it is not the way we conduct ourselves in church. It is not acceptable. It is offensive. And let's get to the heart of it which is that no preacher, pastor, person of the cloth, stands up in a church, at the front of a church and damns anything. Damnation has a very specific meaning to anyone raised in a church. I don't expect the non-believers to get that. Fine. But don't turn around and tell the rest of us that it's a 'smear' against Obama or that it's no big deal. It is a HUGE deal.Cedric: And I would assume, correct me if I'm wrong, Marcia, that a preacher comfortable calling for the damnation of anything is comfortable calling for the damnation of something else. If he had said, "Damn gays," I think we'd all be offended, religious or not. But those of us who are religious have every right to be offended and appalled by that. He's not just a man, his position makes him a representative of God, he leads the prayer, he is the church's spiritual voice so when he calls for damnation of anything, it has a level to it that non-believers do not get. Now they already don't believe so they're not getting what he was calling for but he was calling for the United States to be damned. They blow off religion as it is so they don't grasp the power -- and abuse -- of Wright's statements.Rebecca: I'm going to jump in with some basics. Damnation, from Webster's, is "the act of damning; the state of being damned." Which is defined as "to condemn to a punishment or fate" and "to condemn to hell" and "to bring ruin on". I'm not religious or irreligious, I was raised as a church goer and the issue has come up again since we're new parents, the issue of do we want to provide that or not, my husband and I are debating that with regards to our baby. Pastor, by the way, is defined as "a spiritual overseer."Cedric: Because that's what he or she is. So when Wright's condemning the United States to hell, it is offensive. When he's calling for ruin of the country we live in, it's offensive. And it was really offensive to watch Panhandle Media either ignore this issue or minimize it. He is the head of a church, standing up in front of the church as the leader and using the Lord's name in vain while calling for the damnation of the United States.

What Wright stated was offensive. It was blantantly offensive. It had nothing to do with race or with racism. The offensive part is the damning of the United States, the damning of it by a supposed servant of God. Wright is using his 'relationship' and the pulpit to call for the damning of America. I'm really sorry that the pathetic Panhandle Media is so IGNORANT of religion and so lacking in any understanding of Christianity but it is OFFENSIVE. I'm told Corn's crap alone resulted in 32 community members e-mailing and he's far from the only fool opening his big, uninformed yap. Now I have no idea whether the Corn-brigade is idiotic or lying here. But they need to get it through their uninformed heads that the remarks were offensive. CBS' poll shows that only a small number of people are aware of Wright's shameful remarks but those who are includes "Thirty percent [who] said it made them have less a favorable view". Panhandle Media has disgraced themselves over their love affair with Bambi. But they need to get it through their pathetic heads, this was offensive, it has outraged many Christians and when you LIE for your candidate or when you PLAY THE FOOL because you don't know the first thing about what goes on in a church, you are upsetting a lot of people in ways that will not fade after the 2008 election. Your rermarks are deeply offensive to some. Religion isn't your area of expertise, so maybe you should find another topic to gas bag over.

Bambi gave a lousy speech today. Vastleft (Corrente) notes it here, Lambert notes of the bad speech, "Well sir, if you want what the country wants, then you wouldn¡¯t be smearing the Clintons as racist, you mealy-mouthed moralizing toxic fraudster. Sean Wilentz has the timeline and the exhaustive details [. . .]" Here's Susan UnPC (No Quarter):

Everything I wrote earlier today holds (here, here, and here) ¡ a long speech notwithstanding. But there is more. Much more. (A NoQuarter regular sent me a terrific "rant" that I've added at the end -- do not miss it!)
¡Ì Obama LIED repeatedly in the weeks before today's confession.
Today, he said, "Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely ¡­"
Compare that with what Obama told the Chicago Sun-Times on March 15, 2008, "But the sermons I've always hear were no different than the sermons you hear in many African-American churches. I had not heard him make such, what I consider to be objectionable remarks from the pulpit. Had I heard them while I was in church, I would have objected. Had that been the tenor of the church generally, I probably wouldn't be a member of the church."
But on March 14, when CNN's Anderson Cooper asked Obama if he ever heard from others about Rev. Wright's controverisal remarks, Obama replied with a flat "No."
This speech was important and he blew it. It was the biggest load of garbage because what he needed to do was explain and he didn't. He strung more pretty words together and, guess what, the people he's offended don't care. They weren't going to listen to that magpie, meandering speech. They needed upfront, "Those remarks are appalling. I do not support the damnation of the United States of America." He never dealt with that. He never addressed it and that is the issue that has offended so many. Instead he offered garbage about that "that isn't all that I know of the man." No one cares. He damned the United States of America. That's where it starts and ends for those offended. This may have gotten the groupies excited but it did not address the offense the remarks have created. Again, he blew his big speech. Not because he seemed tired (he did), not because he wasn't inspiring (he wasn't) but because those offended were willing to give him a few minutes (probably 90 seconds) to explain that he didn't agree that the country he wants to be president of should be damned. He's missing the issue, Panhandle Media's missing the issue. People need to leave their desks and start talking to people. And Barack Obama didn't need to try to speak for generations. The sole aim of the speech should have been to convey: "He said it, I didn't and I don't agree." He blew it.

But what do get? We get Panhandle Media yet again trying to lie. We know the pattern. Step one is "He was wonderful!" Step two is "Well what he really meant was . . ." And step three is attack Hillary. Heck, attack Hillary can be worked in during any of the steps. That's really all the groupies have to do or say. This evening, Ruth's going to write about idiots in Panhandle Media audio-division (yes, Aileen, that's you) but of course Iraq's off the radar. Panhandle Media can't pump up their candiate, can't inflate his non-existant record with a lot of effort. And, in the process, Iraq is ignored. That's reality.

Reality is also that the other Democratic candidate for president gave a major address on Iraq yesterday and Panhandle Media couldn't bother to note it today. From Senator Hillary Clinton's speech:

Good morning. I want to thank Secretary West for his years of service, not only as Secretary of the Army, but also to the Veteran's Administration, to our men and women in uniform, to our country. I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady. That's where we went.
I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base. But it was a moment of great pride for me to visit our troops, not only in our main base as Tuzla, but also at two outposts where they were serving in so many capacities to deactivate and remove landmines, to hunt and seek out those who had not complied with the Dayton Accords and put down their arms, and to build relationships with the people that might lead to a peace for them and their children.
So it's a great honor being introduced by Secretary West. I also want to thank rear Admiral David Stone who commanded the fleet off of Kosovo and was an instrumental part of our successful efforts there. And Brigadier General Pat Foote and Major General George Buskirk who are representing the more than 30 generals and admirals who have endorsed me and who provide great assistance and counsel to me and to my staff. I want to thank President Steven Knapp for once again being the host. I'm getting credit for coming to GW, I come so often, and I'm thrilled to have that added to my academic career. And I want to thank the faculty, the staff, and the students at this great university.
I started my morning meeting with the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, to talk about the peace process in Northern Ireland, and it was a stark reminder of how long the road is toward peace, but how necessary it must be that we travel it. And we travel it with like-minded friends and allies and those willing to take risks for peace around the world. It has been five years this week since our president took us to war in Iraq. In that time, our brave men and women in uniform have done everything we ask of them and more. They were asked to remove Saddam Hussein from power and bring him to justice and they did. They were asked to give the Iraqi people the opportunity for free and fair elections and they did. They were asked to give the Iraqi government the space and time for political reconciliation, and they did. So for every American soldier who has made the ultimate sacrifice for this mission, we should imagine carved in stone "they gave their life for the greatest gift one can give to a fellow human being, the gift of freedom." And to our veterans and all those serving in Iraq today, I want to send a strong and clear message - your extraordinary devotion to our country and to your service makes us proud and profoundly grateful every single day.
The mistakes in Iraq are not the responsibility of our men and women in uniform but of their Commander-in-Chief. From the decision to rush to war without allowing the weapons inspectors to finish their work or waiting for diplomacy to run its course. To the failure to send enough troops and provide proper equipment for them. To the denial of the existence of a rising insurgency and the failure to adjust the military strategy. To the continued support for a government unwilling to make the necessary political compromises. The command decisions were rooted in politics and ideology, heedless of sound strategy and common sense.
Fortunately, ten months from now we will have a new president, and a new opportunity to change course in Iraq. Therefore, the critical question is how can we end this war responsibly and restore America's leadership in the world? It won't be easy. There is no magic wand to wave. Bringing our troops home safely will take a president who is ready to be Commander-in-Chief on day one, a president who knows our military and has earned their respect. Bringing lasting stability to the region will take a president with the strength and determination, the knowledge and confidence to bring our troops home; to rebuild our military readiness, to care for our veterans, and to redouble our efforts against al-Qaeda. If you give me the chance, I will be that president.
I will start by facing the conditions on the ground in Iraq as they are, not as we hope or wish them to be. President Bush points to the reduction in violence in Iraq last year and claims the surge is working. Now, I applaud any decrease in violence. That is always good news. But the point of the surge was to give the Iraqis the time and space for political reconciliation. Yet today, the Iraqi government has failed to provide basic services for its citizens. They have yet to pass legislation ensuring the equitable distribution of oil revenues, yet even to pass a law setting the date of provincial elections. Corruption and dysfunction is rampant, and last week General Petraeus himself conceded that no one, in either the U.S. government or the Iraqi government, feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation.
So by the middle of this summer when the additional surge forces have been sent home, we'll be right back at square one with 130,000 or more troops on the ground in Iraq. That President Bush seems to want to keep as many troops there after the surge as before and says that doing otherwise would endanger our progress is a clear admission that the surge has not accomplished its goals. Meanwhile, as we continue to police Iraq's civil war, the threats to our national security, our economy, and our standing in the world continue to mount.
The lives of our brave men and women are at stake. Nearly 4,000 of them have, by now, made that ultimate sacrifice. Tens of thousands more have suffered wounds both visible and invisible to their bodies, their minds, and their hearts. Their families have sacrificed, too, in empty places at the dinner table, in the struggle to raise children alone, in the wrenching reversal of parents burying children. The strength of our military is at stake. Only one of our army brigades is certified by the army to be ready. Our armed forces are stretched to near the breaking point with many of our troops on their second, third, or fourth tours of duty. Our economic security is at stake. Taking into consideration the long-term costs of replacing equipment and providing medical care for troops and survivors' benefits for their families, the war in Iraq could ultimately cost well over $1 trillion. That is enough to provide health care for all 47 million uninsured Americans and quality pre-kindergarten for every American child, solve the housing crisis once and for all, make college affordable for every American student, and provide tax relief to tens of millions of middle class families.

It is a sign of how little Iraq matters that Bambi's attacking the 60s again got more attention before it was delivered and will no doubt be fawned over for some time to come. It was a bad speech, badly delivered and it didn't achieve the needed objective. Meanwhile, there's a thing called the Iraq War and all you hideous gas bags from David Corn to John Nichols and across the board are prolonging the illegal war. That's reality.

iraq
iraq veterans against the war
jesse hamilton
the morning show
john stauber
steve vogelthe washington post
aimeee allisondavid solnit
aaron glantz
kpfa
mcclatchy newspapers
sickofitradlz
kats kornerthe third estate sunday review

CounterPunch never heard of IVAW?

Everyone's scrambling to figure out what to post on. A number of us were joining C.I., Ava and Kat in speaking today since it was in the general area. The snapshot was supposed to have gone up at 5:30 p.m. but it was bounced back due to being too large. We were all speaking and C.I. doesn't take calls during that so it was after we got done, when we thought we'd all go out to eat since so many of us were together for a change, that C.I. returned the phone call and spent the bulk of dinner attempting to edit the snapshot down to a length that would allow it to be e-mailed to The Common Ills site.

Due to speaking and starting late, Mike (Mikey Likes It! ) and I decided we'd choose one site we visit and give them praise or hold them accountable.

For me, that site would be CounterPunch which managed to ignore the hearings on Thursday, Friday and in their "weekend edition" which went up Saturday. Having failed to even do the basics of getting the word out that the hearings were taking place and streamable online, how did they fare today?

Very poorly.

Visiting CounterPunch today, you would never know that Iraq Veterans Against the War's Winter Soldier Investigation took place.

Not one article on the hearings is run. They are not noted.

Professor Robert Jensen blathers on, in a column entitled "Beyond Peace," about the need for the peace movement to . . . "focus on predatory corporate capitalist system." Thank you, Robert Jensen for wasting everyone's time.

Apparently the professor doesn't believe that IVAW's worth writing about but he can try to add-water-and-expand the peace movement. Not to end the illegal war, of course, but instead to push his pet issue.

Big pharma, trade, the Fed, it's as though today's selections were compiled by the bastard child of Karl Marx -- bastard because it was obvioulsy bred with Bad Writing. I'm not sure who was the mother.

(If you laughed, good. I'm cringing, however, because I don't generally use that term or "illegitimate." I'm rushing to post this and, hopefully, have an hour to speak with friends before I have to turn in for the night. If you were offended, my apologies.)

Reading through other articles on topics such as "debt forgiveness," you may have to pinch yourself to ensure you're not dreaming.

You're not dreaming. We are days away from the fifth anniversary of the illegal war that has taken so many lives (from a multitude of countries including Iraq) and it's the last thing CounterPunch cares about.

Why does the illegal war drag on?

Because people have their pet issues. They think those pet causes are just as important as the daily dying and destruction going on in Iraq. They are mistaken.

Were any of them to work for the fire department, you can picture them headed to your home to extinguish flames but stopping along the way because they found a PayDay Loan and felt it was just as important to rush in and inform all the ones applying that this was predatory lending.

Meanwhile, your house has burned down.

Panhandle Media, in all of its non-glory.

"Ending The War In Iraq" (HillaryClinton.com):
Hillary Clinton has announced her plan to end the war in Iraq and urged President Bush to act immediately.
"Our message to the president is clear. It is time to begin ending this war -- not next year, not next month -- but today.
"We have heard for years now that as the Iraqis stand up, our troops will stand down. Every year, we hear about how next year they may start coming home. Now we are hearing a new version of that yet again from the president as he has more troops in Iraq than ever and the Iraqi government is more fractured and ineffective than ever.
"Well, the right strategy before the surge and post-escalation is the same: start bringing home America's troops now."
If President Bush does not end the war, when Hillary Clinton is president, she will. Her three-step plan would bring our troops home, work to bring stability to the region, and replace military force with a new diplomatic initiative to engage countries around the world in securing Iraq's future. Hillary has been fighting every day in the Senate to force the president to change course. And today she described how she would bring the war to an end.
Starting Phased Redeployment within Hillary's First Days in Office: The most important part of Hillary's plan is the first: to end our military engagement in Iraq's civil war and immediately start bringing our troops home. As president, one of Hillary's first official actions would be to convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, her Secretary of Defense, and her National Security Council. She would direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home starting with the first 60 days of her Administration. She would also direct the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs to prepare a comprehensive plan to provide the highest quality health care and benefits to every service member -- including every member of the National Guard and Reserves -- and their families.
Securing Stability in Iraq as we Bring our Troops Home. As president, Hillary would focus American aid efforts during our redeployment on stabilizing Iraq, not propping up the Iraqi government. She would direct aid to the entities -- whether governmental or non-governmental -- most likely to get it into the hands of the Iraqi people. She would also support the appointment of a high level U.N. representative -- similar to those appointed in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kosovo -- to help broker peace among the parties in Iraq.
A New Intensive Diplomatic Initiative in the Region. In her first days in office, Hillary would convene a regional stabilization group composed of key allies, other global powers, and all of the states bordering Iraq. The- mission of this group would be to develop and implement a strategy to create a stable Iraq. It would have three specific goals:
Non-interference. Working with the U.N. representative, the group would work to convince Iraq's neighbors to refrain from getting involved in the civil war.
Mediation. The group would attempt to mediate among the different sectarian groups in Iraq with the goal of attaining compromises on fundamental points of disputes.
Reconstruction funding. The members of the group would hold themselves and other countries to their past pledges to provide funding to Iraq and will encourage additional contributions to meet Iraq's extensive needs.
As our forces redeploy out of Iraq, Hillary would also organize a multi-billion dollar international effort -- funded by a wide range of donor states -- under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to address the needs of Iraqi refugees. And as we replace military force with diplomacy and global leadership, Hillary will not lose sight of our very real strategic interests in the region. She would devote the resources we need to fight terrorism and will order specialized units to engage in narrow and targeted operations against al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations in the region.

So that's Hillary's plan. I'll assume Barack still plans, as Samantha Power revealed to the BBC, to wait and see if he makes it into the White House before coming up with a plan he intends to stick with.

"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Monday, March 17, 2008. Chaos and violence continue, Dick Cheney and John McCain make like Judy Garland and Fred Astaire in Easter Parade as they skip through the Green Zone proclaiming 'advances' that do not exist, a Karbala bombing claims mass fatalities, the US military announces the deaths of US service members, the 5th anniversary of the start of the illegal war approaches and IVAW's Winter Soldier Investigation concludes.

Before we get to Iraq Veterans Against the War Winter Soldier Investigation remember that
in November the Canadian Supreme Court refused to hear the appeals of Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey. Today, Canada's Parliament remaining the best hope for safe harbor war resisters have, you can make your voice heard by the Canadian parliament which has the ability to pass legislation to grant war resisters the right to remain in Canada. Three e-mails addresses to focus on are: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (http://us.f366.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. A few more can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use. That is the sort of thing that should receive attention but instead it's ignored.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Matt Mishler, Josh Randall, Robby Keller, Justiniano Rodrigues, Chuck Wiley, James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, 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, Clara 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. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).

Iraq Veterans Against the War Winter Soldier Investigation began Thursday evening and ran for three more days -- Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Thursday, IVAW chair Camilo Mejia spoke of the importance of speaking out and standing up, the growth of dissent and the way the Geneva Conventions were violated in Iraq.

Friday the hearings began and the first panel was Rules of Engagment: Part One. Iraq veteran Clifton Hicks spoke with some additional comments from veteran Steve Casey. Hicks spoke about a Humvee immediately ahead of his Humvee running over an Iraqi civilian and that their vehicle, following, ran over the remains of the corpse and no one wanted to bother with a report because they were tired and just wanted to "go to sleep." This was true, he testified, not just with that incident but many times and people would avoid 'seeing' corpses because no one had the time for the paperwork. He explained:

These are not bad people, these are not criminals, these are not monsters. These are people like any of us but they're put in a horrible situation and they respond horribly and when you're around that much death running over some guy as he's standing in the road is not a big deal. What's a big deal is getting stuck and getting separated from your con[voy] for another two hours.
He described his tour of duty in Iraq as days of nothing happening with "eight seconds of violence" suddenly taking place, jolting you and gettering your blood pumping. One incident involved his team driving their Humvee to where they heard gun shots, finding that US service members who were there originally had been unable to identify where shots came from (a ditch to the left) so they began firing on a house (to the right), "And just to be brief on this, they hit three people inside the wedding party. One of them was an adult male who was slightly wounded. Another, a young girl maybe ten, was slightly wounded. But what really got to me was there was another girl who was maybe six or seven and she was dead."

Also on that panel was Adam Kokesh, Iraq War veteran and co-chair of IVAW. Kokesh discussed the rules of engagment cards that were distributed and how quickly those rules were tossed aside. He offered, among other examples, the slaughter of Falluja where "we changed rules of engagement more often than we changed our underwear. At first it was, you follow the rules of engagement you do what you're supposed to do and then there were times when you could shoot any suspicious observers or someone with binoculars or someone with a cell phone was fair game. And that really opened things up to a lot of subjectivity. But also firing at muzzle flashes into the city. Firing Mark 19s became common practice. At one point we imposed a curfer on the city of Falluja and at that point we were told we could shoot anything after dark." He explained check points incidents and noted that US service members are standing there in dusk making the visibility more difficult for approaching cars.

That point was echoed by Jason Hurd's testimony on the same panel. Hurd discussed an incident where a vehicle sped past his patrol, down the road, and, finding the road blocked, turned around. The car was traveling very fast and Hurd signaled for it to come to a stop. It didn't stop and continued at the same rate. Instead of responding with gunfire, the standard procedure, Hurd continued to try to get the driver to stop by waving his hands and jumping up and down. Having no luck in getting the car to stop, Hurd pulled his gun and was about to fire but an Iraqi came running into the street and flagged the car down. After it stopped:

And out flopped an 80-year-old woman . . . Come to find out this was a highly respected woman in the community and I hate to think what would have happened if I'd fired on her. I think a riot. Ladies and gentleman, I hate guns. I spent ten years in the military and I carried two of them on my side in Iraq but I think they should be melted down and turned into jewelry. That is the worst thing that I've ever done in my life. I am a peaceful person. Yet in Iraq I drew down on an eighty-year-old, geriatric woman who could not see me because I was in front of a desert colored vehicle, preceeding a desert colored building in desert colored camoflauge.

In Saturday's panels on Racism and War: the Dehumanization of the Enemy, Geoff Millard would testify that not only was the h-word used by the brass in Iraq, they also would declare that the checkpoint killings were the result of h-words not knowing how to drive. Hurd and Kokesh's testimonies provided reasons for the deaths that have received little attention.

Also speaking on Friday's first panel on Rules of Engagment was veteran Steve Mortillo who explained how rage builds up while serving in Iraq. He testified:

At the time you get so wrapped up in everything that you like you want to just get out there and, you know, 'This one's for so-and-so who died and this one's for so-and-so.' And you stop caring about who gets hurt because you're so fixed on who's been hurt in your unit, you know? But we all just wanted everyone to come home alive. And it's difficult, it's difficult when we're put in a situation where experiencing pop-shot and sniper-shot and IED situations in an urban or a civilian occupied area. I mean, it can get pretty ugly -- especially given the weapons that we used and the weapons that we were given. So, I mean, like I said before, things definitely, things definitely degenerate over time.

The panel on The Crisis in Veterans' Healthcare followed. Adrienne Kinee spoke on that panel and a correction to Friday's snapshot: Kinne did not state that, "The best preventative healthcare . . . for our soldiers in uniform is to not use them to fight illegal wars"; she stated, "The best prevantative healthcare . . . for our soldiers in uniform is to not use them to fight illegal occupations in the first place." Kinne testified about serving in the military, discharging in 1998 and then enlisting again and discharging during the Iraq War. The differences she saw were immense. The first time she left the US military, she found a great deal of help and resources, people helped her with her paperwork, they advised her of her benefits and assisted her in a smoother transition to civilian life. By contrast, when she discharged during the Iraq War, she was provided no help, no assistance and something as simple as having a physical would require that she live on a base for four to six more weeks before the military would discharge her. There was no attempt made to explain the benefits available to veterans.

Equally disturbing was what happened after she got a job as a research assistant at a VA in Georgia where she helped with a study on PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) which resulted in a screening for TBA being devised. There was much excitement over the screening while it was nailed down from the research aspect. The excitment quickly withered.

Adrienne Kinne: And then they went to go to the next step, to actually make this happen. And I was actually on a conference call when someone said, "Wait a second. We can't start this screening process. Do you know that if we start screening for TBI there will be tens of thousands of soldiers who will screen positive and we do not have the resources available that would allow us to take care of these people so we cannot do the screening." And their rationale was that medically, medical ethics say if you know someone has a problem, you have to treat them. So since they didn't have the resources to treat them, they didn't want to know about the problem.

The testimony may bring to mind the man testifying on the same panel who explained his wife's miscarriage and the military medical community's part in that. The man (noted in Friday's snapshot but I didn't know his name) was Zollie Goodman and his testimony included:

. . . [O]ne day the United States military will leave Iraq when we do all we have to show for it is thousands of dead Americans. In the meantime. the war ends every single day for our soldiers because someone is discharged from the United States military every single day. They're discharged with no assistance into the VA system. Some people are discharged without knowing that they qualify for veterans benefits, like I was. And with that statement said, I'm going to move into my testimony. I'm going to briefly cover something that happened while I was on active duty which, as many people know, many people are told to join the military that you will receive healthcare, your family will receive healthcare, your dependents will receive healthcare and no one can take that healthcare away from you. September 2005, I was on a training operation, deployed out of Jacksonville, Florida. We were under way. My wife was pregnant with my unborn child. While I was on that training operation, my wife began the horrible process of a miscarriage. Being home by herself, the first thing she did was to try to call the Tri-Care hotline. Tri-Care is the health service that's provided to us in the military. The lady on the hotline told her that she probably already had lost her child and that there was nothing they could do. She asked for an ambulance and she was told that, if she had $1500, they were willing to send an ambulance. Not having $1500 on the salary of an E4, she chose not to get the ambulance and she called a friend of mine and waited for him to come pick her up at our apartment and drove her to base. There's a hospital on Naval Station Mayport, it's called Hospital at Naval Station Mayport, and she arrived there at four p.m. She went inside and the nurse told her they were closing at 4:30 and they couldn't help her. She insisted to see a doctor. The doctor told her that they could not help her and she was turned away. And she once again waited in the parking lot while she was bleeding for my friend to take her to another hospital 23 miles away called the Hospital at NAS Jacksonville. No ambulance was provided. Nothing. No assistance. And we lost the child.

Kevin and Joyce Lucey also appeared to testify on that panel. They are the parents of Iraq veteran Jeffrey Lucey who returned from Iraq, received no medical care (basic things such as intake assessments and exit interviews were not done by the VA when he was admitted for suicidal behaivors). Jeffrey Lucey, receiving no medical assistance, would take his own life. Joyce Lucey noted, "Unfortunately the tragedy is not that it just happened to one Marine but that this continues to happen to others four years after our son's death to countless others -- names that will never be placed on a memorial wall."

Iraq War veteran Eric Estenzo also offered testimony on this panel, explaining that he left the service with a back injury and PSTD. He also stated, "I did leave the military with $17,000 and good credit. I was a good Marine. I served honorably. I never questioned anything about the integrity of my service -- my service to country and the service I was receiving -- until I went into the V.A. healthcare system and it was then that some things were just not working out for me." What followed was an inability to get some jobs due to his back injury and trouble with other jobs due to his PTSD. He got his college degree but was still struggling and soon ended up house surfing. He didn't realize he was actually homeless until one day when he encountered Friend-to-Friend handing out free food to the homeless in Hollywood. He was hungry and decided to get into line. "At first," he noted, "I was just thinking I was just hungry and this is free food so I was going to go for it." Then he began thinking about it and how "I am now an Iraq vet, I am standing in line with homeless people, being served free food, and this is actually happening to me, this is actually happening to our Iraq War vets and I am one of them." What followed was a severe depression and he "literally cracked the day after that" losing his "dignity, self-respect, my honor just went down. I was in a very dark place for considerable time." The help and support of other veterans -- not the VA system -- including Jeff Key helped him emerge from the depression but he continues to struggle to receive the benefits he earned and was promised.
But as he was standing in line, he shared that something else happened, "I looked at myself and I started thinking to myself that I am now an Iraq vet, I am standing in line with homeless people, being served free food, and this is actually happening to me, this is actually happening to our Iraq War vets and I am one of them. And I am a casulty of the system."
Among the other panels on Friday was the panel on Corporate Pillaging and Military Contractors. IVAW's executive director Kelly Dougherty spoke on that panel about her time serving in Iraq. Dougherty was deployed to Kuwait in February 2003 and sent into Iraq as an MP in March of 2003. As an MP, her job mainly consisted of patrolling and providing escorts to convoys. Of those, they were mainly dealing with KBR (then a subsidary of Hallibutron) trucks which cost approximately $80,000 and which they were repeatedly told by their command were "national assessts." One would break down, get stuck in the mud, have a flat tire, etc., and the driver would jump out and hop into another truck in the convoy and leave. Doughtery's team would have to then deploy to the area and secure the abandoned truck. They would be told to protect it, they would be told it was important. They would repeatedly wait around for hours, keeping Iraqi civilians away from the trucks, only to be informed by their command that the truck wasn't that important after all and they needed to shoot out the engine bloc and set the thing on fire to ensure that Iraqis could not use it for parts or utilize the abandoned cargo. "That was pretty much a daily occurence," Dougherty testified. "Where we were abandoning vehicles by KBR contractors on a daily basis." They destroyed fuel at a time when Iraqis needed it and food at a time when they needed it. They even were ordered to destroy an ambulance which had fallen off a truck, onto its side, into the mud because they did not have the means to pull it out of the mud. Dougherty explained the local sheiks were present and, because ambulances are in short-supply in Iraq and that area had none, begging them not to destroy the ambulance, saying that they would figure out a way to pull it out of the mud. As she noted of these type of missions, "I'm looking at people I can't even look in the eye." Though proud of her long service prior to Iraq, Dougherty stated the only thing she can look back on with pride from her tour of Iraq is that all the people on her team made it home alive.

Antonia Juhasz is the author of THE BU$H AGENDA and, as the dollar sign in the title indicates, analyzing the profit motive of the illegal war is her area of expertise. She was one of the civilians testifying on the panel and her testimony included the following:

The United States invasion of Iraq was an illegal act of war. It was unsupported by [. . .] international law, the US law, the US military code of conduct, nor basic morality. With the execution of the war and the ongoing occupation, a clear pattern of war crimes and crimes against humanity have and are being committed. Soldiers therefor who refuse to fight, to stand up to the war, who speak out and act out against the war are not only morally right in their response but legally required to take such measures. They're upholding their obligation to reject illegal orders and to defend the Constitution of the United States.
[. . .]
The war's objective -- there are certain areas, and I'm sure many of you could articulate these events better than I can. The international law does substantuate for one country initiating a war against another country. That list does not include seizure of another country's natural resources nor does it include the hoped for political, economic and hegemonic gain that gaining those resources would grant a nation. I certainly do not stand as a minority person at this point in stating quite an obvious fact, quite obvious at this point by more prestigiou people than myself, that the war in Iraq was clearly a war launched and fought for and continue to be fought for oil.

Juhasz went on to cite Alan Greenspsan's recent admission, in book form, to just that.

Saturday's panels began with Divide to Conquer: Gender and Sexuality in the military and among those offering testimony were Patricia McCann who declared, "If my mother only knew I'd hear my drill sergeants say to males right next to me, 'Does your p-word hurt? Do you need a tampon?' If my mother only knew that." She noted the training she received was questionable and that "I felt that all these things they told us, they were used as tools to either emascualte the male or condemn femininity as evil and dangerous." She shared harassment and how it was downplayed because no one had been 'hurt' by it and that this sent a message, early on, that if you complain, you will not be listened to. She also noted a fear that kept some from complaining: "There's always this idea that you're going to ruin someone's career if you talk about stuff."

You were conditioned not to complain and the military environment conditioned you further as Abby Hiser found out. Being friendly with all she served with did not result in her being known as a good soldier or a team player the way it would for men. Instead, she was the victim of a whisper campaign of how she must be having sex with this guy or that guy since she was friendly. Hiser testified:

So I learned my lesson and I kept to myself; however, now I was labeled again -- as rude, mean, snooty or a witch. Or the b-word, I should say. [. . .] Another issue, that there needs to be more respect and professionalism in the training field. I was disrespected by an ROTC soldier during a summer assignment where he inappropriately patted me down during a training exercise. He was supposed to be searching me as I was playing the role of an enemy . . . And he [grabbed] my chest with both hands and like patted me down inappropriately and he walked away laughing like it was a joke. And he just laughed with his buddies, "Oh look at her, she really enjoyed that, she liked it." Like it was just no problem.

Following that panel, two panels were held on Racism and War: the Dehumanization of the Enemy. Scott Ewing used his testimony to note that, "Instead of news we have infotainment" and this prevents realities about Iraq from getting out. He spoke of sending an group of people from their homes in one area to go live in tents so that the US military could bomb the area, bombing the people's homes in the process. He spoke of how every Iraqi was seen as suspicious and how a patrol uncovered one man, a handy man, whose equipment included many saws -- why was that? There must be something more to it? He must be an 'insurgent.' The proganda war waged on the US people by the White House was also waged on those serving in Iraq.

Also speaking on those panels on the 'other' was IVAW chair Camilo Mejia who noted "blank spaces" he had of his time in Iraq and how you "erase certain memories that are too overwhelming, too painful to deal with." He spoke of a child next to his father. The father had been decapatitated by US machine gun fire. The child was alive. He could not "remember the expression on this child's face" and did not even grasp that it was the son of the man until he was back on base and "people told me later that was the man's sons."

IVAW is calling for an immediate end to the illegal war (and restitution for Iraq and the benefits and care the US government promised to those serving) and Mejia noted that the illegal war was destroying "the humanity of US soldiers . . . and destroying the Iraqi people."

Veteran Micheal Leduc offered testimony about how the "rules of engagement we operated under were very strict" originally but that changed with the second slaughter of Falluja and he could see that "this was all about to change." He spoke of seeing US service members using the heads of Iraqi corpses to "sharpen the sights" of their rifles. Brian Casler offered testimony about the pressure placed on those serving in Iraq and how, in his experience, it was always negative pressure, not positive, and the value was always placed on US lives, not Iraq lives. As noted previously, Geoff Millard testified about the use of the h-word by high ranking brass which included General George Casey.

Also offering testimony was Dr. Dahlai Wasfi, an Iraqi-American who grew up splitting her time in both the US and Iraq. She spoke of the nonsense claims that 'those people' had always been fighting one another and noted very clearly that this becomes the norm only after the US invasion. She spoke of the xenophobic belief among some on the left that the US has to remain to 'help' the Iraqi people -- as if the Iraqi people are children and incapble of running their own country. She spoke of the creation of the 'other' and noted that "we have to remember that pick any country around the world and it's made up of families and it's those families who pay the price for what happens."

Iraqi civilian testimony followed with tales of homes bombed by mistake, tales of disrespect during home searches and stories of a general lack of respect for Iraqis in their own country.

Sunday was the last day of the hearings and one of the two panels was The Future of GI Resistance. Iraq veteran Jeff Englehart offered testimony on his tour of duty and noted how there was not a lot of support for resistance when he was in Iraq. He discussed his readings while in Iraq and noted Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and how he and others created their own by-the-book resistance. He, Garret Reppehagen and Joe Hatcher started Fight To Survive while in Iraq and were "told to stop posting on it because it seemed to be threatening the morale of the military itself." Of IVAW, Englehart explained, "This group is dedicated to bringing all the troops home, not tomorrow, not a year from now, bring the troops home right now." Among the goals he supports focusing on are GI outreach ("biggest thing") to "let them know they're not alone, that they have power" and "help them get their hands on literature that the military might obstruct them from getting."

This was a theme that veterans Phil Aliff and Garret Reppenhagen also spoke of in their testimonies. Aliff stated, "Let me begin by saying to our sisters and brothers in Iraq and Afghanistan that you are not alone in your opposition to this illegal occupation and we must struggle together on every military base, in every combat zone and with every veteran to reach our goals to end the occuaption. And let me be clear, we have the power to bring the troops home. When soldiers throw down their weapons and refuse to fight."

Reppenhagen focused specifically on the future of resistance and noted:


And we were involved in a variety of GI resistance and a lot of that didn't involve going AWOL or breaking army regulations. In fact in our entire GI resistance campaign that we did we followed army regulations to a 't' and that led to us still getting our honorable discharge. And one of the things I want to let people know is that there are ways to resist this war wihthin army regulations. One of the most important things about our military is you are a citizen soldier, you still retain your rights as a citizen and your able to use those rights and you should since you're the ones sacrificing basically to protect those rights so it'll be a shame if the actual use of your first amendment right becomes unpatriotic.
So we're talking today about the future of GI resistance and you can't help but try to predict the future by looking at the past and I just think this Winter Soldier is so incredible. We're doing this far earlier than what the Vietnam vets did thanks to their mentorship, and their leadership and some of their guidance we were able to put this together five years after our invasion of and our occupation of Iraq. If you realize it, the Vietnam veterans, they conducted their Winter Soldier in 1971 and Vietnam War started in 1959. Thats more than ten years after the engagement started, that's also three years after the Tet Offensive which was in 1968. We had over 400,000 American troops deployed in Vietnam at the time, we lost over 14,000 soldiers killed in action in Vietnam and I feel that we're ahead of the game and one of the most powerful things, we might be less in numbers and we might have less of a voice in the political atmosphere and the social atmoshpere and America's very diffirent now but if we can start this resistance early, if we can get a jump on this movement, we can end this war before there is a Tet Offensive in Iraq.
So let's compare Iraq and Vietnam. You're looking at a country, Vietnam, who's far smaller in geographical size, less population, less diversity ethnically, less diversity religiously, politically. There's definitely less natural resources underneath the soil. So this has the potential of being a larger, regional dynamics involved that could explode and could be far worse than what we saw in Vietnam. So it's important to look at this and you know if we don't stop the occupation, this will escalate into a size greater than I think any of us are willing to sacrifice for.
So the military's very different now. So when we look at GI resistance, we also have to look at what our military's doing. There's not a draft today and that awareness out there in America, there's not college students that is fearing they're going to get called up and put into this war, there's not parents out there scared to death that their child is going to be called up to service involuntarily. 75% of this war's veterans are still in the military. So the population of the pool of veterans that you know are out there don't exist like they did in Vietnam. These men and women are still stuck in the military through stop-loss orders, through Individual Ready Reserve programs. There's a different type of soldier today. They're career soldiers, they're professional soldiers. The men and women that I served with, many of them, that was their career, that was their job and they took in honor in that and they didn't want to give that up. They might not have wanted to go to Iraq or Afghanistan over and over again, but they did take pride in the fact that they were soldiers and they didn't want to lose that. Many of them have wives and husbands and kids that they're trying to support and they thought that the military would be a good way to do that, a good career and a good job to do that. They didn't ask to be sent to Iraq and to an illegal occupation of another country and basically oppress a people who don't want us there. They just wanted to be used in a just way when all peaceful solutions have been exhuasted. That's when they thought they'd be sent in harm's way.

Camilo Mejia was the last panelist to speak and he noted:

I would like to start my remarks by saying if you are a Vietnam veteran and a member of VVAW and especially if you attended the first Winter Soldier Investigation, please stand. [Six people do to applause.] There's a long history of resistance in our military but it is because of your leadership and your strength and your resistance that we stand here today. Without your example, we would be pushing forward in the darkness. It is with the courage that you passed on to us that we lead the way against an endless, illegitimate occupation that's tearing apart our military and our country. Today is the last day of Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan but today also marks the birth of a new generation of Winter Soldiers. George Orwell once wrote, "In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes an act of rebellion. We live today in times of universal deceit but throughout the past four days we have witnessed first-hand acccounts that challenge that universal deceit. Iraq Veterans Against the War has become a source of stress to the military brass and to the government. We have members who have been interrogated by the FBI. We have members sitting in this room who have been incarcerated for being conscientious objectors. We have been incarcerated for standing up to and saying no to command rape and sexual discrimination. We have members in Iraq Veterans Against the War who have been prosecuted for being publicly critical of our government's failed war policy. We have become a dangerous group of people, not because of our military training but because we have dared to challenge the official story, because as members of the military we have dared to share our experiences, because we have dared to think for ourselves, because we have dared to analyze and be critical, because we have dared to follow our conscience, because we have dared to go beyond patriotism to embrace humanity. The service members and veterans who have shared our experiences with you, with the entire world, are committing an act of resistance.

Winter Soldier concluded on Sunday. Archives can be found at Iraq Veterans Against the War, at War Comes Home, at KPFK, at the Pacifica Radio homepage and at KPFA, here for Friday, here for Saturday, here for Sunday. Aimee Allison (co-host of the station's The Morning Show and co-author with David Solnit of Army Of None) and Aaron Glantz were the anchors for Pacifica's live coverage (and archives are now up at Pacifica Radio). At the conclusion of Winter Soldier, Kelly Dougherty noted, "We never know who is going to be effected when we tell our stories, we never know the impact its going to have or where its going to reach." Among those impacted within the military were service members in Iraq who watched it on a PBS channel and streamed it online. As Reppenhagen noted in his testimony Iraq Veterans Against the War website was being overwhelmed with service members and veterans filling out applications. The archives allow those who missed it or parts of it to catch up and the testimonies to reach even larger audiences.

We don't have time (the snapshot is very late, my apologies) to address coverage of it in the media today. We'll do so tomorrow and we are not done noting Winter Soldier by any means. Links on testimony go to Rebecca's Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Cedric's Cedric's Big Mix; Kat's Kat's Korner; Betty's Thomas Friedman is a Great Man; Mike's Mikey Likes It!; Elaine's Like Maria Said Paz;Wally's The Daily Jot; Trina's Trina's Kitchen; Ruth's Ruth's Report; and Marcia's SICKOFITRADLZ.] The Third Estate Sunday Review and this site -- all will continue to cover Winter Soldier.

"It's now over 1.2 million," Dalia Wasfi noted in Winter Soldier's Civilian Testimony panel on Saturday, of the number of Iraqis who had died since the start of the illegal war. In contrast, the US president of vice Dick Cheney declared in Baghdad today that the US launched illegal war would "not quit before the job is done," Hannah Allam and Qassim Zein (McClatchy Newspapers) report, and that he declared that as more mass fatalities resulted from a single bombing. Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a woman exploded a bmob in Karbala killing herself and "40 pilgrims" with fifty-six more injured. Al Jazeera reports the count is 43 dead (plus the woman who exploded the bomb) with seventy-three wounded, that a kurfew has now been imposed on Karbala and quotes eye witness Mohammed Kadhem declaring, "I was talking with a friend and eating bread a few metres away from the cafe and I suddenly heard a huge explosion and I was thrown to the floor. I saw smoke and bodies." The BBC documents the aftermath of the bombing with a photo essay which includes rescuer "using blankets and stretchers to remove the bodies of the dead." AFP and Australia's ABC cite a "correspondent [who] said the powerful explosion ripped people apart, sending body parts flying. Many bodies were charred." Allam and Zein cite Hussein Hospital spokespeson Saleem Kadhim explaining, "The majority of casualties in the Karbala suicide bombiing were female pilgrims who'd gathered at refreshment stands about a half-mile from the shrine". BBC quotes eye witness Hassan Khazim declaring, "All the tight security measures designed to protect us were in vain." As reports have been filed repeatedly today, the death toll has climbed and 43 may not be the final number for the death toll. Angela Balakrishnan (Guardian of London) notes, "Karbala has been the scene of clashes between loyalists of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and Iraqi forces."

While violence was taking place throughout Iraq, Cheney was happy talking his way through a defense of an illegal war and claiming 'advances'. Allam and Zein explain that he "spent Monday in a tightly choreographed hopscotch, moving at least six times for high-level meetings. In the fortress-like Green Zone compund, which houses the U.S. and Iraqi headquarters, he met Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker" and pressed al-Maliki to force legislation through the Iraqi parliament to guarantee the theft of Iraqi oil. CBS cites their Iraq correspondent Lara Logan pointing out that Cheney's visit had to be kept secret until he arrived. Contrast that with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visiting Iraq earlier this month and the Iranian government announcing the visit weeks in advance. CNN reports that Dick Cheney declared the illegal war was "well worth the effort" -- apparently a sentiment he shares a stock holder in the war profiteering Halliburton. Adam Kokesh noted Friday at Winter Soldier, "As soon as you choose looking good over doing right, you will fail miserably." Words Cheney should take to heart.

While Cheney happy-talked it in yet another wave of Operation Happy Talk, Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) reports on someone who no longer is an illegal war believier: "The fate of Maj. Gen. Jawad Rumi Daini is more than the story of one man's disgrace. As the fifth anniversary of the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein nears, he serves as a signular witness to the hopes and horrors of the last five years; a man haunted by his role in a terrible stampede on a Baghdad bridge that left nearly 1,000 people dead; a man targeted for his involvement in the discovery of a Shiite police torture chamber; a man devasted by the killing of his son." Parker quotes the man explaining, "I thought I was setting Iraq on the right path." And the violence continues . . .

Bombings?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 Baghdad roadside bombings that claimed the life of 4 person and left two wounded, the Green Zone was hit with a Katyusha missile and with a mortar attack, a Baghdad car bombing left eight people wounded and a Kirkuk roadside bombing that left three wounded. Australia's ABC and AFP report a group by a school in Baghdad were taking part in a football game when a mortar attack claimed the lives of 5.

Shootings?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a police officer was shot dead in Basra (and on Sunday an "Awakening" council member was wounded in a shooting).

Corpses?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 corpses discovered in Baghdad, 4 in Wardiyah village ("south of Baghdad"), 3 corpses were discovered in Kirkuk and 1 was turned over to Basra morgue today (and 3 were turned in on Sunday).

Today the US military announced (PDF format warning), "Two Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldiers were killed when an improvised-explosive device struck the Soldiers' vehicle at approximately 12:20 p.m. March 17." The announcement brings the number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 3990 -- ten away from the 4,000 mark.

While Cheney and US senator and GOP 2008 presidential candidate John McCain were heavily guarded for photo ops and hidden away in the Green Zone, the Guardian of London offers a video by Bhaith Abdule-Ahad (Guardian of London/ITV News) that "investigates the claims that the US military surge is bringing stability to Iraq. By traveling through the heart of Baghdad he exposes how, by encosing the Sunni and Shia populations behind 12 ft walls, the surge has left the city more divided and desperate than ever." While McCain ignored these and other realities, US Senator and candidate for the Democratic Party nomination Hillary Clinton addressed the Iraq War today and presented her plan for ending it. Clinton stated:

Our message to the president is clear. It is time to begin ending this war -- not next year, not next month -- but today. We have heard for years now that as the Iraqis stand up, our troops will stand down. Every year, we hear about how next year they may start coming home. Now we are hearing a new version of that yet again from the president as he has more troops in Iraq than ever and the Iraqi government is more fractured and ineffective than ever. Well, the right strategy before the surge and post-escalation is the same: start bringing home America's troops now.


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