Iraq Toll

Those killed in Iraq from Nov 25 to Dec 1

Spc Benjamin Garrison  25  Houston TX

Pvt Isaac Cortes  26  Bronx NY

Cpl Allen Roberts  21  Arcola IL

Sgt John Tobiason  42  Wichita KS

Cpl Blair Emery  24  Lee ME

Spc Matthew Reece  24  Harrison AR

248 Iraqi sisters and brothers were killed.

Cf:   www.icasualties.org

Fighting Terrorism at Home & Abroad

When we talk about “Real Security through International Cooperation and the Funding of Human Needs” it is sometimes hard to understand what that means in terms of our daily lives. 

On my way home I often pass a family saying hello and usually exchanging brief pleasantries. Normally, the father and sometimes the mother sit on the front stoop watching the baby play.  Last night, however, as I rounded the corner something was very different.  All the contents of their house had been dumped haphazardly onto the sidewalk; they were not sitting on the porch but rather on the street near their clothes.  They had been “put out of their house.”  They could not make the rent for this month and so this family of three (with a toddler) was homeless, sitting in the dark and cold with no place to go.  They had left that morning for work and daycare with a small sense of security, only to arrive that night vulnerable and in genuine danger.  How is it, in the richest democracy in the world, we can put a family out?  

My neighborhood is known for gang activity.  I myself, have witnessed 3 shootings; none of which, thankfully, resulted in death or injury; but they were scary. I can’t imagine being a toddler on the street hearing those booming noises echo only feet away from me.  I have lots of Libertarian friends who don’t believe the government could solve these problems even if it did have a billion dollars.  I might agree if we ever had a chance to test the theory.  The money spent on militarism represents more than 70% of our Federal budget.  The money for social programs is less than 5%.  Where are our priorities?  Why have we, for decades, chosen bombs over people?

Again, I turn to my Libertarian friends who claim the ONLY function of a Federal government is the protection of national boarders from foreign invaders.  I would like to see a more comprehensive idea of ‘foreign invaders.’ I think hunger and frost bite should be counted among the terrorists affecting our world.

It strikes me that these terrorists are potently killing people all over the world on a daily basis – and U.S. investment in militarism only compounds the problem.  I lived in Kosova for a time about a year ago.  The people there are so grateful to the U.S. for ending the genocide perpetuated by Milosevic.  They have a picture of Bill Clinton or Gen. Wesley Clark on nearly every street; including a giant mural on Bill Clinton bvld in downtown Prishtina.  Of course there is another side to this gratitude.  On Bill Clinton blvd there are still apartment buildings bombed out from U.S. strikes in 1999.  People are still living in homes exposed to the elements with no water or electricity.  The unemployment rate is staggering and the thousands of ‘missing’ are still unaccounted for.  The political status of Kosova is still in flux between a Serbian territory and an independent state.  Neither Europe nor the U.S. has invested enough money and time into the rebuilding of Kosova.  We saved them from genocide and then condemned them to poverty through our inaction. 

There is a similar story happening all over the world:  in Ethiopia & Eutria; in Pakistan & Afghanistan; in Burma & S. Korea; in Sudan, in Sri Lanka, in Palestine, in Columbia, in Morocco, in every continent.   Real security, internationally, means investing in the health and well being of all humans; knowing that persons whose security needs are met will never strap a bomb to their back and then board a train.

Terrorism, both the Islamic kind and the gang kind, can only be stopped by meeting our human needs as a global community.  The U.S. is in a unique position to take leadership in this endeavor, and we have historically.  Although now contentious, the IMF and World Bank served their original purpose after WWII.  The funding provided by these international organizations rebuilt Europe after the devastation and renewed the historic cities to their former glory.  We have lost the philanthropy which launched us into a global super power.  Now we face our challenges with bombs and empty promises.  Ours is a path of destruction and destitution.  We must regain our conscious and expand our sense of community if we are ever to realize a peaceful world.

Iraq

Those who died in Iraq from Nov 18 to 24:

Cpl Christopher Nelson  22  Rochester WA

Cpl Jason Lee  26  Fruitport MI

Pvt Marius Ferrer  23  Miami FL

Sgt Alejandro Ayala  26  Riverside CA

2 UK air service personnel

Sgt Alfred Paredez Jr  32  Las Vegas NV

Spc Melvin Henley Jr  26  Jackson MS

Sgt Johnathon Martin  33  Bellevue OH

40 were seriously wounded and maimed.

12 were returned to kill fields.

303 Iraqi brothers and sisters were killed.

Cf:   www.icasualties.org

Air Strikes Only Effective in Killing Civilians

Imagine you are a parent living in a war zone.  A happy life is hardly a reality but you are surviving by keeping your head low and cooperating with no one and everyone.  One day you venture out of your house for an hour to pick up flour for the next month.  When you return your house, and the family you left there, you find it has been completely destroyed.  Your children, your spouse, your life scattered around your land like rubble.  You, and your family, have become victims of air strikes.

Whether in Kosova in the 90’s, or Afghanistan & Iraq today – air strikes are deadly to civilians and they have devastating effects on infrastructure for years to come.  I’ve seen it.  I’ve walked, ten years after the war, through the streets in Prishtina, Kosova where bombed hospitals sit empty and unused in an area where a mammography machine would save lives from breast cancer.  I’ve lived in a house held up by makeshift beams and gutted on one side because a missal exploded 5 feet from the front door in 1999. 

This month we’ve had new insight into the multinational forces (MNF) responsibility for civilian causalities in Iraq and Afghanistan.  October was the deadliest month for civilians in Afghanistan and air strikes played a significant part.  Last Sunday 60 minutes did a report on this very issue.   They found a family who was suspected of harboring terrorists and bombed to death by multinational forces.  The family was never confronted or warned to get out.  The villagers claim those died never had anything to do with insurgents.  MNF bombed without proof – they just bombed.  President Karzai came out publicly in that program condemning air strikes.  Bush touts Afghanistan as a victory and an explanation of what we are doing in Iraq.  And yet, “while the enemy has killed hundreds of civilians this year, a similar number of civilians have been killed by American forces. With relatively few troops there, the U.S. and NATO rely on air power. The number of civilians killed in air strikes has doubled.”  Where is the victory in that?

In Iraq we have less information because the MNF refuse to be open about the civilian causalities.  The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq recently released a report which deals with civilian causalities.  I’ll simply quote the highlights of page 9.  “UNAMI recorded a number of incidents in which 88 civilians were reportedly killed during air strikes conducted by MNF forces.12 They included the following: nine civilians killed in five villages in the al-Anbakiya area near Ba’quba on 11 March; two civilians killed in Dulu’iya in Salahuddin Governorate on 15 March; 16 civilians killed in Sadr City in Baghdad on 30 March; 27 civilians killed in Khaldiya, Ramadi, on 3 April…..:”  the list goes on for another 30 or so lines.

If we cannot stop this war let us at least stand up for the people who suffer from it on a daily basis.  I urge you to contact your representatives and tell them to work with the UN to report these atrocities.  We must bring the crimes of this war to light.  The only weapon we have now is shame and the best way to shame our own government is to align ourselves with an international power.

Iraq Toll

Those who died in Iraq from Oct 7 to 13:

Cpl Gilberto Meza  21  Oxnard CA

Cpl Zurab Choghosvili  26  (Soviet) Georgia

Cpl Benjamin Dillon  22  Rootstown OH

Cpl Jeremy Burris  22   Tacoma WA

Frank Cady III  20  Sacramento CA

Sgt Jason Lantieri  25  Killingworth CT

Sgt Lillian Clemens  35  Lawton OK

Spc Samuel Pearson  28  Westerville OH

Sgt Eric Duckworth  26  Plano TX

Sgt Donaid Munn II  22  St Clairs Shores MI

Pvt Nathan Thacker  18  Greenbrier AR

22 were seriously wounded and maimed.

56 wounded were returned to occupation.

328 Iraqi brothers and sisters were killed.

Cf:  www.icasualties.org

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Iraq Toll: 3808 brave U.S. citizens dead

Those who died in Iraq from Sep 23 to 29::

Cpl Anthony Bento 23 San Diego CA

Sgt Kevin Brown 38 Harrah OK

Sgt Zachary Tomczak 24 Huron SD

Sgt Randy Johnson 34 Washington DC

Sgt Donnie Dixon 37 Miami FL

Sgt Robert Ayres III 23 Los Angeles CA

Sgt James Doster 37 Pine Bluff AR

40 were seriously wounded and maimed.

33 were returned to occupation.

362 Iraqi brothers and sisters were killed.

Cf: www.icasualties.org

Creating a Digital Movement

“As technology advances, it reverses the characteristics of every situation again and again. The age of automation is going to be the age of ‘do it yourself.”
Marshall McLuhan

In The Medium is the Massage McLuhan suggests that our world is moving into a digital age.  Written in 1967 he made predictions of a ‘global village’ a place where people can come together, across geographical & cultural borders, to share ideas and experience media simultaneously.  He believed this would bring our world closer together and prelude a more harmonious existence on this earth.  Forty years later we are still embroiled in wars which, at their core, speak to the inability of the global village to overcome greed and hate.

We who believe in peace are the global majority.  And yet, our President is unresponsive and mainstream media  continue to trumpet his call to war.  How, without satellites and TV stations, can we make our voices heard above the gatekeepers?  The lessons from Media still apply:  we are in the age of automation, we must ‘do it ourselves’. 

The genius of the internet is the decentralization of power and information.  In other words, YOU have the power to share the information.  Every time you pass on an action alert to your network, every time you research a subject, every time you publish your opinion - you are unseating the status quo.  You are saying NO to watered down information ‘from the ground’ in Iraq.  You are saying NO to the lies perpetrated by the Bush administration. 

Instead, you are saying YES to the peace movement.  We will never have a satellite (or the money to rent one) so we depend on you to broadcast our message of peace to the global village.  I urge you to take on this challenge.  Go to our website, do your research and remember that every moment is a teaching moment.  Take action, online or otherwise, and tell people what you did encouraging them to join the movement.

You are frustrated by the lack of movement in a progressive direction – I understand.  We long for peace and justice while our world seems to become less and less oriented towards those goals.  There is no alternative than to ‘sound my (our) barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world.’ (Walt Whitman) demanding we be heard.  The Internet is the best way to unite our voices so they cannot ignore us. We have the power share our goals with the world and expand our knowledge of that world - use it.

I write to honor the service of those humans lost to war.

JJ,

I am so glad you brought up my ongoing attention to the human toll we pay for this unjust war.  I thank you for your service and respectfully ask that you not assume you know my feelings.  I am appalled that these women and men have died and no one is giving them proper dedication for their service.  In Viet Nam the remains of soldiers were brought back with the respect and mourning.  Their flag draped coffins reminded us daily of how much we lose to war.  Bush, in a disrespectful shun of their service, chooses to hide their remains from our eyes so we do not know how many people have been lost.  This was a decision he and Cheney made long before the war even began.

If you asked me, each soldier who dies on foreign soil should have a quarter page memorial dedicated to them in the Washington Post, New York Times, and USA Today.  I don’t understand how the lives of the 30 people killed at Virginia Tech, who did receive such dedications, are more important that of our soldiers. So, if you see naming the dead as disrespectful because of our political affiliation, I am sorry but I will not stop.  I have too much respect for their sacrifice not to name them.  I am almost brought to tears when I think of the families of these people; of the thoughts and feelings that went through their heads before they left this earth; of the futures they will never have because they made the ultimate sacrifice for my future under false pretenses. 

I talk to Vets who share my feelings about the war on a daily basis.  Some are upset about the Stop-loss program that forces enlisted people to re-enlist for cash, be sent back to war under duress, or go to the brig.  They describe it as a backdoor draft.  One solider whom I am very close to broke into tears when he told me how sad he has been since returning.  He said he went to war and lost friends because he was told it was necessary.  He trusted in the system of the military and in the wisdom of his commander and chief.  Having returned and heard that commander and chief manipulating the truth and abandoning the original mission of the war (this soldier believed he was going to stop the spread of WMD’s) – he became much disenfranchised.  He is still a successful officer but suffers greatly with emotional issues and alcoholism.  I only wish I could list the number of our soldiers who return from war and we leave alone to self destruct.  They will be the true test of our VA system.

I know I cannot convince many of you the total and raw pain I feel writing about this war.  Not just the loss of soldiers but the loss of Iraqi’s, the loss of a peaceful future for the next generation, the loss of our international reputation that will, for generations, have a negative affect on our stability and prosperity.  But JJ, I feel it.  I feel raw pain because I know there are millions upon millions of people in so much more pain than me resultant of this war.  I cannot have this venue and not use it to expose that pain in its most raw form:  names.

I am sorry I have not abbreviated the ranks correctly — please be kind enough to correct my mistake.  Below is the latest Iraq toll:

Those who died in Iraq from Aug 19 to 25:

Cap Michael Fielder  35  Holly Springs NC

Pvt Donovan Witham  20  Malvern AR

Sgt Sandy Britt  30  Apopka FL

Cpl Nathan Hubbard  21  Clovis CA

Cpl Joshua Harmon  20  Mentor OH

Spc Michael Hook  25  Altona PA

Cpl Philip Brodnick  25  New Lenox IL

Spc Jessy Pollard  22  Springfield MO

Sgt Garrett McLead  23  Rockport TX

Sgt Jason Paton  25  Poway CA

Cap Derek Dobogal  26  Fond du Lac WI

Spc Tyler Seideman  20  Lincoln AR

Cpl Jeremy Bouffard  21  Middlefield MA

Spc Rickey Bell  21  Caruthersville MO

Cap Corry Tyler  29  Georgia

CWO Paul Flynn  28  Whitsett NC

Sgt Matthew Tallman  30  Groveland CA

Pvt Omar Torre  20  Chicago IL

Pvt Edgar Cardenas  34  Lilburn GA

Sgt Adrian Elizalde  30  North Bend IN

Sgt Michael Tully  33  Falls Creek PA

Sgt Henry Heringes  36  Tampa FL

Cpl Matthew Medlicott  21  Houston TX

 

43 were seriously wounded and maimed.

54 wounded were returned to occupation.

360 Iraqis brothers and sisters were killed.

The Shift - a trailer that gave me chills

Misleading the American Public on Nukes

Earlier on this blog I commented on Sen. Hillary Clinton’s attack on Sen. Barrak Obama and his stance on nuclear weapons. Frankly, I believe (like many of you) that neither candidate has fully accepted a progressive platform. What strikes me though is the inconsistency with which they (all politicians) conduct their campaigns.

A recent article by the Boston Globe elaborates on Clinton’s stance on nuclear weapons – just a year ago she said nukes were ‘off the table’ for dealing with Iran. Not only are these candidates inconsistent but their constant threats of military action on states like Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan only reinforce the Bush administration’s assessment that they are part of a falsely constructed ‘axis of evil’. I am almost hesitant to criticize the top Democratic candidates because I would rather be condemning candidates like Giuliani, McCain, Romney, and Brownback whose platforms are so far from my ideals. But, if I cannot look to either party to find my values I must keep pressure on those candidates who most closely reflect them.

Related to this is a recent paper published in the Atlantic Monthly. The paper presented a cogent argument that China was a more significant threat to the U.S. than any Arab nation. That if we were to use nuclear weapons, unlike most politicians would like you to believe, they would be used on China. This was not a political paper – it was written by a professor and a former DOD official. It lays out the tactical plan, the devastation, and the potential fallout (political and securities focused fallout) of a nuclear strike. As an activist, for me, the underling issue is clear. Nothing good can come from any nuclear attack from the U.S. or any other state in this world. It only brings destruction.

Senator Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican, and ranking member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, agrees. He has been a vocal advocate for the collection and destruction of fissile materials throughout his terms in office; passing the Nunn-Lugar bill to focus this work in the Former Soviet Union. He recently wrote a commentary on the success of this program. We can achieve nuclear abolition if we continue to understand and communicate the devastating implications of nuclear war.

Do you agree? Is there ever a reason to use nuclear weapons? Vote in Parade Magazine’s poll on this subject, here.