Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Bully Back Down

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIX MIX -- LATIVA.

TODAY, AT THE RIGA CASTLE IN RIGA, LATIVA BULLY BOY DECLARED, "THERE IS ONE THING I'M NOT GOING TO DO. I AM NOT GOING TO PULL OUR TROOPS OFF THE BATTLEFIELD BEFORE THE MISSION IS COMPLETE."

LATER, IN THE MEN'S ROOM, STANDING IMPATIENTLY AT THE URINAL, BULLY BOY DECLARED, "THERE IS ONE THING I'M NOT GOING TO DO. I'M NOT GOING TO START PEEING BEFORE I FEEL LIKE IT."

STILL LATER, IN A BUFFET LINE AT THE LIDO IN THE RIGA AIRPORT, BULLY BOY HUFFED, "THERE IS ONE THING I'M NOT GOING TO DO. I'M NOT GOING TO START MOVING UNTIL I FEEL LIKE IT."

THROUGHOUT THE NEXT 2 HOURS, THE SECRET SERVICE ATTEMPTED TO PROTECT BULLY BOY FROM JEERS, BOOS, AND THE OCCASSIONAL SPIT LOOGIE, WHILE BULLY BOY STOOD, HAND ON HIPS, GLARING AT EVERYONE.

FINALLY, ON THE AIRPORT RUNWAY, BULLY BOY DECLARED, "THERE IS ONE THING I'M NOT GOING TO DO. I'M NOT GOING TO START MOVING UNTIL I FEEL LIKE IT."

BULLY BOY STOOD THERE PETULANTLY UNTIL SECRETARY OF STATE & ANGER CONDI RICE YELLED FROM THE TOP OF THE AIRPLANE STAIRS, "MOVE IT, BULLY, GET YOUR BUTT OFF THE TARMAC RIGHT NOW!"

"YES, MA'AM," BULLY BOY GULPED BEFORE TAKING OFF IN A RUN TOWARDS THE STAIRS.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

The US military announced today, "One Marine assigned to 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division died Nov. 27 from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province." The announcement comes as Aaron Glantz (OneWorld) reports on "a new study by the Caresey Institute" which finds that "[t]he mortality rate for soldiers from rural America is about 60 percent higher than the mortality rate for soliders from metropolitan areas." Glantz notes that the study finds that those "from rural Vermont have the highest death rate in the nation followed by Delaware, South Dakota, and Arizona."
Andrea Shalal-Esa (Reuters) reports that the United States Air Force says it needs "$33.4 billion in extra funding for fiscal 2007 to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and costs related to the 'longer war on terror'." Current cost of the illegal war, via counter on Tom Hayden's website, $346,000,000,000. And all the money going to support the illegal war couldn't be used in a better way, right?
New Orleans?
Kyle Snyder: There are over 20 engineering units, there's more than 20 engineering units in the U.S. military. I was part of an engineering unit. And to see places that look worse than Iraq in my own country makes me sick, it makes me disgusted, that they're not doing any rebuilding effort for the poor, for the African-American community. It's like they just left it there. They're not even cleaning it up. It's a disaster area. It's, logistically, it's the most horrible thing I've seen because we have engineering units in Iraq when they should be here. . . . This should be first priority. . . . Start pulling troops from Iraq and rebuilding in New Orleans.
US war resister Kyle Snyder spent Thanksgiving week by joining with Iraq Veterans Against the War, Col. Ann Wright, war resister Darrell Anderson and others to protest the School of Americas in Georgia and then going to New Orleans with Iraq Veterans Against the War to work on the rebuilding. Video clips are available at Soldier Say No! and the one quoted from is also available at Google Video. Snyder self-checked out of the US military in April of 2005, moved to Canada and then returned to the US and turned himself in at Fort Knox on October 31st, only to self-check out again after discovering the military had lied yet again. Snyder is now underground and on the road.
Also traveling is CODEPINK's Medea Benjamin who was recently in South Korea and spoke with Christopher Brown (OhmyNews International): ". . . the job of the peace movement is going to be not [to] put down its guard, to really be forcing the Congress to carry out what is a mandate for radical change, and the radical change is to bring the troops home, to stop allocating money for this war and to have no permanent bases in Iraq. And I think the issue of more money for the war will come up very soon in January when the new Congress reconvenes because they are going to be asked for over a hundred billion dollars more for this war."
Benjamin and others were in South Korea to support the people objecting to US base being expanded and asking that South Korea's troops be brought home from Iraq. Other activists on the trip included Cindy Sheehan who was interviewed about it by Jennifer Veale (Time magazine). In her latest column (BuzzFlash), Sheehan considers the proposal of returning to the draft and is "100% categorically opposed to forced conscription" and outlines her reasons which include that the draft didn't stop earlier wars, the "draft will never be fair and balanced," and that "a draft will only give the war maching more of our children to consume to generate its wealth."
The peace movement includes Cindy Sheehan (who sparked it back to life), Medea Benjamin, Ann Wright, Diane Wilson, Kyle Snyder, Darrell Anderson, Camilo Mejia, Alice Walker, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Parades, Missy Comley-Beattie, Agustin Aguayo, Stephen Funk, Carl Webb, Stan Goff, David Swanson (who examines war resistance here), . . . and many more (hopefully including you).
Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, Tom Hayden notes that "the anti-war movement has been a major factor in mobilizing a majority of the American public to oppose the occupation and killing in Iraq" and, noting the failure of media to cover the movement: "the only recourse is to prepare widespread demonstrations and ground organizing in the key presidential primary states, to make it impossible for any candidate to become president in 2008 without pledging to end the war and occupation. If there is no peace movement, there will be no peace."
What would there be instead? More abuses, probably done more openly. On Saturday, Reuters reported Janis Karpinski's statement about the letter "signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation." (Karpinski wrote about that in her book, spoke about it with Amy Goodman and Dennis Bernstein.) We can pair that with The Socialist Worker's report on British major Antony Royce's statements in the court-martial for the abuses of Iraqi prisoners where he testified that he was instructed "by Major Mark Robinson, a brigade intelligence adviser, to 'condition' prisoners. Royce said that he then checked with Major Russel Clifton, the brigade's legal adviser, and was again told that 'conditioning' and hooding were acceptable."[Pru highlighted the article on Royce.]
Lastly, the Pacifica's Archives is presenting a two-day special: Pacifica Radio Archives Presents Voices For Peace And Non-Violence. It is airing on all Pacifica stations (KPFA, KFCF, KPFT, WBAI, KPFK, WPFW), many affiliates and online. The special started today and pulls from the fifty plus years of archives. (Donations made during this two day period go to preserve the archives.) Among the voices heard today were MLK, Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, Camilo Mejia, Lena Horne, Fannie Lou Hamer, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, Jane Fonda, and many others.


Recommended: "Iraq Snapshot"
"NYT: Bobble Head and Judy in Drag show off their steno skills"
"Other Items"
"Law and Disorder, The Third Estate Sunday Review"
"various thoughts"
"Gore Vidal, Janet Coleman, Madonna, Iraq"
"Rumsfeld, Rolling Stones, Yoko Ono & John Lennon"
"Civil war"
"THIS JUST IN! IT'S A CIVIL WAR!"

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