Thursday, April 24, 2008

Barak was only 8!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE.
 
WHILE LOTTA LINKS CONTINUES IT'S MELTDOWN -- NO GREAT LOSS, IT WAS ALWAYS A WORTHLESS SITE BY A WORTHLESS MAN, YEAH, MARK, YOU FAT COWARD, WE'RE TALKING 'BOUT YOU, THEIR MAN CRUSH BAMBI TOOK THE DAY OFF KIND OF.
 
HE DECIDED HE WOULD TRY TO APPEAL TO THE WORKING CLASS THAT HE HAS SO OFTEN INSULTED.  THE ONLY SURPRISE IS THAT HE DIDN'T BRING HIS OFFICIAL CAMPAIGN BLOGGER, THE MARXIST SAM GRAHAM-FELSEN, WITH HIM TO APPEAL TO THE PROLETARIAT.
 
WHEN ASKED BY THESE REPORTERS ABOUT SAM GRAHAM-FELSEN, BARACK OBAMA RESPONDED, "HE DID SOME THINGS I DISAGREED WITH BUT I WAS EIGHT-YEARS-OLD."
 
WHEN WE POINTED OUT TO HIM THAT WE WERE SPEAKING OF THE YEARS 2003-2007 SENATOR OBAMA ASKED, "WOULD YOU BELIEVE I WAS EIGHT-YEARS-OLD MENTALLY?"
 
 
 
 
Starting with war resistance.  In June 2006, Ehren Watada became the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to the Iraq War.  He cited the war was illegal and his duty to the Constitution.  For his bravery, the US military brass attempted to railroad and an embarrassing court-martial was staged in February 2007.  Judge Toilet (aka John Head) called a mistrial (over defense objection) and then tried to railroad through another one.  The Constitutional provision against double-jeopardy should prevent another court-martial.  While that matter is settled, Watada waits and continues reporting on base every day even though he was supposed to discharge out of the military in December 2006.  Watada has made history.  As such, he is often cited.  "I'm not another Watada," Sabrina M. Wiener tells Mike Barber (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) and she isn't.  She isn't against the war.  She was ordered to go to Iraq but didn't feel her Navy training prepared her so she refused.  She's already been discharaged.  Meanwhile, Robert L. Jamieson Jr. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) feels required to state school teacher Carl Chew "just pulled 'a Watada'" for refusing to give a standardized test (one mandated by the hideous No Child Left Behind aka No Child Left Time To Learn).  Becoming a cultural reference is a sure sign of just how much you have permeated a society.
 
In Canada, many US war resisters are currently hoping to be granted safe harbor status and the Canadian Parliament will debate a measure this month on that issue. You can make your voice heard. Three e-mails addresses to focus on are: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (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.         

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, Jose Vasquez, 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, Logan Laituri, Jason Marek, 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).
 
 
 
The next CENTCOM commander and field commander in Iraq will have to help the next President with a number of critically important challenges: making America more secure, restoring America's power and influence in the world, fixing our costly strategy in Iraq, and articulating a more effective strategy for winning in Afghanistan and defeating Al Qaeda in Pakistan.  
Our ground forces' readiness and the battles in Afghanistan and against al Qaeda in Pakistan have suffered as a result of the current costly Iraq strategy.  These challenges will require fresh, independent and creative thinking and, if directed to by a new President, a commitment to implementing major changes in strategy.   
The Senate will carefully examine these nominations and I will be looking for credible assurances of a strong commitment to implementing a more effective national security strategy.
 
 
Harry Reid is the US Senate Majority Leader.  His statement is neither a power grab nor an attempted coup; however, reading today's press you might wonder.  William M. Arkin (Washington Post) actually knows the beat he covers and a thing or two about American democracy which is why he grasps that Gen David Petraeus has been nominated.  But it's far too much for many to grasp.  We'll be kind and not note all the Brits who get it wrong (US democracy may not be their natural area expertise) but let's point out that Australia's ABC understood what many did not -- including many US reporters for US outlets.  Ann Scott Tyson and Thomas E. Ricks (Washington Post) also grasped the difference between nomination and confirmation.  Gordon Lubold and Howard LaFranchi (Christian Science Monitor) don't grasp it.  They also miss that news reporting is documenting what happened and seeing into the future is left for the likes of a psychic and a 'life coach.' (Petraeus, they write, "will now be promoted to command the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan).  It's, sadly, a very long, long list of reporters who don't grasp US democracy.  (We noted Nancy A. Youssef's article this morning.)  The even sadder thing is some outlets report that US Secretary of Defense Gates has promoted them.  US Senator Joe Biden also issued a statement on Petraues' nomination:
 
I have great respect for General Petraeus and the job he has done in Iraq.  But if confirmed, Gen. Petraeus' mission will no longer be just Iraq -- it will be the entire region, including the Afghnistan-Pakistan border area where those who actually attacked us on 9-11 have regrouped, where our Ambassador to Iraq [Ryan Crocker] acknowledged to me that Al Qaeda is a bigger threat, and where we do not have enough troops because of Iraq. Congress must ensure that Gen. Petraeus does not bring an Iraq bias to his new job, at the expense of America's broader security needs.
 
US Senator Hillary Clinton's statement on the nomination:

General Petraeus has been an able and respected leader in Iraq under incredibly difficult circumstances.  In this new role, General Petraeus will face responsibility broader than Iraq.  It will be critical that he takes a wide view of the serious challenges facing the Central Command area of operations, including the threat posed by Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.  As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I look foward to considering his nomination and hearing from General Petraeus how he will meet these important changes.
 
Senator Barack Obama does not serve on the Armed Services Committee and maybe that's why he's issued no statement?  Senator John McCain does serve on the committe and, like Barack, he has issued no statement.  Senator Russ Feingold did issue a statement yesterday:
 
During his testimony before Congress, General Petraeus stated that since his focus has been on Iraq, he was unable to comment on why the threat from al Qaeda has increased, specifically in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As CENTCOM Commander, General Petraeus will be responsible for assessing the entire region, including the impact our presence in Iraq is having on our ability to combat al Qaeda and its affiliates throughout that region. The truth is our perceived occupation of Iraq is destabilizing the region while the administration's myopic focus on Iraq has overlooked the rising threat of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. General Petraeus's predecessor, Admiral Fallon, understood the need for a comprehensive strategy for the Middle East which extended beyond Iraq. As he begins the confirmation process to become the next commander of CENTCOM, General Petraeus must answer the most important question we face, which is not whether we are winning in Iraq, but why we are not defeating al Qaeda.
 
 

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