Cedric's Big Mix

Monday, March 17, 2008

Michele Norris, you never look so White as when you try to speak for Black America

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- WHITE HOUSE.

THE SHAME OF THE PRESS CORPS INCLUDES THEIR REFUSAL TO COVER IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR'S WINTER SOLDIER HEARINGS AND GOES BEYOND THAT FAILURE.

IT INCLUDES NPR'S MICHELE NORRIS EMBARRARSING HERSELF ON NBC'S MEET THE PRESS BY CLAIMING THAT SENATOR BAMBI OBAMA'S GUIDE TO THE SPIRIT WORLD, JEREMIAH WRIGHT, STATING THAT WRIGHT'S RACISM, FOUL MOUTH AND OTHER 'DELIGHTS' ARE COMMON IN MANY BLACK CHURCHES AND THAT HIS WORDS "RESONATE WITH A LARGE NUMBER OF AFRICAN-AMERICANS."

MICHELE NORRIS, MEET AFRICAN-AMERICANS: AP REPORTS THAT 58%, THAT WOULD BE A CLEAR MAJORITY MICHELE NORRIS, OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN VOTERS POLLED FOUND WRIGHT'S COMMENTS OFFENSIVE (77% OF WHITES DID AS WELL).

APPARENTLY, WHEN DROPPING THE SECOND "L" FROM HER FIRST NAME, MICHELE DROPPED HER COMMON SENSE AS WELL.

WHAT KIND OF CHURCH DOES NORRIS GO TO?

SOME WONDER WHEN THE PRESS WILL BEGIN ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS ABOUT SENATOR BAMBI'S RELATIONSHIP WITH WRIGHT?

MEANWHILE THE TRUTH EMERGES ABOUT HOW BARACK OBAMA ENDED UP OFF THE VOTING LIST IN MICHIGAN: NO ONE'S DECISION BUT HIS OWN.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

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.

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"Tantrum in the Oval Office"

"THIS JUST IN! INTERVIEW IN THE OVAL OFFICE!"

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Saturday, March 15, 2008

Tantrum in the Oval Office

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- WHITE HOUSE.

"REMEMBER, GUYS, BE NICE," SAID SECRETARY OF STATE AND ANGER CONDI RICE AS SHE LED US INTO THE OVAL OFFICE.

THERE WE WERE FACE TO FACE WITH THE BULLY BOY OF THE UNITED STATES IN WHAT WAS PROMISED TO BE IN AN EXCLUSIVE AND HARD-HITTING INTERVIEW.

WE KNEW WE'D BE DISAPPOINTED.

ASKED ABOUT THE IRAQ WAR, BULLY BOY SWORE, "WE'RE WINNING IT, BOYS. ALL THE GIRLS ARE GOING TO LOVE US!"

"MISTER BULLY BOY," WE SAID, "ALREADY 12 US SOLDIERS HAVE DIED IN IRAQ THIS WEEK."

BULLY BOY SNARLED AND BEGAN JUMPING UP AND DOWN WHILE WHINING, "ARE YOU TRYING TO SPOIL MY BUZZ! CONDI SAID YOU WANTED TO DO A FUN INTERVIEW! FUN! FUN IS FUN. I KNOW FUN. FUN'S MY WHOLE LIFE."

BULLY BOY JUMPING UP AND DOWN SHOOK THE FLOOR AND CAUSED A FRAMED PHOTO ON HIS DESK TO CRASH TO THE FLOOR.

HE COVERED HIS MOUTH WITH BOTH HANDS AND LOOKED NERVOUS.

"YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TELL BIG DICK ARE YOU?" HE WANTED TO KNOW. "JUST CAUSE HE'S PRESIDENT OF VICE DOESN'T MEAN HE'S THE BOSS OF ME! DON'T TELL HIM! DON'T TELL HIM!"

WE ATTEMPTED TO CALM BULLY BOY DOWN WITH WORDS BUT HE WAS HYSTERICAL SO FINALLY ONE OF US SLAPPED HIM ACROSS THE FACE CAUSING HIM TO PULL IT TOGETHER.

SINCE IT LOOKED LIKE IT HAD BEEN SO MUCH FUN, THE OTHER ONE OF US WENT AHEAD AND SLAPPED THE NOW CALMED BULLY BOY AS WELL.

HE GLARED BUT JUST RUBBED THE SIDES OF HIS FACE.

"HEY, KNOW WHAT WE NEED?" ASKED BULLY BOY, LOOKING EXCITED. "TUNES! TUNES TO ROCK OUT ON. WE CAN DO SOME AIR GUITAR AND HAVE SOME KEWL FUN!"

BULLY BOY RUSHED OVER TO THE RADIO.

"I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU GUYS BUT I LIKE MY MUSIC BAD -- BAD COMPANY, BAD FINGER, REBA MCENTIRE -- SHE'S JUST BAD."

HE CHUCKLED AT HIS OWN JOKE AS HE FLIPPED ON THE RADIO.

"THE UNITED STATES INVASION OF IRAQ WAS AN ILLEGAL ACT OF WAR. IT WAS UNSUPPORTED BY [. . .] INTERNATIONAL LAW, THE U.S. LAW, THE U.S. MILITARY CODE OF CONDUCT NOR BASIC MORALITY. WITH THE EXCUTION OF THE WAR AND THE ONGOING OCCUPATION A CLEAR PATTERN OF WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY HAVE AND ARE BEING COMMITTED. SOLDIERS THEREFORE 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."

WE RECOGNIZED THE VOICE. IT WAS ANTONIA JUHASZ, AUTHOR OF THE BU$H AGENDA. SHE WAS SPEAKING ABOUT CORRUPTION ON A PANEL FOR IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR'S WINTER SOLDIERS INVESTIGATION.

"CONSTITUTION -SCHMANSTITUTION!" HOLLERED BULLY BOY AT THE RADIO SPEAKERS. "IT DON'T EXIST NO MORE! I KILLED IT! SHOT IT DEAD AND WIPED MY ASS WITH IT!"

BULLY BOY GIGGLED AND TURNED TO US EXPECTING, WE'RE ASSUMING, HIGH-FIVES. WE LEFT HIM HANGING.

"THERE ARE TWO AREAS I'M GOING TO TESTIFY TO THE ILEGALITY OF THE WAR. THE FIRST IS THE WAR'S OBJECTIVE," ANTONIA JUHASZ EXPLAINED OVER THE AIR WAVES.

"ILLEGAL! I MAKE THE LAW! I MAKE THE LAW!" BULLY BOY SHOUTED AT THE RADIO.

TURNING TO US, HE ASKED, "WHO DOES THAT ARAB THINK SHE IS?"

ACTUALLY, WE INFORMED HIM, HER NAME BEING ANTONIA JUHASZ, WE WOULD SUSPECT SHE IS LATINA.

"WELL I'LL PUT HER IN GUANTANAMO! I WILL!" HE INSISTED. "CONDI! CONDI! GET YOUR NO-ONE-COULD-HAVE-GUESSED ASS IN HERE!"

CONDI CAME DARTING INTO THE ROOM AS BULLY BOY BEGAN INSISTING THAT HE WANTED TO PUT "ANTONIO BANDERAS" INTO JAIL.

CONDI TURNED TO US AND ASKED US ACCUSINGLY, "DID YOU LET HIM WATCH SPY KIDS 3? YOU KNOW THAT'S TOO ADVANCED FOR HIM."

"ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME, CONDI! I WANT ANTONIO BANDERAS' BUTT IN GUANTANAMO BAY NOW!"

"BULLY BOY, CALM DOWN," CONDI ADVISED, "DICK IS SOMEWHERE IN THE BUILDING. YOU DON'T WANT HIM TO HAUL YOU OVER HIS LAP AGAIN."

BULLY BOY SNARLED BUT CALMED DOWN SOME WHAT.

CONDI PATTED HIM ON THE HEAD AND TRIED TO CALM HIM DECLARING, "NOW WE CAN'T PUT IN ANYONE IN GUANTANAMO. WE'VE GONE OVER THIS. YOU ARE OUT OF OFFICE IN JANUARY AND NO ONE LISTENS TO YOU ANYMORE."

"THE WAR'S OBJECTIVE -- THERE ARE CERTAIN AREAS, AND I'M SURE MANY OF YOU COULD ARTICULATE THESE EVEN BETTER THAN I CAN," ANTONIA JUHASZ WAS SAYING. "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 HEDGEMONIC GAIN THAT GAINING THOSE RESOURCES WOULD GRANT. A NATION. I CERTIANLY DO NOT STAND AS A MINORITY PERSON AT THIS POINT IN STATING QUITE AN OBVIOUS FACT, QUIT OBVIOUS AT THIS POINT BY MORE PRESTIGIOUS PEOPLE THAN MYSELF THAT THE WAR IN IRAQ WAS CLEARLY A WAR LAUNCHED AND FOUGHT FOR AND CONTINUED TO BE FOUGHT FOR: OIL."

"MAKE IT STOP, CONDI," BLUBBERED BULLY BOY POINTING AT THE RADIO, "MAKE IT STOP."

CONDI SAT DOWN AND BULLY BOY CRAWLED INTO HER LAP AS SHE ATTEMPTED TO SOOTHE HIM WHILE SHOOTING US DIRTY LOOKS.

FEELING THAT THE INTERVIEW HAD ENDED, WE LEFT THE OVAL OFFICE.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Starting with war resisters. Judith Scherr (Berkeley Daily Planet) reports the Berkeley's City Council was set to adopt the measure of sending Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper a letter in support of war resisters; however, Council member Gordon Wozniak demanded a full discussion (in what was a big whiney move on Wozniak's part). The discussion took place Wednesday night. Kriss Worthington and Max Anderson recommended the letter to Harper, Diane Finley (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) and Stephane Dion (Liberal Party leader). The [PDF format warning] text of the recommendation notes the request would be "that the government of Canada establish provisions to provide sanctuary for U.S. military service members who are living in Canada to resist fighting in the Iraq War." [PDF format warning] The proposal notes:

Throughout the Vietnam War era, Canada provided a place of refuge for United States citizens seeking to resist the war. Because of Canada's rich tradition of being a refuge from militarism, approximately 200 U.S. military service people have moved to Canada to resist fighting in the Iraq War.

However, it has become more difficult to immigrate to Canada and these war resisters are seeking refugee status in accord with United Nations guidelins. Unfortunately, their requests for refugee status have been rejected by the Canadian Refugee Board. Several resisters have appealed the Refugee Board decisions to the Supreme Court of Canada. While a court decision is pending these resisters are vulnerable to deportation back to the United States where they may face years of incarceration or even worst penalties.

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 (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. 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 Soldiers Investigation which began last night and continues through Sunday and the hearings will be broadcast at the Iraq Veterans Against the War home page an on KPFA with Aimee Allison (co-host of the station's The Morning Show and co-author with David Solnit of Army Of None) and Aaron Glantz hosting and the KPFA live stream will also be available at Glantz' War Comes Home as well as on KPFK, WBAI and at the Pacifica Radio homepage which notes its live coverage will be from (EST times) 10 in the morning to seven at night on Friday, nine in the morning until seven at night on Saturday and ten in the morning until four in the afternoon on Sunday that should apply to all Pacifica stations that are broadcasting the hearings. Viewing options and meet ups can be found at Iraq Veterans Against the War. (Dish Network is airing it on satellite TV -- today and Saturday). Today's testimonies will cover rules of engagment, healthcare, contractors and war profiteering and the aims of the wars (Iraq and Afghanistan). Tomorrow will kick off with discussions on gender and sexuality, racism and the 'other' to dehumanize the enemy and various costs of the illegal war. Sunday will cover how the US military is breaking under the strain of the wars and GI resistance. (Click here for a schedule.)

The IVAW website was overwhelmed with visitors today so, should you have trouble streaming, remember the other streaming alternatives. The first panel was moderated by Jose Vasquez who explained the rules which included that after someone testified, they would then have a decomposing support session and should not be approached by the press or anyone else until that was taken care of. In addition, unlike the VA, they have set up support groups and systems to ensure that all witnesses offering testimony had support for the next few days. The basic pattern was that each veteran would give their name, explain when they served (in either Iraq or Afghanistan) and then share their testimony. Some non-veterans testified as well on areas of corruption and war profiteering.

There were many strong highlights. This is not an exhaustive list. Other community sites will be posting (Trina's called dibs on Adam Kokesh) and we'll be covering this at The Third Estate Sunday Review (Sunday's hearings will be covered in Monday's snapshot). Hart Viges spoke of his time serving in Iraq and how he would go on round-ups and think the guilty and innocent were sorted quickly. Only later did he find out that "people being detained are being detained for years -- their parents don't even know where they are." Jason Washburn discussed how you could shoot an Iraqi civilian and get away with it -- by his third tour he noticed that they were unofficially (wink-nod) allowed by the command to have shovels and "if we accidentally did kill a civilian we could just drop a shovel" which would indicate -- under the US military command's screwed up understanding -- that the person shot must have been digging a hole to plant a roadside bomb, in which case, the killing was a-okay. John Michael Turner began his testimony by tossing his dog tags to the audience (IVAW members were in the front rows, so they caught them and can return to them to him if he wants them back) declaring, "F.U. I don't work for you no more." He spoke of the damage done in Iraq and spoke so clearly that the damage the illegal war had done to him was audible. He declared, "I am sorry for the hate and destruction that I have inflicted on innocent people" and noted that "until people hear the truth about what is going on in this war, people will continue to die." That really is the point of the hearings and various witnesses made it very clear that they were not attacking those they had served with, that this was not about finger-pointing at US service members, this was about the policies in place and the orders being given by higher ups through the chain of command.

The healthcare issue was addressed as well. Eli Wright spoke of how "military healthcare doesn't get enough attention" and advised service members struggling to get the medical care they have been promised, "Don't keep it quiet and, unfortunately, in many cases you can't rely on your command" to do the job for you. He noted how difficult it could be, while you serving, to speak out for your healthcare needs but that it's often the only way to receive treatment. In Monday's snapshot, we will note the veteran by name but I didn't know him and if we wait to find out who he was the snapshot will never go up. A veteran discussed how he was told repeatedly about the benefits he would have. How it would apply to his family. Reality was the military provided nothing. (His last name may have been Peterson.) He was serving in Iraq and his wife began to miscarry. She phoned and was told that she was probably miscarrying. Could she get an ambulance? Did she have $1500? The wife ended up hunting down a friend to take her to the facitilities. They arrived at 4:00 pm. She was miscarrying but they closed at 4:30 and couldn't see her. The woman was miscarrying and the US military was refusing treatment. They wouldn't even request an ambulance. Her friend drove her over 20 miles to another facility where she miscarried. Eric Estenzo spoke of injuring his back in Iraq and getting wonderful care -- while enlisted. As soon as he was discharged, he found a different life. He suffered from PTSD, he had trouble readjusting which made keeping a civilian job very difficult. He felt on top of the world, with $17,000 in cash, and quickly found himself homeless though he didn't realize it then and was, in fact, "house surfing" before he realized what was happening. He was in Hollywood, attempting to stay with a friend, and saw some people giving out food to the homeless. He was hungry and thought it would be fine to grab some food. Eating it, he realized he was homeless. It took a support network of other veterans and his own courage and strength to fight the VA system and demand the care he needed.

Corruption and war profiteering was another panel. KBR was the focus of Kelly Dougherty's testimony. She discussed how she and others serving in Iraq assigned to protect convoys were repeatedly put at risk when a KBR vehicle broke down, how they were told it was an asset to be protected even if that meant killing someone and then they would be told to forget it, to destroy the vehicle and move out. Iraqis desperate for fuel or the contents of the truck were not a concern and, if pressed, the US military command would instruct service members that distributing something in the trucks (before destroying them) could cause a riot. All of which goes to Doughtery's statement of Iraqis, "I'm looking at people I can't even look in the eye." Moving to Kuwait after serving in Iraq and while waiting to be sent back homes, service members were living in a KBR tent city. Doughtery explained, "When we were leaving . . . we were put in these tent cities. Our tents were completely covered with mold on the inside." The tents had bunk beds and not cots so service members were not allowed to (as some wanted) sleep outside the tents to avoid what appeared to be Black Mold. Instead, they suffered from respitory infections. Dougherty noted "this living condition where we couldn't even be in the place were we were supposed to live without getting sick." KBR made a big profit of the illegal war. KBR provided the troops with tents that made them sick. Where's the audit on that? Non-veteran Antonia Juhasz spoke about the realities that some (including some in the peace movement) forget, "the very extensive pre-planning." [Me: Because of that really bad 'documentary' (No End In Sight) some have yet again forgotten reality and claim that there should have been planning or better planning. What's taking place in Iraq was planned.] Juhasz went over how this was planned in depth, how Paul Bremer continued to the plan with his Bremer laws and how the Iraqi people are the ones suffering and there is no 'win' to be found. The only answer is for foreign troops to leave Iraq and allow "Iraqis to sort it out." Juhasz has documented this at length in her writing (including her book The BU$H Agenda).

Veteran Adrienne Kinne, speaking on healthcare, offered this reality, "The best preventative healthcare for our soldiers in uniform is to not use them to fight illegal wars." The hearings continue Saturday and Sunday. [Again, that is not everyone who poke and today and early tomorrow you will find more at the community sites -- 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.]

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Thursday, March 13, 2008

The ugly side of Barack's 'hope'

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- CAMPAIGN TRAIL.

SENATOR BAMBI OBAMA'S RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE JUST GOT A LOT MORE IFFY.

GOOD MORNING AMERICA IS REPORTING ON BAMBI'S MENTOR REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT AND WRIGHT'S CONTROVERSIAL AND OFFENSIVE REMARKS.

THE REMARKS INCLUDE BLAMING AMERICA AND AMERICANS FOR 9-11. FOR THOSE WHO HAVE FORGOTTEN IT, WHEN PREACHERS ATTEMPTED TO DO THAT AFTER 9-11, EVEN THE BULLY BOY OF THE UNITED STATES CALLED THEM OUT.

BAMBI SAYS HE WASN'T IN CHURCH THE DAY OF THAT SERMON WHICH IS RATHER ODD SINCE THE REMARKS WERE DELIVERED THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER 9-11 AND SINCE SOMEONE WHO WAS RELIGIOUS WOULD BE EXPECTED TO BE IN CHURCH ON THAT DAY.

BUT BAMBI WAS IN CHURCH PLENTY OF OTHER TIMES.

WE ASKED HIM IF HE WAS IN CHURCH WHEN REV. WRIGHT WAS DAMING AMERICA?

"I'M NOT SURE," HE RESPONDED LOOKING AROUND NERVOUSLY.

WE ASKED HIM HOW OFTEN HIS PASTOR HAD DAMNED THE UNITED STATES?

"I'M NOT SURE," HE SPUTTERED. "HEY, DID YOU HEAR WHAT RACIST THING I SAID THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN DID TODAY OR TRIED TO DO TODAY?"

WE ASKED SENATOR BAMBI HOW ANY MAN OR WOMAN WHO WAS A MEMBER OF A CHURCH THAT CALLED FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO BE DAMNED WAS QUALIFIED TO BE PRESIDENT OF SAID COUNTRY.

"THEY'RE JUST WORDS," HE SAID WITH A WEAK LAUGH BEFORE PRETENDING TO SEE SOMEONE AND RUSHING OFF.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Starting with war resistance. March 17, 2007 -- as the 4th anniversary of the illegal war was days away -- the War Resisters Support Campaign's Michelle Robidoux spoke outside the US Embassy in Canada. Snowshoe Documentary Films captured the Toronto speech.

Michelle Robidoux: Good afternoon, sisters and brothers. I think people in this city who have been out on the streets marching against war over the past few years are familiar with the war resisters who have come up to Canada. I want to introduce some of them to you today. Jeremy Hinzman, Nga Nguyen and Liam, their son, who were the first to come up here -- first US soldier to refusing to fight in Iraq, to seek refuge in Canada and since Jermey arrived in January 2004. We have seen an influx of people from every branch of the US military -- from the marines, the navy, the US army, national guardsman. And I want to introduce other resisters you may not have met yet Phil MacDowell and Jamine Aponte. They arrived here in October and are making their life here in Toronto and Steve Yoczik who arrived in December from Florida We have also some Vietnam resisters up here. Tom Riley and Lee Zaslofsky who is the cooridnator of the War Resisters Support Campaign, who have been the backbone, the Vietnam resisters, the people who came up 35 years ago opposing another illegal and immoral war. We are at a crucial point in the battle to win asylum for war resisters because this isn't just a legal battle. We learned a lesson when we marched in our tens of thousands before the beginning of the invasion and occupation of Iraq we actually achieved something that many of us thought might not be possible the Canadian government made a decision in the teeth of the opposition on the streets to not send Canadian troops to Iraq and now we need to use that political pressure to make sure that we follow through.

That was a year ago. Since then war resisters in Canada have been dealt a serious set-back when 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 (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. That is the sort of thing that should receive attention but instead it's ignored.

Meanwhile IVAW has a DC action this month:

In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.
Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine's famous admonishing of the "summer soldier" who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.
Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming "a few bad apples" instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.
In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation's capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars. We hope you'll join us, because yours is a story that every American needs to hear.
Click here to sign a statement of support for Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan

March 13th through 16th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation. Dee Knight (Workers World) notes, "IVAW wants as many people as possible to attend the event. It is planning to provide live broadcasting of the sessions for those who cannot hear the testimony firsthand. 'We have been inspired by the tremendous support the movement has shown us,' IVAW says. 'We believe the success of Winter Soldier will ultimately depend on the support of our allies and the hard work of our members'." IVAW's co-chair Adam Kokesh will, of course, be participating and he explains why at his site, "But out of a strong sense of duty, some of us are trying to put our experiences to use for a good cause. Some of us couldn't live with ourselves if weren't doing everything we could to bring our brothers and sisters home as soon as possible. The environment may be unking, but that is why I will be testifying to shooting at civilians as a result of changing Rules of Engagement, abuse of detainees, and desecration of Iraqi bodies. It won't be easy but it must be done. Some of the stories are things that are difficult to admit that I was a part of, but if one more veteran realizes that they are not alone because of my testimony it will be worth it." The hearings will be broadcast throughout at the Iraq Veterans Against the War home page an on KPFA March 14th and 16th with Aimee Allison (co-host of the station's The Morning Show and co-author with David Solnit of Army Of None) and Aaron Glantz hosting and the KPFA live stream will also be available at Glantz' War Comes Home.

Mark Benjamin (Salon) writes today, "It is unclear whether Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan will gain wider attention from the media and the public, but its organizers say that today's technology could make a difference. 'The modern soldier carries a digital camera almost as a sidearm,' explained O'Brien. The group says that potentially explosive photos and video from Iraq displayed at this Winter Soldier investigation will help 'expose the human consequences of failed policy' in the war zones. The searing images from Abu Ghraib, of course came to light because soldiers working inside the prison made use of their personal digital cameras." Norman Solomon's IPA has put out a news release on the action and quotes Adam Kokesh declaring, "There are too many veterans returning from futile occupations with heads full of lies and hearts full of sorrow. Minds full of bad memories and bodies full of shrapnel. Fists full of anger and families full of confusion. It's not a strong place from which to make yourself politically relevant. But out of a strong sense of duty, some of us are trying to put our experiences to use for a good cause. Some of us couldn't live with ourselves if we weren't doing everything we could to bring our brothers and sisters home as soon as possible."

The action starts this evening (7:00 to 9:00 pm EST) and will stream at IVAW online and the hearings will close Sunday afternoon. Kelly Dougherty explained in a press release last month, "We've heard from the politicians, we've heard from the generals, we've heard from the media -- not it's our turn. It's not going to be easy to hear what we have to say. It's not going to be easy for us to tell it. But we believe that the only way this war is going to end is if the American people truly understand what we have done in their name."

Staying with veterans, this morning the US House Committee on Veterans' Affairs' subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing entitled "Care of Seriously Wounded After In-Patient Care" attempting to address what happens to the wounded veterans after their immediate wounds are treated. US House Rep Harry Mitchell is the chair of the committee and he explained in his opening remarks, "We are here today to hear from veterans, their families, and the Department of Veterans Affairs about the long-term care of our most severely wounded Afghanistan and Iraq veterans. We know that DoD and VA provide the excellent inpatient healthcare for these warriors. But many of the most seriously injured require extensive outpatient care, some of them for life. Their families need care and assistance as well. Unfortunately, once these veterans leave the hospital, the care they receive does not seem to be on par with what they received directly following their injury. I think we can do better." US House Rep Nick Lampson introduced Casey Owens and noted, "Care for veterans such as Edward Wade and Casey Owens was by trial and error, as there was no system of care in place for these new types of injuries -- both external and internal. Casey expressed to me his worry that there are still issues with care for polytrauma patients today. And I was most impress with his concern for those who will come after them and his hope that they will not come to Congress with the same exact issues, complications, and frustrations as we are hearing today."

Among those testifying were Casey Owens who served in Iraq (Marine Corporal) and was wounded while serving his second tour of duty. Both of his legs were amputated. Ted (Edward) Wade lost his arm from a roadside bombing while serving in Iraq (Army Sgt.) and his wife Sarah Wade testified to the subcommittee. Sarah was advised by 'experts' at Walter Reed Army Medical that her husband would be a 'vegetable' (which he is not) and the couple had to fight the military just for him to obtain the medical care he was owed.

Casey Owens: While some of the problems I have encountered have been resolved, many have not. The learning curve of VA's system is steep and its bureaucratic maze is hard to understand. It has been thirty years since the last major war and what lessons has the VA learned since then? Did no one expect another war or learn anything from Viet Nam? What have the educated and highly paid personnel who have been appointed to correct the system been focusing their attention on? While the system continues to be broken, where is all the government funding going that is supposed to be fixing the system and what are they doing with? A tremendous problem that I have encountered is the double standard of the VA and the Department of Defense's claims and rating for veterans. It took me three to five months of agonizing appointments and addendums to finalize my Medical Board, which was performed by competent and qualified military and civilian personnel. After I had completed my medical boards, I thought I was finished with that process only to find out I was not. When I enrolled in the VA, it took almost another year and a half to finalize those claims. It is actions like that make veterans avoid the VA. My qualms is not that the VA does not have nough programs in place to benefit veterans or the adequacy of it, rather, it is the bureaucracy and red tape that are the problems. While many problems have been addressed, it is time for SOLUTIONS.

Sarah Wade followed Casey Owens.

Sarah Wade: As an above elbow amputee with a severe TBI [traumatic brain Injury], Ted was one of the first major explosive blast "polytrauma" cases from Operation Iraqi Freedom, Walter Reed Army Medical Center or the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) had to rehabilitate. Much of his treatement was by trial and error, as there was no model system of care for a patient like Ted, and there still is no long-term model today. His situation was an enormous challegne, as Walter Reed was only able to rehabilitate an amputee, not a TBI, the VA was able to nominally treat a TBI, but not an above elbow amputee, and neither were staffed to provide appropriate bheavioral health care for a patient with a severe TBI. Because Ted could not access the necessary services, where and and when he needed them, he suffered a signficant setback in 2005, that put him in the hospital for two weeks, and would take a year to rebound from. Ted has made a remarkable recovery by any standard, because we have strayed from standardized treatment, and developed a patient-centered path. I had to educate myself about, and coordinate, additional outside care. Often, access to the necessary services required intervention from the highest levels of government, or for us to personally finance them ourselves. But despite our best efforts, Ted is still unable to easily receive comprehensive care for all of his major health issues, due to shortcomings in the current system, and because of the time his needs demand of me, I have been unable to return to regular work or school. We have been blessed to have family, with the means to see us through these difficult times, and help with the expenses. I was fortunate to have the education, of growing up in Washington, D.C. and learning about the workings of the various Federal agencies. Our situation is not typical though.

Wounded War Project's Meredith Beck addressed the issue of how active duty and retired veterans have different benefits, noting "an active duty patient can be seen at a VA Polytrauma Center to treat his Traumatic Brain Injury. However, while at the VA facility, the servicemember, due to his duty status, cannot enoy VA benefits such as Vocational Rehabilitation or Independent Living Services that can he helpful in his recovery. Alternately, as mentioned previously and unbeknownst to most families, a medically retired servicemember cannot use his/her TRICARE benefits to access private care as TRICARE does not cover cognitive therapy once retired." Using Sgt. Eric Edmundson's story as an exmpale (he suffers from "a severe brain injury in Iraq"), Beck explained the need for more research on veterans (Eric Edmundson is making progress that many did not believe would be possible) . She advocate for the VA to "initiate a pilot program partnering with local universities to provide such a care/respite initiative for those with brain injury" and to have graduate students be matched with veterans in their own communities "so than an individualized program can be developed." Beck made the case for compensating the primary caregiver noting pointing out that often "the spouse or parent" of a wounded veteran "is forced to leave his/her job to provide the necessary care for their loved one, leaving the entire family to suffer from an adverse economic situation. In these cases the VA relies on the family member to assist in the servicemember's care, but has been denied financial compensation."

The administration provided Madhulika Agarwal (Chief Patient Care Services Officer of the Veterans Health Administration in the government's VA), Lucille Beck (Rehabiliation Services) and Kristin Day (Veterans Health Administration) and Argawal mainly wanted to throw out a lot of words that really meant nothing. Wow! Another phone line set up! can the administration do anything besides set up these phone lines? Online! They've set up some online stuff. Harry Mitchell may have shocked the adminstration by pointing out that there are "people who don't access the website, people who can't access the website." The questioning of the the government provided witnesses was best done by Reps Mitchell and Shelley Berkley.

At the end of Sarah Wade's testimony, she referenced a young mother who was caught in the maze of attempting to get her husband the care he needed and having no resources. The marriage ended, it was all just too much. Mitchell noted this example and stated that the need for "total care." He also seemed to grasp the urgency of addressing this problem -- putting him far ahead of many members of Congress as well as the trio testifying on behalf of the administration who had a lot of plans of someday improvements causing Mitchell to point out, "These people are living right now . . . It's great to have long term vision but they need help right now." He spoke of the need to "have a trust in government" and what sort of impression was being created by those struggling in the current system of veterans healthcare. "It's not just soldiers," he reminded, "they are recruiting families, not just the soldiers" and the families are part of the total care.

Mitchell: There was an office, the Office of Seamless Transition. . . . It was supposed to be a point of contact. . . . This office was disbanded almost immediately after it was created and yet we continue to talk about a seamless transition from DoD to VA. Do you know why this office was disbanded?

Agarwal: Sir, we do have seamless transition in our office --

Mitchell: So it exists still?

Dr. Madhulikia Agarwal, sent by the administration to testify, had no idea. In fact, she rarely was able to answer any question. She could mouth words but rarely did they address what she had been asked. For example, problems were repeatedly pointed out, things not being done, things being done slowly. When these various details were pointed out, repeatedly there was no answer. Rep Shelley Berkley asked, "Doctor, why . . . just now is a comprehensive list of seriously injured veterans being developed? Isn't this something that should have been done all along, that the department should have been tracking?" Agarwal maintained that it was been tracked "and there's a list." Follow this exchange:

Berkeley: When did the list start to be created?

Agarwal: In fact, very soon. We have . . . [blah, blah, blah]

Berkley: Let me make sure I understand what you say because I don't think you understood me question: How long ago did you start the list?

Madhulikia: I have to take that back and get back to you. I don't know when we started the list.

Berkley: In the last year? In the last two years?

Agarwal didn't know and tossed the question to Kristin Day who believes it was "approximately 2005" but Day apparently had trouble following as well because the list she was referring to was not a systematic list to keep track of the wounded (and types of wounds). "So it's a refund list is what I think I am hearing you say," commented Berkley.

The three witnesses sent by the administration appeared to require a fourth because none of them knew anything. Berkley moved on to the issue of foster homes and how "we have unfortunately found that many times when we have volunteers that their attention isn't always what we'd hope they would be. What kind of screening procedure do you have or plan on having? What kind of background cehcks will you be doing on these volunteers?" The answer was a hem and a haw topped of with a huge portion of disappointment leading Berkley to state, "I want to make sure I fully understand . . . Doctor, if you don't do criminal checks, that's criminal."

The point appeared lost on Dr. Madhulika Agarwal.

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