The Democratic Party’s war on the Iraqi people

The War’s over, the Democratic Party is back in power! Are you waiting to hear this big celebration come November? Then you are politically delusional, if not even politically lobotomized, too. These wars without end are from the Democratic Party, by the Democratic Party, and are caused by too many idiot, liberal minded people supporting the Democratic Party throughout their entire lives. Let’s review some…

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… I am willing to make a bet to anyone here that we care more about the Iraqi people than Saddam Hussein does. — U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, CNN Town Hall Meeting, Columbus, Ohio, February 18, 1998

We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it? — Lesley Stahl on UN sanctions against Iraq, 60 Minutes, May 12, 1996

I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it. — U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright replying
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So begins Rahul Mahajan’s commentary in the journal, Freedom Daily. He rehashes the history of the Clinton/ Gore war on Iraq previous to Bush’s occupation of that country, seemingly for all the people with the memory scan length of mice.

Yes, the Iraq War is a product of the United Nations, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and the previous leadership of most of the European countries. It is greatly frustrating to me, and many others, to have to work to end this war with Democratic Party supporters monopolizing control of all the so-called ‘peace organizations’. If you guys are so much for Peace, then stop voting for a party that isn’t!

That’s right. The Democratic Party continues to exercise control over the minds of most of the Antiwar Movement’s supporters, and it keeps this war from being ended now. We need organizations for Peace to be run without these brakes on it from liberal Democrats pretending to be saintly people, as they do all the time. They are not saints, but obstacles to getting it done. Stop the Democratic Party’s war on the Iraqi people, and get control back from the local ‘peace’ organizations run by paid office staff, and controlled by Democratic Party manipulated folk and clergy.

‘Peace’ Franchise now open for occupation

Should the Antiwar Movement be run like it was a business? See this example in Denver where something called a ‘program director job’ is now open to be filled. Isn’t this just pathetic? No wonder the antiwar movement is crippled by inaction, since there is no internal democracy at all in such a situation where the leader of a proPeace group is the salaried manager. This is a business model and not an activist model of organization at all, and the antiwar movement cannot go forward without some basic change in organization from this disaster of one.

Eulogy for a Republican

My pal John passed away this weekend. He succumbed to cancer after a 3-pack-a-day habit. He’d been an army officer, insurance agent and counter clerk at the West Side post office. It was in the latter incarnation that I knew John, but at one time he used to live in the same condo complex as I, and therein lies a tale I’d like to relate.

One of John’s coworkers told me about his memorial service, and teared up remembering the bagpipes. I asked if nice things had been spoken about John. She told me with John there had only been good. I asked like what, considering to many customers John could be very surly. Immediately she replied there was nothing he wouldn’t do for anyone. I’ll come back to that one in a mo. Otherwise she remembered fondly John’s wicked sense of humor and his co-workers chimed in about his mastery of rubber band war. As an example of the former, John delighted in applying hand lotion to door knobs and critical postal utensils and then leave his coworkers to the consequences.

The only cross words I ever received from John happened when news reached him of my antiwar activities. He told me that during the Vietnam War, protesters had spit on returning soldiers. Had anyone done that to him, he would have decked them, is what he felt the need to tell me. I didn’t complicate his account by pointing out that the infamous spitting event had been contrived to smear the antiwar movement. Not one soldier nor any protester has ever come forth to claim they witnessed the much derided event.

But I did have a bone to pick with John, but never took the chance. He was on vacation when I stormed into the post office to give him what for, and afterwards I reconciled myself to his opposite political view. It was the eve of the last election, the week before actually, when John through despicable dishonesty put a big wrench in State Representative Mike Merrifield’s reelection campaign.

Retired high school music teacher Mike Merrifield lived in our condo community, and owing to the disparate political orientations of the units’ multiple owners, a consensus had to be reached about what to do about election yard signs. It was not enough to agree that inhabitants could post whatever signs they wanted outside their abodes, what about those with units deeper in the complex with no exposure to passing traffic?

At first the sign posting was a free-for-all, with Republican signs adjacent those of Democrats, whomever’s sign was let be. But soon signs were being replaced by their opponent’s. I knew something was up when fresh lawn signs kept winding up in the dumpster. Finally the homeowners had to reach an agreement. Everybody was opinionated, but only Merrifield was a candidate, and he didn’t have frontage real estate. If the neighbors around the edges couldn’t see themselves permitting any Democratic Party signs without wearing Merrifield down by surreptitiously removing his, no lawn signs would be permitted. As president of the condo HOA, John our Post Office activist presided over an agreement to forbid all lawn signs.

No sooner was the decision made, that John promptly called some friends with a video camera. Actually it was a PR outfit that did work for the local Republican party. They set up a video camera across the street, a little ways down the block, to lay in wait. Then someone put out a Republican lawn sign where it was agreed there would be none.

Later that morning the camera captured Mrs. Merrified pulling up the opponent’s sign. The video footage was sent to the TV stations and Merrified was widely derided, even by his fellow Democrats. Merrifield and his wife answered the reporters who besieged their front step that the lawn signs had been a contentious issue, and that his wife had acted in accordance to the HOA decision not to allow any signs.

But when the reporters sought out the HOA president, John, to confirm the HOA policy, John calmly cleared up the issue: He told them he didn’t know what those incorrigible Merrifields were trying to pull, because there had been no such agreement.

Denver Veterans let their antiwar message be known

Veterans for Peace march in Denver Veterans Day ParadeThe antiwar Denver veterans did march in this years Veterans Day Parade in that city, and it was the right thing to do. Instead of just ceding the event to the government and their jingoist lackey supporters, these veterans took the lead in the Antiwar Movement and showed the whole world that not all vets are militaristic flag waving nitwits, like so many connected to the military industrial complex are. Thank you, Denver antiwar vets! You inspire us.

Cindy Sheehan talks about her break from the Democrats

WSWS has an interesting interview on their website with Cindy Sheehan. More than anybody else Cindy Sheehan has come to personify the American Antiwar Movement.

We will be hearing a lot less about her views in the press, simply because the Democratic Party wants people not to hear her message even more than George W. Bush himself wants that. She no longer is useful to the Democratic Party liberal voter types in helping them be better Bush bashers. How they suffer from losing Cindy…

Not that Bush shouldn’t be bashed, but so should the Democrats themselves. Their corporate handlers also want constant warfare just like the Republican do, since it’s so very good for business even if not so good for humanity. Thank goodness that Cindy Sheehan has had the courage and honesty to stand up to both these corporate, war mongering parties.
Cindy Sheehan interview

Americans and the Iraq War

The impact the Antiwar Movement has made on Americans is skin deep so far. While at least 2/3 of Americans now dislike the Bush Administration, much of that rejection is because many feel that the current government has poorly managed a war they fully supported. See poll data

Despite the US government’s warfare against the Iraqi people that has gone on since 1991 and produced a total tragedy, only 1/3 of Americans feel that it was wrong to have been attacking that country in the first place.

Why has the American antiwar movement been so lackluster? I think that the main reason has been the demobilization of the US working class. In fact, much of the US working class has been largely co opted by the military and finds its employment somehow connected with continued support of the US war machine. You don’t see working class people attending protests much at all.

Another reason though has been the failure of leadership of the Peace Movement. It is dominated by store keepers, ex-monks, pastors, and nuns and ex-nuns, Mennonites and Quakers. There are also 2 other sectors of this movement whose presence is barely discernible by and large. The largest of the 2 are the college educated liberal types who think that voting for liberal Democratic Party politicians is the outer limit of what they will involve themselves in doing.

Last of the 3 main sectors of the essentially inert Peace camp is the anticapitalist Left, made up of Left Libertarians (Noam Chomsky, Znet, and crowd) and Marxists. The Left Libertairans have great analysis but no organizing ability, and are fairmly embedded in academia as professors, but are largely absent in the working population made up of ordinary citizens. And the Marxist Left, outside of the Workers World Party and its split off sister Party of Liberation and Socialism, has been mainly busy comtemplating their navels. But despite organizing many big demonstrations,the WWP is so sectarian that its national membership remains at several dozens.

Until there is a secular Left that resurects itself from the grave, the religious folks and DP addicts of voting only will continue to demobilize the American people. They will pray and they will vote, but they will not construct an activist movement that builds something different than church based organizations and the corporate Frankenstein called the Democratic Party. They will lobby and pray in fields where missile silos are located. They will pray in churches and vote for Democrats come election day along with attending an occasional forum and attending a military gate or other.

There is no easy solution to finding a way to resurrect the dormant American secular Left. Like the dormant Nazi Era German Left, we now largely are dependent on outside help. The problem is the American people themselves, ‘liberals’ and’ conservatives’ both. Both camps are totally immersed in LaLa Land.

How the Far Right targets Africa

Let’s face it, the US Antiwar Movement has had an abysmal record for mobilizing people to oppose the military-industrial complex. Over a decade and a half since the US first militarily attacked Iraq, the killing still goes on. And the record in regards to Africa is much worse, despite the fact that the US has a large African American population that should potentially be easy to mobilize support against US military interventionism on that continent.

For decades, the US used Portugal and South Africa as its subordinate clients in ruling Africa, much in the same way that it now uses Israel to help it rule the Middle East, but these regimes were ultimately forced to disassemble themselves. Now the US has a plan to bully into formation a new group of subordinate African client regimes. This is an interesting article about what led to the formation of AFRICOM, the new Pentagon command system or African interventionism. How the Far Right targets Africa In it, we discover the role of the Heritage Foundation.

If we don’t begin to pay some attention to what’s really going on in Africa, we will soon become bogged down there with US troops in the same way as has occurred quite recently in Muslim Asia and the Balkans in Eastern Europe.

US Military Spy on Hundreds of Antiwar Demos

The Pentagon spied on hundreds of antiwar demos says the ACLU. Unfortunately, many activists in the proPeace crowd (and even the ACLU itself) seem to act as if they cannot draw the logical conclusions from this and act accordingly. Instead of helping publicize this reality of police and military surveillance and disruption of Peace proponents and their activism, they act as if doing so might be a hindrance and derailment of the Antiwar Movement! Therefore they run from the fight when it gets down and dirty. Isn’t that sad?

Without battling on behalf of those that might very well be the direct victims of this surveillance and rather instead acting as if they are chickens with their heads cut off who can’t come to the defense of those vilified without cause, is not helpful but harmful to the Antiwar Movement.

We must show solidarity with people when they are attacked and found supposedly guilty without due process. We must act forcefully on behalf of these people. Otherwise, we are accepting of the reality of those that want to make the whole world into one enlarged Guantanamo, where allegations need not ever be proven, but simply accepted as given fact by authority.

Activism without Solidarity is empty of content. The US military spy on hundreds of thousands of us, and we should not act as if the harm that falls upon some of us for our activism merely has innocently fallen out of the sky. If you know this, then work as if those peace activists that have been slandered are in fact innocent until proven guilty. If you do not, then in fact you are working with the saboteurs of The Movement For Peace, and not against them.

Contrasting the Libertarians with UFPJ

The Democratic Party-tied, United For Peace and Justice (the largest beginning of a kernel of a national US antiwar coalition), has been a disaster for those wanting truly to mobilize antiwar sentiment in the US. So has the Democratic Party-tied organization, MoveOn.

Meanwhile, the remnants of the old leadership of the US antiwar movement during the Vietnam Era continue to busy themselves talking in Marxist tongues and contemplating their own navels at Louis Proyect’s do-nothing site, Marxmail.

But what about the Libertarians? Check out John Walsh’s commentary, ‘Shaming the Official Antiwar Movement‘.

Democratic Party corruption sinks the heart of Cindy Sheehan

Cindy Sheehan has been grieving a long time, and this Memorial Day after the capitulation of the Democratic Party legislators in Congress was particularly rough. But it is more than that. The pain is made even worse by how inactive so many rank and file Democratic Party voters are in opposing this war.

At street vigils we see this, too. So many liberal minded folk wave and honk their horns in support of our vigil, but then it seems that they never get out of their cars to be the protesters, and not just the driver by-ers. After a while, this becomes disheartening.

We hope that Cindy gets her spirits back up and rejoins the activist antiwar movement after some family time off. She deserves the best, and she has given America her best. Here is her last commentary about how despairing she now feels. Many feel the same alongside her.

We are sad to see it be so, but when push comes to shove, the Democratic Party is not to be relied on. Cindy Sheehan tried to push the Democratic Party into action, but the corporate controllers resisted. She is not the first, and will not be the last to fail in such a project.

Good Riddance Attention Whore
by Cindy Sheehan

I have endured a lot of smear and hatred since Casey was killed and especially since I became the so-called “Face” of the American anti-war movement. Especially since I renounced any tie I have remaining with the Democratic Party, I have been further trashed on such “liberal blogs” as the Democratic Underground. Being called an “attention whore” and being told “good riddance” are some of the more milder rebukes.

I have come to some heartbreaking conclusions this Memorial Day Morning. These are not spur of the moment reflections, but things I have been meditating on for about a year now. The conclusions that I have slowly and very reluctantly come to are very heartbreaking to me.

The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a “tool” of the Democratic Party. This label was to marginalize me and my message. How could a woman have an original thought, or be working outside of our “two-party” system?

However, when I started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party, support for my cause started to erode and the “left” started labeling me with the same slurs that the right used. I guess no one paid attention to me when I said that the issue of peace and people dying for no reason is not a matter of “right or left”, but “right and wrong.”

I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt “two” party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?

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Out of Congo and into Sudan?

Today’s news has John Negroponte, the US point man for its interventions in Africa, getting the Sudanese government to allow US proxy troops into the Darfur region. Meanwhile, in Congo, US proxy troops under the UN Security Council command, have decided to stay one month longer in that country. And meanwhile, the scandal of US directed torture and invasion continues to unfold in the news coming from the Horn of Africa, as well over a hundred thousand Somalis have been forcerd to flee for their lives from the capital of Somalia alone.

The US and its forces are now all over the continent of Africa ‘directing the traffic’ of war, and clueless George and his neocon gang haven’t the beginning idea of how to bring about any long term stability anywhere in that region. That’s where the US antiwar movement should help, by simply demanding that the US and its European allies vacate ALL their African activities. That’s the long term solution for Africa’s problems, and the sooner the better. The majority of Latin Americans want the US to stay out of their political, military, and economic affairs, and so do the majority of Africans.

How the Democratic Party supporter’s sectarianism holds back building the antiwar movement

John Walsh has just published an outstanding article at Counterpunch about how the sectarianism of the leadership of the national UFPJ (united for Peace & Justice) is holding back the construction of a much larger and more active antiwar movement.

The UFPJ is one of two national antiwar coalitions, and is dominated by Democratic Party supporters that refuse to work with others in a united manner. Control is what this ‘coalition’ is about, and central to that is their desire to use control to help elect Democratic party politicians who often go on to betray the antiwar cause.

As the Democratic Party continues to rot, some liberals just refuse to let go. Their grandparents believed that the DP was the party of change, as did their moms and dads. These liberals just refuse to deal with the basic reality that through the generations, all the ‘change’ the DP has brought has been from a net BAD to a net much WORSE. To these types, this addiction to the Democrats has been much harder to fight than even that of being addicted to food, alcohol, heroin, and tobacco.

Let’s be real. The UFPJ has failed to mobilize the American public into the streets in protest, where asses if they had this war would have already been over. The issue of stopping the US military from rambling along zonkers under the Bush Administration direction should unite us all, Libertarians, liberal Christians, Socialists, Anarchists, and the Democratic Party liberal voters, too. Unfortunately, each group has often acted as if they owned how opposition to Bush should be allowed to unfold. The net effect has been a diminished response to any action from the public at large.

The UFPJ has been about the worst of the sectarian offenders due to the obvious fact, that the Democratic Party leadership itself is not really antiwar, but just mildly anti-Republican instead. The UFPJ leadership is made up of liberal democratic Party voters who hope only to lobby to put the DP into offices, and not oppose very much the Democrats politicians already there. Letter writing, lobbying, and prayer are the type of strategies they most often want to engage in. That, and action that gets people arrested, such as sitting down in the middle of the street, or crossing onto military property or into recruitment offices. Working with non liberal Democrats to enlarge public protest rallies and marches is not anywhere much on their radar.

Unity, not sectarianism. And unity not just to elect Democratic party politicians, but unity to stop US militarism in its place and then to roll it back and out of American life altogether.

The life of O’Reilly, The Lunatic

I think America has reached a milestone, when it appears that Bill O’Reilly has actually been able to pass both Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson as America’s most obnoxious lunatic, nut case. Sure, Robertson is a bigger nut, but O’Reilly steps forward to take first place in the obnoxiousness category. As a blend of obnoxiousness and nuttiness, he edges them all out.

The only other competition would be from the women’s division, where Ann Coulter now reigns supreme. Check out this hilarious youtube.com video of O’Reilly in action against an antiwar movement rep, Sunsara Taylor. O’Reilly is a true credit to what a Catholic highschool education can do to you. It can turn you into a big pile of poop.

Mexican government documents its criminal behavior in official report

In the waning last 2 weeks of the Fox Adminstration in Mexico, the Mexican government put a report quietly online admitting government criminality over 2 decades in the past. The criminality consisted of murder, torture, death squad activity, etc. in what is referred to as a ‘dirty war’ against Left activists. The time frame investigated by the authors of the report was from the late ’60s into the early ’80s, but nothing really has changed at all since then. The NY Times article about this report can be easiest read by going to antiwar.com. It is listed under their ‘Americas’ section.

Just this year, Mexican governmental forces have engaged in the same sort of activities, using them against striking miners and other Left activists in Atenco, Chiapas, and Oaxaca, where scores have been disappeared, beat up, tortured, and murdered. And that is not to mention other regions of Mexico which are less under observation by international observers. Actually the report is being used to make it appear as if Fox has taken responsibility for admitting occurrences of the past that are no longer being engaged in today. So the report is actually a style of coverup, rather than admittance of any guilt. That’s why no charges are being brought against any of the guilty parties.

All this being said, just what has been the role of the US press and the US government in its continual backing of the Mexican government? Let’s look at the New York Times, which while running the reportage of this Mexican government ‘confession’, just days previouusly was mocking Manuel Lopez Obrador for refusing to accept the fraud that put the losing candidate in office at Los Pinos, the Mexican White House. And what about admitting the US government’s role in accepting and even sponsoring the Mexican government’s terroristic counter insurgency campaigns? Silence. And the role of the American press in never coveri ng this terrorism, and in not informing the US public of the true state of affairs down South? Silence. The New York Times often times acts as if Mexico was on the other side of the moon when it comes to reporting activities there.

It always amazes me to hear our own, mainly ignorant US population spout off constantly that the Mexican government operates independently of the White House,and is independent of ‘our’ control. Yet, the same ignorant types that do this realize that the US government micro-manages areas off in the total boonies of Asia and other parts of the world. Our corporate daily press is totally complicit in keeping the US public this uninformed and backward in their views, and in keeping them believing that Mexico, which is the most important country to the US outside our own, is somehow on independent auto-pilot rather than in US control, unlike Afghanistan or Kosovo, say!

The truth is far different, and I just got through reading a John Ross report about how Halliburton is all over the still nationalized Mexican petroleum and gas industry. In fact, the man, Felipe Calderon, who stole Mexico’s presidency’s with the total support of Bush and the NY Times, has his principal goal to privatize Pemex, the government owned oil company. The Mexican government under the push by the US to do so, has already done the same with previously nationalized industries in power, communication, and transport. Now only PEMEX remains in state hands, and Halliburton certainly wants that to change as fast as possible.

The US antiwar movement needs to watch Mexico closely, and oppose our US government’s militarism promoted to the South of us. That’s where the counter insurgency programs that the Mexican government of Fox just admitted ran the country in a totally criminal manner throughout Mexico for 2 decades sprung from. That’s where the same criminality of the present springs from, US support for Mexican state terorism used against its own population. The US is messing up Mexico, messed up Mexico, and will not stop doing that until the American people begin to observe, resist their own government,and demand that the US intervention into the internal affairs of Mexico stop.

Stop the US militarization of the US-Mexican Border. Stop the phoney ‘drug war’ that is destroying Mexico, and stop training and supporting the Mexican military’s counter-insurgency against its own population!

Permission to attack Iran Sir?

The moment of truth is here for the US antiwar movement. The Democratic Party liberals ignored all the signs, and put all their hopes on obtaining what they did in the recent elections. Their party chairman, Howard Dean, told them it wouldn’t make a difference, but DP anchored liberals don’t learn easily. Instead of organizing beforehand to build protest against this Bush plan for regionalizing further the Iraq war, they kept silent, held their noses, and voted for the Democratic Party candidates yet again. They have no plan for withdrawal from this pro-war political party. They appear mired there forever, always getting betrayed.
 
But can it really be called a betrayal, when the leadership announces ahead of time that they will ignore you and keep aligned with Bush in support of continual war? Well, this week the Israelis will come and get the go ahead to launch their attack on Iran. And they will get that approval not just from Cheney and Bush, but from Pelosi and Dean as well. Those that voted for change when they voted Democratic Party will weep and wail, but will they actually call the demonstrations, mobilize their constituency, and get into the streets to march and rally? Or will they once again sit it out like they did with the recent US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon?

Here is the news item about the Washington DC US-Israeli junta to be held within 24 hours of now. Will the antiwar forces in Colorado Springs get their ‘eyes wide open’ butts in gear and organize a protest rally of some sort? We will pray for them to do so. Olmert-Bush plan Iran attack start

Oaxaca and Iraq- The people have a right to self defense

Oaxaca and Iraq demonstrate that the people have a right to self defense against state terrorism. Today, the Mexican police were assaulting the students holding a radio station use in their self defense against the governmental death squads that have been terrorizing the population of Oaxaca. When captured and jailed, the protesters have been severely tortured. What would the mealy mouthed, American Christian pacifist communkity have them do during the military assault on them? Turn the other cheek? Not throw rocks to stave off the capture of the one piece of media available to the Oaxacan community; the university radio station? Not to set fire to barricades to hold the government thugs back from capturing the protesters, and then jailing and torturing them? The American ‘peace’ pacifists would lecture them about the supposed lessons of Gandhi and non-violence, no doubt, as if self defense was some sort of violence itself! The US pacifist community certainly live with a surreal mindset lacking in clarity and reality. And what would they have the Iraqis do as the Pentagon terrorizes that nation? Sit down in the streets and pray? With their constant prattle about the need to be ‘non-violent’ martyrs, the pacifist community tries to deny that people under attack have the right to resist, by any means necessary, as Malcolm X would have stated it.

The resistance of the Iraqi and Oaxacan communities are two examples of the need to RESIST oppression with self defense, and not just the silly pacifism of overly religious folk. It is not just church mice that bring about justice, but real people using real tactics to defend their rights, and not just always spouting Jesus-Gandhi talk. All the ‘peace and justice’ pacifism that bogs down our Left activism in the US, is a denial of solidarity with those folks under the gun. They are also our heros, and not just US Quakers and US Catholic nuns who might accept arrest here at home. Peace with justice can only come about through united resistance of all types, including armed resistance of some type or other.

I am not advocating picking up the gun and going after ‘them’. But what I am saying is that the message and tone of pacifism is a bunch of religious babble, in general. It does not help in building a US antiwar movement to only talk about Jesus, ‘nonviolence’, and Gandhi. The religious message is not our only one, and should not even be our dominant one. It hinders our ability to communicate with the US community at large to always emphasize only this liberal religious sermonizing about ‘peace’. An antiwar community is about much more than just ‘peace’.

I am overjoyed that there are peoples around the globe that are defending themselves against our government violence, and the violence of their death squad allies around the globe. They are doing it with rocks, molotov cocktails, guns, and bombs. They are doing it peacefully if they can, and not peacefully if that avenue is cut off to them. One just gets sick of Englsih speaking (principally) pacifists saying that that is wrong. Let’s tell the truth here. Much of Anglo pacifist sermonzing is pure bullshit. The people have a right to resist and defend themselves no matter what the pacifists in imperialist countries might say.

Let’s say it straight. We want this government organized, US imperialist army defeated. And it is because the US army is wrong in their battle on behalf of the imperial Super Rich in this PARTICULAR war, not just because all battles and all warfare is wrong to fight. It is not just pacifists that are anti US war making. Non-pacifists also hate this US governmental war making, too. Let’s open up the US antiwar community to those of our population that are not religiously motivated by pacifism and spouting non-violence all the time. A ‘peace’ movement that is only trying to convert folk to liberal religous faith is self limiting. There has got to be more message than that.

May the people of Iraq and Mexico push the forces of US hegemony aside, and build themselves a better world.

US regionalizes Iraq Conflict, as antiwar movement snores

Is the US antiwar community asleep? It seems like all the citizenry are completely hypnotized by our phoney elections coming up, where we will get a the ‘choice’ of voting for one of the two corporate pro-war parties, and their candidates. Many of our more delusional participants in the ‘peace movement’ are expecting big things afterwards, even as both US corporate parties have been engaging in slowly building up support for regionalizing the Iraq conflict. They call that regionalized war ‘The War on Terror’, and both the DP and RP are big fans of fighting it! For eternity! And it comes following the already regionalized, so-called “War on Drugs’. Of course we haven’t heard much on that front recently, as drug production from Afghanistan is now quite on the rise. Question- Could Sparta have ever been so addicted to warfare as America’s ruling elite is? Win or lose, must sell equipment and weaponry to government. Support the Troops.

The signs of the regionalization of this conflict are coming hard and fast, yet the ‘peace’ pacifists snore. It’s all Iraq, Iraq, Iraq! Things are not being done competently there. But surprise, Bush and Cheney are outflanking you guys, even as you pray. The war is now, Gaza, Lebanon, West Bank, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan. With Syria and Iran on the way! It’s a war not against just Arabs anymore, it’s a block party! How complicated. Hey liberal Democrats, you said you wanted to go kill Osama? We going to do it, even if we have to bomb Antartica, too. Blow up any penguins at their Madrasa we will. Just keep talking about Iraq, and we’ll get you your damn timetable.

And how sweet the press is to not interrupt the US citizenry as it snores. NATO does the killing in Afghanistan, so no need to highlight it for the sleeping giant, the American public. And Bush supported, Dictator Musharraf of Pakistan just did the last killing in that country, so we can sleep here, too. No need to examine the US involvement on that one. Duh! Everybody knows that Pakistan is a sovereign country, rolling on floor giggling. And shhhh….. Bush couldn’t possibly attack Syria and Iran. Not with the Democratic Party on guard! Giggling gets more intense. Stop tickling us, please. Let’s make the whole Middle East like we made SE Asia and Central America! Another success story for US governmental terrorism.

Yet the Democratic Party voting, Christian ‘peace’ people just snore on, firm in that their personal peacefulness is example enough. Please don’t so violently shake them. They’ll never wake up. Let them dream their pacifist dreams. But the rest of us need to stop ceding the organizing of a movement to stop US warmaking to these sweet Christian folk. That is if we want to save the penguins?

Afghanistan, where cowardly US military is deliberately murdering children

Every week now, it seems that the US puppet president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is ‘investigating’ another tragic ‘accidental bombing of civilians. He demands that these ‘accidents’ stop. But these are not accidents, and Karzai knows this well, as every other Afghan must now know it well, too. An accident occurs once or twice, but an intentional strategy of targeting civilians becomes constant, as have become the US bombings of Afghan civilians in the more remote regions of that country.
 
The strategy is ‘to destroy the sea that the guerrilla fighter must swim in’, as it was once explained in the Vietnam War era, years ago. In short, the quickest, easiest way to combat the enemy, is simply to target his wife and family, including the kids. So the cowardly US-led NATO army of occupation in Afghanistan, is systematically doing that instead of engaging the enemy on the ground, where politically dangerous casualties might occur. Bomb the Afghan women and children in their homes from up high, if there is even the remotest military resistance to US forces in their general neighborhood.

This is the same strategy that the US government formerly used in SE Asia, some 35 to 45 years previously. It is the same strategy that the NAZIs used when they pushed into East Europe against the Russians during the Second World War. In their pathway, they razed to the ground villages, towns, and even entire cities. It is even the same strategy that Mafia gangsters use against their opponents. It is the same strategy that the US fed Colombian death squads use, too. They go into villages with chain saws, and cut people up before their own family members. Basically, this is government sponsored terrorism against civilians, and the US is committing internationally recognized war crimes by targeting civilians instead of the armed combatants they face. The strategy, is to target the families of combatants, and not those who might actually be able to inflict return casualties upon the invading and occupying, barbarian armed forces.

see Hamid Karzai orders investigation

We expect this cowardice from the cowardly US military commanders and chiefs, like Dubya and Dick Cheney, Donald and Alberto, who all get great glee out of torturing US-held POWs. And we expect it from the US grunts, too. They mainly just want to get out alive, and don’t much care who gets hurt, as long as it is not themselves. Innocent children bombed as they play, or as they sleep? Well who cares? Not the uniformed soldier cowards, nor their leaders. They are much like the Israeli troops, another cowardly group of soldiers, that distributed hundreds of thousands of cluster bombes in the last 3 days of their Lebanon vacation. Early Christmas for the children? Well the uniformed forces of occupying armies don’t care. They are simply cowards who want to get back home whole, and they will follow cowardly orders, from cowardly leaders.

But what of the press? The press barely even reports Afghanistan these days to US readers. And when they do, they cowardly hide away the nature of what they are reporting on. To the US press, the Afghanistan fighting is a NATO conflict, and they will report whole articles without even once using the letters, ‘US’ or ‘USA’! Let’s keep our jobs, and let’s keep the whole Afghanistan issue away from the American public, who are too cowardly to actually think about what they are doing to that poor country.

And what about the US peaceniks’? They are cowardly, too. 99% of them vote for the Democratic Party, and talking about Afghanistan is too embarrasing to the top party hacks. So, shhhhhh….. Keep quiet. The recent AFSC tour of their ‘Eyes Wide Open’ exhibit was basically a ‘Mouths Tightly Closed’ exhibit of their AFSC political cowardice when it comes to Afghanistan. They should remember and be ashamed of this, when the Quaker leaders are inside the voter booths pushing the levers for the Democratic Party candidates. They could have put boots out for the US soldiers killed in Afghanistan. But they didn’t. They could have placed out shoes of Afghani civilians killed by US and allied troops, but they didn’t.

But the other liberal peaceniks from the other liberal churches are equally as cowardly. When was the last time one saw a sign saying, Get Out of Afghanistan Now? All the talk is of Iraq instead. The liberal megawebsite, commondreams, carries bumperstickers calling for Get out of Iraq, No war with Iran, and even No War with Syria. But Get Out of Afghanistan? Not a chance! More political cowardness. It would push the Democratic Party hacks too hard. Yet our country is now deliberately bombing civilian children in that country, and doing it routinely, too.

It is political cowardice to bomb huts full of empoverished women and children noncombatants, rather than fight on the ground below against the men. But that’s what an imperialist army is full of. They are full of cowards who want to kill people like they are playing some video game back in the suburbs at home. But it, too, is cowardly for the US Peace Movement not to demand that our government get its troops out of Afghanistan with the same force we demand it get out of Iraq. We are betraying the children of that country, who are being slaughtered down like cattle. Yes, we have a cowardly antiwar movement in the US that wants only to concentrate on ‘Iraq’, and getting their cowardly Democratic Party leaders elected to office once again. Let’s hope that liberals can grow some backbone, and start opposing this war, too. Otherwise, the peace crowd is just as bad as ‘our troops’, who mainly want to kill from afar and from up high, with no possilbe repercussions to their cowardly, uniformed selves. Those that don’t mind killing innocent children, just so that they can claim a high ‘enemy’ body count.

Eyes Wide Open Minus 279

Why don’t we reflect on the 279 US soldiers who lost their lives in Afghanistan, too? I think it simply because the AFSC/ Quakers almost universally vote Democratic Party. They don’t want the public to ‘reflect on the true costs of the Afghan war’ while most liberal Democratic Party voters continue to support such. And because of that, the Eyes Wide Open has its eyes sewed wide shut regarding Afghanistan. The AFSC, it seems, will have us only reflect on US troops who died in Iraq.

I have not been much of a backer of this top down AFSC bringing of Eyes Wide Open to Denver and Colorado Springs anyway. How top down? I would say that the main impetus for bringing this exibition to Colorado came from outside the state, and not from within. Discussion was very limited and completely shut off once the honchos had their thing going.

PLUS,this fetishist AFSC focus on the boots of US GIs is a reflection of the constant US nationalist fetishism that focuses on ‘supporting our troops’. They are not OUR troops and we should not be just focusing on the dead GIs’ boots and tags while relegating to the minimalist side the consideration of the deaths of the victims of these US troops. These troops were paid for by our taxes stolen and misused by the government, but they are not my troops. Nor yours, for that matter. So why do we memorialize them as if they were something so very much more special than their victims? Why, AFSC?

And this controlling top down organizing by the Quakers has me peeved. Who do they think they are to try to limit other points of view other than their own pacifist ones at these Fall antiwar events? If the Afghans and Iraqis try to kick the US out of their countries using armed force, then so be it. One gets a little tired of the constant US pacifist Christian messaging, pontificating to other people to non-violently resist their own US government’s violence. These sanctimonious people would have had the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto turning the other cheek to the Nazis even! Defintiely, nobody should feel obligated to not bring their own materials and posters to Eyes Wide Open just because the AFSC tells them not to. They have some damn nerve trying to censor off views other than those parallel with their own. Yes they do.

As an atheist, I will help set up this nominally antiwar exhibit. At least, it will be seen by the press as such. But we sure need a more secular antiwar movement in the future, with the ability to reach out to more than just the liberal church goers. The thing about liberal Christian pacifists, is that they demand that others not just reject the US warmaking but that they do it only for the same reasons that liberal pacifists do. They keep the antiwar movement small, by excluding the majority of people that actually might want to oppose US militarism for reasons other than religiosity.

Anyway, I remember the 279 US troops who have lost their lives in Afghanista. And what’s more, I remember the country of Afghanistan we have torn to shreds. Reflect on that, AFSC.

Iran will be next target and why does America’s Left continue to sleep?

Are we all asleep? The Bush Administration is planning to bomb Iran, and yet there is no effort to stop this. What in God’s name does it take to wake up an American Left? Let’s face it, most liberals have their thumbs stuck up their asses and their only plan is to just keep voting for the offal that runs under the Democratic Party banner, go to church, and pray. The Democratic Party supports Bush’s plans to attack Iran, therefore all the liberals once again have fallen into a trance behind their corporate misleadership on the question of stopping an attack on yet another country. It’s like Iran doesn’t even exist on their radar screens. Meanwhile, there are reports that the Pentagon is already moving into action once again.

Instead of moving with the times, the Colorado ‘peace movement’ contemplates its own navel this week. Are we to be out there mobilizing opposition to the planned bombing campaign against Iran? No, instead something called ‘Eyes Wide Open’ moves across the state this week. It involves a bunch of boots, and people both for the Iraq war and against it are encouraged to stare at these boots and what….? they will be encouraged to ‘reflect on the true cost of the Iraq war’! What a pile of crap! People should be encouraged to PROTEST the damn thing, but the good liberal church folk who come up with this sort of pseudo event impede the very organization of real protest events against the Pentagon, and substitute silliness instead. What next, an inaction to get us to ‘contemplate’ the evils of torture, instead of protesting the newly legalized and open use of it? Hey! Some people might not know that it hurts, I guess?

So what we have is a sleepy, milktoast American Left led by nuns, Quakers, and the Clintons and the Gores amongst us. Iran lookout! We can only ‘reflect’ here after you have been strafed, not before. Not all American Christians support Bush though. Some wait till he’s been bad, and then go ‘tsk,tsk,tsk’. They’ll be encouraging you to non-violently resist the new generation atomic weaponry their country’s military forces will be using on you. And they will be encouraging multi-faith reunions with any moderate Muslim clerics available, if not taken out already by Christian soldiers ahead of time. Let’s hold hands and pray together now. We will light the candles for you, as the troops put out your’s.

Wouldn’t it just be nice to actually have a more secular, and less Democratic Party controlled ‘peace movement’? Hey, let’s rename it an antiwar movement, too, while we’re at it. How about…whisper, whisper, whisper…. naming it ‘The Movement to Stop the US Military and to Dismantle the Damn Thing? 100%’. Take the idea to your church and/or atheist group. The idea is to protest a coming attack on another people ahead of time, and not just sit around with thumbs up the bum.

Here’s the response of the Christian pacifist to such a proposal as to confront head on the Right Wing militarist. whine…..”Oh, that’s not reaching out to others. They can change.”

To the Iranian Muslim, I apologize for the stupidity of the liberal Christians of America. They’re ready to turn their cheeks, even as you get yours slapped. Instead of an actual movement against the constant war, they just want a movement of the prayerful. They will get around to ‘defending’ you eventually. But first, you have to be crucified. Please don’t respond with a gun. They’ll be ‘reflecting’ on your behalf.