Tag Archives: Ft Carson

Acacia Park IVAW sentry-duty-a-thon

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On Friday November 16 until Sunday November 18, the Colorado Springs chapter of IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR will be manning a “Tower Guard” in Acacia Park downtown. This will be a 12-hour a day vigil atop a scaffolding guard post, a motif pioneered earlier this year in DC by veteran Evan Knappenberger, minus assault rifle, minus orders to shoot anything that moved. This weekend local IVAW soldiers will stand atop their own guard tower and all are invited to visit and show their support. It’s a brave thing for these ex-soldiers to come out against the war in [Ft]Carson Springs. Let’s encourage them!
Evan Knappenberger keeping a 7-day Tower Guard vigil in Washington DC September 2007

Tom Warren- GreenGo pimp for the Pentagon

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Tom Warren of DECAMTom Warren feigns being a folksy, bearded, hippy ranger-ranch type, and is the perfect Pentagon GreenGo pimp to be in charge of the public’s manipulation by the military to put Fort Carson expansion into place in Pinion Canyon.

He heads up DECAM and talks ‘environment’ a lot, while pushing for the Pentagon’s toxicity to be implemented into the local area.

‘Aw Heck’ he seems to exude smilingly, ‘We’re going to become the best Wild Life refuge in The Land!’

Sure the Pentagon will be, Tommy. They always are for sure. I’m sure that the wildlife are doing just great out at Chernobyl, too. And out where all the Depleted Uranium has been dropped in The Balkans and Middle East. And the wildlife certainly must love the Pentagon’s Agent Orange spread all over in SE Asia, since it keeps the human predator population down.

You’re right, Tommy, the Colorado birds and deer need the Pentagon to take it all over! And be sure to help us be efficient in energy use for folk out there on base, Comandante Tommy.

What an act, and what an actor! We pay the tax dollars, and they then buy the comedy routine by military GreenGo propaganda pimps, like this guy, Tommy Warren. What suckers the American taxpaying public certainly are to do this!

I had a chance to meet this snake in person last week, and talk about a corn ball. He offered to waive the fees if any of us wanted to be sucked into the inside of his ‘sustainability’ act that was playing inside the Crowne Plaza Hotel that week. We preferred to protest planned Pinion Canyon expansion by the military outside in the street instead.

Go Army! Be all you can pretend to be! How silly some of this corporatized pretend Green stuff coming out actually is. After he gets done here, Maybe Tom Warren can apply for the PR pimp position out in Amarillo for the Pantex atomic bomb factory there? He would be perfect talking about how irradiation keeps the beef all sanitary and what not. The Pentagon, land for many uses… blah, blah, blah.

For more about Tom’s work to keep suburbia from encroaching on Fort Carson (poor Fort Carson!) and bird habitat read about Comandante Tom’s contributions here… Save the rare birds, sez Tom Warren. by making your local military establishment grander!

For Tom Warren’s military connection see name #11 on Fort Carson military list here. What a con artist this guy is pretending to be part of the civilian community! This seems to be the new thing where police and Pentagon people come to community meetings out of uniform and play like concerned civilian community types.

The Pentagon’s green baloney

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The Fort Carson Fourth Annual Community Sustainability Conference is playing in town right now, and is part of The Pentagon’s green baloney program.
Sustainability is greewashing military

You might want to take in some of the last sessions over at the Crown Plaza Hotel off of Circle & I-25,and offer up your suggestions that the military use solar power to deliver their future hydrogen bombs and that they now move to require all soldiers to become vegetarians while doing military service, etc., etc. lol… This idea that the US military is part of any sustainability effort is quite laughable one would think?

Unfortunately, there are always some gullible, yet ecology oriented people who will always buy into even the most outlandish notions put forward by those who hold power in our society. But really, what’s the use of pushing for a more ecologically oriented military? Are we really interested in a more Greenly done destruction, since the job of the military is simply to destroy other peoples’ economies? Or did some of the Colorado Springs local community want to forget about that?

Sustainable? How ’bout the US military just cleaning up all the toxic messes they have already made across Planet Earth? I suggest that they start with SE Asia and then head westward.

We can give all our soldiers in uniform sticks with hooks on the end so that they can go around walking through the fields picking up land mines and depleted uranium fragments, and give them suction devices too to help clean up Agent Orange and other chemical weapons residuals that they have used in the past that might be found in leaves and dust that children with deformities now play in.

Dear Pentagon, we urge you not to litter.

Militarizing society everywhere

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America’s ‘War on Drugs’ is creating disaster across the planet. This week it came home to my neighborhood, as the Colorado Springs police closed down a whole block on Madison Street, of all places, to do its Swat Team training. Helped in this endeavor by the local Jewish Synagogue, who loaned them a house to use, about 20 cops, 5 dog terrorists, and 12 pig mobiles wasted the afternoon away playing with their toys.

Switch now to a new Brazilian film, Tropa de Elite, that shows how this nonsense plays out in the poor neighborhoods of that great South American country, as the very same militarized policing units act as death squads, all in the name of ‘fighting drugs’.

Switch to Afghanistan where a US occupation army pretends to be fighting the spread of opium.

Switch to Colombia, where the US death squads pretend to be fighting cocaine.

It’s time to get the police out of all our neighborhoods, cut the Pentagon down to size, and fight the expansion of Fort Carson into yet more of SE Colorado. Aren’t you tired of them militarizing society everywhere?

Ken Salazar lulls people to sleep on Pinon Canyon expansion

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Senator Ken Salazar wants to look like he is leading an opposition to military plans to expand Fort Carson. Unfortunately, many are buying it, but his ‘opposition’ to base expansion is without any principles behind it and is totally superficial. Just what does ‘a one year delay’ really mean, anyway?

One thing it certainly is not, is it is not any real opposition to the constant American militarism at all. Unfortunately, most of the ranchers opposing the Pentagon buying up their land also support the constant war making of the US government. In fact, both Salazar and many of the ranchers themselves, support more military bases being built and more bases being enlarged. The ranchers just don’t want it done with land they own.

A ‘one year delay’ allows Ken Salazar to placate this constituency without having him do anything of substance. Later when plans move ahead once again (as if they there will even delay at all!) he can surrender after having pretended to lead the good fight.

‘Oh sorry, Guys. We just weren’t able to win.’

The ranchers are in dire peril. This ‘delay’ is meant to disarm them and it appears to be working. The momentum they have built up in building their opposition to Fort Carson expansion is now on dry ice. What appears to be a minor victory may well turn out to be just one more phase of their undoing.

As to the pro Peace community as a whole, this episode of their activism shows how weak is their lobbying legislative approach to everything. Instead of building a movement that demands CLOSING all these damn bases down, they have tired to needle and beg a completely pro-war legislator, Ken Salazar, to play their supposed Saviour in a truly docile style. This is a strategy guaranteed to produce constant disappointment, and constant continued war.

It is our job as activists for Peace to tell the truth and to try to create new structures that would aid our work to stop the Pentagon. Instead, many of us only seem to desire to be lulled to sleep by people like Democratic Party Senator Ken Salazar. Voting sheep asleep, it seems, is all some want to be.

Base Closure Now! That is really what the Justice and Peace Commission should be demanding. We have way too many of these monsters and they are destroying the entire base of the American economy. We are not just against expansion, we are for closure of these bases. And Kenneth Salazar is not going to come along and be our friend on these issues, and it is unseemly to always be begging him and pretending that he is our friend, when he most certainly is not, never will be, and doesn’t want to be.

Kenneth Salazar is a true American militarist politician, and is much so as those who voted against the ‘delay’ legislation that eked on by. We need to get rid of these bums, Kenneth Salazar included. We need to stop hugging our enemies and start speaking the truth. A pro Peace Movement that can’t tell its friends from its enemies is not worth much at all. The Iraqi people certainly know that and so should the people working in the Justice and Peace Commission. It is sad to see people celebrating a victory while on the road to yet another set back.

Call out Alliant Techsystems & CACI too

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ATK is chief supplier of poisonous Depleted Uranium
Other military industries complicit in war crimes in Iraq have offices in Colorado Springs at Academy and Fountain Blvds.
 
ATK Alliant Techsystems is the leading supplier of Depleted Uranium, which is poisoning the Iraqi populace as well as our soldiers. Ft Carson vets who father children with birth defects will know whom they can hold responsible.
 
Interrogators at Aby Ghraib were supervised by CACILikewise, CACI International provides “security solutions” to our boys overseas. Celebrated, ie leaked, examples were the torture methods employed at Abu Ghraib.
 
To be fair, abuses at Abu Ghraib were also administered by Colorado Springs neighbor TITAN CORP, now L-3 Communications Titan Group.
 
Isn’t it amazing that so many culprits of Iraq atrocities are represented in Colorado Springs, at ACADEMY AND FOUNTAIN?! Our visit on Tuesday will be straight into the midst of these callous profiteers.

Military takeover of Southeast Colorado

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It was a disappointment to read about a potential betrayal of the rural folk who cherish their family farms and ranches and don’t wish to sell to the Army at Fort Carson, and again last week in Colorado Springs when only pro-military leaders and the Chamber of Commerce expounded on the need for expansion. What a terrible hoax to think anything connected with war business could be considered a “crown jewel” and “national security keystone.”

It is ironic that an area in Colorado, one of the most scenic and naturally beautiful states in the U.S., is being taken over by the military-industrial complex. Even though there was no chance to be heard last week, there are many folks, including former military, who question why a Fort Carson expansion should be considered necessary at all, much less for the health of our local and state economy.

What happened to tourism, health, fitness and agribusiness for which Colorado is a natural, and the great potential for jobs in the needed alternative-energy fields?

A moratorium on military expansion makes sense because of the growing sentiment that U.S. involvement in the Iraq war needs to end. With more taxpayers and legislators agreeing that we need to pull out of Iraq, isn’t there a possibility Fort Carson could be reduced in size, rather than enlarged? Instead of more battleground experience, we need to have people trained in renovation, rehabilitation of infrastructure and individuals, health and human services and educational endeavors.

If fear of terrorism is predominate, have you thought of telling the war-machine lobbyists in Washington that you don’t want your state to become a terrorist target by having so many of our strategic war components in such close proximity?

(Printed in Letters to the Editor in The Independent, Sept. 6)

Fish out of water in the park

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We spent Labor Day afternoon in the shade of a newly planted tree, upwind from a gargantuan new fountain/sculpture at the center of Confluence Park, rechristened post-9/11 as America the Beautiful Park. Perhaps our city councilmen were thinking that Katharine Lee Bates, looking down from Pikes Peak, might have been describing just the spot where Fountain Creek meets the Platte, before the city spread out. Now this land sits in the lee of our coal-fired power plant, until recently a lowland neighborhood of unpaved streets and homes with sofas on their porches. If the rest of Colorado Springs residents dared to drive into this white 9th Ward, before it was razed, we would have noticed the bare feet of the unemployed I’m sure.

Our city’s perfect dry high altitude protects our homes from Orkin pests. The lone exception is the area surrounding the steaming cooling towers. It is notoriously roach infested. Perhaps it’s best that the humidity now feeds a vast public lawn between a riverfront trail and railroad tracks.

(We receive two coal trains a day along this track, and when Ft Carson deploys its heavy armor, this is the place to see it. You feel the gravitational pull of the endless procession of Abrams tanks, as impressive as the now-interminable first tracking shots of the Star Wars battlecruisers.)

We stared up into the cloudless sky and thought about our city’s ideal environment, unmarred today by its poor crackers and poorly educated nuts. The park was none-too-crowded, regulated by its access and limited parking. Plenty of adults and children were playing in the fountain, but not too many so as to crowd our blanket. The park seemed a perfect example of successful gentrification of the wrong side of the tracks, but for one point.

There’s something about animated water sculptures that gets in my craw, and today I caught a glimpse of what it is. The Julie Penrose fountain in ATB Park, which resembles a large Hotwheels loop-de-loop, and the downtown Uncle Wilber Fountain, are two popular public works which draw children in the summer days, to splash about in the heat. They’re public art with a practical application I suppose. Squinting into the watery mist, I recognized that application: the hijacked city fire-hydrant.

Middle class America left the jacking of hydrants to the land-locked urban neighborhoods, preferring to build public pools for their children. Swimming pools could provide respite and recreation, plus physical exercise and jobs. The fire-hydrant, as I saw today, is a throwback to not much for your money. It’s running through the sprinkler for cement bound fat kids. Exuberant, elated, screeching with glee, none-the-less fat children acquiring no aquatic experience, their energies taxed for nothing, offered poor prospects and a poor excuse for an afternoon.

American Cowards, a big herd

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An article by Conn Hallihan titled Death at a Distance: The US Air War indirectly highlights the political cowardice of the American people as a whole, the politicians of both the corporate parties that the American people have been glued to for so long, and the Pentagon itself. The article focuses on how the Americans are turning to using pilot less drones to bomb targets located in civilian areas.

This has certainly become the American Way, another cowardly war fought by technocratic cowards, directed by political cowards, and tolerated quiescently by a cowardly American population as a whole, that flat out refuses to up its level of currently minuscule protest against what is being done in its name.

This Wednesday I got a brief glimpse of the cowardly rats gathering together once again to move towards yet another expansion of the US military-industrial complex in something called Fort Carson Piñon Canyon expansion. Only the people directly effected by losing their ranches seem all that motivated to oppose yet more base, more bombs, more soldiers. The rest of the Colorado population appears to hardly give a rat’s ass about the issue, and that’s who was gathered inside the city government building to nod and pose for the cameras…rat’s asses. And the rat’s ass king who was there at this meeting has got to be Senator Ken Salazar.

What is the relationship between pilot less aircraft murdering children in foreign lands from way up high and this planned expansion of one of The Springs’ local bases? My short answer is that you are just another American coward if you don’t get out and try to fight these creeps on both issues. Many of you liberal do-nothing voters put Ken Salazar into office with your votes, and yet most of you haven’t the courage to get out and do anything to stop this King of political cowards from getting off the political hook for his constant double speak.

I’m not advocating that you do this, but Democratic Party liberals really ought to be burning down their local party HQ instead of voting for your creeps once again. Instead, you seem to be just another part of this long herd of American Cowards supporting continual war. Get off your asses and demand that America stop murdering kids in foreign lands with pilot less drones and by starving them and their parents. You don’t need this damn Fort Carson at all. Your vote doesn’t count so don’t use the fact that you vote to excuse your complicity through your constant inaction.

State senator John Morse the little shit

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Opposition to PCMS expansion not allowed inside City Hall chamber
We stood outside City Hall today, holding our banners against the Pinon Canyon expansion. We watched the pro-military-business suits stream past us. Most were cordial, some pretended we were not there. A fully uniformed OIF soldier greeted us warmly, explaining that he’d been in Iraq twice and would go again in a heartbeat. He loved “killing the Iraqis and stacking them up like cord-wood. An enemy is an enemy” he said laughing as he ascended the steps.
 
But the worst was Colorado state senator John Morse, Democrat.

I’d seen John Morse a few months back, addressing a house full of his Democratic constituents, 90% of whom were very angry about the stand he’d expressed publicly in favor of the PCMS expansion. We were all incredulous to hear him say that he hadn’t received a single complaint in opposition until that evening. Really?! We all vowed to be more vocal in the future.

I greeted Morse as he approached City Hall, I asked him if he was going to represent the people he’d heard from that night. He looked at me blankly. I asked him if he’d heard since that night from more citizens vehemently against expansion of Fort Carson and the Maneuver Site? He smiled, shook his head, shrugged his shoulders and smiled again. To my face, just as he had the time before, the lying shit. You guys are a minority, he told me. Really? I wish the others had been here today to see him say it. We weren’t PCMS opponent activists that night by a long shot. We were just the Democrats who got Morse elected.

Between that meeting and this one, Morse would have to have kept his phone off the hook to ignore the public outcry against this military land grab. Sure enough in the city chambers meeting, he fawned all over the military and its stooges. As a Democrat, he’s a snake in sheep’s clothing. Morse thinks the military ought to be given the chance to go ahead with the feasibility studies. We say that’s letting the fox in the henhouse. He says give the fox the benefit of the doubt. He’s missing the point of the analogy, but the army hasn’t. With his help, the army land acquisition process will move along, more and more ranchers will be forced to sell, and the resistance will dwindle.
Ft Carson soldier
Fort Carson soldier attending the PCMS expansion session, who stacks the Iraqis up like cord-wood. What’s he going to do after he leaves the service? Forestry or law enforcement?

National Cemetery I-25 scenic viewpoint

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Concrete waves of grey
Did you hear Senator Salazar say at this morning’s city council chambers meeting, that he’d like to see as part of the Fort Carson expansion, a local national military cemetery to rival the one at Arlington? Because as retired General Bentley Rayburn reported, there’s a growing need, “and Fort Logan’s filling up.” Always thinking about our boys, aren’t they?

Senator Salazar painted the picture for everyone, a cemetery visible from Interstate 25, to rival the size of the already famous national cemeteries. It will be seen by the millions who travel the Front Range corridor each day, military headstones stretching wide expanses, reaching into the foothills of the Rockies, into our purple mountains majesty I guess. Does Salazar want to seize by eminent domain the fruited plain for somber waves of gray?

It’s one thing to refashion America the Beautiful to honor the fallen, and God knows there’s nothing wrong with I-25 drivers being confronted with the human cost of our folly, but how cynical is it, to favor expansion of Fort Carson and the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site so that you can station more military personnel here and fill the cemetery that much faster?

There wasn’t time to read the questions recorded on the note cards Salazar’s people had collected to record the meeting’s only public input. How many graves do you envision Mr. Salazar, before Arlington Southwest, let’s call it, will make the impression you have in mind?

Sen. Salazar surveys the public opinion

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Ken Salazar has called a meeting at the COS City Council chambers Wednesday Aug 29 to solicit the opinion of local area representatives about the proposed Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site expansion. The public is invited to attend (10am tomorrow) but the 15 representatives have already been selected. Invited to speak are:

Mayor Lionel Rivera (introductions).

County Commissioner Chair Dennis Hisey (of Fountain).

State Senator John Morse.

State Representative Bob Gardner.

Pikes Peak Area Council of Governments Chair Commissioner Wayne Williams (military and transportation issues).

Veteran’s Committee Chair Retired Gen. Bentley Rayburn (Vet cemetery and other Vet issues).

Chair of Chamber Military Affairs Council Retired General Wes Clark (defense contractor as President of SAIC near Peterson, will talk about history).

Chair of Chamber Military Affairs Council’s Pinon Canyon committee, Retired General Ed Anderson (former Ft. Carson Commander).

President of CS Chamber Military Affairs Division, Brian Binn (will talk about local economic drivers).

CEO of the Colorado Springs Economic Development Council, Mike Kazmierski (will talk about competition from other cities and BRAC).

Chair of Defense Mission Coalition Tony Koren

CEO of Pueblo Chamber, Rod Slyhoff.

Chair of the Pueblo Economic Council Marv Stein.

Assistant City Manager Greg Nyhoff (will talk about how City Development processes and the Airport relate to encroachment issues at bases).

County Development Director Carl Schuller to talk about processes and encroachment issues in the County.

Your dad is going to die of cancer

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Iraqi girl whose father has just been killed at a checkpointIt’s just been reported that the children of soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are more likely to suffer child abuse. Is this finding not terrible enough for their parents to take heed and refuse to to be ordered there?
 
All soldiers going to Iraq and Afghanistan doom themselves to exposure to Depleted Uranium. Does it give anyone pause that they are dooming themselves and their families to certain ill-health? They’re not making a selfless sacrifice, they’re sacrificing their kids.

By the VA’s own report, over 11,600 Gulf War vets have died since 1991. A third of the soldiers involved in that 100 hour engagement are now on disability. The health problems have been called Gulf War Syndrome because the military won’t admit responsibility, like it long denied the effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam. But doctors are now certain the many common symptoms are due to DU. Already we are seeing birth defects from Iraq War veterans.

Of course the media is not addressing the problem, but why aren’t soldiers figuring out the cause and effect for themselves? Do they still think the Department of Defense is looking out for them? After the Walter Reed scandals? After the failures to deal with PTSD?

Remember an unusual report early in the Iraq occupation when Dutch troops were to replace a US Marines encampment? The Dutch commanders instantly forbade their soldiers to inhabit the American barracks due to DU contamination. They deemed it better to bivouac outside the camp, exposed to attack outside the fortifications, than to suffer the certain DU exposure about which the American soldiers had been told nothing.

I have an idea of how to bring this message home to our soldiers. It involves the soldiers’ families because they are already impacted negatively, and stand to bear the brunt of losing their father or mother, of having to cope with a bitter, violent veteran, or having to care for the eventually terminally ill invalid. Here’s my plan:

I live in a neighborhood that houses the families of officers posted to Fort Carson. Usually they’re newcomers, usually just the families, the fathers being away in Iraq. Kids know these families from talking amongst each other at school.

The next time this or that house is pointed out to me, I’m going to tell the kids to be nice to those children because their father is dying of cancer. Never mind succumbing to IEDs, or to mental illness, the veteran will more likely than not, die a slow death of cancer or leukemia or whatever mysterious debilitating fate, owing to the DU he inhaled over there. Imagine the talk at the school reaching the soldier’s children. They’d bring their fears home. It’s a heartless rumor to spread to kids, but maybe their alarm could prompt an awakening and ultimately save their dad’s life.

This subversive message can be directed toward soldiers at other opportunities. Be it a panhandler with PTSD, or a proud veteran in a parade, treat them both with a sincere gentleness because of their pending struggle with cancer. Thank them for their service, apologize that their sacrifice will turn out to be so tragic.

Bring the message home.

Close Fort Carson, don’t expand it

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When was the last time any of us heard a section of the ‘peace’ movement call for closing down military bases?
 
Even the Close the School of the Americas movement doesn’t call for closing down anything other than a part of one military base, but not all of it. We need to get rid of the nuclear warheads, plus the bases they are sitting on. We need to get rid of Fort Carson too, and not expand it.

Why do we have such a timid and pathetic ‘peace’ movement? We need to call for an end to all these cops and soldiers around us, since they will not just go away on their own. Planet Pentagon is an article that gives a snapshot picture of the problem. It’s time to abolish the War Department euphemistically called the Department of Defense. Or at least we should rename it the Department of Corporate Defense, which is what it really is.

Calling for an end to all this militarism is patriotic and defending it by waving the American flag is not. Reduce the military budget. Reduce the police budgets. We need to get rid of most of this apparatus, if not all of it??? They’re squeezing the life out of our planet.

And at the very least, a ‘peace’ movement that doesn’t demand sharply curtailing the military is not doing its job, but is cowering in fear of offending the ‘troops’ instead. And one that is seen hugging and smiling alongside the chief of police is repugnant. That’s the kindest words I can find about that, Chief ‘Liars’ Myers.

Yes, the Justice and Peace Coalition is sleep walking on the issues. And ahead, I see a national total meltdown of the ‘peace’ movement into getting a Democrat elected. Some things just never seem to change. All instead of actually mobilizing people to close the military and police of America down. They are currently a repressive apparatus that is more a danger to people than a protection for them.

Close Fort Carson down, don’t expand it.

Arming recruiting with WRX STi

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Out of desperation a friend of mine has entangled himself with army recruiters –that’s the way most around him want to see it. He’s buzzed his head and claims he wants to be “Army Strong.” He and the recruiter have already visited the car lot where an Impreza WRX STi awaits his sign-up bonus. All he will have to do to get financing is show his military ID.
 
Last night he took the tests at Fort Carson to measure his aptitude and psychological profile. He teased me afterward about a particular question for which his recruiter had coached him. “Do you have a conscience?” The advised answer was “no.”

Subaru Impreza cruiserUp to now it’s been mostly one on one with the recruiter because last night my friend kept expressing his surprised satisfaction at the large turnout of fellow recruits. “There must have been at least sixty, he said trying to torment me. Adding eagerly: “And lots of hot chicks.”

Hot chicks? Hmmm. Hmmm. Not to take anything away from the lovely female gender soldiers who’ve already joined the Army, but how likely is it that my friend saw lots of hot chicks at Fort Carson last night? Or lots of anybody? Any chance many of them might have been stand-in enlistees commanded to wear civvies, accompanied by girls from the Deja Vu moonlighting in pursuit of Iraq-bound soldiers to die and leave them beneficiary to the $250,000 insurance?

My sister was once targeted by card sharps on a bus ride home. She was wearing her waitress uniform so they probably knew she would be carrying what she’d earned for tips. Here’s what happened: she noticed a guy with cards challenging people to follow a particular card, etc. Most of the riders ignored him but gradually a small crowd was drawn to the action, including my sister. When she was finally lured to bet her cash, and lose it in the space of a few seconds, right then the bus stopped and the entirety of the little crowd vaporized. More than having been duped of her money, my sister was most shaken by the realization that she had been the lone target.

Condemning our soldiers

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We’ve sentenced our soldiers to death, why not condemn them too?

At the supermarket this evening I ran across an unusual number of Fort Carson soldiers doing their shopping in their OIF camo and buzzed heads. I deliberated with making eye contact, but they seemed like condemned men in what we know now to be death-row uniforms, being led by their girlfriends or mothers through the aisles to buy their last meals.

I wanted to look at those young men with condemnation. Poor lads, but pawns for a murderous agenda. Please don’t kill anyone I wanted to say.

At the checkout I looked from the side into the pale blue eyes of a shaved-bald, sunburned junior-security-guard-in-training, and pitied the Iraqis for whom our uneducated underclass are making on-the-spot decisions about life and death. These are boys you do not imagine should be entrusted with an ounce of authority, much less guns. (In fact, critical operations such as protection of our politicians or of the Ministry of Oil are not entrusted to these boys, but rather to professional private contractor mercenaries.)

Hang the soldiers’ commanders of course, but brand these poor soldiers too for what they are. Brand them lest others, their children for example, follow their apparently patriotic path. Shit happens, that’s the soldier’s apology for killing the undeserving Iraqi, let it be the mantra over the soldier’s condemnation as well. Your leaders were bad men, but you followed them. Let no one imagine that your complicity was laudable, even acceptable. Shit happens Bro, now you IT.

I’d just been thinking about the necessity of confronting war-doers head-on instead of letting the opportunity pass for the sake of civility. Political aids to President Bush, for example, retiring at age 36 to spend their loot on their children, averting being confronted with their critics. We need to punish these people. A newscaster who characterizes the Haditha episode by saying “the marines were attacked by an IED” should meet the fate of a propagandist.

Let no war-supporter go un-criticized, and why not start now? Perhaps it will prompt some to think about why they are being condemned with such ferocity? Perhaps our scolding can lay the groundwork to effect eventual introspection and reform. How could anyone begin to think they might actually be guilty of war crimes if their accusers are always so civil? Certainly such accusations must be merely academic, otherwise would they not come with a noose? By waiting politely our turn to intone, by not calling urgently for each miscreant’s apprehension, are we not misleading the soldiers about the reprehensibility of their role?

We can talk about forgiveness later. Right now we have to stop the unthinking manslaughterers.

Why did the city police attack the pro-Peace group at the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade?

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The city police and parade organizers did not fully think out the consequences of their actions, but the attack on the peace group at the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade was not unintentional. In fact, it followed logically from the political direction given by the Colorado Springs city council and mayor.

The city police are employees under the control of the city council and mayor, and it is the city police on behalf of the city government itself, that gives out John O’Donnell his own permit each year to hold a parade. In all effects, John O’Donnell is merely a sub contractor for the city who is given a permit to issue yet even more permits, that simply allow and disallow who amongst the general public can participate in a city sponsored parade each year.

John O’Donnell has a long history of operating city promoted events in our city, and most of them have a highly charged social message of support for the wars waged by the US government. He takes positions on social issues, and they are almost always relatively in support of war, and many events he has helped organize have been fully funded by the city of Colorado Springs city government. Though some have only been partially underwritten.

In fact, less than 3 years ago, John O’Donnell, the city government, and the US military (US government) used large amounts of city and federal tax moneys to parade troops through Colorado Springs streets in support of the Republican Administration led US invasion and occupation of Iraq. They called this ‘supporting the troops’, and called the parade a ‘Welcome Back Home’ rally. Of course, we now know that the troops have been redeployed over and over from Fort Carson, and the public has slipped dramatically in its support of this US government war making. At that time, nobody appeared too much concerned to see the city government and federal government working through O’Donnell to parade for a partisan cause.

Because the city government and John O’Donnell are so intertwined in supporting the partisan cause of celebrating the constant US government wars and aggressions that destroy other nations, it is no surprise that the city police acted to thump peace partisans for entering into the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade. It was a natural reflex on their part, and to their credit, at least they did not get so totally out of hand and severely injure anybody they manhandled. That is the reason that the new police chief, Richard Myers can posture that ‘nobody got hurt’.

However, the city government and its police do hurt others when they take up partisan causes like supporting a US government war, and make no mistake about it, that is what they have been constantly doing. Driving down Cascade Ave. one sees the city tax money’s paid-for signs that say ‘Colorado Springs Supports the Troops’. Hint, hint… That means that the city government is supporting the Iraqi War. How clever the city government thinks it is to phrase their support for the Iraqi War in this manner.

In short, the city has a history of taking up the ‘social issue’ of supporting the US war on Iraq and uses the tax monies of all its citizens to do so. The annual military air shows each year are yet more ways that the city government uses tax monies and facilities to sponsor pro-war Pentagon fed propaganda. And through this steady city support of military aggression, now 7 people face criminal charges coming from a police action that could easily have led to no arrests, no threats, and no physical take-downs if the police had only had directions to use restraint, instead of heavy force.

To the city police, it seems natural to stop pro-peace participants from participating in city events. They have received no city government direction to do otherwise, and Mayor Lionel Rivera’s continued refusal to admit that the several police ambushes on us through the years have been totally totally uncalled for, only will lead to repeats of the same excessive use of police force in the months and years ahead. Too, he has repeatedly shown so far that the city government will refuse to accept that it has real bias in what events are allowed to parade through city streets. The bias is in favor of the military and war, and against peace advocacy by any public pro-peace assembly that would appear against war. The police are directed in their activities with this bias in effect no matter how much they might state that they are out there to protect us all. It will surprise no one that the police actually protect some more than others, and endanger many.

It is highly symbolic that John O’Donnell and the police decided to use the intersection of St Vrain and Tejon to have the police ambush us on St Patrick’s Day. This is the same intersection where the city and federal governments had him lead off the ‘Welcome Home Troops’ pro-war parade in June, 2004. They marched the troops with our tax monies around in a circle and then ended their pro-war demo at the same point. They had no problem with pushing social causes at that event at all. They do have a problem with us when we cross that fatal intersection calling for PEACE instead.

Mayor Lionel Rivera and his city police will do what they can do to try to stop us from participating in future city organized events. As it has been said already, we got roughed up for the message we carried, and not just for how we went about bringing it to the public. They will try to deny us the use of the public streets again unless policies are changed now.

The police and the mayor have refused to accept any blame for what was done St Patrick’s Day. To the credit of some of the city council members, others have done the opposite. Our thanks goes out to them for that.

We do want to work together with all to assure that all do have a way for public assembly without censure. Let the military march with kids in their camouflage khaki uniforms on, and let those that have the opposite message march alongside. The city belongs to both of our groups, and both of our groups pay tax dollars to open up city streets for public parades, and to close it off for other tax paying citizens who might even be against what the parades might seem to them to be about. After all, we don’t want the type of sectarian violence that the US military now has brought to the Iraqi people inside America itself. Do we? So city government needs to stop bias in what social causes it funds and endorses.

Channel 11’s take on Dick Cheney’s bet

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Last night, watching Channel 11 News, I was taken back about how even local channels in conservative cities like The Springs are beginning to come unglued in their long term backing and pushing for the Iraqi War. Dick Cheney was calling the Democratic Party a bunch of wimps and stating he wasn’t worried in the least by their false and phoney opposition to Adminstration plans. He bets that they will fold their cards soon. So what did Channel 11 do?

They went out and interviewed the Fort Carson based troops and put those opinions side by side with Cheney’s. The GIs made it clear that they mainly opposed continued US military intervention in Iraq! That’s right, the Channel 11 news spotlighted what peace activists have been seeing in recent days, that many of the soldiers have become the most fervent supports of the Peace Movement. Just like with the Vietnam War, the US government has once again succeeded in losing the hearts and minds of its own troops. Why? Because unlike the government, the troops do have a conscience and they use it as their guide.

Take Caution…

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We have been blessed, so to speak, with a person identifying himself as a soldier commenting on our posts concerning the St Patrick’s Day Massacre. Everybody is welcome to comment, as long as they don’t threaten, or like you know, break laws in the hope of getting everybody else busted.
 
That’s one version of what is called in the French language Agents Provocateurs,

And I seriously don’t give a fat rat’s ass about people who have difficulties with the French Language, nation or people. “Enfants du France….”

Another version is (not that i could make accusations, as there is no proof.) would be for somebody from the Military Police, the CSPD, the District Attorney’s office for the 4th District, the Provost Marshall from Ft Carson or whoever, to come and make statements like us being misleading or flat out deceptive in our application for a permit at the parade.

They would not be above such actions, it is called a “fishing expedition” and while they wouldn’t be allowed, at least by a righteous judge and a good attorney, to do something like that in the courtroom, they would, will and do go on such “expeditions” BEFORE the case is filed or before the formal hearings begin.

This would lend whole new depth to the term “trolling” a forum or in this case a weblog.

Making no accusations, but you guys who do this, please realize that it is suspicious behavior. Eric has already announced, as has the ACLU, that this will be challenged in court.

People who post and say, “Man, you sure pulled one over on the pigs with that, right on dude” sound for all the world like somebody from the Other Side trying to get us to agree with it, in order to cast doubt on our actions in court.

If we were truly out to destabilize OUR country, trying to overthrow our nation, whatever… or were seriously into legitimate yet unlawful armed resistance, like for instance the Provos, such suspicions would be an invitation to Incisive Revolutionary Actions. The other, other IRA.

Since we are not, since our presence in the parade was indeed peaceful, legal, and within the bounds of morality and decency added on, that would leave no LEGITIMATE reason for people to attempt to makes us appear to contradict ourselves, entrap us or any other such naughty things.

However, the Police do have a long and rich history of such actions, and I would therefore encourage you all not to make statements or questions that call doubt onto The Truth.

The truth is, we had a permit to be in the parade.
We did not attempt to force a confrontation with anybody.
We did NOTHING illegal, immoral or questionable.
Our motives were, as always, to promote peace through EDUCATION.
This is always the policy of the peace movement.

Please refrain from making statements, or asking questions, even innocently, to the contrary. Once again, it would only make us look at you with suspicion. The CSPD has already assaulted us illegally. This is a part of a long pattern of such abuses against dissidents and dissent in America and Colorado Springs specifically.

We don’t pick fights with the police, they could kill us and at least some of the vocal asswipes who think they run our country would cheer them on or say it was OUR fault.

John O’Donnell, the city’s organizer of St Patrick’s Day parade, now caught in his own lies and hypocrisy

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John O’Donnell says that his ‘rules’ prohibit social statements from being made by participants, so he had to have city police assault pro peace parade participants and then have us expelled from the parade. John and the City of Colorado Springs government and police are totally in bed together on this one, and it pays to see just what O’Donnell and the city government have been doing and saying in the past. Check it out below.

Thank God we have the internet to help expose liars and hypocrits like the Colordo Springs city police spokepeople (police blotter), the Gazette editors, and John O’Donnell. See just what John O’Donnell actually means when ordering folk to not make any social statements at St Pat’s Day.

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Fort Carson veteran is St. Pat’s grand marshal
Sgt. Wong returned from Iraq in January

Sgt. Robert Wong, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, has been named grand marshal of the 22nd annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade Saturday, March 12 in Old Colorado City.

Fort Carson selected Sgt. Wong, who was the post’s Soldier of the Quarter for 2004, at the request of the Parade Committee for O’Donnell & Associates, a promotional firm that org-anizes the annual parade.

Hailing from Baltimore, Md., the sergeant is with the 759th Military Police Batallion, which returned from Iraq in January. A contingent of 10 soldiers, all sergeants, will escort him during the parade, according to Parade Committee Chair John O’Donnell.

“We are delighted to have Sgt. Wong as the Grand Marshall,” O’Donnell said. “As a representative of all of the active duty troops at Fort Carson, he serves as a reminder of all of the active members of the armed forces here and abroad. By honoring Sgt. Wong, we hope to honor our military family and friends who can not be with us during this joyful family event.”

To become Soldier of the Quarter, a soldier must be nominated by his own unit, and is then evaluated against nominees from other units, according to Lt. Justin Journeay of Fort Carson’s public affairs office.

More than 110 entries are scheduled for this year’s parade, including bands, floats, dancers, politicians and riding groups. Starting at noon, the parade will go east on Colorado Avenue from 27th to 17th Street.

The festivities will begin March 12 in Bancroft Park with the “5K on St. Patrick’s Day” Race at 10 a.m. The Children’s Fun Run will begin at 11 a.m. Runners can register online at http://www.csgrandprix.com, at the Runners Roost (107 E. Bijou) or on the day of the race at 9 a.m.

from Westside Pioneer article/press releases

The Colorado Springs government is hiding behind its subcontractor

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The city of Colorado Spring subcontracts its organizing of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and then claims that its police assaulted us for crashing a private event! Wrong. The St. Patricks’s Day parade normally pushes an only partially hidden militaristic agenda claiming that it is just a big green party made possible by a private individual.
 
Article detailing O'Donnell organizing of the 2004 welcome home parade
Fort Carson veteran is St. Pat’s grand marshal

picture and comments taken from article at page 7 of pdf file archive of The Mountaineer, Fort Carson publication

Hidden away, though, are the multiple connections the city has with that particular person, and the significant municipal underwriting of the expenses involved, all paid for with your tax dollars. The CS Indy ran an article in 2002 that stated that the municipal underwriting of tjhe St Patrick’s Day parade’s declared expenses was close to 50% of the total costs to their subcontractor.

Of interest also, is how the Colorado Springs police blotter officially lies totally about the unfolding of events. Doubt that? Then go to their ‘Police Blotter’ and read the account. Anybody who has seen any pictures in the press of the arrests being made, can see clearly how the police lie totally about what took place.

The first lie there on the ‘Police Blotter’ is that they told the 45 of us that we had to leave. In fact, I was part of that group of 45, and never got any notice to disperse. My only ‘notice’ was to observe the police assaulting my friends walking quietly alongside of me inside that parade.

The second lie, is that all but seven of us obeyed the order to disperse (the one that I never received along with most of the others in our group), and that 7 refused. Then per police lie, they gave another order to disperse to these 7, whom were arrested only when again they refused. Anybody can clearly see from all photos, that the police had these 7 in choke holds up both high up in the air and flat on the pavement, too, even as the rest of our group was still fully standing beside the already handcuffed arrestees in the parade.

If the police will lie about this progression of what happened, then they will certainly lie about all their conduct in dispersing us. The cameras tell a totally different story than the ‘Police Blotter’ does, and the cop who wrote this false account of events to the ‘Police Blotter’ poorly thought about how obviously dishonest his account would appear, and how obvious from photographic evidence it would be that he was lying about the police attack on us and how it had been implemented by the police themselves.

The Gazette and slander (libel)

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Regrettable miniature body languageWhat a completely slanderous editorial the Gazette has published, suggesting that we peace marchers planned the police beating we received!
 
A couple of innocent circumstances find themselves at odds with such a conclusion. Number one, a good number of us can guarantee we would not have brought our children if we had known what the police had in store for us; number two, we parked our cars at the end of the parade route, which turned out to be quite inconvenient when we were turned back; and number three and without doubt a trump card, none of us brought video cameras! Have you ever seen a protest where every third participant did not have a video camera to document and/or deter police brutality? We had none! We’re now having to solicit video footage from eyewitnesses in the crowd to counter the official assurances that their conduct was above board.

That’s because our St Patrick’s Day message was not one of protest, but celebration. Look even at my preparatory efforts to organize the marchers! We wanted to be seen in a different light than protestors. Even in this atmosphere of war and fear, we are optimistic that mankind’s compassion for each other will prevail over war. As some seek comfort in the image of a blow-up marine on steroids, as a symbol of ass-kicking diplomacy, so we honor and want to project the principles of non-violence and peace.

Remarks are being made that the St Patrick’s Day parade was the wrong forum for a peace message. Ignoring the obvious Irish insurgent spirit, pray tell, what are any venues available to expressions of non-conformist views? In this pro-military, conservative town, there’s not a one. Otherwise we’re at the corner of Nevada and Dale on Mondays at noon, at Academy and Austin Bluffs on Wednesdays at three, and at the Fort Carson B-Street entrance every first Tuesday at seven. Have you got another opportunity to suggest? We’ll be there.

Admittedly young cops manhandling elders in front of impressionable children opened eyes less about the war in Iraq, than to the rapidly diminishing civil rights of ordinary Americans. Now everyone’s privilege to voice their opinion appears in jeopardy. We’re fighting for what, overseas? Freedom?

We didn’t march to change your mind about the war. We marched to encourage the majority of the American public who are against the war in iraq, to come out from behind thugs like you who’ve monopolized the street and airwaves with your pro-war, pro-violence message. We’ve seen the shift already as we hold our banners every week curbside, we get far more honks of support than signs of disapproval. The parade would have been a wonderful way to elicit that sentiment in front of everyone on main street. That is perhaps why your type wouldn’t allow it.

The cause for which we marched received a lot of attention as a result of the police over-reaction. But it wasn’t due to our planning, or our preparations in full view an hour before the event began. It wasn’t due to our obstinance in response to being told our permit was revoked, or being ordered to turn away while certain among us were being brutalized. The attention the marchers have received has been entirely due to the city parade organizers’ actions to silence us and the police department’s decision to be violent.

This is how you take fascism down, by showing the politicians, businessmen, chest-beaters and their backers, that they do not have the support of the people. That the common people do not share their zealousness to beat dissenters over the head with the flag. Step aside you goons and conformists, the American People want their country back.

Desert Rock protests

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Navajo protestI might have missed something in ‘The Gazette’, but I sincerely doubt it. The assholes that run that paper are keeping Colorado Springs uninformed of an environmental struggle going on right down the road from us. I am referring to the mainly Navajo protest against the construction of a new power plant in the Four Corners area. See these photos of the Desert Rock Vigil now taking place.

The Navaho don’t want mercury and other contaminants from coal burning to further environmentally degrade their people’s traditional lands. It has become a constant battle to keep the environment of this ancient Native American tribe from being totally destroyed by mining, forestry, and energy production companies.

The White ranchers who struggle to stop the expansion of Fort Carson into Pinon Canyon and the Navaho of Desert Rock, both need to get together and unite their now separate causes. Without unity in the fight to save the environment , Colorado and the Mountain West as a whole are going to become toxic zones in a generation or two. We need energy production, but we need a clean environment, too. Wouldn’t it be great if the many varied groups of citizens out here, would work together better to save these lands?
Navajo protest site

Fort Carson expansion plans sustained

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At Phil Long Expo CenterLast week’s Fort Carson Environmental Sustainability Conference. Remember the Army’s conception of a “sustainable environment?” Sustain the mission, secure the future.
 
Yesterday’s town forum at the Antlers Hotel to discuss the expansion of Fort Carson was a similar assemblage of only pro-military voices. Two senators and several congressmen were in attendance, even the Democrat among them cheered the Army. In a side room to entertain questions about the Pinon Canyon land aquisitions, Senator Salazar’s assistant Richard Skorman attempted to placate the crowd. “It may not happen” he reasoned.

A chief hurdle for activists is draw the attention of the public at large to the looming danger. No matter how many years off, experience has shown how the governemnt aquires land, and what a juggernaut it becomes once it’s gotten up steam. The military is doing enough soft-pedalling, do we need a Democrat to be playing good cop to the inevitable cop agenda? Is the land-grab inevitable? “Who knows,” the Judas Goat assures the lambs being led to slaughter, “we really won’t know for certain until we get there.”