Tag Archives: Iraq War

A Veterans Day wheelchair parade

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Colorado Springs Veterans Day ParadeThis year’s Colorado Springs Veteran’s Day Parade falls on Veteran’s Day. The theme is “a nation at war, a community of support.” Doesn’t sound much to do with honoring veterans. Are we holding an active-duty support-the-war parade on honor-the-Veteran’s Day?
 
There will be 92 entries and five helium balloons. There are no entry fees because the city business community is so supportive of our soldiers over there, fighting to make the war safe for the contractors. Lots of military profiteers in Colorado Springs.

Organizers say that fully half of the participants in the parade will be veterans or active duty soldiers. Fully half? What are the other half? By my calculations, that means that there will be more non-soldiers and non-ex-soldiers than veterans. In the Veteran’s Day Parade.

I have an idea about how to involve lots more veterans. The unseen, underappreciated veterans. The veterans not usually invited to join any reindeer games. This year let’s invite the disabled veterans. And since the focus is this nation at war, this war, let’s honor the freshly disabled. This year let’s have a Veteran’s Day wheelchair parade.

I pictured it last year, maybe a handful of malcontents, youthful Iraq War Veterans wearing disaffected-youth garb accessorized with the odd army cloth article, walking with their canes or without, challenging parade watchers to look at them. I imagined it too complex an antiwar statement for most.

This year there could be over 3,000 wounded Iraq War vets from Colorado Springs alone. There would be many more if you count the spiritually and mentally disabled, the post traumatic sufferers, and the yet to be, the terminally unabled. Forming a sea of true veterans, of youth sacrificed to war, in a mass to large to look in the eye.

Our city’s rejection of the EWO memorial, clarified

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May I address City Staff Liaison Bob Stovall’s assertion in the Gazette that, contrary to what was reported, the City of Colorado Springs was willing to host the Eyes Wide Open 2,757 boot memorial? I represented the Justice and Peace Commission in asking the city for the use of Memorial Park. The Park and Recreation Department declined our request, telling us Memorial Park was unavailable because of previously scheduled football leagues. Since it was the PPJPC’s opinion that the first and only visit of the EWO traveling Iraq War memorial might merit relocating a couple days of regular football games, we approached the City Council to prevail upon the park supervisors on our behalf. This the City Council would not do.

In subsequent pronouncements Mayor Lionel Rivera tried to clarify that the city was not opposed to the memorial, only that its organizers needed to go through the proper channels like everyone else. This was bureaucratic doublespeak, like pretending to be accommodating while your subordinates keep the doors locked shut until it is too late. I found it also insulting that a national effort to highlight the sacrifices of America’s men and women in Iraq would be stonewalled and accorded no greater consideration than that given weekly football games.

EWO at Colorado CollegeNow of course it is safe for the city to claim the parks department had penciled us in. In fact we were told no and we had to proceed with our backup choice, Colorado College. Memorial Park was where I saw the traveling Vietnam Memorial and where I felt the Iraq memorial would have been most accessible and most appreciated. All along, Memorial Park was where we hoped the city would accommodate the memory of our soldiers.

Tortured Logic- Thanks Gazette for opposing these attacks on our rights

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‘Tortured Logic- Detainee Bill Undermines American Values’ says The Gazette opinion piece today. Congratulations to this paper for an excellent commentary. This editorial puts this newspaper far to the Left of the Colorado Democratic Party, whose Senator Salazar voted for this unconstitutional piece of legislation. And it puts them far to the Left of the Democratic Party candidate for the 5th Congressional District, Jay Fawcett. In the voter’s guide, this Democrat calls for a ‘global war on terrorism’, which only means that he will rubber stamp Bush’s plans to continue America’s constant warfare around the globe. Why are so many people who oppose the Iraq war planning to keep voting for these Right Wing Democratic Party creeps with their ‘get tough’ baloney? It is not opposing Bush to do so.

Thank you, Gazette, for surprising us for once, with this decent editorial that speaks tough against supporting continued US governmental terrorism, against those prisoners the US government has been taking away and hiding from public scrutiny. We hope you will continue to speak out consistently in the same vein, and begin to oppose all aspects of the militarism that plagues our country.

Eyes Wide Open for friends only

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Attire for a memorial to the cost of war?An Air Force soldier participated in our candlelight vigil tonight. A vigil held at the Colorado Springs Eyes Wide Open Exhibit, for the lives lost in the Iraq War. He spoke about losing a close friend, and about his friends who are deployed in Iraq for whom he fears. He read a poem he’d written about looking at the names of the casualties everyday and hoping, praying it would be no one he knows.
 
Did he miss the point of the 2,700 boots?

If I try to be charitable, I’d say the soldier added a human aspect to the ceremony, not just his grief, and his fear, but the self-centeredness of a soldier’s world view. It certainly made me irritated. The rest of us were here, apparently, to give him company in his fear.

I was not.

He introduced himself, Sam, an Air Force enlistee, and a student at the Colorado College. He’s gone to basic training but has yet to be deployed to the war. I’d seen him recite at a poetry gathering the year before. He goes around campus in his fatigues, often fresh from training. My guess is he’s among many college recruits who serve the military by living among students to project an air of normalcy about the military.

Tonight Sam wore a leather jacket with a skull insignia on the back, with the slogan “where do special forces go when they die? They go to hell to regroup.” (or so)

Enlistee Sam fish-out-of-water spoke tonight of dreading when he’d be sent to war, I was listening but didn’t hear that his disposition toward warfare had changed by developments since the last time I saw him. At the poetry reading he spoke of planning to bringing back his war experiences through the eyes of a poet. Most of the other student poets looked aside as he read. Too polite to roll their eyes. The eyes at the vigil were wiser than mine.

There are some attendees who are turned off by the religiosity of gatherings such as the vigil, I could not bear the banality of this foolish enlistee, worrying for himself and his friends, thinking not at all to question the work he was doing or the profound repercussions upon the lives of so many countless thousand innocents.

Denver not Colorado Springs

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Neath the capitol stepsThe Eyes Wide Open exhibit is in Denver. The 2,700 boots span the green between City Hall and the State Capitol Building. The news reports that the memorial was not as welcomed in Colorado Springs.
 
A friend of mine reacted to the Colorado Springs City Council deciding to have nothing to do with the EWO Iraq War Memorial exhibit. She called it a “damn shame.” I related her words to the council today.
 
“It’s a damn shame, she said, that the city is unwilling to support our troops in a reverential fashion, it’s a shame the boys see only the city’s seedy tributes.”

“The city offers pawn shops to the troops, conveniently located across from the base on B-street, to prey on the financial plight of those young men. Check cashing services and furniture rental joints offer similar rip-offs. The city is happy to collect the sales tax from those activities.

“Likewise the city pays tribute with strip bars and sex shops along B-Street to prey on the soldier’s other vices. The city is pleased to collect those sales taxes.

“The soldiers are offered dealership lots filled with cars they cannot afford, but do purchase, on bad credit terms, with high insurance rates, to drive around the few months they are here between assignments.

“So it’s a damn shame the city can live off the soldiers, can tout the patriotic benefit even from their sacrifices overseas, but cannot see itself rising to the occasion of honoring the soldiers killed in the line of duty.”

I’ll admit it’s too bad that only the antiwar activists are coming forward with memorials to the fallen soldiers. I don’t see why it should be our responsibility at all. If we had our choice there would be no young men and women being sent to fight these dirty mercenary wars.

If you don’t like our memorial, do your own. But don’t sit back and pay lip service to the men and women dying in Iraq, meanwhile running a city off their government paychecks, disability checks and survivor benefits.

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

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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.

All the news fit to be shown to Americans

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Simultaneous editions of NewsweekThis September has been the most fatal month for Canadians in Afghanistan. The number of Canadian soldiers killed peacekeeping for NATO has been accelerating of late and now stands at 37. It would stand to reason that Afghanistan would make the news.
 
Amy Goodman’s Independent Media in a Time of War examined the difference between the Iraq war coverage on CNN versus CNN international. Not the difference between Fox-News and the BBC, just the difference between in-house news departments of the same company.
 
What explains the decision to have a different cover story in this week’s domestic issue of Newsweek? Losing Afghanistan everywhere else, Annie Liebowitz: My Life In Pictures here.
 
The War in Afghanistan has become the forgotten war, due in large part because it is also kept an invisible war.
 
It serves to remember that regardless of the occasional expose, our press is neither unvigilant nor asleep. More precisely, their vigilance attends to guarding we don’t lose our sleep.
 
I have to remind myself, after reading any story critical of the war, that our press is not critical. The Wall Street Journal are terrible Neocon war mongers. The Washington Post, cynical war mongers. The Los Angeles Times, bandwagon war mongers. The New York Times, gatekeeper war mongers. Fox, MSNBC, of course cheerleader war mongers. CBS, ABC, war monger wannabees. Disney, war monger profiteers.
 
Recently fans are rallying around Keith Olbermann and his recent tirades against this administration. I agree we should support his speaking out, but Olbermann’s got a long way to go before he atones for his full throttle support in the lead-in to war.

Over 250,000 Iraqis are dead as a result of our invasion. Afghanistan too continues to suffer terrible civilian casualties. Our press supported both ventures and continues to support them.

Intelligence report disrupts Republican game plan

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I don’t think so.

This headline, like that of the New York Times is making hay of the CIA leak that the Iraq War has heightened the threat of terrorism. But we all knew that, didn’t we?

We knew it before, we knew it after. The American public knew it, before and after the last election. What does it serve to make it official with a CIA source?

It’s something for the Democrats to pounce on. They’re going to do the honors with the bullhorn, the Republicans won’t have to. Decrying the rise of terrorism emphasizes the THREAT OF TERRORISM, and hands the issue to the GOP. Yes they messed it up, but who can we trust to protect us? It’s going to be the GOP.

It may look to us like egg on their faces, but that’s Republican cake and they’re planning to eat it.

Support your local war memorial

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I’m working on an address to our city council. I only have three minutes:

MemorialMr. Mayor, distinguished members of the City Council: as a member of the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission, I’ve come once again on their behalf to ask the City Council for your support of the traveling Iraq War Memorial, known as Eyes Wide Open, which is coming to Colorado Springs on October 12 and 13.
 
Two weeks ago, at the previous opportunity to address the council, the Justice and Peace Commission asked for the use of Memorial Park as a fitting site for a memorial. We also asked the City of Colorado Springs to adopt a resolution similar to that of the City of Baltimore, proclaiming the two day visit as “Days of Reflection on the Human Cost of War.” To this day we’ve received no formal response from the council. I’m here today to repeat our requests.

Actually we did hear one reply from Councilman Bernie Herpin, a resounding no, because he considers any such memorial to be a blatant anti-war statement. I’d like to ask Mr. Herpin: do you have such little faith in the patriotism of the general public, in the wisdom of your constituents, that were they to reflect -on the many lives the war in Iraq has cost us- that you think they would automatically be against the war?

Do you consider it patriotic, and showing support for our troops, Mr. Herpin, to hide the Iraq War casualties from the sight and memory of their friends, neighbors and community? If the war in Iraq, or as you call it, the War on Terror, is indeed worth fighting, why do you want to conceal its cost from the people of Colorado Springs, the people who more than nearly any other community in the country, must bear the cost of this war? The cost being measured, in their lives, the lives of their loved ones, the lives of their friends and coworkers. This is to say nothing of the many more who are injured and maimed.

Are you afraid to let the people of Colorado Springs gaze upon the boots of 2,700 soldiers -only the official count of the US casualties in Iraq- boots that stretch across vast green fields, nearly to the horizon? One hundred and seventy pairs of those boots will correspond to the Fort Carson soldiers who’ve died in Iraq.

The latest count of soldiers wounded in Iraq according to the V.A. hospital system is over 40,000. If the ratio of US soldiers wounded to US soldiers killed in Iraq holds for Colorado Springs, by a terrible coincidence, the 2,700 pairs of boots that Colorado Springs residents will see on October 12 and 13 will also correspond to the number of Colorado Springs residents -Iraq War veterans- who now move about in wheelchairs and on prosthetic limbs.

Is this your way to show support for the troops? To keep their sacrifices unseen from their countrymen and their city? Why are you so quick to send them off, to fight a war on foreign soil, and so quick to hide the cost they’ve paid or will pay? The media networks aren’t even allowed to show their coffins on television! Why are you conspiring to keep a soldier’s most ultimate sacrifice a secret? -because you think the American people would not support your war?

If you are so gung-ho to have someone fight this war on terror, why don’t you do it yourself? You go over there and do it! And reflect, please, whether you want your effort to go seen or unseen. Otherwise please know that you can count on us, that if you pay the ultimate price to defend our freedom, that we intend to make sure the people of this country and this city see it and show their thanks. Good luck and bon voyage.

Please accord the people of Colorado Springs the respect of honoring their sacrifice. I’d like to see the proclamation we ask for in writing as soon as possible, or I’d like to see each of you fill out the Defense Department paperwork to enlist to go to Iraq yourself. Thank you.

Getting our re-fill of panhandlers

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Fresh vetI spotted this panhandler at a nearby offramp. Is she really a veteran? I’m not sure her age matches the Gulf War camo. Itinerants do confess that WILL WORK FOR FOOD gets more support when you say you’re a vet. Of course, as a result the public begins to look at “homeless veterans” with cynicism.
 
The pretend-vet ruse obscures the fact that an enormous proportion of homeless men have always come from the wars, and they are already emerging from this last.

Reframing Iraq War My Bad

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Bill Clinton, speaking in support of Neocon Democrat Joe Lieberman, attempted to bridge the gap by saying, “It doesn’t matter whether one supported the Iraq war or not, the question is what do we do now?”

We’re hearing that kind of talk all the time. The Iraq War as fiasco. The Iraq War as terribly expensive burden on our economy. Ouch, misstep, spilt milk, important thing now is to pull together.

Are we going to let the media reframe it IRAQ WAR BAD CALL?

How about the Iraq War, CAUSE OF 250,000 IRAQI LIVES, almost all civilian, half of them children? How’s that for re-reframing?

It’s not the Iraq War error accomplit, it’s 250, ooo innocent deaths later -now where do we go from here?

It’s not Iraq War My Bad, it’s Iraq War 250,000 Dead Oh Dear God We Are So SO SO Sorry.

Who are the unlawful combatants?

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Who are the combatants fighting an illegal war? It’s US. The entire of the world, not including the Murdoch NewsCorp empire of Britain, Australia and the US, have declared the Iraq War to have been an illegal act of agression. Even the Secretary General of the U.N. stated as much. We’re quibbling about whether fighters captured in this war and in Afghanistan have to be considered legal combatants and subject to protection under the Geneva Conventions. We are asserting they do not.

It looks like we are the illegal combatants. Our soldiers and their mercenary counterparts may not be entitled to prisoner of war status either, if you adher to our logic.

No Gun Ri

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The killing of Korean women and children by Piccaso
A letter has come to light, written by the American ambassador to Korea in 1950, which details the American intention to shoot Korean refugees should they approach American troops. This letter not only led to the next day’s massacre of hundreds of civilian at No Gun Ri, but documents what can now be understood as a systemic policy of shooting civilians. The US Army shrugged off such accusations at the time. This letter was declassified thirty years later, and was overlooked in the department review fifty years later.

Shall we extrapolate about the US military’s actions these days?

Most recently we’re learning about the US massacre of 24 civilians in Haditha: family members being executed at point-blank range by a handful of enraged marines. First there was a coverup, then a denial. Now the atrocity is being described as isolated. The press is even playing along -backhandedly- by asking if Haditha will become Iraq’s My Lai.

Such a comparison would be correct if we remember that My Lai was actually one among many US atrocities in South East Asia. Such massacres of civilians were policy in Vietnam. The Wintersoldiers tried to tell us about it then, we now know about Tiger Troop and their death squad missions.

American Iraq War veterans are already telling us about the common military response to IEDs: shoot at everyone and everything in the vicinity. Unembedded reporters have been recording since the invasion began about American soldiers breaking into houses and shooting the men, women and children inside. As was done in Haditha.

Tal Afar out of the bag

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President thinks he has glommed unto an Iraq War success story, the American suppression of Tal Afar. Americans had hardly heard the name Tal Afar before Bush mentioned it in his recent address. Ergo must be a quiet town, at peace. Think so?
 
Tal Afar has been off the radar because there are no unembedded journalists there. There has been no one to report back about the usual American practices against the Iraqi population, no one but the usual military liasons. Now 60 Minutes is adding their voice to Bush’s refrain.
 
Well Tal Afar is in our neck of the woods actually. The last of Colorado Springs’ own Third Armored Cavalry has returned from duty at Tal Afar, and the stories circulating already will make your hair stand on end. Over the next weeks, I’ll document a number of 3rd AC eyewitness reports.

Tal Afar is the story of a Fallujah-like siege and bombardment, outside of the view of western TV cameras. Soldiers tell of levelling the Saria District, inhabitants and all. In the meantime, you can read an excellent account here.

2.
Not wishing to be surpased by Bush’s war is peace, violence equals progress logic, the media is criticising itself for not reporting more good news from Iraq. Right wing shills are arguing that network reporters should step out from the protection of the Green Zone and report on more than IEDs and bedlam. What a perversion of the hotel journalism argument! Reporters cannot step out into the real Iraq without getting killed. Some success story.

Kerry 2004 deja vu

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Speaking at IWY3 rally
Where are the Democrats on Anti-War? Why are they not standing at the forefront of this issue? The PPJPC held a well-attended Iraq War Year III rally in the park downtown and we saw not one politician in attendance.

Why do Democrats not recognize the visceral strength of the opposition to war? Americans may not vote in their own self interest for the simple matter of pride. Social issues are often too selfish for Americans to see themselves supporting. And the American Dream, if even just the Lotto, keeps Americans thinking about the interests of the priviledged as perhaps someday their own.

But the plight of the Iraqi people, a people we’ve terrorized and decimated, that’s a selfless cause. Americans join the world in their abject remorse for our actions. This is the issue which ignited the American populace in 2004. This is what can motivate the American voter again.

2.
In my humble opinion, knowing nothing about politics, I’d like to suggest that the Democrats have not a chance in hell in the next election unless they differentiate themselves from the reigning asshole party.

It’ll be Kerry all over again. Except this time I don’t think anyone will get too excited at the prospect of electing someone who’ll merely betray us.

Is there any reason to believe that there is any difference between Republicans and Democrats in DC? You can’t get Democrats there to move for impeachment, for censure, to investigate anything, to repudiate the Patriot Act, or to end the illegal war in Iraq. What good would it do necessarily to send Washington more Democrats to supplement the morally retarded ones they have already?

I don’t think you’re likely to entice Americans to support a party of do-nothings, especially when those losers are looking more like cohorts of the Republican kleptocrats.

Prizefight fixed

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Autist-in-chief snickering
We are watching a prizefight. Bush is swaggering and staggering around with his arms in the air having declared himself winner before the bell has rung, as he’s done through every round. This time he’s looking deliriously vulnerable. He’s got the typical bad guy aura of a smug WWWF villain. He could be in a wheelchair and the crowd would cheer to see him clobbered.

We are yelling at the top of our lungs for Bush’s opponent, any opponent, to knock him down! A child could do it! Go up there and push him over with the pinkie finger of your left hand! Now! Get in there you bum! Do it! Impeach! Censure! Ask him a tough question!

But his opponent won’t touch him. Won’t even get in the ring. Won’t even look us in the eye. You bum! Worse, the opponent won’t let anyone else get into the ring either. It’s becoming clear that we are dealing with a ringer who’s being paid not just to lose, but to keep other challengers out of the ring. This bum’s job is to ensure that Bush comes out on top no matter what. This bum is on the same payroll as the rampaging little tantrum.

Let’s not forget that as terrible as the fight has been to watch, everything’s going swimmingly for those who are paying the bills. The Iraq war has paid off handsomely. Katrina relief a windfall. Tax cuts for the rich a wet dream. The promoters could not have imagined such success. Their little dictator is stomping roughshod around the ring and the Democrats are pulling their punches, doing a remarkable job making it look difficult to take a swing at Bush the autist-in-chief. The bums!

Veteran’s Day parade, part 1

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Prussian charge
I should say that I had never watched a veteran’s parade, I think. Wasn’t it supposed to be a parade of veterans? This was a parade of mostly active duty soldiers and soldiers-to-be. It was very disturbing.

There was a flatbed trailer, there may have been several of these interspersed, on which stood a current war hero. He straddled the platform, his hands on his hips, striking a valiant pose, his chin held high and to the side. A large placard read: recipient of medal so-and-so.

There were marching bands, real young faces. I hoped that as excited as they were to be in the parade, that they weren’t thinking of joining the military.

I had just met a gentleman looking for legal advice for his daughter who’d recently signed up. She was a promising musician in high school, she played the coronet. A recruiter had told her that the army was in desperate need of musicians. They needed her for their marching band. The recruiter assured her that she wouldn’t have anything to do with the fighting, but that she could serve her country in its hour of need, by offering to do something that she loved. She signed on.

No sooner was she through boot camp that she learned she was being sent to Iraq. She and her fellow musicians were told: leave your instruments at home, you won’t need them.

Among the marching bands was a band called the Rampart Regiment, (actually Rampart High School’s marching band, and state champions). But their uniforms were terribly unfortunate. They were black, a sort of turn of the century look with high hats, and a large black feather. They looked like Prussians, or what we would recreate in our minds if we were trying to visualize those mercenary Hessians! Their outfits hearkened to a day when the uniforms meant to intimidate.

Does anyone remember what distinguished the aggressive from the defensive soldiers in the last world wars? The Allies had the frumpy uniforms because they didn’t mind being seen as sympathetic. The aggressive soldiers are the ones who want to scare the bejezus out of their enemies. This has been true since warfare began.

White hat versus black hat, it’s true for cowboys and hackers. Good guys and bad guys.

What was Rampart thinking to dress their band looking like black draped raiders? They look like Cossacks about to swing down and slice you in the back as you try to flee from them.

What business do we have trying to glorify the terror of war?

I was horrified too by what appeared to be den mothers, preening their little kids in their little uniforms, to salute the passing soldiers. These were not just boy scout uniforms but miniature military outfits. I couldn’t help but think these kids were wishing that someday they too could be featured in the parade.

At that point I noticed there weren’t any wheelchairs in the parade. Top be sure many of the WWII vets may not be so ambulatory nowadays, but their disabilities were concealed by the antique cars from which they waved. Why couldn’t something like that have been arranged for the wounded Iraq war vets?

There weren’t any crutches or wheelchairs or homeless drunkards which comprise the largest contingent of Vietnam vets. Now we’re learning it’s even more true for the Gulf Gar vets. And there were no mentally addled vets with bandaged heads to symbolize their injuries.

And certainly the Veterans For Peace and the Iraq Veterans Against the War were denied permission to participate.

Then there was something most disturbing of all: a guy in army fatigues, youngish, stocky, probably a drill sergeant but uncharacteristically casual, and he was working the crowd. In nonchalant fashion, he was rallying both participants and spectators with a call and response routine.

“God bless America” he would shout. “God bless America” the crowd answered. I was reminded of something Bismark had famously said in the 19th century: “God protects fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”

There we were, this veteran’s day, a day to honor veterans, ignoring the veterans altogether. An active duty soldier rallying soldiers and the families of soldiers: “God bless America.” “God bless America.”

Over and over. “God bless America.” “God bless America.”

We will need it.

An Iraqi remembrance

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Holiday season event, date to be announced.

When we dismantled the 1900 CROSS IRAQ WAR MEMORIAL on October 13, we recited the names of all the US soldiers killed in the war in Iraq. Recalling the recitation of the American names, CAMP CASEY will next attempt to memorialize the people of Iraq who lost their lives.

This remembrance performance will require a chorus of at least twelve people, half male, half female, half of each of them children. A larger group can certainly be accomodated, as long as the make-up remains three parts men, three parts women, three parts boys, three parts girls.

As a lead vocalist reads the first names from the official list of US casualties, the chorus will punctuate each American name with a rythmic chant of Islamic first names to represent the Iraqi dead. Each member of the chorus will be assigned a set of four Islamic names, appropriate to their gender.

Between each American name, the chorus of twelve people will simultaneously chant four names in quick succession:
“Abdallah, Saleh, Sabah, Jabbar.”
“Qasem, Ahmad, Ali, Nusseir.”
“Yahya, Yaseen, Khaled, Ammar.”
“Ziyad, Taha, Nayef, Munther.”
“Hameed, Salah, Leith, Wahhab.”
“Mushtaq, Riyad, Basem, Mahdi.”
“Aziz, Nafe, Omar, Shiya.”
“Hussein, Dia, Jalal, Abbas.”
One man and one boy would voice a base rhythm of “Mohammad, Mohammad, Mohammad, Mohammad.”

The effect will be to have 48 Iraqi names called out for every American name, two thousand times.

Iraq War protest concept 3 PINATA

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Four uniformed soldiers will guard the perimeter of a square five or so yards across. The soldiers will face outward on each side, standing at ease, but vigilant.

Inside the guarded area will hang a pinata, an effigy of the earth perhaps, or some other representation.

Also inside the perimeter will be a banker or two, business men in suits, who will be beating the pinata with a baseball bat. The businessmen will not be blindfolded and will beat the pinata ceaselessly and with determination.

The pinata will be sturdy, but filled with a sponge saturated with a red liquid. Each blow of the bat will spray blood unto the backs of the military personel standing guard.

Iraq War protest concept 2 LONG DISTANCE CONNECTION

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A red telephone will float at the surface of an open steel barrel filled with red liquid. The sides of the barrel will be covered with pictures of Iraqi civilian casualties. The handset will be coated with red syrup.

When the handset is handled and held close to the ear, a looped recording will feature the voice of a friend or relative over a long distance telephone line:

“I don’t know anyone who’s gone to Iraq. I don’t know anyone who knows anyone who’s gone to Iraq. I don’t know what’s happening there at all. It doesn’t really touch my life. I feel kind of strange about it I guess. It just doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

Returning the handset to the phone, one’s hand will appear bloodied.

My idea for an Iraq War Memorial

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A box. Sunken in the earth. Like the foundation of an unfinished house.

Borrowing from Maya Lin’s Vietnam Wall obviously, this memorial foundation would be at the base of a hill. Preferably in te shadow of a hill. Looking up at the north slope with the sun beyond the hill.

On one wall, the thousand US casualties of the war.

On the next wall, blank space reserved for the next thousand who will die before we can extricate ourselves from Iraq. Without abandoning the Iraqi population.

Now it occurs to me that I’ve left out the casualties of the first Gulf War. The many who served in that conflict and have since died of causes related to their service. We’ll have to find a suitable memorial for them.

In the corner between the two walls already described will sit a small replica of Rodin’s THINKER. He’ll be seated on a stool and he’ll wear a dunce cap emblazoned with the logos of the corporate profiteers and media war mongers.

On the other two walls which rise against the hill -which rise higher and together in the fashion of the twin towers of the WTC perhaps- here will be engraved with the names of each Iraqi citizen casualty. Fifteen thousand names, many thousand whose names we neglected to record, and about which few relatives or friends remain to give testament. Those could each be listed as “Sovereign Citizen of Iraq.”