Tag Archives: Veterans

Another local political rally shot down in flames

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Cripple Creek memorial ride 2006According to the Omygodzette, The City Fathers of Cripple Creek starting putting so many restrictions on the Annual Veterans Memorial Bike Rally, the usual organizers for the event said freak it, and are moving the Rally to Winter Park.

Everybody who they interviewed said they (the people of Cripple Creek and Victor) loved the bikes, the bikers, and noted that these guys spent buttloads of money there, and there wasn’t any of the crap you usually see associated with say, Sturgis. So what was the problem? The city manager said there was no prejudice on their part against the bikers (yeah, right!) but the outgoing Decider for who gets a permit had messed up the deal, because the rally was “too biker, not enough veterans” like that really makes one huge difference. There isn’t a law that says how much a Veterans Memorial ANYTHING should reflect the Government Ideal for a Veterans Memorial.

Here I have to insert, the Omygodzette reporter was obviously digging for somebody who would speak against the bike rally. It’s just how they “fair and balanced” report the news. And I would also like to add, I wouldn’t buy their paper by the ton lot to be used as a firewood alternative. Although I might steal it from their recycling dumpsters for that purpose….

But you know the Wall, right? Yeah, that Wall. In Washing Tundy Sea. There was a controversy about the design. Seems our favorite Bill Owens Crony, H Ross Perot, had sponsored a contest judged by veterans for the design. The Wall was overwhelmingly approved, by 3 to one over the runner up, that statue of the soldiers at the monument. Then it was discovered, at the award ceremony photo-op set up by Ross and McCain and other heavy hitting right wing Veterans Affairs Deciders, that the young lady who designed it was ethnically Asian, third generation Chinese American. How to defuse this bomb how do we proceed …

Messieurs McCain and Perot et alia tried to push off the idea that there were some irregularities, tried to replace the Wall with the statue, but they couldn’t come up with enough courage to state their Very Obvious objection, that the Wall was designed by somebody who they consider a “gook”. One reason they couldn’t was Perot was running for President, like he had a chance in Hell of making it.

So they made the command decision to keep their promise, and break it at the same time, by putting in the statue of the GIs.

It’s really tragic that the Government spends OUR money for their Thank a Vet campaign, but we can only show our support or at least lack of animosity in a way that Reflects the Official Policy.

In case anybody has forgotten, the Commander in Chimp has repeatedly tried to cut the VA budget. For such basics as Health Care. Cut it further, I might add, his Poppy and Poppy’s ex-boss Ronnie Ray-gun had already gutted veteran’s benefits. To help finance His War. Which is going to produce even more disabled Vets and disabled Civilians on the Other Side.

Now there’s a Thank A Vet memorial worthy of note.

And ladies and gentlemen, I for sure am going to note it repeatedly.

To: Bush and Gates Re: OUR Plan

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Dear Messieurs Bush and Gates.
    Today you have once again proposed that anybody who does not support YOU and YOUR War have some obligation to put forth a better plan for victory in YOUR WAR.
   Also Mr Gates has presented the idea once again that LEGITIMATE PROTEST of YOUR WAR somehow emboldens YOUR enemies. Which would be an accusation of Treason, (a capital offense) against the majority of Congressmen and a majority of the people of the United States.

Apparently you are both somewhat confused about what exactly your legal status is.

Mr. Bush, you are at most an elected official. In a Democracy, or if you prefer, a Republic, THE PEOPLE are the ones who are the Decision Makers. You are our employee and NOT our master.

I realize that you have the mistaken notion that as a public employee you have no obligation to listen to the clearly expressed will of the people. You call it “leadership by polls”, and sneer at the prospect that mere mortals can criticize you or tell you what to do. You call yourself the Commander in Chief. Mr Bush, there are somewhat less than 2 million members of the Armed Forces in America. That means 298 million citizens of the United States are in fact Civilians, and therefore NOT under Your command.

   Now, Mr Bush, I realize that Laura will have to read this to you. I would ask Mrs. Bush to point out that 298,000,000 is substantially a larger number than 2,000,000.  In other words, as your Poppy used to say, YOU do the math.

      You and Mr Gates and Mr Cheney are OUR employees. WE are the deciders and WE have decided to support Our Other Employees, the Men and Women of the Armed Forces. Current and Future.

These men and women, and the children your ROTC and recruiters are grooming for future employment in the Armed Forces, have been placed in Harm’s Way by your stupid policies. Your policies are based on deliberate manipulation and deception of the American People, and the Congress, for more than 6 years now.

Apparently you don’t listen to polls. You keep repeating this, so I and others like me will have to repeat our reply: When the American People voted for President in 2000, more people voted against YOU. The only way you managed to attain office was by skillful manipulation of the electoral process by your family and their henchmen. Men like Mr Cheney and Mr Gates. You again failed to get a Majority of the votes in 2004, yet somehow you have represented that failure as a mandate from the people to allow you to lead us.

I know you can not read fast, so I am writing this very slowly… The people who you feel should obey you, are not going to obey you.

Your policy has continually failed since the day you stole your job. It has specifically failed with respect to YOUR personal war against Saddam Hussein. You have, through a long series of Lies, unlawfully targeted the people and government of Iraq as the Enemy, and demanded that we do the same. You have had Mr Hussein killed. You have done what you said you wanted, i.e.; Killed Mr Hussein, been allowed to search for Weapons of Mass Destruction throughout Iraq, been allowed to install a New Puppet dictator in Iraq, taken the Oil Fields of Iraq to give to Mr Cheney and your other Henchmen in the petroleum industry.

    In the 4 years since the unlawful conquest and pillage of the nation of Iraq began, exactly zero none nada zip bupkas of your promised Glorious Victory have emerged. You have murdered more than 3,000 members of the Armed Forces. At the lowest count, you have Murdered 75,000 citizens of the nation of Iraq. The higher count of up to 300,000 Iraqis is disputed by you and your Lying cabinet and lying supporters.

     Your unofficial Spokes Freaks at the FOREIGN owned Fox Television Networks have made the threat, repeatedly, that people who oppose this systematic Murder and Theft and Deception that you have been doing for so long, should be rounded up and punished for their Patriotic defiance of your unlawful policies.

      Today, YOUR henchman Mr. Gates has used the same lie, that not supporting you is giving “aid and comfort” to the alleged Enemies .

These people did not declare war against the United States. The people of the United States did not declare them to be the enemies. YOU and your Chicken Hawk Cabinet and advisors did. By allowing your spokespersons, either the official ones like Cheney and Gates, or the unofficial ones like the employees of Mr Rupert Murdoch, to threaten Americans with nothing short of DEATH for opposing your murderous policies, is Terrorism.

Mr Gates and you, and the people at Fox Networks, and other corporate information media, know very well that threatening Americans with death or in fact any punishment for engaging in conduct which is not only Lawful, but mandated by Our consciences, is unlawful in and of itself.

       Perhaps you believe that Americans who oppose you have no resolve. To cling to that mistaken belief, you would have to neglect and ignore the fact that we have not been cowed into submission, We Have Not Backed Down, but instead grown stronger in our Resistance.

       Many of us are former members of the Military, like you, Mr Bush. However, most of the former military who oppose you, unlike you or any member of your cabinet, are actually combat veterans. The Congressmen you and Mr. Gates say are traitors, AND MAKE NO MISTAKE you have openly accused us of TREASON, are likewise Combat Veterans.

      The fact that we have been using every Lawful Means to resist and defy your so called “leadership” is not an indication of weakness on our parts, it is instead a strong resolve to not destroy our nation further by abandoning Rule of Law.

         This restraint has kept the Opposition to your Dictatorship from taking up arms against our fellow citizens, in spite of you and your henchmen making terroristic threats and in many cases actually carrying out such threats.

The time for such restraint is rapidly approaching its end. If you and your lapdogs insist on making war against The American People, you and your lap dogs will have to be restrained, by force if necessary.

     Your New Plan for Victory, which you have arrogantly commanded us to support or propose a better, is the same Old Plan, which you have insisted on following, at the cost of our National Treasure, in short our relatives and friends who are in the military. Also you have spent the National Treasury and any conceivable payments into that Treasury, for generations to come. You have taken away our ability to respond to Real National Threats, as opposed to Non-existent threats from people like the late Mr Hussein.

Your plan has been given 4 years to work, it is not working and, even though you and your goon squads and lying henchmen keep saying otherwise, We The People are capable of seeing that it has not worked, and will not work.

      We do not owe you a better plan. You owe us your respect, and your obedience to the People. You, and your cabinet, owe us your resignations. You owe our fellow citizens in the military your respect, for their lives and for their service.

You can no longer hide behind the lies that a dictatorship is somehow a guarantee of freedom.

    Your incompetent dictatorship is instead a guarantee of slavery, but ONLY if we fail in our real duties, to bring your dictatorship to an end.

The people who you and Mr. Gates threaten, are quite capable of forcibly ending that threat. Mr. Bush, Mr. Gates, I strongly caution you not to make the rash mistake of continuing in your terroristic campaign.

65, 85, 100, how many more?

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Just surfed by yahoo again… 100 + people killed in market blast in Baghdad. Gaza television station bombed… and something from yesterday, our Favourite Asswipe Tancredo is actually thinking of running for President in ’08.

The F.A.T. as i will probably start calling him, ain’t got a chance. His Zani buddies, (Nazi spelled sideways, sort of) don’t even trust him.

Me, I just love the way he speaks (in milder terms, but not much milder) of things like ethnic cleansing and Relocation & Detention Centers and how glorious the New World Order will be once the liberal dissenters are silenced. Or “learn their place and stay in it”.

Here’s a Couple of Clues, F.A.T., old boy, YOUR last name ends in an “O”.  Your English Only buds just don’t like that. They are gonna use you until you are not of any more use and then put you “in your place”.

When that happens you had better pray to God Almighty that there are a few anarchists still outside of your Relocation Centers that you might be able to hide behind.

The rebellion isn’t about Liberals and Conservatives, there isn’t going to be a huge victory over the Tree Huggin’ Hippies, the hippies started packin’ guns a looonnnnggg time ago, and a lot of them because they were taught how to do it in the Army, into which they were drafted.

You and your Masters want to draft people like for instance ME?

And you REALLY think that’s a good idea, don’t you?

The worst single incident of non-government-sponsored home grown terrorism in our History was pulled off by Army Veterans. Who were pissed off, and righteously so, because of the way the your government treats the people. Specifically it was a Government terror-bombing of a Church in Waco Texas that set them off.

And if you are gonna give me that tired old CRAP about the Chuch being heavily armed, skip telling me and tell it to the Chaplain. You know the ones, the guys who sell their personal priesthood to be cheerleaders for your killing machine? Your friends glorify and almost worship the Crusaders. Get a grip, son.

The killings in Baghdad, today? They are all about YOUR government policy of bombing Churches. Or Mosques. The Israeli people ought to be investing in extra toilets, cause when your Master starts bombing synagogues they are all going to shit.

And you want this to happen here, too. Or so you and the groups you mouthpiece for think you do.

Neocon regalia

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Neocon Bald-faced EagleFor decades after the Second World War, German vets would get together in beer halls to remember the great days of the Third Reich. The Nazi cause may have become perverted, but its ideals were certainly grandiose: a Germany reborn as the worker’s utopia, a master race unshackled to bring order to a never-before united Europe.

My father grew up in occupied Norway. He remembers the incomparable German swagger. To this day he judges the authenticity of war movies based on whether the actors capture the arrogance of the German officers in their walk. I remember reading a Wehrmacht soldier’s autobiography reflecting on the initial ease with which Germany had overrun its neighbors. “It was impossible in those days not to feel immense pride in being a German.”

German regalia is highly collectible now, though my father remembers the days immediately following the war when Norwegians wouldn’t deign to pick up the Nazi medals, ribbons and flags strewn outside the German headquarters in newly freed Oslo.

Of course the German WWII regalia is collected fervently also because it was esthetic. A deliberate malevolence was courted by the fascists, a darkness amplified by the visual design of their uniforms, equipment and printed material. Albert Speer and Leni Reifenstahl were widely condemned for their contributions to the glorification of Nazi culture.

So when old SS veterans are clanging their glasses in memory of Germany’s grab for the brass ring, the nostalgia has quite a bit of pomp and polish. It was an Aryan dream in smart costumes and effective looking machinery.

Are ex-American servicemen going to look back at the U.S. adventures in Fascism with equal nostalgia? What trappings do the Neocons offer to distinguish their racist machinations? Wrap-around Oakleys? Kneepads and leggings? The mercenaries’ gold chains and Hawaiian shirts? And what stateside? Yellow ribbons? Cheap suits? Americans exude nothing but our simpleton arrogance I’m afraid. Yankee Fascism has probably required banality to disguise it. Later Americans will have to own up to our inhumanity and hubris with the additional shame that we couldn’t even transcend our ugliness for the occasion.

Draft the poor

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The two biggest Democrat- led events in this past century were the New Deal and the War on Poverty, and a lot of liberals say that these were the true glory days of Saint Franklin and Saint Lyndon, heir apparent to Saint Johnnie.

Fact of it was, even though Roosevelt did do a massive restructure of wealth, and the very richest condemned him roundly as a traitor to his class. They did in fact retain the vast majority of their wealth. And the main focus of the New Deal was buying off a pending revolution which would have made Red October seem more like a delicate shade of pink. The Communist party was extremely strong and organized. The anarchists were extremely strong and not so well organized. There had recently been an election where the Socialist / IWW leader Eugene Debs, campaigning from prison, had garnered enough votes in a presidential race to be included in the next election cycle.

The United States Army had recently been involved in a shooting scrape where they fired on a march on Washington of World War One veterans, who were airing their grievance that the US government had fucked them without grease. (This one I learned from that well known liberal hotbed, the VFW and American Legion)

The country was in ruins, financially and spiritually, people were starving in the streets.

People were so very pissed off they were on the verge of storming the mansions of the mighty and dragging them out, and hanging them in their immaculately trimmed trees, by their own intestines, while they were still alive. Saint Franklin saved their sorry asses.

And Saint Lyndon with the Great Society, the so called liberal handout programs the R’s whine about so much today? The ones which collectively wouldn’t amount to the amount of debt accrued just in the afhani/Iraqi conflict, yeah those programs… They were sold to the R’s as an investment in a future draft.

Yeppers. Seems the poor kids the Army depends on to go and secure the money fields for the rich kids, they had some massive health problems that caused a panic amongst the Draft ‘em All crowd. Problems that could be fixed by a comparatively small increase in nutrition and health care and education. Eighteen year old boys who didn’t have enough teeth to pass the physical. Scurvy and rickets, underweight. Poor eyesight from a lifetime of eating trash food. Ok so it wasn’t really trash food, more like just trash.

Now they are babbling about reinstating the draft. stupid stupid stupid.

Don’t they see, can’t they understand, the money the rich have today is phantom cash? Interest paid on the interest from loans made against the interest of IOUs. What are they going to buy the poor off with this time?

Democratic Party- Can you hear me now?

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If you put your ear to the wind, you hear only silence. Sure, it is only 4 days post election and today was Veterans Day, but the media has been talking about how there was some sort of revolution that occurred last Tuesday. So why so silent? Where is the voice of this revolution’s leaders, or are these merely rebels without a cause? Their leaders’ silence is deafening. Murtha, Dean, Pelosi, Clark, Obama, Slick’s slick wife? Does anybody hear anything? These are the supposed antiwar rabble-rousers, or so has been announced to us by the image churning US media, at one time or another. Can you hear their outrage and anger now, reaching a crescendo of fury post glorious victory? Pretty sad, isn’t it. Only the coyotes and the wind.
 
But really? Has any DP voting liberal really asked themselves, is this a party truly against the war and US militarism, or one that is for it every much as the Republicans are? That silence….? There is possibly some explanation that the addicted DP liberal might give. Something like this.

“Our leaders are silent this week, better to organize their resistance ahead. It’s coming.”

Yeah right. Their silence is coming, IS, and WAS. They will continue their silence when a Bush directed Israel, in the days ahead, launches the bombing campaign on Syria, Iran, and Lebanon, too, once again. The sale to the American people for war will come from yet another angle. And yet, it is the same old angle repackaged, is it not? The argument will be, that ‘we’ have to help save the ‘Jewish democracy’ from future nuclear attack by the surrounding savages. And the Democratic Party leadership will remain silent, yet regain its voice at both one and the same time. That voice, then rising up, will be the voice of them supporting the Bush Adminstration’s use of Israel as US assault platoon.

Everbody hear the silence of the Democratic Party leadership now? They are silent because they do not oppose this 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.

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.

Senator McCain fake shining armor

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Victim of Vietnamese 
Do we assume because John McCain suffered mistreatment at the hands of the Vietnamese, that he empathizes with victims of torture? By presenting a false alternative to Bush’s torture bill, McCain is showing he may just want payback.

 

I’m not so sure we should believe that McCain was grossly mistreated by the Vietnamese. When he was shot down he was assaulted by angry people that did physically attack him. He was already injured at that point from the fall of his aircraft though.

Why did they attack him when he came down? The answer seems rather obvious, but this assault hardly can be called torture. It was rage at the American criminal that had been napalming and bombing those ‘Gooks’ down below.

As to his later imprisonment? He claims he was beaten and kept in solitary at times. There are hundreds of thousands of Americans who have suffered these abuses and much worse within America’s own jails. Nobody talks about this even as it goes on massively today in US prisons. I think we all know that rape is an epidemic in US prisons, and is actively encouraged by authorities as a form of control and torture of prisoners. Has McCain ever opened his mouth about this? I think not. He certainly was never threatened with it at the ‘Hanoi Hilton’.

McCain’s debriefing by the US military was set to make it publicly appear as if the Vietnamese were torturing American POWs on a routine basis. The reason for this is that the US was systematically doing much worse to the Vietnamese they held, and a loud campaign of denunciation of supposed Vietnamese abuse of the few Americans they held was meant to take the spotlight off what the US military did in mass to its captives. Returning US GIs were encouraged to join into this campaign with their stories, many of which might well have been coached.

The Pentagon actively pushed US POWs to voice claims that they were grossly mistreated. It became a major industry on the propaganda front. To this day, it is an urban Right Wing myth that huge numbers of returning veterans were spit upon and assaulted by hippie protesters. And the campaign suoppsoedly to aid ‘America’s POw/MIA’ went on for decades, even when it became quite preposterous. No campaign for the victims of US atrocities in SE Asia was ever begun though.

Let’s face it, many people lie and then even begin to believe their own lies. During the first Gulf War, I can’t count the number of Right Wing Americans that claimed to know Kuwaitis. I think we need to take McCains’s claims of being tortured with a big grain… make that a big rock of salt. The verifiable evidence is slim that he was tortured, to say the least.

My father-in-law was tortured by police though. He later died from complications related to that torture. Remember the so-called ‘Operation Cooperation’? It launched the decades long so-called drug wars. My wife’s dad was caught up in the militarization of the US-Mexican Border, thrown in jail, and then tortured. Acid was dropped into his eyes.
As a result, he walked around half blind the rest of his life.

In contrast, McCain is running for president as a Right Wing Republican. I think he is just an asshole and not a torture victim at all. He looks just fine though a little heavy from fine dining.

McCain hardly seems like a torture victim. He’s just your typical Right Wing ex-US-soldier type that wants to be publicly hailed as a hero, even though his activities as an imperialist trooper were dispicable. I can think of a jillion other ‘victims’ of torture out there whose claims of abuse I would take much more seriously. His claims to be a ‘compassionate conservative’ aren’t much more believeable than Bush’s.

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.

Making Iraqi soldiers

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Iraqis have mastered rocket scienceUS troops are training Iraqis to be soldiers? Is that a laugh? Iraqi soldiers are already some of the most experienced in the world, many of them veterans of the ten year war with Iran and the Gulf War.
 
Iraqi fighters have shown their mettle against the overwhelming superiority of their American occupiers, twice. What do soft bellied Americans have to teach to seasoned Iraqis?

Indoctrination would be more like it. Inoculate them with vaccines, get their pledge of allegiance, record their identifying marks and family records, start a file on them, arm them with cast-off assault rifles, teach them our weapons systems I suppose, though I’m guessing not.

What ARE we teaching them? Is the timetable needed to train an Iraq security force really the time it takes to just assemble one? To convince enough Iraqis that they aren’t signing up for just one paycheck because that’s the only payday they’ll experience before they are summarily disgorged from an army bus and executed? Are Iraqi men given the choice of conscription or Abu Ghraib?

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.

Cindy Sheehan, taking the fun out of war!

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Cindy Sheehan dons our Camp Casey Colorado Springs cap.
Kelly, Pallas and Cindy.
 
Camp Casey Colorado Springs own Pallas Stanford and IVAW co-founder Kelly Dougherty marched with Cindy Sheehan from Mobile to New Orleans. Also marching from Colorado Springs were veterans Joe Hatcher, Jeff Peskoff, Ethan Crowell, Alan Skinner, and Vietnam Veterans Against the War co-founder Terry Leichner.

The March 14-19 Vets Gulf March marked the third anniversary of the war in Iraq and was meant to highlight the relationship between the misappropriation of resources for the illegal war and the woeful assistance given to the Katrina Hurricane victims. The Colorado Springs delegation left from Camp Casey on March 12.

Cindy Sheehan had sent her greetings through Andy Braunstein when he was in DC, now she’s got our peace cap. The TAKING THE FUN OUT OF WAR cap from Colorado Springs’ ragtag peace camp!

St. Patrick’s Day Parade peace infiltration

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Photos by Mike Colleta of NewsBlab
(Sarah, Mimi, Amy, Evie, Lara, Ryan, Devon, Marie, David, Peter, Diann, Amber)
 
Our peaceful infiltration of the Old Colorado City St. Patricks Day Parade was great fun. We had to scale back our original plans for using the Peace Snake and the Blue Lady in favor of giving more visibility to our green peace t-shirts. Turnout for our peace contingent was affected by the cold and more specifically by a flu going around which hampered a number of families.

We were also handicapped by having to gather participants by word of mouth only. Our fear was that had any fliers been brought to the attention of parade organizers, we might have been thrown out of the parade before it even began. As it was, we waited to the last minute to don our t-shirts and to unfurl the banners. To the parade marshall’s credit, no one found our message objectionable, least of all the crowd.

The Old Colorado City crowd in attendance was very receptive to our march for peace. We carried two messages, the first in keeping with the bookmobile cover: “Education is the key to peace.” Lest that message have been thought too radical, we brought up the rear with a sentiment meant to sound familiar: “Peace on earth, good will to men.”

Photos by Mike Colleta of NewsBlab
(Eric, Mark, Pattie, Amy F., Pallas)

Why were we so cautious with our message? The terms of the contract for participating in the parade read: ABSOLUTELY NO PROMOTION OF SOCIAL ISSUES. Stated in two places, the second time underlined. The final condition made clear that all decisions by the parade organizers would be final.

The parade was full of politicians, candidates, military recruiters and veterans groups. In fact this year there was more red white and blue than there was green. We did not anticipate that they would dare to take issue with advocates for peace, but we were taking no chances. An effort days earlier to solicit participants from a local elementary school met with resistance. Our intention to wear peace signs was deemed too political. On that basis we were not allowed to distribute fliers there about the event.

Photos by Mike Colleta of NewsBlab
(Dennis, Steve, Amy and Hannah)

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.

Anti War concept SUICIDE BOMBER REINACTMENT

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It is proposed that we ask participants to gather together in the center of the lot and someone in their midst will “explode.” We’ll use a combination of noise, streams of graffiti, flour and whatever else in the air to simulate what is now everyday in Baghdad.

Some participants will be coached by veterans who’ve returned from Iraq, as to which victims should scream, which should run, which should stand with their hands cupped to their ears, dazed.

Photographers will be permitted to take shots from vantage points on the roofs, spectators will be cordoned off, although the actual simulation might be staged outside of the expected area.

Timing will also be unpredictable. Suspected bombers will circulate interminably. Spectators will be asked to try to identify potential threats. Participants may be coached to avoid congregating in groups large enough to attract a suicide bomber. Hopefully we’ll achieve an awareness of something of the insecurity that Iraqis must live with every day.

Swiftboating Vietnam

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Patriotism the last refuge of the liar   VO: Thirty three years ago, a Republican war president Richard Milhouse Nixon, hired this man, John O’Neal to discredit a young John Kerry, who was leading a nascent effort to stop the war in Vietnam.
 
John O’Neal lost that round. Now he’s at it again.

 
This time around, O’Neal has assembled veterans who are angry because their service in Vietnam was tarnished by accusations of US war crimes.

No one said that THESE men were war criminals but war crimes were committed, of that there is no doubt. Was it John Kerry’s fault for making them known? In 1971 John Kerry and the Veterans Against the War wanted to stop the crimes and stop the Vietnam War.

Are the Swiftboat Vets really arguing today that the Vietnam War should not have been stopped?

If John Kerry and the anti-war effort had not been successful, maybe today we’d see three times as many angry veterans, minus of course some of the men standing here
who might not have survived the war.
 
The Vietnam War was wrong. Until Bush came along, we were all agreed that we never wanted it to happen again. 		  Vietnam survivors in spite of themselves

 
Was Iraq perpetrated by people who thought it wasn’t wrong the first time?

Reprinted from ArmchairCommando.com