Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer
This short preview clip from tomorrow night’s NOW episode shows a former Iraq war medic who sought conscientious objector status after, among other incidents, witnessing an innocent Iraqi man killed for driving too close to a convoy: “We’re unfortunately hurting people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. This individual obviously had no intention of harming us. There was nothing in his vehicle that was found. Yet, someone doesn’t have a father. So that’s a memory that really stuck with me.”
I heard an ad on my local radio station today, a maimed Iraq War vet asked to call your local congressman and tell him not to pull out of Iraq. The maimed vet links Iraq to 9/11, says he would have lost his legs for nothing if we pull out, invoked the safety of his kids, terror, the whole works.
It turns out, it’s by a group “Freedoms Watch”, run by a bunch of ex-Bush aides, including Ari Fleischer:
A collection of former Bush administration officials and allies launched a new advertising campaign that uses injured war veterans or relatives of those killed in action to urge a continuation of the US occupation of Iraq by conflating it with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
“We want to get the message to both Democrats and Republicans: Don’t cut and run, fully fund the troops, and victory is the only objective,” said former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer in an interview with USA Today.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/F...r_ad_0822.html
http://www.freedomswatch.org/about.aspx
http://www.americablog.com/2007...w-name-of.html
In the early months of 2006, I read about a group of Iraqi widows who had lost family members as a result of the U.S. invasion of their country. This widow’s group had organized, with help from Code Pink and some other organizations, and was trying to get into the U.S. to travel around the country and tell their stories of personal losses to the American people.
They were being denied visas by the state department, the reason being that, because they had lost their husbands and in some cases even their entire family, they lacked compelling reasons to return to Iraq. The state department people felt that it was too risky to let them into the U.S. temporarily, because there was no reason for them to return to their home country, because all their family members had been killed by U.S. forces. There was no one back there for them.
I wrote another one of my letters to Congresswoman Woolsey to bring this situation to her attention, and she took it on. She got a few of them into the country, and they were able to provide some testimony at a congressional hearing, but this was back when the repubs were in charge of congress, so the repub leadership refused to put them on their schedule. The Out of Iraq caucus held these hearings, at which some of these women spoke about their losses, in the basement of some building across the street from congress. It’s on politicstv if anyone’s interested in watching the hearing.
Their stories are heartbreaking. Many of these women lost their husbands and all their sons at U.S. military checkpoints, for reasons having to do with cultural differences around how to communicate “stop,” and communicating that they understand what is being asked of them.
The soul of our society is being destroyed by this unnecessary war that BushCo got us into. Heaven help us.
here’s one for all you dems that can’t see the light of day…Hillary Clinton has acquired a near-lock on the Democratic establishment in the nation’s capital…it’s called peak oil, and if you want to know which way the fascism blows all you have to do is follow the money.
Peak Oil
Gore’s $30,000/Yr. electic and gas bill is pretty inconvenient as well.
OTG
That article is from back in February and Gore has explained since that he pays a huge premium for his power because he insists it come from clean sources. If yer gonna keep using that to smear him, you should use the whole story.
Do you know how much power that is in the real world? 18,414 kilowatt-hours…divide by 12= 1534.5/month
In the past year my highest power usage was in Jan. at 753 Kw… Four people living in the house. On top of that my usage is HIGH, that’s why I’ve decided to sell the dept ridden house to live in a solar and wind powered school bus. Which led to me learning what 1534.5 Kw/month is in the real word. It’s 51.15 Kw/day . Have you ever seen a 51 Kw solar display? It’s about a quarter of a football field in area. That’s $70,000 just in solar panels!!!! Gore’s got a fucking heated pool. You can do the math here.
On another interesting note—> solar is enthropically negative…i.e. you can’t build solar panels with solar energy.
Go to your grave defending these fascist assholes, but you are correct it is an old article.
OTG: Why do you assume we love Gore here? But, at least they didn’t find 3 dead guys in a house he owned…
I love wingnuts comparisions of Dems & Republicans:
Bush knowingly started a war based on lies killing a million people…but Al Gore’s electricity bill is high! STOP THE PRESSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The GOP is disenfranchizing blacks in the DOJ caging scandal…but Edwards had a $400 haircut! STOP THE PRESSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is illegal for any service person to follow an unconstitutional order. These people are only following the law and following what little moral thoughts they have left. “Just following orders” doesn’t cut it anymore since the big Nazi trials. Ever talked with a soldier that has killed entire families? They come back and feel they don’t deserve their own families. A lot of these guys are going AWOL the quick way and eating a bullet at a rate of 99 per month last time I checked.
I watched Now on PBS tonight. It was really touching. Or maybe heart-breaking is a better word.
#7–The real point is that Clinton II just locked up the DC dems, otherwise know as the liars and spyers. You might know them from their continued
supportbalks for impeachment.Make no mistake while some of the dems appear to support an actual democracy(for the sake of the status quo, not sustainability), the leadership and money(I think I called them fascist) march lockstep with the same people who brought us to war in Iraq. And so help us (insert religious reference here) if we elect Hillary, we’ll march headlong into peak oil with our dept going up, our economy going down, and our asses blowing in the breeze. If you disagree I suggest you stop by http://www.afterdowningstreet.org and see what David Swanson has said about Hillary and the war.
I addressed 99’s continued support of people who, as you should know by now, are two faced con-men hoping that ya’ll would start to see the pattern. After all it’s not like you’ll here Hillary say “Nature is our infrastructure” as it was so eagerly hyped by the faithful after Live Earth. I’d bet my bottom dollar she doesn’t say a peep about Peak Oil. The dems are as corporate or more so than the repubs, after all look which way the $$$$$$ blows.
OTG
If you’d ever so much as glanced at my blog you wouldn’t say that shit about me.
I think I told you before that I would feel good about voting for Gore IF he ran as a Green or an Independent… meaning if he did something that substantive to show he’s no longer a pawn for fascists. I would vote for him as a Democrat too, but ONLY because there isn’t anyone viable with a better shot at taking care of the global emergencies facing us. Never mind that he is our lawful president already. Never mind that he’s not even running… as of now, anyway… if ever again.
I wonder if you just go on about this because yer too terrified to keep a foot in what might be actually doable in this world, with our ridiculously short window of opportunity, or if you just can’t hold down the desire to flame out about your pet cause.
Anyway, thank you for desisting the other day when I had such a bad headache, and it’s fine with me if you just keep going out of your way to smear Al Gore, notwithstanding all the fine things he’s done and is trying to do, but do you realize that smearing him SERVES Hillary better than any other single thing you could do?
99-
I’ve been to your blog, usually once a week. I like it. I like your point of view, usually. I like your proactive stance. Don’t think I got the part about green/indy before. Point taken.
I think this revolution will rise from the bottom, like all good revolutions. If your looking for a leader, look inside. I haven’t seen one dem since the ’06 election take good hard look inside and do what is needed(Gore’s heated pool is just a perfect example, Impeachment is another), it’s all “rank and file” like it always has been, and that ain’t going to change jack shit. We need a Ghandi (cool code pink shirt). Maybe it’s you, maybe it’s me, maybe it’s going to take all of us.
I go on about this because I care. I care about my brother on his way to Iran, I care about my other brother and you who will have to deal with the effects of peak oil here at home. I care about everyone not getting the news they need about peak oil(see link above). I’m a cook, I know about food. I know about salad on the east coast coming via semi from the west coast. I know the average piece of food in the US travels 1500 miles before it’s consumed. I know modern farming in the US relies totally on cheap oil. I know that Saudi Arabia has most likely past it’s oil producing peak, which puts the world past it’s oil producing peak.
I know I’m sick of defending what should be clear as day after Bush, 9/11, War in Iraq/Iran, no impeachment after ’06 election, homeland security detention camps, miltary industrial complex, Hillary being the dem front runner for ’08, Obama being funded by board members on the federal reserve in Chi town, election integrity here, afterdowningstreet.org, and on and on.
Basically there are two kinds of people—> those that want to eat, and those that want to control who gets to eat. Who do you support?
ps-did Big Dan really call me a wingnut? That would make a great Halloween costume. Maybe Clint Curtis could wear a tinfoil hat and we could trick-or-treat together. Peace.
pss-51 Kw/day…Good God, in 20 years you’ll be lucky to have that much to run a hospital…it really makes my head hurt.
Which came first, money or food?
Which comes first, money or food?