Happy Birthday Abeer, With Tears!

Light A Candle For
Peace, Tolerance, Understanding
and For The Children - Innocence Lost,
And The Perpetual Conflict Future We Have Given Them!

America's Sweetheart: Abeer Qasim al-Janabi [ August 19,1991--March 12, 2006]





One Persons Face of The Tens of Thousands Lost in the Atrosity of War and the Atrosities of Man!!

A 'ChickenHawk' Must Have

World Council of Churches: Isael planned to destroy Lebanon

World Council of Churches: Israel planned to destroy Lebanon

-------------
ELIANE ENGELER , THE JERUSALEM POST Aug. 17, 2006

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Israel's assault on Lebanon was planned even before Hizbullah attacked and was aimed at driving a wedge between the different faiths that have been living in harmony in the country, a delegation from the World Council of Churches said on their return from a visit to Beirut and Jerusalem.
"We came back from Lebanon sharing the impression that this destruction was planned. And if the action by Hizbullah was the trigger, this was a planned operation all ready to go," Jean-Arnold de Clermont, president of the Conference of European Churches, told reporters in Geneva.
The Israeli Mission to the United Nations in Geneva declined to comment Wednesday afternoon because they had yet to see a written statement from the council, but the mission was closed by the time a statement was issued and by then no spokesman was available.
"The representatives of Lebanon's various communities with whom (we) met had all agreed that the destruction was both deliberate and planned," said the joint statement issued by the council and other sponsoring church bodies Wednesday evening, summarizing the news conference.
De Clermont, a retired pastor of the Reformed Church of France, was part of a three-member delegation made up of Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy and an official of the council who met with religious leaders and senior Lebanese and Palestinian officials.
They regretted that the Israeli government did not receive them, but they did meet with Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger. The trio, which intended to show solidarity with the people in Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories, visited Beirut, Jerusalem and Ramallah in the West Bank during the five-day trip.
De Clermont, who spoke for the two other delegation members who joined him at a news conference in the world council's headquarters, said Israel would not want the existence of a democratic Lebanon where Jews, Christians and Muslims were peacefully living side by side, because it does not want to see its neighbor state succeeding in what Israel is unsuccessfully trying to achieve.
De Clermont said Hizbullah was a scapegoat.
"It is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and not the role and actions of Hizbullah that is at the heart of the present crisis," the statement said.
"All the religious leaders in Israel and Palestine, as well as (Palestinian President) Mahmoud Abbas told us that the time has come to accept sitting down and negotiating with everybody," he said, adding that it was necessary to "demilitarize the thinking" of political leaders.
The delegation had hoped to meet with Israeli government officials and had been in touch with President Moshe Katsav and some ministers.
"There was no sign that the Israeli government noticed the presence of a delegation from the World Council of Churches, whereas (Lebanese) Prime Minister (Fuad) Siniora insisted on receiving us and stressed the importance of a spiritual message in these days of crises," de Clermont said.
The World Council of Churches represents 348 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church.
Rest Can Be Found HERE

Assisting Children Impacted by the Middle East Conflict

My name is Sonia Khush, and I am an emergency team leader for Save the Children, currently working in the Middle East




Save the Children-USA, together with other members of the International Save the Children Alliance, is working on all sides of the conflict to assist children and families impacted, regardless of religious or political affiliation. We are working in Lebanon, Gaza and northern Israel, focusing on helping children cope.
An estimated 30 to 40 percent of the civilians killed since the onset are children. Families displaced from their homes have been living in schools or other public buildings, often unable to access food, clean water or health services. Crammed into small areas, anxiety has been high, parents stressed and children scared. Children have trouble sleeping and some are exhibiting aggressive behavior as a result of the tension. Save the Children has set up “safe spaces” to give children play areas in which to spend their time and provided activity kits for children and families to use while inside their homes to provide some level of normalcy. But more needs to be done.
Please support Save the Children's continued work to help the most vulnerable victims of this conflict — the children. They have nothing to do with the politics of this region and their survival, along with their emotional and mental well-being is critical to the recovery effort.

Learn More
On behalf of the children,
Sonia Khush
Emergency Team Leader
Middle East
Save the Children-USA

WWI Veterans To Be Pardon

Papers welcome WWI pardons plan

Proposals to pardon men executed by firing squad for cowardice in World War I dominate several papers.
The figure of a blindfolded boy aged 17 dominates the front page of the Daily Telegraph under the headline "Pardoned: the 306 soldiers shot at dawn".

The statue is a memorial to the men executed at sunrise who may now be granted posthumous pardons.

The proposals are warmly welcomed by the papers, with the Telegraph saying the move reflects a welcome change.

'Honour at last'

The Daily Mirror calls the proposed pardons of soldiers shot for cowardice "honour at last" for men who today would be invalided out of the Army.

The Sun says it would remove a stain from our history, and represent victory for the family of Pte Harry Farr.

But there is a note of caution from the historian, Corelli Barnett. He tells the Telegraph the pardons would be a "pointless" gesture.

He says they were decisions made in the heat of war.

This Link takes you to their search page which has some other links related to this. In todays World these Soldiers would be Diagnosed as suffering from PTSD!!

300 WWI soldiers receive pardons

Private Harry Farr was executed aged 25

More than 300 soldiers who were shot for military offences during World War I will receive formal pardons, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.

They have been campaigning for years for him to be pardoned, arguing that he was suffering from shell-shock and should not have been sent back to the trenches.

Rest Of Article Can Be Found Here

Hundreds Of Thousands-"Gulf War Syndrome"

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS, IRAQIS, MAY BE SUFFERING “GULF WAR SYNDROME”

By Sherwood Ross

When it comes to making war, the Pentagon may be its own deadliest enemy.
Of the nearly 700,000 American troops dispatched to fight in the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam Hussein’s forces killed 148 and wounded 467.

But more than 200,000 veterans of that blitzkrieg --about a third of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf’s army --- filed claims for medical care, compensation, and pensions based on combat-related injuries and illnesses.

Either those vets have organized themselves into the world’s biggest Liar’s Club or something went down in the Gulf War the Pentagon is not anxious to disclose.
As of May, 2002, the Veterans Administration(VA) classified 168,011 Gulf War soldiers as “disabled” due to service-connected “exposures,” and 8,306 of them had died. That’s roughly three times the number of Americans killed in the current Iraq fighting.

According to Chalmers Johnson’s “The Sorrows of Empire”(Henry Holt) and the principle source of this column, the culprit is depleted uranium(DU). Johnson says the Gulf War casualty rate may actually be a shocking 29%.

The cause of the GIs’ ailments, he says, points to uranium-238, a nuclear reactor waste recycled into U.S. tank shells said to be like “shooting radioactive waste at your enemy.”

But Pentagon officials deny that DU is the cause of Gulf War Syndrome(GWS). They say GWS is more likely to stem from dust and debris scattered by destruction of Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons factories and nerve gas bunkers and/or from polluted air from burning oil fields, etc.

Because it is nearly twice as dense as lead, burns as it flies, penetrates armor easily, and vaporizes on impact, three to 10 pounds of DU is inserted into a shell. What happens when it explodes inside a tank can only be described as hell. Over 300 metric tons of DU were scattered in Iraq I fighting, perhaps 1,000 metric tons in Afghanistan, and 1,700 shot off to date in Iraq II. But does it cause GWS?
One study of Gulf War vets showed “their children had a higher possibility of being born with severe deformities, including missing eyes, blood infections, respiratory problems, and fused fingers,” Johnson writes.

Parallel findings are reported about Iraqi children. The Miami Herald’s John Donnelly wrote April 6, 1998, “The number of childhood leukemia patients at hospitals in Basra, Amara and Baghdad’s central cancer treatment center is double or triple what it was before the Gulf War”. Coincidental, yes, but does it prove DU to be the culprit?

Doug Rokke, a retired Army colonel who was on the spot in Iraq as Director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project at the start of Gulf War I, sees a connection. The officer assigned by the Pentagon to clean DU up and write a DU instruction manual, Rokke, a Ph.D. in health physics, initially believed the deadly DU-tipped artillery shells would lower troops’ combat risk.

He authored U.S. Army Regulation 700-48 to minimize DU hazards and urged extraordinary precautions. But as he realized DU’s dangers, he opposed its use and was fired. Rokke asserts the Army does not begin to prepare troops for DU hazards, and puts the number of “permanently disabled” Gulf War I vets at 325,000.
In an interview appearing in the July “Giraffe News,” published in Langley, Wash., (by the non-profit society to honor gutsy folks who stick their necks out,) Rokke says, “We must take care of the men and women who have been harmed by these weapons, and we must stop using them forever.”

“Members of his (Rokke’s) research team have died slow and painful deaths from ‘mysterious’ illnesses, joining thousands of other veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as civilians who have worked in weapons plants or lived near testing ranges,” “Giraffe News” noted. Rokke told The Miami Herald’s Donnelly that, of 100 servicemen assigned to help him clean up U.S. equipment hit by DU, 18 have died from DU exposure. Rokke suffers from abnormally high uranium levels, cataracts, rashes, joint pain, and has difficulty breathing.
While conceding “depleted uranium does have some danger, like any heavy metal has,” Pentagon spokesman Major Tom Gilroy told The Herald, the more likely cause of Gulf War illness was the release of chemicals from Iraqi bunkers during the fighting.
If it seems incredible the Pentagon would expose its own troops and Iraqi civilians to DU, recall the post-World War Two era when the Pentagon and CIA exposed millions of Americans “to large clouds of possibly dangerous bacteria and chemical particles,” investigative reporter Bill Blum noted in “Rogue State”(Common Courage).
“They did so without informing the potentially affected populations, without taking any precautions to protect the health and safety of these people, and with no followup monitoring of the effects,” Blum said.

“The Army has acknowledged that between 1949 and 1969, 239 populated areas from coast to coast as well as US territories were blanketed with various organisms during tests designed to measure patterns of dissemination in the air, weather effects, dosages, optimum placement of the source, and other factors,” he noted.
For example, in Sept., 1950, the Army sprayed Bacillus globigii and Serratia marcescens from a ship off San Francisco where it wafted inland. At Stanford University hospital, 11 patients became infected from them and one died, Blum said.
Three years later, the military released “highly toxic” zinc cadmium sulfide in Minneapolis, St. Louis, and Leesburg, Va., and in 1955 the CIA released whooping-cough bacteria near Tampa Bay. In Feb., 1956, a CIA-Army team sprayed New York streets and subways with Bacillus subtilis variant niger, Blum says. Chicago straphangers got similar guinea pig treatment later.

Also, between 1963 and 1969, the Army sprayed Navy warships in the Pacific with a variety of CBW agents, germ agents and even deadly Sarin nerve gas. And Rokke says the Pentagon has tested DU in Puget Sound, Chesapeake Bay and off the Texas coast.
What to make of all this? Well, the Pentagon has an alarming track record of covertly dumping poisons on American civilians and exposing its own troops to radioactive wastes. So are its denials DU doesn’t cause GWS credible?

Probably not. What I do know for certain is if I were to gad about strewing toxins or radioactive wastes on the public streets wouldn’t visitors to my jail cell be right to ask me, “How could you do that to your fellow Americans? Are you crazy?”
#
(Sherwood Ross writes for newspapers and magazines. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com).

First Lieutenant Ehren Watada at VFP Conferance

At the 2006 VFP National Convention in Seattle, with this link taking you to VFP Chapter 125's page of pics, video and speech text.

Video was taken with a digital camera by VFP Greater Atlanta Chp. 125 member, Debbie Clark , not a professional filmmaker, and is not of professional quality {actually Debbie is being modest, the video feed isn't bad at all}. Video was unfortunately taken in segments due to the limitations of the digital camera and cut a little short due to the memory card getting full before the end of the speech. However, most of the speech is there and the full text of the speech is also below. {Visit Site Link, HERE For Full Text Of Speech}

VIDEO OF LT WATADA'S SPEECH

, link for download.

FULL TEXT OF 1LT EHREN WATADA'S SPEECH AT THE VFP CONVENTION IN SEATTLE, AUGUST 12, 2006, Can Be Found HERE


Lt. Watada's Mother: My Son Needs Your Support

Carolyn Ho, mother of conscientious objector Lt. Ehren Watada, asks for support during her son's pre-trial hearing on Aug 17 and 18. "Whether or not he is permitted to submit evidence supporting his refusal to deploy and his first amendment rights remains to be seen," she says. "Nevertheless, the military must know that the world is watching and that justice must be served."

172nd Betrayed Again

Stryker families grapple with emotions
RECALL TO IRAQ: Troops who came home are being sent to rejoin their brigade.
By LISA DEMER
Anchorage Daily News
Published: August 15, 2006

More than 300 soldiers from the 172nd Stryker Brigade who returned to Alaska earlier this summer after a year of war duty are being shipped back to Iraq, this time to the dangerous capital of Baghdad.

The above came after this already known Pentagon Action:

Army brigade from Alaska absorbs news that many soldiers may not be going home soon

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) Staff Sgt. Brian Bock learned a mere two hours before boarding a flight for home that his tour in Iraq had been extended at least four months.
He may not have made it back to Alaska, but many of his belongings did. The boxes the 172nd Stryker Brigade officer had mailed home in advance kept showing up at the Fort Wainwright post office.
``We got one of his big black trunks two days after getting the news and my daughter said, 'I wish daddy was in there,''' his wife, Jennifer Bock, said Monday.

Combat stress is a normal response NOT a disorder (PTSD) says Col. Terry Washam
Posted By Posted By Robert Hanafin
Retired Major Hanafin takes this little Col. to the 'Woodshed, letting all know just where, and why, this is coming from!



Governors Oppose Federal Control of Guard

The nation's governors, protesting what they call an unprecedented shift in authority from the states to the federal government, will urge Congress today to block legislation that would allow the president to take control of National Guard forces in the event of a natural disaster or a threat to homeland security.

Fight mental illness stigma

A debate has emerged as to whether military personnel returning from Iraq suffering from post-traumatic stress are getting the treatment they need for their emotional and psychological problems.

Fort Lewis Army Rangers Arrested for Robbery of Bank America

Three Fort Lewis, Wash., soldiers have been charged in a south Tacoma bank robbery earlier this week. Two soldiers have been arrested and the third was sought on a warrant, the FBI said Thursday. The trio are members of the Army’s elite Rangers unit at Fort Lewis, The Seattle Times reported, adding the bank lost $54,000.

Number Of Iraqi Civilians Slaughtered In America's War? As Many As 250,000

Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In Bush's War 2597

The War in Iraq Costs $305,969,558,884 See the cost in your community



Fear and Smear
By William Greider

An evil symbiosis does exist between Muslim terrorists and American politicians, but it is not the one Republicans describe. The jihadists need George W. Bush to sustain their cause. His bloody crusade in the Middle East bolsters their accusation that America is out to destroy Islam. The president has unwittingly made himself the lead recruiter of willing young martyrs.

Gullible Americans
Paul Craig Roberts

The two co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission Report, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, have just released a new book, "Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission." Kean and Hamilton reveal that the commission suppressed the fact that Muslim ire toward the US is due to US support for Israel's persecution and dispossession of the Palestinians, not to our "freedom and democracy" as Bush propagandistically claims.

Bernard Weiner |
John Dean Book Review: The Fast Lane to Fascism

"'How does the Bush administration get away with it?' And: 'How come, no matter what scandal or embarrassment or disaster Bush&Co. get enmeshed in, one third of the population still supports them?' ... With the publication of former White House counsel John W. Dean's compelling new book, 'Conservatives Without Conscience,' we now have more of a framework for understanding what drives the Busheviks, and why so many continue to stand behind them," writes Bernard Weiner.

Ehren Watada

Ehren Watada

By Dahr Jamail
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 14 August 2006

On Saturday night, I was lucky enough to be at the Veterans for Peace National Convention. For that night, Lt. Ehren Watada was able to give the following speech, which I've just received permission to post here. The speech was met with a powerful, standing ovation from the vets who've been there.

Lt. Ehren Watada, for those who don't already know, became the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse deployment to the unlawful war and occupation in Iraq. While doing this on June 22, 2006, Watada said, "As the order to take part in an illegal act is ultimately unlawful as well, I must refuse that order."

Just as Watada took the stage and began to speak, over 50 members of Iraq Veterans Against the War filed in behind him. Watada, surprised by this and obviously taken aback by the symbolic act, turned back to the audience, took some deep breaths, then gave this speech:

Thank you everyone. Thank you all for your tremendous support. How honored and delighted I am to be in the same room with you tonight. I am deeply humbled by being in the company of such wonderful speakers.

You are all true American patriots. Although long since out of uniform, you continue to fight for the very same principles you once swore to uphold and defend. No one knows the devastation and suffering of war more than veterans - which is why we should always be the first to prevent it.

I wasn't entirely sure what to say tonight. I thought as a leader in general I should speak to motivate. Now I know that this isn't the military and surely there are many out there who outranked me at one point or another - and yes, I'm just a Lieutenant. And yet, I feel as though we are all citizens of this great country and what I have to say is not a matter of authority - but from one citizen to another. We have all seen this war tear apart our country over the past three years. It seems as though nothing we've done, from vigils to protests to letters to Congress, have had any effect in persuading the powers that be. Tonight I will speak to you on my ideas for a change of strategy. I am here tonight because I took a leap of faith. My action is not the first and it certainly will not be the last. Yet, on behalf of those who follow, I require your help - your sacrifice - and that of countless other Americans. I may fail. We may fail. But nothing we have tried has worked so far. It is time for change and the change starts with all of us.

I stand before you today, not as an expert - not as one who pretends to have all the answers. I am simply an American and a servant of the American people. My humble opinions today are just that. I realize that you may not agree with everything I have to say. However, I did not choose to be a leader for popularity. I did it to serve and make better the soldiers of this country. And I swore to carry out this charge honorably under the rule of law.

Today, I speak with you about a radical idea. It is one born from the very concept of the American soldier (or service member). It became instrumental in ending the Vietnam War - but it has been long since forgotten. The idea is this: that to stop an illegal and unjust war, the soldiers can choose to stop fighting it.

Now it is not an easy task for the soldier. For he or she must be aware that they are being used for ill-gain. They must hold themselves responsible for individual action. They must remember duty to the Constitution and the people supersedes the ideologies of their leadership. The soldier must be willing to face ostracism by their peers, worry over the survival of their families, and of course the loss of personal freedom. They must know that resisting an authoritarian government at home is equally important to fighting a foreign aggressor on the battlefield. Finally, those wearing the uniform must know beyond any shadow of a doubt that by refusing immoral and illegal orders they will be supported by the people not with mere words but by action.

The American soldier must rise above the socialization that tells them authority should always be obeyed without question. Rank should be respected but never blindly followed. Awareness of the history of atrocities and destruction committed in the name of America - either through direct military intervention or by proxy war - is crucial. They must realize that this is a war not out of self-defense but by choice, for profit and imperialistic domination. WMD, ties to Al Qaeda, and ties to 9/11 never existed and never will. The soldier must know that our narrowly and questionably elected officials intentionally manipulated the evidence presented to Congress, the public, and the world to make the case for war. They must know that neither Congress nor this administration has the authority to violate the prohibition against pre-emptive war - an American law that still stands today. This same administration uses us for rampant violations of time-tested laws banning torture and degradation of prisoners of war. Though the American soldier wants to do right, the illegitimacy of the occupation itself, the policies of this administration, and rules of engagement of desperate field commanders will ultimately force them to be party to war crimes. They must know some of these facts, if not all, in order to act.

Mark Twain once remarked, "Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country …" By this, each and every American soldier, marine, airman, and sailor is responsible for their choices and their actions. The freedom to choose is only one that we can deny ourselves.

The oath we take swears allegiance not to one man but to a document of principles and laws designed to protect the people. Enlisting in the military does not relinquish one's right to seek the truth - neither does it excuse one from rational thought nor the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. "I was only following orders" is never an excuse.

The Nuremburg Trials showed America and the world that citizenry as well as soldiers have the unrelinquishable obligation to refuse complicity in war crimes perpetrated by their government. Widespread torture and inhumane treatment of detainees is a war crime. A war of aggression born through an unofficial policy of prevention is a crime against the peace. An occupation violating the very essence of international humanitarian law and sovereignty is a crime against humanity. These crimes are funded by our tax dollars. Should citizens choose to remain silent through self-imposed ignorance or choice, it makes them as culpable as the soldier in these crimes.

The Constitution is no mere document - neither is it old, out-dated, or irrelevant. It is the embodiment of all that Americans hold dear: truth, justice, and equality for all. It is the formula for a government of the people and by the people. It is a government that is transparent and accountable to whom they serve. It dictates a system of checks and balances and separation of powers to prevent the evil that is tyranny.

As strong as the Constitution is, it is not foolproof. It does not fully take into account the frailty of human nature. Profit, greed, and hunger for power can corrupt individuals as much as they can corrupt institutions. The founders of the Constitution could not have imagined how money would infect our political system. Neither could they believe a standing army would be used for profit and manifest destiny. Like any common dictatorship, soldiers would be ordered to commit acts of such heinous nature as to be deemed most ungentlemanly and unbecoming that of a free country.

The American soldier is not a mercenary. He or she does not simply fight wars for payment. Indeed, the state of the American soldier is worse than that of a mercenary. For a soldier-for-hire can walk away if they are disgusted by their employer's actions. Instead, especially when it comes to war, American soldiers become indentured servants whether they volunteer out of patriotism or are drafted through economic desperation. Does it matter what the soldier believes is morally right? If this is a war of necessity, why force men and women to fight? When it comes to a war of ideology, the lines between right and wrong are blurred. How tragic it is when the term Catch-22 defines the modern American military.

Aside from the reality of indentured servitude, the American soldier in theory is much nobler. Soldier or officer, when we swear our oath it is first and foremost to the Constitution and its protectorate, the people. If soldiers realized this war is contrary to what the Constitution extols - if they stood up and threw their weapons down - no President could ever initiate a war of choice again. When we say, "… Against all enemies foreign and domestic," what if elected leaders became the enemy? Whose orders do we follow? The answer is the conscience that lies in each soldier, each American, and each human being. Our duty to the Constitution is an obligation, not a choice.

The military, and especially the Army, is an institution of fraternity and close-knit camaraderie. Peer pressure exists to ensure cohesiveness but it stamps out individualism and individual thought. The idea of brotherhood is difficult to pull away from if the alternative is loneliness and isolation. If we want soldiers to choose the right but difficult path - they must know beyond any shadow of a doubt that they will be supported by Americans. To support the troops who resist, you must make your voices heard. If they see thousands supporting me, they will know. I have heard your support, as has Suzanne Swift, and Ricky Clousing - but many others have not. Increasingly, more soldiers are questioning what they are being asked to do. Yet, the majority lack awareness to the truth that is buried beneath the headlines. Many more see no alternative but to obey. We must show open-minded soldiers a choice and we must give them courage to act.

Three weeks ago, Sgt. Hernandez from the 172nd Stryker Brigade was killed, leaving behind a wife and two children. In an interview, his wife said he sacrificed his life so that his family could survive. I'm sure Sgt. Hernandez cherished the camaraderie of his brothers, but given a choice, I doubt he would put himself in a position to leave his family husbandless and fatherless. Yet that's the point, you see. People like Sgt. Hernandez don't have a choice. The choices are to fight in Iraq or let your family starve. Many soldiers don't refuse this war en mass because, like all of us,, they value their families over their own lives and perhaps their conscience. Who would willingly spend years in prison for principle and morality while denying their family sustenance?

I tell this to you because you must know that to stop this war, for the soldiers to stop fighting it, they must have the unconditional support of the people. I have seen this support with my own eyes. For me it was a leap of faith. For other soldiers, they do not have that luxury. They must know it and you must show it to them. Convince them that no matter how long they sit in prison, no matter how long this country takes to right itself, their families will have a roof over their heads, food in their stomachs, opportunities and education. This is a daunting task. It requires the sacrifice of all of us. Why must Canadians feed and house our fellow Americans who have chosen to do the right thing? We should be the ones taking care of our own. Are we that powerless - are we that unwilling to risk something for those who can truly end this war? How do you support the troops but not the war? By supporting those who can truly stop it; let them know that resistance to participate in an illegal war is not futile and not without a future.

I have broken no law but the code of silence and unquestioning loyalty. If I am guilty of any crime, it is that I learned too much and cared too deeply for the meaningless loss of my fellow soldiers and my fellow human beings. If I am to be punished it should be for following the rule of law over the immoral orders of one man. If I am to be punished it should be for not acting sooner. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period … was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

Now, I'm not a hero. I am a leader of men who said enough is enough. Those who called for war prior to the invasion compared diplomacy with Saddam to the compromises made with Hitler. I say, we compromise now by allowing a government that uses war as the first option instead of the last to act with impunity. Many have said this about the World Trade Towers, "Never Again." I agree. Never again will we allow those who threaten our way of life to reign free - be they terrorists or elected officials. The time to fight back is now - the time to stand up and be counted is today.

I'll end with one more Martin Luther King Jr. quote:

One who breaks an unjust law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Thank you and bless you all.

The only thing Watada said that I would disagree with is that he claimed that he is not a hero. He is a leader, yet again, by taking this stance. And he may never know how many lives he has already touched.

Today, it is up to the anti-war movement to make sure his leadership touches as many soldiers' lives in Iraq as possible. Watada is making his stand. He needs continued support.

As he said, if more American soldiers in Iraq know that they, along with their families, will be supported if they stand up against this illegal occupation, countless more will follow, and this repulsive war will end.



-------
Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who has reported for the Guardian, the Independent, and the Sunday Herald. He now writes regularly for Inter Press Service and Truthout. He maintains a web site at Dahr Jamail Mideast Dispatches .
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Ava - "Progress" In Iraq

New PeaceTakesCourage Video: "Progress" in Iraq



Watch the video:
WMP
or Quicktime

bush Part Of Planned Lebanon War Months Before

CNN & New Yorker - bush Planned Lebanon War Months Before

Seymour Hersh is one of the last Great 'True Investigative Journalist, from the days gone by, where News and Journalism was Respected and Investigative Reporters brought forth, to the people, what was Needed as to Checks and Balances in a True Democracy, something we've only been close to but haven't achieved!!



This type of Journalism is what the younger generations should be aspiring to but seem to be too Afraid for the Greater Majority that are in the Journalist field today!!
Pretty Faces, as anchors/reporters, on our many so called News Outlets, 24/7, Are Not Bringing The People The 'Real News' nor doing the 'Journalistic Profession' the justice it deserves and once held!!!!!!!

Prayer For Peace

Sickened Iraq vets cite depleted uranium

Herbert Reed, 52, a veteran of Iraq, sits at the kitchen table of his home with the medicines and medical records that he keeps with him Wednesday, May 17, 2006, in Columbia, S.C. Reed was exposed to radioactive depleted uranium while serving a few months with the 442nd Military Police out of New York. (AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain)


By Deborah Hastings, AP National Writer | August 12, 2006

NEW YORK --It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills -- morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves.

Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done.

Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.

There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military's new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick.

In the sprawling bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, he has many caretakers. An internist, a neurologist, a pain-management specialist, a psychologist, an orthopedic surgeon and a dermatologist. He cannot function without his stupefying arsenal of medications, but they exact a high price.

"I'm just a zombie walking around," he says.

Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon's arsenal of it -- thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.

A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The U.S. has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.

Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs in his spine. Then began a strange series of symptoms he'd never experienced in his previously healthy life.

At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C, he ran into a buddy from his unit. And another, and another, and in the tedium of hospital life between doctor visits and the dispensing of meds, they began to talk.

"We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says. "The doctors said, 'It's all in your head.' "

Then the medic from their unit showed up. He too, was suffering. That made eight sick soldiers from the 442nd Military Police, an Army National Guard unit made up of mostly cops and correctional officers from the New York area.

But the medic knew something the others didn't.

Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings. They'd brought radiation-detection devices. The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins.

"We got on the Internet," Reed said, "and we started researching depleted uranium."

Then they contacted The New York Daily News, which paid for sophisticated urine tests available only overseas.

Then they hired a lawyer.

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Reed, Gerard Matthew, Raymond Ramos, Hector Vega, Augustin Matos, Anthony Yonnone, Jerry Ojeda and Anthony Phillip all have depleted uranium in their urine, according to tests done in December 2003, while they bounced for months between Walter Reed and New Jersey's Fort Dix medical center, seeking relief that never came.

The analyses were done in Germany, by a Frankfurt professor who developed a depleted uranium test with Randall Parrish, a professor of isotope geology at the University of Leicester in Britain.

The veterans, using their positive results as evidence, have sued the U.S. Army, claiming officials knew the hazards of depleted uranium, but concealed the risks.

The Department of Defense says depleted uranium is powerful and safe, and not that worrisome.

Four of the highest-registering samples from Frankfurt were sent to the VA. Those results were negative, Reed said. "Their test just isn't as sophisticated," he said. "And when we first asked to be tested, they told us there wasn't one. They've lied to us all along."

The VA's testing methodology is safe and accurate, the agency says. More than 2,100 soldiers from the current war have asked to be tested; only 8 had DU in their urine, the VA said.

The term depleted uranium is linguistically radioactive. Simply uttering the words can prompt a reaction akin to preaching atheism at tent revival. Heads shake, eyes roll, opinions are yelled from all sides.

"The Department of Defense takes the position that you can eat it for breakfast and it poses no threat at all," said Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center, which helps veterans with various problems, including navigating the labyrinth of VA health care. "Then you have far-left groups that ... declare it a crime against humanity."

Several countries use it as weaponry, including Britain, which fired it during the 2003 Iraq invasion.

An estimated 286 tons of DU munitions were fired by the U.S. in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. An estimated 130 tons were shot toppling Saddam Hussein.

Depleted uranium can enter the human body by inhalation, the most dangerous method; by ingesting contaminated food or eating with contaminated hands; by getting dust or debris in an open wound, or by being struck by shrapnel, which often is not removed because doing so would be more dangerous than leaving it.

Inhaled, it can lodge in the lungs. As with imbedded shrapnel, this is doubly dangerous -- not only are the particles themselves physically destructive, they emit radiation.

A moderate voice on the divisive DU spectrum belongs to Dan Fahey, a doctoral student at the University of California at Berkeley, who has studied the issue for years and also served in the Gulf War before leaving the military as a conscientious objector.

"I've been working on this since '93 and I've just given up hope," he said. "I've spoken to successive federal committees and elected officials ... who then side with the Pentagon. Nothing changes."

At the other end are a collection of conspiracy-theorists and Internet proselytizers who say using such weapons constitutes genocide. Two of the most vocal opponents recently suggested that a depleted-uranium missile, not a hijacked jetliner, struck the Pentagon in 2001.

"The bottom line is it's more hazardous than the Pentagon admits," Fahey said, "but it's not as hazardous as the hard-line activist groups say it is. And there's a real dearth of information about how DU affects humans."

There are several studies on how it affects animals, though their results are not, of course, directly applicable to humans. Military research on mice shows that depleted uranium can enter the bloodstream and come to rest in bones, the brain, kidneys and lymph nodes. Other research in rats shows that DU can result in cancerous tumors and genetic mutations, and pass from mother to unborn child, resulting in birth defects.

Iraqi doctors reported significant increases in birth defects and childhood cancers after the 1991 invasion.

Iraqi authorities "found that uranium, which affected the blood cells, had a serious impact on health: The number of cases of leukemia had increased considerably, as had the incidence of fetal deformities," the U.N. reported.

Depleted uranium can also contaminate soil and water, and coat buildings with radioactive dust, which can by carried by wind and sandstorms.

In 2005, the U.N. Environmental Program identified 311 polluted sites in Iraq. Cleaning them will take at least $40 million and several years, the agency said. Nothing can start until the fighting stops.

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Fifteen years after it was first used in battle, there is only one U.S. government study monitoring veterans exposed to depleted uranium.

Number of soldiers in the survey: 32. Number of soldiers in both Iraq wars: more than 900,000.

The study group's size is controversial -- far too small, say experts including Fahey -- and so are the findings of the voluntary, Baltimore-based study.

It has found "no clinically significant" health effects from depleted uranium exposure in the study subjects, according to its researchers.

Critics say the VA has downplayed participants' health problems, including not reporting one soldier who developed cancer, and another who developed a bone tumor.

So for now, depleted uranium falls into the quagmire of Gulf War Syndrome, from which no treatment has emerged despite the government's spending of at least $300 million.

About 30 percent of the 700,000 men and women who served in the first Gulf War still suffer a baffling array of symptoms very similar to those reported by Reed's unit.

Depleted uranium has long been suspected as a possible contributor to Gulf War Syndrome, and in the mid-90s, veterans helped push the military into tracking soldiers exposed to it.

But for all their efforts, what they got in the end was a questionnaire dispensed to homeward-bound soldiers asking about mental health, nightmares, losing control, exposure to dangerous and radioactive chemicals.

But, the veterans persisted, how would soldiers know they'd been exposed? Radiation is invisible, tasteless, and has no smell. And what exhausted, homesick, war-addled soldier would check a box that would only send him or her to a military medical center to be poked and prodded and questioned and tested?

It will take years to determine how depleted uranium affected soldiers from this war. After Vietnam, veterans, in numbers that grew with the passage of time, complained of joint aches, night sweats, bloody feces, migraine headaches, unexplained rashes and violent behavior; some developed cancers.

It took more than 25 years for the Pentagon to acknowledge that Agent Orange -- a corrosive defoliant used to melt the jungles of Vietnam and flush out the enemy -- was linked to those sufferings.

It took 40 years for the military to compensate sick World War II vets exposed to massive blasts of radiation during tests of the atomic bomb.

In 2002, Congress voted to not let that happen again.

It established the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses -- comprised of scientists, physicians and veterans advocates. It reports to the secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Its mandate is to judge all research and all efforts to treat Gulf War Syndrome patients against a single standard: Have sick soldiers been made better?

The answer, according to the committee, is no.

"Regrettably, after four years of operation neither the Committee nor (the) VA can report progress toward this goal," stated its December 2005 report. "Research has not produced effective treatments for these conditions nor shown that existing treatments are significantly effective."

And so time marches on, as do soldiers going to, and returning from, the deserts of Iraq.

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Herbert Reed is an imposing man, broad shouldered and tall. He strides into the VA Medical Center in the Bronx with the presence of a cop or a soldier. Since the Vietnam War, he has been both.

His hair is perfect, his shirt spotless, his jeans sharply creased. But there is something wrong, a niggling imperfection made more noticeable by a bearing so disciplined. It is a limp -- more like a hitch in his get-along.

It is the only sign, albeit a tiny one, that he is extremely sick.

Even sleep offers no release. He dreams of gunfire and bombs and soldiers who scream for help. No matter how hard he tries, he never gets there in time.

At 54, he is a veteran of two wars and a 20-year veteran of the New York Police Department, where he last served as an assistant warden at the Riker's Island prison.

He was in perfect health, he says, before being deployed to Iraq.

According to military guidelines, he should have heard the words depleted uranium long before he ended up at Walter Reed. He should have been trained about its dangers, and how to avoid prolonged exposure to its toxicity and radioactivity. He says he didn't get anything of the kind. Neither did other reservists and National Guard soldiers called up for the current war, according to veterans' groups.

Reed and the seven brothers from his unit hate what has happened to them, and they speak of it at public seminars and in politicians' offices. It is something no VA doctor can explain; something that leaves them feeling like so many spent shell rounds, kicked to the side of battle.

But for every outspoken soldier like them, there are silent veterans like Raphael Naboa, an Army artillery scout who served 11 months in the northern Sunni Triangle, only to come home and fall apart.

Some days he feels fine. "Some days I can't get out of bed," he said from his home in Colorado.

Now 29, he's had growths removed from his brain. He has suffered a small stroke -- one morning he was shaving, having put down the razor to rinse his face. In that moment, he blacked out and pitched over.

"Just as quickly as I lost consciousness, I regained it," he said. "Except I couldn't move the right side of my body."

After about 15 minutes, the paralysis ebbed.

He has mentioned depleted uranium to his VA doctors, who say he suffers from a series of "non-related conditions." He knows he was exposed to DU.

"A lot of guys went trophy-hunting, grabbing bayonets, helmets, stuff that was in the vehicles that were destroyed by depleted uranium. My guys were rooting around in it. I was trying to get them out of the vehicles."

No one in the military talked to him about depleted uranium, he said. His knowledge, like Reed's, is self-taught from the Internet.

Unlike Reed, he has not gone to war over it. He doesn't feel up to the fight. There is no known cure for what ails him, and so no possible victory in battle.

He'd really just like to feel normal again. And he knows of others who feel the same.

"I was an artillery scout, these are folks who are in pretty good shape. Your Rangers, your Special Forces guys, they're in as good as shape as a professional athlete.

"Then we come back and we're all sick."

They feel like men who once were warriors and now are old before their time, with no hope for relief from a multitude of miseries that has no name.

Freedom Park Rally, Charlotte NC, 8-12-06

Though smaller than it would have been, some people went up to DC for that National Rally {there was also a pre-season Pathers home game and a major concert, priorities you know}, it was Well Received as a prelude to an 'Impeachment Rally' that will be held in the same park on Sept. 30th with National Speakers.

Below are two photo's of the Memorial for those who have been Killed in Iraq/Afganistan from North Carolina:







The two above, plus 14 others can be viewed HERE