Bill Moyers Journal May 11, 2007 "If Vietnam was Korea in slow motion, then Operation Iraqi Freedom is Vietnam on crack cocaine. In less then two weeks a 30 year old vocabulary is back: credibility gap, seek and destroy, hard to tell friend from foe, civilian interference in military affairs, the dominance of domestic politics, winning, or more often, losing hearts and minds." --Marilyn B. Young
Davidson College is a liberal arts institution founded in 1837 by ministers of the Concord Presbytery. Its 1,700 students come from almost every state in the nation and many foreign countries. A highly selective admission process brings students who are proven scholars and leaders to a close campus community in the small town of Davidson, North Carolina.
Davidson is just west of where I'm at, at present, and north of Chalotte NC. In a nice little small town with a friendly village type atmosphere.
Session at college airs Iraqis' frustration, conflicts on what to do
Four years into the Iraq war, a group of students from the University of Baghdad talked Thursday via television to students at Davidson College, more than 8,000 miles away. The Iraqi students told their counterparts that they're angry about the conflict and most don't believe life has gotten better for them.
This is what needed to be done long ago, dialog as in diplomacy, and certainly not from those we should expect it to come from, our present administration nor the congresses in power till recently. For right from the beginning we found out quickly that those who we hired had no use for diplomacy, they wanted to use the power of the military and their overinflated ego's to force their ideologies unto others as well as the sense of fear to force same on us. This started right out of the gate and well before 9/11.
Safe and sound in America, Davidson students heard anger, cries for help, and confusion over the best way forward from peers in Baghdad on Thursday morning, May 10.
Four Years Later: U.S. and Iraqi Students Re-Engage
The Iraqi participants gathered in the relative safety of Baghdad’s Intercontinental Hotel. One Iraqi student said he lives every day fearfully, noting that a suicide murderer killed seventy students on the University of Baghdad campus recently.
The Iraqis all spoke English well, and appeared to be graduate students in language, medicine, law, English, and communications.
Zogby concluded, “This group of students seemed to be just as ambivalent as all of us. They didn’t really know what they wanted the U.S. to do. We’ve unleashed a situation there that’s caused trauma on all fronts.”
Zogby will use an hour-long edited version of the exchange as the May 18 edition of the weekly “Viewpoint” talk show that he hosts for Abu Dhabi Television. It will air in North America at 5 p.m. EDT on ADTV and LinkTV satellite channels.
While I didn't attend this exchange the clips I've seen show this would be a must see for much more than the channels already listed to show it. Channels such as Sundance or better yet PBS, at a time that as many as possible can view, not late at night. I would suggest others to contact your local affiliates or the channels main offices to request that they place this on their schedules, in the near term.
To carry the student, or at least of that generation, theme further, if you haven't found or visited the following site you should. Many of us follow the few bloggers coming out of Iraq or Iraqi's living in excile. This is one more great site to see and learn the Iraqi perspective of what we have wrought upon them.
Hometown Baghdad An ongoing documentary web series following the lives of a few Iraqi 20-somethings trying to survive in Baghdad.
New episodes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Just one of their recent video's.
"Security" - Hometown Baghdad
The everyday life of the Iraqi citizen has been the great untold story of the Iraq war.
The Language
The intention of the Iraqi filmmakers and subjects was to show the world what Baghdad is truly like. That's why they usually speak English and not Arabic.
Dialog and Diplomacy, with everyone in the region, are needed but may be coming way too late now, for we've crossed the line of attempts to stop any blowback, of criminal terrorism, that may follow, but it can be minimized.
And you might also want to visit Alive In Baghdad and sign up for their newsletter.
Alive in Baghdad was formed to counter the sound-bite driven, “Live From” news model. Through the work of a team of Americans and Iraqi correspondents on the ground, Alive in Baghdad shows the occupation through the voices of Iraqis. Alive in Baghdad brings testimonies from individual Iraqis, footage of daily life in Iraq, and short news segments from Iraq to you.
Prior to our Illegal Invasion of Iraq, after the first Gulf War and during the Sanctions, a number of NGO's were working, not with the government of Iraq, the people of Iraq. They were trying to bring back a semblance of life before the destructive bombings of their country and minimize the suffering and deaths that the sanctions were going to inflict on them, the citizens of Iraq.
While only being Human Beings helping out other Human Beings one of the side effects that always occurs, but not forced upon nor thought of, is winning hearts and minds along with lasting friendships of tolerance and understanding.
You cannot Bomb others into any Ideology and Freedom comes from within ones self, in mind and soul, no matter the Government of ones country.
One of the projects undertaken can be found just below, and there were hundreds of others covering all aspects of anyones society or rebuilding of.
The Iraq Water Project The Iraq Water Project (IWP) is a project of Veterans for Peace, Inc. (VFP):, a national veterans Peace & Justice organization based in St. Louis, Missouri. Our principal partner in IWP is Life for Relief & Development, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Southfield, Michigan, and dedicated to alleviating human suffering in Iraq and many other parts of the world.
Thousands of families now have access to clean water.
Prior to the March 2003 US invasion, the Iraq Water Project sent three teams of veterans to Iraq who paid their own expenses and worked alongside the Iraqi laborers repairing water treatment plants. We were then proud to announce that thanks to the IWP six water treatment plants in different cities and provinces of Iraq were once again sending clean drinking water to more than 85.000 people. Read a post-invasion report by our IWP Project Coordinator sent from Iraq in August 2003.
Cooperative actions like above bring the people of this world closer together and struggleing for the same purposes within the differing lifestyles and beliefs. Wars create destructive hatreds and a sense of needed retaliations creating more conflicts!
Below you will find a well written understanding of what was never learned, after this country as a whole stated they must learn the lessons of so we would never repeat. Instead this country went on it's merry way of the denial of and want to never look back at what our government brought on us, and another little country.
The destruction and deaths from aother debacle, untill the present, was the Monumental Failure of Foreign Policy! We not only didn't learn the past we've created an even worse senario of Failed Policies that may just haught us destructively for the coming next few generations!
Had our political leaders paid closer attention to our experiences fighting the Vietnam War, they would have realized that disenfranchised people would endure tremendous sacrifice and struggle heroically and steadfastly against foreign occupiers and aggressors. Tactically, they would have anticipated the difficulty of fighting a counter insurgency war. How the guerilla/insurgent’s “hit, run, and disappear” tactics not only nullifies the superior weapons technology of the invading/occupying force, but also provides vast war-fighting advantage in concealment, confrontation, intelligence, and communication. They would have foreseen the frustration of fighting an enemy indistinguishable from those we claim to be liberating and protecting and would have understood that the resultant anxiety and stress precipitates a state of conditioned hyper-vigilance and overreaction in which civilian casualties and deaths become the norm rather than the exception. They would have realized that this inevitable “kill them all, let god sort them out” mentality, justified as collateral damage or excused under the rubric of the “fog of war,” abrogates the efforts to win the hearts and minds of the people and increases sympathy and support for the guerillas/insurgents.
You may want to read the whole of what Camillo has written as there are other embedded links. Than make up your own minds. For this generation must not do what happened previous, or it condemns the generations following!
This is what just one person, along with his family, felt compelled to do in the name of Human Kind and for a better World, for War is not the Answer, it's a Condemnation!
Walk To End The Wars Bill McDannell is a member of San Diego VFP Chapter 91 and he has embarked on a walk across the country in an attempt to end the war and occupation of Iraq.
"My name is Bill McDannell. I am a father of five and grandfather of four. I am a Vietnam era veteran and a former pastor of the United Methodist Church. Despite considerable evidence to the contrary, I still firmly believe that, as a citizen of the United States of America, I have a voice in the activities of our country, and that my voice can be heard and can have an impact." "On Saturday, November 4th, 2006 I began to put that belief to the test. Mindful of my constitutional right to petition my government, on that date I left my home in Lakeside, California to begin a walk that will end in Washington, D.C. I am carrying with me a petition I intend to present to both the executive and legislative branches of our government requesting that we, as a nation, declare an immediate end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." Sign Bill's petition For more information on Bill's route
Do Your Thing to End the War
On the flip side, what else has this new century and failed policies brought forth. A quickly growing Mercenary Army and the same quick growth of the needed Support from a Corporate Giant to back up that highly paid Army. Costing us Billions of our Treasury, and those costs growing as quickly as who receives them, with many of those Billions just plain lost!
Lately I've been using the signature Is 'Funding' Really For Troops? What Happened To Funding and Oversite For Military/Veteran Care In Previous Congresses?.
And saying I want to know Exactly where every dime of any Supplemental War Funding Bill is going!
We had some $439.3 billion fiscal 2007 Department of Defense budget plus the passed Supplemetals of Billions more, and President Bush’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 budget requests $481.4 billion in discretionary authority for the Department of Defense base budget, an 11.3 percent increase over the projected enacted level for FY 2007, for real growth of 8.6 percent; and $141.7 billion to continue the fight in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) in FY 2008.
Where is this money going? The Defense Budgets get requested and passed with little or no knowledge of where these Billions are going by any of us who are footing these bills, and many think there's a big bang for the buck, as to National Security, because of these huge budgets. And in the previous congresses nobody seemed to bat an eye at the extra Billions requested for these War Supplementals nor when hearing about Billions that just vanished!
How much is being skimmed off and by whom? I want to know and so should you!
William Rivers Pitt writes: "Another hearing took place on Capitol Hill yesterday that was truly chilling to observe. Representative John Murtha's (D-Pennsylvania) Subcommittee on Appropriations heard testimony from two investigators whose work has been focused on the phenomenon of private military contractors in Iraq. The first to give testimony was Jeremy Scahill, author of 'Blackwater: Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.' The second witness was Robert Greenwald, a documentary filmmaker who recently released a new film titled 'Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers.'"
Some excerpts from testimony:
I remember clearly my interview with Stewart Scott, a former Halliburton employee. With pain and rage in his voice, he asked how dare Halliburton put its people up at five-star hotels while the soldiers, who he was there to help, were sleeping on the ground. I did not believe him at first, but then he began naming the hotels and the locations. It was all true.
Another young Halliburton worker named James Logsdon told me about the burn pits. Burn pits are large dumps near military stations where they would burn equipment, trucks, trash, etc. If they ordered the wrong item, they'd throw it in the burn pit. If a tire blew on a piece of equipment, they'd throw the whole thing into the burn pit. The burn pits had so much equipment they even gave them a nickname: "Home Depot."
Halliburtan is the huge support mechanism for the quickly growing mercenary army known as 'Blackwater'.
Blackwater is an army not covered by anyones Laws, or so it seems. And if that is the case than how does one stop the dangerous and destructive behavior they may be causing. For if they are killing and maiming with no repercussions or accountibility than it makes no differance wether they are 'Private Contractors' or 'Military Personal' because the Blowback from Atrosities places All in the sights of Retaliation for the actions they carried out.
And any attempts at winning hearts and minds are completely Null and Void by any population as the hate grows from within. One simply cannot just forgive and forget for the thousands lost and the destruction that surrounds them!
This video gives one a quick look at who and what 'Blackwater' is: BLACKWATER: THE SHADOW WAR
If the Republicans lose in 2008, they will leave office armed and dangerous. Bush's Praetorian Guard, paid by YOU the people, could presage the final stage in the collapse of American democracy.
And a brief look at the hearings that should have been held long ago to put reigns on what was occuring In Our Names and on Our Dime!
Author and Democracy Now Correspondent Jeremy Scahill Testifies in Landmark House Hearing on Defense Contracting
There are over 120,000 private contractors currently deployed in Iraq and yesterday, a House panel put some of the harshest criticisms of this privatization of war into the congressional record for the first time. Democracy Now! correspondent and The Nation magazine investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill testified before a House Appropriations hearing on defense contracting. Scahill is author of the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World¹s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Listen/Watch/Read
Was 'Mothers Day' celebrated, as mothers are those who bear and bring to life All Of Us, with the above in mind?
NO!!!
It was as described below and elsewhere brought into being. Many didn't know of the reasons for, but learned rather quickly, especially in these times of repeated destructive history, the Real Meaning Of Mothers Day, not chocolate, flowers and cards, But Peace!!
"Arise then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be of water or of tears!" So begins the original Mother's Day proclamation of 1870, written by Julia Ward Howe, who also authored "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" as an anti-slavery activist in 1862.
Alfre Woodard explains her motivation to take part in the video and support this Mother's Day renewal: "My mother used to say all the time, ‘I look after people's kids, because one day I know somebody will look after my kids. I feed people's kids, because I know somebody one day will feed my kids.' That informs a lot of who I am as a mother. That I know I'm not only parenting Mavis and Duncan, but I'm responsible for every child that comes through." "Let them meet first as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace… to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace."
This Mother's Day, Julia Ward Howe's call is particularly relevant, not just for mothers, but for all women, all men, all daughters, and all sons. We are in the midst of a war that has taken far too many of our most precious resources - our children. It is a war the American people have lost faith in and are ready to end. It is a failed policy, and we are ready for a new direction.
But on this 'Mothers Day' don't only look at your own comfortable surroundings. Look and Think about the Mothers in Iraq and their Precious Children especially!
Look at the children around you and place them in the World those in Iraq, Darfur, Afganistan, Palestine, and the many other trouble area's around the world. Would you want your child living in that 'Hell On Earth', for they are all our children!
* EXCLUSIVE: Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon on the Release of Ex-CIA Operative Posada Carriles, the Cuban 5, Guantanamo and the Health of Fidel Castro *
We go to Havana for an exclusive interview with the President of the Cuban National Assembly Ricardo Alarcon. The Cuban and Venezuelan governments have repeated their calls for former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles to be extradited to stand trial for his role in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Posada was scheduled to go on trial in Texas on Friday for immigration fraud but a U.S. federal judge tossed out the indictment on Tuesday making Posada a free man. Alarcon also talks about the plight of the Cuban 5, Guantanamo Bay, and the health of the ailing Cuban President Fidel Castro.
* Commander of 1985 French Bombing of Greenpeace Ship Living Freely in Virginia -- as U.S.-Paid Arms Dealer *
Twenty two years ago a group of French government agents blew up a ship known as the Rainbow Warrior off the coast of New Zealand. On board were activists from the group Greenpeace who were protesting French nuclear testing in the Pacific. One member of Greenpeace died in the blast. Thirteen French agents were identified as being directly involved in the bombing but only two were ever convicted. Now it has been revealed that the commander of the unit is living freely in McLean, Virginia. Louis-Pierre Dillais is president of an arms manufacturer with several government contracts. Greenpeace has urged the Department of Homeland Security to deport Dillais became of his direct ties to an act of state terrorism. But the Bush administration has not moved on the request. We speak with Greenpeace attorney Deepa Isac.
Had our political leaders paid closer attention to our experiences fighting the Vietnam War, they would have realized that disenfranchised people would endure tremendous sacrifice and struggle heroically and steadfastly against foreign occupiers and aggressors. Tactically, they would have anticipated the difficulty of fighting a counter insurgency war. How the guerilla/insurgent’s “hit, run, and disappear” tactics not only nullifies the superior weapons technology of the invading/occupying force, but also provides vast war-fighting advantage in concealment, confrontation, intelligence, and communication. They would have foreseen the frustration of fighting an enemy indistinguishable from those we claim to be liberating and protecting and would have understood that the resultant anxiety and stress precipitates a state of conditioned hyper-vigilance and overreaction in which civilian casualties and deaths become the norm rather than the exception. They would have realized that this inevitable “kill them all, let god sort them out” mentality, justified as collateral damage or excused under the rubric of the “fog of war,” abrogates the efforts to win the hearts and minds of the people and increases sympathy and support for the guerillas/insurgents.
VoteVets.orgLaunches 'Generals' Ad Blitz You wanted it, you got it! VoteVets.org is today launching a three-ad series featuring three retired generals, two of whom were George Bush's commanders on the ground. In the first ad, retired Major General John Batiste takes the President on, directly, when he says that he's just 'listening to commanders on the ground' in Iraq. Batiste should know if the President is listening or not, since he was one of those commanders!
Our ads are airing in states and districts of those Members of Congress who are very close to breaking with the President on Iraq, and joining the troops and American people. They are: Senators Susan Collins, John Sununu, John Warner, and Norm Coleman, and Representatives Mary Bono, Phil English, Randy Kuhl, Jim Walsh, Heather Wilson, Jo Ann Emerson, Tim Johnson, Mike Rogers, Fred Upton, and Mike Castle. Mentioning them by name at the end, the local spots will call on them to "Protect America, Not George Bush."
Next week, we’ll launch another ad with retired Major General Paul Eaton. And, after that, the campaign will wrap up with a powerful ad from former NATO Allied Supreme Commander, General Wesley Clark. Help keep our ads on the air. We’re trying to raise $100,000 to get these ads on nationally. Help us spread the word click here to donate.
A wounded Iraqi girl is comforted by US medics wounded by a mortar shell that hit her family gathering in the tense Dora neighborhood February 27, 2007 in Baghdad, Iraq. Wounded children and adults were rushed to the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad, a military hospital that takes wounded Iraqi and U.S. forces alike. The girl had shrapnel wounds over her abdomen and legs. (Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
By TERRY MCCARTHY BAGHDAD, May 8, 2007 —
When the wife of one of our Iraqi staff members in Baghdad was preparing to give birth to their first child, she discovered to her dismay that the female gynecologist she had relied on to attend the delivery had suddenly left Iraq.
Why would a qualified doctor suddenly abandon all her patients? The answer was a sad one: Gunmen had kidnapped the doctor's daughter and demanded a $25,000 ransom.
The gynecologist managed to pay the ransom to get her daughter back, but then immediately fled the country in case it happened again.
Our colleague's wife found another gynecologist, but not all Iraqi women are so lucky. About one-quarter of all births in Iraq are carried out without qualified medical personnel present. Iraqi children are dying in increasingly larger numbers because of the ongoing war and the cumulative effect of sanctions and conflict under Saddam Hussein.
A report out today from Save the Children Fund (Save The Children) paints a dismal picture of infant health care in Iraq, where one in eight children now dies before reaching the age of 5. That is a 150 percent increase since 1990, the highest increase anywhere in the world, even including sub-Saharan Africa where HIV infection rates are soaring and raising infant mortality rates there.
For Iraqis the plunge in health care is a tragedy. They used to have some of the best health care in the Middle East, and Arabs from neighboring countries used to come to Iraqi hospitals to get top level care. No longer. Many of Iraq's best doctors have fled after becoming targets for kidnappers. Others, the unlucky ones, have been killed.
Even getting to a hospital is a challenge. At night there is a curfew, so many women are now choosing Caesarean sections, which ensure against a late-night onset of labor when it is not safe to leave their homes. Even if they get to a hospital, the facilities are now substandard.
"We have a shortage in our medicine, especially for emergencies," said Zyad Mohammed, a gynecologist in Baghdad. "We don't have monitors for babies during delivery. & We don't have the supples and equipment that we need."
Sectarian concerns also intrude. The Health Ministry is controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi army militiamen are accused of harboring anti-Sunni death squads. Many Sunnis fear that if they go to a hospital they will be targeted by Shiite militants.
And the drugs that are meant to be supplied for free in Iraq's hospitals are often diverted to the black market, so patients have to buy their medications, often making them too expensive for poorer people.
"It is very frustrating, " Mohammed said. "Sometimes I think of leaving this job, because when I became a gynecologist I thought that I could provide help, but when I see I cannot do much, I become frustrated."
In the United States, Mother's Day was originally suggested by poet and social activist Julia Ward Howe. In 1870, after witnessing the carnage of the American Civil War and the start of the Franco-Prussian War, she wrote the original Mother's Day Proclamation calling upon the women of the world to unite for peace. This "Mother's Day Proclamation" would plant the seed for what would eventually become a national holiday. After writing the proclamation, Howe had it translated into many languages and spent the next two years of her life distributing it and speaking to women leaders all over the world. In her book Reminiscences, Howe wrote, "Why do not the mothers of mankind interfere in these matters to prevent the waste of that human life of which they along bear and know the cost?" She devoted much of the next two years to this cause, and began holding annual "Mother's Day" gatherings in Boston, Massachusetts and elsewhere. In 1907, thirty-seven years after the proclamation was written, women's rights activist Anna Jarvis began campaigning for the establishment of a nationally observed Mother¹s Day holiday. And in 1914, four years after Howe's death, President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother's Day as a national holiday.
Julia Ward Howe was a poet, writer and activist who fought vigilantly for peace, the abolition of slavery, and women's rights. In the years leading up to the Civil War, she co-published The Commonwealth, an abolitionist newspaper, with her husband Samuel Gridley Howe. In 1860, she penned the Battle Hymn of The Republic to inspire Union soldiers fighting in the war. The song became a rallying cry for the Union throughout the war, and remains her most famous work. The horrors of the war moved her to campaign tirelessly for peace. She served as president of the American branch of the Women's International Peace Association, and in 1870 she wrote her Mother's Day Proclamation. Julia Ward Howe was also instrumental in the women's suffrage movement. She was a co-founder of the American Woman Suffrage Association and served as editor of Woman's Journal. Her influence on the movement ranks her alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cody Stanton as one of the most important voices of the period. In recognition of her tremendous effect on American culture and history, Julia Ward Howe was the first woman elected to the American Association of Arts and Letters in 1908. A true American pioneer, Julia Ward Howe remains one of the most influential figures in the history of both the civil and women's rights movements.
Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have breasts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace, Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God.
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of women without limit of nationality May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient And at the earliest period consistent with its objects, To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement of international questions, The great and general interests of peace.
* Documents Linked to Cuban Exile Luis Posada Carriles Highlighted Targets for Terrorism Including Cuban Airliner Downed in 1976 *
Weeks after a U.S. judge released Posada Carriles on bail, Peter Kornbluh of the National Security Archive reveals that new evidence has surfaced linking Posada Carriles to a string of terrorist attacks. Posada Carriles goes on trial this week in Texas for immigration fraud, not terrorism.
Rory O'Connor and Danny Schechter about the meaning of the World Press Freedom Day and the Award of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.
The first part of this post is a re-post, from Sat Apr 21, 2007 as a reminder of what Everyone should be watching tomorrow night. That is if you've got the Sundance Channel. If not find a friend who does and invite others, have a Gathering of Action!
Now if you know any Active Military Personal, pass this on to them especially if they haven't seen either of these fine documentaries.
A 'Special Treat' for those of us 'Nam Vets and 'Nam Era, old folk now all, follows the re-post. Found this in my In-Box this morning, a little hint "Goooood Morning Vietnam"!
CHECK IT OUT AND PASS IT ON!!! IT TAKES ALL OF US TO GET THE WORD OUT!!!
On Monday May 7th 2007...there will be an historic night of GI resistance on national television as the Sundance Channel presents the U.S. broadcast premiere of both
Monday, May 7 The Sundance Channel 10:30 pm Eastern 9:30 pm Central 8:30 pm Mountain 7:30 pm Pacific
*******************
This is a wonderful chance for millions of people to see these films that, together, link the tremendous movement of American soldiers against the Vietnam war with the growing opposition among soldiers to the Iraq war today.
MAKE MAY 7TH A DAY THAT SPARKS A SURGE IN OPPOSITION AMONG SOLDIERS AND THEIR SUPPORTERS TO THIS HIDEOUS WAR .
After all, one good surge deserves another WE URGE YOU TO GRAB THIS OPPORTUNITY.
And throw your ‘Surge’ Support behind Iraq Veterans Against the War As they grow in numbers and actions while Fighting to End This Present Day Debacle and Bring their Brothers and Sisters Home!
As they, like us their brothers and sisters of past conflicts, Fight to climb that Mountain to get what was Promised to them by the Country They Served, for it’s a Constant Battle!
As Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans have come back to the United States ready to take their sense of duty to the political arena, and continue their public service.
And don’t forget, Ilona Meaghers book:
Gets it’s release on May 1st and starts shipping! {A Note: for some reason there's a glitch in sending from Amazon, it didn't go out on the 1st and probably not till the middle or end of the month. I'm getting a June 5th shipping date for my orders. Welcome to the 21st century Capitalists Society, although this started the last years of the 20th century, Business Glitches and Extremely Poor Customer Service.} Pre-Order your copy today, if you haven’t, and start your journey of understanding and action of PTSD. Moving A Nation to Care: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and America's Returning Troops
So you can help those returning from these present War Theaters by realizing what they have gone through and what those experiances have caused many to suffer from the Nightmares of Hell on Earth! By learning more about Combat PTSD this Nation will be able to Understand and Better Treat those of the Military, and in Civilian Life, who experiance Traumatic Events that Haught them for the rest of their lives!
Please do ALL you can to make use of this National Broadcast. Pass This Information On, Make Sure Your Orginasations Post And Send This Information Out as Well... ENCOURAGE THE RESISTANCE!
BUSH DEMANDS MORE MONEY TO KILL MORE U.S. TROOPS FIGHT HIM HERE, SO YOU WON’T HAVE TO FIGHT FOR HIM OVER THERE!
NOW The 'Nam Era Treat!!
The following is part of the E received this morning:
Hi Everyone...... I told you, that unless something happened monumental that I would not have the time to send out e-mails to the size of what we have not on the VIP list. But... this is monumental. About a month ago, Will Snyder was contacted by a guy by the name of Tim Mailhot, who was in the Air Force from 1973 to 1977. Sometime during this period, Tim became friends with a guy by the name of Bruce Causey, who had a reel to reel of the only know recorded show of Radio First Termer.... and it was COMPLETE. Tim made a copy.... and somewhere down the way, was put away.... along with his reel to reel deck. Fast forward to April 2007.... Time does a search for Radio First Termer.... finds the Radio First Termer Home Page, contacts Will Snyder and informs him that he has a Reel to Reel and that he just got it fixed and could make a digital copy of the tape he has. Tim sends to Will..... Will does some audio editing to rid some of the minor hiss... turns it into a .wav file.... sends it to me.... I do some editing.... and ladies and gentlemen..... we NOW have one of the HIGHEST QUALITY RECORDINGS of the only know recorded show. I now have the 48 KBPS STEREO up on my POM Home Page. Dave Rabbit Podomatic Will Snyder, in the next 7 days or less, will have BOTH the 48 KBPS STEREO and the 192 KBPS STEREO versions available on the RFT Home Page. Radio First Termer BUT.... if you just can't wait (and it is awesome compared to what has been previously heard)... I have included the LINKS to the YOU SEND IT FILES that you can DOWNLOAD DIRECTLY from their site. The only downside to this is that my free account with them only allows for 100 DOWNLOADS of EACH FILE..... so..... obviously FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED {and when I went in seems the 100 got there first, but No Problem} would be the situation here. The 48 KBPS STEREO on POM will remain there forever.... and once Will gets them up on the Home Page... will remain there forever also. It was really a trip listening to it as it was originally broadcasted...... the existing one that has been in circulation for 36 years or so that is up now..... has about 10 to 15 missing minutes that can NOW be HEARD again for the very first time. Please pass this great information along to anyone you know who is a fan of the show. Also, please remember that this is FREE and you are welcome to rebroadcast, post or refer to it on your own sites, shows or whatever. Thanks to all of you who made this past year something very special for me. Peace! Dave
And from Daves 'First Termer Site' the Warning and info:
WARNING – EXPLICIT LANGUAGE This Is Made Possible By The Contributions Of Tim Mailhot & Bruce Causey This HIGH QUALITY DIGITAL VERSION Of The Original Saigon, Vietnam Show Is Made Possible By The High Quality Reel To Reel Tape That Tim Mailhot Sent To Will Snyder From The Tape That He Acquired From Bruce Causey Sometime In The Early 70’s And Will Converted. Since The Show Was Originally Broadcasted In January 1971, This Is The Highest Quality And Most Complete Version Ever To Surface. There Are A Number Of Segments That Have Never Been Heard Before In Their Entirety. This is PART 1 of 4 of one of my 21 Pirate Radio Broadcasts that was done from a Whore House in Downtown Saigon, Vietnam from January 1 to January 21, 1971. It is the only KNOWN recorded show from that period of time. These recordings contain EXPLICIT MATERIAL, HARD ACID ROCK MUSIC and COMMENTS about the issues of the times which were SEX, DRUGS and ROCK and ROLL. These shows were created for the entertainment of the troops that put their lives on the line EVERY DAY in Vietnam and were part of the huge Anti-War movement which was happening within the military itself against the war in Vietnam.
The following link gives you the page with All 4 parts of the broadcast, I'm on part four now {hey I get up real early in my old age, something to look forward to you youngsters}. Scroll down and just 'Click on the Play Button', than return to site for each part to Listen to some Great Sounds and Historic Commentary, A Blast From The Past The Radio First Termer Saigon, Vietnam 1971 Part 1 to Part 4 Original 1971 Saigon Show, from the Whore House, with other Podcasts as well as one of the 2006 Iraq Show when Dave took up the Mick again to broadcast to our present generation In-Country Iraq Debacle Military Personal! The Archive CLICK HERE
This is part of a May 2007 page in a mail order catalog that is aimed at working class families in the USA called “Things You Never Knew Existed.” Lots of pages feature items of special interest to people of Irish and Italian descent, and other traditional communities. Until this latest catalog, there had also been a heavy load of super-patriot pro-Bush pro-war items, along with the battery operated giant spiders and sneezing powder. Looks like the corporation selling this shit figured out times have changed, and they need something new to bring in the money. Guess the George W. Bush coffee mugs aren’t doing so well anymore.
This Debacle Must End, And Now!!
We've already passed the point of No Blowback, these Failed Policies have put Us, and the Rest of The World, on a footing of continuing 'Criminal Terrorists Actions' for the forseable future. The only way to minimize the possibility of same is for the People to come together and find the Tolerance and Solutions to that which our Governments have wrought!
Those who have brought on the Extremely Deadly Failed Policies Must Be Brought To Justice, Period!!
Indictments must be forthcoming and all the proof of the lies and corruption made public, for the World to see, and this Country to Start following the Path it likes to think it stands for, in words only, in Real Actions that those words describe!
and Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam: Or, How Not to Learn From the Past
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