5 Years Too Many Tallahassee Iraq War 5th Anniversary observation

To commemorate the beginning of the sixth year of the illegal, immoral, and unjust war of aggression against the people of Iraq, local political activists and citizens of all stripes gathered at Lake Ella in Tallahassee on Wednesday March 19th as evening fell.


The names names of Florida's war dead were read to the tolling of a large Buddhist bell echoing through the neighborhoods surrounding Lake Ella.




Groups represented included TNJP, Tallahasseans Who think Its Time To Come Home, Vets for Peace, Vietnam Vets Against War, CodePINK, MoveOn.org and regular citizens including at least two active-duty members of the military.

Turnout was lower than expected due to a driving rainstorm. Still, approximately one hundred turned out to raise voice and witness to the disastrous (pick your adjective) misadventure in Iraq.

See the full photo album on Picassa

More below the fold...

Williston, VT: High School Students Shut Down Military Recruitment Offices
06:00 PM Nov 30, 2007
In collaboration with Iraq Veterans Against the War, students from Mount Mansfield Union High School shut down 2 military recruitment offices, encompassing all 5 branches of the military, on Friday. Approximately 75 people united under the banner, “Out of Our Schools – Out of Iraq." ...

War-making is a socialist government program, hobgoblin of the right
posted on November 19th, 2007 by Don Williams
I’m amused when far right ideologues denounce equitable health care, affordable housing and other safety net features of liberal democracies as “socialized medicine” or other derisive labels. Such offenders of language are insulted when I fire back: “There’s nothing more socialized than the U.S. military.” It’s true. Every soldier gets government housing, price-fixed salaries, government education (indoctrination into killing), health care, clothing and much more. And with an annual budget that threatens decades or centuries more of national debt to finance war in the name of “spreading democracy,” children not yet born will pay for our socialized army should civilization last long enough...

Dennis Kucinich at the SOA

Cynthia McKinney at SOA Watch Event 2007

The U.S. House Just Voted $50 Billion More for War
Submitted by davidswanson on Wed, 2007-11-14
Organizations and individuals who fail to criticize this new funding vote will relinquish the right to criticize the occupation of Iraq. If you silently support funding it, you oblige yourself to remain silent on the horrors of it. We are citizens, not partisans, and only as citizens will we survive this ordeal. If this passes the Senate (or is altered in a conference committee) and is sent to the White House, Bush will have the option of accepting $50 billion more for his ongoing crime. If Bush vetos, or the Senate rejects, or the $50 billion runs out, we'll be back in the House - and with what strength to press for an end to these bills? What strength remains after caving in completely this evening? What peace pledge? What Out of Iraq Caucus? What Progressive Caucus? What opposition party? The silence of millions of Americsns who have demanded an end to funding for the past year or for the past five years is absolutely deafening. It's the sound of our tombs. Speak now, people, or forever forget about peace...

What the hell happened to the the Out of Iraq Caucus???...

(11/14/2007) Liberal Democrats back party's war bill

3 leading House anti-war Democrats said they now back a $50 billion bill that funds the war but calls for most troops to come home by December 2008.

Their support paves the way for the bill's passage Wednesday.

Woolsey-Lee-Waters Support Bill

18 Veterans Arrested in Antiwar Protest
Submitted by davidswanson on Mon, 2007-11-12 20:30
By Tania deLuzuriaga and Charles M. Sennott, Boston Globe
More than a dozen members of an antiwar veterans group were arrested yesterday as they protested the exclusion of their message from Boston’s Veterans Day parade.1112 03Members of Veterans for Peace lined up in front of a podium at City Hall Plaza holding antiwar placards, as color guards from Massachusetts military units and JROTC bands from across the state filed into Government Center for a ceremony, sponsored by the American Legion, to honor veterans after the parade. Some protesters wore gags, which they later said symbolized the fact that, while they were permitted to march in the parade, they were prevented from carrying signs opposing the war in Iraq.

...

http://www.soaw.org/index.php

November Vigil: 16-18,2007
Take a Stand for Human Rights!

On the weekend of November 16-18, thousands will gather at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia for the Vigil and the Nonviolent Direct Action to Close the School of the Americas and to end the racist system of violence and domination that the SOA represents. Take a Stand for Justice!

After a close vote in the house of representatives on an amendment that would have cut funding for the SOA/WHINSEC, a series of very successful delegations to Latin America, and the Bolivian and Costa Rican governments’ announcements that they would cease all training at the school; this years vigil is shaping up to be one of the most exciting in recent years!

Come celebrate with us and join torture survivors, students, social movement leaders, religious workers, peacemakers, the Indigo girls, Congressman Jim McGovern, presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, the 1000 Grandmothers, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Carrie Newcomer, Students for a Democratic Society, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Veterans for Peace, Aimee Allison, Josefina Lazo from El Salvador, Jim Schmitz of AFSCME, Miguel Ángel Vásquez de la Rosa from Oaxaca and thousands more in denouncing SOA/WHINSEC-sponsored violence in Latin America and demand a radical change in U.S. foreign policy!

Guard Uses Taser on Man Holding Newborn By JUAN A. LOZANO Tue Aug 14
HOUSTON - In a confrontation captured on videotape, a hospital security guard fired a stun gun to stop a defiant father from taking home his newborn, sending both man and child crashing to the floor. Now William Lewis says his baby girl suffers from head trauma because she was dropped.

"I've got to wonder what kind of moron would Tase an adult holding a baby," said George Kirkham, a former police officer and criminologist at Florida State University. "It doesn't take rocket science to realize the baby is going to fall."...

Uncle Sam Wants…You? April 2007 NEA Today - As military recruiters continue targeting students, they’re increasingly trying to win the hearts and minds of educators. By Cynthia Kopkowski
One of the U.S. Marine Corps’ newest “recruits” is running through the mud on Parris Island, South Carolina—the training depot where nearly 17,000 enlistees submit to a grueling 13-week boot camp each year. A second later, she scrambles up a 20-foot-high rope wall and launches herself over the top. The next morning, Bethany Deckard will tuck her cheek into the cold contours of an M16 and fire multiple rounds to practice “engaging” the enemy. For the Marines, just having Deckard at the depot is a victory. Even though she will never actually become a Marine, she interacts daily with hundreds of students who might. Deckard is a high school teacher, and that makes her one of the military’s most highly sought allies right now...

A Laboratory for Latin America's New Militarism
By Benjamin Dangl Guerilla News Network Friday 03 August 2007

US troops establish a foothold in Paraguay.

Two soldiers in Paraguay stand in front of a camera. One of them holds an automatic weapon. John Lennon's "Imagine" plays in the background. This Orwellian juxtaposition of war and peace is from a new video posted online by U.S. soldiers stationed in Paraguay. The video footage and other military activity in this heart of the continent represent a new style of militarism in Latin America...

Sen. Clinton Wants Troops in Iraq for at Least 10 Years By David Swanson
On Monday, Ted Koppel offered a report / commentary on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" which can be found online with this headline: "A Duty to Mislead: Politics and the Iraq War," and this introductory text: "Democrats are telling voters that if they are elected, all U.S. troops will be pulled out of Iraq. But as Sen. Hillary Clinton privately told a senor military adviser, she knows there will be some troops there for decades. It's an example of how in some cases, politics can force dishonesty."

Well, someone is trying to force dishonesty. I'm not sure it's politics...

OFC II: Reliving a Nightmare by Paul Abernathy Sat, 06/02/2007
I can remember it as if it had happened yesterday. It was April 9, 2003 at the Dyala River Checkpoint we had set up with the Marines in Baghdad. I had seen so much up to that point, enough death to last many lifetimes and yet little did I know my tour of duty in Iraq was actually just beginning. The scenario that morning involved nearly 200 U.S. troops and well over 1000+ Iraqi civilians, all trying to enter the heart of the city to check on loved ones cut off in the fighting. We, however, received orders to prevent them from entering at all costs and as the hours passed, Iraqi frustration increased. Suddenly the large crowd of Iraqi civilians turned into an angry mob demanding we leave at once. Immediately, we responded to the riot as harshly as we could. How clearly I remember the screams and cries of Iraqis as they watched their loved ones pulled from the crowd by soldiers and marines, beaten and detained for an indefinite period. I remember how we selected the detainees, essentially grabbing those who did not appear to be intimidated by us. That morning we detained Iraqis for what only could have been perceived as walking in their own country like free men and the only thing I can remember thinking is “How can I tell the people back home what happened here?”...

Global Peace Index and Sustainability
Peace and sustainability are the cornerstones of humanity’s survival in the 21st century. The major challenges facing humanity today are global – climate change, accessible fresh water, ever decreasing bio-diversity and over population. Problems that call for global solutions and these solutions will require co-operation on a global scale unparalleled in history. Peace is the essential prerequisite, for, without peace, how can the major nations of the world co-operate to solve these issues?... (rankings below the fold)