Voices
of Note
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From The Nation, 9/15/07
Making a Killing
Blackwater's 'criminal' actions have enraged Iraquis. But will the U.S. let justice be done?
by Jeremy Scahill
It's being described as "Baghdad's bloody Sunday." On September 16 a heavily armed State Department convoy guarded by Blackwater USA was whizzing down the wrong side of the road near Nisour Square in the congested Mansour neighborhood in the Iraqi capital. Iraqi police scrambled to block off traffic to allow the convoy to pass. In the chaos, an Iraqi vehicle entered the square, reportedly failing to heed the policeman's warning fast enough. The Blackwater operatives, protecting their American principal, a senior State Department official, opened fire on the vehicle, killing the driver. According to witnesses, Blackwater troops then launched some sort of grenade at the car, setting it ablaze. But inside the vehicle was not a small sect from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia or the Mahdi Army, the "armed insurgents" Blackwater described killing in its official statement on the incident. It was a young Iraqi family -- man, woman and infant -- whose crime appeared to be panicking in a chaotic traffic situation. Witnesses say the bodies of the mother and child were melded together by the flames that had engulfed their vehicle. (continued)
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From The Denver Post, 6/21/07
Caption: This image made from a video shows soldiers helping children found in a Baghdad orphanage. Many of the boys were found naked and in a dark room. Some were tied to their beds, too weak to stand.
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Dear Daphne,
Many thanks for your sympathy & feelings towards me & my mother country. The only comfort I and my motherland will get is when our troops leave Iraq. Believe me that is the only solution to the misery we subject innocent people to. Please share the above statement & what is coming next with the Mothers Against War website.
MAX NEWS AGENCY reported the following:
What money remains from oil for food program was gifted to ZEBARI FOREIN, MINISTER OF THE PUPPET GOVERNMENT OF IRAQ & the Iraqi representative to the UN & his deputy -- 42 million. The representative falsely carries the title of DR. The deputy was given an apartment in Trump Tower with a $250,000 yearly rent. Eleven million dollars was given to Bremer to share with Chalabi and the rest of the governing council members. Because of the invasion Iraq was transformed to a country of a majority of widows, orphans, the needy, official government corruption, theft, kidnapping,killing, and complete loss of security.
According to the British medical journal The Lancet 655,000 Iraqi civilians were killed (Nov. 2006). The present estimate is 1,000,000. 95% of my family are now refugees. Only 30% of the children can go to school. 25% of the children suffer from severe malnutrition. Infant mortality is the highest in the world. Only one of eight reaches the age of five. All these reports and what follows is from the U.N. agencies.
There are five million orphans, 2 million widows and 900,000 uncared for children . Every day 400 children become orphans because of the violence and sectarian conflict which was created by us. We used the Blackwater U.S.A. mercenaries to create an atmosphere of destruction and killing indiscriminately of women and children, including university professors, doctors and engineers. These mercenary soldiers are paid by our government $900 to $9000 each soldier a day. Iraq is second among sixty failing countries.
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Mothers Against War Salutes You!
to Cindy Sheehan
Dear Cindy,
There are those of us in this country--and, I daresay, many abroad too--who, as mothers, have followed your brave campaign since you stuck your neck out in our behalf. My son was too old to go into the military, instead he is now studying for the ministry. Yet we mothers who have imagined our sons losing their lives in a wicked war none of us wanted, identify with you.
We watched as you fought the battle in our behalf and marveled at your fortitude and sacrifice. We can only express our gratitude, and our sorrow that you too have been made to sacrifice so much in your private life in the fight that you personally waged, against such odds, against the hideousness of the Iraq war in spite of your personal loss.
Thank you in behalf of Mothers Against War. (see wwwMothersAgainstWar.info). I will post this "open letter" on my web site.
In sorrow and sympathy, and infinite praise for your courage,
Daphne Stevenson Reed
305 Middle St.
Amherst, MA 01002
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Paintings and Sculptures by Hussam A. Fadhli, M.D.
Artist's Rendition of the Atrocities of the Iraq War and the Prison of Abu Ghraib, and of Actual Events Documented by Photos Taken by American Soldiers
A Short Biography of Dr. Hussam A. Fadhli
Dr. H.A.Fadhli is a highly educated Iraqi-American medical doctor and artist who is a good souce of steady and current information regarding the Iraqi situation. His website information and email address is as follows:
Fadhli Arts
Hussam A. Fadhli, M.D.
http://www.fadhliarts.com
hafadhli@frii.net
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Kucinich: Bush setting stage for wide war
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
WASHINGTON , D.C – Congressman and Democratic Presidential
candidate Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) issued the following
statement tonight in response to President Bush's nationally
televised address to the American people.
"President Bush appears to be setting the stage for a wider
war in the region. He has blamed Iran for attacks on America .
The President is vowing to disrupt Iran . He is going to add an
aircraft carrier to the shores off the coast of Iran . He has
promised to give Patriot missiles to 'our friends and allies.'
Isn't one war enough for this President? It is time the media
and the Congress began to pay attention to this President when
he talks aggressively about Iran and Syria .
"It is imperative that Congress step up to its constitutional
responsibility to restrain this abuse of executive authority
by notifying the President that we will no longer agree to
fund the war in Iraq . The supplemental budget request of up to
$100 billion would enable the president not only to continue
the war against Iraq through the end of his term. It would
give him the resources to attack Iran , in the name of
defending Iraq and the region."
"In Iraq , his new plan is a plan for more door-to-door
fighting, more civil war, more civilian casualties, more troop
deaths, more wasted money, more destabilization in the region
and more separation from the world community. The President
wants to send more troops to Baghdad , where they will work to
quell a civil war. Only a small portion - less than 20 percent
- of the new effort will be spent in al Anbar, to fight
al-Qaeda. Does anyone in this Administration have any sense
left at all? They are sending more US troops into the middle
of a civil war!
"Congress needs to take a stand against the President and take
the necessary steps to bring our troops home. We need to begin
talks with Iran and Syria -- and not blame them for our
misguided war in Iraq . Diplomacy is the only way to avoid a
widening war. If we follow the President's path of war, we
will get . . . more war."
On Monday, Kucinich announced a 12-point plan
(www.kucinich.us) to withdraw troops from Iraq , establish an
international security and peacekeeping force under the
auspices of the United Nations, and take steps to begin the
political reconciliation process, shore up Iraq 's economy,
re-start reconstruction efforts, and institute. www.kucinich.us
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Thoughts from a Famous 19th Century Philosopher
Leo Tolstoy, a Russian nobleman born in 1828, began to write fiction while serving as an artillery officer in the Crimean war. He became one of Russia's greatest novelists as well as an important religious thinker. His religious beliefs caused him to renounce his material possessions and to live a life of a Christian ascetic until his death in 1910. The following letter was written to a young Hessian named Ernst Schramm in 1899, when the Hessian army was a peacetime army and the penalty for evading conscription was death. The letter was forwarded from Darmstadt to Bavaria, a fact which suggests that Schramm left the country rather than be conscripted.
From "Tolstoi's Advice to a Draftee"
In my last letter I answered your question as well as I could. It is not
only Christians but all just people who must refuse to become soldiers--that
is, to be ready on another's command (for this is what a soldier's duty
actually consists of) to kill all those one is ordered to kill. The
question as you state it--which is more useful, to become a good teacher or
to suffer for rejecting conscription--is falsely stated. The question is
falsely stated because it is wrong for us to determine our actions according
to their results, to view actions merely as useful or destructive. In the
choice of our actions we can be led by their advantages or disadvantages
only when the actions themselves are not opposed to the demands of morality.
We can stay home, go abroad, or concern ourselves with farming or science
according to what we find useful for ourselves or others; for neither in
domestic life, foreign travel, farming, nor science is there anything
immoral. But under no circumstances can we inflict violence on people,
torture or kill them because we think such acts could be of use to us or to
others. We cannot and may not do such things, especially because we can
never be sure of the results of our actions. Often actions which seem the
most advantageous of all turn out in fact to be destructive; and the reverse
is also true.
The question should not be stated: which is more useful, to be a good
teacher or to go to jail for refusing conscription? but rather: what should
a man do who has been called upon for military service--that is, called upon
to kill or to prepare himself to kill?
And to this question, for a person who understands the true meaning of
military service and who wants to be moral, there is only one clear and
incontrovertible answer: such a person must refuse to take part in military
service no matter what consequences this refusal may have. It may seem to
us that this refusal could be futile or even harmful, and that it would be a
far more useful thing, after serving one's time, to become a good village
teacher. But in the same way, Christ could have judged it more useful for
himself to be a good carpenter and submit to all the principles of the
Pharisees than to die in obscurity as he did, repudiated and forgotten by
everyone.
Moral acts are distinguished from all other acts by the fact that they
operate independently of any predictable advantage to ourselves or to
others. No matter how dangerous the situation may be of a man who finds
himself in the power of robbers who demand that he take part in plundering,
murder, and rape, a moral person cannot take part. Is not military service
the same thing? Is one not required to agree to the deaths of all those one
is commanded to kill?
But how can one refuse to do what everyone does, what everyone finds
unavoidable and necessary? Or, must one do what no one does and what
everyone considers unnecessary or even stupid and bad? No matter how
strange it sounds, this strange argument is the main one offered against
those moral acts which in our times face you and every other person called
up for military service. But this argument is even more incorrect than the
one which would make a moral action dependent upon considerations of
advantage.
If I, finding myself in a crowd of running people, run with the crowd
without knowing where, it is obvious that I have given myself up to mass
hysteria; but if by chance I should push my way to the front, or be gifted
with sharper sight than the others, or receive information that this crowd
was racing to attack human beings and toward its own corruption, would I
really not stop and tell the people what might rescue them? Would I go on
running and do these things which I knew to be bad and corrupt? This is the
situation of every individual called up for military service, if he knows
what military service means.
I can well understand that you, a young man full of life, loving and loved
by your mother, friends, perhaps a young woman, think with a natural terror
about what awaits you if you refuse conscription; and perhaps you will not
feel strong enough to bear the consequences of refusal, and knowing your
weakness, will submit and become a soldier. I understand completely, and I
do not for a moment allow myself to blame you, knowing very well that in
your place I might perhaps do the same thing. Only do not say that you did
it because it was useful or because everyone does it. If you did it, know
that you did wrong.
In every person's life there are moments in which he can know himself, tell
himself who he is, whether he is a man who values his human dignity above
his life or a weak creature who does not know his dignity and is concerned
merely with being useful (chiefly to himself). This is the situation of a
man who goes out to defend his honor in a duel or a soldier who goes into
battle (although here the concepts of life are wrong). It is the situation
of a doctor or a priest called to someone sick with plague, of a man in a
burning house or a sinking ship who must decide whether to let the weaker go
first or shove them aside and save himself. It is the situation of a man in
poverty who accepts or rejects a bribe. And in our times, it is the
situation of a man called to military service. For a man who knows its
significance, the call to the army is perhaps the only opportunity for him
to behave as a morally free creature and fulfill the highest requirement of
his life--or else merely to keep his advantage in sight like an animal and
thus remain slavishly submissive and servile until humanity becomes degraded
and stupid.
For these reasons I answered your question whether one has to refuse to do
military service with a categorical "yes"--if you understand the meaning of
military service (and if you did not understand it then, you do now) and if
you want to behave as a moral person living in our times must.
Please excuse me if these words are harsh. The subject is so important that
one cannot be careful enough in expressing oneself so as to avoid false
interpretation.
LEO TOLSTOY
April 7, 1899
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June 22, 2006
Lt. Watada refused orders this morning to deploy to Iraq.
Now under confinment and complete gag-order without charge.
"I am whole-heartedly opposed to the continued war in Iraq, the
deception used to wage this war, and the lawlessness that has pervaded every
aspect of our civilian leadership."
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War is a Racket
an Historical Speech by
Gen. Smedley Butler
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The Case for Impeachment
Why we can no longer afford George W. Bush
Posted on Monday, February 27, 2006. An excerpt from an essay in the March 2006 Harper's Magazine. By Lewis H. Lapham .
". . . The Conyers report doesn't lack for further instances of the administration's misconduct, all of them noted in the press over the last three years—misuse of government funds, violation of the Geneva Conventions, holding without trial and subjecting to torture individuals arbitrarily designated as “enemy combatants,” etc.—but conspiracy to commit fraud would seem reason enough to warrant the President's impeachment. Before reading the report, I wouldn't have expected to find myself thinking that such a course of action was either likely or possible; after reading the report, I don't know why we would run the risk of not impeaching the man. We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country's good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world's evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation's wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal—known to be armed and shown to be dangerous. Under the three-strike rule available to the courts in California, judges sentence people to life in jail for having stolen from Wal-Mart a set of golf clubs or a child's tricycle. Who then calls strikes on President Bush, and how many more does he get before being sent down on waivers to one of the Texas Prison Leagues?"
To read the full summary:
http://www.harpers.org/TheCaseForImpeachment.html
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State of Delusion
by Paul Krugman
Op-Ed Columnist
New York Times
February 3, 2006
. . .In other words, this administration is all politics and no policy. It knows how to attain power, but has no idea how to govern. That is why the administration was caught unaware when Katrina hit, and why it was totally unprepared for the predictable problems with its drug plan. It is why Mr. Bush announced an energy plan with no substance behind it. And it is why the state of the union the thing itself and not the speech is so grim.
Read entire article
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A Dire Warning about the Probability of Nuclear War
and an Urgent Challenge to the Voters!
http://www.traprockpeace.org/podcasts_transcripts/
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US Constitution in Grave Danger
By Albert Gore Jr.
t r u t h o u t | Speech
Monday 16 January 2006
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011606Y.shtml
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Bill Moyers Speaks of the awful blindness of the Present Administration
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Photograph from The New York Times, Oct.10, 2005
Depleted uranium has been a subject very difficult to get published on. MAW member Joanne Lind would like you to get the word around. She has learned that in Iraq the U.S. military briefed press briefers telling them that "DU" and "depleted uranium" were words never to be used! Also, private scientists trying to test soil from Iraq battlefields said they would have been arrested if they were seen collecting samples.
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TO: Opinion page, Daily Hampshire Gazette
FROM: Joanne LInd, Ph.D., Sociologist
Recently I saw the photo (above) of an 11-foot sculpture in white marble recently installed on Trafalgar Square in London. Monumental in gravity, it is modelled after a real woman, who has no arms and only small, twisted legs. She is pregnant.
This sculpture brings before us a glimpse of an an inconceivably horrible future -- yet, oddly enough, a future that we are working with all our strength to create. . . .
full text
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Just as nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight. And it is in such a twilight that we must all be aware of change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwilling victims of the violence.
----William O. Douglas
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Veteran Asserts Military Abuse and Neglect
August 24, '05
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Crusade #13, Anglo-American-Israeli
An essay by Dr. H.A. Fadhli, M.D.,
an Iraqi-American doctor and artist
of Loveland, CO
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Veterans Group Issues "Declaration of Impeachment"
Veterans for Peace
Monday 04 July 2005
Go to Original
Group also announces petition to remove President Bush.
St. Louis - A national veterans' organization today issued a "Declaration of Impeachment" and announced it is beginning an online petition to remove President Bush from office for crimes committed during the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Using the same language as the original "Declaration of Independence," Veterans For Peace cited many of the same reasons to remove George Bush that Thomas Jefferson cited to separate from King George of England. And in a modern version of the signing of the Declaration, VFP announced the posting of its online impeachment petition.
"The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny," Jefferson wrote, and then added the famous litany of abuses charged against the king that VFP said is unchanged today:
* "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
* He has - deprive(ed) us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury - transport(ed) us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.
* He has constrained our fellow Citizens - to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
* He is at this time transporting large Armies - to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
* A (President) whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."
The veterans' Declaration of Impeachment came to the same conclusion as Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, when it declared " - it is the Right of the People - it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
VFP President, Dave Cline, a decorated Vietnam combat veteran, said, "You bet it's our right and our duty! Today's tyrant named George may have little regard for the Constitution, but as members of the military we took an oath to uphold that document. George Bush has repeatedly violated not only the Constitution but federal law, by invading and occupying Iraq. In our system the remedy for such high crimes is clear: he must be impeached."
Emphasizing the gravity with which Veterans for Peace takes the impeachment of George Bush, Cline concluded by quoting the final sentence of the Declaration of Independence: "And for the support of this Declaration - we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
To sign the online petition, or to read the "Declaration of Impeachment" and VFP's documented case for removing George Bush, go to: VeteransForPeace.org
Veterans For Peace is a national organization founded in 1985, with 123 chapters across the country.
Declaration of Impeachment
Issued by Veterans For Peace
Monday 04 July 2005
Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are instituted to secure the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But
"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
...all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations - design(s) to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
...The history of the present King (George) of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny ... To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
* He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
* He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
* He has - deprive(ed) us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury - transport(ed) us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.
* He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us -.
* He is at this time transporting large Armies - to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
* He has constrained our fellow Citizens - to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
* A (President) whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
We, therefore - do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People - solemnly publish and declare, That these - Free and Independent (People) - are Absolved from all Allegiance to the (Bush Administration), and that all political connection between them and (this Administration), is and ought to be totally dissolved - And for the support of this Declaration - we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."
(Note: Except for the first two lines above and words in parentheses, this Declaration is quoted directly from the original Declaration of Independence.)
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From Truthout, Friday 13, 2005
"Seven months before the invasion of Iraq, the head of British foreign intelligence reported to Prime Minister Tony Blair that President Bush wanted to topple Saddam Hussein by military action and warned that in Washington intelligence was 'being fixed around the policy,' according to notes of a July 23, 2002, meeting with Blair at No. 10 Downing Street."
Article continues: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/051405Z.shtml
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"If [another] war is to be prevented, there must be a clearly expressed willingness to go to war for certain ends, but not for any others. These ends should be resistance to aggression anywhere and against anyone, and as soon as possible this purpose should receive its appropriate organization in an international government. Wars will cease when, and only when, it becomes evident beyond reasonable doubt that in any war the aggressor will be defeated."
--Bertrand Russell
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JANUARY 27, 2005
Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts calls for the United States withdrawing troops from Iraq at the earliest possible moment.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/012805X.shtml
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