War Fraud

That's right. George W. Bush has done it. Committed war fraud. Next step, the house of corrrection.

The vigil and rally to support Watada's courageous stand and garner publicity prior to his article 32 (pre-trial) hearing was a really high energy event. To me, it felt like a success. I will see how much publicity comes from it. In a just world, news like Watada's would get main event type coverage. Unfortunately, domestic murder stories are ranking precedent in many mainstream USA media sources.

For my part, I had somewhat of a revival of my high school cheerleading activities. Maybe it is because Lt. Watada is 28 years old and I am 28 years old - that I feel some sort of camaraderie with him, although I haven't even met him. But I had a good time yelling and shouting slogans and cheers to the Fort Lewis types.

Some of my chants were as follows:

Bush sold the war on lies!
Put Bush in prison for war fraud!
Help us stop the war!
Support Lt. Watada!
Nobody wants to fight for a loser - Help stop the war! or, George Bush is a criminal!
War fraud is a punishable offense!
War Fraud! - (There's something I like about that term, it has a justified ring to it.)

Taking a Stand Against War Fraud

Today, supporters of Ehren Watada, and his courageous stand for truth against the Fraudulent Iraq War, will gather near the Washington State home to the Fort Lewis military base.

If you're in the area, please attend! If you can't be there in person, please send your best thoughts, wishes and prayers as Watada and supporters speak out against the wrongs of this war and its planners.

The Bush Administration will hear the call for truth and justice today. I support those military service men and women who resist and refuse this ultimately illegal war and occupation of Iraq!

more details and info here: http://thankyoult.live.radicaldesigns.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=105&Itemid=1

U.S.A. Not Doing the Right Thing in the Middle East

This letter of petition that was published in The Nation magazine does a good job at highlighting the problems in the conflict, and condemns the actions of Israel in a reasoned and justified manner.

To extend the argument further, it is up to the USA to withdraw support off Israel, so long as they continue to pursue illegal actions and violate human rights standards.

Here's the letter with link: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060828/petition

Letter from 18 Writers
(including three Nobel Prize recipients)

The latest chapter of the conflict between Israel and Palestine began when Israeli forces abducted two civilians, a doctor and his brother, from Gaza. An incident scarcely reported anywhere, except in the Turkish press. The following day the Palestinians took an Israeli soldier prisoner--and proposed a negotiated exchange against prisoners taken by the Israelis--there are approximately 10,000 in Israeli jails.

That this "kidnapping" was considered an outrage, whereas the illegal military occupation of the West Bank and the systematic appropriation of its natural resources--most particularly that of water--by the Israeli Defense (!) Forces is considered a regrettable but realistic fact of life, is typical of the double standards repeatedly employed by the West in face of what has befallen the Palestinians, on the land allotted to them by international agreements, during the last seventy years.

Today outrage follows outrage; makeshift missiles cross sophisticated ones. The latter usually find their target situated where the disinherited and crowded poor live, waiting for what was once called Justice. Both categories of missile rip bodies apart horribly--who but field commanders can forget this for a moment?

Each provocation and counter-provocation is contested and preached over. But the subsequent arguments, accusations and vows, all serve as a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.

This has to be said loud and clear, for the practice, only half declared and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it must be unceasingly and eternally recognized for what it is and resisted.

PS: As Juliano Mer Khamis, director of the documentary film Arna's Children, asked: "Who is going to paint the 'Guernica' of Lebanon?"

John Berger
Noam Chomsky
Harold Pinter
José Saramago
Eduardo Galeano
Arundhati Roy
Naomi Klein
Howard Zinn
Charles Glass
Richard Falk
Gore Vidal
Russell Banks
Thomas Keneally
Chris Abani
Carolyn Forché
Martín Espada
Jessica Hagedorn
Toni Morrison

This letter has been printed in newspapers throughout the world, including Le Monde, El País, The Independent and La Repubblica.

Stop the Insanity!

Things are getting crazier and crazier in America. As support for President Bush, his administration and their war continue to dwindle, life in America becomes weirder and weirder! Tom Englehardt wrote:

"Only yesterday, according to the New York Times, Vice President Cheney "went so far as to suggest that the ouster of" Senator Joseph Lieberman by Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary in Connecticut, "might encourage ‘al Qaeda types.'""

We have a madman at the helm, who acts as if he controlled the land and people in dictatorship. A man who denounces terrorism while he terrorizes. A man who calls for the rule of law while simultaneously breaking it on multiple fronts (wiretaps, WMD fabrications, illegal occupation of a nation, signing statement blitz, etc.).

Frankly I have had enough. Let us strategize and organize for impeachment, conviction and ultimately the incarceration of those responsible for these imperial actions.

Check out more of Tom Engelhardt's plug for Mark LeVine's article on chaos strategy (as well as Mark LeVine's article on the Middle East Chaos Theory) here: http://tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=110345

Here is an excerpt:

...

Recently, Craig Crawford wrote in a Congressional Quarterly column:


"The rest of the world might see the Middle East crisis as a cataclysmic event of potentially biblical proportions, but in his July 29 radio address the president echoed a persistent White House vision of hope rising from destruction. While taking care to note that the killing is ‘painful and tragic,' Bush sought to portray the tragedy as an opportunity for ‘broader change' that will lead to ‘peace,' ‘liberty,' ‘democracy' and a ‘more secure' America.
"You might think that it would take a truly self-delusional person to conjure up such a bright vision for this darkening corner of the world. But the president's rosy Mideast scenario is right in line with what has become a governing principle for him. Call it the Bush Chaos Theory. The president seems to think that the best way to get results is to blow things up and then see what happens. It is sort of like what curious kids do in their back yards until they learn that somebody could get hurt. Bush enjoys unsettling things, confident in the belief that an unseen hand will reach down, clean up the mess and make it all better. Create chaos, he apparently believes, and somehow an orderly world to his liking will emerge."

Mark LeVine, who has explored Bush administration chaos theory before at this site, takes up the spreading chaos in the Middle East and gives it his own special twist. Tom


101 Uses of Chaos

By Mark LeVine
Perhaps the greatest illusion of any strategists, leaders, or generals is that they are in control -- and perhaps the most hubristic version of this illusion is the belief that they can use chaos itself to further their control, to strengthen their situation. Our world today reminds us constantly that you ride that tiger at your peril.

Object lesson one: Iraq. While the world's attention and the headlines now focus on the Israel-Hezbollah war, recalcitrant, fracturing Iraq continues to spin out of the Bush administration's control. On August 3, Thom Shanker of the New York Times reported on a blunt warning from John B. Abizaid, commander of American forces in the Middle East, at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing: "[S]ectarian violence in Iraq, especially in the capital, Baghdad, ha[s] grown so severe that the nation could slide toward civil war."

...

link: http://tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=110345

Images from Olympia

"Lebanese direct growing anger at US"

Ever since the Bush administration came to office, the world has become increasingly opposed to US activities globally. This article from the Christian Science Monitor is a stark example of how some people around the world hold the US in very low esteem. Indeed, some wish death to the USA. Why do they wish death to the USA?

Maybe it is because the USA is responsible for the deaths of loved ones.

Check out this article for more.

While the US worked on a cease-fire agreement, Israeli warships fired on southern Beirut.

By Scott Peterson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
BEIRUT, LEBANON – With his arm raised and fist clenched, Sheikh Hussein furiously expressed a sentiment rapidly taking hold here.

"We know who our first enemy is: America," he shouted before tearful mourners at a funeral Wednesday for 30 civilians killed by an Israeli airstrike on Monday. The white-turbaned sheikh led the crowd in a militant chant: "Death to America! Death to America!"

...

link: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0810/p01s03-wome.html

Was Hezbollah a Legitimate Target?

By Stephen Zunes, Foreign Policy in Focus. Posted August 8, 2006.

"Whatever one might think of Hezbollah, it didn't pose a serious enough threat to Israel's security to justify a pre-emptive war."

Civil War in Iraq

It appears that Iraq has descended into a civil war. (Not that this is anything new - just that some in positions of authority are finally beginning to admit it publicly.) This is another indicator of the failure of the US military operation in that country - really, it is a symptom of the occupation. The question, as Harold asks is, what now?

So What's Our Role in Iraq's Civil War?

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, August 9, 2006; Page A17

Of all the signs that the American people are fed up with the war in Iraq, the one that the administration should fear most was put forth last week by a longtime supporter of both the president and the war, Virginia Republican John Warner.

While chairing a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Warner suggested that the president might need a new congressional resolution authorizing our presence in Iraq, since the conflict there has become (or, best case, may yet become) a civil war.

Now, that would be one challenging resolution to write. Once you've come up with "Whereas the conflict in Iraq is now a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis," what is it, exactly, that we are therefore supposed to resolve? In an Iraqi civil war -- which is precisely what we now confront -- what is the mission of U.S. forces?

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link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/08/AR2006080800941.html

Bush Budgetary Madness: "Dangerous"

I was thinking earlier today about the predicament the USA is in with George Bush et al. in the White House. A thought came to me: George Bush is completely mad. Yes, that's right, out of his mind, off of his rocker - looney tunes. Stupid, no. Deranged, YES!

Suddenly every thing makes so much more sense. Somehow, we have to figure out how to boot this donkey and his cronies out of their roost. They are recklessly endangering the lives and prosperity of too many people.

This is part of six questions from Ken Silverstein (Harper's) that Gordon Adam, a former senior White House Budget Official, answered. It lends supportive evidence to the Madness from on high that the World is subject to with the current administration. Here is a link: http://www.harpers.org/sb-six-questions-for-gordon-adams-1154646051.html

...

5. Have previous administrations relied on such sleight of hand to fund wars?
The Congressional Research Service looked at that question and found that in every previous war, since World War II, after one or at the most two years, the [President] planned and requested war funding from the Congress through the regular budget process. This time we are doing something new and dangerous.

6. What are the implications of all this for budget planning and public awareness of how tax dollars are being spent?
Putting 20 percent of our defense dollars beyond standard scrutiny has broken the budget planning process. The defense budget that is published is incomplete and meaningless and the emergency supplementals are based on a “trust me” system. As a result, our defense spending is dishonest and out of control. It is hard to know if we can ever fix this, but some in Congress are trying. Senators McCain, Warner, and Gregg got an amendment into the defense bill this summer that would require the Defense Department to ask that Iraq, Afghanistan, and counter-terror funds be put through the normal budget process next year. We will see if that requirement survives negotiations with the House of Representatives. It is doubtful that the Administration will comply with the requirement if it becomes law; they have not wanted to project future costs for Iraq or the war on terror at all.

link: http://www.harpers.org/sb-six-questions-for-gordon-adams-1154646051.html

Israel's Military Action Undermines its Security

What will aid and abet a greater degree of security in Israel? Economic justice for the Palestinian people will. For too long Israel has held the Palestinians under the hoof of economic duress. The recent election of a Hamas government in Palestine has only exacerbated the situation by prompting Israel to put Palestine in a stranglehold.

Give the Palestinians the chance to prosper, and Israel will not find the need for a security wall, checkpoints and tyrannical sanctions.

Secondly: I am sick of hearing how those who oppose Israel's treatment of Palestinians, as well as the recent military action are supposedly anti-semitic. I know this conflict is laced with tones of religion. But, just because Israel is a Jewish state, doesn't mean that someone who is opposed to its militarism is automatically anti-semitic. I think it is simpler to analyze the situation without religious overtones. The facts on the ground are enough to dictate what is happening, without the need for religous justification or rationalization.

Thirdly, I point you to an article by Robert Scheer:

Israel’s Dependency on the Drug of Militarism
Posted on Aug 1, 2006

By Robert Scheer

Those who mindlessly support Israel, right or wrong, from President Bush on through the cheerleaders in Congress and the media, betray the security of the Jewish state. They are enablers who have encouraged Israel’s dependency on the drug of militarism as a false escape from the difficult accommodations needed to bring peace to the Middle East.

...

link: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/ 20060801_scheer_israel_lebanon/