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letter to the editor, Austin American Statesman, 12/8/08

December 8, 2008 – 10:11 pm
    Recent letters praising the military for protecting our “freedoms” show little understanding of its true purpose, that being, protecting resource exploitation. As a Vietnam vet I have endeavored for years to understand why I let myself be exploited to fight a war based on lies. My study has helped me understand that war has always been based in commerce, greed and fear. The original definition of “war” is, to bring to confusion. Truth is the cure for confusion and sustainable prosperity requires it. The real “slap in the face” is the incessant preaching that the military ensures freedom. Rationalizations don’t work when we are trying to improve the quality of life.   Thomas Heikkala tomas_heikkala@yahoo.com  

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“How Does Killing Impact Individual Soldiers”

October 19, 2008 – 12:08 pm
"How Does Killing Impact Individual Soldiers?" http://ipsnews. net/news. asp?idnews= 44279 Enrique Gili interviews CATHERINE RYAN SAN DIEGO, California, Oct 15 (IPS) - In their latest documentary "Soldiers of Conscience", husband and wife filmmakers Catherine Ryan and Gary Weimberg probe the nature of war and the human condition, asking the question: when is killing in combat permissible? The film refrains from answering directly, instead offering clear-eyed accounts of four U.S. soldiers who refused to fight and the countervailing views of their critics. The soldiers -- Camilo Mejia, Kevin Benderman, Joshua Casteel and Aidan Delgado -- share little in common and come from diverse backgrounds. However, each felt compelled to join the armed forces out of a sense of duty and patriotism. When confronted with the realities of serving in Iraq, however, their attitudes towards military service shifted from idealism to profound soul-searching, leading each of them to seek status as conscientious objectors. Delgado, a Buddhist, finds the random violence inflicted on civilians to be abhorrent and is unable to use ...

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Wall Street Takes Welfare

September 25, 2008 – 8:31 pm
It Begrudges to Ordinary Americans Why is it that the rich and reckless accept "welfare" for themselves while rejecting it for those who need it most, particularly woman. http://www.alternet .org/reproductiv ejustice/ 100234/?page= entire Today we sit and watch as the high-rolling gamblers and critics of "big government" take welfare. These are many of the same people who thought it was just fine to deprive millions of women of critical resources and let them fend for themselves. Even before the catastrophic news out of Wall Street in recent days, women have been worried about their economic security. Last March a Gallup poll found that in the past two years more women than men said that they worry about the economy (64 percent versus 57 percent). The same holds for health care, crime, the environment, drug use, unemployment, hunger and homelessness. More men are employed by Wall Street and more men have money invested there. That means the ...

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“No Plans to Declassify” New National Intelligence Estimate for White House

September 24, 2008 – 8:56 pm
"No Plans to Declassify" New National Intelligence Estimate for White House http://abcnews. go.com/Blotter/ story?id= 5867448&page=1 September 23, 2008—   US intelligence analysts are putting the final touches on a secret National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan that reportedly describes the situation as "grim", but there are "no plans to declassify" any of it before the election, according to one US official familiar with the process.   Officials say a draft of the classified NIE, representing the key judgments of the US intelligence community's 17 agencies and departments, is being circulated in Washington and a final "coordination meeting" of the agencies involved, under the direction of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is scheduled in the next few weeks.   According to people who have been briefed, the NIE will paint a "grim" picture of the situation in Afghanistan, seven years after the US invaded in an effort to dismantle the al Qaeda network and its Taliban ...

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Public Service - Community Service

September 13, 2008 – 12:51 pm
{ Those that Belittle 'Community Service' should Actually try it, they'll find out exactly what it entails, and do some good for their communities, themselves, and country as well! } The Spirit of Public Service http://www.nytimes. com/2008/ 09/13/opinion/ 13sat3.html? th&emc=th At a forum at Columbia University marking the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, John McCain and Barack Obama took a break from their increasingly harsh presidential contest to speak with genuine passion about a worthy cause they both share: engaging more Americans in national service. What was striking about their back-to-back interviews, conducted by Judy Woodruff of PBS’s “NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” and Richard Stengel of Time magazine before 1,000 people in Columbia’s Lerner Hall, was their respectful tone. At one point, Mr. McCain even expressed admiration for Mr. Obama’s work done years ago as a community organizer, departing from disparaging remarks made by his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, ...

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V.A. to Allow Voter Signup for Veterans at Facilities

September 9, 2008 – 8:57 pm
  [peacerootsalliance] V.A. to Allow Voter Signup for Veterans at Facilities Tuesday, September 9, 2008 5:12 AM From: "James" <starjm50@yahoo.com> Add sender to Contacts To: "Jim" <jimstaro@gmail.com> WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs said Monday that it would no longer ban voter registration drives among veterans living at federally run nursing homes, shelters for the homeless and rehabilitation centers across the country. In May, the department said such drives would violate the prohibition on political activity by federal employees and would be disruptive. The reversal came after months of pressure from state election officials, voting rights groups and federal lawmakers who said that such drives made it easier for veterans to take part in the political process. Veterans’ participation could be particularly important this year in a presidential election in which the handling of the Iraq war and treatment of veterans will be major campaign issues. “V.A. has always been committed to helping veterans exercise their constitutional right to vote, which ...

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Recruiting Nazis to Serve in Iraq

September 6, 2008 – 3:40 pm
The Dangerous Consequences of Recruiting Nazis to Serve in Iraq http://www.alternet .org/rights/ 96959/playing_ with_fire: _the_dangerous_ consequences_ of_recruiting_ nazis_to_ serve_in_ iraq/?page= 2 By David Holthouse, Hate Watch August 29, 2008. The U.S. military appears to be teaching a skinhead with genocide on his mind how to become a tactical bomb maker. -- The racist skinhead logged on with exciting news: He'd just enlisted in the United States Army. "Sieg Heil, I will do us proud," he wrote. It was a June 3 post to AryanWear Forum 14, a neo-Nazi online forum to which "Sobibor's SS," who identified himself as a skinhead living in Plantersville, Ala., had belonged since early 2004. (Sobibor was a Nazi death camp in Poland during World War II). About a month after he announced his enlistment, Sobibor's SS bragged in another post to Forum 14 that he'd specifically requested and been assigned to MOS, or Military Occupational Specialty, 98D. MOS98D soldiers are in high demand right now. That's because they're specially trained in disarming Improvised ...

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The Demise of Conscience

August 24, 2008 – 1:38 pm
Excerpts from: The Demise of Conscience http://www.lewrockw ell.com/hornberg er/hornberger150 .html by Jacob G. Hornberger / August 22, 2008 -- Conscience and aggressive war Everyone agrees that neither the Iraqi government nor the Iraqi people ever attacked the United States. Everyone agrees that no Iraqi participated in the 9/11 attacks. There is no question but that in the Iraq War, the United States is the aggressor nation and Iraq is the defending nation. In the run-up to the invasion, I recall reading an article in which U.S. soldiers were asking military chaplains whether God would forgive them for killing Iraqis. It was obvious that their consciences were bothering them. I suspect that they were wondering whether it was consistent with God's law to kill people whose government had not attacked their country. I'll never forget reading what some of the chaplains told those soldiers. They told them that they need not concern themselves with what lay ahead. They said that they could place their trust in the judgment of their commander ...

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Free Gaza Boats Arrive in Gaza

August 23, 2008 – 6:35 pm
http://www.freegaza.org  FREE GAZA BOATS ARRIVE IN GAZA FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  Date : 08-23-2008 GAZA (23 August 2008) - Two small boats, the SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty, successfully landed in Gaza early this evening, breaking the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. The boats were crewed by a determined group of international human rights workers from the Free Gaza Movement. They had spent two years organizing the effort, raising money by giving small presentations at churches, mosques, synagogues, and in the homes of family, friends, and supporters. They left Cyprus on Thursday morning, sailing over 350 kilometers through choppy seas. They made the journey despite threats that the Israeli government would use force to stop them. They continued sailing although they lost almost all communications and navigation systems due to outside jamming by some unknown party. They arrived in Gaza to the cheers and joyful tears of hundreds of Palestinians who came out to ...

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The Real Crisis of Katrina

August 19, 2008 – 8:26 pm
The ChildTrauma Academy www.ChildTrauma.org The Real Crisis of Katrina The real crisis from Katrina is coming. It is more relentless and more powerful than the flood waters in New Orleans; more destructive than the 150 mile an hour winds of Katrina. It will destroy a part of our country that is much more valuable than all of the buildings, pipelines, casinos, bridges and roads in all of the Gulf Coast. Over our lifetime, this crisis will cost our society billions upon billions of dollars. And the echoes of the coming crisis will haunt the next generation. This crisis is foreseeable. And, much of its destructive impact is preventable. Yet our society may not have the wisdom to see that the real crisis of Katrina is the hundreds of thousands of ravaged, displaced and traumatized children. And our society may not have the will to prevent this crisis. We understand broken buildings; we do not understand broken children. We will spend billions of dollars ...

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