The Sad Truth about Massacres these days

The really really sad part of this is that this author is wrong about one vital point. See if you can find it.

From an email from ANSWER SF Alerts:

One drop in a sea of blood

The statement below was authored by Michael Prysner, an Iraq war veteran and co-founder of March Forward!, an affiliate of the ANSWER Coalition.

Dear STEVE,


Click here to see the video

The harrowing Apache footage released by WikiLeaks gives us a stomach-turning glimpse of war. Seventeen minutes of cold-blooded massacre in a war of more than seven years. A brief clip of one Apache video; a quick look at one part of one mission. Hundreds of those missions take place every day.

The video came to light thanks to military whistleblowers who provided it to WikiLeaks together with supporting documents. Imagine if we had access to all such videos, the things we would see. Imagine all the Iraqis killed who have no one to uncover the truth about their deaths. Had the death of two Reuters news staffers not generated interest in this video, then the destruction of three families by hellfire missiles fired into an apartment building with no provocation, in a separate engagement also featured in the video, would have never been made public.

This massacre is a drop in a sea of blood. Many other such “incidents” will never be known.

Officers claimed there was “no question” that the pilots were responding to enemy fire; the video shows there is no question that they were not responding to enemy fire. They said that they had “no idea” how the journalists were killed; the video shows that they know very well how those journalists were killed. They were gunned down standing in a crowd of unarmed people.

After the slaughter of that group, the pilots beg for permission to kill the innocent passers-by who had come to the aid of one of the wounded, like any of us would have done if we saw our neighbor dying on the ground as we drove down the street. They kill everyone trying to help the dying journalist, and critically wound two children seen sitting in the front seat.

We see a group of unarmed men mowed down by a machine gun designed to destroy armored vehicles. We see a vanload of good Samaritans obliterated for trying to help a dying victim. We see all this with the soundtrack of the pilots mocking the dead, congratulating each other and laughing about the massacre.

No wonder the U.S. military goes to such great lengths to keep such videos from us. They want us to see Iraq and Afghanistan through their lens, through their embedded reporters, filtered by censorship and restrictions. They know that, once the people of this country see the extreme racism and brutality behind these occupations, they will be repulsed by what their tax dollars are paying for.

The military brass and the White House politicians have tried to justify this senseless atrocity. “Cut the pilots some slack. This was in Baghdad. This was a battle zone”—that’s been their line. The pilots had been indoctrinated with the same colonial mentality. “That’s what they get for bringing their kids into battle,” one pilot says.

The father driving that van was not “bringing his kids into battle.” He was bringing them to school, driving down the street where they live. But the U.S. occupation has made all of Iraq a battle zone. To those pilots, to their commanders over the radio and to the generals in the Pentagon, every single person in Baghdad and in Iraq is “fair game.”

The pilots joked about the people they killed, laughed about U.S. military vehicles running over dead bodies, knowing that their commanders were listening and that they were being recorded. They were not acting out of character. This is the culture of the occupation. This is how these wars are being conducted.

Having seen this, one cannot honestly believe that these atrocities are committed day in and day out for the liberation of the Iraqi people.

The Pentagon’s talking heads and media lackeys are hard at work putting their spin on this story. It’s time to tell the truth. For more than seven years, the U.S. has unleashed criminal, unprovoked aggression against the people of Iraq, and they have been doing the same thing in Afghanistan for more than eight years.

The U.S. military presence in Iraq is a colonial occupation force. The only way forward is a complete, immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. This government will not do that unless all of us who are outraged by these criminal acts stand up and demand it.

Michael Prysner
Iraq war veteran and co-founder of March Forward

Did you catch the error?

He said:

No wonder the U.S. military goes to such great lengths to keep such videos from us. They want us to see Iraq and Afghanistan through their lens, through their embedded reporters, filtered by censorship and restrictions. They know that, once the people of this country see the extreme racism and brutality behind these occupations, they will be repulsed by what their tax dollars are paying for.

Now, anyone who follows the news closely will realize that the extreme racism and brutaity behind these occupations have been on display for the whole world to see, including the US public, and what has been the official result? No One Cares!

The reaction seems to be either jingoistic bloodthirsty enthusiasm from those who think it's great, or dejected withdrawal and a feeling of helplessness from those who are replused by it and realise they are powerless to effect it. But either way, it turns out the military has nothing to fear!

The prevailing opinion allowed into the mainstream media are those who either see it as an abberation by a few "bad apples" or those that support it. The rest of us are usually represented by either no voice in the official discussion at all, or else officially consigned to the "don't count" off-the-wall extremist looney bin, which is the permanent home of Dennis Kucinich, Cindy Sheehan, Noam Chomsky, and anyone else who dares to actually talk rationally about reality.

A 4:39 video by an Iraqi War veteran

Bush's Very Own Duck and Cover Exercise

The 21st century is eight years old. US children who are also eight years old have never lived under any president other than Bush. Astounding but true.

I've been searching everywhere for a short, succinct version of this video—what's destined to become the video encapsulation of the 21st century, as we've experienced it thus far. I Googled. I watched. I Googled some more. I finally reached the end of my search at Madsen's site—an animated gif of the crux of the event.

A Lesson in the Definition of Political Puppet

from One More Promethean.com via Cryptogon: News, Analysis, Conspiracies:

The speakers are John Howard, then PM of Australia, and Stephen Harper, now PM of Canada. As you can see, within 2 days of each other, they give identical speeches to their respective parliaments, both calling for their countries to join the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Mr. Fish understands international law, the true nature of illegal invasions and those who participate in them

Three reasons Congress is wrongheaded in Iraq

This is from an email from Cindy Sheehan, commenting on an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in which Karl Rove complains about how Congress is threatening to screw up Iraq and the Middle East by trying to end the War in Iraq. Cindy agrees they're screwing up, but for failing to end the War...

There are at least three errors with the Congressional “New Direction in Iraq.” First of all the timelines are again “non-binding” and not worth the breath it takes to talk about them, or the ink and paper that it takes to write them (or the headache one gets to think about them). With 2007 being the deadliest year for our US troops and the people of Iraq (did anyone not see---except Bush and Congress that a “surge” which Karl says is working in his laughable op-ed---would not increase the bloodshed?) and the violence predictably picking up after the holy month of Ramadan, by the end of 2008, we should tragically witness the deaths of hundreds of more US troops and thousands of more Iraqis, with even more fleeing their homes to take an inhumane refugee status.

The second thing wrong with a short-term handover is that any amount of money for a war that is wrong, is also wrong. Using the drug addiction illustration again, if one of my children asked me for money to buy crack, but I told them abusing crack is wrong, but “I will give you more money to abuse crack: but only until March! By March, you must have your crack addiction under control because I won’t give you one more penny to abuse crack!” My child would take the money with relief to continue his/her habit knowing that by March (from my past performance of always- buckling under to his/her pressure) I would give him/her more money, anyway. Then between now and March, I could not once tell my child that abusing crack is “harmful/illegal” because I have given my “implied consent” by funding his/her habit. Congress is reaffirming the implied consent theory of war continually by feeding George’s habit for chaos and killing.

The third reason the offer of partial blood money to George is a mistake is that the Constitution divides powers between the branches. Congress (read—Democratic Leadership) has forgotten that the institution is a co-equal branch with the Executive and Judicial. I studied the Constitution in Civic class for my entire eighth grade year and it has only been amended twice since then, once granting suffrage to 18 year olds in 1971 after they had been dying for years in Vietnam (27th Amendment) Incidentally, with the Every Child Left Behind Act, our children, today, learn very little, if anything about civics, history, or critical thinking---that’s education in a fascist state, my friend. Anyhow, in eighth grade I learned that Congress has the power and duty to declare war and pay for war and the Executive has the duty to wage the war. In Congress’ New Direction, the bill has elements that “redefine” the mission in Iraq. I agree that the mission needs to be radically redefined to no mission at all. However, the president, who is clearly irresponsible, to say the very least, is well within his Constitutional right to veto any bill like this and within his Constitutional powers to wage the war as he sees fit. Have I said lately, that he isn’t fit, at all?

The only power that Congress has to end this war (and effectively and affectively redefining the mission), to the chagrin of Karl who is clearly out of step with reality and the country, is to not give George Bush one more penny of China’s money, let alone 50 billion more of Chinese dollars.

Cindy ponders where to go from here

October 27, 2007, San Francisco march of about 30,000 protesters

Oct 28, 2007 10:27 AM
Subject:	The Morning After by Cindy Sheehan
	As I sit sipping my morning cup of coffee and reflect on the anti-war protests sponsored by the Oct27 coalition (where I saw some good collaboration between UFPJ and ANSWER---at least in San Francisco ---yea!), I have a few thoughts. Yesterday, tens of thousands of activists from around Northern California, Northern Nevada and some from Southern Oregon attended the rally in my new hometown, San Francisco . Despite weather in the Eastern part of the country, I hear that the rallies all over the rest of the country were extremely well attended and the energy was high. The throngs of humanity in San Francisco stretched out between the Civic Center to Dolores Park in a line that was over two miles long and it took over an hour for the last marcher to reach the endpoint. However, what does this all mean? We have marched. We have done sit-ins in Congress Reps offices all over the country. We have written letters, emails and sent faxes. Some of us have camped in ditches in Central Texas for weeks at a time. CODEPINK is doing a marvelous job of keeping the pressure on in DC. We have had countless numbers of rallies, teach-ins and candlelight vigils, but the occupation is continuing and people are still dying and are forced from their homes by the ongoing and unremitting violence. In November of 2006, the peace movement scored a major coup but we later discovered that the Democrats had only used our vibrant, angry and deeply committed movement to regain both Houses of Congress. Some of us erroneously thought that we could relax a little and allow the 110th Congress to take some of the slack from us hard-working activists to end the war and hold BushCo accountable. After all, that’s what we pay them for, isn’t it? I, and my organization, was roundly criticized by many people for going to Congress in January to demand that the Dems do the job we elected them to do. “Give them a chance.” “Shut the f**k up.” These and harsher epithets were hurled at us. I understand, because we wanted to relax, too. In November, we were as shocked as everyone else was, though, when Nancy and Harry (Bush Enablers Number One and Two) took impeachment “off the table.” We knew there would be no rest for the weary with this Congress, and, unfortunately, I think we have been vindicated…very regrettably for democracy around the world. Where do we go from here? George has asked Congress for 45 billion (to add to the 200 billion Congress already handed him) more Chinese lent dollars for 2008 to sustain his bloody occupations and Congress will unconditionally yield to his request because they are puppets of the Supreme Puppet. Coincidentally, this will keep the bloody mess going until the ’08 elections where the Dems can point their blood-stained fingers at the Repugs not even realizing that we are not buying that load of crap anymore. Both parties are culpable; both parties are supporting war crimes; both parties must be held accountable. We need to run Peace Candidates against the Bush Enablers and we need to support the Peace Candidates we already have like Dennis Kucinich that are floundering on the decks of the USS Main Stream Media. The peace movement must also be held accountable. We wrangle for a limited amount of funds and guard our “listservs” jealously and fiercely. It is way past time that the peace movement share resources, gifts and talents to force the established elite in DC to do our will. We are the moral majority in this country; we are in the right; we need to work together to funnel and focus our energies. So many times we are on parallel paths going the same direction but rarely walking together towards our common goals. We can be sure that the Corporatocracy is walking lock-step toward their goal of US global hegemony which is neither peaceful nor benevolent. In March of ’08 we will be mourning the 5th anniversary of a “war” that was going to take six months (Donald Rumsfeld), 50 billion dollars (Paul Wolfowitz) and zero American lives (George Bush). Obviously, this is unacceptable. The Camp Casey Peace Institute is calling for a Peace Summit in San Francisco on the weekend of Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday to bring the leaders of the movement together so we can find ways to support each other to our common goals of peace, sustainability and accountability and to plan for relevant and effective actions all around the 5th anniversary. With US aircraft carrier groups in the Persian Gulf and Turkish forces poised on the border of Kurdistan , if there ever was a time to put differences aside and celebrate similarities, as BushCo in tandem with Congress, Inc has brought our world to the brink of World War III, it is now. Cindy@CindyforCongress.org

That's either a Trillion or 2.5 Trillion MORE Dollars

Agence France-Presse, via Raw Story:

Long-term US Iraq bill to be 25 billion dollars: Congress

A decades-long US presence in Iraq would cost around 25 billion dollars a year in combat conditions, and up to 10 billion even in more peaceful times, a new congressional report said.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) tallied up the price-tag for a long stay in Iraq after the White House said in May the half-century US military presence in South Korea could be a model for future Iraq deployments.