Category Archives: Against the War-Support Our Troops

Eleven-Eleven Campaign Makes It Easy To Give $11 to Vets

A new website just launched for Veterans day: Eleven-Eleven.org.

Bottom line: What cha can do is text the word “vets” to “85944” – and then send the word “yes” back when you receive a confirmation text.

This will add $11 to your next phone bill. You can do it up to five times.

Note: This process took me less than 20 seconds to complete.

There are a bunch of veterans organizations behind this effort. I’m including the original email that was sent to me below.

This Veterans Day marks the beginning of The Eleven Eleven Campaign — a
nationwide campaign by BeyondTribute.org to change the way America honors its
Veterans.

The Eleven Eleven Campaign

http://eleven-eleven.org.

The objective of the campaign is simple: to get 11 million Americans to donate
$11 to support America’s Veterans. We’ve made giving back to our Vets easy through a
national Text to Give Campaign (simply text “VETS” to 85944 to contribute).

Contributions are distributed to Beyond Tribute’s 11 coalition partners, who
specialize in providing direct services and advocacy for Veterans of all eras and
conflicts, including World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Persian Gulf
War, and the present day conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We’re asking bloggers from around the web and across the political spectrum to
join us in making this Veteran’s Day a holiday not about sales in the stores, but
about making a difference in the lives of our Veterans.

To that end, we’d like to invite you to a special campaign announcement call for
bloggers this Monday, November 9th at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT. Join Gold Star
Mother Ruth Stonesifer, Democratic political consultant Joe Trippi and Powerline blogger
John Hinderaker to learn
more about the campaign and how you can help make this November 11th a day when
bloggers come together to support our Vets.

Please RSVP to the conference call here:

http://action.eleven-eleven.org/t/5400/signUp.jsp?key=2817

Dial-in Number: 1-213-289-0500

Participant Access Code: 4670471

If you can’t make the call, please consider adding an Eleven Eleven Campaign
Widget to your blog from now through Veteran’s Day. The widget allows your
readers to easily participate in the campaign directly from your website. You can
grab the widget here:

http://eleven-eleven.org/take-action/

The Eleven Eleven Campaign begins on Veterans Day, 2009 – but it continues every
day until our goal is reached: bringing 11 million Americans together to change the
way America honors its Veterans – moving beyond tribute to action and support.

We hope you’ll join us and help spread the word about the effort to support
America’s Vets.

Obama and Our New Congress Need to Stop the War NOW

I just watched this nice Blueprint for Change re-edit outlining part of Obama’s big plan for change.
Yay! Immigration reform! Yay Data Transparency! Go Team!
Ok so now that that’s all out of the way, I’d like to talk seriously about putting pressure on the new congress coming in to
end the war immediately.
I was updating the words to my anti-Iraq war song, In the Spirit this morning…
It started out with “30,000 faces disappear” – I was referring to the Iraqi civilians that were killed in our first sweep of invasions in 2003.
Well, since that time, five years have passed, and a lot more people have been killed. And I make a point to say “killed” rather than “died,” because I want it to be clear that none of these people died from anything that would have happened to them had their not been a war.
This was also the point of a report published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which stated:

As many as 654,965 more Iraqis may have died since hostilities began in Iraq in March 2003 than would have been expected under pre-war conditions, according to a survey conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad. The deaths from all causes

New Song: Democracy

Just released a brand new song: Democracy.
This song comes with its own page to help explain the lyrics.
It’s about what has become our sorry excuse for a democracy, and thinking about it for five minutes, in the context of the world at large.
I recorded the guitar and vocals for this on my mac laptop, using Audio Recorder. (I did mix it in protools, but I didn’t do anything special that would have required protools.)
Hope you like it. I’ve made all the source files available for remix, and it’s all under a Creative Commons Attribution license.
I decided to allow commercial use of the work. Let’s see how far it can get!

Time For Republicans and Democrats Alike To Stand Together In Opposition To Gonzales

Please do this today! Every second counts on this one guys-lr

Learn more via Video, Audio, Transcripts and Analysis of the Confirmation Hearings.
I just realized today that we’ve found our first bi-partisan issue of this administration: opposing Gonzales as US Attorney General.
Republican and Democrats should be able to join together in opposition to Gonzales for many reasons.
(In case you’re not familiar with this situation, Gonzales is the legal counsel that wrote the “torture memo” that declared that the geneva convention was “quaint” in the context of the war on terror. And basically said that torture was OK.)
It’s just bad politics to place a man who openly condones torture and provides a legal justification for it as head of our Federal Justice system.
As a Republican, one should be concerned about how an extremist such as Gonzales places the entire Republican party in a bad light. Surely not all Republican’s condone torture, but if the Republican-appointed Attorney General condones it, it sure looks like that way.
We have enough bad faith across nations without the man who wrote the infamous “Torture Memo” as head of our Justice Department. Plus, it sends a skewered message to the rest of the world that could put our troops at risk, by suggesting that the Geneva convention is somehow outdated.
Now, more than ever, with our troops spreading out all over the world, we need the Geneva convention to help protect them from being mistreated as POWs in other countries. (Let’s not get into whether they should be fighting there or not. The point is they’re there, and we need to protect them by keeping the Geneva convention in full force.)
I think that most Democrats would agree with the above reasoning as well.
Basically, anyone against torture and in favor of the Geneva Convention should be in agreement with this objective.
That means, for once, we might be all be on the same page.
Let’s take advantage of this opportunity to work together to send a strong message to Congress opposing Gonzales as Attorney General.
With Gonzales on hold, there are a few days to get the word out to our Senators.
Here’s a little letter that you can cut and paste and modify for your own letter.
Write as many letters to as many Senators as you can. (Time count: 6 minutes to email/fill out forms for everyone below.)
I’ll be posting clips from the confirmation hearings over the course of the day to try to clarify some of the more complex issues.
In the subject header, write “Please Oppose Gonzales And Protect Our Troops.”

Dear Senator,
I’m writing you to request that you vote against the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as US Attorney General. I feel that placing a man with such questionable values as head of our Justice Department will send a very damaging message to the rest of the world and place our troops abroad in unnecessary danger.
We must protect the Geneva convention and our diplomatic credibility abroad by voting against Alberto Gonzales as US Attorney General.
Sincerely,
Lisa Rein

Here’s a list of senators to start with. I’m trying to put together a list of particularly relevant senators, like the one’s on the panel asking the questions.
Update 1/24/05 – send letters to these senators on the Judiciary committee.
I know that Dick Durbin and Patrick Leahy are on it, because I saw them during the hearings, so I’m putting them at the top of the list.
Senator Dick Durbin, (202) 224-2152,
http://durbin.senate.gov/sitepages/contact.htm
Senator Patrick Leahy, (202) 224-4242, senator_leahy@leahy.senate.gov
Senator Barbara Boxer, (202) 224-3553,
http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm
Senator Russ Feingold, (202) 224-5323, russ_feingold@feingold.senate.gov
Senator Edward Kennedy, 202/224-4543, senator@kennedy.senate.gov
Senator Tom Harkin, (202) 224-3254, tom_harkin@harkin.senate.gov
Senator Jim Jeffords, (202) 224-5141, Vermont@jeffords.senate.gov
Alright, back in a bit with some clips and discussion from the hearings…

60 Minutes On the 15,000 “Uncounted” Deaths and Casualties Of The Shrub War

2 Replies

This is from the November 21, 2004 program of 60 Minutes.
This story is about the Shrub Administrations efforts to hide thousands of American deaths and casualties of this war by simply not reporting them, claiming they are “non-combat injuries.” The families of dead soldiers and shell shocked soldiers who have lost limbs/become paralyzed/will never be the same again are pretty upset about it.

The Uncounted
(
Mirror

Our Own National Guard Troops Are Treated Like “Inmates With Weapons”

Hel-lo? Is there anybody out there? Now our government is sending National Guard troops to old WWII Prisoner of War camps and treating them like prisoners themselves before shipping them off to Iraq to become inevitable casualties of War.
They are treated horribly, given poor combat training, and then sent off to perform extremely dangerous tasks for a government that doesn’t care if they live or die.
Many of them are going AWOL. Who can blame them? They are running off to see their families one last time before being sent to their deaths. (Theoretically, many are coming back after Thanksgiving. To these people I say: “Save yourself! Keep going! Don’t ever come back if you want to stay alive!”)
Will somebody please do something to stop this madness? I feel so helpless hearing about this stuff. So powerless to do anything to stop these nut cases in charge of our country.

Guardsmen Say They’re Facing Iraq Ill-Trained
Troops from California describe a prison-like, demoralized camp in New Mexico that’s short on gear and setting them up for high casualties.
By Scott Gold for the LA Times.

Members of a California Army National Guard battalion preparing for deployment to Iraq said this week that they were under strict lockdown and being treated like prisoners rather than soldiers by Army commanders at the remote desert camp where they are training.
More troubling, a number of the soldiers said, is that the training they have received is so poor and equipment shortages so prevalent that they fear their casualty rate will be needlessly high when they arrive in Iraq early next year. “We are going to pay for this in blood,” one soldier said…
“I feel like an inmate with a weapon,” said Cpl. Jajuane Smith, 31, a six-year Guard veteran from Fresno who works for an armored transport company when not on active duty.
Several soldiers have fled Do

One In Six U.S. Soldiers Coming Back From Iraq Have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

The usual anti-depressant drugs aren’t working for these guys. Remember that most of these Vets will have to get lawyers to get the medical benefits coming to them anyway — so all of this is combining to form a big stinking mess — that our boys/girls returning from this war are going to have to clean up for themselves.

These Unseen Wounds Cut Deep
A mental health crisis is emerging, with one in six returning soldiers afflicted, experts say.
By Esther Schrader for The LA Times.

A study by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research found that 15.6% of Marines and 17.1% of soldiers surveyed after they returned from Iraq suffered major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder

Soldier Drops Case Against Army In Exchange For Honorable Discharge – Sued The Army On the Basis that the Back Door Draft Violates Constitutional Rights Against “Involuntary Servitude”


Honorable Discharge in Iraq Deployment Case
By for The LA Times
This is great news. However, I’m also totally confused by this, because this post explains how soldiers can’t sue the military because of a Supreme Court decision from the 1950s.
I am not confused about the results though. It would appear that this guy sued the Army and won (even if only because they “settled” by letting him resign like he wanted in the first place.)
If this guy was able to get an honorable discharge from at least attempting to sue the government, all of these soldiers who are having their tours extended against their will should maybe do the same. (Maybe a class action even.)
If it needs to go all the way up to the Supreme Court, let it go. The more cases the better..
From the article:


“The Army had not acted on his resignation request until he sued the government.
Ferriola’s suit had charged that the Army’s deployment order, dated Oct. 8, violated his constitutional rights against “involuntary servitude ” and breached his military contract…”
Capt. Jay Ferriola drops his lawsuit against the Army for assigning him to active duty after his contract had expired and he had resigned.
NEW YORK – The Army has agreed to honorably discharge a captain who challenged his assignment to Iraq in court, saying he had properly resigned…
Ferriola, a New Yorker who had served in South Korea and Bosnia, said he brought his lawsuit two weeks ago because he was assigned to Iraq even though he had told the Army in June that he was resigning because his eight-year term was finished.

Continue reading →

Video Of 60 Minutes II Interview With National Guardsman Who Got Brain Damage While Posing As A Prisoner During Guantanamo “Drill”

This is from the November 3, 2004 program of 60 Minutes II. This post goes with this one.
Here’s the story on Sean Baker from the 60 Minutes II website.
This Administration doesn’t give a damn about anybody.
Here’s how the Administration treats the most patriotic of its soldiers.
(Sorry for the sound quality. My 60 minutes broadcasts are almost always distorted on my cable system now. Not sure what I can do about it…)

Interview with Sean Baker – Part 1 of 2 (17 MB)

Interview with Sean Baker – Part 2 of 2 (16 MB)
Baker makes the point that if a real detainee was trying to explain himself to the interrogators in a foreign language, he would undoubtedly have no chance at all:
“What does he think would have happened if he had been a real detainee? “I think they would have busted him up,” says Baker. “I’ve seen detainees come outta there with blood on ’em.