BAUAW NEWSLETTER-WEDNESDAY, JAN. 26, 2005

1) We ain't gonna study war no more!
(Killing and being killed is not a career choice!)
Come to an organizing meeting to get the military
out of our schools!
Saturday, 11:00 a.m., February 5, 2005
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street
(near 16th St. in S.F.)


2) CRITICAL Hearing Friday January 28, 2005 for
SHEILA DETOY17-Year-Old Girl Shot In Head By
Rogue Cop In 1998 ...
January 28, 2005
9:30 AM
Superior Court
CIVIC CENTER COURTHOUSE
400 McAllister Street Dept. 301
San Francisco, CA 94102
CASE # CPF04-504029
LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE!
The San Francisco Police Department is trying
to get away with MURDER!!!
for more information call (510)428-3939

3) March 19, 2005 Global Day of Action
No to War Occupation – Iraq, Palestine, Haiti,
Afghanistan, Cuba Everywhere!
Bring the Troops Home Now!
Money for PeopleÂ’s Needs, Not War!
San Francisco: March Assembles: 11 a.m. Dolores Park
Rally: 1 p.m. Civic Center

4) Army Recruiters Turn College Park High into Shooting Range
from recent NBC 11 TV report

5) U.S. Army recruiters cause uproar at College Park High
By Jackie Burrell
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Posted on Fri, Jan. 21, 2005
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/cou
nties/contra_costa_county/10698686.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.js
p

6) "The Security State: The "New" COINTELPRO Campaign
Directed at Arabs, Muslims and Southeast Asians"
Question and Answer session will follow
Thursday February 3rd
7:00 PM
145 Dwinelle
UC Berkeley Campus
Donation: $3-10 Sliding scale
No one turned away for lack of funds.
http://al-awda.org

7) 36 U.S. Troops Die in Iraq in Their Bloodiest Day
By Matt Spetalnick
BAGHDAD (Reuters)
Wed Jan 26, 2005 09:17 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7437344&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

8) Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young
Feeling a Draft?
Poor kids of color fight the Pentagon
by Anya Kamenetz
January 24th, 2005 12:21 PM
http://www.villagevoice.com/generic/show_print.php?id=60395&page=kamenetz&is
sue=0504&printcde=MzMyMDI4NzE1OA==&refpage=L25ld3MvaW5kZXgucGhwP2lzc3VlPTA1M
DQmcGFnZT1rYW1lbmV0eiZpZD02MDM5NQ==

9) Action Items
EXAMINER AD DEMONIZES PALESTINIAN CHILDREN
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 25 January 2005
From: "ei News"
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 4:08 PM
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3559.shtml
*** Please visit the Action Item to view the advert ***

10) Vote Where, How, and for Whom?
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail

11) Cuba is resisting and making the difference
By : Maïté Pinero
Translated by: Patrick Bolland
http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/news/output/world_1106589993.shtml

12) WARNING: JOINING THE MILITARY IS HAZARDOUS
www.objector.org, July 24, 2002
http://www.guerrillafunk.com/thoughts/doc612.html

13) California's Prison Budget
Fri, 21 Jan 2005
CRITICAL RESISTANCE
CALIFORNIA PRISON BUDGET SUMMARY 2005-06

14) The Antiwar Movement and the Iraqi Elections

15) U.S. Army Prepares Armed 'Robo-Soldier' for Iraq
By Michael P. Regan
AP Business Writer
TechnologyReview.com
January 25, 2005
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/ap/ap_3012505.asp?p=0

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

1) We ain't gonna study war no more!
(Killing and being killed is not a career choice!)
Come to an organizing meeting to get the
military out of our schools!
Saturday, 11:00 a.m., February 5, 2005
Centro del Pueblo, 474 Valencia Street
(near 16th St. in S.F.)

Our children are being recruited to military service right out
of High School. They are being offered Junior ROTC for class
credit as an alternative to Physical Education. Junior ROTC advocates
the military as a career choice. Every day we hear of schools and
hospitals closing. Our children have fewer job opportunities
available to them with far fewer benefits. And they are finding
it increasingly more difficult to go to college because of increased
college costs and the general increase in the cost of living. Junior
ROTC makes the military attractive to them. But these are not
the job opportunities we want for our children-or that our
children want for themselves!

Meanwhile, due to an ever-increasing war budget, most of our
tax dollars are being spent on a war with no end in sight; and
on overall defense spending that dwarfs even the war budget!
And while corporations are raking in billions, two-thirds of
them pay no taxes at all. This puts a severe strain on the taxes
left over-after military and defense expenditures-for all social
services and human needs-taxes that come from the poor and
all working people. We want our children to have an opportunity
to learn and thrive to the best of their potential not to kill and
be killed. Stop the war. Bring all our troops home now. End all
military recruitment in public schools and institutions of higher
learning. Use our tax dollars for schools, healthcare, housing,
jobs-all human needs not war!

Number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq as of Jan 11: 1,357
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/USfatalities.html

Number of U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq: over 10,000
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0104-12.ht

Number of Iraqis killed: est. over 100,000
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/

Number of Iraqis wounded: Untold.
Not counted but estimated in the millions.

Cost of the war: $149.5 billion spent as of Jan. 12, 2005
http://costofwar.com/index.html

With the money spent so far on the war we could have
hired over 2,600,566 public schoolteachers for one year.
http://costofwar.com/index-public-education.html

Total U.S. Defense spending: nearly $754 billion as of
fiscal year 2004.
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1253

The people of San Francisco voted last November 2004
by a 63 percent majority to bring all our troops home now.
We haven't changed our minds!

Bay Area United Against War (www.bauaw.org) (415) 824-8730
P.O. Box 318021, S. F., CA 94131-8021
Labor Donated...BW

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

2) CRITICAL Hearing Friday January 28, 2005 for
SHEILA DETOY17-Year-Old Girl Shot In Head By
Rogue Cop In 1998 ...
January 28, 2005
9:30 AM
Superior Court
CIVIC CENTER COURTHOUSE
400 McAllister Street Dept. 301
San Francisco, CA 94102
CASE # CPF04-504029
LAST CHANCE FOR JUSTICE!

The San Francisco Police Department is trying to get away
with MURDER!!!

If the cops get their way, the Superior Court will DISMISS
THE CASE against killer cop GREGORY BRESLIN !!!

With no punishment for Breslin - or anyone - in the 1998
cold-blooded police shooting of Sheila Detoy !!!

Don't let police murder go unpunished !!!


SIX YEARS - NO JUSTICE FOR SHEILA DETOY

* May 13, 1998: San Francisco police officers shot up a car full
of unarmed teenagers and killed 17-year-old Sheila Detoy.
SFPD then blamed her friends for her death.

* The Office of Citizen Complaints found that Officer Gregory
Breslin is responsible for her death. The OCC also sustained
complaints against the other officers involved in Sheila's killing.

* In 2003 the San Francisco Police Commission decided they
wanted to file charges against the officers, but the Police Officers
Association is trying to get Breslin off on a technicality but we
say: THERE IS NO TIME LIMIT ON PUNISHING KILLER COPS!!!

for more information call (510)428-3939

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

3) March 19, 2005 Global Day of Action
No to War Occupation – Iraq, Palestine, Haiti,
Afghanistan, Cuba Everywhere!
Bring the Troops Home Now!
Money for PeopleÂ’s Needs, Not War!
San Francisco: March Assembles: 11 a.m. Dolores Park
Rally: 1 p.m. Civic Center

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

4) Army Recruiters Turn College Park High into Shooting Range
from recent NBC 11 TV report -

PLEASANT HILL - U.S. Army recruiters turned College Park High School's quad

into a lunchtime shooting range Wednesday, much to the consternation of

teachers and students.

Recruiters arrived on the College Park campus in a glossy big rig, bearing

realistic-looking handguns with air compressors to provide the recoil kick.

And they gave the student shooters prizes.

Military recruiters are no strangers on high school campuses, but they

usually restrict themselves to flier distribution, strolling about the quad

or putting in an occasional appearance in the college and career center.

"It's not a soldier issue," said teacher Jen Kennedy. "In this

post-Columbine era, target practice with high school students leaves me

speechless."

U.S. Army Sgt. Delbert Miller said he and the Fort Knox marksmanship team

visited College Park as just one stop on an annual tour of hundreds of

schools and colleges.

"We presented it as an event for the kids," Miller said. "(We used) plastic

pistols hooked up to an air compressor."

Miller, whose crew handed out water bottles, T-shirts and dog tags, said he

was unaware that all weapons -- including plastic guns, water pistols and

Halloween props that resemble weapons -- are banned in California schools.

If students brought to school anything like the pistols the recruiters

shared with College Park students Wednesday, they'd be expelled, said junior

Isaac Miller. These were "an exact replica of guns with blowback," he said.

"It just seems weird."

"When you shot, it recoiled like a real gun," said senior Tom Morgenstern.

"Having guns at school? It's the Army, they have a legal right to be here,

but when they start bringing these games to school and try to make shooting

fun?"

Morgenstern and fellow senior Jayme Farrell-Ranker had set up the school's

tsunami relief fund-raising effort on the quad early Wednesday and soon

found themselves sharing plaza space with the recruiters and shooting range.

"We're trying to do something nice and they come with their games and guns,"

said Farrell-Ranker.

The marksmanship unit is one of several splashy military recruiting efforts,

including big rigs that turn into science classrooms, portable rock walls,

"adventure vans" with interactive exhibits on educational aspects of

military life, and humvees that visit elementary through high schools. The

marksmanship unit dates back to 1912.

This particular demonstration took College Park officials by surprise.

Principal Dennis Berger thought the event he had quickly approved Wednesday

morning at the request of a former student was a ceremonial drill in which

soldiers twirl rifles in a carefully choreographed routine.

He was not on campus Wednesday morning and was under the impression that the

demonstration involved electronic media.

"It was a last-minute event," Berger said. "This one happened to be on

marksmanship, so they had video games. ... In hindsight, I wish we had known

in more detail what they were going to do. We got something we didn't quite

expect."

Sgt. Miller described the pistols as carnival game-style, but students said

they shot a beam of light.

Before they were allowed to handle the pistols, students had to supply their

names, phone numbers, addresses and Social Security numbers. And many

complied.

"I was shocked and dismayed," said teacher Joan Lopate. "These kids are

young and impressionable. I had one student come over to say, 'This

recruiter was so aggressive. I'm only 15.'"

When that student, Dustin Lovejoy, told the recruiter he was too young to

join the military soon, he was told to sign up anyway. The recruiter said

he'd call him "when it was time," Lovejoy said.

"They're just showing you what they do in the Army," said junior Sierra

Pierce, who has visited the nearby recruiting center on several occasions

and plans to enlist. "Those kids are in for it now. (The military) won't

stop till they're recruited."


Joie Tamkin
Assignment Editor
NBC11/KNTV Bay Area
415.276.1100
Joie.Tamkin@nbcuni.com

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

5) U.S. Army recruiters cause uproar at College Park High
By Jackie Burrell
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Posted on Fri, Jan. 21, 2005
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/cou
nties/contra_costa_county/10698686.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.js
p

PLEASANT HILL -U.S. Army recruiters turned College Park High School's
quad into a lunchtime shooting range Wednesday, much to the
consternation of teachers and students.

Recruiters arrived on the College Park campus in a glossy big rig, bearing
realistic-looking handguns with air compressors to provide the recoil
kick. And they gave the student shooters prizes.

Military recruiters are no strangers on high school campuses, but they
usually restrict themselves to flier distribution, strolling about the
quad or putting in an occasional appearance in the college and
career center.

"It's not a soldier issue," said teacher Jen Kennedy. "In this
post-Columbine era, target practice with high school students
leaves me speechless."

U.S. Army Sgt. Delbert Miller said he and the Fort Knox marksmanship
team visited College Park as just one stop on an annual tour of
hundreds of schools and colleges.

"We presented it as an event for the kids," Miller said. "(We used)
plastic pistols hooked up to an air compressor."

Miller, whose crew handed out water bottles, T-shirts and dog tags,
said he was unaware that all weapons -- including plastic guns,
water pistols and Halloween props that resemble weapons -- are
banned in California schools.

If students brought to school anything like the pistols the recruiters
shared with College Park students Wednesday, they'd be expelled,
said junior Isaac Miller. These were "an exact replica of guns with
blowback," he said. "It just seems weird."

"When you shot, it recoiled like a real gun," said senior Tom
Morgenstern. "Having guns at school? It's the Army, they have
a legal right to be here, but when they start bringing these games
to school and try to make shooting fun?"

Morgenstern and fellow senior Jayme Farrell-Ranker had set up
the school's tsunami relief fund-raising effort on the quad early
Wednesday and soon found themselves sharing plaza space with
the recruiters and shooting range.

"We're trying to do something nice and they come with their
games and guns," said Farrell-Ranker.

The marksmanship unit is one of several splashy military recruiting
efforts, including big rigs that turn into science classrooms,
portable rock walls, "adventure vans" with interactive exhibits on
educational aspects of military life, and humvees that visit
elementary through high schools. The marksmanship unit dates
back to 1912.

This particular demonstration took College Park officials by
surprise. Principal Dennis Berger thought the event he had
quickly approved Wednesday morning at the request of a former
student was a ceremonial drill in which soldiers twirl rifles
in a carefully choreographed routine.

He was not on campus Wednesday morning and was under the
impression that the demonstration involved electronic media.

"It was a last-minute event," Berger said. "This one happened to
be on marksmanship, so they had video games. ... In hindsight,
I wish we had known in more detail what they were going to do.
We got something we didn't quite expect."

Sgt. Miller described the pistols as carnival game-style, but
students said they shot a beam of light.

Before they were allowed to handle the pistols, students had
to supply their names, phone numbers, addresses and Social
Security numbers. And many complied.

"I was shocked and dismayed," said teacher Joan Lopate. "These
kids are young and impressionable. I had one student come
over to say, 'This recruiter was so aggressive. I'm only 15.'"

When that student, Dustin Lovejoy, told the recruiter he was
too young to join the military soon, he was told to sign up
anyway. The recruiter said he'd call him "when it was time,"
Lovejoy said.

"They're just showing you what they do in the Army," said junior
Sierra Pierce, who has visited the nearby recruiting center on
several occasions and plans to enlist. "Those kids are in for
it now. (The military) won't stop till they're recruited."

Jackie Burrell covers K-12 education. Reach her
at 925-977-8568 or jburrell@cctimes.com .

(c) 2005 ContraCostaTimes.com and wire service sources.
All Rights Reserved.
http://www.contracostatimes.com

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

6) "The Security State: The "New" COINTELPRO Campaign
Directed at Arabs, Muslims and Southeast Asians"
Question and Answer session will follow
Thursday February 3rd
7:00 PM
145 Dwinelle
UC Berkeley Campus
Donation: $3-10 Sliding scale
No one turned away for lack of funds.
http://al-awda.org

Sacred Roots and Al-Qalam Institute
Invites you to a talk by

Dr. Hatem Bazian

Lecturer in Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley

Speaking on the topic of:

"The Security State: The "New" COINTELPRO Campaign
Directed at Arabs, Muslims and Southeast Asians"
Question and Answer session will follow


Thursday February 3rd
7:00 PM
145 Dwinelle
UC Berkeley Campus
Donation: $3-10 Sliding scale
No one turned away for lack of funds.

http://al-awda.org

To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-SF/


---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

7) 36 U.S. Troops Die in Iraq in Their Bloodiest Day
By Matt Spetalnick
BAGHDAD (Reuters)
Wed Jan 26, 2005 09:17 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7437344&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Thirty-one U.S. troops were reported killed
in a helicopter crash and five more died in insurgent attacks
Wednesday in the deadliest day for American forces
since they invaded Iraq 22 months ago.

The heavy U.S. toll came amid a series of guerrilla
bombings and raids that killed 10 Iraqis in a campaign to
sabotage Sunday's landmark election -- a cornerstone of U.S.
plans in Iraq.

CNN, quoting the U.S. military, reported 31 Marines died
when their transport helicopter went down in the deserts of the
restive Anbar province of western Iraq.

The military confirmed casualties to reporters but gave no
figures, as search and rescue teams scoured the area. The cause
of the crash was not immediately known.

Four U.S. Marines were killed in action in Anbar province,
and an American soldier was killed in a rocket-propelled
grenade attack north of Baghdad, U.S. officials said.

The latest surge of insurgent attacks appeared aimed at
sowing panic even as the U.S.-backed interim government vowed
stringent measures to safeguard the election, Iraq's first
since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003.

In a closely coordinated attack, three suicide car bombers
hit the town of Riyadh, a Sunni Arab area southwest of the
northern city of Kirkuk.

Two explosives-laden cars blew up simultaneously close to
an Iraqi army post and police station and a third vehicle
detonated minutes later on a nearby highway, a local police
chief said.

Four Iraqi policemen, two Iraqi soldiers and three
civilians were killed, and at least 12 people were wounded,
police said.

Shortly after the blasts, a U.S. combat patrol heading to
the scene came under small arms fire and two U.S. soldiers were
lightly wounded, the military said.

The previous deadliest day for U.S. forces was March 23,
2003, the third day of the war, when 28 U.S. soldiers died
mostly in fierce fighting in southern Iraq.

STRING OF ATTACKS

Police in Baquba, a mixed Shi'ite and Sunni town 65 km (40
miles) north of Baghdad, said one Iraqi policeman was killed
and at least eight people were wounded when gunmen fired on the
local offices of three parties contesting the polls.

Sunni insurgents have repeatedly targeted the country's
fledgling security forces in the countdown to the election,
accusing them of collaborating with U.S.-led occupiers.

Iraq's Shi'ite minority is expected to dominate the vote
after decades of rule by Saddam's Sunni minority.

In the northern city of Mosul, a rebel stronghold that has
seen persistent violence, a video filmed by insurgents showed
three Iraqi men who had apparently been taken hostage and who
said they worked for Iraq's electoral commission in the city.

On the video, a hooded insurgent carrying a pistol read out
a statement as another masked guerrilla crouched with a
rocket-propelled grenade launcher on his shoulder.

"We are mujahideen in the province of Nineveh. What they
call elections have no basis in the Islamic religion and that's
why we will hit all election centers," the statement said.

Several guerrilla groups in Iraq -- including militants
loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda's leader in the country
-- have declared war on Sunday's elections, vowing to attack
polling stations and kill those who dare to vote.

The government plans extraordinary security measures,
including closing Baghdad airport and land borders over the
election period, extending night curfews in cities and banning
cars from roads on election day. Zarqawi, a Jordanian with
a $25 million bounty on his head, says the election is a plot
by Washington and Iraqi Shi'ite allies against Sunni Arabs,
who now fear being marginalized.

Iraq's Shi'ites, oppressed under Saddam, strongly support
the elections. A list of candidates dominated by Shi'ite
Islamists and drawn up with the guidance of revered cleric
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is expected to win the most votes,
cementing the newfound political power of Shi'ites.

But many Sunni Arab parties will boycott the polls, saying
the insurgency raging in Iraq's Sunni heartlands will prevent
their supporters from voting and skew the results.

Tension between Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs has been stoked by
a series of bomb attacks on Shi'ite targets, raising fears of
sectarian conflict.

Insurgents have also assassinated several leading officials.
Tuesday a top Baghdad judge was killed along with
his son in an ambush as they left home during morning rush hour.

(c) Reuters 2005

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

8) Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young
Feeling a Draft?
Poor kids of color fight the Pentagon
by Anya Kamenetz
January 24th, 2005 12:21 PM
http://www.villagevoice.com/generic/show_print.php?id=60395&page=kamenetz&is
sue=0504&printcde=MzMyMDI4NzE1OA==&refpage=L25ld3MvaW5kZXgucGhwP2lzc3VlPTA1M
DQmcGFnZT1rYW1lbmV0eiZpZD02MDM5NQ==

Chris Dugan, 27, signed up for his future hitch in the marines
while still in high school. "I wanted to be hard and serve my
country," he says. "My grandfather was a marine." Dugan was
lucky enough to serve in peacetime, from 1995 to 1999. Included
was a short stint as a recruiter for high schoolers like himself,
patriotic working-class kids without a lot of options to pay for
college, get job training, or find work. "These recruiters
psychoanalyze you and pitch you a story," he says. "They have
a quota, and if that quota isn't met, it's their ass. They'll do
whatever they can to get you in."

But now Chris is out-far out. He's a master's student at Hunter
College and a member of the International Socialist Organization
and the Campus Antiwar Network. And he's a counter-recruiter,
part of a growing grassroots national movement to keep kids
like him out of Iraq.

The No Child Left Behind Act, passed in 2002, included
a little-seen provision stipulating that all public high schools
provide a list of students' names, addresses, and other personal
information to military recruiters. Douglas Smith, a spokesperson
for the Army Reserve Command, says this provision is simply
a matter of convenience. "It saves the recruiters a lot of research
time figuring out how to get in contact with the students."

But by the accounts of teachers, students, and parents, the
officers in the pressed uniforms and shiny shoes are using those
data to get more aggressive, particularly at poor and largely
minority schools. At schools like Bronx Community College, they
set up tables three or four days a week; at many high schools,
they far outnumber college or other job recruiters. They call kids
at home, show up at their front doors, and even threaten them,
anything to get the kids to boot camp.

Activists report that one kid who signed up for delayed entry was
told that backing out, which is legally allowed, would be
desertion in a time of war, meaning he could be hunted down
and shot. (Smith, the army spokesperson, said a recruit could
be considered AWOL-less serious than desertion-only after
going through all physicals and other screenings, and then
failing to show up for basic training.)

On January 15 and 16, a coalition of local peace and student
groups met in Manhattan to brainstorm ways to reach kids
with the facts, starting with their right not to give up their
personal info. "Schools are obligated to inform both parents
and students of their right to opt out," said Amy of Youth
Activists-Youth Allies (Ya-Ya), which helped organize the
weekend counter-recruitment workshop. "Different schools
and districts are doing a different quality of job with that"-ranging
from letters sent home to each student to a small classified ad
in the local paper.

Ya-Ya has been meeting with high school officials, convincing
them that giving recruiters "equal access" does not mean giving
them free access to roam the halls and pull kids out of class.
The group's teenage members hand out flyers at area public
schools about the dangers of signing up for an eight-year hitch.
One of them is headlined "What Recruiters Don't Want You to
Know." Others talk about institutional racism, sexism, and
homophobia in the military, and false economic promises.

The army brags that it recently raised its top G.I. Bill award
for college to $70,000. What the service doesn't tell you is
that 43 percent of veterans see none of this money. You must
contribute $100 of your own paycheck each month for the
first year in order to qualify. Speaking of checks, for an army
PFC in 2005, the pay is $14,822 a year. Combat pay, for those
in Iraq, is another $225 a month, more if you have kids at home.

Many of the counter-recruiters, not just the socialists, see their
issue as one of economic justice. "Who does the military target?"
asks Peter, a 17-year-old student at the specialized Urban
Academy Laboratory public high school and a member of Ya-Ya.
"Young men of color like me. People from the ghetto with no
way out except the military. For me personally, this is about
raising social awareness."

With the pressure of Iraq, Afghanistan, and who knows what
other looming commitments, the army is adding 1,000 recruiters
to its staff this year, and the National Guard, which missed its
fiscal year 2004 goal of 56,000 new enlistees by nearly 10 percent,
is adding 700 more. The question on everyone's mind is what will
happen when shiny Hummers, free T-shirts, cajoling, and bullying
aren't enough. A Quaker woman at the workshop offered
a how-to on conscientious objection-no church affiliation required.

"Students at Hunter have a vested interest in this issue," Chris
Dugan says. "We start out by asking them, 'Are you under 27?
If there's a draft, you could go.' "

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

9) Action Items
EXAMINER AD DEMONIZES PALESTINIAN CHILDREN
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 25 January 2005
From: "ei News"
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 4:08 PM
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3559.shtml
*** Please visit the Action Item to view the advert ***

The Electronic Intifada calls on its readers to protest an
advertisement for the San Francisco Examiner and
Washington Examiner newspapers demonizing Palestinian
children. The advertisment appeared in the 24 January 2005
of Media Week, a trade publication.


THE PROBLEM

The advertisement aims to attract advertisers to the
Examiner newspapers. It includes a picture of a girl
playing a violin on the left-hand side of the page, and
another picture of a girl carrying an assault rifle on the
right-hand side of the page. Superimposed over the two
pictures is the legend "PTA to PLO," with PTA over the
girl with the violin and PLO over the girl with the rifle.

The pictures are undated and unsourced, however the
implication is clear: the girl with the rifle is supposed
to represent a Palestinian girl and embody what the PLO
stands for.

Such anti-Palestinian stereotypes obscure the reality that
over the past four years Palestinian children have been
the principal victims of violence and other human rights
abuses in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

625 Palestinian children were killed by the Israeli army
and settlers in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip
between 29 September 2000 and 31 December 2004 according
to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Over 100 Israeli
children have been killed by Palestinians during the same
period.

Amnesty International has frequently condemned violence
against Palestinian and Israeli children. In a 20 November
2004 statement, the organization said:

"Many killings of Palestinian children by
Israeli armed forces have been unlawful, as
wilful, killings resulting from acts including
reckless shooting, tank and aircraft shelling
and bombardments and house destruction. As
such these killings are grave breaches of the
Fourth Geneva Convention and therefore war
crimes. Such killings have been part of
widespread, as well as systematic, acts
against Palestinian civilians. They have been
carried out by Israeli armed forces pursuant
to government policy, evidenced by the
knowledge and approval of government
authorities who are fully aware that for over
four years such practices have consistently
resulted in the killing or injury of civilians
and who have declined to take effective steps
to prevent such killings of civilians. They,
therefore, meet the definition of crimes
against humanity under international law."

Amnesty also highlighted that:

"In their daily lives, Palestinian children
throughout the Occupied Territories have also
been exposed to an increasingly high level of
violence and violations of many of their
rights including the right to education, to an
adequate standard of living, to the highest
attainable standard of health, to safe and
secure housing, and to freedom of movement.
For four years many have been confronted with
Israeli army aircraft circling the sky or
launching missiles, and with Israeli army
tanks outside their homes and schools. Their
villages and neighbourhoods have been kept
under siege and they have often been confined
to their homes for days and weeks at a time by
curfews and closures. They have been forced to
go through military checkpoints to get to
school or to take long detours and to climb
over blockades or in and out of ditches in
order to visit relatives or to go to the
doctor."

Source: http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGMDE020022004

The vast majority of killings are never investigated and
rarely are the killers punished by Israeli authorities.

While these human rights abuses continue unabated, some
pro-Israel groups have aggressively used unrepresentative
images similar to the one in The Examiner advertisement in
campaigns designed to demonize Palestinian children and
portray them as violent and Israel-hating and thereby
justify or explain away violence against them.

At the same time, equally disturbing images of Israeli
children are readily available but have not been used by
advocates for Palestinian rights to try to depict Israeli
children in a similar manner. While many news
organizations have taken seriously debunked claims that
Palestinian children are routinely taught anti-Israel
"hatred" and "incitement" in their schools, they have
largely ignored evidence that Israeli children,
particularly in West Bank settlements are indoctrinated
with anti-Arab hatred. A lengthy report by Ada Upshiz in
Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper on 21 January, for example,
revealed how some Israeli children routinely terrorize
Palestinians and call for the killing of all Palestinians
if they do not leave their homeland.

These phenomena are deeply disturbing and can be
documented on both sides of the conflict. They are the
product of a long and bitter conflict and should never be
used to demonize children.

News organizations have a responsibility to investigate
the reality behind hate-motivated campaigns against
Palestinian children and should certainly not draw on the
same stereotypes to sell advertising.


THE SOLUTION

Please contact Mark Wurzer, Vice-President of Advertising,
and Jim Pimentel, Managing Editor at The Examiner, to
politely request that The Examiner:

1. immediately withdraw the adverstisement;

2. apologize for stereotyping and demonizing Palestinian
children

Mark Wurzer
VP of Advertising
E-mail: mwurzer@examiner.com
Phone: +1 (303) 299-1488

Jim Pimentel
Managing Editor
E-mail: jpimentel@examiner.com
Phone: +1 (415) 826-1100

Save the Dates - Al-Awda's Third International
Convention: Empowering the Palestine Right to
Return Movement, 15 - 17 April 2005, Los Angeles,
California. Check for details at http://al-awdacal.org
Support Al-Awda's Upcoming Third Annual International
Convention in Los Angeles
http://www.al-awdacal.org/alert-supp_conv.html
Unless indicated otherwise, all statements posted
represent the views of their authors and not
necessarily those of Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition.

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

10) Vote Where, How, and for Whom?
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail

*BAGHDAD, Jan 26 (IPS) - With elections just four days away, many Iraqis
are still uncertain how they will vote, or even where the polling
stations are.*

The only certainty appears to be violence. Another political
assassination took place when judge Qais Hashim al-Shammari was killed
with his brother-in-law as he was leaving his house in eastern Baghdad
Tuesday.

At least six U.S. soldiers have been killed in Baghdad this week. One
soldier died when a roadside bomb struck his patrol Monday. Five
soldiers died in what the military described as a "vehicle accident".

A car bomb exploded the same day near the party headquarters of interim
prime minister Iyad Allawi. At least five people, four of them police
officers, died in the blast.

In Baquba, north of Baghdad, party political offices were attacked
Tuesday. At least one policeman was killed.

Amidst such incidents people are guessing games around polling stations
and candidates. It appears now that polling stations will be located in
school buildings. The high commission for elections of Iraq has still
not announced the location of polling stations due to security fears,
but many school buildings around Baghdad are being cordoned off with
sand barriers, concrete blocks and razor wire.

"I feel unsafe in my own home now, even more than before," said Hashim
al-Obeidy, a retired engineer. A school building near his house is being
prepared as a polling station. "I watched the American soldiers building
these barriers. And now I am afraid mortars will hit my home if the
school is attacked."

Standing outside his house in central Baghdad, he pointed to a row of
large sand barriers outside an old yellow school building with damaged
walls and cracked paint. "They already severely damaged our school
system, they haven't rebuilt anything, and now they will create more
destruction in the schools," he said.

"I would be crazy to vote, it's so dangerous now," said 45-year-old
guard Salman at another barricaded school building being prepared as a
polling station. Most residents do not know yet which school they could
go to vote in.

Many Iraqis continue to express frustration over what they see as
illegitimate elections.

Prof. Shawket Daoud, a computer science specialist who now works for the
government, said uncertainty over polling booths and the fear of
violence was not the only problem. "Why vote when we don't even know who
is running yet?"

More than 7,000 candidates on the electoral lists have opted to remain
anonymous prior to polling day. At least eight political leaders thought
to be candidates have been killed. Many others receive death threats.

But some Iraqis still say they will vote. "I'll vote because I can't
afford to have my food ration cut," said Amin Hajar, 52, who owns a
small auto garage in Baghdad. "There is a rumour that if we don't vote
our ration will be stopped. And if that happened, I and my family would
starve to death."

He said that when he picked up his monthly food ration recently, he was
forced to sign a form saying he had picked up his voter registration. He
believes that the government may use this to track whether he votes or not.

This rumor has circulated broadly around Baghdad even though there
appears to be no truth in it.

Abu Sabah, a grocery stall owner near the Karrada district of Baghdad
says he is simply confused about the election. The elections feel rushed
and a list of at least 83 coalitions of political parties with mostly
anonymous candidates makes no sense, he says.

"Who says we should have elections for people we don't even know during
occupation, martial law and in a war zone," he said. "And why vote when
we're expected to vote for an entire list of candidates when we only
know, if we're lucky, one or two of their names?"

More writing, photos and commentary at http://dahrjamailiraq.com

You can visit http://dahrjamailiraq.com/email_list/
to subscribe or unsubscribe to the email list.

(c)2004, 2005 Dahr Jamail.
Iraq_Dispatches mailing list
http://lists.dahrjamailiraq.com/mailman/listinfo/iraq_dispatches


---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

11) Cuba is resisting and making the difference
By : Maïté Pinero
Translated by: Patrick Bolland
http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/news/output/world_1106589993.shtml

On 28th October last year, and for the 17th time, the UN
General Assembly condemned the US blockade of Cuba, made
more punitive by the Torricelli and Helms-Burton amendments
(1). The vote was 179 votes to 4 – the 4 were the Unites
States, Israel, the Marshall Islands (a tax haven) and
Micronesia (19,000 inhabitants).

In Cuba, Béatriz Roque, a “civil society” representative,
was happy the embargo was being pursued, “this is the only
way to get a transition towards democracy”, she said. And
such people are surprised that they are not being carried
shoulder-high through the Havana streets!

The UN vote was hardly mentioned in the newspapers, which
had several articles on the liberation of several political
opponents. They said they didnÂ’t receive any sanctions for
this.. The same day, the International Red Cross reported
“different forms of torture” at Guatánomo Bay. And while
Raul Rivero and his friends have been treated correctly,
this canÂ’t be said for the 5 Cubans being held in secret in
Miami. Their crime? They infiltrated terrorists
organisations training with heavy military arms in Florida
and planning assassination attacks. Their activities are in
no way just folklore: in 1997, in Havana left several
people were assassinated, both Cubans and tourists.

It is in this climate of assassinations and renewed
aggression by our northern neighbour that Cuba put on trial
and imprisoned opponents conspiring with the American
Interests section in Havana. The context was never
mentioned by the outside media.

As for Cuba, news is typically disproportionate. There is
information available about all who are imprisoned, their
health-reports are published, news that dissimulates what
is most important: under the nose of the American Empire,
11-million people faced with the daily hardships are
choosing to resist. Since 1868, when Carlos Manuel de
Cespedes proclaimed the freedom of slaves, through 1898,
when Independence was hard-won but frustrated, until 1959,
it has been the peopleÂ’s demand for sovereignty, their
desire to be a separate country, and not just a colony,
that has been on he cards.

“It will all end in a bloodbath”, it had been announced in
Paris in 1990. The Socialist Block was collapsing and it
was only a matter of time before Cuba would go the same
way. At the end of the 1980s, the daily regimen of the
Cubans was not limited to la Libreta. It was once again
everything in short supply: food, petrol, work, transport.
GNP down 35%, foreign trade down 80%, the economy
collapsing.

Most of all, economic isolation. The Sandinistas had lost
the elections. Nicaragua, at war against US mercenaries had
always been more democratic: a mixed economy, freedom of
the press and the presence of opposition buying peace
through the ballot box.

So many “impartial observers”, so many demands to become
democratic, when the nation of Sandino had dreamed of
being sovereign! Today it Nicaragua has fallen back into
oblivion. Only the banal is happening down there now:
corruption, malnutrition, illiteracy, and the kids fighting
each other again for the cardboard boxes and food-tins at
the rubbish dumps.

A lot of blood has been spilled since then, but not in
Cuba. In a Latin America that is changing again – you can
watch the democracy-watchers fidgeting over Venezuela,
Brazil, Uruguay, Equator, Argentina Â… Cuba is still there.

The millions of tourists who travel freely around the
island, discussing with people on street-corners, find the
Cubans are alive, writing, painting, dancing and also
having parties. All is not doom and gloom.

Certainly, life isnÂ’t easy, and it isnÂ’t because they know
life is harder in 87 other countries, some so close to
Cuba, that Cubans endure these difficulties. In grumbling,
in criticising: the street-corner and café know-alls talk
about all this gleefully. Every day the death-knell of the
regime is ringing, youÂ’re told. This has been going on for
45 years Â…

This has lasted because three generations have defended the
revolution: those who new the Batista era; their children
who saw conditions improving and then deteriorating; their
grand-children for whom health, free education, books,
cinema, concerts at give-away prices, have become the rule.

These Cubans put up with the shortages but also the trials
and errors, the readjustments by a government that is
continually forced to react against new forms of US
aggression, each time in a new way. Despite the frequent
incomprehension and disagreements, they have never put
their commitment to the revolution in the balance. If this
rebel population is resisting, if nobody has been able to
shut them up – not even Batista – the causes are to found
in Cuban society.

Cuba is not some kind of laboratory in which an
experimental study of a perfect society, in the ideal
conditions, was conducted. Human-beings created it, with
numerous mistakes for sure, but with the dream of humanity
that goes back to creating a world in which Freedom,
Equality and Fraternity - Liberté, Égalité et Fraternité –
was not just vain words – even more so today in a world
dominated by money.

Cuba is resisting – and continually making the difference.
The restructuring of our sugar industry - the shutdown of
70 of the 150 cane-factories could have brought a social
earthquake. Instead of just brutally laying off 100,000
workers – according to the democratic procedures of those
who are democratically showing us the example – the
government went to pains to hold meetings, consult, adjust
their plans, consult again. Thousands of meetings with
Fidel Castro and the various ministries. With the result
that today salaries have been kept at the same levels,
factories have been reconverted and thousands of workers
have returned to school.

At the end of the 1980s, there were still some young people
under-qualified and without work, looking for their place
in society. In concerts in the Square of the Revolution,
thousands sang “William Tell, it’s time to give me the
cross-bow”. It was these youths who provide Cuba with its
“social solidarity groups”, present in every neighbourhood.
More than 21,000 social workers have already graduated.
Seven thousand more are being trained each year. The
“solidarity movement” has taken up the struggle against
inequalities, which is still found in the black Afro-Cuban
community.

Today 150,000 young adults (17-30 year-olds) have gone back
to “integral further education”. This second chance has
already enabled 48,446 others to go to university. Since
computer-skills are taught from primary school onwards,
13,000 teachers have been trained for this, as well as
3,000 social animators. Those taking advantage of further
training through these programme can go to one of the 938
university centres spread across 169 towns and cities.

Of course, some choose exile. But, this is to forget the
thousands of teachers and doctors who have helped the
worldÂ’s poor to learn how to read, to look after their
health needs. In a Soweto shanty-town, the doctor is Cuban.
In Venezuela, where the medical elite opposed to President
Chavez lets the poor starve, it is Cubans who are providing
the care and doing the vaccinating.

There are 25,000 of them working, not for money or glory,
in the poorest countries of the world. Just in Haiti, there
are 450. These are “Voluntary exiles” and they always come
back. Because of the “little difference” their island is
making. “Right now I’m earning two pineapples a month. So,
yes, sometimes I think of leaving. But when I seen the
faces of children in my street, I’m proud to be Cuban” – so
said Pedro Albalate, “internationalist surgeon”, who died
in Quito in 1998. (2)

CubaÂ’s hospitals - now getting renovated - took in 17,000
sick children from Tchernobyl. By comparison, a few dozen
were treated in France. This doesnÂ’t get talked about,
isnÂ’t written about, but the poorest know about it. It was
partly for this reason that Aleida Guevara, who had worked
as a doctor in Nicaragua, sees her father’s portrait –
symbol of a revolution still in its youth - being held high
in demonstrations throughout the world. (3)

ItÂ’s a country with a lot of difficulties, still derided
and still threatened, as if it was a threat to the rest of
the world, that has been able to do all this. But donÂ’t
tell anybody about what is really happening. That might
disturb the conventional wisdom which wants us to believe
that Cuba is a tyranny and Fidel Castro a dictator bent on
making us weaker.

For they are talking about us.(4) Defending Cuba is not
just defending the health-care and free education, the
solidarity work of the doctors, the cultural activities
throughout the island, our pioneer scientific research,
while deploring the lack of petrol, the electricity
blackouts, the execution of a delinquent, the imprisonment
of Rivero.

To defend Cuba is to recognise how this society is
different. Despite the things we disapprove of, this
society refuses to sell itself out, to give up those values
we have always defended.

It if because of this “little difference” that 11-million
Cubans still resist. It is their choice and their total
right to do this. Not to admit this is to refuse to
recognise their political consciousness, their moral
supremacy. They support their leadership much more than the
leadership can support them, for what is being played out
on the ground, what is being written at ground-level –
however the story ends – reveals the dignity, the great
aspirations, and the honour of humanity.

(1) The island is off-limits to international markets,
and pays 30-50% more for imports of essential goods,
particularly since ships trading with Cuba are refused
access to US ports in the 6 months following their Cuban
anchorage. The Swiss ISB Bank found itself hit by a
$100-million fine for having accepted the transfer of Cuban
funds.

(2) Cuba est une île, by Danielle Bleitrach and Viktor
Dedaj, Éditions Le Temps des cerises.

(3) Félicitations, Commandant, c’est une fille ! by
Alessandra Riccio. Éditions Desmaret.

(4) Cuba vive, Cuba Mide, by Santiago Alba, in the review
Rebelion.

By Maïté Pinero,
Ex-correspondant of l’Humanité in Havana (Tribune Libre)
Translated by Patrick Bolland

Marxism mailing list
Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism


---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

12) WARNING: JOINING THE MILITARY IS HAZARDOUS
www.objector.org, July 24, 2002
http://www.guerrillafunk.com/thoughts/doc612.html

Military recruiters tour the country
selling a dangerous product with
glamorous ads, just like tobacco
companies or drug pushers. The ads promise
opportunity and adventure -- but don't believe the hype.

1. Joining the military is hazardous to your education.

The military isn't a generous
financial aid institution, and it isn't
concerned with helping you pay
for school. Two-thirds of all recruits never get any
college funding from the military.
Only 15% graduated with a four-year
degree.

What about going to school while
you're in? Many GIs report that military
life leaves them too busy and exhausted --
and doesn't really make time for
them to go to class.

2. Joining the military is hazardous to your future.

Joining the military is a dead end.
After you've spent a few years in the
military, you're 2 to 5 times more
likely to be homeless than your friends who
never joined. And, according to the
VA, you'll probably earn less too. The
skills you learn in the military will be
geared to military jobs, not civilian
careers; when you come out, many
employers will tell you to go back to school
and get some real training. As former
Secretary of Defense Cheney declared,
"The reason to have a military is to be
prepared to fight and win wars...it's
not a jobs program."

3. Joining the military is hazardous to people of color.

During the Gulf War, over 50 percent of
front-line troops were people of
color. Overall, over 30 percent of enlisted
personnel but only 12 percent of
officers are people of color, who are then
disciplined and discharged under
other than honorable conditions at a much
higher rate than whites. When recent
studies showed a slight dip in young
African-Americans' (disproportionately
high) interest in the military, the
Pentagon reacted with a new ad campaign.
They're targeting Latino youth with
special Spanish-language ads. The
recruiters' lethal result: tracking high
achieving young people in communities of color
into a dead-end, deadly occupation.

4. Joining the military is hazardous to women.

Sexual harassment and assault are
a daily reality for the overwhelming
majority of women in the armed forces.
The VA's own figures show 90 percent of
recent women veterans reporting
harassment - a third of whom were
raped. Despite
the glossy brochures that advertise
"opportunities for women," the
military's inherent sexism is evident
from sergeants shouting "girl!" at trainees who
don't "measure up," to the intimidation
of women who speak out about
harassment and discrimination - not
to mention military men's sexual abuse of
civilian women in base communities.

5. Joining the military is hazardous to your civil rights.

If you aren't willing to give up your
rights, the military isn't for you.
Once you enlist, you become military
property: you lose your right to come and
go freely, you're ordered around 24
hours a day, and you can be punished by
your command without trial or jury. Free
speech rights are severely limited in
the military. You can be punished for
being honest about being lesbian, gay
or bisexual. Worst of all even if you hate
your job, you can't quit.

6. Joining the military is hazardous to your health.

The military can't guarantee you'll
be alive at the end of your eight-year
commitment: they can't even promise
you won't be desperately ill from "mystery
illnesses" like those of the Vietnam
and Persian Gulf wars. Whether it's
atomic testing in the 1950s, Agent
Orange during the war against Vietnam, or
experimental vaccines and toxic
weapons in the Persian Gulf, the military
shamelessly destroys the health of its
personnel -- and then does its best to
downplay and ignore their suffering.

7. Joining the military is hazardous to the environment.

The US military is the single
largest and worst polluter in the world, from
toxins at bases to nuclear-tipped
missiles to the destruction of ecosystems
from South Vietnam to the Persian
Gulf. And in today's military, the tanks and
weapons are coated with depleted
uranium from toxic nuclear waste!

8. Joining the military is hazardous
to our lives.

The "adventure" in the commercials
is code for war, the "discipline" code
for violence. The military trains
recruits to employ deadly force, yet
recruiters rarely discuss the
dehumanizing process of basic training, the
psychological costs of killing, or the horrors of war.

The ads lie because the product is
lethal -- not just to you, but to all of
us.

For more information contact or write:

Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors:

630 20th Street #302,
Oakland, CA 94612
510-465-1617
Fax 510 465-2459

or

1515 Cherry Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19102
215-563-8787
Fax 215-567-2096

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

13) California's Prison Budget
Fri, 21 Jan 2005
CRITICAL RESISTANCE
CALIFORNIA PRISON BUDGET SUMMARY 2005-06

The Numbers.
* The Governor proposes that Californians
spend more than $7 billion on
prisons, 8.2% of the budget.
That figure is only slightly less than the
amount we spend higher education,
which accounts for 11% of the budget. The
Governor's proposal amounts to
a 31.9% increase over Corrections budget of just
two years ago.

* The $7 billion includes $250 million
to cover Corrections' 2004-05
over spending.

* The Governor proposes hiring
1,575 new prison employees. The bulk of
these employees will be guards at the
controversial Delano II prison slated
for opening in June 2005.

* The Governor proposes $95 million
in unallocated cuts from the
Department's "inmate and parolee"
programs. This means these cuts will come from
rehabilitation, education and substance
abuse programs. $95 million in savings
could come from reducing the state's
prison population by just 3,071 people.

* The Governor projects that the
prison population will drop slightly
from 163,019 in 2004-05 to 162,744
in 2005-06, a decrease of 264 prisoners.
This drop is a far cry from projections in
last year's budget, which had the
prison population decreasing by as
many as 15,000 prisoners due to parole
reforms which the department has failed to implement.
General Fund Expenditures Proposed for 2005-06

Department Budget
General Fund Share
K-12 Education $35billion
41.9%
Health and Human Services $26 billion
31.2%
Higher Education $10billion
11.7%
Prisons
$7billion
8.2%
Legislative, Judicial Executive $3 billion
3.5%
Resources $1
billion 1.5%
State and Consumer Services $562 million
0.7%
General Government $705 million
0.7%
Business, Transportation and Housing $380 million
0.4%
Labor and Workforce Development $87 million
0.1%
Environmental Protection $69million
0.1%

Meanwhile. According the independent
Legislative Analyst, "The Governor's
2005-06 budget proposal addresses
the 2005-06 budget shortfall primarily
through program savings in K-12
education, social services, transportation and
employee compensation."
What about cutting prison spending
by cutting the number of people in
prison?

* The unallocated cut of $95 million
could come from reducing the
state's prison population by just 3,071 people.

* Closing just one prison could save
approximately $100 million per
year, every year.

* Reducing the number of people
sent back to prison for minor violations
of parole to the national average could
save approximately $888 million a
year.

* Releasing people from parole after
12 months without a violation could
save approximately $60 million per year.

* Two for one credits currently
earned by people in prison who
participate in fire camp programs
could be expanded to people participating in
educational, vocational and substance
abuse programs.

* Increasing the threshold for
grand theft from $400 to $1000 to reflect
inflation could save approximately $34 million.

* Restructuring sentences by just
12 weeks could save approximately $60
million; a 12-month change would save
approximately $240 million.

* Abolishing Three Strikes would save
between $400 and $500 million per
year.

* Delaying activation of the Delano II
prison would save $93 million.
For more details on how to cut prison
spending by reducing the number of
people in prison and the number of
prisons go to www.criticalresistance.org or
www.curbprisonspending.org or
www.effectivepublicsafety.org
To get involved.
Call Critical Resistance at 510.444.0484 or
email us at croakland@criticalresistance.org

ActionLA
Action for World Liberation Everyday!
Tel: (213)403-0131

URL: http://www.ActionLA.org
e-mail: Info@ActionLA.org

Please Donate to ActionLA!
Send check pay to:
ActionLA/SEE
1013 Mission St. #6
South Pasadena CA 91030
(All donations are tax deductible)

Please join our ActionLA Listserv
go to: http://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/actionla
or send e-mail to: actionla-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

Please join our new Asian American Labor Activism Alert! Listserv,
send-e-mail to: api-la-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*

14) The Antiwar Movement and the Iraqi Elections


1) Election Under Occupation

The media theater called the Iraqi election is under way.
U.S. television anchor people are broadcasting live from
Baghdad, breathlessly describing the preparations for
Sunday's display of so-called democracy.

It is important to emphasive the circumstances under which
this election is being held. More than 150,000 U.S.
troops occupy the country, patrolling the streets with
guns trained on Iraqi civilians. Iraq is under a state of
emergency, with expanded police powers and a curfew.

This is and election at gunpoint, which will be supervised
by U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte. Negroponte built an
impressive resume as a brutal enforcer of U.S. policy
through murder, rape, and torture. Negroponte served as
U.S. Ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985; a period
during which Honduras was the launching pad from which the
Reagan administration conducted its violent attacks on the
people of Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The
U.S-backed atrocities, which were condemned by the
International World Court in the Hague, included
kidnappings, rape, torture and killing of suspected
dissidents. Reports from the Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights in Honduras alleged that Negroponte oversaw
the expansion of U.S training camp and military base on
Honduran territory, where the U.S. trained Contra
terrorists, and where the military secretly detained,
tortured and executed Honduran suspected dissidents.

This is the person the Bush Administration would have us
believe is going to bring democracy to Iraq.

Assisting him will be two US-funded organizations with
long records of manipulating overseas elections on behalf
of U.S. corporate interests, the National Democratic
Institute for International Affairs (NDI) and the
International Republican Institute (IRI). These groups,
both of which are tied to covert plans to install
US-favored regimes overseas, are among organizations that
have been given more than $80 million for political
activities in Iraq.

Both organizations work closely with the National
Endowment for Democracy and the U.S. Agency for
International Development, long used by the CIA for covert
operations abroad. They were, for example, involved in
orchestrating the failed coup and recall referendum in
Venezuela in an attempt to remove the democratically
elected and popular President Hugo Chavez.

This election is being conducted at gunpoint, administered
by a war criminal, and stage-managed by CIA front
companies. To pretend that this has anything to do with
democracy is outrageous. The Iraqi people recognize this
--among expatriates, 90 percent haven't even bothered to
register to vote on Sunday.

What, then is the purpose of the phony election? It is
actually directed at the U.S. public, which is growing
increasingly disillusioned with the war. The sole intent
of the election is to provide legitimacy for the
occupation, to marginalize the resistance movement, and
create an illusion of progress. The election, like the
phony transfer of power, will change nothing on the ground
in Iraq. On January 31, the day after the election, more
than 150,000 U.S. troops will still occupy Iraq, the
torture chambers of Abu Ghraib will still be full of Iraqi
prisoners, and CIA employee Iyad Allawi will still be the
U.S.-appointed dictator.


2) The Iraqi People Have Already Voted -- Against the
Occupation

The Iraqi people have already expressed their will; they
are overwhelmingly opposed to the occupation of their
country. The majority of Iraqi people want the U.S.
troops to leave and do not believe that the U.S. and
Britain should be involved in holding elections in Iraq,
according to several polls.

Many have already cast their ballot against colonial
occupation by joining the nationwide uprising. The
intelligence chief for the puppet regime in Iraq, General
Mohamed Abdullah Shahwani, admitted that the resistance
now numbers more than 200,000.

The resistance is made up of many difference forces, with
different ideologies and goals. They are united by the
determination to free their country from U.S. occupation.

The right of people to resist occupation by arms is a
basic right recognized under international law and the
Geneva Convention. The people of Iraq have a right to
fight back against the occupation of their country, the
torture of their people, and the bombing of their cities.
They also have a right to expect the solidarity of all
who oppose the criminal war. It is not the role of the
antiwar movement to debate the ideology or tactics of the
resistance; it is our job to stand in solidarity with them
and do everything possible to assist them by working to
end the occupation of their country.


3) What Next for the Antiwar Movement?

The phony elections will not silence the Iraqi resistance.
It is important to remember that in the months since the
last time the U.S. attempted to put an "Iraqi face" on the
occupation, with the phony transfer of power and
appointment of Iyad Allawi as puppet dictator, the
resistance has spread and become more sophisticated and
more entrenched.

As the resistance grows, we in the U.S. have an obligation
not to be deterred by false elections or talk of
"timetables." We must stand with the people of Iraq and
take up their demand: the immediate, unconditional, and
complete withdrawal of all U.S. occupation forces.

We must organize a united struggle to end the occupation.
This is now more important than ever before. George W.
Bush made it clear in his inauguration sermon that he
intends to wage continual, global war. We must meet his
call to war with renewed determination and unity.

The global antiwar movement has called for massive
protests on the weekend of March 19-20. In the U.S., the
Troops Out Now Coalition is organizing local and regional
demonstrations to demand an end to the occupation,
including a massive regional convergence on Central Park
on March 19. The International Action Center, part of the
Troops Out Now Coalition, calls upon all progressive and
antiwar organizations to join us in the streets on March
19 & 20 to demand: "Troops Out Now!"

March 19
Troops Out Now!
March on Central Park in NYC!
Regional Demonstrations Across the U.S. & Worldwide

The International Action Center
http://www.iacenter.org
mail to:iacenter@iacenter.org
Anyone can subscribe.
Send an email request to
Action.News-subscribe@organizerweb.com

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15) U.S. Army Prepares Armed 'Robo-Soldier' for Iraq
By Michael P. Regan
AP Business Writer
TechnologyReview.com
January 25, 2005
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/01/ap/ap_3012505.asp?p=0

ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, New Jersey (AP) -- The rain is turning to snow
on a blustery January morning, and all the men gathered in a parking
lot here surely would prefer to be inside.

But the weather couldn't matter less to the robotic sharpshooter they
are here to watch as it splashes through puddles, the barrel of its
machine gun pointing the way.

The Army is preparing to send 18 of these remote-controlled robotic
warriors to fight in Iraq beginning in March or April.

Made by a small Massachusetts company, the SWORDS, short for
Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems,
will be the first armed robotic vehicles to see combat, years ahead
of the larger Future Combat System vehicles currently under
development by big defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin
and General Dynamics Corp.

It's easy to humanize the SWORDS (a tendency robotics researchers
say is only human) as it moves out of the flashy lobby of an office
building and into the cold with nary a shiver.

Military officials like to compare the roughly 1-meter-high
(3-foot-high) robots favorably to human soldiers: They don't
need to be trained, fed or clothed. They can be boxed up and
warehoused between wars. They never complain. And there are
no letters to write home if they meet their demise in battle.

But officials are quick to point out that these are not the
autonomous killer robots of science fiction. A SWORDS robot
shoots only when its human operator presses a button after
identifying a target on video shot by the robot's cameras.

"The only difference is that his weapon is not at his shoulder,
it's up to half a mile (800 meters) away," said Bob Quinn,
general manager of Talon robots for Foster-Miller Inc.,
the Waltham, Massachusetts, company that makes the SWORDS.

As one Marine fresh out of boot camp told Quinn upon
seeing the robot: "This is my invisibility cloak."

Quinn said it was a "bootstrap development process" to
convert a Talon robot, which has been in military service
since 2000, from its main mission -- defusing roadside
bombs in Iraq_ into the gunslinging SWORDS.

It was a joint development process between the
Army and Foster-Miller, a robotics firm bought
in November by QinetiQ Group PLC, which is
a partnership between the British Ministry of
Defence and the Washington holding company
The Carlyle Group.

Army officials and employees of the robotics
firm heard from soldiers "who said 'My brothers
are being killed out here. We love the EOD
(explosive ordnance disposal), but let's put
some weapons on it,"' said Quinn.

Working with soldiers and engineers at
Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, it took
just six months and only about $2 million
(euro1.5 million) in development money
to outfit a Talon with weapons, according
to Quinn and Anthony Sebasto,
a technology manager at Picatinny.

The Talon had already proven itself to be
pretty rugged. One was blown off the roof
of a Humvee and into a nearby river by
a roadside bomb in Iraq. Soldiers simply
opened its shrapnel-pocked control unit
and drove the robot out of the river,
according to Quinn.

NOTEBOOK

The idea of robots helping in the ground
war in Iraq sent the media into overdrive,
with several hundred stories popping up
around the world -- although many of these
are simply reprints of the wire story. This isn't
a huge advance in robotics though, military
officials are quick to point out. Instead, this
this is a low-tech field test. -- by Brad King

What Others Are Saying:

The Scripps Howard News Service -- by
way of The Modesto Bee -- has a piece
about these robots.

The Guardian has an interesting piece
on the new program.

Here's an Army press release about the
Explosive Ordnance Disposal robot which
helps clear the way for ground units.


Related Stories:

The $200,000 (euro154,000), armed
version will carry standard-issue Squad
Automatic Weapons, either the M249, which
fires 5.56-millimeter rounds at a rate of
750 per minute, or the M240, which can
fire about 700 to 1,000 7.62-millimeter
rounds per minute. The SWORDS can fire
about 300 rounds using the M240 and
about 350 rounds using the M249 before
needing to reload.


All its optics equipment -- the four cameras,
night vision and zoom lenses -- were
already in the Army's inventory.

"It's important to stress that not everything
has to be super high tech," said Sebasto.
"You can integrate existing componentry
and create a revolutionary capability."

The SWORDS in the parking lot at the
headquarters of the cable news station
CNBC had just finished showing off for
the cameras, climbing stairs, scooting
between cubicles, even broadcasting
some of its video on the air.

Its developers say its tracks, like those
on a tank, can overcome rock piles and
barbed wire, though it needs a ride to
travel faster than 6.5 kph (4 mph).

Running on lithium ion batteries, it can
operate for one to four hours at a time,
depending on the mission. Operators
work the robot using a 13.5-kilogram
(30-pound) control unit that has two
joysticks, a handful of buttons and a video
screen. Quinn says that may eventually be
replaced by a "Gameboy" type of controller
hooked up to virtual reality goggles.

The Army has been testing it over the past
year at Picatinny and the Aberdeen Proving
Grounds in Maryland to ensure it won't
malfunction and can stand up to radio jammers
and other countermeasures. (Sebasto wouldn't
comment on what happens if the robot and its
controller fall into enemy hands.)

Its developers say the SWORDS not only
allows its operators to fire at enemies without
exposing themselves to return fire, but also
can make them more accurate.

A typical soldier who could hit a target the
size of a basketball from 300 meters (yards)
away could hit a target the size of a coin
with the SWORDS, according Quinn.

The better accuracy stems largely from the
fact that its gun is mounted on a stable platform
and fired electronically, rather than by
a soldier's hands, according to Staff Sgt.
Santiago Tordillos of the EOD Technology
Directorate at Picatinny. Gone are such issues
as trigger recoil, anticipation problems, and
pausing the breathing cycle while aiming a weapon.

"It eliminates the majority of shooting
errors you would have," said Tordillos.

Chances are good the SWORDS will get
even more deadly in the future. It has
been tested with the larger .50 caliber
machine guns as well as rocket and grenade
launchers -- even an experimental weapon
made by the Australian company Metal Storm
LLC that packs multiple rocket rounds into
a single barrel, allowing for much more rapid firing.

"We've fired 70 shots at Picatinny and we
were 70 for 70 hitting the bull's-eye," said
Sebasto, boasting of the arsenal's success
with a rocket launcher from around the
1960s mounted on a SWORDS.

5360.64714081611

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