SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 11AM
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
(NEAR 16TH STREET IN SAN FRANCISCO)
www.bauaw.org
2) STOP THE WAR ON IRAQ! BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!
ALL OUT JANUARY 20TH,
5:00 P.M., CIVIC CENTER, S.F.
3) Let's Hit the Streets
To Defend Abortion Rights!
Saturday, January 22
4) PICTURES OF WAR
5) ITALIAN.QUEER.DANGEROUS
a one-man show featuring Tommi Avicolli Mecca
directed by Francesca Prada, Jan. 14-19, 8:00pm,
JON SIMS CENTER
1519 Mission, Between Van Ness and 11th Sts., SF
6) Military's Test at High Schools Brings a Salvo of Concerns
By Liz F. Kay
Published on Monday, January 3, 2005 by the Baltimore Sun
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0103-02.htm
7) Honoring 32nd Anniversary of Roe v. Wade
(A resolution put before the S.F. Board of Supervisors
8) WMD: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION, the movie will be at the
Red Vic Theatre in S.F. for two days: Jan.4th and 5th.
Check newspapers for details.
For more information contact:
Richard Castro
Outreach & Special Distribution
Cinema Libre Studio
818.349.8822 Ph.
818.349.9922 Fax
www.cinemalibrestudio.com
9) The Mighty US GI's: Lied To, Used, and Losing.
By Amer Jubran
January 2, 2005
10) Update on National Assembly of United for Peace and Justice
11) Zarqawi Qaeda-Linked Group Kills Iraq Governor-Web
DUBAI (Reuters)
Tue Jan 4, 2005 08:21 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7231891&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news
12) Iraq Battling More Than 200,000 Insurgents: Intelligence Chief
Agence France-Presse
Baghdad - Iraq
Monday 03 January 2005
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010405W.shtml
13) U.S. May Add Advisers to Aid Iraq's Military
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
January 4, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/04/international/middleeast/04military.html?o
ref=login&hp&ex=1104814800&en=1d44abe6f1fb9a3e&ei=5094&partner=homepage
14) 5 U.S. Troops Are Killed, and Baghdad
Governor Is Slain
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and DAVID E. SANGER.
BAGHDAD, Iraq
January 4, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/04/international/middleeast/04cnd-iraq.html?h
p&ex=1104901200&en=774671f9e3bc3432&ei=5094&partner=homepage
15) Supreme Court to Rule on Executing Young Killers
By ADAM LIPTAK
January 4, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/04/national/04juvenile.html?hp&ex=1104901200&
en=ceb849ee6735d090&ei=5094&partner=homepage
16) Prosecution Concludes Case in Terror Trial (Lynne Stewart)
By JULIA PRESTON
January 4, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/04/nyregion/04stewart.html
17) Limits Eased on Killing of Wolves
By KIRK JOHNSON
DENVER
January 4, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/04/national/04wolf.html
18) UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
WINTER/SPRING ORGANIZING DRIVE TO END THE U.S.
WAR ON IRAQ
From: "Carwil James" < carwil@falseignorance.info >
To: "Direct Action to Stop the War"
< directaction@lists.riseup.net >
Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2004 11:51 AM
Subject: [DASW] UFPJ Presents [ending the]
Iraq [War] Strategy
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) NEXT BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR MEETING:
www.bauaw.org
SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 11AM
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
(NEAR 16TH STREET IN SAN FRANCISCO)
A message from Carole Seligman, BAUAW:
"We should be in the streets demanding billions for relief, not
a penny for war!
ESPECIALLY as all predictions are that the death toll could
double without adequate relief. Tens of thousands of lives
could be saved.
We could call on the international antiwar groups who linked
up twice around international antiwar days to call coordinated
pickets at every US embassy demanding transfer of funds from
bombing Fallujah [and the war on Iraq as a whole] to tsunami
relief, and on the same day(s) picket Federal buildings around
the U.S."
[Note: the above is a section of an email sent to me with exactly
what I think we should do. The national antiwar organizations
could set it in motion on an emergency basis and I'll just bet
that antiwar people all over the U.S. and the world will adopt
it as their own and build it actively. Carole Seligman]
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) STOP THE WAR ON IRAQ! BRING OUR TROOPS HOME NOW!
ALL OUT JANUARY 20TH, 5:00 P.M., CIVIC CENTER, S.F.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kkk1928.jpg
This link brings you to a photo of the KKK marching down Pennsylvania
Avenue in Washington, DC in 1928. Evidently they were able to get a
permit.
(With many thanks to Kwame Somburu for supplying the link. This site
has a plethora of information about the KKK.... Bonnie Weinstein, Bay
Area United Against War)
The U.S. government is not allowing antiwar/anti-Bush protestors onto
Pennsylvania Ave. along the inauguration route Jan. 20th.
We have a constitutional right to protest the inauguration. BAUAW
encourages all to show up in DC and come to Pennsylvania Avenue
with your signs and banners and express your opposition to Bush
and to the War.
We demand equal access along the rout for all. We have a right to
protest our government or any of its official representatives. Nothing
gives the government the right to disallow legal and peaceful protest.
If you can't go to DC, come out Jan. 20, 5pm, Civic Center, SF. in
solidarity with all protestors in Washington and everywhere who
oppose this war.
We are encouraging everyone to participate somehow by wearing
buttons and signs at work, at school and on the bus; hold banners
at freeway entrances, and crowded shopping areas etc. on Jan. 20.
Students should hold rallies and march to the Civic Center.
Come to our next meeting and pick a place to flyer or table for
Jan. 20 or hold a sign during the day, on Jan. 20 if you can.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) Let's Hit the Streets
To Defend Abortion Rights!
Saturday, January 22
Emboldened rightwing abortion foes have had the nerve to announce
a march in San Francisco on the anniversary of the historic Roe v. Wade
decision! Show them that San Francisco is a reproductive rights town
-- save the date and plan to attend a counter demonstration!
What is needed in response is a multi-issue, militant, united front of
women, people of all colors, queers, immigrants, workers and everyone
targeted by the rightwing to show that the anti-abortionists are not
welcome in San Francisco!
Make your opinion heard!
Details of assembly time and place will be announced soon.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) PICTURES OF WAR
PLEASE ACCESS:
** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
I have obtained the originals of the photos I recently posted which were
taken from inside Fallujah.
These are of much higher quality.
Some of the comments have been updated, and there are some additional
pictures added which I did not have before.
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album28&page=
1
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 Dahr Jamail.
All images and text are protected by United States and international
copyright law. If you would like to reprint Dahr's Dispatches on the
web, you need to include this copyright notice and a prominent link
to the DahrJamailIraq.com website. Any other use of images and
text including, but not limited to, reproduction, use on another
website, copying and printing requires the permission of Dahr Jamail.
Of course, feel free to forward Dahr's dispatches via email.
Iraq_Dispatches mailing list
http://lists.dahrjamailiraq.com/mailman/listinfo/iraq_dispatches
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/
view_album.php?set_albumName=album28&page=1
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coalitionforfreethoughtinmedia/message/26138
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coalitionforfreethoughtinmedia/message/26138
Virginion Pilot via AP - Photos - click here
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=79598&ran=187050
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) ITALIAN.QUEER.DANGEROUS
a one-man show featuring Tommi Avicolli Mecca
directed by Francesca Prada, Jan. 14-19, 8:00pm,
JON SIMS CENTER
1519 Mission, Between Van Ness and 11th Sts., SF
(The most important thing is for folks to make reservations ASAP.
Seating is limited. Please take a moment to call 554-0402 if you plan
to come to the show.)
JANUARY 14-29 (Friday and Saturday nights only: 14, 15; 21, 22; 28, 29)
JON SIMS CENTER, 1519 Mission/between Van Ness and 11th
8pm, $5-10 sliding scale (no one turned away)
seating is limited, for reservations: 415-554-0402
to volunteer to help with the show, call 415-552-6031
Through monologue and spoken word, well-known San Francisco
queer activist and writer Tommi Avicolli Mecca tells his story of
growing up in South Philly's working-class Little Italy. At age 19,
fired up with new pride in being gay, he came out to the world--and
his traditional Roman Catholic southern Italian famiglia--on a TV talk
show. The rest is history, and the subject of this performance.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) Military's Test at High Schools Brings a Salvo of Concerns
By Liz F. Kay
Published on Monday, January 3, 2005 by the Baltimore Sun
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0103-02.htm
A few days before her holiday break, South River High School junior
Emily Hawse took a three-hour standardized test offered by military
officials that suggests possible careers for students while helping to
identify promising recruits.
Hawse, 16, of Davidsonville said she did not realize until the day of the
exam that it had a military link. She said students were told not to go to
the Edgewater school that morning if they didn't want to take the test,
called the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery.
"We couldn't go to class if we wanted to," said Hawse, who is undecided
about her future but said it doesn't include the military.
Emily Hawse, a junior at South River High School, said she didn't know
until the day she took the aptitude test that it was part of a Defense
Department program.
(Sun photo by Elizabeth Malby)
At a time of heightened awareness of military recruitment, the aptitude
test offered free by the Defense Department is drawing criticism.
Although Baltimore area school districts have made the test available
for years, some Anne Arundel County students and their parents
complained recently when the test was scheduled during class time
at some schools, and it was unclear to some students that they
could opt out.
The tests have also raised concerns in other places. In a Buffalo, N.Y.,
suburb, a high school junior refused to take the exam. And critics of
the program say they field inquiries from all over the country. They
say military recruiters use the test to identify students with skills
that would be useful in the armed forces.
"You're getting hot leads as opposed to cold leads," said Oskar
Castro, an associate with the Youth and Militarism Program of the
American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group.
Area school and military officials defend the test as a valuable
career-planning tool.
"This is actually a community service that the Department of Defense
provides to help every generation of youth find where they fit in the
world about them," said Chris Arendt, deputy director of accession
policy at the Pentagon.
In the Baltimore area, nearly 1,400 Anne Arundel students took the
test last school year, along with about 1,000 from Baltimore County,
nearly 500 from Baltimore, 181 from Carroll County and 573 from
Howard County. In Howard, three schools with ROTC programs offer
the test, school district officials said.
Baltimore administers the test to seniors on a voluntary basis,
generally at career and technology schools, and at schools with
ROTC programs. Baltimore County makes it available to students
who request it.
Anne Arundel County school officials say the test is not mandatory
but acknowledge that the message might not have been clear to
all students, given the many standardized tests they must take.
"This is one of the first times where kids get to choose whether
they take a test," said Jonathan Brice, spokesman for the Anne
Arundel schools. Next year, officials said, they will emphasize
that the test is voluntary.
The test, which has been given to recruits since 1968, measures
verbal and math skills, and knowledge in areas such as automotive
maintenance and repair, electronics and mechanics. It was
expanded to schools at the urging of the federal Labor and
Education departments, Defense Department officials say.
Military recruitment of high school students has come under
scrutiny recently with the war in Iraq continuing. Such efforts
were criticized in the Michael Moore film Fahrenheit 9/11.
In addition, the federal No Child Left Behind Act requires schools
that receive federal funding to provide military recruiters with
students' names, addresses and phone numbers unless parents
have opted out. Schools also must allow recruiters to have the
same access to campuses that colleges have.
The military's vocational aptitude test is not part of the No Child
Left Behind requirement, and the test's "career explorations"
Web site says students who agree to take the test aren't making
any obligations.
Nationwide, 722,450 students took the test during the past
school year, according to the Defense Department. That includes
more than 8,700 Maryland students from 175 schools.
The assessment has evolved several times since it was developed
from tests used by branches of the military, said Arendt, a Navy
captain. He said he remembers taking an early version of the
test while he was in high school in the 1970s.
"It gave me, as a student, a good idea about what I could and
could not look forward to in careers," he said.
Students or parents who are concerned about how information
about them is used have options, he said. One is to indicate on
the test that they do not want their results released to military
recruiters.
"They get the results, and it's transparent to us," Arendt said.
Some students and their families aren't aware of that option,
Castro said. For more than 18 years, the committee has answered
questions about the test from families who encounter it in their
schools.
As for casting the test as a career-planning tool, he said, "We
think it's a disingenuous use of the test."
Area school officials say the tests can suggest opportunities
in military and civilian jobs.
"It's a career-interest inventory," said Rhonda C. Gill, Anne
Arundel's director of pupil services. "It's not done in any way,
shape or form to focus kids on going into the military."
In Carroll County, all seven high schools have made the test
available to students since the late 1970s, said Barbara Guthrie,
the school system's guidance supervisor. Typically, a handful
of students sign up for it at each school, she said, but at Winters
Mill High School, 70 students took the test this year.
"It's helpful to students and parents as well, but you use it in
combination with lots of other assessments in schools to help
students figure out future plans and what their abilities are,"
Guthrie said.
Although some Anne Arundel schools administer the test more
formally than schools in other counties, officials noted that
students aren't required to take it. Of 250 South River juniors,
70 chose not to take the test on one of the two days it was
offered last month.
While ninth-, 10th- and 11th-graders were taking the PSAT
countywide in October, a little more than half of the seniors
at Broadneck High School took the military test, said guidance
counselor Joe Kozik, as did seniors at North County and other
high schools. At Broadneck, several parents called to get more
information about the test.
"I think the Iraq war has certainly raised concerns on multiple
levels," said Broadneck Principal Cindy Hudson.
The test serves a purpose for military recruiters. Kozik noted
that recruiters are especially interested in the test results of
five Broadneck students this year.
Because of the reporting requirements of No Child Left Behind,
Kozik said, "whether you take this test or not ... we by law have
to provide your name to the federal government."
At South River High School, some juniors left their classes to
take the test two weeks ago. Others remained in class or went
to school later rather than take it.
Emily Hawse said knowing the test's military connection earlier
would not have kept her from taking it. "I was thinking that this
might help me for college," she said.
Her mother, Monica M. Hawse, agreed that the test would be
useful but added, "I think everybody - kids, parents, teachers
- should know it's affiliated with the military."
Megan Lloyd, 16, a junior from Edgewater, said she learned
about the test when a military recruiter spoke to her class.
She was interested in anything that could help her decide
what path to pursue and was not concerned about the
military connection.
"The man who came into our social studies class made me
feel comfortable about it," she said after classes one day.
"It's not like they're going to hound you about it," said fellow
Edgewater resident Charlie Fischer, 16, who is considering
the armed forces and college.
"Or at least, we hope not," Lloyd said.
Sun staff writers Athima Chansanchai and Laura Loh
contributed to this article.
(c) Copyright 2004 Baltimore Sun
###
Common Dreams NewsCenter
(c) Copyrighted 1997-2004
www.commondreams.org
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
7) Honoring 32nd Anniversary of Roe v. Wade
(A resolution put before the S.F. Board of Supervisors
Resolution recognizing January 22, 2005 as "Stand Up For Choice
Day" in honor of the 32nd anniversary of the landmark 1973 United
States Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade establishing a
woman's constitutional right to decide when and if to have a
child; and further supporting the local Pro-Choice community
demonstrating in San Francisco to defend a woman's right to
choose safe and legal abortion and birth control and further
urging all legal authorities to fully facilitate the protection of the
right of women to control their reproductive health, lives and futures
in an ever-increasingly hostile anti-choice climate on the federal level
and in state legislatures and courts throughout the country.
WHEREAS, The 1973 landmark United States Supreme Court decision
Roe v. Wade (the "Roe decision") recognized the right of women to
control their reproductive lives is central to their ability to participate
fully and equally in the economic and social spheres of society; and
WHEREAS, The Roe decision states that (1) the decision to have an
abortion is accorded the highest level of constitutional protection, like
any other fundamental constitutional right, (2) state laws regarding
abortion must be neutral with respect to influencing a woman's decision
whether or not to have an abortion, (3) in the period before a fetus is
viable, the government may restrict abortion only to protect a woman's
health, and (4) after a fetus becomes viable, a state government may
prohibit abortion, provided that such state's laws must permit
abortion where necessary to protect a women's health or life; and
WHEREAS, The protected right to make childbearing decisions,
including abortion, has enabled women to pursue educational and
employment opportunities that were often unattainable prior to
the Roe decision; and
WHEREAS, The Center for Reproductive Rights reports that prior to
the Roe decision, between 200,000 and 1.2 million illegally induced
abortions occurred in the United States each year; and
WHEREAS, In 1992, the United States Supreme Court decided Planned
Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (the "Casey decision"),
where, although it upheld a woman's right to choose, it also allowed
federal, state and local laws that favor fetal rights and burden a
woman's choice to have abortion, as long as the burden is not
"undue;" and
WHEREAS, The Casey decision has unlocked the door to hundreds
of state and federal criminal restrictions designed to discourage
women from accessing abortion and to promote the rights of the
fetus throughout pregnancy; and
WHEREAS, According to the Allen Gutmacher Institute (AGI), since
1996, more than 300 criminal abortion restrictions have been enacted
by state and federal legislatures, none of which would have been
constitutional under the original Roe decision; and
WHEREAS. According to Planned Parenthood, only eight states,
including California, do not mandate parental involvement before
a minor can obtain an abortion; and
WHEREAS, According to AGI, as of January 1, 2004, twenty-one (21)
states will have laws in effect that require a woman to wait for
a period of time, usually twenty four (24) hours, but up to as many
as seventy-two (72) hours, after receiving state-directed counseling
before she can receive an abortion; and
WHEREAS, These restrictions on access to abortion particularly
discriminate against young women, poor women and women of
color; and
WHEREAS, AGI indicates that 87 percent of all counties in the
United States do not have an abortion provider; and
WHEREAS, For the first time since Roe v. Wade was decided,
anti-choice officials are firmly in control of both the executive
and legislative branches of the federal government; and
WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court is only one vacancy
away from eliminating the Constitutional right to abortion; and
WHEREAS, Anti-choice leaders in the Bush Administration and
the federal government are imposing their anti-choice ideology
on the world's most vulnerable women worldwide by blocking
international family planning funding and promoting ineffective
and harmful abstinence-only programs abroad; and
WHEREAS, On January 22nd, people from all over the San Francisco
Bay Area and beyond will gather to defend one of our most prized
rights and liberties, the freedom of women to control their
reproductive health, lives and futures; now, therefore, be
RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors recognizes January 22nd,
2005 as "Stand Up for Choice Day" in honor of the landmark 1973
United States Supreme Court decision of Roe. v. Wade, which
established a woman's constitutional right to decide when and if
to have a child; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors support the
local Pro-Choice community demonstrating in San Francisco to
defend a woman's right to choose safe and legal abortion and birth
control; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors urge all legal
authorities to fully facilitate the protection of the right of women
to control their reproductive health, lives and futures in an ever-
increasingly hostile anti-choice climate on the federal level and in
state legislatures and courts throughout the country.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
8) WMD: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION, the movie will be at the
Red Vic Theatre in S.F. for two days: Jan.4th and 5th.
Check newspapers for details.
For more information contact:
Richard Castro
Outreach & Special Distribution
Cinema Libre Studio
818.349.8822 Ph.
818.349.9922 Fax
www.cinemalibrestudio.com
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
9) The Mighty US GI's: Lied To, Used, and Losing.
By Amer Jubran
January 2, 2005
"I am surprised that the forces are not using air-lifting C-130 airplanes to
avoid ground transportation, which is costing us about a hundred soldiers
every month," said commanding Colonel John Jumpier of the US Air Force
during a press conference in December. About 2,000 military convoys must use
the Iraqi highways to supply the spread-out US forces with water, food, fuel
and other essential supplies. Jumpier said, "It will not be efficient to
serve our troops, but it's a chance to save some lives." He added, "I know
that there will be an increase in the chances of getting these slow and low
altitude flying C-130's shot down, but it's a risk that we should take."
A first look at this statement and one would conclude, correctly, that it is
a very dangerous situation on the ground for US occupying forces. Their lack
of control inside the cities of Iraq is now matched by their lack of control
over the highways between them. When US military leaders have to decide
which deadly option to choose from, it reflects a tone of despair where the
safety of the troops is no longer an important issue. No one is able to
define the mission of the troops in Iraq, or for how long this mission will
last. No one at all, including George W. Bush, can explain the US strategy
in Iraq. This is because there is no strategy. With the Iraqi resistance
raging, it is not clear why the US is occupying this country and why the US
is so willing to sacrifice its soldiers there.
While news sources are divided between either concealing or exaggerating the
number of those killed in Iraq, other important statistics about US soldiers
are forgotten. These statistics give a shocking picture about the truth of
what is happening in Iraq. For example, CBS's 60 Minutes reported last fall
that 300 soldiers migrated to Canada when they received orders to join their
units heading to Iraq. 60 Minutes went on to say that 5,500 US soldiers had
deserted for fear of being killed in Iraq. Some refused to join units
leaving for Iraq, but most of them escaped after arriving in Iraq by fleeing
to neighboring countries such as Turkey and Jordan. As one soldier stated:
"They deceived us when they described our mission to Iraq as a walk in the
park." He added: "I took off so that they won't write on my grave, Deceived
Dead GI in Iraq."
Smuggling American GI's is a booming business in Iraq these days. For $1,000
and his/her weapon and uniform, any US soldier can get him or herself out of
Iraq through Kurdistan. Last April, a female US soldier was captured by the
Kurds, allies of the US, dressed like a Kurdish woman with a face veil,
attempting to cross into Turkey.
According to the New York Times, a Pentagon study revealed that one in every
six soldiers who served in Iraq requires immediate psychological treatment.
Over a million soldiers have served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last two
years. Steven Robinson, a NY Times military expert, believes that the number
needing treatment could jump from one to three soldiers in every six. "There
is a train loaded with people who need help that will be coming to town for
the next thirty five years," said Robinson.
These figures are the worst for the US since the Vietnam War. "Operation
Iraqi Freedom" was supposed to be short and swift. Soldiers were promised
that it would be an easy victory and that they would be home in time for the
summer of 2003. Instead, urban fighting like that in the city of Fallujah
last November, which provided unlimited possibilities for resistance
hideouts, booby-trapped houses, and roads full of roadside bombs, put US
soldiers in the position of having to live every single minute of the day in
fear of an attack. In addition, seeing Iraqis and not being able to
distinguish who is a friend and who is an enemy causes severe anxiety to
soldiers. Paul Raykhouve, commander of a Florida National Guard platoon who
served in Iraq for ten months, was quoted during CBS Sixty Minutes saying:
"The enemy is everywhere, in every street, looking at you from every window,
in every alley. One cannot think straight because of nerve-wracking fear."
Frightened troops lacking both certainty about their mission and a strong
conviction about what they are doing often end up committing war crimes,
such as killing prisoners or injured people. They see in these crimes an
opportunity to get even with their enemy. Racism combines with fear to make
this killing possible. It then becomes important to win acceptance among
other soldiers to justify the crimes. The poor training and poor education
of these soldiers also stands in the way of reason and critical thinking.
They learn to copy existing models of behavior, without a code of ethics or
outside authority to prevent violations of rules of warfare. Even those
soldiers who are not convinced that it is okay to commit war crimes find it
hard to resist.
Both the political and military leadership of the US forces are directly
responsible for providing a large -scale coverup of these crimes. Soldiers
are subjected to an emotional extortion known as "Uniform Code of Loyalty
and Secrecy." Furthermore, the political strength of the US is used to
provide immunity for these soldiers from an international war crimes
tribunal. This leads to normalizing the criminal behavior of servicemen, who
know they can act with impunity.
Caught in frenzy of mass killing, most soldiers develop psychological stress
and mental trauma as a result of serving in Iraq. This stress, predictably,
has been taken out on defenseless Iraqi civilians. Many Iraqis are killed
everyday simply because US soldiers suspected that they were resistance
members. The horrific stories about US soldiers executing wounded Iraqis or
sexually assaulting Iraqi prisoners reveal the severe psychological
conditions that US troops are living under.
Upon finishing service in Iraq, these soldiers will no longer have Iraqis to
murder at will. The weapons they were trained to use will be left behind.
These two things -- without their knowing it -- had become important in
their lives. Without them their return to US society, where there is little
social support, will often mean poverty, alcohol, drugs, domestic violence,
divorce, and suicide. In order not to face themselves, the lies they were
told, and the crimes they committed, these soldiers will return to what they
learned in Iraq - crime, drug trafficking, prostitution, rape, armed
robbery, child abuse, racism, and rallying around the flag.
The government of the US will then have to engage in another massive
coverup. This time it will be to avoid admitting any responsibility for the
psychological illnesses of its servicemen, and for providing no resources to
treat them. Damaged soldiers will become a supply of felons to the US
justice system, which long ago stopped caring about any kind of social
justice. The justice system will in turn deliver the veterans to the prison
system, the US's largest growth industry.
Information about the number of US causalities in Iraq is available on a web
site of the Pentagon or known as the "War Hub" at www.pentagon.gov. This
information covers only those who are officially US citizens enlisted with
different military services. Hired security contractors, or mercenaries, and
recruits who are not citizens who enlisted to obtain a "green card," are not
counted or mentioned. A large number of the green card recruits are from
Mexico and Central America. There are no organizations to look after their
rights or help them once they're in Iraq. Most of them are buried in Iraq
when killed. A videotape produced and distributed by the "Majles Shora
Al-Mojahideen in Fallujah," one of the most important military wings of the
Iraqi resistance, showed a burial site discovered outside the Iraqi city of
Samara with tens of bodies in US military body bags. The dead where dressed
in US uniforms. It is estimated that as many as 40% of the US troops serving
in Iraq are green card recruits.
The website of the Pentagon divides the causalities in Iraq into three
categories:
1)"Combat Causalities" -- 1,300 dead, and 9,000 injured since March, 2003.
Both figures are false.
2) "Non-Combat Causalities." The site does not report how many of these were
injured or killed. Last fall, 60 Minutes concluded that the figure could be
around 3,000 killed and over 25,000 injured.
3) "Coalition Causalities." Information under this category was posted
briefly, then deleted. The figures showed 750 killed and 1,034 injured. It
is not clear who these people were. If they were "coalition forces," then
why are their countries not claiming them?
The US government has gained a reputation of systematically lying to its
population and the rest of the world, but a few facts about Iraq are
emerging despite efforts to conceal them:
* Political stability and security in Iraq is non-existent. This goes to the
heart of the claimed US goal in Iraq. The US justified its removal by
military means of Saddam as a way to create a better and more stable
country. Instead, Iraqis are caught in poverty, hunger, and terrible
violence every day as a direct result of US forces. Iraq is not a better
place today, as Tony Blair and George Bush have claimed. And after Fallujah
no one any longer believes the US is trying to bring freedom to the Iraqis.
* That great lie, the "war on terrorism," has failed to crush what the US
calls international terrorism. US citizens are not safer today than they
were on September 11, 2001. In fact, the most powerful force in the US --
its military machine - is now completely vulnerable to lethal attacks by the
ever-growing Iraqi resistance. Normally, the military is established to
defend or attack those labeled enemies of the state. In the case of the US,
its military is designed to twist the arms of those who do not agree with
its imperial agenda. The US is clearly involved in practicing terrorism by
military means to achieve its strategic interests everywhere around the
globe. But in Iraq, the mighty US military, with over 150,000 well-armed
troops, is very nervous and suffers from low morale, and in the eyes of the
world has lost the moral edge. Furthermore, the war is not a well supported
cause in the US. This time the risk of getting killed in Iraq is real. This
time the enemy is real.
The US public must decide on supporting a policy of war that is killing
their own children and the Iraqi people, or fighting against the war by
taking drastic measures --measures that go beyond vigils and feel-good
political demonstrations. We may be sure that if what we are told about Iraq
by the US government does not look good, the actual truth must be a great
deal worse. Knowing the truth is a big burden. The truth about Iraq is that
the US “Mighty GI’s” are not so mighty!
Announce mailing list
Announce@onepalestine.org
http://mail.onepalestine.org/mailman/listinfo/announce_onepalestine.org
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
10) Update on National Assembly of United for Peace and Justice
We are happy to let you know that after a great deal of work we have
secured a great site for the National Assembly on the weekend of
Feb. 19-21...the Millennium Hotel in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.
The hotel is easy to get to from the airport, and St. Louis is in driving
distance from many cities. The hotel is across the street from the
famous Arch on the Mississippi River. I visited the hotel last week
and so we know it has all of the facilities we will need to help ensure
a successful assembly, and we have been able to negotiate an
excellent price.
As Feb. 19 is about seven weeks away we encourage your group or
organization to start the process of selecting delegates to represent
you at the National Assembly. We are still working out financial
details but have decided that the minimal registration fee for the
assembly will include accommodations and food for up to two
delegates from each UFPJ member group (local affiliates or chapters
of national organizations that are members of UFPJ will only have
one delegate). All the details will be worked out and emailed to you
by the end of this week. Registration for the assembly will be available
on the United for Peace and Justice web site next week. Travel is the
responsibility of the member groups.
During the National Assembly United for Peace and Justice will decide
on a strategic framework, as well as specific strategy, program and
organizing proposals. There will be speakers and small group
discussions on the war in Iraq, and the State of the U.S. and the
Anti-War Movement and much more. The coalition will elect a new
national Steering Committee. Cultural and analytical presenters
and some special guests as well as a dance party will round out
the weekend.
I also want to introduce the coordinator of the National Assembly,
Diane Lent. Diane has been a volunteer with UFPJ and has worked
on many of the mobilizations in New York. She has a long history
in the peace and justice movement and has coordinated similar
gatherings for progressive organizations.
We'll let you know as soon as the assembly registration is set up on
the web site and in the coming weeks you will be getting a lot more
information about the assembly. In the meantime, if you have any
questions please feel free to contact Diane either by phone at the
national office (212-868-5545) or by email (greenelent@earthlink.net).
peace,
Leslie Cagan
National Coordinator
UFPJ@mediajumpstart.net
https://secure.mediajumpstart.net/mailman/listinfo/ufpj
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
11) Zarqawi Qaeda-Linked Group Kills Iraq Governor-Web
DUBAI (Reuters)
Tue Jan 4, 2005 08:21 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7231891&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news
DUBAI (Reuters) - A group led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
said it had assassinated Baghdad governor Ali al-Haidri Tuesday,
according to an Internet statement.
"A group of mujahideen of the Qaeda Organization for Holy War in
Iraq assassinated a tyrant and American agent, the governor of
Baghdad Ali Haidri," said the statement, which was posted on an
Islamist site.
"We warn every traitor and ally of the Jews and the Christians that
this will be your fate," it added.
Gunmen killed Haidri in Iraq's highest-profile assassination in eight
months and a suicide bomber killed 11 people at a police checkpoint
Tuesday in an escalating campaign to wreck an election due on Jan. 30.
Zarqawi's group has claimed responsibility for some of the bloodiest
suicide bombings and attacks in Iraq. Haidri had survived a previous
assassination attempt in September.
(c) Reuters 2005
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
12) Iraq Battling More Than 200,000 Insurgents: Intelligence Chief
Agence France-Presse
Baghdad - Iraq
Monday 03 January 2005
http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/010405W.shtml
Baghdad - Iraq's insurgency counts more than 200,000 active fighters
and sympathisers, the country's national intelligence chief told AFP, in
the bleakest assessment to date of the armed revolt waged by Sunni
Muslims.
"I think the resistance is bigger than the US military in Iraq. I think
the resistance is more than 200,000 people," Iraqi intelligence service
director General Mohamed Abdullah Shahwani said in an interview
ahead of the January 30 elections.
Shahwani said the number includes at least 40,000 hardcore fighters
but rises to more than 200,000 members counting part-time fighters
and volunteers who provide rebels everything from intelligence and
logistics to shelter.
The numbers far exceed any figure presented by the US military in
Iraq, which has struggled to get a handle on the size of the resistance
since toppling Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003.
A senior US military officer declined to endorse or dismiss the spy
chief's numbers.
"As for the size of the insurgency, we don't have good resolution on
the size," the officer said on condition of anonymity.
Past US military assessments on the insurgency's size have been
revised upwards from 5,000 to 20,000 full and part-time members,
in the last half year, most recently in October.
Defense experts said it was impossible to divine the insurgency's
total number, but called Shahwani's estimate a valid guess, with as
much credence, if not more, than any US numbers.
"I believe General Shahwani's estimation, given that he is referring
predominantly to active sympathizers and supporters and to part-time
as well as full-time active insurgents, may not be completely out of
the ballpark," said defense analyst Bruce Hoffman who served as an
advisor to the US occupation in Iraq and now works for US-based
think-tank RAND Corporation.
Compared to the coalition's figure, he said: "General Shahwani's
- however possibly high it may be, might well give a more accurate
picture of the situation."
Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq analyst with the Washington-based
Center for Strategic and International Studies, put Shahwani's
estimates on an equal footing with the American's.
"The Iraqi figures do... recognize the reality that the insurgency
in Iraq has broad support in Sunni areas while the US figures down
play this to the point of denial."
Shahwani said the resistance enjoys wide backing in the provinces
of Baghdad, Babel, Salahuddin, Diyala, Nineveh and Tamim, homes
to Sunni Arabs who fear they will lose influence after the elections.
Insurgents have gained strength through Iraq's tight-knit tribal
bonds and links to the old 400,000-strong Iraqi army, dissolved
by the US occupation in May 2003 two months after the US-led
invasion, he said.
"People are fed up after two years, without improvement. People
are fed up with no security, no electricity, people feel they have to
do something. The army was hundreds of thousands. You'd expect
some veterans would join with their relatives, each one has sons
and brothers."
The rebels have turned city neighborhoods and small towns
around central Iraq into virtual no-go zones despite successful
US military efforts to reclaim former enclaves like Samarra and
Fallujah, he said.
"What are you going to call the situation here (in Baghdad)
when 20 to 30 men can move around with weapons and no one
can get them in Adhamiyah, Dura and Ghazaliya," he said, naming
neighborhoods in the capital.
The spy chief also questioned the success of the November
campaign to retake Fallujah, which US forces have hailed as
a major victory against the resistance.
"What we have now is an empty city almost destroyed... and
most of the insurgents are free. They have gone either to Mosul
or to Baghdad or other areas."
Shahwani pointed to a resurgent Baath party as the key to the
insurgency's might. The Baath has split into three factions, with
the deadliest being the branch still paying allegiance to jailed
dictator Saddam Hussein, he said.
Shahwani said the core Baath fighting strength was more
than 20,000.
Operating out of Syria, Saddam's half-brother Sabawi Ibrahim
al-Hassan and former aide Mohamed Yunis al-Ahmed are
providing funding and tapping their connections to old army
divisions, particularily in Mosul, Samarra, Baquba, Kirkuk and Tikrit.
Saddam's henchman, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, still on the lam
in Iraq, is also involved, he said.
Another two factions, which have broken from Saddam, are
also around, but have yet to mount any attacks. The Baath are
complemented by Islamist factions ranging from Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi's al-Qaeda affiliate to Ansar al-Sunna and Ansar
al-Islam.
Asked if the insurgents were winning, Shahwani answered:
"I would say they aren't losing."
(c) Copyright 2005 by TruthOut.org
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
13) U.S. May Add Advisers to Aid Iraq's Military
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON
January 4, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/04/international/middleeast/04military.html?o
ref=login&hp&ex=1104814800&en=1d44abe6f1fb9a3e&ei=5094&partner=homepage
WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 - Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander
in Iraq, is reviewing a proposal to add hundreds of American military
advisers to work directly with Iraqi units, whose disappointing
performance could jeopardize the long-term American exit strategy
from Iraq, senior military officials said Monday.
Americans are training Iraqi police officers and national guard troops
to replace them in securing the country, but the results over all have
been troubling, with growing desertion rates in the most violent
provinces, gaps in leadership, and poor battlefield performance,
American military officers and troops say.
The advisers would bolster the Iraqi will to fight, help train officers
who would lead the troops, curb desertion and provide Iraqi forces
with the confidence that American units would back them up - in
some cases fighting alongside them if needed, military and Pentagon
officials said.
Several hundred American troops are already embedded with Iraqi
units, following a long tradition in American military actions. But the
proposal would greatly expand this presence.
The details of the proposal are still being discussed among American
and Iraqi officials, and more troops would probably not be embedded
until after the Jan. 30 elections, in which Iraqi forces will play
a crucial part.
Embedding more Americans with Iraqis would mean diverting
perhaps several hundred additional American troops away from
combat operations, military officials said. There are 150,000
American forces in Iraq.
Although diverting soldiers might be risky at a time when
commanders say they need troops to press offensives against
insurgents, the plan addresses a widely acknowledged need.
American commanders have praised the skills of some Iraqi forces,
particularly new commando units that have seen combat
throughout the country. But the Americans have criticized
other Iraqi forces for their slovenly appearance and lack of
commitment, raising questions about how soldiers and marines
will respond tojoining such units.
There has been widespread concern in the Bush administration
about the poor performance of Iraqi troops. President Bush himself
discussed the issue in a news conference on Dec. 20. "They've got
some generals in place and they've got foot soldiers in place, but
the whole command structure necessary to have a viable military
is not in place," he said. "And so they're going to spend a lot of
time and effort on achieving that objective."
If approved, the plan would expand and standardize steps already
taken by some American units, including the Army's First Cavalry
Division and some Marine Corps units, to enhance the training
that the Iraqi Army, National Guard and police forces receive after
boot camp.
"The development of Iraqi security forces is, in my view, necessarily
the main effort," Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of American
forces in northern Iraq, said in an e-mail message from his
headquarters in Mosul on Monday. "Building capable and loyal
Iraqi forces is what will eventually lead to the defeat of the
insurgency and to a sufficiently stable environment so that U.S.
and other forces can begin to reduce our presence."
General Ham, noting the earlier efforts by some units, said, "It's
time to apply it on a larger scale."
"It seems to me that this is something we want to start doing in
the immediate post-election period," he said.
The proposal that General Casey and his top aides are weighing
has received support in principle from Pentagon officials at a time
when Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has been urging
commanders in Iraq to accelerate the creation of Iraqi security
forces and to improve their quality, a senior Pentagon official
said Monday.
General Casey, at a Pentagon news conference on Dec. 16, said
an exhaustive internal review of the military's campaign plan for
Iraq concluded that training the local police and building a better
border patrol were two of three essential areas that were well
behind schedule. The other area was establishing effective
Iraqi intelligence services.
Proponents of embedding programs readily acknowledge that
they will lose the American troops for active combat operations,
but they insist that the Iraqis' training and confidence has improved.
"It's cost us," Brig. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, an assistant commander
of the First Cavalry Division in Baghdad, told reporters last week
of the division's 540 soldiers who are now assigned to Iraqi
National Guard units in the city. But, he added, "It pays dividends."
Some influential lawmakers, however, including Senator John
W. Warner, a Virginia Republican who heads the Armed Services
Committee and who recently visited troops in Iraq, have
expressed pessimism that Iraqis will be able to develop
independent security forces potent enough to thwart the
insurgency. "The raw material is lacking in the willpower and
commitment after they receive this training to really shoulder
the heavy responsibilities," he said on the NBC News program
"Meet the Press" on Dec. 19.
On paper, there are reasons for worry and for hope, military
officials say. There are plans to produce a total of 179,600
police and border patrol officers. Of about 116,000 officers
on duty now, only 73,000 are fully trained and equipped,
according to Pentagon statistics on Dec. 27. About half of
a projected 100,000 Iraqi Army, National Guard and
commando troops are now operating.
There are now 10-man adviser and support teams with each
of 27 regular Iraqi Army and intervention force battalions
(nine of which are still in training), their nine brigade
headquarters (three still in training) and their three division
headquarters, senior military officials in Iraq said.
In addition, adviser teams from Army Special Forces and
other American units are with most of the Iraqi National
Guard forces.
Expanding on those adviser teams, the proposal before
General Casey would probably provide 10-man teams with
45 existing and 20 emerging national guard battalions. In
addition, the Department of Homeland Security is providing
small teams to help train new Iraqi border police officers,
a military official in Iraq said.
Some details of the new plan were first reported by CNN
on Dec. 26.
Some of the most ambitious plans are to bolster the abilities
of the Iraqi police. The new Iraqi government has fielded
about a dozen police commando units or other specialized
units, whose performance American officers have largely praised.
The commandos include former Iraqi special forces troops
and have performed well, combining commando skills and
weaponry with police powers to make arrests, a senior allied
official in Baghdad said Monday.
The approach would also provide assistance and mentoring
to the 3,500 basic police graduates that academies in Iraq
and Jordan are churning out every month.
After the insurgent attacks on police stations in Mosul in
November, in which most of the city's police officers
abandoned their posts, American officials, working closely
with the Iraqi government, have toughened the training to
resemble more paramilitary operations and have enforced
policies to cut down on Iraqis' skipping out on leave.
In Mosul, American forces have been assigned to all police
stations. On Saturday, Iraqi security forces and their American
advisers fought off a rocket-propelled grenade attack on
a police station in the southeast part of the city.
A military spokesman, Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, said it was
the 12th time since Nov. 10 that insurgents had tried to
take over a police station, none of which have fallen to
rebels in that period.
Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington
for this article, and Erik Eckholm from Baghdad.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
14) 5 U.S. Troops Are Killed, and Baghdad
Governor Is Slain
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and DAVID E. SANGER.
BAGHDAD, Iraq
January 4, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/04/international/middleeast/04cnd-iraq.html?h
p&ex=1104901200&en=774671f9e3bc3432&ei=5094&partner=homepage
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 4 - Four American soldiers and a marine
were killed today and three other soldiers were wounded on a day that
also saw the assassination of the governor of Baghdad, one of the
highest-profile killings of an Iraqi official in months.
In other violence, a bomb-laden fuel truck killed eight Iraqi commandos
and two other people when it crashed into a checkpoint in western
Baghdad about 9 a.m. today, according to an Interior Ministry official.
Sixty others were wounded in the attack, which happened near the
scene of two deadly car bombings on Monday.
Three soldiers with the First Cavalry Division died and two were wounded
when an improvised bomb went off at about 11 a.m. in north Baghdad.
About 30 minutes later a soldier with the First Infantry Division was
killed and another was wounded, the military said, when a bomb
exploded near Balad, site of an American air base about 50 miles
north of Baghdad.
The marine with the First Marine Expeditionary Force was killed in
action while carrying out security operations in Al Anbar Province, a
restive Sunni region west of the capital, the military said.
The Baghdad governor, Ali al-Haidari, was attacked and killed in a
roadside ambush after he left his home, the Interior Ministry said. The
Associated Press reported that six of the governor's bodyguards were
also killed. He was the most senior official assassinated in the city
since the head of the Governing Council was killed last May.
Mr. Haidari survived a previous assassination attempt in September.
Later, an insurgent group led by the Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
and linked to Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the ambush,
according to a message and video posted on an Islamist Internet
site. The group has taken responsibility for many previous deadly
attacks in Iraq.
Insurgents have repeatedly attacked Iraqi officials as well as
members of the country's security forces, accusing them of
collaborating with foreign occupiers.
The steady violence prompted Iraq's interim president, Ghazi
al-Yawar, to urge the United Nations to to look into whether the
country should go ahead with its scheduled Jan. 30 election.
"Definitely the United Nations, as an independent umbrella of
legitimacy, should really take the responsibility by seeing whether
that is possible or not," Mr. al-Yawar, a Sunni Arab sheik, told
Reuters in an interview.
"On a logical basis, there are signs that it will be a tough call to
hold the election," he said, in comments that pulled back from
a statement he made on a visit to Washington in December.
On that visit with President Bush, both men reinforced their
message that elections must go ahead as scheduled, despite
the violence.
Mr. al-Yawar's comments today came after Prime Minister Ayad
Allawi telephoned President Bush on Monday and discussed the
many impediments still facing the country as it heads toward
elections in 27 days, according to senior American officials familiar
with the contents of the call.
The officials insisted that Dr. Allawi, Iraq's interim leader, did not
tell Mr. Bush that the elections should be delayed, though his defense
minister said in Cairo on Monday that the voting could be postponed
to ensure greater participation by Sunnis. "There was no substantive
conversation about delay," a senior administration official said.
Dr. Allawi, the official said, "wasn't even a bit wobbly" on that point.
But some officials in Washington and in Iraq interpreted the telephone
call as a sign that Dr. Allawi, who is clearly concerned his own party
could be headed to defeat if the election is held on schedule, may
be preparing the ground to make the case for delay to Mr. Bush.
"Clearly the thinking on this is still in motion in Baghdad," a senior
administration official said Monday evening. "And President Bush
is holding firm," the official said, telling Dr. Allawi that the Iraqi
government has met every deadline so far, including assuming
power from the United States in June.
Mr. Bush has publicly insisted that the elections must go forward
on Jan. 30, as scheduled, and said any delay would mean giving
in to the insurgents who have vowed to stop the elections from
taking place.
Dr. Allawi's call, on Mr. Bush's first day back in Washington after
a weeklong break at his Texas ranch, came just hours after
a wave of bombing attacks left at least 20 people dead, including
one blast near the interim prime minister's Baghdad party
headquarters. Another killed three British citizens and an American
in a convoy of the American security firm Kroll Inc. In addition to
the 20 or more deaths - a figure that included suicide bombers -
dozens were injured.
The attacks, which followed a car bombing north of Baghdad on
Sunday that killed 18 Iraqi troops, were the latest attempt by
insurgents to destabilize the country and intimidate Iraqis in the
weeks before the parliamentary elections. The insurgents' targets
are Iraqis who work with American forces, especially in Sunni areas,
in hopes of frightening people from the polls. Some groups have
already warned of major attacks on Election Day.
While White House officials were hesitant to give many details of the
discussion between Dr. Allawi and Mr. Bush, they said the Iraqi leader
brought up questions of security and the ferocity of the insurgency.
"It was a discussion about the impediments," said an official who
reviewed a transcript of the call. "But no one suggested the
impediments could not be overcome."
Yet Dr. Allawi's cabinet is already showing signs of weakening
on the question of holding the elections this month. The defense
minister, Hazem Shaalan, suggested during his Cairo visit that
a postponement would encourage Sunnis to participate; American
and Iraqi officials have been concerned that if the Sunnis are blocked
from voting or boycott the election, the outcome will not be
considered legitimate.
But an American Embassy official said the United States wanted
the elections to proceed as scheduled, and an official with Iraq's
independent election commission told The Associated Press that
there were no plans for a delay.
No one affiliated with Prime Minister Allawi's party, the Iraqi National
Accord, was hurt in the suicide car bombing Monday morning near
the party's headquarters in Baghdad, Iraqi officials said. But the blast
killed two Iraqi police officers and one other person in addition to the
car's driver while injuring at least 25 others, according to Iraqi
officials.
The Iraqi police said the bomb detonated after the police rained
gunfire on the vehicle to stop it from passing a checkpoint.
The suicide bomber drove a Chevrolet Caprice with the markings
of a Baghdad taxicab and rammed the checkpoint near the party
headquarters just west of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified
American compound in central Baghdad.
The victims were taken to Yarmouk Hospital. Ahmed Thamir,
a 21-year-old soldier slightly wounded in the attack, stood guard
outside the hospital with a Kalashnikov rifle. "It's hard to trust
anyone nowadays," he said.
The group that calls itself the Army of Ansar al-Sunna took
responsibility for the attack in an Internet posting. In the message,
the group warned "apostates" that if they "do not repent from your
infidelity," it had other bombers ready to "kill you one by one." The
group has claimed a string of attacks, including the Dec. 21 bombing
of a mess tent in Mosul that killed 14 American servicemen and
8 other people.
Many recent attacks against Iraqi troops and officials have occurred
in the heavily Sunni areas north of Baghdad, a region where the
deadliest attacks took place on Monday.
In the first attack, shortly before 8 a.m., a car bomb killed 4 Iraqi
National Guard soldiers and wounded 14 more near a military base
in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, said Master Sgt. Robert
Cowens, a spokesman for the First Infantry Division. The attack
was not far from where insurgents killed 18 Iraqi troops and
a civilian the day before by detonating an explosives-laden
vehicle next to a bus full of national guardsmen.
Early Monday afternoon, six Iraqi National Guard troops were
killed and four wounded when insurgents attacked a patrol near
Tikrit, farther north of Baghdad, with a roadside bomb. The
attackers used an artillery shell for ammunition in the attack,
which happened at 2:40 p.m., Sergeant Cowens said.
There were reports of other attacks across Iraq. In Tal Afar,
a city in northern Iraq, one Iraqi policeman was killed and two
were wounded when a homemade bomb hidden in a decapitated
body exploded as the policemen approached the body, the
government said in a statement.
The attack on a car carrying employees of Kroll Inc., the New
York-based risk consulting and security firm, occurred at 3:45
p.m. at a checkpoint where people leave Baghdad's fortified
Green Zone to get onto the road to the airport.
A Kroll official said that four people were killed when a suicide
bomber rammed into their car, including two British employees
of Kroll. "It was a suicide attack on a convoy coming from the
airport," said Pat Wood, Kroll's vice president for corporate
communications.
The other victims were an American woman, Tracy Hushin, of
Islip, N.Y., with the consulting firm BearingPoint, and a British
citizen working for a subcontractor of the company, an
announcement by BearingPoint said.
Despite the violence, American officials say the election must
be held, as planned, on Jan. 30. For one thing, they say, the Iraqi
interim constitution mandates the timing. There have already been
extensive preparations by the American military for the elections,
they say.
Some Sunni leaders have called for a delay, worried that the
intimidation tactics will keep many voters home and lead to
severe Sunni under representation in the new government.
Mr. Shaalan made his suggestion for a delay Monday as he
sought help from other Arab nations to persuade Iraq's
Sunnis to take part.
Richar A. Oppel Jr. reported from Baghdad for this article
and David E. Sanger from Washington. Steven R. Weisman
contributed reporting from Washington.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
15) Supreme Court to Rule on Executing Young Killers
By ADAM LIPTAK
January 4, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/04/national/04juvenile.html?hp&ex=1104901200&
en=ceb849ee6735d090&ei=5094&partner=homepage
In August, six months after the United States Supreme Court
agreed to consider the constitutionality of the juvenile death
penalty, Robert Acuna, a high school student from Baytown,
Tex., was put on trial for his life.
The jury convicted Mr. Acuna of killing two elderly neighbors,
James and Joyce Carroll, when he was 17, shooting them
"execution style," as prosecutors described it, and stealing
their car. At sentencing, when jurors weighed his crime against
factors counseling leniency, Mr. Acuna's youth should have
counted in his favor.
Instead, his brooding and volatile adolescent demeanor may
have hurt more than helped, and the Houston jury sentenced
him to die.
"They probably thought that he wasn't showing remorse,"
said Mr. Acuna's mother, Barbara.
Renee Magee, who prosecuted Mr. Acuna, now 18, agreed
that his behavior at the trial had alienated the jury. "He was
very nonchalant," Ms. Magee said. "He laughed at inappropriate
things. He still didn't quite get the magnitude of everything he did."
Mr. Acuna is the latest person to enter death row for a crime
committed before age 18. He may also be the last.
If the Supreme Court prohibits the execution of 16- and
17-year-olds in a case it accepted a year ago, involving
a Missouri man, the lives of Mr. Acuna and 71 other juvenile
offenders on death row will be spared.
A central issue before the court, which is expected to rule in
the next few months, is whether the plummeting number of
such death sentences - there were two last year - lends weight
to the argument that putting youths on death row amounts
to cruel and unusual punishment. Supporters of the juvenile
death penalty argue that the small number proves instead that
the system works and that juries are making discerning choices
on whom to sentence to death, taking due account of the
defendants' youth and reserving the ultimate punishment
for the worst of the worst.
But a look at the cases of some of the juvenile offenders now
on death row raises questions about how reliable and
consistent juries have been in making those decisions.
Age can shape every aspect of a capital case. Crimes committed
by teenagers are often particularly brutal, attracting great publicity
and fierce prosecutions. Adolescents are more likely to confess,
and are not adept at navigating the justice system.
Jurors' reactions to teenagers' demeanor and appearance can be
quite varied. The defendants they see have aged an average of
two years between the crime and the trial. And jurors may not
necessarily accept expert testimony concerning recent research
showing that the adolescent brain is not fully developed.
The Supreme Court in 1988 banned the execution of those under
16 at the time of their crimes. During arguments in October on
whether to move that categorical line to 18, Justice Antonin Scalia
said the drop in juvenile death sentences was proof that juries
could be trusted to sort through and weigh evidence about
defendants' youth and culpability.
"It doesn't surprise me that the death penalty for 16- to
18-year-olds is rarely imposed," Justice Scalia said. "I would
expect it would be. But it's a question of whether you leave it
to the jury to evaluate the person's youth and take that into
account or whether you adopt a hard rule."
Juries in capital cases involving juvenile offenders certainly place
great weight on the defendants' youth. The defendants seldom
testify, but jurors inspect them closely and draw conclusions
from how they look and handle themselves. And the very same
factors may cut both ways. Adolescent recklessness may suggest
diminished responsibility to some and a terrible danger to others.
The youth of Christopher Simmons, the defendant whose case
is now before the Supreme Court, was such a double-edged sword.
Mr. Simmons was 17 in 1993, when he and a friend robbed, bound
and gagged Shirley Crook, 46, and pushed her into a river, where
she drowned.
During Mr. Simmons's sentencing hearing, a Missouri prosecutor s
coffed at the notion that Mr. Simmons's age should count as a
mitigating factor in his favor.
"Seventeen years old," the prosecutor, George McElroy, said.
"Isn't that scary? Doesn't that scare you? Mitigating? Quite the
contrary, I submit. Quite the contrary."
Mr. Acuna had a tough-looking buzz cut at the time of the
killings, said Tim Carroll, the son of the couple Mr. Acuna
killed. At the trial, he looked different.
"He appeared as though someone had tried to make him
look 8 years old all over again," Mr. Carroll said. "His hair
was all combed down, almost in little bangs."
That did not sway Mr. Acuna's jury. But the youthful appearance
of Lee Malvo, the teenager who participated in the sniper
shootings in the Washington area in 2002, may have saved his
life. Mr. Malvo, who is short and slight, wore boyish, baggy
sweaters most days. Although a Virginia jury convicted him of
a killing he committed at 17, it voted against putting him to death.
"He's very lucky that he looks a lot younger than he is," Robert
F. Horan Jr., the lead prosecutor in the case, said at the time.
But Mr. Malvo is growing older, and he still faces capital charges
in other states.
"They're talking about letting him grow a five o'clock shadow and
then trying him in Alabama or Louisiana," said Victor L. Streib,
a law professor at Ohio Northern University and an expert on
the juvenile death penalty, referring to prosecutors in those
states. "Prosecutors don't mind delay in juvenile death penalty
cases."
Beyond wrestling with the appearance of youth, juries must also
often balance the brutality and recklessness of much juvenile
crime against young people's immaturity.
Studies support the common view that adolescents tend to be
reckless and do not calculate the risks and consequences of
their actions as adults do. They are moodier, more susceptible
to peer pressure and do not have an acute sense of mortality.
The law seems to recognize this, with most states using 18 as
the dividing line between childhood and adulthood in many
areas, including the ability to vote and to serve on a jury.
Mr. Carroll, the murdered couple's son, said a categorical rule
made no sense in the context of the death penalty.
"If you're going to make the argument that someone's cognitive
reasoning is not developed at 17 years and 8 months but would
be at 18," he said, "we should rethink whether they should be
able to drive, and make split-second decisions in an 8,000-
pound vehicle, or get married, or have children."
When the Supreme Court heard arguments in the Simmons case,
a brief supporting Missouri submitted by Alabama and five other
states with the juvenile death penalty received particular attention.
It set out, in plainspoken prose, the disturbing stories of
10 murders committed by seven young killers, all on death
row in Alabama.
The cases cited in the Alabama brief are in many ways typical,
Professor Streib said. "The capital crimes committed by juveniles,"
he said, "are often classic adolescent male bizarreness, often
sexual and all the more revolting for that reason."
Mr. Carroll said Mr. Acuna's killings were sadistic.
"The evidence given in the case very strongly indicates that he
made my father kneel and shot him in the back of the head, e
xecution-style," Mr. Carroll said. "My mother, who could not
walk without the help of a walker - this fellow shot her in the
side of her face and blew her teeth out all over the kitchen floor."
Mr. Acuna then gave the woman time to wipe the blood from her
mouth with a paper towel, Mr. Carroll said.
"And then he moved in," Mr. Carroll said, "to shoot her through
the brain when he thought it was time."
If their youth can make teenage defendants wilder and their
crimes more odious, it can also trip them up when they start
navigating the legal system.
According to a study of the juvenile offenders on death row
by The New York Times, 56 percent confessed or gave
incriminating statements to the authorities. Mr. Acuna was
in the minority.
"Juveniles are more likely to be more compliant, more naïve
and less likely to believe that police do not have their best
interests in mind," said Steven A. Drizin, a law professor at
Northwestern who has studied false confessions by juvenile
defendants. "They are more likely to confess simply to bring
an end to the interview process and take their chances in court."
In the case of Mr. Acuna, the evidence in the case was largely
circumstantial. He was found with James Carroll's wallet in
a Dallas motel. The murdered couple's car was outside, and
it contained the murder weapon.
Juries have in recent years been increasingly reluctant to
sentence teenagers to death, and the number of death sentences
imposed on juvenile offenders is now almost at the vanishing
point. In 2003 and 2004, only two juvenile offenders were
sentenced to death in the United States. The average annual
number in the 1990's was slightly more than 10. From 1999
to 2003, according to a study to be published in The Journal
of Criminal Law and Criminology, the number of juvenile death
sentences per 100 homicide arrests of those under 18 dropped
to 0.2 from 1.6.
"Over the past five years, there has been a very strong decline in
willingness of juries and judges to sentence adolescents to
death," said Jeffrey Fagan, a co-author of the study with Valerie
West. "The decline is greater than you would expect knowing the
decline in the homicide rate, the decline in juvenile homicide
arrests and the decline in adult death sentences."
It can be hard to say, then, what made the crimes of Mr. Acuna
and Eric Morgan, the only two juvenile offenders sentenced to
die last year, worse than other murders committed by teenagers
around the nation. Mr. Morgan was convicted of killing
a convenience store clerk in South Carolina during a robbery.
The jury that spared Mr. Malvo's life heard many days of
testimony about his difficult childhood in Jamaica and about
the influence that his surrogate father and accomplice, John
A. Muhammad, wielded over him.
Mr. Acuna's lawyers had less to work with.
"Robert wasn't on drugs, he wasn't abused, he wasn't mentally
retarded or mentally ill," Ms. Acuna, his mother, said.
The prosecutor, Ms. Magee, agreed that there had been nothing
in the youth's personal life that would help explain the killings.
Mr. Acuna's lawyers were left to rely almost entirely on his age in
pleading for his life, and that was not enough, Ms. Magee said.
"The crime just far outweighed the mitigating factor that he was
a juvenile offender," she said. Ms. Acuna said it was hard to listen
to Ms. Magee's pleas for her son's death at the trial.
"Here is my son that I love and that I protect with my life," she
said. "And here's a person who stands up and says, 'I'm going
to do everything that I can to legally kill him.' "
At bottom, Professor Streib said, only a few themes run through
the 72 men on death row whose lives depend on how the Supreme
Court rules on the juvenile death penalty. Most of the men, unlike
Mr. Acuna, come from troubled backgrounds, and all committed
terrible crimes. But that is true of many thousands of other juvenile
killers.
"It's not a rational process," Professor Streib said. "We can't look at
juveniles on death row and say they are the worst of the worst. Some
have killed entire families. Some shot a clerk while robbing
a convenience store like thousands of others, and you have no
idea why lightning struck in this or that case."
Toby Lyles, Tom Torok and Margot Williams contributed reporting
for this article.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
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16) Prosecution Concludes Case in Terror Trial
By JULIA PRESTON
January 4, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/04/nyregion/04stewart.html
A federal prosecutor yesterday wrapped up the government's case
against Lynne F. Stewart, a lawyer accused of aiding terrorists, by
charging that she had released a bellicose statement to the news
media on behalf of an imprisoned client because she secretly wanted
to help violent militants overthrow the Egyptian government.
The prosecutor, Andrew Dember, an assistant United States attorney,
assailed the basic tenet of Ms. Stewart's defense: that she had conveyed
messages to the news media from her client as part of a legal strategy to
secure his eventual release from jail. The client, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman,
an Egyptian Islamic cleric who is blind, is serving a life sentence in
federal
prison for a failed plot to bomb the United Nations building, the Lincoln
and Holland Tunnels and other New York sites.
"None of the things that Stewart did in this case has anything to do with
any legal matter, nothing to do with being a lawyer," Mr. Dember
thundered to the jury, concluding an unusually long closing argument
that lasted two and a half days.
Ms. Stewart was dealing with "illegal matters, not legal matters," he
charged.
The case centers on a statement Ms. Stewart gave to a reporter after
visiting Mr. Abdel Rahman in jail in May 2000, in which the sheik said
he was withdrawing his support for a cease-fire his followers in Egypt
had observed since 1997. Ms. Stewart had agreed in writing to
prison rules that barred her from helping the sheik communicate
with the press.
To make his point, Mr. Dember replayed for the jury, in Federal
District Court in Manhattan, an excerpt from a television interview
Ms. Stewart gave in 2002, a few weeks after her arrest, to Greta Van
Susteren of Fox News. After many weeks of presenting the
government's main evidence - secret F.B.I. audio and video recordings
of telephone calls and meetings involving Ms. Stewart and two
co-defendants - prosecutors had introduced the interview video
at the end, almost as an afterthought.
In the interview, Ms. Stewart acknowledged that she had agreed
not to convey messages from the sheik to the news media. She
also said the sheik's best hope for getting out of his American jail
would be a seizure of power by his party in Egypt, which could
then negotiate a prisoner exchange to bring him home.
Mr. Dember charged that Ms. Stewart knew that many of the sheik's
followers were designated as terrorists and might jump at the chance
to return to war in their country. "She had all the power in the world
to stop it," Mr. Dember said of the sheik's message to his followers.
"But she didn't want to stop it."
Ms. Stewart remained composed at the defendants' table, at times
even looking amused. Noting during a break that her chief lawyer,
Michael E. Tigar, will begin his closing arguments as early as
tomorrow, she said, "Just wait!"
Mr. Dember asserted that it was "nonsense" for Ms. Stewart to
say that the sheik's news release was part of her plan to persuade
Egypt to let him return home to serve out his sentence there. The
prosecutor pointed out that United States and Egyptian officials
would be unlikely to send the sheik back to his country when he
was supporting renewed violence there.
Mr. Dember provided only vague details when it came to
demonstrating connections between Ms. Stewart and the activities
of a co-defendant, Ahmed Abdel Sattar, who dealt extensively by
telephone with militants who were labeled terrorists by the United
States. The prosecutor acknowledged that Ms. Stewart, in dozens
of hours of secretly recorded phone calls, never said she undertook
any action to promote violent revolution in Egypt.
Instead, he based his allegations heavily on general statements Ms.
Stewart had made supporting what she called revolutionary violence
in apartheid South Africa and against the government of Israel.
Mr. Dember aimed some of his most intense anger against the other
co-defendant, Mohamed Yousry, an Arabic interpreter who translated
the sheik's conversations for Ms. Stewart and read letters and
newspapers to the cleric.
"He had all the power to say, 'No!' " Mr. Dember said, raising his
voice, about Mr. Yousry's role in translating the sheik's cease-fire
message.
Beginning his summation in the afternoon, a lawyer for Mr. Yousry,
David Stern, said his client had always followed the guidance of
Ms. Stewart and other lawyers. "He honestly believed that what he
was doing was not criminal," Mr. Stern said. "His only job was to
translate."
Mr. Stern showed the jury that Mr. Yousry had once referred to the
sheik and his followers as "garbage," and had repeatedly rejected
the sheik's political views. Mr. Stern played a video excerpt of
a prison meeting where Mr. Yousry had questioned the sheik
about an edict issued under his name that called for the murder
of Jews.
"None of your business!" the sheik had barked contemptuously
at Mr. Yousry.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
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17) Limits Eased on Killing of Wolves
By KIRK JOHNSON
DENVER
January 4, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/04/national/04wolf.html
DENVER, Jan. 3 - Killing a gray wolf in Idaho or Montana will soon get
easier under new rules issued Monday by the Fish and Wildlife Service.
The animals are still formally protected by the federal Endangered
Species Act, but starting in 30 days, they can be killed if a landowner
believes a wolf is in the process of attacking livestock or other animals.
The old rules required physical evidence of an actual attack - bite
marks or a carcass.
"Under the old rule, he had to have its teeth in; under the new rule
he can be a foot away chasing them," said Ed Bangs, wolf recovery
coordinator for the Wildlife Service.
State wildlife management officials were also given greater flexibility
in controlling wolf populations to maintain the deer and elk herds
upon which wolves often feed.
State and federal officials said that the looser standards, part of
the process of removing wolves from federal protections, reflected
a robust recovery by wolves in the northern Rocky Mountain region.
The recovery has surpassed all expectations since the first
experimental populations were reintroduced in Yellowstone
National Park in 1995 and 1996, the officials said.
"The old rule was written to protect 25 to 50 wolves, and we now
have over 500," said Idaho's governor, Dirk Kempthorne, in
a conference call with reporters. "The dynamics have changed."
Environmentalists said that the federal estimate of wolf mortality
- about 10 percent a year under the more flexible guidelines
- is deeply uncertain and could end up being much greater.
"Ten percent in a large, healthy population might not have
much impact, but we still have wolves struggling with recovery
in some areas," said Nina Fascione, a vice president for field
conservation programs at Defenders of Wildlife, a conservation
group based in Washington. "With all the increased flexibility,
I would be surprised if the impact is just 10 percent,"
Ms. Fascione said.
Wyoming, which also has a substantial wolf population, was not
included in the new rules because the Fish and Wildlife Service
has not approved the state's proposed wolf management plan.
Gale A. Norton, who as secretary of the interior oversees the
wildlife service, said that the full removal of gray wolves from
federal protections would proceed only when all three states
in the recovery area had plans in place.
Ms. Norton said the old, stricter rules about wolf killing would
still apply in Wyoming for now.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
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18) UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
WINTER/SPRING ORGANIZING DRIVE TO END THE U.S.
WAR ON IRAQ
From: "Carwil James" < carwil@falseignorance.info >
To: "Direct Action to Stop the War"
< directaction@lists.riseup.net >
Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2004 11:51 AM
Subject: [DASW] UFPJ Presents [ending the]
Iraq [War] Strategy
As the U.S. war against Iraq approaches the end of its second
year, there are no signs of any change in U.S. foreign policy or
any let-up in the fighting. People throughout this country and
around the world have marched, rallied, lobbied, participated in
actions of nonviolent civil disobedience, passed resolutions in
their unions and religious institutions, and much more. But the Bush
Administration has claimed the U.S. election results as a mandate
for continued war and occupation, the death toll ? among Iraqis
and U.S. servicepeople -- mounts every day, and the U.S. is
increasing troop levels rather than taking steps toward military
disengagement.
United for Peace and Justice believes that, in order to bring an
end to the war and bring the troops home, the antiwar movement
must reshape its work. Yes, we need to continue with mass
mobilizations and public protests ? in fact, we need
to increase their size and visibility. At the same time, we
must broaden the active core of our movement, give it
greater strategic focus, and intensify our resistance. Ending
the war will not be an easy task, nor will it happen overnight. To
succeed, the anti-war movement needs to expand our numbers;
involve new organizations and communities; and focus pressure
strategically on the weak points in the Administration's war
program ? its moral bankruptcy, the massive human costs, its
financial cost, and the intensifying need for new military recruits.
The proposal below is for a specific program of activism during
the first three months of 2005, but it flows from a larger, longer
-term vision of organizing that we hope member groups will
embrace and continue into the future.
Strategy We believe that there are three crucial weak points in
the Administration's war strategy. The Bush Administration
cannot fight this war without taxpayer funding, soldiers willing
to die, and the ability to contain domestic opposition
to acceptable levels. The anti-war movement should focus its
energies on increasing the war's unpopularity, particularly by
emphasizing the horrific loss of life on all sides; by highlighting
the war's escalating financial cost, and the consequences of war
spending for our communities; and by disrupting the Pentagon's
ability to recruit new troops.
Public opinion polls suggest that support for the war continues
to erode as the conflict drags on and the death toll mounts.
The staggering cost of the war creates the practical basis for
building durable alliances between groups whose main priority
may be winning social and economic justice at home (e.g. civil
rights groups, labor, clergy, community groups) with those who
focus primarily on ending the war abroad. More and more combat
veterans are resisting their call-ups; the Army and National
Guard are having difficulty meeting their recruitment goals;
and the military is overstretching itself in Iraq.
The anti-war movement can:
* offer those who oppose the war but are not yet active with
simple, high-visibility ways to express their views * intensify
opposition to the war among those who are active and raise the
level of popular unrest * build pressure at the Congressional
district level to freeze, then cut, funding and troop levels
* work to reduce military enlistments and support dissenting
soldiers, combat veterans, reservists, and their families who are s
peaking out against the war or refusing to serve.
To do these things successfully, anti-war organizations will
need to engage in a concerted program of base- and alliance
-building, ongoing visibility and protest activities, strategic
pressure campaigns, and campaigns of nonviolent civil resistance.
This organizing drive is one central component of this larger
strategy for ending the war. UFPJ has just created a new civil
resistance working group, and specific proposals for action will
soon be circulated. We are also developing detailed suggestions
for how member groups can organize pressure campaigns around
funding for the war and military recruitment, including targeting
members of Congress. We are developing a grassroots media
campaign to draw public attention to civilian casualties in Iraq,
and we will also continue to provide organizing ideas and calls to
action around other key developments and issues in Iraq: e.g.,
free and fair elections are not possible under occupation; no
foreign control of Iraqi oil; the humanitarian crisis intensifies;
the U.S. must respect human rights and international law.
Vision for this Organizing Drive This coordinated campaign -
includes a series of activities, with each one promoting and
building the next, intended to broaden the organized base of the
antiwar movement. The activities ? ranging from a "white ribbon"
visibility campaign to coordinated days of outreach to local town
hall meetings ? are designed to provide opportunities for intensive,
face-to-face organizing, in order to reach and involve people
who have not previously taken action against the war. UFPJ will
provide a series of tools and resources to help member groups
reach their goals through this work.
To participate in this organizing drive, a group need not commit
to every activity or date; many groups will wish to tailor the
calendar, activities, and goals to fit their organizational capacity
and local needs. Some member groups of UFPJ are already
engaged in this type of base- and alliance-building work on
a regular basis and may choose to participate in just a few
components of the organizing drive.
Organizing Goals We encourage each organization that
participates in this organizing drive, no matter its size, to set
concrete goals for expansion over the coming months. The
specific goals may vary depending on the organization's constituency,
location, and mission, but we suggest the following:
* build strong, ongoing relationships with a targeted number of
organizations or communities that have not previously been
directly engaged in anti-war work, particularly communities of
color, labor, and faith-based organizations (for groups in small
towns, the goal might be three new relationships; groups in
urban areas might aim to build a dozen or more) * double the
number of contacts your organization has (on your email list, phone
bank, and/or mailing list) * double the number of active participants
in your group's day-to-day work * distribute at least ten times as
many white ribbons in your community as you have contacts (on
your email list, phone bank, and/or mailing list) ? e.g., if you have
an email list of 500 people, aim to distribute at least 5000 ribbons
* using these new relationships and contacts as a base, organize
a local action on March 19, the two-year anniversary of the war,
that is larger than any action your group has organized to date
Organizing Drive Components
Alliance-Building Meetings: We encourage member groups to
expand local peace and justice coalitions by setting up meetings in
early 2005 with potential allies such as unions; black, Latino, Arab,
and other community of color organizations; religious institutions;
student groups; and community organizations. The goals are to
build new relationships; identify issues these groups are working on
or concerned about; identify ways in which the Iraq war is making it
more difficult to win gains in these struggles; explore opportunities
to work together in those areas of intersection. While we hope for a
concerted national alliance-building push in January and February,
we believe that these types of meetings should be a regular part of
every group's organizing work, and these connections need to
be built at the local level.
Days of Outreach: We are proposing a series of national days of
outreach, where member groups of UFPJ mobilize their members to
talk to large numbers of new people. The purpose is two-fold: to
educate and persuade people about the reasons to oppose the war;
and to identify potential new activists from those who are already
opposed to the war and gather their contact information, with
the goal of involving them in future anti-war activities. Concretely,
groups will be encouraged to hand out leaflets to educate about
the human toll of the war and its cost to our communities; distribute
white ribbons to increase the visibility of anti-war sentiment; gather
signatures on a national anti-war petition as a way of obtaining new
contacts for their ongoing organizing effort; and publicize key
upcoming events in their community (such as a February 4 town
hall meeting and/or March 19 protest on the two-year-anniversary
of the war).
Town Hall Meetings: We are proposing that groups all around the
country convene town hall meetings on February 4 or some other
locally suitable date, to discuss what the war is costing their
communities: most dramatically, in lost funding for crucial social
programs; but also in lives, if your community has lost U.S.
servicepeople in the conflict, and in the drain on firefighters and
other first responders sent to Iraq through the National Guard.
These town hall meetings will occur shortly after President Bush
delivers his State of the Union Address and around the time
Congress is expected to debate $100 billion in additional
appropriations for Iraq, dramatizing the Bush Administration's
misplaced priorities. Through their focus on the connection
between the cost of the war and the issues facing communities
here at home, these town hall meetings will provide an important
opportunity to build or strengthen alliances with groups working
for social and economic justice. They will also serve as an
opportunity to identify and get to know potential new activists,
help build a sense of connection among people across the
country who oppose the war, and encourage strategic
discussion about what it will take to bring the war to an
end. UFPJ will distribute suggested questions for discussion
that local facilitators can use to help frame debate during
the meeting.
Campaign Tools United for Peace and Justice will provide
member groups with a series of tools to help with this organizing
campaign. These will include tips for maximizing the effectiveness
of the alliance-building meetings, days of outreach, and town
hall meetings. We will also provide a petition for the national
petition drive; educational leaflets that can be modified for
local use; and visibility tools such as white ribbons, buttons,
magnets, and posters.
Campaign Calendar
December Launch the White Ribbon Campaign; attend public
holiday events in your community and pass out small fliers/cards
with white ribbons attached urging people to visibly say No to the
War in Iraq this holiday season. For more information about the
White Ribbon Campaign click here:
Late Dec. United for Peace and Justice will issue a call for coordinated
local actions on March 19 to mark the second anniversary of the war,
with strong support for the mobilization in Fayetteville, NC (home
of Ft. Bragg)
Early Jan Launch a national petition drive to dump Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, highlighting our message of "end the war, bring
the troops home ? rebuild our communities"
Jan 15/17 National Days of Outreach ? contact churches, labor, and
community groups in the African-American community who are
organizing events, to discuss how we could help to highlight the
peace message that was a centerpiece of Dr. King's legacy; fliers
and ribbons could be distributed at MLK parades and events,
highlighting this message and inviting people to January 20
counter-inaugural activities and the February 4 Town Hall Meeting
Jan 20 Inauguration Day ? National Day of Mourning and Resistance,
protests in Washington, D.C. and in communities all around the
country Jan 29 National Day of Outreach ? distribute leaflets
and white ribbons, gather petition signatures, promote the
February Town Hall meetings Feb 4 Town Hall Meetings:
Ending the War / Rebuilding Our Communities
Feb 19-21 UFPJ National Assembly
March 8 National Day of Outreach on International
Women's Day? distribute leaflets and white ribbons, gather petition
signatures, promote the March 19 actions
March 19 Global Day of Action to Protest the Second
Anniversary of the Iraq War This is the announcement list for Direct
Action
to Stop the War (DASW). To remove yourself from this list, send an email to
directaction-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net .
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