BAUAW NEWSLETTER-THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2005

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COLLEGE NOT COMBAT PETITION CAMPAIGN
16TH & MISSION STREET
SATURDAYS, 12:30 P.M.
TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS, 5 & 7 P.M.

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Venezuela: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
plus an Eyewitness from Venezuela: Sonia Zerpa
Film Showing: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
With comments by Sonia Zerpa, a citizen of Caracas,
Venezuela on the dynamic days of the US backed coup.
Bethany United Methodist Church
1268 Sanchez Street (at Clipper ) in San Francisco in
Noe Valley neighborhood
7:00 PM, Friday, June 17, 2005
$5 General, $3 Seniors, Students, Unemployed
Benefits: San Francisco Hands Off Venezuela
For more information about the film:
http://www.chavezthefilm.com/index_ex.htm
Hands Off Venezuela
www.handsoffvenezuela.org
For more information about this call Adam Richmond at
415-864-3537.

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BAUAW MEETING: SATURDAY, 11:30 A.M.
474 VALENCIA STREET NEAR 16TH STREET
WE WILL PETITION AFTER OUR MEETING!

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SAN FRANCISCO MIME TROUPE
AND BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR
PRESENT:
"DOING GOOD"
Based loosely on the book,
"Confessions of an Economic Hit
Man", by John Perkins
July 4, DOLORES PARK
MUSIC: 1:30 P.M.
SHOW: 2:00 P.M.
FREE!
COME HELP GATHER SIGNATURES FOR THE
COLLEGE NOT COMBAT PETITION!

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SAVE THE DATES: AUGUST 4, 5 & 6, 2005 FOR
PRESENTATION OF HOWARD ZINN'S ONE MAN SHOW,
"MARX IN SOHO" PERFORMED BY JERRY LEVY
LOCATION TO BE ANNOUNCED
TO BENEFIT BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR
WWW.BAUAW.ORG
(FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: 415-824-8730)

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Gang Way of Life
by Tim Tuomey
PHOTO OF IRAQI CHILDREN NOT SHOW:
Job 1 is to kill until the killin
is done, says veteran Tim Tuomey. If you were told to
kill these youngsters, could you do it? If you did, could you
live with yourself?
This link has the full text of a statement only partially given by
Tim Tuomey, a veteran, to the San Francisco Board of Education at
their March 17 meeting. He was allowed only a minute. But the board
members, mesmerized by his quiet voice and the power of his words
were captivated and let him go on for at least another minute before
they realized his time was up. They cut him off in mid-sentence.
http://www.sfbayview.com/032305/gangway032305.shtml

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BAUAW NEWSLETTER THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2005
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1) Cheney: U.S. Not Aiming To Close Guantanamo
Other Republicans Say Prison Is a Liability
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 13, 2005; A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/12/
AR2005061201265_pf.html

2) Born on the Fourth of July:
The Long Journey Home
By Ron Kovic
AlterNet Posted on June 13, 2005,
http://www.alternet.org/story/22181/

3) Uncle Sam Really Wants You
By BOB HERBERT
June 16, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/16/opinion/
16herbert.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fC
olumnists%2fBob%20Herbert

4) Formation of September 24
National Coalition
for the March on Washington DC
All Out to Stop the War in Iraq -
Bring the Troops Home Now!
End Colonial Occupation
from Iraq to Haiti to Palestine and Everywhere

5) The CIA and the Bombing of Cubana Flight 455
Why Bush Wants to Harbor Posada Carriles
By TOM CRUMPACKER
http://www.counterpunch.org/crumpacker06162005.html

6) The New CIA Revelations About Posada
Extradition US-Style
By RICARDO ALARCÓN
June 14, 2005
http://www.counterpunch.org/alarcon06142005.html

7) San Francisco Labor Council Opposes Military
Recruitment in Schools
[Resolution adopted unanimously by San Francisco
Labor Council Delegates' Meeting on June 13, 2005
(To help gather signatures to get the proposition on
The ballot, come to 16th and Mission Street Saturdays
At 12:30 p.m. and Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5 & 7 p.m.)
SUPPORT for "COLLEGE NOT COMBAT"

8) Playing Chicken: Ghana vs. the IMF
by Linus Atarah , Special to CorpWatch
June 14th, 2005
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12394

9) CONGO: Anvil Mining Hammered
Over Military Assistance
by Peter Gonnella , MineWeb
June 8th, 2005
"PERTH -- Just days after AngloGold
Ashanti fended off allegations
of paying bribes to militia groups
in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Anvil Mining has come under intense
scrutiny over its supply of air and
ground transport to the DRC army
for an operation that led to the
alleged slaughter of more than
100 people last October."
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12361

10)*** PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY ***
http://www.BooksNotBars.org/petition
Books Not Bars has launched an
ONLINE PETITION to Governor
Schwarzenegger to CLOSE
THE NOTORIOUS AND ABUSIVE YOUTH
PRISONS OF THE CALIFORNIA
YOUTH AUTHORITY (CYA). Books Not
Bars is campaigning statewide
to replace the CYA's warehouse
youth prisons with HUMANE,
COMMUNITY-BASED ALTERNATIVES
AND PROGRAMS designed for
rehabilitation that help youth in trouble
to get their lives back on track.
The petition urges Governor
Schwarzenegger to close these notorious
warehouse prisons. You can sign
the petition from anywhere in the
nation, even if you're not in
California! People throughout the country
must act together in signing
the petition and making a statement!
Click the link for full information
about why this is so urgent and important.
http://www.BooksNotBars.org/petition
To contact Books Not Bars about this petition,
e-mail petition@ellabakercenter.org

11) California Reins In Clinics Using Marijuana
for Medical Purposes
By DEAN E. MURPHY
June 15, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/national/
15marijuana.html?hp&ex=1118894400&en=0e8927fd68ebe4ab&ei=5094&partner=
homepage

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1) Cheney: U.S. Not Aiming To Close Guantanamo
Other Republicans Say Prison Is a Liability
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 13, 2005; A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/12/
AR2005061201265_pf.html

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2) Born on the Fourth of July:
The Long Journey Home
By Ron Kovic
AlterNet Posted on June 13, 2005,
http://www.alternet.org/story/22181/

Editor's Note: Ron Kovic served two tours of duty
during the Vietnam War. He was paralyzed from the chest
down in combat in 1968 and has been in a wheelchair
ever since. Along with Oliver Stone, Kovic was the
co-screenwriter of the 1989 Academy Award-winning film
based on his book, Born on the Fourth of July (Akashic
Books). The following is the introduction to the new
edition of the book.

It was exactly forty years ago this past September that
I left my house in Massapequa, New York to join the
United States Marine Corps and begin an extraordinary
journey that was to lead me into a disastrous war which
would change my life, and others of my generation,
profoundly and forever. There are times in the lives of
both individuals and nations when we cross certain
thresholds where there is no going back, no return to
the innocence we once knew; the change is utter and
irreconcilable. We often sense these moments. I know I
did that day.

I can still remember leaving my house that morning,
saying goodbye to my mother, my father driving me down
to the Long Island Railroad station with only a few
words being said between us--Dad was always that
way--and then that long and contemplative ride into the
city, being sworn in at Whitehall Street, holding my
right hand up proudly with all the other young men,
taking the oath of enlistment, and swearing our
allegiance to the Constitution of the United States.

The fall of 1964, September 2, a lifetime ago. That
last bright and beautiful morning when everything was
to change forever, that last moment of lighthearted
innocence and youth, of Massapequa and the backyard
before the shock, the chaos, and the deluge. I had just
turned eighteen that summer, and there are some old
black-and-white photographs of me from those days. It's
amazing that I still have them, considering I have
misplaced them many times over the years, thinking them
lost forever, only to later find them in some
unexpected place, like a deeply disturbing dream that I
have been trying to repress.

I remember seeing those photos on several occasions
after I came home from Vietnam and each time having
terrible nightmares that shook me badly. I couldn't
look at them, could not face that young man I had been
before the war and my injury. I would always promise
myself to never look at them again. My trauma was still
very deep, and that beautiful boy, that body, had been
destroyed, defiled, and savaged. My wounding in Vietnam
both physically and emotionally haunted me, pursued me,
and threatened to overwhelm me.

I wrote Born on the Fourth of July in the fall of 1974
in one month, three weeks, and two days, on a $42
manual typewriter I had bought at Sears & Roebuck in
Santa Monica, California. It was like an explosion, a
dam bursting, everything flowed beautifully, just kept
pouring out, almost effortlessly, passionately,
desperately. I worked with an intensity and fury as if
it was my last will and testament, and in many ways I
felt it was. I continued to suffer from nightmares,
constant anxiety attacks, severe heart palpitations,
and a powerful, almost obsessive feeling that I would
not live past my thirtieth birthday. I was living each
day as if it were my last, as if everything had been
compressed together by the war, and now every second
counted.

I wrote all night long, seven days a week, single
space, no paragraphs, front and back of the pages,
pounding the keys so hard the tips of my fingers would
hurt. I couldn't stop writing, and I remember feeling
more alive than I had ever felt. Convinced that I was
destined to die young, I struggled to leave something
of meaning behind, to rise above the darkness and
despair.

I wanted people to understand. I wanted to share with
them as nakedly and openly and intimately as possible
what I had gone through, what I had endured. I wanted
them to know what it really meant to be in a war--to be
shot and wounded, to be fighting for my life on the
intensive care ward--not the myth we had grown up
believing. I wanted people to know about the hospitals
and the enema room, about why I had become opposed to
the war, why I had grown more and more committed to
peace and nonviolence.

I had been beaten by the police and arrested twelve
times for protesting the war, and I had spent many
nights in jail in my wheelchair. I had been called a
Communist and a traitor, simply for trying to tell the
truth about what had happened in that war, but I
refused to be intimidated. I loved the night and I
would write for hours as if no time had passed at all.
I was exhausted and my back ached, but none of that
seemed to matter. I felt wonderful inside, tired but
completely consumed by my writing.

I would drink a couple cups of coffee and then with a
new surge of energy work for another hour or so as the
bright lights of the morning began to fill the room.
I'd neatly stack all the pages next to the typewriter
after holding them proudly in my hands, then go to my
bedroom and transfer out of my wheelchair onto a
mattress on the floor. I remember thinking to myself
one morning that if I died in my sleep, someone would
come into the apartment and find those pages next to
the typewriter and know that I was not a victim, but
someone who had been trying to move beyond his terrible
tragedy and the terrible injustice of that war.

With the exception of that initial burst of writing and
rare moment of stability in Santa Monica in the fall of
1974, I continued to be extremely restless back then,
frantically moving from one place to the next, living
on the edge, racing in cabs to the airport, flying from
city to city on my monthly compensation check, suddenly
showing up at friends' houses in the middle of the
night and sleeping on their couches--always carrying
the manuscript with me and always frightened,
desperately needing to escape the demons that were
closing in on me.

Over the next year and a half I wrote several
additional chapters of Born on the Fourth of July. Some
of the stories were ones I had told my mother when I
first came home from the hospital and would lay on our
couch in the living room when I couldn't sleep, which
was often back then. Night after night I would repeat
the story of how I was wounded that day in Vietnam,
describing every single detail. My dear mother would
sit patiently in her chair, listening to her son who
had come home paralyzed from the war, trying her best
to understand.

I attempted to write at my friends Skip and Ginny's
place on Mohegan Lake, in their laundry room, but
couldn't seem to get started. I wrote most of the
chapter about my childhood at a little hotel not far
from Sproul Plaza in Berkeley, and the ambush chapter,
the most painful but one of the best, at Connie's
apartment in L.A. I wrote the Memorial Day chapter one
afternoon in San Francisco at the Sam Wong Hotel on
Broadway, just down the street from Enricos Cafe in
North Beach. I can still remember the open window of my
hotel room and the noise of passing cars and trucks in
the street below, the fumes, the honking horns, but
that became a very beautiful chapter and I still enjoy
reading it to this day.

I dictated the very first page of the first chapter to
my friend Roger at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in
Hollywood, and the remainder of the chapter up in
Mendocino where he and Mary were living at the time. I
had driven all the way up in a used car I had just
bought in L.A. and later abandoned in their driveway.
It was deep in the woods, quiet and peaceful, so very
different from the war and the hospitals and all that I
had been through. The air was fresh and there was a
pond behind their cottage where I dictated to Roger,
and I remember feeling exhausted as he held me in his
arms and I began to cry in the midst of all that
stillness. It was a painful but beautiful birth.

I am extremely grateful to Akashic Books and its
publisher, Johnny Temple, for bringing out this new
edition of Born on the Fourth of July at such a crucial
moment in our nation's history. For the past two years
we have been involved in a tragic and senseless war in
Iraq. As of this writing, over 1,500 Americans have
died and more than 11,000 have been wounded, while tens
of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, many of them
women and children, have been killed.

I have watched in horror the mirror image of another
Vietnam unfolding. So many similarities, so many things
said that remind me of that war thirty years ago which
left me paralyzed for the rest of my life. Refusing to
learn from our experiences in Vietnam, our government
continues to pursue a policy of deception, distortion,
manipulation, and denial, doing everything it can to
hide from the American people their true intentions and
agenda in Iraq. The flag-draped caskets of our dead
begin their long and sorrowful journeys home hidden
from public view, while the Iraqi casualties are not
even considered worth counting--some estimate as many
as 100,000 have been killed so far.

The paraplegics, amputees, burn victims, the blinded
and maimed, shocked and stunned, brain damaged and
psychologically stressed, now fill our veterans
hospitals. Most of them were not even born when I came
home wounded to the Bronx V.A. in 1968. The same
lifesaving medical-evacuation procedures that kept me
alive in Vietnam are bringing home a whole new
generation of severely maimed from Iraq.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which afflicted
so many of us after Vietnam, is just now beginning to
appear among soldiers recently returned from the
current war. For some, the agony and suffering, the
sleepless nights, anxiety attacks, and awful bouts of
insomnia, loneliness, alienation, anger, and rage, will
last for decades, if not their whole lives. They will
be trapped in a permanent nightmare of that war, of
killing another man, a child, watching a friend die ...
fighting against an enemy that can never be seen, while
at any moment someone--a child, a woman, an old man,
anyone--might kill you. These traumas return home with
us and we carry them, sometimes hidden, for agonizing
decades. They deeply impact our daily lives, and the
lives of those closest to us.

To kill another human being, to take another life out
of this world with one pull of a trigger, is something
that never leaves you. It is as if a part of you dies
with them. If you choose to keep on living, there may
be a healing, and even hope and happiness again--but
that scar and memory and sorrow will be with you
forever.

Some of these veterans are showing up at homeless
shelters around our country, while others have begun to
courageously speak out against the senselessness and
insanity of this war and the leaders who sent them
there. During the 2004 Democratic Convention, returning
soldiers formed a group called Iraq Veterans Against
the War, just as we marched in Miami in August of 1972
as Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Still others have
refused deployment to Iraq, gone to Canada, and begun
resisting this immoral and illegal war.

For months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, citizens
here in the United States and around the world marched
and demonstrated in growing opposition to our
government's reckless plan to launch an attack. I
proudly participated in protests in Los Angeles, San
Francisco, and Washington, D.C., doing countless
interviews and speaking out wherever people would
listen to me. Many prominent world leaders, including
Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II, began to raise
their voices against the terrible and ill-fated foreign
policy. This extraordinary opposition culminated on
February, 15, 2003, when more than 30 million citizens
in over 100 nations participated in the most massive
demonstration on behalf of peace in the history of the
world. Never before had so many human beings come
together before a war had even begun to say no to the
insanity and madness.

Many of us promised ourselves long ago that we would
never allow what happened to us in Vietnam to happen
again. We had an obligation, a responsibility as
citizens, as Americans, as human beings, to raise our
voices in protest. We could never forget the hospitals,
the intensive care wards, the wounded all around us
fighting for their lives, those long and painful years
after we came home, those lonely nights. There were
lives to save on both sides, young men and women who
would be disfigured and maimed, mothers and fathers who
would lose their sons and daughters, wives and loved
ones who would suffer for decades to come if we did not
do everything we could to stop the forward momentum of
this madness. We sensed it very early and very quickly.
We saw the same destructive patterns reasserting
themselves all over again as our leaders spoke of "bad
guys" and "evil-doers," "imminent threats" and
"mushroom clouds," attempting to frighten and
intimidate the American people into supporting their
agenda.

The Bush administration seems to have learned some very
different lessons than we did from Vietnam. Where we
learned of the deep immorality and obscenity of that
war, they learned to be even more brutal, more violent
and ruthless, i.e., "shock and awe." Sadly, the war on
terror has become a war of terror. Where we learned to
be more open and honest, to be more truthful, to
expose, to express, to shatter the myths of the past,
they seem to have learned the exact opposite--to hide,
to censor, to fabricate, to mislead and deceive--to
perpetuate those myths.

Instead of being intimidated or frightened, many of us
became more outraged and more determined than ever to
stop these ignorant, arrogant men and women who never
saw the things we saw, never had to grieve over the
loss of their bodies or the bodies of their sons and
daughters, never had to watch as so many friends and
fellow veterans were destroyed by alcoholism and drugs,
homelessness, imprisonment, neglect and rejection,
torture, abandonment and betrayal, in the painful
aftermath of the war. These leaders have never
experienced the tears, the dread and rage, the feeling
that there is no God, no country, nothing but the
wound, the horrifying memories, the shock, the guilt,
the shame, the terrible injustice that took the lives
of more than 58,000 Americans and over two million
Vietnamese.

We had to act. We had to speak.

I am no longer the 28-year-old man, six years returned
from the war in Vietnam, who sat behind that typewriter
in Santa Monica in the fall of 1974. I am nearly 60
now. My hair and beard are almost completely white. The
nightmares and anxiety attacks have all but
disappeared, but I still do not sleep well at night. I
toss and turn in increasing physical pain. But I remain
very positive and optimistic. I am still determined to
rise above all of this. I know my pain and the horrors
of my past will always be with me, but perhaps not with
the same force and fury of those early years after the
war.

I have learned to forgive my enemies and forgive
myself. It has been very difficult to heal from the war
while living in America, and I have often dreamed of
moving to neutral ground, another country. Yet I have
somehow made a certain peace, even in a nation that so
often still seems to believe in war and the use of
violence as a solution to its problems. There has been
a reckoning, a renewal. The scar will always be there,
a living reminder of that war, but it has also become
something beautiful now, something of faith and hope
and love.

I have been given an opportunity to move through that
dark night of the soul to a new shore, to gain an
understanding, a knowledge, an entirely different
vision. I now believe I have suffered for a reason, and
in many ways I have found that reason in my commitment
to peace and nonviolence. My life has been a blessing
in disguise, even with the pain and great difficulty
that my physical disability continues to bring. It is a
blessing to be able to speak on behalf of peace, to be
able to reach such a great number of people.

I saw firsthand what our government's terrible policy
had wrought. I endured; I survived and understood. The
one gift I was given in that war was an awakening. I
became a messenger, a living symbol, an example, a man
who learned that love and forgiveness are more powerful
than hatred, who has learned to embrace all men and
women as my brothers and sisters. No one will ever
again be my enemy, no matter how hard they try to
frighten and intimidate me. No government will ever
teach me to hate another human being. I have been given
the task of lighting a lantern, ringing a bell,
shouting from the highest rooftops, warning the
American people and citizens everywhere of the deep
immorality and utter wrongness of this approach to
solving our problems, pleading for an alternative to
this chaos and madness, this insanity and brutality. We
must change course.

I truly feel that this beautiful world has given me
back so much more than it has taken from me. So many
others that I knew are gone, and gone way too young. I
am grateful to be alive after all these years and all
that I've been through. I am thankful for every day.
Life is so precious.

Ron Kovic, Redondo Beach, California March 2005

(c) 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights
reserved. View this story online at:


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3) Uncle Sam Really Wants You
By BOB HERBERT
June 16, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/16/opinion/
16herbert.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fC
olumnists%2fBob%20Herbert

With the situation in Iraq deteriorating and the willingness
of Americans to serve in the armed forces declining,
a little-known Army publication called the "School
Recruiting Program Handbook" is becoming increasingly
important, and controversial.

The handbook is the recruiter's bible, the essential
guide for those who have to go into the nation's high
schools and round up warm bodies to fill the
embarrassingly skimpy ranks of the Army's basic
training units.

The handbook declares forthrightly, "The goal is
school ownership that can only lead to a greater
number of Army enlistments."

What I was not able to find in the handbook was
anything remotely like the startlingly frank comments
of a sergeant at Fort Benning, Ga., who was quoted
in the May 30 issue of The Army Times. He was
addressing troops in the seventh week of basic
training, and the paper reported the scene as follows:

" 'Does anybody know what posthumous means?'
Staff Sgt. Andre Allen asked the 150 infantrymen-
in-training, members of F Company, 1st Battalion,
19th Infantry Regiment.

"A few hands went up, but he answered his own
question.

" 'It means after death. Some of you are going
to get medals that way,' he said matter-of-factly,
underscoring the possibility that some of them
would be sent to combat and not return."

That's the honest message recruits get once
they're in. The approach recommended by the
recruiting handbook is somewhat different. It's
much softer. Recruiters trying to sign up high
school students are urged to schmooze, schmooze,
schmooze.

"The football team usually starts practicing in August,"
the handbook says. "Contact the coach and volunteer to
assist in leading calisthenics or calling cadence
during team runs."

"Homecoming normally happens in October," the handbook
says. "Coordinate with the homecoming committee to get
involved with the parade."

Recruiters are urged to deliver doughnuts and coffee
to the faculty once a month, and to eat lunch in the
school cafeteria several times a month. And the book
recommends that they assiduously cultivate the
students that other students admire: "Some influential
students such as the student president or the captain
of the football team may not enlist; however, they
can and will provide you with referrals who will enlist."

It's not known how aware parents are that recruiters
are inside public high schools aggressively trying
to lure their children into wartime service. But not
all schools get the same attention. Those that get
the royal recruitment treatment tend to be the ones
with students whose families are less affluent
than most.

Schools with kids from wealthier families (and
a high percentage of collegebound students) are not
viewed as good prospects by military recruiters.
It's as if those schools had posted signs at the
entrances saying, "Don't bother." The kids in those
schools are not the kids who fight America's wars.

Now, with the death toll in Iraq continuing to mount,
it's getting harder to sign up even the less affluent
kids. So the recruitment effort in the target
schools has intensified. Recruiters, already driven
in some cases to the brink of nervous exhaustion,
are following the handbook guidelines more
rigorously than ever.

"If you wait until they're seniors, it's probably
too late," the book says. It also says, "Don't
forget the administrative staff. ... Have something
to give them (pen, calendar, cup, donuts, etc.) and
always remember secretary's week, with a card or
flowers."

The sense of desperation is palpable: "Get involved
with local Boy Scout troops. Scoutmasters are
typically happy to get any assistance you can offer.
Many scouts are [high school] students and potential
enlistees or student influencers."

One of the many problems here is that adolescents
should not be hounded by military recruiters under
any circumstances, and they shouldn't be pursued
at all without the full knowledge and consent of
parents or guardians.

Let the Army be honest and upfront in its recruitment.
War is not child's play, and warriors shouldn't be
assembled through the use of seductive sales pitches
to youngsters too immature to make an informed
decision on matters that might well result in
their having to kill others, or being killed
themselves.

E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

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4) Formation of September 24
National Coalition
for the March on Washington DC

All Out to Stop the War in Iraq -
Bring the Troops Home Now!

End Colonial Occupation
from Iraq to Haiti to Palestine and Everywhere

On September 24, we will show the deepening opposition that
is leading to the political isolation of the warmakers. As
during the Vietnam War era, the people of the United States
from all communities are actively entering the political
process through the mobilizing efforts of a genuinely broad
and mass antiwar movement.

Since the A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition issued the call for a mass
mobilization in Washington DC on September 24, a large number
of national organizations have endorsed and committed energy
and resources with the aim of building the largest
possible united demonstration.

The September 24 National Coalition for the March on
Washington, therefore, represents a coming together of
national organizations and communities who are committed
to building opposition to the Bush Administration's war
and occupation of Iraq. These organizations oppose war
and colonial-style occupation, not only as it pertains
to Iraq, but in Palestine, Haiti and everywhere. Support
for self-determination means standing with the people
in their effort to achieve sovereign control over their
land, labor and resources. Recognizing the
inextricability of the struggle of the Palestinian
people from the anti-war movement, the September
24 National Coalition supports the Palestinian people
and the inviolability of their Right to Return to the
homes from which they were evicted.

The leadership of the September 24 National Coalition
includes the A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition, National Council
of Arab-Americans (NCA), Muslim American Society (MAS)
Freedom Foundation, Haiti Support Network, Alliance
for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines, and
the National Lawyers Guild.

On March 20, 2004, many of the same organizations
worked tirelessly to build a united front that brought
more than 100,000 people into the streets of New York
City under the banner "Bring the Troops Home Now!
End Colonial Occupation from Iraq to Palestine to
Haiti and Everywhere!" The decision to form the
September 24 National Coalition in support of the
call to action initiated by the A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition
is a renewed sign of a reciprocal commitment to work
together and build a mass movement opposing war for
Empire. We believe that rather than excluding communities,
building valid unity in the United States requires
embracing the rights and contributions of all,
primarily the very recipients of the ravages of war.

The people of the United States are witnessing a
vicious attack against working class communities by
the Bush Administration and the Military-Industrial
Complex. While the government has allocated more than
$300 billion to make war against the people of Iraq,
it cries 'poverty' when it comes to funding education,
healthcare, housing, jobs and job training, and other
programs and services that meet the needs of working
people. Bush claims that there is a lack of funds
to maintain Social Security while the National
Treasury is plundered to finance the endless imperial
war. Instead of offering young people a decent
education and decent jobs with decent wages, the
government has deployed an army of military recruiters
to snare young people into the armed forces. Bush
and the corporate and banking elites view young
people in the United States as nothing more than
cannon fodder in the war for Empire.

September 24 is a day when people from all over
the country will be joining together to speak with
one voice against war and racism. Marching together
we will show the growing power of the antiwar
movement. Join us in spreading the word in the
weeks and months ahead.

Get Involved in the September 24 Mass March
* Read the Call to Action
* Demands of the demonstration
* Press Coverage
* Endorse
* View Endorsers
* List Transportation
* Spread the word - Downloadable flyers
* Donate
* More information

A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org
info@internationalanswer.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-544-3389
New York City: 212-533-0417
Los Angeles: 323-464-1636
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
For media inquiries, call 202-544-3389.

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5) The CIA and the Bombing of Cubana Flight 455
Why Bush Wants to Harbor Posada Carriles
By TOM CRUMPACKER
http://www.counterpunch.org/crumpacker06162005.html

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6) The New CIA Revelations About Posada
Extradition US-Style
By RICARDO ALARCÓN
June 14, 2005
http://www.counterpunch.org/alarcon06142005.html

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7) San Francisco Labor Council Opposes Military
Recruitment in Schools

[Resolution adopted unanimously by San Francisco
Labor Council Delegates' Meeting on June 13, 2005

(To help gather signatures to get the proposition on
The ballot, come to 16th and Mission Street Saturdays
At 12:30 p.m. and Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5 & 7 p.m.)

SUPPORT for "COLLEGE NOT COMBAT"

Whereas the SF Labor Council strongly supported
Proposition N, the policy statement on behalf of San
Francisco residents in firm opposition to the Iraq
War; and

Whereas, economic circumstances and active
government policy make the young people of San
Francisco and this nation potential cannon fodder
for the war machine and the misadventures in Iraq
and elsewhere; and

Whereas the San Francisco Labor Council supports
real economic opportunity for young people and thus
supports opposition to this predatory economic
draft;

Therefore be it resolved that the San Francisco
Labor Council give early endorsement to the
initiative "College Not Combat"; and

Be it finally resolved that the SFLC will aid in the
circulation of the College Not Combat initiative in
its attempts to qualify for ballot status.

********************

[Text of Petition -- to be placed on the Nov. 2005
ballot in San Francisco - 9,000 more signatures
needed!]

College Not Combat Declaration of Policy

Whereas, over 1500 American soldiers have died and
tens of thousands have been injured physically and
psychologically in Iraq; and,

Whereas, a study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health, Columbia University School
of Nursing and Al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad
estimates that 100,000 Iraqis have died as a result
of the U.S. invasion and occupation; and,

Whereas, the U.S. government is forcing soldiers to
serve in Iraq for longer than their contracts
require with such devices as "stop-loss" orders;
and,

Whereas, the "No Child Left Behind Act" forces all
high schools that receive federal money to give
personal records of all children to the military for
the purposes of recruiting; and,

Whereas, the federal Solomon Amendment specifically
orders colleges and universities that receive
federal money to violate their own legal policies of
non-discrimination against gays and lesbians by
allowing recruiters for the military, which bars
gays and lesbians from serving openly, on campus;
and,

Whereas, a de facto "economic draft" forces tens of
thousands of low and middle-income students to join
the military in order to get money to go to college
or get job or technical training; and,

Whereas, the Pentagon budget, over $400 billion per
year, plus $300 billion more over the last three
years for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan,
is draining desperately needed resources for
schools, health care and jobs; and,

Whereas, the people of San Francisco voted by 63% to
pass Proposition N in November of 2004 calling on
the Federal government to "bring the troops safely
home now;" and,

Whereas, the Federal government shows no sign of
ending the occupation of Iraq or bringing the troops
safely home and, in fact, is threatening military
action against other nations; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, that the people of San Francisco oppose
U.S. military recruiters using public school,
college and university facilities to recruit young
people into the armed forces. Furthermore, San
Francisco should oppose the military's "economic
draft" by investigating means by which to fund and
grant scholarships for college and job training to
low-income students so they are not economically
compelled to join the military.

* To visit your group on the web, go to:
* http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MOOS-BAY/
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8) Playing Chicken: Ghana vs. the IMF
by Linus Atarah , Special to CorpWatch
June 14th, 2005
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12394

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9) CONGO: Anvil Mining Hammered Over Military Assistance
by Peter Gonnella , MineWeb
June 8th, 2005
"PERTH -- Just days after AngloGold
Ashanti fended off allegations
of paying bribes to militia groups
in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Anvil Mining has come under intense
scrutiny over its supply of air and
ground transport to the DRC army
for an operation that led to the
alleged slaughter of more than
100 people last October."
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12361

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10)*** PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY ***
http://www.BooksNotBars.org/petition
Books Not Bars has launched an
ONLINE PETITION to Governor
Schwarzenegger to CLOSE THE
NOTORIOUS AND ABUSIVE YOUTH
PRISONS OF THE CALIFORNIA
YOUTH AUTHORITY (CYA). Books Not
Bars is campaigning statewide
to replace the CYA's warehouse
youth prisons with HUMANE,
COMMUNITY-BASED ALTERNATIVES
AND PROGRAMS designed for
rehabilitation that help youth in trouble
to get their lives back on track.
The petition urges Governor
Schwarzenegger to close these notorious
warehouse prisons. You can sign
the petition from anywhere in the
nation, even if you're not in
California! People throughout the country
must act together in signing the
petition and making a statement!
Click the link for full information
about why this is so urgent and important.
http://www.BooksNotBars.org/petition
To contact Books Not Bars about this petition,
e-mail petition@ellabakercenter.org

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11) California Reins In Clinics Using Marijuana
for Medical Purposes
By DEAN E. MURPHY
June 15, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/national/
15marijuana.html?hp&ex=1118894400&en=0e8927fd68ebe4ab&ei=5094&partner=
homepage

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