IFPJ

Mar 19, 3:20 PM EDT
By SCOTT LINDLAW
Associated Press Writer

Group Housing for Vets Raises Concerns

GUERNEVILLE, Calif. (AP) -- Merry Lane, a cul-de-sac shaded by redwoods in Sonoma County wine country, would seem a pleasant place to recover from the psychic wounds of war. Nadia McCaffrey's dream is to set up a group home there for veterans plagued by post-traumatic stress disorder.

But she is running into stiff resistance from the neighbors. They not only object to the brand-new structure itself, which looks like a four-story apartment house wedged amid their cabins, they are also worried that deranged veterans will move in.

Peaceful Friends,

The North Star Chapter (146) of Veterans for Peace is initiating an outreach campaign to engage service persons stationed in Alaska. We will do what ever we can to facilitate the resistance up here. If there is anyone on this list that cares to share with us their experience, advice or anything useful please contact me at mulford.rob@gmail.com or 907-457-5578.

Check out Alaska Public Radio Network.

Wage Peace,

Celebrate National Medal of Honor Day (25 March) by sending a letter to the only man to return his Medal of Honor, Angelo J. (Charles) Liteky, former Catholic priest and current member of the Veterans for Peace.

Medal of Honor action

Rank and organization: Chaplain (Capt.), U.S. Army, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 199th Infantry Brigade.
Place and date: Near Phuoc-Lac, Bien Hoa province, Republic of Vietnam, 6 December 1967.
Entered service at: Fort Hamilton, N.Y. Born: 14 February 1931, Washington, D.C.

Citation:

Chaplain Liteky distinguished himself by exceptional heroism while serving with Company A, 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 199th Light Infantry Brigade. He was participating in a search and destroy operation when Company A came under intense fire from a battalion size enemy force. Momentarily stunned from the immediate encounter that ensued, the men hugged the ground for cover. Observing 2 wounded men, Chaplain Liteky moved to within 15 meters of an enemy machine gun position to reach them, placing himself between the enemy and the wounded men. When there was a brief respite in the fighting, he managed to drag them to the relative safety of the landing zone. Inspired by his courageous actions, the company rallied and began placing a heavy volume of fire upon the enemy's positions. In a magnificent display of courage and leadership, Chaplain Liteky began moving upright through the enemy fire, administering last rites to the dying and evacuating the wounded. Noticing another trapped and seriously wounded man, Chaplain Liteky crawled to his aid. Realizing that the wounded man was too heavy to carry, he rolled on his back, placed the man on his chest and through sheer determination and fortitude crawled back to the landing zone using his elbows and heels to push himself along. Pausing for breath momentarily, he returned to the action and came upon a man entangled in the dense, thorny underbrush. Once more intense enemy fire was directed at him, but Chaplain Liteky stood his ground and calmly broke the vines and carried the man to the landing zone for evacuation. On several occasions when the landing zone was under small arms and rocket fire, Chaplain Liteky stood up in the face of hostile fire and personally directed the medivac helicopters into and out of the area. With the wounded safely evacuated, Chaplain Liteky returned to the perimeter, constantly encouraging and inspiring the men. Upon the unit's relief on the morning of 7 December 1967, it was discovered that despite painful wounds in the neck and foot, Chaplain Liteky had personally carried over 20 men to the landing zone for evacuation during the savage fighting. Through his indomitable inspiration and heroic actions, Chaplain Liteky saved the lives of a number of his comrades and enabled the company to repulse the enemy. Chaplain Liteky's actions reflect great credit upon himself and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.

Address correspondence to:

Charles Liteky
# 83276-020
FPC Lompoc
3705 W. Farm Road
Lompoc, CA 93436

Dear Veterans for Peace,

As a veteran, I'm outraged that a right-wing group like Vets for Freedom, along with Rep. Michele Bachmann, can hold a closed-door meeting with high school students to indoctrinate them on the joys of war.

Vets for Freedom tour will stop in FL next Tuesday
Tuesday, 18 March 2008

The National Heroes Tour sponsored by the Vets for Freedom organization will make a stop in Forest Lake next Tuesday. The national organization, which is led by Forest Lake High School graduate Pete Hegseth, will stop at Forest Lake High School from 9:30-11 a.m. Steve Massey, high school principal, said the tour program will be designed as an educational opportunity for students to learn about military service for their country. Some 150 social studies students will take part in a classroom-level activity. Massey said a number of veterans from several military conflicts will be on hand to talk to students. Sixth District Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater, is also slated to attend. The tour stop is not open to the public, Massey said. The tour started last week in California and will crisscross the nation with numerous appearances.

VFP#78 WSIA Blog

WS Listen Live

"Building Cultures of Peace"
6th Annual Conference of the
Peace and Justice Studies Association
in conjunction with the Peace and Conflict Studies Consortium
September 11-14, 2008
Portland State University
Portland, Oregon
~ Submit a Proposal: DEADLINE APRIL 1, 2008 ~

War is raging with no end in sight. Politics alone has not solved it.
Media has not ended war. Religion does not seem to bring peace. Education
alone is impotent. Families are providing cannon fodder, not enough peace
builders. Economic instruments and systems seem to favor war more than

I. A SPECTER is haunting The United Sates: the specter of what in the West is called “America haters”. This specter has not appeared out of thin air. It is a natural and inevitable consequence of the present historical phase of the system it is haunting. It was born at a time when this system ‘democracy’, for a thousand reasons, can no longer base itself on the ideals of the Founding Generation, of the rule of law, and that all Men are created equal and endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and thus seeks to eliminate all expression of nonconformity. What is more, the system has become so ossified politically that there is practically no way for such nonconformist ideals to be implemented within its official structures. Who are these so-called ‘terrorist lovers’? Where does their point of view come from and what importance does it have? What is the significance of the 'independent initiatives' of ‘grassroots democracy’ in which ‘flag burning traitors’ collaborate; and what real chances do such initiatives have of success? Is it appropriate to refer to ‘The People’ as an opposition? If so, what exactly is such an opposition within the framework of this system? What does it do? What role does it play in society? What are its hopes and on what are they based? Is it within the power of the ‘Middle Class’-as a category of subcitizen outside the power establishment-to have any influence at all on society and the social system? Can they actually change anything? I think that an examination of these questions-an examination of the potential of the 'powerless'-can only begin with an examination of the nature of power in the circumstances in which these powerless people operate.

II. Our system is most frequently characterized as a democracy... Well , you get my drift. If you’re going to have a velvet revolution, you have to read Václav Havel’s The Power of the Powerless. Just remember you’ll really be reading about the good old U.S.A. You’ll have to switch some words around in your head.

Six Questions for Darius Rejali, Author of ‘Torture and Democracy’
Harper's Magazine
By Scott Horton
February 13, 2008

Yes, torture does migrate, and there are some good examples of it both in American and French history. The basic idea here is that soldiers who get ahead torturing come back and take jobs as policemen, and private security, and they get ahead doing the same things they did in the army. And so torture comes home. Everyone knows waterboarding, but no one remembers that it was American soldiers coming back from the Philippines that introduced it to police in the early twentieth century. During the Philippine Insurgency in 1902, soldiers learned the old Spanish technique of using water tortures, and soon these same techniques appeared in police stations, especially throughout the South, as well as in military lockups during World War I. Likewise, the electrical techniques used in Vietnam appeared in the 1960s appeared in torturing African Americans on the south side of Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s, and, as I argue in the book, that wasn’t just an accident.

So torture always comes home. And the techniques of this war are likely to show up in a neighborhood near you. Likewise, the techniques that appeared in the War on Terror were already documented in INS lockups in Miami in the 1990s. There is no bright line between domestic and foreign torture; the stuff circulates.

Read complete interview here.

Just so we all know how our electorial process has been working.

But, remember, even with the best system: garbage in; garbage out.
Vote PRINCIPLES; not PARTIES.

Secrecy News
Secrecy News from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
13 February 2008

Public access to the Reimer Digital Library, which is the largest online collection of U.S. Army doctrinal publications, has been blocked by the Army, which last week moved the collection behind a password-protected firewall. But today the Federation of American Scientists filed a Freedom of Information Act request (pdf) asking the Army to provide a copy of the entire unclassified Library so that it could be posted on the FAS web site.

Thomas Chisholm, MD
Colonel, Medical Corps, USA, retired
Chippewa Falls, WI

“It’s apathy…but who cares?” wrote a respondent in a recent Dear Abby column (Tuesday 2/4/08). Other answers to her question in a preceding column, “What is the main problem in society today?” included: lack of personal responsibility, greed, personal isolation, lack of discipline, ignorance, and organized religion--its divisive influences and preoccupation with the next world rather than the remnants of this one, planet earth.

Nearly 4900 GIs have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since October 2001 including 83 men and women from Wisconsin, five in January. How many WIAs, the wounded in body and mind? How many suicides? How many noncombatants? “Who cares?”

BBC News Online: World: Asia-Pacific Friday, 9 February, 2001, 16:14 GMT

Damage to an undersea cable has cut millions of Chinese off from the internet, and the problem could take weeks to fix.

China Telecom has said that a major cable was cut at about 0800 local time (0000 GMT).

Anchor behind cable cut mystery

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 18:50:21

An abandoned anchor is blamed for cutting one of the severed undersea cables that snarled Internet traffic across the Middle East.

FLAG Telecom's FALCON fiber-optic cable covering Dubai and Oman was snapped Feb. 1st by an abandoned six-ton ship anchor, the company approved.

The company did not immediately explain whether the anchor moved and snapped the cable or the cable itself was drifting when it was sliced.

The cuts slowed businesses, hampered personal Internet usage and caused a flurry of Internet blogger speculation, including mentions of sabotage.

However, government authorities and FLAG, which stands for Fiber-optic Link Around the Globe, have refused to comment on these speculations.

CS/HGH

PressTV

Spies, lies, and "conspiracy theories" – what's behind the Middle East internet outage

I was skeptical, at first, of speculation over the cutting of two cables linking the Middle East with the Internet, which had it as part of some Vast Neocon Conspiracy to isolate the region prior to a US military assault. However, when two more cables – this time, in the Persian Gulf – were mysteriously cut, I began to wonder ....

By Camillo "Mac" Bica
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 04 February 2008

In March of this year, the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) will convene the Winter Soldier hearings in Washington, DC. "Winter Soldiers," according to Thomas Paine, are those who step up in behalf of their nation when things seem most bleak. With this in mind, IVAW members and others will courageously provide eyewitness accounts of their experiences of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Though I do not speak for IVAW, it is their intent and hope, I suspect, that by telling the truth about these occupations, to provide, at the very least, the impetus for a long overdue national debate on the morality and legality of America's alleged "War Against Terrorism." Many who pride themselves as "patriots" will, I am sure, accuse these veterans and anyone else who actively condemns the war as immoral and advocates an immediate and total withdrawal, of being un-American, unpatriotic and even treasonous. Even among those who have become disenchanted with the lack of progress in Iraq and skeptical regarding its justifiability and necessity, there is an "intuition" that since we have committed our soldiers and treasure to the effort, patriotism requires that we support our troops, our president and ,ultimately, the war. At the very least, these "patriots" continue, if we truly love America, we should keep any misgivings to ourselves and just remain silent. Is it the case, therefore, that at least with regard to America's war in Iraq that morality and love of country are in conflict? That patriotism demands immoral behavior, or morality demands behavior that is unpatriotic even treasonous? It is the intent of this essay first to establish moral clarity regarding the war in Iraq and then to argue that morality and patriotism, correctly understood, require members of the military and their civilian counterparts to become Winter Soldiers and step up to end this immoral and tragic war.

In response to this message dated 2/8/2008 1:08:55 AM Eastern Standard Time:

You are naïve and as such, your obvious ignorance is tolerated, as is your obvious leftist leanings. Semper Fi,

Thank you for writing,

It appears that you are a former Marine and as such took an oath upon enlistment to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." You should know, upon reading the Constitution, that the President is the Commander in Chief of the military only and otherwise is a public servant and accountable to the people of the United States by our nation's laws as dictated by the U.S. Constitution ... the supreme law of the land. We are a government of, for, and by the people and those who hold office in government are servant to the people of the United States. Now, how our active and public petitioning of our government for redress of grievances and defense of the Constitution is "leftist" I haven't a clue. Your comments above make me wonder if you can even site where in the Constitution the right (if not civic duty) to do so exists.

DIY OUTREACH
 

It's about time OUR Troops get reminded by WE THE PEOPLE where their true allegiance lies - with the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. True, their oaths of enlistment or office does enjoin them to obey all lawful orders from those appointed over them. But, that's the key: all lawful orders. And never, never do their oaths commit them to blind obedience. If OUR troops should fulfill their oaths, they need to OBEY all LAWFUL orders and DISOBEY ALL ILLEGAL ORDERS no matter their point of origin. They are under no obligation whatsoever to obey anyone, even the Commander in Chief, if he is ordering them to do something contrary to the Law of the Land, THE CONSTITUTION of the UNITED STATES.

Big Oil Advertises on Oil Boycott Petition Sponsored by Consumer Group
 
ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP Boycott

Is it hubris, a coincidence, or just a computer thing? Is it just me? Maybe, I’m the problem; but I just don’t see why Mr. Made Up Juristic Corporate Person should be peddling oil on a petition site aimed at signing real humans up to boycott their product. Sure corporations have free speech rights - but they shouldn't, and they shouldn't be able to put money into our political process either.

Consumers for Peace issued an updated Consumer’s Guide to Gasoline in December 2007 detailing the profits various oil corporations are making off the continuing Occupation of Iraq. Consumers for Peace correctly points out that while all brands are “pretty much the same in the way they power our vehicle”; the are much different in the power they power our country and our world. As Consumers for Peace puts it:

“But all brands are not the same in terms of what their companies do in the world, not only to the environment but also with respect to war and peace.”

I mailed a postcard to the Speaker of the House, Madame Nancy Pelosi, on 17 December 2007. Twenty-five (25) days later it was returned to me.
 
The United States Postal Service indicates that the postcard was "REFUSED". I sent it to the address listed on the contact page of the official web site of the Speaker of the House.

Office of the Speaker
H-232, US Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

Why did the Speaker's office refuse my postcard? Because I dared to remind the Speaker of her oath of office?

GOP campaign: Tell Hillary Clinton that she can't hide her record from the American people and get your very own Hilary Clinton Library Card.

Hillary you voted for the war. You never met a war spending bill you didn't like. You've voted for the Patriot Act and the rest of the Foul Acts. You are against impeachment. You're against investigations. Accountability, what does that mean? What in the Sam Hill do you think you're doing? You might as well be a Republican except that the Republican hardcore hate you so much. So, America's neck deep in elephant shit and now you and the complicit Democratic Party want to do a bit o' ass kickin' on the voters. REMEMBER 2006, Hillary, and change your tune or change your party.

I will not vote for any candidate that does not publicaly support the impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney. Furthermore, I expect all government officials, military and civil, to fulfill their oaths to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States".

LIST OF PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

CONSTITUTION:

Don Grundmann or stoptheirs@aol.com

Mail a postcard to the Speaker/Spy/Torturer of the House
 
NANCY PELOSI
c/o Cindy Sheehan
1260 Mission St.
San Fransisco, CA 94103 (don't forget your name & return address)

Radical Evangalism, Purity Sieges, "Light the Highway" Generals and 5 Nights of Miracles could be invading a highway near you ( I 35, Route 66, Trans Canada Hwy, I 10, I 42, I 5) soon.

Movement Points To I-35 As 'Holy Highway'

Reporting
Esme Murphy

WCCO A growing number of evangelical Christians around the world are convinced that Interstate 35 is a holy highway. The movement, which began in Texas where the interstate begins, has some strong local supporters in Minnesota.

This group is convinced the Interstate 35W bridge collapse was a sign from above. They say the source is the Bible verse from Isaiah 35. It says: "A highway will be there, a roadway, and it will be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean will not travel on it. "