this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters
we honor courage in all its forms
cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.
image and poem below the fold
Victims inside body bags lie outside a hospital after a suicide bombing attack in Kerbala, 70 miles south of Baghdad, January 5, 2006.
(Ali Abu Shish/Reuters)
And You Thought You Were the Only One
by Mark Bibbins
Someone waits at my door. Because he is
dead he has time but I have my secrets–
this is what separates us from the dead.
See, I could order take-out or climb down
the fire escape, so it’s not as though he
is keeping me from anything I need.
While this may sound like something I made up,
it is not; I have forgotten how to
lie, despite all my capable teachers.
Lies are, in this way, I think, like music
and all is the same without them as with.
The fluid sky retains regret, then bursts.
He is still there, standing in the hall, insisting
he is someone I once knew and wanted,
come laden with gifts he cannot return.
If I open the door he’ll flash and fade
like heat lightning behind a bank of clouds
one summer night at the edge of the world.
– – –
put a meaningful magnet on your car or metal filing cabinet
read Ilona’s important new blog – PTSD Combat
view the pbs newshour silent honor roll (with thanks to jimstaro at booman.)
take a private moment to light one candle among many (with thanks to TXSharon)
support Veterans for Peace
support the Iraqi people
support the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC)
support CARE
support the victims of torture
remember the fallen
support Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors – TAPS
support Gold Star Families for Peace
support the fallen
support the troops
support Iraq Veterans Against the War
support Military families Speak Out
support the troops and the Iraqi people
read This is what John Kerry did today, the diary by lawnorder that prompted this series
read Riverbend’s Bagdhad Burning
read Dahr Jamail’s Iraq Dispatches
read Today in Iraq
witness every day
Click on the candle to copy the image into your own comment (you can leave it on my server), and/or rate this one – not for mojo, but to leave a small mark after taking this moment.
” I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”
from Dirge Without Music
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
IMPEACH
So many dead
So many missing
So many gone forever
How many people have died since Bush has been in office?
Too Many. Let us not forget the 52 warnings that came before 9/11 that were ignored. So I believe he is also responsible for those 3000+ deaths too.
View the new Abu Ghraib images (warning: disturbing images)
Peace
just too sad today for much of a comment. I am truly looking forward to the stopping of all this killing and death.
Light A Candle For
Peace, Tolerance, Understanding
and For The Children – Innocence Lost!
If it were proved to me that in making war, my ideal had a chance of being realized, I would still say “No” to war. For one does not create human society on mounds of corpses. Louis Lecoin – French pacifist leader
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The Right To Be Offended
by Gary Younge, The Nation
There is nothing courageous about using freedom of speech to ridicule one of the weakest segments of your society.
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Dereliction Of Duty
David Corn
February 15, 2006
David Corn writes The Loyal Opposition twice a month for TomPaine.com. Corn is also the Washington editor of The Nation and is the author of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers). Read his blog at David Corn.
Mr. Paul Pillar, thanks for joining us today. After other members of the intelligence committee and I read your recent article in Foreign Affairs–in which you declared that the Bush administration had “misused” the prewar intelligence to justify the decision to go to war, had purposefully ignored intelligence analysis that did not fit its preconceived notions (such as the intelligence community’s finding that Iraq was years away from developing a nuclear weapon), had created an environment in which intelligence analysts did not feel free to reach conclusions that clashed with White House assumptions, and had essentially perverted the intelligence process– we felt it was crucial for the security of the nation to hold a hearing that examined in public your profoundly troubling allegations. After all, you were the top intelligence officer dealing with Iraq before and after the invasion.
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Individualism, as a definition of holding to personal ideals, is classed as obstinacy and anti-social. Inevitably we run point blank into the evils of compromise. When compromise enters our moral fibre, it spreads like a cancerous growth. We think we plan adequate safeguards around areas in which we contemplate yielding our standards, but once we lower the fence and break our strong will to do right, come what may, we expose ourselves to forces that spread beyond control. Compromise always starts on some rather insignificant principle. The dangers of yielding seem negligible and we usually risk those things first where observation and detection by others is difficult. We thus seek to avoid censure and discipline. In a short time we find ourselves trading our principles for false values and doing it in the black market of human relationships. . . . Ralph W. Hardy
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Global Exchange / CODEPINK: US State Department Rejects Visa Applications of Iraqi Women Whose Families Were Killed by US Troops
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Voices for Creative Nonviolence: Winter of Our Discontent: 34-day Fast to End the Iraq War February 15 to March 20 at U.S. Capitol
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It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. Robert F. Kennedy US Attorney General 1961-64, assassinated in Los Angeles while campaigning
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Still Cherry-Picking the Facts on Iraq
By Scott Ritter
We, the people of the United States, despite our status as one of the most technologically advanced nations on the face of the earth, remain among the most ignorant about the world we live in. And yet we continue to hold forth that we have some sort of divine right of intervention, where a nation of some 300 million is self-empowered to dictate to billions of others the terms in which we all coexist on the planet.
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Number Of Iraqi civilians Slaughtered In America’s War 100,000 +
Number of U.S. Military Personnel Slaughtered (Officially acknowledged) In Bush’s War 2272
The War in Iraq Costs $240,888,746,378 See the cost in your community
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{Torture, Atrosities, Killing of Innocents Especially Children&Women, Wide Spread Arrest Sweeps for No Reason, Targeting Innocents Homes in Bomb Raids, Backing Corrupt Local Officials and the List Goes On, Cause the Ranks of the Citizens of a Nation Invaded to Raise Up Against The Invaders/Occupiers in Greater and Greater Numbers!!!}
TV: New photos show Iraq jail abuse: The pictures showed one man covered in what appeared to be excrement, another with a gash in his throat and an alleged interrogation room covered in blood.
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Abu Ghraib: School for terrorists:
American commanders in Iraq are expressing grave concerns that Abu Ghraib prison has become a breeding ground for extremist leaders and a school for terrorist foot soldiers
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Iraq: Outrage Spreads over New Images
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Tell the truth about torture Mr. Bush: “Extraordinary Renditions” — U.S. Outsourcing Torture?
===Lives In The Balance: From Jackson Browne : 3 Minute Video
I have been fearing the picture of body bags. Facing them does not make them any less horrific.