“I don’t walk about belief – whether or not we should have started this war. Rather, I walk because we shouldn’t live our lives as if all is normal. People are suffering every moment because of this war – U.S. Soldiers and their families, Iraqi soldiers and civilians and their families – and this question of what we can do to end this suffering should be with us every day.”
a Concord (MA) area resident – in a letter to the editor regarding her own participation in a public vigil each Friday morning at the town center – ‘We Walk for All Who Suffer Because of War.’
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
An Iraqi woman cries after identifying the body of her relative in a hospital, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, March 1, 2006. Three bombs exploded Wednesday within an hour in Baghdad, killing 26 people and injuring at least 48, police said, elsewhere, four people died when mortar rounds slammed into their homes in the capital and a nearby town.
(AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
History
by Robert Lowell
History has to live with what was here,
clutching and close to fumbling all we had–
it is so dull and gruesome how we die,
unlike writing, life never finishes.
Abel was finished; death is not remote,
a flash-in-the-pan electrifies the skeptic,
his cows crowding like skulls against high-voltage wire,
his baby crying all night like a new machine.
As in our Bibles, white-faced, predatory,
the beautiful, mist-drunken hunter’s moon ascends–
a child could give it a face: two holes, two holes,
my eyes, my mouth, between them a skull’s no-nose–
O there’s a terrifying innocence in my face
drenched with the silver salvage of the mornfrost.
– – –
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
Is this what Dick Cheney calls the last throes of the insurgency? Sorta like Mission Accomplished.
Out of Iraq Now!
‘No sectarian war? Then what is this?’
When?
War Pigs
Peace
What would it take to just come together in peace? My heart aches for this process.
The news says “insurgents” so they don’t have to tell us that it was mostly women and children.
Hey Bush what do you say
How many kids did you kill today!
Light A Candle For
Peace, Tolerance, Understanding
and For The Children – Innocence Lost!
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”
William Pitt – (1759-1806) British Prime Minister (1783-1801, 1804-06) during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. – Source: Speech, House of Commons, 18 November 1783
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A Letter From The Troops
by John Zogby, TomPaine.com
In a groundbreaking public opinion survey, Americans are finally able to hear what the troops in Iraq think about the war they are fighting.
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Posturing Over Ports
by David Corn, TomPaine.com
In the flap over a Dubai company managing U.S. ports, politicians from both parties are guilty of selective outrage.
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Pass It On: Keep Long War Inc. Profitable!
by Mark Fiore
See the latest Flash animation from cartoonist Mark Fiore.
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TIA’S DIFFERENT NAMES, SAME SPY GAMES
The U.S. Defense Department’s Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, “which developed technologies to predict terrorist attacks by mining government databases and the personal records of people in the United States,” was not ended, as lawmakers directed in 2003, but merely moved and renamed. While “it is no secret that some parts of TIA lived on,” the National Journal reports details of how TIA continued. Two key programs moved to the Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA), at the National Security Agency. One, a $19 million contract given to Hicks & Associates “to build the prototype system,” was renamed “Basketball.” The other is a $3.7 million contract given to SAIC, “to help analysts and policy makers anticipate and pre-empt terrorist attacks.” That work, initially called “Genoa II,” was renamed “Topsail.” Whether these programs are still active is unclear. ARDA itself is being moved to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte’s office and renamed the “Disruptive Technology Office.” SOURCE: National Journal, February 23, 2006 For more information or to comment on this story, visit: PR Watch
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The foulest damage to our political life comes not from the ‘secrets’ which they hide from us, but from the little bits of half-truth and disinformation which they do tell us. These are already pre-digested, and then are sicked up as little gobbits of authorised spew. The columns of defence correspondents in the establishment sheets serve as the spittoons.
E.P. Thompson, British historian
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OIL FOR FOOD, LOBBYISTS, AND CORPORATE PROFITS
Prior to the October 2005 release of Paul Volcker’s report on violations of the United Nations’ Iraq oil-for-food program, the Australian wheat exporter AWB Limited hired the Washington DC lobbying firm The Cohen Group, which is headed by former U.S. defense secretary William S. Cohen. AWB paid approximately $A300 million in trucking fees on its wheat contracts to a Jordanian company, Alia, which owns no trucks. The funds were funnelled to Saddam Hussein’s government, according to information given to an Australian government-appointed Royal Commission. Last week, AWB Middle East Marketing Manager Chris Whitwell mentioned The Cohen Group when asked about diary entries related to “develop[ing] a communications strategy.” Whitwell said “Chalabi – link to Alia” referred to Ahmed Chalabi, as “he and Alia have some issues.” Stanley McDermott, a partner in the law firm DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, which has a “strategic alliance” with The Cohen Group, has also advised AWB. SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald, February 22 2006 For more information or to comment on this story, visit: PR Watch
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Iraq War Increased Terrorism Threat, 35-Nation BBC Poll Shows
Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) — The war in Iraq has increased the likelihood of terrorist attacks around the world and U.S.-led coalition troops should withdraw from the Middle Eastern nation, according to the majority of people polled in 35 countries in a British Broadcasting Corp. survey.
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Katrina Jurn:When the war hits home
Guest Opinion
February 28, 2006
The least welcome guests at my father’s funeral service were two National Honor Guards. These representatives of the United States government came to honor my father’s drafted service in the Vietnam War.
The U.S. always remembers its veterans.
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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 2296
The War in Iraq Costs $244,171,613,873 See the cost in your community
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Veterans Report Mental Distress
More than one in three soldiers and Marines who have served in Iraq later sought help for mental health problems, according to a comprehensive snapshot by Army experts of the psyches of men and women returning from the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places.
(By Shankar Vedantam, The Washington Post)
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As the state is a soulless machine,
it can never be weaned from violence
to which it owes its very existence.
~ Mohandas K. Gandhi* (1869-1948)
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“Never again shall one generation of veterans abandon another.”
A Reading in Flash Form
Veteran’s Day
And
2/28/2005
New Animation
This is The Truth
Jim, you’ve outdone yourself again. You always find the most interesting media and info to share with us. This is outstanding. Thank you.
today, tomorrow
someday soon
end the sorrow
end the ruin
send the dark-hearts
far away
let us live
in light of day