What can Americans do to help end the war and save the world?
#1
Posted 17 November 2004 - 11:36 PM
What I want to know is what Americans can do to help end the occupation of Iraq. I've marched on the capital a few times, signed peititions, sent letters to the US and Arab medias. But the people who own the US media are the same ones who own the government and the same ones that own the fiendish companies behind this imperialist genocide- Northrop-Grumman, McDonnel-Douglas, Dow Chemical, Lockheed-Martin, etc.
Democracy, as Thomas Jefferson said, is in the hands of the people. But the people are lost and afraid to speak out under the Bush regime. Many have already been secretly arrested or deported. It isn't just celebrities like Cat Stevens there are thousands of people among Bush's "Disappeared", from the US and from the countries that Bush's forces of oppression occupy. And the silent masses meanwhile become responsible for every successive attrocity comitted in the name of their country.
So I ask, what can we all do to help end this war? I havn't received any intelligence pertaining to the likelyhood of a draft so preparing for a major draft evasion effort would be useless. People have already killed themselves to protest the war and no attention was paid to their heroic actions by the corporate media. Anyone conducting acts of sabotage to hurt the war effort would be branded a terrorist and likely killed and the effects of their actions would be meager.
I want to raise my voice with the resistance in Faluja against the hedgemony and oppression that I read about every day (for I cannot truly imagine the horrors of living under such conditions as the storm troopers impose upon the Iraqis) but there seems to be so little that can be done. Protests are ignored and violence becomes terrorism. Meanwhile people continue to die in a war that cannot be won because free people will never bow before tyranny.
If anyone has any ideas I'd be glad for the advice.
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#2
Posted 19 November 2004 - 05:43 AM
JM's official press secretary, scientific advisor, diplomat and apparent antagonist?
#3
Posted 19 November 2004 - 07:26 AM
Sorry, I'm kind of pessimistic about the whole thing. I can't offer you much hope.
#4
Posted 19 November 2004 - 07:49 AM
This post has been edited by SimeSublime: 19 November 2004 - 07:49 AM
JM's official press secretary, scientific advisor, diplomat and apparent antagonist?
#5
Posted 19 November 2004 - 12:11 PM
JYAMG - Yeah the majority wants the war, but that's only 51%. And you have to figure at least 5% of those people are those easily manipulated. 49% of the people actually acting is a decent number in a country this size, and then you could probably convince the idiots to side with you fairly easily.
Carl Rove's push polls work well: "If you knew that by praising Bush, you were supporting a regime of tyranny and genocide, would that make you more for Bush, or against him?"
Rally people together with a common cause, man.
#6
Posted 19 November 2004 - 02:50 PM
I don't know if any of you watch Bill Maher's show Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO (you should, although the season's over now), but he made I point that I think is very true. Democrats should stop latching onto republican issues to try to get that small number of undecided voters, and should start vehemently standing up for their own issues, which would create more democrats. That's what we need. We need to create more liberal thinkers, to make sure the next gen of the country is liberal, that's how we combat it. The democrats have to stop pussyfooting around and get pissed. Maher said, "The democrats are latching onto issues that they should be denouncing," which is so true.
Everyone is so afraid to say this. Just come out and say, "A woman has the right to choose, and it is more immoral to take that away than to take the fetus away," say "stem cell research is the future of America, and we must support it with all our power," say "We must get off oil in the next 20 years", say "We must protect the environment," say "You cannot take away the rights of any group of people, including gays, no matter how you disguise it as an infringement on the 'definition' of marriage" and say "This war in Iraq was WRONG, and is NOT the way to fight terrorism. If anything, it only added to the terrorists' resolve and created more of a problem in the world." We just need one democrat to come out and say that, to make more people believe in the democratic cause, and we'll turn the country around.
#7
Posted 19 November 2004 - 06:36 PM
:If terrorists in North America really acted up, and committed enough crime that America's heart were broken, the war might stop. This is extremely dodgy, of course, since the resolve would increase to "fight terror" by bombing countries rather than by going after terrorists. But in due course people might see that this war on terror was increasing terror reaction rather than decreasing it. It would also hurt an awful lot of Americans before it saw results. Naturally this isn't something any war protestor would actually participate in. It's also got an international success rate that approaches zero.
:If by chance large numbers of American soldiers came home in body bags, then people might start to turn on the war. This of course will NEVER happen unless the war can be allowed to last a really long time. The American military is too far superior to the resistance in Iraq ever to suffer any serious casualty figures. This being the reason Ameirica pulled out of Vietnam, remember? Remember how LONG that lasted? How few American casualties?
:Finally, and this is the only result that would actually work: if Americans would VOTE AGAINST the war rather than support the President over assholish subjects like gay marriage and abortion, then the war would end. See, another President would need to take it as a mandate that country had voted against the war. You American Democrats have four years to move out of the Red states and into the swing states. Make your votes count.
That's all I got. Oh, and take over Fox News and CNN and stop spinning the news away from the issues.
#8
Posted 19 November 2004 - 08:35 PM
We need to get oil out of this war inorder to pay off the debt. We will never leave till that's done.
#9
Posted 19 November 2004 - 10:32 PM
Jordan- I think that's rather obvious. That's why the insurgents have blown up all the oil. Iraq is hardly producing a drop and America will only continue to pour money into a gaping chasm and get nothing in return but blood for Bush to wallow in.
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#10
Posted 21 November 2004 - 01:04 AM
JM's official press secretary, scientific advisor, diplomat and apparent antagonist?
#11
Posted 21 November 2004 - 08:22 PM
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#12
Posted 21 November 2004 - 10:57 PM
So what can be done? Start getting the facts. start learning. stop calling people conspiracy theorists and mocking them for being paranoid. Start pointing at the truth wherever you go, and let go of the left/right political syndrome. The problem I have with anarchists, is I am more anarchist than they are, they're just extreme liberals who still like finger pointing at christians, jews and being contrary. There's true difference in being NON POLITICAL. Right...Left...Anarchist...Fascist...its all the same. Truth is never that convenient, and cannot be wrestled into a box called an ism. This is how they win, and perhaps how they've won.
~ Voltaire (1694-1778)
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#13
Posted 21 November 2004 - 11:52 PM
Iraq Force Is Seen As Likely To Grow
U.S. Plans Require Boost, Officers Say
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 22, 2004; Page A01
BAGHDAD, Nov. 21 -- Senior U.S. military commanders in Iraq say it is increasingly likely they will need a further increase in combat forces to put down remaining areas of resistance in the country.
Convinced that the recent battle for Fallujah has significantly weakened insurgent ranks, commanders here have devised plans to press the offensive into neighborhoods where rebels have either taken refuge after fleeing Fallujah or were already deeply entrenched.
But the forces available for these intensified operations have become limited by the demands of securing Fallujah and overseeing the massive reconstruction effort there -- demands that senior U.S. military officers say are likely to tie up a substantial number of Marines and Army troops for weeks.
"What's important is to keep the pressure on these guys now that we've taken Fallujah from them," a high-ranking U.S. military commander said, speaking on condition he not be named because of the sensitivity of the deliberations on adding more troops. "We're in the pursuit phase. We have to stay after these guys so they don't get their feet set."
The possibility that additional troops would be required to battle the insurgency in this critical period preceding the Iraqi elections, scheduled for Jan. 30, has been signaled for weeks. The Pentagon took an initial step in this direction last month, ordering about 6,500 soldiers in Iraq to extend their tours by up to two months.
With some fresh U.S. forces already arriving in Iraq as part of a long-scheduled rotation, and two newly trained Iraqi brigades due to start operating next month, U.S. military leaders had hoped to avoid further increases.
But over the past week, a closer assessment of the forces needed for the Fallujah recovery effort and future offensive operations revealed a gap in desired troop strength, at least over the next two or three months, according to several officers familiar with the issue.
The officers said the exact number of extra troops needed is still being reviewed but estimated it at the equivalent of several battalions, or about 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers. The number of U.S. troops in Iraq fell to nearly 100,000 last spring before rising to 138,000, where it has stayed since the summer.
To boost the current level, military commanders have considered extending the stay of more troops due to rotate out shortly, or accelerating the deployment of the 3rd Infantry Division, which is scheduled to start in January. But a third option -- drawing all or part of a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division on emergency standby in the United States -- has emerged as increasingly likely.
Hinting at this possibility at a Pentagon news conference on Friday, Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, the deputy chief of U.S. Central Command, recalled that airborne forces were deployed to Afghanistan on a short-term basis to bolster military operations. Lance noted, however, that the Afghan case was "a little bit different" because "we had a very small number of forces to begin with" there.
If airborne units were rushed to Iraq, commanders here said, they likely would not be used in the offensive actions being planned, given their lack of heavy armor and their unfamiliarity with the targeted neighborhoods. Rather, their purpose would be to take over policing and other functions in Baghdad's International Zone, where American and top Iraqi government officials work. That would free locally seasoned units of the 1st Cavalry Division for such actions.
Much of the division's 2nd Brigade, which had been patrolling Baghdad, was shifted to Fallujah for the battle there earlier this month and remains unavailable for action elsewhere. This situation is the cause of much of the pressure for reinforcements.
"We feel that we need to keep the 2nd Brigade out there longer than we had originally thought, so we're not going to have all the flexibility we wanted in December," one senior military officer here said.
Some senior officers have worried that any move to bring in more U.S. troops could be perceived as a sign of U.S. vulnerability in the face of the tenacious insurgency or as a vote of no confidence in the ability of Iraq's new security forces to fill the gap. It also could fuel the U.S. political debate over whether the Bush administration has committed enough forces to secure Iraq.
But several officers who discussed the matter said any such appeal should simply be seen as reflecting the desire of the military command here to press the fight.
To further bolster U.S. forces in the short term, commanders also are considering extending the scheduled departure of the 2nd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division, which has been assigned to the Kirkuk area.
U.S. military intelligence assessments portray the Fallujah offensive as having destroyed the insurgency's largest haven, but the assessments also acknowledge that the violent resistance campaign is far from broken nationwide. Since the Fallujah operation, insurgent attacks have continued across a broad stretch of Iraq, from northern cities to a restive area in Babil province south of Baghdad.
Although U.S. military officials have reported 1,600 or more enemy fighters killed in Fallujah, no key leaders of the insurgency were either killed or captured, according to senior officers here. Many insurgents who fled the city either before or during the battle are now thought by U.S. commanders to be looking for opportunities to regroup and mount new attacks.
"Our assessment is that the insurgency remains viable," a senior military intelligence officer here said. "One of the things we see the insurgents doing is moving to areas where we don't have a lot of presence."
The number of daily attacks, which surged to about 130 at the start of the Fallujah operation, has declined to between 70 and 80 in recent days, roughly the level before the operation. But the senior intelligence officer said it is still too early to gauge the full impact of the Fallujah battle on the insurgency, estimating another week or two will be necessary for military analysts to get a clearer picture.
Everything found so far, the officer said, has confirmed Fallujah as the insurgency's largest and most significant stronghold. The sheer number of bombs, shells and other munitions discovered has stunned some senior analysts.
"The number of caches they're finding, the weapons and things like that, are greater than we probably assessed," the intelligence officer said. "So we may have done more damage to their capability than we previously understood."
In discussing battle plans, commanders here did not want to telegraph the areas U.S. forces might be focusing on for their next offensives. But some of the potential targets can easily be discerned by mapping the locations of attacks on U.S. forces, including areas in or around the restive cities of Mosul, Ramadi, Baqubah, Samarra and Baghdad.
At the same time, officers cautioned against expecting anything on the scale of Fallujah, which involved more than 10,000 U.S. troops and about 2,500 Iraqi forces.
"They're not going to be big operations like Fallujah, because there's no place else in Iraq where the situation is like what it was there," one commander said.
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Star Tribune | June 24 2004
Comment: The cosy dismissal that the draft is not happening because the bills have stalled is a red herring. One big terror attack engineered by the government and those bills will be accelerated through Congress quicker than you can say 'Patriot Act'.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Although there hasn't been a draft in more than 30 years, 22-year-old Minneapolis college graduate Nathan Mittelstaedt is worried that he might be forced into military service.
He's not alone.
Despite shaky evidence -- and denials by top officials -- Mittelstaedt and many other young people in Minnesota and across the nation are convinced that a draft is secretly in the works. Through mass e-mails and Internet sites, the word is going out that as early as next June, men and women as old as 34 will be subject to random, mandatory military service.
The rumors have been sparked by debate in Congress and what some say is suspicious behavior by the Selective Service System. The fears have been exacerbated by news reports about troops stretched thin around the globe and the Pentagon's recent "stop-gap" order to extend tours of duty in Iraq.
Officials are finding the rumors difficult to quash. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., called the draft worries "a scare tactic." Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., attributes them to people "who like to stir up fear and angst."
The Selective Service System has received so many calls and e-mails that the agency posted a prominent notice on its Web site denying any draft preparations.
"It's just not going to happen," said Dan Amon, an agency spokesman. "There's no interest whatsoever in Congress."
Amon said the agency began receiving e-mails in November, when a Defense Department Web page advertised openings on the draft board -- a group of 11,000 civilians nationwide who would hear petitions for deferments during a draft.
Although the agency has maintained the board since 1980, Amon said, several watchdog groups took the posting as a sign that it was quietly mobilizing for a draft.
"There's nothing unusual about a call for new board members," Amon said. "We're always looking for volunteers."
Not since 1973
The military ended 25 years of the draft in 1973, in the midst of the highly unpopular war in Vietnam. Draft registration was suspended in 1975, but was resumed in 1980 in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Since then, many military officials have said that a draft would weaken the current all-volunteer military by swelling the ranks with people who don't necessarily want to be there.
Although there's widespread agreement that there's no momentum on Capitol Hill to bring back the draft, several members of Congress are openly advocating it. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who has expressed concerns about maintaining troop strength, has spoken in favor of a draft. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has argued that a draft would produce a more demographically balanced force. He introduced a bill last year that would require mandatory service for all draft-age American men and women. Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., introduced a companion bill in the Senate. Web sites and mass e-mails have used the bill introductions to raise the alarm.
The Web postings and e-mails -- often containing identical language -- usually cite the bills and the draft board openings as evidence that a draft is coming.
The warnings contain questionable assertions. For example, they claim that the Selective Service System received an additional $28 million from Congress in fiscal 2004, when there was no funding increase. They also claim that the White House is pushing to get the bills through, when in fact the administration opposes a draft.
Still, the fact that bills exist in the House and Senate was enough to convince Michael LaBrosse, a 57-year-old leadership consultant from Minneapolis, that a draft is coming. After confirming that the bills were real, he said he forwarded the e-mail to more than 100 friends.
"This is about as real a thing as I ever sent out," said LaBrosse. "It makes sense that if there's a bill like that out there under the radar, that there are other people getting ready for it."
The bills, however, have been stuck in committee since last year, and several lawmakers insisted that they will stay there. Kline, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, said there is no support or logic behind recalling a draft. "It's an all-volunteer force that is working very, very well," said Kline, a retired Marine colonel.
According to the Pentagon, all branches of military service have met or exceeded recruiting goals for fiscal 2004.
Chris Lisi, spokeswoman for Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., who is a member of the Armed Services Committee and a critic of the war in Iraq, also said the bill "has no legs."
Nader's view
President Bush and his presumptive Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, have said they support increasing the size of the armed forces. This has kept others, including independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader, worried about a draft.
Nader warned in a "Message to America's Students" posted on his Web site that "the Pentagon is quietly recruiting new members to fill local draft boards, as the machinery for drafting a new generation of young Americans is being quietly put into place." Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese said the Nader campaign will be doing even more to raise concern about a draft.
The warnings are "totally necessary," Zeese said. "Students should get organized, because these things can happen very quickly."
J.E. McNeil, executive director of the Washington-based Center on Conscience and War, is also working to put the possibility of a draft on the public radar screen. McNeil said she is booked through October with speaking engagements across the country.
"[The draft] is extremely likely," McNeil said. She added that she is committed to spreading the message so that people "aren't caught short after the election."
Lawrence Jacobs, a University of Minnesota political science professor and director of the 2004 Elections Project at the Humphrey Institute, said an "odd coalition" of liberal Democrats and "defense hawks" is keeping the issue relevant.
"When you see an idea that's around, and takes a beating and keeps ticking, you take notice," Jacobs said. "It's staying on the agenda ... I don't see yet the votes in Congress to pass this, but it's on the agenda."
Mittelstaedt, for one, is unmoved by the denials. To him, the draft is an inevitability if the country continues the global war on terrorism. "If we're going to continue to invade countries ... eventually we're going to run out of people to send," Mittelstaedt said.
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U.S. Preparing For Military Draft in Spring of 2005
Legislation in the works: Selective Service System already mobilizing
—By Adum Stutz / Bob Keeler / Connor Freff Cochran, Vancounver IndyMedia.org / Newsday / AlterNet
May 6, 2004 Issue
After the champagne popping from Washington to Crawford, Texas subsides, a re-elected President George W. Bush would reinstate the military draft sometime next spring. Legislation is already on the table in both the House and the Senate, in the form of twin bills S 89 and HR 163, "in order to staff up for a protracted war on terrorism," writes Adam Stutz, from Project Censored. Meanwhile, the Selective Service System has received an extra $28 million in funds for this year's budget to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide and put "troops on the ground in 85% of all American high schools to make sure no one between 18-25 years old slips through the cracks. Schools cannot very easily claim conscientious objector status, by the way. "Buried deep in the 670 pages of the No Child Left Behind Act there is a provision which requires that public high schools give military recruiters access to facilities and also contact information for every student -- or else face a cutoff of federal aid," writes Connor Freff Cochran of AlterNet.
More than 30 years after the last young man was sent off to Vietnam to be slaughtered in a war ultimately so unpopular that many Americans believe the selective service will never again rear its ugly head, the Bush administration's motives for reinstating the draft are clear (especially if the Pentagon unilaterally attacks a third country this fall before the election). Cochran writes: "Twenty-one of the US Army's 33 regular combat brigades are now on active duty in the 'hot' zones of Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea, and the Balkans. That's 63 percent of the Army's fighting force. This is a huge overextension. History has proven that long-term military operations can only be sustained if you have twice as many soldiers waiting in the pipeline as are stationed out in the field. By that rule of thumb, the regular military is now 125,000 soldiers short."
And "draft dodging" would not be as easy as it was during the Vietnam Conflict, since attending college, being female, or fleeing to Canada could not be used as shelters this time around. Stutz writes, "underclassmen would only be able to postpone service until the end of their current semester. Seniors would have until the end of the academic year." Meanwhile, shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, "Canada and the U.S. signed a 'Smart Border Declaration,' which could be used to keep would-be draft dodgers in [the United States]." Hold your boys close, mommas. If Bush wins in November, they could be trading their high school diplomas in for dog tags.
-- Jacob Wheeler
~ Voltaire (1694-1778)
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#14
Posted 22 November 2004 - 01:11 AM
As for the various cut and pastes I'm fairly sure there will eventually be a draft.
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#15
Posted 22 November 2004 - 01:54 AM
if I could even comprehend half of that I'd check myself into an asylum.
Unfortunate, but rediculously predictable. Denial is your drug of choice too Mr.Che.
What's Goin On
Marvin Gaye, Motown
Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today - Ya
Father, father
We don't need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today
Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me, so you can see
Oh, what's going on
What's going on
Ya, what's going on
Ah, what's going on
In the mean time
Right on, baby
Right on
Right on
Father, father, everybody thinks we're wrong
Oh, but who are they to judge us
Simply because our hair is long
Oh, you know we've got to find a way
To bring some understanding here today
Oh
Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me
So you can see
What's going on
Ya, what's going on
Tell me what's going on
I'll tell you what's going on - Uh
Right on baby
Right on baby
~ Voltaire (1694-1778)
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