Congress Declares War on Veterans, Merges Senate Subcommittees:

The Senate declared war on the Department of Veterans Affairs, veterans groups, and veterans, according to Congressional Quarterly. The Senate plans to merge VA spending with DoD spending, sending message that VA's budget must be slashed to pay for DoD weapons systems and war, and that one day VA may merge with DoD. In other words, Republican Senators and Congressmen want to take away healthcare from disabled veterans to pay for Star Wars missile defense and the failing Iraq War.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=2755

The coalition of the willing, which turned into the coalition of the bribed, is now the coalition of the departing,. Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, and other nations retreat from Iraq as the war becomes worse and casualties rise. The Bush Administration lacks international leadership and respect, thus leaving the U.S. more isolated and vulnerable.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=2751

Some wounded soldiers back from Iraq are having to pay for meals at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Veterans' groups say it's another symptom of fighting a costly war on the cheap.

http://207.44.245.159/article7890.htm

They witnessed soldiers blown to bits and mourned the loss of others who killed themselves when they returned home -- often excluded from the government's official body count.

http://207.44.245.159/article7895.htm

IF YOU CAN’T VOTE OCCUPATION TROOPS OUT OF YOUR COUNTRY THEN THE VOTE’S FOR THE OCCUPIER, NOT THE OCCUPIED

DEAR FELLOW ANTIWAR ACTIVISTS ACROSS THE COUNTRY:

Join a nationwide response to the “elections” in Iraq next Sunday.

January 30 is a diversion - the real date is March 19 when the world says “TROOPS OUT NOW”

The Troops Out Now Coalition encourages you to hold protests and press conferences in your localities on either Sunday Jan. 30, the day of the “elections” in Iraq, or Monday, Jan. 31. The purpose for doing this is to keep the antiwar movement and the rest of society focused on the real need: the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. occupation troops from Iraq.

The January 30 “elections” in Iraq is a project of the Pentagon, and its purpose is to divert attention away from the ongoing criminal occupation, as well as to legitimatize the war, the occupation, the destruction of cities like Falluja, and the deaths of upwards of one hundred thousand Iraqis, as well as fourteen hundred U.S. troops since the beginning of the war.

The very notion that a country can hold a “democratic” election while it is occupied by a hostile power bent on imposing its designs on that country is profoundly cynical, and an insult to the people everywhere.

And to this insult, Bush wants to add still another injury by asking Congress to approve $80 billion more for his war.

At the same time that Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice are putting their spin on the “elections” this weekend, we need to be calling attention to the need to strengthen the movement to bring the troops home. Wherever we are, let’s tell the world this weekend that the important date is not January 20, but March 19, the second anniversary of the start of the war, when people all across the U.S. and the world will take to the streets once again to demand “Troops Out Now”.

March 19
Troops Out Now!
March on Central Park in NYC!
Regional Demonstrations Across the U.S. & Worldwide


The International Action Center
http://www.iacenter.org
iacenter@iacenter.org

Warning: Graphic Photos

http://www.undermars.com/gallery1.html
http://www.uruknet.info?p=9225
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12065854%255E401,00.html
http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1036870.htm


Informant: Shanti Renfrew

Since the invasion, the No. 1 cause of death among households surveyed was violence. The risk of death due to violence had increased 58-fold since before the war. And more than half of the people who had died from violence and its aftermath since the invasion began were women and children.

http://chronicle.com/cgi2-bin/printable.cgi?article=http://chronicle.com/free/2005/01/2005012701n.htm
http://tinyurl.com/3htpr


From Information Clearing House

Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld continues to astound us Gold Star Families with his heartlessness, callousness and disrespect in the faces of our children who are being killed in the mindless invasion and occupation of Iraq.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0124-20.htm


From Information Clearing House