by Douglas Herman

Strike the Root

01/24/05

When a soldier sees too much with his own eyes -- too many fallen comrades and too many dead civilians -- he's no good for war any more; he finally begins to question the false rationale. He begins to question the media slogans and military propaganda. He begins to believe his own eyes instead, his own conscience, his own heart...

http://www.strike-the-root.com/51/herman/herman1.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

by Erin Solaro

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

01/24/05

If you're the U.S. Army, how do you say,'Hell No, We Won't Go? By proclaiming, loud, clear and often, your opposition to the draft. Put bluntly: The U.S. Army has no desire to be large enough to implement the Bush/neocon agenda of 'cauldronizing the Middle East' or anywhere else, and it will oppose by every means at its disposal, any attempt to so enlarge it. And it is right to do so -- militarily, politically and morally.

According to an oft-documented Vietnam legend, an anonymous Army general vowed: 'I'll be damned if I permit the United States Army, its institutions, its doctrine, and its traditions, to be destroyed just to win this lousy war.' In Iraq, the destruction is already well under way. But if the Army is not prepared to lose in Iraq to save itself, it is ready to remain a force that cannot prevail there, let alone invade anywhere else...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/208407_focus23.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Houston Chronicle

01/24/05

The Bush administration plans to announce Tuesday it will request about $80 billion more for this year's costs of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, congressional aides said today. The request would push the total provided so far for those wars and for U.S. efforts against terrorism elsewhere in the world to more than $280 billion since the first money were provided shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, airliner attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The package will not formally be sent to Congress until after President Bush introduces his 2006 budget on Feb. 7...

http://tinyurl.com/5rasv


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

London, Jan 24 (Prensa Latina) Foreign occupation forces in Iraq have no legal authority to restructure the politics, society and economy of this Arab country and even less to call for elections, the London BBC radio station said Monday.

In an interview with the BBC, the president of the Arab Lawyer Association in Great Britain, Sabah Mokhtar, stressed that Geneva and Vienna Conventions stipulate that occupation troops of a state have no legal power to restructure it.

"Iraq is not currently a sovereign nation, but an occupied one, in which foreign forces have proclaimed a Constitution and legislation for elections and the creation of political parties," said Mokhtar when answering a BBC question about the motive of the Iraqi resistance to oppose the US-led elections scheduled for January 30.

The Arab leader added that the Iraq had 300 laws when the US-British forces launched their aggression in March 2003, most established in the 1920´s. He admitted some of those needed to be reformed, but they can only be changed by a legal authority.

Mokhtar also emphasized that a State in war can not legally call for elections, even less when at least 100 insurgent attacks are reported in Iraq daily.

Iraqi citizens fear to go to the polls, are unable to vote and there is no information about election candidates.

Addressing US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld´s recent statements, Mokthar said that elections should be properly held, despite irregularities prevailing in the Arab country.

If elections take place now it will only be because US President George W. Bush has made an incorrect decision, concluded Mokhtar.

sus/ajs/bts/mf


Informant: Walter Lippmann

After losing a limb, mobility or eyesight to bullets or bombs in Iraq, some of the most gravely wounded U.S. soldiers face financial devastation.

http://jewishworldreview.com/0105/amputees.asp


From Information Clearing House

It is only a matter of time before the peoples of the world will watch the last US helicopter hastily evacuating the last US officials from Baghdad, and end the last act of US imperial misadventure.

http://207.44.245.159/article7809.htm

A story that President Bush would probably prefer not to see propagated.

Video Documentary

A photo series that the New York-based Nina Berman made of wounded Iraq veterans led to the making of this documentary. In detail, they recount what happened on the day they got injured; how they arrived back home, blind or legless; how they have to try to forget the war now, in small towns around Alabama and Pittsburgh, or in Washington and L.A. Officially recognised as “heroes,” a Purple Heart on the uniform in the closet, most of these soldiers long to go back to an army that has no use for them anymore.

Watch It Online Now! - Real Video
http://207.44.245.159/article7799.htm

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=603956


Informant: kevcross5