Friday Afternoon, September 28th - Bring Our Troops Home Billboard Unveiled

From SoCal Grassroots - San Gabriel Valley

This Friday afternoon, September 28th, on the corner of Foothill Blvd and Archibald Avenue in Rancho Cucamonga a new billboard will be unveiled. It will proudly announce to all who pass that we should bring our troops home.

This all began nearly a year ago when the newly founded Inland Valley Democratic Club, in the heart of Bush country started demonstrating against the war in Iraq. It has been a remarkable example of grassroots democracy. At first it was a small group of demonstrators made up of veterans of the war in Vietnam and others who had the courage to stand on that corner of a very busy thoroughfare to express their outrage and displeasure with the war in Iraq. They withstood a lot of unhappy motorists in the beginning months, but gradually things turned around. Instead of the verbal abuse they initially encountered that disagreement turned to support as time went on. It has been an amazing transformation to where they now get many of the cars and trucks that pass by to honk their horns in support.

This adventure in grassroots democracy will culminate this Friday with the unveiling of the sign announcing to the world that, "We support the troops bring them home." All of you are invited to join in the demonstration against the war in Iraq and support of our troops that begins at 4:00 PM.

Here's that info again:
Friday, September 28, 2007
4:00 pm - ???
Corner of Foothill Blvd and Archibald Ave
Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730

It's A Step...

Senate OKs referendum on Iraq war:

California could become the first state to formally call for immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq under a ballot proposal the state Senate approved Wednesday.

[...]

The resolution is an advisory measure that voters would consider on the presidential primary ballot next February. The proposal is expected to be approved by the Assembly, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has not said publicly whether he will sign it.

Many see this resolution as a cynical ploy to bring out more Democratic voters to the polls in February, mainly so that voters will also vote for the change in term limits that Democratic law-makers are pushing for.

Frankly, I don't care.

Granted, though I'm not entirely crazy about term limits (we lost Jackie Goldberg, Dario Frommer and Paul Koretz when they were termed out), I'm not sure about voting to change term limits to keep Perrata et al. in state leadership positions.

However, it's time that California - and states in general - sent a strong message to the Bush Administration that we need to get the hell out of Iraq. Especially after the horrific capitulation of Congress to Bush's need to kill even more of our fine soldiers.

(Your erstwhile contributor was unable to write about that miscarriage of voter trust as everything came out as incoherent spittle. I'm barely able to keep from reverting even now. Back to the state resolution...)

Republican legislators are saying that such a resolution is not within the state's purview:

"We're elected by the people of California to handle the issues of California," asserted Senate GOP leader Dick Ackerman of Irvine. "If you want to handle federal issues, you can try to be elected to Congress."

What an extremely narrow view of the responsibilities of California legislators. Every aspect of the Iraq Occupation affects Californians on a deep level. We're losing soldiers over there. Our National Guard troop strength is down, in part due to deployment in Iraq. Like other states, our taxpayers are throwing money into a spiraling federal deficit.

We've got to get out. We've got to move on this now. And this is a good step.

In Memoriam

As of 11AM PDT, May 28, 2007:

US Soldiers Died Memorial Weekend:
May 26, 2007

Erich S. Smallwood, 23, Army National Guard Specialist
Francis M. Trussel Jr., 21, Army Specialist
Clayton G. Dunn II, 22, Army Sergeant
Michael J. Jaurigue, 22, Army Sergeant
Gregory N. Millard, 22, Army Specialist
Nicholas R. Walsh, 27, Marine Sergeant
William Lee Bailey III, 29, Army National Guard Specialist
David Paul Lindsey, 20, Marine Corporal
Nicholas Walsh, 26, Marine Sergeant

Total US Military Deaths: 3,455
Total Coalition Military Deaths: 276
Total Contractor Deaths (list incomplete): 398
Total Journalists (list incomplete): 132
Total Iraqi Deaths (number approximate): 64,400 - 70,540 (though some estimates are in excess of 655,000)
Total Wounded US Military: 25,129

Online Entertainment for Soldiers? Not In This Man's Army...

...at least not easily.

Over two weeks ago it was revealed that the US Army was clamping down on soldiers' blogs, even after the soldiers returned home. Now the Pentagon has has blocked access to sites such as YouTube and MySpace on military networks:

No more using the military's computer system to socialize and trade videos on MySpace, YouTube and nine other Web sites, the Pentagon says.

Citing security concerns and technological limits, the Pentagon has cut off access to those sites for personnel using the Defense Department's computer network.

The change limits use of the popular outlets for service members on the front lines, who regularly post videos and journals.

The Pentagon still allows soldiers to use their own computers, nor does it affect internet cafes in the area, which are run by a private vendor. However, for those soldiers who don't have the money to go to internet cafes or purchase laptops (or for those whose families are too poor to afford computers to ship to them), their access possible morale boosting entertainment has been severely curtailed.

As usual, those without money are getting the short, pointy, infected end of the stick.

Congress Tells Bush, "Oh yeah?"

Senate passes war spending bill with withdrawal deadline:

Senate Democrats ignored a veto threat and pushed through a bill Thursday requiring President Bush to start withdrawing troops from "the civil war in Iraq," dealing a rare, sharp rebuke to a wartime commander in chief.

In a mostly party line 51-47 vote, the Senate signed off on a bill providing $122 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It also orders Bush to begin withdrawing troops within 120 days of passage while setting a nonbinding goal of ending combat operations by March 31, 2008.

Personally, I have a number of issues with the House bill, which are addressed best by Tim Carpenter, Director of Progressive Democrats of America, "The bad news is that the House bill funds Bush's troop surge and won't bring our troops home until a Sept 1, 2008 "deadline" – with provisions allowing troops to stay in Iraq beyond that on vaguely-defined "training" or "anti-terrorism" missions. (That's why a group of progressive Congress members – including Barbara Lee, Lynn Woolsey, Maxine Waters, Diane Watson, John Lewis and Dennis Kucinich – felt the need to stand firm and vote no.)

"More bad news is the disunity stirred up among antiwar progressives in Congress by the House leadership's arm-twisting and the intervention of MoveOn.org in support of the leadership's arm-twisting."

However, much as I would have preferred that this bill had gotten it right the first time, its passage by the House, with the Senate signing off on it, is a good step. Of course Bush is going to veto it - there's no chance at this stage of the game that he would allow it to go through. But let's hope that progressive Congress members, to quote Representative Pete Stark, "[We] can write a better bill."

Y'all get started on that better bill writing, ya hear?

Bush: LaLaLaLa - I Can't Hear You!

Bush hangs back on House debate:

A month after President Bush announced plans to boost troop levels in Iraq, he will largely remain on the sidelines as the House begins the first major debate on the war since Democrats assumed control of Congress after the November election.

[...]

With Democrats in firm control of the House, Bush has little chance of derailing the resolution, which he has said he will ignore.

Since this is a non-binding resolution, the House cannot force Bush to follow its lead. However, ignoring the resolution is idiocy of the highest form.

Then again, considering the resident of the White House and his actions since he moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, I can't say that I'm surprised...

Court-Martial of Principled Officer Ends in Mistrial

Mistrial ends Watada court-martial:

FORT LEWIS, Wash. (AP) — FORT LEWIS -- The court-martial of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada ended in a mistrial Wednesday.

The case's judge, Lt. Col. John Head, declared the trial over after a day of wrangling over a stipulation of facts that Watada had signed before the trial and that would have been part of the instructions to the jury. The judge decided that Watada never intended when he signed the stipulation to mean that he had a duty to go to Iraq with his unit.

Again the issue was Watada's views on the Iraq war -- opinions that kept him from going with his unit to the conflict and that the judge didn't want brought up at the court-martial.

Head is woefully incorrect when he insists that the illegality of the Iraq Occupation is not the issue. It is the central issue. For the Army to insist that its officers and enlisted soldiers follow orders, despite their conscience, is criminal. I'm in danger of invoking Godwin's Law, but one must remember that the Nazis' defense was that they were just following orders.

Watada could have easily filed for conscientious objector status. He didn't because he isn't a pacifist and he is an honorable man. He strongly believes in serving his country by defending it. He sees that serving in an illegal occupation is not defending his country.

According to USA Today, a new trial date has been set for March 12.