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News :: Iraq |
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Photos from Vigil for 2000 Dead |
Current rating: 0 |
by wayward
Email: wedwards (nospam) uiuc.edu (unverified!) |
27 Oct 2005
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Photos from the moveon rally in memory of the 2000 soldiers who have died so far in the war with Iraq |
| | | | |  Peggy Kovacic has two sons in the military. |  Matti Shalev organized the event. |
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On October 26, a number of people gathered for a candlelight vigil to remember the 2000 U.S. soldiers killed so far in the war with Iraq. |
See also:
http://www.ucimc.org/newswire/display/101492/index.php
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This work is in the public domain. |
Comments
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Re: Photos from Vigil for 2000 Dead |
by you broke it you bought it
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
27 Oct 2005
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I opposed the invasion of Iraq, for obvious reasons. I went to a number of protests as we were first invading.
But most people interpret the current vigils and protests as supporting a withdrawal of US forces. That's how I perceive it, and that's why I don't participate.
We wrecked their infrastructure, precipitated social disorder, etc. We owe it to them to stick around until we're sure they can maintain a minimal level of order themselves. Abandoning the Iraqi people AGAIN is not on my moral radar. |
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The Arrogantly Stupid Logic of Imperialism |
by Dose of Reality
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
27 Oct 2005
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Geez, that is a really asinine attempt to continue a failed policy, one that even exceeds John Kerry's ridiculous assertion yesterday that Iraq is not a quagmire yet, but might be in six months.
In fact, the closest analogy I come come up with the level of moral reasoning present in your statemnt would be for you to assert that because you've raped someone, you now have the right to marry them.
I don't think anyone has a problem with taking responsibility for the mess we've made. But staying there is simply not a sensible part of such an option. Neither would it solve the problems we have created by our mere presence, let alone Bush's failed policy.
We would be lucky if the UN could be persuaded to take over, with the US bearing the full costs of such an operation. That would certainly fit with a _responsible_ "you broke it you bought it" approach. But I don't really consider this an option, becaue most of the UN realizes that the US has stirred up passions and resistance that the UN is also unlikely to either be able to solve or have the stomach to address.
A proposal more likely to be viable is a pan-Arab peacekeeping force, again financed by the US, no strings attached. That at least has the possibility of actually being something that could calm tensions.
In any case, the vast majority of the Iraqi people say they would be better off if the US simply left. They could care less about whatever aid that might be delivered by US forces. There simply is no support left among them for a continuation of the US presence, except for the few at the top who have been raking off graft from the money that the US is using to prop up its puppet government.
But I agree, we should pay for it. You can put the check in the mail, as that is the only safe way to deliver such assistance at this point. |
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Out of Iraq, Now |
by Stan Goff
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
27 Oct 2005
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Raleigh -- George W. Bush doesn't read many memos and he apparently doesn't read history. He should. Then he'd know more about the Pentagon Papers.
In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg, a former Defense Department employee then working at the Rand Corporation, had grown so restive over reports he had seen that proved a pattern of systematic lying to the public about America's war in Vietnam that he could no longer in good conscience remain silent. He leaked what would become "the Pentagon Papers" to the press. They showed that the government had lied about the war, and that many experts believed by 1968 that the war itself was unwinnable. More than 20,000 of our war deaths -- which eventually totaled 58,000 Americans (plus millions of Southeast Asians) -- occurred after 1968. After military and political experts told two administrations that the war would be lost.
We have now passed the much smaller empirical milestone in Iraq of 2,000 American dead. This figure does not include Afghanistan, it does not include more than 15,000 troops wounded, nor over 400 who have lost limbs, nor does it include the tens of thousands of Iraqi dead.
There is nothing special about the number 2,000, except what was special about each of the numerical increments along the way. Two thousand times now, a military sedan with two or three uniformed service members has pulled up in front of some home in the United States or Puerto Rico to deliver news that tore the hearts out of people and shattered their lives.
So this round number is just an opportunity to remind ourselves of what is going on -- and what is not.
The rate of terror attacks worldwide has tripled since 9/11, so the world is no safer. No one has "won the war but lost the peace" in Iraq -- one of the most Orwellian phrases imaginable, repeated like a drunken mantra to sustain denial about the reality of Iraq. The war has never been won. All that was accomplished was a bloody occupation. According to every poll, the majority of Iraqis want the occupation out, so the majority will is not being respected in this alleged attempt to build democracy at gunpoint.
The military is suffering such a profound retention and recruitment crisis that it has lowered standards and even resorted to recruiting among hurricane suviviors at the Astrodome. Taxpayers are footing a $6 billion a month bill for the war in Iraq; and future taxpayers will get the bill for billions more in national debt, 40 percent of which is debt now owned by foreign investors and central banks. So we aren't just sacrificing schools and health care and housing but the futures of our children -- who will be approachable by more recruiters for more wars if something doesn't change.
Two thousand is not just a number to reflect on, then go about our business.
This is the equivalent of slapping one of those yellow ribbon magnets on a car that says "Support The Troops." It's easy, and it makes people feel better about their lack of action. It really is time to take note.
The U.S. military occupation of Iraq is the single greatest catalyst for the violence there. Fewer than 4 percent of the insurgent fighters are foreign, and they are there because of the U.S. presence. Most of the daily attacks are directed at Americans, though more vulnerable civilians bear the brunt of these attacks. There are around 500 attacks per week, and electoral gymnastics have not changed this one whit -- in fact, these U.S.-managed affairs may actually make things much worse.
It's time to face these facts head-on and to get out of Iraq now. Immediately. As quickly as the plans can be drawn up for redeployment.
The Iraqis have coped with far more chaos from the occupation than they will without it, and, however painfully, they will find their way better when it is their way, not what the Bush administration says is their way.
The argument that those who have died will have died in vain is sophistry of the cruelest kind. We do not say when children are killed by drunken drivers that they died in vain. We honor their memories by organizing to ensure that the same thing doesn't happen to others. The way we support the troops -- as human beings, not occupiers -- and honor the memories of those who have already died is to bring them all home, and do it now.
Stan Goff is a retired Special Forces master sergeant whose son has been to Iraq with the Army twice. He is the author of "Full Spectrum Disorder -- The Military in the New American Century" (2004) and a member of Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out.
© 2005 The News & Observer Publishing Company
http://www.newsobserver.com |
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Why We Should Pay War Reparations To Iraq |
by Bob Schildgen
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
06 Nov 2005
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We recently learned that the $30 billion the United States allocated to "reconstruct" Iraq is about to run out. That seems like a whopping amount, until you realize that the World Bank estimates the cost of rebuilding at between $50 billion and $100 billion. This sum does nothing, of course, to compensate Iraqi families for the deaths and immense suffering caused by the invasion.
Withdrawal from Iraq has understandably been the main focus of the peace movement. The problem with this approach is that many concerned Americans have serious reservations about withdrawal, because they fear that we'd be abandoning Iraq to chaos. If, however, withdrawal is linked to hefty reparations payments, this fear could be alleviated. Withdrawal while providing the resources to recover and restore order could lead to domestic peace far more readily than withdrawal by itself.
Reparations are clearly appropriate in an invasion that was justified on false advertising of the Bush administration, which purposely dismissed solid evidence against its dubious claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Before the hardball pundits and opportunist politicians who got us into this mess dismiss reparations as a "non-starter," we should note that there is ample precedent for reparations, the most obvious being that of Iraq itself. Iraq has been forced to shell out more than $19 billion in reparations claims related to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, and it owes another $33 billion. The payments, ordered by the U.N. Security Council, have gone to many claimants, including U.S. corporations, according to the U.N. Compensations Commission.
Not only is this battered nation shelling out war reparations, but the budget of Iraq's U.S.-installed (what used to be called "puppet") government calls for expenditures of more than $16 billion for reconstruction through the year 2007. Yes, we break it, they pay for it! It's as if I blew up your house because I thought you thought about blowing up mine with a cache of dynamite I thought you had. Then I'm allowed to garnish your wages to pay me to rebuild your house. Preposterous by any logic -- except maybe that of a Mafia thriller.
War reparations for Iraq have in fact been widely endorsed in the peace movement, but with the focus on getting out, there is very little political push for reparations. For example, United for Peace and Justice, a major organizer of opposition to the Iraq war, has officially called for reparations. Certainly no fringe group, it counts among its 1,400 members such well-known organizations as the National Council of Churches, the American Friends Service Committee and Greenpeace, and others including Veterans for Peace, Working Assets, Tikkun Community and the Catholic Worker Movement. Meeting in Jakarta in 2003, representatives from United for Peace and Justice and the peace movements of more than 20 other nations called for reparations for Iraq. It's time to turn this noble wish into a fierce demand.
Making amends through reparations might also help us regain some of the international respect we have lost. Withdrawal coupled with reparations would also deprive terrorists of their most attractive recruiting tool, hatred of a nation that is perceived to be on a pathological crusade against Islam.
In addition to the strategic and moral reasons for getting out and paying reparations, there's an economic argument: Because we've already wasted more than $200 billion in Iraq, reparations might end up costing us less than staying the course, and less than battling the increased terrorism that the occupation has provoked.
How much is a reasonable amount and how should it be distributed? The money could be deposited in private bank accounts or paid by some other means that minimizes the possibility of fraud. Perhaps $5,000 to each Iraqi (about $100 billion) plus another $50 billion spread over several years for reconstruction seems fair and just. That's $150 billion -- less than we've spent so far on a war we can't win. We can help Iraqis build their own brand of capitalism by investing in each of them -- a Marshall Plan on an individualized basis. That's an exit strategy worthy of debate.
Bob Schildgen writes an environmental advice column for Sierra, the Sierra Club's national magazine, where he was formerly the managing editor. The views expressed here are his alone.
© 2005 San Francisco Chronicle
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