Washington State Chapter:Military Families Speak Out

Sunday, 5 March 2006

Now Playing: Stacy Bannerman
Topic: Members Speak Out

No Deals for Democrats: Quit Bargaining with the Lives of Our Loved Ones

Published on Sunday, March 5, 2006 by Stacy Bannerman

It’s easy to make deals with soldiers’ lives when it’s not your soldier. It’s pretty simple to postpone coming up with an exit strategy when your loved ones are already home.

What’s not so easy is sitting across from a familiar stranger, someone who looks like your loved one, but isn’t, not quite. What’s even harder is dining next to an empty chair, day after day, month after month, and year after year. Taking your meals at the bedside of what’s left of your son lying in intensive care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center is a whole different degree of difficult.

Diane Benson’s 26-year-old boy was still unconscious when he arrived at Walter Reed after being hit by a roadside bomb in Tikrit, north of Baghdad. Latseen Benson, in the 101st Airborne, had his legs blown off, along with part of an arm. If he survives—and it’s still a pretty big if—he will never again sit in his old chair at his mother’s table. Negotiate that, Senator Clinton.

Anne Roesler’s son just returned from his third deployment to Iraq in three years. Before he left in August, he told his mom that, if he made it back this time, it would take years for him to recover. Iraq War veterans are already exhibiting post-combat mental health challenges at unprecedented levels.

Part of the reason for the escalating psychological problems is that while soldiers were typically sent for one tour-of-duty in Vietnam, more and more troops are serving two, three, and sometimes four rotations in Iraq. Another complication is the moral ambiguity of fighting a war without front lines, and where the combatants are, or are dressed as, civilians, some of them women or teens. Iraqi law allows the use of children as soldiers, and at least 1,000 youths are believed to be serving in the Iraq military, a figure that doesn’t account for the adolescents providing assistance to insurgency forces.

There is considerable psychological distress associated with going into a country under the auspices of liberating and helping a people, only to have those people rise up against you, and it lingers long after the war has ended.

This nation’s leaders told our soldiers that the people of Iraq would be overjoyed to see them. Forty-five percent of Iraqis think that the insurgents’ attacks on American troops are justified. Eighty percent of Iraqis want the troops out now, as do a majority of Americans.

When this administration sent my husband to Iraq, they told him he’d be building schools. Instead, he killed schoolchildren. Now, how is he supposed to deal with that? How does the wife deal with being woken up in the middle of the night by her husband, holding an imaginary gun to her head?

The only deals that interest politicians are the ones that will keep them in office. They speak of “phased withdrawals,” a gradual drawing-down of forces, which has been tried before.

It didn’t work in Vietnam. It’s sheer arrogance or stupidity to think it will succeed in Iraq.

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) said an immediate pullout “would cause more problems for us in America." Does “us” refer to you folks on Capitol Hill? What about the nearly 70 percent of Americans who want the troops out of Iraq? Or do you mean the soldiers who are serving in Iraq, and the families left behind? Because, I assure you, the problem for “us” is not an immediate withdrawal of troops.

The problem, for those of us with loved ones in uniform, is that our soldiers are fighting and dying for a lie.

Bargaining with the lives of our soldiers is not leadership. It is moral cowardice and an egregious failure of office of the highest order. I’ve come to expect that from the Bush administration, but surely the Democrats can do better. With the exception of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), too many Democrats are trying to make deals with the lives of our soldiers. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean recently endorsed a report by former assistant Defense secretary Lawrence Korb. The ‘strategic redeployment’ concept sets out a plan for a phased troop withdrawal over an 18 month period.

Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) recently stated that he thinks: “In 2006, American troops will begin to leave Iraq in large numbers. By the end of the year, I believe we will have redeployed at least 50,000 troops."

But Biden, Dean, and far too many other Democrats are remarkably silent about the 80,000 or more troops that would remain in Iraq. And they’re mute when it comes to the 800-plus soldiers who will most likely get killed between now and then, bringing the U.S. body count to around 3,000. That’s playing Russian roulette with our loved ones. If the Democratic leaders don’t play that game with their families, they’ve got no right to play it with ours.

Stacy Bannerman is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus and on the Advisory Board of Military Families Speak Out. Her book “When the War Came Home: The Inside Story of Reservists and the Families They Leave Behind,” will be released by Continuum Publishing in March 2006. Her husband deployed to Iraq with the Army National Guard 81st Brigade in March 2004, and returned home on March 11, 2005.

Posted by SwanDeer Project at 12:01 AM PST

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Saturday, 25 February 2006

Now Playing: Lietta Ruger
Topic: Local Lobbying

Progress!

02/25/2006

Last week Lietta received the following from the Senior Legislative Assistant for Senator Mark Doumit. Senator Doumit (coincidentally our state senator from our legislative district) is the co-chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee in the Washington State legislature..

Hello, I want to let you know that a budget proviso was included in the Senate's proposed budget for $150,000 for a Military Department to study the scope and adequacy of training on exposure to depleted uranium received by Washington state members of the National Guard serving during the first Gulf War or reccently in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is similar to the bill that you had contacted us about and I hope this comes as good news. Your message bringing it to our attention was very, very helpful.

Posted by SwanDeer Project at 12:01 AM PST

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Saturday, 18 February 2006

Now Playing: Arthur Ruger
Topic: Take Care of Them

Why the Depleted uranium study on behalf of the WA Natl Guard is important

By Arthur Ruger
Sat Feb 18, 2006 at 03:49:02 PM PST
Section: Washington State Topic: Legislation

I want to follow up on Lietta's recent article Depleted uranium study WA Natl Guard IS funded! Tx Sen Doumit

Led by Senator Mark Doumit and the Senate's Ways and Means Committee, Washington State has a chance to act in a profoundly wise manner. They will join other wise legislators across the country who have not been fooled by Pentagon's and Republican adminisration's shush-now pooh-poohing of the serious, tragic and potentially calamitous medical /financial impact of the use of depleted uranium in American weaponry in Iraq and the Middle East.

Earlier last year, the Connecticut House voted 144-0 to approve the kind of legislation Doumit and company gave life to and moved closer to the Governor's desk for signature.

Depleted Uranium is not a figmentary notion in the minds of conspiracy theorists - the sort of people easily dismissed and discredited by political manipulators and suppressed by Pentagon authorities.

More and more attention is drawn to this issue requiring that more and more authorities address the issue; a situation that itself debunks the old DU-debunking in the early years of the war.

Bored on a Saturday moving into the afternoon, out of curiosity I googled "depleted uranium victims" and rather than click "web" on Google, I clicked "images."

What came up included victim pictures of greater tragedy and criminality than anything we've seen in the original and now recent 2nd issuances of photos from Abu Ghraib.

These D.U. pictures are so numerous, one can only conclude the legitimacy of the problem or fall back on a stubborn insistence that camera-clickers from all over the world have conspired to attempt the most massive and hideous fraud ever perpetrated.

Denying and refusing to believe the D.U. tragedy will eventually be tantamount to denying the Holocaust.

After seeing those pictures, I again googled "depleted uranium" and clicked on "web" to see how easily one can become informed about whether or not our legislature is wasting time by looking into DU effects on our National Guard and the regular military members who reside in this state.

Well, I'll tell ya ... Our legislators are not wasting time. Any who try to diminish the effort or its importance have been just plain been lazy ... too lazy to even Google.

Manuel Valenzuela is a social critic and commentator, international affairs analyst, current events observer, Internet columnist and author of Echoes in the Wind, a novel now published by Authorhouse.com.

His articles appear regularly at his blog, Valenzuela's Veritas and at Information Clearing House as well as at other alternative news websites from around the globe.

The following are excerpts from his lengthy article, The Killing Fields: Ghosts of the Walking Dead.

Lengthy yes, but - I promise you - an article worth reading in its entirety.

The Killing Fields
Meanwhile, all around Iraq and its cities a clandestine yet deadly killer lurks, invisible and unseen, devastating in its capacity to destroy human DNA, a silent death sentence that has and will befall hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of unsuspecting human beings, both Iraqi and American.
This killer festers in the air, water, food supply, vegetation and ground, infiltrating the porous bodies of human beings, cementing itself for life.
It lingers on streets and rivers and buildings and homes, carried by wind and rain and through the daily weather patterns of Mesopotamia.
... Depleted uranium is a silent mass murderer, a clandestine nuclear bomb whose mushroom cloud is never seen exploding, yet the radiation and heavy metals excreted from the weapons it envelopes when they strike their target, the heat evaporating uranium particulates into the air, become airborne contagions that latch onto our carbon and organic bodies.
It attacks our organs and our bones, our nerves and blood, mutating our DNA genetic sequence, destroying our immune systems, penetrating our reproductive systems and causing various terminal cancers.
... Depleted uranium used fifteen years ago is now being felt where American ordnance was dropped from the sky above, as lands, food supply, water and air once contaminated, inhaled and ingested release the WMD lingering in their midst.
Child deformities, stillbirths, mutated fetuses, miscarriages and birth defects have been springing up for quite some time now, as the DU embedded in the sperm and eggs of parents transfers over to the embryo.
The mutations taking place, along with the deformities now apparent yet hardly ever seen in human society, are gross distortions of human normalcy, creating beings the likes of which have never been seen before. The photos of what DU can do to newborn babies and fetuses are available on the Internet.
Entire regions, towns and neighborhoods are experiencing clusters of these mutations in their newly born babies, with doctors unable to explain the sudden rise in defects and deformities that did not exist previously.
... Iraq has been transformed into a vast killing field, a wasteland overrun by the remnants of America's silent WMD, a cheap and money saving weapon...
... Already, 11,000 American soldiers, veterans of the first Gulf War, have died thanks to Gulf War Syndrome, cancer and disease. Over 350,000 veterans, out of 700,000 who served, have asked for serious disability, most of these veterans being in their late twenties and early thirties, in the prime of their lives, cleared as healthy before the war in military conducted medical physicals.
Depleted Uranium is the most likely culprit, as many more get diagnosed with terminal diseases and illnesses every year. Many veterans of Gulf War One and now the Iraq/Bush War have themselves been giving birth to deformed and defective children, much like their Iraqi counterparts.
Depleted Uranium, it seems, does not discriminate nor does it need a passport to infect human beings. It has been imported into America by our returning soldiers, a great percentage of which most likely have remnants of depleted uranium buried deep inside them.
How many American veterans of Gulf War One and the Iraq/Bush War will in the next few decades succumb to cancer or destroyed immune systems? How many of their children will be born like those in Iraq, unable to live more than a few days or months because their bodies are infested with DU, their appearance no longer presenting the appearance of a human child?
It is estimated that 40,000 to 80,000 more veterans will die in the next twenty to thirty years as the effects of DU run their course. How many more will produce offspring with genetic birth defects, gross mutations of fetuses, miscarriages and stillborns?
... In their whispered plea can we also see what might happen to tens of thousands of our own men and women, themselves hosts carrying the demons of the Iraqi Killing Fields back home.
Is the price of what America has done in our name worth our silence and indifference?

So what happens when we question the leaders who have done this on our behalf and in our name?

Valenzuela is a gifted writer who captures passion in his words and expresses that passion well.

To supplement Valensuela's thoughts, I recommend the following as well.

Depleted Uranium - A Hidden Looming Worldwide Calamity
found at Global Research.CA

These are what we ought to be sharing with our legislators.

Posted by SwanDeer Project at 12:01 AM PST

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Thursday, 16 February 2006

Now Playing: Lietta Ruger
Topic: Local Lobbying

Depleted Uranium Bill (SENATE BILL SB 6732) Made it out of Committee!

Please contact members of the Senate Ways and Means Committee to tell them SB 6732 is on the way and why it needs to be passed.

Group and Friends,

Thank you for your attention and taking rapid action below...much appreciated. Please send along a quick email reply once you've taken action. Questions? please ask...

MFSO, Washington state chapter congratulations to the team that put this together and put it forth; thank you.

Respect, Peace, Solidarity

Lietta Ruger, member Military Families Speak Out
military family with 2 Iraq veterans,
PO Box 335
Bay Center, WA 98527
home phone: 360-875-6380
cell phone: 360-942-9169
email: rugerla@centurytel.net

website: Military Families Speak Out, Washington state

RAPID ACTION REQUEST

SENATE BILL SB 6732 (studying military uranium exposure) made it out of committee! Senate Health, voted "majority, do pass, and refer to Ways and Means."

View online progress and reports at SB6732

Also including text of the pdf adobe report of the State Senate hearings held on this bill in Olympia Feb 2, 2006.

Suggestion that you send e-mails or call those that you know or are in your districts on the Senate Ways and Means and alert them that the Senate Bill 6732 is coming.

Use two or three sentences about what it will do and why it needs to be passed this year (troops are coming home).

Suggestion not go into great detail about anything, just let them know we want their support.

These are the names and a comment or two about the Committee members of the Senate Ways and Means.
Please act rapidly as this will be a very short turn around for them.

Margarita Prentice, D, 11, Chair, lives in Renton, is a nurse.
Karen Fraser, D, 22, Vice-Chair, Lives in Thurston, was part of Nuclear Waste Round Table.
Mark Doumit, D, 19, Vice-Chair, Grays Harbor area,
Joseph Zarelli, R, 18, Ranking Minority, Woodland area, 6 years active duty 82-89.
Dale Brandland, R, 42, Belllingham, Navy 68-69, Sheriff.
Darlene Fairlay, D, 32, Redmond/Edmonds, ex overseas volunteer.
Mike Hewitt, R, 16, Walla Walla, Tri-Cities.
Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D, 36, Seattle, All around person.
Linda Evans Parlette, R, 12, Wenatchee, BS in Pharmacy, Health care is an interest.
Craig Pridemore, D, 49, Vancouver, current active duty vet.
Marilyn Rasmussen, D, 2, Pierce County, Fort Lewis, Tacoma.
Debbie Regala, D, 27, Tacoma, Pierce, Doing something with Habitat.
Pam Roach, R, 31, Auburn, Has done international teaching, volunteer?
Mark Schoesler, R, 9, Spokane, farmer.
Mrs. Pat Thibaudeau, D, 43, Seattle, interest in health.

SENATE BILL REPORT
SB 6732

As Reported By Senate Committee On:
Health & Long-Term Care, February 2, 2006

Title: An act relating to exposure to depleted uranium and other hazardous materials by members and veterans of the national guard.

Brief Description: Studying military uranium exposure.

Sponsors: Senators Franklin and Rasmussen.

Brief History:

Committee Activity: Health & Long-Term Care: 2/2/06 [DP-WM].

SENATE COMMITTEE ON HEALTH & LONG-TERM CARE

Majority Report: Do pass and be referred to Committee on Ways & Means.

Signed by Senators Keiser, Chair; Thibaudeau, Vice Chair; Franklin, Kastama, Kline and Poulsen.

Staff: Sharon Swanson (786-7447)

Background:

Depleted uranium is what is left over when most of the highly radioactive isotopes of uranium are removed for use as nuclear fuel or nuclear fuel weapons. The depleted uranium is used in armor-piercing munitions and in enhanced armor protection for some Abrams tanks.
Heavy metals such as uranium, tungsten, and lead have chemical toxicity properties that, in high doses, can cause adverse health effects.
Depleted uranium was used extensively in place of tungsten for ammunition by the United States and United Kingdom in the first Gulf War. A report issued by the Hague Peace Conference, dated May, 1999, states that at least 320 tons of depleted uranium was "lost" during the first Gulf War and that much of that was converted at high temperature into an aerosol, creating a mist or fog.
Once inhaled, very small particles of depleted uranium can reside in the lungs for years, slowly passing through the lung tissue into the blood. Uranium can be stored in bone, lymph, liver, kidney, or other tissues. Eventually, all uranium that gets into the bloodstream ends up in the kidneys prior to expulsion through urine.

Summary of Bill: Effective October 1, 2006, the Adjutant General of the Washington State National Guard is required to assist any eligible member or veteran in obtaining federal treatment services, who:

l) Has been assigned a risk level I, II, or III for depleted uranium exposure by his or
her branch of service;
2) Is referred by a military physician; or
Senate Bill Report - 1 - SB 6732
3) Has reason to believe that he or she was exposed to depleted uranium during service.
Eligible member is defined as a member of the Washington National Guard who served in the Persian Gulf War, or in an area designated as a combat zone during Operation EnduringFreedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The bill directs the Adjutant General to submit a report on the scope and adequacy of training received by members of the National Guard on exposure to depleted uranium.
Additionally, the report must include an assessment of the feasibility and cost of adding pre-deployment training concerning potential exposure to depleted uranium and other toxic chemical substances and the precautions recommended under combat and non-combat conditions.

The report is due by October 1, 2006.

A task force which includes the Secretary of the Department of Health, or designee, the Adjutant General, the Director of Veterans Affairs, six legislative members, and additional members totaling fifteen is created. The task force is directed to complete several tasks by January 31, 2007, specifically:

1) initiate a health registry;
2) develop a plan for outreach to affected military personnel; and
3) prepare a report on potential exposure to depleted uranium
and recommendations for precautions to be taken.

Appropriation: None.

Fiscal Note: Available.

Committee/Commission/Task Force Created: Yes.

Effective Date: Ninety days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Testimony For:

The United States government and military has a history of lying to its veterans.
In Vietnam, it was agent orange. Many veterans returned home to a life of cancer, children with birth defects, and eventually death. The military claimed to not know about agent orange.
Our new veterans returning home from Iraq face similar challenges. We need to force the military to perform the proper tests to determine uranium poisoning.
The current test only looks for uranium in urine. That test is only good for thirty days. The conclusive testing must look at blood results, tissue testing, and must be able to detect microscopic particles.
Depleted uranium becomes microscopic. Troops breath it in and it settles in the lungs.
In Mississippi, returning Persian Gulf male veterans are 1.7 times more likely to father children with birth defects. Female Persian Gulf veterans are 2.4 times more likely to give birth to a child with birth defects.
This is only the beginning.
England and Germany are conducting the proper tests. The United States needs to do the same for their veterans.

Testimony Against: None.

Who Testified:

PRO:
Terrence Zander, Veterans for Peace

Jerry Muchmore, Veteran

George Hill, M.D.

Peter Von Christierson, Depleted Uranium Study Team

Col. Ron Weaver, Washington Military Department

Harvey Brooks, National Association of Black Veterans

Note: Written testimony by MFSO was provided and entered into the testimony record. While time was allotted to MFSO representative (Lietta Ruger) to give oral testimony, due to the time limitations allowing for approximately 2 minutes to each testimony, choice made for MFSO representation to provide written testimony and yield more time to others presenting oral testimony.

Posted by SwanDeer Project at 12:01 AM PST

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Now Playing: Lietta Ruger
Topic: Local Lobbying

Depleted uranium study WA Natl Guard IS funded! Tx Sen Doumit

By Lietta Ruger at Washblog
Thu Feb 16, 2006 at 08:23:36 AM PST
Section: Diary Topic: Legislation

From email I received from my State Senator Doumit's office;

Hello, I want to let you know that a budget proviso was included in the Senate's proposed budget for $150,000 for a Military Department to study the scope and adequacy of training on exposure to depleted uranium received by Washington state members of the National Guard serving during the first Gulf War or reccently in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is similar to the bill that you had contacted us about and I hope this comes as good news. Your message bringing it to our attention was very, very helpful.

Sincerely,

Vickie Winters
Sr. Legislative Assistant for Senator Doumit
...snipped

Posted by SwanDeer Project at 12:01 AM PST

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Sunday, 12 February 2006

Now Playing: Arthur Ruger
Topic: Members Speak Out

"I couldn't care less": overpass bannering, ownership and America's Restaurant

On Kevin Benderman
Click here for Kevin and Monica Benderman's website Kevin Benderman Timeline

Yesterday, at the "banner bridge" overpass on I-5 near Dupont, activists rallied in support of imprisoned soldier, Kevin Benderman who, according to The Olympian:

... was deployed to Iraq from March to September 2003. He filed for conscientious objector status in late 2004; his application was denied.
Conscientious objectors are morally opposed to war.
Benderman was to leave for Iraq again in January 2005, but he refused. He was charged with desertion and intentionally missing movement for not boarding the plane for Iraq when his unit left. He was found guilty of the second, lesser charge and sentenced last summer to 15 months in prison. He is serving that sentence at Fort Lewis.

The activists did not have banner bridge to themselves. Apparently there are others who believe that since they have utilized the overpass with frequency they own that particular overpass and it should not be "desecrated".

At least three people did not share those sentiments and came to the overpass to hold a counter-rally.
"It's a disgrace," Shelley Weber of Olympia said as she waved a large American flag. "I rally here every Saturday and, upon arrival, I see these people on the bridge. I decorated this bridge. I bought the yellow ribbons and flowers."
"This is the weekend our troops come in for drill. Their protest demoralizes our troops," added Terry Harder, whose 23- and 26-year-old sons are in the military. Harder is a member of Operation Support Our Troops.

Who defines patriotism?

Who owns it - or think they do?

Is authority to define and ownership of patriotism based on the psychology of fear, blind trust and the supposed code of shut-up-and-obey-the-commander-in-chief?

... or perhaps just plain civic laziness and deferral to TV clickers, sports, American idols, celebrity dancers and those lost in Lost, Survivor and Greys Anatomny?

That old 1960's Democratic Foreign Policy expert, J. William Fulbright, would disagree with Weber and Harder.

"In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. To criticize one's country is to do it a service ... Criticism, in short, is more than a right; it is an act of patriotism - a higher form of patriotism, I believe, that the familiar rituals and national adulation ... My question is whether America can overcome the fatal arrogance of power."

Yeah, but he was a Democrat in the Kerry generation of the 1960's. Fulbright would have very little credibility after Flush Limbaugh, Nose Pin O'Reilly, Squawk Hannity and Angregious Coulter got through with him. Right?

Well then, how about that old "dove", Teddy Roosevelt, whose doviness - in the best tradition of flag-waving, incident-creating and all around Dubya-like global big-stick swaggering - soiled his doviness when he personally marched off to war?

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in
rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole.
Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right.
Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else.
But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else. - Theodore Roosevelt, 1918, Lincoln and Free Speech

What would Mr. "Shut-up!" O-Reilly and all those who use "liberal" or "progressive" or "democrat" as mere name-calling tools say to that?

Or "Mr. Republican", Robert Taft of Ohio, and the WW II era, just 12 days AFTER Pearl Harbor? All by himself Taft rebuts and repudiates Republican pretend patriotism in one short declaration:

As a matter of general principle, I believe there can be no doubt that criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government ... too many people desire to suppress criticism simply because they think that it will give some comfort to the enemy to know that there is such criticism. If that comfort makes the enemy feel better for a few moments, they are welcome to it as far as I am concerned, because the maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country maintaining it a great deal more good than it will do the enemy, and will prevent mistakes which might otherwise occur.

About Taft's words, Michael Tomasky of the American Prospect Online wrote:

Twelve days after the worst attack on American soil in the country's history, perhaps with bodies still floating in the harbor, the leader of the congressional opposition said to the president, we will question, we will probe, we will debate.

That's a wonderful cue for lazy patriots: folks who stubbornly accept BushCo lies and constant fear-mongering. These are folks willing to trade civil liberties and a fissuring of the foundation of the Constitution for the appearance of "safety".

"Safety"?

Political proponents who have never adequately proven the truthfulness of over 95% of what they've solemnly declared have yet to prove the evidential basis of war-mongering, fear-mongering and curtailing of constitutional rights.

This circumstance is right out of the political manipulation guru's playbook - and not intended for public consumption.

One of the principal claimants to ownership of banner bridge was asked by an activist if she knows who Kevin Benderman is.

"I couldn't care less," Weber said, while another man added, "Kevin's where he belongs."

These then are the more irresponsible lazy citizen caretakers of American freedoms.

These then are those who blindly believe and trust that if they go to America's Restaurant and get a meal they can't eat, the fault does not lie with the chef who has never successfully boiled water.

Rather, it's the fault of other diners who know a poor chef when they see one but are supposed to shut up about the cooking and let the chef poison them with a menu and fare unfit even for livestock.

These are those who believe that if the chef wears a plastic flag on his shirt, he has more than sufficient cooking skill to out-chef all those who question him.

Here's the real problem - the one that the Bush folks, Republican leadership and national Republican elected congressional leaders won't own up to:

Their way has failed. The choices and actions of those running the kitchen have not and are not working out. The food has only gotten worse.

There is in fact a better way but too many are unwilling to look for and take action on establishing a better way.

Others in the dining room and on the streets can do it better, more effectively and with a greater eye to everything that has worked before and finding better ways to make things work now.

The current cooking committee waited years to be in charge. They have blown it badly and in fact have made of America's Restaurant not only a place that harms the locals but also a place with whom residents in other global communities will not do business (unless they're extorted into doing so).

The current cooking committee has a need for Americans to stay dumb, to go out on banner bridge and tell those banner-waving thinking Americans to shut the hell up.

If dumbed down Americans don't continue following Republican promptings, our fare at America's Restaurant might become geniune nourishment rather than fast-food jingo-ized poorly prepared salmonella.

As for those who "own" banner bridge ...

You ought to care more.

If Kevin Benderman is "where he belongs" it's because his being there is part of an effort to clean up the Constitutional Menu at America's Restaurant. It's an effort that might include firing the chef in order to stop the poisoning that *hurts our military troops far more than anyone will admit.

*You might not be aware of one particularly important issue and the poisoning of our troops, but the Washington Legislature is - and they're learning more: Depleted Uranium Bill in Ways and Means Committee

Published by Arthur Ruger on Washblog, and Daily Kos

Posted by SwanDeer Project at 12:01 AM PST

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Thursday, 2 February 2006

Now Playing: Joe Colgan in Seattle PI
Topic: Members Speak Out

The killing has got to stop

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Thursday, February 2, 2006
JOE COLGAN
GUEST COLUMNIST

I write as a veteran who has a special love for our troops and their families, and as the father of Lt. Benjamin Colgan, who was killed in action in Baghdad on Nov. 1, 2003. I also write on behalf of those who joined me in meeting with Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell last December about this senseless war in Iraq.

How many more Americans and Iraqis must perish or be maimed until the "stay-the-course" approach is discredited?

In October, Cantwell signed a letter stating "simply staying the current course is not a strategy for success." Yet when I met with Cantwell, she failed to distinguish her position from that of President Bush.

She also touted the importance of the Warner/Frist Amendment, which does nothing more than offer advice to the president and require that he report to Congress. After almost three years of unnecessary war, is this the best our highest deliberative body can do: make suggestions that will be ignored and beg to be kept informed? At this point in her re-election campaign, Cantwell must clarify her position on the Iraq war and hold public forums to discuss realistic options for ending this ever-deepening disaster.

It is time to acknowledge that the United States has now hit a dead-end on both the political and military fronts in Iraq, with current U.S. involvement in both areas only inflaming civil war. Last December's election in Iraq -- an event heralded as promising stability -- is itself undermined by the continuation of this occupation.

The United States is caught in the middle of a sectarian divide, and it will only get worse. Over the past five months, it has been widely reported that the United States has been trying to engage the Sunnis in political dialogue. Experts say that failing to do so can only deepen the insurgency. Yet showing Sunnis diplomatic respect inspires mistrust and anger from the rival Shiites.

Militarily, we've created the armed basis for a civil war. Iraqi armies in the north now consist of more than 10,000 Kurdish Peshmerga militia members who "wouldn't hesitate to kill their Iraqi army comrades," according to a Knight Ridder new story in December. In southern Iraq the army consists of pro-Iranian Shiite fundamentalists. We have created military forces that, as they increase in "operational readiness," actually add to the instability of Iraq. Yet we continue a policy that conditions U.S. military disengagement on such operational readiness.

More Iraqi civilians are dying as a result of U.S. military actions. U.S. air strikes in Iraq have jumped from 25 per month last August to around 150 in December. The results of this strategy are predictable and horrifying. On Jan. 2, as many as 14 Iraqis, mostly women and children, were killed in a U.S. air strike. On Dec. 24, 2005, The Washington Post reported that U.S. air strikes killed many dozens of civilians throughout Iraq's Western Anbar province during the November offensive. In a 2005 report, Human Rights Watch deplored the U.S. strategy of resorting to indiscriminate aerial strikes resulting in civilian deaths.

A "reduction" of U.S. troops during 2006, in concert with an increasing air war, is not morally defensible or a way out.

The city of Fallujah represents a microcosm of the larger nightmare. We destroyed this town in order to save it. More than half its residents remain as refugees in their own country, and Americans are again dying in Fallujah at an increasing rate (12 in the past two months). The Pentagon's policy of "clear, hold and build" in reality does nothing more than "destroy, banish and build resentment."

We must go beyond the administration's false choice of staying the course or cutting and running. It is time for Cantwell to help move the debate beyond pointless rhetoric by taking a clear position and holding public forums to promote a better understanding of the costs of this war and how to end it. The only victory to be gleaned from this war is one for the American soul: Let's stop the killing.

Joe Colgan of Kent served in the Army from February 1963 to January 1966.

Posted by SwanDeer Project at 12:01 AM PST

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Now Playing: Arthur Ruger at Washblog
Topic: Members Speak Out

Dang Fool Made Me Spill My Coffee

By Arthur Ruger
Thu Feb 02, 2006 at 07:06:23 AM PST
Section: United States Topic: Letters to the media

Lietta will have something to say about a friend of our, Joe Colgan, who wrote a great guest opinion The killing has got to stop published to the PI this morning.

But some guy named STEFF wrote the first comment to Joe's article and pissed me off. Now I've got to go to work mad.

Here's what I wrote in the PI:

I don't know who Steff is but the writing sure sounds like someone with a theory and not much real-time and real-place perspective.

Joe Colgan is a friend of mine and one who is writes from a place of knowing and feeling. He does not speak theoretically nor rant as Mr. Steff just did. Colgan is not alone.

What Joe Colgan has written has little to do with the Republican swagger, prance, and posture as the world-wide tough guy whom everyone owes obeisance and fear-driven respect. Such is not the American Core Value nor American Dream nor true American Patriotism.

Who has earned the right to speak about serious stuff with a veterans's wisdom? One group are those of my generation who've been there and done that. Twenty pages of rants from readers like Mr. Steff account for very little when contrasted with speaking from the knowing of experience and the wisdom of Veteran American heroes like Jack Murtha.

Our sons and daughters in the military serve honorably, deserve our highest respect and devotion. It should be recognized that the following are the conditions under which Americans expect their family blood to serve:

(1) The integrity and honor of the commander in chief of the military and that CIC's skill, wisdom and understanding of all reasons when and why military citizens are to be placed in harm's way.

Troops are at the mercy of that individual, his party and their combined priorities - with a strong expectation that those priorities extend beyond a desire to remain in the driver's seat.

(2)Our troops are also at the mercy of your own fellow citizens (including your own family) whom you trust to be willing and supportive in making sure the leadership does not waste your vital blood, devotion and patriotism in pipe dreams, self-interested agenda's and ideologies; That leaders are driven by a genuine desire to involve the country in on-going mutual participation and compromise regarding foreign policy before resorting to force as a last resort.

(3) Volunteering to become a soldier is volunteering to preserve and protect - with your own power and will - the country, its borders, its citizens and its institutions. It isn't volunteering to keep a political party in power. The only way to avoid that circumstance is for the citizens to assume their rightful role in the triangular relationship with the troops and the CIC.

The troops are expected to trust the CIC's wisdom as well as the patriotic participation of the Citizens who will keep the CIC honest.

The CIC is expected to trust the troops to follow orders and expects to sustain by honesty and integrity the support of the Citizens.

The Citizens expect the troops to do their duties and expect the CIC to sustain by honesty and integrity his political authority. The Citizens must be willing to hold the CIC accountable and willfully resist when the honesty and integrity of leadership is absent.

That is what is going on right now. The President has demonstrated his lack of what it means to serve or lead warriorsat a time when leadership is needed. The killing continues daily and folks like Steff talking like John Wayne in a junior high school locker room doesn't get it.

Posted by SwanDeer Project at 12:01 AM PST

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Friday, 27 January 2006

Now Playing: Arthur Ruger
Topic: Members Speak Out

Republican War On Terror Logic Makes Sense for America?

By Arthur Ruger
Fri Jan 27, 2006 at 06:45:09 AM PST
Section: United States Topic: Repubs

Trust the Republicans driving this machine with one hand on the steering wheel and the other hanging out for lobby money; with one foot pressing metal to the floor and the other nowhere near the brakes.

Why?

Because America is at War!

American lives need to be lived in a wartime environment.

American citizens need to practice a total deferral to the self-defined patriotism of the elect.

American citizens absolutely must trust their future to those few at the top of the power pole who, by the way, have no combat experience but definitely know who is fit and unfit to lead a military venture based on experience.

Right.

Given the Cheney/Bush version of urgency and importance of the need for a coherent national security objective guided by wise, strong, stubborn and insensitive leadership, I must accept all this in another context.

(1)
We must fight the war on terror while remaining strictly stuck with the Republican Tax Cut Experiment which has not helped Mr. Bush avoid being a president who not only did not create one new job in 4 years, but will have a net job loss in excess of several million. We are then left to hope for the best but continue to expect the worst and that middle class taxes are going to continue paying for our prosecution of the war on terror.

(2)
We will prosecute the war on terror in a pay-off-the-national-debt circumstance created by this administration that will be an ongoing burden on our grandchildren. Trillions of dollars of debt generated by a Republican party that has always labeled Democrats as taxers and spenders is not something Leno and Maher can make jokes about.

(3)
We will prosecute the war on terror while Mr. Bush and gang are baiting us with the phrase "ownership society" which in reality is a switch to another means of generating - you guessed it - more profits for business. "Owning" health care, retirement, education and hours of wage-earning only happens when you "buy" something or "invest" in something to own.

(4)
We will prosecute the war on terror while an ungodly number of us go without access to adequate health care. That's one thing tens of millions of Americans could use ownership of.

Of course the rest of we middle classers do "own" always-increasing health care premiums. Somehow I fail to see how this helps the troops, keeps terrorists at bay, or will make it easier when we invade Iran in order to secure whatever the neocons think needs securing.

(5)
We will prosecute the war on terror in a context of profits for HMO's and Pharmaceuticals at the expense of fixed income retiree's and elderly citizens who may not live to see the victory that Mr. Bush said we wouldn't have and then flip-flopped to say, "Oh yes we will."

That Medicare D legislation is the most abject legislative failure seen in this country in I don't know how many years.

Why?

Because it was dominated by narrow Republican economic theory and corporate priorities, that's why.

(6)
We will prosecute the war on terror while the Republicans - under the guise of "ownership society"- preside over corporate reductions and/or eliminations of pension funds. Why is it that we must be patriotic and support the current commander-in-chief under this circumstance?

(7)
We will prosecute the war on terror while Bush postures as some kind of "education President" who, despite the compassionate self-label, has left children behind, imposed terrible burdens on public schools, and failed to provide the necessaries to make his compassionate promises come true.

(8)
We will prosecute the war on terror while George Bush, who pretends to BE the Christian Right, works hand in glove with the Christian Zionists to encourage Israel to widen it's borders in order to look like the Israel of prophesy so Jesus and his Armageddon Asteroid can End the Times and leave all of us more liberal-minded Christians Left Behind.

(9)
We will prosecute the war on terror with the neocon foreign policy dingbats fully embedded in the governance of every what-to-do next.

Our "war on terror" will camouflage an absolute conviction on the part of failed foreign policy theorists that American might is the brave new world of the future - that American might will facilitate our continued consumption of an inordinate share of energy reserves.

Why?

Because we can, that's why.

(10)
Under the neocons, we will prosecute an ongoing string of military adventures that will continue to cost the precious blood of our children based on intellectual immaturity in which necons ignorantly and naively assume that the poor and middle class of this country constitute a willing and unlimited supply of military manpower for decades to come.

These things are what the Republicans did not and will not tell you. They want to prosecute the war on terrorism and do it in terms of maintaining their own discredited and - when it comes to corporate welfare - dishonest domestic economic theories.

It does not matter what you and I think so long as they are in power.

Only you and I can take this out of their hands. They are not going to maintain the current foreign policy while changing economic approaches.

They want both to remain unchanged.

They will not change things unless we intervene.

So all you self-styled economic sophisticates who have bought into Republican capitalism worship and cannot see that many corporations in this country are only showing profits primarily through government intervention and bail-outs - you go ahead and reveal just how poorly you understand the less-government-more-free-enterprise ticket.

Grover Norquist may someday buy you a latte from Starbucks after the government becomes so small it goes down the bathtub drain.

Of course you may be standing behind the Starbucks counter brewing and serving the latte yourself.

Grover won't mind. He's smarter than you in a really dumb way.

So all you righteous Christians who see George Bush as led by God to export war and death to all evil-doers as we impose a neocon Pax Americana on the world go ahead and look the other way while your narrow morality authorizes a trashing of the American Dream.

Just don't tell me that Jesus would vote the same way, would advocate for George Bush on FOX , Limbaugh's program - even the 700 Club - and would go along with the deaths of civilian men, women and children in Iraq or anywhere else as "acceptable collateral damage."

You still haven't done your homework and the holes in your civic wisdom remain vast and empty.

Posted by SwanDeer Project at 12:01 AM PST

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Wednesday, 18 January 2006

Now Playing: Lietta Ruger
Topic: Online Activism

INTERNET IMPACT

Northwest Progressive Institute and Pacific Northwest Portal Conference. This weekend past Arthur and I were invited to attend this first time ever conference in Olympia at State Capitol buildings.

This was well, what else to call it but a blogger's conference meeting with our state elected officials, their aides and staffers, some local mainstream media, and of course the networking of bloggers that makes up Pacific Northwest Portal (Arthur and I have separate blogs carried at the Portal, recently Arthur has been invited to be a feature blogwriter at one of those featured blogs = Washblog).

This event was sponsored by 4 other significant Washington organizations, including labor SEIU (Service Employees International Union), Institute for Washington's Future, Progressive Majority....they seem to believe that regional bloggers have some impact worthy enough of sponsoring this kind of conference and connecting bloggers with elected officials to affect change in the political process and system.

Andrew Villanueve, who at age 15 publicly challenged initiative guru Tim Eyeman spearheaded this whole conference. Now pushing 20 (but not there yet) Andrew is the founder of the Northwest Progressive Institute and creating strong progressive waves in the Washington State political scene. He is in example of what happens when determination meets with motivation.

I was seriously impressed by the number of young people involved in the conference and that have engaged in the political process.

We know MFSO is non-political, non-partisan, and when I am representing MFSO, I represent MFSO with the core message and in the non-partisan position.

At the conference this past weekend we were introduced and recognized by our colleagues as MFSO bloggers. This afforded an opportunity to represent MFSO at a politically based venue. Although partisan to be sure, our focus remained on what has always been primaryh ... getting the troops home and out of Iraq, and that message goes out to either and all sides of the political venues.

Why this is relevant is because I am learning that cross-networking has significant relevance to the work we do and message we bring under the MFSO umbrella.

I find repeat names amongst the different networking, for example, Dina Lydia, who helped with flyers and website reporting on the Jan 7 Seattle event that featured our 2 MFSO Speakers; a blogger Cool Aqua at Pacific Northwest Portal also reported on the event giving attention to Military Families Speak Out.

Northwest Progressive Institute as well as Backbone Campaign gave online attention to Arthur and I when I went down to Crawford, Texas.

Majority Visibility Project and Stand Up Seattle have been supporters of our MFSO efforts in Pacific NW.

The Seattle area SNOW coalition (Sound Non-Violence Opponents of the War) have been helpful supporters and many members of those coalitions cross over to other groups that support MFSO. Nina Laboy, Associate Regional Director of Seatlle AFSC has been a strong supporter and helpful in many of our MFSO efforts, recently providing us with a place to hold one of our rare in person meetings.

Recently we have new MFSO member in Liz Rivera Goldstein, Liz@teenpeace.org who has her own non-profit organization, Teen Peace Conscientious Objector working with teens who do 'informed recruiting' testimony to other teens across cities and towns in Washington state. As well Liz is on an advisory board of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ).

Another of our MFSO members in Eastern part of the state, Tricia Turner, is on National Board of Directors of Veterans and Military Families for Progress cougsrule@msn.com (Tricia can you provide website link?).

Actually I learned of VMFP thru another networking contact, Brian Moran, with featured blog Washblog at Pacific NW Portal.

Posted by SwanDeer Project at 12:01 AM PST

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