interesting pie chart

04.11.08
*I will be faxing the following letter to our congressmen, Weller, today
at noon. It's not too late to agree to have your name added to the list
of signers! Just respond to this e-mail with "Yes" and the name of the
CITY in which you live! Thanks! *

Dear __Gerald Weller,

We recently began the sixth year of the Iraq War. Fighting in Basra
renewed, untold numbers of Iraqis continued to die, the number of U.S.
soldiers killed in Iraq surpassed 4,000, and the U.S. may have incurred
three trillion dollars in costs in the Iraq war. We disagree with the
assessment of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker—* this war is not
worth its costs*.

The war has worn out our military, diverted resources from the battle
against al Qaeda and from homeland security, and deeply damaged our
reputation abroad. It is past time to bring the Iraq War to an end. The
best course of action in the upcoming supplemental appropriations bill
is to provide funding only for the safe and timely redeployment of U.S.
troops out of Iraq and end the occupation.

The purpose of this letter is to ask you to take a strong and unwavering
stand in the upcoming discussion of the FY08 Supplemental Appropriations
Bill. We urge you to take the following actions:

1) Support funding for a diplomatic offensive as suggested by the Iraq
Study Group. We ask that you co-sponsor or support H.R. 3797, which
calls for* *diplomatic negotiations to stabilize Iraq and create the
conditions for the war's end.
2) Vote against funding for military construction in Iraq and for U.S.
military contractors in Iraq. Given the President's use of signing
statements on these issues, the only way to ensure compliance with
Congress' directives is to remove such funding.
3) Make no funds available for any formal U.S.-Iraq agreement based upon
the Bush-Maliki "Declaration of Principles" unless the agreement is
approved by Congress and the Iraqi parliament. We ask that you support
H.R. 5507 as an amendment to the appropriations bill. This legislation
repeals the original authorization for the use of military force, bans
permanent military bases, supports funding for Iraqi reconstruction,
requires closure of all detention centers operated by the U.S. and
contains many other valuable provisions including anti-torture language.
Our organization, Generations for Peace, is willing to work with you and
your staff in the critical weeks and months ahead to end the debacle in
Iraq and bring our men and women in uniform home. Please let us know if
there is anything we can do to support you in taking a stand against
appropriating billions of dollars more to an endless war.

Sincerely,

Robt. Braam, Manhattan

That woman from Band of Mothers is right, these men and women who served our country as soldiers will probably be prosecuted for telling about their experience. They know the consequences and will still tell the truth.
Fighting for our freedom.
Will you listen?
Winter Soldier

Thursday night (2/28/08) was to have been a showing of the video "Winter Soldier" at the Joliet Public Library hosted by the Will County Green Party and Potluck Democracy.



People showed up.


According to my friend Dave Sharp (a photo documentarian who took these pictures) these people from Band of Mothers and Gathering of Eagles didn't think American citizens should be watching the video.

They emphatically made their points.


They refused to be quiet during the movie.







The organizers decided to have an open forum instead where any person could talk for 2 minutes. They didn't like that idea either as can be seen by their preventing a World War II veteran who tried to talk in support of the mission of Iraq Veterans Against the War.
















They were quite proud of how they prevented freedom of expression.

Read her version of the event
here


And this is what Bob Braam, one of the event organizers, had to say.
----------------

Well.

I have to thank everyone who came last night to the Joliet presentation of the Iraq Veterans against the War’s Winter Soldier effort. The effort, my friends, the effort. I have to thank you for the unflakable, the un-underminable effort to enlighten, to defend, and to live the ideals of this country.

The results. The satisfaction. The victory. Well, we will them reap in good time. But I have to thank you all now for your dedicated effort.

I believe we are not responsible to answer for the insults and invectives of others, but that we do have a responsibility to answer to our national ethic as prescribed by the Declaration of Independence. We cannot abide one George or another. We will not succumb to the pressure to get in, shut up, and hang on. Last night we stood for our beliefs without flinching and by doing so proved the viability of our beliefs.

Thank you.

b

I have friends who are in the reserves. These friends cannot tell the truth of what they see. They have to keep quiet, it's part of the job.

Those who used to be in active service no longer have to keep quiet. Some feel it's part of the job to tell what they've seen.

Winter Soldiers according to founding father Thomas Paine, are those who stand up for the soul of their country, even in its darkest hours.

Dave Sharp took these pics at the chicago rally october 27, 2007.

If you need some photography work done in Will County Illinois be sure to contact him. dave@minilop.net

There's some specially trained people to keep law and order.

Some of them had their own counter rally.

I really like this. -----> Part 1. (Berrigan On The Failure of The PeaceMakers)
Roy Bourgeois steadfastly maintains that one of the Berrigan Boys actually said this while they (the Boys) were awaiting sentencing after getting caught pouring sugar into The Emperor's gas tank: The Angel of the Lord asked him, "Suppose that ten thousand, fifty thousand, one hundred thousand American and European war resisters came unarmed from America to the border between Iran and Iraq, fasted there, prayed, and marched right in. In sum, they risked their lives, with one thing in mind: to bring sanity, an alternative, to a mad situation. Suppose they hung in, refused to go away, and placed their bodies where their mouths were, and inserted themselves as human shields between the Iraqi and Iranian people and the full force and might of the American military and the international coalition sent to pulverize those lands and peoples into dust?" "WAIT a minute," he said. "Suppose they failed? Suppose they were carpet bombed, or strafed, or machine gunned, or rounded up and carted off to concentration camps? Then what?" The Angel responded by breaking into song and jig: "Everybody want to go to heaven, nobody want to die..." He (Bourgeois says Berrigan) continued: "...We have assumed the name of peacemakers but we have been unwilling to pay any significant price for peace. "We want peace with half a heart and half a life and half a will. The war continues because the waging of war is total but the waging of peace is partial. "I think of the good, decent, peace loving people I have known by the thousands and I wonder. How many of them are so afflicted with the wasting disease of normalcy that, even as they declare for peace, their hands reach out with an instinctive spasm in the direction of their loved ones, in the direction of their comforts, their homes, their security, their incomes, their futures, their plans -- that five year plan of studies, the ten-year plan of professional status, that twenty-year plan of family growth and unity, that fifty-year plan of decent life and honorable natural demise. "'Of course, let us have the peace,' we cry, 'but at the same time let us have normalcy, let us lose nothing, let our lives stand intact, let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties.' "And because we must encompass this and protect that and because at all costs -- at all costs -- our hopes must march on schedule, and because it is unheard of that in the name of peace a sword should fall, disjoining that fine and cunning web that our lives have woven, because it is unheard of that good men and women should suffer injustice or families be sundered or good repute be lost -- because of this we cry peace and cry peace, and there is no peace. There is no peace because there are no peacemakers." "Peacemaking is hard. Almost as hard as war."
-----------------------
I admire Bob a lot. It is said that if you want to know what a person believes you simply observe what the person does. I know one thing, Bob believes in no more war. This was his talk to a group of citizens (Will County Green Party (wcgp.org) and Potluck Democracy) who had gathered at the train station in Joliet on their way to the October 27, 2007 peace rallies (the Chicago and the Homewood rally).