Category Archives: Peace Watch

In a plane all day…

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Drat! I didn’t get much of the stuff from the Senate transcribed over the weekend due to my having to get ready to fly to Washington DC today for Wednesday’s Eldred argument.
Just know that on Friday in the House and Senate in particular there was a lot of talk about accountability to the people — about how questions about this War have not been answered to the members of the House and Senate’s satisfaction and therefore not to the people’s satisfaction — and that many of the committees put together to discuss and decide on some of the most critical issues surrounding the exact details of the situation still have not yet been provided with the information promised to them by the Defense and Intelligence Agencies that were assigned to the task.
There was also a strong urgency from the Senate to at least wait until we could invade with a proper international coalition. Also we would be going against the advice of a number of our own War experts if we invade now.
Damn I wish I had time to transcribe a bit more of the tape. I’m bringing it with me, maybe there’s a library or something somewhere I can use this week…
I’ll fish around for links online backing this stuff up, once I’m back online this evening.
Bush is going to come on television tonight and try to scare you into believing in this War. Don’t be fooled.

More from Senator Byrd Against Bush’s Iraq Resolution

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Note: I will be putting these all on one page sometime tomorrow, but I thought I’d post them as they trickle in for those who are interested.
Quotes from Senator Byrd from my video tape of yesterday’s U.S. Senate hearings (as broadcast on CSPAN):

Let’s go back to that war in Vietnam. I was here (referring to the Senate). I was one of the Senators that voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Yes! I voted for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. I’m sorry for it. I’m guilty of doing this.
I should have been one of the two, or at least I should have made it three Senators who voted against that Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, but I’m not wanting to commit that sin twice!
And that’s exactly what we’re doing here. This is another Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. And I’m not going to vote for that this time. No! Don’t count me in that!

New Reasons For Not Going To Iraq

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Now it looks like the safety of our own troops during an invasion of Iraq is largely in question, and just plain hasn’t been thought out all that well yet.
There could be a ton of bogus equipment (including as many as 250,000 unaccounted for defective biohazard suits) that’s mixed in with the inventory shipped out to our active troops.
The Department of Defense Reps are also admitting that they are recalculating the risk because the old way of calculating the risk was inaccurate. Although they don’t want to commit to saying one way or the other yet until they are finished, they did admit that they no longer feel that the risk would clearly be “low” (their previous assessment) and in fact might be “high” but that they really don’t know yet because they’ve just come up with a new, better way of calculating the risk and they’re not done yet.
It’s worth watching and recording on CSPAN-HOUSE if you’ve got a VCR handy.

Another Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

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Wow things are finally heating up in the Senate today:

“I was one of the people that voted yes on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and I made a huge mistake…I don’t want to make that mistake again,” said Senator Robert Byrd, holding up the President’s Resolution for attacking Iraq. “That’s what this is — another Gulf of Tonkin Resolution!”

I’m recording it all today and I’ll be transcribing it tonight and tomorrow as fast as I can.

Weapons for Distracting the Masses

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Ha! Talk about a Freudian slip! Today’s lead Weapons of Mass Destruction story on Salon had “Weapons of Mass Distraction” in the browser window title bar up top — and that’s exactly what this story is — a big distraction from the fact that we shouldn’t even be in this “War On Terror” — complete with its undefined enemies and open-ended time table.
Here are some quotes from Black Hawk Down film maker Mark Bowden, who refused to participate in the development of the America’s Army video game because he didn’t feel comfortable working on a game that might trivialize the actual realities of war (paraphrasing of his words my own):

“I think there’s a substantial difference between a work of art, which I consider a film to be, even a Hollywood film, [and a game],” Bowden explains, reached while on a train headed for Manhattan. For him, “A game is a game. It’s something that you play. And this story is about real people, and I know many of the family members who lost brothers and husbands and sons in that battle. And I did not want to be part of something that turns it into a game…
…[Games] have a certain amount of potential value in making someone interested in history or in the military or how the military operates,” says Bowden. “It has that kind of educational value.” But he’s skeptical their utility may extend beyond that. “In terms of preparing someone for the actual experience of combat, particularly infantry soldiers, I just regard that as really unlikely. Because I think the essential element in real combat is terror. And I don’t believe you can re-create actual terror in a video game. It’s a game; you can turn it off whenever you want to.”

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Not Quite A Lie, Just A Little Misleading

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Is it a lie if a person says what they believe to be true in their own confused mind?
Democratic Congressman Asserts Bush Would Mislead U.S. on Iraq
By John H. Cushman Jr. for the NY Times.

One of the congressmen, Representative Jim McDermott of Washington State, said today that he thought President Bush was willing “to mislead the American people” about whether the war was needed and that the administration had gone back and forth between citing supposed links between Iraq and the terrorist network Al Qaeda and Iraq’s supposed attempts to obtain weapons of mass destruction…
…Speaking of the administration, Mr. McDermott said, “I believe that sometimes they give out misinformation.” Then he added: “It would not surprise me if they came up with some information that is not provable, and they’ve shifted. First they said it was Al Qaeda, then they said it was weapons of mass destruction. Now they’re going back and saying it’s Al Qaeda again.”
When pressed for evidence about whether President Bush had lied, Mr. McDermott said, “I think the president would mislead the American people.” But he said he believed that inspections of Iraq’s weapons programs could be worked out.

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Senator Byrd Warns The Public About the President and Vice Presidents’ Dangerous Foreign Policy

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Transcription of a clip I saw from Thursday’s session in congress on the Daily Show. They were making fun of Byrd’s dramatic gestures, but if you listen to what he was saying, it’s no laughing matter.

“I’ve been in this Congress fifty years. I have never seen a President of the United States or the Vice President of the United States stoop to such low levels,” said Senator Robert Byrd (D) West Virginia, as he turned and pointed at the people watching at home. “It’s your blood,” he said. “Your sons and daughters.”

I’ll Be Your Human Peace-letter Faxing Service

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This is an experiment…
If you email me at lisarein@finetuning.com with your full name and snail mail address (or even just your name and zip code) with “FAX A LETTER FOR ME PLEASE” in the subject header, I’ll look up your Representative for you and FAX him or her the appropriate letter, depending on whether or not they already support HR 473.
Re: The obvious question — can you trust me to not use this information in some way other than intended?
How about this: I will permanently delete your email (without saving your address anywhere) and will literally burn the letter I’ve faxed over for you in my fireplace afterwards. This will be the default procedure unless you explicitly say not to do so in your email. (It’s just easier that way.)
I’m just trying to help out those folks who might not have a FAX machine handy, who would still like for their voices to be heard by their Representatives (but don’t want to end up on some mailing list either).
Thanks!

Give Peace A Chance – Stop the War in Iraq

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So I’ve got all my HR 473 letter-writing stuff all in one place now.
Letters you can send now, links to the actual texts of the opposing Bills, and what will hopefully be a growing list of Congressional Supporters.
As marches start organizing, I’ll try to help get the word out on those too.
(I know there’s one this Saturday in San Francisco, for example, but I need to figure out exactly where…)
Anyway there it is. Feedback is very much appreciated.