Antiwar.com Blog

For a few days early this week, I had the honor of playing host to my friend Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers, who flew all the way from Japan to Texas to show support for Cindy Sheehan and the other families in Crawford who are demanding a direct answer to the question: “What noble cause?” We went to Crawford on Monday and Tuesday.

The president maintains that he needs to “go on with his life,” and so he still will not meet with her.

As many already know, after having their memorial temporarily ruined by some wacko from Waco, and having some of the lovely people of Crawford rally behind a court petition to ban parking on the public right of ways – an injunction which would have virtually made Camp Casey illegal – a local property owner has invited Cindy Sheehan to move the camp to his property, which is much closer to Bush’s place. Ain’t that America?

While at Camp Casey on Monday and Tuesday, Mike and I were only able to spend a short amount of time with Cindy, who of course, is being questioned from all sides at all times, but she was very kind and quite down to earth, contrary to the impression the War Party is trying to give about her. At Monday’s press conference, she emphasized that with all the people flooding in, and media flying around, the core of her story has been a bit diluted, and that she wanted to get back to it.

My best understanding of the core is simply this: Bush told her that her son died for a noble cause, and now she would like a specific explanation as to what exactly that cause was. Secondly, knowing that there is no honest answer to that question, she wants the war to end immediately and for the rest of the soldiers to be brought home.

While in Crawford, I got to meet many interesting people, including a Master Sergeant from Ft. Hood who was drawing up specific tactical plans for the full scale invasion of Iraq beginning immediately after Bush took office in 2001.

“Go back and see how many generals retired during that time – during the run up to war,” he said. I mean to.

I also met Tim Goodrich from Iraq Veterans Against the War, who told me that he had specific firsthand knowledge of the early start of the air war in 2002, as referred to in this article in The Nation.

I was also able to hear the stories of many other military and gold-star families who are there in support of Cindy and her mission. Although many of them have stories as compelling as Cindy’s, their stories are mostly ignored by the mainstream media.

Unfortunately, Mike took all our audio back to Japan with him, so better descriptions of these stories will have to wait.

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern was there showing support. It was my first opportunity to meet him in person, and I found him to be a very kind man and a very critical opponent of the warfare state, though our conversation was not an interview.

The worst part of the time I spent in Crawford, besides listening to family members tearfully describe the deaths of their sons, brothers and nephews, was hearing so many stories from people whose families have been torn apart over differing views on the war. People have so much invested in their positions, that they let relationships with parents, children, grandchildren, brothers, and sisters be destroyed over it. It doesn’t seem that the pro-war side is any more bull-headed about this than those in opposition. I suppose that this type of thing can be expected when arguing over such matters as life and death, though folks could be a bit more grown up.

It is easy to see why the military culture (though definitely not all soldiers) frowns on dissent about policy from military families. This is a result of at least two major factors. The first is the legal requirement of obedience to ranking officers, but in a larger context this reflects the tradition and constitutional requirement of civilian superiority over military power – tradition and law that are meant to restrain the temptations of military leaders. In this case, however, the generals seem much more restrained than the “intellectual” crazies in the pentagon and Vice President’s office.

It is also easy to understand how no one would want to hear that their loved one had died for a pack of lies, and some military family members have complained that Sheehan is dishonoring their relative’s sacrifice. On Monday, Sheehan said that she understands their grief, and is glad that those people believe whatever they need to believe to “get through the day.” She means them no ill will at all, it’s just that she cannot pretend to believe that the war her son died in was an honorable cause when she knows better. Instead she is standing up for her son and for the sons of others who she wants brought home safely from the disaster they call Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Anyone who can take a couple of days to drive to Texas and lend support for Cindy Sheehan and her vigil should do so.

Mike Rogers came all the way from Tokyo because resisting the warfare state is the most honorable thing a patriot could do. Consider taking part in any small way you can.

The Observer | Focus | Death in Stockwell: the unanswered questions

Why is there no CCTV footage?

Cameras at Stockwell tube should have provided footage of the ticket halls, the escalators and the platforms. Most modern tube carriages also have cameras inside. Yet police say none of the cameras at Stockwell was working at the time of the shooting. This is despite London being on high alert and tube bosses being only too well aware of the importance of maintaining CCTV systems.

This was reported by the Observer on August 14.  Now, ITV is shocking Britain with the truth…

From Lenin’s Tomb:

CCTV footage, which the police said wasn’t working on the day, shows him entering the tube station, walking along normally, picking up a Metro (I imagine), using his Oyster card to go through the gates, walking across the concourse, walking down the stairs. If he ran, they decided, he would be shot. It is reported, again, that they did not identify themselves. He saw a tube arriving, and ran to catch it – as everyone does – and was shot. He didn’t even know he was being pursued.

1) On the day, a senior firearms officer had said that if they had the opportunity to challenge anyone emerging from the block of flats, and there was non-compliance, it would be appropriate to intervene with a fatal shot.

2) No subject coming out of the address should be allowed to run. (Incidentally, the only reason the address was identified was because one of the would-be bombers of 21/7 had the address of a gymnasium there in his bag).

3) De Menezes was observed, after the intelligence officer had finished taking his piss, walking to the bus station in his blue denim jacket, carrying no bags. His description and demeanour were noted, and it was agreed that he matched the profile of an alleged suicide bomber. How?  ("Mongolian eyes", I suppose).

4) Gold Command, on the basis of this, gave the okay to shoot-to-kill.

5) Having taken the bus from Tulse Hill to Stockwell, he walked to the tube station, entered at "walking pace", picked up a Metro, and walked through the ticket gates with his Oyster card. He walked across the concourse and began "slowly descending" the escalator steps.

6) He only ran to catch the tube as it arrived, entered the carriage, looked right and left, then took a seat facing the platform.

7) Here is where it gets strange. He is supposed to have been shot after having been chased and wrestled to the floor. But an intelligence officer’s statement says he followed Menezes down the stairs and onto the tube. He was apparently beckoned by police, who did at that point identify themselves. "He stood, and walked towards me", the intelligence officer said. He grabbed Menezes, pulled his arms behind his back and pushed him back into the seat. "I heard a shot in my left ear". The intelligence officer said he was pushed to the floor at that point. A number of officers shot him in the head, seven times. Three bullets missed. One went into his shoulder.

For more commentary see here and here. (I’ve used excerpts from both links to assemble this post…)

The hate campaign conducted by the War Party against Cindy Sheehan has finally culminated in an attack on “Camp Casey,” the site of a growing protest against the Iraq war in Crawford, Texas, according to this report. Apparently, a man in a pick-up truck barreled into Camp Casey, and, wielding a chain, knocked down 150 road-side crosses representing the Iraq war dead. The truck then suffered a blown-out tire, and law enforcement, we hear, have the man in custody.

Sheehan has alerted her supporters that the Secret Service is pressuring her to leave Crawford. According to this report, Thursday morning the residents of Camp Casey were jolted awake by a fourteen-car convoy of Secret Service SUVs, as the drivers leaned on their horns as they passed the camp at high speed. Earlier, a local resident, Larry Mattlage, fired his gun in the air in the vicinity, and, when asked why, replied:

“We’re going to start doing our war and it’s going to be underneath the law. Whatever it takes.”

A more accurate description of the War Party’s agenda and methodology could hardly be articulated.

Stay tuned to Antiwar.com for updates ….

UPDATE: If anyone looks the part, it’s this guy.

News services are currently reporting:

BREAKING NEWS

MSNBC News Services

Updated: 3:39 p.m. ET Aug. 15, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Several members of the committee drafting Iraq’s constitution said Monday they had agreed to seek a 10-day extension to the Aug. 15 deadline to try to complete negotiations over the highly contested charter.

According to Juan Cole, posting a short time ago, this is illegal:

Every indication is that a final text of Iraq’s permanent constitution
just won’t be reported out of the drafting committee in time to have
parliament vote on it on Monday. Now Iraqi politicians are talking
about having parliament amend the interim constitution to allow a delay
of say, two weeks. In fact, according to the Transitional
Administrative Law, if the committee did not ask for an extension by
August 1 (which it was pressured not to do by the Bush administration);
and if the parliament did not approve the new constitution by August
15; then parliament should be dissolved.

UPDATE:  AP now reporting Iraqi parliament voted "unanimously" to delay constitution deadline by 7 days….

via WIIIAI, an Israeli commander tells the Times:

“Normally we would storm a house killing everyone inside, whereas here we have to storm the house and keep everyone alive,” said one commander. “It’s not an easy job.”

The debate continues to rage in the blogs over the number one Technorati search topic, Cindy Sheehan. Fortunately one of my favorite bloggers, Michael Dietz of Reading A1, sorts through the most interesting of the clashes, that of John Cole of Balloon Juice vs. Andrew Northrup of The Poorman:

Radical grief. 

So I come to check the blogs of a silly Saturday, when you don’t expect much to be happening, and hey lookee, there’s been something of a dust-up: at The Poor Man, The Editors has administered a righteous and thoroughly deserved ass-whupping to John Cole, on the occasion of this rancid little screed re: Cindy Sheehan, in which Cole rips off the mask of thoughtfulness and civility that had seduced a few lefty bloggers (er, ahem, harrr) into thinking he was some sort of reachable conservative.  So thoroughly did The Poor Man eviscerate the poor man, so petulant and incoherent the victim’s response, that anything further from me would be piling on.

Allow me, then, to pile on.

Read, as they say, the rest.

The Huffington Post has a Sliming Cindy update.  If you were wondering just how low the HawkBlogs could go in their insane, desperate quest to Joe Wilson Cindy Sheehan, here’s the answer.  I must admit that I don’t understand how Cindy and her husband separating is relevant to Cindy’s confrontation with G WMD Bush any more than I could understand how Valerie Wilson’s identity had anything to do with whether Niger sold  yellowcake to Iraq or not.  I guess you have to have a secret Republican Wingnut Family Values Decoder ring or something.