let us see what love can do

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Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict by Richard Goldstone,

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/9/docs/UNF...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/17/why-i-threw-shoe-bus...

I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.

Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country.

We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade.

Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents.

I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Falluja, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. I travelled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.

As soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies, while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the blood that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.

The opportunity came, and I took it.

I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.

I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.

When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.

If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I apologise. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day. The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism needs to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.

I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country.

Muntazer al-Zaidi is an Iraqi reporter who was freed this week after serving nine months in prison for throwing his shoe at former US president George Bush at a press conference. This edited statement was translated by McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Sahar Issa www.mcclatchydc.com

A special thank you to the people of the Crawford Peace House and all of your hard work and patience. I love you all!

Amy

Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of the day Cindy Sheehan, Dede Miller and I led the march in the bar ditches to former President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas to ask “What Noble Cause?” We had our faces and stories splashed all over the news that weekend and for weeks and weeks, thanks to the perfect storm created by the mothers of dead soldiers coming to face off with the President and a very, very bored bunch of media sitting and waiting in Crawford, Texas for something, anything to happen.

We walked in that ditch for maybe a mile in the hot August Texas sun and heat, leading a hundred or so of our dearest friends from across Texas who answered the call when they got it. Among us were veterans from across the country who were in Texas for the VFP convention in Dallas who caravanned with us to Crawford. We had Blue Star family members with us, the mothers, wives, sisters, and children of those on active duty in the military. We had people who were peace activists and we had just normal, ordinary people who wanted to lend their voice and support.

Most know what became, eventually, the story of Cindy Sheehan’s stand against President Bush. What many of you don’t know and haven’t heard is the story of healing, peace and comfort I and thousands of others found out there on Prairie Chapel Road behind the scenes, away from the camera crews and media. Today, this is the story I want to tell you.

Cindy gave all of us a voice, a cause and a person to rally behind. For the mainstream media and others, this became the story of the day. That was a big part of the story, but it wasn’t the whole story.

At the end of that first day, after almost everyone but a handful of people went home, I found myself at the Crawford Peace House, which had been held open for us and we were given keys to come and go as we needed. Cindy and I had gone there to escape the heat and to shower. We both had heat stroke and we were ill. I remember lying on the floor in the front room of the CPH and we talked, wondering out loud to one another, what have we just started? Where will it go? Will anyone come? Cindy had declared that she would stay in Crawford in the ditch, waiting for the President to meet with her. My heart was torn because I wanted to stay in Crawford with Cindy, but I could not. My daughter and my husband were home in Houston, waiting for me on stork watch as our first grandchild was due any day.

That night, we camped out on the side of the road. There were only a few of us there, sitting in our camp chairs, talking late into the night. The night skies in Crawford, out there on that lonely road, are beautiful. As we looked at the stars and quietly talked, one of our phones would ring and we’d learn that we made the evening news, they were talking about us across the country and, eventually, around the world.

We watched, long into the night, as the Secret Service cars sped by, back and forth, past us and around the curve at the fork in the road where we camped. There were times we were frightened one would lose control.

Cindy and Dede camped out in a small pup tent that night. Diane slept in her truck. I climbed into the backseat of my Jeep and did my best to sleep. Others pulled out cots next to their cars.

It seemed impossible, but when I woke up the next morning, there were a few more cars there in that little tiny strip of land between the roads where we parked. During the night, people heard about us and came to join us. Some friends in Fort Worth got up really early and made it there before we woke up, bringing us breakfast and coffee. Friends came back from Dallas and the convention to stand with us.

Throughout the day, more and more people came to take a stand with us, to lend their support and their voice and their energy to our cause. Talk radio was talking about nothing but us. We greeted personally each and every person who came to see us.

I had to go back home that day. As I said my goodbyes, my heart was full and I felt uplifted and knew that finally, we would be heard, those of us who had not been heard for so very, very long who opposed the war in Iraq, who knew it was wrong, were being heard. When I talked to the reporters off the record before doing interviews, every single one of them – even the ones from FOX News – told me they agreed with us and what our cause was and to keep doing what we were doing.

From humble beginnings can come great things. During the following week, hundreds and hundreds of people poured into Crawford. Iraq veterans came in droves to tell their stories and be heard. Military families came to lend their voices and to be heard. Many other Gold Star family members came to take a stand. People from all across this great country of ours heard the story on the news, on the radio or read it on the internet or newspapers. They dropped everything they were doing and went to Crawford. Young, old, activist or not, they all came.

The money came pouring in, too, to help support all these people who were coming. It didn’t matter if you got to Crawford and you were broke, your needs were met. You would not go to bed at night hungry or wake up with nothing to eat. Every single person who came to Crawford, whether they just stayed for the day, a few days or the whole month, was fed and fed well. Everyone who came was expected to contribute to the camp and the cause in some way and every single person did their part, whether it was forming a chain to unload trucks of water or ice, cooking, cleaning, setting up the big tents, chairs and tables, security, chauffeuring visitors back and forth from the Peace House out to the sites, or just sitting and holding the hand of someone overcome with emotion, everyone did their part.

A memorial was set up at the original location and, later, another one at the second location, a small tract of land donated for our use. The memorials were carefully thought out, set up and cared for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. At the original camp, where many people set up and refused to leave, the crosses were run over and the memorial vandalized in the night. The next day, everything was replaced and fixed. Every night, at sunset, TAPS was played at the sites as we stood, hand in hand and arm in arm, in silent remembrance of those we had loved and lost and cried rivers of tears together.

Many remember the place in Crawford that hot August summer in 2005 as Camp Casey, named so for Cindy Sheehan’s son, Casey. The truth is, it wasn’t just about Casey or Cindy or any other single person. That hot summer in Crawford in the ditches was about a community who came together, somehow gelled against all odds, people from all walks of life. It was about amazing people who lived together under some very trying circumstances but who thrived, loved, cried and worked together for a cause they all believed wholeheartedly in, ending the war in Iraq. It was about peace and harmony and love.

The magic of the encampment out on Prairie Chapel Road was the magic of great healing for torn and broken hearts and souls. The magic was that of people from many different religions who came together and respected those religions, even incorporating them all in one Sunday service every week to feed the souls of those who came. Christian, Muslim, Wiccan, Sufi, Buddhist, and many other spiritual paths were represented.

The magic, the blessing of Prairie Chapel Road was the people. Cindy gave them a voice, a reason, and a place to take a stand. It has been the people who kept it all going.

In peace,

Amy Branham

Gold Star Mother

Houston, TX

amybranham@comcast.net

http://www.progressive.org/mag_amitpalabdul

It's tragic that India and Pakistan are almost constantly in a state of animosity and are now facing off against each other with nuclear weapons. It's also ironic, since both countries can claim pacifist pioneers. India has Gandhi, as most everyone knows. But few people know about Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a proponent of nonviolence and social change who lived in Pakistan.

The action may be brought in Europe using the Pinochet strategy.

Sami al-Haj, the al Jazeera journalist who spent seven years at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo is preparing to file a lawsuit against former president George W Bush and other top Bush administration officials. al-Haj was repeatedly interrogated by U.S. operatives attempting to falsely link al Jazeera to al Qaeda. al-Haj was also tortured. From The Guardian:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090803/arraf

Last month I led a group of twenty-one human rights workers on a boat from Cyprus to challenge Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. We carried toys, medicine, olive tree saplings, toolkits, a fifty-kilo bag of cement and school supplies on our small converted ferry boat.

http://dallaspeacecenter.org/node/4375
So far the summer has been mild in the Washington, D.C., area. But for former Vice President Dick Cheney the temperature is well over 100 degrees. He is sweating profusely, and it is becoming increasingly clear why.
Cheney has broken openly with former President George W. Bush on one issue of transcendent importance — to Cheney. For whatever reason, Bush decided not to hand out blanket pardons before they both rode off into the sunset.

by Richard Silverstein. guardian.co.uk, Monday 13 July 2009 14.00 BS

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/jul/13/israel-we...

To counter US opposition to Israel's settlements, Israel's American supporters are adopting a new, defensive strategy

consortiumnews.com
July 7, 2009
Editor’s Note: Prior to giving some talks in Texas, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern offered the following op-ed to the Dallas Morning News and the Fort-Worth Star Telegram. Both newspapers in George W. Bush’s home state turned it down:

Seldom does a crime scene have so clear a smoking gun. A two-page presidential memorandum of Feb. 7, 2002, leaves no room for uncertainty regarding the “decider” on torture. His broad-stroke signature made torture official policy.

Posted on Jul 7, 2009
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090707_so_this_is_what_victory_loo...

Fireworks lit up the Baghdad sky on the evening of June 30th, signaling the advent of “National Sovereignty Day.” Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared the new holiday to commemorate the withdrawal of American combat troops from the Iraqi capital and all other major urban centers, although thousands of “advisers” would remain in the cities, embedded with Iraqi forces. The celebration transpired inside a city that has been radically transformed over the past six years. Even with American combat forces ostensibly withdrawn, Baghdad remains one of the most militarized urban areas in the world. It wasn’t always so. When I was in Baghdad during the 1990s, I was struck by the lack of an overt military presence for a nation purported to be governed by one of the world’s worst militaristic dictatorships.