What can ordinary Vermonters do about this?
Hold the Vermont Legislature accountable.
The Legislature makes the laws, laws that, according to the US Constitution, supersede federal laws. But not many folks understand this. So when Vermont has been pressured to yield up major assets; e.g. our Vermont Guard to the Afghanistan Occupation, our hydroelectric dams to TransCanada and our surface water to Entergy and our groundwater to bottling companies, it is fashionable to blame the governor, especially if the governor is a Republican.
But it is the Legislature who willingly maintain the tax-free status of the entities named above and others.
Hold them accountable. Demand to know why, demand that they act according to the wishes of their constituents. Vote them out of office!
In reality it is the Legislature that allows, forbids, funds, tolerates, or looks the other way. An agency carries out policy. An agency may not make policy.
Vermonters can’t do anything about Monsanto’s control over the USDA and their $149 billion budget, run by a Monsanto insider and lobbyist. We can’t affect UN’s Agenda 21. That part of US sovereignty has recently been ceded. Congress, unless the incumbents are replaced, will continue to pursue an agenda which has nothing to do with the interests of their constituents, no matter who is elected president.
This, domestic surveillance in Vermont, we can do something about.
A teenager has been found guilty of posting an offensive Facebook message following the deaths of six British soldiers in Afghanistan.
Azhar Ahmed, 19, of Ravensthorpe, West Yorkshire, was charged with sending a grossly offensive communication.
He told Huddersfield Magistrates Court he accepted the message had been "unacceptable" but had denied it was "grossly offensive".
The judge said his comments were "derogatory" and "inflammatory". [...]
The offensive message, which said "all soldiers should die and go to hell", was posted by Ahmed just two days later on 8 March.
Ahmed told the court he was only trying to make his point that many other deaths in Afghanistan were being ignored and added he had no idea it would cause so much upset.
He said he replied with apologies to many people who commented on his Facebook page and when some told him they had lost relatives in Afghanistan he realised how serious it was.
"That's when I realised it was unacceptable for them to see something so upsetting and distressing, to write something like that," he added.
"This is the equivalent of opening the Stasi files."- Julian
Assange in a press conference in London, July 26, 2010
25th July 2010 5:00 PM EST WikiLeaks has released a document set called the Afghan War Diary, an extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.
The reports, while written by soldiers and intelligence officers, and mainly describing lethal military actions involving the United States military, also include intelligence information, reports of meetings with political figures, and related detail.
The document collection is available on a dedicated webpage.
The reports cover most units from the US Army with the exception of most US Special Forces' activities. The reports do not generally cover top secret operations or European and other ISAF Forces operations.
We have delayed the release of some 15,000 reports from the total archive as part of a harm minimization process demanded by our source. After further review, these reports will be released, with occasional redactions, and eventually in full, as the security situation in Afghanistan permits.
A few days ago it was the story of the coverup of the murder by U.S. forces of civilians in Afghanistan, today it's the story of a 2007 massacre in which U.S. helicopter gunships fired on civilians in Iraq. WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange and Salon.com blogger Glenn Greenwald were on Democracy Now! this morning, drawing the (hopefully obvious long ago) conclusion that you can't trust a word the U.S. military says, and also the conclusion that these type of events are absolutely daily occurrences, with only the tip of the iceberg of them being exposed to the public.All true. But I'd like to point readers to an additional conclusion. Over the years I've written a great deal about the number of people killed in Iraq, and one of the points I have made repeatedly is that when you look at various statistics, some of them (e.g., Iraq Body Count) want to count only "civilians", while others (the statistical surveys) count all the dead (and some count only "violent" deaths, while others count all deaths, e.g., deaths from lack of medical care or poor public health conditions caused by the invasion).
And so one point that can't be emphasized enough is that, whether you agree with me or not that all the deaths, be they of members of the Iraqi armed forces, members of the Iraqi resistance, or "innocent civilians" are equally reprehensible, and all the result of the U.S. invasion, is that the numbers for "civilian" deaths are completely and utterly skewed and rendered meaningless by the kind of false reporting represented by these two incidents. I'm not going to look up this specific incident in IBC, but it's an absolute certainty that a huge number of deaths were excluded from that count because they were reported (first by the U.S. military, and then by the U.S. press stenographic pool) as "insurgents" or perhaps "terrorists" (or maybe "suspected terrorists"). Which is just one more reason why the numbers to focus on are the total number of Iraqis killed, not the bogus and almost completely arbitrary "civilian" totals.
Notice I'm not dwelling on the actual numbers in this post. I've been over that ground before, and for the purposes of this discussion the actual numbers really don't matter. Needless to say they do matter to the actual people involved, those no longer living and those still mourning (and suffering from in very real ways) their loss.
A plain reading of yesterday's vote on the Kucinich war powers resolution is that an overwhelming majority of the House has authorized the Afghanistan war, including a majority of Democrats. The war now has greater legitimacy. The vote was 356-65-9.Please call Peter Welch's office - Phones: (802) 652-2450 or toll free at 888-605-7270 - to thank him for his vote yesterday for H CON RES 248 [a privileged resolution introduced last Thursday by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio)],directing the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan.
[If Rep. John Conyers had been present, the dissenting bloc would have been 66, including just five Republicans. Few members took the option of abstaining.]
A British soldier who became a hero to anti-war activists after refusing to return to Afghanistan was jailed for nine months today, despite claims that he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.From New Left Project,
"There are many soldiers in the army who have extremely unpleasant experiences, who watch friends die or suffer appalling injuries, but they have to return and do their duty," Judge Advocate Emma Peters told Lance Corporal Joe Glenton.
Glenton, 27, fled to Asia in mid-2007, before he was due to start a second tour in Afghanistan, staying abroad for two years before returning to speak at Stop the War rallies. He wrote to Gordon Brown to denounce the conflict and urge the return of all British troops.
The court martial in Colchester, Essex, sentenced him to nine months in a military jail for going absent without leave, after he pleaded guilty. He was also demoted to private. His family and supporters said Glenton, who served in Afghanistan for seven months with the Royal Logistics Corps in 2006, had been singled out because of his activism and would appeal.
A spokesperson for Stop the War said: "This extremely harsh sentence ignored many of the facts of the case; that Joe had post-traumatic stress disorder, that he had raised concerns about the war with his superiors and been bullied as a result, and that he had voluntarily returned to barracks after going absent without leave.Send messages of support to:
"The judge herself made it clear the sentence was not based on the facts of the case but on a desire to deter other members of the military from taking a stand of conscience."
She added: "Joe is a brave and defiant man. He left the court under guard with a clenched fist held high. His outspoken defiance and the national campaign to defend him had already forced the authorities to drop the much more serious charge of desertion."
Lance Corporal Joe Glenton
Military Corrective Training Centre, Berechurch Hall Camp
Colchester CO2 9NU, UK
Sanctimonious war talk
Several times this week we opened our papers to see pictures of teary-eyed families wishing their loved ones good luck as they embarked for the "war" in Afghanistan. We also read the words of our governor who sanctimoniously stated the sacrifices they were making were balanced out by the just cause they were pursuing.
Where is the just cause that has resulted in innocent civilians being killed? Where is the just cause that emboldens anger, outrage, and the growth of terrorism throughout the world? Where is the just cause that lines the pockets of the private contractors using war only for their profits?
Enough of the tears, enough of the loss, it is time our governor end his meaningless soliloquy and take action that will end this trail of tears. Gov. Douglas must say no to Washington's demands for more troops. By denying the machine its fuel, the machine will come to a halt.
Washington may respond by saying a governor can't do that, but Douglas must stand up to such bullying. If he is threatened by legal action, he must be willing to continue to stand up, behind bars if necessary.
To continue to pontificate about the noble cause does not serve well the citizen soldiers and the citizens of the state of Vermont. The only way Douglas can wash the blood off of his hands is by being willing to put himself on the line as well.
William Gay
Montpelier
"I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war."War President Obama delivered his acceptance speech today just before he received the Nobel Peace Prize. And the audience in Norway nodded in agreement and applauded.
'In a possible attempt to avoid questions about the Afghan war, the White House has canceled the traditional press conference held for the Nobel Peace Prize winners. In addition, the White House has canceled other events held every year, including a dinner with the Norwegian Nobel Committee, a television interview, appearances at a children’s event promoting peace, as well as a visit to an exhibition in his honor at the Nobel Peace Center."No wonder, because Reuters also reports
"President Barack Obama said on Thursday there would be no "precipitous drawdown" of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and cautioned that U.S. troops could still be there for years to come".
Protest Obama's Escalation
Saturday December 12th
12 Noon - 1:30 PM
Burlington City Hall Steps
Burlington, VT
'Less than two days after his escalation speech, Obama will host a jobs summit at the White House. Whatever his official message, the millions of unemployed in the U.S. know that 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan adds $30 billion this year to the already out-of-control war budget — and means that the only jobs available will be in the military. What clearer example could there be of the Afghanistan war as a war against poor people — those who die in Afghanistan and those left jobless and desperate here at home? A week later, Obama travels to Norway to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. Not even the best speechwriters will be able to portray sending thousands of young women and men across the world to kill and die as evidence of the newest Nobel laureate’s commitment to global peace.Protest Obama's Escalation Saturday December 12th Burlington, VT. Details to come.
'And the day of the speech itself was World AIDS Day. The UNAIDS noted that all of its country goals — treatment for 6–7 million people, screening 70 million pregnant women, providing preventive services to 37 million people — could be accomplished with just $25 billion. That’s what the United States will spend fighting in Afghanistan in just three months. Timing matters.
'The result was a speech that reflected Obama’s centrist-in-chief effort to please all his constituencies. Some will be quite satisfied. Mainstream Republicans were delighted. They were careful not to praise too much, but as Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss noted, President Obama’s escalation was “the right analysis, the right decision.” General McChrystal, Obama’s handpicked top commander in Afghanistan, was quite satisfied: He had asked for 40,000 new troops, and got 30,000 U.S. troops and a promise (we’ll see…) of 5,000 more from NATO and other allies. More significantly, he and Bush hold-over Secretary of Defense Robert Gates got the president’s endorsement of a full-scale counterinsurgency plan.
'Mainstream Democrats were likely delighted — assertion of their party’s military credentials, with talk of a “transition to Afghan responsibility” to soothe their constituents’ outrage. They may be uneasy about the additional costs, but could take solace in Obama’s promise to “work closely with Congress to address these costs as we work to bring down our deficit.” Just how anyone would “address” these spiraling billions remains unclear.
'The ones not happy — besides the young cadets in the audience, other soldiers facing new and endlessly renewed deployments, and their families — are the massive numbers of people who swept Obama into office on a mobilized tide of anti-war, anti-racist and anti-poverty commitments. Talk of beginning a “transition” 18 months down the line, with NO commitment for an actual troop withdrawal, isn't going to satisfy them.'
[...] Obama's surge in Afghanistan will ensure a steady supply of "collateral damage", even though sane military voices condemn "democracy at gunpoint" and Taliban "tacticians" mock Gen. David Petraeus' counterinsurgency tactics.
The Bush "war on terror" has been rebranded as "overseas contingency operations" (OCO) by the Obama administration.
Pepe Escobar argues everything remains the same, but with a new twist: Washington selling OCO in AfPak to US public opinion not as an American war - but as a Pakistani war.
