Why can't we all just get along?

The U.S. invaded Iraq. Our leaders were/are operating under a plan that they could invade and "install" a "moderate democracy", and that by inserting moderate democracy in the middle of the Middle East that it would sway the neighboring countries toward moderate democracies and away from hardline fundamentally religious theocracy. Or something like that. It always seemed rather ridiculous to me.

Having a "moderate democracy" is hardly worth expending thousands of lives, both Iraqi and U.S. Considering all the hardline autocratic regimes around the world that the U.S. isn't invading to impose regime change, this isn't a very good justification for the war. I've always thought that was a smoke screen, and that something else is the root justification for the war ... namely ... that Iraq sits on a very large pile of oil.

The current step is to get the Iraqi's to agree to a constitution. But that process is very wrangled, with the radical cleric al-Sadr calling on his troops to fight, and in general an increase in violence accompanying the development of the constitution.

Iraq's unhealthy constitution The Bush administration's desperate insistence on an instant Iraqi constitution hurts both Iraq and our broader national interests. But when your polls are falling and you need to declare victory, who cares? (By Joe Conason, salon.com, August 26, 2005)

It's the constitution which Joe Conason talks about ... He says, and I agree, democratizing Iraq ought to be bringing the Iraqi's together. But the process taken by the Bush administration didn't give them time to work together, and indeed their main desire is to split the country apart into ethnic divisions. With the Shiite's having a theocratic regime that's probably in cahoots with Iran. The latter point would deny the U.S. access to the oil that is probably the true reason this war was launched.

The writing of a democratically legitimate constitution must be genuinely inclusive, which means that all the concerned groups have to be represented. The Sunni boycott of the parliamentary elections last winter made that essential prerequisite unachievable for now -- which ought to have encouraged American and Iraqi leaders to reevaluate the most desirable "path to democracy."

What they should have realized is that there is simply no way to write a real and functional constitution for a democratic state while a third of the population or more is in revolt. The Sunnis should have been persuaded to stop fighting and join in reconstruction before the constitutional process began, even if that meant new elections.

Elsewhere in the article he talks about the constitution writing process as "rushed". It's timed to fit the Bush Administration needs, the Oct 15 deadline being just before the U.S. elections allowing the positive result of being able to wave the Iraqi constitution in his hand and say "See!!! It was worth it!! We have a new democracy!!" would say our elections in his favor. But, gosh, for this to be a long term good result, and not just another farce of a "Mission Accomplished" show, Joe suggests the constitution writing process ought to be taking a lot longer than being allowed by the Bush administration.

All this makes me think of a prior nation building exercise. Think back to Germany, 1945. The Allied powers have won the war and there are several countries without functioning governments because Germany had swamped all the local governments, but they had been defeated.

I don't know much about that history, but it strikes me that the U.S. is still occupying Germany 60 years later.

And that even though the U.S. is still occupying Germany, there has over the last 10 years been a rise in what they're calling a neo-nazi movement.

Okay, that's interesting. It implies something about Iraq which Joe is pointing to. How I see it is each country has its national identity and way of being. The way of being for Germans is autocratic yet at the same time the Germans I know are very friendly and fun people to be with. In any case that autocratic streak that led to the rise of the Nazi party hasn't washed out of the German soul after 60 years, witnessed by the rise of neo-nazi activity.

If we're expecting to wash something out of the Iraqi soul, how long will it take, and will U.S. troops have to remain there for 60 or more years?

And, by the way, one little snippet I know about German history shortly after 1945 comes from an art movie I saw in the mid 90's. There was a lot of violence in Germany, factions fighting factions, that strike me as very similar to the fighting we're seeing in Iraq today. It's probably the "power vacuum" effect, that you remove the power that dominates an area, and that leads to fighting by the remaining factions to become the dominant power of the region.

"pepperball" non-lethal weapons

About Pepperball Technologies, INC. PepperBall Technologies, Inc. (PTI) develops, manufactures and distributes non-lethal weapons as options for use whenever the use of force is indicated. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, PTI has global distribution and serves the Public Safety, Government, Private Security and Consumer markets.

They sell a variety of guns and related paraphenalia that are similar to "paintball" weapons.

I first heard of paintball combat in the mid 1980's when a friend of mine got interested. Paintball guns were first developed by loggers to mark trees for logging, and is a gun shaped thingy that uses compressed gas to shoot little paint containers. On contact the contailer (a small balloon) bursts, spreading the paint on the target. This was supposedly great fun in creating seemingly combat situations that posed little or no danger to the participants.

The difference with the Pepperball weapons is instead of paint, the little balloons are filled with a pepper substance. Additionally they offer solid projectiles, for breaking windows, others filled with paint, for marking "subjects", and a couple inert projectiles for use in training.

The "active denial system" non-lethal weapon

The concept of non-lethal weapons has been in development for over 10 years now, with a few weapons on the market today. Most popular is the Taser, which is having a mixed reception.

The Taser is made by Taser International who state their corporate goal is to save lives, and that they do save lives every day. The Taser is a gun, of sorts, that does the following:

Time to Complete Incapacitation: 0.25 seconds.

Range: 15-35 feet for law enforcement and military, 15 feet only commercial.

Method of Incapacitation: Electro-physical, involuntary contraction of skeletal muscle tissue. Overrides the motor nervous system, blocking command & control of the human body. Existing stun systems stimulate sensory neurons and can be over-ridden by a focused individual. The TASER EMD devices directly stimulate motor nerve and muscle tissue, causing incapacitation regardless of mental focus, training, size, or drug induced dementia.

Long term injuries: None.

Short term injuries: Minor skin irritation and possible skin puncture.

The Taser's intent is typical of the non-lethal devices. The Taser fires a "probe" that's connected by a wire back to the gun. The gun injects electrical signals into the target person, and as said above overrides their nervous system causing incapacitation. The overall intent of these non-lethal weapons is to find a way to incapacitate people without causing death.

I suppose that when the alternative methods for incapacitating people then anything else might be thought rosy. Hence the use of "water cannon's" at times. It's under this kind of promise that the Taser is being sold, and has been adopted by police departments and military.

However, the Taser has been implicated in several deaths in the U.S.

Which makes one wonder about these devices and the method they work. Is it truly safe to override the nervous system?

Rumsfeld's Ray Gun (By Kelly Hearn, AlterNet. Posted August 19, 2005)

The article goes over research into the Active Denial System (ADS) being designed by the Raytheon Corporation for the U.S. Defense department. 10 years in development is is ready for field use by the Military.

The Active Denial System is a Pentagon-funded, $51 million crowd control device that rides atop a Humvee, looks like a TV dish, and shoots energy waves 1/64 of an inch deep into human skin. It dispenses brief but intolerable bursts of pain, sending bad guys fleeing but supposedly leaving no lasting damage. (During a Pentagon press briefing in 2001, this reporter felt a zap from an ADS prototype on his fingertip and can attest to the brief but fleeting sensation that a hot light bulb was pressing against the skin). ADS works outside the range of small arms fire.

One thing not directly stated by the article, but it's clearly the Military intent, is to use the war in Iraq as a testing ground for new weapons. In this case they've finished development, and conveniently there's a war going on where they can readily test this weapon and see how well it works. Apparently the American people don't care today about collateral damage (a.k.a. accidental deaths of innocent bystanders) so they probably won't care if a supposedly non-lethal weapon causes unintended damage due to an incompletely debugged design.

Details of US microwave-weapon tests revealed (22 July 2005, NewScientist.com news service, David Hambling)

This article in New Scientist gives an analysis of a DoD report on ADS. The system is described as firing a 95 GHz microwave beam at the targets, supposedly heating skin and causing no physical damage. Hmm... they're intending to microwave their opponents. Well, as we know, microwave ovens act strangely when there is metal inside the oven, so the following shouldn't be surprising:

The experimenters banned glasses and contact lenses to prevent possible eye damage to the subjects, and in the second and third tests removed any metallic objects such as coins and keys to stop hot spots being created on the skin. They also checked the volunteers' clothes for certain seams, buttons and zips which might also cause hot spots.

If in testing they have to be so careful, how can they arrange that it can be used safely in crowd control? They're not going to be able to get the crowd to shed any metallic items so the crowd can be safely zapped. Instead they'll zap away, and then what?

And what about effects other than heat? e.g. Does the microwave beam cause cancer? What about eye damage or cataracts?

The military claims it's perfectly safe and that the fears are overblown. But there's no honest unbiased research on the effects, because all the researchers working on this work for the Pentagon's weapon development program. Hence, they're being paid to say whatever the Pentagon wants them to say.

The research is being conducted under the U.S. Air Force Directed Energy Directorate: http://www.de.afrl.af.mil/ with other research under the Human Effectiveness Directorate: http://www.he.afrl.af.mil/

High power microwave fact sheet: http://www.de.afrl.af.mil/Factsheets/HPM.swf

Much of the information in the AlterNet article comes from The Sunshine Project: http://www.sunshine-project.org/

More Cash for Human Ray Gun Tests (Defense Tech) This article has a picture of the test vehicle.

How many revealed lies is this going to take?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. GW Bush and the whole lot of them were lying through their teeth when they told us the dangers Iraq posed. If lying about sex is an impeachable offense, then what is it when you lie to create a war?

Former aide: Powell WMD speech 'lowest point in my life' (Friday, August 19, 2005, CNN.COM)

This article is a preview to a special to be broadcast this coming Sunday, on CNN. The special "Dead Wrong -- Inside an Intelligence Meltdown" is obviously going to be about the fabrications that lead to this war in Iraq. However, given the title, I assume they're going to focus on the theory that this was a failure of the intelligence community to properly inform the administrative leaders.

Most of the article talks with: Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005.

For example:

Powell's speech, delivered on February 14, 2003, made the case for the war by presenting U.S. intelligence that purported to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Wilkerson says the information in Powell's presentation initially came from a document he described as "sort of a Chinese menu" that was provided by the White House.

"(Powell) came through the door ... and he had in his hands a sheaf of papers, and he said, 'This is what I've got to present at the United Nations according to the White House, and you need to look at it,'" Wilkerson says in the program. "It was anything but an intelligence document. It was, as some people characterized it later, sort of a Chinese menu from which you could pick and choose."

Wilkerson and Powell spent four days and nights in a CIA conference room with then-Director George Tenet and other top officials trying to ensure the accuracy of the presentation, Wilkerson says.

Once the U.S. was in Iraq and David Kay was on his WMD hunt there were several fateful phone calls from George Tenet to Powell. As David Kay continued to report negatively, Tenet had to call Powell and report that various WMD were not found. That the mobile bioweapons laboratories did not exist. On and on.

Is Bush planning to invade Iran?

If you remember the leadup to the current Iraq war, GW Bush spent well over a year publicly saying "force is a last resort" and "all options are on the table".

Bush: Force last resort on Iran (Saturday, August 13, 2005, CNN.COM)

Bush warns Iran on nuclear plans (August 13, 2005, BBC.CO.UK)

Iran confirms plan to resume uranium conversion (August 7, 2005, International Herald Tribune)

The context is the continuing negotiation with Iran over their nuclear program, which I've covered before. Basically they want to establish their own nuclear power plants, but the issue is the design they've used. The design has intermediate steps which produce weapons grade materials.

Thus, this is an honest nuclear proliferation issue. Is Iran planning to produce nuclear weapons? They claim the nuclear program is for civilian use, but if so then why did they choose a process that produces weapons grade material? It would seem they aren't being fully honest, especially since they weren't telling the world about this program in the first place.

A related question is what right do we outsiders (non-Iranians) have to control whether Iran produces nuclear weapons or not? My understanding is that Iran hasn't fully signed on with the non-proliferation treaties, and that they've certainly been sneaking around the backs of the international nuclear regulators to run their program. The world's governments have agreed (well, at least some of them have done so) that nuclear proliferation would be a bad thing for the world, and that all efforts must be made to quash any further spread of nuclear weapons.

That agreement may, though, have been shoved down the collective throats of the world by the super-powers. It's clear that some countries chafe at the restrictions and want to establish their own presence as nuclear powers. I think Iran is one of these countries.

In any case, we cannot forget that the neocon master plan was to first invade Iraq, and then move on to either Syria or Iran. The goal was establishment of "moderate democracy" in the center of the middle east, which would then make the region more agreeable to U.S. interests. At least that's what they said publicly.

I happen to think that's a smoke screen, because how can you honestly install democracy forcibly upon another country? You can't, so either these neocons are stupid or they're lying. Given their track record I would bet they're lying, and that the real goal is to grab the oil.

Germany attacks US on Iran threat (August 13, 2005, BBC.CO.UK): Germany's leader, Gerhard Schroeder, is returning to his role as vocal opponent to GW Bush's plan. He says "Let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work" to which I agree most completely.

I think it would be insane for the U.S. to invade Iran on top of the war(s) we're already fighting in the middle east. Why?

"We are mad as hell and we're not taking it anymore."

Okay, here we are for todays report about Cindy Sheehan. Given what I see on Google News I'm still not about the size of her protest. I keep thinking that this subject demands mass protests, thousands of people streaming together to demand change. But the news article talks about tens or hundreds of people attending in person in Crawford TX. But she is getting news coverage, maybe this weekend will bring out thousands of protesters.

The Peaceful Occupation of Iraq Day 6: This is Cindy Sheehan's own blog entry for the day. It's from her that I got the title for todays post. It's heartening to learn they had 700 people attending today, including Viggo Mortensen. In one of the news articles I saw claimed it was 50 people. The true number has to be in-between.

I have discovered that the White House press corps is always looking for something to do and someone to cover. We have been happy to oblige them.

Smearing Cindy Sheehan Conservatives are attacking her as a dupe of the left who’s exploiting her dead son. Some relatives have piled on too. But the grieving mother says her well-timed Crawford visit is "my idea, my mission, my vision." (By Farhad Manjoo, Aug. 13, 2005, Salon.COM): An interview with Cindy Sheehan. I appreciate reading full interviews like this because it lets me contact the person with less filtering. This is in contrast with mainstream media where an "interview" is selected snippets.

It's clear what she plans to do if she meets (again) with Bush. Namely, to strongly debate him asking him tough questions. As I pointed out before, I believe the Bush Administration doesn't even want to be asked these questions, much less answer them. Hence it's going to take a lot of pressure, perhaps 10,000 people camped out on the road to Crawford, to get him to meet her. I'm trying to imagine that many people there, and that's probably more than the population of Crawford itself.

Bush gets first look at anti-war protest near ranch (12 Aug 2005 17:14:14 GMT, Source: Reuters): This article discusses the close encounter Bush had today with Cindy Sheehan. Well, close if you consider driving by at full speed without slowing down as "close". Same planet, different universes.

When Bush's black sport utility vehicle carried him past the site to a Republican fund-raiser, the protest leader, Cindy Sheehan, whose son was one of the nearly 1,850 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, held up a sign that said: "Why do you make time for donors and not for me?"

Where was he rushing to? Yet another fundraiser. The other day he flew (on Airforce One, at public expense) to Illinois to attend a fundraiser. At least this time it was a short drive away. The target for this one was $2 million, to be raised for the Republican Party, from 280 or so large Republican donors. By "large" I'm not talking about tall or heavy, but if you do the math you'll see each of the attendees paid around $10,000 dolors (on average) to be at the fundraiser.

Sheehan's response to family criticism (By Robin Miller/City Editor): This was published in Cindy Sheehan's hometown newspaper, and discusses the reaction of her family members. It refers to: "Family members decry Sheehan". She says the family members in question are her in-laws whom they are on opposite sides of the political fence, anyway.

Protest on the Range: Cindy Sheehan Calls for Mass Demos at Bush's Crawford Ranch: Interview of Cindy Sheehan with Democracy Now.

cindy sheehan iraq impeach bush

Searching for Cindy Sheehan - her protest is growing, isn't it?

Yesterday I discussed the protest by Cindy Sheehan. She's the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq in April 2004. She has had a growing anger over his death, and has become a major anti-war protester. Last week while attending a rally in Dallas, she got inspiration to drive to GW Bush's ranch in Crawford TX and demand to meet with him. This has grown into an interesting media circus, supposedly.

However, one gauge I use to determine the size of a "media circus" is to cruise over to http://news.google.com/ and look at the articles on the subject. The article thread concerning her has been pinned at the top of the list for a couple days now, and that's a strong indicator of "media circus" in action. However, reading through the articles leaves me wondering as none of them indicate much is happening. Curiously Google News is ignoring articles from Salon.COM, which has published several about Cindy Sheehan.

Another indicator is the number of technorati tagged posts cindy sheehan which also seems low. But at least the tag is rather active.

In any case, there is some news today so let's go over it.

A mother's vigil A Vacaville woman whose son was killed in Iraq attracts nationwide attention with her protest down the road from president's ranch (Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer, Thursday, August 11, 2005): This article tells the story of those who have shown up to hang out with Cindy Sheehan. There's dozens of people who have shown up, and each has their own story. The article contrasts them with the bullhorn-toting activists marching down Market Street in San Francisco, or the armchair activists manning MoveOn.org. Ouch, that hits a little close to home, as I've done my share of marching down Market Street.

I agree, someone who actually puts their body to service to a cause like this are brave. I feel drawn to join her in Texas, but am torn with taking care of the activities in my life. So I contribute this way.

Soldier's Mother Takes Protest to Bloggers (By Brian Faler, Washington Post, Thursday, August 11, 2005; Page A08): Talks about the main outreach avenue, the blogger community. Apparently the mainstream media is somewhat ignoring this story, so it is us bloggers who have to bring it out. Among the activities is a conference call sponsored by Joe Trippi, a high level democratic party strategist. The call involved a bunch of left-wing bloggers, and somehow they didn't know they should call me so I wasn't involved.

Anti-war voice resonates in mother's Texas vigil (By Edwin Chen and Dana Calvo, Los Angeles Times, published by the Seattle Times): Also talking about the supporters who have rushed in to help. One is the Crawford Peace House, a home owned by a man soley dedicated to providing a home base for out-of-town protesters. See, they find that Crawford Texas is generally solidly supporting GW Bush, and out-of-towners aren't always accepted well, and need a safe place to meet.

It also discusses how Sheehan's hometown newspaper had published an interview of her when she first met GW Bush in June 2004. The right wingers have taken certain quotes in that interview out of context, making it sound like she was in support of the war etc back in 2004, but that she has flip-flopped. There they are pulling out that flip-flopper phrase, I wonder why they think it strange when people change their minds. In any case, the article has been republished by that newspaper here and clearly shows her anger towards Bush even then. It's very natural to know that anger grows over time, especially after all the revelations over the last year.

Peace House a center of dissent in Crawford (By Oren Dorell, USA TODAY): More about the Crawford Peace House.

Account of Iraq War Protestor's Meeting With Bush Draws Scrutiny (By Greg Mitchell and Joe Strupp, Editor & Publisher): This appears to be a site dedicated to the news publishing industry. In any case they interview the author of the article in Cindy Sheehan's hometown newspaper, and discuss how that reporter stands by his original report.

Bush rejects mother's Iraq plea (11 August 2005, BBC.CO.UK): GW Bush spoke about Cindy Sheehan's demands. He is, unsurprisingly, refusing to meet with her. He doesn't say why he refuses to meet with her, but yesterday I speculated because he knows what questions she wants to ask, and that he knows he doesn't want to be asked those questions, because that would lead to his impeachment. In any case, he also refused to pull troops out of Iraq because it would be a "mistake".

I tend to agree, grudgingly. The war is illegal, foisted upon us in a cloud of lies, subterfuge, and illegally ignoring the United Nations. The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has declared this war to be illegal. However, now that we are there we have an obligation to the Iraqi people to see them to safety. That is, we deposed their government which, good or bad, was at least providing stability to the country. Today, with basically zero government and an open resistance war, there is no stability, and if the U.S. were to leave I expect it would turn into a mass pitched battle of warlords and clerics struggling to be the strongman who wins the prize of ruling Iraq. The U.S. did this, and are doing this, to Iraq.

Rage Against the Killing of the Light (By Norman Solomon, AlterNet. Posted August 10, 2005.):

What's going on this week, outside the perimeter of the ranch-style White House in Crawford, is some reclamation of reality in public life. Cindy Sheehan has disrupted the media-scripted shadow play of falsity. And some other relatives of the ultimately sacrificed have been en route to the vigil in the dry hot Texas ditches now being subjected to enormous media attention a few miles from the vacationing president's accommodations.

At this point, Bush's spinners are desperate to divert the media spotlight from Sheehan. But other bereft mothers arriving in Crawford will hardly be more compatible with war-making myths.

... When a mass killer is at the helm of the ship of state, taking a bow now and again while "Hail to the Chief" booms from big brass bands, a significant portion of the country's population feels revulsion. And often a sense of powerlessness -- a triumph for media manipulation. Passivity is the health of the manipulative media state.

Cindy Sheehan and Celeste Zappala have joined with others in Crawford to insist that death is not a message for more death -- that we can understand death as a profound reality check, imploring us to affirm and defend life.

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light," Dylan Thomas wrote. The unavoidable dying of life is bad enough. The killing is unacceptable.

UPDATE: You can read Cindy Sheehans own writing on her blog: http://sacramentofordemocracy.org/?q=blog/171

cindy sheehan iraq impeach bush crawford