Maine Owl

In Section B this time



Read the full story HERE.

As always, I thank the BDN from the bottom of my heart. I'm proud to point out that my local newspaper has been since 2006 one of the fairest in the country in providing quality coverage of peace events. Shoot 'em a thank you too. Also, if you can, please add comments at the BDN website to counter the noise posted there.

Rally in Bangor Saturday


I think it's pretty good when you can get the teevee to give 1 minute, 10 seconds for peace late on a Saturday night. Thank you very much, Channel 5.

Below is an audio player for one of the rally speeches. The thing that's missing from almost all discussion of Iraq in American media--and especially not in the presidential campaign--is devastation of the Iraqi people over the last five-and-one-half years. Mary Trotochaud, a Maine resident who has lived in Iraq (along with her husband, Rick McDowell, interviewed by Ch. 5 above) speaks about the horrors faced by Iraqi friends with whom she recently has been in touch. This file is about twelve minutes:

The Terror War is so ... yesterday


Rice kicked the Bear last month, now it's Palin's turn

It's been quite a month of U.S. posture after the Russia-Georgia conflict. Tonight the Republican veep nominee had this to say to her thus far sole interviewer:

GIBSON (ABC News): And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so.

She's none too clear, however, because later she said it "didn't have to lead" to war, or Cold War. She's a quick learner with that little twist of ambiguity. A few days with trained Cold Warrior Rice and Palin will be ready to saddle up and ride like Slim Pickens in a certain Kubrick movie (that just played a couple of nights ago on TCM).

It's all really just verbiage designed to kick up the jingoism play of the day. My how things change. I recall a September 11 not too long ago (2006) when the biggest thing in all of history, the "calling of our generation," as President Bush put it, was the global Terror War:

President Bush (9/11/2006): Since the horror of 9/11, we've learned a great deal about the enemy. We have learned that they are evil and kill without mercy -- but not without purpose. We have learned that they form a global network of extremists who are driven by a perverted vision of Islam -- a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent. And we have learned that their goal is to build a radical Islamic empire where women are prisoners in their homes, men are beaten for missing prayer meetings, and terrorists have a safe haven to plan and launch attacks on America and other civilized nations. The war against this enemy is more than a military conflict. It is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century, and the calling of our generation.

Is the Terror War being buried along with the Bush-tainted Republican "brand" in favor of the New Cold War?

Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine news clips





Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! will appear at the Hammond Street Church in conjunction with our peace event and the 20th Anniversary of WERU Community Radio!!

Many people are focusing on the next election with the hope that a new administration will end the occupation of Iraq and use diplomacy to negotiate with Iran. We look forward to that possibility, but also want to make sure we continue to build a multi-faceted peace movement that can support and/or challenge the next administration to promote cooperation and diplomacy, reparations for the people of Iraq, support for Veterans of this war and federal budget priorities that serve the needs of people and not primarily military contractors and large corporations. ...

Read the rest with full details HERE.

Here is a release from the Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine:

The Orono Town Council unanimously supported a "No War on Iran" Resolution at a Town Council meeting last night (September 8th, 2008). Ron Davis, of the Orono Peace Group presented the council with 290 signatures from Orono residents in support of the resolution.

Eleven Orono residents spoke in favor of the resolution including Ilze Petersons of the Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine, Doug Allen of the Center and the Maine Peace Action Committee, Al Larson of Veterans for Peace, 001 Chapter, Phyllis Brazee, Chair of the Peace Studies Program at UM, Connie Jenkins, a psychotherapist and nurse practitioner, and Hosain Aghamoosa, Iranian American student at the University of Maine. Two residents spoke against the resolution. Councilors said the council does not get in involved in foreign policy decisions but is aware of the needs of the community and has a responsibility to comment when it sees how services are affected because billions of dollars are being used to fund a war.

Orono joins Bar Harbor and Harpswell who previously passed similar resolutions.

The Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine did not plan a special event for 2008. So, I am posting an audio player for the WERU Voices program I assembled from our August 6, 2007 Hiroshima/Nagasaki Commemorations at Pierce Park and the Hammond Street Church in Bangor:


You may visit peacecast.us HERE to download the podcast.

Today, August 6, 2008, Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba asked for the new U.S. president to support a proposed ban on nuclear weapons. Mayor Akiba is quoted extensively in our 2007 program.

"Gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a 'guy really anxious for war'"

This is precious:

President Bush regrets his legacy as man who wanted war
The Times (London) - Tom Baldwin and Gerard Baker in Ljubljana

President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a "guy really anxious for war" in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran.

In an exclusive interview, he expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. "I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric."

Let's see, he regrets his rhetoric that has made him look like a warmonger, not the wars that make it crystal clear that he is a warmonger. No regrets about a million civilian casualties either. And how about American deaths? Apparently they are not "in vain" as long as more of them continue to pile up.

This man is one of the most notorious criminals in world history.

The country that thinks of using cluster munitions next week should think twice, because it would look very bad.

--Espen Barth Eide, deputy defense minister of Norway

Damn straight. (Thanks, Rodger)

These maniacal munitions are responsible for untold civilian harm. I'm amazed at the mockery some American commentators have leveled against the anti-cluster-bomb treaty agreed to by 111 nations in Dublin Friday. American military analyst John Pike, for example, acused the signatories of being "countries which do not fight wars" and of making him "want to barf." I think the point here, contrary to Pike's notions, is that countries are sick to death of the wars and military tactics the U.S. and Israel have found, in the words of a U.S. State Department spokesman, so "absolutely critical and essential."

Boycotters of the treaty include Russia, China, Israel, India, Pakistan, and the United States. This forms a pretty good list of the world's rouge military powers. For example, Israel found it critical and essential to sew "500,000 unexploded munitions on the ground in Lebanon" at the end of its summer 2006 bombardment campaign--an action regarded widely as "immoral." Can it be so hard for American and Israeli military strategists who use these evil devices to see why they look "bad"?

Memorial Day (originally Decoration Day) is a day to mark with sadness for all those who died the end of war.

Today my moment of silence will be a prayer of hope for the end of war, what Memorial Day is supposed to be.

My late father (picture) served in World War II. My dad returned from the war with his body intact, but his being was changed forever. They used to call it shell shock, now it's better known as PTSD. As a result of growing up with this great and gentle man as my father, I have felt from a very young age that there is always a better way than war to solve political problems.

That sentiment is conspicuously missing from all of this holiday genuflection before our Pentagon greatness. The leaders of our country, both Republican and Democrat, through their approval of limitless war funding and utter failure to even breath one word of concern about the myriad of human wreckage we are causing in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, have driven a stake through the heart of the spirit of Memorial Day.

THIS should be blockbuster news:

Secret Bush "Finding" Widens War on Iran
By ANDREW COCKBURN

Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, "unprecedented in its scope."

Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. This widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring position on the State Department's list of terrorist groups.

Of course on U.S. shores it's not possible to think about consequences in such a manner, but looking at this finding from Iran's point of view and applying the standard for self defense established by President Bush himself would mean immediate preventive Iranian attack upon the United States is justified by the Bush Doctrine. If Iran were to wait until the threat against its territory were to fully materialize, it would be too late.

Are violent terrorists just mental defectives unwilling to see the light of Western liberation? (Note: click "Read more" to see updates.]

I'm certainly all for preventing criminal acts that hurt and kill innocent people. But is this task best left to Western clinical psychology? An Ideas piece in today's Boston Globe examines how "specialists" are interested in how to get Middle Eastern defectives to give up their "thoughts and feelings that drove them to support violent strains of Islam."

Certainly, an ideology that promotes force, violence, and fear as the way to achieve goals and influence the behavior of others would seem on the face of it to be wrong. But the article does not propose that anyone look in the mirror and ask if policies described as "capture and kill" have any effect on the ideologies of their targets. In fact it dismisses with two words that these extremists we are worried about are "not aggrieved," but rather likely engaging in the "allure" of terrorism because "their friends are doing it."

One thing I find kind of amazing in the article is how the U.S. has been running these "deradicalization" programs in Iraq: "Major General Douglas Stone, commander of detention facilities in Iraq, says that since the US program was set up last September, only 12 of more than 6,000 released inmates have been rearrested."

What? Six thousand released? So, how many have they put in their dungeons? It's well known that the U.S. has rounded up tens of thousands of Iraqis for no other reason that they accidentally crossed paths with operations based on "bad intelligence." Lots has been written on this, but the Winter Soldier testimony was replete with stories about how there is no rhyme or reason to why Iraqis are detained. The article can't bring itself even to discuss the possibility that the Iraqi people are detained arbitrarily, admitting only that there can be "marginal members, imprisoned for supporting extremist groups or (in the Iraqi program) supporting the insurgency in relatively minor ways."

In 60 Minutes report, look who the enemy is!


Weaponized short microwaves: Dangerous people deserve pain

When I worked with wave guides in my junior-level e-m courses, we were always cautioned to stay out of the beam, and for God sakes, not to look at it! This Pentagon contraption is a nasty weaponized version of a wave guide manufactured by Raytheon. It's not exactly rocket science, just a way to generate and direct microwaves (about 1/40 the wavelength of the oven kind) at rouges who might challenge Pentagon objectives.

It's billed as non-destructive, but if you follow through the links HERE, you'll see that rapid burning of soft tissue will occur if a body, or an eye, intercepts the full power of the machine.

Here's the video, care of Raw Story:



Glad to know the military has a branch for the purpose of making carefully stenciled peace signs for weapons test subjects. Maybe they could bring 'em on for the 5th anniversary of the war. I feel so much safer now that I know these guys at least can conceive phrases like "Love for All."

(Update below: The full 60 Minutes video that shows the attack on the peace sign holders.)

Dictator follows to the great beyond a million Indonesians, his own citizens that he killed with U.S.-backed violence

Here is a contrast in evils. In the last post, I pointed how President George W. Bush in his January 28, 2003 State of the Union message described how he knew evil when he saw it. Well, how about this case? Suharto, who ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for 32 years from 1966 to 1998, filled mass graves at a rate of perhaps threefold that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Is that evil?

Judge for yourself. A full examination of Suharto's horrors broadcast on Democracy Now! today, along with plenty of specific detail on how the U.S. supported the massacres both politically and through provision of weapons. I'll just refer readers to that. Make up your own mind.

But I do want to re-post a piece I did for the old blog on September 30, 2005--the 30th anniversary of events that led to Suharto acquiring power and that were portrayed in a pretty good 1982 Mel Gibson film, The Year of Living Dangerously. It was one of the better pieces I did there over the years, if I don't say so myself. Here then, is a reprise of that post:

It's that simple"


"I did not raise my hand to protect private companies."

Ron Paul has reached at least one U.S. soldier who has served in Iraq. I consider it extremely brave what the fellow in this video has done: He demolishes a meaningless jingoistic platitude, "honor", from a Republican debate by telling it like it is in Iraq. He speaks of war profiteering and deep bitterness over the scores being made by contractors while his job was to be the guy with the target painted on his body.

The huge leap he succeeds in making here, one that seems impossible for most Americans, is that Iraqis who fight the U.S. are not "terrorists" but patriots fighting an invader, no less than what we would do ourselves if faced with a foreign occupation army.

Iraq is a horrible example of 21st-century neocolonialism where a country is dismantled and a population is broken so that an avaricious world power can fulfill its perceived strategic goals. Ron Paul may be doing a better job of injecting this truth into the public and even the military consciousness than the left peace movement has done for five years.

Update: Winter Patriot has a good, long post up hitting the problem of confusing "publicity with reality" in U.S. newspeak. This prevents anyone "official" here from suggesting there might be an indigenous, secular, patriotic resistance to occupation in Iraq. Even the "better" Democrats, like Wexler, are deeply infected.

More evidence raises questions about Pentagon narrative

According to the now-ubiquitous Pentagon-approved story of Iraq these last few months, everything is going swimmingly with violence "down" and people returning to their homes to lead a normal life. A piece yesterday in the Bangor Daily News follows this narrative.

But here's some additional evidence to consider, as reported at the site run by Dahr Jamail:

Awoken to a New Danger
Inter Press Service - By Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD, Jan 14 (IPS) - The newly formed 'Awakening' forces set up by the U.S. military are bringing new conflict among people.

For months now the U.S. military has been actively building what it calls 'Awakening' forces and "concerned local citizens" in an effort to reduce attacks on occupation forces.

Members of the forces, which comprise primarily former resistance fighters and tribal groups, are paid 300 dollars monthly. There are at present about 80,000 recruits to these groups. The U.S. military plans to cap the number at 85,000.

According to the U.S. military, 82 percent of the members are Sunni.

The forces, which are opposed by the Iraqi government led by U.S.-appointed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, are also being strongly criticised by Sunni residents in Baghdad and other cities.

"The armed groups called 'Awakening' are now the only powerful players in many Sunni areas in Baghdad, and so they show their power the way others did," Qussay al-Tai'i, a lawyer from Saydiya town southwest of Baghdad told IPS. "It seems that violence has become routine procedure for American soldiers, Iraqi security men and now the so-called Awakening fighters."

Witnesses from the area who have recently fled to Baghdad told IPS that more than 200 residents have been arrested by Awakening fighters supported by the al-Muthanna battalion of the Iraqi army.

"They came and arrested my 14 and 17-year-old sons," said Hajja Um Ahmed. "I told them my sons are only schoolboys who did nothing wrong, but they pushed me away."

Saydiya residents are worried that some of the detainees will be executed as others were in Fallujah and other areas where 'Awakening' fighters have taken over.

"They will kill them in cold blood and throw their bodies in garbage dumps," the terrified father of a 35-year-old detainee, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "They told my son when they took him that they would cut off his head, and it seems that they meant it."

"They have spread their spies all over the area and threatened us with arrest if we ever talk about this to the press," a merchant who did not give his name told IPS. "You too must be careful because they really hate journalists."

The Sunni religious group, The Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), has condemned the detentions, and says the occupation forces and the current government are responsible for the safety of the detained.

"We draw the world's attention to the new wave of detentions and executions by this new toy of the occupation," Sheikh Hatam Ali of the AMS told IPS in Baghdad. "Thousands of Iraqis are being detained, tortured and executed while the U.S. occupation and its illegitimate so-called Iraqi government tell the world lies about reconciliation and justice among Iraqis." U.S. military units apparently did not interfere with raids conducted by the Iraqi army and the 'Awakening' fighters in Saydiya. The raids have added to the large numbers of people detained.

In November 2007, the International Committee of the Red Cross announced that around 60,000 people were currently detained in Iraq. "They are still waiting for their problem to be solved, and the Iraqi government does not seem willing to solve it," Luqman Mohammad, a journalist and human rights activist in Baghdad told IPS. "This country needs a comprehensive solution by the whole international community."

'Awakening' forces have been widely criticised for corruption and for brutal tactics. Many speak of them as "gangs", "criminals", "dogs of the Americans", and "thieves." But the Bush administration, and many media outlets in the west, credit the 'Awakening' forces with bringing stability to volatile areas.

What?! SIXTY THOUSAND people detained? "Awakening" enforcers ruling through violence? If this is the kind of "success" the U.S. military has achieved this year by funding and arming these former-enemy militias, why did the U.S. bother to remove Saddam Hussein? It seems they have adopted both Saddam's personnel and methods for enforcement in Iraq.