Several thousand people lined up to see George Bush, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice shovel dirt into a hole at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, the site slated to become the George Bush Presidential Center housing a museum, library and archives.
Over 100 peace activists showed up to protest, including New York City artist Laurie Arbiter, who helped organize a March of the Dead and carried a sign asking "Does America Have a Conscience?" "Rather than build a library, we should leave the broken ground and just fill it with a big pile of rubble," said Arbiter. "That would truly represent the catastrophic results of the Bush Administration."
As part of the March of the Dead, protesters dressed in black, wore white death masks and had signs around their necks representing dead Iraqis, Afghans and U.S. soldiers. The dramatic march stopped traffic and provoked strong emotions in passers-by, participants and even the police. Renee Schultz, who drove from Indianapolis to join the protest, wore the death mask and a sign representing a 23-year-old female U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. "When I first put on the mask, I just stood there and cried. I kept thinking, 'I am 23 years old and had my whole life ahead of me. Why did I die?'" Schultz looked over at the riot police and noticed that one of them also had tears streaming down his eyes.
When the marchers attempted to reach the public viewing area, the police forced them back to the designated "protest pen" far from the ceremony. One of the protesters, a wheelchair-bound veteran of the Korean War and World War II, angrily told the police that he did not fight in two wars to be told that his freedom of speech would be confined to a "protest zone."
The gathering was part of a three-day People's Response, filled with rallies, marches, teach-ins, and exhibits of crosses and soldiers' boots to represent the war dead. Organized by Texans for Peace, The Dallas Peace Center, CODEPINK and Veterans for Peace, among others, the speakers included former FBI agent Colleen Rowley, former CIA agent Ray McGovern, retired Colonel Ann Wright, professor Robert Jensen, and Texas State Representative Lon Burnam.
Among the protesters was also Cindy Sheehan, the Gold Star mother who led a prolonged protest outside Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas in 2005. "Bush should not be allowed to profit from war crimes, crimes that he has even admitted to," said Sheehan. "It's not right that he will make millions from his book and speaking engagements, while millions have been killed, displaced, tortured and had their lives ruined because of him."
The protesters focused on the lies Bush told the American public to justify invading Iraq, his authorization of torture and the need for accountability. "Accountability is the sign of a true democracy," said former CIA agent Ray McGovern. "No one should be above the law and the truth must not be buried or rewritten."
Protesters were also concerned about the policies the new Bush Center will promote. President Bush said the Center would include an "action-oriented institute" to advance the principles his administration stood for, including the "benefits of limiting the role of government in people's lives." According to local organizer Leslie Harris of CODEPINK, "this really means promoting the same kinds of disastrous policies that brought us pre-emptive war, economic crisis, environmental disaster, unprecedented presidential power, and diminished civil and human rights. We can't let one of America's worst presidents shape our future policies."
The peace activists who came to protest Bush also discussed their disappointment with the Obama administration and the difficulties they anticipate in pushing the new, more conservative Congress to stop funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the actions they encouraged were:
· supporting the Midwest anti-war activists whose homes were raided by the FBI and supporting the January 15 FBI protest in Washington DC;
· promoting local campaigns, including citywide resolutions, to bring our war dollars home;
· reaching out to allies, particularly groups victimized by the economic crisis, but also reaching out to members of the Tea Party who want to see cuts in Pentagon spending;
· pressuring the State Department to stop using private security contractors;
· supporting the December 16 veteran-led civilian disobedience in Washington DC;
· organizing a delegation to Iraq to take testimonies from Iraqis about George Bush and the legacy of the US invasion;
· building on the new calls by Amnesty International and the ACLU to prosecute Bush for war crimes;
· stopping John Yoo, author of the "torture memos", from teaching law at the UC Berkeley law school.
For some light entertainment after long days of protest, a group stopped by local Barnes and Noble to reshelve -- and photograph -- Bush's Decision Points in a more appropriate place in the store. These included placing the book next to The Murder Business in the True Crimes section, Wing Nuts in the Fantasy Section, When Law Fails: Making Sense of Miscarriages of Justice in the Legal Section, and our favorite in the Children's Section, Dr. Seuss' Will You Please Go Now?" With the renewed media attention on George Bush, including his sanctioning of torture, Bush might do well to take Dr. Seuss' advice.
Rally for Peacephoto from Killeen Daily Herald
by Amanda Kim Stairrett, Killeen Daily Herald
Peace activists gathered in Killeen Monday morning to speak out against U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The event, which was hosted at Killeen's Under the Hood Café, focused on Iraq and the president's recent announcement that U.S. combat operations ended there today. Speakers also questioned the deployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment to Iraq. The final of several thousand of the regiment's troopers departed Fort Hood for the Middle East Friday in what military officials call an advise-and-assist mission. Those soldiers will assist Provincial Reconstruction Teams and help prepare Iraqi security forces to care for and protect their own nation.
The 1st Cavalry Division's 4th Brigade Combat Team will deploy soon for the same mission.
Central Texas activists were in town Aug. 23 to protest the regiment's deployment. As buses carried soldiers from main post to West Fort Hood's Robert Gray Army Airfield, demonstrators waited on the overpass with their headlights turned off, according to information from Fort Hood and videos posted on YouTube by participants.
As the buses drove south on Clarke Road Gate at about 3:40 a.m., the demonstrators held up banners and chanted. Several blocked the buses' path for a short time.
"Acting to protect Department of Defense personnel and equipment, Fort Hood police moved the demonstrators away from the intersection to the sidewalk," read a statement from Fort Hood.
Individuals were released without incident and the bus convoy continued to the airfield, it went on to read.
Post officials did have advance knowledge about the demonstration, they said.
Monday's speakers included Cynthia Thomas, Under the Hood manager; Rep. Lon Burnam, a Democrat from Fort Worth and former director of the Dallas Peace Center; Dr. Dahlia Wasfi, a peace activist of Muslim and Jewish heritage; Larry Egly, of the Peace and Justice Support Network of Mennonite Church USA; and Leslie Cunningham, of Texas Labor Against the War.
CodePink Austin, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans For Peace were also represented.
Monday's event was just one of two in Central Texas "aimed at peeling back the mass deception surrounding 'the end of combat operations,'" according to information from Under the Hood. The first was a talk in Austin Sunday featuring Wasfi.
Most Americans are lulled to sleep because they think the war is over, Burnam said. He attacked Presidents Bush and Obama, saying the "expansionist" war was an illegal and immoral occupation — something that was fiscally wrong to start seven years ago.
Burnam heavily criticized the Iraq war's financial burden on the country, saying it was wrong for Bush to start two "outrageous" wars while providing tax cuts. Burnam said he was tired of officials using the "financial back of us working folks" to fund conflicts, and quoted a 1953 speech by President Dwight Eisenhower: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
It is time for Obama to end the occupation, end tax cuts for the rich and cure a deficit that will hurt "our children and grandchildren," Burnam went on to say.
Thomas said Under the Hood started a telephone campaign to make sure non-deployable soldiers were not deployed. The organization has previously worked with soldiers and families from the regiment who said they were not fit to deploy.
The administration and command know there aren't enough soldiers to cover two wars, Thomas said, and they continue to ignore family members and soldiers instead of focusing on their well-being.
"This community is not going to be able to survive it much longer," she said.
The 1 percent of the U.S. population in uniform are the ones fighting and paying the most, Thomas said.
If people really wanted to support the troops, they would be fighting for them to come home, she added.
Contact Amanda Kim Stairrett at astair@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7547. Follow her on Twitter at KDHmilitary or www.facebook.com/astairrett.
For more information
Under the Hood is located at 17 S. College St. It is open daily from 5 to 10 p.m. Visit the café online at www.underthehoodcafe.org.
For more information about Texas Labor Against the War, visit www.txlaboragainstwar.org or call (512) 470-8485.
To learn more about Wasfi and her work, visit www.liberatethis.com. To read her prepared remarks about the war's effect on the Iraqi people, visit www.kdhnews.com.
Activist's personal journey stretches from battlefield to protest march
by Bill Nemitz
How does a soldier become a peace activist? For Charlie Clements, the answer lies somewhere between the lines of a 40-year-old military document that he keeps to this day.
“It says I’m 10 percent mentally disabled,” Clements said with a smile last week. “My protest was quite a silent one in some ways – I went quietly into the night.”
Clements, 64, is executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
He’s also one of 300 or so military veterans who will march through Portland’s Old Port this morning to mark the 25th anniversary of Veterans for Peace, which has grown to more than 6,000 members nationwide since its founding here in Maine back in 1985.
Military service does different things to different people.
Some wear it for a lifetime as a badge of honor, weaving their war stories more deeply into their very identity with each retelling.
Others tuck it away in the closet and rarely, if ever, talk about it again.
Then there are these vets, almost all decades removed from their days in uniform, who spend their gray-haired years marching not to the sound of a military band, but rather to the lyrics of anti-war protest songs.
Each, of course, has his or her own story. For Clements, once an Air Force pilot who flew more than 50 missions in Southeast Asia before deciding one day he couldn’t anymore, it begins as a 17-year-old cadet at the U.S. Air Force Academy in the mid-1960s.
“The dominant thought in my class was, ‘We hope the war doesn’t end before we get there,’ ” Clements recalled as the Veterans for Peace conference got under way Thursday. “Because wars are where young men test themselves, they are where young officers make their mark, they are what we were trained for.”
Upon earning his commission as a second lieutenant, Clements enrolled with the Air Force’s blessing in a graduate astronautics program at UCLA. He could have sat out the Vietnam War with his nose in a book, but he decided eight months into the program that he had a duty to serve in Southeast Asia.
He remembers walking in uniform past protesters at UCLA in the fall of 1967 – back in those early days of the anti-war movement, the protesters would just stand silently with their signs while he and his comrades passed by.
“I remember thinking very clearly that I knew much more about the world than these people did, that this was their right to do this,” he said. “And that I would go to Vietnam and defend their right to do this because I have a better understanding of this threat that faces us.”
CHOSE TO PILOT TRANSPORT PLANE
He also knew he didn’t want to kill anyone. So, upon graduating from flight school, he chose to pilot a C-130 transport plane rather than an assault aircraft and, with the war at full tilt, departed for Vietnam in August of 1969.
“What (the C-130) afforded me was a vast opportunity to see the war from different perspectives,” Clements said. “And with these experiences, I began to have encounters that gradually lifted the scales off my eyes.”
He once watched then-President Richard Nixon insist on the Armed Forces Network that the United States had no military presence in Laos, when he knew for a fact that C-130s just like the one he flew were ferrying personnel and supplies to secret U.S. bases there.
“Before that, it had never occurred to me before that the president would actually go on television and lie,” Clements said.
He once transported a group of 60 Viet Cong prisoners from one location to another – he was struck not just by the hatred in their eyes whenever they looked at him, but by an intensity, a sense of purpose that he rarely saw among young American GI’s.
GETTING THE BODY COUNT RIGHT
He once showed up at a morgue to pick up the body of a soldier killed in action. “You can’t have him today,” a sergeant told him. “The body count’s not right and we have to hang onto him for a few days.”
Known for his sharp intellect, Clements once was asked by his higher-ups to write a history of the Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System by which C-130s delivered ordnance and supplies without actually touching down. The so-called LAPES procedure didn’t work well. That didn’t matter.
“I soon realized they were going to record this the way the Air Force wanted it recorded,” he said. “Not necessarily the way the pilots perceived it was happening,”
Then there was Cambodia.
In the spring of 1970, Clements flew a top-secret delegation of State Department officials to Phnom Penh – he was told at the time it was for an off-the-record meeting about securing a portion of the Ho Chi Minh Trail that passed through that country.
Only later would Clements learn the meeting was actually to plan the overthrow of Cambodia’s Prince Sihanouk – a precursor to the invasion of Cambodia launched that May. As he flew troops into Cambodia the day before the invasion began, he found himself consumed with anger.
“I’d had this rationale that I wasn’t killing anybody, that I was an innocent of sorts,” he said. “But throughout that day I began to understand that I was very much a part of the machinery of war, that I was greasing the skids of war. And I decided what I was being asked to do was immoral.”
He asked for and received an emergency medical leave home. And when he told his stateside commanding officer that he could no longer fly missions in Southeast Asia, he was sent to an Army medical facility for what he thought was a routine psychiatric examination.
Upon his arrival, a hospital nurse handed Clements a set of pajamas.
“No, you don’t understand,” he said. “I’m staying over at the officers quarters.”
“No, you’re staying here,” replied the nurse. “This is a closed psychiatric ward and you’re not leaving.”
There he remained, without visitors or telephone privileges, for weeks. And six months later, after refusing an offer to have his record sanitized if he’d just go back to Saigon and resume flying, the Air Force quietly declared him 10 percent mentally disabled and gave him an honorable discharge.
PUTS MEDICAL SKILLS TO USE
Clements would go on to become a physician and combine his medical skills with human rights work in Central America, where he spent the early 1980s treating victims of the civil war in El Salvador (many wounded by the same U.S. military aircraft in which he once trained). It was there, in 1985, that he met and joined the founders of Veterans for Peace.
He also later served as president of Physicians for Human Rights, traveling to Sweden in 1997 to accept the organization’s Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to ban land mines.
And now here he is in Maine, one of a small battalion of gray-haired veterans who emerged from war convinced that there has to be a better way.
Clements knows that some perceive Veterans for Peace as a ragtag group of radicals bent on tearing down the same country they once took an oath to protect. He also knows that perception could not be further from the truth.
Even now, he said, he has nothing but “empathy and respect” for those currently serving in the military – not to mention the families who have endured two, three, four or more deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan.
“I think our military is, more than ever in my lifetime, separated from the rest of society,” Clements said. “There’s a gulf between the ordinary civilians in our country and the military. We’re fighting two wars, but nobody (outside the military and their families) feels like they’re making any sacrifices.”
Time will tell whether the aging Vietnam veterans who now dominate Veterans for Peace will be replenished in the coming years with soldiers equally disillusioned by their service in Iraq or Afghanistan. Clements’ experience tells him the transition from the battlefield to the protest march often takes years, not weeks or months.
He’s also come to expect that as he and his comrades parade through downtown Portland this morning, some on the sidelines inevitably will call them a disgrace to the uniform they once wore.
But that piece of paper – the one that all these years later still labels him 10 percent out of step with the powers that once were – leaves him no choice.
“You don’t do this because of what people will think,” Clements said with another anything-but-angry smile. “You do this because of something inside you that compels you to speak your truth.”
Tell about one of the proudest moments in your life.I think the questions on the cards are phrased very well, and, as expected, they can lead to tangential discussions where others share their memories about the subject at hand.
What is an activity that makes you feel ALIVE?
Tell about something you really like about where you live.
Describe one of the best decisions you made in your life.
What is a habit you picked up from a relative?
Tell about an aroma you recall from childhood.
Activists Protest War Outside Post
by Amanda Kim Stairrett
In conjunction with the sixth annual Iraq Veterans Against the War convention in Austin, Killeen's Under the Hood Café is hosting a concert and barbecue Saturday.
Under the Hood, at 17 S. College St., is a "place for soldiers to gather, relax and speak freely about the wars and the military," according to www.underthehoodcafe.org. Organizers also provide support services for soldiers and their families, including counseling and legal advice.
Set to perform are Travis Bishop, who was arrested in August at Fort Hood after refusing to deploy to Afghanistan, Ryan Harvey and R.A.S. Admission is free for those with military identification and a suggested donation of $5 each for those without.
This is the first large-scale event Under the Hood has hosted, said Manager Cynthia Thomas. The goal of Saturday's event is to let veterans and the military community know Under the Hood is there and willing to support them, Thomas added.
The Iraq Veterans Against the War convention began Thursday at Austin's Huston-Tillotson University and ends Sunday. Activities include Fort Hood outreach, panels and workshops.
Iraq Veterans Against the War is a nationwide organization made of past and present soldiers who have served since Sept. 11, 2001, according to information from the organization. It was founded six years ago during a Veterans for Peace convention in Boston "to give a voice to the large number of active-duty service people and veterans who are against this war, but are under various pressures to remain silent," according to its website, www.ivaw.org.
It is also "dedicated to fighting for adequate physical and mental health care, full benefits and other support for returning veterans," read www.ivaw.org.
Goals of the convention are to discuss important issues in the veterans' movement and "serve as a significant opportunity for support in a recovering community," Jose Vasquez, executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War, said in a statement released by the organization.
Austin was chosen as the convention site because it is an hour from Fort Hood.
"This community, especially due to past traumatic events, deserves our outreach and everyone's attention," he said. "It is part of (Iraq Veterans Against the War's) mission to reach out to those service members and veterans who have been fighting since Sept. 11. If they are questioning the illegal wars and occupations and choose to resist, we support them."
Local protest
Conference attendees and local activists protested at Fort Hood's East Gate Thursday, chanting and displaying signs that said they support troops when they disobey their officers; calling for an end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and return of American troops; repealing the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy and Arizona's immigration enforcement law; getting Israel out of Gaza; and supporting no war but the class war.
The protesters, many of whom were Iraq veterans, marched along Veterans Memorial Boulevard and Fort Hood Street, chanting and carrying signs.
Chants included "Resistance is justified when people are occupied," "They're our brothers, they're our sisters, we support war resistors," "Money for jobs and education, not for Afghan occupation" and "Occupation is a crime from Iraq to Palestine."
Matt Southworth served as an intelligence analyst from 2002 to 2004, serving a tour to Iraq. He now works as a campaigns program assistant for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker lobbying group that operates in Washington, D.C.
Southworth said he and others support the troops, but are against the war, and one of his prime focuses is ensuring veterans get the health care they need.
Support is key, said Chris Capps-Schubert, a former signal soldier who served for three years before being discharged for desertion. The convention and protest aim to show veterans at Fort Hood that Iraq Veterans Against the War has a presence. It's a place to turn to, he said, adding that veterans can get in contact with those who can support them.
ODE TO THE HUMMER
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
We bury a Hummer here to rust
And from these ashes, we recreate
A world of peace, an end to hate.
I'm a fourth-generation fisherwoman from the Texas Gulf Coast, on a boat since I was eight. Over the last two decades, I've become a self-appointed watchdog of the chemical, oil, and gas corporations that are decimating the Gulf.
I hate to say it, but what I'm seeing now in the Gulf ain't nothing new. The toxic releases, the lies, the cover-ups, the skimping on safety, the nonexistent documents, the "swinging door" with regulators, the deaths. Same ole same ole.
What is new is the massive nature of the oil gusher and the fact that it can't be covered up because it's ongoing and being videoed. This elephant can't be swept under the carpet, but I'm sure if BP could, BP would.
There are politicians out there -- we've all heard them -- who say this oil spill is just one accident and one accident does not a case make. Heck, one plane crashes and you don't stop flying, do ya? Well, this isn't just one accident. This is the biggest flame among the thousands of fires set by Corporate America on its Sherman-like march across the Gulf.
The bottom line is that the Gulf of Mexico dies a little every day from the tens of thousands of chemical plants, oil refineries, and oil and gas rigs that pockmark the Gulf and its coastlines. It's a death of ten thousand cuts, and many of these offenses don't get reported at all. We, the public, really have no way of knowing. The companies and the agencies certainly aren't going to tell us. They've proved that time and time again. The truth of the matter only becomes clear when something monstrous like the BP oil spill comes along and wakes us up to the nightmare.
Austinites think of Alan Pogue as someone who records reality. Yet he also transforms that visual record into art. And, in an unfaltering way, into social justice.
Working in black and white, Pogue is best known for covering social and political movements, culture and conflict, around the world: migrant workers, prison conditions and victims of violence in Texas, Cuba, Pakistan, Haiti and Iraq, among other places.
The Corpus Christi native and Vietnam War veteran was the main photographer for the Rag newspaper from 1969 to 1977. His images appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Texas Monthly and Kyodo News Japan. He has served as staff photographer for the Texas Observer for 38 years.
He has won several international awards and worked with groups such as Veterans for Peace, Global Peace Campaign and Voices in the Wilderness.
Pogue captured the essence of such Texas personalities as John Henry Faulk, Sissy Farenthold, Barbara Jordan, Molly Ivins, Ann Richards and Jim Hightower.
"The art of photography is part intellectual and part instinctual," Pogue says. "I select what I choose to photograph for its social significance, but in the act of photographing, intellectual considerations subside, my sense of hearing is muted and I move in an emotional/visual environment, not thinking in words."
— Michael Barnes
Austin Critics' Table Awards
When: 7 p.m. Monday, June 7
Where: Cap City Comedy Club, 8120 Research Blvd.
Cost: Free
Early in the morning in advance of the president's arrival, hundreds of workers clad in white jumpsuits and rubber gloves hit the beaches to dig oily debris from the sand and haul it off. Workers refused to say who hired them, telling a reporter they were told to keep quiet or lose their jobs.
