Why We Need To Send More Troops To Iraq

Why we need to send more troops to Iraq:

The Ehren Watada Story

While reading bloglines this week, I came across this story from MTV News. Ehren Watada is the first active solider to refuse deployment to Iraq. "The court-martial of Ehren Watada, an Army lieutenant who refused to deploy to Iraq, ended in a mistrial Wednesday (February 7) after a judge ruled that the soldier misunderstood a document he signed admitting to some of the charges against him. Military judge Lieutenant Colonel John Head, who set a March 12 date for a new trial, ruled that Watada intended to acknowledge that he did not go to Iraq with his unit in June but never meant to admit he had a duty to go there."


And you can watch this story on youtube here.


There are tons of videos about him on youtube, and here is his official website.

Love Your Enemies

Been inspired by my friend Mike and his blog lately. He's been reading a book called Nonviolence: 25 lessons from history. Thought I would post these here and see what you think:

1. There is no proactive word for nonviolence.
2. Nations that build military forces as deterrants will eventually use them.
3. Practioners of nonviolence are seen as enemies of the state.
4. Once a state takes over a religion, the religion loses its nonviolent teachings.
5. A rebel can be defanged and co-opted by making him a saint after he is dead.
6. Somewhere behind every war there are always a few founding lies.
7. A propoganda machine promoting hatred always has a war waiting in the wings.
8. People who go to war begin to resemble their enemy.
9. A conflict between a violent and nonviolent force is a moral argument. If the violent side can provoke the nonviolent side into violence, the violent side has won.
10. The problem lies not in the nature of man but in the nature of power.
11. The longer a war lasts, the less popular it becomes.
12. The state imagines it is impotent without a military becuase it cannot conceive of power without force.
13. It is often not the largest but the best organized and most articulate group that prevails.
14. All debate momentarily ends with an "enforced silence" once the first shots are fired.
15. A shooting war is not necessary to overthrow an established power but is used to consolidate the revolution itself.
16. Violence does not resolve. It always leads to more violence.
17. Warfare produces peace activists. A group of veterans is a likely place to find peace activists.
18. People motivated by fear do not act well.
19. While it is perfectly feasible to convince a people faced with brutal oppression to rise up in a suicidal attack on their oppressor, it is almosty impossible to convince them to meet deadly force with nonviolent resistance.
20. Wars do not need to be sold to the general public if they can be carried out by an all-volunteer professional military.
21. Once you begin the business of killing, you just get "deeper and deeper," without limits.
22. Violence always comes with a supposedly rational explanation - which is only dismissed as irrational if violence fails.
23. Violence is a virus that infects and takes over.
24. The miracle is that despite all of society's promotion of warfare, most soldiers find warfare to be a wrenching departure from their own moral values.
25. The hard work of beginning a movement to end war has already been done.

Unfortunate 4th Anniversary of the Iraq War

Finally! For the past year I have desperately been searching for a group of people here in Dallas that I could protest this lame ass excuse of war with. I finally found one, and want to invite everyone to the upcoming Unfortunate 4th Anniversary of the Iraq War protest in March.



For more info, please see www.dallasrally.com. And help spread the word !

Troops Against War

GIs Petition Congress To End Iraq War
More Than 1,000 Military Personnel Sign Petition Urging Withdrawal

"They say they are not disloyal. They say they are not shirking their duty and that they do not oppose war. But more than 1,000 active-duty and reserve members of the U.S. military are against the war in Iraq and have said so in an unusually public way — by petitioning Congress last month.

Several of them appear to explain their actions to correspondent Lara Logan this Sunday, Feb. 25, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

"I'm not anti-war. I'm not a pacifist. I'm not opposed to protecting our country and defending our principles," says Navy Petty Officer Jonathan Hutto, an Iraq war veteran who, along with another veteran, initiated the petition."

Find more here, and preview the video:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/22/60minutes/main2505412.shtml

If you live in Dallas, do something about it! Protest!

www.dallasrally.com