“We are not the first group to call for impeachment. We have decided to add our voice to the call. All the reasons given for the invasion have shown themselves to be half-truths or misleading. The conflict continues to drag on taking the lives of our soldiers and innocent Iraqis. It is clear that George Bush does not intend to change course in an effort to right this great wrong. He has had enough time in his second term to begin a shift and he has not. It is time to remove him from office.” David Cline, then President of the VFP, March ‘05

I met Dave Cline on August 4th, 2005, just two days before myself and about 40 members of the Veterans for Peace (and about 2 dozen others ranging from Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Vets Against the War, Vietnam Vets Against the War, and my group, Gold Star Families for Peace and Texas peace activists) made our historic walk down Prairie Chapel Road on August 6th.

I regret that I made Dave’s life a wee bit harder those few days during that August. Being one of the main speakers at the VFP National Convention that year was just incidental to my determination to ask George “what noble cause” did he kill my son Casey for and what noble cause was keeping our troops in Iraq, dying and killing innocent Iraqis.

Dave got a hold of me that first night at the Bar-be-que and he told me that I was causing a division at the Convention because most of the Vets wanted to go with me and their very important annual business meeting was happening the same day I had decided to confront George in Crawford. I had already told the world I was going on August 6th, so Dave and I reached an agreement that a “platoon” of Vets would go with me (some defied “orders” and followed us to Crawford, anyway) and the rest would stay at the Convention. In fact, I rode from Dallas to Crawford (the first of what would become many such trips) on the Veterans for Peace Impeachment Bus.

The VFP and Dave turned out to be huge supporters of Camp Casey that year and throughout these past years, as they had supported me and Gold Star Families for Peace when I first learned of them at the Arlington West display in Santa Barbara. Dave spent a lot of time in Crawford that summer and his experience in the peace movement and beyond have always been a touchstone in my life as a budding activist.

Each time I have seen Dave since then, I have been troubled at the seeming deteriorating condition of his health, and amazed and inspired by his energy and resolve to see the end of the Iraq occupation. The last time I saw him a few months ago, I hugged him and was shocked at how thin he was and how tenuous his connection to life was. I am deeply saddened by his passing, honored by our friendship. Our country has sadly lost a true warrior for peace.

Many of you know already that Dave was wounded three times in Vietnam and was a major leader in the GI resistance to that horribly messy lie. I would recommend watching the film Sir, No Sir! to get a great historical perspective on that important movement which had a great impact on ending the war and which Dave Cline had an enormous impact on.

I have been contemplating how to honor Dave and his lifelong sacrifice for peace.

For myself, I will be making donations to two organizations: Courage to Resist (for Iraq war resisters) and Veterans for Peace to help continue their very important truth in recruitment work. I am continually puzzled that after 4 ½ years of a proven illegal and immoral war that our dreadfully abused troops are repeatedly allowing themselves to be misused and sent into a situation that is inherently evil. With over one million Iraqis dead and millions wounded, or displaced, our troops must have the courage to resist being used as pawns in a deadly game of genocide and destabilization of an entire region. A growing GI resistance movement would honor Dave’s memory. Preventing our young people from enlisting in the imperial forces of the USA is imperative for reining in a destructively out of control war machine which Dave fought against so courageously.

Dave’s death is also a wake-up call for how our veterans from Vietnam are still dying from war related causes (either directly, or indirectly). A friend of mine from Houston who is in MFSO just lost her Vietnam veteran husband this past week, too. It is abominable that a country which sends its young people to die for lies and does not care for them when they come home broken in body and spirit.

It will be so hard to go to peace events and not see my friend Dave there. He worked so tirelessly to end the imperialistic occupation of Vietnam and prevent the corporate/military invasion of Iraq and I hope he passed knowing he did everything humanly possible and his life had high value, deep meaning, and his work honored the memory of Casey, almost 4,000 Americans killed in Iraq and almost 60,000 needlessly KIA in Vietnam. His work and inspiration has helped thousands of other veterans channel their anger and PTSD into positive activities for peace.

I also believe a way to honor Dave’s life would be for the present peace movement to recommit itself to this immensely important work and find peace within our ranks and put aside egos and personal agendas to achieve that for which Dave sacrificed so much:

True and lasting peace.

As Columbia only very recently announced, Iranian President Mahmoud

Ahmadinejad will be speaking in Roone Arledge auditorium this Monday.

A number of students and student organizations have already announced

plans for a protest rally the same day. We are not among them. We do

not endorse Ahmadinejad or his views, many of which are inexcusable.

However, as opponents of a US military strike against Iran, we have

serious concerns with the content of some of the hostility that has

been expressed to his presence, and specifically with the planned

protest.

We fear the demonization of Ahmadinejad, because we think this

demonization contributes to the likelihood of war. In the current

climate, with many on the political right in the U.S. and Israel

pushing for air strikes, a campaign against Ahmadinejad is dangerous,

regardless of the intentions of most involved. A call to action,

unless it prominently rules out war, implies military action.

A rally where each speaker denounces Ahmadinejad’s reactionary

policies and just a few call explicitly for military action will still

be perceived, on campus and around the U.S., as pro-war. The

right-wing media, from Fox News to the New York tabloids, has already

jumped on the event, and will spin it to favor their cause.

Conservative organizations with no affiliation to Columbia’s campus,

such as the David Project, have already signed on to the rally on

Facebook, and are likely to distribute hundreds of warmongering flyers

and picket signs. The rally will seem to be a sea of pro-war

demonstrators – and the more people who attend it and the more

organizations that endorse it, the more powerful this disastrous

message will be.

A U.S. attack on Iran, which is not an inevitability but is a real

possibility, would have consequences just as terrible as the invasion

of Iraq. Thousands would die in initial air strikes, and more in the

resulting backlash and regional conflagration. The work of Iranian

campaigners for free speech, women’s rights, and lesbian and gay

liberation, and against racism and anti-semitism, would be set back

immeasurably. As Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi has pointed out,

“Human rights are not established by throwing cluster bombs on people.

You cannot introduce democracy to a country by using tanks.”

There are other means for engagement with Iran than war, and other

means for disagreement with Ahmadinejad than the planned protest. We

call on those who do not support a war with Iran to be wary of the

vilification of Ahmadinejad, to avoid Monday’s rally, and to express

vocally their opposition to military intervention.

 ccaw_organizing@googlegroups.com

ALAN MAASS reports on the successful struggle to save Kenneth Foster.

IN AN inspiring victory for the anti-death penalty struggle, Kenneth Foster Jr. won clemency August 30, hours before he was scheduled to be executed in Texas’ death chamber.

For more than 10 years, politicians, prosecutors and judges at every level failed Kenneth. They all agreed that he should be put to death, even though everyone acknowledges he never killed anyone.

The only reason Kenneth is alive today is because he and his supporters refused to stop fighting. They exposed the injustices surrounding his case and forced the political and media establishment to pay attention. As Kenneth’s lawyer Keith Hampton put it, “Extra-legal means work.”

Kenneth was nearly put to death because he was driving the car on an August night in 1996 during a string of robberies committed by Mauriceo Brown. At the end of the night, Brown got out of the car and shot Michael LaHood Jr.

Even prosecutors admit that Kenneth remained in the car and had nothing to do with the shooting. But using Texas’ “Law of Parties,” they argued that Kenneth either knew that Brown was planning to commit murder, or should have “anticipated” it, so he should suffer the same penalty.

By trying him alongside Mauriceo Brown–and making a plea deal with the other occupants of the car in return for testimony–the state won its case against Kenneth and got a death sentence.

In 2005, a federal judge overturned Kenneth’s death sentence on the grounds that he had neither “major participation” in the murder nor displayed a “reckless indifference to human life.” But that decision was overruled in turn at a higher level, and in August, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals dismissed Kenneth’s final legal appeal without even bothering to write an opinion.

With the decision in the hands of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Kenneth’s chances looked grim. Perry recently surpassed his predecessor, George Bush, in the most executions carried out since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. When the European Union recently called on Texas to consider ending the death penalty, Perry’s spokesperson responded that the U.S. had “fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch”–and that “Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.”

Perry had commuted death sentences before, but only in cases where the U.S. Supreme Court or some other court action had effectively made the decision for him. He had turned down every application for clemency from a death row prisoner. In fact, in 2004, when the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted by 5-to-1 to recommend clemency for Kelsey Patterson, who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, Perry ignored the vote–and the execution went ahead. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

FORTUNATELY, KENNETH could rely on dozens of supporters, in Texas and around the country, to make his case for justice.

After his conviction, Kenneth became an activist on death row. The DRIVE (Death Row Inter-communalist Vanguard Engagement) Movement he co-founded with other prisoners used nonviolent protest to draw attention to awful conditions on death row and demand abolition of the death penalty.

When his execution date was announced last May, Kenneth’s family came together with anti-death penalty activists to form the Save Kenneth Foster Campaign. Its members held weekly meetings to organize a movement around the case. Rallies and marches in Austin and San Antonio drew dozens and then several hundred people into the streets.

Sadly, activists found doors closed in their faces where they had expected support. Texas’ well-known liberal Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee complained that activists were leaving too many messages asking her to take a stand–and canceled a promised meeting with members of the campaign for Kenneth.

In New York City, when Kenneth’s supporters asked Rep. Charles Rangel to bring the case to the attention of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rangel did nothing–beyond sending a “policy adviser” to meet with a delegation of activists and tell them that their appeal to Rangel had arrived too late for him to even read it.

But the word was spreading, especially in Texas, where–thanks to the mounting pressure applied by activists–Kenneth’s case became a major news story. Mainstream newspapers, including some with conservative reputations, called for the execution to be halted.“

Governor Perry once said that there was no hue and cry against the death penalty in Texas,” said Lily Hughes of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. “Well, here was your hue and cry.”

The biggest source of inspiration for the struggle was Kenneth himself, who urged on his supporters and said he was beginning a hunger strike in the final days before the execution.“

As the days wind down,” Kenneth wrote in what he must have feared would be one of his last letters, “I still find myself continually inspired and able to keep a smile on my face, because I know that RIGHT is on OUR side, and though they may kill my body, they can’t kill what we’ve done. All of you are amazing, and I don’t have words right now to thank you all in the way that you need to be thanked.”

In August, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals turned down Kenneth’s final legal appeal, and activists turned their attention to Perry and the Board of Pardons and Paroles. The board is appointed by the governor and considered by anti-death penalty activists to be little more than a rubber stamp, but Kenneth’s supporters flooded Perry and the board members with telephone calls, faxes and e-mails.

The board was due to make a decision August 28, but delayed it for one day, and then another. Then, with seven hours to go before the scheduled execution, the announcement came: the board had voted 6-1 to recommend clemency.

All eyes turned to Perry. This time, the scrutiny and questioning was too widespread for him to ignore. He ordered a halt to the execution and commuted Kenneth’s sentence to life in prison. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

KENNETH’S CLEMENCY was dismissed by some as a unique case–the result of the overly strict Law of Parties–that is unlikely to have an impact on other executions. But Kenneth Foster has much more in common with other death row prisoners than this suggests.

Kenneth was too poor to afford an attorney and had to rely on a court-appointed lawyer with a losing record in every capital case she defended. The state withheld evidence, and witnesses testified after making plea deals. Kenneth is African American and charged in the murder of a white victim–two facts which together make it many times more likely that prosecutors would seek the death penalty.

The Law of Parties accounts for only a minority of prisoners on Texas’ death row–though the Dallas Morning News’ estimate that 80 death row prisoners were convicted under the law, and that 20 have already been put to death, is probably far higher than most people realize.

But the basic fact of this case–that Kenneth came to the brink of the death chamber for being in the wrong place at the wrong time–is true about many more death row prisoners.

It’s obviously true of the now more than 120 people in the last 30 years who have been exonerated and freed from death row–often, victims of prosecutors under pressure to win convictions, no matter what the facts.

But it’s also true of so many who admit their guilt–people who made a terrible mistake, often while incapacitated or intoxicated, and are now supposed to pay for it with their lives. The stereotype promoted by prosecutors of death penalty defendants as cold-blooded monsters who glory in their crimes applies no more to them than to Kenneth Foster.

Revelations of the randomness of the death penalty system–its shocking number of innocent victims wrongly convicted, its pathetically low standards and questionable ethics–is raising new questions. From a high point in the 1990s, support for the death penalty is down to 65 percent, but doubts about the system are so strong that 58 percent of people want a national moratorium on all executions.

Kenneth Foster’s case will lead to more questioning. How on earth, people will wonder, could a man who was never responsible for killing anyone have come within hours of being put to death?

The tide is turning against the death penalty in the U.S. But capital punishment won’t be ended without more action–more people standing up to expose the injustices in cases like Kenneth’

by Ben Davis

August 28, 2008

Barring a miracle – and miracles are in short order on Texas’ death row – Kenneth Foster is likely to die Thursday. The battle around his case has been a heroic one. Kenneth’s horrifying story of being condemned to death on a misapplication of an already draconian legal monstrosity – Texas’ “Law of Parties,” which enshrines guilt by association – as well as his own clear-eyed and articulate work telling his story and speaking out for others, have won him a host of supporters.

Foremost, of course, there is his family, including his heartbreakingly articulate daughter Nydesha – who has never touched her father, and now may never do so. There is the Coalition to Save Kenneth Foster, a group of activists who have rallied to his defense. There is also the New York hip-hop collective the Welfare Poets, and Kenneth’s wife, the Dutch hip-hop artist Jav’lin, who dedicated the moving song Walk With Me on the Poets’ Cruel and Unusual Punishment CD to her husband’s struggle to live. Mumia Abu-Jamal, from his own death row confinement, wrote in solidarity, while Amnesty International called the case “a new low for Texas” – and that is low indeed.

There are others. Sportswriter Dave Zirin’s Jocks 4 Justice, a coalition of socially conscious sports figures like Ruben “Hurricane” Carter, Etan Thomas and Dr. John Carlos, said that Kenneth should live. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa filed an amicus curae brief for Kenneth. And the European Union singled Kenneth’s case out as particularly egregious in condemning Texas’ 400th execution. (Governor Perry’s response was to state that the U.S. had fought a war to be free of European influence, and that “Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.”)

The major papers in Texas have all come out against the execution. There is even a soul-searching statement from Sean-Paul Kelley, a boyhood friend of Michael LaHood, the murder victim in whose name Kenneth will be strapped to a gurney this Thursday: “the execution of a young man who didn’t even kill Mike? That’s not justice.” Kelley writes. “It’s senseless vengeance, a barbarism cloaked in the black robes of justice.”

With the picture of this broad, international roster of supporters before our eyes, a coalition of activists in New York decided to approach our own formally anti-death-penalty Democratic representative Charles Rangel, co-founder of the Congressional Black Caucus. Kenneth’s impeding execution is clearly a Civil Rights issue, as is the death penalty in general. It is difficult to imagine a wealthy white 19-year-old receiving the same treatment that Kenneth did. All five – yes, five – of the executions scheduled in Texas for this month are people of color (four are Black, one is Latino).

Two weeks ago, Rangel’s staff took a draft letter we wrote to Governor Perry on Kenneth’s behalf, which we hoped he would sign onto. They pumped us for information about the case; they wanted to know who was on board already. We told them that we wanted Rangel, as a politician with an abolitionist record, to take the lead in making Kenneth’s case heard in the halls of power. Then we waited. And as of last week, we were informed that Rangel would not see our letter for “several more days.” Given that after Tuesday it did not really matter, since it is was on Tuesday that the Pardons Board was to make its decision whether or not to recommend the case to the Governor (it has been delayed to today, Wednesday), this was the same as shutting the door.

So Monday morning, we decided to pay a visit to Charles Rangel.

We brought members of Harlem’s Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP) and supporters of Kenneth. There was Ray Ramirez from the Welfare Poets, and Ronnique Hawkins from the Anti-Lynching Movement, and Michael Letwin, the radical lawyer and former President of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW. There was Jeffrey Deskovic, recently released on DNA evidence after 17 years in jail, and Lawrence Hayes, former Black Panther, New York death row inmate and Campaign founder. There was a man whose son has been a penpal of Kenneth’s for years. We were students and activists and independent journalists, former prisoners and family members – those that have the most at stake in fighting the death penalty and criminal injustice. And we were there to ask that our anti-death-penalty representative to take a stand while it still mattered.

They didn’t want to let us up at first, but at last Rangel’s policy adviser came down to meet our community delegation. He sat us around a cafeteria table, and explained to us that Rangel was a very busy man, that he hadn’t read the letter and that we hadn’t gotten it to him in time. He explained that whether we liked it or not, Kenneth had been convicted by a real law in Texas, and that Rangel had to be careful what he said about that. He seemed to have forgotten – the fight for racial justice in the US meant overturning “real” laws like slavery and Jim Crow. Unjust laws are made to be broken. Rangel, the man said, had a pile of papers on his desk. This representative of our elected official sat at a table with those who’d been railroaded by the criminal injustice system and had their lives destroyed by it and told them that Kenneth’s case was not urgent enough.

But, they’d “talk to the communications director at the Congressional Black Caucus.” They’d “put it in front of Rangel.”

Kenneth Foster’s execution date is Thursday at 6 pm.

Meanwhile, a few of us, waiting outside in Adam Clayton Powell Plaza for our press conference to begin, were confronted by security guards for carrying “Save Kenneth” signs. They told us we needed a permit. Not even for holding up the signs. Just for holding them in our hands. A guard in a beret told us we were inciting a disturbance – that is, he seemed to think that the sight that the words “Save Kenneth Foster” and a picture of Kenneth and Nydesha under someone’s arm might incite a disturbance.

Just another example of post-9/11 paranoia in New York, maybe. But it also shows how the law-and-order agenda has sapped away all our rights, has made acceptable affronts that would have seemed absurd a few years ago, with the death penalty being only the sharpest expression of this. Kenneth himself has written about how his case symbolizes this assault. And Kenneth, through his own activism behind bars, has helped build a movement to shine a light on the injustice – to expose the racism, the blood lust and the social blindness that our criminal injustice system is built on…not least of all the out-of-control Texas death machine.

And it seems that some people would rather not have to be confronted with this.

There is a final thought. At the end of the day, Kenneth is being executed for not having predicted a murder that he had no way of predicting, for not having read Mauricio Brown’s mind when he exited the car Kenneth has been driving. For not having called out to stop a murder he did not know was going to be committed. He is being killed for not seeing the future, “sentenced to death for leaving his crystal ball at home,” as Amnesty puts it.

Our representatives, unlike Kenneth, can see the future. They know exactly the hour and the date that the killing of Kenneth Foster will take place. The state of Texas is methodically, inexorably plotting the death of Kenneth Foster, piece by piece, hour by hour.

Some politicians have built their careers on promises of racial equality – careers they’ve too-often put ahead of the lives of individuals like Kenneth when it could make a difference. Texas is bucking a national trend against the death penalty. Texas kills with impunity, at least in part because none of our Democratic elected officials will call out to stop them. This may or may not make them “party” to Kenneth’s murder by some obscure legal standard — the important thing is that the cries for justice have been too infrequent.

We know that unjust laws like the “law of parties” are applied only to the voiceless and never to the powerful with their lawyers and policy advisers. But this doesn’t change the fact that those with power should speak out when their influence could make the difference. Or that it is long past time to call for a halt to the Civil Rights catastrophe that is the Texas killing machine, the fulcrum of the moral abyss that is the U.S. penal system. And if we cannot count on our elected officials to make this cry for justice heard, it will be up to us, at the grassroots – the kind of people represented so well Monday at Charles Rangel’s office – to make it heard.

Ben Davis is a member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty in New York City.

What you can do:
Call the Governor and the Texas Board and urge them to grant clemency to Kenneth Foster:
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles:
Phone (512)406-5852
Fax (512)467-0945

Gov. Rick Perry
Phone (512)463-1782
Fax (512)463-1849

To get involved, go to www.freekenneth.com or email nyc@nodeathpenalty.org

Here in Amman, Jordan, a British teenager, Sonia, age 12, recently spent four days interviewing and befriending Iraqi youngsters close to her in age. She wanted to learn, firsthand, about the experiences of Iraqi youngsters who have fled war and violence in their home country.

A versatile and talented child, Sonia loves to play the trumpet and perform classical Indian dances, the latter being somewhat unusual for a Muslim girl. When she was eight years old, shortly before the U.S. and the U.K. attacked Iraq, she wrote a poem urging respect for the rights of Iraqi children whose lives and hopes would be destroyed by war. The poem reached many people, intensifying efforts of peace activists to stop the war before it started. Sonia continued her efforts on behalf of Iraqi children, even founding an organization called “Children Against War.” (www.j-n-v.org/Action/Appeal_Children_Against_War_delegation_July_2007.htm - 36k)

In the spring of 2007, she asked her mother if she could raise money through music and dance performances, to pay for a trip to Amman, so that she could film Iraqi children speaking for themselves. After talking it over with other peace activists, her mother agreed to accompany Sonia, and so, last week, they arrived here for a four day trip.

We began our visits at the home of two teenage girls who speak English fluently. They have been living in Amman, Jordan for several years. Their father still is not allowed to work in Jordan, and so the family has almost no income. Since I’ve known them, these young girls and their mother have tried to help families who are among the neediest in Amman. Sonia later told me that the friendly and easygoing manner of her first interviewees helped her get over feeling nervous about filming people.

Next, Sonia met 16 year old Abeer, who spoke enough English to communicate with Sonia about common interests. They listed favorite singers and film stars: Shakira, Hilary Duff, Beyonce, and Brad Pitt. Abeer showed Sonia dance steps she has been learning, and the two of them danced a bit to music played on a mobile phone. Abeer then began to show Sonia pictures downloaded onto the mobile, photos of her cousins in Baghdad and of Baghdad monuments.

At one point, Abeer raised her eyebrows and announced “This is an explosion,” and clicked onto a horrifying photo of wreckage following a car bombing she had witnessed. “I was sitting in an office,” said Abeer, “waiting for my mother. And I was holding a baby, another mother’s baby. I was playing with this baby, and then the bomb exploded and the baby was gone! I don’t know what happened, just that next I saw the baby on the floor and she was crying for her mother.” Abeer’s terrified panic was followed by sheer relief, once she realized the baby was alive.

At another home, Sonia and her mother were laughing with four Iraqi teenagers over who supported Manchester’s soccer team and who was for Liverpool’s. The conversation abruptly changed as younger sisters translated for their 19 year old brother who recalled that when he was 16 he was kidnapped, in Iraq. . His family worked for several days, collecting $15,000 to secure his release. He explained that throughout his ordeal, his captors chained one of his ankles and suspended him upside down from the ceiling.

Sonia’s watchful mother exchanged glances with me. Was this too much for young Sonia to absorb?

That night, Sonia awoke from a dream crying out, “I shouldn’t be filming this. I shouldn’t be filming this.”

Her mother worries about protecting her child from being overwhelmed by the accounts she has heard. Yet Sonia’s mother also feels remorse for all of the youngsters whom Sonia interviewed. “What protection is there,” she asked, “for the children to whom this has happened?”

Many people believe that protection lies primarily in being able to use threat and force against enemies. Yet Sonia and the Iraqi teenagers whom she interviewed showed the potential to build security by forming friendships and expressing mutual empathy.

Gifts were spontaneously offered. Abeer took a ring from her finger and slid it onto Sonia’s finger. Another young girl removed her prayer scarf and gave it to Sonia, asking that they remember each other when they pray. Families served whatever they could, ranging from a full meal to a shared glass of water.

During Sonia’s visit, I read an August 17th Jordan Times article about a strange set of “gifts” which the U.S. will deliver to this region, ostensibly to ensure greater security. Summarizing the multibillion dollar military aid agreement, the AFP article reported that “Washington will boost its military aid to Israel, providing $30 billion in assistance over a decade…The US military bonanza includes a $20 billion weapons package for Saudi Arabia, a $13 billion package for Egypt, and reportedly arms deals worth at least $20 billion for other Gulf allies.”

It’s difficult to comprehend how peace and security in the region can be achieved by fueling a new arms race and destructive wars to come. The billions of dollars spent on U.S. war in Iraq have led to countless tragedies, a mere handful of which were related to Sonia during her brief trip.

Please “stay tuned” for Sonia’s film. The exchanges she recorded represent a trustworthy form of person-to-person “diplomacy.”

I can’t know what nightmare fears awakened her when she cried out, “I shouldn’t be filming this.” I hope she’ll be soothed by appreciation for her initiative. I think she’ll help many adults cry out, “We shouldn’t be causing this.”

Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) is a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org)

“GET A JOB!” These three words are very familiar to activists bearing signs calling for an end to war, whether standing on street corners, walking along highways, holding vigils, or nonviolently occupying the offices of elected representatives. Listen to the activists, and you’ll often hear, “We’re doing our job. We’re trying.”

I’m convinced that our work must always have one foot placed in nonviolent resistance to the forces that design and wage wars, with the other foot standing among people who bear the physical and mental affliction caused by these forces. Today, I’m thinking especially about two young women who found themselves in nightmare circumstances because, in their view, they simply wanted to have a job.

When American troops invaded Iraq in 2003, Noor (not her name), was living with her aunt in a small town near Baghdad. The aunt received a minimal “retirement” salary from the former Iraqi government. As a young teenager, Noor had left her family to assist the aunt and to enter college there. She felt deep and strong attachments to people in her town, and she loved her aunt intensely. After graduating, still living with her aunt, Noor didn’t want to become a burden to her parents who were already being supported by her brothers. She wanted to earn money and a measure of independence. When a neighbor suggested she come with him to the place where he worked, she was surprised by how easily she had become employed, working to inspect the handbags and purses of people entering the workplace of a large American contractor. Initially, when troops began occupying her town, residents could walk the streets without much anxiety. Working for an American company didn’t seem to carry grave danger.

Two months later, that had already ended. The company told her and her neighbor to take at least three weeks off due to increasing violence, at the end of which, Noor returned to work while the neighbor who got her the job declined to. She had a fifteen-minute taxi ride to work. One morning, after waking at 6, preparing breakfast for her aunt, saying her morning prayers, and going out to the spot where she would catch her morning taxi, she was approached on the street and shot twice in the face with a gun. It was the last thing she will ever see: she awoke in a hospital with no left eye and no vision in her right.

Even after she left her aunt’s home to avert more revenge attacks, her aunt would be threatened by men who came to ask where Noor was, was she still alive. The aunt had had to pack up all her belongings and flee the neighborhood where she’d lived so many years. Noor feels great sadness, remembering this suffering, on her account, of her aunt, who has since died. Now, in Amman, Noor is herself a displaced person, a refugee, still determined to find as much independence as possible. But in the many hours that she spends alone, she struggles with her memories.

Nadra (not her name) had graduated from college like Noor, in the years before the U.S. invasion, and had intended, like Noor, to use her skills to better herself and her family. When the war came, her fluency in English got her work as a translator for the U.S. military. She was aware of the dangers, but took her chances and continued on the job through a year of worsening circumstances. One day after work, her customary driver called her with the message that his car was broken. So, instead, she flagged a cab and headed towards home. Suddenly, the car stopped and two men entered the back seat. It became a nightmare of torture. They kidnapped her, beat, burned and raped her. Later that night, the men released her, shoving her out of a car onto a deserted road. Nadra quickly left Baghdad for the home of relatives, but the nightmare continued there: their son, perhaps on her account, was kidnapped and killed. Sent to yet another family of relatives, the same awful thing occurred: the abduction and killing of their son. After that, Nadra’s extended family worked together to send her into exile, here in Amman.

She has been here eight months. She would like to find work, but lacking permanent residency status here, she would risk arrest and deportation if caught working. It’s very difficult for her to meet monthly expenses. What’s more, she spends too much time alone and often feels severe anxiety. “I’m exhausted by my memories,” says Nadra, eyes downcast. “But, I can’t forget.”

Already completely dependent on charity in a foreign country, these young Iraqi women refugees wonder if there can be a future for them in the United States, on whose account they have suffered so badly.

At least 750,000 Iraqis have fled to Jordan, but many thousands still have not been officially registered with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. The August 9th issue of Jordan’s weekly newspaper, The Star, reports that among the 57,000 Iraqis who have been registered since the beginning of the year, “12,000 have been victims of torture and need psychological and medical care.”

Will Noor and Nadra be lost in the crowd? Some think that, as former U.S.-paid translators and security workers, they may have a chance for rescue if Congress, the Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies deem them harmless enough to become naturalized Americans. But having paid such a dreadful price for those jobs, it is cruel to suggest that they enjoy some sort of advantage over the hundreds of thousands of others who also fled Iraq since the war began.

At one point the Danish government sent a rescue team to Iraq to bring all Iraqis they could find who’d worked for them to safety and resettlement in Denmark. Noor and Nadra can’t help but wonder whether and when the United States will come for them, waiting, day after day, for some word from the U.S. Embassy here in Amman.

But now is not the time for resettlement of Iraqis in America. The watchword here is Arab terrorism, and Noor and Nadra, once hired so quickly by Americans in need of Iraqi workers, are subject to long background and security checks in a process that could last for months or years.

We Americans already enjoy the tremendous advantage Noor and Nadra seek — we can speak freely, with no real threat to our personal safety. It is now time for us to speak for displaced Iraqis and admit to our responsibility for their plight. We caused this war. Simply by paying our taxes, by not resisting, by not using our tremendous resources to make our democratic country behave democratically, we caused it. We can blame Noor’s and Nadra’s attackers - but can anyone think of a war that didn’t create spiraling revenge and retaliation? Some argue we’re not 100% responsible for this aftermath. Is it 90%? Are we 80%? 70%? What percent of Noor’s blindness, of Nadra’s status as the mark of death on any family who houses her - what percent of that can we be comfortable with?

We must end this war. We can’t just blame it on Bush, as though he will somehow turn around and suddenly become a responsible leader. We must hold accountable those who bear responsibility in the Senate and the House of Representatives and insist that they stop funding the war and instead fund and facilitate relocation and a decent life and livelihood for those displaced by our war.

In the last account, Noor and Nadra were punished for trying to get to work.

“GET A JOB?!” If ever you hear this taunt, signal agreement. Yes, it’s time we got to work. And we have to get to work every day.

Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org) which is organizing “The Occupation Project.” a campaign of nonviolent resistance to U.S. funding for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For more information about support for Iraqis who have fled to Jordan, see www.electroniciraq.net/news/abouttheproject/Direct_Aid_Initiative.shtml

At a small, informal school in the basement of a church in Amman, many strings of colorful paper cranes bedeck walls and windows. The school serves children whose families have fled Iraq. Older children who come to the school understand the significance of the crane birds. Claudia Lefko, of Northampton, MA, who helped initiate the school, told them Sadako’s story. The Japanese child survived the bombing of Hiroshima, but suffered from radiation sickness. In a Japanese hospital, she wanted to fold 1,000 origami crane birds, believing that by doing so she could be granted a special wish: hers was that no other child would ever suffer as she did. Sadako died before completing the task she’d set for herself, but Japanese children then folded many thousands more cranes, and the story has been told for decades in innumerable places, making the delicate paper cranes a symbol for peace throughout the world.

Today, August 6, children who’ve recently joined the informal school in Ammam will learn Sadako’s story.

Having survived war, death threats, and displacement, they may be particularly aware of the enormous challenge represented by Sadako’s wish.

Words to the song “Little Girl of Hiroshima” are on my mind today, thinking of the Iraqi children who have not survived:

I come and stand at every door
But none shall hear my silent tread
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead, for I am dead.

The song goes on to tell of a child who needs no bread, nor even wheat, needs no milk, or water, for she is dead. She only asks for peace,

So that the children of the world
Can run and dance and laugh and play.

A year ago, the space where the Iraqi children gather was grim and decrepit. The Jordanian parish priest invited volunteers from the community of Iraqis living in the area to help create a place where their children could meet for lessons and games. Several families responded and set about hauling debris out of the rooms, long unused, that had once housed monks in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Walls were sanded and painted, windows installed, and a garden they planted is now in full bloom. Thirty five children gather, for two hours a day, five days a week, under careful supervision of a few adults in the community. It’s a hopeful spot.

When I visited the school several times a week, earlier this year, two of the children, Carom and Carla, were listless and withdrawn. In the past few weeks, I’ve loved watching little Carla run to join a team playing tug-o-war, proudly accept a marker and solve simple math problems in front of the class, and actively engage in cooperative games. Her brother races faster than any of the other children his age, and he fills his notebook with careful writing.

How fortunate that these two children escaped the fate of so many Iraqi children now represented by the little girl of Hiroshima, those whose silent tread will never be heard.

Claudia Lefko, (iraqichildrensart@verizon.net) works to raise money for the school. For every $35 dollars she raises, we might guess the Pentagon raises $35 million. Billions, perhaps trillions will be spent to send weapons, weapon systems, fighter jets, ammunition and military support to the region, fueling new arms races and raising the profits of U.S. weapon makers.

August 6th, Hiroshima Day, marks the time when the United States ushered the world into an age threatened by weapons of horrific mass destruction, spawning the terrible arms race that marked the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Now, as the nightmare of war in Iraq steadily worsens, August 6th also marks a new round of Occupation Project activities. The Occupation Project is a campaign called for by Voices for Creative Nonviolence and endorsed by Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, Declaration of Peace, and the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, among others.

The action involved is simple. Activists assemble in the offices of elected representatives, prepared to read aloud or to chant the names of Iraqis and Americans who have been killed since the U.S. invaded Iraq. They bring with them articles which help analyze how U.S. wealth and U.S. lives are being used to protect war profiteers and extend the arm of U.S. military might.

We can never reverse the decisions to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor can we ever adequately explain to children the vicious patterns of our ongoing wars.

The song about “The Little Girl of Hiroshima” imagines a child who comes and stands at every door, unheard and unseen. In reality, we can go to the doors of elected representatives; - we can be heard and seen. We can learn from past experiences and, as we commemorate the loss of innocent lives, bolster efforts to stop war makers from constantly gaining the upper hand in our lives. I can think of no better place to announce our determination than inside the offices of those who, as elected lawmakers, can affect future military spending. Please, if you have not already done so, visit the www.vcnv.org website and consider ways to participate in the Occupation Project during these crucial weeks before the Senate and House of Representatives vote on more spending for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) is a co-coordinator of Voices http://www.vcnv.org

Day 11 of our Journey for Humanity and Accountability
found our caravan group at the Charlottesville, VA
home of David Swanson who is director of
AfterDowningStreet.org. I got to know David after my
group Gold Star Families for Peace became one of the
first organizations to sign on to ADS when the memos
were exposed on May 1, 2005. That collaboration led to
what I thought was going to be the downfall of BushCo:
the fact that on July 23, 2001, there was a secret
meeting at 10 Downing Street that pretty much said
that the invasion of Iraq was a foregone conclusion
and the intelligence was going to have to be “fixed”
around the policy of pre-emptive invasion.

Since that time I have gotten to know David’s mom and
dad, his wife Anna, and I consider their 15-month-old
son, Wesley, as my nephew. The last time I had seen
Wesley was at the Mother of a March on May 14th where
38 of us were arrested blocking traffic in front of
Congress. Wesley had just started to walk.

Like a good Auntie, I stopped on the way to the
Swanson home to buy Wes some toys. I had a grand time
playing with them with Wesley. The innocence and pure
joy in a baby’s face always gives me hope that God
will smile kindly on the world and even after all the
wars, violence, destruction of the environment, the
Bush Regime and other problems, that we will find some
way to go on.

After a wonderful lunch (along with all of David’s
other talents, he is also a very good cook) and team
meetings for our action on July 23rd, I went
downstairs to take a short nap. I passed Reverend
Yearwood who was busy writing his speech for the
upcoming rally on the mall (in Charlottesville later
that evening) and I lied down and looked into the next
room and there was a wooden slide for a toddler. It
was the exact same kind of slide that Casey received
from “Santa” at his 2nd Christmas. I broke down in
tears. It is so hard.

Like Wesley, Casey was such a good baby. Like most
babies, he was adored. He was so good natured and was
filled with wonder at every new thing he discovered
and I can still here his sweet little voice say “wook,
Mama” when he had something interesting in his little
chubby hand and wanted to share it with me. When he
got a little older he would frequently come up behind
me and throw his arms around my legs, kiss me and say:
“I wuv you, Mama.” I can still hear his voice and will
never forget the last time I talked to him when he was
in Kuwait getting ready to deploy to Iraq: “I love
you, Mom.” He was dead not even two weeks after I
talked to him. Shot in the back of the head by an
insurgent’s bullet. Sent to die by the lies of his
Commander in Chief.

All sides of the political often accuse me of being
“emotional” in my activism or politics—well, they
are damn right, I am emotional. I will never stop
being emotional. For the rest of my life I will be
spending sleepless nights missing Casey, fondly
recalling a life where he always gave the gift of
himself, to his senseless death where his life was
stolen by a greedy executive branch aided and abetted
by a spineless Congress.

BushCo have committed many impeachable offenses, what
I would call “grave, grave breeches,” but the two best
reasons I can think of for impeaching them now are:
Casey and Wesley.

Casey and the hundreds of thousands of others who have
been killed in the criminal invasion and occupation of
Iraq deserve some kind of justice, as do all murder
victims. There was no legal, moral, urgent or
strategic reason for Iraq. For once in our nation’s
long history of state-sponsored violence, someone with
a rank higher than Specialist must be held accountable
for crimes against peace and humanity. Impeachment
won’t cure the disease of war, we have a long way to
go before we can mortally wound the war monster, but
it will have a curative short-term effect.

For Wesley and all of our young people who were born
into a bloody society that still uses war to solve
problems, impeachment is necessary to prevent such
egregious abuses of executive power in the future. No
one was held accountable for the tragic loss of life
or held responsible for the lies of the horrible
mistake in Vietnam, and my son, Casey died in another
horrible mistake of a war.

It is time to stop it now: If not now, then when? When
Wesley’s generation is mired in another man-made
mistake of a war?

It’s time to show courage of conviction and put
humanity before politics.

Please go to www.thecampcaseypeaceinstitute.org to
find out more info about our Journey, or to donate.

Call Nancy Pelosi’s office (202-225-4965) on Monday,
July 23, 2007 to tell her you want impeachment back on
the table.

Call John Conyer’s office (202-225-5126) on Monday,
July 23, 2007 to remind him that 15 Congress Reps
support HRes 333 to impeach Dick Cheney—so he can
get started.

Today our Journey took us to Ft. Benning, Ga, where
the cancer of the School of Americas (WINSEC) is
housed. I have written on torture before and I believe
that BushCo’s policy of imprisoning people without
their basic due process and torturing them is one of
the grossest breeches of international and American
law and one of the overriding reasons that they should
be impeached.

The School of Torture has graduated many egregious
violators of human rights like Panamanian drug lord,
U.S. CIA employee, and Bush family friend (until he
became an enemy), Manuel Noriega. If there is one
issue that should unite Americans it should be against
torture. Incredibly, we still have neighbors in our
communities who believe that torture is correct,
humane and valuable. However to say torture is “wrong”
is like saying the sky is blue. Torture is inherently
wrong. Torture is pure evil. Torture is an
abomination. Torture is disordered and demented.
Torture is sick, sick, sick!

Most significantly the people who are being tortured
in such prison camps as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib were
mostly sold to the US Army by bounty hunters and the
Northern Aliance. Criminal charges against the
prisoners are as rare as the truth in the Bush Regime.
Most reasonable people would agree that information
gleaned from such awfully brutal means
(water-boarding, stress positions, extreme noise and
temperatures, sodomy and other sexual humiliation,
electrodes on genitalia, etc) is never reliable. I
can’t even fathom the sick, sadistic minds of the Bush
Regime who not only have authorized and
institutionalized this behavior but also refuse to end
it and close the camps that have undermined any moral
authority the US may have had.

Torture not only dehumanizes the tortured, but the
torturer. It hurts my heart deeply to think of our
young soldiers carrying out such ruthless acts on
other humans who for the most part were in the wrong
place at the wrong time and do not know where Osama
bin Laden is hiding. Torture only compromises our
soldiers’ lives in the field as the US cannot credibly
claim any kind of moral high ground if one of our
soldiers is tragically captured. The abomination of
Abu Ghraib is one of the reasons that the insurgency
began on the day Casey was killed in Sadr City,
Baghdad. I personally know three men who were
illegally and wrongly imprisoned in Guantanamo and Abu
Ghraib who can testify to the fact that, yes, America
does torture and does so with extreme, callous and
cold-hearted cruelty.

The Geneva Conventions are clear on prohibiting the
use of torture and the 8th Amendment to our own
Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
When torture is official policy, where will it end?
When George can pick and choose who receives the
centuries old right to habeas corpus and who doesn’t,
where will it end? Will it end with the “terrorists”
in Guantanamo or will it be used here in the USA
against those who stand up against tyranny and
struggle for our Constitution, freedoms, peace and
human rights?

Torture has tarnished the soul of our nation and
Congress has done little to restrain BushCo’s
Torquemadas and even when a bill is passed restricting
the use of torture, George adds a signing statement
saying that he is above the law. BushCo is no better
than a crime cabal and they must be Consitutionally
controlled.

Apparently impeachment is the only remedy for torture
and will go a long way to elevating our country’s
standing in the international community and to healing
our broken nation. Impeachment is not an optional menu
item that can be set on a table but a Constitutionally
mandated requirement (See section II, Article IV).

Put it back on the table, Ms. Pelosi. We have over a
million signatures on petitions demanding that
Congress end the misery of our nation and world by
impeaching George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Action items:
Go to: http://www.impeachbush.org to sign the petition to
impeach Bush.

Go to: www.thecampcaseyinstitute.org for more info on
our Journey for Humanity and Accountability or to
donate to defray our expenses.

Call Nancy Pelosi’s office (202-225-4965) to tell her
to green light impeachment.

Join us in our walk from Arlington Cemetery to
Congressman John Conyer’s office for a sit-in for
impeachment on July 23rd or organize sit-ins in your
Congress Rep’s local office.

Go to Amnesty International to learn more about the
issue of torture.

The other day I came out of my short retirement due to
yet another Bush flagrant abuse of power. We decided
that we would walk from Atlanta to DC to gather a
people’s movement for humanity. The longer BushCo are
in office the less chance we have of recovering the
heart and soul of our nation, saving our soldiers and
the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, and saving the
planet from corporate and individual waste and
pollution. Impeachment, removal from office, and in a
perfect world: incarceration for the criminals against
humanity, are urgent and necessary steps that need to
be taken today.

Since the announcement of the Walk, circumstances have
changed. Rev. Lennox Yearwood is not going to have his
hearing for Conduct Unbecoming until the end of
August, and we were going to begin our walk after his
hearing on July 12th in Macon, GA. So consequently,
we are going to begin our Journey on July 10th in
Crawford, Texas.

Our Journey will take us through places such as Ft.
Benning, GA, and New Orleans where Bush Crimes have
had such a deeply detrimental affect on people.
Torture and the continued criminal lack of help for
the people of the Gulf States are two of BushCo’s more
heinous crimes.

Our Journey will also take us to House Judiciary
committee members’ offices where we will sit-in and
demand that they institute Articles of Impeachment
against Bush and Cheney immediately. On July 23rd, we
will be in Congressman John Conyers’ office to
encourage him to take the lead on impeachment. A
sit-in in his office is possible and likely.

The US part of our Journey will end in New York City
where on July 27th we will stage a demonstration in
front of the UN to highlight the refugee crisis in the
Middle East caused by the Bush High Crime Cabal.
There
are millions of people displaced by the atrocity in
Iraq and, no matter what former US Ambassador and
leading neo-con war criminal, John Bolton says: the US
does owe the people of Iraq more than we can ever
repay. The very least we owe them, though, is a
relatively safe country to live in and basic human
rights like: homes, food, clean water and medical
care.

On July 29th, we will be re-creating the Summer of
Love and hold a “Gather-in of Hearts” in Central Park
with leading activists and musical entertainment.
Proceeds will go to Iraqi Refugees and for medical
supplies for Iraqi hospitals.

When we are finished in NYC, a few of us will be
Journeying to Amman, Jordan to help refugees in Jordan
and Syria. We will visit the camps to assess the depth
of the humanitarian crisis that is causing so many
children to unnecessarily and tragically suffer. We
have so much in this country. How can we allow
our brothers and sisters to go without basics? Who can
sleep comfortably at night and enjoy three square
meals a day when other people only have moldy bread to
eat and are starving? Do you think of the people of
Iraq and the refugees literally dying of thirst when
you go to turn on your tap for plentiful, clean water?
Our animals here in the US are treated better than
many humans on our planet. As MLK, Jr said in his
speech at the Riverside Church on April 04, 1967: “My
government is the biggest purveyor of violence.” Our
government has killed enough people to populate many
small states in the US and has forced millions more to
flee their places of birth. Our governments will never
change, but our hearts can and we can do much to
alleviate suffering and change the world.

Since I announced the Journey for Humanity, I have
received a lot of support and encouragement, and many
“I’ll be with you in spirits.” We appreciate your
moral support, but we need your bodies and your
dollars if you can’t participate. Our world is in an
environmental, political and humanitarian state of
emergency at this point and participation in a
People’s Movement for Change, Justice and Humanity is
becoming mandatory by our membership in the Human
Race.

Our route and flyer for the “Gather-in of Hearts” is
posted at Camp Casey Peace Institute. Donations can
also be made there. Visit our MySpace page and be our
friend!

We also need volunteers in cities along the route to
help coordinate rallies/actions and food/ housing for
walkers. To volunteer, e-mail Dede Miller at
tiggerloli@aol.com or call: 562-912-5838 (we don’t
take blocked calls.)