Democracy for New Mexico

Join Martin Sheen in Supporting The Elevator Nine

Some of the Santa Fe Elevator 9 peace activists during the reading of many of the thousands of names of dead civilians and soldiers in the Iraq War

UPDATE 1.18.07: The trial has been postponed. Click here for more information.

Editor's Note: The Elevator (or Santa Fe) Nine are being tried in connection with their participation in civil disobedience last September at the Federal Building in Santa Fe while attempting to collect the signature of Sen. Pete Domenici on a Declaration of Peace.

From Bud and the Elevator Nine:
PLEASE Come SUPPORT the Elevator 9 Trial on 1/25 and STAND UP against the war. Martin Sheen will be there. SHALOM!

Hello Friends, the Elevator 9 needs your SUPPORT!!! Please attend our trial on January 25th at 9AM at the Federal Court House in Albuquerque at 421 Gold SW (directions below). Please bring your family, friends, coworkers, fellow PEACE activists, congregation members, and anyone else who standsfor PEACE and is against the war in Iraq.

Activist and actor Martin Sheen will also be there to lend support and STAND UP FOR PEACE and AGAINST THIS WAR!

Because of Mr. Sheen's presence we expect both print and television media so please bring your signs and banners for PEACE and AGAINST THE WAR. Please let the media know visually about the 3,015+ American dead and the 655,000+ Iraqi dead. Please let them know of the 22,057+ Americans wounded and the countless Iraqis wounded. This should be a good venue for getting our PEACEFUL ANTIWAR MESSAGE (as well as some facts about the war) out to our fellow New Mexicans.

We know this is a work day but we could really use your SUPPORT!!! We hope you can make the effort to attend. We're not sure of the capacity of the courtroom or how long this trial will be, but we hope to have a rotating group (depending on the authorities) moving from inside the courtroom to back outside at the Demonstration for PEACE. Please remember to treat everyone working at the Federal Courthouse or any Police or Security with respect. If you are in attendance at the trial please don't be unruly as it may have negative consequences for the Elevator 9.

For Father John Dear's account of what happened read this article on Common Dreams. For more on the story and photos of some of us in the elevator visit the Pax Christi New Mexico website.

DIRECTIONS to the Courthouse:

• from the I-40 and I-25 Interchange in Albuquerque
• continue on I-25 South
• take exit 224B toward Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ave/ Central Ave.
• at the 2nd light make a right turn onto Central Ave.
• continue west on Central past Broadway & underneath the Railroad trestle
• the Courthouse is located at 421 Gold SW at the corner of 5th & Gold, one block south of Central
• there are several parking lots around the Courthouse & metered parking on the street as well

PLEASE PASS THIS ON and thank you for your past support and your time and effort in Standing Up for PEACE & JUSTICE. Questions? Email bud@siochainworld.org.

Pace e Bene! Bud Ryan

Escalating Against Iran and Syria?

Besides Bush's mention of the "bipartisan" mewlings of scabby Joe Lieberman (who will head up a working group that will meet regularly with the prez about "winning the war on terror"), I think the lines shown in this video were the most alarming in Bush's speech last night.  Seek out and destroy networks? Patriot air defense systems? Condi Rice has also upped her verbal attacks on Iran of late. Apparently nothing is beyond the pale for the Bushies now. Nothing. Cornered varmints are always the most dangerous of creatures.

Full audio and text of Bush speech, Sen. Durbin's response and other coverage is available at NPR.

Most outrageous press release on the escalation push? Try "Lieberman Applauds President for Pursuing New Course in Iraq."

Scariest article? Read Senators warn Bush against wider war at the Financial Times. Excerpt:

“When you set in motion the kind of policy that the president is talking about here, it’s very, very dangerous,” declared Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican, drawing applause during the foreign relations committee hearing as a stoney faced Ms Rice looked on.

“As a matter of fact, I have to say, Madam Secretary, that I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam – if it’s carried out.”

He cast doubt on assurances she had given moments earlier to Joseph Biden, the Democratic committee president, that the US did not intend to mount cross-border raids into Iran. Mr Hagel recalled that the government had “lied to the American people” in 1970 when it denied taking the Vietnam war into Cambodia.

The president did not have the necessary congressional authority to invade Iran or Syria in pursuit of anti-US “networks”, Mr Biden said. “I just want to set that marker.”

Uh oh. Maybe they're reacting to this, reported by The Washington Note. Excerpt:

Did the President Declare "Secret War" Against Syria and Iran?

Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.

The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country.

...Adding fuel to the speculation is that U.S. forces today raided an Iranian Consulate in Arbil, Iraq and detained five Iranian staff members. Given that Iran showed little deference to the political sanctity of the US Embassy in Tehran 29 years ago, it would be ironic for Iran to hyperventilate much about the raid.

But what is disconcerting is that some are speculating that Bush has decided to heat up military engagement with Iran and Syria -- taking possible action within their borders, not just within Iraq.

Some are suggesting that the Consulate raid may have been designed to try and prompt a military response from Iran -- to generate a casus belli for further American action.

TODAY: Say NO! to More Troops

Say "No" to More Troops

Many activist and grassroots groups are joining together to convince Dems and others to say NO to Bush, including Democracy for America, CodePINK, NOW, Working Assets, MoveOn, TrueMajority , Sojourners and many others. Visit AmericaSaysNo.org, sign the petition and register for one of the protest events scheduled for locations all over the nation TODAY.

An Albuquerque event will be held at the downtown office of Sen. Pete Domenici at 201 Third St. NW at Noon on Thursday, January 11. In Taos, protestors will gather at Wholly Rags, 112 Alexander B4, at 4:00 PM today. In Los Alamos, a protest vigil is set for 1808 Central today at 6:00 PM. Type in your zip code at the America Says No site for more details and events around the nation.

Other Action
Click to sign Sen. Russ Feingold's citizen petition to redeploy the troops and be sure to read his op-ed on using Congress' power of the purse to stop Bush's escalation that was published today in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Sen. Harry Reid has a petition at Give 'Em Hell Harry.

Video: 19 Miles from Baghdad

From Bring 'Da Noise:
I was listening to Democracy Now recently and heard one of the most inspiring songs I've ever heard. Amy Goodman said that it was sent in by other viewers and that it was by Lizzie West & The White Buffalo, so I visited their website at www.lizziewestlife.com, and contacted the band via e-mail. I expressed to them that I wanted to create a video for it, and they were nice enough to send me the whole song! Check out the video at www.bringdanoise.com.

Baba Buffalo, from the band, informed me that they wrote the song when they were with Warner Bros. and the record label refused it because, according to them, "It didn't belong in American culture." You be the judge. Its a great song and I know everyone who watches the video will instantly become a Lizzie West & The White Buffalo fan. Have a Great New Year! --Thomas

Dems on Iraq Escalation: Real Action or Empty Symbolism? TAKE ACTION NOW

The Democrats we elected to Congress have a clear-cut choice in how they represent us in response to Bush's misbegotten plan to escalate the Iraq War by adding more than 20,000 troops to the bloody mix. Given their unfortunate recent history of spineless equivocating and empty gestures on Iraq, we shouldn't be surprised that most of them seem to be partial to passing a nonbinding resolution offered by Sen. Joe Biden urging Bush not to increase troops in Iraq -- meaningless symbolism at its most cowardly.

Many Dems are claiming that passing anything that actually would preclude Bush from acting or legally shape how he proceeds would be unconstitutional or beyond their powers. This would include Sen. Ted Kennedy's proposal (video above) to require that "no additional troops can be sent and no additional dollars can be spent on such an escalation unless and until Congress approves the president's plan." Also read Sen. Kennedy's Daily Kos diary about his bill.

Golly gee, I guess we should give the Dems a break because Rove et al. would label them "cut and run" or "weak on defense" if they took any genuine action against Bush's latest Iraq wet dream. Why take that risk when you can sit back and let the troops caught in a chaotic civil war take all the risks? Mere life and limb are at stake for the troops. Certainly we can't blame the hapless Dems for ignoring that and thinking only of themselves and political spin. Do we really have the nerve to stop them from refusing to take any responsibility in the real world for what goes on over there?

What Bingaman and Udall Have to Say
Our own Sen. Jeff Bingaman and Rep. Udall are apparently in the better to refuse to act than do the right thing camp, as reported in an article in this morning's Albuquerque Journal:

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said members of Congress who oppose a U.S. troop surge, including himself, should make the case to Bush as clearly as possible, but he doubted the Kennedy bill would work.

"As a matter of constitutional law it's very hard to make the case that the president cannot add troops to the troops already there," Bingaman said in a weekly phone talk with radio reporters. "As commander-in-chief he has that authority."

... Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said he "likes capping the number of troops" sent to Iraq, but wasn't sure if the House Democratic caucus would coalesce around such a proposal. He also pointed out that Bush could simply veto the Kennedy legislation if Congress passed it.

Yes, Rep. Udall, but that's beside the point. We at least would have The Decider on record bucking the duly passed legislation on this war right in front of a citizenry where only about 11% support his boosting the troop level. If nothing else, it would give those voting for stopping Bush in his tracks credibility and respect on the world stage and here at home.

Excuses Without Merit
Are the naysayers really too young to remember the Viet Nam War or even Reagan's fiasco in Lebanon? In both cases the Congress effectively passed limitations on troop funding and other aspects of the operations. What's different now? Only that the more courageous Dems of those eras have been replaced by the blow-dried blowhard variety so characteristic of today's irresponsible and still out of touch Congress.

Congress didn't even declare war in this instance, opting instead to grant Bush war powers constitutionally reserved for the Congress. However, as Kennedy and others are pointing out, the Iraq War resolution transferred these war powers on the basis of very narrow circumstances and goals: to get rid of Saddam because of the threat of his WMDs. The resolution in no way should be construed to mean that Bush should also have free rein in sending 20,000+ troops into a raging civil war despite Saddam's being hanged and the WMD never materializing.

Join the Fight
Many activist and grassroots groups are joining together to convince Dems and others to say no to Bush, including Democracy for America, CodePINK, NOW, Working Assets, MoveOn, TrueMajority , Sojourners and many others. Visit AmericaSaysNo.org, sign the petition and register for one of the protest events scheduled for locations all over the nation tomorrow.

Albuquerque's event will be held at the downtown office of Sen. Pete Domenici at 201 Third St. NW at Noon on Thursday, January 11. If you don't see an event for your area, you can also organize one of your own at the website.

To contact members of Congress directly, visit Congress.org.

It's a Start

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have sent a letter to President Bush saying "surging forces" in Iraq is a failed strategy and calling for phased redeployment instead. -- Headline at CNN.com at 11:31 AM....

Reuters has this to say:

"Adding more combat troops will only endanger more Americans and stretch our military to the breaking point for no strategic gain," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a letter to Bush as he prepares to outline a new Iraq strategy.

"Rather than deploy additional forces to Iraq, we believe the way forward is to begin the phased redeployment of our forces in the next four to six months, while shifting the principal mission of our forces there from combat to training, logistics, force protection and counter-terror," Reid and Pelosi wrote."

The new website for Speaker Pelosi (ain't it grand to say that) has the complete text of the letter.

Here's the latest CBS News poll that shows where Americans stand on Bush's folly and the new Dem Congress:

BUSH'S JOB APPROVAL RATING:
Approve: 30
Disapprove: 63

BUSH'S JOB HANDLING IRAQ :
Approve: 23
Disapprove: 72

FEELINGS ABOUT NEW CONGRESS:
Optimistic: 68
Pessimistic: 25

WANT NEW CONGRESS TO CONCENTRATE ON:
War in Iraq: 45
Economy/Jobs: 7
Health Care: 7
Immigration: 6

ON IRAQ, EXPECT DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS TO:
Increase U.S. troops: 12%
Keep same number of troops: 8
Decrease U.S. troops: 35
Remove all U.S. troops: 36

Ending the Year with The Lynching

I couldn't end the year without tackling Saddam's "execution." We have come to this, and nobody in the mainstream media seems to have noticed. Dem politicos are silent. My thoughts exactly:

If you watch the video of the moments leading up to Saddam Hussein's execution, am I wrong that it bears a certain resemblance to the terrorist snuff films we've watched out of Iraq over the last three years? A dark, dank room. The executioners wear not uniforms of any sort, either civilian or military, but street clothes and ski masks. We now learn that the executioners were apparently taken from the population of southern Iraq, the country's Shi'a heartland, where Saddam's repression was most severe. And in an apt symbolic statement on what the Iraq War is about, two of the executioners who saw Saddam off started hailing Moktada al Sadr in Saddam's face as they prepared to hang him. Remember, al Sadr's Mahdi Army is the force the 'surge' of new US troops is meant to crush next year. That's where we are. --Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo

This too:

I [once] watched the video of Berg's beheading and it literally made me sick to my stomach. Do not watch it. It's a barbaric, horrible display of inhumanity ... I'm sure the same people who couldn't stop watching that footage --- ostensibly because they were outraged by the atrocity --- are enjoying this footage of Saddam going to his death today. They aren't all that different. There's the same sense of frenetic excitement among the executioners, the same vivid emotion, the same fear in the soon to be executed man's face. I'm hard pressed to say how that kangaroo court and this rushed, chaotic execution represents something so different. Saddam was undoubtedly a guilty man --- but the execution was done with the same symbolic purpose --- and in much the same style --- as those psychos who executed Nick Berg on camera and then ghoulishly passed around the video to make their political point. -- digby at Hullabaloo

Tell me again about the "civilization" Bush keeps saying we are building there or protecting here. I seem to have lost all perspective.

The Real Iraq Surge = Death

"At least 80 Iraqis died in bombings and other attacks Saturday as they prepared to celebrate Islam's biggest holiday, their first without Saddam Hussein ... The military reported the deaths of six more American troops, making December the deadliest month this year for U.S. forces in Iraq ... Their deaths brought the December toll for U.S. troops to 109, making it the deadliest month of 2006 for American service members. Some 105 troops died in October ... At least 2,998 members of the U.S. military have been killed since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count." -- Yahoo News

REUTERS UPDATE 12.31.06: The U.S. military death toll in Iraq has reached 3,000, a grim and unwelcome milestone for President George W. Bush who is searching for a way to turn around the unpopular war even if it means sending more troops.

The Web site, www.icasualties.org, on Sunday listed the death of Spec. Dustin R. Donica, 22, on December 28 as previously unreported and said that 3,000 American military personnel had now died.

We Must Remember This

With all those of the hanging of Saddam circulating today, I think we should make a point of remembering this image of U.S. Special Envoy Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Hussein in 1983. Also check out this that travels down memory lane tracing America's relationship with Saddam. And don't miss today's post by Juan Cole, which summarizes the Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein.

It's well documented that America provided Saddam's regime with intelligence and surveillance data for their war with Iran, as well as weaponry, bio-germs and WMD-related equipment, and who knows what other kinds of other help via the CIA over many years. Rummy's visit to Saddam occurred in an era when Iraq was using chemical weapons in attacks for which he later was indicted.

According to an article in the Guardian:

On November 1, 1983, the secretary of state, George Shultz, was passed intelligence reports of "almost daily use of CW [chemical weapons]" by Iraq.

However, 25 days later, Ronald Reagan signed a secret order instructing the administration to do "whatever was necessary and legal" to prevent Iraq losing the war.

In December Mr Rumsfeld, hired by President Reagan to serve as a Middle East troubleshooter, met Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and passed on the US willingness to help his regime and restore full diplomatic relations.

Mr. Rumsfeld has said that he "cautioned" the Iraqi leader against using banned weapons. But there was no mention of such a warning in state department notes of the meeting.

And the Washington Post reports:

Among the people instrumental in tilting U.S. policy toward Baghdad during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war was Donald H. Rumsfeld, now defense secretary, whose December 1983 meeting with Hussein as a special presidential envoy paved the way for normalization of U.S.-Iraqi relations. Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons on an "almost daily" basis in defiance of international conventions.
...
The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague.

In addition to all the "help" we gave the regime prior to the current Iraq invasion, we can think about the noose tightening around Saddam's neck to the tune of at least a trillion U.S. dollars once all the costs are added up in this latest fiasco. And that's not counting the human value of all the lives lost or ruined by the war.

We made sure Saddam was hanged. We made sure Chile's recently departed butcher, Pinochet, was protected. Every time the same sorts of entitites gain financially. Every time innocent civilians suffer the brunt of the death and destruction. We help create the monsters, then we knock them down if necessary, "collateral damage" be damned. The war machine needs regular, generous feedings at almost any price -- morally or fiscally.

I strongly agree with Josh Marshall's take on the entire operation in Iraq. Excerpt:

This whole endeavor, from the very start, has been about taking tawdry, cheap acts and dressing them up in a papier-mache grandeur -- phony victory celebrations, ersatz democratization, reconstruction headed up by toadies, con artists and grifters ... this execution, ironically and pathetically, becomes a stand-in for the failures, incompetence and general betrayal of country on every other front that President Bush has brought us.

... This is what we're reduced to, what the president has reduced us to. This is the best we can do. Hang Saddam Hussein because there's nothing else this president can get right.

Finally, Robert Fisk weighs in, with his decades of wide, deep, personal experience in the region providing a special kind of clout reserved for onsite witnesses to history. See here and here.

Top Ten Myths About Iraq 2006

There are a multitude of Top Ten lists being generated as 2006 rapidly comes to an end and a new year looms. One such list has been developed by Juan Cole, University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, at his blog Informed Comment. He makes sense.

Cole's conclusions?

• We can't "win" this war
• US military sweeps of neighborhoods can't drive guerillas out
• It's not a good idea for the US to throw all of its support behind the Iraqi Shiites
• Iraq is definitely in a civil war
• The Lancet study showing 600,000 excess deaths from political and criminal violence since the US invasion isn't flawed
• Most of the violent deaths aren't from bombings, but from shootings
• The death rate isn't lower outside Baghdad
• Iraq is not the central front on the war on terror
• The Sunni Arab guerrillas in places like Ramadi won't follow the US home to America and commit terrorism if we leave Iraq
• Setting a timetable for withdrawal is not a bad idea

Now all we have to do is get our delusional, recalcitrant President-in-Denial to open his eyes and accept the harsh realities that completely contradict his wishful thinking. I won't be holding my breath. But unless we keep pushing the Dems in Congress to treat the need for a prompt exit strategy like the emergency it is, you can bet that many more of our troops and thousands of Iraqi citizens won't have any breath left to hold. For starters, let's start calling Bush's plan what it really is: pouring up to 30,000 more troops into Iraq is an ESCALATION of the war, not a "surge."

Follow the numbers of Iraq Coalition Casualtiescasualties and deaths. In addition, the UN reports that 100,000 Iraqis are fleeing the country each month. Remember, these are the very kinds of people Iraq would need most to create a stable nation -- the professionals, the educated, the formerly middle class. Consider that the Pentagon will ask for $100 BILLION more in war spending when Congress convenes in January -- a number that does NOT include the costs of any escalation. And don't forget that the Pentagon wants $125 million for a Gitmo courthouse that will be used to try about 80 "terrorism detainees." The numbers game is incredibly depressing.

Despite Bush's growing isolation, and with even the Joint Chiefs and his field commanders critical of his escalation plans, he appears to be digging in his heels:

"He is now caught between admitting the war was a mistake and his policy has failed, or trying to tough it out," said Joseph Cirincione, a foreign policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a liberal Washington think tank.

"It looks like the president would rather let the whole operation go down in flames than admit he was wrong."

Meanwhile, a recent LA Times - Bloomberg poll showed that only 12% of Americans back a troop increase, with 52% preferring a timetable for withdrawal. Let's hope the Dems stand their ground:

After years of playing a marginal role in the Iraq war, congressional Democrats plan to move quickly next month to assert more control and undercut any White House effort to increase troop levels.

As President Bush prepares to outline his plan for Iraq in a major speech in the next few weeks, Democratic leaders will counter with weeks of oversight hearings, summoning military officers, administration officials and foreign policy experts to Capitol Hill.

... With control of both chambers of Congress, the party will have the power to schedule hearings, subpoena documents and put conditions on how the administration spends money on the war in Iraq.

Clearly, we'll have to be very active in trying to hold the Dems' feet to the fire on this. It may truly be now or never.