Sunday, November 05, 2006
Pacifica Commentary For November 11, 2006
Appeal For Redress
Aside from the parade of troops who are defying orders and leaving the Iraq disaster on a daily basis, there is a group of one hundred active duty military personnel who have signed an appeal urging Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all U.S. troops and bases from Iraq. This is called the Appeal for Redress and is endorsed and sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out.
Do you think we made any friends by breaking in to 95,000 homes in Baghdad recently? Put yourself in the shoes of those who were following orders. Put yourself in the shoes of the families who live in those 95,000 homes as they are terrorized by heavily armed troops screaming at them in English.
Our Head Torturer and his Vice Torturer are directly responsible for every wound, every death, every mental illness that has resulted from this ill advised, morally bankrupt, and intellectually depraved and absolutely unnecessary military failure.
The time has come for our Supreme Court to engage in judicial review of such blatant crimes. The fact that the Court has remained nationally isolated in its jurisprudence does not mean that it must declare itself impotent in matters of foreign policy.
Here is a quote from my father, Judge Blase Bonpane's winning oration given on January 16, 1914 when he was a Freshman at Ohio Northern University:
Public opinion has enacted a law against murder; so should international public opinion demand a law against war, which is merely organized murder. Shall we execute a man for taking a single life, and glorify nations for slaughtering thousands? To protect justice, police powers are instituted in all realms. Why not go beyond the transitory interest of a nation and establish an international police power? Let the representatives of the world powers meet in one body! Let a world code be compiled!
My father gave that oration some 92 years ago.
Congratulations to young troops today who understand the urgency of a speedy departure from Iraq. And today we add to their ranks two new groups, West Point Graduates Against the War and Service Academy Graduates Against the War (U.S. Air Force Academy).
These troops are the realists in our midst. Are we to carry on this war simply to save the face of the criminals who started it?
Voices for peace and outlawing war are the voices of reason. War mongers are not realists at all, on the contrary, as Bob Woodward says, they are living in a "State of Denial."
Please show your solidarity with the troops who have designed the Appeal for Redress for the prompt withdrawal of all troops and bases from Iraq.
Aside from the parade of troops who are defying orders and leaving the Iraq disaster on a daily basis, there is a group of one hundred active duty military personnel who have signed an appeal urging Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all U.S. troops and bases from Iraq. This is called the Appeal for Redress and is endorsed and sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out.
Do you think we made any friends by breaking in to 95,000 homes in Baghdad recently? Put yourself in the shoes of those who were following orders. Put yourself in the shoes of the families who live in those 95,000 homes as they are terrorized by heavily armed troops screaming at them in English.
Our Head Torturer and his Vice Torturer are directly responsible for every wound, every death, every mental illness that has resulted from this ill advised, morally bankrupt, and intellectually depraved and absolutely unnecessary military failure.
The time has come for our Supreme Court to engage in judicial review of such blatant crimes. The fact that the Court has remained nationally isolated in its jurisprudence does not mean that it must declare itself impotent in matters of foreign policy.
Here is a quote from my father, Judge Blase Bonpane's winning oration given on January 16, 1914 when he was a Freshman at Ohio Northern University:
Public opinion has enacted a law against murder; so should international public opinion demand a law against war, which is merely organized murder. Shall we execute a man for taking a single life, and glorify nations for slaughtering thousands? To protect justice, police powers are instituted in all realms. Why not go beyond the transitory interest of a nation and establish an international police power? Let the representatives of the world powers meet in one body! Let a world code be compiled!
My father gave that oration some 92 years ago.
Congratulations to young troops today who understand the urgency of a speedy departure from Iraq. And today we add to their ranks two new groups, West Point Graduates Against the War and Service Academy Graduates Against the War (U.S. Air Force Academy).
These troops are the realists in our midst. Are we to carry on this war simply to save the face of the criminals who started it?
Voices for peace and outlawing war are the voices of reason. War mongers are not realists at all, on the contrary, as Bob Woodward says, they are living in a "State of Denial."
Please show your solidarity with the troops who have designed the Appeal for Redress for the prompt withdrawal of all troops and bases from Iraq.
