Common Sense Democracy

Anyone seen this before?

It was first introduced as the Universal National Service Act of 2006 (H.R. 4752) by Rep. Charles Randel (D-NY).

To provide for the common defense by requiring all persons in the United States, including women, between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.

It seems to be hugely unpopular among members of both the House and Senate and many critics are calling it simply an Anti-War maneuver. Bringing back the draft would be certain death for the Iraq campaign among the general public.

Call it what you want, but it sounds like a draft to me.

Read more at:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-4752
http://www.globalresearch.ca

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So… one question… If we don’t negotiate with terrorists and Hizbollah is in effect a terrorist organization… why is there a cease fire starting on Monday? Don’t get me wrong, I understand the people at the table are actually Israel and Lebanon… but what’s the point of agreeing to a cease fire if the other group fighting isn’t at the negotiating table? Where and what is Hizbollah doing after the “so called” cease fire happens? Lebanon may agree to the halting of hostilities, but will the terrorists and are we just going to be right back at the beginning all over again? Is there anyone trying to mediate a cease fire between the world and Al-Qaeda or are we just eliminating them at all cost.

I say again… do we negotiate with terrorists?

My 2 cents worths for the night. We’ll have to wait and see.

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As a veteran myself, I just want to wish all those who have served in our military a happy Veteran’s Day. With so much going on in the world, it’s important to say thanks to those who are still fighting the fight. It’s also important to recognize the contributions of ALL veterans, not just the straight ones. There are over 65,000 gay and lesbians currently serving in the armed forces but they are not allowed to serve openly. The Service Members Legal Defense Network (SLDN.org) states,

According to the Pentagon, it has discharged more than 10,000 service members for being gay, including nearly 800 with skills deemed “mission critical” by the Department of Defense. Those who have been discharged include linguists, combat engineers, pilots, medical professionals and others. According to statistician Gary Gates, the armed forces could attract as many as 41,000 new recruits by repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” in addition to the 65,000 lesbian and gay Americans already on duty in the active duty, reserve and national guard forces.

This session of congress has finally introduced legislation to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, with 100 members of congress co-sponsoring the bill. The bill is called the Military Readiness Enhancement Act (H.R. 1059). If you want to learn more about the legislation you can check out the SLDN website.

Some may say, “hey this is Veteran’s Day, don’t hijack this holiday to push your own gay agenda, it’s about the veterans not about being gay”. Well it is about the veteran’s but it’s about all of us who served. Have you served? Did you get off your ass and stand up and do your time? If you didn’t, then don’t talk to me about hijacking Veteran’s day. I earned it. I served for 4 years and lived a misserable lie just because I felt being an officer was more important than being gay. With the ban on gays in the military, Veteran’s day is merely a holiday for “everyone else”. Gay veterans have served, fought and died to protect a way of life they could not themselves enjoy and until we are all equal under the law with the same opportunities to pursue our own careers along side everyone else, then there is no such thing as a nice quiet Veteran’s day.

You can take action and tell your representative in congress that you support the repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Visit the Human Rights Campaign website for information on sending an email. You may not have served in the military yourself, but you can at least get off your ass this time around and send a simple email. As they say, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

And if you think the ban on gays and lesbians is justified and should continue, then head on down to your local recruiters office and sign up. There’s plenty of room in line for those allowed to serve.

We are a nation of smart, talented and skilled people. Imagine what we could accomplish if we were also equal.

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Just passing on a new post by Kevin at The Washington Monthly, Political Animal, on “How To Win In Iraq”.

So why is it that large foreign occupiers practically never win counterinsurgencies? The British in Malaysia are the only large-scale example of success since WWII, and while they may provide lessons for success, it’s also the case that some of the tactics they used are simply not available to us. So what should we do?

“How To Win In Iraq”

Technorati Tags: Army, Iraq, military+objectives

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I’ve been following along with the Cindy Sheehan story for a few weeks now. Cindy Sheehan is the mother of a solider killed in Iraq and she is camped outside President Bush’s Texas ranch waiting for a chance to speak with the President about the war and about what her son died for. She just wants to sit down and talk about it; to understand the cause and the mission. Wednesday night 1,627 vigils were held nationwide to support Cindy Sheehan and to protest the Iraq war. The events were organized by MoveOn.org.

One such event took place in Market Square, Exeter, New Hampshire. Today when I woke up, my email contained a link to the front page of The Portsmouth Herald where low-and-behold the main photograph was of my mother, sister and her two daughers carrying signs at the Exeter, NH vigil.

My mother is very passionate and outspoken about politics and appeared on the front page of the NH newspapers once before this past year when she was out sign-waving in support for Howard Dean.

You just gotta love New Hampshire politics!

Read the full story at Portsmouth Herald Local News: 140 gather in Market Square, Exeter to speak out against war.

Technorati Tags: NH, Cindy+Sheehan, Anti-war, protests, Exeter, New+Hampshire, Portsmouth+Herald, Crawford+Texas

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Via Yahoo! News.

“President Bush said he could consider using force as a last resort to press Iran to give up its nuclear program.”

Do we realistically even have the option? Our military is so completely spread thin that we can barely maintain stability in Iraq.

It’s the small comments and subtle references like this that really provide a glimpse into the brain of this President. It seems so early in the diplomatic process for a President to even make such a reference, like he’s a line coach in a basketball game speculating on the second half. We are talking about life and death.

Every avalanche starts as a wee snowball.

Read the full article at Yahoo! News.

Technorati Tags: President+Bush, Iran, nuclear+program, European+Union, war, diplomacy

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Via CNN.com.

President Bush’s motorcade passed by the group of protestors outside his Texas ranch on his way to a political fund-raiser. Cindy Sheehan, who started the protest, has been joined by more then 100 people.

Sheehan — whose son, Casey, was killed five days after he arrived in Iraq last year at age 24 — held a sign that read: “Why do you make time for donors and not for me?”

She’s right. The President owe’s her a visit. It’s the least he could do after sending her son off to die. He represents America and if he is too ashamed to meet with her or has nothing to say then he shouldn’t be sending our troops off to war in the first place. If he truly believes in his decision to invade Iraq then he should have no problem facing the music, standing proud as the Command-in-Chief, and listening to what Cindy has to say, while at the same time having sympathy and pride for those who have fallen. Of course he can’t meet with every American who wants to say something to him, but her son paid the ultimate sacrifice for this country and he is our President. For his cause and his decision, Casey Sheehan went off to war. No decision is greater for a President and he should be prepared to face it’s bloody aftermath.

Read the full article at Via CNN.com.

Technorati Tags: President+Bush, Crawford+Texas, Presidential+motorcade, anti-war+protestors, Casey+Sheehan, Cindy+Sheehan, political+fundraisers

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Via Moveon.org.

On April 4th last year, 24-year-old Army Specialist Casey Sheehan died in Iraq. This week, while President Bush vacations in Texas, Casey’s mother, Cindy Sheehan, sits vigil outside the president’s ranch. Cindy says that she won’t leave until President Bush meets with her to discuss the war—even if it means spending all of August there.

Cindy Sheehan was not an anti-war activist, but the loss of her son and the mounting evidence of deception by the Bush administration pushed her to speak out. While Cindy camps roadside in Texas, dozens of other military moms are flying to Texas to join her. Her story is starting to grab national attention, but Cindy needs our support.

Cindy simply wants to meet with the president to ask him to tell the truth about why her son died—and to stop using Casey’s and other soldiers’ deaths to justify continuing the war. But Cindy’s reflections on the war are also a reminder to all of us about the importance of getting involved:

“I shamefully and regretfully admit that before Casey was killed in Iraq I didn’t publicly speak out against the war. I didn’t shout out and say, “Stop. Stop this insane rush to an invasion that has no basis in reality. Don’t invade a country based on cherry-picked intelligence and despicable scare tactics. You don’t use our country’s precious lifeblood unless its absolutely necessary to defend America.” If I had broken the bonds of my slavery to silence sooner, would Casey still be alive? I don’t know.”

Cindy’s story is starting to grab national and international attention, creating a public relations problem for the White House. If we can help Cindy capture the focus of the country for even a couple of days we will sear into the memory of the public the image of the grieving mother—a morally pure reminder of the ultimate reason to end the war: the lost sons and daughters of moms everywhere.

Cindy has appeared on ABC, CNN, and FOX, and yesterday the lead editorial in The New York Times entitled “One Mother in Crawford” noted that “many Americans are with her, at least figuratively, at that dusty roadside in Crawford, expecting better answers.” With the White House press corps camped just a short distance away at Bush’s ranch, our newspaper ad will help prod them to pay attention to her.

Read more at:
Moveon.org

“One Mother in Crawford” Editorial, The New York Times, August 9, 2005.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/09/opinion/09tue1.html

Video Testimonial by Cindy Sheehan from our friends at TrueMajority.
http://www.truemajority.org/GoldStar_web.mov

Technorati Tags: Moveon.org, President+Bush, Crawford+Texas, Army, Anti-war, protests, activists, peace+activists, white+house

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A friend of mine posted a comment in one of my previous posts (We Have Failed Our Veterans) with a link to an interesting article on the troop strength and composition of our Army. It breaks down the percentages of combat troops versus support troops and the split between the active duty force and the reserves.

Can we sustain our force committments around the world with an all-volunteer military or is a draft inevitable? About a decade ago Congress moved certain logistical components from the active duty side of the Army to the Reserve side. The possible reasoning behind it was that if the President was to take the country to war he wouldn’t be able to do it without those logistics units and so he would have to activate the Reserves. Activating the reserve components also means messing with the civilian and corporate sectors by pulling out all of the weekend-warriors. When you do that you automatically create oversight by the American people and you had better have a good reason for going to war. That’s how it works in theory anyway, although these days it seems the President can pretty much deploy whatever forces he feels like whether that pulls on the Reserves or not.

So it works the same way with a draft. If you begin to drag all of the sons and daughters into the fight, the American people are going to have something to say about it. With an all-volunteer military, it’s mostly out-of-site out-of-mind for most busy American families.

Read the full article at The Slate - Who’s in the Army Now? - Why we can’t send more troops to Iraq. By Fred Kaplan

Technorati Tags: President+Bush, military+draft, draft, active+duty, Army, reserves, Army+Reserves, National+Guard, combat

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It sounds like a combination of all three to me. It’s one more piece of evidence that the Bushies really did expect a cakewalk in Iraq and didn’t bother planning for additional casualties. Then, when it became impossible to ignore the truth any longer, they stalled, afraid to tacitly produce an estimate for future casualties that conflicted with their rosy public message that things were getting better all the time. Finally, a couple of months ago, they ran out of options.
…

The Bush administration disclosed yesterday that it had vastly underestimated the number of service personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking medical treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and warned that the health care programs will be short at least $2.6 billion next year unless Congress approves additional funds.

This was an issue during the election but nobody was paying attention because most people don’t react in this country until it’s a catastrophe. In the election, the number of veterans and the problems facing the VA were “out of sight - out of mind”. We have failed our military for years while continuing to send them off to die for us. Both Democrats and Republicans alike should be ashamed of themselves. So far this administration has screwed those who defend us and the seniors - the elders who came before us.

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President Bush is scheduled to give a speech tonight in which, despite the chaos and car bombs and rising daily attacks by insurgents, he’ll argue that everything is going well in Iraq and we should stay the course. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel said, “It’s like they’re just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we’re losing in Iraq.” What do you think? Are we responsible for staying the course no matter the cost or have we done what we initially set out to do and it’s now time to pull out?

Here are some resources to learn more:

“Bush Shifts Focus to Iraq,” Associated Press, June 16, 2005
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/16/bush.ap/

“Bush’s Support on Major Issues Tumbles in Poll,” The New York Times, June 17, 2005.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/politics/17poll.html

“N.C. congressmen supports timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.” Associated Press, June 12, 2005.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=759

Technorati Tags : Senator+Hagel, Presidential+Speeches, Iraq, Republicans, Democrats

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A follow-up to a previous post on a proposal in the US House to limit the role of women in combat support jobs. Via MSNBC.com.

Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, under pressure from the Pentagon and lawmakers of both parties, moved to abandon a proposal that would have required the Pentagon to get congressional approval before opening additional jobs in combat zones to women….

Instead, Hunter, Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, planned to propose that the Pentagon be allowed to continue deciding what positions women can serve in as long as they tell Congress about any proposed changes 60 legislative days beforehand.

“This puts Congress in a position where we have enough time to evaluate a policy change and react to that policy change,” the Californian said in an interview.

At least common sense prevailed in this situation. As I said before, with recruitment at an all time low and our armed forces spread too thin already, this is no time to be further reducing the pool of qualified people needed to get the job done, whether they be male, female, gay or lesbian.

Read the full article at MSNBC.com.
Technorati Tags: military, recruitment, women in combat, Armed Services Committee, combat

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According to a 2,000 page US Army internal investigation that was leaked to the New York Times:

The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.

Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar’s face.

“Come on, drink!” the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. “Drink!”

At the interrogators’ behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.

“Leave him up,” one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.

Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan War, George Bush, Prison Abuse

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Last Saturday we made a post that laid out the evidence that George Bush lied about the justification for the war with Iraq. We said that the Bush administration engaged in a elaborate charade to convince the world that we had to invade Iraq because of the urgent need to get rid of his nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction, which was a huge let’s-fool-the-public lie.

Today’s New York Times reports that 89 members of the House have sent a letter to the White House asking for an explanation of the facts that were reported in Britain two weeks ago, which we laid out in Saturday’s post. The White House has brushed off the letter, but I forecast that this is going to become a major scandal. Lying to Congress. Lying to the United Nations. Lying to the American people. This is going to be George Bush’s $200 Billion Watergate.

Technorati Tags: Iraq War, George Bush

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Decades after America became seemingly selfaware and confronted the civil rights issues facing our country, it seems that discrimination and segregation are getting worse. The Blog, Kicking Ass, for the Democratic National Committee has posted a new report that Republicans in the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee have supported a last-minute amendment to ban women from combat support roles. Women are already banned from direct combat jobs and now they are extending the policy to include support roles.

The Army currently has a ban on women in direct combat roles — this amendment would mean women assigned to combat support roles — like maintenance, supply, or food service specialities would not be able to travel with their units if deployed to the front lines where direct combat could occur.

At a time when recruiting is at an all time low across all services, do we really need to be scaling back the pool of people who are available to meet our military committments around the world? Why can’t our government allow equal access to jobs if those who are qualified can handle the work? Let the merits and qualifications of the people doing the work be the disqualifier, not just a blanket rule to discriminate against an entire population. If a man is unable to perform the duties of his job, then he is removed from that position. He is fired or demoted and kicked out of the service. His job performance is the measure of his success and his ability. Why can’t we afford women, and gay people for that matter, the same chance to prove themselves. If they can’t cut it, then get rid of them, just like the real corporate world of adult America. We are causing an even greater shortage of people in an already overworked and overdeployed military.

The article makes reference to the move as being yet another part of the efforts of Republicans to cater to the right-wing special interests.

Where is the evidence to support these close-minded decisions?

Read the full article at DNC: Kicking Ass - Republicans vote to ban women from combat roles in the Army.
Technorati Tags: combat, women in combat, republicans, armed services committee, civil rights, womens rights

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