Howdy folks!
Today marks the 5th anniversary of the Iraq debacle. Or as John Stewart would put it, Mess-O-Potamia. I really haven’t found a way to put my thoughts on this whole shit-fest into words. Luckily, I don’t have to because many of you have found a way to do it for me. And for many of us.
How you do it, I have no idea, but I’m thankful.
Yesterday, we sent out the unofficial first issue of Feedback, our newsletter to the people. In it, we gathered a few diaries written by some of the most well known names in blogging: buhdydharma, Meteor Blades, Turkana, and of course Robyn. We also have a tally of the total numbers of US soldiers dead and wounded due to the war in Iraq. It will be updated each week–an ongoing reminder throughout our publication of the toll this misbegotten war has wrought upon our friends, family, and the entire nation.
Today, we bring that issue to you, here. It doesn’t look as nice as our pdf file, but you’ll get a sense of how it’s set up.
If you’d like to recieve the pdf file and help distribute copies in your area, you can sign up at any time. Just send an email to feedback.news.report{at}gmail.com with “subscribe” in the subject line. We’ll add your email address to the list and send out the latest issue to you as confirmation of your subscription. (Please be patient, as we’re running things by hand. We aren’t logged into the account all the time.) We won’t give away your email address, and we know how to use the bcc field when sending out copies to the entire list. 😉
And now, without any further ado, this week’s issue:
| Feedback | 3990 u.s. soldiers dead 29395 u.s. soldiers wounded |
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| March 16 – March 23 : 2008 | |||
| From the Top Down…Let Slip the Dogs of War Humans are funny animals. A very odd collection of consciousnesses, that together form a very odd Collective Consciousness. It may just be that there are cycles to these things, and that they will play out no matter what …. Or it may be that we…on a level that we don’t fully perceive and certainly don’t understand, are all linked together. It may be that, at a deep primal, level we still contain much of our genetic past, that we are, despite our pretensions, still largely animal in nature. That we humans are pack animals, like our not so distant ancestors and so, at least to some extent, we are a Pack Consciousness. That we take our cues and make our decisions based at least in part on what the rest of the human pack are doing. That there is a pack morality as part of the Pack Consciousness. More to the point, that we get away with whatever the rest of the pack will tolerate, what the Collective Consciousness will allow. So it is not much of a surprise, then…that if the Top Dog, the Most Powerful Man In The World….the unconsciously recognized Leader of the Pack…. Is a warmongering bastard That the rest of the Human Pack…on this deep unconscious level…will follow his lead. That when the Leader says that war is good, that war is allowed, that war is, rah rah rah, what the world needs now, it gives the rest of the Human Pack a subtle kind of permission. Was it Crowley who said, “What is not forbidden….is allowed?” Or is that a much older sentiment, amongst the Pack? Or…these things could just run in cycles….or perhaps the events and consequences set in motion from one act of wanton lawless, senseless aggressive war making spread…like ripples? You can certainly say that about [Turkey’s] “small” act of war and chaos. Set in the Cradle of Civilization….where war most likely began as well. But in another, oddly? scarily? portentously? familiar location to the dogs of war, Belgrade, the sounds of barking are being heard again. Standards, of decency, of behavior, of what is allowed…are set at the top. When war is not forbidden, it is allowed. When war is an option, that option will be exercised. When the Pack finally realizes that we do not NEED war, when WE stop allowing them…. perhaps then the pack can start to evolve, to move forward. But as long as we have Leaders who let slip the dogs at the first opportunity, the rest of the pack will follow. buhdydharma | (what is this?) The internet, primarily through blogs, has brought about a communications revolution. Yet the traditional media has maintained their position as information gatekeepers, and they won’t let you hear us. We can’t bring about change when the media ignores us. We can’t rely on politicians to fix things for us. So we’re through playing nice. We’re done begging for attention. We’re bypassing the media and coming direct to you. We can solve our problems if we work together. We can make things better when all of us try. All we’re asking for is your help. So we can generate a little Feedback. | ||
| Read All About It. Saddam Did Not Do It. If you’ve got the time and energy, you can cruise through the declassified version of ‘Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents Volume 1’ (Redacted), a pdf file now hosted on Daily Kos servers. The total, including appendices, runs to 70 pages. If you do delve into it, what you’ll be looking at is the declassified portion of a document written in January 2007. As one anonymous source told McClatchy on Monday, before the Cheney-Bush administration stepped in to make the entire five-volume report more difficult for citizens to see and evaluate, there are no surprises. As reported previously, the researchers looked at 600,000 captured Iraqi documents and found not one shred of evidence linking the dictator Saddam Hussein and the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. In other words, they confirmed what the CIA said in February 2002, what the National Intelligence Estimate said in August 2002, what the 9/11 Commission said in July 2004, what the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Phase II report said in September 2006, and what various investigative journalists said before and after the invasion of Iraq by the Cheney-Bush gang. Not that Saddam comes out in the report as a good guy. But if you want a far better (highly readable) look at the man from the same Iraqi Perspectives Project that did the latest report, try ‘A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam’s Senior Leadership’. Meteor Blades | |||
| Look! It’s a sex scandal! Turkana While the corporate media are dancing on Eliot Spitzer’s political grave, and the supposedly lefty blogs are inventing new and exciting sludge bombs to sling at the Democrat they love to demonize, McClatchy has this:
Does it really raise questions? Does anyone seriously believe there are plans to get out? A couple weeks ago, sixteen year old Iraqi blogger Sunshine put Bush’s disaster into a better perspective than I or any other American blogger could:
Her optimism, even after having experienced so much disappointment and horror, should make any humane person ache. But the American media have more important things on which to focus. Because who cares about Iraqi civilians or American service personnel when there’s a sex scandal to be exploited? | Pooling Absolutely Nothing War War is good It matters not And War is good What more could ~Robyn Elaine Serven | ||||
3 comments
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The issue looks powerful. I’ve not seen this in pdf, so I don’t know how it will look when printed, but the links may need a little working.
I’m not sure what editorial additions you’d like to do, but a footnote with the link and date of the news article cited may help when this is distributed in paper form. Maybe also a URL for the original essay?
We’re source prolific in the blogosphere and, I think, that should carry over to the print guerrilla efforts.