It's his story, and the similar stories of the other 30 or so soldiers seeking asylum in Canada, that the Refuse and Resist Tour wants to spread. Two punk bands out of Toronto--Nikki's Trick and Skull Device (Hart is its lead guitarist)--began their cross-country tour on Sep 1 with the hopes of drumming up support for soldiers who find the war in Iraq to be a sham and have escaped to Canada.
Unfortunately, according to the Canadian government, going AWOL is different than the draft dodging of the Vietnam era. Soldiers going to Iraq weren't conscripted, after all.
"It is different," Hart admits. "Yeah, I did sign up, but if you look at a lot of the cases of where people sign up, it's not that they're feeling patriotic, it's not because they feel it is their duty to serve their country, it's because they want to get out of poverty, it's because they want to get health care. They want to have a better life, they want to get a better education, and it’s just unfortunate that the only ticket out of that is to go through the army. Because it is a great stepping stone, it is a great tool for someone that's just out of high school and that needs that kind of guidance from other people and that discipline."
While he joined because both his father and grandfather were in the military, one of the major reasons Hart continued his career was because his son, Rian, has severe epilepsy that requires costly medications--he just wanted to do right by his family.
Hart is exploring one more legal avenue in his bid to stay in Canada--the Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA)--but the likelihood of success with this application is slim to none.
The above, highlighted by Vic, is from Carolyn Nikodym's "AMERICAN SOLDIERS COME NORTH TO REFUSE AND RESIST WITH A LITTLE MUSIC" (VUE Weekly). Vic thought the article would make for a good topic for tonight's "And the war drags on." It would. It's not going to. Ava and I are covering war resistance in our TV thing this Sunday and we're discussing what to pair it with and also what irked us most about the nonsense we sat through. If we explored the above in "And the war drags on," I'd probably be raiding points that Ava and I are already intending for Sunday. (We're reviewing a program on war resistance and that's all I'll say for now.) What we can do right now is pair it with Marcia's highlight, from People's Voice's
"Canada: Fifty-two Important Reasons to Drive Out Harper's Tories" (Political Affairs):
As the Harper Conservatives shuffle the deck and polish their image in preparation for a federal election (or perhaps hoping to stave off a trip to the polls), People's Voice wants to remind Canadians why it's so crucial to drive the Tories out of office. Here are 52 important reasons, in no particular order, raised by a wide range of groups, from the Canadian Islamic Congress to anti-war groups to Xtra.ca to the Communist Party. No doubt many readers have other equally valid reasons to dump this wretched gang of ultra-right, warmongering, corporate toadies. Email your favourite reason to defeat Harper's Tories to http://pvoice@telus.net, and we'll print more in a future issue.
[. . .]
12. Nothing on Iraq disaster Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died as a direct result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which violated the most fundamental principles of international law. Nearly half a million Iraqis have fled their homes and registered for government aid. Even though most Iraqis feel their situation was better before the U.S.-led invasion, Harper, who supported the American-led Iraq War in 2003 even before becoming PM, has said nothing about the disastrous military occupation of that country.
13. Ignoring war resisters Canada has granted asylum to only 14 of 740 U.S. refugee claimants in the past three years - all of them babies born in the United States to foreign couples. All claims filed by U.S. Army war resisters have been rejected, even as the Iraq disaster rages on.
6 snapshots yesterday? The entry was e-mailed and never hit. So I copied and pasted it into Blogger when I had a second. Later the e-mailed versions hit. They've been deleted. Zach brought up NOW with David Brancaccio in the snapshot and here's what's coming up Friday night in most PBS markets:
Women in the U.S. military assaulted and raped by fellow soldiers - a shocking investigation. Next on NOW
Roughly one in seven of America's active duty military soldiers is a woman, but a NOW investigation found that sexual assault and rape is widespread. One study of National Guard and Reserve forces found that almost one in four women had been assaulted or raped. Last year alone, almost 3,000 soldiers reported sexual assault and rape by other soldiers.
On Friday, September 7 (check your local listings), in one of the only national television broadcasts of the issue, NOW features women who speak out for the first time about what happened. One woman recounts her ordeal of rape by her superior officer. Many more don't report the incidents for fear of how it will affect their careers. The shocking phenomenon has a label: military sexual trauma, or MST.
NOW meets women courageously battling to overcome their MST, bringing light to an issue that's putting the army in shame. A NOW exclusive investigation. The NOW website at www.pbs.org/now will offer the latest statistics on MST and insight into the challenges of reporting sexual abuse in the military
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NEXT WEEK: A NOW HOUR-LONG SPECIAL, "Third Time Around" (NOW #337)
On the heels of a much-anticipated progress report in Washington, NOW travels to Iraq for an exclusive, hard look at the war through the eyes of the U.S. men and women fighting an elusive enemy that prefers roadside bombs to pitched battles.
We first met the Third Infantry's First Brigade from Georgia's Ft. Stewart in January, only weeks before they headed back to Iraq for the third deployment in four years. They left behind newborn babies, young children, fiancées and wives. As the long months of the "surge" unfold, we see them fighting in the country's volatile Anbar province, while back at home their newborns become toddlers, and birthdays and anniversaries come and go.
"I think my biggest hope for this next year is just for it to go quickly and smoothly. I don't want anything major to happen to any of my guys or the rest of the squad or platoon," Soldier Michael Murphy tells NOW. "My biggest concern is just to make it home with ten fingers and toes."What are the personal and political costs of constant redeployment? Is the war effort at a turning point, or a breaking point? "
Do American soldiers think that this is a war worth fighting? Do they think this is a war we can win?" Andrew Krepenevich, a former army officer who now runs a Washington think tank told NOW. "In a sense, you're battling not only for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, but the heart and mind of the American soldier."
"Third Time Around", an hour long NOW special, airs Friday, September 14. (Check local listings).
* A preview of the September 14 special: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGC9IrhOC90
* The original NOW episode where we first meet the soldiers: http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/303/
* A web-exclusive video extension featuring Ft. Stewart soldiers and their spouses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi9zazc0plA
Lastly, Lloyd notes Karen DeYoung's "Experts Doubt Drop In Violence In Iraq" (Washington Post):
The U.S. military's claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.
Reductions in violence form the centerpiece of the Bush administration's claim that its war strategy is working. In congressional testimony Monday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks. According to senior U.S. military officials in Baghdad, overall attacks in Iraq were down to 960 a week in August, compared with 1,700 a week in June, and civilian casualties had fallen 17 percent between December 2006 and last month. Unofficial Iraqi figures show a similar decrease.
Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers -- most of which are classified -- are often confusing and contradictory. "Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree," Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.
If the entries look weird (spacing) this morning, it's because they were lost. Blogger/Blogspot has an auto-save so some of what was lost (when Internet Explorer decided to close down by itself) was saved. In the process, there's a spacing issue that I don't have time this morning to fix. There are at least four things that were lost (I hop back and forth in the morning entries) and I'll try to catch those in the snapshot today. But one thing that needs to go in right now is Haider Salahaddin (Reuters) reporting on the air war's latest victims:
U.S. airstrikes on a Shi'ite neighbourhood in Baghdad overnight killed at least 14 people and destroyed 11 houses, Iraqi police and residents said on Thursday.
[. . .]
Two police sources said 14 people were killed and nine wounded in the air attack on Washash, a poor Shi'ite neighbourhood in western Baghdad's Mansour district. They said the operation took place in the early hours.
Reuters television footage showed at least 11 buildings caved in or levelled in three adjoining streets in the densely packed neighbourhood, where fighters loyal to anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are known to operate.
A Reuters cameraman saw residents pulling the body of a woman from the rubble of one house, while one man picked up flesh from the street and placed it into a plastic bag.
"This is a catastrophe. We have pulled 24 bodies from the rubble," said an official at Sadr's office in Washash who declined to be named.
Whether Congress caves again or not, whether Bully Boy 'announces' a 'reduction' (the escalation was never supposed to go beyond this coming April and it really can't go beyond this April without a draft or some clever juggling), the illegal war goes on or it is stopped. A lot of 'cute' little reporting playing like a few US troops being pulled out of Iraq would be a blessing and a surprise. That's not reality. The number was always going to down as US generals in Iraq have admitted publicly since July. A lot of 'information management,' not a lot of reporting going on. And as Norman Solomon has long pointed out, the air war will increase to make up for any 'reductions'.
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now with david branccaciopbs
