First paragraph (Teaser):

What can be truly said of the US antiwar movement, is it really, noteworthily that, or dangerously close to being sort of "puppets" of the war regime they're claiming to be against? Anti- or pro-war? They need to make up their minds and drop false labels.

Rest of the text:

The following is an edited version of an email I sent last night to Stan Heller on the immediately following article. Some revisions have been made for this post, and I told him I wouldn't make anyway. But the modifications are rather minor, only adding some bits for greater clarity or completion, correcting spelling errors, adding bold typeface, and the like.

Just in case CounterPunch prefers for external links to be only to the homepage, I'll be changing the CP URLs to take people to the homepage, and from there users only need to scroll down to the section of links for the specified dates.

"Time to Shake Up the Peace Movement: Lessons from Connecticut", by Stan Heller, April 13, 2006, CounterPunch.org

Mr Heller, that is a very excellent article. However, I still believe that the antiwar movement alone is not going to really be able to win, because, at least in serious part, rallying, protesting is too sparsed out, and too short lived when it does occur. Your article is an excellent critique, and statement on the very difference UFP-Ct provides, however am going to give you my tierce and general perspective of the overall movement.

Protests need to be commensurate for the causes or issues being addressed.

For me, when we wish to oppose wrongs, it's important to make protests at least reasonably commensurate or proportionate with what's being protested against, and war is a steady matter. Winter of Our Discontent in Washington, DC, is an example of what I think of in terms of being commensurate, but their demonstration was for one month, and if such a maintained rally is going to be able to achieve success, ending war, then the number of activists participating have to be far greater. And even then one month might not be quite enough, although if there are [many] activists present and who stay present, then one month alone would surely bear some real impact or influence.

It requires serious sacrifices, at least to be willing to make them, should the worst of them result. Protesting against war of aggression is something that inherently involves HUGE sacrifices on the part of the people aggressed, and the soldiers killed and gravely wounded in action while serving the forces of aggression. And war is maintained until it's finally and really over. The Iraq War, among others, has never even ended yet, people should carefully realise.

As for whether or not military families suffer any real sacrifices when their loved or so-called loved ones are killed in the line of serving in wars of aggression, this evidently or clearly depends on the families, and there are very clear examples of both types in the US today. There are the families who really suffer the losses of their loved ones, either killed in the war, or gravely wounded and many of whom will suffer from very serious PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). These families also pay a huge sacrifice, and they are anti-war at least today. They really do suffer what's happened to their loved ones who served in a war based on LIES.

But there are families who've lost loved ones, or whose loved ones have returned very seriously impaired, traumatised, while their or these families really and clearly don't care. These families continue to support insane Bush et al, and reject their loved ones, those still alive but very against the war, and seriously suffering because of it. They don't reject their KIA sons and daughters, or husbands or wives, or sisters or brothers, for they are gone now. But they dishonour what it means to be honourable though, and this is important to realise.

Meanwhile, the antiwar movement, most of it anyway, in the US has made no real sacrifices, not much to speak of anyway. There's of course the St Patrick's Four who are paying real sacrifices, with several months of imprisonment. Winter of Discontent activists made over a month of not extreme but nevertheless steady sacrifice, but none of them will claim that it's anywhere near the level of sacrifice of many others directly affected because of these wars. There're Cindy Sheehan and her supporters, and Ms Sheehan lost her son in this war based on LIES. Her and her supporters put on a month-long protest near the Bush ranch last August, in Crawford, Texas, including other military families who've lost loved ones because of these Bush et al wars. And there may possibly also be a relatively few other activists in the US who've paid or are paying the sacrifice of going to prison for months, but, overall, there're basically no sacrifices that are noteworthy, especially when we keep carefully in mind what is being protested against.

The best, most qualitative protests that have happened nevertheless are not winning ones. They render statements or views public, but that's about all they achieve.

Yet I'm not totally against these people, either. I find it certainly appreciable that you folks of UFP in Connecticut, UFP-Ct, did as you describe in this article. Your explanation on that March 18th protest, vs COW's March 19th one, is well descriptive and I agree with you entirely in terms of the broad issues that UFP-Ct wanted to make sure were addressed by your rally. And the whole rest of your article is an excellent enough critique of UFPJ, an excellent enough and obviously deserving critique.

Getting that part down and right, this is very important, and it's very disgusting how badly UFPJ's decision-makers have been making putrid decisions. But no antiwar rallies that are held sparsely and in small
numbers is going to have any effects in terms of stopping this war and war-occupation, that is, illegal occuption and therefore really continued war on Iraq.

The antiwar movement can't credibly win, unless some drastic improvements are made. It's too surrealistically, dreamfully based, rather than reality-based.

If that's the way people are going to continue to rally, then I believe
that it's far more credible that US military officers, active and retired, as well as active and retired intel. officials, dissenting will beat the antiwar movement, to getting this war stopped and the foreign forces withdrawn from Iraq. Doubtful? Sure, but it's not impossible, and is more plausible than the antiwar movement, as it's been so far, being able to win.

Or maybe Congress will incredibly but finally wake up and beat the antiwar movement, but which is obviously not on Congress' present agenda. Doubtful? Sure ..., but it's a certainty that the antiwar activist movement in the US is not going to win, either.

Or maybe the mounting evidence of real crimes, including specific to these hellbent wars of aggression but not solely or necessarily all specific to these, committed by the Bush administration, besides the crimes that the wars on Haiti, and Colombia (the latter not having been launched by Bush but certainly maintained under him, and surely with his knowledge of it and therefore consent), etc., well, what all the evidence already constitutes, maybe this will get them, Bush et al, finally outed to stand trial. That of course would be preceded by impeachments, but after this the replacements may lead the way to stopping the war on and occupation of Iraq. Doubtful? Perhaps, if not surely, but the mounting evidence seems to indicate that we may plausibly have a chance in winning this way, depending on who the replacements are. A lot of injustice and suffering will be imposed during this waiting period, but it may possibly end up being what gets the US et al finally out of Iraq. See:

"Attack Iran? Yes He Would", by Paul Krugman, NYT, April 10, 2006, CommonDreams.org

Krugman provides what strikes me as a credible explanation of the various evidence against Bush and Cheney, possibly also some other members of the administration, and clearly explains how it is that Bush and Cheney could both be sentenced to hard-time and without the need for there to be an actual trial, for the evidence is ample for immediate convictions.

The very latter above paragraph, actually two up, is not meant with respect to the Democratic Party, which has been no better than the Republican Party, while often having been even worse, more disgusting, terrifying, and son on. It is just to say that if "the people" elected a sound presidential administration, which unfortunately is doubtful, for there are too many morons in our world, vs truly bright people, then the US might then well be on its way to finally ending these wars of aggresion and all its other hellbent ways, nationally and internationally.

All of the antiwar organising in the US has far more been a superficial intellectual and moral exercise, usually and very poorly thought out even for the short and sparse rallies that have been held, than it has been a movement that really demonstrates being antiwar. There have been rather no real or significant successes so far, none. So far, and apart from protests prior to March 19-20 2003, the US antiwar movement has mostly deserved, both, much mockery, and to feel very ashamed, well, at least wherein the leaders of the organisations are concerned, anyway. But why do people support moronic leaders if it doesn't also apply to oneself? We can excuse the very young, but most others obviously never really learned to be able to think for themselves.

Truth is enemy of state!

In war, propaganda is a "necessary" tool of the state, for the truth is enemy of the state, according to Joseph Goebbels, during I believe the WWII era. He said that for the people to be fooled by the state, something the state certainly needs in times of war, the state had to lie and keep repeating the lies until "the people" come to misbelieve that these are truths. GWB said not quite the same, having (likely enough deliberately, or due to deliberation on the part of his speech writer(s), as has been very regular for GWB) left out the part about using lies, but did say that he had to keep repeating himself, because, evidently, he's either just insane and loves repeating himself unnecessarily, or "the people" are yet to sufficiently, satisfactorily become believers for him et al's desires, including his puppet masters. Of course both reasons are strongly fitting for GWB, a matter that is as "clear as day" today, and for some years already.

I was reminded of that information in the following article. If the quotations, referred to above in paraphrased manner, don't appear at the start of the article, then to get to them simply search on 'Goebbels' or scroll down the page. Of course people who aren't aware of the Haditha incident, in which US Marines either cold-bloodedly or vengefully, while applying revenge on innocents, massacred 15 innocent Iraqi civilians inside their home last Nov. 19th, and for which concrete evidence has been obtained and reported, then read.

"Haditha, Iraq", by Katrina Vanden Heuvel, April 12, 2006, TheNation.com

Many in US "antiwar" movement refuse to support WITHDRAWAL!!

One major, disgusting, frustrating but not really surprising, handicap that the antiwar movement has is that while many of the members today were also against the launching of this war to begin with, they're now and incredibly against withdrawal of the troops from Iraq. These people evidently have extreme difficulty in terms of grasping reality. After all, the war was officially declared by Bush as being over and that was in May 2003, roughly three years ago, while by far most of the casualties, well over 90% of them, the major destruction, the cold-blooded or at least insanely vengeful massacring of innocent Iraqi families, etc., all of this has followed after this idiot's 'mission accomplished' speech or declaration, i.e., pres. GWB's.

That is only one piece out of many enough of CONCRETE proof that withdrawal is not an optional matter, it is absolutely necessary. After all, the war never ended, and a war never is over until both sides agree that the ending has been mutually agreed upon.

Wars end when all sides involved agree, and this must of course include "the people".

Just because Bush said the Iraq War was over in May 2003, this means nothing, just like everything, virtually anyway, else he says. Slight correction, for I don't mean to literally say 'nothing', for nothing is just that, it doesn't exist and therefore is of no import whatsoever, while of course the fact that everything, nearly anyway, Bush has stated is a rather flagrantly criminal lie. That's definitely and very noteworthy, not a mere 'nothing' matter.

And even if Iraqis at one early point said 'yes, the war's over', then I'm sure they'd say the opposite today, at least the vast majority of Iraqis would. But let's, hypothetically, say they still wouldn't make this claim, such as and understandably out of fear of retaliation, or simply not clearly enough understanding the situation, this war very obviously is nevertheless NOT OVER. It has never been over yet. It's gone through differing phases, but has not yet ever ended.

What if the Iraqi government says this war is over? What can we believe in that, given that it's much a US puppet regime, which Bush et al have helped to make only much clearer with all of their efforts in trying to force whatever government they want for Iraq into being in place? No, it's "the people" of Iraq who have the last and most important say with regards to when this war on them will finally be over! It's not up to the state but to the people! The state is only in place to serve the people, point final, that is, in theory of Just instead of Unjust government or state anyway.

The antiwar movement's organisations will not be credibly antiwar unless
they demand for immediate withdrawal. There really is no option for the antiwar movement. To not make this demand is to perhaps unwittingly but nevertheless be rather pro-war, just that being foolish enough to not be able to realise that withdrawal is immediately necessary, these people may not really have any hidden desire for continuation of the war. They may be just too stupid to be any wiser about what reality is, vs what it isn't. But there's no way to know what is really in every person's heart, what's unstead, and what's sometime repressed by ourselves, for some humans have the character trait of repressing what they don't want to acknowledge about themselves, including only and privtely to themselves. There's definitely a LOT wrong with the movement anyway, majorly so.

And UFPJ and COW, based on your article Mr Heller, it's quite clear that they're very, extremely bigotted, and there's never good, healthy seed in that. They can be worked with the way UFP-Ct did on March 19th, I suppose, but it's a very futile effort, in my opinion. However if people want to join up with such groups, led by such people, then I can't stop them from doing so. I wouldn't want to bother doing it, but can't stop others, and I don't perceive anything really wrong with UFP-Ct having chosen to join that protest demonstration. But there's the sure fact that none of these demonstrations are going to have more than barely any real impact or postive results in terms of ending these wars.

Anyway, to bother wasting time to attend any of these antiwar rallies that don't demand for withdrawal and immediately so, which means not this very second but [very] quickly, within weeks as far as I'm concerned, well, it's simply a waste of time. I could imagine some comical stage at disneyland putting on such rallies just for some odd entertainment, but in the real real-world, these are totally or at least extremely worthless antiwar demonstrations, i.e., in the overall US antiwar movement.

If UFP-Ct agrees on withdrawal, then you folks certainly seem to have at least plenty of the issues identified. After that, it's a question of making the rallying [last] enough to be truly strong, which means maintained for significant periods of time, not just a half day, a day, or even week, but for as long as it takes. Really serious antiwar movement must guage what it needs to be on the winning side and strongly so. It applies to any protest, they all need to be proportionate to the issues involved or being addressed, or opposed.

Huge protest demonstrations for some issues but not war, hmmm.

As far as I've been aware, none of the antiwar protests in the US have come close to the sizes of the present anti-immigrant, migrant worker bashing of the US government. These are great, for this is a very important issue, and the underlying cause is again the US government, for its major work in setting up atrocious state leaders and reigns in numerous enough South American countries, including Mexico. But the antiwar movement is really based on an even more major issue and, yet, it has not mustered up this kind of energy. At least a lot of the people who participated in this anti-oppression of migrant and undocumented immigrant workers included the Iraq War in their platforms, but the antiwar movement needs to WAKE UP and get with reality.

There are also Haiti, Colombia, and others to keep in mind, too!

I didn't see anything about Haiti, Colombia, and other pertinent cases referred to in this article, in terms of UFP-Ct's rallying or planning for future rallies, but Haiti's also extremely forgotten in the US antiwar movement, and what was and continues to be done to Haiti is an orchestrated coup d'etat with the US leading again, and such a coup against a legitimately democraticly elected government is [act of war],
nothing less. It doesn't matter how the politicians or statesmen argue
that this coup was or is not act of war, it is, and I don't let myself be misguided in life by stupid and deceitful people who'd say otherwise with respect to Haiti's situation, as well as other important issues.

Colombia is also a US act of war again, except this case is extremely censored and covertly operated. It's a very long campaign. Just because the aggressed, massacred, etc., are too defenceless and unable to fight back, as in the case of Haiti, this does not mean that what's been long done and continues to be done to them is not equivalent to act of war of aggression, hellbent aggression. That applies to Colombia, Haiti, and likely other places.

Iraqi casualty counts, important update: And, again, withdrawal from Iraq is necessary!

If UFP-Ct and/or any other antiwar movement organisations are not convinced about the urgent need for withdrawal from Iraq, as well as about what I just said regarding Colombia, then the following provides
considerable information that everyone for real peace and justice need to be aware of. It's obvious that withdrawal needs to end, but some people require more information to reflect upon. (I don't think to have
included any links on Haiti's situation in my CMAQ, explained below, post, but going to HaitiAction.net is a very Fine source.) And for the article on Colombia, it's in the cmaq.net post linked a little futher below.

"Learning to Count", by Dahr Jamail and Jeff Pflueger, Apr 13 2006, which I obtained via www.SelvesAndOthers.org, aka SaO, TruthOut.org

Jamail and Pfleuger report in that article that the highly respected, as being very reliable, Les Roberts, who led the survey on Iraqi casualties and which was reported on Oct. 29, 2004, in the British Lancet, well, in Feb. 2006 he said that the numbers are now close to if not greater than or equal to 300,000 Iraqi casualties, and, again, by far mostly civilians, in turn mostly women and children. It's an excellent article that no one should miss. It is a MUST READ article, for it says a lot more than only this, while this nevertheless is a very important piece of data from the article.

CMAQ.net

The latter is a post of mine, and CMAQ is the IMC for Quebec, Canada, for readers not yet familiar with cmaq. There are other important articles in that post, but the one I'm going to specifically point out for this email, because I mentioned Colombia, is by Rev. John Dear. I believe it's the very first link in the original post. The original could not be edited, so I added a comment post or two for additional articles, and maybe you will want to examine what all of them are, in case you come across any you haven't yet read and which you may possibly find to be of value for yourself and/or your organisation.

And maybe you'll find the following interesting, too. Real dissent is what the article is about.

"Pray for Death", by Richard Oxman, Apr 11 (?, very recent anyway), 2006, also obtained via SaO, OxToGrind.org

If you're not yet familiar with Oxman, then you might be a bit surprised by what he says, or how he says ..., however he's been a considerably excellent critic of the antiwar movement in the US and for some years already. He's very reality-based, just that the way he writes can be a bit confusing for me. When that happens, though, a quick email to him gets a quick and clarifying reply. He's a very fine critic of the antiwar movement, as well as on other topics.

Foreign troops in Iraq can also DISSENT! US troops can, anyway.

The above article by Oxman again reminded me of a frequent thought that I have, the fact that the US troops in Iraq are also in a position to join the antiwar movement, instead of continuing to carry out these many and horrible crimes of war. When I was in USN, Navy, bootcamp around 30 years ago (only having done that portion, having gotten out because of hypocrisy in a hearing before several officers, who offered me one of two options, to either stay in and go through a rehabilitation there was absolutely no call for, given I had already completed 62 days of rehab. with ample success, or to leave the service with a good conduct discharge, the best available for such short time in the service, and despising hypocrisy, I took the second, latter option) we received some theoretical courses, specifically including one on US military law and our ultimate duty to the nation's Constitution, far more than to obey whoever happens to be the c.i.c., commander in chief, aka US President.

Either that law has since changed, or US generals, ..., are lying about what it states, today.

Oddly, yesterday or the day before, I read an article in which a high-ranking US military officer, a general I believe, was calling for Rumsfeld to resign, but while du-fously and possibly maliciously (deceitfully) adding that the law's different for officers versus for those serving under them. For the latter, he said that their oath is to their officers, while for the latter, their oath is to the US Constitution.

That has to be wrong, or else the law's been wrongfully changed, since I first learned what it was, and which is that all US military service members must pledge their oath to the Constitution, rather to any human beings giving out orders. When an officer is right, then those serving under him or her have the duty to listen up and to carry out the commands, but when the orders are wrong, then the soldier's or sailor's duty is to the Constitution, and the officer can be removed from his rank, etc.

The troops in Iraq presently have all the legal and moral authority they need, and they have the duty to apply this authority. What their present real duty is to do is to DISSENT and refuse to carry out any more orders. If the officers disagree, then the soldiers have the legal and moral authority to pull rank, and if necessary, which is perhaps likely, then to place these officers under arrest and jail them.

US troops formally have this authority, yet all troops serving in any war of the US, if they're from democratic countries anyway, these troops also have the right to apply the same level of authority. After all, democracy is supposed to be "by the people", but without us "blessing" mob rule, either. In any case, regardless of their national origins, they minimally have every moral right to dissent against these hellbent wars of aggression, while US troops literally have the legal and moral authority and duty to DISSENT, and firmly so.

That is what military oath to the US Constitution calls for, and it applies in Iraq as well as Afghanistan. Anyone who argues to the contrary is a liar, or morally devoid and, either way, criminal. After all, if it's against law to obey unlawful orders from the c.i.c., then it has to also be against law to obey similarly unlawful commanding officers below his ranking.

Such people can never be justly perceived as leaders, for what they really are falls in a category like criminal thugs and tyrants do. It's possible that the law that existed when I learned it around 30 years has since been disgustingly changed, but this would be a strongly unacceptable change and one that needs to definitely be reversed. It should not have been altered in any manner like this, and if it was, then the change is surely because of very sick and criminally minded or motivated people!! After all, truly sane and honourable people could never accept such a change. Honourable but very mistaken people could accept such a change, out of not properly understanding what it really means, but this mistake certainly would not be honourable. Those are mistakes clearly needing to be corrected.

If the troops carry out criminal orders, then the troops doing this are criminals, for they've thereby rendered themselves criminals. Troops who remain in service in Iraq but without carrying out any further crimes certainly can and must be excused, for it's not their fault that they did not realise what they were really being ordered to get into. Those troops remain innocent and have to continue to remain this way.

What about what the UNSG says?

And it does not matter any longer what UN Secretary General, UNSG, Kofi Annan says, that is, if it's contrary to the above, for the US military law says [oath to the Constitution], which in turn says [oath to the international laws and conventions] the US has promised to abide by and uphold. It is part and parcel of the US soldier's oath to the US Constitution! It says that these international laws and conventions are supreme to the US Constitution itself, but it does not say that the UNSG constitutes these laws and conventions! After all, for the US Constitution to state or mean otherwise would mean that it's a contradictory law. No, if the US citizen's topmost oath is to the Constitution and therefore law, not to any human serving as president and c.i.c., then for the Constitution to be treated integrally, the oath to the international accords have to be not to human individuals but to the laws.

On this basis, we should be able to clearly understand that the oaths are to the laws, not to people giving out orders, or saying bla bla bla else that's contrary. And to truly honour these oaths means to be wary of what the human leaders command, for it's the laws and conventions that are to be obeyed.

People want democracies, while disregarding and treading upon the laws that help to ensure that democracy is implemented and maintained, and then wonder why democracies become extremely screwed up and maliciously skewed. It's not difficult to understand or realise that real, authentic democracy is nearly impossible to achieve, very difficult. To do so requires the keenest of moral persons to ensure that the political systems remain in line with what they officially are. The kind of democracies we have today, except perhaps, and as recently purported, in some or several South American countries, with the new elections and strengthening activism, what we have usually are democracies where it's not voters that matter but the counters, and, ultimately, those who behind-the-scenes control the counters. That's entirely against the law in any true democracy, but the latter's not what we have. Canada also doesn't have it, for it's also very corporatist, etc.

Yet, UNSG Kofi Annan already stated that the war on Iraq is illegal, and as I've explained here-in, the war has not yet ended, the occupation is illegal and hellbent war, etc., so the UNSG has no real authority over foreign troops serving in the Iraq War, not unless what he says is really in line with the laws and conventions that apply. He can say that withdrawals are indeed what's required, but if he sides with the occupation, then he's contradicting his declaration that this war is illegal.

The oaths are not to humans but to laws!

Oh, and for an additional bit of news, there's a female Afghan activist who's written a book and who's extremely angry at imperialist USA, et al, and adds that Afghan women were much better off during the occupation of Afghanistan by the former Soviet Union. I haven read the book, only the following review of it (need to scroll down to the second book review in the page though), and what she says on the Soviet occupation period is stated in the review, which is a review of a NYT review of the book.

"'Kabul in Winter: Life without Peace in Afghanistan', by Ann Jones: Reviewed by William Grimes (NYT)", by Thomas Riggins, April 11, 2006, obtained via SaO, PoliticalAffairs.net

That's it, and I hope to not have overly burdened you. I realise that it's a stressful time we're going through and not everyone is capable of thinking as critically as some others. I mean absolutely no offence to UFP-Ct, but hope it'll be a strong organisation.

Respectfully,

Mike Corbeil
Hatley Township, Qc