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Iraq War

UAPA Book Club to Discuss Rachel Maddow's "Drift"

Join the discussion at our next meeting on July 23.  We'll be discussing Rachel Maddow's book Drift. Jim and Jo-Ann Prater have graciously offered to host the 7:00 p.m. book club meeting in their home.Their address is 2000 Malvern Road, which runs between Club and Waltham Roads, just a block off Riverside Drive.

What the Mainstream Media Don't Tell Us About Iran/Iraq

Location: IBEW Hall, 23 West 2nd Ave., Columbus, Ohio, map

Speakers:

SCOTT RITTER - Was one of UNSCOM's most senior weapons inspectors in Iraq between 1991 and 1998, after having served for eight years as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. As a Marine, he conducted arms inspections in the former Soviet Union, and provided analysis of Iraq's missile capacity to General Schwarzkopf in the 1991Gulf War. "The important thing to know about Scott Ritter is that he was right." - Seymour Hersh

JEFF COHEN - Worked for MSNBC as an on-air commentator and senior producer of "Donahue" until the show was terminated on the eve of the Iraq war. He founded Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), co-hosted CNN's "Crossfire," was a weekly panelist on Fox News Channel's "Newswatch," and appeared frequently on many national TV and radio programs, including "The Today Show," "Larry King Live," "The O'Reilly Factor," C-SPAN, and NPR.

Books will be available for purchase and signing by the authors!

The U.S. Tour of Duty is co-sponsored by Fellowship of Reconciliation and Peace Action. The local event is sponsored by Central Ohioans for Peace; Citizens Grassroots Congress, Central Ohio Green Education Fund; Council on American-Islamic Relations, Ohio Chapter; Democratic Socialists of Central Ohio; Progressive Peace Coalition; private donations; and, a generous grant from the Puffin Foundation. See: www.columbuspeacenetwork.org.

Location: IBEW Hall, 23 West 2nd Ave., Columbus, Ohio

Free and open to the public, a free will donation will be requested (suggested donation, $10.00 per person).

For more information, contact chammon@columbus.rr.com or 614-531-4146.

Central Ohioans for Peace meets Monday nights at 7:00 pm at Columbus Mennonite Church (35 Oakland Park Ave., Columbus OH 43214). The latest information about our upcoming meetings can be found at http://groups.google.com/group/central-ohioans-for-peace

Bring Me An 'End The War' Yard Sign!

On August 11th, UAPA will be delivering and placing yard signs. Please provide your email and street address, so we can deliver your sign

Iraq Take A Stand Town Hall

When: Tuesday, 28 Aug 2007, 7:00 PM

Where: Atrium of the Ohio State House
The Ohio Statehouse
Columbus, OH 43215

What: Take A Stand Town Hall: Our Take A Stand Town Hall and Stand Up Vigil is part of a nation-wide organizing drive to demand that members of Congress and the Senate take a stand with the vast majority of Americans who want a safe and responsible redeployment of American Forces from Iraq. Here in Columbus, we are calling on Representative Deborah Pryce and Senator Voinovich to vote with their constitutents against endless war.

Our event will include great speakers like Iraq war veterans and their families, a showing of our Take A Stand video highlighting the local anti-war organizing efforts from this past summer, as well as live entertainment. After the town meeting, there will be a Stand Up Vigil outside of the Statehouse.

The event location is handicap accessible and there is parking in the City Center.

Women's Bridges of Peace and Hope March 7

Sunday, March 7
12 noon

International Women's Day Bridges of Peace and Hope

Location: Lane Avenue Bridge, at the west entrance to the campus of The Ohio State University

Call for an end to war and demonstrate that women can build the bridges of peace and hope.

Registration: http://joinmecolumbus.eventbrite.com/

 

Iraq: Eight years and counting

As the U.S. enters the eighth year of combat in Iraq, there is a sign of relief. The military is pressing forward toward President Obama's deadline of Aug. 31, when two-thirds of our troops will be withdrawn. Up to 50,000 Marines and soldiers could remain another 16 months.

It's not the clean break that many of us had wished for. But a much-anticipated moment, never the less.

Iraq: End of the beginning?

Today, U.S. troops withdrew from urban areas in Iraq. It is a momenteous moment, but hardly time to break out the champagne.

Yes, it signals a change in our involvement there. But, as Great Britain's Winston Churchill said when the London bombings ceased, "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning."

Iraq: Still crazy after all these years

Carnage continues

A bomb goes off underneath a car in Arkansas, injuring a 54-year-old doctor outside his home as he is US car bomb

Bomb damage to Trent Pierce's car. (AP Photo/The Evening Times, Mike Douglas)

going to work. Paramedics quickly call in a medical helicopter to airlift him to a regional trauma center.

At the hospital, a team of doctors treat his shrapnel wounds for 11 hours. He has suffered damage to his intestines and throat, severe burns on his face and lost his left eye. Two weeks after the Feb. 4 attack, he is still on a ventilator.

In Iraq a woman sets off a suicide bomb among a crowd of Shiite pilgrims in Musayyib. There are 40 victims, 18 of them children and 11 women. The injured are picked up and carried to hospitals by by-standers or in cars. It is doubtful they had the advantage of teams of surgeons and 11 hours of surgery.

Their deaths are added to the 99,000 others carefully listed in the Iraq Body Count public database of violent civilian deaths during and since the 2003 invasion. Data is drawn from cross-checked media reports, hospital, morgue, NGO (non-government organizations) and official figures to produce a credible record of known deaths and incidents. (more in About IBC)

Women in Musayyib mourn the victims of a bombing, which set off an inferno that destroyed dozens of buildings in the town south of Baghdad.
Women in Musayyib mourn the victims of a July 2005 bombing, which set off an inferno that killed up to 100 people. (By Alaa Al-marjani -- Associated Press)

 

Back in the U.S., the Memphis Commercial Appeal reports, "People can't find words to describe it. How do you describe something you've never heard in your life? ... It roared with a deep bass, a thunderous sound that shook windows and caused people for miles away to raise their heads and ask aloud: What was that?"

In Musayyib, south of Baghdad, they are sadly familar with the sound. Suicide bombers have attacked them three times, with up to 150 deaths and untold numbers of injured. Yes, they could tell the people of Tennessee what a bomb sounds like.

 

Something to consider

'No One Values the Victims'

Washington Post, March 12, 2009

Iraq bombing shows how death has become more anonymous as a sense of the ordinary returns.

Anthony Shadid

Issues: 

Obama: Seize the chance to get out of Iraq

Barack Obama says "we should seize this moment" as Iraq Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki calls for a timetable for the removal of American troops.

In a July 14, 2008, New York Times opinion piece, "My Plan for Iraq," Obama outlines his ideas for "phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States."

He goes on, "The good news is that Iraq’s leaders want to take responsibility for their country by negotiating a timetable for the removal of American troops."

Obama's strategy is detailed. He writes, "As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in."

His plan would get troops out of Iraq by the summer of 2010. Some forces would continue limited missions to restrict any Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protect American service members "and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces."

He notes, "That would not be a precipitous withdrawal."

The full story. (Free registration required.)

What do you think? Comment on Barack Obama's pledge to start getting us out of Iraq as soon as he is in the White House. (First time? You will fill out a form and give us a user name.)

Iraq Summer In Ohio

We're heading into a watershed moment on Iraq. This September, General Petraeus will give his long-anticipated status report on the escalation and Congress will hold a huge vote on whether to set timelines to end the war. If there was ever a time to step up the pressure, this is it. So, we're making August one of the biggest-ever months of local action to end the war.

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