"Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself." -- Thomas Merton
The labels "fiscal conservative" or 'fiscally responsible' -- if applied to the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners -- could stand as a contradiction in terms in the context of what they look to be doing to our local libraries.
The clearly stated will of the voters in 1986 and the easily understandable Colorado state law on libraries should direct the commissioners in their budget process for the county and the library system. However, as the article at the link below demonstrates, the commissioners are attempting to muscle their way into taking the tax money you said should go to libraries to use for other government projects.
There is nothing 'conservative' or 'responsible' about raiding the library mill levy through manipulation of the budgeting process ... the county commissioners should remember who elected them and stop their scheming.
It becomes more obvious all the time that an independent library district in Jefferson County is necessary to (as much as possible) get the politicians out of the governance of our local libraries.
In Arvada, our two local libraries, Standley Lake and Arvada, are vitally important contributors to the character of the community and our quality of life ... I hope you will join me in the effort to protect them.
Remember respectfully those soldiers from Colorado who have fallen in war. But, also this year remember those members of Colorado's congressional delegation who voted just four days ago to keep sending U.S. troops to fight, be wounded and die in the occupation of Iraq.
There is nothing glorious about war. Memorial Day is set aside to honor and respect those who have been killed in America's wars. Troops follow orders, they fight and too many die.
The United States has now suffered two hugely mistaken wars in just a generation: Vietnam and Iraq. There should be special sadness today over the unnecessary loss of soldiers in these unnecessary wars.
Upon contemplating the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, upon reflection over the 3,455 U.S. troops killed because of this war of choice, we can recognize the sacrifice of those who volunteered for the military believing that they would be defending our freedoms -- we should also, however, hold in contempt and disdain those politicians like George W. Bush and Richard Bruce Cheney who have trampled upon their noble intentions by lying to them and us about the need for this war.
No American soldier ever should have died for Bush's political advantage ... or to secure a new nation for an Islamic theocratic regime ... or to spread hatred of our country around the world ... that is all the blood spilled in Iraq will have accomplished when the dying and destruction has finally stopped.
News from Iraq today below. There is much more tragedy to come.
Because of Bush and Congress ... there will also be many more sad Memorial Days to come.
Staff Sergeant David Safstrom does not regret his previous tours in Iraq, not even a difficult second stint when two comrades were killed while trying to capture insurgents.
"In Mosul, in 2003, it felt like we were making the city a better place," he said. "There was no sectarian violence, Saddam was gone, we were tracking down the bad guys. It felt awesome."
But now on his third deployment in Iraq, he is no longer a believer in the mission. The pivotal moment came, he says, this past February when soldiers killed a man setting a roadside bomb. When they searched the bomber's body, they found identification showing him to be a sergeant in the Iraqi Army.
"I thought, 'What are we doing here? Why are we still here?' " said Safstrom, a member of Delta Company of the 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. "We're helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us."
His views are echoed by most of his fellow soldiers in Delta Company, renowned for its aggressiveness. ...
... With few reliable surveys of soldiers' attitudes, it is impossible to simply extrapolate from the small number of soldiers in Delta Company. But in interviews with more than a dozen soldiers over a one-week period, most said they were disillusioned by repeated deployments, by what they saw as the abysmal performance of Iraqi security forces and by a conflict that they considered a civil war, one they had no ability to stop.
They had seen shadowy militia commanders installed as Iraqi Army officers, they said, had come under increasing attack from roadside bombs - planted within sight of Iraqi Army checkpoints - and had fought against Iraqi soldiers whom they thought were their allies.
"In 2003, 2004, 100 percent of the soldiers wanted to be here, to fight this war," said Sergeant First Class David Moore, a self-described "conservative Texas Republican" and platoon sergeant who strongly advocates an American withdrawal. "Now, 95 percent of my platoon agrees with me." ...
... in Safstrom's view, the American presence is futile. "If we stayed here for 5, even 10 more years, the day we leave here these guys will go crazy," he said. "It would go straight into a civil war. That's how it feels, like we're putting a Band-Aid on this country until we leave here."
Their many deployments have added to the strain. After spending six months in Iraq, the soldiers of Delta Company had been home for only 24 hours last December when the news came. "Change your plans," they recall being told. "We're going back to Iraq." ...
When Muhammad al-Darsi got out of prison in Libya last year after serving time for militant activities, he had one goal: killing Americans in Iraq.
A recruiter he found on the Internet arranged to meet him on a bridge in Damascus, Syria. But when he got there, Mr. Darsi, 24, said the recruiter told him he was not needed in Iraq. Instead, he was drafted into the war that is seeping out of Iraq.
A team of militants from Iraq had traveled to Jordan, where they were preparing attacks on Americans and Jews, Mr. Darsi said the recruiter told him. He asked Mr. Darsi to join them and blow himself up in a crowd of tourists at Queen Alia Airport in Amman.
“I agreed,” Mr. Darsi said in a nine-page confession to Jordanian authorities after the plot was broken up.
The Iraq war, which for years has drawn militants from around the world, is beginning to export fighters and the tactics they have honed in the insurgency to neighboring countries and beyond, according to American, European and Middle Eastern government officials and interviews with militant leaders in Lebanon, Jordan and London. ...
... Militant leaders warn that the situation in Lebanon is indicative of the spread of fighters. “You have 50 fighters from Iraq in Lebanon now, but with good caution I can say there are a hundred times that many, 5,000 or higher, who are just waiting for the right moment to act,” Dr. Mohammad al-Massari, a Saudi dissident in Britain who runs the jihadist Internet forum, Tajdeed.net, said in an interview on Friday. “The flow of fighters is already going back and forth, and the fight will be everywhere until the United States is willing to cease and desist.”
There are signs of that traffic in and out of Iraq in other places.
In Saudi Arabia last month, government officials said they had arrested 172 men who had plans to attack oil installations, public officials and military posts, and some of the men appeared to have trained in Iraq.
Officials in Europe have said in interviews that they are trying to monitor small numbers of Muslim men who have returned home after traveling for short periods to Iraq, where they were likely to have fought alongside insurgents. ...
... A top American military official who tracks terrorism in Iraq and the surrounding region, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the topic, said: “Do I think in the future the jihad will be fueled from the battlefield of Iraq? Yes. More so than the battlefield of Afghanistan.”
Militants in Iraq are turning out instructional videos and electronic newsletters on the Internet that lay out their playbook for a startling array of techniques, from encryption to booby-trapped bombs to surface-to-air missiles, and those manuals are circulating freely in cyberspace.
And tactics common in Iraq are showing up in other parts of the world. In Somalia and Algeria, for example, recent suicide bombings have been accompanied by the release of taped testimonials by the bombers, a longtime terrorist practice embraced by insurgents in Iraq. ...
At least 94 Iraqis were killed or found dead today and another 55 Iraqis were wounded during violent events. However, the day’s biggest news was the rescue of 42 hostages from a suspected al-Qaeda hideout northeast of Baghdad. Unfortunately, another 40 were abducted from Samarra, and seven were kidnapped in other incidents. Three American servicemembers were also killed in separate events on Saturday, said military sources today.
On Saturday, February 24, 2007, Colorado Citizens for Peace observed the 2nd anniversary of the longest on-going peace vigil in the Denver metro area. This special vigil was held -- as always -- at the intersection of W. 52nd Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard from Noon until 1:00 PM.
The commemoration featured three keynote speakers: Dave Chandler, Green Party candidate for U.S. House of Representatives for Colorado's Seventh Congressional District in 2002 and 2006; Colorado State Representative Sara Gagliardi, HD #27 (D-Arvada); and Ira Chernus, Professor of Religious Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder and author of the just published book 'Monsters to Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin'.
Here is the text of Dave's remarks:
As reported by Reuters, this is what is going on in Iraq today:
Sitting amid mounds of rotting garbage in a rubbish dump in Baghdad, 13-year-old Huda Hamdan is the human face of a new U.N. report that says a third of war- torn Iraq's 26 million people live in poverty. [That’s over eight and a half million people] ... She and her six brothers and sisters compete with scores of other diggers, many children and women, made homeless by sectarian violence that has forced them to flee their homes and seek refuge in the sprawling Shi'ite slum of Sadr City.
Scores of displaced Shi'ite families have made the rubbish dump their home -- living in unsanitary conditions in tents, crude shacks made from oil cans or squatting in an empty building -- and trying to eke out the barest of livings. ... “[The report] shows the failure of the state authorities to provide adequate services to the population," [The UN report] said in a statement that also blamed Western-backed efforts to transform the economy into a free market for "exacerbating deprivation levels".
Hamdan said she and her siblings fled Falluja, a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, after a U.S. sniper shot dead her mother, leaving them orphaned. Now they live with her grandparents and uncles in Sadr City.”
This is George W. Bush’s “freedom on the march” in U.S. occupied Iraq. American troops killed number 3,155 and 23,000 wounded. As many as 650,000 Iraqis killed since the unprovoked attack -- and untold and incalculable destruction of property.
This wrong. And it has been wrong since Bush and Cheney lied to you and me and the world about the necessity for this war.
Now Bush is ‘surging’ -- escalating -- intensifying the war. He and his neocon cronies argue that we should suspend judgment and give the ‘new plan’ a chance.
But this is my proclaimation to the Bushites, neocons and radical Republicans: you have been WRONG about virtually everything associated with the attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq. WRONG.
Why, oh, why would anyone with even a modicum of intelligence trust the judgment of Bush and his plan?
It is way past time for this illegal and immoral war and occupation to end. It is way past time for there to be no more need for this Saturday afternoon peace vigil.
So, we need to tell our representatives in Washington that ‘non-binding’ resolutions are no good. The funding for troop deployments to Iraq must stop and there must be no permanent U.S. bases in Iraq.
And ... since this war was based on lies, we need to tell our Colorado members of Congress and Senators to repeal the 2002 Iraq War Resolution.
Let’s keep the pressure on the politicians until they get the message that our military role in the Iraq debacle needs to end now ...
... Because none of us wants to be here for another peace vigil anniversary.
PHOTO: Dave Chandler with Colorado Citizens for Peace coordinator, Cindy Lowry. Photo by Scott Zalauf.
This Saturday afternoon in Arvada, dedicated, patriotic citizens publicly rallied for peace ... and an end to the violence and war in Iraq. Dave Chandler, candidate for the U.S. House for Colorado's 7th district joined the gathering.
Dave is the one candidate running for Congress in the 7th district who supports a quick withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. If ending the war in Iraq is an important issue for you, have the courage to vote your convictions. We must end this war as soon as possible and bring our troops home -- where they belong.
They don't represent a political party, and you won't see them at an anti-war rally.
Most say they are proud Americans. They are proud to serve and wear the uniform of the U.S. military.
But they are against the war in Iraq, and they are speaking out about it.
Organizers say it's the first anti-war movement of its kind in the active military since the Vietnam conflict.
"An Appeal for Redress From the War in Iraq" is an Internet initiative to get active-duty military to send this message to political leaders:
As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq. Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.
It is a legal way for soldiers, Marines and sailors to protest the war. ...
... The response to the movement has been "amazing," one organizer said. The group had 65 messages to political leaders a few days days ago. Now the group has more than 10 times that number.
"If people want to support the troops, then they should support us coming home," said Marine Sgt. Liam Madden, one of the organizers of the movement.
He cites the absence of weapons of mass destruction and the lack of a link between Iraq and al Qaeda for his opposition to the war.
If elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for Colorado's 7th district, Dave Chandler will listen to active duty service members who know what is really going on in Iraq.
Sixty five active duty service members are officially asking Congress to end the war in Iraq -- the first time active troops have done so since U.S. invasion began in 2003.
Three of the service members will hold a press conference Wednesday explaining their decision to send "Appeals for Redress" under the Military Whistleblower Protection Act to their members of Congress. Under the act, National Guard and Reservists can send communications about any subject to their member of Congress without punishment.
There is only one candidate for Congress in Colorado's 7th district that supports the speedy withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq: Dave Chandler.
Enough is enough.
As of today, 2,766 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq.
As of today, non-mortal U.S. casualties in Iraq are 44,779.
On this 16th day of October, 56 U.S. and UK troops have been killed in Iraq, putting this month on track to be one of the deadliest for the occupying forces.
What if millions decided to vote their conscience and said 'No More War Candidates'?
The Voters Pledge makes visible a powerful political force, the peace vote, a force that politicians cannot continue to ignore. It sends a clear message to the hawkish minority leading both major parties that we, the people, demand to end the occupation of Iraq and to end unprovoked attacks on other nations.
Politics as usual has failed us ... It is time to vote for principle -- and peace.
No more posturing and double-talk from the tired, old, money-soiled Democrats and Republicans.
This election you can make a difference ... because this must end.
The toll of U.S. troops killed in Iraq because of the lies of George W. Bush, now stands at: 2,400.
17,469 U.S. troops have been wounded in Iraq; 8,137 of whom were not able to return to duty.
Countless thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed and maimed as a consequences of the unprovoked attack on Iraq ordered by Bush and approved by the Republican and Democrat controlled U.S. Congress.
I've got to emphasize this line from Gary Hart's column in yesterday's Washington Post:
No Democrat, especially one now silent, should expect election by default. The public trust must be earned, and speaking clearly, candidly and forcefully now about the mess in Iraq is the place to begin.
I couldn't have said it more clearly myself. While more American troops get killed in Iraq every day, while scores are wounded and maimed everyday, while hundreds of innocent Iraqis are killed and wounded and dispossesed everyday -- almost all the leaders and candidates of the Colorado Democratic Party are silent.
I am asking progressives, peace activists, centerists, anti-war Libertarians, traditional Republicans, and conscientious Democrats to support me now ... as a matter of principle. I opposed this war three years ago and ran in the 7th CD because both the Democratic and Republican candidates stood with Bush on the then-coming war. Today, all we hear about the Democratic candidates in this race is how much money they've raised and how much money they're going to raise -- they are silent on the war. It is obvious that the Democrats still believe that those who oppose this war are going to vote for their candidates as a matter of "default" ... exactly what Sen. Hart said should not happen.
It is real simple. If you want this war to come to an end, if you want the death to begin to come to an end, if peace is a value to you -- then right now you've got to support me in this contest for the US. House of Representatives in the 7th Congressional District.
But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping on any political stove. In their leaders, the American people look for strength, determination and self-confidence, but they also look for courage, wisdom, judgment and, in times of moral crisis, the willingness to say: "I was wrong." To stay silent during such a crisis, and particularly to harbor the thought that the administration's misfortune is the Democrats' fortune, is cowardly. In 2008 I want a leader who is willing now to say: "I made a mistake, and for my mistake I am going to Iraq and accompanying the next planeload of flag-draped coffins back to Dover Air Force Base. And I am going to ask forgiveness for my mistake from every parent who will talk to me." ... No Democrat, especially one now silent, should expect election by default. The public trust must be earned, and speaking clearly, candidly and forcefully now about the mess in Iraq is the place to begin.
And when it comes time to finally do something, you do this: Rush to the microphone to second the president on Iraq. You say, with no hint of irony, that, although you would handle things much differently, we must "stay the course," even as the course gets rougher and the options grow fewer and the blame assigned to Bush becomes increasingly loud. It's not a strategy popular among Democratic activists and Democratic bloggers or most people contacted by pollsters.
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