From today on, I'm responsible only for my own humanity

[Neecy]

This photograph has haunted me since I first saw it last week, and not only because it illustrates so vividly the brutality of our occupation.

Last year, like so many, I put aside my strong opposition to the Iraq occupation and threw myself into the Kerry campaign. I remained silent about his IWR vote, I remained silent when he said he'd repeat the vote, I remained silent when he said he'd continue the occupation because I thought there was nothing more important than ousting Bush from office.

There is something more important. This little girl.

If we hadn't remained silent, if we hadn't given a free pass on the war issue, if we had held Kerry's feet to the fire we might have presented a clear alternative to the war party and given so many of our apathetic countrymen a reason to vote. But we didn't, and the killing continues, the horror remains, and people are dying because of our silence. The majority of Americans now believe that this war was a mistake. Who exactly did they have to vote for?

Never again will I put political expediency above my basic decency and humanity. Never again will I look the other way and remain silent when there are great moral issues at stake. I'll fight my own party if that's what it takes. I'm ashamed that, when I had the opportunity, I didn't tell John Kerry what really matters to me as an American and a human being. Instead I got to see him salute and 'report for duty'.

I'm not angry with Kerry - he went where we, the party, allowed him to go. I'm angry with myself. Never again.

[G_j]

1. I hear you !!

and I can tell you there are many, many people who feel exactly the same way. Life-time peace activists supported Kerry and many of us feel disheartened and somewhat 'dirty' from putting aside our highest participles in a desperate and fearful attempt to dump Bush.

I think a lot of us have learned a similar lesson to what you are speaking of.
thanks

[ClayZ]

3. You said it well...

That is how I feel too. We unfolded our 60s era peace flag and have been going to protests again. http://www.notinourname.net/index.html


"What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax
Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of
the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace,
the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that
enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for
their children - not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and
women - not merely peace in our time but peace for all time."

-- President John F. Kennedy at American University 10 June 1963

[xchrom]

2. horrible

but yeah -- my circle of concern is small.
i can't survive othewise.
that picture reminds so much of the little girl running down the road naked -- burning with napalm -- from the viet nam era.

[Rex]

4. Nights of sorrow await this little girl

Monsters really do lurk in the night.

[Walt Starr]

5. That's why I won't be apologetic

if I feel I cannot vote for the Democratic candidate with a clear conscience ever again.

[anarchy1999]

6. I stand behind you all the way. We failed.

n/t

No punches pulled in this new one from Scott Ritter.


Criminals the lot of us

The invasion of Iraq was a crime of gigantic proportions, for which politicians, the media and the public share responsibility

Scott Ritter
Thursday January 27, 2005
The Guardian

The White House's acknowledgement last month that the United States has formally ended its search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq brought to a close the most calamitous international deception of modern times. This decision was taken a month after a contentious presidential election in which the issue of WMD and the war in Iraq played a central role. In the lead-up to the invasion, and throughout its aftermath, President Bush was unwavering in his conviction that Iraq had WMD, and that this posed a threat to the US and the world. The failure to find WMD should have been his Achilles heel, but the Democratic contender, John Kerry, floundered, changing his position on WMD and Iraq many times.

<snip>

There was never any serious effort undertaken by the Bush administration to find Iraqi WMD. Prior to the invasion, the US military re-designated an artillery brigade as an "exploitation task force" designed to search for WMD as the coalition advanced into Iraq. It did little more than serve as a vehicle for its embedded reporter, Judith Miller of the New York Times, to recycle fabricated information provided by Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress, creating dramatic headlines that had no substance. Once Iraq was occupied, Miller was sent home, and the taskforce disbanded.

A new organisation was created, the CIA-led Iraq survey group (ISG), led by David Kay. His job was not to find WMD but to spin the data for the political benefit of the White House. He hinted at dramatic findings, only to suddenly reverse course once Saddam Hussein was captured. Kay told us that everyone had got it wrong on WMD, that it was no one's fault. He was replaced by Charles Duelfer, whose task was to extend the WMD cover-up for as long as possible. Duelfer was very adept at this, having done similar work while serving as the deputy executive chairman of the UN weapons inspection effort.

I witnessed him manipulate reports to the security council, rejecting all that didn't sustain his (and the US government's) foregone conclusion that Iraq had WMD.

<snip>



http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1399228,...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=101464

[shraby]

7. I sent it to Senator Feingold

and said Enough is Enough. This child did nothing to deserve this. We have become the terrorists.