A new week; and the mean news this week is that our Marines are engaged in battle on the border of Syria. An entire Marine unit was  wiped out in western Iraq.  Meantime administration keeps dropping suggestive hints to media that our country intends action in Iran. Not much more  reported in media on Korea who tested a nuclear missle in sea of Japan ... was it last week or 2 weeks ago?

Media reports an unexploded grenade found in vicinity of where Bush was speaking in his visit in Georgia..Russia. The Secret Police seemed not to know of it and had some trouble locating it.

White House evacuated because an errant plane managed to get into the protected air space zone of the White House. And hey, our own birds were in the air and on it this time...interceptors were in the air and guided the errant plane down...just like I've always known and expected of our ready Air Force; imagine my astonishment on the day of Sept 11, when none of our interceptor planes were there timely to intercept? (I'm an AF military brat).

  This weekend being Mother's Day, I want to share an article by Geov Parrish on the origins of Mother's Day as Julia Ward Howe's strident call for women to come together to oppose the war of men.  See it at this link

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=19000

  As a military family, I have spent most of the past 2 + years in my own efforts to speak out in challenging the validity of the war in Iraq.  I will spend Mother's Day doing the same.  In my affiliation with other military families, I sometimes will get updates from a family that speaks of the situation with their loved one in Iraq, as well as updates from my own Iraq veteran loved ones.  This week was a particularly mean week for information that speaks to how difficult it is becoming for the military to hold it together in Iraq.  

Brief and fyi;

You can read chapters of this book FREE online, see url below.  Act now before it gets taken down.  We saw him as guest on C-Span and we think he has it nailed; at the very least it is a useful collection of the speculations about 911 and administration's active participation in permitting it; okay in helping to orchestrate it.  

THE NEW PEARL HARBOR
Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11
by David Ray Griffin
foreword by Richard Folk

http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2004/06/141355.php

   This might be a good time to lend support to what is going on in Recall the National Guard troops initiatives in now 4 states; Vermont, Montana, Oregon, Washington.  

    This week I accompanied a small delegation to our State Capital to present the Washington state Resolution to the Governor's office.  The delegation represented Military Families Speak Out and Gold Star Families for Peace along with some other partnering groups.  

    For more detail on both the Washington Resolution and the Oregon Resolution, visit website Military FAmilies Speak Out, Pacific Northwest at
http://coastalrain.tripod.com/wmfso/

  (sorry haven't figured out how to insert links yet at DK) .... more ...

This is a good (very long) article published in Vanity Fair, Nov 04 on depleted uranium effects in health on troops, bringing it home to families. Too long to repost here.  I've been following depleted uranium since last year, when it came to my attention.  I see it as a transcendent issue above partisan divides, as it will affect people no matter their beliefs, politics, religion or color.  It gets so little media, except in print, and I don't understand why it is not a larger issue worthy of more concentrated concern.

http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/printables...

Weapons of Self-Destruction
By David Rose

Is Gulf War syndrome - possibly caused by Pentagon ammunition - taking its toll on G.I.'s in Iraq?
When he started to get sick, Staff Sergeant Raymond Ramos's first instinct was to fight. "I had joint pains, muscle aches, chronic fatigue, but I tried to exercise it out," he says. "I was going for runs, working out. But I never got any better. The headaches were getting more frequent and sometimes lasted all day. I was losing a lot of weight. My overall physical demeanor was bad."

....snipped ....

  Does someone already have a diary chronicling Keith Olberman, Countdown, MSNBC reporting faithfully on vote fraud potential?  He's a "friend" just now, one we badly need.  

  See his blog, which is not the same thing as the transcripts...

    http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6368819/#041109a

  And tonight, Friday, Nov 12, Chris Matthews, Hardball reported on vote irregularities, and did an unusually unbiased job of it.  

Another extension for 6,500 troops. Happy Voting...vote out George Widowmaker Bush.

Military family here whose loved ones (2) were caught up in the last extension. Our kids served 15 months in Iraq. Both are scheduled for 2nd tour in Iraq in 2005.

Back door draft......extensions, activating the Ready Reserves = 50-60 yr old men and one 70 yr old man activated and to be sent to Iraq = National Guard and Reserves lacking training in combat arena and lacking support equipment sent to Iraq = women being eyed now with change in military law to be assigned to combat areas = Skills draft = and on and on it goes.

So have you heard that when soldier is mortally wounded, his name is moved to "retired" on military records if it is expected he/she will die in 72 hours. Thus doesn't have to be included in the count of soldiers killed in action. It's more than 1111 fallen soldiers folks....

Get this madman out of office yesterday.

I had heard this ad was in the making. I followed Brooke Campbell's story on the loss of her brother, Sergeant Ryan M. Campbell, in Iraq, with his last letter.His words:"Just do me one big favor, ok?" he wrote. "Don't vote for Bush. No. Just don't do it. I would not be happy with you."

 In our own family the 2 deployed in Iraq were involuntarily extended also, so we feel a particular closeness to the loss of Sgt. Ryan Campbell even if we did not know him or his family personally. I remember well the President's Sick joke shown on television looking for WMD under the desk. This while our loved ones were over there in Iraq. Seeing the President behave in such a manner permanently broke my heart that day for it was abundantly clear he held no regard whatsoever for lives lost in his lies about WMD. It was equally clear he had no regard for the code of honor of the military culture. There was and is no CIC in the President's office, and our troops along with their families, as well as the civilian population need one desperately.