Police charge Iraq veterans with horses, trample and arrest themPhotos by Vietnam Veteran Bill Perry
HEMPSTEAD, NY — Ten members of the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), a group of military veterans who are calling for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, were arrested along with at least five civilians outside the final presidential debate at Hofstra University on Wednesday, October 15. The group had been trying to get answers for their questions from the candidates. "Neither of the candidates has shown real support for service members and veterans," said Jason Lemieux, a former Sergeant in the US Marine Corps who served three tours in Iraq, and member of IVAW.The veterans and their supporters were met by riot police as well as police on horseback. After a tense standoff for five minutes, police used their horses to attack the crowd, knocking over and trampling several — including Army Sergeant Nick Morgan (pictured), who suffered a broken cheekbone. Read Reports by Ben Dean-Kawamura by Alex Kane Photo by Bill PerryThe questions IVAW wanted to ask were:* (To Obama): "As President of the United States of America, are you prepared to back up your own words [about the illegality of the Iraq War] and the U.S. Constitution by supporting service members refusing to participate in what you describe as an illegal occupation?"* (To McCain): "What promises are you willing to make, as a veteran, as a senator, as a presidential candidate, to the veterans of the United States, to prove that you will ensure the V.A. is fully funded, staffed and capable of preventing troops from suffering as they are now?" Demands in full: IVAW Send Letter to Schieffer, Plan Protest at Hofstra Univ. Debate
Statement by Iraq Veterans Against the War
Photos by Vietnam Veteran Bill Perry
One hour before the final presidential debate of the 2008 campaign, fourteen members of IVAW marched in formation to Hofstra University to present questions for the candidates. IVAW had requested permission from debate moderator Bob Schieffer to ask their questions during the debate but got no response.
The contingent of veterans in dress uniforms and combat uniforms attempted to enter the building where the debate was to be held in order to ask their questions but were turned back by police. The IVAW members at the front of the formation were immediately arrested, and others were pushed back into the crowd by police on horseback. Several members were injured, including former Army Sergeant Nick Morgan who suffered a broken cheekbone when he was trampled by police horses before being arrested.
Watch Democracy Now's coverage of the action.
Indy media NYC article: http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/10/100761.html
RNC Police Tactics v. Iraq Veterans with a Message for the Candidates
Article by Debra Sweet
The World Can't Wait
A group of us from World Can't Wait went to Hostra University yesterday before the debate. Several different groups had messages outside the gates. Immigrant rights activists (Hempstead has a large Salvadoran community) came on a march with student anti-war groups, World Can't Wait, Code Pink and many local activists. The Long Island Alliance of peace/environmental groups, and about 50 Planned Parenthood supporters, along with a mix of Obama supporters had a rally inside a fenced-in "free speech zone." We were all in a kind of fluid mix across a wide turnpike from where the debate was held, while elsewhere, a free concert was held for Obama. All the national media were inside the campus.
Iraq Veterans Against the War had announced last week that they had questions for Obama and McCain about the war and treatment of veterans, and wanted their representatives allowed into ask them. IVAW had a meeting earlier with the local police, assuring them would be non-violent. At 7pm, the deadline they gave the debate organizers for an answer, 15 members of IVAW led a march across the street. At least 100 of us followed them, backing them at the entrance of the campus, and shouting "Let them in!" We were met by a solid line of police on horses, with nearly 100 riot police.
Matthis Chiroux and Kris Goldsmith read the questions they wanted to ask the candidates, and when they stepped forward a few feet to attempt to go on campus, they were arrested. In the next few minutes, a total of 10 IVAW members were arrested, some after standing tog
ether, pushed across the turnpike by cops on horses. They never raised their arms. The horses were used repeatedly to charge into the crowd, and especially at the IVAW members, in uniform, who were able to stay upright for nearly 10 minutes. As we were pushed to the opposite sidewalk, the batons came out, and horses pushed several veterans to the ground, including Geoff Millard. Nick Morgan was stepped on by a horse, and treated at a hospital (only after the other vets demanded it) for a broken cheekbone and possible concussion, then sent on to jail. Two women in the crowd were also hurt by horses.The several veterans who were not arrested spoke to the independent media afterward, full of outrage. Jabar Magruder, who was stationed in Iraq as part of the national guard, said he had not seen people attacked like that since he was in Iraq, and "I don't need to see that here".
Those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct and refusal to obey an official order, and released for a November 10 court date. There was almost no mention of this protest in the news today. New York Newsday and The Army Times were the only daily newspapers to cover the story. Local TV affiliates sent cameras after the arrests. See independent media reports:
Democracy Now
The Indypendent
Be the Media
Challenging the Torture State:
MORE Secret Memos: Bush Regime Advocated, Endorsed Torture: An article in Wednesday's Washington Post reveals that, in 2003 and 2004, Bush Regime officials issued a pair of memos to the CIA that explicitly and categorically advocated the use of torture on "suspected terrorists".
Two developments ensued the memos. One - countless bodies and minds were destroyed by the systematic use of water boarding, crushing testicles, sleep deprivation, bodies smeared with dog shit and set upon by German shepherds, savage beatings, and other unimaginably barbaric torments carried out by U.S. intelligence and military officials - in the name of the American people. Two - an endless stream of evasions, distortions, cheap "justifications", equivocations, and of course outright lies by every significant representative of the Bush Regime, starting with Bush himself, from day one right down to today.
Torturing Democracy: This film was shown on PBS WNET in New York tonight, but PBS has delayed showing it nationally until after January 21. You can see it anytime online, and it's well worth the time. Watch the documentary, narrated by Peter Coyote, read the key documents, and see a timeline of US sponsored torture at http://www.torturingdemocracy.org/
W! The film by Oliver Stone opens nationwide today. I know a lot of you Bush opponents will see it. Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney. Thandie Newton as Condoleeza Rice and Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell. Send me your opinions and reviews!
Debra Sweet, Director,
The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime
10 comments:
The Shield is Gone
The situation within the US right now, with this brutality coming in right on the heels of the recent unprovoked attacks by military and police forces against peaceful demonstrators at the St. Paul and Denver mobilizations against the war, underlines what the Weather Underground had to say immediately after the US Government massacre at Kent State in 1970: "The Shield is Gone".
This was in reference to the characteristic phase of Empire in which the system has gotten stuck again now, in this period: when the Empire is acutely and successfully challenged by its own people on the basis of its own morals and principles, when it is challenged to uphold the morals and principles to which it pretends and when the challenge proves irrefutably that system is thoroughly founded on lies, on illusions and on nothing else but sheer brute force, then that brute force becomes unleashed by the masters and allowed to come forth to crush "its own" people.
And in this period, who else embodies more perfectly the description of the Empire's "own" other than the men and women of its armed forces? These are the people who enlisted to go kill for money, kill for the Corporate State they mistook for a homeland and for reasons of some twisted sense of ideology, got themselves immersed in torture, in mass slaughter and genocide of totally innocent people ...and some of them suddenly woke up!
Embracing now a deeper and more true version of patriotis, a more profound sense of Justice and Democracy, some of those soldiers oriented with a more finely tuned moral compass and with a political awareness of the lies, the illegalities and violations of the Constitution they swore to protect, are coming home and mobilizing themselves and others to help the people of the homeland to see the Truth. What else can the system do now but try to brutalize them into silence?
The US soldiers used to be presented to the population as "the best of the best". Hailed as the "nation's heroes". With good reason the soldiers are now using that good reputation bestowed on them by the Empire and suing for Peace, moving for Justice and appealing to the moral integrity of the politicians to set things right again. But alas, they are finding out there is no moral integrity to appeal to...
Even the US Peace movement, on the whole, is asleep nowadays. What happened to its spirited demonstrations of tens of thousands in even small cities? The self-appointed leaders of the US Peace movement said, "got to sleep" and the people did that. The only significant and tangible moral and material forces in this period actively bringing us closer to Peace are the Iraqi, Afghani, Lebanese and Palestinian Resistance movements - by continuing to defeat the US, UK and Israeli forces on the battlefield. At a tremendous cost in lives. An incomprehensible price of lives lost to the cause.
But the cause is sacred, it is necessary, and it continues to lead the people of the Middle East to victories.
If the Empire's politician's won't hear the voices for Peace and Justice coming from their own people, coming from the soldiers who served them with weapons and up to their throats with blood (their own, as well as that of a multitude of innocents), then there's no other option available within this reality: the forces of Empire will continue to sustain military, moral, and political defeats on every front until they are kicked out permanently from where they do not belong. There IS, of course, a better scenario: it would be preferable if its own people, those within its homeland, can stop the Empire. As soon as possible.
The "Shield" that the Weather Underground was refering to in its communique after the Kent State massacre is the special priviledge with which the system endows some of its "own people" in order to maintain class rule by exploiting, cultivating, preserving and utilizing authoritarian patterns among us, embedding racism, sexism and homophobia in our day to day affairs of life within the microfolds of the Empire.
Those who are bestowed with a special priviledge like white skin priviledge, male privilidge, or "straight" priviledge become micro-emperors within the family, within the workplace, the schoolyard, the neighborhood. They operate as the vehicles of class rule, the prime perpetrators of the "divide and conquer" policy, the flags and mouthpieces of imperial propaganda.
The system endows those people with special privileges of many different flavors, and those find expression on all walks, all twists and turns of life. All of them add up to a special kind of privilege, keeping the system's chosen people safe and comfortable on almost every occasion. The Shield ensures that those people - its "own" - will have access to education, to employment, better salaries, access to healthcare, will be safe from institutionalized discrimination, will enjoy freedom of movement, the right to own property, the right to get married, to own weapons, to be free from illegal search and seizures, will enjoy basic political rights, will have access to safety in a crime scene, and will have the ability to get away with murder. None of "the other" people are allowed to enjoy all of those rights, certainly not gay and lesbian people, transsexual or bisexual people, people of color, women, the undocumented, the unorganized, the poor, nor any others among the multitude of "others" who are targeted by racism, sexism and homophobia.
In times of moral and political crisis things happen in regard to this special arrangement within Imperial society: When some of THOSE people, the people who have special privileges and who carry the special protection of the Shield - the Empire's "own" - begin to question the system, when they attempt to shed the priviledge and stand to challenge the system ...the system faces one of its greatest threats. Losing the moral high ground, losing the ideological domination of its people, is one of the greatest dangers for the Empire. If the challengers gain the upper ground, morally, nothing can stop the sense of moral imperative from infecting the population and spreading out everywhere... From there on, past the first few triggers, all it would take is spirited community organization, mobilizations, co-ordinated abstentions from the workings of the system, an avalanche of moral and political awakenings congealed into material and social force moving in larger and larger sweeps until a General Strike can bring down the whole damn thing.
But it all starts with the battle over morals and principles. If the Peace movement and the people who were formerly the Empire's "best of the best" become able to launch successful moral challenges to the system, the system has only two options left: either allow the next step of the avalanche to take place and face organized community mobilizations, or respond to peaceful gentleness with brutality.
When Imperial soldiers put their weapons down they renounce the Shield. Up until that moment, the Shield was protecting them not from the "enemy", but from the cannibals and demons who are the top of the pyramid. You dare challenge my Divine Right to make war for profits? I will eat you alive.
The oppressed - at least the large numbers of the oppressed - know the Truth. But when the Empire's "own" people realize it and attempt to make things right they find out that the system has no mercy for the righteous. It's horses will trample you; its assassins will kill you while you sleep; its operatives will threaten your loved ones; its "cultural attaches" will torture you in underground chambers buried in countries that are not on the map.
Friends and Comrades, we're in that period again: the Shield is Gone.
Welcome to the slightly deeper folds of the Movement.
Petros Evdokas
from the Belly of the Beast,
member of Cyprus IndyMedia Collective
http://petros-evdokas.cyprus-org.net/Another-sort-of-Introduction.html
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It is time we the american people start surrounding and beating the hell out of policemen. They have turned militaristic and are not doing their sworn duty. I see a bad moon arising!!!
Imagine the audacity of some local cops doing that to Iraqi war veterans. These fat ass cops sleep in their warm bed every night and eat their doughnuts in the morn, while out troops are in harms way evry day and night. Of course, the cops will say, "I was just doing my job".
All the guys wanted to do was ask some questions dammit!!! Is that so bad of a thing in this country nowadays?
It is time to move out of this new facist country.
Surround the white house and let's boot the crooks out of office!!!!!!!
I'll bet when Obama gets elected these cops are going to find themselves charged with violating the civil rights of these American citizens. They see how they fare in prison.
Well, I guess we are just a bunch of pussies, since no one wants to leave the comforts of our home to face the fascist police and their new fangdangled weapons.
These soldiers are heroes twice over. Maybe enough of the war veterans will be able and willing to lead the overdue revolution against the corrupt elitist, and those that back them. I think Bush's tagline comes to mind...either you're with us, or you're against us.
Did anyone see the latest FBI flyers that suggest to police that anyone supporting the constitution may be consider terrorist material. Even animal lovers are being targeted (see link below)
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/FBIsuspect.html
Well, someone wake me up before they decide to cut the cable. I need my internet to survive...
years ago my father in later years I myself have manned picket lines if the cops charged the lines guys had bags of marbles or ball bearings they would let loose on the horses they can't run on them and would throw their riders also a broken bottle to the chest would cause them to rear up and throw the rider something is coming and it isn't gonna be pretty ,cops today' excuse me, some cops today have a fascistic view of what their job is, we have to remember what's right and what's wrong and stand on that line, the powers that be have us all divided ,a lot of us are totally bullshitted,I for one will fight for what I believe is right, I hope there will be others
These are killer cops.
Americans are justified in using necessary force to defend themselves and our constituional rights.
The Founders fought and died for these rights. The tyrants will only kill us anyway if we knuckle under.
I am NOT, repeat NOT saying kill cops. But under our own system of law we are justified in using necessary force to defend ourselves and our rights. We must no longer be unprepared to deal with killer cops.
If law enforcement respects and serves the people, they in turn have earned and deserve respect. If they try to injure and kill this nation's people and serve brutal tyrants, they deserve neither respect nor mercy.
Learn to fight. Become strong. You cannot be gentle without strength... you can only be weak, exploited and slaughtered.
Something is wrong when we cencture our soldiers who faught for " Our Freedom" I am a patriot for the Constiution as it was first written back in 1776! We need to say " Don't Tread on me!" Police and the U.S Army can police the streets and the Preacher can use the bible to authorize this crap. How much are we going to take? They should have let those soldiers have a say. What happened to free speak and peacefull assemble to protest or raise a dissent? Something is really wrong here in the states. Something is wrong people. What can we do to fix it. U.S. Govt won't fix it, we do somehow. Something is wrong folks.
@dogismyth
I'm from South Africa, thanks for that link.
At this rate we may as well walk ourselves into the nearest slaughterhouses and request death.
I'm actually intrigued as to what these law enforcement officers would do if their family members were arrested for any of these supposed terrorist crimes. Makes me wonder if they would actually awaken to what the elitist corrupt are up to.
Not only do many Americans have to wake up, the whole world needs to arise from its heavily sedated slumber and take action.
u r blog Is very nice
The truth is disrespectful violentamenta so concerned people who have served the country delivering his life, putting it at risk and over in his country does not guarantee the same freedom that supposedly claim to stand.
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