Veterans for Common Sense will be holding a press conference on January 15th to discuss the upcoming hostilities in Iraq. See you all there:
VETERANS FOR COMMON SENSE Press Advisory
Gulf War Veterans and Families of Current Service Members Question U.S. Military Build-Up in the Gulf
Time: 9:15 am, January 15, 2003
Location: West Room, National Press Club
529 14th Street, NW, Washington, DC
Contact: Jen Nader
202-543-6176
jnader@igc.org
To mark the 12th anniversary of the start of the 1991 Gulf War, Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) and Military Families Speak Out (MFSO) will hold a joint press conference to highlight critical questions the Bush administration has failed to address regarding Iraq. Panelists include Desert Storm combat veterans who know war and its consequences firsthand and family members of service members who have recently deployed to the Persian Gulf.
Military families and Gulf War veterans will ask President George W. Bush to reassure them and an increasingly alarmed public that his administration is not hell bent on conflict. With no “smoking gun” or “clear and present danger,” war with Iraq is neither necessary nor inevitable. Americans feel the President has failed to justify a U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. We encourage him to win without war by adhering to the UN process. Yet U.S. preparations for a second major war in Iraq continue.
Wednesday’s national press conference will mark the first time that families with deployed service members and Gulf War veterans have joined together to raise legitimate questions about our administration’s headlong rush to war.
Panelists will include:
Moderator: Erik Gustafson, Board of Directors, VCS. Gustafson served in the 1991 Gulf War as a Specialist with the Army’s 864th Engineer Combat Battalion (Heavy). He currently directs the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC), a Washington-based human rights organization.
Charles Sheehan-Miles, Board of Directors, VCS. A decorated Gulf War veteran, Sheehan-Miles served as a tank crewman with the Army’s 24th Infantry Division. Former President of the National Gulf War Resource Center, he has worked for years to secure healthcare and disability benefits for ill Gulf War veterans.
Nancy Lessin and Charley Richardson, Co-founders, MFSO. Richardson directs the Labor Extension Program at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. Lessin works for the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. Their son Joe, an Arab language specialist in the Marines, has deployed to the Persian Gulf.
Jeffrey McKenzie, Co-Founder, MFSO. His son, Army Captain Jeremy McKenzie, is currently being deployed to Kuwait. His daughter-in-law Nicole is in the National Guard.
Steve Robinson, Executive Director, National Gulf War Resource Center. Prior to retiring as a Sergeant First Class from the Army, Robinson worked with the Pentagon’s Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses. During the Gulf War, he served with the 1st /10th Special Forces in northern Iraq.
Other military families and Gulf War combat veterans will be present and available for questions.
VCS – 504 Eleventh St. SE, Washington, DC 20003 – 703-668-0353 – http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ MFSO – P.O. Box 549, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 – 617-522-9323
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This entry also posted at Stand Down.
It is a recognizable step taken to file a war law suit against current leader of our nation. Congratulations. However, by the easy absolute decision of reject by the judge, it is ture time for us to wake up: the current administration has much to hide, and they are n step ahead of us without a single doubt.
To achieve our goal, the only way is:
1. Keep a low profile until every step ahead of us ensured to happen as scheduled with solid backup plan.
2. Bulid an international coalition to strengthen our power, but behind the curtain only please. (i.e. this is the obvious thing we can learn from them)
3. Within the nation, we are already one step late, as the justice power has almost all been emerged with the execution power by a couple of once denied judges been renominated recently under a fine plan. This can serve as the major reason that the law suit would not even make a sound before the quick reject. However, there are still ways to make a remedy by national coalition with any member in the legislature areas (as did so with the few congressman jointly filed lawsuit), any celebrity that sensed something wrong, any chairman/CEO that can provide key evidences that the current asminstration has much to hide, which is hurting our national interest.
Our goal should be simple and clear: a regime change on or before the Nov 2nd day of 2004.
Our lesson learned is even clearer: the road ahead of us is much tougher than expected, the only winning strategy is to try at least one step ahead, with no one inside of us betraying, while break down the other party from inside as the pursuit for peace and prosperity of the majority will and can prevail.
Posted by kim on March 1, 2003 06:18 PM
I have been serving in Iraq for over five months now as a soldier in the 2nd Battalion of the 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, otherwise known as the “ROCK.”
We entered the country at midnight on the 26th of March; one thousand of my fellow soldiers and I parachuted from 10 jumbo jets (known as C-17s) onto a cold, muddy field in Bashur, Northern Iraq. This parachute operation was the U.S. Army’s only combat jump of the war and opened up the northern front.
Things have changed tremendously for our battalion since those first cold, wet weeks spent in the mountain city of Bashur. On April 10 our battalion conducted an attack south into the oil-rich town of Kirkuk, the city that has since become our home away from home and the focus of our security and development efforts.
Kirkuk is a hot and dusty city of just over a million people. The majority of the city has welcomed our presence with open arms. After nearly five months here, the people still come running from their homes, in the 110-degree heat, waving to us as our troops drive by on daily patrols of the city. Children smile and run up to shake hands, in their broken English shouting “Thank you, mister.”
The people of Kirkuk are all trying to find their way in this new democratic environment. Some major steps have been made in these last three months. A big reason for our steady progress is that our soldiers are living among the people of the city and getting to know their neighbors and the needs of their neighborhoods.
We also have been instrumental in building a new police force. Kirkuk now has 1,700 police officers. The police are now, ethnically, a fair representation of the community as a whole. So far, we have spent more than $500,000 from the former Iraqi regime to repair each of the stations’ electricity and plumbing, to paint each station and make it a functional place for the police to work.
The battalion also has assisted in re-establishing Kirkuk’s fire department, which is now even more effective than before the war. New water treatment and sewage plants are being constructed and the distribution of oil and gas are steadily improving.
All of these functions were started by our soldiers here in this northern city and are now slowly being turned over to the newly elected city government. Laws are being rewritten to reflect democratic principles and a functioning judicial system was recently established to bridge the gap between law enforcement and the rule of law.
The quality of life and security for the citizens has been largely restored and we are a large part of why that has happened.
The fruits of all our soldiers’ efforts are clearly visible in the streets of Kirkuk today. There is very little trash in the streets, there are many more people in the markets and shops and children have returned to school.
This is all evidence that the work we are doing as a battalion and as American soldiers is bettering the lives of Kirkuk’s citizens. I am proud of the work we are doing here in Iraq and I hope all of your readers are as well.
Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo
“Die dulci fruimini!”
Posted by Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo on July 11, 2004 02:09 AM
For those who don’t know, this letter from Col Caraccilo was a dishonest email spam propaganda campaign that was plastered all over blogs and sent to newspapers by his troops – with his blessing (read: encouragement as a commissioned officer and commander), which is highly problematic and should have subjected him to the UCMJ. Of course, as a commissioned officer, he gets away with it. This one may or may not have actually been posted by him – almost a year after he got busted red-handed running the scam.
During the Iraq and Afghanistan annexations by the U.S., there were several known and well organized propaganda campaigns at work. The Colonel was one such individual engaged in this type of sketchy behavior.
At the following links, you can read more about this lil scam run by an Army O-5 (who was apparently crazy underemployed):