NEW VIDEO: "FOR ELI" A POETRY TRIBUTE TO OUR FALLEN HEROES

A must watch three-minute video:

Andrea Gibson at the 2006 poetry slam, performing "For Eli"
Fu** Your Yellow Ribbon.

Click on link below to play video:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19832.htmhttp://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19832.htm

"For Eli"
By Andrea Gibson

Eli came back from Iraq and tattooed a teddy bear onto the inside of his wrist above that a medic with an IV bag above that an angel but Eli says the teddy bear won't live and I know I don't know but I say, "I know"cause Eli's only twenty-four and I've never seen eyes further away from childhood than his yes old with a wisdom he knows I'd rather not have Eli's mother traces a teddy bear onto the inside of my arm and says, "not all casualties come home in body bags"and I swear I'd spend the rest of my life writing nothing but the word light at the end of this tunnel if I could find the fucking tunnel I'd write nothing but white flags somebody pray for the soldiers somebody pray for what's lost somebody pray for the mailbox that holds the official letters to the mothers,--------------fathers,--------------------sisters,and little brothers of Micheal 19... Steven 21... John 33 how ironic that their deaths sound like bible verses the hearse is parked in the halls of the high school recruiting black, brown and poor while anti-war activists outside walter reed army hospital scream 100, 000 slain as an amputee on the third floor breathes forget-me-nots onto the window pain but how can we forget what we never knew our sky is so perfectly blue it's repulsive somebody tell me where god lives cause if god is truth god doesn't live here our lies have seared the sun too hot to live by there are ghosts of kids who are still alive touting M16s with trembling hands while we dream ourselves stars on Survivor another missile sets fire to the face in the locketof a mother who's son needed money for college and she swears she can feel his photograph burn how many wars will it take us to learn that only the dead return the rest remain forever caught between worlds of shrapnel shatters body of three year old girltowelcome to McDonalds can I take your order?the mortar of sanity crumbling stumbling back home to a home that will never be home again Eli doesn't know if he can ever write a poem again one third of the homeless men in this country are veterans and we have the nerve to Support Our Troops with pretty yellow ribbons while giving nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched hands tell me what land of the free sets free its eighteen-year-old kids into greedy war zones hones them like missiles then returns their bones in the middle of the night so no one can seeeach death swept beneath the carpet and hidden like dirteach life a promise we never kept Jeff Lucey came back from Iraq and hung himself in his parents basement with a garden hose the night before he died he spent forty five minutes on his fathers lap rocking like a baby rocking like daddy, save me and don't think for a minute he too isn't collateral damage in the mansions of washington they are watching them burn and hoarding the water no senators' sons are being sent out to slaughter no presidents' daughters are licking ashes from their lips or dreaming up ropes to wrap around their necks in case they ever make it home alive our eyes are closed america there are souls in the boots of the soldiers america fuck your yellow ribbon you wanna support our troops bring them home and hold them tight when they get here

"MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"

O'REILLY: "WE DIDN'T INVADE IRAQ"

Yesterday, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly made the incredible claim that the United States never invaded Iraq: “We didn’t invade Iraq.” He added, “It was a declaration of war, it was a declaration to enforce the first Gulf War Treaty.”

Watch it: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/30/oreilly-invade-iraq/

Despite O’Reilly’s revisionist history, the United States did invade Iraq.

The U.S. military forcefully entered the country in order to overthrow that nation’s leader. That’s an invasion. During a 2006 speech, President Bush discussed his administration’s “two major invasions as a part of the war on terror.”

Even O’Reilly himself has, in the past, admitted that the United States invaded Iraq:
– “I’ll submit that most folks still have no idea why the Bush administration invaded Iraq.” [1/28/08]

– “Iraq was invaded to create a friendly country between Iran and Syria, thereby pressuring those nations into a more sensible foreign policy.” [3/6/06]

O’Reilly’s “first Gulf War Treaty” claim is also questionable. During a March 15, 2004 interview, former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix challenged O’Reilly on this exact point:

O’REILLY: [W]e liberate Iraq — liberate Kuwait, all right, and then we have a treaty, and the treaty says U.N. weapons inspectors are allowed to do X, Y, and Z, and 17 times Saddam says — violates those. Now you can understand why the United States government might be a little teed off about that. […]

O’REILLY: But do you understand that when you have 17 violations of a treaty, a war treaty, that you basically have to take action?

BLIX: Well, you’re talking about a war treaty. It was a cease-fire. It was not a war treaty.

O’REILLY: Oh, come on. Now don’t play semantics here, sir.

BLIX: Second — all right. I’m trying to be precise. You are imprecise.

O’Reilly’s claim is almost as unbelievable as Wolfowitz’s statement earlier this week that the U.S. “occupation [of Iraq] ended in June of 2004.”

WARNING: GRAPHIC NEW VIDEO: HUNDREDS KILLED BY US STRIKES IN SADR CITY. GRAPHIC IMAGES OF BABIES AND YOUNG CHILDREN.

It is has been five long years since President Bush stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln under a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished" and told the world that the United States had won the war in Iraq.

Since that day, 3,926 of the 4,061 Americans KILLED in Iraq have been KILLED in the war Bush said was OVER.

In this NEW VIDEO from THE REAL NEWS NETWORK, foreign correspondent Pepe Escobar narrates a story of death and mayhem at the hands of US troops on the civilians of Sadr City in Baghdad.

Link to THE REAL NEWS NETWORK graphic video: http://therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1434&thisview=item&renewx=2008-05-02+09%3A52%3A22

Many of the images are of young babies and small children and anyone watching this video should be warned the footage is EXTREMELY GRAPHIC.

Hundreds killed by US strikes in Sadr City

Transcript:PEPE ESCOBAR, THE REAL NEWS ANALYST:

It’s been five years since George W. Bush proclaimed Mission Accomplished in Iraq. Now take a very good look at these images. Yes, they are disturbing. You won’t see them on Western TV networks. And no, there’s not a hint of mission accomplished about them. These are innocent civilians-– poor Shi’ite Arabs living in the three million-strong Sadr City in Baghdad, one of the largest slums in the world.

As The Real News has reported Sadr City is being walled in–- transformed into a gulag, and pounded relentlessly by US air strikes. The Pentagon-–and the Iraqi government–-say they are “protecting the Green Zone” by attacking Sadr City.As if that traumatic scene of the helicopter leaving the roof of the US embassy in Saigon in 1975 was rattling too many military minds.

1745 Iraqi civilians were killed in April-– against 159 policemen and 104 soldiers. Over 400 people were killed in Sadr City alone. Only 10% were guerrillas.

This carnage is a direct consequence of Dick Cheney’s recent tour of the Middle East, Iraq included.

This carnage is a direct consequence of Gen. David Petraeus’ surge.

These are victims of a vicious political battle between the al-Maliki government in Baghdad, supported by the al-Hakim family, and the US, against Muqtada al-Sadr, who they fear will win the next elections in October-–because, of course, he is immensely popular.

And in the big picture, these deaths are a graphic example of how the sophisticated Pentagon machine plans to deal with “problematic” urban slums in the future. We wall them, we isolate them, and we bomb the hell out of them. Who cares about collateral damage? It may be very harsh to say, but that's how it is.

Pepe Escobar: New strategy to fight resistance--Wall-in a section of the city and bomb it

Friday May 2nd, 2008

Based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Pepe Escobar writes The Roving Eye for Asia Times Online. He has reported from Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, US and China. He is the author of the recently published Red Zone Blues. Pepe is a regular analyst for The Real News Network.

DISCLAIMER:Please note that TRNN transcripts are typed from a recording of the program; The Real News Network cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

US PRESS CONTINUES TO LIE TO AMERICA ABOUT IRAQ

The mainstream media in the United States continues to lie to the American public about the worsening conditions in Iraq. Time and time again you will see pundits and anchors make outlandish claims that things are much better in Iraq since the so-called "surge" was initiated.

Nothing could be further from the truth and the mainstream media in the United States are doing a great disservice to the men and women in the military, their families back in the United States, and to the American public in general.

FOX NEWS is by far the worst. The stations anchors, reporters and pundits go on TV day after day claiming things are getting better in Iraq when just the opposite is true.

The way the American media LIES to the American people is far worse than what Josef Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda for Hitler's Nazi Germany, did during WW 2.

Here is what took place in IRAQ on Thursday, May 1 and anyone that can say things are getting better in Iraq should be taken to the nearest psych ward and admitted before they do anymore harm to people listening to them or to themselves.


Thursday: 2 US Soldiers, 93 Iraqis Killed; 212 Iraqis Wounded

Updated at 9:00 p.m. EDT, May 1, 2008
http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=12768

At least 93 Iraqis were killed and 212 more were wounded in the latest violence. Two mass grave were found in Duluiya, but the number of bodies was not reported yet.

An American soldier was killed during a car bombing today in central Baghdad. Also, the DOD announced the death of a Marine in Texas; he died from wounds received in 2005 in Anbar province.

A female suicide bomber killed 35 people and wounded 76 others in Balad Ruz. After the bomber struck a wedding convoy, another suicide bomber targeted the first responders who arrived on the scene.

In Baghdad, five bodies were found. A car bomb targeting a U.S. patrol killed nine and wounded 26 others in Camp Sara; three American soldiers were also injured. In Salhiya, a mortar shell wounded three people. A civilian was wounded in Tayaran Square when members of a private security company opened fire. A roadside bomb in Ghadeer injured two policemen and wounded three civilians. A roadside bomb in Bayaa left no casualties, but three were injured by a bomb in Zaafaraniyah.

Five civilians were injured during a bombing in al-Obeidi Mosque. A large cache of weapons was confiscated in Abu Dsheer. Also, clashes broke out in Amil, where U.S. airstrikes left five dead, 12 wounded, and hit watermains.

In Sadr City, U.S. forces reported killing 17 gunmen in separate clashes. Hospital officials said that 11 bodies were brought to the hospital and 72 people were treated for injuries.

Two Iraqi soldiers were killed in Mosul when a roadside bomb blasted them.

A bicycle bomb targeting an Awakening Council (Sahwa) patrol in Hawija wounded two of them and a child.

In Duluiya, two Arab nationals blew themselves up during a raid. Two policemen were injured during the blasts. Also, two mass graves were found.

Twelve roadside bombs were defused in Basra.

A roadside in Abu Khames killed one Iraqi soldier and wounded four others.

WASHINGTON POST: WOMEN SUICIDE BOMBERS INVOLVED IN BOMBING THAT KILLS 35 AT BAGHDAD WEDDING

At Least 35 Die As Bombers Hit Wedding ConvoyWoman Involved in Iraq Attack

By Sholnn FreemanWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, May 2, 2008; A12

BAGHDAD, May 1 -- Two suicide bombers attacked a wedding convoy as it passed through a busy market area in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, killing at least 35 people and wounding at least 65, police said.

As police and rescue crews rushed to the site after the first explosion in the town of Balad Ruz, the second bomb was detonated, police said. They said one of the attackers was a woman.
The double bombing was the latest in a series of high-profile attacks in Diyala, a largely Sunni area.

The attackers appear to be targeting members of the Awakening movement, mainly Sunnis who have joined with U.S. forces to fight the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Women are involved in an increasing number of the attacks. On Tuesday, a female suicide bomber struck in the village of Mukhisa, killing one person and wounding five, all members of the Awakening movement. On April 21, a female bomber blew herself up in the home of a group of Sunni Awakening members, killing three people

Click on this link to read full story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/01/AR2008050100689_pf.html

FALLUJA---NOT WHAT THE MEDIA IS TELLING YOU

Falluja's struggle after invasion

By Dahr Jamail

Al-Jazeera (I highly recommend reading the piece on the Al-Jazeera website, as it includes photos and video)By Dahr JamailFive years ago, George Bush, the US president, announced aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier that the war in Iraq was a "mission accomplished".

But events in the western Anbar province had already been spiralling out of control and were threatening the volatile security situation in occupied Iraq.

On April 28, 2003, US soldiers occupying the Al-Qaid school in Falluja opened fire on dozens of demonstrators who had been protesting the use of the premises as a forward base for the US 82nd Airborne Division.

Residents of Falluja had also been protesting against the use of night vision goggles, which they mistakenly believed were used by US soldiers to spy on their wives and daughters.

Click on this link to read the full story of the plight of Faulluja: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/093992AB-96A7-45DE-966E-9F0726706DE0.htm