Opinion Editorials, June 2007
June 2007 Opinion Editorial Links
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Bush
Talks Long-Term Stay in
By Kevin Zeese
ccun.org,
June 27, 2007
As
President Bush and members of his administration described the
“South Korea Model” as an approach for
Last week 30
U.S. troops were killed – an average of more than four deaths per day,
not long ago the average was two per day. Bush administration comments on a
long-term stay come at a time when
If it were not clear that the U.S.
is staying from the massive U.S. embassy that dominates the Baghdad
skyline, or then billion dollar, long-term
military bases the U.S. is building or the multi-decade
long oil contracts that U.S. oil companies are negotiating, now they can
take it right out of the comments of administration officials – the U.S.
has tens of thousands of troops and long-term bases in Korea and that is the
model that the Bush administration says it is considering for Iraq.
This is not the first time that the words of the commander in chief have
resulted in the deaths of
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Comments
of a long-term stay come after 144 members of the 275 member Iraqi
Parliament signed a petition
urging withdrawal and after a majority passed a bill requiring
the Prime Minister to get the Parliament’s approval before telling the
UN to extend the occupation. Thus, as the Iraqi
Parliament is taking steps to end the occupation, the Bush administration is
talking about a multi-decade stay.
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And,
if Iraqis are watching
This open talk of the “Korea Model” also comes at a time when more and
more troops are going
AWOL, speaking out against the war and refusing to return to
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The
military recognizes that troops who speak out against the war are a serious
problem for them because they are among the most powerful spokespersons
against the war. Vets strike at the heart of the fund the ‘we must
support the troops’ arguments of
At a meeting last week to plan escalating actions against the war by vets,
the Chairman of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Garret Reppenhagen made the
point “Funding the war is killing the troops.” The Marines have
already taken action against one Marine, Adam Kokesh. The Marines were
criticized by Veterans
of Foreign Wars, a vet group with 2.5 million members, for threatening
the free speech rights of vets. The Marines did discipline Kokesh,
giving him a general discharge under honorable conditions, but backed away
from taking away any of his veterans benefits.
Two other vets who are leaders in the anti-war movement are also being
threatened with discipline. Marine Vet Liam Madden, who while in the
service was a co-founder of Appeal for Redress – a group organizing active
duty troops who oppose the war, is being threatened with discipline for
saying that the Iraq War was a “war of aggression under Nuremberg
principles” and that “war crimes are being committed in Iraq.”
And, former Air Force Chaplain, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, who has been
participating in demonstrations in
The public in the
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