I awoke this past Saturday morning at the Asheville Friends Meeting House, and then went upstairs to wake up the dozen or so college students who had spent the night there.  They were in town for a regional meeting of the Students for a Democratic Society, and were busy planning their trip up to St. Paul to protest the Republican Convention.  I then went to pick up Adrianne and her daughter Willa – we had a big day planned for Rusul and her dad.

More below.

Originally, I wrote a diary on Rusul and her upcoming surgery last month.  And I wrote a follow up report on her successful surgery.  

Last week, I finally got a chance to go and visit with Rusul.  Beth and I drove down there, getting totally confused by Beth’s GPS system, but we did find the Ronald McDonald house – which I thought was very nice.  We had decided to take Rusul somewhere and give her father (Abu Ali) a break.  When we got there, Abu Ali recognized me from last year when Salee came up to Asheville.  He does not know a lot of English, and I know less Arabic, but he smiled and said "Salee, Salee" it got the message across that he remembered me.  Ted was there with Abu Ali, trying to install a translation program on his computer, and not having much success.

On Wednesday this week, I posted a diary about Rusul and her upcoming surgery.  I am happy to say that all went well!  Rusul is now back "home" - that is the Ronald McDonald House in Greenville, SC.  She reports no pain at this time, but she did say the IV hurt her arm.  I have an update from Ann Cothran, who is the National Community Coordinator for No More Victims.

Let me start by introducing you to Rusul.  She is an Iraqi girl, age seven, and she will have her right foot amputated in Greenville SC tomorrow.  She was injured in a US missile attack while playing in her backyard outside Fallujah.  This happened in November 2006.  Her foot was injured and did not heal properly - it got very infected.  

Her sister, Salee, lost both her legs above the knees in the same attack.  Her brother, and a neighborhood girl, were killed instantly.  Salee came to Greenville last year for surgery and prosthetics, and now it is Rusul's turn.

Rusul is, from all accounts, looking forward to the surgery and prostethic she will receive.  Both Rusul and Salee were brought to the US through NO MORE VICTIMS, with chapters in Greenville and Asheville.

Ms. Watanabe Speaks

Last night was the opening reception for the exhibit of "Hiroshima and Nagasaki:  Image and stories from eyewitness accounts".  It was also the time for Ms. Watanabe, a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima, and the peace delegation from Hiroshima, to speak.  This happened at UNCA in Karpen Hall.

On our seats in the room for the presentation, there were tiny folded paper cranes, with two in a small bag.  They were left there to promote peace and were made by the residents of Hiroshima.  I ended up with four of them, in pink, purple, light green and dark green.  The first speaker was from the Hiroshima Peace Museum.  He talked about the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which was established 40 years ago to eliminate nuclear weapons.  It was re-promised in 2000 under Clinton and in 2005, the current president of the US said "no" to this treaty.  

I think this week in Asheville could be called "Voices of Conscience".  There are several events going on that revolve around people speaking out, or people having spoken out in the past - some of them at a great price to themselves, and all of them enriching our world.

Thursday – The play "The White Rose" starts at NC Stage Company.   From their website comes this description of the group called the "White Rose".

In 1942, a group of students in Munich stood up against Hitler’s regime in six anonymous leaflets titled The White Rose. Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl,Willi Graf, Christoph Probst, and Alexander Schmorell used these leaflets to wage a war of propaganda in the hearts of the German people in the closing months of World War II. The movement eventually spread across all of Germany, becoming a voice for its people who were against what was happening to their country.  "Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be ‘governed’ without opposition by an irresponsible clique the has yielded to base instinct." -The 1st Leaflet of the White Rose

More below.....

Harry Taylor first came to my attention when he stood up to bush in April 2006.  Taylor said many things to bush that I agreed with – however, he did it with much more courtesy than I would be able to muster.  This is part of what he said:

"In my lifetime, I have never felt more ashamed of my leadership in Washington," Taylor told the president. "And I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and grace to be ashamed of yourself." April 6, 2006

The entire exchange is posted at Thank You Harry Taylor website.  There are also comments from many folks thanking him for speaking up to bush.  There are over 18,000 messages for Harry Taylor on that website.

Read on for the endorsement.......

I am the state coordinator for Progressive Democrats of America here in NC - for the time being at least - I am stepping down next month. This year, we pursued obtaining an endorsement for a US Senate candidate by Progressive Democrats of America (PDA). PDA rules say that all chapters inside a state have to vote to endorse, and then endorse one candidate by majority rule in each chapter, for Senate candidate endorsements. We have five chapters in North Carolina.

Unfortunately, two of those chapters have told me that they have restrictions on their ability to endorse anyone running for a federal office. So, as a friend of mine said, THE RULES RULE.... and there will be no endorsement from Progressive Democrats of America. The remaining three chapters (Beaufort, Buncombe, and Mecklenburg) will consider endorsements on the chapter levels.

These names were taken from the Iraqi Civilian War Casualties Survey, which was done in 2003 and covers the period of March 21 to July 31, 2003.  All of these names are children aged five or under, and they all died in the early days of the US occupation of Iraq.  They all died horrific deaths, and five years later, their parents (if alive) still are grieving these losses.

These lives were barely started when they were cut down by violence from the USA.......

Muhsen Numan Mmusa al-Ardawy  2 weeks Male shrapnel Basra 4/1/2003

Frsa Gwad Kathem al-Asbae  1 month Female burns al Zawea 3/23/2003

Bnet Hmed Hade Unes  2 months Female shrapnel Thrmston 4/30/2003

Tabarek Hamzaa Taleb  4 months Male missile al Salaam 3/29/2003

Nethem Hbeb Gsem Alsaade  4 months Female shrapnel al Shala 4/5/2003

NC Democratic Party will hold precinct meetings on March 11, 2008.  I have written up a precinct resolution below to address the suffering of the Iraqi refugees.  Representative Waters has a bill introduced that will address this huge and still growing problem.  Press release for this bill is here.

I feel it is the only moral thing to do to try and help these people who have suffered so much from our invasion and occupation of their country, but there is another reason to do it – if we don’t help them, then organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah will.  And then a new political fraction will grow out of this that is opposed to American and Israeli policies.  Now, I too am opposed to many of those policies, but the difference lies in the fact that those groups will often resort to violence to achieve their goals (along with the US and Israel) and that route only leads to more human suffering.  

Jonas Phillips was arrested on August 15, 2007 for holding a sign on a sidewalk in Asheville, NC.  The sign said "Impeach Bush & Cheney".  His story is here.  

Finally today, his case came to trial at the Buncombe County Courthouse.  The District Attorney had offered to dismiss the charges for the court costs ($120) last year, but Jonas Phillips declined.  It has been continued at least once since then.  I was unable to attend his prior court dates, but today I took a vacation day so I could be an eyewitness to this MOCKERY OF DEMOCRACY.

Sunshine talks about the hard times in her city of Mosul, but she is one of the few bloggers who still seems hopeful.  But as you can see, her situation is very difficult:

On Wednesday the situation was really bad, in the morning there were shooting all the time, at 4:30 pm I was combing my hair, and about to continue studying, something like an earth-quake happened, without thinking I knew it’s an explosion, I didn’t have time to run or hide, BOOOOOOOM, I felt like the blaster pushed me, I ran, and tried to avoid something but it hit me, I wasn’t sure what was it, smoke filled the rooms, I was glad to see everyone ok, I went to my room to see what has happened to it, the thing that hit me was my mug, and thank god we didn’t have many losses, I saw an orange smoke, we thought it was CL gas, so we put wet towels on our noses, grandpa and dad closed all the windows, and replaced the broken ones with cartoons ..

In the next day, my mom went to work, she said there were so many people in the hospital, and from time to time a family would go out crying loud because their wounded member died, it was a painful view..

As mentioned on Democracy Now! last week, the US is bombing more and more in Iraq.  In 2007, the rate of dropping bomb is FIVE times higher than in 2006.  And earlier this month, there was a massive bombing of an area in Iraq called Arab Jabour, which is farmland south of Baghdad.  As Reuters reported on January 10, 2008:  

ARAB JABOUR - U.S. forces launched their biggest air strikes in at least a year, dropping 40,000 pounds of bombs within minutes on al Qaeda targets in date palm groves on Baghdad's southern outskirts, the U.S. military said.

The US military even made some video about this bombing, and it is available on YOU TUBE.

(more below)  

I just heard today about this sad event coming up in America: Group Plans March Against "Jena Six" on MLK Day. They call themselves the "Nationalist Movement" and they plan to go to Jena and protest the celebration of MLK day (Dr. King is a hero of mine) and to protest the support shown to the six teens in Jena who were charged for assault and given a horrendous prison sentence. There were reasons behind the assault – some other teens in the area had put up a noose and taunted them. Regardless, they teens that did the assault (school yard fight) should have some punishment, but not long term jail sentences. That is why I have "Justice for the Jena Six" on the back window of my car.

I decided to go through all the letters I have saved to and from Senators Edwards, Dole, Burr and Rep. Taylor and Shuler.  There were also a few letters mixed in to bush and various other elected officials.  I have (over the years) just stuck them all in one file – a very large file.  I found just separating them out to be like going through sewage.

The first letter that I received from Senator Edwards was dated October 18, 2002.  It was in response to my letter telling him not to vote for the authorization to use force on Iraq.  It is clear in his letter that Edward’s understood this to be an authorization to use force (and wage war) on Iraq, and it is very clear that he supported it.  It is also clear that he either believes that Saddam had WMDs or that he is willing to repeat the lies fostered on the American public.  Hard to tell if this is stupidity (I figured out there were no nuclear capabilities being developed – and it was not hard at all) or if he is just lying.  I would think if Edwards was generally just misinformed by having been misled, then he would have gotten very angry at some point and started an investigation into why he was misled.  That never happened.

First, there was an excellent wrap-up of the Iraqi bloggers posts in 2007 written about the journalists at McClatchy Newspapers. The McClatchy blog is called "Inside Iraq" and is updated regularly by several staff members who risk their lives to report on Iraq.  This article (written by an American) talks about the blog posts on the many aspects of  daily life in Iraq, and how the Iraqi people feel threatened by the Iraqi military, police, militias and US military.  

It is excellent overall, and I recommend reading the whole thing, but here is the last two paragraphs about Iraqi feelings on the US military in their country, and if the US military should stay or leave:
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Earlier this month, I baked brownies for the Iraq Vets Against the War.  They intended to hand out gift bags to active military in Fort Bragg and veterans in Fort Bragg and Asheville.  I got a call one day from a friend who told me my brownies made the local paper.  Here’s the story from Jason’s email (he gave permission to reprint it):

Brownies Will Get You Five to Ten:   A Boondocks Chapter Christmas at Fort Bragg

By Jason Hurd

   On the morning of December 17, 2007, Steve Casey and I awoke bright and early at the Quaker House in Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Steve and I had driven nearly three hundred miles from our home-base in Asheville, North Carolina to distribute holiday gift bags to the wonderful servicewomen and men stationed at our nation's busiest military post--Fort Bragg.  Our friends and supporters in Asheville stuffed nearly three hundred small lunch bags full of holiday cards, chocolates, cookies and home-made brownies.  

more below...

Okay, I lied.  

These UNIDENTIFIED 40,000 bodies are not buried in Bakersfield.  They are buried in Najaf, Iraq.  I choose Bakersfield to get your attention, and because California is roughly the same size and population as Iraq.

This op ed says that there are now 40,000 unidentified bodies buried in Najaf, all since the illegal US invasion of the country of Iraq in 2003.  These figures come from city officials in Najaf.  I do know that there are a group of men in Baghdad that collect the unidentified bodies from the Baghdad morgue and transport them to Najaf for a proper Muslim burial.  They do this twice a week, and I frankly don’t know how they can keep on doing this week after week, year after year.