Thursday morning.....

hastily written from the battlefield for peace and justice.....

we have all held our collective breath for so long. those of us in the peace movement however, have refused to exhale. we, like our misguided soldiers, have a job to do.

yesterday....such a long horrible day.....an even more terrible night with more surely to follow.

yesterday at the emergency convergence protest at the federal building in west LA, i sat on the sidelines watching about 35+ of my brave comrades from NION (not in our name) get arrested for sitting down in the middle of Wilshire Blvd. we had sat down earlier on a different section of Wilshire before the cops threatened to arrest us. my dog Billie sat down too. as much as i would want to participate in a CD, i cannot let myself get arrested with her there. she is, you might say, my get out of jail free card.

today, word is the SF financial district is once again shut down, a cog in the machine, blockaded by the "human shields" who did this as a dry run on Friday the 14th. there will be another protest at the federal building here today. that was the plan.....5 PM the day of or the day after. there will be more over the weekend....in Hollywood on Saturday, outside the Oscars on Sunday. nothing else in my day to day life seems as important. mundane tasks all seem so trivial. sometimes i forget to eat, forget to brush my teeth. laundry and dishes will surely pile up. like people caught in the strange twilight of a political campaign, we seem to subsist on coffee and whatever else we can throw in our backpacks. as the bombs are now illuminating the Baghdad nighttime sky......we all, no matter what our persuasion, are living in a bunker mentality. many will just watch our TVs in detached fascination, like some gruesome video game. but others of us must work to stop this any way we can.

i know that things will get worse and worse as the tension ratchets up.....like how the number of cops (in full riot gear) had mysteriously multiplied yesterday. and not since 1968 has this country (and the world) been so divided. i am getting hate mail on a daily basis now. my mother refused to talk to me for 2 weeks because i threatened to buy bottles of French wine. this really IS an all out war between "us"

and "them" again....and once more over an unjustified war and two opposite sets of idealogies. this time however, the right is more meglomaniacal, more organized and more dangerous than Nixon and his henchmen ever were.

i was driving down Sunset Blvd. later in the evening when it started. it

was 6:44 PM. i stopped the car in traffic and held the car horn down for

almost a full two minutes....sounding the alarm. i didn't care if

anybody knew why i was doing it. i just didn't know what else to do.

there had been much talk of blocking intersections the moment war

started....just get out of your car and stop. stop everything. sounding the horn was what spontaneously happened for me. my vehicle had become an embarrassed extention of my grief and anger. in an alternate universe, her horn seemed to say....i am sorry i haven't yet been free to run on renewable sources of energy! i am sorry i have not been liberated from the yoke of fossil fuels! and as i sat there surrounded by petrol fumes, i was deeply saddened and disgusted by my country, a country with the knowledge and resources to change this scenario for all future generations. they could but they won't. not with these oil men bent on complete and absolute power. and they will stop at nothing to stop us.

hell will rain down upon children on the other side of the world and

although i am here, seemingly so far away....i must bear witness. we must all bear witness.

salaam, shalom, peace, shanti om....

Jamie in LA

Los Angeles gets so little rain and is so perfect for riding a bike in that there's no excuse not to if your making a trip of under 5 miles. Get on your bike, stop creating profit for the Haliburton Group. Stop demanding cheap oil.

Fuck the Automobile.

and that entails being on the road. and since i take my dog with me everywhere and since my truck is also my lodging on the road, it just isn't practical. i sacrifice enough by making enough moneyjust to survive but not enough to feed the war machine. i have made peace with that.

i do have a bike, thank you :-)

You people for "peace" for the Iraqi people are morons. Here's is your proof. And it will ONLY GET BIGGER. Are you starting to feel stupid yet?

"No Saddam Hussein!" one young man in headscarf told Gurfein. "Bush!"



U.S. Marines Rip Down Saddam Portraits

1 hour, 5 minutes ago

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER, Associated Press Writer

Milling crowds of men and boys watched as the Marines attached ropes on the front of their Jeeps to one portrait and then backed up, peeling the Iraqi leader's black-and-white metal image off a frame. Some locals briefly joined Maj. David "Bull" Gurfein in a new cheer.



"Iraqis! Iraqis! Iraqis!" Gurfein yelled, pumping his fist in the air.



"We wanted to send a message that Saddam is done," said Gurfein, a New York native in the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. "People are scared to show a lot of emotion. That's why we wanted to show them this time we're here, and Saddam is done."



The Marines arrived in Safwan, just across the Kuwait border, after Cobra attack helicopters, attack jets, tanks, 155 mm howitzers and sharpshooters cleared the way along Route 80, the main road into Iraq (news - web sites).



Safwan, 375 miles south of Baghdad, is a poor, dirty, wrecked town pocked by shrapnel from the last Gulf war (news - web sites). Iraqi forces in the area sporadically fired mortars and guns for hours Thursday and Friday. Most townspeople hid, although residents brought forth a wounded little girl, her palm bleeding after the new fighting. Another man said his wife was shot in the leg by the Americans.



A few men and boys ventured out, putting makeshift white flags on their pickup trucks or waving white T-shirts out truck windows.



"Americans very good," Ali Khemy said. "Iraq wants to be free."



Some chanted, "Ameriki! Ameriki!"



Many others in the starving town just patted their stomachs and raised their hands, begging for food.



A man identifying himself only as Abdullah welcomed the arrival of the U.S. troops: "Saddam Hussein is no good. Saddam Hussein a butcher."



An old woman shrouded in black — one of the very few women outside — knelt toward the feet of Americans, embracing an American woman. A younger man with her pulled her away, giving her a warning sign by sliding his finger across his throat.



In 1991, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died after prematurely celebrating what they believed was their liberation from Saddam after the Gulf War. Some even pulled down a few pictures of Saddam then — only to be killed by Iraqi forces.



Gurfein playfully traded pats with a disabled man and turned down a dinner invitation from townspeople.



"Friend, friend," he told them in Arabic learned in the first Gulf War.



"We stopped in Kuwait that time," he said. "We were all ready to come up there then, and we never did."



The townspeople seemed grateful this time.



"No Saddam Hussein!" one young man in headscarf told Gurfein. "Bush!"

The New X

by The New X • Thursday March 20, 2003 Thut 04:33 PM



the fear that Saddam will attack the US with WMD shows how PARANOID americans are.

they don't really know why he will attack

they just know he will

"we don't know what a nigger is, but we're just gonna hate 'em anyway"

AMERICAN HYPOCRISY

TO ANY PRO-WAR ADVOCATE

I DARE YOU TO REPLY TO THIS:

The US government supported Saddam during his most murderous years. They supplied him with WMD and the technology to make his own WMD. EVEN THOUGH HE WAS A KNOWN TYRANT. Why? So that he would use them on the Iranians. Even after Halabja in 1988, the US government CONTINUED to support him.

Now in the year 2003 (whether it is morally just or not), Saddam no longer wishes to play into US global strategy. So he is ALL OF A SUDDEN branded a TYRANT ------ EVEN THOUGH HE WAS A MURDEROUS TYRANT ALL THE YEARS THE US SUPPORTED HIM!

Isn't it hypocritical that although he was even more murderous back then, he was considered an ALLY and FRIEND OF AMERICA simply because he was killing Iranians (if 5,000 kurds happened to be gassed in a single attack thats no big deal). Now he's still murderous but now the US actually acknowledges that he is a tyrant. Imagine if he was still following US wishes by fighting with Iraq, would the US be calling him a TYRANT? I DON'T THINK SO.

HYPOCRISY HYPOCRISY HYPOCRISY.

Until the US apologizes to the victims of Saddam terror DURING THE YEARS THAT THEY SUPPORTED HIM, this war will only be about US PARANOIA and its attempts at gaining a FALSE sense of security.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

war advocates only want to see sand nigger blood being spilled. they try to improve the body count

2,500 Americans (WTC)
So they can feel better about themselves and feel as if they "won" the overall battle. Their oh so precious American pride was hurt on 9/11 and now they seek to get it back by killing sand niggers left rite and center

(basically this is the whole starship troopers scenario)