By Mike Ferner

No, this is not a military-oriented guide to keeping in shape. Yet it has made some people uncomfortable if not downright sore.

It’s about the peace movement and how a U.S. Marine company using downtown Toledo for “urban warfare” training provided an opportunity for activists to think and act beyond normal limits.

With barely a week’s notice, an article in the local paper announced that a weapons company of the 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Reserves would spend a weekend running around our downtown, honing combat skills by firing blanks at imaginary enemies. The North West Ohio Peace Coalition (NWOPC) and local Veterans for Peace (VFP) designed a response, different from what many in the peace movement had seen or that some were even comfortable with.

By George Capaccio

Massive political plates in the depths of Old Foggy Bottom unexpectedly shifted this past weekend. Megatons of pressure, built up from decades of internal strife, sent gargantuan waves hurtling towards Iraq. The country’s antiquated defenses quickly crumbled, leaving the Iraqi people at the mercy of forces beyond their control.

Already weakened from twelve years of sanctions, two wars, and the cruelties of a monstrous regime, the people of Iraq are now suffering what some have called a crime against humanity. Entire cities have been leveled and tens of thousands left homeless as wave upon wave of tanks, hellfire missiles, helicopter gunships, and F-16s came crashing down from Mosul to Basra.

Bert Sacks has written an article about the corporate media’s “serious, non-benign fantasy” that is being portrayed to the public concerning the Oil-for-Food program and sanctions.

by Bert Sacks — December 2, 2004

The movie Polar Express takes viewers on a fantasy trip to the North Pole. The computer-generated virtual reality that the movie creates is amazing. I saw it Thanksgiving evening.

The next day a friend recorded a 2-minute segment on Fox News Channel about the “scandal” of the U.N.’s oil-for-food program. In its way, it too was an amazing fantasy trip into a virtual reality.

The finale of Polar Express is reaching the North Pole to meet Santa. Santa is important because he has a fantastic bag of toys. But Polar Express is pretty benign compared to the fantasy of Fox.

Fox News Channel’s report on the “scandal” of the oil-for-food program concludes that it was the willingness of critics of the US/UN economic sanctions program “before all the facts were in, that partially enabled Saddam Hussein to get away with killing so many of his own people.” This is serious, non-benign fantasy.

Proud people don’t like to be occupied. Nor do they relish their own genocide.

From a speech Ed Kinane gave regarding Iraq and the question, “What next?”
Clinton Square, downtown Syracuse
Noon to 1pm, November 3, 2004
By Ed Kinane

Friends, if - as seems likely — Mr. Bush is finally elected President, he will move very quickly to consolidate his agenda. Given this frightening prospect, let me recall three classic words of advice: illegitimus non carborundum, don’t let the bastards wear you down. Mother Jones said it even more proactively, Don’t mourn, organize. When we leave this rally today, we have no choice but to get back to work.

Now, just because the candidate many of us voted for may still be in the running doesn’t mean the election wasn’t stolen from us. Fact is, the corporations stole our elections and our democracy decades ago…. But if we found ourselves voting for a candidate whose major policies we majorly disagreed with, this election was further stolen from us.

Our task, beginning today, regardless of who wins, is to retrieve our stolen goods, to retrieve our democracy. The first step, I believe, is to work like hell to end the US war on Iraq. It is that war I want to talk about today.

Mr. Kerry frames his policy toward the war not as a matter of conscience. This, I believe, has been his fatal flaw. His policy was to outflank Mr. Bush, to steal Mr. Bush’ thunder. Mr. Kerry decided to show the US power structure that he’s reliable, that he can be counted on to defend the US empire’s interests, especially its oil interests. That he too - and this is using his own language — could be a killer. But in doing so he failed to show the electorate that he had an authentic vision, that he had authentic values of his own.

In Iraq US forces are besieged and spread thin. The Iraqi resistance is growing ever more confident. The Iraqi people are becoming ever more hostile to US occupation.

How could it be otherwise? Last week Lancet, the British medical journal, published a study. It concluded that 100,000 Iraqis have been killed or have died prematurely because of the US invasion and occupation. Proud people don’t like to be occupied. Nor do they relish their own genocide.

Let’s profile this war, which now rages with increasing fury:

by Ewa Jasiewicz

There were some delegates and organisers at the European Social Forum who were shocked to see Subhei Marshadani, the General Secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU) attacked by protestors when he tried to speak on a plenary platform titled “Ending the Occupation in Iraq”. Later some would label the action of the protestors as “fascist”. Others were not so shocked. The current government of Iraq, which Marshadani and his UK rep Abdullah Muhsin’s party, the Iraqi Communist Party, are part of, is generating a climate fertile for fascism. Many Iraqis regard the interim government as neo-Baathist. The Interior, Security, Defence and Prime Ministers in Iraq are all former Baathists. Those rebuilding and supervising the state apparatuses of control; the police, the army and the intelligence services are descended from a regime which depended heavily on these apparatuses. And the current collaborationist government is relying on them heavily again. History is doomed to repeat itself.