Sexual Assault Awareness Month...

The SAAM Day of Action, observed this year on Thursday, April 3, 2008, is recognized nationally as a specific day to focus awarness on sexual violence prevention, and to do my part, I'm highlighting the intolerable acceptance of rape by U.S. mercenaries and the military and governmental institutions that shield them. KBR, yet again, appears to be sheltering violent rapists.

Women in the military and women in companies with a presence in Iraq -- do not volunteer to go to Iraq, do not allow yourself to be sent there.

The old CODEPINK chant, "Haliburton, Kellog, Brown and Root. Go to Iraq to loot, loot loot." needs to be updated to "Haliburton, Kellog, Brown and Root. Go to to Iraq to rape and loot." If they do this to their sister medics just imagine the brutality of attacks on Iraqi women and girls.

Write your Representatives. Include a link to the article. Tell them to get the hell out of Iraq now. Ask them to immediately have mercenaries withdrawn, followed by all National Guard, then those that have been Stop Lossed, then Reserves, then Regular Military. And while you are at it tell 'em to get Impeachment Proceedings started now (Pelosi's smoke-filled room agreements are not legal nor binding) or Bush will pardon everyone in his administration before leaving office and justice will be much more difficult to mete out to them. There are two ways to do this. Go to Wexler's site to support hearings. Or go to Kucinich's site and support HR 333 -- as we really don't need any more hearings, just House Impeachment so the Senate can then have Hearings.

Mercenaries need to be held accountable for their violent sexual assaults and the Bush administration that created this war and bears ultimate responsibility for all this death and violence must also be held accountable.

Where Torture Leads Us

Recently in the English speaking world we have begun to talk about torture as though it is some distasteful cultural oddity that can be discussed, legislated, and most importantly swept under the carpet by decent people. I hear American people talking about whether torture is "worth it;" whether the information gained from such means is reliable. The fact that we are even having such conversations is a eerie testament to how small the steps humanity has taken toward civilization in the last few millenia really are.

I recently heard Ret. Colonel Ann Wright speak on the book tour for DISSENT Voice of Conscience and she reminded the few of us who had come out to hear her speak about the stories of the valiant few in government or military service who have in some cases have lost their very identity for doing what is right rather than what is at most technically legal. In the course of ther discussion she reminded us that the the vast majority of the pictures from Abu Ghirab prison have been locked away to never be seen as the world would not stand still for what we did to those prisoners. The head of the U.S.'s judicial system talks about simulated drowning when it IS in fact drowning with resuscitation happening before the person dies.

Torture eats away at the soul of the tortured and the torturer, and if a culture can be said to have a soul in a shared moral structure that soul is also diminished when torture is sanctioned.

I firmly believe that women must be the ones to save our civilization from the barbarism of war and the torture and atrocities generated by the mentality of war and aggression. Women and children have increasingly been the victims and casualties of war over the last century.

If you have read this far, do the world a favor and read the linked article The War Against Women by Ann Jones. Don't shirk from the knowledge or the discomfort created by reading it. Each and every one of us is responsible for what we allow people to do in the name of our country and indeed to occur anywhere on our planet. I'm especially frustrated by the women I encounter in my daily life who say they are too busy, aren't interested, or don't know enough to follow politics. We who ignore hate and violence are as guilty of the crimes we allow to happen in our names as the people who carried out the the violent crime of war on our streets and around the world. I feel especially strongly that we in the U.S. and the rest of the world that has benefited so excessively from Industrial Revolution have to accept the responsibility that comes with living in countries that once were bastions of freedom and a light toward what we might become. If we don't want genocide, torture/rape to be what our daughters and grand daughters know as life then we better all wake up now. Our world is facing dramatic instability in the near future as climate change forces every aspect of our lives to shift in unpredictable ways. What we will do in the face of unknown adversity is likely to relate to what we do and allow our fellow citizens to do in the here and now. When demonstrating in front of a military recruiting center and in spite of my own better judgment when I allowed myself to be drawn into interaction with the paramilitary terrorists who call themselves patriots who harass individuals expressing freedoms guaranteed by our U.S. Constitution to voice dissent about military recruitment of our country's youth to fight in illegal wars I've been told that hanging is the just reward for "traitors" like myself. I have no doubt that the man who smirked as he spat these words out in my face would be completely capable of horrific acts similar to what has happened in Serbia, Croatia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sierra Lione, Darfur.... and countless other places in our world.

How can we as the mothers of the world do anything less than act to stop these horrors?

A soldier's dilemma and honorable action.

Justin Watts is an honorable man. A local Tucson man showed a strength of character that few possess and fewer still can maintain when confronted with horrific knowledge that if disclosed will permanently alter untold numbers of lives and indeed the course of a nation.

Justin is the man who voiced his concern about what his brothers in arms appeared to have done -- raped a young teenage girl and then killed her and her family. The story is here in the Arizona Daily Star.

What amazed me is comment 63 on this story.

I'm very happy this man [Justin] was so brave to come forward. He is a hero to me and to my kids now. He will never know how much he helped my family alone. One of the soldiers he told on is my husband. He used to beat me and make me sleep on the floor while pregnant. In april he was home on a leave and he wanted me to be alone with him but i said no. I've been trying to divorce him for more than 2 years now and i had a restraining order against him. He violated it so many times that I had to move. I told the army what was going on and they did not help at all. they left me with no option but to run and hide. Now thanks to Justin watt, my children are safe and so am I. God bless him and I hope things get better for him.

This is a neglected aspect of the horrific situation our country faces. Violence begets violence. Allowing violence upon women is symptomatic of a cultural suppression of morality. Thank you Justin for keeping the tiny spark of belief in the essense of good alive within me. This heinous war is creating a generation of military vets who have been wounded in unimaginable ways -- scars unlike anything ever before seen are forming.

Thank you Justin for showing me that although our troops are being asked to ignore international law and conventions, and because of this evil cultivation are having their darkest sides emerge that men and womenof character are refusing to go along with an immoral status quo. Justin and those others who will now step forward because of his bravery, along the folks who are refusing to go back to fight in this immoral attrocity, are showing that Americans still have among them the best, the brightest, and the most honorable citizens who serve because they believe in justice and what Americans hold in their hearts as the essence of what our country is and can be.

Let us all send safe energies to him, pray for his safety, and for this shining example of courage to be followed and to inspire other soldiers to do what is right and just.

Breathe in courage. Breathe out action.