Progressive Wednesday

The occupation of Iraq occupies our cops.

The occupation of Iraq, besides taking the lives of 3,511 American soldiers, besides taking the lives of Iraqi civilians, besides costing American taxpayers like you and like me $436 billion (which is climbing by $200 million each day), the occupation of Iraq might be boosting crime here. Read for yourself:

The prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have put pressure on the National Guard, whose citizen-soldiers can be called away from civilian jobs for months or years at a time to fight beside regular soldiers in war zones.

About 16 percent of the 182,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are members of the National Guard.

But here’s where we get to the smaller bite out of crime:

Communities across America have been especially hard-hit by the deployment of some 24,000 police officers since September 11, 2001. Police officers make up 5.1 percent of the National Guard and military reserve.

Repeated deployments to war zones do more than mess with police schedules — the loss of just one officer can devastate a small town, where police forces are shoestring operations and the jobs of the town’s “first responders” often overlap.

Because so many of our brave boys and girls in blue are fighting unnecessarily in Iraq, police departments do less patrols and less community outreach. And because, “by law, employers must leave a Guard member’s job open while the worker is deployed,” police departments are struggling to fill slots temporarily. Why? Because the kinds of folks who become cops are also the kind of folks who join the military. And because training and recruitment take time, money, and people, and many of those people are, go figure, in Iraq.

So, we’re going to remind you about the Wednesday we wrote recently called “Memorial Day, Everyday,” which includes five ways we can help bring a peaceful and successful end to the occupation of Iraq, convince others this can truly happen, and aid our returning soldiers in the process.

Picture c/o this photographer.

This Wednesday: Memorial Day Everyday

Problem:

Yes, yes, yes, dear readers, I realize that Memorial Day was “celebrated” on Monday, but there’s two things to consider: first, Memorial Day is actually today, May 30, we just “observed” it on Monday; second, it seems odd to us that we’d remember those who’ve died in the name of our country for only 24 hours, if that. The majority of us, yours truly included, spent the vacation day gobbling bratwurst and watching baseball on the idiot box.

So, this Wednesday, this Memorial Day Wednesday, we’re going to do something for the troops so they needn’t just be in our memories.

But that’s not the biggest problem we’re facing today. Today, we’re facing a continuation of our senseless occupation of Iraq. On Friday, May 25, I realized, once again, why I belong to no political party: politicians aren’t listening to the people, the 9/11 Commission, the Iraq Study Group, or the rest of the free and not-so-free world. The Democratically controlled Congress and the Republican president just agreed to legislation to continue funding our occupation of Iraq with no end in sight (I suppose “never” is technically a time, but it’s rather far off).

An occupation can only end two ways: annexation or withdrawal. Since we’d rather have Puerto Rico or the District of Columbia as the 51st state, we’re calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

Opponents of a troop withdrawal, the few that remain, may say that to do so will destabilize the region. I’m fairly certain — if there’s any accuracy to the news we’re streamed every day — that the region is pretty well destabilized. I’m fairly certain that those destabilizing the region either despise us, fear us, or are us. But in none of those cases does that mean the Iraqis want to listen to us, particularly if what they’re hearing is mortar shells and machine guns and violent knocks on their doors. Opponents of withdrawal (which I suppose means they want to add Iraq as a state) also spew things like: “If we don’t fight the terrorists there, we’ll fight them here.” Seeing as the vast majority of terrorists don’t live in Iraq, I’m pretty sure our 160,000 troops in that country aren’t actually not fighting many of the world’s terrorists.

Let’s get something straight and straighten out our diction: we are not mired in a “civil war.” We are mired in an occupation of a sovereign country, a country of approximately 27,500,000 people. And we’ve slaughtered at least 64,333 of those civilians[1] for no ties to 9/11, for no ties to weapons of mass destruction, for no semblance of a peaceful democracy.

And the potential blowback from our occupation is rather terrifying. Blowback — not our freedoms, not our wealth, not our (somewhat) equal treatment of women, and not even our McRestaurants — caused 9/11. If we want peace on our land and on others, the sooner we withdraw, the better. We want the world community to respect us, and this is best achieved through a good example (and not imposing), through peace, through fair trade, through humanitarian missions and actions.

So let�s let logic rule this Memorial Day Wednesday. It’s time that we at Progressive Wednesday — our valiant staff and our dedicated readers — take a stand.

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Make Progress:

3,454 American troops have died because of our occupation of Iraq. And here’s another sobering factoid: “In the period from Memorial Day 2006 through Saturday, 980 soldiers and Marines died in Iraq, compared to 807 deaths in the previous year.”

On top of that ugly fact — with 114 American casualties in Iraq this month, May 2007 becomes the third deadliest month since the occupation began, and the highest total deaths since November 2004. In other words, our time in Iraq is getting worse.

So our goal this here Wednesday is simple: let us help bring an end to this mess as soon as possible, and let us properly remember those who’ve fought in our name. Can we? We can. Enough said.

Let’s put away the ketchup and mustard, let’s put the volleyball nets back in the shed, let’s put the kids to bed, and let’s do something. Let us all — united together by the name of our country and our shared values — do something powerfully patriotic.

• Salute
• Watch
• Read
• Sign
• End

[1] And at least hundreds of these deaths could have been avoided. But we insisted on using cluster munitions, and “50 strikes on top Iraqi leaders failed to kill any of the intended targets.”

Memorial Day Everyday: Salute

Salute:

We believe the best tribute to our sisters and brothers — those soldiers who’ve served and lived and those we, as a country, have laid to rest — is to help end the occupation of Iraq. As such, we’d like to point you to a fantastic organization trying to do just that: Iraq Veterans Against the War. If you want to help convince the paltry number of those around who think we should stick it out in Iraq with no end in sight, check out IVAW’s webpage for information — they outline it in a pithy and powerful way.

The IVAW calls for the following:

• Immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces in Iraq;
• Reparations for the destruction and corporate pillaging of Iraq so that Iraqi people can control their own lives and future; and
• Full benefits, adequate health care (including mental health), and other supports for returning servicemen and women.

We�re not sure if we could agree more. And what does the IVAW do? Four biggies include:

1. Educating the public about the occupation of Iraq through speaking engagements and by contacting the media.
2. Speaking to classrooms about the realities of being a soldier.
3. Supporting “Conscientious Objectors and others facing military prosecution for their refusal to fight.”
4. Pushing for “full funding for the Veterans Administration, and full quality health treatment (including mental health) and benefits for veterans when they return from duty.”

We still haven’t heard anything to disagree with. There are plenty of other organizations fighting to end this occupation. But we think this one has more umph than some of the others. So, here’s the deal: just give five. That’s it. Just give five measly smackers to a fantastic organization doing what those of us without military service can’t do: tell the absolute truth about war. Give by clicking this sentence.

On behalf of our troops, thank you in advance.

Clergyman Charlie: On saying what you mean

I was sitting in my doctor's office the other day, waiting for my turn, when I noticed a sign posted over the receptionist's window. It said something like this: “A $25.00 fee will be charged for any appointment not cancelled 24 hours in advance.–

I thought, “Well, I'm not canceling my appointment. I'm keeping it. I don’t have to pay $25.00, do I? There's something wrong with that sign.– I realized it should have said, “A $25.00 fee will be charged for any missed appointment not cancelled 24 hours in advance. It couldn't mean I had to cancel my appointment or be fined! There is no fee charged for kept appointments!–

So I walked over to the window and explained to the receptionist that her sign was wrong. She could not understand what I was saying! She became defensive, and launched into a lengthy explanation of why they had to do this. There were people waiting to see the doctor who could be given appointments if time opened up, etc.

“No, no,– I said. “I'm not objecting to the policy! I'm just saying that the wording doesn't say what you intend.– She still couldn't understand me. I wished I'd never brought it up.

But when she stepped away to get my file, I wrote “missed– before the word “appointment.– I fixed it.

When I returned home, I told my wife about this incident. She said, “Didn't you understand what the sign meant?–

“Of course I understood what it meant! But that wasn't what it said!– I think she thought I was being “picky.–

All of this set me to thinking about how often we don't express ourselves clearly, and people misunderstand what we mean. Sometimes we think we know what another person is saying but we haven't really listened to that person. Sometimes we are so eager to make our own point known that we are just waiting for the other person to stop talking so we can say what we have prepared to say ourselves.

I see this happen a lot. To take just one controversial issue, do people who are pro-life really understand that many pro-choice people are not pro-abortion? They are pro-choice, pro- the right of a mother, not a legislature, to choose. And they are in favor of protecting the health and welfare of a woman. Especially in cases of rape or incest, to force the person to go through 9 months of pregnancy can be compared to raping her again.

And do pro-choice people understand that pro-life folks don't see their position as anti-woman, but pro-child? They know there are thousands of abortions in cases where the mother was not raped, no incest is involved, no health issues are raised. They want to offer adoption as an alternative, and they feel there are many people eager to adopt. They are people of good will.

How do we reach the point in which we can listen to each other, and speak clearly, stating the other person's viewpoint in words that person finds to be accurate?

And is there common ground? There has been a common ground movement suggesting that all parties concerned can agree on urging teenagers and unwed persons to avoid becoming pregnant, to educate people to abstain from sexual intercourse until they are married or at least to use methods of birth control.

The pro choice and pro life dispute is just one example that could be used. People who want us to leave Iraq quickly are not un-American, or unpatriotic. They feel we never should have gone there and that we are accomplishing nothing by staying. People who are afraid to leave think that is more dangerous for us to do so than it is for us to stay longer. I'm one who thinks we need to bring our troops home, but I hope I can hear what those on the other side are saying, and not accuse them of being “warmongers.– And I hope they don't accuse me of being a “traitor.– They think we give terrorists a secure base if we leave. I think we breed more terrorists every day that we stay.

I'm getting a lot of thought out of that little sign in my doctor's office. I hope this column helps you do some personal meditating too. Don't be like the Rush Limbaugh types who just shout slogans and try to drown out any other viewpoint. Listen thoughtfully to what others say. State your own position clearly and courteously. It is a lot more effective, a lot more civilized, and a lot more likely to help us all reach some beneficial conclusions.