It’s been a long war for all of us. We’re weary of a mission that doesn’t provide us with tangible goals or conclusion. We’ve lost the momentum that encourages the support of our leadership to make the right decisions. And when we look past the politics, election rhetoric, and endless debates, all that’s left are the soldiers still sitting in the middle of the desert on their first, second, or third deployments. All that remains are soldiers waiting to follow orders for an unknown cause against an unknown enemy.

One of those soldiers has spoken out not against the cause, but against the order to take another person’s life.

Spc. Benjamin Stewart of the 2nd Striker Cavalry Regiment refused to deploy on his second tour of duty in Iraq. His explanation?

Stewart told the court that he refused to deploy because of what he experienced during his last deployment to Mosul, Iraq, from 2004 to 2005.

“I saw a mother and her infant child get killed in crossfire. I saw children lose their limbs in a car bomb. One boy lost an arm and another lost both legs,” he said.

After that mission, Stewart said, he decided he could not deploy again.

“I’m not a pacifist or peacenik or against the war in Iraq. From the beginning, I believe the war was justified, (but) I could not live with myself if I killed another person,” he said.

He knew what was right and what was wrong. This young Specialist has blown the whistle on the mission and his conscious. But the Army has disagreed. The Army swiftly sought his punishment after missing his units movement to deploy on January 7th, 2008. On February 22, 2008, Spc. Steward was sentenced to spend six months in jail before being thrown out of the Army.

It’s true that the most basic function of a military is to kill. And it’s also true that we are an all volunteer military with full knowledge of this function. But consideration of a man’s morality should be taken into account. If a person kills because he or she is forced to do so and not because they truly feel it’s warranted, do we condemn that person? If a person has killed and knows in their heart it would destroy them to do so again, do we put them in jail?

Apparently, our government has affirmed this.

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Yes, you read that correctly. MORE THAN 1 out of every 100 adults in the U.S. is in prison. It had to be repeated. I had trouble digesting that myself.

For the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults are behind bars, according to a new report.

Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million, after three decades of growth that has seen the prison population nearly triple. Another 723,000 people are in local jails.

The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 adult Hispanic men is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 adult black men is, too, as is one in nine black men ages 20 to 34.

The report, from the Pew Center on the States, also found that one in 355 white women ages 35 to 39 is behind bars, compared with one in 100 black women.

Sadly a good percentage of these prisoners are non-violent offenders such as those guilty of DWI- even if it did not result in an accident. We still as a nation jail rather than utilize treatment to try to fix the ills of society. And don’t even get me started on the financial drain that occur as a result of these facts.

How do we compare with other parts of the world in these statistics?

The United States imprisons more people than any other nation in the world. China is second, with 1.5 million people behind bars. The gap is even wider in percentage terms.

Germany imprisons 93 out of every 100,000 people, according to the International Center for Prison Studies at King’s College in London. The comparable number for the United States is roughly eight times that, or 750 out of 100,000.

Who else has the warm fuzzies right now?

Oh… and before anyone decides to say maybe it has something to do with illegal imigrants, guess what? Recent studies call bullshit on that arguement.

The new report even bolsters claims by some academics that increased immigration makes the United States safer. A second study, released earlier this month by Washington-based nonprofit Immigration Policy Center, found that on the national level, U.S.-born men ages 18-39 are five times more likely to be incarcerated than are their foreign-born peers. And, while the number of illegal immigrants in the country doubled between 1994 and 2005, violent crime declined by nearly 35% and property crimes by 26% over the same period. The PPIC even determined that on average, between 2000 and 2005, cities such as Los Angeles that took in a higher share of recent immigrants saw their crime rates fall further than cities with a lower influx of illegals.

Go figure.

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In the wake of the senseless killings at NIU, there was another story that went practically unreported by the media, also involving an in-school shooting. Though this one, rather than a random act of violence, was a pointed premeditated attack on a single student.

(A) 15-year-old gay California student is brain dead after a student allegedly shot him because of his sexual orientation and gender expression.

Lawrence King, an eighth-grader at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, was being kept alive today for organ donation after being shot Tuesday morning in class. The 14-year-old attacker, among a group of students known to bully and harass King because he sometimes wore makeup and jewelry and told classmates he was gay, will be charged with murder and a hate crime.

Ignoring the fact that almost half the kids I see these days wear makeup and jewelry, along with those “skinny girl jeans”, part of the story could sound a little misleading. Some may be trying to make it sound like the kid was flamboyantly decked out in drag but in perhaps he was really just dressing in “emo fashion”. Not that it should make a difference either way, I really don’t know. But…

I thought this was an important story to report, because while acts such as what happened at NIU are tragic, we can’t forget that there are acts of violence such as this that happen everyday due to prejudice and intolerance. It’s a sad truth that we can’t lose sight of, and should work everyday to prevent, regardless of how you may feel about homosexuality (or any other differences between people for that matter). Such occurrences simply should not be allowed to take place. Ever.

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In last night’s Ohio Democratic debate, Clinton puts one more spike into her campaign coffin with an attempt at rousing a chuckle from the crowd. The problem is that no one laughed.

It’s almost surreal watching her sink within the first moments of the debate. My mouth gaping at the obviousness of her misstep, Clinton needs to decide if she wants to be the victim, or the strong fighter. Trying to be both makes her sound bitchy, whiny, and petty.Until that happens, Obama doesn’t even have to try. And on the same token, neither does McCain.

Hat tip to Skitz.

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…or: How the U.S. internet providers can keep the competition down, and keep us in the dark.

Comcast internet service, one of the largest providers in the U.S. is accused of using it’s practically unopposed status to limit or hinder what net based media contest it’s subscribers view, one of many subjects discussed in a hearing that took place on monday.

The hearing brings to the public the subject of “Net Neutrality” which has been a widely discussed topic in knowledgable net-surfer circles, but for the majority of basic internet users remains at best a heard phrase that means very little to their daily lives.

The last time this topic was even loosely touched upon was in 2007 when Pearl Jam, performing at Lollapalooza and broadcasting live online, saw a portion of their song “Daughter” which broke into the music of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall, but featured lyrics speaking out against President Bush, and provider AT&T cut the audio to the broadcast, leaving fans and band furious. AT&T claimed it was an overzealous censor acting too quickly and had nothing to do with the political statement being made.

At present Comcast is claiming their slowing of service to IPs who are downloading heavily from forums such as BitTorrent, and other peer to peer services, has to do with regluating bandwidth, and nothing to do with keeping people from gaining their media in anyway other than Comcast affiliated media outlets. Of course, if Comcast is just trying to make sure it’s users are getting the best all-around service possible, and there’s no censorship or blockading of any kind happening on their part- then why did they have to pay people to sit in on this FCC hearing and be pro-Comcast?

David Weinberger says it all considerably better than I ever could-

The idea behind Net neutrality is simple: Decisions about what information should move over the Internet most expeditiously should not be made by those who benefit financially from those decisions. The companies that provide the bulk of the nation’s Internet connectivity should not be allowed to decide that, for example, YouTube videos are less important than their own Hollywood blockbusters. They should not be allowed to skew the market in favor of large companies by charging for delivering their bits faster than those of a start-up. Net neutrality is basic to keeping the Internet the greatest seedbed of innovation in history.

(This) is a struggle between two visions of the Internet.

Comcast and the other major Internet access providers see the Internet as a way to broadcast content to users. Its value comes from what is on the Net. This suits the providers, who come from the world of telephones and cable TV, and are structured to make money by selling content and services to subscribers.

The other vision, and the one that has brought a billion people onto the Net and has stirred hope around the world, says the value of the Net comes from who is on the Net. The “who” isn’t a solitary face; the “who” is us, together. The most exciting developments on the Internet have been about how we are connecting with one another, touching one another, and building ideas, services, and new social forms together.

I for one hope the FCC, and the U.S. at large decides the fate of the net rests in the second choice.

An interesting tack-on to this story, is what’s been happening recently in Pakistan with their net service…

Service on Google Inc.’s YouTube Web site was disrupted around the world for several hours Sunday after a botched effort by the Pakistani government to block access to a video clip critical of Islam.

The clip in question is about a film being made by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who compares the Quran to “Mein Kampf” saying it’s “a fascist book that incites people to murder”.

So, you know, it’s nice to know that here in the U.S. we just mute video or slow down service for things we don’t agree with, in Pakistan they shut down whole websites the world over. Isn’t it great to live in the “free world”?

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An ad launching later this week takes notice of the war-monger words of Presidential hopeful, John McCain. Their spokesperson? A female veteran of the Iraq war.

It’s a stinger:

Transcript:

John McCain says it’s o.k. with him if the U.S. spent the next 1,000 years in Iraq.

That’s some commitment to the Iraqi people, Sen. McCain.

(picks up baby)

This is my little boy.

He was born a year after I came home from Iraq.

What kind of commitment are you making to him?

How about 1,000 years of affordable health care? or, 1,000 years of keeping America safe.

Can we afford that for my child Sen. McCain?

Or have you already promised to spend trillions in Baghdad?

Votevets.org’s website says their mission statement is to, “hold public officials accountable for their words and actions that impact America’s 21st century servicemembers; and fully support our men and women in uniform”.

And directly from the mouth of Votevets.org:

The ad features, for the first time, a female Iraq veteran and her small child. Rose Forrest served 12 months in Iraq, and gave birth to her little son, when she came home. In the ad, Rose challenges John McCain to tell the truth about what endless war means for her child, and all of our children. Senator McCain needs to give us some straight talk about how much endless war in Iraq is going to cost. We don’t have an endless pot of money, or an endless supply of troops and equipment.

[...]

We’re airing this ad in the hopes that Senator McCain finally gets honest with the American people. We’re putting it out there so that the media and power-brokers start to ask the same questions. Endless war in Iraq means drastic sacrifices for Americans in their everyday lives, and in terms of our own security.

Is it appealing too much to the tenderness of sending females to the sandbox? Is Americas collective guilty conscious ready to face the reality of women fighting alongside men?

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Hi, you don’t know me, but my name is Skitz M. Jones. I don’t lobby for anyone, I don’t donate money to any foundations, I’m not high on any lists, influential, or well-to-do… so you really have no reason at all to listen to me.

All of that said, for the Pete’s sake Listen To Me! Because this is fairly important. You’re all behaving in a fairly ridiculous and potentially self-defeating manor. You’ve been outsmarted by the Republicans- a party who gave us the wonderfully intellectual contribution of George W. Bush.

The maneuver to which I’m referring? Uniting. Granted Huckabee is still “running” for President, but really all he’s doing is sticking around to give McCain someone to contrast against and talk to while you all try to figure out what the hell you’re doing. The Republican party has all but announced it’s candidate in John McCain, and as a result, he looks stronger and safer than either of the Democratic candidates. Even with a scandal drudged up by the New York Times, McCain still looks better in many eyes, because the whole party backed him, defended him, and it slid off of him like water off a duck’s back.

But no, here you all are letting Obama and Hillary make veiled attacks and not-so-veiled attacks, respectively, on each other. The result? The Democratic front-runners are knocking themselves down before the Republicans even have to think about it. And don’t think the opposition isn’t noticing.

Throw Nader into the mix, and there’s a great potential for the Democrats to throw this one away before they even figure out who the candidate will be. The damage will already be done.

Now, I’ve made no secret my dislike and distrust of Hillary Clinton, anyone who runs basically on the platform of “I was married to the President, so I’ve got more experience than you do” leaves me with quite a sour taste in my mouth. Though I’m sure nothing like the taste her hubby Bill was leaving in at least a few people’s mouths. All joking aside-

Obama has been racking up nomination after nomination, and it’s really only this whole mess with delegates and super-delegates that leaves Hillary with the feeling of possible victory. It’s really time for someone to tell her to stop this foolishness, and everyone get together behind Obama. He’s clearly the choice of the majority of the country, the numbers have shown, and the less time members of his own party spend sniping at him, the better for everyone involved really.

Hillary- stop circulating stuff like this-

in an attempt to get American voters to distrust a man who you (or your staffers if you prefer) have been trying to cast as a Muslim, (one of the most frightening tag words to a portion of the American Public since “Commies” were being blacklisted in the McCarthy era) all the while pretending to be a gracious competitor at recent debates.I’m not even going to dignify this whole picture debacle with an explanation of what is going on in the photo, if anyone is curious as to why Obama was dressed like this, go here.Leaders within the Democratic party, why do you let crap like this go on? Don’t you realize it just provides more ammunition to the Republicans, by making Obama look suspect, and making Hillary look petty and cheap in her attacks?

I beg you, for the sake of at least a cleaner Presidential race, pick a candidate (preferably the one the majority of Democratic voters are actually voting for, no sense it putting off your own people, right?) and lets start the real campaign- between the red and the blue, and let the issues be the deciding factors, not who dressed like what when, and who may or may not have gone to what school or have what descendents in their past family history.

Do you think we could do that? Please?

All my best-

Skitz.

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Nader is running as a third party Presidential candidate… again. To refresh your memory, Nader has run in the 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and (now) 2008 Presidential Elections. What effect will this have on the outcome? Just another bee buzzin’ in our ears, that’s all.

There’s an interesting side note I’d like to make about Nader. You know how there’s a small army of wack job voters having anxiety attacks about Obama being a practicing Muslim?

Well, hold your diapers, folks. Nader really is Muslim. His parents immigrated from Lebanon prior to his birth in 1934. He has spoken Arabic since he was a child. Are you scrambling for your Valium now? It’s interesting to note that a man who’s run for President FIVE times never once had the amount of scrutiny that Obama has had in the last six months regarding his heritage. Perhaps because Nader was never actually viewed as any real threat to the White House?

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If you haven’t noticed, America has gotten a little tired of the Iraq/Afghanistan war rhetoric. The proof is in the effort it took to find any mainstream news articles reporting on it. But maybe a few rockin’ guitar solos will inspire interest again.

It worked in the 60’s, right?

Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and Peal Jam have contributed tunes to the anti-war soundtrack for a documentary about a U.S. soldier paralyzed in Iraq.

The 30-song, two-disc album “Body of War: Songs That Inspired an Iraq War Veteran” will be released March 18 via Warner Music’s Sire Records label. All proceeds from the sale of the album will benefit Iraq Veterans Against the War.

And yes, the original news flash printed “Peal Jam”.

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Turkey has finally escalated it’s offensive against the Kurdish guerrillas hiding out in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq- which it had been shelling on and off in recent months.

This is the first occasion since the 2003 invasion led by U.S. forces that Turkish soldiers have moved onto Iraqi soil.

The offensive alarmed Iraqi officials, who have condemned violence by the separatist Kurdish guerrillas in the past but do not want to see a large-scale Turkish invasion.

“This has been a serious escalation,” Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said in an interview. “We hope that this will end as soon as possible for fear of escalation or any minor mistakes that would lead to a wider problem.”

After hours of bombing and shelling by Turkish artillery and warplanes, Turkish soldiers crossed via the Habur mountain pass after dusk Thursday into a sparsely populated corner of northern Iraq that the separatist rebel group, known as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has used as a refuge and a base for attacks inside Turkey. The number of Turkish troops in Iraq remained unclear Friday, but U.S. and Iraqi officials estimated it at 500 to 1,000. Turkish television reported that the number was as high as 10,000.

Ahmed Denize, a member of the PKK, said that small teams of guerrillas had fought the Turkish soldiers throughout the day Friday. Turkish soldiers destroyed three bridges during their movement into Iraq, he said. He also said PKK fighters had killed about 20 Turkish soldiers, but that claim could not be verified.

“We had information that they are coming, so we spread out in small groups and opened fire on them,” he said. “The fight is still going on.”

The violence between the Turkish government and the Kurdish rebels has roots going back decades, and the shelling against Kurdish rebel strongholds have been sanctioned by the U.S.- which has it’s obvious interests in Iraq, but how exactly does our country’s leadership feel about the new escalation?

The Bush administration has been an active partner in Turkey’s fight against the Kurdish rebels. Turkey has grown more aggressive since President Bush called the PKK a common enemy of Turkey, Iraq and the United States recently. The U.S. military has been sharing intelligence to help target rebel positions and is kept informed of Turkey’s military movements.

Gul called Bush early Thursday to tell him of the incursion, according to Turkey’s military. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Turkey to keep the operation short and “keep in mind that while the terrorists need, obviously, to be stopped from doing what they’re doing, that there really can’t be a destabilization of the region.”

“This is something that we were aware of in advance, and, as you know, the U.S. agrees with Turkey that the PKK is a terrorist organization and is an enemy of Turkey, Iraq and the United States,” White House spokesman Scott Stanzel told reporters.

Kurdish officials said they have lived with the U.S.-sanctioned bombing campaign against the rebels but feel the incursion is a violation of their sovereignty; they have also said they will defend their territory, if necessary. Bakir, the Kurdish foreign relations official, said the Americans should halt the Turkish advance.

“We believe that they have a responsibility to stop this incursion, which is not in anybody’s interest,” he said.

After the cease-fire declared by Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr (which many see as just as responsible for the decline in violence in Iraq as the surge in U.S. troops) being announced to continue for another 6 months- this can only have negative effects on an already strained calm that rests over the nation of Iraq. Whether it will be allowed to continue remains to be seen, as the U.S. will be forced both to try to keep the peace in Iraq and appease the current administration there, and keep it’s allies in Turkey happy to maintain the movement routes which the U.S. uses to bring most of it’s supplies to troops stationed in Iraq.

UPDATE, 2/24/08 9:24 am CST: (by Ms. Missive)

As reported on an ABC news website, the Turkish death toll has now risen to 15 including a report that the Kurdish rebels downed a Turkish helicopter. I’d also like to note that the ABC news website is displaying the newest incarnation of the Iraqi flag as reported here on Patriot Missive.

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