women at work

[donsu]

http://www.counterpunch.com/healy02182006.html

An Interview with Ann Wright

When Ann Wright's letter of resignation from the Foreign Service was posted on the Internet the day the Bush Administration commenced Operation Iraqi Freedom, it served as an eloquent refutation of the case for war. For the past three years, the former U.S. Army colonel and diplomat has been active in the peace movement, working closely with Cindy Sheehan at last summer's Camp Casey. On Valentine's Day, she spoke with Counterpunch by cell phone from New Orleans, where she and Sheehan were lobbying local, state and federal officials to relocate displaced residents in existing public housing.

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AW - Look at the Shock and Awe in Baghdad and the gratuitous destruction of buildings and infrastructure. There was no need for it. After 10 years of a "no fly zone" over Iraq--including Baghdad--the U.S. had taken out by Air Force missions everything that could possibly have harmed us. Shock and Awe was like a Blitzkrieg. It was unnecessary destruction of civilians and civilian property, in my opinion.

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AW: Well, most of the bombs that the U.S. uses have DU in them. It's a way that the U.S. has decided to get rid of uranium byproducts. We give it away to the munitions industry and they use it because it's a dense material that heightens the impact of shells. We use it in virtually every type of bomb that the Air Force has and in most of the artillery shells that the Army and Marine Corps use. So we are polluting all of the areas we go to. And if you look at the unexplained Gulf War sickness, 10 to one it's probably DU that's causing it.

The Pentagon is slow to undertake any substantive studies on the effects of DU but uses the lack of studies to justify withholding compensation for the healthcare costs of returning veterans suffering the effects of exposure to DU.

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It's been a real groundswell since August. It's still not big enough, but if you look at where we were in August before we started Camp Casey and then look at where we are now, there's a glimmer of hope that we may be able to effect change and end this war. I personally think we have to close down Washington. I think we gotta get in there, block all the roads, trap them and tell them they can't leave until they change their policy.
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1. Even when we ignore the corrupt way they sold the war

the question is ; Will the new Iraqi government be an improvement on the old. The answer is clear. NO.

The new government will make Iraq another Iran. We can see the direction its going. Its a no brainer. Instead of one Iran, we will now have two thanks to the brilliant strategy of PNAC and bush.

And it only cost us hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives for this.