tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-331414882007-08-30T01:46:57.925-07:00MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-18842681188441092082007-05-13T11:19:00.000-07:002007-06-11T22:15:56.181-07:00

Mothers Day 2007. Let's see ... some of the less celebratory things mothers will be doing in Middle Eastern countries this year: Zuhre Dyab will be remembering, as she does everyday, her son, Mohammed who was killed in his small village outside Tyre (Lebanon) fighting to retain his home, his culture, his right to his humanity and that of his family and growing children. She may even remember

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-26460810485023681802007-05-03T10:23:00.000-07:002007-05-03T10:29:27.352-07:00

This letter was posted on SF Craigslist (http://www2.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=33141488) and quoted here in its entirety. No edits, no cleaned up FCC "violations" -- just straight talk from one broken heart. From an Angry Soldier Date: 2007-04-10, 1:00PM PDT I'm having the worst damn week of my whole damn life so I'm going to write this while I'm pissed off enough to do it right. I am

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-9780186881831846432007-05-02T19:27:00.000-07:002007-05-03T09:21:36.892-07:00

For the last year and a half (since mid-2004) my military child has not been deployed to any combat zones. This after being deployed to Afghanistan for nine months and then, four months later, to Iraq. While it has been a tremendous relief to have him "CONUS" (Continental US) I've always known that it was just a matter of time.... Meanwhile, I've counseled hundreds of military personnel about

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-11267097381046928342007-05-01T18:49:00.000-07:002007-05-01T19:05:52.014-07:00

volunteering on the GI Rights Hotline (counseling service for GIs at 1-800-394-9544 or www.girights.org) is a education in how our U.S. military functions and how it breaks down (some) people's spirits. Here is a recent article about general resistance to the military My last article about the goings on at Ft. Hood can be read here before catching up on the news, below. "Tom" turned himself in

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-75920945371610038602007-04-24T17:40:00.000-07:002007-05-02T18:57:39.116-07:00

In an ongoing effort to educate and inform about cluster bombs, here are a few stages of a cluster bomb unit ("CBU") exploding to disperse hundreds of bomblets. Download a page of facts on CBUs (These images were harvested from the music video, "Oh, Baghdad, they killed you" - see video below)

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-16341432190712832032007-03-31T14:32:00.000-07:002007-03-31T21:36:35.801-07:00

How much has happened since my last post in this space (back in August 31, 2006 -- see below) when I kvetched about cluster bombs... Since then I've traveled in Lebanon and walked (very carefully) in the land heavily infested with cluster bombs. Over four million cluster bombs were dropped in southern Lebanon, most dropped in the last days of the bombardment when a ceasefire was immanent.

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-1157254223942382082006-09-02T20:13:00.000-07:002006-09-04T11:16:47.350-07:00

...quoted from Kyle Snyder who, having participated in war, is now resisting it ... from Canada (read his story: ttp://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/110/27/). Robin Long, another warrior and war resister seeking refuge in Canada, says, "...a soldier is just a uniform following orders, a warrior is the man or woman that follows their conscience and does the right thing in the face of

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-1157083386701069772006-08-31T20:37:00.000-07:002006-08-31T21:03:06.716-07:00

“… Israel stands accused of littering southern Lebanon with thousands of unexploded bombs in the final hours of its war against Hizbollah.” (Read article: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0831-05.htm) So, today, a quick review of cluster bombs, or Cluster Bomb Units (CBUs) as they’re called. The BBC's Military Fact File writes: Cluster bombs are controversial weapons consisting of a

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-1156914668933362622006-08-29T22:09:00.000-07:002006-08-29T22:11:08.936-07:00

Maybe it is too early to pronounce the drought broken around Crawford but today, Tuesday August 29, is cooler and cloudy in Dallas where I await a flight to Oakland. I’m awed by the heat around here: the temperature range from 99 to 106 degrees Fahrenheit is incredibly hard on the body and the spirit. My total sleep hours in the last week: about 12… most of them accumulated since the storm

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-1156713952258383732006-08-27T14:25:00.000-07:002006-08-29T22:09:39.893-07:00

A quick note about Camp Casey doin’s today. Mostly it is VERY hot. And I’m quite surprised how tough it is for me to adjust to the heat. Next time I won’t try to camp in a tent under the baking sun with little access to water for cooling down. Am I officially “old” or just “too pampered”? The bus carrying a number of families traveling from Seattle to New Orleans stopped by this afternoon

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-1156605443577276072006-08-26T08:16:00.000-07:002006-08-26T12:50:27.353-07:00

Friday afternoon, 4p.m., 100 or so degrees Our group of eight set off from Camp Casey, Crawford, Texas, to hand out GI Rights information to military personnel leaving Ft. Hood. We were workin' the signs with the Hotline phone number: 1-800-394-9544. Killen, I'm discovering, is about the same as so many -- not-bay-area -- towns in the U.S.: sprawling, one- and two-storey buildings, lots of

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-1156605327425328982006-08-26T08:14:00.000-07:002006-08-26T08:29:48.746-07:00

Joey is a Waco anarchist. He’s 18, has a “Wo-hawk” hair cut (that’s called a “Mohawk” outside of TX – I just made up that term Wo-hawk so don’t try it on your other Waco anarchists friends), Joey is a black leather with big silver studs belt-wearing waitperson at Papa Rollo’s Pizza. He knows he won’t go in the military but he is trying to figure out what to do with his life – orthodontist is high

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-1156454398426664352006-08-24T14:12:00.000-07:002006-08-24T15:55:23.240-07:00

Back at the ranch... Actually, back at the Peace House, Crawford. Carlos helped me pitch my tent (at 1:00pm today the temp was 106 degrees) and I helped him with his. Then while he continued tweaking his space so that he could put up pix of his son, Alex, and his campaign against the war, I headed back to air conditioned Peace House to use the wireless internet connection (yes, wireless! who'd

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-1156312471406653872006-08-22T22:51:00.000-07:002006-08-22T22:54:31.416-07:00

I read that “On August 3, Russian conscript Ivan Shinkaryov flipped the safety catch on his rifle and shot himself dead. It was sad but unremarkable: In Russia at least 1,000 conscripts die each year in non-combat incidents.”…. And, “In the past eight years, 17 of the recruits in Shinkaryov's Interior Ministry Troops unit no. 3377 have died. Most committed suicide, the rest were killed by fellow

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33141488.post-1156225280106853082006-08-21T22:36:00.000-07:002006-08-21T23:29:33.130-07:00

As if there isn't enough dismal news coming out of the military these days about how it treats our kids...from the moment they have the ill luck to fall into the clutches of recruiters until they are stop-lossed at the end of their contracts-- today's news plummets to an even lower low. From Associated Press (and reported on Democracy Now! - www.democracynow.org - August 21 '06) comes the news

MotherSpeakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04338022639549589521noreply@blogger.com