On Friday, September September 26, 2008, John McCain said the following:

"I know the veterans, I know them well, and I know that they know that I'll take care of them, and I have been proud of their support and their recognition of my service to the veterans, and I love them, and I'll take care of them, and they know that I'll take care of them."
This statement--made near the end of Friday's debate--immediately infuriated veterans across America and overseas.  In fact, Senator John McCain has a very clear, long, and illustrious history of not supporting troops and veterans one bit.  

Now, I've seen legislative examples, I've watched the YouTubes, and I've lived this lack of support in more ways than one.  But now, for the first time, I've tried to compile as much of this non-support as possible into a single document--from a variety of sources--complete with links, quotes, and video clips.  It's something that readers often ask me about, so I hope this helps.  I'm sure there's a lot missing, so feel free to add more in the comments.  But for now, I think this should give us a good start in exposing John McCain's abysmal of record of supporting troops and veterans.  Here we go: 

Senator John McCain's Record on Troop and Veterans' Issues

Voting Against Veterans

Veterans Groups Give McCain Failing Grades.  In its most recent legislative ratings, the non-partisan Disabled American Veterans gave Sen. McCain a 20 percent rating for his voting record on veterans' issues.  

Similarly, the non-partisan Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America gave McCain a "D" grade for his poor voting record on veterans' issues, including McCain's votes against additional body armor for troops in combat and additional funding for PTSD and TBI screening and treatment.

McCain Voted Against Increased Funding for Veterans' Health Care.

McCain Voted At Least 28 Times Against Veterans' Benefits, Including Healthcare.   Since arriving in the U.S. Senate in 1987, McCain has voted at least 28 times against ensuring important benefits for America's veterans, including providing adequate healthcare.

McCain Voted Against Providing Automatic Cost-of-Living Adjustments to Veterans.  McCain voted against providing automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments for certain veterans' benefits. 

McCain voted for an appropriations bill that underfunded the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development by $8.9 billion.

McCain Voted Against a $13 Billion Increase in Funding for Veterans Programs. 

McCain was one of five senators to vote against a bill providing $44.3 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, plus funding for other federal agencies. 

McCain was one of eight senators to vote against a bill that provided $47 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

McCain Voted Against $51 Billion in Veterans Funding.  McCain was one of five senators to vote against the bill and seven to vote against the conference report that provided $51.1 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs,

McCain Opposed $500 Million for Counseling Services for Veterans with Mental Disorders.  McCain voted against an amendment to appropriate $500 million annually from 2006-2010 for counseling, mental health and rehabilitation services for veterans diagnosed with mental illness, posttraumatic stress disorder or substance abuse. 

McCain was one of 13 Republicans to vote against providing an additional $430 million to the Department of Veterans Affairs for outpatient care and treatment for veterans. 

McCain opposed an amendment that would have prevented the Department of Veterans Affairs from outsourcing jobs, many held by blue-collar veterans, without first giving the workers a chance to compete.

McCain did not vote on the GI Bill that will provide better educational opportunities to veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, paying full tuition at in-state schools and living expenses for those who have served at least three years since the 9/11 attacks. McCain said he opposes the bill because he thinks the generous benefits would "encourage more people to leave the military." 

McCain voted against a ban on waterboarding--a form of torture--in a move that could eventually endanger American troops.  

Cheerleading for War with Iraq--While Afghanistan was Unfinished
McCain suggested that the war in Iraq could be won with a "smaller" force.

 "But the fact is I think we could go in with much smaller numbers than we had to do in the past. But I don't believe it's going to be nearly the size and scope that it was in 1991." (CBS News, Face the Nation, 9/15/02)

McCain said winning the war would be "easy."  "I know that as successful as I believe we will be, and I believe that the success will be fairly easy, we will still lose some American young men or women." (CNN, 9/24/02)

McCain echoed Bush and Cheney's rationale for going to war.  McCain:

"We're going to win this victory. Tragically, we will lose American lives. But it will be brief.  We're going to find massive evidence of weapons of mass destruction . . . It's going to send the message throughout the Middle East that democracy can take hold in the Middle East." (Fox News, Hannity & Colmes, 2/21/03)

"But I believe, Katie, that the Iraqi people will greet us as liberators." (NBC, 3/20/03)

 

March 2003: "I believe that this conflict is still going to be relatively short." (NBC, Meet the Press, 3/30/03)

 "It's clear that the end is very much in sight . . . It won't be long . . . it'll be a fairly short period of time." (ABC, 4/9/03)

Staunch Defense of the Iraq Invasion
McCain maintained that the war was a good idea and that George W. Bush deserved "admiration."  At the 2004 Republican National Convention, McCain, focusing on the war in Iraq, said that while weapons of mass destruction were not found, Saddam once had them and "he would have acquired them again." McCain said the mission in Iraq "gave hope to people long oppressed" and it was "necessary, achievable and noble." McCain: "For his determination to undertake it, and for his unflagging resolve to see it through to a just end, President Bush deserves not only our support, but our admiration." (Speech, Republican National Convention, 8/31/04)
Senator McCain: "The war, the invasion was not a mistake. (Meet the Press, 1/6/08)

McCain said our military could just "muddle through" in Afghanistan. While giving a speech, McCain was asked about Afghanistan and replied,

"I am concerned about it, but I'm not as concerned as I am about Iraq today, obviously, or I'd be talking about Afghanistan.  But I believe that if Karzai can make the progress that he is making, that in the long term, we may muddle through in Afghanistan." (Speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, 11/5/03)

Posted SwanDeer Project at 6:36 AM PDT

Updated: Thursday, 2 October 2008 6:38 AM PDT

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I remember last September's meeting with U.S. Rep Baird (D) concerning his turn-around support of the Surge. I think about SecDef Gates who yesterday put a positive spin on two female suicide bombers in an Iraq marketplace by suggesting that if they really were mentally retarded then Al Qaeda is getting desperate and entering the Dull-but-Deadly Cheney's "last throes." With an administration entering its last throes, I think we can look beyond candidates and ambitious military politicians like Petraeus. We can perceive more fully our military reality as described by those who've been there and done that. ... like  "former Sergeant" Kelly Dougherty

It gets frustrating to realize that such a decline is artificial in that news organizations can exaggerate other concerns by merely changing emphasis on things that might sell more - sell because they are either new or less embedded in America's entertainment boredom.

It is always frustrating to share opinion with folks for whom Iraq is now merely one of several political campaign abstractions around which to build strategies.

These are strategies more governed by consultants and spinners who are paid by candidates to teach them how to say what voters want to hear rather than come anywhere near a legitimate straight-talk reputation.

These are strategies presented with straight-faced declarations about patience with bloodshed;

... that ending bloodshed in Iraq must wait while America's political cycle moves slowly toward it's next phase.

This is true whether buying into Mrs. Clinton's Bush-like refusal to acknowledge past errors in judgement,

... whether buying into Mr. McCain's pretense of truth-telling that deteriorates into a fixed and rigid Westmoreland view on the contribution of America's military blood to foreign policy

or to Romney's absolutely naive and un-informed pretense at understanding foreign policy, military matters and their relationship to Constitutional Values.

The success of the current surge has the same credibility as the smirking smile that presented his 7th SOTU.

Now take Kelly Dougherty, Former Sergeant,Army National Guard, Executive Director, Iraq Veterans Against the War;

Can you imagine McCain, Clinton or Romney trying to oppose in an effective and persuasive way the views of this military veteran?

In this regard, not even McCain could pull rank on Dougherty.

In THIS time and in THIS conflict a "Patton Slap"wouldn't get it.

	Iraq Veterans Against The War - there's more of them organized. Up from  last year's 8 chapters nationwide to 37 chapters.

January 10, 2008
By Kelly Dougherty,
Former Sergeant, Army National Guard,
Executive Director, Iraq Veterans Against the War;IVAW

In just over a year, America will have a new President.

We will have endured a year of campaign commercials and attack ads.

We'll have watched debates devoid of any real discussion of the withdrawal from Iraq that a growing number of Americans now call for.  We'll have waited, for yet another year, for our leaders to find a way to say what we know in our hearts: we must leave Iraq.

But what will have changed in the next year that will make that happen?

We must face this fact: we run the serious risk that one year from today we'll be right where we are now, but with another year's worth of casualties, a year's worth of grieving families, a year's worth of Iraqi anger and suffering built on our occupation of a country we now know was no threat to us.

Ending this war in a year is different than ending it now, just as ending it now is different than ending it a year ago, or a year before that.

There is a price to pay for every day that we wait.

As a veteran who served in Iraq as a military police sergeant, I see our continued occupation of that country as more than simply a list of numbers.

On daily patrols through Baghdad and other cities, your glance darts from one window to the next and you look with suspicion at everyone you pass, waiting to be attacked.

Every time you drive, you anxiously scan the roadways and gutters, anticipating the explosion of a roadside bomb that will send burning shards of metal through both vehicles and flesh.

Indiscriminate home raids at all hours of the day and night become a common experience, as do the mass detentions of terrified and angry Iraqis.

You spend hours at checkpoints, with your finger on the trigger, prepared to make life and death decisions in a country where the line between civilians and combatants is blurred and in constant motion.

   These things take a toll, on our soldiers, their families, and the Iraqi people.

As members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, we know these things and many of us still face them on a daily basis.

Despite what you see on TV, or read in the paper, this is daily life in Iraq.

A year from now, will we have moved any closer to withdrawal?

Or will our leaders continue to push such a decision off into the future, where, like so many decisions made by the powerful, the price to be paid rests squarely on the shoulders of the next generation?

We are at a crossroads: we can focus our energy exclusively on an election in which no viable candidate is committed to rapid withdrawal, or we can spend the next year ensuring that whoever takes office, Republican or Democrat, will face a country mobilized to the cause of bringing our troops home.

The veterans and active duty troops of Iraq Veterans Against the War represent the generation that is living with the pain and consequences of our leaders' daily decision to continue this war.

We have watched our closest friends be killed and injured, we've seen innocent people dehumanized and destroyed.

   We are first-hand witnesses and participants of an illegal war and occupation and we are here to tell you that we have had enough.

We have come together, as members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, with this message: It is time to put this awful chapter of our history behind us.

It is time to do the right thing for the people of Iraq and the people of America.

It is time.

... whether or not America should maintain a jillion military outposts in Iraq,

... whether or not our oil companies deserve control of Iraq's oil,

... and whether or not some new on-going "surge"-ical politico-military tactic requires patience,

then we all are mere fiddling Nero's watching Rome burn

and we are all tragically guilty, responsible and accountable for the tears

... because we had it in our power to stop the carnage and refused to do so

...  because politicians and spinners

glorying in and playing with their newly won power

led us to believe there was a better way while telling us to keep fiddling.

Posted SwanDeer Project at 7:53 AM PST

Updated: Saturday, 2 February 2008 8:48 AM PST

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Note: Cross-posted to Daily Kos (Recommends solicited please) and Willapa Magazine

My wife and I have included a concern about depleted uranium in our writings now going back almost five years. Recently - as members of a Google group that focuses on Veteran Health issues in Washington State - we received an email  from another military veteran group member which included the following:

Since you are a former AF brat, wife of a Viet Vet and mother to soldiers still serving, I would appreciate it if you would contact me. You have been gravely mislead by a bunch of frauds about DU.

What made you even go looking for them (or did they come to you) -- you are the perfect person for them to make a dupe as they have made Congressman McDermott who was sent a forged document that is purported to be from 1943.

He is LTC. Roger Helbig, USAF (ret). and is not and has not been an on-going member of our Washington Veteran's Google group. Rather, Helbig seems to have made it his practice to insert himself into every anti-DU rally, debate, symposium and forum including and primarily those on line.

For those interested in the use of Depleted Uranium in military weapons, I make no apology for this lengthy update.

In the spirit of Fair Use, I'm posting the entirety of the following piece from the Axis of Logic Site

"April 11, 2005 -- (Oklahoma City) "Individuals on web sites throughout the United States have complained over a period of months about the abusive and aggressive actions of an Air Force Lieut. Colonel named Roger Helbig," stated Project Censored Award Winning writer Bob Nichols.

 

"Col. Helbig has consistently misrepresented himself and his participation, voluntarily or on a paid basis, as a "minder" or enforcer for the DOD lie about Uranium Munitions in direct contravention of US Army Regulations and Orders," Nichols stated.

"Col. Helbig apparently is fervently following the Secret Los Alamos Memo about Uranium Weapons (UW), aka so-called "Depleted Uranium," instructing personnel to lie about Uranium Weapons to maintain the political viability of continued use of the Genocidal Weapons: "weaponized radioactive and poisonous ceramic uranium oxide gas and dust" in Iraq and throughout Central Asia," added Nichols.

[Ed Note: They are not kidding. A copy of the actual memo encouraging lies and misinformation is online. AR]

Nichols stated "Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D., is the former Army Officer in charge of the Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project. Dr Rokke is a career officer, loyal to the Constitution of the United States of America, not to any political party. He is the man the people of the United States can turn to for "on the level information" about the true nature of Uranium Weapons (UW.)

Dr. Rokke commented, "LTC Roger Helbig, United States Air Force: I would suggest that since you claim to be so knowledgeable about DU and my specific activities during Gulf War 1 and while I was the Director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium that you produce the actual official documents, not some comments by Bob Cherry or Ed Battle or Mike Kilpatrick, your bosses up the line, verifying your comments."

Rokke added "Unless you can do so, please cease and go away. But before you go away you still have not answered; why you, as an United States Air Force officer, refuse to support my / our actions to ensure that United States Department of Defense officials provide medical care to all DU casualties and clean up all environmental contamination as required by AR 700-48 and TB 9-1300-278; and, that medical care is provided to all DU casualties as required by Lt General Ron Peake's April 29, 2004 order."

"Will you provide us a public endorsement supporting full compliance of these mandatory actions?"

"Yes" or "No"?

Dr. Rokke concluded "It is time for you to decide. The question is not about me, but whether or not United States Department of Defense personnel comply with their own requirements to provide medical care and clean up all environmental contamination as specified in AR 700-48, TB 9-1300-278, and all of the orders mandating medical care for DU casualties."

Copyright 2005 by AxisofLogic.com

Lietta,

Since you are a former AF brat, wife of a Viet Vet and mother to soldiers still serving, I would appreciate it if you would contact me.

You have been gravely mislead by a bunch of frauds about DU. What made you even go looking for them (or did they come to you) -- you are the perfect person for them to make a dupe as they have made Congressman McDermott who was sent a forged document that is purported to be from 1943.

Roger Helbig Vietnam Era vet Retired USAF (5 years active; 20 Guard/Reserve)
DoD Civilian (ret)

grew up with the Army Reserve (my Dad was both reserve officer and civilian employee
- I helped him run preenlistment tests when he got over run by applicants in 1965)
Geologist - that makes me a Geoscientist too --
Trained to recognize and protect against nuclear fallout Contracts Director, Navy Nuclear Shipyard - got to befriend nuclear engineers and technicians, people who know their stuff, not frauds who pretend that they do
Tireless researcher (that's the real me, not the Axis of Evil variant perpetrated by Rokke and Nichols
-- they made me so mad, I FOIAed Rokke's records and have been on his tail and the entire anti-DU crusade's tail ever since -
lying about me was a big mistake on their part)

There is one major flaw in this study ..
Uranyl Acetate does not exist in nature and thus is unlikely to ever contaminate a soldier or civilian bystander's lungs.  

Another major flaw is that the material that was used in the study contains natural, not depleted uranium.  If anyone wants to write me or come to DUStory in Yahoo Groups, I will put you in touch with chemists who have analyzed this.  

I am surprised that it was funded by a grant and intend to ask questions of the granting organization about why they funded this flawed study which seems made to order for the anti-depleted uranium crusade that wants to convince you that your soldiers are in danger, that you are in danger and that your children are in danger when their real goal is convicting your soldier of a non-existent war crime for intentionally poisoning the Middle East.

So, aroused from my aging veteran reverie, I knocked over my coffee, forgot to feed that cat and pounded on my keyboard.

On major flaws ...

(1) Uranyl Acetate - whether or not it exists in nature - "is unlikely to ever contaminate a soldier or civilians bystander's lungs."

Chemists have analyzed this you say?

So what is it we are discussing, the legitimate danger of depleted uranium or why the hell we are using it or need to use it in the first place?

And why would you say that any weapon - possessed of DU or not - is safe for civilian bystanders? What kind of doofus statement is that?

(2) Unless someone with an impressive educational and vocational pedigree (such as yours) can justify/defend America's need to involve nuclear crap in our weaponry as vital to the defense of the nation, what's the problem with crusading against the use of DU?

Are you trying to say that without DU our military is somehow emasculated and insufficiently potent to get the job done?

Do we need to go around shooting field  mice with elephant guns because our generals and defense contractors need the viagra effect of DU to effectively rattle sabers?

(3) I'm not aware of any accusations of war crimes against soldiers  for being in a war zone where their own government has authorized the use of depleted uranium. Who is doing the accusing of our troops? I'll help you smack them.

Actually, it sounds like you're on your own narrow and biased justify-the-use-of-depleted-uranium crusade.

Bottom line is that you can call everyone else's opinion flawed as hell, but in all honesty should you not state and clarify your own particular bias?

As a Veteran with a big mouth and an opinion I'm entitled to, I'll admit to the following biases of concern:

- I am the patriarch of our particular military family with it's own tradition going back decades. My deceased WWII father's flag sits on the wall in my study. My own medals and uniform fruit salad ribbons are in the special box I put them upon receipt of an honorable discharge thirty two years ago.

- I don't wear a silly little flag on my lapel nor stick cheap metal ribbons on my vehicle to prove how patriotic I am. I leave that to gullibles who think Fox News is honest broadcasting.

- I was against Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq from the get-go.

- I still am. Bush is the one most guilty of war crimes. More innocent civilian "bystanders" have been killed on Bush's orders than those killed by the dictator Bush lied about to justify an invasion that included the DU viagra.

- My family is not anti-war nor part of that political crowd. But we are also nobody's gullible puppets and nobody's pretend patriots conforming to false logic.

- Invading Iraq was never justified, necessary and is a false prop for Bush & Company's flawed definition of what a "war on terror" is or should look like.

- In that context, using depleted uranium - serious as that may be in terms of risk -  is secondary to blowing up our soldier family members and innocent by-standing civilians based on what does or does not naturally occur in nature.

As a Veteran with a big mouth, you owe us clarification, not rhetoric.

- Your position regarding the invasion and occupation of Iraq is what?

- your position regarding the reality of a "war on terror" and whose definition of that "war" is drinkable bathwater is what?

- you absolutely promise that depleted uranium has no lethal side effects based on nuclear radiation - being  essentially then harmless except for the traditional lethal intent of those weapons with or without DU inclusion?  You do acknowledge that original intent don't you? Blowing up people and things?

- You guarantee that my family and I and all who read here can absolutely sleep at night without concern about DU cause you've done our homework for us? We have absolutely no reason to worry about DU as the cause of any potential "agent orange" kind of illness or sterilization in our  military sons and daughters? DU absolutely will not be the reason if our soldier families become parents of grandchildren with birth defects?

- You can guarantee that any increased incidence of sterilization and birth defects in the innocent by-standing Iraqi civilian population is not going to be a consequence of DU and that America should have no guilty conscience about DU's inclusion among the rotten eggs we've laid and left laying around in the Middle East?

If you can't make that guarantee then perhaps you should go do more homework before calling anyone or anything flawed.

Posted SwanDeer Project at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 23 October 2007 6:37 PM PDT

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Do you realize just what you say when you spill terrible talking points?  

The troops may as a majority harbor traditional patriotic sentiment but they ain't as stupid as our politicians. 

Some of them are just plain common sense human beings.

Here's my hurried transcript excerpt from an ABC News film clip (Thanks for the tip to Dan at On The Road to 2008)

"I challenge Bush to come and spend a tour with me. I'll serve another 15 months if he will. They don't need to pay me any more. They don't have to do anything just come here and hang out with me.

We have people up there in Congress with brain of a two year old who don't know what they're doing. They don't experience it.

I challenge the President or whoever has us here for 15 months to ride along side me. I'll do another fifteen months if he comes out here and rides along with me every day for 15 months.  I'll do 15 more months. They don't even have to pay me extra."

Posted SwanDeer Project at 9:19 PM PDT

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Bring the troops home now and take care of them when they get here. That's the thrust of those supporting the military and their families in opposing the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

And it's a bit difficult to take pot shots at the military when it has been stretched to the breaking point by fools. The Walter Reed mail room story excerpted below deserves the light of day. Trouble is, the fools will blame the military for incompetence - the mail room was turned over to the private sector by a contract?

THen we can't blame the Army, we blame the fools who can't blame anyone but their cronies. 

Excerpt from Huffington Post (click to read entire article)

 Mail Sent to Walter Reed Never Delivered

WASHINGTON - Turns out the trouble at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the focus of a firestorm of criticism over poor treatment of wounded war veterans, reached into the mailroom.

The Army said Friday that it has opened an investigation into the recent discovery of 4,500 letters and parcels _ some dating to May 2006 _ at Walter Reed that were never delivered to soldiers.

And it fired the contract employee who ran the mailroom.

Posted SwanDeer Project at 7:52 AM PDT

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That argument has become the cheapest, most demeaning and diminishing turd regarding the value of every human life in the Middle East.

A Presidency, a Party and it's intellectually foppish projects for new centuries,

...not to mention the parade of presidential wannabes in both parties who attempt to don some sort of wise-statesman cap and gown

... have worn this particular fabric so transparently thin as to  offer the American electorate nothing but pure intellectual insult.

We need the courage to pull out and let the chips fall where they may.

We as a nation are now in Iraq like drunk wife-beatters too stupid to know that the best thing is to stop trying to make it right and get the hell out.

The whole damn pottery barn is full of nothing but bloody shards and we ... as demanded by the tavern-taliking by Dumbass-in-Chief ... have brought it all on ourselves.

Posted SwanDeer Project at 9:47 AM PDT

Updated: Sunday, 13 May 2007 9:51 AM PDT

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Police braced for possible mass arrests and chaos as anti-war activists gathered in Aberdeen Sunday to protest military cargo shipments from the Port of Grays Harbor.

There was a lot of shouting, name calling and frustration but no arrests or property damage. Police and protesters did face off for about an hour after dozens of protesters refused to assemble in the “free speech zone” that had been established across from The Home Depot.

“We have the right to gather anywhere!” Caitlin Esworthy, a leader with the Olympia Port Militarization Resistance group, yelled through a megaphone. “The USA is a free speech zone!”

Nearly 100 protesters paraded for 30 minutes from 28th Street in Hoquiam, down Simpson Avenue to Myrtle Street and over to the Port. Many local protesters stopped at the designated public assembly area. Others, however, continued toward the entrance to Terminal 4 where the Naval ship MV Cape Henry was being loaded with helicopters, Jeeps, Stryker vehicles and other cargo bound for Iraq.

Beating on buckets and singing “Solidarity forever … the union makes us strong!” out-of-town protesters remained on the Port Industrial Road, blocking traffic. They gathered on both sides of the streets.

After several warnings from police to move to the assembly area and to remain on the side of the street across from the Port docks, a dozen specially trained Seattle bicycle officers rode out from the Port. They ushered everyone to the side of the road and lined their bikes along the shoulder, creating a sort of police line barricade.

The Seattle officers retreated after about 20 minutes and local law enforcement officers took over, lining the Terminal 4 road and the area across the street from the protesters with about 17 patrol cars. Dozens of officers were ready to spring into action.

The protesters, however, remained peacefully on the shoulder of the road.

DAILY WORLD / KATHY QUIGG Around 100 protesters slowed traffic on Simpson Avenue Sunday afternoon as they paraded for a couple blocks in Hoquiam before turning onto Myrtle Street toward the Port of Grays Harbor, where military equipment is being loaded on a ship bound for Iraq.

“I think the Seattle officers were very professional and I thought their tactics and presence were extremely beneficial to us,” Aberdeen Police Capt. Dave Johnson said. “I believe it helped diffuse the situation.” The Seattle police made their expertise available to Aberdeen free of charge, Johnson said.

Counter demonstrators gathered between the two groups of anti-war protesters, and Mayor Dorothy Voege even stopped by. She said she was pleased with how the day was going and told the protesters that she appreciated them being peaceful. “They’re using their heads and things aren’t going to hell,” she said.

Trey Smith of Aberdeen, the treasurer of the state Green Party, had been keeping close contact with Aberdeen Police to help ensure things stayed orderly. Capt. Johnson commended Smith on his efforts.

Smith, in turn, gave credit to the officers.

“This could have turned into a really bad situation,” he said. “Police used a great deal of wisdom in this case.”

Many out-of-town protesters, however, claimed they were harassed and intimated by officers throughout the weekend. They said they were constantly watched, and accused officers of making illegal traffic stops.

“It’s a gross violation of our civil liberties to be harassed, followed and photographed,” Esworthy said. Officers have been “unprofessional and rude. We have every right to be here as citizens of the United States.”

Before the parade started, Esworthy told the crowd that officers continued to cruise by a restaurant where nine protesters had gathered to eat. One person picked up a toy gun that he found lying on the ground and seven cars raced up the alley to confront him, she said.

They were also prevented from speaking at an event at the Polish Club after officers talked to the event organizer, she said.

Cars of protesters leaving the Port on Sunday were also followed until they left town.

[Excerpt] Read the entire article at the Aberdeen Daily World 

Personally, although infuriated by the use of police tactics (rubber bullets, batons, verbal threats and intimidation) to suppress the port demonstrations in Tacoma,  I have not nor do I now endorse any anti-equipment and anti-troop demonstrations involving deployment of equipment or troops to Iraq.

Such activities fail to differentiate between the military, military leadership, our troops and the genuine authors of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

For the most part I deplore the tactics the military has had to use to shore up it's numbers via deceptive recruiting, stop-loss and narrow interpretations of a soldier's right and duty to refuse illegal orders. But I do not hold the military responsible for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Radical activism sometimes appears to be getting wild-eyed and feeling partiotically dissentful while at the same time forgetting the humanity and circumstance of our military family neighbors and their loved ones caught in a contractual bear trap.

Although not widely known, there was controversy over the final wording of the report from the recent Citizen's Tribunal held in Tacoma.

This because incredibly powerful and legitimate testimony about the illegality of the war seemed for the most part to take a back seat to a deteriorated focus on troop behavior, reported atrocities and anectdotal accounts pounced upon despite very little second and third-source verification or confirmation.

The illegality of the war was and is not established by individual acts of soldiers. War crimes can be established that way, and the intent of a tribunal supposedly by definition is to reach a valid conclusion as to the original premise.

The Port of Grays Harbor is less than 40 miles from my home in Bay Center, but my time is better spent lobbying and agitating for fixed time frames  for troop withdrawal and for presidential CIC accountability rather than whining about the loading and shipping of war equipment that includes in its design and intent protection of our troops.

Removing the troops seems the best way to get the troops to stop using equipment for killing while risking their own maiming or death in an invasion and occupation whose blood is on the hands of a leadership gone over to the dark side of force.

Arthur Ruger

Publisher, Willapa Magazine 

Posted SwanDeer Project at 7:38 PM PDT

Updated: Monday, 7 May 2007 8:21 PM PDT

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