test blog 8

We've reached $4300! Plus another $100 or so in cash donations from folks who couldn't get the link to work. Until we can get a law passed allowing all the resisters to stay in Canada, the Harper Government is forcing us to fight this thing one case at a time. With your help, we can take them on. My deepest thanks to everyone who has donated. If you haven't donated yet and want to, as little as $10 will make a difference. Click here to donate to War Resister Legal Defense.

I'm re-posting this, just in case you haven't signed yet. Let Him Speak: Allow George Galloway To Speak In Canada

Most Canadians do not understand the pressures of modern-day policing and should not rush to judgment, nor condemn the RCMP over the Robert Dziekanski affair, the Mounties' top man said Sunday. However, most Canadians saw the video. We saw how "four healthy, young officers" wearing body armour and carrying guns ganged up on one stressed out, dishevelled man and killed him. The Canadian Press story continues. "I think the expression, walk a mile in my shoes comes to mind," he said Sunday at the conclusion of a brief visit to Kandahar. That's exactly what we did. That's why our hearts broke for Robert Dziekanski and his mother. "They don't realize how quickly things happen and they don't realize how quickly often - unfortunately - bad things happen," he told reporters at Kandahar Airfield after meeting with RCMP officers, who are mentoring Afghan police. Twenty-four seconds, wasn't it ? William Elliott, you insult every thinking Cana...

March 19, 2009 OPEN LETTER The Right Honourable Stephen Harper Prime Minister of Canada Dear Prime Minister Harper: As representatives of Canadian churches, we write out of our deep concern for the situation of U.S. war resisters in Canada, and in particular Kimberly Rivera. We are deeply disturbed that the Government has refused to provide a process for permanent residency for resisters and their families as requested by the June 2008 Parliamentary Resolution. We are further concerned that efforts to deport resisters have escalated over the past few months. Likewise we are very troubled that the Minister of Immigration, who is to remain impartial and arms-length from the refugee determination process, has publicly called the U.S. war resisters "bogus refugee claimants". We write at this time to implore you to intervene in the case of Kimberly Rivera and her family who have been ordered to leave Canada on 26 March 2009 or face deportation. Ms Rivera's case bears considera...

This "as told to" was written by Penny Cole , whose husband, a Vietnam War veteran, committed suicide after he returned home. She is the author of Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide and the Lessons of War . When it got really bad, I dumped 5 tons of sand into my basement to remind me of Afghanistan," Jim told me. "I would just spend the entire day down there in my sandbox, smoking marijuana and working on peace of mind. It made me realize that you can close as many doors as you want, but ghosts walk through walls." Jim speaks with apparent ease about his war experiences and what they cost him. His stories are punctuated with vivid detail and bemused laughter, mostly at his own expense: How could he have been so naïve ... how could he have failed to see what was going on around him? He rubs his hands up and down his thighs frequently. It's a kind of nervous gesture that he explains is a result of a spinal injury he sustained in an IED explosi...

From AP, via Army Times . A nationally recognized suicide prevention program for soldiers may take a financial hit because of New Hampshire's severe budget crunch. Gov. John Lynch has proposed cutting state funding for the Connect-Frameworks Suicide Prevention Program, which helps the New Hampshire National Guard provide mental health support to soldiers and their families. State health officials are trying to restore some of the funding, but program director Kenneth Norton says any cut would hurt training efforts. Since 2005 the program has trained more than 4,000 police officers, educators and mental health workers in suicide prevention for young adults. It started working with the National Guard last year. Always money for war, but not for its many victims. Thanks to Allan for sending this.

A former Bush administration official has admitted what we already know: that many or most people locked up in the US concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay had done nothing wrong, and that the administration knew that, and did nothing to stop or correct it. Many detainees locked up in Guantanamo Bay were innocent men swept up by U.S. forces unable to distinguish enemies from noncombatants, a former Bush administration official said Thursday. "There are still innocent people there," Republican Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff to then-secretary of state Colin Powell, told the Associated Press. "Some have been there six or seven years." Wilkerson, who first made the assertions in an internet posting on Tuesday, told the AP he learned from briefings and by communicating with military commanders that the U.S. soon realized many detainees held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, were innocent but nevertheless held them in hopes they could prov...