This has resulted in the closing of reproductive health clinics around the world that depend on i... International Tribunal Ind | Sex Press
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This has resulted in the closing of reproductive health clinics around the world that depend on i... International Tribunal Ind

Submitted by admin on Mon, 2005-10-24 11:00.

This has resulted in the closing of reproductive health clinics around the world that depend on international funding for staying open. More than 50,000 women die every year from unsafe abortion, a statistic that could be virtually eliminated by the provision of appropriate health information and services. And with the closing of the clinics, condoms become scarce and life-saving HIV prevention information is denied to millions of people.

The Bush administration and its political operatives have distorted sound science and attempted to suppress medical research studies in HIV prevention when it conflicts with the ideology of the Christian Right. One particularly egregious example is that the CDC's long-standing fact sheet on condoms was removed from the CDC's Web site and revised. The original advised the public, in accordance with the overwhelming weight of the evidence, that correct and consistent use of latex condoms can help reduce the risk of HIV and other STDs. The new version misinforms the public about the safety and effectiveness of condom usage, which is still considered by scientists the most effective means of HIV-prevention.

When we conducted missions, it became clear that there was no regard for the lives of the Iraqis. We conducted our operations in the cities. There are no trench lines in Iraq. The war is being fought in every corner of that country. Not in the deserts, not in the mountains, but next to the schools, the neighborhoods, the mosques. In going out of our way to instigate firefights, I can't say that anyone in my unit died, but there were many in other units who died unnecessarily, and at the same time, on the Iraqi side, the people who died were mostly civilians. Because we knew for instance that if we conducted a tactical control point by a mosque, that this would infuriate the people, and by staying more than an hour and a half, and withholding people for no reason as we searched their vehicles, that we would instigate a firefight. I remember one firefight: Toward the end we knew there was going to be a firefight because we had stayed there too long and we had done it by Aramadi's biggest mosque. By the time the firefight was over there were seven dead civilians, no insurgents were killed and no soldiers were killed. And this is just one instance. I wonder whenever we hear from the news that there were 54 or a hundred insurgents killed how many of them actually had weapons. I remember that when I left Iraq, my unit alone had killed about 33 people and of those 33 people only three had weapons, about two of them were children, many were women.

I could stand here for hours, go on and on about everything that I saw that was wrong. But I think that the main thing that creates violence in Iraq is that there is a sense among the Iraqi people that we are there to stay permanently to occupy and oppress them --occupy and oppress their land--and they are resisting that occupation. It does not matter if we have good feelings or we are acting out of fear or we are acting out of frustration. The fact is that we have no right to be there and they realize that..

When I surrendered back to the military, there were about 500 cases of desertion in the military, people who for one reason or another were deciding that they were going to put their weapons down and were not going to go back to the war. When I got out of jail some nine months later, that number had jumped up to about six thousand.

So many Army trucks just was driving past us. We even waved for the Army trucks to help us because we were so desperate. We was dehydrated. They did not give us any assistance. We even asked the police for water, and where we could get gas to get out of the city. The police just looked at us like we was nobody, as though we were nothing. Many were going into the stores, and they said they were looters. But to be honest, they was going into stores to survive. It was people helping people. It was not the Army, it was not the police. It was not the ones that were in authority to help us. It was just the community helping each other to survive.

The state would offer no services unless you were willing to leave… they offered nothing for people to live with, who wanted to stay. There were enough spaces that they could have made sure that everyone could have been allowed in the city of New Orleans. But their estimate is that 30 percent of the African American voters will not return to New Orleans, and when we lose that 30 percent then we cease to be a majority in that city. And then that plantation mentality will raise its head again in the state of Louisiana.

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