[Peace-discuss] Re: [Peace] De-escalate, investigate, troops out now!

Fri Feb 2 18:01:04 CST 2007

FYI - Urbana Free Library gets Z Magazine, as well as The Nation, Mother Jones, and Progressive Magazine.  And others of interest, too, like Utne Reader, several environmental magazines, Christian Science Monitor, etc.  Anything but the latest issue can be checked out for 2 weeks at a time.  

And of course, community folks are always encouraged to suggest books/films/magazines that we should add to our collection.  

Thanks,
Peace-loving librarian

----- Original Message ----
From: Ricky Baldwin <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>
To: Morton K. Brussel <brussel4 at insightbb.com>; C.G.Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu>
Cc: peace-discuss at anti-war.net; Stuart Levy <slevy at ncsa.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Friday, February 2, 2007 5:23:37 PM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Re: [Peace] De-escalate, investigate, troops out now!

The Urbana Free Library did keep Z on the shelves at
least very recently.

I think it's a great summation of what's wrong with
Obama politically, but necessarily a little out of
date.  By that I mean it seems an opportune moment, as
Carl says, to press our agenda with him.  Any chance
of at least setting up a meeting with an aide sometime
soon?  

And there's always the phone: 866-340-9281
(Congresssional switchboard). 

Ricky
--- "Morton K. Brussel" <brussel4 at insightbb.com>
wrote:

> And read Paul Street's article deconstructing Obama
> in Z Magazine  
> this month (Does our Urbana library stock it?), or
> at the ZNet website.
> --mkb
> 
> 
> On Feb 1, 2007, at 3:56 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
> > It's definitely an advance over his earlier
> position(s) and an  
> > indication that the pressure on him from
> elections, demonstrations,  
> > and constituents' demands is having an effect. 
> And a great reason  
> > to increase the pressure on him and others for a
> real end to the war.
> >
> > OTOH, as usual with Obama, what you see is not
> what you get.
> >
> >     [1] He's not proposing an American withdrawal but
> (as his bill  
> > says) a "de-escalation."  It proposes the removal
> of *combat  
> > brigades*. Garrison troops for the four main bases
> on oil lines and  
> > the billion-dollar embassy in Baghdad --
> particularly in units of  
> > less than brigade size (ca. 3,000)-- would not be
> covered. Neither  
> > would our army of some 100,000 mercenaries, the US
> Ambassador's  
> > Praetorian Guard, as Jeremy Scahill calls them.
> >
> >     [2] The arbitrary date of 3/31/08 is comfortably
> far off.  If the  
> > US were to announce that it's actually leaving and
> negotiate a  
> > cease-fire to facilitate withdrawal, that could be
> accomplished  
> > much faster.  But it will be easy to say, more
> that a year from  
> > now, that conditions have changed, and this date
> disappears like  
> > the snows of yesteryear.  An attack on Iran (which
> Obama proposed  
> > in 2004), of course, would make all earlier
> statements inoperative...
> >
> > The WP article notes the bill's huge loopholes. 
> It points out that  
> > Obama's bill "would leave a limited number of
> troops in place [As  
> > if we have an unlimited number there now?] to
> conduct  
> > counterterrorism activities [What are they doing
> now?] and train  
> > Iraqi forces [That's Petraeus' mantra, isn't it?].
> And the  
> > withdrawal could be temporarily suspended [Ah,
> "temporarily"...] if  
> > the Iraqi government meets a series of benchmarks
> laid out by the  
> > Bush administration [That's the current policy!]."
> >
> > I frankly think that, with very few exceptions,
> all mainline US  
> > politicians know that the US has to continue to
> control Iraqi oil  
> > ("We cannot leave Iraq" --H. Kissinger), and that
> means some  
> > continuous American presence in Iraq.  What
> they're doing now is  
> > trying to find what modality of that presence can
> be sold to an  
> > increasingly anti-war public.  Obama -- who we
> know has had no  
> > moral objection to the war but only a prudential
> one ("It's  
> > stupid") -- has just got his snake-oil to the
> market first.  --CGE
> >
> >
> > Stuart Levy wrote:
> >> ...
> >> Hey, what do you all think of Obama's recent
> announcement that he's
> >> actually calling for a pullout of combat troops
> from Iraq,
> >> with specific completion date (of early next
> year), in line with the
> >> ISG's proposal?  Commentary, and link to Obama's
> announcement at
> >>    
> http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0201-25.htm
> >> If (cynically) he's doing this because that's the
> way the
> >> political winds are blowing, then I say more
> power to him.
> >> If the people of this country have better sense
> than most of
> >> their representatives, then why complain if the
> representatives
> >> simply start listening to the population?
> >>    Stuart
> > _______________________________________________
> > Peace-discuss mailing list
> > Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> >
>
http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>
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> 

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