[Peace] IVAW demonstration at Rep. Johnson's office

[C. G. ESTABROOK]

Local representatives of Iraq Veterans Against the War note that there  
are three points of unity in their mission statement:

1. Immediate withdrawal of occupying troops from Iraq and Afghanistan;
2. Reparations for human and structural damage in Iraq and  
Afghanistan; and
3. Full benefits, adequate healthcare (including mental health), and  
other supports for returning servicemen and women.

AWARE of course has heartily supported all three points for the full  
ten years of its existence and continues to do so.

Unfortunately, IVAW in C-U has been misled by a well-funded, right- 
wing, pro-war group that purports to be supporting veterans ("Iraq and  
Afghanistan Veterans of America"*) into attacking local Congressional  
representative Tim Johnson, one of the few members of the US House of  
Representatives (and one of the very few Republican members) who votes  
consistently for "immediate withdrawal of occupying troops from Iraq  
and Afghanistan." (Johnson has even joined other House members  
including Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Rep. Ron Paul in a suit against  
President Obama's violation of the War Powers Act in the attack on  
Libya.) IAVA attacks anti-war Congress members regardless of party,  
and IVAW inadvertently violates its own principles in following them.

The IAVA says that Johnson has voted against veterans benefits, but  
what he's actually done is to vote against war-funding bills to which  
the House leadership, Republican and Democrat, has attached benefits  
for veterans. As Johnson has said clearly, he supports "full benefits,  
adequate healthcare (including mental health), and other supports for  
returning servicemen and women" - when he can do so without voting for  
more money for killing people in the Mideast and Africa.

I certainly have differences with Rep. Johnson - in fact I ran against  
him for Congress as a Green party candidate in 2002 - but we should  
not be misled into ignoring his consistent votes against the US war  
for oil in the Mideast and Africa. --CGE

__________________

*IAVA, as opposed to IVAW, is the pro-war group whose "veterans report  
card" is being used to attack anti-war Congressmen. Its board of  
directors includes several Wall Street investment bankers and the  
president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Les Gelb, a  
long-time Pentagon and State Department apparatchik who, during the  
2011 Egyptian protests against President Hosni Mubarak, was called by  
Salon.com "the Egyptian dictator's freelance spokesman in America." My  
guess is that the local IVAW got the information about IAVA's "report  
card" from local Democrats associated with Democrat David Gill's  
campaign for Tim Johnson's Congressional seat. David Gill has used  
this same misleading attack against Rep. Johnson, and Gill continues  
to avoid undue candor about his position (or Johnson's) on the ongoing  
Mideast/African war. 
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