From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Cynthia Tucker

“What we mean [by patriotism] is a sense of national responsibility … a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.”

— Adlai Stevenson, 1952

Webster’s defines “patriotism” as devoted love and support of one’s country, but that’s a meaning that’s virtually meaningless. It still leaves us to argue over the qualities inherent in “love and support.”

And with patriotism already a recurring theme of this campaign season, the public debate has been joined. Do you show love and support for your country only by serving in the military? How about serving in Congress? How about joining the Peace Corps or the diplomatic service?

Do you love your country only if you never criticize its policies? Can’t you still love your country — love it deeply — if you want it to work to correct its flaws?

Aren’t you still a patriot if you’re Martin Luther King Jr., who, in criticizing U.S. policies in Vietnam, called his government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”? Or Muhammed Ali, who refused to surrender to the Vietnam-era military draft and was stripped of his heavyweight title? Or David Iglesias, a Republican U.S. attorney fired by the Bush administration for refusing to carry out partisan prosecutions?

I believe I’m lucky to be an American because our founding document embraces the revolutionary idea that any citizen should be able to criticize his government without fear of retaliation. While the freedom of “the press” sanctioned by the First Amendment is widely understood as a protection granted to news professionals, its origin lies in a broader mandate: safeguarding the rights of any individual to publish (or broadcast) what he or she knows — or thinks — about official conduct.

Read more Ideals

From The Washington Post
By Colbert I. King

Sen. Barack Obama’s speech on patriotism this week at the Truman Memorial Building in Independence, Mo., stands in sharp relief to Frederick Douglass’s Fourth of July oration before the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society in 1852. The two men’s remarks, touching on loyalty, race and the country’s moral foundation, underscore the difference 150 years has made in the life of our nation.

Douglass, an abolitionist who escaped from a slave plantation, spoke on America’s 76th birthday, a decade before the Civil War. He extolled the virtues of the Declaration of Independence — which he called the ring-bolt to the chain of America’s destiny. The principles in the Declaration, Douglass asserted, are “savings principles.”

“Stand by those principles,” he exhorted his overwhelmingly white audience. “Be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.”

Douglass praised the Founders as statesmen, patriots and heroes who looked beyond their day to seize eternal values. “With them, justice, liberty and humanity were ‘final,’ ” Douglass said.

But even as he noted America’s celebration of freedom, Douglass called attention to the presence of millions of enslaved blacks on American soil. He asked the assembled: “What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?”

Read more Two Speeches

From The NY Times
By Bob Herbert

Beaches, barbecues and flags as big as baseball fields. Fireworks as loud as thunder lighting the nighttime sky. Hot fun, as Sly & the Family Stone would say, in the summertime.

Friday was the 232nd anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Celebrations were ubiquitous. HBO offered a marathon telecast of its John Adams series. Bands of wildly varying quality, from one coast to the other, let loose with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “America the Beautiful” and “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

It was a July Fourth like many others. There was nothing overt to signal anything was wrong. The Red Sox had traveled from Boston to play a weekend series against the Yankees in the Bronx. In Washington, the National Independence Day Parade made its way along Constitution Avenue.

And yet, there was an undercurrent of anxiety in the land. Vacations have been curtailed because of the price of fuel. Since the holiday fell on a Friday, the monthly unemployment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics were released a day early, on Thursday. They weren’t good. The Times summed things up with a Page 1 headline:

“Outlook Darker as Jobs Are Lost and Wages Stall.”

The high and the low were being buffeted. The bad news bears were loose on Wall Street, and the prospects for the summer employment of teenagers were abysmal. The national employment rate for teens in June was the lowest in 60 years.

Read more Alarm

From The Boston Globe
By Derrick Z. Jackson

Michael Dukakis says he is not itching to be the next transportation secretary, but if Barack Obama wins the White House and needs a bullhorn for high-speed rail travel back on the Amtrak board of directors . . .

“Obama is starting to talk about it more and more,” said the former Massachusetts governor, who, after his failed presidential bid in 1988, has become to mass transit what Jimmy Carter is to Habitat for Humanity. Dukakis was a Clinton appointee to the Amtrak board. Mass transit “ought to be an absolute key part of an economic platform. It’s jobs, it’s about a first-class future. The people are way ahead of the politicians on this.”

Now, in all obviousness, this so far is less a case of the people having vision than being cattle-prodded out of sport utility vehicles by the oil shock. But after decades of howling at the moon, as lobbyists from Big Oil, automakers, airlines, and freight-rail bought off the politicians, advocates of passenger rail now see the sun rising. The headlines say everything.

Boston, for example, experienced a nearly 9 percent increase in subway use in the first quarter of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007, according to the American Public Transportation Association. It was the nation’s biggest increase for a citywide subway system. In New York City, ridership on the subways, and commuter rail transit from Long Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey was up between 4.3 percent and 9 percent in April, compared with April of last year, according to The New York Times.

Amtrak Acela service in the Boston/New York/Washington Northeast Corridor grew 20 percent last year, according to the railroad. “And this is with slow trains” relative to Europe, Dukakis emphasized. The Boston-to-New York run goes at its top speed of 150 miles per hour for only 18 minutes because of antiquated rails and routing.

Read more Mass Transit

From The Dissident Voice
By Ron Jacobs

In the good ol’ USA, I’m considered a white guy. Despite my leftist/anarcho politics and my preference for news that isn’t filtered through the capitalist media, I’m a white guy as far as polling demographics go. I’ve got friends who fear immigrants and blacks, wear their rednecks a little too proudly, and genuinely like Lynyrd Skynyrd because of the band’s politics. Despite this, I still tend to believe that most US residents are a bit more liberal than those particular friends. So I can’t figure out why the hell someone like Barack Obama thinks he has to cater to their vote. These folks, if they do vote, are never going to vote for a Democrat anyhow since they are convinced that the party is composed of Satan’s spawn.

However, like a good number of the rest of the white guys out there, when Obama starts dissing African-American fathers and catering to the Nixonian/Clintonian silent majority that is only silent because it doesn’t exist, he loses me. Most US voters are cynical enough anyway about the entire electoral process and when Obama starts talking like every other Democratic presidential candidate of the past twenty or so years, their desire to go vote decreases faster than George Bush’s polling figures have over the past year. In other words, when the Democratic candidate starts trying to be the lite version of whatever type of lunatic the GOP is running, lots of folks don’t bother to vote. After all, what the hell difference will it make?

The war in Iraq? Well, Obama is hedging his bets by telling the media that he would have to see what the facts on the ground are. Even worse, he has essentially stated that he would let the generals tell him what course to take if he gets elected. Now, isn’t this exactly what George Bush is doing? Even more fundamentally, since when did the generals take on the role as the deciding factor in whether or not the US military will occupy a country and kill its people? I mean, come on, these generals have a vested interest in war. That’s how they make their living for chrissake! It’s always been my understanding that it is up to us, the American people, to decide whether or not we want to be destroying another nation with the men and women that wear the US uniform. Given that, it’s my understanding most US residents oppose the occupation and war in Iraq (and possibly in Afghanistan, as well.) Obama should be asking the US people not the freakin’ generals!

Read more What to Do?

From Global Research
By Andrew G. Marshall

British Black Ops in Basra

In September of 2005, the southern Iraqi oil city of Basra, under British occupation since the 2003 invasion, was the scene of an extraordinarily controversial incident, which has since exposed the anatomy of the Anglo-American “dirty war” in Iraq, and in fact, the relevance to the wider “War on Terror”.

On September 19, 2005, two white men, dressed as Arabs, obviously suspicious to the British-trained Iraqi police, were pulled over in their car as they approached the city center of Basra. As the Independent reported, “the two men had been driving in an unmarked car when they arrived at a checkpoint in the city.” What followed was a confrontation between the two men and the Iraqi police, with shots fired and an Iraqi police officer killed and another wounded.[1] The men were then detained by the Iraqi police and taken to the central jail. As it turned out, the two men were members of the British elite SAS Special Forces.[2]

In an interview with Al-Jazeera TV, Fattah al-Shaykh, a member of the Iraqi National Assembly representing Basra, stated that, “I could see that the UK forces were always provoking the Iraqi people in Basra. There are indiscriminate arrests and pressure,” and that a representative of the British embassy informed him that, “two UK soldiers were trying to stir up disturbances. Explosive materials were found in their car and they opened fire.” He further elaborated that, “what the UK forces are doing is not necessarily known by the Iraqi forces or coordinated with them through exchange of information. There are occupation forces, armoured vehicles, tanks and military aircraft in Basra. Moreover, there are members of the British intelligence present in Basra especially, since Basra is currently a sensitive and important area in Iraq. There are members of the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] and Mossad [word indistinct], as well as many institutions in this city.”[3]

British journalist Robert Fisk asked in an article he wrote on the subject, “what [were] our two SAS lads were doing cruising around Basra in Arab dress with itsy-bitsy moustaches and guns? Why did no one ask? How many SAS men are in southern Iraq? Why are they there? What are their duties? What weapons do they carry? Whoops! No one asked.”[4]

Read more Blaming Iran

From AlterNet
By Dahr Jamail

U.S. journalist Zoriah Miller says he was censored by the U.S. military in the Iraqi city of Fallujah after photographing Marines who died in a suicide bombing.

On Jun. 26, a suicide bomber attacked a city council meeting in Fallujah, 69 kms west of Baghdad, between local tribal sheikhs and military officials.

Three Marines, Cpl. Marcus Preudhomme, Capt. Philip Dykeman, and Lt. Col. Max Galeai, assigned to 2d Battalion, 3rd Marine Division based in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, died in the attack.

The explosion also killed two interpreters and 20 Iraqis, including the mayor of the nearby town of Karmah, two prominent sheikhs and their sons, and another sheikh and his brother. All were members of the local “awakening council,” one of the U.S.-backed militias that have taken up arms against al Qaeda in Iraq, according to U.S. and Iraqi authorities.

Miller was embedded with Marines on a patrol one block from the attack when it occurred. He had originally turned down the option of going to report on the city council meeting that was bombed.

Miller ran with the Marines he was with to the scene of the attack. “As I ran I saw human pieces…a skull cap with hair, bone shards,” he told IPS during a telephone interview from the so-called Green Zone in Baghdad. “When we arrived at the building it was chaotic. There were Iraqis, police and civilians running around screaming. Bodies were being pulled out of the building.”

“I went in and there were over 20 people’s remains all over the place,” Miller continued, “Of the Marines I jogged in with, someone started to vomit. Others were standing around, not knowing what to do. It was completely surreal.”

Read more Booted

From The Dissident Voice
By Eric Ruder

A year and a half ago, Scott Eiswert, a specialist in the Tennessee Army National Guard, returned from Iraq, only to face an escalating battle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). When he learned that his unit would deploy again soon, he felt he could no longer stave off the pain. On May 16, his wife Tracy and his three daughters discovered his body after he shot himself in the family’s home.

Pfc. Jason Scheuerman left a note nailed to his barracks closet in Iraq. “Maybe finally I can get some peace,” wrote the 20-year-old man. Then he stepped inside the closet and shot himself. His parents only found out about the note after a yearlong fight to cut through military red tape and discover what happened to their son.

Scott and Jason are just two of the thousands of military personnel whose service in Iraq and Afghanistan plunged them into a place so dark that they took their own lives.

In fact, the number of suicides among veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan now likely exceeds the number of troops killed in combat.

Nearly one in five soldiers deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan–about 300,000–report symptoms of PTSD or major depression upon returning home, but only about half seek treatment, according to a Rand Corporation study released in April.

Based on known suicide rates for similar patients, “It’s quite possible that the suicides and psychiatric mortality of this war could trump the combat deaths,” according to National Institute of Mental Health director Thomas Insel, who is the government’s top psychiatric researcher.

Read more Hidden Casualties

From The NY Times
By Alissa J. Rubin

Wenza Ali Mutlaq walked a bit uncertainly up the long street near the main government offices here on June 22, the hot wind stirring her heavy black abaya. She passed the concrete barricades put up to ward off suicide car bombers and made her way alone, almost haphazardly.

Suddenly, a police car zoomed in. A policeman got out to talk with her. And then their lives were over — torn apart, along with 14 other people, by the huge blast of fire from her concealed explosive vest.

Ms. Mutlaq, who was in her 30s and whose attack was captured on a security video, was the 18th female suicide bomber of the war to strike in Diyala Province, which has been hit by female attackers much more frequently than any other province of Iraq, according to Iraqi police records and the American military. So far, 11 of the 20 suicide bombings carried out by women in Iraq this year have occurred in Diyala.

Why so many women? Why now? In a particularly painful twist, the phenomenon seems to have arisen at least in part because of successes in detaining and killing local members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown Sunni insurgent group that American intelligence officials say is led by foreigners.

The women who become suicide bombers often have lost close male relatives — a husband, a brother, a son — in fighting, because they became suicide bombers themselves or because they were detained by American or Iraqi security forces.

Read more Despair

From The LA Times
By David W. Fleming and James P. Gray

The United States’ so-called war on drugs brings to mind the old saying that if you find yourself trapped in a deep hole, stop digging. Yet, last week, the Senate approved an aid package to combat drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America, with a record $400 million going to Mexico and $65 million to Central America.

The United States has been spending $69 billion a year worldwide for the last 40 years, for a total of $2.5 trillion, on drug prohibition — with little to show for it. Is anyone actually benefiting from this war? Six groups come to mind.

The first group are the drug lords in nations such as Colombia, Afghanistan and Mexico, as well as those in the United States. They are making billions of dollars every year — tax free.

The second group are the street gangs that infest many of our cities and neighborhoods, whose main source of income is the sale of illegal drugs.

Third are those people in government who are paid well to fight the first two groups. Their powers and bureaucratic fiefdoms grow larger with each tax dollar spent to fund this massive program that has been proved not to work.

Fourth are the politicians who get elected and reelected by talking tough — not smart, just tough — about drugs and crime. But the tougher we get in prosecuting nonviolent drug crimes, the softer we get in the prosecution of everything else because of the limited resources to fund the criminal justice system.

Read more War on Drugs