AWOL IN SEATTLE

The local newspaper in Seattle today ran a big story about the young GI's who belong to IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War) that are at the Veterans for Peace convention. Jane Fonda showed up yesterday with a group of them. Two of them spoke yesterday in a plenary and two more sang anti-war songs they have written. They represent a real surge in activism for Veterans for Peace.

Also in today's article are interviews with two GI's who are now AWOL from the Army. One of them turned himself in this morning at 9:00 am at the convention. An Arlington West display has been set up just outside the student union building at the Univ of Washington (the site of the VfP convention). They held the news conference there this morning, among the rows of crosses with the names of more than 2,500 dead American soldiers killed in Iraq.

There are now thousands of GI's who have deserted the military, refusing to go to Iraq. Mostly working class, many of these soldiers have already done one tour in Iraq and don't want to go back.

I can't help but wonder what the connection of the new London terrorist story is to the defeat of Joe Lieberman. Another article in the paper today says the Republicans knew about this story days before the arrests were made and that V-P Cheney had held an unusual media event a couple days ago referring to the fact that the Dems were being taken over by people (on the left) who would not be tough on terrorism. I look for many more of these kinds of "preemptive arrests" in the months leading up to the elections.

With this London story all over the news, the Israeli/U.S. destruction of Lebanon is also removed from the front pages for a few days.