Court Of Impeachment And War Crimes: Code Pink Alerts, Political Problems and Impeach Them!

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Dear Ed.,

Code Pink Pelosi Watch

CODEPINK has George Bush seeing Pink.

Last week, he chided "When it comes to funding our troops, some in Washington should spend more time responding to the warnings of terrorists like Osama bin Laden and the requests of our commanders on the ground and less time responding to the demands of MoveOn.org bloggers and Code Pink protesters."

The week before, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said "Unfortunately, it seems that increasingly Congress is being run by CODEPINK." If only this were true!

We are grateful the Bush administration and their ilk are finally acknowledging our presence and power--Family Security Matters, a conservative front group, even named CODEPINK one of the top ten most dangerous organizations in America!
(http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/challenges.php?id=1385102)

Of course the true danger comes from our President. Not only did he lead us into an unjust war; he also helped create the dangerous, unstable situation in Pakistan today by sending billions of dollars in military aid to General Musharraf over the last six years.

Now the unpopular Pakistani strongman has imposed a state of emergency, disbanding the Supreme Court, shutting down the media and basic freedoms, and imprisoning democratic opposition leaders and activists. The 'Emergency" is a cover to buy the time for backroom deals to ensure Musharraf's political survival. It gives us chills to think our own government may be leading us down a similar path. We need to stop this madness, both here and in Pakistan.

CODEPINK has already been in front of the Embassy of Pakistan to protest Musharraf's emergency rule. Now it's your chance. Here are two simple actions you can take today:

--Call the Pakistan Embassy () and tell them the international community is watching and expects the rule of law to be restored .

--Contact the State Department and say "Stop sending military and security funding to Pakistan until the constitution is restored and free, fair elections are ensured." Call and press 1 to leave your comment.

Let's use our people power and voice to end this tyrannical coup. Say it loud, "no more US-sponsored dictators!"

With peace and determination,

Dana, Desiree, Farida, Gael, Gayle, Ileana, Jodie, Liz, Medea, Nancy, Patricia, Rae, Samantha, and Sarah

This week's pledge to Speak Up for Peace!

Have you signed our November pledge to Speak Up for Peace? If not, please sign up now--we'll send you a simple action to do each week to use your voice to end war. (http://www.codepinkalert.org/ft/).

This week, we are standing in solidarity with our sister and brother activists who have been silenced and imprisoned in Pakistan. Download our “We will not be silent" pendant
(http://codepinkalert.org/downloads/wewillnotbesilentpendant.pdf), which you can print up and wear as a necklace, and/or order one of our "We will not be silent" tee shirts, available in several styles:

Arabic unisex
(http://codepinkalert.org/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1&products_id=123),

Arabic woman
(http://codepinkalert.org/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1&products_id=122),

Spanish unisex
(http://codepinkalert.org/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1&products_id=134),
and

Spanish woman
(http://codepinkalert.org/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=1&products_id=135).

When someone asks you about the pendant or tee shirt, tell them you will continue to speak out for freedom of expression, for civil and human rights, for rule of law, for justice and peace. Tell them you will continue to give voice to those who are silenced by tyranny and war.

Send pictures and videos of yourself in your pendant and/or shirt to locals@codepinkalert.org and tell us how you are speaking out for peace. Please circulate this action widely; remember--the person who signs up the most friends and family will win a one-week trip to the CODEPINK house in DC!

Fall 2007: Hillary's Not Listening Again! Questions about Hillary’s shifting war rhetoric:
During her speech at last June’s Take Back America Conference, CODEPINK members held up signs saying, “Lead us out of Iraq,” Hillary’s response was, “That’s exactly what I’m trying to do, ladies.”

In September 2007, Hillary Clinton announced via her campaign web site that the number one reason to support her for President was “To end the war in Iraq.”

But what exactly does this mean? From our careful reading of Hillary’s statements, her voting record, and media reports, we have come to the conclusion that while Hillary says she wants to end the “war” in Iraq she fully intends, if elected President, to continue the U.S. occupation of that country into her projected second term.

What’s the difference between “war” and “occupation”? Hillary would “end” the war by drawing down the number of combat troops in Iraq, but would continue the U.S. occupation with a limited number of troops, ideally around 50,000, on “enduring” (but not “permanent”) bases to train Iraqi troops, to provide support to the Kurds, and to protect American interests, including the all-important oil fields.

As we have seen from her recent vote on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment on Iran , Hillary plans to have a muscular foreign policy. Bombing Iran is on the table, the continued occupation of Iraq is in the game plan, and corporate interests trump international law.

November 1: War IS a Women’s Issue, Senator Clinton, Stacy Bannerman tells Hillary

October 15: The Real News asks Hillary why she voted for an amendment that could be used as support for attacking Iran. Watch YouTube now!

October 11:It Takes A Village to Start World War III, by CODEPINK's Nancy Kricorian

October 10: Bomb, Bomb Iran: read Maureen Dowd's Opinion in the NY Times

September 27: Hillary Clinton Votes for War Again!!

August 4: According to NY Times: Slowly, Clinton Shifts on War, Quieting Foes.

June 11: Read Ted Koppel's A Duty to Mislead: Politics and the Iraq War.

MUST SEE! Hillary gets Pink Slipped at her meeting with CODEPINK in 2003: View the entire Video here!

Listen Hillary!

In defending her 2002 war authorization vote, Hillary says that given the information she had at the time it was the right way to vote. How well informed was Hillary? It has been reported that Hillary did not even read the 90-page, classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.

At the time of the war authorization vote in 2002, Senator Levin proposed an amendment that would have required a U.N. Security Council Resolution for any use of force against Iraq and would have required the President to come back to Congress for approval. If, as Hillary stated, she never intended the war authorization vote as a go ahead for attack—but rather as a leverage point for the president in getting weapons inspectors into Iraq, why did she vote no on the amendment that would have guaranteed U.N. authorization and Congressional approval?

Hillary has said that the Iraqi government must meet certain “benchmarks” or risk losing funding for its security forces and reconstruction. Conditions include: the Government of Iraq assumes greater responsibility for security; and an equitable distribution of the oil revenues of Iraq. Isn’t this a classic case of blaming the victims? The U.S. armed forces, arguably the best-trained and equipped military in the world, have barely managed to secure a third of Baghdad’s neighborhoods. How much better can the U.S.-installed Iraqi government do? The current Iraqi hydrocarbons legislation is more about distributing Iraqi oil equitably among multi-national corporations than among the Iraqi people.

In a recent Democratic debate Hillary said that she believes that the United States is safer now than it was before the 9/11/01 attacks. Given the fact that terrorist attacks worldwide have increased 26% since the start of 2006, how can Hillary justify this claim? According to a CBS News poll taken a little less than a year ago, 84 percent of Americans say they feel less safe or only as safe as they did before 9/11.

In a March 2007 interview with reporters from the New York Times, Hillary predicted a “remaining military as well as political mission” in Iraq; she stated that if elected president, she would keep a reduced military force there to fight Al Qaeda, deter Iranian aggression, protect the Kurds and support the Iraqi military. Doesn't this imply that there will be permanent bases and American boots on the ground in Iraq far beyond the 2008 elections if Hillary becomes president?

Bird-Dogging Hillary Clinton
Operation “Bird-Dog Hillary” is part of an effort by CODEPINK to get Sen. Clinton to support bringing the troops home from Iraq.
By Nancy Kricorian

Tags activism iraq war politics

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In November 2005 Hillary Rodham Clinton sent out a fundraising letter to her constituents. “Part of my job is being a good listener,” she wrote, going on to describe all the good listening she does as the junior senator from New York. She concluded, “Now I’d like to listen to you.”

In the envelope with the letter was a three-page, 18-question “2005 Critical National Issues Survey” addressing a range of topics from jobs to homeland security to separation of church and state. Not one question in the survey mentioned the war in Iraq—an omission that came as no surprise to those of us at the New York chapter of CODEPINK Women for Peace.

At the time Hillary prepared her “questionnaire,” close to 2,300 U.S. troops and more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians had died, and polls showed that most Americans were worried about the war and its ill effects, including rising prices at the gas pump. But somehow, Hillary and her handlers thought that ignoring the war was the strategically smart thing to do. And they were right.

It turns out that Hillary has done a tremendous job—of getting New York Democrats to assume that because right-wing Republicans hate her she must oppose the war. Most New York Democratic voters also don’t realize that she co-sponsored an amendment to ban flag-burning, is against marriage equality for gays and lesbians, supports the death penalty, votes consistently for Star Wars appropriations and has served on the board of Wal-Mart for six years. Yet, she is consistently touted as the “liberal Democrat from New York.”

But it is her position—or, rather, her exquisitely-phrased, calculatedly imprecise non-position—on the Iraq War, accompanied by her consistent voting record in support of the Bush administration on Iraq, that had our local CODEPINK chapter trying for weeks before she sent out her “I’m a listener” mailer, to meet with Hillary or someone on her New York City staff.

When the topic turns to Iraq, Hillary repeats the same garbled message in various locutions: We shouldn’t stay, but we shouldn’t not stay; while before we go we should get a job done, we shouldn’t be doing the job we’re doing. If you parse her carefully worded speeches and statements, the only significant differences between Hillary and Bush are that she thinks we need more troops on the ground in Iraq so the war can be better prosecuted—and that she is furiously trying to hide that position from her constituency.

No invitation to talk from Hillary’s office was forthcoming. So CODEPINK NYC pulled together a coalition of local peace groups and launched a weekly vigil outside Hillary’s office on Third Avenue at 49th Street. We bought enormous rubber ears from a theatrical supply company and made signs that said, “Hillary you’re not listening, bring the troops home now.” We passed out information about her positions, and we launched the Web site http://www.listenhillary.org./

Standing on the sidewalk, in the dead of winter, it was remarkable how many passersby would stop and talk, amazed to learn how close her position on the war was to Bush’s.

Soon after we launched the weekly vigil we got a call from Hillary’s office to set up an appointment. Four of us met with Hillary’s New York City “Director of Governmental Affairs,” a fresh-faced and genial young woman who honestly appeared to know less about Hillary’s voting record or statements on the war than the crowds on the sidewalk. She patronizingly told us that she would pass along our concerns to the senator.

After this fruitless meeting, we coordinated with peace groups around the state and CODEPINK chapters around the country, organizing a statewide and national campaign called “Bird-dog Hillary.”

Wherever Hillary was appearing we were there with our signs and handouts, dressed in pink with big rubber ears. Women also got inside and raised their voices, raining down flyers from balconies, and generally making a notable, if momentary, ruckus. The results everywhere were similar: a genuine sense of amazed—and dismayed—recognition that Hillary’s views on Iraq are out of synch not only with those of many Democrats but of the vast majority of Americans, regardless of party affiliation.

CODEPINK has now become an almost integral part of the Hillary road show. The only major fundraiser we were unable to crash was the one for Hillary held in July by Rupert Murdoch, the location of which was a more tightly-held secret than the location of Dick Cheney’s bunker. The rituals of the campaign trail and the fundraising gauntlet have given us a funny intimacy with her team.

In late May we were outside a fundraiser for Senator Robert Byrd in a private apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan at which Hillary was a “special guest.” As the elderly Senator Byrd entered, one of us asked, “Senator Byrd, can you tell Hillary to stop supporting the war?”

Senator Byrd paused and answered, “Ladies, I don’t tell her to do anything.”

A few minutes later Senator Clinton drove up in her shiny black SUV accompanied by her Secret Service detail. As she walked past us, one of us asked, “Senator Clinton, when are you going to help end this war?”

Hillary’s answer: “We’re working on it.”

After she entered the building one of her secret service guys, whom some of us by this point knew by name, winked and asked, “Will we be seeing you later?”

He was referring to the West Village fundraiser for Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland that Hillary was co-hosting. A few minutes later we were on the subway heading downtown.

In June we bought tickets to a Women for Hillary fundraising luncheon at the Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Eva-Lee, Missy and I went into the ballroom where 1,000 enthusiastic and decorous attendees were taking seats at their tables. I spotted a mother from my kid’s school and a business acquaintance of my husband’s who had told me point blank that she despised Hillary. What were they doing here? Placing their bets on the Democrats’ leading horse.

Staging a protest at a Hillary event is a delightfully surreal experience. We were assigned to Table 121, way in the back (we paid $125 apiece for our tickets; the tickets up front went for $1,000) but very close to the bank of press cameras. We nervously ate our cold salmon and chatted with other women at our table.

We were in Hillaryland: we watched a slickly produced Hillary film in which she single-handedly revived New York State’s economy, palled around with firefighters and cured two children of cancer. A lot of eyes got misty, both on screen and in the audience.

Then she made a grand entrance down a side stairway, greeted with a standing ovation. She read through a very, very long list of politicians’ wives and other supporters. And when she said “support” for the 100th time, Missy stood up and shouted, “What about supporting our troops by bringing them home?” This was our cue.

Eva-Lee and I removed the sweaters covering our pink T-shirts, on which we had written pro-troop messages with black fabric markers (mine said “2,475 U.S. military deaths: How many more?”) Then we unfurled our pink satin TROOPS HOME NOW banners. As we started chanting “troops home now,” the cameras strayed from Hillary and toward us.

The Hillary campaign employees, secret service guys and hotel security who came to escort us out were resolutely polite, by now familiar with the recurrent and inevitable drill. One young campaign worker said, “If you’ll be quiet, you can stay.” I answered loudly, “Troops out now” and off we went. Missy ran forward, handing out photos of her nephew who had been killed in Iraq.

The bulk of the e-mail we get congratulates us on our work, but some complains about the “Bird-dog Hillary” campaign. One woman reminded us that Hillary was a feminist who wore sandals in college and suggested that as women and feminists we should be supporting her. Another New Yorker asked why we weren’t targeting our senior senator, Chuck Schumer, who isn’t much better than Hillary on the war. That one had an easy answer: Chuck Schumer is neither running for re-election nor positioning himself for a presidential run.

CODEPINK will continue to push the war issue to center stage, as others are doing in Connecticut, fueling Ned Lamont’s successful challenge to Senator Joe Lieberman. When he was stumping for Lieberman in July, President Bill Clinton referred to the war as “the pink elephant in the room.” Well, the pink elephant has raised its head, as has CODEPINK.