Theodore's World: Hang em' High

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January 15, 2006

Hang em' High


I guesss I missed it, but I have always wondered how the heck did Code Pink get their $600,000 check to the insurgents to our enemy. I mean I just could not see how Medea Benjamin, and Gayle Murphy or one of the others in their sicko group just flew over there, walked up to an insurgent and handed them the check and gave them a pinko hug.

So I looked around for it late last night. Maybe I am the only one in the world that did not know but just in case here it is. I will NEVER understand why Waxman and those with Code Pink are not executed for TREASON.

REP. HENRY WAXMAN INVOLVED IN CODE PINK'S AID TO THE 'OTHER SIDE' IN FALLUJAH

Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman (California) is reported to have given a letter to antiwar activists to facilitate their delivery of aid to the 'other side' in Fallujah, Iraq.

The leftist online publication Peace and Resistance, in an article published January 1 2005, said that Rep. Waxman had written a letter addressed to the American ambassador in Amman, Jordan to help ease transit through Customs of $600,000 worth of medical supplies and cash collected by the anti-American groups Code Pink and Global Exchange. According to the groups' leader, Medea Benjamin, the aid is destined for the "other side" in Fallujah.

The letter was being carried by Fernando Suarez Del Solar, an antiwar activist whose Marine son, 20-year-old Jesus A Suarez del Solar Novaro, was killed in Iraq on March 27, 2003 when he reportedly stepped on an American cluster bomb fragment.

Mr. Suarez is being accompanied on the trip by fellow parents of soldiers killed in Iraq, as well as several family members of those killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks.

One Iraqi, when informed that parents of American soldiers killed while liberating his country were giving aid to the "other side" in Fallujah, asked, "what kind of people would help those killing their own sons and daughters?"

That's a question the House Ethics Committee should be asking Rep. Waxman.

Peace and Resistance Story or see full article below.....................


Published on Thursday, December 30, 2004 by the Inter Press Service
http://uruknet.info?s1=2&p=8523&s2=01

ESCONDIDO, California - Fernando Suarez del Solar is a busy man. He is busy opening boxes, counting pills, counting bandages; he is busy checking everything in the boxes that come addressed to him from all over the United States.

Suarez stops for a moment. "There are other boxes," he says, "many of them in San Francisco, in New York, in Chicago. So many boxes."

He could be doing other things. It is holiday time, after all, and the Mexican immigrant could be out shopping for his grandchildren; he could be out enjoying the unusually balmy weather.

But he needs to be checking these boxes. Like Suarez, their contents will be heading for Iraq, on a mission that memorialises his only son, Jesus, one of the first soldiers to die in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Jesus died Mar. 27, 2003, after stepping on an unexploded U.S. cluster bomb. An advocate for the poor in his native Mexico, his father, who departed Monday, has been an outspoken advocate and tireless campaigner against the war ever since.

"This trip is a very special one for me," Suarez tells IPS. He has been to Iraq before, last year, to visit the site where his son was killed. But this time is different.

"This year I am coming with something. I have something to give. Last time I came with my pain, my loss and my tears. This time I have medicine for the children of Iraq."

Suarez will be accompanied by his wife Rosa, Jesus' mother. This is not what the couple expected to be doing when they moved their family from Tijuana, Mexico seven years ago.

"This is her first time," says Suarez. "I really pushed her to go."

When I ask Rosa, a trim, sophisticated woman, about this, she says yes, she is going, but looks rather nervous.

Suarez is part of a small band of military parents -- mostly mothers -- whose children have been killed since Washington led the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, and who are heading for the Jordan-Iraq border to hand off donated medicine and other medical supplies to doctors in the refugee camps along the border.

Suarez will be accompanied by members of three families who lost relatives in the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, as well as members of San Francisco-based human rights group Global Exchange ( http://www.globalexchange.org/ ) and the Los Angeles-based peace group Code Pink, ( http://www.codepink4peace.org/ )who are sponsoring the trip.

The half-million dollars in medical supplies and cash that they will deliver have been donated by humanitarian aid groups, doctors and other Americans around the country, who responded to Internet appeals. The donations are for children's hospitals, adds Suarez.

Jodie Evans of Code Pink, speaking to IPS from her office in Los Angeles, called the outpouring of support from average Americans amazing. "People are grateful to be able to do something, to help," she says. "Over a thousand people have sent us small donations or walked in off the street."

According to Evans, many people were moved to donate after November's U.S. military siege of Iraq's city of Fallujah. Some aid has already been sent to the displaced residents of that city, with additional support going to refugee camps and children's hospitals.

The delegation will travel to Jordan from Dec. 27 to Jan. 4, and plans to hold a press conference and a candlelight vigil with Jordanian peace groups on New Year's Eve.

Suarez sifts through the medicines in the boxes. There are pills, band-aids, dressings. He hopes to hand it, and more, to Iraqi doctors -- but that might not be possible.

"When we get there, one of two things will happen," he says. "We put it all in our bags like backpacks and carry it in or, two, Customs opens the bags and I have to show them my letters."

Suarez will carry a letter from Democratic Senator Henry Waxman, an outspoken critic of the war, who represents parts of Los Angeles, close to the Suarez home in Escondido. Suarez hopes the letter, addressed to the U.S. ambassador in Amman, Jordan, will ensure needed cooperation.

A third option -- that the U.S. military has sealed the border and will refuse the groups entry on orders from the Pentagon -- is also a possibility.

"But I hope not," says Suarez.

"The last time I went to Iraq," he adds, "the Pentagon called up another California Senator, Sen Javier Vincera who was supporting me, to tell him to tell me that I would not be welcome in Iraq," and if he did go, they would not assure his safety.

In response, Suarez called a press conference to question the Pentagon's motives. "I said, 'whatever happens, Bush is responsible'," he recalls. The Pentagon backed down and declared him welcome.

Last year, as part of his voyage to see where his son died, Suarez visited ordinary Iraqis and children's hospitals. It was an experience he found profoundly moving, one that inspired him to return to help Iraqi children.

"The Iraqi people were so good to me, so beautiful."

At the hospitals he saw youngsters dying from the lack of medicine and learned that a number of others had been killed picking up unexploded cluster bombs or when trying to hand them in to U.S. soldiers.

The bombs look like tennis balls or beer cans, Suarez explains. And when the children try to give them to U.S. soldiers, they are shot on the spot -- military orders.

Cluster bombs, munitions that scatter hundreds of small "bomblets" over a wide area, are designed to inflict high numbers of casualties. "I asked a colonel why they couldn't clean up the cluster bombs, and I was told, confidentially, that they couldn't, there were too many."

And then Suarez's voice gets hard.

"They say Saddam had illegal weapons. Jesus died because of an illegal weapon. Cluster bombs are illegal under the Geneva Conventions."

The story of Jesus A Suarez del Solar Novaro and the cluster bomb that killed him is not a pretty one and despite what must be hundreds of tellings, his father's anger and grief are still just under the surface, tightly controlled.

Jesus had moved with his family to Escondido when he was 14 to fulfil his dream of becoming a U.S. Marine and joining the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to combat narco-trafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border. That dream died Mar. 27, 2003. Just 20 years old, Jesus left behind a young wife and an infant son.

"Jesus was walking like this," says his father, imitating a crouching walk, "when he stepped on a cluster bomb."

But Suarez found out this part of the story only much later. At first, he and his family were told Jesus had been shot in the head, an image that horrified his parents. Later, he was told his son had stepped on an Iraqi mine and there was an investigation pending.

But a reporter with the 'San Diego Union Tribunè newspaper called Suarez to confirm elements of a story he was writing and told him his son had stepped on an unexploded ordinance, information that Bob Woodruff of ABC News later confirmed because he had been embedded with the soldier's unit.

According to the Union Tribune, Jesus lay wounded for two hours, bleeding out. He died en route to hospital.

"I can understand the confusion at first," says Suarez, "but why continue to lie to me?"

It took two weeks for the military to return his son's body for burial, and they refused to let the father see it until the remains were at the mortuary.

The day of the funeral, Suarez asked to spend time alone with his son. Armed with university training in forensic medicine, he examined the corpse and found that, indeed, something had ripped through the right side, removing pieces of hand, foot, upper thigh and groin.

"At that point," says Suarez, I knew."

And now his fury is palpable.

"The Americans dropped about 20,000 cluster bombs. Only 20 percent exploded. My son didn't die in the front lines from enemy fire; he died because of the military's negligence."

"You know," Suarez del Solar says thoughtfully, enunciating every word, "there are people who say I give aid and comfort to the enemy. I never spoke with Bush, he never sent me anything, but the people of Iraq I met, THEY comforted ME for my loss! I have yet to see the enemy."

In the shadow of the glass case that holds his son's picture, as well as the Mexican and American flags, Suarez del Solar goes back to organising medicines, in the hope that some Iraqi parent will not have to do what he has done -- bury a child killed in the war.

Posted by Wild Thing at January 15, 2006 11:38 AM


Comments

WT, it's easy for Waxman he's a member of the CPC, a branch of the Communist DSA. Bernie Sanders, a sworn Socialist, is the founder of the CPC. Nancy Pelosi is a Senate member although most are members of the house. The link above is a bit dated but this link lists the current members, there are more who claim allegiance, I'm working to gather names.

Posted by: Jack at January 15, 2006 03:21 PM


A huge thank you Jack. I have been searching for the updated members list of DSA and there site used to have it but it won't allow anyone to see it anymore. I saved the link and also the list just in case they take it down at the link you posted.

Again a HUGE thank you!

Posted by: Wild Thing at January 15, 2006 03:59 PM


Great info Jack. A number of statements made in this article are very misleading, (MSM distortion).

1. "They say Saddam had illegal weapons. Jesus died because of an illegal weapon. Cluster bombs are illegal under the Geneva Conventions."

It depends how one interprets what the articles of the convention states. Both cluster bombs and anti personel mines have not been banned. Using a banned weapon would be illegal. The current use of cluster bombs and or land mines is not illegal.

2. At the hospitals he saw youngsters dying from the lack of medicine and learned that a number of others had been killed picking up unexploded cluster bombs or when trying to hand them in to U.S. soldiers.
The bombs look like tennis balls or beer cans, Suarez explains. And when the children try to give them to U.S. soldiers, they are shot on the spot -- military orders.

I hate biased crap like this. The implication is that US soldiers are something they are not.

Military orders - bah! Based on combat experiance the US military issues ROE, (Rules Of Engagement). The insurgents in Iraqi have used women and children in attempts to kill US soldiers. Our troops are supposed to take an explosive device from anybody that hands them one?

And this is from a jerk that is aiding the enemy. Go join the insurgents jackass, see how long they let you live.

Posted by: RightToCarry at January 16, 2006 05:54 AM


Thanks Jack. That list is not an eye opener, just a confirmation.

Posted by: TomR at January 16, 2006 11:03 AM


The context of the Fernando Suarez del Solar story sounds similar to one Cindy Sheehan is touting, we have to bear in mind that both are bitter in their anti-American sentiments. Inter Press Service and the main stream media will use them to further their agenda of denigrating not only the soldier's service but the military in general and especially the current Bush administration. This BS story is also being circulated by Michael Moore, Al Franken and all the leftist sites as the absolute truth. The truth is that Jesus A Suarez del Solar Novaro died in the service of this nation and for that we honor him, he was not drafted by the Democrat controlled military but volunteered to serve under one controlled by the Republicans. Anyone who has served in a battle zone knows that death lurks everywhere, especially in areas where a battle is ongoing, there are unexploded munitions, booby trapped munitions, command detonated munitions and all it takes is a split second of inattention to get killed. Only Jesus and his Maker know the truth the rest is pure speculation unless there was an eye witness to his death. This says it all:
"You know," Suarez del Solar says thoughtfully, enunciating every word, "there are people who say I give aid and comfort to the enemy. I never spoke with Bush, he never sent me anything, but the people of Iraq I met, THEY comforted ME for my loss! I have yet to see the enemy."
Maybe the enemy is within is why Suarez del Solar doesn't see one, he and his handlers are the enemy, meanwhile he lives in the U.S. taking advantage of our hospitality, using our system to finance his causes South of the border, actively flaunting his Anti-American politics with impunity and nobody is calling him or his left wing supporters on this. This is a prime example of an immigrant coming here, contributing nothing, not trying to fit in and actively working to destroy it for all those who have made this country great. Deport Him.

Posted by: Jack at January 16, 2006 01:54 PM


HI RightToCarry I hate it too. (I hate biased crap like this) I agree!
I agree with your commment 1000%.

Posted by: Wild Thing at January 16, 2006 03:56 PM


Jack I agree, great post, you said it Jack he should be deported.

Posted by: Wild Thing at January 16, 2006 03:58 PM


Keep up the rants Jack I love it!

Posted by: Wild Thing at January 16, 2006 06:04 PM