Pentagon Classified ''Vets for Peace'' as a "Threat"

[OneAngryDemocrat]

Secret Pentagon documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union provide details of how the organization called "Veterans for Peace" was considered a threat.

The actions of this veterans organization have not gone unnoticed at the Pentagon. A previously secret intelligence report calls the group a "threat to military installations." The report lists the group's upcoming events and warns that while it's a "peaceful organization," "there is potential that future protests could become violent."

The Pentagon admits it made a mistake in collecting information on anti-war protests, but claims the problem has been fixed.

At least one Senate Democrat wants to investigate not just what data was collected by the Pentagon, but why and how it was used.
http://www.ksby.com/home/headlines/4738066.html


Please visit a Marine Corps veteran's anti-Iraq war website, www.shockedandawful.com

[NVMojo]

1. For freaking pete's sake! I hate this government ...

[upi402]

2. ACLU supports the troops -against the Pentagon

uhh
Okay righties, 'splain *that*!

[kenny blankenship]

3. People you've dicked over (and hard) are usually threats

or candidates to become threats.

[noamnety]

4. I saw that earlier this week.

wrote this in response.



In September, I helped set up the Arlington Midwest display in Wyandotte, MI. It's got a marker for each of the US troops killed in Iraq, those killed in Afghanistan, those who died as a result of wounds sustained in either of those countries, and several rows of crosses for those veterans who returned home, and then committed suicide.

I went with several of high school students who are members of the school's Peace Council. We inserted name cards into the holders on each of the wooden markers. Sometimes when people visit the memorial, they add something to one of the markers - sometimes a flag, sometimes a photo, maybe a flower or a card with some words. Each time the display is taken down, the items placed at a marker are saved, their location is noted, and the next time the display goes up, somebody adds those tokens of remembrance to the same markers.

Once the field was set up in Wyandotte, the students walked the length of each row - up and down, up and down, through the entire display. It took them over an hour. While they walked, I sat with Steve, one of the members of my local Veterans for Peace chapter, mostly in silence, trying to comprehend that each one of those markers represented a person lost. The impact doesn't really hit you when you are inserting the cards - the goal there is efficiency. It's like typing papers; I can type entire paragraphs, word after word, without even being aware of the content of what I'm typing. It's not til it's all put together that it begins to have impact.

NBC News reports the following: "At universities across the country, an antiwar group called Veterans for Peace has staged protests by setting up crosses for soldiers killed in Iraq. In New Mexico last year, the local paper described the event as a display of honor.

But a previously secret Pentagon intelligence report labeled that same event a "threat to military installations." The report lists the group's upcoming events and warns that while it's a "peaceful organization," there is potential that "future protest could become violent."

Arlington. The displays Veterans for Peace (and other Peace Organizations) set up are modelled after Arlington National Cemetery. It's a way to bring a piece of that home to those who don't have the time or the money to go to Arlington in DC. The website for Arlington National Cemetery says: "For the almost 4 million people who visit annually, Arlington National Cemetery represents many different things. For some, it is a chance to walk among headstones that chronicle American History; for many, it is an opportunity to remember and honor the nation's war heroes; and for others, it is a place to say a last farewell during funeral services for a family member or friend." Nowhere does their website say that remembering the dead is a threat to military installations.

This display is not a threat.


Everything it represents is a threat.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

5. This government has always seen peace as a threat.

We have been beat on, spit on and spied on, all in the name of peace.

[Hekate]

6. KnR. God bless the VFP; finest bunch of men and women I've ever known

Damn Rumsfeld and everything he stands for.

Hekate

[OneAngryDemocrat]

7. ''Better keep an eye on them, Dick - they ain't with the pogrom...''

[rman]

8. "the problem has been fixed"

I guess that means it will now be a lot harder for outsiders to obtain documents that reveal the Pentagon's 'mistakes'.

[Bucky]

9. Wait didn't they promise not to do that any more after the last war (or two)?

Ah, but it doesn't count if they had their fingers crossed behind their listening devices.

[democrank]

10. They`re a "threat" for sure.

Right up there with the Quakers. Just keep giving up your rights, America. Soon you`ll have to have your grocery shopping lists pre-approved.

[shadowknows69]

11. These guys (VFP) should be making our national defense policy

not being spied on the by the government they so honorably served. I want men who went to war and know it is fool's folly to decide when we put our troops in harms way.

[OneAngryDemocrat]

12. What an...

Amazing idea.

[133724]

13. Where Do I sign Up!!!! It's better for the Gov't to afraid than it's people...