Re: Charity for Occupation

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Stephen E Philion wrote:
> It looks like a new charity that supports the occupation is up and
> running.  I found out about this on Cooper's blog, which urged everyone
> on the left to step up and put our money where our mouths were or 'shut
> up'.  Well, I found this 'private sector' 'charity' closely working
> with the Marines in 'humanitarian' projects they have apparently
> underfunded (!).  It's called 'spirit of america'
> http://www.spiritofamerica.net . Anyone out there know of similar
> charity projects during Vietnam?
> One of the projects advertised on this site was this beaut:
> http://makeashorterlink.com/?O3F315578

Actor Gary Sinise was running something like this as well:

Good News from Iraq

[The other good news is that his charity must have folded. When I tried
to access his website, I got a url not found.]

"I have seen their smiling faces and their attempts to say 'I love you'
in broken English... I saw hope in their eyes and gratitude in their
hearts for what was done for them."

--Gary Sinise, actor

Hands up all those who have had it up to here with the bad news being
shown (repeatedly, over and over and over again) about Iraq, by a media
intent on making sure it looks like there's nothing good going on there?

You'd think absolutely nothing was going right there. Actually, tons of
things are going right and I am among the millions who are not at all
surprised.

One of the things that are going right are the kids. The children of
Iraq now have an actual future. The chances of them being raped and
tortured sporadically throughout their lives has dropped considerably.
Chances are, they will also not be taught, under threat of severe
punishment or death, that "death to America" is what life is all about.
(I would hang my hat on that justification alone for the war).

Gary Sinise is another thing that's going right, here on our continent
and over there. My wife Jo-Anne and I were really very moved last night
when we were getting our daily dose of the Dennis Miller Show on CNBC
and Gary Sinise was a guest. Multiple award-winning actor Gary Sinise,
star of huge smash hits Forrest Gump (he got an Academy Award nomination
for his role), Truman (he won a Golden Globe Award) and Apollo 13
(Sinise was part of the ensemble that won a Screen Actors' Guilde
Award); along with his friend author Laura Hillenbrand who wrote
Seabiscuit: An American Legend (a favorite movie of mine -- I highly
suggest you rent it), launched Operation Iraqi Children or "OiC", a
program that is already enabling Americans to send "School Supply Kits"
to Iraqi children.

This is a beautiful example of private citizens acting on their own and
taking an initiative to make an absolutely wonderful difference in
peoples' lives.

Here's how it started:
During and after Operation Iraqi Freedom, American soldiers passing
through Iraqi villages were horrified at the squalor of Iraqi schools,
which had been severely neglected under the dictatorship of Saddam
Hussein. Corralled in sweltering one-room buildings without air
conditioning, fans, windows, solid floors, or even toilets, Iraqi
students lack even the rudimentary supplies that American and Canadian
children take for granted. Libraries and books are almost nonexistent.

Moved by the plight of these children, many American soldiers have taken
it upon themselves to help. Working in small groups on their days off,
soldiers gather supplies sent by family members and church groups back
home and take them to villages, sometimes coming under fire as they work
to reconstruct the schools and deliver learning tools to Iraqi kids.

Their efforts have met with immense gratitude from local Iraqis and
their children, who now have access to the basic tools of education for
the first time in their lives. "I have seen Iraqi kids climbing on our
soldiers and hugging them and kissing them," remembers Sinise, who
recently accompanied Army soldiers to a dilapidated school they were
rebuilding. "I have seen their smiling faces and their attempts to say
'I love you' in broken English. The folks I saw had hope in their eyes
and gratitude in their hearts for what was done for them."

full:
<http://www.proudtobecanadian.ca/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=500&Main=500>

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