The Reform Movement officially supports a timetable for military withdrawal from Iraq! Click to read more. Warning: This post re-caps some of last week’s headline news, the single most disturbing news week in my recent memory. The URJ’s resolution in support of withdrawal gives me a glimmer of hope.

First…the news last week. We all should be aware.

It is suspected by many that the Bush administration decided to leak the name of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame to punish her husband for his anti-war position during the buildup to the invasion in 2003. (Ambassador Joseph Wilson had reported that Iraq was, in fact, not trying to buy uranium from Niger.) Last week, Cheney’s former chief of staff Lewis Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice pertaining to his role in the leak of Plame’s name, which would be comforting, except for the prospect of a presidential pardon. From the Washington Post: “Libby’s attorney and allies said Bush should not wait for Libby to be sentenced…The pardon power is enshrined in the Constitution and is completely up to the president’s discretion.”

The House Judiciary Committee is investigating why the Bush administration abruptly fired eight US Attorneys without explanation. These attorneys are supposed to have a good degree of job security to ensure their political independence. Meanwhile, Bush picked Karl Rove’s assistant Timothy Griffin for the Eastern District of Arkansas. One of Griffin’s projects, which he himself accidentally leaked by emailing it to the wrong person, was a list of 70,000 voters–mostly blacks and Hispanics, soldiers and homeless people, in Democratic areas–targeted for address verification before the vote, with the aim of disqualifying them from voting. “Targeting voters where race is a factor,” Greg Palast said, “is a felony crime under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.” Griffin has said he would step down if subjected to Congressional questioning. Fortunately for him, a provision in the so-called “PATRIOT” Act may enable him to be appointed without questioning. Congress was supposed to have a hearing last week to discuss reversing this provision. I anticipate it will be about as useful as their non-binding resolution against an increase in troops going to Iraq.

Speaking of which, on Saturday (probably to avoid media coverage), Bush ordered thousands of additional troops to go overseas. Last January, he already ordered 21,500 soldiers to go to Iraq, and the non-binding resolution against the troop surge has done nothing to prevent him from requesting another 4,700 for Iraq and 3,500 for Afghanistan. House Democrats have a spending plan that would require the US to leave Iraq if benchmarks are not met, but it will not see the light of day because Bush has said he would veto it.

Under the guise of “revenue sharing” with the people of Iraq, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad celebrated a Hydrocarbon Law that would give the United States access to Iraqi oil. He elaborated on Feb. 27: “This draft legislation provides the legal framework to allow international investment in the Iraqi oil and gas sectors.” The legislation has preliminary approval from the Iraqi government we have propped up. On Mar. 11, Halliburton Co. announced it will move its corporate offices to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Halliburton, according to a story in the Boston Globe published the next day, is the second-largest oifield-services provider on the planet and its engineering unit KBR Inc. is the largest U.S. contractor in Iraq. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton from 1995 until a month after he accepted the position of running mate in George W. Bush’s first presidential campaign in 2000. Halliburton, which will remain a U.S. company despite being headquartered overseas, receives multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts to rebuild Iraq.

Elsewhere in the world, people do not have the right even to complain. Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem has become the first person sentenced for online criticism of Islam and the Egyptian president.

In my backyard, almost, a factory in New Bedford, Massachusetts was raided and hundreds of undocumented workers were rounded up and flown to a detention center in Texas. The Providence Journal ran a shocking front-page story on Friday about the working conditions in the factory. As it turns out, the boss was the real criminal, docking the workers $20 if they were one minute late and watching over their bathroom breaks. Is it these people, who want so badly to live in this country that they are willing to endure near-slavery conditions, who we dare to call criminals under legislation like the “PATRIOT” Act? Is this hysteria against oppressed, helpless, harmless people the true meaning of patriotism? Something in the back of my mind recites over and over: “…and when they came for me, there was no one left to speak up.” After all, it is our U.S. passports and driver’s licenses that will probably soon have RFID (radio frequency tracking) tags under the REAL ID Act. As we demand to track and capture other people, so do we enable ourselves to be tracked and captured.

This is why I was so relieved to see the resolution of the Union of Reform Judaism as “breaking news” tonight.

OK, another non-binding resolution. But how sweet the sound.

Albert Vorspan said, “If you look back over the past 50 years, what attracted people to the Reform Movement is that we had the guts to get up to the plate on the moral issues of the day. If this isn’t a moral issue, what is?” Robert Heller referred to “our prophetic obligation to speak truth to power.” The URJ’s news release says it is “the only major North American Jewish organization to speak out against the war.” They have written a specifically Jewish defense of their position which is worth a read. One great reason to be happy for being Jewish today.