POLITICS-U.S.: WAR VETERANS DEPLOYED TO CAMPAIGN'S FRONT LINES

POLITICS-U.S.: WAR VETERANS DEPLOYED TO CAMPAIGN'S FRONT LINES. Check it out:
(English IPS News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)
SAN FRANCISCO, Sep. 26, 2006 (IPS/GIN) -- The 2006 U.S.
congressional elections are heating up, bring with them a
proliferation of television ads featuring veterans of the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I'm a veteran," a series of men and women in civilian clothes
say into the camera in an attack ad against anti-war Democrat Ned
Lamont, who is challenging incumbent Joe Lieberman for one of
Connecticut's U.S. Senate seats.

The campaign has turned into a nationally watched referendum on
the war in Iraq, and earlier this month a Virginia-based group
called "Vets for Freedom" entered the fray, buying about $100,000
in television advertising time to support the embattled Lieberman,
a Democrat who is running as an independent after being defeated
in the primary by Lamont.

"I was wounded in Baghdad," one of the vets tells the camera.

"When we were over there, it was important that someone had our
back," says another.

"Like Senator Lieberman," a female soldier chimes back.

"Whatever your feelings about Iraq, he was there for us," the
ad goes. "Thanks Senator Lieberman."

The advertisement gives the impression of a grassroots campaign
by U.S. veterans, but the truth is more complicated. While some
Iraq war veterans undoubtedly support Vets for Freedom, an overview
of its operations indicate it is more of a Republican Party front
group than anything else.

The campaign is managed by Taylor Goss, a former spokesman for
George W. Bush, who also managed the president's public relations
during the recount of votes in Florida in the 2000 election. Bill
Kristol, the editor of the Weekly Standard, and Republican
strategist Dan Senor, a former spokesman for the U.S. occupation
authority in Iraq, are also advisers.

The nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy found links between
Vets for Freedom and the public relations firm that created the
Swift Boat ad campaign against Democrat John Kerry, and call it the
"equivalent of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the Republican 527
committee whose attack advertisements in battleground states helped
sink Kerry in the 2004 presidential race by smearing him as a phony
war hero and a traitor to his country." Both campaigns have worked
with the Republican-affiliated Donatelli PR firm, but the group
denies they have anything to do with the Republican Party.

"If we were a Republican front group, we wouldn't be running
advertisements for Joe Lieberman," the group's founder, former
Marine Lt. Wade Zirkle, told IPS. "That's not something that
Republicans do. They get involved in races where they want
Republicans to win. I think it's pretty clear that we are what we
say we are: a bipartisan group that concerns itself with one issue,
the war on terror, specifically Iraq."

Because of the vagaries of campaign finance laws, it is
difficult to tell who is funding Vets for Freedom.

"There are almost no reporting requirements on these
committees," said Craig Holman of the Washington-based reform group
Public Citizen. "So it's often impossible to know who's paying for
these ads. Unlike the candidates themselves, independent committees
take in unlimited campaign donations."

Also, unlike the candidates themselves, so-called 527 committees
(named after a section of the tax code) are not regulated by the
Federal Election Commission, but instead must only make quarterly
reports to the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. tax bureaucracy.

The Center for Responsive Politics reports that more than $210
million have been raised and spent by 527 committees during the
2005-2006 election cycle. The most free-spending groups have been
Democratic-leaning labor unions like the Service Employees
International Union, which has spent $18 million, and the American
Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which has paid
out $10 million in this year's election campaigns.

Indeed, the Democrats have put forward their own crop of
veterans. Using the power of unrestricted campaign donations, a 527
campaign committee called VoteVets has taken out ads against
incumbent Republican Sens. Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania and George
Allen in Virginia. The ads target the Republicans for voting
against more funding for body armor for U.S. troops in the field.

Vets for Freedom maintains that VoteVets is a Democratic Party
front group. Iraq war veterans affiliated with the group deny the
charge.

"The DNC [Democratic National Committee] does not dictate our
policy or our strategies," retired Maj. Paul Hackett told IPS.
After serving tours in Ramadi and Fallujah, he returned to his
native state of Ohio and ran for Congress in a special election in
2005. On Election Day, Hackett stunned the political universe,
winning more than 48 percent of the vote in a district where George
Bush received nearly two-thirds of the vote just 10 months earlier.

"Our ideas come from those who are affiliated with the group,"
he said. "Some of us have more say than others, but we are
certainly not a mouthpiece for the DNC. We're using it as an
opportunity to get politicians to take note and listen, and I think
it's important."

Hackett doesn't see anything wrong with Vets for Freedom either.

"I'm torn," says Raf Noboa, a seven-year veteran of the U.S.
Army. When he returned from a tour in Iraq's Sunni Triangle, he
became active in the antiwar movement. He worked on Ned Lamont's
primary campaign earlier this year and helped found a grassroots
group called Iraq Veterans for Progress, which is not affiliated
with either party.

"If you're going to have folks like me who are against the Iraq
war, then obviously you're going to have random guys on the other
side," Noboa told IPS. "The problem is that these guys help
legitimate what is an illegitimate enterprise. It's an illegitimate
enterprise politically and an illegitimate enterprise morally. I'm
not a fan. You know what I'm saying?"

Copyright 2006 Global Information Network
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