Bad news upfront. I'm not reviewing Smashing Pumpkins this weekend. I'll review them next weekend and that will be my last review for 2007. I was planning to work on my editing my review on the flight home tomorrow.
Instead, and blame C.I., I am reviewing something else. Today I made the point that I needed to get Ann Wilson's new CD. C.I. asked, "Do you want my copy?" I said, "No, I'll buy it when we get home." I didn't know C.I. had packed it. I've been listening to it in the car today while we traveled from campus to campus and I'm at Trina's (and Mike's) and listening to it straight throught for the first time. I really want to review this CD right away. It's Hope & Glory and my review should go up Sunday morning at The Common Ills. If you're smart, you won't wait for my review to go up. If you've ever loved a song by Heart, get this CD. It's Ann Wilson's first solo album and those can make you cringe. This won't make you cringe. I can't say any more or I'll start writing my review here. But it's Hope & Glory, Ann Wilson's new CD, her first solo CD. It is amazing. (Sister Nancy Wilson does appear on the CD for anyone wondering.)
Mike's dad just walked in and his mouth dropped. He asked, "Is that Heart?" I can't put up what he said about it in full but it's loosely: "That's f**king fantastic!" It is. (The song he walked in on was a cover of John Lennon's "Isolation.")
I've got to change the subject or I'm going to blow my review by talking about the CD for this entire post. Ann Wilson has done something f**king fantastic and f**king amazing.
Let's talk Australia. (Olive, C.I. passed on your e-mail as you asked.) So Kevin Rudd was elected prime minister last weekend (see The Third Estate Sunday Review's "Howard goes down" and C.I.'s "John Howard's 'humiliating' defeat"). War Hawk John Howard had refused to heed the people on Iraq (as well as other topics) and the death and the aftermath of the death of Jake Kovco demonstrated just how incompentent the Howard administration was. Kevin Rudd's getting a lot of soft press -- possibly because he's a new leader just elected or possibly because the press cares so damn little about ending the illegal war -- claiming he's pulling out troops out of Iraq. "Combat troops." That's about 500 troops out of 1,500. So we're talking about a third. A third of the troops will come home. Does that deserve the intense praise he's getting? Olive doesn't think so and neither do I.
This is from the BBC:
Australia's prime minister-elect says the country's 550 combat troops will leave Iraq by the middle of 2008.
Kevin Rudd, who beat incumbent John Howard in last weekend's election, had previously promised a gradual withdrawal of Australian troops.
He made the pledge in an Australian radio interview, but said there had been no discussions yet with the US.
Under Mr Howard Australia was a keen supporter of the US-led invasion and made an early troop commitment.
Most of Australia's 1,500 troops are based in the south of Iraq, focusing on security and the training of Iraqi forces.
Let's not act like a third isn't something. But let's not pretend that removing a third of the troops is Troops Home Now! Australians against the war have worked very hard and do not need the international press portraying this as a 'victory' when they are going to have to continue to keep the pressure on Rudd.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, November 30, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, a mass kidnapping is reported, the peace movement is not election central (get the message out), and more.
Last Saturday, Lawrence Hill (Ottawa Citizen) reminded (1) "the Anglo-American attack on Iraq in 2003 was an offensive -- not a retaliatory -- strike. The war had no approval from the UN Security Council, and for this reason Canada's prime minister of the day, Jean Chretien, refused to support it. In 2004, then-UN secretary general Kofi Annan declared explicilty that the U.S.-led war on Iraq was illegal" and (2) "according to official UN policy, soldiers who are likely to be punished for having deserted military action 'condemned by the international legal community as contrary to rules of human conduct' should be eligible for refugee status." Hill is co-author with Joshua Key of the book The Deserter's Tale and the refusal of Canada's Supreme Court to hear the appeals of US war resisters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey makes it necessary to review those basics. Nikolai Lanine (Rabble News) observes, "We did betray them, after all. As a veteran of an illegal war, I feared Canada would do this. But I'd hoped otherwise." Lanine goes on to note that it wasn't just US war resisters during Vietnam being granted asylum, "November 26, 1986, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario welcomed five Soviet war objectors from Afghanistan. The Assembly described them as 'heroic individuals' and 'conscientious objectors in refusing to be partners in crime.'"
Cindy Sheehan (OpEdNews) urges people to utilize Courage to Resist's easy to mail or e-mail resources to allow the Canadian government to know you are watching and to support organizations supporting war resisters as well as supporting war resisters:
Support actual war resisters in Canada by sending them expense money. From my friend Ryan (I gave him and his wife money to get to Canada over two years ago):
In light of the recent Supreme Court denial in Canada, I (Ryan Johnson), My wife (Jen Johnson) and Brandon Hughey need help raising funds to travel to Ottawa to attend hearings before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, where War Resisters will be giving Testimony to the committee. At these hearings the committee will be deciding on whether or not to make a provision to allow war resisters to stay in Canada. This is one of our last chances to be able to continue living in Canada. We will be leaving December 7th because the hearings are December 11th, 2007 so we need to act fast. They may try to send guys back soon and we need to have a strong War Resister Presence. We appreciate all of the support and Want to thank all of you who can help.
Checks/money orders can be sent for Ryan, Jen and Brandon to:312 Tower Rd Nelson, BC V1L3K6
If you are in Canada, you can utilize the contact info at War Resisters Support Campaign to let members of the Canadian Parliament know you support legislation allowing war resisters to stay in Canada. If you are in the United States (or elsewhere), you can utilize the contact info and/or forum at Courage to Resist. Public outcry didn't stop the illegal war from starting and public opposition has yet to end it. War resisters in Canada who have gone public are putting a great deal on the line. Use the links to show your support for them.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
The voice of war resister Camilo Mejia is featured in Rebel Voices -- playing now through December 16th at Culture Project and based on Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's best-selling book Voices of a People's History of the United States. It features dramatic readings of historical voices such as war resister Mejia, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Malcom X and others will be featured. Musician Allison Mooerer will head the permanent cast while those confirmed to be performing on selected nights are Ally Sheedy (actress and poet, best known for films such as High Art, The Breakfast Club, Maid to Order, the two Short Circuit films, St. Elmo's Fire, War Games, and, along with Nicky Katt, has good buzz on the forthcoming Harold), Eve Ensler who wrote the theater classic The Vagina Monologues (no, it's not too soon to call that a classic), actor David Strathaim (L.A. Confidential, The Firm, Bob Roberts, Dolores Claiborne and The Bourne Ultimatum), actor and playwright Wallace Shawn (The Princess Bride, Clueless -- film and TV series, Gregory and Chicken Little), actress Lili Taylor (Dogfight, Shortcuts, Say Anything, Household Saints, I Shot Andy Warhol, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, State of Mind) and actor, director and activist Danny Glover (The Color Purple, Beloved, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Rainmaker, Places In The Heart, Dreamgirls, Shooter and who recently appeared on Democracy Now! addressing the US militarization of Africa) The directors are Will Pomerantz and Rob Urbinati with Urbinati collaborating with Zinn and Arnove on the play. Tickets are $21 for previews and $41 for regular performances (beginning with the Nov. 18th opening night). The theater is located at 55 Mercer Street and tickets can be purchased there, over the phone (212-352-3101) or online here and here. More information can be found at Culture Project.
Meanwhile IVAW is organizing a March 2008 DC event:
In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.
Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine's famous admonishing of the "summer soldier" who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.
Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming "a few bad apples" instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.
In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation's capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars. We hope you'll join us, because yours is a story that every American needs to hear.
Click here to sign a statement of support for Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan
March 13th through 15th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation.
"The war in Iraq is not covered to its potential because of how dangerous it is for reporters to cover it. That's left a lot of misconceptions in the minds of the American public about what the true nature of military occupation looks like," declares IVAW's Liam Madden to Aaron Glantz in Glantz' report on the upcoming Winter Soldiers Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation (OneWorld). Madden is correct and only more so this week as a result of Project for Excellence in Journalism's report (PDF format here, our summary Wendesday here). This survey of 111 US journalists (mainstream media) who have covered Iraq found that "they do not believe the coverage of Iraq over time has been too negative. If anything, many believe the sitatuion over the course of the war has been worse than the American public has perceived, according to a new survey of journalists covering the war from Iraq." The report also found that 63% of the respondents stated "that Iraqi staffers do all or most of the street reporting outside the Green Zone." Madden tells Glantz, "This is our generation getting to tell history to ensure that the actual history gets told -- that it's not a sugar-coated, diluted version of what actually happened."
Turning to Iraq. Yesterday's snapshot included this: "Reuters reports 2 car bombs were found ('and detonated') 'in the Baghdad office complex of the leader of the country's main Sunni Arab bloc' -- Adnan al-Dulaimi." Waleed Ibrahim and Alaa Shahine (Reuters) reported this morning on the arrests of "dozens of people, including the son of a leading Sunni Arab politicians" with 7 arrested at al-Dulaimi's office Thursday and 29 arrested at Dualaimi's home Friday morning (Mekki Adnan al-Dulaimi was arrested at his father's home with the twenty-eight others). Robert H. Reid (AP) reports that, in the house arrests, "Iraqi security forces surrounded the house, a move the U.S. said was for the elder al-Dulaimi's personal safety. Al-Dulaimi complained that he was under virtual house arrest" and quotes the Sunni politician declaring, "I will wait until Saturday morning and if the ban of my family continues, then I will consider the government's measure as a house arrest." BBC notes that Adnan al-Dulaimi states that car with the bomb "was not in the compound" and quotes Crispin Thorold who contributes that the incident will likely "increase tensions between the main Sunni Arab political bloc and supporters of the Shia Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki." Gee, you think? And al-Dulaimi is thought to have organized the minister walk out in August (walking out of al-Maliki's cabinet). Think that doesn't matter? Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reports today that there have been "17 ministries vacant for months." Rubin also notes the Thursday boycott in the Iraq Parliament over al-Maliki attempting to appoint ministers without input and to alter the Constitutional rules regarding the need for a quorum as well as the puzzler re: the arrests: "It is hard to understand why Mr. Dulaimi's guards might want to kill fellow Sunnis in the Awakening Council" and quotes an unnamed military official who declares "that it was impossible to rule out that an enemy of Mr. Dulaimi might have been trying to frame him." CNN reports "Slowing death rate in Iraq encourages Pentagon." Maybe that's why the Pentagon's been doing Multi-National Force's job. In the last few days, MNF has announced only one death. MNF's job is to announce the dead. The Defense Department puts names to them publicly after the families have been informed. Allen C. Roberts and John J. Tobiason deaths received no announcement from MNF.
Something that received lots of announcements was the mythic "Great Return." Michael Gordon and Stephen Farrell (New York Times) report: "As if to underscore Mr. Maliki's point, 375 Iraqi refugees arrived Thursday in a convoy of buses from Damascus, Syria, escorted by heavily armed policemen. After the lengthy journey, the tired Iraqis were ushered into the white marble affluence of the Mansour Melia Hotel in Baghdad to receive a promised government payout to people returning to the capital."
Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad mortar attack left two people wounded and Hibhib mortar attack claimed 3 lives and left two people wounded while yesterday a car bombing in Al Shirqat claimed the lives of 4 police officer. Reuters notes a bomber in Dhuluwiya killed himself and 1 Iraqi police captin while wounded two more police officers and a mortar attack outside Kirkuk that left two children injured.
Shootings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 5 people dead in an Al Khalis attack on five vehicles containing "members of Iraqi military and police" with thirty then kidnapped. Reuters notes that "a restaurant owner" was shot dead in Kirkuk.
Corpses?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
Okay, we're throwing in programming here. RadioNation with Laura Flanders is a new broadcast and features US House Rep and 2008 Democratic presidential contender Dennis Kucinch. Kucinich and not, as I wrongly stated earlier in the week, the legal panel. (Those wanting to hear the legal panel can go to the Flanders archives.) In addition, Australia's election will be covered (John Howard out, Kevin Rudd in), Sue Dinsdale and Ari Berman will talk about the Iowa primaries in terms of the illegal war, Parvez Sharma (director of the documentary film A Jihad for Love) and Rev. Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping explaining the "Christmas Shopocalypse." Laura Flanders' program airs Sundays from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm EST over the airwaves on Air America Radio, on XM satellite radio and streams online. That's radio on Sunday. Tonight (Friday), PBS' Bill Moyers Journal begins airing their latest installment which will explore the Middle East and featuring Ron Sider and M.J. Rosenberg as guests with a report about Christians United for Israel. Remember that the program's website includes a blog and you can leave comments and questions there. In most markets, Bill Moyers Journal will be airing tonight; however, some markets have started their pledge drive and the show may be interrupted or rescheduled. In addition to checking your local TV listings, you can remember that Bill Moyers Journal shares with Democracy Now! the fact that it is online and it is watch, listen or read. Welcoming to all. And with the number of wounded returning from Iraq, you'd think more programs would elect to go with that option. That has happened but the Journal and DN! are accessible to all. Lastly, David Bacon's "What a Vote for Free Trade Means" (San Francisco Chronicle) details the realities that it's not just Iraq on which the shift in power in Congress (from Republican to Democratic control) hasn't produced the needed results. Bacon's not just one of the last reporters in the country covering the labor beat, he also takes news photographs that are actually art and you can see some of his photos addressing immigration by clicking here.
Turning to US politics. Tom Hayden has an article [Warning] at The Nation. What's the point of it? 527s aren't independent and let's not lie and pretend they are. Although he's realized that Barack Obama's New York Times chat was more revealing in transcript than write up, he's still creating false lines between Hillary Clinton and Obama that portray Obama in a flattering light. (For reality in the comparison, see Paul Krugman in this morning's New York Times via Truthout.) He places a lot of faith in MoveOn. We usually call them "WalkOn" here but, to their credit, they didn't back down even when condemned by some in the Senate. Maybe MoveOn has a spine? It's more than possible and, if so, good for them. But MoveOn appears in this sentence explaining where the peace movement can focus in the fall of 2008: "House and Senate races. It is perhaps here that groups like MoveOn and Progressive Democrats of America can have the greatest effect, by bolstering the numbers of antiwar senators and representatives who favor terminating the war in 2009. Think: Senator Al Franken."
Now Greens will be offended by the article and many Dems and many others and if that needs to be addressed, I'll carry it over to a column in a community newsletter. Let's instead focus (and this will go to a larger point) on one aspect of that. "Senator Al Franken" who apparently favors "terminating the war in 2009." Franken was pro-illegal war before it started, pro-illegal war while hosting his hideous radio show on Air America Radio and only recently came out against the illegal war. In that kind-of manner he's famous for (give five minutes in a speech to sobs over veterans care and then, having hidden behind that, do a quick line about how you oppose the illegal war, then move quickly on). What the hell is Al Franken doing in that column?
Al Franken DOES NOT CALL for an end to the illegal war in 2009. That's from his campaign staff who steered me to this page at Al Franken's website. "Immediately beginning the process of bringing the troops home. Our withdrawal should not be precipitous . . ." Click on the link to read in full (that link provided only because I'm friends with the person who steered me to it.) So that's wrong. Al Franken's remarks are no different than Hillary Clinton's -- whom Tom Hayden calls out (while glossing over Obama's flaws). So that's wrong. How wrong is it for Tom Hayden to ignore an ongoing race? Al Franken is not the nominee for the US Senate by the Democratic Party. He is someone running for the nomination. Jack Nelson-Pallymeyer is whom students on campuses are excited about in that state -- students wanting to end the illegal war. Nelson-Pallmeyer is calling for an end to the illegal war. The sort of end that Hayden himself favors. So the question here is if we don't support the candidates who believe as we do, what kind of people are we? I'm not calling Tom a hypocrite. I am saying he doesn't know the Minnesota race and, as someone who struggled in his original races (both the losing one and the first victory), I am surprised that he's calling a "win" in a primary that won't be 'closed' (short of other candidates dropping out*) until "The Tuesday of Destiny" (February 5, 2008). That same sort of declaration/awarding can be found in: "Voting for Kucinich, Richardson or Gravel is a legitimate choice but not a nominee." Your choice is legitimate, Kucinich, Richardson or Gravel supporters; however, get with the program. I remember damn well the negative circulars put out by Tunney's campaign. I'm guessing someone has forgotten those days. But in 1976, Hayden's opponent didn't think Hayden made for "a nominee." So it's really surprising to see someone who's been through it himself attempt to call an ongoing race. *Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is not the only other person running for the nomination. I'm mentioning him because Minneapolis students are passionate on the need to elect him. Repeated trips to that state have revealed an enthusiasm for him that is not in place for Franken. He may or may not win the race. But there's really no reason for The Nation to be promoting an open race as if there's only one candidate.
And that's the problem with the article. It's most obvious with regards to the Senate race. But it's there in terms of the presidency. Here's a thought for the peace movement (Hayden is a part of the peace movement), how about we stop wasting our time on elections? How about we start using that time to instead talk about ending the illegal war? (There's a second aspect to that but it's a piece this Sunday at The Third Estate Sunday Review.) Tom Hayden honestly wants to end the illegal war. That's not a pose with him, it's not a con, he truly wants to end the illegal war and wants that deeper in his soul than many other people. But here's why all this election talk is seen as nonsense by many students in today's peace movement: It starts with "Vote for whomever but we're only covering the front runners." Then it becomes "Use your voice however you want but that's not really a worthy nominee." And now it's to the point that a state race, not a national one, is being called when the state won't be holding its primary until February 5, 2008. At what point does it end? Will it filter down to municipal races? And if state candidates who support everything that is in Hayden's latest book (Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer does) aren't even noted while their opponent is not only noted but is misrepresented in the article (in a favorable light), what does that really say about the state of the peace movement?
I'm not endorsing Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer or anyone (other than Cindy Sheehan) but it is troublesome that the author of 2001's School of Assassins: Guns, Greed and Globalization can't get a 'shout out' or a 'hey-hey' from the very people who believe in the same global issues. And, here's the thing to pay attention to, young people in that state are working very hard on his campaign. The same way Hayden worked on the campaigns of others long before he ran for office. They believe in Nelson-Pallmeyer and I'd love to hear the explanation from Hayden to them on how their candidate -- who truly wants to end the illegal war -- isn't worth noting in a magazine article? If older members of the peace movement want to be helpful, there are ways to be helpful. Telling people how to vote or ignoring their candidates isn't a way to be helpful and Tom Hayden knows many 'olders' hit the dirt in his day over this very issue. Hayden's 1976 run did make a difference. The same way, regardless of outcomes, other runs today will. Students don't need or want "voters' guides." They did want leadership and it hasn't been provided repeatedly which is why they've become their own leaders. In terms of others running in races right now . . . Hayden was a wonderful state assembly person and would have been a wonderful US senator (would still be a wonderful one). As a former candidate, he should grasp how harmful it is when you are the candidate speaking to the issues and others are actively working to highlight another candidate who is not addressing the issues.
In Yes! magazine, Aimee Allison and David Solnit address the things needed to build a stronger movement and shoring up Barack Obama doesn't take place once nor do they feel the need to predict primary winners. In an amazing article, the authors conclude, "The courage of young people in the military, on campuses and in the streets is showing us how to assert our people power. It's clear that more and more folks in the United States and around the world have the courage to resist. Can we find what lies at the root of the word courage-le coeur, or heart-to assert our power as communities, as movements, and as people to reverse the policies of empire and build a better world?" That really gets to the heart of what's needed in the peace movement today -- what's already there but needs to be amplified. Allison and Solnit are the authors of Army Of None -- a practical and inspiring book that addresses what's being done, what can be done and where we can all dream a little further.
Finally, returning to the topic of Dia al-Kawwaz (noted yesterday). Mohammed al Dulaimy, Jenan Hussein and Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) report, "Kawazz charged Friday that he'd been misled by Sadiq -- who first debunked his story -- in order to discredit him as a journalist." Sadiq is his brother-in-law Haider Sadiq. Someone lied to him -- that's not sarcasm. The Association to Defend Iraqi Journalist's rights' Ibrahim Saraj stated "Relatives confirmed the incident to me; Dhia confirmed it to me." He is conducting an investigation.
iraq
nikolai lanine
jeremy hinzman
brandon hughey
lawrence hilljoshua key
cindy sheehan
laura flanders
radionation with laura flanders
gwynne dyerthe new york times
alissa j. rubinmichael gordonstephen farrell
aaron glantz
iraq veterans against the war
democracy nowamy goodman
anthony arnovehoward zinn
tom hayden
army of noneaimeee allisondavid solnit
bill moyersbill moyers journalpbs
mcclatchy newspapersleila fadel
Friday, November 30, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Danny Schechter, a student on campus
Today, we were booked deep (and Ava and C.I. still have two more groups to do tonight -- we used 'dinner' to do the roundtable for the gina & krista round-robin). And there were so many amazing experiences.
A high school senior shared how she couldn't understand about her mother. Both are against the illegal war. But when she tries to talk about events happening with it, her mother can't keep up. She said she knows her mother is trying because now she'll nod and then toss out some crime report she caught on TV (as opposed to watching a syndicated rerun). "Uh-huh, did you hear about the house robbery?"
She made really clear she wasn't trying to put down her mother (and the way she spoke, she didn't have to do that, it was very clear that she loved her mother and that this was a frustrating issue to her).
Her mother dropped out of high school (to give birth to her) and had worked very hard to make a life for both of them. She thinks her mother is amazing. But she got a scholarship to college and her mother (who is proud of her) has been making "you're leaving me behind comments." Not out of guilt or anything like that. She's happy for her daughter but she really does believe they are about to be living very different lives and will for the rest of their lives.
She was crying near the end and when she was done, C.I. said some amazing stuff (no surprise there) and talked about how (a) obviously her mother trying to watch the local news was a genuine effort on the mother's part to make sure that they weren't going to be so different. C.I. then asked for a show of hands as to how many watched the local news? Only two students raised their hands. C.I. said, "In ___ that's probably a good thing because there's nothing on but scare stories and puff pieces." C.I. asked about the computer -- and they do have one and the internet at home -- and C.I. said forget the local news, most didn't bother to serve the community to begin with. But the mother's making an honest effort so she deserves an honest source; therefore, use the net. C.I. said they should look at Democracy Now!'s headlines together and to say it's a thing they're doing in a class, that a teacher's asked them not just to discuss the news in class but to do it at home as well (that way it's not insulting to the mother). "The real issue here is your mother is trying and you're on campus here around people who care about issues like you do so you can talk and get information. Your mother's at work all day. What she's doing right now is coming home and watching that local news to try to bond with you. The problem's not your mother, it's her news source. She's obviously very smart or she wouldn't be able to bring up the topics she's being shown. The issue is the topics making it onto the local news." And the student thought this was something she could do and I just thought about how when I was growing up, my parents and my grandparents (my grandparents lived with us after my grandfather's health turned poor) were able to be aware of what was going on. The news wasn't perfect but it did make time for some of the basics.
I felt estranged enough from them (the infamous generation gap) and the only thing we did have at times was that we all wanted US troops out of Vietnam. So I talked about it from that point of view after C.I. was done. And I thought about all parents but especially the ones like the student's who had worked so hard and sacrificed and how that senior year must be especially hard. It's not 'empty nest' syndrome which is more of an upper-middle class thing for many (not all). It's the idea that someone you've raised is about to go off to different things and this fear that you won't have anything in common. I had a friend like that in high school and suddenly I really understood her father. I hadn't at the time. But now it made sense. He wanted her to have a different life more than anything but there was the fear of the different life wouldn't include him.
I don't know how common this is. I know I've heard similar stories twice when I've been on the road with Ava and C.I. So there are at least three students out there struggling with this and probably a lot more. So I told myself that I'd write about this tonight in case someone reading was in high school and having a similar experience.
Despite the generation gap, my family was always in everyone's business. So it wasn't a problem for me. But I did have a lot of friends that, when I look back now, I can see their problems with the sudden attention in senior year was really their parents attempting to rush in some bonding before the big move out. Maybe it's happening to you or happening to a friend. If it is, if a parent is really trying to bond and they're trying to do so by keeping up, you're not doing them a favor if you're getting your news from something like Democracy Now! and they're counting on tidbits between on camera chatter, sports, the weather and crime reports.
In the New York Times this week, one of the Docker Boys was pontificating. They blur in my mind. C.I. would know who it was. But I was reading that in the taxi and mentioned it to Ava and C.I. The guy was going on and on about the shift in TV news and saying that it had to be some guy who realized how to turn news from a public service to a money making deal. C.I. said, "Yes, it was a guy." And named him. I can't remember his name. He's the guy who turned Jessica Savitch into a local sensation before she ended up at NBC. He went around dumbing down the news, C.I. explained, and beefing up the visuals. So this has been a long process and it started before that one guy was hired by various local stations to turn their newscasts into ratings gold.
If you're a high school student, you didn't live through this (and you're probably asking, "Who the hell is Jessica Savitch?" -- was, she's dead now). But the point is your parents have been raised with TV news. Something like Democracy Now! is something you may have discovered online. It's a show to your generation. You really would be doing a huge service to turn your parents onto it. It would also make your own life easier because you wouldn't have to be constantly correcting the mainstream myths.
So that's my topic for tonight. I've got a highlight to pair it with which I think kind of goes with it. This is from Danny Schechter's "Marching Down Memory Lane: Globalvision Turns 20." (News Dissector):
Here's another one from the electronic version of my book NEWS DISSECTOR. It was written in l997 and never published until now. My daughter incidentally is alive and well and working for a Hollywood studio. I will resist the temptation to kvell about her.
A Call From My Daughter
My daughter Sarah is on the phone from college in Santa Cruz California. She's reading Erik Barnouw's excellent history of American broadcasting, puzzling over an unexpected fact.
"You always told me that Edward R. Murrow was one of your heroes," she says, "so how come he joined the U.S. Information Agency and tried to stop his own expose about migrant workers from being seen in England?" Oddly, that very night Ed Murrow was in my living room as a sound bite in an endless parade of clips, in a collage put together by the TV Academy to glorify the industry and extol its Emmy Award which has always had an inferiority complex next to its more heavily hyped golden cousin, the Oscar. Once again, after all these years, there's Murrow on TV blasting Joe McCarthy, but, of course, nothing about CBS years later easing Ed out the door.
"The instrument can teach, it can illuminate, yes, it can even inspire." he would write in the sunset of his career. "But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it those ends." By then, however heralded, he had outlived his usefulness. What he did was no longer valued. His partner Fred Friendly quit when CBS refused to interrupt I Love Lucy reruns to show important Senate hearings on the Vietnam War. CBS dumped their spiritual successor too, newscaster Walter Cronkite. He was forced out by an executive I later met, Van Gordon Sauter, who Cronkite says treated him like a "leper."
"I felt like I had been driven from the temple where for 19 years, along with other believers, I had worshipped the great god News on a daily basis."
So how come?
Well Sarah, it's like this: like Icarus, you can be among the chosen and still lose your wings when you fly too close to the sun. When an institution decides you are "trending down," or believes it can make more money using that other guy or gal, you're gone. Also, some folks do get co-opted or just plain give up, burn up or burn out. Or they go for the gold. ("Show me the money!" is Hollywood's hippest phrase of the year.) Remember, at the end of the day, they own the candy store. When I grew up, I read the muckraking accounts of how the big industrial magnates crushed the workers and shamed America. Your generation will be reading about today’s media moguls.
Murrow mattered because he did at times illuminate, and inspire, and there are still moments like that on the tube--for us it was when we watched men walk on the moon, for you and your friends, probably, it was when Ellen came out. For us it was when JFK was gunned down or the cops were televised breaking heads in Chicago; for your generation it may have been when Murphy Brown took on the Vice President or when Seinfeld first said Yadda Yadda or when you became addicted to watching Beverly Hills 90210. Reality was what focused us; fiction seems be what grabs you and your friends. Why is that?
The problem is: not that much in the media seems to matter at all. If that isn’t troubling enough, few even expect that it should. That's what gets to me. How do we convey to the public that it is being cheated, that there is another way of seeing, that there are concrete alternatives and real options? How do we reach and inspire a public when oligopolies rule and ordinary people are, in effect electronically disenfranchised?
Between Danny Schechter's youth and his daughter being 19, there's a whole generation, probably more than one (time moves quickly) and her, at 19, being interested in fictional TV came after a long, slow decay of TV news. (Although I'm sure Ava and C.I. would point out that it was never that golden.) So what he sees with his daughter (or saw in 1997) wasn't a leap from him to her, it was many, many years. He may make that point in depth in his book (I think he's touching on it above) and I'm interested in reading the next part. But when I was looking for a highlight for tonight and found that, I thought, "He's really addressing what the student was talking about today."
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, November 29, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, cholera is back in the news, some have hopes for Kevin Rudd but some do not, the US military announces a death, and more.
On November 15th Canada's Supreme Court announced they would not hear the appeals of US war resisters Following the refusal of the Canadian Supreme Cour to hear the appeals of US war resisters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey.
Transcription to a video:
Susan Sarandon
Comments on U.S. War
Resisters in Canada
January 27, 2007
Washington, D.C.
Geoffrey Millard: Do you think it's wise for US service members to take the option to go to Canada?
Susan Sarandon: I think if you conscience tells you that you don't want to fight, that this is an unjust war, there's a long tradition of refusing and resisting to fight and I think that really I just wish that there was more press about that as an alternative because I've run into so many people who -- who are in the position now and don't know what will happen if they refuse who are very frightened either to not go back or to go for the first time. On the train coming up here I spoke to a woman whose twenty-year-old brother was in ROTC he got called up and he's getting two weeks of training in Tacoma and being deployed in the 'surge' and he is just stunned. He married his girlfriend this weekend, from high school. He doesn't know what's going on and I said, 'Well maybe he shouldn't go?' She said, "Oh, he said he can't do that because he'd be thrown in prison and prison's terrible and blah, blah, blah
Geoffrey Millard: If you could say one thing to soldiers going to Canada what would it be?
Susan Sarandon: I would say, "God bless you. And, you know, I admire your courage and know that there are people here who -- who see this as an honorable thing and that I hope that you can reach out and make it known to other people who have these kinds of doubts and convictions to have the courage of their convictions and to refuse.
Special Thanks:
Susan Sarandon
United for Peace and Justice
unitedforpeace.org
Geoffrey Millard
TruthOut.org
You can find that and other videos on war resistance at this page of the War Resisters Support Campaign. In answer to a question as to why we're doing transcripts in full of videos on war resistance: (1) It's an important issue; (2) Just because you have the ability to stream and/or hear don't make the mistake of thinking everyone else does. The disabled community includes veterans and it is a very active community. Lee Berthiaume (Canada's Embassy magazine) explains:
Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis and NDP Immigration critic Olivia Chow butted heads over whether the committee should jump straight to the war resister issue, as Ms. Chow wanted, or whether the committee should first finish the work it started during the last session. Also, while Ms. Chow originally asked that the study focus on U.S. war resisters, specifically the two deserters facing extradition back to the United States, Mr. Karygiannis asked to open up the issue to deserting soldiers from other countries. After much debate, the committee agreed to look at Iraq war resisters and Iraqi refugees on Dec. 6 and 11. Citizenship and Immigration Canada officials are also slated to testify about undocumented workers on Dec. 13, while members spent four hours drafting a report on the loss of Canadian citizenship yesterday and will continue their work today and tomorrow.
Cindy Sheehan (OpEdNews) urges people to utilize Courage to Resist's easy to mail or e-mail resources to allow the Canadian government to know you are watching and to support organizations supporting war resisters as well as supporting war resisters:
Support actual war resisters in Canada by sending them expense money. From my friend Ryan (I gave him and his wife money to get to Canada over two years ago):
In light of the recent Supreme Court denial in Canada, I (Ryan Johnson), My wife (Jen Johnson) and Brandon Hughey need help raising funds to travel to Ottawa to attend hearings before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, where War Resisters will be giving Testimony to the committee. At these hearings the committee will be deciding on whether or not to make a provision to allow war resisters to stay in Canada. This is one of our last chances to be able to continue living in Canada. We will be leaving December 7th because the hearings are December 11th, 2007 so we need to act fast. They may try to send guys back soon and we need to have a strong War Resister Presence. We appreciate all of the support and Want to thank all of you who can help.
Checks/money orders can be sent for Ryan, Jen and Brandon to:312 Tower RdNelson, BC V1L3K6
If you are in Canada, you can utilize the contact info at War Resisters Support Campaign to let members of the Canadian Parliament know you support legislation allowing war resisters to stay in Canada. If you are in the United States (or elsewhere), you can utilize the contact info and/or forum at Courage to Resist. Public outcry didn't stop the illegal war from starting and public opposition has yet to end it. War resisters in Canada who have gone public are putting a great deal on the line. Use the links to show your support for them.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
The voice of war resister Camilo Mejia is featured in Rebel Voices -- playing now through December 16th at Culture Project and based on Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's best-selling book Voices of a People's History of the United States. It features dramatic readings of historical voices such as war resister Mejia, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Malcom X and others will be featured. Musician Allison Mooerer will head the permanent cast while those confirmed to be performing on selected nights are Ally Sheedy (actress and poet, best known for films such as High Art, The Breakfast Club, Maid to Order, the two Short Circuit films, St. Elmo's Fire, War Games, and, along with Nicky Katt, has good buzz on the forthcoming Harold), Eve Ensler who wrote the theater classic The Vagina Monologues (no, it's not too soon to call that a classic), actor David Strathaim (L.A. Confidential, The Firm, Bob Roberts, Dolores Claiborne and The Bourne Ultimatum), actor and playwright Wallace Shawn (The Princess Bride, Clueless -- film and TV series, Gregory and Chicken Little), actress Lili Taylor (Dogfight, Shortcuts, Say Anything, Household Saints, I Shot Andy Warhol, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, State of Mind) and actor, director and activist Danny Glover (The Color Purple, Beloved, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Rainmaker, Places In The Heart, Dreamgirls, Shooter and who recently appeared on Democracy Now! addressing the US militarization of Africa) The directors are Will Pomerantz and Rob Urbinati with Urbinati collaborating with Zinn and Arnove on the play. Tickets are $21 for previews and $41 for regular performances (beginning with the Nov. 18th opening night). The theater is located at 55 Mercer Street and tickets can be purchased there, over the phone (212-352-3101) or online here and here. More information can be found at Culture Project.
Meanwhile IVAW is organizing a March 2008 DC event:
In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.
Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine's famous admonishing of the "summer soldier" who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.
Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming "a few bad apples" instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.
In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation's capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars. We hope you'll join us, because yours is a story that every American needs to hear.
Click here to sign a statement of support for Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan
March 13th through 15th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation.
In Australia, many hopes were raised with the Saturday election of Kevin Rudd to the post of Prime Minister. Rudd's call for pulling Australian combat troops out of Iraq was seen as "troops out of Iraq." Greg Barns (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) informed yesterday that "one of the first acts of Rudd's government will be to immediately withdraw the 550 Australian combat troops still in Iraq -- something that will no doubt irk in Bush." Less than a week since the election and already Australia's ABC reports that the supposed independent and elected ruler of Australia won't make a move without a nod from the US according to Robert McCallum (the US ambassador in Australia): "Mr McCallum says Mr Rudd has promised to speak to the United States before making any changes in Iraq." Meanwhile Brendan Nelson's whose 'rising star' status should have crashed and burned over his public statements regarding the late Jake Kovco is now the leader of the Liberal party -- the party John Howard, previous prime minister, hails from. Australia's Herald Sun reports Nelson is talking of Australia's 'responsibility' to the US and, as an after-thought, Iraq (link also offers video and Nelson's hair appears to have been set in homage to SNL's Coneheads). "The gloves are off now," the Herald Sun reports Rudd stating and notes he has announced his cabinet. How long did it take al-Maliki to announce his cabinet? Back to Rudd, Michael Fullilove (Los Angeles Times) expresses hope, "The results of the Australian election last weekend, however, may give pause to some in Washington: A social conservative, once described by President Bush as a 'man of steel,' was thrown out of office (and his own parliamentary seat) by a former diplomat who speaks Mandarin. On such issues as climate change and the war on terror, ousted Prime Minister John Howard was Bush's most faithful international supporter. After the inglorious departures of Britain's Tony Blair and Spain's Jose Maria Aznar, Bush and Howard were the last men standing of the Western leaders who invaded Iraq. Now Howard too is gone. It's as if the Sundance Kid charged alone into the rifles of the Bolivian army, leaving Butch Cassidy fiddling with his six-shooter."
As if that image of the US government isn't bad enough, AP reports that the US State Department's John Bellinger III says the US needs 'clarification' on the Geneva Conventions (try remedial lessons in it) and claims that Bilal Hussein can be imprisoned (19 months and counting) because "his understanding was that American forces were operating under an international mandate that allows for the detention of people who might pose a security threat" but, as the AP points out, "The Geneva Conventions contain specific references to the protection of journalists operating in war zones, including that they be treated as civilians unless they take part in hostilities." Bilal is the AP photographer -- Pulitzer Prize winning photographer who has been held since April 12, 2006. Free Bilal is a resource where you can find out more and sign a petition in support of him. As Ruth noted earlier this week, Bilal was the topic on NPR's All Things Considered Monday as Associated Press CEO and president Tom Curley spoke with Robert Siegel. Curley explained that they still didn't know what the charges would be but were told they might find out later this week. Curley reviewed how the AP's own investigation found nothing trouble. Not stated but it should be noted, the US has tried this in the press before and their charges have fallen apart under scrutiny. Siegel asked if Bilal was basically being punished for doing his job and Curley replied, "We can't find any other reason." Daryl Lang (Photo District News) reports the US military announced today that they will "present evidence against" Bilal on December 9th. The 'trial' would take place in an Iraqi 'court.' Curley has [PDF format] written a letter to puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki which opens with: "I write to ask your help in assuring that justice is done in the case of Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen and photographer for The Associated press who has been detained by the United States military since April 12, 2006. They say they suspect him of aiding terrorists. U.S. military officials have made many accusations against Mr. Hussein, although they have provided no evidence to support them. AP has conducted its own investigation of every specific allegation and has found them all to be either not credible or absolutely false. We believe the real reason for Mr. Hussein's detention and incarceration for 19 months without charges is that he produced images of conflict in Anbar Province which the military did not want the citizens of Iraq and the United States to see." In addition, Joe Strupp (Editor & Publisher) reports that "MIlitary Reporters and Editors became the latest group Wednesday to weigh in on the controversy regarding Associated Press Photographer Bilal Hussein, who is facing unspecified terrorist charges in Iraq." The letter opens with: "It could happen, we fear, to any journalist covering the war in Iraq. A soldier confiscates your notes, cameras and gear, and takes you into custody. Once jailed you have no rights -- not to remain silent, to call a lawyer or see a judge. That was the fate of Bilal Hussein, an Associated Press photographer who was part of a team that wona Pulitzer Prize in 2005. He has been jailed for 19 months by the U.S. military. . . . We at Military Reporters & Editors wonder how this incident has been allowed to go on for so long. We also wonder if it could happen to other Iraqi journalists who have risked their lives to tell American and the world about life in Iraq. . . . Bilal Hussein's imprisonment is contrary to every notion of justice, fair play and the U.S. Constitution, which every member of America's military swears to uphold and defend." AP's page on Bilal is here.
While the US tries to railroad Bilal, it also tries to force through a permanent occupation of Iraq. Bully Boy and his puppet think they can by-pass the Iraqi parliament. From Monday's snapshot: "(Question: Who ratifies treaties in the United States? The Congress. One more aspect of 'democracy' that never got exported to Iraq.)" Today, Bruce Ackerman (Los Angeles Times) reminds Americans that "the Constitution requires congressional approval before the nation can commit itself to the sweeping political, economic and military relationship contemplated by the 'declaration of principles' signed by Bush and Maliki to kick off the negotiations. U.S. legislative approval can come in two forms: Either two-thirds of the Senate can vote for a treaty under Article II of the Constitution, or a simple majority of both houses can authorize the agreement under Article I. But there is no constitutional provision or precedent authorizing this new form of Bush unilateralism."
In this morning's papers, Cara Buckley (New York Times) is one of the few to report from Iraq. Buckley notes that the Wednesday bused and bought refugees from Syria that came back to Iraq in "20 busloads" with a "government spokesman" hailing the return of 800 while the city coucil says it was more like 200 and cites Dana Graber Ladek (International Organization for Migration) explaining that the those returning in the trickle "have discovered squatters living in their homes". Buckley also notes the cholera outbrak ("with 101 new cases reported in recent weeks") and notes issues of sewage. CNN reports that UNICEF is warning there may be "a larger outbreak" of the disease in Iraq and quotes UNICEF's Claire Hajaj explaining, "While national caseloads are declining, we are increasingly concerned about a possible outbreak in Baghdad. The capital accounts for 70 percent all new cases and is now up to 101 cases, the vast majority reported in the past three weeks."
In other dangers on the ground in illegal war . . .
Bombings?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing this morning which left six people wounded, another that left five wounded, a Baquba mortar attack on a police station that left two police officers wounded, an Al-Muqdadiyah mortar attack that wounded two, an Al-Salam mortar attack that claimed 12 lives and left twenty-five wounded, a Baquba roadside bombing that left two wounded and a roadside bombing outside Bamo village which claimed the lives of 2 Iraqis ("one officer and a soldier"). And in what may or may not be an attempted attack on an official. Reuters reports 2 car bombs were found ("and detonated") "in the Baghdad office complex of the leader of the country's main Sunni Arab bloc" -- Adnan al-Dulaimi. In addition, Reuters reports two Baghdad roadside bombings near mini-buses that left eleven people injured and a Mosul car bombing that left two police officers wounded. CNN notes that the US military announced today that "a team of U.S. Apache helicopters fired 30 mm cannon and Hellfire missiles at a house from which insurgents attacked a coalition convoy on Tuesday. Three insurgnets were killed". They hope three 'insurgents' were killed. The actual news it the US military fired on a home and killed three. At this point the three dead are not known to have been anything other than civiliains.
Shootings?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baquba attack on Hamid Ibrahim ("the head of Hibhib police) that wounded two of his bodyguards and, in another attack targeting officials, the son of Sheikh Dhamim Al-Ajeel was shot dead in Salahuddin and, in another attack targeting officials, Amar Mohammed Al-Hamadani ("Hawijah district mayor"), was injured 1 of his bodyguards killed in an attack in Hawijah. Reuters notes that yesterday "the mayor of a district in central Tikrit" was shot dead and (also yesterday) "Five bodyguards who work for Iraq's acting minister for tourism and antiquities were wounded when Iraqi soldiers opened fire on their convoy in western Baghdad on Wednesday, the ministry said. The minister was not in the convoy and the incident was under investigation."
Corpses?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 6 corpses were discovered in Baghdad.
Today the US military announced: "Small-arms fire killed one Multi-National Division -- Baghdad Soldier in a western section of the Iraqi capital Nov. 28."
Turning to US politics, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes, "Former President Bill Clinton is under scrutiny for claiming he opposed the Iraq war 'from the beginning.' Clinton made the claim Tuesday while campaigning for his wife Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Iowa. But a look at Clinton's public statements from 2002-on reveal he never unequivocally opposed the war and at times voiced nuanced approval. In March 2003, Clinton criticized France for opposing the invasion and defended British Prime Minister Tony Blair for taking part. Meanwhile a former senior administration official is now claiming White House officials personally briefed Clinton in the lead-up to war and that Clinton voiced his support. The official, Hillary Mann Leverett is the former White House director of Persian Gulf affairs. She says she was 'shocked' and 'astonished' at Clinton's claim to oppose the war. Leverett says former administration official Elliot Abrams emerged from one pre-war meeting 'glowing' after Clinton promised he would publicly support an Iraq invasion." While it is hard to believe anyone would ever describe Elliot Abrams as "glowing," Tom Baldwin (Times of London) quotes Bill Clinton's spokesperson Jay Carson stating, "As he said before the war and many times since, President Clinton disagreed with taking the country to war without allowing the weapons inspectors to finish their jobs."
Turning to a topic noted in Monday and Tuesday's snapshot. Dia al-Kawwaz stated that 11 of his relatives had been murdered by Shi'ites on Sunday and that during a wake Tuesday, there was another attack. Late yesterday, his mother and other family members appeared on a US funded Iraqi channel to maintain that was not true. Reports Without Borders quickly issued a statement. Too quickly, some might argue since we've had one set of charges (from Dia al-Kawwaz) and another set of charges (from his mother and others) with no investigation. Dia al-Kawwaz may very well be sick enough to state make up the death of 11 members of his family. On the other hand, he may have made up nothing. If the latter is true, 11 members of his family may have been killed or he may have been told 11 members died as some sort of a cruel trick. Since nothing more is known at this point then he says ___ and others say ___, since nothing's been verified, maybe it's a bit early to beat him up? Maybe Reporters Without Borders should have stuck with their original call for an investigation into the events because that's the only way what did or did not happen -- and how -- will be known.
iraq
jeremy hinzmanbrandon hughey
phil mcdowell
cindy sheehan
naomi wolf
democracy now
amy goodman
anthony arnovehoward zinn
iraq veterans against the war
mcclatchy newspapers
the new york times
cara buckley
the los angeles times
susan sarandon
lee berthiaume
A high school senior shared how she couldn't understand about her mother. Both are against the illegal war. But when she tries to talk about events happening with it, her mother can't keep up. She said she knows her mother is trying because now she'll nod and then toss out some crime report she caught on TV (as opposed to watching a syndicated rerun). "Uh-huh, did you hear about the house robbery?"
She made really clear she wasn't trying to put down her mother (and the way she spoke, she didn't have to do that, it was very clear that she loved her mother and that this was a frustrating issue to her).
Her mother dropped out of high school (to give birth to her) and had worked very hard to make a life for both of them. She thinks her mother is amazing. But she got a scholarship to college and her mother (who is proud of her) has been making "you're leaving me behind comments." Not out of guilt or anything like that. She's happy for her daughter but she really does believe they are about to be living very different lives and will for the rest of their lives.
She was crying near the end and when she was done, C.I. said some amazing stuff (no surprise there) and talked about how (a) obviously her mother trying to watch the local news was a genuine effort on the mother's part to make sure that they weren't going to be so different. C.I. then asked for a show of hands as to how many watched the local news? Only two students raised their hands. C.I. said, "In ___ that's probably a good thing because there's nothing on but scare stories and puff pieces." C.I. asked about the computer -- and they do have one and the internet at home -- and C.I. said forget the local news, most didn't bother to serve the community to begin with. But the mother's making an honest effort so she deserves an honest source; therefore, use the net. C.I. said they should look at Democracy Now!'s headlines together and to say it's a thing they're doing in a class, that a teacher's asked them not just to discuss the news in class but to do it at home as well (that way it's not insulting to the mother). "The real issue here is your mother is trying and you're on campus here around people who care about issues like you do so you can talk and get information. Your mother's at work all day. What she's doing right now is coming home and watching that local news to try to bond with you. The problem's not your mother, it's her news source. She's obviously very smart or she wouldn't be able to bring up the topics she's being shown. The issue is the topics making it onto the local news." And the student thought this was something she could do and I just thought about how when I was growing up, my parents and my grandparents (my grandparents lived with us after my grandfather's health turned poor) were able to be aware of what was going on. The news wasn't perfect but it did make time for some of the basics.
I felt estranged enough from them (the infamous generation gap) and the only thing we did have at times was that we all wanted US troops out of Vietnam. So I talked about it from that point of view after C.I. was done. And I thought about all parents but especially the ones like the student's who had worked so hard and sacrificed and how that senior year must be especially hard. It's not 'empty nest' syndrome which is more of an upper-middle class thing for many (not all). It's the idea that someone you've raised is about to go off to different things and this fear that you won't have anything in common. I had a friend like that in high school and suddenly I really understood her father. I hadn't at the time. But now it made sense. He wanted her to have a different life more than anything but there was the fear of the different life wouldn't include him.
I don't know how common this is. I know I've heard similar stories twice when I've been on the road with Ava and C.I. So there are at least three students out there struggling with this and probably a lot more. So I told myself that I'd write about this tonight in case someone reading was in high school and having a similar experience.
Despite the generation gap, my family was always in everyone's business. So it wasn't a problem for me. But I did have a lot of friends that, when I look back now, I can see their problems with the sudden attention in senior year was really their parents attempting to rush in some bonding before the big move out. Maybe it's happening to you or happening to a friend. If it is, if a parent is really trying to bond and they're trying to do so by keeping up, you're not doing them a favor if you're getting your news from something like Democracy Now! and they're counting on tidbits between on camera chatter, sports, the weather and crime reports.
In the New York Times this week, one of the Docker Boys was pontificating. They blur in my mind. C.I. would know who it was. But I was reading that in the taxi and mentioned it to Ava and C.I. The guy was going on and on about the shift in TV news and saying that it had to be some guy who realized how to turn news from a public service to a money making deal. C.I. said, "Yes, it was a guy." And named him. I can't remember his name. He's the guy who turned Jessica Savitch into a local sensation before she ended up at NBC. He went around dumbing down the news, C.I. explained, and beefing up the visuals. So this has been a long process and it started before that one guy was hired by various local stations to turn their newscasts into ratings gold.
If you're a high school student, you didn't live through this (and you're probably asking, "Who the hell is Jessica Savitch?" -- was, she's dead now). But the point is your parents have been raised with TV news. Something like Democracy Now! is something you may have discovered online. It's a show to your generation. You really would be doing a huge service to turn your parents onto it. It would also make your own life easier because you wouldn't have to be constantly correcting the mainstream myths.
So that's my topic for tonight. I've got a highlight to pair it with which I think kind of goes with it. This is from Danny Schechter's "Marching Down Memory Lane: Globalvision Turns 20." (News Dissector):
Here's another one from the electronic version of my book NEWS DISSECTOR. It was written in l997 and never published until now. My daughter incidentally is alive and well and working for a Hollywood studio. I will resist the temptation to kvell about her.
A Call From My Daughter
My daughter Sarah is on the phone from college in Santa Cruz California. She's reading Erik Barnouw's excellent history of American broadcasting, puzzling over an unexpected fact.
"You always told me that Edward R. Murrow was one of your heroes," she says, "so how come he joined the U.S. Information Agency and tried to stop his own expose about migrant workers from being seen in England?" Oddly, that very night Ed Murrow was in my living room as a sound bite in an endless parade of clips, in a collage put together by the TV Academy to glorify the industry and extol its Emmy Award which has always had an inferiority complex next to its more heavily hyped golden cousin, the Oscar. Once again, after all these years, there's Murrow on TV blasting Joe McCarthy, but, of course, nothing about CBS years later easing Ed out the door.
"The instrument can teach, it can illuminate, yes, it can even inspire." he would write in the sunset of his career. "But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it those ends." By then, however heralded, he had outlived his usefulness. What he did was no longer valued. His partner Fred Friendly quit when CBS refused to interrupt I Love Lucy reruns to show important Senate hearings on the Vietnam War. CBS dumped their spiritual successor too, newscaster Walter Cronkite. He was forced out by an executive I later met, Van Gordon Sauter, who Cronkite says treated him like a "leper."
"I felt like I had been driven from the temple where for 19 years, along with other believers, I had worshipped the great god News on a daily basis."
So how come?
Well Sarah, it's like this: like Icarus, you can be among the chosen and still lose your wings when you fly too close to the sun. When an institution decides you are "trending down," or believes it can make more money using that other guy or gal, you're gone. Also, some folks do get co-opted or just plain give up, burn up or burn out. Or they go for the gold. ("Show me the money!" is Hollywood's hippest phrase of the year.) Remember, at the end of the day, they own the candy store. When I grew up, I read the muckraking accounts of how the big industrial magnates crushed the workers and shamed America. Your generation will be reading about today’s media moguls.
Murrow mattered because he did at times illuminate, and inspire, and there are still moments like that on the tube--for us it was when we watched men walk on the moon, for you and your friends, probably, it was when Ellen came out. For us it was when JFK was gunned down or the cops were televised breaking heads in Chicago; for your generation it may have been when Murphy Brown took on the Vice President or when Seinfeld first said Yadda Yadda or when you became addicted to watching Beverly Hills 90210. Reality was what focused us; fiction seems be what grabs you and your friends. Why is that?
The problem is: not that much in the media seems to matter at all. If that isn’t troubling enough, few even expect that it should. That's what gets to me. How do we convey to the public that it is being cheated, that there is another way of seeing, that there are concrete alternatives and real options? How do we reach and inspire a public when oligopolies rule and ordinary people are, in effect electronically disenfranchised?
Between Danny Schechter's youth and his daughter being 19, there's a whole generation, probably more than one (time moves quickly) and her, at 19, being interested in fictional TV came after a long, slow decay of TV news. (Although I'm sure Ava and C.I. would point out that it was never that golden.) So what he sees with his daughter (or saw in 1997) wasn't a leap from him to her, it was many, many years. He may make that point in depth in his book (I think he's touching on it above) and I'm interested in reading the next part. But when I was looking for a highlight for tonight and found that, I thought, "He's really addressing what the student was talking about today."
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, November 29, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, cholera is back in the news, some have hopes for Kevin Rudd but some do not, the US military announces a death, and more.
On November 15th Canada's Supreme Court announced they would not hear the appeals of US war resisters Following the refusal of the Canadian Supreme Cour to hear the appeals of US war resisters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey.
Transcription to a video:
Susan Sarandon
Comments on U.S. War
Resisters in Canada
January 27, 2007
Washington, D.C.
Geoffrey Millard: Do you think it's wise for US service members to take the option to go to Canada?
Susan Sarandon: I think if you conscience tells you that you don't want to fight, that this is an unjust war, there's a long tradition of refusing and resisting to fight and I think that really I just wish that there was more press about that as an alternative because I've run into so many people who -- who are in the position now and don't know what will happen if they refuse who are very frightened either to not go back or to go for the first time. On the train coming up here I spoke to a woman whose twenty-year-old brother was in ROTC he got called up and he's getting two weeks of training in Tacoma and being deployed in the 'surge' and he is just stunned. He married his girlfriend this weekend, from high school. He doesn't know what's going on and I said, 'Well maybe he shouldn't go?' She said, "Oh, he said he can't do that because he'd be thrown in prison and prison's terrible and blah, blah, blah
Geoffrey Millard: If you could say one thing to soldiers going to Canada what would it be?
Susan Sarandon: I would say, "God bless you. And, you know, I admire your courage and know that there are people here who -- who see this as an honorable thing and that I hope that you can reach out and make it known to other people who have these kinds of doubts and convictions to have the courage of their convictions and to refuse.
Special Thanks:
Susan Sarandon
United for Peace and Justice
unitedforpeace.org
Geoffrey Millard
TruthOut.org
You can find that and other videos on war resistance at this page of the War Resisters Support Campaign. In answer to a question as to why we're doing transcripts in full of videos on war resistance: (1) It's an important issue; (2) Just because you have the ability to stream and/or hear don't make the mistake of thinking everyone else does. The disabled community includes veterans and it is a very active community. Lee Berthiaume (Canada's Embassy magazine) explains:
Liberal MP Jim Karygiannis and NDP Immigration critic Olivia Chow butted heads over whether the committee should jump straight to the war resister issue, as Ms. Chow wanted, or whether the committee should first finish the work it started during the last session. Also, while Ms. Chow originally asked that the study focus on U.S. war resisters, specifically the two deserters facing extradition back to the United States, Mr. Karygiannis asked to open up the issue to deserting soldiers from other countries. After much debate, the committee agreed to look at Iraq war resisters and Iraqi refugees on Dec. 6 and 11. Citizenship and Immigration Canada officials are also slated to testify about undocumented workers on Dec. 13, while members spent four hours drafting a report on the loss of Canadian citizenship yesterday and will continue their work today and tomorrow.
Cindy Sheehan (OpEdNews) urges people to utilize Courage to Resist's easy to mail or e-mail resources to allow the Canadian government to know you are watching and to support organizations supporting war resisters as well as supporting war resisters:
Support actual war resisters in Canada by sending them expense money. From my friend Ryan (I gave him and his wife money to get to Canada over two years ago):
In light of the recent Supreme Court denial in Canada, I (Ryan Johnson), My wife (Jen Johnson) and Brandon Hughey need help raising funds to travel to Ottawa to attend hearings before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, where War Resisters will be giving Testimony to the committee. At these hearings the committee will be deciding on whether or not to make a provision to allow war resisters to stay in Canada. This is one of our last chances to be able to continue living in Canada. We will be leaving December 7th because the hearings are December 11th, 2007 so we need to act fast. They may try to send guys back soon and we need to have a strong War Resister Presence. We appreciate all of the support and Want to thank all of you who can help.
Checks/money orders can be sent for Ryan, Jen and Brandon to:312 Tower RdNelson, BC V1L3K6
If you are in Canada, you can utilize the contact info at War Resisters Support Campaign to let members of the Canadian Parliament know you support legislation allowing war resisters to stay in Canada. If you are in the United States (or elsewhere), you can utilize the contact info and/or forum at Courage to Resist. Public outcry didn't stop the illegal war from starting and public opposition has yet to end it. War resisters in Canada who have gone public are putting a great deal on the line. Use the links to show your support for them.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
The voice of war resister Camilo Mejia is featured in Rebel Voices -- playing now through December 16th at Culture Project and based on Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's best-selling book Voices of a People's History of the United States. It features dramatic readings of historical voices such as war resister Mejia, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Malcom X and others will be featured. Musician Allison Mooerer will head the permanent cast while those confirmed to be performing on selected nights are Ally Sheedy (actress and poet, best known for films such as High Art, The Breakfast Club, Maid to Order, the two Short Circuit films, St. Elmo's Fire, War Games, and, along with Nicky Katt, has good buzz on the forthcoming Harold), Eve Ensler who wrote the theater classic The Vagina Monologues (no, it's not too soon to call that a classic), actor David Strathaim (L.A. Confidential, The Firm, Bob Roberts, Dolores Claiborne and The Bourne Ultimatum), actor and playwright Wallace Shawn (The Princess Bride, Clueless -- film and TV series, Gregory and Chicken Little), actress Lili Taylor (Dogfight, Shortcuts, Say Anything, Household Saints, I Shot Andy Warhol, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, State of Mind) and actor, director and activist Danny Glover (The Color Purple, Beloved, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Rainmaker, Places In The Heart, Dreamgirls, Shooter and who recently appeared on Democracy Now! addressing the US militarization of Africa) The directors are Will Pomerantz and Rob Urbinati with Urbinati collaborating with Zinn and Arnove on the play. Tickets are $21 for previews and $41 for regular performances (beginning with the Nov. 18th opening night). The theater is located at 55 Mercer Street and tickets can be purchased there, over the phone (212-352-3101) or online here and here. More information can be found at Culture Project.
Meanwhile IVAW is organizing a March 2008 DC event:
In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.
Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine's famous admonishing of the "summer soldier" who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.
Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming "a few bad apples" instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.
In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation's capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars. We hope you'll join us, because yours is a story that every American needs to hear.
Click here to sign a statement of support for Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan
March 13th through 15th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation.
In Australia, many hopes were raised with the Saturday election of Kevin Rudd to the post of Prime Minister. Rudd's call for pulling Australian combat troops out of Iraq was seen as "troops out of Iraq." Greg Barns (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) informed yesterday that "one of the first acts of Rudd's government will be to immediately withdraw the 550 Australian combat troops still in Iraq -- something that will no doubt irk in Bush." Less than a week since the election and already Australia's ABC reports that the supposed independent and elected ruler of Australia won't make a move without a nod from the US according to Robert McCallum (the US ambassador in Australia): "Mr McCallum says Mr Rudd has promised to speak to the United States before making any changes in Iraq." Meanwhile Brendan Nelson's whose 'rising star' status should have crashed and burned over his public statements regarding the late Jake Kovco is now the leader of the Liberal party -- the party John Howard, previous prime minister, hails from. Australia's Herald Sun reports Nelson is talking of Australia's 'responsibility' to the US and, as an after-thought, Iraq (link also offers video and Nelson's hair appears to have been set in homage to SNL's Coneheads). "The gloves are off now," the Herald Sun reports Rudd stating and notes he has announced his cabinet. How long did it take al-Maliki to announce his cabinet? Back to Rudd, Michael Fullilove (Los Angeles Times) expresses hope, "The results of the Australian election last weekend, however, may give pause to some in Washington: A social conservative, once described by President Bush as a 'man of steel,' was thrown out of office (and his own parliamentary seat) by a former diplomat who speaks Mandarin. On such issues as climate change and the war on terror, ousted Prime Minister John Howard was Bush's most faithful international supporter. After the inglorious departures of Britain's Tony Blair and Spain's Jose Maria Aznar, Bush and Howard were the last men standing of the Western leaders who invaded Iraq. Now Howard too is gone. It's as if the Sundance Kid charged alone into the rifles of the Bolivian army, leaving Butch Cassidy fiddling with his six-shooter."
As if that image of the US government isn't bad enough, AP reports that the US State Department's John Bellinger III says the US needs 'clarification' on the Geneva Conventions (try remedial lessons in it) and claims that Bilal Hussein can be imprisoned (19 months and counting) because "his understanding was that American forces were operating under an international mandate that allows for the detention of people who might pose a security threat" but, as the AP points out, "The Geneva Conventions contain specific references to the protection of journalists operating in war zones, including that they be treated as civilians unless they take part in hostilities." Bilal is the AP photographer -- Pulitzer Prize winning photographer who has been held since April 12, 2006. Free Bilal is a resource where you can find out more and sign a petition in support of him. As Ruth noted earlier this week, Bilal was the topic on NPR's All Things Considered Monday as Associated Press CEO and president Tom Curley spoke with Robert Siegel. Curley explained that they still didn't know what the charges would be but were told they might find out later this week. Curley reviewed how the AP's own investigation found nothing trouble. Not stated but it should be noted, the US has tried this in the press before and their charges have fallen apart under scrutiny. Siegel asked if Bilal was basically being punished for doing his job and Curley replied, "We can't find any other reason." Daryl Lang (Photo District News) reports the US military announced today that they will "present evidence against" Bilal on December 9th. The 'trial' would take place in an Iraqi 'court.' Curley has [PDF format] written a letter to puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki which opens with: "I write to ask your help in assuring that justice is done in the case of Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen and photographer for The Associated press who has been detained by the United States military since April 12, 2006. They say they suspect him of aiding terrorists. U.S. military officials have made many accusations against Mr. Hussein, although they have provided no evidence to support them. AP has conducted its own investigation of every specific allegation and has found them all to be either not credible or absolutely false. We believe the real reason for Mr. Hussein's detention and incarceration for 19 months without charges is that he produced images of conflict in Anbar Province which the military did not want the citizens of Iraq and the United States to see." In addition, Joe Strupp (Editor & Publisher) reports that "MIlitary Reporters and Editors became the latest group Wednesday to weigh in on the controversy regarding Associated Press Photographer Bilal Hussein, who is facing unspecified terrorist charges in Iraq." The letter opens with: "It could happen, we fear, to any journalist covering the war in Iraq. A soldier confiscates your notes, cameras and gear, and takes you into custody. Once jailed you have no rights -- not to remain silent, to call a lawyer or see a judge. That was the fate of Bilal Hussein, an Associated Press photographer who was part of a team that wona Pulitzer Prize in 2005. He has been jailed for 19 months by the U.S. military. . . . We at Military Reporters & Editors wonder how this incident has been allowed to go on for so long. We also wonder if it could happen to other Iraqi journalists who have risked their lives to tell American and the world about life in Iraq. . . . Bilal Hussein's imprisonment is contrary to every notion of justice, fair play and the U.S. Constitution, which every member of America's military swears to uphold and defend." AP's page on Bilal is here.
While the US tries to railroad Bilal, it also tries to force through a permanent occupation of Iraq. Bully Boy and his puppet think they can by-pass the Iraqi parliament. From Monday's snapshot: "(Question: Who ratifies treaties in the United States? The Congress. One more aspect of 'democracy' that never got exported to Iraq.)" Today, Bruce Ackerman (Los Angeles Times) reminds Americans that "the Constitution requires congressional approval before the nation can commit itself to the sweeping political, economic and military relationship contemplated by the 'declaration of principles' signed by Bush and Maliki to kick off the negotiations. U.S. legislative approval can come in two forms: Either two-thirds of the Senate can vote for a treaty under Article II of the Constitution, or a simple majority of both houses can authorize the agreement under Article I. But there is no constitutional provision or precedent authorizing this new form of Bush unilateralism."
In this morning's papers, Cara Buckley (New York Times) is one of the few to report from Iraq. Buckley notes that the Wednesday bused and bought refugees from Syria that came back to Iraq in "20 busloads" with a "government spokesman" hailing the return of 800 while the city coucil says it was more like 200 and cites Dana Graber Ladek (International Organization for Migration) explaining that the those returning in the trickle "have discovered squatters living in their homes". Buckley also notes the cholera outbrak ("with 101 new cases reported in recent weeks") and notes issues of sewage. CNN reports that UNICEF is warning there may be "a larger outbreak" of the disease in Iraq and quotes UNICEF's Claire Hajaj explaining, "While national caseloads are declining, we are increasingly concerned about a possible outbreak in Baghdad. The capital accounts for 70 percent all new cases and is now up to 101 cases, the vast majority reported in the past three weeks."
In other dangers on the ground in illegal war . . .
Bombings?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing this morning which left six people wounded, another that left five wounded, a Baquba mortar attack on a police station that left two police officers wounded, an Al-Muqdadiyah mortar attack that wounded two, an Al-Salam mortar attack that claimed 12 lives and left twenty-five wounded, a Baquba roadside bombing that left two wounded and a roadside bombing outside Bamo village which claimed the lives of 2 Iraqis ("one officer and a soldier"). And in what may or may not be an attempted attack on an official. Reuters reports 2 car bombs were found ("and detonated") "in the Baghdad office complex of the leader of the country's main Sunni Arab bloc" -- Adnan al-Dulaimi. In addition, Reuters reports two Baghdad roadside bombings near mini-buses that left eleven people injured and a Mosul car bombing that left two police officers wounded. CNN notes that the US military announced today that "a team of U.S. Apache helicopters fired 30 mm cannon and Hellfire missiles at a house from which insurgents attacked a coalition convoy on Tuesday. Three insurgnets were killed". They hope three 'insurgents' were killed. The actual news it the US military fired on a home and killed three. At this point the three dead are not known to have been anything other than civiliains.
Shootings?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baquba attack on Hamid Ibrahim ("the head of Hibhib police) that wounded two of his bodyguards and, in another attack targeting officials, the son of Sheikh Dhamim Al-Ajeel was shot dead in Salahuddin and, in another attack targeting officials, Amar Mohammed Al-Hamadani ("Hawijah district mayor"), was injured 1 of his bodyguards killed in an attack in Hawijah. Reuters notes that yesterday "the mayor of a district in central Tikrit" was shot dead and (also yesterday) "Five bodyguards who work for Iraq's acting minister for tourism and antiquities were wounded when Iraqi soldiers opened fire on their convoy in western Baghdad on Wednesday, the ministry said. The minister was not in the convoy and the incident was under investigation."
Corpses?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 6 corpses were discovered in Baghdad.
Today the US military announced: "Small-arms fire killed one Multi-National Division -- Baghdad Soldier in a western section of the Iraqi capital Nov. 28."
Turning to US politics, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes, "Former President Bill Clinton is under scrutiny for claiming he opposed the Iraq war 'from the beginning.' Clinton made the claim Tuesday while campaigning for his wife Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Iowa. But a look at Clinton's public statements from 2002-on reveal he never unequivocally opposed the war and at times voiced nuanced approval. In March 2003, Clinton criticized France for opposing the invasion and defended British Prime Minister Tony Blair for taking part. Meanwhile a former senior administration official is now claiming White House officials personally briefed Clinton in the lead-up to war and that Clinton voiced his support. The official, Hillary Mann Leverett is the former White House director of Persian Gulf affairs. She says she was 'shocked' and 'astonished' at Clinton's claim to oppose the war. Leverett says former administration official Elliot Abrams emerged from one pre-war meeting 'glowing' after Clinton promised he would publicly support an Iraq invasion." While it is hard to believe anyone would ever describe Elliot Abrams as "glowing," Tom Baldwin (Times of London) quotes Bill Clinton's spokesperson Jay Carson stating, "As he said before the war and many times since, President Clinton disagreed with taking the country to war without allowing the weapons inspectors to finish their jobs."
Turning to a topic noted in Monday and Tuesday's snapshot. Dia al-Kawwaz stated that 11 of his relatives had been murdered by Shi'ites on Sunday and that during a wake Tuesday, there was another attack. Late yesterday, his mother and other family members appeared on a US funded Iraqi channel to maintain that was not true. Reports Without Borders quickly issued a statement. Too quickly, some might argue since we've had one set of charges (from Dia al-Kawwaz) and another set of charges (from his mother and others) with no investigation. Dia al-Kawwaz may very well be sick enough to state make up the death of 11 members of his family. On the other hand, he may have made up nothing. If the latter is true, 11 members of his family may have been killed or he may have been told 11 members died as some sort of a cruel trick. Since nothing more is known at this point then he says ___ and others say ___, since nothing's been verified, maybe it's a bit early to beat him up? Maybe Reporters Without Borders should have stuck with their original call for an investigation into the events because that's the only way what did or did not happen -- and how -- will be known.
iraq
jeremy hinzmanbrandon hughey
phil mcdowell
cindy sheehan
naomi wolf
democracy now
amy goodman
anthony arnovehoward zinn
iraq veterans against the war
mcclatchy newspapers
the new york times
cara buckley
the los angeles times
susan sarandon
lee berthiaume
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Naomi Wolf, Amy Goodman, Bruce Dixon
Ruth is asking us to all highlight "'The End of America': Feminist Social Critic Naomi Wolf Warns U.S. in Slow Descent into Fascism" (Democracy Now!) today which works in with the only thing I had to talk about so that's great:
AMY GOODMAN: Today, we're joined by a special guest who has just written a book. The United States is on the road to becoming a fascist society, right under our very noses. That's the premise of the new book by feminist social critic Naomi Wolf. It's called The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, and it's already on the New York Times bestseller list.
Naomi Wolf outlines what she sees as the ten steps to shut down a democratic society. She argues the Bush administration has already implemented many of these steps. Naomi Wolf is the author of several books, including the '90s feminist classic, The Beauty Myth.
Critics describe her latest book, The End of America, as a wake-up call to Americans to heed the lessons of history and fight to save their democracy before its too late.
Naomi Wolf joins us in our firehouse studio. Welcome to Democracy Now!
NAOMI WOLF: Thank you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Start off with the stories that you tell in your book.
NAOMI WOLF: Well, they're the stories of societies that were systematically closed down by would-be despots, would-be dictators, whether they were on the left or the right, who essentially developed a blueprint in the first part of the twentieth century to crush democracies or to crush democracy movements. So they're also individual stories of how people react as a democracy is being closed down.
But I guess the book really began with a very personal story, because I was forced to write it, even though I didn’t really want to, by a dear friend who is a Holocaust survivor’s daughter. And when we spoke about news events, she kept saying, "They did this in Germany. They did this in Germany." And I really didn't think that made sense. I thought that was very extreme language. But finally she forced me to sit down and start reading the histories, of course, not of the later years, because she wasn’t talking about German outcomes, '38, '39; she was talking about the early years, 1930, '31, '32, when Germany was a parliamentary democracy, and there was this systematic assault using the rule of law to subvert the rule of law.
And once I saw how many parallels there were, not just in strategy and tactics that we’re seeing again today, but actually in images and sound bites and language, then I read other histories of Italy in the '20s, Russia in the '30s, East Germany in the '50s, Czechoslovakia in the '60s, Pinochet's coup in Chile in '73, the crushing of the democracy movement in China at the end of the ’80s. And I saw that there is a blueprint that would-be dictators always do the same ten things, whether they’re on the left or the right, and that we are seeing these ten steps taking place systematically right now in the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: Lay them out.
NAOMI WOLF: Well, they're not happy. The first step is that all would-be dictators or would-be despots, which is what the founders of our country who foresaw exactly this kind of possibility would call them -- all would-be dictators invoke a terrifying internal and external threat. And often it's a real threat, which they will hype or manipulate. For instance, Stalin spoke about sleeper cells, which is one of those phrases that are being recirculated now by the Bush White House. And this was an invention. He said there were capitalist secret agents who were hiding among good Soviet citizens and who are going to rise up at a signal and create terrorist mayhem -- fake story, but it worked to frighten citizens.
Pinochet talked about a real threat: armed insurgents. There were armed insurgents, but he hyped it using fake documents. And we saw -- we see this a lot in the historical blueprint, that a would-be dictator will fake documents. His were called Plan Z. He claimed they were going to bomb infrastructure, assassinate leaders. We saw fake documents used by the White House to hype of a terror threat when they used the fake yellowcake documents to claim that Iraq was trying to secure yellowcake uranium. And remember the famous sound bite -- "We can't wait for the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud" -- to drive us into an illegal war with a nation we were not at war with.
AMY GOODMAN: You also talk about the language, like the Department of Homeland Security.
NAOMI WOLF: That is where I, as a social critic and a student of language, get really scared. It’s scary enough to see these ten steps, but what is terrifying to me personally is how many actual phrases are being recycled, and tactics. "Homeland security" -- "heimat" -- became popularized by the National Socialists. Goebbels developed the practice of embedding journalists. Leni von Riefenstahl was embedded, for instance, in Poland. And we’re seeing embedded --
You'll see some of it in the snapshot at the end and that's what I wanted to talk about. We were listening, Ava, C.I. and I, to Democracy Now! in the car and thinking, "We're going to be on campus before this interview ends" (which we were, there were about two minutes left of the interview that we missed). But it went in the snapshot today and that was really interesting. I see the snapshot dictated all the time. (I'm back on the road with Ava and C.I. again this week speaking to groups about Iraq.) But C.I. had a friend fax the PEJ journalist survey report to one of the college's and we were all starving. We'd done one group after another all day (Ava and C.I. are speaking right now but I was wiped out) and grabbed one on the fly in what was supposed to be the designated lunch period (a young woman said her boyfriend really cares about ending the illegal war and is always griping that no one ever comes to speak to them because they're frat boys -- so we used our lunch to do a talk at a frat house this afternoon). We ended up grabbing pizza (black olives, green olives, mushrooms, bell peppers and onions, if anyone's wondering) and C.I. starts dictating the snapshot. This is the first chance C.I.'s had to look at the survey of reporters and a friend had noted the PSA on war resisters so suddenly there were three things that had to go in, the survey, the PSA and Naomi Wolf's appearance. So C.I.'s working on that with one phone and using the other cell to check messages (some of which are included in the snapshot). C.I.'s doing the report from first glances in like 3 minutes. I thought that was amazing. C.I. would say, "Go back to the third sentence that ended with ___ and add this after." And there's this series of paragraphs on the report (including when C.I. says something like "Oh wait, we will talk about this . . .") that really summarizes the report (I've read it now). Time is up (and Ava and I have gobbled down the pizza. C.I.'s had one slice that keeps going towards the mouth but never makes it in due to dictating). C.I. says, "Okay, just pull ___ and ___ from the transcript of the interview with Amy Goodman and I'll do a generic sentence before it, after it, Laura Flanders' show needs to be mentioned and she's . . ." C.I. stops. "There's no transcript?" The transcript wasn't posted.
"Okay," C.I. says, "here's the line before the excerpt --" and then after that, C.I. takes a deep breath, stares off into space for about 20 seconds and starts doing the interview excerpt. From memory. You can see how closely it matches up (real close). I was just amazed. I looked over and Ava was as well. We tried to say so after but C.I. was all, "I'm sure I messed up every other sentence."
The other thing on the snapshot, the only time I interupted, the UN report on the Iraqi refugees does mention that Syria's cancelling visas -- like I noted last night -- and I was going, "Put that in!" I wanted it in with a "as I was saying . . ." but it didn't make it in. I noted it last night and noted C.I. had told me about the cancellation. So let me give credit to C.I. or it won't get credited. (Though I'm sure we'll read it at ____ in an ____ ____ in a few week's time, without credit.)
This is from Bruce Dixon's "Top Ten Reasons to Suspect 'Save Darfur' is a PR Scam to Justify US Military Intervention in African" (Black Agenda Report):
The regular manufacture and the constant maintenance of false realities in the service of American empire is a core function of the public relations profession and the corporate news media. Whether it's fake news stories about wonder drugs and how toxic chemicals are good for you, bribed commentators and journalists discoursing on the benefits of No Child Left Behind, Hollywood stars advocating military intervention to save African orphans, or slick propaganda campaigns employing viral marketing techniques to reach out to college students, bloggers, churches and ordinary citizens, it pays to take a close look behind the facade.
Among the latest false realities being pushed upon the American people are the simplistic pictures of Black vs. Arab genocide in Darfur, and the proposed solution: a robust US-backed or US-led military intervention in Western Sudan. Increasing scrutiny is being focused upon the “Save Darfur” lobby and the Save Darfur Coalition; upon its founders, its finances, its methods and motivations and its truthfulness. In the spirit of furthering that examination we here present ten reasons to suspect that the "Save Darfur" campaign is a PR scam to justify US intervention in Africa.
1. It wouldn't be the first Big Lie our government and media elite told us to justify a war.
Elders among us can recall the Tonkin Gulf Incident, which the US government deliberately provoked to justify initiation of the war in Vietnam. This rationale was quickly succeeded by the need to help the struggling infant "democracy" in South Vietnam, and the still useful "fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here" nonsense. More recently the bombings, invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have been variously explained by people on the public payroll as necessary to "get Bin Laden" as revenge for 9-11, as measures to take "the world's most dangerous weapons" from the hands of "the world's most dangerous regimes", as measures to enable the struggling Iraqi "democracy" stand on its own two feet, and necessary because it's still better to "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here".
2. It wouldn't even be the first time the U.S. government and media elite employed "genocide prevention" as a rationale for military intervention in an oil-rich region.
The 1995 US and NATO military intervention in Kosovo was supposedly a "peacekeeping" operation to stop a genocide. The lasting result of that campaign is Camp Bondsteel, one of the largest military bases on the planet. The U.S. is practically the only country in the world that maintains military bases outside its own borders. At just under a thousand acres, Camp Bondsteel offers the US military the ability to pre-position large quantities of equipment and supplies within striking distance of Caspian oil fields, pipeline routes and relevant sea lanes. It is also widely believed to be the site of one of the US's secret prison and torture facilities.
3. If stopping genocide in Africa really was on the agenda, why the focus on Sudan with 200,000 to 400,000 dead rather than Congo with five million dead?
“The notion that a quarter million Darfuri dead are a genocide and five million dead Congolese are not is vicious and absurd," according to Congolese activist Nita Evele. "What's happened and what is still happening in Congo is not a tribal conflict and it's not a civil war. It is an invasion. It is a genocide with a death toll of five million, twenty times that of Darfur, conducted for the purpose of plundering Congolese mineral and natural resources."
More than anything else, the selective and cynical application of the term "genocide" to Sudan, rather than to the Congo where ten to twenty times as many Africans have been murdered reveals the depth of hypocrisy around the "Save Darfur" movement. In the Congo, where local gangsters, mercenaries and warlords along with invading armies from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola engage in slaughter, mass rape and regional depopulation on a scale that dwarfs anything happening in Sudan, all the players eagerly compete to guarantee that the extraction of vital coltan for Western computers and cell phones, the export of uranium for Western reactors and nukes, along with diamonds, gold, copper, timber and other Congolese resources continue undisturbed.
Former UN Ambassador Andrew Young and George H.W. Bush both serve on the board of Barrcik Gold, one of the largest and most active mining concerns in war-torn Congo. Evidently, with profits from the brutal extraction of Congolese wealth flowing to the West, there can be no Congolese "genocide" worth noting, much less interfering with. For their purposes, U.S. strategic planners may regard their Congolese model as the ideal means of capturing African wealth at minimal cost without the bother of official U.S. boots on the ground.
4. It's all about Sudanese oil.
Sudan, and the Darfur region in particular, sit atop a lake of oil. But Sudanese oil fields are not being developed and drilled by Exxon or Chevron or British Petroleum. Chinese banks, oil and construction firms are making the loans, drilling the wells, laying the pipelines to take Sudanese oil where they intend it to go, calling far too many shots for a twenty-first century in which the U.S. aspires to control the planet's energy supplies. A U.S. and NATO military intervention will solve that problem for U.S. planners.
5. It's all about Sudanese uranium, gum arabic and other natural resources.
Uranium is vital to the nuclear weapons industry and an essential fuel for nuclear reactors. Sudan possesses high quality deposits of uranium. Gum arabic is an essential ingredient in pharmaceuticals, candies and beverages like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and Sudanese exports of this commodity are 80% of the world's supply. When comprehensive U.S. sanctions against the Sudanese regime were being considered in 1997, industry lobbyists stepped up and secured an exemption in the sanctions bill to guarantee their supplies of this valuable Sudanese commodity. But an in-country U.S. and NATO military presence is a more secure guarantee that the extraction of Sudanese resources, like those of the Congo, flow westward to the U.S. and the European Union.
The frat house, by the way, really turned out to be a great meet up on Iraq. I didn't think it would be. Ava and C.I. were all for it, they'll go anywhere. But I did have an Animal House-type fear. Twenty guys got involved and it was a very lively discussion about the illegal war, how it's being sold and what can be done.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
November 28, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces a mass wounding of US soldiers, a new survey of US journalists in Iraq provides a lot of answers, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Following the refusal of the Canadian Supreme Cour to hear the appeals of US war resisters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey, the best road to legal recognition appears to be the Canadian Parliament. The War Resisters Support Campaign has a two minute and forty-six seconds video PSA on the situation.
In 2003, the Liberal government upheld international law and refused to join the war in Iraq.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien
Iraq war debate -- March 17, 2003
Chretien: If military action proceeds without a new resultion of the [United Nations] Security Council, Canada will not participate.
[Applause. Standing ovation.]
Since 2004, dozens of U.S. soldiers have left the military and come to Canada.
These soldiers have come to Canada because they oppose the war in Iraq.
They need a provision from the Canadian government to let them stay.
US War Resister Justin Colby: My name is Justin Colby. I was a specialist in the United States Army. I served for three years. I spent one year in Ar Ramadi, Iraq. I joined the army after 9-11 and I left the army after my year in Iraq, before my unit was going to go back. And I left because Iraq never attacked the United States and the things that we did there led me to believe that we weren't defending our country.
On November 15th, 2007, the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeals of U.S. war resisters.
As a result, U.S. war resisters living in Canada face deportation back to the U.S.
If deported, they face imprisonmnet, or even deployment back to Iraq.
US War Resister Kimberly Rivera: I'm Kimbely Rivera. I served three months in Iraq and I'm here with my family.
A 2007 poll found that 64.6% of Ontario voters and 71% of Liberal voters want U.S. war resisters to stay in Canada.
US War Resister Phil McDowell: My name is Phil McDowell. I'm a former sergeant in the United States Army. I joined the army after September the 11th. I served a one-year tour in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. During my tour I realized that the war was unjust and illegal and the reasons for the invasion were lies. After completing my contractual agreement with the army, I was called back into service for another fifteen-month tour. At that time, I refused to deploy, moved to Canada because I believed I'd be able to stay here. We're asking Liberals to support a provision that would allow Iraq War Resisters to remain in Canada.
U.S. war resisters need the support of the Liberal Party to live in Canada.
War Resisters Support Campaign
http://www.resisters.ca/
Cindy Sheehan (OpEdNews) urges people to utilize Courage to Resist's easy to mail or e-mail resources to allow the Canadian government to know you are watching and to support organizations supporting war resisters as well as supporting war resisters:
Support actual war resisters in Canada by sending them expense money. From my friend Ryan (I gave him and his wife money to get to Canada over two years ago):
In light of the recent Supreme Court denial in Canada, I (Ryan Johnson), My wife (Jen Johnson) and Brandon Hughey need help raising funds to travel to Ottawa to attend hearings before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, where War Resisters will be giving Testimony to the committee. At these hearings the committee will be deciding on whether or not to make a provision to allow war resisters to stay in Canada. This is one of our last chances to be able to continue living in Canada. We will be leaving December 7th because the hearings are December 11th, 2007 so we need to act fast. They may try to send guys back soon and we need to have a strong War Resister Presence. We appreciate all of the support and Want to thank all of you who can help.
Checks/money orders can be sent for Ryan, Jen and Brandon to:312 Tower RdNelson, BC V1L3K6
L-girl (We move to canada) blogs, "I know I've been belabouring the war and war resisters lately, but as I've said elsewhere, this blog reflects what's on my mind. I'm so disgusted, enraged, heartsick, horrified -- got any words? -- at what's going on in Iraq, at how veterans are being treated in the US, at how ordinary citizens are being treated in the US. Wmtc is a chance to vent that, and maybe bring some items to your attention that you haven't seen." And who wouldn't be horrified? The illegal war started -- over international opposition -- and continues. War resisters who have taken a stand and said "no" need support. As Guy Charron (WSWS) observes, "The war has, moreover, resulted in untold violence and countless atrocities. According to studies by reputable agencies, the war and the accompanying destruction of Iraq society have caused the death of over one million Iraqis and the flight of millions of people from their homes and Iraq altogether. If the Canadian government intervened in the Hinzman and Hughey cases to prevent their raising the illegality of the war, it wasn't just to save the Bush administration from embarrassment. Ottawa feared Canada would become a haven for 'war resisters' and a pole of resistance to the war. Given a different decision on Hinzman's and Hughey's refugee claim, thousands more might well have joined them."
If you are in Canada, you can utilize the contact info at War Resisters Support Campaign to let members of the Canadian Parliament know you support legislation allowing war resisters to stay in Canada. If you are in the United States (or elsewhere), you can utilize the contact info and/or forum at Courage to Resist. Public outcry didn't stop the illegal war from starting and public opposition has yet to end it. War resisters in Canada who have gone public are putting a great deal on the line. Use the links to show your support for them.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
The voice of war resister Camilo Mejia is featured in Rebel Voices -- playing now through December 16th at Culture Project and based on Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's best-selling book Voices of a People's History of the United States. It features dramatic readings of historical voices such as war resister Mejia, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Malcom X and others will be featured. Musician Allison Mooerer will head the permanent cast while those confirmed to be performing on selected nights are Ally Sheedy (actress and poet, best known for films such as High Art, The Breakfast Club, Maid to Order, the two Short Circuit films, St. Elmo's Fire, War Games, and, along with Nicky Katt, has good buzz on the forthcoming Harold), Eve Ensler who wrote the theater classic The Vagina Monologues (no, it's not too soon to call that a classic), actor David Strathaim (L.A. Confidential, The Firm, Bob Roberts, Dolores Claiborne and The Bourne Ultimatum), actor and playwright Wallace Shawn (The Princess Bride, Clueless -- film and TV series, Gregory and Chicken Little), actress Lili Taylor (Dogfight, Shortcuts, Say Anything, Household Saints, I Shot Andy Warhol, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, State of Mind) and actor, director and activist Danny Glover (The Color Purple, Beloved, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Rainmaker, Places In The Heart, Dreamgirls, Shooter and who recently appeared on Democracy Now! addressing the US militarization of Africa) The directors are Will Pomerantz and Rob Urbinati with Urbinati collaborating with Zinn and Arnove on the play. Tickets are $21 for previews and $41 for regular performances (beginning with the Nov. 18th opening night). The theater is located at 55 Mercer Street and tickets can be purchased there, over the phone (212-352-3101) or online here and here. More information can be found at Culture Project.
Meanwhile IVAW is organizing a March 2008 DC event:
In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.
Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine's famous admonishing of the "summer soldier" who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.
Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming "a few bad apples" instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.
In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation's capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars. We hope you'll join us, because yours is a story that every American needs to hear.
Click here to sign a statement of support for Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan
March 13th through 15th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation.
IVAW is attempting to get the truth out. The need for that is demonstrated right now by a new poll by the Pew Research Center which illustrates just how successful Operation Happy Talk can still be (especially when so few bother to counter it). Demetri Sevastopulo (Financial Times of London via MSNBC) surveys the polls results and finds a shift in Pew's figures from February -- then 30 percent of Americans surveyed said the illegal war was going well and now 47 percent say it is while 53 percent surveyed in February said bring the troops home and now that number is 54 percent. Eric Boehlert (Media Matters) examines Nightline (US' ABC network) and finds "that Nightline's interest in covering the war . . . waned. The program certainly was not alone. Most television news outlets, and the networks, in particular, have drastically cut back on the amount of airtime they now give to the war. Sometimes it appears as though the war doesn't even exist." And that's big media -- little media's no better. If you're a magazine or broadcast program -- big or small -- you should probably doing a self-check right about now because very few hands are clean and this latest poll is a reflection of what passes for coverage.
Did someone say coverage? The New York Times runs an important story on Iraq. On the front page? Stop, we're all laughing. A6 or A7? It didn't even make the news section. Richard Perez-Pena's report is entitled "Grim View of Iraq Dangers in Survey of Journalists" and runs on C5 (the business section, page five). Perez-Pena is summarizing a poll of "American journalists in Iraq" by the Project for Excellence in Journalism with most answering the survey "in October" -- considered 'less deadly'. Perez-Pena informs: "In a newly released survey, American journalists in Iraq give harrowing accounts of their work, with the great majority saying that colleagues have been kidnapped or killed and that most parts of Baghdad are too dangerous for them to visit." That was October. Where in your news coverage have you seen that indicated? What outlet? PEJ notes that they surveyed "111 journalists from 29 news organizations reporting from Iraq."
PEJ's report is entitled [PDF format warning] "Journalists in Iraq: A survey of reporters on the front lines" and opens with this paragraph:
After four years of war in Iraq, the journalists reporting from that country give their coverage a mixed but generally positive assessment, but they believe they have done a better job of covering the American military and the insurgency than they have the lives of ordinary Iraqis. And they do not believe the coverage of Iraq over time has been too negative. If anything, many believes the situation over the course of the war has been worse than the American public has perceived, according to a new survey of journalists covering the war from Iraq.
The report quotes a bureau chief stating, "Welcome to the new world of journalism, boys and girls. This is where we lost our innocence. Security teams, body armor and armored cars will forever now be pushed in between journalism and stories." They praise the embedding (get in bed with the US military) program and self-report that theyve done an "excellent" or "good" job reporting on the US military (82%). I'll bite me tongue and move on. No, actually, I won't. The New York Times is notorious among the enlisted in Iraq for blowing them off -- it's a complaint that's registered every year of the illegal war. So it's interesting to turn to page 16 of the study and see that PEJ has blown the enlisted off as well. That's really embarrassing and goes to why the coverage today sucks so bad. I'm not talking about "embedding," I am talking about journalists talking with average soldiers and anyone who covered a war zone in the past will tell you that. But PEJ also doesn't feel they are important or sources. They asked the journalists to rank their access to a group of "key sources" and there are eight listed:
1) Iraqi civilians
2) Other international diplomats/officials
3) Iraqi government officials
4) High ranking American military officers
5) American diplomats/officials
6) Iraqi sectarian leaders
7) Western private contractors
8) Iraqi terrorists/insurgents
The only military on the list are "High ranking American military officers" -- the ones the press already takes dictation from. Where are the enlisted? And how could PEJ have done a survey and not noticed that obvious flaw? 85% of the respondents have been embedded and of those who have 35% state that they were required to ask permission (from brass) "to interview soldiers." Obviously, it's far more difficult to speak to the enlisted than to a military p.r. flack with what's really an honorary title -- but don't those honorary titles look good in print. Of this embedded segment, 33% reply "yes" to the question of "Does the U.S. Military screen out reporters whose coverage of the war has been critical in the past?"
The journalists give themselves low marks (62% rated this area "fair to poor") on covering "the lives of ordinary Iraqis." It would be interesting to see a survey on earlier periods, especially on the issue of average Iraqis since in the Times' 'glory' days of Dexy and Burnsie, women didn't appear to exist in Iraq. (Sabrina Tavernise and other reporters that followed allowed Times readers to know that women did live in Iraq.) The survey finds -- remember this, "Six out of ten (63%) of the journalists surveyed say that Iraqi staffers do all or most of the street reporting outside the Green Zone."
In other findings, 62 percent say that their "editors back home" have lost interest in reports of day-to-day violence (no kidding) and the only significant increases have been in reports on contractors (79%) and "U.S. military strategy" (67%). The respondents rated the "Impact on Iraqi civilians" as the most under reported (40%) while the respondents rated "U.S. Military strategy" as the most over reported (29%).
Staying on Iraq but flashing back to the days of Judith Miller at the New York Times -- does anyone remember how Miller and Warren Hoge launched their grudge f--k against the United Nations in story after story? Miller's no longer with the paper and Hoge is on the down low. So Alan Feuer grabs duty and apparently does so without any editorial assistance which would explain how the world is learning of Texan "Farah Fawcett" for the first time. It's two r's: Farrah Fawcett. Having never heard of Farrah Fawcett, it's not all that surprising that Feuer hasn't heard of other things -- like the law. Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. received a sentence of one year and one day in prison. For what? Feuer tells you he "broke the rules of the United Nations program" -- no, he broke the law. Not a rule, a law. He bribed. He broke the law. The UN -- Miller and Hoge told you -- was the root of all corruption. Wyatt admitted his guilt and it's buried in the paper. "Act of kindess" and "he saved my life." Remember to use those two phrases when writing a judge about sentencing. They moved Wyatt's judge enough to show the felon mercy. (Fawcett was among those writing the judge asking for mercy -- for those wondering how she comes into the story.)
Not a lot of mercy in Iraq. Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) notes, "For the second day in a row, U.S. soldiers on Tuesday killed Iraqi civilians when they fired on a vehicle that they thought was a threat, the U.S. military said." Damien Cave (New York Times) offers, "The shootings by soldiers appear to receive less attention from Iraqi officials because, unlike contractors, whose legal situation remains murky, American soldiers are subject to military laws." They also receive less attention because they're rarely reported and when they are reported, there's an effort to explain them away -- even when it's the case of Iraqi children and women being shot in their own homes. Of the US military's apologies, Fadel quotes Saad Abdul Wahid asking, "Is sorry enough to bring back our friends to life? They keep making their mistakes day by day and we are paying too much." Meanwhile an Iraqi correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers shared this event at Inside Iraq on Tuesday, "Yesterday noon, an American squad from the United State Army (about ten to twelve) broke in Al-Mansour preparatory school for one reason or another. We don't have the right to ask them why they came to the school. The soldiers spread in different spots of the school walking towards the back yard which is used as a soccer field. Most of the students were in their classes when the squad came, but still there were many students in the yard who were terrified to see the American soldiers with their guns. One of the students was upset to see the soldiers and he threw a stone and hit one of them. Three soldiers surrounded him kicking him with their boots for some minutes on different parts of his body."
Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing wounded three civilians and another one that wounded "two soldiers and one civilian."
Shootings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports "4 bodyguards of state minister for tribal affairs were wounded" in a clash with the Iraqi military in Baghdad while Muhaned Mekhlif was shot dead "in Al Hawija west of Kirkuk." Reuters notes that 4 people were shot dead by Iraqi soldiers because they were 'suspected insurgents' (or that's what the Iraqi Defence Ministry states) and that 27 people were arrested. The US military announced: "A female suicide bomber detonated an explosive laden suicide-vest, wounding seven U.S. Soldiers and five Iraqi citizens in Baqubah, Nov. 27."
Corpses?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
Today the UNHCR released a brief report on the returning refugees. Someone get a copy to CBS and AP who flat out lie ("More Iraqi refugees, heartened by reports of the lull in violence in Baghdad, were beginning to return"). Though Damien Cave has reported on the refugees being bussed in bought, CBS and AP play dumb there as well. (It is playing, right?) Reality from the UNHCR: approximately 800 left Syria for Baghdad on approximately 15 buses provided by the central (puppet) government in Iraq (no word on how much they were paid to return) and -- pay attention CBS and AP -- "most said they were going back to Iraq because they had run out of money and could no longer afford to stay in Syria, which is hosting more than 1.4 million Iraqi refugees." The UNHCR's figures find that the tiny trickle of returnees is composed of 14% returning due to the 'safety' myths and 70% returning "because of tougher visa regulations and because they are not allowed to work and can no longer afford to stay in Syria." Get it yet?
On Democracy Now! today, Naomi Wolf discussed her new book The End of America: Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot. She outlined the ten signs when an open society closes and becomes a fascist state and why Americans need to pay attention to. Picking up the discussion at Iraq:
Naomi Wolf: . . . they used the fake yellow-cake documents to argue that Iraq was trying to secure yellow-cake uranium and remember the famous soundbye, 'We can't wait for the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud' to drive us into an illegal war with a nation we were not at war with.
Amy Goodman: You also talk about the language like the Department of Homeland Security.
Naomi Wolf: That is where I, as a social critic and student of language, get really scared. It's scary enough to see these ten steps but what is terrifying to me personally is how many actual phrases are being recycle and tactics. Homland security [the German phrase] "heimat" became popularized by the National Socialists [NAZIs]. Goebbels developed the practice of embedding journalists. Leni Reifenstahl was embedded for instance in Poland.
Amy Goodman: She's the famous German film maker.
Naomi Wolf: I mean if you look at the sequence of Hitler descending in an airplane and in Leni Reifenstahl's famous Triumph of the Will and being greeted by the uniformly armed para-military surrounding their leader and he's saying, 'Help us accomplish our mission' and then you look at other famous images from this administration --
Amy Goodman: Like George Bush on "Mission Accomplished."
Naomi Wolf: Accomplished." Exactly. You look at how Hitler said 'We have to invade Czecholslavakia, they're a staging ground for terrorists and they're abusing their ethnic minorities' -- again, a country that we're not at war with; when the WMD charge vanished, the White House said we have to invade Iraq 'staging ground for terrorists and they're abusing their ethnic minorities' -- on and on and on.
In her latest column (changing the topic), Goodman wonders about the shame factor involved in the Democratic Party using torture czar Ricardo Sanchez to deliver their radio address last Saturday. This Sunday on RadioNation with Laura Flanders, the program broadcasts a June discussion on the Constitution and national security under Bully Boy featuring Slate's Dahlia Lithwick, John Nichols and David Cole.
iraq
jeremy hinzmanbrandon hughey
phil mcdowell
cindy sheehan
richard perez penathe new york timeseric boehlertmcclatchy newspapersleila fadel
guy charron
naomi wolf
democracy now
amy goodman
iraq veterans against the war
AMY GOODMAN: Today, we're joined by a special guest who has just written a book. The United States is on the road to becoming a fascist society, right under our very noses. That's the premise of the new book by feminist social critic Naomi Wolf. It's called The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, and it's already on the New York Times bestseller list.
Naomi Wolf outlines what she sees as the ten steps to shut down a democratic society. She argues the Bush administration has already implemented many of these steps. Naomi Wolf is the author of several books, including the '90s feminist classic, The Beauty Myth.
Critics describe her latest book, The End of America, as a wake-up call to Americans to heed the lessons of history and fight to save their democracy before its too late.
Naomi Wolf joins us in our firehouse studio. Welcome to Democracy Now!
NAOMI WOLF: Thank you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Start off with the stories that you tell in your book.
NAOMI WOLF: Well, they're the stories of societies that were systematically closed down by would-be despots, would-be dictators, whether they were on the left or the right, who essentially developed a blueprint in the first part of the twentieth century to crush democracies or to crush democracy movements. So they're also individual stories of how people react as a democracy is being closed down.
But I guess the book really began with a very personal story, because I was forced to write it, even though I didn’t really want to, by a dear friend who is a Holocaust survivor’s daughter. And when we spoke about news events, she kept saying, "They did this in Germany. They did this in Germany." And I really didn't think that made sense. I thought that was very extreme language. But finally she forced me to sit down and start reading the histories, of course, not of the later years, because she wasn’t talking about German outcomes, '38, '39; she was talking about the early years, 1930, '31, '32, when Germany was a parliamentary democracy, and there was this systematic assault using the rule of law to subvert the rule of law.
And once I saw how many parallels there were, not just in strategy and tactics that we’re seeing again today, but actually in images and sound bites and language, then I read other histories of Italy in the '20s, Russia in the '30s, East Germany in the '50s, Czechoslovakia in the '60s, Pinochet's coup in Chile in '73, the crushing of the democracy movement in China at the end of the ’80s. And I saw that there is a blueprint that would-be dictators always do the same ten things, whether they’re on the left or the right, and that we are seeing these ten steps taking place systematically right now in the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: Lay them out.
NAOMI WOLF: Well, they're not happy. The first step is that all would-be dictators or would-be despots, which is what the founders of our country who foresaw exactly this kind of possibility would call them -- all would-be dictators invoke a terrifying internal and external threat. And often it's a real threat, which they will hype or manipulate. For instance, Stalin spoke about sleeper cells, which is one of those phrases that are being recirculated now by the Bush White House. And this was an invention. He said there were capitalist secret agents who were hiding among good Soviet citizens and who are going to rise up at a signal and create terrorist mayhem -- fake story, but it worked to frighten citizens.
Pinochet talked about a real threat: armed insurgents. There were armed insurgents, but he hyped it using fake documents. And we saw -- we see this a lot in the historical blueprint, that a would-be dictator will fake documents. His were called Plan Z. He claimed they were going to bomb infrastructure, assassinate leaders. We saw fake documents used by the White House to hype of a terror threat when they used the fake yellowcake documents to claim that Iraq was trying to secure yellowcake uranium. And remember the famous sound bite -- "We can't wait for the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud" -- to drive us into an illegal war with a nation we were not at war with.
AMY GOODMAN: You also talk about the language, like the Department of Homeland Security.
NAOMI WOLF: That is where I, as a social critic and a student of language, get really scared. It’s scary enough to see these ten steps, but what is terrifying to me personally is how many actual phrases are being recycled, and tactics. "Homeland security" -- "heimat" -- became popularized by the National Socialists. Goebbels developed the practice of embedding journalists. Leni von Riefenstahl was embedded, for instance, in Poland. And we’re seeing embedded --
You'll see some of it in the snapshot at the end and that's what I wanted to talk about. We were listening, Ava, C.I. and I, to Democracy Now! in the car and thinking, "We're going to be on campus before this interview ends" (which we were, there were about two minutes left of the interview that we missed). But it went in the snapshot today and that was really interesting. I see the snapshot dictated all the time. (I'm back on the road with Ava and C.I. again this week speaking to groups about Iraq.) But C.I. had a friend fax the PEJ journalist survey report to one of the college's and we were all starving. We'd done one group after another all day (Ava and C.I. are speaking right now but I was wiped out) and grabbed one on the fly in what was supposed to be the designated lunch period (a young woman said her boyfriend really cares about ending the illegal war and is always griping that no one ever comes to speak to them because they're frat boys -- so we used our lunch to do a talk at a frat house this afternoon). We ended up grabbing pizza (black olives, green olives, mushrooms, bell peppers and onions, if anyone's wondering) and C.I. starts dictating the snapshot. This is the first chance C.I.'s had to look at the survey of reporters and a friend had noted the PSA on war resisters so suddenly there were three things that had to go in, the survey, the PSA and Naomi Wolf's appearance. So C.I.'s working on that with one phone and using the other cell to check messages (some of which are included in the snapshot). C.I.'s doing the report from first glances in like 3 minutes. I thought that was amazing. C.I. would say, "Go back to the third sentence that ended with ___ and add this after." And there's this series of paragraphs on the report (including when C.I. says something like "Oh wait, we will talk about this . . .") that really summarizes the report (I've read it now). Time is up (and Ava and I have gobbled down the pizza. C.I.'s had one slice that keeps going towards the mouth but never makes it in due to dictating). C.I. says, "Okay, just pull ___ and ___ from the transcript of the interview with Amy Goodman and I'll do a generic sentence before it, after it, Laura Flanders' show needs to be mentioned and she's . . ." C.I. stops. "There's no transcript?" The transcript wasn't posted.
"Okay," C.I. says, "here's the line before the excerpt --" and then after that, C.I. takes a deep breath, stares off into space for about 20 seconds and starts doing the interview excerpt. From memory. You can see how closely it matches up (real close). I was just amazed. I looked over and Ava was as well. We tried to say so after but C.I. was all, "I'm sure I messed up every other sentence."
The other thing on the snapshot, the only time I interupted, the UN report on the Iraqi refugees does mention that Syria's cancelling visas -- like I noted last night -- and I was going, "Put that in!" I wanted it in with a "as I was saying . . ." but it didn't make it in. I noted it last night and noted C.I. had told me about the cancellation. So let me give credit to C.I. or it won't get credited. (Though I'm sure we'll read it at ____ in an ____ ____ in a few week's time, without credit.)
This is from Bruce Dixon's "Top Ten Reasons to Suspect 'Save Darfur' is a PR Scam to Justify US Military Intervention in African" (Black Agenda Report):
The regular manufacture and the constant maintenance of false realities in the service of American empire is a core function of the public relations profession and the corporate news media. Whether it's fake news stories about wonder drugs and how toxic chemicals are good for you, bribed commentators and journalists discoursing on the benefits of No Child Left Behind, Hollywood stars advocating military intervention to save African orphans, or slick propaganda campaigns employing viral marketing techniques to reach out to college students, bloggers, churches and ordinary citizens, it pays to take a close look behind the facade.
Among the latest false realities being pushed upon the American people are the simplistic pictures of Black vs. Arab genocide in Darfur, and the proposed solution: a robust US-backed or US-led military intervention in Western Sudan. Increasing scrutiny is being focused upon the “Save Darfur” lobby and the Save Darfur Coalition; upon its founders, its finances, its methods and motivations and its truthfulness. In the spirit of furthering that examination we here present ten reasons to suspect that the "Save Darfur" campaign is a PR scam to justify US intervention in Africa.
1. It wouldn't be the first Big Lie our government and media elite told us to justify a war.
Elders among us can recall the Tonkin Gulf Incident, which the US government deliberately provoked to justify initiation of the war in Vietnam. This rationale was quickly succeeded by the need to help the struggling infant "democracy" in South Vietnam, and the still useful "fight 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here" nonsense. More recently the bombings, invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have been variously explained by people on the public payroll as necessary to "get Bin Laden" as revenge for 9-11, as measures to take "the world's most dangerous weapons" from the hands of "the world's most dangerous regimes", as measures to enable the struggling Iraqi "democracy" stand on its own two feet, and necessary because it's still better to "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here".
2. It wouldn't even be the first time the U.S. government and media elite employed "genocide prevention" as a rationale for military intervention in an oil-rich region.
The 1995 US and NATO military intervention in Kosovo was supposedly a "peacekeeping" operation to stop a genocide. The lasting result of that campaign is Camp Bondsteel, one of the largest military bases on the planet. The U.S. is practically the only country in the world that maintains military bases outside its own borders. At just under a thousand acres, Camp Bondsteel offers the US military the ability to pre-position large quantities of equipment and supplies within striking distance of Caspian oil fields, pipeline routes and relevant sea lanes. It is also widely believed to be the site of one of the US's secret prison and torture facilities.
3. If stopping genocide in Africa really was on the agenda, why the focus on Sudan with 200,000 to 400,000 dead rather than Congo with five million dead?
“The notion that a quarter million Darfuri dead are a genocide and five million dead Congolese are not is vicious and absurd," according to Congolese activist Nita Evele. "What's happened and what is still happening in Congo is not a tribal conflict and it's not a civil war. It is an invasion. It is a genocide with a death toll of five million, twenty times that of Darfur, conducted for the purpose of plundering Congolese mineral and natural resources."
More than anything else, the selective and cynical application of the term "genocide" to Sudan, rather than to the Congo where ten to twenty times as many Africans have been murdered reveals the depth of hypocrisy around the "Save Darfur" movement. In the Congo, where local gangsters, mercenaries and warlords along with invading armies from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Angola engage in slaughter, mass rape and regional depopulation on a scale that dwarfs anything happening in Sudan, all the players eagerly compete to guarantee that the extraction of vital coltan for Western computers and cell phones, the export of uranium for Western reactors and nukes, along with diamonds, gold, copper, timber and other Congolese resources continue undisturbed.
Former UN Ambassador Andrew Young and George H.W. Bush both serve on the board of Barrcik Gold, one of the largest and most active mining concerns in war-torn Congo. Evidently, with profits from the brutal extraction of Congolese wealth flowing to the West, there can be no Congolese "genocide" worth noting, much less interfering with. For their purposes, U.S. strategic planners may regard their Congolese model as the ideal means of capturing African wealth at minimal cost without the bother of official U.S. boots on the ground.
4. It's all about Sudanese oil.
Sudan, and the Darfur region in particular, sit atop a lake of oil. But Sudanese oil fields are not being developed and drilled by Exxon or Chevron or British Petroleum. Chinese banks, oil and construction firms are making the loans, drilling the wells, laying the pipelines to take Sudanese oil where they intend it to go, calling far too many shots for a twenty-first century in which the U.S. aspires to control the planet's energy supplies. A U.S. and NATO military intervention will solve that problem for U.S. planners.
5. It's all about Sudanese uranium, gum arabic and other natural resources.
Uranium is vital to the nuclear weapons industry and an essential fuel for nuclear reactors. Sudan possesses high quality deposits of uranium. Gum arabic is an essential ingredient in pharmaceuticals, candies and beverages like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and Sudanese exports of this commodity are 80% of the world's supply. When comprehensive U.S. sanctions against the Sudanese regime were being considered in 1997, industry lobbyists stepped up and secured an exemption in the sanctions bill to guarantee their supplies of this valuable Sudanese commodity. But an in-country U.S. and NATO military presence is a more secure guarantee that the extraction of Sudanese resources, like those of the Congo, flow westward to the U.S. and the European Union.
The frat house, by the way, really turned out to be a great meet up on Iraq. I didn't think it would be. Ava and C.I. were all for it, they'll go anywhere. But I did have an Animal House-type fear. Twenty guys got involved and it was a very lively discussion about the illegal war, how it's being sold and what can be done.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
November 28, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces a mass wounding of US soldiers, a new survey of US journalists in Iraq provides a lot of answers, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Following the refusal of the Canadian Supreme Cour to hear the appeals of US war resisters Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey, the best road to legal recognition appears to be the Canadian Parliament. The War Resisters Support Campaign has a two minute and forty-six seconds video PSA on the situation.
In 2003, the Liberal government upheld international law and refused to join the war in Iraq.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien
Iraq war debate -- March 17, 2003
Chretien: If military action proceeds without a new resultion of the [United Nations] Security Council, Canada will not participate.
[Applause. Standing ovation.]
Since 2004, dozens of U.S. soldiers have left the military and come to Canada.
These soldiers have come to Canada because they oppose the war in Iraq.
They need a provision from the Canadian government to let them stay.
US War Resister Justin Colby: My name is Justin Colby. I was a specialist in the United States Army. I served for three years. I spent one year in Ar Ramadi, Iraq. I joined the army after 9-11 and I left the army after my year in Iraq, before my unit was going to go back. And I left because Iraq never attacked the United States and the things that we did there led me to believe that we weren't defending our country.
On November 15th, 2007, the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeals of U.S. war resisters.
As a result, U.S. war resisters living in Canada face deportation back to the U.S.
If deported, they face imprisonmnet, or even deployment back to Iraq.
US War Resister Kimberly Rivera: I'm Kimbely Rivera. I served three months in Iraq and I'm here with my family.
A 2007 poll found that 64.6% of Ontario voters and 71% of Liberal voters want U.S. war resisters to stay in Canada.
US War Resister Phil McDowell: My name is Phil McDowell. I'm a former sergeant in the United States Army. I joined the army after September the 11th. I served a one-year tour in Iraq from 2004 to 2005. During my tour I realized that the war was unjust and illegal and the reasons for the invasion were lies. After completing my contractual agreement with the army, I was called back into service for another fifteen-month tour. At that time, I refused to deploy, moved to Canada because I believed I'd be able to stay here. We're asking Liberals to support a provision that would allow Iraq War Resisters to remain in Canada.
U.S. war resisters need the support of the Liberal Party to live in Canada.
War Resisters Support Campaign
http://www.resisters.ca/
Cindy Sheehan (OpEdNews) urges people to utilize Courage to Resist's easy to mail or e-mail resources to allow the Canadian government to know you are watching and to support organizations supporting war resisters as well as supporting war resisters:
Support actual war resisters in Canada by sending them expense money. From my friend Ryan (I gave him and his wife money to get to Canada over two years ago):
In light of the recent Supreme Court denial in Canada, I (Ryan Johnson), My wife (Jen Johnson) and Brandon Hughey need help raising funds to travel to Ottawa to attend hearings before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, where War Resisters will be giving Testimony to the committee. At these hearings the committee will be deciding on whether or not to make a provision to allow war resisters to stay in Canada. This is one of our last chances to be able to continue living in Canada. We will be leaving December 7th because the hearings are December 11th, 2007 so we need to act fast. They may try to send guys back soon and we need to have a strong War Resister Presence. We appreciate all of the support and Want to thank all of you who can help.
Checks/money orders can be sent for Ryan, Jen and Brandon to:312 Tower RdNelson, BC V1L3K6
L-girl (We move to canada) blogs, "I know I've been belabouring the war and war resisters lately, but as I've said elsewhere, this blog reflects what's on my mind. I'm so disgusted, enraged, heartsick, horrified -- got any words? -- at what's going on in Iraq, at how veterans are being treated in the US, at how ordinary citizens are being treated in the US. Wmtc is a chance to vent that, and maybe bring some items to your attention that you haven't seen." And who wouldn't be horrified? The illegal war started -- over international opposition -- and continues. War resisters who have taken a stand and said "no" need support. As Guy Charron (WSWS) observes, "The war has, moreover, resulted in untold violence and countless atrocities. According to studies by reputable agencies, the war and the accompanying destruction of Iraq society have caused the death of over one million Iraqis and the flight of millions of people from their homes and Iraq altogether. If the Canadian government intervened in the Hinzman and Hughey cases to prevent their raising the illegality of the war, it wasn't just to save the Bush administration from embarrassment. Ottawa feared Canada would become a haven for 'war resisters' and a pole of resistance to the war. Given a different decision on Hinzman's and Hughey's refugee claim, thousands more might well have joined them."
If you are in Canada, you can utilize the contact info at War Resisters Support Campaign to let members of the Canadian Parliament know you support legislation allowing war resisters to stay in Canada. If you are in the United States (or elsewhere), you can utilize the contact info and/or forum at Courage to Resist. Public outcry didn't stop the illegal war from starting and public opposition has yet to end it. War resisters in Canada who have gone public are putting a great deal on the line. Use the links to show your support for them.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
The voice of war resister Camilo Mejia is featured in Rebel Voices -- playing now through December 16th at Culture Project and based on Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's best-selling book Voices of a People's History of the United States. It features dramatic readings of historical voices such as war resister Mejia, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, Malcom X and others will be featured. Musician Allison Mooerer will head the permanent cast while those confirmed to be performing on selected nights are Ally Sheedy (actress and poet, best known for films such as High Art, The Breakfast Club, Maid to Order, the two Short Circuit films, St. Elmo's Fire, War Games, and, along with Nicky Katt, has good buzz on the forthcoming Harold), Eve Ensler who wrote the theater classic The Vagina Monologues (no, it's not too soon to call that a classic), actor David Strathaim (L.A. Confidential, The Firm, Bob Roberts, Dolores Claiborne and The Bourne Ultimatum), actor and playwright Wallace Shawn (The Princess Bride, Clueless -- film and TV series, Gregory and Chicken Little), actress Lili Taylor (Dogfight, Shortcuts, Say Anything, Household Saints, I Shot Andy Warhol, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, State of Mind) and actor, director and activist Danny Glover (The Color Purple, Beloved, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Rainmaker, Places In The Heart, Dreamgirls, Shooter and who recently appeared on Democracy Now! addressing the US militarization of Africa) The directors are Will Pomerantz and Rob Urbinati with Urbinati collaborating with Zinn and Arnove on the play. Tickets are $21 for previews and $41 for regular performances (beginning with the Nov. 18th opening night). The theater is located at 55 Mercer Street and tickets can be purchased there, over the phone (212-352-3101) or online here and here. More information can be found at Culture Project.
Meanwhile IVAW is organizing a March 2008 DC event:
In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.
Over three days in January, these soldiers testified on the systematic brutality they had seen visited upon the people of Vietnam. They called it the Winter Soldier investigation, after Thomas Paine's famous admonishing of the "summer soldier" who shirks his duty during difficult times. In a time of war and lies, the veterans who gathered in Detroit knew it was their duty to tell the truth.
Over thirty years later, we find ourselves faced with a new war. But the lies are the same. Once again, American troops are sinking into increasingly bloody occupations. Once again, war crimes in places like Haditha, Fallujah, and Abu Ghraib have turned the public against the war. Once again, politicians and generals are blaming "a few bad apples" instead of examining the military policies that have destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan.
Once again, our country needs Winter Soldiers.
In March of 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will gather in our nation's capital to break the silence and hold our leaders accountable for these wars. We hope you'll join us, because yours is a story that every American needs to hear.
Click here to sign a statement of support for Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan
March 13th through 15th are the dates for the Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation.
IVAW is attempting to get the truth out. The need for that is demonstrated right now by a new poll by the Pew Research Center which illustrates just how successful Operation Happy Talk can still be (especially when so few bother to counter it). Demetri Sevastopulo (Financial Times of London via MSNBC) surveys the polls results and finds a shift in Pew's figures from February -- then 30 percent of Americans surveyed said the illegal war was going well and now 47 percent say it is while 53 percent surveyed in February said bring the troops home and now that number is 54 percent. Eric Boehlert (Media Matters) examines Nightline (US' ABC network) and finds "that Nightline's interest in covering the war . . . waned. The program certainly was not alone. Most television news outlets, and the networks, in particular, have drastically cut back on the amount of airtime they now give to the war. Sometimes it appears as though the war doesn't even exist." And that's big media -- little media's no better. If you're a magazine or broadcast program -- big or small -- you should probably doing a self-check right about now because very few hands are clean and this latest poll is a reflection of what passes for coverage.
Did someone say coverage? The New York Times runs an important story on Iraq. On the front page? Stop, we're all laughing. A6 or A7? It didn't even make the news section. Richard Perez-Pena's report is entitled "Grim View of Iraq Dangers in Survey of Journalists" and runs on C5 (the business section, page five). Perez-Pena is summarizing a poll of "American journalists in Iraq" by the Project for Excellence in Journalism with most answering the survey "in October" -- considered 'less deadly'. Perez-Pena informs: "In a newly released survey, American journalists in Iraq give harrowing accounts of their work, with the great majority saying that colleagues have been kidnapped or killed and that most parts of Baghdad are too dangerous for them to visit." That was October. Where in your news coverage have you seen that indicated? What outlet? PEJ notes that they surveyed "111 journalists from 29 news organizations reporting from Iraq."
PEJ's report is entitled [PDF format warning] "Journalists in Iraq: A survey of reporters on the front lines" and opens with this paragraph:
After four years of war in Iraq, the journalists reporting from that country give their coverage a mixed but generally positive assessment, but they believe they have done a better job of covering the American military and the insurgency than they have the lives of ordinary Iraqis. And they do not believe the coverage of Iraq over time has been too negative. If anything, many believes the situation over the course of the war has been worse than the American public has perceived, according to a new survey of journalists covering the war from Iraq.
The report quotes a bureau chief stating, "Welcome to the new world of journalism, boys and girls. This is where we lost our innocence. Security teams, body armor and armored cars will forever now be pushed in between journalism and stories." They praise the embedding (get in bed with the US military) program and self-report that theyve done an "excellent" or "good" job reporting on the US military (82%). I'll bite me tongue and move on. No, actually, I won't. The New York Times is notorious among the enlisted in Iraq for blowing them off -- it's a complaint that's registered every year of the illegal war. So it's interesting to turn to page 16 of the study and see that PEJ has blown the enlisted off as well. That's really embarrassing and goes to why the coverage today sucks so bad. I'm not talking about "embedding," I am talking about journalists talking with average soldiers and anyone who covered a war zone in the past will tell you that. But PEJ also doesn't feel they are important or sources. They asked the journalists to rank their access to a group of "key sources" and there are eight listed:
1) Iraqi civilians
2) Other international diplomats/officials
3) Iraqi government officials
4) High ranking American military officers
5) American diplomats/officials
6) Iraqi sectarian leaders
7) Western private contractors
8) Iraqi terrorists/insurgents
The only military on the list are "High ranking American military officers" -- the ones the press already takes dictation from. Where are the enlisted? And how could PEJ have done a survey and not noticed that obvious flaw? 85% of the respondents have been embedded and of those who have 35% state that they were required to ask permission (from brass) "to interview soldiers." Obviously, it's far more difficult to speak to the enlisted than to a military p.r. flack with what's really an honorary title -- but don't those honorary titles look good in print. Of this embedded segment, 33% reply "yes" to the question of "Does the U.S. Military screen out reporters whose coverage of the war has been critical in the past?"
The journalists give themselves low marks (62% rated this area "fair to poor") on covering "the lives of ordinary Iraqis." It would be interesting to see a survey on earlier periods, especially on the issue of average Iraqis since in the Times' 'glory' days of Dexy and Burnsie, women didn't appear to exist in Iraq. (Sabrina Tavernise and other reporters that followed allowed Times readers to know that women did live in Iraq.) The survey finds -- remember this, "Six out of ten (63%) of the journalists surveyed say that Iraqi staffers do all or most of the street reporting outside the Green Zone."
In other findings, 62 percent say that their "editors back home" have lost interest in reports of day-to-day violence (no kidding) and the only significant increases have been in reports on contractors (79%) and "U.S. military strategy" (67%). The respondents rated the "Impact on Iraqi civilians" as the most under reported (40%) while the respondents rated "U.S. Military strategy" as the most over reported (29%).
Staying on Iraq but flashing back to the days of Judith Miller at the New York Times -- does anyone remember how Miller and Warren Hoge launched their grudge f--k against the United Nations in story after story? Miller's no longer with the paper and Hoge is on the down low. So Alan Feuer grabs duty and apparently does so without any editorial assistance which would explain how the world is learning of Texan "Farah Fawcett" for the first time. It's two r's: Farrah Fawcett. Having never heard of Farrah Fawcett, it's not all that surprising that Feuer hasn't heard of other things -- like the law. Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. received a sentence of one year and one day in prison. For what? Feuer tells you he "broke the rules of the United Nations program" -- no, he broke the law. Not a rule, a law. He bribed. He broke the law. The UN -- Miller and Hoge told you -- was the root of all corruption. Wyatt admitted his guilt and it's buried in the paper. "Act of kindess" and "he saved my life." Remember to use those two phrases when writing a judge about sentencing. They moved Wyatt's judge enough to show the felon mercy. (Fawcett was among those writing the judge asking for mercy -- for those wondering how she comes into the story.)
Not a lot of mercy in Iraq. Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) notes, "For the second day in a row, U.S. soldiers on Tuesday killed Iraqi civilians when they fired on a vehicle that they thought was a threat, the U.S. military said." Damien Cave (New York Times) offers, "The shootings by soldiers appear to receive less attention from Iraqi officials because, unlike contractors, whose legal situation remains murky, American soldiers are subject to military laws." They also receive less attention because they're rarely reported and when they are reported, there's an effort to explain them away -- even when it's the case of Iraqi children and women being shot in their own homes. Of the US military's apologies, Fadel quotes Saad Abdul Wahid asking, "Is sorry enough to bring back our friends to life? They keep making their mistakes day by day and we are paying too much." Meanwhile an Iraqi correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers shared this event at Inside Iraq on Tuesday, "Yesterday noon, an American squad from the United State Army (about ten to twelve) broke in Al-Mansour preparatory school for one reason or another. We don't have the right to ask them why they came to the school. The soldiers spread in different spots of the school walking towards the back yard which is used as a soccer field. Most of the students were in their classes when the squad came, but still there were many students in the yard who were terrified to see the American soldiers with their guns. One of the students was upset to see the soldiers and he threw a stone and hit one of them. Three soldiers surrounded him kicking him with their boots for some minutes on different parts of his body."
Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing wounded three civilians and another one that wounded "two soldiers and one civilian."
Shootings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports "4 bodyguards of state minister for tribal affairs were wounded" in a clash with the Iraqi military in Baghdad while Muhaned Mekhlif was shot dead "in Al Hawija west of Kirkuk." Reuters notes that 4 people were shot dead by Iraqi soldiers because they were 'suspected insurgents' (or that's what the Iraqi Defence Ministry states) and that 27 people were arrested. The US military announced: "A female suicide bomber detonated an explosive laden suicide-vest, wounding seven U.S. Soldiers and five Iraqi citizens in Baqubah, Nov. 27."
Corpses?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
Today the UNHCR released a brief report on the returning refugees. Someone get a copy to CBS and AP who flat out lie ("More Iraqi refugees, heartened by reports of the lull in violence in Baghdad, were beginning to return"). Though Damien Cave has reported on the refugees being bussed in bought, CBS and AP play dumb there as well. (It is playing, right?) Reality from the UNHCR: approximately 800 left Syria for Baghdad on approximately 15 buses provided by the central (puppet) government in Iraq (no word on how much they were paid to return) and -- pay attention CBS and AP -- "most said they were going back to Iraq because they had run out of money and could no longer afford to stay in Syria, which is hosting more than 1.4 million Iraqi refugees." The UNHCR's figures find that the tiny trickle of returnees is composed of 14% returning due to the 'safety' myths and 70% returning "because of tougher visa regulations and because they are not allowed to work and can no longer afford to stay in Syria." Get it yet?
On Democracy Now! today, Naomi Wolf discussed her new book The End of America: Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot. She outlined the ten signs when an open society closes and becomes a fascist state and why Americans need to pay attention to. Picking up the discussion at Iraq:
Naomi Wolf: . . . they used the fake yellow-cake documents to argue that Iraq was trying to secure yellow-cake uranium and remember the famous soundbye, 'We can't wait for the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud' to drive us into an illegal war with a nation we were not at war with.
Amy Goodman: You also talk about the language like the Department of Homeland Security.
Naomi Wolf: That is where I, as a social critic and student of language, get really scared. It's scary enough to see these ten steps but what is terrifying to me personally is how many actual phrases are being recycle and tactics. Homland security [the German phrase] "heimat" became popularized by the National Socialists [NAZIs]. Goebbels developed the practice of embedding journalists. Leni Reifenstahl was embedded for instance in Poland.
Amy Goodman: She's the famous German film maker.
Naomi Wolf: I mean if you look at the sequence of Hitler descending in an airplane and in Leni Reifenstahl's famous Triumph of the Will and being greeted by the uniformly armed para-military surrounding their leader and he's saying, 'Help us accomplish our mission' and then you look at other famous images from this administration --
Amy Goodman: Like George Bush on "Mission Accomplished."
Naomi Wolf: Accomplished." Exactly. You look at how Hitler said 'We have to invade Czecholslavakia, they're a staging ground for terrorists and they're abusing their ethnic minorities' -- again, a country that we're not at war with; when the WMD charge vanished, the White House said we have to invade Iraq 'staging ground for terrorists and they're abusing their ethnic minorities' -- on and on and on.
In her latest column (changing the topic), Goodman wonders about the shame factor involved in the Democratic Party using torture czar Ricardo Sanchez to deliver their radio address last Saturday. This Sunday on RadioNation with Laura Flanders, the program broadcasts a June discussion on the Constitution and national security under Bully Boy featuring Slate's Dahlia Lithwick, John Nichols and David Cole.
iraq
jeremy hinzmanbrandon hughey
phil mcdowell
cindy sheehan
richard perez penathe new york timeseric boehlertmcclatchy newspapersleila fadel
guy charron
naomi wolf
democracy now
amy goodman
iraq veterans against the war
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)