I saw Jodie Evans (of CODEPINK) had a column up at Common Dreams and thought, "Great! I can highlight that!" Then I read it. Read the excerpt from "Don't Buy Bush's War" and see if you can figure out my problem before I tell you:
Over the past year, millions of U.S. citizens have voted, lobbied, marched, and taken direct action to end the war in Iraq. Courageous soldiers, such as members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, have taken the risk to speak out. Yet Congress continues to appropriate billions of dollars for the war.
How do we up the ante of resistance? It is time for taxpayers who oppose this war to join together in nonviolent civil disobedience and show Congress how to cut off the funds for this war and redirect resources to the pressing needs of people. Chris Hedges wrote in The Nation, "I will not pay my income tax if we go to war with Iran... I will go to court to challenge the legality of the war."
No, it's not that Hedges probably wrote that for Truthdig and The Nation reposted it. It's the whole bullsh*t of that stance.
I'm not recommending anyone don't pay taxes. That's an individual decision. Many people are protesting that way currently and have in past wars as well. But that's the sort of decision you have to make for yourself.
But I love the whole "Please Walk Over Me!" cry of it all. If you go to war with Iran, I'm not paying my taxes!
Isn't Joe Biden getting criticized for saying he'll support impeachment . . . if Bully Boy goes to war with Iran? (Yes, he is.)
If Hedges thinks not paying taxes is the way to go then, what the hell is stopping him now?
In fact, all gas bags, spare us your talk of what you will do. Save the 'if . . . then . . .' lectures because who gives a flying f**k? I know I don't.
I know an illegal war is going on in Iraq.
I support CODEPINK but one of the things I do not support, even when CODEPINK does it, is defocusing from reality. CODEPINK, like many other organizations has run Iran alerts and other items. There is no war with Iran. There may be one. But the Iraq War is ongoing. I think it diverts time and attention from a very real war to start steering people to a possible war -- that we've been told was coming since 2004.
You might have thought the release of the NIE would allow everyone to stop half-focusing on Iraq and half-focusing on Iran and actually get focused on ending this illegal war but you would be wrong.
I'm sick of it.
There is no war with Iran. There is a war with Iraq. Let's focus on reality. It's one thing to keep an eye open to what might come. It's another thing to make it a focus. I don't rate CODEPINK as high in 2007 as I did in 2006 and one of the reasons is this scatter-shot focus. And praising Hedges because he MIGHT not pay his taxes to protest if a war with Iran STARTS is just beyond silly. And let's not forget that Hedges has Iraqi blood on his hands. People don't like it when that's pointed out. But it wasn't just Judith Miller. And Hedges, in October of 2001, provided a (false) 9-11 link to Iraq in a really bad story that ran on the front page of the New York Times and was amplified by PBS which cooperated with the Times to amplify the story on TV. So Hedges, if you think not paying your taxes is the way to go, as someone who instantly started selling war on Iraq, get off your ass and do something now. Mother Jones exposed that one of the sources was a phoney. There's a second source (according to the article Hedges co-wrote) but we're all supposed to pretend there wasn't a second source and we're all supposed to pretend Chris Hedges didn't co-write that article.
So there's Jodie saying "Don't Buy Bush's War" and she apparently means Iran. Did she miss the fact that the Iraq War is being resold? It seems most have missed that. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of their cries of "Stop the Iran War!" -- a war that hasn't started. What a bunch of defocused, scatter-shot, running around like chickens with their heads cut off the left has become.
Again, I saw Jodie Evans' name and thought, "Oh, good! Something I can highlight." And then I read it.
Okay, there's a Brooklyn group called The Ballet that Ruth and Rebecca have freaked over one song of. Rebecca burned me a copy of the song "I Hate The War" on disc. (If there's a CD, let me know. I'll gladly buy it.) The song was featured Monday on WBAI's Out-FM.
It's over I'm done
Writing songs about love
There's a war going on so
I'm holding my gun
With a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na
I hate the war
[. . .]
What I'm trying to say is
It's time to get in the way
It's crazy that this day is still going on
I can't believe this day is still going on
And it goes
Na, na, na, na, na, na
I hate the war
Na, na, na, na, na, na
I hate the war
Na, na, na, na, na, na
I hate the war
. . .
You have to hear the music and the vocal. It's an amazing song. But it also needs to be noted, it says more about the illegal war than most of the left has in the last few months. If you know anything about the group The Ballet or that the CD is available, e-mail me at common_ills@yahoo.com and put "Kat, The Ballet" in the title.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, December 14, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces deaths, the refugee crisis has new news, Nancy Pelosi tries a stand-up career and more.
Starting with war resistance, the War Resisters Support Campaign works to assist individual resisters in Canada and to fight for the rights of asylum of war resisters. They are calling for a national mobilization in Canada on January 26th. Courage to Resist is calling on people in the US to call the Canadian consulates in the US on January 24th and January 25th as well as to mobilize and with actions and vigils. Actions can take place around the world at Canadian consulates in every country.
In terms of e-mailing, where the pressure needs to be currently is on the these three:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. Brave stands need to be supported.
US war resister Aidan Delgado received CO status and was discharged. He shares his story in The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib: Notes From A Conscientious Objector In Iraq which Forbes offered a book excerpt of after Thanksgiving:
In a larger sense, what happened to me in Iraq is completely irrelevant. The sights, the sounds, the tastes are all just curiosities that I present in an effort to paint the picture. I could give you an endless series of vignettes: what Iraq looked like, what we ate, the interesting characters in my unit, but it would all be meaningless. If you want to read about daring military exploits, there are many authors with stories more dashing than mine. It would be vain and empty merely to chronicle what happened to me, as if I were somehow so important that you needed to hear every event of my life in excruciating detail. I am not telling parlor stories.
I wrote this book because I want to share a lesson I learned in the desert, in the hope that it will inform your view of the war in Iraq, of politics, of religion, of all the choices you make as a moral person. I can't bear to hear any more stories about battles and uncompromising heroes, with flags waving gently in the background. I want this book to serve as a hanging question about what it means to be an ethical soldier, to live an honest life. I want to give you a military life in shades of gray, filled with doubt, moral courage and moral cowardice.
Delgado's book (and other books, DVDs, CDs, clothing, etc.) can be purchased via Courage to Resist (as well as at bookstores) and part of the proceeds will go towards helping the organization working to end the illegal war.
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 Sunday December 16th at Culture Project -- this is your LAST WEEKEND to catch it -- 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 $41.. 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.
Starting with legal news. Delano Holmes was sentenced today. For? Killing Iraqi soldier Munther Jasem Muhammed Hassin by repeatedly stabbing him over forty times. Lance Cpl. Delano Holmes then, after Hassin was dead, fired Hassin's gun. As Rick Rogers (San Diego Union-Tribune) notes, Holmes declared on video that, "I picked up (Hassin's) AK and fired it, as to give myself a way out ... for getting into it with this Iraqi soldier." The court-martial was a joke as was the sentencing. Holmes had a high school teacher, a foster parent and others there to speak of his good character. Where were the people speaking for the dead Hassin? Had the court-martial been held in Iraq, since Hassin was an Iraqi soldier, there might have been people who grew up with him and/or trained with him who could vouch for his character. Since the defense (and to a degree the prosecution) dependent solely on the account of Holmes as to what happened (the defense attempted to argue a fight broke out over a lit cigarette and a cellphone), it might have been relevant to know whether or not Hassin was prone to engaging fights let alone (as the defense maintained) starting them. But for that to happen, the court-martial would have had to take place in Iraq. Since the crime took place in Iraq (Falluja), the court-martial should have as well. AP reports that yesterday Holmes was found guilty "of negligent homicide" but not of "unpremeditated homicide." AP also notes the prosecution's statement regarding the alleged fight Holmes stated had ensued: "Not a scratch. Not a blemish. . . . There is not a mark on him. There is no self-defense. There can be lawful killins during a time of war. This is not a lawful killing." Despite being found guilty of two charges, NBC's KNSD reports Holmes will receive no jail time -- receiving 'credit' instead for the 10 months he was held in custody leading up to the court-martial. What 'credit' does the dead Hassin receive? Or is that life less important? Other 'punishments' for Holmes include being busted down from Lance Cpl. to private and receiving "a bad-conduct discharge." So this is 'justice' -- kill an Iraqi and the time you're jailed before the trial will count as time-served and you won't receive any additional time. Hassin is dead. No one stood up at the sentencing for Hassin. No one offered stories of what he was like as a child, no religious figure stepped forward to vouch for his good soul. Considering that the court-martial took place in California and that California has been one of the leaders in the US on allowing the families of victims to speak at sentencings, that's offensive on every level imaginable. Rick Rogers (San Diego Union-Tribune) reports, "'Wow,' Maj. Christopher Shaw, a prosecutor, said under his breath when the sentence was read in a courtroom at Camp Pendleton." Wow indeed. Rob Schneider (Indianapolis Star) notes the maximum prison sentence Holmes could have received was 8 years. Instead, he received no prison time. Hassin, however, remains dead.
In other justice or 'justice' news, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) reports, "The Justice Department has announced the FBI is investigating the top official overseeing corruption and abuse in the US-led reconstruction of Iraq. Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuwart Bowen is under suspicion for a series of improprieties including tampering with employee emails. Bowen's investigations have indicted several American officials on corruption charges, documented wasteful and inept work by large contractors and found the Pentagon did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons given to Iraqi troops. The Bush administration tried to close down his office last year but backed off following Congressional opposition." Robin Wright (Washington Post) notes a number of allegations against Bowen in particular and the office in general and by the time it gets down to "Cruz threatened to put hexes on employees," readers may be skeptical whether this is an investigation or the sort of thing used by Republicans before -- see Robert Parry's Secrecy & Privilege or read articles at Consortium News such as "Rise of the 'Patriotic Journalist':" "Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, a Republican, also encountered press hostility when his investigation finally broke through the White House cover-up in 1001. Moon's Washington Times routinely lambasted Walsh and his staff over minor issues, such as the elderly Walsh flying first class on airplanes or odering room-service meals."
Parry reports most recently on the latest wave of biometrics in Iraq which will further the targeting of Iraqis by making mobile labs which, no, do not determine guilt or innocent but may lead to more 'suspects' dying. Parry notes, "In effect, the Bush administration is transforming Iraq into a test tube for modern techniques of repression, which already include use of night-vision optics on drone aircraft, heat resonance imaging, and firepower that is both deadly and precise. The new techniques represent a modernization of tactics used in other counterinsurgencies, such as in Vietnam in the 1960s and in Central America in the 1980s. . . . The U.S. news media mostly has reacted to these developments with gee-whiz enthusiasm, like the [Washington] Post story about [Anh] Duong, which breezily depicts her complicated life as a devoted mom whose personal history as a Vietnamese refugee led her to a career developing sophisticated weapons for the U.S. government. The Post feature article expressed no alarm and no criticism of Duong's comment about shooting Iraqi suspects 'on the spot'."
Turning to the issue of Iraqi refugees, John Ross joins Robert Parry in calling out the lies of Operation Happy Talk. Writing at CounterPunch, Ross notes that the latest waves roll out as primaries approach "the usual unholy alliance of Bushites, Democrats and Big media . . . doing their damndest to skam a skeptical electorate into swallowing the lie that the surge has worked, the drawdown has begun, and the war in Iraq is just about over. . . . All this happy talk gets Bush and the Republicans off the hook for an overwhelmingly unpopular war just in time for the U.S. presidential election season. It also means that the Democrats won't have to defend their half-hearted call for withdrawal and risk being tarred as traitors on the 24 House news cycle."
Will come back to the Congress in a bit, but staying on Iraqi refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Office issues the latest findings of their studies of Iraqi refugees in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Most are living on savings and assistance from relatives with UNHCR's Jennifer Pagonis explaining, "33 percent say their financial resources will last for three months or less, while 24 percent are relying on remittances from family abroad to survive." Significant numbers are suffering from illnesses and lack of medication due to money issues while 10% of Iraqi children are working. Meanwhile the UN's IRIN reports that "Jordan is now demanding that Iraqis wishing to enter the kingdom first secure entry visas, the official Jordanian news agency Petra said on 11 December." The most recent edition of RCRC The Magazine of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement notes, "In the largest population movement in the Middle East since 1948, a huge influx of Iraqis is putting pressure on services in Jordan and Syria. . . . Security in Iraq has deteriorated to such an unprecedented level, due to the international armed conflict that began in 2003 and internal fighting, that many Iraqis find it nearly impossible to live in their own country. The result is that an estimated 4.2 million Iraqis have left their homes, the largest population movement in the Middle East since more than 800,000 Palestinians fled to neighbouring countries in 1948, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)."
From harsh reality to comedy, on yesterday's PBS' NewsHour US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was yucking it up:
GWEN IFILL: I want to point out to you -- I'm sure you've seen them -- page one of today's Capitol Hill newspapers, "Dems Cave," another ones says, "Democrats set to cave on Iraq, on the budget." What do you say to people who call this a cave-in Democratic Congress?REP. NANCY PELOSI: Well, I guess they're trying to sell papers, but the fact is, is that I will never confine the hopes, aspirations of the American people, as reflected in the legislation of the House of Representatives, to what the president of the United States, George W. Bush, will sign.We set a high watermark. We negotiate. We compete. We debate for our position to be held. And I'm pleased that, when we come out of this process, our priorities will be largely intact. It won't be funded to the levels that we want, but I'll never start at the president's bottom line. We'll always start at a high watermark.Her leadership started on a "high watermark"? How very, very, very sad that is considered a personal high. The Democrats refuse to 'compete' and refuse to force a vote on Iraq every day. This isn't new or novel. The May 22nd snapshot noted the following:
Meanwhile James Ridgeway (Mother Jones via Common Dreams) explores the presidential campaign of Mike Gravel who tells Ridgeway, "What we need to do [on Iraq] is to create a constitutional confrontation between the Congress and the president. Most people have forgotten the Congress is more powerful than the president. . . The Democrats have the votes in the House to pass it. In the Senate, they will filibuster it. Fine. The Majority Leader starts a cloture vote the first day. Fails to get cloture. Fine. The next day -- another vote on cloture. And the next day, and the next day, Saturdays and Sundays, no vacation -- vote every single day. The dynamic is that now you give people enough time to weigh in and put pressure on those voting against cloture. . . . I would guess in 15 to 20 days you would have cloture and the bill would pass and go to the president. He would veto it. Wonderful. It comes back to the House and Senate. Normal thing is to try to override and fail. No guts. No leadership. So in the House and Senate. Normal thing is to try to override and fail. No guts. No leadership. So in the House and Senate every day at noon, you have a vote to override the veto. The Democrats are the leaders -- they control the calendar. It only takes half an hour to have these votes."
That's not novel, that's not unknown. Congress has used that before. Gravel's been repeatedly advocating it all this year so for Pelosi to LIE to the American people is really sad. She declares that, "We know what to do to further meet the needs of the American people with this president and the obstructionism in the United States Senate. We can only do so much." FILIBUSTER. They could force a vote over and over. They don't do what's in their power to do. "We will only do so much" is a more honest answer than "we can only do so much." But Pelosi obviously hopes we've all forgotten the repeated caves or the fact that it took people like Cindy Sheehan, Tina Richards and many others to even force them to pretend to address the illegal war. "Vote for us in 2006, we'll end the war!" They were given control of both houses of Congress and . . . did nothing. But the 2008 elections are gearing up and it's time to trot out the "Vote for us . . ." cry again. We'll return to Congress in a moment but let's note some of the reported violence in the ongoing illegal war today:
Bombings?
Reuters notes an Anbar Province that left six police officers wounded
Shootings?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a village attack in Mansouriat with at least 3 people shot dead and two wounded. Reuters notes 1 person was shot dead in Kirkuk by people "posing as Iraqi army soldiers," and US forces "killed three 'terrorists'" in Baghdad.
Corpses?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 2 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
Today the US military announced: "A Multi-National Division -- Center Soldier died of wounds suffered when the Soldier's dismounted patrol encountered an improvised explosive device south of Baghdad Dec. 13." And they announced: "A Soldier from Multi-National Division -- Baghdad was killed Dec. 13 in a small-arms fire attack in southern Baghdad. The deceased Soldier's name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense."
Pelosi told Ifill yesterday, "But there's no question, ending the war was a -- is a high priority for us and a big disappointment to many people that we weren't able to do it." The two deaths brought the total number of US service members who have died while serving in Iraq to 3891. Pelosi wasn't quick to offer Ifill the number of how many service members have died since she assumed control. The 110th Congress was sworn in January 4, 2007 -- Democrats having control of both houses. That evening the total number stood at 3006. 885 deaths since Pelosi became the Speaker of the House and Harry Reid became the Senate Majority Leader. When voters gave Dems control of both houses in the November 2006 elections, they weren't saying, "Dilly-dally around and do con jobs on us while nearly 900 US service members die in an illegal war." They were saying "END THE WAR!" As Ron Jacobs (CounterPunch) notes:
Okay. I'm going to state the obvious here. After all, somebody needs to say it. In fact, everybody who sees it needs to say it. Are you ready? Then here goes. The men and women calling themselves Democrats and sitting in Congress are the biggest bunch of liars this country has ever seen. Given today's political situation, what with Bush and Cheney running the White House, that's a pretty big claim to make. Unfortunately for those who believed those men and women might actually stop the war in Iraq and begin getting the US military out of there, this is the only conclusion one can make.I mean, take a look. There are more troops in Iraq now than there were when the Democrats won (yeh, won) both houses of Congress a little over a year ago. If my calculations are correct, more than $100 billion have been spent to keep those troops there, keep them in supplies both lethal and otherwise, and to top it off, more troops have died since those elected "representatives" took their places than in any other year of this loathsome war and occupation. Add to this list of calamities the untold numbers of Iraqis killed, wounded and uprooted from their homes. No matter how you look at it, there is no way this can be called ending the war. In fact, not only could it be called enabling this debacle to continue, the more truthful description would be to call what the Democrats have done is conspire to commit murder.
That is reality and Pelosi can call it 'pretty' and paint it up all she wants but it is an ugly reality and one that should cause the Dems to hang in their heads in shame until they end the illegal war.
The Dems have done Americans and Iraqis no favor but in Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki's happy to play a favor game. Ali al-Fadhily (IPS) details how Iraqis are being prevented from making the yearly pilgrimage by the Iraqi government: " Iraqis who want to go on the pilgrimage say officials have issued approvals only for relatives and party members. The Iraqi government led by U.S.-appointed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is Shia dominated, and many Iraqis say selection for the pilgrimage is sectarian." al-Fadhily quotes Sheik Fadhil Mahmood explaining, "It is a shame that corruption now goes as far as the Hajj. This is the fifth year that many Iraqis are deprived of their right to go to Mecca, while those who are members of parties in power, and militiamen, go every year. Most of our pilgrims are going for political and commercial purposes." While the pilgrimage to Mecca can't be made, Basra Christians can't publicly celebrate Christmas; however, Damien McElroy (Telegraph of London) reports that if Santa can't come, the US more than likely will: "American troops may have to be sent to Basra once British force levels are halved next year" according to Major General Graham Binns.Molly Bingham and Steve Connors amazing documentary is Meeting Resistance. As Bill Stamets (Chicago Sun-Times) notes, the film starts today (Friday) at Chicago's Facets, 1517 W. Fullerton with Bingham and Connors appearing "at screenings there tongiht and Saturday, and at an added screening at 3 p.m. Sunday at Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th St." Lastly, this is nothing but a stunt but if you're going to do a stunt, do it to help others and not for ratings. Ann Curry will bungee jump live Monday morning on NBC's Today Show as part of a fundraising effort for the charities Save the Children and the United Way. You can find out more information at The Today Show's website. Tonight on ABC's 20/20 there will be a report on the latest US woman to come forward about being assaulted in Iraq. ABC's Brian Ross, Maddy Sauer and Justin Rood report on the sexual assault of Tracy Barker in Iraq:The Department of Justice declined to prosecute a State Department employee who allegedly sexually assaulted a female Halliburton/KBR worker in Iraq, despite a recommendation from the State Department that he be charged, according to an internal document obtained by ABC News.Ali Mokhtare, who is still employed by the State Department, was investigated in2005 after a female Halliburton/KBR employee said he sexually assaulted her at the company-run camp in Basra, Iraq. Mokhtare was a diplomatic official in Basra who first came to Iraq as a Farsi translator interviewing detainees.The U.S. Diplomatic Security Service investigated the allegations against Mokhtare and presented the case to the Justice Department for prosecution, but "the case was declined for prosecution" states the document.
Barker is quoted stating, "I'm an American citizen being assaulted by a State Department employee and nobody cares and nothing's being done about it." Tonight, ABC's 20/20 will explore the topic further. And Barker's not to be confused with Jamie Leigh Jones whose story (gang-raped and held in a 'container') ABC also broke this week.
iraq
aidan delgado
cindy sheehan
anthony arnovehoward zinn
iraq veterans against the war
democracy nowamy goodman
robert parry
ron jacobs
the washington post
ali al-fadhily
justin roodmaddy sauerbrian rossgwen ifillnewshourpbs
Friday, December 14, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Jacob Hornberger, Democracy Now!
CounterPunch has a must read article by Jacob Hornberger entitled "Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It:"
The latest CIA scandal will once again teach Americans a valuable lesson: It is the CIA, not the Congress, that is the ultimate governing authority in this nation. No one messes with the CIA, and the CIA knows it. That's why it knew that it could destroy CIA's torture tapes without asking anyone's permission. And, after all, as Richard Nixon's advisers told him, better to take a bit of heat for destroying the tapes than to take the heat for what the tapes contained.
While there undoubtedly will be a big hub-hub over the destruction of the tapes and possibly some minor slapping of wrists, the CIA knows that no one is going to be sent to jail or severely punished for torture, obstruction of justice, murder, kidnapping, or any other crime. The uncomfortable fact is - the fact that all too many Americans just don't want to face, just as many Germans didn't want to face the truth about the Gestapo - is not that the CIA is above the law but rather that the CIA is the law. It can do whatever it wants with impunity.
The CIA is at the rot at the center of the U.S. Empire. It does the dirty work - the torture, the murders, the assassinations, the regime changes, the coups, the secret prison camps. The secrecy of its operations is guaranteed. No one dares to jack with the CIA. Other federal departments and agencies, as well as Congress, essentially operate in a support role.
Don't forget that this isn't the first time that the CIA has destroyed tapes. Recall that the CIA destroyed its tapes regarding Lee Harvey Oswald's trip to Mexico City prior to the Kennedy assassination.
Did any heads roll at the CIA because of that? Of course not. Like I say, no one jacks with the CIA, an agency whose mission is to spy on people, keep files on people, kidnap people, drug people, torture people, and murder people. Who is going to jack with an agency with that kind of power? Why, compared to the CIA, J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI, with their secret files and blackmail, were amateurs.
The CIA is not answerable, it is not open and it has a long history of torture and 'experiments' in this country as well as foreign countries. It should be abolished. There was a point Gore Vidal made once and I'm forgetting where or when.
But I have "Memorac"! I just said that outloud and C.I. asked, "What point?"
C.I. says it was in The Nation and ("I believe") it was the June 8, 1992 issue. The article's entitled "Should Our Intelligence Services Be Abolished?" and, in it, Vidal's making that in spit of the fact that "most Americans now think the CIA was created at Valley Forge by General George Washington, this unaccountable spy service was invented less than half a century ago". Thanks to C.I. for the assistance.
But really, we're under some mistaken belief that the CIA has historical roots and that it is needed when the reality is that it does tremendous damage -- most of which we never even learn of -- and it sucks up money like a Hoover.
And you can pair that with Democracy Now!'s "Anthropologists Up in Arms Over Pentagon's 'Human Terrain System' to Recruit Graduate Students to Serve in Iraq, Afghanistan:"
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about how this debate is being played out in the Anthropological Association and what this oath is all about.
DAVID PRICE: Well, the oath is very simple. You know, it's a pledge that's modeled after actions taken by physicists during the Reagan era, during Star Wars, where physicists said that they just wanted to be clear, individuals wanted to be clear, they did not want their research and they were not willing to be involved in the Star Wars program. Hugh Gusterson, an anthropologist who studies nuclear weapons production, came up with the idea of modeling a very similar pledge. So, you know, a small group of us, eleven of us, got together and hammered out some language--it's very simple--saying that we're not--you know, all of us are not even necessarily opposed to some work with the military, but anything involving counterinsurgency, such as this, or anything that violates ethical standards of research, we're opposed to, and we're simply asking our colleagues to stand up and be counted with us, saying that they’re not willing to use anthropology to these ends.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And, David Price, doesn't this make the situation more difficult, considering that anthropology in general, especially Western anthropologists in third-world countries are highly suspect as it is, in terms of being seen as an arm of cultural imperialism or neocolonialism, in investigating what is going on in many of these countries? Doesn't this make it even more difficult for folks in your discipline to be able to conduct the work that they do?
DAVID PRICE: Yeah, Human Terrain certainly casts a large shadow of suspicion on the entire discipline of anthropology. But, you know, I'm very proud that the American Anthropological Association's executive board took very proactive action and has done what they can to outline what the problems are with this and, you know, to clarify for the world that this is inappropriate action for anthropologists to undertake.
AMY GOODMAN: David Price, you've written a book about the history of anthropologists, coming up, coming out, Weaponizing Anthropology: American Anthropology in the Second World War. Can you talk about the historical use of anthropologists?
DAVID PRICE: Yeah. There's a largely unexplored history of anthropologists being involved in military action. You know, in fact, you can look at it going back to the Indian wars and, you know, early anthropology in the nineteenth century, where anthropological knowledge was used or, in many cases, anthropologists protected the knowledge in ways that the military could not access it.
My book on the Second World War uses the Freedom of Information Act, a lot of archival research, oral history and such, to try and piece together how broad was the anthropological contribution to the war. You know, well over half of American anthropologists were involved in some sort of contribution to the war, working for agencies like the Office of War Information. Many worked for the OSS, the intellectual or the institutional predecessor to the CIA—you know, and many other uses.
Some of this, in my view, was not really ethically problematic. It involved sort of library work and such. But even during World War II, there were ethically troubling things that happened. Probably the most egregious example those involves anthropologists at the OSS who were consulted and agreed to work on efforts to try and identify biological weapons that would—to be used against the Japanese, under the belief that the Japanese were somehow a different race and they might be able to find and exploit a biological difference, you know, in Japanese physiology.
You know, there are many other cases. There were also anthropologists at the Office of War Information who spent the last year of the war basically beating their head against the wall, trying to convince the White House and Pentagon that the Japanese were ready to surrender and were culturally capable of surrendering. And they did very good work. They did very good work on this, but, you know, the Pentagon marched on and the administration marched on and didn’t really listen to them.
With the exposure of the CIA's latest torturing and the destruction of evidence, it's a good time for us to start a dialogue on whether or not the CIA should even exist. Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, December 13, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the UK announces the death of a soldier, the press yawns at the topic of Iraq and more.
Starting with war resistance. Kathy Rumleski (London Free Press) reports that in Canada's London Monday night (nine o'clock showing), there will be a benefit screening of the Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon and Meryl Streep film Rendition at Hyland Cinema with the War Resisters Support Group of London recieving half the proceeds. The War Resisters Support Campaign works to assist individual resisters in Canada and to fight for the rights of asylum of war resisters. They are calling for a national mobilization in Canada on January 26th. Courage to Resist is calling on people in the US to call the Canadian consulates in the US on January 24th and January 25th as well as to mobilize and with actions and vigils. Actions can take place around the world at Canadian consulates in every country.
In terms of e-mailing, where the pressure needs to be currently is on the these three:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration.
Across the Atlantic, the UK military faces its own rebellion. Ian Bruce (Scotland's The Herald) reports that "[m]ore than 2000" members of the military "have been reported missing from their units in the first 10 months of this year." Bruce reviews the rates for the last ten years and finds the greatest increase in the Navy and air force. Bruce quotes one service member explaining the toll, "Almost back-to-back tours in units in constand demand impose tremendous strain on wives and kids. I had one mate who left because he suddenly realised his son was five and the guy hadn't been at home to spend a signle Christmas with the kid because of combat deployments. It's nonsense to say overstretch isn't a factor in the numbers going Awol. A six-month tour involves a nine-month absence from home. Soldiers are hauled off for three months' pre-deployment training before they go to hot, sandy places."
In the US, Mark Wilkerson is one of the war resisters who went public in 2006 (others from that year include Ehren Watada, Ricky Clousing and Darrell Anderson). Patrick Doyle (Denver's 5280) offers an in-depth look at Wilkerson's story -- beginning well before Wilkerson decided to self-checkout and even before he decided to enlist. Like many who came before (and many who have and will come after), Wilkerson applied for CO status and was denied (it would be great if reporters could review the US military's actual policy before writing about this topic). As he was due to return to Iraq for a second tour shortly, Wilkerson attempted an appeal but was told that the appeal would be decided while he was in Iraq. At that point, he self-checked out. At the end of the article, Wilkerson speaks of a brother in the military currently, "His experience has been different than mine. And from what he's seen, the war in Iraq is a good thing. But he hasn't been there. And I hope he doesn't go. I'd rather him disagree with me, and be a little more naive about what's going on there, than form his own opinion by going and coming back, and being miserable. Because then, he'll have seen the truth. And his world will have been ripped apart, like mine."
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 -- that's ten more days -- 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 $41.. 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.
Today on KPFK's Uprising Radio, Sonali Kolhatkar spoke with FAIR's Peter Hart who noted that push by big media to cover the elections as a horserace and to determine what was and wasn't an issue with Hart citing the media down-grading of the Iraq War and the media push on immigration. If you doubt the push, check out the New York Times today. Monica Davey's on the front page with an article on immigration and Iowa. Where the hell's Iraq? Not on the front page. So you have to flip A6 or A8? No. You have to flip all the way to A20. There you will find an early filed article by Damien Cave and Khalid al-Ansary -- one filed so early and that editors cared so little about that the number of Iraqis killed in the Amara car bombings yesterday is . . . 27. By yesterday morning in the United States, the number was already considerably higher than that. But the paper shows no interest. And they bury it on A20. Even with the paper's tiny, low balls, 27 dead Iraqis should qualify as significant news; however, it's buried on A20. Not even on the top of A20, it's the lower half of the paper and isn't even illustrated with a photo.
Iraq is falling off the radar and Mary Conroy (The Capital Times via Common Dreams) provides a list of losses due to the illegal war which include human lives, monies and "freedom of the press." Conroy notes the images of the dead don't make the news and that includes the many Iraqis slaughtered in this illegal war: "When we do see a photo of an Iraqi killed by U.S. troops, the media distances us by labeling the dead Iraqi 'an al-Qaida-linked militant,' or 'a militiamen loyal to Osama bin Laden.' Remember that photo of a terrorized naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack? Today she would be called 'a Vietcong guerilla' or 'a Ho Chi Minh militant'." Think Conroy is off? Sunday December 2nd, CBS 60 Minutes aired a report from Iraq. The reporter was Scott Pelley and the program is 60 Minutes -- hard hitting journalism, right? As Ava and I noted in our commentary a couple approached Pelley and the camera crew wanting to share photos of their dead children:
Taking a page from Katrina vanden Heuvel's book, Pelley goes the non-journalistic route and instead of holding the photos up to the camera, decides to 'explain' what they show. He declared they were too graphic for television.The parents didn't think so. The parents readily offered the photos which they either always carried with them or carried with them to that Sunday service because they knew a TV crew would be present. The parents wanted to get the story out and a real reporter would have assisted them.Watching Pelley grimace as he looked at the photos and then 'explain' them by merely noting the children had been shot and the photos were too graphic ("They're just too much"), we wondered if maybe Amy Goodman and Allan Nairn, reporting on East Timor today, would have to, in order to attract network attention to the massacre, say, "Well there was a lot of blood but we can't go into it because it was really, really graphic."?
And that's 60 Minutes -- the most lauded of the network news magazines, the last stand for TV network journalism. But Katrina vanden Heuvel is the editor and publisher of the independent Nation magazine and the magazine wanted a lot of credit for a July feature supposedly telling the story of Iraqis (for it to be that, the reporters would have had to speak to Iraqis) and, in the intro, slide in that the magazine had been presented with dozens of photos of abuse. Where were the pictures? It's an All Things Media Big and Small issue. The photos didn't run in the magazine (or online) and The Nation is allegedly an independent magazine. Iraq's not just sliding off the radar, it's being pushed.
Amy Goodman has repeatedly made the point about when do we get to ask questions about the illegal war? We were told not to question before it started, told not to question during. And when there is a space created by the people to honestly explore realities, our media -- big and small -- continues to fail us. A Scott Pelley or a Katrina vanden Heuvel decides to 'protect' us. The truth shall set you free? Then our media outlets must want us all in shackles and chains.
Ali al Basri and Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that the death toll from the Amarah car bombings yesterday climbed to "at least 42" while Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) notes that cell phones are not working in Amarah and that "rumors spread through the city that U.S.-led forces, bent on taking control of Maysan [Province], were to blame" for the car bombings.
In some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports three Baghdad bombings that targeted a liquor stores and a Baghdad car bombing "near the Italian embassy" claimed 1 life and left five wounded. Reuters notes a Khan Bani Saad roadside bombing which claimed the life of 1 woman and injured a man, a Mosul roadside bombing that left four people wounded and, in the continued targeting of officials, a car bombing in Hit aimed that mayor which left 2 bodyguards dead and six people wounded.
Shootings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports contractor Firas Saadi Hussein was shot dead in Baghdad, a woman was shot dead in Baquba and, in the continued attacks on educators and officials, Dr. Sabah Tariq, dean of Baghdad's Technology University, and his daughter were wounded in a shooting attack in Baghdad. Reuters notes a home invasion in which "a woman who ran a beauty shop" was shot dead in Mosul, a police officer shot dead (with four others injured) in Mosul
Corpses?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 corpses discovered in Baghdad, four in Baquba and 16 outside Muqdadiyah. Reuters notes 1 corpse discovered in Hawija and 2 ("father and son") discovered in Dour.
Meanwhile the BBC notes 1 "British soldier has died following a road accident" in Basra on Wednesday.
Staying on violence, some anthropologists think they're doing noble work by being part of the HTS. They are wrong. The topic was addressed today on Democarcy Now!:
AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Why don't you lay out what this debate is?
DAVID PRICE: Well, this debate very much cuts to the core of what the appropriate uses of anthropology are, regarding warfare and regarding large ethical issues about what does it mean to have anthropologists embedded with military forces during a time of war. You know, there are large ethical issues about embedding ethnographers with troops. Basically, fundamental research ethics require that research subjects have voluntary meaningful informed consent, that they're told, you know, what's going to be done with the research, and that no harm come to those who are studied. The executive board of the American Anthropological Association weighed these and others issues and made a very strong statement against the Human Terrain program, because it saw it clearly wandering into these very ethical problematic areas and not really showing due concern for the people who are studied.
JUAN GONZALEZ: What specifically is the Human Terrain program? How did it start, and how does it typically operate now in places like Afghanistan and Iraq?
DAVID PRICE: The Human Terrain program is run through BAE, which is a contracting agency. You know, in some ways it's very similar to Blackwater in the way that it works. What they do is they take ethnographers, they take anthropologists, who may or may not have cultural expertise in the areas where they're working, and they take these ethnographers, embed them with the troops, they travel with them, and then they try and advise commanders about taking culturally appropriate action. Now, the claim by Human Terrain is that they can reduce casualties by giving more nuanced information to people in battle situations. But there's a lot more to it than that, especially in that people in the Pentagon see this as being linked to the CORDS program. CORDS program in Vietnam was used to map human terrain, to identify suspected individuals and groups that the military believed were sympathizers for the Viet Cong, who were, in the Vietnam era, targeted for assassination. Now, supposedly what's going on with Human Terrain is that, you know, it's essentially a manners lesson for people in the battlefield. But the problem is, is that there are armed ethnographers. Not all the ethnographers working for Human Terrain carry weapons, but we do know there are instances where they do. They're given the option to do so. So they travel with troops and independently in the countryside, gathering culture information that they bring back and give to the command.
Network of Concerned Anthropologists is an group of anthropologists attempting to stop the betrayal of the field.
There is no 'goodness' in the program. A similar point can be found in Anthony Arnove's discussion Naomi Klein about her new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism at the Socialist Worker where they discuss how the nonsense that Iraq is the result of 'mix ups' and intentions gone astray. Here Klein is addressing that nonsense:
Nobody really believes it's about "bringing democracy," and we know there were no WMDs and no 9/11 link. So the idea that economic ambitions for the region could have been an essential motivating force and the centerpiece of the postwar plan seems to be a logical conclusion to draw, based on the evidence we have.
It's not a secret plan. So an effort has been made on the part of analysts to downplay this in the face of overwhelming evidence that this was a priority.
I think the reasons for this are complex, and they include a need to believe in American goodness around the world--Gary Wills talks about the myth of "original sinlessness."
I've been struck in my interviews with the liberal press in this country about the need to believe in the good intentions of even those American politicians who, in every other arena, are treated as truly sinister--people like Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfowitz, who are the butt of every late-night joke.
The point of those jokes is usually that these are really scary characters, especially Dick Cheney. But if you draw a conclusion from this that he might also be capable of being motivated by self-interest and greed, both personally and for his circle of friends, this is seen as completely conspiratorial, and then we revert to the narrative of American "good intentions."
So it's allowable to criticize the execution and criticize the management, and you can say it was ill advised. But you can't say that the intentions were bad.
From there, we'll turn to the issue of Iraq for women. Feminist Wire Daily notes US citizen Jamie Leigh Jones 2005 gang-rape by employees of KBR in Iraq and was then placed in a 'container' to keep her quiet. It took the intervention of the US State Department to get Jones freed. Yesterday, ABC's Maddy Sauer reported that US Senator Hillary Clinton was "calling for a formal government investigation into allegations that a young female American contractor was gang-raped in Iraq and cites the [warning PDF format] letter Clinton wrote to US Secretary of State Condi Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Attorney General Michael Mukasey:
As I hope you are all aware, recent news accounts indicate that Ms. Jones, a Halliburton/KBR employee in Baghdad, alleges she was gang-raped by her fellow employees and then held under guard against her will in a shipping container in order to prevent her from reporting the horrific crime. She states that she was denied food and water during her detention and told that she would be fired if she left Iraq to seek medical attention. More than two years later, news reports state that no U.S. government agency or department has undertaken a proper investigation of the incident. These claims must be taken seriously and the U.S. government must act immediately to investigate Ms. Jones' claims. These allegations implicate all three of your departments. If one of your departments has already launched a private investigation, I urge you to disclose your findings without delay. If no investigation has been started, I urge you to decide the proper course for an inquiry into these claims and to commence your investigation with the utmost urgency.
Today, ABC's Justin Rood reports that the US House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing next Wednesday on the issue. Those who remember the Congress played dumb in the case of Suzanne Swift might hope that Congress has finally decided to do their job but let's wait and see how the hearings go. Meanwhile Sudarsan Raghavan (Washington Post) reports on the armed thugs threatening Iraqi women and girls focusing on two teenagers allowed to enter "a girls' high school" in Baghdad while carrying AK-47s -- and where was the Iraqi police (oh, that's right, they're controlled by the thugs of the Interior Ministry) -- and practice armed intimidation in what is allegedly 'safe' Baghdad. Meanwhile Mark Lattimer (Guardian of London) notes the dangers for women in the Kurdish region:
They lie in the Sulaimaniyah hospital morgue in Iraqi Kurdistan, set out on white-tiled slabs. A few have been shot or strangled, some beaten to death, but most have been burned. One girl, a lock of hair falling across her half-closed eyes, could almost be on the point of falling asleep. Burns have stretched the skin on another young woman's face into a fixed look of surprise. These women are not casualties of battle. In fact, the cause of death is generally recorded as "accidental", although their bodies often lie unclaimed by their families. "It is getting worse, especially the burnings," says Khanim Rahim Latif, the manager of Asuda, an Iraqi organisation based in Kurdistan that works to combat violence against women. "Just here in Sulaimaniyah, there were 400 cases of the burning of women last year." Lack of electricity means that every house has a plentiful supply of oil, and she accepts that some cases may be accidents. But the nature and scale of the injuries suggest that most were deliberate, she says, handing me the morgue photographs of one young woman after another. Many of the bodies bear the unmistakable signs of having been subjected to intense heat.
Turning to US politics. US House Rep and 2008 Democratic presidential contender has been barred from a 'debate' taking place today. Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes, "In campaign news, Congressmember and Democratic hopeful Dennis Kucinich has been excluded from today's Democratic presidential debate in Iowa. Debate sponsor the Des Moines Register told Kucinich he isn't eligible because he doesn't meet local requirements on a local campaign office and paid staff. Kucinich's Iowa field director works out of a home office. The most recent poll of likely Democratic voters shows Kucinich has one percent support in Iowa--the same as Senator Chris Dodd. Nationally, Kucinich has two percent support--the same as Bill Richardson and Senator Joe Biden. Dodd, Richardson and Biden are all taking part in today's debate. In a statement, the Kuncinich campaign called the exclusion 'arbitrary and unreasonable', saying: '[If] the Register has decided to use hair-splitting technicalities to exclude the leading voice of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, the entire process is suspect'." Another candidate running for a party's presidential nomination is Cynthia McKinney who is running on the Green Party ticket. Richard Winger (Ballot Access News) notes that she is currently the only third party candidate "who is trying to qualify for primary season matching funds". Her "Power to the People" campaign took her to Wisconsin yesterday. Judith Davidoff (The Capital Times) reports McKinney declared in her speech, "Politics was never something I wanted to do. . . . There was always something public that was calling me." Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan says of McKinney, "She has always fought against the establishment (and that is why she is not in Congress now, in fact) and she has fought for legitimate voting and for the people of New Orleans. She introduced Articles of Impeachment on her last day as a Congressperson in 2006." Sheehan is running for the US Congress from California, from the eighth district specifically. Justin Elliott (Mother Jones) reports that Sheehan campaign intends to tackle the issue of Nancy Pelosi's knowledge of CIA torture going back to 2002 and quotes Sheehan stating: "Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress should be using their Constitutional authority to end all use of torture. Acquiring information through use of torture on prisoners of war is as inhumane as it is unreliable." Elliott adds: "If I were working at the Sheehan campaign, I would be calling every political reporter in the city and pushing hard to introduce a very simple question into the news cycle: Do Bay Area progressives want to support a Speaker of the House who is personally complicit in the Bush Administration's torture policies."
iraq
cindy sheehan
anthony arnovehoward zinn
naomi klein
iraq veterans against the war
democracy nowamy goodman
juan gonzalez
david price
maxine watersmark lattimer
alexandra zavislos angeles times
ali al basrimcclatchy newspapersleila fadel
the washington post
sudarsan raghavan
The latest CIA scandal will once again teach Americans a valuable lesson: It is the CIA, not the Congress, that is the ultimate governing authority in this nation. No one messes with the CIA, and the CIA knows it. That's why it knew that it could destroy CIA's torture tapes without asking anyone's permission. And, after all, as Richard Nixon's advisers told him, better to take a bit of heat for destroying the tapes than to take the heat for what the tapes contained.
While there undoubtedly will be a big hub-hub over the destruction of the tapes and possibly some minor slapping of wrists, the CIA knows that no one is going to be sent to jail or severely punished for torture, obstruction of justice, murder, kidnapping, or any other crime. The uncomfortable fact is - the fact that all too many Americans just don't want to face, just as many Germans didn't want to face the truth about the Gestapo - is not that the CIA is above the law but rather that the CIA is the law. It can do whatever it wants with impunity.
The CIA is at the rot at the center of the U.S. Empire. It does the dirty work - the torture, the murders, the assassinations, the regime changes, the coups, the secret prison camps. The secrecy of its operations is guaranteed. No one dares to jack with the CIA. Other federal departments and agencies, as well as Congress, essentially operate in a support role.
Don't forget that this isn't the first time that the CIA has destroyed tapes. Recall that the CIA destroyed its tapes regarding Lee Harvey Oswald's trip to Mexico City prior to the Kennedy assassination.
Did any heads roll at the CIA because of that? Of course not. Like I say, no one jacks with the CIA, an agency whose mission is to spy on people, keep files on people, kidnap people, drug people, torture people, and murder people. Who is going to jack with an agency with that kind of power? Why, compared to the CIA, J. Edgar Hoover and his FBI, with their secret files and blackmail, were amateurs.
The CIA is not answerable, it is not open and it has a long history of torture and 'experiments' in this country as well as foreign countries. It should be abolished. There was a point Gore Vidal made once and I'm forgetting where or when.
But I have "Memorac"! I just said that outloud and C.I. asked, "What point?"
C.I. says it was in The Nation and ("I believe") it was the June 8, 1992 issue. The article's entitled "Should Our Intelligence Services Be Abolished?" and, in it, Vidal's making that in spit of the fact that "most Americans now think the CIA was created at Valley Forge by General George Washington, this unaccountable spy service was invented less than half a century ago". Thanks to C.I. for the assistance.
But really, we're under some mistaken belief that the CIA has historical roots and that it is needed when the reality is that it does tremendous damage -- most of which we never even learn of -- and it sucks up money like a Hoover.
And you can pair that with Democracy Now!'s "Anthropologists Up in Arms Over Pentagon's 'Human Terrain System' to Recruit Graduate Students to Serve in Iraq, Afghanistan:"
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about how this debate is being played out in the Anthropological Association and what this oath is all about.
DAVID PRICE: Well, the oath is very simple. You know, it's a pledge that's modeled after actions taken by physicists during the Reagan era, during Star Wars, where physicists said that they just wanted to be clear, individuals wanted to be clear, they did not want their research and they were not willing to be involved in the Star Wars program. Hugh Gusterson, an anthropologist who studies nuclear weapons production, came up with the idea of modeling a very similar pledge. So, you know, a small group of us, eleven of us, got together and hammered out some language--it's very simple--saying that we're not--you know, all of us are not even necessarily opposed to some work with the military, but anything involving counterinsurgency, such as this, or anything that violates ethical standards of research, we're opposed to, and we're simply asking our colleagues to stand up and be counted with us, saying that they’re not willing to use anthropology to these ends.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And, David Price, doesn't this make the situation more difficult, considering that anthropology in general, especially Western anthropologists in third-world countries are highly suspect as it is, in terms of being seen as an arm of cultural imperialism or neocolonialism, in investigating what is going on in many of these countries? Doesn't this make it even more difficult for folks in your discipline to be able to conduct the work that they do?
DAVID PRICE: Yeah, Human Terrain certainly casts a large shadow of suspicion on the entire discipline of anthropology. But, you know, I'm very proud that the American Anthropological Association's executive board took very proactive action and has done what they can to outline what the problems are with this and, you know, to clarify for the world that this is inappropriate action for anthropologists to undertake.
AMY GOODMAN: David Price, you've written a book about the history of anthropologists, coming up, coming out, Weaponizing Anthropology: American Anthropology in the Second World War. Can you talk about the historical use of anthropologists?
DAVID PRICE: Yeah. There's a largely unexplored history of anthropologists being involved in military action. You know, in fact, you can look at it going back to the Indian wars and, you know, early anthropology in the nineteenth century, where anthropological knowledge was used or, in many cases, anthropologists protected the knowledge in ways that the military could not access it.
My book on the Second World War uses the Freedom of Information Act, a lot of archival research, oral history and such, to try and piece together how broad was the anthropological contribution to the war. You know, well over half of American anthropologists were involved in some sort of contribution to the war, working for agencies like the Office of War Information. Many worked for the OSS, the intellectual or the institutional predecessor to the CIA—you know, and many other uses.
Some of this, in my view, was not really ethically problematic. It involved sort of library work and such. But even during World War II, there were ethically troubling things that happened. Probably the most egregious example those involves anthropologists at the OSS who were consulted and agreed to work on efforts to try and identify biological weapons that would—to be used against the Japanese, under the belief that the Japanese were somehow a different race and they might be able to find and exploit a biological difference, you know, in Japanese physiology.
You know, there are many other cases. There were also anthropologists at the Office of War Information who spent the last year of the war basically beating their head against the wall, trying to convince the White House and Pentagon that the Japanese were ready to surrender and were culturally capable of surrendering. And they did very good work. They did very good work on this, but, you know, the Pentagon marched on and the administration marched on and didn’t really listen to them.
With the exposure of the CIA's latest torturing and the destruction of evidence, it's a good time for us to start a dialogue on whether or not the CIA should even exist. Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, December 13, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the UK announces the death of a soldier, the press yawns at the topic of Iraq and more.
Starting with war resistance. Kathy Rumleski (London Free Press) reports that in Canada's London Monday night (nine o'clock showing), there will be a benefit screening of the Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon and Meryl Streep film Rendition at Hyland Cinema with the War Resisters Support Group of London recieving half the proceeds. The War Resisters Support Campaign works to assist individual resisters in Canada and to fight for the rights of asylum of war resisters. They are calling for a national mobilization in Canada on January 26th. Courage to Resist is calling on people in the US to call the Canadian consulates in the US on January 24th and January 25th as well as to mobilize and with actions and vigils. Actions can take place around the world at Canadian consulates in every country.
In terms of e-mailing, where the pressure needs to be currently is on the these three:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration.
Across the Atlantic, the UK military faces its own rebellion. Ian Bruce (Scotland's The Herald) reports that "[m]ore than 2000" members of the military "have been reported missing from their units in the first 10 months of this year." Bruce reviews the rates for the last ten years and finds the greatest increase in the Navy and air force. Bruce quotes one service member explaining the toll, "Almost back-to-back tours in units in constand demand impose tremendous strain on wives and kids. I had one mate who left because he suddenly realised his son was five and the guy hadn't been at home to spend a signle Christmas with the kid because of combat deployments. It's nonsense to say overstretch isn't a factor in the numbers going Awol. A six-month tour involves a nine-month absence from home. Soldiers are hauled off for three months' pre-deployment training before they go to hot, sandy places."
In the US, Mark Wilkerson is one of the war resisters who went public in 2006 (others from that year include Ehren Watada, Ricky Clousing and Darrell Anderson). Patrick Doyle (Denver's 5280) offers an in-depth look at Wilkerson's story -- beginning well before Wilkerson decided to self-checkout and even before he decided to enlist. Like many who came before (and many who have and will come after), Wilkerson applied for CO status and was denied (it would be great if reporters could review the US military's actual policy before writing about this topic). As he was due to return to Iraq for a second tour shortly, Wilkerson attempted an appeal but was told that the appeal would be decided while he was in Iraq. At that point, he self-checked out. At the end of the article, Wilkerson speaks of a brother in the military currently, "His experience has been different than mine. And from what he's seen, the war in Iraq is a good thing. But he hasn't been there. And I hope he doesn't go. I'd rather him disagree with me, and be a little more naive about what's going on there, than form his own opinion by going and coming back, and being miserable. Because then, he'll have seen the truth. And his world will have been ripped apart, like mine."
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 -- that's ten more days -- 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 $41.. 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.
Today on KPFK's Uprising Radio, Sonali Kolhatkar spoke with FAIR's Peter Hart who noted that push by big media to cover the elections as a horserace and to determine what was and wasn't an issue with Hart citing the media down-grading of the Iraq War and the media push on immigration. If you doubt the push, check out the New York Times today. Monica Davey's on the front page with an article on immigration and Iowa. Where the hell's Iraq? Not on the front page. So you have to flip A6 or A8? No. You have to flip all the way to A20. There you will find an early filed article by Damien Cave and Khalid al-Ansary -- one filed so early and that editors cared so little about that the number of Iraqis killed in the Amara car bombings yesterday is . . . 27. By yesterday morning in the United States, the number was already considerably higher than that. But the paper shows no interest. And they bury it on A20. Even with the paper's tiny, low balls, 27 dead Iraqis should qualify as significant news; however, it's buried on A20. Not even on the top of A20, it's the lower half of the paper and isn't even illustrated with a photo.
Iraq is falling off the radar and Mary Conroy (The Capital Times via Common Dreams) provides a list of losses due to the illegal war which include human lives, monies and "freedom of the press." Conroy notes the images of the dead don't make the news and that includes the many Iraqis slaughtered in this illegal war: "When we do see a photo of an Iraqi killed by U.S. troops, the media distances us by labeling the dead Iraqi 'an al-Qaida-linked militant,' or 'a militiamen loyal to Osama bin Laden.' Remember that photo of a terrorized naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack? Today she would be called 'a Vietcong guerilla' or 'a Ho Chi Minh militant'." Think Conroy is off? Sunday December 2nd, CBS 60 Minutes aired a report from Iraq. The reporter was Scott Pelley and the program is 60 Minutes -- hard hitting journalism, right? As Ava and I noted in our commentary a couple approached Pelley and the camera crew wanting to share photos of their dead children:
Taking a page from Katrina vanden Heuvel's book, Pelley goes the non-journalistic route and instead of holding the photos up to the camera, decides to 'explain' what they show. He declared they were too graphic for television.The parents didn't think so. The parents readily offered the photos which they either always carried with them or carried with them to that Sunday service because they knew a TV crew would be present. The parents wanted to get the story out and a real reporter would have assisted them.Watching Pelley grimace as he looked at the photos and then 'explain' them by merely noting the children had been shot and the photos were too graphic ("They're just too much"), we wondered if maybe Amy Goodman and Allan Nairn, reporting on East Timor today, would have to, in order to attract network attention to the massacre, say, "Well there was a lot of blood but we can't go into it because it was really, really graphic."?
And that's 60 Minutes -- the most lauded of the network news magazines, the last stand for TV network journalism. But Katrina vanden Heuvel is the editor and publisher of the independent Nation magazine and the magazine wanted a lot of credit for a July feature supposedly telling the story of Iraqis (for it to be that, the reporters would have had to speak to Iraqis) and, in the intro, slide in that the magazine had been presented with dozens of photos of abuse. Where were the pictures? It's an All Things Media Big and Small issue. The photos didn't run in the magazine (or online) and The Nation is allegedly an independent magazine. Iraq's not just sliding off the radar, it's being pushed.
Amy Goodman has repeatedly made the point about when do we get to ask questions about the illegal war? We were told not to question before it started, told not to question during. And when there is a space created by the people to honestly explore realities, our media -- big and small -- continues to fail us. A Scott Pelley or a Katrina vanden Heuvel decides to 'protect' us. The truth shall set you free? Then our media outlets must want us all in shackles and chains.
Ali al Basri and Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that the death toll from the Amarah car bombings yesterday climbed to "at least 42" while Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) notes that cell phones are not working in Amarah and that "rumors spread through the city that U.S.-led forces, bent on taking control of Maysan [Province], were to blame" for the car bombings.
In some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports three Baghdad bombings that targeted a liquor stores and a Baghdad car bombing "near the Italian embassy" claimed 1 life and left five wounded. Reuters notes a Khan Bani Saad roadside bombing which claimed the life of 1 woman and injured a man, a Mosul roadside bombing that left four people wounded and, in the continued targeting of officials, a car bombing in Hit aimed that mayor which left 2 bodyguards dead and six people wounded.
Shootings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports contractor Firas Saadi Hussein was shot dead in Baghdad, a woman was shot dead in Baquba and, in the continued attacks on educators and officials, Dr. Sabah Tariq, dean of Baghdad's Technology University, and his daughter were wounded in a shooting attack in Baghdad. Reuters notes a home invasion in which "a woman who ran a beauty shop" was shot dead in Mosul, a police officer shot dead (with four others injured) in Mosul
Corpses?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 corpses discovered in Baghdad, four in Baquba and 16 outside Muqdadiyah. Reuters notes 1 corpse discovered in Hawija and 2 ("father and son") discovered in Dour.
Meanwhile the BBC notes 1 "British soldier has died following a road accident" in Basra on Wednesday.
Staying on violence, some anthropologists think they're doing noble work by being part of the HTS. They are wrong. The topic was addressed today on Democarcy Now!:
AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Why don't you lay out what this debate is?
DAVID PRICE: Well, this debate very much cuts to the core of what the appropriate uses of anthropology are, regarding warfare and regarding large ethical issues about what does it mean to have anthropologists embedded with military forces during a time of war. You know, there are large ethical issues about embedding ethnographers with troops. Basically, fundamental research ethics require that research subjects have voluntary meaningful informed consent, that they're told, you know, what's going to be done with the research, and that no harm come to those who are studied. The executive board of the American Anthropological Association weighed these and others issues and made a very strong statement against the Human Terrain program, because it saw it clearly wandering into these very ethical problematic areas and not really showing due concern for the people who are studied.
JUAN GONZALEZ: What specifically is the Human Terrain program? How did it start, and how does it typically operate now in places like Afghanistan and Iraq?
DAVID PRICE: The Human Terrain program is run through BAE, which is a contracting agency. You know, in some ways it's very similar to Blackwater in the way that it works. What they do is they take ethnographers, they take anthropologists, who may or may not have cultural expertise in the areas where they're working, and they take these ethnographers, embed them with the troops, they travel with them, and then they try and advise commanders about taking culturally appropriate action. Now, the claim by Human Terrain is that they can reduce casualties by giving more nuanced information to people in battle situations. But there's a lot more to it than that, especially in that people in the Pentagon see this as being linked to the CORDS program. CORDS program in Vietnam was used to map human terrain, to identify suspected individuals and groups that the military believed were sympathizers for the Viet Cong, who were, in the Vietnam era, targeted for assassination. Now, supposedly what's going on with Human Terrain is that, you know, it's essentially a manners lesson for people in the battlefield. But the problem is, is that there are armed ethnographers. Not all the ethnographers working for Human Terrain carry weapons, but we do know there are instances where they do. They're given the option to do so. So they travel with troops and independently in the countryside, gathering culture information that they bring back and give to the command.
Network of Concerned Anthropologists is an group of anthropologists attempting to stop the betrayal of the field.
There is no 'goodness' in the program. A similar point can be found in Anthony Arnove's discussion Naomi Klein about her new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism at the Socialist Worker where they discuss how the nonsense that Iraq is the result of 'mix ups' and intentions gone astray. Here Klein is addressing that nonsense:
Nobody really believes it's about "bringing democracy," and we know there were no WMDs and no 9/11 link. So the idea that economic ambitions for the region could have been an essential motivating force and the centerpiece of the postwar plan seems to be a logical conclusion to draw, based on the evidence we have.
It's not a secret plan. So an effort has been made on the part of analysts to downplay this in the face of overwhelming evidence that this was a priority.
I think the reasons for this are complex, and they include a need to believe in American goodness around the world--Gary Wills talks about the myth of "original sinlessness."
I've been struck in my interviews with the liberal press in this country about the need to believe in the good intentions of even those American politicians who, in every other arena, are treated as truly sinister--people like Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfowitz, who are the butt of every late-night joke.
The point of those jokes is usually that these are really scary characters, especially Dick Cheney. But if you draw a conclusion from this that he might also be capable of being motivated by self-interest and greed, both personally and for his circle of friends, this is seen as completely conspiratorial, and then we revert to the narrative of American "good intentions."
So it's allowable to criticize the execution and criticize the management, and you can say it was ill advised. But you can't say that the intentions were bad.
From there, we'll turn to the issue of Iraq for women. Feminist Wire Daily notes US citizen Jamie Leigh Jones 2005 gang-rape by employees of KBR in Iraq and was then placed in a 'container' to keep her quiet. It took the intervention of the US State Department to get Jones freed. Yesterday, ABC's Maddy Sauer reported that US Senator Hillary Clinton was "calling for a formal government investigation into allegations that a young female American contractor was gang-raped in Iraq and cites the [warning PDF format] letter Clinton wrote to US Secretary of State Condi Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Attorney General Michael Mukasey:
As I hope you are all aware, recent news accounts indicate that Ms. Jones, a Halliburton/KBR employee in Baghdad, alleges she was gang-raped by her fellow employees and then held under guard against her will in a shipping container in order to prevent her from reporting the horrific crime. She states that she was denied food and water during her detention and told that she would be fired if she left Iraq to seek medical attention. More than two years later, news reports state that no U.S. government agency or department has undertaken a proper investigation of the incident. These claims must be taken seriously and the U.S. government must act immediately to investigate Ms. Jones' claims. These allegations implicate all three of your departments. If one of your departments has already launched a private investigation, I urge you to disclose your findings without delay. If no investigation has been started, I urge you to decide the proper course for an inquiry into these claims and to commence your investigation with the utmost urgency.
Today, ABC's Justin Rood reports that the US House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing next Wednesday on the issue. Those who remember the Congress played dumb in the case of Suzanne Swift might hope that Congress has finally decided to do their job but let's wait and see how the hearings go. Meanwhile Sudarsan Raghavan (Washington Post) reports on the armed thugs threatening Iraqi women and girls focusing on two teenagers allowed to enter "a girls' high school" in Baghdad while carrying AK-47s -- and where was the Iraqi police (oh, that's right, they're controlled by the thugs of the Interior Ministry) -- and practice armed intimidation in what is allegedly 'safe' Baghdad. Meanwhile Mark Lattimer (Guardian of London) notes the dangers for women in the Kurdish region:
They lie in the Sulaimaniyah hospital morgue in Iraqi Kurdistan, set out on white-tiled slabs. A few have been shot or strangled, some beaten to death, but most have been burned. One girl, a lock of hair falling across her half-closed eyes, could almost be on the point of falling asleep. Burns have stretched the skin on another young woman's face into a fixed look of surprise. These women are not casualties of battle. In fact, the cause of death is generally recorded as "accidental", although their bodies often lie unclaimed by their families. "It is getting worse, especially the burnings," says Khanim Rahim Latif, the manager of Asuda, an Iraqi organisation based in Kurdistan that works to combat violence against women. "Just here in Sulaimaniyah, there were 400 cases of the burning of women last year." Lack of electricity means that every house has a plentiful supply of oil, and she accepts that some cases may be accidents. But the nature and scale of the injuries suggest that most were deliberate, she says, handing me the morgue photographs of one young woman after another. Many of the bodies bear the unmistakable signs of having been subjected to intense heat.
Turning to US politics. US House Rep and 2008 Democratic presidential contender has been barred from a 'debate' taking place today. Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes, "In campaign news, Congressmember and Democratic hopeful Dennis Kucinich has been excluded from today's Democratic presidential debate in Iowa. Debate sponsor the Des Moines Register told Kucinich he isn't eligible because he doesn't meet local requirements on a local campaign office and paid staff. Kucinich's Iowa field director works out of a home office. The most recent poll of likely Democratic voters shows Kucinich has one percent support in Iowa--the same as Senator Chris Dodd. Nationally, Kucinich has two percent support--the same as Bill Richardson and Senator Joe Biden. Dodd, Richardson and Biden are all taking part in today's debate. In a statement, the Kuncinich campaign called the exclusion 'arbitrary and unreasonable', saying: '[If] the Register has decided to use hair-splitting technicalities to exclude the leading voice of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, the entire process is suspect'." Another candidate running for a party's presidential nomination is Cynthia McKinney who is running on the Green Party ticket. Richard Winger (Ballot Access News) notes that she is currently the only third party candidate "who is trying to qualify for primary season matching funds". Her "Power to the People" campaign took her to Wisconsin yesterday. Judith Davidoff (The Capital Times) reports McKinney declared in her speech, "Politics was never something I wanted to do. . . . There was always something public that was calling me." Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan says of McKinney, "She has always fought against the establishment (and that is why she is not in Congress now, in fact) and she has fought for legitimate voting and for the people of New Orleans. She introduced Articles of Impeachment on her last day as a Congressperson in 2006." Sheehan is running for the US Congress from California, from the eighth district specifically. Justin Elliott (Mother Jones) reports that Sheehan campaign intends to tackle the issue of Nancy Pelosi's knowledge of CIA torture going back to 2002 and quotes Sheehan stating: "Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress should be using their Constitutional authority to end all use of torture. Acquiring information through use of torture on prisoners of war is as inhumane as it is unreliable." Elliott adds: "If I were working at the Sheehan campaign, I would be calling every political reporter in the city and pushing hard to introduce a very simple question into the news cycle: Do Bay Area progressives want to support a Speaker of the House who is personally complicit in the Bush Administration's torture policies."
iraq
cindy sheehan
anthony arnovehoward zinn
naomi klein
iraq veterans against the war
democracy nowamy goodman
juan gonzalez
david price
maxine watersmark lattimer
alexandra zavislos angeles times
ali al basrimcclatchy newspapersleila fadel
the washington post
sudarsan raghavan
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Georgianne Nienaber & Keith Harmon Snow
Thank you to Betty for filling in for me last night. We knew it would be a long night so I was going to need a sub and who's better to fill in than Betty? I asked her to keep it simple and no links but the Nader topic was something 'Betinna' would have to comment on and since that's Betty's creation, of course Betty would have to.
I enjoyed what she wrote including about the school parties for children. I wasn't able to read it until tonight (right before I logged in) because it was so, so, so busy. So busy, in fact, that I'm about to pull my hair out just thinking about how I have to do a review this weekend.
But some stuff got accomplished. Ava and C.I. are fierce. I watched them button-hole and marveled over it. Equally true is the fact that we left as 4 and came back as 3. (I think any community member can figure that out). That actually was not planned. That is why we ended up leaving very early and we were glad to do it.
More than glad. It was an honor.
So if you followed the news from Iraq today, you learned there were at least 54 reported deaths (and who knows how many unreported ones) today. But isn't Iraq supposed to have turned that darn corner? Isn't that what we've been told over and over? Seems like we have been told that. Over and over.
Brandon e-mailed a highlight to me figuring that since it was co-written by a writer I respect, I'd want to see it. I did (and thank you). I would've missed it if it hadn't been for Brandon. A word on the excerpt, it's from the opening. You really need to read the piece in full. This is from Georgianne Nienaber and Keith Harmon Snow's "Baghdad on the Bayou Redux: Wasting the Wetlands" (Dissident Voice):
It was not a hurricane named Katrina that wrecked the city of New Orleans. It was, quite simply, a warfare economy and a sold-out government. It was shoddy pumps and levees, barges run amuck, strategic resources of petroleum and natural gas, environmental deregulation, too much rain, and the destruction of sponge-like barrier wetlands that once absorbed the storm surge. The hurricane was an act of nature, but such storms can no longer be separated from the politics and economics of corporate consumption that are driving the American "war on terror." Katrina created a huge business opportunity for "government," for multinational corporations and private profiteers.
New Orleans and the Gulf Coast have now joined the ranks of "Third World" countries -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Guatemala, Haiti, Somalia, Congo -- suffering the shocks of America’s permanent warfare agenda. This global apartheid sanctions vicious actions toward subjects who resist. The people of New Orleans join the ranks of the homeless, indigenous people suffering genocide, the refugees and internally displaced and other victims of globalization -- millions of people set adrift in a sea of nowhere, with no rights, no possessions, no protection and little prospect for survival.
Disaster capitalism is showing its teeth in America, and the picture isn't pretty.
It was not a hurricane named Katrina that displaced an entire population from the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. It was a flood of biblical proportions and a history of racism and elitism that created poverty and vulnerability in parallel with wealth and privilege. The storm followed decades of business as usual and a "war on terror" that set the stage for a rapid intervention project in urban and social re-engineering.
Read the whole thing or be sorry. Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, December 12, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, mass bombings and mass fatalities return to news coverage, news on war resisters in Canada, the Iraqi education crisis covers three nations, and more.
Starting with war resistance and starting in Canada. Yesterday in Parliament, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration met to discuss the motion passed December 6th. That motion is:
That the Committee recommend that the government immediately implement a program to allow conscientious objectors and their immediate family members (partners and dependents), who have refused or left military service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations and do not have a criminal record, to apply for permanent resident status and remain in Canada; and that the government should immediately cease any removal or deportation actions that may have already commenced against such individuals.
Yesterday, they passed a second motion which will now move it into the House of Commons. However, elections will be taking place in February and it is unlikely anything will take place prior to the elections. Where the pressure needs to be currently is on the Liberal party That's the consensus of seven Parliamentarians as well as the staffers at three offices -- and that's NDP and Liberal -- and they recommend non-Canadian citizens e-mail Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. The Bloc Quebecois party has worked very hard on this issue and they deserve credit but I focused on NDP and Liberal members simply because that's who I know (and only one served on the committee). There are other actions being called for an we'll note those in the future. In terms of the right-now, for non-Canadians, the e-mails are what to focus on per Parliament and members of Parliament have been very surprised to find how many people outside of Canada are following this issue.
Meanwhile, Eric Ruder (Socialist Worker) explores the GI coffeehouse role during Vietnam by speaking with pioneer Fred Gardner about what led Gardner to set up the first coffeehouse and the impact they had (the documentary Sir! No Sir! explores the GI coffeehouse movement). Ruder also explores today's coffeehouse, Different Drummer which was started by Tod Ensign who stresses the role the cafe is playing in addressing PTSD: "These meetings on PTSD are important so that we can demonstrate that we're pro-soldier as well as antiwar -- that we are ready and willing to take steps to defend soldiers who are being prosecuted for AWOL charged brought on by their inability to receive even minimal mental health care on base. We're the only group in the area that is in any way public about the problem of PTSD. You don't hear the USO talking about it on base. You don't hear the military's so-called family support groups saying anything about it. We are an active voice on behalf of these soldiers against these endless deployments and against this endless war." To be clear, the US military has 'family support groups' on each base that allegedly address the needs of service members and their families. Ensign is referring to those and not organizations such as Military Families Speak Out. Amy Ohler (News 10 Now -- text and video) reported last week on a PTSD forum held at Different Drummer.
So 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 -- that's ten more days -- 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 $41.. 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.
But who will investigate the educational crisis facing Iraqis? Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) reports on Iraqi refugees in Damascus where education needs for children are not being met (nor in Jordan, where a spokesperson for Save the Children says 90,000 Iraqi children are not in the school systems) and she also examines the Zuhairy family in Syria which is headed by Umm Sundus and includes her children "Adam, 4; Bahram, 10; Ram, 14; Ranya, 17; Samir, 20; and Suzanne, 22" who all live in "a freezing one-room apartment in Jaramana" which contains "no bathroom door, no hot water, no furniture, no heat and no privacy." Umm Sundus (a widow, her husband a victim of the chaos and violence of the illegal war) could only afford to send one of her children to school (a child enrolled in school allows the family to apply for residency) and they struggle to make ends to meet. Ahmed Ali (IPS) examines the education crisis in Iraq focusing specifically on the Diyala province and finds that "lack of security means many teachers have quite, and children are not going to school. This is a trend across Iraq. According to a report released last year by the non-governmental group Save the Children, 818,000 children of primary school age, representing 22 percent of Iraq's potential student population, were not attending school." Equally reflective of the lack of 'success' or 'safety' in Iraq, the National Museum of Iraq, in Baghdad, remains closed. Cara Buckley (New York Times) visits it to report on the mixed success the museum has had in recovering many of the artifacts looted in 2003 when the US government made the decision that the oil refineries would be protected but the museums could be looted. "Freedom is untidy," crowed then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It should be noted that Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism speaks of the need for a culture amenesia to be created and for disaster capitlaism and certainly allowing the destruction of cultural history and historical monuments is one to create the 'blank slate' disaster captialism depends upon. Buckley notes that the tour was organized by Ahmed Chalabi -- forever infamous as a liar, a war cheerleader and a party planner -- on the latter, as Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) observed December 31, 2003: "On April 8, [2003,] in one of the most televised moments in history, US forces pulled down a statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square in Baghdad. The American public was inundated with images of jubilant Iraqis dancing in the streets as they dragged the statue's head around the square. What was not reported was that there was only a handful of Iraqis at the event, who had been brought in by the US forces. In reality, most of the 150 or so people in the square that day were journalists and soldiers. Some of the Iraqis in the square that day were later identified as agents of the Iraqi opposition figure Ahmed Chalabi, who has a long history of working with the CIA." As Goodman and her brother David Goodman note in Exceptions to the Rulers, Chalabi's 'party' had just arrived in Iraq the day before. It also bears noting that Chalabi was all for the destruction, as Naomi Klein notes in "Baghdad Year Zero" (Harper's magazine): "The prime advocate of the Year Zero approach was Ahmad Chalabi, whose hatred of the Iraqi state for expropriating his family's assets during the 1958 revolution ran so deep he longed to see the entire country burned to the ground -- everything, that is, but the Oil Ministry, which would be the nucleus of the new Iraq, the cluster of cells from which an entire nation would grow. He called this process 'de-Baathification.'" That's worked out so very well.
Today, Iraq was rocked by triple car bombings in Amarah. Qassim Abdul-Zahra (AP) estimates that the bombings "were about five minutes apart" and that they "could be felt a half-mile away". The death toll continues to rise and CNN notes: "Al-Forat, an Iraqi TV station affiliated with the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq (SICI) political movement, and the state TV reported three bombs, with al-Forat saying saying the blasts detonated in a garage. The British military initially reported at least one bombing at a marketplace." Aref Mohammed (Reuters) puts the death toll at 40 thus far with over 125 injured while citing an official with the local police explaining, "Operating rooms are stretched to the limit because of the number of wounded. The city is in shock because it's the first big explosion like this." AFP reminds that the Maysan province (where Amarah is located) "has witnessed intense Shiite infighting, often leading to street battles between militias and Iraqi police." Hannah Strange (Times of London) notes the province was under British control (through 2006 with 'official control' being transferred over in April of this year) and notes that the UK is supposed to pass control over the "neighbouring Basra province to Iraqi forces next week." CBS and AP note the count has risen to 41 dead with one-hundred-and-fifty wounded and cite CBS' Jeff Glor explaining that "the blasts follow a recent pattern, whereby militants hid multiple devices near one another, to kill people who respond to the first blast." Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) describes that process "police said that the first car exploded inside a park in Dijla Street and when people gathered for help, the second car exploded followed by the third car."
Bombings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a a Baghdad mortar attack that left three people wounded, a Kirkuk bombing that left three people wounded and a Baghdad car bombing that claimed 5 lives and left thirteen wounded. CBS and AP report that the Baghdad car bombing took place "[i]n a Christian neghborhood". Which is a good time that there will be no visible celebration of Christmas in Basra. Leila Fadel and Ali al Basri (McClatchy Newspapers) report that the discovery of the corpses of a Christian sister and brother (Mayoosn Farid and Osama Farid) on Monday (Osama was kidnapped and then kidnappers phoned his sister for a meeting) Archbishop Imad al Banna has decreed that it's not safe for public displays of the holiday which includes a ban on "trees, gift swapping and family gatherings".
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a police officer was wounded in Baghdad in one shooting while three other people were wounded in another Baghdad shooting. CBS and AP note today a Tuesday drive-by that left 1 "anti-al Qaeda Sunni tribal sheik who was promoting national unity . . . [and] his nephew" dead outside Tal Afar. Leila Fadel and Ali al Basri (McClatchy Newspapers) report on the death of Hadil Walid Majed Mitaab who had been nine-years-old until a US raid Monday night outside Karmah: "With helicopters flying overhead, the US and Iraqi troops blasted away the doors of two houses and opened fire on a third, which is where Hadill was, family members said. Police and relatives said a bullet pierced Hadil's neck, and she bled to death in her mother's arms. A McClatchy special correspondent visited the house on Tuesday afternoon and watched as a U.S. soldier took bloodied carpet and a small shirt stained with blood from the room where Hadil died. Her father, Walid Majed Mitaab, sat silently among men paying their condolences in one of the partially destroyed houses. Mitaab said a U.S. soldier apologized to him through a translator."
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 5 corpses were discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes 2 corpses were discovered in Laitifiya "two men from a Sunni Arab tribal council".
Turning to US politics, February 5th, 4 Green Party contenders will be running for the Green Party's presidential nomination in the Illionis primary. They are Jared Ball, Howie Hawkins, Kent Mesplay, and Cynthia McKinney. Kimberly Wilder (On the Wilder Side) has an open letter from Ball at her site -- and his web address. He doesn't mention Iraq in his open letter so we're not providing him with a link -- same policy we have witth Democrats. (Nothing on Mesplay's site indicates he's aware an illegal war is even going on. Howie Hawkins? Here's an older site for him and it does note Iraq,) The Illinois Green Party notes that last week objections to the four candidates were dismissed by the state's Board of Elections and "The decision by the board sets the stage for the state's first ever contested Green Primary." Ralph Nader has stated he will announce whether or not he intends to run by the end of this month. McKinney does talk about Iraq and we'll note her in tomorrow's snapshot.
Finally, Free Bilal. Bilal Hussein is a Pulitzer Prize winning AP journalist. He was imprisoned by the US military for the 'crime' of reporting. Since April 12, 2006, he has been imprisoned. On Sunday, something resembling a 'court hearing' took place. It's under a gag order and his attorney was not allowed to speak with Bilal in private. "He was a man full of joy, and his work was exemplary, outstanding," the Philadelphia Daily News' Jim Mac Millan tells Morgan A. Zalot (Philadelphia Weekly) about Bilal, "I don't want one other insurgent bomber on the loose to kill [my friends and colleagues in Iraq], but Bilal is no insurgent. I'm so proud of the people I met there, and this case leaves me feeling nothing but shame. When people ask me why he's in detention, I suggest they look at his photos. Then I ask them why. It's just heartbreaking." The Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorialized yesterday on the 'court hearing' stating, "After so long, he and his attorneys were allowed to see evidence against him. But they weren't allowed to make copies, leaving no time for an adequate review by attorneys, who detailed Hussein's treatment by U.S. captors in a 46-page report (including nine days of blindfolded interrogation and a stint at Abu Ghraib). A distasteful secrecy order prevented them from discussing in public the magistrate's hearing. But a defense attorney said no formal charges were laid out. If Hussein is guilty -- and nothing revealed so far indicates that he is -- why did it take the U.S. military quite so long to take the case to court? We can't help but think that were it not for Hussein's employers keeping the case alive, he would never even get so far as getting his day in court." The Committee to Protect Journalists quotes AP's Paul Colford explaining, "There is still no formal charge against Bilal, and The Associated Press continues to believe that Bilal Hussein was a photojournalist working in a war zone and that claims that he is involved with insurgent activities are false. Because the judge ordered that the proceedings today be kept secret, we are restricted from saying anything further." and CPJ reminds: "Hussein's detention is not an isolated incident. Over the last three years, dozens of journalists -- mostly Iraqis -- have been detained by U.S. troops, according to CPJ research. While most have been released after short periods, in at least eight cases documented by CPJ Iraqi journalists have been held by U.S. for weeks or months without charge or conviction." The International Federation of Journalists has also issued a statement noting, "An Iraqi magistrate will decide whether Hussein will stand trial before a three-judge panel. Hussein's attorneys are still being denied copies of the evidence or time alone with the photographer, which the IFJ fears will make mounting his defence a difficult and unfair task" and places the targeting of Bilal in an international context by noting the other reporters under fire around the globe.
iraq
phil mcdowell
cindy sheehan
anthony arnovehoward zinn
iraq veterans against the war
bilal hussein
hannah allammcclatchy newspapers
leila fadelahmed ali
kimberly wilder
democracy nowamy goodmanthe new york timescara buckley
naomi klein
I enjoyed what she wrote including about the school parties for children. I wasn't able to read it until tonight (right before I logged in) because it was so, so, so busy. So busy, in fact, that I'm about to pull my hair out just thinking about how I have to do a review this weekend.
But some stuff got accomplished. Ava and C.I. are fierce. I watched them button-hole and marveled over it. Equally true is the fact that we left as 4 and came back as 3. (I think any community member can figure that out). That actually was not planned. That is why we ended up leaving very early and we were glad to do it.
More than glad. It was an honor.
So if you followed the news from Iraq today, you learned there were at least 54 reported deaths (and who knows how many unreported ones) today. But isn't Iraq supposed to have turned that darn corner? Isn't that what we've been told over and over? Seems like we have been told that. Over and over.
Brandon e-mailed a highlight to me figuring that since it was co-written by a writer I respect, I'd want to see it. I did (and thank you). I would've missed it if it hadn't been for Brandon. A word on the excerpt, it's from the opening. You really need to read the piece in full. This is from Georgianne Nienaber and Keith Harmon Snow's "Baghdad on the Bayou Redux: Wasting the Wetlands" (Dissident Voice):
It was not a hurricane named Katrina that wrecked the city of New Orleans. It was, quite simply, a warfare economy and a sold-out government. It was shoddy pumps and levees, barges run amuck, strategic resources of petroleum and natural gas, environmental deregulation, too much rain, and the destruction of sponge-like barrier wetlands that once absorbed the storm surge. The hurricane was an act of nature, but such storms can no longer be separated from the politics and economics of corporate consumption that are driving the American "war on terror." Katrina created a huge business opportunity for "government," for multinational corporations and private profiteers.
New Orleans and the Gulf Coast have now joined the ranks of "Third World" countries -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Guatemala, Haiti, Somalia, Congo -- suffering the shocks of America’s permanent warfare agenda. This global apartheid sanctions vicious actions toward subjects who resist. The people of New Orleans join the ranks of the homeless, indigenous people suffering genocide, the refugees and internally displaced and other victims of globalization -- millions of people set adrift in a sea of nowhere, with no rights, no possessions, no protection and little prospect for survival.
Disaster capitalism is showing its teeth in America, and the picture isn't pretty.
It was not a hurricane named Katrina that displaced an entire population from the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. It was a flood of biblical proportions and a history of racism and elitism that created poverty and vulnerability in parallel with wealth and privilege. The storm followed decades of business as usual and a "war on terror" that set the stage for a rapid intervention project in urban and social re-engineering.
Read the whole thing or be sorry. Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, December 12, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, mass bombings and mass fatalities return to news coverage, news on war resisters in Canada, the Iraqi education crisis covers three nations, and more.
Starting with war resistance and starting in Canada. Yesterday in Parliament, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration met to discuss the motion passed December 6th. That motion is:
That the Committee recommend that the government immediately implement a program to allow conscientious objectors and their immediate family members (partners and dependents), who have refused or left military service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations and do not have a criminal record, to apply for permanent resident status and remain in Canada; and that the government should immediately cease any removal or deportation actions that may have already commenced against such individuals.
Yesterday, they passed a second motion which will now move it into the House of Commons. However, elections will be taking place in February and it is unlikely anything will take place prior to the elections. Where the pressure needs to be currently is on the Liberal party That's the consensus of seven Parliamentarians as well as the staffers at three offices -- and that's NDP and Liberal -- and they recommend non-Canadian citizens e-mail Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration. The Bloc Quebecois party has worked very hard on this issue and they deserve credit but I focused on NDP and Liberal members simply because that's who I know (and only one served on the committee). There are other actions being called for an we'll note those in the future. In terms of the right-now, for non-Canadians, the e-mails are what to focus on per Parliament and members of Parliament have been very surprised to find how many people outside of Canada are following this issue.
Meanwhile, Eric Ruder (Socialist Worker) explores the GI coffeehouse role during Vietnam by speaking with pioneer Fred Gardner about what led Gardner to set up the first coffeehouse and the impact they had (the documentary Sir! No Sir! explores the GI coffeehouse movement). Ruder also explores today's coffeehouse, Different Drummer which was started by Tod Ensign who stresses the role the cafe is playing in addressing PTSD: "These meetings on PTSD are important so that we can demonstrate that we're pro-soldier as well as antiwar -- that we are ready and willing to take steps to defend soldiers who are being prosecuted for AWOL charged brought on by their inability to receive even minimal mental health care on base. We're the only group in the area that is in any way public about the problem of PTSD. You don't hear the USO talking about it on base. You don't hear the military's so-called family support groups saying anything about it. We are an active voice on behalf of these soldiers against these endless deployments and against this endless war." To be clear, the US military has 'family support groups' on each base that allegedly address the needs of service members and their families. Ensign is referring to those and not organizations such as Military Families Speak Out. Amy Ohler (News 10 Now -- text and video) reported last week on a PTSD forum held at Different Drummer.
So 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 -- that's ten more days -- 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 $41.. 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.
But who will investigate the educational crisis facing Iraqis? Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) reports on Iraqi refugees in Damascus where education needs for children are not being met (nor in Jordan, where a spokesperson for Save the Children says 90,000 Iraqi children are not in the school systems) and she also examines the Zuhairy family in Syria which is headed by Umm Sundus and includes her children "Adam, 4; Bahram, 10; Ram, 14; Ranya, 17; Samir, 20; and Suzanne, 22" who all live in "a freezing one-room apartment in Jaramana" which contains "no bathroom door, no hot water, no furniture, no heat and no privacy." Umm Sundus (a widow, her husband a victim of the chaos and violence of the illegal war) could only afford to send one of her children to school (a child enrolled in school allows the family to apply for residency) and they struggle to make ends to meet. Ahmed Ali (IPS) examines the education crisis in Iraq focusing specifically on the Diyala province and finds that "lack of security means many teachers have quite, and children are not going to school. This is a trend across Iraq. According to a report released last year by the non-governmental group Save the Children, 818,000 children of primary school age, representing 22 percent of Iraq's potential student population, were not attending school." Equally reflective of the lack of 'success' or 'safety' in Iraq, the National Museum of Iraq, in Baghdad, remains closed. Cara Buckley (New York Times) visits it to report on the mixed success the museum has had in recovering many of the artifacts looted in 2003 when the US government made the decision that the oil refineries would be protected but the museums could be looted. "Freedom is untidy," crowed then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. It should be noted that Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism speaks of the need for a culture amenesia to be created and for disaster capitlaism and certainly allowing the destruction of cultural history and historical monuments is one to create the 'blank slate' disaster captialism depends upon. Buckley notes that the tour was organized by Ahmed Chalabi -- forever infamous as a liar, a war cheerleader and a party planner -- on the latter, as Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) observed December 31, 2003: "On April 8, [2003,] in one of the most televised moments in history, US forces pulled down a statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square in Baghdad. The American public was inundated with images of jubilant Iraqis dancing in the streets as they dragged the statue's head around the square. What was not reported was that there was only a handful of Iraqis at the event, who had been brought in by the US forces. In reality, most of the 150 or so people in the square that day were journalists and soldiers. Some of the Iraqis in the square that day were later identified as agents of the Iraqi opposition figure Ahmed Chalabi, who has a long history of working with the CIA." As Goodman and her brother David Goodman note in Exceptions to the Rulers, Chalabi's 'party' had just arrived in Iraq the day before. It also bears noting that Chalabi was all for the destruction, as Naomi Klein notes in "Baghdad Year Zero" (Harper's magazine): "The prime advocate of the Year Zero approach was Ahmad Chalabi, whose hatred of the Iraqi state for expropriating his family's assets during the 1958 revolution ran so deep he longed to see the entire country burned to the ground -- everything, that is, but the Oil Ministry, which would be the nucleus of the new Iraq, the cluster of cells from which an entire nation would grow. He called this process 'de-Baathification.'" That's worked out so very well.
Today, Iraq was rocked by triple car bombings in Amarah. Qassim Abdul-Zahra (AP) estimates that the bombings "were about five minutes apart" and that they "could be felt a half-mile away". The death toll continues to rise and CNN notes: "Al-Forat, an Iraqi TV station affiliated with the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq (SICI) political movement, and the state TV reported three bombs, with al-Forat saying saying the blasts detonated in a garage. The British military initially reported at least one bombing at a marketplace." Aref Mohammed (Reuters) puts the death toll at 40 thus far with over 125 injured while citing an official with the local police explaining, "Operating rooms are stretched to the limit because of the number of wounded. The city is in shock because it's the first big explosion like this." AFP reminds that the Maysan province (where Amarah is located) "has witnessed intense Shiite infighting, often leading to street battles between militias and Iraqi police." Hannah Strange (Times of London) notes the province was under British control (through 2006 with 'official control' being transferred over in April of this year) and notes that the UK is supposed to pass control over the "neighbouring Basra province to Iraqi forces next week." CBS and AP note the count has risen to 41 dead with one-hundred-and-fifty wounded and cite CBS' Jeff Glor explaining that "the blasts follow a recent pattern, whereby militants hid multiple devices near one another, to kill people who respond to the first blast." Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) describes that process "police said that the first car exploded inside a park in Dijla Street and when people gathered for help, the second car exploded followed by the third car."
Bombings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a a Baghdad mortar attack that left three people wounded, a Kirkuk bombing that left three people wounded and a Baghdad car bombing that claimed 5 lives and left thirteen wounded. CBS and AP report that the Baghdad car bombing took place "[i]n a Christian neghborhood". Which is a good time that there will be no visible celebration of Christmas in Basra. Leila Fadel and Ali al Basri (McClatchy Newspapers) report that the discovery of the corpses of a Christian sister and brother (Mayoosn Farid and Osama Farid) on Monday (Osama was kidnapped and then kidnappers phoned his sister for a meeting) Archbishop Imad al Banna has decreed that it's not safe for public displays of the holiday which includes a ban on "trees, gift swapping and family gatherings".
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a police officer was wounded in Baghdad in one shooting while three other people were wounded in another Baghdad shooting. CBS and AP note today a Tuesday drive-by that left 1 "anti-al Qaeda Sunni tribal sheik who was promoting national unity . . . [and] his nephew" dead outside Tal Afar. Leila Fadel and Ali al Basri (McClatchy Newspapers) report on the death of Hadil Walid Majed Mitaab who had been nine-years-old until a US raid Monday night outside Karmah: "With helicopters flying overhead, the US and Iraqi troops blasted away the doors of two houses and opened fire on a third, which is where Hadill was, family members said. Police and relatives said a bullet pierced Hadil's neck, and she bled to death in her mother's arms. A McClatchy special correspondent visited the house on Tuesday afternoon and watched as a U.S. soldier took bloodied carpet and a small shirt stained with blood from the room where Hadil died. Her father, Walid Majed Mitaab, sat silently among men paying their condolences in one of the partially destroyed houses. Mitaab said a U.S. soldier apologized to him through a translator."
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 5 corpses were discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes 2 corpses were discovered in Laitifiya "two men from a Sunni Arab tribal council".
Turning to US politics, February 5th, 4 Green Party contenders will be running for the Green Party's presidential nomination in the Illionis primary. They are Jared Ball, Howie Hawkins, Kent Mesplay, and Cynthia McKinney. Kimberly Wilder (On the Wilder Side) has an open letter from Ball at her site -- and his web address. He doesn't mention Iraq in his open letter so we're not providing him with a link -- same policy we have witth Democrats. (Nothing on Mesplay's site indicates he's aware an illegal war is even going on. Howie Hawkins? Here's an older site for him and it does note Iraq,) The Illinois Green Party notes that last week objections to the four candidates were dismissed by the state's Board of Elections and "The decision by the board sets the stage for the state's first ever contested Green Primary." Ralph Nader has stated he will announce whether or not he intends to run by the end of this month. McKinney does talk about Iraq and we'll note her in tomorrow's snapshot.
Finally, Free Bilal. Bilal Hussein is a Pulitzer Prize winning AP journalist. He was imprisoned by the US military for the 'crime' of reporting. Since April 12, 2006, he has been imprisoned. On Sunday, something resembling a 'court hearing' took place. It's under a gag order and his attorney was not allowed to speak with Bilal in private. "He was a man full of joy, and his work was exemplary, outstanding," the Philadelphia Daily News' Jim Mac Millan tells Morgan A. Zalot (Philadelphia Weekly) about Bilal, "I don't want one other insurgent bomber on the loose to kill [my friends and colleagues in Iraq], but Bilal is no insurgent. I'm so proud of the people I met there, and this case leaves me feeling nothing but shame. When people ask me why he's in detention, I suggest they look at his photos. Then I ask them why. It's just heartbreaking." The Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorialized yesterday on the 'court hearing' stating, "After so long, he and his attorneys were allowed to see evidence against him. But they weren't allowed to make copies, leaving no time for an adequate review by attorneys, who detailed Hussein's treatment by U.S. captors in a 46-page report (including nine days of blindfolded interrogation and a stint at Abu Ghraib). A distasteful secrecy order prevented them from discussing in public the magistrate's hearing. But a defense attorney said no formal charges were laid out. If Hussein is guilty -- and nothing revealed so far indicates that he is -- why did it take the U.S. military quite so long to take the case to court? We can't help but think that were it not for Hussein's employers keeping the case alive, he would never even get so far as getting his day in court." The Committee to Protect Journalists quotes AP's Paul Colford explaining, "There is still no formal charge against Bilal, and The Associated Press continues to believe that Bilal Hussein was a photojournalist working in a war zone and that claims that he is involved with insurgent activities are false. Because the judge ordered that the proceedings today be kept secret, we are restricted from saying anything further." and CPJ reminds: "Hussein's detention is not an isolated incident. Over the last three years, dozens of journalists -- mostly Iraqis -- have been detained by U.S. troops, according to CPJ research. While most have been released after short periods, in at least eight cases documented by CPJ Iraqi journalists have been held by U.S. for weeks or months without charge or conviction." The International Federation of Journalists has also issued a statement noting, "An Iraqi magistrate will decide whether Hussein will stand trial before a three-judge panel. Hussein's attorneys are still being denied copies of the evidence or time alone with the photographer, which the IFJ fears will make mounting his defence a difficult and unfair task" and places the targeting of Bilal in an international context by noting the other reporters under fire around the globe.
iraq
phil mcdowell
cindy sheehan
anthony arnovehoward zinn
iraq veterans against the war
bilal hussein
hannah allammcclatchy newspapers
leila fadelahmed ali
kimberly wilder
democracy nowamy goodmanthe new york timescara buckley
naomi klein
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