Green guilty, Adam Smith acting like a fool

The jury found War Criminal Steven D. Green . . . guilty

. . . guilty

. . . guilty

. . . guilty

. . . guilty

. . . guilty

. . . guilty

. . . guilty

. . . guilty

. . . guilty

. . . guilty

. . . guilty

. . . guilty

. . . guilty

. . . guilty

. . . guilty

and guilty.

All counts.

Now House Armed Services Committee's Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee. C.I. covered some of it in the snapshot and Ava, Wally and I also attended it.

The hearing was completely unprofessional and a huge embarrassment. It was on a disgusting topic (counter-insurgency) and it was as if the House turned out their frat boys.

Do you think swine flu is funny?

The Frat Boys of the House dod. One witness had the flu, not swine flu! Oh that was funny! And the chair of the subcommittee, Adam Smith, then had to run with that. When someone said they were under the weather, time for Adam to trot out swine flu jokes.

Is this the message the US government wants to send on the swine flu?

I haven't been in a panic over it but the government sure has been. Until today when the House and their panel of witnesses thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

2 people are dead in the US. I wonder if they think it's funny?

And I wonder how someone as juvenile as Adam Smith ever got to be the chair of anything?

Look, I've got Dianne Feinstein as one of my senators. I know about being embarrassed. But if I had Adam Smith as my rep, I would I be screaming my head off. He is so unprofessional.

Witnesses making their opening statements were repeatedly interrupted by him. He then hogged the entire hearing and, when finally turning it over to the Republicans, had to do another few minutes of his unfunny monologue before finally turning it over.

I have never been to a more unprofessional Congress hearing.

And to be fair, there have been hearings I loathed with witnesses I felt weren't just liars but liars that weren't being called on. Even though I felt the committees were asleep at that point, I never felt they were unprofessional in the way they conducted the hearings.

And we sat in a lot of Joe Biden's hearings because C.I's known the vice president for years and years. And Joe Biden is an off-the-cuff kind of guy. He was never afraid of a joke. But he was always appropriate. And he let witnesses make their opening statements without interruptions.

I don't dislike Joe Biden. In fact, as I got to see him in those hearings and on office visits with C.I. over two-plus years, I really grew to respect him and I do think he's a nice guy. I do disagree with him on many issues but I have a lot of respect for him and he's really a warm guy. But I bring him up because it's uh-oh-Joe!

That's the way the press treats him.

I never saw a hearing of his where he was unprofessional. He chaired them and, yes, he could have fun or another senator could have some fun. But they were still professionals and they certainly never made jokes about diseases.

I really am appalled by the hearing Adam Smith chaired today.

Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, May 7, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, justice for Abeer at last, the US Congress hears testimony today that the country's biggest problem is not enough lying, a DLC Democrat refers to Americans as paranoid, Amnesty asks for an end to the death penalty in Iraq, and more.

A federal court in Kentucky has reached a verdict today. March 12, 2006, Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi's parents and five-year-old sister were murdered in their Iraqi home while Abeer was gang-raped in another room. Following the gang-rape, Abeer was murdered. Steven D. Green is said to be the murderer of all four, a gang-rapist and the ring leader who planned the entire thing. The jury went into deliberation yesterday. Evan Bright reports, "Steven Dale Green found guilty of and convcited on -- ALL -- sixteen (16) counts; including eight (8) which could bring a death sentence." Evan Bright is the 18-year-old high school senior who has attended and reported one every day of the trial. This is Bright reporting on Marisa Ford, of the US Attorney General's office, making her closing remarks yesterday:She reminded the jury of Barker and Cortez raping Abeer while "Green, behind closed doors, blew Qassim Hamza's brains out with his Army supplied shotgun." According to Ford, he then took the AK47, "which was provided to the family for protection against insurgents," and used it on the mother, Fahkriyah, and their six year old daughter, Hadeel." She went on to describe Green's sexual assault and execution style murder of Abeer, before he "burned her, beyond all recognition." At this, Green(in a blue Polo) looked down but was still listening intently. She talked about Green having had the AK47 disposed of, and his not-so-impaired judgement. "This was a crime…not committed in the chaos of battle, not committed while on an Army assigned mission, but a crime planned, and acted out in cold blood." Marisa cattle prodded the Defense team, referring to Pat Bouldin's "dumbing things down" for the jury in his opening statement. "To 'dumb things down' for you is an insult to your intelligence," Ford told the jury, "you don't need things dumbed down to know that what Stephen Green did was wrong." Mr. Bouldin frowned as he listened. She talked about the non existent evidence that would dispute the planning of this crime(regarding the conspiracy counts). The killings were "a result of planning and deliberation," Ford intoned(referring to the four counts of pre-meditated murder). "Everything you have seen before, during, and after the crimes, all the evidence, shows pre-meditation."

The Courier-Journal's Andrew Wolfson also notes that Green was convicted on all counts as does AFP. Brett Barrouquer (AP) notes that jury delibrated for a little over ten hours.


While lies were exposed in court, something different happened today in front of the legislative branch. While lying during Congressional testimony is neither new nor novel, it's rare that Congress is informed that the US needs more lying and that, in fact, laws should be changed to allow it. But that's what tubby David Kilcullen insisted. Meanwhile Lisa Schirch fluttered her War Hawk feathers in public.

Not everyone is a person of peace. That should be obvious. And just because someone claims they are doesn't mean they are. Again, it should be obvious. But the laughable War Hawk Lisa Schirch has been allowed to repeatedly and falsely pimp herself as a person of peace. Schirch is the director of 3D Security Initiative. Somehow being the director of 3D did not prevent her from writing on it for Foreign Policy In Focus -- nor was it noted anywhere in "Leveraging '3D' Security: From Rhetoric to Reality" (November 15, 2006) that she was the director of 3D Security Initiative, not even in her credit line. When the usual crowd of useless ran her soggy 'reasoning' entitled "I Want a Woman President But Am Voting for Obama," it wasn't thought necessary to present her as anything but a college professor.

War Hawk Lisa Schirch has been given a pass by our 'allies' in the peace movement and it's past time that her pass was revoked and people quit pimping her as a peace queen. Certain elements of the US 'intelligence' community (those who worked in Jakarta subverting freedom and human rights) have been happy to promote Lisa as a 'hero' and that should have only alarmed the left further. But they ignored it. At their own peril. This morning Lisa appeared before the House Armed Services Committee's Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee.

Lisa Schirch: The-the- field that we're talking about is conflict prevention and this conference that the JFCOM Joint Forces Command and the Marine Corps put on together was called "Whole of Government: Conflict Prevention." And many of us in the NGO community are working actively now to try to figure out how to build a more comprehensive approach to the issues of terrorism? And for the NGOs, we have been working actively on the ground in Iraq, Afghanistan, and we have many partner networks who are indeginious Iraqi NGOs and Afghan NGOs who have been sharing their perspective on counter-terrorism and how best to prevent the kind of spread of the insurgencies we see in these regions. And they very much want to be able to feed into the process and partly -- part of the challenge here is that interagency coordination is so new here in Washington that there's really no points of contact for NGOs that are on the ground who have cultural intelligence information to share that would inform US strategy. Uh over the weekend, Dr. Kilcullen made some statements that were in the media about the drones flying over Pakistan bombing villages is actually having a counter-effect to our national interests in the US -- that the drones end up creating more fuel on the ground for recruitment into Taliban-al Qaeda insurgencies. We've been hearing that in civil society NGOs for several years -- that this kind of drone activity is counter to US interests. So that's the kind of information civil societies want to give over and have conversations with the [US] government. So it's actually very much in our interest as uh civil society to help to help to foster and think about what is the best way for the defense, development, diplomacy, tools of American power, how they are coordinated because this impacts then how civil society can feed into the process. Again, we don't take particular stands on whether it's the State Dept's Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization -- although we very much support that -- or the National Security Council. There are a variety of models that I think we need to have more hearings on how is this best going to be done in this country because it's very urgent. The-the ratio of cost prevention versus -- uh prevention versus cost of terrorism is -- is not met in terms of our US budget, in terms of national security. So several of us have argued for a unified security budget that would try to balance out more these preventative responses uh because right now if you look at one tax dollars less than half-of-a-percent is going to all of our development activities abroad. Whereas almost 60 percent of that dollar goes to defense approaches. So this balance is off. It makes coordination between -- in this interagency process -- very difficult for USAID at the Simulation For Conflict Prevention, they couldn't really risk a lot of the staff time because they have so few staff to even give over to this conversation.

Smith: It also pushes DoD into doing a lot more development work than they are actually qualified to do because they have the money.

Lisa Schirch: Right. And and they were comments at this conference that DoD is being forced to create its own internal USAID, its own civilian response corp which is mirroring structures that also exist in the State Dept and USAID which is a waste of tax payer dollar.

There is so much be appalled by in Little Lisa's statements. Let's start with NGO. It stands for, pay attention, Lisa, Non Governmental Organization. Non Governmental. That's hard for Little Lisa to grasp because she believes NGOs WHORE themselves out to a government. So getting into bed with the US government is, for her, perfectly natural. Her testimony, public testimony, just made life a whole lot harder for real NGOs in Iraq who will now be suspected of existing to spy.

That is what Little Lisa's floating. NGOs have information on combatting terrorism! They have knowledge on how to work a better counter-insurgency! The US government must listen to Little Lisa. That is a betrayal of what NGOs are supposed to do. (It's a betrayal of "civil society" as well -- whether one uses the definitions established by Hobbes or Locke or the definitions of Marx and Alexis de Tocqueville.)

What concern is it of an NGO director what the US spends money on? If they want to give money to DoD, what business is it of an NGO? It's not. It's none of her damn business as director of an NGO. It's about as relevant as her ridiculous story where she attended a USAID conference and, you know what, people there were saying DoD was getting more money and they were saying DoD duplicates efforts and, oh did you hear about Tad and Brenda, I so cannot believe that and let me tell you one damn thing, Tad's in a lot of trouble, he is in hot water, that little mister better watch his --

Little Lisa, in testimony before the Congress gave gossip. Little Lisa talked about what DoD was doing (according to gossip) based on a conference that DoD wasn't present at. She gave unsourced comments that had no grounding in reality and were most likely made up by her on the spot. (If you'd seen her body language and the way she threw herself forward during this part of the production, you'd be very sure that she made it up on the spot.)

The United States is not an NGO. Little Lisa is the Director of 3D. She needs to learn to speak properly (that would require her to lose the Valley Girl inflections, eliminate the hair toss and attempting to flirt with members of Congress while testifying and a great deal more). And she needs to be called out.

A 'peace' person does not speak about how drones attacking civilians is 'bad' because it breeds anger. A peace person states: "You don't kill innocent civilians." That's not complicated. It's not even controversial. It is a peace position and has been for many centuries now. The hearing was entitled "Counterinsurgency and Irregular Warfare: Issues and Lessons Learned." Yes, it was a huge blurring of lines. Consider it the let's-drop-acid hearing of the Congress. And grasp that the counter-insurgency movement in the US supported Barack. They were not the peace movement and the refusal of the No Stars of Beggar Media (print and Pacifica) to explore that aspect goes a long ways towards explaining how a counter-insurgency czar like Barack could ever be mistaken for a peace candidate. Counter-insurgency is war on the native people. It is colonialism and it, rightly, had a horrible reputation after Vietnam. Lisa Schirch, Montgomery McFate, Sarah Sewall, Samantha Power and many more worked overtime to give it some gloss and buff it up. But it is war on a native population.

The Network of Concerned Anthropologists' David Price has been one of the few voices to strongly and consistently call out counter-insurgency. Last month, at CounterPunch, he noted that counter-insurgency exists to:

provide military personnel with cultural information that will help inform troop activities in areas of occupation. Since the first public acknowledgement of HTS [Human Terrain Teams] two and a half years ago, it has been criticized by anthropologists for betraying fundamental principles of anthropological ethics, as being politically aligned with neo-colonialism, and as being ineffective in meeting its claimed outcomes. For the most part, the mainstream media has acted as cheerleaders for the program by producing a seemingly endless series of uncritical features highlighting what they frame as kind hearted individuals trying to use their knowledge of culture to save lives; while misrepresenting the reasons and extent of criticism of the Human Terrain program. A few early boosters of Human Terrain Systems (HTS) have now called for its closure (most notable, the British journal Nature), and some journalistic coverage has shifted from uncritical fawning to more reserved critical writing (e.g. Noah Schachtman's writings on Wired's military Danger Room blog). But most media coverage remains uncritical in its thinly veiled support for a program that has never had to answer to the fundamental critiques of its critics, and Human terrain continues on its trajectory of counterinsurgency domination.

While David Price deserves applause, it's past time to ask Foreign Policy in Focus, David Swanson, Foreign Affairs (Marxist Thought Online) and so many others why they pimped counter-insurgency cheerleader Lisa? She is not about peace. Not only did she participate in today's hearing, she advocated NGOs -- non governmental by definition -- turning over 'intel' to the US government. Information that will be used against a people. Counter-insurgency does include (and has included in Iraq, as Bob Woodward has detailed) 'targeted killings' (assassinations) of local figures. That's not peace and someone on the ground in Iraq, the NGOs Lisa's talking about, would be just the ones to provide that 'intel.' It's shocking, it's appalling and the peace movement needs to pull a Michael Corleone at the end of The Godfather and close the door in her face.

Was counter-insurgency guru David Kilcullen forced out of Australia due to the government's fear that there wasn't enough food to feed him? It certainly appears that way and it's hard to think of a hearing where a chair's appeared under more assault than the one he plopped his huge girth in. David Kilcullen wanted the subcommittee to know a few things, "One is that we place a different priority within the military on information operations to the priority that our enemy places." "We"? Kilcullen is not a member of the US military nor does he work for the Defense Dept. He most recently worked under Condi Rice at the State Dept. The State Dept is not "within the military." That might be confusing for Kilcullen since he is not a US citizen and only left Australia in 2005. If we're really worried about immigration, how about worrying about the truly dangerous who come to these shores to do harm to the rest of the world and not those who just try to make a living for themselves and their families?

Kilcullen continued that the Taliban "put information or propaganda first so the first thing they decide is what is the propaganda mission that we're trying to send?' Then they figure out what operations to design and carry out to meet that propaganda objective. We do it the other way around. We design how we're going to operate and then at the last minute we throw it to the information office folks and we say, 'Hey, can you just explain this to the public?'" So Kilcullen thinks that's the more effective propaganda model. As you listen to the John Candy wanna be you wonder how the hell the United States decided to bring in this reject into our government? Even more you wonder if, decades from now as this stain on the US grows ever greater, will it be remembered that the nation let a foreigner dictate this? One who knows little about the history of the United States and shows no respect for the bits he managed to register? If you doubt that or how much this human filth loves his propaganda, let's note this from section of his testimony today:

And one final legislative issue. We had a lot of trouble uh in Iraq uh trying to counter al Qaeda in Iraq propaganda because of the Smith-Mundt act which meant that we couldn't do a lot of things online uh because if you put something on YouTube uh and it's deemed to the information operations and there's a possibility that an American might log on to that page and read that and be influenced by that's technically illegal under the Smith-Mundt Act and we had to get a uh uh a waiver as you may recall to be able to do that. I think for Congress it might be worth looking at uh how that legislation may need to be relooked at or re-examined in the light of a new media environment so that it still has the same intent but doesn't necessarily restrict us from legitimate things that we might need to do in the field.

Background, Smith-Mundt Act is the popular name for 1948's US Information and Educational Exchange Act. Marc Lynch has observed:

The temptation to manipulate American public opinion has always been there, and has only grown more potent in an age where counter-insurgency practitioners and "Long War" planners openly view the American domestic arena as a vital strategic arena. I'd go so far as to suggest that a non-insignificant portion of General Petraeus's information operations efforts have been directed towards shaping American public discourse. It isn't an accident that he has been so available to so many journalists, or that the flow of "good news" about the Anbar Awakening and the surge into the American media has expanded so dramatically. And why wouldn't he, when at the heart of the new counter-insurgency doctrine lies the recognition that maintaining domestic public support for a long, drawn-out military presence is one of the most important single factors?

Subcommittee chair Adam Smith shamed his party by insisting that "it absolutely needs to be fixed" -- Smith-Mundt, the legislation Harry Truman signed into law. He is a blight on the Democratic Party. A long term War Hawk, Smith can no longer embarrass himself but the DLC "New Deomcrat" War Hawk can and does embarrass the party.

He embarrasses the party with statements like this one today, "The problem we're going to have is the paranoia of the American public right now that the government's trying to manipulate them." Oh, those paranoid Americans! Justice would be a Green, Republican, Libertarian or whatever running against him in 2010 and using that little soundbyte for the commercials. Just zooming in on "the paranoia of the American public" and asking if Washington is really sending Adam Smith to DC to talk about American citizens like that?

Turning to some of today's reported violence in Iraq . . .

Bombings?

Reuters notes a Mussayab roadside bombing which wounded three people. Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report two Salahuddin Province sticky bombings on tankers which left three drivers injured yesterday, today a Falluja suicide car bombing no known injuries or deaths other than the bomber ("The U.S. military cordoned off the area so that not even Iraqi police were allowed near the site. No comment from the U.S. military was available at time of publication."), a Mosul roadside bombing which wounded two people, a Mosul grenade attack . . .

Shootings?

Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report the Mosul grenade attack was followed by US soldiers shooting and a 12-year-old boy was shot dead and, yesterday, 2 fisherman were shot dead by "Iranian snipers."

Today Amnesty International issued the following:

The Iraqi authorities executed 12 people on Sunday, according to information received by Amnesty International. The 12 are believed to be among the 128 people who were on death row. There are growing fears that more executions will follow in the coming days or weeks. The Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council confirmed to Amnesty International on 9 March 2009 that Iraq's Presidential Council had ratified the death sentences of 128 people who had been facing imminent execution. The death sentences were originally passed by criminal courts in Baghdad, Basra and other cities and provinces on charges under Iraq's Penal Code and the Anti-Terrorism law that include murder and kidnapping, and were upheld by the Cassation Court. A spokesperson for Amnesty International expressed dismay at the executions and called for their full names to be disclosed. "Amnesty International is urging the authorities to commute all death sentences and to establish an immediate moratorium on executions," said Malcolm Smart, the Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme. "Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases."

Yesterday's snapshot noted the news in Lt Ehren Watada's case. Watada was the first officer to resist the Iraq War publicly. Quickly, US District Judge Benjamin Settle barred a second court-martial on three charges. This was when the military should have appealed. In October 2008, Desert Peace explained then, "However, this time around the military added back in the two counts of conduct unbecoming . . . and did not offer the same deal to stipulate. So now Judge Settle has left it up to the military to appeal his ruling as well as continue on concerning those two counts." What happened yesterday? The same thing. The three charges Settle found (Nov 2007) to be double-jeopardy risks are not allowed. The other two charges the military could file on. William Cole (Honolulu Advertiser) explains: "More than a year and a half after he would have left the Army -- had he deployed as ordered -- the 1996 Kalani High School graduate still reports to a desk job at Fort Lewis in Washington state. Watada is likely to continue to have to do so as the Army weighs its next move." Courage to Resist highlights an action for another war resister:
Action alert: Ask that Cliff Cornell's sentence be reduced
Your letter to the Commander of Fort Stewart, Georgia requesting that Iraq War resister Cliff Cornell's 12-months prison sentence be reduced is urgently requested. Cliff was convicted of desertion on April 28, 2009 after being denied sanctuary in Canada. These letters of support will be collected by Cliff's civilian lawyer James Branum and submitted to the military through the official appeals process.
Address letters to: COMMANDER, Fort Stewart and fax to 866-757-8785. Please do not send letters directly to the CG but through Cliff's lawyer at the fax number provided.
Basic guidelines for letters:
Good points to raise:
Cliff's good character
The importance of acting upon conscience
The severity of the sentence, especially since a 12 month sentence is a felony in the US.
Things to avoid:
Partisan politics
Any attacks on the Army itself. For example, you can say the war is bad; however, but don't say the Army is an evil institution.
Letters should include the full name and contact information of the author, including e-mail. This is requested so that Cliff's lawyer can contact you if needed.
Letters need to be received by May 31, 2009 so that they can be submitted as part of the formal appeals process.

Yesterday's snapshot noted J-Som (Liberal Rapture) who, to his credit, added an update: ""Below I take what any logical person would read as a dig at Chris Hedges. I was not clear. I have read Hedges here and there and he spoke at my church once and I attended. What I have read and heard from him I found edifying and thought provoking. Hedges is morally consistent, unlike so many others on the Left. My interjection of 'gee. ya think?' was in response to my annoyance with the entire Lefty chattering class using a cut and paste from Hedges as back up. It reads as a direct dig at Hedges which is unfair. And it was sloppy of me and I apologize for it." Applause for J-Som. (That's not sarcasm but we'll leave it at that because we're moving quickly.)

Non-Iraq, independent journalist David Bacon latest book is Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press). In the latest issue of Monthly Review, Michael D. Yates' "Don't Pity the Poor Immigrants, Fight Alongside Them" addresses Bacon's book and notes:A third conclusion that flows from Bacon's book is that anti-immigration politics have little basis in fact. If we look just at undocumented immigrants, we find that they pay their own way. They add more to the national income than they take from it. They pay taxes, all sorts of taxes, including sales and excise taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes, and yes, income taxes. They get little in return for these taxes; they are much less likely than similarly-situated natives to receive health care, education, public assistance, police protection, and all other publically provided services. As noted above, they do not often compete directly with native workers for jobs. By any reasonable standard, they face harsher work regimens and enjoy fewer protections on the job than do native laborers. They commit fewer crimes than natives. What all of this means is that the crusades being waged against "illegal aliens" have ulterior motives. Lou Dobbs and Tom Tancredo know that employers will never be harshly prosecuted for hiring undocumented workers, and they do not want them to be. Rhetorical attacks on employers play well with the masses, and this is why they do it. What the hysteria they foster does accomplish is to divide working people by making part of the working class the "other," a quasi-criminal element that can be used to hide the true horrors of this economic system, one that the immigrant bashers love and profit from. Whatever divides workers makes it hard for them to form the one thing that employers and their xenophobic allies really hate-unions.David L. Wilson also reviews it in "The Immigration System: Maybe Not So Broken" (only Wilson is available online):Much of Bacon's answer is right there in his title: Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants. He argues that undocumented workers come here largely because of the neoliberal economic policies that the U.S. elite has vigorously pushed on our southern neighbors over the past 30 years, disrupting local economies and forcing millions to seek employment outside their countries. At the same time, he says, U.S. legislators were passing laws that tightened restrictions on immigrants from these countries. These restrictions haven't stopped immigration; instead, they've created a class of "illegals" who are forced to keep their heads down as they work for less pay in brutal conditions -- involuntarily providing downward pressure on the wages of native-born workers. In short, he shows us a system that lets U.S. corporations profit from globalization in countries like Mexico and then profit again by exploiting globalization's victims when they seek work here.It's easy enough to document this process with statistics and academic studies, and Bacon does his share of that. But he also brings the statistics to life by providing the other element missing in the immigration debate -- he tells us about the experiences and opinions of actual immigrants.-- Juan Gonzalez (not his real name) worked at the giant Cananea copper mine, which the Mexican government sold in 1990 for a fraction of its value to the Grupo Mexico corporation as part of a massive privatization program promoted by the United States. Gonzalez was fired in 1998 because of his role in a strike against the new owners. Blacklisted and unable to find a decent job in his home state of Sonora, he ended up becoming an "illegal" working in an Arizona warehouse.-- Luz Dominguez and Marcela Melquiades worked for years cleaning hotel rooms in Emeryville, a small city on the San Francisco Bay. Their employers had no problems with their lack of legal status until the city council passed a living wage ordinance and some hotel employees complained their bosses weren't in compliance. Management then discovered problems with the workers' documents and fired them.-- Edilberto Morales is the only survivor of a September 2002 accident that killed 14 immigrant forestry workers when their speeding van ran off a wooden bridge into Maine's Allagash River. The workers were employed through the U.S. government's H2 guest worker program. The U.S. Labor Department found that the employer, Evergreen Forestry Services, had failed to ensure the workers' safety and fined Evergreen $17,000 -- but the company never lost its certification for the H2 program.Bacon brings together the system's different aspects in the person of Representative James Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin. Sensenbrenner is best known as the author of HR 4437, an ultimately unsuccessful bill that would have made felons of undocumented workers like Gonzalez, Dominguez, and Melquiades. But Sensenbrenner has other interests in the issue. His family founded the Kimberly-Clark Company in the early 1900s, and the family trust continues to be an important shareholder in the papermaking giant. Many of the workers who plant and fell the trees that ultimately become Kimberly-Clark's paper are hired through the H2 program by forestry companies like Evergreen, which employed Morales and his 14 coworkers. Kimberly-Clark's Mexican subsidiary is closely associated with Grupo México, which fired Gonzalez from the Cananea copper mine.

iraqevan brightandrew wolfsonsteven d. green
brett barrouquere
david price
ehren watadawilliam cole
cliff cornellmcclatchy newspaperssahar issa
david baconmichael d. yatesdavid l. wilson

Waiting for the jury

How long do you think they'll be out deliberating Steven D. Green's guilt or innocence?



I really don't think it would require long for me. I'm just not sure how this drags out because we're talking about a trial where the defendant pleaded "not guilty" and every witness on the stand either saw him do it or heard him brag about doing it.

So right away, he's not just a liar, he's a dumb liar.

He's saying not guilty knowing that those who took part in the crimes with him, who have already been sentenced and already testified about his guilt before his case ever started will be testifying. But he claims not guilty.

That also shows no real remorse or accountability.

So I'd guess he'd get the book thrown at him.

About the photo. As C.I. pointed out, it's public domain. This is a photo C.I. got from the sheriff's office.

We were speaking to a group before that went up. They were talking about how this case wasn't being covered and attempting to think of reasons.

One was that maybe bloggers weren't covering it because there wasn't a photo?

C.I. didn't believe that but, as we were leaving, C.I. asked us if we thought that was any possible reason?

We finally said maybe there would be 2% more coverage. C.I. called the house and Dona was home. She told Dona to go into her office and go through the file cabinets. (C.I. picked up all the public documents when we went through North Carolina in 2006 or the beginning of 2007 -- a friend was working on a script related to the Abeer story so C.I. grabbed up the public record and C.I. doubled it to keep a copy.) Dona found it where C.I. said it was. She scanned it and uploaded it to Flickr and then called us. At which point, C.I. booted up the laptop and did a quick entry noting the photo was a copy from the sheriff's office, the same as what AP had (although AP's is darker -- no, maybe about that, I believe they compressed the photo which would cause that), and that this copy was public domain.

So if you're a blogger and you want to use a photo, grab the one above. It's Steven D. Green. It's his mug shot from his 2006 arrest.

Public domain. Use it as you see fit and you owe no fee. I also happen to agree that AP and others should not be allowed to slap a copyright on government photos. AP didn't shoot the above photo but they've attached a copyright to their copy of it.

Three of you e-mailed to tell me I had Ani DiFranco on my links. Thank you. I didn't realize that. I don't pay attention to my links. I've removed her and another member of the Cult of St. Barack. They're on their own.

Thank you to ____ who is a music attorney. I didn't know the name but it was a great e-mail and I mentioned it to C.I. who explained to me what ____ does. He wrote to say that the story didn't make sense (Pete Seeger's claims) and that Pete wasn't Benny Goodman (his example) and wouldn't have gotten a publishing deal like that unless he was part of the publishing company before the deal was made. The story makes no sense, he agreed, and the percentages Pete uses do not make sense. He said Pete's really lucky that no one who knows about publishing has gone through that "laughable explanation" he's offered.

Which reminds me. One person wrote asking what BMI is? ASCAP and BMI are the two of the organizations in the US that collect the fees for royalties.

I believe ASCAP is the older of the two.

I know there are other stories going on in the world but every time I flip to another screen, it's to see if there's been a verdict announced in the Green case yet. I won't be any good trying to do a blog post tonight, sorry.


Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Wednesday, May 6, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, Ehren Watada gets some legal news (and people rush to figure out what it means), closing statements are made in the War Crimes trial, Blackwater did what?, and more.

Starting with big news involving the first officer to publicly resist the Iraq War. The Seattle Times reports Lt Ehren Watada will not be subjected to double-jeopardy. Hal Bernton (Seattle Times) reported November 9, 2007: "A U.S. District Court judge on Thursday barred a second court-martial of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada while the Army officer pursues his claim that it would violate his constitutional rights. It was a legal victory for Watada, the first Army officer to face prison for refusing to deploy to Iraq." That was in November of 2007. (Not October of last year -- I have no idea where people are getting their false information.) The military has decided not to appeal that 2007 decision. However, US District Judge Benjamin Settle ruled on three of the five counts against Ehren so the Seattle Times cautions, "It is unclear if the Army plans to pursue those [two] charges." Gregg K. Kakesako (Honolulu Star-Bulletin) cites Ehren's civilian attorneys stating that the "Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today granted the Army's motion to dismiss the case." And he cites the military stating that Ehren may yet be court-martialed. Vanessa Ho (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) notes that the military is unclear what they'll do next and that James Lobsenz (one of Ehren's two civilian attorneys, the other is Kenneth Kagan) states, "We are cautiously optimistic that perhaps we've had enough litigation." In June 2006, Ehren Watada went public with his refusal to serve in the Iraq War because it was an illegal war and, as an officer, he would be responsible not only for himself but for those serving under him. In August 2006, an Article 32 hearing was held and, weeks and weeks later, the finding was released: the military would proceed with a court-martial. That court-martial took place in February of 2006. On Monday, February 5, 2007, Watada's court-martial began. It continued on Tuesday when the prosecution argued their case. Wednesday, Watada was to take the stand in his semi-defense. Semi-defense? Despite the gravity of the charges, despite the maximum number of years in prison he was facing if convicted, Judge Toilet (aka John Head) refused to let Watada explain why he would not deploy. Watada was boxed in to a yes-or-no-I-did-it type of defense which is no defense at all. Judge Toilet also refused to allow the defense to call various witnesses. Wednesday morning, Judge Toilet was suddenly concerned with the stipulation -- the same stipulation he was involved one, the same one he signed off on, the same one both the defense and the prosecution agreed to, the same stipulation Judge Toilet had explained to the military jury on Monday. Suddenly, the stipulation was a problem. Toilet tried to argue Ehren didn't understand the stipulation. Ehren understood it and was doing what he announced he would be doing the week prior to Toilet. Did Toilet not understand the stipulation?

He certainly didn't understand double-jeopardy which had already attached to the case when, sensing the prosecution was losing, Judge Toilet declared a mistrial over defense objection. Judge Settle found the double-jeopardy argument was correct and ruled accordingly in the fall of 2007. Turning to other legal issues, Steven D. Green's War Crimes trial. March 12, 2006, Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi's parents and five-year-old sister were murdered in their Iraqi home while Abeer was gang-raped in another room. Following the gang-rape, Abeer was murdered. Green is said to be the murderer of all four, a gang-rapist and the ring leader who planned the entire thing. Today the jury heard closing arguments. Evan Bright reports, "Scott Wendelsdorf just completed the Defense closing statement. 'Madness? Madness. Madness is the only way any of this could have happend'." Brett Barrouquer (AP) quotes US prosecutor Marisa Ford stating that those who took part in the attack had "forfeited their right to call themselves American soldiers". In other ways she echoed the closing arguments of US Army Capt Alex Pickands during the August 2006 Article 32 hearing held in Iraq. Pickands argued:

"Murder, not war. Rape, not war. That's what we're here talking about today. Not all that business about cold food, checkpoints, personnel assignments. Cold food didn't kill that family. Personnel assignments didn't rape and murder that 14-year-old little girl. . . . They gathered over cards and booze to come up with a plan to rape and murder that little girl. She was young and attractive. They knew where she was because they had seen her on a previous patrol. She was close. She was vulnerable."

Today in court, Marisa Ford declared, "This was a planned, premeditated crime which was carried out in cold blood." Evan Bright and Brett Barrouquer have covered every day of the trial. Jill at Feministe notes the trial today. And has her facts right. Others aren't so lucky.


Gail McGowan Mellor was dispatched by The Huffington Post to cover the trial and arrived yesterday. Possibly this late arrival is why she has problems in this report? "Sex was incidental; they wanted to hurt Iraqis." Rape is not "sex" and, if that was McGowan Mellor's point, we'd be agreeing with her. That's not her point her point is that Abeer's family was hit because "the five U.S. soldiers reasoned that the family would be easy to kill and that nothing more substantial than her parents stood between them." It was about, Gail tells, hatred of Iraqis.

I'm really amazed at the late to the party check-ins who didn't even bother to do any damn research. Abeer was the target. I'm sorry Gail didn't have time to study nearly three years worth of press. Steven D. Green inappropriately touched Abeer in public -- at that military checkpoint -- and freaked her out. His constant staring had already unnevered her. After he started touching this 14-year-old girl, her parents decided to get her out of the house. Had they struck the next night, the US soldiers wouldn't have found her because she was going to live somewhere else. Do not pretend that Abeer was not the focus. Green was fixated upon her. And do not pretend that it was because of some 'easy kill' element you've just introduced into the narrative. Get a damn grip.

Evan Bright reporting on Day Four of the trial: "According to Barker, 'Cortez took a little convincing to get him to come along. He said if we were gonna have sex with the girl, he wanted to go first'." Gail McGowan Mellor wasn't present for day four and apparently didn't bother to read up on it. Cortez took a little convincing? For what? For an 'easy kill'? No, to take part in the gang-rape that Barker terms "sex." Bright reported on Friday's testimonies that Paul Cortez testified they "knew what was goin' on, we knew were were goin' down to that house to have sex with that girl, and Barker and Green seemed to know where they were going to get there."

Gail McGown Mellor is showing up late and imposing a narrative. This isn't reporting. And it needs to be called out. She's imposing her values and desires on the story while ignoring the facts. Now she can have an opinion and she can make her entire article her opinion but she better know the facts. She can argue with the facts, she can disagree with them, but she better know them. There is no indication that she knows anything. She appears to think she's 'cute' with her 'local color' piece she's turned in playing, as Bob Somerby might say, the readers for rubes.

"Four of Green's co-conpirators have been convicted by military tribunal and put away" insists Gail despite the fact that it's incorrect. She doesn't even know the trial history. She doesn't even know that, for example, Paul Cortez confessed. He wasn't convicted, he confessed. The ignorance on display is astounding until you grasp that Gail jetted in with a narrative firmly in place and was going to work it like crazy. (If you can't pick up on it, Gail's argument -- which will no doubt be even more clear in later posts from her -- is WAR CORRUPTS ALL.) Especially hilarious is where she blames the local press:

There were only twelve folks viewing the trial yesterday, five of us from the media. It's arguably not a lack of public intelligence and curiosity; it's a failure of local journalism. The Paducah Sun, which is blocks from the federal courthouse, is not supplying daily or in-depth coverage, and local broadcast news does not supply enough information on the complex case to fill a tweat. The report of one anchor was simply, "There were two witnesses today." There sure were; that was the day that two of Green's co-conspirators testified for the prosecution.

Gail was viewing it for the first day, her first day in the area, so how she knows what an anchor said last week is something she might wish to clarify. But it's not the job of the local press to cover this trial. It's not a local trial. It's an international trial. The events took place not in some city in Kentucky, they took place in Iraq. The problem isn't local news which is struggling. The problem is the outlets like the New York Times and others who could send a slew of reporters to Alaska not all that long ago but can't send one reporter to Kentucky. Wonder over that. There should be more local coverage but I've spoken to people at one local paper and at one local station and they said the issues included no amplification. If there reports were getting picked up by the networks or by other papers, they would be covering it. But they showed up for day one and saw little interest from the press. With minimal interest locally (from residents) and no amplification, it wasn't worth their resources to cover it.

Why is there minimal interest among local residents? For one thing, the case should have been infamous but never has been. Find the network report on it. Not just from Green's trial, find the network report on any of the trials. There's no reason the citizens of Paducah should be any more familiar with the case than the rest of the country. That's a point Gail ignores either out of ignorance or intentionally. What is the point of her anonymous quotes from locals? She is aware that Steven D. Green didn't grow up in or live in Paducah, isn't she? Whether she is or not, she's off spinning her yarn and facts be damned because she's smelling Midnight In The Garden of Good & Evil. Heaven save us all from bad feature writers who think they're bringing us the news.


It's really a shame because there are details in McGown Mellor's feature article that, if they are true, could make for a very strong report. But she's made it so abundantly clear that facts matter so very little that who can trust anything she provides? "Only after three years of legal maneuvering however was Green brought to trial." What? Does she have any clue what she's reporting on? Green wasn't even arrested until June 30, 2006. Three years have yet to elapse. And 'legal'? From April 3, 2008: "As a result of the fact that he had been discharged, he was set to face a civilian court and that trial was finally due to start this coming Monday; however, AP reports the trial has been delayed "by three weeks to accomodate a quilt show". No, that is not a joke." It wasn't just "legal" delaying the trial.

Meanwhile at least 17 are dead from car bombings in Baghdad today. Robert H. Reid (AP) notes 15 of them died at a market and quotes eye witness Raad Hussein stating, "The security personnel are not searching the farmers who bring their vegetables to the market. They search only private cars." Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) notes at least forty were wounded in the market bombing and quotes an eye witness stating, "The Americans are responsible for what is happening. It is because of the occupation that every day we have killings and wounded people." Ernesto Londono and Aziz Alwan (Washington Post) report the rise in violence has led to a new move by the US military: "In recent days, top American military officials issued an order barring commanders and spokesmen from using the oft-repeated phrase 'security continues to improve,' because they deemed it 'disingenuous' in light of the recent attacks, according to an American official who spoke on condition of anonymity." In other reported violence?

Bombings?

Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report a Baghdad roadside bombing which left eight people injured, 4 Mosul roadside bombings which claimed 2 life and left five people injured. Reuters notes a truck bombing "near the Baiji oil refinery" which left three people injured.


Saturday the US military announced: "CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE SPEICHER, TIKRIT, Iraq -- Two Multi-National Division -- North Soldiers were killed and three wounded during a small arms fire attack at a combat outpost south of Mosul early this evening. According to initial reports, an individual dressed in an Iraqi Army uniform fired on the Coalition forces and was killed in the incident. The incident is currently under investigation. The names of the deceased and wounded are being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense." Alsumaria identifies the Iraqi soldier as Hassan Al Dulaimi and notes that Abdul Qader Al Ubaidi (Defense Minister) has launched an investigation. AFMAO/PA noted the two US soldiers killed:

Name: Jake R. Velloza Hometown: Inverness, Calif. Rank: Specialist Service: U.S. Army Location of death: Operation Iraqi Freedom Name: Jeremiah P. McCleery Hometown: Portola, Calif. Rank: Specialist Service: U.S. Army Location of death: Operation Iraqi Freedom

Brent Ainsworth (Contra Costa Times) reported, "Jake Velloza was a football and baseball standout at Tomales High, where Leon Feliciano served as his football coach" and quotes Feliciano stating, "I think he knew from the first day he got into high school that he was going into the militiary. We talked about college, but he said, 'No, Coach, I want to be a Ranger doing special ops.' He was set on his goals. He was one of those young men who knew what he wanted to do and did it. Service to his country is what appealed to him." Michael Taylor (San Francisco Chronicle) spoke to his grandfather, Richard Velloza, who explained of receiving the awful news, "It was terrible all day long. Not too good. Jake was an only son. That's what makes it kind of rough." Steve Timko (Reno Gazette-Journal) speaks with Josh Rogers who was a friend of Jeremiah P. McCleery's and graduated with him in 2004 from Portola High School who says, "He was a very loyal friend. If you broke down in Reno or far away, he'd come pick you up. He always had your back." The Reno Gazette Journal also notes this statement from Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons, "I want to extend the condolences of a grateful State and a grateful Nation to the family and friends of Specialist Jeremiah McCleery. His sacrifice for freedom will never be forgotten." Katharine Q. Seelye (New York Times) notes the two men's arrival at Dover Air Force Base Monday and observes of the policy change on photographing coffins, "The first arrival of cases after the media ban was lifte on April 5 drew 35 journalists; since then, the number has dwindled, sometimes to only a single photographer for The Associated Press."

Will anything come from the investigation? Not if their work is anything like the Integrity Commission's. Sam Dagher (New York Times) reports today on the commission and the findings include:

The Integrity Commission recevied 5,031 complaints in 2008. 3,027 of the complaints went to court. Of that, there were 97 convictions.


If my math is correct that's a 3% conviction rate (3.204%). An underwhelming conviction rate. Speaking of a lack of convictions, September 16, 2007 Blackwater slaughtered Iraqis in Baghdad. At least 17 Iraqis were killed. Bill Sizemore (Virginia-Pilot) reports today that, following the slaughter, "Blackwater contractors allegedly transferred a number of machine guns to another contractor who is now charged with trying to smuggle them out of Iraq."

Sahwa ("Awakenings," "Sons Of Iraq") are being targeted by Nouri al-Maliki. In the latest development, Ahmed Rasheed and Tim Cocks (Reuters) report that a number of them "are deserting their posts because of delays in pay and a spate of arrests". One of the recent arrests was of Nulla Naem Al Jibouri whom Alsumaria reports al-Maliki states will be released on Saturday.

Turning to p.r., Bruce Dixon (Black Agenda Report) weighs in on the 'Save Darfur' War Hawks and their machinary:

African tragedies, observed Ugandan scholar and Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani in a March 20 presentation at Howard University, usually occur in the dead of night, outside the sight, concern or hearing of the Western public. The exception to this, he noted, has been Darfur. No armchair observer, Mamdani has traveled and worked extensively in Darfur as a consultant to the African Union in its attempts to peacefully resolve the conflict there.
Mamdani called Save Darfur "the most successful piece of single issue organizing since the Vietnam era antiwar movement, really more successful than the antiwar movement." But Save Darfur, with slogans like "boots on the ground," "out of Iraq, into Darfur" and persistent demands for the creation of "no fly zones" is far from being an antiwar movement.
As BAR pointed in a 2007 article, Ten Reasons Why "Save Darfur" is a PR Scam to Justify the Next US Oil and Resource Wars in Africa, Save Darfur is no grassroots movement either.
[. . .]
Mamdani explained the unique appeal of the Save Darfur Movement to US audiences by noting that unlike US responsibility for the one million Iraqi dead over the last six years, the Save Darfur Movement does not demand that we understand Darfur's history, ethnography, or the complexities of the current conflict there, or acknowledge any culpability of our own. Unlike the killings in Iraq, Save Darfur does not demand that Americans respond as citizens, with a need to account for responsibilities and actions, but merely as human beings with a need to feel powerful and justified. Save Darfur, Mamdani argued, has de-historicized and de-politicized the conflict for its American audience, presenting them with a simple morality play in which they can be the heroes.
Everybody wants to be a hero. Nobody wants to be a citizen.
And what could be more heroically self-justifying and self-affirming than intervening on the side of the angels in the picture of straight-up racial conflict presented to us by the Save Darfur Movement? The trouble is, it's an utterly false picture. The historic and present uses and definitions of race in America are not nearly the same as those in Africa. Most of Darfur's janjaweed who committed atrocities against civilians in Darfur are as black as those they murdered, and just as indigenous. The prosecutors at the International Criminal Court who recently indicted the Sudanese president are accountable only to the wealthy nations of the UN Security Council, not to anybody on the African continent. And the casualty figures thrown out by Save Darfur are wildly inflated.

From 'Save Darfur' to more dumbness. Ask J-Som of Liberal Rapture who stumbles across this piece by Chris Hedges (link goes to Information Clearing House) and feels the need to add, "What does gall me about Hedges' work now is that he is saying what we, the dukes and duchesses of minor blogland, have been saying for well over a year. It grates on my nerves and ego to have a bigger player come in very late in the game and announce things like: [. . .]" And where there is dumb there is Carolyn/Caro of MakeThemAccountable (as Rebecca pointed out already this week). In the comments, Carolyn huffs to J-Som, "We won't forget we heard you speak the truth of Obama first. Some of us were immune to the hopium." If you hear J-Som before Chris Hedges, it's only an indication of how little you read.

Carolyn is this century's Tina Yothers who shows up to deliver her single line ("Yeah!") over and over whenever stupidity is expressed. J-Som and Carolyn, meet the real world: Chris Hedges has been calling out Barack all along. Your stupidity makes everything you write suspect. How could you not know that Chris Hedges called Barack out?

How could you not know that Chris Hedges was ridiculed by Tom Hayden for refusing to hop on the Barack bandwagon, ridiculed and mocked? How could you not know that, unlike all the other chicken s**t (Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Eddie Vedder, Janeane Garofalo, Ani DiFranco, Patti Smith, the list is endless) who once stood with Ralph Nader only to run like crazy when the Blame-Ralph movement started, Chris continued to stand with Ralph. Chris endorsed Ralph in the 2008 presidential race.

But J-Som and Carolyn aren't concerned with facts. They just want to write whatever they want. It's stupid and it makes them both come off as either grossly ignorant or total liars. Carolyn especially has a problem -- a repeat problem. There's no harm in highlighting Chris Hedges' article and stating, "I don't know where he stood in 2008 . . ." There is harm in assigning to Chris a position he didn't hold. Chris has spoken out about Obama through Obama's race for the Democratic nomination, throughout the general election and after Barack was elected. You sort of expect J-Som and Carolyn to next stumble across an article by John Pilger and to type up, "Oh, now, he speaks out!" (Pilger has spoken out against the lies of Barack for some time.) I do know Chris Hedges, as disclosed before. And he's been held accountable here in the past. I made the decision that I would not critique him in a negative manner when I found out he was going to endorse Ralph because I knew he was already being slammed by the Cult of St. Barack. The slamming continued beyond the election. And we don't need the likes of J-Soms and Carolyn rewriting history out of ignorance or malice.


iraq
ehren watadahal bernton
gregg k. kakesako
evan brightbrett barrouquere
the washington posternesto londonoaziz alwanmark kukis
jomana karadsheh
the new york timessam dagherkatharine q. seeylemichael taylorthe san francisco chronicle
brent ainsworthmark kukissteve timko
alsumaira
bruce dixon
chris hedges

The thief and DiFranco

I'm opening with William Blum's "Torture and Mr. Obama" (CounterPunch):

Okay, at least some things are settled. When George W. Bush said "The United States does not torture", everyone now knows it was crapaganda. And when Barack Obama, a month into his presidency, said "The United States does not torture", it likewise had all the credibility of a 19th century treaty between the US government and the American Indians.
When Obama and his followers say, as they do repeatedly, that he has "banned torture", this is a statement they have no right to make. The executive orders concerning torture leave loopholes, such as being applicable only "in any armed conflict". What about in a "counter-terrorism" environment? And the new administration has not categorically banned the outsourcing of torture, such as renditions, the sole purpose of which is to kidnap people and send them to a country to be tortured. Moreover, what do we know of all the CIA secret prisons, the gulag extending from Poland to the island of Diego Garcia?
How many of them are still open and abusing and torturing prisoners, keeping them in total isolation and in indefinite detention? Total isolation by itself is torture; not knowing when, if ever, you will be released is torture. And the non-secret prisons? Has Guantanamo ended all its forms of torture? There's reason to doubt that. And what do we know of what's happening now in Abu Ghraib and Bagram?

That's reality which shouldn't shock anyone. But I believe it would shock the little monster Ani DiFranco. She's not just useless and her career's not just over, she's now a joke.

Congrats, Ani, a campus booed you.

I don't follow her. I truly believe her career is over. It might pick up in a decade but she's got nothing now and she's also lost her ability to play guitar in any real manner. (She offered doodles in her last recording and her inability to play was the reason she had to cancel a tour prior to those recordings. She's got some condition -- tennis elbow for guitar players or something.) So we're in this packed auditorium and I'm thinking, before we even get started, "There are too many people. There will never be enough time for everyone to take part and feel included."

But Ani saved us. A guy stood up with today's New York Times and quotes this on Idiot Ani (one of the nicer terms she was called on campus):

In an updated version of the 1930s labor anthem "Which Side Are You On?" Ani DiFranco sang, "Now there's folks in Washington that care what's on our minds."

What a stupid idiot. And students are enraged by Ani's WHORING. I was surprised but then I thought about it and how she always pimps herself as The Little Independent Who Could. C.I. and Ava explained that lies and hype to one side, Ani wasn't that independent. They explained how in 2004, she mentioned going to a Ralph Nader rally -- going -- and Sam Seder and Janeane Garofalo nealy had a heart attack. You can't vote for him! You must vote for John Kerry! And immediately Ani starts in about how she's not sure who she's voting for and she's just going to a rally, doesn't mean she's going to vote for Ralph and . . . Five minutes later Janeane was calling it a personal victory that they'd talked Ai out of going to Ralph's rally.

That's an independent?

That's a cowardly asshole.

C.I. said everyone needed to remember that Ani's career is hurting and she has "to whore it for Barack because it gets her in the paper. No one gives a damn about her days of breast feeding and teething -- that's the society we live in. She's got to whore it for Barack or she's forgotten. The stores are gone. She can't count on impulse buys. That really leaves her website and her cult has wasted away from what it was in the 90s. So she whores it like any other desperate whore. Some of us have enough integrity that we'd grab a real job before we whored out everything we believed in but Ani's just a whore. Now I need you to clap this [sets rhythm] and I need to you to sing 'Ani's just a whore' like this [shows melody]." So right there, on the spot, C.I. composes a song about Ani and we all join in clapping the rhythm and singing the tag line "Ani's just a whore."

She really is and this was her neck of the woods. This is where Ani devotion runs wild. I was shocked at how hated she was. And it's for crap like that. You can't claim to be independent and whore it out for a corporate War Hawk. Well you can, but the career's over.

So Ani was whoring at Madison Square Garden where Pete Seeger, once banned for being a Communist, was basking in Baracky-goodness.

To be really damn clear, the reason the right-wing continues to float those wrong rumors about Barack being a Communist or a Socialist is because they keep seeing Communists and Socialists going wild for Barry. So another article about Peety and we once again forget "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." This is from Sharon La Franiere's "In the Jungle, the Unjust Jungle, a Small Victory" (New York Times, 2006):

When Mr. Linda died in 1962, at 53, with the modern equivalent of $22 in his bank account, his widow had no money for a gravestone.
How much he should have collected is in dispute. Over the years, he and his family have received royalties for "Wimoweh" from the Richmond Organization, the publishing house that holds the rights to that song, though not as much as they should have, Mr. Seeger said.
"I didn't realize what was going on and I regret it," said Mr. Seeger, now 86, adding that he learned only recently that Mr. Linda received less than the 50 percent of publishing royalties Mr. Seeger says he was due. "I have always left money up to other people. I was kind of stupid."

What a f**king liar. You put "arranged by" if you're claiming to use a folk standard. Pete Seeger didn't do that. They created a dummy writer (made up a name) to haul in the money so let's end this "I didn't realize what was going on," because the creation of a phony name -- as opposed to treating it as a true folk song underscores that Pete always knew what he was doing which was making money for a song he didn't write.

Now had he used the "arrangment" credit, he still would have gotten money but calling it a folk song meant he couldn't profit from all versions. Anyone could create an "arrangement" and record a folk song and not owe Pete a penny. So they needed to say it wasn't a folk song passed down over the years, it was a song with a known writer.

This is from the 2000 Rolling Stone article I mentioned last night:

Pete Seeger, on the other hand, was in a rather bad way. He was a banjo player living in a cold-water flat on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village with a wife, two young children and no money. Scion of wealthy New York radicals, he'd dropped out of Harvard ten years earlier and hit the road with his banjo on his back, learning hard-times songs for people in the Hoovervilles, lumber camps and coal mines of Depression America. In New York he joined a band with Woody Guthrie. They wore work shirts and jeans, and wrote folk songs that championed the ___ common man in his struggle against capitalist bloodsuckers. Woody had a slogan on his guitar that said, "This machine kills fascists". Pete's banjo had a kinder, gentler variation: "This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender". He was a proto-hippie, save that he didn't smoke reefer or even drink beer.
He was also a pacifist, at least until Hitler invaded Russia. Scenting a capitalist plot to destroy the brave Soviet socialist experiment, Pete and Woody turned gung-ho overnight and started writing anti-Nazi war songs, an episode that made them briefly famous. After that it was into uniform and off to the front, where Pete played the banjo for bored GIs. Discharged in '45, he returned to New York and got a gig of sorts in the public school system, teaching toddlers to warble the half-forgotten folk songs of their American heritage. It wasn't particularly glorious, the money was rotten, and on top of that, he was sick in bed with a bad cold.
Came a knock on the door, and, lo, there stood his friend Alan Lomax, later to be hailed as the father of world music. Alan and his dad, John, were already famous for their song-collecting forays into the parallel universe of rural black America, where they'd discovered giants like Muddy Waters and Leadbelly. Alan was presently working for Decca, where he'd just rescued a package of 78s sent from Africa by a record company in the vain hope that someone might want to release them in America. They were about to be thrown away when Lomax intervened, thinking, "God, Pete's the man for these".And here they were: ten shellac 78s, one of which said "Mbube" on its label. Pete put it on his old Victrola and sat back. He was fascinated - there was something catchy about the underlying chant, and that wild, skirling falsetto was amazing.
"Golly", he said, "I can sing that". So he got out pen and paper and started transcribing the song, but he couldn't catch the words through all the hissing on the disk. The Zulus were chanting, "Uyimbube, uyimbube", but it to Pete it sounded like, awimboowee or maybe awimoweh, so that's how he wrote it down. Later he taught "Wimoweh" to the rest of his band, the Weavers, and it became, he says, "just about my favourite song to sing for the next forty years".
This was no great achievement, given that the Weavers' repertoire was full of dreck like "On Top of Old Smoky" and "Greensleeves". Pete will admit no such thing, but one senses he was growing tired of cold-water flats and wanted a proper career, as befitting a thirty something father of two. He toned down his politics [REWORD, RE OUR CONVERSATION], excised references to dark sexual lusts from Leadbelly standards, and threw some hokey cowboy songs into the mix. He even allowed his wife to outfit the band in matching corduroy jackets, a hitherto-unimaginable concession to showbiz, when they landed a gig at the Village Vanguard.

[. . .]
Their first recording came out in June 1950. It was "Good night Irene", an old love song they'd learned off their friend Leadbelly, and it was an immediate click, in the parlance of the day. The flip side was an Israeli hora called "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena", and it clicked, too. So did "Roving Kind", a nineteenth-century folk ditty they released that November, and even "On Top of Old Smoky", which hit Number Two the following spring. The Weavers leapt from amateur hootenannies to the stages of America's poshest night spots and casinos. They wore suits and ties, Brylcreemed their hair, appeared on TV and pulled down two grand a week. Chagrined and envious, their former comrades on the left started sniping at them in magazines. "Can an all-white group sing songs from Negro culture?" asked one.
The answer, of course, lay in the song that Seeger called "Wimoweh". His version was faithful to the Zulu original in almost all respects save for the finger-popping rhythm, which was arguably a bit white for some tastes. ____ The true test lay in the singing, and here Seeger passed with flying colours, bawling and howling his heart out, tearing up his vocal cords so badly that by the time he reached seventy-five he was almost mute. "Wimoweh" was by far the edgiest song in the Weavers' set, which is perhaps why they waited a year after their big breakthrough before recording it.
Like their earlier recordings, it took place with Gordon Jenkins presiding and an orchestra in attendance. Prior to this, Jenkins had been very subdued in his instrumental approach, adding just the occasional sting and the odd swirl of strings to the Weavers' cheery singalongs. Maybe he was growing bored, because his arrangement of "Wimoweh" was a great Vegas-y explosion of big-band raunch that almost equalled the barbaric splendour of the Zulu original. Trombones blared. Trumpets screamed. Strings swooped and soared through Solomon's miracle melody. And then Pete cut loose with all that hollering and screaming. It was a startling departure from everything else the Weavers had ever done, but Billboard loved it, anointing it a Pick of the Week. Cash Box said, "May easily break". Variety said, "Terrific!"

There are mistakes in the article. The writer had a wrong assumption. I asked C.I. to read it and she caught that right away and walked me through before saying, "Don't take my word on this, I'm dialing a BMI exec, he'll explain it to you." And he did. 100% is 100%. There's a math used that, as written, is incorrect and allows Pete to be let off the hook even further.

There are songwriters royalties and publishing royalties and the two are not the same thing. A publisher pays a royalty (automatic, "mechanical") to a writer. If Pete had a fifty-fifty split on royalties, he would have to have co-owned publishing.

You're trying to tell me, as the BMI exec pointed out, that nobody Pete Seeger ended up with a better deal than Lennon & McCartney?

All those years before them?

No, it doesn't make sense.

Someone's lying about the money or the author misunderstood. But Pete can't say, as he tries to, that he told the publishers to give his songwriting to the family and that was 50% of the profits. And that he assumed the publisher's kept the other 50%. (Rian Malan wrote the article, by the way.)

C.I. said the thing to pursue is who was holding the copyright? If it shared, then Pete Seeger profitted more than he admits to and he willingly and knowingly ripped off the artist. You don't, as the BMI exec explained, 'accidentally' copyright a song. But publishing royalties and songwriting royalties are two different thing. If the songwriter doesn't own the publishing or part of it, they are getting a very minor percentage. So when Pete's tossing around 50% and the writer's adding it up as the song was split 50% songwriting and 50% publishing, BMI says no damn way, "Not back then. He didn't have that kind of power, he never did." The exec knew the article and steered me to this stating it's a "bold faced lie" ("he" is Pete Seeger):

He was still bragging about it fifty years later. 'I never got author's royalties on Wimoweh', Seeger says. 'Right from '51 or '52, I understood that the money was going to Linda. I assumed they were keeping the publisher's fifty percent and sending the rest'. Unfortunately, Linda's family maintains that the money only arrived years later, and even then, it was nothing like the full writer's share Seeger was hoping to bestow.

Really? He understood before the song was recorded or released? And the $1,000 he claims to have given the widow is also ridiculed as factually incorrect.

So what we know is that Pete Seeger knowingly defrauded an author out of credit. That's what creating a fake name for "written by" does. And we know that his numbers in the article don't check out.

But there was Ani and Joani Phoney Baez and all the rest celebrating his birthday. And Barack. Celebrating Barack.

It's pretty disgusting and they should actually explain what the hell they were doing on stage honoring a known thief?




Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, May 5, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the defense rest in Steven D. Green's War Crimes trial, the UNHCR does NOT recommend Iraqi refugees return to Iraq, Sahwa remains under attack, and more.

Starting with the War Crimes trial. March 12, 2006, Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi's parents and five-year-old sister were murdered in their Iraqi home while Abeer was gang-raped in another room. Following the gang-rape, Abeer was murdered. These were War Crimes committed by US soldiers and four have already faced a court and been sentenced. Steven D. Green's trial is ongoing. Friday night, Heart (Women's Space) posted some of her 2006 coverage of the War Crimes and among the comments, we'll note this by Khazeema:

Nobody how much we talk about this case, my littlesister Abeer wont come back. The american troops raped, tortured and killed her, and they could do it just because they were AMERICANS. Bu believe me.. Steven D Green and his buddies who raped and killed Abeer Hamza Qassim Al-Janabi they will get their punishment.. If they wont in this life, they will defenatly in the next life…. Some day they will die either, and then they will realise what they have done… and what they did is beyond doubt something which wont be forgive..
And to my dear sister Abeer Qassim Hamza Al-Janabi.. You will always be in my heart, I have wept for you scince your death, but at least - ya habibti - Allah is big, and he will take revenge for you.. Inshallah you are a shaheed, and your murders will suffer in hell for what they did to you.. WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU SISTER… Lailaha il Allah..

Last week, Steven D. Green's trial began in a Kentucky federal court. Of the first day, Australia's ABC reported: "The girl's brother then testified about how he came home from school to find his house on fire and his family dead. Mohammed al-Janabi, now 15, stood outside crying with his younger brother but did not go in until after the bodies were removed. 'I saw blood on walls,' he said through an interpreter, 'I saw flesh and my father's brain was scattered there'." Yesterday the prosecution rested. Evan Bright reported that Noah Galloway was the last witness for the prosecution which rested their case before noon. At 1:30, the defense began presenting its side and Lt Col Karen Marrs took the stand to offer testimony as the psychiatric nurse practioner familiar with Green. She described him as "On edge and angry." Bright notes, "The defense MAY have one witness tomorrow before resting and moving on to closing statements. Expect a guilty/not guilty verdict by Wednesday, before moving to opening statements." Today the defense rested. Brett Barrouquere (AP) reports that a deposition of James Gregory was shown to the jury for an hour because Gregory couldn't show up at the court due to . . . getting married. How that played to the jury is anyone's guess but when the defendant is potentially facing the death penalty and someone chooses to blow off testifying in person, that does send a message. Christopher Barnes actually showed up and took the witness stand. Barnes made comments about "they" and "them" and how awful they were. US Attorney Marisa J. Ford cut through that nonsense by asking, "You didn't rape any 14-year-old girls? You didn't kill any Iraqi civilians, did you?" (No and no.) Justin Watt testified and his remarks should receive attention and examination. (We'll see if they do.) Tomorrow the jury hears closing arguments.


Meanwhile, Spencer Ackerman (Washington Independent), still a hack and reality challenged, laps up the statement from Nouri al-Maliki's flack about 'no extensions' for US troops to remain in Iraqi cities past June 30th deadline, he forgets/doesn't know (idiot) that the extension already took place in Baghdad. Poor tiny hack. From the April 27th snapshot: "Rod Nordland (New York Times) broke that story in today's paper and noted that Iraq and the US are going to focus on Mosul in talks about US troops remaining in some Iraqi cities. Nordland reveals they will remain in Baghdad (he says 'parts of Baghdad' -- that means they will be in Baghdad and Baghdad is a city) and that Camp Victory ['Camps Victory, Liberty, Striker and Slayer, plus the prison known as Camp Cropper'] and 'Camp Prosperity' will not be closed or turned over to Iraq according to Iraqi Maj Gen Muhammad al-Askari. The SOFA 'requires' that they be closed or turned over but al-Askari says they're making exceptions even though the SOFA 'requires' otherwise. For the mammoth Camp Victory, it is in Baghdad and out of Baghdad, for example, so al-Askari says they consider it out of Baghdad." There's your reality Spensy, accept it or plan to grab an adjoining padded room with Patrick Cockburn. Fortunately there's so much stupidity going around, Spensy may be able to sneak by.

Take the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees which made a stupid move that they should have known would be immediately misunderstood. Let's start with the misunderstanding. Mark Leon Goldberg (UN Dispatch) goes for the gold in the Stupidity Olympics as he pants, "I think you can file this one under 'good news' in the sense that the UNCHR believes the situation in certain Iraqi regions is stable enough for the return of refugees." No, that's not what it was stating. The UNHCR was stupid enough with what they said but Goldberg had to go even further. And, to really go for the gold, he then quoted "the Washington Post" -- or thought he did. It was Reuters, Goldberg. Your clue was the byline "By Laura MacInnis[,] Reuters." It wasn't the Post. When someone can't even grasp what publication they're reading, maybe it's not at all surprising that they can't grasp the meaning of the words they read? Mark Leon Goldberg is a stupid, stupid man.

The UNHCR did not recommend the return of external refugees to Iraq. That would be more idiotic than Mark Leon Goldberg. Violence is again on the rise in Iraq. The UNHCR made a stupid decision to say that external refugees "from Al-Anbar, ecompassing much of the country's western territory, and the south should be assessed on individual merit." What does that mean? It's the strongest the UNHCR was allowed to issue at the risk of two other UN agencies publicly calling UNHCR and it's 'tight' relationship' with Nouri al-Maliki out. (Today's statement has been argued about within the UN for over two weeks.) The statement specifically states, "The agency stressed that improvement in the situation in Iraq is not yet sufficient enough to promote or encourage massive returns and it recommended that refugees already benefiting from international protection should retain their status." How much clearer does it have to be for Mark Leon Goldberg? Someone needs to explain to him that his stupidity is deadly. You DO NOT tell refugees to return when it's not safe to do so. And if the UN doesn't say it's safe to return (and they didn't say it was safe to return), you do not say that they did.

The UNHCR statement never should have been issued but Nouri and his government have been pressuring and, let's all be honest, the United Nations has never had any independent standing in Iraq. NEVER. That's why their idiotic doctor didn't just take part in the Baghdad's government's press conference last fall but actively blamed Iraqi women for the yearly cholera outbreak.

They are not encouraging any groups to return. They are encouraging that some be judged on appeals by 'individual merit' and not the blanket category of refugees. Apparently the UNHCR suffers from some delusion that the blanket category was somehow assisting Iraqis in garnering asylum. Not in the US, not in the European Union, not in Australia. Those countries have done as little as possible. But even with this cateogry of people, the UNHCR stresses that there is a split and that those who are "religious and ethnic minorities; Iraqis perceived as opposing armed groups or political factions; UN and non-governmental organization (NGO) workers; human rights activists; and homosexuals" should be given "favourable consideration" regardless of whether or nto they are fron Anbar. And if you didn't grasp just how weak the UNHCR is, note that the "at risk" grouping included UN workers.

We'll stay with those categories for a bit. "Abu Muslim likens his work to that of a surgeon, cutting out diseased parts of a body to save it from cancer." What? That's from Nizar Latif (The National) reporting on the excutioner of gays and lesbians in Iraq. The executionor explains, "We see this [homosexuality] as a serious illness in the community that has been spreading rapidly among the yough after it was brought in from the outside by American soldiers. These are not the habits of Iraq or our community and we must eliminate them." Doesn't he sound like some crazed Nazi inventing excuses for slaughtering the Jews? Yes, he does. And like the Nazis, he uses an ahistorical 'background' because actual history doesn't back him up. Real history does not allow him to persecute and murder. So he lies and goes along with his government's lies. He brags to Latif about the "ermission from key community leaders" he has stating, "We had approval from the main Iraqi tribes here to liquidate those [men] copying the ways of women. Our aim is not to destabilize the security situation. Our aim is to help stabilise society." Again, this is the Nazis. (And, yes, the Nazis also targeted gays and lesbians.) And why the hell should the US remain in Iraq at this point?

Truly. These are the people the US government installed and the ones the US forces on the ground keep in place. And these people are killing and slaughtering. Not only that, but then they try to blame human behavior (that they see as 'wicked') on US soldiers. Iraq's never going to be a free country until the US leaves and these thugs are forced out by the Iraqi people. Iraq was a tolerant society before the US wanted to 'whip' the population 'into shape' quickly in order to purse the tag sale on Iraqi assets.

Friday the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom issued their latest report, the 2009 Annual Report on religious freedom violations around the world. Commission Chair Felice Gaer explained of the "countries of particular concern" Friday, "Iraq and Nigeria are new to that list. Iraq was added last December and Nigeria today. Nina Shea explained this:

is a crucial year in Iraq, with provincial councils changing hands, national elections expected before year's end, and the US military beginning its drawdown. In December, an extensive report on religious freedoms in Iraq, based on travel, interviews, briefings, meetings and other activities was released by the commission and we recommended then that, for the first time since 2003, that the State Department designate Iraq as a country of particular concern.
This CPC recommendation was based on the ongoing severe abuses of religious freedom in the country and the government's toleration of these abuses, particularly against Iraq's smallest and most vulnerable religious minorities, including Chaldo-Assyrians and other Christians, Sabean-Mandeans and Yazidis. As described in this year's annual report, the concerns outlined by the commission in December persist as these vulnerable minorities have, in recent years, experienced targeted intimidation and violence, including killings, beatings, abductions and rapes, forced conversions, forced marriages, forced displacement from their homes and businesses and violent attacks on their houses of worship and religious leaders. Despite the overall drop in violence in the country, these incidents continued in 2008 and 2009 including in this month. The cumulative effect of this has created a serious threat to these ancient communities' very existence in Iraq. And the statistics are staggering. About half the Christian populations have left the country or been killed -- and that's starting from a total of 1.4 million. About ninety percent of the Mandean community report that they have left or been killed. This jeopardizes Iraq's future as a pluralistic, diverse and free society. In addition, the commission is concerned about the continued attacks and tense relations between Shia and Sunni Iraqis, as well as other continued, egregious, religiously motivated report on page 54 where we have extensive recommendations on Iraq. The commission urges the US government to take a number of specific steps to ensure, inter alia, the prevention of abuses against religious minorities is a top priority. We call for the training and deployment of police for these vulnerable minorities, that the KRG uphold minority rights in their area and that the situation of internally displaced persons and refugees is effectively addressed.

Shea took two questions on Iraq and noted that the USCIRF had long critiqued the constitution:

We are very concerned by the contradiction within the Iraqi Constitution. On the one hand, religious freedom for everyone is stated -- and for minority groups -- and on the other hand, there can be no law that contradicts Islam. So there is a possibility that there isn't a right to have individual choice in religious freedom or to manifest your beliefs publicly. It's very questionable. So we wanted to know what the -- I think there's some language about the consensus on the agreed upon tenets of Islam -- that no law can contradict the agreed upon tenets of islam. But there really, in fact, is no consensus on Islam. There is two main branches of Islam in Iraq -- Sunnis and Shiites. There are different schools. There are different commentaries on those schools. So there's many different points of view, so the constitution is ont clear and it leaves in doubt the extent of religious freedom particularly for minorities. The main problem we're seeing, though, is the extremists. Not government violence, but extremist violence. And the failure of the government to protect or allow these minorities to develop and flourish and remain in Iraq. So many of them -- half of them -- have left. And many of them continue to be in the region. The United States has been very dilatory in addressing this problem. It appears no, that they're not going back in great numbers. And I think the United States has a responsibility to -- and we make recommendations for this -- that the United States has a responsibility to support these people and to help them find refuge either in the United States or elsewhere.

The 269 page report is entitled [PDF format warning] Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and Iraq is pages 43 through 60. We'll note the recommendations on human rights (and wonder why the administration requires someone else suggesting them):

* appoint and immediately dispatch a Special Envoy for Human Rights in Iraq to Embassy Baghdad, reporting directly to the Secretary of State, to serve as the United States' lead human rights official in Iraq; to lead an Embassy human rights working group, including the senior coordinators on ARticle 140 issues, on corruption, and on the rule of law, as well as other relevant officials including those focusing on minority issues; and to coordinate U.S. efforts to promote and protect human rights in Iraq; and

* appoint immediately one or more U.S. advisors under the Department of State's Iraq Reconstruction Management Office to serve as liaisons to the Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights.

To address past and current reports of human rights violations in Iraq, the U.S. government should urge the Iraqi government at the highest levels to:

* undertake transparent and effective investigations of human rights abuses, including those stemming from sectarian, religiously-motivated, or other violence by Iraqi security forces, political factions, militias or any other para-state actors affiliated with or otherwise linked to the Iraqi government or regional or local governments, and bring the perpetrators to justice;

* cooperate with international investigations of such abuses; and

* create and fully fund the independent national Human Rights Commission provided for in the Iraqi Constitution and ensure that this Commission is non-sectarian, that is has a mandate to investigate and individual complaints, and that its functions and operations are based on the UN's Paris Principles.

Multiple links can be found at this page of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. The above alone goes to why the UNHCR had no business issuing any statement (not even to appease al-Maliki and his desire to interest foreign investment). Equally true is that this 'downturn' was one month (January) and each month since has seen an increase in violence with last month reaching 2008 levels. Equally important, things are always highly fluid in Iraq. Indpedent journalist Dahr Jamail (via Countercurrents) observes:

Indicative of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Iraq, on May 1 the US military reported the death of a Naval petty officer who was killed "on April 30 while conducting combat operations in Fallujah, Iraq." The Department of Defense report went on to explain that the sailor "was deployed with an East Coast based Navy SEAL team." That same day, the military announced the deaths of two marines "killed while conducting combat operations against enemy forces here April 30." The dateline for the latter press release is "AL ANBAR PROVINCE, Iraq." Apparently, all is not well in Fallujah and al-Anbar province. The US military, having met the fiercest resistance throughout their occupation of Iraq in these areas, is once again conducting combat operations there.
The fact that the US military has largely hung the Sahwa out to dry, exposing the 100,000 strong Sunni militia to the ire of the Maliki government for ongoing assassinations and detentions, has taken the lid off the volcano that the Sahwa were keeping from erupting. Let us remember - it was the Sahwa who kept al-Qaeda in Iraq in check, not the US military or the Iraqi military. As members of the Sahwa continue to leave their security posts due to lack of pay and being targeted by the Iraqi government, they are returning to the resistance from which most of them had emerged to join the militia.
Let us also be clear about the fact that the Sahwa allied themselves with the US military so as to protect themselves from the Shia-dominated sectarian government of Prime Minister Maliki.
I asked a good friend of mine in Baghdad to interview a Sahwa leader in the Adhamiya district of Baghdad a few days ago. The leader asked to be identified as Abu Ahmed. He is 40 years old, married, has four children, and had this to say, "I would like to say that the Iraqi Government, and especially Mr. Maliki, are continuing to target us. They have been doing this from the beginning, and they continue to do this against the Sahwa. The reason is because we are Sunni and the Iraqi government are a sectarian government."
Abu Ahmed said he and his fellow Sahwa members support the immediate withdrawal of all occupation forces "and then we can change our government by ourselves and build a nationalist government to replace this current sectarian government."
He then added, succinctly, "Our purpose is to end the occupation, end al-Qaeda, and make a new Iraq that is safe."

Which goes to why the US needs and it also goes to all the hogwash about al-Maliki winning in the provincial elections (held in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces January 31st). al-Maliki won nothing, he wasn't a candidate. And the way to read those results wasn't "Yea! Nouri!" it was that Iraq's rejecting sectarianism and, pay attention, that's a huge danger for Nouri. Nouri was only installed by the US because he was on the 'right' side of the sectarian divide. The results of the election have been spun repeatedly and in Nouri's favor when reality has never indicated any such thing.

Sahwa was again targeted today in Baghdad.

Bombings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing which left three people wounded and 3 Mosul roadside bombings which left three people wounded.

Shootings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 police officer shot dead in Mosul. Reuters notes 1 "civilian" shot dead in Mosul and 1 "official from the oil police" wounded in a Kirkuk shooting and, in Baghdad, 1 Sahwa ("Awakening," "Sons Of Iraq") shot dead and his brother arrested.

Corpses?
Reuters notes 1 corpse discovered in Kirkuk.

April 23rd, as twin bombings rocked Baghdad, Nouri's mouthpieces announced they'd arrested the mythical Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. Corinne Reilly (McClatchy Newspapers) notes that despite repeated claims since, no one really knows all this time later, "Iraqi officials have claimed to have captured or killed Baghdadi several times before, and they've been wrong every time. U.S. military officials have said in the past that they think that Baghdadi may be a fictional character meant to give a local face to a foreign-led terrorist organization. So far this time, the Iraqis haven't backtracked. But they also have yet to provide any proof they have him, except for one grainy headshot broadcast on state television this week. It's anyone's guess as to how officials might prove Baghdadi is who they say he is, however."

Turning to corruption news [James Glanz, Eric Schmitt and Choe Sang-hun's "3 Koreans Convicted Of Bribery In Iraq"], in a shocking development, billions of US tax dollars have vanished in Iraq and the latest scandal involves $70 million that a foreign government was allowed to 'oversee.' This 'oversight' was in a direct violation of the program as it was repeatedly explained to the US Congress and the American people.Appearing before the The Commission on Wartime Contracting February 2nd, the Department of Defense's Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble explained CERP (Commander's Emergency Response Program) funds, "CERP funds are appropriated through the DoD and allocted through each major command's sector of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Up to $500,000 can be allocated to individual CERP projects, and CERP beneficiaries often receive payments in cash. We have also identified occasions where soldiers with limited contracting experience were responsible for administering CERP funds. In some instances, there appeared to be scant, if any, oversight of the manner in which funds were expended. Complicating matters further is the fact that payment of bribes and gratuities to government officials is a common business practice in some Southwest Asia nations. Taken in combination, these factors result in an environment conducive to bribery and corruption."Gimble identified the CERP funds as being under the control of the US command. This was the repeated pattern when officials appeared before the Congress. In reality, South Korea was allowed to administer CERP funds with no US oversight and their military now stands accused of running a scam which utilized more than $70,000,000 US tax payer dollars. In April, a Seoul military court found three officers of the country's military guilty of running a bribery and extortion scam utilizing the CERP funds.The CERP funds have been repeatedly addressed by witnesses appearing before the US Congress and yet the Congress was repeatedly informed the process was the US tax payer pays the money and the US military officials use the funds for various Iraqi projects. Never once did anyone reveal that foreign states were being given US tax payer monies. The September 10, 2008 House Armed Services Committee hearing found Chair Ike Skelton pursuing the issue of the CERP funds with DoD's Under Secreatry of Defense for Policy Eric S. Edelman and explaining the process as Congress intended it.Ike Skelton: The department's understanding of the allowed usage of CERP funds seems to have undergone a rather dramatic change since Congress first authorized it. The intent of the program was originally to meet urgent humanitarian needs in Iraq through small projects undertaken under the initative of brigade and battalion commanders. Am I correct?Edelman: Yes, sir.Ike Skelton: Thank you. The answer was "yes." Last year the Department of Defense has used millions of CERP dollars to build hotels for foreign visitors, spent $900,000 on a mural at the Baghdad International Airport and, as I understand this second piece of art, that CERP funds were used for. I'm not sure that the American tax payer would appreciate that knowing full well that Iraq has a lot of money in the bank from oil revenues and it is my understanding that Iraq has announced that they're going to build the world's largest ferris wheel. And if they have money to build the world's largest ferris wheel why are we funding murals and hotels with money that should be used by the local battallion commander. This falls in the purview of plans and policy ambassador.Edelman: No, no, it's absolutely right and I'll shae the stage here -- I'll share the stage quite willing with uh, with Admiral Winnefeld with whom I've actually been involved in discussions with for some weeks about how we provide some additional guidance to the field and some additional requirements to make sure that CERP is appropriately spent.Edelman then tries to stall and Skelton cuts him off with, "Remember you're talking to the American taxpayer." Edelman then replies that it is a fair question. He says CERP is important because it's flexible. It's important because they're just throwing around, if you ask me. They're playing big spender on our dime.Skelton: The issue raises two serious questions of course. Number one is they have a lot of money of their own. And number two the choice of the type of projects that are being paid for. I would like to ask Mr. Secretary if our committee could receive a list of expenditures of $100,000 or more within the last year. Could you do that for us at your convience please?Edelman: We'll work with our colleagues in the controller's office and - and . . . to try and get you --Skelton: That would be very helpful.October 30, 2008, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction released a report on Iraqi spending. The 232 page report [PDF format warning] was posted online and received attention for being the product of, Inspector General Stuart W. Bowen Jr. words, "seven audit reports and three inspections". The report noted many things such as, "The recent Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2009 imposed a ceiling of $2 million on the amount of CERP money that DoD could allocate to a single project. The new NDAA futher requires the Secretary of Defense to approve CERP projects costing over $1 million, certifying thereby that the project will meet Iraq's urgent humanitarian relief or reconstruction needs." South Korea was not mentioned in the entire 232 page despite the new revelations that, "The Americans gave the [South Korean] Zaytun unit wide latitude within its northern area of operation [in Iraq]. The unit largely controlled the disbursement of $74 million of American reconstruciton money through the Commanders' Emregency Response Program, or CERP."In addition, while US outlets worked overtime to sneer at the notion that the Iraq War was about, or had anything to do with, oil, "Korean leaders explicitly told their people that the deployment [to Iraq] would help their country gain oil contracts." Attempts to insist that no American money was stolen is insane (though South Korea's government has attempted to do just that). If I use $350 of your money without your permission -- for even two seconds and return every bit of it -- I have stolen from you. It's basic. If a citizen did what the Korean military officials did, they'd be prosecuted for theft (and they should be). Meanwhile, in Iraq, AFP reports that the Kurdistan Regional Government has announced they will hold their parliamentary elections July 25th.

In the US, Carolyn Lochhead (San Francisco Chronicle) sees stirrings in Congress over the 'emerency' war supplemental Barack's requestion. Lochhead notes US House Rep David Obey, chair of the Appropriations Committee, states that at the end of the year there will be some serious questions. In addition:

Echoing fights with former President Bush over Iraq, Obey included language requiring the Obama administration to issue a progress report on five benchmarks to Congress before its next budget request in February 2010. Funding is not conditioned on meeting the benchmarks:
1. The level of political consensus and unity of purpose to confront the political and security challenges facing the region; 2. The level of government corruption and actions taken to eliminate it; 3. The performance of security forces with respect to counterinsurgency operations; 4. The performance of intelligence agencies in cooperating fully with the U.S. and not undermining the security of our troops and our objectives in the region; and 5. The ability of the government to control the territory within their borders."

The previous benchmarks were never met and Congress never cut off funding. All this time later, they still haven't been met. Even provincial elections have still not been held (14 of Iraq's 18 provinces is not "provincial elections" any more that a national election in the US would be 42 states voting and eight being excluded).

As noted yesterday, Marilyn French has passed away. Last night Elaine called out the nonsense of the obits acting as if The Women's Room was the beginning and end of Marilyn. Elaine rightly noted that it was akin to an obit on Julie Christie focusing non-stop on Darling and ignoring her finest performance thus far (Afterglow). More to the point, it's the equivalent of an obit on Sally Field that can't shut up about Gidget or The Flying Nun. Those were popular hits. They're nothing to be ashamed of. But Field's best work includes Norma Rae, Places Of The Heart and much more. More people saw her play The Flying Nun than anything else. (And more people saw her in Smokey & the Bandit than saw her in Norma Rae.) If that's the only measure for how we judge than, by all means, keep pimping a popular book that may be as 'lasting' as any of Mary McCarthy's novels. French's work didn't end in 1977. It's appalling that standards and taste (or the lack of both) dictate that certain people pimp a page turner as opposed to Marilyn's well researched, analytical writing. Heart (Women's Space) finds a way to note the popular novel and yet not to reduce Marilyn to Judith Krantz. Heart observes, "Her work has been central to my own feminism and is, in my opinion, brilliant. She was one of only a very few feminists who really had a grasp of the broad picture; she consistently wrote of women's liberation as a struggle against all forms of coercion and abusive power, all dominance hierarchies, and as central and key to the liberation, ultimately, of all human beings, animals, the earth itself."


iraq
evan brightbrett barrouquere
the new york timesrod norland
dahr jamail
james glanzeric schmittchoe sang-hun
mcclatchy newspaperslaith hammoudi
corinne reilly
carolyn lochheadthe san francisco chronicle