Remember the Grenfell tragedy from a few years back? There's still no justice.
Charles Hixson and Robert Stevens (WSWS) report:
Monday June 14 marked four years since the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire when 72 people perished in the middle of London in an act of social murder.
To this day, not a single person or organisation responsible in political and corporate circles has been brought to account for this terrible crime. Moreover, the risk of dying by fire in an unsafe building today is greater than ever. It was estimated last June that 56,000 people were still living in high rises with the same type of aluminium composite material (ACM) cladding that enveloped Grenfell. The ACM cladding was the main reason a small fourth-floor kitchen fire became an inferno in matter of minutes.
But this is only a fraction of the true number affected. According to an assessment last June by Inside Housing—and based on the average household size of 2.4—at least 600,000 people (equivalent to the population of Glasgow) live in unsafe tall buildings and millions more in medium rise towers. Grenfell was 24 storeys, 67 metres, tall. Inside Housing warned, “There are an estimated 100,000 medium-rise buildings—between 11m and 18m—across the UK and no work whatsoever has been done to establish the extent of dangerous cladding materials on the outside… Both the Barking Riverside fire in June last year [2019] and the Bolton fire last November occurred in buildings below 18m with dangerous cladding systems, and both came very close to causing loss of life.”
Many more buildings used by the public remain in use despite being unsafe. Since the Grenfell fire, over 70 schools have been built with the same combustible insulation used on Grenfell, as well as 25 hospitals, care homes and sheltered housing. Although combustible materials have been banned on facades greater than 18 metres, the Department of Education recently drafted fire safety proposals for school buildings allowing for flammable materials in structures below that height. In the last five years, 47 primary and secondary school buildings have been destroyed by fire in England alone.
Set up in September 2017, the government’s Grenfell Tower Inquiry has heard more than 200 days of evidence from corporate and government officials, as well as firefighters and numerous technical experts.
Over the last weeks it has finally taken testimony from survivors, including residents, who had voiced concerns over their safety, worries about the Tower’s refurbishment, and the hostile attitude of the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Association (KCTMO) which ran the Tower on behalf of the Conservative council. Among these was 16th-floor resident and member of the Grenfell Action Group (GAG), Edward Daffarn. Just months before the fire, GAG posted a November 2016 blog article reading: “It is a truly terrifying thought but the Grenfell Action Group firmly believe that only a catastrophic event will expose the ineptitude and incompetence of our landlord, the KCTMO, and bring an end to the dangerous living conditions and neglect of health and safety legislation that they inflict upon their tenants and leaseholders.”
It emerged that Daffarn was accused internally at the KCTMO of “scaremongering”. Rydon, one of the main builders on the “refurbishment” contract that ended with Grenfell being clad in flammable material described Daffarn and other residents who raised concerns as “rebel residents”. Daffarn presented the inquiry with a 127-page statement which included seven complaints relating to fire safety made before the fire. Daffarn denounced the authorities for treating residents with “hostility”, “neglect” and “contempt”, and for allowing the tower to deteriorate into a “slum-like condition”.
There is no justice.
Let me note Chase Rice's "Bedroom," a song I keep listening to a lot lately.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
CNN's Jeremy Herb reports:
The House is voting this week on a bill to repeal the 2002 US war authorization in Iraq, with Democrats hopeful that the White House's backing will give them newfound momentum to finally revoke the nearly 20-year-old authorization.
The White House's Office of Management and Budget on Monday issued a statement supporting the House's legislation, a move that's likely to boost the prospects that the Senate will also take action to repeal the authorization for use of military force, which was passed in the months before the George W. Bush administration invaded Iraq in 2003. The House will vote on the rule for the legislation Monday evening ahead of the final vote, which is expected to occur on Thursday. The Biden administration said in a statement of administration policy Monday that it supports the House's legislation because "the United States has no ongoing military activities that rely solely on the 2002 AUMF as a domestic legal basis, and repeal of the 2002 AUMF would likely have minimal impact on current military operations."
Ted Kopan (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE) words it this way:
President Biden on Monday formally endorsed a bill from Oakland Rep. Barbara Lee to repeal the bill that authorized the U.S. invasion of Iraq, marking a sea change in politics on the issue of military engagement. The East Bay Democrat’s bill to terminate the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force is set for a vote in the House later this week.
In a statement of administration policy, the vehicle through which presidents telegraph their position on legislation under consideration in Congress, the White House supported the bill’s passage in the House, saying it would not
jeopardize any current military operations because none is solely based on that authorization. “Repeal of the 2002 AUMF would likely have minimal impact on current military operations,” the statement said. “Furthermore, the President is committed to working with the Congress to ensure that outdated authorizations for the use of military force are replaced with a narrow and specific framework appropriate to ensure that we can continue to protect Americans from terrorist threats.”
Lee has been at the vanguard of the movement to end what are referred to in politics as “endless wars” — military engagements by the U.S. abroad that have no clear endpoint. She was the only member of Congress to vote in 2001 against green-lighting the U.S. war on terror just days after the Sept. 11 attacks, a stand that earned her death threats at the time and respect from her colleagues in hindsight.
At the vanguard? Maybe of fake assery. She swore this, she swore that. She's a worthless fake ass. "Next year, if we're not out of Afghanistan . . ." she'd promise each year of Barack Obama's eight year presidency, she'd do something. She never did anything but flap her gums.
Bernie Sanders revealed himself to be a sheep dog to steer voters into the Democratic Party and that's bad but Barbara Less's worse. She lulls people into believing that there's real opposition to war in the party and there's none. That's why we still have US troops in Iraq and in Afghanistan. That's why the repeal is only possible at this moment because a sitting president has pronounced it unnecessary.
It might get repealed. I don't know that it will but I don't know that that's the most pressing issue this week -- or even the most pressing issue regarding the AUMF. I'd love to see all the Democrats who claimed they were tricked or that they didn't vote for war to have a microphone shoved in their face and asked on live TV, "If you weren't voting for war, why does the AMUF need to be repealed?"
They were voting for war. And they did so knowingly and willingly. And they did so because that's what they believed in. Senator Bob Grahm urged others in Congress -- including Hillary Clinton -- to go and look at what was being offered as evidence. They were 'too busy' to look or think, but they had plenty of time to vote to start a war that has killed over a million people -- Iraqis, US troops and support personnel, people from the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
And they've skirted responsibility and presented themselves as the victim. It's the Joe Biden playbook, after all. Insist that the mean old Bully Boy Bush tricked you. Admit that you're such a moron that the global village idiot could trick you.
ALJAZEERA quotes US House Rep Jim McGovern:
“The idea that they have not been repealed or ended just doesn’t make any sense,” said Representative Jim McGovern, a leading Democrat.
“It’s either that we just haven’t done our due diligence, or we are not keeping a close watch on these things,” McGovern said on Monday.
You think? And it's not either/or, it's both. Congress did not do due diligence and they are not keeping a close watch on these things. They have no idea what's going on in Iraq. They don't even pretend to be interested in, for example, corruption in Iraq anymore -- this despite the fact that millions of US tax dollars continue to be handed over to the government of Iraq. There is no oversight.
The office of the Special Investigator over reconstruction in Iraq was forced on Bully Boy Bush. Who shut it down? Donald Trump? No, Barack Obama. And he shut it down over loud objections. Maybe it was just a little too effective in highlighting waste or, maybe as two senators told me, the office embarrassed Barack by revealing that the police academy Americans spent a ton of money building was not wanted by the government of Iraq and they did not plan to use it. That went into not just a report but to testimony before the House and Senate. Barack's reaction was to shut down the office and the press reaction was to look the other way and pretend like he was about openness and transparency.
Who's pretending these days?
Maybe the US Congress and the US media who refuse to own the amount of money wasted on an illegal war. The amount of money still being wasted.
You won't hear Babsy Lee talk about that. Just like you won't hear her defend Palestinians. The reality of Barbara Lee is far less inspiring that the media image that was long ago created.
On the issue of Iraq, Amnesty International issued the following:
Arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearance of dozens in the past year
Crackdown intensified after protests against corruption and poor public services
‘Many of those detained were tried on fabricated charges’ - Lynn Maalouf
The authorities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq have launched a chilling crackdown on journalists and activists in the past year amid a “growing atmosphere of fear” in the region, said Amnesty International today.
The crackdown began in March 2020, intensifying after widespread protests in August demanding an end to corruption and better public services.
In the governorate of Duhok alone, Kurdish security forces arrested more than 100 people between March 2020 and April 2021. Most were later released but at least 30 remain in detention.
Amnesty investigated in detail the cases of 14 people from Badinan, in Duhok governorate, who were arbitrarily arrested between March and October 2020 by Asayish (Kurdistan Regional Government security and intelligence) and Parastin forces (Kurdistan Democratic Party intelligence) in connection with their participation in protests, criticism of the local authorities or for their journalistic work.
All of the 14 were held incommunicado for up to five months and at least six were forcibly disappeared for periods of up to three months. Eight of the detainees said they had been tortured or otherwise ill-treated during their detention. On 16 February, five were sentenced to six years in prison based on “confessions” extracted under duress.
The Kurdistan authorities have used three specific laws to arrest and prosecute the activists - Law no.21 on matters of national security, a defamation law and a law on the misuse of electronics, all of which contain vague and overly-broad definitions of crimes not recognised under international law.
Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s Middle East Deputy Director, said:
“The authorities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq have launched a chilling crackdown in their efforts to silence critics over the past year.
“They have rounded up activists and journalists, prosecuting them on trumped-up charges in unfair trials and harassing or intimidating family members who were kept in the dark about the status of their loved ones.
“Many of those detained were tried on fabricated charges and some of those who have been released have fled the region, amidst a growing atmosphere of fear that has even seen family members of activists, journalists and protesters threatened and harassed.
"The Kurdistan Region of Iraq authorities must end the crackdown and immediately release all of those who have been arbitrarily detained.”
On the topic of Kurdistan, MENA's Maria Fantappie weighs in with a Twitter feed:
We'll wind down with this from MS. MAGAZINE:
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