Did you get the latest copy of The Nation? Maybe not, if you don't subscribe. Well, if I had cats, it would make a great lining for the litter box. The last issue wasn't any better and I've pretty much had it with the magazine. Are Naomi Klein and Christian Parenti the only reporters the magazine has? I could go into this for about 50 paragraphs but (a) I don't have the time and (b) we'll be addressing The Nation this week at The Third Estate Sunday Review. So changing topics, please read Elaine's "Maria, Francisco and Miguel." She's already called Maria and me. She felt it came off negative and it didn't. That's where Maria, Francisco and Miguel are at right now. It's impossible to hit the ground running and, in the early days, all you notice is what didn't work. They got a lot of favorable e-mails on their first issue and they're getting it on the second one. Elaine said if I'd told her that, she would have included it. And I understand that. But it's about where they are at with the newsletter, how they feel about it, and I thinks he captured that perfectly. Maria says it's captures their current mood perfectly.
By this weekend, my latest review will go up. It may be crap. It may be worth reading. One needs to be done and there's a CD I really love. So that's just the way it is. I am still worn down from Ireland and the funeral. I also am really hating the weather because I like fresh air but if I leave my windows open lately, I wake up cold and I hate the cold. Winter has come to California and I am miserable in the winter. I'm also aware that "winter" here is not where it is elsewhere. That was driven home most recently when I went with C.I. to speak at some colleges and we encountered snow. I was excited for about five minutes and then wishing it weren't so cold.
Maria had a question tonight, why did some things in the post yesterday lack spacing? Because of the Beta switch. You'll see that at all the community sites that have switched to Beta, especially when an illustration is added to the post. It's one of the Beta bugs and will hopefully be fixed in the future. I did space properly while writing. It just didn't post as such.
Today was Wendesday which means KPFA's Guns and Butter. The focus was on terrorism and the private profit and the guest was Keith Harmon Snow. I have a lot of respect from KHS and you know I do for Bonnie Faulkner as well. So I'm not surprised that they continue to explore root causes behind the rush to 'save' Darfur. But it is troubling that others do not. Pru had congratulated me in an e-mail on the 'good catch' in finding The London Review of Books article on that. I can't claim credit, C.I. passed me the print magazine. But I can note what Pru has, which is there is a real discussion in London. There's not in this country. It's all blindly follow the Modern Day Carrie Nations and scream "War! War! War!" Jonathan Steele can discuss the situation in The Guardian of London and explain why war is not the answer. The London Review of Books can run an excellent article. But here we don't get that.
We do from Bonnie's show. But that's the exception. I was reading something a week or two back about how Israel was refusing to allow people from the region, refugrees, admission. I heard about that on KPFA, I believe on the evening news, months ago. But that's the reality in this country. Too many exist as nothing but an echo chamber.
That's it for me tonight. Check out KPFA's Guns and Butter if you missed it (which hopefully you didn't). Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, December 13, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, Tuesdays bombings repeat today (on a smaller scale which is the pattern), Saudi Arabia whispers to Dick Cheney, the US military wants more, the Iraqi military has their own laundry list, and is Emily Greene a liar, a fool, a tool, a stooge or an enabler as she rushes to deny abuses of Iraqi women?
Starting with reality, on yesterday's KPFA's Flashpoints Dahr Jamail summarized conditions in Iraq:
What we do have is a situation that's well beyond the control of the US military . . . The two hottest spots we can talk about are Baghdad and Al-Anbar Province. One thing that people tend to overlook is that Al-Anbar Province is one third of the geographic area of the entire country, so that just right off form starters, we can say is completely out of control of the US military. Marines are being killed there every day. Dozens are wounded every single day and we're not getting this information. And it's very interesting. If you look at the news, we see this kind of unquestioning reporting going on where another US soldier killed or marine killed in A-Anbar but what it doesn't say is that it's typically in one of two cities, that's either Falluja or Ramadi almost every single time. So it really indicates how high the level of violence is there. Recently, 3,000 more marines were called off of ships in the Gulf and sent into Ramadi specifically, which, ironically, just yesterday the first female marine [officer][Megan M. McClung] was killed in that area as well. So we have a situation where, as you [Nora Barrows-Friedman] described in the highlights, where, really hundreds are dying every single day, it's not "scores," it's not "tens," it's not "dozens." It's hundreds of Iraqis are dying every single day. On average, it's well over a hundred a day just in Baghdad alone. And then if you look what's happening in places like Ramadi and Falluja which are under a consistent -- somewhere between 'low burn' and 'high burn' seige by the US military -- we have snipers killing many people in each city every single day, US snipers. We still have medical workers being harrassed. We still have all of the things you and I have talked about from almost the very beginning, Nora, back in January 2004, but on a much, much broader level, not just in one city, and not just even in one province, but really across all of Iraq -- even now bleeding into the Kurdish controlled north."
Staying with reality, we'll move to today's violence.
Bombings?
CBS and AP note a Baghdad bombing "near a crowded bus stop" that left at least 11 dead and at least 27 more wounded. Ammar Karim (The Australian) describes the scene: "Bodies of the victims lay scattered around the street amid pools of blood and the burning wreckage of at least two cars and a row of market stalls set up by a nearby bus stations." AP quotes eyes witness Abu Haider al-Kaabi: "A Volkswagen car exploded right near the bust stop, hitting a group of people, including women and children who were waiting to take a bus to a fruit and vegetatble market".
CNN notes two car bombs that exploded in the capital's New Baghdad district resulting in at least five deaths and an additional 10 people wounded. Xinhua puts the count of car bombs in Iraq today at seven (seven total for the entire country) and counts 29 dead from them which includes an attack on an Iraqi army base in Kirkuk that left ten Iraqi soldiers dead. Sameer N. Yacoub and Qais al-Bahsir (AP) report that another bombing, in Baquba, resulted in no physical deaths or injuries but it "destroyed a small Shiite shrine" while, in Musayyib, three roadside bombs exploded resulting in one death and one wounded. Kirk Semple (New York Times) reports a mortar attack in Baladiat that killed one and left six more wounded. Reuters notes a roadside bomb in Jurf al-Sakar left one person dead and three wounded.
Shootings?
Sameer N. Yacoub and Qais al-Bashir (AP) report a home invasion in al-Hesna resulted in assailants shooting dead nine members of a family. Reuters notes the family members killed were "four men, two women and three children" and that, near Balad, an attack on an Iraqi check point resulted in the wounding of four Iraqi soldiers.
Corpses?
Thomas Wagner (AP) reports that seven corpses ("tortured") were discovered in Mosul. Reuters notes that a corpse was discovered in Kirkuk, two corpses were discovered in Mahmudiya, and four corpses were discovered near Falluja.
As the chaos and violence continues day after day, both Sudarsan Raghavan (Washington Post) and John F. Burns (New York Times) report a new 'plan' to cut down on the violence: provide jobs! As Kurdish legislator Mahmoud Othman tells Raghavan, "It's a bit late, as usual. They should have done this three years ago. In this country, they have spent so much on security without results. If they had spent one-tenth of that on creating jobs, more projects and fighting unemployment, things would have been better now."
The stop-gap measure (it's not a plan and it's not implemented) comes as Ann Scott Tyson (Washington Post) reports that both the US marines and army are advocating that Congress provide them with "permanent increases in personnel" and while, as Michael R. Gordon and Sabrina Tavernise (New York Times) point out, 'readiness' is just around the corner for Iraqi armies according to the country's national security advisor.
Did someone say, not quiet, not right? AFP reports this 'readiness' isn't just conditional upon future predictions, it also includes a list of wants: "more arms for the Iraqi army, more powers and training in order to be capable of handling security missions all over the country." Those are the words of the puppet Nouri al-Maliki and appear to indicate that when ousted by the US, he may not even grasp it, so removed from reality is he already.
The puppet reflects his master -- Bully Boy -- and shares company with a lazy press that can't stop jaw boning about toothless, idiotic 'reports.' Noting the 'snowjobs' weren't reality on yesterday's KPFA's Flashpoints, Dahr Jamail declared, "The reality is this a permanent occupation. They don't give a damn about the Iraqi people. They're not going to leave They're just trying to get the oil set up. And they're going to stay there until that happens and until it's all extracted."
But all the defocusing on 'listening tours' and 'reports' and other nonsense allows the Bully Boy to give the impression that he's 'active' and 'involved' -- so involved that, possibly, next year he can come up with a 'plan.' Danny Schechter (News Dissector) notes: "I can't wait for the Decider to Decide and for President Bush to announce his new revised version of his unrevised war plan. We will will have to wait a bit longer, perhaps to next year. And no matter that OVER SEVENTY PERCENT of the American people disagree with the current policy, he is not to be hurried with the media still taking him at his word as a rational decision maker. He is stuck. That's for sure. And anyone expecting new leadership in the White House might want to consider buying a bridge I am selling to Brooklyn."
While Bully Boy stalls the (willing) press, Saudi Arabia's not so patient. This morning, Helene Cooper (New York Times) reported that last month (after Thanksgiving), Dick Cheney was told by King Abdullah that if US forces withdraw from Iraq, the Saudi government will back the Sunnis. Cooper's story comes out just as Robin Wright (Washington Post) reports on the fast exist of the Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Turki al-Faisal, who "flew out of Washington yesterday after informing Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and his staff that he would be leaving the post after only 15 months on the job, according to U.S. officials and foreign envoys. There has been no formal announcements from the kingdom."
Returning to yesterday's KPFA's Flashpoints, Nora Barrows-Friedman and Dahr Jamail discussed the issue of women's rights in Iraq and noted the steady decline since the beginning of the illegal invasion. Prior to that, there were no "dress restrictions on women, they didn't have to cover up or wear a hijab," they could attend school, college, they held doctorates, they held postions in the government ministries. That's all changed. Dahr noted (and pay attention to this for later in the entry) "One of the first things that the US appointed Iraqi governing councile was to pass laws that would have done away with the laws that protect" the rights of women in Iraq. Though that was stopped it did "set the tone of what was going to happen in this inccreasingly fundamentalist" society where "There are no women's rights. Nothing is protected. It's a very fundamentalist government."
Nora Barrows-Friedman: I remember during the invasion and war against Afghanistan. Laura Bush was touting that country as a horrible place for women's rights and she herself was going to personally liberate the women. And now, after the invasion the Taliban has come back ten, a hundred-fold, it is worse for women in Afghanistan. Would you say the same is happening for women in Iraq?
Dahr agreed and noted "one of the consistent things we can see" using Afghanistan and Iraq as an example is that "if you're a woman you might want to seriously consider leaving because it's only a mtter of time before your rights are basically in the waste basket and horrible things are going to start happening to you."
Also addressed were the fact that the daily kidnappings in Baghdad (conservative estimate is thirty per day) target women more and more due to the fact that Bully Boy's 'liberation' has left them with no rights and little safeguards.
Today, the United Nations' IRIN attempts to report on the realities for female prisoners in Iraq. Standing in the way is one Emily Greene, described as "a spokeswoman for the US military in Iraq" who is a liar, a fool, a tool or an enabler? While Green offers denials/lies, Faten Abdul Rhaman Mahmoud, one of the few women in the puppet government with any power (she heads the Ministry of Women's Affairs), attempts to address the situation. There's something very vile about the US government, whose actions have destroyed the rights of women, using a woman as window dressing to hide behind and there's something even more disgusting about a woman who allows herself to be used in a such a manner. Greene lies/misinforms/disinforms that there's no information of any women held prisoner "in Iraqi prisons. The ones that had been held for investigation by them had all been released months ago and no torture has occurred, she said."
Emily Greene meet Um Ahmed who spoke with IPS about her imprisonment that did not take place "months ago" and that involved US forces who "told me they would rape me if I didn't tell them where my husband was, but I really didn't know." When her husband surrendered to the US military, the 'fun' just kept coming. Um Ahmed told Dahr Jamial and Ali al-Fadhily: "They told him they would rape me right in front of him if he did not confess he was a terrorist. They forced me to watch them beat him hard until he told them what they wanted to hear."
IRIN quotes Faten Abdul Rahman Mahmoud: "We don't know the exact number of remale prisoners but there are many being held in different prisons -- even though the [other ministries in the] government and US forces deny it. They are afraid of a counterattack from the country's conservative society." And though they may fear an attack, as noted by Dahr Jamail in his conversation with Nora Barrows-Friedman, the 'new' government set up post-illegal invasion has not given a damn about women's rights. IRIN also notes that Sarah Abdel Yassin of the Organization for Women's Freedom (OWF) whose own research backs up Faten Abdul Rahman Mahmoud's findings and she states, "The Ministry of Interior, [Ministry of] Defence and US forces are denying that there are female prisoners in Iraq but we have enough proof that they are there and that they suffer daily humiliation." An example is Samira Abdallah who was hooded for the entire four moths she was held, released in November only to find that her husband was now dead ("killed by the Iraqi army") as was her oldest daughter ("raped by a soldier" and then the daughter, 16-year-old Hania, killed herself) so it's now just her and her seven-year-old son.
When the Emily Greene's are presented with this 'choice' positions, the smart thing would be to turn them down. It should be perfectly obvious that Willie Caldwell gets all the 'prime' assignments and that they're being used as mere window dressing. By participating in the con, women like that not only enable the destruction of the rights of others, they make it all the less likely that a Faten Abdul Rahman Mahmoud will come along to speak out against abuses to women. But that's the point of using US women in window dressing roles, isn't it?
In war resister news, Jane Cutter (PSL) reports on Saturday's actions in Seattle (despite "rain and wind") which including distributing brochures featuring war resisters such as Ehren Watada and Kyle Snyder and collecting "postcards to be hand delivered to pro-war Democratic senator Maria Cantwell." Meanwhile Lydia Lum (Diverse Education) explores past the 300 Japanese-Americans who refused to serve in WWII due to their families being (illegally) interned. Lum notes that 120,000 Japanese-Americans were held in internment camps, explores the "no-no boys" and ends in the present noting UCLA's Dr. Lane "Hirabayshi says the current case of U.S. Army Lt. Ehren K. Watada, who is of Japanese and Chinese descent, is the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq, callin the war illegal and immoral. He faces court-martial and a possible prison term."
iraq
kyle snyderkpfaflashpointsnora barrows friedman
the kpfa evening news
danny schechter
dahr jamail
ali al-fadhily
ehren watada
the new york timessabrina tavernise
john f. burns
michael r. gordonthe washington postsudarsan raghavan
ann scott tysondavid e. sanger
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Rebecca, David Bacon
Illustration to the right is what we worked on for The Third Estate Sunday Review's "Bully Boy amused by the Beltway Babies." I didn't have time last night to weigh in on the James Baker Circle Jerk so let me note tonight that I will not be linking to or highlighting that nonsense report.There are real issues to cover and all that crappy report and Bully Boy's 'consultations' this week are going to do is take the heat off of him to do something but they provide the cover to make it look as though he is doing something. He's doing nothing. As Elaine noted tonight, he's not even going to announce a 'new' 'plan' until January. There is no sense of urgency on his part and why should there be when the press can't stop yacking about that stupid report.
I keep checking Rebecca's site to see if she's posted the news yet and she hasn't. She said it was fine to note it this evening and it would make it easier for her when she does blog. So, if you haven't heard yet, she is pregnant.
Rebecca's had some problems with pregnancies before but she saw a doctor today and she'll be taking extra precautions this pregnancy, so hopefully, this will be a healthy pregnancy and she'll become a mother in 2007.
She said she doesn't want anyone worrying and for everyone to just be happy with her.
It's probably been a very long day for her so if she doesn't blog, don't be worried. We've also all worked out a schedule where we can grab a post at her site anytime she needs to grab some rest. C.I. wanted a very complete schedule so we've got primaries and backups for each day. It will never be a case of it being, for instance, my night and I can't do it so nothing goes up. If it becomes my night and for some reason I can't post, there is a list of people. I call the next on the list, passing off the baton and either they cover it, or they move on down the list. Everyone has put their names down and we'll be covering it.
Rebecca didn't know this morning she was pregnant. She wasn't feeling well, so she blogged early today. What she thought was a flu, C.I. realized was morning sickness.
Rebecca figures if C.I. figured out, someone else might as well so, after she and Flyboy were done at the doctor's, she gave her permission to pass the word along.
Rebecca's had some problems with pregnancies before but she saw a doctor today and she'll be taking extra precautions this pregnancy, so hopefully, this will be a healthy pregnancy and she'll become a mother in 2007.
She said she doesn't want anyone worrying and for everyone to just be happy with her.
It's probably been a very long day for her so if she doesn't blog, don't be worried. We've also all worked out a schedule where we can grab a post at her site anytime she needs to grab some rest. C.I. wanted a very complete schedule so we've got primaries and backups for each day. It will never be a case of it being, for instance, my night and I can't do it so nothing goes up. If it becomes my night and for some reason I can't post, there is a list of people. I call the next on the list, passing off the baton and either they cover it, or they move on down the list. Everyone has put their names down and we'll be covering it.
Rebecca didn't know this morning she was pregnant. She wasn't feeling well, so she blogged early today. What she thought was a flu, C.I. realized was morning sickness.
Rebecca figures if C.I. figured out, someone else might as well so, after she and Flyboy were done at the doctor's, she gave her permission to pass the word along.
If you listen to KPFA you know David Bacon who speaks with Philip Maldari and Andrea Lewis each *WEDNESDAY* when he delivers the labor report. He has an important article entitled "Are Democrats Heading Over a Cliff?" (Truthout):
Having used Latino and labor votes to recapture control of the US Congress, some influential Democratic Party power brokers now seem intent on attacking the very base that produced their victory.
According to the William Velasquez Institute, seven of ten Latino voters chose Democratic candidates. A large percentage of Latino households have family members born outside the US, and millions of Democratic votes came from families where both documented and undocumented members live together. Union families voted for Democrats by about the same margin - seven of ten.
Democrats cannot win elections without Latinos and labor, yet conservative party leaders want to cooperate with Republicans on an immigration-enforcement program that targets them both.
At issue is the enforcement of employer sanctions, a provision of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. Sanctions bar employers from hiring workers who don't have proper immigration documents. They don't really penalize employers, but they do make holding a job a federal crime for an undocumented worker. Sanctions enforcement has led to the firings of thousands of immigrant workers, including many this year.
Newly appointed House Intelligence Committee head Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), a former Border Patrol agent, wants this wave of firings to grow. Behind him is the party's eminence gris, Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.). According to an interview earlier this year with The Hill Magazine, Emanuel thinks it's the key to winning support among voters who view immigrants as a threat. Even leading Washington lobbyist Frank Sharry, head of the National Immigration Forum, recently advised immigrant-rights groups that Democrats, having just won the election, should agree to this enforcement scheme in order to placate Republicans.
Rahm, Reyes and their Republican colleagues say sanctions have never been enforced on employers. "There has been almost zero enforcement," Rahm told The Hill.
Rahm is wrong. When the Clinton administration mounted its highly publicized Operation Vanguard program in the meat packing industry in 1998, more than 3,000 workers were forced from their jobs in just one enforcement action, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The Democratic administration mounted other workplace raids as well. In Washington State's apple packing sheds, more than 600 people were fired in the middle of a union organizing drive the same year. Needless to say, with its leaders gone, the union lost.
According to the William Velasquez Institute, seven of ten Latino voters chose Democratic candidates. A large percentage of Latino households have family members born outside the US, and millions of Democratic votes came from families where both documented and undocumented members live together. Union families voted for Democrats by about the same margin - seven of ten.
Democrats cannot win elections without Latinos and labor, yet conservative party leaders want to cooperate with Republicans on an immigration-enforcement program that targets them both.
At issue is the enforcement of employer sanctions, a provision of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. Sanctions bar employers from hiring workers who don't have proper immigration documents. They don't really penalize employers, but they do make holding a job a federal crime for an undocumented worker. Sanctions enforcement has led to the firings of thousands of immigrant workers, including many this year.
Newly appointed House Intelligence Committee head Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), a former Border Patrol agent, wants this wave of firings to grow. Behind him is the party's eminence gris, Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.). According to an interview earlier this year with The Hill Magazine, Emanuel thinks it's the key to winning support among voters who view immigrants as a threat. Even leading Washington lobbyist Frank Sharry, head of the National Immigration Forum, recently advised immigrant-rights groups that Democrats, having just won the election, should agree to this enforcement scheme in order to placate Republicans.
Rahm, Reyes and their Republican colleagues say sanctions have never been enforced on employers. "There has been almost zero enforcement," Rahm told The Hill.
Rahm is wrong. When the Clinton administration mounted its highly publicized Operation Vanguard program in the meat packing industry in 1998, more than 3,000 workers were forced from their jobs in just one enforcement action, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The Democratic administration mounted other workplace raids as well. In Washington State's apple packing sheds, more than 600 people were fired in the middle of a union organizing drive the same year. Needless to say, with its leaders gone, the union lost.
If the Democrats in Congress support that plan, they are worse than cowardly and craven. Find new words because there are none to describe how despicable that will be and they will be.
Okay, Rebecca's "pregnant" is up. Be sure to read that. And here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, December 12, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq; Dennis Kucinich declares his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 presidential race; a bombing takes place in Baghdad that's so severe, with at least 70 now declared dead and at least 236 wounded, even the New York Times will have to take notice; the US military announces the deaths of four troops in Al-Anbar Province; a new report finds that the conditions for women continue to decrease worldwide; in the US, Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan address the war; and impeachment continues to be discussed outside the halls of Congress with Elizabeth Holtzman declaring, "Frankly, if we had really debated whether there should be a war in Iraq, we may not have gone into Iraq. If the American people had been told the truth, if the Congress had been told the truth, I doubt very much that we’d be in this pickle now. How do you put a price tag on that? How do you estimate the consequences of going into a whole war from scratch on the basis of deceptions and lies?"
Starting with impeachement. BuzzFlash interviews Elizabeth Holtzman on the topic. Holtzman is a former district attorney and a former member of Congress. As a member of Congress, the committee she served on was the one that drafted impeachment charges against "Tricky Dick" Nixon. In January, Holtzman penned "The Impeachment of George W. Bush" which not only remains the strongest piece to run in The Nation throughout the 2006 year, it also kicked off the discussion (which had seemed dormant after the 2003 invasion of Iraq) and Lewis Lapham's "The Case for Impeachment" (Harper's), the Center for Constitutional Rights's Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush, David Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky's The Case for Impeachment (Olshansky is an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights) would quickly follow. More recently, Holtzman's published the book The Impeachment of George W. Bush.
In an exclusive interview with BuzzFlash, Holtzman was asked about pundits who say that impeachment will not happen and the fact that Nancy Pelosi took impeachment 'off the table' (in an October interview with Lesley Stahl on CBS' 60 Minutes). Holtzman responded:
We can't start and end the conversation with what political pundits have to say. First of all, our generation -- the American people living right now -- have a responsibility for preserving and maintaining our Constitution. Are we going to allow it to be shredded by a president? Then, if this president can get away with starting a war based on lies, with breaking the law willfully, what's the next president going to do? What’s the precedent that's started here?
Secondly, it really doesn't matter what the pundits say, and it doesn't really matter what members of Congress have to say about impeachment. If the American people want impeachment, it's going to happen. The real problem is that the mainstream media won't take the issue seriously. They don't want to spend the time to understand it. And they've decided it's not going to happen, so they're not going to write about it.
The consequence is that many Americans don't understand that the framers of this Constitution 200 years ago understood that there would be a Richard Nixon, and they understood that there would be a George Bush. And they said: American people, you have a remedy. We're giving you a remedy. It's 200 years old. It's called impeachment. That's designed to remove a President who threatens our Constitution and subverts our democracy.
Watergate didn't start because the Congress wanted impeachment. Left to its own devices, Congress never would have done anything on impeachment. Left to its own devices, the press never would have investigated, except for Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The rest of the press was completely unconcerned on the subject. They didn't care. They weren't aggressive. But the American people understand that this is their Constitution, this is their democracy, this is their country, and they have the power to do something about it.
On the issue of Congress, Ann Wright told The KPFA Evening News Monday, ". . . they're going to just let things evolve. And what we the people have to do is to put pressure on all of these oversight committees to have continual oversight committees investigations and I think there's going to be overwhelming evidence, through these investigations, so damning to the administration that, at that point, there will be a collective effort by the Congress to hold accountable people who have broken US law and that, probably, will lead to impeachment."
Echoing that thought, Cindy Sheehan stated on Democracy Now! today that the movement for impeachment has to come from the people and then "Congress will have the courage to do the same thing." On the same broadcast, Medea Benjamin noted that "nothing is off the table."
Also yesterday on The KPFA Evening News, a news conference was held on The Lancet Study and among those attending was US Congress member Dennis Kucinich who declared, "There have been a staggering amount of civilian casualites." The Lancet Study found over 655,000 Iraqis had died since the beginning of the illegal war. Also noted was that Kuccinich would declare his candidacy for the Democrat 2008 presidential nomination today. Mark Mericle reported that Kucinich "doesn't think his fellow Democrats are heeding what he called the anti-war message sent by the voters this year."
Joe Milicia (AP) reports on Kucinich's announcement today quoting from the presidential primary candidate stating, "I am not going to stand by and watch thousands more of our brave, young men and women killed in Iraq. We Democrats were put back in power to bring some sanity back to our nation.We were expected to do what we said we were going to do -- get out of Iraq."
Kucinich's declaration comes at a time when the deaths of US troops continue to mount. Michael R. Blood (AP) reports on the Santa Barbara display of white crosses, each marks the death of a US soldier, that began in November 2003 (when the death toll stood at 340)
and last weekend numbered 2928. Blood notes that "the nation approaches the grim milestone of 3,000 war fatalities" and ICCC's current count of US troops who have died in Iraq since the start of the illegal war is 2936 with the count for the month of December thus far standing at 46.
The count includes today's announcement by the US military: "One Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7 died Monday from non-hostile causes while operating in Al Anbar Province.Three Marines assigned to 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing died Monday from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province." The US military also annouced today: " A 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) Soldier died of apparent natural causes near Diwaniyah Dec 11. The Soldier lost consciousness andwas transported to a Troop Medical Clinic where medical personnel were unable torevive him."
As all of the above is announced and violence again rocks the capital in Iraq, Alexander Downer, Australia's foreign minister, grasps desperately for a little face time by declaring that the United States cannot withdrawal from Iraq.
Back in the real world, the chaos and violence continue.
Bombings?
In Baghdad's Tayaran Square today, many have died and many more were wounded as a result of a bombing that may have resulted from more than one bomb. Sudarsan Raghavan and Debbi Wilgoren (Washington Post) report that it was a car bomb -- "265 pounds of explosives packed into a Chevrolet pickup truck" while Thomas Wagner and Qais Al-Bashir (AP) report this was followed by another car bomb ("thirty yards away") and the two "shattered storefront windows, dug craters in the road and set fire to about 10 other cars." Ross Colvin (Reuters) notes that the pickups was used to lure day laborers to the truck.
Raghavan and Wilgoren quote eyewitness Jabbar Yousef who states: ""People were running in every direction . . . They were clutching their heads, legs and hands. There was blood everywhere." The Times of London reports that the first explosion came from a BMW that hit a police car, drew a crowd and then the Chevy pickup "ploughed into the crowd and exploded." They quote eye witness Khalil Ibrahim stating, "When the other bomb went off seconds later, it slammed me into a wall of my store and I fainted" (Ibrahim has "shrapnel wounds to his head and back"). The Times of London describes the scene: "Mangled bodies were piled up at the side of the road partially covered with paper and the impact of the blast severely damaged two nearby buildings." Reuters places the toll thus far at 70 dead and 236 wounded.
Wagner and Al-Bashir also note the exposions of two roadside bombs ("about a mile away") that wounded at least two police officers and seven other civilians. Reuters reports a "sucide car bomb" in the Radwaniya section of Baghdad that wounded eight and killed one person (besides the driver of the car), while in Kirkuk five people were left dead and 15 wounded in another car bombing and a mortar attack in Riyadh that killed "a mother and her two children and wounded two others".
Shootings?
Thomas Wagner and Qais Al-Bashir (AP) report that the AP's Aswan Ahmed Lutfallah was shot dead in Mosul while filming a "clash" that broke out between police and another group.
Reuters reports that two police officers were shot dead "near the town of Hawija."
Corpses?
Reuters reports that 47 bodies were discovered in the capital, four in Mosul, and on in Kirkuk (the last five were all shot). Yesteday's corpses didn't make the snapshot. Sandra Lupein noted on Monday's The KPFA Evening News that at least 46 corpses were discovered in Baghdad alone.
Meanwhile, a new report by Unicef notes the underrepresentation of women in the political process. The report is entitled "The State of World's Children 2007: Women and Children: The Double Dividend of Gender Equality." [An overview can be found here and a link to the report in PDF form as well.]
Al Jazeera notes Unifem's Noeleen Heyzer who told the UN Security Counil two months ago, "What Unifem is seeing on the ground -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia -- is that public space for women in these situations is shrinking. Women are becoming assassination targets when they dare defend women’s rights in public decision-making." [On Saturday's RadioNation with Laura Flanders, MADRE's Yanar Mohammed addressed the issue of the assassinations of women in Iraq.]
Reuters reports that the United Nations cited the report today in their comments on life in Iraq for women "where violence is curtailing their freedoms and poverty is limiting their access to basic services including health care, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a statement" and "their rights risk slipping away" as a mere "14 percent of Iraqi women between 16 and 60 years old are currently employed, against 68 percent of men, U.N. figures show. Women leaving home to find work puts both them and their children at risk
. . . threats to girls attending school on the increase, more and more families are being forced to choose between education and safety for their daughters'. The UN also noted that 25% representation of women in Iraq's 'government' remains "disproportionately low".
Two women in this country continuing to activism are Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin who were convicted of trespassing at the UN Mission yesterday in a Manhattan court along with Missy Comley Beattie and Rev. Patti Ackerman for the apparent 'crime' of delivering a petition (with approval from the UN Mission ahead of time). Benjamin and Sheehan were interviewed by Amy Goodman on today's Democracy Now! addressing the trial and trespassing conviction. [Click here and here for the interview -- audio, video or text.] Sheehan observed that possibly the United States' UN Mission was attempting to demonstrate that "there agressive policies towards the world are the same they use towards peace woman at home." Sheehan noted that the charge of trespassing was what they were originally charged with and should have meant they were issued a court summons; however, they were told by police that higher ups had decided to add charges (these were the charges the jury found the four women not guilty of) so that the women could be held in jail overnight.
Sheehan noted that the US is spending ten million dollars (US) an hour on Iraq. Sheehan: "We can't allow our elected officials to say that they are against the war if they vote for more money" for the war. Benjamin "I think our role in the peace movement is to say 'Bring the troops home now.'
Of the obstacles to the peace movement in the near future, Medea Benjamin observed that "what I see as the real danger ahead is the peace movement thinking 'Ah the democrats are coming to power. Oh, there's a plan out there. Let's give them a little time.' This is the hardest time for the peace movement and this is when we we have to be the strongest. We have possiblities now coming up in January as soon as they are sworn in in the new Congress -- we have to be there January 3rd and 4th, Gold Star Families for Peace, CODEPINK and other groups are planning on being in Wahsington DC we have a big mobilzation. United for Peace and Justice is organizing for January 27th. We have the next anniversary of the war coming up, March 17th. We've got to be out on the streets. We've got to be in the offices of our Congress people. If not this war is going to go on and on and we're going to be facing another presidential election with two pro-war major candidates, from the Democrats and the Republicans."
Also on today's Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman interviewed lefty mag Poster Boy Sherrod Brown and asked him what he would say to US war resisters such as Ehren Watada who think the war is immoral and illegal and the poster boy replied, "I don't know, I don't know what you say to them." [Goodman interviewed Watada's mother, Carolyn Ho, yesterday.] When asked by Goodman if there should be "pressure on the military not to prosecute these men and women who . . . are saying the war is wrong," Poster Boy replied, "I don't know. . . . I don't know the answer to that."
Possibly had the leading magazines of the left, The Nation and The Progressive, put war resisters on the cover or printed even one article on them in 2006, the Poster Boy might have been prompted to consider the issue?
The Progressive ran two photos, November 2006 issue, in their multi-page photo eassay. The two photos (by Jeff Paterson of Not In Our Name), on a page of five photos, were of war resister Ricky Clousing. The Nation has provided nothing in their print edition. ["Leading" is based on circulation. Left Turn has published an article, in print, on Watada.Off Our Backs and Ms. have dedicated entire issues to war and peace this year.] While the New York Times and the Washington Post, two leading mainstream, daily papers, have covered the war resisters (the Times has done major stories on both Watada and Clousing) and a leading wire service (the Associated Press) has significantly covered the war resistance within the US military, leading magazines of the left continue to avoid the topic and 2006 may end without either The Nation or The Progressive providing one single print article on war resisters. No wonder the Poster Boy feels comfortable avoiding the issue.
While the magazines have repeatedly avoided the issue, one of the Iraq stories of 2006 has been the war resistance within the military. Kyle Snyder, Ehren Watada, Darrell Anderson, Joshua Key, Ivan Brobeck, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Meija, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Jeremy Hinzman, Corey Glass, Patrick Hart, Clifford Cornell, Agustin Aguayo, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, and Kevin Benderman are part of an ever growing movement of resistance within the military. Speaking last Thursday with Nora Barrows-Friedman on KPFA's Flashpoints, Kyle Snyder noted that more war resisters who have not yet gone public are planning to in the coming months. (Snyder also noted that he meets war resisters who have self-checked out as he speaks around the country.)
The failure of the leading magazines of the left to cover this story stands as one of the biggest barriers of a free flow of information on the issue of the illegal war. It also calls to question, for many politically active college students across the United States, the magazines' committment to ending the illegal war -- more so for The Nation which is a weekly and which managed to mention Carl Webb in an article this year but failed to note that he was a war resister. (Webb was quoted in the context of an article on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.) [For what is focused while Iraq is avoided see the parody "The Elector."]
While they've played the quiet game on the topic, information on this movement of war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. And Appeal for Redress is collecting signatures of active duty service members calling on Congress to bring the troops home -- the petition will be delivered to Congress next month.
the washington post
sudarsan raghavan
cindy sheehan
medea benjamin
david lindorff
elizabeth holtzman
buzzflashcenter for constitutional rightslewis laphamamy goodmandemocracy now
radionation with laura flanderslaura flanders
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
Tuesday, December 12, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq; Dennis Kucinich declares his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the 2008 presidential race; a bombing takes place in Baghdad that's so severe, with at least 70 now declared dead and at least 236 wounded, even the New York Times will have to take notice; the US military announces the deaths of four troops in Al-Anbar Province; a new report finds that the conditions for women continue to decrease worldwide; in the US, Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan address the war; and impeachment continues to be discussed outside the halls of Congress with Elizabeth Holtzman declaring, "Frankly, if we had really debated whether there should be a war in Iraq, we may not have gone into Iraq. If the American people had been told the truth, if the Congress had been told the truth, I doubt very much that we’d be in this pickle now. How do you put a price tag on that? How do you estimate the consequences of going into a whole war from scratch on the basis of deceptions and lies?"
Starting with impeachement. BuzzFlash interviews Elizabeth Holtzman on the topic. Holtzman is a former district attorney and a former member of Congress. As a member of Congress, the committee she served on was the one that drafted impeachment charges against "Tricky Dick" Nixon. In January, Holtzman penned "The Impeachment of George W. Bush" which not only remains the strongest piece to run in The Nation throughout the 2006 year, it also kicked off the discussion (which had seemed dormant after the 2003 invasion of Iraq) and Lewis Lapham's "The Case for Impeachment" (Harper's), the Center for Constitutional Rights's Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush, David Lindorff and Barbara Olshansky's The Case for Impeachment (Olshansky is an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights) would quickly follow. More recently, Holtzman's published the book The Impeachment of George W. Bush.
In an exclusive interview with BuzzFlash, Holtzman was asked about pundits who say that impeachment will not happen and the fact that Nancy Pelosi took impeachment 'off the table' (in an October interview with Lesley Stahl on CBS' 60 Minutes). Holtzman responded:
We can't start and end the conversation with what political pundits have to say. First of all, our generation -- the American people living right now -- have a responsibility for preserving and maintaining our Constitution. Are we going to allow it to be shredded by a president? Then, if this president can get away with starting a war based on lies, with breaking the law willfully, what's the next president going to do? What’s the precedent that's started here?
Secondly, it really doesn't matter what the pundits say, and it doesn't really matter what members of Congress have to say about impeachment. If the American people want impeachment, it's going to happen. The real problem is that the mainstream media won't take the issue seriously. They don't want to spend the time to understand it. And they've decided it's not going to happen, so they're not going to write about it.
The consequence is that many Americans don't understand that the framers of this Constitution 200 years ago understood that there would be a Richard Nixon, and they understood that there would be a George Bush. And they said: American people, you have a remedy. We're giving you a remedy. It's 200 years old. It's called impeachment. That's designed to remove a President who threatens our Constitution and subverts our democracy.
Watergate didn't start because the Congress wanted impeachment. Left to its own devices, Congress never would have done anything on impeachment. Left to its own devices, the press never would have investigated, except for Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The rest of the press was completely unconcerned on the subject. They didn't care. They weren't aggressive. But the American people understand that this is their Constitution, this is their democracy, this is their country, and they have the power to do something about it.
On the issue of Congress, Ann Wright told The KPFA Evening News Monday, ". . . they're going to just let things evolve. And what we the people have to do is to put pressure on all of these oversight committees to have continual oversight committees investigations and I think there's going to be overwhelming evidence, through these investigations, so damning to the administration that, at that point, there will be a collective effort by the Congress to hold accountable people who have broken US law and that, probably, will lead to impeachment."
Echoing that thought, Cindy Sheehan stated on Democracy Now! today that the movement for impeachment has to come from the people and then "Congress will have the courage to do the same thing." On the same broadcast, Medea Benjamin noted that "nothing is off the table."
Also yesterday on The KPFA Evening News, a news conference was held on The Lancet Study and among those attending was US Congress member Dennis Kucinich who declared, "There have been a staggering amount of civilian casualites." The Lancet Study found over 655,000 Iraqis had died since the beginning of the illegal war. Also noted was that Kuccinich would declare his candidacy for the Democrat 2008 presidential nomination today. Mark Mericle reported that Kucinich "doesn't think his fellow Democrats are heeding what he called the anti-war message sent by the voters this year."
Joe Milicia (AP) reports on Kucinich's announcement today quoting from the presidential primary candidate stating, "I am not going to stand by and watch thousands more of our brave, young men and women killed in Iraq. We Democrats were put back in power to bring some sanity back to our nation.We were expected to do what we said we were going to do -- get out of Iraq."
Kucinich's declaration comes at a time when the deaths of US troops continue to mount. Michael R. Blood (AP) reports on the Santa Barbara display of white crosses, each marks the death of a US soldier, that began in November 2003 (when the death toll stood at 340)
and last weekend numbered 2928. Blood notes that "the nation approaches the grim milestone of 3,000 war fatalities" and ICCC's current count of US troops who have died in Iraq since the start of the illegal war is 2936 with the count for the month of December thus far standing at 46.
The count includes today's announcement by the US military: "One Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7 died Monday from non-hostile causes while operating in Al Anbar Province.Three Marines assigned to 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing died Monday from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province." The US military also annouced today: " A 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) Soldier died of apparent natural causes near Diwaniyah Dec 11. The Soldier lost consciousness andwas transported to a Troop Medical Clinic where medical personnel were unable torevive him."
As all of the above is announced and violence again rocks the capital in Iraq, Alexander Downer, Australia's foreign minister, grasps desperately for a little face time by declaring that the United States cannot withdrawal from Iraq.
Back in the real world, the chaos and violence continue.
Bombings?
In Baghdad's Tayaran Square today, many have died and many more were wounded as a result of a bombing that may have resulted from more than one bomb. Sudarsan Raghavan and Debbi Wilgoren (Washington Post) report that it was a car bomb -- "265 pounds of explosives packed into a Chevrolet pickup truck" while Thomas Wagner and Qais Al-Bashir (AP) report this was followed by another car bomb ("thirty yards away") and the two "shattered storefront windows, dug craters in the road and set fire to about 10 other cars." Ross Colvin (Reuters) notes that the pickups was used to lure day laborers to the truck.
Raghavan and Wilgoren quote eyewitness Jabbar Yousef who states: ""People were running in every direction . . . They were clutching their heads, legs and hands. There was blood everywhere." The Times of London reports that the first explosion came from a BMW that hit a police car, drew a crowd and then the Chevy pickup "ploughed into the crowd and exploded." They quote eye witness Khalil Ibrahim stating, "When the other bomb went off seconds later, it slammed me into a wall of my store and I fainted" (Ibrahim has "shrapnel wounds to his head and back"). The Times of London describes the scene: "Mangled bodies were piled up at the side of the road partially covered with paper and the impact of the blast severely damaged two nearby buildings." Reuters places the toll thus far at 70 dead and 236 wounded.
Wagner and Al-Bashir also note the exposions of two roadside bombs ("about a mile away") that wounded at least two police officers and seven other civilians. Reuters reports a "sucide car bomb" in the Radwaniya section of Baghdad that wounded eight and killed one person (besides the driver of the car), while in Kirkuk five people were left dead and 15 wounded in another car bombing and a mortar attack in Riyadh that killed "a mother and her two children and wounded two others".
Shootings?
Thomas Wagner and Qais Al-Bashir (AP) report that the AP's Aswan Ahmed Lutfallah was shot dead in Mosul while filming a "clash" that broke out between police and another group.
Reuters reports that two police officers were shot dead "near the town of Hawija."
Corpses?
Reuters reports that 47 bodies were discovered in the capital, four in Mosul, and on in Kirkuk (the last five were all shot). Yesteday's corpses didn't make the snapshot. Sandra Lupein noted on Monday's The KPFA Evening News that at least 46 corpses were discovered in Baghdad alone.
Meanwhile, a new report by Unicef notes the underrepresentation of women in the political process. The report is entitled "The State of World's Children 2007: Women and Children: The Double Dividend of Gender Equality." [An overview can be found here and a link to the report in PDF form as well.]
Al Jazeera notes Unifem's Noeleen Heyzer who told the UN Security Counil two months ago, "What Unifem is seeing on the ground -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia -- is that public space for women in these situations is shrinking. Women are becoming assassination targets when they dare defend women’s rights in public decision-making." [On Saturday's RadioNation with Laura Flanders, MADRE's Yanar Mohammed addressed the issue of the assassinations of women in Iraq.]
Reuters reports that the United Nations cited the report today in their comments on life in Iraq for women "where violence is curtailing their freedoms and poverty is limiting their access to basic services including health care, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a statement" and "their rights risk slipping away" as a mere "14 percent of Iraqi women between 16 and 60 years old are currently employed, against 68 percent of men, U.N. figures show. Women leaving home to find work puts both them and their children at risk
. . . threats to girls attending school on the increase, more and more families are being forced to choose between education and safety for their daughters'. The UN also noted that 25% representation of women in Iraq's 'government' remains "disproportionately low".
Two women in this country continuing to activism are Cindy Sheehan and Medea Benjamin who were convicted of trespassing at the UN Mission yesterday in a Manhattan court along with Missy Comley Beattie and Rev. Patti Ackerman for the apparent 'crime' of delivering a petition (with approval from the UN Mission ahead of time). Benjamin and Sheehan were interviewed by Amy Goodman on today's Democracy Now! addressing the trial and trespassing conviction. [Click here and here for the interview -- audio, video or text.] Sheehan observed that possibly the United States' UN Mission was attempting to demonstrate that "there agressive policies towards the world are the same they use towards peace woman at home." Sheehan noted that the charge of trespassing was what they were originally charged with and should have meant they were issued a court summons; however, they were told by police that higher ups had decided to add charges (these were the charges the jury found the four women not guilty of) so that the women could be held in jail overnight.
Sheehan noted that the US is spending ten million dollars (US) an hour on Iraq. Sheehan: "We can't allow our elected officials to say that they are against the war if they vote for more money" for the war. Benjamin "I think our role in the peace movement is to say 'Bring the troops home now.'
Of the obstacles to the peace movement in the near future, Medea Benjamin observed that "what I see as the real danger ahead is the peace movement thinking 'Ah the democrats are coming to power. Oh, there's a plan out there. Let's give them a little time.' This is the hardest time for the peace movement and this is when we we have to be the strongest. We have possiblities now coming up in January as soon as they are sworn in in the new Congress -- we have to be there January 3rd and 4th, Gold Star Families for Peace, CODEPINK and other groups are planning on being in Wahsington DC we have a big mobilzation. United for Peace and Justice is organizing for January 27th. We have the next anniversary of the war coming up, March 17th. We've got to be out on the streets. We've got to be in the offices of our Congress people. If not this war is going to go on and on and we're going to be facing another presidential election with two pro-war major candidates, from the Democrats and the Republicans."
Also on today's Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman interviewed lefty mag Poster Boy Sherrod Brown and asked him what he would say to US war resisters such as Ehren Watada who think the war is immoral and illegal and the poster boy replied, "I don't know, I don't know what you say to them." [Goodman interviewed Watada's mother, Carolyn Ho, yesterday.] When asked by Goodman if there should be "pressure on the military not to prosecute these men and women who . . . are saying the war is wrong," Poster Boy replied, "I don't know. . . . I don't know the answer to that."
Possibly had the leading magazines of the left, The Nation and The Progressive, put war resisters on the cover or printed even one article on them in 2006, the Poster Boy might have been prompted to consider the issue?
The Progressive ran two photos, November 2006 issue, in their multi-page photo eassay. The two photos (by Jeff Paterson of Not In Our Name), on a page of five photos, were of war resister Ricky Clousing. The Nation has provided nothing in their print edition. ["Leading" is based on circulation. Left Turn has published an article, in print, on Watada.Off Our Backs and Ms. have dedicated entire issues to war and peace this year.] While the New York Times and the Washington Post, two leading mainstream, daily papers, have covered the war resisters (the Times has done major stories on both Watada and Clousing) and a leading wire service (the Associated Press) has significantly covered the war resistance within the US military, leading magazines of the left continue to avoid the topic and 2006 may end without either The Nation or The Progressive providing one single print article on war resisters. No wonder the Poster Boy feels comfortable avoiding the issue.
While the magazines have repeatedly avoided the issue, one of the Iraq stories of 2006 has been the war resistance within the military. Kyle Snyder, Ehren Watada, Darrell Anderson, Joshua Key, Ivan Brobeck, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Meija, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Jeremy Hinzman, Corey Glass, Patrick Hart, Clifford Cornell, Agustin Aguayo, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, and Kevin Benderman are part of an ever growing movement of resistance within the military. Speaking last Thursday with Nora Barrows-Friedman on KPFA's Flashpoints, Kyle Snyder noted that more war resisters who have not yet gone public are planning to in the coming months. (Snyder also noted that he meets war resisters who have self-checked out as he speaks around the country.)
The failure of the leading magazines of the left to cover this story stands as one of the biggest barriers of a free flow of information on the issue of the illegal war. It also calls to question, for many politically active college students across the United States, the magazines' committment to ending the illegal war -- more so for The Nation which is a weekly and which managed to mention Carl Webb in an article this year but failed to note that he was a war resister. (Webb was quoted in the context of an article on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.) [For what is focused while Iraq is avoided see the parody "The Elector."]
While they've played the quiet game on the topic, information on this movement of war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. And Appeal for Redress is collecting signatures of active duty service members calling on Congress to bring the troops home -- the petition will be delivered to Congress next month.
the washington post
sudarsan raghavan
cindy sheehan
medea benjamin
david lindorff
elizabeth holtzman
buzzflashcenter for constitutional rightslewis laphamamy goodmandemocracy now
radionation with laura flanderslaura flanders
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
Monday, December 11, 2006
This is justice?
Because John Kerry's sister is 'allergic' to Cindy Sheehan and peace, Sheehan, Media Benjamin, Missy Comley Beattie and Patti Ackerman have been convicted of trespassing.
While it's good that the jury refused to convict on the other three charges and it's good that judge ignored the 'suggestion' of the prosecution that the four women face jail time or community service, the fact is that they never should have been convicted on any charge.
You shouldn't have to call someone on the tax dollar to say you'll be dropping off a petition signed by citizens. However, the women did just that and Miss Piggy Kerry agreed to take the petition.
They weren't trespassing. They shouldn't have been convicted. John Kerry better forget about running for president because Piggy has just given him his PRMC moment and then some.
The four women shouldn't have been found guilty of anything but especially the trespassing charge since they had called and been told, by Piggy, that there petition would be accepted. When they showed up, what Isaiah illustrates took place. If Piggy had accepted their petition, there would have been no charges. If she'd just done what she said she would, the women wouldn't have been on trial.
I say put Piggy on trial for refusal to do the job that our tax dollars pay for. I don't care who they are, someone wants to hand her a petition, she damn well takes it. When it's on peace, she especially damn well takes it because peace, though Bully Boy and John Bolton don't grasp it, is the MISSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, December 11, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq; as the civil war in Iraq continues, families are forced to flee their homes due to sectarian violence;.in the United States, a verdict is delivered in the trial against Cindy Sheehan, Medea Benjamin, Missy Comley Beattie and Rev. Patti Ackerman; Alive in Baghdad is recognized for its groundbreaking coverage of on the ground reporting from Iraq; and, even when the police circle, US war resister Kyle Snyder continues speaking out.
Starting with news from New York, a verdcit has been announced in the free speech trial.
On March 6th, Patti Ackerman, Missy Comley Beattie, Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan were among 100 women attempting to deliver a petition signed by 72,000 people to the United Nations Mission . The delivery should have taken place with no great stir as it did in 2005. The women had contacted the UN Mission, spoken with Peggy Kerry (sister of US Senator John Kerry) and been told she would accept the petition. Then on March 6th, Peggy Sheehan decided she couldn't stand the sight of peace and Cindy Sheehan or what she termed "the gaggle" of press present accomanying the women so she did what any unhinged, morally corrupt person would do and went back on her word by refusing the petition and calling in law enforcement. Missy Comley Beattie, Cindy Sheehan, Patti Ackerman and Medea Benjamin were arrested and charged with obstructing government business, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and trespassing.
Last week, the trial began on the fourth floor of the 100 Centre Street, Manhattan court room and was most notable for Bitter, Bitter, Bitter, Bitter, Peggy Pooh's court testimony was deemed "combative" by the AP. Clearly the years had not been kind and Pegs Kerry was apparently determined to grab the national attention she'd always courted but never received (for obvious reason). Snarling on the witness stand about how she'd been wronged by not being informed that Cindy Sheehan would be among the women (apparently Pegs allergy to peace requires that every group dropping off a petition provided an active roster of who may or may not be attending), Pegs got her moment and is now dealing with the fallout she never expected -- being the new Bay Buchanan isn't as easy as it looked.
On Friday afternoon, the jury went into deliberations. This morning they returned a verdict.
AP reports the jury dismissed three charges but did convict Medea Benjamin, Patti Ackerman, Cindy Sheehan and Missy Comley Beattie of trespassing. The women were ordered to pay $95 in court costs and could face imprisonment if arrested in the next *6 months.*. Bitter, Bitter, Bitter, Bitter Peggy Pooh? She's sentenced herself to her own personal hell and while she attempts to tell friends some sort of "Both Sides Now" excuse the reality is she will continued to be "looking strange" and social pariah is own sentencing.
CNN reports that Cindy Sheehan, Missy Comley Beattie, Patti Ackerman and Medea Benjamin delivered the petition today after they left the court room and it was accepted by
the apparently less pry shy and less peace allergic Pegs and UN Mission director of extermal affairs Richard A. Grenell. CNN quotes Sheehan stating: "We should never have been on trial in the first place. It's George Bush and his cronies who should be on trial, not peaceful women trying to stop this devastating war. This verdict, however, will not stop us from continuing to work tirelessly to bring our troops home."
The petition was calling for an end to the war and as it drags on still, the number of US troops killed in Iraq this month stands at 42. Yesterday, the US military announced: " An improvised explosive device detonated near a Multi-National Division - Baghdad patrol, killing one Soldier west of the Iraqi capital Dec. 10. As the patrol was finishing its early morning security mission west of the city, the roadside bomb detonated killing one Soldier and wounding another." Today, the US military also announced that "A Marine Corps CH-53e Super Stallion helicopter . . . executed a hard landing at approximately 12:00 p.m. . . . in the Al Anbar Province" and "Marines in the area secured the landing site shortly after the" crash landing that left 18 of the 21 on board the helicopter injured "with 9 treated for minor injuries and returned to duty" which translates as nine were injured so badly that they are unable at present to return to duty (but the announcement doesn't translate the obvious). CBS and AP note the crash landing "was the third U.S. military aircraft to go down in the province in two weeks."
US military announced: "An improvised explosive device detonated near a Multi-National Division - Baghdad patrol, killing three Soldiers in the northern part of the Iraqi capital Dec. 10. As the Soldiers conducted a late night combat patrol, the roadside bomb detonated killing three Soldiers and wounding two others." Earlier today, the US military released another statement about an attack on a "Baghdad national police training tream" today which resulted in "the 2nd Brigade, 1st National Police Training Team" requesting "aviation support" who put on "a show of force"
Over 655,000 Iraqis have died in the illegal war and today offered no break from the daily violence and chaos.
Bombings?
CBS and AP report a man with a car bomb used the armed vehicle to attack a house in Dora that was being used by police officers and the explosion killed one police officer and left 5 others wounded, while a roadside bomb and a car bomb went off near two colleges in Baghdad (Mustasiriyah University and al-Maamoun college) killing a college student, wounding nine civilians and two police officers. In addition the US military announces an attack on a police barracks center in al-Jaza'ir: "A blue van reportedly rammed four National Police vehicles parked at the entrance to the barracks and detonated. Two of the vehicles were destroyed. Four policemen suffered minor injuries in the attack and were evacuated to alocal hospital for further treatment." al-Jazair is a district in the city of Al-Musayyib so, if the US military has issued the correct location, there were two bombing attacks on police buildings in Iraq today. (Remember the "if." Last week, the US military issued their "woopsie" stating that they had announced the same two deaths of US troops twice leading to the two being counted as four.) (Dora -- other spellings include Dura and Doura -- is a section of Baghdad.) The BBC reports four died in Baghdad from a mortar attack. Reuters notes two other bomb explosions in Baghdad that killed one and left seven wounded.
Shootings?
Lebanon's Daily Star reports: "Armed men burst into the home of a pregnant Shiite Kurdish woman and sprayed her and her children with bullets in the town of Salaja, 75 kilometers south of Kirkuk, Iraq's northern oil city. Three of her children, aged between 5 and 13, were killed while two other daughters survived the fusillade." The Daily Star also notes nine people were shot dead in the Diyala Province. Reuters reports a police officer was shot dead in Mosul, four men in a car were shot dead in Mosul. a home invasion in Tuz Khurmato that killed six family members and left the father of the family wounded,
Corpses?
Meanwhile the BBC reports that, in Baghdad, a one million dollar robbery occurred today when ten assailants (in Iraqi soldier unifornms) abmushed a "security vehicle" and kidnapped four guards in the vehicle. Also kidnapped, and also reported by the BBC, were five primary school teachers in Dujail.
Not all violence is reported in real time. As covered by The Third Estate Sunday Review, Saturday's RadioNation with Laura Flanders Saturday featured MADRE's Yanar Mohammed who addressed the targeting of and murdering of women in Iraq by fundamentalists. Of the three known murders last month in Baghdad, Mohammed focused on the November 19th one.which began with a woman being "dragged out of her house" by fundamentalists who proceeded to "beat her, they flooged her in the middle of the street. Then they brought a cable and wrapped it around her neck" which they used to pull her to the "nearest football field and they hanged her . . . They bring their machine guns and kill her." They also killed the woman's brother who attempted to stop them. Mohammed stated that the fundamentalists were "political groups who are ruling right now under the blessing of the US administration."
And the approval of the puppet of the occupation, Nouri al-Maliki. As the puppet continues to dangle in the wind, the future looks less bright. AP reports that following last week's meeting with the Bully Boy, Shi'ite parliamentarian Abdul Aziz Hakim has begun meeting with "[m]ajor partners in Iraq's governing coalition" for "behind-the-scenes talks to oust Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki" and form "a new parliamentary bloc that would seek to replace the current government and that would likely exclude supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr".
While they talk, violence continues including sectarian attacks in Baghdad. John F. Burns (New York Times), Sudarsan Raghavan (Washington Post) and Nancy A. Youssef and Zaineb Obeid (McClatchy Newspapers) have all reported on the Shi'ite militias attacking Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad. Burns noted a Saturday attack that led to over 100 Sunnis fleeing their neighborhood and refusing to return even when the US military stated they could promise protection. Youssef and Obeid reported on the Hurriyah section of Baghdad and note: "Shiite militiamen loyal to rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr openly admit to entering their homes and forcing them to leave. That speaks to the ongoing open battle for control of the capital and the apparent domination by the Mahdi Army, Sadr's militia." Raghavan interviewed Ali "Farouk, a Sunni Muslim, [who] fears his home might be targeted next. In the past two months, Shiite militiamen have tightened their grip on his central Baghdad neighborhood of Tobji, purging dozens of Sunni families, by fear and by threats. His world has become even more precarious since a barrage of car bombs, mortar shells and missiles killed more than 200 on Nov. 23 in Sadr City, the Baghdad slum that is home to many of Sadr's loyalists."
While the violence, like the war, continues, some attempt to end the war. This weekend,
Courage to Resist held national days of action across the country in support of US war resisters. Cecilia M. Vega (San Franciso Chronicle) reports that US war resister Darrell Anderson spoke to a crowd in San Franciso Saturday in front of the War Memorial Veterans Building where he declared that "Action is the only thing that's going to stop this war." Vega reports that war resister Kyle Snyder was unable to attend the event following Friday's Alameda event where police were looking for him after being tipped off by "somebody in Kentucky" so, instead, Synder called in and delivered a speech that way.
The police were looking for Kyle Snyder because there is a warrant for his arrest. Returning the United States in April of 2005 from Iraq, Snyder self-checked out while on leave and went to Canada. In October of this year he returned to the US after working out an agreement with the military and, on October 31st, turned himself in at Fort Knox only to self-check out again when the military refused to live up to the agreement. Since then, a warrant has been issued for Snyder's arrest as he has continued to speak out against the illegal war. He spent Thanksgiving week in New Orleans doing reconstruction to areas destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and still not repaired. Currently, he is on a West coast tour speaking out against the war. Last Thursday, on KPFA's Flashpoints, Nora Barrows-Friedman interviewed Snyder.
Saturday, on RadioNation with Laura Flanders, Flanders interviewed Carolyn Ho, mother of Ehren Watada who became the first commissioned officer to refuse to deploy to the illegal war in June of this year. A court-martial is scheduled for Watada in February.
Carolyn Ho told Flanders that her son refused deployment because it wasn't an individual issue, he would be responsible not only for himself but for those serving under him. Ho stated she would be appealing to Congress to intervene noting that they have yet to conduct their promised investigation into the war (and the lies that led to it) but a military court will decide in February whether or not her son had a right to refuse to serve in an illegal war. Ho also appealed for people and groups to contact their Congressional representatives and ask that Congress perform the oversight function they have thus far failed today. (This is covered in greater detail at The Third Estate Sunday Review and an archived broadcast of Flanders' program will go up by Wednesday for those who missed it.)
Today, Carolyn Ho appeared on Democracy Now! and told Amy Goodman that she'd met with several members of Congress and been largely rebuffed with the excuse that it's not Congress' job. US representative Maxine Waters was the only one who told Ho she would have her staff examine the issue.
Anderson, Snyder and Watada are not three resisters within the military standing alone. This is a movement of resistance that also includes Joshua Key, Ivan Brobeck, Ricky Clousing, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Meija, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Jeremy Hinzman, Corey Glass, Patrick Hart, Clifford Cornell, Agustin Aguayo, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, and Kevin Benderman.
Information on this movement of war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Appeal for Redress is collecting signatures of active duty service members calling on Congress to bring the troops home -- the petition will be delivered to Congress next month.
In military legal news, there's a new development in the case of Suzanne Swift.
Speaking with Amy Goodman on today's Democracy Now!, Sara Rich spoke of the agreement that her daughter Suzanne Swift has reached with the US military. While serving in Iraq, Swift was sexually harrassed and sexually abused. Swift attempted to go through the chain of commaand but, no surprise, the military was interested in ignoring the problem. While on leave in the US, Swift self-checked out and returned only when arrested at her mother's house. A military investigation (ha) found proof of some of Swift's claims (an independent investigation would have found more proof). Rich told Goodman today that her daughter signed a statement on Friday -- one that originally had her agreeing that her sexual abuse was consensual but Swift refused to sign on to that and made changes -- so the next step is a summary court-martial this week which will not be a trial, just a sentencing, where Swift will be sentenced to thirty days of imprisonment and will then be assigned to another base and serve in the US military through January of 2009.
Finally, the BBC reports that Alive in Baghdad has "won a crop of 'Vloggie' industry awards for showing the human face behind Iraq's daily toll of deaths and kidnappings.". Founder Brian Conley reported on Iraq and other issues for Boston IMC and, the BBC reports, he is currently in Mexico setting up a citizen journalism website for that area while Omar Abdullah (cooridnator) and staff continue the project of real reporting from the ground in Iraq. The Vloggies were presented last month in California Alive in Baghdad won awards for best vlog, best group vlog, best political blog and favorite interview vlog. Alive in Baghdad is funded by donations. For those without the capability to stream on their computers, a recent Alive in Baghdad report was covered in the December 1st snapshot.
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