Don't you love it when time is limited? Blogger/Blogspot goes down in a little over an hour? Why does that matter? I was thinking about taking my notes for Carly Simon's Into The White and stringing them together, writing a review of it and posting it at The Common Ills.
You knew I wasn't concerned regarding posting tonight here since I'm not really that big on writing long post. (Love reading them when others write them but I'm not into writing them myself.)
And you know I'll use any excuse to avoid writing. So that'll be my excuse for tonight. Hopefully, I'll get the review done and up by Saturday if not sooner. After that, I'll be reviewing Lizzie West & the White Buffalo's I Pledge Allegiance To Myself. I would love it if I could get them both completed this week but let's be real.
I loved Cedric's "Primetime Bully Boy" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! HE THINKS HE'S READY FOR HIS CLOSEUP!" and you will too so be sure to read it, if you haven't already.
Okay, I want to note a highlight and, let me note that the writer probably didn't write the headline. However, it represents other comments in the article. So to be clear here, and the writer makes the point later on, US service members dying in Iraq include women. With that noted, this is Gary Younge's "Many More Sons Will Die While the Democrats Do Nothing to Stop the War: They have failed to take on the principal reason they were elected and, tragically, the US public is unlikely to force them to" (Common Dreams):
Only the squeaking of the boots of the military pallbearers could be heard in the Calvary church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Thursday as Chad Vollmer's coffin was wheeled to the front. By the time the service was over their steps were inaudible amid the chorus of sobs and sniffles. Vollmer died two weeks ago when a makeshift bomb exploded near his vehicle in Salman Pak, Iraq. His funeral was a profoundly patriotic affair. Family members and fellow soldiers praised the 24-year-old as a young man who "honoured his country, family, and God". Huge billowing flags lined the entrance to the church and one hung over the pulpit; the first hymn was America the Beautiful. "There are two who have died for all of us today," said the army chaplain, Major Timothy Mattison. "Jesus and the US soldier. Jesus died for the freedom of the soul; the US soldier died for the freedom of our land."
Days like these have become all too common in Michigan recently. As the nation marked the 3,000th military death in Iraq, eight families in the state were preparing to bury their young men. Every day bar New Year's Day saw at least one funeral here. Last Saturday there were three.
The emotional consequences of these deaths are clear. People say goodbye to a son, daughter, friend or lover and are left with memories wrapped in a neatly folded American flag and a few medals as they struggle to make sense of their loss. But the political consequences are more complex. Each American death falls like a pebble into a still pool. It makes an impact where it lands and sends out a small ripple that soon fades. Those outside the immediate vicinity rarely feel or are even aware of the death. Curt Norris from Lansing died on the same day as Vollmer in a different incident. Lansing is just 90 miles from Detroit. But the day after Norris's funeral the Detroit Free Press carried just one story from Lansing - about a postman who has been on the same beat for 50 years. Like Norris and Vollmer, it is white kids from small towns who are most vulnerable. (The vastly higher number of Iraqi civilian deaths barely feature at all, although the national press has recently started to acknowledge that they happen.)
President George Bush refuses to attend any soldiers' funerals and the ban on televising coffins returning home, which was introduced but rarely observed by Bill Clinton, is now strictly enforced. Small pebbles keep falling (roughly at the rate of three a day), but none makes a big splash.
Sons and daughters. Just to be clear. Which reminds me of a section of Carly Simon's "Let The River Run:"
We're coming to the edge,
Running on the water,
Coming through the fog
Your sons and daughters
Which, I think, captures where the public is with regards to the illegal war and the Corrupter-in-Chief.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, Januray 8, 20007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, Bully Boy gets ready for primetime schilling, Iraqis doubt the puppet and so do the US State and Defense Departments, The Progressive scores the most important article of the year thus far for independent media (print), and while Joe Biden offers a what-ya-gonna-do shurg, war resisters continue resisting.
Starting with US war resister Ehren Watada who awaits the decision of Lt. Col. John Head, the presiding judge in the pretrial hearing that will outline the parameters for his February 5th court-martial. Teresa Watanabe (Los Angeles Times) boils the awaited decision down: "Do military officers have the right to publicly voice dissent about their commander in chief and U.S. war policy? That question highlighted a pretrial hearing last week at Fort Lewis Army base near Seattle involving 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, the nation's first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq." As Mike Hersh (OpEd News) notes, if court-martialed and found guilty of all charges, Ehren Watada faces six years in prison. Chanan Suarez-Diaz (Socialist Worker) observes that Watada is part of "the movement of military resisters" and notes that "January 21 and 22, Watada's supporters will participate in a 'Citizen's Hearing on the Legality of U.S. Actions in Iraq' -- designed to put the war on trial, rather than the brave men and women who resist it. Among the antiwar figures who will testify are former Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg, Denis Halliday, who resigned in protest as United Nations coordinator of humanitarian aid in Iraq; and international law expert Richard Falk."
Meanwhile, Kyle Snyder, another US war resister, continues speaking out and resisting around the United States. In a co-authored post with Vietnam war resister Gerry Condon (Soldier Say No!), Snyder looks back at 2006 -- a year that for him started in Canada, found him returning to the US to turn himself in October and then self-checking out again after the US military again went back on their word -- and notes that Synder continues to speak out, asks that you contact General William McCoy, Jr. and demand the military discharge Snyder -- 573-596-0131; or, Public Affairs Office, 573-563-4013; fax: 573-563-4012, e-mail alleym@wood.army.mil with the message: "Discharge Kyle Snyder with No Punishment."
Snyder and Watada are part of a movement of resistance to the illegal war within the military that also includes Darrell Anderson, Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Joshua Key, Ivan Brobeck, Camilo Meija, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Jeremy Hinzman, Corey Glass, Patrick Hart, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on 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 this month.
As resistance to the war mounts throughout the country and the world, an embarrassing bit of news slips out -- embarrasing to the US administration which has repeatedly denied that oil was any factor in the decision to wage illegal war. On Sunday, Danny Fortson, Andrew Murray-Watson and Tim Webb (Independent of London) reported on the latest 'plan' for Iraq: "Iraqi's massive oil reserves, the thid-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days. The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Indpendent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to estract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972. The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil." Today on KPFA's The Morning Show (first newsbreak in the 2nd hour, anchored by Aileen Alfandary), Antonia Juhasz (author of The BU$H Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time) addressed the legislation:
It's good for the oil companies because Iraq still owns it's own oil and therefore the government bears the risk but every other function has been privatized and turned over to the foreign cormpanies and as far as Exxon, Chrevon and Conoco are concerned that will be them, and they're given a leg up in the competition with the presence of 1500,000 American troops occupying Iraq. . . . Iraq's Union of Oil Unions have stated clearly that they do not want privatization they do not want this oil law. What they want is democracy and the opportunity for Iraqis to devise a new oil plan for themselves.
Turning from legislation news to news of the puppet, this weekend, Nouri al-Maliki announced an 'answer' to the current civil war (apparently discovered at a War Hawks support group): CRACKDOWN. Now the 'crackdown' started in June and has continued throughout achieving nothing but increased violence (was that the goal?). Al Jazeera reports that Mahmoud al-Mashhadani ("the outspoken Sunni Arab speaker of the Iraqi parliament) responded to al-Maliki's plan with, "Al-Maliki has no authority under the constitution to enforce security plans unless approved by the parliament. After the suspension of the martial law, which empowers al-Maliki with extraordinary executive powers, he is in no position to implement security planss that were not approved beforehand by the parliament." Steve Negus (Financial Times of London) reports al-Maliki describes phase XIV of the crackdown as "an open-ended operation".
As the puppet talks down Never Ending Crackdown in the Capital, the one pulling his strings continues attempting to pass escalation off as "surge." Mark Tran (Guardian of London) reports that the "plan" will include "benchmarks" and that Bully Boy faces a skeptical US public. Finding the 'plan' has been like casting Scarlett O'Hara; however, Bully Boy is confirmed to perform Wednesday night at 9:00 pm EST on most major networks as he unveils the "plan." Sunday, Michael Abramowitz, Robin Wright and Ann Scott Tyson (Washington Post) noted the "growing skepticism inside and outside the administration that the emerging package of extra toops, economic assistance and political benchmarks for the Baghdad government will make any more than a marginal difference in stabilizing the country" which appears to include officials from the US Departments of Defense and State who "doubt that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is capable of making the necessary reforms, given its track record of promising but not delivering since taking power in May and despite Maliki's assurances in a speech" on Saturday "that he would hold Iraqis accountable for implementing a new Baghdad security plan."
Nancy A. Youssef (McClatchy Newspapers) interviewed Lt. General Raymond Odierno who is now "the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq" for an article that ran Sunday and Youssef observes in that of his remarks on that escalation wouldn't be enough: "By echoing his predecessor, Odierno's comments raised concerns in both Washingtion and Iraq that the U.S. war effort is exhausting old tactics that haven't worked. Indeed, many Iraqis do not trust that a new Baghdad security plan can change their circumstances because the U.S. and Iraqi government have touted at least five such plans before, all of which failed to stop the violence."
As Bully Boy prepares for his primetime strut on Wednesday, the Democrats in the US Congress make some noises on opposing sending more US troops to fight a lost and illegal war. Tom Baldwin and Stephen Farrell (Times of London) observe: "The new Democratic leadership of Congress has for the first time given explicit warning that it might deny funding for up to 20,000 additional troops in Iraq, which President Bush is expected to order this week. Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, said the Democrats would refuse to give him 'a blank cheque with no oversight, no standards, no conditions. If the President choose to escalate the war . . . in his budget request, he is going to have justify it and this is new for him."
While US Speaker of the House Pelosi's remarks sound strong, US Senator Joe Biden, appearing Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press (where he also announced he was running for the 2008 Democratic nominee for president) responded to host Tim Russerts question of, "If President Bush calls for more American troops to Iraq, the so-called surge, Joe Biden will say . . ." to which -- in a vote non-getter -- Biden responded, "No. But there's not much I can do about it. Not much anybody can do about it. . . . If he surges another 20, 30, or whatever number he's going to, into Baghdad, it'll be a tragic mistake, in my view, but, as a practical matter, there's no way to say, 'Mr. President, stop'."
And the Biden campaign rounds the corner with . . . a limp and appears to ask, "If Pelosi won't give you a blank check, will you take my VISA?" Which is the sort of non-stand that Sunsara Taylor (World Can't Wait) notes (at CounterPunch) "is really saying that the only people who can set political terms in this country are George Bush's neo-cons and Christian fascists and that everyone else has to find their place within these terms. But this must not be accepted. Just as it did during [Tricy Dick] Nixon's day, it will take political struggle breaking free of these terms and coming up from below to create a situation where those in power are compelled to change". Patrick Cockburn (Independent of London) also overcomes Biden's whimper by observing quite plainly, "The occupation has always fuelled the insurgency. More US troops means more resistance." Cockburn also (rightly) observes, "The US government has shown an extraordinary inability to learn any lessons from its failures in Iraq." Or, as Ramzy Baroud (Asia Times) put it, "The past three and a half years of utter failure in Iraq should have been the sign any rational leader would need to change course; but few ever argued that the president is an icon of leadership or even-headedness; thus the 'new' Iraq strategy."
Bombings?
AFP reports that a bomb (hidden under a car) "in a market at Zafaraniyah in south Baghdad" claimed three lives. Muhieddin Rashad (AP) reports "a roadside bomb wounded three policemen in a southeastern seation of the Iraqi capital". Reuters notes two police officers killed and three wounded in Ramadi by a "suicide truck bomber" while, in Baghdad, a roadside bomb wounded three people.
Shootings?
Reuters states that 4 people were shot dead in an attack on a bus (they base this on government sources -- an eyewitness earlier told Reuters the number was higher) in Baghdad and that a family "packing their furniture" were attacked in Baghdad and 6 were shot dead. AFP reports four people shot dead in Baquba. On the bus attack, the BBC says it was at least nine killed (and Reuters TV footage currently says 15)
Sudarsan Raghavan (Washington Post) reports that, by official Iraq government statistics (released by the Iraqi Health Ministry), "In the first six months of last year, 5,640 Iraqi civilians and police officers were killed, but that number more than tripled to 17,310 in the latter half of the year, according to data provided by a Health Ministry official with direct knowledge of the statistics. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said those numbers remained incomplete, suggesting the final tally of violent deaths could be higher."
Despite the pronounced, undeniable failure of the Iraq war, Gillian Bradford (ABC's PM) reports that Alexander Downer (Australia's Foreign Affairs Minister) has declared that he's all for escalation and that he can play Mean Girls quite well: ""It's really a matter for the generals and the generals on the ground [to escalate or not to]. They are in a much better position to make those judgements than either I or, for that matter, dare I say it, Nancy Pelosi, or whoever it may be." Someone tell Alex that somehwere in his third or fourth aside, the "SNAP" was lost before he got to Nancy Pelosi's name. While Lexie works on his Joan Collins impersonation, the reality is that in a democracy, generals do not dictate policy. Civilian control of the military is embedded in democracies. It may help Lexie sleep at night (and provide more time for him to develop his Joan Collins impersonation) but it's really not in his job description to turn over decision power to the military.
On Saturday, Ruth noted David Harris' powerful article on Ron Kovic ("Ask A Marine," Rolling Stone, July 19, 1973). Already this year, an article emerges that may be the most powerful of 2007 (though, granted, with the state of independent media today, it may maintain that honor by default). Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg's "Homecoming Nightmares" appears in the January 2007 issue of The Progressive (not yet available online, pages 21 through 22) and takes a look at the experiences of several who have served in Iraq. This is from the opening of her article:
Hart Viges, thirty, served with the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq. "Anyone who thinks they are going to be treated as heroes or valuable people in the military, they're wrong," he says. "They're property. You're property of the United States government."
Even though Hart came home to Texas in January 2004, he still hasn't totally left Iraq.
"I don't know how many civilians we killed, I don't know how many enemy we killed," says Hart, remembering when he and fellow soldiers were ordered to fire on all taxicabs in Samawa. "I just don't know. I just don't know."
But at a water treatment plant outside Baghdad, Hart caught a man carrying explosives.
"I look into his eyes and his face," he says. "He's not a boogeyman, not a monster. He's scared and confused but recruited like me."
The man escaped from Hart. During the Americans' hunt for him, an Iraiq told them that his neighbors said something bad about Americans. They went to the hut and searched everything. All they found, Hart said, was a family and a small .22 caliber pistol. They arrested two young men.
"The mother was trying to kiss my feet, my cheek, crying," Hart recalls. "I just stood there, paralyzed. I just couldn't console her. I told my sergeant, 'These aren't the guys.' He said, 'Don't worry. They're all bad guys.'"
After Hart came home from Iraq in 2004, he had an emotional explosion and finally told his platoon sergeant, "I can't pull the trigger." His sergeant sent him to a chaplain who told him about conscientious objection. Hart applied. He was approved later that year and honorably discharged.
Hart now works in Texas as a waiter and peace activist with Iraq Veterans Against the War. But Iraq has still found him in his Austin home.
Everyday noises, sights, and smells are now deadly threats. The sound of a nail gun makes Hart jump behind trash cans for cover. Headlights flashing in his rearview mirror suddenly become flares from a roadside bomb.
As veterans continue to return with physical and/or mental injuries, many Iraqis look for somewhere, anywhere, else to live. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announced today it was launching: "a $60 million appeal to fund its work over the next 12 months for hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced people affected by the conflict in Iraq. The funds will cover UNHCR's protection and assistance programmes for Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey, as well as non-Iraqi refugees and internally displaced people within Iraq itself." The appeal is being made, in part, due to the fact that the UNHCR operated, from the start of the illegal war until last year, "on the assumption that the domestic situation would stabilise and hundreds of thousands of previously displaced Iraqis would soon be able to go home." The UNHCR, Antonio Guterres, "estimates there are at least 1.6 million Iraqis displaced internally, and up to 1.8 million in neighboring states, particularly Syria and Jordan."
In the United States, former US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been nominated by the Bully Boy to be the new US envoy to the UN. AFP quotes Condi Rice noting that "[t]he past year shown very clearly how important the UN is for America and the world" which could be the closest admission No-one-could-have-guessed-Condi ever makes to an administration failure. ("The past year" would include the inept 'work' done by John Bolton in the post Khalilzad is now nominated for.) Ryan Crocker will move from US ambassador to Pakistan to replace Khalilzad as US ambassador to Iraq.
The post is sometimes referred to as the "US ambassador to Baghdad"; however, "the US ambassador to the heavily fortified Green Zone's heavily fortified US embassy." Speaking last Thursday with Nora Barrows-Friedman on KPFA's Flashpoints, Dahr Jamail noted of the embassy/fortress, "This was a $572 million contract that was awarded to a very corrupt . . . Kuwaiti construction firm with very direct ties to the Bush administration and this is an embassy that's going to have room for between 3 and 8,000 government employees, it has its own school . . . I don't think we should expect any Iraqi kids at this school, it has the largest swimming pool in the country, yoga studios, barbershops, beauty shops, its own water plant, its own electricity plant, it has apartment buildings. And when it's complete, it will be, it's 21 buildings and the area will be the size of the Vatican City. So that's the so-called embassy that's being built in Iraq so if we talk about when are we going to withdraw troops and why aren't the Democrats talking about withdrawal, this sort of thing, instead why is there talk of a 'surge'? It's because we . . . just need look no further than the physical evidence on the ground, augmented by the US policy like the National Security Strategy and the Quadrennial Defense Review Report -- all of these signs point towards permanent occupation of Iraq just like we have in Germany."
On the embassy/fortress/stockade, Guy Dinmore (Financial Times of London) notes that it's called "Fortress Baghdad" and resulted in "arguments inside the State Department amid fears that the overwhelming diplomatic presence will perpetuate a sense of US occupation and become a focus of local anger." That's called "understatement." Dinmore reports that, "Officials are also questioning why the Bush administration is sending more civilians into a deteriorating war zone, and the effectiveness of the work they can do. The embassy compound being bulit inside Baghdad's Green Zone covers 104, acres, making it six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York. A city within a city for more than 1,000 people, it will have its own water, sewers and electricity, six apartment buildings, a Marine barracks, swimming pool, shops and some walls 15 feet thick."
Finally, in the United State, Tom Lochner (Contra Costa Times) reports: "Creatores of a hillside monument of crosses outside the Lafayette BART station began to put names on them Sunday while supporters, including mothers of fallen soldiers in Iraq, turned the gathering into an impromptu memorial service for the war dead. 'This memorial is a sacred place,' said Nadia McCaffrey of Tracy, the mother of Army Sgt. Patrick McCaffrey, killed in Balad, Iraq, on June 22, 2004. 'Each one of those crosses has a name.'"
Programming heads up, on WBAI tonight (airwaves in the NYC area, online everywhere) and time given is EST:
Monday, January 8, 9-11pm
THEATER SPECIAL: THAW ON THE AIR
Member theater companies of THAW (Theatres Against War) perform an evening of dramatic readings curated by Cynthia Croot.
iraqehren watada
antonia juhasz
dahr jamailflashpointsnora barrows-friedman
the washington postsurdasan raghavanrobin wrightann scott tysonmichael abramowitz
rolling stonedavid harrisron kovic
ruths report
The Progressive
kpfathe morning show
wbaithawtheatres against war
Monday, January 08, 2007
Friday, January 05, 2007
Lizzie West, students, Iraq, etc.
Betty's "The First Factually Challenged Fool" is up and be sure to read it. You'll love the humor (as always) but you'll also enjoy her correcting Thomas Friedman's column.
Next. Into White. Not Into the White. I'm not a Cat Stevens fan and never was. Sorry. Into White is the name of Carly Simon's new CD. That will be my next review. And I already have the next one planned as well, the one after Carly. While we were eating lunch, C.I. was catching Democracy Now! on the laptop. There was this wonderful song playing during today's broadcast. Jim and I were both asking, "Who is that?" C.I. goes Lizzie West -- with an eye roll because C.I.'s been recommending to everyone that we listen to Lizzie West since last spring. I actually intended to but the summer was so busy. And, as Jim pointed out, it would help if, when we all pick out CDs to play, C.I. would pick. (C.I. rarely does.) As soon as we landed, we went to C.I.'s (where I am now) and C.I. and called Betty because we knew she was waiting to post until she could try out the chapter on us. (It really is brilliant.) Then C.I. slipped the Lizzie West CD into my purse. So as soon as I do the Carly review, I'll be reviewing Lizzie West. Credit to Amy Goodman for playing it and noting that West sent it in (and that Democracy Now! would be eager to share other songs that fit the program if artists wanted to send them in).
We're all exhausted. Ty says he feels like even his eyelids are strained. I know what he means. Well, not all. I swear C.I. never gets tired. It's got to happen but all week, with five speaking engagements a minimum, C.I. never lagged and isn't lagging right now. I'm only good for four of those gigs a day and am feeling it by the fourth.
C.I. was trying out the snapshot (I think, maybe the snapshot just came out that way because C.I. was speaking about Watada? Who knows?) today repeatedly on various groups. And the feedback from students was basically, why isn't anyone walking us through this like that? (C.I.'s response, Well, now it's your job to walk others through it.) Most of the groups were made up of a great many people who already knew of Ehren Watada which is good and helpful but it was a new way of talking about him and a way that a lot of people were able to relate to. Not everyone was opposed to the war at the beginning and not everyone grasped their government was lying to them. Ehren Watada is a story of a man taking a courageous stand, absolutely, but when you tie in the awakening, he really does become a lot easier to relate to.
I think that's because people are looking for heroes (not a bad thing) and Ehren Watada does qualify for that but, with the young, when they make someone a hero it may be harder to relate to them. My own theory, feel free to disagree. So by making it, today, about the process and how it could have happened to them, they could have believed and been in the military believing only to start to grasp the truth, that really did hit home and led to a lot of sharing from students about when they started to realize the war was based on lies (a lot mentioned the Downing Street Memos).
C.I. was listening to Democracy Now!, working the phones and doing the snapshot while we were all eating lunch and when we got ready to go, Jess said, "Crap!" We all look and he goes, "Chinese." C.I. doesn't hate Mexican but everytime this week, we'd go through the, "What do you want to eat?" and someone would say "Mexican." Rebecca's pointed that out before. Next trip I'm on, I'll suggest Chinese right off the bat.
The excitement this morning came when C.I. was posting "And justice for none?" and starting "Other Items" because there was only seven minutes before we had to leave. Right in the middle of "Other Items," the laptog powers down. C.I. had another battery and Jim was already booting up his laptop but there wasn't time. We were riding to the first speaking gig and C.I. was dictating "Other Items" over the phone to a friend (and explaining how to do links). We were walking in the building and C.I. was still dictating. The head of the student group walks up to ask if C.I. could talk about some of the other war resisters as well (which wasn't a problem) and C.I.'s nodding and finishing up the entry. Right before C.I.'s about to speak, all the sudden the question is, "Did the Watada entry go up?" C.I. couldn't remember if that was posting when the laptop powered down or not. (It had gone up.) But it was really funny to see that moment of panic and then, a second later, C.I. smooth as honey, speaking to the group.
As tired as I get, I really do enjoy going on those gigs. I'm never sure what I'll talk about until it's my turn and doubt that I do a very good job but I really do enjoy the exchange because it is so not true that students do not care about the war. There were three college groups and two high school ones plus a group that was a mixture today (and C.I. also grabbed an impromptu group as well while the rest of us were getting our stuff together to leave) and anyone saying that students are apethetic is someone who's not talking to students.
One of the biggest complaints this week, high school and college, was how little attention the 3,000 mark (US troops killed in Iraq, we reached that Sunday) had gotten. Don't think that sort of thing goes unnoticed because it doesn't. They could list and list who hadn't noted it. This was a very big deal to them. (And should be to you as well.)
I also enjoyed, in the first group, watching their faces as C.I. was talking about various war resisters. There are a lot of assumptions made, I think, in the professional coverage, that doesn't allow the stories to resonate. C.I.'s really good about seizing upon a personal like or moment in someone's life and then using that as the entry point to discuss them. Those details, just watching, you can see the students sit up and lean in.
C.I. hits the four year mark on this next month so obviously a great deal has been learned through trial and error but I really wonder about the way so much of this is reported. It may be the best way for people who want their news quickly but I'm not sure how much of it reaches a person?
For this trip, C.I. just told us, "You really don't want to miss this one." We were all wondering why but all said, "Sure." Once we'd all agreed to go, C.I. said we'd be visiting Rebecca. That's like the recommending Lizzie West. Jim and I were laughing about that today. If we'd known at the start that we'd be visiting Rebecca, we'd all have said yes in a second but C.I. didn't want to pressure anyone. (Which you could carry over to the lunch choices as well.)
But visiting Rebecca was a highlight. It's one thing to hear her on the phone saying, "I'm fine, don't worry." It's another to see her in person. She really does look fine. (She said she was glad it was this week and not last because her color wasn't good last week.) That said, Jess did remind us all the next day that the schedule for the writing edition (implemented by Ava and C.I.) was done for a reason and we needed to stick to it. (We're starting on Saturday nights and sending everyone to sleep by midnight there time. Then they rejoin us early in the morning. Ava, Dona and C.I. did not want a thirty-plus hour session where Rebecca felt like she had to be present for every hour to be pulling her weight.)
And Jim's still asking what Ava and C.I. did on Christmas eve to get the edition finished on time (ahead of time) while maintaining that schedule? I have no idea. I know they would both say, "Okay, that's good enough." But I also know Dona does that normally. C.I. had roughed most of it out ahead of time, the topics we'd be covering, by touching base throughout the week. Ava handled the roundtable and did Jim and Dona's jobs which Jim's wondering if that was one of the key's? Dona usually watches time and Jim moderates. With Ava doing both, Jim wondered if that was it?
But it was more than one thing. I also think that Ava and C.I. were more quick to add their input. They're both very similar in letting others have their say and then some. They usually come in after everyone's had a chance to discuss and add input. I don't mean that they cut anyone off. I do mean that they'd say, for instance, "Okay, Wally, you have strong feelings about this, what are they?" They steered the edition more than it usually gets steered. It's also true, as Jim will admit, that he really loves the exploration. Dona will be frazzled, and on her second or third pack of cigarettes, saying, "We've got to finish!" and Jim will be saying, "Okay, but let's explore this thought a bit futher."
I don't think that it was any one thing or that it could be repeated. I think part of it was that Ava and C.I. feared that since they were the only ones representing the core six who run the site, the edition would be scrutinized for content and how quickly it went up. I actually think they were overly concerned with that. (C.I. kept worrying that the edition was too light -- all through the edition. It was only after everyone rejoined us and we did the roundtable that C.I. stopped worrying about that.) They were very aware of a pressure (that I doubt most readers would have placed on them -- for instance, they could have done a light edition and readers would've accepted it and noted it was Christmas eve) and I think that impacted the edition. Out here on the West Coast, we were done at a little after five p.m. and when you think about how it's usually eleven a.m. (and has been as late as 3:00 p.m.), that was really a shocker. In fact, when all the pieces were done, Ava noted how early it was and we ended up doing a last minute piece on war resisters.
But Jim is curious about that and wants to try to have us all done that quickly this Sunday. (I doubt it will happen which isn't saying I don't believe Jim, just noting that in all the time they've been doing the site, which includes without my help, they have never been finished that quickly.)
Okay, enough yacking. Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, January 5, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, US war resister Ehren Watada's pretrial hearing began yesterday, Bully Boy shuffles the deck while an "I told you so" travels across the Atlantic from France, and Ahmed Hadi Naji, who worked for AP, is discovered dead.
Monday, February 5th, the US military attempts to court-martial Ehren Watada. Watada is the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. Yesterday, at Fort Lewis in Washington, a pretrial hearing began that will determine what arguments are allowed in the court-martial and what arguments will be disallowed. The hearing was presided over by Lt. Col. John Head, the court-martial would have a jury made up of *a panel of* officers, and the AP reports that he will make his decision on "the parameters of the case" next week. Melanthia Mitchell (AP) reports that on Thursday: "Watada's parents sat in the back of the courtroom during the hearing, his father at times leaning forward on the bench with his hands clasped in front of him." As Linton Weeks (Washington Post) noted, Carolyn Ho, Ehren's mother, is a high school counselor who went on leave to raise awareness about her son and is on leave for the pretrial and the court-martial. Bob Watada, Ehren's father, has also been engaged in speaking tours around the country to raise awareness about Ehren and, for any wondering, Bob Watada recently retired (and recently remarried, Rosa Sakanishi, Ehren's step-mother, has accompanied Bob Watada on his speaking tours).
The US military wants to reduce the court-martial to a "yes" or "no" -- Did you refuse to deploy to Iraq? They wish to prevent Ehren Watada from explaining his decision -- in effect that are hoping to prevent him from making the best defense possible when he is facing six years in prison.
As Hal Bernton (Seattle Times) reported: "At a hearing Thursday at Fort Lewis, there was little dispute about the action taken by 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, who last June refused to deploy with his brigade to Iraq. But defense and prosecutors sparred much of the afternoon about whether Watada's motives for opting out of the war should affect the outcome of a February court-martial trial that could result in a six-year prison term." If the military was interested in justice (and sure of their case), they wouldn't be attempting to shut down Watada's defense.
The prosucetor, Captain Dan Kuecker has stated, "There is no rational doubt in this situation; . . . it's a lawful order." Were he as sure of himself as he pretends to the press, there would be no attempts to prevent Watada from explaining both his actions and the reasons behind them.
Watada explained the reasons most recently to Kevin Sites (Kevin Sites in The Hotzone): "I think that in March of 2003 when I joined up, I, like many Americans, believed the administration when they said the threat from Iraq was imminent -- that there were weapons of mass destruction all throughout Iraq; that there were stockpiles of it; and because of Saddam Hussein's ties to al-Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorist acts, the threat was imminent and we needed to invade that country immediately in order to neutralize that threat. Since then I think I, as many, many Americans are realizing, that those justifications were intentionally falsified in order to fit a policy established long before 9/11 of just toppling the Saddam Hussein regime and setting up an American presence in Iraq. . . . I think the facts are out there, they're not difficult to find, they just take a little bit of willingness and interest on behalf of anyone who is willing to seek out the truth and find the facts. All of it is in the mainstream media. But it is quickly buried and it is quickly hidden by other events that come and go. And all it takes is a little bit of logical reasoning. The Iraq Survey Group came out and said there were no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 and during 2003. The 9/11 Commission came out and said there were no ties with Iraq to 9/11 or al-Qaeda. The president himself came out and said nobody in his administration ever suggested that there was a link. And yet those ties to al-Qaeda and the weapons of mass destruction were strongly suggested. They said there was no doubt here were weapons of mass destruction all throughout 2002, 2003 and even 2004. So, they came out and they say this, and yet they say it was bad intelligence, not manipulated intelligence, that was the problem. And then you have veteran members of the CIA that come out and say, 'No. It was manipulated intelligence. We told them there was no WMD. We told them there were no tides to al-Qaeda. And they said that that's not what they wanted to hear'."
In essence, Ehren Watada is on trial for the media -- the media that sold the illegal war and the media that told the truth (eventually for some) about it. So it has been surprising to see nothing on Watada in the leading independent magazines in 2006. In 2007, The Nation discovered Watada on page 14 of the January 8 and 15th double issue in an article written by Marc Cooper (click here for Yahoo version -- subscribers only at The Nation website). Like many Americans, Watada believe the spin/lies from the US administration (repeated near word for word by most media outlets with little skepticism). Like many Americans, he's since come to see that reality and spin were two different things.
This new awareness is reflected not only in the civilian population but also, as Rachel Ensign (Citizen Soldier) reminds us, within the military as well: "A new poll conducted by the Army Times newspaper at the end of 2006 found that a majority of soldiers polled now disapprove of how Bush has conducted the Iraq war to date. . . . Only 41% of soldiers polled today think that we should have invaded Iraq -- down from 65% in 2003. This closely mirrors sentiment among civilians; only 45% of whom now believe that the war was a good idea."
Michael Gilbert (The News Tribune) reports that, based on comments and questions during the pretrial hearing, Lt. Col John Head "likely won't allow Lt. Ehren Watada to defend himself" by making the case for his actions and why he acted as he did and that Head declared, "At this point I'm not inclined to grant a hearing on the Nuremburg defense." The Nuremburg defense is in reference to the Nuremberg trials during which soldiers stating that they were only following orders were told that was not a legal excuse for their actions. As Ruth noted, following the August Article 32 hearing of Watada, "The message that Lieutenant Colonel Mark Keith appears to be endorsing is follow all orders but, if it later turns out that they were illegal, you are on your own and will take full responsibility. At best, like with Lieutenant Calley, the War Monger in the oval office may pardon you after you are convicted. What is the message? Why teach the obligation to follow only legal orders, why refute 'I was only following orders' as a defense and then punish Lieutenant Ehren Watada for doing just that while advising him that it is not his place to make such a determination when, in fact, the invididual who obeys the unlawful order is the one who will be held responsible by the military justice system?"
Why teach? Refer to Ruth's Report where she goes over retired Col. Ann Wright's testimony at the Article 32 hearing on what she taught soldiers at the JFK Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg while teaching the Law of Land Warfare. Taught is FM 27-10 (Law of Land Warfare):
Section IV. DEFENSES NOT AVAILABLE 509. Defense of Superior Orders
a. The fact that the law of war has been violated pursuant to an order of a superior authority, whether military or civil, does not deprive the act in question of its character of a war crime, nor does it constitute a defense in the trial of an accused individual, unless he did not know and could not reasonably have been expected to know that the act ordered was unlawful. In all cases where the order is held not to constitute a defense to an allegation of war crime, the fact that the individual was acting pursuant to orders may be considered in mitigation of punishment.
Ehren Watada could be prosecuted for actions committed during war by the above; however, the US military does not want to allow him to use the same law to defend himself. Only a fool would call that "justice." This is what Eric Seitz, Watada's attorney, is noting when he told Linton Weeks, "The United States talks out of both sides of its mouth. We've prosecuted soldiers in other countries for following orders to commit war crimes. But God forbid you should use that refusal as a defense in this country."
Christian Hill (The Olympian) reports, however, that the military prosecution may have outfoxed itself: "The judge, Lt. Col. John Head, told prosectors that he was not inclined to grant the evidentiary hearing, but 'they opened the door for him allowing it by prosecuting his statements'" thereby making it "relevant. Some of those statements have become relevant by the sheer nature of how the government has charged this case."
Head was not referring to the charge of missing deployment but the charge ("conduct unbecoming") based upon remarks Watada made about the war such as ""The wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of Iraqis is not only a terrible and moral injustice, but it's a contradiction to the Army's own law of land warfare. My participation would make me party to war crimes." Remember: A Citizens' Hearings is being convened January 20-22 at Evergreen State College.
Ehren Watada's awakening mirrors that of many Americans. It also has echoes
in the growing resistance within the military to the illegal war as many resisters vocalize sentiments similar to Watada's (usually noting the works of Howard Zinn). Others that a part of this growing resistance within the military include Kyle Snyder, Darrell Anderson, Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Joshua Key, Ivan Brobeck, Camilo Meija, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Jeremy Hinzman, Corey Glass, Patrick Hart, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on 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 this month.
While Watada faces court-martial for questioning the illegal war, France's president earns headlines for doing the same. AFP reports that Jacques Chirac speech today revolved largely around the illegal war: "As France had forseen and feared, the war in Iraq has sparked upheavals that have yet to show their full effects . . . exacerbated the divisions between communities and threatened the very integrity of Iraq. . . . It undermined the stability of the entire region, where every country now fears for its security and independence." (Chirac's also getting attention for, in the same speech, calling for slashing corporate taxes.)
Before noting some of the violence today in Iraq, let's note December again. Steve Negus (Financial Times of London) notes that the Iraq Interior Ministry's figure of 1,930 Iraqis dead for the month of December (an undercount) remains "a new high" for any month. Meanwhile, the count for US troop fatalities in Iraq for the month of December reached 115.
Bombings?
Reuters reports: "A roadside bomb struck a U.S. marine tank in the western city of Falluja on Friday", while a roadside bomb wounded four Iraqi soldiers and killed anohter in Baiji, and a roadside bomb in Kirkuk left two police officers wounded. Christopher Torchia (AP) reports
four Iraqis killed on the "outskirts" of Baghdad from mortar attacks.
Shootings?
Mohammed al Awsy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 Iraqi soldiers were shot dead in the Diyala Province. Reuters reports that "a former colonel" was shot dead in Mosul, as were a father and son in Iskandariya.
Corpses?
Mohammed al Awsy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 12 corpses were discovered in Baghdad ("2 sadr city, 2 dora, 2 amil, 2 jihad, 2 hurriyah, 1 kadhemiyah, 1 abu atsheer"). Reuters notes that three corpses were discovered in Iskandariya. And AP reports that Ahmed Hadi Naji, 28-years-old, "was found shot in the back of the head Friday, six days after he was last seen by his family leaving work". AP notes that he is "the second AP employee killed in less than a month" and that he is the fourth "to die violently" in the illegal war. They note that Ahmed Hadi Naji is survived by his wife, Sahba'a Mudhar Khalil, and his four-month-old twins, Zaid (male) and Rand (female). Christopher Torchia (AP) reports that Ahmed Hadi Naji had worked "for the AP for 2 1/2 years".
And Aref Mohmmed (Reuters) reports that one "American civilian contractor and two Iraqi translators" were kidnapped in Basra today.
Changing focus . . .
So let's be really clear, torture in Iraq is rampant and that's because it's policy even though we have had a replacement of Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld who infamously told . . . general, retired, now retired, but at the time general, [Janis] Karpinski 'make sure this happens' regarding specific torture techniques that he wanted to begin using inside places like Abu Ghraib well that policy hasn't changed as I said, these people are still being tortured, they're just not letting people bring in their video cameras and their digital cameras so that the images can find themselves splashed across the screens of 60 Minutes II program, for example.
What is that? Dahr Jamail speaking with Nora Barrows-Friedman on yesterday's
KPFA's Flashpoints (use either to listen to an archived broadcast -- Rebecca's "nora barrows-friedman interviewed dahr jamail on flashpoints" offers an overview of the interview).
For an hour, Nora Barrows-Friedman and Dahr Jamail reviewed the year 2006 in Iraq, focusing on the death squads, women, children, attacks on civilians and much more.
Nora Barrows-Friedman: Dahr, can you talk now about the permanent US military base structures this was being talked about openly and publicly in the spring of 2006. But how has that discussion progressed and what does a permananet US military base structure look like on the ground? How many are we talking here?
Dahr Jamail: We started out with over a hundred bases in Iraq and they are slowly consolidating this number down to, right now it's around, it was 53 last time I checked. So they're slowly consolidating them down and if people want an idea of what Iraq might look like in the next couple of years, well we just have to look at Afghanistan because that's where, kind of, this model started and there's a couple of years jump there. And if you look at Afghanistan, we've got, I believe, four major bases right around the area of where I believe the proposed pipeline's going to go. So we should expect something similar but more bases in Iraq. There's going to be, right now it looks like, between six and twelve, we're not real sure on the number, but between six and twelve of these permanent bases. The military and the corporate media won't call them permanent because they don't have to, because they just made sure that they would have permanent access into particular areas in Iraq and so there was nothing in the so-called constitutional referendum that took place on October 15 a year ago that banned access from a foreign country, that's why there was a lot of wrangling along that constitutional referendum and why even someone in the UN that I spoke with, I quoted him as saying there was 'undue, inappropriate, US influence on this constitution' and it was around Iraq's oil and it was also around permanent access. So as a result we have between six and twelves of these bases. Just to give you an example of what these bases look like there's one called Camp Anaconda which is actually an air field in Balad, just north of Baghdad, and Camp Anaconda is a base that has 250 of its own aircraft. Air Force officials there claim that it was the second busiest runway on earth. There are 20,000 soldiers on this base less than a thousand of whom ever leave whatsoever. There's a base exchange there where they sell televisions, iPods, CDs, DVDs, TVs, there's a first run movie theater, . . . very elaborate meals served by Kellog Brown & Root employing third country nationals which is kind of the way these people are referred to in Iraq by the contractors but really if we're going to call them what they are, they're slaves. They're people from places like India and Sri Lanka and Bangladesh working for slave wages serving these very elaborate meals because with the cost plus fix fee contract that means that when Halliburton is serving these very elaborate meals the more money they spend in Iraq, the more money they make. So that's what's being served in a huge base like that. Soldiers actually gain weight and if they don't of course want any of that food or if they get burnt out on it like say you would at a college, for example, at a college dorm, well then they can go to the 24 hour Burger King, they can go to the Popeye's Fried Chicken, they can go to the Subway sandwich shop, and then wash it down with a latte from Starbucks. So that's just one of these bases to give you an idea, there's also AT&T phone home centers, there's also a Hertz rental car which I find kind of amusing because it's not like they're going to leave the base and go for a little drive in Al-Anbar Province but there it is, Hertz-Rent-A-Car, . . . I like to specifically name these companies so people can take note of that. So that's what these bases look like in Iraq and to contextualize that a little bit, it sounds a lot like some of these bases we have in Germany now, doesn't it, which have been there, what are we talking now, a little over sixty years, so just to give people an idea of what the situation is on the ground regarding the bases, we talk about the US' so-called embassy in Baghdad that's being built as we speak. This was a $572 million contract that was awarded to a very corrupt . . . Kuwaiti construction firm with very direct ties to the Bush administration and this is an embassy that's going to have room for between 3 and 8,000 government employees, it has its own school . . . so I don't think we should expect any Iraqi kids at this school, it has the largest swimming pool in the country, yoga studios, barbershops, beauty shops, its own water plant, it's own electricity plant, it has apartment buildings. And when it's complete, it will be, it's 21 buildings and the area will be the size of the Vatican City. So that's the so-called embassy that's being built in Iraq so if we talk about when are we going to withdraw troops and why aren't the Democrats talking about withdrawal, this sort of thing, instead why is there talk of a 'surge'? It's because we . . . just need look no further than the physical evidence on the ground, augmented by the US policy like the National Security Strategy and the Quadrennial Defense Review Report -- all of these signs point towards permanent occupation of Iraq just like we have in Germany.
But never fear, Democrats are in power in the US Congress which translates as . . . a strongly worded letter. CNN reports that "leaders of the new Democratic Congress" sent an open letter to the Bully Boy which "said increasing troop levels in Iraq would be a 'serious mistake'." That's telling him! (And shades of the letter Carolyn Ho got from Congress.) AFP reports that the letter states "it is time to bring the war to a close." And no doubt, this wouldn't have even happened were it not for the activists on Wednesday (sse Thursday's snapshot). Cindy Sheehan, who handled the press conference Yawn Emmanuel and other Congress members fled from, today on Democracy Now!, addressed the realities too many elected Democrats want to avoid: that the war is costing the US 10 million dollars every hour, that plans and programs will cost money and defunding the war needs to be placed 'back on the table,' that the people want the war ended and the Democratic Party was voted into office not to wait around for another laughable 'plan' from the Bully Boy, to get the United States out of the illegal war.
Meanwhile, in shuffling the chairs on the deck of the Titanic, AFP reports that Bully Boy nominated the now former US director of national intelligence John Negroponte to be the Deputy Secretary of State -- second to Condi -- while he "announced that he had chosen vice adminiral Michael McConnell, a former head of the National Security Agency, to replace Negroponte at the head of all 16 US spy agencies". And as Christopher Torchia (AP) notes,
generals John P. Abizaid and George Casey will be replaced shortly.
Returning to news of war resisters, earlier this week, Mary Ambrose (New American Media) took a look at war resisters who seek asylum in Canada and noted the stories of Chris and Stephanie Teske -- Chris decided to self-checkout while stationed in Germany but US troops do not "have access to their passports" so, after deciding on Canada, Stephanie: "I cried a lot and told them we'd spent $3,000 on these tickets and my parents were waiting for us and frankly, we just got lucky."
iraqehren watadabob watada
carolyn hoann wrighthal berntonruths report
dahr jamailflashpointsnora barrows-friedman
linton weeksthe washington post
christian hillmichael gilbertmelanthia mitchell
cindy sheehan
democracy now
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
Next. Into White. Not Into the White. I'm not a Cat Stevens fan and never was. Sorry. Into White is the name of Carly Simon's new CD. That will be my next review. And I already have the next one planned as well, the one after Carly. While we were eating lunch, C.I. was catching Democracy Now! on the laptop. There was this wonderful song playing during today's broadcast. Jim and I were both asking, "Who is that?" C.I. goes Lizzie West -- with an eye roll because C.I.'s been recommending to everyone that we listen to Lizzie West since last spring. I actually intended to but the summer was so busy. And, as Jim pointed out, it would help if, when we all pick out CDs to play, C.I. would pick. (C.I. rarely does.) As soon as we landed, we went to C.I.'s (where I am now) and C.I. and called Betty because we knew she was waiting to post until she could try out the chapter on us. (It really is brilliant.) Then C.I. slipped the Lizzie West CD into my purse. So as soon as I do the Carly review, I'll be reviewing Lizzie West. Credit to Amy Goodman for playing it and noting that West sent it in (and that Democracy Now! would be eager to share other songs that fit the program if artists wanted to send them in).
We're all exhausted. Ty says he feels like even his eyelids are strained. I know what he means. Well, not all. I swear C.I. never gets tired. It's got to happen but all week, with five speaking engagements a minimum, C.I. never lagged and isn't lagging right now. I'm only good for four of those gigs a day and am feeling it by the fourth.
C.I. was trying out the snapshot (I think, maybe the snapshot just came out that way because C.I. was speaking about Watada? Who knows?) today repeatedly on various groups. And the feedback from students was basically, why isn't anyone walking us through this like that? (C.I.'s response, Well, now it's your job to walk others through it.) Most of the groups were made up of a great many people who already knew of Ehren Watada which is good and helpful but it was a new way of talking about him and a way that a lot of people were able to relate to. Not everyone was opposed to the war at the beginning and not everyone grasped their government was lying to them. Ehren Watada is a story of a man taking a courageous stand, absolutely, but when you tie in the awakening, he really does become a lot easier to relate to.
I think that's because people are looking for heroes (not a bad thing) and Ehren Watada does qualify for that but, with the young, when they make someone a hero it may be harder to relate to them. My own theory, feel free to disagree. So by making it, today, about the process and how it could have happened to them, they could have believed and been in the military believing only to start to grasp the truth, that really did hit home and led to a lot of sharing from students about when they started to realize the war was based on lies (a lot mentioned the Downing Street Memos).
C.I. was listening to Democracy Now!, working the phones and doing the snapshot while we were all eating lunch and when we got ready to go, Jess said, "Crap!" We all look and he goes, "Chinese." C.I. doesn't hate Mexican but everytime this week, we'd go through the, "What do you want to eat?" and someone would say "Mexican." Rebecca's pointed that out before. Next trip I'm on, I'll suggest Chinese right off the bat.
The excitement this morning came when C.I. was posting "And justice for none?" and starting "Other Items" because there was only seven minutes before we had to leave. Right in the middle of "Other Items," the laptog powers down. C.I. had another battery and Jim was already booting up his laptop but there wasn't time. We were riding to the first speaking gig and C.I. was dictating "Other Items" over the phone to a friend (and explaining how to do links). We were walking in the building and C.I. was still dictating. The head of the student group walks up to ask if C.I. could talk about some of the other war resisters as well (which wasn't a problem) and C.I.'s nodding and finishing up the entry. Right before C.I.'s about to speak, all the sudden the question is, "Did the Watada entry go up?" C.I. couldn't remember if that was posting when the laptop powered down or not. (It had gone up.) But it was really funny to see that moment of panic and then, a second later, C.I. smooth as honey, speaking to the group.
As tired as I get, I really do enjoy going on those gigs. I'm never sure what I'll talk about until it's my turn and doubt that I do a very good job but I really do enjoy the exchange because it is so not true that students do not care about the war. There were three college groups and two high school ones plus a group that was a mixture today (and C.I. also grabbed an impromptu group as well while the rest of us were getting our stuff together to leave) and anyone saying that students are apethetic is someone who's not talking to students.
One of the biggest complaints this week, high school and college, was how little attention the 3,000 mark (US troops killed in Iraq, we reached that Sunday) had gotten. Don't think that sort of thing goes unnoticed because it doesn't. They could list and list who hadn't noted it. This was a very big deal to them. (And should be to you as well.)
I also enjoyed, in the first group, watching their faces as C.I. was talking about various war resisters. There are a lot of assumptions made, I think, in the professional coverage, that doesn't allow the stories to resonate. C.I.'s really good about seizing upon a personal like or moment in someone's life and then using that as the entry point to discuss them. Those details, just watching, you can see the students sit up and lean in.
C.I. hits the four year mark on this next month so obviously a great deal has been learned through trial and error but I really wonder about the way so much of this is reported. It may be the best way for people who want their news quickly but I'm not sure how much of it reaches a person?
For this trip, C.I. just told us, "You really don't want to miss this one." We were all wondering why but all said, "Sure." Once we'd all agreed to go, C.I. said we'd be visiting Rebecca. That's like the recommending Lizzie West. Jim and I were laughing about that today. If we'd known at the start that we'd be visiting Rebecca, we'd all have said yes in a second but C.I. didn't want to pressure anyone. (Which you could carry over to the lunch choices as well.)
But visiting Rebecca was a highlight. It's one thing to hear her on the phone saying, "I'm fine, don't worry." It's another to see her in person. She really does look fine. (She said she was glad it was this week and not last because her color wasn't good last week.) That said, Jess did remind us all the next day that the schedule for the writing edition (implemented by Ava and C.I.) was done for a reason and we needed to stick to it. (We're starting on Saturday nights and sending everyone to sleep by midnight there time. Then they rejoin us early in the morning. Ava, Dona and C.I. did not want a thirty-plus hour session where Rebecca felt like she had to be present for every hour to be pulling her weight.)
And Jim's still asking what Ava and C.I. did on Christmas eve to get the edition finished on time (ahead of time) while maintaining that schedule? I have no idea. I know they would both say, "Okay, that's good enough." But I also know Dona does that normally. C.I. had roughed most of it out ahead of time, the topics we'd be covering, by touching base throughout the week. Ava handled the roundtable and did Jim and Dona's jobs which Jim's wondering if that was one of the key's? Dona usually watches time and Jim moderates. With Ava doing both, Jim wondered if that was it?
But it was more than one thing. I also think that Ava and C.I. were more quick to add their input. They're both very similar in letting others have their say and then some. They usually come in after everyone's had a chance to discuss and add input. I don't mean that they cut anyone off. I do mean that they'd say, for instance, "Okay, Wally, you have strong feelings about this, what are they?" They steered the edition more than it usually gets steered. It's also true, as Jim will admit, that he really loves the exploration. Dona will be frazzled, and on her second or third pack of cigarettes, saying, "We've got to finish!" and Jim will be saying, "Okay, but let's explore this thought a bit futher."
I don't think that it was any one thing or that it could be repeated. I think part of it was that Ava and C.I. feared that since they were the only ones representing the core six who run the site, the edition would be scrutinized for content and how quickly it went up. I actually think they were overly concerned with that. (C.I. kept worrying that the edition was too light -- all through the edition. It was only after everyone rejoined us and we did the roundtable that C.I. stopped worrying about that.) They were very aware of a pressure (that I doubt most readers would have placed on them -- for instance, they could have done a light edition and readers would've accepted it and noted it was Christmas eve) and I think that impacted the edition. Out here on the West Coast, we were done at a little after five p.m. and when you think about how it's usually eleven a.m. (and has been as late as 3:00 p.m.), that was really a shocker. In fact, when all the pieces were done, Ava noted how early it was and we ended up doing a last minute piece on war resisters.
But Jim is curious about that and wants to try to have us all done that quickly this Sunday. (I doubt it will happen which isn't saying I don't believe Jim, just noting that in all the time they've been doing the site, which includes without my help, they have never been finished that quickly.)
Okay, enough yacking. Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, January 5, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, US war resister Ehren Watada's pretrial hearing began yesterday, Bully Boy shuffles the deck while an "I told you so" travels across the Atlantic from France, and Ahmed Hadi Naji, who worked for AP, is discovered dead.
Monday, February 5th, the US military attempts to court-martial Ehren Watada. Watada is the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. Yesterday, at Fort Lewis in Washington, a pretrial hearing began that will determine what arguments are allowed in the court-martial and what arguments will be disallowed. The hearing was presided over by Lt. Col. John Head, the court-martial would have a jury made up of *a panel of* officers, and the AP reports that he will make his decision on "the parameters of the case" next week. Melanthia Mitchell (AP) reports that on Thursday: "Watada's parents sat in the back of the courtroom during the hearing, his father at times leaning forward on the bench with his hands clasped in front of him." As Linton Weeks (Washington Post) noted, Carolyn Ho, Ehren's mother, is a high school counselor who went on leave to raise awareness about her son and is on leave for the pretrial and the court-martial. Bob Watada, Ehren's father, has also been engaged in speaking tours around the country to raise awareness about Ehren and, for any wondering, Bob Watada recently retired (and recently remarried, Rosa Sakanishi, Ehren's step-mother, has accompanied Bob Watada on his speaking tours).
The US military wants to reduce the court-martial to a "yes" or "no" -- Did you refuse to deploy to Iraq? They wish to prevent Ehren Watada from explaining his decision -- in effect that are hoping to prevent him from making the best defense possible when he is facing six years in prison.
As Hal Bernton (Seattle Times) reported: "At a hearing Thursday at Fort Lewis, there was little dispute about the action taken by 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, who last June refused to deploy with his brigade to Iraq. But defense and prosecutors sparred much of the afternoon about whether Watada's motives for opting out of the war should affect the outcome of a February court-martial trial that could result in a six-year prison term." If the military was interested in justice (and sure of their case), they wouldn't be attempting to shut down Watada's defense.
The prosucetor, Captain Dan Kuecker has stated, "There is no rational doubt in this situation; . . . it's a lawful order." Were he as sure of himself as he pretends to the press, there would be no attempts to prevent Watada from explaining both his actions and the reasons behind them.
Watada explained the reasons most recently to Kevin Sites (Kevin Sites in The Hotzone): "I think that in March of 2003 when I joined up, I, like many Americans, believed the administration when they said the threat from Iraq was imminent -- that there were weapons of mass destruction all throughout Iraq; that there were stockpiles of it; and because of Saddam Hussein's ties to al-Qaeda and the 9/11 terrorist acts, the threat was imminent and we needed to invade that country immediately in order to neutralize that threat. Since then I think I, as many, many Americans are realizing, that those justifications were intentionally falsified in order to fit a policy established long before 9/11 of just toppling the Saddam Hussein regime and setting up an American presence in Iraq. . . . I think the facts are out there, they're not difficult to find, they just take a little bit of willingness and interest on behalf of anyone who is willing to seek out the truth and find the facts. All of it is in the mainstream media. But it is quickly buried and it is quickly hidden by other events that come and go. And all it takes is a little bit of logical reasoning. The Iraq Survey Group came out and said there were no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 and during 2003. The 9/11 Commission came out and said there were no ties with Iraq to 9/11 or al-Qaeda. The president himself came out and said nobody in his administration ever suggested that there was a link. And yet those ties to al-Qaeda and the weapons of mass destruction were strongly suggested. They said there was no doubt here were weapons of mass destruction all throughout 2002, 2003 and even 2004. So, they came out and they say this, and yet they say it was bad intelligence, not manipulated intelligence, that was the problem. And then you have veteran members of the CIA that come out and say, 'No. It was manipulated intelligence. We told them there was no WMD. We told them there were no tides to al-Qaeda. And they said that that's not what they wanted to hear'."
In essence, Ehren Watada is on trial for the media -- the media that sold the illegal war and the media that told the truth (eventually for some) about it. So it has been surprising to see nothing on Watada in the leading independent magazines in 2006. In 2007, The Nation discovered Watada on page 14 of the January 8 and 15th double issue in an article written by Marc Cooper (click here for Yahoo version -- subscribers only at The Nation website). Like many Americans, Watada believe the spin/lies from the US administration (repeated near word for word by most media outlets with little skepticism). Like many Americans, he's since come to see that reality and spin were two different things.
This new awareness is reflected not only in the civilian population but also, as Rachel Ensign (Citizen Soldier) reminds us, within the military as well: "A new poll conducted by the Army Times newspaper at the end of 2006 found that a majority of soldiers polled now disapprove of how Bush has conducted the Iraq war to date. . . . Only 41% of soldiers polled today think that we should have invaded Iraq -- down from 65% in 2003. This closely mirrors sentiment among civilians; only 45% of whom now believe that the war was a good idea."
Michael Gilbert (The News Tribune) reports that, based on comments and questions during the pretrial hearing, Lt. Col John Head "likely won't allow Lt. Ehren Watada to defend himself" by making the case for his actions and why he acted as he did and that Head declared, "At this point I'm not inclined to grant a hearing on the Nuremburg defense." The Nuremburg defense is in reference to the Nuremberg trials during which soldiers stating that they were only following orders were told that was not a legal excuse for their actions. As Ruth noted, following the August Article 32 hearing of Watada, "The message that Lieutenant Colonel Mark Keith appears to be endorsing is follow all orders but, if it later turns out that they were illegal, you are on your own and will take full responsibility. At best, like with Lieutenant Calley, the War Monger in the oval office may pardon you after you are convicted. What is the message? Why teach the obligation to follow only legal orders, why refute 'I was only following orders' as a defense and then punish Lieutenant Ehren Watada for doing just that while advising him that it is not his place to make such a determination when, in fact, the invididual who obeys the unlawful order is the one who will be held responsible by the military justice system?"
Why teach? Refer to Ruth's Report where she goes over retired Col. Ann Wright's testimony at the Article 32 hearing on what she taught soldiers at the JFK Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg while teaching the Law of Land Warfare. Taught is FM 27-10 (Law of Land Warfare):
Section IV. DEFENSES NOT AVAILABLE 509. Defense of Superior Orders
a. The fact that the law of war has been violated pursuant to an order of a superior authority, whether military or civil, does not deprive the act in question of its character of a war crime, nor does it constitute a defense in the trial of an accused individual, unless he did not know and could not reasonably have been expected to know that the act ordered was unlawful. In all cases where the order is held not to constitute a defense to an allegation of war crime, the fact that the individual was acting pursuant to orders may be considered in mitigation of punishment.
Ehren Watada could be prosecuted for actions committed during war by the above; however, the US military does not want to allow him to use the same law to defend himself. Only a fool would call that "justice." This is what Eric Seitz, Watada's attorney, is noting when he told Linton Weeks, "The United States talks out of both sides of its mouth. We've prosecuted soldiers in other countries for following orders to commit war crimes. But God forbid you should use that refusal as a defense in this country."
Christian Hill (The Olympian) reports, however, that the military prosecution may have outfoxed itself: "The judge, Lt. Col. John Head, told prosectors that he was not inclined to grant the evidentiary hearing, but 'they opened the door for him allowing it by prosecuting his statements'" thereby making it "relevant. Some of those statements have become relevant by the sheer nature of how the government has charged this case."
Head was not referring to the charge of missing deployment but the charge ("conduct unbecoming") based upon remarks Watada made about the war such as ""The wholesale slaughter and mistreatment of Iraqis is not only a terrible and moral injustice, but it's a contradiction to the Army's own law of land warfare. My participation would make me party to war crimes." Remember: A Citizens' Hearings is being convened January 20-22 at Evergreen State College.
Ehren Watada's awakening mirrors that of many Americans. It also has echoes
in the growing resistance within the military to the illegal war as many resisters vocalize sentiments similar to Watada's (usually noting the works of Howard Zinn). Others that a part of this growing resistance within the military include Kyle Snyder, Darrell Anderson, Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Joshua Key, Ivan Brobeck, Camilo Meija, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Jeremy Hinzman, Corey Glass, Patrick Hart, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on 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 this month.
While Watada faces court-martial for questioning the illegal war, France's president earns headlines for doing the same. AFP reports that Jacques Chirac speech today revolved largely around the illegal war: "As France had forseen and feared, the war in Iraq has sparked upheavals that have yet to show their full effects . . . exacerbated the divisions between communities and threatened the very integrity of Iraq. . . . It undermined the stability of the entire region, where every country now fears for its security and independence." (Chirac's also getting attention for, in the same speech, calling for slashing corporate taxes.)
Before noting some of the violence today in Iraq, let's note December again. Steve Negus (Financial Times of London) notes that the Iraq Interior Ministry's figure of 1,930 Iraqis dead for the month of December (an undercount) remains "a new high" for any month. Meanwhile, the count for US troop fatalities in Iraq for the month of December reached 115.
Bombings?
Reuters reports: "A roadside bomb struck a U.S. marine tank in the western city of Falluja on Friday", while a roadside bomb wounded four Iraqi soldiers and killed anohter in Baiji, and a roadside bomb in Kirkuk left two police officers wounded. Christopher Torchia (AP) reports
four Iraqis killed on the "outskirts" of Baghdad from mortar attacks.
Shootings?
Mohammed al Awsy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 Iraqi soldiers were shot dead in the Diyala Province. Reuters reports that "a former colonel" was shot dead in Mosul, as were a father and son in Iskandariya.
Corpses?
Mohammed al Awsy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 12 corpses were discovered in Baghdad ("2 sadr city, 2 dora, 2 amil, 2 jihad, 2 hurriyah, 1 kadhemiyah, 1 abu atsheer"). Reuters notes that three corpses were discovered in Iskandariya. And AP reports that Ahmed Hadi Naji, 28-years-old, "was found shot in the back of the head Friday, six days after he was last seen by his family leaving work". AP notes that he is "the second AP employee killed in less than a month" and that he is the fourth "to die violently" in the illegal war. They note that Ahmed Hadi Naji is survived by his wife, Sahba'a Mudhar Khalil, and his four-month-old twins, Zaid (male) and Rand (female). Christopher Torchia (AP) reports that Ahmed Hadi Naji had worked "for the AP for 2 1/2 years".
And Aref Mohmmed (Reuters) reports that one "American civilian contractor and two Iraqi translators" were kidnapped in Basra today.
Changing focus . . .
So let's be really clear, torture in Iraq is rampant and that's because it's policy even though we have had a replacement of Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld who infamously told . . . general, retired, now retired, but at the time general, [Janis] Karpinski 'make sure this happens' regarding specific torture techniques that he wanted to begin using inside places like Abu Ghraib well that policy hasn't changed as I said, these people are still being tortured, they're just not letting people bring in their video cameras and their digital cameras so that the images can find themselves splashed across the screens of 60 Minutes II program, for example.
What is that? Dahr Jamail speaking with Nora Barrows-Friedman on yesterday's
KPFA's Flashpoints (use either to listen to an archived broadcast -- Rebecca's "nora barrows-friedman interviewed dahr jamail on flashpoints" offers an overview of the interview).
For an hour, Nora Barrows-Friedman and Dahr Jamail reviewed the year 2006 in Iraq, focusing on the death squads, women, children, attacks on civilians and much more.
Nora Barrows-Friedman: Dahr, can you talk now about the permanent US military base structures this was being talked about openly and publicly in the spring of 2006. But how has that discussion progressed and what does a permananet US military base structure look like on the ground? How many are we talking here?
Dahr Jamail: We started out with over a hundred bases in Iraq and they are slowly consolidating this number down to, right now it's around, it was 53 last time I checked. So they're slowly consolidating them down and if people want an idea of what Iraq might look like in the next couple of years, well we just have to look at Afghanistan because that's where, kind of, this model started and there's a couple of years jump there. And if you look at Afghanistan, we've got, I believe, four major bases right around the area of where I believe the proposed pipeline's going to go. So we should expect something similar but more bases in Iraq. There's going to be, right now it looks like, between six and twelve, we're not real sure on the number, but between six and twelve of these permanent bases. The military and the corporate media won't call them permanent because they don't have to, because they just made sure that they would have permanent access into particular areas in Iraq and so there was nothing in the so-called constitutional referendum that took place on October 15 a year ago that banned access from a foreign country, that's why there was a lot of wrangling along that constitutional referendum and why even someone in the UN that I spoke with, I quoted him as saying there was 'undue, inappropriate, US influence on this constitution' and it was around Iraq's oil and it was also around permanent access. So as a result we have between six and twelves of these bases. Just to give you an example of what these bases look like there's one called Camp Anaconda which is actually an air field in Balad, just north of Baghdad, and Camp Anaconda is a base that has 250 of its own aircraft. Air Force officials there claim that it was the second busiest runway on earth. There are 20,000 soldiers on this base less than a thousand of whom ever leave whatsoever. There's a base exchange there where they sell televisions, iPods, CDs, DVDs, TVs, there's a first run movie theater, . . . very elaborate meals served by Kellog Brown & Root employing third country nationals which is kind of the way these people are referred to in Iraq by the contractors but really if we're going to call them what they are, they're slaves. They're people from places like India and Sri Lanka and Bangladesh working for slave wages serving these very elaborate meals because with the cost plus fix fee contract that means that when Halliburton is serving these very elaborate meals the more money they spend in Iraq, the more money they make. So that's what's being served in a huge base like that. Soldiers actually gain weight and if they don't of course want any of that food or if they get burnt out on it like say you would at a college, for example, at a college dorm, well then they can go to the 24 hour Burger King, they can go to the Popeye's Fried Chicken, they can go to the Subway sandwich shop, and then wash it down with a latte from Starbucks. So that's just one of these bases to give you an idea, there's also AT&T phone home centers, there's also a Hertz rental car which I find kind of amusing because it's not like they're going to leave the base and go for a little drive in Al-Anbar Province but there it is, Hertz-Rent-A-Car, . . . I like to specifically name these companies so people can take note of that. So that's what these bases look like in Iraq and to contextualize that a little bit, it sounds a lot like some of these bases we have in Germany now, doesn't it, which have been there, what are we talking now, a little over sixty years, so just to give people an idea of what the situation is on the ground regarding the bases, we talk about the US' so-called embassy in Baghdad that's being built as we speak. This was a $572 million contract that was awarded to a very corrupt . . . Kuwaiti construction firm with very direct ties to the Bush administration and this is an embassy that's going to have room for between 3 and 8,000 government employees, it has its own school . . . so I don't think we should expect any Iraqi kids at this school, it has the largest swimming pool in the country, yoga studios, barbershops, beauty shops, its own water plant, it's own electricity plant, it has apartment buildings. And when it's complete, it will be, it's 21 buildings and the area will be the size of the Vatican City. So that's the so-called embassy that's being built in Iraq so if we talk about when are we going to withdraw troops and why aren't the Democrats talking about withdrawal, this sort of thing, instead why is there talk of a 'surge'? It's because we . . . just need look no further than the physical evidence on the ground, augmented by the US policy like the National Security Strategy and the Quadrennial Defense Review Report -- all of these signs point towards permanent occupation of Iraq just like we have in Germany.
But never fear, Democrats are in power in the US Congress which translates as . . . a strongly worded letter. CNN reports that "leaders of the new Democratic Congress" sent an open letter to the Bully Boy which "said increasing troop levels in Iraq would be a 'serious mistake'." That's telling him! (And shades of the letter Carolyn Ho got from Congress.) AFP reports that the letter states "it is time to bring the war to a close." And no doubt, this wouldn't have even happened were it not for the activists on Wednesday (sse Thursday's snapshot). Cindy Sheehan, who handled the press conference Yawn Emmanuel and other Congress members fled from, today on Democracy Now!, addressed the realities too many elected Democrats want to avoid: that the war is costing the US 10 million dollars every hour, that plans and programs will cost money and defunding the war needs to be placed 'back on the table,' that the people want the war ended and the Democratic Party was voted into office not to wait around for another laughable 'plan' from the Bully Boy, to get the United States out of the illegal war.
Meanwhile, in shuffling the chairs on the deck of the Titanic, AFP reports that Bully Boy nominated the now former US director of national intelligence John Negroponte to be the Deputy Secretary of State -- second to Condi -- while he "announced that he had chosen vice adminiral Michael McConnell, a former head of the National Security Agency, to replace Negroponte at the head of all 16 US spy agencies". And as Christopher Torchia (AP) notes,
generals John P. Abizaid and George Casey will be replaced shortly.
Returning to news of war resisters, earlier this week, Mary Ambrose (New American Media) took a look at war resisters who seek asylum in Canada and noted the stories of Chris and Stephanie Teske -- Chris decided to self-checkout while stationed in Germany but US troops do not "have access to their passports" so, after deciding on Canada, Stephanie: "I cried a lot and told them we'd spent $3,000 on these tickets and my parents were waiting for us and frankly, we just got lucky."
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sex and politics and screeds and attitude
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Carly
Brenda e-mailed wondering if I had any plans for the next CD review? Yes, I do and I answered an e-mail from Susan Wednesday about that so let me go ahead and note it here in case anyone's wondering. I'm listening to Carly Simon's new CD, Into The White, and that will probably be my next review. When? I'm not sure. We're headed back home tomorrow.
Hopefully, shortly after that, I'll have a review and, right now, my plan is to review Into The White.
And on Carly, here's this from the AP:
Nobody does it better than Carly Simon. That's what QVC officials are hoping when the singer promotes her new CD, "Into White," on Friday.
Simon, 61, will perform with her children, Ben and Sally Taylor - from her marriage to James Taylor - during a 30-minute broadcast on the cable home shopping channel, a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corp. The broadcast begins at 7 p.m. (EST).
And this is from Howard Cohen's "Carly Simon's latest album recalls the good old days" (Miami Herald):
Simon's deal with Columbia called for an album of standards -- Moonlight Serenade -- with the option for another should it prove successful. Her desire was to record a new album with Bill Withers' producer, Booker T., at the boards. Instead, Sony exercised its option. The push-and-pull led to the more distinctive Into White and Simon managed to contribute one of her own songs to the process. She agreed to do an old war horse like Over the Rainbow, but only on her ambitious terms. Simon says her stark, nuanced performance was inspired by watching Katharine McPhee's ostentatious rendition on American Idol last season. "I thought what a good opportunity to strip the song bare," she said. "As long as I reharmonize them, they feel like my own."
Still, it would be a shame to lose a writer's voice like Simon's. After all she, along with contemporaries like King, Mitchell, Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot and Paul Simon, revolutionized popular music by taking the folk flavorings of the '60s and turning the music inward to an intensely personal nature.
Simon was a master of the strong-female, confessional pop song: You're So Vain. That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be. You Belong to Me. Vengeance. The effects are still felt in the work of next-generation acts such as Tori Amos, John Mayer, James Blunt, Damien Rice, Jack Johnson, Corrine Bailey Rae and Norah Jones.
"Carly is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and certainly could write an album of her own material and I hope she does," Landers says.
Today's been very busy. In terms of speaking, we spoke to four groups of students and do not say students don't care about the war. That is utter nonsense. And don't think they don't notice who covers Iraq and who doesn't. Elaine's "What the reaction (press) to the 3,000 mark means" sounds positively tame compared to some of the strong critiques that students were offering today.
That's it for me today. Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, Januray 4, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, US war resister Ehren Watada's pretrial hearing begins, hide it behind 'surge' or 'bump' but it's still an escalation, and activists in DC interrupt a standard issue press conference to press for answers on Iraq,
Starting with Ehren Watada. In June, Watada became the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. In August, the US military held an Article 32 hearing. Now the court-martial is set for February 5th and the pre-trial hearing began today at Fort Lewis is Washington. The pre-trial hearing will determine the framework in which arguments can be made. As noted yesterday, Eric Seitz, Watada's attorney, has stated that the military is attempting to prevent Watada from making his case for why he refused to deploy.
During the Article 32 hearing, Watada's defense called three witnesses, Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois' College of Law, Champagne; Denis Halliday, the former Assistant Secretary General of the UN; and retired Colonel Ann Wright. These three witnesses addressed the issue of the war, it's legality, and the responsibilities of a service member to disobey any order that they believed was unlawful. The testimony was necessary because Watada's refusing to participate in the illegal war due to the fact that he feels it is (a) illegal and (b) immoral.
What the military would like to do in today's pre-trial hearing is reduce everything to whether or not Watada deployed with his unit? The answer, of course, is that he did not. The military does not want the issue of the legality of the war addressed. By closing off this discussion, they not only would destroy Watada's right to defend himself, they would be able, as the Bully Boy long has been able to, set the terms of the discussion and control what is and is not discussed.
Robbing Watada of his ability to present a full defense is a very serious issue and much more serious than fretting over whether a journalist might have to decide "Do I testify or not?" (No journalists will be testifying at the pre-trial.) But the most serious issue today is whether or not Watada will be allowed to present the best defense or if he will only be allowed to say "yes" and "no" in answer to the prosecution's questions or if, as Aileen Alfandary noted on KPFA. this morning ( The Morning Show), he will be able to argue that
the war is illegal? This stance, putting the war on trial, is one that worries the US military.
On the December 9th RadioNation with Laura Flanders, Carolyn Ho (Ehren Watada's mother) noted that her son felt the decision was "the best thing he could do for his men .. . remain behind and speak truth" and that he feels his duty is to the Constitution which is the supreme law of the land in the United States.
Mark Tran (Guardian of London) reports: "Peace activists, international law experts and war resisters past and present are girding themselves for events designed to drum up support for Lt Watada, recently described by Rolling Stone as 'one of this year's greatest mavericks'. Mike Barber (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) reports that both sides "are expected to file several motions in preparation for his court-martial. Depending upon the motions, the judge could rule immediately or take several days to decide". Hal Bernton (Seattle Times) observes that this "opening round . . . could be key to defense hopes of putting the Iraq war on trial". As Sir! No Sir! noted in an e-mailing yesterday (click here), "The military's intention IS to SILENCE VOICES OF RESISTANCE and make an example out of Lt. Watada."
While much has been made of the press being asked to testify, Jeff Paterson, reporting for Courage to Resist, notes that activists have also received military subpoenas including Phan Nguyen (Olympian Movement for Justice and Peace) and Gerri Haynes (Veterans for Peace). If found guilty of all charges, Watada could be sentenced to six years.
A Citizens' Hearings is being convened January 20-22 at Evergreen State College will take place in Tacoma, Washington later this month.
Ehren Watada is part of a growing resistance within the military that includes Kyle Snyder, Darrell Anderson, Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Joshua Key, Ivan Brobeck, Camilo Meija, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Jeremy Hinzman, Corey Glass, Patrick Hart, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on 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 this month.
Yesterday, in Washington, DC, House Rep. Yawn Emanuel (Democrat, Illionis) was among those Democrats attempting to stage a blah press conference when approximately sixty peace activists began chanting. Leigh Ann Caldwell reported on The KPFA Evening News yesterday that Cindy Sheehan stated there were no 'free passes' and featured the activists chanting "De-escalate, investigate, troops out now!"
As David Swason noted today on KPFA's The Morning Show, the Democrats should be saying thank you because it gave the press conference meat that it wouldn't otherwise have in today's press (Iraq was added as a topic in today's reports), he also noted that Yawn "scurried off and left" allowing Cindy Sheehan to take over the press conference and she "did a better press conference, for about 45 minutes, than the Democrats could" have.
[Swanson writes about how poorly the press conference had been going and offers video links here.]
On Nancy Pelosi, the new Speaker of the House in Congress (and the first woman to hold that post), Swanson stated that she was ignoring "what put her into power" which "was public opposition to this war and to the criminal nature of this administration."
Swanson feels that "people seem to understand we have to do a lot more than hope and cross our fingers" and that it's a "very different situation from when Clinton took office [1992] and everyone went home and assumed it would go well".
Though activists grasp the importance of ending the war, it's not that clear that elected officials do. One exception is US Rep. Lynn Woolsey who told Leigh Ann Caldwell, "If the Democrats don't end this war by 2008, we'll have lost our standing with the American public"
(yesterday's The KPFA Evening News). Another is US Rep. John Murtha who writes at The Huffington Post that he "will be recommending to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that we begin extensive hearings starting on January 17, 2007 that will address accountability, military readiness, intelligence oversight and the activities of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan." A third is US Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick who states, "We won in November because the people said bring the troops home" (KPFA's The Morning Show today).
Meanwhile, in DC, White House anonymice try to sell escalation as a "bump" and not a "surge" since the escalation numbers are expected to be lower than originally hinted at. CBS and AP report that "military commanders" have told the Bully Boy's they can handle an escalation of "about 9,000 soldiers and Marines into Iraq with another 11,000 on alert outside the country". Early reports have noted that the Bully Boy would prefer to send 20,000 to 30,000 to Iraq. 20,000 isn't 'splitting the difference' or a 'bump.' It is an escalation. As Molly Ivins (Truthdig) observes: "This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion. And it's doubly wrong for him to send 20,000 more soldiers into this hellhole, as he reportedly will announce next week. . . . We need to cut through all the smoke and mirrors and come up with an exit strategy, forthwith."
And in Iraq today?
Bombings?
Steven R. Hurst (AP) reports two car bombs in Baghdad took 13 lives and left 25 wounded, resulted in "six smoldering cars," set a fuel station ablaze, and that "[a] woman in a black Muslim veil sat weeping on a curb outside Yarmouk hospital". The Latin American News Agency notes that the "two car bombs exploded at the same time" as "hundreds of people were in line at" the fuel station. Al Jazeera notes that Iraq's Interior Ministry states it was two car bombs but reports the first was a roadside bomb and the second was a car bomb. Reuters notes that a roadside bombing in Iskandariya killed one Iraq soldier and left four more wounded.
Shootings?
Reuters notes that a "police colonel" was shot dead in Mosul while, in Kerbala, city council member Akrem al-Zubaidi and three of his body guards were shot dead. DPA notes that the murders took place at a fake checkpoint and that "Al-Zobaydi was a close follower of the Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Muhammad al-Sistani."
Corpses?
AFP notes that five corpses were found in Baghdad ("two of them headless"). Reuters notes that four corpses were discovered in Hilla.
Meanwhile, as the show execution has led to a feeding frenzy in all media, big and small, besides giving little attention to the tragic fact that the 3,000 mark for number of US troops who have died in Iraq was passed on Sunday, it's also allowed the Giddiest Gabor in the Green Zone, Willie Caldwell, to make laughable statements (which the press has run with) that things have gotten peaceful in Iraq. Peace doesn't include the murders that took place when the US military attacked the Iraqi National Dialogue Front (see Tuesday's snapshot).
Tom Hayden (Huffington Post) noted the attack and that Saleh al-Mutlaq, head of the NDF, advocates that all foreign troops (including US troops) leave Iraq. Today, Raed Jarrar (CounterPunch) notes that the "attack against the National Dialogue Front (NDF) led by Al-Mutlaq does not seem to be accidental. The Bush administration's attempts to create a pro-occupation coalition in the Iraqi government failed last week after Al-Sistani, the grand Shia Ayatollah, refused to support the U.S. plan. The bush administration's plan seems to have changed from simply excluding anti-occupation political parties (like Sadrists, Al-Fadila party, NDF, and others) from the Iraqi government to actively bombing them. The attack on NDF's headquarters in Baghdad is nothing more than the first step in the administration's plan B. The Al-Sadr movement and its militia, Al-Mahdi Army, seem to be next, and others will follow."
The feeding frenzy on the show execution silences many stories such as Watada, war resisters, the slaughter at NDF headquarters, the daily violence and chaos. The "silences" aren't that dissimilar from the ones that Tillie Olsen wrote about in her groundbreaking book Silences. Olsen passed away Monday. Today, Dahr Jamail will be addressing Iraq tonight on KPFA's Flashpoints.
Finally, as Sandra Lupien noted on yesterday's The KPFA Evening News, Suzanne Swift left the military brig yesterday after serving 30 days for going AWOL. Swift will now complete the five years remaining on her Army contract.
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Hopefully, shortly after that, I'll have a review and, right now, my plan is to review Into The White.
And on Carly, here's this from the AP:
Nobody does it better than Carly Simon. That's what QVC officials are hoping when the singer promotes her new CD, "Into White," on Friday.
Simon, 61, will perform with her children, Ben and Sally Taylor - from her marriage to James Taylor - during a 30-minute broadcast on the cable home shopping channel, a subsidiary of Liberty Media Corp. The broadcast begins at 7 p.m. (EST).
And this is from Howard Cohen's "Carly Simon's latest album recalls the good old days" (Miami Herald):
Simon's deal with Columbia called for an album of standards -- Moonlight Serenade -- with the option for another should it prove successful. Her desire was to record a new album with Bill Withers' producer, Booker T., at the boards. Instead, Sony exercised its option. The push-and-pull led to the more distinctive Into White and Simon managed to contribute one of her own songs to the process. She agreed to do an old war horse like Over the Rainbow, but only on her ambitious terms. Simon says her stark, nuanced performance was inspired by watching Katharine McPhee's ostentatious rendition on American Idol last season. "I thought what a good opportunity to strip the song bare," she said. "As long as I reharmonize them, they feel like my own."
Still, it would be a shame to lose a writer's voice like Simon's. After all she, along with contemporaries like King, Mitchell, Taylor, Gordon Lightfoot and Paul Simon, revolutionized popular music by taking the folk flavorings of the '60s and turning the music inward to an intensely personal nature.
Simon was a master of the strong-female, confessional pop song: You're So Vain. That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be. You Belong to Me. Vengeance. The effects are still felt in the work of next-generation acts such as Tori Amos, John Mayer, James Blunt, Damien Rice, Jack Johnson, Corrine Bailey Rae and Norah Jones.
"Carly is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and certainly could write an album of her own material and I hope she does," Landers says.
Today's been very busy. In terms of speaking, we spoke to four groups of students and do not say students don't care about the war. That is utter nonsense. And don't think they don't notice who covers Iraq and who doesn't. Elaine's "What the reaction (press) to the 3,000 mark means" sounds positively tame compared to some of the strong critiques that students were offering today.
That's it for me today. Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, Januray 4, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, US war resister Ehren Watada's pretrial hearing begins, hide it behind 'surge' or 'bump' but it's still an escalation, and activists in DC interrupt a standard issue press conference to press for answers on Iraq,
Starting with Ehren Watada. In June, Watada became the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. In August, the US military held an Article 32 hearing. Now the court-martial is set for February 5th and the pre-trial hearing began today at Fort Lewis is Washington. The pre-trial hearing will determine the framework in which arguments can be made. As noted yesterday, Eric Seitz, Watada's attorney, has stated that the military is attempting to prevent Watada from making his case for why he refused to deploy.
During the Article 32 hearing, Watada's defense called three witnesses, Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois' College of Law, Champagne; Denis Halliday, the former Assistant Secretary General of the UN; and retired Colonel Ann Wright. These three witnesses addressed the issue of the war, it's legality, and the responsibilities of a service member to disobey any order that they believed was unlawful. The testimony was necessary because Watada's refusing to participate in the illegal war due to the fact that he feels it is (a) illegal and (b) immoral.
What the military would like to do in today's pre-trial hearing is reduce everything to whether or not Watada deployed with his unit? The answer, of course, is that he did not. The military does not want the issue of the legality of the war addressed. By closing off this discussion, they not only would destroy Watada's right to defend himself, they would be able, as the Bully Boy long has been able to, set the terms of the discussion and control what is and is not discussed.
Robbing Watada of his ability to present a full defense is a very serious issue and much more serious than fretting over whether a journalist might have to decide "Do I testify or not?" (No journalists will be testifying at the pre-trial.) But the most serious issue today is whether or not Watada will be allowed to present the best defense or if he will only be allowed to say "yes" and "no" in answer to the prosecution's questions or if, as Aileen Alfandary noted on KPFA. this morning ( The Morning Show), he will be able to argue that
the war is illegal? This stance, putting the war on trial, is one that worries the US military.
On the December 9th RadioNation with Laura Flanders, Carolyn Ho (Ehren Watada's mother) noted that her son felt the decision was "the best thing he could do for his men .. . remain behind and speak truth" and that he feels his duty is to the Constitution which is the supreme law of the land in the United States.
Mark Tran (Guardian of London) reports: "Peace activists, international law experts and war resisters past and present are girding themselves for events designed to drum up support for Lt Watada, recently described by Rolling Stone as 'one of this year's greatest mavericks'. Mike Barber (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) reports that both sides "are expected to file several motions in preparation for his court-martial. Depending upon the motions, the judge could rule immediately or take several days to decide". Hal Bernton (Seattle Times) observes that this "opening round . . . could be key to defense hopes of putting the Iraq war on trial". As Sir! No Sir! noted in an e-mailing yesterday (click here), "The military's intention IS to SILENCE VOICES OF RESISTANCE and make an example out of Lt. Watada."
While much has been made of the press being asked to testify, Jeff Paterson, reporting for Courage to Resist, notes that activists have also received military subpoenas including Phan Nguyen (Olympian Movement for Justice and Peace) and Gerri Haynes (Veterans for Peace). If found guilty of all charges, Watada could be sentenced to six years.
A Citizens' Hearings is being convened January 20-22 at Evergreen State College will take place in Tacoma, Washington later this month.
Ehren Watada is part of a growing resistance within the military that includes Kyle Snyder, Darrell Anderson, Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, Mark Wilkerson, Agustin Aguayo, Joshua Key, Ivan Brobeck, Camilo Meija, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Jeremy Hinzman, Corey Glass, Patrick Hart, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on 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 this month.
Yesterday, in Washington, DC, House Rep. Yawn Emanuel (Democrat, Illionis) was among those Democrats attempting to stage a blah press conference when approximately sixty peace activists began chanting. Leigh Ann Caldwell reported on The KPFA Evening News yesterday that Cindy Sheehan stated there were no 'free passes' and featured the activists chanting "De-escalate, investigate, troops out now!"
As David Swason noted today on KPFA's The Morning Show, the Democrats should be saying thank you because it gave the press conference meat that it wouldn't otherwise have in today's press (Iraq was added as a topic in today's reports), he also noted that Yawn "scurried off and left" allowing Cindy Sheehan to take over the press conference and she "did a better press conference, for about 45 minutes, than the Democrats could" have.
[Swanson writes about how poorly the press conference had been going and offers video links here.]
On Nancy Pelosi, the new Speaker of the House in Congress (and the first woman to hold that post), Swanson stated that she was ignoring "what put her into power" which "was public opposition to this war and to the criminal nature of this administration."
Swanson feels that "people seem to understand we have to do a lot more than hope and cross our fingers" and that it's a "very different situation from when Clinton took office [1992] and everyone went home and assumed it would go well".
Though activists grasp the importance of ending the war, it's not that clear that elected officials do. One exception is US Rep. Lynn Woolsey who told Leigh Ann Caldwell, "If the Democrats don't end this war by 2008, we'll have lost our standing with the American public"
(yesterday's The KPFA Evening News). Another is US Rep. John Murtha who writes at The Huffington Post that he "will be recommending to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that we begin extensive hearings starting on January 17, 2007 that will address accountability, military readiness, intelligence oversight and the activities of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan." A third is US Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick who states, "We won in November because the people said bring the troops home" (KPFA's The Morning Show today).
Meanwhile, in DC, White House anonymice try to sell escalation as a "bump" and not a "surge" since the escalation numbers are expected to be lower than originally hinted at. CBS and AP report that "military commanders" have told the Bully Boy's they can handle an escalation of "about 9,000 soldiers and Marines into Iraq with another 11,000 on alert outside the country". Early reports have noted that the Bully Boy would prefer to send 20,000 to 30,000 to Iraq. 20,000 isn't 'splitting the difference' or a 'bump.' It is an escalation. As Molly Ivins (Truthdig) observes: "This war is being prosecuted in our names, with our money, with our blood, against our will. Polls consistently show that less than 30 percent of the people want to maintain current troop levels. It is obscene and wrong for the president to go against the people in this fashion. And it's doubly wrong for him to send 20,000 more soldiers into this hellhole, as he reportedly will announce next week. . . . We need to cut through all the smoke and mirrors and come up with an exit strategy, forthwith."
And in Iraq today?
Bombings?
Steven R. Hurst (AP) reports two car bombs in Baghdad took 13 lives and left 25 wounded, resulted in "six smoldering cars," set a fuel station ablaze, and that "[a] woman in a black Muslim veil sat weeping on a curb outside Yarmouk hospital". The Latin American News Agency notes that the "two car bombs exploded at the same time" as "hundreds of people were in line at" the fuel station. Al Jazeera notes that Iraq's Interior Ministry states it was two car bombs but reports the first was a roadside bomb and the second was a car bomb. Reuters notes that a roadside bombing in Iskandariya killed one Iraq soldier and left four more wounded.
Shootings?
Reuters notes that a "police colonel" was shot dead in Mosul while, in Kerbala, city council member Akrem al-Zubaidi and three of his body guards were shot dead. DPA notes that the murders took place at a fake checkpoint and that "Al-Zobaydi was a close follower of the Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Muhammad al-Sistani."
Corpses?
AFP notes that five corpses were found in Baghdad ("two of them headless"). Reuters notes that four corpses were discovered in Hilla.
Meanwhile, as the show execution has led to a feeding frenzy in all media, big and small, besides giving little attention to the tragic fact that the 3,000 mark for number of US troops who have died in Iraq was passed on Sunday, it's also allowed the Giddiest Gabor in the Green Zone, Willie Caldwell, to make laughable statements (which the press has run with) that things have gotten peaceful in Iraq. Peace doesn't include the murders that took place when the US military attacked the Iraqi National Dialogue Front (see Tuesday's snapshot).
Tom Hayden (Huffington Post) noted the attack and that Saleh al-Mutlaq, head of the NDF, advocates that all foreign troops (including US troops) leave Iraq. Today, Raed Jarrar (CounterPunch) notes that the "attack against the National Dialogue Front (NDF) led by Al-Mutlaq does not seem to be accidental. The Bush administration's attempts to create a pro-occupation coalition in the Iraqi government failed last week after Al-Sistani, the grand Shia Ayatollah, refused to support the U.S. plan. The bush administration's plan seems to have changed from simply excluding anti-occupation political parties (like Sadrists, Al-Fadila party, NDF, and others) from the Iraqi government to actively bombing them. The attack on NDF's headquarters in Baghdad is nothing more than the first step in the administration's plan B. The Al-Sadr movement and its militia, Al-Mahdi Army, seem to be next, and others will follow."
The feeding frenzy on the show execution silences many stories such as Watada, war resisters, the slaughter at NDF headquarters, the daily violence and chaos. The "silences" aren't that dissimilar from the ones that Tillie Olsen wrote about in her groundbreaking book Silences. Olsen passed away Monday. Today, Dahr Jamail will be addressing Iraq tonight on KPFA's Flashpoints.
Finally, as Sandra Lupien noted on yesterday's The KPFA Evening News, Suzanne Swift left the military brig yesterday after serving 30 days for going AWOL. Swift will now complete the five years remaining on her Army contract.
iraq
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the morning show
radionation with laura flanderslaura flanders
leigh ann caldwell
david swansonthe kpfa evening news
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