First things first. I need to do a correction to yesterday's post ("Questions Amy Goodman should have asked?"). I read Rebecca's "dear katrina" from 2006 and she said Katrina vanden Heuvel won an award from Planned Parenthood in the 80s. I said the 90s. I looked around online and even found a site (a college) saying she won it in 2003. Completely lost, I went to C.I. I said I probably needed to do a correction.
"Don't bother," C.I. said back.
"What?"
"The date doesn't matter," C.I. explained, "because it never happened."
What? C.I. walked me through and even ended up pulling the actual awards up ("Check the record!"). The Maggies are the Planned Parenthood awards. They can go to anything, TV programs, magazine articles, columns, you name it. Katrina vanden Heuvel never won an award from Planned Parenthood, The Nation magazine won an award.
Check it out, the award went to The Nation. She did write the article so she can claim some credit for the magazine winning an award. But, as C.I. pointed out, look at the years before, that year and the years after. You will see Ellen Goodman, for instance, being named in an award. The award credited in write ups to Katrina vanden Heuvel (even at The Nation) was not given to her. She is not named. The award goes to . . . The Nation.
So, while I appreciate C.I.'s point that you don't need to correct a year for an award that was never won, let me correct that Katrina vanden Heuvel won an award from Planned Parenthood -- she didn't. She never did. If they had wanted to award her an award they could have. Often, they awarded them to writers. In her case, the award went to The Nation.
So, to clarify, Katrina vanden Heuvel has never won an award from Planned Parenthood, despite what is all over the web, including at The Nation. As C.I. said, "Check the record." Look it up. You'll see the award went to The Nation magazine.
Here are the awards for 1994:
The Nation magazine for "Eastward, Christian Soldiers! Right-to-Lifers Hit Russia"
Concord Monitor (NH) for series "Sex Education — Teen Realities"
Chicago Tribune for series "Saving Our Children: When Kids Have Kids"
Concentric Media and KTEH-TV for When Abortion Was Illegal: Untold Stories
Home Box Office for Talking Sex: Making Love in the '90s
KSBW-TV for Not Me: Innocence in the Time of AIDS
WBBR 1130 AM for "Condom-Phobics"
The award went to The Nation magazine. It did not go to Katrina vanden Heuvel.
Individual writers have been singled out, for instance Ellen Goodman, Katha Pollitt, Judy Mann, Eve Ensler, Ani DiFranco. That did not happen with Katrina vanden Heuvel and she has won no award from Planned Parenthood.
Here's a section of Amy Goodman's "U.S. Frees International Terrorist" (Common Dreams):
A terrorist lives in Miami. He is not in hiding, or part of some sleeper cell. He’s an escaped convict, wanted internationally for blowing up a jetliner. His name is Luis Posada Carriles. As the nation was focused on the Virginia Tech shooting, the Bush administration quietly allowed Posada's release from a federal immigration detention center.
It was Oct. 6, 1976, a clear day in the Caribbean. Cubana Airlines Flight 455 departed from Barbados, bound for Cuba, with a stop in Trinidad. Posada then ran a private investigative firm in Venezuela. Two of his employees were on the flight, deplaned in Trinidad and left C-4 plastic explosive on board, disguised as a tube of toothpaste. Shortly after takeoff, the bomb exploded and the plane went down. All 73 people on board were killed.
Among them were six young Guyanese students on their way to Cuba to study medicine. Now an American citizen, Roseanne Nenninger, sister of Raymond Persaud, one of those students, was 11 years old when her brother was killed: "We had a huge farewell party for our brother and everyone came, the family members, everyone from the local community, all his friends, school friends, so it was a great day for all of us. And the next day, we all went to the airport. He was dressed in his brown suit that was made by a tailor especially for him getting on a plane. It was his first time on an airplane. We watched him walk on the tarmac and head onto the airplane. And it was a great moment for all of us."
Within hours, he was dead. He was just one of the victims, one of 73. There was also the entire Cuban Olympic fencing team, young athletes. Each with a name, each with a story. The Cubana Airlines bombing remains to this day the only midair bombing of a civilian airliner in the Western Hemisphere. Posada was tried and convicted in Venezuela of organizing the bombing. He was imprisoned, then escaped in 1985.
So there's a new war resister whose name we know, Terri Johnson. She's an 18-year-old, African-American who said no to war. Due to being a woman and African-American, I'm wondering how much attention she'll receive?
Forgive me for being cynical but war resisters get so little attention and I can't imagine that changing when you factor in the sexim and racism that exists in so much of today's media.
But Terri Johnson did a brave thing and she deserves to be noted and applauded.
And all the war resisters need to be applauded. The list keeps growing because the movement keeps growing. But you can't read about it in The Nation. You can't follow the movement there. You can open the magazine and find Ehren Watada called a coward. They must be very proud of that. I think that rag is disgusting. But what can you expect from a woman who claims she won an award that went, not to her, but to the magazine?
There's more on Terri Johnson in C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, April 25, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the United Nations raises the issue of Iraqi fatalities, US House Rep and 2008 presidential contender Dennis Kucinich moves to impeach Dick Cheney, the wall in Baghdad continues to be an issue, and more.
Starting with war resisters. Last Saturday, the latest public war resisters spoke in Greensboro, Terri Johnson. jarnocan (North Carolina World Can't Wait) reports, "Terri Johnson of Greensboro was like a lot of other young people with limited options after high school who are set upon by US Army recruiters. She believed the promises of the recruiters who told her that the Army was nothing more than a good shot at a college education and a prosperous future. She discovered, as do many others who sign up, that not only wa she signing her life away, but the lives of people targeted by the illegal and immoral war on Iraq as well. So she did the right thing. She refused to fight." Jordan Green (Yes! Weekly) notes that "the granddaughter of past Gressnsboro NAACP President Gladys Shipman, deliberately failed to complete her final fitness test at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, and then went AWOL on Sept. 28, 2006, the day before graduation." Speaking at a rally at Governmental Plaza, Johnson stated: "I'm not anti-war one hundred percent because some wars are worth fighting for. But this war is not worth fighting for. I really don't look at myself as a hero. I was just doing it for me because [the war] wasn't for me. There were a lot of my buddies who didn't want to drop out like me, but they didn't have have the courage to make the decision I did." On leaving during basics, Johnson stated, "All you got to do is leave. Throw the towel in. They cannot stop you. Stay gone for thirty-one days. Get your two-way ticket to Lousiville, Kentucky. The MPs will meet you there and pat you down. You will be there for four days and eat this horrible food. The only thing you cannot do is get a federal job. Okay, I wasn't that interested in working for the federal government anyway. The other thing you can't do is re-enlist in another branch of the military."
Terri Johnson is part of a movement of war resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Dean Walcott, Camilo Mejia, Linjamin Mull, Joshua Key, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Camilo Mejia, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake 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.
Meanwhile, the United Nations is accusing the puppet government in Iraq of a different form of resistance. Yara Bayoumy (Reuters) reports that the UN states the government is "withholding sensitive civilian casualty figures because the government fears the data would be used to paint a 'very grim' picture of a worsening humanitarian crisis." CNN reports that the refusal to supply the data has prevented the UN from calculating the numbers of Iraqis killed in the first four months of 2007. Tina Susman (Los Angeles Times) states that numbers the Los Angeles Times have "obtained from various ministries" puts the 2007 civilian toll at 5,509 thus far this year. The Times figures are incomplete, it should be noted, and Susman is incorrect when she claims that the US "military does not count civilian deaths that occur during its operations". The US military has kept a count -- Nancy A. Youssef broke that story right before Knight Ridder became McClatchy Newspapers. You didn't hear much about that because it was time to travel-logue in indymedia. But the US military is keeping figures, has been keeping figures. They will admit to keeping figures since June of 2005. They refuse to release those figures to the press or to the public. So when the puppet government refuses to release figures to the UN, it all has a familiar ring to it.
Al Jazeera reports, "On Wednesday, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (Unami) blamed the majority of the bloodshed on sectarian fighting, and expressed concern about the human-rights record of Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister." And the response? AFP reports that the puppet, Nouri al-Maliki, issued a statement: "The Iraqi government announces that is has major reservations about this report, which lack precision in its presentation of information, lasts crediblity in many of its points and lacks balance in its presentation of the human rights situation in Iraq." Around the world, chuckles were heard as the puppet questioned someone else's credibility.
The report comes as IRIN notes that Baghdad's "infrastructure continues to deteriorate, causing more violence, health hazards and misery for its seven million inhabitants" and notes "at least 43 workers have been killed in the past few months while collecting rubbish, changing lights or repairing sewage systems in the capital, mostly in the more dangerous neighborhoods of Sadr City, Alawi, Dora, Bab al-Muadham and Adhamiyah."
Turning to United States, US House Rep and 2008 presidential contender Dennis Kucinich
"introduced articles of impeachment Tuesday against Vice President Dick Cheney," The Post Chronicle reported noting that the "main chrages are that Cheney used manipulated intelligence to win support for the war in Iraq, and falsely claimed a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida." For many outlets it was time to put on the old 45 of Simon & Garfunkle . . . Hello darkness my old friend . . . As they "covered" the news by not covering it. The sounds of silence.
Dennis Bernstein addressed the issue of impeaching Cheney on Flashpoints yesterday, noting that Kucinich "broke the silence in Congress . . . Kucinich's actions follow on many calls and a series of througly well constructed and researched arguments for impeachment. Among the strongest cases made for impeachment is that by a former prosecutor, Elizabeth de la Vega with over 2 decades as a federal prosecutor. She is the author of United States v. George W. Bush et al. She's been lecturing on the case for impeachment and following the unraveling also of the Attorney General.".
Elizabeth de la Vega: "I think it's an extremely strong case and what's beautiful about it is that it's very elegantly done and it's just very, very simple. As you mentioned Article I is manipulating the intelligence process to deceive the public and Congress by making up, essentially, a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction so that the administration could invade Iraq. . . . And the specific nature of that fabrication has to do, of course, with the weapons of mass destruction. Article II is very similar except that it relates to the same type of fabrication with regard to a link between . . . al Qaeda and Iraq and 9-11. The third one has to do with Iran. And I think, really, the case is almost irrefutable."
Robert Naiman (The Huffington Post) addresses the press treatment of the issue and notes that "Kucinich seems to be one of the few Members of Congress aware that threatening to attack other countries is a violation of the U.N. Charter, a treaty wo which the U.S. is signatory." Dave Lindorff (who has been covering the impeachment movement across the country) writes (at CounterPunch) that, as a result of Kucinich's actions, "The mainstream corporate media, which has so far been largely ignoring the issue of impeachment, will have to go to extra lengths of censorship to block out the popular movement now, with a bill on the floor of the House, and with impeachment resolutions passing in the Vermont state legislature. It will be interesting to see how the nation's new gatekeepers handle the story now that it is breaking out into the open so forcefully." Those in and near Trenton, New Jersey this weekend, should be aware of the demonstration where "a Human Mural" will spell out "IMPEACH" at the State House in Trenton on 125 W. State Street, Saturday April 28th -- more information can be found here (AfterDowningStreet). That is not the only event across the country. Progressive Democrats of America's Marcy Winograd spoke with Lila Garrett on Connect The Dots With Lila Garrett on KPFK Monday. Winograd and others will be taking part in the California Democratic Party State Convention which will be held in the
San Diego Convention Center this weekend, 111 West Harbor Drive, Convention Center, San Diego. PDA will be mobilizing around many issues including impeachment -- "Impeachment Is On Our Table."
In addition, note this from CODEPINK:
Impeachment Day: April 28It's time to say NO to impunity for lying, spying, and torture. George Bush and Dick Cheney's high crimes and misdemeanors demand accountability. Since Congress doesn't get it, on April 28 Americans are going to spell it out for them: I M P E A C H ! More...
A transcript of Dennis Kucinich's press conference can be found here and, from that, we'll note this from his conference, "This goes beyond partisan terms. This is being done to defend our constitutional system of government. This is being done so that all tose of us who took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States can understand that this impeachment is one valid way in furtherance of the defense of our Constitution. I don't see this as bening distant from anyone, in any capacity in our government. Everyone must reflect on this. Years from now, people will ask, 'Why didn't the United States government respond when they saw this threat to our democracy? Why didn't people inside the government respond?' if this doesn't move forward. And so this really isn't so much, I might add, about the vice president as it is about who we are as a people. What is it that we stand for? What kind of government do the people of the United States expect and deserve? It's not appropriate for the government to lie to people. It is wrong for government officials -- you know, the vice president, in this case -- to take this nation into war based on lies."
In semi-related news, US Secretary of State and Anger Condi Rice has a subpoena with her name on it from the US House Judiciary Committee. CBS News and AP report that she will be asked to testify (presumably under oath) about the lies that Iraq "was seeking uranium from Africa." On a 21-10 vote, the committee agreed to compell Rice's testimony.
From what Americans want to what Iraqis want, CNN reports: "Shiits in Baghdad gathered Wednesday to protest a wall surrounding the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya. The U.S. and Iraqi militaries say the wall is for protection, but radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr issued a statement calling the wall sectarian, racist and oppressive. He vowed to support all Iraqis -- Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and Christians -- and called on them to unite against 'the evil will of the occupier'." Al Jazeera notes, "Moqtada al-Sadr's remarks were the first by the Mahdi Army head since the US military said last week that it was building a wall in Baghdad's Adhamiyah district." Sally Kohn (Common Dreams) shares her thoughts on the issue, "Good fences have never made good policy, just as they've never made good neighbors. Bush's embrace of wall building and secrecy reminds me of totalitarian feudal lords. But feudalism failed too, didn't it? Now that Nouri al-Maliki has poked a hole in Bush's Baghdad wall plans, can we start building some bridges instead?"
In violence today in Iraq . . .
Bombings?
CNN reports: "A truck loaded with chlorine detonated Wednesday at a military checkpoint on the western outskirts of Baghdad, killing one Iraqi and wounded two others". Reuters notes a Balad Ruz bombing that killed 9 and left 16 wounded, a Baghdad roadside bombing ("near a petrol station") that killed 2, and a Baghdad mortar attack on the west Rashid section of Baghdad resulted one death and five wounded. Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Mosul bombing that left one person dead, a bobming near Tikrit that wounded two police officers
Shootings?
Reuters reports Ali al-Bayati ("Iraq's former bodybuilding champion") was shot dead in Mosul, another Mosul shooting claimed two lives and left one person wounded, a police officer shot dead in Tuz Khurmato.
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 18 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes a corpse discovered in Hilla.
Finally, Tom Hayden (The Huffington Post) examines a number of issues (life on the ground in Iraq, scandals of the administration) and we'll zoom in on the commentary regarding the US House and Senate measures, "It is hard to know what to make of these Democratic proposals. To what extent are they designed seriously or only for political cover? The most dangerous one is the open-ended authorization to continue combat operations against 'all extremists', which should be opposed by the anti-war movement and their Democratic allies. The related problem is the resurfacing of the 'humanitarian hawks' who delude themselves into believing the US military can succeed in a more low-visibility role combining counter-insurgency and economic development. The flaw in their thinking is that American soldiers can serve as 'trainers' to an Iraqi state described as sectarian even by the Baker-Hamilton Report.
And today Amy Goodman interviewed Bill Moyers on Democracy Now! whose Bill Moyers Journal debuts this week on PBS stations (starts tonight on some PBS stations) and the first episode focuses on the selling of the illegal war.
iraq
terri johnson
north carolina world cant wait
jarnocan
connect the dots with lila garrett
kpfk
tom hayden
democracy nowamy goodman
flashpointsdennis bernstein
elizabeth de la vega
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Questions Amy Goodman should have asked?
On Democracy Now! today, Katrina vanden Heuvel gas bagged. I've never thought Amy Goodman was god and I've never thought she was the devil. So I'm going to offer a few things that should have been asked of vanden Heuvel. I have two tiers: questions Goodman should have known to ask and questions I could have passed on.
Questions Goodman should have known to ask:
1) Feb. 8, 2007, Democracy Now! broadcast "Cheering Movers and Art Student Spies: Was Israel Tracking the HijackersBefore the 9/11 Attacks?" which was about Salon killing the print story and CounterPunch picking it up. In passing it was noted that The Nation had killed it as well. Since we now know (see "Answer the questions") that The Nation picked up the story in the summer of 2006 and planned to include it in a December issue but cancelled the story at the last minute, Katrina vanden Heuvel should have been asked why the story was cancelled?
In the segment, much was made about Salon cancelling the story. Katrina vanden Heuvel (who took the time this year to brag about how the magazine can't be censored) should have been asked why she commissioned a story and then backed out at the last minute?
Considering that the issue it was set for was most likely the one where Christopher Hayes wrote his idiotic 'case closed' 9-11 story which didn't mention one word about spies and considering that Katrina vanden Heuvel made an ass out of herself in that breathy voice she affects saying on Air America Radio that Hayes had written an exhaustive story, she should have been asked why she LIED because if it didn't include the spy element -- an element she was aware of since the summer of 2006 -- it wasn't exhaustive.
2) Last week the Supreme Court destroyed Roe v. Wade. Since vanden Heuvel was more than happy to pick up a prize in the 90s for a (badly) written article on abortion, she should have been asked to comment on the Court's decision from last week. I'm sure she wouldn't bring it up. She not only wants to be the only "girl" in the room, she also doesn't want the "boys" to see her as "thinking like a girl." So she avoids those topics. That's why she didn't bother to blather on -- even once -- in her laughable Editor's Cut about the Court's decision once last week.
3) What do you think about what's going on Iraq? She should have been asked that question. They tried to put up a wall, nearly 200 Iraqis died last Wednesday (now known as "Bloody Wednesday). She edits and publishes a magazine. She should have been asked to weigh in. Now she wouldn't like to talk Iraq anymore than abortion (and I believe we'll be addressing her silence on Iraq at Third this weekend).
Questions that I would have asked and Goodman should have if she was aware of the issues.
1) Do you hate women?
That's a serious question. As we've tracked at The Third Estate Sunday Review (see "The Nation Stats" for the most recent stats), The Nation publishes one woman writer for every four men. It's also true when listing magazines that will be effected by the postal rate, Katrina vanden Heuvel naturally thought to give a shout out to the conservative National Review but somehow managed to forget Ms. magazine.
2) Do you believe in equality?
See above. If you do believe in equality, why do you run the magazine the way you do?
3) Do you not believe that women deserve a fair shot?
See above.
4) Why will you magazine not cover war resisters?
Ehren Watada was a sidebar in one issue (only after being called a coward in the main article). Why has the magazine refused to note the war resisters? Why has the magazine refused to cover Kyle Snyder? Darrell Anderson? Ricky Clousing? Mark Wilkerson? Ivan Brobeck? I can keep going. Why is the magazine she runs so against war resisters? Long term writers aren't, why is Katrina vanden Heuvel?
5) Do you really think your pathetic editorial and your pathetic editorial in 2005 count for covering Iraq?
Seriously, a weekly magazine, for the 'left,' can't address Iraq? What's up with that? (Yes, her husband wrote an article -- a wonderful article -- recently but the magazine has covered Hurricane Katrina more seriously than the war. In fact, in a 12 month period, three covers were about Hurricane Katrina.)
Those questions (and more) should have been asked.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, April 24, 2007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, a new documentary on war resisters is making the rounds of the film festivals, Dems and Bully Boy seek out applause lines and more.
Starting with war resisters. The AP reported on Kevin Benderman's appearance at the Atlanta Film Festival Sunday "for the world premiere of the documentary Soldiers of Conscience. The film, which later will be presented in film festivals in Seattle and Massachusetts, is about Benderman and other U.S. soldiers whose experiences in Iraq prompted them to seek out conscientious objector status." The documentary is directed by Catherine Ryan and Gary Weimberg of Luna Productions in Berkeley. Peter Coyote narrates the documentary which features, among others Camilo Mejia, Aidan Delgado, and Joshua Casteel. Benderman tells AP, "If there's anything I can get across to soldiers, it's that I'm not against them. But I am against the war." AP reports that Kevin and Monica Benderman are focusing "on 'Benderman's Bridge, Inc.,' a project to help troops returning from Iraq adjust to civilian life through job training and peer counseling."
Another war resister is Joshua Key who tells his story in the new book The Deserter's Tale which has gotten a lot of attention. Al Cardwell, in a letter to the Sonoma Index-Tribune, writes:
It was reported in the news that President Bush was horrified when he learned of the shooting on the Virginia Tech campus that took 32 lives. Why the horror, George?
Under you "democracy at the end of a gun" - guidance, massacres like that have been occuring daily for the past five years in Iraq.
I just started reading a new book, The Deserter's Tale by Joshua Key, the story of an American soldier who walked away from the war in Iraq. Key enlisted in the Army in 2002 and went to Iraq with the 3rd Armed Calvary Regiment. In the book, Key relates that the war he found himself participating in was not the campaign against terrorists he had expected.
Instead, he saw Iraqi citizens beaten, shot and killed or maimed for little or no provocation. Nearly every other night, he participated in destructive raids on homes he was told were harboring terrorists and never finding evidence of terrorist activity. When he returned home on leave, Key knew he coud never return to Iraq, so he went into hiding and eventually sought asylum in Canada. (A total of 3,196 active-duty soldiers deserted from the United States Army in 2006.)
Support our troops - bring them home now. And impeach the pompous, irresponsible, fascist-minded simpleton in the White House!
Kevin Benderman and Joshua Key are part of a movement of war resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Dean Walcott, Camilo Mejia, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Camilo Mejia, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake 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.
While Benderman and others are war resisters, Natalie Storey (The New Mexican) reports on Steve Martinez who is self-checked out of the US army five months ago following the birth of his newborn daughter. Despite attempts by Paul von Zeilbauer (New York Times) to sell the myth that those self-checking out all suffer from PTSD and are not opposed to the illegal war, Martinez doesn't suffer from PTSD. Storey reports, "Tod Ensign, the director of Citizen Soldier, a New York-based group that works for the rights of soldiers and veterans, said Martinez faces three possibilities. His unit might allow him to rejoin if he goes through retraining or agrees to be deployed. He could face administrative punishment like loss of pay or rank. Or, in the worst-case scenario, Martinez could face a court-martial and, after a trial, be sentenced to time in a military prison. What happens to Martinez is largely up to his commander, Ensign said."
And what happens to Iraqis? It happens largely out of the media eye. John Stauber (Center for Media and Democracy) appeared today on KPFA's The Morning Show where he spoke with Andrea Lewis on a variety of topics. One of which was coverage of deaths. Stauber states, "And the best study on how many people have been killed in the Iraq war since the US, uh, unecessarily, uh, you know, illegally, immorally launched it four years ago if over a half a million Iraqis have died, over 500,000 Iraqis have died. You don't hear the media mentioning that either except, if they do, they'll say, of course, the Pentagon and uh the president of the United States dispute that figure.' But that's the best figure we've got."
The count Stauber's referring to was published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, and it found that over 655,000 Iraqis had died since the start of the illegal war. Celeste Biever (New Scientist) spoke with Gilbert Burnham who headed the team conducting the study and Burnham states: "Our intentions were not political. Our centre is for refugee and disaster studies and this is simply the kind of thing we do. Other counts, such as the Iraq Body Count, which consists of volunteer academics and activists based in the UK and the US, rely on reports of deaths in the English-language press, but the press is in the business of producing news, not statistics. The IBS uses news reports mainly written in English, by people who can't leave a very narrow area of Baghdad, while violence is worse in the Al Anbar and Diyala provinces. Mortuaries provide figures but a lot of bodies don't make it there. Also press accounts and mortuary numbers record violent deaths, but people die in a war from many cases."
As Stauber noted, big media either ignores the study or it presents qualifiers. Peter Hart (CounterSpin) rightly noted that a poll that found few Americans knew the number of Iraqis who had died was a reflection on the media and what they cover, not on Americans. Of course, for every Peter Hart or CounterSpin, you can count on those 'helpful' types to take to the airwaves to piss on the peace movement (and "piss on" is the only term for it) via a program that once a year decides to make Iraq the topic and declare that it's the fault of the "anti-war" movement that Americans do not know how many Iraqis have died. [Note: The unnamed guest is not John Stauber, nor is the program The Morning Show.]
Most of us were unaware that the peace movement, or anti-war (men just need that "war" in there apparently) owned one of the big three networks! They must since most Americans continue to get the bulk of their news from television airwaves and since the guest pinned the public's lack of knowledge of how many Iraqis had died not on the media but on the "anti-war" movement.
Possibly, it's time to step away from the public stage when you say (as the guest did) of US troop fatalities, "This is known so well that actually people don't need to be told how many American soldiers have died. Right now it is 3280-something." Actually, the day that aired (the assumption being that is live), the 3,300 benchmark had been passed the day before. Pompous guests don't always know what they're talking about, do they?
But let's be really clear, when you say people don't need to be told how many ___ have died -- Americans, Iraqis, whatever -- you need to consider if Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling and it's time to take your ass off the stage.
The program that made time for it's yearly check in on Iraq -- a program which airs over 100 hours each year? Book better guests. And when one wants to piss on the peace movement and the American people, possibly he shouldn't cite a study (The Lancet) and note that it found "was 650,000 people" when it found over 655,000. An attentive host could have corrected the guest. But a (male) host who wants to discuss the illegal war and do so with two guests might be asked why both guests are male to begin with? Are there no female math professors to book? I mean when math professor is the credential, it's seems really strange that the gates were yet again closed on women.
While the math professor didn't think it was important to note or talk about the US service members who had died, Mary Pitt (ICH) wonders: "Who grieves for them? While we have lost a hundred children in that conflagration for every student who fell prey to the mad gunner, the nation mourns only those who were presumably safe from harm while those who fell in service to our country are hidden from our sight and rarely mentioned by name unless they qualify as 'heroes.' They fly home under cover of night and then are treated as baggage on commecrial flights until they are taken to their home town. Their family, friends, and neighbors turn out for their funeral with none taking notice except, perhaps, Rev. Fred Phelps and his little band of ghouls. The funeral over, the families go home to deal with their own desolation as they reflect on the life that was lost and the hopes and dreams that will never come to fruition. They will forever wonder why." And find the deaths of their loved ones dismissed by a pompous "anti-war" math professor (whose field should require he know numbers but -- as witnessed by his bungling of The Lancet study numbers -- apparently doesn't).
Monday on WBAI's Law and Disorder, co-host Michael Smith asked co-host Michael Ratner what it was like to be returning to the United States right now from Germany and France and Ratner responded, "First thing you read, 157 people were killed in Iraq. This is after the so-called escalation -- 'surge' as they call it. Things certainly don't seem to be getting better and, in fact, I think what we may see happening in Iraq is something like the Tet Offensive at some point that will eventually drive the United States out militarily and that just the American people will finally say 'We've had it.' We see the Democrats screwing around a timetable in their legislation but not linking that really to any funding, just putting it in Bush claiming to veto it and realize that people are being slaughtered every day in Iraq."
Democrats screwing around? Yesterday on KPFA's Flashpoints Radio, Robert Knight's "The Knight Report" summed it up as follows:
A Congressional conference committee debated today the best way to not require President Bush to bring an end to the war in Iraq. Throughout the afternoon, legislators quibbled over the non-binding bills enacted earlier this month by both houses. Neither bill would eliminate the US military presence in Iraq nor eliminate the 14 permanent military bases now under construction outside Baghdad and along the Syrian and Iranian borders. Both the House and Senate bills refer only to so-called combat troops which comprise less than a third of the total US presence of more than 150,000 American soldiers, sailors and marines. And even if those provisions were enacted and signed, President George W. Bush would still be allowed to exempt himself from meven their partial withdrawal provisions by citing imaginary benchmarks or invoking national security rendering the legislation moot even if it did survive the veto that is promised by the White House.
Following the report, Dennis Bernstein noted, "It is crystal clear now that the Democrats have no intention of taking the president on regarding the cut off of aid for the occupation and continuing bloody and expanding war in Iraq." Bernstein gave Carl Levin as an example and then interviewed Ray McGovern about McGovern's recent article ("Levin Gives Cheney Reason To Smirk"). Staying on the topic of what Congress is doing, John Stauber, speaking with Andrea Lewis on KPFA's The Morning Show, also noted that:
We see now the war drifiting into the political election of 2008 and now we see the Democrats, who came to power in the House and Senate on the revulsion that the American public feels towards Bush and the war, rather than stepping it up and showing the backbone necessary to really do what I think the public wants -- is force an end to this war -- posing and posturing and trying to have it both ways. So they're about to send a bill to the president. The president says he'll definitely veto it. And we hear you know the bill referred to as, uh, legislation to end the war but in fact There's nothing binding at all in the legislation and so you know I think you've got Democrats going, "Hey, you know the war would well for us last time around, it's going to work well for us next time around." And here I am being cynical but I think this is an accrate assesment, the politically safe thing for the Democrats is to make sure they don't get pegged as the party that lost Iraq and one year and 6 months from now use the ongoing war to bloody and beat the Republicans if you will politically and seize the White House and elect more Democrats.
CBS and AP report that Bully Boy, no surprise, is maintaining he will veto and that US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is comparing Bully Boy to LBJ. While they both search for applause lines, violence continues in Iraq.
Bombings?
AP reports that yesterday's attack on the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad was followed with another attack today where two car bombings left at least six wounded.Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing that wounded two civilians in the Mansour district, a student killed by a locker bomb at the Denistry College, 2 dead from a mini-bus bomb (9 wounded), a mortar attack that killed 4 and left 10 wounded and, outside Baghdad, a Hilla car bombing that killed 3. Reuters reports a truck bombing in Ramadi that took 25 lives (44 wounded), a Numaniya roadside bombing that killed one "police officer and two of his family members, including a child" and three Iraqi soldiers "near Kerbala" from a roadside bomb. Shootings?
AP reports, "Police . . . said gunmen disguised as Iraqi soldiers killed six Iraqis and burned five homes Tuesday . . . South of the capital, a family of seven was shot to death in their beds at dawn by masked gunmen, neighbors and police said."Corpses?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 19 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes two corpses discovered in Numaniya and five coprses in Mosul. Today, the US military announced that 9 US service members had died in a bombing on Monday. AFP notes that the deaths brought their count to 3330. Reuters notes that three wounded Australian soldiers from a bombing in Nasiriya.
Staying with Australia and turning to the topic of Jake Kovco. April 21, 2006, Jake Kovco died in Baghdad. This summer we repeatedly noted the whitewash that was the military inquiry into his death. At the end of last month, new developments came out. Judy Kovco, rightly, feels she has not gotten answers to her son's death. Briefly, Kovco died in his room. The gun that allegedly killed him had another soldier's DNA on it (and a laughable defense was offered for that -- and run with -- but the coroner's office shot holes through that nonsense). Both of Kovco's roommates were present in the room, they admit to that. They also deny knowing what happened. No one knows anything. And the military inquiry decided the thing to do was to pin the blame on Jake Kovco and say he must have been playing around with his gun when it discharged (even though he wasn't holding it by the evidence presented). Eleanor Hall (The World Today), "Back home again, and the finding that Private Jake Kovco shot himself while skylarking in his Baghdad barracks was always controversial. Now a report commissioned by New South Wales Police, and leaked to The Australian newspaper, has cast fresh doubt on that version of events. A military board inquiry last year ruled the soldier shot himself, but the new report says there is insufficient evidence to determine whether the trigger was pulled accidentally. And the Australian Defense Association says a coronial inquest is now inevitable." We'll note this more tomorrow.
iraq
joshua key
camilo mejia
kevin benderman
kpfathe morning show
andrea lewis
john stauber
flashpoints
robert knight
law and disordermichael ratnerwbaimichael smith
jacob bruce kovcojake kovco
Questions Goodman should have known to ask:
1) Feb. 8, 2007, Democracy Now! broadcast "Cheering Movers and Art Student Spies: Was Israel Tracking the HijackersBefore the 9/11 Attacks?" which was about Salon killing the print story and CounterPunch picking it up. In passing it was noted that The Nation had killed it as well. Since we now know (see "Answer the questions") that The Nation picked up the story in the summer of 2006 and planned to include it in a December issue but cancelled the story at the last minute, Katrina vanden Heuvel should have been asked why the story was cancelled?
In the segment, much was made about Salon cancelling the story. Katrina vanden Heuvel (who took the time this year to brag about how the magazine can't be censored) should have been asked why she commissioned a story and then backed out at the last minute?
Considering that the issue it was set for was most likely the one where Christopher Hayes wrote his idiotic 'case closed' 9-11 story which didn't mention one word about spies and considering that Katrina vanden Heuvel made an ass out of herself in that breathy voice she affects saying on Air America Radio that Hayes had written an exhaustive story, she should have been asked why she LIED because if it didn't include the spy element -- an element she was aware of since the summer of 2006 -- it wasn't exhaustive.
2) Last week the Supreme Court destroyed Roe v. Wade. Since vanden Heuvel was more than happy to pick up a prize in the 90s for a (badly) written article on abortion, she should have been asked to comment on the Court's decision from last week. I'm sure she wouldn't bring it up. She not only wants to be the only "girl" in the room, she also doesn't want the "boys" to see her as "thinking like a girl." So she avoids those topics. That's why she didn't bother to blather on -- even once -- in her laughable Editor's Cut about the Court's decision once last week.
3) What do you think about what's going on Iraq? She should have been asked that question. They tried to put up a wall, nearly 200 Iraqis died last Wednesday (now known as "Bloody Wednesday). She edits and publishes a magazine. She should have been asked to weigh in. Now she wouldn't like to talk Iraq anymore than abortion (and I believe we'll be addressing her silence on Iraq at Third this weekend).
Questions that I would have asked and Goodman should have if she was aware of the issues.
1) Do you hate women?
That's a serious question. As we've tracked at The Third Estate Sunday Review (see "The Nation Stats" for the most recent stats), The Nation publishes one woman writer for every four men. It's also true when listing magazines that will be effected by the postal rate, Katrina vanden Heuvel naturally thought to give a shout out to the conservative National Review but somehow managed to forget Ms. magazine.
2) Do you believe in equality?
See above. If you do believe in equality, why do you run the magazine the way you do?
3) Do you not believe that women deserve a fair shot?
See above.
4) Why will you magazine not cover war resisters?
Ehren Watada was a sidebar in one issue (only after being called a coward in the main article). Why has the magazine refused to note the war resisters? Why has the magazine refused to cover Kyle Snyder? Darrell Anderson? Ricky Clousing? Mark Wilkerson? Ivan Brobeck? I can keep going. Why is the magazine she runs so against war resisters? Long term writers aren't, why is Katrina vanden Heuvel?
5) Do you really think your pathetic editorial and your pathetic editorial in 2005 count for covering Iraq?
Seriously, a weekly magazine, for the 'left,' can't address Iraq? What's up with that? (Yes, her husband wrote an article -- a wonderful article -- recently but the magazine has covered Hurricane Katrina more seriously than the war. In fact, in a 12 month period, three covers were about Hurricane Katrina.)
Those questions (and more) should have been asked.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, April 24, 2007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, a new documentary on war resisters is making the rounds of the film festivals, Dems and Bully Boy seek out applause lines and more.
Starting with war resisters. The AP reported on Kevin Benderman's appearance at the Atlanta Film Festival Sunday "for the world premiere of the documentary Soldiers of Conscience. The film, which later will be presented in film festivals in Seattle and Massachusetts, is about Benderman and other U.S. soldiers whose experiences in Iraq prompted them to seek out conscientious objector status." The documentary is directed by Catherine Ryan and Gary Weimberg of Luna Productions in Berkeley. Peter Coyote narrates the documentary which features, among others Camilo Mejia, Aidan Delgado, and Joshua Casteel. Benderman tells AP, "If there's anything I can get across to soldiers, it's that I'm not against them. But I am against the war." AP reports that Kevin and Monica Benderman are focusing "on 'Benderman's Bridge, Inc.,' a project to help troops returning from Iraq adjust to civilian life through job training and peer counseling."
Another war resister is Joshua Key who tells his story in the new book The Deserter's Tale which has gotten a lot of attention. Al Cardwell, in a letter to the Sonoma Index-Tribune, writes:
It was reported in the news that President Bush was horrified when he learned of the shooting on the Virginia Tech campus that took 32 lives. Why the horror, George?
Under you "democracy at the end of a gun" - guidance, massacres like that have been occuring daily for the past five years in Iraq.
I just started reading a new book, The Deserter's Tale by Joshua Key, the story of an American soldier who walked away from the war in Iraq. Key enlisted in the Army in 2002 and went to Iraq with the 3rd Armed Calvary Regiment. In the book, Key relates that the war he found himself participating in was not the campaign against terrorists he had expected.
Instead, he saw Iraqi citizens beaten, shot and killed or maimed for little or no provocation. Nearly every other night, he participated in destructive raids on homes he was told were harboring terrorists and never finding evidence of terrorist activity. When he returned home on leave, Key knew he coud never return to Iraq, so he went into hiding and eventually sought asylum in Canada. (A total of 3,196 active-duty soldiers deserted from the United States Army in 2006.)
Support our troops - bring them home now. And impeach the pompous, irresponsible, fascist-minded simpleton in the White House!
Kevin Benderman and Joshua Key are part of a movement of war resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Dean Walcott, Camilo Mejia, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Camilo Mejia, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake 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.
While Benderman and others are war resisters, Natalie Storey (The New Mexican) reports on Steve Martinez who is self-checked out of the US army five months ago following the birth of his newborn daughter. Despite attempts by Paul von Zeilbauer (New York Times) to sell the myth that those self-checking out all suffer from PTSD and are not opposed to the illegal war, Martinez doesn't suffer from PTSD. Storey reports, "Tod Ensign, the director of Citizen Soldier, a New York-based group that works for the rights of soldiers and veterans, said Martinez faces three possibilities. His unit might allow him to rejoin if he goes through retraining or agrees to be deployed. He could face administrative punishment like loss of pay or rank. Or, in the worst-case scenario, Martinez could face a court-martial and, after a trial, be sentenced to time in a military prison. What happens to Martinez is largely up to his commander, Ensign said."
And what happens to Iraqis? It happens largely out of the media eye. John Stauber (Center for Media and Democracy) appeared today on KPFA's The Morning Show where he spoke with Andrea Lewis on a variety of topics. One of which was coverage of deaths. Stauber states, "And the best study on how many people have been killed in the Iraq war since the US, uh, unecessarily, uh, you know, illegally, immorally launched it four years ago if over a half a million Iraqis have died, over 500,000 Iraqis have died. You don't hear the media mentioning that either except, if they do, they'll say, of course, the Pentagon and uh the president of the United States dispute that figure.' But that's the best figure we've got."
The count Stauber's referring to was published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, and it found that over 655,000 Iraqis had died since the start of the illegal war. Celeste Biever (New Scientist) spoke with Gilbert Burnham who headed the team conducting the study and Burnham states: "Our intentions were not political. Our centre is for refugee and disaster studies and this is simply the kind of thing we do. Other counts, such as the Iraq Body Count, which consists of volunteer academics and activists based in the UK and the US, rely on reports of deaths in the English-language press, but the press is in the business of producing news, not statistics. The IBS uses news reports mainly written in English, by people who can't leave a very narrow area of Baghdad, while violence is worse in the Al Anbar and Diyala provinces. Mortuaries provide figures but a lot of bodies don't make it there. Also press accounts and mortuary numbers record violent deaths, but people die in a war from many cases."
As Stauber noted, big media either ignores the study or it presents qualifiers. Peter Hart (CounterSpin) rightly noted that a poll that found few Americans knew the number of Iraqis who had died was a reflection on the media and what they cover, not on Americans. Of course, for every Peter Hart or CounterSpin, you can count on those 'helpful' types to take to the airwaves to piss on the peace movement (and "piss on" is the only term for it) via a program that once a year decides to make Iraq the topic and declare that it's the fault of the "anti-war" movement that Americans do not know how many Iraqis have died. [Note: The unnamed guest is not John Stauber, nor is the program The Morning Show.]
Most of us were unaware that the peace movement, or anti-war (men just need that "war" in there apparently) owned one of the big three networks! They must since most Americans continue to get the bulk of their news from television airwaves and since the guest pinned the public's lack of knowledge of how many Iraqis had died not on the media but on the "anti-war" movement.
Possibly, it's time to step away from the public stage when you say (as the guest did) of US troop fatalities, "This is known so well that actually people don't need to be told how many American soldiers have died. Right now it is 3280-something." Actually, the day that aired (the assumption being that is live), the 3,300 benchmark had been passed the day before. Pompous guests don't always know what they're talking about, do they?
But let's be really clear, when you say people don't need to be told how many ___ have died -- Americans, Iraqis, whatever -- you need to consider if Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling and it's time to take your ass off the stage.
The program that made time for it's yearly check in on Iraq -- a program which airs over 100 hours each year? Book better guests. And when one wants to piss on the peace movement and the American people, possibly he shouldn't cite a study (The Lancet) and note that it found "was 650,000 people" when it found over 655,000. An attentive host could have corrected the guest. But a (male) host who wants to discuss the illegal war and do so with two guests might be asked why both guests are male to begin with? Are there no female math professors to book? I mean when math professor is the credential, it's seems really strange that the gates were yet again closed on women.
While the math professor didn't think it was important to note or talk about the US service members who had died, Mary Pitt (ICH) wonders: "Who grieves for them? While we have lost a hundred children in that conflagration for every student who fell prey to the mad gunner, the nation mourns only those who were presumably safe from harm while those who fell in service to our country are hidden from our sight and rarely mentioned by name unless they qualify as 'heroes.' They fly home under cover of night and then are treated as baggage on commecrial flights until they are taken to their home town. Their family, friends, and neighbors turn out for their funeral with none taking notice except, perhaps, Rev. Fred Phelps and his little band of ghouls. The funeral over, the families go home to deal with their own desolation as they reflect on the life that was lost and the hopes and dreams that will never come to fruition. They will forever wonder why." And find the deaths of their loved ones dismissed by a pompous "anti-war" math professor (whose field should require he know numbers but -- as witnessed by his bungling of The Lancet study numbers -- apparently doesn't).
Monday on WBAI's Law and Disorder, co-host Michael Smith asked co-host Michael Ratner what it was like to be returning to the United States right now from Germany and France and Ratner responded, "First thing you read, 157 people were killed in Iraq. This is after the so-called escalation -- 'surge' as they call it. Things certainly don't seem to be getting better and, in fact, I think what we may see happening in Iraq is something like the Tet Offensive at some point that will eventually drive the United States out militarily and that just the American people will finally say 'We've had it.' We see the Democrats screwing around a timetable in their legislation but not linking that really to any funding, just putting it in Bush claiming to veto it and realize that people are being slaughtered every day in Iraq."
Democrats screwing around? Yesterday on KPFA's Flashpoints Radio, Robert Knight's "The Knight Report" summed it up as follows:
A Congressional conference committee debated today the best way to not require President Bush to bring an end to the war in Iraq. Throughout the afternoon, legislators quibbled over the non-binding bills enacted earlier this month by both houses. Neither bill would eliminate the US military presence in Iraq nor eliminate the 14 permanent military bases now under construction outside Baghdad and along the Syrian and Iranian borders. Both the House and Senate bills refer only to so-called combat troops which comprise less than a third of the total US presence of more than 150,000 American soldiers, sailors and marines. And even if those provisions were enacted and signed, President George W. Bush would still be allowed to exempt himself from meven their partial withdrawal provisions by citing imaginary benchmarks or invoking national security rendering the legislation moot even if it did survive the veto that is promised by the White House.
Following the report, Dennis Bernstein noted, "It is crystal clear now that the Democrats have no intention of taking the president on regarding the cut off of aid for the occupation and continuing bloody and expanding war in Iraq." Bernstein gave Carl Levin as an example and then interviewed Ray McGovern about McGovern's recent article ("Levin Gives Cheney Reason To Smirk"). Staying on the topic of what Congress is doing, John Stauber, speaking with Andrea Lewis on KPFA's The Morning Show, also noted that:
We see now the war drifiting into the political election of 2008 and now we see the Democrats, who came to power in the House and Senate on the revulsion that the American public feels towards Bush and the war, rather than stepping it up and showing the backbone necessary to really do what I think the public wants -- is force an end to this war -- posing and posturing and trying to have it both ways. So they're about to send a bill to the president. The president says he'll definitely veto it. And we hear you know the bill referred to as, uh, legislation to end the war but in fact There's nothing binding at all in the legislation and so you know I think you've got Democrats going, "Hey, you know the war would well for us last time around, it's going to work well for us next time around." And here I am being cynical but I think this is an accrate assesment, the politically safe thing for the Democrats is to make sure they don't get pegged as the party that lost Iraq and one year and 6 months from now use the ongoing war to bloody and beat the Republicans if you will politically and seize the White House and elect more Democrats.
CBS and AP report that Bully Boy, no surprise, is maintaining he will veto and that US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is comparing Bully Boy to LBJ. While they both search for applause lines, violence continues in Iraq.
Bombings?
AP reports that yesterday's attack on the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad was followed with another attack today where two car bombings left at least six wounded.Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing that wounded two civilians in the Mansour district, a student killed by a locker bomb at the Denistry College, 2 dead from a mini-bus bomb (9 wounded), a mortar attack that killed 4 and left 10 wounded and, outside Baghdad, a Hilla car bombing that killed 3. Reuters reports a truck bombing in Ramadi that took 25 lives (44 wounded), a Numaniya roadside bombing that killed one "police officer and two of his family members, including a child" and three Iraqi soldiers "near Kerbala" from a roadside bomb. Shootings?
AP reports, "Police . . . said gunmen disguised as Iraqi soldiers killed six Iraqis and burned five homes Tuesday . . . South of the capital, a family of seven was shot to death in their beds at dawn by masked gunmen, neighbors and police said."Corpses?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 19 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes two corpses discovered in Numaniya and five coprses in Mosul. Today, the US military announced that 9 US service members had died in a bombing on Monday. AFP notes that the deaths brought their count to 3330. Reuters notes that three wounded Australian soldiers from a bombing in Nasiriya.
Staying with Australia and turning to the topic of Jake Kovco. April 21, 2006, Jake Kovco died in Baghdad. This summer we repeatedly noted the whitewash that was the military inquiry into his death. At the end of last month, new developments came out. Judy Kovco, rightly, feels she has not gotten answers to her son's death. Briefly, Kovco died in his room. The gun that allegedly killed him had another soldier's DNA on it (and a laughable defense was offered for that -- and run with -- but the coroner's office shot holes through that nonsense). Both of Kovco's roommates were present in the room, they admit to that. They also deny knowing what happened. No one knows anything. And the military inquiry decided the thing to do was to pin the blame on Jake Kovco and say he must have been playing around with his gun when it discharged (even though he wasn't holding it by the evidence presented). Eleanor Hall (The World Today), "Back home again, and the finding that Private Jake Kovco shot himself while skylarking in his Baghdad barracks was always controversial. Now a report commissioned by New South Wales Police, and leaked to The Australian newspaper, has cast fresh doubt on that version of events. A military board inquiry last year ruled the soldier shot himself, but the new report says there is insufficient evidence to determine whether the trigger was pulled accidentally. And the Australian Defense Association says a coronial inquest is now inevitable." We'll note this more tomorrow.
iraq
joshua key
camilo mejia
kevin benderman
kpfathe morning show
andrea lewis
john stauber
flashpoints
robert knight
law and disordermichael ratnerwbaimichael smith
jacob bruce kovcojake kovco
Monday, April 23, 2007
KPFA report
I was planning to blow off this post because it's been a long day. But Elaine (Like Maria Said Paz) just called and said she blew off the post. I read it, I think she did a great job. But I told her I'd post tonight and try to offer something lengthier than I usually do.
Robin Hordon was Bonnie Faulkner's guest last Wednesday on KPFA Guns and Butter (one p.m. each Wednesday). If you haven't already heard the show, you need to make a point to listen. Hordon is a former air traffic controller and he's sharing his thoughts based upon his training and what standard procedure is and what air traffic controllers do in the event of a hijacking. You'll learn that not only was standard procuedure not followed but even the off the books process that air traffic controllers follow can't be found in the commission's story. There are a lot of guests Bonnie has on that I enjoy (I only didn't enjoy the hype man -- whose name I won't repeat -- on the first episode, he had calmed down by the second), but I don't usually think, "This person needs to be on next week too!" I thought that with Hordon. I think Bonnie could have spoken to him for six hours straight and we still would have had things to learn. "Wealth of information" is a phrase that's tossed around fairly often, but I really did feel Hordon fit that description.
If you listen occassionally but not every week and missed last Wednesday's show, you're short changing yourself if you don't make a point to listen. The thing that will probably stay with you isn't the examples (though they are concrete). What will probably stay with you is how it's not just that the air traffic controllers on 9-11 either took a vow of silence or were gagged, it's how badly the press portrayed the realities. Whether that was intentional or not, I'll leave for you to decide but what was printed wasn't reality in terms of training. I'll assume reporters (good and bad) counted on official sources (not in the airline industry) for their walk through.
I could note Law and Disorder which we just listened to this evening, but I've got a feeling C.I. will try to work it into the snapshot (the opening) tomorrow. So I'll just say you'll want to check that out as well.
Flashpoints Radio was explosive. That's the only word I can think of. From Robert Knight's Knight Report (it'll be in Hilda's Mix tomorrow) to Dennis Bernstein's interview with Ray McGovern, his interview with Robert Parry and Nora Barrows-Friedman (just back from the occupied territories) talking about what she had witnessed. A Palestinian friend of hers is a public school teacher and he hasn't been paid (due to the US embargo, among other reasons) in months. I can't remember if she said four or ten months. (Probably the latter.) What must that be like? I mean, what do you do about rent, about food? It's a regional thing so at least no one's going to look at you like you're trying to hustle them, but when you do get paid, finally, does your whole check go to back rent, to bills that pile up? Obviously, living with the daily violence and seeing their land walled off and stolen are big issues. I just know how I've felt in the past when I've had to float a bill. I'm self employed and I've had to float bills during dry spells before. That first job breaking the spell was never, "Thank goodness, now I've got some money!" It was always, "Well this will all go to past due bills." Now obviously, you can't be a Palestinian living there without grasping that is the reality of life but, even so, I think I would worry about it. I would worry about the violence, I would mourn the wall going up, but in terms of my constant worry, it probably would be the bills. And what if I had kids? How do you do that? How do you make it through something like that? Like Nora's friend, people are going to work each day and not getting paid. Kids need things and they want things they don't need. It may be something huge or something small. Imagine your kid wants a treat, like something simple, a snack or something, and you've been working each day, each week and you have to say "no" because you just don't have the money and you know these periods are always going to occur because the US is always going to screw with your economy, put a hold on monies that are not US monies to begin with.
Is that enough for today? I'll pretend it is.
This is from David Lindorff's "Huge Win for Impeachment in Vermont" (CounterPunch):
The impeachment movement, which has been building steam since the November election, got a big boost this morning when the Vermont Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the US Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
The 16-9 vote, which saw the Senate's six Republicans joined by only three Democrats on the losing side, will make it difficult for Vermont House Speaker Gaye Symington, a Democrat who has opposed the impeachment resolution drive, to keep the measure from being voted on the House floor. Symington has been arguing against such a resolution, claiming it would be "divisive."
The vote in the state senate was a huge victory for grassroots Democratic activists, who had been forced over recent months to overcome opposition to impeachment from the national Democratic Party leadership, and from their own state's Democratic Congressional Delegation. Leading Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), have been arguing that impeachment could hurt Democratic prospects among independent voters in the November 2008 elections. But impeachment activists have countered that the president and vice president have violated the law and undermined the Constitution, and that it is inappropriate to let strategic and tactical interests of the Democratic Party enter into the decision on whether to impeach.
To get around opposition from leading Democrats, Vermont's impeachment activists organized a statewide grassroots campaign to have as many towns as possible endorse impeachment in resolutions introduced at the annual town meetings that are the primary form of governance in most of the state's municipalities. In the end, 39 towns voted for impeachment resolutions in their annual meetings in February. This sent a strong message to state legislators about the mood of the voters in the state. In the end, that message trumped pressure from Washington.
"This gives an immeasurable boost to the national push for impeachment, and the timing could not be better, " said David Swanson, a leader of the national impeachment movement who runs a website at www.afterdowingstreet.com. Swanson noted that Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, is preparing to introduce a bill of impeachment against the Vice President Cheney next Wednesday. And adds that impeachment groups are planning coordinated events all over the country on April 28th (http://www.a28.org). He said, "What just happened in Vermont went down exactly the way things should in a democracy. Citizens raised their voices, passed local resolutions, and demanded that their state senators act. The hard work of Dan DeWalt, Ellen Tenney, and so many other Vermonters is beginning to pay off. Vermont may be remembered as the state that saved the Republic."
On The KPFA Evening News today, Sandra Lupien noted that Dennis Kucinich plans to introduce impeachment in the House Wednesday. This is turning into a KPFA report! Please check out Trina's "Make your own kind of salad in the Kitchen" because she's discussing Kucinich and media reform.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for today and it is pretty packed especially for a busy day:
Monday, April 23, 2007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki attempts to revoke a 'building permit,' War Crimes get reported but does anyone notice, and Santa Cruz students win a victory.
Starting with construction -- non-reconstruction. Friday the US military announced a 'new idea' they'd build a three mile wall to divide one neighborhood from another. As Elaine noted: "'Balkanizatin' may be the accepted term in use but what's going on, like so much of the 'security measures' in Iraq reflect what the Israeli government does to the Palestinians." To no one's suprise but the US military, Iraqis noticed it too. Dean Yates and Ibon Villelabeitia (Reuters) reported yesterday that Nouri al-Maliki was halting the construction "around the district of Adhamiya" and that some of the resident of the neighborhood "have compared the wall to barriers erected by Israel in the occupied West Bank." Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reports today that al-Maliki, announcing the stoppage, comapred the walls to "other walls" but "did not specify in his remarks what other walls he referred to. However, the separation barrier in the West Bank being erected by Israel, which is Israel says is for protection but greatly angers Palestinians, is a particularly delicate issue among Arabs."
Rubin notes that the Giddiest Gabor in the Green Zone, Little Willie Caldwell, declared that the US military has no "strategy of building walls or creating 'gated communities'" and Rubin goes on to note that, despite this piece of fluff, "American military officials said last week in a statement that the Adhamiya wall was 'one of the centerpieces of a new strategy'." Karin Brulliard (Washington Post) reports that this "walling off at least 10 of Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods and using biometric technology to track some of their residents" is "creating what officers call 'gated communities'". Officers are calling it "gated communities" now, US military officers, and despite what Little Willie says, they were doing so last week. Construction began on April 10th and only began to be reported last week. Brulliard draws this comparison: "The gated communities concept has produced mixed results in previous wars -- including failure in Vietnam, where peasants were forcibly moved to fortified hamlets only to become sympathizers of the insurgency." Reuters offers three other comparisons: the Berlin War, Israeli West Bank Barrier and the Northern Ireland Peacelines. Danny Schechter (News Dissector writing at Common Dreams) notes, "That's what the war for Iraqi Freedom has come to. The US is now emulating the Israelis by building a wall to separate two neighborhoods in Baghdad. It's apartheid time in Mesopotamia. Any and all pretense to promoting freedom and human rights is off the agenda as a desperate Administration uses all necessary means -- and not in the Malcolm X sense -- to prevent the inevitable and secure as much of the oil that it can." [Danny Schechter's documentary In Debt We Trust will be shown at Ithaca College tomorrow, April 24th, the even is free, starts at 7:30 p.m. and Schechter will be present at Park Hall Auditorium to discuss the film.]
Meanwhile IRIN reports, "Baghdad specialists and citizens have hit out against the US strategy of building walls around Sunnie districts that are surrounded by Shia areas. They say such barriers would worsen the lives of thousands of Iraqis and would increase violence." They also note al-Maliki's Sunday announcement that the construction of the wall would stop but "it appears his statement has been ignored as locals say the walls continue to be built by US troops."
Nouri al-Maliki is the puppet of the occupation, he is prime minister in title only because the US government continues to call the shots. Tina Susman (Los Angeles Times) reports that "hundreds of Adhamiya residents marched in the neighborhood today to demand that the partially completed structure be taken down. 'No to the sectarian wall' read some of the banners they carried." CNN cites police estimates of 7,000 Iraqis participating in the march. Alissa J. Rubin, with NYC help from Jon Elsen, reports (at the International Herald Tribune -- owned by the Times) that "American and Iraqi officials appeared Monday to be moving away from" the wall. It should be noted that though Ryan Crocker (US ambassador to Iraq) says that al-Maliki's order will be respected. Multiple outlets (including AFP) note Brigadier General Qassim Atta who, time and again, mocks Iraqi politicians and states that the walls will go up, that the press has misreported them and implies the puppet has no power. While the last isn't news, that the head of the Iraqi military would show such disdain is rather amazing considering that al-Maliki is supposed to command them. It may remind some of the August 2006 reports that the military was planning a coup against al-Maliki.
Despiate Atta's disdain, foreign press, such as the BBC, is much more likely to note the wall is a US project while domestic press tries to dance around the issue (hard to do when the nominal prime minister has called for the construction to cease and it continues). The BBC notes that the "US military, which is behind the project" and that's pretty clear as is the noting of the fact that the US military is working around the clock ["US troops, protected by heavily-armed vehicles, have been working at night to build the 3.6m (12ft) wall."] which sort of exposes the lie that the lack of electricity, potable water, et al couldn't be fixed because (a) it takes time and (b) it's just so darn dangerous. Clearly, when the US administration wants something, the US military does it. So what's going on? The wall isn't about safety for Iraqis. It's about walling them in. The biometric devices were used in Falluja as well (after the November 2004 slaughter of Falluja reduced the modern city to rubble and turned inhabitants into refugees -- many of whom still live in tent cities to this day). Those devices haven't done a damn thing to stop the violence there.
As Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted today, "In Fallujah, the chair of the City Council was assassinated on Saturday. Sami Abdul-Amir al-Jumaili is the fourth chair of the Fallujah city council to be killed in the past 14 months. He took the job a month ago." China's People's Daily has photos of the funeral and notes that Abdul-Amir al-Jumaili "was gunned down . . . as he was walking outside his home in central Falluja".
Last week, the deadliest day in Iraq took place (Wednesday) with very little attention. Certainly it received not even half the attention that the Virginia Tech shootings (last Monday) did. This is Naomi Klein:
When I was twenty-three, I had my first media job as a copy editor at a newspaper. The newspaper closed at 11 P.M., but two people stayed until 1 A.M. in case a news story broke that was so significant it was worth reopening the front page. On the first night that it was my turn to stay late, a tornado in a southern U.S. state killed three people, and the senior editor on duty decided to reopen the front page. On my second night, I read on the wires that 114 people had just been killed in Afghanistan, so I dutifully flagged down the senior editor. Remember, I was young, and it seemed to me that if three people warranted reopening the front page, then 114 people would surely classify as a major news event. I will never forget what the editor told me. "Don't worry," he said, "those people kill each other all the time."
Since Septemeber 11, I've been thinking again about that incident, about how we in the media participate in a process that confirms and reconfirms the idea that death and murder are tragic, extraordinary and intolerable in some places and banal, ordinary, unavoidable, even expected in others.
Because, frankly, I still have some of that naive twenty-three-year-old in me. And I still think the idea that some blood is precious, some blood is cheap is not just morally wrong but has helped to bring us to this bloody moment in our history.
From a speech given by Klein included in Fences and Windows (Picardor, 2002), a collection of many of her columns which have appeared in the Guardian of London and Canada's Globe & Mail. Klein's next book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, will be released September 8, 2007. We saw the same thing play out last week. Cindy Sheean (writing at AfterDowningStreet) noted that Bully Boy decided that he needed to skip the yucks at the White House Correspondent's Dinner this weekend . . . out of respect for the 30+ who died at Virginia Tech. The deaths of Iraqis and US service members didn't bother him. In fact, he was yucking it up at the February 24, 2004 Correspondents Dinner. "Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere," he joked as slides of himself were displayed looking throughout the White House. Ha-ha-ha, the press responded, soiling their own reputations if not their drawers. That must be the an example of how Bully Boy is a "man who can be very funny when he wants to". So writes Docker Boy and Don Imus Apologist David Carr in today's New York Times (C1 -- no link, we don't link to trash) who explains that his sweet Bully Boy "was in no mood" for yucks "after the massacre at Virginia Tech". (Docker Boy, it bears noting, also seems unaware that Todd S. Purdum wrote for the New York Times before moving on to better pastures in the form of Vanity Fair.) So the Bully Boy -- sensing which way the media looks and grasping that David Carr isn't just the Media Village Idiot, he's also the unwashed's crowd's chronicler -- postures and poses over the Virginia Tech shootings while the lives of Iraqis and US troops matter as little to the mainstream press as they do to the Bully Boy.
Though it received little attention (and certainly didn't result in op-eds being commissioned or hours of cable TV), Ali al-Fadhily (IPS) reports that last week's slaughter in Iraq is being dubbed "Bloody Wednesday" and -- STOP THE PRESSES -- he manages to speak with a woman. If you missed it, the few stories that were filed on the bombings may have noted that women (and children) were among the dead, but from the Times of New York to the smallest of the dailies, they couldn't seem to find a single woman in Iraq. The woman tells al-Fadhily, "I do not believe it is al-Qaeda any more. I do not care any more, I am just losing my loved ones. The last explosion hit my husband now he is disabled, and this one took my son's life." "I do not believe in al-Qaeda any more" is not to be read as implying she once supported the organization -- the woman is stating she doesn't believe the easy answers always provided as to who is responsible. While she doesn't care, "many people around Baghdad are blaming the occupation forces and the U.S.-backed government." Not for failure to prevent the slaughter, but for the bombings themselves. Are they responsible?
Well it's not unheard of (see Latin American) but what it says without question is that Iraqis are turning more and more against the illegal war and the occupation of their country by foreign forces. And who would have thought that could happen? Increasing his unfavorables yet again, the only polling trick the Bully Boy's ever been able to pull off in the long term.
Patrick Cockburn (Independent of London via CounterPunch) reports that "As Iraqis bury the 230 people killed or found dead on Wednesday, ominous signs are appearing that the Shia militas have resumed their tit-for-tat killings. There is a sharp increase in the number of dead bodies found bearing signs of torture, with 67 corpses discovered dumped in Baghdad in the first three days of the week. People in Baghdad, both Shia and Sunni, do not dare move bodies left lying in the rubbish outside their doors though they sometimes cover them with a blanket. One corpse was left lying for days in the centre of a main commercial street in the Sunni bastion of al-Adhamiyah in east Baghdad. He was believed to be a victim of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, which has been killing Sunni who belong to other guerilla groups or are associated with the government. Local people say that US and Iraqi forces stationed in a newly renovated police station in al-Adhamiyah as part of the security plan seem unaware of what is happening around them."
The violence continues. Amy Goodman noted that "at least 60 people" died in Iraq Sunday. That includes the 23 Yazidis shot dead in Mosul (covered here). IRIN notes, "Members of the Yazidi religious minoirty have asked the Iraqi government and international NGOs to protect them after gunmen on Sunday killed 23 Yazidis in Mosul, northern Iraq. . . . Yazidis are members of a culturally Kurdish, syncretistic religious group, which is neither Christian nor Muslim, who worship an angelic figures considered by some Muslims and Christians to be the devil. The group is pre-Islamic." Put that together with Alissa J. Rubin on the topic and myself on the topic earlier this morning and you still don't have a comprehensive overview of the religion. But note that it is not just Shias and Sunnis.
Rubin (New York Times) reported Sunday on the US military's complicity in torture in Iraq noting Captain Darren Fowler's praise for Iraqi soldiers' actions -- the actions included torture -- and when the torture became known, Fowler told Rubin, "What I don't see, I don't know, I can't see. The detainees are deathly afrid of being sent to the Iraqi justice system, because this is the kind of thing they do. But this is their culture." No, it's not. But rewarding that behavior -- this isn't just a case of looking the other way -- does popularize it and that's exactly what the US has done. Complicity in torture leaves one open to charges of war crimes; however, the US military has their own actions to worry about as well. As reported by The Socialist Worker, Ahmad Fadil al-Jumayli, a 9-year-old boy, is being held by the US military because they suspect his father belongs to the resistance. Due to that belief, "the soldiers seized the boy and told the headmaster that the father had to turn himself in if he wanted his son to be freed." To be clear, no ifs, no ands, no buts, that is a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, that is a War Crime. As even Alberto Gonzales had to admit (New York Times, "The Rule of Law," May 15, 2004, A27): "Both the United States and Iraq are parties to the Geneva Conventions. The United States recognizes that these treaties are binding in the war for the liberation of Iraq. There has never been any suggestion by out government that the conventions do not apply in the conflict." The Fourth Geneva Conventions makes clear that civilians cannot be used as hostages. Holding a nine-year-old boy in attempt to 'smoke out' his father is in violation and it is a War Crime.
Bombings?
BBC reports on a car bombing "outside an office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party" in Tal Uskuf killed at least 10. Reuters notes an additional 20 were wounded. BBC notes "residents were in deep shock as it was the first time it had been hit in the four years of Iraq's anti-US insurgency." AFP reports, "A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Al-Yasmin restaurant near the capital's fortified Green Zone, killing seven people and wounding 14, a security official said. The walled zone houses the US embassy and the Iraqi parliament where a suicide bomber triggered his explosive vest on April 12, killing one lawmaker. Two more car bombs exploed in a parking lot a short distance from the Green Zone, immediately opposite the Iranian embassy and also close to the Iraqi defence ministry building." Reuters notes that one of the two car bombs resulted in the death of one person and left four wounded. In addition, Reuters notes a roadside bombing near Mahaweel that left three injured and a Ramadi bombing the left 20 dead and 35 wounded. CBS and AP note that Ramadi bombing as well as another one where 7 ("including a child") were injured.
Tina Susman (Los Angeles Times) reports a bombing in Baquba where "a car blew up in the middle of a crowd of policement. The gathering included the police chief, Safa Atimimi, who was among the 10 people killed."
Shootings?
Reuters notes police Colonel Abdul Muhsin Hassan was shot dead in Mosul and a Baghdad attack in Ur where US troops were fired upon "trying to emplace cement barriers" (that would be the walls), a police officer shot dead in Iskandariya (another was wounded),
Corpses?
In Baghdad, 11 were reported discovered on Saturday and 11 on Sunday. Monday's count?
No word on Baghdad but Reuters reports the corpses of 3 police officers were discovered in Shirqat.
Today, the US military announced: "An MNC-I Soldier died at approximately 12:45 pm Monday after an improvised explosive device exploded near his location in Muqudadiyah."
In activism news, as Indybay Media notes, the USCS Students Against War had a strong victory last week when they suceeded in forcing the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine corps recruiters out of the UC Santa Cruz job fair to be held tomorrow. Natalaie McaIntyre states, We've upheld our community's values of tolerance and nonviolence despite federal attempts to impose militarism on our daily lives. If every school prevented recruitment, if every port stopped shipping weapons, if every community refused to accept war profiteers as neighbors, war would be impossible."
Meanwhile, in Will They Cave News, Richard Cowan (Reuters) reports that US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that veto threat or not, Congress will put forward "a war funding bill setting March 31 as the goal for pulling most U.S. troops out of Iraq." This follows Garrett Reppenhagen, Michael T. McPhearson and Kevin Martin's open letter (at Truthout) noting that the Bully Boy "is playing a game of political chicken with Democratic Congressional leaders over nearly $100 billion to fund his war policies ina supplemental appropriations bill. The president threatens to veto the bill after a House-Senate conference committe reconciles the differences in their separate bills, passes the reconciled version in both Houses and then sends it to the White House. Bush predictably opposes any and all challenges by Congress to his warmaking authority, and the conference report will likely retain some mix of benchmarks, timelines for partial troop withdrawal in 2008 and other conditions from the House and Senate versions of the supplemental." They note that should Bully Boy respond with a veto, Congress should "use it as an opportunity to end the war and bring our troops home now, not in 2008. They should not bother attempting to override Bush's veto (which requires a 2/3 majority in both Houses and has next to no chance of occuring), nor should they come back with a weaker bill -- it is already too weak and full of loopholes that could leave tens of thousands of US troops in Iraq indefinitely -- nor a bill for short-term funding of the war."
Garett Reppenhagen is with Iraq Veterans Against the War, Michael McPhearson with Veterans for Peace and Kevin Martin with Peace Action.
Finally, in news of war resisters, The Deserter's Tale continues to be awarded strong review. The book, written by US war resister Joshua Key with Lawrence Hill, has most recently been review by John Wright (Australia's Courier-Mail) who writes: "So, what can be going on in Iraq for someone by then already used to mayhem, fights and automatic weapons to flee? Unfortunately, this 'disturbing' to say the least, impossible-to-put-down-adults-only book tells you. . . I wasn't prepared for Key's graphic descriptions of what actually seems to be going on there." Home from Iraq on leave in December 2003, Joshua Key self-checked out of the US military after witnessing war crimes and realizing that the war was based on lies. The Deserter's Tale is the story of what he saw while serving in Iraq and how he came to the decision that the right from wrong he was taught was more important than simply following orders. Joshua, Brandi key and their children went underground after he self-checked out before Key learned of Brandon Hughey, Jeremy Hinzman and other war resisters who had self-checked out and moved to Canada. The Keys moved to Canada and Joshua Key is currently appealing the supposed (and laughable) refugee committee's decision as to whether or not he will be granted asylum. Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia by Camilo Mejia is the next book out of the gates by a war resister --- The New Press will publish it May 1st.
Joshua Key and Camilo Mejia are part of a movement of war resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Camilo Mejia, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake 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.
iraq
joshua key
camilo mejia
naomi klein
iraq veterans against the war
the new york timesalissa j. rubin
karin brulliardthe washington post
ali al-fadhily
cindy sheehandanny schechter
the socialist workerlike maria said paz
Robin Hordon was Bonnie Faulkner's guest last Wednesday on KPFA Guns and Butter (one p.m. each Wednesday). If you haven't already heard the show, you need to make a point to listen. Hordon is a former air traffic controller and he's sharing his thoughts based upon his training and what standard procedure is and what air traffic controllers do in the event of a hijacking. You'll learn that not only was standard procuedure not followed but even the off the books process that air traffic controllers follow can't be found in the commission's story. There are a lot of guests Bonnie has on that I enjoy (I only didn't enjoy the hype man -- whose name I won't repeat -- on the first episode, he had calmed down by the second), but I don't usually think, "This person needs to be on next week too!" I thought that with Hordon. I think Bonnie could have spoken to him for six hours straight and we still would have had things to learn. "Wealth of information" is a phrase that's tossed around fairly often, but I really did feel Hordon fit that description.
If you listen occassionally but not every week and missed last Wednesday's show, you're short changing yourself if you don't make a point to listen. The thing that will probably stay with you isn't the examples (though they are concrete). What will probably stay with you is how it's not just that the air traffic controllers on 9-11 either took a vow of silence or were gagged, it's how badly the press portrayed the realities. Whether that was intentional or not, I'll leave for you to decide but what was printed wasn't reality in terms of training. I'll assume reporters (good and bad) counted on official sources (not in the airline industry) for their walk through.
I could note Law and Disorder which we just listened to this evening, but I've got a feeling C.I. will try to work it into the snapshot (the opening) tomorrow. So I'll just say you'll want to check that out as well.
Flashpoints Radio was explosive. That's the only word I can think of. From Robert Knight's Knight Report (it'll be in Hilda's Mix tomorrow) to Dennis Bernstein's interview with Ray McGovern, his interview with Robert Parry and Nora Barrows-Friedman (just back from the occupied territories) talking about what she had witnessed. A Palestinian friend of hers is a public school teacher and he hasn't been paid (due to the US embargo, among other reasons) in months. I can't remember if she said four or ten months. (Probably the latter.) What must that be like? I mean, what do you do about rent, about food? It's a regional thing so at least no one's going to look at you like you're trying to hustle them, but when you do get paid, finally, does your whole check go to back rent, to bills that pile up? Obviously, living with the daily violence and seeing their land walled off and stolen are big issues. I just know how I've felt in the past when I've had to float a bill. I'm self employed and I've had to float bills during dry spells before. That first job breaking the spell was never, "Thank goodness, now I've got some money!" It was always, "Well this will all go to past due bills." Now obviously, you can't be a Palestinian living there without grasping that is the reality of life but, even so, I think I would worry about it. I would worry about the violence, I would mourn the wall going up, but in terms of my constant worry, it probably would be the bills. And what if I had kids? How do you do that? How do you make it through something like that? Like Nora's friend, people are going to work each day and not getting paid. Kids need things and they want things they don't need. It may be something huge or something small. Imagine your kid wants a treat, like something simple, a snack or something, and you've been working each day, each week and you have to say "no" because you just don't have the money and you know these periods are always going to occur because the US is always going to screw with your economy, put a hold on monies that are not US monies to begin with.
Is that enough for today? I'll pretend it is.
This is from David Lindorff's "Huge Win for Impeachment in Vermont" (CounterPunch):
The impeachment movement, which has been building steam since the November election, got a big boost this morning when the Vermont Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling for the US Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings against President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
The 16-9 vote, which saw the Senate's six Republicans joined by only three Democrats on the losing side, will make it difficult for Vermont House Speaker Gaye Symington, a Democrat who has opposed the impeachment resolution drive, to keep the measure from being voted on the House floor. Symington has been arguing against such a resolution, claiming it would be "divisive."
The vote in the state senate was a huge victory for grassroots Democratic activists, who had been forced over recent months to overcome opposition to impeachment from the national Democratic Party leadership, and from their own state's Democratic Congressional Delegation. Leading Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), have been arguing that impeachment could hurt Democratic prospects among independent voters in the November 2008 elections. But impeachment activists have countered that the president and vice president have violated the law and undermined the Constitution, and that it is inappropriate to let strategic and tactical interests of the Democratic Party enter into the decision on whether to impeach.
To get around opposition from leading Democrats, Vermont's impeachment activists organized a statewide grassroots campaign to have as many towns as possible endorse impeachment in resolutions introduced at the annual town meetings that are the primary form of governance in most of the state's municipalities. In the end, 39 towns voted for impeachment resolutions in their annual meetings in February. This sent a strong message to state legislators about the mood of the voters in the state. In the end, that message trumped pressure from Washington.
"This gives an immeasurable boost to the national push for impeachment, and the timing could not be better, " said David Swanson, a leader of the national impeachment movement who runs a website at www.afterdowingstreet.com. Swanson noted that Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, is preparing to introduce a bill of impeachment against the Vice President Cheney next Wednesday. And adds that impeachment groups are planning coordinated events all over the country on April 28th (http://www.a28.org). He said, "What just happened in Vermont went down exactly the way things should in a democracy. Citizens raised their voices, passed local resolutions, and demanded that their state senators act. The hard work of Dan DeWalt, Ellen Tenney, and so many other Vermonters is beginning to pay off. Vermont may be remembered as the state that saved the Republic."
On The KPFA Evening News today, Sandra Lupien noted that Dennis Kucinich plans to introduce impeachment in the House Wednesday. This is turning into a KPFA report! Please check out Trina's "Make your own kind of salad in the Kitchen" because she's discussing Kucinich and media reform.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" for today and it is pretty packed especially for a busy day:
Monday, April 23, 2007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki attempts to revoke a 'building permit,' War Crimes get reported but does anyone notice, and Santa Cruz students win a victory.
Starting with construction -- non-reconstruction. Friday the US military announced a 'new idea' they'd build a three mile wall to divide one neighborhood from another. As Elaine noted: "'Balkanizatin' may be the accepted term in use but what's going on, like so much of the 'security measures' in Iraq reflect what the Israeli government does to the Palestinians." To no one's suprise but the US military, Iraqis noticed it too. Dean Yates and Ibon Villelabeitia (Reuters) reported yesterday that Nouri al-Maliki was halting the construction "around the district of Adhamiya" and that some of the resident of the neighborhood "have compared the wall to barriers erected by Israel in the occupied West Bank." Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reports today that al-Maliki, announcing the stoppage, comapred the walls to "other walls" but "did not specify in his remarks what other walls he referred to. However, the separation barrier in the West Bank being erected by Israel, which is Israel says is for protection but greatly angers Palestinians, is a particularly delicate issue among Arabs."
Rubin notes that the Giddiest Gabor in the Green Zone, Little Willie Caldwell, declared that the US military has no "strategy of building walls or creating 'gated communities'" and Rubin goes on to note that, despite this piece of fluff, "American military officials said last week in a statement that the Adhamiya wall was 'one of the centerpieces of a new strategy'." Karin Brulliard (Washington Post) reports that this "walling off at least 10 of Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods and using biometric technology to track some of their residents" is "creating what officers call 'gated communities'". Officers are calling it "gated communities" now, US military officers, and despite what Little Willie says, they were doing so last week. Construction began on April 10th and only began to be reported last week. Brulliard draws this comparison: "The gated communities concept has produced mixed results in previous wars -- including failure in Vietnam, where peasants were forcibly moved to fortified hamlets only to become sympathizers of the insurgency." Reuters offers three other comparisons: the Berlin War, Israeli West Bank Barrier and the Northern Ireland Peacelines. Danny Schechter (News Dissector writing at Common Dreams) notes, "That's what the war for Iraqi Freedom has come to. The US is now emulating the Israelis by building a wall to separate two neighborhoods in Baghdad. It's apartheid time in Mesopotamia. Any and all pretense to promoting freedom and human rights is off the agenda as a desperate Administration uses all necessary means -- and not in the Malcolm X sense -- to prevent the inevitable and secure as much of the oil that it can." [Danny Schechter's documentary In Debt We Trust will be shown at Ithaca College tomorrow, April 24th, the even is free, starts at 7:30 p.m. and Schechter will be present at Park Hall Auditorium to discuss the film.]
Meanwhile IRIN reports, "Baghdad specialists and citizens have hit out against the US strategy of building walls around Sunnie districts that are surrounded by Shia areas. They say such barriers would worsen the lives of thousands of Iraqis and would increase violence." They also note al-Maliki's Sunday announcement that the construction of the wall would stop but "it appears his statement has been ignored as locals say the walls continue to be built by US troops."
Nouri al-Maliki is the puppet of the occupation, he is prime minister in title only because the US government continues to call the shots. Tina Susman (Los Angeles Times) reports that "hundreds of Adhamiya residents marched in the neighborhood today to demand that the partially completed structure be taken down. 'No to the sectarian wall' read some of the banners they carried." CNN cites police estimates of 7,000 Iraqis participating in the march. Alissa J. Rubin, with NYC help from Jon Elsen, reports (at the International Herald Tribune -- owned by the Times) that "American and Iraqi officials appeared Monday to be moving away from" the wall. It should be noted that though Ryan Crocker (US ambassador to Iraq) says that al-Maliki's order will be respected. Multiple outlets (including AFP) note Brigadier General Qassim Atta who, time and again, mocks Iraqi politicians and states that the walls will go up, that the press has misreported them and implies the puppet has no power. While the last isn't news, that the head of the Iraqi military would show such disdain is rather amazing considering that al-Maliki is supposed to command them. It may remind some of the August 2006 reports that the military was planning a coup against al-Maliki.
Despiate Atta's disdain, foreign press, such as the BBC, is much more likely to note the wall is a US project while domestic press tries to dance around the issue (hard to do when the nominal prime minister has called for the construction to cease and it continues). The BBC notes that the "US military, which is behind the project" and that's pretty clear as is the noting of the fact that the US military is working around the clock ["US troops, protected by heavily-armed vehicles, have been working at night to build the 3.6m (12ft) wall."] which sort of exposes the lie that the lack of electricity, potable water, et al couldn't be fixed because (a) it takes time and (b) it's just so darn dangerous. Clearly, when the US administration wants something, the US military does it. So what's going on? The wall isn't about safety for Iraqis. It's about walling them in. The biometric devices were used in Falluja as well (after the November 2004 slaughter of Falluja reduced the modern city to rubble and turned inhabitants into refugees -- many of whom still live in tent cities to this day). Those devices haven't done a damn thing to stop the violence there.
As Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted today, "In Fallujah, the chair of the City Council was assassinated on Saturday. Sami Abdul-Amir al-Jumaili is the fourth chair of the Fallujah city council to be killed in the past 14 months. He took the job a month ago." China's People's Daily has photos of the funeral and notes that Abdul-Amir al-Jumaili "was gunned down . . . as he was walking outside his home in central Falluja".
Last week, the deadliest day in Iraq took place (Wednesday) with very little attention. Certainly it received not even half the attention that the Virginia Tech shootings (last Monday) did. This is Naomi Klein:
When I was twenty-three, I had my first media job as a copy editor at a newspaper. The newspaper closed at 11 P.M., but two people stayed until 1 A.M. in case a news story broke that was so significant it was worth reopening the front page. On the first night that it was my turn to stay late, a tornado in a southern U.S. state killed three people, and the senior editor on duty decided to reopen the front page. On my second night, I read on the wires that 114 people had just been killed in Afghanistan, so I dutifully flagged down the senior editor. Remember, I was young, and it seemed to me that if three people warranted reopening the front page, then 114 people would surely classify as a major news event. I will never forget what the editor told me. "Don't worry," he said, "those people kill each other all the time."
Since Septemeber 11, I've been thinking again about that incident, about how we in the media participate in a process that confirms and reconfirms the idea that death and murder are tragic, extraordinary and intolerable in some places and banal, ordinary, unavoidable, even expected in others.
Because, frankly, I still have some of that naive twenty-three-year-old in me. And I still think the idea that some blood is precious, some blood is cheap is not just morally wrong but has helped to bring us to this bloody moment in our history.
From a speech given by Klein included in Fences and Windows (Picardor, 2002), a collection of many of her columns which have appeared in the Guardian of London and Canada's Globe & Mail. Klein's next book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, will be released September 8, 2007. We saw the same thing play out last week. Cindy Sheean (writing at AfterDowningStreet) noted that Bully Boy decided that he needed to skip the yucks at the White House Correspondent's Dinner this weekend . . . out of respect for the 30+ who died at Virginia Tech. The deaths of Iraqis and US service members didn't bother him. In fact, he was yucking it up at the February 24, 2004 Correspondents Dinner. "Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere," he joked as slides of himself were displayed looking throughout the White House. Ha-ha-ha, the press responded, soiling their own reputations if not their drawers. That must be the an example of how Bully Boy is a "man who can be very funny when he wants to". So writes Docker Boy and Don Imus Apologist David Carr in today's New York Times (C1 -- no link, we don't link to trash) who explains that his sweet Bully Boy "was in no mood" for yucks "after the massacre at Virginia Tech". (Docker Boy, it bears noting, also seems unaware that Todd S. Purdum wrote for the New York Times before moving on to better pastures in the form of Vanity Fair.) So the Bully Boy -- sensing which way the media looks and grasping that David Carr isn't just the Media Village Idiot, he's also the unwashed's crowd's chronicler -- postures and poses over the Virginia Tech shootings while the lives of Iraqis and US troops matter as little to the mainstream press as they do to the Bully Boy.
Though it received little attention (and certainly didn't result in op-eds being commissioned or hours of cable TV), Ali al-Fadhily (IPS) reports that last week's slaughter in Iraq is being dubbed "Bloody Wednesday" and -- STOP THE PRESSES -- he manages to speak with a woman. If you missed it, the few stories that were filed on the bombings may have noted that women (and children) were among the dead, but from the Times of New York to the smallest of the dailies, they couldn't seem to find a single woman in Iraq. The woman tells al-Fadhily, "I do not believe it is al-Qaeda any more. I do not care any more, I am just losing my loved ones. The last explosion hit my husband now he is disabled, and this one took my son's life." "I do not believe in al-Qaeda any more" is not to be read as implying she once supported the organization -- the woman is stating she doesn't believe the easy answers always provided as to who is responsible. While she doesn't care, "many people around Baghdad are blaming the occupation forces and the U.S.-backed government." Not for failure to prevent the slaughter, but for the bombings themselves. Are they responsible?
Well it's not unheard of (see Latin American) but what it says without question is that Iraqis are turning more and more against the illegal war and the occupation of their country by foreign forces. And who would have thought that could happen? Increasing his unfavorables yet again, the only polling trick the Bully Boy's ever been able to pull off in the long term.
Patrick Cockburn (Independent of London via CounterPunch) reports that "As Iraqis bury the 230 people killed or found dead on Wednesday, ominous signs are appearing that the Shia militas have resumed their tit-for-tat killings. There is a sharp increase in the number of dead bodies found bearing signs of torture, with 67 corpses discovered dumped in Baghdad in the first three days of the week. People in Baghdad, both Shia and Sunni, do not dare move bodies left lying in the rubbish outside their doors though they sometimes cover them with a blanket. One corpse was left lying for days in the centre of a main commercial street in the Sunni bastion of al-Adhamiyah in east Baghdad. He was believed to be a victim of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, which has been killing Sunni who belong to other guerilla groups or are associated with the government. Local people say that US and Iraqi forces stationed in a newly renovated police station in al-Adhamiyah as part of the security plan seem unaware of what is happening around them."
The violence continues. Amy Goodman noted that "at least 60 people" died in Iraq Sunday. That includes the 23 Yazidis shot dead in Mosul (covered here). IRIN notes, "Members of the Yazidi religious minoirty have asked the Iraqi government and international NGOs to protect them after gunmen on Sunday killed 23 Yazidis in Mosul, northern Iraq. . . . Yazidis are members of a culturally Kurdish, syncretistic religious group, which is neither Christian nor Muslim, who worship an angelic figures considered by some Muslims and Christians to be the devil. The group is pre-Islamic." Put that together with Alissa J. Rubin on the topic and myself on the topic earlier this morning and you still don't have a comprehensive overview of the religion. But note that it is not just Shias and Sunnis.
Rubin (New York Times) reported Sunday on the US military's complicity in torture in Iraq noting Captain Darren Fowler's praise for Iraqi soldiers' actions -- the actions included torture -- and when the torture became known, Fowler told Rubin, "What I don't see, I don't know, I can't see. The detainees are deathly afrid of being sent to the Iraqi justice system, because this is the kind of thing they do. But this is their culture." No, it's not. But rewarding that behavior -- this isn't just a case of looking the other way -- does popularize it and that's exactly what the US has done. Complicity in torture leaves one open to charges of war crimes; however, the US military has their own actions to worry about as well. As reported by The Socialist Worker, Ahmad Fadil al-Jumayli, a 9-year-old boy, is being held by the US military because they suspect his father belongs to the resistance. Due to that belief, "the soldiers seized the boy and told the headmaster that the father had to turn himself in if he wanted his son to be freed." To be clear, no ifs, no ands, no buts, that is a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, that is a War Crime. As even Alberto Gonzales had to admit (New York Times, "The Rule of Law," May 15, 2004, A27): "Both the United States and Iraq are parties to the Geneva Conventions. The United States recognizes that these treaties are binding in the war for the liberation of Iraq. There has never been any suggestion by out government that the conventions do not apply in the conflict." The Fourth Geneva Conventions makes clear that civilians cannot be used as hostages. Holding a nine-year-old boy in attempt to 'smoke out' his father is in violation and it is a War Crime.
Bombings?
BBC reports on a car bombing "outside an office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party" in Tal Uskuf killed at least 10. Reuters notes an additional 20 were wounded. BBC notes "residents were in deep shock as it was the first time it had been hit in the four years of Iraq's anti-US insurgency." AFP reports, "A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Al-Yasmin restaurant near the capital's fortified Green Zone, killing seven people and wounding 14, a security official said. The walled zone houses the US embassy and the Iraqi parliament where a suicide bomber triggered his explosive vest on April 12, killing one lawmaker. Two more car bombs exploed in a parking lot a short distance from the Green Zone, immediately opposite the Iranian embassy and also close to the Iraqi defence ministry building." Reuters notes that one of the two car bombs resulted in the death of one person and left four wounded. In addition, Reuters notes a roadside bombing near Mahaweel that left three injured and a Ramadi bombing the left 20 dead and 35 wounded. CBS and AP note that Ramadi bombing as well as another one where 7 ("including a child") were injured.
Tina Susman (Los Angeles Times) reports a bombing in Baquba where "a car blew up in the middle of a crowd of policement. The gathering included the police chief, Safa Atimimi, who was among the 10 people killed."
Shootings?
Reuters notes police Colonel Abdul Muhsin Hassan was shot dead in Mosul and a Baghdad attack in Ur where US troops were fired upon "trying to emplace cement barriers" (that would be the walls), a police officer shot dead in Iskandariya (another was wounded),
Corpses?
In Baghdad, 11 were reported discovered on Saturday and 11 on Sunday. Monday's count?
No word on Baghdad but Reuters reports the corpses of 3 police officers were discovered in Shirqat.
Today, the US military announced: "An MNC-I Soldier died at approximately 12:45 pm Monday after an improvised explosive device exploded near his location in Muqudadiyah."
In activism news, as Indybay Media notes, the USCS Students Against War had a strong victory last week when they suceeded in forcing the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine corps recruiters out of the UC Santa Cruz job fair to be held tomorrow. Natalaie McaIntyre states, We've upheld our community's values of tolerance and nonviolence despite federal attempts to impose militarism on our daily lives. If every school prevented recruitment, if every port stopped shipping weapons, if every community refused to accept war profiteers as neighbors, war would be impossible."
Meanwhile, in Will They Cave News, Richard Cowan (Reuters) reports that US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced that veto threat or not, Congress will put forward "a war funding bill setting March 31 as the goal for pulling most U.S. troops out of Iraq." This follows Garrett Reppenhagen, Michael T. McPhearson and Kevin Martin's open letter (at Truthout) noting that the Bully Boy "is playing a game of political chicken with Democratic Congressional leaders over nearly $100 billion to fund his war policies ina supplemental appropriations bill. The president threatens to veto the bill after a House-Senate conference committe reconciles the differences in their separate bills, passes the reconciled version in both Houses and then sends it to the White House. Bush predictably opposes any and all challenges by Congress to his warmaking authority, and the conference report will likely retain some mix of benchmarks, timelines for partial troop withdrawal in 2008 and other conditions from the House and Senate versions of the supplemental." They note that should Bully Boy respond with a veto, Congress should "use it as an opportunity to end the war and bring our troops home now, not in 2008. They should not bother attempting to override Bush's veto (which requires a 2/3 majority in both Houses and has next to no chance of occuring), nor should they come back with a weaker bill -- it is already too weak and full of loopholes that could leave tens of thousands of US troops in Iraq indefinitely -- nor a bill for short-term funding of the war."
Garett Reppenhagen is with Iraq Veterans Against the War, Michael McPhearson with Veterans for Peace and Kevin Martin with Peace Action.
Finally, in news of war resisters, The Deserter's Tale continues to be awarded strong review. The book, written by US war resister Joshua Key with Lawrence Hill, has most recently been review by John Wright (Australia's Courier-Mail) who writes: "So, what can be going on in Iraq for someone by then already used to mayhem, fights and automatic weapons to flee? Unfortunately, this 'disturbing' to say the least, impossible-to-put-down-adults-only book tells you. . . I wasn't prepared for Key's graphic descriptions of what actually seems to be going on there." Home from Iraq on leave in December 2003, Joshua Key self-checked out of the US military after witnessing war crimes and realizing that the war was based on lies. The Deserter's Tale is the story of what he saw while serving in Iraq and how he came to the decision that the right from wrong he was taught was more important than simply following orders. Joshua, Brandi key and their children went underground after he self-checked out before Key learned of Brandon Hughey, Jeremy Hinzman and other war resisters who had self-checked out and moved to Canada. The Keys moved to Canada and Joshua Key is currently appealing the supposed (and laughable) refugee committee's decision as to whether or not he will be granted asylum. Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia by Camilo Mejia is the next book out of the gates by a war resister --- The New Press will publish it May 1st.
Joshua Key and Camilo Mejia are part of a movement of war resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Camilo Mejia, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake 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.
iraq
joshua key
camilo mejia
naomi klein
iraq veterans against the war
the new york timesalissa j. rubin
karin brulliardthe washington post
ali al-fadhily
cindy sheehandanny schechter
the socialist workerlike maria said paz
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