Friday, April 27, 2007

Kat attack

Impeachment Day is tomorrow, Saturday April 28th- so join fellow New Yorkers at the Great Hill to spell out IMPEACH with our bodies! Their will be an aerial photo taken as well! Don't forget to wear your 'pink slip'. The weather report says that there will be sun, late afternoon showers (we will be done by then) and a high of 68 degrees. CODEPINK will be turning the "C" in IMPEACH pink. So JOIN US... RAIN OR SHINE!
When: Saturday, April 28th 11am.
Where: The Great Hill in Central Park (North End Quadrant of Central Park), 103rd Street or 110th Street stops of B/C (or with extra walk, 103rd or 110th Street stops of #1)
Enter park at West 106 Street (wheel chair accessible at West 110th)
CODEPINK Meet Up will be at the Great Hill, just look for the big pink sign!
What to bring: Wear your pink, a blanket, some sunscreen/sunglasses/hat, water and a snack.
For more information contact dana@codepinkalert.org or call 202 422 8624. And visit our Impeach page!
From "C" to shining "C",
CODEPINK NYC
WWW.CODEPINKNYC.ORG

That's from CODEPINK and I really need to note peace at the beginning of tonight's post. Why?
I hit a homeless man today. I didn't mean to. I was at Maggie's this morning and her fridge is a nightmare. Always. You can count on the beer being cold but that's about it. I needed some coffee and, like an idiot, asked the dumb question, "Do you have any milk?" Sure, she said. I open the fridge, grab a container of milk that hasn't been opened. I open it and try to pour. It won't pour. It's gone bad and it's not clumps, it's one large clump. The smell is awful and I'm asking Maggie how you can buy milk, never open it, and let it go bad. I'm headed out the door to go toss it in a dumpster in her parking lot. I toss it and turn to walk back when I hear "OW!"
On the other side of the dumpster, a homeless man was digging through the trash, I hadn't seen him. I hit him in the head with the container of milk (fortunately the bottom half, not the top, so the bad milk didn't end up on him). I felt so bad. I had a twenty in my pocket, my purse was inside. If I had brought my purse with me, I would've given him everything in it.

He didn't ask for anything, I just felt so bad. Here was a homeless man trying to find something to eat or sell or keep and I just show up and hit him in the head with a half-gallon of milk.

I got back to Maggie's apartment and she started telling jokes about "Kat attacks the homeless." That's the thing about longterm friends, you always press those sore spots.

Yes, unintentionally, I did attack a homeless person today. And I still, honestly, feel so awful about that. In my high school junior year, a group of us used to run around together. And one of my girlfriends had a boyfriend who was cheating on her. We all told her, "Break up with him." (Then and now, I was no Hillary Clinton. You cheat, you hit the door.) She wouldn't do that. But one day, when we were all in her car and she was crusing the parking lot (the student parking lot), she made a point to hit the back of the bumper on his Camarro. She thought that was so funny and I always felt guilty (for being in her car at the time and for never speaking up).
If she'd broken up with him, publicly humilated him, even slapped him, I could have supported that. But I know how a lot of people are about their cars. I make a rule never to screw with someone's car or job. But I probably spent a good two years feeling guilty about that. (Catholic guilt.)

So I'm trying to figure out how long I'll feel guilty about today? Like an idiot, I keep telling this story. I've told it all day and here I am blabbing about it again. Maybe it's being raised Catholic (confession and all) but I can logically say, "Okay, Kat, you didn't know anyone was there. He may end up with a bump on his head but he's not dead or bleeding and you didn't mean to." But I have a feeling I'll feel guilty for a couple of years over this.

Ty tried to cheer me up saying, "Maybe he wasn't homeless. Maybe he was Homeland Security spying on Maggie or someone else." That did make me laugh at least.

C.I.'s "And the war drags on . . ." notes the 40th anniversary issue of Rolling Stone and I thought I'd blog a bit about the issue. Let me echo C.I.'s point that the issue needs more diversity (20 people interviewed -- 2 women, 18 men, 0 persons of color). That's a very big issue. What I am grateful for is none of the idiots. When RS does these type of features, we usually get a host of idiots. I remember an issue that had, not an interview, but pull quotes from various people on whether Bill Clinton should be impeached. Speaking only for myself (though I suspect a large portion of other people), Stephan Jenkins, no one gave a damn what you thought. (He was pro-impeachment. Because it was "sex." He called the consensual affair between Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, sexual abuse or harassment or some nonsense.) By that point, Third Eye Blind was already crashing and burning. "Semi-Charmed Kind of Life" was a nice bit of pop candy and "Jumper" was listenable. I'd even say that entire, self-titled album was. But the writing was already on the wall that Third Eye Blind was going down. And it didn't take Stephan Jenkins looking like an idiot a year later as he sported what appeared to a haircut copying George Washington's wig to know that.

So it was refereshing to flip through the pages and not, for instance, have to read some Disney Kid's struggle to produce actual thoughts. The 20 chosen, whether you like what they say, have all stood the test of time. (1 has time on his side but no art -- it's a director and it's not Scorsese that I'm talking about.)

Bill Moyers talks about the current state of journalism, politics and so much more. I enjoyed these two statements, "Then ROLLING STONE started carrying Bill Greider, and it was his pieces that truly awakened me to issues of power that I had not even appreciated when I was in Washington. Greider would write not about who wins and loses the political race, but about who wins and loses in the policy decisions that are made after the winners are chosen." Yeah, Greider did used to write amazing. Then he moved to The Nation and now seems himself as some sort of soggy Dr. Phil. It's heartbreaking to read what he does today if you've ever read his intricate analysis from RS. I'll note Bob Weir (Greatfule Dead and Ratdog) talking about the difference in coverage during Vietnam and today's illegal war:

It's a matter of media. When we moved into 710, we put a TV in the living room. We would watch the news and see the bodies coming back [from Vietnam]. We don't see bodies coming back these days. The carnage is the same. But we don't see it on TV. The politicians don't want the full visual impact of the war, what it's costing this country in human lives, coming back here. So people aren't as galvanized. That was a very astute move -- not in terms of wise, but in terms of conniving.

Most embarrassing interviews? Jimmy Carter (interviewed by Tom Brokaw). He'll remind you that he isn't just about building houses for charity. War dog, war dog, won't you go away? Stephen Spielberg who manages one sentence about Iraq. What's a matter, Stevie? You were happy to sell war with that hideous Saving Private Ryan. He's not really an artist. He's Frank Capra offering Capra-corn. It's amazing to read him say he wasn't sheltered from politics as a child in the 60s and offer up, as examples, JFK being shot and the moon landing. He really is that weak ass. Can't think about Vietnam if you're spending all your time staring at a movie screen. And of course, no surprise, Boy Dylan shoots down every effort by Jann Wenner to get him to weigh in on Iraq. Tom Wolfe is babbling on about how the biggest crisis facing the country is a lack of faith/belief in God. What polls does he read? He's a dumb ass conservative and he avoids Iraq as well. Better to invent non-problems than to address reality.

Otherwise? There was something I could enjoy in each interview. My favorites were Jane Fonda, Patti Smith, Jackson Browne, Martin Scorsese, Michael Moore and Neil Young. And George McGovern, I enjoyed his a great deal as well. I also enjoyed Jack Nicholson just because he lacks the self-censor button so you never know what he's going to say. Ringo Starr came off much better than Paul McCartney.

Paul was so bad . . . You know what, if you're going to try to reinvent reality, find a fall guy. Blame it on your ex Heather, blame it on something. But after you preached jingoism publicly (and for a country you're not even a citizen of) don't think your one-time fans are going to forget. The Beatles were on sales high before McCartney decided he was both "honorary American" and "Bully Boy's best friend." He got some media praise for that period but he lost the audience. The Beatles Let It Be came out in the intended mix (not the Phil Spector soaked production) and it was a natural number one for several weeks . . . except his actions and behaviors had turned off the public. Even with a bonus DVD disc, it never made it to number one. It wasn't a rejection of the Beatles, it was a rejection of Paul who was always a cheesy little kiss ass punk and reminded us all of that.

So those are (some) of my thoughts re: the 40th anniversary issue. I'd recommend you pick it up for Jane Fonda, Patti Smith, Martin Scorsese, Jackson Browne, Neil Young, Michael Moore and George McGovern. The photo of the elderly Tom Wolfe still looking like a fop (or like a demented Blanche du Bois) is also good for a laugh.

Be sure to check out Betty's "Tom-Tom Goes to the Public Library." Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Friday, April 27, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, another prisoner in Iraq dies in US custody, the death of 3 US service members are announced, Riverbend and her family decide it's time to leave Iraq, students continue their activism in the US, and more.

Starting with war resisters,
Richard Brown (KXLY) profiles war resister Ryan Johnson who self-checked out in 2005 and went to Canada with his wife Jenny to seek asylum. Johnson states, "I decided that I didn't want to participate in what I preceived to be an illegal war. I have no problem serving my country. I love the United States. That's where I grew up, that's my home, that's where my family is." Death of the party Lizzie Knudson shows up to puff out her chest and strut like any macho b.s. artist while expressing her hate and rage by declaring that she hopes he's thrown in prison for life and that she knows people who have died in Iraq. Pass that rage on over to the Bully Boy, Lizzie, Ryan Johnson didn't send anyone into an illegal war to die. Had Brown spent less time offering Lizzie's rants, he might have been able to provide some actual information (and it would have pleased War Hawk Liz). He could have, for instance, noted that the Johnsons share a home in Canada with
Kyle Snyder and Maleah Friesen. The latter are now married. Of course their planned February wedding got put on hold when Canadian police -- taking orders from the US military -- showed up at the home to drag Snyder away in handcuffs (and in his boxers -- wouldn't even let him get dressed) with the intent to start immediate deportation on Snyder. That's a story that would have tickled War Hawk Lizzie even if it has Canadians outraged (whether they support war resisters or not) because (a) war resistance is not a deportable offense and (b) the Canadian police is not supposed to take orders from a foreign government. The US media continues its silence on that event and also avoids noting that US military crossed over into Canada on a search for war resister Joshua Key. Brown does note, "In the last seven years, nearly 22,500 member of the United States military have gone AWOL or deserted and every year the numbers rise."

And as the numbers rise, more and more go public and speak out. As
Courage to Resist reports war resisters Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes, Agustin Aguayo and Robert Zabala will be speking out from May 9th through 17th in the San Francisco Bay Area. This will be Aguayo's first publicly speaking appearances since being released from the brig earlier this month (April 18th). The announced dates include:

Wednesday May 9 - Marin 7pm at College of Marin, Student Services Center, 835 College Ave, Kentfield. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Pablo Paredes and David Solnit. Sponsored by Courage to Resist and Students for Social Responsibility.

Thursday May 10 - Sacramento Details TBA
Friday May 11 - Stockton 6pm at the Mexican Community Center, 609 S Lincoln St, Stockton. Featuring Agustin Aguayo.
Saturday May 12 - Monterey 7pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 490 Aguajito Rd, Carmel. Featuring Agustin Aguayo and Camilo Mejia. Sponsored by Veterans for Peace Chp. 69, Hartnell Students for Peace, Salinas Action League, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and Courage to Resist. More info: Kurt Brux 831-424-6447
Sunday May 13 - San Francisco 7pm at the Veterans War Memorial Bldg. (Room 223) , 401 Van Ness St, San Francisco. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia and Pablo Paredes. Sponsored by Courage to Resist, Veteran's for Peace Chp. 69 and SF Codepink.
Monday May 14 - Watsonville 7pm at the United Presbyterian Church, 112 E. Beach, Watsonville. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes and Robert Zabala. Sponsored by the GI Rights Hotline & Draft Alternatives program of the Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV), Santa Cruz Peace Coalition, Watsonville Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF), Watsonville Brown Berets, Courage to Resist and Santa Cruz Veterans for Peace Chp. 11. More info: Bob Fitch 831-722-3311
Tuesday May 15 - Palo Alto 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church (Fellowship Hall), 1140 Cowper, Palo Alto. Featuring Camilo Mejia. Sponsored by Pennisula Peace and Justice Center. More info: Paul George 650-326-8837
Wednesday May 16 - Eureka 7pm at the Eureka Labor Temple, 840 E St. (@9th), Eureka. Featuring Camilo Mejia. More info: Becky Luening 707-826-9197Thursday May 17 - Oakland 4pm youth event and 7pm program at the Humanist Hall, 411 28th St, Oakland. Featuring Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes and the Alternatives to War through Education (A.W.E.) Youth Action Team. Sponsored by Veteran's for Peace Chp. 69, Courage to Resist, Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's (CCCO) and AWE Youth Action Team.

The are all part of a growing movement of war resistance within the military: Camilo Mejia,
Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, 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. In addition, the documentary Sir! No Sir! traces the war resistance within the military during Vietnam and it will air at 9:00 pm (EST) on The Sundance Channel followed at 10:30 p.m. by The Ground Truth which examines the Iraq war and features Jimmy Massey and Iraq Veterans Against the War's Kelly Dougherty among others.


From the topic of courage, we turn to craven -- taking us to the halls of Congress. As
Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted today, "The Senate has voted provide nearly one hundred billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while setting a non-binding timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.". Non-bidning timetable remains one of the most left out aspects of the measure. Also usually left out is that Bully Boy can reclassify those serving in Iraq (as "military police," for example) and avoid the pleas for withdrawals. (Pleas because "calls" is too strong for what is now headed to the White House for a signature.) Marilyn Bechtel (People's Weekly World) reminds that "the Congressional Research Service said that nearly half the $94 billion earmarked in the supplemental for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would really be used for non-urgent items like sending an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, and funding a U.S.-established Arabic-language TV station. The CRS report also pointed out that the Pentagon has funds available to continue the war until June or July." The sense of urgency being pushed by both major parties is as much smoke and mirrors as what left Congress. Bill Van Auken (World Socialist Web) tackles the realities, noting, "While media reports on the Congressional legislation routinely refers to it as a plan for the withdrawal of US troops from occupied Iraq and ending the war, the language of the bill makes clear that what is involved is a tactical 'redeployment' that would leave tens of thousands of US soldiers and marines in Iraq for years to come. . . . The bill includes a provision for keeping US armed forces in Iraq for three purposes: 'protecting United States and coalition personnel and infrastructure; training and equipping Iraqi forces and conducting targeted counter-terrorism operation.' This language would essentially allow the occupation and war to continue indefinitely, with US troops deployed to protect a massive new embassy being constructed in Baghdad to house a virtual colonial government and to guard 'American citizens' sent by the oil companies to reap massive profits off of Iraq's oil fields."

Yes, the topic of oil. In the supposed illegal war that had nothing to do with oil. The New York Times editorial board pimped the privatization of oil this week as did
War Pornographer Michael Gordon today where he noted, "American officials" were "pressing" the passage of the law and that it's apparently so important that even General David H. Petraeus has to stick his nose in (apparently commanding the US military in Iraq allows him much free time) to share that "he considered passage of the oil law, which would distribute revenues from oil production among Iraq's regions, a priority among the so-called benchmark items that the Americans would like to see become law." It does redistribute the monies -- redistributes them right out of Iraq and into the pockets of Big Oil which, under the proposed legislation, would receive over 70% of the profits in some cases.

In Iraq,
Riverbend (Baghdad Burning) reports that her family has decided to leave Iraq which, despite the Operation Happy Talk operatives, never achieved 'liberation' or 'democracy' (but then those were never the Bully Boy's intended aims. Noting the issue of the very unpopular wall in Baghdad, Riverbend writes: "It's a wall that is intended to separate and isolate what is now considered the largest 'Sunni' area in Baghdad - let no one say the Americans are not building anything. According to plans the Iraqi puppets and Americans cooked up, it will 'protects' A'adhamiya, a residential/mercantile area that the current Iraqi government and their death squads couldn't empty of Sunnis. . . . The Wall is the latest effort to further break Iraqi society apart. Promoting and supporting civil war isn't enough, apparently - Iraqis have generally proven to be more tenacisiou and tolerant than their mullahs, ayatollahs, and Vichy leaders. It's time for America to physically divide and conquer - like Berlin before the wall came down or Palestine today. This way, they can continue chasing Sunnis out of 'Shia areas' and Shia out of 'Sunni areas'."


Bombings?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad mortar attack that wounded 2, a Baghdad roadside bomb that killed 1 and left 1 wounded, a Kirkuk bombing that killed 4 police officers and left 5 more wounded, a Kirkuk roadside bomb that killed 1 person and left 3 wounded,

Shootings?

Reuters reports three people were shot dead in Mussayab and a "human rights activist was shot dead by gunmen near his home, 70 km (45 miles) southwest of Kirkuk".

Corpses?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 7 corpses discovered in Baghdad. and 3 corpses discovered in Kirkuk.

In addition,
Reuters reports that a prisoner at the US military operated prison Camp Bucca died "after he was apparently assaulted by other prisoners." As Damien Cave (New York Times) noted this morning of the US military controlled Camp Cropper, "Several detainees there have died mysteriously in the past year, with the most recent death occurring April 4. The causes of death for these detainees are rarely divulged." The US military reports the figure of prisoners who have died in US custody in Iraq to be six "in the past year."

In other time lag news,
AP reports that the British helicopter crash in May of 2006 that resulted in the death of five British soldiers resulted from being "shot down by a surface-to-air missile, using a man-portable air defense system, fired from the ground." The US helicopters that crashed this year? Still under investigation.

Also today, the
US military announced: "Three Marines assigned to Multi National Force West died April 26 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province." Al Anbar Province is the region that, as Anna Badkhen (San Francisco Chronicle) noted, Michael Gordon's man crush, General David Petraeus hailed as an area of progress, a "breathtaking" area of progress. Julian E. Barnes (Los Angeles Times), reporting on Petraeus' testimony to Congress Thursday, notes Petraues' claim to be "forthright" in September when it's time to evaluate the ongong escalation. The claim was all the more laughable considering that this was the week Congress took testimony on the lies the military spread about Pat Tilman's death in Afghanistan and Jessica Lynch testified to the lies told about her service in Iraq by the US military. The escalation is generally stated as having begun in February (the latest wave of the eternal crackdown), The idea that a judgement on it cannot be rendered until September goes unquestioned although few in the US are aware of jobs that come with an eight month probationary period.
On Wednesday, the
US military announced: "A Soldier assigned to Multi-National Corps, Iraq, died April 24, 2007 in a non-combat related incident." Today, (AP) reports that the soldier was Jeremy Maresh (24-years-old) and quotes Lt. Col. Chris Cleaver stating he "died from an apparent suicide." To be clear, there have been other deaths that were ruled suicides by the US military and families have strongly disagreed with the ruling.

US troops will leave Iraq. No matter how long Congress sits on its collective and ass and does nothing, US troops will leave. What happens then?
Phyllis Bennis and Robert Jensen (CounterPunch) address this issue: "The first step is, of course, crucial. When 78 percent of the Iraqi people oppose the presence of U.S. troops and 61 percent support attacks on those troops, it's clear that our presence in the country is causing -- not preventing -- much of the violence. Pulling out U.S. troops (including the 100,000-plus mercenaries who back the U.S. military) won't eliminate all Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence, but it will remove the reasons many Iraqis are fighting. The would take away the protective umbrella that the widely supported anti-occupation violence currently gives the real terrorists -- those engaged in killing civilians for
political or sectarian reasons. Once U.S. forces are gone and the reason for the legitmate resistance to foreign occupation is eliminated, the ugly terrorist violence will be exposed for what it is and it will be possible for Iraqis themselves to isolate the terrorists and eliminate them as a fighting force. But what comes after a U.S. withdrawal? We clearly owe the Iraqi people massive reparations for the devastation our illegal invasion has brought. Only in the United States is that illegality questioned; in the rest of the world it's understood. Equally obvious around the world is that the decision to launch an aggressive war was rooted in the desire to expand U.S. military power in the strategically crucial-oil-rich region, and that as a result the war fails every test of moral legitimacy."

In news of student activism in the US,
Justin Horwath (Minnesota Daily) reports on Monday's meeting at the University of Minnesota's Coffman Union where students who had formed a new chapter of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) met with members gathered to organize and heard Dave Biking speak of what SDS had accomplished during the 60s (when Bicking was a member). Howarth notes that today's SDS "has 148 university chapters and 58 high school chapters nationwide." Kyle Johnson tells Howarth, "SDS gives us the legitimacy to work on other issues, but the war is the No. 1 issue nationally, period." Erika Zurawski states that the new chapter is about "the issues of the day" and that "[t]here's a lot of issues to work on."

Meanwhile,
Arnie Passman (Berkeley Daily Planet) traces the history and popularization of the peace symbol noting, "In its Golden Jubilee year (right behind last 9/11's 100th anniversary of Gandhi creating the pledge of satyagraha--soul force), the peace symbol has weathered numerous wars -- and the best marketing opportunities money can buy. Facing today's horrors of Asian wars, increased nuclear disfunction, global warming, racial injustice, the irreversible military-industrial complex?. . ., it still calls from great city protests and hamlets to all Earth's colors and creeds for nonviolent resistance (peace marches between the 7 or 8 Gandhi statues--from Boston to San Francisco?) and civil disobedience (sit-ins at the largest defense contracting congressional districts?). And all from the mind of one person that deep '50s, dead winter day in grimy ol' London Town--and the pioneering march through the English countryside to mad western science's Aldermaston." Gerlad Holtom was the designer of the peace symbol.


Finally, Wednesday, May 2nd at 6:30 pm in The Great Hall, Cooper Union (NYC),
Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove will be presenting readings from their Voices of a People's History of the United States featuring music performed by Allison Moorer and Steve Earle and readings and vocal performances by Ally Sheedy, Brian Jones, Danny Glover, Deepa Fernandes, Erin Cherry, Harris Yulin, Kathleen Chalfant, Kerry Washington, Opal Alladin, Staceyann Chin and Stanley Tucci. Zinn and Arnove will provide both the introduction and the narration.

joshua key



Thursday, April 26, 2007

Brief

Read Mike's "7 Roundtables and Jeremy Brcher & Brendan Smith" and you'll know why everyone is late tonight. Mike said he was tired and probably going to write about the roundtables some and my reply was, "Oh good! I'll just link to you!"

I am lazy. I don't pretend otherwise. About the reviews. I will have something up this weekend.

On the reviews, here's my plan. Bright Eyes will go first (as e-mail after e-mail demands), then I will do a review concentrating on two CDs. I also have another review planned of one CD but there's one more CD I would like to squeeze in first. So what we are looking at is four reviews. My ideal hope is to do one each weekend starting with this weekend. If I can get all four done, I will probably then wait a few weeks before doing anymore. Let me repeat that when I started doing the reviews, the thing was, the goal, 12 music pieces a year. I do more than that now.
I'm not doing links, I'm too tired. But I know this year I've already reviewed Carly Simon, Diana Ross and Holly Near. If you won't be mad if I don't get all the four reviews done, here are the ones I'm focused on right now: Bright Eyes, Nora Jones, Albert Hammond Jr., Rickie Lee Jones and Patti Smith. That's what I plan to review. If I don't have Bright Eyes up by Sunday, look for it on Monday morning. Now that's what planned. So remember what John Lennon wrote in "Beautiful Boy," "life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

Now let me do KPFA's Guns and Butter quickly. On Wednesday's show, Bonnie Faulkner spoke with Keith Harmon Snow about the Congo. I'd heard Amy Goodman report on it a while back but I really don't believe I've seen or heard a great deal about the topic. Keith Harmon Snow was discussing the crisis, the numbers dying and the connections to US business.

We always seem to want to believe that the US acts out of humanitarian reasons but, look at the history. When our government gets involved, it rarely has to do with helping individuals in another country -- it does have to do with big business. See Iraq, for starters.

If you've visited my site regularly, you know I love Bonnie and think she provides space -- rare space -- for issues that will not be addressed. I have a lot of respect for her. I also have a lot of respect for Keith Harmon Snow who has been a guest before.

When I ended up in Ireland last year with a relative who was dying, I missed his stops out here (West Coast) and I've been beating myself up over that. He's a really strong voice who has done a lot of work on covering humanitarian issues and issues that get cloaked in "humanitarian" reasoning. (Or 'reasoning.") I wish I had his drive -- even just on one issue like Iraq. He knows a great deal about Africa (and I'm sure many other regions) and is a guest who should be booked on many programs. I only hear him on Bonnie's show. (I did hear him on an East Coast show that someone taped and sent to C.I. I'm sure he's on many other programs that I just don't know of but, out here, I just hear him on Bonnie's show.)

That's it for me. It's late and I shared most of my thoughts tonight in the roundtable. Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Thursday, April 26, 2007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, two high profile terrorists stalk the continental United States, US war resisters launch a tour, students REMAIN active (they always have been -- no matter what the old cranks say), and more.

Starting with news of war resisters.
Courage to Resist reports that war resisters Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes, Agustin Aguayo and Robert Zabala will be speking out from May 9th through 17th in the San Francisco Bay Area. This will be Aguayo's first publicly speaking appearances since being released from the brig earlier this month (April 18th). The announced dates include:

Wednesday May 9 - Marin 7pm at College of Marin, Student Services Center, 835 College Ave, Kentfield. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Pablo Paredes and David Solnit. Sponsored by Courage to Resist and Students for Social Responsibility.



Thursday May 10 - Sacramento Details TBA

Friday May 11 - Stockton 6pm at the Mexican Community Center, 609 S Lincoln St, Stockton. Featuring Agustin Aguayo.

Saturday May 12 - Monterey 7pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 490 Aguajito Rd, Carmel. Featuring Agustin Aguayo and Camilo Mejia. Sponsored by Veterans for Peace Chp. 69, Hartnell Students for Peace, Salinas Action League, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and Courage to Resist. More info: Kurt Brux 831-424-6447

Sunday May 13 - San Francisco 7pm at the Veterans War Memorial Bldg. (Room 223) , 401 Van Ness St, San Francisco. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia and Pablo Paredes. Sponsored by Courage to Resist, Veteran's for Peace Chp. 69 and SF Codepink.

Monday May 14 - Watsonville
7pm at the United Presbyterian Church, 112 E. Beach, Watsonville. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes and Robert Zabala. Sponsored by the GI Rights Hotline & Draft Alternatives program of the Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV), Santa Cruz Peace Coalition, Watsonville Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF), Watsonville Brown Berets, Courage to Resist and Santa Cruz Veterans for Peace Chp. 11. More info: Bob Fitch 831-722-3311

Tuesday May 15 - Palo Alto 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church (Fellowship Hall), 1140 Cowper, Palo Alto. Featuring Camilo Mejia. Sponsored by Pennisula Peace and Justice Center. More info: Paul George 650-326-8837

Wednesday May 16 - Eureka 7pm at the Eureka Labor Temple, 840 E St. (@9th), Eureka. Featuring Camilo Mejia. More info: Becky Luening 707-826-9197

Thursday May 17 - Oakland 4pm youth event and 7pm program at the Humanist Hall, 411 28th St, Oakland. Featuring Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes and the Alternatives to War through Education (A.W.E.) Youth Action Team. Sponsored by Veteran's for Peace Chp. 69, Courage to Resist, Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's (CCCO) and AWE Youth Action Team.

Camilo Mejia's book
Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia will be published by The New Press on May 1st. He is part of a movement of war resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, 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. In addition, the documentary Sir! No Sir! traces the war resistance within the military during Vietnam and it will air at 9:00 pm (EST) on The Sundance Channel followed at 10:30 p.m. by The Ground Truth, a documentary that features



Turning to news of terrorism, two high profile terrorists have been issuing threats against Americans, America and the democratic process that is supposed to be the bedrock the United States exists upon. US joke and 2008 GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliana, speaking in New Hampshire on Tuesday,
declared that Democrats will not remain on the offensive with terrorism and will wave a white flag as he attempted to subvert democracy in his desperate bid to win the GOP nomination. Not to be outdone, Crazy John McCain, also competing for the GOP 2008 presidential nomination, took The John McCain Showboat Express to South Carolina where he declared, "If we leave Iraq there will be chaos, there will be genocide, and they will follow us home."

Reality check for Senator Crazy: Iraq already has chaos, already has genocide. When the US leaves (and the US will leave at some point) there will be violence in Iraq. That's what can happen to puppet governments, when they have to stand on their own, the people may erupt in violence (mitigated somewhat when appointed puppets get the hell out of the country -- see Marcos and the Phillipines). To state that "they will follow us home" suggests that Senator Crazy may need to undergo a psych exam before continuing in the Senate. After the first Gulf War, the US left (much quicker) and violence did take place. It did not "follow us home." Senator Crazy is attempting to terrorize a nation to drum up some support -- a cheap and should-be illegal stunt. Rudy G? He continues to demonstrate that municipal politics and the national stage do not go hand in hand. The oft dubbed "America's Mayor" should probably focus on pot holes and leave the big subjects to those qualified to weigh in unless he's intent on joining the
VOTE INSANE! VOTE JOHN MCCAIN! ticket. In the United States, anyone can run for president -- even nut cases.

Other than missing their morning meds, what could have the two so upset? McCain was responding to the votes today and yesterday, Rudy G was anticipating them.
AP reports that today the Senate followed the House's vote (House voted last night) to pass a reconciliation of the measures that earlier passed both houses. The non-binding, toothless measure is now headed to the White House where it awaits a signature from the Bully Boy (in which case it becomes law) or a veto. If Bully Boy vetoes, it goes back to Congress where a two-thirds majority vote of each house is necessary to override the veto. (Bully Boy can also refuse to veto it, do nothing, and after 10 days it would become a law without his signature and without requiring another Congressional vote.) Bully Boy has stated he will veto the bill. AP quotes US Senator Robert Byrd declaring, "The president has failed in his mission to bring peace and stability to the people of Iraq. It's time to bring our troops home from Iraq." Such statements may confuse some people and lead them to believe the measure that has now passed both houses does that; however, it does not "bring our troops home from Iraq." It may allow some US service members to return to the US (or be deployed to Afghanistan); however, there are so many built in escape clauses for the Bully Boy that it's silly to promote the bill as "troops home now" or, for that matter, "troops home" in 2008. AFP observes, "The bill provides more cash than Bush sought to bankroll operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but says US troops are to start withdrawing from Iraq on October 1, with a non-binding target of completing the pullout by March 31, 2008."

Before the Senate vote today, Andrea Lewis spoke with Leigh Ann Caldwell (
Free Speech Radio News) and Chris Toensing (Middle East Report) on KPFA's The Morning Show about Congress and Iraq.

Chris Toensing: Well, I have never been able to shake the suspicion all along that the Democrats are engaged in an elaborate show of political theater -- that they do not really intend, in the end, to pass, to insist, that Bush sign legislation which would contain a binding timetable of any sorts. And that they are willing to water down those provisions even further to the point where it's entirely at the president's discretion -- it already almost is. But they're willing, I think, to water it down even further in order to chip away some Republicans who will vote for something like that and then they can claim to the public that they're trying to tie Bush's hands and they're trying to assert their Constitutional oversight role in helping to end this disasterous war and yet not really have their finger prints on Iraq policy. And I've never been able to shake this suspicion that that's really the Democrats game and I'm not speaking about the Progressive Caucus or the Out of Iraq Caucus who have a much clearer goal in mind and a much sounder political strategy in mind but I'm talking about the big national Democrats, the Emanuels and Pelosis in the House, the Schumers and Levins and so on in the Senate. And I think the goal of this is - is to make sure that the war is solely Bush's albatross and solely the Republicans albatross rather than to bring the war to a speedy conclusion.

Did, Andrea Lewis wondered, Toensing think that US service members would be returning to the US in the fall of 2008?

Toensing: I think it's possible, and actually probably likely, that some troops will be withdrawn, some combat brigades -- as they say. What's not going to happen is an end to the US deployment writ large. There are still going to be, I think, combat brigades there. I think there are also going to be large "enduring bases" various kind of advisors and trainers and support personnel who will be working with the new Iraqi army. I think that the underlying strategic goals of the US are just simply not served by leaving Iraq in its current state. The only conditions under which I can see either a Republican or a Democratic administration withdrawing completely from Iraq would be either if Iraqis themselves unified across all kinds of sectarian and ethinic lines and faught a kind of Pan-Iraqi Infintada against the US that would be unmanageable so that would be one circumstance. The other would be if they were able to find some kind of Iraqi strongman who would be able to ensure that the government would be stable and pliable-- according to Washington's interests -- after the US withdrew all the troops. That's the, that's all along been the underlying strategic goal and I haven't seen too many national Democrats, the ones with presidential ambitions, speak to the heart of US policy in the Persian Gulf and as long as that's not changing I think the US is going to be in Iraq for a long time.


Lewis noted, "Except maybe Dennis Kucinich" which Toensling agree with Leiws on. Dennis Kucinich is a US House Rep and candidate for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president.

In Iraq,
AFP reports, the non-binding "timetable for military withdrawal from Iraq brought mixed reviews from Iraqi members of parliament, some of whom doubted the government's ability to meet US demands for faster political reconciliation." The BBC notes Iraq's foreign minister and all around redundant loud mouth Hoshayr Zebari who is yet again screaming that the US cannot leave. If the tired, old song seems familiar, he's been singing it for years.
But when exiles and Kurds are made leaders, put in positions of power (put in by the US -- and Zebari is one of Bully Boy's favorites), it's not really surprising that they don't have the support of the average Iraqi and need a military force to protect them.

In Iraq today, many went without protection. Some of the violence.

Bombings?

Reuters notes a Khalis bombing that killed 10 Iraqi soldiers (15 wounded), a bombing in Jbela that killed a student and left six more wounded, Baghdad mortar attacks that killed 4 (wounded 11), a Baghdad car bombing that killed six (15 wounded) "near Baghdad University," Mosul bombings that killed 3 people (59 wounded), car bombings in southwestern Baghdad that killed 1 (three wounded), a roadside bomb in centeral Baghdad that killed 2 (10 wounded) and a mortar attack in Mahmudiya that "killed a woman and wounded three others".

Shootings?

Reuters reports a woman and her niece shot dead in Tikrit.


Corpses?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 26 corpses were discovered in Baghdad.
Reuters notes one corpse discovered in Mahmudiya and three corpses were discovered in Kirkuk.

In student activism news,
Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) spoke with the University of Maryland's Sergio Espana about the five-day fast, Hungry For Peace, that kicks off Monday. Espana stated, "So we're having students and faculty having a fast and a sit-out for five days, protesting the illegal US occupation in Iraq. Every day of the fast will represent roughtly 100,000 of the more than 500,00 Iraqi civilians that have died as a direct consequence of this illegal occupation. We'll also have a lecture series. Now, across the nation, thanks in large part to the Student Peace Action Network, we've had universities from California to Vermont who will also be contributing. So these fasts are nationwide. For example, in Minnesota -- apart from the fast, there will also be rallies going into their Congressional representatives, turning in petitions, letting them know that the American public wants them to do the job that they were actually elected to do -- which is to, you know, support the American public, support the troops and to end this immoral and atrocious war." UMBC Solidarity Coaliton is asking more campuses to sign up -- this include merely wearing black arm bands next week, protesting, fasting, etc.

Also
interviewed today was CODEPINK's Medea Benjamin. Excerpt:

AMY GOODMAN: Well, the founder of
CODEPINK, Medea Benjamin, joins us now from Washington, D.C. She's a longtime peace activist and also co-founder of Global Exchange. Welcome, Medea, to Democracy Now! You are changing the face, in a sense, of lobbying in Washington. Explain what you're doing.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, these hearings that are going on every day, Amy, they used to be very staid gatherings, where you'd have the K Street lobbyists and you'd have the staff aides and a maybe a sprinkling of tourists. Now, you have CODEPINK lining up early in the morning to get into each of the hearings and turning them into really public affairs. We try to participate in them. We certainly participate with our messages on our bodies. When we can get away with it, we participate with signs. And we often get carried away when we hear them saying things we don't like and get up and say something, sometimes get kicked out, sometimes get arrested, sometimes get tolerated. But we've really turned them into public gatherings, which I think they should be.
Yesterday, when General Petraeus tried -- well, he actually did a hearing behind closed doors, we were outside there yelling, "Let the public in! The public wants to hear!" And so, I think we're really changing the face of the way the proceedings are going on in Congress and demanding a lot more transparency.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Medea, given the number of times you've been ejected in recent months from Congress, you must be probably the best-known security question for the security guards there. Are they watching you and following you constantly?
MEDEA BENJAMIN: They've actually become our friends. We're on a first name basis. When we enter the Capitol buildings, they usually get on their walkie-talkie and say "OK, CODEPINK is here." They follow us around. They go to have lunch with us. They're really quite nice to us and quite sympathetic to our cause, as are a lot of the people that we find in these hearings. Things are really changing in Washington, and they're changing because groups like ours are keeping the pressure on.
And one thing I really want to say to your listening audience is that we need more of you here. We have rented a house, a CODEPINK house, with five bedrooms. We're encouraging people to come from all over the country, stay with us for a week or two weeks. There are people who have left their jobs and are really determined to be on the Hill during all of these discussions about supplemental money. So we need more people to come to Washington, get up in the morning with us, go out to these hearings, let them see that the people are determined to end the war in Iraq and not start another one in Iran.

Turning to media news,
Rolling Stone magazine celebrates 40 years in their May 3-17, 2007 double issue. Online, it's not worth checking out. In print, Jane Fonda and Patti Smith are interviewed -- the only two women. There are no people of color. So on a diversity scale, it fails. They do find time for the token neo-con -- the aging (badly aging) boy wonder of the right wing, Tom Wolfe who apparently showed up for the interview after a drunken party at the Buckleys. Strong interviews can be found with Fonda, Smith, Michael Moore, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Bill Moyers, Norman Mailer and Martin Scorsese. The strong interviews find the subjects reflecting on the last forty years and the changes they see in the country. We'll note Jane Fonda's response to "What indicates to you that young people are hopeful?"

Jane Fonda: Anger. Resistance. They're pissed off, as well they should be. Natalie Maines [of the Dixie Chicks] embodies that. It's that, "F--k it, man -- this not what I want this country to be." There's a lot of young people who feel that way. The young people I work with and who come to my events, they're beginning to feel their power in a very different way than in the Sixties and Seventies.

One young person,
Mike (Mikey Likes It!) covered the case of Jake Kovco on Tuesday and I should have linked to it already.


Finally, Wednesday, May 2nd at 6:30 pm in The Great Hall, Cooper Union (NYC),
Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove will be presenting readings from their Voices of a People's History of the United States featuring music performed by Allison Moorer and Steve Earle and readings and vocal performances by Ally Sheedy, Brian Jones, Danny Glover, Deepa Fernandes, Erin Cherry, Harris Yulin, Kathleen Chalfant, Kerry Washington, Opal Alladin, Staceyann Chin and Stanley Tucci. Zinn and Arnove will provide both the introduction and the narration.







Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Katrina vanden Heuvel did not win an award from Planned Parenthood

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.










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.


joshua key