Thank you to Ava and C.I. for filling in yesterday, they did a great job. Too good!
I said "brief." I really am trying to keep it brief here so that I can focus on doing some more CD reviews before the end of the year.
Am I going to be reviewing the Eagles? I hadn't planned on it because I don't shop at Wal-Mart on principle. I mentioned that to Jess, Dona and Ty when Dona was telling me tonight that it had popped up in some of the e-mails and they all said, "I'm sure C.I. already has the CD." I hadn't even thought of that. So we called and left a voice mail on C.I.'s cell phone and when C.I. called back, we were told, it should be next to the computer in the bedroom. Which it was and is. I'm listening to it now as I type this up. Again, I always go into C.I.'s bedroom when I'm here and use that computer to blog on. There are computers all over the house and, of course, laptops. But unless we're all together and trying to blog at the same time, I usually go into C.I.'s room. Maybe it's the view out the windows? Whatever it is, this really is the most comfortable room in the house (of all the rooms). It just feels really lived in. Don't know how else to put it.
But I'll throw out a tid bit. When Jess, Dona and Ty were bringing up the fact that C.I. had to have the CD before it came out, Jess said, "Come on, we're talking about the person who outdrank an Eagle on straight vodka." I'll be nice and won't say which Eagle but, yes, that is a true story about C.I.
By the way, Ava and C.I. also did "Amy Goodman (Ava and C.I. filling in for Elaine)" last night and I loved that and I loved Amy Goodman's "For Whom the Bell's Palsy Tolls" (Truthdig via Common Dreams) so please read that. Goodman's column is very straight forward so I would urge you to read Ava and C.I. with it if you haven't already. Goodman did a really brave thing and she doesn't really make a point to go into that in her column (which isn't surprising). If you don't get how brave it was, read Ava and C.I.'s piece.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, November 1, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, resistance brews, the US military does their usual stunt of announcing deaths after the press reports the totals for the month and more.
Starting with war resistance. "I am standing here today on behalf of the men, women and children of the Middle East, who have fallen victim to this Administration and it's complete lack of compassion and total disregard for both U.S. and International laws of war. I stand with them so that the entire world can take notice, and so that they will know that they are not forgotten," announced war resister James Circello in New Orleands over the weekend at a rally to end the illegal war, restore the Constitution and rebuild the Gulf Coast. Audio-visual can be found here and IVAW has the text of his speech posted as well. From the speech:
A little about myself:
I enlisted directly after the attacks of September 11th, I thought I was going to be a part of something noble and would be defending my country and family. Defending this, that and every other thing soldiers are told they defend.
All I ended up defending were corporate interests.
I served in Iraq during the initial invasion as an Airborne Infantryman with the 173rd Airborne Brigade from March 2003 to March 2004.
And while there, something incredible happened, something so revolutionary no one would ever believe me. . .
But while I was in Iraq I actually made friends with the people of that country. Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Kurds, Turks -- all of them.
It was unbelievable, all this time I was told that Arabs wanting to kill me for my freedom and because I was American.
I quickly became disillusioned about our mission there. We were being told that we were giving these people Democracy, unfortunately what I saw would best be described as martial law, or what we called "The Old West." Soldiers joked that "anything goes", which was true and still is, for the most part, today.
Time went by and I moved on to other places in my career, but I never forgot what I did while in Iraq and what I saw happening: Other kids turning into animals.
Some as young as 17, brutalizing, bullying and humiliating individuals sometimes old enough to be their grandparents, and sometimes young enough to be their children.
And it wasn't just the men and women on the receiving end, suffering through illegal and tiresome searches of their homes and vehicles, simply for being brown skinned, but the same methods were applied to women and children as well.
No one was innocent.
No one was innocent. No one.
I was against the invasion before I was deployed but shortly after I came home from Iraq, I decided I was completely against the Occupations and would refuse to participate in them any longer -- though it would take me over 2 and a half years to finally do something about it.
But then I did.
I left the Army on Easterm morning of this year, in protest of this Administration's War-Crimes and on that day I decided I would never again wear the Uniform of War.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
The National Lawyers Guild's convention begins shortly: The Military Law Task Force and the Center on Conscience & War are sponsoring a Continuing Legal Education seminar -- Representing Conscientious Objectors in Habeas Corpus Proceedings -- as part of the National Lawyers Guild National Convention in Washington, D.C. The half-day seminar will be held on Thursday, November 1st, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the convention site, the Holiday Inn on the Hill in D.C. This is a must-attend seminar, with excelent speakers and a wealth of information. The seminar will be moderated by the Military Law Task Force's co-chair Kathleen Gilberd and scheduled speakers are NYC Bar Association's Committee on Military Affairs and Justice's Deborah Karpatkin, the Center on Conscience & War's J.E. McNeil, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee's Peter Goldberger, Louis Font who has represented Camilo Mejia, Dr. Mary Hanna and others, and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's James Feldman. The fee is $60 for attorneys; $25 for non-profit attorneys, students and legal workers; and you can also enquire about scholarships or reduced fees. The convention itself will run from October 31st through November 4th and it's full circle on the 70th anniversary of NLG since they "began in Washington, D.C." where "the founding convention took place in the District at the height of the New Deal in 1937, Activist, progressive lawyers, tired of butting heads with the reactionary white male lawyers then comprising the American Bar Association, formed the nucleus of the Guild."
NLG president Marjorie Cohn spoke with by Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) today:
AMY GOODMAN: You're celebrating the seventieth anniversary of the National Lawyers Guild. Can you talk about why it formed?
MARJORIE COHN: In 1937, seventy years ago, the American Bar Association would not admit people of color. So the National Lawyers Guild started as an alternative to the American Bar Association. And during the last seventy years, National Lawyers Guild legal people -- lawyers, law students, legal workers -- have been involved in the cutting edge struggles to support the rights of people. And our preamble says it all, and we're dedicated to the proposition that human rights are more sacred than property interests.
AMY GOODMAN: You have written a great deal about the Bush administration. What do you think is President Bush's greatest offense at this point?
MARJORIE COHN: The war in Iraq is clearly his greatest offense, and the torture is part and parcel of that. And in his co-called war on terror, he has really made us less safe. He has put many of our lives in danger. And more than 3,800 people have lost their lives in this country. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed. Untold numbers of people have been wounded on both sides. And, in fact, he is rattling -- he and Cheney are rattling the sabers against Iran and promise to do even more horrible damage.
AMY GOODMAN: Have the Democrats coming to power in Congress made a difference?
MARJORIE COHN: They are holding hearings. So far, that's the only difference. They gave him the so-called Protect America Act, which legalizes his illegal spying program, which is not used just to spy on the terrorists, but also used to spy on dissidents, people who dissent against the administration policy. And I've seen a lot of timidity on the part of the Democrats. This vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee that's going to happen next week on the Mukasey nomination is going to be very telling, to see if the Democrats put their money where their mouth is. And it's not just waterboarding. If you look at his testimony, it supports the Bush administration in lockstep right down the line.
Returning to actions over the weekend, Adam Kokesh writes about the action he took part in. From "The Rally in Philly:" "The crowd was a bit disappointing, but still solid given the weather. I got to meet up with some friends from Veterans For Peace and some student organizers I've worked with just before Kelley Dougherty, the IVAW Executive Director, got on stage to speak. Despite having a very sweet demeanor and voice for an Iraq vet, she has a way of always getting people riled up and passionate about direct action, which she did. I did a couple TV interviews when the caravan stopped in Baltimore to pick some people up at a church, and said that this day of protests was one for the movement, one for the people. We're deliberately not doing something in DC because we are sick of asking for them to end this war. We the people have to stand up and stop this war for ourselves." On Friday, Kokesh spoke at his university (Georgetown). Hadas Gold (The GW Hatchet) reports, "About 30 people, most community members and some students, listened to Kokesh speak about Iraq, the military and the inherent racism in both. 'There really is some shame associated with having been a part of (racism in the military),' said Kokesh, who served in the Marines. Kokesh spoke of how the military dehumanizes Iraqis by using racial slurs and other names . . . to make the killings easier on the mind. . . . 'You cannot love what you do not understand,' Kokesh said. 'We would be na've to think America has been an exception to this historic trend.' Kokesh said everyone has the capacity for racism and that it is too often recognized as acceptable in our culture." Kokesh is co-chair of IVAW.
While Adam Kokesh works to get the word out, Nancy Youssef files another bad report for McClatchy Newspapers. She writes, "Of October's [US military] deaths, 27 were caused by enemy action, Iraqi Coalition Casualty Count reported on its web site." She tells you there were 36 for the month of October. Now McClatchy knows damn well the US military announces deaths late. The number is 39 because 3 October deaths were announced today. McClatchy -- of all people -- shouldn't be caught with their pants down. But what of the nine who died from something other than a non-combat classification? Did McClatchy determine the cause of death. Or did they just accept the military's "under investigation"? As we noted in Tuesday's snapshot, Christopher Monroe (whose parents have filed a lawsuit against the mercenary company responsible for their son's death) died October 25, 2006. The US military announced a death that sounded like a fender bender ("5-ton truck was involved in an automobile accident with a civilian vehicle") when the reality was that Monroe got run down by mercenaries in an armored Suburban (the mercenaries worked for Erinys -- Monroe's parents are suing them over the death of 19-year-old Christopher). Here's the reality for McClatchy -- which has done this dopey report for at least three months now -- if you don't know about the other deaths, you really can't write about the ones classified as "combat." That glaring error is not erased by erasing mentions -- even in passing -- of the others who died. Furthermore, in what reads like a report of 'progress,' Youssef notes, "A report by the Government Accountability Office in Washington warned Tuesday that the U.S. and Iraqi governments haven't taken advantage of the drop in violence." And? That's it. Youssef is done with it; however, yesterday James Glanz (New York Times) reported, ". . . Joseph A. Christoff, the director of international affairs and trade at the Government Accountability Office, said some measure of what some see as progress in Iraq were not as clear-cut as they might seem. For example, Pentagon statistic indicated that a drop in violence in Iraq over the past several months 'was primarily due to a decrease in attacks against coalition forces,' Mr. Christoff said in written remarks to a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. 'Attacks against Iraqi security forces and civilians have declined less than attacks against coalition forces,' Mr. Christoff wrote." None of that is in Youssef's article. When the New York Times is doing a better job on Iraq than McClatchy, there is a problem. Or, as a correspondent for another paper e-mailed the public account to assert, "You're going to pass Nancy again." Ruth called it out the start of last month. Youssef is one of the strongest print reporters on Iraq at any paper but this new monthly series is garbage. There were other things to call out before but only McClatchy appears to have not grasped that the figures you run with for that first-of-the-month-report-on-the-first-of-the-month change. The US military knows those reports are in the works -- it's why they now regularly feed the key talking points two weeks before the end of the month in press conference after press conference -- so they regularly have a few 'holdover' announcements on deaths. Already today, the US military has announced 3 October deaths. Anywhere in the report (which appears as confused as John McCain on the campaign trail -- though McCain is pretending confusion re: Iraq, in August 2006, he outlined all that has happened) about the key element of October? Nope. ". . . Bush's military strategy has employed its own indiscriminate firepower -- from loose 'rules of engagement' for U.S. troops, to helicopter gun ships firing on crowds, to jet air strikes, to missiles launched from Predator drones. For instance the U.S. military acknowledged on Oct. 23 that an American helicopter killed 11 people, including women and children . . ." Who wrote that? Not Youssef. Robert Parry (Consortium News) pointed that out this week. It's sad that a monthly-round-up piece by Youssef on violence in Iraq can't even note the most obvious trend for the month of October. As we noted Sunday at The Third Estate Sunday Review: "If September's big story was Blackwater, the key story of October was US military air strikes that killed civilians -- with the US admitting to a few while using 'under investigation' to cover others. That too is falling out of the early accounts so we're not hopeful to see it explored in the end of the month (published first day of the month) stories." If fell right off the charts, onto the floor and slid under the rug before McClatchy could apparently notice because in a report on violence for the month of October, Youssef writes as if she's unaware of the vast number of reports on Iraqis killed by US 'air power'. She's happy to type up, "Police blame the violence on al Qaida in Iraq . . ." but apparently noting the killings that were the key development of the month (the key was them being reported on, the development itself is not all that new) was too much to ask for. The report is useless. It was useless before 3 more deaths being announced made the figures wrong. If you're wondering, for the second month in a row McClatchy Newspapers plays vauge on the Iraqi death statistics. Youssef zooms in on Baghdad but fails to note the figures throughout Iraq. AFP reports, "The number of Iraqis killed in insurgent and sectarian attacks" note that leaves out the Iraqi civilians killed in US air strikes "rose in October, in a blow to a nine-month-old US troop surge policy. At least 887 Iraqis were killed last month, compared to 840 in September, according to the data compiled by the Iraqi government." AFP keeps their own figures -- these are not them. These are figures released by the Iraqi government, the ministries of interior, defence and health. Meanwhile the site that is known for undercounting the dead, IBC, has a total of 1,1817 Iraqi civilians killed for the month of October. Neither goes with a Happy Talk "Troops coming home anyday now!" theme. AFP also notes, "The United Nations, one of the reliable sources of information, also stopped providing the data since early this year." Of course you could always pull a Ned Parker and compare this month's toll with January's (as he does in the Los Angeles Times) and trumpet "DECREASE!" Apparently, the saying is never be a nosy parker nor a Ned Parker. Call it a sign of the sorry state of journalism or a sign of hope but college student Emily Watson (UT's The Daily Texan) clearly grasps what so many refuse to:
The Associated Press reported this week that the projected death toll for October - 36 - is the lowest in 19 months, almost half of last month's casualties. But who are we, as citizens and journalists, to say that the casualties of the Iraq war, at only 36, are the lowest they have been in 19 months? Only one casualty in a month is not a feat - it still means that one life has been lost. Let's stop speaking in numbers and death tolls and start looking at what really happens when a nation is at war. The federal government prohibits the publishing of any photographs of dead soldiers' coffins. Perhaps that's how they want to keep it: We can see the numbers of coffins, but not the coffins themselves. If death isn't real to the American public, then the war is just something that whispers its way into the nightly news or that creeps quietly into the RSS feeds of our blogs. We turn a blind eye to the soldiers walking the halls of America's Veterans Affairs hospitals. College-aged women and men return from war less their legs, arms, eyes or ears, hoping to one day be normal again.
Today the US military announced, "Two Task Force Iron Soldiers were killed by an explosion near their vehicle while conduting operations in Nineveh province Oct. 31." And they announced: "A Task Force Iron Soldier was killed by an explosion near his vehicle while conducting operations in Salah ad Din province Oct. 31." Also today, AP reports that research by the Veterans Affairs Department has found "that at least 283 combat veterans" have taken their own lives after leaving military service between October 7, 2001 "and the end of 2005". Those figures leave out nearly two years worth of data.
In reported violence today . . .
Bombings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad explosion that claimed 3 lives and left four wounded, a Diyala car bombing claimed the lives of 3 Iraqi soldiers and 3 Iraqi civilians (eighteen more soldiers were wounded) and, in the latest attack on officials, a Diyala roadside bombing "targeted the convoy of Baladrouz police chief in Baladrouz, killing six of the bodyguards and injuring two others." Meanwhile Kim Gamel (AP) reports, "U.S. helicopters opened fire after a ground patrol came under attack southest of Baghdad on Wednesday, and Iraqi police said three officers were killed and one wounded in the strike." So, yesterday, another US air strike -- 'precision,' to be sure -- resulted in the deaths of 3 Iraqi police officers.
Shootings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a man shot dead in Baghdad, while three civilians and police officer were wounded in a Baghdad shooting, and Saleh Al Jizani ("brother of a prominent member of Mahdi army militia and Sadr trend in Basra") while yesterday "a member of Mahdi army military" was shot dead in Basra.
Corpses?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 5 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes Professor Sabri Abdul-Jabar's corpse was discovered outside of Kirkuk today.
Turning to documentaries, Meeting Resistance is the new documentary by journalists Molly Bingham and Steve Connors. The film examines the Iraqi resistance to the illegal war and occupation. Mike Ferner (CounterPunch) reports on how the documentary came in to being and quotes Steve Connors delcaring, "This film is seen as somehow really radical. I've covered 10 conflicts and this is the first time I've heard it's radical to cover the other side. As a German friend of mine asked, 'Americans consider this news?'"; and Bingham explaining, "We didn't know what to expect at all, but what we found was that the vast majority of people we spoke with didn't wait to see how the administration of Baghdad was going to go. They just saw they were being occupied and that occupation required a response. Most of the people we inteviewed were organizing within a week (of the fall of the Saddam Hussein government in early April, 2003), finding people to work with." Reminder, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) interviewed them about the documentary on October 18th, it's listen, watch or read online.
Turning to the continued tensions between Turkey and northern Iraq, Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reports on the meet up US Secretary of State Condi Rice and others will have in Turkey noting the tensions as Rice attempts "not to antagonize either" Turkey or Iraq. Evren Mesci and Hidir Goktas (Reuters) report, "Turkey said on Thursday planned economic sanctions would only target outlawed Kurdish militants and groups providing them with support in northern Iraq."
Returning to resistance. Some in the service are resisting going to Iraq. Yes, we are talking about the State Department. Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) reports:
Uneasy U.S. diplomats yesterday challenged senior State Department officials in unusually blunt terms over a decision to order some of them to serve at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad or risk losing their jobs. At a town hall meeting in the department's main auditorium attended by hundreds of Foreign Service officers, some of them criticized fundamental aspects of State's personnel policies in Iraq. They took issue with the size of the embassy -- the biggest in U.S. history -- and the inadequate training they received before being sent to serve in a war zone. One woman said she returned from a tour in Basra with post-traumatic stress disorder only to find that the State Department would not authorize medical treatment. Yesterday's internal dissension came amid rising public doubts about diplomatic progress in Iraq and congressional inquiries into the department's spending on the embassy and its management of private security contractors. Some participants asked how diplomacy could be practiced when the embassy itself, inside the fortified Green Zone, is under frequent fire and officials can travel outside only under heavy guard."
AP dubs the meeting "contentious" and maintains that diplomats "peppered officials with often hostile comments". Phillippe Naughton (Times of London) calls it "an unprecendented rebellion by foreign service officers over a threat to force diplomats to accept postings in Iraq". Matthew Lee (AP) reports Rice's response -- sending out a cable insisting "that foreign service officers have an obligation to uphold the oaths they took to carry out their policies of the government and be available to serve anywhere in the world".
Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers a look at "Curveball" -- one of the phonies backing up Bully Boy's lies of war -- who is identified in Bob Simon's report as Rafid Ahmed Alwan. While PBS' NOW with David Brancaccio (Friday night in most markets, check local listings) looks at farming and asks, "Can local farmers change course and crops and still survive in a shifting economy?" Brancaccio interviews Bill McKibben and Steven L. Hopp is also interviewed on the program while online Hopp and Barbara Kingsolver (they are married) will offer an excerpt of their new book which, unless I'm thinking of another book, includes a third author -- Barbara's adult daughter Camille Kingsolver. If that's the book in question, it's entitled Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.
iraq
democracy nowamy goodman
marjorie cohn
the national lawyers guild
robert parry
mcclatchy newspapersnancy a. youssef
ralph nader
barbara kingsolverpbs
now with david branccacio
emily watsonkaren deyoungthe washington post
alissa j. rubinthe new york timesthe third estate sunday review
ruths report
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Ava and C.I. filling in for Kat
Ava and C.I. with you tonight while Kat's got the night off to enjoy a Halloween party. We're going to dicuss the Dems, music/TV and possibly some other items (all "briefly," at Kat's instruction). First up, from Amy Goodman's "For Whom the Bell's Palsy Tolls" (Truthdig):
Bell's palsy. It hit suddenly a month ago. I had just stepped off a plane in New York, and my friend noticed the telltale sagging lip. It felt like Novocain. I raced to the emergency room. The doctors prescribed a weeklong course of steroids and antivirals. The following day it got worse. I had to make a decision: Do I host "Democracy Now!," our daily news broadcast, on Monday? I could speak perfectly well, and I'm tired of seeing women (and men) on TV who look like they just stepped off the set of "Dynasty." Maybe if they see a person they trust to deliver the news, still there, but just looking a little lopsided, it might change their view of friends and family--or strangers, for that matter--who are struggling with some health issue.
Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia anyone can edit, stated that I had suffered a stroke. So on Tuesday I decided to tell viewers and listeners that I was suffering from a temporary bout of Bell’s palsy, that it wasn't painful and that "the doctors tell me I will be back to my usual self in the next few weeks. In the meantime, it just makes it a little harder to smile. But so does the world."
Bell's palsy affects 50,000 people in the U.S. every year. It is an inflammation of the seventh cranial nerve that connects to the eye, nose and ear. The inflammation causes temporary paralysis of the nerve. For some, the eye can't close, so they have to tape it shut at night, and some can't speak. George Clooney had it. Ralph Nader came down with it in the midst of a speaking tour. He was in Boston debating someone when his eye started to water and his mouth sagged. It didn't stop him. He continued his tour, just beginning each talk by saying, "At least you can’t accuse me of speaking out of both sides of my mouth."
We just wrote about this topic in "Amy Goodman (Ava and C.I. filling in for Elaine)" so, to stay "brief," we'll just refer you to that.
Moving on to music/TV. A number of e-mails come in asking if we ever consider reviewing music? We have covered music specials. In terms of CDs, we wouldn't. Why bother when Kat already does such an amazing job of it?
C.I.: When The Common Ills first started, I was able to respond to every e-mail that came in. Kat wrote amazing e-mails. She was on a list of other members whose e-mails I'd save until the end of the day when I was worn out and needed the pick me up. She loved music and I loved her e-mails. I begged and begged her to write something and I'm very glad she did.
Ava: At The Third Estate Sunday Review, the first Saturday when we were working, not only did we highlight Kat's first review in full, we also peppered questions to C.I. about what was Kat like? She is just an amazing voice and we have no interest in covering CDs because Kat already does. She's amazing.
That said, if Kat ever wanted to grab a TV show, musical or non-musical, we wouldn't object. We're sure she'd do an amazing job. She asked us on the phone today what we were listening to this week on the road with Jim? We've got three Tori Amos CDs, Neil Young and Ben Harper playing anytime we're in the car.
Democratic Party politics? Shirley and Martha provided their summaries of today's e-mails. The entries at The Common Ills today resulted in the following opinions from visitors:
*You're just repeating what someone else wrote.
*No one is saying what you're saying so you're wrong!
We're on the road, we're not surfing online. The commentaries that went up regarding Hillary Clinton -- or the attacks on her in the alleged 'debate' -- were the average reactions when we watched the 'debate' on a campus last night and reflect what we heard on campuses today. Neither of us are ever afraid of being the only one to say something.
*What do you mean Hillary isn't qualified to be president!
*I knew you hated Barack Obama!
We have both made a point to avoid endorsing anyone other than Cindy Sheehan.
C.I.: Ava's the designated backup for The Common Ills.
Nothing said Hillary wasn't qualified. "Hillary Clinton demonstrated that even when attacked by two men (Barack Obama and John Edwards), a woman is up for the job. Whether she would be the president Americans want or not is another question." Whether she's the president America wants or not is another question and one that will be decided first in a Democratic primary and then in a general election. (The Supreme Court, if they choose to rule, won't take into account the will of the American people judging by 2000.) Statements like that are to note that there is no endorsement coming from The Common Ills for any primary candidate.
Hate Barack? If Barack dropped out of the race, who would we have to laugh at? Obama stated in 2004 that he didn't support withdrawal. He now wants credit for having been against the war (he doesn't call it "illegal") in 2002. But in 2004, he was for prolonging, not ending, the illegal war. As a Senator, he has consistently voted to prolong it until this past summer. The only thin he can point to is "I was against it" and it's really lying to claim you were against it when you were against withdrawal and you voted for it over and over. That's before noting that he will not (nor will Clinton or John Edwards) pledge to end the illegal war by the end of his first term if he were elected.
Barack stands for nothing. He is DLC. People repeatedly try to miss that obvious fact. That's what all of his "unity" statements are about. He's not embracing the left but the left (especially The Nation magazine) can't stop humping his leg. We love Laura Flanders but we think her column shows the problem with the left's response to Barack: "Obama Be Bold: Break with a Backer on Torture…" (Common Dreams -- anyone else making that argument wouldn't be linked to, we like Flanders). What is he, 18 months old? "Come on, Barackie, you can do it, one foot, one foot, you can do it." "Be Bold: Break with a Backer on Torture"? Shouldn't that be: "Barack: Why are you taking the support of a torture backer?" What is this with treating Baby Bambi like he's our child and we have to encourage his every step and fuss over it?
He is the weakest and most insufferable candidate in the Democratic primary. He wants to trash Hillary for a vote. That's fine . . . until you get to the point that he didn't vote. He was in the Senate and the vote's important enough for him to beat up on Clinton with it. But if it's that important, shouldn't he have been present to vote on it?
He's a paralyzed candidate who does nothing and that may be because all he has to offer is "When I wasn't in national politics, I was right!" Possibly, he's afraid to make any move and risk giving up that "I was right" stance.
And, let's be clear, the idea that he is charging people to attend his speeches is repugnant and the fact that the left wants to ignore that (while also decrying the influence of money on politics) is b.s. He's gone from $15 a head to $29 a head. At what point does our brave left get concerned? One hundred bucks?
It's repugnant that any candidate running for president would insist upon charging people to attend his public campaign events. If people can't grasp that today, don't come whining to us in 2012. Don't, four to eight years from now, start whining about the poor and the working poor have been shut out from seeing a candidate up close because everyone's charging fees to attend public please-vote-for-me! events.
Today there are over a million things that need to be fixed. How does that happen? By people not calling out in real time. If Obama gets away with this and is not loudly called out, it will be the norm in later elections. At which point our left will 'wake up' -- but the truth is many are repulsed by it now, they just don't want to call out Baby Bambi.
Barack's been applauded at least twice at The Common Ills (once for calling out John Howard) and he's been defended (when the New York Times lied about a statement he made regarding military funerals). If he ever actually did anything, he might get applauded again. But instead, he grins a lot, tosses out Chicken Sop for the Soul and is nothing but a joke currently.
Joe Biden, by the way, didn't get mentioned at all today and that was due to the fact that people tended to talk (about other candidates) when he was on so his remarks weren't heard and there wasn't time to find a transcript today.
*You are pushing Dennis Kucinich because you linked to him!
*You are pushing Mike Gravel because you linked to him!
*You are pushing Bill Richardson because you linked to him!
C.I.: I actually didn't link to any. I dictated that snapshot. I said, link to Biden's campaign, Gravel's, Kucinich's and Richardson's if you have time. It was then pointed out that Biden hadn't been mentioned. We just explained why. When possible, non press designated front runners will get links simply because they need more attention. Hillary, Barack and John don't need links. Chris Dodd I often forget about. That's my oversight and not intended.
We don't care who you vote for. And if you don't think you can decide on election day, that's your business. We do care that you go beyond the horserace. You may decide X speaks to you best, that's your business. But we do hope that if you vote, you work to make the best informed choice for yourself. There are a million issues and not all will get attention (most won't) from the press. If you're not making a point to check out the candidates, you might find X feels about ___ exactly the same as you do. So you need to look at what's out there and if they aren't a designated front runner, you really can't depend upon the press.
If you're an Obama supporter, we aren't trying to change your mind. We are noting realities we see and if anyone else was, we probably wouldn't feel obligated to do so. If you want "Hillary Bad!" you can read The Nation. They won't, however, call out Obama.
*I knew you were going to endorse Ralph Nader!
No one's been endorsed. But, community wide, the point has been made that anyone who thinks they're fit for the office (or any office) should run. America needs more choices, not less. If he wants to run, he should and he shouldn't have to hear "Ralph, Don't Run!" If he's the best candidate to most Americans, he should win. Any votes he gets if he declares are votes he earned, not votes he stole. If Ralph runs, he will probably get more single attention than any other presidential candidate at either The Common Ills or The Third Estate Sunday Review and that's due to what 2004 demonstrated which is the left thought they were the Democratic Party. This community is left. Some are Democrats, some aren't. Some have no interest in elections. Whomever runs for the Green Party ticket will get noted because it is a left party and it is one that our alleged 'independent' media prefers to ignore or scold. Nader would get more attention than any other currently mentioned potential Green Party presidential nominee except Cynthia McKinney because it's not going to require a huge amount of research. He and McKinney are known. Whomever runs will get noted but it would be much easier to follow a candidate already known. (That's not saying it should be one of the two of them. It should be whomever the Green Party selects and whomever wants to run. We're just saying that a national name makes doing a piece at Third much easier and time is limited.)
Here's today's "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, October 31, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the price of oil hits a new record high, Tim Russert gets his ya-yas at the public's expense, Blackwater continues to raise eyebrows and more.
Starting with war resisters. Over the weekend, Paul St. Armand's Parallels won the Canadian Reflections Award at the enRoute Student Film Festival in Toronto. Among those serving as judges for the festival were film producer Denise Robert, actor-writer-director Patrick Huard, director-animator Torill Kove, director Atom Egoyan, producer Robert Lantos, actor-producer Donald Sutherland and film critic (Toronto Star) Geoff Pevere. Halifax' The Daily News explains, "Parallels is a double portrait of U.S. amry deserters from the Vietnam and Iraq wars. The film won Best Documentary at the 2007 BC Student Film Festival, was a Golden Sheaf nominee at the Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival, and is a current nominee at Kevin Spacey's Triggerstreet Online Film Festival." The documentary short explores the lives of James D. Jones and Joshua Key. Originally, Paul St. Armand thought he was making a documentary that would look at Vietnam war resisters in Canada three decades later. James D. Jones was one of the war resisters from that era he spoke with. Then the War Resisters Support Campaign hooked him up with Iraq War resister Joshua Key and St. Armand noted similarities in the two resisters stories. Key's story is also among those told in Michaelle Mason's documentary Breaking Ranks (where he states, "As we got down the Euphrates River and we took a shartp right turn, all we seen was heads and bodies. And American troops in the middle of them saying 'we lost it'.") and in the book he wrote with Lawrence Hill, The Deserter's Tale. From Key's book, page 176:
By our sins of willful neglect, we were about to have a child's blood on our hands. I knew it was wrong then, and now I know exactly what the Geneva Conventions say about the protection of women and children in war.
"Women shall be the object of special respect and shall be protected in particular against rape, forced prostitution, and any other form of indecent assault."
I knew how things were going to begin for that thirteen-year-old Iraqi girl, that day, but there was no telling how they would end. We had every means at our disposal to protect that girl. I say this because, in Iraq, sergeants and officers in my company generally behaved however they wanted in the presence of Iraqi civilians, employees, police officers, and border officials. In my opinion, it wouldn't have mattered in the slightest to my superiors what Iraqis throught of our actions. If one of our officers or sergeants had chosen to intervene and protect the girl, no Iraqi working at the border would have been in a position to stop him. We were the ones with the ultimate authority at the border. Indeed, one of our roles at al-Qa'im was to teach the Iraqi border officials and police officers how to inspect a car, and to tell them what we would allow Iraqis to take out of their country and what we prohibited as export items. We were the occupiers and we controlled the border, but when it came to the fate of the thirteen-year-old girl who was about to be raped, we did nothing.
Meanwhile Steve Woodhead (The Brock Press) reports on war resister Michael Espinal recent speaking event at Brock University at St. Catharines, Ontario. Espinal explains of one thing explains about his time in Iraq, "We were told to walk right past injured civilians, even children who were lying bleeding on the ground. I've seen soldiers take up to $20,000 U.S. from homes during house raids . . . Soldiers would go around in civilian cars we picked up at border checkpoints." Like many war resisters, Espinal had to go online to find information about war resistance.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
The National Lawyers Guild's convention begins shortly: The Military Law Task Force and the Center on Conscience & War are sponsoring a Continuing Legal Education seminar -- Representing Conscientious Objectors in Habeas Corpus Proceedings -- as part of the National Lawyers Guild National Convention in Washington, D.C. The half-day seminar will be held on Thursday, November 1st, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the convention site, the Holiday Inn on the Hill in D.C. This is a must-attend seminar, with excelent speakers and a wealth of information. The seminar will be moderated by the Military Law Task Force's co-chair Kathleen Gilberd and scheduled speakers are NYC Bar Association's Committee on Military Affairs and Justice's Deborah Karpatkin, the Center on Conscience & War's J.E. McNeil, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee's Peter Goldberger, Louis Font who has represented Camilo Mejia, Dr. Mary Hanna and others, and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's James Feldman. The fee is $60 for attorneys; $25 for non-profit attorneys, students and legal workers; and you can also enquire about scholarships or reduced fees. The convention itself will run from October 31st through November 4th and it's full circle on the 70th anniversary of NLG since they "began in Washington, D.C." where "the founding convention took place in the District at the height of the New Deal in 1937, Activist, progressive lawyers, tired of butting heads with the reactionary white male lawyers then comprising the American Bar Association, formed the nucleus of the Guild."
Turning to the topic of the mercenary company Blackwater, an editorial from the Los Angeles Times notes today: "Congress should also begin investigating growing evidence of an overly cozy relationship between the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and Blackwater. It appears that the bureau hired the contractors, supervised their activities, allowed them to use deadly force, began to investigate the long-simmering allegations of excessive use of force only after the outcry over the September shootings, and then promised some contractors immunity without asking permission from the Justice Department. This behavior is more disturbing given reports that Blackwater has hired former State Department officials at high salaries, raising questions about whether the 'revolving door' presented a conflict of interest for investigators. Certainly Blackwater seems to have unwarranted influence in Washington, as evidenced by the letter it procured from the State Department ordering it not to disclose information to Waxman's committee. Who's in charge here, the U.S. government or Blackwater?" As questions continue to rise, John M. Broder and David Johnston (New York Times) inform that the Defense Department and not the State Department will now be in charge of oversight and quote US House Rep Jan Schakowsky stating, "It feels like they're [the State Department] protecting Blackwater." However, Noah Schatman (Wired) reports that the Department of Defense will not provide oversight because "The US Regional Cooperation Offices -- also called 'Reconstruction Operations Centers' -- are themselves outsourced, through a recently renewed $475 million contract to the British firm Aegis. And Aegis is run by the infamous old-school gun-for-hire, Tim Spicer." Which calls into question the noted by Peter Grier (Christian Science Monitor), made by Geoff Morrell -- Pentagon flack, that "the military, for its part, would now excercise some control over contractor training" -- a bit hard for the Pentagon to do if oversight has already been contracted out. Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) notes the limited-immunity the State Department offered Blackwater over the September 16th slaughter of Iraqi civilians in Baghdad and observes, "New details about the 'protections' given Blackwater contractors allegedly involved in the shootings sparked outrage from congressional Democrats yesterday, along with a flood of letters to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from committee chairmen demanding more information." Tim Harper (Toronto Star) observes of the immunity offered (with no input from anyone outside the State Department), "But legal experts said the state department move makes an already difficult prosecution even more difficult and keeps those who allegedly did the shooting in a legal zone which authorities may not be able to penetrate. Democrats accused the Bush administration of shielding potential killers and the chair of the powerful oversight committee gave U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice until Friday at noon to answer questions about the decision of her investigators." Of course, Rice isn't supposed to be in the US then. She's supposed to be in Turkey for a scheduled conference. Facing reporters in yesterday's State Dept briefing, Sean McCormack repeatedly fell back on a claim that he couldn't speak, "First of all, we have to draw a box around the specific events of September 16th and anything involved with that particular case." Other comments on the news emerging this week regarding the State Department and Blackwater included, "This is an area that I can't venture into."; "Again, I can't speak to the specifics of the September 16th case."; "In general, you have exhausted my legal knowledge concerning this case."; and "I'm just not going to have anything to say about the September 16th case." Even on something as general as the process of the incident reports that are supposed to be required whenever a contractor under the State Department fires a weapon in Iraq, McCormack stonewalled with comments such as "Let me just see if there's a standard procedure that I can talk about" and "I'll talk to the lawyers and see what we can do." Discussing the procedures on incident reports, on who sees them and the process itself does not require speaking to an attorney. Furthermore, in a democracy (open government), the process is not a secret. When Helen Thomas pressed White House flack Dana Perino on the immunity issue yesterday, Perino refused to expand on more than "Helen, as I said, it's a matter that's under review" and refused to state whether the Bully Boy had been briefed on the immunity deal the State Department offered.
As the tensions and fallout from the September 16th slaughter continues in Iraq, the puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki feels pressure to do something (his earlier public statements regarding Blackwater having since been clamped down on) so he has proposed a measure that would overturn Paul Bremer's Order 17 which granted immunity (from the Iraqi government) to contractors operating in Iraq. Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reports the proposed bill "was written by" al-Maliki's legal adviser. Asked about that in the briefing yesterday, Sean McCormack was again evasive stating "Well, it's their law as I understand it -- unless I'm wrong here and that has been known to happen. . . . But as I understand it, they have the ability to changer their laws. Now, let's take a look at exactly what has been proposed and has yet to be debated in their legislature. But once we have a look at it and have a chance to analyze it, perhaps we'll have more to say about it." Left unstated is exactly why the State Department or the US should have anything to say about the allegedly independent nation-state Iraq. Meanwhile Christian Berthelsen and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) report that Iraqi eye witnesses to the slaughter say the FBI agents investigating "appear focused on whether anyone fired first on the American convoy and have been aggressively gathering ballistic evidence" and citing an unnamed "U.S. source" report that the team of investigators left Iraq Sunday.
Staying on the topic of crime, the US military has found a number of anthropologists who will betray their field. Earlier this month, the BBC noted, "The Pentagon is pulling out all the stops in Iraq and Afghanistan" to recruit wayward academics to assist their Human Terrain System; however, "very frew anthropologists in the US are willing to wear a uniform and receive the mandatory weapons training." The article also notes the Network of Concerned Anthropologists an organization created to preven the betryal of the social science and the unethical use of the field to harm or destroy a people. One founding member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists is David Price. In a well researched and documented article entitled "Pilfered Scholarship Devastates General Petraeus's Counterinsurgency Manual" (CounterPunch), Price walks readers through how even on something as basic as a monogram, those involved are applying no academic standards and he notes that Montgomery McFate appears to believe that merely stumbling across a passage written by another academic means she can claim it as her own -- word for word -- without credit or attribution. That's theft, plagiarism and shoddy scholarship. Monty is as she was -- forever and ever. Price also examines the press-love for Monty and writes, "In a recent exchange with Dr. McFate, Col. John Agoglia and Lt. Col. Edward Villacres on the Diane Rehm Show, I pressed McFate for an explanation of how voluntary ethical informed consent was produced in environments dominated by weapons. In response, McFate assured me that was not a problem because 'indigenous local people out in rural Afghanistan are smart, and they can draw a distinction between a lethal unit of the U.S. military and a non-lethal unit'." The Diane Rehm Show referred to was broadcast October 10th. In that broadcast, though Monty claimed the local population was able to discern, the New York Times' David Rohde was asked how clear the lines were by USA Today's Susan Page (filling in for Rehm) -- "does it seem transparent for them" when they meet with "Tracy":
David Rohde: Um, she was transparent with them. I don't think she gave her full name, I think she does identify herself as an anthropologist. I saw her briefly, but I don't know what she does at all times. She personally, um, actually chose to carry a weapon for security that's not a requirement for members of the team, I've been told. And she wore a military uniform which would make her appear to be a soldier, um, to Afghans that she wasn't actually speaking with.
Susan Page: And so you think Aghans knew that she wasn't a soldier even though she was wearing a military uniform and carrying a weapon? Or do you think that they just assumed that she probably was?
David Rohde: I would think that they assumed that she was.
That's the reality and, strangely, when Rohde was done speaking, Monty had nothing to add even though every false claim she'd offered in the roundtable had just been demolished. Price notes "a recent New York Times op-ed by Chicago anthropologist Richard Shweder indicates a stance of inaction from which the travesties of Human Terrain can be lightly critiqued while anthropologists are urged not to declare themselves as being 'counter-counterinsurgency'." that nonsense ran on A31 of last Saturday's Times and mainly serves to update his November 2006 op-ed embarrassment where he gushed -- alleged anthropologist -- "The West is the best". The non-thinking person's anthropologist -- to anthropology what recipes on the back of a bag of Frito Lays are to fine cooking -- justified the program. While loose with the truth Monty and lost in stimulation Shweder attempt to put forth the lie that anthropologists are not being used for counter-insurgency measures (thereby assisting an occupying power by gathering information on a population -- information that will then be used against said population which is a clear betrayal of the field), Jacob Kipp, Lester Grau, Karl Prinslow and Don Smith, attempting to get the Happy Talk out on the program for the US military, wrote "The Human Terrain System: A CORDS for the 21st Century" for the September/October 2006 edition of Military Review and which not only makes clear that this is a counter-insurgency program but cites the CIvil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) as a model. CORDS was created under LBJ to "pacify" (destroy) the people studied. As Bryan Bender (Boston Globe) notes, CORDS "helped identify Vietnamese suspected as communists and Viet Cong collaborators; some were later assassinated by the United States." [Elaine addressed Price's article last night.] From Monty's crimes against humanity to some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad car bombing claimed 1 life and left 3 injured. Reuters notes a Tuz Khurmato roadside bombing that claimed the leife of 2 people (Iraqi soldier, police officer) and left another wounded.
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a police officer shot dead in Kirkuk (two more wounded), while two children and a father were wounded in Kirkuk in a drive-by shooting and gunfire wounded a police officer in Babil. Reuters notes yet another attack on an official this time, in Kirkuk, on the chief judge of the court of appeals, Dhahir al-Bayati who was not killed but one guard was and another was left injured while, in Kirkuk, "an intelligence officer along with his wife and son" were injured in a drive-by shooting.
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 6 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes 8 corpses discoveredin Mosul. And CBS and AP note that Iraqi Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi announced today that 16 corpses were discovered in Baghdad.
Meanwhile tensions continue to escalate between Turkey and northern Iraq. CNN reports that US planes are "flying over the Turkey-Iraq border to observe military movements" and quotes Pentagon flack Geoff Morrell stating, "We are assisting by supplying them, the Turks, with intelligence, lots of intelligence." Mark Bentley (Bloomberg News) informs that Condi Rice is supposed to "offer Turkey more intelligence on the location of of Kurdish fighters near the border with Iraq in order to avert a large-scale Turkish incursion" when she travels to Turkey for the conference. AP reminds that Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets with the Bully Boy in DC Monday. Suzan Fraser (AP) quotes Erdogan declaring that "it is now unavoidable that Turkey will have to go through a more intensive military process." AFP reports the Turkish military is stating it has killed 15 members of the PKK today and cites "press reports" that "possible sanctions against Iraq include restricting trade through the Habur border gate and uctting off electricity supplies to northern Iraq." While Turkey considers that, CBS and AP report, "Iraq will set up more checkpoints along its northern frontier to keep out supplies for Kurdish rebels". Meanwhile Steve Hargreaves (CNNMoney) reports that while the tensions and violence continues the price of oil per barrel hit a new record today: $94.53 per barrel.
Turning to US politics, Perry Bacon Jr. (Washington Post) notes that Ralph Nader has declared he will make a decision about the 2008 race at the end of this year and quotes Nader stating of the two major parties (Democratic and Republican), "They are converging more and more. They are clearly more similar than they were 30 or 40 years ago." Nader's 2004 run was the subject of a discussion on Democracy Now! today between Amy Goodman and Carl Mayer who has filed a lawsuit against the Democratic Party:
AMY GOODMAN: Why are you suing?
CARL MAYER: To defend democracy. That's the title of the show -- excuse me, is Democracy Now! And this was the most massive anti-democratic campaign to eliminate a third-party candidate from the ballot in -- probably in recent American history. It is -- not content with having all these laws and statutes on the book that make it difficult for third-party and independent candidates to run, the Democratic Party and their allies in over fifty-three law firms, with over ninety lawyers, were engaged in filing litigation in eighteen states. They were to remove Ralph Nader from the ballot. It was an organized, abusive litigation process. The core of the lawsuit is that these lawyers, led by Toby Moffett and Elizabeth Holtzman, and something called the Ballot Project, which was a 527 organization, systematically went around the country and filed lawsuit after lawsuit, twenty-four in all, plus five FEC complaints, to try to completely remove the Nader campaign from the ballot and to, in effect, bankrupt the campaign, which they succeeded in doing. Not content with that, one of the defendants, Reed Smith, which is a large corporate law firm in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, they are now going after Ralph Nader's personal bank account to make him pay some of the cost of this litigation.
And, understand, despite being outspent by the Democratic Party and its affiliated lawyers, the vast majority of these lawsuits were won by the Nader campaign, which was a largely volunteer effort. And these lawsuits were won across the country, despite this organized effort of intimidation and harassment. It's basically abusive process and malicious prosecution. Those are common law torts. And it was very clear from the beginning that the Democratic Party was using the legal system for an improper purpose. In fact, Toby Moffett, who's a former congressman from Connecticut, said directly to The Guardian of London in an interview in December of 2004, this wasn't about the law. "I'd be less than honest if I said" this was not about the law; this was about getting Ralph Nader off the ballot. And that's what this effort was about. And it's a shameful anti-democratic process by a party that claims to be a democratic party. And on top of that, the Democratic Party, or its allies, filed five FEC complaints against the campaign, alleging improper --
AMY GOODMAN: Federal Election Commission.
CARL MAYER: The Federal Election Commission -- alleging improper funding, improper finances, etc. They were all dismissed by the FEC.
Now, let me tell you how bad it got. There was an organized effort of harassment of petitioners who went around trying to collect signatures for the Nader campaign in Ohio, in Oregon and in Pennsylvania. In Ohio, for example, lawyers were hired to call up petitioners and tell them that if they didn't verify the signatures on the petition, they would be guilty of a felony. They were called at home by -- and they were, in many cases, visited by private investigators and told -- this is voter intimidation of the worst order. In the state of Oregon, for example, there was a nominating convention, and you need a thousand signatures at the convention. We have emails from Democratic Party operatives stating, we want our people to go to this convention and then refuse to sign the petition at the convention so Nader will not get enough signatures at the convention to get on the ballot. And they accomplished their goal in Oregon. After the convention, there's an alternative way of getting on the ballot, which is to collect signatures, and the Nader campaign went about doing that, and during the course of that there was further harassment and intimidation of petitioners by law firms, private investigators, calling up and threatening petitioners that they would be called before a court if they did not certify all the petitions.
For the record, Ralph Nader is against the illegal war and calling for an immediate end to it unlike the three Democratic front runners. Last night the and others participated in a forum billed as a 'debate' but more of an embarassment.
Hillary Clinton demonstrated that even when attacked by two men (Barack Obama and John Edwards), a woman is up for the job. Whether she would be the president Americans want or not is another question. Like Obama and Edwards, Clinton refuses to pledge to end the illegal war if elected president (in 2008) by 2013.
Apparently having exhausted the alleged "rock star" charm and having no real ideas to offer voters, Marz Barbabak and Peter Nicholas (Los Angeles Times) report, Barack now claims the really issue is that Clinton is reportedly "divisive" stating, "Part of the reason that Republicans, I think are, obsessed with you, Hillary, is because that's a fight they're very comfortable having." Considering that many Americans look back favorably on the 90s and that Bill Clinton won two presidential elections, Obama's attempted smear was ineffective. By contrast, John Edwards wanted to talk about his beliefs, CNN notes, for instance: "You know, I believe in Santa Claus. I believe in the tooth fairy." And candidates wonder why they aren't taken seriously? As Bill Richardson stated of the tag-team attacks on Clinton (note, neither man was up to the attacks before they could tag-team), "I think that Senators Obama and Edwards should concentrate on the issues and not on attacking Senator Clinton."
But where were the issues? Iraq was rendered nearly as invisible as Mike Gravel who was not allowed to take part in the forum. Moderator Tim Russert attempted to further narrow the field by ridiculing Dennis Kucinich -- possibly because Kucinich actually has a plan to end the illegal war? "Now, did you see a UFO?" Many Americans have seen UFOs. UFOs are not flying saucers. Russert bungled his own big moment by failing to grasp that, as Kucinch pointed out, a UFO is "unidentified." Millions of Americans call in UFOs every year -- and will continue to. Apparently, if Americans saw strange planes flying along the eastern coast, Russert would prefer they not alert authorities? UFOs is what Russert offered. No substantial exchange on issues, just ha-ha UFOs. All Things Media Big and Small continue to ignore the very real issues at stake in the 2008 election. Last night may be the most extreme televised examples as one candidate felt the need to cite the tooth fairy while avoiding the realities most Americans are living with and a moderator thought he could better serve the public by offering up ha-has.
iraq
joshua key
democracy nowamy goodman
the los angeles timesalissa j. rubinthe new york timesjohn m. broderdavid johnstondavid priceperry bacon jr.the washington postralph naderpeter nicholasmark z. barabakthe los angeles times
npr
the diane rehm show
Bell's palsy. It hit suddenly a month ago. I had just stepped off a plane in New York, and my friend noticed the telltale sagging lip. It felt like Novocain. I raced to the emergency room. The doctors prescribed a weeklong course of steroids and antivirals. The following day it got worse. I had to make a decision: Do I host "Democracy Now!," our daily news broadcast, on Monday? I could speak perfectly well, and I'm tired of seeing women (and men) on TV who look like they just stepped off the set of "Dynasty." Maybe if they see a person they trust to deliver the news, still there, but just looking a little lopsided, it might change their view of friends and family--or strangers, for that matter--who are struggling with some health issue.
Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia anyone can edit, stated that I had suffered a stroke. So on Tuesday I decided to tell viewers and listeners that I was suffering from a temporary bout of Bell’s palsy, that it wasn't painful and that "the doctors tell me I will be back to my usual self in the next few weeks. In the meantime, it just makes it a little harder to smile. But so does the world."
Bell's palsy affects 50,000 people in the U.S. every year. It is an inflammation of the seventh cranial nerve that connects to the eye, nose and ear. The inflammation causes temporary paralysis of the nerve. For some, the eye can't close, so they have to tape it shut at night, and some can't speak. George Clooney had it. Ralph Nader came down with it in the midst of a speaking tour. He was in Boston debating someone when his eye started to water and his mouth sagged. It didn't stop him. He continued his tour, just beginning each talk by saying, "At least you can’t accuse me of speaking out of both sides of my mouth."
We just wrote about this topic in "Amy Goodman (Ava and C.I. filling in for Elaine)" so, to stay "brief," we'll just refer you to that.
Moving on to music/TV. A number of e-mails come in asking if we ever consider reviewing music? We have covered music specials. In terms of CDs, we wouldn't. Why bother when Kat already does such an amazing job of it?
C.I.: When The Common Ills first started, I was able to respond to every e-mail that came in. Kat wrote amazing e-mails. She was on a list of other members whose e-mails I'd save until the end of the day when I was worn out and needed the pick me up. She loved music and I loved her e-mails. I begged and begged her to write something and I'm very glad she did.
Ava: At The Third Estate Sunday Review, the first Saturday when we were working, not only did we highlight Kat's first review in full, we also peppered questions to C.I. about what was Kat like? She is just an amazing voice and we have no interest in covering CDs because Kat already does. She's amazing.
That said, if Kat ever wanted to grab a TV show, musical or non-musical, we wouldn't object. We're sure she'd do an amazing job. She asked us on the phone today what we were listening to this week on the road with Jim? We've got three Tori Amos CDs, Neil Young and Ben Harper playing anytime we're in the car.
Democratic Party politics? Shirley and Martha provided their summaries of today's e-mails. The entries at The Common Ills today resulted in the following opinions from visitors:
*You're just repeating what someone else wrote.
*No one is saying what you're saying so you're wrong!
We're on the road, we're not surfing online. The commentaries that went up regarding Hillary Clinton -- or the attacks on her in the alleged 'debate' -- were the average reactions when we watched the 'debate' on a campus last night and reflect what we heard on campuses today. Neither of us are ever afraid of being the only one to say something.
*What do you mean Hillary isn't qualified to be president!
*I knew you hated Barack Obama!
We have both made a point to avoid endorsing anyone other than Cindy Sheehan.
C.I.: Ava's the designated backup for The Common Ills.
Nothing said Hillary wasn't qualified. "Hillary Clinton demonstrated that even when attacked by two men (Barack Obama and John Edwards), a woman is up for the job. Whether she would be the president Americans want or not is another question." Whether she's the president America wants or not is another question and one that will be decided first in a Democratic primary and then in a general election. (The Supreme Court, if they choose to rule, won't take into account the will of the American people judging by 2000.) Statements like that are to note that there is no endorsement coming from The Common Ills for any primary candidate.
Hate Barack? If Barack dropped out of the race, who would we have to laugh at? Obama stated in 2004 that he didn't support withdrawal. He now wants credit for having been against the war (he doesn't call it "illegal") in 2002. But in 2004, he was for prolonging, not ending, the illegal war. As a Senator, he has consistently voted to prolong it until this past summer. The only thin he can point to is "I was against it" and it's really lying to claim you were against it when you were against withdrawal and you voted for it over and over. That's before noting that he will not (nor will Clinton or John Edwards) pledge to end the illegal war by the end of his first term if he were elected.
Barack stands for nothing. He is DLC. People repeatedly try to miss that obvious fact. That's what all of his "unity" statements are about. He's not embracing the left but the left (especially The Nation magazine) can't stop humping his leg. We love Laura Flanders but we think her column shows the problem with the left's response to Barack: "Obama Be Bold: Break with a Backer on Torture…" (Common Dreams -- anyone else making that argument wouldn't be linked to, we like Flanders). What is he, 18 months old? "Come on, Barackie, you can do it, one foot, one foot, you can do it." "Be Bold: Break with a Backer on Torture"? Shouldn't that be: "Barack: Why are you taking the support of a torture backer?" What is this with treating Baby Bambi like he's our child and we have to encourage his every step and fuss over it?
He is the weakest and most insufferable candidate in the Democratic primary. He wants to trash Hillary for a vote. That's fine . . . until you get to the point that he didn't vote. He was in the Senate and the vote's important enough for him to beat up on Clinton with it. But if it's that important, shouldn't he have been present to vote on it?
He's a paralyzed candidate who does nothing and that may be because all he has to offer is "When I wasn't in national politics, I was right!" Possibly, he's afraid to make any move and risk giving up that "I was right" stance.
And, let's be clear, the idea that he is charging people to attend his speeches is repugnant and the fact that the left wants to ignore that (while also decrying the influence of money on politics) is b.s. He's gone from $15 a head to $29 a head. At what point does our brave left get concerned? One hundred bucks?
It's repugnant that any candidate running for president would insist upon charging people to attend his public campaign events. If people can't grasp that today, don't come whining to us in 2012. Don't, four to eight years from now, start whining about the poor and the working poor have been shut out from seeing a candidate up close because everyone's charging fees to attend public please-vote-for-me! events.
Today there are over a million things that need to be fixed. How does that happen? By people not calling out in real time. If Obama gets away with this and is not loudly called out, it will be the norm in later elections. At which point our left will 'wake up' -- but the truth is many are repulsed by it now, they just don't want to call out Baby Bambi.
Barack's been applauded at least twice at The Common Ills (once for calling out John Howard) and he's been defended (when the New York Times lied about a statement he made regarding military funerals). If he ever actually did anything, he might get applauded again. But instead, he grins a lot, tosses out Chicken Sop for the Soul and is nothing but a joke currently.
Joe Biden, by the way, didn't get mentioned at all today and that was due to the fact that people tended to talk (about other candidates) when he was on so his remarks weren't heard and there wasn't time to find a transcript today.
*You are pushing Dennis Kucinich because you linked to him!
*You are pushing Mike Gravel because you linked to him!
*You are pushing Bill Richardson because you linked to him!
C.I.: I actually didn't link to any. I dictated that snapshot. I said, link to Biden's campaign, Gravel's, Kucinich's and Richardson's if you have time. It was then pointed out that Biden hadn't been mentioned. We just explained why. When possible, non press designated front runners will get links simply because they need more attention. Hillary, Barack and John don't need links. Chris Dodd I often forget about. That's my oversight and not intended.
We don't care who you vote for. And if you don't think you can decide on election day, that's your business. We do care that you go beyond the horserace. You may decide X speaks to you best, that's your business. But we do hope that if you vote, you work to make the best informed choice for yourself. There are a million issues and not all will get attention (most won't) from the press. If you're not making a point to check out the candidates, you might find X feels about ___ exactly the same as you do. So you need to look at what's out there and if they aren't a designated front runner, you really can't depend upon the press.
If you're an Obama supporter, we aren't trying to change your mind. We are noting realities we see and if anyone else was, we probably wouldn't feel obligated to do so. If you want "Hillary Bad!" you can read The Nation. They won't, however, call out Obama.
*I knew you were going to endorse Ralph Nader!
No one's been endorsed. But, community wide, the point has been made that anyone who thinks they're fit for the office (or any office) should run. America needs more choices, not less. If he wants to run, he should and he shouldn't have to hear "Ralph, Don't Run!" If he's the best candidate to most Americans, he should win. Any votes he gets if he declares are votes he earned, not votes he stole. If Ralph runs, he will probably get more single attention than any other presidential candidate at either The Common Ills or The Third Estate Sunday Review and that's due to what 2004 demonstrated which is the left thought they were the Democratic Party. This community is left. Some are Democrats, some aren't. Some have no interest in elections. Whomever runs for the Green Party ticket will get noted because it is a left party and it is one that our alleged 'independent' media prefers to ignore or scold. Nader would get more attention than any other currently mentioned potential Green Party presidential nominee except Cynthia McKinney because it's not going to require a huge amount of research. He and McKinney are known. Whomever runs will get noted but it would be much easier to follow a candidate already known. (That's not saying it should be one of the two of them. It should be whomever the Green Party selects and whomever wants to run. We're just saying that a national name makes doing a piece at Third much easier and time is limited.)
Here's today's "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, October 31, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the price of oil hits a new record high, Tim Russert gets his ya-yas at the public's expense, Blackwater continues to raise eyebrows and more.
Starting with war resisters. Over the weekend, Paul St. Armand's Parallels won the Canadian Reflections Award at the enRoute Student Film Festival in Toronto. Among those serving as judges for the festival were film producer Denise Robert, actor-writer-director Patrick Huard, director-animator Torill Kove, director Atom Egoyan, producer Robert Lantos, actor-producer Donald Sutherland and film critic (Toronto Star) Geoff Pevere. Halifax' The Daily News explains, "Parallels is a double portrait of U.S. amry deserters from the Vietnam and Iraq wars. The film won Best Documentary at the 2007 BC Student Film Festival, was a Golden Sheaf nominee at the Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival, and is a current nominee at Kevin Spacey's Triggerstreet Online Film Festival." The documentary short explores the lives of James D. Jones and Joshua Key. Originally, Paul St. Armand thought he was making a documentary that would look at Vietnam war resisters in Canada three decades later. James D. Jones was one of the war resisters from that era he spoke with. Then the War Resisters Support Campaign hooked him up with Iraq War resister Joshua Key and St. Armand noted similarities in the two resisters stories. Key's story is also among those told in Michaelle Mason's documentary Breaking Ranks (where he states, "As we got down the Euphrates River and we took a shartp right turn, all we seen was heads and bodies. And American troops in the middle of them saying 'we lost it'.") and in the book he wrote with Lawrence Hill, The Deserter's Tale. From Key's book, page 176:
By our sins of willful neglect, we were about to have a child's blood on our hands. I knew it was wrong then, and now I know exactly what the Geneva Conventions say about the protection of women and children in war.
"Women shall be the object of special respect and shall be protected in particular against rape, forced prostitution, and any other form of indecent assault."
I knew how things were going to begin for that thirteen-year-old Iraqi girl, that day, but there was no telling how they would end. We had every means at our disposal to protect that girl. I say this because, in Iraq, sergeants and officers in my company generally behaved however they wanted in the presence of Iraqi civilians, employees, police officers, and border officials. In my opinion, it wouldn't have mattered in the slightest to my superiors what Iraqis throught of our actions. If one of our officers or sergeants had chosen to intervene and protect the girl, no Iraqi working at the border would have been in a position to stop him. We were the ones with the ultimate authority at the border. Indeed, one of our roles at al-Qa'im was to teach the Iraqi border officials and police officers how to inspect a car, and to tell them what we would allow Iraqis to take out of their country and what we prohibited as export items. We were the occupiers and we controlled the border, but when it came to the fate of the thirteen-year-old girl who was about to be raped, we did nothing.
Meanwhile Steve Woodhead (The Brock Press) reports on war resister Michael Espinal recent speaking event at Brock University at St. Catharines, Ontario. Espinal explains of one thing explains about his time in Iraq, "We were told to walk right past injured civilians, even children who were lying bleeding on the ground. I've seen soldiers take up to $20,000 U.S. from homes during house raids . . . Soldiers would go around in civilian cars we picked up at border checkpoints." Like many war resisters, Espinal had to go online to find information about war resistance.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
The National Lawyers Guild's convention begins shortly: The Military Law Task Force and the Center on Conscience & War are sponsoring a Continuing Legal Education seminar -- Representing Conscientious Objectors in Habeas Corpus Proceedings -- as part of the National Lawyers Guild National Convention in Washington, D.C. The half-day seminar will be held on Thursday, November 1st, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the convention site, the Holiday Inn on the Hill in D.C. This is a must-attend seminar, with excelent speakers and a wealth of information. The seminar will be moderated by the Military Law Task Force's co-chair Kathleen Gilberd and scheduled speakers are NYC Bar Association's Committee on Military Affairs and Justice's Deborah Karpatkin, the Center on Conscience & War's J.E. McNeil, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee's Peter Goldberger, Louis Font who has represented Camilo Mejia, Dr. Mary Hanna and others, and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's James Feldman. The fee is $60 for attorneys; $25 for non-profit attorneys, students and legal workers; and you can also enquire about scholarships or reduced fees. The convention itself will run from October 31st through November 4th and it's full circle on the 70th anniversary of NLG since they "began in Washington, D.C." where "the founding convention took place in the District at the height of the New Deal in 1937, Activist, progressive lawyers, tired of butting heads with the reactionary white male lawyers then comprising the American Bar Association, formed the nucleus of the Guild."
Turning to the topic of the mercenary company Blackwater, an editorial from the Los Angeles Times notes today: "Congress should also begin investigating growing evidence of an overly cozy relationship between the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and Blackwater. It appears that the bureau hired the contractors, supervised their activities, allowed them to use deadly force, began to investigate the long-simmering allegations of excessive use of force only after the outcry over the September shootings, and then promised some contractors immunity without asking permission from the Justice Department. This behavior is more disturbing given reports that Blackwater has hired former State Department officials at high salaries, raising questions about whether the 'revolving door' presented a conflict of interest for investigators. Certainly Blackwater seems to have unwarranted influence in Washington, as evidenced by the letter it procured from the State Department ordering it not to disclose information to Waxman's committee. Who's in charge here, the U.S. government or Blackwater?" As questions continue to rise, John M. Broder and David Johnston (New York Times) inform that the Defense Department and not the State Department will now be in charge of oversight and quote US House Rep Jan Schakowsky stating, "It feels like they're [the State Department] protecting Blackwater." However, Noah Schatman (Wired) reports that the Department of Defense will not provide oversight because "The US Regional Cooperation Offices -- also called 'Reconstruction Operations Centers' -- are themselves outsourced, through a recently renewed $475 million contract to the British firm Aegis. And Aegis is run by the infamous old-school gun-for-hire, Tim Spicer." Which calls into question the noted by Peter Grier (Christian Science Monitor), made by Geoff Morrell -- Pentagon flack, that "the military, for its part, would now excercise some control over contractor training" -- a bit hard for the Pentagon to do if oversight has already been contracted out. Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) notes the limited-immunity the State Department offered Blackwater over the September 16th slaughter of Iraqi civilians in Baghdad and observes, "New details about the 'protections' given Blackwater contractors allegedly involved in the shootings sparked outrage from congressional Democrats yesterday, along with a flood of letters to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from committee chairmen demanding more information." Tim Harper (Toronto Star) observes of the immunity offered (with no input from anyone outside the State Department), "But legal experts said the state department move makes an already difficult prosecution even more difficult and keeps those who allegedly did the shooting in a legal zone which authorities may not be able to penetrate. Democrats accused the Bush administration of shielding potential killers and the chair of the powerful oversight committee gave U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice until Friday at noon to answer questions about the decision of her investigators." Of course, Rice isn't supposed to be in the US then. She's supposed to be in Turkey for a scheduled conference. Facing reporters in yesterday's State Dept briefing, Sean McCormack repeatedly fell back on a claim that he couldn't speak, "First of all, we have to draw a box around the specific events of September 16th and anything involved with that particular case." Other comments on the news emerging this week regarding the State Department and Blackwater included, "This is an area that I can't venture into."; "Again, I can't speak to the specifics of the September 16th case."; "In general, you have exhausted my legal knowledge concerning this case."; and "I'm just not going to have anything to say about the September 16th case." Even on something as general as the process of the incident reports that are supposed to be required whenever a contractor under the State Department fires a weapon in Iraq, McCormack stonewalled with comments such as "Let me just see if there's a standard procedure that I can talk about" and "I'll talk to the lawyers and see what we can do." Discussing the procedures on incident reports, on who sees them and the process itself does not require speaking to an attorney. Furthermore, in a democracy (open government), the process is not a secret. When Helen Thomas pressed White House flack Dana Perino on the immunity issue yesterday, Perino refused to expand on more than "Helen, as I said, it's a matter that's under review" and refused to state whether the Bully Boy had been briefed on the immunity deal the State Department offered.
As the tensions and fallout from the September 16th slaughter continues in Iraq, the puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki feels pressure to do something (his earlier public statements regarding Blackwater having since been clamped down on) so he has proposed a measure that would overturn Paul Bremer's Order 17 which granted immunity (from the Iraqi government) to contractors operating in Iraq. Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reports the proposed bill "was written by" al-Maliki's legal adviser. Asked about that in the briefing yesterday, Sean McCormack was again evasive stating "Well, it's their law as I understand it -- unless I'm wrong here and that has been known to happen. . . . But as I understand it, they have the ability to changer their laws. Now, let's take a look at exactly what has been proposed and has yet to be debated in their legislature. But once we have a look at it and have a chance to analyze it, perhaps we'll have more to say about it." Left unstated is exactly why the State Department or the US should have anything to say about the allegedly independent nation-state Iraq. Meanwhile Christian Berthelsen and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) report that Iraqi eye witnesses to the slaughter say the FBI agents investigating "appear focused on whether anyone fired first on the American convoy and have been aggressively gathering ballistic evidence" and citing an unnamed "U.S. source" report that the team of investigators left Iraq Sunday.
Staying on the topic of crime, the US military has found a number of anthropologists who will betray their field. Earlier this month, the BBC noted, "The Pentagon is pulling out all the stops in Iraq and Afghanistan" to recruit wayward academics to assist their Human Terrain System; however, "very frew anthropologists in the US are willing to wear a uniform and receive the mandatory weapons training." The article also notes the Network of Concerned Anthropologists an organization created to preven the betryal of the social science and the unethical use of the field to harm or destroy a people. One founding member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists is David Price. In a well researched and documented article entitled "Pilfered Scholarship Devastates General Petraeus's Counterinsurgency Manual" (CounterPunch), Price walks readers through how even on something as basic as a monogram, those involved are applying no academic standards and he notes that Montgomery McFate appears to believe that merely stumbling across a passage written by another academic means she can claim it as her own -- word for word -- without credit or attribution. That's theft, plagiarism and shoddy scholarship. Monty is as she was -- forever and ever. Price also examines the press-love for Monty and writes, "In a recent exchange with Dr. McFate, Col. John Agoglia and Lt. Col. Edward Villacres on the Diane Rehm Show, I pressed McFate for an explanation of how voluntary ethical informed consent was produced in environments dominated by weapons. In response, McFate assured me that was not a problem because 'indigenous local people out in rural Afghanistan are smart, and they can draw a distinction between a lethal unit of the U.S. military and a non-lethal unit'." The Diane Rehm Show referred to was broadcast October 10th. In that broadcast, though Monty claimed the local population was able to discern, the New York Times' David Rohde was asked how clear the lines were by USA Today's Susan Page (filling in for Rehm) -- "does it seem transparent for them" when they meet with "Tracy":
David Rohde: Um, she was transparent with them. I don't think she gave her full name, I think she does identify herself as an anthropologist. I saw her briefly, but I don't know what she does at all times. She personally, um, actually chose to carry a weapon for security that's not a requirement for members of the team, I've been told. And she wore a military uniform which would make her appear to be a soldier, um, to Afghans that she wasn't actually speaking with.
Susan Page: And so you think Aghans knew that she wasn't a soldier even though she was wearing a military uniform and carrying a weapon? Or do you think that they just assumed that she probably was?
David Rohde: I would think that they assumed that she was.
That's the reality and, strangely, when Rohde was done speaking, Monty had nothing to add even though every false claim she'd offered in the roundtable had just been demolished. Price notes "a recent New York Times op-ed by Chicago anthropologist Richard Shweder indicates a stance of inaction from which the travesties of Human Terrain can be lightly critiqued while anthropologists are urged not to declare themselves as being 'counter-counterinsurgency'." that nonsense ran on A31 of last Saturday's Times and mainly serves to update his November 2006 op-ed embarrassment where he gushed -- alleged anthropologist -- "The West is the best". The non-thinking person's anthropologist -- to anthropology what recipes on the back of a bag of Frito Lays are to fine cooking -- justified the program. While loose with the truth Monty and lost in stimulation Shweder attempt to put forth the lie that anthropologists are not being used for counter-insurgency measures (thereby assisting an occupying power by gathering information on a population -- information that will then be used against said population which is a clear betrayal of the field), Jacob Kipp, Lester Grau, Karl Prinslow and Don Smith, attempting to get the Happy Talk out on the program for the US military, wrote "The Human Terrain System: A CORDS for the 21st Century" for the September/October 2006 edition of Military Review and which not only makes clear that this is a counter-insurgency program but cites the CIvil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) as a model. CORDS was created under LBJ to "pacify" (destroy) the people studied. As Bryan Bender (Boston Globe) notes, CORDS "helped identify Vietnamese suspected as communists and Viet Cong collaborators; some were later assassinated by the United States." [Elaine addressed Price's article last night.] From Monty's crimes against humanity to some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad car bombing claimed 1 life and left 3 injured. Reuters notes a Tuz Khurmato roadside bombing that claimed the leife of 2 people (Iraqi soldier, police officer) and left another wounded.
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a police officer shot dead in Kirkuk (two more wounded), while two children and a father were wounded in Kirkuk in a drive-by shooting and gunfire wounded a police officer in Babil. Reuters notes yet another attack on an official this time, in Kirkuk, on the chief judge of the court of appeals, Dhahir al-Bayati who was not killed but one guard was and another was left injured while, in Kirkuk, "an intelligence officer along with his wife and son" were injured in a drive-by shooting.
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 6 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes 8 corpses discoveredin Mosul. And CBS and AP note that Iraqi Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi announced today that 16 corpses were discovered in Baghdad.
Meanwhile tensions continue to escalate between Turkey and northern Iraq. CNN reports that US planes are "flying over the Turkey-Iraq border to observe military movements" and quotes Pentagon flack Geoff Morrell stating, "We are assisting by supplying them, the Turks, with intelligence, lots of intelligence." Mark Bentley (Bloomberg News) informs that Condi Rice is supposed to "offer Turkey more intelligence on the location of of Kurdish fighters near the border with Iraq in order to avert a large-scale Turkish incursion" when she travels to Turkey for the conference. AP reminds that Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets with the Bully Boy in DC Monday. Suzan Fraser (AP) quotes Erdogan declaring that "it is now unavoidable that Turkey will have to go through a more intensive military process." AFP reports the Turkish military is stating it has killed 15 members of the PKK today and cites "press reports" that "possible sanctions against Iraq include restricting trade through the Habur border gate and uctting off electricity supplies to northern Iraq." While Turkey considers that, CBS and AP report, "Iraq will set up more checkpoints along its northern frontier to keep out supplies for Kurdish rebels". Meanwhile Steve Hargreaves (CNNMoney) reports that while the tensions and violence continues the price of oil per barrel hit a new record today: $94.53 per barrel.
Turning to US politics, Perry Bacon Jr. (Washington Post) notes that Ralph Nader has declared he will make a decision about the 2008 race at the end of this year and quotes Nader stating of the two major parties (Democratic and Republican), "They are converging more and more. They are clearly more similar than they were 30 or 40 years ago." Nader's 2004 run was the subject of a discussion on Democracy Now! today between Amy Goodman and Carl Mayer who has filed a lawsuit against the Democratic Party:
AMY GOODMAN: Why are you suing?
CARL MAYER: To defend democracy. That's the title of the show -- excuse me, is Democracy Now! And this was the most massive anti-democratic campaign to eliminate a third-party candidate from the ballot in -- probably in recent American history. It is -- not content with having all these laws and statutes on the book that make it difficult for third-party and independent candidates to run, the Democratic Party and their allies in over fifty-three law firms, with over ninety lawyers, were engaged in filing litigation in eighteen states. They were to remove Ralph Nader from the ballot. It was an organized, abusive litigation process. The core of the lawsuit is that these lawyers, led by Toby Moffett and Elizabeth Holtzman, and something called the Ballot Project, which was a 527 organization, systematically went around the country and filed lawsuit after lawsuit, twenty-four in all, plus five FEC complaints, to try to completely remove the Nader campaign from the ballot and to, in effect, bankrupt the campaign, which they succeeded in doing. Not content with that, one of the defendants, Reed Smith, which is a large corporate law firm in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, they are now going after Ralph Nader's personal bank account to make him pay some of the cost of this litigation.
And, understand, despite being outspent by the Democratic Party and its affiliated lawyers, the vast majority of these lawsuits were won by the Nader campaign, which was a largely volunteer effort. And these lawsuits were won across the country, despite this organized effort of intimidation and harassment. It's basically abusive process and malicious prosecution. Those are common law torts. And it was very clear from the beginning that the Democratic Party was using the legal system for an improper purpose. In fact, Toby Moffett, who's a former congressman from Connecticut, said directly to The Guardian of London in an interview in December of 2004, this wasn't about the law. "I'd be less than honest if I said" this was not about the law; this was about getting Ralph Nader off the ballot. And that's what this effort was about. And it's a shameful anti-democratic process by a party that claims to be a democratic party. And on top of that, the Democratic Party, or its allies, filed five FEC complaints against the campaign, alleging improper --
AMY GOODMAN: Federal Election Commission.
CARL MAYER: The Federal Election Commission -- alleging improper funding, improper finances, etc. They were all dismissed by the FEC.
Now, let me tell you how bad it got. There was an organized effort of harassment of petitioners who went around trying to collect signatures for the Nader campaign in Ohio, in Oregon and in Pennsylvania. In Ohio, for example, lawyers were hired to call up petitioners and tell them that if they didn't verify the signatures on the petition, they would be guilty of a felony. They were called at home by -- and they were, in many cases, visited by private investigators and told -- this is voter intimidation of the worst order. In the state of Oregon, for example, there was a nominating convention, and you need a thousand signatures at the convention. We have emails from Democratic Party operatives stating, we want our people to go to this convention and then refuse to sign the petition at the convention so Nader will not get enough signatures at the convention to get on the ballot. And they accomplished their goal in Oregon. After the convention, there's an alternative way of getting on the ballot, which is to collect signatures, and the Nader campaign went about doing that, and during the course of that there was further harassment and intimidation of petitioners by law firms, private investigators, calling up and threatening petitioners that they would be called before a court if they did not certify all the petitions.
For the record, Ralph Nader is against the illegal war and calling for an immediate end to it unlike the three Democratic front runners. Last night the and others participated in a forum billed as a 'debate' but more of an embarassment.
Hillary Clinton demonstrated that even when attacked by two men (Barack Obama and John Edwards), a woman is up for the job. Whether she would be the president Americans want or not is another question. Like Obama and Edwards, Clinton refuses to pledge to end the illegal war if elected president (in 2008) by 2013.
Apparently having exhausted the alleged "rock star" charm and having no real ideas to offer voters, Marz Barbabak and Peter Nicholas (Los Angeles Times) report, Barack now claims the really issue is that Clinton is reportedly "divisive" stating, "Part of the reason that Republicans, I think are, obsessed with you, Hillary, is because that's a fight they're very comfortable having." Considering that many Americans look back favorably on the 90s and that Bill Clinton won two presidential elections, Obama's attempted smear was ineffective. By contrast, John Edwards wanted to talk about his beliefs, CNN notes, for instance: "You know, I believe in Santa Claus. I believe in the tooth fairy." And candidates wonder why they aren't taken seriously? As Bill Richardson stated of the tag-team attacks on Clinton (note, neither man was up to the attacks before they could tag-team), "I think that Senators Obama and Edwards should concentrate on the issues and not on attacking Senator Clinton."
But where were the issues? Iraq was rendered nearly as invisible as Mike Gravel who was not allowed to take part in the forum. Moderator Tim Russert attempted to further narrow the field by ridiculing Dennis Kucinich -- possibly because Kucinich actually has a plan to end the illegal war? "Now, did you see a UFO?" Many Americans have seen UFOs. UFOs are not flying saucers. Russert bungled his own big moment by failing to grasp that, as Kucinch pointed out, a UFO is "unidentified." Millions of Americans call in UFOs every year -- and will continue to. Apparently, if Americans saw strange planes flying along the eastern coast, Russert would prefer they not alert authorities? UFOs is what Russert offered. No substantial exchange on issues, just ha-ha UFOs. All Things Media Big and Small continue to ignore the very real issues at stake in the 2008 election. Last night may be the most extreme televised examples as one candidate felt the need to cite the tooth fairy while avoiding the realities most Americans are living with and a moderator thought he could better serve the public by offering up ha-has.
iraq
joshua key
democracy nowamy goodman
the los angeles timesalissa j. rubinthe new york timesjohn m. broderdavid johnstondavid priceperry bacon jr.the washington postralph naderpeter nicholasmark z. barabakthe los angeles times
npr
the diane rehm show
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
NLG, peace movement coverage
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Marjorie Cohn, NLG President, 858-204-3565
Heidi Boghosian, NLG Executive Director, 212-679-5100, ext. 11
BUSH ADMINISTRATION DENIES VISA TO NOTED CUBAN ATTORNEY
National Lawyers Guild Calls Visa Denial Punitive and Unrelated to National Security
October 29, Washington, D.C. In one of the first acts of the Bush Administration's latest crackdown on Cuba, the United States Department of State has apparently denied a visa to Guillermo Ferriol Molina, Vice-President of the Labor Law Society of the Cuban bar association and a member of the Board of Directors of the UN-affiliated International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL). Mr. Ferriol had been invited to the U.S. to speak at the 70th anniversary Convention of the National Lawyers Guild this week, as well as at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York.
On Friday, October 26, the State Department informed aides to Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) that Mr. Ferriol's visa had been denied on October 21. The State Department has not yet informed Mr. Ferriol of this decision. The decision to deny the visa, which overturned a preliminary decision more than a month earlier by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, followed a lengthy security advisory opinion check.
The State Department informed Doyle's aide that the visa was denied because Mr. Ferriol allegedly works for a union that is connected with the Cuban government, citing Presidential proclamations 5377 and 212(f), which prohibit entry of certain non-immigrants. However, Mr. Ferriol does not work for a union. In addition to his duties with the Labor Law Society and the IADL, both nongovernmental organizations, he is employed by CIMEX, a private company capitalized by the Cuban state which operates more than 80 enterprises in different industries throughout Cuba. In 2002, Mr. Ferriol was granted a visa to speak at the National Lawyers Guild Convention and at Sarah Lawrence, and his trip took place without incident.
National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn denounced the decision, citing it as "part of yet another shortsighted and futile attempt by the Bush Administration to decide Cuba's future by punishing the people of both the United States and Cuba."
In his October 24 announcement of new initiatives designed to hasten a "transition" in Cuba, Bush called on Cuban officials and ordinary Cubans to rise up against the current regime. Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque responded by stating, "Cuba's reaction is one of indignation, but of absolute serenity and confidence in our strength. The word in order here is courage." He also laid out 12 initiatives that he proposed President Bush use as a way to aid Cuba, which included things such as respect for Cuba's right to independence and sovereignty, lifting the travel ban, the release of the "Cuban 5" (five Cubans imprisoned in the U.S. for their roles on reporting terrorist plans against Cuba by Cuban exiles in Miami), the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles (the alleged mastermind behind the bombing of a Cuban civilian jet and tourist hotels) and the immediate closing of the Guantanamo Naval Base.
That's from a press release put out by the National Lawyers Guild. I've been taking photos all day and my mind is mush. I'm not joking. The only topic I had to write on is one Jim's asked us all to hold off on. C.I. covered it yesterday and when Jim heard C.I. dictating the snapshot, he said, "Let's do something on this at Third." So everyone's holding for this weekend. I'm sure if I didn't have that holding pattern, I wouldn't feel like, "I can write about that! If I wasn't waiting."
Here's something elese I can't write about. From Jerry Lanson's "War Protests: Why No Coverage?" (Christian Science Monitor via Common Dreams):
Coordinated antiwar protests in at least 11 American cities this weekend raised anew an interesting question about the nature of news coverage: Are the media ignoring rallies against the Iraq war because of their low turnout or is the turnout dampened by the lack of news coverage?
I find it unsettling that I even have to consider the question.
That most Americans oppose the war in Iraq is well established. The latest CBS News poll, in mid-October, found 26 percent of those polled approved of the way the president is handling the war and 67 percent disapproved. It found that 45 percent said they’d only be willing to keep large numbers of US troops in Iraq “for less than a year.” And an ABC News-Washington Post poll in late September found that 55 percent felt Democrats in Congress had not gone far enough in opposing the war.
We covered this in the print edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review. We weren't up to going through the editing process. But there's a reason there wasn't intense press coverage and the answer is that one group shot itself in the foot. An article went up online last week, it garnered a hell of a lot of attention from the mainstream media. C.I. was returning calls at lunch one day and it was, "No, I haven't seen it. What did it say?" over and over. The press saw that and it didn't just slime one peace organization, it actually -- because the writers were IDIOTS and DEMOCRATIC PARTY HACKS -- slimed the mainstream press.
It's one thing -- and we're for that -- one organization saying, "I disagree with ___ because they're actions ___" Or their history. Or whatever. But the peace movement shot themselves in the foot. And the mainstream press saw it. And that was just crap. Whatever day it went up, it was news in newsrooms of papers, networks and cable news. It guaranteed that the peace actions over the weekend would not get significant coverage. Those two men (I believe we'll call them out this weekend online -- we just weren't up to editing that article Sunday after everything else we had to edit)are the reason this protest got so damn little coverage. Now the protests never get tremendous coverage to begin with. But those two idiot, assholes made sure that the press didn't want to touch the story.
Of course it was two men. And of course they are party hacks. And of course Leslie Cagan should have issued a statement but she didn't and so they were allowed to represent UPFJ. And as a result, no one wanted to go near the story. So why didn't the protests get coverage? Two idiots identifying as UPFJ who decided to write an article. They did very real damage.
After over 30 returned calls, C.I. said, "I don't think I even have to read it now." It had been explained over and over. We read it the next day, before we started speaking because we assumed it would come up (it did, but not like we expected -- although UPFJ should be aware that students saw it as a UPFJ problem -- not the two men's problme, they saw it as speaking for UPFJ and they weren't pleased with UPFJ).
I'm not knocking the question being asked. I am noting that, in this instance, the peace movement is more than partly to blame. That is reality.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, October 30, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, Naomi Wolf points to the "blinking lights" of democracy, the US military announces multiple deaths, Blackwater continues to simmer and the focus goes to Condi, Giuliana Sgrena responds to the sliming she received and more.
Starting with war resisters. Steve Gardner (Kitsap Sun) writes of the just published "The Most Influential People of 2007" in Seattle Magazine. and notes "Iraq war resister U.S. Army Lt. Ehren Watada appears, as does Olympic Sculpture Park shepherd Chris Rogers (who the magazine selected as the 2007 Person of the Year). Early learning advocate and the state's former first ladey Mona Locke is on the list, and so is former U.S. Attorney John McKay and Google's Narayanan 'Shiva' Shivakumar." Watada is the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. After months of working with the military (in good faith), Watada went public in June of 2006 after it became obvious that the military was stringing him along with false assurance. Watada (rightly) judges the Iraq War as illegal. In February of this year he was court-martialed in a kangaroo hearing presided over by Judge Toilet (aka John Head) who called a mistrial over defense objection and after the prosecution had presented their case which means double-jeopardy should prevent Watada from standing before a court-martial again. (Watada's service contract has already expired. He has been kept in the US military for months due to the issue of a potential court-martial.) US District Judge Benjamin Settle Friday is reviewing that and other issues and has extended the stay on Watada's case through November 9th.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
The National Lawyers Guild's convention begins shortly: The Military Law Task Force and the Center on Conscience & War are sponsoring a Continuing Legal Education seminar -- Representing Conscientious Objectors in Habeas Corpus Proceedings -- as part of the National Lawyers Guild National Convention in Washington, D.C. The half-day seminar will be held on Thursday, November 1st, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the convention site, the Holiday Inn on the Hill in D.C. This is a must-attend seminar, with excelent speakers and a wealth of information. The seminar will be moderated by the Military Law Task Force's co-chair Kathleen Gilberd and scheduled speakers are NYC Bar Association's Committee on Military Affairs and Justice's Deborah Karpatkin, the Center on Conscience & War's J.E. McNeil, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee's Peter Goldberger, Louis Font who has represented Camilo Mejia, Dr. Mary Hanna and others, and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's James Feldman. The fee is $60 for attorneys; $25 for non-profit attorneys, students and legal workers; and you can also enquire about scholarships or reduced fees. The convention itself will run from October 31st through November 4th and it's full circle on the 70th anniversary of NLG since they "began in Washington, D.C." where "the founding convention took place in the District at the height of the New Deal in 1937, Activist, progressive lawyers, tired of butting heads with the reactionary white male lawyers then comprising the American Bar Association, formed the nucleus of the Guild."
On the above NLG event, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes today, "Meanwhile the National Lawyers Guild is criticizing the Bush administration for refusing to allow a prominent Cuban attorney into the country. The guild had invited Guillermo Ferriol Molina to speak at the group's 70th anniversary convention this week but he was apparently denied a visa. Molina is the Vice-President of the Labor Law Society of the Cuban bar association and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers."
How does that happen? "There's this horrible phase in a closing democracy when leaders and citizens still think it's a democracy but the people who have already started to close it are just kind of drumming their fingers waiting for everyone to realize that that's not the dance anymore," explains Naomi Wolf on the October 26th episode of The Bat Segundo Show. Her new book is The End of America: Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot where she argues that democracy needs to be reclaimed in the United States before it is lost. Covering a large historical terrain, she outlines the "echoes" present in the US today that have been signals of a shift to a closed society in our historical past. Addressing the inaction of Congress on so many topics (including impeachment and the refusal to listen to the citizens on the issue of the illegal war), Wolf declared, "Congress is like an abused woman that keeps thinking, 'Surely my boyfriend will be nice now. What do you mean you're not turning over your e-mails? We're Congress! You can't just not listen to us.' So you're right to notice the American people are getting it before Congress is. The people in power right now are no longer engaged in the democratic social contract and so it does take us recognizing that we can't heal democracy only through conventional means of democracy. So, Nancy Pelosi, is saying we're not going to impeach. Guess what? The founders didn't intend for Nancy Pelosi to decide what the people are going to do when there's this kind of criminal assault on the Constitution and checks and balances. It's up to us. And that's why we started the American Freedom Campaign which is a democracy movement which now has five million members in really, like two months, across the political spectrum and we're driving a grassroots movement to push, to confront Pelosi, and to confront the leaders in Congress and to let them know this is an emergency, it's not business as usual and they can't unilaterally take issues like that off the table. We're now, impeachment is not yet an AFC position, this is just me speaking for myself, but from the historical blue print, seeing what is now in place -- it is not safe to leave those people in power anymore and I'm saying this to Republicans and Democrats alike. It is not safe to entrust the next election with them. So I don't think we just need to move forward with impeaching, this is me speaking personally -- not for the AFC, but from the historical blueprint, we need to do it now and also we need to prosecute for treason because it's not enough to get people like this out of power you have to get them behind bars." Will impeachment be an issue for AFC? Wolf explained that since it's a grassroots movement, the goals will be determined by the members. The fifty minute broadcast touches on a large number of issues and we'll note Wolf on another topic:
Blackwater just got another billion dollar contract after massacring 17 innocent civilians in Iraq, okay? They operate fully outside the law in Iraq. Order 17, Paul Bremer, guaranteed that they were unaccountable. So it's not just the Iraqis who have to worry about Blackwater. The second step in the ten-point blue print [of moving a state from democracy to fascist, Wolf charts this in her book The End of America] is to create a paramilitary force that's not answerable to the people. This is how, in Italy, Mussolini closed democracy using the Black Shirts. And this is how, in Germany, Hitler closed democracy using Brown Shirts. Paramilitary forces excerpt pressure on civilians. So what Americans don't know is that Blackwater is already operating in the United States. Homeland Security already brought them in to patrol the streets of New Orleans after Katrina. And Jeremy Scahill reported that they were firing, our contractors, were firing on civilians. We don't know, most of us, that Blackwater's business model calls for increased deployment here in the United States in the event of say a natural catastrophe or quote 'a public emergency.' And with Defense Authorization Act 2007, it is the president, who's hand in hand with Blackwater, who now has the unilateral power to determine what is a national emergency that calls for a quote 'restoration of public order.' And I just want to tell you that the invoking of a national emergency and the call to restore public order is the is the tenth step in the blue print to close down an open society.
Staying on the topic of the mercenaries of Blackwater USA new developments can be classified under "What Condi forgot to tell Congress about Blackwater." US Secretary of State and Anger Condi Rice most recently offered testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last week on Thursday, October 25th. Rice declared that ("thank God so far" -- putting someone or Someone on notice?) Blackwater was needed and that she just wouldn't know how to run the department she heads without Blackwater (prior to the rise of Blackwater and other mercenaries, embassy security staff were responsible for guarding State Dept employees in foreign countries) and insisted, "But we do recognize that their must be sufficient oversight, sufficient rules and that is why I have accepted the recommendations of the panel on the private security contractors." That would have been a good time to insert an item in today's news; however, she didn't. When speaking of reports that puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki had made a backdoor deal to grant immunity from prosecution to members of his cabinet, Rice did not want to talk about "rumor" or "unsubstantiated" claims "I'd like to state again, Mr. Chairman, because I'd rather state it in my own words than have it be stated for me. It is the policy of this administration -- and I'm quite certain that the president would feel strongly about this: That there shouldn't be corrupt officials anywhere. And that no official -- no matter how high -- should be immune from investigation, prosecution or, indeed, punishment should corruption be found." So no immunity for officials in al-Maliki's cabinet. Rice could have used that moment -- "in my own words" -- to address the issue of immunity that the State Department was granting. Because the department she heads had granted immunity. Noting that the Associated Press broke the story Monday, David Johnston (New York Times) reports today, "The State Department investigators from the agency's investigative arm, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, offered the immunity grants [to Blackwater] even though they did not have the authority to do so, the officials said. Prosecutors at the Justice Department, who do have such authority, had no advance knowledge of the arranement, they added. Most of the [Blackwater] guards who took part in the Sept. 16 shooting were offered what officials described as limited-use immunity, which means that they were promised they would not be prosecuted for anything they said in their interviews with the authorities as long as their statements were true."
This news came out Monday via AP. On Thursday, Rice faced the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Blackwater was a topic many touched on (Democrats and Republicans). Rice was not forthcoming. When the issue of immunity came up -- with regards to al-Maliki's cabinet -- Rice made no effort to inform Congress that the department she heads, the department which she is supposed to provide oversight to, had offered Blackwater guards involved in the incident immunity -- an immunity that her department did not have the power to offer.
CBS and AP report, "Law enforcement officials say the State Department granted them immunity from prosecution before taking their statements. They can still be prosecuted, bur fromer prosecutor David Laufman said it will be harder to make a case, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reported. . . . The FBI can still interview the guards, but Laufman doubts they will cooperate." Terry Frieden (CNN) notes Senator Patrick Leahy has "accused the Bush 'amnesty administration' of letting its allies, including security contractors in Iraq, shirk responsibility for their actions" and Quotes Leahy declaring, "In this administration, accountability goes by the boards. That seems to be a central tenet in the Bush administration -- that no one from their team should be held accountable, if accountability can be avoided." Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) offers this perspective: "Under State Department contractor rules, Diplomatic Security agents are charged with investigating and reporting on all 'use of force' incidents. Although there have been previous Blackwater shootings over the past three years -- none of which resulted in prosecutions -- the Sept. 16 incident was by far the most serious." Johnston reports, "The immunity deals were an unwelcome surprise at the Justice Department, which was already grappling with the fundamental legal question of whether any prosecution could take place involving American civilians in Iraq. . . . In addition, the Justice Department reassigned the investigation from prosecutors in the criminal division who had read the statements the State Department had taken under the offer of immunity to prosecutors in the national security division who had no knowledge of the statements."
Waxman writes Rice today about the immunity:
Multiple news reports are asserting that the State Department compromised the investigation into the shootings and the potential for prosecutions of Blackwater personnel by offering immunity to the Blackwater guards. According to one report, agents of the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security promised Blackwater personnel 'immunity from prosecution' in order to elicit statements. Another report stated that the State Department offered 'limited-use immunity' without authority to do so so and without consulting with the Justice Department. According to these accounts, prosecution of Blackwater personnel has become, at minimum, "a lot more complicated and dfficult."
This rash grant of immunity was an egregious misjudgement. It raises serious questions about who conferred the immunity, who approved it at the State Department, and what their motives were. To help the Committee investigate these matters, I request that the State Department provide written responses to the following questions no later than noon on Friday, November 2, 2007:
1) What form of immunity was offered to the Blackwater personnel?
2) What limitations does this form of immunity impose upon the investigation?
3) Who authorized the offers of immunity?
4) Who was aware of the offers of immunity at or before the time that they were delivered?
5) When did you, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Griffin, Ambassador David Satterfield, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker learn of the grant of immunity?
6) What consultation, if any, was conducted with the Justice Department prior to the offers of immunity?
7) Has the State Department ever offered immunity to security contractor personnel as part of other investigations into contractor conduct? Please describe each such occasion.
I further request that knowledgeable officials appear at the previously scheduled briefing for Committee staff on November 2 to respond to questions about the State Department's written response to these questions.
Finally, I request that the State Department produce the following documents no later than Friday, November 9, 2007:
1) All communications relating to any offers of immunity to Blackwater personnel relating to the September 16, 2007, Nissor Square incident; and
2) All communications relating to any offers of immunity to Blackwater personnel or other private military contractors relating to other incidents in Iraq.
The letter is available online by [PDF format warning] clicking here.
Last Friday on the second hour of NPR's The Diane Rehm Show the issue of Rice's appearences before Congress was noted with Rehm explaining Congress felt Rice "has mismanaged diplomatic efforts in Iraq and they accused her of concealing information from Congress." A perfect example -- not known then -- would be the offer of limited-immunity to Blackwater employees. Again, that was not known then. NBC's Andrea Mitchell (who, along with Newsweek's Michael Hirsh and the Los Angeles Times' Doyle McManus, took part in the roundtable) explained, "Well in particular there were memos, internal Iraqi memos, that the State Department was well aware of, that she had not turned over, that she had not turned over memos on Blackwater, corruption in the Iraqi government, which is a growing problem. That she has ignored it, not brought it to their attention. Her worst nightmare is Henry Waxman. Henry Waxman sixteen terms now chairman of the House Oversight Committee and he is going after her and after the State Department and other government agencies. He has a pipeline of investigations and he just keeps one after the other." [For more on the broadcast, see Ruth's Saturday report.] Along with not turning over memos to Congress, Rice's department is now known for not telling Congress about the offer of limited immunity. While Condi's department has granted further immunity, Deborah Haynes (Times of London) reports others are attempting to pull some back: "The Iraqi Cabinet today approved a draft law lifting the immunity from prosecution enjoyed by foreign security companies contracted by the US-led coalition, but it was unclear how guards working for the controversial American firm Blackwater would be affected." Steve Negus (Financial Times of London) notes the next step for the bill would be the Iraqi parliament (where, for the record, the bill could have originated in) and that is is unclear "whether the proposed Iraqi legislation would apply retrospectively."
In other mercenary news, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) reports, "Meanwhile the British private military company Erinys has been sued in Texas over the death of a U.S. soldier who died after being hit by one of the company's convoys in Iraq. The lawsuit was filed by Perry Monroe, father of Christopher Monroe who died in southern Iraq two years ago. The lawsuit accuses the Erinys convoy of ignoring warnings and traveling at excessive speed after dark without lights fully on. At the time of the incident, the British company was working under a contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers." Christopher Monroe died October 25, 2005. He was 19-years-old. Interestingly, although a mercenary caused the death, the Defense Department's announcement stated Monroe died "when his 5-ton truck was involved in an automobile accident with a civilian vehicle." It's cute the way departments of the US government work overtime to protect contractors. In the instance of Monroe's death, they are happy to make it sound as if an Iraqi's mini-van collided with the truck. AP reports that the mercenary company Erinys "has made more than $150 million in Iraq and has contracts to protect the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, according to the lawsuit filled by the father of Army Spc. Christopher T. Monroe." In addition, the DoD trumpeted "civilian vehicle" was actually one "armored Suburban [which] struck Monroe and his truck, tearing off Monroe's right leg and throwing him 30 to 40 feet in the air" -- begging the question of how fast the mercenary vehicle was traveling (traveling at night "with headlights off" after having already been told of Monroe's convoy). Suzanne Goldenberg (Guardian of London) offers that Erinys "reportedly has close ties to the former Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi," notes that Monroe was on guard duty, that Erinys was traveling "at an estimated speed of up to 80mph on a dark road using only their parking lights" and that they were not under fire. In addition, Goldenberg notes that the company received a contract in 2003 "to provide security for Iraq's oil refineries and pipelines. . . . The first recruits of the 14,000-strong oil protection force raised by Erinys Iraq were members of the Iraqi Free Forces, the US-trained milita that was headed by Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi exile who was America's protege in the run-up to the invasion. Members of Mr Chalabi's inner circle were among the founding partners of Erinys Iraq."
Bombings?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad mortar attack that wounded two people "near Milky Master shop" and a Salahuddin car bombing that claimed the lives of 3 Iraqi soldiers with nine more wounded. Reuters notes a Baghdad mini-bus bombing that left two people wounded as well as another on that claimed the life of 1 person (four more wounded), a grenade tossed into a Baghdad street that claimed the life of 1 "street cleaner" and left six more people injured, and a Baghdad car bombing that claimed the lives of 4 police officers (eight more injured).
Shootings?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a police officer was shot dead on Monday in Mosul.
Corpses?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 5 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes 4 corpses discovered in Mosul today, 1 in Kirkuk yesterday.
Meanwhile an Iraqi correspondent at Inside Iraq (McClatchy Newspapers) notes the death of a friend, Haider, over the weekend in a car accident: "Haider is my closest friend in Baghdad and the entire world. He was my friend from childhood when I was 6 years till we finished the high school. We had had great time. We used to play soccer, play ping-pong, chess and fishing small fish from the lake near by from Tigris river in Missan province in the south of Iraq. He chose the engineering college while my choice was teaching.
Today, the US military announced: "Three Multi-National Division - Center Soldiers were killed when their patrol was struck by an improvised explosive device southeast of Baghdad Oct. 30." ICCC places the US service member death toll since the start of the illegal war at 3842 with 36 for the month. CNN says it is 37 for the month.
As Iraq continues to fall apart as a result of the illegal war, Amit R. Paley (Washington Post) reports that 500,000 Iraqis could die of drowning in Mosul "and parts of Baghdad" as a result of problems with a Mosul dam -- a dam that $27 million has gone to for reconstruction and that the Army Corps of Engineers states has "an unacceptable annual failure probability". AFP reports that "the US 27 million dollar project launched two years ago to help strengthen the dam has been marred by incompetence and mismangement. The report said SIGIR's most recent inspection concludes that the project has made no headway in improving grout injection operations, and said that poor oversight had allowed millions of dollars in construction and equipment to go to waste."
"I don't know if he knew who was -- who were the passenger of the car, of course. I don't know if maybe he just answered to an order. So that's why I wanted Mario Lozano to tell the truth to the trial or in any way to tell the truth, and not just accusing me that it's my fault. It's not my fault. He was shooting to us. I didn't shoot to anybody. So, he shooted, and he has to give us a reason why he shooted, even if it was an order. When I was in United States, I heard from a lot of veterans against the war that they were obliged to shoot when they were in Iraq. So I think that we can understand that he also was a victim of the war. But he has to tell the truth, not just to tell that it's my fault. It's not my fault. He has to realize that it is his fault, because he shoot to us and to Calipari. He killed Calipari. So he has to explain. I can imagine that he has psychological problems because of the shooting, because it's normal for a normal person, it's normal to have pyschological problems if you kill a man." That's Guiulian Sgrena speaking with Amy Goodman today on Democracy Now! regarding the nonsense from the Dumb Ass yesterday who blamed her for the fact that he shot someone dead. From today's broadcast:
GIULIANA SGRENA: Oh, it's not true. I was just doing my work, and many other journalists went to interview the refugees, the refugees of Fallujah. Me, I usually go to interview the refugees, because I think that it's the people that more suffer for the situation. And also, in this case, I went there just to interview these refugees.
I know that for military, army, it's not the case to go around and to do an independent work, because they want the journalists just to be embedded, but I can say that in the same day, the same moment that I was there doing to interview the refugees of Fallujah, there was also a photographer working for the US Time taking pictures there. So I was not doing a work with terrorists, because if not everybody work with terrorists. I was just there to interview refugees.
And I think that this is the only way to do our job as we have to do it, because we have to listen to the people that is suffering under the occupation and not just interview the commanders or people that have weapons in their -- that they're using weapons. So I think that I was in a right position, and I will do always the same when I go around the world.
And I don't understand what mean Lozano by saying that I was going there, doing something with terrorists. They were not terrorists. What means? So we don't have the chance to do our work? Is it true that now we have not the chance to do our work true in Iraq, but this is because of the occupation and, of course, also because nobody in Iraq want to have witness there to see what is going on. But I was just doing my work.
AMY GOODMAN: Giuliana Sgrena, can you remind us what happened when you were released? From the point, well, that you learned you were going to be released -- first who you were held by and then what happened, all the way through the shooting on your road to the airport?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes, when I was released, Calipari came to pick me up, and we were on the road to the airport, after, of course, giving the news to the person that were interested in, and we were on the way to the airport. It was dark, because it was night. And at a certain point, we were not so far from the airport, when they started to shoot us. At the beginning, I couldn't understand who was shooting, because we were in the area controlled by the Americans, and I couldn't believe that the Americans, they were shooting to us. There was Italian agents with me. So, really, it was really a shock.
And immediately, when they started to shoot, Calipari stopped to talk, and I realized that something was going wrong, because he didn't speak to me. And the agent that was driving the car started to shout and to say that we were Italian, we were of the Italian embassy, just to try to stop the shooting. And when the shooting stopped, I saw that Calipari was killed. Me, I was wounded, and also the other agent. So, it was really a big shock.
But there were no warnings before the shooting. And the shooting, they reached the car, and they were, after -- we can say now, after the inquiry, the Italian inquiry, because there was an Italian inquiry of the Italian justice, that against the car was shooted fifty-eight bullets, and fifty-seven bullets were against the passengers of the car and only the last one against the engine of the car. So if they wanted to stop the car, they had to shoot to the engine or to the wheels, but not to the passengers. And that's why the Italian justice asked the trial for Lozano for voluntarily killing of Nicola Calipari. That's the point. It's not only my testify now; it's the conclusion of the Italian justice inquiry.
As Sgrena points out, the judge did not find Lozano innocent, the judge stated the case was out of Italy's jurisdiction -- prosecutors are appealing that ruling. Lastly, David Price's latest on the betrayal of a social science is a must read at CounterPunch. (Ideally, this will be quoted from in tomorrow's snapshot.)
ehren watadajohn brummettsoldiers of conscience
giuliana sgrenademocracy now
naomi wolf
the bat segundo show
amit r. paleythe washington post
the new york timesdavid johnstoncnn
npr
the diane rehm showdiane rehmandrea mitchellmichael hirshdoyle mcmanus
ruths report
Contact: Marjorie Cohn, NLG President, 858-204-3565
Heidi Boghosian, NLG Executive Director, 212-679-5100, ext. 11
BUSH ADMINISTRATION DENIES VISA TO NOTED CUBAN ATTORNEY
National Lawyers Guild Calls Visa Denial Punitive and Unrelated to National Security
October 29, Washington, D.C. In one of the first acts of the Bush Administration's latest crackdown on Cuba, the United States Department of State has apparently denied a visa to Guillermo Ferriol Molina, Vice-President of the Labor Law Society of the Cuban bar association and a member of the Board of Directors of the UN-affiliated International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL). Mr. Ferriol had been invited to the U.S. to speak at the 70th anniversary Convention of the National Lawyers Guild this week, as well as at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York.
On Friday, October 26, the State Department informed aides to Representatives Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) that Mr. Ferriol's visa had been denied on October 21. The State Department has not yet informed Mr. Ferriol of this decision. The decision to deny the visa, which overturned a preliminary decision more than a month earlier by the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, followed a lengthy security advisory opinion check.
The State Department informed Doyle's aide that the visa was denied because Mr. Ferriol allegedly works for a union that is connected with the Cuban government, citing Presidential proclamations 5377 and 212(f), which prohibit entry of certain non-immigrants. However, Mr. Ferriol does not work for a union. In addition to his duties with the Labor Law Society and the IADL, both nongovernmental organizations, he is employed by CIMEX, a private company capitalized by the Cuban state which operates more than 80 enterprises in different industries throughout Cuba. In 2002, Mr. Ferriol was granted a visa to speak at the National Lawyers Guild Convention and at Sarah Lawrence, and his trip took place without incident.
National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn denounced the decision, citing it as "part of yet another shortsighted and futile attempt by the Bush Administration to decide Cuba's future by punishing the people of both the United States and Cuba."
In his October 24 announcement of new initiatives designed to hasten a "transition" in Cuba, Bush called on Cuban officials and ordinary Cubans to rise up against the current regime. Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque responded by stating, "Cuba's reaction is one of indignation, but of absolute serenity and confidence in our strength. The word in order here is courage." He also laid out 12 initiatives that he proposed President Bush use as a way to aid Cuba, which included things such as respect for Cuba's right to independence and sovereignty, lifting the travel ban, the release of the "Cuban 5" (five Cubans imprisoned in the U.S. for their roles on reporting terrorist plans against Cuba by Cuban exiles in Miami), the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles (the alleged mastermind behind the bombing of a Cuban civilian jet and tourist hotels) and the immediate closing of the Guantanamo Naval Base.
That's from a press release put out by the National Lawyers Guild. I've been taking photos all day and my mind is mush. I'm not joking. The only topic I had to write on is one Jim's asked us all to hold off on. C.I. covered it yesterday and when Jim heard C.I. dictating the snapshot, he said, "Let's do something on this at Third." So everyone's holding for this weekend. I'm sure if I didn't have that holding pattern, I wouldn't feel like, "I can write about that! If I wasn't waiting."
Here's something elese I can't write about. From Jerry Lanson's "War Protests: Why No Coverage?" (Christian Science Monitor via Common Dreams):
Coordinated antiwar protests in at least 11 American cities this weekend raised anew an interesting question about the nature of news coverage: Are the media ignoring rallies against the Iraq war because of their low turnout or is the turnout dampened by the lack of news coverage?
I find it unsettling that I even have to consider the question.
That most Americans oppose the war in Iraq is well established. The latest CBS News poll, in mid-October, found 26 percent of those polled approved of the way the president is handling the war and 67 percent disapproved. It found that 45 percent said they’d only be willing to keep large numbers of US troops in Iraq “for less than a year.” And an ABC News-Washington Post poll in late September found that 55 percent felt Democrats in Congress had not gone far enough in opposing the war.
We covered this in the print edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review. We weren't up to going through the editing process. But there's a reason there wasn't intense press coverage and the answer is that one group shot itself in the foot. An article went up online last week, it garnered a hell of a lot of attention from the mainstream media. C.I. was returning calls at lunch one day and it was, "No, I haven't seen it. What did it say?" over and over. The press saw that and it didn't just slime one peace organization, it actually -- because the writers were IDIOTS and DEMOCRATIC PARTY HACKS -- slimed the mainstream press.
It's one thing -- and we're for that -- one organization saying, "I disagree with ___ because they're actions ___" Or their history. Or whatever. But the peace movement shot themselves in the foot. And the mainstream press saw it. And that was just crap. Whatever day it went up, it was news in newsrooms of papers, networks and cable news. It guaranteed that the peace actions over the weekend would not get significant coverage. Those two men (I believe we'll call them out this weekend online -- we just weren't up to editing that article Sunday after everything else we had to edit)are the reason this protest got so damn little coverage. Now the protests never get tremendous coverage to begin with. But those two idiot, assholes made sure that the press didn't want to touch the story.
Of course it was two men. And of course they are party hacks. And of course Leslie Cagan should have issued a statement but she didn't and so they were allowed to represent UPFJ. And as a result, no one wanted to go near the story. So why didn't the protests get coverage? Two idiots identifying as UPFJ who decided to write an article. They did very real damage.
After over 30 returned calls, C.I. said, "I don't think I even have to read it now." It had been explained over and over. We read it the next day, before we started speaking because we assumed it would come up (it did, but not like we expected -- although UPFJ should be aware that students saw it as a UPFJ problem -- not the two men's problme, they saw it as speaking for UPFJ and they weren't pleased with UPFJ).
I'm not knocking the question being asked. I am noting that, in this instance, the peace movement is more than partly to blame. That is reality.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, October 30, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, Naomi Wolf points to the "blinking lights" of democracy, the US military announces multiple deaths, Blackwater continues to simmer and the focus goes to Condi, Giuliana Sgrena responds to the sliming she received and more.
Starting with war resisters. Steve Gardner (Kitsap Sun) writes of the just published "The Most Influential People of 2007" in Seattle Magazine. and notes "Iraq war resister U.S. Army Lt. Ehren Watada appears, as does Olympic Sculpture Park shepherd Chris Rogers (who the magazine selected as the 2007 Person of the Year). Early learning advocate and the state's former first ladey Mona Locke is on the list, and so is former U.S. Attorney John McKay and Google's Narayanan 'Shiva' Shivakumar." Watada is the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. After months of working with the military (in good faith), Watada went public in June of 2006 after it became obvious that the military was stringing him along with false assurance. Watada (rightly) judges the Iraq War as illegal. In February of this year he was court-martialed in a kangaroo hearing presided over by Judge Toilet (aka John Head) who called a mistrial over defense objection and after the prosecution had presented their case which means double-jeopardy should prevent Watada from standing before a court-martial again. (Watada's service contract has already expired. He has been kept in the US military for months due to the issue of a potential court-martial.) US District Judge Benjamin Settle Friday is reviewing that and other issues and has extended the stay on Watada's case through November 9th.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
The National Lawyers Guild's convention begins shortly: The Military Law Task Force and the Center on Conscience & War are sponsoring a Continuing Legal Education seminar -- Representing Conscientious Objectors in Habeas Corpus Proceedings -- as part of the National Lawyers Guild National Convention in Washington, D.C. The half-day seminar will be held on Thursday, November 1st, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the convention site, the Holiday Inn on the Hill in D.C. This is a must-attend seminar, with excelent speakers and a wealth of information. The seminar will be moderated by the Military Law Task Force's co-chair Kathleen Gilberd and scheduled speakers are NYC Bar Association's Committee on Military Affairs and Justice's Deborah Karpatkin, the Center on Conscience & War's J.E. McNeil, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee's Peter Goldberger, Louis Font who has represented Camilo Mejia, Dr. Mary Hanna and others, and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's James Feldman. The fee is $60 for attorneys; $25 for non-profit attorneys, students and legal workers; and you can also enquire about scholarships or reduced fees. The convention itself will run from October 31st through November 4th and it's full circle on the 70th anniversary of NLG since they "began in Washington, D.C." where "the founding convention took place in the District at the height of the New Deal in 1937, Activist, progressive lawyers, tired of butting heads with the reactionary white male lawyers then comprising the American Bar Association, formed the nucleus of the Guild."
On the above NLG event, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes today, "Meanwhile the National Lawyers Guild is criticizing the Bush administration for refusing to allow a prominent Cuban attorney into the country. The guild had invited Guillermo Ferriol Molina to speak at the group's 70th anniversary convention this week but he was apparently denied a visa. Molina is the Vice-President of the Labor Law Society of the Cuban bar association and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers."
How does that happen? "There's this horrible phase in a closing democracy when leaders and citizens still think it's a democracy but the people who have already started to close it are just kind of drumming their fingers waiting for everyone to realize that that's not the dance anymore," explains Naomi Wolf on the October 26th episode of The Bat Segundo Show. Her new book is The End of America: Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot where she argues that democracy needs to be reclaimed in the United States before it is lost. Covering a large historical terrain, she outlines the "echoes" present in the US today that have been signals of a shift to a closed society in our historical past. Addressing the inaction of Congress on so many topics (including impeachment and the refusal to listen to the citizens on the issue of the illegal war), Wolf declared, "Congress is like an abused woman that keeps thinking, 'Surely my boyfriend will be nice now. What do you mean you're not turning over your e-mails? We're Congress! You can't just not listen to us.' So you're right to notice the American people are getting it before Congress is. The people in power right now are no longer engaged in the democratic social contract and so it does take us recognizing that we can't heal democracy only through conventional means of democracy. So, Nancy Pelosi, is saying we're not going to impeach. Guess what? The founders didn't intend for Nancy Pelosi to decide what the people are going to do when there's this kind of criminal assault on the Constitution and checks and balances. It's up to us. And that's why we started the American Freedom Campaign which is a democracy movement which now has five million members in really, like two months, across the political spectrum and we're driving a grassroots movement to push, to confront Pelosi, and to confront the leaders in Congress and to let them know this is an emergency, it's not business as usual and they can't unilaterally take issues like that off the table. We're now, impeachment is not yet an AFC position, this is just me speaking for myself, but from the historical blue print, seeing what is now in place -- it is not safe to leave those people in power anymore and I'm saying this to Republicans and Democrats alike. It is not safe to entrust the next election with them. So I don't think we just need to move forward with impeaching, this is me speaking personally -- not for the AFC, but from the historical blueprint, we need to do it now and also we need to prosecute for treason because it's not enough to get people like this out of power you have to get them behind bars." Will impeachment be an issue for AFC? Wolf explained that since it's a grassroots movement, the goals will be determined by the members. The fifty minute broadcast touches on a large number of issues and we'll note Wolf on another topic:
Blackwater just got another billion dollar contract after massacring 17 innocent civilians in Iraq, okay? They operate fully outside the law in Iraq. Order 17, Paul Bremer, guaranteed that they were unaccountable. So it's not just the Iraqis who have to worry about Blackwater. The second step in the ten-point blue print [of moving a state from democracy to fascist, Wolf charts this in her book The End of America] is to create a paramilitary force that's not answerable to the people. This is how, in Italy, Mussolini closed democracy using the Black Shirts. And this is how, in Germany, Hitler closed democracy using Brown Shirts. Paramilitary forces excerpt pressure on civilians. So what Americans don't know is that Blackwater is already operating in the United States. Homeland Security already brought them in to patrol the streets of New Orleans after Katrina. And Jeremy Scahill reported that they were firing, our contractors, were firing on civilians. We don't know, most of us, that Blackwater's business model calls for increased deployment here in the United States in the event of say a natural catastrophe or quote 'a public emergency.' And with Defense Authorization Act 2007, it is the president, who's hand in hand with Blackwater, who now has the unilateral power to determine what is a national emergency that calls for a quote 'restoration of public order.' And I just want to tell you that the invoking of a national emergency and the call to restore public order is the is the tenth step in the blue print to close down an open society.
Staying on the topic of the mercenaries of Blackwater USA new developments can be classified under "What Condi forgot to tell Congress about Blackwater." US Secretary of State and Anger Condi Rice most recently offered testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last week on Thursday, October 25th. Rice declared that ("thank God so far" -- putting someone or Someone on notice?) Blackwater was needed and that she just wouldn't know how to run the department she heads without Blackwater (prior to the rise of Blackwater and other mercenaries, embassy security staff were responsible for guarding State Dept employees in foreign countries) and insisted, "But we do recognize that their must be sufficient oversight, sufficient rules and that is why I have accepted the recommendations of the panel on the private security contractors." That would have been a good time to insert an item in today's news; however, she didn't. When speaking of reports that puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki had made a backdoor deal to grant immunity from prosecution to members of his cabinet, Rice did not want to talk about "rumor" or "unsubstantiated" claims "I'd like to state again, Mr. Chairman, because I'd rather state it in my own words than have it be stated for me. It is the policy of this administration -- and I'm quite certain that the president would feel strongly about this: That there shouldn't be corrupt officials anywhere. And that no official -- no matter how high -- should be immune from investigation, prosecution or, indeed, punishment should corruption be found." So no immunity for officials in al-Maliki's cabinet. Rice could have used that moment -- "in my own words" -- to address the issue of immunity that the State Department was granting. Because the department she heads had granted immunity. Noting that the Associated Press broke the story Monday, David Johnston (New York Times) reports today, "The State Department investigators from the agency's investigative arm, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, offered the immunity grants [to Blackwater] even though they did not have the authority to do so, the officials said. Prosecutors at the Justice Department, who do have such authority, had no advance knowledge of the arranement, they added. Most of the [Blackwater] guards who took part in the Sept. 16 shooting were offered what officials described as limited-use immunity, which means that they were promised they would not be prosecuted for anything they said in their interviews with the authorities as long as their statements were true."
This news came out Monday via AP. On Thursday, Rice faced the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Blackwater was a topic many touched on (Democrats and Republicans). Rice was not forthcoming. When the issue of immunity came up -- with regards to al-Maliki's cabinet -- Rice made no effort to inform Congress that the department she heads, the department which she is supposed to provide oversight to, had offered Blackwater guards involved in the incident immunity -- an immunity that her department did not have the power to offer.
CBS and AP report, "Law enforcement officials say the State Department granted them immunity from prosecution before taking their statements. They can still be prosecuted, bur fromer prosecutor David Laufman said it will be harder to make a case, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reported. . . . The FBI can still interview the guards, but Laufman doubts they will cooperate." Terry Frieden (CNN) notes Senator Patrick Leahy has "accused the Bush 'amnesty administration' of letting its allies, including security contractors in Iraq, shirk responsibility for their actions" and Quotes Leahy declaring, "In this administration, accountability goes by the boards. That seems to be a central tenet in the Bush administration -- that no one from their team should be held accountable, if accountability can be avoided." Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) offers this perspective: "Under State Department contractor rules, Diplomatic Security agents are charged with investigating and reporting on all 'use of force' incidents. Although there have been previous Blackwater shootings over the past three years -- none of which resulted in prosecutions -- the Sept. 16 incident was by far the most serious." Johnston reports, "The immunity deals were an unwelcome surprise at the Justice Department, which was already grappling with the fundamental legal question of whether any prosecution could take place involving American civilians in Iraq. . . . In addition, the Justice Department reassigned the investigation from prosecutors in the criminal division who had read the statements the State Department had taken under the offer of immunity to prosecutors in the national security division who had no knowledge of the statements."
Waxman writes Rice today about the immunity:
Multiple news reports are asserting that the State Department compromised the investigation into the shootings and the potential for prosecutions of Blackwater personnel by offering immunity to the Blackwater guards. According to one report, agents of the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security promised Blackwater personnel 'immunity from prosecution' in order to elicit statements. Another report stated that the State Department offered 'limited-use immunity' without authority to do so so and without consulting with the Justice Department. According to these accounts, prosecution of Blackwater personnel has become, at minimum, "a lot more complicated and dfficult."
This rash grant of immunity was an egregious misjudgement. It raises serious questions about who conferred the immunity, who approved it at the State Department, and what their motives were. To help the Committee investigate these matters, I request that the State Department provide written responses to the following questions no later than noon on Friday, November 2, 2007:
1) What form of immunity was offered to the Blackwater personnel?
2) What limitations does this form of immunity impose upon the investigation?
3) Who authorized the offers of immunity?
4) Who was aware of the offers of immunity at or before the time that they were delivered?
5) When did you, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Griffin, Ambassador David Satterfield, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker learn of the grant of immunity?
6) What consultation, if any, was conducted with the Justice Department prior to the offers of immunity?
7) Has the State Department ever offered immunity to security contractor personnel as part of other investigations into contractor conduct? Please describe each such occasion.
I further request that knowledgeable officials appear at the previously scheduled briefing for Committee staff on November 2 to respond to questions about the State Department's written response to these questions.
Finally, I request that the State Department produce the following documents no later than Friday, November 9, 2007:
1) All communications relating to any offers of immunity to Blackwater personnel relating to the September 16, 2007, Nissor Square incident; and
2) All communications relating to any offers of immunity to Blackwater personnel or other private military contractors relating to other incidents in Iraq.
The letter is available online by [PDF format warning] clicking here.
Last Friday on the second hour of NPR's The Diane Rehm Show the issue of Rice's appearences before Congress was noted with Rehm explaining Congress felt Rice "has mismanaged diplomatic efforts in Iraq and they accused her of concealing information from Congress." A perfect example -- not known then -- would be the offer of limited-immunity to Blackwater employees. Again, that was not known then. NBC's Andrea Mitchell (who, along with Newsweek's Michael Hirsh and the Los Angeles Times' Doyle McManus, took part in the roundtable) explained, "Well in particular there were memos, internal Iraqi memos, that the State Department was well aware of, that she had not turned over, that she had not turned over memos on Blackwater, corruption in the Iraqi government, which is a growing problem. That she has ignored it, not brought it to their attention. Her worst nightmare is Henry Waxman. Henry Waxman sixteen terms now chairman of the House Oversight Committee and he is going after her and after the State Department and other government agencies. He has a pipeline of investigations and he just keeps one after the other." [For more on the broadcast, see Ruth's Saturday report.] Along with not turning over memos to Congress, Rice's department is now known for not telling Congress about the offer of limited immunity. While Condi's department has granted further immunity, Deborah Haynes (Times of London) reports others are attempting to pull some back: "The Iraqi Cabinet today approved a draft law lifting the immunity from prosecution enjoyed by foreign security companies contracted by the US-led coalition, but it was unclear how guards working for the controversial American firm Blackwater would be affected." Steve Negus (Financial Times of London) notes the next step for the bill would be the Iraqi parliament (where, for the record, the bill could have originated in) and that is is unclear "whether the proposed Iraqi legislation would apply retrospectively."
In other mercenary news, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) reports, "Meanwhile the British private military company Erinys has been sued in Texas over the death of a U.S. soldier who died after being hit by one of the company's convoys in Iraq. The lawsuit was filed by Perry Monroe, father of Christopher Monroe who died in southern Iraq two years ago. The lawsuit accuses the Erinys convoy of ignoring warnings and traveling at excessive speed after dark without lights fully on. At the time of the incident, the British company was working under a contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers." Christopher Monroe died October 25, 2005. He was 19-years-old. Interestingly, although a mercenary caused the death, the Defense Department's announcement stated Monroe died "when his 5-ton truck was involved in an automobile accident with a civilian vehicle." It's cute the way departments of the US government work overtime to protect contractors. In the instance of Monroe's death, they are happy to make it sound as if an Iraqi's mini-van collided with the truck. AP reports that the mercenary company Erinys "has made more than $150 million in Iraq and has contracts to protect the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, according to the lawsuit filled by the father of Army Spc. Christopher T. Monroe." In addition, the DoD trumpeted "civilian vehicle" was actually one "armored Suburban [which] struck Monroe and his truck, tearing off Monroe's right leg and throwing him 30 to 40 feet in the air" -- begging the question of how fast the mercenary vehicle was traveling (traveling at night "with headlights off" after having already been told of Monroe's convoy). Suzanne Goldenberg (Guardian of London) offers that Erinys "reportedly has close ties to the former Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi," notes that Monroe was on guard duty, that Erinys was traveling "at an estimated speed of up to 80mph on a dark road using only their parking lights" and that they were not under fire. In addition, Goldenberg notes that the company received a contract in 2003 "to provide security for Iraq's oil refineries and pipelines. . . . The first recruits of the 14,000-strong oil protection force raised by Erinys Iraq were members of the Iraqi Free Forces, the US-trained milita that was headed by Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi exile who was America's protege in the run-up to the invasion. Members of Mr Chalabi's inner circle were among the founding partners of Erinys Iraq."
Bombings?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad mortar attack that wounded two people "near Milky Master shop" and a Salahuddin car bombing that claimed the lives of 3 Iraqi soldiers with nine more wounded. Reuters notes a Baghdad mini-bus bombing that left two people wounded as well as another on that claimed the life of 1 person (four more wounded), a grenade tossed into a Baghdad street that claimed the life of 1 "street cleaner" and left six more people injured, and a Baghdad car bombing that claimed the lives of 4 police officers (eight more injured).
Shootings?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a police officer was shot dead on Monday in Mosul.
Corpses?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 5 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes 4 corpses discovered in Mosul today, 1 in Kirkuk yesterday.
Meanwhile an Iraqi correspondent at Inside Iraq (McClatchy Newspapers) notes the death of a friend, Haider, over the weekend in a car accident: "Haider is my closest friend in Baghdad and the entire world. He was my friend from childhood when I was 6 years till we finished the high school. We had had great time. We used to play soccer, play ping-pong, chess and fishing small fish from the lake near by from Tigris river in Missan province in the south of Iraq. He chose the engineering college while my choice was teaching.
Today, the US military announced: "Three Multi-National Division - Center Soldiers were killed when their patrol was struck by an improvised explosive device southeast of Baghdad Oct. 30." ICCC places the US service member death toll since the start of the illegal war at 3842 with 36 for the month. CNN says it is 37 for the month.
As Iraq continues to fall apart as a result of the illegal war, Amit R. Paley (Washington Post) reports that 500,000 Iraqis could die of drowning in Mosul "and parts of Baghdad" as a result of problems with a Mosul dam -- a dam that $27 million has gone to for reconstruction and that the Army Corps of Engineers states has "an unacceptable annual failure probability". AFP reports that "the US 27 million dollar project launched two years ago to help strengthen the dam has been marred by incompetence and mismangement. The report said SIGIR's most recent inspection concludes that the project has made no headway in improving grout injection operations, and said that poor oversight had allowed millions of dollars in construction and equipment to go to waste."
"I don't know if he knew who was -- who were the passenger of the car, of course. I don't know if maybe he just answered to an order. So that's why I wanted Mario Lozano to tell the truth to the trial or in any way to tell the truth, and not just accusing me that it's my fault. It's not my fault. He was shooting to us. I didn't shoot to anybody. So, he shooted, and he has to give us a reason why he shooted, even if it was an order. When I was in United States, I heard from a lot of veterans against the war that they were obliged to shoot when they were in Iraq. So I think that we can understand that he also was a victim of the war. But he has to tell the truth, not just to tell that it's my fault. It's not my fault. He has to realize that it is his fault, because he shoot to us and to Calipari. He killed Calipari. So he has to explain. I can imagine that he has psychological problems because of the shooting, because it's normal for a normal person, it's normal to have pyschological problems if you kill a man." That's Guiulian Sgrena speaking with Amy Goodman today on Democracy Now! regarding the nonsense from the Dumb Ass yesterday who blamed her for the fact that he shot someone dead. From today's broadcast:
GIULIANA SGRENA: Oh, it's not true. I was just doing my work, and many other journalists went to interview the refugees, the refugees of Fallujah. Me, I usually go to interview the refugees, because I think that it's the people that more suffer for the situation. And also, in this case, I went there just to interview these refugees.
I know that for military, army, it's not the case to go around and to do an independent work, because they want the journalists just to be embedded, but I can say that in the same day, the same moment that I was there doing to interview the refugees of Fallujah, there was also a photographer working for the US Time taking pictures there. So I was not doing a work with terrorists, because if not everybody work with terrorists. I was just there to interview refugees.
And I think that this is the only way to do our job as we have to do it, because we have to listen to the people that is suffering under the occupation and not just interview the commanders or people that have weapons in their -- that they're using weapons. So I think that I was in a right position, and I will do always the same when I go around the world.
And I don't understand what mean Lozano by saying that I was going there, doing something with terrorists. They were not terrorists. What means? So we don't have the chance to do our work? Is it true that now we have not the chance to do our work true in Iraq, but this is because of the occupation and, of course, also because nobody in Iraq want to have witness there to see what is going on. But I was just doing my work.
AMY GOODMAN: Giuliana Sgrena, can you remind us what happened when you were released? From the point, well, that you learned you were going to be released -- first who you were held by and then what happened, all the way through the shooting on your road to the airport?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes, when I was released, Calipari came to pick me up, and we were on the road to the airport, after, of course, giving the news to the person that were interested in, and we were on the way to the airport. It was dark, because it was night. And at a certain point, we were not so far from the airport, when they started to shoot us. At the beginning, I couldn't understand who was shooting, because we were in the area controlled by the Americans, and I couldn't believe that the Americans, they were shooting to us. There was Italian agents with me. So, really, it was really a shock.
And immediately, when they started to shoot, Calipari stopped to talk, and I realized that something was going wrong, because he didn't speak to me. And the agent that was driving the car started to shout and to say that we were Italian, we were of the Italian embassy, just to try to stop the shooting. And when the shooting stopped, I saw that Calipari was killed. Me, I was wounded, and also the other agent. So, it was really a big shock.
But there were no warnings before the shooting. And the shooting, they reached the car, and they were, after -- we can say now, after the inquiry, the Italian inquiry, because there was an Italian inquiry of the Italian justice, that against the car was shooted fifty-eight bullets, and fifty-seven bullets were against the passengers of the car and only the last one against the engine of the car. So if they wanted to stop the car, they had to shoot to the engine or to the wheels, but not to the passengers. And that's why the Italian justice asked the trial for Lozano for voluntarily killing of Nicola Calipari. That's the point. It's not only my testify now; it's the conclusion of the Italian justice inquiry.
As Sgrena points out, the judge did not find Lozano innocent, the judge stated the case was out of Italy's jurisdiction -- prosecutors are appealing that ruling. Lastly, David Price's latest on the betrayal of a social science is a must read at CounterPunch. (Ideally, this will be quoted from in tomorrow's snapshot.)
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