Thursday, August 03, 2006

Thursday finally

Thursday! Yea! One more day!

Okay, if you're here to night for Law and Disorder, bad news. Pushed back to tomorrow. How come? Cedric's busy and not sure he can write anything tonight. So he asked if we could do it tomorrow? I was like, "YES!" I am Law and Disordered out. It's a great show but I listened to five hours today. How come? At The Third Estate Sunday Review, we're doing an editorial on Lynn Stewart and Law and Disorder has discussed that a lot. So to try to pull at least one quote or point from that, C.I. and me have been sort of designated as the ones to go through the episodes. C.I. has a friend who loves the show and gets the podcast so there's easy access that way and I've got the shows on cassette tape so I've got access too.

We really want to mention Law and Disorder in the editorial because they cover the Stewart case all the time. I was on the phone with C.I., Jess, Ava, Ty, Dona and Jim last night and one of them suggested that we just go to the website and C.I. and me both groaned. How come? It's probably not indexed or categorized like that. It's not like they do a Lynn Stewart segment. They just work it in. We're looking specifically for a quote by Michael Ratner and one by Dalia Hashad. We're sure they've all talked about it (that includes the other two hosts Heidi Boghosian and Michael Smith) but we both remember a thing by Ratner and Hashad. We're hoping we can find them. C.I.'s pretty sure the comments generally come in the first interview/discussion each time but only pretty sure so we're both listening to the whole hour of each broadcast. We hope we can find it, but if we can find anything from the four, we'll grab it.

See, the reason for that is because this hasn't been a one time thing on Law and Disorder -- they tie that issue into stuff all the time. So we really want to include the show in at least one quote. We'd love it if we could find the two C.I. and I remember but we're starting late and we both have a lot of stuff today. (Friday's are when my Iraq discussion group meets.)


Here's C.I.'s latest "Iraq snapshot:"

Chaos and violence continue on the ground in Iraq today, Thursday, August 3rd, Donald Rumsfeld speaks like an excited child, Bully Boy plots a getaway from a vacation getaway, and peace activists and members of Iraq's parliament prepare for their face to face meeting to address reality.
Among the peace activists that will be taking part in the Friday and Saturday meetings in Jordan are Cindy Sheehan, Tom Hayden, Medea Benjamin, Ann Wright and Diane Wilson. Katy Hillenmeyer (Santa Rosa Press Democrat) takes a look at another activist making the journey, 72-year-old, retired nurse Barbara Briggs-Leston. Barbara Briggs-Leston explains the peace summit: "We're trying to call attention to the Iraqi's own plan, as opposed to the United States' plan. Let's let the Iraqis decide what happens to them. We've been deciding, and we've done an appalling job."
CODEPINK and Global Exchange are co-sponsoring the trip which stems from the attention the Troops Home Fast actions garnered "after 28 days of fasting." The fast is continuing: "We will keep the fast going until September 21, International Peace Day, when there will be a week of mass actions against the war" and today at least 4,350 people are fasting around the world.
As some advocate for peace, others say more of the same. Such as Donald Rumsfeld's latest remarks (reported by Kristin Roberts and Vicki Allen, Reuters): "If we left Iraq prematurely as the terrorists demand, the enemy would tell us to leave Afghanistan. And if we left the Middle East, they'd order us and all those who don't share their militant ideology to leave what they call the occupied Muslim lands from Spain to the Philippines. And then we would face not only the evil ideology of these extremists, but an enemy that will have grown accustomed to succeeding in telling free people everywhere what to do." And . . . and . . . and . . . What might be cute in a five-year-old child just makes Rumsfeld appear he needs to call time for a pee break.
He certainly needs to learn how to make a non-circular argument but, at this late date, even the War Hawks find it difficult to call their weak excuses for US troops remaining in Iraq "logic."
His circular statements, to the Senate Armed Services Committee, come a day after he struggled to define what the meaning of "is" is in a Defense Department press conference. After noting that "Sunnis are killing Shia; Shia are killing Sunnis," Rumsfeld went on to muse, "Does that constitute a civil war? I guess you can decide for your yourself. And we can all go to the dictionary and decide what you want to call something. But it seems to me that it is not a classic civil war at this stage.
It certainly isn't like our Civil War. It isn't like the civil war in a number of other countries. Is it a high level of sectarian violence? Yes, it is. And are people being killed? Yes."
It was all so far from reality, he came off like Jalal Talabani (Iraq's president) claiming yesterday that by the end of this year (that would be four months from now), Iraq security forces will be in control of all 18 provinces. Rumsfeld's performance yesterday was refuted by the BBC report of William Patey (England's "outgoing ambassador in Baghdad) warning Tony Blair (poodle and prime minister) that civil war, not democracy, awaits Iraq. The BBC's Paul Wood characterized the document as "a devastating official assessment of the prospect for a peaceful Iraq, and stands in stark contrast to public rhetoric."
In the United States, John Abizaid (head of Centcom) testified to the Senate Armed Service Committee. Abizaid offered that "the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it. And that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move toward civil war" (CNN). Reuters notes that Abizaid stated that a year ago this time, he never would have predicted the possibility of a civil war.
Looking at the Patey memo, Ewen MacAskill (Guardian of London) concludes "whatever happens, the vision set out for Iraq by George Bush before the invasion in 2003 of a beacon of democracy for the Middle East is not going to happen."
And in Iraq? The BBC's Paul Wood probably best sums up life in Iraq post-invasion:
"An Iraqi man, Ahmed Muktar, told me a typical story of these times. His family fled sectarian violence in the suburb of Dora. But his brother-in-law returned to check on his house. He was kidnapped. The police, the hospitals, the morgues - none had any official record of the missing man. So his family went to the dumping ground for bodies on the edge of Dora. There they found him, amid a pile of 50 corpses, hands tied behind his back, shot in the head. They had to recover him while under constant automatic fire, the police and troops nearby too scared to help."
Shootings?
Reuters reports that a new US target is apparently the followers of Moqtada al-Sadr:"U.S. troops opened fir on a convoy carrying supporters of radical Shi'ite cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr . . . wounding at least 16 people." CNN notes a Wednesday home invasion that led to four dead in Wajihiya. Reuters notes that it was the home of a police officer (apparently not home) and the dead were three women and one man (not the police officer).
Bombings?
The worst known took place in Baghad. AP reports that "at least 12 people" are dead and 29 wounded from a bomb "hidden in a parked motorcycle." The BBC notes that the explosion "set ablaze" surrounding shops.
Reuters reports two police officers wounded from a roadside bomb in Latifiya; three Iraqi soldiers wounded by a roadside bomb in Balad;
Corpses?
Reuters notes a corpse discovered in Samarra, one in Kut, one in Numaniya, and three in Dujail.
Kidnappings?
In Latifiya, two passengers of a car were injured and the car and driver "snatched" by assailants in an attack, Reuters reports, while, in Isahqi, a "food contractor for the Iraqi army" was kidnapped.
In legal news, AFP reports that the "[f]our US soldiers accused of killing three Iraqi prisoners refused to give evidence as a military hearing heard that one of the captives' brains were blown out as he lay injured." This is the May 9th incident in which US soldiers allegedly killed three Iraqis who had been detained and handcuffed. The AFP observes: "The troops followed the lead of several of their superior officers Thursday, invoking their right not to incriminate themselves before a legal panel set up at their unit's base camp in the central Iraqi city of Tikrit." The four accused who are refusing to testify are: William B. Hunsaker, Raymond L. Girouard, Corey R. Clagett and Juston R. Graber.
In Australia, the most recent news from the inquiry into the April 21st death in Baghdad of Jake Kovco is that Alastar Adams will give testimony from Kuwait, "via a video link," as to how the coffin shipped back to Australia supposedly containing the body of Jake Kovco instead contained the body of Bosnian carpenter Juso Sinanovic.
Some would argue Bully Boy ran from the National Guard -- some might agree he's running from Cindy Sheehan. The AP reports that Bully Boy, the vacationing leader, will have far less than his usual weeks and weeks of summer vacation, and has instead reduced it to "nine days" based at his ranchette in Crawford. Bully Boy plans to return to DC August 13th. Camp Casey, on land Sheehan now owns in Crawford, will open on August 6th this month. Camp Casey will be open from August 6th through Septemeber 2nd. On the importance of Camp Casey, Sheehan writes: "Camp Casey in Crawford is more important than ever, now. Not only has this administration, with the eager approval of Congress, committed genocide on a massive scale, they are taking away our civil rights and our right to be heard and counted. We cannot allow these same leaders who accuse the peace movement of a political agenda to use our soldiers and the babies of Iraq as political game pieces in the folly of elections when there is so much overwhelming evidence that our elections have been compromised, and while election after election is stolen, no one does anything about it. It is up to us all, nobody else."

I always love the snapshot but I liked how today opened with the peace trip to Jordan and ended with Cindy Sheehan speaking truth. It really "is up to us all, nobody else." You can use your power or just veg out in front of the TV, you can use your power or jerk off on stories that really don't matter. Maybe you're a dumb ass big-time reporter covering a human "wolf" man?
Or maybe you're a dumb ass reporter jerking off on some non-life and death matter that really doesn't have anything to do with your or your audience while the Middle East is in flames?

A lot of people treat Iraq as an after thought. And it's not because they're focusing on something really important.

The Iraq war is not ending until we quit playing and stop believing all the Happy Talk. Some dumb ass official says, "Oh well I think things are going better" and watch the cry go up from all the dumb asses of, "Thank God!" If you're not taking the war seriously, you're giving everyone else an excuse and cover not to.

I try to take it seriously but I don't think I do it enough. Ma and Dad took their vacation out in the land of sunshine (or is that Wally's state?) and the thing they were interested in the most besides the usual sight seeing was watching the Iraq snapshot get put together. They only got to see it put together twice because the other days, C.I. was on the move. But it goes basically like this, C.I. is on two phones asking "What am I missing?" or asking "Talk me through this" and during that, going from website to website, watching the clock, trying to get it completed by the same time each day (it's e-mailed and it doesn't always hit the site right away), once it drops down to 15 minutes before the deadline C.I. sets for it, the music that's playing in the background is "deafening" (Ma said that). What's the dealine? No more than ninety minutes.

And at ninety minutes, seriously, the buzzer goes off. C.I. uses a timer.

Dad goes ask about anything in it after you read it and C.I. can give you an entire background thing on it. Dad got to see it done on the fly one time when he tagged along to a speaking thing C.I. had and another thing on the same day and he said that's really on fly. Before the laptop is booted up, C.I.'s already on the phone. And that brings up a question Leigh Ann had which is, "Why is it done via e-mail?" We've all had too many problems with Blogger losing posts while we were working on them. There's no time to redo it if Blogger screws up. So it's done by e-mail because that doesn't get screwed up.

Sometimes it doesn't hit the site. If it doesn't hit by two hours, the e-mail is copied and then pasted into a Blogger post. So that's how it works and I hope to see it when I go out there. I know that when we're talking, there's all this stuff that I don't know and I read the snapshots and most of the time have time to go to the links.

Now this is from Free Speech Radio News:

Heat Wave Misery
The heatwave that killed over 150 people in California last week is now rolling through the Midwest and the East Coast, where another dozen people have died due to the heat and where electrical grids are struggling to remain on. Rebecca Myles has more from New York.

That may seem like a "weather" story but there's a reason it's so hot and that has to do with the way we've trashed the environment for so long. This is just one way we're seeing it and if you've already had a problem with the heat this summer (like me!) you need to remember we're still not done with summer yet.

Check out Cedric's site tonight because he's going to talk a lot more about that. And Dad says, "No son of mine would forget to note the Floyd!" :D So be sure and check out Elaine's "Goodbye Blue Skies" from yesterday.




















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