Friday and, as usual, I'm running late. Partly because we ended up needing even more ice -- it's warm tonight. Usually we just need five bags for the Iraqi study group, but the ice was going fast so we ran out and got some more. I'm missing the start of it because I'm blogging right now. If I wait, I'll be tired and think of an excuse to skip noting Law and Disorder. I'll also miss Dad's music mix! :D He was talking at dinner about how he was dying to hear Jefferson Airplane's Crown of Creation and about a half a dozen other CDs. So, after the group, a lot of us will be banked out in the living room, listening to music.
This week's Law and Disorder featured Michael Smith, Michael Ratner and Dalia Hashad. Heidi Boghosian wasn't on. That's because, answering Mindy's question, they are practicing attorneys and they have cases and other things to work on. As long as Heidi's name is in the opening, she's with the show. (I like all the hosts, including Heidi but Mindy likes Heidi best and was wondering where she was?)
The Michaels opened the show with a segment where they just talked to each other and that was a nice opening. They covered a lot of things including the Pulitzers. I don't take those awards seriously (I doubt the Michaels do either) but, get this, the New York Daily News won for their reporting on the health hazards after 9-11 in NYC. But Juan Gonzalez (reporter for them and co-host of Democracy Now!) didn't get cited in the award. Juan Gonzalez covered this over and over for the paper and wrote a book about in 2002. The paper wasn't really thrilled he was covering it because it contradicted what Christy Todd Whitman and the administration was saying. So the Michaels pointed out that it really was disgraceful for the Pulitzer committee not to cite Juan Gonzalez when he was the reporter on this. Michael Smith talked about how his parrot got sick and how he ended up with esophagus problems himself and it was because (he couldn't swallow, that's why he went to the doctor) of all the health hazards and how the government was more concerned with opening back up Wall Street than it was in protecting the health of the citizens.
Michael Ratner had returned from Europe where he was working on the issues of torture and Guantanamo and a lot more. He and Michael Smith talked about what had been going on here while he was gone. C.I. noted this from Michael Ratner in Tuesday's "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday on WBAI's Law and Disorder, co-host Michael Smith asked co-host Michael Ratner what it was like to be returning to the United States right now from Germany and France and Ratner responded, "First thing you read, 157 people were killed in Iraq. This is after the so-called escalation -- 'surge' as they call it. Things certainly don't seem to be getting better and, in fact, I think what we may see happening in Iraq is something like the Tet Offensive at some point that will eventually drive the United States out militarily and that just the American people will finally say 'We've had it.' We see the Democrats screwing around a timetable in their legislation but not linking that really to any funding, just putting it in Bush claiming to veto it and realize that people are being slaughtered every day in Iraq."
That was from the conversation they were having at the beginning of the show. They talked about the Supreme Court's attack on women's rights, about the Virginia Tech shootings and about what was going on with "tyranny abroad, tyranny at home."
Michael Ratner noted that everyone was working on their own issues but "as long as we're atomized, we're not going to win." And that reminded me of two things. First, something C.I. wrote:
In the sixties, for those old enough to remember (and whose minds are not so baked that they can't), there was excitement if you were a part of the peace movement. That excitement translated to awareness of upcoming events and they were as much social as they were anything else. (I'm not referring to what happened at the podium, I'm referring to the fact that there were groups of friends you were going with and you were generally -- or my friends and myself -- frequently saying something to the effect of, "You're not going? Oh come, you have to be there. You have to.")
At that time, there was already concern of the atomistic age. Words influence and science influences. The belief of some was that we'd learn to split everything up (and sometimes study it) but hadn't yet learned how to put it all together. Many, including Anais Nin, saw hope in integrated circuits and believed that would allow for closer connections (societal, personal, on every level). Did it?
That was first up and that's because of "atomized." When C.I. wrote about "the atomistic age," I had to call and ask, "What are you talking about?" :D I'm laughing at me but I think people assume we're all on the same page when we may not be. C.I. explained that the atomistic age was referring to the Atom Age which was the creation (and use of on Japan) of nuclear weapons and how dissecting and other practices were teaching us to take things apart (the atom bomb works on splitting an atom) but the hope was that integrated circuits would teach us to stop splitting and put things together. Integrated circuits? Yeah, that was my second question! :D
Integrated circuits are what computers work on. They are these programming loops and charts that allow the computers to work -- "If . . . then" commands like if I press a "y" then a "y" appears on screen, etc.
So when Michael Ratner says "as long as we're atomized" what he means is as long as we're all working on our issues -- important ones -- and doing so in isolation, we're split up and not working together. Which brings us to the second thing, that makes me feel even more that Stanley Abromawitz was right when he was on the show and talking about the need for a national paper that would cover the issues and explain and introduce them to people. I agreed then that we needed one and I agree even more strongly now.
The Michaels spoke with David Borden of the Drug Reform Coordination Effort and addressed the 1998 Higher Education Act which denies loans to students that are convicted of drug possession, college loans. You can go into rehab to try to qualify again but that wipes out a minimum of one semester's time where you could be getting a student loan. There are no statistics on who's effected the most by race because the government doesn't release those statistics.
Before I get to the next section, I just remembered something. Mindy's favorite is Heidi and the pledge drive will be coming up soon (I'm not sure when). Heidi and Geoff Brady (the show's producer and I hope I got his name right) did a whole pledge drive by themselves and C.I. praises them for that. They apparently didn't even know that contributions were coming in -- no one was passing that on to them while they were on the microphone and they played some sections of the show but were largely winging it which is what they do during the pledge drive (everybody) but usually you're able to stop and say, "Thank you to __ from __ for donating" and that gives you a little more to talk about that and a lot less pressure. When Geoff and Heidi were doing it, they were doing it for like two hours and their pledge drive was almost over when they finally were told that donations had been coming in all along. Mindy'll like that story but if you don't get it, why it's worth noting, try to imagine you're on the radio for two hours fundraising and, as far as you know, not a single person has donated? You'd probably be freaking out and wondering, "Does anyone listen?" But C.I. says Heidi and Geoff just kept it going, "stayed loose and focused" and really did a great job (and raised money even though they didn't know that until the end). So Heidi wasn't on this week but there's a Heidi story for Mindy.
Dalia Hashad was on and she talked about how a new prison facility has opened on Guantanamo called Camp 6. Amnesty has "been monitoring. About 100 inmates have been transferred so far. I believe there are about 385 inmates left on Guantanamo." She talked about how it was built with high walls, no windows and the people are kept inside individual cells for 22 hours a day with only 2 hours of 'excercise.' She reminded everyone about David Hicks (they discussed him two or three weeks ago -- maybe longer -- the Australian who was held in Guantanamo until recently) and how he grew his hair real long just to have something to block out the lights because they keep the lights on at all times. It can get cold there and they don't adjust the thermostat but they do hand out thermals . . . which they take back as punishment.
This is from Karen J. Greenberg's "Can Guantanamo Be Closed?" and it addresses Guantanamo:
What a new president could do.
A surprising number of Americans of note are in agreement. Guantanamo should be closed. The New York Times and the human rights community have, of course, called for it to be shut down, but so has the new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. So has President Bush. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has given indications that she seconds Bush's call. Senator John McCain has said he would close the prison immediately upon becoming president.
On the Democratic side, while John Edwards and Bill Richardson have both called for Guantanamo's closing, the larger field of Democratic candidates has remained curiously silent on the subject. Do they know something we don't? Admittedly, one Democratic Congressman, James Moran of Virginia, has mentioned the possibility of including funds to close Guantanamo in the 2008 Defense Appropriations Bill, but the leading Democratic presidential hopefuls have as yet said very little about Guantanamo.
Perhaps they sense the Pandora's box of conundrums that would be unleashed in any genuine attempt to shut the place down. It's easy enough - almost a no-brainer - to say you want to close Guantanamo. After all, along with those photos from Abu Ghraib, the now-infamous extra-legal detention facility in Cuba has made the American government globally synonymous with the revocation of international law, the disregard of U.S. law, and the torture and abuse of prisoners or, as the Bush administration prefers to call them, "unlawful enemy combatants."
Actually closing Gitmo, however, is another matter entirely. The hard part is fleshing out the next thought: How exactly would you go about it? As Secretary of State Rice said recently, "The president would close Guantánamo tomorrow if someone could answer the question: And what will you do with the dangerous people who are there?" Congressman John Murtha has made a similar point: Knowing how to shut down Guantanamo - given the set of nearly intractable legal knots the Bush administration has tied the prison complex and its detainees up in - is "not that easy."
Dalia pointed out that you're looking at 5 years imprisoned without a real trial for some of the 300 plus still at Guantanamo. Shane Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights (which Michael Ratner is president of and which is an organization you should check out if you haven't already) joined them to discuss the issue. And the show ended with a woman I don't know performing one of my favorite songs: White Stripes' "Seven Army Nation." That's it for me tonight. I've got to go join the group. Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Friday, April 27, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, another prisoner in Iraq dies in US custody, the death of 3 US service members are announced, Riverbend and her family decide it's time to leave Iraq, students continue their activism in the US, and more.
Starting with war resisters, Richard Brown (KXLY) profiles war resister Ryan Johnson who self-checked out in 2005 and went to Canada with his wife Jenny to seek asylum. Johnson states, "I decided that I didn't want to participate in what I preceived to be an illegal war. I have no problem serving my country. I love the United States. That's where I grew up, that's my home, that's where my family is." Death of the party Lizzie Knudson shows up to puff out her chest and strut like any macho b.s. artist while expressing her hate and rage by declaring that she hopes he's thrown in prison for life and that she knows people who have died in Iraq. Pass that rage on over to the Bully Boy, Lizzie, Ryan Johnson didn't send anyone into an illegal war to die. Had Brown spent less time offering Lizzie's rants, he might have been able to provide some actual information (and it would have pleased War Hawk Liz). He could have, for instance, noted that the Johnsons share a home in Canada with
Kyle Snyder and Maleah Friesen. The latter are now married. Of course their planned February wedding got put on hold when Canadian police -- taking orders from the US military -- showed up at the home to drag Snyder away in handcuffs (and in his boxers -- wouldn't even let him get dressed) with the intent to start immediate deportation on Snyder. That's a story that would have tickled War Hawk Lizzie even if it has Canadians outraged (whether they support war resisters or not) because (a) war resistance is not a deportable offense and (b) the Canadian police is not supposed to take orders from a foreign government. The US media continues its silence on that event and also avoids noting that US military crossed over into Canada on a search for war resister Joshua Key. Brown does note, "In the last seven years, nearly 22,500 member of the United States military have gone AWOL or deserted and every year the numbers rise."
And as the numbers rise, more and more go public and speak out. As Courage to Resist reports war resisters Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes, Agustin Aguayo and Robert Zabala will be speking out from May 9th through 17th in the San Francisco Bay Area. This will be Aguayo's first publicly speaking appearances since being released from the brig earlier this month (April 18th). The announced dates include:
Wednesday May 9 - Marin 7pm at College of Marin, Student Services Center, 835 College Ave, Kentfield. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Pablo Paredes and David Solnit. Sponsored by Courage to Resist and Students for Social Responsibility.
Thursday May 10 - Sacramento Details TBA
Friday May 11 - Stockton 6pm at the Mexican Community Center, 609 S Lincoln St, Stockton. Featuring Agustin Aguayo.
Saturday May 12 - Monterey 7pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 490 Aguajito Rd, Carmel. Featuring Agustin Aguayo and Camilo Mejia. Sponsored by Veterans for Peace Chp. 69, Hartnell Students for Peace, Salinas Action League, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and Courage to Resist. More info: Kurt Brux 831-424-6447
Sunday May 13 - San Francisco 7pm at the Veterans War Memorial Bldg. (Room 223) , 401 Van Ness St, San Francisco. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia and Pablo Paredes. Sponsored by Courage to Resist, Veteran's for Peace Chp. 69 and SF Codepink.
Monday May 14 - Watsonville 7pm at the United Presbyterian Church, 112 E. Beach, Watsonville. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes and Robert Zabala. Sponsored by the GI Rights Hotline & Draft Alternatives program of the Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV), Santa Cruz Peace Coalition, Watsonville Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF), Watsonville Brown Berets, Courage to Resist and Santa Cruz Veterans for Peace Chp. 11. More info: Bob Fitch 831-722-3311
Tuesday May 15 - Palo Alto 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church (Fellowship Hall), 1140 Cowper, Palo Alto. Featuring Camilo Mejia. Sponsored by Pennisula Peace and Justice Center. More info: Paul George 650-326-8837
Wednesday May 16 - Eureka 7pm at the Eureka Labor Temple, 840 E St. (@9th), Eureka. Featuring Camilo Mejia. More info: Becky Luening 707-826-9197Thursday May 17 - Oakland 4pm youth event and 7pm program at the Humanist Hall, 411 28th St, Oakland. Featuring Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes and the Alternatives to War through Education (A.W.E.) Youth Action Team. Sponsored by Veteran's for Peace Chp. 69, Courage to Resist, Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's (CCCO) and AWE Youth Action Team.
The are all part of a growing movement of war resistance within the military: Camilo Mejia,
Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Dean Walcott, Camilo Mejia, Linjamin Mull, Joshua Key, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Camilo Mejia, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. In addition, the documentary Sir! No Sir! traces the war resistance within the military during Vietnam and it will air at 9:00 pm (EST) on The Sundance Channel followed at 10:30 p.m. by The Ground Truth which examines the Iraq war and features Jimmy Massey and Iraq Veterans Against the War's Kelly Dougherty among others.
From the topic of courage, we turn to craven -- taking us to the halls of Congress. As Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted today, "The Senate has voted provide nearly one hundred billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while setting a non-binding timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.". Non-bidning timetable remains one of the most left out aspects of the measure. Also usually left out is that Bully Boy can reclassify those serving in Iraq (as "military police," for example) and avoid the pleas for withdrawals. (Pleas because "calls" is too strong for what is now headed to the White House for a signature.) Marilyn Bechtel (People's Weekly World) reminds that "the Congressional Research Service said that nearly half the $94 billion earmarked in the supplemental for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would really be used for non-urgent items like sending an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, and funding a U.S.-established Arabic-language TV station. The CRS report also pointed out that the Pentagon has funds available to continue the war until June or July." The sense of urgency being pushed by both major parties is as much smoke and mirrors as what left Congress. Bill Van Auken (World Socialist Web) tackles the realities, noting, "While media reports on the Congressional legislation routinely refers to it as a plan for the withdrawal of US troops from occupied Iraq and ending the war, the language of the bill makes clear that what is involved is a tactical 'redeployment' that would leave tens of thousands of US soldiers and marines in Iraq for years to come. . . . The bill includes a provision for keeping US armed forces in Iraq for three purposes: 'protecting United States and coalition personnel and infrastructure; training and equipping Iraqi forces and conducting targeted counter-terrorism operation.' This language would essentially allow the occupation and war to continue indefinitely, with US troops deployed to protect a massive new embassy being constructed in Baghdad to house a virtual colonial government and to guard 'American citizens' sent by the oil companies to reap massive profits off of Iraq's oil fields."
Yes, the topic of oil. In the supposed illegal war that had nothing to do with oil. The New York Times editorial board pimped the privatization of oil this week as did War Pornographer Michael Gordon today where he noted, "American officials" were "pressing" the passage of the law and that it's apparently so important that even General David H. Petraeus has to stick his nose in (apparently commanding the US military in Iraq allows him much free time) to share that "he considered passage of the oil law, which would distribute revenues from oil production among Iraq's regions, a priority among the so-called benchmark items that the Americans would like to see become law." It does redistribute the monies -- redistributes them right out of Iraq and into the pockets of Big Oil which, under the proposed legislation, would receive over 70% of the profits in some cases.
In Iraq, Riverbend (Baghdad Burning) reports that her family has decided to leave Iraq which, despite the Operation Happy Talk operatives, never achieved 'liberation' or 'democracy' (but then those were never the Bully Boy's intended aims. Noting the issue of the very unpopular wall in Baghdad, Riverbend writes: "It's a wall that is intended to separate and isolate what is now considered the largest 'Sunni' area in Baghdad - let no one say the Americans are not building anything. According to plans the Iraqi puppets and Americans cooked up, it will 'protects' A'adhamiya, a residential/mercantile area that the current Iraqi government and their death squads couldn't empty of Sunnis. . . . The Wall is the latest effort to further break Iraqi society apart. Promoting and supporting civil war isn't enough, apparently - Iraqis have generally proven to be more tenacisiou and tolerant than their mullahs, ayatollahs, and Vichy leaders. It's time for America to physically divide and conquer - like Berlin before the wall came down or Palestine today. This way, they can continue chasing Sunnis out of 'Shia areas' and Shia out of 'Sunni areas'."
Bombings?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad mortar attack that wounded 2, a Baghdad roadside bomb that killed 1 and left 1 wounded, a Kirkuk bombing that killed 4 police officers and left 5 more wounded, a Kirkuk roadside bomb that killed 1 person and left 3 wounded,
Shootings?
Reuters reports three people were shot dead in Mussayab and a "human rights activist was shot dead by gunmen near his home, 70 km (45 miles) southwest of Kirkuk".
Corpses?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 7 corpses discovered in Baghdad. and 3 corpses discovered in Kirkuk.
In addition, Reuters reports that a prisoner at the US military operated prison Camp Bucca died "after he was apparently assaulted by other prisoners." As Damien Cave (New York Times) noted this morning of the US military controlled Camp Cropper, "Several detainees there have died mysteriously in the past year, with the most recent death occurring April 4. The causes of death for these detainees are rarely divulged." The US military reports the figure of prisoners who have died in US custody in Iraq to be six "in the past year."
In other time lag news, AP reports that the British helicopter crash in May of 2006 that resulted in the death of five British soldiers resulted from being "shot down by a surface-to-air missile, using a man-portable air defense system, fired from the ground." The US helicopters that crashed this year? Still under investigation.
Also today, the US military announced: "Three Marines assigned to Multi National Force West died April 26 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province." Al Anbar Province is the region that, as Anna Badkhen (San Francisco Chronicle) noted, Michael Gordon's man crush, General David Petraeus hailed as an area of progress, a "breathtaking" area of progress. Julian E. Barnes (Los Angeles Times), reporting on Petraeus' testimony to Congress Thursday, notes Petraues' claim to be "forthright" in September when it's time to evaluate the ongong escalation. The claim was all the more laughable considering that this was the week Congress took testimony on the lies the military spread about Pat Tilman's death in Afghanistan and Jessica Lynch testified to the lies told about her service in Iraq by the US military. The escalation is generally stated as having begun in February (the latest wave of the eternal crackdown), The idea that a judgement on it cannot be rendered until September goes unquestioned although few in the US are aware of jobs that come with an eight month probationary period.
On Wednesday, the US military announced: "A Soldier assigned to Multi-National Corps, Iraq, died April 24, 2007 in a non-combat related incident." Today, (AP) reports that the soldier was Jeremy Maresh (24-years-old) and quotes Lt. Col. Chris Cleaver stating he "died from an apparent suicide." To be clear, there have been other deaths that were ruled suicides by the US military and families have strongly disagreed with the ruling.
US troops will leave Iraq. No matter how long Congress sits on its collective and ass and does nothing, US troops will leave. What happens then? Phyllis Bennis and Robert Jensen (CounterPunch) address this issue: "The first step is, of course, crucial. When 78 percent of the Iraqi people oppose the presence of U.S. troops and 61 percent support attacks on those troops, it's clear that our presence in the country is causing -- not preventing -- much of the violence. Pulling out U.S. troops (including the 100,000-plus mercenaries who back the U.S. military) won't eliminate all Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence, but it will remove the reasons many Iraqis are fighting. The would take away the protective umbrella that the widely supported anti-occupation violence currently gives the real terrorists -- those engaged in killing civilians for
political or sectarian reasons. Once U.S. forces are gone and the reason for the legitmate resistance to foreign occupation is eliminated, the ugly terrorist violence will be exposed for what it is and it will be possible for Iraqis themselves to isolate the terrorists and eliminate them as a fighting force. But what comes after a U.S. withdrawal? We clearly owe the Iraqi people massive reparations for the devastation our illegal invasion has brought. Only in the United States is that illegality questioned; in the rest of the world it's understood. Equally obvious around the world is that the decision to launch an aggressive war was rooted in the desire to expand U.S. military power in the strategically crucial-oil-rich region, and that as a result the war fails every test of moral legitimacy."
In news of student activism in the US, Justin Horwath (Minnesota Daily) reports on Monday's meeting at the University of Minnesota's Coffman Union where students who had formed a new chapter of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) met with members gathered to organize and heard Dave Biking speak of what SDS had accomplished during the 60s (when Bicking was a member). Howarth notes that today's SDS "has 148 university chapters and 58 high school chapters nationwide." Kyle Johnson tells Howarth, "SDS gives us the legitimacy to work on other issues, but the war is the No. 1 issue nationally, period." Erika Zurawski states that the new chapter is about "the issues of the day" and that "[t]here's a lot of issues to work on."
Meanwhile, Arnie Passman (Berkeley Daily Planet) traces the history and popularization of the peace symbol noting, "In its Golden Jubilee year (right behind last 9/11's 100th anniversary of Gandhi creating the pledge of satyagraha--soul force), the peace symbol has weathered numerous wars -- and the best marketing opportunities money can buy. Facing today's horrors of Asian wars, increased nuclear disfunction, global warming, racial injustice, the irreversible military-industrial complex?. . ., it still calls from great city protests and hamlets to all Earth's colors and creeds for nonviolent resistance (peace marches between the 7 or 8 Gandhi statues--from Boston to San Francisco?) and civil disobedience (sit-ins at the largest defense contracting congressional districts?). And all from the mind of one person that deep '50s, dead winter day in grimy ol' London Town--and the pioneering march through the English countryside to mad western science's Aldermaston." Gerlad Holtom was the designer of the peace symbol.
Finally, Wednesday, May 2nd at 6:30 pm in The Great Hall, Cooper Union (NYC), Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove will be presenting readings from their Voices of a People's History of the United States featuring music performed by Allison Moorer and Steve Earle and readings and vocal performances by Ally Sheedy, Brian Jones, Danny Glover, Deepa Fernandes, Erin Cherry, Harris Yulin, Kathleen Chalfant, Kerry Washington, Opal Alladin, Staceyann Chin and Stanley Tucci. Zinn and Arnove will provide both the introduction and the narration.
mikey likes it
the common ills
law and disorder
michael ratner
wbai
michael smith
heidi boghosian
dalia hashad
iraq
joshua key
camilo mejiademocracy now
amy goodman
anthony arnovehoward zinn
ally sheedydanny gloverdeepa fernandes
the new york timesdamien cave
michael gordon
sir! no sir!
Friday, April 27, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
7 Roundtables and Jeremy Brcher & Brendan Smith
Thursday. Barely! :D Wally and Cedric got their joint-post up just in time -- "THIS JUST IN! BEAUTY CONTESTS GET SLEAZIER!" and "There she is, Miss America" -- right before it was roundtable time for the gina & krista roundrobin. You have seven roundtables in tomorrow's editions so check your inboxes! Seven!
How did that happen? Gina asked C.I. to announce this roundtable. C.I. did and pointed out that it was for all members. Krista asked Elaine to announce that every members was welcome because, although she'd gotten some questions and suggestions, she'd gotten a lot less requests than she thought. She and Gina both thought there would be huge interest. But Gina got nothing. Billie e-mailed C.I. last night and C.I. saw the e-mail this morning. Billie was fine with not being picked for the roundtable because she's taken part before but she did wonder about the level of interest because she'd read Elaine's note. Now C.I. and Gina had talked about Billie because Billie's African-American (so is Gina) and this was a topic she'd been interested in before so they'd both wondered, "Is Billie busy?" No more than usual, judging from the e-mail she sent C.I. So C.I. calls Gina this morning and says, "Gina, Billie's not upset but she seems to think she wrote you. Do you think you're missing some e-mails?"
Gina goes no and goes into her AOL e-mail while she's on the phone and nothing really in the inbox. Then she looks at a corner of the screen and sees this huge number next to her spam folder. Everything but Media Matters' alerts were going straight to her spam folder. There was huge interest in this roundtable and most members had e-mailed Gina about it but it had gone to spam. So Gina gave C.I. a list of the members who'd e-mailed (Gina had to get work) and C.I., Martha, Shirley, Eli and Jess e-mailed them to make sure they were still interested and still available. Most were but a few had made other plans (no surprise there and no one to blame for that). So there was WAY TOO MUCH to do one roundtable. They broke it up into seven.
1) Gina chaired one
2) Krista chaired one
3) Ava and C.I. joint-chaired one
4) Cedric and Wally joint-chaired one
5) Billie and Eddie joint-chaired one
6) Betty and Rebecca joint-chaired one
7) Ty, Kat and me chaired one
I did ask questions and participate but I was no help with taking down everything said. Dona scheduled everything and figured out the groups. That's because usually Gina and Krista have this all done early but most of the people participating had e-mailed Gina and since that stuff went to spam, they were way behind today. So Dona got the list of people who'd responded to the e-mails this morning (from C.I., Martha, Shirley, Eli and Jess) and broke it up into groups. She called me this afternoon and asked if I'd be willing to cho-chair with Kat and Ty and I said sure but reminded her I'm lousy at taking notes. (We all pretty much rely on Ava and C.I. who take notes really good.) She said that was fine but she was trying to be sure there was a mix. She split up Gina and Krista (which they were fine with) since it's their newsletter figuring that most members would be fine if they got Gina or Krista. But she wanted to be sure everyone in the other groups were cool with it too. And you know the people she put into Ava and C.I.'s group were probably in heaven! :D
That was Ty's big concern. That people were going to be going, "Oh, I got stuck in Ty's group!"
I bet no one would have complained about that. Ty's cool and a lot cooler than he knows. But because he was worried, she asked Kat and me both if we would co-chair and we were both flattered and all for it. There was enough Texas interest that she could put people in Texas in one group and put Billie and Eddie in charge of that without worrying there. I don't know how people got picked for Betty and Rebecca's group but Dona worked out everything so big thanks to her.
We were talking about race for the big topic and second big topic about voices who have been a huge let down including people like Stab and Pollitt who don't seem too concerned with race when confronted with an issue that is about both race and gender. Gina figured it would be a big issue and it was. And I think most members wrote her because they were including notes about racism they'd experienced or seen. But Gina wasn't seeing those and, like I said before, she and Krista were both puzzled by it and thinking, "I guess this topic wasn't as interesting to the community as we thought it was."
Members were interested. There was a huge interest. So when you look at your inboxes tomorrow and see this huge K e-mailed newsletter it's because you've got seven roundtables, not just one. I know you've got Ava and C.I.'s addendum to their TV commentary ("TV: Pigs and Prigs on PBS' NOW "), Beth doing her ombudsperson column, Gina and Krista's columns but I don't know what else is going to be in there, sorry.
Sorry too because I'm not doing Law and Disorder tonight. If I put it off until tomorrow, like I'm doing, it will probably be rushed. But if I do it tonight, it won't just be rushed. I'm exhausted and I will be tired and sleepy so I won't give it the credit it deserves. So I'm holding off on it for tonight.
C.I. passed on an article and at first I was like, "What the hell?" I called C.I. and was all, "I'm not highlighting Nation people!" :D C.I. goes the article wasn't in The Nation. And pointed out that the two writers did cover Ehren Watada and it wasn't their fault that their articles didn't make it into the print edition. That's true. They didn't slave away on those articles thinking, "Oh boy, I hope this goes online! Wouldn't that be great? To have an online exclusive at a magazine website!" If they took the trouble to write it (and they did cover Ehren well), they had to be thinking, "This is going in the issue!" Or at least, "This stands a good chance of going in the issue!" It's not their fault that the woman selecting what gets included is the peace resister.
So I'm going to talk about Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith's article and avoid the easy thing of including an excerpt because if I did that, as tired as I am, I'd put up the excerpt and go, "Read it!" and call it night.
So Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith have written "The 'Stab in the Back' Trap" and, sadly, it's not about Stab. :D Seriously, it's about one way (only one way) Democrats and the left and the peace movement mis-stepped after Vietnam. The area they're focusing on is how there was no serious investigation into how that illegal war was started and kept going. By not exposing this, the lie was allowed to set in. I'm not going into all of that, I'm just saying "the lie was allowed to set in" because C.I. has addressed this over and over, for years and years, at The Common Ills and at The Third Estate Sunday Review. From all of that, you should know C.I.'s talk about the revisionisms. But that took hold. Brecher and Smith put foward that the Dems are setting up the same trap for themselves. I'm going to include one sentence because when I got off the phone with C.I. and read the piece, it really reminded me of something. Here's the sentence from Brecher and Smith, "By framing the war as lost because of mismanagement, poor planning, or being bogged down in a civil war, Democrats cede the argument that the war itself was a 'noble cause'." Now if you're like me, you cringed at "framing." They really need to let the hula hoop go! :D But put in "arguing" and see if that sentence doesn't remind you of
Ava and C.I.'s "TV: Pigs and Prigs on PBS' NOW"? Ava and C.I. were taking on the crappy 'exploration' of the war done by NOW and how it never questioned the war, just the strategies:
Today's lie exists for a reason and a real journalist should be expected to explore that. The lie exists because War Hawks want to keep war front and center as an option of first choice. So they offer up platitudes about how Iraq would have been wonderful today were it not for the lack of planning. As if anything happening in Iraq today is (a) a surprise or (b) not planned. The planning goes far back (and it's one reason War Hawk Hillary Clinton still won't call out the illegal war). At one point, that could have emerged. Hughes mentions years-old (they predated the Bully Boy) plans for Iraq. Brancaccio seizes upon that but not to make the point that the illegal war was sought for years, just to note that there were other plans.
Yes, there were other plans. But we can't explore that on NOW. We can get Brancaccio repeating the lie (as fact) that roses were strewn in the paths of soldiers. If you're one of the people who identify left and applaud this crappy show, it may be time for you to confront reality.
If that doesn't do the trick for you, maybe you could take offense at Brancaccio embracing and repeating another (false) selling point for the war: Saddam Hussein was Hitler. He does that by, while discussing the Baath Party, noting that they had to be removed because the same thing was done with the Nazis. The Baath Party is now the Nazis?
Saddam Hussein was a petty tyrant put in place and supported by the US government for decades. When he became less pliable, it was time for him to go (in the eyes of the US government). It had nothing to do with human rights abuses or torture. Watching Brancaccio make the comparison of Baath Party members to Nazis, we were reminded that as much as we loathe the Bully Boy, we've yet to liken the GOP party faithful to Nazis. But if we're going to discuss torture, secret prisons, et al, Bully Boy and Saddam Hussein aren't all that different. Of course, Brancaccio didn't touch on that either. He shied away completely from the Abu Ghraib scandal because that really doesn't jibe with the myth that "if only the power had been turned on sooner, Iraqis would love them some America!"
[...]
There's a reason for that. It's not against the war. It's against the strategies used. That's why it works in a (really bad) advertising blitz for the piece of crap that is No End In Sight.
The half-hour broadcast accepts the premise that war was the answer. That needs to be pointed out and pointed out loudly. Brancaccio and company are only interested in dickering over strategies.
How is that different from the right wing? (Brancaccio is a centrist.) It's not. Four years and counting, the 3400 mark of US military fatalities around the corner, the 1 million mark of Iraqi fatalities around the corner, and 'brave' is supposed to be offering the same crap that you can find in a column by David Brooks?
The left needs to grow the hell up. That means cutting out some of their trusted voices who push this crap. An illegal war was launched not in response to an attack but because Iraq might someday (this was the lie) attack the US. A pre-emptive war of choice was engaged by the US government and sold on lies and along comes Brancaccio gladly sidestepping those realities, making comparisons of the Baath Party to Nazis, lying about roses being strewn in the paths of US soldiers and wanting to dicker about the strategies utilized -- while never noting the reality that Iraq today did not result from a lack of planning -- everything was planned.
That is a strong review! But back to the article. Brecher and Smith are arguing that by refusing to seriously explore the war, then the US troops leave (and they will leave), the Republicans will do their smear campaigns. Since the hows of the illegal war were not seriously addressed, the lies will compete on an equal playing field. Or even a tilted playing field because even at this late date, not everyone gets how we were lied into the war. And C.I. would go, "Oh Mike . . ." over that. So let me clean that up (but I'm tired). People do get the lie. On a level right now, they do get the lie. They feel it. They sense it. But that's because we've lived through it and it's fresh. That's not because the press has really gone out of their way to explore it. When the feeling isn't fresh and when you've got people who didn't live through it, the revisionists are going to come along in ten years to start selling the lie that "Iraq was winnable" the same way they do about Vietnam. Brecher and Smith are arguing that Democrats in Congress need to be exploring the issue of the illegal war in committees, exposing the whys, the corruptions, getting it into the public record and getting the people informed.
The thinking (I think) is that by getting that out now, it will be that much harder for revisionists to show up in a few years when some people have forgotten and some people too young to remember will be hearing about it for the first time and sell them lies.
Now C.I.'s been sitting on something all week. Read the snapshot today (below) and you'll be prepared for something that's coming at The Third Estate Sunday Review. It's about the unnamed program (yeah, I know which radio show it was) and the guests they had on. One of the guests presented something that C.I. didn't touch on. C.I.'s slid it over to The Third Estate Sunday Review where we could all work on it. So Sunday, you'll see that. But there are a lot of lies out there. (C.I. slid it over saying, "I don't think the guest is lying, I think the host refused to follow up but it needs to be noted.") But it ties in with this and that's probably one of the reasons that C.I. slid the article by Brecher and Smith over to me. (Another reason is probably to gear me and my readers up for what's to come Sunday.) But if you want to really do your homework for Sunday, read Brecher and Smith's article and think about it because (a) it is a good article and (b) this topic's about to go in a different direction Sunday.
And that's going to be it for me tonight. Let me say thank you to C.I. for the link in the snapshot. I wish I had time to read the e-mails that came in today as a result but I'm too tired. I'll probably put off noting those until Monday so I can focus on Law and Disorder tomorrow.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, April 26, 2007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, two high profile terrorists stalk the continental United States, US war resisters launch a tour, students REMAIN active (they always have been -- no matter what the old cranks say), and more.
Starting with news of war resisters. Courage to Resist reports that war resisters Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes, Agustin Aguayo and Robert Zabala will be speking out from May 9th through 17th in the San Francisco Bay Area. This will be Aguayo's first publicly speaking appearances since being released from the brig earlier this month (April 18th). The announced dates include:
Wednesday May 9 - Marin
7pm at College of Marin, Student Services Center, 835 College Ave, Kentfield. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Pablo Paredes and David Solnit. Sponsored by Courage to Resist and Students for Social Responsibility. More info:
Thursday May 10 - Sacramento
Details TBA
Friday May 11 - Stockton
6pm at the Mexican Community Center, 609 S Lincoln St, Stockton. Featuring Agustin Aguayo.
Saturday May 12 - Monterey
7pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 490 Aguajito Rd, Carmel. Featuring Agustin Aguayo and Camilo Mejia. Sponsored by Veterans for Peace Chp. 69, Hartnell Students for Peace, Salinas Action League, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and Courage to Resist. More info: Kurt Brux 831-424-6447
Sunday May 13 - San Francisco
7pm at the Veterans War Memorial Bldg. (Room 223) , 401 Van Ness St, San Francisco. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia and Pablo Paredes. Sponsored by Courage to Resist, Veteran's for Peace Chp. 69 and SF Codepink. More info:
Monday May 14 - Watsonville
7pm at the United Presbyterian Church, 112 E. Beach, Watsonville. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes and Robert Zabala. Sponsored by the GI Rights Hotline & Draft Alternatives program of the Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV), Santa Cruz Peace Coalition, Watsonville Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF), Watsonville Brown Berets, Courage to Resist and Santa Cruz Veterans for Peace Chp. 11. More info: Bob Fitch 831-722-3311
Tuesday May 15 - Palo Alto
7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church (Fellowship Hall), 1140 Cowper, Palo Alto. Featuring Camilo Mejia. Sponsored by Pennisula Peace and Justice Center. More info: Paul George 650-326-8837
Wednesday May 16 - Eureka
7pm at the Eureka Labor Temple, 840 E St. (@9th), Eureka. Featuring Camilo Mejia. More info: Becky Luening 707-826-9197Thursday May 17 - Oakland 4pm youth event and 7pm program at the Humanist Hall, 411 28th St, Oakland. Featuring Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes and the Alternatives to War through Education (A.W.E.) Youth Action Team. Sponsored by Veteran's for Peace Chp. 69, Courage to Resist, Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's (CCCO) and AWE Youth Action Team.
Camilo Mejia's book Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia will be published by The New Press on May 1st. He is part of a movement of war resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Dean Walcott, Camilo Mejia, Linjamin Mull, Joshua Key, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Camilo Mejia, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. In addition, the documentary Sir! No Sir! traces the war resistance within the military during Vietnam and it will air at 9:00 pm (EST) on The Sundance Channel followed at 10:30 p.m. by The Ground Truth, a documentary that features
Turning to news of terrorism, two high profile terrorists have been issuing threats against Americans, America and the democratic process that is supposed to be the bedrock the United States exists upon. US joke and 2008 GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliana, speaking in New Hampshire on Tuesday, declared that Democrats will not remain on the offensive with terrorism and will wave a white flag as he attempted to subvert democracy in his desperate bid to win the GOP nomination. Not to be outdone, Crazy John McCain, also competing for the GOP 2008 presidential nomination, took The John McCain Showboat Express to South Carolina where he declared, "If we leave Iraq there will be chaos, there will be genocide, and they will follow us home."
Reality check for Senator Crazy: Iraq already has chaos, already has genocide. When the US leaves (and the US will leave at some point) there will be violence in Iraq. That's what can happen to puppet governments, when they have to stand on their own, the people may erupt in violence (mitigated somewhat when appointed puppets get the hell out of the country -- see Marcos and the Phillipines). To state that "they will follow us home" suggests that Senator Crazy may need to undergo a psych exam before continuing in the Senate. After the first Gulf War, the US left (much quicker) and violence did take place. It did not "follow us home." Senator Crazy is attempting to terrorize a nation to drum up some support -- a cheap and should-be illegal stunt. Rudy G? He continues to demonstrate that municipal politics and the national stage do not go hand in hand. The oft dubbed "America's Mayor" should probably focus on pot holes and leave the big subjects to those qualified to weigh in unless he's intent on joining the VOTE INSANE! VOTE JOHN MCCAIN! ticket. In the United States, anyone can run for president -- even nut cases.
Other than missing their morning meds, what could have the two so upset? McCain was responding to the votes today and yesterday, Rudy G was anticipating them. AP reports that today the Senate followed the House's vote (House voted last night) to pass a reconciliation of the measures that earlier passed both houses. The non-binding, toothless measure is now headed to the White House where it awaits a signature from the Bully Boy (in which case it becomes law) or a veto. If Bully Boy vetoes, it goes back to Congress where a two-thirds majority vote of each house is necessary to override the veto. (Bully Boy can also refuse to veto it, do nothing, and after 10 days it would become a law without his signature and without requiring another Congressional vote.) Bully Boy has stated he will veto the bill. AP quotes US Senator Robert Byrd declaring, "The president has failed in his mission to bring peace and stability to the people of Iraq. It's time to bring our troops home from Iraq." Such statements may confuse some people and lead them to believe the measure that has now passed both houses does that; however, it does not "bring our troops home from Iraq." It may allow some US service members to return to the US (or be deployed to Afghanistan); however, there are so many built in escape clauses for the Bully Boy that it's silly to promote the bill as "troops home now" or, for that matter, "troops home" in 2008. AFP observes, "The bill provides more cash than Bush sought to bankroll operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but says US troops are to start withdrawing from Iraq on October 1, with a non-binding target of completing the pullout by March 31, 2008."
Before the Senate vote today, Andrea Lewis spoke with Leigh Ann Caldwell (Free Speech Radio News) and Chris Toensing (Middle East Report) on KPFA's The Morning Show about Congress and Iraq.
Chris Toensing: Well, I have never been able to shake the suspicion all along that the Democrats are engaged in an elaborate show of political theater -- that they do not really intend, in the end, to pass, to insist, that Bush sign legislation which would contain a binding timetable of any sorts. And that they are willing to water down those provisions even further to the point where it's entirely at the president's discretion -- it already almost is. But they're willing, I think, to water it down even further in order to chip away some Republicans who will vote for something like that and then they can claim to the public that they're trying to tie Bush's hands and they're trying to assert their Constitutional oversight role in helping to end this disasterous war and yet not really have their finger prints on Iraq policy. And I've never been able to shake this suspicion that that's really the Democrats game and I'm not speaking about the Progressive Caucus or the Out of Iraq Caucus who have a much clearer goal in mind and a much sounder political strategy in mind but I'm talking about the big national Democrats, the Emanuels and Pelosis in the House, the Schumers and Levins and so on in the Senate. And I think the goal of this is - is to make sure that the war is solely Bush's albatross and solely the Republicans albatross rather than to bring the war to a speedy conclusion.
Did, Andrea Lewis wondered, Toensing think that US service members would be returning to the US in the fall of 2008?
Toensing: I think it's possible, and actually probably likely, that some troops will be withdrawn, some combat brigades -- as they say. What's not going to happen is an end to the US deployment writ large. There are still going to be, I think, combat brigades there. I think there are also going to be large "enduring bases" various kind of advisors and trainers and support personnel who will be working with the new Iraqi army. I think that the underlying strategic goals of the US are just simply not served by leaving Iraq in its current state. The only conditions under which I can see either a Republican or a Democratic administration withdrawing completely from Iraq would be either if Iraqis themselves unified across all kinds of sectarian and ethinic lines and faught a kind of Pan-Iraqi Infintada against the US that would be unmanageable so that would be one circumstance. The other would be if they were able to find some kind of Iraqi strongman who would be able to ensure that the government would be stable and pliable-- according to Washington's interests -- after the US withdrew all the troops. That's the, that's all along been the underlying strategic goal and I haven't seen too many national Democrats, the ones with presidential ambitions, speak to the heart of US policy in the Persian Gulf and as long as that's not changing I think the US is going to be in Iraq for a long time.
Lewis noted, "Except maybe Dennis Kucinich" which Toensling agree with Leiws on. Dennis Kucinich is a US House Rep and candidate for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president.
In Iraq, AFP reports, the non-binding "timetable for military withdrawal from Iraq brought mixed reviews from Iraqi members of parliament, some of whom doubted the government's ability to meet US demands for faster political reconciliation." The BBC notes Iraq's foreign minister and all around redundant loud mouth Hoshayr Zebari who is yet again screaming that the US cannot leave. If the tired, old song seems familiar, he's been singing it for years.
But when exiles and Kurds are made leaders, put in positions of power (put in by the US -- and Zebari is one of Bully Boy's favorites), it's not really surprising that they don't have the support of the average Iraqi and need a military force to protect them.
In Iraq today, many went without protection. Some of the violence.
Bombings?
Reuters notes a Khalis bombing that killed 10 Iraqi soldiers (15 wounded), a bombing in Jbela that killed a student and left six more wounded, Baghdad mortar attacks that killed 4 (wounded 11), a Baghdad car bombing that killed six (15 wounded) "near Baghdad University," Mosul bombings that killed 3 people (59 wounded), car bombings in southwestern Baghdad that killed 1 (three wounded), a roadside bomb in centeral Baghdad that killed 2 (10 wounded) and a mortar attack in Mahmudiya that "killed a woman and wounded three others".
Shootings?
Reuters reports a woman and her niece shot dead in Tikrit.
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 26 corpses were discovered in Baghdad.
Reuters notes one corpse discovered in Mahmudiya and three corpses were discovered in Kirkuk.
In student activism news, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) spoke with the University of Maryland's Sergio Espana about the five-day fast, Hungry For Peace, that kicks off Monday. Espana stated, "So we're having students and faculty having a fast and a sit-out for five days, protesting the illegal US occupation in Iraq. Every day of the fast will represent roughtly 100,000 of the more than 500,00 Iraqi civilians that have died as a direct consequence of this illegal occupation. We'll also have a lecture series. Now, across the nation, thanks in large part to the Student Peace Action Network, we've had universities from California to Vermont who will also be contributing. So these fasts are nationwide. For example, in Minnesota -- apart from the fast, there will also be rallies going into their Congressional representatives, turning in petitions, letting them know that the American public wants them to do the job that they were actually elected to do -- which is to, you know, support the American public, support the troops and to end this immoral and atrocious war." UMBC Solidarity Coaliton is asking more campuses to sign up -- this include merely wearing black arm bands next week, protesting, fasting, etc.
Also interviewed today was CODEPINK's Medea Benjamin. Excerpt:
AMY GOODMAN: Well, the founder of CODEPINK, Medea Benjamin, joins us now from Washington, D.C. She's a longtime peace activist and also co-founder of Global Exchange. Welcome, Medea, to Democracy Now! You are changing the face, in a sense, of lobbying in Washington. Explain what you're doing.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, these hearings that are going on every day, Amy, they used to be very staid gatherings, where you'd have the K Street lobbyists and you'd have the staff aides and a maybe a sprinkling of tourists. Now, you have CODEPINK lining up early in the morning to get into each of the hearings and turning them into really public affairs. We try to participate in them. We certainly participate with our messages on our bodies. When we can get away with it, we participate with signs. And we often get carried away when we hear them saying things we don't like and get up and say something, sometimes get kicked out, sometimes get arrested, sometimes get tolerated. But we've really turned them into public gatherings, which I think they should be.
Yesterday, when General Petraeus tried -- well, he actually did a hearing behind closed doors, we were outside there yelling, "Let the public in! The public wants to hear!" And so, I think we're really changing the face of the way the proceedings are going on in Congress and demanding a lot more transparency.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Medea, given the number of times you've been ejected in recent months from Congress, you must be probably the best-known security question for the security guards there. Are they watching you and following you constantly?
MEDEA BENJAMIN: They've actually become our friends. We're on a first name basis. When we enter the Capitol buildings, they usually get on their walkie-talkie and say "OK, CODEPINK is here." They follow us around. They go to have lunch with us. They're really quite nice to us and quite sympathetic to our cause, as are a lot of the people that we find in these hearings. Things are really changing in Washington, and they're changing because groups like ours are keeping the pressure on.
And one thing I really want to say to your listening audience is that we need more of you here. We have rented a house, a CODEPINK house, with five bedrooms. We're encouraging people to come from all over the country, stay with us for a week or two weeks. There are people who have left their jobs and are really determined to be on the Hill during all of these discussions about supplemental money. So we need more people to come to Washington, get up in the morning with us, go out to these hearings, let them see that the people are determined to end the war in Iraq and not start another one in Iran.
Turning to media news, Rolling Stone magazine celebrates 40 years in their May 3-17, 2007 double issue. Online, it's not worth checking out. In print, Jane Fonda and Patti Smith are interviewed -- the only two women. There are no people of color. So on a diversity scale, it fails. They do find time for the token neo-con -- the aging (badly aging) boy wonder of the right wing, Tom Wolfe who apparently showed up for the interview after a drunken party at the Buckleys. Strong interviews can be found with Fonda, Smith, Michael Moore, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Bill Moyers, Norman Mailer and Martin Scorsese. The strong interviews find the subjects reflecting on the last forty years and the changes they see in the country. We'll note Jane Fonda's response to "What indicates to you that young people are hopeful?"
Jane Fonda: Anger. Resistance. They're pissed off, as well they should be. Natalie Maines [of the Dixie Chicks] embodies that. It's that, "F--k it, man -- this not what I want this country to be." There's a lot of young people who feel that way. The young people I work with and who come to my events, they're beginning to feel their power in a very different way than in the Sixties and Seventies.
One young person, Mike (Mikey Likes It!) covered the case of Jake Kovco on Tuesday and I should have linked to it already.
Finally, Wednesday, May 2nd at 6:30 pm in The Great Hall, Cooper Union (NYC), Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove will be presenting readings from their Voices of a People's History of the United States featuring music performed by Allison Moorer and Steve Earle and readings and vocal performances by Ally Sheedy, Brian Jones, Danny Glover, Deepa Fernandes, Erin Cherry, Harris Yulin, Kathleen Chalfant, Kerry Washington, Opal Alladin, Staceyann Chin and Stanley Tucci. Zinn and Arnove will provide both the introduction and the narration.
jeremy brecher
brenda smith
the third estate sunday review
like maria said pazkats kornersex and politics and screeds and attitudetrinas kitchenthe daily jotcedrics big mixmikey likes itthomas friedman is a great man
mikey likes it
the common ills
kpfathe morning show
anthony arnove
howard zinn
democracy nowamy goodman
juan gonzalez
medea benjaminhungry for peace
sir! no sir!
jane fonda
ally sheedydanny gloverdeepa fernandes
mikey likes it
How did that happen? Gina asked C.I. to announce this roundtable. C.I. did and pointed out that it was for all members. Krista asked Elaine to announce that every members was welcome because, although she'd gotten some questions and suggestions, she'd gotten a lot less requests than she thought. She and Gina both thought there would be huge interest. But Gina got nothing. Billie e-mailed C.I. last night and C.I. saw the e-mail this morning. Billie was fine with not being picked for the roundtable because she's taken part before but she did wonder about the level of interest because she'd read Elaine's note. Now C.I. and Gina had talked about Billie because Billie's African-American (so is Gina) and this was a topic she'd been interested in before so they'd both wondered, "Is Billie busy?" No more than usual, judging from the e-mail she sent C.I. So C.I. calls Gina this morning and says, "Gina, Billie's not upset but she seems to think she wrote you. Do you think you're missing some e-mails?"
Gina goes no and goes into her AOL e-mail while she's on the phone and nothing really in the inbox. Then she looks at a corner of the screen and sees this huge number next to her spam folder. Everything but Media Matters' alerts were going straight to her spam folder. There was huge interest in this roundtable and most members had e-mailed Gina about it but it had gone to spam. So Gina gave C.I. a list of the members who'd e-mailed (Gina had to get work) and C.I., Martha, Shirley, Eli and Jess e-mailed them to make sure they were still interested and still available. Most were but a few had made other plans (no surprise there and no one to blame for that). So there was WAY TOO MUCH to do one roundtable. They broke it up into seven.
1) Gina chaired one
2) Krista chaired one
3) Ava and C.I. joint-chaired one
4) Cedric and Wally joint-chaired one
5) Billie and Eddie joint-chaired one
6) Betty and Rebecca joint-chaired one
7) Ty, Kat and me chaired one
I did ask questions and participate but I was no help with taking down everything said. Dona scheduled everything and figured out the groups. That's because usually Gina and Krista have this all done early but most of the people participating had e-mailed Gina and since that stuff went to spam, they were way behind today. So Dona got the list of people who'd responded to the e-mails this morning (from C.I., Martha, Shirley, Eli and Jess) and broke it up into groups. She called me this afternoon and asked if I'd be willing to cho-chair with Kat and Ty and I said sure but reminded her I'm lousy at taking notes. (We all pretty much rely on Ava and C.I. who take notes really good.) She said that was fine but she was trying to be sure there was a mix. She split up Gina and Krista (which they were fine with) since it's their newsletter figuring that most members would be fine if they got Gina or Krista. But she wanted to be sure everyone in the other groups were cool with it too. And you know the people she put into Ava and C.I.'s group were probably in heaven! :D
That was Ty's big concern. That people were going to be going, "Oh, I got stuck in Ty's group!"
I bet no one would have complained about that. Ty's cool and a lot cooler than he knows. But because he was worried, she asked Kat and me both if we would co-chair and we were both flattered and all for it. There was enough Texas interest that she could put people in Texas in one group and put Billie and Eddie in charge of that without worrying there. I don't know how people got picked for Betty and Rebecca's group but Dona worked out everything so big thanks to her.
We were talking about race for the big topic and second big topic about voices who have been a huge let down including people like Stab and Pollitt who don't seem too concerned with race when confronted with an issue that is about both race and gender. Gina figured it would be a big issue and it was. And I think most members wrote her because they were including notes about racism they'd experienced or seen. But Gina wasn't seeing those and, like I said before, she and Krista were both puzzled by it and thinking, "I guess this topic wasn't as interesting to the community as we thought it was."
Members were interested. There was a huge interest. So when you look at your inboxes tomorrow and see this huge K e-mailed newsletter it's because you've got seven roundtables, not just one. I know you've got Ava and C.I.'s addendum to their TV commentary ("TV: Pigs and Prigs on PBS' NOW "), Beth doing her ombudsperson column, Gina and Krista's columns but I don't know what else is going to be in there, sorry.
Sorry too because I'm not doing Law and Disorder tonight. If I put it off until tomorrow, like I'm doing, it will probably be rushed. But if I do it tonight, it won't just be rushed. I'm exhausted and I will be tired and sleepy so I won't give it the credit it deserves. So I'm holding off on it for tonight.
C.I. passed on an article and at first I was like, "What the hell?" I called C.I. and was all, "I'm not highlighting Nation people!" :D C.I. goes the article wasn't in The Nation. And pointed out that the two writers did cover Ehren Watada and it wasn't their fault that their articles didn't make it into the print edition. That's true. They didn't slave away on those articles thinking, "Oh boy, I hope this goes online! Wouldn't that be great? To have an online exclusive at a magazine website!" If they took the trouble to write it (and they did cover Ehren well), they had to be thinking, "This is going in the issue!" Or at least, "This stands a good chance of going in the issue!" It's not their fault that the woman selecting what gets included is the peace resister.
So I'm going to talk about Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith's article and avoid the easy thing of including an excerpt because if I did that, as tired as I am, I'd put up the excerpt and go, "Read it!" and call it night.
So Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith have written "The 'Stab in the Back' Trap" and, sadly, it's not about Stab. :D Seriously, it's about one way (only one way) Democrats and the left and the peace movement mis-stepped after Vietnam. The area they're focusing on is how there was no serious investigation into how that illegal war was started and kept going. By not exposing this, the lie was allowed to set in. I'm not going into all of that, I'm just saying "the lie was allowed to set in" because C.I. has addressed this over and over, for years and years, at The Common Ills and at The Third Estate Sunday Review. From all of that, you should know C.I.'s talk about the revisionisms. But that took hold. Brecher and Smith put foward that the Dems are setting up the same trap for themselves. I'm going to include one sentence because when I got off the phone with C.I. and read the piece, it really reminded me of something. Here's the sentence from Brecher and Smith, "By framing the war as lost because of mismanagement, poor planning, or being bogged down in a civil war, Democrats cede the argument that the war itself was a 'noble cause'." Now if you're like me, you cringed at "framing." They really need to let the hula hoop go! :D But put in "arguing" and see if that sentence doesn't remind you of
Ava and C.I.'s "TV: Pigs and Prigs on PBS' NOW"? Ava and C.I. were taking on the crappy 'exploration' of the war done by NOW and how it never questioned the war, just the strategies:
Today's lie exists for a reason and a real journalist should be expected to explore that. The lie exists because War Hawks want to keep war front and center as an option of first choice. So they offer up platitudes about how Iraq would have been wonderful today were it not for the lack of planning. As if anything happening in Iraq today is (a) a surprise or (b) not planned. The planning goes far back (and it's one reason War Hawk Hillary Clinton still won't call out the illegal war). At one point, that could have emerged. Hughes mentions years-old (they predated the Bully Boy) plans for Iraq. Brancaccio seizes upon that but not to make the point that the illegal war was sought for years, just to note that there were other plans.
Yes, there were other plans. But we can't explore that on NOW. We can get Brancaccio repeating the lie (as fact) that roses were strewn in the paths of soldiers. If you're one of the people who identify left and applaud this crappy show, it may be time for you to confront reality.
If that doesn't do the trick for you, maybe you could take offense at Brancaccio embracing and repeating another (false) selling point for the war: Saddam Hussein was Hitler. He does that by, while discussing the Baath Party, noting that they had to be removed because the same thing was done with the Nazis. The Baath Party is now the Nazis?
Saddam Hussein was a petty tyrant put in place and supported by the US government for decades. When he became less pliable, it was time for him to go (in the eyes of the US government). It had nothing to do with human rights abuses or torture. Watching Brancaccio make the comparison of Baath Party members to Nazis, we were reminded that as much as we loathe the Bully Boy, we've yet to liken the GOP party faithful to Nazis. But if we're going to discuss torture, secret prisons, et al, Bully Boy and Saddam Hussein aren't all that different. Of course, Brancaccio didn't touch on that either. He shied away completely from the Abu Ghraib scandal because that really doesn't jibe with the myth that "if only the power had been turned on sooner, Iraqis would love them some America!"
[...]
There's a reason for that. It's not against the war. It's against the strategies used. That's why it works in a (really bad) advertising blitz for the piece of crap that is No End In Sight.
The half-hour broadcast accepts the premise that war was the answer. That needs to be pointed out and pointed out loudly. Brancaccio and company are only interested in dickering over strategies.
How is that different from the right wing? (Brancaccio is a centrist.) It's not. Four years and counting, the 3400 mark of US military fatalities around the corner, the 1 million mark of Iraqi fatalities around the corner, and 'brave' is supposed to be offering the same crap that you can find in a column by David Brooks?
The left needs to grow the hell up. That means cutting out some of their trusted voices who push this crap. An illegal war was launched not in response to an attack but because Iraq might someday (this was the lie) attack the US. A pre-emptive war of choice was engaged by the US government and sold on lies and along comes Brancaccio gladly sidestepping those realities, making comparisons of the Baath Party to Nazis, lying about roses being strewn in the paths of US soldiers and wanting to dicker about the strategies utilized -- while never noting the reality that Iraq today did not result from a lack of planning -- everything was planned.
That is a strong review! But back to the article. Brecher and Smith are arguing that by refusing to seriously explore the war, then the US troops leave (and they will leave), the Republicans will do their smear campaigns. Since the hows of the illegal war were not seriously addressed, the lies will compete on an equal playing field. Or even a tilted playing field because even at this late date, not everyone gets how we were lied into the war. And C.I. would go, "Oh Mike . . ." over that. So let me clean that up (but I'm tired). People do get the lie. On a level right now, they do get the lie. They feel it. They sense it. But that's because we've lived through it and it's fresh. That's not because the press has really gone out of their way to explore it. When the feeling isn't fresh and when you've got people who didn't live through it, the revisionists are going to come along in ten years to start selling the lie that "Iraq was winnable" the same way they do about Vietnam. Brecher and Smith are arguing that Democrats in Congress need to be exploring the issue of the illegal war in committees, exposing the whys, the corruptions, getting it into the public record and getting the people informed.
The thinking (I think) is that by getting that out now, it will be that much harder for revisionists to show up in a few years when some people have forgotten and some people too young to remember will be hearing about it for the first time and sell them lies.
Now C.I.'s been sitting on something all week. Read the snapshot today (below) and you'll be prepared for something that's coming at The Third Estate Sunday Review. It's about the unnamed program (yeah, I know which radio show it was) and the guests they had on. One of the guests presented something that C.I. didn't touch on. C.I.'s slid it over to The Third Estate Sunday Review where we could all work on it. So Sunday, you'll see that. But there are a lot of lies out there. (C.I. slid it over saying, "I don't think the guest is lying, I think the host refused to follow up but it needs to be noted.") But it ties in with this and that's probably one of the reasons that C.I. slid the article by Brecher and Smith over to me. (Another reason is probably to gear me and my readers up for what's to come Sunday.) But if you want to really do your homework for Sunday, read Brecher and Smith's article and think about it because (a) it is a good article and (b) this topic's about to go in a different direction Sunday.
And that's going to be it for me tonight. Let me say thank you to C.I. for the link in the snapshot. I wish I had time to read the e-mails that came in today as a result but I'm too tired. I'll probably put off noting those until Monday so I can focus on Law and Disorder tomorrow.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, April 26, 2007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, two high profile terrorists stalk the continental United States, US war resisters launch a tour, students REMAIN active (they always have been -- no matter what the old cranks say), and more.
Starting with news of war resisters. Courage to Resist reports that war resisters Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes, Agustin Aguayo and Robert Zabala will be speking out from May 9th through 17th in the San Francisco Bay Area. This will be Aguayo's first publicly speaking appearances since being released from the brig earlier this month (April 18th). The announced dates include:
Wednesday May 9 - Marin
7pm at College of Marin, Student Services Center, 835 College Ave, Kentfield. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Pablo Paredes and David Solnit. Sponsored by Courage to Resist and Students for Social Responsibility. More info:
Thursday May 10 - Sacramento
Details TBA
Friday May 11 - Stockton
6pm at the Mexican Community Center, 609 S Lincoln St, Stockton. Featuring Agustin Aguayo.
Saturday May 12 - Monterey
7pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 490 Aguajito Rd, Carmel. Featuring Agustin Aguayo and Camilo Mejia. Sponsored by Veterans for Peace Chp. 69, Hartnell Students for Peace, Salinas Action League, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and Courage to Resist. More info: Kurt Brux 831-424-6447
Sunday May 13 - San Francisco
7pm at the Veterans War Memorial Bldg. (Room 223) , 401 Van Ness St, San Francisco. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia and Pablo Paredes. Sponsored by Courage to Resist, Veteran's for Peace Chp. 69 and SF Codepink. More info:
Monday May 14 - Watsonville
7pm at the United Presbyterian Church, 112 E. Beach, Watsonville. Featuring Agustin Aguayo, Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes and Robert Zabala. Sponsored by the GI Rights Hotline & Draft Alternatives program of the Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV), Santa Cruz Peace Coalition, Watsonville Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF), Watsonville Brown Berets, Courage to Resist and Santa Cruz Veterans for Peace Chp. 11. More info: Bob Fitch 831-722-3311
Tuesday May 15 - Palo Alto
7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church (Fellowship Hall), 1140 Cowper, Palo Alto. Featuring Camilo Mejia. Sponsored by Pennisula Peace and Justice Center. More info: Paul George 650-326-8837
Wednesday May 16 - Eureka
7pm at the Eureka Labor Temple, 840 E St. (@9th), Eureka. Featuring Camilo Mejia. More info: Becky Luening 707-826-9197Thursday May 17 - Oakland 4pm youth event and 7pm program at the Humanist Hall, 411 28th St, Oakland. Featuring Camilo Mejia, Pablo Paredes and the Alternatives to War through Education (A.W.E.) Youth Action Team. Sponsored by Veteran's for Peace Chp. 69, Courage to Resist, Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's (CCCO) and AWE Youth Action Team.
Camilo Mejia's book Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia will be published by The New Press on May 1st. He is part of a movement of war resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Dean Walcott, Camilo Mejia, Linjamin Mull, Joshua Key, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Camilo Mejia, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. In addition, the documentary Sir! No Sir! traces the war resistance within the military during Vietnam and it will air at 9:00 pm (EST) on The Sundance Channel followed at 10:30 p.m. by The Ground Truth, a documentary that features
Turning to news of terrorism, two high profile terrorists have been issuing threats against Americans, America and the democratic process that is supposed to be the bedrock the United States exists upon. US joke and 2008 GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliana, speaking in New Hampshire on Tuesday, declared that Democrats will not remain on the offensive with terrorism and will wave a white flag as he attempted to subvert democracy in his desperate bid to win the GOP nomination. Not to be outdone, Crazy John McCain, also competing for the GOP 2008 presidential nomination, took The John McCain Showboat Express to South Carolina where he declared, "If we leave Iraq there will be chaos, there will be genocide, and they will follow us home."
Reality check for Senator Crazy: Iraq already has chaos, already has genocide. When the US leaves (and the US will leave at some point) there will be violence in Iraq. That's what can happen to puppet governments, when they have to stand on their own, the people may erupt in violence (mitigated somewhat when appointed puppets get the hell out of the country -- see Marcos and the Phillipines). To state that "they will follow us home" suggests that Senator Crazy may need to undergo a psych exam before continuing in the Senate. After the first Gulf War, the US left (much quicker) and violence did take place. It did not "follow us home." Senator Crazy is attempting to terrorize a nation to drum up some support -- a cheap and should-be illegal stunt. Rudy G? He continues to demonstrate that municipal politics and the national stage do not go hand in hand. The oft dubbed "America's Mayor" should probably focus on pot holes and leave the big subjects to those qualified to weigh in unless he's intent on joining the VOTE INSANE! VOTE JOHN MCCAIN! ticket. In the United States, anyone can run for president -- even nut cases.
Other than missing their morning meds, what could have the two so upset? McCain was responding to the votes today and yesterday, Rudy G was anticipating them. AP reports that today the Senate followed the House's vote (House voted last night) to pass a reconciliation of the measures that earlier passed both houses. The non-binding, toothless measure is now headed to the White House where it awaits a signature from the Bully Boy (in which case it becomes law) or a veto. If Bully Boy vetoes, it goes back to Congress where a two-thirds majority vote of each house is necessary to override the veto. (Bully Boy can also refuse to veto it, do nothing, and after 10 days it would become a law without his signature and without requiring another Congressional vote.) Bully Boy has stated he will veto the bill. AP quotes US Senator Robert Byrd declaring, "The president has failed in his mission to bring peace and stability to the people of Iraq. It's time to bring our troops home from Iraq." Such statements may confuse some people and lead them to believe the measure that has now passed both houses does that; however, it does not "bring our troops home from Iraq." It may allow some US service members to return to the US (or be deployed to Afghanistan); however, there are so many built in escape clauses for the Bully Boy that it's silly to promote the bill as "troops home now" or, for that matter, "troops home" in 2008. AFP observes, "The bill provides more cash than Bush sought to bankroll operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but says US troops are to start withdrawing from Iraq on October 1, with a non-binding target of completing the pullout by March 31, 2008."
Before the Senate vote today, Andrea Lewis spoke with Leigh Ann Caldwell (Free Speech Radio News) and Chris Toensing (Middle East Report) on KPFA's The Morning Show about Congress and Iraq.
Chris Toensing: Well, I have never been able to shake the suspicion all along that the Democrats are engaged in an elaborate show of political theater -- that they do not really intend, in the end, to pass, to insist, that Bush sign legislation which would contain a binding timetable of any sorts. And that they are willing to water down those provisions even further to the point where it's entirely at the president's discretion -- it already almost is. But they're willing, I think, to water it down even further in order to chip away some Republicans who will vote for something like that and then they can claim to the public that they're trying to tie Bush's hands and they're trying to assert their Constitutional oversight role in helping to end this disasterous war and yet not really have their finger prints on Iraq policy. And I've never been able to shake this suspicion that that's really the Democrats game and I'm not speaking about the Progressive Caucus or the Out of Iraq Caucus who have a much clearer goal in mind and a much sounder political strategy in mind but I'm talking about the big national Democrats, the Emanuels and Pelosis in the House, the Schumers and Levins and so on in the Senate. And I think the goal of this is - is to make sure that the war is solely Bush's albatross and solely the Republicans albatross rather than to bring the war to a speedy conclusion.
Did, Andrea Lewis wondered, Toensing think that US service members would be returning to the US in the fall of 2008?
Toensing: I think it's possible, and actually probably likely, that some troops will be withdrawn, some combat brigades -- as they say. What's not going to happen is an end to the US deployment writ large. There are still going to be, I think, combat brigades there. I think there are also going to be large "enduring bases" various kind of advisors and trainers and support personnel who will be working with the new Iraqi army. I think that the underlying strategic goals of the US are just simply not served by leaving Iraq in its current state. The only conditions under which I can see either a Republican or a Democratic administration withdrawing completely from Iraq would be either if Iraqis themselves unified across all kinds of sectarian and ethinic lines and faught a kind of Pan-Iraqi Infintada against the US that would be unmanageable so that would be one circumstance. The other would be if they were able to find some kind of Iraqi strongman who would be able to ensure that the government would be stable and pliable-- according to Washington's interests -- after the US withdrew all the troops. That's the, that's all along been the underlying strategic goal and I haven't seen too many national Democrats, the ones with presidential ambitions, speak to the heart of US policy in the Persian Gulf and as long as that's not changing I think the US is going to be in Iraq for a long time.
Lewis noted, "Except maybe Dennis Kucinich" which Toensling agree with Leiws on. Dennis Kucinich is a US House Rep and candidate for the 2008 Democratic nomination for president.
In Iraq, AFP reports, the non-binding "timetable for military withdrawal from Iraq brought mixed reviews from Iraqi members of parliament, some of whom doubted the government's ability to meet US demands for faster political reconciliation." The BBC notes Iraq's foreign minister and all around redundant loud mouth Hoshayr Zebari who is yet again screaming that the US cannot leave. If the tired, old song seems familiar, he's been singing it for years.
But when exiles and Kurds are made leaders, put in positions of power (put in by the US -- and Zebari is one of Bully Boy's favorites), it's not really surprising that they don't have the support of the average Iraqi and need a military force to protect them.
In Iraq today, many went without protection. Some of the violence.
Bombings?
Reuters notes a Khalis bombing that killed 10 Iraqi soldiers (15 wounded), a bombing in Jbela that killed a student and left six more wounded, Baghdad mortar attacks that killed 4 (wounded 11), a Baghdad car bombing that killed six (15 wounded) "near Baghdad University," Mosul bombings that killed 3 people (59 wounded), car bombings in southwestern Baghdad that killed 1 (three wounded), a roadside bomb in centeral Baghdad that killed 2 (10 wounded) and a mortar attack in Mahmudiya that "killed a woman and wounded three others".
Shootings?
Reuters reports a woman and her niece shot dead in Tikrit.
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 26 corpses were discovered in Baghdad.
Reuters notes one corpse discovered in Mahmudiya and three corpses were discovered in Kirkuk.
In student activism news, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) spoke with the University of Maryland's Sergio Espana about the five-day fast, Hungry For Peace, that kicks off Monday. Espana stated, "So we're having students and faculty having a fast and a sit-out for five days, protesting the illegal US occupation in Iraq. Every day of the fast will represent roughtly 100,000 of the more than 500,00 Iraqi civilians that have died as a direct consequence of this illegal occupation. We'll also have a lecture series. Now, across the nation, thanks in large part to the Student Peace Action Network, we've had universities from California to Vermont who will also be contributing. So these fasts are nationwide. For example, in Minnesota -- apart from the fast, there will also be rallies going into their Congressional representatives, turning in petitions, letting them know that the American public wants them to do the job that they were actually elected to do -- which is to, you know, support the American public, support the troops and to end this immoral and atrocious war." UMBC Solidarity Coaliton is asking more campuses to sign up -- this include merely wearing black arm bands next week, protesting, fasting, etc.
Also interviewed today was CODEPINK's Medea Benjamin. Excerpt:
AMY GOODMAN: Well, the founder of CODEPINK, Medea Benjamin, joins us now from Washington, D.C. She's a longtime peace activist and also co-founder of Global Exchange. Welcome, Medea, to Democracy Now! You are changing the face, in a sense, of lobbying in Washington. Explain what you're doing.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, these hearings that are going on every day, Amy, they used to be very staid gatherings, where you'd have the K Street lobbyists and you'd have the staff aides and a maybe a sprinkling of tourists. Now, you have CODEPINK lining up early in the morning to get into each of the hearings and turning them into really public affairs. We try to participate in them. We certainly participate with our messages on our bodies. When we can get away with it, we participate with signs. And we often get carried away when we hear them saying things we don't like and get up and say something, sometimes get kicked out, sometimes get arrested, sometimes get tolerated. But we've really turned them into public gatherings, which I think they should be.
Yesterday, when General Petraeus tried -- well, he actually did a hearing behind closed doors, we were outside there yelling, "Let the public in! The public wants to hear!" And so, I think we're really changing the face of the way the proceedings are going on in Congress and demanding a lot more transparency.
JUAN GONZALEZ: Medea, given the number of times you've been ejected in recent months from Congress, you must be probably the best-known security question for the security guards there. Are they watching you and following you constantly?
MEDEA BENJAMIN: They've actually become our friends. We're on a first name basis. When we enter the Capitol buildings, they usually get on their walkie-talkie and say "OK, CODEPINK is here." They follow us around. They go to have lunch with us. They're really quite nice to us and quite sympathetic to our cause, as are a lot of the people that we find in these hearings. Things are really changing in Washington, and they're changing because groups like ours are keeping the pressure on.
And one thing I really want to say to your listening audience is that we need more of you here. We have rented a house, a CODEPINK house, with five bedrooms. We're encouraging people to come from all over the country, stay with us for a week or two weeks. There are people who have left their jobs and are really determined to be on the Hill during all of these discussions about supplemental money. So we need more people to come to Washington, get up in the morning with us, go out to these hearings, let them see that the people are determined to end the war in Iraq and not start another one in Iran.
Turning to media news, Rolling Stone magazine celebrates 40 years in their May 3-17, 2007 double issue. Online, it's not worth checking out. In print, Jane Fonda and Patti Smith are interviewed -- the only two women. There are no people of color. So on a diversity scale, it fails. They do find time for the token neo-con -- the aging (badly aging) boy wonder of the right wing, Tom Wolfe who apparently showed up for the interview after a drunken party at the Buckleys. Strong interviews can be found with Fonda, Smith, Michael Moore, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Bill Moyers, Norman Mailer and Martin Scorsese. The strong interviews find the subjects reflecting on the last forty years and the changes they see in the country. We'll note Jane Fonda's response to "What indicates to you that young people are hopeful?"
Jane Fonda: Anger. Resistance. They're pissed off, as well they should be. Natalie Maines [of the Dixie Chicks] embodies that. It's that, "F--k it, man -- this not what I want this country to be." There's a lot of young people who feel that way. The young people I work with and who come to my events, they're beginning to feel their power in a very different way than in the Sixties and Seventies.
One young person, Mike (Mikey Likes It!) covered the case of Jake Kovco on Tuesday and I should have linked to it already.
Finally, Wednesday, May 2nd at 6:30 pm in The Great Hall, Cooper Union (NYC), Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove will be presenting readings from their Voices of a People's History of the United States featuring music performed by Allison Moorer and Steve Earle and readings and vocal performances by Ally Sheedy, Brian Jones, Danny Glover, Deepa Fernandes, Erin Cherry, Harris Yulin, Kathleen Chalfant, Kerry Washington, Opal Alladin, Staceyann Chin and Stanley Tucci. Zinn and Arnove will provide both the introduction and the narration.
jeremy brecher
brenda smith
the third estate sunday review
like maria said pazkats kornersex and politics and screeds and attitudetrinas kitchenthe daily jotcedrics big mixmikey likes itthomas friedman is a great man
mikey likes it
the common ills
kpfathe morning show
anthony arnove
howard zinn
democracy nowamy goodman
juan gonzalez
medea benjaminhungry for peace
sir! no sir!
jane fonda
ally sheedydanny gloverdeepa fernandes
mikey likes it
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Leah Fishbien, Robert Scheer
Hump day. I'm having one of those days where I just stare at the screen. I'm also kind of pissed at myself. What's that thing next to your fingernail? Not the skin! :D The thing that sometimes hangs between the nail and the skin? Mine was hanging yesterday on the finger next to the middle finger and I bit it off. Now the whole thing is swollen. The skin right before your fingernail starts is bright red and further down, it's swollen. I'm going to pop it when I finally get something written and posted.
Sunday, we worked on (Saturday and Sunday, we worked on) "Precedent and privacy go out the window" about the attack on rights and precedents. This is from Leah Fishbien's "Women Under Siege:"
As many already know, last Wednesday The Supreme Court contradicted its own 2000 decision to overturn a Nebraska ban on "partial birth abortion" and upheld the federal abortion ban in the cases of Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood and Gonzalez v. Carhart. This hearing occurred in response to the Federal Abortion Ban Act legislation passed by Congress and signed by Bush in 2003. This decision is an appalling one, and it is furthermore an unprecedented setback for women and those who care about them. The Supreme Court has never, in the thirty-plus years since the right to abortion was won in Roe V. Wade, made a decision restricting women's reproductive rights without providing for cases in which a woman's health is at stake.
Why you should be concerned
Here is what some prominent people have been saying about this ban:
"I consider the Supreme Court Ban on one type of abortion procedure to be an annexation of Women's Wombs by the U. S Government and as such should be viewed by all people of conscience as an act of war against women."-Merle Hoffman, founder, Choices Women's MedicalCenter, Queens NY on Wednesday, April 18, 2007
"This ruling shows the true colors of the current Bush-stacked majority of the Supreme Court: it does not care about the health, well-being, and safety of American women. This must serve as a wake-up call to women: we are losing our fundamental rights as Bush continues to stack the courts."-Eleanor Smeal, Feminist Majority Foundation
"The time is now right to launch aggressive legal challenges across America to abortion on demandThe court has now said it's OK to ban procedures. We can do more than just put hurdles in front of women seeking abortions; we can put roadblocks in front of them." -Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue (in the past leading proponents of violence directed at abortion providers and clinics)
"The government has a legitimate and substantial interest in preserving and promoting fetal life."-The Supreme Court of the United States, in its decision on the PBABA
For all those who have been waiting for a sign that the Christian right minority in this country has co-opted our government and society (because on paper it just "sounds too conspiratorial", or because "they haven't really made any attempts to change things in a radical way") that sign appeared yesterday in the form of a ruling dropped by judges intent on forcing old-school, biblical morality on us, and it dropped like a bomb onto women's bodies. That ruling spread over this country like a silent alarm, the opposition and outrage necessary to stop this and further attacks on women palpably missing from most of the country, at least in any massive way, at least yet. That ruling slapped us in the face, challenging a basic assumption that healthcare decisions should be between doctors and patients rather than outsider religious factions and politicians, leaving the patient out of the process entirely. That ruling poured over us like a bucket of ice cold water hopefully waking us up to the reality that this is the ultimate sign, one that declares that Bush and his counterparts in the Supreme Court, now holding the majority, do not value in the least women's health. This consideration is especially secondary in the face of support from their theocratic political base and in light of their personal "moral values," (values that don't contradict with the possibility of free fire zones in Iraq or of using the death penalty as a conflict-resolution tool). If permitted-if there is not massive uprising in the face of this ruling-the Christian Right, c/o the Bush Regime, will move to overturn Roe. V Wade, with the stated goal of federally outlawing abortion as a whole. Seriously. Just take a look at any of a number of websites for the National Right to Life Committee, Focus on the Family, Operation Rescue/Save America and this is easily understood.
I agree with her. There has to be a massive uprising. But I do worry that a lot of guys are going to think, "This really doesn't apply to me." Or maybe, "This really doesn't apply to me as long as I use a rubber." Condoms aren't 100% effective (they can bust). But more importantly, if you're thinking that just applies to women, the basis for this decision is that judges can ignore medicine and research and just vote anyway they want. They don't even have to respect past rulings (that's what precedents are). They can just make any decision they want.
That's what the Supreme Court did. And having done that, what's to stop them from doing it on any thing else?
I hope you'll care, regardless of gender, about what was done to women but I hope you'll get that it's also about a pattern that's going to be set up where the right-wing court is going to ignore facts and precedents and just make up their rulings.
This is from Robert Scheer's "Bush Blames the Troops" and I'm focusing on the part about the Democratic measures:
This president has been denied nothing by Congress in the way of financial underwriting for this boondoggle, yet he seeks to cast even the mildest attempt to hold him accountable for the results as unpatriotic. That is all that the Democratic congressional leadership has proposed with its timetable--marks to measure progress on the ground in a war that, as Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye pointed out, has lasted longer than World War II. It is a very limited, nonbinding attempt to hold the president accountable, for it does not ban him from using any portion of the whopping $124 billion in new funds; it requires only that he publicly and specifically defend his claims of progress.
It's a claim of progress that, until now, has not been met with any congressional review, even though it is the obligation of Congress to judge the effectiveness of programs paid for with the funds that Congress alone can appropriate. If the proposed timetable were in place, then it would be more difficult for the president to claim success for his surge, as he did Friday, insisting that "So far, the operation is meeting expectations" and then confusing his audience by conceding that recently "We have seen some of the highest casualty levels of the war."
It’s gobbledygook, and the Democratic leaders of Congress have finally decided to call the president on it. "The longer we continue down the president's path, the further we will be from responsibly ending this war," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Not content any longer to take Bush at his word, the leaders in both the House and Senate finally posted some specific benchmarks of progress, accompanied by a nonbinding suggestion of an end to U.S. troop involvement in this quagmire within a year’s time if genuine progress is not made. Even that minimum restraint on the president's ambition was accompanied with the caveat that sufficient troops would remain in Iraq to protect U.S. installations, train the Iraqi army and fight terrorists.
The proposal was the softest the Democrats could offer without totally repudiating the will of the voters who brought them to power in the last election. If the president vetoes this authorization bill, then the onus is on him for delaying funding for the troops and showing contempt for the judgment of the voters, who will have another chance in less than two years to hold the president's party responsible. But that will not restore life to the 85 U.S. soldiers killed so far in April alone, or prevent even greater sacrifices to Bush's folly.
I'm glad Scheer's calling it out. But? As one of the few that would call it out in real time (this community, Robert Knight, Norman Solomon, Military Families Speak Out, John Stauber, Sheldon Rampton, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, Ray McGovern -- and his group of veterans from the intelligence community, I forget the name -- and Alexander Cockburn, etc.) I do wonder why it took so long for people to start calling this out? I don't really care what happens. Congress is voting tonight. If they pass it, Bully Boy vetoes it. No one thinks there are votes to override the veto. So since that's the way it was, why not really try to do something? Why not try to withdraw all troops? No outs of the Bully Boy, no escape clause, just withdraw them all. Party Hacks like David Sirota were hissing and snarling that people had to be 'realistic.' Is it really realistic to waste all this time on a non-binding measure that doesn't guarantee any troops home? Bully Boy could reclassify everyone as "military police" and no one would come home. But was it realistic to work on a bill that you knew wouldn't pass and to have such tiny expectations? I don't think so. I think it was about positioning and posturing.
I think we see the same thing as no Congressional Democrat has yet to stand with Dennis Kucinich in calling for the impeachment of Bully Boy. About the only good news today was Terri Johnson. If you don't know about her yet, here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, April 25, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the United Nations raises the issue of Iraqi fatalities, US House Rep and 2008 presidential contender Dennis Kucinich moves to impeach Dick Cheney, the wall in Baghdad continues to be an issue, and more.
Starting with war resisters. Last Saturday, the latest public war resisters spoke in Greensboro, Terri Johnson. jarnocan (North Carolina World Can't Wait) reports, "Terri Johnson of Greensboro was like a lot of other young people with limited options after high school who are set upon by US Army recruiters. She believed the promises of the recruiters who told her that the Army was nothing more than a good shot at a college education and a prosperous future. She discovered, as do many others who sign up, that not only wa she signing her life away, but the lives of people targeted by the illegal and immoral war on Iraq as well. So she did the right thing. She refused to fight." Jordan Green (Yes! Weekly) notes that "the granddaughter of past Gressnsboro NAACP President Gladys Shipman, deliberately failed to complete her final fitness test at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, and then went AWOL on Sept. 28, 2006, the day before graduation." Speaking at a rally at Governmental Plaza, Johnson stated: "I'm not anti-war one hundred percent because some wars are worth fighting for. But this war is not worth fighting for. I really don't look at myself as a hero. I was just doing it for me because [the war] wasn't for me. There were a lot of my buddies who didn't want to drop out like me, but they didn't have have the courage to make the decision I did." On leaving during basics, Johnson stated, "All you got to do is leave. Throw the towel in. They cannot stop you. Stay gone for thirty-one days. Get your two-way ticket to Lousiville, Kentucky. The MPs will meet you there and pat you down. You will be there for four days and eat this horrible food. The only thing you cannot do is get a federal job. Okay, I wasn't that interested in working for the federal government anyway. The other thing you can't do is re-enlist in another branch of the military."
Terri Johnson is part of a movement of war resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Dean Walcott, Camilo Mejia, Linjamin Mull, Joshua Key, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Camilo Mejia, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
Meanwhile, the United Nations is accusing the puppet government in Iraq of a different form of resistance. Yara Bayoumy (Reuters) reports that the UN states the government is "withholding sensitive civilian casualty figures because the government fears the data would be used to paint a 'very grim' picture of a worsening humanitarian crisis." CNN reports that the refusal to supply the data has prevented the UN from calculating the numbers of Iraqis killed in the first four months of 2007. Tina Susman (Los Angeles Times) states that numbers the Los Angeles Times have "obtained from various ministries" puts the 2007 civilian toll at 5,509 thus far this year. The Times figures are incomplete, it should be noted, and Susman is incorrect when she claims that the US "military does not count civilian deaths that occur during its operations". The US military has kept a count -- Nancy A. Youssef broke that story right before Knight Ridder became McClatchy Newspapers. You didn't hear much about that because it was time to travel-logue in indymedia. But the US military is keeping figures, has been keeping figures. They will admit to keeping figures since June of 2005. They refuse to release those figures to the press or to the public. So when the puppet government refuses to release figures to the UN, it all has a familiar ring to it.
Al Jazeera reports, "On Wednesday, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (Unami) blamed the majority of the bloodshed on sectarian fighting, and expressed concern about the human-rights record of Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister." And the response? AFP reports that the puppet, Nouri al-Maliki, issued a statement: "The Iraqi government announces that is has major reservations about this report, which lack precision in its presentation of information, lasts crediblity in many of its points and lacks balance in its presentation of the human rights situation in Iraq." Around the world, chuckles were heard as the puppet questioned someone else's credibility.
The report comes as IRIN notes that Baghdad's "infrastructure continues to deteriorate, causing more violence, health hazards and misery for its seven million inhabitants" and notes "at least 43 workers have been killed in the past few months while collecting rubbish, changing lights or repairing sewage systems in the capital, mostly in the more dangerous neighborhoods of Sadr City, Alawi, Dora, Bab al-Muadham and Adhamiyah."
Turning to United States, US House Rep and 2008 presidential contender Dennis Kucinich
"introduced articles of impeachment Tuesday against Vice President Dick Cheney," The Post Chronicle reported noting that the "main chrages are that Cheney used manipulated intelligence to win support for the war in Iraq, and falsely claimed a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida." For many outlets it was time to put on the old 45 of Simon & Garfunkle . . . Hello darkness my old friend . . . As they "covered" the news by not covering it. The sounds of silence.
Dennis Bernstein addressed the issue of impeaching Cheney on Flashpoints yesterday, noting that Kucinich "broke the silence in Congress . . . Kucinich's actions follow on many calls and a series of througly well constructed and researched arguments for impeachment. Among the strongest cases made for impeachment is that by a former prosecutor, Elizabeth de la Vega with over 2 decades as a federal prosecutor. She is the author of United States v. George W. Bush et al. She's been lecturing on the case for impeachment and following the unraveling also of the Attorney General.".
Elizabeth de la Vega: "I think it's an extremely strong case and what's beautiful about it is that it's very elegantly done and it's just very, very simple. As you mentioned Article I is manipulating the intelligence process to deceive the public and Congress by making up, essentially, a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction so that the administration could invade Iraq. . . . And the specific nature of that fabrication has to do, of course, with the weapons of mass destruction. Article II is very similar except that it relates to the same type of fabrication with regard to a link between . . . al Qaeda and Iraq and 9-11. The third one has to do with Iran. And I think, really, the case is almost irrefutable."
Robert Naiman (The Huffington Post) addresses the press treatment of the issue and notes that "Kucinich seems to be one of the few Members of Congress aware that threatening to attack other countries is a violation of the U.N. Charter, a treaty wo which the U.S. is signatory." Dave Lindorff (who has been covering the impeachment movement across the country) writes (at CounterPunch) that, as a result of Kucinich's actions, "The mainstream corporate media, which has so far been largely ignoring the issue of impeachment, will have to go to extra lengths of censorship to block out the popular movement now, with a bill on the floor of the House, and with impeachment resolutions passing in the Vermont state legislature. It will be interesting to see how the nation's new gatekeepers handle the story now that it is breaking out into the open so forcefully." Those in and near Trenton, New Jersey this weekend, should be aware of the demonstration where "a Human Mural" will spell out "IMPEACH" at the State House in Trenton on 125 W. State Street, Saturday April 28th -- more information can be found here (AfterDowningStreet). That is not the only event across the country. Progressive Democrats of America's Marcy Winograd spoke with Lila Garrett on Connect The Dots With Lila Garrett on KPFK Monday. Winograd and others will be taking part in the California Democratic Party State Convention which will be held in the
San Diego Convention Center this weekend, 111 West Harbor Drive, Convention Center, San Diego. PDA will be mobilizing around many issues including impeachment -- "Impeachment Is On Our Table."
In addition, note this from CODEPINK:
Impeachment Day: April 28It's time to say NO to impunity for lying, spying, and torture. George Bush and Dick Cheney's high crimes and misdemeanors demand accountability. Since Congress doesn't get it, on April 28 Americans are going to spell it out for them: I M P E A C H ! More...
A transcript of Dennis Kucinich's press conference can be found here and, from that, we'll note this from his conference, "This goes beyond partisan terms. This is being done to defend our constitutional system of government. This is being done so that all tose of us who took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States can understand that this impeachment is one valid way in furtherance of the defense of our Constitution. I don't see this as bening distant from anyone, in any capacity in our government. Everyone must reflect on this. Years from now, people will ask, 'Why didn't the United States government respond when they saw this threat to our democracy? Why didn't people inside the government respond?' if this doesn't move forward. And so this really isn't so much, I might add, about the vice president as it is about who we are as a people. What is it that we stand for? What kind of government do the people of the United States expect and deserve? It's not appropriate for the government to lie to people. It is wrong for government officials -- you know, the vice president, in this case -- to take this nation into war based on lies."
In semi-related news, US Secretary of State and Anger Condi Rice has a subpoena with her name on it from the US House Judiciary Committee. CBS News and AP report that she will be asked to testify (presumably under oath) about the lies that Iraq "was seeking uranium from Africa." On a 21-10 vote, the committee agreed to compell Rice's testimony.
From what Americans want to what Iraqis want, CNN reports: "Shiits in Baghdad gathered Wednesday to protest a wall surrounding the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya. The U.S. and Iraqi militaries say the wall is for protection, but radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr issued a statement calling the wall sectarian, racist and oppressive. He vowed to support all Iraqis -- Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and Christians -- and called on them to unite against 'the evil will of the occupier'." Al Jazeera notes, "Moqtada al-Sadr's remarks were the first by the Mahdi Army head since the US military said last week that it was building a wall in Baghdad's Adhamiyah district." Sally Kohn (Common Dreams) shares her thoughts on the issue, "Good fences have never made good policy, just as they've never made good neighbors. Bush's embrace of wall building and secrecy reminds me of totalitarian feudal lords. But feudalism failed too, didn't it? Now that Nouri al-Maliki has poked a hole in Bush's Baghdad wall plans, can we start building some bridges instead?"
In violence today in Iraq . . .
Bombings?
CNN reports: "A truck loaded with chlorine detonated Wednesday at a military checkpoint on the western outskirts of Baghdad, killing one Iraqi and wounded two others". Reuters notes a Balad Ruz bombing that killed 9 and left 16 wounded, a Baghdad roadside bombing ("near a petrol station") that killed 2, and a Baghdad mortar attack on the west Rashid section of Baghdad resulted one death and five wounded. Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Mosul bombing that left one person dead, a bobming near Tikrit that wounded two police officers
Shootings?
Reuters reports Ali al-Bayati ("Iraq's former bodybuilding champion") was shot dead in Mosul, another Mosul shooting claimed two lives and left one person wounded, a police officer shot dead in Tuz Khurmato.
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 18 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes a corpse discovered in Hilla.
Finally, Tom Hayden (The Huffington Post) examines a number of issues (life on the ground in Iraq, scandals of the administration) and we'll zoom in on the commentary regarding the US House and Senate measures, "It is hard to know what to make of these Democratic proposals. To what extent are they designed seriously or only for political cover? The most dangerous one is the open-ended authorization to continue combat operations against 'all extremists', which should be opposed by the anti-war movement and their Democratic allies. The related problem is the resurfacing of the 'humanitarian hawks' who delude themselves into believing the US military can succeed in a more low-visibility role combining counter-insurgency and economic development. The flaw in their thinking is that American soldiers can serve as 'trainers' to an Iraqi state described as sectarian even by the Baker-Hamilton Report.
And today Amy Goodman interviewed Bill Moyers on Democracy Now! whose Bill Moyers Journal debuts this week on PBS stations (starts tonight on some PBS stations) and the first episode focuses on the selling of the illegal war.
mikey likes it
the common ills
iraq
terri johnson
north carolina world cant wait
jarnocan
connect the dots with lila garrett
kpfk
tom hayden
democracy nowamy goodman
flashpointsdennis bernstein
elizabeth de la vega
Sunday, we worked on (Saturday and Sunday, we worked on) "Precedent and privacy go out the window" about the attack on rights and precedents. This is from Leah Fishbien's "Women Under Siege:"
As many already know, last Wednesday The Supreme Court contradicted its own 2000 decision to overturn a Nebraska ban on "partial birth abortion" and upheld the federal abortion ban in the cases of Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood and Gonzalez v. Carhart. This hearing occurred in response to the Federal Abortion Ban Act legislation passed by Congress and signed by Bush in 2003. This decision is an appalling one, and it is furthermore an unprecedented setback for women and those who care about them. The Supreme Court has never, in the thirty-plus years since the right to abortion was won in Roe V. Wade, made a decision restricting women's reproductive rights without providing for cases in which a woman's health is at stake.
Why you should be concerned
Here is what some prominent people have been saying about this ban:
"I consider the Supreme Court Ban on one type of abortion procedure to be an annexation of Women's Wombs by the U. S Government and as such should be viewed by all people of conscience as an act of war against women."-Merle Hoffman, founder, Choices Women's MedicalCenter, Queens NY on Wednesday, April 18, 2007
"This ruling shows the true colors of the current Bush-stacked majority of the Supreme Court: it does not care about the health, well-being, and safety of American women. This must serve as a wake-up call to women: we are losing our fundamental rights as Bush continues to stack the courts."-Eleanor Smeal, Feminist Majority Foundation
"The time is now right to launch aggressive legal challenges across America to abortion on demandThe court has now said it's OK to ban procedures. We can do more than just put hurdles in front of women seeking abortions; we can put roadblocks in front of them." -Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue (in the past leading proponents of violence directed at abortion providers and clinics)
"The government has a legitimate and substantial interest in preserving and promoting fetal life."-The Supreme Court of the United States, in its decision on the PBABA
For all those who have been waiting for a sign that the Christian right minority in this country has co-opted our government and society (because on paper it just "sounds too conspiratorial", or because "they haven't really made any attempts to change things in a radical way") that sign appeared yesterday in the form of a ruling dropped by judges intent on forcing old-school, biblical morality on us, and it dropped like a bomb onto women's bodies. That ruling spread over this country like a silent alarm, the opposition and outrage necessary to stop this and further attacks on women palpably missing from most of the country, at least in any massive way, at least yet. That ruling slapped us in the face, challenging a basic assumption that healthcare decisions should be between doctors and patients rather than outsider religious factions and politicians, leaving the patient out of the process entirely. That ruling poured over us like a bucket of ice cold water hopefully waking us up to the reality that this is the ultimate sign, one that declares that Bush and his counterparts in the Supreme Court, now holding the majority, do not value in the least women's health. This consideration is especially secondary in the face of support from their theocratic political base and in light of their personal "moral values," (values that don't contradict with the possibility of free fire zones in Iraq or of using the death penalty as a conflict-resolution tool). If permitted-if there is not massive uprising in the face of this ruling-the Christian Right, c/o the Bush Regime, will move to overturn Roe. V Wade, with the stated goal of federally outlawing abortion as a whole. Seriously. Just take a look at any of a number of websites for the National Right to Life Committee, Focus on the Family, Operation Rescue/Save America and this is easily understood.
I agree with her. There has to be a massive uprising. But I do worry that a lot of guys are going to think, "This really doesn't apply to me." Or maybe, "This really doesn't apply to me as long as I use a rubber." Condoms aren't 100% effective (they can bust). But more importantly, if you're thinking that just applies to women, the basis for this decision is that judges can ignore medicine and research and just vote anyway they want. They don't even have to respect past rulings (that's what precedents are). They can just make any decision they want.
That's what the Supreme Court did. And having done that, what's to stop them from doing it on any thing else?
I hope you'll care, regardless of gender, about what was done to women but I hope you'll get that it's also about a pattern that's going to be set up where the right-wing court is going to ignore facts and precedents and just make up their rulings.
This is from Robert Scheer's "Bush Blames the Troops" and I'm focusing on the part about the Democratic measures:
This president has been denied nothing by Congress in the way of financial underwriting for this boondoggle, yet he seeks to cast even the mildest attempt to hold him accountable for the results as unpatriotic. That is all that the Democratic congressional leadership has proposed with its timetable--marks to measure progress on the ground in a war that, as Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye pointed out, has lasted longer than World War II. It is a very limited, nonbinding attempt to hold the president accountable, for it does not ban him from using any portion of the whopping $124 billion in new funds; it requires only that he publicly and specifically defend his claims of progress.
It's a claim of progress that, until now, has not been met with any congressional review, even though it is the obligation of Congress to judge the effectiveness of programs paid for with the funds that Congress alone can appropriate. If the proposed timetable were in place, then it would be more difficult for the president to claim success for his surge, as he did Friday, insisting that "So far, the operation is meeting expectations" and then confusing his audience by conceding that recently "We have seen some of the highest casualty levels of the war."
It’s gobbledygook, and the Democratic leaders of Congress have finally decided to call the president on it. "The longer we continue down the president's path, the further we will be from responsibly ending this war," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Not content any longer to take Bush at his word, the leaders in both the House and Senate finally posted some specific benchmarks of progress, accompanied by a nonbinding suggestion of an end to U.S. troop involvement in this quagmire within a year’s time if genuine progress is not made. Even that minimum restraint on the president's ambition was accompanied with the caveat that sufficient troops would remain in Iraq to protect U.S. installations, train the Iraqi army and fight terrorists.
The proposal was the softest the Democrats could offer without totally repudiating the will of the voters who brought them to power in the last election. If the president vetoes this authorization bill, then the onus is on him for delaying funding for the troops and showing contempt for the judgment of the voters, who will have another chance in less than two years to hold the president's party responsible. But that will not restore life to the 85 U.S. soldiers killed so far in April alone, or prevent even greater sacrifices to Bush's folly.
I'm glad Scheer's calling it out. But? As one of the few that would call it out in real time (this community, Robert Knight, Norman Solomon, Military Families Speak Out, John Stauber, Sheldon Rampton, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, Ray McGovern -- and his group of veterans from the intelligence community, I forget the name -- and Alexander Cockburn, etc.) I do wonder why it took so long for people to start calling this out? I don't really care what happens. Congress is voting tonight. If they pass it, Bully Boy vetoes it. No one thinks there are votes to override the veto. So since that's the way it was, why not really try to do something? Why not try to withdraw all troops? No outs of the Bully Boy, no escape clause, just withdraw them all. Party Hacks like David Sirota were hissing and snarling that people had to be 'realistic.' Is it really realistic to waste all this time on a non-binding measure that doesn't guarantee any troops home? Bully Boy could reclassify everyone as "military police" and no one would come home. But was it realistic to work on a bill that you knew wouldn't pass and to have such tiny expectations? I don't think so. I think it was about positioning and posturing.
I think we see the same thing as no Congressional Democrat has yet to stand with Dennis Kucinich in calling for the impeachment of Bully Boy. About the only good news today was Terri Johnson. If you don't know about her yet, here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, April 25, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the United Nations raises the issue of Iraqi fatalities, US House Rep and 2008 presidential contender Dennis Kucinich moves to impeach Dick Cheney, the wall in Baghdad continues to be an issue, and more.
Starting with war resisters. Last Saturday, the latest public war resisters spoke in Greensboro, Terri Johnson. jarnocan (North Carolina World Can't Wait) reports, "Terri Johnson of Greensboro was like a lot of other young people with limited options after high school who are set upon by US Army recruiters. She believed the promises of the recruiters who told her that the Army was nothing more than a good shot at a college education and a prosperous future. She discovered, as do many others who sign up, that not only wa she signing her life away, but the lives of people targeted by the illegal and immoral war on Iraq as well. So she did the right thing. She refused to fight." Jordan Green (Yes! Weekly) notes that "the granddaughter of past Gressnsboro NAACP President Gladys Shipman, deliberately failed to complete her final fitness test at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, and then went AWOL on Sept. 28, 2006, the day before graduation." Speaking at a rally at Governmental Plaza, Johnson stated: "I'm not anti-war one hundred percent because some wars are worth fighting for. But this war is not worth fighting for. I really don't look at myself as a hero. I was just doing it for me because [the war] wasn't for me. There were a lot of my buddies who didn't want to drop out like me, but they didn't have have the courage to make the decision I did." On leaving during basics, Johnson stated, "All you got to do is leave. Throw the towel in. They cannot stop you. Stay gone for thirty-one days. Get your two-way ticket to Lousiville, Kentucky. The MPs will meet you there and pat you down. You will be there for four days and eat this horrible food. The only thing you cannot do is get a federal job. Okay, I wasn't that interested in working for the federal government anyway. The other thing you can't do is re-enlist in another branch of the military."
Terri Johnson is part of a movement of war resistance within the military that also includes Ehren Watada, Dean Walcott, Camilo Mejia, Linjamin Mull, Joshua Key, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Camilo Mejia, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
Meanwhile, the United Nations is accusing the puppet government in Iraq of a different form of resistance. Yara Bayoumy (Reuters) reports that the UN states the government is "withholding sensitive civilian casualty figures because the government fears the data would be used to paint a 'very grim' picture of a worsening humanitarian crisis." CNN reports that the refusal to supply the data has prevented the UN from calculating the numbers of Iraqis killed in the first four months of 2007. Tina Susman (Los Angeles Times) states that numbers the Los Angeles Times have "obtained from various ministries" puts the 2007 civilian toll at 5,509 thus far this year. The Times figures are incomplete, it should be noted, and Susman is incorrect when she claims that the US "military does not count civilian deaths that occur during its operations". The US military has kept a count -- Nancy A. Youssef broke that story right before Knight Ridder became McClatchy Newspapers. You didn't hear much about that because it was time to travel-logue in indymedia. But the US military is keeping figures, has been keeping figures. They will admit to keeping figures since June of 2005. They refuse to release those figures to the press or to the public. So when the puppet government refuses to release figures to the UN, it all has a familiar ring to it.
Al Jazeera reports, "On Wednesday, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (Unami) blamed the majority of the bloodshed on sectarian fighting, and expressed concern about the human-rights record of Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister." And the response? AFP reports that the puppet, Nouri al-Maliki, issued a statement: "The Iraqi government announces that is has major reservations about this report, which lack precision in its presentation of information, lasts crediblity in many of its points and lacks balance in its presentation of the human rights situation in Iraq." Around the world, chuckles were heard as the puppet questioned someone else's credibility.
The report comes as IRIN notes that Baghdad's "infrastructure continues to deteriorate, causing more violence, health hazards and misery for its seven million inhabitants" and notes "at least 43 workers have been killed in the past few months while collecting rubbish, changing lights or repairing sewage systems in the capital, mostly in the more dangerous neighborhoods of Sadr City, Alawi, Dora, Bab al-Muadham and Adhamiyah."
Turning to United States, US House Rep and 2008 presidential contender Dennis Kucinich
"introduced articles of impeachment Tuesday against Vice President Dick Cheney," The Post Chronicle reported noting that the "main chrages are that Cheney used manipulated intelligence to win support for the war in Iraq, and falsely claimed a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida." For many outlets it was time to put on the old 45 of Simon & Garfunkle . . . Hello darkness my old friend . . . As they "covered" the news by not covering it. The sounds of silence.
Dennis Bernstein addressed the issue of impeaching Cheney on Flashpoints yesterday, noting that Kucinich "broke the silence in Congress . . . Kucinich's actions follow on many calls and a series of througly well constructed and researched arguments for impeachment. Among the strongest cases made for impeachment is that by a former prosecutor, Elizabeth de la Vega with over 2 decades as a federal prosecutor. She is the author of United States v. George W. Bush et al. She's been lecturing on the case for impeachment and following the unraveling also of the Attorney General.".
Elizabeth de la Vega: "I think it's an extremely strong case and what's beautiful about it is that it's very elegantly done and it's just very, very simple. As you mentioned Article I is manipulating the intelligence process to deceive the public and Congress by making up, essentially, a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction so that the administration could invade Iraq. . . . And the specific nature of that fabrication has to do, of course, with the weapons of mass destruction. Article II is very similar except that it relates to the same type of fabrication with regard to a link between . . . al Qaeda and Iraq and 9-11. The third one has to do with Iran. And I think, really, the case is almost irrefutable."
Robert Naiman (The Huffington Post) addresses the press treatment of the issue and notes that "Kucinich seems to be one of the few Members of Congress aware that threatening to attack other countries is a violation of the U.N. Charter, a treaty wo which the U.S. is signatory." Dave Lindorff (who has been covering the impeachment movement across the country) writes (at CounterPunch) that, as a result of Kucinich's actions, "The mainstream corporate media, which has so far been largely ignoring the issue of impeachment, will have to go to extra lengths of censorship to block out the popular movement now, with a bill on the floor of the House, and with impeachment resolutions passing in the Vermont state legislature. It will be interesting to see how the nation's new gatekeepers handle the story now that it is breaking out into the open so forcefully." Those in and near Trenton, New Jersey this weekend, should be aware of the demonstration where "a Human Mural" will spell out "IMPEACH" at the State House in Trenton on 125 W. State Street, Saturday April 28th -- more information can be found here (AfterDowningStreet). That is not the only event across the country. Progressive Democrats of America's Marcy Winograd spoke with Lila Garrett on Connect The Dots With Lila Garrett on KPFK Monday. Winograd and others will be taking part in the California Democratic Party State Convention which will be held in the
San Diego Convention Center this weekend, 111 West Harbor Drive, Convention Center, San Diego. PDA will be mobilizing around many issues including impeachment -- "Impeachment Is On Our Table."
In addition, note this from CODEPINK:
Impeachment Day: April 28It's time to say NO to impunity for lying, spying, and torture. George Bush and Dick Cheney's high crimes and misdemeanors demand accountability. Since Congress doesn't get it, on April 28 Americans are going to spell it out for them: I M P E A C H ! More...
A transcript of Dennis Kucinich's press conference can be found here and, from that, we'll note this from his conference, "This goes beyond partisan terms. This is being done to defend our constitutional system of government. This is being done so that all tose of us who took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States can understand that this impeachment is one valid way in furtherance of the defense of our Constitution. I don't see this as bening distant from anyone, in any capacity in our government. Everyone must reflect on this. Years from now, people will ask, 'Why didn't the United States government respond when they saw this threat to our democracy? Why didn't people inside the government respond?' if this doesn't move forward. And so this really isn't so much, I might add, about the vice president as it is about who we are as a people. What is it that we stand for? What kind of government do the people of the United States expect and deserve? It's not appropriate for the government to lie to people. It is wrong for government officials -- you know, the vice president, in this case -- to take this nation into war based on lies."
In semi-related news, US Secretary of State and Anger Condi Rice has a subpoena with her name on it from the US House Judiciary Committee. CBS News and AP report that she will be asked to testify (presumably under oath) about the lies that Iraq "was seeking uranium from Africa." On a 21-10 vote, the committee agreed to compell Rice's testimony.
From what Americans want to what Iraqis want, CNN reports: "Shiits in Baghdad gathered Wednesday to protest a wall surrounding the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya. The U.S. and Iraqi militaries say the wall is for protection, but radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr issued a statement calling the wall sectarian, racist and oppressive. He vowed to support all Iraqis -- Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and Christians -- and called on them to unite against 'the evil will of the occupier'." Al Jazeera notes, "Moqtada al-Sadr's remarks were the first by the Mahdi Army head since the US military said last week that it was building a wall in Baghdad's Adhamiyah district." Sally Kohn (Common Dreams) shares her thoughts on the issue, "Good fences have never made good policy, just as they've never made good neighbors. Bush's embrace of wall building and secrecy reminds me of totalitarian feudal lords. But feudalism failed too, didn't it? Now that Nouri al-Maliki has poked a hole in Bush's Baghdad wall plans, can we start building some bridges instead?"
In violence today in Iraq . . .
Bombings?
CNN reports: "A truck loaded with chlorine detonated Wednesday at a military checkpoint on the western outskirts of Baghdad, killing one Iraqi and wounded two others". Reuters notes a Balad Ruz bombing that killed 9 and left 16 wounded, a Baghdad roadside bombing ("near a petrol station") that killed 2, and a Baghdad mortar attack on the west Rashid section of Baghdad resulted one death and five wounded. Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Mosul bombing that left one person dead, a bobming near Tikrit that wounded two police officers
Shootings?
Reuters reports Ali al-Bayati ("Iraq's former bodybuilding champion") was shot dead in Mosul, another Mosul shooting claimed two lives and left one person wounded, a police officer shot dead in Tuz Khurmato.
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 18 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes a corpse discovered in Hilla.
Finally, Tom Hayden (The Huffington Post) examines a number of issues (life on the ground in Iraq, scandals of the administration) and we'll zoom in on the commentary regarding the US House and Senate measures, "It is hard to know what to make of these Democratic proposals. To what extent are they designed seriously or only for political cover? The most dangerous one is the open-ended authorization to continue combat operations against 'all extremists', which should be opposed by the anti-war movement and their Democratic allies. The related problem is the resurfacing of the 'humanitarian hawks' who delude themselves into believing the US military can succeed in a more low-visibility role combining counter-insurgency and economic development. The flaw in their thinking is that American soldiers can serve as 'trainers' to an Iraqi state described as sectarian even by the Baker-Hamilton Report.
And today Amy Goodman interviewed Bill Moyers on Democracy Now! whose Bill Moyers Journal debuts this week on PBS stations (starts tonight on some PBS stations) and the first episode focuses on the selling of the illegal war.
mikey likes it
the common ills
iraq
terri johnson
north carolina world cant wait
jarnocan
connect the dots with lila garrett
kpfk
tom hayden
democracy nowamy goodman
flashpointsdennis bernstein
elizabeth de la vega
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)