Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Mukasey & dottering old fool Scheer attacks Nader

Hump day, hump day, the weekend is two days away. It really is getting to be winter.

E-mails, quickly. Am I not going to highlight Scott Horton anymore wondered Troi? Yeah, I plan to in the future. But not right now. He's a friend of Michael Mukasey's so, no surprise, he supports Mukasey's nomination. I'm not being sarcastic. Tony's my buddy, I'd support him. I'm not upset that Horton supports Mukasey. It makes sense. But I'm not interested in reading about it. So after he's either not confirmed or confirmed, I'll be checking in. Again, I don't blame him for supporting his friend. Horton's also not a leftie so it's not like he's betraying his beliefs. I'm cool with it. I think Mukasey is awful and a lousy choice. But Horton can do what he wants and should. I doubt I'll highlight Ken Silverstein again because he caved to the Modern Day Carrie Nations. When he was writing about the anthropologists, I thought, "Oh great! I can highlight this!" Then I read it and he had no opinion on it and my attitude was, "What?" So I probably won't highlight him because, what is that, twice burned? But after the Senate's done with Mukasey (and I'm hoping he's not confirmed), I'll check in on Horton's writings again.

Just to add on a related topic, if you're a journalist, not a legal commentator, or a sports commentator who comes into the journalism field, I do have a different standard. So, for instance, Robert Scheer's remarks in the debate with Ralph Nader are offensive. That's become a big deal in the community today. And it should be. (It shouldn't be pushed off -- as some are doing -- on C.I. with a, "You must comment!") Scheer's supposed to be a journalist and the crap he said to Nader was crap. He's not left, Scheer, he's a Democrat. His comments regarding third parties have so outraged some community members that C.I.'s told Gina and Krista to put it to a vote and, if the community wants it, the site's delinked. But C.I. has no time to read every complaint about that debate. Scheer made an idiot out of himself, my opinion. If you think so, vote in the poll. Don't dump it on C.I. Scheer's supposed to be a journalist so to read or watch those idiot comments was shocking. He's an apologist for the Democratic Party and so is The Nation (which he also accuses of disloyalty). My attitude? Old man, shut your face. The Democratic Party does not equal left. Some on the left are Democrats, some aren't. Anyone can vote for who ever they want to. He made it really clear that was not his belief. In doing so, he offended die hard community members who are Democrats.

I don't attack third parties. I don't attack Nader. I may or may not vote Democratic for president in 2008. If I do, I hope members who don't extend me the same courtesy I'm extending them. If I don't vote Democratic, I hope members who do realize I put a lot of thought into my vote the same as they did.

Scheer came off like a crackpot in that debate. It was conspiracy city. I use the "c" word intentionally because of his attitude. That was really disgusting. If I linked to Truthdig on my blogroll, I would pull them right now as a result of that debate. I don't link to them. And I won't link to their features from now on.

They publish the twice busted pedophile so it's cute to see Scheer try to ride a huffy horse -- or nag. And Elaine's not linking to them either after that debate. I got sent a copy of it today 27 times. That thing is burning through the community and Scheer's gone from journalist to party hack. His own fault because he embarrassed himself.

Yesterday, Tony goes, when he read C.I.'s snapshot, "I agree but C.I.'s hitting kind of hard on Tom Hayden." C.I. was. The reason being if Hayden had been quoted without it being noted that this was a piece for Democrats, the community would have an uproar. If C.I. had ignored it, the community would have found it. So C.I. highlighted Hayden and also drew a clear line between what Hayden was affirming and what the community supports. As a result, Hayden can be highlighted again.

When I was reading the transcript of the debate, early on, I wondered why C.I. didn't highlight it and offer a critique (C.I. hadn't seen it -- I called and C.I. asked me, "What does it say? Martha called to say it's all over the e-mails?" C.I. doesn't have time to surf all over the net). But the more I read, it wouldn't have been possible. With Hayden, C.I. was able to draw a line that allowed everyone -- Dem, Green or other third party or independent -- to feel comfortable. There's no way to draw that line with Scheer because Scheer's coming off like an old man on a drunken spree. He's practically fall over on stage. It's embarrassing to read.

My guess is that Truthdig will be gone after this weekend. And I know the highlighting of the pedophile had already made C.I. leery of the site. I think we're all getting tired of seeing the left prop up a Republican pedophile. Nader they'll toss on the railroad tracks, but a twice busted pedophile who is a Republican is someone they rush to prop up. It's disgusting.

And if Scheer can't see that, it just demonstrates why Truthdig doesn't have many women offered. In fact, I got an e-mail from Marcia asking, "What the f**k? Why is The Toad reviewing Susan Faludi's book? It's bad enough that they" Truthdig "hardly ever have any women but they've got a man reviewing Faludi? And it's obvious he didn't read the book because he's talking about everything but the book." She sent me what I thought was some of the book review but it turns out, that's the whole thing. Toad didn't read the book. It's obvious. He read some press on it. He may have scanned a chapter. But if you read the book, you'd have some points to hit on. He knows nothing about the arguments Faludi makes. That's not, "He's mean to the book!" He seems to give a "thumbs up." But that is noting that nothing in his review indicates he read The Terror Dream.

Another thing to note about Truthdig is not only is it all male basically, it's also all White and the men writing there have to be old enough to at least early retire for the most part. And maybe that explains why it runs a pedophile? Maybe if had women on staff, that wouldn't happen? Then again Katrina vanden Heuvel's a woman and she runs the pedophile. So change that to, maybe if it had feminists (male or female) on staff it wouldn't run a pedophile. But Scheer's a party hack. C.I. asked me to check out Kimberly Wilder's site (On The Wilder Side -- she does it with her husband Ian) because it could go into a snapshot if Wilder addressed it. She's a member of the Green Party so her response would be more valid than someone who's not. (Jess is the only Green doing a site. He's on the road with Ava and C.I. this week and he hadn't seen it.) (C.I.'s also got a mass e-mailing out to Green Party members in the community telling them they can weigh in at The Common Ills or in one of the newsletters. C.I.'s not trying to put a lid on this.)

Today, Democracy Now! had a segment called "Despite Waterboarding Stance, Senate Committee Approves Mukasey's Attorney General Nomination" about the Senate Judiciary committee voting in favor of Mukasey. This is Dianne Feinstein embarrassing herself again in a long, long line of embarrassments:

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN: The President has said publicly that he will not send another nominee to the Hill. What does that mean? It means that for the remaining fourteen months of this president's tenure, we will effectively have an acting attorney general. It means that most likely there will be recess appointments this winter of the ten positions in the department which are filled by acting or interim individuals. I don't believe a leaderless department is in the best interest of the American people or the department itself. And I think that’s something really worthy of consideration. I believe the President would not send another nominee to the Hill. I believe he appointed this man because he believes he is mainstream. I believe there was even discussion about whether he should appoint him or appoint somebody who was even more conservative.
Now, let me bring up the subject of torture. I believe waterboarding is illegal. I believe it’s prohibited under the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. I believe that waterboarding is prohibited for the United States military under the Detainee Treatment act and the United States Criminal Code. And I believe that neither the military nor the CIA should use waterboarding. But I don’t believe that Judge Mukasey should be denied confirmation for failing to provide an absolute answer on this one subject.
Now, as was said earlier, last week Judge Mukasey specifically told Senator Schumer that if Congress passes a law that outlaws waterboarding in all circumstances, the President would have no legal authority, no inherent authority under Article II to ignore it. Now, I know that there are very prestigious civil rights groups in this country that believe that this difference in United States law, in other words, the Detainee Act on one side providing a prohibition against waterboarding for anyone in any branch of the military and no specific coverage of the CIA, there are those that believe it doesn’t really matter; what the CIA does is still covered under these international treaties to which we are a signatory. I believe that’s correct. Nonetheless, it is very easy to remedy, and it is very easy to simply say waterboarding is prohibited in any vehicle that we may have before us. I think there is an argument that can be made to do that, to take this off of the table of any other discussion and to make it very, very clear. So that’s something I think we’re going to have to decide and come to grips with in these months.
But I really believe that this man is going to be an independent breath of fresh air in this department. I really believe, though, that he has a very short time in which to put his imprimatur on the department. And I would hope that he moves rapidly. I hope he will step forward and be a truly non- political, nonpartisan attorney general, that he will make his views very clear, and that once he has the opportunity to do the evaluation he feels he needs on waterboarding, will be willing to come before this body and express his views comprehensively and definitively.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: Thank you. Without -- there will be --
PROTESTER: Shame on you! Shame on you!
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: Officers, will you remove the person?

She's an idiot. I'm sure Robert Scheer would find a way to defend her. She's an idiot. And that the Democratically controlled committee approved Mukasey goes to the points Nader was making. (Like C.I., I will link to a rebuttal from Kimberly Wilder, but I'm not linking to Scheer's crappy piece. His site is dead to me. When we highlight Amy Goodman's columns from now on, we'll do so via Common Dreams, the way Elaine's doing tonight.) DiFi is an idiot. Here's the DiFi translator: "I am for Mukasey because I live in fear. I fear that Bully Boy won't nominate someone else. I fear the Justice Department might fall apart! I fear! I fear! I'm an old woman with a foot in the grave, but I act like a scared baby because I'm useless. Can I steal some more tax payer money and steer it to my husband now? I am a cheap and tacky and I made a mockery out of Harvey Milk's death. I try to act like that didn't happen. But I will step over anyone and anything to fill my greed need. I will rot in hell for all of eternity and that's okay because I don't think Satan should be denied souls. He's like Michael Mukasey and I look forward to the torture Satan will inflict on me for all of eternity."

Ruth's "Schumer the Betrayer" covers the other sell out backstabber Charlie Schumer and Rebecca's also going to touch on something from the DN! story tonight. Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot" (which contains Naomi Klein talking about Mukasey at the end and we all agree it's a possibility for "truest" this week):

Wednesday, November 7, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, new lies about refugees returning hit the media, officials continue to be attacked in Iraq, impeachment and more.

Starting with war resistance. The Berkeley Daily Planet notes He Stood Up: The Mistrial of Lt. Ehren Watada shows at the Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists (1924 Cedar at Bonita) Friday at seven p.m. He Stood Up, The Judge Bailed Out, The Mistrial of Lt. Ehren Watada is a documentary from PepperSpray Productions. The film opens with Ehren Watada explaining why he began researching the Iraq War upon learning he would be deploying, "I remember my former commander told me when I was stationed in Iraq it's your responsibility to know everything you can about what you're going to undertake and if you don't that's a disservice to your soldiers." So began Watada's odyssey which would lead him to become (June 2006) the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. The documentary focuses on the February court-martial that ended in a mistrial when Judge Toilet (aka John Head) saw that the prosecution was losing and called a mistrial just as the defense was about to present their argument. The mistrial was called over defense objection. As National Lawyers Guild president Marjorie Cohn has observed, double- jeopardy had already attached to the case.

Watada's future? Friday when the documentary is shown in Berkeley, the current stay, issued by US District Court Judge Benjamin H. Settle, expires Friday, November 9th. Settle issued the stay to review the double-jeopardy issue and other motions. The documentary takes you back to the February court-martial when Judge Toilet wanted Watada to stand trial for his actions but refused to allow the actions to be explained -- in other words, Toilet refused to allow the defense to make a case -- even before he called a mistrial over defense objection.

In addition, he refused to allow the defense's witnesses to testify including Denis Halliday, Marjorie Cohn, Stacy Bannerman, Antonia Juhasz, Richard Falk, Daniel Ellsberg, Francis Boyle, Ann Wright, IVAW's Geoffrey Millard, war resister Darrell Anderson and others.

Early in the documentary, Ann Wright, retired Col. and State Department, explains, "I think we have a military judge who knows full well that his career is on the line. There's lots of pressure that's been brought by the Bush administration on the military, military justice, military lawyers. You have the Judge Advocate Generals of the four military services who, back in 2001, 2002, were slapped down by the Bush administration for daring to suggest that the Geneva Conventions should apply to the people taken from Afghanistan and other parts of the world. You have the military that was standing up saying habeas corpus ought to apply to the people that we've had imprisoned for five years and it's the Bush administration that's saying, 'No, we won't have it.' So I have no doubts that there's a lot of pressure on this military court. The Bush administration doesn't want a First Lieutenant to be able to argue the legality of the war in Iraq. They don't want that at all."

Which explains why the attempted kangaroo-court-martial in the first place. Watada's research demonstrated that the Iraq War was illegal. That's why he refused to deploy. Originally, he attempted to find an alternative -- the US military indicated they were willing to explore that as well. Instead, it became obvious the military was hoping to stall and that, faced with impending deployment, Watada was just head off to Iraq. In June of 2006, months later, he went public with his refusal and why he had reached the decision. The Watada National Steering Committee is calling for vigils on the first and third Saturdays of every month to show support for Watada.

There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.

Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.

Have you heard the spin? Iraqi families are returning! Turning and returning! To some secret place inside! Why it's like Cherie Karo Schwartz' Circle Spinning -- except those were Jewish Folk Tales. These? Consider them US Government-Iraqi folk tales. CBS and AP, without even serving you some cookies, want to tuck you in with a tale of a vast returning to Iraq -- saying that those who had fled "abroad" are returning "with more than 46,000 people coming home last month, an Iraqi government spokesman said Wednesday." It, they tell you, is due to the 'improving security situation'. No, the nonsense is repeated because two new outlets lack basic sense. Waleed Ibrahim (Reuters) notes, "The International Organization for Migration (IOM), which tracks the movement of displaced Iraqis, said Iraq's Ministry of Displacement and Migration had registered the return of some 3,350 families, or 20,000 people, to Baghdad since January. Most had come from other areas within Iraq. Dana Graber, an Iraqi displacement expert at IOM in Jordan, said she had not seen the figures referred to by Moussawi and could not comment on the apparent discrepancies." Do you get it? IOM -- which actually tracks -- says 20,000 returned since January and the US' puppet government in Iraq declares 46,000 returning in the last month. Realizing that the lie was laughable (even though the press picked it up), the US military has attached a new qualifier to today's spin which is "border crossings." That's how the Iraqis are tracking this! Border crossings! For those who've forgotten, the earlier attempted lie presented returns to Baghdad, returning to their homes. Today's lie is still a lie. Some of those fleeing the country do return -- when the money runs out and there is no employment in the host country. This is well documented by relief agencies. But the new lie is that it's border crossings! So laughable, so insane, so pathetic. But some -- CBS and AP? -- enjoy having their intelligence insulted. Iraq's not counting at the borders -- all the borders are not secure and many borders that are depend upon the US military. But let's all play stupid and repeat the lie? Apparently that's how it's supposed to work. CBS and AP note, in passing, that the same flack for the US-Iraq military demands that the Iraqi Red Crescent "give reasons behind this hugh number" referring to the 2.3 million Iraqis who have left the country due to the violence. Instead of helping Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi smear an international relief agency, the two outlets should try to doing their own jobs. Reuters managed to do its job. 2.3 million is not a large number. The United Nations has been (PDF format warning) using the figure 2.2 million for about a month now. And, the lies pushed earlier in the week (CBS fell for those as well) came out of the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration and Sattar Nawroz spoke then providing laughter for anyone listening. Again, border crossing weren't brought up then, you just had Nawroz insisting only his ministry had the official figures! His official figures were laughable then as well. Especially amusing in the lies is that earlier in the week, November 4th, the puppet government -- via Nawroz -- was insisting approximately 15,500 individuals had returned to Baghdad and surrounding areas from outside of the country. Three days later, Qassim Moussawi (also a flack -- don't let the Brig. Gen. title fool you) announces 46,600 peoples have returned to Baghdad -- 46,000 people! Even those bad at math (CBS News?) should be able to see that's an increase of over 30,000 families in three days -- the borders must have been trampled! As we noted Monday, "You really have had to been sleeping throughout the Iraqi refugee crisis to pen something like the above. The return numbers are questionable just because Iraq is not officially tracking the numbers. It's equally true that report after report (whether mainstream press or relief agency) has noted returning to Iraq is based upon one thing and one thing only -- running out of money." What's really going on is that the refugee crisis is an embarrassment for the White House and the puppet government so they're attempting to Lancet the United Nations and the Red Crescent, attempting to muddy the waters by attacking the figures (which are accurate) and some outlets happily go along.

In fact, reality on the state of Iraq these days comes not from the professional media but from journalism students such as Matthew Chavez (University of New Mexico's The Daily Lobo):

The Associated Press figures show a decline in American and Iraqi fatalities, especially in Baghdad and Anbar province. But these and other figures should be viewed skeptically -- some sources, such as a recent Agence France-Presse tally, show civilian fatalities slightly increased between September and October, and official agencies are known to underestimate casualty statistics. U.S. military reporting rules, for example, designate corpses with wounds in the back of the head sectarian killings; the front, criminal. Further, an October 30 Government Accountability Office study notes that military reporting of civilian fatalities "may underreport incidents of Shia militias fighting each other and attacks against Iraqi security forces in southern Iraq and other areas with few or no coalition forces." Despite the decreased violence, 2007 is scheduled to be the deadliest year on record for U.S. occupation forces.


Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad mortar attack on the headquarters of the Red Crescent that set on fire two Red Cresent vehicles, and a mortar attack on the Green Zone. AP notes that a four-year-old child and an eight year-old child were killed in Baghdad today in a mortar attack that also left their father and two of their brothers injured.

Shootings?

CBS and AP reports a home invasion in Kut in which an Iraqi soldier was shot dead, a drive-by in Baghdad where a school teacher Hanaa Lafta Muhssim was shot dead. Hanna Lafta Muhssim is the third female educator to be shot this week in Baghdad. Eman Hussein, a principal, was shot dead in Baghdad and Eman Hussein (also a prinipal) was shot in Baghdad but survived. AP notes, "Hanaa Lafta Muhssim, 35 was walking to school at 8am when gunmen showered her with bullets". Could some explain how the press continues to run with the myth of 'improved security' when in one week three female educators (three so far) have been shot in Baghdad with two of them being shot dead?

How safe it is? And why is the consistent targeting of officials not addressed? Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports "a sniper killed the son of Mizher Al-Sheikhli (a member of the political buerau of the Islamic party in Doura neighborhood)" and that this morning "a roadside bomb targeted the commander in chief of Basra police and the commander of Basra operation center's convoy on the road that leads to Zubair and near the Technology institution (10 km west Basra) injuring 4 of their guards (one of them was seriously injured)." Reuters notes the commander was Maj. Gen. Abdul-Jalil Khalaf and that this was the second attempted assassination on him "in four days".

Corpses?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 6 corpses discovered in Baghdad, 17 in a mass grave were discovered in Diyala and a headless corpse was found Tuesday night in Babil. On the 17 corpses, CBS and AP report that the Iraqi military belives "the bodies were from passengers kidnapped at fake checkpoints on a nearby road leading to Baqouba. There were no identification cards on the bodies".


Turning to politics, Iraqi politics. Raed Jarrar (Raed in the Middle) notes, "The Iraqi executive branch (the cabinet and presidency), dominated by Sunni, Shia, Kurdish, and Secular separatists, have been systematically bypassing the Iraqi legislative branch (the parliament) which is controlled by a majority of Iraqi nationalists from all different religious/sectarian/ethnic backgrounds. This unconstitutional bypassing was supported by the bush administration, helping the adminstration's separatist allies gain more political and military control over other Iraqis who reprsent the majority of the public. The Iraqi parliament is the only elected entity in the Iraqi government, and that's why, unlike the other selected entities, it is demanding to set a timetable to end the US-led occupation. Lastweek witnessed a new unconstitutional trick. The Iraqi executive branch needs the legislative branch's approval of any new ministers nominated for the cabinet. The separatist parties that completely control the cabinet and presidency are in the minority of the Iraqi parliament (they have less than 138 seats). They held a session in the parliament with only 110 separatist MPs (which is less that the quorum), and approved two new ministers to be added to the cabinet!" Jarrar quotes an e-mail from a member of parliament explaining that not only did the proposed vote not get posted on the agenda ("against article 37 of the parliament's bylaw") but the vote was pushed without a quorum being present. 'Freedom' in Iraq, 'democracy' in Iraq.

In the US? Yesterday Dennis Kucinich's motion to impeach president of vice (nod to Wally and Cedric) came to the House floor. As Ruth noted, Free Speech Radio News offered Karen Miller's report on the issue which featured National Lawyers Guild president Marjorie Cohn explaining, "Bush and Cheney, and others down the chain of command, are responsible for waging an illegal war of aggression in Iraq the torture and cruel inhumane degrading treatment of prisoners constitute war crimes under the Geneva Conventions, the illegal surveillance of Americans and the indefinite and unlawful detention of prisoners in Guantanamo and other places around the world constitute a few examples of the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush administration." Kucinich's privileged resolution is online at his Congress website -- Kucinich is in the House of Representatives and is also running for the Democratic presidential nomination -- notes, "In his conduct while Vice President of the United States, Richard B. Cheney, in violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the office of Vice President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has purposely manipulated the intelligence process to deceive the citizens and Congress of the United States by fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify the use of the United States Armed Forces against the nation of Iraq in a manner damaging to our national security interests . . ." That's from Article I and Kucincih goes along to list examples. Article II deals with distortion of intelligence, Article III with the statements regarding Iran. There were three potential responses to the resoultion and the non-leaders in Democratic leadership went with burying it in Judiciary Committee although David Swanson (AfterDowningStreet) reports that US House Rep. Robert Wexler is advocating for "immediate hearings on impeachment". And the response from the press?

As Wally and Cedric pointed out yesterday, David Herszenhorn (New York Times) took to his paper's blog to partake in "ridiculing and distorting reality". The Cleaveland Leader's "Kucinich a Big Winner Today, Democratic Party a Loser Once More" is an editorial that sums up Kucinich's stand and the reaction to it from his own party and wonders: "Where are the Democrats who, in the 2006 elections, were voted to stop the war and have the moxy to actually lead the country out of war? It seems they put their tails between their legs and scurry at any hint of confrontation. Three in four Democrats, and a majority of all Americans, favor impeaching the vice president. Isn't the legislatures job to listen to their constituents? Isn't this the basis of democracy?" The Cleaveland Leader also has video and text of Kucinich introducing the resolution yesterday. Meanwhile, Kucincih's presidential campaign site notes, "In the first real test of grassroots support for the eight Democratic Presidential candidates, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich scored a stunning first place finish nationally and topped every other candidate in 41 of 50 states, according to results released late last night by Democracy for Action (DFA). . . . Yesterday's victory underscores a growing surge of support that has put Kucinich in fourth place nationally in some polls, second in a major California straw poll, and tied for fourth place with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson in New Hampshire, only seven points behind Edwards." Earlier this week, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson's campaign blog explained that his calling out the dog-pile on Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in last week's Democratic forum wasn't out of agreement on the issues with Clinton (he thinks No Child Left Behind should be scrapped, not 'reformed') and notes, "Most importantly, I disagree with Senator Clinton's belief that we cannot end the war now and get our troops out. I do not understand why she, and others who claim to be against the war, continue to vote for additional funding so the war can continue and still don't stand up to Bush on getting our troops out so we can begin reconciliation. I don't belive we are helpless against Bush and the Republicans. I believe Congress was elected to end this war, that they have the power to act, and yet don't. I profoundly disagree with Senator Clinton that it is unreasonable to commit to getting troops out of Iraq by 2013. . . . None of the attacks I've heard lately deal with the issue at the heart of this campaign, and the issue that will win or lose us the White House: ending the war in Iraq. When closely examined, Senator Obama's position is not much different from Senator Clinton's on key points. They may disagree on exactly how many troops to leave behind, and the mission, but they both would leave troops in Iraq for years after taking office. And Senator Edwards talks about removing combat troops but what about the tens of thousands non-combat troops? And who can forget that at the MSNBC Darmouth Debate each and every one of them refused to commit to getting the troops out of Iraq by 2013 -- SIX YEARS FROM NOW." Meanwhile, Democratic presidential nominee contender John Edwards spoke in Iowa City, Iowa on Monday and provided some numbers for his Iraq plan -- he would leave behind an entire brigade. As Perry Bacon Jr. (Washington Post) explains that's between 3,500 and 5,000 US troops. In the text of a speech given Iowa City on Monday, posted at his campaign website, there's no mention of that. He does state, "When I am president, I will immediately withdraw 40-50,000 troops, launch a diplomatic offensive to invest all local, national, and regional parties in the comprehensive political solution that will end the violence, and will completely withdraw all combat troops with 9 to 10 months." There will be rougly 130,000 US troops in Iraq when the escalation ceases. If Bully Boy neither increases nor decreases the number in 2008, that means Edwards would after his first nine months, be keeping 80,000 US troops in Iraq.
[Elaine noted the one-brigade story yesterday. Click here to read her post.

Meanwhile, as Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes, "House and Senate negotiators have approved a $459 billion military spending bill. Democrats rejected an amendment that would have added seventy-billion dollars for the Iraq War without restrictions. Senate Appropriations chair Robert Byrd says Democrats will refuse to provide further blank checks for war funding. But senior Democrats say they still intend to provide up to fifty-billion dollars for the Iraq War as part of the bill." As Tina Richards' Grassroots America, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Military Families Speak Out have noted, "Funding the war is killing the troops."

Today Crystal Yednak (New York Times) reports on students attempting to end the illegal war and adults who attempt to punish them: "A school superintendent's decision to suspend, and perhaps expel, about two dozen students who took part in a protest against the Iraq war at a suburban high school drew criticism Tuesday from the students and their parents, who demanded that their children be allowed to return to classes. Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted, "Last Thursday, students at Morton West High School in the town of Berwyn locked arms and sang protest songs in an approved area on school grounds. One participant said the group had been told they would face no more than a Saturday detention for missing class. But they were each given ten-day suspensions and told they could be expelled. The American Civil Liberties Union says it may take up the case." Back to Yednak on when the students were asked to move and did:

But several students said the protesters, whose numbers had dwindled to about 25, obeyed the administration's request to move from a high-traffic area in the cafeteria to a less-crowded hall near the principal's office. There, they intertwined arms, sang along to an acoustic guitar and talked about how the war was affecting the world, said Matt Heffernan, a junior who took part."We agreed to move to another side of the building," Matt said. "We also made a deal that if we moved there, there would be no disciplinary action taken upon us."Matt said the group had been told that the most severe punishment would be a Saturday detention for cutting class that day.

Today Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) spoke with Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism , about several topics including the Senate Judiciary Committee approving the nomination of Michael Mukasey to become the US Attorney General:


NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I think that was an absolutely shocking display, and I think what's most shocking about it is this idea that this is somehow a question of good government and the torture question can be belittled. I mean, what we just saw was lawmakers knowingly voting in favor of someone who has said that one of the classic modern torture techniques -- I mean, the classic torture techniques of the French in Algeria, for instance, were simulated drowning, electroshock and rape. These are the three main tools of contemporary torture. And this is a man who has said to the world that one of those key techniques, simulated drowning, water torture, is not illegal. So, with that knowledge, he was just endorsed.
And to elevate a man who has said this to the highest legal office in the country, I think, just puts everyone of those lawmakers, but particularly the Democrats who voted for him, into bold new territory. They have just crossed a line, because they can no longer pin this on Bush. They can no longer claim ignorance. Anyone who faces these techniques in the future, they will be complicit in those war crimes, in those crimes against humanity -- everybody who voted for this man.

In the report she did Saturday, Ruth noted this on the FCC, "'The sixth and final [FCC] hearing [on the issue of allowing further media consolidation],' as the PDF format announcement words it, will take place next Friday, November the 9th, in Seattle, Washington. The timing is four p.m. to eleven p.m. and the location is Town Hall Seattle on 1119 Eight Avenue." This week, PBS' NOW with David Brancaccio (Friday night in most markets) feautes a look at "the latest Congressional maneuvers to determine the fate of children's health care program. The State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, is a block grant from the federal government to cover children whose family incomes exceed that which would make them eligible for Medicaid, but are too low to afford private insurance. But the fund is quickly running out of money. President Bush vetoed a bipartisan SCHIP reauthorization bill on October 3, claiming it would attract recipients who could otherwise afford private insurance. Now, the issue has become a political free-for-all . . ." 12-year-old Graeme Frost and his parents will be interviewed on the program, the webiste will offer features on Friday morning such as "state-by-state information about healthcare coverage programs for children." PBS' NOW with David Brancaccio is the program, Friday evening/night on most PBS stations (check local listings).




iraq

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Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Mukasey, National Lawyers Guild, Ralph Nader

Teusday, three days between us and the weekend. :( Ruth steered me to Free Speech Radio News for the latest on Mukasey. Leigh Ann Caldwell really grates on my nerves so I'll ignore her. (She was the reporter.) Schumer's an idiot. Dianne Feinstein made an idiot out of herself as usual. She said something like she didn't believe "Judge Mukasey should be denied confirmation for refusing to provide an absolute answer on this one issue." Idiot.

If the one thing he couldn't say was a crime had been murder, would DiFi have been as quick to push for the nomination so she could rush back to the mansion that she bought WITH THE BLOOD OF U.S. SOLDIERS? Everyone knows DiFi's hubby is a war profiteer, right? Maybe not. The Nation magazine paid for that investigation but refused to publish it. But DiFi's lining her cage with the blood of Americans.

"Shame on you!" someone shouted. Turns out he was one of DiFi's constituents. He was pulled out by police. What is that? What is free speech when yelling "Shame on you!" requires the police be called in? What a titty baby DiFi (and her peers) must be if "Shame on you!" is suddenly a threat. They should all rot in hell. But having profitted off the illegal war, off the deaths of others, DiFi will rot in hell. She'll rot in hell with that stupid grin on her face.

She won't go to purgatory, she'll go straight to hell and she'll rot there forever. As she should.

Her after life will be painful and I'll take comfort in that.

While DiFi was rubbing her thighs over the prospect of spending eternity entwined with Satan, Dick Durbin pointed out that it wasn't just water-boarding that Mukasey refused to answer about the legality of. He refused to say whether stress positions, mock executions, threatening with dogs and other things were torture. He said that would depend upon the actual circumstances and dismissed the acts of torture as hypotheticals.

Mukasey can probably ask DiFi about it in 20 years or so when she croaks and makes her speedy dash to hell. I'm sure she'll find out about torture from here to eternity. Her screams of agony will be music to Satan's ears. Fortunately, the rest of us will be up in heaven and won't have to hear her shouting or see her bleeding and dismembered over and over, day after day, for all eternity.

It's the after life you made DiFi, enjoy it because God will punish you for refusing to call out torture and for making money off the illegal war.

Okay, there's not room in C.I.'s snapshots for a full press release so this is noted but not in full. I've changed one thing. I'm sure the e-mail addresses and phone numbers are business phone numbers but I'm just not comfortable putting them up here. I haven't gotten threatening e-mails, I don't think most guys do. But I have seen some of the stuff Ava and C.I. get just for their TV reviews. (Ty, Jim and Dona have started "Extreme Crazy of the Week" and run it in the gina & krista round-robin -- it's the most threatening e-mail Ava and C.I. get each week -- over a TV review!) If you want to contact them, you can use the link for the press release to find the info. "NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD VOTES FOR IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT BUSH AND VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY:"

Monday, November 5, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Marjorie Cohn, NLG President,
Heidi Boghosian, NLG Executive Director,
James Marc Leas, NLG member who drafted the resolution,
November 5, Washington, D.C. The National Lawyers Guild voted unanimously and enthusiastically for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney at its national convention in Washington, DC. The resolution lists more than a dozen high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush and Cheney administration and "calls upon the U.S. House of Representatives to immediately initiate impeachment proceedings, to investigate the charges, and if the investigation supports the charges, to vote to impeach George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney as provided in the Constitution of the United States of America."
The resolution provides for an NLG Impeachment Committee open to all members that will help organize and coordinate events at the local, state, and national level to build public participation in the campaign to initiate impeachment investigation, impeachment, and removal of Bush and Cheney from office without further delay.
The resolution calls on all other state and national bar associations, state and local government bodies, community organizations, labor unions, and all other citizen associations to adopt similar resolutions and to use all their resources to build the campaign demanding that Congress initiate impeachment investigation, impeach, and remove Bush and Cheney from office.The full text of the resolution can be found at http://nlg.org/convention/2007%20Resolu ... lution.pdf
National Lawyers Guild President Marjorie Cohn said, "The war of aggression, the secret prisons, the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the use of evidence obtained by torture, and the surveillance of citizens without warrants, all initiated and carried out under the tenure of Bush and Cheney, are illegal under the U.S. Constitution and international law."
Founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association, which did not admit people of color, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.

This is from Ralph Nader's "Who Determines the Price of Oil?" and remember that oil reached a new high price per barrell today, it passed $97:

Question of the day: who and what is determining the price of oil and your gasoline and home heating bills? Don't ask Uncle Sam, because George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are running a regime marinated in oil that does not issue reports which explain the real determinants of petroleum pricing beyond the conventional supply-demand curves.
First, let us create a historical framework to provide some background. In the good 'ole oil days, before the producer-countries' cartel in the Third World gained pricing power, there were seven giant oil companies called the 'seven sisters' led by Standard Oil (now Exxon) and Shell. As chronicled in Robert Engler's classic book, The Brotherhood of Oil, they were able to affect pricing through extra-market means. Economists called them a tight oligopoly.
OPEC later took their place at the table in the mid to late Seventies and set the price of crude oil at highly publicized meetings of the various member countries representatives from the Middle East, South America and Africa. Adjusting, 'seven sisters' concentrated their pricing and supply power downstream at the refining, pipeline and marketing levels.
Pricing power was never total but it was always complex, occurring in the interstices of an industry few outsiders understood, and fewer regulators could affect. Besides, natural gas was de-regulated between 1978 and 1993, after which its prices really took off.
Today, a third party has moved to the table-the New York Mercantile Exchange, a similar operates in London and a new one in Dubai. There, boisterous traders buy and sell futures contracts on the delivery of oil. But as Ben Mezrich, the author of the new book Rigged said recently, the dollar amounts of these futures contracts are far far larger than the actual oil deliveries they represent as they turn over and over at the Mercantile Exchange.

Again, the price of oil is soaring. So that's a nice bit of background (it was news to me). Remember too that Ralph Nader's going to announce whether he'll run for president in 2008 or not by the end of next year. If he does decide to run, I hope everyone will give him a hearing (I mean regular readers, I know he won't get a hearing nation-wide) and see if he's speaking to them. I'll be listening. No one owns my vote. I'm prepared to consider anyone. My top issue will be ending the illegal war. It won't be my only issue but it will play a HUGE part in who I decide to vote for.

Two more things. Betty's "I married O.J." is really funny so be sure to read it. And Ma's "Dill Peas Chilled in the Kitchen" needs to be read as well. (Especially if you think she's called for a ban on canned goods. She hasn't.) Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, November 6, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces more multiple deaths, Turkey appears set to move military into northern Iraq (if anyone's paying attention), and more.

Staring with war resistance. Michael Massing offers an excerpt (at Salon) from an anthology entitled What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Faces of American Politics. Massing notes that the mainstream press has a very difficult time conveying the realities of Iraq including the vast number of Iraqis being killed and wounded by US service members. He notes books by former US service members tell more than the press about:

The prevalence of drug use among U.S. troops.
The ubiquity of pornography.
The frequency of stealing from Iraqis.
The widespread contempt in which Iraqis are held.
The routine mistreatment of Iraqi citizens during house raids.
The killing of innocent Iraqis at checkpoints.
The high civilian death toll in Iraq.

Among these recommended readings in the excerpt is Joshua Key's The Deserter's Tale:
". . . Key observes that each military company in Iraq is responsible for dealing with the bodies of the civilians it has killed, and it fell to him to build a shack to hold the bodies of Iraqis slain by his unit until someone came to claim them." In addition, Key explains how they were discouraged from expressions of sympathy with the families picking up their dead and how he was warned and threatened for being seen as too sympethic. Key now lives in Canada with wife Brandi and their four children. His book has been optioned for filming.

Another war resister who went to Canada is James Burmeister and in June he broke the news on the kill teams. The kill teams of US service members purposely leave US property lying around to then have justification for shooting Iraqis. This isn't something a few enlisted thought up, it is a policy and plan coming from the top. Since war resiters get so little attention from All Things Media Big and Small to begin with, it's not surprising that only Canadian media covered those revelations. In this country Josh White and Joshua Partlow broke the story for the Washington Post on September 24, 2007. AP notes: "An Army sniper team leader charged with murdering three men will be tried today in a court-martial that is likely to highlight a classified Pentagon program in which snipers placed fake weapons as 'bait' to attract and kill enemy fighters." Paul von Zielbauer (New York Times) reports on Michael A. Hensley -- the team leader:

The baiting program was introduced to select members of the First Battalion, including Sergeant Hensley, in late January by the Asymmetrical Warfare Group, a Defense Department agency that develops secret methods of githing insurgents in Iraq, said Capt. Mattew Didier, the platoon commander at the time of the killings, in a sworn statement that has not been made public but was obtained by The New York Times.
"If we happened to see the individual take the items we would engage, to destroy the enemy," Captain Didier said in the statement, dated June 23.
Lawyers for Sergeant Hensley and the other snipers accused in the case have suggested the baiting program is relevant to their defense because it demonstrates the extent to which Army and Pentagon commanders approved unconventional methods of killing not only insurgents but also unarmed men of military age who were believed to be enemy fighters.

Again, Burmeister was discussing the program in June -- and yes, it is a program, it is not a few soldiers deciding to have 'kicks'. They were ordered to participate. That is among the reasons Burmeister decided enough was enough and he was checking himself out.

There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.



Yesterday in DC, Bully Boy met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the continued tensions between Turkey and northern Iraq. Erdogan and Bully Boy met with the press with Edrogan stating (through a translator), "The focus of our discussions today was mostly on terrorism, international terrorism, and also the PKK and the activities of the PKK terrorist organization in orthern Iraq. As strategic partners, we are fighting jointly against international terrorism in the world. As part of our joint efforts to combat terrorism, we spoke about what we can do against the separatist terrorist organization which has deployed itself in northern Iraq. As you know, on the 17th of October, the Turkish parliament overwhelmingly, almost every single member of the Turkish parliament, gave an authority to our government -- the authority, the mandate, in other words, to do a military cross-border incursion, if necessary. This is a mandate for a cross-border operation that solely aims [at] the PKK. It cannot and it does not cover the civilians." The PKK is defined by the US, Turkey and the European Union as a 'terrorist' organization. In terms of the claims about civilians, any attacks -- small scale or big scale -- would increase Iraq's refugee crisis. Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted "that President Bush has effectively given his tacit approval for limited Turkish bombings of Kurdish rebel positions there." At the brief press conference, four questions were permitted. Erdogan and Bully Boy stood before the press which elected to ask two questions about Turkey and two questions about Pakistan. For the record, Erdogan is not the prime minister of Pakistan. Bully Boy refused to "answer hypothetical questions" regarding Turkey's possible actions but noted that "the PKK is an enemy of Turkey, a free Iraq, and the United States of America. And it's in our joint interest to work effectively to deal with the problem." BBC notes, "Kurdish protesters demonstrated outside the White House on Monday, voicing their opposition to any violent action by Turkey." James Gerstenzang (Los Angeles Times) observes that "there was no indication that Erdogan received a US committment to take specific steps that Turkey is seeking to counter Kurdish militants based in northern Iraq." Today, AP reports Turkish President Abdullah Gul is declaring, "Turkey has made its preparations and had decided what to do on this issue before the prime minister left." Decided what? He doesn't say. Reported in the foreign media was the fact that Turkey had a battle plan drawn up. Reuters notes that the prime minister of Turkey, Tayyip Erdogan, "has said that a military operation is still planned against Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq". The Financial Times of London sees Turkey on the verge of beginning operations in northern Iraq. AKI reports that Turkey will try to seek support for an operation in northern Iraq when Erdogan visits Italy tomorrow: "Erdogan is expected to stress Turkey's right to defend itself against increasing PKK attacks and seek support for a possible cross border operations into the militant bases in nothern Europe." The topic of Turkey came up once in today's US State Department press briefing by Sean McCormack:

Q: The Turkish Prime Minister said that the Turkish army is going to go ahead with operations in northern Iraq. I wondered if you had any sort of indication of timing, size of force or what exactly he's talking --

McCormack: I hadn't seen his comments. Let me -- let me check for you. I want to -- it's an important, sensitive topic so I want to take a look at exactly what he said.


And that was that. (At the White House press briefing, Turkey came up once and the question had nothing to do with Iraq.)

Repeating, any military operation by Turkey in northern Iraq can be expected to increase the refugee crises. Kurds, Christians and many others would flee (becoming part of the external displaced or the internal). Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes the crisis and that "new figures show the number of displaced Iraqis has quadrupled under the so-called U.S. troop surge that began earlier this year. According to the Iraqi Red screscent, two-point three million people have been forced to flee their homes. Eight in ten were residents of Baghdad."

Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Hawija bombing that wounded three people.

Shootings?

Reuters notes "six off-duty" police officers were shot dead in Mosul and then there bodies were burned and two people were shot dead in Tikrit.

Corpses?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 4 corpses discovered in Iraq and a corpse discovered in Salahuddin. Reuters notes 33 corpses ("decomposed") discovered "in the Lake Thar Thar region," 2 outside Latifiya and 3 in Dhuluiya (police officers)..

Today, the US military announced: "A U.S. Soldier assigned to Multi National Force-West was killed Nov. 5 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province." And they announced: "Four U.S. Soldiers were killed as result of an explosion near their vehicle while conducting combat operations in the Kirkuk province Monday." And they announced: "A U.S. Sailor was killed as a result of injuries sustained from an explosion while conducting operations in Salah ad Din Province Monday."

We're not done with the reported deaths. This morning, Meanwhile, AP noted that there were 17 reported deaths yesterday in Iraq "including a local councilman gunned down in a neighbourhood next his own in western Baghdad." This continues the trend of assaults on officials in Iraq. Over the weekend, Lt. Gen. Mohan Hafidh and Maj. Gen. Jaleel Khalf (Basra police) survived an attack on Saturday (in Basra) as did Dr. Jabbar Yasir Al Maiyahi (Wasit University president) although he and three bodyguards were wounded; Sunday Qutaiba Badr Al Deen, of the Ministry of Finance, was shot dead Sunday in Baghdad as was Eman Hussein (a female school principal) while a second female principal was wounded and, on Saturday, a police officer's wife was kidnapped in Kut. While yesterday, a municipal manager was shot dead in Baghdad. The trend towards attacks on officials has been largely ignored (Alissa J. Rubin did cover it at the New York Times) though the AP does focus on government worker Mohammed Abdul-Wahab who found a note from a militia telling him to leave his home and he and his family quickly became part of the 2.3 million internally displaced Iraqis as they left their Baghdad home (as 60% of the internally displaced have). Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports today on an attack "of the offices of the PUK in Sadyah town northeast Baquba" on Monday that left two security guards wounded and today, in Hawija, the mayor ("of Al Manzila village") was shot dead while his son was wounded while in Basra there was an attempt to assassinate Abo Al Khaseeb ("head of the local council"). Meanwhile Reuters notes Arif Yousif was shot dead in Mosul -- he had been "a member of the governing council of Mosul." The trend of targeting officials continues.


Turning to US politics, Tom Hayden (writing at Common Dreams) offers an evaluation of the Democratic presidential candidates. He dubs Joe Biden "the worst Democratic candidate because of his demand that partition be imposed on Iraq." Biden supports partitioning (but doesn't care for the term and insists that's not what he's proposed though it's the same thing he was proposing in 2006) but has implied (September 26th Democratic presidential candidate forum billed as a 'debate' in New Hampshire) that if the US Congress doesn't get behind it (and they shouldn't), he would, if elected president, pull troops out of Iraq. Biden: Everyone says there's no political -- there's no military solution, only a political solution. We offered a political solution today" the partition plan "and it got 75 votes. . . . if in fact there is no political solution by the time I am president, then I would bring them out, because all they are is fodder. But if you go along with the Biden plan that got 75 votes today, and you have a stable Iraq,. . . So it would depend on the circumstances when I became president." Though Biden himself has, at times, referred to his plan (conceived with the Council on Foreign Relations) as a "soft partition," he prefers it be called "federalism." It is a partition and that is clear by the fact that the three divisions are based upon the three largest ethnic factions in Iraq. Biden should clarify if his statements -- as they appear to say -- in the September 26th debate are stating that if the Biden plan isn't passed by the time he would become president that would mean he would pull US troops out of Iraq. If that is the case, troops would come home under a Biden presidency because the plan isn't going to be passed.

The stance Hayden takes for the analysis is that "single-digit support at present" for a Dem candidate means they "should be considered as strong voices against the war . . . but not as likely nominees." People can agree with that set-up or not, but that's how he structures his argument. That approach leaves candidates Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson -- who both say all troops come under a their presidency -- on the margins and puts the focus to John Edwards, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Noting Obama's desire to construct a "new center" stance, Hayden says Obama's position has improved. Hayden references the New York Times and is speaking of the article written by Michael R. Gordon and Jeff Zeleny. As noted in Friday's snapshot and "NYT: 'Barack Obama Will Keep Troops In Iraq'" (The Third Estate Sunday Review), if you use the transcript (which the paper has posted online), Obama's position is not as peace friendly as the reporters portrayed. On Clinton, Hayden judges her "the most indecipherable of the candidates on Iraq" noting her vote against the escalation and support for "a March 2008 withdrawal deadline for combat troops" which it the con-game the Pelosi-controlled Democratic House of Representatives tried to play on Americans -- the proposal leaves troops in Iraq, it just allows for new classifications. Hadyen finds Edwards to have "the strongest anti-war position" -- remember, the way the analysis is constructed, he's eliminated Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson and Mike Gravel doesn't even get a shout out -- but Edwards position is not any different than Clinton's. And, in fact, Edwards has taken a pass on the topic of Iraq in debates.

Hayden sees the potential for Obama and Edwards supporters to be disenchanted with a Clinton nomination which could mean "a two-percent space will open for Ralph Nader and/or Cynthia McKinney to possibly make the difference in the November election." The November election is in 2008. Nader will announce whether or not he's running by the end of this year, McKinney will announce this month. Others in The Green Party may seek the nomination as well. Just to be clear before Green and third party voters e-mail to point out that flaw in the analysis. Where he finds the "two-percent space" is not stated. Since Clinton is leading in the polls, it would be far more likely that someone other than her being selected could create a "space" (of any percentage) for a third party just because she has the larger group of supporters at this point. At the end of his article is the statement "He has not endorsed any candidate for president." As Greens and third party community members will note, it should read: "He has not endorsed any Democratic candidate for president." The two-percent space section comes at the end and is unclear. If the meaning is that voters could swing to the Green Party, they could go Green for any number of reasons and that is their choice -- not a "stolen" vote, a choice made by voters. Polling shows self-identified "liberals" are supporting Hillary Clinton in larger numbers than they are Barack Obama or John Edwards. Hillary leads over all in support (at this point in the primary race, it could change) so she has a much larger number of supporters. Where these disgruntled voters will allegedly come from if she wins the nomination is not stated. Repeating, based on the current polling results, Clinton losing the nomination would create more disgruntled Democrats than Obama or Edwards simply because she has much greater support (at this point).

Reality, if you eliminate Kucinich and Richardson, if voters are left with the three 'front runners' then, on Iraq, there's no difference between the three Democrats. Nor is there a huge difference between the three and Democratic leadership in Congress. Which means if the line up of the 'front runners' does not change, there's no peace candidate and the peace movement's energies are better used applying pressure than in blindly supporting a candidate. That is what happened in 2004, even with many warning against it (Naomi Klein was among those warning against that). It took forever for the peace movement to recover from having put tremendous energies behind electing John Kerry and, for those not paying attention, the thanks for all that effort expanded was for the 'left' to turn around and dump Iraq. Hayden, in fact, called out one such voice after 2004. To be clear, Hayden did not dump Iraq after the 2004 election. In early January he was on Air America Radio as a guest one night and rightly decrying the lack of attention being given to Iraq. So much so that the host focused on questions of the Ohio voter results felt the need to state something to the effect of, "I believe we can do two things at once" -- after he was off air. While the host could, did and does, the bulk of the 'left' does not. Iraq was dropped like a hot potatoe, Ad Nags created the myth of the 'value voters' (never supported in the New York Times own polling -- we went over all of this in real time) and that's where the 'left' chose to focus their energies with "WE'RE RELIGIOUS TOO!" campaigns and "WE HAVE VALUES!" campaigns and other efforts to use this decade's hulahoop ("framing") but only coming off on the defensive. All that nonsense (including coming to the defense of James Dobson -- which, yes, did happen) accomplished was nothing. The peace movement would be better served grasping that no current 'front runner' Democrat is an ally in ending the illegal war and that the illegal war will end because the people demand that it ends. That's regardless of who gets elected in 2008. If an Out of Iraq candidate makes it onto the ballot, supporting them is one thing the peace movement can consider but the energies of the movement should not be wasted supporting candidates who are not calling for US troops out of Iraq. That's the movement itself. Individuals can do whatever they want. But the movement's energies should not be focused on electing a Democrat that won the primary just because he or she won the primary. The peace movement has independents, Greens, third party members, Democrats and, yes, Republicans. It also has non-voters. It should not be used as a 527 PAC.

Staying with US House Rep and Democratic presidential contender Kucinich since he was reduced to one sentence in the analysis and if those against the illegal war can't be counted on to note the candidates trying to end it, who can be counted on to do so? Yesterday Kucinich's campaign planned a teleconference on the impeachment of president of vice Dick Cheney (Wally & Cedric's phrase for Cheney). Call volume scuttled it and it will take place later in the week. Matthew Hay Brown (Baltimore Sun's blog The Swamp) reports that Kucinich's attempt to get a vote on the impeachment of Cheney should happen today but that House Majority Leader and War Hawk Steny Hoyer has already bragged to the press that it's not happening because he and Fancy Nancy "have both said impeachment is not on our agenda." Strange, Congress is supposed to work the people's agenda. Jason Rhyne (Raw Story) reports Kucinich "is also planning a similar resolution to impeach President Bush." Rhyne steers to Mike Soraghan (The Hill) who reports on the discomfort for the centrists and that the response to the privileged resolution is passage, sent to (buried in) committe or tabled (buried). Matthew Hay Brown notes, "Kucinich alleges that Cheney misled Congress and the American public into the war in Iraq, and is trying now to mislead lawmakers and voters into a war with Iran." Along with impeachment being supported by a sizeable portion of Americans (much more than ever supported the impeachment of Bill Clinton in any poll), the National Lawyers Guild voted a resoultion supporting the impeachment of Bully Boy and Cheney "at its national convention in Washington, DC. The resolution lists more than a dozen high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush and Cheney administration and 'calls upon the U.S. House of Representatives to immediately initiate impeachment proceedings, to investigate the charges, and if the investigation supports the charges, to vote to impeach George W. Bush and Richard B. cheney as provided in the constitution of the United Stats of America.'" PDF warning, the resolution is here. NLG president Marjorie Cohn states, "The war of aggression, the secret prisons, the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, the use of evidence obtained by torture, and the surveillance of citizens without warrants, all initiated and carried out under the tenure of Bush and Cheney, are illegal under the U.S. Constitution and international law." The NLG is far from alone. The Center for Constitutional Rights is among the authors of books on impeachment. Author most recently of The End of America: Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot, Naomi Wolf (The Huffington Post) writes of the new laws on the horizon and, "Why should Congress impeach and prosecute this instant, not waiting till February? Why should this impeachment and prosecution be solidly bipartisn? After February it is the leaders on both sides of the aisle -- and the people writing these essays -- who are at most risk" due to changes in the law "of being turned back at the border. People who can't leave in a police state are effectively silenced. And history shows that Republicans are at the exact same risk as Democrats of being violently silenced once liberties are lost. I am reading about IBM's close, profitable involvement with Nazi Germany -- much akin to Prescott Bush's well-documented close and profitable involvement with Nazi Germany through German industrialist Fritz Thyssen. Right up to the top of the solidly Nazi hierarchy of the IBM affiliate, corporate executives were terrified of taking a wrong step in the eyes of the Party; 'There are concentration camps,' they would whisper to their US backers. The teenage son of one solid Nazi ally was taken hostage when he resisted Party orders. So alignment with the regime in a police stat offers no ultimate protection."

Citing Blackwater Tactical Weekly, the mercenary corporation's own weekly, Wolf concludes that "it is reasonable to speculate that Blackwater is focusing on becoming more active domestically in managing domestic domestic protests and rallies." In yesterday's Los Angeles Times, US House Rep and chair of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which has examined Blackwater, Henry Waxman addressed corruption in Iraq, "Two truths have emerged from Iraq in recent months. First, corruption is so pervasive in Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's government that political progress in Iraq may be impossible. Second, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and our embassy in Baghdad are inexplicably neglecting this corrosive threat" and noted that Bully Boy's request "Hearings in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, of which I am chairman, have revealed a devastating cycle of corruption. Rampant theft in Iraqi ministries undermines political reconciliation and diverts billions of dollars from the rebuilding effort. Even worse, the stolen money funds terrorists who attack our troops. Yet no one in our government is holding Iraqi ministers to account." On corruption in construction and contractors, James Glanz (New York Times) reports that "More than a year after the Parsons Corporation, the American contracting giant, promised Congress that it would fix the disastrous plubming and shoody construction in barracks the company built at the Baghdad police academy, the ceilings are still stained with excrement, parts of the structures are crumbling and sections of the buildings are unusable because the toilets are filthy and nonfuctioning." The water's been shut off because the concrete is "collapsing in places" at the project whose cost (to US tax payers) was $72 million. As an unnamed US military officer tells Glanz, "When it's for something good, I don't mind flipping the dime, but this money just went from my pocket to a contractor."





















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Monday, November 05, 2007

Dave Lindorff, Mukasey, Third

Monday, Monday. I'm not blogging heavy tonight because I'm also watching NBC's Chuck. Ava and C.I. said ("TV: Beware the Reaper") it's a must-see and, so far, they weren't wrong.

Nukes flew over the US and Dave Lindorff seems to be the only pursuing the story. This is from his "Those Minot Nukes:"

The Pentagon has been stonewalling on my requests for answers to key questions. For two weeks a public affairs office has been declining to respond to my question about whether the six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles flown by B-52 from Minot AFB to Barksdale AFB were programmed for specific targets, and if so what theose targets were, or even whether the team that investigated the incident checked to see if they were targeted.
The Air Force and Pentagon have also declined to explain whether US nuclear weapons in storage in US bunkers have been provided with the same alarm and motion-detection sensors that the National Nuclear Security Agency helped to install on the nukes being stored on Russian bases.
Clearly if such devices are standard on US nukes, as several Air Force active and retired personnel have assured me is the case, then there is no way that those weapons could have been removed from the Minot bunker by "mistake" as claimed the Air Force's official report on the incident.
The Pentagon has also refused to state whether the missiles were fueled up or not.
Finally, there is another big question that has not even been asked. Supposedly the reason the B-52 was flying to Barksdale with 12 missiles is that they are part of a total of 400 of these things, all of which have been declared obsolete and slated for destruction. But if all those Advanced Cruise Missiles are obsolete, then there is simply no reason for having any of them fitted with nuclear warheads. If they're obsolete, none of them would be on stand-by status. No one at Minot would ever be mounting a nuke on a cruise missile. Note that the Air Force is not claiming that the initial mounting of six warheads onto six missiles was a "mistake." Only that nobody in the subsequent chain of events was alerted to the fact that the warheads had been mounted. But why would warheads have been mounted on obsolete weapons in the first place?
Meanwhile, I have no knowledge as to the accuracy of this, but one Air Force vet tells me that the Advanced Cruise Missiles that were nuclear armed and mounted on a launch pylon on the B-52 in question would have been electronically linked to the plane automatically (which has the capability to program and re-program the targeting of the missiles), and that therefore the pilot of the plane would have instantly seen on his instrument console that he had nukes on board that flight. He also told me that the idea that the pilot would only have checked out the missiles mounted on one wing--by chance the wing that had the six missiles with dummy warheads--instead of both pylons and all 12 missiles as required, which is the claim of the Air Force report, is ludicrous. As he notes, pilots on these aging Stratofortresses see the pre-flight check as a life-or-death matter. Anything wrong on these planes can mean loss of the plane and even loss of the lives of the entire crew and of people on the ground. That would include the secure mounting of the missile cargo.

This is a pretty big story with a lot of important issues and I'm glad Lindorff is digging to get the truth.

Okay, WBAI finished their fund raising and is back on their regular schedule which means Law and Disorder aired today. I haven't heard the full program yet but a CD is in the mail. What I did have was C.I.'s friend leave me a voice mail that was just the segment where Michael Ratner was talking about the need to get active on the issue of Mukasey's nomination. He was talking about Charles Schumer (who is a sell out) and I think the segment was taped before Schumer and Dianne Feinstein went public late last Friday that they would be voting for Mukasey. This is in the snapshot but I wanted to put it up near the top here to be sure everyone saw it. You call (202) 224-3121 and they can connect you with your senator. The committee?

This is me talking, not Michael Ratner, forget the committee. Two members (Democrats) have said they're voting for Mukasey (Feinstein and Schumer). They're sell outs and I don't think anyone can change their minds. So my guess is he will pass through the committee and go to a floor vote. The only Republican that might have said "no" was Arlen Specter. Only one on the committee. We have got to call out senators (mine have been called) and let them know we do not approve of Mukasey or torture.

As Michael Ratner pointed out, Mukasey can't say water boarding is torture. That's where they stimulate drowning and it is torture and the US has considered it torture whenever any other government did it. It's torture. Mukasey is unfit to head the Justice Department if he can't even grasp that water boarding is torture. So call the number -- (202) 224-3121 -- and they can connect you to a senator then call back and grab your other senator's office.

Okay, let's get to The Third Estate Sunday Review:

"Truest statement of the week" -- Amy Goodman won out but it wasn't really a contest because she really was the only choice considering the subject matter.

"Truest statement of the week (Readers' Choice)" -- Beau and Leigh led a successful campaign that resulted in a lot of e-mails so this week we also had a readers' choice.

"A Note to Our Readers" -- Jim breaks down the edition.

"Editorial: 'The surge' has worked?" -- This is really a strong one that you have to read. I'm really proud of this edition, by the way. It's always fun but this was a strong one.

"TV: Beware the Reaper" -- As Jim writes in his note, Rebecca asked (after Jim read Ava & C.I.'s TV feature out loud) if this wasn't the editorial? That's because it's so hard hitting. Everyone knew they were tired. I mean they were really, really tired. They stayed at my place Friday night and flew back (Ava, Jim and C.I.) to California Saturday morning. They were so tired. And we were trying to plan an easy edition and they did Reaper last week but pulled it to go with something harder hitting. So everyone just assumed that Reaper would be this week and they'd just turn in the same thing they'd already written. No! They were sharing what they had with friends and talking all last week about what's missing, what needs to be covered, etc. This is just really amazing. Their earlier review of Reaper was good and funny but this is just so far beyond that.

"NYT: 'Barack Obama Will Keep Troops In Iraq'" -- This is the article the New York Times should have written. All we did with this was take stuff Obama said in the interview and write up an article the way the paper should have. By the way, no links because I'm rushing, at the Washington Post today, Dan Balz I think, there was a thing about how Obama is stuck in a distanct second to Hillary -- no surprise, right? But get this, his support among self-described liberals has dropped and dropped. I love that because I think all the hype by The Nation and all the other useless idiots isn't going over, truth is coming out and people are catching on that Obama is a liar and hype.

"1 Book, 10 Minutes" -- The October 7th discussion posted for this edition (the discussion went up Thursday morning).

"Mailbag" -- This was really cool but we were all so tired. Dona said we had to get in the Nyro thing. She said, jump in and all, but let's try to get that out of the way first. I think Betty and Cedric and Wally have some really strong stuff in this.

"It is not and has never been about 'our freedoms'" -- Read Rebecca tonight. This was supposed to be the editorial but it ended up being Jim and C.I. because we were all tired. I mean people tossed out a word here and there. And finally C.I. said, "Jim, I covered this last Monday." Not griping, just pointing out that if this was just them, then it's been said because C.I. did cover it last Monday. So this ended up not being the editorial. It's a good feature. But read Rebecca tonight.

"Like a two-year-old, Karen Hughes keeps waving bye-bye" -- Short features was the plan for everything. (Ava and C.I. turned out an epic, didn't they?) This was one thing we came across and thought of Isaiah's earlier comics so we ran with it.

"FCC hearing in Seattle Friday" -- There is a hearing in Seattle this Friday. It's supposed to be the last hearing. If you can go to it, you should. Info is in the snapshot, by the way.

"The US State Department wants your feedback" -- And this was something that was stumbled upon and just seemed like it would make a good quick feature.

"TESR Exclusive! Condi filming musical!" -- Ty, C.I., Ava and I think Jim were tossing this around for a short feature last week.

"Nader and McKinney" -- Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney are both considering going for the Green Party nomination for president. McKinney will announce by the end of this month, Nader by the end of next month.

"Highlights" -- Kat, Betty, Rebecca, Elaine, Cedric, Wally and me wrote this and picked the highlights unless we note otherwise.


Here's who worked on the edition:

The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz,
and Wally of The Daily Jot

And Dallas! And Chuck was really a good episode. I've watched it before because Ava and C.I. have recommended it but I don't have time to watch TV much. I'm glad I made the time. This really did answer a lot of questions and also moved so damn quick. Chuck had to go back to Stanford (he was kicked out before the show started) and he found out why his dead friend Bryce framed him for cheating. If you watch the show, you'll know that's a big deal.


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

Monday, November 5, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, big meetup in DC, violence in the US military, and more.


Starting with war resistance. John Hartl (Seattle Times) reviews the new documentary by Catherine Ryan and Gary Weimber, Soldiers of Conscience, which examines war resistance, and Hartl notes, "Two of the conscientious objectors, charismatic Aidan Delgado (who leans toward Buddhism) and straight-arrow Joshua Casteel (a patriotic, evangical Christian), are given honorable discharges after they refuse to kill in Iraq. Delgado, who finds himself incapable of using arms 'designed to roast people,' honors one rule: 'Don't take life.' Interrogating an Abu Ghraib jihadist who challenges his commitment to Jesus' teachings, Casteel becomes defensive and self-doubting and finally opts out of the service."

There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.

Staying with the topic of the US military. Courage to Resist reports that a recent story on "search and avoid" missions (which the New York Times described last year -- without identifying it as such) has received attention for one active duty soldier: "The Army has begun a very official 'unofficial investigation of out-spoken Iraq veteran Eli Wright, an active duty soldier at Fort Drum, New York. Apparently the story below prompted right-wing bloggers to press the military to take action against Eli -- for either the actions decribed, or simply talking about them. The military might take action to keep 'search and avoid' missions from again becoming an 'open secret' -- as during the Vietnam War."

Turning to the topic of AWOL, Robert Przbylski (noted here and here) is missing. The Army captain was stationed in Germany, due to deploy to Iraq early next year and has disappeared last month. John Vandiver (Stars and Stripes) reported last week that the military is moving towards reclassifying him: "Today, Przbylski is the only officer in U.S. Army Europe to be listed absent without leave, a position he's been in since Oct. 10. And in a matter of days he faces the prospect of being classified as a deserter, which takes effect after 30 consecutive days of unauthorized absence. As authorities investigate the case, the circumstances surrounding Przbylski's disappearance remain shrouded in mystery." Przybylski's father refused comment to Vandiver. What is know is that Robert Przybylski remains misisng.

Also known is that Ashleigh Higgins was discharged from the US military in July 2006. Over a year ago. She had been in the IRR -- Individual Ready Reserve. Rachel Cohen (The Daily Review) reports that Higgins, who gave birth less than four months ago, has been informed that she must report for duty at Fort Jackson November 11th where she will receive training before being shipped off to Iraq "for up to 400 days" and that not only does she have a newborn, she has no one to take care of it since her husband Daniel is in the Oakland Police Department's police academy and her mother just had surgery and can't pick up any baby -- not even her granddaughter Gabriela. Higgins has found that the military has no desire to work with her thus far. She's been told to fill out a deferment form and report to Fort Jackson at which point something may be decided. Women have been the military for some time and that they want to pull a new mother away from an infant -- a new mother who was discharged over 15 months ago -- goes to just how hard up the military currently is. The guidelines, not suprisingly, for deferments note things such as the potential for a four to six month delay if you are getting married but say nothing about pregnancy. Apparently the US military hasn't noted that women have been serving for some time. Cohen reports that when Higgins informed her superiors that she was pregnant, she was 'rewarded' with being ordered to do push-ups and to run.

Is that really surprising considering the US military's attitude towards women? Nicole Sotelo (WeNews) observes of the realities for some US women married to service members, "It's the principle of the Golden Rule in action. The United States is giving and therefore getting violence in return. The battlefields of Iraq become the battlefields in our homes and neighborhoods in the shape of domestic violence." Sotelo notes that statistics ("military families have a domestic violence rate three to five times higher than the general U.S. population") and that "The U.S. war in Iraq has produced numerous reports of U.S. male soldiers assaulting both Iraqi women and fellow U.S. female soldiers. These soldiers are not assailants by nature, but have been traumatized by the violence of war and now act out that violence against the innocent in Iraq and in the United States upon their return." On the treatment of female service members, Matthew D. LaPlanet (Salt Lake Tribune) covers the topic beginning with Amanda Blume haveing to face soldiers screaming at her ("Why won't you date any of us, b**ch?") beofre kicking her barracks door down and then had to fight off an assault by the men and, GET THIS, "Army commanders charged her with assault." Blume recounts a too familiar story of a command that just didn't give a damn and quotes Blume explaining of how she got charged, "They told me they knew I had hit one of those guys and that was the only thing they could prove." Faced with extending her time in the military to fight the charges, "Blume accepted the charge". Now if you're thinking, "Well her door was kicked down and why exactly did the US military think a group of drunken men were showing up at her door, kicking it down and entering her room in the night to begin with, turns out that the 'investigation' never even bothered to send anyone out to examine the door. The military says three members were punished -- Blume is one of the three -- and Blume reveals that one of the other two punished was a man "who was a senior enlisted soldier who had come to her defense after she ran out of the building." It gets better. The punishment she received for hitting the man (who assaulted her)? He was already supposed to be "under orders to stay away" from her because he had been stalking her.

Now stop a minute and put it all together. At night, a group of men show up at her door, kick it in, and one of them wants to whine that she hit him. Even if the US military is unable to prove the men were drunk, they know damn well that if the poor baby struck is "under orders to stay away" from her, he had no business being in her room. Blume notes her regrets over not fighting it (she just wanted out of the military) and notes that the week before she was finally released "her sergeant, a man she considered a friend . . . chased her into a field and choked her into unconsciousness after she refused his order to stay at at his home after a party there." Now this time, pay attention Congress, it didn't go the way it had before even though the man knew to swear charges first. It was off base so a civilian assault: "Lawton, Okla., city prosecutors prepared a criminal complaint against Blume, but ripped up the charges after speaking to her -- and seeing the bruises on her neck" and the man, Larnelle Lewis, and he refused to contest the three counts of misdemanor assault. Even so, he got a slap on the wrist at the sentencing and Blume didn't know that because she was even advised that the sentencing was taking place. Though convicted, Lewis faced no penalties from the US military -- no reduction in rank, nothing. Sara Rich is quoted in the article explaining, "It's just so typical. The women get blamed. My daughter went to prison instead of getting the help she needed. She was ridiculed and put in jail and reduced in rank. She was treated like the criminal."

Rich's daughter is of course Suzanne Swift. Swift was assaulted and harassed repeatedly as she served in Iraq. There was no punishment for that. When she reported it, it was ignored. When she reported it again it was thought that Swift needed to take a class to learn how not to 'tempt' men because surely every woman who is assaulted -- in the US military's mind -- is just begging for it. In the US military's mind, who doesn't love that kind of attention? Swift got sick of it, as any woman would, and when she was back in the US on leave, since the US military REFUSED to address the command rape, the harassment, the assaults, Swift self-checked out proving that she had far more sanity than the US military which thought the way to address the situation was to flat-out ignore it. The response was to handcuff her and haul her off from her mother's house, to refuse to give her treatment for PTSD, to do a whitewash investigation (that, even so, found some of Swift's charges to be true) and to try to bully her into recanting the truth. Because she wouldn't lie, the US military court-martialed her, she spent thirty days in prison and she's in the service -- the same service where she was regularly assaulted -- until 2009. You might think the US Congress would practice some of that "oversight" that US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi can't shut up about; however, the reality is that just as the US military failed Suzanne Swift so did the US Congress. Sara Rich stands without any government body to help her daughter. To this day. Swift needs to be immediately and honorably discharged, with full benefits. That the US Congress will not take up this issue goes to just how worthless the Pelosi-led House and the Reid-led Senate are. Remember right after the 2006 elections, in November, when Pelosi blogged (at The Huffington Post): "I told my colleagues yesterday that the biggest ethical issue facing our country for the past three and a half years is the war in Iraq"? That would be the same illegal war that nearly one year later (six days shy of one year) still drags on though Pelosi did endorse a few toothless, symbolic measures. Is there a reason Pelosi refuses to champion Swift's release? Or is it just another sign of how useless Pelosi's 'leadership' has been? Or as Nora Ephron (The Huffington Post) notes of the Dems in Congres: "What a bunch of losers, hiding behind the fact that it takes 60 votes to shut down debate and 67 votes to override a presidential veto. So what? So pass a law and make Bush veto it. Make him veto something every single day. Drive the guy crazy. What have you got to lose? And meanwhile what have you done? You've voted for the surge, you've voted to authorize a war against Iran, and you're about to vote in favor an attorney general-designate who refuses to call waterboarding torture." And as former CIA analyst Ray McGovern (at Consortium News) observes of an earlier illegal war (Vietnam), "Why did we leave? Only because, despite continued lying by the administration then in power, Congress belatedly woke up to the fact that the war was unwinnable, admitted that for the previous ten years Congress had been wrong, and finally cut off funding for the war. Even then, Congress was not leading; rather it was reacting to a storm of protest across the land." McGovern is calling for action and calling for US troops to withdraw. He also castigates US Senator Joseph Biden as "co-opted." And it's no different across the Atlantic. Madeleine Bunting (Guardian of London) calls out the inaction, "Government ministers now talk of Iraq as a tragedy, as if it was a natural disaster and they had no hand in its making. There's a public revolusion at the violent sectarian struggles best summed up as 'a plague on all their houses', as even the horror gives way to exhaustion. The irony is that in this great age of communications and saturation media, this is perhaps the most important war to become nigh on impossible to report. Unless the reporter is embedded with the occupation forces, it takes either terrifying courage or extraordinary ingenuity to bring images to our screens of those caught up in the awful maelstrom of this imploded country. Without the human stories that bring people and their suffering so vividly to life, there is little chance of public opinon re-engaging with the biggest political calamity of our time. The Iraq war represents the end of the media as a major actor in war."

Turning to the conflict between Turkey and northern Iraq. Today, in DC, the Bully Boy met with the Turkish prime minister. Prior to that there were other meet ups. Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) reported Saturday on the dissatisfaction Ali Babacan, Foreign Minister for Turkey, was expressing "at a news conference with Secretary of State Conoleezza Rice in Ankara" where he declared, "We need to work on actually making things happen. This is where the words end and action needs to start." Matthew Scholfield (McClatchy Newspapers) also noted the Friday meet-up and how Rice was tossing around terms like "terrorist organization" (PKK) and "common enemy" (ibid) but the White House "has assured Turkey at least four times that it would take action against the PKK, as it's known in its Kurdish initials, but hasn't done so, in part because there are no U.S. troops in Iraq available for such a mission." Yesterday, Helene Cooper and Richard A. Oppel Jr. (New York Times) noted that puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki was painting "a rosy picture" of what was being done as he told Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, and Rice that Iraq was getting tough -- why, they just shut down two "offices of a political party affiliated with the PKK" but, as Cooper and Oppel explained, "a senior party official, Dr. Abu Bakr Majid, said later the party members had been told to go home but had not been ordered out of the city, and that officers told them their computers and other equipment would not be removed." Also on Sunday, Selcuk Gokoluk (Reuters) reported that the 8 Turkish soldiers captured last month by the PKK were released and the US military was hailing it as an accomplished for the puppet government of Iraq. Today Bobby Caina Calvan (McClatchy Newspapers) reported reality -- "U.S. officials served as the go-between in the release of eight Turkish soldiers who'd been caputer" and the doubts Turkey continued to have regarding the weight of the words the White House and the puppet government in Iraq were tossing around. As Jim Muir (BBC) postulates today, "The timing of the release was probably no coincidence. It gave US President George W Bush something new and positive to point to when he met an angry Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan" today in DC. Ross Colvin (Reuters) revealed Sunday that Saturday the Iraqi government announced that instead of holding a vote next month on whether to make the oil rich Kirkuk part of "Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdistan region," the vote has been postponed for two years and Colvin notes that experts state "the dispute over the city's status could trigger and explosion of violence and possibly draw in neighbouring Turkey unless it is carefully handled." Carol Glatz (Catholic News Service) reports, "Pope Benedict XVI called for a peaceful solution to mouthing tensions between Turkey and northern Iraq" yesterday and that he noted a large number of those fleeing the region were Christians. Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) examines the realities of life in Baghdad for the Catholic Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly who notes that a number of Iraqi Christians live in north Iraq, that it and Baghdad were the traditional areas in which they lived, that an estimated one million have fled the country and quotes him stating, "I am not happy when people ask, 'How is the situation for Christians?' Those who kill don't kill only Christians. They kill Muslims as well -- the situation is the same for both."

Prior to the meetup between Erdogan and Bully Boy today in DC, White House flack Dana Perino outlined the planned topics for the meet up and then took questions -- very few on Turkey as one reporter noted ("The situation in Pakistan has kind of overshadowed the situation with Turkey") -- replying to the issue of the PKK that she thought "the Turks understand that we are fully committed to helping them eradicate the PKK. We understand the threat; we agree the PKK are terrorists and they should be stopped." At the US State Department press briefing today, Turkey was not raised. Rather surprising since this was the first DC briefing since Rice was dealing with the issue on Friday and Saturday.) CBS and AP report of the meetup between Erdogan and Bully Boy that intel was offered (sharing of intel was actually offered last week) and Bully Boy pleged that "top military figures from the United States and Turkey would be in more regular contact in an effort to track the movement of guerrilla fighters" (again, they have heard that before -- at least as far as April 2004). At stake, as Deborah Haynes (Times of London) notes, was whether or not "the prospect of a new and perilous front of fighting in Iraq" -- between Turkey and northern Iraq -- could be put off. Vicent Boland (Financial Times of London) observes, "Mr Erdogan is under intense pressure to order a large-scale military incursion into northern Iraq to pursue the PKK, which has killed nearly 50 Turkish soldiers and civilians in the past month." The meet up took place as new polls show continued lack of confidence in the Bully Boy. Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) explained that "new poll figures continue to show declining support for President Bush and the Iraqi invasion. According to the Washington Post and ABC News, less than one-quarter of the population thinks the nation is on the right track. Six out of ten Americans think the Iraq war has not been worth fighting."

Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 person dead from a Baghdad roadside bombing this morning, 2 people dead from a Baghdad roadside bombing this evening (seven more wounded) and a Diyala province roadside bombing wounded one police officer.

Shootings?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports the Baghdad assassination of "a manager department in Baghdad municipality at Al-Ghadeer neighborhood".

Corpses?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 3 corpses discovered in Baghdad, 3 corpses discovered in Mosul and two corpses "between Tikrit and Dour". Reuters notes that the three in Mosul climbed 4 to make seven corpses total (one was decapitated).

On violence, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) observes, "2007 is on pace to be the deadliest year on record for U.S. troops since the invasion more than four years ago. According to the Associated Press, at least eight-hundred-forty-seven American service members have died in Iraq this year. With less than two months left it's the second-highest annual U.S. toll of the Iraq occupation." The easiest way to track the dead in 2007 is to remember that the 3,000 mark was reached December 31, 2006.

Two items quickly. WBAI's Law and Disorder -(hosted by Dalia Hashad, Heidi Boghosian, Michael Ratner and Michael Smith), Ratner noted the people need to be contacting their senators to oppose the confirmation of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General. Ratner gave out the switchboard number (202) 224-3121 -- call that and ask for senators serving on the committe and/or your own senators. More information at the program's website and here at the Center for Constitutional Rights and here at the National Lawyers Guild. And in the report Ruth noted, "'The sixth and final hearing,' as the PDF format announcement words it, will take place next Friday, November the 9th, in Seattle, Washington. The timing is four p.m. to eleven p.m. and the location is Town Hall Seattle on 1119 Eight Avenue."



























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