Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Cindy Sheehan, etc.

Ava, C.I. and Jim have been doing guest posts for everyone today except Wally and Cedric (see their "THIS JUST IN! BUT HE'S NOT GAY! " and "Another non-gay Republican"). They offered to guest post for me but I said I could swing a blog post if I kept it short tonight. Elaine and I went to a party and we just got back to her place. She said she needed at least 20 for a relaxing bath. So I'm grabbing that time to do a quick post. Hope everyone had a great Halloween.

Okay, Cindy Sheehan's running for the US House from the eighth district and this is from her "Organized Money Vs. Organized People:"

We are a nation that was created by "the rich, white, male property owners" and specifically for "the rich, white, male property owners." Women and blacks, (who were counted as 3/5ths a person for representation purposes), were excluded from this self-proclaimed elitist establishment.
All throughout our history, however, our experience is imbued with the examples of courageous people who refused to be excluded and sacrificed everything for the human right to be heard.
From anti-slavery activism to the anti-Vietnam War movement, we have been blessed with individuals and groups who were willing to put their bodies on the line to support their rhetoric and oftentimes were murdered by the established order, which only seemed to always inflame the movements, not suppress them. The government always resisted the good that these movements tried to do and ultimately did do with dedicated sacrifices.
The establishment has forever tried to protect its status quo and personal wealth to the detriment of "we the people" who are the ones who suffer and sacrifice so the pigs of war can oink their way to the bank. With a fascist corporate media that supports the fascist corporate government, the voices of "we the people" are being silenced at an astonishing and frightening clip. In one very glaring and horribly tragic example, many people voted for George Bush in 2000, because they thought he was a "regular guy" and someone whom they would like to have a beer with. What a very unfunny irony as we have been constantly learning. The Bush family have been pro-fascist and anti-democratic all the way back to Grand-pappy Prescott. The media portrayed George as an "everyman" who "cutely" mangled our language with a "gee-whiz" smile that quickly became an "f' y'all" smirk. This man who was foisted on us by the Corporatocracy has turned out to be worst disaster of our collective history.
Now, the Corporatocracy has anointed the presumptive nominees for the 2008 Presidential race--and it all comes down to a matter of money. Who has how much? Hillary has an obscene and immoral amount of mammon in her campaign chest and a staff of 500 who are running a very careful and well-modulated (except for her cackle) race that is designed to support the "by and for" privileged entitlement syndrome while claiming to be "groundbreaking."
One of the hurdles that people believe that I have to overcome to beat Nancy Pelosi in California's race is the fact that she has a bottomless well of cash and I do not. I challenge these people to look beyond the "green-colored" glasses of greed and help me dream of an innovative campaign that is fought with the truth and waged with old-fashioned shoe leather and hard work.
I would love my fellow Americans to dream, with me, of a country where basic human rights are valued over even a Constitution that has a compromised beginning but has been thoroughly trampled and desecrated by BushCo with the consent and help of Congress, Inc, led by Speaker Pelosi.

We need people who represent the voters and Pelosi doesn't even understand us. Cindy Sheehan's stood with us and she's led us. She doesn't need to become a leader because she already is one.

Since I'm talking elections, let me talk about a phone call last night. Main reason I wanted to blog tonight. C.I. called and goes, "I just read your post." C.I. was pissed. And I'm thinking, "Gee what did I say?" But C.I. wasn't pissed at me. I'd brought up those 13 e-mails two Saturdays in a row now when we were running and never finished. One time because we picked up the pace to avoid some people and another time because we had just started running and I'm not able to run and talk like C.I. I got to get a little bit under my belt before I can start talking. So I kept bringing it up but never finished. C.I. wanted me to finish.

So I explained the 13 e-mails. C.I. asked to make sure they weren't from community members (they weren't) and then goes no one has a right to tell me who to write about or who not to. If they don't like something I said about Bill Richardson or Dennis Kucinich or whomever, "they can take their happy little asses somewhere else." C.I. was pissed.

C.I. told me never to respond to any e-mails like that. If someone didn't respect me enough to allow me to have my say about a candidate, screw 'em. I should probably be real clear that I was being told by the bulk not to say anything nice about Richardson and to write about Kucinich and three were saying not to write about Kucinich and calling him names.

And that is true. I was mad that they didn't bother to write back after I wasted time writing them and saying, "Okay, you're supporting ___ and you want me to cover them. How would you suggest I do that?" C.I. told me I never should have asked that question let alone written the whiners. "What you focus on is your business, who you endorse or don't endorse, who you cover or don't cover, is your business. If they don't like it the answer is for them to start their own sites, not try to hijack yours."

And that really is true. I'm commenting here and anyone can do that. Just create a site at Blogger/Blogspot. Be the media. There's no need to whine privately. Get out there and champion your candidate.

Or your cause.

Or whatever you like or don't like.

This is a blog. It's my blog and I'll note what I want. (I'll note Dave Zirin tomorrow night. Planned to note him tonight but I think Elaine's almost done with her bath.)

What offended C.I. was that these people who do not read my site (the trashing they were doing of me seemed to miss several posts since I had not endorsed Richardson and had noted Dodd's criticism the week before -- the last time I'd even mentioned Bill Richardson) wanted to show up and scream about what I should cover.

Check out Amy Goodman's "For Whom the Bell's Palsy Tolls" which is a really important column.

Okay, Ava and C.I. did "Amy Goodman (Ava and C.I. filling in for Elaine)" and "Ava and C.I. filling in for Kat" and Jim did "Jim filling in for Rebecca with a light post" and "FCC's Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein on Democracy Now! Wednesday" so check those out too.

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

Wednesday, October 31, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the price of oil hits a new record high, Tim Russert gets his ya-yas at the public's expense, Blackwater continues to raise eyebrows and more.

Starting with war resisters. Over the weekend, Paul St. Armand's Parallels won the Canadian Reflections Award at the enRoute Student Film Festival in Toronto. Among those serving as judges for the festival were film producer Denise Robert, actor-writer-director Patrick Huard, director-animator Torill Kove, director Atom Egoyan, producer Robert Lantos, actor-producer Donald Sutherland and film critic (Toronto Star) Geoff Pevere. Halifax' The Daily News explains, "Parallels is a double portrait of U.S. amry deserters from the Vietnam and Iraq wars. The film won Best Documentary at the 2007 BC Student Film Festival, was a Golden Sheaf nominee at the Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival, and is a current nominee at Kevin Spacey's Triggerstreet Online Film Festival." The documentary short explores the lives of James D. Jones and Joshua Key. Originally, Paul St. Armand thought he was making a documentary that would look at Vietnam war resisters in Canada three decades later. James D. Jones was one of the war resisters from that era he spoke with. Then the War Resisters Support Campaign hooked him up with Iraq War resister Joshua Key and St. Armand noted similarities in the two resisters stories. Key's story is also among those told in Michaelle Mason's documentary Breaking Ranks (where he states, "As we got down the Euphrates River and we took a shartp right turn, all we seen was heads and bodies. And American troops in the middle of them saying 'we lost it'.") and in the book he wrote with Lawrence Hill, The Deserter's Tale. From Key's book, page 176:

By our sins of willful neglect, we were about to have a child's blood on our hands. I knew it was wrong then, and now I know exactly what the Geneva Conventions say about the protection of women and children in war.
"Women shall be the object of special respect and shall be protected in particular against rape, forced prostitution, and any other form of indecent assault."
I knew how things were going to begin for that thirteen-year-old Iraqi girl, that day, but there was no telling how they would end. We had every means at our disposal to protect that girl. I say this because, in Iraq, sergeants and officers in my company generally behaved however they wanted in the presence of Iraqi civilians, employees, police officers, and border officials. In my opinion, it wouldn't have mattered in the slightest to my superiors what Iraqis throught of our actions. If one of our officers or sergeants had chosen to intervene and protect the girl, no Iraqi working at the border would have been in a position to stop him. We were the ones with the ultimate authority at the border. Indeed, one of our roles at al-Qa'im was to teach the Iraqi border officials and police officers how to inspect a car, and to tell them what we would allow Iraqis to take out of their country and what we prohibited as export items. We were the occupiers and we controlled the border, but when it came to the fate of the thirteen-year-old girl who was about to be raped, we did nothing.

Meanwhile Steve Woodhead (The Brock Press) reports on war resister Michael Espinal recent speaking event at Brock University at St. Catharines, Ontario. Espinal explains of one thing explains about his time in Iraq, "We were told to walk right past injured civilians, even children who were lying bleeding on the ground. I've seen soldiers take up to $20,000 U.S. from homes during house raids . . . Soldiers would go around in civilian cars we picked up at border checkpoints." Like many war resisters, Espinal had to go online to find information about war resistance.

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

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


The National Lawyers Guild's convention begins shortly: The Military Law Task Force and the Center on Conscience & War are sponsoring a Continuing Legal Education seminar -- Representing Conscientious Objectors in Habeas Corpus Proceedings -- as part of the National Lawyers Guild National Convention in Washington, D.C. The half-day seminar will be held on Thursday, November 1st, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the convention site, the Holiday Inn on the Hill in D.C. This is a must-attend seminar, with excelent speakers and a wealth of information. The seminar will be moderated by the Military Law Task Force's co-chair Kathleen Gilberd and scheduled speakers are NYC Bar Association's Committee on Military Affairs and Justice's Deborah Karpatkin, the Center on Conscience & War's J.E. McNeil, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee's Peter Goldberger, Louis Font who has represented Camilo Mejia, Dr. Mary Hanna and others, and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's James Feldman. The fee is $60 for attorneys; $25 for non-profit attorneys, students and legal workers; and you can also enquire about scholarships or reduced fees. The convention itself will run from October 31st through November 4th and it's full circle on the 70th anniversary of NLG since they "began in Washington, D.C." where "the founding convention took place in the District at the height of the New Deal in 1937, Activist, progressive lawyers, tired of butting heads with the reactionary white male lawyers then comprising the American Bar Association, formed the nucleus of the Guild."

Turning to the topic of the mercenary company Blackwater, an editorial from the Los Angeles Times notes today: "Congress should also begin investigating growing evidence of an overly cozy relationship between the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and Blackwater. It appears that the bureau hired the contractors, supervised their activities, allowed them to use deadly force, began to investigate the long-simmering allegations of excessive use of force only after the outcry over the September shootings, and then promised some contractors immunity without asking permission from the Justice Department. This behavior is more disturbing given reports that Blackwater has hired former State Department officials at high salaries, raising questions about whether the 'revolving door' presented a conflict of interest for investigators. Certainly Blackwater seems to have unwarranted influence in Washington, as evidenced by the letter it procured from the State Department ordering it not to disclose information to Waxman's committee. Who's in charge here, the U.S. government or Blackwater?" As questions continue to rise, John M. Broder and David Johnston (New York Times) inform that the Defense Department and not the State Department will now be in charge of oversight and quote US House Rep Jan Schakowsky stating, "It feels like they're [the State Department] protecting Blackwater." However, Noah Schatman (Wired) reports that the Department of Defense will not provide oversight because "The US Regional Cooperation Offices -- also called 'Reconstruction Operations Centers' -- are themselves outsourced, through a recently renewed $475 million contract to the British firm Aegis. And Aegis is run by the infamous old-school gun-for-hire, Tim Spicer." Which calls into question the noted by Peter Grier (Christian Science Monitor), made by Geoff Morrell -- Pentagon flack, that "the military, for its part, would now excercise some control over contractor training" -- a bit hard for the Pentagon to do if oversight has already been contracted out. Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) notes the limited-immunity the State Department offered Blackwater over the September 16th slaughter of Iraqi civilians in Baghdad and observes, "New details about the 'protections' given Blackwater contractors allegedly involved in the shootings sparked outrage from congressional Democrats yesterday, along with a flood of letters to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from committee chairmen demanding more information." Tim Harper (Toronto Star) observes of the immunity offered (with no input from anyone outside the State Department), "But legal experts said the state department move makes an already difficult prosecution even more difficult and keeps those who allegedly did the shooting in a legal zone which authorities may not be able to penetrate. Democrats accused the Bush administration of shielding potential killers and the chair of the powerful oversight committee gave U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice until Friday at noon to answer questions about the decision of her investigators." Of course, Rice isn't supposed to be in the US then. She's supposed to be in Turkey for a scheduled conference. Facing reporters in yesterday's State Dept briefing, Sean McCormack repeatedly fell back on a claim that he couldn't speak, "First of all, we have to draw a box around the specific events of September 16th and anything involved with that particular case." Other comments on the news emerging this week regarding the State Department and Blackwater included, "This is an area that I can't venture into."; "Again, I can't speak to the specifics of the September 16th case."; "In general, you have exhausted my legal knowledge concerning this case."; and "I'm just not going to have anything to say about the September 16th case." Even on something as general as the process of the incident reports that are supposed to be required whenever a contractor under the State Department fires a weapon in Iraq, McCormack stonewalled with comments such as "Let me just see if there's a standard procedure that I can talk about" and "I'll talk to the lawyers and see what we can do." Discussing the procedures on incident reports, on who sees them and the process itself does not require speaking to an attorney. Furthermore, in a democracy (open government), the process is not a secret. When Helen Thomas pressed White House flack Dana Perino on the immunity issue yesterday, Perino refused to expand on more than "Helen, as I said, it's a matter that's under review" and refused to state whether the Bully Boy had been briefed on the immunity deal the State Department offered.

As the tensions and fallout from the September 16th slaughter continues in Iraq, the puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki feels pressure to do something (his earlier public statements regarding Blackwater having since been clamped down on) so he has proposed a measure that would overturn Paul Bremer's Order 17 which granted immunity (from the Iraqi government) to contractors operating in Iraq. Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reports the proposed bill "was written by" al-Maliki's legal adviser. Asked about that in the briefing yesterday, Sean McCormack was again evasive stating "Well, it's their law as I understand it -- unless I'm wrong here and that has been known to happen. . . . But as I understand it, they have the ability to changer their laws. Now, let's take a look at exactly what has been proposed and has yet to be debated in their legislature. But once we have a look at it and have a chance to analyze it, perhaps we'll have more to say about it." Left unstated is exactly why the State Department or the US should have anything to say about the allegedly independent nation-state Iraq. Meanwhile Christian Berthelsen and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) report that Iraqi eye witnesses to the slaughter say the FBI agents investigating "appear focused on whether anyone fired first on the American convoy and have been aggressively gathering ballistic evidence" and citing an unnamed "U.S. source" report that the team of investigators left Iraq Sunday.

Staying on the topic of crime, the US military has found a number of anthropologists who will betray their field. Earlier this month, the BBC noted, "The Pentagon is pulling out all the stops in Iraq and Afghanistan" to recruit wayward academics to assist their Human Terrain System; however, "very frew anthropologists in the US are willing to wear a uniform and receive the mandatory weapons training." The article also notes the Network of Concerned Anthropologists an organization created to preven the betryal of the social science and the unethical use of the field to harm or destroy a people. One founding member of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists is David Price. In a well researched and documented article entitled "Pilfered Scholarship Devastates General Petraeus's Counterinsurgency Manual" (CounterPunch), Price walks readers through how even on something as basic as a monogram, those involved are applying no academic standards and he notes that Montgomery McFate appears to believe that merely stumbling across a passage written by another academic means she can claim it as her own -- word for word -- without credit or attribution. That's theft, plagiarism and shoddy scholarship. Monty is as she was -- forever and ever. Price also examines the press-love for Monty and writes, "In a recent exchange with Dr. McFate, Col. John Agoglia and Lt. Col. Edward Villacres on the Diane Rehm Show, I pressed McFate for an explanation of how voluntary ethical informed consent was produced in environments dominated by weapons. In response, McFate assured me that was not a problem because 'indigenous local people out in rural Afghanistan are smart, and they can draw a distinction between a lethal unit of the U.S. military and a non-lethal unit'." The Diane Rehm Show referred to was broadcast October 10th. In that broadcast, though Monty claimed the local population was able to discern, the New York Times' David Rohde was asked how clear the lines were by USA Today's Susan Page (filling in for Rehm) -- "does it seem transparent for them" when they meet with "Tracy":

David Rohde: Um, she was transparent with them. I don't think she gave her full name, I think she does identify herself as an anthropologist. I saw her briefly, but I don't know what she does at all times. She personally, um, actually chose to carry a weapon for security that's not a requirement for members of the team, I've been told. And she wore a military uniform which would make her appear to be a soldier, um, to Afghans that she wasn't actually speaking with.

Susan Page: And so you think Aghans knew that she wasn't a soldier even though she was wearing a military uniform and carrying a weapon? Or do you think that they just assumed that she probably was?

David Rohde: I would think that they assumed that she was.

That's the reality and, strangely, when Rohde was done speaking, Monty had nothing to add even though every false claim she'd offered in the roundtable had just been demolished. Price notes "a recent New York Times op-ed by Chicago anthropologist Richard Shweder indicates a stance of inaction from which the travesties of Human Terrain can be lightly critiqued while anthropologists are urged not to declare themselves as being 'counter-counterinsurgency'." that nonsense ran on A31 of last Saturday's Times and mainly serves to update his November 2006 op-ed embarrassment where he gushed -- alleged anthropologist -- "The West is the best". The non-thinking person's anthropologist -- to anthropology what recipes on the back of a bag of Frito Lays are to fine cooking -- justified the program. While loose with the truth Monty and lost in stimulation Shweder attempt to put forth the lie that anthropologists are not being used for counter-insurgency measures (thereby assisting an occupying power by gathering information on a population -- information that will then be used against said population which is a clear betrayal of the field), Jacob Kipp, Lester Grau, Karl Prinslow and Don Smith, attempting to get the Happy Talk out on the program for the US military, wrote "The Human Terrain System: A CORDS for the 21st Century" for the September/October 2006 edition of Military Review and which not only makes clear that this is a counter-insurgency program but cites the CIvil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) as a model. CORDS was created under LBJ to "pacify" (destroy) the people studied. As Bryan Bender (Boston Globe) notes, CORDS "helped identify Vietnamese suspected as communists and Viet Cong collaborators; some were later assassinated by the United States." [Elaine addressed Price's article last night.] From Monty's crimes against humanity to some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad car bombing claimed 1 life and left 3 injured. Reuters notes a Tuz Khurmato roadside bombing that claimed the leife of 2 people (Iraqi soldier, police officer) and left another wounded.

Shootings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a police officer shot dead in Kirkuk (two more wounded), while two children and a father were wounded in Kirkuk in a drive-by shooting and gunfire wounded a police officer in Babil. Reuters notes yet another attack on an official this time, in Kirkuk, on the chief judge of the court of appeals, Dhahir al-Bayati who was not killed but one guard was and another was left injured while, in Kirkuk, "an intelligence officer along with his wife and son" were injured in a drive-by shooting.

Corpses?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 6 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes 8 corpses discoveredin Mosul. And CBS and AP note that Iraqi Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi announced today that 16 corpses were discovered in Baghdad.

Meanwhile tensions continue to escalate between Turkey and northern Iraq. CNN reports that US planes are "flying over the Turkey-Iraq border to observe military movements" and quotes Pentagon flack Geoff Morrell stating, "We are assisting by supplying them, the Turks, with intelligence, lots of intelligence." Mark Bentley (Bloomberg News) informs that Condi Rice is supposed to "offer Turkey more intelligence on the location of of Kurdish fighters near the border with Iraq in order to avert a large-scale Turkish incursion" when she travels to Turkey for the conference. AP reminds that Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets with the Bully Boy in DC Monday. Suzan Fraser (AP) quotes Erdogan declaring that "it is now unavoidable that Turkey will have to go through a more intensive military process." AFP reports the Turkish military is stating it has killed 15 members of the PKK today and cites "press reports" that "possible sanctions against Iraq include restricting trade through the Habur border gate and uctting off electricity supplies to northern Iraq." While Turkey considers that, CBS and AP report, "Iraq will set up more checkpoints along its northern frontier to keep out supplies for Kurdish rebels". Meanwhile Steve Hargreaves (CNNMoney) reports that while the tensions and violence continues the price of oil per barrel hit a new record today: $94.53 per barrel.

Turning to US politics, Perry Bacon Jr. (Washington Post) notes that Ralph Nader has declared he will make a decision about the 2008 race at the end of this year and quotes Nader stating of the two major parties (Democratic and Republican), "They are converging more and more. They are clearly more similar than they were 30 or 40 years ago." Nader's 2004 run was the subject of a discussion on Democracy Now! today between Amy Goodman and Carl Mayer who has filed a lawsuit against the Democratic Party:

AMY GOODMAN: Why are you suing?

CARL MAYER: To defend democracy. That's the title of the show -- excuse me, is Democracy Now! And this was the most massive anti-democratic campaign to eliminate a third-party candidate from the ballot in -- probably in recent American history. It is -- not content with having all these laws and statutes on the book that make it difficult for third-party and independent candidates to run, the Democratic Party and their allies in over fifty-three law firms, with over ninety lawyers, were engaged in filing litigation in eighteen states. They were to remove Ralph Nader from the ballot. It was an organized, abusive litigation process. The core of the lawsuit is that these lawyers, led by Toby Moffett and Elizabeth Holtzman, and something called the Ballot Project, which was a 527 organization, systematically went around the country and filed lawsuit after lawsuit, twenty-four in all, plus five FEC complaints, to try to completely remove the Nader campaign from the ballot and to, in effect, bankrupt the campaign, which they succeeded in doing. Not content with that, one of the defendants, Reed Smith, which is a large corporate law firm in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, they are now going after Ralph Nader's personal bank account to make him pay some of the cost of this litigation.
And, understand, despite being outspent by the Democratic Party and its affiliated lawyers, the vast majority of these lawsuits were won by the Nader campaign, which was a largely volunteer effort. And these lawsuits were won across the country, despite this organized effort of intimidation and harassment. It's basically abusive process and malicious prosecution. Those are common law torts. And it was very clear from the beginning that the Democratic Party was using the legal system for an improper purpose. In fact, Toby Moffett, who's a former congressman from Connecticut, said directly to The Guardian of London in an interview in December of 2004, this wasn't about the law. "I'd be less than honest if I said" this was not about the law; this was about getting Ralph Nader off the ballot. And that's what this effort was about. And it's a shameful anti-democratic process by a party that claims to be a democratic party. And on top of that, the Democratic Party, or its allies, filed five FEC complaints against the campaign, alleging improper --

AMY GOODMAN: Federal Election Commission.

CARL MAYER: The Federal Election Commission -- alleging improper funding, improper finances, etc. They were all dismissed by the FEC.
Now, let me tell you how bad it got. There was an organized effort of harassment of petitioners who went around trying to collect signatures for the Nader campaign in Ohio, in Oregon and in Pennsylvania. In Ohio, for example, lawyers were hired to call up petitioners and tell them that if they didn't verify the signatures on the petition, they would be guilty of a felony. They were called at home by -- and they were, in many cases, visited by private investigators and told -- this is voter intimidation of the worst order. In the state of Oregon, for example, there was a nominating convention, and you need a thousand signatures at the convention. We have emails from Democratic Party operatives stating, we want our people to go to this convention and then refuse to sign the petition at the convention so Nader will not get enough signatures at the convention to get on the ballot. And they accomplished their goal in Oregon. After the convention, there's an alternative way of getting on the ballot, which is to collect signatures, and the Nader campaign went about doing that, and during the course of that there was further harassment and intimidation of petitioners by law firms, private investigators, calling up and threatening petitioners that they would be called before a court if they did not certify all the petitions.

For the record, Ralph Nader is against the illegal war and calling for an immediate end to it unlike the three Democratic front runners. Last night the and others participated in a forum billed as a 'debate' but more of an embarassment.

Hillary Clinton demonstrated that even when attacked by two men (Barack Obama and John Edwards), a woman is up for the job. Whether she would be the president Americans want or not is another question. Like Obama and Edwards, Clinton refuses to pledge to end the illegal war if elected president (in 2008) by 2013.

Apparently having exhausted the alleged "rock star" charm and having no real ideas to offer voters, Marz Barbabak and Peter Nicholas (Los Angeles Times) report, Barack now claims the really issue is that Clinton is reportedly "divisive" stating, "Part of the reason that Republicans, I think are, obsessed with you, Hillary, is because that's a fight they're very comfortable having." Considering that many Americans look back favorably on the 90s and that Bill Clinton won two presidential elections, Obama's attempted smear was ineffective. By contrast, John Edwards wanted to talk about his beliefs, CNN notes, for instance: "You know, I believe in Santa Claus. I believe in the tooth fairy." And candidates wonder why they aren't taken seriously? As Bill Richardson stated of the tag-team attacks on Clinton (note, neither man was up to the attacks before they could tag-team), "I think that Senators Obama and Edwards should concentrate on the issues and not on attacking Senator Clinton."

But where were the issues? Iraq was rendered nearly as invisible as Mike Gravel who was not allowed to take part in the forum. Moderator Tim Russert attempted to further narrow the field by ridiculing Dennis Kucinich -- possibly because Kucinich actually has a plan to end the illegal war? "Now, did you see a UFO?" Many Americans have seen UFOs. UFOs are not flying saucers. Russert bungled his own big moment by failing to grasp that, as Kucinch pointed out, a UFO is "unidentified." Millions of Americans call in UFOs every year -- and will continue to. Apparently, if Americans saw strange planes flying along the eastern coast, Russert would prefer they not alert authorities? UFOs is what Russert offered. No substantial exchange on issues, just ha-ha UFOs. All Things Media Big and Small continue to ignore the very real issues at stake in the 2008 election. Last night may be the most extreme televised examples as one candidate felt the need to cite the tooth fairy while avoiding the realities most Americans are living with and a moderator thought he could better serve the public by offering up ha-has.














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Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Ann Wright, e-mails

Tuesday. The week goes so fast. Let me start quick with some e-mails.

Will I note stuff? From my regular readers, yeah. Otherwise, probably not. Sorry. I know C.I. does and all. If someone writes in, "Note my ___" (article, event, whatever), C.I. will put it on a list and if there's time and it can be worked in (or forced in sometimes), C.I. will note it.

Why won't I?

I generally write about stuff here (and this is a blog) that I care about. Hopefully stuff I like but sometimes (most of the time?) stuff that pisses me off. There are fifty things at least, each week, that C.I. never gets around to noting. (I know, I've seen the list.) It used to be a big deal but C.I.'s attitude now is after a week, if it didn't get noted, it wasn't meant to be. My attitude is what do you do for me?

If I'm writing about something what it did for me is it made me think it was worth writing about (because it was good or bad). I don't ever e-mail anyone and say, "Note me!" Maybe getting ripped off with my first post here (appearing a couple of days later, more or less, at a non-blog site with a professional writer trying to pretend she just thought of the same comparison I made -- after C.I. had heavily promoted my first post -- and that comparison -- at The Common Ills which was then linked to and noted by the big site, but, understand, it was just pure happen-stance that I got ripped off). But if I did write to someone, I would assume I'd say something like, "I like your site. How about we trade links?" Or something similar.

Instead I not only don't get "How about we trade links?", I don't even get a "I like your site." That's just rude.

C.I. doesn't care and I'm sure that has to do with the wisdom of age and also having a very full and public life offline. But I'll be honest, when someone sends me something they've written or some event they're staging or whatever and they don't even offer a "I like your site," my question is always, "Why the hell are you bothering me?"

Am I your secretary? Is this your bulletin board? Strange, coz I thought this was my blog.

So I don't generally note stuff that comes in for that reason.

I think it's rude and I wouldn't treat anyone that way. Again, I've never e-mailed anyone asking them to note my stuff. Now when Lotta Links got all chicken sh*t during a war against The Common Ills and wouldn't link to it anymore (I'm so glad C.I. pulled Lotta Links in July, I've been pissed at them since I started this site -- one of the reasons I started this site was their chicken sh*t behavior of playing "We love The Common Ills! But we've been asked not to link to it by ____. But we really, really support the work you do." What a crock. "We support you . . . in private. Now link to us!"), I did make a point to e-mail them about the Nancy Youssef article -- you know the one Phyllis Bennis didn't know about last month? The June 2006 article about the US military keeping track of Iraqi deaths. I e-mailed them to try to get it noted. They didn't think it was a story. They e-mailed back asking why I thought the story was important. I e-mailed back to explain why. Although it should have been obvious to them why it was important. The fact that, over a year later, Bennis & CounterSpin didn't even know about it demonstrates that the article was important.

But I've never e-mailed anyone saying, "I wrote ____. Please link to it." Never would. If I was ever that needy, I hope I would have the good manners to say something about their site and not just come off as rude and greedy. I mean Lotta Links, they're just rude.

They e-mailed C.I. a list of links during this period. Every week they'd e-mail a list of links to them. They wouldn't link to The Common Ills (supporting -- in private -- remember) but they were happy to ask for link after link every damn week. And C.I. didn't care and that's cool. I wouldn't have linked to them. C.I.'s nicer than I am. What finally ended it for Lotta Links was the July 4th piece which a number of people had e-mailed on. C.I.'s attitude was different on that because it wasn't a case of "They didn't link to me." It was a case of -- on a nothing day online -- a piece that everyone in the community had worked on that was e-mailed by community member after member couldn't get a damn link. When that happened, C.I. was offended because all the rest of us had worked so hard. (C.I. had worked hard too but that never matters to C.I.)

I think about those stories and about stuff like Rebecca getting all these 'feminists' e-mailing her telling her in the 1st months of her site, "Love your writing, let's trade links!" Rebecca was all for it. Rebecca actually is a feminist. And she was happy to provide links to other women. But then she started noticing that they hadn't linked to her. She felt strange asking about it but finally -- after a month -- did. They said they were going to link to her. (Never did.) Or they wanted to but she was so controversial (but we love ya!). That really hurt Rebecca a lot. The reality is that a lot of the 'controversial' stuff she was covering -- calling out sexism online -- came from those same 'feminists' asking her to. They chose to hide behind her. Rebecca's strong so that wouldn't be a problem. But asking her to call out who ever and then, after she did, telling her she was controversial for calling out so and so and therefore you couldn't link to her was just bullsh*t.

The first day Elaine guest posted for Rebecca in the summer of 2005, she delinked from everyone of those sites. Rebecca hadn't even told C.I. what had happened. Elaine's the one who did. She was on the phone with C.I. for the first post and after that, she said, "Talk me through delinks." C.I. said, "Okay, why?" Elaine explained and C.I. pulled those same 'feminists' off the permalinks of The Common Ills. That, for the record, is why Elaine will never respond to any female blogger (or male) asking for a link trade. She knows what Rebecca went through and how that upset her.

Then there's all the instances with Third which include one member having a brother who was a big blogger -- one of the early big bloggers -- and certain of his friends were supposed to toss links for old time's sake and didn't. They could, if they wanted, write an expose on the online set because they know all the dirty laundry about the early days and the sell-outs of so many.

So with these and other examples, I've just never felt that I "owed" any stranger a damn thing. Cedric's the same way. In fact, he started his site (hence "mix") as just a way to do highlights (like we do in the piece at Third now) for the community. What it comes down to, as Beth has noted in her columns in the gina & krista round-robin, is that outsiders who have done nothing to help build the community want to reap the benefits from it. C.I. built the community.

We all stand in awe of that. I thought it was a cool community before I started blogging, back when I was a member who read and all. But, and Rebecca writes about this a lot, you don't really appreciate what C.I. does until you start your own site. When you do that, you start getting how much work is involved. And The Common Ills isn't a "blog." It's not C.I. going, "What topic will I write about today?" The focus is determined by the community. It's a diverse community and C.I. has to take that and factor it into everything that goes up there. People also expect that on things at Third. (Though Ava and C.I. have the space to let it rip, if there's something that a member's offended by at Third that's a joint feature by all of us, C.I. will hear about it and have to make it right.)

And that's another reason I'm not high on helping other people sell their wares. If they write me, they can try to ride into the community that way. I don't have C.I.'s reach (obviously, none of us do). But there was a time when someone (back in 2006) e-mailed me to get attention to their new thing and I made a point to talk with C.I. about it and all. There was never even a thank you for that (not to me or C.I.).

It was just kind of expected that I would do it. That's just rude. So my attitude really is one of, "I didn't ask you to write, you're not doing anything for me, so why the hell should I do a damn thing for you?" And like I told Beth, when she was writing about this back in August, it also feels a little like I'm polluting the community if I'm turning my site over to being a message board.

(I do trade links, by the way. I've done it before and will again.)

My family or regular readers want something noted, I'll note it. But these people who just show up to ask me for a favor can just kiss my Irish-American ass. So I hope that answers the e-mail and I'm not sending this back in reply, by the way. You write a question, you should be checking here to see if I answer it. (As I put up here two weeks ago, I'm done with personal replies to anyone that's not a regular reader or a community member.)

Now this is from Ann Wright's "Banned in Canada:"

On the invitation of six members of the Canadian Parliament to speak October 25 on Canada's Parliament Hill as a member of a panel called "Peacebuilders Without Borders: Challenging the Post-0/11 Canada-US Security Agenda," I arrived at the Ottawa airport in the morning of October 25 to be met by three members of Parliament and to hold a press conference at the airport.
Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Codepink Women for Peace and Global Exchange, was also invited by the Parliamentarians, but had been arrested the previous day for holding up two fingers in the form of a peace sign during the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing in which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified on Iraq, Iran and Israel-Palestinian issues. The October 24 committee hearing began with Codepink peace activist Desiree Fairooz holding up her red paint stained hands to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and shouting "The blood of millions of Iraqis is on your hands!" As Capitol Hill police took her out of the hearing of the House of Representatives' Committee on Foreign Affairs, Fairooz yelled over her shoulder "War criminal! Take her to the Hague!" Shortly thereafter two Codepinkers were arrested for just being in the room and brutally hauled out of the hearing by Capitol police. An hour later Medea and a male Codepinker were arrested for no reason. Four of the five had to stay overnight in the District of Columbia jail. Medea was one of those and missed the trip to Ottawa.
I presented to immigration officials our letter of invitation from the Parliamentarians that explained that Medea and I had been denied entry to Canada at the Niagara Falls border crossing on October 3, 2007 because we had been convicted in the United States of peaceful, non-violent protests against the war on Iraq, including sitting on the sidewalk in front of the White House with 400 others, speaking out against torture during Congressional hearings, and other misdemeanors. The Canadian government knew of these offenses as they now have access to the FBI’s National Crime Information database on which we are listed. The database that was created to identify members of violent gangs and terrorist organizations, foreign fugitives, patrol violators and sex offenders-not for peace activists peacefully protesting illegal actions of their government.
The immigration officer directed me to secondary screening where my request to call the members of Parliament waiting outside the customs doors was denied. My suggestion that the letter of invitation from the Parliamentarians might be valuable in accessing the need for me to be in Canada was dismissed with the comment that members of Parliament do not have a role in determining who enters Canada. I suggested that the laws enacted by the Parliament were the basis of that determination. I added that the reason I had been invited to Ottawa by Parliamentarian was to be an example of how current laws may exclude those whom Canadians may wish to allow to enter. I also mentioned that Parliament might decide to change the laws that immigration officials implement. I also suggested that since the Parliament provides the budget to the Immigration Services, they might notify the Parliamentarians awaiting my arrival that I had been detained. The officers declined to do so citing my privacy, which I immediately waived. The Parliamentarians were never notified by Immigration that I had arrived and was being detained. Only when my cell phone was returned to me by Immigration officers four hours later was I able to make contact with the Parliamentarians.
After nearly four hours of interrogation, I was told by the senior immigration officer that I was banned from Canada for one year for failure to provide appropriate documents that would overcome the exclusion order I had been given in early October because of conviction of misdemeanors (all payable by fines) in the United States. The officer said that to apply for a Temporary Resident Permit (TRP) for entry for a specific event on a specific date, I must provide to a Canadian Embassy or consulate the arresting officer’s report, court transcripts and court documents for each of the convictions and an official document describing the termination of sentences, a police certificate issued within the last three months by the FBI, police certificates from places I have lived in the past ten years (that includes Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia), a letter acknowledging my convictions from three respected members of the community (the respected members that I will ask to write a letter all been convicted of similar "offenses") and a completed 18 page "criminal rehabilitation" packet.

I put up an excerpt from Ann Wright yesterday and Beau e-mailed that it was really depressing. He wasn't going, "Don't put that up again!" He was just talking about how he was getting really depressed about all the crap Bully Boy gets away with over and over and how Congress won't do anything. I know what he means. I get down about it sometimes too. When I get really down about it, I think about people like Ann Wright or Ava and C.I. and how they're out there and putting their all into ending the illegal war. They don't have time for doubts and stuff, they just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep going (or like Pru always says, "Bash on through regardless." :D). Congress is never going to do anything that we the people don't force them into doing. If somebody like Cindy Sheehan gets elected, it would be different. (I support Cindy Sheehan 100%.) But most of them aren't really interested in voters like Nancy Pelosi, she doesn't give a damn about the voters. Or the citizens. Most of them get to DC and don't have to sell their souls because they never had a soul to sell. That can be depressing but it also be a huge liberating movement because you stop waiting for 'them' to fix our country and start getting how it's our country and it's our job to fix it.

That's a lot of work and we probably can't do it all in our lifetime. We can end the illegal war. We can make it harder for the next one to start. But there's a lot that needs to be done. So roll up your sleeves. And don't forget that the Patriot Act and stuff like that didn't happen overnight. It's going to take a lot of work to get the country back -- even half-way back.

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

Tuesday, October 30, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, Naomi Wolf points to the "blinking lights" of democracy, the US military announces multiple deaths, Blackwater continues to simmer and the focus goes to Condi, Giuliana Sgrena responds to the sliming she received and more.

Starting with war resisters. Steve Gardner (Kitsap Sun) writes of the just published "The Most Influential People of 2007" in Seattle Magazine. and notes "Iraq war resister U.S. Army Lt. Ehren Watada appears, as does Olympic Sculpture Park shepherd Chris Rogers (who the magazine selected as the 2007 Person of the Year). Early learning advocate and the state's former first ladey Mona Locke is on the list, and so is former U.S. Attorney John McKay and Google's Narayanan 'Shiva' Shivakumar." Watada is the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. After months of working with the military (in good faith), Watada went public in June of 2006 after it became obvious that the military was stringing him along with false assurance. Watada (rightly) judges the Iraq War as illegal. In February of this year he was court-martialed in a kangaroo hearing presided over by Judge Toilet (aka John Head) who called a mistrial over defense objection and after the prosecution had presented their case which means double-jeopardy should prevent Watada from standing before a court-martial again. (Watada's service contract has already expired. He has been kept in the US military for months due to the issue of a potential court-martial.) US District Judge Benjamin Settle Friday is reviewing that and other issues and has extended the stay on Watada's case through November 9th.


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

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


The National Lawyers Guild's convention begins shortly: The Military Law Task Force and the Center on Conscience & War are sponsoring a Continuing Legal Education seminar -- Representing Conscientious Objectors in Habeas Corpus Proceedings -- as part of the National Lawyers Guild National Convention in Washington, D.C. The half-day seminar will be held on Thursday, November 1st, from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at the convention site, the Holiday Inn on the Hill in D.C. This is a must-attend seminar, with excelent speakers and a wealth of information. The seminar will be moderated by the Military Law Task Force's co-chair Kathleen Gilberd and scheduled speakers are NYC Bar Association's Committee on Military Affairs and Justice's Deborah Karpatkin, the Center on Conscience & War's J.E. McNeil, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee's Peter Goldberger, Louis Font who has represented Camilo Mejia, Dr. Mary Hanna and others, and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objector's James Feldman. The fee is $60 for attorneys; $25 for non-profit attorneys, students and legal workers; and you can also enquire about scholarships or reduced fees. The convention itself will run from October 31st through November 4th and it's full circle on the 70th anniversary of NLG since they "began in Washington, D.C." where "the founding convention took place in the District at the height of the New Deal in 1937, Activist, progressive lawyers, tired of butting heads with the reactionary white male lawyers then comprising the American Bar Association, formed the nucleus of the Guild."

On the above NLG event, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes today, "Meanwhile the National Lawyers Guild is criticizing the Bush administration for refusing to allow a prominent Cuban attorney into the country. The guild had invited Guillermo Ferriol Molina to speak at the group's 70th anniversary convention this week but he was apparently denied a visa. Molina is the Vice-President of the Labor Law Society of the Cuban bar association and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers."

How does that happen? "There's this horrible phase in a closing democracy when leaders and citizens still think it's a democracy but the people who have already started to close it are just kind of drumming their fingers waiting for everyone to realize that that's not the dance anymore," explains Naomi Wolf on the October 26th episode of The Bat Segundo Show. Her new book is The End of America: Letters of Warning to a Young Patriot where she argues that democracy needs to be reclaimed in the United States before it is lost. Covering a large historical terrain, she outlines the "echoes" present in the US today that have been signals of a shift to a closed society in our historical past. Addressing the inaction of Congress on so many topics (including impeachment and the refusal to listen to the citizens on the issue of the illegal war), Wolf declared, "Congress is like an abused woman that keeps thinking, 'Surely my boyfriend will be nice now. What do you mean you're not turning over your e-mails? We're Congress! You can't just not listen to us.' So you're right to notice the American people are getting it before Congress is. The people in power right now are no longer engaged in the democratic social contract and so it does take us recognizing that we can't heal democracy only through conventional means of democracy. So, Nancy Pelosi, is saying we're not going to impeach. Guess what? The founders didn't intend for Nancy Pelosi to decide what the people are going to do when there's this kind of criminal assault on the Constitution and checks and balances. It's up to us. And that's why we started the American Freedom Campaign which is a democracy movement which now has five million members in really, like two months, across the political spectrum and we're driving a grassroots movement to push, to confront Pelosi, and to confront the leaders in Congress and to let them know this is an emergency, it's not business as usual and they can't unilaterally take issues like that off the table. We're now, impeachment is not yet an AFC position, this is just me speaking for myself, but from the historical blue print, seeing what is now in place -- it is not safe to leave those people in power anymore and I'm saying this to Republicans and Democrats alike. It is not safe to entrust the next election with them. So I don't think we just need to move forward with impeaching, this is me speaking personally -- not for the AFC, but from the historical blueprint, we need to do it now and also we need to prosecute for treason because it's not enough to get people like this out of power you have to get them behind bars." Will impeachment be an issue for AFC? Wolf explained that since it's a grassroots movement, the goals will be determined by the members. The fifty minute broadcast touches on a large number of issues and we'll note Wolf on another topic:

Blackwater just got another billion dollar contract after massacring 17 innocent civilians in Iraq, okay? They operate fully outside the law in Iraq. Order 17, Paul Bremer, guaranteed that they were unaccountable. So it's not just the Iraqis who have to worry about Blackwater. The second step in the ten-point blue print [of moving a state from democracy to fascist, Wolf charts this in her book The End of America] is to create a paramilitary force that's not answerable to the people. This is how, in Italy, Mussolini closed democracy using the Black Shirts. And this is how, in Germany, Hitler closed democracy using Brown Shirts. Paramilitary forces excerpt pressure on civilians. So what Americans don't know is that Blackwater is already operating in the United States. Homeland Security already brought them in to patrol the streets of New Orleans after Katrina. And Jeremy Scahill reported that they were firing, our contractors, were firing on civilians. We don't know, most of us, that Blackwater's business model calls for increased deployment here in the United States in the event of say a natural catastrophe or quote 'a public emergency.' And with Defense Authorization Act 2007, it is the president, who's hand in hand with Blackwater, who now has the unilateral power to determine what is a national emergency that calls for a quote 'restoration of public order.' And I just want to tell you that the invoking of a national emergency and the call to restore public order is the is the tenth step in the blue print to close down an open society.

Staying on the topic of the mercenaries of Blackwater USA new developments can be classified under "What Condi forgot to tell Congress about Blackwater." US Secretary of State and Anger Condi Rice most recently offered testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last week on Thursday, October 25th. Rice declared that ("thank God so far" -- putting someone or Someone on notice?) Blackwater was needed and that she just wouldn't know how to run the department she heads without Blackwater (prior to the rise of Blackwater and other mercenaries, embassy security staff were responsible for guarding State Dept employees in foreign countries) and insisted, "But we do recognize that their must be sufficient oversight, sufficient rules and that is why I have accepted the recommendations of the panel on the private security contractors." That would have been a good time to insert an item in today's news; however, she didn't. When speaking of reports that puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki had made a backdoor deal to grant immunity from prosecution to members of his cabinet, Rice did not want to talk about "rumor" or "unsubstantiated" claims "I'd like to state again, Mr. Chairman, because I'd rather state it in my own words than have it be stated for me. It is the policy of this administration -- and I'm quite certain that the president would feel strongly about this: That there shouldn't be corrupt officials anywhere. And that no official -- no matter how high -- should be immune from investigation, prosecution or, indeed, punishment should corruption be found." So no immunity for officials in al-Maliki's cabinet. Rice could have used that moment -- "in my own words" -- to address the issue of immunity that the State Department was granting. Because the department she heads had granted immunity. Noting that the Associated Press broke the story Monday, David Johnston (New York Times) reports today, "The State Department investigators from the agency's investigative arm, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, offered the immunity grants [to Blackwater] even though they did not have the authority to do so, the officials said. Prosecutors at the Justice Department, who do have such authority, had no advance knowledge of the arranement, they added. Most of the [Blackwater] guards who took part in the Sept. 16 shooting were offered what officials described as limited-use immunity, which means that they were promised they would not be prosecuted for anything they said in their interviews with the authorities as long as their statements were true."

This news came out Monday via AP. On Thursday, Rice faced the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and Blackwater was a topic many touched on (Democrats and Republicans). Rice was not forthcoming. When the issue of immunity came up -- with regards to al-Maliki's cabinet -- Rice made no effort to inform Congress that the department she heads, the department which she is supposed to provide oversight to, had offered Blackwater guards involved in the incident immunity -- an immunity that her department did not have the power to offer.

CBS and AP report, "Law enforcement officials say the State Department granted them immunity from prosecution before taking their statements. They can still be prosecuted, bur fromer prosecutor David Laufman said it will be harder to make a case, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reported. . . . The FBI can still interview the guards, but Laufman doubts they will cooperate." Terry Frieden (CNN) notes Senator Patrick Leahy has "accused the Bush 'amnesty administration' of letting its allies, including security contractors in Iraq, shirk responsibility for their actions" and Quotes Leahy declaring, "In this administration, accountability goes by the boards. That seems to be a central tenet in the Bush administration -- that no one from their team should be held accountable, if accountability can be avoided." Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) offers this perspective: "Under State Department contractor rules, Diplomatic Security agents are charged with investigating and reporting on all 'use of force' incidents. Although there have been previous Blackwater shootings over the past three years -- none of which resulted in prosecutions -- the Sept. 16 incident was by far the most serious." Johnston reports, "The immunity deals were an unwelcome surprise at the Justice Department, which was already grappling with the fundamental legal question of whether any prosecution could take place involving American civilians in Iraq. . . . In addition, the Justice Department reassigned the investigation from prosecutors in the criminal division who had read the statements the State Department had taken under the offer of immunity to prosecutors in the national security division who had no knowledge of the statements."

Waxman writes Rice today about the immunity:

Multiple news reports are asserting that the State Department compromised the investigation into the shootings and the potential for prosecutions of Blackwater personnel by offering immunity to the Blackwater guards. According to one report, agents of the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security promised Blackwater personnel 'immunity from prosecution' in order to elicit statements. Another report stated that the State Department offered 'limited-use immunity' without authority to do so so and without consulting with the Justice Department. According to these accounts, prosecution of Blackwater personnel has become, at minimum, "a lot more complicated and dfficult."
This rash grant of immunity was an egregious misjudgement. It raises serious questions about who conferred the immunity, who approved it at the State Department, and what their motives were. To help the Committee investigate these matters, I request that the State Department provide written responses to the following questions no later than noon on Friday, November 2, 2007:
1) What form of immunity was offered to the Blackwater personnel?
2) What limitations does this form of immunity impose upon the investigation?
3) Who authorized the offers of immunity?
4) Who was aware of the offers of immunity at or before the time that they were delivered?
5) When did you, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Griffin, Ambassador David Satterfield, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker learn of the grant of immunity?
6) What consultation, if any, was conducted with the Justice Department prior to the offers of immunity?
7) Has the State Department ever offered immunity to security contractor personnel as part of other investigations into contractor conduct? Please describe each such occasion.
I further request that knowledgeable officials appear at the previously scheduled briefing for Committee staff on November 2 to respond to questions about the State Department's written response to these questions.
Finally, I request that the State Department produce the following documents no later than Friday, November 9, 2007:
1) All communications relating to any offers of immunity to Blackwater personnel relating to the September 16, 2007, Nissor Square incident; and
2) All communications relating to any offers of immunity to Blackwater personnel or other private military contractors relating to other incidents in Iraq.

The letter is available online by [PDF format warning] clicking here.

Last Friday on the second hour of NPR's The Diane Rehm Show the issue of Rice's appearences before Congress was noted with Rehm explaining Congress felt Rice "has mismanaged diplomatic efforts in Iraq and they accused her of concealing information from Congress." A perfect example -- not known then -- would be the offer of limited-immunity to Blackwater employees. Again, that was not known then. NBC's Andrea Mitchell (who, along with Newsweek's Michael Hirsh and the Los Angeles Times' Doyle McManus, took part in the roundtable) explained, "Well in particular there were memos, internal Iraqi memos, that the State Department was well aware of, that she had not turned over, that she had not turned over memos on Blackwater, corruption in the Iraqi government, which is a growing problem. That she has ignored it, not brought it to their attention. Her worst nightmare is Henry Waxman. Henry Waxman sixteen terms now chairman of the House Oversight Committee and he is going after her and after the State Department and other government agencies. He has a pipeline of investigations and he just keeps one after the other." [For more on the broadcast, see Ruth's Saturday report.] Along with not turning over memos to Congress, Rice's department is now known for not telling Congress about the offer of limited immunity. While Condi's department has granted further immunity, Deborah Haynes (Times of London) reports others are attempting to pull some back: "The Iraqi Cabinet today approved a draft law lifting the immunity from prosecution enjoyed by foreign security companies contracted by the US-led coalition, but it was unclear how guards working for the controversial American firm Blackwater would be affected." Steve Negus (Financial Times of London) notes the next step for the bill would be the Iraqi parliament (where, for the record, the bill could have originated in) and that is is unclear "whether the proposed Iraqi legislation would apply retrospectively."

In other mercenary news, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) reports, "Meanwhile the British private military company Erinys has been sued in Texas over the death of a U.S. soldier who died after being hit by one of the company's convoys in Iraq. The lawsuit was filed by Perry Monroe, father of Christopher Monroe who died in southern Iraq two years ago. The lawsuit accuses the Erinys convoy of ignoring warnings and traveling at excessive speed after dark without lights fully on. At the time of the incident, the British company was working under a contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers." Christopher Monroe died October 25, 2005. He was 19-years-old. Interestingly, although a mercenary caused the death, the Defense Department's announcement stated Monroe died "when his 5-ton truck was involved in an automobile accident with a civilian vehicle." It's cute the way departments of the US government work overtime to protect contractors. In the instance of Monroe's death, they are happy to make it sound as if an Iraqi's mini-van collided with the truck. AP reports that the mercenary company Erinys "has made more than $150 million in Iraq and has contracts to protect the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, according to the lawsuit filled by the father of Army Spc. Christopher T. Monroe." In addition, the DoD trumpeted "civilian vehicle" was actually one "armored Suburban [which] struck Monroe and his truck, tearing off Monroe's right leg and throwing him 30 to 40 feet in the air" -- begging the question of how fast the mercenary vehicle was traveling (traveling at night "with headlights off" after having already been told of Monroe's convoy). Suzanne Goldenberg (Guardian of London) offers that Erinys "reportedly has close ties to the former Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi," notes that Monroe was on guard duty, that Erinys was traveling "at an estimated speed of up to 80mph on a dark road using only their parking lights" and that they were not under fire. In addition, Goldenberg notes that the company received a contract in 2003 "to provide security for Iraq's oil refineries and pipelines. . . . The first recruits of the 14,000-strong oil protection force raised by Erinys Iraq were members of the Iraqi Free Forces, the US-trained milita that was headed by Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi exile who was America's protege in the run-up to the invasion. Members of Mr Chalabi's inner circle were among the founding partners of Erinys Iraq."

Bombings?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad mortar attack that wounded two people "near Milky Master shop" and a Salahuddin car bombing that claimed the lives of 3 Iraqi soldiers with nine more wounded. Reuters notes a Baghdad mini-bus bombing that left two people wounded as well as another on that claimed the life of 1 person (four more wounded), a grenade tossed into a Baghdad street that claimed the life of 1 "street cleaner" and left six more people injured, and a Baghdad car bombing that claimed the lives of 4 police officers (eight more injured).

Shootings?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a police officer was shot dead on Monday in Mosul.

Corpses?

Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 5 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes 4 corpses discovered in Mosul today, 1 in Kirkuk yesterday.

Meanwhile an Iraqi correspondent at Inside Iraq (McClatchy Newspapers) notes the death of a friend, Haider, over the weekend in a car accident: "Haider is my closest friend in Baghdad and the entire world. He was my friend from childhood when I was 6 years till we finished the high school. We had had great time. We used to play soccer, play ping-pong, chess and fishing small fish from the lake near by from Tigris river in Missan province in the south of Iraq. He chose the engineering college while my choice was teaching.

Today, the US military announced: "Three Multi-National Division - Center Soldiers were killed when their patrol was struck by an improvised explosive device southeast of Baghdad Oct. 30." ICCC places the US service member death toll since the start of the illegal war at 3842 with 36 for the month. CNN says it is 37 for the month.

As Iraq continues to fall apart as a result of the illegal war, Amit R. Paley (Washington Post) reports that 500,000 Iraqis could die of drowning in Mosul "and parts of Baghdad" as a result of problems with a Mosul dam -- a dam that $27 million has gone to for reconstruction and that the Army Corps of Engineers states has "an unacceptable annual failure probability". AFP reports that "the US 27 million dollar project launched two years ago to help strengthen the dam has been marred by incompetence and mismangement. The report said SIGIR's most recent inspection concludes that the project has made no headway in improving grout injection operations, and said that poor oversight had allowed millions of dollars in construction and equipment to go to waste."

"I don't know if he knew who was -- who were the passenger of the car, of course. I don't know if maybe he just answered to an order. So that's why I wanted Mario Lozano to tell the truth to the trial or in any way to tell the truth, and not just accusing me that it's my fault. It's not my fault. He was shooting to us. I didn't shoot to anybody. So, he shooted, and he has to give us a reason why he shooted, even if it was an order. When I was in United States, I heard from a lot of veterans against the war that they were obliged to shoot when they were in Iraq. So I think that we can understand that he also was a victim of the war. But he has to tell the truth, not just to tell that it's my fault. It's not my fault. He has to realize that it is his fault, because he shoot to us and to Calipari. He killed Calipari. So he has to explain. I can imagine that he has psychological problems because of the shooting, because it's normal for a normal person, it's normal to have pyschological problems if you kill a man." That's Guiulian Sgrena speaking with Amy Goodman today on Democracy Now! regarding the nonsense from the Dumb Ass yesterday who blamed her for the fact that he shot someone dead. From today's broadcast:

GIULIANA SGRENA: Oh, it's not true. I was just doing my work, and many other journalists went to interview the refugees, the refugees of Fallujah. Me, I usually go to interview the refugees, because I think that it's the people that more suffer for the situation. And also, in this case, I went there just to interview these refugees.
I know that for military, army, it's not the case to go around and to do an independent work, because they want the journalists just to be embedded, but I can say that in the same day, the same moment that I was there doing to interview the refugees of Fallujah, there was also a photographer working for the US Time taking pictures there. So I was not doing a work with terrorists, because if not everybody work with terrorists. I was just there to interview refugees.
And I think that this is the only way to do our job as we have to do it, because we have to listen to the people that is suffering under the occupation and not just interview the commanders or people that have weapons in their -- that they're using weapons. So I think that I was in a right position, and I will do always the same when I go around the world.
And I don't understand what mean Lozano by saying that I was going there, doing something with terrorists. They were not terrorists. What means? So we don't have the chance to do our work? Is it true that now we have not the chance to do our work true in Iraq, but this is because of the occupation and, of course, also because nobody in Iraq want to have witness there to see what is going on. But I was just doing my work.
AMY GOODMAN: Giuliana Sgrena, can you remind us what happened when you were released? From the point, well, that you learned you were going to be released -- first who you were held by and then what happened, all the way through the shooting on your road to the airport?
GIULIANA SGRENA: Yes, when I was released, Calipari came to pick me up, and we were on the road to the airport, after, of course, giving the news to the person that were interested in, and we were on the way to the airport. It was dark, because it was night. And at a certain point, we were not so far from the airport, when they started to shoot us. At the beginning, I couldn't understand who was shooting, because we were in the area controlled by the Americans, and I couldn't believe that the Americans, they were shooting to us. There was Italian agents with me. So, really, it was really a shock.
And immediately, when they started to shoot, Calipari stopped to talk, and I realized that something was going wrong, because he didn't speak to me. And the agent that was driving the car started to shout and to say that we were Italian, we were of the Italian embassy, just to try to stop the shooting. And when the shooting stopped, I saw that Calipari was killed. Me, I was wounded, and also the other agent. So, it was really a big shock.
But there were no warnings before the shooting. And the shooting, they reached the car, and they were, after -- we can say now, after the inquiry, the Italian inquiry, because there was an Italian inquiry of the Italian justice, that against the car was shooted fifty-eight bullets, and fifty-seven bullets were against the passengers of the car and only the last one against the engine of the car. So if they wanted to stop the car, they had to shoot to the engine or to the wheels, but not to the passengers. And that's why the Italian justice asked the trial for Lozano for voluntarily killing of Nicola Calipari. That's the point. It's not only my testify now; it's the conclusion of the Italian justice inquiry.

As Sgrena points out, the judge did not find Lozano innocent, the judge stated the case was out of Italy's jurisdiction -- prosecutors are appealing that ruling. Lastly, David Price's latest on the betrayal of a social science is a must read at CounterPunch. (Ideally, this will be quoted from in tomorrow's snapshot.)















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