Wednesday and I'll probably be quick. We're going to be leaving for an Iraq speaking thing (conversation) in about 20 minutes and I type TOO slow. Check out Elaine's site (always -- but tonight she's doing a joint-entry with C.I.).
I'm jumping in with Reuters report on Hillary Clinton ahead in the polls and ahead in fundraising for the quarter and the response from John Edwards and Barack Obama to those realities. Before the MSNBC 'debate' last week, Rebecca correctly pointed out Edwards needed to take out Obama. Edwards didn't do that and I think he's stuck in Loserville as a result. The MSM rank goes: Hillary Clinton, Obama way behind, then John Edwards, then everybody else. Edwards needed to take on Obama. Obama's already scored on him. But Edwards acts like a scared little baby these days. With Obama and Edwards now setting their sites on Hillary, my feeling is people aren't going to like it. Hillary's a woman and two men (who aren't that different from her on Iraq) deciding to attack her and doing so in unison will backfire.
But Reuters tells you Edwards is a big dumb idiot and thinks that's the way to go. It's not. He needs to move into second place before he can leap to first. (If he can leap to first.)
So today Edwards slammed Clinton "for refusing to rule out that U.S. troops might continue to engage in some combat missions in Iraq if she were to win the presidency" and, if you've paid attention, you know Edwards is exactly the same as Clinton on this. So he looks like a hypocrite as he attacks Hillary Clinton. ("Combat troops" is the safe-word that lets Edwards pretend he's serious about ending the illegal war. He's not serious about it. Troops would remain but be classified as "police" and "anti-terrorist" troops. They would do the exact same thing they do now. The illegal war would continue to drag on.)
Puffing out his chest, Edward insisted, "If you're not ending combat missions and combat operations, you're not ending the war." No, if you're not calling for ALL troops out, you're not ending the war. The public fell for this con-job from February through July when the Dems' little congame in the Congress got found out. Edwards really thinks we're stupid and that may be because he's STUPID. He's stupid because he won't call for ALL troops out even though that's what the public wants.
Reuters is WRONG when they 'report' that "Obama has said he would withdraw one or two U.S. brigades a month from Iraq and have all troops out within 16 months." No, he has not. And what he said on national (cable) television last week was he could not promise that if he was elected president in 2008, all troops would be home by 2013. Reuters is lying for Bambi but if the media hadn't created him, he would never have been a candidate.
You can read Rebecca's "craven dems and disgusting peter pace," Kat's "Obama, Edwards & Clinton okay with US trops in Iraq until 2013" and/or C.I.'s"Iraq snapshot." As we pointed out in "Strangely familiar" (The Third Estate Sunday Review) here were the 'front runners' answering the question of would they promise that if elected all troops would be out of Iraq by 2013 (the end of the first term):
Hillary Clinton: "It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting."
John Edwards: "I cannot make that commitment."
Barack Obama: "I think it's hard to project four years from now."
If having ALL troops out within sixteen months of being elected was Obama's 'plan' (as Reuters lies) then he would have said in last week's debate, "Yes, I can make that promise." Instead he refused to. Quit lying for the media created and media hyped candidate.
Reuters screws up more with this: "Clinton, at a debate in New Hampshire a week ago, would not rule out some U.S. combat missions in Iraq if she were to win. Edwards said that represented a clear difference with how he would handle the war." That's a lie by Reuters and by Edwards. They have the same position as of last week's MSNBC debate.
Then Reuters quotes Bambi saying that his being against the illegal war in 2002 is proof that he's "the right person to end it." He leaves out how he was against withdrawal in 2004 and against it once he got into the Senate. Time did not stop in 2002. Bambi's a War Hawk.
If they do their tag-team on Hillary, I think it will backfire on them. All three have similar positions and the idea that two men are going to gang up on a woman (and one they aren't different from in terms of Iraq) won't play well. My opinion.
Had to stop. Time ran out and I hadn't copied and pasted the snapshot so I had to save to draft. Just wrapping up here and stealing from C.I. "Kat's review of Stephen Stills and Ani DiFranco's latest CD releases went up and Kat reviewed Joni Mitchell's Shine on Monday and Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals' Lifeline on Sunday." Read them, they are all great. Elaien and C.I.'s joint-post is up "Reuters covers the peace movement -- badly!" so be sure to check that out. (It's at Elaine's site now. C.I. and Ava are making pasta for us all to eat and when that's done, C.I. will cross post the entry.) (And, ha-ha, Beau, yes, Kat and I cooked dinner last night! Come on, think about who my mother is, of course I know how to make fajitas! :D)
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, October 3, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, Robin Long's supporters rally, more officials targeted in Iraq, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Yesterday, NDP (New Democratic Party of Canada) announced their support for war resister Robin Long arrested in Nelson British Columbia citing Olivia Chow (iimigration critic) and parliament member Alex Atamanenko (click here for release in English, here for release in French). The War Resisters Support Campaign also issued a statement of support. Today a support rally was held in Toronto. Timothy Schafer (Vancouver Sun) reported yesterday on Long's arrest "on Baker Street by police on a nation-wide warrant" according to Klaus Offermann who visited the jail to protest and tells Schafer that, "The city of Nelson is arrest-central for war resistors in Canada" -- referencing the February 23rd arrest of Kyle Snyder (hauled off in his boxers at the request of the US military). Today, Schafer (at Canada's Globe and Mail) cotinues covering the story and notes the cover story just issued by police chief Dan Maluta: Robin Long was smoking pot in public with four other people and that's why he was arrested! Of course the reality from eye witnesses is different and of course three others weren't arrested with Long. But it's more of the lies the Nelson city police have become famous for. Did that announced investigation in Maluta and the department ever get completed? Yes, it was signed to one of Maluta's personal friends, which should only mean the white wash moved even faster than usual. The cover story comes out after last night's strong show of support for Robin Long at the police station. Now LIAR Maluta said what about the arrest of Kyle Snyder? Oh, that's right, he repeated lies non-stop and that's why an investigation was required because it got so bad there was no doubt he was lying.
While Long is under attack in Canada, in the US Ehren Watada is scheduled to face court-martial number two next week -- despite the very clear Constitutional provision against double-jeopardy. Gregg K. Kakesako (Honolulu Star-Bulletin) reports that the court-martial is scheduled to begin next Tuesday, that Watada will be represented by Ken Kagan and James Lobsenz, that Watada service contract ended in December 2006 but the US military elected to extend it and that, "The Army has refiled four charges against Watada, including one count of missing a deployment and two counts of conduct unbecoming of an officer. Those counts cover statements Watada made criticizing the Iraq war and President Bush. Conviction on all counts could mean nearly eight years in prison and a dishonorable discharge." AP's brief story is only six sentences long. It will pop up everywhere which is why the factual mistakes in it are all the more glaring. Ehren Watada is the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to the Iraq War. He will also be the first officer in which double-jeopardy is tossed out, in which the Constitution is completely shredded, if the second court-martial goes through. The more war resisters there are, the more nervous the military brass gets.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, 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, forty-one 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.
Turning to the topic of Blackwater, John M. Broder (New York Times) and Peter Spiegel (Los Angeles Times) got into a nasty slap fight today as both used their papers to argue, "No! I love Erik Prince more!" Broder apparently sat through yesterday's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform fantasizing about Erik Prince (Blackwater CEO) instead of paying attention (maybe he's turned on by the crook of a neck?). Spiegel saw him as really, really cool and not suffering from the big head at all, but, like, a guy you can really, really talk to! which is why he referred to Prince answering "questions politely" -- in what world is repeatedly rolling your eyes, smirking and turning your head in disgust "polite"? Desperate to proclaim (in his very best Melrose Place manner), "Paws off, Petey, I saw Prince first," Broder raves over Prince's attire ("trim") and "blond hair" with "a fresh cut."
In the real world, Jeremy Scahill offered his evaluation of yesterday's hearing to Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!):
JEREMY SCAHILL: When Erik Prince stepped into the room, he was mobbed by photographers, and he came in, not with an army of armed mercenaries, but with an army of lawyers and advisers. And one of the people with him was Barbara Comstock, who's a well-known Republican operative and a crisis management consultant. Blackwater had the first and second rows basically empty behind Mr. Prince, with the exception of his team of advisers and his consiglieri, and an unidentified man on several occasions during the course of the hearing himself interrupted the hearings and asked Henry Waxman to be able to consult with Prince. And then, what would result from that is that Erik Prince would turn around, and his advisers and lawyers would pile around him like a sports team plotting out their next play. It was very dramatic.
And I think that the issue here is that the Democrats really, I feel, dropped the ball on many of the most important issues surrounding Blackwater. Yes, there were some important questions raised. But for the most part, they steered away from some of the most devastating and violent incidents involving the company. The ambush at Fallujah in March of 2004, for instance, wasn't addressed at all, except in passing. And there were a number of family members of the four Blackwater operatives who were killed in that incident. That's a crucial one for the Congress to investigate, not only because of the allegations that Blackwater sent those four men into Fallujah in unarmored vehicles, short two men, and without heavy weapons, but because of the enormous price that Iraqi civilians paid for the deaths of those four corporate employees, the Bush administration ordering the leveling of Fallujah and, of course, the inflammation of the Iraqi resistance. There are a number of other incidents that never came up in the hearing.
I think that what needs to happen is that Erik Prince needs to become a more frequent visitor to Capitol Hill than his industry lobbyists have been over the past several years, and his visits should always begin with his right hand raised and cameras in front of him.
In other news of violence, Robert Parry (Consortium News) explores the death squads Bully Boy has created for Iraq and Afghanistan. These are the "kill teams," the "bait and kill teams," the teams war resister James Burmeister went public on last June and the mainstream media 'discovered' last week. Parry writes, "The ugly image of Americans killing unarmed Iraqis also helps explain the growing hostility of Iraqis toward the presence of U.S. troops. While the Bush administration has touted the supposed improved security created by the 'surge' of additional U.S. troops into Iraq, a major poll found Iraqis increasingly object to the American occupation." On a related note, Steve Negus (Financial Times of London) reports: "US military officials in Baghdad on Wednesday defended their support of local anti-insurgent volunteer organisations, the day after the country's largest political bloc attacked the programme as an 'adventure' and accused participants of kidnap and murder. The controversy over the scheme, which is a centrepiece of the US military's new strategy in Iraq, has flared as these local alliances against al-Qaeda spread from their point of origin in the western province of al-Anbar to other Sunni and even some Shia parts of Iraq."
In some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Yasser Faisal and Mussab Al-Khairalla (Reuters) report that Poland's General Edward Pietrzyk (ambassador to Iraq) was wounded in Iraq today in what the Polish government is calling "an assassination attempt" that also claimed the lives of at least one of Pietrzyk's bodyguards and one Iraqi civilian. NPR and AP report, "The attack took place a few hundred yards from the Polish embassy." Deborah Haynes (Times of London) notes the attack utilized three roadside bombs and that Pietrzyk "was being treated for burns at a hospital inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone." CBS and AP put the bombs at two and note at least 11 more people were wounded in the bombings. CNN goes with three bombs being used in the attack and states that "three others in the entourage, including one of his bodyguards" were killed as well as "two Iraqi civilians". Katya Andrusz (Bloomberg News) reports being told by Robert Szaniawski (spokesperson for Poland's Foreign Ministry) that there were three bombs and Andrusz notes that while 53% of Poles were against the illegal war in January 2004, opposition now stands at 80%. Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that the ambassador and his entourage "were leaving the Polish embassy" when the attack happened and also notes a Baghdad car bombing that claimed 2 lives (five more wounded), 1 dead from a Falluja bombing that left four more injured, and thirteen were wounding by a bombing "inside an in internet cafe" in Jalawa. Reuters notes the AIR WAR continues with "five suspected insurgent bombers" being shot dead by US helicopters in Baghdad, a Baquba mortar attack claimed 3 lives, while a Kirkuk roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 police officer (left another injured) -- Reuters also notes that yesterday saw "the local senior figure in Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council" shot dead in Ifach. DPA reports a roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 police officer in Kirkuk.
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports "the official of tribes in Diwaniyah city local council" was shot dead in Qadisiyah. Reuters notes, "Three people were killed, including a girl student, during clashes between police and gunmen in Baquba" and a police captain was shot dead in Tikrit. KUNA reports an Iraqi "army officer was shot dead" in Mosul by unknown assailants "in a speeding car".
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 6 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes a police officer's corpse was found in Ishaqi.
Turning to politics, The Peace Resister Katrina vanden Heuvel (you can use the link -- it's Common Dreams and KvH is providing plenty of laughter) is on her Barack bandwagon and determined to make sure that when her ass is finally kicked out of The Nation, no one else will touch her. KvH wants credit (she links to her self) for "an under-reported event" at the Council On/For Foreign Relations and considers her policy of under-disclosure (KvH probably 'reported' on it in real time due to the fact that she is a Council On/For Foreign Relations member). If a New York Times columnist attempted to give a 'shout out' to an organization they were a member of without disclosing it, it would be considered news. But maybe no one sees Katrina vanden Heuvel as a journalist? The friend I'm dictating this to says the comments left are hilarious so check those out: "Just another article from The Nation pandering to the impotent Democratic Party." And why is that? Or how about the recent commentary that borrowed heavily from The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life In The Universe -- Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner's masterpiece -- from Trudee's scene at the end where the aliens tell her the audience was art. But is there really a need for this nonsense of cheerleading Barack Obama or (in Flanders' case) his supporters? Here's the thing (and include John Nichols and others in this -- in fact David Corn appears to be the only one at the magazine not wearing a "Barack Has My Vote And Body" t-shirt), this time next year, a HUGE number of people will be telling you that you have to vote for Candidate X -- whomever the Democratic Party nominates. You've got to, you've just got to, they'll insist sounding like a deranged Miss Manners. And for those who elect not to and decide to be upfront about that, they'll still hear the mantra: "Vote Democratic to save the Republic!" You'll get the faux sympathy, the nod of the head, and the same damn sermon trotted out every four years, "Well we'll do that next time but vote Democratic, it's really, really important." If Candidate X is a War Hawk (very likely since Hillary Clinton, Obama and John Edwards refuse to promise that, if elected president, they would end the illegal war by the end of their first four years), you'll be told to hold your nose and vote for someone who disgusts you and that 'next time' everyone will get it together to make sure it doesn't happen. Those speeches were given in 2004 too. The Nation proves those speeches are hollow (at best) or flat out lies (at worst). They started their 2008 presidential coverage days before the November 2006 election took place and what do they have to show for it? Not a damn thing. The magazine hates Hillary Clinton and appears to see Barack Obama as having the best shot to take her out. So they've pushed Obama like crazy. Even though he's a War Hawk who is on record being against withdrawal since 2004. Had they used the last months (or the ones remaining) to cover Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel or Bill Richardson they wouldn't be playing the lesser of two evils currently. They're playing it in the primary and they'll play it in the general election. (And the Green Party will be as non-covered by the magazine as it was in 2004 or 2006.) "Power" to The Nation has meant "Do anything to take Hillary out." It's really disgusting. Kucinich has been covered more by our own Trina (who blogs once a week) than by The Nation. That's not just print, that's "online exclusives" and blog posts. Even lumping all of that together, Trina's still provided more coverage of Dennis Kucinich in 2007 (with her once a week posts) than The Nation. Sharon Smith (CounterPunch) does a good summary of Kucinich versus the press reinforced candidates. She notes the 2004 cave by Kucinich (Democratic National Convention) and thinks expecting a similar cave in 2008 isn't going out on a limb. One factor she may miss on that is Kucinich may not be a House candidate. By the time of the Democratic National Convention, Kucinich may have lost the primary for his House seat (the party is offering 'advise' to his opponent). If that happens, there should be very little reason for Kucinich to back down from his supporters demands. Regardless, and here's the point, in 2008, your vote is your vote. Vote for who you want (or don't vote, your business). And if you hear the "Hold Your Nose" speech and don't wish to hold your nose, just remember that The Nation elected to ignore candidates offering real opposition to the illegal war. Their anti-stories have revolved repeatedly around Hillary Clinton and their pro-coverage has been Obama (after earlier flirting with John Edwards). Free press? Be great to have one but let's not pretend we do as not one of them will tell you the truth about Barack Obama but will let him continue to repeat his stale talking point of being against the war (he doesn't say "illegal") before it began without ever noting the very obvious fact that, once he began his 2004 Senate campaign, he was on record as against withdrawal. That's why no one should be surprised that -- despite all the hype for an empty suit -- he declared in last week's 'debate' that, if elected, he couldn't promise to end the illegal war by the end of his first term.
In the new issue of The Progressive (October 2007), Ruth Conniff contributes "Doing the Hillary Dance" (pp. 16-17). She notes US House Rep Tammy Baldwin is on board with support for Hillary even thought it means "on the Iraq War, Baldwin gives Clinton a pass." For the piece, Conniff also interviews Iraq Veterans Against the War's Garrett Reppenhagen and the Center for Media and Democracy's John Stauber. Conniff notes that Reppenhagen "has hopes that the Internet could be a powerful tool for getting the U.S. out of Iraq. Now a member of Iraq Vets Against the War, he doesn't want to see the blogosphere hijacked by the Democratic Party." He tells Conniff, "I worry because more and more people start endorsing candidates and we become like sports enthusiasts." Stauber, who was refused a forum on Iraq by The Daily Toliet Scrubbers (but created a forum on his own), "concurs. As Stauber sees it, the idea that the Democrats, if only they can get elected, will end the war is 'just the blue Kool-Aid talking'." Stauber tells Conniff, "There's a delusion that there are going to be sweeping reforms once the Democrats have more power. But looking back over the last several decades, I don't see any reason for that optimism."
Finally, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) opened her conversation with Norman Solomon today by quoting from his new book Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State, "The warfare state doesn't come and go. It can't be defeated on Election Day. Like it or not, it's at the core of the United States -- and it has infiltrated our very being." From their conversation today:
NORMAN SOLOMON: Just a few minutes ago, we heard a clip from the Blackwater hearing yesterday about the way in which, supposedly, Blackwater, as one Congressperson put it, a Democrat, a critic of Blackwater, said that Blackwater is undermining the US mission in Iraq. And all too often the insidious nature of the warfare state gets us to at least tacitly accept the idea that there is something in that mission to be supported. And yet, $2 billion a day going into the Pentagon's coffers, that's our money. That's money that should belong to the people of this country for healthcare, education, housing.
And yet, we are tamped down, our numbing process, which is part of the warfare state, gets us to be passive, to accept. And often, you know, Amy, I travel around the country. I talk with people. Many are concerned. They watch this program. They're active. We get in a room. There's fifty, there's five, there's five hundred people. And often, the question comes up: "Well, aren't we just preaching to the choir?" And that is a concern. We have to go outside our own constituencies as progressives. But the reality is that the choir needs to learn to sing better, to challenge more fundamentally the warfare state, because right now it's our passivity, our acculturated acceptance, that's causing so much damage.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you really think that it's a choir right now that is a very confined to a certain group of people? I mean, in this country now, the level of opposition to the war in Iraq, doesn't it go far beyond any particular category of people?
NORMAN SOLOMON: The opposition is registered in opinion polls, but largely quiescent, and if we look at the progression of the Vietnam War, year after year, from the late '60s through the first years of the '70s, opinion polls show that most Americans were opposed to the war, even felt it was immoral. You fast-forward to this decade, for years now most polls have shown most people are opposed. But what does that mean? Our political culture encourages us to be passive, not to get out in the streets, not to blockade the government war-making offices, not to go into the congressional offices and not leave, not to raise our voices in impolite or disruptive ways. We have to become enemies of the warfare state, not in a rhetorical way, but in a way that speaks to the American people in terms of where our humane values are and should be.
the common ills
like maria said paz
kats korner
trinas kitchen
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
the third estate sunday review
mikey likes it
iraq
robin long
ehren watadatimothy schafer
war resisters support campaign
democracy nowamy goodman
norman solomon
jeremy scahill
robert parry
ruth conniff
bloomberg news
mcclatchy newspapers
blackwater usathe new york timesthe los angeles times
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Robin Long arrested
Tuesday and jumping right into news on a war resister. This is "NDP calling for the release of US war resister Robin Long:"
TORONTO -- Following the arrest of US war resister Robin Long yesterday in Nelson, B.C., NDP immigration critic Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina) and NDP MP Alex Atamanenko (British Columbia Southern Interior) are calling on the Harper government to reexamine their decision to deport Long and allow him to stay in Canada.
"Canada has always been a country that stands up for basic human rights. Conscientious objectors who have fled George W. Bush’s illegal war in Iraq should be allowed to stay," said Chow.
"Two war resisters' cases are currently before the Supreme Court of Canada," pointed out Atamanenko. "No one should be arrested or deported before the Court has a chance to make a decision."
Robin Long, from Boise, Idaho, received his orders in March 2005 and left for Canada the following June, believing the war in Iraq was illegal. He lives in Canada with his Canadian partner Renee and their young son. The Immigration and Refugee Board did not find his claims to be untruthful but ruled against his case and his deportation is imminent.
"Canada has always been a place of refuge for war resisters who refuse to fight in illegal wars," noted Chow. "From Vietnam to now, Canada has a proud and distinguished history of putting justice first, and allowing people of conscience to seek refuge in our country. Canada has to release Mr. Long and allow him to stay in Canada."
Chow noted that a recent poll taken in Ontario showed that almost two thirds of Ontarians believe that Canada should allow war resisters to stay in Canada.
Do you get that we're seeing the US give orders to Canada for the third time? First Kyle Snyder who gets dragged out of his home in his boxers on his wedding day. Then the US military enters Canada and attempts to track down Joshua Key. Where the hell has independent media been? This is the third story? Where are they? They ignored the first two and they have ALL ignored war resisters. They might trot out Camilo Mejia but what about the war resisters who have gone public in 2007? If you're a community member or someone who visits The Common Ills, you know about the many, many war resisters who have gone public this year. Otherwise? You can pretty much forget it.
How does that happen? Why is it C.I. can do what they won't? And we saw it on Friday, saw their bullsh*t once again. The New York Times and the Washington Post 'report' on a two-page summary. The summary is very pleasing to Blackwater. No one questions the summary, no one calls it out except C.I. On Friday. Everyone else is repeating it at their magazine websites or on their radio programs. And, as C.I. noted yesterday, the summary was written by . . . Blackwater. So yeah, two papers got taken in but so the hell did independent media.
I can't figure out if they're stupid, useless or too damn focused on Iran to pay attention to Iraq. But this is bullsh*t and it keeps happening over and over. It needs to stop.
They have done a less than half-assed job covering this illegal war so if IF there is a war with Iran we can look forward to much more of the same. We have the sorriest, suckiest independent media in the whole damn world.
If Blogger/Blogspot leaves these sites up for years to come and people in the future can come back and read what was written in real time, they're going to be able to find some real Iraq coverage and it's going to make our crap ass independent media magazines and programs look that the trash heap they are.
This is from Frida Berrigan's "The War Resisters League Bestows Its Peace Award:"
It was lawyers with the Center for Constitutional Rights who cracked the silence, found the names of those being held, assembled the legal teams, mounted the legal and the political battles... and began the long and laborious and still incomplete work to advocate on behalf of men at Guantanamo and throughout the labyrinth of torture, abuse and disappearance which the Bush administration so boldly erected (or enhanced and emboldened).
No one makes jokes about the survivors of torture. But the systematic degradation they endure is explicitly to render them less than human-- A sick joke against humanity. When done in the name of the greater good, national security, triumphing in the clash of civilizations, winning the war against terrorism-it renders all of our "civilization" laughable.
To survive torture, to assert and reclaim humanity-to work on behalf of others to restore their personhood, is to have the last laugh, is to give the blindfold eyes, to resurrect the dead.
The Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International is the only organization founded by survivors of torture for survivors of torture-- but it is more than a support group or a center for healing. The organization and its members assert that healing is found-at least in part-in the excruciating work of eradicating torture…
Tonight the War Resisters League honors those who take their commitment to law seriously and those for whom laughter is an act of resistance and restoration. Those who stand with the victims and those who stand through their victimhood.
Congrats to CCR who didn't whine, they got active. (They had an ad that I posted awhile back that said something like that and it's true.)
On Iraq, congrats to C.I. and the community as well. The community pushed for more and more Iraq coverage and were noting two years ago how little interest there was in Iraq. It's because of that that we know what we know. Because of that Robin Long's not a new name. Because of that, we get Robin Long in the snapshot today even though we probably won't hear a damn word about him from outside of this community in the US. Who's going to write about it? Who's going to do a radio report on it?
The same idiots who were repeating Blackwater's summary last week as fact? Friday, when that nonsense started, C.I. called it out. C.I. was at my place so I watched as the phones were dialed constantly before a single word went up. C.I. was twisting arms with friends in the press and in the State Department saying, "This is sh*t." From my end, it seemed like friends at the State Dept. were more likely to agree with C.I. while friends in the press were more likely to insist it was a real story, genuine. But the press is supposed to have sources and they are supposed to know to use them. The minute C.I. saw that in the paper, it smelled fishy and C.I. went to work. And that's why we don't all have to run a correction to Friday's snapshot today. This morning, Kat goes, "Oh, there's a correction to Rubin's story." C.I. highlighted it yesterday. C.I. goes, "We didn't highlight the problem" (before Kat even read what the correction was). Rubin misunderstood something (and it happens and the paper ran a correction) but I do wonder how many know the story was corrected and whether or not they cited the mistakes yesterday.
Ava told me about this stupid woman who keeps e-mailing and saying, "You are going to run off people with the way you write!" C.I.'s not writing for outsiders. C.I.'s writing for the community. Ava told me the stupid woman wrote on Saturday about C.I.'s calling out the summary and said that was the last straw. Like C.I. gives a damn if some mealy mouthed visitor's going to stop coming by. I hope she did visit though, on Monday, when she would have seen that C.I. was right and all her beloved outlets were wrong. Blackwater wrote that piece of trash summary that "news" organizations were presenting as fact and as written by the US government.
I'm mad and pretty much done with this post so let me note I mentioned Kat of Kat's Korner,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review, and The Third Estate Sunday Review's Ava.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, October 2, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, war resister Robin Long is arrested by the same creeps who pulled the stunt earlier with Kyle Snyder, Blackwater's Erik Prince testifies to Congress, the UK announces a drawdown, the US Congress (Democratically led) keeps buying into the illegal war, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Robin Long was arrested yesterday. War resister Long went to Canada in June 2005. He applied for refugee status. Like everyone who has applied thus far, Long was denied. The New Democratic Party of Canada issues a statement "calling on the [prime minister Stephen] Harper government to reexamine their decision to deport Long and allow him to stay in Canada." It's noted that Long "lives in Canada with his Canadian partner Renee and their young son." So the Canadian government has arrested Long, intending to deport him and thereby split up a family. Olivia Chow points to "a recent poll taken in Ontario [which] showed that almost two thirds of Ontarians believe that Canada should allow war resisters to stay in Canada." The War Resisters Support Campaign notes that the poll was "conducted by phone from June 5 to 11, 2007" and that "close to two thirds of Ontarians favour letting US Iraq War resisters settle in Canada" and that polling was "conducted by the national research firm Strategic Communications Inc". Shirley Douglas (who worked her butt of during Vietnam and is as dedicated today) is quoted declaring, "This poll shows that the Canadian tradition of welcoming Americans who dissent from the policies of war is still important to us. The Canadian government should move now to make it possible for the war resisters to settle in this country, as so many did during the Vietnam War." The Christian Radical notes that Nelson was "arrested by the Nelson B.C. Police who intend to take him to Vancouver and hand him over to the US authorities at the border nearby. He was seized as he walked along a street. He is now detained in the local jail. Robin was not allowed to receive visits from friends; however he was able to call his spouse. She says that he is calm and hopeful that he will soon be released." The is the same Nelson B.C. Police that arrested Kyle Snyder on the orders of the US military -- in direct violation of Canadian soveriegnty. In the US, Gregory Levey (Salon) becomes the first at a US news outlet to cover that and he is also the last because it's just too much work for independent media apparently. Now a similar thing has happened to Robin Long. Exactly when the hell does independent media in the United States intend to do its damn job? The Christian Radical notes: "The War Resisters Support Campaign is urging all our friends and supporters to CALL THE NELSON POLICE AT 250-354-3919 AND TELL THEM TO RELEASE ROBIN LONG. We urge you as well to contact your local Member of Parliament and ask her or him to help release Robin."
Along with Kyle Snyder being arrested in a similar stunt (on his wedding day), the US military itself crossed over into Canada and posed as Canadian police officers -- harassing Winnie Ng at her home and demanding to know where war resister Joshua Key was. As independent media in this country -- including the "Nobody owns The Nation" useless piece of crap -- has refused to cover this story, the US has grown ever more bold about issuing orders to lackeys in Canada who aren't concerned with upholding Canadian law, just with being suck ups to the United States.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, 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, forty-one 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.
Blackwater USA. Today, Erik Prince -- CEO of the mercenary company -- popped into Congress for a hearing on the issue of private security in Iraq held by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chaired by Rep Henry Waxman. Prince fidgeted throughout, used the phrase "I don't know" repeatedly, showed his disdain for Congress by frequently rolling his eyes, smirking and, when Rep Peter Welch was questinging him, combined the two with an extended head turn to the right and away from Welch. With his disain on full display, the obvious question was for committee members to ask him about his physical presentation. No one did. A lot of representatives wasted time. Rep Diane Watson was the best example of wasted time on the Democratic side and Prince's nonstop smirks during that exchange may have been warranted as Watson went on and on (about topics that had nothing to do with Blackwater such as the MoveOn ad and Rush Limbaugh) only to suddenly declare "And so my question to you" before going back to yammering on. Each time she would say "my question to you," Was there a point to her remarks? It was the embarrassment from the Democratic side as she seemd determined to deliver a free association monologue. Each time she would use the term "question," Prince would lead forward, open his mouth, then close it because Watson wasn't interested in an answer and wasn't interested in getting to a question. What was her point? Who knows with lines like "You are providing a service." At one point, around the fourth or fifth time Prince had leaned in to answer only to grasp she wasn't yielding, he looked around and as if he was about to laugh. Across America -- to the left, to the right, to the center -- many others may have been laughing as well.
On the Republican side? They win as ensemble, too many did far too much for just one to be signaled out. Top honors within the ensemble go to Lynn Westmoreland who wasted everyone's time by putting on his glasses and reading his remarks from prepared text. If you can write down everything ahead of time, don't even show up, just fax your prepared remarks to the media. And that was honestly a problem for most. Those who didn't so obviously read from their prepared remarks for their entire allotted time also didn't appear to listen too closely. That was true regardless of political party. Democrats John Sarbanes and Peter Welch deserve (positive) notice for questions and comments that demonstrated they were aware of what had been asked as well as what had been asked but not answered. Bruce Braley (Democrats) also deserves credit for not wasting his allotted time with a bunch of sop but instead tearing away at the issue of the laws that would or would not govern Blackwater in Iraq -- tearing away at the topic and refusing to let go. Noting the Blackwater employee -- allegedly drunk, who shot dead an Iraqi bodyguard on Christmas Eve 2006 (the committee agreed not to ask about the September 16th incident where Blackwater slaughtered at least 11 innocent Iraqis at the request of the Justice Department) and what passed for 'punishment' --Braley pointed out the message to take away was, "If I screw up . . . the worst that's going to happen is I have to give up a window seat for an aisle seat."
Braley was referring to the fact that Blackwater didn't discipline him. Prince repeatedly -- throughout the hearing -- would immediately go to flogging insisting (over and over) "We can't flog". The inablity to flog appears to be a big issue with Prince. Prince explained (at several points) that -- though they couldn't flog -- what Blackwater did with the employee was pull his plane ticket, withheld the employee's paycheck and the employee's bonus. Prince -- falling back on the flogging -- declared that Blackwater did all they could. Witholding earned wages is supposed to be against the law so it's a shame no one asked Prince what law Blackwater was operating under when they made that decision. A bonus can be given or taken away and any dispute over it can be handled by the courts but earned wages are earned wages and companies do not have the right to withold them.
What Price left out was that the employee didn't just leave. He was proud that the employee's security clearence was pulled. But he failed to show the public his pride over the fact that Blackwater hustled the employee out of Iraq before any serious questions could be asked. Price -- noting he watches crime shows on TV -- begged off ruling whether it was murder, homicide or manslaughter but didn't quibble that, in fact, it was a crime. That being the case, why an employee who had committed a serious crime was being whisked out of Iraq is a question he should have been asked repeatedly.
The point Braley was making was US service members -- in the same situation -- would be facing a court-martial but all the Blackwater employee basically lost was a window seat on the trip home. Throughout it at all, regardless of any question other than about his time in the US Navy Seals, Prince repeatedly fell back on "I don't know." On violence, on whether Chilean thugs who worked for Pinochet were now working for Blackwater (Jan Schakowsky brought that issue up and hit hard repeatedly on the human rights issue), what the make up of the Blackwater force in Iraq was, etc. It was left to Chris Murphy (after many had left the hearing -- press and committee members) to state the obvious, "Certainly as CEO you can tell us what your profit has been?" No, he couldn't.
But he could indicate that he believes Blackwater employees are destroying Blackwater equipment intentionally. That probably wasn't his intent but he declared, to Murphy, that "Our helicopters get fragged." "Frag" is internal not external. If the Blackwater helicopters are being "fragged" then the "fragging" would have to be done by a Blackwater worker. Listening to Prince go on and on about Blackwater's "costs" What costs? That's a serious question. Replacing a helicopter? Well talk to anyone in the trucking industry or the delivery industry and they'll tell you equipment's replaced all the time. But the point was driven home best when Jan Schakowsky was asking (repeatedly) how Blackwater checks out their employees. According to Prince, they basically just run Social Security numbers. So Glory, Glory Private Business . . . as it still depends upon all the tools of the federal government. As Henry Waxman noted in his opening statement, "Over the past 25 years, a sophisticated campaign has been waged to privatize government services. The theory is that corporations can deliver government services better and at a lower cost than government can. Over the last six years, this theory has been put into practice. The result is that privatization has exploded. For every taxpayer dollar spent on federal programs, over 40 cents now goes to private contractors. Our government now outsources even the oversight of the outsourcing. At home, core government functions -- like tax collection and emergency response -- have been contracted out. Abroad companies like Halliburton and Blackwater have made billions performing tasks that used to be done by our nation's military forces. What's been missing is a serious evaluation of whether the promises of privatizing are actually realized." Instead of addressing the reality, Prince elected to play like he didn't know, couldn't recall and invent fantasies. Such as when he wanted to tale the tale of his proudest moment of life. Picture it, if you could, because he couldn't. A man, an officer, unnamed, but this is the most vivid moment of Prince's life, right? So the officer tells him that all the troops serving under him know that if they get into trouble into Iraq, call Blackwater first. A lie and an obvious one. But if Prince wants to stick by it, then the US military might want to address policy with those serving because troops do NOT first call mercenaries when they are in need of help. In fact, to do so is a violation of the chain of command.
House Rep and 2008 presidential Democratic hopeful Dennis Kucinich attempted to seriously address the issue of the contracts Blackwater has been awarded by the federal government. He raised serious issues (including the huge increase Blackwater sees each year -- $48 million in 2004, $500 million last year). Prince told Kucinich these weren't "no bid" contracts, that Kucinich misunderstood. He fell back on that repeatedly allowing him to avoid Kucinich's questions. Then, after several other members had their turn at questioning, Prince wanted to clarify the record, turns out some of those contracts he was declaring weren't no-bid, were no-bid contracts.
It was very similar to his appalling response to US service members being scapegoated for the actions of Blackwater: "I don't believe that false story lasted in the media for more than a few hours." But when you're attempting to hustle someone out of the country, every hour counts. And what's a lie to Blackwater? Prince did the same thing with Kucinich's questions. He lied. Then, after he'd eated up the time on the clock, he would clarify his statements on the no-bid contracts. In fairness, if Prince is the idiot he pretended for the committee, then his lawyer assisted him because his attorney (seated to the left of him) was advising him throughout. But that is Blackwater for you. Lying doesn't matter if they correct it . . . after they've gotten what they wanted whether it's time to whisk an employee out of the country or to run down the clock on questions.
He smirked when the e-mail on the shooting was read, when "At least the ID of the shooter will take the heat off us" was read into the record. The heat was off Blackwater and it was placed on the US service members. But Prince thinks it's fine because it -- the lie -- was just out there for "a few hours." At another point, Prince would declare (of this same incident), "Look, I'm not going to make any apologies." No, he wasn't going to. And that he hasn't been forced to goes to how little accountability there is. Which is why he could also declare, "I believe we acted appropriately at all times."
If there was a more appalling moment than that -- to hear a CEO responsible for a company where an employee killed someone (they were focusing on the one death) declare he had no apologies to make -- it was when Mike Turner elected to whine about all the sympathy being shown. Why, he insisted, no one was even noting al-Qaeda. The issue wasn't al-Qaeda. The issue was a US company (of mercenaries) are harming Iraqi civlians (specific instances cited), not facing any punishment for it and it's the US service members that get blamed for it and have to deal with the further hostilities. But Turner -- who appeared genuinely stupid -- couldn't grasp that at and let his whine continue to declare that the focus on Iraqi civilians killed by Blackwater bothered him because "I think it crosses the line between our team and their team." Fortunately for Turner, there were other moments that people will probably zoom in on.Such as Lynn Westmoreland's crack-pot theories about a menace (Red?) in cahoots with trial attorneys across the nation. Thankfully, Westmoreland assured the country that this unnamed menace was not serving in the legislative branch ("There is a party not in Congress . . .").Less concerned with finger pointing within the halls of Congress, Darrell Issa attempted to paint the entire motive for the hearing as partisan, insisting that the hearing was being held because Blackwater has given so much money to Republicans. Erik Prince rejected that, noting, "Blackwater is not a partisan company." It flew over Issa's head. "I think you're exactly right!" Issa crowed, ignoring what Prince had just stated, and insisting this was an attempting to turn it into a partisan issue. Henry Waxman rightly pointed out, "The only one who's done that is you."Christopher Shays, before all but falling to his knees to praise the military, declared, "I was a conscientious objector. I was in the Peace Corp!"
As noted earlier, the September 16th slaughter was taken 'off the table'. Demetri Sevastopulo (Financial Times of London) reports that the FBI's plans to open an investigation into the incident ("last month shot and killed 11 Iraqi civilians") and "send a team to Iraq to assist a State department investigation." There are plenty of witnesses for them to talk to. Jomana Karadsheh and Alan Duke (CNN) report that the Iraqi police officer operating in the square asserts Blackwater "became terrorists" and that "they entered the square, throwing water bottles at the Iraqi police posted there and driving in the wrong direction." The police officer explains, "I saw parts of the woman's head flying in front of me, blow up and then her entire body was charred. What do you expect my reaction to be? Are they protecting the country? No. If I had a weapon I would have shot at them."
After Eric Prince completed his testimony, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform heard from US ambassadors David M. Satterfiled, Richard J. Griffin and William H. Moser. This aspect of the hearing was much shorter than Prince's and that may be due to the fact that even the most basic questions from US Representatives were met with obstruction from the three employees of the State Department. As Jan Schakowsky declared during her questionign, "I have heard all of that." One typical exchange went Q: "Are you refusing to answer" A: "I'm not able to confirm the details."
Bombings?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 police officer (five more wounded), while 5 other Baghdad roadside bombing claimed 2 lives (twelve wounded). Reuters notes a Khalis bomber killed himself as well 4 civilians "outside a police station" (one woman and one child were among the four dead) and a Jalawla roadside bombing left eleven injured. KUNA reports 6 dead with ten more injured in an Al-Khalis car bombing.
Shootings?
Reuters notes "a businessman and his son" were shot dead in Wihda while "primary school teacher Alaa al-Zubaidi" was shot dead in Suwayra, one person was shot dead in Hilla, an armed struggle in Abbasi claimed 2 lives
Corpses?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 9 corpses were discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes 2 corpses discovered outside Kirkuk.
Meanwhile, Mark Deen and Kitty Donaldson (Bloomberg News) report, "Prime Minister Gordon Brown, preparing for a possible election in the U.K., said he plans to pull 1,000 troops out of Iraq by the end of this year. The withdrawal would leave about 4,250 U.K. soldiers stationed near the city of Basra and put Iraqi forces in charge of day-to-day security across the south of the country." AFP notes, "In policy terms, Brown has so far shown little divergence from Blair on Iraq, although he has accepted the issue has been politically 'divisive' and that 'mistakes' were made in the post-war planning and reconstruction."
Meanwhile, Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) notes, "The Democratic-led Senate has voted to authorize spending another $150 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate passed the spending measure by a 92 to 3 vote. Democrats Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma voted against the war spending. While the Senate bill authorizes the money to be spent, it does not guarantee it. President Bush will have to wait until Congress passes a separate appropriations bill before war funds are transferred to military coffers." On Bill Moyers Journal (last Friday in most markets and available online A/V and transcript) the issue of the financial costs of the illegal war were addressed:
BILL MOYERS: You said the other day to someone that we think we can fight the war in Iraq without paying for it. JOHN BOGLE: Well, we borrow the money to fight the Iraq War by some estimates and they're not absurd estimates is running now towards a $1 trillion. We could be doing what the British empire did. We could be bankrupting ourselves in the long run. And-- BILL MOYERS: You see us as an empire? JOHN BOGLE: Well, of course it's an empire. We reach all over the world. We thought of ourselves in many, many respects as the policemen of the world. God knows we know we're the policemen of the Middle East. And there are those say, even from Alan Greenspan on up or down, that oil is the root of that. I mean, these are great societal questions. Protecting oil, which is in turn polluting the atmosphere.We have problems as a society. And we don't have to surrender to them. But, we have to have a little introspection about where we are in America today. We've go to think through these things. We've got to develop a political system that is not driven by money. I mean, these are societal problems for us that don't have any easy answers.But you don't have to be an economist to know that a great deal of or a minimum in our economy is coming from borrowed money. People are spending at a higher rate than they're earning, and we're starting to pay a price for that now. Particularly in the mortgage side. But, eventually, that could easily spread and people won't be able to do that anymore. You can't keep spending money you don't have. It gets a lot of it, you know, and it wasn't that many years ago -- maybe a couple of generations ago -- that if you wanted something, you saved for it. And when you completed saving for it, you bought it. Imagine that. And that wasn't so bad. But, now, we know that we can have the instant gratification and pay for it with interest payments, of course, over time, which is not an unfair way to do it. We're going to pay a big price for the excessive debt we've accumulated in this society both in the public side and the private side.And it's no secret that this lack of savings in our economy -- just about zero -- is putting us at the mercy of foreign countries. China owns -- I don't know the exact number -- but, let me say about 25 percent of our federal debt. China does. What happens when they start to buy our corporations with all those extra dollars they've got there? I mean, I think that's very-- these problems are long term, are very much worrisome and very much intractable.
And, finally, tomorrow is an anniversary. As Dennis Kucinich's presidential campaign reminds: "Five years ago tomorrow (Wednesday, October 3), Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich stood on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to deliver an impassioned, point-by-point refutation of the Bush Administration's arguments seeking passage of the Iraq War Resolution. For days leading up to that moment, Kucinich also widely circulated his own independently conducted analysis of the 'intelligence' that the Administration had presented to Congress in support of the resolution. Eight days later, despite the warnings of Kucinich and 132 other members of the House whom he had managed to persuade to oppose this prelude to war, the majority of the House and the majority of the Senate gave the President the war powers he sought. Among those supporting the 'Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002' were Senators Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, and Joe Biden, all of whom spoke forcefully in favor of the President's strategy -- all four of whom are now Democratic Presidential candidates. All four subsequently approved additional measures for supplemental appropriations to fund the war, as did Democratic Senator Barack Obama after he was elected to the Senate in 2004. Now, five years after they approved a war that should never have been authorized in the first place, those same Democrats are scrambling to explain, excuse, or defend their votes. At the same time, the foremost among them are refusing to pledge an end to the war, admitting that it may extend well beyond 2013. Kucinich, the only Democratic candidate for President who voted against the original war authorization and every war-appropriation since, has recently raised loud warnings, in the Congress and in public statements, that House-approved and Senate-approve measures targeted towards Iran are 'dangerously and frighteningly similar' to those anti-Iraq resolutions approved five years ago." PDF warning: here for the independent analysis, here for the floor speech.
robin long
the common ills
iraq
joshua keykyle snyder
bloomberg news
mcclatchy newspapers
gregory levey
bill moyersbill moyers journal
pbs
democracy now
TORONTO -- Following the arrest of US war resister Robin Long yesterday in Nelson, B.C., NDP immigration critic Olivia Chow (Trinity-Spadina) and NDP MP Alex Atamanenko (British Columbia Southern Interior) are calling on the Harper government to reexamine their decision to deport Long and allow him to stay in Canada.
"Canada has always been a country that stands up for basic human rights. Conscientious objectors who have fled George W. Bush’s illegal war in Iraq should be allowed to stay," said Chow.
"Two war resisters' cases are currently before the Supreme Court of Canada," pointed out Atamanenko. "No one should be arrested or deported before the Court has a chance to make a decision."
Robin Long, from Boise, Idaho, received his orders in March 2005 and left for Canada the following June, believing the war in Iraq was illegal. He lives in Canada with his Canadian partner Renee and their young son. The Immigration and Refugee Board did not find his claims to be untruthful but ruled against his case and his deportation is imminent.
"Canada has always been a place of refuge for war resisters who refuse to fight in illegal wars," noted Chow. "From Vietnam to now, Canada has a proud and distinguished history of putting justice first, and allowing people of conscience to seek refuge in our country. Canada has to release Mr. Long and allow him to stay in Canada."
Chow noted that a recent poll taken in Ontario showed that almost two thirds of Ontarians believe that Canada should allow war resisters to stay in Canada.
Do you get that we're seeing the US give orders to Canada for the third time? First Kyle Snyder who gets dragged out of his home in his boxers on his wedding day. Then the US military enters Canada and attempts to track down Joshua Key. Where the hell has independent media been? This is the third story? Where are they? They ignored the first two and they have ALL ignored war resisters. They might trot out Camilo Mejia but what about the war resisters who have gone public in 2007? If you're a community member or someone who visits The Common Ills, you know about the many, many war resisters who have gone public this year. Otherwise? You can pretty much forget it.
How does that happen? Why is it C.I. can do what they won't? And we saw it on Friday, saw their bullsh*t once again. The New York Times and the Washington Post 'report' on a two-page summary. The summary is very pleasing to Blackwater. No one questions the summary, no one calls it out except C.I. On Friday. Everyone else is repeating it at their magazine websites or on their radio programs. And, as C.I. noted yesterday, the summary was written by . . . Blackwater. So yeah, two papers got taken in but so the hell did independent media.
I can't figure out if they're stupid, useless or too damn focused on Iran to pay attention to Iraq. But this is bullsh*t and it keeps happening over and over. It needs to stop.
They have done a less than half-assed job covering this illegal war so if IF there is a war with Iran we can look forward to much more of the same. We have the sorriest, suckiest independent media in the whole damn world.
If Blogger/Blogspot leaves these sites up for years to come and people in the future can come back and read what was written in real time, they're going to be able to find some real Iraq coverage and it's going to make our crap ass independent media magazines and programs look that the trash heap they are.
This is from Frida Berrigan's "The War Resisters League Bestows Its Peace Award:"
It was lawyers with the Center for Constitutional Rights who cracked the silence, found the names of those being held, assembled the legal teams, mounted the legal and the political battles... and began the long and laborious and still incomplete work to advocate on behalf of men at Guantanamo and throughout the labyrinth of torture, abuse and disappearance which the Bush administration so boldly erected (or enhanced and emboldened).
No one makes jokes about the survivors of torture. But the systematic degradation they endure is explicitly to render them less than human-- A sick joke against humanity. When done in the name of the greater good, national security, triumphing in the clash of civilizations, winning the war against terrorism-it renders all of our "civilization" laughable.
To survive torture, to assert and reclaim humanity-to work on behalf of others to restore their personhood, is to have the last laugh, is to give the blindfold eyes, to resurrect the dead.
The Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International is the only organization founded by survivors of torture for survivors of torture-- but it is more than a support group or a center for healing. The organization and its members assert that healing is found-at least in part-in the excruciating work of eradicating torture…
Tonight the War Resisters League honors those who take their commitment to law seriously and those for whom laughter is an act of resistance and restoration. Those who stand with the victims and those who stand through their victimhood.
Congrats to CCR who didn't whine, they got active. (They had an ad that I posted awhile back that said something like that and it's true.)
On Iraq, congrats to C.I. and the community as well. The community pushed for more and more Iraq coverage and were noting two years ago how little interest there was in Iraq. It's because of that that we know what we know. Because of that Robin Long's not a new name. Because of that, we get Robin Long in the snapshot today even though we probably won't hear a damn word about him from outside of this community in the US. Who's going to write about it? Who's going to do a radio report on it?
The same idiots who were repeating Blackwater's summary last week as fact? Friday, when that nonsense started, C.I. called it out. C.I. was at my place so I watched as the phones were dialed constantly before a single word went up. C.I. was twisting arms with friends in the press and in the State Department saying, "This is sh*t." From my end, it seemed like friends at the State Dept. were more likely to agree with C.I. while friends in the press were more likely to insist it was a real story, genuine. But the press is supposed to have sources and they are supposed to know to use them. The minute C.I. saw that in the paper, it smelled fishy and C.I. went to work. And that's why we don't all have to run a correction to Friday's snapshot today. This morning, Kat goes, "Oh, there's a correction to Rubin's story." C.I. highlighted it yesterday. C.I. goes, "We didn't highlight the problem" (before Kat even read what the correction was). Rubin misunderstood something (and it happens and the paper ran a correction) but I do wonder how many know the story was corrected and whether or not they cited the mistakes yesterday.
Ava told me about this stupid woman who keeps e-mailing and saying, "You are going to run off people with the way you write!" C.I.'s not writing for outsiders. C.I.'s writing for the community. Ava told me the stupid woman wrote on Saturday about C.I.'s calling out the summary and said that was the last straw. Like C.I. gives a damn if some mealy mouthed visitor's going to stop coming by. I hope she did visit though, on Monday, when she would have seen that C.I. was right and all her beloved outlets were wrong. Blackwater wrote that piece of trash summary that "news" organizations were presenting as fact and as written by the US government.
I'm mad and pretty much done with this post so let me note I mentioned Kat of Kat's Korner,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review, and The Third Estate Sunday Review's Ava.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, October 2, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, war resister Robin Long is arrested by the same creeps who pulled the stunt earlier with Kyle Snyder, Blackwater's Erik Prince testifies to Congress, the UK announces a drawdown, the US Congress (Democratically led) keeps buying into the illegal war, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Robin Long was arrested yesterday. War resister Long went to Canada in June 2005. He applied for refugee status. Like everyone who has applied thus far, Long was denied. The New Democratic Party of Canada issues a statement "calling on the [prime minister Stephen] Harper government to reexamine their decision to deport Long and allow him to stay in Canada." It's noted that Long "lives in Canada with his Canadian partner Renee and their young son." So the Canadian government has arrested Long, intending to deport him and thereby split up a family. Olivia Chow points to "a recent poll taken in Ontario [which] showed that almost two thirds of Ontarians believe that Canada should allow war resisters to stay in Canada." The War Resisters Support Campaign notes that the poll was "conducted by phone from June 5 to 11, 2007" and that "close to two thirds of Ontarians favour letting US Iraq War resisters settle in Canada" and that polling was "conducted by the national research firm Strategic Communications Inc". Shirley Douglas (who worked her butt of during Vietnam and is as dedicated today) is quoted declaring, "This poll shows that the Canadian tradition of welcoming Americans who dissent from the policies of war is still important to us. The Canadian government should move now to make it possible for the war resisters to settle in this country, as so many did during the Vietnam War." The Christian Radical notes that Nelson was "arrested by the Nelson B.C. Police who intend to take him to Vancouver and hand him over to the US authorities at the border nearby. He was seized as he walked along a street. He is now detained in the local jail. Robin was not allowed to receive visits from friends; however he was able to call his spouse. She says that he is calm and hopeful that he will soon be released." The is the same Nelson B.C. Police that arrested Kyle Snyder on the orders of the US military -- in direct violation of Canadian soveriegnty. In the US, Gregory Levey (Salon) becomes the first at a US news outlet to cover that and he is also the last because it's just too much work for independent media apparently. Now a similar thing has happened to Robin Long. Exactly when the hell does independent media in the United States intend to do its damn job? The Christian Radical notes: "The War Resisters Support Campaign is urging all our friends and supporters to CALL THE NELSON POLICE AT 250-354-3919 AND TELL THEM TO RELEASE ROBIN LONG. We urge you as well to contact your local Member of Parliament and ask her or him to help release Robin."
Along with Kyle Snyder being arrested in a similar stunt (on his wedding day), the US military itself crossed over into Canada and posed as Canadian police officers -- harassing Winnie Ng at her home and demanding to know where war resister Joshua Key was. As independent media in this country -- including the "Nobody owns The Nation" useless piece of crap -- has refused to cover this story, the US has grown ever more bold about issuing orders to lackeys in Canada who aren't concerned with upholding Canadian law, just with being suck ups to the United States.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, 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, forty-one 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.
Blackwater USA. Today, Erik Prince -- CEO of the mercenary company -- popped into Congress for a hearing on the issue of private security in Iraq held by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chaired by Rep Henry Waxman. Prince fidgeted throughout, used the phrase "I don't know" repeatedly, showed his disdain for Congress by frequently rolling his eyes, smirking and, when Rep Peter Welch was questinging him, combined the two with an extended head turn to the right and away from Welch. With his disain on full display, the obvious question was for committee members to ask him about his physical presentation. No one did. A lot of representatives wasted time. Rep Diane Watson was the best example of wasted time on the Democratic side and Prince's nonstop smirks during that exchange may have been warranted as Watson went on and on (about topics that had nothing to do with Blackwater such as the MoveOn ad and Rush Limbaugh) only to suddenly declare "And so my question to you" before going back to yammering on. Each time she would say "my question to you," Was there a point to her remarks? It was the embarrassment from the Democratic side as she seemd determined to deliver a free association monologue. Each time she would use the term "question," Prince would lead forward, open his mouth, then close it because Watson wasn't interested in an answer and wasn't interested in getting to a question. What was her point? Who knows with lines like "You are providing a service." At one point, around the fourth or fifth time Prince had leaned in to answer only to grasp she wasn't yielding, he looked around and as if he was about to laugh. Across America -- to the left, to the right, to the center -- many others may have been laughing as well.
On the Republican side? They win as ensemble, too many did far too much for just one to be signaled out. Top honors within the ensemble go to Lynn Westmoreland who wasted everyone's time by putting on his glasses and reading his remarks from prepared text. If you can write down everything ahead of time, don't even show up, just fax your prepared remarks to the media. And that was honestly a problem for most. Those who didn't so obviously read from their prepared remarks for their entire allotted time also didn't appear to listen too closely. That was true regardless of political party. Democrats John Sarbanes and Peter Welch deserve (positive) notice for questions and comments that demonstrated they were aware of what had been asked as well as what had been asked but not answered. Bruce Braley (Democrats) also deserves credit for not wasting his allotted time with a bunch of sop but instead tearing away at the issue of the laws that would or would not govern Blackwater in Iraq -- tearing away at the topic and refusing to let go. Noting the Blackwater employee -- allegedly drunk, who shot dead an Iraqi bodyguard on Christmas Eve 2006 (the committee agreed not to ask about the September 16th incident where Blackwater slaughtered at least 11 innocent Iraqis at the request of the Justice Department) and what passed for 'punishment' --Braley pointed out the message to take away was, "If I screw up . . . the worst that's going to happen is I have to give up a window seat for an aisle seat."
Braley was referring to the fact that Blackwater didn't discipline him. Prince repeatedly -- throughout the hearing -- would immediately go to flogging insisting (over and over) "We can't flog". The inablity to flog appears to be a big issue with Prince. Prince explained (at several points) that -- though they couldn't flog -- what Blackwater did with the employee was pull his plane ticket, withheld the employee's paycheck and the employee's bonus. Prince -- falling back on the flogging -- declared that Blackwater did all they could. Witholding earned wages is supposed to be against the law so it's a shame no one asked Prince what law Blackwater was operating under when they made that decision. A bonus can be given or taken away and any dispute over it can be handled by the courts but earned wages are earned wages and companies do not have the right to withold them.
What Price left out was that the employee didn't just leave. He was proud that the employee's security clearence was pulled. But he failed to show the public his pride over the fact that Blackwater hustled the employee out of Iraq before any serious questions could be asked. Price -- noting he watches crime shows on TV -- begged off ruling whether it was murder, homicide or manslaughter but didn't quibble that, in fact, it was a crime. That being the case, why an employee who had committed a serious crime was being whisked out of Iraq is a question he should have been asked repeatedly.
The point Braley was making was US service members -- in the same situation -- would be facing a court-martial but all the Blackwater employee basically lost was a window seat on the trip home. Throughout it at all, regardless of any question other than about his time in the US Navy Seals, Prince repeatedly fell back on "I don't know." On violence, on whether Chilean thugs who worked for Pinochet were now working for Blackwater (Jan Schakowsky brought that issue up and hit hard repeatedly on the human rights issue), what the make up of the Blackwater force in Iraq was, etc. It was left to Chris Murphy (after many had left the hearing -- press and committee members) to state the obvious, "Certainly as CEO you can tell us what your profit has been?" No, he couldn't.
But he could indicate that he believes Blackwater employees are destroying Blackwater equipment intentionally. That probably wasn't his intent but he declared, to Murphy, that "Our helicopters get fragged." "Frag" is internal not external. If the Blackwater helicopters are being "fragged" then the "fragging" would have to be done by a Blackwater worker. Listening to Prince go on and on about Blackwater's "costs" What costs? That's a serious question. Replacing a helicopter? Well talk to anyone in the trucking industry or the delivery industry and they'll tell you equipment's replaced all the time. But the point was driven home best when Jan Schakowsky was asking (repeatedly) how Blackwater checks out their employees. According to Prince, they basically just run Social Security numbers. So Glory, Glory Private Business . . . as it still depends upon all the tools of the federal government. As Henry Waxman noted in his opening statement, "Over the past 25 years, a sophisticated campaign has been waged to privatize government services. The theory is that corporations can deliver government services better and at a lower cost than government can. Over the last six years, this theory has been put into practice. The result is that privatization has exploded. For every taxpayer dollar spent on federal programs, over 40 cents now goes to private contractors. Our government now outsources even the oversight of the outsourcing. At home, core government functions -- like tax collection and emergency response -- have been contracted out. Abroad companies like Halliburton and Blackwater have made billions performing tasks that used to be done by our nation's military forces. What's been missing is a serious evaluation of whether the promises of privatizing are actually realized." Instead of addressing the reality, Prince elected to play like he didn't know, couldn't recall and invent fantasies. Such as when he wanted to tale the tale of his proudest moment of life. Picture it, if you could, because he couldn't. A man, an officer, unnamed, but this is the most vivid moment of Prince's life, right? So the officer tells him that all the troops serving under him know that if they get into trouble into Iraq, call Blackwater first. A lie and an obvious one. But if Prince wants to stick by it, then the US military might want to address policy with those serving because troops do NOT first call mercenaries when they are in need of help. In fact, to do so is a violation of the chain of command.
House Rep and 2008 presidential Democratic hopeful Dennis Kucinich attempted to seriously address the issue of the contracts Blackwater has been awarded by the federal government. He raised serious issues (including the huge increase Blackwater sees each year -- $48 million in 2004, $500 million last year). Prince told Kucinich these weren't "no bid" contracts, that Kucinich misunderstood. He fell back on that repeatedly allowing him to avoid Kucinich's questions. Then, after several other members had their turn at questioning, Prince wanted to clarify the record, turns out some of those contracts he was declaring weren't no-bid, were no-bid contracts.
It was very similar to his appalling response to US service members being scapegoated for the actions of Blackwater: "I don't believe that false story lasted in the media for more than a few hours." But when you're attempting to hustle someone out of the country, every hour counts. And what's a lie to Blackwater? Prince did the same thing with Kucinich's questions. He lied. Then, after he'd eated up the time on the clock, he would clarify his statements on the no-bid contracts. In fairness, if Prince is the idiot he pretended for the committee, then his lawyer assisted him because his attorney (seated to the left of him) was advising him throughout. But that is Blackwater for you. Lying doesn't matter if they correct it . . . after they've gotten what they wanted whether it's time to whisk an employee out of the country or to run down the clock on questions.
He smirked when the e-mail on the shooting was read, when "At least the ID of the shooter will take the heat off us" was read into the record. The heat was off Blackwater and it was placed on the US service members. But Prince thinks it's fine because it -- the lie -- was just out there for "a few hours." At another point, Prince would declare (of this same incident), "Look, I'm not going to make any apologies." No, he wasn't going to. And that he hasn't been forced to goes to how little accountability there is. Which is why he could also declare, "I believe we acted appropriately at all times."
If there was a more appalling moment than that -- to hear a CEO responsible for a company where an employee killed someone (they were focusing on the one death) declare he had no apologies to make -- it was when Mike Turner elected to whine about all the sympathy being shown. Why, he insisted, no one was even noting al-Qaeda. The issue wasn't al-Qaeda. The issue was a US company (of mercenaries) are harming Iraqi civlians (specific instances cited), not facing any punishment for it and it's the US service members that get blamed for it and have to deal with the further hostilities. But Turner -- who appeared genuinely stupid -- couldn't grasp that at and let his whine continue to declare that the focus on Iraqi civilians killed by Blackwater bothered him because "I think it crosses the line between our team and their team." Fortunately for Turner, there were other moments that people will probably zoom in on.Such as Lynn Westmoreland's crack-pot theories about a menace (Red?) in cahoots with trial attorneys across the nation. Thankfully, Westmoreland assured the country that this unnamed menace was not serving in the legislative branch ("There is a party not in Congress . . .").Less concerned with finger pointing within the halls of Congress, Darrell Issa attempted to paint the entire motive for the hearing as partisan, insisting that the hearing was being held because Blackwater has given so much money to Republicans. Erik Prince rejected that, noting, "Blackwater is not a partisan company." It flew over Issa's head. "I think you're exactly right!" Issa crowed, ignoring what Prince had just stated, and insisting this was an attempting to turn it into a partisan issue. Henry Waxman rightly pointed out, "The only one who's done that is you."Christopher Shays, before all but falling to his knees to praise the military, declared, "I was a conscientious objector. I was in the Peace Corp!"
As noted earlier, the September 16th slaughter was taken 'off the table'. Demetri Sevastopulo (Financial Times of London) reports that the FBI's plans to open an investigation into the incident ("last month shot and killed 11 Iraqi civilians") and "send a team to Iraq to assist a State department investigation." There are plenty of witnesses for them to talk to. Jomana Karadsheh and Alan Duke (CNN) report that the Iraqi police officer operating in the square asserts Blackwater "became terrorists" and that "they entered the square, throwing water bottles at the Iraqi police posted there and driving in the wrong direction." The police officer explains, "I saw parts of the woman's head flying in front of me, blow up and then her entire body was charred. What do you expect my reaction to be? Are they protecting the country? No. If I had a weapon I would have shot at them."
After Eric Prince completed his testimony, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform heard from US ambassadors David M. Satterfiled, Richard J. Griffin and William H. Moser. This aspect of the hearing was much shorter than Prince's and that may be due to the fact that even the most basic questions from US Representatives were met with obstruction from the three employees of the State Department. As Jan Schakowsky declared during her questionign, "I have heard all of that." One typical exchange went Q: "Are you refusing to answer" A: "I'm not able to confirm the details."
Bombings?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 police officer (five more wounded), while 5 other Baghdad roadside bombing claimed 2 lives (twelve wounded). Reuters notes a Khalis bomber killed himself as well 4 civilians "outside a police station" (one woman and one child were among the four dead) and a Jalawla roadside bombing left eleven injured. KUNA reports 6 dead with ten more injured in an Al-Khalis car bombing.
Shootings?
Reuters notes "a businessman and his son" were shot dead in Wihda while "primary school teacher Alaa al-Zubaidi" was shot dead in Suwayra, one person was shot dead in Hilla, an armed struggle in Abbasi claimed 2 lives
Corpses?
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 9 corpses were discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes 2 corpses discovered outside Kirkuk.
Meanwhile, Mark Deen and Kitty Donaldson (Bloomberg News) report, "Prime Minister Gordon Brown, preparing for a possible election in the U.K., said he plans to pull 1,000 troops out of Iraq by the end of this year. The withdrawal would leave about 4,250 U.K. soldiers stationed near the city of Basra and put Iraqi forces in charge of day-to-day security across the south of the country." AFP notes, "In policy terms, Brown has so far shown little divergence from Blair on Iraq, although he has accepted the issue has been politically 'divisive' and that 'mistakes' were made in the post-war planning and reconstruction."
Meanwhile, Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) notes, "The Democratic-led Senate has voted to authorize spending another $150 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Senate passed the spending measure by a 92 to 3 vote. Democrats Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma voted against the war spending. While the Senate bill authorizes the money to be spent, it does not guarantee it. President Bush will have to wait until Congress passes a separate appropriations bill before war funds are transferred to military coffers." On Bill Moyers Journal (last Friday in most markets and available online A/V and transcript) the issue of the financial costs of the illegal war were addressed:
BILL MOYERS: You said the other day to someone that we think we can fight the war in Iraq without paying for it. JOHN BOGLE: Well, we borrow the money to fight the Iraq War by some estimates and they're not absurd estimates is running now towards a $1 trillion. We could be doing what the British empire did. We could be bankrupting ourselves in the long run. And-- BILL MOYERS: You see us as an empire? JOHN BOGLE: Well, of course it's an empire. We reach all over the world. We thought of ourselves in many, many respects as the policemen of the world. God knows we know we're the policemen of the Middle East. And there are those say, even from Alan Greenspan on up or down, that oil is the root of that. I mean, these are great societal questions. Protecting oil, which is in turn polluting the atmosphere.We have problems as a society. And we don't have to surrender to them. But, we have to have a little introspection about where we are in America today. We've go to think through these things. We've got to develop a political system that is not driven by money. I mean, these are societal problems for us that don't have any easy answers.But you don't have to be an economist to know that a great deal of or a minimum in our economy is coming from borrowed money. People are spending at a higher rate than they're earning, and we're starting to pay a price for that now. Particularly in the mortgage side. But, eventually, that could easily spread and people won't be able to do that anymore. You can't keep spending money you don't have. It gets a lot of it, you know, and it wasn't that many years ago -- maybe a couple of generations ago -- that if you wanted something, you saved for it. And when you completed saving for it, you bought it. Imagine that. And that wasn't so bad. But, now, we know that we can have the instant gratification and pay for it with interest payments, of course, over time, which is not an unfair way to do it. We're going to pay a big price for the excessive debt we've accumulated in this society both in the public side and the private side.And it's no secret that this lack of savings in our economy -- just about zero -- is putting us at the mercy of foreign countries. China owns -- I don't know the exact number -- but, let me say about 25 percent of our federal debt. China does. What happens when they start to buy our corporations with all those extra dollars they've got there? I mean, I think that's very-- these problems are long term, are very much worrisome and very much intractable.
And, finally, tomorrow is an anniversary. As Dennis Kucinich's presidential campaign reminds: "Five years ago tomorrow (Wednesday, October 3), Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich stood on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to deliver an impassioned, point-by-point refutation of the Bush Administration's arguments seeking passage of the Iraq War Resolution. For days leading up to that moment, Kucinich also widely circulated his own independently conducted analysis of the 'intelligence' that the Administration had presented to Congress in support of the resolution. Eight days later, despite the warnings of Kucinich and 132 other members of the House whom he had managed to persuade to oppose this prelude to war, the majority of the House and the majority of the Senate gave the President the war powers he sought. Among those supporting the 'Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002' were Senators Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, and Joe Biden, all of whom spoke forcefully in favor of the President's strategy -- all four of whom are now Democratic Presidential candidates. All four subsequently approved additional measures for supplemental appropriations to fund the war, as did Democratic Senator Barack Obama after he was elected to the Senate in 2004. Now, five years after they approved a war that should never have been authorized in the first place, those same Democrats are scrambling to explain, excuse, or defend their votes. At the same time, the foremost among them are refusing to pledge an end to the war, admitting that it may extend well beyond 2013. Kucinich, the only Democratic candidate for President who voted against the original war authorization and every war-appropriation since, has recently raised loud warnings, in the Congress and in public statements, that House-approved and Senate-approve measures targeted towards Iran are 'dangerously and frighteningly similar' to those anti-Iraq resolutions approved five years ago." PDF warning: here for the independent analysis, here for the floor speech.
robin long
the common ills
the third estate sunday review
mikey likes itiraq
joshua keykyle snyder
bloomberg news
mcclatchy newspapers
gregory levey
bill moyersbill moyers journal
pbs
democracy now
Monday, October 01, 2007
Ann Wright, Third
Monday, Monday and I'm on the road speaking with the gang which is really great. It's a busy schedule but it's a good kind of wiped out and it's great to see so many students who care about ending the illegal war. That's true on my own campus and I've seen it when I've gone on the road with C.I. before but this really comes at a good time for me for a number of reasons including the fact that independent media dropped Iraq. Students aren't dropping it.
I caught Democracy Now! today in pieces. I was HUGELY unimpressed with the Nobel Peace winner. I thought she spoke like an uninformed gas bag. Her answer on Iraq? Well we just have to do basically what humanity's always tried -- move away from war as an answer. Thank you for the platitudes. Then, and remember this woman won a Nobel Peace Prize, she talked about US politics (she's from Kenya) and lamented that the US couldn't have both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for president. Neither of whom will promise to end the illegal war (if elected president) by the end of their first term. What a gas bag and what a waste of time. The peace queen didn't know a damn thing she was talking about. Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson and Mike Gravel have come out for ending the illegal war and the Nobel Peace Prize winner didn't even mention them. What a DUMB ASS gas bag.
As for her la-di-da, let's raise people to grasp that war is not the answer, maybe her DUMB ASS will have a sense of urgency when she grasps that Africa is next on the US' sights. We're building up bases in Africa. That's part of the reason we are reducing our military presence in Europe. That is the next battle -- long after Bully Boy's gone. And if I see her whimpering on TV in five to twenty years, tears running down her face about the wars the US is conducting in/on Africa, I'll just laugh and say, "Dumb Ass."
As I remember Dumb Ass' first flush of fame (after winning the peace prize for planting trees -- I'm not joking), she was having to clarify earlier remarks that struck many as saying AIDS wasn't what we understood it to be. That was in keeping with a large segment of Africans but it really makes you question her scientific wisdom.
And no one better write and say, "She's a Nobel Peace Prize winner!" Or "She's . . ." I don't care. She's a DUMB ASS. That's all she is. She won a peace prize (for planting trees) and she came off uninformed in an interview The Progressive did with her, she came off as an idiot with her original remarks about AIDS (which she denied making, but did she make them) and she came off as a dumb ass telling people that the answer for Iraq is raising people to believe war is not the answer. Tell it to the Iraqis dying. She was so above it all, floating on her damn cloud, dispensing bits of 'widom' that could have flowed out of the mouth of Cokie Roberts. Cokie, plant some trees, you too can win a Nobel Peace Prize.
And to hear her gush about Obama being from Kenya (his father was, he never visited the region until recently) and how Hillary was a woman. Thanks for telling us the basic -- with a huge serving of gush. But neither of them are peace candidates and you sound like an hypocrite when you're a Nobel Peace Prize winner and you can't even mention Dennis Kucininch who is the peace candidate. She's in the US on a speaking tour so don't give me the nonsense of, "Maybe the news hasn't reached Africa." Please, she's running a huge program in Africa, she's got a computer to be sure. And she's in America now so she damn well should be able to tell who is a peace candidate and who isn't. She was gabby, she was ethereal, she was floating on her cloud and completely useless.
Didn't Henry Kissinger win a Nobel Peace Prize as well? Obviously, they have a bad track record.
This is from Ann Wright's "More Bounties in Afghanistan and Pakistan Will Result in Detention of Innocent Civilians: 300 Uncharged Prisoners Still in Guantanamo from 2001 Reward Program" (who never tries to float on a could and act above it all):
The Bush administration has cooked up another bounty program that will undoubtedly result in hundreds of innocent persons in Afghanistan and Pakistan being detained and imprisoned perhaps for years if history is repeated.
The US military will pay anywhere from $20,000 to $200,000 for twelve "Most Wanted" Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders. Posters and billboards are being put up around eastern Afghanistan with the names and pictures of the 12 in hopes that they will be turned in by cash-poor neighbors or personal enemies. Additionally, the U.S. is paying up to $10,000 to Afghans who turn in any foreign fighter. Afghans who tell authorities about roadside bombs that have been planted also receive payments resulting in many innocent Afghans being turned in and detained for lengthy periods. In an extraordinarily unsuccessful bounty program, after six years, the US still has a $25 million price tag on Osama bin Laden and a $10 million bounty on Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Despite the bounty on Omar, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said that he would be willing to meet with Omar if it would lead to peace.
Over 370 people who still remain in Guantanamo were turned into US forces (not captured by US forces) in Afghanistan and Pakistan for rewards from $5,000 (for alleged Taliban) to $25,000 (for alleged al-Qaeda). The Bush administration says that 300 will never be charged, yet they are still imprisoned after five and one-half years. Only 50-70 prisoners will be charged according to the Bush administration.
And you can apply that to the prisons in Iraq as well. This is from C.I.'s "And the war drags on" last night:
Olive notes "Australian man freed from Baghdad prison" (Australia's Sunday Telegraph via PerthNow):
AN Australian man imprisoned for nine months in an Iraqi prison on suspicion of being a terrorist has been released without charge.Warya Kanie, 39, of Adelaide, was arrested by coalition forces last October while leaving a mosque in Baghdad on allegations of engaging in "anti-coalition" activities. He was detained under UN Security Council Resolution 1637 at the US Military-operated Camp Cropper and considered an "imperative threat to Iraq's security".
Good thing Iraq can wait, right? It's not like thousands of people aren't imprisoned in Iraq already.
Some people may think Iraq can wait (Pig suggested that with a column entitled that last Thursday -- that's what C.I.'s referring to repeatedly in last night's entry) but, boy, did I see students who care about the ending the illegal war today and about ending it now. Not four years from now.
Now here's where I talk about the latest edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review:
Truest statement of the week -- Joshua Gaines was our pick for obvious reasons. He returned his medals Wednesday. He earned recognition (though he didn't get much, did he?).
Truest statement of the week -- Gloria Steinem also had an important quote and, as Dona pointed out, we needed to have two truests for a number of reasons. Steinem was the obvious choice.
A Note to Our Readers -- Jim breaks down the edition and does a great job except when he corrects his note from last week. If you don't know, we've already all gone to sleep -- all but the core six -- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I. C.I. does the morning post at The Common Ills, then they come back for the note. So everyone's really, really tired. And Jim was tired. He's talking about the TV show Chuck and correcting his statment in last week's note that Ava and C.I. were going to review Medium the week before (they were going to review Chuck). But it's confusing and I'm not sure people will get he's talking about last week. I think some people may think he's saying they were going to review Chuck Sunday but went with Bionic Woman instead.
Editorial: Independent Media, Go To Your Room! -- I love this! :D Here's what happened, we had worked on that and thought, okay, it will be a print edition thing. And then we worked on the editorial. The editorial was not working. It was falling apart. We tried forcing it and it wouldn't work. So Wally goes, "It's not working." Wally was the voice of truth. We shelved that (it did go in the print edition) and were stuck wondering what to write about for the editorial and Rebecca goes, "Maybe we could grab that thing." Originally this stuff in this was going to be a "News You Missed Last Week" piece. To make it an editorial, we had to have a theme of some kind. And we had nothing and were too tired to think. Jim and Jess came up with a line comparing independent media to children and we wrote the whole thing with just that one line and about forty on other things and all the stuff we had written for "News You Missed Last Week." Everyone hated it. Everyone hated it and was putting it down. Rebecca said, "I've got to feed my baby" (she nurses) and was focusing on that. Everyone was on edge and Dona goes, "Everybody take a 15 minute break." Then she goes, "Everybody but Ava and C.I." So we take our break and she goes off somewhere with Ava and C.I. and they take the draft piece. They're gone about 10 minutes and come back saying that one line (which no one even rememberd) by Jim and Jess was the thing to build the piece around. "Independent media as cranky children" is what they came up with and went really quick. We all were shouting out ideas and only about half made it into it.
TV: Moronic Woman -- Brilliant. What else is there to say? This is the TV commentary that only Ava and C.I. can do. It's amazing. We were all like "woah" after Jim read it out loud.
Courage to Resist -- This is a really strong piece. Ty's going to try to add links. We really taxed Dallas (the editorial's missing one link that was added in, it wiped out a line when it was posted and the link's gone). Jim told Dallas not to worry about links on this to individuals. Dona had promised Ava and C.I. that Suzanne Swift would get a link but Jim didn't know that when he was telling Dallas about hwat needed links. So I'll do Suzanne Swift right here. Ava and C.I. insisted on the parenthetical explanation. Two reasons, one Swift's not listed at The Common Ills as a war resister and if it wasn't noted why in this, some people would e-mail asking that. Second, they really feel that Swift's case gets junked up with the issue of war resister. It would be one thing if she was giving speeches (or even one) saying she was a war resister. Their feeling is (based on conversations with mainstream media) that every time the war resistance angle was brought up, MSM lost interest. Swift was the victim of command rape, of sexual abuse and the military did not support her when she worked through channels, they ignored her. They feel that is the strongest case that will get Swift the honorable discharge the military owes her. When the stuff started up when Swift was first news, C.I. didn't like it because it looked like it was going to complicate the natural sympathy Swift should be receiving. When Swift ended up court-martialed, C.I. was really mad (mostly self-mad for not saying, "She's not a war resister, she's a victim of sexual assault"). So since then, Ava and C.I. (and everyone else in the community) has stuck with those aspects of her case. If she announces she's a war resister, we'll gladly bring that into it. But as her case stands now, they stress (and they do this all the time when they speak to students -- Ava and C.I.) what happened to her and how she deserves an immediate and honorable discharge. Other organizations can do what they want and label her as they see fit and that's fine. But C.I. really feels it was blown (and, again, there's self-blaming there) and that Swift was prevented from getting what she normally would have received (the press attention, the Congressional outrage, the immediate and honorable discharge) because of the issue of war resistance. You can check out Elaine's piece on Swift and the piece we wrote at The Third Estate Sunday Review (but, note, this was really written by Ava and C.I., all we did was pull the curse words -- they weren't planning on writing a draft but had done all the research and just let it rip, they ended up with a complete draft, we pulled -- as they requested -- the curse words and changed a line or two and Dona and Jim did an edit but that's really Ava and C.I.'s piece that the rest of us just help on). C.I. and Ava both have "Free Suzanne Swift" t-shirts that they wear when they speak on some campuses. (Some because they have one t-shirt -- they wear it on at least one day a week when they're on the road.)
Strangely familiar -- C.I. and I were jogging on Saturday morning and talking about the Dems and other things and we took this idea into the edition.
Support the Jena 5 (or fact check on indymedia) -- Betty's father wanted this covered and we were glad to do so. I really think this is a brave and strong piece.
Now Bully Boy's concerned about spending? Now? -- "Short feature!" That's what we did. :D
Cultural Operations Research Human Terrain -- "Short feature!" again.
Rusty Yates -- This was an e-mail that came in on one of Ava and C.I.'s TV pieces from last summer (summer 2006). It was interesting enough to be posted in full. And, as Jim points out, the thing there is to underscore that stuff comes in every week on things they wrote weeks, months and years ago. Their TV commentaries have the longest shelf life. People are always discovering them.
Highlights -- Kat, Betty, Rebecca, Elaine, Cedric, Wally and I wrote this and selected all highlights unless otherwise noted.
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 of course. Be sure to check out Betty's latest chapter: "The late night visitor"; and Ma's "Baked Pinapple Stuffing in the Kitchen." Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, October 1, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, cholera rages, Palestinians are targeted by Shia militias in Iraq, Blackwater -- what do you say, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Saturday, Patrick Maloney (London Free Press) reported that twenty-year-old James Stepp became the latest US war resister to move to Canada's London -- driving from Ohio with wife Vicki and their two children Cheyenne and Tilford and joining war resisters Tim Richard, Linjamin Mull and Matt Lowell who are also putting down roots in the city. Maaloney quotes Stepp declaring, "We miss our friends and we miss our family very much. But it's just something that had to be done. . . . The culture in America is you're either with us or against us. Especially in the military. I just ask people to understand why I did it. I would rather be an outcast in my own country than commit war crimes and live in comfort knowing I had done that."
Another war resister in Canada should have been actively pursued by journalists last week. James Burmeister went to Canada in May of this year and went public on his reasons for self-checking out. Among those reasons were the "kill teams" of US snipers who left US property (any US Army property -- not, as the mainstream media narrative last week insisted, just weapons and materials to make weapons out of) lying around as traps for Iraqis who would then be shot for touching US property. While the US media -- All Things Media Big and Small -- played dumb, Mina Al-Oraibi (Asharq Alawsat) spoke with Burmeister: "Burmeister says he refuses to participate in the practices of what he described as 'small kill teams', which include 'four of five soldiers, with a couple of snipers, who would go out on the streets and put something out, like a camera. Then they'd put a sign out [that said] if anyone touched it, they would be killed. But a lot of these people do not read English, so they would touch it to see what it is, and then they would be shot. [This is justified by] saying the American army has the right to shoot anyone trying to steal its property'." Mina Al-Orabi also speaks with war resister Matthew Lowell who notes that, unlike Burmeister, he's not sure his family in the United States supports his decision: "I do talk to my family, although they haven't come to visit me at all. As far as them supporting my decision, I am not fully certain." He explains, "I tried to get out legitimately before deciding to go AWOL [Absent Without Official Leave]. Nothing I did worked through; I came to Candada first in September-October 2003. At that time, I didn't know about applying for refugee status or a work permit and just got a job that paid under the table." After which, Lowell went back to the United States, turned himself in, checked out from Fort Knox and eventually, November 2005, returned to Canada and states, "Call me what you want. I left my country, my friends, my family, all because of my conscience and morals. What kind of person would I be if I agreed to participate in the slaughtering of people who didn't agree with my way of life, who didn't threaten my family, my friends, and everything that I know? When I joined the military it was to defend all those that I hold dear. I volunteered for the military on those grounds, so why if we aren't defending, should I have to kill? At least I can still hold my head up high and carry myself with pride and respect."
In Friday's snapshot, we noted that three war resisters had published their stories in book form this year: Aidan Delgado with The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib: Notes From A Conscientious Objector In Iraq, Camilo Mejia shared his story in Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia and Joshua Key told his story in The Deserter's Tale. Today, a fourth war resister joins that list. As Elaine noted Friday, Letters from Fort Lewis Brig: A Matter of Conscience is Kevin Benderman (with wife Monica Benderman) telling his story. Kevin Benderman saw a kangaroo court in July 2005 -- his court-martial on trumped up charges -- and no applause from the military brass for any commendable actions such as refusing an order in Iraq to shoot at little kids who were throwing rocks. Prior to and during Kevin Benderman's imprisonment, Monica Benderman went to many book stores attempting to find books about COs (Kevin Benderman attempted to be granted CO status) and other forms of resistance. She found basically zilch at the time. Kevin Benderman's story is one that needs to be told. And they're getting it out.
Of course some will not know about it. For instance, The Nation has refused to review any of the three books already released. A weekly magazine, purportedly against the illegal war, that has pages and pages, and wasted pages, of really bad writing about really bad books but it can't be bothered -- thus far -- in reviewing books by war resisters. Amazingly, what a weekly -- with pages and pages of book reviews each issue -- can't do (really, what they won't do) ISR and The Progressive have been able to. This month, ISR proved they can continue to do so as they reviewed Mejia's Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia (not available online -- we noted it in last Monday's snapshot -- it runs on pages 73 and 74 of the print edition and is written by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field). That's the September/October edition of ISR. The October issue of The Progressive also reviews Mejia's book. JoAnn Wypijewski review ("Dilemmas of a War Resister") runs from pages 39-44 and uses the book as a starting off point to address multiple issue about the illegal war. Wypijewski notes, "Mejia seems to have found his voice, in life and in the book, in the course of saying no. At the end of his court-martial -- his description of which captures the sinking experience of witnessing justice reduce to procedure -- he tells the panel of jurors:
"Yes, you have the power to convict me, to sentence me, to discharge me with a bad conduct discharge. . . I have been a bad soldier according to you, and you have that much power, but [remember] I am part of the military. . . I am one of you, and this is my family too. We're all on trial. Not just me, sitting here, but everybody here in uniform, everybody in this country. . . . Now I feel free."
This review isn't available online. The October issue isn't up yet at the site. The Progressive makes selections available each month. There's a great deal in the October issue (and I wish I'd gone through it last night because it could have easily fit into "And the war drags on"). But we're going to leave it with that for this snapshot and hopefully pick up later in the week. We'll also note Wypijewski later in this snapshot on a different topic. For now, we'll note that both The Progressive and ISR have reviewed two of the now four books by war resisters. Aidan Delgado's only came out last month and Kevin Benderman's is out today. One is a monthly, the other a bi-monthly. Both were able to do what The Peace Resister Katrina vanden Heuvel's weekly Nation magazine won't. Just as the magazine refuses to cover war resisters.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, 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, forty-one 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.
Turning to the issue of mercenaries. Over the weekend, Warren P. Strobel (McClatchy Newspapers) reported on the beliefs by those working under State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard that he was impeading "investigations into alleged arms smuggling by employees of the private security firm Blackwater and into faulty construction of the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad" and that he "threatened two investigators with retaliation this week if they cooperate with a congressional probe into Krongard's office". The US State Department has relied on Blackwater for protection. And the State Department can always rely on the New York Times for protection -- decade after decade. Which is the best explanation for James Risen (New York Times) proclaiming on Saturday that the State Dept had started not one, not two, but 3 investiagions -- those reading further into the article may have noted that the person over the investigations was still not in Iraq at the time Risen 'reported' (though he was expected to arrive at some point over the weekend). While the Times provided cover, Scotland's Sunday Herald provided coverage noting, "EVEN FOR Blackwater, it was an atrocity too far. If an Iraqi government report is to be believed, Blackwater, a US mercenary company which is unofficially the world's largest "for hire" private army, indiscriminately and without provocation opened fire earlier this month on civilians in a Baghdad street, killing at least 20 people." That's referencing the September 16th attack by Blackwater where they slaughtered innocent Iraqis in Baghdad. Note "mercenary" is used and not apologized for nor are quotation marks required. During the time since that slaughter, as more and more of the mercenary violence has made even the mainstream news, the Defense Department has been happy to point fingers at the State Department and note that it's that US department using Blackwater. Ali Gharib (Asia Times) reports today that the Defense Department's hands are far from clean and, inf act, despite homophobe Petey Pace -- joint chief of staffs -- declaring that Blackwater "could certanily be" a contractor "in the future" seeming to imply that the September 16th slaughter had resulted in some soul searching on the part of DoD, "The future arrived just two hours later when the Pentagon released a new list of contracts - Presidential Airways, the aviation unit of parent Blackwater, was awarded the contract to fly Department of Defense passengers and cargo around Central Asia." Keeping Blackwater in business since . . . well, all along.
Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted the contract is for $92 million and that "Newseek has obtained an extensive evidence file assembled by the Iraqi National Police after the Sept. 16 shooting. Iraqi officials concluded Blackwater forces opened fire unprovoked from the ground and the sky." And CNN reports that, "A Blackwater contractor wrote an initial U.S. government report about how his colleagues killed Iraqi civilians in a September shooting that strained U.S.-Iraqi relations, government and industry sources told CNN." This was the two-page State Department report and if you're unfamiliar with it, we noted it repeatedly via the 'reporting' of Sabrina Tavernise and James Glanz for the New York Times. So a correction is in order. I had no idea that the State Department had contracted out their long history of direct channels with the paper of no record or that they had contracted that relationship to Blackwater. Tavernise and Glanz must be so proud to be on the 'cutting edge' of a new chapter in the paper's history.
So, to be perfectly clear, the following appeared on Friday: "To no surprise James Glanz and Sabrina Tavernise are back to shovel the usual crap they've provided on Blackwater throughout. Based on a a two-page report (put out by the US), they write a self-serving account that makes you wonder if they're sleeping with Blackwater? Unliked the Iraqi government's report, the two never use 'self-serving' to describe the report. The report isn't worth noting here. It's nothing but distraction and you can tell that by the fact that the State Department is trying to publicly maintain distance from the report. But Tavernise and Glanz have no distance, they've been one-sided throughout on this story and today's nonsense further undermines their own standing as journalists." That is the two-page spot report CNN is reporting on. And we will stand by the report being "self-serving" -- it read such and Glanz and Tavernise -- so quick to apply the term to an Iraqi report -- should have applied to what was in fact that report the State Dept outsourced to Blackwater. This is the heavily pimped report that cast Blackwater in a much more positive light than reality provided. Proud moments for Tavernise and Glanz, proud moments.
Two Fridays ago, on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, Rehm asked about the Iraqis slaughtered by Blackwater on September 16th and guests participating in the roundtable had no information on them. McClatchy Newspapers' Leila Fadel (at the paper's blog Baghdad Observer) does and wrote of it as she prepared to leave Iraq for a brief period, "But the things that will stay with me over my break are Afrah's tears. I sat in her home this past week to talk about her mother Ghania. Afrah was the woman's favorite among her eight children. Often her sisters would complain that she and Ghania were always together. Afrah talked about her kindness, Ghania would hide away her favorite foods for her or pick up clothes or trinkets from the market that reminded her of her daughter. Ghania is gone, killed at the back of a bus by what witnesses said were bullets from Blackwater security guards on Sept. 16 in Nisour square. While they protected Americans Iraqis died, witnesses said." Ghania is only one of the many slaughtered by the mercenaries of Blackwater.
Moving to some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports an east Baghdad bombing left three people injured while a northeast Baghdad bombing left two people injured. Reuters notes a Mosul car bombing claimed the life of 1 university professor (six more individuals were wounded) and a mortar attack in Yusufiya claimed the life of 1 adult and left a child wounded.
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that Abdul Jalil Khalaf ("police commander of Basra province") was targeted with an assassination today (he survived) and yesterday Lt. Col. Norri was attacked by three assailants who fired repeatedly at his car in Al Anbar Province.
Corpses?
Reuters notes 4 corpses discovered in Kirkuk and 2 in Mahaweel.
Last week, the US Senate voted 75 in favor of what's known as the Biden amendment. The non-binding legislation (do the Dems offer anything binding since being returned to power?) calls for the partitioning of Iraq into 3 areas. Ron Jacobs (CounterPunch) observed last week, "Partitioning Iraq is not a solution that is Washington's to make. The recent vote by the US Senate is misguided. In addition, it will do little to further the desire of the US public to bring the troops home. Instead, it will put US forces in the position of maintaining the newly created divisions along new lines in the sand. Senator Biden's bill is not a solution. It is another false approach that has as much chance at success as anything tried by the Bush administration. In other words, it is destined to fail." Ned Parker and and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) reported yesterday, "Iraq's divided political leadership, in a rare show of unity, skewered a non-binding U.S. Senate resolution approved in Washington last week that endorsed the decentralization of Iraq into semiautonomous regions." Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reports today, "Opposition to it has even found currency on the street, where Iraqis have volunteered their opinion to American reporters they encountered. Said one, 'So you are going to divide our country?'" Both Rubin and the team of Parker and Salman report on Sunday's press conference in which a statement was read declaring that the partition proposal "represents a dangerous precedent to establishing the nature of relationship between Iraq and the USA and shows the Congress as if it were planning for a long-term occupation by their country's troops and for their staying in Iraq." Also now opposing the plan is, AFP reports, Jordan's King Abdulla II has come out publicly against the measure. The Biden amendment is named after US Senator and 2008 presidential hopeful Joe Biden.
Staying with the US Congress. Michael Ratner and Heidi Boghosian addressed the US Congress on WBAI's Law and Disorder today (Ratner and Boghosian host the program along with Dalia Hashad and Michael Ratner) with Ratner noting that the measures to end the illegal war have not been pushed by Democrats and the excuse offered : "What they said they were afraid of was a filibuster. . . . If they'd been forced to go through with it then the Republicans would have been forced to filibuster and they [Republicans] would have been seen as obstructing it."
Heidi Boghosian: Why? Why didn't they push for this?
Michael Ratner: Other than the fact that Democrats play softball compared to the Republicans who play hardball, you know this was never an issue when the Republicans were there. When the Democrats said we'll filibuster -- when the Republicans ran the Congress -- you know what the Republicans' reaction was? We're going to change the law, we're going to change the way Congress runs, and we're going to make it so you can't filibuster anymore. And so that was the Republicans' reaction but the Democrats instead of saying "We're going to force you to filibuster on the Iraq War and it's your problem," they just basically caved. So we're here with the Iraq War for a very, very long time, I'm afraid.
Now in last week's Democratic presidential nominee 'debate' broadcast on MSNBC, 'front runners' Barack Obama, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton all refused to pledge the illegal war, if elected president, by the end of their first term. As we noted at The Third Estate Sunday Review yesterday, Joe Biden -- author of the now rejected amendment (which doesn't mean the Senate won't stick with it) -- attempted to say yes and no: "Candidate Joe Biden hedged the answer. He said yes and he said no. He declared, 'Just from Iraq. You're going to bring all troops home from Iraq. 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 -- but -- if you go along with the Biden plan that got 75 votes today and you have a stable Iraq like we have in Bosnia -- we've had 20,000 Western troops in Bosnia for 10 years. Not one has been killed -- not one. The genocide has ended. So it would depend on the circumstances when I became president.' He would bring them all home . . . unless his plan to partition Iraq into three sections came to be and since it won the support of 75 idiots in the Senate, it's very likely that Iraq will be carved up into three areas if the US has the last say. In which case, Biden's answer is 'no'."
Michael Ratner: The war of course is more complicated. The most cynical of people say that the Democrats don't want to vote to actually do anything about the war in part because they want the Republicans to lose the election based on the war. Of course I don't see why a filibuster wouldn't have done that same thing by the Republicans. But I actually think in some ways that it's a cyncial, political maneuver that Nancy Pelosi and others, and Reid -- the Senate Majority Leader, Pelosi of course in the House -- have basically made a calculation: the Democrats can win and they can win the presidency if things remain approximately the same around the war.
HeidI Boghosian: Hmm-hmm. The status quo.
Michael Ratner: And meanwhile Iraqis are dying every day and American soldiers are dying every day.
And it's not just bullets and bombs killing Iraqis -- the cholera outbreak continues with AP reporting yesterday, "Three more people have died of cholera in Iraq, bringing the number of deaths to 14 across the country, the World Health Organization said." Today AFP reports that hospitals in the northern section of the country "are reporting up to 100 new cases of cholera a day as the bacterial disease continues to spread across the country". Prensa Latina observes that 12 have died in the outbreak and at lest 2,839 have een confirmed as infected "according to the Iraqi Health Ministry on Monday."
From cholera to the refugee crisis. Amnesty International reveals:
Scores of Palestinian refugees in Iraq have been killed since the US-led invasion in 2003. Most were abducted by armed groups and their bodies found a few days later in a morgue or dumped in a street, often mutilated or with clear marks of torture. Many Palestinians have fled their homes, most of which are in Baghdad, after receiving written threats warning them to leave the country or face death. Some are in hiding inside Iraq; others are stranded in makeshift camps near the Iraq/Syria border with no apparent solution to their plight. Some Palestinians have been arrested and detained by Iraqi security forces on suspicion of involvement in insurgency activities or links with Sunni insurgents. Most of those arrested have been released without charge, but many say they were tortured or otherwise ill-treated in detention. Palestinian refugees have been targeted by armed militia groups affiliated to Shi'a religious parties because of their ethnicity and because they are reputed to have received preferential treatment under the former Ba'ath government headed by Saddam Hussain. As Iraq plunged into chaos and the sectarian strife between Shi'a and Sunni intensified, Palestinians became more vulnerable.
That is from their press release. Click here for the full report -- and the link takes you to HTML, not PDF.
Lastly, this may be the only time this gets noted before the events take place (it's also the first time because I keep forgetting to mention it). October 13th and October 14th, the Kopkind holds two major events in Vermont -- Saturday, October 13th, Peter Davis will screen his amazing documentary -- amazing and Oscar winning -- Hearts and Minds at 4:00 pm in Brattleboro and the following day in Guilford, Vermont a forum entitled Left Alive? will be held with Alexander Cockburn (CounterPunch) participating along with JoAnn Wypijewski (whom we noted earlier in the snapshot and who is also on the Kopkind board of directors -- named after the tell-it-like-it-is reporter Andrew Kopkind. Please see The Kopkind Blog for more details (and possibly correct details -- verify what I've just dictated if you're interested in the events).
Closing with fables for the willfully dumb, it's the first month which means that not only is the Surpeme Court back in session (first Monday in October), it's also time for the paper's who bother to note the death toll (US) in Iraq to rush to print their features despite the fact that M-NF regularly and repeatedly makes announcements for the previous month after it has ended. Jim Michaels (USA Today) is jazzed on the 'news' that the death toll is 62 for September -- "the lowest levels in more than a year." But 'news' -- like bad reporting -- can shift quickly and ICCC reports it's 63 for the month of September. ICCC has updated their count since the start of the illegal war to 3804 which is also the count AP goes with. Of course, AFP reported yesterday, "US military losses in Iraq for September stood at 71 on Sunday, but the toll remained the lowest monthly figure since July last year, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures." and the count since the start of the illegal war was then 3892. But don't dwell on the numbers (or the way M-NF kept reporters confused all month as they frequently refused to make announcements leading people to wait for the DoD to announce the names of the dead whose deaths were never announced).
the common ills
like maria said paz
kats korner
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
trinas kitchenthe daily jot
cedrics big mix
mikey likes itthomas friedman is a great man
the third estate sunday review
iraq
james stepppatrick maloneyjames burmeister
mina al-oraibikevin benderman
aidan delgadojoshua keycamilo mejia
elizabeth wrigley-field
law and disorder
michael ratner
michael smith
dalia hashad
heidi boghosian
democracy nowamy goodman
blackwater usa
the diane rehm showmcclatchy newspapersleila fadel
the new york timesalissa j. rubinsabrina tavernisethe los angeles timesned parker
like maria said paz
I caught Democracy Now! today in pieces. I was HUGELY unimpressed with the Nobel Peace winner. I thought she spoke like an uninformed gas bag. Her answer on Iraq? Well we just have to do basically what humanity's always tried -- move away from war as an answer. Thank you for the platitudes. Then, and remember this woman won a Nobel Peace Prize, she talked about US politics (she's from Kenya) and lamented that the US couldn't have both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for president. Neither of whom will promise to end the illegal war (if elected president) by the end of their first term. What a gas bag and what a waste of time. The peace queen didn't know a damn thing she was talking about. Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson and Mike Gravel have come out for ending the illegal war and the Nobel Peace Prize winner didn't even mention them. What a DUMB ASS gas bag.
As for her la-di-da, let's raise people to grasp that war is not the answer, maybe her DUMB ASS will have a sense of urgency when she grasps that Africa is next on the US' sights. We're building up bases in Africa. That's part of the reason we are reducing our military presence in Europe. That is the next battle -- long after Bully Boy's gone. And if I see her whimpering on TV in five to twenty years, tears running down her face about the wars the US is conducting in/on Africa, I'll just laugh and say, "Dumb Ass."
As I remember Dumb Ass' first flush of fame (after winning the peace prize for planting trees -- I'm not joking), she was having to clarify earlier remarks that struck many as saying AIDS wasn't what we understood it to be. That was in keeping with a large segment of Africans but it really makes you question her scientific wisdom.
And no one better write and say, "She's a Nobel Peace Prize winner!" Or "She's . . ." I don't care. She's a DUMB ASS. That's all she is. She won a peace prize (for planting trees) and she came off uninformed in an interview The Progressive did with her, she came off as an idiot with her original remarks about AIDS (which she denied making, but did she make them) and she came off as a dumb ass telling people that the answer for Iraq is raising people to believe war is not the answer. Tell it to the Iraqis dying. She was so above it all, floating on her damn cloud, dispensing bits of 'widom' that could have flowed out of the mouth of Cokie Roberts. Cokie, plant some trees, you too can win a Nobel Peace Prize.
And to hear her gush about Obama being from Kenya (his father was, he never visited the region until recently) and how Hillary was a woman. Thanks for telling us the basic -- with a huge serving of gush. But neither of them are peace candidates and you sound like an hypocrite when you're a Nobel Peace Prize winner and you can't even mention Dennis Kucininch who is the peace candidate. She's in the US on a speaking tour so don't give me the nonsense of, "Maybe the news hasn't reached Africa." Please, she's running a huge program in Africa, she's got a computer to be sure. And she's in America now so she damn well should be able to tell who is a peace candidate and who isn't. She was gabby, she was ethereal, she was floating on her cloud and completely useless.
Didn't Henry Kissinger win a Nobel Peace Prize as well? Obviously, they have a bad track record.
This is from Ann Wright's "More Bounties in Afghanistan and Pakistan Will Result in Detention of Innocent Civilians: 300 Uncharged Prisoners Still in Guantanamo from 2001 Reward Program" (who never tries to float on a could and act above it all):
The Bush administration has cooked up another bounty program that will undoubtedly result in hundreds of innocent persons in Afghanistan and Pakistan being detained and imprisoned perhaps for years if history is repeated.
The US military will pay anywhere from $20,000 to $200,000 for twelve "Most Wanted" Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders. Posters and billboards are being put up around eastern Afghanistan with the names and pictures of the 12 in hopes that they will be turned in by cash-poor neighbors or personal enemies. Additionally, the U.S. is paying up to $10,000 to Afghans who turn in any foreign fighter. Afghans who tell authorities about roadside bombs that have been planted also receive payments resulting in many innocent Afghans being turned in and detained for lengthy periods. In an extraordinarily unsuccessful bounty program, after six years, the US still has a $25 million price tag on Osama bin Laden and a $10 million bounty on Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Despite the bounty on Omar, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said that he would be willing to meet with Omar if it would lead to peace.
Over 370 people who still remain in Guantanamo were turned into US forces (not captured by US forces) in Afghanistan and Pakistan for rewards from $5,000 (for alleged Taliban) to $25,000 (for alleged al-Qaeda). The Bush administration says that 300 will never be charged, yet they are still imprisoned after five and one-half years. Only 50-70 prisoners will be charged according to the Bush administration.
And you can apply that to the prisons in Iraq as well. This is from C.I.'s "And the war drags on" last night:
Olive notes "Australian man freed from Baghdad prison" (Australia's Sunday Telegraph via PerthNow):
AN Australian man imprisoned for nine months in an Iraqi prison on suspicion of being a terrorist has been released without charge.Warya Kanie, 39, of Adelaide, was arrested by coalition forces last October while leaving a mosque in Baghdad on allegations of engaging in "anti-coalition" activities. He was detained under UN Security Council Resolution 1637 at the US Military-operated Camp Cropper and considered an "imperative threat to Iraq's security".
Good thing Iraq can wait, right? It's not like thousands of people aren't imprisoned in Iraq already.
Some people may think Iraq can wait (Pig suggested that with a column entitled that last Thursday -- that's what C.I.'s referring to repeatedly in last night's entry) but, boy, did I see students who care about the ending the illegal war today and about ending it now. Not four years from now.
Now here's where I talk about the latest edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review:
Truest statement of the week -- Joshua Gaines was our pick for obvious reasons. He returned his medals Wednesday. He earned recognition (though he didn't get much, did he?).
Truest statement of the week -- Gloria Steinem also had an important quote and, as Dona pointed out, we needed to have two truests for a number of reasons. Steinem was the obvious choice.
A Note to Our Readers -- Jim breaks down the edition and does a great job except when he corrects his note from last week. If you don't know, we've already all gone to sleep -- all but the core six -- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I. C.I. does the morning post at The Common Ills, then they come back for the note. So everyone's really, really tired. And Jim was tired. He's talking about the TV show Chuck and correcting his statment in last week's note that Ava and C.I. were going to review Medium the week before (they were going to review Chuck). But it's confusing and I'm not sure people will get he's talking about last week. I think some people may think he's saying they were going to review Chuck Sunday but went with Bionic Woman instead.
Editorial: Independent Media, Go To Your Room! -- I love this! :D Here's what happened, we had worked on that and thought, okay, it will be a print edition thing. And then we worked on the editorial. The editorial was not working. It was falling apart. We tried forcing it and it wouldn't work. So Wally goes, "It's not working." Wally was the voice of truth. We shelved that (it did go in the print edition) and were stuck wondering what to write about for the editorial and Rebecca goes, "Maybe we could grab that thing." Originally this stuff in this was going to be a "News You Missed Last Week" piece. To make it an editorial, we had to have a theme of some kind. And we had nothing and were too tired to think. Jim and Jess came up with a line comparing independent media to children and we wrote the whole thing with just that one line and about forty on other things and all the stuff we had written for "News You Missed Last Week." Everyone hated it. Everyone hated it and was putting it down. Rebecca said, "I've got to feed my baby" (she nurses) and was focusing on that. Everyone was on edge and Dona goes, "Everybody take a 15 minute break." Then she goes, "Everybody but Ava and C.I." So we take our break and she goes off somewhere with Ava and C.I. and they take the draft piece. They're gone about 10 minutes and come back saying that one line (which no one even rememberd) by Jim and Jess was the thing to build the piece around. "Independent media as cranky children" is what they came up with and went really quick. We all were shouting out ideas and only about half made it into it.
TV: Moronic Woman -- Brilliant. What else is there to say? This is the TV commentary that only Ava and C.I. can do. It's amazing. We were all like "woah" after Jim read it out loud.
Courage to Resist -- This is a really strong piece. Ty's going to try to add links. We really taxed Dallas (the editorial's missing one link that was added in, it wiped out a line when it was posted and the link's gone). Jim told Dallas not to worry about links on this to individuals. Dona had promised Ava and C.I. that Suzanne Swift would get a link but Jim didn't know that when he was telling Dallas about hwat needed links. So I'll do Suzanne Swift right here. Ava and C.I. insisted on the parenthetical explanation. Two reasons, one Swift's not listed at The Common Ills as a war resister and if it wasn't noted why in this, some people would e-mail asking that. Second, they really feel that Swift's case gets junked up with the issue of war resister. It would be one thing if she was giving speeches (or even one) saying she was a war resister. Their feeling is (based on conversations with mainstream media) that every time the war resistance angle was brought up, MSM lost interest. Swift was the victim of command rape, of sexual abuse and the military did not support her when she worked through channels, they ignored her. They feel that is the strongest case that will get Swift the honorable discharge the military owes her. When the stuff started up when Swift was first news, C.I. didn't like it because it looked like it was going to complicate the natural sympathy Swift should be receiving. When Swift ended up court-martialed, C.I. was really mad (mostly self-mad for not saying, "She's not a war resister, she's a victim of sexual assault"). So since then, Ava and C.I. (and everyone else in the community) has stuck with those aspects of her case. If she announces she's a war resister, we'll gladly bring that into it. But as her case stands now, they stress (and they do this all the time when they speak to students -- Ava and C.I.) what happened to her and how she deserves an immediate and honorable discharge. Other organizations can do what they want and label her as they see fit and that's fine. But C.I. really feels it was blown (and, again, there's self-blaming there) and that Swift was prevented from getting what she normally would have received (the press attention, the Congressional outrage, the immediate and honorable discharge) because of the issue of war resistance. You can check out Elaine's piece on Swift and the piece we wrote at The Third Estate Sunday Review (but, note, this was really written by Ava and C.I., all we did was pull the curse words -- they weren't planning on writing a draft but had done all the research and just let it rip, they ended up with a complete draft, we pulled -- as they requested -- the curse words and changed a line or two and Dona and Jim did an edit but that's really Ava and C.I.'s piece that the rest of us just help on). C.I. and Ava both have "Free Suzanne Swift" t-shirts that they wear when they speak on some campuses. (Some because they have one t-shirt -- they wear it on at least one day a week when they're on the road.)
Strangely familiar -- C.I. and I were jogging on Saturday morning and talking about the Dems and other things and we took this idea into the edition.
Support the Jena 5 (or fact check on indymedia) -- Betty's father wanted this covered and we were glad to do so. I really think this is a brave and strong piece.
Now Bully Boy's concerned about spending? Now? -- "Short feature!" That's what we did. :D
Cultural Operations Research Human Terrain -- "Short feature!" again.
Rusty Yates -- This was an e-mail that came in on one of Ava and C.I.'s TV pieces from last summer (summer 2006). It was interesting enough to be posted in full. And, as Jim points out, the thing there is to underscore that stuff comes in every week on things they wrote weeks, months and years ago. Their TV commentaries have the longest shelf life. People are always discovering them.
Highlights -- Kat, Betty, Rebecca, Elaine, Cedric, Wally and I wrote this and selected all highlights unless otherwise noted.
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 of course. Be sure to check out Betty's latest chapter: "The late night visitor"; and Ma's "Baked Pinapple Stuffing in the Kitchen." Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Monday, October 1, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, cholera rages, Palestinians are targeted by Shia militias in Iraq, Blackwater -- what do you say, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Saturday, Patrick Maloney (London Free Press) reported that twenty-year-old James Stepp became the latest US war resister to move to Canada's London -- driving from Ohio with wife Vicki and their two children Cheyenne and Tilford and joining war resisters Tim Richard, Linjamin Mull and Matt Lowell who are also putting down roots in the city. Maaloney quotes Stepp declaring, "We miss our friends and we miss our family very much. But it's just something that had to be done. . . . The culture in America is you're either with us or against us. Especially in the military. I just ask people to understand why I did it. I would rather be an outcast in my own country than commit war crimes and live in comfort knowing I had done that."
Another war resister in Canada should have been actively pursued by journalists last week. James Burmeister went to Canada in May of this year and went public on his reasons for self-checking out. Among those reasons were the "kill teams" of US snipers who left US property (any US Army property -- not, as the mainstream media narrative last week insisted, just weapons and materials to make weapons out of) lying around as traps for Iraqis who would then be shot for touching US property. While the US media -- All Things Media Big and Small -- played dumb, Mina Al-Oraibi (Asharq Alawsat) spoke with Burmeister: "Burmeister says he refuses to participate in the practices of what he described as 'small kill teams', which include 'four of five soldiers, with a couple of snipers, who would go out on the streets and put something out, like a camera. Then they'd put a sign out [that said] if anyone touched it, they would be killed. But a lot of these people do not read English, so they would touch it to see what it is, and then they would be shot. [This is justified by] saying the American army has the right to shoot anyone trying to steal its property'." Mina Al-Orabi also speaks with war resister Matthew Lowell who notes that, unlike Burmeister, he's not sure his family in the United States supports his decision: "I do talk to my family, although they haven't come to visit me at all. As far as them supporting my decision, I am not fully certain." He explains, "I tried to get out legitimately before deciding to go AWOL [Absent Without Official Leave]. Nothing I did worked through; I came to Candada first in September-October 2003. At that time, I didn't know about applying for refugee status or a work permit and just got a job that paid under the table." After which, Lowell went back to the United States, turned himself in, checked out from Fort Knox and eventually, November 2005, returned to Canada and states, "Call me what you want. I left my country, my friends, my family, all because of my conscience and morals. What kind of person would I be if I agreed to participate in the slaughtering of people who didn't agree with my way of life, who didn't threaten my family, my friends, and everything that I know? When I joined the military it was to defend all those that I hold dear. I volunteered for the military on those grounds, so why if we aren't defending, should I have to kill? At least I can still hold my head up high and carry myself with pride and respect."
In Friday's snapshot, we noted that three war resisters had published their stories in book form this year: Aidan Delgado with The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib: Notes From A Conscientious Objector In Iraq, Camilo Mejia shared his story in Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia and Joshua Key told his story in The Deserter's Tale. Today, a fourth war resister joins that list. As Elaine noted Friday, Letters from Fort Lewis Brig: A Matter of Conscience is Kevin Benderman (with wife Monica Benderman) telling his story. Kevin Benderman saw a kangaroo court in July 2005 -- his court-martial on trumped up charges -- and no applause from the military brass for any commendable actions such as refusing an order in Iraq to shoot at little kids who were throwing rocks. Prior to and during Kevin Benderman's imprisonment, Monica Benderman went to many book stores attempting to find books about COs (Kevin Benderman attempted to be granted CO status) and other forms of resistance. She found basically zilch at the time. Kevin Benderman's story is one that needs to be told. And they're getting it out.
Of course some will not know about it. For instance, The Nation has refused to review any of the three books already released. A weekly magazine, purportedly against the illegal war, that has pages and pages, and wasted pages, of really bad writing about really bad books but it can't be bothered -- thus far -- in reviewing books by war resisters. Amazingly, what a weekly -- with pages and pages of book reviews each issue -- can't do (really, what they won't do) ISR and The Progressive have been able to. This month, ISR proved they can continue to do so as they reviewed Mejia's Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia (not available online -- we noted it in last Monday's snapshot -- it runs on pages 73 and 74 of the print edition and is written by Elizabeth Wrigley-Field). That's the September/October edition of ISR. The October issue of The Progressive also reviews Mejia's book. JoAnn Wypijewski review ("Dilemmas of a War Resister") runs from pages 39-44 and uses the book as a starting off point to address multiple issue about the illegal war. Wypijewski notes, "Mejia seems to have found his voice, in life and in the book, in the course of saying no. At the end of his court-martial -- his description of which captures the sinking experience of witnessing justice reduce to procedure -- he tells the panel of jurors:
"Yes, you have the power to convict me, to sentence me, to discharge me with a bad conduct discharge. . . I have been a bad soldier according to you, and you have that much power, but [remember] I am part of the military. . . I am one of you, and this is my family too. We're all on trial. Not just me, sitting here, but everybody here in uniform, everybody in this country. . . . Now I feel free."
This review isn't available online. The October issue isn't up yet at the site. The Progressive makes selections available each month. There's a great deal in the October issue (and I wish I'd gone through it last night because it could have easily fit into "And the war drags on"). But we're going to leave it with that for this snapshot and hopefully pick up later in the week. We'll also note Wypijewski later in this snapshot on a different topic. For now, we'll note that both The Progressive and ISR have reviewed two of the now four books by war resisters. Aidan Delgado's only came out last month and Kevin Benderman's is out today. One is a monthly, the other a bi-monthly. Both were able to do what The Peace Resister Katrina vanden Heuvel's weekly Nation magazine won't. Just as the magazine refuses to cover war resisters.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, 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, forty-one 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.
Turning to the issue of mercenaries. Over the weekend, Warren P. Strobel (McClatchy Newspapers) reported on the beliefs by those working under State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard that he was impeading "investigations into alleged arms smuggling by employees of the private security firm Blackwater and into faulty construction of the new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad" and that he "threatened two investigators with retaliation this week if they cooperate with a congressional probe into Krongard's office". The US State Department has relied on Blackwater for protection. And the State Department can always rely on the New York Times for protection -- decade after decade. Which is the best explanation for James Risen (New York Times) proclaiming on Saturday that the State Dept had started not one, not two, but 3 investiagions -- those reading further into the article may have noted that the person over the investigations was still not in Iraq at the time Risen 'reported' (though he was expected to arrive at some point over the weekend). While the Times provided cover, Scotland's Sunday Herald provided coverage noting, "EVEN FOR Blackwater, it was an atrocity too far. If an Iraqi government report is to be believed, Blackwater, a US mercenary company which is unofficially the world's largest "for hire" private army, indiscriminately and without provocation opened fire earlier this month on civilians in a Baghdad street, killing at least 20 people." That's referencing the September 16th attack by Blackwater where they slaughtered innocent Iraqis in Baghdad. Note "mercenary" is used and not apologized for nor are quotation marks required. During the time since that slaughter, as more and more of the mercenary violence has made even the mainstream news, the Defense Department has been happy to point fingers at the State Department and note that it's that US department using Blackwater. Ali Gharib (Asia Times) reports today that the Defense Department's hands are far from clean and, inf act, despite homophobe Petey Pace -- joint chief of staffs -- declaring that Blackwater "could certanily be" a contractor "in the future" seeming to imply that the September 16th slaughter had resulted in some soul searching on the part of DoD, "The future arrived just two hours later when the Pentagon released a new list of contracts - Presidential Airways, the aviation unit of parent Blackwater, was awarded the contract to fly Department of Defense passengers and cargo around Central Asia." Keeping Blackwater in business since . . . well, all along.
Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted the contract is for $92 million and that "Newseek has obtained an extensive evidence file assembled by the Iraqi National Police after the Sept. 16 shooting. Iraqi officials concluded Blackwater forces opened fire unprovoked from the ground and the sky." And CNN reports that, "A Blackwater contractor wrote an initial U.S. government report about how his colleagues killed Iraqi civilians in a September shooting that strained U.S.-Iraqi relations, government and industry sources told CNN." This was the two-page State Department report and if you're unfamiliar with it, we noted it repeatedly via the 'reporting' of Sabrina Tavernise and James Glanz for the New York Times. So a correction is in order. I had no idea that the State Department had contracted out their long history of direct channels with the paper of no record or that they had contracted that relationship to Blackwater. Tavernise and Glanz must be so proud to be on the 'cutting edge' of a new chapter in the paper's history.
So, to be perfectly clear, the following appeared on Friday: "To no surprise James Glanz and Sabrina Tavernise are back to shovel the usual crap they've provided on Blackwater throughout. Based on a a two-page report (put out by the US), they write a self-serving account that makes you wonder if they're sleeping with Blackwater? Unliked the Iraqi government's report, the two never use 'self-serving' to describe the report. The report isn't worth noting here. It's nothing but distraction and you can tell that by the fact that the State Department is trying to publicly maintain distance from the report. But Tavernise and Glanz have no distance, they've been one-sided throughout on this story and today's nonsense further undermines their own standing as journalists." That is the two-page spot report CNN is reporting on. And we will stand by the report being "self-serving" -- it read such and Glanz and Tavernise -- so quick to apply the term to an Iraqi report -- should have applied to what was in fact that report the State Dept outsourced to Blackwater. This is the heavily pimped report that cast Blackwater in a much more positive light than reality provided. Proud moments for Tavernise and Glanz, proud moments.
Two Fridays ago, on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, Rehm asked about the Iraqis slaughtered by Blackwater on September 16th and guests participating in the roundtable had no information on them. McClatchy Newspapers' Leila Fadel (at the paper's blog Baghdad Observer) does and wrote of it as she prepared to leave Iraq for a brief period, "But the things that will stay with me over my break are Afrah's tears. I sat in her home this past week to talk about her mother Ghania. Afrah was the woman's favorite among her eight children. Often her sisters would complain that she and Ghania were always together. Afrah talked about her kindness, Ghania would hide away her favorite foods for her or pick up clothes or trinkets from the market that reminded her of her daughter. Ghania is gone, killed at the back of a bus by what witnesses said were bullets from Blackwater security guards on Sept. 16 in Nisour square. While they protected Americans Iraqis died, witnesses said." Ghania is only one of the many slaughtered by the mercenaries of Blackwater.
Moving to some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports an east Baghdad bombing left three people injured while a northeast Baghdad bombing left two people injured. Reuters notes a Mosul car bombing claimed the life of 1 university professor (six more individuals were wounded) and a mortar attack in Yusufiya claimed the life of 1 adult and left a child wounded.
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that Abdul Jalil Khalaf ("police commander of Basra province") was targeted with an assassination today (he survived) and yesterday Lt. Col. Norri was attacked by three assailants who fired repeatedly at his car in Al Anbar Province.
Corpses?
Reuters notes 4 corpses discovered in Kirkuk and 2 in Mahaweel.
Last week, the US Senate voted 75 in favor of what's known as the Biden amendment. The non-binding legislation (do the Dems offer anything binding since being returned to power?) calls for the partitioning of Iraq into 3 areas. Ron Jacobs (CounterPunch) observed last week, "Partitioning Iraq is not a solution that is Washington's to make. The recent vote by the US Senate is misguided. In addition, it will do little to further the desire of the US public to bring the troops home. Instead, it will put US forces in the position of maintaining the newly created divisions along new lines in the sand. Senator Biden's bill is not a solution. It is another false approach that has as much chance at success as anything tried by the Bush administration. In other words, it is destined to fail." Ned Parker and and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) reported yesterday, "Iraq's divided political leadership, in a rare show of unity, skewered a non-binding U.S. Senate resolution approved in Washington last week that endorsed the decentralization of Iraq into semiautonomous regions." Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reports today, "Opposition to it has even found currency on the street, where Iraqis have volunteered their opinion to American reporters they encountered. Said one, 'So you are going to divide our country?'" Both Rubin and the team of Parker and Salman report on Sunday's press conference in which a statement was read declaring that the partition proposal "represents a dangerous precedent to establishing the nature of relationship between Iraq and the USA and shows the Congress as if it were planning for a long-term occupation by their country's troops and for their staying in Iraq." Also now opposing the plan is, AFP reports, Jordan's King Abdulla II has come out publicly against the measure. The Biden amendment is named after US Senator and 2008 presidential hopeful Joe Biden.
Staying with the US Congress. Michael Ratner and Heidi Boghosian addressed the US Congress on WBAI's Law and Disorder today (Ratner and Boghosian host the program along with Dalia Hashad and Michael Ratner) with Ratner noting that the measures to end the illegal war have not been pushed by Democrats and the excuse offered : "What they said they were afraid of was a filibuster. . . . If they'd been forced to go through with it then the Republicans would have been forced to filibuster and they [Republicans] would have been seen as obstructing it."
Heidi Boghosian: Why? Why didn't they push for this?
Michael Ratner: Other than the fact that Democrats play softball compared to the Republicans who play hardball, you know this was never an issue when the Republicans were there. When the Democrats said we'll filibuster -- when the Republicans ran the Congress -- you know what the Republicans' reaction was? We're going to change the law, we're going to change the way Congress runs, and we're going to make it so you can't filibuster anymore. And so that was the Republicans' reaction but the Democrats instead of saying "We're going to force you to filibuster on the Iraq War and it's your problem," they just basically caved. So we're here with the Iraq War for a very, very long time, I'm afraid.
Now in last week's Democratic presidential nominee 'debate' broadcast on MSNBC, 'front runners' Barack Obama, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton all refused to pledge the illegal war, if elected president, by the end of their first term. As we noted at The Third Estate Sunday Review yesterday, Joe Biden -- author of the now rejected amendment (which doesn't mean the Senate won't stick with it) -- attempted to say yes and no: "Candidate Joe Biden hedged the answer. He said yes and he said no. He declared, 'Just from Iraq. You're going to bring all troops home from Iraq. 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 -- but -- if you go along with the Biden plan that got 75 votes today and you have a stable Iraq like we have in Bosnia -- we've had 20,000 Western troops in Bosnia for 10 years. Not one has been killed -- not one. The genocide has ended. So it would depend on the circumstances when I became president.' He would bring them all home . . . unless his plan to partition Iraq into three sections came to be and since it won the support of 75 idiots in the Senate, it's very likely that Iraq will be carved up into three areas if the US has the last say. In which case, Biden's answer is 'no'."
Michael Ratner: The war of course is more complicated. The most cynical of people say that the Democrats don't want to vote to actually do anything about the war in part because they want the Republicans to lose the election based on the war. Of course I don't see why a filibuster wouldn't have done that same thing by the Republicans. But I actually think in some ways that it's a cyncial, political maneuver that Nancy Pelosi and others, and Reid -- the Senate Majority Leader, Pelosi of course in the House -- have basically made a calculation: the Democrats can win and they can win the presidency if things remain approximately the same around the war.
HeidI Boghosian: Hmm-hmm. The status quo.
Michael Ratner: And meanwhile Iraqis are dying every day and American soldiers are dying every day.
And it's not just bullets and bombs killing Iraqis -- the cholera outbreak continues with AP reporting yesterday, "Three more people have died of cholera in Iraq, bringing the number of deaths to 14 across the country, the World Health Organization said." Today AFP reports that hospitals in the northern section of the country "are reporting up to 100 new cases of cholera a day as the bacterial disease continues to spread across the country". Prensa Latina observes that 12 have died in the outbreak and at lest 2,839 have een confirmed as infected "according to the Iraqi Health Ministry on Monday."
From cholera to the refugee crisis. Amnesty International reveals:
Scores of Palestinian refugees in Iraq have been killed since the US-led invasion in 2003. Most were abducted by armed groups and their bodies found a few days later in a morgue or dumped in a street, often mutilated or with clear marks of torture. Many Palestinians have fled their homes, most of which are in Baghdad, after receiving written threats warning them to leave the country or face death. Some are in hiding inside Iraq; others are stranded in makeshift camps near the Iraq/Syria border with no apparent solution to their plight. Some Palestinians have been arrested and detained by Iraqi security forces on suspicion of involvement in insurgency activities or links with Sunni insurgents. Most of those arrested have been released without charge, but many say they were tortured or otherwise ill-treated in detention. Palestinian refugees have been targeted by armed militia groups affiliated to Shi'a religious parties because of their ethnicity and because they are reputed to have received preferential treatment under the former Ba'ath government headed by Saddam Hussain. As Iraq plunged into chaos and the sectarian strife between Shi'a and Sunni intensified, Palestinians became more vulnerable.
That is from their press release. Click here for the full report -- and the link takes you to HTML, not PDF.
Lastly, this may be the only time this gets noted before the events take place (it's also the first time because I keep forgetting to mention it). October 13th and October 14th, the Kopkind holds two major events in Vermont -- Saturday, October 13th, Peter Davis will screen his amazing documentary -- amazing and Oscar winning -- Hearts and Minds at 4:00 pm in Brattleboro and the following day in Guilford, Vermont a forum entitled Left Alive? will be held with Alexander Cockburn (CounterPunch) participating along with JoAnn Wypijewski (whom we noted earlier in the snapshot and who is also on the Kopkind board of directors -- named after the tell-it-like-it-is reporter Andrew Kopkind. Please see The Kopkind Blog for more details (and possibly correct details -- verify what I've just dictated if you're interested in the events).
Closing with fables for the willfully dumb, it's the first month which means that not only is the Surpeme Court back in session (first Monday in October), it's also time for the paper's who bother to note the death toll (US) in Iraq to rush to print their features despite the fact that M-NF regularly and repeatedly makes announcements for the previous month after it has ended. Jim Michaels (USA Today) is jazzed on the 'news' that the death toll is 62 for September -- "the lowest levels in more than a year." But 'news' -- like bad reporting -- can shift quickly and ICCC reports it's 63 for the month of September. ICCC has updated their count since the start of the illegal war to 3804 which is also the count AP goes with. Of course, AFP reported yesterday, "US military losses in Iraq for September stood at 71 on Sunday, but the toll remained the lowest monthly figure since July last year, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures." and the count since the start of the illegal war was then 3892. But don't dwell on the numbers (or the way M-NF kept reporters confused all month as they frequently refused to make announcements leading people to wait for the DoD to announce the names of the dead whose deaths were never announced).
the common ills
like maria said paz
kats korner
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
trinas kitchenthe daily jot
cedrics big mix
mikey likes itthomas friedman is a great man
the third estate sunday review
iraq
james stepppatrick maloneyjames burmeister
mina al-oraibikevin benderman
aidan delgadojoshua keycamilo mejia
elizabeth wrigley-field
law and disorder
michael ratner
michael smith
dalia hashad
heidi boghosian
democracy nowamy goodman
blackwater usa
the diane rehm showmcclatchy newspapersleila fadel
the new york timesalissa j. rubinsabrina tavernisethe los angeles timesned parker
like maria said paz
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)