Isaiah, Joni Mitchell, 3800 mark

Tuesday.

First, I've changed my post from yesterday. The point where I brought Zirin's e-mail in has been pulled. All of it. He wrote an e-mail that took guts and I saw it this evening. Here's how it reads now at that point:

Changed 9-25-07. I'm pulling what was here before. Dave Zirin wrote an e-mail after this posted that showed a lot of guts. I will include one part that was in it yesterday from his e-mail. I see this is as a clarification by him on what he was attempting to say on Democracy Now! when he was disccusing Robert Clemente and Barack Obama:
My point is that Obama tries to make it sound like he is so real, when Clemente was doing this decades earlier. It's a critique of Obama that you've chosen to see as some kind of endorsement.
Add that [to] what he did say on the program ("You know, it is interesting when you hear Barack Obama tell stories about handlers, trying to get him to call himself Barry Obama. And Iwas thinking, that is what Roberto Clemente went through 30 years ago. Like he had people telling him, 'Call yourself Bob Clemente, or Bobby Clemente.' But he refused to do that.")
That's all I have to say on the matter.

Then I go right into the snapshot. I might have pulled more ahead of the e-mail if I had read over what I wrote (read over tonight) but I didn't want to go through it. I didn't even read all of Zirin's e-mail. I read enough to see what looked like a sincere gesture. For the record, I didn't see anything by Zirin asking me to pull or change anything. That would have been a request. I'm not C.I. I will post any e-mail here that comes in if I want to. He didn't make any requests (at least not as far as I read). He just talked straight.

So that part of the post is gone.

I owe one apology. Isaiah drew a comic that was going to up tonight parodying the whole thing. I've asked everyone to just try to forget it. So Isaiah's comic (and C.I.'s entry) are not going up.
I feel bad because Isaiah spent a lot of time drawing that and it did make me laugh. (He e-mailed me a copy of it.) If you forgot or never knew, Isaiah had a favorite site and for some reason -- well for a reason, I'll go into it -- Isaiah got slammed by it. To kiss up to X (who I don't believe was mad at C.I.), a blogger was e-mailing C.I. constantly and getting highlights. This was pissing the community off because C.I. wasn't being noted by the blogger. I don't remember what the stuff was but C.I. would note it and then it would be mentioned at that blog with no credit to C.I. I'm talking stuff like pulling out old books or things like that and applying it to current events. This isn't, "Oh, maybe they saw the same article in the paper!" This was obviously stuff C.I. was bringing to the table that no one else would. And Krista said in a roundtable, "Stop putting in page numbers." She thought that would prove it. So C.I. stopped putting in page numbers and also created a line entirley (intentionally) from the way it was in the book. Sure enough it went up exactly that way with the blogger pretending he had stumbled upon it. He hadn't. If he had, he would have had page numbers and he wouldn't have included a sentence that didn't run in the book because C.I. created that sentence (the sentence was pulled 8 hours after it went up and C.I. said in the roundtable for no one to use anything from it for a research paper or anything because there would be a made up sentence). So when that made it up to, even C.I. couldn't say, "Oh, it's just a coincidence." Then Ava responded to one of the highlights (the blogger sent his own stuff all the time to get it highlighted) with something like, "We're real busy." So he e-mails a few days later to say he posted Isaiah's comic. He did too. And he insulted Isaiah's comic. I guess he didn't think anyone would notice that? Isaiah already had and was just shocked because he'd been one of the people who voted the blog onto the permalinks. So that was it for that site. C.I. removed it from the links. The blogger wrote about it and Ava responded with an e-mail she wrote while reading it outloud to all of us (we were in DC at the time). That was it. C.I. never replied to him. But Isaiah read my thing last night and it reminded him some of when his comics got trashed.

So thank you to Isaiah for that and I'm sorry it didn't go up even though it was funny. Thank you to C.I. too. The pulled section (C.I. decided to let me respond first here) started off with, "Forget war resisters, forget Iraq. I'm pissed and today we're starting with a different topic."
War resisters almost always start the snapshot. There's probably only one snapshot where that didn't happen in the last few months. I think that was the helicopter crash where all the US service members died. But for C.I. to start with that was a big thing and I appreciate it.

I want to talk about Isaiah's comics (plural) for a second. He draws great. They are funny. He's always down on his handwriting and I always say, "Take a look at mine!" I like them, handwriting and all. And what was so offensive to me about Isaiah getting attacked was that blogger didn't draw crap. He reposted comics from the paper. He did that all the time, several times a day. So if he likes comics and thinks they are important, maybe he should have gotten off his lazy ass and tried drawing one?

I value what Isaiah does very much. When the whole trash Isaiah thing went down, I was pissed. But I didn't get how that felt and now I do so I'm really pissed. Let me add one more thing, if you don't live in the United States, why is your entire site about the US? Why are you blogging about Bully Boy? Why are you quoting US news programs and papers? If you live in another country with your own bully boy in charge of your country -- Australia -- with your own problems with the Iraq War and with your own Guantanamo issues, if you're really a citizen of that country, why aren't you focused on your own country instead of obsessed with the US? Maybe the guy lives there. If so, I guess it's easier to criticize Bully Boy then it is to call out John Howard. I mean, I could slam every other leader in the world and stay silent about Bully Boy. People would probably think I was a coward and I wouldn't blame them. Because if your own country's leader is pushing the illegal war and you're not calling him out, you strike me as a big coward.

That really screwed Isaiah over when it happened. And it didn't just screw him over all at once. It really festered and got to the point where he couldn't do the comic anymore because it hurt him and it made him mad. That's when C.I. said, "I know you don't want me to delink from ___ but let me do that and let's see if that helps any." It did. And that really doesn't surprise me.

These days, along with the Sunday comic (unless he's on vacation or has something going on like a wedding or someone in the hospital), Isaiah does comics for all the community newsletters. He works his butt off. And that 'brave' talking blogger? Shut his site down. Isaiah's still here and not afraid to call out the Bully Boy or Hillary Clinton or anyone in his country.

A running gag lately in The World Today Just Nuts is that Bully Boy's in a wedding dress. Isaiah had Bully Boy confused about the confirmation process for Supreme Court judges back in 2005 and this year he's got Bully Boy thinking he gets to wear a wedding dress to Jenna's wedding because he likes to play dress up. On August 19th, it started with "Bully Boy Meets Jenna's Fiance"



Another favorite of mine is "Pelosi Buys the War" from March 25th.



I should add those are two of my favorites from this year on Flickr. Before this year, the Hello! program was used. And you have to go week by week to find them. (Only C.I. can. Rebecca highlights some from time to time and always calls C.I. and says, "Hey, that thing on Alberto, when did it run?" C.I.'s got the memory for that. I don't.) The Hello! program ended their partnership with Blogger/Blogspot at the start of 2007. Some of Isaiah's stuff from this year isn't on Flickr because there was another program being used when Flickr gave huge problems. But you can see a lot of it up there and these are among my favorites at Flickr this year.

Another thing I really love is Joni Mitchell's Shine. Dad bought multiple copies at Starbucks today. (He hates Starbucks. This was only the second time in his life he was in one. The other time was for my kid sister who loves Alanis so Dad went to Starbucks when they were doing an acoustic CD of Alanis -- doing Jagged Little Pill but acoustic.) My folks love Joni and all of us kids grew up hearing. (We heard Carly all the time, the Stones, the Beatles, Jackson Browne, the Mamas & the Papas, Stevie Wonder, Joni and one or two others that we heard all the time.) So Dad bought nine CDs. One for him (and Ma) and one for each of us kids. If you read "Kat's Korner: Judy Collins makes like Eydie Gorme," Kat was right. This is a great CD. It's really something. My favorite Joni CD is For The Roses and this has textures like that one. So check it out if your father didn't go out and purchase it for you already!

I should add that Dad also played other stuff too but that was the designated family music. If we were playing board games in the living room or just chilling after we'd all gone to a game. Dad's a huge Pink Floyd fan as well and you do not want to get him started on them! :D

My oldest sister (so this was way before I was born) was scared when Jimi Hendrix would come on the stereo so he wasn't family music. She could take the soft songs (like "Little Wing") but Dad couldn't put an album on and let it play all the way through because something like "The Star Spangeled Banner" would make her start crying. :D She laughs about that today.

The 3800 mark was reached today. 3800 US service members have died in Bully Boy's illegal war. Kat's writing about something in the snapshot today so check that out and about her post yesterday, yeah, I knew about Corey Hart. I know about others too. She's lived a very exciting life. (And I really did enjoy what she wrote last night, by the way.)

Okay, gone on forever. But I also need to thank Elaine for yesterday. Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

Tuesday, September 25, 2007. Chaos and violence continues, the 3800 mark has been reached for US service members who have died in the illegal war, cholera -- forgotten by the press but stil raging in Iraq, Jame Burmeister was talking about the "kill teams" in June but where were All Things Media Big and Small, and more.


Starting with war resistance and starting with James Burmeister who shared his story with Maria Hinojosa PBS' NOW with David Brancaccio (first broadcast August 24th in most PBS markets -- click here for transcript and here for a/v). 23-year-old Burmeister explained why he signed up: "I always wanted to do something that would be a big help and it seemed like the perfect thing." The segment focused on Burmeister and Agustin Aguayo and though Aguayo explained how his opinion changed while serving Iraq. Burmeister? Tape exists of why he changed his mind. It didn't make the final cut. NOW with David Brancaccio could air that footage or post it online and be seen as 'up to the minute' because one of the reasons Burmeister . Instead, we skip over reasons for his opposition and are taken to "James saw only two options either go back to Iraq or go AWOL" with Burmeister going to Canada May 4th. [At this site, screen cap is included and community member Eddie provided it. It's used in Ava and my TV commentary from August 26, 2007.]

What's missing from the story? It's a story told on Canada's CBC if not PBS. Click here for summary (which includes audio link as well) of the June 29th interview.


James Burmeister: Myself, I was a Calvary scout. We do a lot of reconnaissance, mapping out, a lot of raids. Our platoon in particular would set up small groups called "Platoon Kill Teams" -- maybe a group of four, five people, some snipers and we would set up fake cameras, we would put "Property of US government" in English and Arabic and we would wait for an Iraqi to come up and touch it because that gives the US the right to kill them -- so they say. That would be the typical thing we would do.

Rob Benzie: You called this baiting. Is that right?

James Burmeister: Definitely.

"Baiting." In the news this week. The Washington Post yesterday, the New York Times today and it could have been PBS in August -- if they'd aired the video. They didn't. And they couldn't tell you why Burmeister turned against the illegal war without airing the video of that section of the interview. Back to the CBC interview.

James Burmeister: It had a lot to do with the small kill teams which really bothered me. I didn't see how that was helping at all. We would roll around in the streets of Baghdad looking for a fight, and go into the danger areas and wait for somebody to shoot just so we could shoot somebody else. When I was back in Germany, after my six months there, I had threats to lie about my medical situation. At that point . . .

Rob Benzie: What took you to Germany after Iraq?

James Burmeister: I was actually injured in a bomb blast. I was a gunner on top of a Humvee and we were going up and down the same route several times something that you never should do in a combat situation. Bomb just blew up to the left side of the truck, knocked me out, I lost the hearing in my right ear, some shrapnel in my face and they decided to send me back on two weeks of leave instead of actually sending me to a hospital and so I had to go back and on my two weeks of leave had to do all my own hospital work on my own time. Eventually, I got my leave extended but after, after awhile they started to threaten me to lie about my medical situation or else they were just going to destroy my life. You know, they really wanted to get me back.

Rob Benzie: So you decided to leave?

James Burmeister: Definitely. I kind of had the idea in my mind a little bit but it wasn't a certain thing, Definitely after the threats and I had all these doubts about the war. That was it for me.

Kill squads. Platoon Kill Teams. Due to the fact that cases are going on right now, court-martials, the mainstream press is semi-talking about Kill Teams. They're zooming in on 'materials' of interest to 'insurgents' being left out. That is not reality.

Now if war resisters were covered, this would have been a news topic some time ago. But war resistance isn't covered and in terms of any coverage at all, it's done better by big media than small if you're looking volume. PBS remains the only American national outlet to interveiw Burmeister. Some papers in his the area he grew up in interviewed as well. But All Things Media Big and Small took a pass. For most of them, it was the same pass they've taken since the start of the illegal war.

In this morning's New York Times, Paul von Zielbauer reports on the "testimony presented in a military court" which some might argue is also known as "transcription." PvZ notes "soldiers testifying for the defense have said the sniper team was employing a 'baiting program' developed at the Pentagon by the Asymmetrical Warfare Group, which met with Ranger sniper teams in Iraq in January and gave equipment to them." Human Rights Watch weighs in their general useless manner (and demonstrates their ignorance with regards to war resisters -- no surprise). Jorge G. Sandoval Jr., Michael A. Hensley and Evan Vela are the three US service members facing punishment -- and if more were public about the program, many higher ups would probably also be facing charges. Across the Atlantic, the BBC demonstrates the stupidity (willfrul or just a natural state) isn't confined to the US as they note that the US military will not confirm or deny the program's existance and cite military flack Paul Boyce as delcaring that using "drop weapons" would not "appear legally justified, as the three snipers are accused of doing." For those who paid attention, the wording is that way because the military is saying, "OH NO! We didn't okay that! But we're not going to go into what we did say and thank goodness no one uses Canada's CBC as a trusted news source so no one will ever raise the important issue!"


On the subject of war resistance, The Fayetteville Observer interviewed Chuck Fager last weekend. Fager is the director of the area's Quaker House and he reported that in 2002 there were 3,000 phone calls asking for assistance while in 2006 the number of calls had trippled to 9,000 "[a]nd most of the months this year have set records for each month. As of the end of May, we have received 4,320 calls". Fager explained that they were "getting more and more calls about (AWOL) . . . sometimes from people who are thinking about it and sometimes from people who already are."

There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Derek Hess, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, 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, 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, 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.

The 3800 marker has been reached. Today the US military announced, "A Task Force Lightning Soldier was killed in Diyala Province, Tuesday, when an explosion occured near his vehicle." 3800 US service members have been announced killed in the illegal war. As noted Sunday in "Editorial: Buying the illegal war" (The Third Estate Sunday Review): "In the November 2006 elections, Democrats were put back in charge of both houses of Congress with a mandate to end the illegal war. The session of the 110th Congress started on January 3rd. On January 4th, the first announced death to take place after Dems were sworn in was made ("A Multi-National Division - Baghdad patrol was attacked by small arms fire, killing one Soldier in the western part of the Iraqi capital today.") and that took the number of US service members to die in the illegal war to 3006. His name was Charles D. Allen." 3005 before Dems were sworn in, put in control of both houses. 3800 today. 795 deaths while they have been in power and they continue to fund the illegal war, they refuse to use the filibuster to end the funding, they've done nothing but pass 'symbolic' measures -- such as when they 'symbolically' agreed they weren't in favor of the escalation (aka "the surge").

3800 dead
Keep the number in your head
36,943 maimed
They will never be the same
1.06 million Iraqis 'liberated' from their lives
It was all based on lies
It was all based on lies.

Turning to the land of 'progress,' 'democracy' and 'liberation' -- Iraq. A McClatchy Newspapers' Iraqi correspondent observes (at Inside Iraq) the realities for Iraqi women since the start of the illegal war, the loss of rights, and wonders, "Why?? Why have we lost our rights? For what have we been pushed back into the dark ages? How can this be liberation if my daughter has fewer rights than I did at her age? If she has less control over her life than I did? Fewer choices than even her grandmother had?" Fewer choices. Jay Price (McClatchy Newspapers) writes of the rash of burn victims (female) showing up in Kurdistan with many assumed to be suicide attempts (most of which are successful -- and many confess they were suicide attempts). Why set yourself on fire with kerosene? Don't you remember? Newsweek said it was a trend! And fashionable! And just something little romantic teenager 'girls' do. They do love their (false) trend stories at Newsweek. Price writes, "The common factor, though, was usually the traditional, patriarchal culture, which often leaves women feeling powerless in dealings with husbands, fathers or even brothers. That powerlessness is magnified when a girl marries young and comes under a husband's domination before she has a chance to learn much about life, Monsour said." Meanwhile, AKI reports that a "newly formed women's caucus" in the parliament is attempting to apply prssure on the issue of assisting "victims of the war in Iraq, including widows and orphans, war victims' families and Iraqi refugee".
.

Let's drop back to yesterday's snapshot:

In news of other attacks, Reuters reports a the targeting of various officials such as Sunday's Kut attack aimed at the police chief of the Wasit province (two bodyguards were injured) that continue today with a bombing targeting the police chief of Kirkuk (two bodyguards wounded) and an attack on the mayor of Kirkuk (1 bodyguard killed, seven wounded). Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reveals there were more officials targeted "General Secretary of the National Accordance Group, Najaf Branch, Adel Waheed Abood was targeted by gunmen and sustained two bullets this morning; one in the neck and another in the shoulder. The Health Department in Najaf says his condition is critical. He was a nominee for the position of Governor in Najaf governorate."

That would be a trend. A continuing trend and one that alert reporters should pick up on and immediately flashback to the months of June and July 2003 when resistance seemed unthinkable to so many enlisted in Operation Happy Talk. Edward E. Kramer (New York Times) sees a trend in an attack on a 'reconciliation banquet'. The trend to watch is the escalating attacks outside the capital directed at those in charge of protecting and governing provinces. Such as AP's report this morning on the bombing attack of "police headquarters . . . in Basra" that claimed the lives of at least 3 Iraqi police officers. Or how about this? Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports, "The head of the local council of Hawija town Hussein Ali Salih was injured with one of his guards and a third civilian when a suicide car bomb targeted the convoy of Salih near Al Mahmoudiyah fuel station in Hawija town west of Kirkuk today afternoon." and "An IED exploded near the house of one of the officers of the 1st battalion, the 2nd Iraqi army brigade in Hawiha town yesterday night." and (this is all Hammoudi), "A gunman killed one of the military commandeers of the PUK Party today afternoon. The police said that Col. Ali Simeen, the commander of the emergency battalion of Bashmarga (Kurdish military troops) in Tuz Khurmatu town was killed in front of his house inside Kifri district south of Kirkuk city." And Reuters reports a "bomber wearing an explosives belt blew himself up near a police colonel, wounding the officer and nine others in Mosul." On the Basra attack, Deborah Haynes (Times of London) notes, "The suicide bomber approached al-Ashar police station as trainees were taking part in a morning demonstration outside the front, police said. A guard saw him and opened fire but failed to stop the car from detonating. Police said that three trainees were killed and seventeen wounded. Major Shearer said that only one member of the Iraqi security forces had been killed, along with two civilians, while a number of others were injured."

On the bombing Monday that Kramer was recounting, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) observered today, "In news from Iraq, up to 25 people died on Monday when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque during a reconciliation meeting between a Shiite and Sunni militia. The suicide bomber struck in the mixed village of Shifta, outside Baquba. Baquba's police chief died in the attack. Meanwhile in Baghdad, residents of the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City say US forces have raided a number of houses. One civilian died in the raids. Iraq Resident: 'We are poor people. We do not have oil! We do not have anything! They took everything from us and in addition to all these things, they attacked us (repeatedly). Why did they do this to us? What did those innocent people do? They burnt out this generator (points), which supply us with electricity'."

Returning to today's violence . . .

Bombings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports three police officers were wonded in a downtown Baghdad bombing,and two Baghdad car bombings claimed 2 lives and left twelve wounded. Reuters reports a Khaldiya bombing killed a police office and a Falluja roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 police officer and left a second injured.


Kidnappings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports an Iraqi contractor was kidnapped in Kirkuk.

Corpses?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 8 corpses were discovered in Baghdad.
Reuters notes one corpses discovered in Kirkuk.


Meanwhile the World Health Organization remembers the cholera breakout that the press has forgotten. WHO announced today that "more than 30,000 people have fallen ill with acute watery diarrhoea, among which 2,116 were identified as positive for Vibrio cholerae. The case fatality rate is 0.52% and has remained low throughout the outbreak, although it continues to spread across Iraq and dissemination to as yet unaffected areas remains highly possible. The oubreak was first detected in Kirkuk province, where 68% of laboratory-confirmed cholera cases have so far been reported, and then spread to Sulaymaniah and Erbil provinces. Additional isolated cases of cholera have also been identified in other parts of the country, including Tikrit (6 cases confirmed), Mosul (2 cases confirmed), Basra (1 case confirmed), Baghdad (2 cases confirmed) and Dahuk (1 case confirmed)."

Meanwhile, over the weekend came news that's gotten very little attention in the US press. KUNA reported another threat of withdrawal from the US installed government in Iraq and one that might make more waves than usual since it was from the Accord Front and the threat of withdrawal came from Iraq's president Tareq al-Hashemi who declared the intentions of his bloc and himself to withdraw stating they would not "be marginalized" and that, "Now we have withdrawn from the Iraqi government, but we will quite the presidency and the parliament in case our talks with the government reached a dead end". Among the issues include Aghai Farhadi, the Iranian delegate arrested by US forces on Thursday. CBS and AP report that Talabni is still raising the issue of the Iranian delegate: "President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who has been one of America's staunchest allies in Iraq, called it 'illegal' and said he met with American leaders to demand the Iranian's release. He said the Americans did not have the right to arrest somebody inside the autonomous Kurdish area in northern Iraq because the U.S. had handed over security responsibilities to the Kurds. 'Arresting a person inside the Kurdish region is illegal because the security file was handed over to the Kurdish government months ago,' he said."

In other legal news, the issue of Blackwater has seen the puppet Nouri al-Maliki -- following pressure from the US government -- to back down. No surprise. He is now willing to disown the report his own government produced and hop in bed with the White House for the white wash. However, that's not all of the story just yet. Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) reports that a law which "would strip local and foreign security companies of their immunity" -- given to them by Paul Bremer -- "has been submitted to a state committee for legal vetting". BBC notes: "The new code would require contractors to be subject to Iraqi law and to be monitored by the Iraqi government. The draft is being considered by the consultative State Shura Council before being passed to parliament for debate."


the world today just nuts
joni mitchell
kats korner
the common ills
like maria said paz
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
trinas kitchen
iraq
james burmeister
democracy nowamy goodman
karen deyoungthe washington postjoshua partlowjosh white
mcclatchy newspapersthe new york times
andrew e. kramer
now with david branccaciopbs
the los angeles timesalexandra zavis

Dave Zirin aka 'Hero Takes a Fall'

Monday, Monday, can't trust that . . . independent media. To steal from Ava and C.I. "I'll get to it." :D Let's start out with what's important.

Sunday, the latest edition of The Third Estate Sunday Review went up:

"Truest statement of the week" -- Elaine got it and Elaine earned it. Kat and C.I. told me Tuesday night they were bringing Elaine's quote to the edition as a nominee and you know I was right there on it too. But it didn't matter, we were all agreed that Elaine said it all. (And she was tired and just wanted the edition to be over.)

"A Note to Our Readers" -- Jim breaks down the edition. He was tired. I don't blame him. By the time the note went up, it was three hours after all of the rest of us were able to go to sleep because the edition was down (all of us being Kat, Rebecca, Betty, Wally, Cedric, Elaine and me). They always have extreme problems getting things to post unless they can get it up by 8:00 am my time (EST). That's every week. I think Jim did a strong job with the note.

"Editorial: Buying the illegal war" -- Usually the editorial is the last thing we work on together. (Ava and C.I. do their thing when ever there's time. There's no schedule there.) This time we started this early. It was probably the 3rd of 4th thing we did (counting 3 pieces that only ran in the print edition). The plan was if the 3800 mark was reached (3799 is the current total of US service members killed in the illegal war), we'd rewrite the entire thing. We didn't have to and this is a pretty strong editorial.

"TV: Satan tires a sitcom" -- Ava and C.I. weren't going to cover Medium. Jim was tired. They were going to cover the NBC Chuck show which they'd seen several episodes of and say this should be the hit of the fall season. (I've got it on in the background right now, it is pretty cool.)
Jim was tired. They shelved this because Ty goes that everyone e-mailing about their review from last week ("TV: What does it take to cancel this show?") was expecting them to tackle Patti Heaton. Jim's title is correct, by the way, "tires" not "tries." They hadn't realized how much interest there was in this and realized if they didn't grab Heaton early, there would be the "This is the week!" excitement each week for some readers. So they ended up doing this piece to get the show out of the way. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking Ava and C.I. loathe Patti Heaton because she did that ad that was seen as attacking Michael J. Fox. That ticked them off. But they loathed her before. A lot of people think it's because Patti Heaton stuck her nose into the whole Terry Schiavo thing on behalf of the GOP. That ticked them off too but that wasn't it. See Patti Heaton is loud, a bad actress, GOP and much more. But most of all, she has bad manners and attacked a friend of their's repeatedly in public. Instead of being an adult an apologizing, she tried to hope it went away. As Elaine told me, "It never does. Ava's like C.I. so you can apply this to both, but once you get on C.I.'s sh*tlist, you either go to the person you wronged and apologize or you are on it for life." This is hilarious, by the way.

"Roundtable" -- We had a number of things to cover and didn't get to them all. Billie, Isaiah and Dallas also participated in this. If you read closely, you'll see what I mean about Heidi Boghosian reminding me of C.I. in terms of the role she plays on Law and Disorder. What's C.I. talking about? What needs to be talked about. It's not a personal story or anything like that. It's about what the community needs said. That's what Heidi does on Law and Disorder. If you stuck with that example, Ava and Jess are more like Dalia Hashad (and Betty too!). Jim and me are more like the Michaels.

"Thank you Lizette Jenness Olmos and all the rest" -- My feeling on this was that all of the losers should have been named. LJO gets named because she's a communications director who promised a quote/statement and then blew it off. We were all looking at Pew research data and stuff to do the planned article (two Sundays ago) and really note that broadcast. Jim, C.I. and Dona were going through a lot more data than the rest of us. Then came to write it and LJO and others didn't live up to their word. So that article never got written.

"The peace movement has never been all White, all straight, all male or any other stereotype" -- This is the perfect example of how Ava is like Dalia. Dalia gets pissed and isn't afraid to upfront that. So does Ava. I don't blame her for being pissed. She knows a lot of people in the peace movement and it's not all White and it is insulting when Yearwood repeats that false stereotype over and over and strips those who have been upfront of their earned credit. And as a Latina, that's even more insulting to Ava when Latinos and Latinos are made invisible by Yearwood's comments. By the way, Yearwood? I wouldn't open his e-mail either. I ignore it too. Rebecca's e-mail was passed on to him, forwarded to him. When he decided to start trying to get highlights from people and especially Rebecca, he owed her an explanation on why her e-mail was being passed on to him. Betty, Cedric and Ty (before the pass on) had already noted their feelings that Yearwood buckled (use the link to the piece, there's a link for Betty, Cedric and Ty's joint-piece). They understand he was under pressure but they're African-Americans and they don't worship Conyers or feel scared about calling him out. We don't have time to defend people who are going to cave. There's too much to focus on. You cave and we find something else to cover. Our time is valuable to us. And, as the article notes, C.I. really had to ask Betty and Cedric's permission to include Yearwood in a snapshot recently. C.I.'s the most fair of all of us (Elaine says because C.I.'s got the right & left brain thing going) and it was news. It was also news that we could have avoided. But Betty & Cedric agree so it went in. (I told C.I. if the call was it was news, I would live with the decision. That was pretty much the reaction of everyone except Betty and Cedric. They had to think about it and then said, "Fine this once.")


"CounterSpin: radio comedy with plenty of laughs" -- Nancy A. Youssef reported that the US military was keeping a body count of Iraqis and that they started doing so in July 2005. She reported that in June of 2006. The media analysts at "FAIR" appear unaware of that. It's time for them to correct their mistake. They haven't so far.

"Why we'd give Congress' SCHIPs proposals a veto" -- This was the last thing we wrote which is why Jim includes the thing about C.I. saying "I'll live with it." We all just wanted to go to sleep. The left shouldn't be making it easier to push a flat tax. It's short sighted and damaging to all of us. I also don't think it's any business of the Childrens Defense Fund whether adults smoke or not. And Cedric really was ticked off about the religion issue (saying God said something when Jesus said it).


"Things to do, things to watch" -- There's a lot of information in that.

"Dona's Thanks" -- Yea! I was begging Dona to write this. Jim told me that when she woke up Sunday evening (we work all night Saturday and Sunday morning on these editions), she realized how she wished she'd written that. Well it was a 'short feature' and she did a really good job. I like this feature a lot.

"Correction & Update" -- This corrects how Just Foreign Policy keeps track of their estimate for the number of Iraqis being killed in the illegal war. The update is that United for Peace and Justice has dropped the undercount and is now using JFP's numbers.

"Highlights" -- Kat, Betty, Rebecca, Cedric, Wally, Elaine and I worked on this.

So that's the edition.

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 add in Dallas, Billie and Isaiah (and Dallas worked on all features except Dona's solo piece and, as always, Ava and C.I. do the TV commentaries themselves).

Now let's talk about what I've got a ton of e-mails on because C.I. mentioned it in the snapshot.

Who wrote?

Let me flashback to last week. "Law and Disorder, Jason Leopold, Media Lens" before it went up Friday, I had talked to C.I. about a few things. Such as? On Thursday, I was at Elaine's office while she was doing her evening group with the veterans and I was out at Sunny's desk playing on the computer (it's a long group and it runs longer based on how many issues come up -- ideally, it's a two hour group but it rarely is just two hours which is why Elaine doesn't blog on Thursday nights). And C.I.'s friend who burns me a copy of Law and Disorder each week had sent the disc and I was listening to it. I did not like the first guest.

I called C.I. on my cell and explained that and explained how an e-mail had come in from a little baby (who I hadn't written a word about, it was from something in a piece I highlighted -- I think Dave Lindorff wrote the piece but I could be wrong). So the little baby was just ripping me apart for what someone else wrote. And I'm explaining to C.I. that I think I'm going to ditch Law and Disorder here. I go that it would really kill me if I got an e-mail from one of the hosts where they were mad like the idiot writing to scream at me for writing something I didn't (again, I think it was Lindorff -- I can't write about a person I don't even know).

C.I. goes, "Do you want to stop writing about the show?" I go, "No, I really love this show. But there are guests I don't like and there may be times I disagree with a guest or even a segment." C.I. goes then I should note that when I write about it. I responded, "I really couldn't take it if I looked in my inbox and Dalia, Heidi or the Michaels were screaming at me like the jerk did."

C.I. said that wouldn't happen. C.I. goes that they are all four lawyers and grasp that the world doesn't applaud their every move. They know you win, you lose, you go on. C.I. says, "They're grown ups. They're not googling their names online and reading every thing ever written about them. And they don't have time to. They know people will disagree, they face juries and they know people do not always agree with them. I don't believe you'd ever get a snit-fit e-mail from any of the four."

So I'm talking about that and all and I go I highlight Marjorie Cohn and I'll keep highlighting her because I can't imagine her having a meltdown but I'm really getting tired of the e-mail nonsense. (That refers to Jess being stabbed in the back and Rebecca's e-mails also being forwarded.) C.I. says, no, Cohn's not going to care. So I'm ticking off my favorites (after the four hosts of Law and Disorder, there's a small list that includes Cohn, Dave Lindorff, Scott at Harper's -- I'm forgetting his last name but I really am enjoying Harper's, we're getting it at the house now -- and Dave Zirin). C.I. goes through the list and says, "Oh that would never happen." And C.I.'s named everyone except Zirin. I point that out.

Long pause.

C.I. goes, "You know he's pretty emotional, pretty explosive and I will leave it at that because I know you like him."

I laughed and thought, "Yeah, Zirin write me to gripe."

So I'm kind of talking about that in my entry Friday.

As Jim always says, "When am I going to learn to trust C.I.?"

I should have.

Sunday night, I hit my e-mails and there's this hideous e-mail from Dave Zirin.

I call up C.I. and C.I. goes, "You sound upset." I go that I am and C.I. goes that Kat's there and they were editing her CD review (I'm the reason it didn't go up, by the way, so blame me) so is it okay to put me on speaker?

I go sure because I have no secrets from Kat. She and I are a lot alike (but she's smarter!). We're both Irish-Catholics and that gives us a lot in common just there.

So I'm explaining the e-mail I got and going "I think it's got to be a joke."

Long pause.

C.I. goes, "I don't think it's a joke." Kat tells me to read it. I do. Kat says she agrees with C.I.

I was still trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. I link to his site on my blogroll. Since Amy Goodman interviewed him in 2005, I've praised him over and over. He's in about 250 posts here according to google. 250 posts in about 2 years is pretty amazing because I post once a day and only 5 times a week.

Changed 9-25-07. I'm pulling what was here before. Dave Zirin wrote an e-mail after this posted that showed a lot of guts. I will include one part that was in it yesterday from his e-mail. I see this is as a clarification by him on what he was attempting to say on Democracy Now! when he was disccusing Robert Clemente and Barack Obama:


My point is that Obama tries to make it sound like he is so real, when Clemente was doing this decades earlier. It's a critique of Obama thatyou've chosen to see as some kind of endorsement.

Add that what he did say on the program ("You know, it is interesting when you hear Barack Obama tell storiesabout handlers, trying to get him to call himself Barry Obama. And Iwas thinking, that is what Roberto Clemente went through 30 years ago. Like he had people telling him, 'Call yourself Bob Clemente, or Bobby Clemente.' But he refused to do that.")

That's all I have to say on the matter.

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

Monday, September 24, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, is anyone paying attention to the attacking of province officials, the US military announces another death, the 3800 mark looms, the US military is ordered to escort families out of a neighborhood thereby assisting armed thugs, and more.

Starting with war resistance. The new chair of IVAW Camilo Mejia told his story in Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia, tracing his awakening to the illegal war as he served in it. Elizabeth Wrigley-Field reviews it in the September-October issue of ISR (the review is not currently available online, pages 73-74) noting, "Most of the book recounts Mejia's five months as a staff sergeant and leader of a nine-person squad in Iraq. This account is invaluable not only because it presents a picture of the reality of the occupation -- infused, from the very beginning, with racism, brutality, and incompetence -- but also because it helps us understand the process through which soldiers can become resisters." In Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia, Mejia concludes his story with the kangaroo court-martial and notes what he told the court:

We're all on trial. Not just me, sitting here, but everybody here in uniform, everybody in this country. . . . War crimes? Abuse of prisoners? The U.S. Army? No. A few privates, perhaps, one sergeant; they did that. They did that because they didn't have the courage to do what I did, because they were lost in a situation where it's hard to tell the difference between right and wrong. Perhaps they were afraid not to do what they were told by people who are higher ranking. Perhaps they decided that it was easier to do what everybody else was doing. So now it's easier to judge these people and put them on trial and blame it on them. . . . I'm not saying they're not responsible. They have some responsibility, just like I have some responsibility for the things I did in Iraq. Of course I do. But if we really want to look at ourselves as military and we really want to keep our pride and honor as a military, then we have to start from the top.

At which point the 'judge' interrupts. The same 'judge' that refused to let arguments of the legalities of the illegal war be raised and felt that -- pay attention -- the judiciary had no oversight over the military -- that was something to be left to the Executive and Legislative branches. That's real cute and I'm sure there are other matters that the two branches wish the judiciary would sit out. Wrigley-Field concludes of the book, "Mejia was the first. But he wasn't the last and there are many more to come. We have much to learn from his story."

A Matter Of Conscience is a new documentary about the illegal war and Kevin and Monica Benderman's strength when Kevin realized he was a conscientious objector. Like Mejia, Kevin Benderman is among the early war resisters. A preview of the documentary is available at YouTube. More information on the film can be found at Kevin Benderman's website. A Matter of Conscience: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War is a project by William Short and Willa Seidenberg (an incredible project) and, to be clear, that's not this documentary. (There are other items with that title, I believe Kevin Benderman also wrote a column with that title.) If you're interested in purchasing a copy of the documentary, e-mail Earl Brackett (Minehead Productions) at minehead@triad.rr.com

War resister and Iraq veteran James Burmeister, his wife Angelique and their son Cornell went to Canada. Burmeister has repeatedly spoken about his job in Iraq, the US military assigned him the duty of setting "traps" -- equipment left laying out so that any Iraqi who touched it could be shot for touching US property. Burmeister is far from the only veteran of the illegal worker to speak of this. Today the topic makes the mainstream. Josh White and Joshua Partlow (Washington Post) report that "military court documents" reveal this was being done to provide Iraq targets for "U.S. military snipers" and they note: "'Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy,' Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon attached to the 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, said in a sworn statement. 'Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. Forces.' In documents obtained by The Washington Post from family members of the accused soldiers, Didier said members of the U.S. military's Asymmetric Warfare Group visited his unit in January and later passed along ammunition boxes filled with the 'drop items' to be used 'to disrupt the AIF [Anti-Iraq Forces] attempts at harming Coalition Forces and give us the upper hand in a fight'."
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Derek Hess, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, 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, 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, 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.

Catching up from the weekend. The mercenaries of Blackwater went back to work in Iraq. Andrew E. Kramer (New York Times) wrote about that and the headline writer billed it with that but Kramer's real news was buried deep in the article. Background. Friday, Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) blogged at Baghdad Observer about the death of Hammoundi Naji "his cousin and another man" shot dead while enroute home in the Washash section of Baghdad. Fadel calls Naji "a top Mahdi Army leader" and the deaths resulted in a home invasion -- conducted by the Mahdia Army (think thugs) -- in which four women were slaughtered. Now we're up to Kramer's report in Saturday's New York Times where he reports that as retaliation against the killing of Naji, the Mahdi Army began clearing out the Washash section of Baghdad forcing "[b]etween 50 and 100 Sunni families" (families -- not individuals) to abandon their homes and flee as the thugs went through the neighborhoods with "loudspeakers, telling people to leave" and not just in full view of the US military, with the assistance of the US military. One of the newly created refugees, Sheik Abu Hasan, declares, "What shocked us a lot was that as soon as we reached the main streets, we saw Iraqi and American forces who were showing and directing us to the highway." The US military was used to assist with forced evictions (non-legal ones) and not to protect the people. The myth that the US is preserving anything should have long ago shattered. The US armed and trained the Shi'ites while banishing the Sunnis, they created the division that exists by making their first question to Iraqis: "Are you Sunni or Shia?", and the continued presence breeds the hostility and violence. Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) reported that "small gangs from the Mahdi Army hunted down Sunnis across the district. Anywhere from five to 20 people were killed, and byFriday afternoon, at least 30 Sunni families had fled Washash. Violence continued Saturday as a Sunni man was pulled out of a car and shot to death. Naji, a man viewed by many as a criminal, had ignited another chapter in Iraq's civil war."

Turning to the topic of Blackwater. Sabrina Tavernise and James Glanz (New York Times) continued their writing in service of the US State Dept on Sunday declaring that the real tragedy of Blackwater's slaughtering Iraqis the Sunday before last was that US embassy staff couldn't travel freely outside the Green Zone. Oooh. That was the really tragedy. Not at least 11 innocent Iraqis (including an infant) killed by US mercenaries. It's the US embassy being on Green Zone confinement. Now the US State Dept employees are not normally doing the congo through Ramadi. So what's really going on? US service members are interviewing eye witnesses about the slaughter Blackwater conducted, US service members who have no love for mercenaries and aren't prone to lie for them the way the US State Dept would. A real problem after the US government managed to push around the puppet government on the Blackwater issue (we'll get to it). Tavernise and Glanz's punch line is "American officials have privately cautioned against drawing early conclusions." Many conclusions can already be drawn. Tony Allen-Mills (Times of London) quotes Jeremy Scahill making one clear conclusion: "There have been 64 US soldiers court martialled on murder-related charges in Iraq. There hasn't been a single prosecution of an armed contractor under civilians or military law." Al Jazeera reported yesterday that despite puppet Nouri al-Maliki's strong words last week, the strings have been pulled, the puppet directed back in line: "The Iraqi government has made a U-turn on threats to kick out US security firm Blackwater. Instead, the US and Iraqi governments have started a joint investigation of security contractors following Blackwater's alleged involvement in the killing of 11 Iraqi civilians and the wounding of 12." Despite the strings being visible (and then some), al-Maliki's trying to put up a front. Alissa J. Rubin and Andrew E. Kramer (New York Times) report that al-Maliki is calling the slaughter (still) "a challenge to the nation's sovereignty".

Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, appeared on Democracy Now! this morning. Amy Goodman summarized the latest events by noting that today "the Iraqi government said it will await the outcome of an investigation into last Sunday's killing of at least eleven people by Blackwater USA before taking any action against the company." Jeremy Scahill observed, "I mean, I think that the fact that Blackwater mercenaries are heavily armed and on the streets of Iraq is perhaps the greatest indicator of how the Bush administration defines Iraqi sovereignty. And it was initially left up to Iraqi spokespeople to explain that Blackwater would be back on the street. And the reason that they gave -- and it clearly had come from Condoleezza Rice -- is that it would create a security vacuum. I have never heard a more ridiculous statement. It's Blackwater that's created the security vacuum for Iraqi civilians, as many as twenty-eight of whom were gunned down last Sunday in Al-Nisoor Square in the Mansour section of Baghdad. And what we're seeing is that, at the highest levels of government, Maliki has now stuck his neck out. And how it plays in Washington is one thing, but how it plays in Iraq is a very different one . You have the entire Iraqi cabinet and Muqtada al-Sadr demanding that Blackwater be expelled from the country. In fact, many Iraqi politicians are calling for all of these mercenary forces to be expelled from Iraq. This is perhaps one of the greatest crises of the occupation to date. And right now, Condoleezza Rice is clearly acting as though she's the president of Iraq. The idea that you can have twenty-eight people gunned down including -- and we understand the shooting began when Blackwater operatives fired on an Iraqi vehicle, killing the driver. Then they launched, according to witnesses, some kind of a flamed grenade at the car and engulfed it in flames. And inside was a mother with her infant child. And that's when the shooting began. And Iraqi witnesses, survivors, say that it was a melee, where Blackwater guys were just indiscriminately firing in the streets."

Blackwater's big business. They are hardly the only one raking in the big bucks in Iraq. Ginger Thompson and Eric Schmitt (New York Times) report, "Pentagon officials are investigating some $6 billion in military contracts, most covering supplies as varied as bottled water, tents and latrines for troops in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. The inquiries have resulted in charges against at least 29 civilians and soldiers, more than 75 other criminal investigations and the suicides of at least two officers. They have prompted the Pentagon, the largest purchasing agency in the world, to overhaul its war-zone procurement system." Big business? Alan Greenspan -- providing excuses since the beginning of creation. Today Greenspan appeared on Democracy Now! along with Naomi Klein whose The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism was released in the US last Tuesday.
From the forum conducted by DN! anchor Amy Goodman:

AMY GOODMAN: We're also joined in studio by Naomi Klein, author of the book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Your response to that, Naomi Klein?

NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I'm just wondering if it troubles Mr. Greenspan at all that wars over resources in other countries are actually illegal. Mr. Greenspan has praised the rule of law, the importance of the rule of law, in his book. But in his statements about the reasons why this has not been publicly discussed, he has said that it's not politically expedient at this moment. But it's not just that it's not politically expedient, Mr. Greenspan. Are you aware that, according to the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Conventions, it is illegal for one country to invade another over its natural resources?

ALAN GREENSPAN: No. What I was saying is that the issue which, as you know, most people who were pressing for the war were concerned with were weapons of mass destruction. I personally believed that Saddam was behaving in a way that he probably very well had, almost certainly had, weapons of mass destruction. I was surprised, as most, that he didn't. But what I was saying is that my reason for being pleased to see Saddam out of office had nothing to do with the weapons of mass destruction. It had to do with the potential threat that he could create to the rest of the world.

NAOMI KLEIN: Yes, I realize that, but he was not simply deposed. The US invaded Iraq, occupied it and took control over its resources. And under international law, that it is illegal to wage wars to gain access to other countries', sovereign countries', natural resources.

In news of other attacks, Reuters reports a the targeting of various officials such as Sunday's Kut attack aimed at the police chief of the Wasit province (two bodyguards were injured) that continue today with a bombing targeting the police chief of Kirkuk (two bodyguards wounded) and an attack on the mayor of Kirkuk (1 bodyguard killed, seven wounded). Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reveals there were more officials targeted "General Secretary of the National Accordance Group, Najaf Branch, Adel Waheed Abood was targeted by gunmen and sustained two bullets this morning; one in the neck and another in the shoulder. The Health Department in Najaf says his condition is critical. He was a nominee for the position of Governor in Najaf governorate."

In news of other violence . . .

Bombings?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Baghdad mortar attacks with one claiming the lives of 2 children while wounding their parents and a Kirkuk car bombing that left two people wounded. AFP reports a Baquba bombing in "a mosque during a reconciliation meeting between two feared militias . . . killing at least 18 people." And -- remember the targeting of officials? -- BBC reports that among the dead in Baquba was the police chief Brig. Gen. Ali Dalyan.

Shootings?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a woman on a bus returning home with other employees of the Rafidain Bank was shot dead.

Corpses?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 12 corpses were discovered in Baghdad.

Today the US military announced (PDF format warning): "A Task Force Lightning Soldier died of wounds sustained from enemy gunfire in Salah ad Din Province, Monday." The press release brought to 3799 announced deaths in the illegal war since it began in March 2003. One away from the 3800 mark.

Today on WBAI's Law and Disorder, co-hosts Heidi Boghosian and Michael Smith spoke with Matthew Rothschild about his new book You Have No Rights: Stories of America In An Age of Repression. (Co-hosts Michael Ratner and Dalia Hashad were not part of the interview.)

Michael Smith: Matthew Rothschild, what kind of stuff are the Bushies doing to students who are students like you and me and Heidi [were] on campus these days?

Matthew Rothschild: Well that's the other thing. We're going back to the days of COINTELPRO. We're going back to where the police and the feds have undercover people at our rallies. I mean, this shouldn't be happening but it is. I mean at Drake University, for instance, in Des Moines, Iowa -- and I was out in Des Moines recently -- there was, as far back as 2003, November of 2003, which gives you a sense as to how long we've been doing this peace activism -- there was a peace conference there on campus sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild local chapter and they were saying "Bring Our Troops Home! Bring Our National Guard Home!" Well that rally was infilitrated by sherrif's deputies who were there undercover and at that rally evidently the prosecutors weren't happy that peace activists were doing their thing including people from Catholic Peaceministries and Quakers. So the local DA started to issue subpoenas to everybody under the sun including the National Lawyers Guild, including to Drake with gag orders attached to the subpeonas and fortunately the protestors there were able to make enough noise about this prosecutorial excess that the prosecutor withdrew subpeonas.

Heidi Boghosian: And then, Matthew, they wanted to, they asked for our membership lists, they wanted our membership lists.

That's a portion of the interview. Many other topics are covered. Boghosian is the executive director of the National Lawyers Guild (Michael Smith is a member of that and many other attorney organizations fighting for the rights of people) and she is also the author of Punishing Protest (available online in PDF format for free and avaible in book format for $3 at the National Lawyers Guild website) which came out a few weeks ago. Smith, Boghosian and Dalia Hashad are members of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Michael Ratner is the president. CCR is receiving an award this Friday from the War Resisters League, a peace award. Boghosian noted today that Michael Ratner will be accepting the award. The event will be held at the New York Society for Ethical Culture at 2 West 64th, NYC and will
begin at 7:30 with a panel -- tickets are ten dollars [there are events scheduled before and after the panel, for more information call (212) 228-0450)]. Dan Berrigan, Sister Diana Ortiz, Deepa Fernades (Wakeupcall Radio; Fernandez will host the event) and many others will be present.

Quickly, politics. As Trina noted this weekend, "Monday night, Dennis Kucinich will be a guest on The Tonight Show on NBC. (If you're a Diana Krall or fan of 'The Rock,' they are also schedule to appear.)" WalkOn ran an ad that wasn't objectional, 'immoral' or anything shocking. They are under attack which is an attack on free speech and a further step along the way towards complete militarization of the United States. Donna Saggia (CounterPunch) gets it exactly right noting that, "Alarm bells should be ringing louder than ever in progressive circles as Congress, not content with forgeiting its powers to the unitary executive, has now decided to let the military plan foreign policy. . . . In some ways the Petraeus hearings were just another scene in the pro-war theater of the absurd". Saggia demolishes the phony slogan we don't use here and writes probably one of the strongest (if not the strongest -- and it has my vote for the strongest) pieces on the entire matter.

Please check out Mike's site tonight. I'd love to weigh in (Mike told me about it Sunday night) but I'll wait until he does. I will note I'm an adult and was always smart enough NOT to read my own press in my offline life. Possibly a big baby need to realize that it's past time they grow up and the fact that Mike praises you repeatedly but won't lie that you pee rainbows doesn't require you to send hysterical e-mails. I support Mike today, tomorrow and always.


dave zirin
the common ills
like maria said paz
kats korner
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
trinas kitchen
the daily jot
cedrics big mix
mikey likes it
thomas friedman is a great man
the third estate sunday review
iraq
camilo mejia
james burmeister
democracy nowamy goodman
blackwater usa
jeremy scahill
naomi klein
matthew rothschild
law and disordermichael ratnermichael smithdalia hashadheidi boghosian
the new york timesandrew e. kramer
alissa j. rubinsabrina tavernisethe los angeles timesned parker
the washington postjoshua partlowjosh white
trinas kitchen
mikey likes it

Brief Saturday note

Wally just called me and said, "C.I. is pissed." Community member Amanda found an article (at the awful site -- I won't ask Amanda why she was there! :D) where a Monkey News guy who hasn't read Naomi Klein's book (that's how Amanda found the piece, she was googling Naomi Klein) comparing Klein to Thomas Friedman. So Amanda e-mails C.I. about it and suggests that C.I. visit Monkey News and check out their links. C.I. does and sees "men, men, men."

I hadn't noticed that. And hadn't been to Monkey News since 2005. (I was on the panel that selected Monkey News as a permalink for The Common Ills, just disclosing.)
Wally had called C.I. to get a test audience for his joint-post with Cedric. After he got off the phone with C.I., he called me and said, "You link to Monkey News, right?" Yep. Or I did.

I've pulled them. I also considered pulling the anti-recruiting site because it hasn't updated since 2006. I have no problem with the site but it's dead now. I went ahead and left it linked because I figured that even though there is nothing new there, it's still a good resource.

But I did pull Monkey News.

When Wally explained the problems (and told me C.I.'s daughter is writing about the weasel there for Polly's Brew tomorrow -- you know it's a big deal if C.I.'s daughter is going to write something), I decided to pull Monkey News.

And let me add that if I had noticed that it links to no women before, I would've pulled it then.

I stopped visiting it in 2005 because I did notice the 'warrior' mentality there. A bunch of little boys trying real hard to act like big boys. Playing who's more manly. I thought that was actually funny because they all struck me as little pipsqueaks. But if I'd noticed that no woman was linked to, I wouldn't have just laughed at how they try to be 'manly' (while ripping off Guerilla Grrls? :D), I would've pulled them.

The lesson here is if you have kids or are planning on having them, it's your job to educate them. You can't assume that just because you stand for something, they do as well. So strong women shouldn't be raising little pigs who try to squeak macho.
Learn the lesson so you don't raise a Monkey Boy.

Law and Disorder, Jason Leopold, Media Lens

This is from Media Lens' "The Media Ignore Credible Poll Revealing 1.2 Million Violent Deaths In Iraq:"

Another aspect of reality that has no place in the corporate media's painted window was highlighted last Friday with the release (September 14) of a new report by the British polling organization, Opinion Research Business (ORB). ORB is no dissident, anti-war outfit; it is a respected polling company that has conducted studies for customers as mainstream as the BBC and the Conservative Party.
The latest poll revealed that 1.2 million Iraqi citizens "have been murdered" since the March 2003 US-UK invasion.
In February, Les Roberts, co-author of the 2004 and 2006 Lancet reports, argued that Britain and America might by then have triggered in Iraq "an episode more deadly than the Rwandan genocide", in which 800,000 people were killed. (Roberts, "Iraq's death toll is far worse than our leaders admit," The Independent, February 14, 2007)
The key importance of the new poll is that it provides strong evidence for this claim, and strong support for the findings of the 2006 Lancet study, which reported 655,000 deaths. Roberts sent this email in response to the ORB poll:
"The poll is 14 months later with deaths escalating over time. That alone accounts for most of the difference [between the October 2006 Lancet paper and the ORB poll]. There are confidence interval issues, there are reasons to assume the Lancet estimate is too low but the same motives for under-reporting should apply to ORB. Overall they seem very much to align. (e.g. both conclude that: most commonly violent deaths are from gunshot wounds [in contradiction to IBC and the MOH*], most deaths are outside of Baghdad [in contradiction to the other passive monitoring sources which tallied ~3/4th of deaths in the first 4 years in Baghdad and have only recently attributed even 1/2 as being elsewhere], Diyala worse than Anbar….)."
[* MOH = Iraqi Ministry of Health] (E-mail to Media Lens and others, September 14, 2007)
And yet, despite its obvious significance, the ORB study has been almost entirely blanked by the US-UK media. At time of writing, four days after the findings were announced, the poll has been mentioned in just one national UK newspaper -- ironically, the pro-war Observer. It has been ignored by the Guardian and the Independent.

I'm not surprised about the Guardian. They ignored the Downing Street Memos. I'm less surprised by the Independent which -- remember I'm Irish-American -- really went to town on Catholics and the IRA because of a bar fight. Their political writers also seem to work really hard to carry the water for Barack Obama.

By the way, I had an e-mail asking why I don't highlight Dave Zirin anymore? I don't usually see his stuff. I stopped making a point to seek it out after he was treating Barack Obama like a sports star. If you see something by him you like, you can e-mail and I'll note it. Unless it has something to do with Barack Obama. He's one of Our Modern Day Carrie Nations and I'm not interested in getting the word out on him. I don't care if someone votes for him but I'm not pushing him at this site. He's a War Hawk. And he's a Carrie Nations. I still like Dave Zirin but I'm just not into searching online for his stuff since that appearence on Democracy Now! where he was going on about Obama. Obama is not Muhammad Ali.

Mike Whitney's latest is way over my head but I'm linking to it and encourage you to know about it because he had some criticism of an article, thought about it and ended up rewriting it. On things I don't understand, thanks to Heidi Boghosian for her questions during the first segment of Law and Disorder this week. I didn't care for the guest and his examples either weren't helpful or weren't anything I agreed with. (Can everyone stop praising the alleged 'peace' columnist for The Nation? Vietnam was before I was even born and he hasn't done sh*t during Iraq. Coward, coward on the wall, get your ass down the hall -- and out the door. I'm not interested.) I popped in the disc last night while I was at Elaine's office waiting for her to finish up her session with the vets. (Who are all really cool, by the way. They answer all my dumb ass questions when the session's over. :D And they do so nicely.) I was bored with the guest and irritated by him. If Heidi hadn't been asking questions, I would've turned it off. My problem with the guest was like his Jonathan Schell example, everything he was talking about was years and years ago. I felt like I was listening to a reunion of my folks' graduation and if there was a good story to be retold, for me to follow it, I'd have to say, "Wait, who's ___?" Heidi's first question woke me up and because she kept pitching, I kept listening. The Michaels handled the second segment (at least one was present for the first, maybe both, but Heidi's the one who made that segment listenable to me). (I also didn't care for the guy's 'shout out' to Iraq -- one mention -- and then "What we need to focus on is Iran." No, what we need to focus is on is an illegal war that is ongoing. Iran is a possibility. It's the side dish, it's not the main one.) The interview the Michaels did (Ratner and Smith) was with a guy who's written a book on Zionism, Joel Kovel who wrote Overcoming Zionism. This was a good interview with a lot of information. And Joel Kovel didn't sound like he was droning on. He was an engaged guest. He talked about the struggles with the book being published (which is happening a lot) and what stood out most was when he was juxtaposing the death of Rachel Corrie with the press myths about Jessica Lynch. (That's not an insult to Jessica Lynch. She has been very forthright and honest and I have nothing bad to say about her. But if you forgot, the US government created this entire fantasy storyline of lies about her to try to sell the illegal war.) He was talking about how you had the stories on Lynch dominating the press and you had Rachel Corrie, an American killed by a foreign government (Isreal) and the press just didn't give a damn. Those were two really strong comparisons to make. I bet he's a really great professor because he was a great guest. The other guy, I bet I'd snooze right through a class with him. But Kovel really made things interesting (and the Michaels did a really good job with the interview). Dalia wasn't on, Dalia Hashad, and that's probably just as well because I've already got my pick for "truest statement of the week." (I think we're going to have to go with two because C.I., Kat and I are pulling for something Elaine wrote this week and Elaine hates that kind of attention. So we'll have to find a second thing and have two truests or she'll nix it.) (And that's not an insult to the Michaels or Heidi. But Dalia really does just let it rip. She's pissed off and if you're not, you must be taking a decades long nap. The Michaels get pissed off too but usually they're more joking. Daliah should be writing editorials because in like four sentences, she can lay something out so clearly and so passionately, you're saying, "Hell yeah!" Heidi's usually the 'responsible' one and I'm not insulting her with that. She's the one making guests feel comfortable and doing the 'grown up' role. She's the one who seems to always know when a guest has just lost the audience and she'll step in and get the interview back on track. She can, and has, spoken very passionately about many topics. What probably stands out to me of all my time listening is when she spoke about the genocide in the early part of the last century in Turkey. I wish they'd cover that topic again because just searching around online, I see that there's a new group of people pushing the lie that it didn't take place.) (I like all four hosts. They all have their own strengths. And it's the only show I really make a point to listen to. I watch Democracy Now! on TV. )

This is from Jason Leopold's "Soldier Who Sued Army Facing Threats:"

An Army specialist stationed in Iraq said he has been repeatedly threatened by other US soldiers after word spread that he sued the secretary of defense and an Army major this week for allegedly retaliating against the soldier when he convened a meeting of atheists, according to the founder of a military watchdog organization that filed the lawsuit on behalf of the soldier and has been in close contact with him since then.
Jeremy Hall, 22, who is based out of Fort Riley, Kansas, is deployed in Iraq. The email said a fellow soldier has threatened to "beat his ass," called him an "atheist ass pirate" and "a f**got" and enlisted a "lynch mob" of other soldiers to intimidate Hall because of the allegations Hall made against the military in a lawsuit Weinstein's foundation and Hall filed Monday in US District Court in Kansas City.
Weinstein said he has been in contact with supporters of his foundation who have reported the posting of messages on military and civilian-based blogs, such as military.com, apparently threatening Hall with "fragging," a term used by the military in which an unpopular soldier could be killed by intentional friendly fire during combat.
"Mikey, I hope I am not a victim of a hate crime while I sleep tonight," Hall wrote in an email to Weinstein Thursday evening. "I do not want to die for my country this way. [The soldier] is threatening to beat my ass and all sorts of things. I may be harmed or worse. I am afraid for my safety. I can't sleep, man.... I just lay in my bunk for two hours and I couldn't sleep."
Messages left for several Pentagon spokespeople Thursday evening - on cell phones and at the Defense Department - were not returned.
Weinstein said late Thursday evening that he has not yet been able to verify the authenticity of the blog postings threatening Hall with "fragging." But Weinstein said he takes the threat of violence against Hall seriously and has already reached out to senior officials in the Pentagon as well as senior Army operations officials to ensure Hall's safety. Weinstein is a former White House attorney under Ronald Reagan, was general counsel to H. Ross Perot, and was formerly an Air Force judge advocate general (JAG).

That's how they deal with being called out, they try to threaten and bully. I highlighted Leopold earlier this week on this topic and I hope you're paying attention to Jeremy Hall. War resister Eli Israel refused to continue serving in the illegal war while he was stationed in Iraq. That took a lot of guts. But he's made the point that one reason they couldn't disappear him and had to discharge him was because people were talking about it, knew the stand he'd taken. So take the time to tell someone about Jeremy Hall and how he's being targeted for speaking out.

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

Friday, September 21, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces more deaths, 'progress' is no where to be found in Iraq, the US loses weapons and the Iraqi resistance reportedly now has them, and more.

Starting with war resistance. Alaam News reports that a US family of five (three children) is seeking asylum in Finland "with local media speculating that it is opposition to the Iraq war" that has led the family to leave the United States and start over in Helenski this week. If true, it would be only the second time this decade that an "American citizen . . . [has] filed an asylum application in Finland during the current decade." Meanwhile IVAW's Michael Prysner (PSL) reports, "The number of deserters is also steadily climbing, with official numbers now reaching over 10,000 since the war began. Many believe these numbers may actually be much higher. The G.I. Rights Hotline reports an average of 3,000 calls a month by new recruits and active duty soldiers who have decided they want to abandon the military. . . . Soldiers against the war have begun organizing within the military. Active duty soldiers started the Appeal for Redress, a petition calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. It was formulated less than a year ago, and has collected over 2,000 signatures of soldiers currently serving in the military. Membership in Iraq Veterans Against the War is nearing 600. . . . Soldiers like Lt. Ehren Watada and Camilo Mejia have set the example, publicly refusing deployment and condemning the war for its illegal and immoral nature."

There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Derek Hess, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, 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, 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, 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.

Peter Hart spoke with Anthony Arnove (IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal) on this week's CounterSpin (airing on most radio stations today) about the issue of contractors.

Anthony Arnove: There is effectively a doubling of the US occupation in Iraq right now through the employment of private contractors of whom as many as 50,000 are armed -- effectively private mercenaries working in the employee of the US occupation. Blackwater is operating under the employment of the State Department. What's interesting is that very early on in the US occupation, Paul Bremer -- who was acting as the colonial viceroy -- in his capacity of head of the Coalition Provision Authority deliberately exempted these mercenaries and other US contractors from Iraqi law. And they've created basically a legal black hole in which these mercenaries can operate without any accountability. And the few times there have been incidents in which Iraqis tried to pursue contractors for violations they've been skirted out of the country so as not to have to face any prosecution. They do technically fall under rules of engagement set down for US contractors -- whether that's Pentagon rules or State Department rules. But like we've seen with active duty troops who've engaged in abuses of human rights in Iraq, there's really been no accountability certainly not up the chain of command.

No accountability. And Bremer and the CPA were nothing but a shell game. Bremer stripped Iraqis of oversight and, in fact, the US may not have any legal right to oversight as well. As Naomi Klein explains in her new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism:

Bremer's CPA would not try to stop the various scams, side deals and shell games because the CPA was itself a shell game. Though it was billed as the U.S. occupation authority, it's unclear that it held that distinction in anything other than name. This point was forcefully made by a judge in the infamous Custer Battles corruption case.
Two former employees of the security firm launched a whistle-blower lawsuit against the company, accusing it of cheating on reconstruction-related contracts with the CPA and defrauding the U.S. governments produced by the company that clearly showed it was keeping two sets of numbers -- one for itself, one for invoicing the CPA Retired Brigadier-General Hugh Tant testified that the fraud was "probably the worst I've ever seen in my 30 years in the army." (Among Custer Battles' many alleged violations, it is said to have appropriated Iraqi-owned forklifts from the airport, repainted them and billed the CPA for the cost of leasing the machines.)
In March 2006, a federal jury in Virginia ruled against the company, finding it guilty of fraud, and forced it to pay $10 million in damages. The company then asked the judge to overturn the verdict, with a revealing defense. It claimed that the CPA was not part of the U.S. government, and therefore not subject to its laws, including the False Claims Act. The implications of this defense were enormous: the Bush administration had indemnified U.S. corporations working in Iraq from any liability under Iraqi laws; if the CPA wasn't subject to U.S. law either, it meant that the contractors weren't subjected to any law at all -- U.S. or Iraqi. This time, the judge ruled in the company's favor: he said there was plenty of evidence that Custer Battles had submitted to the CPA "false and fraudulently inflated invoices," but he ruled that the plaintiffs had "failed to prove that the claims were presented to the United States." In other words, the U.S. government presence in Iraq during the first year of its economic experiment had been a mirage -- there had been no government, just a funnel to get U.S. taxpayer and Iraqi oil dollars to foreign corporations, completely outside the law. In this way, Iraq represented the most extreme expression of the anti-state counter-revolution -- a hollow state, where, as the courts finally established, there was no there, there.

Contractors in Iraq -- with the permission of the US government and sometimes on the orders of the US government -- have been allowed to act with impunity. Daniel Howden and Leonard Doyle (Independent of London) provide a look at the rise of outsourcing governmental tasks and note, "A high-ranking US military commander in Iraq said: 'These guys run loose in this country and do stupid stuff. There's no authority over them, so you can't come down on them hard when they escalate force. They shoot people.' In Abu Ghraib, all of the translators and up to half of the interrogators were reportedly private contractors."
Rosa Brooks (Los Angeles Times) also addresses the reality of governmental tasks being sold off to the private section, "What's been happening in Iraq -- and in Afghanistan, Columbia, Somalia and the Pentagon and the State Department -- goes far beyond the 'outsourcing of key military and security jobs.' For years, the administration has been quietly auctioning off U.S. foreign policy to the highest corporate bidder -- and it may be too late for us to buy it back. Think I'm exaggerating? Look at Blackwater. Its $750-million contract with the U.S. State Department employees in Iraq is just one of many lucrative U.S. (and foreign) government contracts it has enjoyed (and it's a safe bet that Sunday's episode will be only a minor PR setback for Blackwater). As for Blackwater's most recent slaughter, Kim Sengupta (Independent of London) reconstructs the events on Sunday via eye witness testimony: " We have found no Iraqi present at the scene who saw or heard sniper fire. Witnesses say the first victims of the shootings were a couple with their child, the mother and infant meeting horrific deaths, their bodies fused together by heat after their car caught fire. The contractors, according to this account, also shot Iraqi soldiers and police and Blackwater then called in an attack helicopter from its private air force which inflicted further casualties." Apparently unable to speak to Iraqis, Sabrina Tavernise and James Glanz (New York Times) rely on a leaked report from the Ministry of the Interior which "has concluded that employees of a private American security firm fired an unprovoked barrage in the shooting last Sunday," "that the dozens of foreign security companies here should be replaced by Iraqi companies, and that a law that has given the companies immunity for years be scrapped" -- and the reporters offer: "The Iraqi version of events may be self-serving in some points." And the US version may be what? Tavernise and Glanz ignore that prospect. Blackwater's apparently ignoring some things as well. Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) notes, "In Iraq, the private security firm Blackwater USA is reportedly back on the streets of Baghdad despite an announced ban on its activities. The Iraqi government said it had revoked Blackwater's license this week after its guards killed up to twenty-eight Iraqis in an unprovoked mass shooting. But a Pentagon spokesperson said today Blackwater is guarding diplomatic convoys following talks with the Iraqi government." So, as Ian Thompson (PSL) judged it, "Even the Iraqi puppet government leadership spoke up -- but its words were hot air. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki wants to gain credibility and appear to be independent of his U.S. colonial masters." The events appear to answer Thursday's question ("For the US government, it's a quandry: Do they use this moment to provide al-Maliki with a chance to alter his image or do they continue to let greed rule?"): Greed again won out.

Self-serving? Sabrina Tavernise and James Glanz apply that to the report from Iraq's Interior Ministry and it's doubtful they'd ever use the term for the upcoming US report. Along with the issue of equality, there's also the fact that the term is flat out wrong. The Interior Ministry is not self-serving, it's US-serving. Dropping back to the September 6th snapshot:

Turning to retired generals, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) reported today, "A panel of retired US generals is urging the United States to disband and reorganize the Iraqi police force because of infiltration by sectarian militias. The generals also report Iraq's security forces will be unable to fulfill their essential security responsibilities independently for at least another twelve to 18 months." Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) explains that the national police force as well as the Iraq Interior Ministry are "riddled with sectarianism and corruption" by the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq headed by James Jones (Marine general) in there 150-plus page report which also finds the Iraqi army at least a year to 18 months away from being able to handle "internal security". Tim Reid (Times of London) reports, "The 20 member-panel also said today that the Iraqi Army was incpable of acting independently from US forces for at least another 18 months, and 'cannot yet meaningfully contribute to denying terrorists safe haven'."

The militias of the Interior Ministry are thugs who terrorize. Who trained them? Who introduced the "Salvador option"? The US. Who has refused to disband them? The US. Self-serving? The Interior Ministry wishes it were self-serving. Then it could really go to town slaughtering 'enemies.' It wouldn't have to worry that one of the many torture chambers they are running might result in a US military 'rescue' of their torture victims. If they were independent and self-serving, all of their torture chambers would be signed off on and not just some.

Today on NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, Rehm spoke with the Washington Post's Karen DeYoung, the Wall St. Journal's Neil King Jr. and Newsweek's Michael Hirsh about a number of topics. On the topic of Blackwater, Hirsh declared, "Often all that happens is that the employee is spirited out of the country. That happened last Christmas Eve when a Blackwater employee shot and killed a guard to a senior Iraqi official inside the Green Zone which was obviously a little politically toxic. And he left, the company has since refused to disclose his name and he has not been prosecuted."

Neil King, Jr. (Wall Street Journal): The thing that is extraordinary about it is that we had the Petraeus hearings last weekend or last week, and all the discussion "we want Iraq to be a country, we want it to step up, we want it to meet all these benchmarks" etc. And yet we don't really actually treat it as a country to the extent that we've got thousands of our own nationals driving around with machine guns and opening fire on people and then being totally immune from the law and as is the case of this shooting last week -- sorry, last December -- where a person shot a security guard who was the personal security guard of the vice-president of Iraq and the person's spirited out of the country. Nobody ever knows what his name was and he's gone. There'll never be -- I mean if you reverse the scenario and imagine any remote corrolary to that in the United States which is literally unimaginable.

A point the paper of record misses. Self-serving also wasn't applied by the New York Times to any of Gen. David Petraeus' many laughable reports to Congress. Rather strange considering Patrick Cockburn (Independent of London via CounterPunch) was reporting in the midst of the dog & pony show on how Petraues was explaining how he wanted to be President as early as 2004 but thought 2008 would be too soon to run. As Ann Scott Tyson (Washington Post) reported earlier this week, safety "is deteriorating in southern Iraq as rival Shiite militia vying for power have stepped up their attacks after moving out of Baghdad to avoid U.S.-led military operations, according to the latest quarterly Pentagon report on Iraq". If it all sounds familiar it's because it's the same story that's been playing out over and over across Iraq. But this was hailed last week as 'progress.' Let's stick with 'progress' for a bit. Remember how the meaningless soccer victories didn't change anything but were hailed with waves of Operation Happy Talk? Strangely, that's not been the case for a title Iraq actually won. The title? Kim Sengupta (Independent of London) reported mid-week that "Iraq holds the world record for both the first and second highest amounts taken in the history of bank robberies." Number one! Number one! In fact, the chart accompanies the article reveals that four of the top five Iraq bank robberies have taken place this year for a total of $282 million (US equivalent). And how about the 'progress' in the spreading of cholera? What had been a crisis for nothern Iraq is now reaching into Baghdad with Andrew E. Kramer (New York Times) reporting that there are now two confirmed cases of cholera in Baghdad. And it's not stopping at Baghdad. Katrina Kratovac (AP) reports that "a baby in Basra" is "the farthest south the outbreak has been detected." "Progress"? Robert Burns (AP) reports that Iraqis control approximately 8 percent of Baghdad -- only 8 percent -- which Burns points out is not a large growth even though Maj Gen Joseph Fil claims it is, "Despite the slow pace of progress towards having Iraqi forces maintain control of Baghdad neighborhoods with minimal U.S. troop presence, Fil said he was hopeful that it would accelerate in coming months." He's hopeful -- that's supposed to have us all glowing.

Well maybe there's 'progress' to be found in oil news? Tuesday Press TV reported on the bombing outside Beiji of an oil pipeline "causing huge quanties of crude oil to spill into the Tigris River" which has "caused oil to seep into the Tigris River damaging water stations and triggering their temporary closure in Tikrit". And the Tigris flows. Last night AP reported, "City officials urged Baghdad residents Thursday to conserve water and fill up their tanks in case water treatment stations have to be shut down because of an oil spill in the Tigris River." Progress? Just more violence.

In some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Hawija bombing of the home "of the former chief of Hawija police". Reuters reports 1 Romanian soldier dead from a Tallil bombing that left five more injured, a Kirkuk roadside bombing that claimed the life of 1 Iraqi soldier and 1 Iraqi police officer, an Iskandariya mortar attack that claimed 1 life (three more injured)


Corpses?

Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 8 corpses were discovered in Baghdad and three female corpses in Basra. Reuters notes that three corpses were discovered in Yusufiya and 1 in Bajwan.


Today the US military announced: "A soldier assigned to Task Force Lightning died in a non-combat related incident in Kirkuk province Sept. 20." And they announced: "A Task Force Lightning Soldier was killed in Diyala Province Thursday when an explosion occurred near his vehicle." The deaths bring the total number of US service members killed in the illegal war since it began in March of 2003 to 3794 (ICCC). That's six announced deaths away from the 3800 mark.

Finally, the CBS Evening News' Armen Keteyian looks into the missing weapons "the U.S. military could not account for" (190,000 of them) and discovers a large number of the Glock pistols have ended up in the hands of the Iraqi resistance: "According to an intelligence source, the U.S. contractor in charge of the Glocks somehow lost track of an entire shipment. That mysterious disappeance is now part of a massive military bribery investigation centered around a contracting office run out of a small trailer at a military base in Kuwait. Eighteen federal investigators are digging into the actions of dozens of high-ranking U.S officers and military contractors."


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