Friday, March 09, 2007

Anthony Arnove & Left Forum events Sat. & Sun.

Two great events coming up in NYC. Please announce and forward widely!

Readings from Voices of a People's History of the United States

With performances by Staceyann Chin, Deepa Fernandes, Brian Jones,
Erin Cherry, Najla Said, Mario. A Murillo, Deepa Fernandes, and other
special guests

Narration and introduction by Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! and
Anthony Arnove

Saturday, March 10
8 pm
The Great Hall, Cooper Union

as part of Left Forum 2007 (http://www.leftforum.org ), March 9-11 at
Cooper Union

Free for conference participants and the general public.

(Anthony Arnove also will be on the panel "Iraq: What's at Stake?"
Sunday, March 11, 10 am, at Left Forum, with Gilbert Achcar,
Christian Parenti, Nir Rosen, and AK Gupta. Info at:
http://www.leftforum.org/leftforum2007/panels.html#me4 )

*

FRIENDLY FIRE
An Independent Journalist's Story of Being Abducted in Iraq, Rescued,
and Shot by U.S. Forces

Wednesday, March 14
7 pm
Judson Church
55 Washington Square South
New York, NY
http://www.judson.org/

with Giuliana Sgrena, journalist, Il Manifesto, and author, Friendly
Fire
Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! (http://www.democracynow.org/)
Vince Warren, executive director, Center for Constitutional Rights
(http://www.ccr-ny.org/)

sponsored by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Haymarket Books

About the book:

While reporting the effects on civilians of the U.S. bombing campaign
in Falluja, Giuliana Sgrena was taken hostage in Iraq on February 4,
2005, and held for one month. On the day of her release, as she was
being escorted to Baghdad Airport by Italian security, U.S. forces
fired on her vehicle, killing Major General Nicola Calipari, as he
shielded Sgrena.

Mario Lozano, the soldier who shot at her vehicle, will be placed on
trial April 17th for voluntary manslaughter. Giuliana Sgrena demands
that the Pentagon be held responsible for the shooting-a product of
the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and not the actions of an individual
soldier.

About the author:

An expert on the Arab world, Sgrena has reported frequently from
Afghanistan and Iraq, for which the president of Italy awarded her
the prestigious Cavaliere del Lavoro prize. In her book Friendly
Fire: The Remarkable Story of a Journalist Kidnapped in Iraq, Rescued
by an Italian Secret Service Agent, and Shot by U.S. Forces
(Haymarket), Sgrena describes her experience as a hostage and
provides unique insights into the situation of Iraq under occupation,
exposing U.S. war crimes there.

Friendly Fire
The Remarkable Story of a Journalist Kidnapped in Iraq, Rescued by an
Italian Secret Service Agent, and Shot by U.S. Forces
by Giuliana Sgrena
Introduction by Amy Goodman
ISBN 9781931859394 $20.00 Trade Cloth
http://haymarketbooks.org/
http://www.cbsd.com/inventory.aspx?id=19871

I'm opening with that for a reason. It came in Tuesday to my e-mail account. Sunny had jury duty this week and I'm so lazy that I didn't bother to check my own account. She was back this morning and saw it. She immediately fowarded it to C.I. who was kind enough to include it in the snapshot but my apologies for not noting it sooner. Ty had actually passed it on to C.I. from an e-mail to The Third Estate Sunday Review on Thursday and it was too late for the snapshot but C.I. hoped to include it in the "And the war drags on . . ." entry Thursday night; however, Danny Schechter has a campaign (last item in the snapshot) regarding the mainstream media and C.I. opened with that and tried to structure all of "And the war drags on . . ." to explain the importance of the campaign. (I think the point was made beautifully.) So, my apologies and regrets that I didn't see it until today. I'm lazy. Sunny loves reading the e-mails (including right-wingers who are unhappy with what I write) and I'll grab any excuse to avoid going through what is often hate mail. (Hint to right wingers, threatening me -- no matter how colorful your language is, does not and will not my change my mind. I am opposed to the illegal war. I was opposed to it before it started.)

Speaking of C.I., the article C.I. and Ava wrote awhile back, "TV: Boys' WB!," came up in an e-mail. Joe'l e-mailed to ask if I had caught "Actor Geena Davis on Her Quest to Reduce Gender Stereotyping in Media forChildren" on Democracy Now! yesterday? I caught the last half of the show, so, yes, I did hear that. She thinks it is a serious problem and notes that she had never considered it until Ava and C.I. tackled cartoons. She wrote, "After I read their article, I really thought about it. I have three kids, two sons and one daughters, the oldest is nine-years-old and the youngest is five-years-old. Saturday morning cartoons have basically vanished but there's still enough on for this Mom to enjoy sleeping a little later as the kids park in front of the TV. After reading Ava and C.I.'s article, I wondered what cartoons my kids were watching, we do block some channels, and they watch Kids WB! straight through because it is one of the longest block of cartoons. So the first Saturday after I read the article, I made a point to get up and watch the cartoons with them. I was very bothered by what I saw. I was bothered because my daughter's being socialized to believe that she's a tag along and an exception and my sons are being socialized to believe that too. I think both points are important and I'm really glad Ava and C.I. made them. Could you pass that on to Ava and C.I. and also recommend that everyone read their article and watch or listen to the speech on Democracy Now!?" Yes, I can.
I believe Sunny already did that but I will mention it when we're all working on the edition this weekend. I will also urge everyone to check out both reports.

It is important. I know Ava and C.I. weren't planning on writing about cartoons. They're delaying 30 Rock because they've been told it's 'safe' in terms of not being cancelled. So they're hoping to save that for the summer. (They only review network shows and they need to things to grab over the summer. I'm amazed when I realize how many reviews they have done. A point that Joe'l made as well.) There were some e-mails about cartoons that had come in and they decided, at the last minute, to tackle that. I think they did a wonderful job of it and wonder why there is not more outcry. In her speech, Geena Davis makes the point about young girls being almost invisible in films for children and how it's surprising that reviewers don't note that when they write about a film. The same point is true of television and, let me toot their horn, Ava and C.I. always note it. I think they have an amazing body of work and that their feminist critiques are incredible contributions. I always think of, for instance, their review of "Threshold" and remember how some sites with strong feminists writing at them (I'm not referring to the Mud Flap Gals, I'm talking adult women) were praising that show. Joe'l noted
"Katie Was a Cheerleader" as her personal favorite and it's on my list of favorites too. I was talking to Kat briefly about her wonderful "It's about perspective and humanity" and she really nailed it when she said, "I think Ava and C.I. really set the mark for all of us." I would agree with that. I think MADRE's report fits with the points Ava and C.I. were making in "TV: Aftermath leaves an aftertaste." Their reviews have a huge audience and I think they've had a huge impact. (The last one noted, on Jericho, is being re-printed in a pamphlet by a group of feminists in New York. Kat told me about that. That's like the fifth or sixth time that's happened. They always say yes and ask only that, if there are typos, they get cleaned up.)

"Making Democrats Pay the Price" (Kevin Zeese, CounterPunch):
Tina Richards son, Cloy, is a corporal in the U.S. Marines. He is facing his third tour of duty in Iraq. He and his mother oppose the war. Ms. Richards is living in Maryland lobbying Congress to end the war. She has joined Maryland voters who are occupying the office of Maryland's senior senator, Barbara Mikulski.
Tina saw Sen. Mikulski leaving a hearing recently going to the women's room. She followed her and mentioned that protesters were occupying her office to protest the war. Mikulski said she did not understand why they were protesting her saying "I voted against the war." Tina answered "That is no longer enough."
She's right. Now, as we approach the fourth anniversary of the war it is time for the Congress to end it. Senator Barbara Mikulski, like most Democrats, has been a critic of President Bush, describing him as a reckless and irresponsible commander in chief. But she has voted to give this reckless commander in chief more than $420 Billion, as have almost all Democrats.
That is the problem ­ Democrats like Mikulski say they are opposed to the war but keep appropriating more money for the war. They need to realize that if they pay for it, it's theirs.
Maryland voters have occupied the office of Senator Mikulski twice so far in what will be a series of efforts to convince Mikulski to lead efforts to end the Iraq War. At the second occupation Sen. Mikulski had four of her constituents arrested after they occupied her offices for three hours placing photographs of all the Maryland soldiers who had died around her office, and reading the names of soldiers and Iraqis killed in the war. (Links to videos of the two occupations are at the bottom of this article.)
Her constituents are holding Sen. Mikulski accountable for her actions. When she votes to fund the war she is putting U.S. troops in harms way and adding to the quagmire of the Iraq War. If Mikluski votes for this next supplemental she will be sending under-trained troops with inadequate equipment and an unclear purpose into an unwinnable quagmire. Real support for the troops requires more than criticizing Bush, it requires acting to remove the troops from harms way.
It would take only 41 votes to stop the war in the U.S. Senate. A filibuster of Iraq funding would not even require all of the 51 Democrats in the Senate to support it in order to succeed. If the Senate filibustered the president's $99 billion request it could then pass an alternative that would really support the troops by bringing them home safely, reduce the violence in Iraq by providing funds to allow Iraqis to re-build their own country and underwrite a regional peace keeping force. If this exit were combined with a diplomatic surge in the region the U.S. could bring greater stability to the Middle East. Those steps would restore U.S. leadership and prevent further U.S. and Iraqi casualties. This approach would also save tax payers tens of billions of dollars in 2007 alone.

Tina Richardson and her son Cloy were noted in "Flashpoints, Impeachment, etc." after she spoke Monday on KPFA's Flashpoints. If you missed it, her son is seriously suffering from PTSD and another son, who has served in Iraq, is now going to be serving in Afghanistan. If you think that she's treated with any respect by elected officials, think again.

"Shocking Video of the Dark Side of the Democrats: Rep. David Obey: 'Idiot Liberals' Need to Support War Money" (David Swanson, CounterPunch):
House Appropriations Chair David Obey (Dem., Wisc.) ran into woman in the hallway in Washington recently and ended up yelling at her and her friends, accusing them of "smoking something that's not legal" if they disagreed with him, and denouncing "idiot liberals."
The woman, Tina Richards, introduced herself to Obey as the mother of a Marine about to depart for his third tour of Iraq, and as someone who has tried to communicate with Obey but received no response. Then she
Well, watch the video yourself. It may be depressing, but it's certainly entertaining (just like network television).

David Obey is such a manly man wanting to demonstrate that he respect the troops and he does that by . . . treating the mother of two soldiers like dirt. What a big, brave, manly man he is. I know some people aren't able to watch (or listen) due to computer issues. For those people and for anyone who needs or prefers a transcript due to hearing issues, please refer to David Swanson's transcript of the exchange between Tina Richards and David Obey.

"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Friday, March 9, 2007. Chaos and violence (though little reported) continues, protests continue, the country of Georgia provides mirth in the illegal war (if not genuine support for the Bully Boy), a US marine is announced dead, footage of another US service member's death is supposedly set to be released, Dems plan receives muted response, and the veterans health care crisis moves from Walter Reed to VA hospitals.

Starting with war resistance. Agustin Aguayo was court-martialed and sentenced Tuesday. Circles Robinson (Ahora) notes: "Doing the right thing can be costly, but in the end one can at least sleep at night. Ask Spc. Agustin Aguayo, 35, a U.S. citizen born in Guadalajara, Mexico, who was just sentenced by a US military court in Wurzburg, Germany. His crime was a gut feeling shared by a growing number of ordinary citizens and soldiers alike: President Bush's war in Iraq isn't their war." He was sentenced to eight months but given credit for the days he had already served since turning himself in at the end of September. Rosalio Munoz (People's Weekly World) sees a victory in the outcome: "The March 6 military court conviction of pacifist soldier Agustin Aguayo was reversed in the court of public opinon as Amnesty International officially recognized him as a 'prisoner of conscience,' and a battery of progressive attorneys began efforts to get a federal court to reverse the Army's denial of conscientious objector status to Aguayo." Stefan Steinberg (World Socialist Web) sees the line of continuity from one war resister to another, "Aguayo has become the latest in a growing list of US soldiers who are facing trials and courts-martial for refusing to serve in Iraq. Recently, Lt. Ehren Watada, 29, became the first US officer to be tried for refusing to obey a command to return to Iraq. In his defence, Watada argued he was merely following his constitutional rights to oppose fighting in a war he regarded as illegal. The Japanese American described the US invasion and occupation of Iraq as 'an illegal and unjust war ... for profit and imperialistic domination.' Watada's attorney Eric Seitz, had sought to defend his client on the basis of the Nuremburg Principles -- i.e., that soldiers have the duty to disobey unlawful orders in the case of an illegal and unjust war."

Steinberg is correct, Agustin Aguayo is part of a movement of resistance with the military that includes others such as Ehren Watada, Kyle Snyder, Agustin Aguayo, Mark Wilkerson, Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Joshua Key, Ivan Brobeck, Darrell Anderson, Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Corey Glass, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.


It is vital that we build a strong counter-recruitment movement to expose lies used by the military to send working-class and poor children to war. We must also lend our full support to the soldiers and reservists who are refusing to fight in Iraq.
[. . .]
During the Vietnam War, the U.S. government learned how quickly the discipline of an army fighting an unjust war can break down. Today soldiers in the field can see the contradictions between the claims of their officers and especially the politicians who sent them to war and the reality of the conflict on the ground. They now know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and posed no imminent threat. And as the Iraqi resistance to occupation grows, more soldiers have come to see that they are fighting not to liberate Iraqis but to 'pacify' them. To end this war, more will need to follow their conscience, like [Camilo] Mejia and the other soldiers who have refused to die -- or kill -- for a lie.

The excerpt above is from Anthony Arnove's IRAQ: The Logic of Withdrawal. Arnove has an event on Saturday the 10th and on Sunday the 11th (Ty and Sunny -- for Elaine -- passed on the following):


Saturday, March 10
8 pm
Readings from Voices of a People's History of the United States
The Great Hall, Cooper Union
NYC
as part of the Left Forum 2007
Free for conference participants and the general public.
With performances by Staceyann Chin, Deepa Fernandes, Brian Jones, Erin Cherry,
Najla Said, Mario A. Murrillo, and other special guests.
Narration and introduction by Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! and
Anthony Arnove (who, with Howard Zinn, authored
Voices of a People's History of the United States)

Sunday, March 11
10 am
"Iraq: What's at Stake?"
Cooper Union
NYC
Left Forum 2007
Panelists: Anthony Arnove, Christian Parenti, AK Gupta, Nir Rosen, and Gilbert Achcar.

Wednesday, March 14
7:00 pm
"Friendly Fire: An Independent Journalist's Story on Being Abducted in Iraq,
Rescued, and Shot by U.S. Forces"
Judson Church
55 Washington Square South
NYC
featuring: Giulian Sgrena the Il Manifesto journalist and author of Friendly Fire who was abudcted in Iraq, rescued by Italian security forces only to be shot at (Nicola Calipari would die from the gun fire) by US forces while en route to the Baghdad Airport; Amy Goodman and the Center for Constitutional Rights' executive director Vince Warren.
Sgrena is calling for the Pentagon to take responsibility for the shooting.

Yesterday, in the United States, Democrats in the US House and Senate unveiled their plans for Iraq. Michael Rowland (AM, Australia's ABC) explains the House legislation: "Democrats have been talking about setting a troop withdrawal deadline ever since opposition to the war swept them to power in last year's congressional elections. Today they bit the bullet, unveiling legislation that sets down actual dates. . . . The legislation sets out a set of benchmarks that must be met in Iraq in the coming year. They're mainly to do with quelling the sectarian violence on the streets of Baghdad, the very objective of the president's plan to send an extra 22,000 US troops to Iraq. The House of Representatives speaker, Nancy Pelosi, says the strategy will be given time to work. But she warns the troop withdrawal will be fast-tracked if the re-enforcements fail to make any difference." John Nichols (The Nation), picking up at the benchmarks: "If those benchmarks remain unmet, a slow process of extracting troops would begin under the plan favored by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, Wisconsin's David Obey and Pennsylvania's John Murtha, the chair and defense subcommittee chair respectively of the appropriations committee; and Missouri's Ike Skelton, who chairs the armed services committee. The fact that Democratic leaders are talking about attempting to impose a timeline for withdrawal is good. It puts the opposition party in a position of actually opposing an unpopular president's exceptionally unpopular policies. Unfortunately, because the president wants to maintain the occupation on his terms, Bush can be counted on to veto legislation establishing benchmarks and a timeline. So the Democrats find themselves in a difficult position. They plan to expend immense time and energy -- and perhaps even a small measure of political capital -- to promote a withdrawal strategy. Yet, the strategy they are promoting is unlikely to excite Americans who want this war to end. In other words, while Pelosi and her compatriots propose to fight for a timeline, it is not the right timeline."

John A. Murphy (CounterPunch) observes, "The Democratic House has drafted legislation which has no chance of surviving a presidential veto and at the same time does not meet the hopes and aspirations and demands of the overwhelming majority of the American voting public. They have however drafted legislation that makes them feel good. Somehow or other the so-called 'liberal Democrats' are going to be happy about supporting a bill which would kill 60,000 Iraqis and 1,800 Americans because the bill will not alienate the 'more moderate Democrats'." Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) points out: "Anti-war Democrats have also come out against the plan. New York Congressmember Jerrold Nadler, a member of the Out of Iraq caucus, said: 'All this bill will do is fund another year of the war, and I can't vote for that'."

NYU professor Stephen F. Cohen (writing at The Nation) notes: "Unless the United States withdraws its military forces from Iraq in the near future, a war that began as an unnecssary invasion based on deception and predictably grew into a disastrous occupation will go down in history as a terrible crime, if it hasn't already. For Americans of conscience, Iraq has therefore become the paramount moral issue of our time."

On that note, we'll return to MADRE's "Promising Democracy, Imposing Theocracy: Gender-Based Violence and the US War on Iraq" (which can be read in full in PDF format or, by sections, in HTML). Wednesday, section one ("Towards Gender Apartheid in Iraq") was noted and, Thursday, section II, "Iraq's Other War: Impsoing Theocracy Through Gender-Based." Section III is "The Rise of US-Backed Death Squads" which further documents how the US equipped, trained and facilitated the ongoing femicide in Iraq.

The femicide has its roots in "The Salvador Option," so, as the report notes, it is not surprising to find the same actors involved. Just as James Steel and John Negroponte were involved in the death squads in El Salvador during the 1980s, they teamed up in Iraq with Negroponte acting as US ambassador to the country and James Steele commanding the US troops who trained the Badr and Mahdi militias. While the Bully Boy made noises to domestic audiences about 'freedom' and 'liberation,' "on the ground in Iraq, the Islamist militas were wholly tolerated." Backing, training and arming them "offered an enticing advantage over government troops. For a time, their quasi-official status allowed the US to out-source the violence of its count-insurgency operations without having to answer for the militias' gross human rights violations, including their campaign of terror against the women of Iraq." When not training these militias themselves, the US out-sourced the training to DynCorp which

Working women have been especially targeted because "they commit a double offense -- by advocating a secular society and by being accomplished, working women." But the press has refused to cover this campaign of violence against women as one of the stories coming from Iraq and treated acts of violence against women as incidental to the larger story (it is the story). "To cite just one example, in October 2005, journalist Robert Dreyfuss, known for his authorative and critical analysis of Iraqi politics, reported that in addition to targeting Sunnis, the Shiite Badr Brigade was 'terrorizing Iraq's secular, urban Shiite population.' Although gender-based violence was a central tactic of this terror campaign, Dreyfuss does not mention it. Nor does he explore why a supposedly sectarian militia was terrorizing members of its own sect. Like most media accounts, Dreyfuss' report fails to consider the Badr milita from the perspective of Shiite women. From women's vantage point, the militia is typical of theocratic fundamentalists everywhere. For such groups, asserting control over members of their own religion -- especially women, who are seen as the carriers of group identity -- is a prerequisite to extending control over society at large, including, ultimately, the institutions of the state."

The report notes that the press is not the only grouping that has failed to draw attention to the ongoing femicide and notes the anti-war movement has also ignored the gender violence that is taking place. The clampdown, by the US, on the Iraqi Health Ministry has prevented already faulty data on the attacks from being released. The report uses Maha as an example of how the militias and the police work together in Iraq -- Maha "was abducted from her home in Najaf and trafficked from brothel to brothel in Baghdad for nearly two years. She managed to escape twice and flee to the police station in Baghdad's Amiriyah neighborhood. Both times the police forcibly returned her to the brothel."

Noting the report, Laura Flanders (writing at The Notion -- Nation's blog) pointed out that 100 female corpses were left unclaimed in a Basra hospital "mutilated . . . families are too scared to pick them up." Flanders is the host of RadioNation with Laura Flanders which airs each Saturday and Sunday, 7:00 to 10:00 pm EST, on Air America Radio, XM radio and online. Saturday's guest will include one or both of her uncles as guests -- Andrew Cockburn and/or Patrick Cockburn. The program's website says Andrew, the blog post says Patrick. Either (or both) will be worth hearing.

Bombings?

AFP reports at least one person died from a roadside bombing in Kirkuk. CBS and AP report that Donald Neil, civilian contractor, was killed while trying to dismantle a bomb. (Location given is "Iraq.")

Shootings?

AFP reports that, in Kirkuk, two Iraqi soldiers were shot dead. Sami al-Jumaili (Reuters) reports that one police officer was shot dead and three more wounded when a police station in Hibhib was attacked -- ten police officers are missing and assumed/feared kidnapped. Australia's The Daily Telegraph reports that the attack included "setting fire to vehicles and destroying the building".

Corpses?

Reuters reports that ten corpses were discovered in Baghdad. Voices of Iraq reports seven corpses were discovered today in the Diala province.

Today, the US military announced: "A Marine assigned to Multi National Force-West was killed March 9 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province." In addition, CBS and AP report: "On Friday, the Islamic State of Iraq announced it would soon be releasing a video on the death of a U.S. Air Force pilot whose F-16 jet crashed Nov. 27 north of Baghdad, according to the IntelCenter, which monitors insurgent Web sites. The pilot, Maj. Troy L. Gilbert, was listed officially as 'whereabouts unknown' but then reported by the U.S. military as dead following DNA tests from remains at the scene."

Meanwhile, in military news, Alexandra Zavis (Los Angeles Times) reports that David Petraeus' much noted Thursday press converence "did not offer . . . a strategy for dealing with such attacks, underscoring a major dilemma facing U.S. and Iraqi forces as they carry out what has been described as a last-ditch effort to curb the deadly civil war." Ernesto Londono and Thomas E. Ricks (Washington Post), on the same press conference, noted the fact that not only has Petraues upped the escalation numbers but he's dropped Casey's talk of "the summer, late summer" when the supposed, alleged accomplishments of the latest crackdown version will be visible. And the escalation continues to add numbers. Yesterday, it was an additional 2,000. Today, Andrew Gray (Reuters) reports that Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon is requesting more troops for the Diyala province.


The BBC notes that Georgia (the country) "will more than double the number of troops it has in Iraq" from 850 to 2,000. 2,000 isn't a large number and some wonder what the US government offered to get the small figure doubled? (Georgia's population is estimated to 4.6 million.)

Things not worth noting in depth. Puppet of the occupation, Nouri al-Maliki toured Baghdad -- with a heavily armed squad of bodyguards numbering at least six who shadowed him at all times as he shook hands with Iraqi soldiers at checkpoints. US forces announced another al Qaeda (alleged) leader captured. Don't they get tired of selling that nonsense?

Turning to the issue of health care for veterans, Ian Urbina and Ron Nixon (New York Times) report on the Veterans Affairs where the government is slow to respond and refuses to anticipate or calculate need resulting in various horror stories such as prolonged waiting for claims to kick in (James Webb returned from Iraq injured from a bombing and had to wait 11 months for the promised and obligated payments to kick in while Allen Curry fell "behind on his morgage while waiting nearly two years for his disability check"). Hope Yen (AP) reports that, testifying before US House Veterans Affairs committee yesterday, Paul Sullivan (one time VA project manager) stated he repeatedly "warned officials" at the VA that "there would be a surge in claims as veterans returned from Iraq and Afghanistan," and that he began sounding the alarm in August 2005. Joel Connelly (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) notes that US Senator Patty Murray, who severs on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, has drawn comparisons to today's health crisis for veterans with the illegal war itself: "They have lowballed the cost of this war, and the cost of caring for our soliders. . . . It goes to the top, to the highest level. The Bush administration wants the country to feel there is no cost to war." Rick Maze (The Navy Times) covers an idea by US Senator Larry Craig which would require "issuing veterans an authorization card that would allow them to seek care anywhere could address two longstanding complaints: long waits to see a VA doctor, and long trips for veterans who live far from a VA hospitals." Based on Urbina and Nixon's reporting, 'portability' might be besides the point when "the current war has nearly overwhelmed an agency already struggling to meet the health care, disability payment and pension needs of more than three million veterans." Zooming in on one VA center, Mike Drummond Peter Smolowitz and Michael Gordon (The Charlotte Observer) discover that a 2005 inspection of North Carolina's Hefner VA Medical Center found a substandard facility: "Using the clinically blunt language of the medical bureaucracy, the team describes a facility with poorly trained doctors and nurses who, among other things, cut corners on treatment, manipulated records and did't talk enough with paitents and families." In one tragic example, they note 41-year-old Robert Edward Lashmit who died: "Lashmit's condition and vital signs were not updated during his 19-day stay. Instead, investigators found, his doctor 'copied and pasted the same daily progress note for the entire hospitalization.' That meant information vital to Lashmit's treatment remained the same even as his condition deteriorated. He died of live failure. Later, when investigators asked Lashmit's doctor about pasting outdated records, they said he told them: 'no one told him he could not do it'."

Turning to the scandal of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Brooke Hart (NBC News) reports on the scramble as the army attempts to address the disgrace -- the army willl institute a "30-day study of problems at major military facilities" and will establish a complaint hotline for veterans that will be allow for complaints to be registered twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In another quick fix measures, Alana Semuels (Los Angeles Times) reports that Michael Tucker ( a brig. general) will move from Fort Knox to become the "deputy commanding general of the Walter Reed Army Medical Ceneter." Interviewed by Jake Stump (Charleston Daily Mail), US Senator Jay Rockefeller declares that "[t]he real question is not necessarily what happens at Walter Reed," but the refusal of the US Defense Department to meet the needs of veterans. US Rep Kirsten Gillibrand tells Albany's Time Union that she hopes the Walter Reed scandal starts a new debate on topics such as funding of the VA and veteran's' benefits. Walter Reed Army Medical Center, FYI, is funded by the Defense Department, not the VA. Interestingly, one Congressional rep wanted answers but he appeared to have had them some time sgo. Adam Schreck (Balitmore Sun) reports that US House Rep C.W. Bill Young made frequent visits to Walter Reed with his wife where they "found wounded sholdiers who didn't have adequate clothes, even one doing his rehabilitation in the bloody boots he had on when he was injured. One soldier, ashamed that his mattress was soaked with urine, tried to turn Young's wife away, the Florida Republican recalled yesterday. Another with a serious brain injury fell out of bed and his head three times before someone was assigned to make sure it didn't happen again." For those who've forgotten, Dana Priest, Anne Hulle (Washington Post for the first two) and Bob Woodruff (ABC News) shined the light on the issues in the last few weeks. What did US House Rep Young do since, by his own accounting, he was familiar with many issues that needed addressing? As Florida's Star-Banner notes in an editorial: "The St. Petersburg Times and other media reported on Thursday that U.S. Rep Bill Young, a Republican from Indian Shores and formerly one of the most powerful members of Congress, acknowledged that he knew of the squalid conditions at Walter Reed but failed to disclose them. In one instance, Young recalled one soldier who was sitting his his bed in a pool of urine when Young's wife discovered him. Hospital staff, Young noted, did nothing and when questioned told him, 'This is war. We have a lot of casualties. We don't have enough sheets and blankets to go around.' Young, according to the Times, kept quiet because he wanted to respect family privacy and 'did not want to undermine the confidence of the patients and their families and give the Army a black eye while fighting a war'." What a load of hogwash. By staying silent he allowed the problem to continue and worsen. Staying silent helped no one and, were it not for the press doing their job and his, he'd probably still be silent today.


In protest news, Frederic J. Frommer (AP) reports that the Occupation Project (ongoing visits, sit-ins, and of sustained nonviolent civil disobedience to put the pressure on elected officials to stop funding the war) continues and focuses on actions in Wisconsin and Minnesota. In Wisconsin, US House Rep David Obey has not met with them but did have four arrested on Monday including Joy First. In Minnesota, US Senator Herb Kohl did meet with them but is quite happy to continue funding the illegal war and play stupid (all his life). Frommer notes that every Tuesday, two nuns, Kate and Rita McDonald, are occupying the office of US Senator Norm Coleman who is a Republican but also "a former anti-war protester himself from the Vietnam era". Despite knowing better, Coleman remains firmly behind funding the illegal war. Also in protest news, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) interviewed Wally Cuddeford about the protests going on in Tacoma which resulted in four arrests Sunday night. Cuddeford explains the purpose behind the protests: "Our goal is to stop military shipments from Fort Lewis going to Iraq. We were successful stopping the shipments through the Port of Olympia and now we're helping our friends in Tacoma stop the shipments there. The shipments are Stryker vehicles, they are speedy combat trasnprots, armed transports. They are the back bone of the occupation.
Half of all the Stryker vehicles to Iraq. If we are able to cut off Stryker vehicles to Iraq we could easily end this occupation." Clear Channel reports that Ann Wright (retired Army colonel and retired State Department) spoke to the Jefferson Community College about the war ("For us to have gone into Iraq, invaded and occupied it, and not even with the agreement of the UN Security Council, unfortunately it falls into the category of a war of aggression and in my opinion is a war crime.") in an event sponsored by Veterans for Peace and Different Drummer Cafe. She will be speaking at Different Drummer Cafe today at 6:00 pm at 12 Paddock Arcade, 1 Public Square, Watertown, NY.

Finally, Danny Schechter and MediaChannel.org have started a new campaign:


It's Time to Make the US Media Accountable!Are you willing to join and support Mediachannel's "TELL THE TRUTH" campaign? Help us press the press and move the media to tell the truth and report in more balanced manner, the way so many Canadian and European outlets seem to be able to do.Click here to send an email to U.S. media outlets now!


agustin aguayo






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