Do you know Adam, Anna, Philip and Zackary Key?
According to a woman who decided to make herself the spokesperson on war resisters who go to Canada, their parents made a HUGE mistake. HUGE. It's not like, she insisted to a reporter, it was during Vietnam!
Reality check for the dumb and stupid, it wasn't all that easy during Vietnam. Long before Canada's prime minister Pierre Trudeau's 1969 decision to legally welcome war resisters (as opposed to merely looking the other way), they had been streaming into Canada. Most place the start date as 1965 but, in fact, war resisters were going into even earlier.
Those from the US who went to Canada to avoid taking part in an illegal war usually did so with little more than hopes and dreams. There was no set happy ending. There were no guarantees. So when someone today wants to LIE and say, "It's not like it was during Vietnam," she needs to be questioned on exactly what she knows about that time period because it would appear she knows damn little and is helping even less.
Adam, Anna, Philip and Zackary are being raised in Canada because their parents, Joshua and Brandi Key, made a very brave decision for their family after Joshua returned from Iraq. To go back to that illegal war would be wrong. Life doesn't always provide multiple options and you often go with the best possible. For the Keys, that was Canada.
And though an ahistorical worrywart wants to smear that decision publicly with her own gross ignorance, it was a brave decision. And it's a decision many are making today, as they did during Vietnam.
What's life going to be like for the Keys? No one knows. But the family is together and they are rebuilding their lives.
Anna may grow up to be a member of Canada's parliament. Zackary may grow up to be a police officer. Philip may become an internationally known artist. Adam may end up one of the great political minds of the future. Any of that could happen. The children have the support and love of both parents.
Adam Key might even end up someday writing at The Nation.
Think that's so hard?
Naomi Klein writes there.
And Naomi Klein holds dual citizenship in Canada and in the United States because her parents went to Canada to avoid her father serving in an illegal war. No, that's not in her official biography. That is reality.
Naomi Klein, one of the left's strongest voices today, grew up in Canada due to an illegal war.
That's important to know at any time. It's especially important to know when fools want to caution that going to Canada will be the demise for everyone. No, it won't. That's never been the reality and it's not the reality today.
Klein, and many others who are known, were raised in Canada as the children of war resisters. Klein often talks about her teenage mall days and her rejection of her parents' principles (a phase common in many teenagers) and how she ended up becoming politically aware. We'd argue Klein is politically aware because of the family she was raised in and that, after the normal separation process that the adolescent years bring, it goes to very strong lessons from her childhood.
So, let's be really clear, war resisters moving to Canada does not equal "death" or "despair" for them. Opportunties will still exist. We have no doubt that one of the children of the today's war resisters will step forward on the national stage, as Klein has done, thirty years from now and emerge as a genuine leader.
When that happens, we hope that he or she will speak honestly about their lives growing up because after the current illegal war ends, another one will come. There's too much money to be made, too much greed, too much power to be sought for that not to be the case.
And it's especially important for young families making the decision to resist to know that their children are not automatically sentenced to horrible lives as a result of the decisions the parents' make. That was true before an idiot decided to play fortune teller on a subject she knew nothing about it. It will always be true.
Unlike The Peace Resister Katrina vanden Heuvel, Naomi Klein is internationally known. Unlike The Peace Resister, Klein didn't buy her way into the table. She's an international voice who's known around the world and not for something as embarrassing as attempting to show 'wit' with explicit non-jokes about oral sex.
In that tale of two women, you see one woman whose made her own way thanks to the strong foundation she was provided and you see another who bought herself a seat at the table thanks to her grandfather's money. If you looked at a photo of either woman when they were five-years-old, you wouldn't know where they'd end up. Due to family money, you might assume vanden Heuvel would end up with a bigger playground, but you wouldn't know which would grow up to be a strong, mature woman and leader.
Had you bet on money, you would have lost.
So no one knows the future. But the Keys give their children a step up by standing for what they believe in. That always makes a difference.
If one of them, or one of Jill and Patrick Hart's children, or the children of any war resister who moves to Canada, ends up an important voice thirty years from now, we hope they talk about it, we hope they write about it.
The Nation have very little to be proud of post-2004 elections. A lot of nonsense, a lot of skimming the surface, a lot of playing Democratic Party organ and a hell of a lot of wasted time. That all comes under the 'leadership' of Peace Resister Katrina vanden Heuvel who, when not embarrassing herself with oral sex 'jokes' on Comedy Central, dabbles at putting out a weekly 'political' magazine.
It must be like Bizarro World to be the child of a war resister and published by a magazine that refuses to write about them. In print, only Ehren Watada has been written about. A sidebar, to a January 2007 issue, after he's called a "coward" in the main article (on a petition). More recently, The Nation ran an overly praised article in July. In the article, they boasted of 'dozens' of photos provided to them of abuse of Iraqis. They failed to run one photo.
We've never doubted the photos. We know they exist. We know, for instance, that CO Aidan Delgado provided them with one involving a spoon. But there is no bravery at the top of The Nation so the photos didn't run. The same article labels war resister Camilo Mejia a "deserter" and leaves it at that. It refuses to note that Mejia's contract with the US military was over, that as a non-citizen his contract could not be extended, that Senator Bill Nelson had already made an issue out of the fact that Mejia should be sent home, that Mejia attempted to handle that through channels, that Mejia attempted to be granted CO status. The laughable article just tells you that Mejia is a 'deserter'. That's how it goes at the simplistic Nation magazine these days.
That's what happens when a smutty mouthed 'girl' decides to dabble beyond her depth, she betrays everything the magazine is supposed to stand for.
In March, the illegal war hits the five-year-mark. All Katrina vanden Heuvel appears concerned about in terms of the illegal war is that Cindy Sheehan not run from California's eighth district for a Congressional seat.
In a laughable, self-serving response to Cindy Sheehan's calling The Nation out on their appalling record on Iraq, Katrina vanden Heuvel offers a reply that may be even more phony than her faux public speaking voice.
She declares her sadness (she learned of Eleanor Roosevelt's trick -- from aquaintences if not from college, as the person who takes credit for teaching her of it says) over Sheehan's letter and then rushes to declare "As you well know, The Nation has, from the very beginning, been in the forefront of opposing this disastrous war. In fact, very few media outlets have been more strongly and consistently opposed to the war than this magazine, whether in its conception, planning or execution."
Oh, were that it were true. Anyone reading the magazine is well aware that The Nation offers up their yearly editorial against the illegal war each year and little else. When the 2004 elections took place, a lot of people moved away from the topic of the illegal war (the myth was it was a 'downer' and voters didn't care) and that certainly included The Nation. The Peace Resister goes on to mention feature articles but fails to note that the bulk of those articles appeared in print prior to her officially becoming publisher. She also fails to note that many of those articles didn't originate with The Nation but, such as Klein's exposure of the graft Mad Maddie Albright and James Baker were involved in, appeared in other outlets outside the US and The Nation just reprinted them.
She makes the laughable claim that Democrats (and "Republicans and Independents") have been taken to task by the magazine. We think Katha Pollitt got closer to truth following her advisory blog that Cindy Sheehan shouldn't run for Congress, when she explained that the strategy she supports is to target "Blue Dog" Democrats. That's who The Nation targets as well. It gives a pass to all other Democrats.
The claim that The Nation has opposed the illegal war as few other media outlets have requires that people be unaware of the monthly Progessive magazine, CounterPunch, Democracy Now! and a host of other outlets. With regards to The Progressive, that's especially appalling since it's not a weekly.
The Nation has not reviewed any book authored by a war resister (The Progressive and International Socialist Review have). The Nation has not explored the case of Suzanne Swift or Ehren Watada in print. (Sidebars are not explorations.) The strong opposition to the illegal war comes from the magazine before Katrina vanden Heuvel was installed as publisher of the 'leading magazine of the left'. That a member of the centrist Council for Foreign Relations (which was cheerleaing the illegal war from the start) now heads the magazine goes a long way towards explaining why it's fastly becoming the magazine more and more subscribers are dropping.
vanden Heuvel rushes to defend Pollitt (she always rushes to defend her pets which is why David Corn is largely left on his own -- a good thing for him and may the huge interest in him at other -- mainstream -- outlets mean he soons moves on to better things) and tells Sheehan that Pollitt's "criticism is framed by real respect for your 'crucial role in our politics: as an activist'." Katrina vanden Heuvel, who did not win an award from Planned Parenthood (she was not named in the award ceremonies, The Nation magazine won an award, stop the lying) is not a feminist.
So it's no surprise that she doesn't see anything appalling in the fact that Pollitt thinks she can tell a woman, any woman, not to run for public office. But let's deal with this alleged 'real respect' Pollitt allegedly has for Cindy Sheehan.
"Cindy Sheehan put a family face on the antiwar movement." Pollitt wrote that single sentence. It runs in the January 9/16, 2006 issue. ("9/16"? One of those alleged 'double issues' that are the same size as regular issues but subscribers get to pay 'double' for them.) That appears to be Katha Pollitt's entire writing output on Cindy Sheehan prior to Sheehan deciding to run for Congress. Real respect? For the "'crucial role in our politics: as an activist'." Well, golly gee, imagaine if Pollitt had no respect, Sheehan might have been 'robbed' of that single sentence commentary.
Pollitt had no respect for Cindy Sheehan. It never translated into coverage. You walk it like you talk it. The Nation wants credit for a million things and they haven't done any of them. They apparently think they have, they seem to have tricked themselves into believing that. Of course it helps that they disappear online articles. Such as the praise for the James Baker Circle Jerk report which they praised. For those who were spared the Circle Jerk, it enshrines the theft of Iraqi oil and it's really difficult to applaud that and to claim you're strongly opposed to the illegal war. It's really difficult to claim you opposed to the illegal war when, as Congress votes on whether or not to fund the illegal war, you're off Blogging With Retainer about American Idol. It helps that these embarrassments, these pieces that endorse the continued illegal war can, in fact, be disappeared from the magazine's website. It does not, however, change the fact that they went up in the first place. [To read an editor and a publisher blogging on the 'very important' topic of American Idol while avoiding the issue of Congress' voting whether or not to fund the illegal war, you can see Mike's "The Third Estate Sunday Review " and then Elaine's "Monday" and then Rebecca's "cynthia mckinney" -- each excerpted a section of the column after it had been 'disappeared' but before it was also gone from Google cache.]
"Week in and week out, we publish writers who may not agree on everything but who share a fundamental belief in the necessity of ending this war and occupation," vanden Heuvel writes apparently either willing to lie or unaware of the many centrists she continues to bring into the magazine. There's this alleged split between The Nation and The New Republic(an). The split was among readers of the magazines, never among the periodicals. Which is why The Nation website, as late as 2005, linked to The New Republic(an) as one of their "sites we like" and only pulled the link when the complaints poured in. It's why The Nation has regularly published writers from The New Republic(an). Little Lee Lee would probably still be polluting the magazine, in fact, had he not gotten busted at The New Republic(an) for posting favorable comments to his own pieces at that magazine's website.
Every week, vanden Heuvel would have you believe, writers who believe the illegal war should be ended are published. That's really not true. And many weeks they find a way to avoid the illegal war. Take the July 16/23, 2007 issue. It's another "double" issue with the same number of pages as a regular issue. (Well, to be fair, many issues are 38 pages and this one is 46, eight extra pages qualifies as "double"?) In that issue the editors urged the Democrats to "Get in It to Win It" (how very "You go, girl!" of them), the Peace Resister teamed up with a man (it's always a man) to write about health care, Canadian publisher, 'death' of LA Weekly, Micheal Bloomberg, Al Gore being distored by the press in 2000, Michael Moore's latest documentary, Medicare, SEIU, Richard Nixon, India, Iran and Israel are the topics of the issue. Iraq?
Go fish.
Well, let's drop back a week to the July 9, 2007 issue. The topics covered? Editorial on Gaza, pieces on "red tape," Venezuela, immigration, public health, Pollitt babbling in that useless way that is her hallmark (she appears ticked off by The Dangerous Book for Boys), the progressive majority, school reform (or 'reform'), Hong Kong, a book review of Leonard Michaels (who died in 2003), a review of a book on Lincoln Kirstein's contributions to the world of ballet, and four movie reviews. On the last, none of the reviews are about films on Iraq. They've avoided that topic repeatedly. They will most likely break that rule for the documentary by the non-filmmaker who is one of vanden Heuvel's peers at the Council for Foreign Relations. But the reality is the film ignores the illegality of the war and wants to leap into the occupation thereby selling that the premise that illegal war is not the problem, just better planning.
So again, those asking about Iraq are instructed to "Go fish."
And that's pretty much the way it's gone week after week. They still do those firey editorials on the illegal war once a year. They don't stand by them. There was the claim, at the end of 2005, that the magazine refused to support anyone running for Congress not calling for an end to the illegal war. They hit the newsstands the week before the election with a mushy profile on War Hawk Harold Ford, Jnr. Democratic primary challengers (forget third parties, The Nation's current incarnation does) who supported withdrawal while the incumbent supported continued illegal war? They didn't bother to show 'em any love, to get their names out to the public, to use the magazine's power in any manner that was useful in 2006 and they will probably do the same in 2008.
By the time you're going soft and mushy on a candidate who's not only a War Hawk but also posing in front of the Confederate flag at the Little Rebel, you're scraping the bottom of the barrel.
So vanden Heuvel should spare Cindy Sheehan the lecture on how much The Nation allegedly cares about ending the illegal war since it has never translated into "week in and week out" coverage. Nor has Sheehan garnered much coverage from the magazine. When she became the face of the peace movement, she wasn't placed on the cover of The Nation (they had placed her on the cover prior for a story about families who had lost loved ones in the illegal war). Other than John Nichols, no one appears to have been overly interested in covering Cindy Sheehan when she became the face of the peace movement. But, as Sheehan notes, "The Nation also invited me to its foundation dinner in NYC at the end of 2005, presumably to exploit my popularity to sell tickets."
While the magazine avoided the topic of Cindy Sheehan (the same way they avoided the peace movement itself), vanden Heuvel wants to purr that Pollitt has "real respect" for Sheehan when the reality is that respect translates into coverage. Concern translates into coverage. The Nation was more interested in doing a 'special issue' on food than it was in covering the illegal war. So much for 'real respect.'
vanden Heuvel wants to dub Pollitt's 'Please, Cindy, Don't Run' nonsense as "legitimate criticism" and can only get away with that because she's no feminist. But Pollitt's supposed to be a feminist and no feminist tells another woman not to run.
All of vanden Heuvel's New Age babble in soothing tones is undercut by yet another snide smear from Pollitt who posts another attack on Sheehan after vanden Heuvel's fluff was posted.
vanden Heuvel boasts of The Nation's website and well she should -- it misinforms many about the actual content of the print magazine. Those who know the magazine only through the website are misinformed about the magazine. For instance, as C.I. addressed in "2006: The Year of Living Dumbly," the website has allowed many to believe that the magazine covers war resisters when, in fact, it doesn't. When Ehren Watada became the first officer to publicly refuse to serve in the illegal war, The Nation's website did cover it and did so through the end of 2006. The magazine? No. Those were "online exclusives." Cindy Sheehan and CODEPINKs 2006 summer trip to Jordan to meet with Iraqis was covered "online" by Tom Hayden (who was on the trip) but it never ran in the magazine. Though Pollitt wasn't interested in covering CODEPINK's trip, she was interested in slamming the organization for bird-dogging War Hawk Hillary Clinton in 2006. As community member Martha wrote The Nation on December 22, 2006 (in a letter the magazine didn't run, strange, isn't it? -- we first noted it here):
Reading Katha Pollitt's "Ho-Ho-Holiday Donations -- 2006" two questions arose
1) Ms. Pollitt refers to In These Times as The Nation's "sister publication." In light of concerns regarding media consolidation, that phrase needs to be explained.
2) Looking through the ten recommended organizations and publications, I see Hurricane Katrina, I see Vietnam, et al. I don't see Iraq. Is Ms. Pollitt aware that a war is going on? MADRE, an organization recently recommended on RadioNation with Laura Flanders, seems much more fitting than a periodical (two make Ms. Pollitt's list). In addition, there are numerous organizations working for peace and supporting C.O.s.
If Ms. Pollitt is unaware that a war is going on in Iraq, that might explain why she has never written one word about the rape and murder of fourteen-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi -- a topic that strikes me as much more important than Hillary Clinton being 'bird-dogged."
We think Martha's December 2006 e-mail backs up Cindy Sheehan's current letter and then some.
Katha Pollitt's offended that Sheehan used "stridently" in a sentence about her. Suddenly Pollitt wants to play 'feminist' voice. That's real cute for a useless chatterer who refused to cover the gang-rape and murder of Abeer. That news broke in June 2006. Pollitt avoided it. Consistently. US soldiers have now confessed to their involvement in the gang-rape and murder and been convicted. Steven D. Green had already been discharged (and never should have been inducted) so he will face trial in a civilian court. He maintains his innocence but others have testified he was the ring leader.
"Murder, not war. Rape, not war. That's what we're here talking about today. Not all that business about cold food, checkpoints, personnel assignments. Cold food didn't kill that family. Personnel assignments didn't rape and murder that 14-year-old little girl."
That's Captain Alex Pickands speaking in the August 2006 Article 32 hearing on the War Crimes.
Pollitt was too busy throughout all of 2006, alleged feminist that she is, to weigh in on Abeer. As the criticim mounted, she finally got off her useless horse to 'contribute' to the dialogue with this: "Think of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, the 14-year-old girl raped and then murdered with her family by US soldiers in Mahmoudiya in March of last year." Her family was raped with her? No, and she was gang-raped. Her family was murdered during the gang-rape in the next room and Abeer could hear the gun shots and the screams while two soldiers took 'turns' raping her and before Steven D. Green allegedly joined in the gang-rape and then allegedly shot her dead.
Pollitt finally 'discovered' Abeer when it was time to write her column for the May 28, 2007 issue. What a friend feminists have in Katha. The most documented War Crime of the illegal war, one that even the military brass couldn't white wash, and Pollitt's avoiding it for six months. It should also be noted that 'feminist' Pollitt's full statement on Abeer is in the single sentence quoted above. As with Cindy Sheehan, Pollitt's alleged concern didn't translate into coverage.
Instead, the laughable piece allows Katha Pollitt to flashback to her girlhood days when she read Romeo & Juliet. As C.I. noted August 12th:
Over at The Nation, Katha Pollitt scribbles in the useless way that's become her hallmark for this century. Pollitt, who in 2006, took the time to call out CODEPINK when she could have been writing about Abeer (a story that feminists especially should have been writing about), enlists in the "Cindy Don't Run" campaign. In fairness to Pollitt, it should be noted that she finally wrote about Abeer late this year, after Alexander Cockburn's column had finally gotten the name "Abeer" into print at The Nation. Pollitt did a shout out in one sentence while drooling, prolonged adolesecent she now writes as, over Romeo & Juliet possibilities. Let's be real clear on that damn story, a couple gets married from two tribes, the wife is stoned to death. Save your drama about the great love story because the man didn't sacrifice s__. This wasn't Romeo & Juliet and many believe this wasn't a marriage of choice. But the MSM put out the spin and damned if all the saps didn't buy into it even though the tribe in question was repeatedly under assault and women from it were being kidnapped and "married" into forced marriages. Pollitt wrote like a fool singing the score to Seven Brides For Seven Brothers who stares at you blankly when you bring up the rape of the Sabine women.
That sums up Pollitt's nonsense. It ran in the "Spring Books" issue so maybe she felt the need to rise to the level of 'dramatic'? For 18 lines, Pollitt went on about, yes, a very real stoning but also about a mythical reason. The stoned woman "had fallen in love," Pollitt tells you and this was the "crime" for which she was stoned. The stoning happened and it is criminal. We're not disputing that. (Some media outlets are.) The reasons for the stoning? Even the media is now putting distance between themselves and the Shakespeare in the Park narrative. As Elaine noted August 15th:
Then I read the snapshot and, some good news, if you use the links on the bombings in northern Iraq, you'll see some MSM outlets are expressing skepticsm of the narrative and not merely repeating it. It may very well be true, about the whys of the stoning; however, there's been no evidence offered of that Romeo & Juliet narrative. If it is true, I'd just like to know how it is true. I don't think there's any excuse for stoning anyone. I'm not even questioning the stoning (although, maybe I should, at least one story did not[e] the cell phone captures were not verified). I'm only questioning how you look [at] a sect that is being targeted with forced marriage and decide, "Oh, no, this was love. This was true love."
If it was, all I think is that the press should have offered proof of it and I never saw any. I saw a cute little narrative, I saw a lot of what looked like leaping to conclusions.
But I never saw anything resembling proof that it wasn't a forced marriage.
Now while it is true that this community avoided leaping onto the Romeo & Juliet bandwagon because a reporter in Iraq warned C.I. that the popular narrative wasn't supported by any facts, it probably helps to know the facts and, BE HONEST, Pollitt doesn't.
In February, Minority Rights Group International issued a (PDF format) report , authored by Preti Taneja and entitled "Assimilation, Exodus, Eradication: Iraq's minority communities since 2003." The report noted that women were being kidnapped and forced to convert to other religion by men they 'married' (post-kidnapping) under duress and cited the Mandaen and Yazidi women as especially being targeted. So Pollitt rushing in during the month of May to scribble about 'love' was always going to be a hard sell. For the record, the myth that the 'young' 'lovers' were in love overlooked the man's age and the fact that no one in the press ever spoke to him but depended upon second and third-hand 'reporting.' Right about now, a genuine feminist might want to feel a little shame for scribbles that 'celebrated' a man who most likely kidnapped and raped a much younger woman. In May 2007, when Pollitt wrote, the War Crimes against Abeer were not in dispute. So, naturally, she reduced Abeer to a single-sentence (in the only thing she ever wrote about Abeer) and instead (this is where the xenophobia allegations against Pollitt really take root -- though reach another level when she slams Alexander Cockburn) went to town on a story that including many non-verified details to write about what we'll term those 'savages'.
vanden Heuvel wants to stress that the magazine has covered "week in and week out" Iraq when, not only is that false, they couldn't even cover the news in real time. It's not that they weren't aware of Abeer, they just didn't care. It didn't fit the 'frame' they were into. So much easier to, as Pollitt did, slam the 'savages' than to hold Americans accountable for what were crimes and what have resulted in convictions. And that's really at the heart (or 'frame') of The Nation's alleged Iraq coverage since the 2004 election. The issue is never the very real tragedy for Iraqis, it's all about the US. (Alexander Cockburn remains the exception and, as we've noted before, we count him as being part of CounterPunch, not The Nation. The slams from The Nation in print and online have only encouraged our belief more so.)
So possibly, Cindy Sheehan's noting that reality when she writes, "Maybe Katha Pollitt et al. should go to the Middle East and view the carnage that this Administration has caused with the complicity of the Democratic Party, which she so stridently defends."
Of course Pollitt misses the point (or pretends to) writing, "Sheehan accuses me of 'stridently' (nice --does anyone EVER use that word for a man?) defending the Democratic Party's 'complicity' in the war and of not caring about the sufferings of Iraqis the way she does."
Pollitt needs to get a new set of glasses in her advanced age because Sheehan never writes what Pollitt's claiming (however, Sheehan should write it). As for "strident," we've USED the term and applied it to many males. Pollitt's bound to her NYC bubble and only gets out, apparently, when it's time to carpet bag by voting in another state.
Sheehan's writing is actually a letter to the magazine. Katrina vanden Heuvel attempts to bill it as a "dialogue." As Ellen Willis once said, vanden Heuvel likes and courts weak personalities because they're so much easier to control. And it's so much easier to dub something a 'dialogue' when vanden Heuvel can ensure she gets the last word. It's not a dialogue. Sheehan wrote a letter to the editor and instead of doing the smart thing and considering it, vanden Heuvel strikes her floating-on-a-cloud pose to get in the last word. We find her pose laughable but do prefer it to the smutty mouth she sports on Comedy Central. Or maybe she honestly believes an independent woman of the left should attempt to come off like Monica Lewinsky?
What we do know is that the magazine has the child of war resisters in the midst. And they work really hard to avoid noting that in the same way they work really hard to avoid covering Ivan Brobeck, Patrick Hart, Joshua Key, Kimberly Rivera, Linjamin Mull, Corey Glass, Marc Train, Ross Spears, Phil McDowell, Robin Long, Ryan Johnson, Kyle Snyder, Christian Kjar, Phil McDowell, Dean Walcott and the many others who have gone to Canada as a result of the US engaging in an illegal war.
What we do know is that their laughable article avoid interviewing any of those people. Strange since even the US military wanted to interview Joshua Key after he wrote about (see his book The Deserter's Tale) War Crimes in Iraq -- wanted it so badly they crossed the border into Canada, posed as Canadian police and harassed Winnie Ng.
"What!" readers of The Nation gasp. They gasp because The Nation ignored that story as well.
Gregory Levey (writing in Salon) would cover that topic while The Nation would ignore it. That story also includes the pre-wedding arrest of Kyle Snyder, in Canada, on the orders of the US military. An investigation is currently underweigh in Canada on that issue and, while we expect a white wash, that an investigation has been launched goes to the outrage Canadians have over the violation of their national sovereignty by Canadian police willing to be tools in service of the US military.
We enjoyed Pollitt's faux outrage at her writing being dubbed done "stridently" especially since that high horse Pollitt loves to hop on, BE HONEST, never includes calling out her own magazine. As we noted July 4th (though Pollitt stayed silent), The Nation's record of publishing women is shameful.
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you must have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
"Are You A Writer For The Nation? If so, chances are you have a penis"
Pollitt never bothered to express outrage over that publicly though she has (repeatedly) taken the New York Times to task for the number of women they run on the op-ed pages -- from the Glass House she resides in.
July 4th, we tackled the magazine's disgraceful record of publishing women. Jess mentioned that to someone at an organization when replying to their e-mail to C.I. The result was that the e-mail was passed on. (And we're still waiting for the apology which better be coming soon or we may run the e-mail Jess was replying to at The Third Estate Sunday Review. If the pass on was supposed to 'embarrass' Jess, trust us, the original e-mail will be embarrassing for the organization. C.I. has given permission for the e-mail to be published because Jess was replying for C.I. and "If replies can be passed on, so can the original e-mail. No privacy protection works one way.") As a result, The Nation attempted an end-run at the last minute (July 2nd) where they tried to derail our article. For that reason, no one discussed this article other than to note it would run at all sites and would cover The Nation. Even when a sudden 'fan' with The Nation showed up last week to ask what the topic would be? (Friends at the magazine revealed the 'fan' wasn't and that it was most likely a fishing trip to gear up for another attempted pre-empt.) July 7th, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez spoke with one author of The Nation's laughable piece and we've been accused of ignoring that. We weren't ignoring that Democracy Now! broadcast. We were holding our comments for this article. If you watched the broadcast you should have noticed what Goodman and Gonzalez, not The Nation provided, excerpts from interviews with war resisters that they (Goodman and Gonzalez) had conducted. We applaud them for seeing the obvious flaw in The Nation's overly praised report and doing their part to make sure they didn't fall into the same trap.
This article focused on war resisters and it may be news to some at The Nation that Naomi Klein is the child of war resisters. It may cause some uncomfortable moments among the many who have avoided the topic of war resisters. Later this month, Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is released (September 18th). We've all read it, it's amazing. (It will also be available in audio format on CD.) You can write something that amazing when you're a true independent voice as opposed to a party organ playing the notes instructed by a 'frame'. It's also worth noting that the most in depth article Klein wrote on Iraq, the must read "Baghdad Year Zero," ran not in The Nation, but in Harper's Magazine.
As for The Nation, we'd hope to be done with it. We don't bother to read it anymore. But we're hearing stories -- including the destroying of Laura Flanders' brilliant radio show to turn it into an hour long infomerical each week for The Nation magazine -- and may have to tackle those at a future date. We hear a great deal from friends on the masthead of the magazine -- and we should probably note here that everyone with the magazine does not endorse or embrace the embarrassment it has become -- so we can't rule out tackling it again. We'd honestly prefer to be done with it. If community members make it an issue, C.I. has to tackle it at The Common Ills. The rest of us have the luxury of writing about whatever we want and we really don't see much value in writing about a useless magazine whose editor and publisher is bound and determined to make it increasingly useless (while plugging organizations that she and her father belong to without ever disclosing that fact). But when someone with the magazine wants to unload, as they frequently do, we will still listen and possibly write about.
It's easy to write off the useless magazine because it's not interested in war resistance at a time of illegal war. To learn about that, you have to go elsewhere. For 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.
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Monday, September 03, 2007
Friday, August 31, 2007
Coretta Scott King, spying
Mike's "Why did Wikpedia vanish the al-Maliki's exile?" went up Wednesday and was reposted at uruknet.info. I hope you already read it. But I also need to note that for obvious reasons.
"FBI Spied On Coretta Scott King For Years After MLK's Death" (Democracy Now!):
Newly released government documents show that FBI agents spied on Coretta Scott King for several years after her husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated in 1968. Memos show the FBI was concerned that she might attempt to 'tie the anti-Vietnam movement to the civil rights movement.' There is also evidence that the Nixon administration and then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were kept informed of the FBI's nearly constant surveillance of Coretta Scott King.
The above news is offensive on so many levels. The FBI spied on Dr. King. If they weren't involved in his assassination (and an argument can be made that they were), they certainly knew who was involved and how it went down due to the fact that they were spying on MLK. That didn't prevent them from spying on his widow after he died.
Was Coretta Scott King a threat to national security? No. Was she a criminal? No. Did the FBI have any reason to spy on her? No.
But that's how it was then and that's how it's becoming yet again.
It was stopped (or at least slowed down) before, it could be again. But that requires citizens willing to be adults and not scared little babies crying, "Protect me! Save me!"
"New FBI Network Allows Instant Wiretaps on Any Communication Device" (Democracy Now!):
Wired Magazine is reporting the FBI has quietly built a sophisticated, point-and-click surveillance system that performs instant wiretaps on almost any private communications device. The network allows an FBI agent in New York to remotely set up a wiretap on a cell phone based in Sacramento, California. This would allow the FBI agent to immediately learn the phone's location, then begin receiving conversations, text messages and voicemail pass codes in New York. The surveillance system is called the Digital Collection System Network. It connects FBI wiretapping rooms to switches controlled by traditional land-line operators, internet providers and cellular companies. Experts say the system is far more intricately woven into the nation's telecom infrastructure than previously suspected.
This will really date me. Years ago, there was a film called 3 Days of The Condor (I think that was the title). Robert Redford starred and Faye Dunaway was "the girl." Warren Beatty had a film as well (underrated and I can't remember the name but Alan J. Pakula was the director). Those always struck me as the sort of things we worried about when I was in college and, since both Redford and Beattie were already making films in the sixties, it was a bit weird to see them in those kind of storylines. (I enjoy both movies and think both did strong work.)
But what I remember is, from those days, the question that would come up, often at parties, of how would you disappear (go underground) if you had to?
Most of us thought it would be difficult then. It was nothing like it would be today. "Intrusive" doesn't begin to describe what we live in today. The most appalling aspect may be how readily it is all accepted and dubbed 'normal.' It really is amazing how much we've allowed to be destroyed, how much we have taken in part in destroying since September 2001.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Friday, August 31, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces more deaths, disease outbreaks in northern Iraq, Bully Boy shows contempt for Congress (again), Texas gears up for a big protest Saturday and more.
Starting with war resistance. Tampa Bay's WMNF (88.5) interviewed Aidan Delgado.
Aidan Delgado: First of all I wouldn't encourage just anyone to become a Conscientious Objector because if you don't know it already CO status is the most difficult way to get out of the army. Mine took 18 months and it was a hard 18 months. So if someone's just looking to leave the military, CO status is not the way to do it and you should only do it if you feel absolute moral conviction that you can't participate. And the other thing I would stress is to go online and look up CO packets that have been successful. Go and read through a couple of entire packets that show what it takes to become a successful CO. And don't ever be intimidated by the army and don't let them tell you the regulations. You have to go and read the regulations on CO yourself. Look at some of the successful packets to get an impression of how wide the field is and how you can go about it.
Aidan Delgado also tells his story in The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib: Notes From A Conscientious Objector In Iraq which came out this month. The advice he offered on the radio is advice he followed. That includes the packets and that includes not allowing the military to tell you what you really believe as they attempted to with him.
Aidan Delgado: When I wrote The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib: Notes From A Conscientious Objector In Iraq in my mind I was reacting against a lot of the war literature that was out there -- books like Black Hawk Down and The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell and a lot of the older war novels -- in that I think too much of the war novels are really a kind of hero worship in disguise and they tell the stories of violent actions and real physical bravery and daring. And I think that's great and I think that story needs to be told; however, I think there's a huge gap and I don't think we should read only one kind of war story. And I'm proud to say my war story is not about violence although there is violence in it. And it's not about war exploits although those are in it too. It's kind of about the moral side of war and the moral journey and the development which I think is something that will resonate with a lot more readers. I'm not interested really in having a, you know, heroic soldier flag waving gently in the background. And I'm not really trying to entertain people or satisfy their ghoulish curiosity about war. I really want people to think about the other side, the personal side, that hasn't been reflected in all these gory, violent war memoirs . So my idea was to create a different kind of war novel that talks about the shades of grey not the uncompromising black and white, good and evil, to talk about all the moral quandries and decisions you have to make as a soldier.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes 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, 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.
Saturday Iraq Veterans Against the War will be in Texas. Texans For Peace are staging an American People's Poll on Iraq in Fort Worth, Texas featuring many speakers including IVAW's Adam Kokesh, Leonard Shelton and Hart Viges as well as Diane Wilson, Tina Richards, Ann Wright and many others. Click here for the press release. There is not a fee to attend, the event is Saturday, in Fort Worth, Texas which is also where the Republican Straw Poll will be "taking place in General Worth Square". People will begin arriving at nine in the morning, the speeches will begin at 1:30. There will be music and entertainment. Though the event is free, people can donate and Texans For Peace is encouraging everyone planning to attend to print up tickets online. The tickets will be used for a number count of those attending. No one will be turned away because they didn't have access to a computer to print up the ticket.
The event is sponsored and Endorsed by Texans for Peace, Dallas Peace Center, IVAW, Veterans for Peace, Crawford Peace House, Military Families Speak Out, Gold Star Families for Peace, CODEPINK - Dallas Chapter, Peace Action Texas, Peace and Justice - Arlington, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and more.
Throughout the day (nine to five, this is a Saturday) there will be canvassing and straw polls, the pre-rally entertainment starts at one p.m. and the peace rally begins at 1:30 and lasts until 3:30. Fort Worth is a city in Texas, part of the Dallas and Fort Worth region known there as "DFW." Suburbs, towns and cities in the area include Denton, Plano, Arlington, Irvining, Bach Springs, Desoto, Duncanville, Lewisville, Addison, Grand Prairie and a host of others. There is a point. Texans for Peace notes that you can catch the Trinity Railway Express to Fort Worth and that at 12:30 pm volunteers will be helping transport people to the rally.Community member Diana and her family took part in the April 2006 immigrants rally in downtown Dallas that had at least a half million participants making it the largest protest in Dallas' history. She noted the traffic issue when she shared her experiences from that rally. Today, she explained over the phone that the easiest thing for people to the north, east or south of Fort Worth wanting to attend Saturday's events but unsure of how to get there is to utilize the Trinity train. She suggests grabbing a Dart Express Train and taking it to Union Station (in downtown Dallas). You can pick up the TRE there. ("It's the big, brown -- same brown as UPS uses --train that runs right next to the two light rails," says Diana.) ADDED: Dallas and Billie both note that there is also a solid white train. Billie: "Brown or white, they are real trains that look like trains, not the light rail." Texans for Peace notes that the TRE (Trinity Railway Express) runs from eight in the morning until eleven at night on Saturdays. September will kick off many actions across the country calling for an end to the illegal war and this Saturday, Texas kicks off the action in Fort Worth.
September is a month of actions and protests and it kicks off tomorrow in Fort Worth Texas.Jeff Gibbs will apparently not be in Fort Worth or DC. Gibbs (CounterPunch) explains, "I am tired of protests: they don't stop wars. Not protests that are mostly sign waving and hooking up with friends and strangers and feeling the solidarity and then going back to work or school on Monday. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result." Gibbs' feelings on this are quite common. If those are your feelings then figure out what actions do speak to you. If something's not speaking to you or working for you, find something that is. The movement doesn't need to grow stagnant. Gibbs is calling for work-stoppage and other actions (all solid actions). Iraq Moratorium is proposing new actions as well.
And in Iraq . . . Yesterday's snapshot noted:
While Iraq's Foreign Minister critiques the British decision to withdraw, David Miliband, UK Foreign Secretary, has his own (and presumably the British government's take). Thomas Harding (Telegraph of London) reports that Miliband has indicated what others think (including the US) really isn't the issue declaring "we will always take British decision in the British national interest. Our decision about Basra are about the situation on the ground in Basra not the situation on the ground in Baghdad" (with Harding noting that was "in reference to America's zone of control").
Today Miliband joins with the UK's Minister of Defence Des Browne to pen a column for the Washington Post where they explain the British decision to withdraw from Basra: "We pledged to help Iraqis develop a functioning state, with armed forces, police and other institutions capable of delivering security for the people. We also promised that, when we had done that, we would promptly hand over full responsibility for security to the legitimate, elected Iraq authorities." Damien McElroy (Telegraph of London) notes that Basra Palace is the last British base within Basra and that "[t]he American military is known to harbour concerns over the security of the oilfields that are Iraq's only source of oil exports and its supply lines along the north-south highway". The British began the occupation of Basra April 6, 2003. That was over four years ago. As Great Britain's Socialist Worker notes, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has declared that there is no planned withdrawal (5,500 British forces are in Iraq, the Basra withdrawal is expected to allow for no more than 500 troops to leave Iraq) and that British army head Richard Dannatt has termed Iraq "a region perched precariously above a large proportion of the world's remaining supply of oil."
Meanwhile Patrick Cockburn (Independent of London) reports that 5,000 Iraqis in the northern part of the country have cholera. AFP reports that the the World Health Organization terms the outbreak a "major epidemic". Earlier this week, UNICEF announced they had "rushed emergency aid" in to "Suleimaniya and Kirkuk in northern Iraq" and that: "Serious problems with water quality and sewage treatment are being blamed for the outbreak. Local reports indicate that only 30 per cent of the population in Suleimaniya has an adequate water supply. Mains water is only available for two hours per day at the most in the main city quarters and suburbs. A water quality report from Suleimaniya from July showed the only 50 per cent of the water inside the city was chlorinated. Many people have been reduced to digging shallow wells outside their own homes." IRIN quotes Slaimaniyah General Hospital's Dr. Dirar Iyad stating, "We need urgent medical support as the disease is spreading. We didn't expect an outbreak in this area. There is a shortage of medicines to control the disease and the focal point [source of the disease] hasn't been identified yet . . . Five deaths have so far been reported here and in Kirkuk, and we believe more could occur over the next couple of days as victims are already in an advanced stage of the illness." Cockburn explains, "Most of Iraq outside Kurdistan is flat so water and sewage need to be pumped, but this has often become impossible due to a lack of electricity. The water in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is highly polluted and undrinkable." Tina Susman (Los Angeles Times) notes that earlier (June) there was an outbreak in southern Iraq.
Cockburn also notes 4.2 million is the current number of Iraqi refugees "of whom two million have been displaced within Iraq." UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie vitied Iraq and Syria this week to meet with Iraqi refugees. The UN notes that Jolie visited a Damascus UNHCR center and visited the "small rented room shared by 13 people between the ages of eight months and 67 years" of one family who were registering with the center and also visited Iraq's Al Waleed camp "which houses 1,300 refugees . . . where there is no running water or electricty." ABC News (US) has photos of the visit. Pasadena Weekly notes the estimate is 1,200 for the number of Iraqi refugees she met with on Tuesday. Many external Iraqi refugees have gone to Syria or Jordan. Today, Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) noted, "The Syrian government has announced it will soon prevent Iraqi refugees from crossing its border unless they have work visas. The new rules take effect on Sept. 10. Over 1.5 million Iraqi refugees have fled to Syria since the U.S. invasion. More than 30,000 Iraqi refugees continue to arrive in Syria each month." Peace Mom and candidate for the US Congress in California's eighth district Cindy Sheehan recently visited Iraqi refugees in Jordan. Great Britain's Socialist Worker reports, "Asked whether the occupying powers had taken steps to alleviate the suffering of refugees, she compared the tiny amounts spent to the billions given to the military. Cindy Sheehan said, 'This is a war crime. It is a crime to create so many refugees and then wash our hands of them'." Josie Clark (Independent of London) also noted the London press conference last week and that Sheehan was asking "the UK to help with the emergency aid operation and to consider taking more refugees from the area."
Refugees, disease outbreaks, how lucky the Iraqi people are to have been 'given' 'peace.' David S. Cloud (New York Times) reports today that an independent committee established by Congress and headed by Gen. James L. Jones will report that the Iraqi police force needs "remaking" due to "corrupt officers and Shiite militants suspected of complicity in sectarian killings". There's the Bully Boy's 'progress'. Rosa Brooks (Los Angeles Times) offers some strong truths regarding the need for US forces to withdraw and also observes, "The honest (though not very satisfying answer is that no one really knows what will happen in Iraq after the United States leaves. Interestingly, a poll in March found that a majority of Iraqis thought the security situation would improve immediately after a U.S. withdrawal. But things could also get worse -- and anyone who claims to have a crystal ball is lying. We long ago squandered any capacity to guarantee a happy ending for the Iraqis."
Meanwhile the US White House has launched an attack (again) on the legislative branch of the United States. Jonathan Weisman (Washington Post) reports that the US military brass distributes 'rap sheets' on visiting Congress members to "Iraqi officials, U.S. officials and uniformed military of no particular rank" and, by these sheets, those encountering representatives of the US Congress know where they're friend or foe and treat accordingly. This is an assault on the legislative branch and an embarrassment to Congress. Weisman notes:
At one point, the three were trying to discuss the state of Iraqi security forces with Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, but the large, flat-panel television set facing the official proved to be a distraction. Rubaie was watching children's cartoons.When Moran asked him to turn it off, Rubaie protested with a laugh and said, "But this is my favorite television show," Moran recalled.
The disrespect shown to Congress, forget the particular members, is shameful. That these actions have been tolerated goes a long way to demonstrating just how Congress continues to stand up for itself repeatedly. The White House should be called to the carpet on this.
Margaret Kimberley (Black Agenda Report) examines the long relationship between Iraq and the US, ponders the candidates for president and notes, "Poor al-Maliki. He is just the latest to discover that in certain circumstances, being a friend of the United States is a terrible position indeed. Uneasy lies the head of America's allies. Just ask Saddam Hussein." As Kimberly notes, Nouri al-Maliki knew the odds going in (or should have). Meanwhile Nermeen Al-Mufti (Al-Ahram Weekly) summarizes the many failures of al-Maliki's government (including "seems unable to keepts its own ministers in the cabinet) and concludes, "Al-Maliki is facing domestic and international criticism over the failure of his government to achieve national reconciliation and pass certain laws --- principally the US-favoured oil law. So far, Al-Maliki has reacted angrily to criticism, pledging to stay on in office." Robert H. Reid (AP) reports that al-Maliki is now attempting to blame Sunnis for this week's viiolence in Karbala -- the violence that was Shia-on-Shia violence. Sami Moubayed (Asia Times) reports on the latest paranoid induced ravings of al-Maliki regarding Krabala: "Maliki also accused the culprits of having wanted to blow up the shrine of Imam al-Hussein and then ordered the arrest of Hamid Kannush, a member of the city's municipality who is a ranking member of the Sadrist bloc. Kannush was accused of conspiracy in the Karbala violence. Maliki was effectively saying: the Sadrists did it, although his office's official press release blamed 'the Saddamis'. Maliki's office, however, did not actually explain what had happened in Karbala. National Security Advisor Muwafaq al-Rabei, however, said that militants wanted to occupy the two holy shrines of Imam al-Husseini and Imam al-Abbas, 'and topple the Maliki government'."
Marshall Helmberger (Timberjay Newspapers) reminds, "And don't forget that Gen. Petraeus himself said the most critical progress in Iraq had to come on the political front. On that score, there’s little debate over the fact that the Iraqi government is in utter chaos. A large portion of Prime Minister al-Maliki's cabinet has quit, as have significant blocs within the Parliament. None of the benchmark legislation the White House called 'must-pass' six months ago has been approved. The political situation is so bad that some in Congress, from both parties, are now calling for al-Maliki's replacement and rumors are again afoot about a U.S.-supported coup that would put former interim Iraqi prime minister and CIA informant Ayad Alawi in charge in Baghdad. So much for promoting democracy. While President Bush hasn't yet signed on to the idea, it's clear even the White House is no longer oblivious to Iraq's political implosion."
In some of the violence today . . .
Bombings?
Reuters reports a Samarra car bombing that claimed the lives of 4 police officers (seven wounded). Late last night, Mary Orndoff (The Birmingham News) reported that a plane "carrying Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville, and two other sentors" was en route to Baghdad when it was fired upon by three rockets. No person or plane was hurt.
Shootings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports, "Gunmen killed a barber man, Ghazwan Jawad, inside his shop in Al Nasr neighborhood. The deceased worked as a personal barber man to a colonel in Kirkuk police." Tina Susman (Los Angeles Times) explains Ghazwan Jawad's murder is "the ninth slaying of a barber in the city this year by Islamic militants who oppose Western haircuts and grooming styles."
Corpses?
It's Friday. Reports trickle out of the day's violence on Saturday.
Today, the US military announced: "A Marine and a Soldier assigned to Multi National Force-West died Aug. 29 in separate in attacks while conducting combat operations in AlAnbar Province." The announcement brings ICCC's total for the number of US service members killed in Iraq so far this month to 80 with the total since the start of the illegal war to 3738.
A new book entitled Army of None, published by Seven Stories Press, available at Courage to Resist and many other places, is written by Aimee Allison and David Solnit. This is a practical, inspiring book on ways to resist. Watch for these events in the month of September [And clicking here will give you more info]:
Sep 14 at 4:00P Army of None Workshop - San Jose, CA @ Californians for Justice, San Jose, CA;Sep 14 at 7:30P Army of None Book Release/Signing - San Jose, CA @ Dowtown San Jose - Location TBA; Sep 15 at 12:00P Army of None Tour in Pittsburgh, PA; Sep 19 at 7:00P Army of None Tour in Cleveland, OH; Sep 20 at 6:00P Army of None Tour @ Kent, OH;Sep 23 at 6:00P Army of None Tour @ Milwaukee, WI; Sep 24 at 6:00P Army of None Tour in Milwaukee, WI @ Milwaukee, WI;Sep 25 at 7:00P Army of None Tour @ Madison, WI; Sep 26 at 6:00P Army of None Tour @ Madison, WI; Sep 27 at 6:30P Army of None Tour @ May Day Books, Minneapolis MN; Sep 28 at 10:00A Army of None Tour @ High Schools in Minneapolis, MN;Sep 28 at 7:30P Army of None Tour @ Lyndale United Church of Christ, Minneapolis MN; Sep 29 at 1:00P Army of None Tour @ Rondo Community Outreach Library - St. Paul, MN; Oct 12 at 7:00P Army of None Tour @ Bluestockings Bookstore - New York City; and Oct 17 at 7:00P Army of None Tour @ Sanctuary for Independent Media - Troy, NY
In US political news, Matthew Rothschild (The Progressive) reports that US House Rep John Conyers has declared that impeachment may be off Nancy Pelosi's table (more room for the centerpiece made of the spines that once were in Democratic leaders) but it's not off his table and Pelosi "cannot prvent me from introducing an impeachment resolution." Remember that for two reasons. First, Conyers have caved and backtracked on this issue before. Second, those enablers rushing to rescue Conyers a few weeks back kept insisting that Conyers had no real power. He's said otherwise. Rothschild wonders, "So what's his hesitation now? And when is a more appropriate time than now, after all the crimes Bush and Cheney have already committed?" Also wondering about the refusal to move foward on the part of Democrats is Jimmy Breslin (New York Daily News via Common Dreams):
There had been the sound of many feet on a Brooklyn street at the first funeral, of firefighter Joseph Graffa-gnino, and at the second funeral, of firefighter Robert Beddia, a fire engine sounded in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. In my office about an hour later, slips of paper came silently out of a machine, the slips coming from the Department of Defense and carrying the names and ages of the 14 soldiers who were killed in Iraq when their helicopter crashed. Four were under 21 and nine 25 or under. Of course the first thought was how the city at this time could handle such calamity if the 14 dead were New York firefighters or police officers. This gives a good view of the catastrophe that happens in Iraq, day after day. But as the soldiers die at a time of national Alzheimer's, there was virtually no reaction to the 14. When anybody you elect tries to end the war, Bush blocks all intentions with a veto or threats of a veto that prevent it. And his Supreme Court is ready to validate whatever he does, this court with its five Catholic justices, and a chief who falls on his face a couple of times that we know of. Our politicians despair that there can be no way to override Bush and save our young and everybody of any age in Iraq. Of course there is. By all the energy and dignified disgust of a nation that needs it to keep any semblance of greatness, there is an extraordinary need for an impeachment of this president and his vice president.You start an impeachment with an investigator who starts to develop a case. That's what got Nixon out. He had the most expensive, elaborate defense in the world, and when they were pressed his assistants folded and Nixon quit. I wonder whether Bush and his people can do any better when pressed.
Breslin was one of the few voices this time last year noting the silence on Iraq as media elected to travelogue over the summer and allowed Iraq to fall off the media radar. The late Molly Ivins also called out the nonsense. Sadly, others cannot be added to the list. As he did last summer, Breslin is refusing to allow his voice to be wasted.
iraq
democracy now
juan gonzalez
margaret kimberley
iraq veterans against the war
army of none
aimeee allison
david solnit
jimmy breslin
matthew rothschild
mcclatchy newspapers
the los angeles times
tina susman
rosa brooks
the washington post
karen deyoung
"FBI Spied On Coretta Scott King For Years After MLK's Death" (Democracy Now!):
Newly released government documents show that FBI agents spied on Coretta Scott King for several years after her husband, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated in 1968. Memos show the FBI was concerned that she might attempt to 'tie the anti-Vietnam movement to the civil rights movement.' There is also evidence that the Nixon administration and then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were kept informed of the FBI's nearly constant surveillance of Coretta Scott King.
The above news is offensive on so many levels. The FBI spied on Dr. King. If they weren't involved in his assassination (and an argument can be made that they were), they certainly knew who was involved and how it went down due to the fact that they were spying on MLK. That didn't prevent them from spying on his widow after he died.
Was Coretta Scott King a threat to national security? No. Was she a criminal? No. Did the FBI have any reason to spy on her? No.
But that's how it was then and that's how it's becoming yet again.
It was stopped (or at least slowed down) before, it could be again. But that requires citizens willing to be adults and not scared little babies crying, "Protect me! Save me!"
"New FBI Network Allows Instant Wiretaps on Any Communication Device" (Democracy Now!):
Wired Magazine is reporting the FBI has quietly built a sophisticated, point-and-click surveillance system that performs instant wiretaps on almost any private communications device. The network allows an FBI agent in New York to remotely set up a wiretap on a cell phone based in Sacramento, California. This would allow the FBI agent to immediately learn the phone's location, then begin receiving conversations, text messages and voicemail pass codes in New York. The surveillance system is called the Digital Collection System Network. It connects FBI wiretapping rooms to switches controlled by traditional land-line operators, internet providers and cellular companies. Experts say the system is far more intricately woven into the nation's telecom infrastructure than previously suspected.
This will really date me. Years ago, there was a film called 3 Days of The Condor (I think that was the title). Robert Redford starred and Faye Dunaway was "the girl." Warren Beatty had a film as well (underrated and I can't remember the name but Alan J. Pakula was the director). Those always struck me as the sort of things we worried about when I was in college and, since both Redford and Beattie were already making films in the sixties, it was a bit weird to see them in those kind of storylines. (I enjoy both movies and think both did strong work.)
But what I remember is, from those days, the question that would come up, often at parties, of how would you disappear (go underground) if you had to?
Most of us thought it would be difficult then. It was nothing like it would be today. "Intrusive" doesn't begin to describe what we live in today. The most appalling aspect may be how readily it is all accepted and dubbed 'normal.' It really is amazing how much we've allowed to be destroyed, how much we have taken in part in destroying since September 2001.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Friday, August 31, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces more deaths, disease outbreaks in northern Iraq, Bully Boy shows contempt for Congress (again), Texas gears up for a big protest Saturday and more.
Starting with war resistance. Tampa Bay's WMNF (88.5) interviewed Aidan Delgado.
Aidan Delgado: First of all I wouldn't encourage just anyone to become a Conscientious Objector because if you don't know it already CO status is the most difficult way to get out of the army. Mine took 18 months and it was a hard 18 months. So if someone's just looking to leave the military, CO status is not the way to do it and you should only do it if you feel absolute moral conviction that you can't participate. And the other thing I would stress is to go online and look up CO packets that have been successful. Go and read through a couple of entire packets that show what it takes to become a successful CO. And don't ever be intimidated by the army and don't let them tell you the regulations. You have to go and read the regulations on CO yourself. Look at some of the successful packets to get an impression of how wide the field is and how you can go about it.
Aidan Delgado also tells his story in The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib: Notes From A Conscientious Objector In Iraq which came out this month. The advice he offered on the radio is advice he followed. That includes the packets and that includes not allowing the military to tell you what you really believe as they attempted to with him.
Aidan Delgado: When I wrote The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib: Notes From A Conscientious Objector In Iraq in my mind I was reacting against a lot of the war literature that was out there -- books like Black Hawk Down and The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell and a lot of the older war novels -- in that I think too much of the war novels are really a kind of hero worship in disguise and they tell the stories of violent actions and real physical bravery and daring. And I think that's great and I think that story needs to be told; however, I think there's a huge gap and I don't think we should read only one kind of war story. And I'm proud to say my war story is not about violence although there is violence in it. And it's not about war exploits although those are in it too. It's kind of about the moral side of war and the moral journey and the development which I think is something that will resonate with a lot more readers. I'm not interested really in having a, you know, heroic soldier flag waving gently in the background. And I'm not really trying to entertain people or satisfy their ghoulish curiosity about war. I really want people to think about the other side, the personal side, that hasn't been reflected in all these gory, violent war memoirs . So my idea was to create a different kind of war novel that talks about the shades of grey not the uncompromising black and white, good and evil, to talk about all the moral quandries and decisions you have to make as a soldier.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes 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, 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.
Saturday Iraq Veterans Against the War will be in Texas. Texans For Peace are staging an American People's Poll on Iraq in Fort Worth, Texas featuring many speakers including IVAW's Adam Kokesh, Leonard Shelton and Hart Viges as well as Diane Wilson, Tina Richards, Ann Wright and many others. Click here for the press release. There is not a fee to attend, the event is Saturday, in Fort Worth, Texas which is also where the Republican Straw Poll will be "taking place in General Worth Square". People will begin arriving at nine in the morning, the speeches will begin at 1:30. There will be music and entertainment. Though the event is free, people can donate and Texans For Peace is encouraging everyone planning to attend to print up tickets online. The tickets will be used for a number count of those attending. No one will be turned away because they didn't have access to a computer to print up the ticket.
The event is sponsored and Endorsed by Texans for Peace, Dallas Peace Center, IVAW, Veterans for Peace, Crawford Peace House, Military Families Speak Out, Gold Star Families for Peace, CODEPINK - Dallas Chapter, Peace Action Texas, Peace and Justice - Arlington, Vietnam Veterans Against the War and more.
Throughout the day (nine to five, this is a Saturday) there will be canvassing and straw polls, the pre-rally entertainment starts at one p.m. and the peace rally begins at 1:30 and lasts until 3:30. Fort Worth is a city in Texas, part of the Dallas and Fort Worth region known there as "DFW." Suburbs, towns and cities in the area include Denton, Plano, Arlington, Irvining, Bach Springs, Desoto, Duncanville, Lewisville, Addison, Grand Prairie and a host of others. There is a point. Texans for Peace notes that you can catch the Trinity Railway Express to Fort Worth and that at 12:30 pm volunteers will be helping transport people to the rally.Community member Diana and her family took part in the April 2006 immigrants rally in downtown Dallas that had at least a half million participants making it the largest protest in Dallas' history. She noted the traffic issue when she shared her experiences from that rally. Today, she explained over the phone that the easiest thing for people to the north, east or south of Fort Worth wanting to attend Saturday's events but unsure of how to get there is to utilize the Trinity train. She suggests grabbing a Dart Express Train and taking it to Union Station (in downtown Dallas). You can pick up the TRE there. ("It's the big, brown -- same brown as UPS uses --train that runs right next to the two light rails," says Diana.) ADDED: Dallas and Billie both note that there is also a solid white train. Billie: "Brown or white, they are real trains that look like trains, not the light rail." Texans for Peace notes that the TRE (Trinity Railway Express) runs from eight in the morning until eleven at night on Saturdays. September will kick off many actions across the country calling for an end to the illegal war and this Saturday, Texas kicks off the action in Fort Worth.
September is a month of actions and protests and it kicks off tomorrow in Fort Worth Texas.Jeff Gibbs will apparently not be in Fort Worth or DC. Gibbs (CounterPunch) explains, "I am tired of protests: they don't stop wars. Not protests that are mostly sign waving and hooking up with friends and strangers and feeling the solidarity and then going back to work or school on Monday. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result." Gibbs' feelings on this are quite common. If those are your feelings then figure out what actions do speak to you. If something's not speaking to you or working for you, find something that is. The movement doesn't need to grow stagnant. Gibbs is calling for work-stoppage and other actions (all solid actions). Iraq Moratorium is proposing new actions as well.
And in Iraq . . . Yesterday's snapshot noted:
While Iraq's Foreign Minister critiques the British decision to withdraw, David Miliband, UK Foreign Secretary, has his own (and presumably the British government's take). Thomas Harding (Telegraph of London) reports that Miliband has indicated what others think (including the US) really isn't the issue declaring "we will always take British decision in the British national interest. Our decision about Basra are about the situation on the ground in Basra not the situation on the ground in Baghdad" (with Harding noting that was "in reference to America's zone of control").
Today Miliband joins with the UK's Minister of Defence Des Browne to pen a column for the Washington Post where they explain the British decision to withdraw from Basra: "We pledged to help Iraqis develop a functioning state, with armed forces, police and other institutions capable of delivering security for the people. We also promised that, when we had done that, we would promptly hand over full responsibility for security to the legitimate, elected Iraq authorities." Damien McElroy (Telegraph of London) notes that Basra Palace is the last British base within Basra and that "[t]he American military is known to harbour concerns over the security of the oilfields that are Iraq's only source of oil exports and its supply lines along the north-south highway". The British began the occupation of Basra April 6, 2003. That was over four years ago. As Great Britain's Socialist Worker notes, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has declared that there is no planned withdrawal (5,500 British forces are in Iraq, the Basra withdrawal is expected to allow for no more than 500 troops to leave Iraq) and that British army head Richard Dannatt has termed Iraq "a region perched precariously above a large proportion of the world's remaining supply of oil."
Meanwhile Patrick Cockburn (Independent of London) reports that 5,000 Iraqis in the northern part of the country have cholera. AFP reports that the the World Health Organization terms the outbreak a "major epidemic". Earlier this week, UNICEF announced they had "rushed emergency aid" in to "Suleimaniya and Kirkuk in northern Iraq" and that: "Serious problems with water quality and sewage treatment are being blamed for the outbreak. Local reports indicate that only 30 per cent of the population in Suleimaniya has an adequate water supply. Mains water is only available for two hours per day at the most in the main city quarters and suburbs. A water quality report from Suleimaniya from July showed the only 50 per cent of the water inside the city was chlorinated. Many people have been reduced to digging shallow wells outside their own homes." IRIN quotes Slaimaniyah General Hospital's Dr. Dirar Iyad stating, "We need urgent medical support as the disease is spreading. We didn't expect an outbreak in this area. There is a shortage of medicines to control the disease and the focal point [source of the disease] hasn't been identified yet . . . Five deaths have so far been reported here and in Kirkuk, and we believe more could occur over the next couple of days as victims are already in an advanced stage of the illness." Cockburn explains, "Most of Iraq outside Kurdistan is flat so water and sewage need to be pumped, but this has often become impossible due to a lack of electricity. The water in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is highly polluted and undrinkable." Tina Susman (Los Angeles Times) notes that earlier (June) there was an outbreak in southern Iraq.
Cockburn also notes 4.2 million is the current number of Iraqi refugees "of whom two million have been displaced within Iraq." UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie vitied Iraq and Syria this week to meet with Iraqi refugees. The UN notes that Jolie visited a Damascus UNHCR center and visited the "small rented room shared by 13 people between the ages of eight months and 67 years" of one family who were registering with the center and also visited Iraq's Al Waleed camp "which houses 1,300 refugees . . . where there is no running water or electricty." ABC News (US) has photos of the visit. Pasadena Weekly notes the estimate is 1,200 for the number of Iraqi refugees she met with on Tuesday. Many external Iraqi refugees have gone to Syria or Jordan. Today, Juan Gonzalez (Democracy Now!) noted, "The Syrian government has announced it will soon prevent Iraqi refugees from crossing its border unless they have work visas. The new rules take effect on Sept. 10. Over 1.5 million Iraqi refugees have fled to Syria since the U.S. invasion. More than 30,000 Iraqi refugees continue to arrive in Syria each month." Peace Mom and candidate for the US Congress in California's eighth district Cindy Sheehan recently visited Iraqi refugees in Jordan. Great Britain's Socialist Worker reports, "Asked whether the occupying powers had taken steps to alleviate the suffering of refugees, she compared the tiny amounts spent to the billions given to the military. Cindy Sheehan said, 'This is a war crime. It is a crime to create so many refugees and then wash our hands of them'." Josie Clark (Independent of London) also noted the London press conference last week and that Sheehan was asking "the UK to help with the emergency aid operation and to consider taking more refugees from the area."
Refugees, disease outbreaks, how lucky the Iraqi people are to have been 'given' 'peace.' David S. Cloud (New York Times) reports today that an independent committee established by Congress and headed by Gen. James L. Jones will report that the Iraqi police force needs "remaking" due to "corrupt officers and Shiite militants suspected of complicity in sectarian killings". There's the Bully Boy's 'progress'. Rosa Brooks (Los Angeles Times) offers some strong truths regarding the need for US forces to withdraw and also observes, "The honest (though not very satisfying answer is that no one really knows what will happen in Iraq after the United States leaves. Interestingly, a poll in March found that a majority of Iraqis thought the security situation would improve immediately after a U.S. withdrawal. But things could also get worse -- and anyone who claims to have a crystal ball is lying. We long ago squandered any capacity to guarantee a happy ending for the Iraqis."
Meanwhile the US White House has launched an attack (again) on the legislative branch of the United States. Jonathan Weisman (Washington Post) reports that the US military brass distributes 'rap sheets' on visiting Congress members to "Iraqi officials, U.S. officials and uniformed military of no particular rank" and, by these sheets, those encountering representatives of the US Congress know where they're friend or foe and treat accordingly. This is an assault on the legislative branch and an embarrassment to Congress. Weisman notes:
At one point, the three were trying to discuss the state of Iraqi security forces with Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, but the large, flat-panel television set facing the official proved to be a distraction. Rubaie was watching children's cartoons.When Moran asked him to turn it off, Rubaie protested with a laugh and said, "But this is my favorite television show," Moran recalled.
The disrespect shown to Congress, forget the particular members, is shameful. That these actions have been tolerated goes a long way to demonstrating just how Congress continues to stand up for itself repeatedly. The White House should be called to the carpet on this.
Margaret Kimberley (Black Agenda Report) examines the long relationship between Iraq and the US, ponders the candidates for president and notes, "Poor al-Maliki. He is just the latest to discover that in certain circumstances, being a friend of the United States is a terrible position indeed. Uneasy lies the head of America's allies. Just ask Saddam Hussein." As Kimberly notes, Nouri al-Maliki knew the odds going in (or should have). Meanwhile Nermeen Al-Mufti (Al-Ahram Weekly) summarizes the many failures of al-Maliki's government (including "seems unable to keepts its own ministers in the cabinet) and concludes, "Al-Maliki is facing domestic and international criticism over the failure of his government to achieve national reconciliation and pass certain laws --- principally the US-favoured oil law. So far, Al-Maliki has reacted angrily to criticism, pledging to stay on in office." Robert H. Reid (AP) reports that al-Maliki is now attempting to blame Sunnis for this week's viiolence in Karbala -- the violence that was Shia-on-Shia violence. Sami Moubayed (Asia Times) reports on the latest paranoid induced ravings of al-Maliki regarding Krabala: "Maliki also accused the culprits of having wanted to blow up the shrine of Imam al-Hussein and then ordered the arrest of Hamid Kannush, a member of the city's municipality who is a ranking member of the Sadrist bloc. Kannush was accused of conspiracy in the Karbala violence. Maliki was effectively saying: the Sadrists did it, although his office's official press release blamed 'the Saddamis'. Maliki's office, however, did not actually explain what had happened in Karbala. National Security Advisor Muwafaq al-Rabei, however, said that militants wanted to occupy the two holy shrines of Imam al-Husseini and Imam al-Abbas, 'and topple the Maliki government'."
Marshall Helmberger (Timberjay Newspapers) reminds, "And don't forget that Gen. Petraeus himself said the most critical progress in Iraq had to come on the political front. On that score, there’s little debate over the fact that the Iraqi government is in utter chaos. A large portion of Prime Minister al-Maliki's cabinet has quit, as have significant blocs within the Parliament. None of the benchmark legislation the White House called 'must-pass' six months ago has been approved. The political situation is so bad that some in Congress, from both parties, are now calling for al-Maliki's replacement and rumors are again afoot about a U.S.-supported coup that would put former interim Iraqi prime minister and CIA informant Ayad Alawi in charge in Baghdad. So much for promoting democracy. While President Bush hasn't yet signed on to the idea, it's clear even the White House is no longer oblivious to Iraq's political implosion."
In some of the violence today . . .
Bombings?
Reuters reports a Samarra car bombing that claimed the lives of 4 police officers (seven wounded). Late last night, Mary Orndoff (The Birmingham News) reported that a plane "carrying Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., and Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville, and two other sentors" was en route to Baghdad when it was fired upon by three rockets. No person or plane was hurt.
Shootings?
Mohammed Al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports, "Gunmen killed a barber man, Ghazwan Jawad, inside his shop in Al Nasr neighborhood. The deceased worked as a personal barber man to a colonel in Kirkuk police." Tina Susman (Los Angeles Times) explains Ghazwan Jawad's murder is "the ninth slaying of a barber in the city this year by Islamic militants who oppose Western haircuts and grooming styles."
Corpses?
It's Friday. Reports trickle out of the day's violence on Saturday.
Today, the US military announced: "A Marine and a Soldier assigned to Multi National Force-West died Aug. 29 in separate in attacks while conducting combat operations in AlAnbar Province." The announcement brings ICCC's total for the number of US service members killed in Iraq so far this month to 80 with the total since the start of the illegal war to 3738.
A new book entitled Army of None, published by Seven Stories Press, available at Courage to Resist and many other places, is written by Aimee Allison and David Solnit. This is a practical, inspiring book on ways to resist. Watch for these events in the month of September [And clicking here will give you more info]:
Sep 14 at 4:00P Army of None Workshop - San Jose, CA @ Californians for Justice, San Jose, CA;Sep 14 at 7:30P Army of None Book Release/Signing - San Jose, CA @ Dowtown San Jose - Location TBA; Sep 15 at 12:00P Army of None Tour in Pittsburgh, PA; Sep 19 at 7:00P Army of None Tour in Cleveland, OH; Sep 20 at 6:00P Army of None Tour @ Kent, OH;Sep 23 at 6:00P Army of None Tour @ Milwaukee, WI; Sep 24 at 6:00P Army of None Tour in Milwaukee, WI @ Milwaukee, WI;Sep 25 at 7:00P Army of None Tour @ Madison, WI; Sep 26 at 6:00P Army of None Tour @ Madison, WI; Sep 27 at 6:30P Army of None Tour @ May Day Books, Minneapolis MN; Sep 28 at 10:00A Army of None Tour @ High Schools in Minneapolis, MN;Sep 28 at 7:30P Army of None Tour @ Lyndale United Church of Christ, Minneapolis MN; Sep 29 at 1:00P Army of None Tour @ Rondo Community Outreach Library - St. Paul, MN; Oct 12 at 7:00P Army of None Tour @ Bluestockings Bookstore - New York City; and Oct 17 at 7:00P Army of None Tour @ Sanctuary for Independent Media - Troy, NY
In US political news, Matthew Rothschild (The Progressive) reports that US House Rep John Conyers has declared that impeachment may be off Nancy Pelosi's table (more room for the centerpiece made of the spines that once were in Democratic leaders) but it's not off his table and Pelosi "cannot prvent me from introducing an impeachment resolution." Remember that for two reasons. First, Conyers have caved and backtracked on this issue before. Second, those enablers rushing to rescue Conyers a few weeks back kept insisting that Conyers had no real power. He's said otherwise. Rothschild wonders, "So what's his hesitation now? And when is a more appropriate time than now, after all the crimes Bush and Cheney have already committed?" Also wondering about the refusal to move foward on the part of Democrats is Jimmy Breslin (New York Daily News via Common Dreams):
There had been the sound of many feet on a Brooklyn street at the first funeral, of firefighter Joseph Graffa-gnino, and at the second funeral, of firefighter Robert Beddia, a fire engine sounded in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. In my office about an hour later, slips of paper came silently out of a machine, the slips coming from the Department of Defense and carrying the names and ages of the 14 soldiers who were killed in Iraq when their helicopter crashed. Four were under 21 and nine 25 or under. Of course the first thought was how the city at this time could handle such calamity if the 14 dead were New York firefighters or police officers. This gives a good view of the catastrophe that happens in Iraq, day after day. But as the soldiers die at a time of national Alzheimer's, there was virtually no reaction to the 14. When anybody you elect tries to end the war, Bush blocks all intentions with a veto or threats of a veto that prevent it. And his Supreme Court is ready to validate whatever he does, this court with its five Catholic justices, and a chief who falls on his face a couple of times that we know of. Our politicians despair that there can be no way to override Bush and save our young and everybody of any age in Iraq. Of course there is. By all the energy and dignified disgust of a nation that needs it to keep any semblance of greatness, there is an extraordinary need for an impeachment of this president and his vice president.You start an impeachment with an investigator who starts to develop a case. That's what got Nixon out. He had the most expensive, elaborate defense in the world, and when they were pressed his assistants folded and Nixon quit. I wonder whether Bush and his people can do any better when pressed.
Breslin was one of the few voices this time last year noting the silence on Iraq as media elected to travelogue over the summer and allowed Iraq to fall off the media radar. The late Molly Ivins also called out the nonsense. Sadly, others cannot be added to the list. As he did last summer, Breslin is refusing to allow his voice to be wasted.
iraq
democracy now
juan gonzalez
margaret kimberley
iraq veterans against the war
army of none
aimeee allison
david solnit
jimmy breslin
matthew rothschild
mcclatchy newspapers
the los angeles times
tina susman
rosa brooks
the washington post
karen deyoung
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Ned Parker, Mary Pipher
Okay, what I mainly want to steer you to tonight is the snapshot. Yesterday, C.I.'s "More lies from the Bully Boy," Cedric's "Bully Boy wins the Liar! Liar! competition again" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! BULLY BOY CAN'T STOP LYING!" provided an analysis of Bully Boy's speech. Today, exploring the failure of the puppet Nouri al-Maliki, C.I. refutes Bully Boy's claims again. Bully Boy, as C.I. makes clear, is responsible for the illegal war. But this "Sympathy for the Puppet" nonsense is garbage and needs to be called out. Nouri al-Maliki was not forced into the position of prime minister, he sought it. What has he done with it? Added to the destruction, added to the violence.
It is not accurate to say al-Maliki has "no power." As C.I. points out, al-Maliki could have used something the US desired, such as the privatization of Iraqi oil, as leverage. Note when al-Maliki is suddenly screaming, "It's coming!" Only after it's obvious how low he's fallen in the eyes of the world. He uses it now, as leverage, to save his own ass. He did not use it to get potable water for the people of Iraq, to get electricity improved, he didn't use it for anything . . . except to save his own ass.
We all know Allawi's waiting in the wings. There are probably several waiting in the wings. If this is your typical 'let's plan the coup,' you'll have several in the running. The CIA will back one, the State Department another, the Pentagon another and they will squabble amongst themselves to decide who it will be.
But the whole "Sympathy for the Puppet" strikes me as the same nonsense as "Bully Boy can't be impeached! We'd end up with Dick Cheney!" Mike deconsructs that flawed argument here. Could we just once try to act as if our principles matter to us and not sitting there trying to plays oddsmaker in Vegas?
"Interior Ministry mirrors chaos of a fractured Iraq" (Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times):
Parties representing the Sunni minority, which controlled Iraq in Hussein's day, have been almost entirely purged from the ministry in the last two years. Three of the ministry's longest-serving Sunni generals have been killed in the last year.
Feel like playing "Sympathy for the Puppet" now? Nouri al-Maliki's responsible for that. Read Parker's article before you start humming along with the 'poor al-Maliki' chorus. That's just one example of what al-Maliki's responsible for in Iraq today. He wanted to be in charge, he wanted to be prime minister. He is a puppet, no question, but even a puppet has some powers.
"Psychologist, Author Mary Pipher Returns APA Award Over Interrogation Policy" (Democracy Now!):
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Pipher, what do you say to those who resisted the moratorium on psychologist participation in these interrogations, saying if psychologists aren't there, they can't make it better, that psychologists who are there could protest if they see torture taking place?
MARY PIPHER: Well, first of all, psychologists designed much of the torture. We were involved with the SERE project at Fort Bragg. We developed the protocols. And what our field has actually done is create through reverse-engineering, actually, some of the earlier methods for our captured [POWs]. We reverse-engineered them into a very rapid and heinous process by which almost anyone could be broken down and hallucinating and psychotic and, in a sense, destroying their mind within about twenty-four hours, forty-eight hours. And so, we've been very, very much a part of this.
If we leave, first of all, it can't happen anymore. But secondly, if we leave, what we’re really saying is psychologists are not involved as interrogators. You know, this goes back. My mother was a doctor in a small town. And first of all, she was a very good person. And she was one of these people that she told me a lot of stories, and all of her stories had a strong moral crux. But she took her work very seriously. She worked very hard. And one of the things that I remember her saying was parts of the Hippocratic Oath. Here's one of them: never do harm to someone for someone else's benefit. That's what we're claiming to do. That violates the most basic of standards for caregivers. The other thing is, make your patient your highest priority. Psychologists, doctors, we are about helping people. That is our mission. And so, anytime we do something else, we become something else. And it's very important to me that I am defined not by the APA's current recent behavior, not by the APA's Substitute Motion Three, but that I'm defined as my mother was defined, by a way of thinking about human beings that in a sense insists I treat all human beings as people of worth and dignity.
You know, I remember one thing that happened a lot. I lived out in rural Nebraska. My mom had to do everything. I mean, she was the doctor at football games. She did all the physicals. She sat with old farmers while they were dying. But she always carried her little black doctor bag. And if we stopped along a road because there was a car wreck -- we did that all the time -- she and my dad -- had been a medic in the war -- would jump out and run for that accident victim. And they didn't ask that person if they had a criminal history. They didn't ask that person if they were a Republican or a Democrat or paying their taxes or had the proper identification. They took care of that person. And that's what I think is our job as psychologists, just as my mother thought it was her job as a doctor.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mary Pipher, you have worked with torture victims. Explain when you worked with them, where you did and what you learned.
MARY PIPHER: Well, I've worked in two capacities. First of all, I've always been someone deeply interested in human rights -- again, I think, from my mother. But I was marching in 1965 in Kansas City to desegregate. I was a long-term member of Amnesty International. I was writing, ironically -- today I was writing urgent action messages all over the world to protest the torture of specific people who are being held in facilities, sadly not unlike some of the facilities where we're holding, in quotes, "enemy combatants." The other thing, though, is I've long worked with Physicians for Human Rights. I've done Asylum. I wrote a book, Middle of Everywhere, in which I immersed myself in our refugee community for about three years, and I have always worked with refugees in our poverty programs, and so on.
The other thing, though, is just as a therapist I’ve spent my entire life helping traumatized people. I listen to the damage that people talk about when they've been -- for example, someone whose child has been murdered. One time we worked with a policeman who had accidentally killed someone, someone who’s been raped or had a child who was sexually assaulted, someone who’s been abandoned by their long-term mate. I understand trauma very well.
And two things I know about torture victims, Amy. One is many of them are innocent of any wrongdoing. They were tortured for purely political reasons. The other thing is there is always lasting harm. There is always lasting harm. I could tell you stories of specific people, if we had the time, but what I know for sure is if you have been locked up and treated as an animal, you're never the same person again. It's like you have a chronic disease like diabetes or schizophrenia or Parkinson's: you’re forever compromised. Your mind indeed has been very changed by those experiences.
So I think because of my empathy and my understanding and my moral education, I was someone who was perhaps more aware of these issues than many other issues. The other thing, too, and I’m very lucky in this, is I’m not in a bad position. I don't have to make my living participating in behavior that’s questionable. I've always tried to arrange my life that way, and I’m proud that I’ve been able to. But I'm someone who can speak on these issues and probably not be terribly hurt by it.
I noted what was the start of the interview yesterday. I didn't realize that. It was continued today. That's an excerpt of it. You can use the link to read it in full, listen to it in full or watch it in full.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Wednesday, August 29, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces another death, Texas gears up for a big rally on Saturday, Bully Boy wants another $50 billion for his illegal war, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Nick Chin and Hannah Morong (US Socialist Worker) report the Eli Israel was a huge hit in Kennebunkport, Maine on Saturday at the peace rally held there where Cindy Sheehan, Dennis Kucinich, Carlos and Melida Arredonod, Cynthia McKinney and Dahlia Wasfi were among the over 4,000 people participating. Eli Israel is the first service member to publicly refuse to fight in the illegal war while being stationed in Iraq. The reporters quote Israel asking, "What's going to stop [the war]? It has to stop from the inside."
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes 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, 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.
Iraq Veterans Against the War were also a big hit at the Kennebunkport rally. They'll no doubt be a huge hit Saturday in Texas. In what may be one of the biggest actions in Texas against the illegal war in September, Texans For Peace are staging an American People's Poll on Iraq in Fort Worth, Texas featuring many speakers including IVAW's Adam Kokesh, Leonard Shelton and Hart Viges as well as Diane Wilson, Tina Richards, Ann Wright and many others. Click here for the press release. There is not a fee to attend, the event is Saturday, in Fort Worth, Texas which is also where the Republican Straw Poll will be "taking place in General Worth Square". People will begin arriving at nine in the morning, the speeches will begin at 1:30. There will be music and entertainment. Though the event is free, people can donate and Texans For Peace is encouraging everyone planning to attend to print up tickets online. The tickets will be used for a number count of those attending. No one will be turned away because they didn't have access to a computer to print up the ticket. A number of community members are in the D-FW area. If you're en route to the rally and see a friend, take them along. Texans For Peace are encouraging people to invite friends. This could be the biggest peace rally the area has seen. The event's theme is "Bring the troops home now and take care of them."
Throughout the day (nine to five, this is a Saturday) there will be canvassing and straw polls, the pre-rally entertainment starts at one p.m. and the peace rally begins at 1:30 and lasts until 3:30. Fort Worth is a city in Texas, part of the Dallas and Fort Worth region known there as "DFW." Suburbs, towns and cities in the area include Denton, Plano, Arlington, Irvining, Bach Springs, Desoto, Duncanville, Lewisville, Addison, Grand Prairie and a host of others. There is a point. Texans for Peace notes that you can catch the Trinity Railway Express to Fort Worth and that at 12:30 pm volunteers will be helping transport people to the rally.Community member Diana and her family took part in the April 2006 immigrants rally in downtown Dallas that had at least a half million participants making it the largest protest in Dallas' history. She noted the traffic issue when she shared her experiences from that rally. Today, she explained over the phone that the easiest thing for people to the north, east or south of Fort Worth wanting to attend Saturday's events but unsure of how to get there is to utilize the Trinity train. She suggests grabbing a Dart Express Train and taking it to Union Station (in downtown Dallas). You can pick up the TRE there. ("It's the big, brown -- same brown as UPS uses --train that runs right next to the two light rails," says Diana.) ADDED: Dallas and Billie both note that there is also a solid white train. Billie: "Brown or white, they are real trains that look like trains, not the light rail." Texans for Peace notes that the TRE (Trinity Railway Express) runs from eight in the morning until eleven at night on Saturdays.
[The last two paragraphs were noted yesterday and will be noted tomorrow and Friday. Texas members in that area, or able to get to that area, will hopefully be attending and getting the word out.]
Yesterday, Bully Boy gave another laughable speech. Cedric, Wally and I addressed it yesterday. Michael Abramowitz (Washington Post) observes the "upbeat" speech came as Bully Boy "is stepping up his case for keeping additional U.S. forces in the country. However, Democrats and Iraq experts say that Bush's proposals will face a steep hurdle because many of his predictions of success have not materialized." Thomas E. Ricks (Washington Post) reports that the White House will be asking for another 50 billion dollars ($50,000,000,000.00) for the illegal war "which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq" with the announcement most likely coming "after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will assess the stat eof the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year."
Bully Boy's responsible for the illegal war. The puppet's responsible for his lousy performance. Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) interviews him and he declares that he did not arrive at "this postition from being a king or a prince but have reached here through a political process, democracy and national will." Each claim, in and of itself, laughable. He then tries to play himself off as an accident of history: "I never wished to be put in a position of responsibility, neither did I see for one minute to be here." Apparently, he was just sipping a soda at the counter of Schwaabs and Bully Boy liked the way al-Maliki filled out a sweater. In a report by Fadel on the interview, it's noted that: "Despite Maliki's confidence, the scene at his office made it clear that his survival isn't being debated only in Washington. Maliki's security guards were closely watching a talk show on a wide screen Panasonic television in the lobby. The topic was whether Maliki is the only choice for Iraq, and political pundits were debating whether the prime minister should step down. When Maliki entered, the guards turned down the volume, but kept the program on."
This week Erica Bouris (Foreign Policy in Focus) became the latest offer that criticism of al-Maliki is not helpful. Well sometimes the truth hurts. al-Maliki has done an awful job and doesn't represent Iraqis.
Let's deal with some basics before we get to specifics. Iraq is a war zone. Iraq is occupied. Leaders in those situations (in any country) have a limited number of options. They can lead a resistance to occupying forces. They can attempt to work with the occupation in a 'savy' manner that benefits the people of the country. Or they can become a collaborator in the occuaption. They can attempt to work between all the options listed -- ping-ponging back and forth -- but those are the options for leaders in any occupied country. Bouris declares, "Scolding Maliki, however tempting it is in the dog days of August, when heat, violence, and the 2008 election are all a little close for comfort, is a dangerous temptation to give in to. Especially when combined with the just released National Intelligence Estimate report that paints a grimp picture of Maliki's ability to lead Iraq towards effective governance." In other words, Bouris is aware of the NIE and its evaluation of the puppet so why is she bothered by criticisim of al-Maliki? She fears that al-Maliki might begin to "reach out to less moderate Shiites. Or he could broaden his horizons and respond to the overtures of the Iranians. The Iranians would likely be happy to lend a supportive hand to keep Maliki securely in power."
Nouri al-Maliki came into puppet office with ties to Iran (he lived there in exile). US intelligence notes those ties and when they became firmer is when al-Maliki started getting more public criticism. al-Maliki cannot be pushed closer to Iran, he's already there. That may or may not be a bad thing for Iraq or for the United States. But a claim that he might be pushed into the arms of Iran requires a lack of awareness of his firm ties prior to becoming prime minister and the strengthening of those ties since he has.
As to the concern that he might "reach out to less moderate Shiites" -- again, anyone paying attention will raise an eye brow over that 'fear' as well. Not only has al-Maliki backed the Shia death squads and refused to call out their attacks, calling his Interior Ministry "thugs" is being generous. On July 30th, Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) walked readers through the Interior Ministry building noting that Mahdi Gharrawi controls the second floor ("Last year, U.S. and Iraqi troops found 1,400 prisoners, mostly Sunnis, at a base he controlled in eastern Baghdad. Many showed signs of torture"), the sixth floor is "home to border enforcement and the major crimes unit, belongs to the Badr Organization militia. Its leader, Deputy Minister Ahmed Khfaji, is lauded by some Western officials as an efficient administrator and suspected by others of running secret prisons," the seventh floor is the location of "a turf war" betwen the Badhr Organization and Kurds . . .
That is not a new development, that is not a rarely reported development. al-Maliki would have a very difficult time getting closer with "less moderate Shiites" because they're already arm-in-arm.
"Maliki is the stupidest man alive (well, after Bush of course . . .) if he belives his arrogance and callous handling of the sitatuion will work to dismiss it from the minds of Iraqis. By doing what he is doing, he's making it more clear than ever that under his rule, under his government, vigilante justice is the only way to go. Why leave it to the security forces and police? Simply hire a militia or gang to get revenge." Riverbend (Baghdad Burning) wrote that on February 20th of this year. She was commenting specifically of the refusal to pursue justice for Sabrine Al Janabi. What does Riverbend think today? Her last post was in April and she noted that she and her family were going to attempt to make it to Syria or Jordan:
Riverbend is now a refugee and under the puppet's 'rule' a vast number of those have been created.
On Monday, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) explained, "Meanwhile the Iraqi Red Crescent reports the number of internally displaced Iraqis has also doubled over the course of the so-called U.S. troop surge. More than 1.1 million Iraqis are now internally-displaced, up from under four-hundred fifty thousand earlier this year." Today, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted that "the Iraqi refugee crisis worsens by the month. The United Nations says the monthly rate of displacement has reached 60,000 people -- an increase of 10,000 over previous estimates. Some 4.2 million Iraqis have fled their homes since the U.S. invasion of Iraq." Do we want to talk orphans? Jonathan Finer (Washington Post) reported in 2006 that prior to the illegal war approximately 400 children were living in orphanages throughout Iraq but by the beginning of 2006, the number had already grown to 1,000.
Assuming the puppet was attempting to be 'savy' and not collaborating, he has failed. There are many things the US wants. Top of the list, the US wants to put into law the theft of Iraqi oil. If he was attempting to be 'savy,' he could have used the desires to leverage items that would make life under occupation a little better for Iraqis. He hasn't.
He told Fadel, "The support for the Sunnis is something we do not accept -- because we do not agree to support either Sunnis or Shiites. I have made a pledge to deal with matters according to state law and citizens regardless of their affiliations. Our responsibility is to break down the barriers that have been erected recently". The first eleven words are probably the closest to the truth al-Maliki got: "The support for the Sunnis is something we do not accept". That would explain creating an 'alliance' this month without Sunnis and trashing the US White House's 'benchmarks' two and sixteen.
He is a miserable failure and with regards to the Sunni population, he is a menace by whom he appoints and what he chooses to recognize and what he chooses to ignore.
Over a week before the NIE was made public, Peter W. Galbraith (The New York Review of Books) was already laying reality out: "Provincial elections will make Iraq less governable while the process of constitutional revision could break the country apart. . . . Iraq's mainstream Shiite leaders resist holding new provincial elections because they know what such elections are likely to bring. Because the Sunnis boycotted the January 2005 elections, they do not control the northern governorate, or province, of Nineveh, in which there is a Sunni majority, and they are not represented in governorates with mixed populations, such as Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. New elections would, it is argued, give Sunnis a greater voice in the places where they live, and the Shiites say they do not have a problem with this, although just how they would treat the militant Sunnis who would be elected is far from clear."
Reality is reality and calling al-Maliki out for his failures is reality. Reality check: Baghad went under 'crackdown' when? June 2006. Over a year later and nothing to show for it. No improvement. On September 2, 2006 -- almost a year ago -- AFP reported the effects of the 'crackdown' -- the only real effects: "Several of Iraq's leading booksellers and writers have burnt a pyre of books to denounce a curfew which they said has turned the centre of Baghdad's intellectual life into 'a street of ghosts'." The curfews only inflame the tensions, they do not solve anything. The 'crackdown' has been an extreme curfew. It has had resulted in the destruction of many of the last remaining cosmopolitan aspects of Baghdad.
al-Maliki was not swept in by 'national will' as he claims to McClatchy Newspapers. He got the job when Ibrahim al-Jaafari didn't have the support needed. April 22, 2006 was when al-Maliki became the prime mnister. From the May 17, 2006 snapshot: "CNN, the Associated Press and BBC note that Iraqi prime minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki will, apparently, announce his cabinet nominations this Saturday. As the rah-rah-rah-put-on-Etta-James'-"At Last!"-mood builds, it's left to AFP to note the obvious: the parliment meets Saturday because the constitutional deadline is Monday, the 22nd. al-Maliki has already missed his own imposed deadline. The Monday deadline is not optional." On May 22nd, he had a cabinet -- if you were willing to ignore Iraq's Constitution and al-Maliki was. As Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted, the 'cabinet' wasn't full: "Several key cabinet positions remain unfilled including Minister of Defense and Minister of the Interior." Of course, the Constitutional deadline of May 22nd was about the full cabinet, not partial.
That should have been the first clue that he was ineffective. How about that fabeled 24-point plan al-Maliki was talking up in May? In May of 2006, it should be noted. That 'peace plan' didn't amount to anything. After the Green Zone barricades were stormed in June 2006 (the reason for the crackdown), al-Maliki suddenly had a new 'plan' and it was another 'peace plan'. Lot of praise for an awful plan and one that never worked but let's drop back to October 3, 2006's snapshot:
Operation Happy Talkers are on the move and telling you that Nouri al-Maliki offers a 'four-point' peace plan. You may have trouble reading of the 'four-point' plan because the third point isn't about "peace" or "democracy" so reports tend to ignore it. The first step has already been (rightly) dismissed by Andrew North (BBC) of the "local security committees": "In fact, most neighourhoods of Baghdad set up their own local security bodies some time ago to protect themselves -- because they do not trust the authorities to look after them." AP reports that the Iraqi parliament voted in favor of the 'peace' plan (reality title: "continued carnage plan").
As we went on to note (and noted repeatedly), it was difficult to hear about the plan because so much of the press made a point of ignoring one point. The third plank of the 'peace plan' was the attack on a free press. The war on the press. It was the war on the press that created the problems in Falluja in April 2004 when Paul Bremer's itsy-bitsy feelings were hurt over a political cartoon. It was the war on the press that led al-Maliki to shut down al-Arabiya in September 2006.The 'peace plan' pushed in the fall of 2006 only enshrined the assault on a free press though most media outlets avoided noting that. The assault continues. Ali al-Fadhily (IPS) reported yesterday on the "fascist behavior" in Falluja where even the journalists live in fear "after a few of them were arrested and held for several days. One of the detained journalists spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity. Visible shaken, he said that a major in the Fallujah police force had told him that freedom of the media had been missued and the police would not allow it anymore. He said the major told him that 'the news you transmit to the world will be what we tell you, not what you pick up from the street'."
al-Maliki is a puppet. There's no question of that. When he was in Egypt, the US decided to install permanent barricades in Baghdad. al-Maliki declared, "I oppse the building of the wall, and its construction will stop," as Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) noted before adding that the US "military did not say whether the wall's construction would be halted." And the following day, as CNN reported, Iraq's Brig. General Qassim Atta held a press conference in Baghdad where he declared, "We will continue to set up these barries in Adhamiya and other areas." And, FYI, the construction continued.
al-Maliki is a puppet. There's no question of that. But he wanted to have the title of "prime minister" and be seen as a leader. The Iraqi people have nothing to show from his 'leadership'. If this was al-Maliki being 'savy' for 15 months, he's an idiot. More likely, he decided to be a collaborator in an illegal occupation. Regardless, he has not used the limited power he does hold to leverage better conditions for Iraqis. He has allowed Shi'ite death squads to run free, he has allowed his Interior Ministry to target Sunnis when they coveted their homes. The statements being made by people holding office in the US government, mild as they are, are not really that different from what was being stated publicly by October 2006. The difference is that the jury is no longer out on al-Maliki. September 30, 2006, Amit R. Paley and Sudarsan Raghavan (Washington Post) reported that then US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said of al-Maliki, "He has a window of a couple months. If the perception is that this unity government is not able to deal with this issue [the death toll and threat of civil war], then a big opportunity would have been lost and it would take a long time to address this issue." In their opening sentence, Paley and Raghavan wrote, "The U.S. ambassador to Iraq warned on Friday that time is running out for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to contain the burgeoning sectarian bloodshed that threatens to plunge the country into a civil war." That was almost a year ago. The statements or threats are the same today as they were then except for the fact that there's no talk of "if" -- the jury is in, the puppet failed. By the US government's standards he has failed. By measures of daily life for Iraqis he has failed.
US forces arrested Iranians in Baghdad. Stephen Farrell (New York Times) reports, "An Iranian Energy Ministry delegation was arrested by American troops at a hotel in central Baghdad during an official visit to Iraq" while the US military "did not mention the hotel" and asserted the arrests took place "near the checkpoint on the east bank of the Tigris" but staff at the hotel say "the members were eating dinner in the ground floor restaurant" of the hotel when they were arrested, handcuffed and blindfolded. Robin Stringer (Bloomberg News) notes they were released and that the US military's latest version of the ever changing story is that they waived the Iranians through a checkpoint and then changed their minds which is how they ended up arrested at the hotel.
In other violence.
Bombings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad car bombing that claimed 1 life (three wounded). Reuters reports a Kirkuk car bombing claimed 3 lives (seven people wounded), a Kirkuk mortar attack claimed 2 lives (one more wounded), a Diwaniyah roadside bombing claimed the lives of 2 "bodyguards of a government official",
Shootings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Hawija shooting that left an Iraqi soldier dead and 1 person shot dead in Kirkuk. Reuters reports a police officer shot dead in Najaf.
Corpses?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 11 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
Today the US military announced: "One Multi-National Corps – Iraq Soldier died of wounds suffered during combat operations in the vicinity of Kirkuk Aug. 28." The announcement brings the ICCC total for the number of US service members killed in Iraq this month to 75 with 3733 being the total number killed in the illegal war since it started.
Another thing we'll be noting through the end of the week -- events for Army of None, published by Seven Stories Press, available at Courage to Resist and many other places, which is written by Aimee Allison and David Solnit. This Thursday there will be a release celebration for the event at Club Oasis (135 12th St., btwen. Madison and Oak Sts., Oakland 6 blocks E. of Broadway/12th St. -- click here for East Bay express' map of Club Oasis' location). The event is free and open to all. The authors will be there, Jeff Paterson will have a slide show, there will be a puppet show, poets, snakcs, a dj . . . The event starts at 6:30 pm. More information can be found [Warning: MySpace page] by clicking here.Aug 29, at 12:00P, Aimee and David on KPFA Radio! @ KPFA Radio 94.1;Aug 30, at 6:00P Army of None Book Release Party & Tour Kick-Off @ Oasis Restaurant & Bar - Oakland, CA;Sep 14 at 4:00P Army of None Workshop - San Jose, CA @ Californians for Justice, San Jose, CA;Sep 14 at 7:30P Army of None Book Release/Signing - San Jose, CA @ Dowtown San Jose - Location TBA; Sep 15 at 12:00P Army of None Tour in Pittsburgh, PA;Sep 19 at 7:00P Army of None Tour in Cleveland, OH;Sep 20 at 6:00P Army of None Tour @ Kent, OH;Sep 23 at 6:00P Army of None Tour @ Milwaukee, WI;Sep 24 at 6:00P Army of None Tour in Milwaukee, WI @ Milwaukee, WI;Sep 25 at 7:00P Army of None Tour @ Madison, WI;Sep 26 at 6:00P Army of None Tour @ Madison, WI;Sep 27 at 6:30P Army of None Tour @ May Day Books, Minneapolis MN;Sep 28 at 10:00A Army of None Tour @ High Schools in Minneapolis, MN;Sep 28 at 7:30P Army of None Tour @ Lyndale United Church of Christ, Minneapolis MN;Sep 29 at 1:00P Army of None Tour @ Rondo Community Outreach Library - St. Paul, MN;Oct 12 at 7:00P Army of None Tour @ Bluestockings Bookstore - New York City;and Oct 17 at 7:00P Army of None Tour @ Sanctuary for Independent Media - Troy, NY
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army of noneaimeee allisondavid solnitdemocracy nowamy goodman
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leila fadelmcclatchy newspapers
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the new york timesalissa j. rubin
stephen farrell
the washington postamit r. paleysudarsan raghavan
the los angeles times
It is not accurate to say al-Maliki has "no power." As C.I. points out, al-Maliki could have used something the US desired, such as the privatization of Iraqi oil, as leverage. Note when al-Maliki is suddenly screaming, "It's coming!" Only after it's obvious how low he's fallen in the eyes of the world. He uses it now, as leverage, to save his own ass. He did not use it to get potable water for the people of Iraq, to get electricity improved, he didn't use it for anything . . . except to save his own ass.
We all know Allawi's waiting in the wings. There are probably several waiting in the wings. If this is your typical 'let's plan the coup,' you'll have several in the running. The CIA will back one, the State Department another, the Pentagon another and they will squabble amongst themselves to decide who it will be.
But the whole "Sympathy for the Puppet" strikes me as the same nonsense as "Bully Boy can't be impeached! We'd end up with Dick Cheney!" Mike deconsructs that flawed argument here. Could we just once try to act as if our principles matter to us and not sitting there trying to plays oddsmaker in Vegas?
"Interior Ministry mirrors chaos of a fractured Iraq" (Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times):
Parties representing the Sunni minority, which controlled Iraq in Hussein's day, have been almost entirely purged from the ministry in the last two years. Three of the ministry's longest-serving Sunni generals have been killed in the last year.
Feel like playing "Sympathy for the Puppet" now? Nouri al-Maliki's responsible for that. Read Parker's article before you start humming along with the 'poor al-Maliki' chorus. That's just one example of what al-Maliki's responsible for in Iraq today. He wanted to be in charge, he wanted to be prime minister. He is a puppet, no question, but even a puppet has some powers.
"Psychologist, Author Mary Pipher Returns APA Award Over Interrogation Policy" (Democracy Now!):
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Pipher, what do you say to those who resisted the moratorium on psychologist participation in these interrogations, saying if psychologists aren't there, they can't make it better, that psychologists who are there could protest if they see torture taking place?
MARY PIPHER: Well, first of all, psychologists designed much of the torture. We were involved with the SERE project at Fort Bragg. We developed the protocols. And what our field has actually done is create through reverse-engineering, actually, some of the earlier methods for our captured [POWs]. We reverse-engineered them into a very rapid and heinous process by which almost anyone could be broken down and hallucinating and psychotic and, in a sense, destroying their mind within about twenty-four hours, forty-eight hours. And so, we've been very, very much a part of this.
If we leave, first of all, it can't happen anymore. But secondly, if we leave, what we’re really saying is psychologists are not involved as interrogators. You know, this goes back. My mother was a doctor in a small town. And first of all, she was a very good person. And she was one of these people that she told me a lot of stories, and all of her stories had a strong moral crux. But she took her work very seriously. She worked very hard. And one of the things that I remember her saying was parts of the Hippocratic Oath. Here's one of them: never do harm to someone for someone else's benefit. That's what we're claiming to do. That violates the most basic of standards for caregivers. The other thing is, make your patient your highest priority. Psychologists, doctors, we are about helping people. That is our mission. And so, anytime we do something else, we become something else. And it's very important to me that I am defined not by the APA's current recent behavior, not by the APA's Substitute Motion Three, but that I'm defined as my mother was defined, by a way of thinking about human beings that in a sense insists I treat all human beings as people of worth and dignity.
You know, I remember one thing that happened a lot. I lived out in rural Nebraska. My mom had to do everything. I mean, she was the doctor at football games. She did all the physicals. She sat with old farmers while they were dying. But she always carried her little black doctor bag. And if we stopped along a road because there was a car wreck -- we did that all the time -- she and my dad -- had been a medic in the war -- would jump out and run for that accident victim. And they didn't ask that person if they had a criminal history. They didn't ask that person if they were a Republican or a Democrat or paying their taxes or had the proper identification. They took care of that person. And that's what I think is our job as psychologists, just as my mother thought it was her job as a doctor.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Mary Pipher, you have worked with torture victims. Explain when you worked with them, where you did and what you learned.
MARY PIPHER: Well, I've worked in two capacities. First of all, I've always been someone deeply interested in human rights -- again, I think, from my mother. But I was marching in 1965 in Kansas City to desegregate. I was a long-term member of Amnesty International. I was writing, ironically -- today I was writing urgent action messages all over the world to protest the torture of specific people who are being held in facilities, sadly not unlike some of the facilities where we're holding, in quotes, "enemy combatants." The other thing, though, is I've long worked with Physicians for Human Rights. I've done Asylum. I wrote a book, Middle of Everywhere, in which I immersed myself in our refugee community for about three years, and I have always worked with refugees in our poverty programs, and so on.
The other thing, though, is just as a therapist I’ve spent my entire life helping traumatized people. I listen to the damage that people talk about when they've been -- for example, someone whose child has been murdered. One time we worked with a policeman who had accidentally killed someone, someone who’s been raped or had a child who was sexually assaulted, someone who’s been abandoned by their long-term mate. I understand trauma very well.
And two things I know about torture victims, Amy. One is many of them are innocent of any wrongdoing. They were tortured for purely political reasons. The other thing is there is always lasting harm. There is always lasting harm. I could tell you stories of specific people, if we had the time, but what I know for sure is if you have been locked up and treated as an animal, you're never the same person again. It's like you have a chronic disease like diabetes or schizophrenia or Parkinson's: you’re forever compromised. Your mind indeed has been very changed by those experiences.
So I think because of my empathy and my understanding and my moral education, I was someone who was perhaps more aware of these issues than many other issues. The other thing, too, and I’m very lucky in this, is I’m not in a bad position. I don't have to make my living participating in behavior that’s questionable. I've always tried to arrange my life that way, and I’m proud that I’ve been able to. But I'm someone who can speak on these issues and probably not be terribly hurt by it.
I noted what was the start of the interview yesterday. I didn't realize that. It was continued today. That's an excerpt of it. You can use the link to read it in full, listen to it in full or watch it in full.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Wednesday, August 29, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces another death, Texas gears up for a big rally on Saturday, Bully Boy wants another $50 billion for his illegal war, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Nick Chin and Hannah Morong (US Socialist Worker) report the Eli Israel was a huge hit in Kennebunkport, Maine on Saturday at the peace rally held there where Cindy Sheehan, Dennis Kucinich, Carlos and Melida Arredonod, Cynthia McKinney and Dahlia Wasfi were among the over 4,000 people participating. Eli Israel is the first service member to publicly refuse to fight in the illegal war while being stationed in Iraq. The reporters quote Israel asking, "What's going to stop [the war]? It has to stop from the inside."
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes 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, 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.
Iraq Veterans Against the War were also a big hit at the Kennebunkport rally. They'll no doubt be a huge hit Saturday in Texas. In what may be one of the biggest actions in Texas against the illegal war in September, Texans For Peace are staging an American People's Poll on Iraq in Fort Worth, Texas featuring many speakers including IVAW's Adam Kokesh, Leonard Shelton and Hart Viges as well as Diane Wilson, Tina Richards, Ann Wright and many others. Click here for the press release. There is not a fee to attend, the event is Saturday, in Fort Worth, Texas which is also where the Republican Straw Poll will be "taking place in General Worth Square". People will begin arriving at nine in the morning, the speeches will begin at 1:30. There will be music and entertainment. Though the event is free, people can donate and Texans For Peace is encouraging everyone planning to attend to print up tickets online. The tickets will be used for a number count of those attending. No one will be turned away because they didn't have access to a computer to print up the ticket. A number of community members are in the D-FW area. If you're en route to the rally and see a friend, take them along. Texans For Peace are encouraging people to invite friends. This could be the biggest peace rally the area has seen. The event's theme is "Bring the troops home now and take care of them."
Throughout the day (nine to five, this is a Saturday) there will be canvassing and straw polls, the pre-rally entertainment starts at one p.m. and the peace rally begins at 1:30 and lasts until 3:30. Fort Worth is a city in Texas, part of the Dallas and Fort Worth region known there as "DFW." Suburbs, towns and cities in the area include Denton, Plano, Arlington, Irvining, Bach Springs, Desoto, Duncanville, Lewisville, Addison, Grand Prairie and a host of others. There is a point. Texans for Peace notes that you can catch the Trinity Railway Express to Fort Worth and that at 12:30 pm volunteers will be helping transport people to the rally.Community member Diana and her family took part in the April 2006 immigrants rally in downtown Dallas that had at least a half million participants making it the largest protest in Dallas' history. She noted the traffic issue when she shared her experiences from that rally. Today, she explained over the phone that the easiest thing for people to the north, east or south of Fort Worth wanting to attend Saturday's events but unsure of how to get there is to utilize the Trinity train. She suggests grabbing a Dart Express Train and taking it to Union Station (in downtown Dallas). You can pick up the TRE there. ("It's the big, brown -- same brown as UPS uses --train that runs right next to the two light rails," says Diana.) ADDED: Dallas and Billie both note that there is also a solid white train. Billie: "Brown or white, they are real trains that look like trains, not the light rail." Texans for Peace notes that the TRE (Trinity Railway Express) runs from eight in the morning until eleven at night on Saturdays.
[The last two paragraphs were noted yesterday and will be noted tomorrow and Friday. Texas members in that area, or able to get to that area, will hopefully be attending and getting the word out.]
Yesterday, Bully Boy gave another laughable speech. Cedric, Wally and I addressed it yesterday. Michael Abramowitz (Washington Post) observes the "upbeat" speech came as Bully Boy "is stepping up his case for keeping additional U.S. forces in the country. However, Democrats and Iraq experts say that Bush's proposals will face a steep hurdle because many of his predictions of success have not materialized." Thomas E. Ricks (Washington Post) reports that the White House will be asking for another 50 billion dollars ($50,000,000,000.00) for the illegal war "which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq" with the announcement most likely coming "after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will assess the stat eof the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year."
Bully Boy's responsible for the illegal war. The puppet's responsible for his lousy performance. Leila Fadel (McClatchy Newspapers) interviews him and he declares that he did not arrive at "this postition from being a king or a prince but have reached here through a political process, democracy and national will." Each claim, in and of itself, laughable. He then tries to play himself off as an accident of history: "I never wished to be put in a position of responsibility, neither did I see for one minute to be here." Apparently, he was just sipping a soda at the counter of Schwaabs and Bully Boy liked the way al-Maliki filled out a sweater. In a report by Fadel on the interview, it's noted that: "Despite Maliki's confidence, the scene at his office made it clear that his survival isn't being debated only in Washington. Maliki's security guards were closely watching a talk show on a wide screen Panasonic television in the lobby. The topic was whether Maliki is the only choice for Iraq, and political pundits were debating whether the prime minister should step down. When Maliki entered, the guards turned down the volume, but kept the program on."
This week Erica Bouris (Foreign Policy in Focus) became the latest offer that criticism of al-Maliki is not helpful. Well sometimes the truth hurts. al-Maliki has done an awful job and doesn't represent Iraqis.
Let's deal with some basics before we get to specifics. Iraq is a war zone. Iraq is occupied. Leaders in those situations (in any country) have a limited number of options. They can lead a resistance to occupying forces. They can attempt to work with the occupation in a 'savy' manner that benefits the people of the country. Or they can become a collaborator in the occuaption. They can attempt to work between all the options listed -- ping-ponging back and forth -- but those are the options for leaders in any occupied country. Bouris declares, "Scolding Maliki, however tempting it is in the dog days of August, when heat, violence, and the 2008 election are all a little close for comfort, is a dangerous temptation to give in to. Especially when combined with the just released National Intelligence Estimate report that paints a grimp picture of Maliki's ability to lead Iraq towards effective governance." In other words, Bouris is aware of the NIE and its evaluation of the puppet so why is she bothered by criticisim of al-Maliki? She fears that al-Maliki might begin to "reach out to less moderate Shiites. Or he could broaden his horizons and respond to the overtures of the Iranians. The Iranians would likely be happy to lend a supportive hand to keep Maliki securely in power."
Nouri al-Maliki came into puppet office with ties to Iran (he lived there in exile). US intelligence notes those ties and when they became firmer is when al-Maliki started getting more public criticism. al-Maliki cannot be pushed closer to Iran, he's already there. That may or may not be a bad thing for Iraq or for the United States. But a claim that he might be pushed into the arms of Iran requires a lack of awareness of his firm ties prior to becoming prime minister and the strengthening of those ties since he has.
As to the concern that he might "reach out to less moderate Shiites" -- again, anyone paying attention will raise an eye brow over that 'fear' as well. Not only has al-Maliki backed the Shia death squads and refused to call out their attacks, calling his Interior Ministry "thugs" is being generous. On July 30th, Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) walked readers through the Interior Ministry building noting that Mahdi Gharrawi controls the second floor ("Last year, U.S. and Iraqi troops found 1,400 prisoners, mostly Sunnis, at a base he controlled in eastern Baghdad. Many showed signs of torture"), the sixth floor is "home to border enforcement and the major crimes unit, belongs to the Badr Organization militia. Its leader, Deputy Minister Ahmed Khfaji, is lauded by some Western officials as an efficient administrator and suspected by others of running secret prisons," the seventh floor is the location of "a turf war" betwen the Badhr Organization and Kurds . . .
That is not a new development, that is not a rarely reported development. al-Maliki would have a very difficult time getting closer with "less moderate Shiites" because they're already arm-in-arm.
"Maliki is the stupidest man alive (well, after Bush of course . . .) if he belives his arrogance and callous handling of the sitatuion will work to dismiss it from the minds of Iraqis. By doing what he is doing, he's making it more clear than ever that under his rule, under his government, vigilante justice is the only way to go. Why leave it to the security forces and police? Simply hire a militia or gang to get revenge." Riverbend (Baghdad Burning) wrote that on February 20th of this year. She was commenting specifically of the refusal to pursue justice for Sabrine Al Janabi. What does Riverbend think today? Her last post was in April and she noted that she and her family were going to attempt to make it to Syria or Jordan:
Riverbend is now a refugee and under the puppet's 'rule' a vast number of those have been created.
On Monday, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) explained, "Meanwhile the Iraqi Red Crescent reports the number of internally displaced Iraqis has also doubled over the course of the so-called U.S. troop surge. More than 1.1 million Iraqis are now internally-displaced, up from under four-hundred fifty thousand earlier this year." Today, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted that "the Iraqi refugee crisis worsens by the month. The United Nations says the monthly rate of displacement has reached 60,000 people -- an increase of 10,000 over previous estimates. Some 4.2 million Iraqis have fled their homes since the U.S. invasion of Iraq." Do we want to talk orphans? Jonathan Finer (Washington Post) reported in 2006 that prior to the illegal war approximately 400 children were living in orphanages throughout Iraq but by the beginning of 2006, the number had already grown to 1,000.
Assuming the puppet was attempting to be 'savy' and not collaborating, he has failed. There are many things the US wants. Top of the list, the US wants to put into law the theft of Iraqi oil. If he was attempting to be 'savy,' he could have used the desires to leverage items that would make life under occupation a little better for Iraqis. He hasn't.
He told Fadel, "The support for the Sunnis is something we do not accept -- because we do not agree to support either Sunnis or Shiites. I have made a pledge to deal with matters according to state law and citizens regardless of their affiliations. Our responsibility is to break down the barriers that have been erected recently". The first eleven words are probably the closest to the truth al-Maliki got: "The support for the Sunnis is something we do not accept". That would explain creating an 'alliance' this month without Sunnis and trashing the US White House's 'benchmarks' two and sixteen.
He is a miserable failure and with regards to the Sunni population, he is a menace by whom he appoints and what he chooses to recognize and what he chooses to ignore.
Over a week before the NIE was made public, Peter W. Galbraith (The New York Review of Books) was already laying reality out: "Provincial elections will make Iraq less governable while the process of constitutional revision could break the country apart. . . . Iraq's mainstream Shiite leaders resist holding new provincial elections because they know what such elections are likely to bring. Because the Sunnis boycotted the January 2005 elections, they do not control the northern governorate, or province, of Nineveh, in which there is a Sunni majority, and they are not represented in governorates with mixed populations, such as Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. New elections would, it is argued, give Sunnis a greater voice in the places where they live, and the Shiites say they do not have a problem with this, although just how they would treat the militant Sunnis who would be elected is far from clear."
Reality is reality and calling al-Maliki out for his failures is reality. Reality check: Baghad went under 'crackdown' when? June 2006. Over a year later and nothing to show for it. No improvement. On September 2, 2006 -- almost a year ago -- AFP reported the effects of the 'crackdown' -- the only real effects: "Several of Iraq's leading booksellers and writers have burnt a pyre of books to denounce a curfew which they said has turned the centre of Baghdad's intellectual life into 'a street of ghosts'." The curfews only inflame the tensions, they do not solve anything. The 'crackdown' has been an extreme curfew. It has had resulted in the destruction of many of the last remaining cosmopolitan aspects of Baghdad.
al-Maliki was not swept in by 'national will' as he claims to McClatchy Newspapers. He got the job when Ibrahim al-Jaafari didn't have the support needed. April 22, 2006 was when al-Maliki became the prime mnister. From the May 17, 2006 snapshot: "CNN, the Associated Press and BBC note that Iraqi prime minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki will, apparently, announce his cabinet nominations this Saturday. As the rah-rah-rah-put-on-Etta-James'-"At Last!"-mood builds, it's left to AFP to note the obvious: the parliment meets Saturday because the constitutional deadline is Monday, the 22nd. al-Maliki has already missed his own imposed deadline. The Monday deadline is not optional." On May 22nd, he had a cabinet -- if you were willing to ignore Iraq's Constitution and al-Maliki was. As Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted, the 'cabinet' wasn't full: "Several key cabinet positions remain unfilled including Minister of Defense and Minister of the Interior." Of course, the Constitutional deadline of May 22nd was about the full cabinet, not partial.
That should have been the first clue that he was ineffective. How about that fabeled 24-point plan al-Maliki was talking up in May? In May of 2006, it should be noted. That 'peace plan' didn't amount to anything. After the Green Zone barricades were stormed in June 2006 (the reason for the crackdown), al-Maliki suddenly had a new 'plan' and it was another 'peace plan'. Lot of praise for an awful plan and one that never worked but let's drop back to October 3, 2006's snapshot:
Operation Happy Talkers are on the move and telling you that Nouri al-Maliki offers a 'four-point' peace plan. You may have trouble reading of the 'four-point' plan because the third point isn't about "peace" or "democracy" so reports tend to ignore it. The first step has already been (rightly) dismissed by Andrew North (BBC) of the "local security committees": "In fact, most neighourhoods of Baghdad set up their own local security bodies some time ago to protect themselves -- because they do not trust the authorities to look after them." AP reports that the Iraqi parliament voted in favor of the 'peace' plan (reality title: "continued carnage plan").
As we went on to note (and noted repeatedly), it was difficult to hear about the plan because so much of the press made a point of ignoring one point. The third plank of the 'peace plan' was the attack on a free press. The war on the press. It was the war on the press that created the problems in Falluja in April 2004 when Paul Bremer's itsy-bitsy feelings were hurt over a political cartoon. It was the war on the press that led al-Maliki to shut down al-Arabiya in September 2006.The 'peace plan' pushed in the fall of 2006 only enshrined the assault on a free press though most media outlets avoided noting that. The assault continues. Ali al-Fadhily (IPS) reported yesterday on the "fascist behavior" in Falluja where even the journalists live in fear "after a few of them were arrested and held for several days. One of the detained journalists spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity. Visible shaken, he said that a major in the Fallujah police force had told him that freedom of the media had been missued and the police would not allow it anymore. He said the major told him that 'the news you transmit to the world will be what we tell you, not what you pick up from the street'."
al-Maliki is a puppet. There's no question of that. When he was in Egypt, the US decided to install permanent barricades in Baghdad. al-Maliki declared, "I oppse the building of the wall, and its construction will stop," as Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) noted before adding that the US "military did not say whether the wall's construction would be halted." And the following day, as CNN reported, Iraq's Brig. General Qassim Atta held a press conference in Baghdad where he declared, "We will continue to set up these barries in Adhamiya and other areas." And, FYI, the construction continued.
al-Maliki is a puppet. There's no question of that. But he wanted to have the title of "prime minister" and be seen as a leader. The Iraqi people have nothing to show from his 'leadership'. If this was al-Maliki being 'savy' for 15 months, he's an idiot. More likely, he decided to be a collaborator in an illegal occupation. Regardless, he has not used the limited power he does hold to leverage better conditions for Iraqis. He has allowed Shi'ite death squads to run free, he has allowed his Interior Ministry to target Sunnis when they coveted their homes. The statements being made by people holding office in the US government, mild as they are, are not really that different from what was being stated publicly by October 2006. The difference is that the jury is no longer out on al-Maliki. September 30, 2006, Amit R. Paley and Sudarsan Raghavan (Washington Post) reported that then US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said of al-Maliki, "He has a window of a couple months. If the perception is that this unity government is not able to deal with this issue [the death toll and threat of civil war], then a big opportunity would have been lost and it would take a long time to address this issue." In their opening sentence, Paley and Raghavan wrote, "The U.S. ambassador to Iraq warned on Friday that time is running out for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to contain the burgeoning sectarian bloodshed that threatens to plunge the country into a civil war." That was almost a year ago. The statements or threats are the same today as they were then except for the fact that there's no talk of "if" -- the jury is in, the puppet failed. By the US government's standards he has failed. By measures of daily life for Iraqis he has failed.
US forces arrested Iranians in Baghdad. Stephen Farrell (New York Times) reports, "An Iranian Energy Ministry delegation was arrested by American troops at a hotel in central Baghdad during an official visit to Iraq" while the US military "did not mention the hotel" and asserted the arrests took place "near the checkpoint on the east bank of the Tigris" but staff at the hotel say "the members were eating dinner in the ground floor restaurant" of the hotel when they were arrested, handcuffed and blindfolded. Robin Stringer (Bloomberg News) notes they were released and that the US military's latest version of the ever changing story is that they waived the Iranians through a checkpoint and then changed their minds which is how they ended up arrested at the hotel.
In other violence.
Bombings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad car bombing that claimed 1 life (three wounded). Reuters reports a Kirkuk car bombing claimed 3 lives (seven people wounded), a Kirkuk mortar attack claimed 2 lives (one more wounded), a Diwaniyah roadside bombing claimed the lives of 2 "bodyguards of a government official",
Shootings?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Hawija shooting that left an Iraqi soldier dead and 1 person shot dead in Kirkuk. Reuters reports a police officer shot dead in Najaf.
Corpses?
Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 11 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
Today the US military announced: "One Multi-National Corps – Iraq Soldier died of wounds suffered during combat operations in the vicinity of Kirkuk Aug. 28." The announcement brings the ICCC total for the number of US service members killed in Iraq this month to 75 with 3733 being the total number killed in the illegal war since it started.
Another thing we'll be noting through the end of the week -- events for Army of None, published by Seven Stories Press, available at Courage to Resist and many other places, which is written by Aimee Allison and David Solnit. This Thursday there will be a release celebration for the event at Club Oasis (135 12th St., btwen. Madison and Oak Sts., Oakland 6 blocks E. of Broadway/12th St. -- click here for East Bay express' map of Club Oasis' location). The event is free and open to all. The authors will be there, Jeff Paterson will have a slide show, there will be a puppet show, poets, snakcs, a dj . . . The event starts at 6:30 pm. More information can be found [Warning: MySpace page] by clicking here.Aug 29, at 12:00P, Aimee and David on KPFA Radio! @ KPFA Radio 94.1;Aug 30, at 6:00P Army of None Book Release Party & Tour Kick-Off @ Oasis Restaurant & Bar - Oakland, CA;Sep 14 at 4:00P Army of None Workshop - San Jose, CA @ Californians for Justice, San Jose, CA;Sep 14 at 7:30P Army of None Book Release/Signing - San Jose, CA @ Dowtown San Jose - Location TBA; Sep 15 at 12:00P Army of None Tour in Pittsburgh, PA;Sep 19 at 7:00P Army of None Tour in Cleveland, OH;Sep 20 at 6:00P Army of None Tour @ Kent, OH;Sep 23 at 6:00P Army of None Tour @ Milwaukee, WI;Sep 24 at 6:00P Army of None Tour in Milwaukee, WI @ Milwaukee, WI;Sep 25 at 7:00P Army of None Tour @ Madison, WI;Sep 26 at 6:00P Army of None Tour @ Madison, WI;Sep 27 at 6:30P Army of None Tour @ May Day Books, Minneapolis MN;Sep 28 at 10:00A Army of None Tour @ High Schools in Minneapolis, MN;Sep 28 at 7:30P Army of None Tour @ Lyndale United Church of Christ, Minneapolis MN;Sep 29 at 1:00P Army of None Tour @ Rondo Community Outreach Library - St. Paul, MN;Oct 12 at 7:00P Army of None Tour @ Bluestockings Bookstore - New York City;and Oct 17 at 7:00P Army of None Tour @ Sanctuary for Independent Media - Troy, NY
iraq
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iraq veterans against the war
army of noneaimeee allisondavid solnitdemocracy nowamy goodman
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leila fadelmcclatchy newspapers
the socialist worker
the new york timesalissa j. rubin
stephen farrell
the washington postamit r. paleysudarsan raghavan
the los angeles times
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