I am wiped out. I don't know how C.I., Kat, Ava and Mike were on the road all last week and made it through the all night writing session for The Third Estate Sunday Review. Just the all night session left me drained.
On that, a number of e-mails are asking, basically, "But did you really ask for the discussion to be pulled?" No. That was Rebecca and C.I. worrying about me. I don't know that "ask" describes what they did. They just said, "Look, Elaine likes ___ and if we publish this discussion, is it worth it?" For the record, I was fine with it. I was fine with what I said and what others said. Everyone could back up their opinion. I didn't ask for it to be pulled. There were a number of factors, but in terms of me, C.I. and Rebeeca were concerned that it might create problems for me.
If it had (or does -- it may still get published), I can live with it. My own vote was to publish. There were other reasons not to, voiced by others, but in terms of me, that was all it was, Rebecca and C.I. urging caution. They were not saying, "Kill the piece." They were just saying, "Let's be really sure we've thought about this before we publish it." When Ava and C.I. left to write their TV commentary, they were under the impression it was going to be published. When they rejoined the rest of us, they were surprised it was still an issue. At that point, Dona said, "Forget the time, let's all take a minimum of two hours to grab a nap." The thought/hope was that when we awoke it would be clearer. That didn't happen. So for a number of reasons, it got pulled. Jim addresses some of the issues in the note. C.I. won't mind my identifying who brought up the money issue: C.I. The book was not popular (to put it mildly) and that was among the issues (money) that were considered and reconsidered. C.I.'s point was, "Money may be needed by ____ and, if so, do we really want to be the ones responsible for the book not selling?"
The discussion was intense. (When Jim read it out loud to all of us when we were again deciding/re-deciding, it read intense.) I had no problem with anything anyone said. If it's ever published, you should see both Kat and Ava saying "I'm sorry" to me and no one owes me an apology. I didn't write the book. I enjoyed the discussion, it was lively. Kat tied into The Color Purple and couldn't remember the quote which C.I. ended up providing. (Kat tied in why she didn't like the book to a section of The Color Purple where two characters have an exchange.) Their critiques were all astute. The discussion itself took over 3 hours. Editing it and then typing it took even longer (or felt that way). I did vote for it to go up and one reason was that so much time had been spent on it.
But the thing is, it would bury the book. I've noted before how similar Ava and C.I. are. When C.I.'s ticked . . .
I'll explain via a story. Imagine you're having dinner with C.I. and someone intrudes. It can be male or female. But whomever they are, they monopolize the conversation. They weren't invited. As time ticks on and they continue talking about themselves, C.I. will get this look in the eyes. You'll know it's about to come to head. I don't mean yelling or screaming. I just mean that if there's a point to get to, C.I.'s bored and ticked off; therefore, in no meed to continue to wait. C.I. will just announce the point that the gasbag's been building too. It'll usually be something very personal that the person has hedged on. I remember two hours of a conversation and wondering where the hell it was going once when C.I. stopped the guy and said, "You were molested by your mother." The guy's mouth dropped open (mine probably did as well). But the point is, C.I. can zero in and pick up what no one notices -- the hesitations, the thing mentioned and then dropped and the significance in the drop off. It's the same way if someone is being dishonest. C.I. will usually ignore it (and tell you, if asked, "Well, it's true to them or matters enough for them to lie about it.") up to a point and then when that point's reached, it will be this entire algebraic type refuting of every false claim the person has made.
So C.I. was ticked and it had to do with the Constitution. You do not want to tick C.I. off about that. So C.I. just laid it out about how wrong that was in the book and how it had no legal basis. (The opinions offered in the book.) There were other issues as well. Ava focused on what's being called the "Whitness" of the book and that it true but she was actually focused on a bit more. Kat focused, I believe, mainly on the worship of the military (noted in Jim's note) but also on the worship of the male. All of their points weren't just valid -- they were backed up and they were correct.
My only problem during the discussion itself was waiting for Mike to speak. I know he planned to speak more but he'd look over at me and decide not to. No one needed to censor themselves on my account -- either in the discussion or in the decision not to publish it.
The next discussion will be of Susan Faldui's new book. I am really sorry to those writing that they wish they could have read it. By not having that discussion (which took hours), it threw the whole edition off balance. That's in terms of it was the set piece and it's not there. It's also in terms of the fact that we were going to address book banning in a feature and do another feature on books. Without the discussion, both of those got dumped.
The time factor and the focus of the edition were the strongest reasons to publish the discussion. One more time, I was in favor of publishing it. But I do understand the reservations and take comfort in the fact that it wasn't just because Rebecca and C.I. were attempting to protect me. Had that been the case, I'd be not only tired tonight, I'd also be guilt-ridden.
Since I am just tired, I'm noting two things briefly, then the snapshot.
"Why Not Impeachment?" (Robert Parry, Consortium News):
The disclosure that the Bush administration secretly reestablished a policy of abusing "war on terror" detainees even as it assured Congress and the public that it had mended its ways again raises the question: Why are the Democrats keeping impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney "off the table"?
After the Democratic congressional victory last Nov. 7, Washington Democrats rejected calls for impeachment from rank-and-file Democrats and many other Americans, considering it an extreme step that would derail a bipartisan strategy of winning over Republicans to help bring the Iraq War to an end.That thinking got a boost on Nov. 8, the day after the election, when President Bush announced the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the appointment of former CIA Director Robert Gates, who had been a member of the Iraq Study Group and was believed to represent the "realist" wing of the Republican Party.One Democratic strategist called me that day with a celebratory assertion that "the neocons are dead" and rebuffed my warning that Gates had a troubling history of putting his career ahead of principle, that he was a classic apple-polisher to the powerful. [See the Consortiumnews.com's Archive, "Who Is Bob Gates?"]
The Democrats also missed the fact that Rumsfeld submitted his resignation the day before the election--– not the day after -- along with a memo urging an "accelerated draw-down of U.S. bases" in Iraq from a high of 110, to 10 to 15 by April 2007, and to five by July 2007.In other words, Rumsfeld's ouster didn't signal Bush's new flexibility on ending the war, as the Democrats hoped, but a repudiation of Rumsfeld for going wobbly on Iraq.
Even when the Rumsfeld memo surfaced in early December, the Democrats ignored it, sticking to their wishful script that the Rumsfeld-Gates switch marked a recognition by Bush that it was time to begin extricating U.S. forces from Iraq.Those rose-colored glasses got smudged badly when Bush instead announced in January that he was ordering an escalation, sending more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq.
But instead of responding with their own escalation -- and putting impeachment back "on the table" -- the Democrats opted for a strategy of wooing moderate Republicans to mild-mannered legislative protests.As an opening shot in this Nerf-ball battle, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid fired off a symbolic resolution to express disapproval of Bush's "surge," a meaningless gesture that Republicans kept bottled up for weeks making the Democrats look both feckless and inept.
Kat and Rebecca noted Parry's article on Friday. We all (especially Rebecca) enjoy Parry's reporting; however, it is a pain in the butt to go through and change dashes, parenthesis, etc. However, if you do not, due to the font used at Consortium and the font Blogger uses, you end up with square shapes in place of punctuation.
Parry's right, it is time to impeach. I wonder about Robert Parry. Not in a bad way. But he was a young journalism star. I always felt the Newsweek offer (these are my opinions) were an attempt to bring him into the fold. He'd demonstrated talent and drive at The Associated Press but he was also running far from conventional wisdom. That's not an insult to him. His reporting was solid. But some things aren't to be told and Parry either didn't grasp that or didn't care. I've read his books and (much to Rebecca's chagrin) heard him speak once. (To Rebecca's chagrin because he's her favorite living writer -- or living male writer.) He was talking about his experiences and what he'd learned. He didn't seem bitter and I don't think he is. But what I always wonder is at what point did he realize he was up against a system? It wasn't just AP or, later, Newsweek. He mentioned in passing a journalist -- I can see her but can't think of her name -- C.I. would know it because she was a friend of C.I.'s and that's how I knew her. The woman was a DC journalist (like Helen Thomas today, she was known in that regard) and knew what could get into the press and what couldn't. (For those too young to know, Iran-Contra wasn't just a scandal. It was illegal. Robert Parry was one of the few reporters who covered it seriously as opposed to those who just went with what the government told them.) So since he knew her, I'll assume he was 'hipped' to the score at some point. But I've always wondered at what point he grasped the score? That's just me. If you've never checked out the site that he and his family run (I believe it's his sons Sam and Nate that help him), it's Consortium News and the trick there when reading Robert Parry is read closely. You can miss things if you don't -- a great deal in fact. I don't mean he's writing in code. I do mean he's writing like a reporter and I think we've all gotten so used to star turns, we've forgotten (or many of us have) how to read actual reporting. As C.I. always points out, Parry was right about Robert Gates and Seymour Hersh was wrong. I'll never understand why Hersh praised Gates on Democracy Now! in the first place. But Gates did (under William Casey) what George Tenet is accused of doing under the Bully Boy -- the locale then was Nicaragua.
"Bernstein: Congressional Oversight More Lax Now Than During Watergate
Submitted by davidswanson on" (Mike Soraghan, The Hill):
Watergate would not have played out the same way today because Congress no longer performs its oversight role, said Carl Bernstein, one of the journalists famous for uncovering the story.
"The difference with today is that the system did its job. The press did its job. The court did its job. The Senate committee did its job," Bernstein said Saturday. "There’s been great reporting on this president. But there’s been no oversight. We have a Democratic Congress now and there’s still no oversight."
Bernstein also said that "35 years of ideological warfare" could also change how the public would react to such a scandal.
"We live in a very different atmosphere today," Bernstein said. "With Watergate, eventually the people of this country looked around and decided Nixon was a criminal president. I’m not sure the same chain of events would have taken place today."
Carl Bernstein I've met through C.I. I won't say I "know" him. Since I offered the question I have about Parry, I'll move to my question about Bernstein. I don't think they are that different. I don't know Bernstein, I've only encountered him. I want to stress that because these are just the observations I've formed and they may or may not be accurate. But my impressions on Bernstein were always that he saw the hard hitting reporting of Watergate as the start and saw many, many more exposes to follow. That wasn't what the paper wanted which is why Bob Woodward stayed and Bernstein left. But there really wasn't a way to make a living as a freelancer. Today, he could be like the novelist Jay McInerney and interviewing Bruce Willis or Julia Roberts to pay the bills. Only instead of doing novels in between, he could be doing investigative reporting. But I always wonder at what point he grasped that the brief era was over? (Those are my thoughts. Carl Bernstein may not feel that when he left it was because the paper was no longer interested in that type of reporting -- but they weren't -- and he may have a completely different take. I'm not friends with him, we've chatted. He can disagree with every word I've written and I would not be hurt or offended.)
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Monday, October 8, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces more deaths, Watada's court-martial will not beging tomorrow, Blackwater . . . and the mainstream press that loves them (or, in the case of the New York Times, lusts after them), and more.
Starting with war resistance. Tomorrow Ehren Watada was set to face his second court-martial. As Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted today, "A judge in Washington state has granted an emergency stay to postpone the second court-martial of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada". In June of 2006, Watada became the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. In February of this year, a court-martial was held and, over defense objection, Judge Toilet (aka John Head) declared a mistrial. As Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild, pointed out, double-jeopardy had attached the case. To attempt to court-martial Watada again would be in violation of the Constitution. In what Hal Bernton (Seattle Times) reports as "a rare, last-minute move, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle on Friday put Watada's Tuesday court-martial on hold. In the weeks ahead, Settle will decide whether ths second trial should proceed, or be quashed as a violation of the officer's constitutional rights that protect against double jeopardy, or being tried twice for the same crime." Tomas Alex Tizon (Los Angeles Times) notes the belief of some that there is a "pssobility that he might cancel the military trial altogether" and quotes James Lobsenz, one of Watada's two civilian attorneys, stating, "If we win the next part, we win." Mike Barber (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) explains, "Settle was careful to point out that 'the issues raised by the petition for habeas corpus bear no relation to the charges or defenses in the petitioner's (Watada's) court-martial proceedings.' Settle was a military lawyer in the Army in the 1970s and was recently appointed to the federal bench by President Bush.Quoting case law, Settle wrote, 'The irreparable harm suffered by being put to a trial a second time in violation of the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment stems not just from being subjected to double punishment but also from undergoing a second trial proceeding'." Currently, the court-martial is stayed until at least October 26th.
In news of other war resister, Canadian radio reported Saturday that the mayor of Nelson -- where Robin Long was arrested this week and where Kyle Snyder was arrested in February -- is openly bragging that the final report on an investigation into the police department and police chief Dan Maluta's illegal arrest of Synder is not only complete, but he's had it for a week and hasn't bothered to read it. Repeating: The mayor, John Dooley, charged with oversight has had the report on the investigation and does not see the point in 'rushing' to read it. He brags that he has carried it around in his briefcase "all week" -- which does explain how the Nelson police, under Maluta, have been able to conduct themselves as they have.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
Turning to the subject of the mercenaries at Blackwater USA. Jeremy Scahill (Guardian of London via Common Dreams) observes, "A pattern is emerging from the Congressional investigation into Blackwater: the state department urging the company to pay what amounts to hush money to victims' families while facilitating the return of contractors involved in deadly incidents for which not a single one has faced prosecution." The relationship between the US State Department and Blackwater is one of repeated cover ups. On Saturday, John M. Broder (New York Times) got all excited on a new 'answer' -- the State Department would by utilizing "its own personnel as monitors on all Blackwater security convoys in and around Baghdad" and by placing "video cameras in Blackwater armored vehicles to produce a record of all operations". Friday NPR's Jackie Northam (All Things Considered) discussed the so-called measures with -- after noting that Rice's recordings "apply only to Blackwater and only in Baghdad" -- Peter W. Singer (Brookings boy) who said that most already had recording devices, questioned "embedding' a State Department monitor with a private contractor doing government work" (a monitor who will "be making somewhere between 3 to 500 dollars less a day than the people that he or she is supposed to be chaperoning") and sees the measures as "very small, and they don't deal with the fundamental issue". CNN reported over the weekend that the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Henry Waxman, sent another letter to US Secretary of State Condi Rice regarding the State Dept's refusal to stop stonewalling Congress over the issue of Blackwater and CNN noted that Andrew Moonen (Blackwater gun for hire who shot the bodyguard of Iraq's vice-president -- allegedly while Moonen was drunk -- in December 2006) was working, in Kuwait, for a US Defense Dept contractor weeks later. For those who have forgotten, last week -- in Tuesday's hearing -- Blackwater CEO, Erik Prince, told Congress that Moonen (unnamed in the hearing) was stripped of his security clearance before being hustled out of Iraq. If Moonen was stripped of his security clearance, how is it that the DoD and their contractor didn't know that? If he was stripped of his security clearance and still made it back over to the region without it, how many other contractor employees are not in compliance with the basic guidelines?
Paul von Zielbauer (New York Times) reports that the Iraqi government has finalized their investigation and "found that employees of the American security company Blackwater USA shot unprovoked at Iraqi civilians at a downtown traffic circle three weeks ago, an episode that killed 17 people and wounded more than 20 others, a government spokesman said Sunday" quoting Ali al-Dabbagh who also declares that Blackwater's vehicles were not "even hit by a stone" before Blackwater initiated the slaughter of Iraqi civilians. James Glanz and Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) add, "Those conclusions contradict Blackwater's original statement on the shooting, which said that a convoy operated by the company's guards 'acted lawfully and appropriately in response to a hostile attack.' The Iraqi findings are also at odds with initial assertions by the State Department that the convoy had received small-arms fire." Which again goes the issue that the US State Dept has repeatedly provided cover and falsehoods in order to protect Blackwater. AP reports, "Iraqi authorities want the U.S. government to sever all contracts in Iraq with Blackwater USA within six months and pay $8 million in compensation to each of the families of 17 people killed when the firm's guards sprayed a traffic circle with heavy maching gun fire last month."
Naomi Klein's new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism and she uses the book and the research for her article "Disaster Capitalism: The new economy of catastrophe" (October's Harper's magazine, pp. 47 -- 58). this is from the article (page 48):
Everywhere in Iraq, the wildly divergent values assigned to different categories of people are on crude display. Westerners and their Iraqi colleagues have checkpoints at the entrances to their streets, blast walls in front of their houses, body armor, and private security guards on call at all hours. They travel the country in menacing armored convoys, with mercenaries pointing guns out the windows as they follow their prime directive to "protect the principal." With every move they broadcast the same unapologetic message: We are the chosen, our lives are infinitely more precious than yours. Middle-class Iraqis, meanwhile, cling to the next rung down the ladder: they can afford to buy protection from local militias, they are able to ransom a family member held by kidnappers, they may ultimately escape to a life of poverty in Jordan. But the vast majority of Iraqis have no protection at all. They walk the streets exposed to any possible ravaging, with nothing between them and the next car bomb but a thin layer of fabric. In Iraq, the lucky get Kevlar; the rest get prayer beads.
That's pretty clear. Except to the mainstream. Over the weekend on PBS' Washington Week (or Washington Weak) Linda Robinson of US News and World Reports decided to chat and chew the topic with star Gwen:
Linda Robinson: Well Blackwater has about 800 people who are primarily providing bodyguard service to the embassy personnel. And there are about, well there are some thousands of other contractors doing this exact kind of job. So they're moving around the city in convoys and they apply very aggressive tactics in general. There are some who are alleging that Blackwater in particular uses much more aggressive tactics. But let's just set the stage a little bit. Very, very violent city. You're driving around, bombs are going off, at any unpredicted time. So what happens is these convoy drivers uses a tactic: they throw things at people, they sound their horns their sirens if you don't get out of the way they will shoot. So Iraqi drivers generally pull over as soon as they see a convoy. The problem is SUVs cannot readily be identified often from a distance --
Gwen Ifill: Yeah, how do you know it's a convoy? How do you know it's not the military? How do you know -- tell the difference?
That's the problem. Washington Weak tells you that's the problem. For the record, Robinson informs Gwen that it's very obvious when it's the military and it's only confusing when it comes to civilian contractors. So the question is, were Linda Robinson or Gwen to be walking to their cars at the start of the day and a car came zooming through with those in it throwing things at them, would they see that as a problem? Should Jon Stewart attempt to find out for The Daily Show? In fact, it shouldn't even be a surprise. Gwen and Robinson should volunteer for it to prove what good sports they are. After ten to fifteen minutes of drive-bys where water bottles are hurled at them (the mildest object usually cited in press reports) from speeding cars, let's see their smiling, bruised (possibly bloodied?) faces and find out whether they now think that "the problem" includes a great deal more than being able to tell if a convoy is approaching? What's really appalling is Robinson admits to being selective in her report explaining that's why she "set up" because, apparently, reporters are not supposed to show any sympathy for the civilian populations they are allegedly covering but instead are supposed to be act as a p.r. hack for multi-billion dollar corporations. And the chat and chew only got worse as it was wondered if this was all just sour grapes due to Blackwater's "success"?
Last week, the Financial Times of London editorialized: "But privatising war is, in reality, financially, politically and militarily very expensive. The lawlessness of some of these outfits has stained America's reputation and stirred up rage against its troops. Blackwater, which has earned nearly $1bn from the Department of State for protecting its officials, is notoriously trigger-happy: opening fire first in 163 out of 195 shooting incidents since 2005, according to a report by Congress. A Blackwater employee killed a bodyguard of Adel Abdel Mahdi, an Iraqi vice-president Washington favours as a possible prime minister, in an argument last Christmas." Yet our Weak Washington gas bags couldn't explore the topic and, besides, Robinson vouched that the illegal war couldn't continue without mercenaries so they are needed. (Naturally, whether the illegal war 'needed' also went unaddressed on programming 'brought to you by viewers like you'.)
And in "Get them a subscription to Young Miss already!" news, James Risen (New York Times) decided to follow in the foot steps of John M. Broder (Times of New York) and Peter Spiegel (Times of Los Angeles) by going public with his crush on Blackwater CEO Erik Prince in today's New York Times. Little Jimmy explains what puts the "rise" in Risen and it's, "Erik D. Prince, the crew-cut, square-jawed founder of Blackwater USA". Apparently Details doesn't provide facial types? Prince is not square-jawed, he has a pointy chin and his facial type is a triangle (an inverted triangle). Over fifty is a bit late in life to begin learning facial types but if it's suddenly important to Risen, someone quickly get him a subscription to Young Miss -- where he may also learn that Prince does not have a "crew-cut." Those little wisps and bangs and the dip do not qualify for a crew-cut. Astronaut Alan Shepard (link goes to Life magazine 1961 cover) had a crew-cut. If Risen can be pulled away from his day-drooling, the differences can be explained to him and possibly it can also be explained to him that he's supposed to be a reporter for a daily paper, not a fanzine? For any wondering, yes, this is how criminal Ollie North was elevated and protected by the press during Iran-Contra, with fan scribbles (Risen's first sentence) and nonsense.
In some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
BBC reports 13 dead from a truck bombing in Samarra and notes "four explosions near" the Polish "embassy" in Baghdad that claimed 2 lives (five injured). Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a mortar attack on the Green Zone, a mortar attack on "the buildings of the former general security agency in Baladiyat," a Baghdad car bombing "near the Technology University" claimed 4 lives (ten injured) and a Tikrit car bombing that claimed 2 lives (4 police officers wounded). Reuters notes a Hawija roadside bombing that claimed the life of 1 police officer (two more injured),
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a barber shot dead in Kirkuk
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 7 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
Today the US military announced: "A Marine assigned to Multi-National Force-West died Oct. 8 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province." And they announced, "An MNC-I Soldier died of wounds suffered during combat operations in the vicinity of Bayji Oct. 5." Last week, the UK Ministry of Defence announced the death of Alexis Roberts who "died as a result of an improvised explosive device just after 0800 hrs local time. The Battalion was returning to their base in Kandahar after taking part in Op PALK WAHEL when the incident occurred." The illegal war has now officially claimed the lives of 3815 US service members and 170 UK forces (ICCC).
Yesterday on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Blitzer spoke with Iraqi president Jalal Talabani who tried to act as if he was making a promise ("In next year . . . In the spring of the next year, I think.") that US troops could be reduced but when pressed by Blitzer, Talabani begged off ("Well I cannot decide the number") and then Talabani revealed that he was for dividing Iraq up into three sections. Not a surprise. He's always been for that. However, the Iraqi people are not for it. (Talabani is a Kurd and the Kurdish region wants to break off.) AP explains: "Hundreds of Iraqi refugees staged a sit-in in Damascus yesterday to protest against a recent nonbinding US Senate resolution that encourages splitting Iraq along ethnic and religious lines. Carrying Iraqi flags, about 400 protesters gathered in the al-Sayda Zeinab district. 'No for occupation and no for division,' read a placard carried by one refugee. 'Dividing Iraq is the start for dividing all countries in the region,' read another." We'll skip the nonsense of yet another peace accord between warring Shi'ite parties. In the real world, Joshua Partlow (Washington Post) reports that, though "the U.S. military strategy in Iraq has sought to reduce violence so that politicians could bring about national reconciliation, but several top Iraqi leaders say they have lost faith in that broad goal" and quotes Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih explaining that he doesn't believe in reconciliation, "To me, it is a very inaccurate term. This is a struggle about power." Which does sum up what is going on Iraq and the US arms various sets of thugs while the civilians repeatedly suffer or flee the country. And, no, there is no 'progress,' there is no improvement. But the US has played one group off another from the beginning. Puppet of the occupation, Nouri al-Maliki, is bothered that the US trains and arms Sunnis but it wasn't a concern to him when the Sunnis were being terrorized by Shias. In a matter of months, they'll flip again. The civil war was imposed from outside.
Turning to England. Last Tuesday, Chris Bambery (Great Britain's Socialist Worker) reported, "Tony Benn and Labour national executive member Walter Wolfgang are set to defy the law and lead a banned anti-war march down Whitehall to parliament next Monday -- the day Gordon Brown has promised to deliver a statement on Britain's presence in occupied Iraq." Bambery noted Brian Eno stating the ban was created to keep the issue of the wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) out of public sight and quoted Benn declaring, "I will be marching. It is entirely up to the police and government what they do." Today is Monday and they did not back down. The Socialist Worker reports, "With just an hour to go the metropolitan police told organizers of today's Not One More Death Protest that it would not be banned from marching to parliament. There was a sense of jubiliation, pride and determination as over 5,000 protesters set out down Whitehall from Trafalgar Square, on the Stop The War Coalition (StWC) demonstration. Students and pensioners joined trade unionists and peace activists. All were convinced that StWC's refusal to accept the ban and the size of the turnout had forced the authorities' hand. 'It's been a bad couple of days for Gordon Brown,' joke one pensioner as the march went past Downing Street." Fred Attewill (Guardian of London) notes, "One of the organisers, Lindsey German, said the authorities and MPs had underestimated the determination of the anti-war movement. She said her message to the government was that it would 'never draw a line under this war until you bring all our troops home. And we don't want the troops brought home just so they can be sent to Afghanistan or the Iranian border. We want a permanent break with George Bush's murderous, imperialistic policies." Brian Eno (in a column at CounterPunch) notes, "Our leaders would undoubtedly be happy if we 'moved on' from Iraq. They don't want to talk about it any more: it was a dreadful blunder, and reflects little credit on any of them. Presumably this is why the question has hardly been debated in parliament. Although the majority of the public were always against the war, this was not reflected by their elected representatives." Meanwhile, BBC reports that Gordon Brown (UK Prime Minister) has announced British forces in Iraq will fall to 2,500 -- from the current 5,550 -- by this spring. Stephen Fidler (Financial Times of London) quotes an unnamed UK official stating this is Brown's "progressive glide path" out of Iraq. Philippe Naughton (Times of London) also quotes unnamed "senior officials" one of whom says a full withdrawal might be possible: "Certainly at this stage there is no guarantee that they are going to be there beyond the end of 2008. The policy will be made in the spring." The Guardian of London provides a blow by blow of the entire speech and exchange such as this: "Mr Brown is asked about Alan Greenspan's comment that the Iraq war was 'all about oil' and whether he will be discussing the issue with the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve."
Finally, lifelong peace activist Susan Blake died last week. Green Party activist Kimberly Wilder offers a moving tribute entitled "Susan June Blake" where she notes: "Many of the causes Susan supported are listed on the fairly recent, bright, multi-colored PeaceSmiths banner that she hung at each coffeehouse. But, a smattering of causes Susan worked for would include: peace, anti-militarism, human rights, labor rights, the environment, anti-death penalty, ballot access (she included local politicians at candidate events, but also write-in candidates and third party candidates), immigration rights, women's rights, LGBT rights, holistic medicine, vegetarianism, independent media, intellectual freedom, and dignity and justice for all. The PeaceSmiths banner proclaims: 'We're Pro Humanity'." Wilder calls Susan Blake "the force behind PeaceSmiths" which is a United for Peace & Justice member group. Yesterday, Wilder remembered her friend with a poem and a photo tribute entitled "A moment for Susan Blake." Carl MacGowan (Newsday) notes, "For more than 30 years, Blake fought the Shoreham nuclear power plant and protested wars from Vietnam to Iraq through the Amityville activist group PeaceSmiths. Blake organized coffeehouse concerts and discussion forums on topics such as environmental issues and affordable housing." Susan Blake was fifty-four-years-old.
iraq
ehren watadamike barberhal berntonkyle snyder
naomi klein
amy goodmandemocracy now
blackwater usa
jeremy scahill
alissa j. rubinjohn m. broderthe new york times
pbswashington week
the washington postjoshua partlow
the socialist workerchris bambery
wolf blitzer
susan blakekimberly wilder
united for peace and justice
Monday, October 08, 2007
Friday, October 05, 2007
Jeff Cohen, Helen Thomas, Dennis Kucinich
Jeff Cohen wastes everyone time with a column. We get it. You're in the Hillary Haters Club. No problem on that, I'm not fond of Hillary myself. But I don't feel the need to alter reality to take her down. That's not me saying, "How dare he take on Hillary!" That is me saying how dare he present John Edwards or Barack Obama as the alternative ["Given the conservative tilt of the punditocracy, it doesn’t surprise me that many in the media are seeking to anoint Clinton as the Democratic nominee, or that they (including at Fox News) tend to side with her in disputes with Edwards or Obama."] Hillary Clinton shouldn't be ripped apart to shore up either man. They are all three the exact same. I'm tired of this nonsense that "Bambi" is caring. He is a War Hawk. I've said it here before he decided to run for president. C.I.'s said it at The Common Ills. We both met with the empty suit at a big money fundraiser for his 2004 Senate run. He was not supporting withdrawing from Iraq. He was advocating against it.
I'm really sick of this idea that we can take all of our frustrations out on the woman. Hillary Clinton is, in my opinion, a pig. So are John Edwards and Barack Obama. I'm tired of it. All this nonsense does if fuel sympathy towards Hillary because anyone with a half a brain who reads this sort of nonsense is going to grasp that the three 'front runners' are not significantly different and rightly wonder if this is all about sexism?
I don't care if Cohen calls Hillary out or not. I do care that he applies a standard of equality and, if he can't, otherwise he is just assisting Hillary's nomination.
Jeff Cohen is often an astute critic. If he really intends to put people wise to Hillary, he better take a moment to grasp that the method he is using is doing nothing but creating sympathy for Hillary. It's not effective and it's not truthful because Edwards and Obama are just as disgusting as Hillary Clinton. Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich (whom I'm supporting in the primary), Mike Gravel and Bill Richardson are the oppenents for the three 'front runners.' If any of the four got half the attention from independent media that the 'front runners' do, they would likely be able to be a 'front runner' as well.
Bill Richardson had a strong week, a very strong week. He has thrown down a marker and said he is for ending the illegal war and, in doing so, called out his oppenents. Dennis Kucinich really hasn't done that. Nor Gravel. Nor Dodd. Bill Richardson called out Hillary, yes, he also called out Obama and Edwards.
Jeff Cohen is far too smart to come off like Katrina vanden Heuvel (who gushes this week that two of the front runners "get it on nukes"). His columnn wasn't something I went in search of. In a session today, a veteran brought it up and asked me to read it (he was very bothered by it) and to write about it. So there it is. I will also note his question, "When did ending the Iraq War stop mattering?" He wanted that in to. When he was deployed, Iraq was a topic of independent media. He assumed that was still the case and then he returned from Iraq and saw that was not the case.
Now United for Peace and Justice. An angry e-mail came in Thursday asking me why I sleighted UPFJ? I provided links and didn't link to UPFJ. I wasn't aware I hadn't. The woman was also mad at C.I. for not linking (it was a joint entry by C.I. and myself). We wrote it together, I typed it up. I thought I had provided a link to UPFJ. I support UPFJ and was not attempting to favor other organizations over them. I obviously took more care in attempting to do that which is why the other links did go in but I assumed I had linked to United for Peace & Justice when I had not. Thanks to ___ for e-mailing and raising the issue. Hope that clears it up.
"The Democrats Who Enable Bush" (Helen Thomas, Seattle Post-Intelligencer via Common Dreams):
President Bush has no better friends than the spineless Democratic congressional leadership and the party's leading presidential candidates when it comes to his failing Iraq policy.
Those Democrats seem to have forgotten that the American people want U.S. troops out of Iraq, especially since Bush still cannot give a credible reason for attacking Iraq after nearly five years of war.
Last week at a debate in Hanover, N.H., the leading Democratic presidential candidates sang from the same songbook: Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York, and Barack Obama of Illinois and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards refused to promise to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by 2013, at the end of the first term of their hypothetical presidencies. Can you believe it?
When the question was put to Clinton, she reverted to her usual cautious equivocation, saying: "It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting."
Obama dodged, too: "I think it would be irresponsible" to say what he would do as president.
Edwards, on whom hopes were riding to show some independence, replied to the question: "I cannot make that commitment."
They have left the voters little choice with those answers.
Some supporters were outraged at the obfuscation by the Democratic front-runners.
On the other hand, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., are more definitive in their calls for quick troop withdrawals.
Just to clarify that exchange, I'm including this from "Strangely familiar" (The Third Estate Sunday Review):
Richardson was followed closely by Chris Dodd who declared, "The idea that we could be emborlied in combat for at least another five years should set off alarm bells for anyone with a modicum of foreign policy experience. Sacrificing American lives to engage in a civil war is a deeply corrupt strategy and one I have been working to combat in Congress. I call on my fellow candidates to help me bring and end to this war before 2013 -- we need to end this war now before it passes Vietnam as the longest war in American history."
[. . .]
Candidate Joe Biden hedged the answer. He said yes and he said no. He declared, "Just from Iraq. You're going to bring all troops home from Iraq. If in fact there is no political solution by the time I am president, then I would bring them out because all they are is fodder.But -- but -- if you go along with the Biden plan that got 75 votes today and you have a stable Iraq like we have in Bosnia -- we've had 20,000 Western troops in Bosnia for 10 years. Not one has been killed -- not one. The genocide has ended. So it would depend on the circumstances when I became president. " He would bring them all home . . . unless his plan to partition Iraq into three sections came to be and since it won the support of 75 idiots in the Senate, it's very likely that Iraq will be carved up into three areas if the US has the last say. In which case, Biden's answer is "no."
On the subject of Dennis Kuinich, this is a press release he issued today.
"Bush Administration Needs To Come Clean To American Public On Torture"
WASHINGTON, DC -- October 5 -- Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) called on the Bush Administration to come clean to the American people and stop condoning the use of torture.
"This government does not torture people," President Bush claimed this morning in a brief news conference. "You know, we...stick to U.S. law and our international obligations."
Yesterday, The New York Times reported that despite the Justice Department’s 2004 public legal opinion that torture was "abhorrent," only a year later the Justice Department under then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales issued a secret opinion that permitted the "harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the CIA."
"The Justice Department tried pulling a cloak over Americans’ eyes by declaring torture 'abhorrent' in a public declaration, and then secretly permitting it," Kucinich said.
"How can the President say 'we do not torture,' when at the same time he is condoning it?" Kucinich asked. "This type of deception and brutality is costing America our moral standing and our friendships all over the world.
"President Bush needs to come clean to the American people. Torture is not an American value. Congress needs to confront the President over the Administration's repulsive use of torture and end this abhorrent technique once and for all."
So that's Kucinich speaking on the torture Bully Boy has made "the American way."
"Dennis Kucinich" (John J. Ray, Forbes):
As the outspoken chairman of the Progressive Caucus, Kucinich, 60, advocates nonviolence and diplomacy above all. If elected president, he promises to reduce the Pentagon's budget and proposes the creation of a Department of Peace. He was the only presidential candidate for 2008 who voted against authorizing the war in Iraq and he continues to speak out in strong opposition to the war. Kucinich also opposes the U.S.A. Patriot Act.
A staunch environmentalist, Kucinich will make it a priority to rejoin the Kyoto treaty on global warming. He champions unionized labor and working families and would immediately cancel U.S. participation in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), claiming that they push American jobs overseas. He has a plan for a universal health care system and believes that marijuana should be decriminalized. Kucinich, a vegan, married for the third time in 2005.
Forbes is apparently covering all the candidates (at least with a profile and a scorecard). Something our independent media -- or our alleged independent media (and I am not referring to Jeff Cohen in "alleged" but you can apply that to the likes of The Nation) -- should be able to do but it is apparently a task far out of their reach.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Friday, Ocotber 5, 2007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, the US military announces more deaths, Ehren Watada's court-martial is still set to start next Tuesday, the bait and kill teams get a white wash, and more.
Starting with war resistance. In June 2006, Ehren Watada became the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to the Iraq War. As Aaron Glantz (The War Comes Home) notes Ehren Watada's second court-martial is scheduled to begin this coming Tuesday. And if it takes place and the prosecution is trailing, Judge Toilet (aka John Head) can call another "do over." Glantz reported on the first court-martial each day of the court-martial (as well as on the Sunday rally of support that preceded the court-martial) and you can click here for some of that audio. Truthout also covered the court-martial daily and they announce: "Truthout will be covering the court-martial from Fort Lewis, Washington, beginning Monday." Their coverage last time provided both video and text reports. Mike Barber (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) reports on yesterday's events, "U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle on Thursday afternoon heard arguments from Watada's lawyers and a lawyer from the U.S. Attorney's Office about whether he has jurisdiction in the case. Settle held the hearing after Watada's defense attorneys, Jim Lobsenz and Ken Kagen, sought an emergency halt to next Tuesday's court-martial. They said they were compelled to go to federal court after receiving no word from the military justice system's highest appellate court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, concerning Watada's challenge to his court-martial." AP reports that a decision by Settle may come down today; however, Michael Gilbert (Washington's The News Tribune) reports, "A federal judge indicated he won't likely decide whether to halt Lt. Ehren Watada's second court-martial until Tuesday morning, when the proceeding is scheduled to begin in an Army courtroom at Fort Lewis." Meanwhile, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorializes "Watada Court-Martial: Let him go:"However the defense appeals turn out, we think there is a case for letting Watada leave the Army without further ado. That could be taken as a statement of higher-level confidence, a choice to focus on the larger military mission that President Bush and Gen. David Petraeus insist is making new progress. At a minimum, many of those who oppose the Iraq war would welcome the leniency for someone they view as a person of conscience."
In Canada this week, war resister Robin Long was arrested this week. Charlie Smith (Vancouver's Straight) reports that when twenty-year-old war resister Brad McCall attemptedto enter Canada on September 19, 2007, he was arrested "and driven to a jail in Surrey" with McCall telling him, "I don't know what kind of police officer he was. He put me in handcuffs in front of all these people that were watching that were trying to get into Canada also" and McCall aksed the Canadian Border Services Agency, "I told them, 'Why are you playing the part of the hound dog for the U.S. army?' They didn't know what to say. They just started stuttering and mumbling." Brad McCall did make it into Canada and is staying with Colleen Fuller in Vancouver. As is very common in stories of war resisters going to Canada "over the Internet". McCall also speaks of hearing about atrocities/war crimes in Iraq as participants bragged about the actions. Robin Long also cited that in his interview for CBC Television. McCall explains he was interested in CO status but when he raised the issued with "his commander and sergeants," the dismissed it which has happened repeatedly with many war resisters. Aiden Delgado and Camilo Mejia are among those who can share their struggles to receive CO status -- Delgado was one of the few to be successful in his attempt. Robert Zabala has the distinction of being awarded CO status by the US civilian court system. Agustin Aguayo attempted the process both within the US military and within the civilian court system.
Another who attempted CO status is Kevin Benderman. Monica Benderman, Kevin's wife, addressed Congress in May of 2006 noting, "My husband violated no regulations. His command violated many. The command's flagrant disregard for military regulations and laws of humanity sent my husband to jail as a prisoner of conscience. Times have changed -- and so has conscientious objection. What has not changed is the Constitution, the oath our volunteer soldiers take to defend it, and every American citizen's right to freedom of choice. This conscientious objection goes beyond religious teaching. It is not dramatic. There is no epiphany. There is reality. Death is final, whether it is your own or you cause the death of another. No amount of field training can make up for the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of a real battlefield, and no amount of threats, intimidation, and abuse from a command can change a soldier's mind when the cold, hard truth of an immoral, unethical justification for war is couple with real-life sensations." Monica, and not Kevin, addressed Congress because Kevin was still serving the sentence on the kangaroo court hearing he was subjected to when he attempted to be granted CO status by following every detail by the book with no margin for error. But the US military brass doesn't like to issue CO status and they were willing to manuever and lie in their attempts at retribution towards Kevin Benderman. The laughable charge of "desertion" (which has no basis in reality) was shot down (he was acquitted of that ludicrous charge) but the brass was successful with other charges (trumped up charges) and that goes to how they control the court-martials, how they refuse to allow evidence to be entered and arguments to be made in an arrangement that's already stacked against the individual. (For instance, in Ehren Watada's trial, Judge Toilet was known to report to his superiors who, presumably, gave him orders throughout the February court-martial. In a civilian court, a judge reporting to a 'superior' and taking advice from one would be grounds for an aquittal.) Kevin and Monica Benderman fought the brass and continued fighting when others might have given up. Letters from Fort Lewis Brig: A Matter of Conscience is the new book, out this week from The Lyons Press (US $24.95), in which they tell his story. Letters from Fort Lewis Brig: A Matter of Conscience is also the fourth book by a war resister of the Iraq War to be published this year. The other three are Aidan Delgado's The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib: Notes From A Conscientious Objector In Iraq, Camilo Mejia's Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia and Joshua Key's The Deserter's Tale. Early on as the brass was targeting her husband, Monica Benderman visited bookstores attempting to learn more about CO status and similar topics and she couldn't find anything. The four books rectify that and join Peter Laufer's
compelling Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq which covers the stories of variety of war resisters and was released in 2006. In an ideal world, bookstores across the country would stock all five and no Monica Benderman, in search of information, would ever be greeted with "We don't carry anything like that." Kevin and Monica Benderman have done their part to make sure it doesn't happen. Again, Letters from Fort Lewis Brig by Kevin Benderman with Monica Benderman was released this week, is available at bookstores and online and it'll be the focus of a book discussion at The Third Estate Sunday Review this weekend.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
Canada's in the news not only for the arrest of war resisters these days but also for their oil deal. In a curious press release that proclaims "THIS PRESS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO THE UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICE OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES" at the top, Canada's Heritage Oil Corporation declares (to "Business Editors") that they are "pleased to announce that it has executed a Production Sharing Contract with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) over Miran Block in the south-west of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and that Heritage will be operating as a 50/50 partner with the KRG to create a 20,000 barrel per day oil refinery in the vincinity of the license area. . . . Heritage will join the existing and increasing presence of international oil exploration, development and production companies operating in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. . . . Heritage will commence geological work immediately, having established its local office in Erbil in 2005, and aims to commence a high-impact exploration drilling program in 2008." Last month a deadly clash took place on Lake Albert between "Congolese troops and the Ugandan army" which Heritage Oil has denied any part in despite media reports. Andy Rowell (Oil Change) notes that the Kurdish government has "announced four new oil exploration deals with international energy companies. The news is likely to upset the central government in Baghdad and the US." In addition, this week Canada refused entry to CODEPINK's Media Benjamin and retired US State Dept and army colonel Ann Wright. Today, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) interviewed Wright:
AMY GOODMAN: So, Ann, you were turned back at the border. You go back to Washington, D.C. You meet with Canadian officials at the embassy. What did they tell you?
ANN WRIGHT: Well, they told us that any time that the FBI puts people on this NCIC list, they just accept it at face value, that they don't really investigate things. And we kept saying, "Well, you ought to, because a lot of these things appear to be going onto this list because of political intimidation," because, indeed, the list itself for the database says that people like foreign fugitives, people on the ten most-wanted list or 100 most-wanted list, people that are part of violent gangs and terrorist organizations, are supposed to go on that NCIC list. It didn't seem like that we were a part of -- we haven't done anything to be on the list. And since this thing is just now -- we are the first ones that we know of that have been formally stopped from going into Canada. In fact, it happened to me in August, when I went up to Canada to participate in the Security and Prosperity Partnership. I had to buy my way in, $200 for a three-day temporary resident permit. "If I'm so dangerous, why would they even give me that permit?" I asked the immigration officer in the Canadian embassy.
Turning to the Iraqi puppet government Susan Cornwell (Reuters) reported: "Widespread corruption in Iraq stretches into the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, an Iraqi investigating judge told U.S. lawmakers on Thursday, and an American official said U.S. efforts to combat the problem are inadequate. Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, who was named by the United States in 2004 to head the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity, said his agency estimated corruption had cost the Iraqi government up to $18 billion." Renee Schoof (McClatchy Newspapers) adds, "Enormous sums of oil revenues ended up in the hands of Sunni and Shiite militias, he said. Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, who is seeking U.S. asylum because of death threats against him, said that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government prevented al-Radhi's U.S.-backed Commission on Public Integrity from taking action against top national officials."
Turning to the topic of violence, AP notes that the mercenary corporation Blackwater USA has a new p.r. flack -- Burson-Marsteller -- and that, "The State Department, which pays Blackwater hundreds of millions of dollars to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq, has stringent rules barring the private security contractor from discussing with the media the details of its work, according to those familiar with the arrangement." While Sudarsan Raghavan, Joshua Partlow and Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) explain the latest reports on the September 16th slaughter Blackwater conducted in Baghdad, "U.S. military reports from the scene of the Sept. 16 shooting incident involving the security firm Blackwater USA indicate that its guards opened fire without provocation and used excessive force against Iraqi civilians, according to a senior U.S. military official. The reports came to light as an Interior Ministry official and five eyewitnesses described a second deadly shooting minutes after the incident in Nisoor Square. The same Blackwater security guards, after driving about 150 yards away from the square, fired into a crush of cars, killing one person and injuring two, the Iraqi official said. The U.S. military reports appear to corroborate the Iraqi government's contention that Blackwater was at fault in the shooting incident in Nisoor Square, in which hospital records say at least 14 people were killed and 18 were wounded."
Staying on violence . . .
"Shams survived, but is now blind. She is one of hundreds who were injured, but survived this attack. More than 200 others died. This is her story," so begins Alive in Baghdad's video report this week entitled "Car Bomb Survivors, No Longer Statistics" which focuses on the aftermath of the November 23rd bombing for the year-old Shams whose mother died shielding her from the blast and whose brother Ghaith was left with shrapnel. Her father, Hesham Fadhel Karim, explains his wife, Shams, and Ghaith and Taif (two sons) were in their car in Sadr City when three bombs went off, "My baby girl Shams was injured and lost her two eyes, her mother was killed and my older son Ghaith was injured by shrapnel in his back. . . . Shams face was injured because she was beside her mother who was burning. As for my wife, the fireman came to extinguish her and I carried her to the ambulance which brought her to the hospital. We took her out of the ambulance into the hospital. I was trying to extinguish her but I could not, because she burnt my hands, legs, and shoulder. At last, she died. As for Shams, I didn't know which hospital she was in. I searched for her in every hospital in Sadr City but I couldn't find her because she was carried to the Adnan Khairallah Martyr hospital." The search for Shams was made more difficult by the night time curfews forbidding travel. After finding her, her family attempted to get treatment for her in Jordan and Iran but were told there was nothing that could be done about her eyes. Shams' grandfather declares, "In fact, I appeal to this world and the humanitarian world to care for the children of Iraq because there are millions of children who are without eyes, deformed or having their arms or legs amputated."
In some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) reports, "Up to twenty-four Iraqi civilians are reportedly dead following a U.S. air strike near the city of Baquba. Another twenty-seven people were wounded. The toll is said to include women and children. Witnesses say at least four homes were leveled in the attack. Some of the victims were killed after rushing out of their homes to help those hurt in the initial bombing." AFP reports, "Witnesses said US helicopters attacked Jayzani, northwest of the mainly Shiite town of Al-Khalis, at around 2:00 am (2300 GMT), destroying at least four houses. An AFP photographer saw at least four trucks, each carrying several bodies from Jayzani, being driven through Baghdad to the Shiite holy city of Najaf for burial. One of the dead was clearly an elderly man" and AFP quotes Ahmed Mohammed saying, "There are 24 bodies on the ground in the village and 25 others wounded in Al-Khalis hospital." Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a bombing today "near Latifiyah Bridge" outside Babil left three people injured while a Tuz Khurmatu bombing left three wounded. Reuters notes that a Laitifya roadside bombing left three people injured.
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Sheikh Yasir Al Yasiri was shot dead yesterday and Sheikh Khalid was shot dead last night, both in Basra, both were professors at "Al Sadr religious university".
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 4 corpses discovered in Baghdad and 2 corpses were discovered in Kifil.
Today the US military announced: "Two Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldiers were killed and two others were wounded when an improvised explosive device detonated during operations in the southeastern region of the Iraqi capital Oct. 5." And the US military announced: "One Multi-National Corps - Iraq Soldier was killed and three were wounded in Salah Ad Din province today when an improvised explosive device was detonated near their vehicle." ICCC's total number killed in the illegal war since it started (March 2003) stands at 3813 and Reuters stands at 3812.
Turning to news of white wash, Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) 'investigates' the bait and kill teams of US snipers in Iraq by . . . reading court transcripts. Work that will no doubt to elevate him to the level of Maury Povich or at least Ted Baxter. Parker writes: "Interviews and court transcripts portray a 13-man sniper unit that felt under pressure to produce a high body count, a Vietnam-era measure that the Pentagon officially has disavowed in this war. They describe a sniper unit whose margins of right and wrong were blurred: by Hensley, if you believe Army prosecutors; by the Army, if you believe the accused." Wow, shock and dull, shock and dull. In June of this year, James Burmeister went public with the news of the kill teams. All Things Media Big and Small ignored it in this country. Last week, a court-martial forced them to cover it with limited hangout. Now it's time for the white wash and Parker shows up in flip flops, a half-shirt and Daisy Dukes, scrub brush in hand.
Meanwhile, James Foley (Medill Reports) quotes Kelly Dougherty (IVAW) declaring, "People say it's an all-volunteer army, but the truth is many people's contracts have been extended, some involuntarily extended. That's not only against an all-volunteer military, but putting the same people in a combat zone again and again . . . We get a lot of calls (asking) 'What should I do? Should I go back.'" Tim Dickinson (Rolling Stone) highlights two articles -- First, Philip Dine (St. Louis Dipatch) reveals that "Thousands of U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- as many as 10 a day -- are being discharged by the military for mental health reasons. But the Pentagon isn't blaming the war. It says the soldiers had 'pre-existing' conditions that disqualify them for treatment by the government." This is an effort to deny treatment for service members suffering from PTSD by claiming that the PTSD is actually a prior condition. Dikinson then notes a report on the number of service members who are deployed "for only 729 days. . . exactly one day short of the 730 days needed to guarantee thousands of dollars a year for college."
Today on the second hour of NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, Rehm's roundtable guests were McClatchy Newspapers' Warren P. Strobel, the Washington Post's Keith Richburg and UPI's Martin Walker.
Diane Rehm: Let's talk about what's happening in Iraq with Iraq buying $100 million worth of weapons from China.
Martin Walker: Well you go to the best. I mean if you want, if you want the kind of material you need to supress people and maintain an authoritarian state where do you go? China. The point that the US wasn't able to supply the weaponry required and the Chinese are able to supply cheap knock-offs of AK-47s.
Diane Rehm: But haven't the Iraqis had terrible trouble keeping track of weapons to begin with?
Martin Walker: The place is awash in weapons but don't forget it also took place as we've got this new report about corruption in Iraq and about the way in which corruption is being covered up and protected by al-Maliki's government and I would be amazed if some of that money for the Chinese weaponry doesn't matter to leak out some way or another.
Diane Rehm: At twenty-seven before the hour, you are listening to The Diane Rehm Show. Do you want to add to that, Keith?
Keith Richburg: Just to add, it's ironic that these weapons are supposedly going to be going to the Iraqi police which is the one unit that all US investigators going in there have said is the most corrupt, the most inept and basically should be abolished and reconstituted from scratch. Here's Talibani saying, "Actually we need weapons to arm this force."
Diane Rehm: Warren?
Warren P. Strobel: Yeah, absolutely. There was a hearing in Congress this week that highlighted the issue of corruption and a report, the State Department's own report, shows that virtually every ministry has just massive corruption problems. It's hard to believe that lots of the weapons won't end up in the street. It's hard to believe there won't be huge kickbacks, as Martin said, for the weapon sale.
A caller brought up Seymour Hersh's report that the administration is planning to start a war with Iran.
Diane Rehm: Didn't Sy Hersh also go on to say that many in the administration know we don't have the resources to go into Iran, Warren?
Warren P. Strobel: Which is true, we don't in any serious way. Diane, if I had a dollar for every tip I got, or every e-mail I got, or every caller I got that the administration was about to launch another war on Iran, I'd be a rich man. I think we have to be very careful here. Some people in the administration, close to it, say "yes," some say "no." Cheney is said to be pushing this -- I'm not so sure. I think it's a debate that's going to go on right till the very the end of administration.
[. . .]
Keith: I would just add, well, two things. First, I agree that the resources, the troops aren't there for an invasion. If you're talking about some kind of an airstrike, I would just say the most dangerous period I think you can be in is when you've got a lameduck president with nothing to lose, facing a military catastrophe in Iraq at the moment. And secondly, I find this demonization of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a new Hitler and a new dictator a bit curious because within Iran he's not a dictator. They're all kinds of other institutions that are keeping him relatively constrained including the various ayatollahs who actually run the country. He's not a dictator and also he's not incredibly and also he's not incredibly popular as well.
[. . .]
Martin Walker: There's another factor which tends to get forgotten here, which is that Iran has bought -- and had delivered last year -- from the Russians a state of art anti-aircraft missile system called the S300 which is probably better than the Patriot. Now that's now installed. It's being made operational. Even before that, I was told by a former head of the Air Force that the US Air Force would need a US air strike would need something like three days to suppress the anti-aircraft to be able to go in and hit the targets. What's going to happen on Capitol Hill in those three days on that kind of suppression of the anti-aircraft system? He would be impeached.
Keith: Just to add one quick thought there as well, I think one reason you can see the echo chamber of hostility towards Iran building is because
Diane Rehm: Could or would the US go to war against Iran without total Congressional support?
Keith: Well it depends on "What is war?" Are a series of air strikes war?
Diane Rehm: A series of air strikes.
Keith: Well I think some might argue that he needs Congressional approval, I think others might say that's within his perogative as commander-in-chief to do that. I think within Congress you're going to see a lot more, it's a Democratic Congress first of all, and you're already hearing a lot more people saying, "Wait a minute. North Korea has already exploded a nuclear bomb, Iran is still ten years away, why are they the greater threat?"
Martin Walker: Well it depends. I think one could certainly see and envisage some kind of provocations taking place or perhaps being concoted and engineered under which there's an exchange of fire on the border, US marines get arrested in the way that those British navel personnel were so you can see something being whipped up along those lines. But I was at, I was at an event, a social event recently with two former National Security Advisors and one of them said, "These guys ain't nuts." And the other one replied, "Yes, but they aren't sane either."
Which works as a transition to PBS' Bill Moyers Journal (Friday in most markets, check local listings -- and it's a listen, watch and read online after the episode airs) when Moyers explores the group Christians United for Israel and also speaks to Rabbi Michael Lerner and Dr. Timothy Weber on the topic of? Should the US strike Iran. A YouTube preview is up and, at the program's website, essays on the topic will be posted as well. Again, the hour long show begins airing on most PBS markets on Friday (check local listings -- and at the website, you can also locate the airtime for your local PBS station). Also Friday on most PBS markets, NOW with David Brancaccio airs their latest half hour installment and this week interview Michael Apted about his owngoing documentary where he tracks a group of British people every seven years, energy conversation will be addressed with a report on Decorah, Iowa and Ken Burns will be interviewed about his latest documentary The War. On October 12th, NOW with David Brancaccio will air a one hour program, "Child Brides: Stolen Lives" documenting "the heartbreaking global phenomenon of forced child marriage, and the hope behind breaking the cycle of poverty and despair it causes." They've created an e-Card you can send to friends and family or to yourself to provide a heads up to the broadcast (and there is no cost to send the e-Card). Last (and one time only) we're tossing a link to the Democratic magazine American Prospect. Due to the fact that it has David Bacon's "Mexican Miners' Strike for Life". Excerpt:
In a well-run mine, huge vacuum cleaners suck dust from the buildings covering the crushers, mills and conveyer belts. The Cananea miners call these vacuums colectores, or dust collectors. Outside the hulking buildings of the concentrator complex, those collection tanks and their network of foot-wide pipes are five stories tall. But many of the tanks have rusty holes in their sides the size of a bathroom window. And the pipes, which should lead into the work areas inside, just end in midair. None of the dust collectors, according to the miners' union, have functioned since the company shut them down in 1999.
So for the past eight years, the dust that should have been sucked up by the collectors has ended up instead in the miners' lungs. That is the most serious reason why the miners are out on strike. But there are other dangers. Many machines have no guards, making it easy to lose fingers or worse. Electrical panels have no covers. Holes are open in the floor with no guardrails. Catwalks many stories about the floor are slippery with dust and often grease, and are crisscrossed by cables and hoses. Not long ago, one worker tripped and fell five stories to his death onto a water pump below.
The community is a left community, it is diverse and American Prospect is geared towards Democrats. That's their right and we don't spend time knocking them for it. We're covering mainstream media and independent media and we really aren't able to note things from Democratic Party magazines because we do have Greens and other political party members. Bacon's written an important article -- that was the first and last exception for American Progress. (Short of them hiring Bacon to blog or to be a regular contributor. He's a labor beat reporter and there are so few of them that such a move would probably alter the above and members would be fine with it.)
iraq
ehren watadamike barber
brad mccallrobin long
kevin benderman
aidan delgadojoshua keycamilo mejia
karen deyoungthe washington postjoshua partlowsudarsan raghavan
david bacon
aaron glantz
mcclatchy newspapersrenee schoof
warren p. strobel
the diane rehm showdiane rehmbill moyersbill moyers journalpbsnow with david branccacio
I'm really sick of this idea that we can take all of our frustrations out on the woman. Hillary Clinton is, in my opinion, a pig. So are John Edwards and Barack Obama. I'm tired of it. All this nonsense does if fuel sympathy towards Hillary because anyone with a half a brain who reads this sort of nonsense is going to grasp that the three 'front runners' are not significantly different and rightly wonder if this is all about sexism?
I don't care if Cohen calls Hillary out or not. I do care that he applies a standard of equality and, if he can't, otherwise he is just assisting Hillary's nomination.
Jeff Cohen is often an astute critic. If he really intends to put people wise to Hillary, he better take a moment to grasp that the method he is using is doing nothing but creating sympathy for Hillary. It's not effective and it's not truthful because Edwards and Obama are just as disgusting as Hillary Clinton. Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich (whom I'm supporting in the primary), Mike Gravel and Bill Richardson are the oppenents for the three 'front runners.' If any of the four got half the attention from independent media that the 'front runners' do, they would likely be able to be a 'front runner' as well.
Bill Richardson had a strong week, a very strong week. He has thrown down a marker and said he is for ending the illegal war and, in doing so, called out his oppenents. Dennis Kucinich really hasn't done that. Nor Gravel. Nor Dodd. Bill Richardson called out Hillary, yes, he also called out Obama and Edwards.
Jeff Cohen is far too smart to come off like Katrina vanden Heuvel (who gushes this week that two of the front runners "get it on nukes"). His columnn wasn't something I went in search of. In a session today, a veteran brought it up and asked me to read it (he was very bothered by it) and to write about it. So there it is. I will also note his question, "When did ending the Iraq War stop mattering?" He wanted that in to. When he was deployed, Iraq was a topic of independent media. He assumed that was still the case and then he returned from Iraq and saw that was not the case.
Now United for Peace and Justice. An angry e-mail came in Thursday asking me why I sleighted UPFJ? I provided links and didn't link to UPFJ. I wasn't aware I hadn't. The woman was also mad at C.I. for not linking (it was a joint entry by C.I. and myself). We wrote it together, I typed it up. I thought I had provided a link to UPFJ. I support UPFJ and was not attempting to favor other organizations over them. I obviously took more care in attempting to do that which is why the other links did go in but I assumed I had linked to United for Peace & Justice when I had not. Thanks to ___ for e-mailing and raising the issue. Hope that clears it up.
"The Democrats Who Enable Bush" (Helen Thomas, Seattle Post-Intelligencer via Common Dreams):
President Bush has no better friends than the spineless Democratic congressional leadership and the party's leading presidential candidates when it comes to his failing Iraq policy.
Those Democrats seem to have forgotten that the American people want U.S. troops out of Iraq, especially since Bush still cannot give a credible reason for attacking Iraq after nearly five years of war.
Last week at a debate in Hanover, N.H., the leading Democratic presidential candidates sang from the same songbook: Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York, and Barack Obama of Illinois and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards refused to promise to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by 2013, at the end of the first term of their hypothetical presidencies. Can you believe it?
When the question was put to Clinton, she reverted to her usual cautious equivocation, saying: "It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting."
Obama dodged, too: "I think it would be irresponsible" to say what he would do as president.
Edwards, on whom hopes were riding to show some independence, replied to the question: "I cannot make that commitment."
They have left the voters little choice with those answers.
Some supporters were outraged at the obfuscation by the Democratic front-runners.
On the other hand, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., are more definitive in their calls for quick troop withdrawals.
Just to clarify that exchange, I'm including this from "Strangely familiar" (The Third Estate Sunday Review):
Richardson was followed closely by Chris Dodd who declared, "The idea that we could be emborlied in combat for at least another five years should set off alarm bells for anyone with a modicum of foreign policy experience. Sacrificing American lives to engage in a civil war is a deeply corrupt strategy and one I have been working to combat in Congress. I call on my fellow candidates to help me bring and end to this war before 2013 -- we need to end this war now before it passes Vietnam as the longest war in American history."
[. . .]
Candidate Joe Biden hedged the answer. He said yes and he said no. He declared, "Just from Iraq. You're going to bring all troops home from Iraq. If in fact there is no political solution by the time I am president, then I would bring them out because all they are is fodder.But -- but -- if you go along with the Biden plan that got 75 votes today and you have a stable Iraq like we have in Bosnia -- we've had 20,000 Western troops in Bosnia for 10 years. Not one has been killed -- not one. The genocide has ended. So it would depend on the circumstances when I became president. " He would bring them all home . . . unless his plan to partition Iraq into three sections came to be and since it won the support of 75 idiots in the Senate, it's very likely that Iraq will be carved up into three areas if the US has the last say. In which case, Biden's answer is "no."
On the subject of Dennis Kuinich, this is a press release he issued today.
"Bush Administration Needs To Come Clean To American Public On Torture"
WASHINGTON, DC -- October 5 -- Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) called on the Bush Administration to come clean to the American people and stop condoning the use of torture.
"This government does not torture people," President Bush claimed this morning in a brief news conference. "You know, we...stick to U.S. law and our international obligations."
Yesterday, The New York Times reported that despite the Justice Department’s 2004 public legal opinion that torture was "abhorrent," only a year later the Justice Department under then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales issued a secret opinion that permitted the "harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the CIA."
"The Justice Department tried pulling a cloak over Americans’ eyes by declaring torture 'abhorrent' in a public declaration, and then secretly permitting it," Kucinich said.
"How can the President say 'we do not torture,' when at the same time he is condoning it?" Kucinich asked. "This type of deception and brutality is costing America our moral standing and our friendships all over the world.
"President Bush needs to come clean to the American people. Torture is not an American value. Congress needs to confront the President over the Administration's repulsive use of torture and end this abhorrent technique once and for all."
So that's Kucinich speaking on the torture Bully Boy has made "the American way."
"Dennis Kucinich" (John J. Ray, Forbes):
As the outspoken chairman of the Progressive Caucus, Kucinich, 60, advocates nonviolence and diplomacy above all. If elected president, he promises to reduce the Pentagon's budget and proposes the creation of a Department of Peace. He was the only presidential candidate for 2008 who voted against authorizing the war in Iraq and he continues to speak out in strong opposition to the war. Kucinich also opposes the U.S.A. Patriot Act.
A staunch environmentalist, Kucinich will make it a priority to rejoin the Kyoto treaty on global warming. He champions unionized labor and working families and would immediately cancel U.S. participation in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), claiming that they push American jobs overseas. He has a plan for a universal health care system and believes that marijuana should be decriminalized. Kucinich, a vegan, married for the third time in 2005.
Forbes is apparently covering all the candidates (at least with a profile and a scorecard). Something our independent media -- or our alleged independent media (and I am not referring to Jeff Cohen in "alleged" but you can apply that to the likes of The Nation) -- should be able to do but it is apparently a task far out of their reach.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Friday, Ocotber 5, 2007. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, the US military announces more deaths, Ehren Watada's court-martial is still set to start next Tuesday, the bait and kill teams get a white wash, and more.
Starting with war resistance. In June 2006, Ehren Watada became the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to the Iraq War. As Aaron Glantz (The War Comes Home) notes Ehren Watada's second court-martial is scheduled to begin this coming Tuesday. And if it takes place and the prosecution is trailing, Judge Toilet (aka John Head) can call another "do over." Glantz reported on the first court-martial each day of the court-martial (as well as on the Sunday rally of support that preceded the court-martial) and you can click here for some of that audio. Truthout also covered the court-martial daily and they announce: "Truthout will be covering the court-martial from Fort Lewis, Washington, beginning Monday." Their coverage last time provided both video and text reports. Mike Barber (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) reports on yesterday's events, "U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle on Thursday afternoon heard arguments from Watada's lawyers and a lawyer from the U.S. Attorney's Office about whether he has jurisdiction in the case. Settle held the hearing after Watada's defense attorneys, Jim Lobsenz and Ken Kagen, sought an emergency halt to next Tuesday's court-martial. They said they were compelled to go to federal court after receiving no word from the military justice system's highest appellate court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, concerning Watada's challenge to his court-martial." AP reports that a decision by Settle may come down today; however, Michael Gilbert (Washington's The News Tribune) reports, "A federal judge indicated he won't likely decide whether to halt Lt. Ehren Watada's second court-martial until Tuesday morning, when the proceeding is scheduled to begin in an Army courtroom at Fort Lewis." Meanwhile, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer editorializes "Watada Court-Martial: Let him go:"However the defense appeals turn out, we think there is a case for letting Watada leave the Army without further ado. That could be taken as a statement of higher-level confidence, a choice to focus on the larger military mission that President Bush and Gen. David Petraeus insist is making new progress. At a minimum, many of those who oppose the Iraq war would welcome the leniency for someone they view as a person of conscience."
In Canada this week, war resister Robin Long was arrested this week. Charlie Smith (Vancouver's Straight) reports that when twenty-year-old war resister Brad McCall attemptedto enter Canada on September 19, 2007, he was arrested "and driven to a jail in Surrey" with McCall telling him, "I don't know what kind of police officer he was. He put me in handcuffs in front of all these people that were watching that were trying to get into Canada also" and McCall aksed the Canadian Border Services Agency, "I told them, 'Why are you playing the part of the hound dog for the U.S. army?' They didn't know what to say. They just started stuttering and mumbling." Brad McCall did make it into Canada and is staying with Colleen Fuller in Vancouver. As is very common in stories of war resisters going to Canada "over the Internet". McCall also speaks of hearing about atrocities/war crimes in Iraq as participants bragged about the actions. Robin Long also cited that in his interview for CBC Television. McCall explains he was interested in CO status but when he raised the issued with "his commander and sergeants," the dismissed it which has happened repeatedly with many war resisters. Aiden Delgado and Camilo Mejia are among those who can share their struggles to receive CO status -- Delgado was one of the few to be successful in his attempt. Robert Zabala has the distinction of being awarded CO status by the US civilian court system. Agustin Aguayo attempted the process both within the US military and within the civilian court system.
Another who attempted CO status is Kevin Benderman. Monica Benderman, Kevin's wife, addressed Congress in May of 2006 noting, "My husband violated no regulations. His command violated many. The command's flagrant disregard for military regulations and laws of humanity sent my husband to jail as a prisoner of conscience. Times have changed -- and so has conscientious objection. What has not changed is the Constitution, the oath our volunteer soldiers take to defend it, and every American citizen's right to freedom of choice. This conscientious objection goes beyond religious teaching. It is not dramatic. There is no epiphany. There is reality. Death is final, whether it is your own or you cause the death of another. No amount of field training can make up for the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of a real battlefield, and no amount of threats, intimidation, and abuse from a command can change a soldier's mind when the cold, hard truth of an immoral, unethical justification for war is couple with real-life sensations." Monica, and not Kevin, addressed Congress because Kevin was still serving the sentence on the kangaroo court hearing he was subjected to when he attempted to be granted CO status by following every detail by the book with no margin for error. But the US military brass doesn't like to issue CO status and they were willing to manuever and lie in their attempts at retribution towards Kevin Benderman. The laughable charge of "desertion" (which has no basis in reality) was shot down (he was acquitted of that ludicrous charge) but the brass was successful with other charges (trumped up charges) and that goes to how they control the court-martials, how they refuse to allow evidence to be entered and arguments to be made in an arrangement that's already stacked against the individual. (For instance, in Ehren Watada's trial, Judge Toilet was known to report to his superiors who, presumably, gave him orders throughout the February court-martial. In a civilian court, a judge reporting to a 'superior' and taking advice from one would be grounds for an aquittal.) Kevin and Monica Benderman fought the brass and continued fighting when others might have given up. Letters from Fort Lewis Brig: A Matter of Conscience is the new book, out this week from The Lyons Press (US $24.95), in which they tell his story. Letters from Fort Lewis Brig: A Matter of Conscience is also the fourth book by a war resister of the Iraq War to be published this year. The other three are Aidan Delgado's The Sutras Of Abu Ghraib: Notes From A Conscientious Objector In Iraq, Camilo Mejia's Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia and Joshua Key's The Deserter's Tale. Early on as the brass was targeting her husband, Monica Benderman visited bookstores attempting to learn more about CO status and similar topics and she couldn't find anything. The four books rectify that and join Peter Laufer's
compelling Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq which covers the stories of variety of war resisters and was released in 2006. In an ideal world, bookstores across the country would stock all five and no Monica Benderman, in search of information, would ever be greeted with "We don't carry anything like that." Kevin and Monica Benderman have done their part to make sure it doesn't happen. Again, Letters from Fort Lewis Brig by Kevin Benderman with Monica Benderman was released this week, is available at bookstores and online and it'll be the focus of a book discussion at The Third Estate Sunday Review this weekend.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
Canada's in the news not only for the arrest of war resisters these days but also for their oil deal. In a curious press release that proclaims "THIS PRESS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO THE UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICE OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES" at the top, Canada's Heritage Oil Corporation declares (to "Business Editors") that they are "pleased to announce that it has executed a Production Sharing Contract with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) over Miran Block in the south-west of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and that Heritage will be operating as a 50/50 partner with the KRG to create a 20,000 barrel per day oil refinery in the vincinity of the license area. . . . Heritage will join the existing and increasing presence of international oil exploration, development and production companies operating in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. . . . Heritage will commence geological work immediately, having established its local office in Erbil in 2005, and aims to commence a high-impact exploration drilling program in 2008." Last month a deadly clash took place on Lake Albert between "Congolese troops and the Ugandan army" which Heritage Oil has denied any part in despite media reports. Andy Rowell (Oil Change) notes that the Kurdish government has "announced four new oil exploration deals with international energy companies. The news is likely to upset the central government in Baghdad and the US." In addition, this week Canada refused entry to CODEPINK's Media Benjamin and retired US State Dept and army colonel Ann Wright. Today, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) interviewed Wright:
AMY GOODMAN: So, Ann, you were turned back at the border. You go back to Washington, D.C. You meet with Canadian officials at the embassy. What did they tell you?
ANN WRIGHT: Well, they told us that any time that the FBI puts people on this NCIC list, they just accept it at face value, that they don't really investigate things. And we kept saying, "Well, you ought to, because a lot of these things appear to be going onto this list because of political intimidation," because, indeed, the list itself for the database says that people like foreign fugitives, people on the ten most-wanted list or 100 most-wanted list, people that are part of violent gangs and terrorist organizations, are supposed to go on that NCIC list. It didn't seem like that we were a part of -- we haven't done anything to be on the list. And since this thing is just now -- we are the first ones that we know of that have been formally stopped from going into Canada. In fact, it happened to me in August, when I went up to Canada to participate in the Security and Prosperity Partnership. I had to buy my way in, $200 for a three-day temporary resident permit. "If I'm so dangerous, why would they even give me that permit?" I asked the immigration officer in the Canadian embassy.
Turning to the Iraqi puppet government Susan Cornwell (Reuters) reported: "Widespread corruption in Iraq stretches into the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, an Iraqi investigating judge told U.S. lawmakers on Thursday, and an American official said U.S. efforts to combat the problem are inadequate. Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, who was named by the United States in 2004 to head the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity, said his agency estimated corruption had cost the Iraqi government up to $18 billion." Renee Schoof (McClatchy Newspapers) adds, "Enormous sums of oil revenues ended up in the hands of Sunni and Shiite militias, he said. Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, who is seeking U.S. asylum because of death threats against him, said that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government prevented al-Radhi's U.S.-backed Commission on Public Integrity from taking action against top national officials."
Turning to the topic of violence, AP notes that the mercenary corporation Blackwater USA has a new p.r. flack -- Burson-Marsteller -- and that, "The State Department, which pays Blackwater hundreds of millions of dollars to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq, has stringent rules barring the private security contractor from discussing with the media the details of its work, according to those familiar with the arrangement." While Sudarsan Raghavan, Joshua Partlow and Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) explain the latest reports on the September 16th slaughter Blackwater conducted in Baghdad, "U.S. military reports from the scene of the Sept. 16 shooting incident involving the security firm Blackwater USA indicate that its guards opened fire without provocation and used excessive force against Iraqi civilians, according to a senior U.S. military official. The reports came to light as an Interior Ministry official and five eyewitnesses described a second deadly shooting minutes after the incident in Nisoor Square. The same Blackwater security guards, after driving about 150 yards away from the square, fired into a crush of cars, killing one person and injuring two, the Iraqi official said. The U.S. military reports appear to corroborate the Iraqi government's contention that Blackwater was at fault in the shooting incident in Nisoor Square, in which hospital records say at least 14 people were killed and 18 were wounded."
Staying on violence . . .
"Shams survived, but is now blind. She is one of hundreds who were injured, but survived this attack. More than 200 others died. This is her story," so begins Alive in Baghdad's video report this week entitled "Car Bomb Survivors, No Longer Statistics" which focuses on the aftermath of the November 23rd bombing for the year-old Shams whose mother died shielding her from the blast and whose brother Ghaith was left with shrapnel. Her father, Hesham Fadhel Karim, explains his wife, Shams, and Ghaith and Taif (two sons) were in their car in Sadr City when three bombs went off, "My baby girl Shams was injured and lost her two eyes, her mother was killed and my older son Ghaith was injured by shrapnel in his back. . . . Shams face was injured because she was beside her mother who was burning. As for my wife, the fireman came to extinguish her and I carried her to the ambulance which brought her to the hospital. We took her out of the ambulance into the hospital. I was trying to extinguish her but I could not, because she burnt my hands, legs, and shoulder. At last, she died. As for Shams, I didn't know which hospital she was in. I searched for her in every hospital in Sadr City but I couldn't find her because she was carried to the Adnan Khairallah Martyr hospital." The search for Shams was made more difficult by the night time curfews forbidding travel. After finding her, her family attempted to get treatment for her in Jordan and Iran but were told there was nothing that could be done about her eyes. Shams' grandfather declares, "In fact, I appeal to this world and the humanitarian world to care for the children of Iraq because there are millions of children who are without eyes, deformed or having their arms or legs amputated."
In some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) reports, "Up to twenty-four Iraqi civilians are reportedly dead following a U.S. air strike near the city of Baquba. Another twenty-seven people were wounded. The toll is said to include women and children. Witnesses say at least four homes were leveled in the attack. Some of the victims were killed after rushing out of their homes to help those hurt in the initial bombing." AFP reports, "Witnesses said US helicopters attacked Jayzani, northwest of the mainly Shiite town of Al-Khalis, at around 2:00 am (2300 GMT), destroying at least four houses. An AFP photographer saw at least four trucks, each carrying several bodies from Jayzani, being driven through Baghdad to the Shiite holy city of Najaf for burial. One of the dead was clearly an elderly man" and AFP quotes Ahmed Mohammed saying, "There are 24 bodies on the ground in the village and 25 others wounded in Al-Khalis hospital." Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a bombing today "near Latifiyah Bridge" outside Babil left three people injured while a Tuz Khurmatu bombing left three wounded. Reuters notes that a Laitifya roadside bombing left three people injured.
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Sheikh Yasir Al Yasiri was shot dead yesterday and Sheikh Khalid was shot dead last night, both in Basra, both were professors at "Al Sadr religious university".
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 4 corpses discovered in Baghdad and 2 corpses were discovered in Kifil.
Today the US military announced: "Two Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldiers were killed and two others were wounded when an improvised explosive device detonated during operations in the southeastern region of the Iraqi capital Oct. 5." And the US military announced: "One Multi-National Corps - Iraq Soldier was killed and three were wounded in Salah Ad Din province today when an improvised explosive device was detonated near their vehicle." ICCC's total number killed in the illegal war since it started (March 2003) stands at 3813 and Reuters stands at 3812.
Turning to news of white wash, Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) 'investigates' the bait and kill teams of US snipers in Iraq by . . . reading court transcripts. Work that will no doubt to elevate him to the level of Maury Povich or at least Ted Baxter. Parker writes: "Interviews and court transcripts portray a 13-man sniper unit that felt under pressure to produce a high body count, a Vietnam-era measure that the Pentagon officially has disavowed in this war. They describe a sniper unit whose margins of right and wrong were blurred: by Hensley, if you believe Army prosecutors; by the Army, if you believe the accused." Wow, shock and dull, shock and dull. In June of this year, James Burmeister went public with the news of the kill teams. All Things Media Big and Small ignored it in this country. Last week, a court-martial forced them to cover it with limited hangout. Now it's time for the white wash and Parker shows up in flip flops, a half-shirt and Daisy Dukes, scrub brush in hand.
Meanwhile, James Foley (Medill Reports) quotes Kelly Dougherty (IVAW) declaring, "People say it's an all-volunteer army, but the truth is many people's contracts have been extended, some involuntarily extended. That's not only against an all-volunteer military, but putting the same people in a combat zone again and again . . . We get a lot of calls (asking) 'What should I do? Should I go back.'" Tim Dickinson (Rolling Stone) highlights two articles -- First, Philip Dine (St. Louis Dipatch) reveals that "Thousands of U.S. soldiers in Iraq -- as many as 10 a day -- are being discharged by the military for mental health reasons. But the Pentagon isn't blaming the war. It says the soldiers had 'pre-existing' conditions that disqualify them for treatment by the government." This is an effort to deny treatment for service members suffering from PTSD by claiming that the PTSD is actually a prior condition. Dikinson then notes a report on the number of service members who are deployed "for only 729 days. . . exactly one day short of the 730 days needed to guarantee thousands of dollars a year for college."
Today on the second hour of NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, Rehm's roundtable guests were McClatchy Newspapers' Warren P. Strobel, the Washington Post's Keith Richburg and UPI's Martin Walker.
Diane Rehm: Let's talk about what's happening in Iraq with Iraq buying $100 million worth of weapons from China.
Martin Walker: Well you go to the best. I mean if you want, if you want the kind of material you need to supress people and maintain an authoritarian state where do you go? China. The point that the US wasn't able to supply the weaponry required and the Chinese are able to supply cheap knock-offs of AK-47s.
Diane Rehm: But haven't the Iraqis had terrible trouble keeping track of weapons to begin with?
Martin Walker: The place is awash in weapons but don't forget it also took place as we've got this new report about corruption in Iraq and about the way in which corruption is being covered up and protected by al-Maliki's government and I would be amazed if some of that money for the Chinese weaponry doesn't matter to leak out some way or another.
Diane Rehm: At twenty-seven before the hour, you are listening to The Diane Rehm Show. Do you want to add to that, Keith?
Keith Richburg: Just to add, it's ironic that these weapons are supposedly going to be going to the Iraqi police which is the one unit that all US investigators going in there have said is the most corrupt, the most inept and basically should be abolished and reconstituted from scratch. Here's Talibani saying, "Actually we need weapons to arm this force."
Diane Rehm: Warren?
Warren P. Strobel: Yeah, absolutely. There was a hearing in Congress this week that highlighted the issue of corruption and a report, the State Department's own report, shows that virtually every ministry has just massive corruption problems. It's hard to believe that lots of the weapons won't end up in the street. It's hard to believe there won't be huge kickbacks, as Martin said, for the weapon sale.
A caller brought up Seymour Hersh's report that the administration is planning to start a war with Iran.
Diane Rehm: Didn't Sy Hersh also go on to say that many in the administration know we don't have the resources to go into Iran, Warren?
Warren P. Strobel: Which is true, we don't in any serious way. Diane, if I had a dollar for every tip I got, or every e-mail I got, or every caller I got that the administration was about to launch another war on Iran, I'd be a rich man. I think we have to be very careful here. Some people in the administration, close to it, say "yes," some say "no." Cheney is said to be pushing this -- I'm not so sure. I think it's a debate that's going to go on right till the very the end of administration.
[. . .]
Keith: I would just add, well, two things. First, I agree that the resources, the troops aren't there for an invasion. If you're talking about some kind of an airstrike, I would just say the most dangerous period I think you can be in is when you've got a lameduck president with nothing to lose, facing a military catastrophe in Iraq at the moment. And secondly, I find this demonization of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a new Hitler and a new dictator a bit curious because within Iran he's not a dictator. They're all kinds of other institutions that are keeping him relatively constrained including the various ayatollahs who actually run the country. He's not a dictator and also he's not incredibly and also he's not incredibly popular as well.
[. . .]
Martin Walker: There's another factor which tends to get forgotten here, which is that Iran has bought -- and had delivered last year -- from the Russians a state of art anti-aircraft missile system called the S300 which is probably better than the Patriot. Now that's now installed. It's being made operational. Even before that, I was told by a former head of the Air Force that the US Air Force would need a US air strike would need something like three days to suppress the anti-aircraft to be able to go in and hit the targets. What's going to happen on Capitol Hill in those three days on that kind of suppression of the anti-aircraft system? He would be impeached.
Keith: Just to add one quick thought there as well, I think one reason you can see the echo chamber of hostility towards Iran building is because
Diane Rehm: Could or would the US go to war against Iran without total Congressional support?
Keith: Well it depends on "What is war?" Are a series of air strikes war?
Diane Rehm: A series of air strikes.
Keith: Well I think some might argue that he needs Congressional approval, I think others might say that's within his perogative as commander-in-chief to do that. I think within Congress you're going to see a lot more, it's a Democratic Congress first of all, and you're already hearing a lot more people saying, "Wait a minute. North Korea has already exploded a nuclear bomb, Iran is still ten years away, why are they the greater threat?"
Martin Walker: Well it depends. I think one could certainly see and envisage some kind of provocations taking place or perhaps being concoted and engineered under which there's an exchange of fire on the border, US marines get arrested in the way that those British navel personnel were so you can see something being whipped up along those lines. But I was at, I was at an event, a social event recently with two former National Security Advisors and one of them said, "These guys ain't nuts." And the other one replied, "Yes, but they aren't sane either."
Which works as a transition to PBS' Bill Moyers Journal (Friday in most markets, check local listings -- and it's a listen, watch and read online after the episode airs) when Moyers explores the group Christians United for Israel and also speaks to Rabbi Michael Lerner and Dr. Timothy Weber on the topic of? Should the US strike Iran. A YouTube preview is up and, at the program's website, essays on the topic will be posted as well. Again, the hour long show begins airing on most PBS markets on Friday (check local listings -- and at the website, you can also locate the airtime for your local PBS station). Also Friday on most PBS markets, NOW with David Brancaccio airs their latest half hour installment and this week interview Michael Apted about his owngoing documentary where he tracks a group of British people every seven years, energy conversation will be addressed with a report on Decorah, Iowa and Ken Burns will be interviewed about his latest documentary The War. On October 12th, NOW with David Brancaccio will air a one hour program, "Child Brides: Stolen Lives" documenting "the heartbreaking global phenomenon of forced child marriage, and the hope behind breaking the cycle of poverty and despair it causes." They've created an e-Card you can send to friends and family or to yourself to provide a heads up to the broadcast (and there is no cost to send the e-Card). Last (and one time only) we're tossing a link to the Democratic magazine American Prospect. Due to the fact that it has David Bacon's "Mexican Miners' Strike for Life". Excerpt:
In a well-run mine, huge vacuum cleaners suck dust from the buildings covering the crushers, mills and conveyer belts. The Cananea miners call these vacuums colectores, or dust collectors. Outside the hulking buildings of the concentrator complex, those collection tanks and their network of foot-wide pipes are five stories tall. But many of the tanks have rusty holes in their sides the size of a bathroom window. And the pipes, which should lead into the work areas inside, just end in midair. None of the dust collectors, according to the miners' union, have functioned since the company shut them down in 1999.
So for the past eight years, the dust that should have been sucked up by the collectors has ended up instead in the miners' lungs. That is the most serious reason why the miners are out on strike. But there are other dangers. Many machines have no guards, making it easy to lose fingers or worse. Electrical panels have no covers. Holes are open in the floor with no guardrails. Catwalks many stories about the floor are slippery with dust and often grease, and are crisscrossed by cables and hoses. Not long ago, one worker tripped and fell five stories to his death onto a water pump below.
The community is a left community, it is diverse and American Prospect is geared towards Democrats. That's their right and we don't spend time knocking them for it. We're covering mainstream media and independent media and we really aren't able to note things from Democratic Party magazines because we do have Greens and other political party members. Bacon's written an important article -- that was the first and last exception for American Progress. (Short of them hiring Bacon to blog or to be a regular contributor. He's a labor beat reporter and there are so few of them that such a move would probably alter the above and members would be fine with it.)
iraq
ehren watadamike barber
brad mccallrobin long
kevin benderman
aidan delgadojoshua keycamilo mejia
karen deyoungthe washington postjoshua partlowsudarsan raghavan
david bacon
aaron glantz
mcclatchy newspapersrenee schoof
warren p. strobel
the diane rehm showdiane rehmbill moyersbill moyers journalpbsnow with david branccacio
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Reuters covers the peace movement -- badly!
This is a joint-entry by C.I. and Elaine.
Reuters ran an interesting article today that had some observations worth thinking about and some 'facts' which were flat out wrong. The article is entitled "U.S. protests shrink while antiwar sentiment grows" and the byline credits Andy Sullivan.
Antiwar rallies drew hundreds of thousands of people at the war's start in 2003, although only 23 percent of Americans then said the invasion was a mistake, according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll. That figure is now 58 percent.
Yes, there pre-war rallies did turn out massive numbers and among the reasons were young people were lied to and hyped. They were told that just turning out would end the illegal war before it started. Getting the numbers out for those protests became more important for some than telling the truth. After the illegal war started, students and first time participants felt not only lied to but powerless as well. As a result, picking up the pieces was extremely difficult. Since there may or may not be a war launched on Iran, the peace movement should damn well learn a lesson and not again sell protests against an impending war as anything other than registering opposition.
Reuters argues that turn out in DC has "dwindled" and notes that a Troops Out Now Coalition rally in DC last weekend drew less than one-thousand. That figure may or may not be correct. The figure they offer here is incorrect: "Saturday's protest, sponsored by the Troops Out Now Coalition, came two weeks after an antiwar event sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition, which drew roughly 10,000 people." That figure is wrong and it's hard to believe it's wrong by accident. They contrast that with the January 2006 UPFJ rally -- featuring Iraq Veterans Against the War, Jane Fonda, Bob Watada, Susan Sarandon, Medea Benjmain, Sean Penn, Liam Madden and others. (See The Third Estate Sunday Review's "How Not To Stage A Rally.") Of that rally, Reuters notes, "United for Peace and Justice, which has tried to focus on ending the Iraq war, drew 100,000 people to a January protest." 100,000 at the start of the year, ANSWER only had 10,000 last month! It's a decrease!
But it's not. Refer to Associated Press' "100,000 March Against Iraq War in Washington: 200 Arrested in Dramatic Mass Die-In" and you see that "10,000" isn't correct for ANSWER's September rally.
This is a "trend story" and "trend stories" are notorius for fixing the facts. Troops Out Now Coalition may or may not have had a small turnout last weekend. ANSWER did not have a small turn out. We were there and it was 100,000 people. If Reuters were to include the actual figure, the "trend story" would fall apart which is why we believe an intentional decision was made to 'fix' the numbers.
Troops Home Now Coalition doesn't want to work with ANSWER. Well then live with numbers you get. ANSWER can put out a call and people do show up. ANSWER knows what it is doing. Some groups may not know what they are doing. We do not know that this is the case for Troops Home Now Coalition. We do know it is the case for the miserable rally in Fort Worth, Texas on September 1st. Despite big name speakers, including Cindy Sheehan, despite being held on a Saturday, the rally was sparsely attended (less than 300 was the estimate). We flew out to Texas, landed at DFW and did so because the organizers of that "rally" did a s**t poor job. They failed to get the word out. The Tuesday Iraq snapshot before the rally was the first announcement -- the organizers didn't even put out a press release until the Wednesday prior. They did not post fliers at the many public libraries in the Dallas - Fort Worth area. They did not visit the colleges to put up fliers or speak to students despite the fact that the area has many, many colleges. They had a designated media contact person at their website who did not respond to e-mails -- from individuals wishing to attend as well as from the big, mainstream press. They scheduled a nine to five event on what was for many people a day off. Instead of using a city that was well known to all in the surrounding areas (Dallas was the city to use), they went with Fort Worth. They instructed people to use public transportation. But Fort Worth has a bus system only and no bus dropped off at the rally site. Dallas has a bus system and it has a light rail. People from the surrounding areas could park at any of the train stations (as many commuters do) and catch a train had the event been held in Dallas. The rally itself started at 12:30 p.m. with the march to follow. On a hot, summer, Texas day they decide the noon time heat is the perfect time for a rally to be followed by a march. Yet, they also wanted people there as early as nine a.m. Instead of encouraging those willing to show up to attend, they issued a cry that you needed a ticket. You could print the ticket up online . . . if you had a printer. If you didn't have a printer, you needed to find one to attend. If you heard about the rally in casual conversation and did not have a computer, you better beg that stranger or acquaintence to print you up a ticket. With the organizers insistence on public transportation, how were people outside Fort Worth encouraged to get into the city? Via the Trinity Express -- a train that did not run as often as the organizers posted it did on their website.
Bad planning, failure to get the word out, failure to respond to requests to take pictures, failure to do anything other than book speakers led to a low turnout. Hopefully, none of these mistakes were made by the Troops Home Now Coalition but everyone's point in reporting "How Not To Stage A Rally" was to make sure that it was understood, if an event has low turnout, that's not necessarily a reflection on the public sentiment but it may be a reflection on the abilities of the organizers.
"The base that we work with was saying to us, 'We've been to Washington a lot in the last four years, we don't want to go to Washington again,'" national coordinator Leslie Kagan said.
Leslie Kagan? Is that Robert's sister?
Leslie "Cagan." C-A-G-A-N. With United For Peace and Justice. Leslie Cagan is correct. Those speaking on campuses have heard this complaint repeatedly throughout the year. Students complain (rightly) about having to skip work (a lot more students have to work their way through college these days and many are dependent upon weekend work hours due to class schedules), about having to raise money for trips when they're already struggling with the ever sky rocketing tuition, and about arriving for a big rally that ends up being the same speeches they've heard before and no real actions. Leslie Cagan is 100% correct and United For Peace and Justice demonstrated wisdom in calling for local actions next month. Hopefully, local organizers will actually work at getting a turn out and not just in lining up speakers for what turns out to be a private party.
United For Peace And Justice, as the article tells you, isn't sure whether or not it wants to work with ANSWER. It needs to decide pretty quick. Students are getting damn tired of it. If United For Peace and Justice doesn't want to work with ANSWER, many students could live with it. It wouldn't be the end for UPFJ. They might have a smaller turnout or they might not, but making a decision would be an improvement. As a student in Madison said last week, "It's like when Dad told us he was separating from Mom but they might get back together. We were strung along for months. They got a divorce. Just do it already, quit stringing us along." It should be noted that UPFJ will take the blame for the split. They are the 'parent' wanting to move on and seen as such. But a decision needs to be made because the repeated refusal to make a decision is getting on students nerves. Many feel a decision has already been made but they're being treated like children and not informed of the decision.
We're not saying that's what happened. We're not slamming UPFJ (or ANSWER). We are noting the mood on campuses. UPFJ can decide to work with ANSWER or not, but the attitude is a decision needs to be made.
We're not weighing in on the decision and appreciate the work that both organizations do individually and the work they've done when they've combined their resources.
We will, however, weigh in on one thing. Common Dreams has reposted the Reuters article. Others may end up reposting it as well. Leslie Cagan's name is mispelled and the number for ANSWER's turn out last month is a HUGE error. The Troops Home Now Coalition number may be a mistake as well. We did not attend or follow that rally. But when obvious mistakes are made in an article, at the very least a footnote is required. People trust Common Dreams and they will read the article there and assume that "10,000" is correct when it is not.
As to the issue the Reuters article skirts about splintering -- the peace movement is splintering. That's not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of "VOTE" groups have been wrongly billed as the peace movement. They push "VOTE DEMOCRAT." They are not the peace movement and students are aware of it. We both saw it during Vietnam, groups faded when they were timid or foolish. New groups sprung up to replace them.
Tina Richards' Grassroots America, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Military Families Speak Up are among the groups most admired on campus that were created after the illegal war began. Among student organization, SDS is the most talked about. They are admired because they call out Congress, not just the Republican side of the aisle. They are admired because they tell it like it is. They are seen as independent because they act independently. Norman Solomon and Phyllis Bennis have both repeatedly warned against the peace movement confusing itself with the Democratic Party. We join with them in saying that would be a huge mistake. It's dishonest and always has been but it's also a tactical mistake today because sentiment against the illegal war is so broad that it's not confined to Democrats and third parties who will put up with sitting in the back of the bus. Ralph Nader has consistently called out the illegal war. Any event that does not invite him to speak is making a mistake. At the ANSWER rally, there were boos last month when he started speaking. Nader's not a novice. He continued speaking and the applause when he finished was overwhelming.
On the subject of fears or hurt feelings, we condemn the article that FAIR ran in Extra! which whined about the attention Jane Fonda received for participating in the January rally. Sour grapes was how it read. Fonda has spoken out against the illegal war all along including doing a campus tour before the illegal war began. She has kept a low profile out of concerns that she might damage the effort. While that was very nice of her, it's a real shame that Extra! couldn't show the same niceness. Instead it was whine that Fonda got on the evening news. That all the TV clips showed her. As opposed to? Exactly how often does a peace rally get that kind of attention? Not very often. She put herself out there and she knew the right wing would slam her for it (which they did). The last thing she deserved was that snotty little piece in Extra! whining that she got attention. We were at the rally and she was the second most popular speaker [we wrote about that in "Show Me What Democracy Looks Like (1-27-07) "]. She reached a huge cross-section with her speech. (Bob Watada was the most popular speaker for those wondering -- Ehren Watada's father.) She put herself out there knowing the attacks would come. That FAIR elected to join in those attacks was very disappointing.
Yes, she is a two-time Oscar winning actress but she is also a lifelong activist and even in the 90s, when she feels she did little, she was working with the United Nations. Reducing her to an "actress" or, worse, a "Hollywood actress" dishonors her and all activists who have additional jobs. Fonda's clip did get massive attention from the TV industry and the clip came with audio. It was a powerful moment and that many not attending actually heard about the rally was a plus. There was no reason to treat it, as the Extra! article did, as a minus. No reason, that is, except sour grapes on the part of the author. As two who were active during Vietnam, we remember those same sour grapes about Fonda then as well. It was petty 'back in the day.' It's embarrassing as well as petty today when so few in the arts will use their voice to speak out. Slamming Fonda -- actress, feminist, best selling author, business woman, and actvist -- makes it all the more difficult to convince other artists to speak out. If you don't grasp the value in artists speaking out, you obviously have either forgotten the Vietnam era or didn't live through it. The right-wing has never forgotten and that's why they slam a Fonda or Penn or Janeane Garofalo or . . . .
Sidebar, Kat's review of Stephen Stills and Ani DiFranco's latest CD releases went up last night and Kat reviewed Joni Mitchell's Shine on Monday and Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals' Lifeline on Sunday.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Wednesday, October 3, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, Robin Long's supporters rally, more officials targeted in Iraq, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Yesterday, NDP (New Democratic Party of Canada) announced their support for war resister Robin Long arrested in Nelson British Columbia citing Olivia Chow (iimigration critic) and parliament member Alex Atamanenko (click here for release in English, here for release in French). The War Resisters Support Campaign also issued a statement of support. Today a support rally was held in Toronto. Timothy Schafer (Vancouver Sun) reported yesterday on Long's arrest "on Baker Street by police on a nation-wide warrant" according to Klaus Offermann who visited the jail to protest and tells Schafer that, "The city of Nelson is arrest-central for war resistors in Canada" -- referencing the February 23rd arrest of Kyle Snyder (hauled off in his boxers at the request of the US military). Today, Schafer (at Canada's Globe and Mail) cotinues covering the story and notes the cover story just issued by police chief Dan Maluta: Robin Long was smoking pot in public with four other people and that's why he was arrested! Of course the reality from eye witnesses is different and of course three others weren't arrested with Long. But it's more of the lies the Nelson city police have become famous for. Did that announced investigation in Maluta and the department ever get completed? Yes, it was signed to one of Maluta's personal friends, which should only mean the white wash moved even faster than usual. The cover story comes out after last night's strong show of support for Robin Long at the police station. Now LIAR Maluta said what about the arrest of Kyle Snyder? Oh, that's right, he repeated lies non-stop and that's why an investigation was required because it got so bad there was no doubt he was lying.
While Long is under attack in Canada, in the US Ehren Watada is scheduled to face court-martial number two next week -- despite the very clear Constitutional provision against double-jeopardy. Gregg K. Kakesako (Honolulu Star-Bulletin) reports that the court-martial is scheduled to begin next Tuesday, that Watada will be represented by Ken Kagan and James Lobsenz, that Watada service contract ended in December 2006 but the US military elected to extend it and that, "The Army has refiled four charges against Watada, including one count of missing a deployment and two counts of conduct unbecoming of an officer. Those counts cover statements Watada made criticizing the Iraq war and President Bush. Conviction on all counts could mean nearly eight years in prison and a dishonorable discharge." AP's brief story is only six sentences long. It will pop up everywhere which is why the factual mistakes in it are all the more glaring. Ehren Watada is the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to the Iraq War. He will also be the first officer in which double-jeopardy is tossed out, in which the Constitution is completely shredded, if the second court-martial goes through. The more war resisters there are, the more nervous the military brass gets.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
Turning to the topic of Blackwater, John M. Broder (New York Times) and Peter Spiegel (Los Angeles Times) got into a nasty slap fight today as both used their papers to argue, "No! I love Erik Prince more!" Broder apparently sat through yesterday's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform fantasizing about Erik Prince (Blackwater CEO) instead of paying attention (maybe he's turned on by the crook of a neck?). Spiegel saw him as really, really cool and not suffering from the big head at all, but, like, a guy you can really, really talk to! which is why he referred to Prince answering "questions politely" -- in what world is repeatedly rolling your eyes, smirking and turning your head in disgust "polite"? Desperate to proclaim (in his very best Melrose Place manner), "Paws off, Petey, I saw Prince first," Broder raves over Prince's attire ("trim") and "blond hair" with "a fresh cut."
In the real world, Jeremy Scahill offered his evaluation of yesterday's hearing to Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!):
JEREMY SCAHILL: When Erik Prince stepped into the room, he was mobbed by photographers, and he came in, not with an army of armed mercenaries, but with an army of lawyers and advisers. And one of the people with him was Barbara Comstock, who's a well-known Republican operative and a crisis management consultant. Blackwater had the first and second rows basically empty behind Mr. Prince, with the exception of his team of advisers and his consiglieri, and an unidentified man on several occasions during the course of the hearing himself interrupted the hearings and asked Henry Waxman to be able to consult with Prince. And then, what would result from that is that Erik Prince would turn around, and his advisers and lawyers would pile around him like a sports team plotting out their next play. It was very dramatic.
And I think that the issue here is that the Democrats really, I feel, dropped the ball on many of the most important issues surrounding Blackwater. Yes, there were some important questions raised. But for the most part, they steered away from some of the most devastating and violent incidents involving the company. The ambush at Fallujah in March of 2004, for instance, wasn't addressed at all, except in passing. And there were a number of family members of the four Blackwater operatives who were killed in that incident. That's a crucial one for the Congress to investigate, not only because of the allegations that Blackwater sent those four men into Fallujah in unarmored vehicles, short two men, and without heavy weapons, but because of the enormous price that Iraqi civilians paid for the deaths of those four corporate employees, the Bush administration ordering the leveling of Fallujah and, of course, the inflammation of the Iraqi resistance. There are a number of other incidents that never came up in the hearing.
I think that what needs to happen is that Erik Prince needs to become a more frequent visitor to Capitol Hill than his industry lobbyists have been over the past several years, and his visits should always begin with his right hand raised and cameras in front of him.
In other news of violence, Robert Parry (Consortium News) explores the death squads Bully Boy has created for Iraq and Afghanistan. These are the "kill teams," the "bait and kill teams," the teams war resister James Burmeister went public on last June and the mainstream media 'discovered' last week. Parry writes, "The ugly image of Americans killing unarmed Iraqis also helps explain the growing hostility of Iraqis toward the presence of U.S. troops. While the Bush administration has touted the supposed improved security created by the 'surge' of additional U.S. troops into Iraq, a major poll found Iraqis increasingly object to the American occupation." On a related note, Steve Negus (Financial Times of London) reports: "US military officials in Baghdad on Wednesday defended their support of local anti-insurgent volunteer organisations, the day after the country's largest political bloc attacked the programme as an 'adventure' and accused participants of kidnap and murder. The controversy over the scheme, which is a centrepiece of the US military's new strategy in Iraq, has flared as these local alliances against al-Qaeda spread from their point of origin in the western province of al-Anbar to other Sunni and even some Shia parts of Iraq."
In some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Yasser Faisal and Mussab Al-Khairalla (Reuters) report that Poland's General Edward Pietrzyk (ambassador to Iraq) was wounded in Iraq today in what the Polish government is calling "an assassination attempt" that also claimed the lives of at least one of Pietrzyk's bodyguards and one Iraqi civilian. NPR and AP report, "The attack took place a few hundred yards from the Polish embassy." Deborah Haynes (Times of London) notes the attack utilized three roadside bombs and that Pietrzyk "was being treated for burns at a hospital inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone." CBS and AP put the bombs at two and note at least 11 more people were wounded in the bombings. CNN goes with three bombs being used in the attack and states that "three others in the entourage, including one of his bodyguards" were killed as well as "two Iraqi civilians". Katya Andrusz (Bloomberg News) reports being told by Robert Szaniawski (spokesperson for Poland's Foreign Ministry) that there were three bombs and Andrusz notes that while 53% of Poles were against the illegal war in January 2004, opposition now stands at 80%. Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that the ambassador and his entourage "were leaving the Polish embassy" when the attack happened and also notes a Baghdad car bombing that claimed 2 lives (five more wounded), 1 dead from a Falluja bombing that left four more injured, and thirteen were wounding by a bombing "inside an in internet cafe" in Jalawa. Reuters notes the AIR WAR continues with "five suspected insurgent bombers" being shot dead by US helicopters in Baghdad, a Baquba mortar attack claimed 3 lives, while a Kirkuk roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 police officer (left another injured) -- Reuters also notes that yesterday saw "the local senior figure in Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council" shot dead in Ifach. DPA reports a roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 police officer in Kirkuk.
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports "the official of tribes in Diwaniyah city local council" was shot dead in Qadisiyah. Reuters notes, "Three people were killed, including a girl student, during clashes between police and gunmen in Baquba" and a police captain was shot dead in Tikrit. KUNA reports an Iraqi "army officer was shot dead" in Mosul by unknown assailants "in a speeding car".
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 6 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes a police officer's corpse was found in Ishaqi.
Turning to politics, The Peace Resister Katrina vanden Heuvel (you can use the link -- it's Common Dreams and KvH is providing plenty of laughter) is on her Barack bandwagon and determined to make sure that when her ass is finally kicked out of The Nation, no one else will touch her. KvH wants credit (she links to her self) for "an under-reported event" at the Council On/For Foreign Relations and considers her policy of under-disclosure (KvH probably 'reported' on it in real time due to the fact that she is a Council On/For Foreign Relations member). If a New York Times columnist attempted to give a 'shout out' to an organization they were a member of without disclosing it, it would be considered news. But maybe no one sees Katrina vanden Heuvel as a journalist? The friend I'm dictating this to says the comments left are hilarious so check those out: "Just another article from The Nation pandering to the impotent Democratic Party." And why is that? Or how about the recent commentary that borrowed heavily from The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life In The Universe -- Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner's masterpiece -- from Trudee's scene at the end where the aliens tell her the audience was art. But is there really a need for this nonsense of cheerleading Barack Obama or (in Flanders' case) his supporters? Here's the thing (and include John Nichols and others in this -- in fact David Corn appears to be the only one at the magazine not wearing a "Barack Has My Vote And Body" t-shirt), this time next year, a HUGE number of people will be telling you that you have to vote for Candidate X -- whomever the Democratic Party nominates. You've got to, you've just got to, they'll insist sounding like a deranged Miss Manners. And for those who elect not to and decide to be upfront about that, they'll still hear the mantra: "Vote Democratic to save the Republic!" You'll get the faux sympathy, the nod of the head, and the same damn sermon trotted out every four years, "Well we'll do that next time but vote Democratic, it's really, really important." If Candidate X is a War Hawk (very likely since Hillary Clinton, Obama and John Edwards refuse to promise that, if elected president, they would end the illegal war by the end of their first four years), you'll be told to hold your nose and vote for someone who disgusts you and that 'next time' everyone will get it together to make sure it doesn't happen. Those speeches were given in 2004 too. The Nation proves those speeches are hollow (at best) or flat out lies (at worst). They started their 2008 presidential coverage days before the November 2006 election took place and what do they have to show for it? Not a damn thing. The magazine hates Hillary Clinton and appears to see Barack Obama as having the best shot to take her out. So they've pushed Obama like crazy. Even though he's a War Hawk who is on record being against withdrawal since 2004. Had they used the last months (or the ones remaining) to cover Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel or Bill Richardson they wouldn't be playing the lesser of two evils currently. They're playing it in the primary and they'll play it in the general election. (And the Green Party will be as non-covered by the magazine as it was in 2004 or 2006.) "Power" to The Nation has meant "Do anything to take Hillary out." It's really disgusting. Kucinich has been covered more by our own Trina (who blogs once a week) than by The Nation. That's not just print, that's "online exclusives" and blog posts. Even lumping all of that together, Trina's still provided more coverage of Dennis Kucinich in 2007 (with her once a week posts) than The Nation. Sharon Smith (CounterPunch) does a good summary of Kucinich versus the press reinforced candidates. She notes the 2004 cave by Kucinich (Democratic National Convention) and thinks expecting a similar cave in 2008 isn't going out on a limb. One factor she may miss on that is Kucinich may not be a House candidate. By the time of the Democratic National Convention, Kucinich may have lost the primary for his House seat (the party is offering 'advise' to his opponent). If that happens, there should be very little reason for Kucinich to back down from his supporters demands. Regardless, and here's the point, in 2008, your vote is your vote. Vote for who you want (or don't vote, your business). And if you hear the "Hold Your Nose" speech and don't wish to hold your nose, just remember that The Nation elected to ignore candidates offering real opposition to the illegal war. Their anti-stories have revolved repeatedly around Hillary Clinton and their pro-coverage has been Obama (after earlier flirting with John Edwards). Free press? Be great to have one but let's not pretend we do as not one of them will tell you the truth about Barack Obama but will let him continue to repeat his stale talking point of being against the war (he doesn't say "illegal") before it began without ever noting the very obvious fact that, once he began his 2004 Senate campaign, he was on record as against withdrawal. That's why no one should be surprised that -- despite all the hype for an empty suit -- he declared in last week's 'debate' that, if elected, he couldn't promise to end the illegal war by the end of his first term.
In the new issue of The Progressive (October 2007), Ruth Conniff contributes "Doing the Hillary Dance" (pp. 16-17). She notes US House Rep Tammy Baldwin is on board with support for Hillary even thought it means "on the Iraq War, Baldwin gives Clinton a pass." For the piece, Conniff also interviews Iraq Veterans Against the War's Garrett Reppenhagen and the Center for Media and Democracy's John Stauber. Conniff notes that Reppenhagen "has hopes that the Internet could be a powerful tool for getting the U.S. out of Iraq. Now a member of Iraq Vets Against the War, he doesn't want to see the blogosphere hijacked by the Democratic Party." He tells Conniff, "I worry because more and more people start endorsing candidates and we become like sports enthusiasts." Stauber, who was refused a forum on Iraq by The Daily Toliet Scrubbers (but created a forum on his own), "concurs. As Stauber sees it, the idea that the Democrats, if only they can get elected, will end the war is 'just the blue Kool-Aid talking'." Stauber tells Conniff, "There's a delusion that there are going to be sweeping reforms once the Democrats have more power. But looking back over the last several decades, I don't see any reason for that optimism."
Finally, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) opened her conversation with Norman Solomon today by quoting from his new book Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State, "The warfare state doesn't come and go. It can't be defeated on Election Day. Like it or not, it's at the core of the United States -- and it has infiltrated our very being." From their conversation today:
NORMAN SOLOMON: Just a few minutes ago, we heard a clip from the Blackwater hearing yesterday about the way in which, supposedly, Blackwater, as one Congressperson put it, a Democrat, a critic of Blackwater, said that Blackwater is undermining the US mission in Iraq. And all too often the insidious nature of the warfare state gets us to at least tacitly accept the idea that there is something in that mission to be supported. And yet, $2 billion a day going into the Pentagon's coffers, that's our money. That's money that should belong to the people of this country for healthcare, education, housing.
And yet, we are tamped down, our numbing process, which is part of the warfare state, gets us to be passive, to accept. And often, you know, Amy, I travel around the country. I talk with people. Many are concerned. They watch this program. They're active. We get in a room. There's fifty, there's five, there's five hundred people. And often, the question comes up: "Well, aren't we just preaching to the choir?" And that is a concern. We have to go outside our own constituencies as progressives. But the reality is that the choir needs to learn to sing better, to challenge more fundamentally the warfare state, because right now it's our passivity, our acculturated acceptance, that's causing so much damage.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you really think that it's a choir right now that is a very confined to a certain group of people? I mean, in this country now, the level of opposition to the war in Iraq, doesn't it go far beyond any particular category of people?
NORMAN SOLOMON: The opposition is registered in opinion polls, but largely quiescent, and if we look at the progression of the Vietnam War, year after year, from the late '60s through the first years of the '70s, opinion polls show that most Americans were opposed to the war, even felt it was immoral. You fast-forward to this decade, for years now most polls have shown most people are opposed. But what does that mean? Our political culture encourages us to be passive, not to get out in the streets, not to blockade the government war-making offices, not to go into the congressional offices and not leave, not to raise our voices in impolite or disruptive ways. We have to become enemies of the warfare state, not in a rhetorical way, but in a way that speaks to the American people in terms of where our humane values are and should be.
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Reuters ran an interesting article today that had some observations worth thinking about and some 'facts' which were flat out wrong. The article is entitled "U.S. protests shrink while antiwar sentiment grows" and the byline credits Andy Sullivan.
Antiwar rallies drew hundreds of thousands of people at the war's start in 2003, although only 23 percent of Americans then said the invasion was a mistake, according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll. That figure is now 58 percent.
Yes, there pre-war rallies did turn out massive numbers and among the reasons were young people were lied to and hyped. They were told that just turning out would end the illegal war before it started. Getting the numbers out for those protests became more important for some than telling the truth. After the illegal war started, students and first time participants felt not only lied to but powerless as well. As a result, picking up the pieces was extremely difficult. Since there may or may not be a war launched on Iran, the peace movement should damn well learn a lesson and not again sell protests against an impending war as anything other than registering opposition.
Reuters argues that turn out in DC has "dwindled" and notes that a Troops Out Now Coalition rally in DC last weekend drew less than one-thousand. That figure may or may not be correct. The figure they offer here is incorrect: "Saturday's protest, sponsored by the Troops Out Now Coalition, came two weeks after an antiwar event sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition, which drew roughly 10,000 people." That figure is wrong and it's hard to believe it's wrong by accident. They contrast that with the January 2006 UPFJ rally -- featuring Iraq Veterans Against the War, Jane Fonda, Bob Watada, Susan Sarandon, Medea Benjmain, Sean Penn, Liam Madden and others. (See The Third Estate Sunday Review's "How Not To Stage A Rally.") Of that rally, Reuters notes, "United for Peace and Justice, which has tried to focus on ending the Iraq war, drew 100,000 people to a January protest." 100,000 at the start of the year, ANSWER only had 10,000 last month! It's a decrease!
But it's not. Refer to Associated Press' "100,000 March Against Iraq War in Washington: 200 Arrested in Dramatic Mass Die-In" and you see that "10,000" isn't correct for ANSWER's September rally.
This is a "trend story" and "trend stories" are notorius for fixing the facts. Troops Out Now Coalition may or may not have had a small turnout last weekend. ANSWER did not have a small turn out. We were there and it was 100,000 people. If Reuters were to include the actual figure, the "trend story" would fall apart which is why we believe an intentional decision was made to 'fix' the numbers.
Troops Home Now Coalition doesn't want to work with ANSWER. Well then live with numbers you get. ANSWER can put out a call and people do show up. ANSWER knows what it is doing. Some groups may not know what they are doing. We do not know that this is the case for Troops Home Now Coalition. We do know it is the case for the miserable rally in Fort Worth, Texas on September 1st. Despite big name speakers, including Cindy Sheehan, despite being held on a Saturday, the rally was sparsely attended (less than 300 was the estimate). We flew out to Texas, landed at DFW and did so because the organizers of that "rally" did a s**t poor job. They failed to get the word out. The Tuesday Iraq snapshot before the rally was the first announcement -- the organizers didn't even put out a press release until the Wednesday prior. They did not post fliers at the many public libraries in the Dallas - Fort Worth area. They did not visit the colleges to put up fliers or speak to students despite the fact that the area has many, many colleges. They had a designated media contact person at their website who did not respond to e-mails -- from individuals wishing to attend as well as from the big, mainstream press. They scheduled a nine to five event on what was for many people a day off. Instead of using a city that was well known to all in the surrounding areas (Dallas was the city to use), they went with Fort Worth. They instructed people to use public transportation. But Fort Worth has a bus system only and no bus dropped off at the rally site. Dallas has a bus system and it has a light rail. People from the surrounding areas could park at any of the train stations (as many commuters do) and catch a train had the event been held in Dallas. The rally itself started at 12:30 p.m. with the march to follow. On a hot, summer, Texas day they decide the noon time heat is the perfect time for a rally to be followed by a march. Yet, they also wanted people there as early as nine a.m. Instead of encouraging those willing to show up to attend, they issued a cry that you needed a ticket. You could print the ticket up online . . . if you had a printer. If you didn't have a printer, you needed to find one to attend. If you heard about the rally in casual conversation and did not have a computer, you better beg that stranger or acquaintence to print you up a ticket. With the organizers insistence on public transportation, how were people outside Fort Worth encouraged to get into the city? Via the Trinity Express -- a train that did not run as often as the organizers posted it did on their website.
Bad planning, failure to get the word out, failure to respond to requests to take pictures, failure to do anything other than book speakers led to a low turnout. Hopefully, none of these mistakes were made by the Troops Home Now Coalition but everyone's point in reporting "How Not To Stage A Rally" was to make sure that it was understood, if an event has low turnout, that's not necessarily a reflection on the public sentiment but it may be a reflection on the abilities of the organizers.
"The base that we work with was saying to us, 'We've been to Washington a lot in the last four years, we don't want to go to Washington again,'" national coordinator Leslie Kagan said.
Leslie Kagan? Is that Robert's sister?
Leslie "Cagan." C-A-G-A-N. With United For Peace and Justice. Leslie Cagan is correct. Those speaking on campuses have heard this complaint repeatedly throughout the year. Students complain (rightly) about having to skip work (a lot more students have to work their way through college these days and many are dependent upon weekend work hours due to class schedules), about having to raise money for trips when they're already struggling with the ever sky rocketing tuition, and about arriving for a big rally that ends up being the same speeches they've heard before and no real actions. Leslie Cagan is 100% correct and United For Peace and Justice demonstrated wisdom in calling for local actions next month. Hopefully, local organizers will actually work at getting a turn out and not just in lining up speakers for what turns out to be a private party.
United For Peace And Justice, as the article tells you, isn't sure whether or not it wants to work with ANSWER. It needs to decide pretty quick. Students are getting damn tired of it. If United For Peace and Justice doesn't want to work with ANSWER, many students could live with it. It wouldn't be the end for UPFJ. They might have a smaller turnout or they might not, but making a decision would be an improvement. As a student in Madison said last week, "It's like when Dad told us he was separating from Mom but they might get back together. We were strung along for months. They got a divorce. Just do it already, quit stringing us along." It should be noted that UPFJ will take the blame for the split. They are the 'parent' wanting to move on and seen as such. But a decision needs to be made because the repeated refusal to make a decision is getting on students nerves. Many feel a decision has already been made but they're being treated like children and not informed of the decision.
We're not saying that's what happened. We're not slamming UPFJ (or ANSWER). We are noting the mood on campuses. UPFJ can decide to work with ANSWER or not, but the attitude is a decision needs to be made.
We're not weighing in on the decision and appreciate the work that both organizations do individually and the work they've done when they've combined their resources.
We will, however, weigh in on one thing. Common Dreams has reposted the Reuters article. Others may end up reposting it as well. Leslie Cagan's name is mispelled and the number for ANSWER's turn out last month is a HUGE error. The Troops Home Now Coalition number may be a mistake as well. We did not attend or follow that rally. But when obvious mistakes are made in an article, at the very least a footnote is required. People trust Common Dreams and they will read the article there and assume that "10,000" is correct when it is not.
As to the issue the Reuters article skirts about splintering -- the peace movement is splintering. That's not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of "VOTE" groups have been wrongly billed as the peace movement. They push "VOTE DEMOCRAT." They are not the peace movement and students are aware of it. We both saw it during Vietnam, groups faded when they were timid or foolish. New groups sprung up to replace them.
Tina Richards' Grassroots America, Iraq Veterans Against the War and Military Families Speak Up are among the groups most admired on campus that were created after the illegal war began. Among student organization, SDS is the most talked about. They are admired because they call out Congress, not just the Republican side of the aisle. They are admired because they tell it like it is. They are seen as independent because they act independently. Norman Solomon and Phyllis Bennis have both repeatedly warned against the peace movement confusing itself with the Democratic Party. We join with them in saying that would be a huge mistake. It's dishonest and always has been but it's also a tactical mistake today because sentiment against the illegal war is so broad that it's not confined to Democrats and third parties who will put up with sitting in the back of the bus. Ralph Nader has consistently called out the illegal war. Any event that does not invite him to speak is making a mistake. At the ANSWER rally, there were boos last month when he started speaking. Nader's not a novice. He continued speaking and the applause when he finished was overwhelming.
On the subject of fears or hurt feelings, we condemn the article that FAIR ran in Extra! which whined about the attention Jane Fonda received for participating in the January rally. Sour grapes was how it read. Fonda has spoken out against the illegal war all along including doing a campus tour before the illegal war began. She has kept a low profile out of concerns that she might damage the effort. While that was very nice of her, it's a real shame that Extra! couldn't show the same niceness. Instead it was whine that Fonda got on the evening news. That all the TV clips showed her. As opposed to? Exactly how often does a peace rally get that kind of attention? Not very often. She put herself out there and she knew the right wing would slam her for it (which they did). The last thing she deserved was that snotty little piece in Extra! whining that she got attention. We were at the rally and she was the second most popular speaker [we wrote about that in "Show Me What Democracy Looks Like (1-27-07) "]. She reached a huge cross-section with her speech. (Bob Watada was the most popular speaker for those wondering -- Ehren Watada's father.) She put herself out there knowing the attacks would come. That FAIR elected to join in those attacks was very disappointing.
Yes, she is a two-time Oscar winning actress but she is also a lifelong activist and even in the 90s, when she feels she did little, she was working with the United Nations. Reducing her to an "actress" or, worse, a "Hollywood actress" dishonors her and all activists who have additional jobs. Fonda's clip did get massive attention from the TV industry and the clip came with audio. It was a powerful moment and that many not attending actually heard about the rally was a plus. There was no reason to treat it, as the Extra! article did, as a minus. No reason, that is, except sour grapes on the part of the author. As two who were active during Vietnam, we remember those same sour grapes about Fonda then as well. It was petty 'back in the day.' It's embarrassing as well as petty today when so few in the arts will use their voice to speak out. Slamming Fonda -- actress, feminist, best selling author, business woman, and actvist -- makes it all the more difficult to convince other artists to speak out. If you don't grasp the value in artists speaking out, you obviously have either forgotten the Vietnam era or didn't live through it. The right-wing has never forgotten and that's why they slam a Fonda or Penn or Janeane Garofalo or . . . .
Sidebar, Kat's review of Stephen Stills and Ani DiFranco's latest CD releases went up last night and Kat reviewed Joni Mitchell's Shine on Monday and Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals' Lifeline on Sunday.
"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Wednesday, October 3, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, Robin Long's supporters rally, more officials targeted in Iraq, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Yesterday, NDP (New Democratic Party of Canada) announced their support for war resister Robin Long arrested in Nelson British Columbia citing Olivia Chow (iimigration critic) and parliament member Alex Atamanenko (click here for release in English, here for release in French). The War Resisters Support Campaign also issued a statement of support. Today a support rally was held in Toronto. Timothy Schafer (Vancouver Sun) reported yesterday on Long's arrest "on Baker Street by police on a nation-wide warrant" according to Klaus Offermann who visited the jail to protest and tells Schafer that, "The city of Nelson is arrest-central for war resistors in Canada" -- referencing the February 23rd arrest of Kyle Snyder (hauled off in his boxers at the request of the US military). Today, Schafer (at Canada's Globe and Mail) cotinues covering the story and notes the cover story just issued by police chief Dan Maluta: Robin Long was smoking pot in public with four other people and that's why he was arrested! Of course the reality from eye witnesses is different and of course three others weren't arrested with Long. But it's more of the lies the Nelson city police have become famous for. Did that announced investigation in Maluta and the department ever get completed? Yes, it was signed to one of Maluta's personal friends, which should only mean the white wash moved even faster than usual. The cover story comes out after last night's strong show of support for Robin Long at the police station. Now LIAR Maluta said what about the arrest of Kyle Snyder? Oh, that's right, he repeated lies non-stop and that's why an investigation was required because it got so bad there was no doubt he was lying.
While Long is under attack in Canada, in the US Ehren Watada is scheduled to face court-martial number two next week -- despite the very clear Constitutional provision against double-jeopardy. Gregg K. Kakesako (Honolulu Star-Bulletin) reports that the court-martial is scheduled to begin next Tuesday, that Watada will be represented by Ken Kagan and James Lobsenz, that Watada service contract ended in December 2006 but the US military elected to extend it and that, "The Army has refiled four charges against Watada, including one count of missing a deployment and two counts of conduct unbecoming of an officer. Those counts cover statements Watada made criticizing the Iraq war and President Bush. Conviction on all counts could mean nearly eight years in prison and a dishonorable discharge." AP's brief story is only six sentences long. It will pop up everywhere which is why the factual mistakes in it are all the more glaring. Ehren Watada is the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to the Iraq War. He will also be the first officer in which double-jeopardy is tossed out, in which the Constitution is completely shredded, if the second court-martial goes through. The more war resisters there are, the more nervous the military brass gets.
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes James Stepp, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Carla Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.
Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. Tom Joad maintains a list of known war resisters.
Turning to the topic of Blackwater, John M. Broder (New York Times) and Peter Spiegel (Los Angeles Times) got into a nasty slap fight today as both used their papers to argue, "No! I love Erik Prince more!" Broder apparently sat through yesterday's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform fantasizing about Erik Prince (Blackwater CEO) instead of paying attention (maybe he's turned on by the crook of a neck?). Spiegel saw him as really, really cool and not suffering from the big head at all, but, like, a guy you can really, really talk to! which is why he referred to Prince answering "questions politely" -- in what world is repeatedly rolling your eyes, smirking and turning your head in disgust "polite"? Desperate to proclaim (in his very best Melrose Place manner), "Paws off, Petey, I saw Prince first," Broder raves over Prince's attire ("trim") and "blond hair" with "a fresh cut."
In the real world, Jeremy Scahill offered his evaluation of yesterday's hearing to Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!):
JEREMY SCAHILL: When Erik Prince stepped into the room, he was mobbed by photographers, and he came in, not with an army of armed mercenaries, but with an army of lawyers and advisers. And one of the people with him was Barbara Comstock, who's a well-known Republican operative and a crisis management consultant. Blackwater had the first and second rows basically empty behind Mr. Prince, with the exception of his team of advisers and his consiglieri, and an unidentified man on several occasions during the course of the hearing himself interrupted the hearings and asked Henry Waxman to be able to consult with Prince. And then, what would result from that is that Erik Prince would turn around, and his advisers and lawyers would pile around him like a sports team plotting out their next play. It was very dramatic.
And I think that the issue here is that the Democrats really, I feel, dropped the ball on many of the most important issues surrounding Blackwater. Yes, there were some important questions raised. But for the most part, they steered away from some of the most devastating and violent incidents involving the company. The ambush at Fallujah in March of 2004, for instance, wasn't addressed at all, except in passing. And there were a number of family members of the four Blackwater operatives who were killed in that incident. That's a crucial one for the Congress to investigate, not only because of the allegations that Blackwater sent those four men into Fallujah in unarmored vehicles, short two men, and without heavy weapons, but because of the enormous price that Iraqi civilians paid for the deaths of those four corporate employees, the Bush administration ordering the leveling of Fallujah and, of course, the inflammation of the Iraqi resistance. There are a number of other incidents that never came up in the hearing.
I think that what needs to happen is that Erik Prince needs to become a more frequent visitor to Capitol Hill than his industry lobbyists have been over the past several years, and his visits should always begin with his right hand raised and cameras in front of him.
In other news of violence, Robert Parry (Consortium News) explores the death squads Bully Boy has created for Iraq and Afghanistan. These are the "kill teams," the "bait and kill teams," the teams war resister James Burmeister went public on last June and the mainstream media 'discovered' last week. Parry writes, "The ugly image of Americans killing unarmed Iraqis also helps explain the growing hostility of Iraqis toward the presence of U.S. troops. While the Bush administration has touted the supposed improved security created by the 'surge' of additional U.S. troops into Iraq, a major poll found Iraqis increasingly object to the American occupation." On a related note, Steve Negus (Financial Times of London) reports: "US military officials in Baghdad on Wednesday defended their support of local anti-insurgent volunteer organisations, the day after the country's largest political bloc attacked the programme as an 'adventure' and accused participants of kidnap and murder. The controversy over the scheme, which is a centrepiece of the US military's new strategy in Iraq, has flared as these local alliances against al-Qaeda spread from their point of origin in the western province of al-Anbar to other Sunni and even some Shia parts of Iraq."
In some of today's reported violence . . .
Bombings?
Yasser Faisal and Mussab Al-Khairalla (Reuters) report that Poland's General Edward Pietrzyk (ambassador to Iraq) was wounded in Iraq today in what the Polish government is calling "an assassination attempt" that also claimed the lives of at least one of Pietrzyk's bodyguards and one Iraqi civilian. NPR and AP report, "The attack took place a few hundred yards from the Polish embassy." Deborah Haynes (Times of London) notes the attack utilized three roadside bombs and that Pietrzyk "was being treated for burns at a hospital inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone." CBS and AP put the bombs at two and note at least 11 more people were wounded in the bombings. CNN goes with three bombs being used in the attack and states that "three others in the entourage, including one of his bodyguards" were killed as well as "two Iraqi civilians". Katya Andrusz (Bloomberg News) reports being told by Robert Szaniawski (spokesperson for Poland's Foreign Ministry) that there were three bombs and Andrusz notes that while 53% of Poles were against the illegal war in January 2004, opposition now stands at 80%. Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that the ambassador and his entourage "were leaving the Polish embassy" when the attack happened and also notes a Baghdad car bombing that claimed 2 lives (five more wounded), 1 dead from a Falluja bombing that left four more injured, and thirteen were wounding by a bombing "inside an in internet cafe" in Jalawa. Reuters notes the AIR WAR continues with "five suspected insurgent bombers" being shot dead by US helicopters in Baghdad, a Baquba mortar attack claimed 3 lives, while a Kirkuk roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 police officer (left another injured) -- Reuters also notes that yesterday saw "the local senior figure in Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council" shot dead in Ifach. DPA reports a roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 police officer in Kirkuk.
Shootings?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports "the official of tribes in Diwaniyah city local council" was shot dead in Qadisiyah. Reuters notes, "Three people were killed, including a girl student, during clashes between police and gunmen in Baquba" and a police captain was shot dead in Tikrit. KUNA reports an Iraqi "army officer was shot dead" in Mosul by unknown assailants "in a speeding car".
Corpses?
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 6 corpses discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes a police officer's corpse was found in Ishaqi.
Turning to politics, The Peace Resister Katrina vanden Heuvel (you can use the link -- it's Common Dreams and KvH is providing plenty of laughter) is on her Barack bandwagon and determined to make sure that when her ass is finally kicked out of The Nation, no one else will touch her. KvH wants credit (she links to her self) for "an under-reported event" at the Council On/For Foreign Relations and considers her policy of under-disclosure (KvH probably 'reported' on it in real time due to the fact that she is a Council On/For Foreign Relations member). If a New York Times columnist attempted to give a 'shout out' to an organization they were a member of without disclosing it, it would be considered news. But maybe no one sees Katrina vanden Heuvel as a journalist? The friend I'm dictating this to says the comments left are hilarious so check those out: "Just another article from The Nation pandering to the impotent Democratic Party." And why is that? Or how about the recent commentary that borrowed heavily from The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life In The Universe -- Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner's masterpiece -- from Trudee's scene at the end where the aliens tell her the audience was art. But is there really a need for this nonsense of cheerleading Barack Obama or (in Flanders' case) his supporters? Here's the thing (and include John Nichols and others in this -- in fact David Corn appears to be the only one at the magazine not wearing a "Barack Has My Vote And Body" t-shirt), this time next year, a HUGE number of people will be telling you that you have to vote for Candidate X -- whomever the Democratic Party nominates. You've got to, you've just got to, they'll insist sounding like a deranged Miss Manners. And for those who elect not to and decide to be upfront about that, they'll still hear the mantra: "Vote Democratic to save the Republic!" You'll get the faux sympathy, the nod of the head, and the same damn sermon trotted out every four years, "Well we'll do that next time but vote Democratic, it's really, really important." If Candidate X is a War Hawk (very likely since Hillary Clinton, Obama and John Edwards refuse to promise that, if elected president, they would end the illegal war by the end of their first four years), you'll be told to hold your nose and vote for someone who disgusts you and that 'next time' everyone will get it together to make sure it doesn't happen. Those speeches were given in 2004 too. The Nation proves those speeches are hollow (at best) or flat out lies (at worst). They started their 2008 presidential coverage days before the November 2006 election took place and what do they have to show for it? Not a damn thing. The magazine hates Hillary Clinton and appears to see Barack Obama as having the best shot to take her out. So they've pushed Obama like crazy. Even though he's a War Hawk who is on record being against withdrawal since 2004. Had they used the last months (or the ones remaining) to cover Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel or Bill Richardson they wouldn't be playing the lesser of two evils currently. They're playing it in the primary and they'll play it in the general election. (And the Green Party will be as non-covered by the magazine as it was in 2004 or 2006.) "Power" to The Nation has meant "Do anything to take Hillary out." It's really disgusting. Kucinich has been covered more by our own Trina (who blogs once a week) than by The Nation. That's not just print, that's "online exclusives" and blog posts. Even lumping all of that together, Trina's still provided more coverage of Dennis Kucinich in 2007 (with her once a week posts) than The Nation. Sharon Smith (CounterPunch) does a good summary of Kucinich versus the press reinforced candidates. She notes the 2004 cave by Kucinich (Democratic National Convention) and thinks expecting a similar cave in 2008 isn't going out on a limb. One factor she may miss on that is Kucinich may not be a House candidate. By the time of the Democratic National Convention, Kucinich may have lost the primary for his House seat (the party is offering 'advise' to his opponent). If that happens, there should be very little reason for Kucinich to back down from his supporters demands. Regardless, and here's the point, in 2008, your vote is your vote. Vote for who you want (or don't vote, your business). And if you hear the "Hold Your Nose" speech and don't wish to hold your nose, just remember that The Nation elected to ignore candidates offering real opposition to the illegal war. Their anti-stories have revolved repeatedly around Hillary Clinton and their pro-coverage has been Obama (after earlier flirting with John Edwards). Free press? Be great to have one but let's not pretend we do as not one of them will tell you the truth about Barack Obama but will let him continue to repeat his stale talking point of being against the war (he doesn't say "illegal") before it began without ever noting the very obvious fact that, once he began his 2004 Senate campaign, he was on record as against withdrawal. That's why no one should be surprised that -- despite all the hype for an empty suit -- he declared in last week's 'debate' that, if elected, he couldn't promise to end the illegal war by the end of his first term.
In the new issue of The Progressive (October 2007), Ruth Conniff contributes "Doing the Hillary Dance" (pp. 16-17). She notes US House Rep Tammy Baldwin is on board with support for Hillary even thought it means "on the Iraq War, Baldwin gives Clinton a pass." For the piece, Conniff also interviews Iraq Veterans Against the War's Garrett Reppenhagen and the Center for Media and Democracy's John Stauber. Conniff notes that Reppenhagen "has hopes that the Internet could be a powerful tool for getting the U.S. out of Iraq. Now a member of Iraq Vets Against the War, he doesn't want to see the blogosphere hijacked by the Democratic Party." He tells Conniff, "I worry because more and more people start endorsing candidates and we become like sports enthusiasts." Stauber, who was refused a forum on Iraq by The Daily Toliet Scrubbers (but created a forum on his own), "concurs. As Stauber sees it, the idea that the Democrats, if only they can get elected, will end the war is 'just the blue Kool-Aid talking'." Stauber tells Conniff, "There's a delusion that there are going to be sweeping reforms once the Democrats have more power. But looking back over the last several decades, I don't see any reason for that optimism."
Finally, Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) opened her conversation with Norman Solomon today by quoting from his new book Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State, "The warfare state doesn't come and go. It can't be defeated on Election Day. Like it or not, it's at the core of the United States -- and it has infiltrated our very being." From their conversation today:
NORMAN SOLOMON: Just a few minutes ago, we heard a clip from the Blackwater hearing yesterday about the way in which, supposedly, Blackwater, as one Congressperson put it, a Democrat, a critic of Blackwater, said that Blackwater is undermining the US mission in Iraq. And all too often the insidious nature of the warfare state gets us to at least tacitly accept the idea that there is something in that mission to be supported. And yet, $2 billion a day going into the Pentagon's coffers, that's our money. That's money that should belong to the people of this country for healthcare, education, housing.
And yet, we are tamped down, our numbing process, which is part of the warfare state, gets us to be passive, to accept. And often, you know, Amy, I travel around the country. I talk with people. Many are concerned. They watch this program. They're active. We get in a room. There's fifty, there's five, there's five hundred people. And often, the question comes up: "Well, aren't we just preaching to the choir?" And that is a concern. We have to go outside our own constituencies as progressives. But the reality is that the choir needs to learn to sing better, to challenge more fundamentally the warfare state, because right now it's our passivity, our acculturated acceptance, that's causing so much damage.
AMY GOODMAN: Do you really think that it's a choir right now that is a very confined to a certain group of people? I mean, in this country now, the level of opposition to the war in Iraq, doesn't it go far beyond any particular category of people?
NORMAN SOLOMON: The opposition is registered in opinion polls, but largely quiescent, and if we look at the progression of the Vietnam War, year after year, from the late '60s through the first years of the '70s, opinion polls show that most Americans were opposed to the war, even felt it was immoral. You fast-forward to this decade, for years now most polls have shown most people are opposed. But what does that mean? Our political culture encourages us to be passive, not to get out in the streets, not to blockade the government war-making offices, not to go into the congressional offices and not leave, not to raise our voices in impolite or disruptive ways. We have to become enemies of the warfare state, not in a rhetorical way, but in a way that speaks to the American people in terms of where our humane values are and should be.
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