ACLU

"ACLU Sues To Stop Tennessee Schools From Censoring Gay Educational Web Sites" (ACLU):
(5/19/2009)
Filtering Software Allows Anti-Gay Sites
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASECONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org
NASHVILLE, TN – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Tennessee sued two Tennessee school districts in federal court today, charging the schools are unconstitutionally blocking students from accessing online information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, Knox County Schools and as many as 105 other school districts in Tennessee use Internet filtering software to block Web sites containing pro-LGBT speech, but not Web sites touting so-called "reparative therapy" and "ex-gay" ministries. The "LGBT" filter is not used to block sites containing pornography, which are filtered under a different category, but it does block the sites of many well-known LGBT organizations including Parents, Families, And Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and Human Rights Campaign (HRC).
"Allowing access to Web sites that present one side of an issue while blocking sites that present the other side is illegal viewpoint discrimination," said Catherine Crump, a staff attorney with the ACLU First Amendment Working Group and lead attorney on the case. "This discriminatory censorship does nothing to make students safe from material that may actually be harmful, but only hurts them by making it impossible to access important educational material."
The school districts block the Internet filtering category designated "LGBT," which includes sites that "provide information regarding, support, promote, or cater to one's sexual orientation or gender identity." They do not, however, block sites that condemn homosexuality or promote "reparative therapy," a practice purporting to "cure" LGBT people that is denounced as dangerous and harmful to young people by such groups as the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association.
The ACLU filed the case in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee against Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools and Knox County Schools on behalf of two high school students in Nashville, one student in Knoxville and a high school librarian in Knoxville who is also the advisor of the school's Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA).
"Students need to be able to access information about their legal rights or what to do if they're being harassed at school," said Keila Franks, a 17-year-old student at Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville and a plaintiff on the case. "It's completely unfair for schools to keep students in the dark about such important issues and treat Web sites that just offer information like they're something dirty."
The lawsuit charges that blocking LGBT sites violates students' First Amendment rights by only allowing access to sites that present an anti-gay point of view on the rights of LGBT persons on issues such as anti-gay harassment, marriage, employment discrimination and the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy while blocking access to sites that support LGBT rights. Further, the filtering hinders the ability of GSAs and their members to facilitate club activities and keeps students from accessing important information about scholarships for LGBT students or doing research for school-related assignments.
The ACLU first learned about the discriminatory filtering from Andrew Emitt, a Knoxville high school student who discovered the problem while trying to search for LGBT scholarships. Internet filtering software is mandated in public schools by Tennessee law, which requires schools to implement software to restrict information that is obscene or harmful to minors. However, the "LGBT" filter category does not include material which is sexually gratuitous and already included in the "pornography" filtering category.
"While schools may have an interest in using filters to block material that could be harmful to minors, blocking access to information about LGBT issues while allowing anti-gay information is unlawful and potentially dangerous," said Tricia Herzfeld, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Tennessee. "There is no place for this kind of unconstitutional censorship in our public schools."
In addition to Crump and Herzfeld, attorneys on the case are Chris Hansen of the ACLU First Amendment Working Group and Christine Sun of the ACLU LGBT Project.
The plaintiffs are Nashville students Keila Franks and Emily Logan, Knoxville student Bryanna Shelton, and Karyn Storts-Brinks, a Knoxville high school librarian and faculty sponsor for her school's GSA.
More information about the case, including the ACLU's complaint and a video featuring one of the student plaintiffs, is available online at: www.aclu.org/lgbt/youth/39346res20090413.html

That's really important and we all need to be standing up on issues like this. If you're straight, you especially need to be getting out the word on that. It's not something that needs to be left to the LGBT community. We need to make it clear that this is an issue which effects us all. Do not let them divide and conquer us. We stick together or we hang one by one.

They made sure to manufacture sexism as a 'woman's problem' in 2008 which is why a lot of jerks (Danny Schechter) avoided covering it, they look for any excuse.

Sexism hurts me. Homophobia hurts me. Racism hurts me. Sexism hurts you. Homophobia hurts you. Racism hurts you. When we start seeing our commonalities we can work together.

Barack's nonsense abortion speech? The chief demonizer of 2008 wanted us to 'all get along.' No. We do not get along with those who would take away abortion rights. No, we do not get along with those who discriminate based on gender, sexual persuasion, race, ethnicity. We are not going to Happy Feet it along with Barry O as he encourages every one to stupify and stand around with drool flowing out of their mouths while they mumble, "Hope. Change."

Yesterday, I noted the lurid Cynthia Boaz' appearance on Friday's Flashpoints on KPFA. A number of e-mails came in including some of you who listened to an archive of the boradcast (you can listen to archives at either link, by the way). Sunny and I had a manicure today. I'm not joking. She is the best assistant in the world and I've got a function coming up so I needed my nails done anyway. So we just had two come in during lunch. While we were getting our nails done, I looked at some of the e-mails Sunny had printed up and one of my favorites is by Alisha. "Is she for real?" was her headline. Alisha also wanted it noted that Dennis Bernstein, the host, asked Cynthia flat out what was her breaking point? What did Barack have to do for her to call him out? Cynthia Boaz ignored the question. That was a very important point and thank you to Alisha for e-mailing because I had forgotten it.

I have no sympathy at all for people like Cynthia Boaz. I also laughed at someone claiming to be Cynthia's best friend (probably Cynthia herself) who said I was jealous because Cynthia has big breasts. Cynthia doesn't have big breasts. Her breasts are about the size of mine. Rebecca has big breasts. Two of mine wouldn't make one of Rebecca's. So to Cynthia, or whomever wrote, no, I wasn't jealous of her breast size. I didn't think a college professor should present herself as a tease or Playboy centerfold. But, judging by her 'writing,' that presentation may have been the only way for her to get through college.

My second favorite e-mail was from Doyle who listened to it this morning and typed, "Cynthia Boaz sounds like Britney Spears pimping Bush in Michael Moore's film." I agree.

"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Tuesday, May 19, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, Steven D. Green's War Crimes sentencing hearing continues, the US Senate bends over backwards to add even more money to the bloated army budget, Iraqi refugees seek refuge in a church attempting to get asylum, and more.

Starting with Steven D. Green who was convicted two Thursdays ago in the gang-rape of 14-year-old Iraqi Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, her murder, the murder of her five-year-old sister and the murders of both of her parents. Since then, the jury has been hearing testimony they will weigh when determining his sentencing. Green could receive the death penalty; however, all 12 jurors would have to vote to sentence him to death. If that does not happen, he is facing life in prison. The hearing resumed yesterday and continued today. Evan Bright reports, "Just heard testimony from Dr. Helen Mayberg in contrast to the testimony of Dr. Ruben Gur. Basically said that Gur screwed up his MRI." Gur screwed up his MRI? He certainly screwed up his testimony on the MRI last week: "Gur was an 'expert.' Another reason not to waste the jury's time with 'experts'." Brett Barrouquere (AP) reports Dr. Mayberg was the prosecution's witness and that she stated Gur screwed up the MRI because the scan was not consistent with the scans he compared them to (a control group to establish a baseline for normal versus brain injury): "He [Green] was done differently. It's not big surprise that there are some areas that look different."

Bright also reports the "Court is adjourned for the day. Both sides rest with opening statements to be heard tomorrow, Wednesday May 20th. Blog later tonight." On yesterday's proceedings, Evan Bright had a post at The Huffington Post. Yesterday the hearing resumed (picking up from last Thursday) and Dave Alsup (CNN) noted, "Patty Ruth, a Texas elementary school principal, told a civilian jury about Green's childhood as a reader who loved to be hugged by relatives. 'I do not know how we got to this spot,' Ruth said in emotional testimony. 'I do not know how this happened'." The defense better hope the jury has a better grasp than Patty Ruth or Green will receive the death penalty. AP's Brett Barrouquere adds, "Ruth's testimony in the penalty phase of Green's trial came as the ex-soldier's father, John Green, and an uncle looked on in court." At his website, Evan Bright noted yesterday, "Tuesday(tomorrow): Remaining defense witnesses, if there are any, followed by the Prosecution's one rebuttal witness(an expert/specialist of some kind). There is a "50/50" chance that we will hear closing statements tomorrow, Pat Bouldin allegedly said. If not tomorrow, expect to hear them on Wednesday."

"Our army is stretched by this long war," declared the Secretary of the Army Pete Geren today to the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning when reading from his prepared, opening statement. The hearing was one where . . . Begs? The army begs for money? That implies that the Congress puts them through a song and dance. The Congress just hands out of rounds of applause. As, in fact, they did at the start of the hearing, shortly after Ranking Committee Member Senator John McCain took time to note his "policy differences" with General George Casey Jr. . . . right before praising him. The army doesn't beg. It's more like the Congress is overly generous parents and Geren and Casey show up with report cards explaining why Bs and Cs are amazing grades worthy of the really big bucks.


There's never an indication, in any of the hearings, that any member of Congress has perused the budget request coming before it. Today Senators Levin and McCain both raised the issue of the Army's Future Combat Systems eight manned ground vehicles. McCain noted, for example, the cost overruns that immediately had a $90 billion dollar project increase to $120 billion. And if you half-listened you might think, "That's the Congress at work!" But, reality, Sec of Defense Robert Gates already removed that from the budget. So what you had were some 'tough' moves and questions about . . . something not in the budget. About something Robert Gates had pointed out was wasteful.

Despite the economic crisis that's facing the country, no member of Congress ever says, "Let's take a look at this item . . ." It just doesn't happen. And didn't today. They were happy to show boat on an example that wasn't in the budget and McCain, in fact, used the bulk of his six minutes in the first round -- what a Maverick! -- to explore this project . . . no longer in the budget. This project . . . removed by Gates. But did anyone on the committee find a waste in the actual budget? That would require them using their staff to examine the budget and none do. "I'm sorry to belabor the point," insisted McCain . . . after doing just that and then going on to prattle about "but I really believe that -- if you look at the submitted budgets there are going to be decreases in procurement over time and it makes these cost overruns which are bad even worse." Well when does the Congress review the submitted budgets . . . as opposed to items not actually in the budget?

They applaud. They offer praise. And all the time they're spending the people's money. Without offering any oversight. The White House will likely soon introduce their "Social Security needs fixing" propaganda. Congress will not stop to applaud the American people. Congress will not sing the American people's praises (though US House Rep Adam Smith might again call the American people "paranoid" in an open session). Congress will rush to cut this and that and insists that cuts must be made. But when the generals do their money shine, Congress just grins and applauds . . . and freely tosses out the tax payers' dollars as if they were their own to keep the war machine rolling. As Chris Hedges' "The Disease of Permanent War" (Information Clearing House) observes:

In "Pentagon Capitalism" Seymour Mellman described the defense industry as viral. Defense and military industries in permanent war, he wrote, trash economies. They are able to upend priorities. They redirect government expenditures towards their huge military projects and starve domestic investment in the name of national security. We produce sophisticated fighter jets, while Boeing is unable to finish its new commercial plane on schedule and our automotive industry goes bankrupt. We sink money into research and development of weapons systems and neglect renewable energy technologies to fight global warming. Universities are flooded with defense-related cash and grants, and struggle to find money for environmental studies. This is the disease of permanent war.

"I am going to put the balance of my statement in the record," said Senator Carl Levin, chair of the Armed Services Committee, "because we have votes at 10:00 this morning so that means that we have even less time than usual." Levin's statement can be found here and he stopped reading from it after "I also note the presence of several non-commissioned officers behind our witnesses; we look forward to their introduction." If you thought his stopping so soon would indicate a sense of urgency, you were wrong. There was time for many more rounds of applause and many more jokes. (Including ones about the "rakish" Senator Daniel Akaka.)

For a change, General Casey had rehearsed his opening statement (as evidenced by his not referring to it during his opening and his relying on it only occasionally throughout). "Chairman," Casey began, "last year, I think you'll recall, in my testimony I said that the army was out of balance. That we were so weighed down by our current commitments that we couldn't do the things we know we need to do to sustain this all volunteer force and the strategic flexibility to do other things. I can tell you that we have made progress over the last year in putting ourselves back in balance but we're not out of the woods yet." Of course not. Were the army out of the woods then the monies requested wouldn't be 'necessities' and 'urgently needed,' right?

As they ask for ever more money and insist is so needed because the military is so stretched, any reasonable person would, at some point, start to ask, "Well instead of throwing even more money at it each year, why don't we start pulling these overseas troops and bringing them back home?" If you spend more money than you have on clothes one week, you probably should consider not buying any in the following weeks. But for the military, every day is buy a fun frock day. And the Congress is more than happy to keep shelling out Americans' money instead of pointing out that the United States could save a great deal of money by ending the military 'adventures' in Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere).

In strength targets for 2012 so that gives us a big lift

Casey: One of the reasons it gives us a lift is because it allows us to begin coming off of stop-loss this year. And several months ago the Secretary of the Defense announced the plan where the reserve component would begin deploying units without stop-loss in August, the National Guard in September, and the active force in January of 2010. This puts us on track to achieve our goal of being able to deploy our modular formations without stop-loss by 2011. The second key objective was to increase the time our soldiers spend at home. And I will tell you, after two years in this job, I am more and more convinced that this is the single most important element of putting ourselves back in balance. It's important from several perspectives. One is so that the soldiers have time to recover from these repeated combat deployments. What we're seeing across the force are the cumulative effect of repeated deployments. Secondly, it gives them a more stable preparation time for the next mission. When you're only home for a year, you're barely had time to take your leave before you're preparing to go back again. And third, it gives soldiers time to begin training for other things to do things beyond the regular warfare training that they're doing for Iraq and Afghanistan. Now I will tell you back in 2007, that I didn't think we would quite get to one year back, two years out by 2011. With the president's draw down plan, if it's executed as has been laid out, we will actually do a little better than that. So I am quite hopeful that if we execute that plan, we will make a big difference here in putting us back in balance.

Stop-loss is included because we have focused on that. And because so many in the press wanted to get Gates announcement wrong. For example, this was written by a reporter back when Gates made his announcement: "Stop loss now can be dropped in part because the U.S. signed a status of forces agreement with Iraq late last year that calls for a U.S. withdrawal by the end of 2011." What? That never made sense. Stop loss was supposed to be over by the start of 2011 at the lastest. But goodness weren't there a lot of Miss Cleos and Barack Whores in the media. Ann Scott Tyson's "Army to Phase Out 'Stop-Loss' Practice" (Washington Post) was one of the few 'reports' that actually qualified as reporting. Casey made it clear that it was meeting their target goals that was allowing them to meet the stop-loss goals that Gates set last March.

Dwell time is included because it's important and because Casey's statements were apparently too honest and required that the army rush out a scrub version of his comments. This is what Casey said:

Now I will tell you back in 2007, that I didn't think we would quite get to one year back, two years out by 2011. With the president's draw down plan, if it's executed as has been laid out, we will actually do a little better than that. So I am quite hopeful that if we execute that plan, we will make a big difference here in putting us back in balance.

This is what the army's press release claims he stated:

In 2007, based on what I thought the force structure would be over the next four years. I thought we wouldn't get quite to one year out, two years back by 2011. If we execute the president's Iraq drawdown plan, and I have no reason to doubt we will, we will actually do better and actually get to the 1/2 or even better ratio -- we have to do that.

That is not what he stated. Maybe he should have read his prepared statement word for word? The army maintains this quote is from his prepared statement). What you had, before the committee, was a general offering testimony and being much less of lackey than our press corps. Casey's actual comments re: the 'plan' were accurate. Why the army felt the need to rush in with statements that were not made goes to a frantic worry on the part of someone. "I have no reason to doubt we will"? That's hilarious. The closest Casey came to the topic again was during his exchange with Senator Susan Collins and, no, he didn't say it then either. He did say, in response to Collins' concern that the dwell time targets would not be met "if we didn't execute that plan. I would say that Secretary Gates has left the door open to go back and reconsider building those three brigades that were left out -- that will not build now if the situation in the future looks like that was not a good decision so the door is open for us to do that." For them to build three brigades if the draw down does not take place or if it starts and it's decided to stop it.

Staying with dwell time, we'll note the following exchange between Casey and independent (no declared political party) Senator Joe Lieberman on dwell time.

Joe Lieberman: And your goal for the army for dwell time would be what?

George Casey: My short term goal for '11 is 1 year out, 2 years back. I would like to ultimately get the army to the point where it was one year out, three years back for the active force and one year out, five years back for the Guard and Reserves.
Joe Lieberman: Okay, so by the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2010, which would be fiscal year eleven, you'd like to see us get to one year out, two years back? Is that right?

George Casey: That is correct, senator.

Joe Lieberman: Okay. And what are the numbers now, just to have it on the record? What's the dwell time now?

George Casey: Right now we're -- for the active force, we're sitting right between 1 to 1.5 and a little less.

Joe Lieberman: Right. Okay so well below -- well below. And am I correct that we expect for the rest of this year to have to increase deployments? In other words, the path we're on in Afghanistan and Iraq together, the net effect will be an increase in deployments out for the remainder of this year?

George Casey: Correct Senator, by about 10,000 before we start to come down.

Joe Lieberman: Okay. And that's a significant number. So in that sense, there'll be more pressure on dwell time from now until the end of the year just because of the suppy and demand you talked about. As I understand it -- incidentally to say something very briefly, I think you're so right when you say that dwell time is a key because it is so clear that you and we are trying our best and, I think, doing better at the quality of life of the people in our army and their families housing, benefits, etc, etc. But if the supply of the army is less than the demand for the army then this critical factor of how long our soldiers are going to be home simply can't go up. And from the point of view -- a military point of view -- retraining, etc. rest and of course for the human element of being with their families. Now I understand that we're in a very unusual moment here which is that because recruitment is going so well and re-enlistments are so high that the authorized strength of the army is 547,000-plus. We actually have an army now that's about 549,000. Is that correct?

George Casey: It is and actually senator for this year, '09, that we're in for a few more months, it's actually 532,000.

Joe Lieberman: Yeah, it's 532,000 authorized plus the waiver of about 3% so it takes up to 547 we've got more than that now.

That's included for the numbers and for dwell time. Lieberman's proposing funding approximately $400,000 million to allow 2% to remain in the military through the end of the year. Remember, they never worry about shaving the bills the tax payers pay, they just trying to find ways to add more to the bill. Over and over.

Geren and Casey submitted [PDF format warning] "A Statement On The Posture Of The United States Army 2009." This 20 page 'greeting' wasn't put together by Hallmark. "Looking ahead, we see an era of persistent conflict," it cheerfully informs in the opening letter and, on page one of the report, they elaborate that not only will it be persistent, it will be "more ambiguous and unpredicatable than in the past." That's due, they assert, to such factors as globalization (Barack and Thomas Friedman rush to object) which "has increased interdependence and prosperity in man parts of the world. It also has led to greater disparities in wealth which set conditions that can foster conflict"; technology; population growth; increasing demand for resources and more. Increasing demand for resources? Who ever heard of a country going to war for resources? Name one country that ever went to war for resources, just one that -- Oh, yeah. But don't we all pretend like resource wars never happen? Or that they only took place in the distant past?

In the hearing, there were a few moments on Iraq. Senator Jack Reed asked about it in terms of the drawing down of some forces.

Jack Reed: How does this work in Iraq? As you pull out brigade combat teams, you no longer have that brigade structure. You'll have embeded training teams that won't be operating with their brigades -- they'll be with Iraqi brigades. That's a different sort of species?
George Casey: You're right senator. As the draw down comes it will be a mix of units that have external teams and then units that have their own teams and then that will gradually to the six advise and assist brigades that will be remaining 2010 and they'll be organized as I said.

George Casey must have been on Red Bull. The general's never been so animated in hearing. He offered the trademark Diana Ross & the Surpremes "Stop In The Name Of Love" gesture (before you break the bank? think it over, think it over) frequently and also, on the above quote, he did this sort of Bela Lugosi meets "Tiny Bubbles" repetitive move with both hands. Kat's planning on covering an exchange between Senator Saxby Chambliss and Geren when she posts at her site tonight.

Monday, May 11th, Sgt John M. Russell appears to have shot five US service members in Baghdad at a stress clinic. The five killed were Charles K. Springle, Michael Edward Yates, Christian Bueno-Galdos, Matthew Houseal and Jacob Barton. If you're wondering, the hearing had gone on for over sixty minutes before the shooting was brought up. Senator Kay Hagan noted the late Charles K. Springle, how he was a heatlh care provider and asked, "What are you doing to be sure a situation like that doesn't happen again?" Casey replied, "We -- uh -- that is being -- is being studied and the lessons learned from that will be circulated widely throughout the army. There's several ongoing investigations that will inform us about -- about it was a tragic incident." Hagen was told "every brigade has a behavioral health care professional that works with the commander". In other news on the shooting, Richard Tompkins (UPI) reports that Russell is now at camp Arifjan in Kuwait "for futher questioning and legal processing." Tompkins notes Russell has been "charged with five counts of murder and one of aggravated assault."

The draw down was mentioned, alluded to and assumed by the bulk of the US senators throughout the hearing. Rod Nordland (New York Times) has already raised issues about the realities of that 'binding' Status Of Forces Agreement. Today Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor -- link is text but there's also a brief audio from Arraf) joins him reporting:

On a map of Baghdad, the US Army's Forward Operating Base Falcon is clearly within city limits.
Except that Iraqi and American military officials have decided it's not. As the June 30 deadline for US soldiers to be out of Iraqi cities approaches, there are no plans to relocate the roughly 3,000 American troops who help maintain security in south Baghdad along what were the fault lines in the sectarian war.
"We and the Iraqis decided it wasn't in the city," says a US military official. The base on the southern outskirts of Baghdad's Rasheed district is an example of the fluidity of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) agreed to late last year, which orders all US combat forces out of Iraqi cities, towns, and villages by June 30.
"We consider the security agreement a living document," says a senior US commander. With six weeks to go, US and Iraqi commanders are sitting down in joint security committees to determine how they can comply with the decree that all US combat forces withdraw from populated areas by the end of June and still maintain the requirement to assist Iraq in fighting the insurgency and maintaining security and stability.

Two reporters reporting truthfully. Staying with the subject of reporters, yesterday's snapshot noted Sahar S. Gabriel, an Iraqi journalist who worked for the New York Times and is now a refugee in the US, writing about her search for employment. Today another Iraqi journalist for the Times who is now a refugee in the US, Mudhafar al-Husseini, writes at the Committee to Protect Journalists about navigating the United States:

With this new lesson, I flew from Atlanta to Denver on my way to Tucson . I felt very lucky because a lot of people offered to help me settle in. Many of these people are current and former employees of The New York Times who had heard about my story through Erica. She tried her best to help me because she knew what I was going through in Baghdad. She was like a mother to me and for some reason, I felt like a son to her--that's why I could open up with her and tell her my stories. I confided in her, and she could sense the sorrow--the sorrow of my lost youth--just by looking into my eyes when we were working together in Baghdad . She just knew that I was forced to accept my life in Iraq ; the main goal of this life was to survive your day.
I arrived at the Tucson airport and my new American family was waiting for me there. Lew Serviss, a former senior editor at The New York Times and a professor at the University of Arizona 's School of Journalism, and his wife, Naomi, a freelance journalist, were to become like my parents in America . I felt as though I had known them for a long time. They overwhelmed me with their kindness; I felt like a little child between them. Ford Burkhart, a former New York Times foreign desk editor, is like a godfather to me because he has wisdom and kindness at the same time. He even held up a sign when I walked out of the airport gate that said "Welcome Mudhafar" spelled in Arabic. Aram Mohammed, a young Iraqi who works with the International Rescue Committee is my case worker, was also there to greet me. He's only been in the U.S. a few years himself.
When I was told in Baghdad that I was approved to go to America and specifically to Tucson , I quietly sneaked onto one of the computers in the Times newsroom to Google this city that I'd never heard of before. The first thing I saw was the saguaro cactus, which I had seen only in movies or cartoons. I was surprised when I saw them standing outside the airport as if they were petrified humans--giant green forms with arms that seemed to beckon. "Can this be real?" I said to myself, as I examined the cactus and thought of the ones in the cartoons. It was one of the funniest moments I'd had in a long time.

Meanwhile Alsumaria reports, "Around 30 Iraqi asylum seekers who sought refugee in a church in Copenhagen moved on Sunday to another church in a district crowded by Iraqi refugees in protest to an agreement reached last Thursday between Denmark and Iraq to repatriate refugees whom asylum applications were rejected."

Turning to Iraq. Ernesto Londono (Washington Post) covers the 'economic downturn' for Iraq and potential concerns that result. This one is probably the most telling:U.S. officials say they fear the budget crunch will prevent the Iraqi government from keeping billions of dollars' worth of U.S.-donated equipment in working condition, representing a potentially colossal loss for a key American investment.Not a lot of sympathy for Iraq's corrupt government which has spent billions in the last month on weapons. While al-Maliki & company bemoan their financial woes, Carl Motished (Times of London) notes "squabbling Baghdad politicians" could be part of a group to derail and $8 billion (in US dollars) "investment by Pearl Petroleum in Kurdish Iraq". Motished observes, "There is jealousy in Baghdad over the upstart Kurdish regional government's success in developing an independent oil industry. Baghdad initially blustered over exploration licences for tiny foreign explorers in Kurdistan, arguing that the Kurds were giving away too much oil profit to foreigners." Meanwhile IRIN reports on more apparent corruption:A new survey by the Ministry of Planning and Development Cooperation of 120,000 families which had qualified for state food handouts in 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces, found that 18 percent of families had not received the nine-item food ration for 13 months; 31.5 percent for 7-12 months; 14.5 percent for 4-6 months; 22 percent for 2-3 months and 14.5 percent for one month.The survey also revealed concerns about the quality of food items: 16 percent of the surveyed families said the ration items in April were bad, 45 percent said they acceptable, while 29 percent said they were good.Top on the list of bad items was tea, followed by rice, flour and sugar, the survey found.


Bombings?

AFP notes a Taji roadside bombing which claimed 2 lives, a Jarf Skha roadside bombing which injured one "local Sahwa chief". Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report a missile attack on the Green Zone today

Shootings?

AFP notes the US military stated today that a US soldier killed 1 Iraqi civilian at a checkpoint over a failure to stop. The US military statement reads: "MOSUL, Iraq -- An Iraqi civilian was killed in an escalation of force incident with U.S. Coalition forces in the neighborhood of Al Dawasa, Mosul, Iraq, May 18. The vehicle drove through a joint traffic control point conducted by Coalition forces and members of the Iraqi Emergency Response Brigade and continued toward the parked Coalition vehicles. Coalition forces signaled for the vehicle to stop. The vehicle continued its approach, forcing CF to fire at it, killing the driver. The vehicle struck one of the Coalition vehicles. Coalition forces cordoned the area after the incident and a local ambulance transported the body to the Mosul General hospital."

Jeremy Scahill was a guest (briefly) on Democracy Now! (link has text, audio and video) today and he addressed the issue of torture. We'll note an excerpt and I'm deleting Jeremy's praise for Scott Horoton. Journalists (Schahill) are general studies major and they'd do well to stick to what they know. Scott Horton is not a Constitutional Law expert. In fact, he would have been laughed out the first semester of Constitutional Law (and I would have been the first to point and laugh at him). He does not teach Constitutional Law at Columbia where he's a lecturer-in-law. Marjorie Cohn (whom we no longer highlight after she went bat s**t nuts following Keith Olbermann's meme on Hillary) is a Constitutional Law expert. Michael Ratner is another Constitutional Law expert. Every attorney is not and Scott Horton's expertise is not Constitutional Law. Anyone who took even one semester of Constitutional Law would grasp that. Journalists need to try sticking to the facts. Scotty is Council of/for/from Foreign Relations and that doesn't trouble Jeremy but it would have troubled Amy's audience if they'd been informed of it. (Scotty's also the topic of Stan's post from yesterday. Stan and Mike have had it with Little Scotty and that's nothing compared to the members of Congress who no longer rush to hear from the 'crazy.') Repeating: Scott Horton is not a Constitutional Law expert. Stick to the facts, Jeremy.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, describe what you call as this "little known military thug squad."

JEREMY SCAHILL: When the Bush administration established the US prison camp at Guantanamo, of course, we know well that they set up a system where detainees were going to be systematically tortured. And, of course, Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats were briefed on this program, despite what they're saying right now.
And while much of the focus has been on the tactical use of torture at Guantanamo, almost no attention had been paid to a parallel force that was torturing prisoners in a variety of ways, including waterboarding them, and that is this riot squad of sorts that you referred to called the Immediate Reaction Force. The prisoners and their lawyers at Guantanamo call it the "Extreme Repression Force."
And basically what this is is a thug squad that is used to mercilessly punish prisoners who show the slightest bit of resistance or who do things that technically they're not supposed to do, infractions like having two Styrofoam cups in their cell instead of one. Guards will call in this goon squad. They come in with their Darth Vader outfits, and they literally gang-beat prisoners. There are five men, generally, that are sent in. Each of them is assigned to one body part of the prisoner: the head, the left arm, the right arm, the left leg, the right leg. They go in, and they hogtie the prisoner, sometimes leaving them hogtied for hours on end. They douse them with chemical agents. They have put their heads in toilets and flushed the toilets repeatedly. They have urinated on the heads of prisoners. They've squeezed their testicles in the course of restraining them. They've taken the feces from one prisoner and smeared it in the face of another prisoner. And while Barack Obama, almost immediately upon taking office, issued an executive order saying he was going to close down Guantanamo within a year and that he was going to respect the Geneva Convention while his administration reviewed Guantanamo, this force has continued to operate and torture prisoners under the Obama administration. In fact, in February of this year, about a month after Obama was inaugurated, there were sixteen prisoners on a hunger strike at Guantanamo. The Immediate Response -- or Immediate Reaction Force was used to go in and violently shove massive tubes down their noses into their stomachs. And what the IRF teams, as they're called -- when they beat someone, it's called IRF-ing, or to be IRF-ed up by these teams. They would use no anesthetics or any painkillers, shove this massive tube by force down their nose into their stomach and then yank it out. Some prisoners have described this as torture, torture, torture. And many have passed out from the sheer pain of this operation. This force has received almost no scrutiny in the US Congress or the US media and operates at this moment.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you know about this?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I discovered these teams, because I've been covering the investigation being done by Judge Baltasar Garzon in Spain into the Bush torture system. What's interesting is that the most aggressive investigation at this point into the Bush war crimes is being done an ocean away in Madrid. And I came across a story of a prisoner named Omar Deghayes, and he is one of the four people that is cited directly in the Spanish investigation as having been tortured by the United States. He's originally Libyan, is a British resident and is one of the subjects of Baltasar Garzon's investigation. Omar Deghayes was repeatedly IRF-ed, was repeatedly abused by one of these squads. And so, when I came across this reference to this team that he was referring to in his testimony, I started to look into it and realized that there has been a multi-year pattern of abuse on the part of this team. And yet, the only time when it's really made any kind of a flash in the corporate media was when a US soldier, a young guy named Sean Baker, who was a Gulf War vet, was participating in a training exercise in Guantanamo in January of 2003, where he was ordered, he says, by his superiors to dress up in an orange jumpsuit and play the part of a restive or combative detainee at Guantanamo. He was told that the team that was going to come in to handle him knew that he was a US soldier, knew that it was a training drill, and he was given a word, a codeword, "red," that when he said it, the beating was supposed to stop, or the subduing of him was supposed to stop. When he was in the cell, the team comes in. He describes them just mercilessly beating him, and he's yelling out "Red!" and they continue to beat him, even after he then said, "I'm a US soldier! I'm a US soldier!" He describes how one of his fellow soldiers continued to beat him. That young man, Sean Baker, has permanent brain damage, suffers from multiple seizures, and had actually sued Rumsfeld and other officials because of his treatment. So you had a flash, a moment in time in 2005, where this case came to public light, because of this lawsuit brought by a US soldier.
[. . .]
And let's be clear here, you read the New York Times today, and you realize that despite Obama's rhetoric about how he's going to reform the military tribunal system, we understand that it's all cosmetic changes. The fact is, torture continues at Guantanamo. The place has not shut down. Interestingly, Ari Fleischer, the former propaganda chief for the Bush administration, said the other day, quite clearly, that he doesn't believe Obama, in any universe, is going to be able to shut down Guantanamo in a year. So, Amy, as far as I can tell from this in-depth investigation, we see the status quo alive and well, and it's very, very damaging to the US Constitution, international law and the lives of these prisoners who remain in legal limbo.

I noted Jeremy this morning and noted he needs to stick to the facts on Nancy Pelosi. Three community members e-mailed about a take he has on Bill Clinton. That's largely rooted in the facts and his intrepretation is his call. You can disagree with it or not. But if he's allowing Bill Fletcher Jr. to identify Bill Clinton as a "neo liberalist," it is required -- according to journalism guidelines -- that Bill Fletcher Jr.'s politics be identified. They never are. But CounterSpin will always put Bill on to screech about alleged modern day "McCarthyism!" Fletch, if you're going to label your opponents, you need to fess up to your own politics. (Hint, Bill Fletcher Jr. is not a Democrat. Nothing wrong with that but don't hide in a political closet while hissing at others.)

Bill Fletcher Jr.'s Dream Lover Barack Obama launched another attack on abortion rights yesterday. Sunsara Taylor (World Can't Wait) notes:


When it comes to abortion, there is ONLY ONE moral question: Will women be fully emancipated human beings in control of their lives and reproduction OR will we be forced to submit to patriarchal male authority and to breed against our will.
A woman who cannot decide for herself, without any shame, judgment or restrictions, when and whether she chooses to have a child, has no more freedom than a slave.
The movement to forcibly deny women the right to abortion and to birth control is a movement to enslave women. With its aims, its methods, and its morality, there can be no compromise.

At her site, Susan (Random Thoughts) notes World Socialist Web Site's insightful commentary on Barack's attack:

Instead, in what has become this administration's standard operating procedure, Obama opted for an approach that was as spineless as it was reactionary. The central premise of his speech was that the views of those who would deny citizens their democratic rights are no less deserving of respect than those who seek to secure and defend those rights. He approached the issue of abortion as if this legal right should be perpetually subject to negotiation between those who seek to exercise their rights and those who would deny women the protection of the law.
Obama's indifferent attitude toward the defense of democratic rights was not confined to the issue of abortion. In a statement whose reactionary implications grows clearer with each reading, Obama declared: "The soldier and the lawyer may both love this country with equal passion, and yet reach very different conclusions on the specific steps needed to protect us from harm. The gay activist and the evangelical pastor may both deplore the ravages of HIV/AIDS, but find themselves unable to bridge the cultural divide that might unite their efforts. Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in an admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son's or daughter's hardships can be relieved."
What is Obama's point? That the general who favors martial law "to protect us from harm" has a view that is as legitimate as that of the lawyer who defends the Bill of Rights? That the views of the evangelical pastor whose hateful sermons encourage anti-gay discrimination are to be seen as a valuable contribution to the national discourse? And, finally, that some sort of common ground should be found between those who oppose stem cell research and those whose children may die because of such reactionary efforts? Why is opposition to stem cell research, rooted in ignorance and hostility to science, being praised by the president as "an admirable conviction about the sacredness of life"?
On the issue of abortion itself, Obama tacitly implied that women who undergo this procedure are engaged in disreputable activity, and that the moral high ground is held by the opponents of abortion. He declared: "Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound science, but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women."


iraq
evan brightsteven d. green brett barrouqueredave alsupcnn
the washington postann scott tyson
alsumariachris hedges
mcclatchy newspapershussein kadhimjane arraf
ernesto londono
democracy nowjeremy scahill
sunsara taylor
kats kornermikey likes itoh boy it never ends

Pretzeling it Sonoma State style

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "The Cult of St. Barack Hold Feet to the Fire" went up last night.



Hilarious as always and if you doubt the pretzel power of the Cult of St. Barack, you obvioulsy missed Sonoma State's 'professor' Cynthia Boaz on KPFA's Flashpoints Friday.

Cynthia wants to use her 'professorship' to be taken seriously. A word of advice, dear, if you want to be taken seriously, GET YOUR PRETZELS OUT OF MY FACE.

Clear enough for you, Cyn?

No one needs to see them. Want to be considered a professional? Act like one. That means no more of you pretzel posting on Facebook. No one needs to see those. You teach young adults, try acting like a professional. If that's too damn hard for you, find another profession.

I'm not suggesting you grab a pretzel and start dancing -- your breasts honestly aren't all that, despite your desire to flaunt them -- I'm just saying if you want to work in an academic environment and be over young adults, you act like a professional or take your happy pretzel some where else.

Cynthia Boaz is a PRETZEL of huge proportions. In fact, when the Cult stages their sacrifice, you kind of picture Cynthia (pretzels bouncing) hollering, "Take me! Take me!"

With Barack caving on military tribunals, Don't Ask, Don't Tell and torture photos, Cynthia is worried . . . that people are being too negative to him.

They shouldn't pressure him, you understand, they should support him.

Cynthia is nothing but a DUMB PRETZEL.

We listened to that on Friday because a friend of C.I.'s (who is a real professor at Somona State) called C.I.'s cell and insisted we had to catch the broadcast. We'd already missed so we streamed Friday night from the archives. It really was something. I asked the professor, "Is she as pretzel as she sound?" I was informed, "More. Even more."

Now let me get this straight, the Cult of St. Barack told us that they couldn't hold Barry O's feet to the fire during the Democratic Party primaries because he had to win but they'd hold his feet to the fire soon. Then, in the general election, the PRETZEL refused to hold his feet to the fire because he had to win. Now he's in the White House and he's given us months of selling out and along comes DUMB PRETZEL Cynthia Boaz to tell us that we can't pressure Barack and we can't criticize him?

Grow the f**king hell up, Pretzel.

Truly.

Buy a pretzel (one that fits, you're buying one a size too small to look more endowed -- and any woman looking at you can suss that out right away) and grow the hell up.

Stop posting cheesecakse photos online and grow the hell up.

It's no surprise that Cynthia Boaz is a DUMB PRETZEL. During the presidential election, it was too 'hard' for alleged professor Cynthia to take on Sarah Palin. So, not willing to do the work, she decided to take on Margaret Atwood's fictional characters. She turned in a book report that only demonstrated how miniscule her grasp of logic is.

Cynthia Boaz and any other PRETZEL from the Cult of St. Barack needs to be called out when they start this pretzeling.

Of course she self-labels a "progressive." That's what her kind does.

She is an academic disgrace and I'd love to know who at Somona didn't do the basic web search that would have prevented her from being hired.

The Pretzel Professor. It's not a film I'd choose to see and I have to wonder about a person in a position of authority with young, impressionable adults who makes a decision to present herself in such a lurid manner. But, hey, it goes with the airhead voice, right?


"On Abortion, Obama and Notre Dame: No 'Common Ground' With Fascists and Women-Haters! Abortion on Demand and Without Apology!" (Sunsara Taylor, World Can't Wait):
When it comes to abortion, there is ONLY ONE moral question: Will women be fully emancipated human beings in control of their lives and reproduction OR will we be forced to submit to patriarchal male authority and to breed against our will?
A woman who cannot decide for herself, without any shame, judgment or restrictions, when and whether she chooses to have a child, has no more freedom than a slave.
The movement to forcibly deny women the right to abortion and to birth control is a movement to enslave women. With its aims, its methods, and its morality, there can be no compromise.

There can be no compromise. That's exactly right. Abortion-rights are being sold out and I did find Barry O's comments that we shouldn't 'demonize' our opponents laughable considering his remarks about Hillary being "blue" "periodically" and his little stab motion in the speech where he dusts off his shoulders and, well bascially his entire campaign against her.

"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Monday, May 18, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, al-Maliki airs the latest in his thugs' taped 'confessions,' tensions escalate in northern Iraq, questions about counter-insurgency rattle the cage, Steven D. Green's sentencing hearing continues and someone's not showing (besides the media), and more.



Starting with the War Crimes trial. Steven D. Green was convicted two Thursdays ago in the gang-rape of 14-year-old Iraqi Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, her murder, the murder of her five-year-old sister and the murders of both of her parents. Since then, the jury has been hearing testimony they will weigh when determining his sentencing. Green could receive the death penalty; however, all 12 jurors would have to vote to sentence him to death. If that does not happen, he is facing life in prison. No testimony was heard on Friday. The hearing resumed today and Evan Bright reports that the witnesses included "Noah Galloway again & Roman Catholic Deacon Peter Houck & Steven Green's aunt, Patti Ruth." And he reports that, contrary to rumors two weeks ago, "Green's mother, will - not -be testifying because she 'is moving out this week and has plans for a going away party'." Of the aunt's testimony, he reports:

The final witness to testify today was Patricia Ruth, Steven's aunt, and sister to John Green, Steven's dad. Her daughter is Suzi Woolsey, who testified last Thursday. She spoke of Roxanne being a flamboyant and outgoing person who "lived in her own world." She contrasted in that she herself was "strict" on her children, whereas Roxanne was "the opposite" with hers. "She wanted her children to be individuals and live an unstructured life," she told the jury. She said that as a child, Steven was "always the kid who wanted to know 'why?,' and he was also very hyper active. He was like having a squirrel loose in the house." When Pat Bouldin asked if she still loved Green, she had to retrieve tissues for her tears before answering, "I'm like a second mother to him, he's my Stevie...(pauses)...you can't just...stop loving someone, that you've always loved." She paused and thought for a moment before going on, "I don't know, I don't know how we got to spot...I don't know, we did not send a rapist and a murderer to Iraq."

Brett Barrouquere (AP) reports that the defense is expected to finish calling witnesses to the stand either Tuesday or Wednesday and that the jury will begin determining the sentence on Wednesday. CNN's Dave Alsop notes of Green, "He is a lanky 24-year-old. He looks lean, like he could grow a little more. Not really a man, but too old to be called a boy. Regardless, he is a convicted murder, rapist, and conspirator. The orange prison coveralls make him look a bit taller. The jury never sees Green in the fluorescent jumpsuit. Inside the federal courthouse there is a change of clothes." Sean Pavey (Party for Socialism and LIberation) observes, "Many in Madmuhiya were angry at the fact that the ex-soldier would be tried in the United States and not in Iraq. This fact, compounded with years of criminal occupation, has led most to doubt that Green will receive a just punishment." Evan Bright reported in depth on Thursday's proceedings in which a social worker gave some details of Green's life:

She spoke of Roxanne's relationship with Doug. "She made Doug a best friend, and a confidant," she said. This occurred more so during the periods of time when Roxanne lacked a significant male friend or boyfriend or husband. "She turned Doug into a substitute male...which gives that male too much power. She shared too much with him. She empowered him as the enforcer of the house, she put him in charge." Doug was also extremely abusive. "Doug was mentally, physically, and emotionally abusive to Steve and Danielle." The court has already heard testimony about Danielle taking three trips to the emergency room due to injuries suffered from Doug, something I left out of the blog previously. "Roxanne felt that Steve deserved Doug's abuse." She talked about Roxanne actually missing Steve's graduation from basic training. She ended by talking about the end result. "The accumulation of tumultuous events in his life made him into Steven Green."


In Iraq, Sam Dagher (New York Times) sketches the continued rise of tensions in northern Iraq -- what "American officials have long feared" if they flare up into armed conflict -- as the Kurds are, in the eyes of the newly Sunni dominant provincial government, attempting to expand their territory and as, in the Kurds' eyes, they are under assault from the new provincial government as well as the central government out of Baghdad. Dagher reviews multiple incidents in recent days where mobility has been vastly limited -- even for the governor of the province -- as a result of these tension and Dagher notes, "The American military has played down the significance of the recent Kurdish actions." Nada Bakri (Washington Post) adds, "For U.S. officials, Mosul and the province [Nineveh] rival even Kirkuk, the long-disputed oil-rich city along the same frontier, in volatility." Tim Cocks (Reuters) observes, "In Nineveh province, the most violent corner of Iraq today, Kurds have refused to participate in a new Arab-led provincial government, and several Kurdish towns vow they will not respect the new government in the war-shattered provincial seat, Mosul." Alsumaria notes, "In a step seen as an escalation of the dispute between the central and Kurdish governments over the control of oil resources, Oil Minister Hussein Al Shahristani rejected Kurdistan oil export plan." As the tensions mount, Jacques Clement (AFP) reports that the country will conduct a census and this will include Kirkuk. Kirkuk was supposed to have a census and a referendum by the end of 2007 according to Iraq's Constitution.


Meanwhile Aseel Kami, Muhanad Mohammed, Mohammed Abbas and Alison Williams (Reuters) report that Iraq will hold national elections January 30th. Yes, these are the elections which were supposed to be held in December. Yes, these are the elections that Barack's used as his excuse for breaking his promise to withdraw one brigade a month from Iraq. (He made that promise in a debate . . . after Hillary Clinton had made the promise immediately before him.) AFP adds that Khalid al-Attiya, Deputy Speaker of Parliament, confirms that the date will be January 30th and notes that December 15, 2005 was when Parliamentary elections were last held.

The elections will create their own set of tensions (and rumors -- allegedly Nouri al-Maliki and his Dawa party have just broken with the Shi'ite bloc because allegedly they see it as a drag and think it will allow them to spin themselves as 'for all of Iraq'). Tensions continue between Turkey and Iraq with Turkey bombing northern Iraq. Hurriyet reports that Nouri is claiming that "cooperation and mutual understanding" between Iraq and Turkey are the key to resolving the issue of the PKK. Uh, no, Nouri. The PKK, identified as a terrorist organization by the US, the European Union, Turkey and Nouri among others, is a group of Kurds who believe in an independent, Kurdish controlled region of Turkey. Turkey and Iraq can cooperate fully. The PKK has little to no interest in that. They want an independent region in Turkey. While al-Maliki fluttered far from reality, Turkish President Abdullah Gul seemed more grounded yesterday when he addressed the topic in Damascus. Todays Zaman reports he stated the 'Kurdish question will be resolved by improving Turkey's democratic standards". Yonca Poyraz Dogan (Today's Zaman) interviewed Iter Turkmen -- politician and diplomats whose many posts and offices included Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1980 to 1983 -- about the statements made by Gul:

Yonca Poyraz Dogan: Were you expecting the president of Turkey to say that the country's most important problem is the Kurdish question?

Iter Turkmen: Yes. I would have expected it because he is a realist, and I very much appreciate the way he approaches the Turkey's difficult problems. He showed his pragmatism and realism with what he did to bring about normalization in Turkish-Armenian relations, for instance. It came to me as no surprise. I think it is the greatest failure of the Turkish Republic that it has not already found a settlement to this problem.

Yonca Poyraz Dogan: This issue has come onto the agenda of the government and the public many times in the past. However, the discussion stops after a while and promises are forgotten. Is there anything different about the current period?

Iter Turkmen: Yes, there is something different this time, because measures have been taken; TRT Ses [a state-run Kurdish-language television station] has been established. It is an important step. It is not exactly what the Kurds want, since they want their own television stations and there are some legal impediments to this at the present time. In addition to the president's approach, we have the discussion going on at the level of the civil society. In addition, the chief of general staff [Gen. İlker Başbuğ] contributed to that.

Yonca Poyraz Dogan: What did he really say about the Kurdish issue in his recent address?

Iter Turkmen: First of all, he underlined the importance of taking measures that will enable some of the PKK members to come down from the mountains.

Yonca Poyraz Dogan: Non-military measures?

Iter Turkmen: Non-military measures. He did not advocate a new law, but he said the present law could be implemented in a better way. The other thing he underlined was what he called the "people of Turkey," not the "Turkish people," meaning that there are grounds for different identities in the nation. This is the first time we heard something like that from the military. All these signs indicate that we are making some progress, at least in our minds, and that we are approaching the problem in a different manner, considering that we made terrible mistakes in the past.

Staying on the subject of those labeled terrorists, since April 23rd al-Maliki's band of bozos haven't been able to stop insisting that they captured the mythical Abu Omar al-Bagdadi. When asked, US officials (military and civilians) have taken a pass and usually fallen back on US General Ray Odierno's line that they have not seen al-Baghdadi. They still haven't met with him but all of Iraq's seen the prisoner -- whatever his name is. Al Jazeera notes, "The video released Monday appeared to show the same person as the photographs released after al-Baghdadi's reported arrest." Robert Woodward (Reuters) provides quotes from the 'confession' which is a joke. On the one hand, this person claims that he took orders from members (presumably high ranking ones) in the Ba'ath Party and on the other that the plan was move Iraq into "creating the core of an Islamic state." The Ba'ath Party was a secular party. Why would they have any interest in creating an Islamic state? Why? Well they wouldn't but Nouri might have an interest in promoting this lie. In fact, he's promoted it over. Coup! Ba'ath Party trying to take over! Usama Redha and Liz Sly (Los Angeles Times) observe, "Many are skeptical about the claim that the man is Baghdadi because similar past claims by authorities have turned out to be false. The U.S. military says it cannot confirm the man's identity, and a man claiming to be Baghdadi posted an audiotape on a jihadi website last week insisting that he is still free." What's really amazing is that these show-confessions are reported as normal when they're anything but. The press is fully aware that 'confessions' often result from torture in Iraq. (Often? We're being kind.) Regardless of the means by which this nonsense is arrived at, this broadcasting of confessions needs to be called out. This has been going on all along and the only thing that will stop it is when the world makes a point of letting Nouri know how much of a monster this continued practice makes him look like.

Just as it's amazing to watch the press treat the airing of confessions by people with no legal counsel, it's equally amazing to watch the press treat counter-insurgency as the Holy Grail -- non-Monty Python division. The RAND Corporation's Celeste Ward wrote "Countering the Military's Latest Fad" (Washington Post) which is not a call to arms to dismantle counter-insurgency programs. Even so, paragraphs like the following were upsetting to some:

Counterinsurgency doctrine is on the verge of becoming an unquestioned orthodoxy, a far-reaching remedy for America's security challenges. But this would be a serious mistake. Not all future wars will involve insurgencies. Not even all internal conflicts in unstable states -- which can feature civil wars, resource battles or simple lawlessness -- include insurgencies. Yet COIN is the new coin of the realm, often considered the inevitable approach to fighting instability in foreign lands. Now the Pentagon is shifting its budget and seeking to "rebalance" U.S. military power in order to institutionalize counterinsurgency doctrine. Clearly some of these capabilities are needed, but like many useful concepts that gain currency in Washington, counterinsurgency risks being taken too far, distracting us from other threats, challenges and strategic debates.

Just merely questioning if counter-insurgency could be used everywhere was enough to earn a rebuke from Thomas E. Ricks who pronounces the column "dumb." Dumb? One would think she'd asked the American people to think whether counter-insurgency should be used at all -- a question that needs to be asked. The American NAZIS (and Australians in America) behind this program are not being asked to explain their actions anymore than the doctors helping torture prisoners at the start of this decade were. We know how that turned out and this will turn out even worse because counter-insurgency works on an even larger scale. But no one must question counter-insurgency, apparently, not even so mild a question as "Should it be used every where?" (The appropriate question is whether it should be used at all?)

Let's stay with the topic and bring in something else. How do you waste an hour of radio? Play a fool opposite foolish guests. Connect the Dots with Lila Garrett (KPFK) today found Garrett repeatedly mentioning counter-insurgency, never defining what it is and sticking with what supporters say it does as opposed to what history tells us that it does. Lila Garrett didn't intend to promote counter-insurgency but that's what her actions did. And, as the Shangri-Las once said, "That's called sad." Equally so Gareth Porter who tossed around turns like "manipulable" to explain why Barack's acting like a War Hawk. Barack's a War Hawk because he chooses to be. He's not being manipulated. He knows what is going on in Afghanistan (and Iraq), he is not confused. He is not being forced into doing a damn thing. Gareth Porter needs to put on a wig and a dress and start introducing himself as Elizabeth Edawards; however, when she tells her crazy tales of how John Edwards was "manipulable" into an affair, most of us just roll our eyes and look the other way. Gareth Porter would do well to grasp that he is not Mrs. Barack Obama and that it's really insulting to Barack to suggest that he (Barack) is so stupid he doesn't know what he's doing and is "manipulable" by the Pentagon because he is uninformed on "foreign policy." Gareth, grow up. Really. Barack chose his tuturs in foreign policy four years ago and chief among them is Samantha Power. The War Hawk. Why does Barack do what he does? Because he wants to. Who did he get his information from? Samantha Power. He's a War Hawk, she's a War Hawk. That's why they connected. That's why he then hooked up with Dennis Ross and Sarah Sewall. None of his decisions are surprising. They go to whom he sought out for foreign policy advice when he got into the Senate. Repeating, WHEN HE GOT INTO THE SENATE. It's too damn bad, Gareth, that you and the other Panhandle Media types didn't bother to do your damn job. It's too bad that all of you are too damn scared to take on Sammy Power. At some point you'll either grow a spine or learn to cheerlead all of these wars. Until then quit acting like Barack's your husband and you're the cheated on spouse. It's so pathetic, it's not even humorous. Between Gareth's Stand By Your Man moments and Lila's refusal to explore counter-insurgency despite repeatedly bringing it up, Connect the Dots was a complete waste of time. Including Marcy just starting her campaign and already putting both feet in her mouth as she postulated that maybe -- MAYBE -- Barack needed to be pushed a little. Way to wow 'em, Marcy. Why don't you just beg people to vote for Jane Harmen. It was an hour of idiocy. In the real world, Dahr Jamail takes on the myth of the 'kindly' Human Terrain Systems:The military's benign description specifies that HTS will "improve the military's ability to understand the highly complex local social-cultural environment in the areas where they are deployed." Proponents of the program go as far as to claim that its goal is to help the military save lives. Those who know better, like US Army Lt. Col. Gian Gentile, will tell you, "Don't fool yourself, these Human Terrain Teams, whether they want to acknowledge it or not, in a generalized and subtle way, do at some point contribute to the collective knowledge of a commander, which allows him to target and kill the enemy in the Civil War in Iraq." The two highest ethical principles of anthropology are protection of the interests of studied populations, and their safety. All anthropological studies consequently are premised on the consent of the subject society. Clearly, the HTS anthropologists have thrown these ethical guidelines out the window. They are to anthropology what state stenographers like Judith Miller and John Burns are to journalism. I consulted David Price, author of "Anthropological Intelligence: The Deployment and Neglect of American Anthropology in the Second World War" and a contributor to the Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual, a forthcoming work of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, of which he is a member.According to Price, "HTS presents real ethical problems for anthropologists, because the demands of the military in situations of occupation put anthropologists in positions undermining their fundamental ethical loyalties to those they study. Moreover, it presents political problems that link anthropology to a disciplinary past where anthropologists were complicit in assisting in colonial conquests. Those selling HTS to the military have misrepresented what culture is and have downplayed the difficulties of using culture to bring about change, much less conquest. There is a certain dishonesty in pretending that anthropologists possess some sort of magic beans of culture, and that if only occupiers had better cultural knowledge, or made the right pay-offs, then occupied people would fall in line and stop resisting foreign invaders. Culture is being presented as if it were a variable in a linear equation, and if only HTS teams could collect the right data variables and present troops with the right information conquest could be entered in the equation. Life and culture doesn't work that way; occupied people know they are occupied, and while cultural knowledge can ease an occupation, historically it has almost never led to conquest - but even if it could, anthropology would irreparably damage itself if it became nothing more than a tool of occupations and conquest."

Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report a Baghdad roadside bombing which left two people injured, a Kirkuk roadside bombing which claimed 1 life and left two people wounded and a Basra roadside bombing which left the son of "a high ranking officer" injured as well as "one of his colleagues". On the Basra bombing, Reuters states 1 "police lieutenant-colnoel" was killed -- he would be the high ranking officer -- while his son and two police officers were injured.


Saturday the US military announced: "CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE BASRA, Iraq -- A Multi-National Division- South Soldier was killed in action today in southern Iraq. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense. The incident is under investigation." The announcement brings to 4296 the number of US service members killed in the Iraq War since the start of the illegal war. That's four from the 4300 mark.

Sahar S. Gabriel was an Iraqi correspondent for the New York Times. She is one of the very few Iraqis to be accepted as a refugee in the United States. At the Times' Baghdad Bureau Blog earlier this month, she wrote about the difficulties she has in her job search:

It's no news that refugees are not quite the hot commodity here, although everyone in America came from somewhere else at some point. It would seem only logical to create some vacancies for new people, since they escaped their original country in search of new people, since they escaped their original country in search of a new beginning. [. . .]
Job applications are another story. I feel like I'm applying for the CIA. A detailed description of your job history, education, skills and three references if not more. I flash back to Baghdad where I applied for my first job with a short one paragrah resume.

And Elizabeth DiNovella (The Progressive) covers the topic of Iraqi refugees today and notes:

Conditions for Iraqis in Damascus and Amman are difficult. They are living in rented accommodations, for the most part. They are not able to work legally and often have trouble getting their children into schools. They have been living off of their savings for several years but now funds are running low.



iraq
evan brightsteven d. green
brett barrouqueredave alsupcnn
the new york timessam dagherthe washington postnada bakri
aseel kamimuhanad mohammedmohammed abbasallison williams
the los angeles timesliz slyusama redha
dahr jamail
sahar s. gabriel
elizabeth dinovella

Coward Zinn, Paul Street, Pancake Naomi

I called out Coward Zinn's awful banalities this week on Democracy Now! and now ZNet has posted that piece of crap. (Thank goodness I shot Michael down so, so many years ago.) Paul Street makes some comments and I'll highlight these:

Nice interview with a legitimate legend of the U.S. and world Left (and one of my intellectual heroes)...but: (1) let's go with "kicked out" and mention others kicked out since 1963 and today; (2) we don't need to talk to the president of the U.S. ("speaking truth to power" is a waste of time)... we need to talk to fellow citizens and eachother about the need to re-build the left and re-organize rank-and-file resistance and grassroots activism ---- what Zinn (in People's History and elsewhere) talks about as the only real source of progressive change; (3) asking a masterful politician like Obama to heed the call of a great social justice leader like King is (as Dr. Adolph Reed Jr. has argued) not that far from asking an apple to be an orange (4) a better analogy (chosen recently by Mike Davis on Bill Moyers show and still problematic) might be that true progressives should try to shame Obama leftward like Malcom X shamed the actually very cautious Dr. King; (5) while it would be useful to quote candidate Obama against president Obama on Iraq we should remember that candidate Obama never opposed the invasion of that country on principled grounds (as immoral, illegal, and imperialist) and made it quite clear to elite bodies (ie., The Council on Foreign Relations, The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Wilson Center and so on) that he was pretty much on board with the imperial agenda regarding Iraq and much more (and in fact he even said [in the summer of 2004] that he might well have voted to authorize Bush to invade if he'd been in the U.S Senate in the fall of 2002); (6) BO ran fairly openly on expanding violence in what he now calls "Af-Pak;" (7) it is an egregious under-statement to say that BO is "reluctant to endorse" single-payer!;

Poor Paul Street, thinking Zinn's still a heavy-lifter. He's like a 1979 high school senior just stepping out of a Wings concert, convinced he's seen the best band e-vuh!

Band on the run, Paul, band on the run.

Brand on the run?

How pathetic. Coward Zinn has nothing left to offer. Which is why some people should seriously consider retirement. He's now doing A Young People's History or whatever. He's going to squeeze as much cash out of his cow as he can.

I think the cash cow is drying up and that each of these efforts actually take the book away from something worth reading and turn it into a fad and a joke.

I keep waiting for the Joe Boxer line . . . A People's History Of Underwear.

If you ever needed to see an example of just how corrupt the 'independent' left is, it's 2009 and Amy Goodman's big 'gets' this week were Coward and the sad, sad Naomi Klein.

It's 2009, the decade is winding down. And they've refused to create new voices and spaces. Everyone they interview today they were interviewing before today.

How very sad.

As C.I. pointed out, Naomi had the heavy foundation on today. She must have had a bad acne outbreak to wear that heavy foundation. She looked ridiculous (and looked as if she hurried putting on the foundation/pancake) and someone needs to talk to her about how your neck and face are supposed to match. You can make up your neck or pick a natural foundation shade.

It's a choice you have to make.

I also agree with C.I. that Namoi is so disappointing today that there's very little to talk about other than her make up.

"Iraq snapshot" (The Common Ills):
Friday, May 15, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, Steven D. Green's War Crimes sentencing hearing takes a breather, Dahr Jamail offers some Iraq realities, US installed puppet Nouri gets even more power hungry, a War Hawk lowers his Iraq ambitions (probably to preach war for other regions) and more.

Steven D. Green was convicted two Thursdays ago in the gang-rape of 14-year-old Iraqi Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, her murder, the murder of her five-year-old sister and the murders of both of her parents. His sentence hearing is ongoing and yesterday was day four. Brett Barrouquere (AP) reports, "U.S. District Judge Thomas Russell told jurors they should have the case for deliberations by Wednesday. He then adjourned court until Monday, when the defense is expected to present more witnesses." Barrouquere has been covering this case for nearly three years and he's the only one who's filed a report on Thursday's court room proceedings.

If the defense continues to present witnesses as late as Wednesday morning they will have offered 7 days of testimony for the sentencing phase. The trial itself, to determine guilt or innocence, lasted only 8 days. The defense began their presentation May 4th and concluded it May 5th. They offered two days of witness testimony when the jury was to determine whether Green was guilty or innocent. (The jury found Green guilty on all counts.) By contrast, they have already spent twice that amount of time calling witnesses this week.Away from the jury, the defense suffered a setback this week. They'd filed a motion arguing that some of the counts Green was convicted of should be dropped. Judge Russell considered their motion and the motion filed by Marisa Ford arguing the prosecution's case.Yesterday Judge Thomas ruled, "Defendant has moved the Court to (1) dismiss and/or preclude sentencing on counts 3-10, alternatively to (2) dismiss and/or preclude sentencing on counts 13-15, and alternatively to (3) permit sentencing on one murder count per victim. The United States has responded (DN 247). This matter is now ripe for adjudication. For the reasons that follow, Defendant's Motion is DENIED."The motion by the defense was a head scratcher since the time to make such a motion (which most likely would have been denied) was before the conviction, not after. Not after the jury made a determination. The motion continues the pattern of the defense doing more work in the sentencing phase than they did when the jury was determining guilt or innocence.Green is facing the death penalty and to be sentenced to death, every person on the jury must vote in favor of a death sentence. Should the jury be unable to make a determination, the judge would sentence Green and, should that happen, the it would be a life sentence of imprisonment.

Meanwhile Wikileaks posts [PDF format warning] the US Military's Public Affairs Guidance memo on the case from back in 2006 and Wikileaks notes that they refer to Abeer as "a young woman" (at one point the US military was insisting Abeer was 24-years-old). The document identifies its target audience as Iraqis first and foremost.


"We have an update now on Monday's shooting rampage at a US military stress clinic in Iraq in which a soldier gunned down 2 military doctors and 3 other servicemen," declared Jeff Glor last night on The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric (here for video, and Ruth noted this last night). "CBS News has learned the suspect, Sgt. John Russell, was furious with doctors at the clinic, complaining they didn't believe he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The bodies of three victims arrived at Dover Air Force Base last night." The shooting was a topic on the second hour of The Diane Rehm Show and while Barbara Slavin (Washington Times) was commenting, things were fact based. But Jonathan S. Landay (McClatchy Newspapers) and the 'delightful' Demetri Sevastoulo (Financial Times) had to get creative and, for Demetri, sexist.


Diane Rehm: He was a 21-year Army veteran, Barbara, accused of gunning down five fellow US troops. What were the circumstances?

Barbara Slavin: Well not entirely clear yet. A Sgt John Russell, I believe he was on his third tour in Iraq, and he apparently was very concerned that he was not able to keep up with the mortgage payments on his home in the US --
Which is why he re-enlisted in order to make money.

Barbara Slavin: Yeah. He clearly had mental problems. Unfortunately he was sent, I think, against his will to a mental health facility at Camp Liberty outside Baghdad and that's where he executed five people.

Diane Rehm: He had apparently gotten into a fracas with his controlling officer.

Demetri Sevastoulo: Yeah he did but I think the broader point that needs to be made here is that the military in the last two years has seen a spike in suicides or mental health related incidents like that and it's becoming a big problem. Until about a couple of years ago, the level of suicides in the military or -- or people shooting each other -- wasn't that high compared to the rest of the population. But in the last couple of years, we've seen a spike and you've seen a big push by Adm [Mike] Mullen the chair man of the Joint Chiefs [of Staff] to get people to go for treatment when they have mental health problems.

Diane Rehm: But it's the extraordinary stress that these people are under no matter what their ages generally. Jonathan?

Jonathan S. Landay: The -- the man who's been accused of this shooting in -- in Baghdad in fact according to what I understand, has never been in combat.He was an electronic specialist and attached to an engineering unit. Apparently one of his tasks was to go and salvage electric components from vehicles that had been hit by IEDs by -- bey explosives. And in doing so witnesses the gory aftermath of -- of these attacks. He was on -- nearing the end of his third tour in Iraq.

Diane Rehm: He had also been in Bosnia, Herzegovina.

Jonathan: And Kosovo. That is correct. And I think Demetri hits on the bigger point. There was a study done last year by the RAND Corporation which found that a full 20% of the 1.6 million US service people who have been through Afghanistan and Iraq are suffering from symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that only about half of them seek treatment because they see it as a stigma attached to this --

Diane Rehm: Exactly.

Jonathan S. Landay: Even those half that do seek treatment don't get adequate treatment.

They just make up what ever they want to, don't they? For example, resident pig Demetri Sevastoulo would bring up a general whose name he didn't know who he thought sought treatment (but there's no way to check that, is there Demetri) and went public "to say to the younger guys" -- Demetri, you are aware that women serve in the US military, right? Or are you still too busy lusting for a cat fight between Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni to grasp that? Jonathan S. Landay declared "only about half of them seek treatment because they see it as a stigma attached to this". Did RAND's study find that? No. First off the study [PDF format warning] entitled "Invisible Wounds of War: Summary and Recommendations" was on PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The study extrapolated:

Assuming that the prevalence found in this study is representative of the 1.64 million individuals who have deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq to date, we estimate that approximately 300,000 individuals currently suffer from PTSD or major depression and that 320,000 veterans report having experience a probabe TBI during deployment.

53% of those studied had sought treatment for PTSD. Landay maintained that the service members see a stigma. They do? Really?
In general, respondents were concerned that getting treatment would not be kept confidential and would constrain future job assignments and career advancement. About 45 percent were concerned that drug therapies for mental health problems may have unpleasant side effects, and about one-quarter thought that even good mental health care was not very effective. Logistical barriers to mental health treatment, such as time, money, and access, were mentioned less frequently but may still be important barriers for many individuals. At the same time, it is possible that servicemembers and veterans do not seek treatment they may perceive little or no benefit.

They see a stigma? Or they're worried that their information won't be kept confidential and will effect job promotions and future tasks? There's a world of difference between a stigma that they would identify as 'I believe seeking treatment is a sign of weakness' and what the study ACTUALLY found which was that they fear they will be stigmatized because their records will not be kept confidential. Considering all the information the VA has repeatedly accidentally made public this decade, that would be a reasonable concern. Their concern also goes to the culture in the military. It does not go to their own personal opinions of therapy which is what Landay suggested.

And actually the number one answer was medications: "The medications that might help have too many side effects." To get their number one answer, the study combined "It could harm my career" with "My coworkers would have less confidence in me if they found out" and should have also tossed in "I could be denied a security clearance" which was ahead of "My coworkers would have less confidence in me if they found found out." (Refer to diagram 2.3 on page 14 of the report.) But the number one single answer was medications.

Today the Las Vegas Sun editorializes, "A tragic crime in Iraq:"Studies indicate that as many as one in five soldiers who have served in the combat zone have anxiety, depression or other mental health issues. The military's handling of those afflictions has been terrible, marked by poor treatment of those seeking help and a high suicide rate among soldiers. The sergeant's father, John Michael Russell, said his son was finishing his third tour in Iraq and thought his commanders were trying to drive him out of the service. He said his son feared losing his job and his military pension. The elder Russell noted the stigma attached to a soldier accused of having a mental health issue. "I think they broke him," he said. [. . .] Because the Pentagon has continually failed to address the problem, Congress should step in and make sure that those who serve in combat are given the help they need. As noted in yesterday's snapshot, Feb. 28th, the US House Armed Services Committee (discussing FY2009 Defense budget) raised this issue with US House Rep Patrick Murphy asking General George Casey if Congress needed to legislate dwell time to ensure that service members were getting the time they needed:
Murphy noted that "we're begging for about 7,000 troops for Afghanistan from our allies" and wondered if Congress needed to "mandate that if you deploy for 15 months, you're home for 15 months, if you deploy for 12 months, you're home for 12 months"? Casey wasn't keen on that idea and claimed it would interfere with the military's ability to do their job. Which makes the 'promise' Casey and Geren made earlier this week seem even more hollow (even more hollow than Casey claimed, in today's hearings, his experiences in the seventies were).
April 1, 2008, US House Rep Shelley Berkley was pointing out to Walter Reed Amry Institute of Research's Col Charles W. Hoge that he'd just stated 12 months was not enough dwell time (he hemmed and hawed but agreed he'd just said it) and she pointed out that some US service members didn't even get that. The Las Vegas Sun is correct, Congress needs to legislate on this and they need to do so immediately.

Though the Congress refuses so far to mandate dwell time, they did vote yesterday to continue the illegal wars by funding them. Thursday Karen Miller (Free Speech Radio News) reported on the House of Representatives voting to fund Barack Obama's $96.7 billion war supplemental which does not include an exit strategy. US House Rep Diane Watson told Miller, "The last admistration never put the funds for the war in the regular budget. They always came as a supplement with all good things that we wanted in it so you were forced to vote for it. I am not voting for another cent for any war anywhere because we will never win a war in that part of the world: Iraq, even Iran -- if we choose or chose to go to war there, Afghanistan, Pakistan. It can only be done through diplomacy, through negotiations, through politics. But never at the end of the gun." Watson was one of sixty House members voting against the supplemental. The others were Tammy Baldwin, John Campbell, Michael Capuano, Yvette Clarke, Steve Cohen, John Conyers, Jim Cooper, Jerry Costello, Lloyd Doggett, John Duncan, Donna Edwards, Vernon Ehlers, Keith Ellison, Sam Farr, Bob Filner, Jeff Flake, Barney Frank, Alan Grayson, Raul Grijalva, Luis Gutierrez, Michael Honda, Jay Inslee, Timothy Johnson, Steve Kagen, Marcy Kaptur, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee, John Lewis, Zoe Lofgren, Edward Markey, Eric Massa, Doris Matsui, James McDermott, James McGovern, Michael Michaud, George Miller, Grace Napolitano, Richard Neal, James Oberstar, Ron Paul, Donald Payne, Thomas Petri, Chellie Pingree, Jared Polis, Royce Dwards, Janice Schakowsky, James Sensenbrenner, Jose Serrano, Carol Shea-Porter, Jackie Speier, Michael Thompson, John Tierney, Edolphus Towns, Niki Tsongas, Nydia Velazquez, Maxine Waters, Anthony Weiner, Peter Welch and Lynn Woolsey. There are a few Republicans on the list and some in the press have interpreted this as an anti-Barack voter but Ron Paul is among those Republicans and his record is consistent on this issue regardless of whom occupies the White House. Perry Bacon Jr. (Washington Post) quotes US House Rep Maxine Waters states "this bill simply amplifies and extends failed policies" and US House Rep Jim McGovern states, "When George Bush was president, I was on this floor saying we need an exit strategy. The same applies with Afghanistan. I'm tired of wars with no deadlines, no exits and no ends." Janet Hook (Los Angeles Times) quotes US House Rep David Obey, who voted for the measure, stating, "This is a bill that I have very little confidence in. But we have a responsibility to give a new president who did not get us into this mess the opportunity to get us out of it." David Lightman and William Douglas (McClatchy Newspapers) quote US House Rep Jim McGovern (who voted against it) stating, "As the mission has grown bigger, the policy has grown even more vague." The measure next goes before the Senate for a vote.


Staying with the Congress, Dahr Jamail appeared on KPFA's Flashpoints and we'll note that again later in the snapshot but first this section where he's speaking of counter-insurgency:

Dahr Jamail: It's a really insidious form of neo-colonialism that the US is involved in both Iraq and Afghanistan now and this is a program called the HTS, the Human Terrain System. And what it is is they're employing social scientists so the likes of primarily anthropologists but also social psychologists and sociologists. They're bringing these people in, they're embedding them in military units in teams of between two and five social scientists to go out with combat units. And the goal is well first of all it's basically sold to the American public and gotten a lot of corporate media coverage in this light 'Well if we bring these people along, these people would have a better understanding of the culture and it's going to prevent civilian casualties, it's going to help the military make better decisions.' The reality is how these people are actually being used. First of all, they were used during the raging sectarian conflict in Iraq in 2006 up to mid-2007 to basically find fissures that existed between the Shia and the Sunni primarily and then exploit these so actually help the military stay out of the conflict and actually were involved in some cases in literally giving information to commanders to target certain individuals. And when we look at, for example, how does this stack up to the code of ethics of anthropology? The two primary aspects of their code of ethics is (1) you have to your subject's permission before you're going to do a study [informed consent] and, second, do no harm. So clearly they're in direct violation to both of the primary ethical codes of anthropology and it's caused massive outcry across most anthropologists -- where people, organizations have been formed, people are very much against this HTS program. It's a very insidious form of colonialism. And it's continuing on despite protests, most anthropologists being against this, we've seen no change. We don't know if it's been augmented and expanded but we definitely know that it's continuing on and it's not being disassembled whatsoever. So this is another very disconcerting way that the Obama administration is carrying on Bush policy in Iraq today.

Actually, we do know that it is being expanded and more money spent on it. That was clear in one hearing after another in the last weeks. The US Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support April 22nd was where US marine Gen James F. Amos not only repeatedly confessed to his fears of 'emasculation' but also that the marines weren't ready for war with North Korea or Iran "right now because we're predominately a counter-insurgnecy, a regular warfar focus Marine Corps right now. So all those other skills -- combined armed fire manuever forcible entry -- those things -- we'd have to fjure out, we'd have to figure out, 'Okay, what do we need to do for this new -- this new contingency?'" May 7th the House Armed Services Committee's Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee heard from a wide range of War Hawks including Lisa Schirch who insisted the NGOs needed to work with the miltiary and provide "information" to help with counter-terrorism and more money (always more money from the War Whore Beggar) would help those "on the ground who have cultural intelligence information to share". Big Boy Pull-Ups David Kilcullen also testified to beg for more money (and the committee was all for it -- please note, the committee booked only pro-counter-insurgency witnesses) and also for the US to alter or dispose of some of those pesky laws that his home country of Australia apparently doesn't have:

Fat Ass Kilcullen: And one final legislative issue. We had a lot of trouble uh in Iraq uh trying to counter al Qaeda in Iraq propaganda because of the Smith-Mundt act which meant that we couldn't do a lot of things online uh because if you put something on YouTube uh and it's deemed to the information operations and there's a possibility that an American might log on to that page and read that and be influenced by that's technically illegal under the Smith-Mundt Act and we had to get a uh uh a waiver as you may recall to be able to do that. I think for Congress it might be worth looking at uh how that legislation may need to be relooked at or re-examined in the light of a new media environment so that it still has the same intent but doesn't necessarily restrict us from legitimate things that we might need to do in the field.

Kilcullen, note, wanted to counter what he dubbed al Qaeda in Iraq propangada with . . . propaganda. Not with truth. There's no law barring the US military telling the truth to domestic (US) audiences. There is a law against propaganda. Kilcullen whined to the subcommittee -- a pathetic subcommittee eager to whore itself out -- that he couldn't use the propaganda he wanted as easily as he wanted because of pesky US laws. In case Kicullen's missed it, there are 14 or so connecting flights each weekday out of Dulles to Melbourne Airport -- any of which Kicullen could easily grab to return to his own country where, apparently, propaganda is legal. And of course, yesterday's Senate Armed Services Committee found the Republicans objecting to the big increase in counter-insurgency while what they feel are defense items (missile systems, etc.) are being short changed. Kat shared her thoughts on yesterday's hearing here. Wednesday's snapshot covered some of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee's Innovative Technologies and Treatments Helping Veterans hearing and Kat covered that hearing here.

Meanwhile in Iraq, puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki makes another power grab. Missy Ryan, Mohammed Abbas and Dominic Evans (Reuters) report Nouri is insisting that the agreements on power sharing among Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds need to be weakened and watered down. al-Maliki appears to want simple majority rule which is rather ironic since he's only sitting on his throne due to being installed by the US military and the fact that the US military remains on the ground in Iraq. The reporters note, "His comments were likely to fuel suspicions of Sunni Arabs, dominant under Saddam Hussein, and Kurds, who have their own semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq, that minority groups could be subject to majority Shi'ite tyranny." On the subject of the tensions, Wednesday's snapshot wrongly credited "Violence Rises in Iraq's Tense North" to the New York Times' Timothy Williams when the author was Campbell Robertson. My apologies. The morning entry has been corrected and we'll note it in tomorrow's snapshot (snapshot corrections run in later snapshots, that's the policy that allows people to easily copy and paste them -- if you're confused, you're new to the policy). It was my mistake and I apologize for the error and thank community members Mia and Charlie as well as a visitor e-mailing the public account for pointing out my error. Souad Jaroush (Asharq al-Awsat) reports that some Ba'athists currently outside the party see a power vaccum in Iraq and quotes an unnamed official stating they are preparing to enter Iraq as the US draws down to "restore our control on the ground, returning Iraq to its rightful place, as well as expelling all the [foreign] agents that came with the occupation forces." Foreign agents could mean the likes of al-Maliki and the bulk of his cabinet since they were all exiles who chose to live outside of Iraq for years and decades and only returned to the country after the US invaded and exiles could be so easily installed. Alsumaria reports that the country's Parliament is calling for a new committee to be created in order to investigate "the dismissal of 114 officers from the Defense Ministry" by al-Maliki's government. As the tensions escalate, War Hawk and part of Team Colin! during the lead up to the illegal war Richard Haas, Viola Gienger (Bloomberg News) reports, tells Bloomberg's Political Capital with Al Hunt (airs this weekend) that, "There's a ceiling on how good it can ever get, given the nature of Iraqi society, given the schisms. I'd be happy, quite honestly, in two or three years, if Iraq looked no worse." The program beings airing tonight at 6:30 pm EST (believe that's the debut) and repeats throughout the weekend (check schedule) and it also is available as a podcast.

Yesterday the US military announced: "BAGHDAD -- A Coalition forces Soldier was killed and four injured Wednesday morning while conducting combat operations in Duluiyah, approximately 80 km northwest of Baghdad, when their unit came in contact with enemy forces. The unit was conducting operations to rid Iraq of a weapons facilitator and suicide vest cell known to be operating in the area. The Soldiers names will not be released until 24 hours after next of kin notification." The announcement brought to 4295. the number of US service members killed in the Iraq War, five away from 4300. How nice for Richard Hass that they apparently died for the war he cheerleaded so that Iraq didn't look any worse than it does today.
Turning to some of today's reported violence . . .

Bombings?
Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report a Baghdad grenade attack which wounded two people, journalist Khalida al-Mawla was targted with a Mosul sticky bombing but was warned before she got into the car (which exploded while she was outside of it) and a Baghdad roadside bombing Thursday night which injured two people,

Shootings?

Sahar Issa and Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) report 1 person shot dead (internal refugee) in Baghdad, 2 police officers injured in a Mosul shooting and two police officers and one Sahwa were injured when unknown assailants attacked a police and Sahwa checkpoint in Samarra.

Wednesday, independent journalist Dahr Jamail appeared on KPFA's Flashpoints and discussed Sahwa and the rise in violence in Iraq.

Dahr Jamail: I attribute it directly to US policy on the ground there. Just for a little context back in April 2006, well before Bush's so-called 'surge' strategy began which was in February 2007, the US got involved in basically bringing back to life a policy that actually Saddam Hussein used to control areas of Iraq that were very volatile and tended to fight against his dictatorship and so what Saddam did was to basically pay off tribal sheiks, find those who would collaborate with him, pay them off, pay them handsomely under the guise of so-called 'construction contracts' so that they would control people in their tribe and keep them from launching resistance attacks. Well the US basically incorporated the same policy. They called it the formation of the "Awakening" Groups which are now referred to in Iraq as the Al-Sawha, the "Sons Of Iraq." The Sunni militia grew to be 100,000 strong, they were all being paid 300 bucks a month, most of them former resistance fighters according to the [US] military and some of them even members of al Qaeda. But it worked very effectively in keeping violence down and the problem is that, as of last October, these forces were supposed to have been rolled into the government security apparatus -- of the government in Baghdad led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Rather than that actually happening, to date, 5,000 of the 100,000 have actually been given government jobs. The rest of them, in addition to not being paid -- many of them not since October, they've been undergoing attacks from government forces and sometimes even US forces. So as a result, they're not targeting al Qaeda as they used to be so that's why we're seeing a dramatic increase in these spectacular car bomb attacks at mosques and Shia markets, etc. And also that's why we're seeing an uptick in the number of attacks against American troops because some of these people are going back into the resistance since they are not being paid anymore and deciding to basically renew their attacks against occupation forces. So this is really the main reason as I see it why there's been a pretty dramatic escalation in violence. It started slowly in January, it increased in February, it increased more in March and then literally exploded in April and we're seeing it continue on into May.

Nora Barrows Friedman: And Dahr given this acceleration in attacks, what do you think will happen with the people who are in Sahwa forces over the next few months? Do you think the US has stepped into a potential landmine here? Could it actually effect Obama's policy in Iraq?

Dahr Jamail: Well, you know, this is a bigger discussion if we're going to talk about Obama's so-called policy in Iraq because it's really just a continuation of Bush policy. There is -- there is no change on the ground in Iraq. But really I see the situation continuing to degrade because there's a couple of things the Obama administration could do if they were serious about changing the direction things are going on the ground in Iraq. And one would be to pressure the Maliki government to hold true to their promises to incorporate the Sahwa into the government forces, start paying them, stop attacking them. And this is not happening. And instead of that even we saw Obama dispatch Hillary Clinton over to Baghdad a couple of weeks ago and the primary purpose of her mission was basically to assure the Maliki government, 'Look we're not going to abandon you, we will stay. We know the Status Of Forces [Agreement] deadline is coming the end of June, but we're going to be sticking around. So don't worry.' And as a result we're seeing -- if we talk about what is going to happen there, you know, everyone believes that as of June 30 all US troops are going to be out of all Iraqi cities, according to the SOFA. Well the reality is, for example, let's just look at the base Camp Victory which is right nearby Camp Liberty where the American soldier slaughtered five other soldiers on Monday. Camp Victory, over 20,000 US troops stationed at this base alone, it's also simultaneously Baghdad International Airport, Camp Liberty - Baghdad Airport -- I'm sorry, Camp Victory - Baghdad Airport. Same thing. Those are in Baghad. So they're not going to be moving this base because that would entail moving Baghad International Airport as well and it's simply not going to happen so there's your Status Of Forces Agreement for you right there. In addition to the fact that the SOFA also does not prohibit US military from patrolling every city in Iraq if they so please so we're not going to see a cessation in patrols either. So these are things that I see continuing on and it's going to continue to degrade. In fact, as the Brits pull out of southern Iraq, we're starting to see more and more attacks on American forces down there who are filling in for the Brits in the Basra area. In fact just a couple of days ago we had another American soldier killed in Basra by a roadside bomb.


Sunday Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox features Russell Baker to discuss his new book Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, The Powerful Forces that Put It in the White House and What Their Influence Means for America. Bonnie Faulkner (KPFA's Guns and Butter) interviewed Baker Wednesday and you can click here for the audio at Information Clearing House. TV notes, NOW on PBS begins airing tonight on many PBS stations (check local listings):A record 115,000 U.N. peacekeepers are now deployed in 20 countries, and their mission is more vital than ever. But critics and insiders alike are openly worried that the current peacekeeping model is overstretched -- and at risk of failure.This week, NOW travels to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to witness today's largest and most expensive peacekeeping operation. There, 17,000 U.N. troops are tasked with protecting millions of people over a rugged and dangerous territory the size of the Eastern United States. But the effort is struggling--last November, local rebels massacred civilians less than a mile from one of the U.N. bases. How can U.N. peacekeeping be improved so that it fulfills its promise of protection to the world? This show is a co-production with the Bureau for International Reporting (BIR), a non-profit video news production company. PBS is celebrating Sausage Fest. They tend to do that every week. Bill Moyers plans to have multiple guests tonight who all share one thing in common. Can you guess what? Gwen stacks her show but provides a token female on Washington Week: John Dickerson (Slate, CBS News), Michael Duffy (Time), John Harwood (CNBC, New York Times and John Dickerson's doppelganger) and -- TOKEN ALERT! TOKEN ALERT! -- Ceci Connolly (Washington Post). Gwen and Bill, proving each week that the "P" in PBS stands for "penis." Both sausage fests begin airing tonight. Be sure not to watch them with young girls unless you're prepared to explain, "Apparently the TV dinosaurs ate up all the women, honey. Gwen? Well they spit her back out." As a fix you can watch (and starts airing tonight on many PBS stations, check local listings) as Bonnie Erbe sits down with Latifa Lyles, Genevieve Wood, Melinda Henneberger and Rosemary Jenks to discuss this week's news on To The Contrary. And turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers:Secretary Of WarDefense Secretary Robert M. Gates discusses the war in Afghanistan in a candid and wide-ranging interview with Katie Couric, who accompanied him to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Watch Video
AIGEd Liddy, the man who took over the reins of out-of-control American International Group – the failed insurance giant to which the government has made $180 billion available in aid – speaks to Steve Kroft about the gargantuan task ahead.
Anna WintourThe sunglasses come off the high-queen of haute couture in this rare and unprecedented interview, in which the Vogue editor reveals why she always wears them and much more to Morley Safer in her first long-length interview for U.S. television. Watch Video
60 Minutes, Sunday, May 17, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

This week saw Barack Obama break another promise. The torture photos aren't going to be released. Despite promises to the contrary. Debra Sweet (World Can't Wait) notes:


Wednesday, while flying across the country, I was able to watch CNN all day as the news rolled out from the White House that the Obama administration was making an about face, and deciding to fight the court order to release the torture photos. It's an extraordinary story, and people are right to be outraged.

Kevin Gostzola, a student at Columbia College, pulled together the tortured logic of the Obama argument in Obama Employs Bush Administration Tactic to Halt Release of Detainee Photos.

The moment my plane landed in San Francisco, the voice mails, texts, emails began...people thinking about what to do in response. A quick conference call Thursday united World Can't Wait chapters to go Friday to media outlets (FOX in New York; CNN in Atlanta) with the demand:

Release the Torture Photos! Prosecute the War Criminals!

World Can't Wait is planning actions to protest the torture of the previous administration and the cover up of the current one (plus, Barack's policies have not ended torture -- in some cases it has farmed torture out). From "Thursday MAY 28 National Day of Resistance to U.S. TORTURE!:"

On or by May 28, the Obama administration is being forced to release 2000 photos of detainee abuse in US facilities from 2001-2006. The Abu Ghraib photos, released in 2004 only because a solider was horrified over the torture, brought an international storm of protest against the US torture state. The new photos, including many from Bagram, where the detention facilities have just been doubled to hold 60,000 Afganis, will show that US torture was widespread, sustained, and systemic, not an "aberration," but an integral part of the "global war on terror."
Weeks after 4 more torture memos revealed the detail with which George Bush's lawyers managed the torture of individual detainees, calls to prosecute those responsible -- from the White House principals, to the legal torture team, to the CIA agents who tortured -- have met objections from Washington. Cheney and the open advocates of torture scream that they must be able to use "harsh methods" to win the global war on terror. The Obama administration, after deciding to continue indefinite detention, CIA rendition, and Bush's executive powers, says prosecution would stop them from "moving forward." Democratic party leader Nancy Pelosi knew about the torture and waterboarding since 2002, saying and doing nothing to stop it..
It's up to the people to act! World Can't Wait and other groups are planning non-violent civil resistance protests, programs digging into the substance of the charges, waterboarding and rendition re-enactments, and film showings in communities around the country to demand prosecution of the Bush era war criminals. More information, listings, posters, flyers & background on the war criminals at warcriminalswatch.org.
Wherever the Bush era war criminals are appearing this month, raise the cry "Torture is a War Crime! Prosecute!"



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