World Can't Wait Activist Interrupts Rumsfeld Speech
And at the same press event where Rumsfeld spoke, an anti-war activist interrupted his speech.
And at the same press event where Rumsfeld spoke, an anti-war activist interrupted his speech.
- World Can't Wait’s Heather Hurwitz: "You have committed crimes against humanity and BushCommission.org and thousands are coming this weekend to drive you out of office, You and you whole administration. Step down Mr. Rumsfeld, Bush administration step down and take these programs with you. You are torturing people signing off on torture. It's happening. This world needs to wake up, stop this war, this criminal war."
Hurwitz is a member of the group World Can't Wait. The group is convening a protest in Washington Saturday calling on the Bush administration to step down. Thousands of people are expected to attend.
Bush Mulled Using Spyplane Painted In UN Colors To Provoke Iraq
In other news, a newly disclosed pre-war memo shows President Bush considered painting a US spyplane in the colors of the UN and flying it into Iraqi territory to provoke Saddam Hussein into war. The idea was discussed at a meeting held with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House on January 31st 2003 -- well over a month before the US and Britain invaded Iraq. The memo also adds further credence to accusations the President was set on war regardless of UN authorization and weapons inspections. According to the memo, Bush said "the US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would: 'twist arms' and 'even threaten'." The memo continues: "But he had to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow anyway." The memo says Tony Blair agreed, but argued that "a second Security Council resolution would provide an insurance policy against the unexpected, and international cover, including with the Arabs." The memo was first revealed in the book "Lawless World", written by leading British human rights lawyer Philippe Sands.
In other news, a newly disclosed pre-war memo shows President Bush considered painting a US spyplane in the colors of the UN and flying it into Iraqi territory to provoke Saddam Hussein into war. The idea was discussed at a meeting held with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House on January 31st 2003 -- well over a month before the US and Britain invaded Iraq. The memo also adds further credence to accusations the President was set on war regardless of UN authorization and weapons inspections. According to the memo, Bush said "the US would put its full weight behind efforts to get another resolution and would: 'twist arms' and 'even threaten'." The memo continues: "But he had to say that if ultimately we failed, military action would follow anyway." The memo says Tony Blair agreed, but argued that "a second Security Council resolution would provide an insurance policy against the unexpected, and international cover, including with the Arabs." The memo was first revealed in the book "Lawless World", written by leading British human rights lawyer Philippe Sands.
Cheney, Libby Were Told Of Niger Doubts Before Plame Outing
Meanwhile, investigative journalist Murray Wass is reporting Vice President Dick Cheney and his then-Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby were informed in June 2003 that the CIA did not believe Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger. Despite receiving the CIA’s assessment, Cheney and Libby proceeded with a public campaign to discredit Joe Wilson -- the former US ambassador who had first investigated and dismissed the Niger allegation. The campaign to discredit Wilson led to the outing of his wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Meanwhile, investigative journalist Murray Wass is reporting Vice President Dick Cheney and his then-Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby were informed in June 2003 that the CIA did not believe Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger. Despite receiving the CIA’s assessment, Cheney and Libby proceeded with a public campaign to discredit Joe Wilson -- the former US ambassador who had first investigated and dismissed the Niger allegation. The campaign to discredit Wilson led to the outing of his wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Fitzgerald Says White House Has Deleted E-Mails From 2003
In related news, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the outing of Plame's identity, has revealed that several White House e-mails from around the time Plame was exposed have been erased. In a letter to Lewis Libby's lawyers, Fitzgerald wrote: "We have learned that not all email of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system."
In related news, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the outing of Plame's identity, has revealed that several White House e-mails from around the time Plame was exposed have been erased. In a letter to Lewis Libby's lawyers, Fitzgerald wrote: "We have learned that not all email of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system."
The above four items are from today's Democracy Now! Headlines and were selected by Jonah, Cindy, Charlie and Molly. Democracy Now! ("always informing you," as Marcia says):
Headlines for February 3, 2006
- Egyptian Ferry Carrying More Than 1400 Sinks In Red Sea
- Cartoon Showing Prophet Mohammad With Bomb Sparks Outrage
- Boehner Elected To Replace Delay As House Majority Leader
- Bush Mulled Using Spyplane Painted In UN Colors To Provoke Iraq
- Cheney, Libby Were Told Of Niger Doubts Before Plame Outing
- Fitzgerald Says White House Has Deleted E-Mails From 2003
- Venezuela Expels US Navy Attaché Over Alleged Spying
- World Can't Wait Activist Interrupts Rumsfeld Speech
- Egyptian Ferry Carrying More Than 1400 Sinks In Red Sea
- Cartoon Showing Prophet Mohammad With Bomb Sparks Outrage
- Boehner Elected To Replace Delay As House Majority Leader
- Bush Mulled Using Spyplane Painted In UN Colors To Provoke Iraq
- Cheney, Libby Were Told Of Niger Doubts Before Plame Outing
- Fitzgerald Says White House Has Deleted E-Mails From 2003
- Venezuela Expels US Navy Attaché Over Alleged Spying
- World Can't Wait Activist Interrupts Rumsfeld Speech
Democracy Now! in Doha...The Story Behind the Other Downing Street Memo Where Bush Told Blair He Wanted to Bomb Al Jazeera
We broadcast from the headquarters of Arabic TV network Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar - the place President Bush allegedly told Tony Blair he wanted to bomb. The report came out last November in Britain's Daily Mirror, citing a secret British memo revealing that Bush told Blair in April 2004 of his desire to bomb the news outlet. Bloggers have pledged to publish the memo if it is leaked. We speak with British blogger Daniel Mason, who has been tracking the story of the Downing Street Memo. [includes rush transcript]
We broadcast from the headquarters of Arabic TV network Al Jazeera in Doha, Qatar - the place President Bush allegedly told Tony Blair he wanted to bomb. The report came out last November in Britain's Daily Mirror, citing a secret British memo revealing that Bush told Blair in April 2004 of his desire to bomb the news outlet. Bloggers have pledged to publish the memo if it is leaked. We speak with British blogger Daniel Mason, who has been tracking the story of the Downing Street Memo. [includes rush transcript]
Days after the Daily Mirror cited the memo that allegedly reveals President Bush told Tony Blair in April 2004 of his desire to bomb Al Jazeera, Wadah Khanfar, Managing Director of Al Jazeera, arrived in London to petition for a meeting with Blair to discuss the leaked memo. We speak with Khanfar about his demands for more information about the secret memo.
11AM: Rally at 17th & Constitution
2PM: March around the White House
Speakers include: Missy Comley Beattie (Gold Star Families for Peace), Elaine Brower (GSFP), Kathleen Chalfant, Doris "Granny D" Haddock, Joe Madison (the Black Eagle), Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights, Boots Riley (the Coup), Representative from 1199 SEIU United Health Care Workers East, Rebecca Schaefer (Georgetown Law School Student), Rev. Al Sharpton, David Swanson (After Downing Street), Sunsara Taylor, Juan Torres (GSFP), Ann Wright (Veterans for Peace), Rev. Lennox Yearwood (Hip-Hop Caucus), more TBA pending schedule confirmations.
World Can't Wait. This Saturday, DC.
Vernon notes Margaret Kimberley's "Bin Laden's Wasted Warning" (Freedom Rider, The Black Commentator):
With the help of the media, the Bush administration managed to avoid all blame and responsibility for the attacks of September 11th that took place on their watch. If a Democrat had been president on that day Republicans would not have pretended to be supportive. They would have issued calls for impeachment and the media would have joined in the witch hunt.
The co-opted press are in the process of helping the Bushmen wage a new war. We are on the verge of attacking Iran, a nation that has not and cannot harm us, because Israel and its American right wing allies demand it.
Israel is already a nuclear power, a fact that is rarely mentioned in the media. Despite the recent comments of Iran's president, it is Israel that has the power to wipe Iran off the map, not the other way around.
The wimpy opposition, the Democrats, and the press are of no use at this moment in history. Other institutions are also afflicted with co-opted and complicit leadership.
Preachers say nothing about the thousands of people killed by the U.S. military. They reserve their outrage for movies that depict gay cowboys or boy wizards. Instead of stepping up to the empire they wait in line for a Faith Based Initiative hand out. Speaking truth to the powerful is not on their agenda.
And that begins the highlights for Friday. Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King,
Iraq and more. Let's start with the way the legacy of MLK is manipulated. Sarah notes Norman Solomon's "Smothering the King Legacy with Kind Words" (CounterPunch):
Today, a slick rhetorical formula enables current generations of such miserly politicians to keep praising the legacy of Martin Luther King while sticking knives into it.
Such duplicity is facilitated by a baseline of media coverage that automatically recycles the truncated versions of history promoted by the politicians who dominate Washington. At least dimly, those political hacks understand a key axiom described by George Orwell: "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past."
Don't want to deal with calls for progressive change in the nation's economic power structures? Then don't mention Martin Luther King's statement, "True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."
Don't want to acknowledge King's assessment of global class war? Then just keep referring to his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech while carefully bypassing his later oratory about "capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries."
Want to keep King boxed as scarcely more than a Jim Crow foe? Then ignore his fierce opposition to the Vietnam War and his broader denunciations of what he called "the madness of militarism."
On the topic of Coretta Scott King, Cindy steers us to Derrick Z. Jackson's "The King Who Led On World Peace" (Boston Globe via Common Dreams):
In the shadows of history, Coretta Scott King, who died yesterday at age 78, stoked her husband's fire until the blaze could not be contained. She was active in the global peace movement before her husband. In 1962, she traveled with an American delegation to Geneva, Switzerland, to monitor nuclear test-ban talks. In her 1969 autobiography, she said the delegation was received by the US representative to the talks as if they were ''hysterical females."
Coretta Scott King joined the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. After her husband received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, she said she told him many times, ''I think there is a role you must play in achieving world peace, and I will be so glad when the time comes when you can assume that role."
A symbol of how her husband was not quite ready to assume that role came late in 1965. King, burned by the backlash of his first attempts to criticize the war, backed out of an address to a peace rally in Washington. His wife kept her commitment to speak, saying, according to Taylor Branch's new book ''At Canaan's Edge," that America had to stay true to the ideals of democracy ''in spite of the bombings in Alabama as well as in Vietnam."
King built the case for his 1967 speech, raising the temperature a few additional degrees with each new speech. By the beginning of that year, he said, ''The promises of the Great Society have been shot down on the battlefields of Vietnam." But even though the April speech came with deliberate speed, he was again criticized by civil rights giants Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, Ralph Bunch, and Jackie Robinson and panned by The New York Times, Newsweek, and Life.
Coretta Scott King kept stoking the fire. She said she told her friends, ''Those persons who do not agree with my husband now do not understand the meaning of his whole life. You cannot believe in peace at home and not believe in international peace. He could not be a true follower of the nonviolent philosophy and condone war. You think of him as a politician, but he feels that as a minister he has a prophetic role and must speak out against the evils of society. He sees war as an evil and therefore he must condemn war.
Coretta Scott King stood up for peace and we need to stand up for peace today. Kyle notes news from Iraq via Dahr Jamail's "More Bad News for the Brits" (Iraq Dispatches):
"Multinational forces" is the term preferred by the Pentagon now-sounds better than the more truthful "occupation forces" or "members of the invading army." Yet their use of the term "multinational" is quite liberal when Japan has recently announced it will pull all of its troops from Iraq by this May, Italy announced it will withdraw 1,000 of its 2,600 troops by June and the Australian government is under increasing pressure to withdraw it's massive contingent of 1,320 troops as well.
In sum, when the Pentagon says "multinational forces" in Iraq, it usually tends to be a safe assumption that they mean U.S. soldiers, as the U.S. still maintains by far and away the largest number of troops with at least 160,000. On that note -- the second largest member of the "coalition of the willing" are the mercenaries -- who tally anywhere between 20,000-70,000 in their private militias.
Meanwhile, pressure on the embattled Prime Minister Tony Blair has skyrocketed in Britain as the 100th British soldier being killed in Iraq sparked a wave of protests across England and fresh demands for a British withdrawal.
Meanwhile, pressure on the embattled Prime Minister Tony Blair has skyrocketed in Britain as the 100th British soldier being killed in Iraq sparked a wave of protests across England and fresh demands for a British withdrawal.
And the way things are shaping up in southern Iraq, that 100 number could be outdated if the heavy-handed tactics of the British soldiers don’t change.
Want to be or get active but not sure how?
11AM: Rally at 17th & Constitution
2PM: March around the White House
More information where? At the World Can't Wait website.
Remembr " World Can't Wait Activist Interrupts Rumsfeld Speech" at the top of this entry? Heather Hurwitz stood up. Even over some loser yelling "Shut up!" A lot of people are standing up and a lot more are going to be joining them.
Last highlight, on people who stand up, Tori notes Frida Berrigan's "Walking to Gaunatamo: Peace marchers aim to keep the abuse of 'enemy combatants'" (In These Times):
It was tough getting used to being a spectacle, but that is exactly what we were--a motley gaggle of gringos walking through Cuba in short pants and matching gray T-shirts that read "Witness Against Torture: A March to Visit the Prisoners at Guantánamo." Wearing straw hats and sunglasses, we trailed clouds of sunscreen and bug spray.
Our journey did not start on a Cuban road. We had met and prepared for months to get to this point. Our conversations started as an exploration of ways to resist the "war on terrorism" and respond to the suffering of its victims--and ways to do that as Christians in the tradition of the Catholic Worker movement. Dorothy Day, one of its founders, is famous for having called privileged Catholics out of their church pews and into the streets, where they put the works of mercy--feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, visiting the prisoners--into action. Day also emphasized resisting what she called the "filthy rotten system" of war and injustice that keeps people poor and homeless.
When men imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay Naval Station went on a hunger strike this summer, we knew what to do: walk from Santiago--Cuba's second largest city--to the U.S. base with the intention of visiting the prisoners. We figured we were only taking up an invitation President Bush made to European Union leaders last year in response to allegations of torture and human rights abuses there. "You're welcome to go down yourselves ... and tak[e] a look at the conditions," Bush said.
By walking, we would deal transparently and openly with the Cuban government and we would draw strength from the rich history of nonviolent marches for social and political change--from Gandhi's salt march to the Selma-Montgomery March to the Continental Peace March.
And remember the Bully Boy's "win" in Afghanistan? From the Associated Press:
Taliban insurgents launched four attacks in the southern Afghan province of Helmand on Friday and three policemen and 20 Taliban were killed, the province's deputy governor said.
About 200 insurgents were involved in the fighting, and some of them had ambushed police reinforcements going to the scene of the initial clash, said deputy provincial governor Mullah Mir, who was in a police convoy that came under attack.
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