Kat here, happy weekend. Okay, first things first.
RadioNation with Laura Flanders
Does might make right?The mighty dollar in US politics. The mighty nuke in global politics.
Saturdays & Sundays, 7-10pm ET on Air America Radio
John Bonifaz on the Supreme Court's most important election case in decades. Bush's bungled nuclear power ambitions and trip to India and Pakistan. Plus, voices demanding to be heard: Arundhati Roy, Walter Mosley, and an Iraqi woman's delegation led by CodePink's Medea Benjamin. And some hip-hop poetry, just when the world needs a new soundtrack. As always, a one-hour version of last weekend's program is available at http://www.thenation.com
It's all on RadioNation with Laura Flanders this weekend on Air America Radio.
John Bonifaz should be worth listening to. (You know Laura's always worth listening to.) But look who else you got -- Medea Benjamin, Walter Mosely and the one and only Arundhati Roy. With those four guests (and a host like Flanders), anything and everything could be covered. So make sure you listen this weekend.
So what's going on in the community? Maria's post went up right before this one. Cedric's got a post up about the Oscars, Rebecca's addressing how the administration markets fear and, coming up later, check out Trina's Kitchen for the latest recipe and, hopefully, here for Ruth's latest report. (Hopefully, because Dallas and I are having a hard time tracking down links.)
And apologies if I screw up the tags to Maria's post (or them being read) but that thing's been publishing for over twenty minutes and is still at 0% (it's not done until it reaches 100%). C.I. may have the patience for that but I don't. So I'm going to stop waiting for it to post and go ahead and publish this.
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sex and politics and screeds and attitude
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Encuesta: 72 por ciento de soldados estadounidenses en Irak quieren retirarse en un ano
Maria: Buenos dias. De parte de "Democracy Now!" diez cosas que vale hacer notar este fin de semana. Paz.
Encuesta: 72 por ciento de soldados estadounidenses en Irak quieren retirarse en un año
Una nueva encuesta de Zogby International indica que casi el 75 por ciento de los soldados estadounidenses en Irak creen que Estados Unidos debería retirarse en el correr de un año. Un veinticinco por ciento de los soldados encuestados consideran que Estados Unidos debería retirarse ahora. Y tan solo uno de cada cinco soldados estadounidenses desean cumplir la promesa del Presidente Bush de que las fuerzas estadounidenses permanezcan en Irak "el tiempo que sea necesario". La encuesta también descubrió que una abrumadora mayoría de los soldados estadounidenses cree la teoría ampliamente desacreditada de que Saddam Hussein estuvo involucrado en los ataques del 11 de septiembre. El 90 por ciento dijo que la guerra de Irak era una represalia por la presunta participación de Saddam Hussein en los atentados del 11 de septiembre.
Estudio: Uno de cada tres veteranos de guerra de Irak padecen problemas de salud mental
Mientras tanto, el "Washington Post" informa que un estudio del Ejército descubrió que más de uno de cada tres soldados estadounidenses que sirvieron en Irak, luego buscaron ayuda para sus problemas mentales. Según el informe, los soldados e infantes de marina que regresaban de Irak sufrían más angustia que los que volvían de Afganistán y otros países. Más de la mitad de los integrantes del servicio militar que volvían de Irak informaron que habían "sentido que corrían grave peligro de ser asesinados" allí, y más de 2.400 informaron haber tenido pensamientos suicidas. Steve Robinson, director del Centro Nacional de Recursos de la Guerra del Golfo, dijo: "En Vietnam, había áreas seguras donde las personas podían ir a descansar y a recuperarse. En Irak no es así, todos los lugares son una zona de guerra".
Fondos para nueva reconstrucción de Irak destinados únicamente a prisiones
En otras noticias, el Departamento de Estado anunció silenciosamente esta semana que pidió 100 millones de dólares para la reconstrucción de Irak, todo destinado a las prisiones. El gobierno de Bush prometió inicialmente que destinaría 20.000 millones de dólares para la reconstrucción de la infraestructura iraquí. Pero gran parte del dinero se gastó en seguridad. El coordinador del Departamento de Estado para Irak, James Jeffrey, dijo que el proyecto de prisiones de 100 millones de dólares es el único nuevo esfuerzo de reconstrucción que el gobierno estadounidense llevará a cabo en el próximo año.
Bush recibió información que desacredita las razones declaradas para la invasión
En otras noticias, el periodista de investigación Murray Waas informa que el presidente Bush recibió personalmente informes de inteligencia antes de la guerra de Irak que generan dudas sobre las razones sostenidas por su gobierno para iniciar la invasión. Un informe entregado en enero de 2003, decía que era muy improbable que Saddam Hussein atacara Estados Unidos, a menos que "las operaciones militares en curso pusieran en riesgo el inminente fin de su régimen". Otro informe de inteligencia de octubre de 2002 decía que tanto el Departamento de Energía como la oficina de inteligencia del Departamento de Estado habían concluido que los intentos de Saddam Hussein de comprar tubos de aluminio eran "destinados a la fabricación de armas convencionales". Waas escribió que la revelación es "la primera prueba de que el propio presidente estaba al tanto del debate encarnizado en el gobierno acerca de los tubos de aluminio en el momento en que él, [vicepresidente Dick] Cheney, y otros miembros del gabinete mencionaron los tubos como una prueba clara de un programa nuclear iraquí. Ni el presidente ni el vicepresidente le dijeron a la población acerca de la discrepancia entre los organismos".
Ex funcionarios de inteligencia dicen que la Casa Blanca ignoró advertencias sobre la insurgencia
En otras noticias, "Knight Ridder" informa que la Casa Blanca ignoró reiteradas veces las advertencias de inteligencia de que la insurgencia armada en Irak era casi completamente local y que estaba creciendo en número. Un cálculo de la Inteligencia Nacional indicó en octubre de 2003 que la insurgencia estaba incentivada en gran parte por las condiciones locales, como la presencia de los soldados estadounidenses en Irak. También indicó que las fuerzas externas prácticamente no formaban parte de la insurgencia. Robert Hutchings, quien fue presidente del Consejo Nacional de Inteligencia de 2003 a 2005, dijo: "Sinceramente, los altos funcionarios simplemente no estaban preparados para prestarle atención a los análisis que contradijeran sus propios pronósticos optimistas". Otro ex funcionario de Inteligencia de alto rango dijo: "Estas eran cosas que ni la Casa Blanca ni el Pentágono querían oír. Se quejaban constantemente de que las personas que escribían este tipo de evaluaciones desalentadoras 'debían unirse al equipo', que 'no eran jugadores del equipo' y que estaban 'sentados ahí (en las oficinas de la CIA) en Langley, sin hacer nada".
Esposa del primer ministro británico denominó a la tortura "terrorismo de estado"
Mientras tanto, la esposa del primer ministro británico Tony Blair, se hizo eco de los pedidos de finalizar el uso de la tortura. Cherie Booth afirmó en un discurso y en un artículo que lo acompaña, que el uso de la tortura en la llamada guerra al terrorismo equivale al "terrorismo de estado".
Video muestra que Bush y Chertoff recibieron serias advertencias un día antes del huracán Katrina
"Associated Press" obtuvo una filmación confidencial de la última reunión informativa del Presidente Bush antes que el huracán Katrina azotara la Costa del Golfo de México. El video muestra que el Presidente recibió serias advertencias de que el huracán podía destruir los diques de contención y poner en peligro la vida de los residentes de Nueva Orleáns. La reunión se llevó a cabo el 28 de agosto, un día antes de que el Katrina azotara Nueva Orleáns. En el video, se muestra al Presidente Bush viendo la reunión a través de una videoconferencia desde su rancho en Texas. Durante la reunión, el Presidente no hace ni una sola pregunta, y aún así concluye diciendo que el gobierno está "totalmente preparado". El video muestra a varios funcionarios federales, estatales y locales formulando las advertencias. Luego, el entonces director de la Agencia Federal para el Manejo de Emergencias (FEMA, por sus siglas en inglés), Michael Brown, le dice al Presidente y al Secretario de Seguridad Nacional, Michael Chertoff: "Tengo el presentimiento... de que esto va a ser grande y serio". En otra instancia de la reunión, un experto en meteorología dice que tiene "serias preocupaciones" sobre los diques de contención de Nueva Orleáns. El video pone aún más en duda la afirmación de la Casa Blanca de que no había sido advertida adecuadamente sobre la posible magnitud de Katrina. El 1º de septiembre, el Presidente Bush dijo: "Creo que nadie previó que los diques de contención se romperían. Sí anticiparon una fuerte tormenta pero los diques se rompieron y como consecuencia gran parte de Nueva Orleáns está inundada y ahora tenemos que lidiar con eso, y lo haremos". Luego de ver el video, el alcalde de Nueva Orleáns, Ray Nagin, dijo: "En este momento, tengo un mal presentimiento... A juzgar por este video, parece que todo el mundo estaba al tanto de la situación". La Casa Blanca intenta restarle importancia al video. El portavoz presidencial, Trent Duffy, dijo: "Espero que la gente no saque conclusiones por una sola reunión del Presidente".
Demócratas reiteran solicitud de investigación independiente del Katrina
Los demócratas han reiterado la solicitud de una investigación independiente sobre la respuesta del gobierno al huracán Katrina. Las solicitudes surgieron luego de la publicación el miércoles, de un video confidencial de la última reunión informativa del presidente Bush antes de que el huracán Katrina azotara la costa del Golfo de México. En la reunión el presidente recibió serias advertencias de que el huracán podría romper diques de contención y amenazar las vidas de los habitantes de Nueva Orleáns. A pesar de esto, días más tarde el presidente Bush dijo que la rotura de los diques no había sido prevista.
Encuesta: Índice de aprobación de Bush sobre Irak y presidencia más bajo que nunca
En otras noticias, una nueva encuesta de CBS News descubrió que el número de ciudadanos estadounidenses que aprueban la labor general del Presidente Bush y su manejo de la guerra de Irak, es más bajo que nunca. Un 34 por ciento de los encuestados dijeron que aprobaban la labor del Presidente, mientras que menos personas aún, un 30 por ciento, dijeron que aprobaban la manera en que el Presidente maneja la guerra en Irak. Mientras tanto, menos de un tercio de los ciudadanos estadounidenses creen que el Presidente Bush ha respondido adecuadamente a las necesidades de las victimas del Huracán Katrina.
Encuesta mundial descubre que muchas personas creen que la guerra en Irak aumentó las amenazas terroristas
Los resultados surgen mientras otra nueva encuesta descubrió un descenso en el apoyo a la guerra de Irak a nivel mundial. Una encuesta de BBC en la que participaron más de 40.000 personas de 35 países distintos, reveló que el 60 por ciento de los encuestados creen que la guerra de Irak incrementó en vez de disminuir las probabilidades de que ocurran grandes ataques terroristas. Sólo el 12 por ciento creen que la guerra hizo que los ataques fueran menos probables.
Maria: Good afternoon. Here are ten headlines from the week via Democracy Now! Democracy Now! provides their daily headlines in both English and Spanish, so get the word out. Peace.
Poll: 72% of US Soldiers in Iraq Want Exit Within Year
A new poll from Zogby International shows nearly three-quarters of US troops in Iraq believe the US should pull out within one year. One-quarter of those surveyed believe the US should leave now. And only one in five US troops want to heed President Bush's pledge that US forces stay "as long as they are needed." The poll also found an overwhelming majority of US troops believe the widely discredited theory that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks. 90% said the Iraq war was a retaliation for Saddam Hussein's supposed role in 9/11.
Study: One in Three Iraq Vets Seek Mental Health Treatment
Meanwhile, the Washington Post is reporting an Army study has found that more than one in three US troops who served in Iraq later sought help for mental health problems. According to the report, soldiers and Marines returning from Iraq reported more distress than those returning from Afghanistan and other countries. More than half of all service members returning from Iraq reported that they had "felt in great danger of being killed" there, and over 2,400 reported having suicidal thoughts. Steve Robinson, head of the National Gulf War Resource Center, said: "In Vietnam, there were safe areas where people could go to rest and recuperate. That doesn't happen in Iraq; every place is a war zone."
New Iraq Reconstruction Funds Devoted Solely to Prisons
In other news, the State Department quietly announced this week it has requested $100 million dollars for Iraqi reconstruction -- all of it for prisons. The Bush administration initially promised $20 billion dollars to reconstruct Iraqi infrastructure. But much of the money has been diverted to security. State Department Iraq coordinator James Jeffrey said the $100 million dollar prison project was the lone new reconstruction effort the US government will undertake over the next year.
Bush Was Given Intelligence Discrediting Stated Reasons for Invasion
In other news, investigative journalist Murray Waas is reporting President Bush was personally delivered intelligence reports before the Iraq war that cast doubt on his administration's stated reasons for launching an invasion. One report, delivered in January 2003, said Saddam Hussein was highly unlikely to attack the United States unless "ongoing military operations risked the imminent demise of his regime." Another intelligence report dated October 2002 said both the Energy Department and the State Department's intelligence bureau had concluded Saddam Hussein's attempts to purchase aluminum tubes were "intended for conventional weapons." Waas writes that the disclosure is "the first evidence that the president himself knew of the sharp debate within the government over the aluminum tubes during the time that he, [Vice President Dick] Cheney, and other members of the Cabinet were citing the tubes as clear evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. Neither the president nor the vice president told the public about the disagreement among the agencies."
Former Intel Officials Say White House Ignored Insurgency Warnings
In other news, Knight Ridder is reporting the White House repeatedly ignored early intelligence warnings that the armed insurgency in Iraq was almost entirely local and growing in size. A National Intelligence Estimate as early as October 2003 said the insurgency was fueled mostly by local conditions, such as the presence of US troops in Iraq. It also said outside forces were playing almost no role in the insurgency. Robert Hutchings, the former chair of the National Intelligence Council from 2003 to 2005 said: "Frankly, senior officials simply weren't ready to pay attention to analysis that didn't conform to their own optimistic scenarios." Another former high-ranking intelligence official said: "This was stuff the White House and the Pentagon did not want to hear. They were constantly grumbling that the people who were writing these kind of downbeat assessments `needed to get on the team,' `were not team players' and were `sitting up there (at CIA headquarters) in Langley sucking their thumbs.'"
Wife of British PM Calls Torture "Terrorism of the State"
Meanwhile, the wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair has joined the calls for an end to the use of torture. In a speech and accompanying article Wednesday, Cherie Booth said the use of torture in the so-called war on terror amounted to "terrorism of the state".
Video Shows Bush Receiving Dire Warnings Day Before Katrina
The Associated Press has obtained confidential video footage of President Bush's final briefing before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. It shows the President was given dire warnings the storm could breach levees and threaten the lives of residents of New Orleans. The briefing occurred on August 28th -- one day before Katrina hit. On the video, President Bush is seen watching the briefing via a videoconference from his Texas ranch. The President does not ask one single question throughout the briefing, yet concludes that the government is: "fully prepared."
The video shows several federal, state and local officials issuing the warnings. Then-FEMA head Michael Brown tells the President and Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff: "My gut tells me ... this is a bad one and a big one." At another point in the briefing, , a weather expert says he has "grave concerns" on the levees in New Orleans. The video casts further doubt over the White House's claim it wasn't adequately warned about Katrina's possible magnitude. On September 1st, President Bush said: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will."
After viewing the video, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin said: "I have kind of a sinking feeling in my gut right now... From this tape it looks like everybody was fully aware." The White House is already trying to downplay the video. Presidential spokesperson Trent Duffy said: "I hope people don't draw conclusions from the president getting a single briefing."
Democrats Repeat Calls For Independent Katrina Investigation
Democrats have renewed calls for an independent investigation into the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. The calls follow the release Wednesday of confidential video footage from President Bush's final briefing before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. The President was given dire warnings the storm could breach levees and threaten the lives of residents of New Orleans. Yet days later, President Bush said the breach of the levees hadn't been anticipated.
Bush Approval Rating on Iraq, Presidency At All-Time Low
In other news, a new CBS News poll has found the number of Americans who approve of President Bush's overall job performance and his handling of the Iraq war has fallen to an all-time low. 34 percent of Americans give the President a favorable job approval rating, while even less -- 30 percent -- approve of the President's handling of the Iraq war. Meanwhile, less than a third of Americans believe President Bush has adequately responded to the needs of victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Global Survey Finds Many Believe Iraq War Has Increased Terror Threats
The results come as another new poll has found dwindling support for the Iraq war around the world. A BBC survey of over 40,000 people in 35 different countries found that 60% believe the Iraq war has increased rather than decreased the chances of major terrorist attacks. Only 12% believe the war has made the chances of an attack less likely.
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Encuesta: 72 por ciento de soldados estadounidenses en Irak quieren retirarse en un año
Una nueva encuesta de Zogby International indica que casi el 75 por ciento de los soldados estadounidenses en Irak creen que Estados Unidos debería retirarse en el correr de un año. Un veinticinco por ciento de los soldados encuestados consideran que Estados Unidos debería retirarse ahora. Y tan solo uno de cada cinco soldados estadounidenses desean cumplir la promesa del Presidente Bush de que las fuerzas estadounidenses permanezcan en Irak "el tiempo que sea necesario". La encuesta también descubrió que una abrumadora mayoría de los soldados estadounidenses cree la teoría ampliamente desacreditada de que Saddam Hussein estuvo involucrado en los ataques del 11 de septiembre. El 90 por ciento dijo que la guerra de Irak era una represalia por la presunta participación de Saddam Hussein en los atentados del 11 de septiembre.
Estudio: Uno de cada tres veteranos de guerra de Irak padecen problemas de salud mental
Mientras tanto, el "Washington Post" informa que un estudio del Ejército descubrió que más de uno de cada tres soldados estadounidenses que sirvieron en Irak, luego buscaron ayuda para sus problemas mentales. Según el informe, los soldados e infantes de marina que regresaban de Irak sufrían más angustia que los que volvían de Afganistán y otros países. Más de la mitad de los integrantes del servicio militar que volvían de Irak informaron que habían "sentido que corrían grave peligro de ser asesinados" allí, y más de 2.400 informaron haber tenido pensamientos suicidas. Steve Robinson, director del Centro Nacional de Recursos de la Guerra del Golfo, dijo: "En Vietnam, había áreas seguras donde las personas podían ir a descansar y a recuperarse. En Irak no es así, todos los lugares son una zona de guerra".
Fondos para nueva reconstrucción de Irak destinados únicamente a prisiones
En otras noticias, el Departamento de Estado anunció silenciosamente esta semana que pidió 100 millones de dólares para la reconstrucción de Irak, todo destinado a las prisiones. El gobierno de Bush prometió inicialmente que destinaría 20.000 millones de dólares para la reconstrucción de la infraestructura iraquí. Pero gran parte del dinero se gastó en seguridad. El coordinador del Departamento de Estado para Irak, James Jeffrey, dijo que el proyecto de prisiones de 100 millones de dólares es el único nuevo esfuerzo de reconstrucción que el gobierno estadounidense llevará a cabo en el próximo año.
Bush recibió información que desacredita las razones declaradas para la invasión
En otras noticias, el periodista de investigación Murray Waas informa que el presidente Bush recibió personalmente informes de inteligencia antes de la guerra de Irak que generan dudas sobre las razones sostenidas por su gobierno para iniciar la invasión. Un informe entregado en enero de 2003, decía que era muy improbable que Saddam Hussein atacara Estados Unidos, a menos que "las operaciones militares en curso pusieran en riesgo el inminente fin de su régimen". Otro informe de inteligencia de octubre de 2002 decía que tanto el Departamento de Energía como la oficina de inteligencia del Departamento de Estado habían concluido que los intentos de Saddam Hussein de comprar tubos de aluminio eran "destinados a la fabricación de armas convencionales". Waas escribió que la revelación es "la primera prueba de que el propio presidente estaba al tanto del debate encarnizado en el gobierno acerca de los tubos de aluminio en el momento en que él, [vicepresidente Dick] Cheney, y otros miembros del gabinete mencionaron los tubos como una prueba clara de un programa nuclear iraquí. Ni el presidente ni el vicepresidente le dijeron a la población acerca de la discrepancia entre los organismos".
Ex funcionarios de inteligencia dicen que la Casa Blanca ignoró advertencias sobre la insurgencia
En otras noticias, "Knight Ridder" informa que la Casa Blanca ignoró reiteradas veces las advertencias de inteligencia de que la insurgencia armada en Irak era casi completamente local y que estaba creciendo en número. Un cálculo de la Inteligencia Nacional indicó en octubre de 2003 que la insurgencia estaba incentivada en gran parte por las condiciones locales, como la presencia de los soldados estadounidenses en Irak. También indicó que las fuerzas externas prácticamente no formaban parte de la insurgencia. Robert Hutchings, quien fue presidente del Consejo Nacional de Inteligencia de 2003 a 2005, dijo: "Sinceramente, los altos funcionarios simplemente no estaban preparados para prestarle atención a los análisis que contradijeran sus propios pronósticos optimistas". Otro ex funcionario de Inteligencia de alto rango dijo: "Estas eran cosas que ni la Casa Blanca ni el Pentágono querían oír. Se quejaban constantemente de que las personas que escribían este tipo de evaluaciones desalentadoras 'debían unirse al equipo', que 'no eran jugadores del equipo' y que estaban 'sentados ahí (en las oficinas de la CIA) en Langley, sin hacer nada".
Esposa del primer ministro británico denominó a la tortura "terrorismo de estado"
Mientras tanto, la esposa del primer ministro británico Tony Blair, se hizo eco de los pedidos de finalizar el uso de la tortura. Cherie Booth afirmó en un discurso y en un artículo que lo acompaña, que el uso de la tortura en la llamada guerra al terrorismo equivale al "terrorismo de estado".
Video muestra que Bush y Chertoff recibieron serias advertencias un día antes del huracán Katrina
"Associated Press" obtuvo una filmación confidencial de la última reunión informativa del Presidente Bush antes que el huracán Katrina azotara la Costa del Golfo de México. El video muestra que el Presidente recibió serias advertencias de que el huracán podía destruir los diques de contención y poner en peligro la vida de los residentes de Nueva Orleáns. La reunión se llevó a cabo el 28 de agosto, un día antes de que el Katrina azotara Nueva Orleáns. En el video, se muestra al Presidente Bush viendo la reunión a través de una videoconferencia desde su rancho en Texas. Durante la reunión, el Presidente no hace ni una sola pregunta, y aún así concluye diciendo que el gobierno está "totalmente preparado". El video muestra a varios funcionarios federales, estatales y locales formulando las advertencias. Luego, el entonces director de la Agencia Federal para el Manejo de Emergencias (FEMA, por sus siglas en inglés), Michael Brown, le dice al Presidente y al Secretario de Seguridad Nacional, Michael Chertoff: "Tengo el presentimiento... de que esto va a ser grande y serio". En otra instancia de la reunión, un experto en meteorología dice que tiene "serias preocupaciones" sobre los diques de contención de Nueva Orleáns. El video pone aún más en duda la afirmación de la Casa Blanca de que no había sido advertida adecuadamente sobre la posible magnitud de Katrina. El 1º de septiembre, el Presidente Bush dijo: "Creo que nadie previó que los diques de contención se romperían. Sí anticiparon una fuerte tormenta pero los diques se rompieron y como consecuencia gran parte de Nueva Orleáns está inundada y ahora tenemos que lidiar con eso, y lo haremos". Luego de ver el video, el alcalde de Nueva Orleáns, Ray Nagin, dijo: "En este momento, tengo un mal presentimiento... A juzgar por este video, parece que todo el mundo estaba al tanto de la situación". La Casa Blanca intenta restarle importancia al video. El portavoz presidencial, Trent Duffy, dijo: "Espero que la gente no saque conclusiones por una sola reunión del Presidente".
Demócratas reiteran solicitud de investigación independiente del Katrina
Los demócratas han reiterado la solicitud de una investigación independiente sobre la respuesta del gobierno al huracán Katrina. Las solicitudes surgieron luego de la publicación el miércoles, de un video confidencial de la última reunión informativa del presidente Bush antes de que el huracán Katrina azotara la costa del Golfo de México. En la reunión el presidente recibió serias advertencias de que el huracán podría romper diques de contención y amenazar las vidas de los habitantes de Nueva Orleáns. A pesar de esto, días más tarde el presidente Bush dijo que la rotura de los diques no había sido prevista.
Encuesta: Índice de aprobación de Bush sobre Irak y presidencia más bajo que nunca
En otras noticias, una nueva encuesta de CBS News descubrió que el número de ciudadanos estadounidenses que aprueban la labor general del Presidente Bush y su manejo de la guerra de Irak, es más bajo que nunca. Un 34 por ciento de los encuestados dijeron que aprobaban la labor del Presidente, mientras que menos personas aún, un 30 por ciento, dijeron que aprobaban la manera en que el Presidente maneja la guerra en Irak. Mientras tanto, menos de un tercio de los ciudadanos estadounidenses creen que el Presidente Bush ha respondido adecuadamente a las necesidades de las victimas del Huracán Katrina.
Encuesta mundial descubre que muchas personas creen que la guerra en Irak aumentó las amenazas terroristas
Los resultados surgen mientras otra nueva encuesta descubrió un descenso en el apoyo a la guerra de Irak a nivel mundial. Una encuesta de BBC en la que participaron más de 40.000 personas de 35 países distintos, reveló que el 60 por ciento de los encuestados creen que la guerra de Irak incrementó en vez de disminuir las probabilidades de que ocurran grandes ataques terroristas. Sólo el 12 por ciento creen que la guerra hizo que los ataques fueran menos probables.
Maria: Good afternoon. Here are ten headlines from the week via Democracy Now! Democracy Now! provides their daily headlines in both English and Spanish, so get the word out. Peace.
Poll: 72% of US Soldiers in Iraq Want Exit Within Year
A new poll from Zogby International shows nearly three-quarters of US troops in Iraq believe the US should pull out within one year. One-quarter of those surveyed believe the US should leave now. And only one in five US troops want to heed President Bush's pledge that US forces stay "as long as they are needed." The poll also found an overwhelming majority of US troops believe the widely discredited theory that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks. 90% said the Iraq war was a retaliation for Saddam Hussein's supposed role in 9/11.
Study: One in Three Iraq Vets Seek Mental Health Treatment
Meanwhile, the Washington Post is reporting an Army study has found that more than one in three US troops who served in Iraq later sought help for mental health problems. According to the report, soldiers and Marines returning from Iraq reported more distress than those returning from Afghanistan and other countries. More than half of all service members returning from Iraq reported that they had "felt in great danger of being killed" there, and over 2,400 reported having suicidal thoughts. Steve Robinson, head of the National Gulf War Resource Center, said: "In Vietnam, there were safe areas where people could go to rest and recuperate. That doesn't happen in Iraq; every place is a war zone."
New Iraq Reconstruction Funds Devoted Solely to Prisons
In other news, the State Department quietly announced this week it has requested $100 million dollars for Iraqi reconstruction -- all of it for prisons. The Bush administration initially promised $20 billion dollars to reconstruct Iraqi infrastructure. But much of the money has been diverted to security. State Department Iraq coordinator James Jeffrey said the $100 million dollar prison project was the lone new reconstruction effort the US government will undertake over the next year.
Bush Was Given Intelligence Discrediting Stated Reasons for Invasion
In other news, investigative journalist Murray Waas is reporting President Bush was personally delivered intelligence reports before the Iraq war that cast doubt on his administration's stated reasons for launching an invasion. One report, delivered in January 2003, said Saddam Hussein was highly unlikely to attack the United States unless "ongoing military operations risked the imminent demise of his regime." Another intelligence report dated October 2002 said both the Energy Department and the State Department's intelligence bureau had concluded Saddam Hussein's attempts to purchase aluminum tubes were "intended for conventional weapons." Waas writes that the disclosure is "the first evidence that the president himself knew of the sharp debate within the government over the aluminum tubes during the time that he, [Vice President Dick] Cheney, and other members of the Cabinet were citing the tubes as clear evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. Neither the president nor the vice president told the public about the disagreement among the agencies."
Former Intel Officials Say White House Ignored Insurgency Warnings
In other news, Knight Ridder is reporting the White House repeatedly ignored early intelligence warnings that the armed insurgency in Iraq was almost entirely local and growing in size. A National Intelligence Estimate as early as October 2003 said the insurgency was fueled mostly by local conditions, such as the presence of US troops in Iraq. It also said outside forces were playing almost no role in the insurgency. Robert Hutchings, the former chair of the National Intelligence Council from 2003 to 2005 said: "Frankly, senior officials simply weren't ready to pay attention to analysis that didn't conform to their own optimistic scenarios." Another former high-ranking intelligence official said: "This was stuff the White House and the Pentagon did not want to hear. They were constantly grumbling that the people who were writing these kind of downbeat assessments `needed to get on the team,' `were not team players' and were `sitting up there (at CIA headquarters) in Langley sucking their thumbs.'"
Wife of British PM Calls Torture "Terrorism of the State"
Meanwhile, the wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair has joined the calls for an end to the use of torture. In a speech and accompanying article Wednesday, Cherie Booth said the use of torture in the so-called war on terror amounted to "terrorism of the state".
Video Shows Bush Receiving Dire Warnings Day Before Katrina
The Associated Press has obtained confidential video footage of President Bush's final briefing before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. It shows the President was given dire warnings the storm could breach levees and threaten the lives of residents of New Orleans. The briefing occurred on August 28th -- one day before Katrina hit. On the video, President Bush is seen watching the briefing via a videoconference from his Texas ranch. The President does not ask one single question throughout the briefing, yet concludes that the government is: "fully prepared."
The video shows several federal, state and local officials issuing the warnings. Then-FEMA head Michael Brown tells the President and Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff: "My gut tells me ... this is a bad one and a big one." At another point in the briefing, , a weather expert says he has "grave concerns" on the levees in New Orleans. The video casts further doubt over the White House's claim it wasn't adequately warned about Katrina's possible magnitude. On September 1st, President Bush said: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm but these levees got breached and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded and now we're having to deal with it and will."
After viewing the video, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin said: "I have kind of a sinking feeling in my gut right now... From this tape it looks like everybody was fully aware." The White House is already trying to downplay the video. Presidential spokesperson Trent Duffy said: "I hope people don't draw conclusions from the president getting a single briefing."
Democrats Repeat Calls For Independent Katrina Investigation
Democrats have renewed calls for an independent investigation into the government's response to Hurricane Katrina. The calls follow the release Wednesday of confidential video footage from President Bush's final briefing before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. The President was given dire warnings the storm could breach levees and threaten the lives of residents of New Orleans. Yet days later, President Bush said the breach of the levees hadn't been anticipated.
Bush Approval Rating on Iraq, Presidency At All-Time Low
In other news, a new CBS News poll has found the number of Americans who approve of President Bush's overall job performance and his handling of the Iraq war has fallen to an all-time low. 34 percent of Americans give the President a favorable job approval rating, while even less -- 30 percent -- approve of the President's handling of the Iraq war. Meanwhile, less than a third of Americans believe President Bush has adequately responded to the needs of victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Global Survey Finds Many Believe Iraq War Has Increased Terror Threats
The results come as another new poll has found dwindling support for the Iraq war around the world. A BBC survey of over 40,000 people in 35 different countries found that 60% believe the Iraq war has increased rather than decreased the chances of major terrorist attacks. Only 12% believe the war has made the chances of an attack less likely.
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NYT: Nothing much to see
Back page of the New York Times main section (page A28) contains news. Edmund L. Anderews's "Bush Plan Would Raise Deficit by $1.2 Trillion, Budget Office Says." The Congressional Budget Office released their analysis of the Bully Boy economic "plan."
*$312 billion is the cost of Bully Boy's war on Social Security
*The $312 billion strain would not be made up by Bully Boy's war on Medicaid (stealing $36 billion from the elderly)
*Distortions of an eventual decline in the deficit (in 2011!) (by a whopping 1%) are based on trickery and deceit since Bully Boy's "plan" does not budget the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan beyond 2006.
*$2.1 billion would be stolen from schools in Bully Boy's war on education
This morning's Times? Nothing really to note. The most pedestrian Saturday paper in some time. We'll note another article near the end, but for news you can use, we'll go elsewhere.
On education, Rachel notes Grace Lee Boggs' "False Promises" (Michigan Citizen via The Boggs Center):
The lead article in the February 13 Detroit Free Press is an example of the false promises being made to a public desperately seeking solutions to the current schools/jobs crisis.
Under a banner headline "TOUGHER STANDARDS FORGRADS SUPPORTED," DFP education writer Lori Huggins quotes 13 year old Yusef Bazzy, "It can't hurt. Itcan only help. It'll open up more jobs. It'll make our students more educated."
At a time when even engineers with advanced degrees are being laid off, Ms. Huggins and members of the Michigan Board of Education are creating the illusion that required math and science classes will mean more jobs for high school graduates.
In a period when 50% of inner city students are already opting out of schools because they no longer believe the lie that a high school diploma is a key to a good job, they are recommending policies that will lock out more young people.
To avoid making and/or being taken in by such false promises, I recommend a little book, The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School by the late Neil Postman.
Cindy notes Medea Benjamin's "Who Will Tell Our Stories?" (Common Dreams):
On April 5, 2003, U.S. forces pushed into downtown Baghdad. The next day, they encircled the city and heavy fighting broke out. Bombs leveled entire buildings, tanks thundered down the streets, and the sounds of gunshots reverberated through the air.
There was intense fighting in the neighborhood where Vivian Salim and her family lived. Terrified, she and her husband Izzat grabbed their three children and jumped into the car, trying to escape to a safer place. They were driving down the street when they crossed paths with a U.S. tank. With no warning, the soldiers in the tank began shooting straight at the car. Salim screamed, pleading with them to stop, but the soldiers just kept shooting.
When they finally stopped, they discovered that they had just killed a family of unarmed civilians. Vivian Salim's husband, her 15-year-old son Hussam, her 12-year-old son Waseem, and her daughter Merna, age 6, were all dead.
"I saw the bullets enter my children's heads," she said. "My son was sitting right next to me when the bullet went through his forehead. One minute I was a mother, a wife with a family; the next minute my family was gone."
The soldiers ordered Vivian to leave, and to leave her family's bullet-ridden bodies behind. "After a week of pleading with the Americans, they finally gave the bodies back to us. We took them to the church where we washed them, prayed for them, and then buried them." Vivian Salim now lives with her elderly parents.
The U.S. military never acknowledged their terrible mistake, never apologized to Salim for her loss, and never offered her any financial help. Now, nearly three years later, Salim and six other Iraqi women have been invited by the women's peace group CODEPINK to come to the United States to tell their stories and push for an end to the occupation of their country. The other delegates are doctors, engineers, journalists and humanitarian aid workers. One delegate, Anwar kadhim Jwad, is also a widow whose husband and children were killed by U.S. soldiers at an unmarked roadblock.
Here's the CODEPINK action alert that goes with the above:
Help get U.S. visas for Iraqi women The U.S. government has denied visas to 2 Iraqi women who are part of an 8-person Iraqi delegation scheduled to come to Washington DC for International Women’s Day (click here for delegation schedule). Both women lost their loved ones during this war, and planned to join grieving U.S. mothers like Cindy Sheehan to call for the U.S. troops to leave Iraq. Please call the State Department at 202-647-4000, ask for the office of Condoleezza Rice, and insist that the Iraqi women be allowed in. Click here for details and read our February 15 press release, and related news.
Also recemember this from CODEPINK:
Sign the Women Say No to War Call TODAY! From now until March 8, International Women’s Day, we will be gathering 100,000 signatures to deliver to officials in Washington DC and to U.S. embassies worldwide. Please sign the call today at www.womensaynotowar.org, pass it on to your friends, and join us either in Washington DC or at local events. Click here for details.
And remember, male or female, you can sign the petition. Cindy also noted Tad Daley, Jodie Evans, and Mimi Kennedy's "A Nuclear Iran Would Be Bad -- A Forcibly Defanged Iran Would Be Worse: What does the peace movement have to say about the Iranian crisis?" (Common Dreams):
Three years ago last month, in more than 600 cities around the world, as many as 14 million people marched in their streets to prevent the United States from launching a unilateral, preemptive, illegal, unprovoked, and unwise invasion of Iraq. The Guinness Book of World Records has identified February 15, 2003 as the largest global antiwar mobilization in history. Now this same peace and progressive community (which the New York Times has called "the other superpower") is slowly beginning to turn its attention from the last war to the next war -- a looming military showdown between the West and Iran. The only problem?
We haven't quite figured out what we want to say.
At least two military options are probably being "war gamed" today somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon. One is a full scale invasion of Iran, directed at changing its regime. The other is "surgical strikes" -- air operations, cruise missiles, lethal commandos on the ground -- aimed not at overthrowing the Iranian government but at "taking out" its nuclear program. It all sounds very precise, very swashbuckling, very dramatic.
And very much like what the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor.
Why We Oppose Military Action Against Iran
We, of course, reflexively oppose both options. The costs of war always exceed the benefits. The use of force always causes more problems than it solves. And thousands of innocent souls who have nothing to do with the dispute in question always end up paying the steepest price.
But to forestall a unilateral, preemptive, illegal, unprovoked, and unwise assault on Iran, the forces of peace need to say more than "war is unhealthy for children and kittens and other living things."
We need to say that any kind of military attack on Iran will do enormous harm to America.
Although Iran would put up an almost infinitely better fight than Saddam's Iraq, the invincible US military could probably dislodge Iran's theocratic regime if ordered to do so. But what then? Another interminable and bungled occupation? In a country with three times the population, four times the area, and a three thousand year heritage of fierce national pride? After the economists Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz concluded that the Iraq fiasco will eventually cost the US between $1 trillion and $2 trillion?
It would be a long time before America would see any light at the end of that tunnel.
But the "surgical strike" option would be a disaster for American national security as well. If we attack Iran -- as we did Iraq -- without UN Security Council authorization, we would again flout the UN Charter and further enfeeble the international legal system. If there's anything the peace community stands for, it's that long-tem structures of enduring world peace can only be built through the world rule of law. If one country repeatedly disregards the law of nations, all countries will end up with only the law of the jungle.
Staying with Mimi Kennedy for a moment, we'll note this from Progressive Democrats of America:
I've had the honor of spending the last two weekends with Cindy Sheehan. This Administration and its media sycophants are doing everything in their power to make us forget this war, which was brought to us, originally, by W saying, over and over, "I'm a war president! I'm a war president!"
Dwelling with the dead, remembering that "There are lives in the balance" -- as Jackson Browne sang Saturday night for the activists gathered in All Saints Church, Pasadena -- is the most powerful reminder that our work against this war honors Iraqis and Americans alike, supports the troops, and gives hope for our nation's future in a bleak and bloody time. We will look back on this time, I hope, and know we could have done nothing other than what we are doing -- giving all the time and resources we can spend, and more, to stop the killing. It is the first step to a world where we will resolve conflicts with living efforts, not killing ones, and where justice will finally untie some of the knots that violence fruitlessly seeks to cut.
Please visit this link: http://pdamerica.org/articles/events/president-day-peace.php
I offer this piece to thank you for your work. You join with the dead of this war to, as Martin Luther King put it, bend the arc of history towards justice.
Martha notes Josh White and Julie Tate's "Pentagon Releases Detainees' Names
About 315 From Guantanamo Identified" (Washington Post):
Defense Department officials yesterday released the names and personal information of about 315 current and former detainees of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison, publicly disclosing that information for the first time since the facility opened in early 2002.
The names, released under an order from a federal judge, were contained in more than 5,000 pages of documents that detail administrative hearings for the detainees held at the island prison to determine whether they should be classified as enemy combatants.
[. . .]
The Washington Post has independently verified the identities of approximately 450 current and former detainees through international press accounts, interviews with lawyers who represent detainees and papers filed in several U.S. federal courts. The Post's entire catalogue of names and nationalities has been on its Web site since May 2004 and has been regularly updated. That list can be viewed at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/nationalsecurity/guantanamo_detainees.html .
Pentagon officials have long declined to provide any information about individual detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Most information about specific detainees and their circumstances has come to light through dozens of habeas corpus cases filed in U.S. federal courts. Lawyers representing the detainees have met with their clients at the island base and have subsequently provided declassified notes and descriptions of their conversations to reporters, and military officials have filed sworn statements as part of Justice Department responses in the cases.
The New York Times lets the Associated Press cover the release of detainee names (and the print version is embarrassingly slight: "it was not immediately clear how many names the documents contain"). The Times front pages the sentencing of Randy Cunningham: "eight years and four months in prison for taking $2.4 million in bribes from military contractors in return for smoothing the way for government contracts." But the article, by Randal C. Archibold, is such at boring, lifeless mess you may have to remind yourself, "A member of Congress is getting sent to the pen." (As noted before, there are many ways to bury congressional scandals, Archibold demonstrates one way.) That pretty much reflects the whole paper today. Supposedly, a big story is coming on Sunday. (Although our idea of "a big story" may differ from the Times.)
Lastly, ??? recommends "Gore Vidal on 'Capote,' 'Brokeback Mountain' and why 'Match Point' is the Best Picture of the Year" and, in fact, the entire latest edition of Truthdig.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
the new york times
edmund l. andrews
randal c. archibold
medea benjamin
mimi kennedy
jodie evans
tad daley
progressive democrats
the washington post
josh white
julie tate
gore vidal
truthdig
grace lee boggs
codepink
*$312 billion is the cost of Bully Boy's war on Social Security
*The $312 billion strain would not be made up by Bully Boy's war on Medicaid (stealing $36 billion from the elderly)
*Distortions of an eventual decline in the deficit (in 2011!) (by a whopping 1%) are based on trickery and deceit since Bully Boy's "plan" does not budget the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan beyond 2006.
*$2.1 billion would be stolen from schools in Bully Boy's war on education
This morning's Times? Nothing really to note. The most pedestrian Saturday paper in some time. We'll note another article near the end, but for news you can use, we'll go elsewhere.
On education, Rachel notes Grace Lee Boggs' "False Promises" (Michigan Citizen via The Boggs Center):
The lead article in the February 13 Detroit Free Press is an example of the false promises being made to a public desperately seeking solutions to the current schools/jobs crisis.
Under a banner headline "TOUGHER STANDARDS FORGRADS SUPPORTED," DFP education writer Lori Huggins quotes 13 year old Yusef Bazzy, "It can't hurt. Itcan only help. It'll open up more jobs. It'll make our students more educated."
At a time when even engineers with advanced degrees are being laid off, Ms. Huggins and members of the Michigan Board of Education are creating the illusion that required math and science classes will mean more jobs for high school graduates.
In a period when 50% of inner city students are already opting out of schools because they no longer believe the lie that a high school diploma is a key to a good job, they are recommending policies that will lock out more young people.
To avoid making and/or being taken in by such false promises, I recommend a little book, The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School by the late Neil Postman.
Cindy notes Medea Benjamin's "Who Will Tell Our Stories?" (Common Dreams):
On April 5, 2003, U.S. forces pushed into downtown Baghdad. The next day, they encircled the city and heavy fighting broke out. Bombs leveled entire buildings, tanks thundered down the streets, and the sounds of gunshots reverberated through the air.
There was intense fighting in the neighborhood where Vivian Salim and her family lived. Terrified, she and her husband Izzat grabbed their three children and jumped into the car, trying to escape to a safer place. They were driving down the street when they crossed paths with a U.S. tank. With no warning, the soldiers in the tank began shooting straight at the car. Salim screamed, pleading with them to stop, but the soldiers just kept shooting.
When they finally stopped, they discovered that they had just killed a family of unarmed civilians. Vivian Salim's husband, her 15-year-old son Hussam, her 12-year-old son Waseem, and her daughter Merna, age 6, were all dead.
"I saw the bullets enter my children's heads," she said. "My son was sitting right next to me when the bullet went through his forehead. One minute I was a mother, a wife with a family; the next minute my family was gone."
The soldiers ordered Vivian to leave, and to leave her family's bullet-ridden bodies behind. "After a week of pleading with the Americans, they finally gave the bodies back to us. We took them to the church where we washed them, prayed for them, and then buried them." Vivian Salim now lives with her elderly parents.
The U.S. military never acknowledged their terrible mistake, never apologized to Salim for her loss, and never offered her any financial help. Now, nearly three years later, Salim and six other Iraqi women have been invited by the women's peace group CODEPINK to come to the United States to tell their stories and push for an end to the occupation of their country. The other delegates are doctors, engineers, journalists and humanitarian aid workers. One delegate, Anwar kadhim Jwad, is also a widow whose husband and children were killed by U.S. soldiers at an unmarked roadblock.
Here's the CODEPINK action alert that goes with the above:
Help get U.S. visas for Iraqi women The U.S. government has denied visas to 2 Iraqi women who are part of an 8-person Iraqi delegation scheduled to come to Washington DC for International Women’s Day (click here for delegation schedule). Both women lost their loved ones during this war, and planned to join grieving U.S. mothers like Cindy Sheehan to call for the U.S. troops to leave Iraq. Please call the State Department at 202-647-4000, ask for the office of Condoleezza Rice, and insist that the Iraqi women be allowed in. Click here for details and read our February 15 press release, and related news.
Also recemember this from CODEPINK:
Sign the Women Say No to War Call TODAY! From now until March 8, International Women’s Day, we will be gathering 100,000 signatures to deliver to officials in Washington DC and to U.S. embassies worldwide. Please sign the call today at www.womensaynotowar.org, pass it on to your friends, and join us either in Washington DC or at local events. Click here for details.
And remember, male or female, you can sign the petition. Cindy also noted Tad Daley, Jodie Evans, and Mimi Kennedy's "A Nuclear Iran Would Be Bad -- A Forcibly Defanged Iran Would Be Worse: What does the peace movement have to say about the Iranian crisis?" (Common Dreams):
Three years ago last month, in more than 600 cities around the world, as many as 14 million people marched in their streets to prevent the United States from launching a unilateral, preemptive, illegal, unprovoked, and unwise invasion of Iraq. The Guinness Book of World Records has identified February 15, 2003 as the largest global antiwar mobilization in history. Now this same peace and progressive community (which the New York Times has called "the other superpower") is slowly beginning to turn its attention from the last war to the next war -- a looming military showdown between the West and Iran. The only problem?
We haven't quite figured out what we want to say.
At least two military options are probably being "war gamed" today somewhere in the bowels of the Pentagon. One is a full scale invasion of Iran, directed at changing its regime. The other is "surgical strikes" -- air operations, cruise missiles, lethal commandos on the ground -- aimed not at overthrowing the Iranian government but at "taking out" its nuclear program. It all sounds very precise, very swashbuckling, very dramatic.
And very much like what the Japanese did at Pearl Harbor.
Why We Oppose Military Action Against Iran
We, of course, reflexively oppose both options. The costs of war always exceed the benefits. The use of force always causes more problems than it solves. And thousands of innocent souls who have nothing to do with the dispute in question always end up paying the steepest price.
But to forestall a unilateral, preemptive, illegal, unprovoked, and unwise assault on Iran, the forces of peace need to say more than "war is unhealthy for children and kittens and other living things."
We need to say that any kind of military attack on Iran will do enormous harm to America.
Although Iran would put up an almost infinitely better fight than Saddam's Iraq, the invincible US military could probably dislodge Iran's theocratic regime if ordered to do so. But what then? Another interminable and bungled occupation? In a country with three times the population, four times the area, and a three thousand year heritage of fierce national pride? After the economists Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz concluded that the Iraq fiasco will eventually cost the US between $1 trillion and $2 trillion?
It would be a long time before America would see any light at the end of that tunnel.
But the "surgical strike" option would be a disaster for American national security as well. If we attack Iran -- as we did Iraq -- without UN Security Council authorization, we would again flout the UN Charter and further enfeeble the international legal system. If there's anything the peace community stands for, it's that long-tem structures of enduring world peace can only be built through the world rule of law. If one country repeatedly disregards the law of nations, all countries will end up with only the law of the jungle.
Staying with Mimi Kennedy for a moment, we'll note this from Progressive Democrats of America:
I've had the honor of spending the last two weekends with Cindy Sheehan. This Administration and its media sycophants are doing everything in their power to make us forget this war, which was brought to us, originally, by W saying, over and over, "I'm a war president! I'm a war president!"
Dwelling with the dead, remembering that "There are lives in the balance" -- as Jackson Browne sang Saturday night for the activists gathered in All Saints Church, Pasadena -- is the most powerful reminder that our work against this war honors Iraqis and Americans alike, supports the troops, and gives hope for our nation's future in a bleak and bloody time. We will look back on this time, I hope, and know we could have done nothing other than what we are doing -- giving all the time and resources we can spend, and more, to stop the killing. It is the first step to a world where we will resolve conflicts with living efforts, not killing ones, and where justice will finally untie some of the knots that violence fruitlessly seeks to cut.
Please visit this link: http://pdamerica.org/articles/events/president-day-peace.php
I offer this piece to thank you for your work. You join with the dead of this war to, as Martin Luther King put it, bend the arc of history towards justice.
Martha notes Josh White and Julie Tate's "Pentagon Releases Detainees' Names
About 315 From Guantanamo Identified" (Washington Post):
Defense Department officials yesterday released the names and personal information of about 315 current and former detainees of the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison, publicly disclosing that information for the first time since the facility opened in early 2002.
The names, released under an order from a federal judge, were contained in more than 5,000 pages of documents that detail administrative hearings for the detainees held at the island prison to determine whether they should be classified as enemy combatants.
[. . .]
The Washington Post has independently verified the identities of approximately 450 current and former detainees through international press accounts, interviews with lawyers who represent detainees and papers filed in several U.S. federal courts. The Post's entire catalogue of names and nationalities has been on its Web site since May 2004 and has been regularly updated. That list can be viewed at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/nationalsecurity/guantanamo_detainees.html .
Pentagon officials have long declined to provide any information about individual detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Most information about specific detainees and their circumstances has come to light through dozens of habeas corpus cases filed in U.S. federal courts. Lawyers representing the detainees have met with their clients at the island base and have subsequently provided declassified notes and descriptions of their conversations to reporters, and military officials have filed sworn statements as part of Justice Department responses in the cases.
The New York Times lets the Associated Press cover the release of detainee names (and the print version is embarrassingly slight: "it was not immediately clear how many names the documents contain"). The Times front pages the sentencing of Randy Cunningham: "eight years and four months in prison for taking $2.4 million in bribes from military contractors in return for smoothing the way for government contracts." But the article, by Randal C. Archibold, is such at boring, lifeless mess you may have to remind yourself, "A member of Congress is getting sent to the pen." (As noted before, there are many ways to bury congressional scandals, Archibold demonstrates one way.) That pretty much reflects the whole paper today. Supposedly, a big story is coming on Sunday. (Although our idea of "a big story" may differ from the Times.)
Lastly, ??? recommends "Gore Vidal on 'Capote,' 'Brokeback Mountain' and why 'Match Point' is the Best Picture of the Year" and, in fact, the entire latest edition of Truthdig.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
the new york times
edmund l. andrews
randal c. archibold
medea benjamin
mimi kennedy
jodie evans
tad daley
progressive democrats
the washington post
josh white
julie tate
gore vidal
truthdig
grace lee boggs
codepink
Friday, March 03, 2006
Democracy Now: Arundhati Roy, Jordan Flaherty, Kevin Powell; Robert Parry, Ms., Iran ...
Bush Was Given Intelligence Discrediting Stated Reasons for Invasion
In other news, investigative journalist Murray Waas is reporting President Bush was personally delivered intelligence reports before the Iraq war that cast doubt on his administration's stated reasons for launching an invasion. One report, delivered in January 2003, said Saddam Hussein was highly unlikely to attack the United States unless "ongoing military operations risked the imminent demise of his regime." Another intelligence report dated October 2002 said both the Energy Department and the State Department's intelligence bureau had concluded Saddam Hussein's attempts to purchase aluminum tubes were "intended for conventional weapons." Waas writes that the disclosure is "the first evidence that the president himself knew of the sharp debate within the government over the aluminum tubes during the time that he, [Vice President Dick] Cheney, and other members of the Cabinet were citing the tubes as clear evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. Neither the president nor the vice president told the public about the disagreement among the agencies."
In other news, investigative journalist Murray Waas is reporting President Bush was personally delivered intelligence reports before the Iraq war that cast doubt on his administration's stated reasons for launching an invasion. One report, delivered in January 2003, said Saddam Hussein was highly unlikely to attack the United States unless "ongoing military operations risked the imminent demise of his regime." Another intelligence report dated October 2002 said both the Energy Department and the State Department's intelligence bureau had concluded Saddam Hussein's attempts to purchase aluminum tubes were "intended for conventional weapons." Waas writes that the disclosure is "the first evidence that the president himself knew of the sharp debate within the government over the aluminum tubes during the time that he, [Vice President Dick] Cheney, and other members of the Cabinet were citing the tubes as clear evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program. Neither the president nor the vice president told the public about the disagreement among the agencies."
15 Anti-Torture Activists Arrested Outside White House
In Washington, 15 activists were arrested outside the White House Thursday at a protest against torture. The protest was called by Witness Against Torture. In December, the group marched on the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where hundreds of detainees are being held without charge.
In Washington, 15 activists were arrested outside the White House Thursday at a protest against torture. The protest was called by Witness Against Torture. In December, the group marched on the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where hundreds of detainees are being held without charge.
- Human rights attorney Jennifer Harbury: "We wore the orange overalls and a gag that said 'torture' and we walked the halls of congress to awaken their conscience. We're trying to haunt their conscience. We're the ghost walkers today. We're here to say no human being can be tortured under any circumstances. My husband was tortured to death by CIA assets or informants in Guatemala 10 years ago, and after many of my hunger strikes that leaked out. What we found out after it was too late to save his life is, like I say, they were all on the CIA payroll. The Senate intelligence committee held a huge panel discussion and investigation of this, and after my testimony they said quote: 'This is a disgrace. No one should ever have to starve to stop torture. It will never happen again.' Really all of us are just calling them on that promise. There can be no more torture by the United States or anyone else."
Wife of British PM Calls Torture "Terrorism of the State"
Meanwhile, the wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair has joined the calls for an end to the use of torture. In a speech and accompanying article Wednesday, Cherie Booth said the use of torture in the so-called war on terror amounted to "terrorism of the state".
Meanwhile, the wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair has joined the calls for an end to the use of torture. In a speech and accompanying article Wednesday, Cherie Booth said the use of torture in the so-called war on terror amounted to "terrorism of the state".
Chicago Police Oppose Proposal To Honor Fred Hampton
And in Chicago, a proposal to erect a tribute to slain Black Panther Fred Hampton is drawing opposition from local police. Hampton was assassinated by Chicago police in a December 1969 raid on his home. Chicago has nearly 1300 honorary street signs. The president of Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police said the city shouldn’t honor someone who advocated violence against police officers. Alderperson Madeline Haithcock, who proposed the street naming, said: "If you read the history of Fred Hampton . . . all he said is he was going to defend himself against policemen, and evidently he didn't because they murdered him."
And in Chicago, a proposal to erect a tribute to slain Black Panther Fred Hampton is drawing opposition from local police. Hampton was assassinated by Chicago police in a December 1969 raid on his home. Chicago has nearly 1300 honorary street signs. The president of Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police said the city shouldn’t honor someone who advocated violence against police officers. Alderperson Madeline Haithcock, who proposed the street naming, said: "If you read the history of Fred Hampton . . . all he said is he was going to defend himself against policemen, and evidently he didn't because they murdered him."
The above four items are from today's Democracy Now! Headlines and were selected by Kayla, Jobie, Tricia and Carl. Democracy Now! ("always informing you," as Marcia says):
Headlines for March 3, 2006
- Bush Signs Controversial Nuke Deal on India Visit
- Democrats Repeat Calls For Independent Katrina Investigation
- Bush Was Given Intel Discrediting Stated Reasons for Invasion
- 15 Anti-Torture Activists Arrested Outside White House
- Wife of British PM Calls Torture "Terrorism of the State"
- Study: Antartic Ice Sheet Shrinking Significantly
- Senate Overwhelmingly Approves Patriot Act Renewal
- Mississippi Moves Towards Near-Total Abortion Ban
- Kenyan Government Criticized for Media Crackdown
- Chicago Police Oppose Proposal To Honor Fred Hampton
- Bush Signs Controversial Nuke Deal on India Visit
- Democrats Repeat Calls For Independent Katrina Investigation
- Bush Was Given Intel Discrediting Stated Reasons for Invasion
- 15 Anti-Torture Activists Arrested Outside White House
- Wife of British PM Calls Torture "Terrorism of the State"
- Study: Antartic Ice Sheet Shrinking Significantly
- Senate Overwhelmingly Approves Patriot Act Renewal
- Mississippi Moves Towards Near-Total Abortion Ban
- Kenyan Government Criticized for Media Crackdown
- Chicago Police Oppose Proposal To Honor Fred Hampton
Baby Bush Go Home: Arundhati Roy on Massive Protests Against Bush's Visit to India
We speak with acclaimed Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy who is in New Delhi, India. Bush arrived in India late Wednesday in his first trip to the country. He was greeted the next day by various branches of the Indian military. But on the streets, Bush was greeted by mass protests across the country. In New Delhi alone, crowd estimates varied from 250,000 to 700,000.
We speak with acclaimed Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy who is in New Delhi, India. Bush arrived in India late Wednesday in his first trip to the country. He was greeted the next day by various branches of the Indian military. But on the streets, Bush was greeted by mass protests across the country. In New Delhi alone, crowd estimates varied from 250,000 to 700,000.
Katrina Six Months Later: Activists Discuss Grassroots Disaster Relief, Evictions, Racism and the Struggle to Help Those Left Behind
Six months after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, we speak with two activists about what many call the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. Jordan Flaherty is an organizer with the New Orleans Network and an editor of Left Turn magazine; Kevin Powell is a journalist and author who is helping to launch Katrina On the Ground, an initiative which will bring student delegations from around the country to the Gulf Coast to work with local aid organizations.
Six months after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, we speak with two activists about what many call the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. Jordan Flaherty is an organizer with the New Orleans Network and an editor of Left Turn magazine; Kevin Powell is a journalist and author who is helping to launch Katrina On the Ground, an initiative which will bring student delegations from around the country to the Gulf Coast to work with local aid organizations.
Highlights? Torture, Fred Hampton, activism and Iran are the main thrust. First, let's start with Nancy's recommendation, Robert Parry's "Bush Flummoxes Kafka, Orwell" (Consortium News):
Even Kafka and Orwell, masters at dissecting the cruel absurdities of totalitarian state power, might be at a loss for words in the face of George W. Bush's latest legal and rhetorical formulations on torture.
Bush, of course, insists that the United States does not torture despite extensive evidence that detainees in the Iraq War and the War on Terror have been subjected to simulated drowning by "water-boarding," beatings to death, suffocations, coffin-like confinements, painful stress positions, naked exposure to heat and cold, anal rape, sleep deprivation, dog bites, and psychological ploys involving sexual and religious humiliation.
But Bush says none of this amounts to torture, even as his protection of abusive practices now ventures beyond word games into mind-bending legal rationalizations.
Bush's lawyers went into federal court in Washington on March 2 and argued that a new law that specifically prohibits cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees -- known as the McCain Amendment after its sponsor, Sen. John McCain -- can't be enforced at Guantanamo Bay because another clause of the law grants these prisoners only limited access to U.S. courts.
In other words, the Bush administration is contending that the McCain Amendment might make it illegal to abuse the Guantanamo prisoners, but that the inmates have no legal recourse to enforce the law by going to court and getting an order for the abuses to end.
With the courts removed from the picture, the administration's legal reasoning holds that only Bush can act. He, after all, asserts that he is the nation's "unitary executive," meaning that he and he alone decides what U.S. laws to enforce.
But, in this case, Bush also is the ultimate authority behind the criminal behavior. Bush and his top advisers, such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, were the ones who ordered "the gloves off" in the treatment of prisoners seized in both the worldwide War on Terror and the resistance to the U.S. military occupation of Iraq.
In December, Bush specifically asserted this "unitary" power over enforcing the McCain Amendment by attaching a "signing statement" that reserved for Bush the right to ignore the law if he so wished.
Tori notes that we didn't note the poll numbers here when Democracy Now! covered them. (I'm taking Tori's word on that.) The headline highlights are what members recommend. The picks are almost always made on first come, first serve basis. The first three to e-mail are what we go with. If someone notes that a headline is important to them, we may do four that day. But Mike and Elaine also cover the headlines at their site. Both noted the polls (they pick what they're going to note each day). I'll first note Elaine's because I enjoyed the joke (though it may be lost on some younger members):
"Bush Approval Rating on Iraq, Presidency At All-Time Low" (Democracy Now!):
In other news, a new CBS News poll has found the number of Americans who approve of President Bush's overall job performance and his handling of the Iraq war has fallen to an all-time low. 34 percent of Americans give the President a favorable job approval rating, while even less -- 30 percent -- approve of the President’s handling of the Iraq war. Meanwhile, less than a third of Americans believe President Bush has adequately responded to the needs of victims of Hurricane Katrina.
As Mike wondered on the phone, "You mean Bully Boy didn't get a 'bounce' from all the killings?" (Mike was being sarcastic.) The glow and luster (created by the press) is falling off Bully Boy. That's bound to happen when you sell an illegal war as a "cakewalk" and three years later it's anything but. Brenda e-mailed to note the only thing worse than Bully Boy was Cheney's numbers. The Claudine Longet of this century's approval ratings stand at 18% so don't expect a forthcoming CD entitled Cuddle Up With Cheney anytime soon.
In other news, a new CBS News poll has found the number of Americans who approve of President Bush's overall job performance and his handling of the Iraq war has fallen to an all-time low. 34 percent of Americans give the President a favorable job approval rating, while even less -- 30 percent -- approve of the President’s handling of the Iraq war. Meanwhile, less than a third of Americans believe President Bush has adequately responded to the needs of victims of Hurricane Katrina.
As Mike wondered on the phone, "You mean Bully Boy didn't get a 'bounce' from all the killings?" (Mike was being sarcastic.) The glow and luster (created by the press) is falling off Bully Boy. That's bound to happen when you sell an illegal war as a "cakewalk" and three years later it's anything but. Brenda e-mailed to note the only thing worse than Bully Boy was Cheney's numbers. The Claudine Longet of this century's approval ratings stand at 18% so don't expect a forthcoming CD entitled Cuddle Up With Cheney anytime soon.
Claudine Longet made me laugh (you probably have to be old enough to remember that shooting "incident"). Now here's Mike:
Bush Approval Rating on Iraq, Presidency At All-Time Low
In other news, a new CBS News poll has found the number of Americans who approve of President Bush’s overall job performance and his handling of the Iraq war has fallen to an all-time low. 34 percent of Americans give the President a favorable job approval rating, while even less -- 30 percent -- approve of the President’s handling of the Iraq war. Meanwhile, less than a third of Americans believe President Bush has adequately responded to the needs of victims of Hurricane Katrina.
What? You thought there was no good news today? Bully Boy's in the toilet. Like Ava and C.I. said in their review of "Close To Home" -- "Flush his latest 'creation' down, flush it down." Floating in the toilet, making a stink, flush the Bully Boy.
In other news, a new CBS News poll has found the number of Americans who approve of President Bush’s overall job performance and his handling of the Iraq war has fallen to an all-time low. 34 percent of Americans give the President a favorable job approval rating, while even less -- 30 percent -- approve of the President’s handling of the Iraq war. Meanwhile, less than a third of Americans believe President Bush has adequately responded to the needs of victims of Hurricane Katrina.
What? You thought there was no good news today? Bully Boy's in the toilet. Like Ava and C.I. said in their review of "Close To Home" -- "Flush his latest 'creation' down, flush it down." Floating in the toilet, making a stink, flush the Bully Boy.
Point? There's a great deal going on at all the sites in the community. There are things that I'll pass on because I know it's an issue that another member covers. There are things that I'll miss. There are things that members may not note. Where we drop the ball here (and it's a given that we will), other sites will often pick it up. Which is one more reason that we're lucky to have so many sites in this community.
Speaking of headlines, Denise notes the issue of the statue (see top of this entry) by steering us to Mema Ayi's "Nearly half of Black aldermen to vote for Chairman Fred Hampton Way" (The Chicago Defender):
Nine of the city's 19 Black aldermen told the Defender they plan to vote in favor of the honorary street designation for Black Panther Fred Hampton when the measure comes before the City Council March 29.
The ordinance's sponsor Ald. Madeline Haithcock (2nd) dropped the measure from Wednesday's City Council agenda amid controversy sparked by the police union, which has vowed to fight the honorary designation. In his speeches, Hampton often called for the killing of police officers, largely due to the terrorism inflicted on the Black community by law enforcement.
Chicago Police officers killed Hampton during an early morning raid Dec. 4, 1969.
But despite the fierce opposition by the families of police officers, the city's Black alderman who responded to the Defender Thursday said they are prepared to fight to get a portion of West Monroe named "Chairman Fred Hampton Way."
March is a month jam packed with activism. If you see an event that you want highlighted, e-mail so it can be shared. Martha notes this event coming up next week (Weds.), from Ms. Magazine: "Can Women Stop the War in Iraq? A special International Women's Day event:"
Robin Morgan -- prizewinning poet and author
Eleanor Smeal -- president, Feminist Majority Foundation; publisher, Ms. Magazine
Blanche Wiesen Cook -- bestselling biographer of Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Smeal -- president, Feminist Majority Foundation; publisher, Ms. Magazine
Blanche Wiesen Cook -- bestselling biographer of Eleanor Roosevelt
Wednesday, March 8 at 7pm
Barnes & Noble, Union Square
33 East 17th Street New York City
panel discussion | Q&A | magazine and book signings
As NOW rightly points out, "Peace Is A Feminist Issue." Obviously, Bully Boy's no feminist. Which brings us to our final highlight, Pru notes "U.S. plan to divide Iran" (Great Britain's Socialist Worker):
Marines produce road map to ethnic strife | Washington bankrolls separatist groups
The US and Britain have torn apart Iraq and now they want to do the same to Iran. The US military has been studying ethnic and religious tensions in Iran as part of its preparations for war.
The study was commissioned by the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA), which specialises in producing intelligence for low ranking soldiers.
This suggests that plans for war are advanced.
According to the Financial Times, the military wants to determine attitudes towards the central government and examine if Iran is prone to the same tensions that are tearing Iraq apart.
As with the planning for the war in Iraq, the Pentagon has recruited exiles to help with its survey. A similar group of Iraqi exiles told the Bush administration that US soldiers would be welcome when they invaded, and fed them false information about weapons of mass destruction.
The US plans for Iraq involved dividing the country into semi autonomous regions dominated by ethnic groups, and distributing government ministries according to sect. The result has been to drive Iraq towards civil war.
Now the White House has asked the US Congress to make available £43 million to fund a propaganda campaign aimed at Iranians.
Among the exile groups surveyed by the military are the Kurdish Democratic Party, who support the occupation in Iraq, and the followers of the deposed Iranian royal family, who hope a US invasion will restore the monarchy.
Many groups representing Iran's minorities refused to cooperate with the study because they fear the US is planning to break up the country.
A similar study on Iraq by the MCIA produced "culture smart cards" that are handed out to US troops in Iraq.
The cards instruct soldiers how to distinguish between ethnic and religious groups, and provide useful instructions in Arabic such as "surrender", "do not resist", and "lie on your stomach".
Among the notes on the smart cards are a brief guide to ethnic and religious groups that describe Sunni Muslims as hostile to Shias because they blame them for "undermining the mythical unity of Islam", while "Kurds are distrustful of Turkmen as they have competing claims over Kirkuk".
Iran is right to fear the presence of US and British troops on its borders with Iraq and Afghanistan.
Several bombs have been set off in the southern province of Khuzestan, home to Iran’s Arab minority. The Iranians have accused Britain and the US of being behind the bomb attacks.
© Copyright Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original and leave this notice in place.
March is a busy month, with many activities. Obviously they are needed. (See Pru's highlight above.) Find something you're comfortable doing and take part. (Pass it on and we'll highlight it.)
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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Other Items
After complaints from historians, the National Archives directed intelligence agencies on Thursday to stop removing previously declassified historical documents from public access and urged them to return to the shelves as quickly as possible many of the records they had already pulled.
Allen Weinstein, the nation's chief archivist, announced what he called a "moratorium" on reclassification of documents until an audit can be completed to determine which records should be secret.
A group of historians recently found that decades-old documents that they had photocopied years ago and that appeared to have little sensitivity had disappeared from the open files. They learned that in a program operated in secrecy since 1999, intelligence and security agencies had removed more than 55,000 pages that agency officials believed had been wrongly declassified.
The above is from Scott Shane's "Archivist Urges U.S. to Reopen Classified Files" in this morning's New York Times and Erika, who noted the article, reminds everyone that Linda Lavin
managed to balance "the silliness of Alice" with "serious work later on like Broadway Bound and The Diary of Anne Frank." Let's hope Shane can juggle as well if he intends to serve on or dabble with the Timid's Elite Fluff Patrol . Speaking of the Elite Fluff Patrol, squad leader Elisabeth Bumiller has an "article" that Micah just e-mailed, I'm not seeing it in the paper, that tells you Bully Boy defends outsourcing jobs overseas:
"People do lose jobs as a result of globalization and it's painful for those who lose jobs," Mr. Bush said at meeting with young entrepreneurs at Hyderabad's Indian School of Business, one of the premier schools of its kind in India. Nonetheless, the president said, "globalization provides great opportunities."
No doubt that's the same "logic" ABC would offer for Czech Republic's Funniest Videos, formerly known as America's Funniest Videos.
Martha asks that we note this case that Rebecca noted last night, from Pete Yost's "Lawyers Nix Plea for Abu Ghraib Testimony" (Associated Press via the Washington Post):
Lawyers for a dog handler facing a court martial in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal inexplicably withdrew their request that an Army general involved in the affair be called to testify.
Without explanation, Army Capt. Mary McCarthy told a military judge during a 15-minute hearing Thursday at the Navy Yard that she might renew her request for the testimony of Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, but was abandoning her motion for now.
McCarthy's client, Army Sgt. Michael Smith, goes on trial later this month and could face up to 29 1/2 years in prison if convicted of setting his dog loose on inmates at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
Rebecca also noted that "betty has a new chapter." Zach notes Robert Parry's "'Torture Boy' Signals More Spying" (Consortium News):
Correcting misleading testimony to Congress, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has signaled that George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance of Americans went beyond the known eavesdropping on communications to suspected terrorists overseas.
In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 28, Gonzales recanted testimony he gave on Feb. 6 when he declared that Bush had only authorized a narrowly constructed warrantless wiretapping program by the National Security Agency against Americans in touch with foreign terror suspects.
Referring to a part of his testimony in which he said Bush had approved the NSA program "and that is all that he has authorized," Gonzales withdrew that language, saying "I did not and could not address … any other classified intelligence activities." [Washington Post, March 1, 2006]
The strained wording of Gonzales's letter -- and the fact that he deemed it necessary to correct his testimony -- suggest that other warrantless surveillance programs exist outside the framework of the NSA program, which began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and was exposed by the New York Times in December 2005.
Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee's Republican chairman, didn't put Gonzales under oath at the Feb. 6 hearing, but false statements to Congress still constitute a potential criminal offense.
Close Questioning
The dubious testimony came during close questioning by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee's ranking Democrat. Leahy pressed Gonzales on the administration’s claim that Congress gave Bush the power to wiretap without a court warrant when it authorized use of force against al-Qaeda after the Sept. 11 attacks.
No, Specter didn't put Gonzales under oath, despite the fact that he made misleading remarks (also known as "lies" in the real world) when testifying before the Senate previously (during his confirmation hearing for attorney general). The press took a pass on that. Wait, the New York Times did cover it. Briefly. For a few hours on their website before pulling the article about how Russ Feingold argued Gonzales should be under oath, a vote was taken (Repubes standing together) and Specter claimed to hold proxies for Repubes not present (which was also questioned).
Meanwhile Lloyd notes "an early birthday present for Ruth." What's that? His highlight, Andrea Lewis' "Winter Olympic dreams limited to wealth, access"(Progressive Media Project, The Progressive):
It's not unusual to hear the word "race" during the Olympic Games. But the term has taken on a particular sharp edge during the 2006 Winter Games.
Long-time news and sports journalist Bryant Gumbel shocked many viewers when he offered a terse dismissal of the Winter Olympics during a commentary at the end of the February edition of his HBO program, "Real Sports." He said: "Count me among those who don't care about them and won't watch them," expressing annoyance at everything from ice skating's "kiss and cry" area to the lack of connection the winter games have to original Greek competitions.
But Gumbel really raised some eyebrows when he added, "Try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention."
Conservative commentators and bloggers responded at record-breaking speed, calling Gumbel a racist and arguing that the games are open to anyone who works to make their Olympic dream a reality. Unfortunately, few managed to look at the truth behind Gumbel's claim.
Unlike the Summer Games, which brings together athletes from 200 nations around the globe, the Winter Olympics spotlights a much smaller slice of the planet. With only 87 nations currently participating -- the most of any Winter Games -- 57 percent of the countries of the world are left out in the cold.
You might think that the American melting pot would thaw some of that ice, and indeed the United States sent its most multiracial team ever to this year's competitions in Turin, Italy.
Andrea Lewis, with Philip Maldari, co-hosts KPFA's The Morning Show which is one of Ruth's favorite programs.
Remember to listen, watch or read Democracy Now! today:
As Bush wraps up his three day visit to India, we got to New Delhi tospeak with famed Indian activist and author, Arundhati Roy.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
the new york times
scott shane
the elite fluff patrol
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
thomas friedman is a great man
robert parry
andrea lewis
ruths public radio report
the morning show
kpfa
linda lavin
pete yost
associated press
the washington post
[C.I. note: "If" changed to "is" -- caught by Shirley.]
Allen Weinstein, the nation's chief archivist, announced what he called a "moratorium" on reclassification of documents until an audit can be completed to determine which records should be secret.
A group of historians recently found that decades-old documents that they had photocopied years ago and that appeared to have little sensitivity had disappeared from the open files. They learned that in a program operated in secrecy since 1999, intelligence and security agencies had removed more than 55,000 pages that agency officials believed had been wrongly declassified.
The above is from Scott Shane's "Archivist Urges U.S. to Reopen Classified Files" in this morning's New York Times and Erika, who noted the article, reminds everyone that Linda Lavin
managed to balance "the silliness of Alice" with "serious work later on like Broadway Bound and The Diary of Anne Frank." Let's hope Shane can juggle as well if he intends to serve on or dabble with the Timid's Elite Fluff Patrol . Speaking of the Elite Fluff Patrol, squad leader Elisabeth Bumiller has an "article" that Micah just e-mailed, I'm not seeing it in the paper, that tells you Bully Boy defends outsourcing jobs overseas:
"People do lose jobs as a result of globalization and it's painful for those who lose jobs," Mr. Bush said at meeting with young entrepreneurs at Hyderabad's Indian School of Business, one of the premier schools of its kind in India. Nonetheless, the president said, "globalization provides great opportunities."
No doubt that's the same "logic" ABC would offer for Czech Republic's Funniest Videos, formerly known as America's Funniest Videos.
Martha asks that we note this case that Rebecca noted last night, from Pete Yost's "Lawyers Nix Plea for Abu Ghraib Testimony" (Associated Press via the Washington Post):
Lawyers for a dog handler facing a court martial in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal inexplicably withdrew their request that an Army general involved in the affair be called to testify.
Without explanation, Army Capt. Mary McCarthy told a military judge during a 15-minute hearing Thursday at the Navy Yard that she might renew her request for the testimony of Army Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, but was abandoning her motion for now.
McCarthy's client, Army Sgt. Michael Smith, goes on trial later this month and could face up to 29 1/2 years in prison if convicted of setting his dog loose on inmates at Abu Ghraib in Iraq.
Rebecca also noted that "betty has a new chapter." Zach notes Robert Parry's "'Torture Boy' Signals More Spying" (Consortium News):
Correcting misleading testimony to Congress, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has signaled that George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance of Americans went beyond the known eavesdropping on communications to suspected terrorists overseas.
In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 28, Gonzales recanted testimony he gave on Feb. 6 when he declared that Bush had only authorized a narrowly constructed warrantless wiretapping program by the National Security Agency against Americans in touch with foreign terror suspects.
Referring to a part of his testimony in which he said Bush had approved the NSA program "and that is all that he has authorized," Gonzales withdrew that language, saying "I did not and could not address … any other classified intelligence activities." [Washington Post, March 1, 2006]
The strained wording of Gonzales's letter -- and the fact that he deemed it necessary to correct his testimony -- suggest that other warrantless surveillance programs exist outside the framework of the NSA program, which began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and was exposed by the New York Times in December 2005.
Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the committee's Republican chairman, didn't put Gonzales under oath at the Feb. 6 hearing, but false statements to Congress still constitute a potential criminal offense.
Close Questioning
The dubious testimony came during close questioning by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee's ranking Democrat. Leahy pressed Gonzales on the administration’s claim that Congress gave Bush the power to wiretap without a court warrant when it authorized use of force against al-Qaeda after the Sept. 11 attacks.
No, Specter didn't put Gonzales under oath, despite the fact that he made misleading remarks (also known as "lies" in the real world) when testifying before the Senate previously (during his confirmation hearing for attorney general). The press took a pass on that. Wait, the New York Times did cover it. Briefly. For a few hours on their website before pulling the article about how Russ Feingold argued Gonzales should be under oath, a vote was taken (Repubes standing together) and Specter claimed to hold proxies for Repubes not present (which was also questioned).
Meanwhile Lloyd notes "an early birthday present for Ruth." What's that? His highlight, Andrea Lewis' "Winter Olympic dreams limited to wealth, access"(Progressive Media Project, The Progressive):
It's not unusual to hear the word "race" during the Olympic Games. But the term has taken on a particular sharp edge during the 2006 Winter Games.
Long-time news and sports journalist Bryant Gumbel shocked many viewers when he offered a terse dismissal of the Winter Olympics during a commentary at the end of the February edition of his HBO program, "Real Sports." He said: "Count me among those who don't care about them and won't watch them," expressing annoyance at everything from ice skating's "kiss and cry" area to the lack of connection the winter games have to original Greek competitions.
But Gumbel really raised some eyebrows when he added, "Try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention."
Conservative commentators and bloggers responded at record-breaking speed, calling Gumbel a racist and arguing that the games are open to anyone who works to make their Olympic dream a reality. Unfortunately, few managed to look at the truth behind Gumbel's claim.
Unlike the Summer Games, which brings together athletes from 200 nations around the globe, the Winter Olympics spotlights a much smaller slice of the planet. With only 87 nations currently participating -- the most of any Winter Games -- 57 percent of the countries of the world are left out in the cold.
You might think that the American melting pot would thaw some of that ice, and indeed the United States sent its most multiracial team ever to this year's competitions in Turin, Italy.
Andrea Lewis, with Philip Maldari, co-hosts KPFA's The Morning Show which is one of Ruth's favorite programs.
Remember to listen, watch or read Democracy Now! today:
As Bush wraps up his three day visit to India, we got to New Delhi tospeak with famed Indian activist and author, Arundhati Roy.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
the new york times
scott shane
the elite fluff patrol
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
thomas friedman is a great man
robert parry
andrea lewis
ruths public radio report
the morning show
kpfa
linda lavin
pete yost
associated press
the washington post
[C.I. note: "If" changed to "is" -- caught by Shirley.]
NYT: "Guantanamo Detainee Seeks Court Action" (Neil A. Lewis)
A prisoner at the American-run detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who says he was tortured when the authorities subjected him to force-feeding in a restraining chair to break his hunger strike, asked a federal district judge Thursday to intervene in his case.
[. . .]
Moreover, government lawyers suggested that the judge, Gladys Kessler, refrain from ruling on the case until higher courts resolved whether a recently enacted law stripped district judges of the power to hear such cases.
The Bawazir case is the latest court test of the law, which Congress enacted late last year and which says district courts may not entertain habeas corpus cases from Guantanamo inmates challenging their detentions. Under the law, the federal appeals courts may review tribunals conducted by the military.
The government said the law, the Detainee Treatment Act, which was enacted after much debate, barred Mr. Bawazir's suit. It is making that same argument in separate cases before all three levels of the federal judiciary: the Supreme Court, the appeals court and various district courts. The argument is largely over whether the law applies retroactively to detainees, like Mr. Bawazir, who were already in custody when the law was enacted.
"Much debate?" Who is Neil A. Lewis kidding with "Guantanamo Detainee Seeks Court Action" in this morning's New York Times? (Ben noted the Lewis article, by the way.) Little debate or attention was given to the Graham - Levin bill then or since. Instead, it was pat John McCain on the back for his (toothless) "Torture ban" (Detainee Treatment Act). Remember, Bully Boy signed the Detainee Treatment Act into law -- or "law" since he then issued a signing statement (via e-mail, no less) saying basically, "I am's what I am and what I's am is a Bully Boy so I'll do what I want."
That's the administration for you. Martha notes Josh White and Carol D. Leonnig's "U.S. Cites Exception in Torture Ban: McCain Law May Not Apply to Cuba Prison" (Washington Post):
Bush administration lawyers, fighting a claim of torture by a Guantanamo Bay detainee, yesterday argued that the new law that bans cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody does not apply to people held at the military prison.
In federal court yesterday and in legal filings, Justice Department lawyers contended that a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, cannot use legislation drafted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to challenge treatment that the detainee's lawyers described as "systematic torture."
[. . .]
Richard Murphy Jr., Bawazir's attorney, said his client gave in to the new techniques and began eating solid food days after the first use of the restraint chair. Murphy said the military deliberately made the process painful and embarrassing, noting that Bawazir soiled himself because of the approach.
From Pete Yost's "Judge Weighs Force-Feeding Tactic at Gitmo" (Associated Press, via Washington Post, noted by Martha):
After the hearing, Bawazir's lawyer, John Chandler, said, "We believe the use of restraining chairs which are only supposed to be used for detainees who are violent and dangerous to others or actively dangerous to themselves is a violation of the McCain Amendment."
Noted since the Times is unable to name a defense lawyer or apparently speak to one.
Michael Ratner's "Tomorrow is Today: the Time for Resistance is Now" (CounterPunch):
I have to tell you I've have never in my life been kicked in the teeth as badly as I was on the Guantánamo cases when we were forced to take that issue to the Democrats in Washington. Now I'm just going say it here, there are a million reasons I can tell you don't go to Washington and the Democrats, but this one is called the Graham-Levin Bill. After we win the right to go court for the detainees at Guantánamo, and we win that in the Supreme Court, Republican Senator Graham and Democrat Senator Levin get together - and what do they decide to do a few weeks ago? But strip the courts of any jurisdiction to hear the Guantánamo cases. That's what they do - Democrats and Republicans together. And then they say you can use evidence from torture to keep those people in jail. Kicking us right in the teeth! Kicking the courts in the teeth. And sentencing the Guantanamo detainees to years more of Hell. And so if you think that we're going to get far by going there--to the Democrats, you've got it wrong. Lessons of history teach us that we don't move our leaders without the passion and the protest of the people.
Ratner's the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and they have a summary online entitled "First Violation of McCain Torture Amendment Alleged in Emergency Injunction: Attorneys File to End Further Torture of Guantánamo Detainee on Hunger Strike" (link takes you to synopsis but full report is also avaible there, full report in PDF format):
On February 27, 2006, The first violation of the McCain torture amendment was alleged in federal court in an emergency injunction to end further torture of Guantánamo detainees. The court made public an injunction filed by cooperating attorneys from Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan working with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which won the landmark Supreme Court case establishing the Guantánamo detainees' right to challenge their detention in U.S. court (Rasul v. Bush).
"If I were Senator John McCain, I would be the angriest man in America today." said Rick Murphy, a partner with Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan, which provides pro-bono counsel to detainee Mohammed Bawazir.
After being imprisoned without charges for over three years, Mr. Mohammad Bawazir began a hunger strike in August 2005. As recent news accounts have confirmed, military personnel responded with several actions designed to inflict pain, torture and punishment for the hunger strike. The cruel and inhumane treatment is detailed in today's filing, which alleges that the torture is a flagrant violation of both the McCain torture amendment, which became law as the Detainee Treatment Act, and the Constitution. The filing charges that Guantánamo personnel:
Forcibly strapped Mr. Bawazir into a restraint chair, tying his legs, arms, head, and midsection to the chair.
Inserted of a feeding tube that was larger than the tube that had previously been left in Mr. Bawazir's nose, increasing the pain of the insertion and extraction.
Poured four bottles of water into his stomach through the nasal gastric tube every time he was fed even though Mr. Bawazir has never refused to drink water by mouth.
Restrained Mr. Bawazir in the chair for extended periods at each feeding.
Denied Mr. Bawazir access to a toilet while he was restrained and then for an additional hour or more after he was released from the chair.
Placed Mr. Bawazir in solitary confinement.
"Mere days after signing the McCain Amendment, the Bush Administration engaged in some of the most flagrant acts of torture that have occurred in Guantánamo. The horrific misuse of the emergency restraint chair and the medical abuses served no purpose other than to terrorize nonviolent prisoners into ending their hunger strik," said Gitanjali S. Gutierrez, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. "Senator McCain led an important fight to ban torture, but will he stand up for it now that the Bush Administration is breaking the law?"
CCR and its cooperating attorneys will continue to challenge the torture, mistreatment and illegal detainment of the Guantánamo prisoners in federal court.
And West points out that you can call for a special prosecutor on the administration's use of torture by clicking here.
On Ratner, remember Ruth passed on this (it's today):
New Orleans 1973 to Guantánamo 2006
A discussion on torture at the hands of the United States government.
WHAT: New Yorkers Unite to Fight U.S. Torture from New Orleans to Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo
WHEN: March 3, 2006,
6:30 to 8:30 PM
WHERE: Riverside Church,
91 Claremont Ave.
Room 9T
(1 block west of Broadway)
WHO:
Gita Gutierrez, CCR attorney representing Guantànamo detainees
John Bowman and Harold Taylor, Black Panthers tortured by New Orleans Law Enforcement in 1973
Henry "Hank" Jones, CDHR
Wayne Thompson, CDHR
Dr. Ron Daniels, Institute of the Black World 21st Century
Michael Ratner, CCR President
Bill Goodman, CCR Legal Director
Don't forget to listen, watch or read Democracy Now! today. Rod passes on this:
As Bush wraps up his three day visit to India, we got to New Delhi tospeak with famed Indian activist and author, Arundhati Roy.
Rod also notes this DN! announcement:
* New York City Supports Independent Media *
DATE: Sunday, March 5, 2006
Volunteers are organizing a benefit concert and educational event to show
New York City's support for Independent Media. The money raised will go to
Democracy Now!, which is an award-winning national, daily, and independent
news program airing on over 400 stations in North America.
The event will begin at 7:30pm at The Delancey, a bar at
168 Delancey Street at Clinton in the Lower East Side, on Sunday, March 5th,
2006.
Five bands will perform, representing all different genres
of music, and three speakers will address the issues
facing independent media today.
Organizations and media outlets are invited to bring
promotional and education material in order to set up an
information booth on the third floor of the Delancey,
where a dozen tables will be set up for participants.
There will be a $10 cover to see the bands in the
downstairs area, but the rest of the event is open to the
public, including the bar on the ground floor and the
enclosed roof deck upstairs.
If your organization, or an organization you are affiliated
with in some way, would like to set up a table upstairs,
please contact sjcouture@hotmail.com.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
the new york times
neil a. lewis
democracy now
arundhati roy
pete yost
associated press
the washington post
josh white
carol d. leonnig
center for constitutional rights
guantanamo
[. . .]
Moreover, government lawyers suggested that the judge, Gladys Kessler, refrain from ruling on the case until higher courts resolved whether a recently enacted law stripped district judges of the power to hear such cases.
The Bawazir case is the latest court test of the law, which Congress enacted late last year and which says district courts may not entertain habeas corpus cases from Guantanamo inmates challenging their detentions. Under the law, the federal appeals courts may review tribunals conducted by the military.
The government said the law, the Detainee Treatment Act, which was enacted after much debate, barred Mr. Bawazir's suit. It is making that same argument in separate cases before all three levels of the federal judiciary: the Supreme Court, the appeals court and various district courts. The argument is largely over whether the law applies retroactively to detainees, like Mr. Bawazir, who were already in custody when the law was enacted.
"Much debate?" Who is Neil A. Lewis kidding with "Guantanamo Detainee Seeks Court Action" in this morning's New York Times? (Ben noted the Lewis article, by the way.) Little debate or attention was given to the Graham - Levin bill then or since. Instead, it was pat John McCain on the back for his (toothless) "Torture ban" (Detainee Treatment Act). Remember, Bully Boy signed the Detainee Treatment Act into law -- or "law" since he then issued a signing statement (via e-mail, no less) saying basically, "I am's what I am and what I's am is a Bully Boy so I'll do what I want."
That's the administration for you. Martha notes Josh White and Carol D. Leonnig's "U.S. Cites Exception in Torture Ban: McCain Law May Not Apply to Cuba Prison" (Washington Post):
Bush administration lawyers, fighting a claim of torture by a Guantanamo Bay detainee, yesterday argued that the new law that bans cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody does not apply to people held at the military prison.
In federal court yesterday and in legal filings, Justice Department lawyers contended that a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, cannot use legislation drafted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to challenge treatment that the detainee's lawyers described as "systematic torture."
[. . .]
Richard Murphy Jr., Bawazir's attorney, said his client gave in to the new techniques and began eating solid food days after the first use of the restraint chair. Murphy said the military deliberately made the process painful and embarrassing, noting that Bawazir soiled himself because of the approach.
From Pete Yost's "Judge Weighs Force-Feeding Tactic at Gitmo" (Associated Press, via Washington Post, noted by Martha):
After the hearing, Bawazir's lawyer, John Chandler, said, "We believe the use of restraining chairs which are only supposed to be used for detainees who are violent and dangerous to others or actively dangerous to themselves is a violation of the McCain Amendment."
Noted since the Times is unable to name a defense lawyer or apparently speak to one.
Michael Ratner's "Tomorrow is Today: the Time for Resistance is Now" (CounterPunch):
I have to tell you I've have never in my life been kicked in the teeth as badly as I was on the Guantánamo cases when we were forced to take that issue to the Democrats in Washington. Now I'm just going say it here, there are a million reasons I can tell you don't go to Washington and the Democrats, but this one is called the Graham-Levin Bill. After we win the right to go court for the detainees at Guantánamo, and we win that in the Supreme Court, Republican Senator Graham and Democrat Senator Levin get together - and what do they decide to do a few weeks ago? But strip the courts of any jurisdiction to hear the Guantánamo cases. That's what they do - Democrats and Republicans together. And then they say you can use evidence from torture to keep those people in jail. Kicking us right in the teeth! Kicking the courts in the teeth. And sentencing the Guantanamo detainees to years more of Hell. And so if you think that we're going to get far by going there--to the Democrats, you've got it wrong. Lessons of history teach us that we don't move our leaders without the passion and the protest of the people.
Ratner's the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and they have a summary online entitled "First Violation of McCain Torture Amendment Alleged in Emergency Injunction: Attorneys File to End Further Torture of Guantánamo Detainee on Hunger Strike" (link takes you to synopsis but full report is also avaible there, full report in PDF format):
On February 27, 2006, The first violation of the McCain torture amendment was alleged in federal court in an emergency injunction to end further torture of Guantánamo detainees. The court made public an injunction filed by cooperating attorneys from Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan working with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which won the landmark Supreme Court case establishing the Guantánamo detainees' right to challenge their detention in U.S. court (Rasul v. Bush).
"If I were Senator John McCain, I would be the angriest man in America today." said Rick Murphy, a partner with Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan, which provides pro-bono counsel to detainee Mohammed Bawazir.
After being imprisoned without charges for over three years, Mr. Mohammad Bawazir began a hunger strike in August 2005. As recent news accounts have confirmed, military personnel responded with several actions designed to inflict pain, torture and punishment for the hunger strike. The cruel and inhumane treatment is detailed in today's filing, which alleges that the torture is a flagrant violation of both the McCain torture amendment, which became law as the Detainee Treatment Act, and the Constitution. The filing charges that Guantánamo personnel:
Forcibly strapped Mr. Bawazir into a restraint chair, tying his legs, arms, head, and midsection to the chair.
Inserted of a feeding tube that was larger than the tube that had previously been left in Mr. Bawazir's nose, increasing the pain of the insertion and extraction.
Poured four bottles of water into his stomach through the nasal gastric tube every time he was fed even though Mr. Bawazir has never refused to drink water by mouth.
Restrained Mr. Bawazir in the chair for extended periods at each feeding.
Denied Mr. Bawazir access to a toilet while he was restrained and then for an additional hour or more after he was released from the chair.
Placed Mr. Bawazir in solitary confinement.
"Mere days after signing the McCain Amendment, the Bush Administration engaged in some of the most flagrant acts of torture that have occurred in Guantánamo. The horrific misuse of the emergency restraint chair and the medical abuses served no purpose other than to terrorize nonviolent prisoners into ending their hunger strik," said Gitanjali S. Gutierrez, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. "Senator McCain led an important fight to ban torture, but will he stand up for it now that the Bush Administration is breaking the law?"
CCR and its cooperating attorneys will continue to challenge the torture, mistreatment and illegal detainment of the Guantánamo prisoners in federal court.
And West points out that you can call for a special prosecutor on the administration's use of torture by clicking here.
On Ratner, remember Ruth passed on this (it's today):
New Orleans 1973 to Guantánamo 2006
A discussion on torture at the hands of the United States government.
WHAT: New Yorkers Unite to Fight U.S. Torture from New Orleans to Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo
WHEN: March 3, 2006,
6:30 to 8:30 PM
WHERE: Riverside Church,
91 Claremont Ave.
Room 9T
(1 block west of Broadway)
WHO:
Gita Gutierrez, CCR attorney representing Guantànamo detainees
John Bowman and Harold Taylor, Black Panthers tortured by New Orleans Law Enforcement in 1973
Henry "Hank" Jones, CDHR
Wayne Thompson, CDHR
Dr. Ron Daniels, Institute of the Black World 21st Century
Michael Ratner, CCR President
Bill Goodman, CCR Legal Director
Don't forget to listen, watch or read Democracy Now! today. Rod passes on this:
As Bush wraps up his three day visit to India, we got to New Delhi tospeak with famed Indian activist and author, Arundhati Roy.
Rod also notes this DN! announcement:
* New York City Supports Independent Media *
DATE: Sunday, March 5, 2006
Volunteers are organizing a benefit concert and educational event to show
New York City's support for Independent Media. The money raised will go to
Democracy Now!, which is an award-winning national, daily, and independent
news program airing on over 400 stations in North America.
The event will begin at 7:30pm at The Delancey, a bar at
168 Delancey Street at Clinton in the Lower East Side, on Sunday, March 5th,
2006.
Five bands will perform, representing all different genres
of music, and three speakers will address the issues
facing independent media today.
Organizations and media outlets are invited to bring
promotional and education material in order to set up an
information booth on the third floor of the Delancey,
where a dozen tables will be set up for participants.
There will be a $10 cover to see the bands in the
downstairs area, but the rest of the event is open to the
public, including the bar on the ground floor and the
enclosed roof deck upstairs.
If your organization, or an organization you are affiliated
with in some way, would like to set up a table upstairs,
please contact sjcouture@hotmail.com.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
the new york times
neil a. lewis
democracy now
arundhati roy
pete yost
associated press
the washington post
josh white
carol d. leonnig
center for constitutional rights
guantanamo
The World Today Just Nuts "House on Boo Corner" (Isaiah)
Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts: "The House on Boo Corner." Bully Boy grandstands and says "Osama, Osama. 9/11, 9/11" and frightens poor animals. "The House on Boo Corner . . . when the polls start dropping."
This is the one that would have run Sunday had Blogger/Blogspot not "white listed" us (their term).
the world today just nuts
bully boy
the house on boo corner
house on boo corner
comic
the common ills
Thursday, March 02, 2006
And the war drags on . . . (Indymedia Roundup)
The national day of local media protest announced last week on MediaChannel.org has received such a positive response that the organizers of United For Peace And Justice, the country's largest anti-war coalition, decided to change the date from March 21st to March 15th. The media protest will now kickoff this years week-long "spring offensive" against the war, just before the third anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq.
Organizers were so excited about the prospect of bringing media activists and anti-war activists together, to challenge media outlets to tell the truth about the war and report on the anti-war movement, that they decided it should begin the week and not end it.
"The media helped make the war possible," charges UFPJ National Coordinator Leslie Cagan. "It's time to call for more coverage and better coverage."
The protests will also pay tribute to journalists and media workers killed in the line of fire, kidnapped, or jailed without charges. Most recently, on February 23rd an Al-Arabiya media team was gunned down in Iraq. We have to honor those who have lost their lives to get the story out.
MediaChannel.org is taking the lead in reaching out to media and peace groups to encourage a series of media actions on March 15th.
"All of us are media consumers,” says MediaChannel editor Danny Schechter, "The News Dissector." "We can all take part by monitoring media coverage, writing letters and emails to media decision makers, and protesting against a pro-war media tilt in much of the coverage. If you have ever complained about the coverage, now’s the time to do something by speaking up."
The above is from "MediaChannel, UFPJ and Partners Call For National Media Action" (MediaChannel.org) and for more on these events click on the link. It's Thursday, it's indymedia roundup where we look at news from independent sources and, for this entry (the only one tonight), we focus on the wars.
While it's important to support indymedia, sometimes you come across something that's just too good to let pass by. Going through the e-mails, I noticed Billie had something. It came in a newsletter, so does that count? How about the fact that the newsletter is "self-published"? Sometimes, to have the really big scoop for an entry like this, we have to bend the rules. And it may help lighten these entries which can get "a little heavy" (as Billie reminds in her e-mail). So before we dive in any further, here's a joke for the week:
Of course, we also have a Texan in the White House today: our 43rd and current president, former Texas governor George W. Bush. Our president has valiantly kept his word to defend America in the war on terror.
The stand up comedian? Kay Bailey Hutshison. You might think that serving in the Senate doesn't allow the time to pursue alternative careers but obviously KBH is well on her way out of the stodgy halls of DC and into the world of comedy clubs -- many of our Texas members would gladly work hard to book her club engagements if it would aid in her departing from the Senate.
Billie reminds us that "Corny doesn't stand alone, he has KBH." So Cornyn and KBH as a kind of low-rent, K-Mart blue light special version of Nichols & May? (Note, if I've again mispelled her name, it stands as spelled her. We only are supposed to make an effort to spell writers' names correctly, as Eddie pointed out when I "wasted time" correcting KBH's name last time.)
Now an event:
FRIDAY, MARCH 3RD, NOON: Student Anti-war Protest at UCSD.
Student leaders from UCSD are organizing a massive anti-war protest at the school on March 3 on La Jolla Village Drive, at the edge of the campus. La Jolla Village Drive and Gilman Dr. FRIDAY, MARCH 3,
7PM: OUT OF IRAQ!
Featuring Cindy Sheehan, Ann Wright and more at UCSD's Price Center Theater.
UCSD Planning Massive Anti-war Demonstration Student leaders from UCSD are organizing a massive anti-war protest at the school on March 3 on La Jolla Village Drive, at the edge of the campus. The leaders are co-ordinating with Truthout.org, which is documenting the effort on film.
"We will make this rally a beacon of youthful mass dissent," stated Dylan Seaton, student leader in the planning.
"It's time that this generation, the one that's dying every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, voice their opposition to this criminal war" Seaton added. "I am tired of UCSD's status as a portrait of student apathy."
Other students reinforced Seaton's message, uniting in what is shaping up as a major event in Southern California. The organizers affirmed that the tide of student opinion has turned sharply against the war and the unlawful acts of the president.
The action is part of a fast erupting student anti-war campus activity all across the nation.
"We will be networking with progressive student and non-student organizations from all over Southern California" student organizers stated.
Details on protest hours, signage, music and candle-light vigil for the fallen are being studied. contact ucsddems At ucsd d0t edu
The above is from San Diego Indymedia's "Friday at UCSD: 3 years is enough! End the war!" in full -- and in full for a number of reasons. First of all, I support colleges (and am on campuses more these days then when I was getting my degrees). More importantly, there was a really bad article (members all know in what and by whom -- we've addressed it). The DLC-ing of American campuses? Not what I see. Not what members on campus see. Not reality.
Reality is that there is so much passion, spirit and desire on campus these days that is being ignored by the mainstream press (which is why it's all the more sad when that sort of junk appears in an alternative magazine). I don't know where their reporter was looking but it's not what I see. I've been speaking at colleges for three years now (three years last month) against the invasion (which became the occupation) and that article didn't reflect reality. The UCSD students? They are reality.
Don't you know
They're talkin' bout a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
Don't you know
They're talkin' about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
-- "Talkin' Bout A Revolution" words and music by Tracey Chapman, off her self-titled debut.
That's what I've seen happening. Small numbers questioning the war (sometimes in soft voices) that become large numbers questioning the war in loud voices. That's what's been going on and, no surprise, the mainstream could care less. (They and their readers may care when the suprise is staring them in the face.) Highlighting a bunch of would be spin-meisters (and bad ones at that -- would be bean counters of the future take note: you don't give your "how I spun/stretched/fibbed/lied to get support for the measure" speech until after it passes) when very real, very passionate young activists are all over any campus. We didn't like that article (as a community) we found it offensive across the board. But for students I spoke to while that article, a cover story, was on the newsstands? They were even more vocal. They felt that the story and the cover photo (comparing an activist of today with one of yester-year, remember) airburshed out reality.
But the reality is that students were vocal, have continued to be vocal and active and their numbers are multiplying every day. We have members who are college students and we have members with college students in their families. If you know of an action that some students have planned (this goes for high school as well -- and middle school/junior high, I met five very active middle school students last month who could teach us all a few lessons), make a point to support their action. Not just with words, but with your presence. They get very little reinforcement from any media, so this month, with all the activities planned, if you know of a student action, try to show support and show up.
Though support might not be there for activism, hostility certainly is in Bully Boy's Long War on Our Liberites. Micah notes Jarrett Murphy's "Libertad? Maybe: Puerto Rican independencee activists rally 'round an FBI crackdown" (The Village Voice):
On September 23, 1868, a gutsy band of Puerto Rican nationalists launched a revolt against their Spanish rulers. The uprising failed within 24 hours. On September 23, 2005, FBI agents shot and killed a fugitive Puerto Rican independence leader. Now New York's independista community is hoping that anger over that death ends Puerto Rico's 100-plus years as a U.S. possession.
It's not just the killing of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos that has outraged many Puerto Ricans. On February 10, heavily armed FBI agents with search warrants raided six locations on Puerto Rico, citing a terrorist threat from an independence group; at one site, the feds pepper-sprayed reporters. The commonwealth's elected government got no advance warning of what the feds were planning. It's hard to imagine that happening in, say, Montana with so little hubbub.
Washington dubs Puerto Rico, seized by the U.S. during the Spanish-American War in 1898, a "commonwealth," but some activists call it a colony. Puerto Ricans pay no federal taxes, cannot vote for president, and have no voting representative in Congress. For years, a minority of Puerto Ricans has argued the case for independence but found few takers.
But the furor over the FBI's moves seems to have spread beyond New York's small, dogged band of independence activists. Now, says assemblyman and Bronx Democratic chairman Jose Rivera, speaking at a meeting last week about the events in the Caribbean, "because of what happened on February 10, everyone on Puerto Rico is angry." At his side at the Burgos Center in East Harlem is Congressman Charles Rangel, who calls the FBI crackdown "the only thing in recent history to unite the people of this island."
Occupations, to riff on Carl Sandburg, unlike the fog, march in on heavy feet. How else would they be so plentiful? Or so ugly? Gareth notes Qassim Abdulzahra's "New leadership crisis as Iraq descends into anarchy" (The Independent of London):
A bomb ripped through a vegetable market in a Shia section of Baghdad and a senior Sunni leader escaped assassination as at least 36 people were killed yesterday in a surge of violence that pushed Iraq closer still to sectarian civil war.
An aide to Ibrahim al- Jaafari, the Prime Minister, meanwhile, lashed out at Sunni, Kurdish and secular political leaders who have mounted a campaign to deny him another term, saying the Shia United Iraqi alliance will not change its candidate.
Haider al-Ibadi accused Mr Jaafari's critics of trying to delay the formation of a new government. "There are some elements who have personal differences with Mr Jaafari. The Alliance is still sticking to its candidate," he said.
Leaders of three parties, including Sunnis, Kurds and the secularists of the former prime minister Iyad Allawi, agreed on Wednesday to ask the main Shia bloc to withdraw Mr Jaafari's nomination for prime minister. Shia officials confirmed receiving a letter asking them to put forward a new candidate.
How did the occupation (the illegal occupation) get to that point? A number of factors. Ned steers us to Ewa Jasiewicz's "Iraq -- Beyond Sectarianism" (Left Turn):
Beyond daily bombings, incursions, and illegitimate governance--there are spaces of resistance, social power, and reconciliation in Iraq. Ewa Jasiewicz explains how the US occupation has helped institute structures of repression, sectarianism, social violence and alienation that exist in occupied Iraq today; but she also explores the spaces of hope and self-determination.
Contact with the grassroots of Iraqi society is harder now then it ever has been. Trying to fathom who really has power in Iraq and where spaces exist for grassroots power to emerge can be confusing. Furthermore assessing which progressive forces on the ground we can ally ourselves with as an anti-war movement is a difficult task. Understanding the dynamics and ever-present economic and social legacies of the Baath regime remain crucial to understanding the resistance and the future in Iraq.
At the beginning of the occupation in May 2003, when anybody could have their own political party, militia, or NGO, many Baathists who profited from the previous regime and had the capital to form their own NGOs did so. They ended up reproducing the old Baath class system of privilege and social power in the process. Regime loyalists were rewarded with the freedom to organise under the occupation, to run and participate in regime-approved ‘civil society’ organisations. This became a source of gnawing injustice for many poorer, excluded working class onlookers. The former Baathist officials were regaining privilege and power in the social sphere and in civil society.
With this perpetuation of privilege and influence came a revisionism and justification of the old regime and its crimes. This process re-affirmed for many Iraqis the blindness and ignorance of the west and even the anti-war movement in relation to the previous dictatorship and its dynamics. This revisionism perpetuated the invisibility of the effects of the regime--the social psychosis it entrenched, the daily theatre for survival, collective punishment, Saddam TV, false history, denial, silence, the rainstorm in the living room.
For US imperialism, the Baath dictatorship has been one of its most potent weapons for the past 40 years in Iraq. Its current use by the occupation is evident in the employment of occupation government ministers, civil servants, and managers for the sake of business as usual. To meet the requirements of repression-as-usual, the occupation has employed former high-ranking Baathists as death squad leaders, military commanders, torturers, expert interrogators and agents. The dictatorship’s apparatus of repression has been key to the occupation’s military and economic survival. The occupation-run media portray the armed resistance as solidly Saddamist, playing on and re-generating the trauma of the population in order to discredit and alienate the resistance.
Time to sing it:
They're just there to try and make the people free,
But the way that they're doing it, it don't seem like that to me.
Just more blood-letting and misery and tears
That this poor country's known for the last twenty years,
And the war drags on.
-- words and lyrics by Mick Softly (available on Donovan's Fairytale)
We sang it last on Sunday. Then, the American military fatality count in Iraq was 49 for the month of February. Now? Well February ended with 54 and so far for March we have 2, so that's seven since Sunday. (Check my math.) Total since the illegal invasion/occupation began?
It was 2291 Sunday and now it's at 2298.
The next item, noted by Cindy, could have gone at the top when we were noting capmus activism. But, as we turn to the United States, this seemed a realistic but hopeful point to start on. Camilo Mejia was speaking to a group of students this week. From Laura Norton's "War protester, deserter draws crowds along Central Coast"(Register-Pajaronian):
At Cabrillo College Watsonville Center on Tuesday, the 24-year-old discharged Navy veteran said he takes it all with a grain of salt, promising he will stay on the lecture circuit talking about military recruitment for as long as his funds hold out and do what he can to support the troops.
On the Central Coast Tuesday, he spoke to high school and college students as well as the general public in a variety of forums hosted by the Resource Center for Nonviolence GI Rights and Draft Alternatives Program, the Watsonville Brown Berets and Cabrillo College’s MECha.
About 100 students at California State University, Monterey Bay, several classes of Renaissance High School students and about two dozen people at Cabrillo College Watsonville Center attended his lectures.
Paredes has earned headlines in newspapers across the United States since he publicly refused to board an Iraq-bound Navy ship in December 2004. He was court marshaled, sentenced and discharged. Since then, he has traveled the lecture circuit and spoken about the war and his experience as an objector.
He is currently seeking conscientious objector status in the courts so he can receive his GI Bill education funds and have a better chance of gaining employment.
But his biggest goal, he told a group gathered at Cabrillo College Watsonville Center, is opening the door to conscientious objector status for more people.
What else is happening in the United States? Brad notes Simon Maxwell Apter's "Corvallis Calls the Troops Home" (The Nation):
Two years later, citizens of medium-sized towns across the West are starting to believe that it is their place to ask questions. Citizens are beginning to feel the oppression of war in their own downtowns, including my neighbors in Corvallis, Oregon.
When San Francisco, New Paltz, New York, and Portland, Oregon, opened their courthouses to same-sex marriages in 2004, my hometown was right behind them. Rather than discriminate against same-sex couples seeking legal marriages, the city decided to ban all marriages, heterosexual or otherwise, until word from the state's Attorney General came down from Salem. And while few understood that so-called "discrimination against everyone" was not discrimination at all, the cultural billboard had gone up. Progressives--and their zany schemes--were welcome in the Willamette Valley.
In February, a new battle has rocked the Corvallis City Council concerning the war in Iraq. On February 21, the nine-member council voted to adopt a "Troops Home" resolution based on a similar edict passed in Davis, California, last month.
Zach notes activism on the 18th, from LA Indymedia's "March 18 Mass Anti-War Protest in Los Angeles:"
MARCH 18 MASS MARCH & RALLY IN LOS ANGELES
Stop the War! Bring the Troops Home Now!
SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 12 NOON
Gather Hollywood and Vine March to Hollywood and Highland
For more info call 323-464-1636 or e-mail answerla@answerla.org.
http://www.answerla.org
On Saturday, March 18 at 12 noon, thousands of people will gather at the corner of Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles for a mass march and rally against the war on Iraq. This protest will commemorate the third anniversary of the criminal U.S. "shock and awe" invasion of Iraq, in which more than 100,000 Iraqis and 2,200 U.S. troops have died.
Now is the time to speak out loudly against imperialist war and repressive, racist policies at home. Popular opinion in the U.S. has turned dramatically against the war. Let's channel the popular outrage against Bush and the war into a powerful people's movement for peace and social justice. Get involved today!
ENDORSE MARCH 18: http://answerla.org/pic/2006/06-03-18-demo/endorse.htm DOWNLOAD FLYERS: http://answerla.org/pic/2006/06-03-18-demo/March18-Bilingual-LA.pdf
VOLUNTEER ON MARCH 18: http://answerla.org/pic/2006/06-03-18-demo/Mar18-volunteer.htm
ORGANIZE TRANSPORTATION TO MARCH 18: http://answerla.org/pic/2006/06-03-18-demo/Mar18-transportation.htm
DOWNLOAD POSTERS: http://answerla.org/pic/2006/06-03-18-demo/pdf/m18-poster.pdf DONATE TO BUILD THE PROTEST: http://answerla.org/fundraising/index.htm
SEE A LIST OF ORGANIZING CENTERS (where you can pick up leaflets and find out about transportation): http://answerla.org/pic/2006/06-03-18-demo/Mar18-org-ctr.htm
Initiated by A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition: Alliance for Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines, Free Palestine Alliance, Palestinian American Women's Association, Haiti Support Network, Party for Socialism and Liberation, GABRIELA Network, Latino Movement USA and MINDULLAE. Media sponsor: Air America Radio, Progressive Talk AM 1150 Co-sponsors and endorsers include Coalition for World Peace, Global Resistance Network, Global Women's Strike, International Socialist Organization, Iraq Veterans Against War, KMB Pro-People Youth, Korean Americans for Peace, National Council of Arab Americans, U.S. Labor Against War, Veterans for Peace, Youth & Student ANSWER, Office of the Americas, Out Against War, MSA-West, Riverside Area Peace and Justice Action; Gloria Romero, California Senate Majority Leader; Ron Kovic, Vietnam War veteran; Dolores Huerta, Co-founder United Farm Workers; Paul Haggis, Academy Award nominated writer/director ("Crash"); Laura Dern, Film star (“Jurassic Park”); Maria Bello, Golden Globe nominated actress ("A History of Violence"); Mia St. John, IFBA Lightweight Boxing Champion; Ed Begley Jr., Film and TV star ("Six Feet Under"); Amy Brenneman, Film and TV star ("Judging Amy"); Tom Ortenborg, President of Lion’s Gate Films Releasing; Shiva Rose, Film star (“David & Layla”); Travis Wilkerson, Award winning director (“An Injury to One”); Peter Horton, TV star and producer (“Grey’s Anatomy”); Jeffrey Tambor, Film and TV star (“Arrested Development”) and more.
FOR A FULL LIST OF ENDORSERS: http://answerla.org/pic/2006/06-03-18-demo/endorsers.htm
--------------------------------------------------------
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition-LA Act Now to Stop War and End Racism 323-464-1636 http://www.answerla.org answerla@answerla.org
1800 Argyle Ave, #410 Los Angeles, CA 90028 Join us each Tues at 7 pm for A.N.S.W.E.R. Activists Meetings.
Nicole found some activism that I'd missed hearing of. Maybe you have to? (Doubtful, the community's usally way ahead of me.) From Scott Blackburn's "There Are Lives in the Balance" (DC Indymedia):
Washington – 2/22/06. Today is day eight of our 34-day fast for peace at the U.S. Capitol, the Washington component of the Winter of Our Discontent campaign organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence.
The four of us in D.C., Maureen Foltz, Jeff Leys, Ed Kinane, and I are doing a liquids-only fast. Maureen and Ed are drinking juice; Jeff and I are trying the water route. So far, everyone reports they’re in good shape and not feeling any serious side effects.
Each day between 11:30am and 2pm, we take our banners and signs to the sidewalk bordering the Capitol Building, near the corner of Independence and First St. We distribute flyers explaining what we're doing, and try to engage anyone we can in conversation. Here is the reaction I've observed so far.
- To the overwhelming percentage of people, maybe 80%, we rate a quick glance or are completely invisible.
- The nattering nabobs of negativity, actually quite a small portion of the total, shake their heads, or glare, or protectively pull their children quickly toward them, or try to come up with some snappy remark to let us know our presence is not appreciated.
- Greater in number than the nabobs, although still a small part of the total, actually take a flyer if their path happens to intersect our location, or give us a "thumbs-up" from a distance, or blessedly, actually make a point of stopping, reading our banner, and come over to chat.
I shudder to estimate what percent of total passers-by are in that last category -- and keep in mind that not a small number of those good souls are tourists from other nations. Lest you think our spirit is overwhelmed by apathy and nabobbery, let me reassure you it is not. We are veteran activists, accustomed to such responses and used to keeping up our morale with conversation and camaraderie.
More activism is found in the next highlight. Melissa notes Carol Estes' "Active Nonviolence: Heroes for an Unheroic Time" (Yes! magazine):
A not-so funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century. We got scared. We Americans used to believe we were a brave, big-hearted people committed to freedom and justice for all.
When did we lose our nerve?
When did we start believing that the world is one big war zone peopled by terrorists, gang bangers and drive-by shooters, serial killers, sociopaths, sexual predators, and people who hate freedom? At what point did we settle for living as though we were under siege, locked in gated communities, holed up in front of the television? When did America stop saying to the world, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free" and start drawing up blueprints for a 2000-mile-long wall between us and Mexico?
"These are unheroic times," writes John Graham of the Giraffe Project in his book Stick Your Neck Out. "After more than two centuries of being free, this nation is far from brave."
And that is a big problem, not just for Americans, but for the world. Because scared people are dangerous people. So Graham's goal, and that of his organization, is to help our nation get its nerve back. He trains people to stick their necks out for what they believe in.
Also on activism, Bonnie notes Teresa Grady's "Greetings & Gratitude" (Binghamton IMC):
February 9th 2006
Broome County Sheriff's Correctional Facility
Greetings & Gratitude
For all the support and attention given to the St. Patrick's Four during any of or throughout these last three years. Without this incredible support community our journey would never have been so rich!
To start, I would like to correct an editorial oversight which occurred in the document of my statement to Judge McAvoy at sentencing, January 27, 2006. I finished typing my thoughts for sentencing on my laptop at the Lost Dog Cafe. Peter DeMott had just received his sentence that morning, and my thoughts were flowing freely. I made footnotes to myself in the margins in case I wanted to revise or add anything. As I was about to close down the computer, a friend came in and called to me, "Whenever you have done the right thing, you have won." So as to remember what she said, I typed it into the computer on the same document--but not to be part of my statement. I did not speak those words to the judge, as it was never my intention. The hard copy I read from in court had all the footnotes and that last sentence, "Whenever you have done the right thing, you have won." Jim Moran, my advising lawyer, suggested at the end of sentencing that I hand it into the court for the record. In the flurry of being whisked away, taking my jewelry off, and crossing out certain footnotes, I completely overlooked that last sentence on the document.
In jail, I asked my brother to accept the Tompkins County Human Rights Award (to SP4) for my part and to read my statement. He did and intuitively knew not to read the last sentence as part of my statement. Thank you, John. I've since heard that this particular sentence has been quoted as if it were my words. Though I resonate with this sentence in the context from which it came ("You have made the most valuable investment and are already reaping its rewards. You've already won" and "That you stood up for what you believe is a victory in itself, as your concerns are finally coming to be realized by the American people"), I feel it is important to give credit to where credit is due. So, thank you, Bird's sister.
On Wednesday, January 25, we were blessed to have Dahr Jamail come to speak at Holy Trinity Church in Binghamton. Unfortunately, Danny, Peter, and, by that very afternoon, Clare were all in jail, beginning their respective six- month, eight-month, and six-month sentences.
Dahr spoke of the perils our country is facing as President Bush has most recently made a "presidential sign." As I remember, Dahr heard constitutional rights lawyer Michael Ratner articulate the dangers of this "signing" as giving President Bush powers to negate all stop-gap measures which might impede his actions--that is, he can nullify the Constitution of the United States as he likes; he can nullify the powers of Congress, whose members are one of the checks and balances to his office; and he is not bound to the treaties signed by our nation, which include international laws.
Dahr went on to list violations of various articles of the Geneva Conventions (one piece of international law) that have been committed by our heads of state, our military, and our media/journalists in the preparations and the rallying of popular support for the invasion and now illegal occupation of Iraq. As an unembedded journalist in Iraq, he has witnessed these violations first-hand. He gave me his list of violations but I left them with my files, because I wasn't sure if they'd allow me to bring them to jail. It would be so nice to have them here in jail to become more familiar with them.
The last part of Dahr's presentation was a film, Caught in the Crossfire, which is footage of the October 2004 invasion/offensive on the people and city of Fallujah. Though Danny and Peter witnessed Iraq under occupation in December 2003, andClare witnessed the lasting devastation resulting from the first "Gulf War" and then from the heinous policy of sanctions on the Iraqi people in April 1999, I had never taken such a long look at what we have done there.
Fallujah was and is familiar to me because the first offensive against that city, to my knowledge, was in April 2004 during the week of the first trial in Tompkins County Court (April 5-10), which also happened to be Holy Week (The Passion of Christ). Cathy Breen was present at our trial as a potential witness. She is the author of the Letters from Iraq, which we read during our St. Patrick's Day Action (3/17/03). each night after court she would update me on what her emails from friends in Fallujah were saying. It was nightmarish! People were staying in their homes with no food, electricity, and, sometimes, water in order to avoid the sniper shooting in the streets. Bodies would be lying in the streets and no one felt safe enough to go out and help. The film Dahr showed spoke louder than words. It chilled me to the bone right to my core. The shame and the sorrow of what has been done in my name weighs deeply on my heart. The tears shed and reappear as I remember the images. God forgive us.
If sounding an alarm to warn our nation before going in, if saying no to that horror means being labeled criminal and going to jail, then open the gates wide! I am so ready. I have been blessed to have witnessed this film and Dahr's presentation before my sentencing (I was only wishing Danny, Peter, and Clare could have been present too). It shored up my conviction of the rightness of our action. For this I am grateful.I would like to thank Dahr for stretching himself after such a long week of presenting and traveling. It felt like the concluding paragraph to these past three years, bringing us back around to the illegal war and occupation.
I'd like to thank Maureen ____________, John Amadon, and Colleen from Albany, who brought Dahr to us after many full days of speaking engagements in the Albany area. I'd also like to thank Cris McConkey and Francis Carver for coming down from Trumansburg, NY, to help with the incredible Binghamton Indymedia group (Stephen Schweitzer, Fumiwo Iwamoto, Bill and Diane Huston, and of course Tarik Abdelazim) who at the last minute put it all together for a wonderful evening. I'd like to also recognize the media who showed up in time to actually report Dahr's message. Especially Fox News and the amount of coverage they gave on the evening news for the rest of that week.
To Fr. Kevin Bunger for making it possible to meet at Holy Trinity Church in Binghamton and running out to find a screen with two hours to go. To all the folks who came out to witness about this war. To those who continue to vigil against this war in front of the Federal Building Court House on Henry Street every Monday at 4 p.m. For all who continue to vigil everywhere. May we strengthen each other with a passion for Justice, Mercy and Love, and continue to resist war making in all its forms.
In Peace,
Teresa
P.S. Clare and I are still here in the Broome County Jail where we are cellmates in the "IPOD" minimum security area. Broome County has a contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to house federal inmates. My spirits are good and Clare says, "She is grateful to be here." I'd say the war on terror is improperly directed, as we women, mostly poor and with drug addictions, are at the mercy of the random officers. Some of them have beautiful and kind natures, towing the illogical rules with grace, and then there are the drill sergeant want-ta-bes, who scream orders at us, which frequently are not very clear and then lock you into your cell for 24 hours because you looked in the wrong direction, or asked a question. I feel like the log is very big in our collective eye. More on that later.... [heart symbol] T.2/10/06
P.P.S. Mary Anne tells me Clare and Peter are on transit lists on the (federal prison website?). So I suppose we'll be separated soon. Maybe tonight.
Falluja? Dallas (thankfully) reminds me that we were supposed to note Danny Schechter on Dexter Filkins. From "Why Protest Media Coverage Mar 15?" (News Dissector):
New York Times Baghdad correspondent Dexter Filkins reviews Paul Bremer’s book "My Year in Iraq." He faults him and General Sanchez for not demanding more troops. He PRAISES him for organizing elections saying "HE DESERVES OUR GRATITUDE FOR BRINGING THEM OFF." Our gratitude? Who is talking about, the NY Times, The US Government, or his readers?
This just underscores the continuing identification of a major media outlet's top correspondent with the military mission which lost because it just wasn't big enough, Never mind that most Iraqis who did vote said they were doing so not to endorse some Bushian or Bremerian view of democracy but to give the the Americans the ritual they insisted on so that they would leave. There is no mention in the review of how Bremer's "energetic" CPA countenanced BILLIONS of dollars in corruption.
In contrast to Fikins mild and qualified rebuke, I ran into an Iraqi American now working for the Times who quipped that Bremer should be on trial alongside Saddam.
Two journalists. Two views. Guess which one gets ink in the NY Times?
And we'll go out on that. Whispers become shouts, thoughts become action. Realities are exposed. The war drags on but the Bully Boy and others are having to pull us along twice as hard. Even the "award winning" Dexy has to face reality. (Supposedly, the review is an attempt by Filkins to "pull a [George] Packer" and walk away from his past -- a sort of non-mea culpa his paper's quite familiar with. I prefer to see it as the sort of phoney "I take responsibility" posturing Henry Kissinger perfected following Watergate.) Even Dexy.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
donovan
and the war drags on
dahr jamail
danny schechter
camilo mejia
teresa grady
dexter filkins
the new york times
Organizers were so excited about the prospect of bringing media activists and anti-war activists together, to challenge media outlets to tell the truth about the war and report on the anti-war movement, that they decided it should begin the week and not end it.
"The media helped make the war possible," charges UFPJ National Coordinator Leslie Cagan. "It's time to call for more coverage and better coverage."
The protests will also pay tribute to journalists and media workers killed in the line of fire, kidnapped, or jailed without charges. Most recently, on February 23rd an Al-Arabiya media team was gunned down in Iraq. We have to honor those who have lost their lives to get the story out.
MediaChannel.org is taking the lead in reaching out to media and peace groups to encourage a series of media actions on March 15th.
"All of us are media consumers,” says MediaChannel editor Danny Schechter, "The News Dissector." "We can all take part by monitoring media coverage, writing letters and emails to media decision makers, and protesting against a pro-war media tilt in much of the coverage. If you have ever complained about the coverage, now’s the time to do something by speaking up."
The above is from "MediaChannel, UFPJ and Partners Call For National Media Action" (MediaChannel.org) and for more on these events click on the link. It's Thursday, it's indymedia roundup where we look at news from independent sources and, for this entry (the only one tonight), we focus on the wars.
While it's important to support indymedia, sometimes you come across something that's just too good to let pass by. Going through the e-mails, I noticed Billie had something. It came in a newsletter, so does that count? How about the fact that the newsletter is "self-published"? Sometimes, to have the really big scoop for an entry like this, we have to bend the rules. And it may help lighten these entries which can get "a little heavy" (as Billie reminds in her e-mail). So before we dive in any further, here's a joke for the week:
Of course, we also have a Texan in the White House today: our 43rd and current president, former Texas governor George W. Bush. Our president has valiantly kept his word to defend America in the war on terror.
The stand up comedian? Kay Bailey Hutshison. You might think that serving in the Senate doesn't allow the time to pursue alternative careers but obviously KBH is well on her way out of the stodgy halls of DC and into the world of comedy clubs -- many of our Texas members would gladly work hard to book her club engagements if it would aid in her departing from the Senate.
Billie reminds us that "Corny doesn't stand alone, he has KBH." So Cornyn and KBH as a kind of low-rent, K-Mart blue light special version of Nichols & May? (Note, if I've again mispelled her name, it stands as spelled her. We only are supposed to make an effort to spell writers' names correctly, as Eddie pointed out when I "wasted time" correcting KBH's name last time.)
Now an event:
FRIDAY, MARCH 3RD, NOON: Student Anti-war Protest at UCSD.
Student leaders from UCSD are organizing a massive anti-war protest at the school on March 3 on La Jolla Village Drive, at the edge of the campus. La Jolla Village Drive and Gilman Dr. FRIDAY, MARCH 3,
7PM: OUT OF IRAQ!
Featuring Cindy Sheehan, Ann Wright and more at UCSD's Price Center Theater.
UCSD Planning Massive Anti-war Demonstration Student leaders from UCSD are organizing a massive anti-war protest at the school on March 3 on La Jolla Village Drive, at the edge of the campus. The leaders are co-ordinating with Truthout.org, which is documenting the effort on film.
"We will make this rally a beacon of youthful mass dissent," stated Dylan Seaton, student leader in the planning.
"It's time that this generation, the one that's dying every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, voice their opposition to this criminal war" Seaton added. "I am tired of UCSD's status as a portrait of student apathy."
Other students reinforced Seaton's message, uniting in what is shaping up as a major event in Southern California. The organizers affirmed that the tide of student opinion has turned sharply against the war and the unlawful acts of the president.
The action is part of a fast erupting student anti-war campus activity all across the nation.
"We will be networking with progressive student and non-student organizations from all over Southern California" student organizers stated.
Details on protest hours, signage, music and candle-light vigil for the fallen are being studied. contact ucsddems At ucsd d0t edu
The above is from San Diego Indymedia's "Friday at UCSD: 3 years is enough! End the war!" in full -- and in full for a number of reasons. First of all, I support colleges (and am on campuses more these days then when I was getting my degrees). More importantly, there was a really bad article (members all know in what and by whom -- we've addressed it). The DLC-ing of American campuses? Not what I see. Not what members on campus see. Not reality.
Reality is that there is so much passion, spirit and desire on campus these days that is being ignored by the mainstream press (which is why it's all the more sad when that sort of junk appears in an alternative magazine). I don't know where their reporter was looking but it's not what I see. I've been speaking at colleges for three years now (three years last month) against the invasion (which became the occupation) and that article didn't reflect reality. The UCSD students? They are reality.
Don't you know
They're talkin' bout a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
Don't you know
They're talkin' about a revolution
It sounds like a whisper
-- "Talkin' Bout A Revolution" words and music by Tracey Chapman, off her self-titled debut.
That's what I've seen happening. Small numbers questioning the war (sometimes in soft voices) that become large numbers questioning the war in loud voices. That's what's been going on and, no surprise, the mainstream could care less. (They and their readers may care when the suprise is staring them in the face.) Highlighting a bunch of would be spin-meisters (and bad ones at that -- would be bean counters of the future take note: you don't give your "how I spun/stretched/fibbed/lied to get support for the measure" speech until after it passes) when very real, very passionate young activists are all over any campus. We didn't like that article (as a community) we found it offensive across the board. But for students I spoke to while that article, a cover story, was on the newsstands? They were even more vocal. They felt that the story and the cover photo (comparing an activist of today with one of yester-year, remember) airburshed out reality.
But the reality is that students were vocal, have continued to be vocal and active and their numbers are multiplying every day. We have members who are college students and we have members with college students in their families. If you know of an action that some students have planned (this goes for high school as well -- and middle school/junior high, I met five very active middle school students last month who could teach us all a few lessons), make a point to support their action. Not just with words, but with your presence. They get very little reinforcement from any media, so this month, with all the activities planned, if you know of a student action, try to show support and show up.
Though support might not be there for activism, hostility certainly is in Bully Boy's Long War on Our Liberites. Micah notes Jarrett Murphy's "Libertad? Maybe: Puerto Rican independencee activists rally 'round an FBI crackdown" (The Village Voice):
On September 23, 1868, a gutsy band of Puerto Rican nationalists launched a revolt against their Spanish rulers. The uprising failed within 24 hours. On September 23, 2005, FBI agents shot and killed a fugitive Puerto Rican independence leader. Now New York's independista community is hoping that anger over that death ends Puerto Rico's 100-plus years as a U.S. possession.
It's not just the killing of Filiberto Ojeda Ríos that has outraged many Puerto Ricans. On February 10, heavily armed FBI agents with search warrants raided six locations on Puerto Rico, citing a terrorist threat from an independence group; at one site, the feds pepper-sprayed reporters. The commonwealth's elected government got no advance warning of what the feds were planning. It's hard to imagine that happening in, say, Montana with so little hubbub.
Washington dubs Puerto Rico, seized by the U.S. during the Spanish-American War in 1898, a "commonwealth," but some activists call it a colony. Puerto Ricans pay no federal taxes, cannot vote for president, and have no voting representative in Congress. For years, a minority of Puerto Ricans has argued the case for independence but found few takers.
But the furor over the FBI's moves seems to have spread beyond New York's small, dogged band of independence activists. Now, says assemblyman and Bronx Democratic chairman Jose Rivera, speaking at a meeting last week about the events in the Caribbean, "because of what happened on February 10, everyone on Puerto Rico is angry." At his side at the Burgos Center in East Harlem is Congressman Charles Rangel, who calls the FBI crackdown "the only thing in recent history to unite the people of this island."
Occupations, to riff on Carl Sandburg, unlike the fog, march in on heavy feet. How else would they be so plentiful? Or so ugly? Gareth notes Qassim Abdulzahra's "New leadership crisis as Iraq descends into anarchy" (The Independent of London):
A bomb ripped through a vegetable market in a Shia section of Baghdad and a senior Sunni leader escaped assassination as at least 36 people were killed yesterday in a surge of violence that pushed Iraq closer still to sectarian civil war.
An aide to Ibrahim al- Jaafari, the Prime Minister, meanwhile, lashed out at Sunni, Kurdish and secular political leaders who have mounted a campaign to deny him another term, saying the Shia United Iraqi alliance will not change its candidate.
Haider al-Ibadi accused Mr Jaafari's critics of trying to delay the formation of a new government. "There are some elements who have personal differences with Mr Jaafari. The Alliance is still sticking to its candidate," he said.
Leaders of three parties, including Sunnis, Kurds and the secularists of the former prime minister Iyad Allawi, agreed on Wednesday to ask the main Shia bloc to withdraw Mr Jaafari's nomination for prime minister. Shia officials confirmed receiving a letter asking them to put forward a new candidate.
How did the occupation (the illegal occupation) get to that point? A number of factors. Ned steers us to Ewa Jasiewicz's "Iraq -- Beyond Sectarianism" (Left Turn):
Beyond daily bombings, incursions, and illegitimate governance--there are spaces of resistance, social power, and reconciliation in Iraq. Ewa Jasiewicz explains how the US occupation has helped institute structures of repression, sectarianism, social violence and alienation that exist in occupied Iraq today; but she also explores the spaces of hope and self-determination.
Contact with the grassroots of Iraqi society is harder now then it ever has been. Trying to fathom who really has power in Iraq and where spaces exist for grassroots power to emerge can be confusing. Furthermore assessing which progressive forces on the ground we can ally ourselves with as an anti-war movement is a difficult task. Understanding the dynamics and ever-present economic and social legacies of the Baath regime remain crucial to understanding the resistance and the future in Iraq.
At the beginning of the occupation in May 2003, when anybody could have their own political party, militia, or NGO, many Baathists who profited from the previous regime and had the capital to form their own NGOs did so. They ended up reproducing the old Baath class system of privilege and social power in the process. Regime loyalists were rewarded with the freedom to organise under the occupation, to run and participate in regime-approved ‘civil society’ organisations. This became a source of gnawing injustice for many poorer, excluded working class onlookers. The former Baathist officials were regaining privilege and power in the social sphere and in civil society.
With this perpetuation of privilege and influence came a revisionism and justification of the old regime and its crimes. This process re-affirmed for many Iraqis the blindness and ignorance of the west and even the anti-war movement in relation to the previous dictatorship and its dynamics. This revisionism perpetuated the invisibility of the effects of the regime--the social psychosis it entrenched, the daily theatre for survival, collective punishment, Saddam TV, false history, denial, silence, the rainstorm in the living room.
For US imperialism, the Baath dictatorship has been one of its most potent weapons for the past 40 years in Iraq. Its current use by the occupation is evident in the employment of occupation government ministers, civil servants, and managers for the sake of business as usual. To meet the requirements of repression-as-usual, the occupation has employed former high-ranking Baathists as death squad leaders, military commanders, torturers, expert interrogators and agents. The dictatorship’s apparatus of repression has been key to the occupation’s military and economic survival. The occupation-run media portray the armed resistance as solidly Saddamist, playing on and re-generating the trauma of the population in order to discredit and alienate the resistance.
Time to sing it:
They're just there to try and make the people free,
But the way that they're doing it, it don't seem like that to me.
Just more blood-letting and misery and tears
That this poor country's known for the last twenty years,
And the war drags on.
-- words and lyrics by Mick Softly (available on Donovan's Fairytale)
We sang it last on Sunday. Then, the American military fatality count in Iraq was 49 for the month of February. Now? Well February ended with 54 and so far for March we have 2, so that's seven since Sunday. (Check my math.) Total since the illegal invasion/occupation began?
It was 2291 Sunday and now it's at 2298.
The next item, noted by Cindy, could have gone at the top when we were noting capmus activism. But, as we turn to the United States, this seemed a realistic but hopeful point to start on. Camilo Mejia was speaking to a group of students this week. From Laura Norton's "War protester, deserter draws crowds along Central Coast"(Register-Pajaronian):
At Cabrillo College Watsonville Center on Tuesday, the 24-year-old discharged Navy veteran said he takes it all with a grain of salt, promising he will stay on the lecture circuit talking about military recruitment for as long as his funds hold out and do what he can to support the troops.
On the Central Coast Tuesday, he spoke to high school and college students as well as the general public in a variety of forums hosted by the Resource Center for Nonviolence GI Rights and Draft Alternatives Program, the Watsonville Brown Berets and Cabrillo College’s MECha.
About 100 students at California State University, Monterey Bay, several classes of Renaissance High School students and about two dozen people at Cabrillo College Watsonville Center attended his lectures.
Paredes has earned headlines in newspapers across the United States since he publicly refused to board an Iraq-bound Navy ship in December 2004. He was court marshaled, sentenced and discharged. Since then, he has traveled the lecture circuit and spoken about the war and his experience as an objector.
He is currently seeking conscientious objector status in the courts so he can receive his GI Bill education funds and have a better chance of gaining employment.
But his biggest goal, he told a group gathered at Cabrillo College Watsonville Center, is opening the door to conscientious objector status for more people.
What else is happening in the United States? Brad notes Simon Maxwell Apter's "Corvallis Calls the Troops Home" (The Nation):
Two years later, citizens of medium-sized towns across the West are starting to believe that it is their place to ask questions. Citizens are beginning to feel the oppression of war in their own downtowns, including my neighbors in Corvallis, Oregon.
When San Francisco, New Paltz, New York, and Portland, Oregon, opened their courthouses to same-sex marriages in 2004, my hometown was right behind them. Rather than discriminate against same-sex couples seeking legal marriages, the city decided to ban all marriages, heterosexual or otherwise, until word from the state's Attorney General came down from Salem. And while few understood that so-called "discrimination against everyone" was not discrimination at all, the cultural billboard had gone up. Progressives--and their zany schemes--were welcome in the Willamette Valley.
In February, a new battle has rocked the Corvallis City Council concerning the war in Iraq. On February 21, the nine-member council voted to adopt a "Troops Home" resolution based on a similar edict passed in Davis, California, last month.
Zach notes activism on the 18th, from LA Indymedia's "March 18 Mass Anti-War Protest in Los Angeles:"
MARCH 18 MASS MARCH & RALLY IN LOS ANGELES
Stop the War! Bring the Troops Home Now!
SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 12 NOON
Gather Hollywood and Vine March to Hollywood and Highland
For more info call 323-464-1636 or e-mail answerla@answerla.org.
http://www.answerla.org
On Saturday, March 18 at 12 noon, thousands of people will gather at the corner of Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles for a mass march and rally against the war on Iraq. This protest will commemorate the third anniversary of the criminal U.S. "shock and awe" invasion of Iraq, in which more than 100,000 Iraqis and 2,200 U.S. troops have died.
Now is the time to speak out loudly against imperialist war and repressive, racist policies at home. Popular opinion in the U.S. has turned dramatically against the war. Let's channel the popular outrage against Bush and the war into a powerful people's movement for peace and social justice. Get involved today!
ENDORSE MARCH 18: http://answerla.org/pic/2006/06-03-18-demo/endorse.htm DOWNLOAD FLYERS: http://answerla.org/pic/2006/06-03-18-demo/March18-Bilingual-LA.pdf
VOLUNTEER ON MARCH 18: http://answerla.org/pic/2006/06-03-18-demo/Mar18-volunteer.htm
ORGANIZE TRANSPORTATION TO MARCH 18: http://answerla.org/pic/2006/06-03-18-demo/Mar18-transportation.htm
DOWNLOAD POSTERS: http://answerla.org/pic/2006/06-03-18-demo/pdf/m18-poster.pdf DONATE TO BUILD THE PROTEST: http://answerla.org/fundraising/index.htm
SEE A LIST OF ORGANIZING CENTERS (where you can pick up leaflets and find out about transportation): http://answerla.org/pic/2006/06-03-18-demo/Mar18-org-ctr.htm
Initiated by A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition: Alliance for Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines, Free Palestine Alliance, Palestinian American Women's Association, Haiti Support Network, Party for Socialism and Liberation, GABRIELA Network, Latino Movement USA and MINDULLAE. Media sponsor: Air America Radio, Progressive Talk AM 1150 Co-sponsors and endorsers include Coalition for World Peace, Global Resistance Network, Global Women's Strike, International Socialist Organization, Iraq Veterans Against War, KMB Pro-People Youth, Korean Americans for Peace, National Council of Arab Americans, U.S. Labor Against War, Veterans for Peace, Youth & Student ANSWER, Office of the Americas, Out Against War, MSA-West, Riverside Area Peace and Justice Action; Gloria Romero, California Senate Majority Leader; Ron Kovic, Vietnam War veteran; Dolores Huerta, Co-founder United Farm Workers; Paul Haggis, Academy Award nominated writer/director ("Crash"); Laura Dern, Film star (“Jurassic Park”); Maria Bello, Golden Globe nominated actress ("A History of Violence"); Mia St. John, IFBA Lightweight Boxing Champion; Ed Begley Jr., Film and TV star ("Six Feet Under"); Amy Brenneman, Film and TV star ("Judging Amy"); Tom Ortenborg, President of Lion’s Gate Films Releasing; Shiva Rose, Film star (“David & Layla”); Travis Wilkerson, Award winning director (“An Injury to One”); Peter Horton, TV star and producer (“Grey’s Anatomy”); Jeffrey Tambor, Film and TV star (“Arrested Development”) and more.
FOR A FULL LIST OF ENDORSERS: http://answerla.org/pic/2006/06-03-18-demo/endorsers.htm
--------------------------------------------------------
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition-LA Act Now to Stop War and End Racism 323-464-1636 http://www.answerla.org answerla@answerla.org
1800 Argyle Ave, #410 Los Angeles, CA 90028 Join us each Tues at 7 pm for A.N.S.W.E.R. Activists Meetings.
Nicole found some activism that I'd missed hearing of. Maybe you have to? (Doubtful, the community's usally way ahead of me.) From Scott Blackburn's "There Are Lives in the Balance" (DC Indymedia):
Washington – 2/22/06. Today is day eight of our 34-day fast for peace at the U.S. Capitol, the Washington component of the Winter of Our Discontent campaign organized by Voices for Creative Nonviolence.
The four of us in D.C., Maureen Foltz, Jeff Leys, Ed Kinane, and I are doing a liquids-only fast. Maureen and Ed are drinking juice; Jeff and I are trying the water route. So far, everyone reports they’re in good shape and not feeling any serious side effects.
Each day between 11:30am and 2pm, we take our banners and signs to the sidewalk bordering the Capitol Building, near the corner of Independence and First St. We distribute flyers explaining what we're doing, and try to engage anyone we can in conversation. Here is the reaction I've observed so far.
- To the overwhelming percentage of people, maybe 80%, we rate a quick glance or are completely invisible.
- The nattering nabobs of negativity, actually quite a small portion of the total, shake their heads, or glare, or protectively pull their children quickly toward them, or try to come up with some snappy remark to let us know our presence is not appreciated.
- Greater in number than the nabobs, although still a small part of the total, actually take a flyer if their path happens to intersect our location, or give us a "thumbs-up" from a distance, or blessedly, actually make a point of stopping, reading our banner, and come over to chat.
I shudder to estimate what percent of total passers-by are in that last category -- and keep in mind that not a small number of those good souls are tourists from other nations. Lest you think our spirit is overwhelmed by apathy and nabobbery, let me reassure you it is not. We are veteran activists, accustomed to such responses and used to keeping up our morale with conversation and camaraderie.
More activism is found in the next highlight. Melissa notes Carol Estes' "Active Nonviolence: Heroes for an Unheroic Time" (Yes! magazine):
A not-so funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century. We got scared. We Americans used to believe we were a brave, big-hearted people committed to freedom and justice for all.
When did we lose our nerve?
When did we start believing that the world is one big war zone peopled by terrorists, gang bangers and drive-by shooters, serial killers, sociopaths, sexual predators, and people who hate freedom? At what point did we settle for living as though we were under siege, locked in gated communities, holed up in front of the television? When did America stop saying to the world, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free" and start drawing up blueprints for a 2000-mile-long wall between us and Mexico?
"These are unheroic times," writes John Graham of the Giraffe Project in his book Stick Your Neck Out. "After more than two centuries of being free, this nation is far from brave."
And that is a big problem, not just for Americans, but for the world. Because scared people are dangerous people. So Graham's goal, and that of his organization, is to help our nation get its nerve back. He trains people to stick their necks out for what they believe in.
Also on activism, Bonnie notes Teresa Grady's "Greetings & Gratitude" (Binghamton IMC):
February 9th 2006
Broome County Sheriff's Correctional Facility
Greetings & Gratitude
For all the support and attention given to the St. Patrick's Four during any of or throughout these last three years. Without this incredible support community our journey would never have been so rich!
To start, I would like to correct an editorial oversight which occurred in the document of my statement to Judge McAvoy at sentencing, January 27, 2006. I finished typing my thoughts for sentencing on my laptop at the Lost Dog Cafe. Peter DeMott had just received his sentence that morning, and my thoughts were flowing freely. I made footnotes to myself in the margins in case I wanted to revise or add anything. As I was about to close down the computer, a friend came in and called to me, "Whenever you have done the right thing, you have won." So as to remember what she said, I typed it into the computer on the same document--but not to be part of my statement. I did not speak those words to the judge, as it was never my intention. The hard copy I read from in court had all the footnotes and that last sentence, "Whenever you have done the right thing, you have won." Jim Moran, my advising lawyer, suggested at the end of sentencing that I hand it into the court for the record. In the flurry of being whisked away, taking my jewelry off, and crossing out certain footnotes, I completely overlooked that last sentence on the document.
In jail, I asked my brother to accept the Tompkins County Human Rights Award (to SP4) for my part and to read my statement. He did and intuitively knew not to read the last sentence as part of my statement. Thank you, John. I've since heard that this particular sentence has been quoted as if it were my words. Though I resonate with this sentence in the context from which it came ("You have made the most valuable investment and are already reaping its rewards. You've already won" and "That you stood up for what you believe is a victory in itself, as your concerns are finally coming to be realized by the American people"), I feel it is important to give credit to where credit is due. So, thank you, Bird's sister.
On Wednesday, January 25, we were blessed to have Dahr Jamail come to speak at Holy Trinity Church in Binghamton. Unfortunately, Danny, Peter, and, by that very afternoon, Clare were all in jail, beginning their respective six- month, eight-month, and six-month sentences.
Dahr spoke of the perils our country is facing as President Bush has most recently made a "presidential sign." As I remember, Dahr heard constitutional rights lawyer Michael Ratner articulate the dangers of this "signing" as giving President Bush powers to negate all stop-gap measures which might impede his actions--that is, he can nullify the Constitution of the United States as he likes; he can nullify the powers of Congress, whose members are one of the checks and balances to his office; and he is not bound to the treaties signed by our nation, which include international laws.
Dahr went on to list violations of various articles of the Geneva Conventions (one piece of international law) that have been committed by our heads of state, our military, and our media/journalists in the preparations and the rallying of popular support for the invasion and now illegal occupation of Iraq. As an unembedded journalist in Iraq, he has witnessed these violations first-hand. He gave me his list of violations but I left them with my files, because I wasn't sure if they'd allow me to bring them to jail. It would be so nice to have them here in jail to become more familiar with them.
The last part of Dahr's presentation was a film, Caught in the Crossfire, which is footage of the October 2004 invasion/offensive on the people and city of Fallujah. Though Danny and Peter witnessed Iraq under occupation in December 2003, andClare witnessed the lasting devastation resulting from the first "Gulf War" and then from the heinous policy of sanctions on the Iraqi people in April 1999, I had never taken such a long look at what we have done there.
Fallujah was and is familiar to me because the first offensive against that city, to my knowledge, was in April 2004 during the week of the first trial in Tompkins County Court (April 5-10), which also happened to be Holy Week (The Passion of Christ). Cathy Breen was present at our trial as a potential witness. She is the author of the Letters from Iraq, which we read during our St. Patrick's Day Action (3/17/03). each night after court she would update me on what her emails from friends in Fallujah were saying. It was nightmarish! People were staying in their homes with no food, electricity, and, sometimes, water in order to avoid the sniper shooting in the streets. Bodies would be lying in the streets and no one felt safe enough to go out and help. The film Dahr showed spoke louder than words. It chilled me to the bone right to my core. The shame and the sorrow of what has been done in my name weighs deeply on my heart. The tears shed and reappear as I remember the images. God forgive us.
If sounding an alarm to warn our nation before going in, if saying no to that horror means being labeled criminal and going to jail, then open the gates wide! I am so ready. I have been blessed to have witnessed this film and Dahr's presentation before my sentencing (I was only wishing Danny, Peter, and Clare could have been present too). It shored up my conviction of the rightness of our action. For this I am grateful.I would like to thank Dahr for stretching himself after such a long week of presenting and traveling. It felt like the concluding paragraph to these past three years, bringing us back around to the illegal war and occupation.
I'd like to thank Maureen ____________, John Amadon, and Colleen from Albany, who brought Dahr to us after many full days of speaking engagements in the Albany area. I'd also like to thank Cris McConkey and Francis Carver for coming down from Trumansburg, NY, to help with the incredible Binghamton Indymedia group (Stephen Schweitzer, Fumiwo Iwamoto, Bill and Diane Huston, and of course Tarik Abdelazim) who at the last minute put it all together for a wonderful evening. I'd like to also recognize the media who showed up in time to actually report Dahr's message. Especially Fox News and the amount of coverage they gave on the evening news for the rest of that week.
To Fr. Kevin Bunger for making it possible to meet at Holy Trinity Church in Binghamton and running out to find a screen with two hours to go. To all the folks who came out to witness about this war. To those who continue to vigil against this war in front of the Federal Building Court House on Henry Street every Monday at 4 p.m. For all who continue to vigil everywhere. May we strengthen each other with a passion for Justice, Mercy and Love, and continue to resist war making in all its forms.
In Peace,
Teresa
P.S. Clare and I are still here in the Broome County Jail where we are cellmates in the "IPOD" minimum security area. Broome County has a contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to house federal inmates. My spirits are good and Clare says, "She is grateful to be here." I'd say the war on terror is improperly directed, as we women, mostly poor and with drug addictions, are at the mercy of the random officers. Some of them have beautiful and kind natures, towing the illogical rules with grace, and then there are the drill sergeant want-ta-bes, who scream orders at us, which frequently are not very clear and then lock you into your cell for 24 hours because you looked in the wrong direction, or asked a question. I feel like the log is very big in our collective eye. More on that later.... [heart symbol] T.2/10/06
P.P.S. Mary Anne tells me Clare and Peter are on transit lists on the (federal prison website?). So I suppose we'll be separated soon. Maybe tonight.
Falluja? Dallas (thankfully) reminds me that we were supposed to note Danny Schechter on Dexter Filkins. From "Why Protest Media Coverage Mar 15?" (News Dissector):
New York Times Baghdad correspondent Dexter Filkins reviews Paul Bremer’s book "My Year in Iraq." He faults him and General Sanchez for not demanding more troops. He PRAISES him for organizing elections saying "HE DESERVES OUR GRATITUDE FOR BRINGING THEM OFF." Our gratitude? Who is talking about, the NY Times, The US Government, or his readers?
This just underscores the continuing identification of a major media outlet's top correspondent with the military mission which lost because it just wasn't big enough, Never mind that most Iraqis who did vote said they were doing so not to endorse some Bushian or Bremerian view of democracy but to give the the Americans the ritual they insisted on so that they would leave. There is no mention in the review of how Bremer's "energetic" CPA countenanced BILLIONS of dollars in corruption.
In contrast to Fikins mild and qualified rebuke, I ran into an Iraqi American now working for the Times who quipped that Bremer should be on trial alongside Saddam.
Two journalists. Two views. Guess which one gets ink in the NY Times?
And we'll go out on that. Whispers become shouts, thoughts become action. Realities are exposed. The war drags on but the Bully Boy and others are having to pull us along twice as hard. Even the "award winning" Dexy has to face reality. (Supposedly, the review is an attempt by Filkins to "pull a [George] Packer" and walk away from his past -- a sort of non-mea culpa his paper's quite familiar with. I prefer to see it as the sort of phoney "I take responsibility" posturing Henry Kissinger perfected following Watergate.) Even Dexy.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
donovan
and the war drags on
dahr jamail
danny schechter
camilo mejia
teresa grady
dexter filkins
the new york times