Friday, January 15, 2010

Death toll for yesterday's Najaf bombings is 25

Abbas Elaiwi, like many in this relatively calm city about 90 miles south of Baghdad, was shocked that the explosions had occurred so close to the Imam Ali shrine, where the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad is buried.
"How could a car loaded with explosives be allowed to park inside the old city?" he raged. "Those policemen are useless. I believe they should rethink the whole security system, otherwise we shall see more of these attacks."

The above is from Leila Fadel and Saad Sarhan's "3 explosions rock holy Shiite city in Iraq" (Washington Post) about yesterday's triple bombings in Najaf in which CNN counts 25 dead and seventy-two injured based on the figures provided by Iraq's Interior Ministry. Nada Bakri (New York Times) reports, "The bombers, driving large trucks filled with fertilizer and explosives, were able to get close to the heavily guarded ministries in part because of relaxed security that Mr. Maliki's government had ordered to cast a sense of normalcy over the city." Qassim Zein and Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) add:


"There were many people killed and many more injured, but no (official) is willing to make a statement and give the correct number," said Mohammed Hassan, a Najaf policeman who survived the bombings and saw the grisly aftermath firsthand.
Hassan said he was certain of a high death toll because he saw emergency workers at the scene piling severed limbs into a wheelbarrow, which he described as "a sight I will never forget in all my life."
"I was so terrified by the explosions and what I saw afterward that I could barely walk," Hassan said. "I saw burned shops and stuff scattered all over the streets. At first, I didn't realize it was parts of human bodies."

Meanwhile, in the US, Bruce Alpert (New Orleans Times-Picayune) reports on military suicides:

The news about suicides in the U.S. military just gets bleaker.
The Defense Department is expected to report today that the Army last year recorded a record number of suicides by active-duty troops. At the end of November, the number stood at 147.
Earlier in the week, the Veterans Affairs Department reported that the suicide rate among 17- to 29-year-old male veterans jumped 26 percent from 2005 to 2007.

The article contains a link to a column by Steven and Cokie Roberts that starts with their meeting Iraq War veteran Joe Gonzalez:

We thought of Joe when President Obama announced he would be sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. That means more deployments, more deaths and more soldiers coming home with hidden wounds even their commanders don't understand very well. TBI and PTSD at least have clinical names. The "afterlife" of combat includes divorce and despair, substance abuse and spousal abuse, joblessness and homelessness -- and, in extreme cases, suicide.
Last month, the Army disclosed that 140 active-duty soldiers had taken their own lives in 2009, the same number as all of last year and a jump of 37 percent since 2006. Official figures include an additional 117 suicides in the Navy, Air Force and Marines, and the suicide rate in the armed forces is now greater than in the general population.
The military is good at training fighters but not fathers, leaders but not lovers. Soldiers are taught to face physical dangers but not emotional ones. Constant combat can leave them feeling too much pain -- or not enough -- at the same time. In a fine series on military suicide, the Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., quoted one soldier describing his Iraq experience: "We were living as targets at all times for a solid eight months. It was definitely always intense. Eventually, we became numb to everything."


Turning to films, Roger Ebert (via the Chornicle Herald) notes this week's DVD releases which include:

THE HURT LOCKER (War drama, R, 127 m., 2009). A great film. Jeremy Renner stars as a bomb-defusing specialist who dismantles bombs under fire in Iraq. Not a phony action movie, no false alarms, but almost unbearable suspense in a story that asks: Why does he do it? Why MUST he do it? Director Kathryn Bigelow, a master of intelligent action (Strange Days, K-19: The Widowmaker), superbly creates suspense out of the traditional tools of performance, story, timing and editing. In a movie about bombs, this one doesn’t depend for its effect on blowing things up.


Hurt Locker


Ann Hornaday (Washington Post) notes The Hurt Locker:

I usually avoid the Golden Globes ceremony, only tuning in late in the show to catch the occasional inebriated acceptance speech. (May the YouTube gods forever bless the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for putting full bottles of booze on the nominees' tables.)
But this year I'll watch with heightened interest one race in particular. I'll be the one at home on my couch, full bowl of popcorn at the ready, whispering under my breath: Bigelow, Bigelow, Bigelow.

As noted, I'm using my spare time (ha ha) to campaign for Kathryn's to be nominated for Best Director (Academy Awards). I enjoy Hornaday's column (really enjoy it) and recommend it but, to be clear, I know Kathryn and I know James Cameron and they both made wonderful films. I'm not going to pit them against each other. If Kathryn gets a nomination, regardless of who else is nominated, I will continue to work friends to support her. The Hurt Locker and Avatar are both important films and if either Kathryn or James wins Best Director, it will be wonderful. (Hornaday sees the Globes as an indicator of the Academy Awards. The Director's Guild is the best indicator for who will get the Academy Award for Best Director and the DGA will hand out their award January 30th -- Kathryn and James are both nominated along with three other people.)


We'll note this on a new publication. From WSWS:

The World Socialist Web Site and Mehring Books are launching today an important new publication--WSWS Perspectives. The monthly journal contains all the perspectives articles published on the WSWS.

WSWS perspectives articles analyze and comment upon the most important political events, economic developments, and cultural questions facing the international working class. Through these commentaries, the WSWS elaborates a socialist response to the crisis of world capitalism.

The journal will be an invaluable resource for both new and longtime readers of the WSWS. We also encourage our readers to purchase copies for family members, friends and co-workers as a way to introduce them to the analysis of the World Socialist Web Site.

WSWS Perspectives includes both a date-ordered table of contents and a subject index, to allow readers to quickly find material on particular themes or in response to particular events. Over the course of the coming year, Mehring Books will be issuing back copies of WSWS Perspectives going back to the redesign of the WSWS in October 2008.

Visit Mehring Books to order your copy or sign up for a year-long subscription. To purchase a single issue, click here. For a subscription, click here.

The sale price for individual issues and subscriptions is listed below. All prices are given in $US. Prices vary by location and include all shipping costs.

United States

1. Single issue: $10

2. Year-long subscription rate (12 issues): $85

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1. Single issue: $10.50

2. Year-long subscription rate: $88

Great Britain, Europe, Latin America, and Asia

1. Single issue: $14.50

2. Year-long subscription rate: $122

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1. Single issue: $11

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Also from WSWS, we'll note this from Sybille Fuchs' "The death of Miep Gies (February 15, 1909—January 10, 2010) Protected Anne Frank from the Nazis:"


Shortly before her death, Miep Gies said: "Never a day goes by that I do not think of what happened then."
On August 4, 1944, Austrian-born SS Staff Sergeant Karl Josef Silberbauer and three Dutch Nazis from the so-called Green Police stormed the hiding place of the Frank family in Amsterdam after their whereabouts had been betrayed.
Anne Frank and her family were transported to concentration camps, and Anne died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northwestern Germany shortly before her 16th birthday (and only a few weeks before the camp was liberated). Her mother and sister both died in Auschwitz. Of Anne Frank's immediate family, only her father survived the Nazi concentration camps.

That's an excerpt. You can also see Betty's "Miep Gies" and Stan's "What gets covered. what gets ignored?" on this topic. The following community sites updated last night:



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thomas friedman is a great man






oh boy it never ends
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Thursday, January 14, 2010

I Hate The War

THIS IS PRETTY SHOCKING. FORMER UN CHIEF WEAPONS INSPECTOR SCOTT RITTER...YOU MIGHT REMEMBER THAT NAME. HE WAS THE GUY WHO WAS ALWAYS ON THE NEWS, EVERY NIGHT IN IRAQ LOOKING FOR THE WEAPONS...HE HAS BEEN ARRESTED IN A SEX STING WHERE HE CONTACTED A COP WHO WAS POSING AS A 15 YEAR OLD GIRL, AND FONDLED HIMSELF ON CAMERA, THINKING IT WAS A 15 YEAR OLD GIRL. HE IS NOW BEING CHARTED WITH IMPERSONATING ROMAN POLANSKI.
DID YOU SEE HIS LAWYER? THESE LAWYERS ARE SO SLEAZY. DID YOU HEAR THE LAWYER'S EXCUSE? HIS LAWYER SAID HIS CLIENT WAS JUST INSPECTING HIS WEAPON.

As noted in the Contra Costa Times, the above is from Jay's monologue tonight on The Jay Leno Show (NBC). Good for Jay. Pig Ritter is on his third arrest now for attempting sexual hook ups with underage girls. For some reason, despite the first two arrests and his refusal to speak of them on air when CNN asked him, a large number of people continued to present him as a 'trusted' source. So The Nation published his bad, bad writing and, in fact, published his books. Amy Goodman had him as a guest how many times? (Over a dozen.) Laura Flanders, Lila Garrett, Rachel Maddow and assorted others allowed that trash on as a guest.

How did that happen?

It's not any different than how illegal wars happen. It goes to what we value and what we don't. When the 'enemy' is 'over there,' it's much easier to sell an illegal war. We don't know them. We don't know what they believe in. We buy into whatever propaganda our government sells us.

The 'enemy' is 'the other.'

How does this apply to women?

Women are always 'the other'. We're always defined as the other. Terry Gross [NPR's Fresh Air] puts on her posse of men (because if you don't have a penis, you're not a critic Terry wants on staff), one of which, just last night, was praising a teen sex comedy -- another teen sex comedy about a young boy/man trying to lose his virginity. Yes, that is novel. I don't think we've ever seen anything like that before. Except for American Pie. And Porky's. And about four hundred movies in between the two including Class, Risky Business . . . . Then the (male) critic has the nerve to float that maybe women can get comfortable with teen sex comedies at some point.

Maybe?

The only classics in the genre come from women. Little Darlings is a minor classic and stars Kristy McNichol and Tatum O'Neal (who bet on who can lose their virginity first that summer). Valley Girl, directed by Martha Coolidge, was a hit (and is a classic). And then there is the all time classic, the artistic zenith in the teen sex comedy genre: Fast Times At Ridgemont High, directed by Amy Heckerling, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sean Penn, Phoebe Cates and others.

How do you not know of those films? If you're an alleged film critic, brought on Terry's bad show as such, how do you not know those films?

Oh, that's right. You've defined women as "the other." Therefore, you don't need to comment on women. (As Terry Gross' idiot TV critic demonstrated tonight.)

Women can be attacked because they're 'the other.' Their contributions are erased -- not accidentally. It happens too often for anyone to be believable when they claim it was an accident.

Doubt it? I just checked Crapapedia. Cameron Crowe is a talented director (and a friend). However, he didn't direct Fast Times. Go read the Crapapedia entry and it's raving over Cameron. He's immensely talented and gifted and an important directing voice. But he wasn't the director of that film and the look of that film and so much of the visuals and sight gags came from Amy. But Amy's credit is robbed from her -- by the little boys who run Crapapedia. The same little boys who brag in the entries about male celebs who 'bagged' this woman and that but when it's time to write about us, we're 'sluts'. A very good friend, recording artist, is still furious that all the men listed as her partners in her Crapapedia entry aren't taken to task for sleeping around but she is in her Crapapedia entry. I don't blame her for being pissed. Women's Media Center's radio program on WBAI was just (Monday, click here for the archives) noting that Crapapedia posts are done predominately by young, unmarried males. It's not an accident that women come off like virgins or whores at that site and that, outside of sex, we really don't seem to do anything, we have things done to us. (If we're 'whores,' we 'do' sex.) This is not an accident, this is how a society's distorted view is reinforced and perpetuated.

It's not an accident.

After questioning the truth of the historical tradition by pointing out the male bias of selection, Christine attempted to answer every commonplace prejudice voiced against women. Men had charged that women governed unwisely when they had power. Christine refuted this argument by citing a long list of exempla of women who governed wisely and well. She answered the charge of women's intellectual inferiority by citing a long list of women who excelled in learning, in poetry, in science and in philosophy. Here, as elsewhere, she freely mixed historical figures with allegorical and mythological persons. She also attempted to show female superiority in sensibility and caring by citing a long list of virtuous wives and mothers, chaste virgins and self-sacrificing women. All of this material evidence allegorically built the city of the ladies. When it was finished, the Queen of Heaven was invited to be its first inhabitant, attended by a large number of female saints.

Who is Christine? A professor at UCLA? A history major trying, last year, to establish women's accomplishments?

No.

It's Christine de Pizan. She published her list of accomplished women in . . . 1405. (The excerpt above is from Gerda Lerner's The Creation of Feminist Consciousness: From the Middle Ages to Eighteen-seventy. And I believe it's page 260. Check before you cite page number because I'm not at home and that's from memory. ADDED 1-30-10, Page number and quote are correct.)

It's 2008. In 1405, Christine was breaking her neck to establish our accomplishments. Think of all the women who've come along since then who've done the same. We repeatedly have to reinvent the wheel. And it's because we don't know our history. Not because we're stupid but because our society doesn't value it. Amy Heckerling directs an amazing film and Crapapedia wants to give the credit to the screenwriter? Find another film where the screenwriter and not the director gets the rave at Crapapedia. You won't unless it's another case of a woman directing and a man writing the script.

For women of my own generation, we saw it. We saw a huge, huge number of women in the sixties become Joni (the artist), Diana (the bitch -- I love Diana and she's one of the sweetest people in the world, I'm not calling her that, I'm saying that's her image in the rock canon), Janis (the victim) and Aretha (the good time gal) -- the rock canon. Doubt it, check the Rock and Roll of Hall of Fame and notice how few women are in there. Notice that any man from that decade is pretty much there. Cher can't get in but you've got men in there who've been inducted twice. Men whose accomplishments are far less in music than Cher's.

Our history is stolen from us time and again. It needs to stop.

Our history doesn't matter and that translates into we don't matter.

Which is how the Congress can pretend they're passing 'health reform' and insist that women objecting to the stripping of our reproductive rights (which is health care) from the proposals is no big deal. It's no big deal because . . . they don't see us as a big deal. We're 'the other,' they think they're the norm. We're in the majority in the US but we're 'the other.'

Marilyn French, The War Against Women, page 186:

Men's expectation that women will take responsibility for maintaining them is a carryover from infancy. Women perpetuate the system out of habit and inculcate their daughters with guilt. Men enforce the system by laws or customs that force women into economic dependence on men and by the ever-present threat: she who does not care for her man, does not mother him like a baby, will lose him and his economic support. Women are subjected by fear: men foster their own infantilization, believing it demonstrates their superiority. Yet even when women's caretaking and service are not enough to keep men from being violent toward them. And beneath women's fear of losing economic support is their fear of men's physical violence.

As French explains, one group is expected to sacrifice. Now stop a moment if you're a reader and think about Howard Zinn and his endless columns and books on the unfair social contract . . . as it applies to men. Of his Communist critique of society that never finds him noting how women were not free agents when the contracts were drawn up. (Zinn is a frequent harsh critic of Locke and the social contract theory, for those unfamiliar with his writings on that. His argument is that poor men were not in positions of power when the social contracts are drawn up so they are forced to agree to conditions they wouldn't otherwise.)

Read the Marilyn French paragraph above and you've got an explanation of why the Congress never fretted, never broke a sweat, over trampling on our rights. 'Reproductive rights? Eh, the women can sacrifice. For the good. For the social good.'

Barack's nonsense isn't health care but let's pretend for a moment it is and ask: Why are we sacrificing?

We're the majority in the population. Our reproductive health? That's going to be the determinate of future generations. So how in the world did reproductive rights become a minor issue, something that didn't need coverage?

July 9th, I tossed out this little survey of that morning's New York Times front page:

The New York Times has nothing from Iraq this morning* (again) and nothing but smut and sexism (again). The front page is the best example but you can find it throughout (including in the food section -- Frank Bruni, "polarizing" would be your own paper, not a woman). But especially note the front page of the so-called news section and ask who they're catering to?

Matt Richtel probes the very pressing issue of . . . porno films. The economy means 'less dialogue.' That doesn't even cut it as a humor item, let alone as news. But don't we all feel a little filthier for the garbage? We're not done. David Leonhardt appears on the front page to tell you that proposed health care reform can be measured by . . . how it addresses prostate cancer.

For those not in the know, not a cancer which afflicts women. So women learn from today's front page that the smutty New York Times loves their porn and that the only way to measure health care success is by how it addresses the needs of men. Kind of the way the paper does?

You better believe prostate cancer's being covered. A disease that no woman will have. But that's not a side issue. That's not a minor issue. That's considered something in need of health coverage. Anything to do with men's health is. Male needs are considered factory standard, it's women needs that are optionals.

This is not a new development. It's at the root of 'the other.' We fear 'the other.' We fear the unknown. It's why Bruce (the shark) in Jaws is offscreen for so much of the film. Women are repeatedly robbed of accomplishments and achievements and reduced to cyphers who, if noted, are noted for who they slept with or didn't sleep with. What we achieved and why and how we achieved it is tossed aside. We can be the mysterious, half-smile on the Mona Lisa, we just can't have our stories told for fear that we might be understood and related to and, in the process, the society would be turned upside down (or, as Ruth Rosen would put it, The World Split Open). Keeping us 'the other' benefits the current system. The same way that it's no surprise the US is so successful at starting wars all over the world. We are the country that is taught the least about the world around us and encouraged by our news media not to care too deeply (or too long) about the world around us. A populace that only knows (the male half of) their own citizens and (the male half of) their own history is one that can be repeatedly sold on going to war with other countries.




It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)

Last Thursday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4373. Tonight? Still 4373.


The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.




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Iraq snapshot

Thursday, January 14, 2010.  Chaos and violence continue, Najaf is rocked by bombings, Nouri targets more political opponents, more Iraqi executions announced, exploring the opposition to Avatar, Pig gets arrested (again!) for being a sexual predator (again!), and more.
 
Starting in Iraq where Hannah Allam and Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reported that any hopes last week's announcement of parties and politicians banned from Iraq's elections (expected to be held in March) would be overturned appear to be over as it now appears that an additional 100 candidates may be announced banned shortly. Faraj al Haidari (Independent High Electoral Commission) attempts to spin frantically insisting that the efforts to disenfranchise are not aimed only as Sunnis. In 2005, a large number of Sunnis boycotted the national elections and hopes of higher participation this go round appear in doubt. Salam Faraj (AFP) reports a banning has been announced and quotes IHEC's Hamdia Husseini stating, "We have decided this afternoon to exclude around 500 names and political entities from the list of candidates."  Michael Jansen (Middle East Views) sees no attempts at equality or protecting the public, only efforts to target Sunnis and eliminate them from the process:           

Whether this proposal is accepted or not by the election commission, it is clear that the US-installed Shiite-Kurdish rulers of Iraq do not intend to share power with anyone else.                       
The de-Baathification committee -- renamed the Justice and Accountability Board - made this recommendation although its chief target, Saleh Mutlaq, was cleared to stand in Iraq's 2005 election and his National Dialogue Front won 11 seats in the 275-member assembly.                     
Ali Lami, head of the panel, claims new information reveals that Mutlaq "is a Baathist and nominated himself as a Baathist."                    
Mutlaq dismissed the allegation as "rubbish". He left the Baath party in 1977 before Saddam seized power, established a large farming business in the south, and made a great deal of money. His supporters point out that Lami has close relations with pro-Iranian factions and only retained his post because there was no agreement on a replacement. It may be significant that the new charge against Mutlaq surfaced after Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki paid a visit to Baghdad.                                      

Afif Sarhan (IslamOnline.net) notes, "Experts believe the ban would also stir a political storm for the Nuri Al-Maliki government" and quotes Ibrahim Suwa'id stating, "A ban like this, a couple of months before parliamentary elections, can bring a chaotic situation that the government will feel hard to succeed."   Zainab Naji and Ali Kareem (Global Arab Network -- backed by US funds, FYI)  note an emerging opinion that Nouri's worried that Ayad Allawi (who was prime minister before Nouri) could replace him and they quote Iraqi Organization for Media Development's Wathiq al-Hashemi stating, "Allawi's alliance poses a threat to other political powers, so any ban on one of his leaders [al-Mutlaq] is in the best interests of those powers [in power currently].  If Allawi withdraws from the elections, the political process will be in serious danger."   Rebecca Santana (AP) interviewed Allawi today and he calls out the targeting of Sunnis: "This is a process of severe intimidation and threats. It's clear that they want to get rid of their opponents."            
 
Yesterday, Leila Fadel and Aziz Alwan (Washington Post) were observing, "Another major attack would have been particularly damaging to members of Maliki's coalition running in parliamentary elections. The coalition's candidates are campaigning on a security platform."  Nouri's grandstanding for elections, as he tries desperately to regain his (false) image as the person who gave Iraq security, coincides with the announcement of executions. Al Jazeera reports that 11 men have been sentenced to death for the August 19th Baghdad bombings ("Black Wednesday") and quotes the judicial body's spokesperson Abdul Sattar al-Birqdar stating, "Today an Iraqi criminal court imposed a death sentence against 11 criminals who have been convicted of implementing, planning and funding the bomb events that targeted the finance and foreign ministries." Nada Bakri (New York Times) states al-Beeraqdar declared that an investigation into the August bombings were conducted for over three weeks -- turning up 'evidence' on the men -- and then the 11 men faced a trial.  A two-week trial.  A two-week trial.  And all are convicted to death by execution?  How very fortunate for Nouri's efforts to hang on as prime minister (the prime minister is selected by Parliament, FYI).  The 11 sentenced to die join a long, long list of other guilty or 'guilty' persons in Iraq facing execution.  Last month, Amnesty International issued the following:
 
Iraq is preparing to execute hundreds of prisoners, including 17 women, warned Amnesty International today, as it issued an 'urgent action' appeal to try to prevent the deaths. 

The 900-plus prisoners have exhausted all their appeals and their death sentences are said to have been ratified by the Presidential Council, meaning that they could be executed at any time.  Amnesty supporters are contacting Iraqi embassies around the world, including that in London, in a bid to stop the executions.                   

The condemned prisoners have been convicted of offences such as murder and kidnapping, but many are likely to have been sentenced after unfair trials. The 17 women are thought to include a group known to have been held on death row at the 5th section (al-Shu'ba al-Khamissa) of Baghdad's al-Kadhimiya Prison.             

Amnesty International UK Campaigns Director Tim Hancock said: 

'This is a staggering number of people facing execution and the fact that the government may be playing politics over these cases is truly frightening. 

'Wholesale use of the death penalty was one of the worst aspects of Saddam Hussein's regime and the present government should stop aping his behaviour.

'Instead of sending nearly a thousand people to a grisly death by hanging, the Iraqi authorities should halt all executions and impose an immediate death penalty moratorium.'

Iraqi media reports suggest that the Iraqi government is currently trying to present itself as 'tough' on crime ahead of national elections scheduled for January. Iraqi opposition politicians have expressed concern that executions may be carried out to give the ruling party a political advantage ahead of the elections, and there have been calls for the government to temporarily suspend all executions.                  

Amnesty is warning that Iraq's use of capital punishment is already spiralling. At least 120 people are known to have been executed in Iraq this year, greatly up on the 34 executions recorded during 2008.                

Iraq is now one of the world's heaviest users of the death penalty. After the US-controlled Coalition Provisional Authority suspended the death penalty following the toppling of Saddam Hussein's government in 2003, Iraq's subsequent reintroduction of capital punishment led to a rapid acceleration in death sentences and executions. Despite this, and contrary to some claims made by the Iraqi authorities, use of the death penalty has not seen a drop in crime levels in the country, with rises and falls in insurgency violence having no discernible relation to execution rates.
 
Violence begats violence? Qassim Zein and Hannah Allam (McClatchy Newspapers) report Najaf was rocked by three bombings -- one right after the other -- as the day ended with 25 dead.  Vendor Mohammed Sami was wounded in the bombings and he tells Adam Schreck,  Sameer N. Yacoub and Hamid Ahmed (AP), "Many people came to save me. But after a few minutes the second explosion occurred and we all ran to the nearest alley to hide."  The Hindu explains, "One of the blasts targeted a street leading to an important Shiite Muslim shrine, and two others hit a crowded vegetable market, together killing at least 12 people and wounding 20 more." Press TV's Wisam al-Bayati adds, "The market placed was packed with people when the explosion took place and most of the casualties were women and children." Leila Fadel and Saad Serhan (Washington Post) describe "body parts, broken glass and metal scrap from the car littered the street".  Xinhua reminds, "Najaf is home to the mausoleum of Iman Ali, the cousin of the Prophet Mohammed. It attracts thousand of pilgrims every year."
 
In other reported violence . . .
 
Bombings?
 
Reuters notes a Mosul roadside bombing injured one Iraqi soldier.  Zhang Xiang (Xinhua) reports a Baquba cart bombing has claimed 2 lives with ten more people wounded in a market and six shops destroyed.
 
Shootings?
 
Reuters notes 1 man was shot dead in Mosul and a drive-by shooting claimed the lives of 1 man and 1 woman in Mosul. Zhang Xiang (Xinhua) reports high schooler Sameer Aziz was shot dead in Khalis ("Aziz's Sunni family was displaced for two years from their home during the sectarian strife in the past years and his family has just returned home as the city witnessed a relative calm in recent few months, the source said.") and, dropping back to Wednesday night, Sahwa leader Khalid Hardan was shot dead in Edhaim (his uncle was also wounded).
 
All last month, we had to endure a bunch of liars or idiots insisting the US was so 'noble' or uninterested in Iraq oil (hard to tell which assertion produces more laughs) and that was demonstrated by the US not being involved in recent biddings.  You had to be really stupid not to notice the board of directors of those companies (identified as 'foreign' by the US press, they sure had a lot of Americans on their boards).  Apparently all the laughs that could be have been wrung out of that so today Timothy Williams (New York Times) reports, "A wave of American companies have been arriving in Iraq in recent months to pursue what is expected to be a multibillion-dollar bonanza of projects to revive the country's stagnant petroleum industry, as Iraq seeks to establish itself as a rival to Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil producer." 
 
Meanwhile in the US former journalist Thomas E. Ricks has taken to huffing publicly about James Cameron's box office smash Avatar.  (Disclosure, I know Cameron and consider him a friend.) What could make a pudgy former journalist so angry?  The answer is staring everyone in the face.  Last week, Ruth noted WBAI's The Arts Magazine (airs each Tuesday from two in the afternoon until three in the afternoon) when Louis Proyect was the guest for the first half-hour.
 
Louis Proyect: And even though it's set some time in the distant future and on a distant planet, it's very obvious that it's about what's happening now in Iraq and Afghanistan. It just amazes me that anybody you know could think otherwise about this movie.
 
Prairie Miller: Yeah and then there's this attitude of rejecting this film outright because there's money behind it, there's Rupert Murdoch and whatever happened to the notion, the Marxist notion, of seizing the means of production? In this case of cultural production, you know, for other means.   I mean this is amazing.  He, Cameron has said about his film that there's a sense of e -- "There's a sense of entitlement. 'We're here, we're big, we've got the guns and, therefore, are entitled to every damn thing on the planet'." And incidentally, Cameron, who's a Canadian, he admirably dropped his application for American citizenship after Bush was elected in 2004 so there's much more than meets the eye concerning the attacks on this film.
 
Louis Proyect: Yeah. I'm glad we're in 100% agreement on this one because I thought we would be, Prairie.
 
Prarie Miller: Now you came up with some study about anthropological imperialist invasions. What was that about?
 
Louis Proyect: Yeah, right now, you have people working in Afghanistan -- and I think they were in Iraq as well -- who were anthropology professors who agreed to work with the military to win the hearts and minds of 'the natives.'  And there's a huge controversy about this.  They just had a convention of the American Anthropological Association where they-they went on record as being opposed to that. The idea is that what they want to use are what you might call professional techniques to figure out how to control a population combining measures that might improve their life somewhat but at the same time soften them up to accept a military occupation.  And quite frankly, the-the anthropologists who are involved in this business are, you know, I don't think they have the right to teach. I mean, what they're doing, I think it's a kind of war crime. And Avatar deals with this because Sigorney Weaver, who's one of the major characters, is an anthropologist trying to pacify the local population. Well, I think your listeners would want to see the movie. I don't want to give too much away, too much of the plot. But it just has to do with how the professions in the United States, including psychologists by the way, who worked in Guantanamo, to-to get -- to make sure that torture was being carried out in such a way that people wouldn't be completely broken and capable of giving information.  I mean, this is just horrible.
 
 
That edition of The Arts Magazine is available at the WBAI archives for 80 more days.
To refresh, from the December 3rd snapshot:
 
The American Anthropological Association's annual meeting started yesterday in Philadelphia and continues through Sunday.  Today the association's Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the US Security and Intelligence Communities issued their [PDF format] "Final Report on The Army's Human Terrain System Proof of Concept Program."  The 74-page report is a blow to War Criminals and their cheerleaders who have long thought that the social science could be abused or that the social sciences were pseudo sciences. 
 
Only a small number of outlets have covered the AAA's findings.  First up were  Patricia Cohen (New York Times), Dan Vergano (USA Today), Yudhijit Bhattacharjee (Science Magazine) and Steve Kolowich (Inside HigherEd). Another wave followed which included Tom A. Peter (Christian Science Monitor) reporting, "Today the program enjoys a core of supporters, but it's done little to address the concerns of anthropologists and, now, rising military complaints that the program has slowed the growth of the military's ability to train culturally sensitive warriors." Christopher Shay (Time magazine) added:
 
Two years ago, the AAA condemned the HTS program, but this month's 72-page report goes into much greater detail about the potential for the military to misuse information that social scientists gather; some anthropologists involved in the report say it's already happening. David Price, a professor of anthropology at St. Martins University in Washington and one of the co-authors of the AAA report, says the army appears to be using the anthropological information to better target the enemy, which, if true, would be a gross violation of the anthropological code. One Human Terrain anthropologist told the Dallas Morning News that she wasn't worried if the information she provided was used to kill or capture an insurgent. "The reality is there are people out there who are looking for bad guys to kill," she said. "I'd rather they did not operate in a vacuum." Price and other critics see this as proof that the anthropologists don't have full control over the information they gather and that commanders can use it to kill. "The real fault with Human Terrain is that it doesn't even try to protect the people being studied," says Price. "I don't think it's accidental that [the Pentagon] didn't come up with ethical guidelines."
 
David Price is a member of AAA and with Network of Concerned Anthropologists. He reviewed Avatar:
 
 
Fans of Avatar are understandably being moved by the story's romantic anthropological message favoring the rights of people to not have their culture weaponized against them by would be foreign conquerors, occupiers and betrayers. It is worth noting some of the obvious the parallels between these elements in this virtual film world, and those found in our world of real bullets and anthropologists in Iraq and Afghanistan.             
Since 2007, the occupying U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan have deployed Human Terrain Teams (HTT), complete with HTT "social scientists" using anthropological-ish methods and theories to ease the conquest and occupation of these lands. HTT has no avatared-humans; just supposed "social scientists" who embed with battalions working to reduce friction so that the military can get on with its mission without interference from local populations. For most anthropologists these HTT programs are an outrageous abuse of anthropology, and earlier this month a lengthy report by a commission of the American Anthropological Association (of which I was a member and report co-author) concluded that the Human Terrain program crossed all sorts of ethical, political and methodological lines, finding that:    
"when ethnographic investigation is determined by military missions, not subject to external review, where data collection occurs in the context of war, integrated into the goals of counterinsurgency, and in a potentially coercive environment -- all characteristic factors of the HTT concept and its application -- it can no longer be considered a legitimate professional exercise of anthropology." 
The American Anthropological Association's executive board found Human Terrain to be a "mistaken form of anthropology". But even with these harsh findings, the Obama administration's call for increased counterinsurgency will increase demands for such non-anthropological uses of ethnography for pacification.    
 
Thomas E. Ricks hates Avatar (and huffs and blogs to be sure we all know).  Here's what those paying attention know: Ricks is this century's Walter Lippmann and that's not a compliment.  He left journalism to whore for counter-insurgency.  He has no ethical training and he thinks that general studies major (journalism degree) qualifies him for something.  It doesn't qualify him for humanity and he's unable to address ethics.  (Don't forget his stamping of feet at the AP last year.)  He's a joke.  He's a War Criminal now and he's joke.
Kelley B. Vlahos  (Antiwar) addressed Ricks most recently earlier this week:

In high school, there are always the Cool Kids. In the Washington military establishment, there are always the Cool Kids. Walking conflict of
interest Tom Ricks loves to write breathlessly about Washington's prevailing Gang with the Name -- the COINdinistas -- most of whom now roost in the Pentagon or at the Center for a New American Security, which hired Ricks away from a full-time job at the Washington Post to do just what he's doing now: shamelessly promoting the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).
But even the cool kids will eventually fall out of style. Like haughty Heidi Klum says, "In fashion, one day you're in, the next day you're out!" Perhaps that's why Ricks' latest Foreign Policy panegyric to his friends seems even more cringe-worthy and awkward than usual, mainly because this gushing yearbook entry -- dated December 2009 -- could have been written a year ago. Today, it tastes like slightly overdone steak. Stick a fork in it… you get the picture.   
Under the subheading, "Who knows everything there is to know and more about counterinsurgency and its current role in U.S. military strategy? These guys," Ricks effuses:                     
"Pushed and prodded by a wonky group of Ph.D.s, the U.S. military has in the last year decisively embraced a Big Idea: counterinsurgency. Not everyone in uniform is a fan, but David Petraeus and the other generals in charge of America's wars are solidly behind it. Here are the brains behind counterinsurgency's rise from forgotten doctrine to the centerpiece of the world's most powerful military…"
No. 1 on the list: Petraeus, or "King David," "who rules the roost," according to Ricks. He's followed by John Nagl, the former Army officer and Rumsfeld aide who now "beats the COIN drum" and might find himself in a "top Pentagon slot in a year or two"; Australian COIN-whisperer David Kilcullen, currently one of McChrystal's key eggheads, whom Ricks calls "the Crocodile Dundee of counterinsurgency"; Janine Davidson, a Pentagon policy-pusher who Ricks says is "now sitting at the adult table"; Dave Dilegge, editor of Small Wars Journal, which is "avidly read by everyone from four-star generals to captains on the ground in Iraq"; and Andrew Exum, another CNAS wonk, Iraq vet, and blogger, who "in his spare time has been known to play paintball against Hezbollah – no joke."
 
Little lesson today in: You are who you get in bed with.  You are everything they were exposed to.  So when someone's already has two arrests -- pay attention, Amy Goodman -- for attempting to have sex with a minor, you avoid them.  You don't promote them as 'good' people.  We've gone over that repeatedly but have to hit on it again today because Pig got busted and charged again. Laura Rozen (Politico) notes it here. If we had a working left, a functioing one, Pig would have been shunned long ago.  But see, when the victims would be female, so much of the left doesn't give a damn.  That includes women, we've named Amy Goodman.  There's Laura Flanders as well.  Rachel Maddow.  All these 'strong' women who couldn't say no to Pig and kept booking him on their shows.  We've called it out repeatedly here while so many women have WHORED themselves and others.  That's not to let the men off.  But it's especially disgusting when women -- hey, Lila Garrett -- we're talking about your WHORING ASS too -- give space for sexual predators.  From the February 5, 2008 snapshot:
 
What the election cycle has demonstrated on the Democratic side is how much women are still devalued and hated.  Don't kid that it's not so.  Like Laura Flanders has no problem bringing the Pig (twice busted for attempting to set up sex with an underage female online) onto her radio program, Common Dreams has no problem posting him.  They've got him up today.  But they didn't post Steinem and they didn't post Morgan.  With Pig, we're supposed to overlook the busts.  It's more important that his 'voice' be heard than that he's a predator and, thing is, women know that argument because we've heard it over and over, decade after decade.  Gender is the greatest barrier.  All women are told to wait -- over and over.  Ask Flanders why she was so offended about Gary Glitter but thought nothing of repeatedly booking Pig on her program?  Ask her to explain that.  Ask Amy Goodman to.  Ask Katrina vanden Heuvel why she, the mother of a teenage daughter, thinks his rambles are worth carrying at The Nation?  Big media had the sense to wash their hands of him when the arrests came out.  Not little media.  Because you've got a lot of queen bees who won't use their voices, they don't want to look 'bitchy' or 'assertive' or 'demanding.'  How's that working out for you?
 
For those who don't know, Laura wouldn't join us in protesting Pig.  She kept bringing Pig on air.  But in the dying days of her bad radio show, she wanted to insist that a sports team stop using a Gary Glitter song because . . . Gary was a sexual predator.   It offends her . . . at sporting events.  Apparently.  Lila Garrett, Laura Flanders, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Amy Goodman and a host of others better be willing to note Pig's latest arrest -- this would be his third sexual predator arrest for those paying attention -- and maybe explain why they continued to publish him or bring him on as a guest?  They also never called him out when he attacked Cindy Sheehan.  From the May 29, 2007 snapshot:
 
Now here's how polite society worked once upon a time, when someone was reported to have been twice busted for pedophilia, that was really it for them. They didn't get write ups, they didn't pen op-eds. They weren't invited on programs to chat. But for some reason, Pig Ritter is seen as a voice the 'left' needs to adopt. Scott Ritter was allowed to repeatedly attack Cindy Sheehan on his joint-tour in 2006 (The Sky is Falling Tour -- DVD set retails for $19.99 unless you're going for the NC-17 version) and everyone looked the other way and most of the press (big and small) just chuckled. That's why he felt brave enough to issue the nonsense in an interview proper (and one that didn't require him to be handcuffed -- how novel that must have been for him).

The peace movement needs to be inclusive, no question, but that doesn't translate as: "Because we have the Peace Mom, we need to have the Pedophile Man." That's not inclusion, that's stupidity on ever level (including legal liabilities should anything happen to an underage female). We washed our hands of him a long time ago in this community. He is "pig" when noted here for any reason. His name is being mentioned here (for the first time since he went public in attacking Sheehan) only because there are some who seem unable to believe it could be true. Well it is. And it's equally true that you need to ask your outlets why they have repeatedly featured a man who will not explain his criminal busts and allows to stand the mainstream media's reporting that they were for attempting to hook up with young (underage) girls online. It is amazing that the same independent media that wants to scream 'crackpot' and 'crazy' to make sure they are not associated with certain groups is perfectly happy to break bread with a pedophile. Repeatedly.
 
The Sky Is Falling Tour?  He did that with Sy Hersh.  And I'd love for Hersh to claim he had no idea about Pig's history. He knew all about Pig's history and I'm laughing, Sy, because a lot of us warned you Pig would get arrested again.  It's on you, Seymour, it's on your reputation now.  We've noted this topic too many times to count and there's good chance we'll return to it tonight for "I Hate The War."
 
Wrapping up with two other things.  First, independent journalist David Bacon reports on the San Francisco Hotel Arrests (link goes to IATSE Local 477):
 
 
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm joined 1400 hotel workers and their supporters last week, as they rallied and marched to the San Francisco Hilton demanding a fair contract.  Over 100 protesters, including Trumka and Wilhelm, were then arrested for sitting in and blocking the doors.  The action culminated in the launch of a boycott of the hotel, one of the city's most luxurious.

The Hilton march and arrests are a preview of a spring of growing conflict between workers and the giant chains that now own and operate the city's Class A hotels. Although San Francisco has seen more of that conflict over the last six months than other cities, it is now spreading around the country.  By the summer, it may involve a confrontation between the hotels and over 40,000 workers in at least nine cities.     

 
The contract with San Francisco's hotel union, UNITE HERE Local 2, expired on August 14.  Since then, Local 2 has been trying to bargain a new agreement in the middle of an economic depression.  Last fall Local 2 members struck, and then began boycotts, at three other Class A hotels - the Grand Hyatt, the Palace and the St. Francis.          

San Francisco's largest hotels are demanding cuts in health and retirement benefits, and increased workloads, saying that the economic crisis has reduced tourism in the city.  The luxury chains want workers to begin paying for their healthcare premiums -- $35/month this year, $115/month next year, and $200/month the year after.    A typical San Francisco hotel worker earns $30,000 per year, and many can't work a full 40-hour week.
 
 
David Bacon's latest book is Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press) which just won the CLR James Award. Bacon can be heard on KPFA's The Morning Show (over the airwaves in the Bay Area, streaming online) each Wednesday morning (begins airing at 7:00 am PST).
 
Lastly, the Detroit Green Party issued the following:

For Immediate Release: January 10, 2010


For More Information Contact:
----------------------------
Name: Derek Grigsby
Cell Phone: 313-706-2985
E-mail: dereknjck@yahoo.com


Detroit Green Party calls for outlawing of utility shutoffs
===========================================================
Stop the killing of our innocent sisters and brothers!
Outlaw utility shut-offs now!


Detroit, MI January 10, 2010 – In the week that ushered in the New Year, at least eight people died in four Detroit fires.

Why does this happen every winter in Detroit, over and over again?

"Detroit is a city with poor people often unable to pay their utilities. If they get behind in their payments; it's pretty difficult to get caught up. So when water or gas or electricity is turned off, they have a choice of doing without or rigging something up. This kind of access to power leads to fires every winter," stated Detroit Green Party spokesperson Derek Grigsby. "DTE should be prevented from shutting-off electricity in the middle of winter. We should put the needs of ordinary people before the profits of a wealthy few."'

In the latest case, the three people who died were using walkers. They weren't nimble enough to exit the house. By the time firefighters pulled two of the three out of the house and rushed them to nearby hospitals, they were pronounced dead.

While the immediate cause of the fire remains under investigation, the underlying cause is that in the midst of a deep economic crisis, where effectively half the city's adult residents are unemployed, utilities are shut off for non-payment. Instead of a business-as-usual approach to people's needs, we need to adopt a strategy of saving people's lives by having a moratorium on the shut off of utilities and foreclosures.

In the latest case, Marvin Allen, 62, and his brother Tyrone Allen, 61, both handicapped, along with Tyrone's girlfriend, Lyn Grier, 59, died without any insurance. The family asked that donations be made for funeral services to the Allen Memorial Fund at any Comerica Bank Branch. The Detroit Greens has made a contribution, and encourages others, including DTE, to do so.

Detroit Green Party, a local of the Green Party of Michigan
 
 

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