Monday, July 18, 2011

US military announces another death in Iraq

The Associated Press reports that the US military announced this morning the death of another US soldier in Iraq with no details other than the soldier died yesterday. This brings the death toll for this month to 5 and the death toll for June and July combined to 20.

Two of the five this month were Nathan Beyers and Nicholas Newby. KPVI reports (link is text and features a slide show) the Pocatello, Idaho National Guard Armory last night was the scene of a rememberance for the two fallen as approximately 50 people paid their respects in a candel light ceremony. Lucas Elliott was killed Friday while serving in Iraq. WTVD notes, "On Monday, Lucas Elliott would have celebrated his 22nd birthday."

Signature wounds of the current wars are TBI and PTSD. When the US military brass testifies before Congress they like to emphasize TBI and bury PTSD. That may be changing, not because the military brass really wants to address PTSD but because TBI may have even more risks than have been previously known. Albertina Torsoli (Bloomberg News) reports that a new study, to be presented in Paris today at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference, TBI "may more than double the risk of dementia in military veterans." AP adds, "The veterans study was led by Dr. Kristine Yaffe, a University of California professor and director of the Memory Disorders Clinic at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. The Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health paid for the work."

New wounds (or newly named ones) like PTSD and TBI do not mean that the historical wounds of war have gone away. Nancy Shute (NPR's Morning Edition) reports on tinnitus (ringing of the ears) and notes, "Tinnitus is now the most common service-related disability, with 744,000 vets receiving compensation for tinnitus, according to the American Tinnitus Association, an advocacy group." Erica Goode (New York Times) reports on Iraq War veteran Brad Eifert's struggle with PTSD:


Staff Sgt. Brad Eifert circled through the woods behind his house here, holding a .45-caliber pistol. The police were out there somewhere and, one way or the other, he was ready to die.
He raised the gun to his head and then lowered it. Then he fired nine rounds.
"They're going to take me down, they're going to finish me off, so," he remembers thinking, "finish me off."
Leaving his weapon, he ran into the driveway, shouting, “Shoot me! Shoot me! Shoot me!”

Law and Disorder Radio begins airing this morning WBAI at 9:00 am and all around the country throughout the week. Attorneys and hosts Heidi Boghosian, Michael S. Smith and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) discuss secret sites, the passing of Heidi's neighbor Monica Shay, Human Rights Watch's call for a torture investigation, and more at the top of the show and then speak with Albert Ruben about his new book dcoumenting the history of the Center for Constituional Rights, The People's Lawyer: The Center for Constitutional Rights and the Fight for Social Justice, From Civil Rights to Guantanamo and they also speak with Adam Hochschild about his new book To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion 1914-1918. Bonnie notes that Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "War Whore" went up last night.

Information Clearing House has done a great service and reprinted Carl Bernstein's ground breaking 1977 Rolling Stone cover story "How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up." Excerpt:

DESPITE THE EVIDENCE OF WIDESPREAD CIA USE OF journalists, the Senate Intelligence Committee and its staff decided against questioning any of the reporters, editors, publishers or broadcast executives whose relationships with the Agency are detailed in CIA files.

According to sources in the Senate and the Agency, the use of journalists was one of two areas of inquiry which the CIA went to extraordinary lengths to curtail. The other was the Agency’s continuing and extensive use of academics for recruitment and information gathering purposes.

In both instances, the sources said, former directors Colby and Bush and CIA special counsel Mitchell Rogovin were able to convince key members of the committee that full inquiry or even limited public disclosure of the dimensions of the activities would do irreparable damage to the nation’s intelligence‑gathering apparatus, as well as to the reputations of hundreds of individuals. Colby was reported to have been especially persuasive in arguing that disclosure would bring on a latter‑day “witch hunt” in which the victims would be reporters, publishers and editors.

Walter Elder, deputy to former CIA director McCone and the principal Agency liaison to the Church committee, argued that the committee lacked jurisdiction because there had been no misuse of journalists by the CIA; the relationships had been voluntary. Elder cited as an example the case of the Louisville Courier‑Journal. “Church and other people on the committee were on the chandelier about the Courier‑Journal,” one Agency official said, “until we pointed out that we had gone to the editor to arrange cover, and that the editor had said, ‘Fine.’”

Some members of the Church committee and staff feared that Agency officials had gained control of the inquiry and that they were being hoodwinked. “The Agency was extremely clever about it and the committee played right into its hands,” said one congressional source familiar with all aspects of the inquiry. “Church and some of the other members were much more interested in making headlines than in doing serious, tough investigating. The Agency pretended to be giving up a lot whenever it was asked about the flashy stuff—assassinations and secret weapons and James Bond operations. Then, when it came to things that they didn’t want to give away, that were much more important to the Agency, Colby in particular called in his chits. And the committee bought it.”

The Senate committee’s investigation into the use of journalists was supervised by William B. Bader, a former CIA intelligence officer who returned briefly to the Agency this year as deputy to CIA director Stansfield Turner and is now a high‑level intelligence official at the Defense Department. Bader was assisted by David Aaron, who now serves as the deputy to Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter’s national security adviser.

According to colleagues on the staff of the Senate inquiry, both Bader and Aaron were disturbed by the information contained in CIA files about journalists; they urged that further investigation he undertaken by the Senate’s new permanent CIA oversight committee. That committee, however, has spent its first year of existence writing a new charter for the CIA, and members say there has been little interest in delving further into the CIA’s use of the press.




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Sunday, July 17, 2011

Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "War Whore"

war whore


Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "War Whore." No, it's not Mrs. Doubtfire. The woman explains, "Hi. I'm Babsie Ehrenreich and you should listen to me when I pretend to be against the current wars. True, I don't call out Barack but my ugly daughter Rosa was the Counselor to the Under Secretary of Defense for policy. Getting now why I never call out Barack? The term for me is 'War Whore'." Isaiah archives his comics at The World Today Just Nuts.






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And the war drags on . . .

In good news for Joan Walsh, she's not written the stupidest commentary at Salon today. That 'honor' goes to Todd Gitlin whose pretends to care "Where have all the war protesters gone?" Excerpt:

The outrage that greeted the run-up to the Bush-Blair Iraq war debacle generated what must have been the largest antiwar rallies and demonstrations in the history of the world. Sometimes in subzero temperatures, millions of marchers in New York, London and elsewhere took to the streets to interrupt the roar of self-righteous crypto-imperial bravado, to barge through George Bush's strutters' ball and its fevers of fantastical, deceptive and self-deceptive claims about Saddam Hussein's danger to the United States and Washington's promise to parachute democracy into Saddam's stricken land. In the well-chosen words of one London sign, the marchers were "Shocked, Not Awed."
Then the marches stopped.
They stopped partly because the antiwar leadership was barely cobbled together, with some conspicuous quarters reluctant to speak harshly of the multi-murderous Saddam Hussein. The movement's drawing power was limited from the start, and then, once the war was on in earnest, it felt -- realistically -- that it had run smack against the brick wall of George Bush's manic pigheadedness. Demonstrators are unlikely to invest their energies in what look from the start like very lost causes. And the demonstrations also tailed off because the mainstream media didn't pay attention -- refused to pay attention. The story line they were promoting was: America kicks ass, new era begins!


Is there anything more embarrassing than an elderly Socialist still trying to pass for a Democrat to the masses? Toad Gitlin. When he dies, a lot of the lying will die with him.

In the excerpt above and in his entire b.s. article, Toad rewrites history. Bush not caring about the wars didn't really end the protests. Nor did Nixon not caring end them at an earlier time. What killed the national protests?

The 'leaders.' Toad should be familiar with that.

See, in 2004, the GOP held their convention in NYC. And many of us protested. Toad didn't. Not only did Toad not protest, he took to the airwaves (minor radio) to insist that there should be no protest. He debated the issue on Democracy Now! with Naomi Klein, for example. He was one of the idiots running around like Chicken Little. Does he think we forget that?

Does he think he can rewrite history and not be called on it? Joan Walsh is a damn idiot so of course she'll get on board with his crap. But there's a reason Salon's stock keeps sinking and it's because of crap like this.

What Toad tried to do in 2004, kill the peace movement to pimp the Democratic Party, many more would begin doing in 2007. By 2008, Naomi Klein was part of that disaster. The same Klein who had not only debated Toad in 2004 but had declared at the start of 2005 that the peace movement must never allow itself to be co-opted by the Democratic Party.

The whores for Barack killed the national identity of the peace movement. Trash like Leslie Cagan posting her Barack-just-got-elected-I'm-done-protesting b.s. at United for Peace & Justice. They all went home.

The biggest fallacy in Toad's piece, the one that reveals it to be crap, is when he claims the corporate media lost interest such as in this sentence: "And the demonstrations also tailed off because the mainstream media didn't pay attention -- refused to pay attention. The story line they were promoting was: America kicks ass, new era begins!" But it was the corporate media -- not beggar media (so-called independent) -- that covered A.N.S.W.E.R.'s protests after Barack was in the White House. It was the corporate media that covered Cindy Sheehan more than Panhandle Media which really didn't want her around anymore and treated her like a house guest that was just supposed to be staying for the weekend.

As long as Jane Fonda and Sean Penn were showing up at a protest and it was while Bush was in the White House, Democracy Now! was devoting a full hour to protesting. Barack gets into office and a national protest gets a headline and nothing else.

Toad Gitlin has been lying for decades. He really needs to leave the stage. It is his lies that have promoted the illegal war. He does it again today with the supposed what-if-we-leave argument.

He knows better than that. I've known Toad for decades, he knows better. Here's the reality of that what-if: The alternative is to stay forever.

The alternative is to see other countries as children and yourself as bountiful benefactor instead of the invaders.

What will happen? Countries will stand on their own or they won't. That's how it always is. Toad's not really raised children so he doesn't understand that even if other countries were children (they're not), you can't keep them in the nest forever.

His garbage is a promotion of war (most obvious and transparent when he discusses the Libyan War). That's because when you're a broke ass piece of trash, you'll do anything to find just a moment of respectability from the mainstream in the final moments of your sad and pathetic life.


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)

Last Sunday, the number of US military people killed in the Iraq War since the start of the illegal war was 4472. Tonight? PDF format warning, DoD lists the the number of Americans killed serving in Iraq at 4475.

Reuters notes a Mosul shooting which claimed the lives of 2 police officers and 1 bystander (another police officer was left injured), a Mosul roadside bombing claimed the life of 1 man and 1 woman, Iraqi soliders shot dead a civilian in Mosul at a checkpoint, a Baghdad roadside bombing claimed 2 lives and left a third person injured, a Mahmudiya roadside bombing left two people injured and a Shirqat attack injured three guards of Brigadier Ahmed Bdaiwi (reports differ as to whether Bdaiwi was hurt).

New content at Third.



Isaiah's latest goes up after this. Pru notes "We can't trust the capitalist media to hold power to account" (Great Britian's Socialist Worker):

The News International scandal has exposed the general corruption of the mainstream media.

Many will wonder if investigative journalism is possible at all.

Yet some outstanding investigative journalists have written for capitalist newspapers. Paul Foot and John Pilger wrote for the Daily Mirror, for example.

Socialists want more of this. It’s better if millions of working class people read the truth about the exploits of the powerful instead of celebrity tittle-tattle.

But the capitalist press will always be constrained. Owners and editors, drawn from the elite, have a big impact on content.

That’s always been true—from Lord Beaverbrook in the 1930s to Robert Maxwell in the 1980s.

Cost-cutting has led to what some dub “churnalism”—journalists rewriting press releases instead of producing real news.

Foot and Pilger stand out as exceptions, rather than the norm.

A genuine alternative to the bosses’ media will come from outside the mainstream. That’s why socialists put such emphasis on producing our own media.

Socialist Worker stands in a long tradition of revolutionary newspapers. We counter the lies of the bosses and the rich which are so often parroted in the mainstream media.

But we also produce a paper to help organise resistance to their system—and bring about a world where the majority are in charge, not a handful of rich bastards.

© Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original.




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