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Bilal's case has been assigned to investigating Judge Dhia al-Kinani, who has already conducted a long series of evidentiary hearings in the case. The source said the Pentagon is confident that they will secure a conviction in the case. "Nothing is being left to chance in this case. It's important and a lot of resources are being thrown at it." The Pentagon isn't concerned about evidence or legal arguments. I wonder why. Some other points.
Under strong pressure from the U.S. military, the investigating judge closed the case and imposed a gag order. This was requested principally because the U.S. military was concerned about unfavorable media coverage. The Pentagon media strategy involves leaking information as it finds convenient to "friendly new media" (this I take to be wingnut bloggers), but restricting the flow of information to traditional media. The Iraqi judge is fully cooperating with his gag order.
The U.S. military has assigned a team of five to act effectively as prosecutors in the case. The team is headed by a JAG Captain named Kelvey (or perhaps Calvey). (Says the source: "We recognize, of course, that the U.S. has no authority to prosecute a case in an Iraqi court. That's one of the reasons that a gag order was essential.")
The Iraqi judge is also allowing the U.S. military to present evidence by witnesses through remote television hook-ups from undisclosed locations. This is done particularly to be sure that Bilal Hussein would not be able to cross-examine any witnesses.
The Pentagon was particularly concerned about the prospect of Bilal Hussein getting effective defense from his lawyer, former federal prosecutor Paul Gardephe. The judge was told to refuse to allow Bilal Hussein's U.S. lawyer to participate in the case. The judge accepted this advice. Consequently, the U.S. military has a five-man team to press its case, but Bilal Hussein's lawyer is silenced and not permitted to participate - and all of this has occurred as a result of U.S. Government intervention with the court. The irony of course is that under Iraqi law, the U.S. military has no authority or right to appear and prosecute, but Bilal Hussein's chosen counsel has an absolute right.
The U.S. military continues to keep Hussein in their custody and will not allow his lawyer, Gardephe, access to him to conduct interviews or trial preparation without having both a U.S. military representative and an interpreter in the room at all times. Under international norms, this means that Bilal Hussein is not permitted access to counsel: a serious violation of his trial rights. And note that the violator is not the Iraqi authorities, who have no control over Bilal, but the United States Government.
The Pentagon is convinced that regardless of the evidence presented and the arguments made, Bilal Hussein will be convicted based on its influence wielding and pressure tactics. "The judge announced on the opening day that he would recommend conviction and refer the matter to the Central Criminal Court of Iraq. This was before any evidence or arguments had been produced. Our folks were elated, but concerned that his somewhat rash statement would undermine the credibility of the proceedings. They had expected him to say this only at the end of the proceedings."

The above is from Scott Horton's "An Update on the Trial of Bilal Hussein" (Harper's magazine) and it's about Pulitzer Prize winning photo journalist Bilal Hussein who committed the 'crime' of reporting and for that 'crime' was taken into military custody in April 2006. The US military had no case against it and still has no case against him which is why they want a 'fair' and 'free' trial in Iraq which the US military occupies. Free Bilal will provide you with more information about how a reporting doing his or her job is a 'criminal' in a country where truth was among the illegal war's first fatalities.

Today Naomi Klein will be on PBS' The Charlie Rose Show. Klein's new book is The Shock Doctrine: The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism. Also today on PBS, NOW with David Brancaccio, the program "investigates the partnership of a Republican congressman and the Idaho Conservation League to protect a vast swath of the state's natural environment. Does their compromise legislation come at too high a price? The legislation, the Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act (CIEDRA), transfers some public land -- land Americans across the country pay for -- to private local ownership in exchange for protection of nearby wilderness. It also leaves land bordering the wilderness open to further recreational use, especially involving off-road vehicles." Among those speaking out on the program against the sell-out of public lands is Carole King -- King of Goffin & King in the 60s (chronological sixties), writing the music to more charting hits than may be humanly possible, easing into a group at the tail end of that decade (The City), going solo in the seventies, releasing the landmark album Tapestry, etc., still writing, still performing and working on the issue of the ecology for many, many years. Check local listings for the times both programs will be aired.

Already in Iraq today, a Baghdad car bombing has resulted in a number of deaths. Reuters reports the toll has now climbed to 10 dead with the injured numbering sixty-six. But there's a Cult of Personality the media circus wants to play out so who has time to explore that?

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

bilal hussein


scott harper
pbs
Charlie Rose Show
now with david branccaciocarole king

What falls away (due to media circuses)

"The American helicopters shelled our neighborhood for three hours," said Jameel Muhammad, a 27-year-old construction worker. "Dead bodies were scattered here and there. Houses and cars were set on fire, and people were scared and running all over the place."
A shop owner, Hassan Jassim, said that his sister-in-law had been wounded in the fighting and that he had seen three bodies lying in the street near his house.
"American helicopters fired on our houses," he said.

The above is from Solomon Moore's "U.S. Troops Kill 11 Shiite Militiamen" in this morning's New York Times providing eye witness reaction to the US military action in Al Kut yesterday and it's doubtful too many other outlets will provide anything on it or explore it because everyone's attempting to enshrine a corrupt leader. The innocents killed in the action aren't accused of stealing millions of the people's monies, there's no indication that any killed their own family members to maintain national power and there weren't trials pending against them in multiple countries so their deaths aren't going to be judged 'important'. Just like the 3900 deaths benchmark that was reached this week didn't really matter to most outlets. That's just US service members and they can't test out photos for magazine covers or enshrine them or canonize them. They died in an illegal war. Better, the media thinks, to focus on a celebrity death and you have to wonder if Imelda Marcos' biggest p.r. problem was not dying before her husband lost power?

Salem-News does note the 3900 mark as well as the 1.2 million Iraqis killed in the illegal war in their article entitled "Grannies Return to Recruiting Office to Protest War" and we'll note this section on an action taking place today:

On December 28th, the Friday after Christmas, members of the Surge Protection Brigade, also known as the "Seriously Pissed Off Grannies", will return to demonstrate in front of the Army and Marine Recruiting Center at 1317 NE Broadway.
The symbols used in this Friday's demonstration will include red handprints and peace doves as a statement that "Peace on Earth" means "No War."
On December 13th five members of the group who placed red handprints on the recruiting office windows during a Good Friday demonstration on April 6th were found not guilty of a third degree misdemeanor by a Multnomah County jury.

Remember, the outlets that couldn't be bothered with noting the 3,000 mark on New Year's Eve, couldn't break into their pre-recorded program to just make a brief announcement, demonstrated yesterday that they could break in, they could scrap planned programming -- not to note the 3900 mark but to offer state propaganda on a 'leader' who betrayed a people. Which is why 2007 was even worse than 2006 when it came to covering Iraq.

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

solomon moore
the new york times
salem-news

I Hate The War

As of Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007, at least 3,900 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

That's from AP's "US Military Deaths in Iraq at 3,900" and they also note 174 is the toll thus far for the UK, 33 for Italy, 18 for the Ukraine, 21 for Poland, 13 for Bulgaria, 11 for Spain, 7 for Denmark, 5 for El Salvador, 4 for Slovakia, 3 for Latvia, 2 for each of the following countries: Estonia, the Netherlands, Romania and Thailand, and one for each of the following countries: Australia (Jake Kovco), Hungary, Kazakhstan and South Korea.


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 3896. Tonight? *3900*. Just Foreign Policy's total for the number of Iraqis killed since the start of the illegal war stood at 1,139,602. Tonight? 1,139,602. Apparently they're on holiday.

Not unlike US candidates for the Republican or Democratic parties' presidential nomination. AP's David Espo notes that John McCain, Bill Richardson, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Edwards and Mike Huckabee all weighed in. Don't forget Bambi! The Globe Gazette provides quotes from many and notes Mitt Romney, Dennis Kucinich and Bambi addressed it as well:

Democrat Barack Obama addressed the assassination at the beginning of a speech in Des Moines Friday morning.
"She was a respected and resilient advocate for democracy for the people of Pakistan," Obama said. "We mourn her loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and her supporters."

No, Bambi, she was a cheap thug. While women around the world were calling out the Taliban, the thug stood alone among world leaders openly supporting that terrorist regime that destroyed women's lives. She and her trashy husband couldn't keep their hands out of the public till which is what hurt her -- not her funding the destroyers and torturers of women in Afghanistan.

It's needs to be stated clearly that a woman who gets into power is not a "good" thing if she uses her power to harm other women. Women in Afghanistan saw their rights ripped from them, saw their lives destroyed. And Bhutto provided cover and support for the Taliban. It's equally true that her campaigns promised rights for women in Pakistan but never delivered. Rights would come when she was out of power. She was a piece of trash and the US ruling elite wanted her in co-power to provide cover for the regime that makes life a living hell for the average person in Pakistan today. Bhutto, happy to avoid prison, was more than willing to go along. Had she not been killed, she probably would have stood a chance at 'winning' the election -- the US has bought many an election overseas.

Bhutto was trash. Here's Christian Parenti on 'Saint' Bhutto, "US Illusions Die With Benazir Bhutto" (Agence Global via Pacific Free Press):


But who was Bhutto?
As 'chairperson-for-life' of the Pakistan Peoples Party she brooked no dissent. The PPP had populist roots, but over the decades its democratic and redistribution programs had devolved into largely meaningless rhetoric. Bhutto's two terms as Prime Minister, in the late 1980's and then again beginning in 1993, delivered nothing. She was implicated in the murder of her brother. Pakistan under her was one of few countries in the world to recognize the Taliban regime in Kabul. And she grew increasingly corrupt, appointing her husband as Minister for Investment -- meaning he was in charge of all state investments, at home and abroad. The couple is accused of having accumulated $1.5 billion -- much of it public money. Upon her death she was facing corruption cases in Switzerland, England, and Spain. Partnered with Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto would not have transformed the deep rot of corruption, poverty, and underdevelopment that fuels a growing discontent -- in the form of Islamic fundamentalism and Pashtun nationalism -- in Pakistan’s frontier provinces. Nor would she have controlled Pakistan's security forces, which are economically and politically quite powerful and autonomous institutions. In short, Bhutto could not have delivered for Washington, and won the local "war on terror." She could not have provided domestic stability.

But that's not the 'Saint' independent media -- sounding like state propaganda -- bored us all with. Aileen Alfandary led with the canonization of Bhutto on not one, not two, not three but four news breaks on KPFA's The Morning Show today. Now she couldn't tear herself away from the propaganda long enough to note that 3900 US service members had died in the illegal war but she did a lovely job of reading out loud on Iraq. Sounding very uninformed on the theft of Iraqi oil, she might have raised a few eyebrows in the first, third and fourth news break; that's because she was stealing as well.

Listen to today's archived broadcast. Alfandary tells listeners about "a draft of a general amnesty bill for detainees being held in Iraqi prisons, a measure *which* could go a long way towards reconciling Iraq's *warring* sects and factions." Read this Al Jazeera page (based on "Agencies") and note that if you replace "which" with "that" and "warring" is replaced with "antagonistic" you can see the problem. You can see it throughout including when Alfandary concludes, ""Many key draft laws - including measures to share oil revenue and to allow some members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party to hold government jobs - have remained mired for months in Iraq's *grid-locked* parliament." Replace "grid-locked" with "mired" and you have the conclusion of the wire report Al Jazeera's posting. Now the fact that KPFA would -- as NEWS -- present the theft of Iraqi oil that way raised eyebrows (and resulted in a ton of e-mails) but let's face reality with Alfandary's 'reporting' which has been mainstream all along, it's called plagiarism. It's the sort of thing that gets your ass canned in REAL MEDIA.

So what listeners got from the news reader wasn't even her own words. They got her ripping off the MSM coverage (it's AP, for anyone wondering -- that's where Al Jazeera got those sections). Not only did she never note that the words she was presenting as her own were not her own words, she never said "AP is reporting" or in any way attributed it to AP.

Sandra Lupien, doing the same job before moving up to The KPFA Evening News, worked her ass off. She found stories othes were reporting -- often the things that very few were reporting -- and put them in her own words or else noted it was a quote. (Lupien had the story of Steven D. Green's arrest -- in the gang-rape and murder of Abeer as well as the murders of Abeer's parents and her five-year-old sister -- when no one knew about it and the only information was a press release the government rushed out and buried the Friday before.) Listeners to The Morning Show then got alternative news -- not just in terms of things no one else was reporting (if it's not going to make CNN's crawl at the bottom of the screen, Aflandary's not going to note it) but in terms of pulling from reports and putting it into KPFA terms that spoke to KPFA's audience.

Alfandary may think she's being more 'professional' by parroting the MSM but 'professional' does not include ripping off the works of others and passing them off as your own. Again, in REAL MEDIA that gets your ass fired.

This did not happen once, this happened repeatedly on the news breaks during The Morning Show today. One might also wonder why KPFA management has refused to take seriously the many complaints about Alfandary's work which never strays from the MSM's supposed 'center.' Had they taken those complaints from listeners seriously, they probably would have caught the fact that Alfandary's words were not her own a long damn time ago.

To be clear, should Katie Couric, Brian Williams or Charlie Gibson be caught on air in the same situation, it would be humiliating, require a public apology from the individual and the news organization and should result in their firing.

A news reader isn't a reporter. A news reader is providing headlines. During the headline section of Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman attributes (specifically or generally) and does not steal the words of others unless she notes she's quoting. That KPFA has repeatedly allowed Alfandary to do otherwise goes to serious problems with the station. That Alfandary thought it was acceptable goes to serious questions about her competency and honesty.

At the most basic, even if she got away with it without ever being called on it, you'd think she'd feel enough embarrassment on those (rare?) times when she's approached with a compliment. You'd think she'd say, "I stole every word but one in a sentence. I need to stop doing that because people think I'm writing these things. I can't enjoy any praise that I didn't earn."

But that's not been the case, now has it?

Changing words, putting it into her own words, would be acceptable. Stealing an entire sentence and substituting one word (example: "grid-locked" for "mired") is not putting it into your own words. I recently made the comment to a MSM reporter that I thought a great deal of people worked in independent media because they couldn't get jobs anywhere else. Today, Alfandary proves me right.

Again, people have complained repeatedly that Alfandary's 'reporting' in the news break is to the right of KPFA's other news reports. Well there's your answer why. She's not 'reporting,' she's swiping 'her' sentences from the MSM. (And thanks to a friend at The Chronicle who pointed that out months ago.) KPFA can plug in MSM audio feed for the 'news'. They don't do that because they're supposed to be providing their own news -- which includes their own take as unembedded media -- and listeners believe that's what they're getting. Forget members, visitors have e-mailed this site trying to figure out what was the deal with Alfandary's 'reporting'? That's "the deal." It's not her reporting. She's stealing words of MSM and passing them off as her own.

Now let's move to realities about our presidential contenders, realities they seem unaware of: They are hoping to become the President of the United States. They are not running for Prime Minister of Pakistan.

This morning, before any of them uttered a public word, at this site, the following appeared:

Before we note anything else, ICCC reports the 3900 mark for US service members who have died in Iraq since the start of the illegal war has been reached. Yesterday's snapshot noted that the announcement by M-NF took the count to 3899 and it appears the 3900th came via DoD which is a good way of burying news and why DoD has been used so often in the last months for that purpose (M-NF is supposed to announce deaths, DoD then issues the names of the dead after the family has been contacted, that's how it's supposed to work).That's the official count which does not include counting those who die from injuries received after they return from Iraq. We'll return to the topic in today's snapshot.

We don't "Like Mike" at this site but we'll note that when asked of current events before, he's begged off claiming he's so busy campaigning, he can't follow the news. Apparently, none of the others can either. And Mike Huckabee or anyone else has a staff that's supposed to prepare them. So did the staff fail or did all of our candidates running to be the President of the United States not give a damn that the death toll for US service members had reached 3,900?

War Hawk, Do-Nothing or Against It, all of them should have had a statement. The War Hawks should have offered the praise for the 'sacrifice'. The Do-Nothings would have clucked that someday, not someday soon, something needs to be done. (No specifics, they are, after all, running campaigns.) Those Against It should have had loud statements to the press.

None did. Poor little candidates, having to run from Prime Minister of Pakistan from the shores of the US because they didn't have enough money to travel overseas.

Now a skilled candidate could have noted both. But apparently the two major parties don't have a single skilled candidate. Sorry to break it to the campaigns but American voters would be more interested in hearing sop tossed about the 3,900 Americans killed than sop about one corrupt, Pakistan ruler.

"Independent" media (broadcast and some print) largely offered us state propaganda. Meanwhile the candidates for both major parties telegraphed just how little American deaths mean to them.

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

iraq
i hate the war
the ballet
christian parenti
sandra lupien
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the morning show
aileen alfandary