Friday, July 30, 2010

England doesn't care about the Iraq War?

"But it wasn't the Iraq War that did the Labour Party in, since the British people, like their American counterparts, are keen to forget that fiasco," scribbled eternal dumb ass Amitabh Pal at The Progressive in May. (Rebecca called him out here.) And that bag gas baggery just keeps on giving. Gas baggery, for the uninitatied, is what takes place on the Sunday chat & chews where woefully underinformed 'journalists' weigh in on every topic under the sun despite being immensely unqualified to offer anything even adjacent to an informed opinion. We're really not supposed to get gas baggery from so-called independent media; however, it's cheap to produce so it swams 'independent' media the same way it does the yack-fests. And Amitabh Pal's gas baggery is worth calling out so frequently because -- as Labour polls ahead and following the election demonstrated -- the Iraq War did have a huge impact on the elections and the Iraq War continues to be a significant topic in England.

Take yesterday when those vying for leader of the Labour Party met up for a BBC Radio 5 live debate moderated by Victoria Derbyshire (link has video of excerpt below).

Ed Balls: I was in Parliament at the time. I took a decision. It was the most agonizing process I have ever been through in my life. I have been over it and over it ever since. The reason I voted for the war was because the leader of the Iraqi Kurds pleaded with backbench Labour MPs to vote for the war because he said his people had no chance ever of being free from Saddam. The weapons inspectors, if they'd done their job and then eventually come to the conclusion that there were no weapons, that probably would have been a very bloody civil war in Iraq. With hindsight we look back. You know I look back at the lack of post-war planning and it horrifies me. But when I go back to that vote, did I do the right thing for the right reasons? And I believe I did and I'm not going to change that position just because I'm standing for the leadership position.

Victoria Derbyshire: Okay, would you --

Ed Miliband: First of all, first of all, I did tell people at the time that I was against the war -- you asked me. But secondly --

Ed Balls: Well you didn't tell me.

Ed Miliband: -- it's a really, it's a really fundamental --

Victoria Derbyshire: Sorry, what was that Ed Balls?

Ed Balls: Well I, you know I have to say, in 2005, the Times [of London] newspaper asked us whether we would have voted for the war? I said in 2005, I would have voted for the war. Ed didn't answer the question of the Times' newspaper --

Ed Miliband: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I --

[cross-talk]

Ed Miliband: -- when I was standing for selection, my constitencuency party asked me if I was against the war and I said I was. But look, but look, the real issue here is not some great claim of moral superiority in 2003, the real issue is do you recognize the mistakes that were made and do you recognize the fact that we hitched our wagon to the United States on foreign policy in a way that was a profound mistake. And-and it's not just about the loss of trust that there weren't WMD, it is a profound issue about our foreign policy and about whether we're willing to say that actually there are times when we can't just go along with what the US says.

Victoria Derbyshire: So if you were to become leader, you would apologize, would you?

Ed Miliband: Yes, I would.

The Press Trust of India reports on the latest polling which has David Miliband in the lead with 37% of respondents, followed by his brother Ed Miliband with 29%, Diane Abbot with 12% and Ed Balls with 11%. I know and like both Miliband brothers. In the May election, Labour suffered huge losses and a power-sharing coalition between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats is now in charge. The latest poll leads Mehdi Hasan to declare, "The next Labour leader will be called Miliband" (New Statesman). And click here for an analysis of the race by Hasan that was written before the latest polling.


We'll go out with the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. The DPC video page has new videos on small business. We'll note Senator Patty Murray.



And we'll note Senator Bill Nelson.




Normally, this is a longer entry. Normally this entry goes up a lot sooner. There were problems this morning and my apologies for the lateness. I'm not sure what the problem was but we're leaving out a huge portion due to the fact that I don't have time to hunt down the URL that prevented this from posting.

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Convicted by the press

Monday April 5th, WikiLeaks released US military video of a July 12, 2007 assault in Iraq. 12 people were killed in the assault including two Reuters journalists Namie Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Monday June 7th, the US military announced that they had arrested Bradley Manning and he stood accused of being the leaker of the video. Philip Shenon (Daily Beast) reported last month that the US government is attempting to track down WikiLeaks' Julian Assange. This month, the military charged Manning. Leila Fadel (Washington Post) reported he had been charged -- "two charges under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The first encompasses four counts of violating Army regulations by transferring classified information to his personal computer between November and May and adding unauthorized software to a classified computer system. The second comprises eight counts of violating federal laws governing the handling of classified information." Manning has been convicted in the public square despite the fact that he's been convicted in no state and has made no public statements -- despite any claims otherwise, he has made no public statements.

Drama Queen Adrian Lamo has taken part in a public attack on Bradley as well as a behind the scenes whisper campaign which the press should have walked the hell away from after the repeated press embarrassments of the 90s. But they're just as eager to convict as they were when they 'just knew' Richard Jewel was guilty. (He wasn't.) Ashley Fantz (CNN) is the latest to participate in backdoor gossip that is not passed on to the news consumer but which is influencing the way this story plays -- and check out the Joan Crawford-style portrait Lamo supplies CNN with.

In a regular court of law, convicted felon Lamo would make for a questionable witness at best. Somehow the press has embraced him fully and you have to wonder if that isn't part of selling the prosecution's case? Making the case for the prosecution? Well Julian E. Barnes really couldn't hack it at the Los Angeles Times so now he pairs with Miguel Bustillo and Christopher Rhoads to 'report' for the Wall St. Journal. What does the prosecution offer? They try their case in public via the apparent legal aid provided by the press. Oh look, here's CBS News trying the case for the prosecution. Why is the press reporting on what the prosecution claims -- outside of court -- to have?

While Manning is kept from the press -- and has just been transferred out of Kuwait to Virginia -- the government continues to attempt to sway public opinion and the press just goes along with it. Does no one remember innocent until proven guilty? Does no one remember that the press is supposed to be objective.

On the word of a deranged felon -- Adrian Lamo -- Bradley's been drug through the mud and the press has never stopped to question that nor has it bothered to point out to its audience that the government is trying the case in public while maintaining a lockdown on Bradley. They say whatever they want -- and the press runs with it as fact -- while Bradley Manning is not allowed to make any statement. This is justice? It's not reporting, that's damn sure, but it's also not justice.

Is the WikiLeaks whistle blowing like the Pentagon Papers? Daniel Ellsberg tells BBC World Service, "Oh very much so. There's a fundamental, very strong comparison here." Scott Horton interviewed Julian Assange of WikiLeaks Wednesday (link has audio and transcript) on Antiwar Radio:

Horton: Is it true that – I guess there was a CNN report that said that WikiLeaks has received, I guess especially since the “Collateral Murder” video was published, a deluge of new high-level leaks from people inside the U.S. government?

Assange: Yes, that is true. And we are, as an organization, suffering, if you like, under this enormous backlog of material we’re trying to get through. It will cause substantial reform when that material is released. Bar a catastrophe, that’s going to go ahead, not just from the U.S. – we have a six months’ backlog to go through because we were busy fundraising and reengineering for this period of intense public interest. So it’ll be interesting days ahead.

Horton: Yeah, it sounds like it. So I’m interested – one of the things we like to cover on the show a lot here is American involvement in the war in Somalia since Christmastime 2006, and –

Assange: Well, that’s good, that’s good. That’s very underreported. The first leak that we ever did was about Somalia.

Horton: Well, I’d read that, and I wonder whether you have any information about the renditions going on there, CIA, JSOC intervention inside Somalia on behalf of the Ethiopians and African Union forces there?

Assange: We have a little, although nothing – I don’t know in the queue, how much material there is there relates [sic]. But certainly there are some classified orders and policy material related to that. We also released a rendition log from Kenya – where most of the Somalis end up passing through – for about 103 people were – I have to be careful on this number actually – but somewhere between 50 and 150 people were renditioned through Kenya, most of them from Somalia, and we have the flight logs, which we put up about a year ago.




Meanwhile, of yesterday's violence in Baghdad, Liz sly and Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) report, "Insurgents briefly raised the black flag of Al Qaeda in Iraq over a mostly Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad on Thursday during a brazen assault that killed 16 people and laid bare Iraq's fragility as the withdrawal of U.S. troops accelerates and the country's political crisis deepens." Ernesto Londono and Jinan Hussein (Washington Post) add, "The attack and the hours-long gun battle it triggered, which left at least six soldiers dead, were reminiscent of the clashes that raged in Baghdad at the height of sectarian warfare in 2007."

The following community sites-- plus wowOwow and World Can't Wait updated last night:





Turning to the Congress, the Senate Democratic Policy Committee has done some outstanding work -- including with regards to toxic exposure of service members and contractors serving in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and this is their latest fact sheet:

Key Benefits of the Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act

When enacted, the Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act would: 1) ensure that BP pays to clean up its mess; 2) invest in Home Star, a bipartisan energy efficiency program that lowers consumers’ energy costs and create jobs; 3) protect the environment by investing in the Land and Water Conservation Fund; 4) reduce our dependence on oil by making investments in vehicles that run on electricity and natural gas; and 5) increase the amount that oil companies are required to pay into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.

Benefits—Oil Spill Response and Accountability

1. Provision: Ensuring BP and future oil companies pay for the economic damage oil spills inflict on coastal businesses, tourism industries, and fisherman (Division A; Title I).

ü Benefit: These liability provisions are important because they protect the taxpayer from having to pay for any of the economic damages caused by oil spills, including the billions in estimated economic damages caused by Deepwater Horizon spill.

2. Provision: Making structural reforms within the Department of Interior to help correct historical corruption issues within the Department of Ocean Energy (known previously as the Minerals Management Service), (Division A; Title III).

ü Benefit: These reform provisions are vital because the Department of Ocean Energy, responsible for managing the taxpayer’s oil and gas resources, has historical corruption issues between its employees and the oil and gas industry. The improper management of this agency can result in the loss of billions of dollars owed to the taxpayer, exemplified by the omission of royalty provisions from oil and gas lease contracts signed in 1998 and 1999, which the Government Accountability Office estimated could cost taxpayers as much as $53 billion.

3. Provision: Requiring oil companies to fund federal inter-agency research and development efforts on technologies that prevent and respond to oil spills (Division A; Title II).

ü Benefit: These requirements would benefit coastal residents because they will help ensure that oil companies meet their legal obligation to respond to oil spills and prevent the type economic damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This is important because the response by BP to Deepwater Horizon oil spill has revealed oil companies are using essentially the same technologies oil spill technologies that Exxon was using to respond to the Exxon Valdez spill twenty years ago.

4. Provision: Correcting antiquated maritime and admiralty laws that deny or significantly limit wrongful death claimants and deny the ability of decedents of family members to recover non-pecuniary losses (Division A; Title V).

ü Benefit: In the event that a wrongful death occurs offshore, the negligent party could no longer deny or significantly limit wrongful death claimants from recovering non-pecuniary damages and will allow families to recover non-pecuniary losses (loss of care, comfort, and companionship).

Benefits—Clean Energy Job Creation and Consumer Savings

Provision: The Home Star program would provide $5 billion in residential energy and water efficiency improvements (Division C).

ü Benefit: Leveraging private investment in residential efficiency would support the construction and manufacturing sectors, while saving consumers money on their energy and water bills. The $5 billion of incentives for the Home Star program, coupled with private investment, is estimated to generate three million home retrofits, 168,000 jobs, and reduce residential energy and water bills by $200 to $500 each year.

Benefits—Reducing Oil Consumption and Pollution

Provision: Promoting the purchase and use of Natural Gas Vehicles (Division B; Sections 2001-2005).

ü Benefit: The combustion of natural gas is substantially cleaner than the combustion of gasoline or diesel. Moreover, the EPA has found that when natural gas vehicles are compared against vehicles powered by diesel they reduce carbon dioxide emissions 25 percent depending on the source of the natural gas; significantly reduce carbon monoxide emissions; and reduce nitrogen oxide and volatile organic hydrocarbon emissions by 50 percent or more.

In terms of oil savings, the natural gas industry has estimated that by the third year of this program will be saving approximately 1.8 billion gallons of oil annually and 18 billion gallons over 10 year vehicle life.

The natural gas industry has also estimated that this program will create more than 100,000 direct manufacturing and labor jobs and more than 450,000 indirect jobs.

Benefits—Protecting the Environment

Provision: Providing full funding for Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) over the next five fiscal years (Division D).

ü Benefit: Fully funding the LWCF help to further support outdoor recreation which supports 6.5 million jobs, generates $88 billion in annual state and national tax revenue, and $730 billion annually to the U.S. economy. The permanent funding provided to it by the Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act would give the LWCF the ability to begin address the $12 billion backlog in eligible state projects, protect tens of thousands more acres of land, and leverage billions of dollars to protect the nation’s great outdoors.

Benefits—Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund

Provision: Increases the $1 billion liability cap of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to $5 billion and the increases the amount that oil companies are required to pay into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to 45 cents per barrel (Division E).

ü Benefit: The maximum amount of money that may be withdrawn from the Fund is $1 billion per incident. Currently, there is approximately $1.5 billion in this trust fund. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has stated, “a major spill, particularly one in a sensitive environment, could threaten the viability of the fund.”

The natural gas industry has also estimated that this program will create more than 100,000 direct manufacturing and labor jobs and more than 450,000 indirect jobs.

Benefits—Protecting the Environment

Provision: Providing full funding for Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) over the next five fiscal years (Division D).

ü Benefit: Fully funding the LWCF help to further support outdoor recreation which supports 6.5 million jobs, generates $88 billion in annual state and national tax revenue, and $730 billion annually to the U.S. economy. The permanent funding provided to it by the Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act would give the LWCF the ability to begin address the $12 billion backlog in eligible state projects, protect tens of thousands more acres of land, and leverage billions of dollars to protect the nation’s great outdoors.

Benefits—Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund

Provision: Increases the $1 billion liability cap of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to $5 billion and the increases the amount that oil companies are required to pay into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to 45 cents per barrel (Division E).

ü Benefit: The maximum amount of money that may be withdrawn from the Fund is $1 billion per incident. Currently, there is approximately $1.5 billion in this trust fund. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has stated, “a major spill, particularly one in a sensitive environment, could threaten the viability of the fund.”

DPC Fact Sheet | Key Benefits of the Clean Energy Jobs and Oil Company Accountability Act


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Thursday, July 29, 2010

I Hate The War

At a time of record-high military suicides, commanders are ignoring the mental health problems of American soldiers and not winnowing out enough of those with records of substance abuse and crime, a United States Army report has concluded.

That's the opening paragraph to Elisabeth Bumiller's "As Military Suicides Hit Record High, Pentagon Report Faults Commanders" (New York Times) and there are many reports on the topic but Bumiller has the strongest one.

For fiscal year 2009, the report found that there were 1,713 attempted suicides and 160 Army soldiers took their own lives.

There are objections to the Army's report. Gen Peter Chiarelli feels that there are a number of factors at play including repeat deployments. He's probably correct on this. He was on NPR (hourly news report) noting that, finances and family life and, actually, all three are connected. (If he realized that, he didn't point it out.) If you're doing repeat deployments you are limited in how far you can get ahead in a job that i not the US military due to the fact that you're constantly deployed. Constant deployments also affect your family. So the three are interrelated.

The report finds that commanders are not aware enough or committed enough to stop the problem at present. And why would they be? They refer to PTSD in hearings as "PTS" to run it down and indicate that it's just stress. They regularly downgrade the seriousness of this issue. (Which is why it's good to see Chiarelli attempting to pull together the loose ends.) From day one, commanders could have set the tone and made it clear that those struggling were to be helped, not shamed. They failed. They failed to do their job.

And that sent a message that the military now has to attempt to overcome. But it's a message that's well established. It says that suicidal thoughts are 'your problem' and something must be wrong with you if you're feeling that way, something so wrong that you need to hide it, not seek help for it.

Again, the commanders had the ability to set the tone. They refused to do so. And a bunch of tacky PSAs can't take the place of a fully committed commander.

The main point the report misses is: This was completely expected.


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 week, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4412. Tonight it's 4413. [7-30-2010, number corrected. Thanks to Henry for catching that and e-mailing.]

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