1st off, on Flashpoints this even, dennis bernstein made a point of noting that the program covers the life or death issues, not scandals. that's some thing to remember if you're planning to donate. if you are, please consider donating when Flashpoints airs. if you plan to donate but to do so at another time, please note to the person taking your donation that you support Flashpoints. if you're not planning to donate (due to funds or choice), don't sweat it.
3 of the visitors that c.i. reached last week when noting a war resister's spiritual beliefs e-mailed today about the snapshot and said they love that c.i. cares about iraq so much but wondered, in the words of 1, 'is it for real?'
oh, you just don't know.
do not get c.i. to talk about jake kovco unless you want tears. you can talk about and you can work on a feature with everybody at the third estate sunday review, with c.i. adding input, but ask, 'what do you really think?' and ...
it happened pretty much every day, the tears, when the inquiry into jake kovco's death was going on. i visited for several weeks and, in public or private, when c.i. was working on that snapshot, it was always wipe the tears away and keep typing.
saturday, the third estate sunday review was trucking along nicely. and then, at midnight my time, there was a call c.i. had to take. they told the rest of us to go to bed. and if we wanted to work on the other features (which we did) we could set a time (which ended up being 5:00 a.m. my time). why?
some 1 was calling that the gang knows who had lost a family member who was serving in iraq.
jim said that the iraq feature they wrote later was chiefly him & c.i. because every 1 knew that this wasn't the best time to be working on an edition and so they wrote the whole thing together and then passed it on for input and changes. jim, like me, can be a pain in the ass. and that's what it took to get that feature written.
they were all effected by the death, by the way. and the reason they called a halt to everyone working on the edition was they were taking a break to process the news.
there are a number of troops serving who have died that c.i. knew the family of or knew them. c.i. knows many still serving in iraq. that's why, when c.i. started speaking out (feb. 2003), the whole life got put on hold. this isn't a hobby or something that's dabbled in.
stories like abeer's, c.i. takes very seriously.
some people in this country haven't been touched by this war, that's true. they can remain oblivious. but c.i. has been touched it and, yes, it is for real.
that's why there's no 2nd thought about calling friends and ex-lovers in big media and begging, hollering, pleading, whatever it takes to try to get them to cover iraq and iraq related stories.
when a number of foolish people were cheerleading the illegal war back in march of 2003, c.i. did a pruning of friends and acquaintences. that included an infamous lunch where a woman rushed up to say how 'great' the war was going and c.i. pointed out whatever the fatalities were thus far (american fatalities, then as now, iraqi fatalities were not public knowledge). c.i. told her the fatalities would be in the 1,000 but she knew it was a 'cakewalk' and started to argue so c.i. told her 'get the fuck away from me and never speak to me again.' that's infamous for a number of reasons but i'll hear about this post from c.i. (or i'll not hear about it and know i told too much).
it is very serious to me. i take the war very seriously. we all do. but i don't think i've ever cried while blogging about iraq (i may be forgetting something) and c.i.'s not a crier. it was years and years before i ever saw c.i. cry and we've known each other since college. but on this issue, the tear do flow. they're genuine and heart felt.
and when some 1 takes a stand and media, big or small, can't note it, c.i. gets pissed. i do as well. i just don't do the tears. i remember watching the nightline reading of the names and just staring stunned at all the lost lives. i'm just shocked really, that the war can continue and some are still going along with it.
i find it all shocking and obscene.
i can also leave the war behind. i don't know that c.i. can, i think it's like the neil young song, 'living with war.'
i think we are both shocked that the nation could so quickly forget the lessons of vietnam. (but there's been so much revision on that, maybe it shouldn't be so shocking.)
on the subject of the common ills, i don't know that c.i.'s ending it in 2008. i know that's the plan. i know 2003, going around speaking against the war, c.i. said it would stop soon. it didn't. then c.i. said, 'well after the election.' didn't happen then. c.i.'s got stuff scheduled for this week and is still recovering from surgery last week.
if any 1 i know had a right to say, 'i want my life back,' it would be c.i. there was a really painfully death a few years back and c.i. was putting the life back together slowly. then that all got put on hold due to the iraq war. there was a really promising relationship but around april of 2003, c.i. called it off because of fears over getting lost in that and losing sight of stopping the war.
c.i. has sex today. i'm not trying to suggest a vow of celibacy. but there's no long term relationship or even a sustained short term 1 and that's by choice. the focus is on ending the war. i got married this summer, as any regular reader should know, remarried, and i was wondering how that would go over?
c.i. was happy for me. it's more like, the decision to put relationships on hold, betty's decision to put it on hold because of her kids not being old enough. i know c.i. wants to bail on the common ills in november 2008 and that may happen but i wouldn't be surprised if it didn't.
i was really shocked, we all were, in 2005 when we were working on an edition of the third estate sunday review and some 1, i think dona, asked a question about when we thought the war would end. most of us were saying 'next year' or the year after. c.i. said it wouldn't end while bully boy was in the oval office. (c.i., if you haven't noticed, never uses the word 'president' and 'bush'.) we were all shocked and i think a few were arguing the point. (as usual when shocked, i fell silent.) but that's what it's looking like now. and the tie-in is that c.i. added the common ills would be ending before the war. (that's if it ends in november 2008.)
2007 is mere months away. and the war drags on.
and 1 reason for that is the sucky job that media, big and small, does. but there's no excuse for independent media to do so damn little. that's what it does though. i think we've all lost our cherry on independent media because it's become so obvious that, day and day out, they want to cover anything except iraq.
democracy now never reported on the hearing about abeer. or for that matter, they never reported on abeer other than the original reporting when the incident became known. you might think that the show would devote a report to her, but they didn't.
they didn't cover the body counts. they couldn't find cindy sheehan or visit camp casey for the summer. (they did a 1 off airing of mark wilkerson's press conference from there. that's what it took for them to even note camp casey, mark wilkerson on top of everything else.) they didn't cover the trip of peacemakers meeting in jordan. they've done a shitty job. and they're still doing a shitty job.
now pacifica could help them out by creating a show about iraq. they've created 1, on kpfa, for the election, ava told me that. and wondered why this was happening when there was no program about iraq - no program about iraq still?
but until they create a program that covers iraq, people will continue to expect 'the war & peace report' to cover iraq and they're going to continue to be disappointed.
and that may not be fair to 1 person (goodman) but the reality is she toured the country (and is doing so again) talking about iraq while selling her book. a lot of people believed what she said and took it to heart. i don't have much sympathy for her.
but pretty much across the board, i don't have sympathy for any 1 in indymedia. i hear a lot of big talk, i don't see any action behind it. i don't see any efforts. it's as though 1 editorial of 'we're against the war' a year is supposed to satisfy us all that they're covering the war.
my grandmother is just as harsh on independent media as i am. she lived through wwii and all the wars after. she knows what real coverage is when your nation is at war and we haven't seen anything like that in some time. what we see is a joke and people who don't want to give to it shouldn't feel bad. it's not like most are doing anything worth giving to. if your country is at war and you're not covering it, then you're not doing your job.
if you're not covering the peace movement, you're not doing your job.
and the lack of coverage has hurt the peace movement so badly. you'll notice that counterf**k and amy goodman and all the rest can complain about what the mainstream doesn't do - like cover the peace movement - but where are they?
it's a joke. but they want your money so they'll pretend like they've done something really amazing. what they've done since july (maybe since the end of june) is a joke. and turning your program over to an informercial for pbs ('bill moyers has a new special on wednesday so let's show clips and talk to bill') or abc (today) is just bullshit.
if pbs is covering something, i think we can assume it's going to reach an audience. ditto the sex scandal that abc's covering. when you say & write things about how it's important for independent media to go where the silence is and then you do that sort of crap, you're making a fool of yourself. it's that simple.
in november of 2004, the day after the election, when all these young people that had worked so hard were down in the dumps and something had to be said to them, c.i. got up and did a thing about how media had failed the country that was the most inspiring thing in the world. even i was uplifted. i had no idea what c.i. was going to talk about (neither did c.i.) but there were all these dumb ass speeches about how 'next time, we'll get them next time' that were greeted with these weak 'yeah's. c.i. got people thinking and willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work.
but if c.i. were giving that speech after november's elections, i think it would have to include the 'big and small' term because independent media is failing.
i could list several examples of that but i was talking to dona tonight on the phone right before i got online and she asked, 'did you talk to c.i.?'
i had before the snapshot went up. c.i. called, so mad about the dumping of the darrell anderson segment, and said, 'rebecca, i need to vent or i'm never getting the snapshot done.' i said, 'vent away.'
but we hadn't talked about anything in terms of specific examples. the reason we noted the same examples at different times today is because they're so obvious. independent media's done a shit poor job and can't decide whether it wants to cover iraq or not. and then maybe it's the month that they want to hide behind soldiers to cover it. or maybe it's the month that they want to talk strategy (for their 1 day that month). or they want to wrap themselves in the flag or say dopey stuff like 'as a person of faith.'
the war is illegal. too many are putting themselves on the defensive or hiding behind others. the war is illegal. it will always be illegal.
i'm typing this and starting to get really angry. that's the difference right now between c.i. and myself. the more i think about the war, the angrier i get.
i'm angry that an idiot got installed into the oval office and that most people in this country were too stupid or lazy to object when they should have. i'm angry that people are dying in iraq - every 1 who is dying. i'm angry that our congress will not hold bully boy accountable. i'm angry that by pointing to judith miller (still!) a lot of other war liars get off scott free.
i'll do the snapshot and post this. but the reason i'm not listing examples is because that may be a feature at the third estate sunday review. 1 thing on the snapshot 1st. a few weeks ago, c.i. noted that they would not call some 1 a war resister at the common ills who wasn't. c.i. had gotten an e-mail from the family of a war resister who was offended that some 1 was repeatedly called a war resister.
when c.i. had that up and i saw it, i racked my brains trying to think, 'who is it?' c.i. wouldn't tell me or any 1. then the next week, it hit me: suzanne swift.
suzanne swift wants out of the military for good reason. she should be honorably discharged. she was brutalized and assaulted. but she's not a war resister. she has never spoken out against the iraq war. not even during her lengthy interview with amy goodman last month (i believe septemeber 18th or 19th). she didn't say 1 word about being opposed to the war and she never has.
that doesn't mean she doesn't deserve support for her cause. she does deserve support. but she's not a war resister. as c.i. noted (without naming who it was), if you're a war resister, bare minimum, you have to say 'i am against the war.' she's never said that.
her mother did all the early speaking and i know it bothered some people. at t's, i'd talk to women about it and they'd say, 'i could support her if she'd say something, a letter, anything. but i don't want to build my support on 2nd hand knowledge.' i can understand that as well. but when her mother was doing the publicity, her mother would say that she (sara rich) was against the war and involved in counter-recruiting work. and the unstated implication was 'i am against the war and so is my daughter.'
suzanne swift has never stated, to this day, that she's against the war. she's against the military for good reason. her case is an important 1. but it's not war resistance.
war resistance is saying the war is illegal. swift talked about everything with amy goodman in that interview, everything but her opinion on the war. there were open ended questions, the way i remember it, like goodman asking her what she would tell women who were thinking of joining the military. she said not to join because of what happened to her. she didn't add 'and because the war is wrong.'
her case matters, but she isn't a war resister and it does a disservice to those like ehren watada, camilo mejia and the rest who have spoken out to lump her in with them. she has a case and it's important, but it's not war resistance. until she speaks out publicly against the war, it won't be war resistance.
here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Tuesday, October 3, 2006. Violence and chaos continues in Iraq; war resister Darrell Anderson has turned himself in today at Fort Knox, the puppet of the occupation has a 'plan' which (US) domestics fluff and Andrew North (BBC) notes is greeted in Baghdad with "desperation"; Dahr Jamail writes of 'tribal' leaders with, apparently, summer homes in the Green Zone; and indpendent media continues to hone the method with which they covered Iraq all through the summer: War as an After Thought. (Credit to Mike for that phrase.) Or possibly it's just a case of "going to where the sex is"?
In Iraq, the American fatality toll continues to rise. Opening papers today, one might have been greeted with Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Qais Mizher (New York Times) reporting that: "the military reported the deaths of 10 more American and British servicemen since Saturday. At least 13 troops have been killed in the past three days." The count has continued to rise and you can drop "three past days" (and therefore Saturday). Since Sunday, October 1st, thirteen US troops have died, and one British soldier, and it's only the third day of the month. The total American military fatality count since the start of the illegal war is 2729. To date, 19910 Americans have been wounded in the illegal war.
The month with the most known number of American wounded soldiers was April 2004 which had a total of 1213. Among those wounded in April 2004 was war resister Darrell Anderson who has turned himself in today at Fort Knox after self-checking out of the military in January 2005 when Anderson drove with his parents to Canada, through a snowstorm.
There, Anderson attempted to seek refugee status (which Canada has refused to grant any war resister thus far), worked odd jobs, met Gail Greer (who was working on a film about war resisters), dated her for a year, and then in February of 2006, Anderson and Greer married. This should have increased his chances for Anderson to remain in Canada (Greer is a Canadian citizen). A missed filing date by his attorney led to the refugee status claim going out the window.
Anderson was already floating the possibility of returning to the United States early this summer. Confirming this to Jim Warren (Lexington Herald-Leader), Anita Anderson (Darrell Anderson's mother) stated that she hoped he would remaing in Canada "because he's probably going to get sponsorship in Canada now that he is married to a Canadian girl. But he's constantly stressed out and worried, and he feels like he can't live out the rest of his life this way."
That feeling, the lack of medical help available to him as an immigrant (Anderson suffers from PST due to the roadside bombing), the lack of income (Anderson had no work-permit) and a desire to draw attention to the realities of the illegal war, led to Anderson deciding to return to the United States. Before turning himself in today, Anderson spoke with reporters. Brett Barrouquere (AP) reports that Darell Anderson stated, "I feel that by resisting I made up for the things I did in Iraq. I feel I made up for the sins committed in this war."
More information on war resisters can be found at Courage to Resist and you can even find information on Suzanne Swift, who is not a war resister, but someone who suffered many tragic experiences while serving and should now be released from the military with an honorable discharge as a result of the abuse she suffered while serving.
Darrell Anderson is news. For those who may wonder why something else isn't noted, I can't note what I don't hear. So, despite listening to a radio station which airs Democracy Now! twice each morning, I can't note what Darrell Anderson said -- I didn't hear it because they didn't air it. Apparently when the show needs to be boiled down to a little under forty minutes (due to fundraising), "going to where the silence is" means twice airing a lengthy segment on Mark Foley (whom no one is covering, apparently) and ditching Darrell Anderson (whom apparently is the saturation topic of all the networks and cable).
That's treating war, AGAIN, as an afterthought and the shame is on me for being foolish enough to think it might be different today. To repeat, when you broadcast a 60 minute show twice in four hours, you can find a way to include Darrell Anderson if you think his actions are news. Obviously some didn't feel it was. We may not have gone "where the silence is" but we did get to "go where the sex is" and to "go where big media is and has been since last week." Well Monday was an infomercial for PBS so "fairness" must have dictated that Tuesday be an informercial for ABC. Tomorrow? Maybe the Pax Network.
In Iraq, the violence continues, whether it or anything Iraq related is covered or not.
Bombings?
CBS and AP report a bombing at "a fish market in Baghdad" left three dead and nineteen wounded. Sameer N. Yacoub (AP) reports that the bomber wore "a belt rigged with explosives in the outdoor market". AFP reports that one person died and nine were wounded by a bomb which "exploded near a well-known Shiite mosque" and that mortar rounds killed one person in Baghdad and ten in Mussayib.
Corpses?
Reuters reports that two corpses were discovered in Rashad while AFP reports seven corpses were discovered in Baquba and three in Kirkuk.
Shootings?
Reuters reports fourteen people were shot dead in Baquba today (including "four members of the same family" who were in the midst of "moving to another house"); in Haditha one civilian was shot dead; in Mosul one civilian was shot dead; and in Ramadi: "Clashes between gunmen and U.S. forces killed a man and wounded three others, including a child".
Ramadi is the locale Ali Al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail (IPS) report on that so-called
"tribal agreement" was never really that noting "Some Sunni leaders," not all, and the criticism they are under from residents in Ramdia such as Sheikh Sa-adoon ("chief of a large Sunni tribe"): "They are a group of thieves who are arming thieves, and this is something dangerous and nasty. This only means we will have more disturbances here, and it could create a local civil war." A lot is also made of the fact that the small "some" aren't in Al-Anbar, they're in the Green Zone. So the much lauded "tribal agreement" was never composed of as many as the press said it was and now it turns out that the "tribal leaders" are living it up in the Green Zone.
Need more reality?
Operation Happy Talkers are on the move and telling you that Nouri al-Maliki offers a 'four-point' peace plan. You may have trouble reading of the 'four-point' plan because the third point isn't about "peace" or "democracy" so reports tend to ignore it. The first step has already been (rightly) dismissed by Andrew North (BBC) of the "local security committees": "In fact, most neighourhoods of Baghdad set up their own local security bodies some time ago to protect themselves -- because they do not trust the authorities to look after them." AP reports that the Iraqi parliament voted in favor of the 'peace' plan (reality title: "continued carnage plan"). Step three? Let's drop back to the September 7th snapshot:
Switching to the issue of broadcasting, were they showing episodes of Barney Miller or NYPD Blue? Who knows but police pulled the plug on the satellite network al-Arabiya in Baghdad. CNN was told by a company official (Najib Ben Cherif) that the offices "is being shut for a month." AP is iffy on who gave the order but notes that Nouri al-Malike started making warnings/threats to television stations back in July. CNN reports: "A news alert on Iraqi State TV said the office of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered the office closed for a month."
Ah, yes, the puppet's war with the press. The so-called peace plan is more of the same. The third 'plank' is about the media. Which is why the "brave" US media repeatedly cites the first two and stays silent while a free media (something a democracy is dependent upon) walks the plank.
It's disgusting and shameful, the third 'plank.' The whole 'plan' is a joke. Reuters is one of the few to go beyond the first two 'steps' but even it does a really poor job and those over coverage of Iraq in the mainstream (producers to suits) are very concerned about this. (So why don't they report it?) The "plan" isn't a plan for peace, it's a plan for the puppet to attempt to save his own ass for a few more months. Lee Keath (AP) is only one of many ignoring the third step (possibly AP thinks readers are unable to count to four?) but does note that al-Maliki took office last May with a 24-point plan that, to this day, "has done little to stem the daily killings." Nor will this so-called 'peace plan.' The US military and the American "ambassador" have announced that Nouri al-Maliki better show some results ('after all we've paid' going unspoken).
So al-Maliki pulls a page from Paul Bremer's book and decides to go after the media. For those who've forgotten, on March 28, 2004, al-Hawza was closed down as a result of running a cartoon of Bremer leading to the violence in Falluja in April 2004.
It's not just that there's no new plan (by the Bully Boy or by the puppet), it's that they never learn from their mistakes. (First mistake for the US administration was plotting an illegal invasion.)
But this failure goes across the board to War Hawks of all nations. Terri Judd and Kim Sengupta (Independent of London) report: "A coroner has severely criticised British army officers, saying their failure to plan was partly to blame for the capture and execution of two of their men in the early days of the Iraq war. Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth, 36 and a father of two, and Sapper Luke Allsopp, 24, were murdered by Iraqi intelligence after being captured in an ambush when they strayed into dangerous territory. . . . Instead of being told to skirt around the town of Az-Subayr, in southern Iraq, they were ordered to go through the outskirts. When they took a wrong turn, it led them straight through the town where they were hit by a hail of bullets and a rocket-propelled grenade before being dragged from their vehicle."
In peace news, Bob Watada, father of Ehren Watada, is gearing up to go back out on the road in October. Remember Ehren Watada? If not, Watada, as David Krieger (National Catholic Reporter) writes, "is taking a stand by refusing to follow such orders. He is exercising his rights as an American citizen, an officer of the U.S. Army and a human being with the capacity for thought and reflection. He is making it clear that he did not check his conscience at the door when he joined the military three years ago and is unwilling to be placed in a situation where he will have no choice but to commit war crimes."
Ehren Watada is the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. After an Article 32 hearing in August, he awaits word on what the chain of command will do with the findings and his father Bob Watada is on his second series of speaking engagements. Here are some of the events he will be speaking at starting with tonight's event:
Tues 10/3 7:00pm ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism)
1800 Argyle Ave. #400, Los Angeles
Contact: Carlos Alvarez, 323-464-1636, email: answerla@answerla.org
Wed. 10/4 12:00-2:30 pm Angela Oh's Korean American Experience Class
Life Sciences Bldg., RM 4127, UCLA Westwood Campus
Contact: aeola@earthlink.net
Wed. 10/4 Southern California Library for Social Studies and Research
6120 S. Vermont Ave, Los Angeles
Contact: So Cal Library 323-759-6063
Thurs 10/5 5:00 pm World Can't Wait March & Rally
(March starts at noon at pershing S1/Bob speaks in front of Federal Bldg 300 N. Los Angeles St. at 5:00 pm.
Contact: Nicole Lee 323-462-4771 email: la@worldcantwait.org
Fri. 10/6 7:00 am Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace (ICUJP)
Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 3300 Wilshire Bl., Los Angeles
Contact: Thalia 626-683-9004 email: incuip@pacbell.net
Fri 10/6 12:30 San Fernando Valley Japanese Community Center
SFV Japanese American Community Center, 12953 Branford St., Pacoima 91331
Contact: Phil Shigkuni 818-893-1851, cell: 818-357-7488, email pshig2000@yahoo.com.
Sat 10/7 2:00-4:00 pm Welcome Reception for Bob Watada
JACCC Garden Room, 244 S. San Pedro St., Los Angeles
Contact: NCRR 213-680-3484, email: ncrrla@yahoo.com.
Sun 10/8 2:00-5:00 pm Forum with Bob Watada
Nat'l Center for the Preservation of Democracy, 111 N. Central Ave., Los Angeles.
Contact Ellen Endo 213-629-2231 or Mo 323-371-4502
A full schedule (PDF format) can be found here.
