if the new york times was really bothered by u.s. military proganda efforts aimed at the iraq media why are they running a column by someone who should have been a red flag for them?
backstory: i made c.i. mad today. c.i. had a title for a feature for sunday's the third estate sunday review. c.i. told me the title and i said 'oh, that's a title in the times.' now c.i.'s trying to think up a new title. (c.i. wasn't really mad.) but we were talking about the op-eds, or i was because c.i. avoids them, and i mentioned i was getting real tired of all the men.
i offered that it had paul krugman and thomas friedman and 1 other. c.i. said 'only 1?' i said yeah and c.i. goes, 'that must have been an important op-ed for them to just 1 more.' i mention the name and c.i. says, 'don't you know that name?' i didn't.
i told c.i. to write about it but c.i. doesn't cover the op-eds and told me it was mine.
so, 1st off, 3 op-eds on friday, all men.
the guest op-ed? a stay the course piece of nonsense by a man named seth moulton.
do you know the name? i didn't.
but if you click at this wall street journal op-ed, john r. guardiano writes (in december, 2005):
The latest Iraq "scandal" the politicians and the media have discovered is the U.S. military's alleged covert purchase of favorable articles in the Iraqi press. This alleged "propaganda campaign . . . violates fundamental principles of Western journalism," reports the New York Times.
[. . .]
The U.S. military wisely has decided to pursue the latter course of action. But contrary to the Times and other self-anointed paragons of journalistic virtue, this is nothing new. I know because while serving as a Marine in Iraq in April 2003, I volunteered to write newspaper articles and radio and television scripts for dissemination in-country. Yes, I was a not-so-covert Iraqi journalist.
I say not-so-covert because everyone--U.S. Marines and Iraqis alike--knew who I was and what I was doing. It was not a secret. But I seriously doubt that anyone in Washington knew of our activities. We never sought high-level approval. Ours was a tactical decision made on the ground in response to the threat that we faced.
[. . .]
The radio clips were given to the local radio station in Al Hilla, which aired them as they saw fit. As for television, an enterprising young Harvard graduate and physics major, Marine Corps Lt. Seth Moulton, founded his own television show, "Moulton and Mohamed." (Lt. Moulton, incidentally, is no conservative, but he was a fine Marine Corps officer. His presence in the Marines may show that there is more ideological diversity within the U.S. military than on the typical college faculty or newsroom.)
seth moulton?
he founded his own television show?
that's not how wbur's here & now put it:
Iraq TV
We speak to producers of a program for Iraqi television in the months following the American invasion. The program was produced under the auspices of the U.S. military. Guests: Former Marine Seth Moulton, Interpreter Mohammed Fawsi
it was made, according to the op-ed, to combat that pesky reality and, according to wbur, it was 'produced under the auspices of the u.s. military.' which is why the op-ed mentions it with the scandal over government propaganda (though the op-ed, it did appear in the wall st. journal, doesn't see it as propaganda). so the question i'd ask is would the new york times also run an op-ed by armstrong williams?
in their bio with the column, the new york times notes: 'seth moulton was a marine infantry officer in iraq from march to september 2003 and from july 2004 to october 2005. he is writing a book about his service.' but they don't note that his original media work was paid for by the u.s. military. if he's writing about the military, shouldn't they note it?
and, 1 more time, would they run a column by armstrong williams?
moutlon can write whatever he wants. he can be paid to write it by whomever wishes to pay him. but if the new york times is going to run the column and he previously was funded by the u.s. military for press work, it seems like that should be noted.
when the times dealt with the government monies going to fund these happy talk pieces, they noted this:
In addition, the document called for the development of ''alternate or diverting messages which divert media and public attention'' to ''deal instantly with the bad news of the day.''
some might conclude that government programs which, as the wall st. journal column noted, included the following were part of what the new york times was writing of above:
One day they reported that fresh medical supplies had arrived at the hospital. They visited a destroyed elementary school that had been rebuilt. They monitored a town council meeting where Iraqis discussed how to increase the availability of electricity. They reported on the 300 new jobs Americans had provided to local Iraqis, charging them with cleaning up Babil province.
seems like an alternate or diverting message. they were farmed out to iraq television stations.
the times article didn't address tv or radio, just print. from where i sit, it was a propaganda campaign and i don't believe that anyone participating should now be given a platform. at the very least, since the times made such a big deal out of these attempts, the bio should note the past participation in these types of programs.
here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Friday, September 15, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq and among the dead are US troops; the count of discovered corpses in Baghdad continue to rise, meanwhile the latest US 'answer' is "Castle!"; war resister Darrell Anderson prepares to return to the United States; and Camp Democracy continues in Washington, DC.
Starting with the violence (stick around for the 'answer'), CBS and AP report that five US troops died on Thursday ("making it a particularly bloody day for U.S. forces" -- well not to the New York Times) and that a marine has died today in al Anbar province. al Anbar? For those who missed it, Thomas E. Ricks (Washington Post) reported Monday that that Marine Col Pete Devlin's assesment "that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there, said several military officers and intelligence officials familiar with its contents." Today Will Dunham (Reuters) reports: "U.S. commanders in Iraq have demoted their long effort to subdue insurgents in Anbar province . . . 'Baghdad is our main effort right now,' Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the top U.S. operational commander in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters in a briefing from Iraq."
Staying with the violence.
Corpses?
A senior Interior Ministry official remarks to Reuters, on the continued discovery of corpses, "Forty bodies, 60 bodies -- it's become a daily routine." Friday started with Rebecca Santana (AP) noting the discovery of 30 corpses in Baghdad. AFP gives the announced figures for the last three days as 64 (Wednesday), 20 (Thursday) and 51 (last 24 hours). In addition to those corpses which were discovered in Baghdad, Reuters reports that in Mussayab a corpse "with a missing head" was discovered.
Shootings?
Reuters reports one person was shot dead and five others wounded in Baghdad. AP reports the incident: "In central Baghdad, a gunman opened fire from the top of an abandoned building in a Sunni Arab neighborhood, killing an Iraqi civilian and wounding five others, said police Lt. Ahmed Mohammed Ali."
Bombings?
Reuters reports a car bomb in Mosul that left nine wounded, while, in Mussayab, a roadside bomb "late on Thursday" left three police officers wounded.
In addition, Al Jazeera reports that a US soldier is missing after Thursday's car bombing in Baghdad that left two troops dead on Thursday and 25 others wounded. AP raises the wounded from that bombing to 30 and notes the missing soldier "has been reported as Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown".
AFP reminds: "The United Nations has also warned that Iraq could slide into civil war as the daily bloodshed shows no signs of abating despire political efforts for national reconciliation." CBS and AP report that John Bolton told the UN Security Council yesterday "that Iraq's sectarian killings and kidnappings had increased in the last three months, along with a rise in the numbef of displaced people."
So where does it stand? Even John Bolton's sounding alarms, US troops are pulling out of al Anabar, Reuters reports that the 147,000 American troops in Iraq are "the most since January," and the violence and chaos continue.
But don't fret 'a new plan' finally emerges as the 'answer.'
It's being called trenches which is really implying something it's not. When people think of trenches, they tend to think of trench warfare. What's being described is more along the lines of a mote -- AFP reports that Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf described it this way, "We will surround the city with trenches. The entry to the captial will be permitted through 28 roads, as against 21 at the moment, but at the same time we will seal off dozens of other minor roads with access to Baghdad."
Quote: "We will surround the city with trenches." That's the 'new plan.' Baghdad goes from capital to castle. But not overnight. Al Jazeera notes "an operation of this scale would take months to complete."
In the real world, Cal Perry (CNN) takes a look at the wounded US troops ("more than 20,000" have been "wounded in Iraq") at the 10th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad.
In peace news, Courage to Resist has reported that war resister Darrell Anderson will return to the United States (from Canada): "Support is mounting for Darrell and his courageous stand. Two events are planned in conjunction with his return to the U.S. In Fort Erie on Saturday, Septemeber 30 at Noon there will be a rally in Lions Sugar Bowl and then supporters, including Iraq war veterans and military family members, will accompany Darrell as he crosses the border back into the U.S. over Peace Bridge."
Other peace actions are going on and will be going on including a three-day event in NYC that begins this evening at 7:00 pm, continues Saturday at 7:00 pm and concludes on Sunday at 3:00 pm. What is it? The People Speak directed by Will Pomerantz and Rob Urbinati. This is a workshop adaptation of Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's Voices of a People's History of the United States. The workshop will take place at The Culture Project's Bleecker Street Theater on 45 Bleecker Street. Tickets are ten dollars and can be ordered online here or here or purchased in person at the box office (box office does not take ticket orders). For those in NYC, or who will be during those dates, click here for a map. The presentation is part of the Impact Festival.
In Washington, DC, Camp Democracy continues, free and open to the public. Today's events have focused on Electoral Reform and include an 8:00 pm (EST) showing of the film Stealing America, Vote by Vote." Among those speaking today were Bob Firtakis. Saturday is peace day and will include Kevin Zeese, Nadine Bloch, Allison Hantschel. CODEPINK's Gael Muphy will report on the visit to Jordan at the start of last month to meet with Iraqis as well as the trip to Lebanon. And war resister Ricky Clousing will discuss the court-martial he's facing. (This may be the first major discussion he's given publicly on the topic since August 11th.)
And on Sunday, Camp Democracy will host a number of events and the theme will be Impeachment Day. Among those participating: Elizabeth Holtzman, Michael Avery, Ray McGovern, David Green, John Nichols, Marcus Raskin, Elizabeth De La Vega, Dave Lindorff, David Swanson, Jennifer Van Bergen, Geoff King, David Waldman, Dan DeWalt, Steve Cobble, Anthony St. Martin, Cindy Bogard, Mubarak Awad, Susan Crane, Frank Anderson. The camp has daily activities and admission is free. A complete schedule can be found here. Free and open to the public with daily activites.
Finally, in Australia, ABC reports that Brendan Nelson (Defence Minister) will be expanding their role in Iraq when "Italian forces withdraw at the end of next month." Reuters notes this will be 20 troops added to "the extra 38 troops announced on Sept. 4". The 58 need to be weighed next to the intent, as Dan Box (The Australian) reported earlier this week, the Australian government wants to up the army from 2,600 to 30,000 ("its biggest intake since the Vietnam war")
iraq
camp democracy
the washington post
thomas e. ricks
darrell anderson
anthony arnove
howard zinn
ricky clousing
codepink
9/16/2006
9/14/2006
flashpoints and more
"You are a dog ... you should die. We are going to necklace you," whispered a British-accented caller into the phone. It was the latest in a round of death threats that Athena Kolbe, Human Rights Investigator and Master's level social worker at Wayne State University, had received. According to police officials, Kolbe first began receiving threatening calls at home and on her cell phone at 4:00 AM on the morning of Monday September 4.
Kolbe, who co-coordinated a human rights study carried out in late 2005 by the Wayne State University School of Social Work with Dr. Royce Hutson, led a team of twelve Haitian interviewers in surveying 1260 randomly selected households in the greater Port-au-Prince area. The Haitian researchers interviewed Port-au-Prince residents about their experiences with human rights abuses since the installation of Gerald Latortue as interim Prime Minister following the violent overthrow of Haiti's elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The Lancet article titled "Human Rights Abuse and Other Criminal Violations in Port-au-Prince Haiti: A Random Survey of Households" exposes massive human rights violations in Haiti, under the foreign-installed interim government of Gerald Latortue. It estimates that 8000 persons were murdered and approximately 35000 sexually assaulted in the greater Port-au-Prince area between February 2004 and December 2005. More than 90% percent of the sexual assaults reported in the study-involved penetration, explained the authors. The study first became public knowledge on August 30 when Pacifica Radio's Flashpoints aired an interview with Kolbe and Royce discussing the findings of the survey. It has stirred controversy ever since.
Days after an interview with Flashpoints' Dennis Bernstein, Charles Arthur, president of the UK's Haiti Support Group, denounced Kolbe as a "pro-Lavalas Family journalist" implying that Kolbe manipulated the survey findings. Articles about the study were quickly published in the Guardian and the Toronto Globe and Mail in which Charles Arthur was prominently quoted, but much remained unexplored --most conspicuously the findings of the study--but also what Kolbe has had to endure since the study was published.
It was her volunteer service in 1995 with Lafanmi Selavi, an orphanage for street children and child domestic servants in Port-au-Prince which Arthur claimed makes Kolbe too"biased" to conduct research. Aristide founded the orphanage when he was a parish priest ten years prior. Kolbe met Aristide and says she was "impressed with commitment to promoting the idea that children are people who need to be loved, respected and valued." Kolbe volunteered in several orphanages during postings in Haiti, Croatia and Israel.
that's from jeb sprague and joe emesberger's "Death Threats Against Lancet's Haiti Human Rights Investigator" from counterpunch. sprague was a guest on Flashpoints tonight with dennis bernstein as was athena kolbe. she's been threatened and she's had that brave media trash her. duncan campbell (of the guardian) is probably the best example of 'brave' media. maybe if the guardian had worked less on propping up tony blair for so long, bully boy wouldn't have had such a strong ally?
so duncan campbell's on a month long vacation and plans to take a look at the article he wrote when he gets back, a month from now.
another guest dennis spoke with was peter philips of project censored. it was a really strong show.
i'm in a mood tonight. ann richards is dead (and kat's written about her here). i think kat makes the point perfectly, richards is some 1 who touched you. it didn't matter that she wasn't your governor, you knew who she was. we need more strong women like ann richards who aren't afraid to go down swinging. yes, she lost to bully boy when she ran for re-election as the governor of texas, but she's not the only 1 who lost judging by the pollution increases in texas. oh, let me link to that site if i can find it.
t was telling me about it today and i was shocked to see who were the biggest pollution centers.
okay, had to go to my 'history' folder because i couldn't locate it by searching. it's called 'scorecard.' click on that and you can type in your zip code and get the information for your area. i don't know houston's zip code but if you do, t did, punch that in and check out the score card for houston.
it's important to realize what's going on in the world due to global warming but i also think you need to be aware of what is going on in your area. you can make an impact in your area and you also should arm yourself.
stay on the environment for a moment, this was at common dreams, a reuters report entitled 'World has 10-Year Window to Act on Climate Warming - NASA Expert:'
A leading U.S. climate researcher said on Wednesday the world has a 10-year window of opportunity to take decisive action on global warming and avertNASA scientist James Hansen, widely considered the doyen of American climate researchers, said governments must adopt an alternative scenario to keep carbon dioxide emission growth in check and limit the increase in global temperatures to 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit).
"I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change ... no longer than a decade, at the most," Hansen said at the Climate Change Research Conference in California's state capital.
If the world continues with a "business as usual" scenario, Hansen said temperatures will rise by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 7.2 degrees F) and "we will be producing a different planet".
On that warmer planet, ice sheets would melt quickly, causing a rise in sea levels that would put most of Manhattan under water. The world would see more prolonged droughts and heat waves, powerful hurricanes in new areas and the likely extinction of 50 percent of species. a weather catastrophe.
did you catch gregg zoroya's "Soldier describes anguish in revealing murder allegations" - it's an important article and better than what many papers have printed (such as the new york times).
i'm really surprised that it ran in u.s.a. today because you'd think 1 of the 'big' papers would have run it. they certainly could have. they just weren't interested. they weren't interested in the story of justin watt who came forward about what he was hearing had happened and they weren't interested in the story of abeer and her family. read the story and you'll find yourself wondering why no 1 else was interested in the story.
here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Thursday, September 14, 2006. The chaos and violence continues in Iraq, William Caldwell gets lost in his own spin while Harry Reid comes out swinging, two US soldiers are dead, actions on the part of Suzanne Swift result in some US Congressional support, Camp Democracy continues in DC, and 110 Australian soldiers return to Iraq from Australia.
William Caldwell IV, the liveliest Gabor in the Green Zone, explained the mounting corpses (about 100 in the last two days) discovered in the capital as "murder-executions" -- as opposed to "group hugs"? Somebody ask Willie to adjust the bra strap before the commercial break's over. Not content with being the giddiest Gabor in the Green Zone, Caldwell also told reporters today that another major terrorist had been captured. CNN reports that the Ethel Mertz of the occupation won't identify the captured but will give lots of non-specific details and, apparently, whine that Fred won't ever take her out anywhere! The non-specific details will allow gas bags to fill in their own details and a non-story to eat hours and hours of psuedo-commentary and it certainly minimizes the tragic reality that two more American troops lost their lives.
CBS and AP report: "Two U.S. soldiers died Thursday in and around Baghdad, the U.S. Command said. The first soldier died from wounds in the early morning hours after his unit came under attack by small arms. The second was killed after his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad." AFP notes that the two deaths follow the Wednesday death of a US soldier as a result of "enemy fire" and CNN notes: "He was attached to the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, 25th Infantry Division."
If it seems like Willie Gabor isn't aware of the body count, the AFP's reporting demonstrates US Senator Harry Reid is: "We have to change course in Iraq, we are approaching 2,700 dead American men and women, more than 20,000 wounded, a third of them greviously wounded, missing arms, and legs, and eyes, paralysis, brain damage. The cost is three billion a week. If Iraq is not in a civil war, I don't know what a civil war is, 100 killed yesterday, 100 killed the day before."
Today?
Bombings?
The Associated Press reports two car bombs in Baghdad that resulted in at least ten deaths and thirty wounded. CBS and AP note the second blast, outside the passport office, "created a large crater in the street in front of the office, destroyed at least three cars, scattered debris and knocked down the walls of a neibhoring house".
KUNA notes four wounded as a result of a bomb in Mosul. Reuters notes a "sucicide bomber" in Tal Afar has left one police officer dead and two civilians wounded; a roadside bomb in Falluja has left five civilians dead and 15 more wounded; and that "[a] bomb struck a U.S. military vehicle in Ur district, northern Baghdad, as the coalition forces were starting a serach operation. Witnesses at the scene said smoke was rising from the area. The U.S. military said it was unaware of the incident."
Shootings?
The BBC reports that a police officer "was shot dead on his way to work in Baghdad."
CNN identifies him as Col. Muthana Ali Hussein. Reuters notes that that a family of six ("including a three-month-old boy") "were shot dead in their home" in Baghdad.
CBS and AP note that two police officers were shot dead in a drive-by in Baquba while three people were shot dead in Ghazaniya. KUNA reports that a police officer was wounded in Kirkuk after being shot by "unidentified armed men". Reuters notes the death of a city council member (Abdulla Khalaf) and his son in Daquq; and "a police lieutenant--colonel" in Mosul.
Corpses?
CNN reports that 20 corpses were discovered in Baghdad ("most with signs of torture").
That's 53 that were reported dead so far today. (Includes the 20 corpses and the two U.S. soldiers.)
In peace news, Haveeru Daily reports that war resister Mark Wilkerson, "[n]early two weeks after he turned himself in to his unit at Fort Hood in Texas, the baby-faced 22-year-old soldier is still awaiting word on his punishment." Wilkerson returned from Iraq and attempted to receive conscientious objector status only to be denied and told he was redeploying to Iraq. Wilkerson then self-checked out and was AWOL for a year-and-a-half. Writing of Wilkerson's August 31st announcement that he was turning himself in, Aaron Glant (IPS) noted: "Observers say these developments are reminiscent of the Vietnam War, when the refusal to fight by hundreds of thousands of soldiers was a major force toward U.S. withdrawal. According to journalist and Vietnam War resister Peter Laufer, 170,000 U.S. soldiers filed for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War. Between 50,000 and 60,000 fled to Canada. Others deliberately injured themselves or simply went AWOL." That topic is explored in depth in the documentary Sir! No Sir!, directed by David Zeiger. Wilkerson himself noted the historical connections writing, before his press conference at Camp Casey III, that "I am joining a long history of war resistors, many of whom have died for their beliefs and I know tomorrow they will be looking down on me and war resistors who are alive hopefully will respect what I have to say and I hope that with as big a stage as I am going to have tomorrow that I can make people proud of my message and that I can say everything I truly want to say."
At his own web site, Mark Wilkerson reports his first week at Fort Hood "was a good week. . . . I've spent a lot of time speaking with fellow soldiers about how their experiences were in Iraq. And while some had better experiences than others, they all expressed how lucky they were to make it back to the U.S. alive. And some have expressed their anxiety about having to return to Iraq for possibly the third time -- Imagine -- Three year-long deployments to Iraq in 5 years! For anyone reading this, let that sink in for a moment."
In news of war resister Suzanne Swift, actions on her behalf (a sit-in, phone calls, e-mails and faxes) have resulted in US Rep. Peter DaFazio of Oregon to promise "that he will be initiating a congressional investigation into" her case. Swift self-checked out of the Army after returning from a tour in Iraq where she has reported she was sexually assaulted. Supporters are calling for an honorable discharge of Swift.
In Washington, DC, Camp Democracy continues, free and open to the public. Today's events includes participation from the Green Party: Joyce Robinson-Paul, Steve Shafarman and Bob Firtakis. Greens are due to speak "between 4:15 and 5:30 p.m." and will address topics including the 2004 election. This evening, Danny Schechter scheduled to be among the participants with a screening of his documentary WMD: Weapons of Mass Deceptions. Friday's topics include election reform, Saturday's peace with Pat Elder, Nadine Bloch, Kevin Zeese and others participating. And on Sunday, Camp Democracy will host a number of events and the theme will be Impeachment Day. Among those participating: Elizabeth Holtzman, Michael Avery, Ray McGovern, David Green, John Nichols, Marcus Raskin, Elizabeth De La Vega, Dave Lindorff, David Swanson, Jennifer Van Bergen, Geoff King, David Waldman, Dan DeWalt, Steve Cobble, Anthony St. Martin, Cindy Bogard, Mubarak Awad, Susan Crane, Frank Anderson. The camp has daily activities and admission is free. A complete schedule can be found here. Free and open to the public with daily activites.
In Australia, Security Detachment IX returned from Baghdad. One member didn't return, Jake Kovco who died in Baghdad on April 21st. Edmund Tadros (Sydney Morning Herald) reports that Jake Kovco's widow Shelley Kovco was there to greet those returning. Belinda Tasker (NewsCom) reports that Shelley Kovco "finally had the chance to speak to one of the men who was with him [Jake Kovco] when he died" -- Ray Johnson who has previously been identified as "Soldier 17." Dan Box (The Australian) reports: "With the unit's return, however, restrictions imposed by the inquiry on reporting the names of soldiers have been lifted. Although not legally binding, these restrictions were imposed for operational safety and have been followed by The Australian." While the second half of the last sentence is correct (The Australian and most others have readily followed the restrictions), the first half? That's the claim by the government, not established fact. Noting that "One of the cornerstones of our justice system is transparency," Anthony McClellan went on to point out (in The Australian, one week ago today): "When the inquiry began, it was set in a small room that could not accommodate all the media who wanted to be there. On occasions such as this, the media are the public representatives. We have a right to know what happened, and why. Was making it harder for the media to report a deliberate decision or an example of military contempt for civilians being privy to this tragedy? Or was it plain incompetence? Whatever the reason, it neatly encapsulates the past five months. The larger issue is the suppression of the identities of many of the key soldiers connected with Kovco's death. We read about them as Soldier 14, Soldier 17 and Soldier 47. Why? If this set of events had occurred in a civilian setting, they would certainly be named. But no, the names are kept from us because the soldiers are serving in Iraq. It was interesting to see defence chief Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston and Defence Minister Brendan Nelson squirming in public this week when asked why the names were being kept secret."
"Soldier 19" is now identified as Rob Shore. "Soldier 14"? Belinda Tasker notes that he is Steve Carr. Box notes Carr is "a person of interest" to the inquiry into Jake Kovco's death due to his DNA being "found on the barrel of Kovco's pistol". The Herald-Sun notes: "The Kovco inquiry, at Sydney's Victoria Barracks, resumes on Monday for closing submissions. Ms. Kovco is to make a statement to the inquiry on Tuesday."
iraq
camp democracy
danny schechter
mark wilkerson
aaron glantz
peter laufer
sir no sir
david zeiger
suzanne swift
jacob bruce kovco
jake kovco
Kolbe, who co-coordinated a human rights study carried out in late 2005 by the Wayne State University School of Social Work with Dr. Royce Hutson, led a team of twelve Haitian interviewers in surveying 1260 randomly selected households in the greater Port-au-Prince area. The Haitian researchers interviewed Port-au-Prince residents about their experiences with human rights abuses since the installation of Gerald Latortue as interim Prime Minister following the violent overthrow of Haiti's elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The Lancet article titled "Human Rights Abuse and Other Criminal Violations in Port-au-Prince Haiti: A Random Survey of Households" exposes massive human rights violations in Haiti, under the foreign-installed interim government of Gerald Latortue. It estimates that 8000 persons were murdered and approximately 35000 sexually assaulted in the greater Port-au-Prince area between February 2004 and December 2005. More than 90% percent of the sexual assaults reported in the study-involved penetration, explained the authors. The study first became public knowledge on August 30 when Pacifica Radio's Flashpoints aired an interview with Kolbe and Royce discussing the findings of the survey. It has stirred controversy ever since.
Days after an interview with Flashpoints' Dennis Bernstein, Charles Arthur, president of the UK's Haiti Support Group, denounced Kolbe as a "pro-Lavalas Family journalist" implying that Kolbe manipulated the survey findings. Articles about the study were quickly published in the Guardian and the Toronto Globe and Mail in which Charles Arthur was prominently quoted, but much remained unexplored --most conspicuously the findings of the study--but also what Kolbe has had to endure since the study was published.
It was her volunteer service in 1995 with Lafanmi Selavi, an orphanage for street children and child domestic servants in Port-au-Prince which Arthur claimed makes Kolbe too"biased" to conduct research. Aristide founded the orphanage when he was a parish priest ten years prior. Kolbe met Aristide and says she was "impressed with commitment to promoting the idea that children are people who need to be loved, respected and valued." Kolbe volunteered in several orphanages during postings in Haiti, Croatia and Israel.
that's from jeb sprague and joe emesberger's "Death Threats Against Lancet's Haiti Human Rights Investigator" from counterpunch. sprague was a guest on Flashpoints tonight with dennis bernstein as was athena kolbe. she's been threatened and she's had that brave media trash her. duncan campbell (of the guardian) is probably the best example of 'brave' media. maybe if the guardian had worked less on propping up tony blair for so long, bully boy wouldn't have had such a strong ally?
so duncan campbell's on a month long vacation and plans to take a look at the article he wrote when he gets back, a month from now.
another guest dennis spoke with was peter philips of project censored. it was a really strong show.
i'm in a mood tonight. ann richards is dead (and kat's written about her here). i think kat makes the point perfectly, richards is some 1 who touched you. it didn't matter that she wasn't your governor, you knew who she was. we need more strong women like ann richards who aren't afraid to go down swinging. yes, she lost to bully boy when she ran for re-election as the governor of texas, but she's not the only 1 who lost judging by the pollution increases in texas. oh, let me link to that site if i can find it.
t was telling me about it today and i was shocked to see who were the biggest pollution centers.
okay, had to go to my 'history' folder because i couldn't locate it by searching. it's called 'scorecard.' click on that and you can type in your zip code and get the information for your area. i don't know houston's zip code but if you do, t did, punch that in and check out the score card for houston.
it's important to realize what's going on in the world due to global warming but i also think you need to be aware of what is going on in your area. you can make an impact in your area and you also should arm yourself.
stay on the environment for a moment, this was at common dreams, a reuters report entitled 'World has 10-Year Window to Act on Climate Warming - NASA Expert:'
A leading U.S. climate researcher said on Wednesday the world has a 10-year window of opportunity to take decisive action on global warming and avertNASA scientist James Hansen, widely considered the doyen of American climate researchers, said governments must adopt an alternative scenario to keep carbon dioxide emission growth in check and limit the increase in global temperatures to 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit).
"I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change ... no longer than a decade, at the most," Hansen said at the Climate Change Research Conference in California's state capital.
If the world continues with a "business as usual" scenario, Hansen said temperatures will rise by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 7.2 degrees F) and "we will be producing a different planet".
On that warmer planet, ice sheets would melt quickly, causing a rise in sea levels that would put most of Manhattan under water. The world would see more prolonged droughts and heat waves, powerful hurricanes in new areas and the likely extinction of 50 percent of species. a weather catastrophe.
did you catch gregg zoroya's "Soldier describes anguish in revealing murder allegations" - it's an important article and better than what many papers have printed (such as the new york times).
i'm really surprised that it ran in u.s.a. today because you'd think 1 of the 'big' papers would have run it. they certainly could have. they just weren't interested. they weren't interested in the story of justin watt who came forward about what he was hearing had happened and they weren't interested in the story of abeer and her family. read the story and you'll find yourself wondering why no 1 else was interested in the story.
here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Thursday, September 14, 2006. The chaos and violence continues in Iraq, William Caldwell gets lost in his own spin while Harry Reid comes out swinging, two US soldiers are dead, actions on the part of Suzanne Swift result in some US Congressional support, Camp Democracy continues in DC, and 110 Australian soldiers return to Iraq from Australia.
William Caldwell IV, the liveliest Gabor in the Green Zone, explained the mounting corpses (about 100 in the last two days) discovered in the capital as "murder-executions" -- as opposed to "group hugs"? Somebody ask Willie to adjust the bra strap before the commercial break's over. Not content with being the giddiest Gabor in the Green Zone, Caldwell also told reporters today that another major terrorist had been captured. CNN reports that the Ethel Mertz of the occupation won't identify the captured but will give lots of non-specific details and, apparently, whine that Fred won't ever take her out anywhere! The non-specific details will allow gas bags to fill in their own details and a non-story to eat hours and hours of psuedo-commentary and it certainly minimizes the tragic reality that two more American troops lost their lives.
CBS and AP report: "Two U.S. soldiers died Thursday in and around Baghdad, the U.S. Command said. The first soldier died from wounds in the early morning hours after his unit came under attack by small arms. The second was killed after his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad." AFP notes that the two deaths follow the Wednesday death of a US soldier as a result of "enemy fire" and CNN notes: "He was attached to the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade, 25th Infantry Division."
If it seems like Willie Gabor isn't aware of the body count, the AFP's reporting demonstrates US Senator Harry Reid is: "We have to change course in Iraq, we are approaching 2,700 dead American men and women, more than 20,000 wounded, a third of them greviously wounded, missing arms, and legs, and eyes, paralysis, brain damage. The cost is three billion a week. If Iraq is not in a civil war, I don't know what a civil war is, 100 killed yesterday, 100 killed the day before."
Today?
Bombings?
The Associated Press reports two car bombs in Baghdad that resulted in at least ten deaths and thirty wounded. CBS and AP note the second blast, outside the passport office, "created a large crater in the street in front of the office, destroyed at least three cars, scattered debris and knocked down the walls of a neibhoring house".
KUNA notes four wounded as a result of a bomb in Mosul. Reuters notes a "sucicide bomber" in Tal Afar has left one police officer dead and two civilians wounded; a roadside bomb in Falluja has left five civilians dead and 15 more wounded; and that "[a] bomb struck a U.S. military vehicle in Ur district, northern Baghdad, as the coalition forces were starting a serach operation. Witnesses at the scene said smoke was rising from the area. The U.S. military said it was unaware of the incident."
Shootings?
The BBC reports that a police officer "was shot dead on his way to work in Baghdad."
CNN identifies him as Col. Muthana Ali Hussein. Reuters notes that that a family of six ("including a three-month-old boy") "were shot dead in their home" in Baghdad.
CBS and AP note that two police officers were shot dead in a drive-by in Baquba while three people were shot dead in Ghazaniya. KUNA reports that a police officer was wounded in Kirkuk after being shot by "unidentified armed men". Reuters notes the death of a city council member (Abdulla Khalaf) and his son in Daquq; and "a police lieutenant--colonel" in Mosul.
Corpses?
CNN reports that 20 corpses were discovered in Baghdad ("most with signs of torture").
That's 53 that were reported dead so far today. (Includes the 20 corpses and the two U.S. soldiers.)
In peace news, Haveeru Daily reports that war resister Mark Wilkerson, "[n]early two weeks after he turned himself in to his unit at Fort Hood in Texas, the baby-faced 22-year-old soldier is still awaiting word on his punishment." Wilkerson returned from Iraq and attempted to receive conscientious objector status only to be denied and told he was redeploying to Iraq. Wilkerson then self-checked out and was AWOL for a year-and-a-half. Writing of Wilkerson's August 31st announcement that he was turning himself in, Aaron Glant (IPS) noted: "Observers say these developments are reminiscent of the Vietnam War, when the refusal to fight by hundreds of thousands of soldiers was a major force toward U.S. withdrawal. According to journalist and Vietnam War resister Peter Laufer, 170,000 U.S. soldiers filed for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War. Between 50,000 and 60,000 fled to Canada. Others deliberately injured themselves or simply went AWOL." That topic is explored in depth in the documentary Sir! No Sir!, directed by David Zeiger. Wilkerson himself noted the historical connections writing, before his press conference at Camp Casey III, that "I am joining a long history of war resistors, many of whom have died for their beliefs and I know tomorrow they will be looking down on me and war resistors who are alive hopefully will respect what I have to say and I hope that with as big a stage as I am going to have tomorrow that I can make people proud of my message and that I can say everything I truly want to say."
At his own web site, Mark Wilkerson reports his first week at Fort Hood "was a good week. . . . I've spent a lot of time speaking with fellow soldiers about how their experiences were in Iraq. And while some had better experiences than others, they all expressed how lucky they were to make it back to the U.S. alive. And some have expressed their anxiety about having to return to Iraq for possibly the third time -- Imagine -- Three year-long deployments to Iraq in 5 years! For anyone reading this, let that sink in for a moment."
In news of war resister Suzanne Swift, actions on her behalf (a sit-in, phone calls, e-mails and faxes) have resulted in US Rep. Peter DaFazio of Oregon to promise "that he will be initiating a congressional investigation into" her case. Swift self-checked out of the Army after returning from a tour in Iraq where she has reported she was sexually assaulted. Supporters are calling for an honorable discharge of Swift.
In Washington, DC, Camp Democracy continues, free and open to the public. Today's events includes participation from the Green Party: Joyce Robinson-Paul, Steve Shafarman and Bob Firtakis. Greens are due to speak "between 4:15 and 5:30 p.m." and will address topics including the 2004 election. This evening, Danny Schechter scheduled to be among the participants with a screening of his documentary WMD: Weapons of Mass Deceptions. Friday's topics include election reform, Saturday's peace with Pat Elder, Nadine Bloch, Kevin Zeese and others participating. And on Sunday, Camp Democracy will host a number of events and the theme will be Impeachment Day. Among those participating: Elizabeth Holtzman, Michael Avery, Ray McGovern, David Green, John Nichols, Marcus Raskin, Elizabeth De La Vega, Dave Lindorff, David Swanson, Jennifer Van Bergen, Geoff King, David Waldman, Dan DeWalt, Steve Cobble, Anthony St. Martin, Cindy Bogard, Mubarak Awad, Susan Crane, Frank Anderson. The camp has daily activities and admission is free. A complete schedule can be found here. Free and open to the public with daily activites.
In Australia, Security Detachment IX returned from Baghdad. One member didn't return, Jake Kovco who died in Baghdad on April 21st. Edmund Tadros (Sydney Morning Herald) reports that Jake Kovco's widow Shelley Kovco was there to greet those returning. Belinda Tasker (NewsCom) reports that Shelley Kovco "finally had the chance to speak to one of the men who was with him [Jake Kovco] when he died" -- Ray Johnson who has previously been identified as "Soldier 17." Dan Box (The Australian) reports: "With the unit's return, however, restrictions imposed by the inquiry on reporting the names of soldiers have been lifted. Although not legally binding, these restrictions were imposed for operational safety and have been followed by The Australian." While the second half of the last sentence is correct (The Australian and most others have readily followed the restrictions), the first half? That's the claim by the government, not established fact. Noting that "One of the cornerstones of our justice system is transparency," Anthony McClellan went on to point out (in The Australian, one week ago today): "When the inquiry began, it was set in a small room that could not accommodate all the media who wanted to be there. On occasions such as this, the media are the public representatives. We have a right to know what happened, and why. Was making it harder for the media to report a deliberate decision or an example of military contempt for civilians being privy to this tragedy? Or was it plain incompetence? Whatever the reason, it neatly encapsulates the past five months. The larger issue is the suppression of the identities of many of the key soldiers connected with Kovco's death. We read about them as Soldier 14, Soldier 17 and Soldier 47. Why? If this set of events had occurred in a civilian setting, they would certainly be named. But no, the names are kept from us because the soldiers are serving in Iraq. It was interesting to see defence chief Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston and Defence Minister Brendan Nelson squirming in public this week when asked why the names were being kept secret."
"Soldier 19" is now identified as Rob Shore. "Soldier 14"? Belinda Tasker notes that he is Steve Carr. Box notes Carr is "a person of interest" to the inquiry into Jake Kovco's death due to his DNA being "found on the barrel of Kovco's pistol". The Herald-Sun notes: "The Kovco inquiry, at Sydney's Victoria Barracks, resumes on Monday for closing submissions. Ms. Kovco is to make a statement to the inquiry on Tuesday."
iraq
camp democracy
danny schechter
mark wilkerson
aaron glantz
peter laufer
sir no sir
david zeiger
suzanne swift
jacob bruce kovco
jake kovco
9/13/2006
lamont and laugherman
fly boy wanted this noted about ned lamont:
Calling dissent "patriotic," and accusing U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman of pushing President Bush's agenda, Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Ned Lamont Wednesday called for more forces in Afghanistan and a set timeline to pull out troops from Iraq, in a major foreign policy address delivered at Yale Law School.
Lamont's speech came in a week during which both Lamont and Lieberman are establishing their positions on Iraq (and surrounding themselves with war veterans) as campaigning resumes in earnest for their Nov. 7 rematch. Lamont defeated three-term incumbent Lieberman in an Aug. 8 Democratic primary; now Lieberman is running as a third-party candidate on the newly-formed "Connecticut for Lieberman" line. Lieberman is expected to deliver his own address on Iraq -- the issue that as much as any helped lead to his primary loss; Lieberman has been President Bush's most prominent Democratic defender of the war.
Lamont Wednesday railed against Bush and his supporters for denying the need to "change the course" and withdraw from a "dangerously wrong" war in Iraq.
connecticut for lieberman? from everything i'm hearing from my mother-in-law, no-mentum needs to pack it in. there is just so much animosity to him. my mother-in-law also reports that she's reminding every 1 that, in lieu of gifts, fly boy and i had asked that they vote for real change in conn.
you do realize that lieberman's up for election in 2006, right? what that means? this wasn't john kerry or john edwards in 2004, running on the presidential ticket and also running for the senate. john edwards gave up his seat. john kerry wasn't up for election. joe lieberman ran as the dem's vice presidential nominee in 2000 and as a senate candidate.
that's 'ol safety joe, always hedging his bets. he can't be bold, he can only suck up and cover his own ass.
i'll also note that brady's got another neighborhood poll that will be in the gina & krista round-robin. he went door to door in his neighborhood (i believe he had help) and he's written it up for the round-robin that comes out friday. fly boy's also got a thing running (photos) so look for that too.
another thing to watch for is this sunday's the third estate sunday review. i have no hints on what ava and c.i. will be reviewing this week (i don't think they've even decided, c.i.'s been pretty sick most of the week) but dona passed on a 'short entry' and i was laughing and asking who had the original idea on it? turns out it was c.i. which surprised me for about 1/2 a second (it's in relation to the thing that pissed kat and so many of us off) but then i remembered c.i.'s humor. there was this dopey professor we had once, in college, and he made some remark like, after c.i. had reduced the class to laughter, 'you have such a sharp with' and c.i. shot back, 'yes, and some feel the blade a little more closely than others.' i've totally ruined the story but that's the gist of it.
thank you to c.i., by the way, for thanking me for the visuals at third. i just played with them some. and i knew every 1 was tired. the way it went last weekend was everyone was supposed to get some sleep and we'd start early (my time it was 3 o'clock) but they ended up working on the visuals and having a lot of fun and they also did some pre-work as well. they are working on more visuals for this weekend. they're also doing other things. mike and i were talking about the 'magazine dump' we both received today. they're magazines that we don't normally read and it's to get us away from the usual thought patterns. this is not 'required reading,' just something to pick up, if you have the time, and browse through. i think it's good to shake things up.
as you'll see in the snapshot below, camp democracy is holding an impeachment day this sunday. with that in mind, here's peter dyer's "Review of 'Case for Impeachment":'
Even though in the United States there is a fast-growing grassroots movement to impeach President Bush there has been predictably little response in the Republican-controlled Congress. If, however, the Democrats gain control of Congress as a result of the November midterm elections, a congressional impeachment effort will become considerably more likely.
David Lindorff, author and prominent investigative journalist, and Barbara Olshanksy, attorney and deputy director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, have written a book which could show the way: "The Case for Impeachment: the Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office." (Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press, New York) The authors' purpose is "to try to lay out for examination the vast range of presidential crimes, abuses of power, and threats to the Constitution and to the Republic"
The authors have collected and documented in methodical and convincing detail some of the President's most prominent impeachable offenses: lying to start an illegal war; the arrest and detention without charge of American citizens; violation of international treaties including the Geneva Conventions and the conventions against torture; willfully ignoring or violating acts of Congress by issuing hundreds of "signing statements"; violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and others.
now here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Wednesday, September 13, 2006 and chaos and violence continue in Iraq claiming the lives of at least 39 Iraqis (AP), occupation puppet Nouri al-Maliki continues his Tehran visit, the US military announces two deaths (one soldier died Monday, the other Tuesday), United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Anan tells some hard truths, and Camp Democracy continues in Iraq.
As reported by CNN yesterday, at least 60 corpses were discovered in Baghdad on Tuesday. The BBC reports: "They were found all over the city, from Sunni areas in the west to Shia districts in the east -- but most were found in largely Sunni west Baghdad. Secretarin killings are not unusal in the city but this is a large number for oen day, a BBC corrspondent says." Reuters reminds of the UN estimate in July (100 people killed each day in Iraq from violence) and notes that "[m]orgue officials" have stopped providing figures. CBS corrspondent Pete Gow provides an audio report here that calls into question the 'success' of the 'crackdown' that's been going on in Baghdad since June. CNN also raises questions about the 'crackdown' and notes: "On Monday, the U.S. Command acknowledged that its [own] report of a dramatic drop in murders in Baghdad last month did not include people killed by bombs, mortars, rockets or other mass attacks, The Associated Press reported. The count only included victims of drive-by shootings and those killed by torture and execution."
Puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki continued the second day of his visit to Tehran. Devika Bhat (Times of London) reports: "Yesterday, Washington reacted with caution to comments from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran that he would offer full support in restoring security to Iraq. . . . A member of Mr al-Maliki's Dawa party said . . . Today Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Iran's supereme leader, . . . [blamed] US troops for Iraq's misfortunes and [told] Mr al-Maliki that the way to end instability was for American forces to withdraw altogether." CNN quotes Kahmenei: "A major portion of Iraq's problems will be solved when the occupying forces leave that country, and that is why we desire and hope that occupiers leave Iraq."
Kahmenei's opinions are hardly surprising and, Nick Wadhams (AP) reports, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, declared today "that most leaders in the Middle East believe the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and its aftermath" is "a real disaster". Annan: "Most of the leaders I spoke to felt the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath has been a real disaster for them. They believe it has destabilized the region."
So it's also not surprising that the AP reports "a resolution setting a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops" managed to get 104 members of the 275 member Iraqi parliament "before [it] was effectively sheleved by being sent to a committe for review."
In the United States, as Robert Knight noted on KPFA's Flashpoints yesterday, the Government Accountability Office issued a report on Monday that also recommended Congress members ask themselves several questions such as:
-- What political, economic and security conditions must be acheived before the United States can draw down and withdraw military forces from Iraq?
-- Why have security conditions continued to worsen even as Iraq has met political milestones, increased the number of trained and equipped forces and increasingly assumed the lead for security?
Drew Brown (McClatchy Newspapers) reports on the findings and notes: "Though the Bush administration has hailed each political milestone in Iraq as another step on the march to freedom, the report cited a Defense Intelligence Agency finding that 'the December 2005 elections appeared to heighten sectarian tensions and polarize sectarian divides'."
The AFP reports that the US military "announced the deaths of two of its servicemen, taking its total losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 2,670, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures. A soldier was killed on Tuesday, south of Baghdad, while another died of wounds on Monday in the western Al-Anbar province, the military said."
Al-Anbar? On Monday, Thomas E. Ricks (Washington Post) reported on the assessment of Col. Pete Develin, "chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq,"
that "prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there". Today, Ricks reports that Marine Maj. Gen. Richard C. Zilmer "agrees with the findings of a pessimistic classified report recently filed by his top intelligence officer but also insisted that 'tremendous progress' is being made in that part of the country." Ricks also notes: "According to several Defense Department officials who have read the report, Devlin also argued that the lack of political progress has crated a political vacuum in the province."
And as the war drags on . . .
Bombings?
In Baghdad, as reported by Amit R. Paley (Washington Post), "a car bomb exploeded near an indoor stadium" killing and injuring a number of people and then, as people came forward to help, "another bomb detonated". CNN puts the toll at 14 dead and 67 wounded. AP later raised the death toll to 19 and noted "[b]ut the U.S. military reported the death toll at 15 killed and 25 wounded, and said the blast was caused by two car bombs."
Also in Baghdad, Reuters reports a car bomb that was aimed at "police protecting an electricity distribution plant [which] killed eight people and wounded 19." The AP reports that the U.S. military states the bomb ended up "killing at least 12 people and wounding 34."
Still in Baghdad, Al Jazeera notes two separate mortar attacks the claimed one life (police officer) and left six wounded. Reuters reports that mortar attacks wounded four in Samawa. Back to Baghdad, Demka Bhat (Times of London) reports a mortar attack that killed "[a] further two police" officers.
Shootings?
AP reports that, in Falluja, "two pedistrians were killed and two others injured apparently in the crossfire between U.S. troops and unidentified gunmen" and that a man in his car was shot dead in Baghdad. Reuters reports that an attempted kidnapping of "the owner of a currency exchange shop" in Baghdad resulted in the death of "[t]wo bystanders" and two more wounded.
Corpses?
Reuters reports four corpses were discovered in Suwayra. Reuters also notes that Safaa Ismail Inad's corpse was discovered ("journalist at al-Watan Newspaper") in Baghdad.
In peace news, Cindy Sheehan (Common Dreams) advises: "Don't wait until the creeping militarism and budding fascism of the Bush State comes knocking at your door for one of your loved ones. It will happen unless we stand up and say 'no' with our loudest and most annoying voices" and urges people to take part in Camp Democracy which is ongoing in Washington, DC and free and open to the public.
Ann Wright (Scoop) writes of the genesis for the Camp (from Camp Casey to Camp Democracy): "Since we were in Bush's backyard in Crawford, why not bring our concerns on the direction of America and the need to use and preserve our democracy to the backyard (or frontyard) of Bush in the White House and to other government officials and lawmakers? Well, that's what Camp Democracy is doing right now. Every day concerned Americans are coming to Camp Democracy to think, listen, and act on important concerns."
Today's events included The Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration release of their verdict: GUILTY: "The panel of jurists consisted of Adjoa A. Aiyetoro, William H. Bowen School of Law, Little Rock; former executive director, National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL). Dennis Brutus, former prisoner, Robben Island (South Africa), poet, professor emeritus, University of Pittsburgh. Abdeen Jabara, former president, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Ajamu Sankofa, former executive director, Physicians for Social Responsibility-NY. Ann Wright, former US diplomat and retired US Army Reserve Colonel."
Tomorrow's events include peace and election education with Danny Schechter scheduled to be among the participants with a screening of his documentary WMD: Weapons of Mass Deceptions. And on Sunday, Camp Democracy will host a number of events and the theme will be Impeachment Day. Among those participating: Elizabeth Holtzman, Michael Avery, Ray McGovern, David Green, John Nichols, Marcus Raskin, Elizabeth De La Vega, Dave Lindorff, David Swanson, Jennifer Van Bergen, Geoff King, David Waldman, Dan DeWalt, Steve Cobble, Anthony St. Martin, Cindy Bogard, Mubarak Awad, Susan Crane, Frank Anderson. The camp has daily activities and admission is free. A complete schedule can be found here.
In election, John Nichols (The Nation) examines the primary win of Keith Ellison in Minnesota: "The Ellison victory was one of several for anti-war Democrats seeking open seats. Others came in in New York, where City Council member Yvette Clarke won a fierce fight for a Brooklyn seat once held by Shirley Chisholm, and in Maryland, where John Sarbanes, the son of retiring Senator Paul Sarbanes, led in a crowded House race. In Maryland's highest-profile race, however, former NAACP head Kweisi Mfume, who was outspoken in his opposition to the war, lost to the decidely more cautious Representative Ben Cardin by a 46-38 margin."
Calling dissent "patriotic," and accusing U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman of pushing President Bush's agenda, Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Ned Lamont Wednesday called for more forces in Afghanistan and a set timeline to pull out troops from Iraq, in a major foreign policy address delivered at Yale Law School.
Lamont's speech came in a week during which both Lamont and Lieberman are establishing their positions on Iraq (and surrounding themselves with war veterans) as campaigning resumes in earnest for their Nov. 7 rematch. Lamont defeated three-term incumbent Lieberman in an Aug. 8 Democratic primary; now Lieberman is running as a third-party candidate on the newly-formed "Connecticut for Lieberman" line. Lieberman is expected to deliver his own address on Iraq -- the issue that as much as any helped lead to his primary loss; Lieberman has been President Bush's most prominent Democratic defender of the war.
Lamont Wednesday railed against Bush and his supporters for denying the need to "change the course" and withdraw from a "dangerously wrong" war in Iraq.
connecticut for lieberman? from everything i'm hearing from my mother-in-law, no-mentum needs to pack it in. there is just so much animosity to him. my mother-in-law also reports that she's reminding every 1 that, in lieu of gifts, fly boy and i had asked that they vote for real change in conn.
you do realize that lieberman's up for election in 2006, right? what that means? this wasn't john kerry or john edwards in 2004, running on the presidential ticket and also running for the senate. john edwards gave up his seat. john kerry wasn't up for election. joe lieberman ran as the dem's vice presidential nominee in 2000 and as a senate candidate.
that's 'ol safety joe, always hedging his bets. he can't be bold, he can only suck up and cover his own ass.
i'll also note that brady's got another neighborhood poll that will be in the gina & krista round-robin. he went door to door in his neighborhood (i believe he had help) and he's written it up for the round-robin that comes out friday. fly boy's also got a thing running (photos) so look for that too.
another thing to watch for is this sunday's the third estate sunday review. i have no hints on what ava and c.i. will be reviewing this week (i don't think they've even decided, c.i.'s been pretty sick most of the week) but dona passed on a 'short entry' and i was laughing and asking who had the original idea on it? turns out it was c.i. which surprised me for about 1/2 a second (it's in relation to the thing that pissed kat and so many of us off) but then i remembered c.i.'s humor. there was this dopey professor we had once, in college, and he made some remark like, after c.i. had reduced the class to laughter, 'you have such a sharp with' and c.i. shot back, 'yes, and some feel the blade a little more closely than others.' i've totally ruined the story but that's the gist of it.
thank you to c.i., by the way, for thanking me for the visuals at third. i just played with them some. and i knew every 1 was tired. the way it went last weekend was everyone was supposed to get some sleep and we'd start early (my time it was 3 o'clock) but they ended up working on the visuals and having a lot of fun and they also did some pre-work as well. they are working on more visuals for this weekend. they're also doing other things. mike and i were talking about the 'magazine dump' we both received today. they're magazines that we don't normally read and it's to get us away from the usual thought patterns. this is not 'required reading,' just something to pick up, if you have the time, and browse through. i think it's good to shake things up.
as you'll see in the snapshot below, camp democracy is holding an impeachment day this sunday. with that in mind, here's peter dyer's "Review of 'Case for Impeachment":'
Even though in the United States there is a fast-growing grassroots movement to impeach President Bush there has been predictably little response in the Republican-controlled Congress. If, however, the Democrats gain control of Congress as a result of the November midterm elections, a congressional impeachment effort will become considerably more likely.
David Lindorff, author and prominent investigative journalist, and Barbara Olshanksy, attorney and deputy director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, have written a book which could show the way: "The Case for Impeachment: the Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office." (Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press, New York) The authors' purpose is "to try to lay out for examination the vast range of presidential crimes, abuses of power, and threats to the Constitution and to the Republic"
The authors have collected and documented in methodical and convincing detail some of the President's most prominent impeachable offenses: lying to start an illegal war; the arrest and detention without charge of American citizens; violation of international treaties including the Geneva Conventions and the conventions against torture; willfully ignoring or violating acts of Congress by issuing hundreds of "signing statements"; violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and others.
now here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Wednesday, September 13, 2006 and chaos and violence continue in Iraq claiming the lives of at least 39 Iraqis (AP), occupation puppet Nouri al-Maliki continues his Tehran visit, the US military announces two deaths (one soldier died Monday, the other Tuesday), United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Anan tells some hard truths, and Camp Democracy continues in Iraq.
As reported by CNN yesterday, at least 60 corpses were discovered in Baghdad on Tuesday. The BBC reports: "They were found all over the city, from Sunni areas in the west to Shia districts in the east -- but most were found in largely Sunni west Baghdad. Secretarin killings are not unusal in the city but this is a large number for oen day, a BBC corrspondent says." Reuters reminds of the UN estimate in July (100 people killed each day in Iraq from violence) and notes that "[m]orgue officials" have stopped providing figures. CBS corrspondent Pete Gow provides an audio report here that calls into question the 'success' of the 'crackdown' that's been going on in Baghdad since June. CNN also raises questions about the 'crackdown' and notes: "On Monday, the U.S. Command acknowledged that its [own] report of a dramatic drop in murders in Baghdad last month did not include people killed by bombs, mortars, rockets or other mass attacks, The Associated Press reported. The count only included victims of drive-by shootings and those killed by torture and execution."
Puppet of the occupation Nouri al-Maliki continued the second day of his visit to Tehran. Devika Bhat (Times of London) reports: "Yesterday, Washington reacted with caution to comments from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran that he would offer full support in restoring security to Iraq. . . . A member of Mr al-Maliki's Dawa party said . . . Today Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Iran's supereme leader, . . . [blamed] US troops for Iraq's misfortunes and [told] Mr al-Maliki that the way to end instability was for American forces to withdraw altogether." CNN quotes Kahmenei: "A major portion of Iraq's problems will be solved when the occupying forces leave that country, and that is why we desire and hope that occupiers leave Iraq."
Kahmenei's opinions are hardly surprising and, Nick Wadhams (AP) reports, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, declared today "that most leaders in the Middle East believe the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and its aftermath" is "a real disaster". Annan: "Most of the leaders I spoke to felt the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath has been a real disaster for them. They believe it has destabilized the region."
So it's also not surprising that the AP reports "a resolution setting a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops" managed to get 104 members of the 275 member Iraqi parliament "before [it] was effectively sheleved by being sent to a committe for review."
In the United States, as Robert Knight noted on KPFA's Flashpoints yesterday, the Government Accountability Office issued a report on Monday that also recommended Congress members ask themselves several questions such as:
-- What political, economic and security conditions must be acheived before the United States can draw down and withdraw military forces from Iraq?
-- Why have security conditions continued to worsen even as Iraq has met political milestones, increased the number of trained and equipped forces and increasingly assumed the lead for security?
Drew Brown (McClatchy Newspapers) reports on the findings and notes: "Though the Bush administration has hailed each political milestone in Iraq as another step on the march to freedom, the report cited a Defense Intelligence Agency finding that 'the December 2005 elections appeared to heighten sectarian tensions and polarize sectarian divides'."
The AFP reports that the US military "announced the deaths of two of its servicemen, taking its total losses in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 2,670, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures. A soldier was killed on Tuesday, south of Baghdad, while another died of wounds on Monday in the western Al-Anbar province, the military said."
Al-Anbar? On Monday, Thomas E. Ricks (Washington Post) reported on the assessment of Col. Pete Develin, "chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq,"
that "prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there". Today, Ricks reports that Marine Maj. Gen. Richard C. Zilmer "agrees with the findings of a pessimistic classified report recently filed by his top intelligence officer but also insisted that 'tremendous progress' is being made in that part of the country." Ricks also notes: "According to several Defense Department officials who have read the report, Devlin also argued that the lack of political progress has crated a political vacuum in the province."
And as the war drags on . . .
Bombings?
In Baghdad, as reported by Amit R. Paley (Washington Post), "a car bomb exploeded near an indoor stadium" killing and injuring a number of people and then, as people came forward to help, "another bomb detonated". CNN puts the toll at 14 dead and 67 wounded. AP later raised the death toll to 19 and noted "[b]ut the U.S. military reported the death toll at 15 killed and 25 wounded, and said the blast was caused by two car bombs."
Also in Baghdad, Reuters reports a car bomb that was aimed at "police protecting an electricity distribution plant [which] killed eight people and wounded 19." The AP reports that the U.S. military states the bomb ended up "killing at least 12 people and wounding 34."
Still in Baghdad, Al Jazeera notes two separate mortar attacks the claimed one life (police officer) and left six wounded. Reuters reports that mortar attacks wounded four in Samawa. Back to Baghdad, Demka Bhat (Times of London) reports a mortar attack that killed "[a] further two police" officers.
Shootings?
AP reports that, in Falluja, "two pedistrians were killed and two others injured apparently in the crossfire between U.S. troops and unidentified gunmen" and that a man in his car was shot dead in Baghdad. Reuters reports that an attempted kidnapping of "the owner of a currency exchange shop" in Baghdad resulted in the death of "[t]wo bystanders" and two more wounded.
Corpses?
Reuters reports four corpses were discovered in Suwayra. Reuters also notes that Safaa Ismail Inad's corpse was discovered ("journalist at al-Watan Newspaper") in Baghdad.
In peace news, Cindy Sheehan (Common Dreams) advises: "Don't wait until the creeping militarism and budding fascism of the Bush State comes knocking at your door for one of your loved ones. It will happen unless we stand up and say 'no' with our loudest and most annoying voices" and urges people to take part in Camp Democracy which is ongoing in Washington, DC and free and open to the public.
Ann Wright (Scoop) writes of the genesis for the Camp (from Camp Casey to Camp Democracy): "Since we were in Bush's backyard in Crawford, why not bring our concerns on the direction of America and the need to use and preserve our democracy to the backyard (or frontyard) of Bush in the White House and to other government officials and lawmakers? Well, that's what Camp Democracy is doing right now. Every day concerned Americans are coming to Camp Democracy to think, listen, and act on important concerns."
Today's events included The Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration release of their verdict: GUILTY: "The panel of jurists consisted of Adjoa A. Aiyetoro, William H. Bowen School of Law, Little Rock; former executive director, National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL). Dennis Brutus, former prisoner, Robben Island (South Africa), poet, professor emeritus, University of Pittsburgh. Abdeen Jabara, former president, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Ajamu Sankofa, former executive director, Physicians for Social Responsibility-NY. Ann Wright, former US diplomat and retired US Army Reserve Colonel."
Tomorrow's events include peace and election education with Danny Schechter scheduled to be among the participants with a screening of his documentary WMD: Weapons of Mass Deceptions. And on Sunday, Camp Democracy will host a number of events and the theme will be Impeachment Day. Among those participating: Elizabeth Holtzman, Michael Avery, Ray McGovern, David Green, John Nichols, Marcus Raskin, Elizabeth De La Vega, Dave Lindorff, David Swanson, Jennifer Van Bergen, Geoff King, David Waldman, Dan DeWalt, Steve Cobble, Anthony St. Martin, Cindy Bogard, Mubarak Awad, Susan Crane, Frank Anderson. The camp has daily activities and admission is free. A complete schedule can be found here.
In election, John Nichols (The Nation) examines the primary win of Keith Ellison in Minnesota: "The Ellison victory was one of several for anti-war Democrats seeking open seats. Others came in in New York, where City Council member Yvette Clarke won a fierce fight for a Brooklyn seat once held by Shirley Chisholm, and in Maryland, where John Sarbanes, the son of retiring Senator Paul Sarbanes, led in a crowded House race. In Maryland's highest-profile race, however, former NAACP head Kweisi Mfume, who was outspoken in his opposition to the war, lost to the decidely more cautious Representative Ben Cardin by a 46-38 margin."
9/12/2006
matthew rothschild joins the cast of fashion house
ask me what i'm watching? fashion house. it is just as hideous as ava and c.i. said. but that mike begovich, what a hottie. fly boy thought their review was hilarious and had set up the tivo so we'd get the show while we were gone. (we stayed with mike, trina, et al last night after their party.) i fell asleep on the way home and woke up as we were pulling up to the house. i told fly boy i didn't think i had the energy to take off my make up let alone blog tonight and he told me to wait a 2nd until we were inside. we got inside and he said, 'sit on the couch.' i said 'i'm not in the mood for sports.' but that wasn't what he wanted me to see.
so i opened up the laptop after about 20 minutes of non-stop laughing. bo derek is hideous. she really does recline (not sit) and throw her legs everywhere. maria gianna? does that sound like a character the oh-so-blonde bo could play (presuming she could act)?
she is so awful proving, yet again, that republicans who can act and/or be creative are the exception not the rule. i get the barbara eden comparison ava and c.i. made as well. with bo's hair, you really do tend to think of barbara eden. (i think it's the bangs.)
she says every line the same. she poses uncomfortably (probably because she's not used to posing in clothes). she is the year's worst actress.
but, on the up, check it out for the hottie mike begoich. how hot is he? so hot that fly boy said 'he's not all that.' well, he's not fly boy but for those who can't have fly boy, he's something to get excited about.
if you missed it, matthew rothschild felt the need to weigh in on the 9-11 truth movement because, he assumes, the whole world has been waiting for his two cents. (we're still waiting for thoughts worth even two cents.) kat's written about it in 'Enough of the Mindless Blather, Already' which i strongly recommend you read. i actually heard about that this afternoon when i went to visit t. she'd read it and was furious. t's beliefs are that terrorists hijacked the airplanes so when she was talking to me and so angry, i had to stop her and ask her what had her so bothered? it was his 'pompous' attitude. later, ty called me and read it to me over the phone and i saw just what she meant. he does sound very pompous.
since it's not a topic he's ever written on before, why he feels the need to commemorate 9-11 with his hate speech is beyond me. that's what it is, hate speech. why do i say that? because he's just so hateful in that.
in his position (and with the magazine always in need of money) he really can't afford to offend people by being so nasty. maybe he has other funding lined up? i think he sounded like a kook who was off his meds. and what a way to commemorate 9-11, no? by having a hissy fit at the truth movement. yeah, that's where to target your 'progressive' anger.
about that term, i identify as 'the left' - i don't use the term 'progressive' which always sounded to me like a laxitive. it's the new coke of lables, i know, but i never drank new coke either.
it's a sort of watered down word that really means nothing. had to stop writing because fly boy asked me what was going on with the left side of bo derek's face? i have no idea but she's got this bulge under her left cheeck at certain angles. it's like someone hurled a piece of chicken fat at her and it stuck.
fly boy just reminded me to check to see if i had any links to the progressive? i don't. i was pretty sure i didn't. if i had them on my blogroll i'd pull them.
you know what i think? i think matthew rothschild's been watching fashion house and wanted to pretend he was bo derek!
it's the only thing that makes any sense. why else would an otherwise menschy guy go decided he wanted to come off sounding like a nut job? (ruth will let me know if i've used the wrong yiddish word.) but it's good to know that with everything going on in the world, matthew rothschild will always go after the 'real' enemies, isn't it?
isn't that good to know. because surely it's the 9-11 truth movement that is at the heart of all today's problems. they have resorted to warrantless wiretapping and started an illegal war on iraq and ... what's that? oh, you're right, they did none of that. so why he felt the need to show his ass is anyone's guess. but there it is and, surprisingly, it's not cute.
it's just another chubby, middle aged ass, got a little more hair on it than i would have expected, jiggles quite a bit more (with rage, mind you) then i would have guessed.
it's kind of sad and depressing. which reminds me, he never wrote about the fact that the u.s. military was keeping a bodycount on iraqis who died. i spoke to my grandmother on the phone for a 1/2 hour today and she asked if i noticed how many people who refused to cover that (when it was news back in june) now try to slip it in and act like they've covered it before? my grams said people must hear it and think, 'what? what are they talking about? why didn't i hear about this? did i sleep through this summer?' no. independent media slept through the summer. so maybe matthew rothschild should be the last 1 slamming anyone who's dedicated to a cause?
if the whole thing has left you depressed and you need a pick me up, i suggest a joint post, cedric [Alberto Gonzales' big night (humor)'] and wally ('THIS JUST IN! ALBERTO GONZALES DOESN'T THINK CHRISTMAS IS SO HOT!') have teamed up again for another 1 of their hilarious posts.
after your chuckles, when you're ready to sink yourself into some commentary about iraq, don't go looking for matthew rothschild (who probably hasn't recovered yet from his tantrum), just check out c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Tuesday, September 12, 2006 chaos and violence continue in Iraq with AFP estimating that at least 27 Iraqis were reported dead today, in the United States the divider shows his ugly/only face again, CODEPINK asks that you Give Peace a Vote,
In the United States, Bully Boy is coming under fire for a speech given Monday night in front of photos of his twin daughters who were apparently supposed to represent Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Speaking to the nation in a nineteen minute pitch during the second night of ABC's VOTE GOP! infomercial, Bully Boy attempted to sell his illegal war on the shaky grounds that "I know I said it would make things worse not to invade and I was wrong, but it will make things worse to leave, forget that I was wrong before."
Using his circular illogic in his seventeen minute pitch, as the AP notes, "most of his 17-minute speech was devoted to justifying his foreign policy since that day. With his party’s control of Congress at stake in elections less than two months away, Bush suggested that political opponents who are calling for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq would be giving victory to the terrorists."
Sounding like Ike Turner (or any other abusive husband), Bully Boy looked a nation of soul-surviving Tina Turners in the face and dared to offer, "Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be" to leave.
Leave it to David Stout (New Yokr Times) to play Ben Fong-Torres, embrace the tawdry and notice nothing while concluding, "Democrats have long accused Mr. Bush and his top aides of disingenuously implying a link between the Iraq of Saddam Huessien and the 9/11 attacks."
To clarify for Stout and other would be Fong-Torreses, the two latest sections of the
Senate Intel Report (released Friday) once again found no link, none, between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda -- no links, none, between Saddam Hussein and 9-11.
On the fifth anniversary of 9-11, in the midst of a myth-series, Bully Boy elects to address the nation in some sort of effort to offer Frito Pie for the Soul and he is yet again spending "most of his time," talking about? Iraq.
It's not reporting. It's saying that Democrats called heads in the coin toss and now Democrats charge that they won the coin toss without ever noting the fact that, yes, heads won. [David Corn (The Nation) addresses Dick Cheney's only loose grasp of reality regarding the fact that there is no link.]
Among those Democrats rightly calling the Bully Boy out on his continued and false linkage of 9-11 and Iraq are US Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Reid spoke of 9-11 on Monday at the Palo Verde High School in Las Vegas and nowhere in the nineteen lines did he seek to slam Americans or cite Iraq. Pelosi's sixteen line statement on Monday also failed to politicize the anniversary. By contrast, the Bully Boy offered 31 lines that directly brought Iraq, which, again, has nothing to do with 9-11, into the anniversary.
Even a he-said/she-said press could point out that obvious fact. Possibly all the time spent on Iraq prevented the Bully Boy from noting the obvious, which Greg Palast has,
"It's been five years and the Bush regime has not done that. Instead, the War on Terror is reduced to taking off our shoes in airports, hoping we can bomb Muslims into loving America and chasing journalists around the bayou. Meanwhile, King Abdullah, the Gambino of oil, whose princelings funded the murderers, gets a free ride in the President's golf cart at the Crawford ranch." No word on what's preventing the so-called mainstream press for noting that reality on the fifth anniversary of 9-11. An earlier BBC News Night report by Palast on the Bully Boy's blocking bin Laden probes can be viewed here.
Bully Boy did get one thing right in his Monday speech: "America did not ask for this war". No, but the administration did and resorted to lies, then and now, to have their request granted and continued.
In other "I can't believe it's not butter moment"s, Reuters reports that Richard Zilmer (Marine Major General in Iraq) declared from Baghdad, outside the al Anbar Province, that the Marines have not lost the province. Citing unspecified "areas," citing them from Baghdad, outside the al Anbar Province, Zilmer stated all was going swimmingly in some "areas" -- unspecified areas. Reuters notes: "The statement did not indicate which parts of the province he believed had effective local government." Prepare for tomorrow's audio-visual presentation where Zilmer, using a projection screen and pointer demonstrates that he can find the province on a map so, therefore, it has not been lost.
Zilmer was attempting to spin Thomas E. Rick's (Washington Post) Monday report of Marine Col. Pete Devlin's assesment that "that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there, said several military officers and intelligence officials familiar with its contents."
The violence and chaos continues throughout Iraq.
Bombings?
CNN reports six dead in Baghdad when "a car bomb exploded at a busy shopping district" and that fifteen were left wounded. AFP notes that a police officer and a civilian were killed by a roadside bomb "near Baghdad's University of Technology" and left seven more wounded, while, in Abu Sayda, a bomb took the life of "Brigadier General Ali Hassan Jubur, head of operations in Muqdadiyah's police headquarters" and the deaths from roadside bombings of a police officer (in Samarra) and an Iraqi soldier (in Kirkuk). CBS and AP report a bombing in Middadiyah resulted in at least 4 dead and 24 wounded (and that the same location resulted in gunfire Monday night leaving seven dead). Reuters reports that, in Kirkuk, a roadside bomb wounded Kassem al-Bayati and that three other roadside bombs in Baghdad left at least eight Iraqis wounded.
Shootings?
KUNA reports that, in Mosul, Iraqi police captain Ziad Ramzi was shot dead and, in a separate attack, four other people were shot dead. Reuters reports that they were four family members and that a fifth was wounded. CNN reports that a police officer was shot dead in Baghdad ("outside his house"). Reuters reports: "Dolonel Abbas al-Nuaimi was gunned down Monday outside a jail in Hindiya" while "in police custody" to stand "trial for crimes committed during Saddam Hussein's rule."
Corpses?
CNN reports that 60 corpses were discovered around Iraq and one severed head carried the message: "This is the fate of those who deal with the U.S. forces." AFP reports three corpses were discovered in the Diyala province. Remember that discovered corpses never make the media's daily tabulation of the death toll.
On the issue of corpses, CNN reports: "Of the bodies taken to the morgue last month, 90 percent had been shot, the official said. The other 10 percent were killed by other means, such as torture, beheading and stabbing, the official said. The official noted that the morgue figures do not include most bombing victims, as that number is calculated separately."
CBS and AP report that Sunnis in the parliament are attempting "to work together to prevent" a bill that would turn the occupied nation into a federation "from being implemented without changes." This as puppet of the occupation is once again out of the country. CNN notes that Nouri al-Maliki is in Tehran establishing relations with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran. As the BBC notes, al-Maliki "lived in Iran during the 1980s" and he will be meeting "Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, on Wednesday."
In peace news, Camp Democracy continues in Washington, DC. Today's events focus on the environmental crisis caused by global warming and this evening Mark Karlin (the editor and publisher of BuzzFlash) will be presenting. Tomorrow is verdict day and Ann Wright and Ray McGovern are among the scheduled participants of the Bush Crimes Commission and World Can't Wait sponsored events. While on Thursday, Danny Schechter is scheduled to be among the participants with a screening of his documentary WMD: Weapons of Mass Deceptions. On Sunday, Camp Democracy will host a number of events and the theme will be Impeachment Day. Among those participating: Elizabeth Holtzman, Michael Avery, Ray McGovern, David Green, John Nichols, Marcus Raskin, Elizabeth De La Vega, Dave Lindorff, David Swanson, Jennifer Van Bergen, Geoff King, David Waldman, Dan DeWalt, Steve Cobble, Anthony St. Martin, Cindy Bogard, Mubarak Awad, Susan Crane, Frank Anderson. The camp has daily activities and admission is free. A complete schedule can be found here.
Events are scheduled through September 21st, the same day that CODEPINK's Troops Home Fast concludes. Troops Home Fast is currently on day 69 with at least 5023 people participating. CODEPINK is also promoting Give Peace a Vote (Medea Benjamin: "Part of a coalition effort of Voters for Peace designed to create a strong anti-war voting bloc, the petition asks people to pledge that they will only vote for candidates who support a speedy withdrawal from Iraq and no future wars of aggression.") which over 14,000 people have currently pledged to support.
Writing in The Nation, John Nichols reminds Americans to watch the results of the primaries today and zooms in on the Maryland Congressional race John Sarbanes is running in. (He also notes other races.)
Meanwhile, in Australia, Dan Box (The Australian) reports that the government wants to up the army from 2,600 to 30,000 ("its biggest intake since the Vietnam war") and that this comes while there seems to be no accountability for officers as evidenced by the abuse of Charles Williams and the hearing into the April 21st Baghdad death of Jake Kovco ("Last week, the family of Private Jake Kovco accused a military board of inquiry into his death of being a 'face-saving exercise' to protect officers.").
iraqcamp democracy
the washington postthomas e. ricks
david corn
codepinktroops home fast
medea benjamin
buzzflash
camp democracy
danny schechter
john nichols
so i opened up the laptop after about 20 minutes of non-stop laughing. bo derek is hideous. she really does recline (not sit) and throw her legs everywhere. maria gianna? does that sound like a character the oh-so-blonde bo could play (presuming she could act)?
she is so awful proving, yet again, that republicans who can act and/or be creative are the exception not the rule. i get the barbara eden comparison ava and c.i. made as well. with bo's hair, you really do tend to think of barbara eden. (i think it's the bangs.)
she says every line the same. she poses uncomfortably (probably because she's not used to posing in clothes). she is the year's worst actress.
but, on the up, check it out for the hottie mike begoich. how hot is he? so hot that fly boy said 'he's not all that.' well, he's not fly boy but for those who can't have fly boy, he's something to get excited about.
if you missed it, matthew rothschild felt the need to weigh in on the 9-11 truth movement because, he assumes, the whole world has been waiting for his two cents. (we're still waiting for thoughts worth even two cents.) kat's written about it in 'Enough of the Mindless Blather, Already' which i strongly recommend you read. i actually heard about that this afternoon when i went to visit t. she'd read it and was furious. t's beliefs are that terrorists hijacked the airplanes so when she was talking to me and so angry, i had to stop her and ask her what had her so bothered? it was his 'pompous' attitude. later, ty called me and read it to me over the phone and i saw just what she meant. he does sound very pompous.
since it's not a topic he's ever written on before, why he feels the need to commemorate 9-11 with his hate speech is beyond me. that's what it is, hate speech. why do i say that? because he's just so hateful in that.
in his position (and with the magazine always in need of money) he really can't afford to offend people by being so nasty. maybe he has other funding lined up? i think he sounded like a kook who was off his meds. and what a way to commemorate 9-11, no? by having a hissy fit at the truth movement. yeah, that's where to target your 'progressive' anger.
about that term, i identify as 'the left' - i don't use the term 'progressive' which always sounded to me like a laxitive. it's the new coke of lables, i know, but i never drank new coke either.
it's a sort of watered down word that really means nothing. had to stop writing because fly boy asked me what was going on with the left side of bo derek's face? i have no idea but she's got this bulge under her left cheeck at certain angles. it's like someone hurled a piece of chicken fat at her and it stuck.
fly boy just reminded me to check to see if i had any links to the progressive? i don't. i was pretty sure i didn't. if i had them on my blogroll i'd pull them.
you know what i think? i think matthew rothschild's been watching fashion house and wanted to pretend he was bo derek!
it's the only thing that makes any sense. why else would an otherwise menschy guy go decided he wanted to come off sounding like a nut job? (ruth will let me know if i've used the wrong yiddish word.) but it's good to know that with everything going on in the world, matthew rothschild will always go after the 'real' enemies, isn't it?
isn't that good to know. because surely it's the 9-11 truth movement that is at the heart of all today's problems. they have resorted to warrantless wiretapping and started an illegal war on iraq and ... what's that? oh, you're right, they did none of that. so why he felt the need to show his ass is anyone's guess. but there it is and, surprisingly, it's not cute.
it's just another chubby, middle aged ass, got a little more hair on it than i would have expected, jiggles quite a bit more (with rage, mind you) then i would have guessed.
it's kind of sad and depressing. which reminds me, he never wrote about the fact that the u.s. military was keeping a bodycount on iraqis who died. i spoke to my grandmother on the phone for a 1/2 hour today and she asked if i noticed how many people who refused to cover that (when it was news back in june) now try to slip it in and act like they've covered it before? my grams said people must hear it and think, 'what? what are they talking about? why didn't i hear about this? did i sleep through this summer?' no. independent media slept through the summer. so maybe matthew rothschild should be the last 1 slamming anyone who's dedicated to a cause?
if the whole thing has left you depressed and you need a pick me up, i suggest a joint post, cedric [Alberto Gonzales' big night (humor)'] and wally ('THIS JUST IN! ALBERTO GONZALES DOESN'T THINK CHRISTMAS IS SO HOT!') have teamed up again for another 1 of their hilarious posts.
after your chuckles, when you're ready to sink yourself into some commentary about iraq, don't go looking for matthew rothschild (who probably hasn't recovered yet from his tantrum), just check out c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Tuesday, September 12, 2006 chaos and violence continue in Iraq with AFP estimating that at least 27 Iraqis were reported dead today, in the United States the divider shows his ugly/only face again, CODEPINK asks that you Give Peace a Vote,
In the United States, Bully Boy is coming under fire for a speech given Monday night in front of photos of his twin daughters who were apparently supposed to represent Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Speaking to the nation in a nineteen minute pitch during the second night of ABC's VOTE GOP! infomercial, Bully Boy attempted to sell his illegal war on the shaky grounds that "I know I said it would make things worse not to invade and I was wrong, but it will make things worse to leave, forget that I was wrong before."
Using his circular illogic in his seventeen minute pitch, as the AP notes, "most of his 17-minute speech was devoted to justifying his foreign policy since that day. With his party’s control of Congress at stake in elections less than two months away, Bush suggested that political opponents who are calling for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq would be giving victory to the terrorists."
Sounding like Ike Turner (or any other abusive husband), Bully Boy looked a nation of soul-surviving Tina Turners in the face and dared to offer, "Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be" to leave.
Leave it to David Stout (New Yokr Times) to play Ben Fong-Torres, embrace the tawdry and notice nothing while concluding, "Democrats have long accused Mr. Bush and his top aides of disingenuously implying a link between the Iraq of Saddam Huessien and the 9/11 attacks."
To clarify for Stout and other would be Fong-Torreses, the two latest sections of the
Senate Intel Report (released Friday) once again found no link, none, between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda -- no links, none, between Saddam Hussein and 9-11.
On the fifth anniversary of 9-11, in the midst of a myth-series, Bully Boy elects to address the nation in some sort of effort to offer Frito Pie for the Soul and he is yet again spending "most of his time," talking about? Iraq.
It's not reporting. It's saying that Democrats called heads in the coin toss and now Democrats charge that they won the coin toss without ever noting the fact that, yes, heads won. [David Corn (The Nation) addresses Dick Cheney's only loose grasp of reality regarding the fact that there is no link.]
Among those Democrats rightly calling the Bully Boy out on his continued and false linkage of 9-11 and Iraq are US Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Reid spoke of 9-11 on Monday at the Palo Verde High School in Las Vegas and nowhere in the nineteen lines did he seek to slam Americans or cite Iraq. Pelosi's sixteen line statement on Monday also failed to politicize the anniversary. By contrast, the Bully Boy offered 31 lines that directly brought Iraq, which, again, has nothing to do with 9-11, into the anniversary.
Even a he-said/she-said press could point out that obvious fact. Possibly all the time spent on Iraq prevented the Bully Boy from noting the obvious, which Greg Palast has,
"It's been five years and the Bush regime has not done that. Instead, the War on Terror is reduced to taking off our shoes in airports, hoping we can bomb Muslims into loving America and chasing journalists around the bayou. Meanwhile, King Abdullah, the Gambino of oil, whose princelings funded the murderers, gets a free ride in the President's golf cart at the Crawford ranch." No word on what's preventing the so-called mainstream press for noting that reality on the fifth anniversary of 9-11. An earlier BBC News Night report by Palast on the Bully Boy's blocking bin Laden probes can be viewed here.
Bully Boy did get one thing right in his Monday speech: "America did not ask for this war". No, but the administration did and resorted to lies, then and now, to have their request granted and continued.
In other "I can't believe it's not butter moment"s, Reuters reports that Richard Zilmer (Marine Major General in Iraq) declared from Baghdad, outside the al Anbar Province, that the Marines have not lost the province. Citing unspecified "areas," citing them from Baghdad, outside the al Anbar Province, Zilmer stated all was going swimmingly in some "areas" -- unspecified areas. Reuters notes: "The statement did not indicate which parts of the province he believed had effective local government." Prepare for tomorrow's audio-visual presentation where Zilmer, using a projection screen and pointer demonstrates that he can find the province on a map so, therefore, it has not been lost.
Zilmer was attempting to spin Thomas E. Rick's (Washington Post) Monday report of Marine Col. Pete Devlin's assesment that "that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there, said several military officers and intelligence officials familiar with its contents."
The violence and chaos continues throughout Iraq.
Bombings?
CNN reports six dead in Baghdad when "a car bomb exploded at a busy shopping district" and that fifteen were left wounded. AFP notes that a police officer and a civilian were killed by a roadside bomb "near Baghdad's University of Technology" and left seven more wounded, while, in Abu Sayda, a bomb took the life of "Brigadier General Ali Hassan Jubur, head of operations in Muqdadiyah's police headquarters" and the deaths from roadside bombings of a police officer (in Samarra) and an Iraqi soldier (in Kirkuk). CBS and AP report a bombing in Middadiyah resulted in at least 4 dead and 24 wounded (and that the same location resulted in gunfire Monday night leaving seven dead). Reuters reports that, in Kirkuk, a roadside bomb wounded Kassem al-Bayati and that three other roadside bombs in Baghdad left at least eight Iraqis wounded.
Shootings?
KUNA reports that, in Mosul, Iraqi police captain Ziad Ramzi was shot dead and, in a separate attack, four other people were shot dead. Reuters reports that they were four family members and that a fifth was wounded. CNN reports that a police officer was shot dead in Baghdad ("outside his house"). Reuters reports: "Dolonel Abbas al-Nuaimi was gunned down Monday outside a jail in Hindiya" while "in police custody" to stand "trial for crimes committed during Saddam Hussein's rule."
Corpses?
CNN reports that 60 corpses were discovered around Iraq and one severed head carried the message: "This is the fate of those who deal with the U.S. forces." AFP reports three corpses were discovered in the Diyala province. Remember that discovered corpses never make the media's daily tabulation of the death toll.
On the issue of corpses, CNN reports: "Of the bodies taken to the morgue last month, 90 percent had been shot, the official said. The other 10 percent were killed by other means, such as torture, beheading and stabbing, the official said. The official noted that the morgue figures do not include most bombing victims, as that number is calculated separately."
CBS and AP report that Sunnis in the parliament are attempting "to work together to prevent" a bill that would turn the occupied nation into a federation "from being implemented without changes." This as puppet of the occupation is once again out of the country. CNN notes that Nouri al-Maliki is in Tehran establishing relations with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran. As the BBC notes, al-Maliki "lived in Iran during the 1980s" and he will be meeting "Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, on Wednesday."
In peace news, Camp Democracy continues in Washington, DC. Today's events focus on the environmental crisis caused by global warming and this evening Mark Karlin (the editor and publisher of BuzzFlash) will be presenting. Tomorrow is verdict day and Ann Wright and Ray McGovern are among the scheduled participants of the Bush Crimes Commission and World Can't Wait sponsored events. While on Thursday, Danny Schechter is scheduled to be among the participants with a screening of his documentary WMD: Weapons of Mass Deceptions. On Sunday, Camp Democracy will host a number of events and the theme will be Impeachment Day. Among those participating: Elizabeth Holtzman, Michael Avery, Ray McGovern, David Green, John Nichols, Marcus Raskin, Elizabeth De La Vega, Dave Lindorff, David Swanson, Jennifer Van Bergen, Geoff King, David Waldman, Dan DeWalt, Steve Cobble, Anthony St. Martin, Cindy Bogard, Mubarak Awad, Susan Crane, Frank Anderson. The camp has daily activities and admission is free. A complete schedule can be found here.
Events are scheduled through September 21st, the same day that CODEPINK's Troops Home Fast concludes. Troops Home Fast is currently on day 69 with at least 5023 people participating. CODEPINK is also promoting Give Peace a Vote (Medea Benjamin: "Part of a coalition effort of Voters for Peace designed to create a strong anti-war voting bloc, the petition asks people to pledge that they will only vote for candidates who support a speedy withdrawal from Iraq and no future wars of aggression.") which over 14,000 people have currently pledged to support.
Writing in The Nation, John Nichols reminds Americans to watch the results of the primaries today and zooms in on the Maryland Congressional race John Sarbanes is running in. (He also notes other races.)
Meanwhile, in Australia, Dan Box (The Australian) reports that the government wants to up the army from 2,600 to 30,000 ("its biggest intake since the Vietnam war") and that this comes while there seems to be no accountability for officers as evidenced by the abuse of Charles Williams and the hearing into the April 21st Baghdad death of Jake Kovco ("Last week, the family of Private Jake Kovco accused a military board of inquiry into his death of being a 'face-saving exercise' to protect officers.").
iraqcamp democracy
the washington postthomas e. ricks
david corn
codepinktroops home fast
medea benjamin
buzzflash
camp democracy
danny schechter
john nichols
morning
thanks to every 1 who e-mailed c.i. that my site wasn't showing up. (and also e-mailed me but i hadn't gone in to my e-mails this morning yet.) c.i. called and i did reindex and republish and that appears to have taken care of the problem.
i plan to blog later today but i see what wally meant when he said it was a ghost town at mike's. (or at trina's to give her a link as well -- trina is mike's mother.) you've got people coming over in the evening (lot of family members as well as some friends) and you've got every 1 rushing in the morning to get out the door, then you're left in an empty house and it's kind of weird. wally stayed here for a few weeks this summer and when i'd call or he'd e-mail, he'd say, 'it's a ghost town.' it really does feel like that when every 1's gone.
be sure and read jason leopold's 'Iraq and 9/11: The Truth Is Out:'
Two weeks before 9/11, national security wasn't even a top priority for the Bush administration. Job security and health security were the top two major issues Bush planned to deal with in the fall of 2001, according to a transcript of a speech Bush gave on August 31, 2001, to celebrate the launch of the White House's new web site.
But 9/11 gave the Bush administration the excuse they needed to execute a long-planned military strike against Iraq. President Bush and his cabinet duped Congress and the American people into believing the country had ties to al-Qaeda, and helped the terrorist organization plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon five years ago.
Now, lawmakers have finally released a report debunking those assertions. For a majority of Americans, that's now old news.
Yet forty percent of Americans are still under the impression that the Iraq war is directly linked to 9/11. A January 11, 2001, article in the New York Times, "Iraq Is Focal Point as Bush Meets With Joint Chiefs," should finally put an end to that debate and prove that the Iraq war was planned out just days after Bush was sworn into office.
"George W. Bush, the nation's commander in chief to be, went to the Pentagon today for a top-secret session with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to review hot spots around the world where he might have to send American forces into harm's way," reads the first paragraph of the Times article. Bush was joined at the Pentagon meeting by Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
The Times reported that "about half of the 75-minute meeting ... focused on a discussion about Iraq and the Persian Gulf, two participants said. Iraq was the first topic briefed because 'it's the most visible and most risky area' Mr. Bush will confront after he takes office, one senior officer said."
"Iraqi policy is very much on his mind," one senior Pentagon official told the Times. "Saddam was clearly a discussion point."
As early as January 2000, Rice was trying to sell a war with Iraq. It was then that she wrote an article for Foreign Affairs Magazine titled "Campaign 2000 - Promoting the National Interest," in which she advocates a policy of regime change in Iraq, but fails to mention threats from Islamic fundamentalist groups such as al-Qaeda.
that's a taste of it. sherry e-mailed it to me. you'll want to read it in full.
also, must read, c.i.'s 'NYT: Gordo ought to come in brown wrapper' but what about the paper cuts gordo would get on his thingie!
joking. it's a strong critique (no surprise) and also very funny (ditto) and on a day when c.i. feels like shit. i could tell on the phone (i couldn't yesterday) that c.i. was sick as a dog.
if i'm sick, i probably won't write. not even a 'i'm sick, sorry' post. (i wrote when i was miscarrying but i've miscarried enough to know the signs and, honestly, knowing there was nothing that could be done, i posted to get my mind off what was happening.)
i wish i had that kind of stamina or determination but i'm the lazy 1 of the bunch. perfect example, and then i'll post this, elaine. did you read her 'The fear' from early, early this morning? it's incredible and all the more so when traffic was hell. she left here fairly early last night and, even with bad traffic, should have been able to make it home at a reasonable time. instead, traffic was so heavy that it took her forever to get home. to do all that and then write something as beautiful as 'The fear' is rather amazing. i have some amazing friends - and still wait for their amazing gifts to rub off onto me.
i plan to blog later today but i see what wally meant when he said it was a ghost town at mike's. (or at trina's to give her a link as well -- trina is mike's mother.) you've got people coming over in the evening (lot of family members as well as some friends) and you've got every 1 rushing in the morning to get out the door, then you're left in an empty house and it's kind of weird. wally stayed here for a few weeks this summer and when i'd call or he'd e-mail, he'd say, 'it's a ghost town.' it really does feel like that when every 1's gone.
be sure and read jason leopold's 'Iraq and 9/11: The Truth Is Out:'
Two weeks before 9/11, national security wasn't even a top priority for the Bush administration. Job security and health security were the top two major issues Bush planned to deal with in the fall of 2001, according to a transcript of a speech Bush gave on August 31, 2001, to celebrate the launch of the White House's new web site.
But 9/11 gave the Bush administration the excuse they needed to execute a long-planned military strike against Iraq. President Bush and his cabinet duped Congress and the American people into believing the country had ties to al-Qaeda, and helped the terrorist organization plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon five years ago.
Now, lawmakers have finally released a report debunking those assertions. For a majority of Americans, that's now old news.
Yet forty percent of Americans are still under the impression that the Iraq war is directly linked to 9/11. A January 11, 2001, article in the New York Times, "Iraq Is Focal Point as Bush Meets With Joint Chiefs," should finally put an end to that debate and prove that the Iraq war was planned out just days after Bush was sworn into office.
"George W. Bush, the nation's commander in chief to be, went to the Pentagon today for a top-secret session with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to review hot spots around the world where he might have to send American forces into harm's way," reads the first paragraph of the Times article. Bush was joined at the Pentagon meeting by Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
The Times reported that "about half of the 75-minute meeting ... focused on a discussion about Iraq and the Persian Gulf, two participants said. Iraq was the first topic briefed because 'it's the most visible and most risky area' Mr. Bush will confront after he takes office, one senior officer said."
"Iraqi policy is very much on his mind," one senior Pentagon official told the Times. "Saddam was clearly a discussion point."
As early as January 2000, Rice was trying to sell a war with Iraq. It was then that she wrote an article for Foreign Affairs Magazine titled "Campaign 2000 - Promoting the National Interest," in which she advocates a policy of regime change in Iraq, but fails to mention threats from Islamic fundamentalist groups such as al-Qaeda.
that's a taste of it. sherry e-mailed it to me. you'll want to read it in full.
also, must read, c.i.'s 'NYT: Gordo ought to come in brown wrapper' but what about the paper cuts gordo would get on his thingie!
joking. it's a strong critique (no surprise) and also very funny (ditto) and on a day when c.i. feels like shit. i could tell on the phone (i couldn't yesterday) that c.i. was sick as a dog.
if i'm sick, i probably won't write. not even a 'i'm sick, sorry' post. (i wrote when i was miscarrying but i've miscarried enough to know the signs and, honestly, knowing there was nothing that could be done, i posted to get my mind off what was happening.)
i wish i had that kind of stamina or determination but i'm the lazy 1 of the bunch. perfect example, and then i'll post this, elaine. did you read her 'The fear' from early, early this morning? it's incredible and all the more so when traffic was hell. she left here fairly early last night and, even with bad traffic, should have been able to make it home at a reasonable time. instead, traffic was so heavy that it took her forever to get home. to do all that and then write something as beautiful as 'The fear' is rather amazing. i have some amazing friends - and still wait for their amazing gifts to rub off onto me.
9/11/2006
fairly quick post
let me urge you to check out trina's 'Mac & Cheese in the Kitchen' before i do anything else because she hosted a wonderful get together tonight (that's still ongoing and i'm in mike's room and we're both trying to get something up at our sites). i can make the recipe, by the way. that's because this weekend, trina talked me through it - which is really the only way i know i how to learn a recipe. if some 1 will talk me through in person or on the phone, i can get a recipe down quickly and make it from memory in the future with no problems; however, when i'm trying to cook from a cookbook and am on my own, i always screw it up. don't know if it's a case of not paying enough attention or just getting lost, but i always screw up a recipe if i try to make it from a cookbook (or clipping) on my own.
well abc, good whores for the aministration that they are, went through with airing their myth-series, with all innaccuries intact. from media matters' 'ABC retained fabricated scene showing Clinton officials aborting mission to capture Bin Laden:'
The first part of the ABC miniseries The Path to 9-11, which aired on September 10, included a fabricated scene that depicts Clinton administration officials declining to authorize the CIA to capture Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. ABC retained the controversial scene despite the fact that it is contradicted by the 9-11 Commission report -- which ABC originally cited as the film's basis (although following criticism of the film's numerous inconsistencies with the report, network officials have since minimized that claim) -- and has even been disputed in recent days by conservative media figures such as Richard Miniter.
The scene in question takes place in early 1998. CIA officers are positioned outside an isolated compound in Afghanistan known as Tarnak Farms. In league with Northern Alliance fighters, they are preparing a raid of the site after receiving visual confirmation in a prior scene that bin Laden is staying there. The lead CIA officer -- "Kirk" -- is awaiting authorization from a group of senior administration officials in Washington, including then-national security adviser Sandy Berger, then-CIA director George Tenet, and counterterrorism official Richard Clarke. When asked for approval, Berger tells his colleagues, "I don't have the authority." He claims he cannot call President Clinton "until we're all on the same page," then attempts to shift the responsibility to Tenet, telling him that "if he feels confident," he can request authorization from Clinton.
The scene ends without the Clinton officials taking any action. The film then cuts to Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud asking Kirk, "Are there any men in Washington? Or are they all cowards?"
But this depiction of the events surrounding the Tarnak Farms raid -- in which the Clinton administration simply abandons a certain opportunity to capture bin Laden -- is contradicted by the findings of the 9-11 Commission report. Indeed, the report describes Tenet as having aborted the mission weeks before the target date of June 23.
mike was cursing like crazy. some 1 or some thing flipped the breaker in his folks house. we lost our posts. the electricity is back on and i was able to recover my post right away but he had trouble with his.
by the way, i often highlight media matters but i'll be more selective in the future. normally, i go to the site, find something i like and post it. that's changed due to a new hire who will be starting soon. the cindy brady of the faux left is moving over to media matters and long before he was dubbed the cindy brady of the faux left ('From the Mixed-up Mind of Eric Alterman'), i'd noted his ignoring women. i don't need a lisping e-mail so he shouldn't bother to write. i've noted here many things including his repeating of false charges against gloria steinem in his hideous book, what liberal media. he spends a lot of time disproving right-wing slams and slanders - except when it comes to women. so his crap awful book repeats ann coulter's slanders against gloria steinem and some how he thinks he speaks for 'the left.' he speaks for himself and when not man-crushing or wet dreaming of bruce springsteen (in another plodding book) he's wrapping his mouth around some other male. women are left to fend for themselves. which is why he can repeat the lie that naomi wolf was offering fashion tips to the al gore 2000 presidential campaign.
i don't highlight sexists here. hopefully he'll just do his bad column and not effect anything else but the guy who will be the quickest to flip on the left (wait and see, he's a norman in waiting) will not be linked here. he's a little boy trying to prove his manliness with shout outs and praise to men and he not only allows slanders to stand against women, he repeats them. this has all been covered here before and we won't be linking to him.
we will however note his self-serving e-mail, noted by editor & publisher, which explains his firing kind of, sort of:
"Whether my termination is, in fact, a product of a political decision at GE/NBC, which according to reports I read and gossip I hear, has lately taken a much firmer hand in guiding the content of both MSNBC and MSNBC.com, I have no way of knowing.... It would surprise no one if this site caused some discomfort at 30 Rock, if and when they happen to notice it. But speculation is not the same thing as evidence, and the good folks MSNBC.com and GE/NBC can, I’m sure, give you good reasons why dumping Altercation is the right thing to do from a business standpoint-- though the natural speculation that arises is a damn good argument against the kind of media concentration that allows a company like GE to own NBC in the first place. "
'i have no way of knowing' but let me toss that out there anyway and even say i 'can give you good reasons why dumping altercation is the right thing to do from a business standpoint' - yeah, me too. it's tired, it's old and it only recognized the male 1/2 of the population. a little boy desperate to put on his jock strap and stand next to the men in the locker room. let's pretend his firing was a surprise for a 2nd and ask: why was he fired?
he writes he learned how many hits his page got in the last few days. maybe it was on the decline?
or (here's reality, as noted last month) maybe complaints to msnbc higher ups at the end of july and on through august registered? as it was pointed out at a social get together, there was nothing in his blog that's not in his writing at the huffington post and at the nation. and there was laughter over his sucking up to the new york times, brave little 'left' critic that he is ('we are the new york times!'). (yes, i did lead the laughter.) i know a number of people were tired of his scribbles which veered from 1 extreme to another. and i wasn't the only 1 complaining.
round-robin readers knew it was coming. his days were numbered the 2nd he pissed off some 1.
the little boy in the jock several sizes too big, face pressed against the window as he salivates over his 'social betters' (and, no doubt, claims 'friendship' with them), pissed off the wrong person and i knew when that happened, he was history and favors would be called in to ensure that came to pass.
now, here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Monday September 11, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, military intelligence declares al-Anbar province lost, a US soldier was shot dead on Sunday, Ehren Watada's parents continue to get the word out on their son and the White House offers a divided front as various spinners rush to figure out the party line on the revelations from last week that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
In the United States, Friday saw the release of the latest two sections of the Senate Intel Report which underscored there was no link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. As outlined by Jonathan Weisman's (Washington Post) report, the committee findings were based on CIA assessments before the war and (2002 assessments) and during (most recently in October 2005). US Senator Olympia Snowe specifically cited that "the report concluded that Colin Powell recieved his "blot," when testifying to the United Nations before the illegal war, by citing information that "two April 2002 CIA assessments, a May 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency fabrication notice and a July 2002 National Intelligence Council warning" had already refuted.
At the White House, flack Tony Snow Job decired the report as "nothing new" (BBC News) apparently of the opinion that all Americans already grasped that the nation was lied into war.
On Sunday, fear's playground pusher Condi Rice stormed the airwaves like the star of a tanking big-budget film (think Ahnuld and Last Action Hero) desperate to goose the gross. The always good for a laugh US Secretary of State Rice assured Americans that Iraq still made Speed look like a slow ride to Grandma's; that they should forget the gross, the net on this war was going to be unbelievable; and, oh yeah, forget what the Senate report said, it was wrong. Rice, as reported by the AFP, stated, "There were ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda" and "We know that Zarqawi was running a poison network in Iraq." So much 'knowledge,' so little awareness. One more time, Condi, for chuckles, what was the name of the August 6, 2001 PDB that you apparently also 'knew' was nothing to fret over?
A White House in shambles divided further on Sunday. After offical flak Tony Snow Job said "nothing new" about the Senate report, after Condi Rice followed that Sunday with her assertion that the report was just plain wrong, the man a heart beat away from the Bully Boy went a different way. Looking America in the face, Dick Cheney basically said, "So f**king what?"
Steven Thomma (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Cheney's money-quote (pay attention, America): "It was the right thing to do and if we had it to do over again, we'd do exactly the same." But would the 2669 Americans who lost their lives in the illegal Iraq war, would they? While Rice tried to dispell the stench of bad box office, Cheney came off like a never-was whose lingered too long and is desperate for that best supporting actress nomination. He's busy preparing his "For your consideration" ad and will probably use this tagline: "Clearly, the intelligence that said he [Hussein] did [have WMD] was wrong." An understatement to be sure and, as Thomma notes, the Dickster failed at "elaborating on his own role or the White House decision to later honor [George] Tenet with the Medal of Freedom."
On Monday, Thomas E. Ricks (Washington Post) reported that a military assessment has written off al Anbara Province in southern Iraq. Ricks reports that Col. Pete Devlin, "chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq," wrote a report on August 16th of this year "concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there".
On the ground in Iraq today, the violence and chaos continued.
Bombings?
CBS and AP note a mini bus bomb in Baghdad that has killed at least 16 Iraqis. BBC says it resulted from a "bomber, who was wearing an explosive belt . . . reported to have boarded the bus at the centre." AFP states: "The minibus was rammed by a car rigged with explosives right next to Muthanna recruiting center". The bus was carry army recruits and CBS and AP state: "Although further details were not avaialbe, such mini buses are often used by suicide bombers."
In addition to the above bombing, Reuters notes a two in Baghdad (one in Talbiya district, the other in Jihad district) that left at least six wounded while one in Mosul left one person wounded.
Shootings?
In Baghdad, the AP reports a man and a woman were shot dead "at a telephone exchange center". Reuters reports a police officer (Hasan Radhi al-Azzawi) was shot dead in Kut, a civilian was shot dead ("outside his home") in Iskandariya, a female postal worker was shot dead in Baghdad and a person was shot dead in Hilla.
Corpses?
AFP reports a corpse was discovered in Suweira, two in the Diyala province and three in the Babel province. Reuters reports a severed head was discovered in Hindiya.
Not taking into account the corpses, CBS and AP report that at least 20 died in Baghdad today and at least nine more elsewhere in Iraq.
In peace news, Ehren Watada's parents continue getting their word out on their son, the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse to deploy in Iraq. Speaking with Sandip Roy (Asian Weekly), father Bob Watada explained his son's decision, "It's in the code of military justice, it's in the field manuals that you have a duty to disobey an unlawful order. The Nuremberg Tribunal that we signed on to and probably drafted parts of, clearly says any military official can be prosecuted if they are complicit in war crimes and clearly we have massive war crimes going on in Iraq."
While Bob Watada gets the word out in the mainland, Ehren Watada's mother Carolyn Ho has been speaking in Hawaii. Amanda C. Gregg (Kauai News) reports on one recent gathering where Ho spoke of, "The [United Nations] charter . . . expressly states that countries cannot go to war unless the security council votes for it. . . . People say the U.S. Congress can allow the president to make war, but the U.S. Congress was given information that was deceptive -- that there was evidence of weapons of mass destruction -- and it made a decision on that basis." Ho hopes for the response to the growing awareness is as follows: "What we've envisioned is to have thousands of people come out to the highway and the streets that surround Fort Lewis and have a group that plans to do so with demonstrations."
That is in the case that Ehren Watada is scheduled for a court-martial. An Article 32 hearing, heard testiomony Thursday August 17th and the presiding officer's recommendation was to proceed with a court-martial. Lt. Col. Mark Keith's recommendation is now winding its way through the chain of command and, as Gregg notes, a court martial is "expected to be scheduled within the next few months." More information on Watada can be found at Courage to Resist and ThankYouLt.org.
Writing for Op-Ed News, David Swanson notes, "Only, we the people of the United States, getting off our couches and acting will put an end to this growing nightmare."
And one way to act (and one of the many ways Swanson is making a stand) is via
Camp Democracy in DC which is free and open to the public and continues daily through September 21st. As David Ceasar (GW Hatchet Online) notes, today's activities revolve around "an all-day festival with workshops, speakers and entertainment on the National Mall between 3rd and 7th streets." Tomorrow's activities include Climate Crisis Day (sponsored by Rainforest Action Network) and an evening presentation by Mark Karlin (the editor and publisher of BuzzFlash). A complete schedule can be found here.
CODEPINK's Troops Home Fast action continues and is on day 68, and due to continue like Camp Democracy, is set to wrap run through September 21st (International Peace Day).Currently, at least 5023 people are participating. Those wanting to fast can grab a one-day fast at any point between now and the 21st or grab a one-day a week fast. Long term fasts are also possible but seek out advice before embarking on any long term fast.
Other peace actions are going on and will be going on. In a correction to an NYC event noted last week, one that starts this Friday, all performances do not start at 7:00 pm each night. Friday September 15, Saturday September 16 will start at 7:00 pm; however, Sunday September 17's performance will begin at 3:00 p.m. What are we speaking of? The People Speak directed by Will Pomerantz and Rob Urbinati. This is a workshop adaptation of Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's Voices of a People's History of the United States. The workshop will take place at The Culture Project's Bleecker Street Theater on 45 Bleecker Street. Tickets are ten dollars and can be ordered online here or here or purchased in person at the box office (box office does not take ticket orders). For those in NYC, or who will be during those dates, click here for a map. The presentation is part of the Impact Festival.
iraqehren watadacamp democracy
the washington postjonathan weisman
thomas e. ricks
anthony arnovehoward zinn
codepinktroops home fast
buzzflash
camp democracythe third estate sunday review
well abc, good whores for the aministration that they are, went through with airing their myth-series, with all innaccuries intact. from media matters' 'ABC retained fabricated scene showing Clinton officials aborting mission to capture Bin Laden:'
The first part of the ABC miniseries The Path to 9-11, which aired on September 10, included a fabricated scene that depicts Clinton administration officials declining to authorize the CIA to capture Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. ABC retained the controversial scene despite the fact that it is contradicted by the 9-11 Commission report -- which ABC originally cited as the film's basis (although following criticism of the film's numerous inconsistencies with the report, network officials have since minimized that claim) -- and has even been disputed in recent days by conservative media figures such as Richard Miniter.
The scene in question takes place in early 1998. CIA officers are positioned outside an isolated compound in Afghanistan known as Tarnak Farms. In league with Northern Alliance fighters, they are preparing a raid of the site after receiving visual confirmation in a prior scene that bin Laden is staying there. The lead CIA officer -- "Kirk" -- is awaiting authorization from a group of senior administration officials in Washington, including then-national security adviser Sandy Berger, then-CIA director George Tenet, and counterterrorism official Richard Clarke. When asked for approval, Berger tells his colleagues, "I don't have the authority." He claims he cannot call President Clinton "until we're all on the same page," then attempts to shift the responsibility to Tenet, telling him that "if he feels confident," he can request authorization from Clinton.
The scene ends without the Clinton officials taking any action. The film then cuts to Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud asking Kirk, "Are there any men in Washington? Or are they all cowards?"
But this depiction of the events surrounding the Tarnak Farms raid -- in which the Clinton administration simply abandons a certain opportunity to capture bin Laden -- is contradicted by the findings of the 9-11 Commission report. Indeed, the report describes Tenet as having aborted the mission weeks before the target date of June 23.
mike was cursing like crazy. some 1 or some thing flipped the breaker in his folks house. we lost our posts. the electricity is back on and i was able to recover my post right away but he had trouble with his.
by the way, i often highlight media matters but i'll be more selective in the future. normally, i go to the site, find something i like and post it. that's changed due to a new hire who will be starting soon. the cindy brady of the faux left is moving over to media matters and long before he was dubbed the cindy brady of the faux left ('From the Mixed-up Mind of Eric Alterman'), i'd noted his ignoring women. i don't need a lisping e-mail so he shouldn't bother to write. i've noted here many things including his repeating of false charges against gloria steinem in his hideous book, what liberal media. he spends a lot of time disproving right-wing slams and slanders - except when it comes to women. so his crap awful book repeats ann coulter's slanders against gloria steinem and some how he thinks he speaks for 'the left.' he speaks for himself and when not man-crushing or wet dreaming of bruce springsteen (in another plodding book) he's wrapping his mouth around some other male. women are left to fend for themselves. which is why he can repeat the lie that naomi wolf was offering fashion tips to the al gore 2000 presidential campaign.
i don't highlight sexists here. hopefully he'll just do his bad column and not effect anything else but the guy who will be the quickest to flip on the left (wait and see, he's a norman in waiting) will not be linked here. he's a little boy trying to prove his manliness with shout outs and praise to men and he not only allows slanders to stand against women, he repeats them. this has all been covered here before and we won't be linking to him.
we will however note his self-serving e-mail, noted by editor & publisher, which explains his firing kind of, sort of:
"Whether my termination is, in fact, a product of a political decision at GE/NBC, which according to reports I read and gossip I hear, has lately taken a much firmer hand in guiding the content of both MSNBC and MSNBC.com, I have no way of knowing.... It would surprise no one if this site caused some discomfort at 30 Rock, if and when they happen to notice it. But speculation is not the same thing as evidence, and the good folks MSNBC.com and GE/NBC can, I’m sure, give you good reasons why dumping Altercation is the right thing to do from a business standpoint-- though the natural speculation that arises is a damn good argument against the kind of media concentration that allows a company like GE to own NBC in the first place. "
'i have no way of knowing' but let me toss that out there anyway and even say i 'can give you good reasons why dumping altercation is the right thing to do from a business standpoint' - yeah, me too. it's tired, it's old and it only recognized the male 1/2 of the population. a little boy desperate to put on his jock strap and stand next to the men in the locker room. let's pretend his firing was a surprise for a 2nd and ask: why was he fired?
he writes he learned how many hits his page got in the last few days. maybe it was on the decline?
or (here's reality, as noted last month) maybe complaints to msnbc higher ups at the end of july and on through august registered? as it was pointed out at a social get together, there was nothing in his blog that's not in his writing at the huffington post and at the nation. and there was laughter over his sucking up to the new york times, brave little 'left' critic that he is ('we are the new york times!'). (yes, i did lead the laughter.) i know a number of people were tired of his scribbles which veered from 1 extreme to another. and i wasn't the only 1 complaining.
round-robin readers knew it was coming. his days were numbered the 2nd he pissed off some 1.
the little boy in the jock several sizes too big, face pressed against the window as he salivates over his 'social betters' (and, no doubt, claims 'friendship' with them), pissed off the wrong person and i knew when that happened, he was history and favors would be called in to ensure that came to pass.
now, here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
Monday September 11, 2006. Chaos and violence continue in Iraq, military intelligence declares al-Anbar province lost, a US soldier was shot dead on Sunday, Ehren Watada's parents continue to get the word out on their son and the White House offers a divided front as various spinners rush to figure out the party line on the revelations from last week that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
In the United States, Friday saw the release of the latest two sections of the Senate Intel Report which underscored there was no link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. As outlined by Jonathan Weisman's (Washington Post) report, the committee findings were based on CIA assessments before the war and (2002 assessments) and during (most recently in October 2005). US Senator Olympia Snowe specifically cited that "the report concluded that Colin Powell recieved his "blot," when testifying to the United Nations before the illegal war, by citing information that "two April 2002 CIA assessments, a May 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency fabrication notice and a July 2002 National Intelligence Council warning" had already refuted.
At the White House, flack Tony Snow Job decired the report as "nothing new" (BBC News) apparently of the opinion that all Americans already grasped that the nation was lied into war.
On Sunday, fear's playground pusher Condi Rice stormed the airwaves like the star of a tanking big-budget film (think Ahnuld and Last Action Hero) desperate to goose the gross. The always good for a laugh US Secretary of State Rice assured Americans that Iraq still made Speed look like a slow ride to Grandma's; that they should forget the gross, the net on this war was going to be unbelievable; and, oh yeah, forget what the Senate report said, it was wrong. Rice, as reported by the AFP, stated, "There were ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda" and "We know that Zarqawi was running a poison network in Iraq." So much 'knowledge,' so little awareness. One more time, Condi, for chuckles, what was the name of the August 6, 2001 PDB that you apparently also 'knew' was nothing to fret over?
A White House in shambles divided further on Sunday. After offical flak Tony Snow Job said "nothing new" about the Senate report, after Condi Rice followed that Sunday with her assertion that the report was just plain wrong, the man a heart beat away from the Bully Boy went a different way. Looking America in the face, Dick Cheney basically said, "So f**king what?"
Steven Thomma (McClatchy Newspapers) reports Cheney's money-quote (pay attention, America): "It was the right thing to do and if we had it to do over again, we'd do exactly the same." But would the 2669 Americans who lost their lives in the illegal Iraq war, would they? While Rice tried to dispell the stench of bad box office, Cheney came off like a never-was whose lingered too long and is desperate for that best supporting actress nomination. He's busy preparing his "For your consideration" ad and will probably use this tagline: "Clearly, the intelligence that said he [Hussein] did [have WMD] was wrong." An understatement to be sure and, as Thomma notes, the Dickster failed at "elaborating on his own role or the White House decision to later honor [George] Tenet with the Medal of Freedom."
On Monday, Thomas E. Ricks (Washington Post) reported that a military assessment has written off al Anbara Province in southern Iraq. Ricks reports that Col. Pete Devlin, "chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq," wrote a report on August 16th of this year "concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there".
On the ground in Iraq today, the violence and chaos continued.
Bombings?
CBS and AP note a mini bus bomb in Baghdad that has killed at least 16 Iraqis. BBC says it resulted from a "bomber, who was wearing an explosive belt . . . reported to have boarded the bus at the centre." AFP states: "The minibus was rammed by a car rigged with explosives right next to Muthanna recruiting center". The bus was carry army recruits and CBS and AP state: "Although further details were not avaialbe, such mini buses are often used by suicide bombers."
In addition to the above bombing, Reuters notes a two in Baghdad (one in Talbiya district, the other in Jihad district) that left at least six wounded while one in Mosul left one person wounded.
Shootings?
In Baghdad, the AP reports a man and a woman were shot dead "at a telephone exchange center". Reuters reports a police officer (Hasan Radhi al-Azzawi) was shot dead in Kut, a civilian was shot dead ("outside his home") in Iskandariya, a female postal worker was shot dead in Baghdad and a person was shot dead in Hilla.
Corpses?
AFP reports a corpse was discovered in Suweira, two in the Diyala province and three in the Babel province. Reuters reports a severed head was discovered in Hindiya.
Not taking into account the corpses, CBS and AP report that at least 20 died in Baghdad today and at least nine more elsewhere in Iraq.
In peace news, Ehren Watada's parents continue getting their word out on their son, the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse to deploy in Iraq. Speaking with Sandip Roy (Asian Weekly), father Bob Watada explained his son's decision, "It's in the code of military justice, it's in the field manuals that you have a duty to disobey an unlawful order. The Nuremberg Tribunal that we signed on to and probably drafted parts of, clearly says any military official can be prosecuted if they are complicit in war crimes and clearly we have massive war crimes going on in Iraq."
While Bob Watada gets the word out in the mainland, Ehren Watada's mother Carolyn Ho has been speaking in Hawaii. Amanda C. Gregg (Kauai News) reports on one recent gathering where Ho spoke of, "The [United Nations] charter . . . expressly states that countries cannot go to war unless the security council votes for it. . . . People say the U.S. Congress can allow the president to make war, but the U.S. Congress was given information that was deceptive -- that there was evidence of weapons of mass destruction -- and it made a decision on that basis." Ho hopes for the response to the growing awareness is as follows: "What we've envisioned is to have thousands of people come out to the highway and the streets that surround Fort Lewis and have a group that plans to do so with demonstrations."
That is in the case that Ehren Watada is scheduled for a court-martial. An Article 32 hearing, heard testiomony Thursday August 17th and the presiding officer's recommendation was to proceed with a court-martial. Lt. Col. Mark Keith's recommendation is now winding its way through the chain of command and, as Gregg notes, a court martial is "expected to be scheduled within the next few months." More information on Watada can be found at Courage to Resist and ThankYouLt.org.
Writing for Op-Ed News, David Swanson notes, "Only, we the people of the United States, getting off our couches and acting will put an end to this growing nightmare."
And one way to act (and one of the many ways Swanson is making a stand) is via
Camp Democracy in DC which is free and open to the public and continues daily through September 21st. As David Ceasar (GW Hatchet Online) notes, today's activities revolve around "an all-day festival with workshops, speakers and entertainment on the National Mall between 3rd and 7th streets." Tomorrow's activities include Climate Crisis Day (sponsored by Rainforest Action Network) and an evening presentation by Mark Karlin (the editor and publisher of BuzzFlash). A complete schedule can be found here.
CODEPINK's Troops Home Fast action continues and is on day 68, and due to continue like Camp Democracy, is set to wrap run through September 21st (International Peace Day).Currently, at least 5023 people are participating. Those wanting to fast can grab a one-day fast at any point between now and the 21st or grab a one-day a week fast. Long term fasts are also possible but seek out advice before embarking on any long term fast.
Other peace actions are going on and will be going on. In a correction to an NYC event noted last week, one that starts this Friday, all performances do not start at 7:00 pm each night. Friday September 15, Saturday September 16 will start at 7:00 pm; however, Sunday September 17's performance will begin at 3:00 p.m. What are we speaking of? The People Speak directed by Will Pomerantz and Rob Urbinati. This is a workshop adaptation of Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove's Voices of a People's History of the United States. The workshop will take place at The Culture Project's Bleecker Street Theater on 45 Bleecker Street. Tickets are ten dollars and can be ordered online here or here or purchased in person at the box office (box office does not take ticket orders). For those in NYC, or who will be during those dates, click here for a map. The presentation is part of the Impact Festival.
iraqehren watadacamp democracy
the washington postjonathan weisman
thomas e. ricks
anthony arnovehoward zinn
codepinktroops home fast
buzzflash
camp democracythe third estate sunday review
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)