i'm starting with KPFA's Flashpoints which was packed with so much tonight. nora barrows-friedman interviewed a woman in the occupied territories. about 1/3 of the way in, bombs started falling. and that's really life when you're occupied, there's never any safety. having watched (and aided) the israeli government all these years, it shows how stupid we are as a country (the united states) that we refused to see what iraq would turn into and how non 'winnable' it was. dennis bernstein also addressed iran with a man whose name i forget. but he's been to iran and there are green berets there already (yes, u.s. green berets). the belief is that before bully boy's out of office, the u.s. will be at war with iran. robert knight examined the oil law which may be falling apart before congress votes on it. (that would be a blessing.) oh, i didn't take notes and i just remembered this, nancy lessing from Military Families Speak Out was on discussing how the democrats refuse to lead on iraq and seem perfectly willing to ignore the mandate americans gave them when they put them back in control of congress.
so that was it tonight.
on iraq, ned lamont (who won the conn. primary to get the democratic slot in the general race for u.s. senator which he lost to lieberman) has weighed in with 'The Real Choice on Iraq' (common dreams):
Dear Senator Lieberman,
Fifteen months ago, in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal praising the Bush Administration's Iraq policy, you asked the rhetorical question, "does America have a good plan for doing this, a strategy for victory in Iraq?"
"Yes," we did, you answered.
Since the day you wrote those words, over 1,000 more American troops have lost their lives in Iraq and that country is more dangerous than ever.
Senator, you had it exactly wrong then, and this week, in another Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled "The Choice on Iraq," you have managed to get it exactly wrong yet again.
"As the battle for Baghdad just gets underway," you write in this week's piece, congressional opponents of the escalation "have already made up their minds about America's cause in Iraq."
On the contrary, Senator, it was you and President Bush who had already made up your minds before the war started, using cherry-picked intelligence to sell the war to the American people. And if the battle for Baghdad is "just getting underway," how do we explain the escalating violence over the last four years?
You claim that "a precipitous pullout would leave a gaping security vacuum in its wake."
Actually, Senator, it was the precipitous invasion that you supported, along with its disastrous aftermath, which left the security vacuum that exists today - a vacuum which the terrorists, insurgents, and militias have all rushed to fill.
in the new york times today, page a21, former u.s. senator lincoln d. chafee (he lost his seat in the november 2006 elections) has a column called 'the senate's forgotten iraq choice' where he points out that those in the senate in 2002 who are now running for president didn't just have 2 choices. it wasn't just you will vote for or against the 'authorization,' you could vote for carl levin's proposal 'multilateral use of force authorization act of 2002' which stated the bully boy would get approval from the united nations 'before force could be authorized.' chafee concludes:
the senate had the opportunity to support a more deliberate, multilateral approach, one that still would have empowered the united states to respond to any imminent threat posed by saddam hussein. we must not sidestep the fact that a sensible alternative did exist, but it was rejected. candidates - democrat and republican - should be called to account for their vote on the levin amendment.
that should probably be 'democratic and republican' but chafee's a republican so what do you expect?
this is about h.v.p. and it's from feminist wire daily news, 'One-Third of American Women Infected with HPV:'
The Journal of the American Medical Association (AMA) reports that over one-third of American women are infected with the human papillomavirus (HPV) by the age of 24. The latest research finds that HPV affects about 7.5 million women nationwide. This is about two-thirds higher than previous estimates. The American Council on Science and Health estimates that "nearly 50 percent of American women can expect to be infected at some point in their lives," according to Salon. While the majority of HPV strains are benign, some strains can cause cervical cancer and genital warts. About 2.2 percent of infected women have a strain that is high-risk for cervical cancer, the recent research finds.
do you know what h.v.p. is? i honestly didn't. this is from the health science report:
A hvp disease can be characterized by a genital wart, dysplasitc cells on the cervix or just be asymptomatic. In other cases, they eventually may develop a fleshy, small raised growth that looks like cauliflower and can cause much discomfort. Genital warts can disappear without any special treatment. Genital warts are extremely contagious and are spread during oral, genital, or anal sex with an infected partner. A hvp disease can be characterized by a genital wart, dysplasitc cells on the cervix or just be asymptomatic.
and this is from the cdc:
Genital HPV infection is a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that is caused by human papillomavirus (HPV). Human papillomavirus is the name of a group of viruses that includes more than 100 different strains or types. More than 30 of these viruses are sexually transmitted, and they can infect the genital area of men and women including the skin of the penis, vulva (area outside the vagina), or anus, and the linings of the vagina, cervix, or rectum. Most people who become infected with HPV will not have any symptoms and will clear the infection on their own.
Some of these viruses are called "high-risk" types, and may cause abnormal Pap tests. They may also lead to cancer of the cervix, vulva, vagina, anus, or penis. Others are called "low-risk" types, and they may cause mild Pap test abnormalities or genital warts. Genital warts are single or multiple growths or bumps that appear in the genital area, and sometimes are cauliflower shaped.
Approximately 20 million people are currently infected with HPV. At least 50 percent of sexually active men and women acquire genital HPV infection at some point in their lives. By age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have acquired genital HPV infection. About 6.2 million Americans get a new genital HPV infection each year.
so that's your p.s.a. for today. hopefully, you were already aware of what h.p.v. was but i honestly wasn't. now let's turn to stupidity. i'm no fan of john mccain's. i don't like the man. i really, in fact, detest him. he apologized today for a word choice he used on tv. this is from the irish times:
On Wednesday night, Mr McCain said on CBS's Late Show With David Letterman: "Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be. We’ve wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives."
Mr McCain, a staunch backer of the war but a critic of how Mr Bush has waged it, made the "wasted" remark after confirming to Letterman that he's in the running for the 2008 Republican nomination.
"I am announcing that I will be a candidate for president of the United States," he said -- and added that he would officially enter the race with a formal speech to that effect in April, after a visit to Iraq.
Hours after the taped appearance aired, the Democratic National Committee called on Mr McCain to take back the "wasted" lives remark.
"Senator McCain should apologise immediately for his callous comments," said Karen Finney, a DNC spokesperson. "How is it that John McCain now believes American lives are being wasted, yet he so stubbornly supports the president's plan to escalate the war in Iraq and put more American lives in harms way?"
mccain shouldn't have apologized. and this is the sort of thing that pisses people off at parties - the democrats were more interested in 'scoring points' than in having a conversation about the war.
reality is those lives are wasted. they had promise, they had dreams. then they died in iraq for bully boy's illegal war. the united states should never have started this war. the lives were wasted in iraq.
john mccain shouldn't have apologized. but there were the democrats braying and wanting to make political hay instead of wanting to address the realities of the war.
again, i don't care for john mccain. i think he should have made the point stronger (and i know he and i do not agree on the war nor would he agree with my interp) but we won't get an honest discussion on the war when each side screams: 'you used the wrong word! you better apologize!' obama - who i am also no fan of - shouldn't have apologized either. he backed down, like a wuss, and now the d.n.c. seems to think the thing to do is start screaming at every 1 who uses the term 'wasted.'
too bad because the bully boy wasted the lives of every american sent to iraq. the war is illegal. those who died could be here now, living their lives. being with their families and friends, and they're not and that is a waste and that's also very sad. it's a waste that parents will never see their children, that children will never again see their parents, that friends, brothers, sisters, cousing will never see their loved 1 who died in iraq because the bully boy lied a nation into war.
here's c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'
March 1, 2007. Chaos and violence continues in Iraq, Sara Rich continues fighting for her daughter, the US military is obsessed with Kyle Snyder, and Walter Reed Medical Center was such a disaster that Joyce Rumsfeld was raising flags (wife of Donald Rumsfeld).
On NPR's Morning Edition today, it was noted that month of February started as ended -- with bombings of Iraqi markets. AFP notes the (undercount) by the Iraqi ministries of February deaths -- 1,646 -- and notes that the hard-sell is "down eight percent" from January but the reality is "[t]he figure is still vastly higher, however, than the 548 people killed in February 2006". The month was also marked by rapes. Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily (IPS) examine the reaction (or Nouri al-Maliki's non-reaction) to the gang rape of Sabrine al-Janabi, the 20 year-old woman who came forward last week, as well as the 50-year-old woman that followed her -- both women were gang-raped by Iraqi security forces and Ahmed Mukhtar tells IPS, "The Iraqi police are following the examples of those who trained them. American soldiers did it more than a thousand times and got away with it. They sentenced that soldier who killed Abeer after rpaing her with a hundred years imprisonment, but we Iraqis are not fools, and we know he will be on parole sooner than he hopes." Dahr spoke with Nora Barrows-Friedman about this topic on KPFA's Flashpoints Tuesday and noted that the rapes are receiving more media attention in the Arab world than in the US media. If the goal is to uninform the American public, corporate media take your bow.
Turning to the topic of war resisters, Jessica Hegdahl (UCD Advocate) references MLK ("War is a poor chisel for carving out a peaceful future.") and sees the continuation of peace in Ehren Watada: "There's a radical solution to the problem of Iraq. It lies in the simple observation that 'to stop an illegal and unjust war, the soldiers can choose to stop fighting it.' These words were spoken by Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to resist deployment to Iraq, facing up to four years in jail. Every soldier, commissioned or enlisted, who opposes the war in Iraq must eventually decide between his conscience and his orders. When your country is ordering you to complete an illegal and immoral act, are you not obliged to refuse? It would be far better for the members of our military to refuse to deploy, face imprisonment or other punishment, than to obey their contracts with the United States military, which allow for the killing of innocent Iraqis."
Ehren Watada, in June of last year, became the first officer to refuse to deploy to Iraq. A three-day court-martial took place at the start of this month but Judge Toilet called a mistrial over the objections of the defense and, last Friday, the military refiled charges against him. Gregg K. Kakesako (Honolulu Star-Bulletin) reports that the pretrial motions are currently set for May 20th with the court-martial scheduled "for July 16-20." Justin Ward (Austin Chronicle) weighs in on war resister Mark Wilkerson who was court-martialed and sentenced last Thursday (to seven months in prison) and notes that Ann Wright ("a former Army colonel and State Department official who resigned in protest of the Iraq war") spoke to a gathering of Wilkerson supporters the Wednesday before his court-martial: "They are the ones that are willing to put their bodies on the line -- not on the line for murdering or criminal activity but on the line for conscience and morality and to hold accountable an administration that is putting our nation at risk."
Watada and Wilkerson are part of a movement of resistance with the military that includes others such as Kyle Snyder, Agustin Aguayo (who will be court-martialed in Germany, Tuesday, March 6th), Camilo Mejia, Patrick Hart, Ivan Brobeck, Darrell Anderson, Ricky Clousing, Aidan Delgado, Joshua Key, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Corey Glass, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, and Kevin Benderman. In total, thirty-eight US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
Today, GlobalResearch.ca reports that "U.S. war resister Kyle Snyder was arrested in British Columbia for unspecified immigration violations. Police in Nelson, BC barged into Snyder's home, handcuffed him, and hauled him off to jail. The police had no warrant. Snyder, who was wearing only a robe and boxer shorts at the time, was not allowed to put on clothes or shoes. He was not read his rights or allowed to call his lawyer. Nelson police told him he would be deported to the U.S., where he is wanted for unahtorized absence from the U.S. Army." Snyder is sharing a house with US war resister Ryan Johnson and his wife Jenna who immediately began making calls. The article notes: "Joci Peri, an Immigration official in Vancouver, later told Snyder he had been arrested at the request of the U.S. Army. Being AWOL from another country's military is not an extraditable offense in Canada, nor does it have any bearing on immigration to Canada, according to Vancouver lawyer Daniel McLeod, who is representing Snyder. 'And the U.S. Army is not the boss of the Canadian police,' says Gerry Condon of Project Safe Haven."
Now let's be really clear, the US military has thought from day one they could screw with Snyder. They thought that when returned to the US in October of last year and turned himself in only to find the military throw out the agreement the second his previous lawyer left the base. When Snyder was still in the US and traveling around speaking out against the war, the military began alerting the police to his appearances in the hopes that they would arrest him. (Which really isn't the way it works in the US. When a service member self-checks out, he or she is more likely to be arrested while being stopped on a traffic violation than via some 'manhunt.') Kyle finished his speaking tour and he returned to Candada. Now the US military is targeting him still. As shameful as it is that the police of British Columbia were willing to break the law and follow orders from another nation's military, it's just as shameful that the US military appeared to think they could illegally extract someone from a country.
Turning to activism in the US, today Kris Welch, on KPFA's Living Room, noted the Democrats inaction on the illegal war still and asked, "You are the bloody party in power now, what are you going to do?" Welch's guests included Robin Schirmer of CODEPINK's Chicago branch and they discussed US Senator Dick Durbin's way of avoiding constituents
who are against the war -- he's set up a new policy where you can only visit his offices if you have an appointment and, snarkier yet, the office then severely limits the number of appointments each day. Durbin is among the Senators with the "honor" of being able to brag that his offices have arrested constituents this month -- Senators Barack Obama and John McCain can also grab "bragging rights" to that.
Kathy Kelly also spoke with Welch about the Occupation Project which was launched on February 5th to get elected members of Congress to pledge not to vote for futher funding for the illegal war. Kelly noted that there was no need for an ammendment to the supplemental Bully Boy wants, just don't vote for the supplemental. She also suggested people begin asking their Congress members, "How many constituents are calling you asking you to prolong the war?" Exactly. And it comes as CBS and AP report: "Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives are developing an anti-war proposal that would not cut off money for U.S. troops in Iraq but would require President George Bush to acknowledge problems with an overburdened military. The plan could draw bipartisan support but is expected to be a tough sell to members who say they do not think it goes far enough to assuage voters angered by the four-year conflict." Or, for that matter, do a damn thing.
In Iraq today.
Alexandra Zavis (Los Angels Times) reports on the helicopter crash (following the military's lead, everyone's calling it a "hard landing") and notes: "At least eight other helicopters have crashed or been forced down by ground fire this year, raising concern that insurgents are targeting U.S. aircraft in a new front to undermine stepped-up security efforts. The U.S. military has increasingly relied on helicopters to ferry troops and supplies to avoid the deadly roadside bombs that have been the major killer of its troops."
Bombings?
Dalia Hassan (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a bomb in Baghdad injured two police officers, another bomb in Baghdad killed "[o]ne employee of Baghdad's provincial council was killed and 4 others were injured," while, in Diyala, a child was injured in a mortar attack.
Reuters reports a car bombing in Falljua that killed five people (en route to a wedding) and left 10 more wounded, a roadside bomb in Mahaweel that wounded 9 people and killed 1 person, a roadside bomb in Mosul killed a security guard. AFP notes a bombing "in a cemetery in Iskandariyah" that killed three people.
Corpses?
Dalia Hassan (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 15 corpses were discovered in Baghdad. Reuters notes, for yesterday, that 10 corpses were found in Baghdad and 6 in Mosul.
Today, the US military announces: "A Marine assigned to Multi National Force-West was killedFeb. 28 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar Province." Aaron Glantz noted on KPFA's The Morning Show today that this brought the AP count to 79 US service members killed while serving in Iraq in the month of February and 3,163 US service members killed while serving in Iraq since the start of the illegal war. BuzzFlash recently noted the death toll on US service members include women as well as people older than usually pictured when thinking of a "soldier," parents who leave behind children: "Such figures are not officially tracked, but we were able to identify that nearly 900 children had lost a parent in Iraq by December 2004 and 1,508 by March 2005. Extrapolated to the current casualty total, the figure today is probably somewhere around 2,200 children. That's already more than a tenth of the 20,000 who lost their fathers in Vietnam, and the number of children left behind per death is more than twice as high."
As Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted today, "the Washington Post reports today top officials at Walter Reed have heard patient complaints about poor treatment for more than three years. The officials include Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, the former head of Walter Reed and the current army surgeon general. The Senate Armed Services Committee is set to hold hearings on the conditions at Walter Reed next week." Dana Priest and Anne Hull (Washington Post) note Steve Robinson ("director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America) who reveals that he complained to Kiley that only were patients not getting treatment, in some case, "the hospital didn't even know they were there" in the hospital. The reporters also note that Kiley, who has maintained shock and surprise at the revelations about Building 18, "lives across the street from Building 18." The reporters also reveal that a friend brought Joyce Rumsfeld to Walter Reed last fall and her response was to wonder if her husband, Donald Rumsfeld, was being matched with soldiers who wer "handpicked to paint a rosy picture of their time there" and Walter Reed's response to Joyce Rumsfeld's visit was to ban the friend -- a long term volunteer at Walter Reed -- from the hospital.
Dropping back to yesterday's snapshot:
As noted by Aaron Glants today on KPFA's The Morning Show, Kelly Kennedy (Army Times) is reporting that Walter Reed Army Medical Center's Medical Hold Unit patients are being "told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media" in what is widely seen as a punishment for the recent Washington Post expose on the deplorable conditions at what is supposed to be the United States top facility for military medical care.
There are three things listed by Kennedy above. "Not speak to the media" is one aspect of the retaliation but will outlets address the fact that wounded service members are being made to report for daily inspections? As Elaine pointed out, the big story isn't the media -- the story is that wounded service members, hospitalized to receive care, are having to report for daily inspection -- sometimes the media gets so obsessed with their own role and responsibilities that they lose sight of other factors and, to be clear, the daily inspections are effecting wounded service members right now. (Priest and Hull note it this way: "This week, in a move that some soldiers viewed as reprisal for speaking to the media, the wounded troops were told that early-morning room inspections would be held and that further contact with reporters is prohibited." Most are completely ignoring the inspections aspects and focusing only on the press ban.) Reuters notes that Major General George Weightman ("head of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center") has been "removed from his post" as of today.
Military Families Speak Out's Stacy Bannerman writes (at The Progressive) about her husband's return from Iraq: "Finally, the phone rang with the news that my husband was coming home, after nearly a year in Iraq. They didn't tell me he'd bring the war with him. He'd been back for almost two months, but he was still checking to see where his weapon was every time he got in a vehicle. He drove aggressively, talked aggressively, and sometimes I could swear that he was breathing aggressively. This was not the man I married, this hard-eyed, hyper-vigilant stranger who spent nights watching the dozens of DVDs that he got from soldiers he served with in Iraq. He couldn't sleep, and missed the adrenaline surge of constant, imminent danger. The amateur videos of combat eased the ache of withdrawal from war, but did nothing to heal my soldier's heart. At a conference on post-deployment care and services for soldiers and their families, a Marine Corps chaplain asked, 'How do you know if you're an SOB? Your wife will tell you!' Har-de-har-har-har. The remark got the predictable round of applause from the capacity crowd, which, with one exception, wasn't living with anyone who had recently returned from Iraq. I was that exception, and it infuriated me that this was a joke. The Pentagon's solution for the constant stress endured by those of us who felt bewildered and betrayed was: 'Learn how to laugh.' With help from the Pentagon's chief laugh instructor, families of National Guard members were learning to walk like a penguin, laugh like a lion, and blurt 'ha, ha, hee, hee, and ho, ho'." And eight months after his return from Iraq, her husband is told he has PTSD based on . . . a medical exam from eight months prior (when he returned to the US) and that the military's medical arm did nothing to follow up on or provide medical care for.
Staying on the topic of PTSD, on KPFA's Flashpoints yesterday, Emily Howard asked Sara Rich about her daughter Suzanne Swift's PTSD. Rich: "Well she isn't recovery and she won't be in recovery until she's free from the military because they're the ones that allowed this abuse to happen her. Suzanne has post-traumatic stress in many different ways and areas of her life and it's very different in the way it manifests in every individual that I know has PTSD. The mood swings, high, low, screaming at cars one minute and laughing hysterically the next. Lots of different things are different in Suzanne from when she went to Iraq. . . . I know she is not going to be able to relax and heal any of this until she is out of the military."
Suzanne Swift. was sexually assaulted while serving in Iraq. She attempted to go through channels, she attempted to handle it the way the military wants things handled. This didn't stop it, this didn't end it. So, like any sane person who's being assaulted, she got the hell out of that situation by self-checking out in January 2006. When the military arrested her last year, there were big (empty) promises about a full investigation which was a whopping two days of investigating. They did have time to court-martial her, send her to prison for 30 days and refuse to discharge her (just as they refused to conduct a real investigation).
Howard: What is it like for her to be on a military base, away from her family. and having to deal with this?
Rich: Oh, it's horrible. It's horrible. I know that taking her away from her whole support system has been, has been just horrible for us and horrible for her. She's cried a couple of times when she's come home. We, of course, miss her terribly. And so . . I always, you know what I always say? 'Thank God she's not back in Iraq.' You know we've handled Iraq, we've handled prison, we can handle this.
Rich, Ann Wright and Iraq Veterans Against the War are calling for Congressional hearings on military sexual violence. Rich: "The sad thing is Suzanne is a very strong person and I really thought these guys were going to take care of her and I thought she'd be okay and able to fend off this stuff when I heard these statistics. You know 5 out of 6 women in the military are sexually harassed or abused and I thought, 'No, my kid'll be okay.' " [Rebecca addressed Howard's interview with Rich here and click here for the day prior when I noted Rebecca had covered Darh's report but failed to include the link.]
